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Christ in modern life
V
CHRIST
FEB 15 1912
^OfGAL ^
IN MODERN LIFE:
SERMONS PREACHED IN ST. JAMES'S CHAPEL, YORK
STREET, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, LONDON,
BY THE
Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M.A.,
HONOKAKT CnAPLAIN-IN-ORDINAKY TO THE QUEEN.
NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
549 & 551 BEOADWAY.
1877.
PREFACE
The main thought wliicli underlies this volume is
outlined in tlie first two sermons, and is this : that
the ideas which Christ made manifest on earth are
capable of endless expansion, to suit the wants of men
in every age ; and that they do expand, developing into
new forms of larger import and wider application in a
direct proportion to that progress of mankind of which
they are both root and sap. If we look long and
earnestly enough, we shall find in them (not read into
them, as some say) the explanation and solution not
only of our religious, but even of our political and
social problems. Nor do they contradict the ideas
which direct scientific research, nor those which have
been generalised from the results of that research, but
are in essential analogy with both one and the other.
In speaking of their first revelation and the manner
of it, of the Person and Character of Him who sent
them forth to run swiftly upon earth, of the points, as
in the case of prayer and immortality, in which they
seem to come into collision with science, of the way they
touch political and artistic questions, and finally of the
IV Preface.
varied course of modern human life from childhood to
old age^ I have striven to keep mj main idea before me
and to support it by proof, though I have not turned
aside to insist upon it in direct words. In one word
I believe, and rest all I say upon the truth, as I think,
that in Him was Life, and that this Life, in the
thoughts and acts which flowed from it, was, and is,
and always will be the Light of the race of Man.
In writing one is often deceived by half-memories —
one remembers the thoughts but not whence they have
been derived ; and I have found since this book went to
press that in two places at least I am indebted for my
words to other men — to Neander's ' Life of Julian,' in
a passage in Sermon iv., on the civilising influence of
Christianity, and to Fichte's * Vocation of Man,' in
Sermon xiv., for a portion of the argument from our
consciousness of Will and its results to the existence of
a ' self-active reason and a living Will.' With much
of Fichte's philosophy I disagree, but beyond, or rather
within his philosophy there is teaching both on life,
morality, and religion, which makes him more worth
the reading of persons troubled by the great spiritual
questions than any other of the German philosophers.
Stopfoed a. Beooke.
London: January 1872.
CONTENTS.
SERMON I.
THE FITNESS OF CHRISTIANITY FOR MANKIND.
PAGE
Matt. xiii. 31, 32. — ' Another parable put he forth unto them, saying,
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a
man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all
seeds : but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and
becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the
branches thereof '.......... 1
SERMON II.
THE FITNESS OF CHRISTIANITY FOR MANKIND.
Matt. xiii. 31, 32. — ' Another parable put he forth unto them, saying,
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a
man took, and sowed in his field : which indeed is the least of all
seeds : but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and
becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the
branches thereof ' 17
SERMON III.
THE HIGHER JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
Matt. V. 17. — 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the
prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.'
Mark xii. 37- — ' And the common people heard him gladly ' . . 3J
SERMON IV,
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
Luke iii. 17. — ' Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge
his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner ; but the chaif he
will burn with fire unquenchable ' 4?
VI Contents,
SERMON V.
TEE CENTRAL TRUTH OF CHRISTJANITY.
PAGB
John i. 14.—' And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ' . 63
SERMON VI.
TEE CENTRAL TROTH OF CHRISTIANITT.
John i. 14. — ' And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among ns ' .75
SERMON VII.
TEE BEAUTY OF CHRIST S CHARACTER.
Isaiah xxxiii. 17. — 'Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty' . 89
SERMON VIII.
TEE BEAUTY OF CERISTS CHARACTER.
Isaiah xxxiii. 17. — 'Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty' . 102
SERMON IX.
THE BEAUTY OF CHRIST'S CHARACTER
Isaiah xxxiii. 17. — 'Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty * .117
SERMON X.
PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.
James iv. 3. — ' Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye
may consume it upon your lusts ' 132
SERMON XI.
THE FORCE QF PRAYER.
Matt. vii. 7. — ' Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall
find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you ' . . . .146
SERMON XU,
IMMORTALITY.
Luke XX. 38.—' Eor he is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for
all live unt« him ' , . . . . . . . , ,160
Contents, vii
SEEMON XIII.
IMMORTALITY.
PAGE
Luke XX. 38. — ' For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for
all live unto him ' . . . . . . . . . .175
SEEMON XIV.
IMMORTALITY.
Luke XX, 38. — ' For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for
all live unto him ' 194
SEEMON XV.
IMMORTALITY.
Luke XX. 38. — ' For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for
all live unto him ' • 213
SEEMON XVI.
' melencolia:
Eccles. i. 18. — 'For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that in-
creaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow ' 230
SEEMON 'XVIL
• melencolia:
Eccles. i. 18. — ' For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that in-
creaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow ' 243
SEEMON. XVIIL
art EXPENDITURE.
John xii. 5. — 'Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred
pence, and given to the poor? ' 258
SEEMON XIX.
CHILD LIFE.
Luke xviii. 16. — 'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid
them not : for of such is the Kingdom of God ' . . . . 275
SEEMON XX.
YOUTH, AND ITS QUESTIONS TO-DAY.
Matt, xxviii. 20. — ' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world' 290
vili Contents.
SERMON XXI.
YOUTH, AND ITS HOPE OF PROGRESS.
PAGE
Matt, xxviii. 20. — ' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto tlie end af the
world' 305
SEEMON XXIL
THE PRESENTIMENTS OF YOUTH.
Matt, xxviii. 20. — *Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world' 320
SERMON XXIII.
THE MID-DAY OF LIFE.
Eccles. xii. 1. — ' Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth,
while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou
shalt say, I have no pleasure in them '...... 336
SERMON XXIV.
THE AFTERNOON OF LIFE.
Psalm ciii. 5. — 'Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that
thy youth is renewed like the eagle's' ...... 351
SERMON XXV.
THE AFTERNOON OF LIFE.
Psalm viii. 4, 5. — ' Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him ?
and the son of man, that thou visitest him ? Eor thou hast made
him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory
and honour ' S65
SERMON XXVI.
TEE AFTERNOON OF LIFE.
Isaiah xxxviii. 15. — * I shall go softly all my years in the bittremess of
my soul ' ........... 380
SERMON XXVn.
THE GLORY AND WORK OF OLD AGE.
Luke ii. 29, 30. — ' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word : for mine eyes have seen thy salvation ' . 393
SERMONS.
THE FITNESS OF CHRISTIANITY FOR MANKIND.
* Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of
heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and
sowed in his field : which indeed is the least of all seeds : but when
it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so
that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.' — •
Matt. xiii. 31, 32.
We are told, in one of tlie Arabian stories wliicli charmed
onr childhood, of a fairy tent which a yonng prince
brought, hidden in a walnut-shell, to his father. Placed
in the council-chamber, it grew till it encanopied the
king and his ministers. Taken into the court-yard, it
filled the space till all the household stood beneath its
shade. Brought into the midst of the great plain
without the city, where all the army was encamped, it
spread its mighty awning all abroad, till it gave shelter
to a host. It had infinite flexibility, infinite expan-
siveness.
We are told in our sacred books of a religion given
to man, which, at its first setting forward, was less than
the least of all seeds. It was the true fairy tent for the
spirits of men. It grew till it embraced a few Jews of
2 The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind,
every class : and men thouglit, ' Now it will do no more ,
it can never suit tlie practical sense of the Roman, nor
shelter beneath its sway the subtile intellect of the Greek.
To do one is improbable, to do both is impossible.'
Cui-ious to say, it did both. It made the Roman more
practical; it made the Greek intellect alive again.
When Rome fell, and during her long decay, some may
have said : ' This boasted religion may suit civilisation,
but it can never adapt itself to barbarism.' But it ex-
panded in new directions to embrace the transalpine
nations, and took new forms to suit them with an un-
equalled flexibility. Soon it covered Europe with its
shadow, and in a continent where types of race are
oddly and vitally varied, it found acceptance with all.
It has gone abroad since then, and reached out its arms
to the Oriental, the African, the American tribes, and
the islands of the seas. And however small may have
been its success at present, there is one thing in which
it differs from every other religion — it has been found
capable of being assimilated by all, from the wild
negro of the west coast to the educated gentleman of
India. I speak of the teaching of Christ, not of un-
yielding Christian systems ; and notliing is more re-
markable in that teaching than the way in which it
throws off, like a serpent, one after another, the sloughs
of system, and spreads undivided in the world, and
operates unspent, by its own divine vitality.
Now it is this extraordinary power of easy expansion,
this power of adapting itself to the most diverse forms of
thought, which is one strong proof of the eternal fitness
of Christianity for mankind. This is our subject.
The Fitness of CIuHstianity for Mankind, 3
It has these powers, first, because of its want of
system.
Christ gave ideas, but not their forms. We have one
connected discourse of his, and there is not a vestige
of systematic theology in it. I^ay more, many of the
statements are so incapable of being grasped by the
intellect acting alone, and so ambiguous and paradoxical
to the pure reason, that they seem to have been spoken
for the despair of systematisers.
What is one to do with a sentence like this — ' Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they shall see God ' ? We
cannot make a dogma out of it; we cannot get it
into a system ; it breaks down under logical analysis.
* What is it to be pure in heart ? ' asks some defining
person ; ' does it refer to general cleanliness from all
sin, or freedom from the special sin of unchaste thought ?
What is it to see God ? Above all, what is God ? That
question is insoluble, unknowable.'
We cannot call a teaching systematic which in this
way leaves aside the understanding unless first in-
structed by feeling, which appeals first of all to certain
spiritual powers in man which it declares to be the
most human powers he possesses. Such phrases have
no intellectual outlines ; purity of heart has nothing to
do with the region of the understanding ; God is not
an intellectual conception. But if man has distinctly
spiritual emotions and desires, words like these thrill
him like music.
Indeed, there is a fine analogy to Christ's words in
music. It is the least definable of all the arts ; it ap-
peals to emotion, not to reason. Neither you nor I can
4 TJic Fitiiess of Chrlslianity for Mankind.
say of that air of Mozart's that it means this or that.
It means one thing to me, another thing to you. It
leaves, however, an indefinite but similar impression
upon us both — a sense of exquisite melod}^ which soothes
life, a love of a life in harmony with the imjiression
made, and an affection for the man who gave us so
delicate an emotion. So is it with the words of Christ.
The understanding cannot define them ; the spirit re-
ceives them, and each man receives them in accord-
ance with the state of his spirit. To one these words,
* Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,'
arc solemn with warning, to another they are soothing
with comfort ; to one they mean battle, to another
peace; to one they sound like music on the waters, to
another like the trump of doom.
Could you define the meaning of Mozart's air, so that
it should be the same to all, how much had been lost !
Could you do the same by Christ's words, Avhat a mis-
fortune ! To limit them to one meaning would be to
destroy their life.
Again, take the paradoxical sayings. ' If a man
smite thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other.'
Submit that to the criticism of the understanding,
without permitting spiritual feeling to play uj^on it,
and it becomes absurd. Define it accurately, and there
is either too much or too little left of it. Tell the man
who has a tendency to fear that he is to take it literally,
and he becomes a coward on principle ; tell the same to
another who has military traditions of honour, and he
says that Christ's teaching is not fit for practical life.
But do not attempt to define it, let the spirit of each
The Fitness of Christiaiiity for Mankind. 5
man explain it to himself, and the truth which is in it
will work its way.
There is no doubt, I think, that Christ would have
refused to explain it. All He would have said, He did
saj : ' He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.'
It seems as if Christ distinctly chose indefiniteness
in certain parts of his teaching, in order to shut
out the possibility of any rigid system of Christian
thought.
Of course there are positive and definite portions of
his teaching. ' Do unto others as ye would they should
do unto you.' 'Be ye perfect, even as your Father in
heaven is perfect.' ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.'
* Love one another, even as I have loved you.' These
were definite statements, which appealed to the spirit
of man, but even in their case Christ never wove them
into a fixed sjstem of theology, nor hardened them into
an unchanging mode of practice.
How was He to systematise aspiration to perfection,
or define the love of man to man, or explain in limited
words the passionate desire to be redeemed from the
moral degradation of sin ? Was He to reply to men who
asked Him to say what He meant by ' our ' in ' Our
Father '?
ISTo ; the statements were positive, but they had to do
with things not knowable by the understanding, not
definable by the intellect. Therefore, Christ's religion
can never be made into a system. It will form the basis
and the life of system after system — it will never be
itself a system. And, because of this, it has the power
of expanding with the religious growth of the world,
6 The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind.
and of adapting itself to the religious standpoints of
various nations.
Men must form sjste ms, it belongs to ournature to
do so. rifty years did not pass after the death of
Christ before Christianity was cast into a mould, and
intellectual propositions formed around it. But even
then S. Paul cast it into one mould, and S. John into
one quite different. It was flexible to both, and retained
in both these men its root ideas and its spiritual in-
fluence, so that its spirit through S. John had power
upon the Oriental and through S. Paul upon the
Western world.
A centur}^ afterwards the modes of representing Chris-
tianity changed, and continued to change from genera-
tion to generation in that intellectual time, till there
were as many systems of Christianity as there were
nations in the Church. Its flexibility was proved to be
almost infinite. And it has continued so up to the
present time. It is systematised in three or four forms
in England at this moment, and they may all have
perished in a century ; but the spirit of Christ's teach-
ing will have remained, expanding to suit the new
thoughts of men, and the progress of the whole nation.
Therefore, it is contained in the idea of Christianity that
its outward form should be not only subject to continual
change, but should even be difi'erent at one and the
same time in different nations.
Hence, the fighting and opposition of sect to sect which
has been objected to Christianity is one of those things
which flow from its very nature. If its founder left
it unsystematised, it was sure to be systematised in
The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind. 7
different ways, and tliese differences would produce
contention. Contention is an evil, but it is a less evil
tlian the spiritual stagnation whicli would liave followed
upon a liard and fast system.
Moreover, if Christianity was to expand, it was neces-
sary that its truths should be the subjects of contro-
versy, that different and opposing systems might place
now one of its ideas, now another, in vivid light ; so
that, by the slow exhaustion of false views, it might
come forth clear at last, unrobing itself as a mountain
from the mists of the dawn.
Make any religion into a system, define its outlines
clearly, and, before long, there will be no movement of
thought about it, no enthusiasm of feeling, no vital in-
terest felt in its ideas. It suits the time at which it is
put forward, but when that time has past, it has nothing
to say to men. But let system be foreign to it — let its
original ideas be capable of taking various religious
forms — and it will have the power of expanding for
ever, of becoming systematic without ever binding itself
to sj^stem; changing its form not only in every time
but in every country, and growing in a direct ratio to
the growth of the world.
Therefore we say, the original want of system in
Christ's teaching ensures its power of expansion, and
that fits it for the use of the E-ace, now and hereafter.
But if this were all, it would prove nothing. There
must be a quality in a religion destined to be of eternal
fitness for men which directly appeals to all men, or
else its want of system will only minister to its ruin.
And if that quality exist, it must be one which we
8 The Fitness of Christianity for Maiikind.
cannot conceive as ever failing to interest men, and
therefore as expanding with the progress of Man.
We find this in the identification of Christianity with
the life of a perfect Man.
What is Christianity? Christianity is Christ — the
whole of Human Nature made at one with God. Is
it possible to leave that behind as the race advances ?
On the contrary, the very idea supposes that the
religion which has it at its root has always an ideal
to present to men, and therefore always an interest for
men. As long as men are men, can they ever have a
higher moral conception of God than that given to them
through the character of a perfect Man, and can we
conceive in centuries to come men ever getting beyond
that idea as long as they are in the human state ? The
conception of what the ideal Man is, will change, as
men grow more or less perfect, or as mankind is seen
more or less as a vast organism ; but as long as there is
a trace of imperfection in us, this idea — that perfect
humanity, that is, perfect fatherhood, perfect love,
perfect justice — all our imperfect goodnesses — realised
in perfection, and impersonated in One Being, is God to
us, can never fail to create religion and kindle worship.
It is the last absurdity, looking at the root ideas of
Christianity, to say that it is ceasing to be a religion
for the race.
The '^religion of Humanity' and the 'worship of
Humanity ' considered as a great and living whole, is the
latest phase into which religion apart from Christianity
has been thrown. I am unable to see how it differs, so
far as it asserts a principle, from the great Christian idea.
TIu Fitness of Christianity for Mankind. 9
Everything it says about Humanity and our duties to
Humanity seems to me to be implicitly contained in
CJirist's teacbing, and to be no more tban an expansion
of the original' Christian idea of a divine Man in whom
all the race is contained, and who is, ideally, the race.
But I am far from wishing this new religious idea
to be set aside as unworthy of consideration, nor do I
join in the cry which has been raised against it. On
the contrary, I wish it to be carefully studied, that
we may get all the good out of it we can, and add
many of its ideas to our present form of Christianity.
Most of its positive teaching is Christian in thought
and feeling, though it denies or ignores other Christian
ideas which seem necessary for a human religion. It
would be untrue in a Christian teacher to despise or
abuse a religion which puts self-sacrifice forward as the
foundation of practical duty not only among men, but
among societies and nations. It would be equally
untrue if I did not say that the refusal to consider
the existence of a personal God, and the immortality of
man, will, in the end, make that religion die of starva-
tion.
But with regard to the special point in question — the
worship of a great Being, called Humanity— there is this
difference, and it is a radical one, between Christianity
and the religion of Positivism, that the Humanity the
latter worships is indefinite to the religious emotions,
while its system is definite to the understanding. It is
in this the exact reverse of Christianity, which has no
system capable of being defined by the understanding,
and possesses a Human Person distinctly defined for the
I o The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind.
emotions. It is plain that, if what I have said be worth
anything, the definite system in this religion will be an
element of death in it and forbid its contemporaneous
growth with the race. It is no matter of donbt to me,
that the worship of a Humanity — which it needs an
active intellectual effort to conceive, and a large know-
ledge of history to conceive adequately, or which se-
cludes one sex as a special representative of its ideal,
— can never stir religious emotion nor awake action
based on love to it, in the mass of mankind, however
much it may do so in particular persons. The general
mass of men requu^e that this ideal Man be con-
centrated for them into one person with whom they
can have distinct personal relations, whom they can
personally love for his love, and reverence for his per-
fection. It is not easy, knowing mankind as we do
— seeing its meanness, cruelty, and weakness, as well
as all its nobility — to I'epresent it to ourselves as an
object of worship), or to care particularly whether its
blessing rests on us or not. Than this, it is certainly
more easy to conceive as an object of worship, God,
revealed in will and character by a perfect Man ; and
more simple to think of one Man embodying all the
Race than of the whole Race as one Man. It is a
more satisfying thought, to give our love to human
nature as seen in Christ, without evil, full of perfect
love and sympathy, both male and female in thought and
feeling, than to Mankind as seen in history. It is more
delightful to love men as seen in Him, for the glorious
ideal they will attain to, than to love them as they are,
and without a sure hope of their eternal progress ; and
The Fitness of CJiristianity for Mankind. \ i
that the blessing of Christ's perfect Manhood and
Womanhood should rest upon us, that his love, pity,
strength, support and peace, should belong to us and
accompany us ; that He should attend us as a personal
friend and interest Himself in our lives, till they reach
the perfection of his life ; and that He should be doing
the same for all our brothers as for us; — does seem
more fitted to kindle worship and stir emotion than the
thought that we are parts of a vast organism which
continues to live, like the body, by the ceaseless and
eternal death of its parts.
It may be possible to feel a pleasure in sacrificing
oneself for the good of this great Being which lives by
consuming its own children, and to enjoy the thought
of immortality in its continued progress without ever
personally realising that immortality. But after all, this
overshadowing and abstract ^ Humanity,' which crushes
us while it moves on, is not attractive, and is more
likely in the end to create despair and anger than to
give life to hope and love.
But the ideal Man in Christ is very different. It
demands the same self-sacrifice, but it does not an-
nihilate men. And in itself it is intensely interesting to
men because it is so perfectly human. Whether men
are Christians or not, that exquisite life of Christ will
always attract them ; so true to childhood, youth, and
manhood; so simple, yet so complex; so womanly, yet
80 manly; in love, in honour and in truth, in noble
endurance, in resolute will and purity, so ideal, yet
so real to that which we feel we ought to be, or
may be, that there is no possible age of the world in
T 2 The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind.
the far-off future, which will not, as long as men are
human, love that with the love which is worship.
So the ideal manhood which is at the root of Chris-
tianity ensures to it a power of expanding with the
growth of the race ; and this power is one proof at least
of the eternal fitness of Christ's teaching for mankind.
The third quality in it which ensures its expansive-
ness is that it has directly to do with the subjects
which have always stirred the greatest curiosity,
awakened the profoundest thought, and produced the
highest poetry in man. And these are the subjects
which are insoluble by logical analysis, unknowable
by the understanding : — What is God, and His relation
to us ? Whence have we come ? whither are we going ?
What is evil, and why is it here ? What is truth, and
is there any positive truth at all ? Do we die or live
for ever?
It is the fashion among some to say, ' Do not trouble
yourself about the insoluble ;' and there are those who
succeed, perhaps, in doing so. Well, I think them
w^rong, as they think me wrong. No one feels more
intensely than I do the pain of not having things clear —
the vital torment of a thirst ever renewed, and not as
yet fully satisfied ; but I had rather keep the pain and
the thirst than annihilate, as it seems to me, a portion
of my human nature. I must trouble myself about
these things, and so must others, and the trouble has its
source in an integral part of our human nature. We
must tear away that part before we can get rid of these
subjects. To deny that this part of our nature exists
is absurd, to afiirm that it has been produced by
The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind. 1 3
education in men, not having originally been in their
nature, is to beg the question. What we have to do
with is what lies before ns, and if I were asked what
is the most universal characteristic of man, that which
most clearly distinguishes him from the lower animals,
I should answer, that it was the passion for solving
what is called the insoluble, the desire of knowing what
is said to be unknowable.
I meet that longing everywhere. There is no history
which is not full of it. There is no savage nation
which has learnt the first rudiments of thought, in
which you do not find it. There is no poetry
which does not bear the traces of it — nay, whose
noblest passages are not inspired by it. There is
scarcely a single philosophy which does not work at it,
or at least acknowledge it by endeavouring to lay it
aside. One cannot talk for an hour to a friend without
touching it at some point, nor take up a newspaper
without seeing its influence ; and if Christ had started
a religion for mankind with the dictum, Lay aside
thinking about these questions, his religion would
seem to be unfit for men ; it would have shut out the
whole of the most curious part of our being. But He
did the exact contrary. He recognised these questions as
the first and the most important. He came. He said,
for the express purpose of enabling us to solve them
sufficiently. He said that truth was to be found, that
God could be known, that immortality was a reality,
that evil was to be overthrown, that we came from God
and went to God.
But to solve these questions and to know God is not
14 The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind.
done at once. It is tlie work of a lifetime. Christ said
that there were answers to be found ; He did not reveal
the answers at once. He did not wish to take away
from men the discipline of personal effort, nor to free
them from the pain, the victory over which would give
them spiritual strength, the endurance of which would
make them men. He put them in the way of solving
these questions for themselves. By asking and seeking,
by prayer and humility, they were to solve the appa-
rently insoluble. By doing his will, by living his life of
holiness, self-sacrifice, and devotion to truth, they were
at last to know the truth.
Therefore, because these problems which are called
insoluble were left by Christ as j)ersonal questions
which every man born into the world must solve for
himself, human effort after God can never suffer the
stagnation which complete knowledge would produce
in imperfect man. Eeligious emotions, the play of
feeling and intellect around spiritual things, desire after
higher good, prayer, active work towards a more perfect
love and towards the winning of truth, are all kept
up in us by the sense of imperfect knowledge, imperfect
spiritual being, and, in addition, by the hope which
grows stronger through the experience of growth, that
we shall know even as we are known, and become
perfect even as our God.
Eemove from religion these difficult questions, and
the hope and the passion of discovering their answers,
and I believe that all religious emotions will die, and
all religion of any kind finally perish in contact with
the world.
TJu Fitness of Christianity for Mankind. 1 5
It is because Christianity as tauglit by Christ acknow-
ledges these questions as . necessarily human ; it is
because it leaves their solution to personal effort, and so
secures an undying source of religious effort and emo-
tion ; it is because it promises that those who follow the
method of Christ, and live his life, shall solve them ;
that Christianity belongs to men, is calculated to ex-
pand, to suit men in every age. If so, there is another
reason which may be alleged for its eternal fitness for
the race.
Lastly, if what Christianity says be true, that we shall
all enter into a life everlasting, these three qualities in
Christ's religion of which I have spoken are not without
their meaning or their value to us there.
That our religion should be without a system, will
enable us, in a new life and under new conditions, to
reorganise it without difficulty, to fit it into the new
circumstances of our being, to use it in novel ways.
That our religion is a human religion, that it appeals
directly to human nature, that it is nothing apart from
mankind, that it is woven up with all the desires and
hopes and sorrows of men, that it bids us concentrate
all the race into One Person, and love all men in Him,
that it throws all our effort and enthusiasm on the
progress of mankind, these do not belong to this
world alone. If we live again, we shall live in a higher
way, in the race ; for we shall live in Christ, not an iso-
lated life, but a life in all mankind. We shall be more
united with our fellow-men, more ready to give ourselves
away to them, more interested in the progress of
mankind, more able to help. ITever, as long as Christ
1 6 The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind
is, can we forget, or cease our communion with, the
whole world of men.
And finally, that even after attaining much, enough
at least to set us in all the peace which is good for us,
there should remain, as I think there will remain, in the
eternal life, certain questions which we shall have to solve,
certain things which man cannot wholly know, it will
not be an evil but a good thing for us. For that there
should always be things above us and unknown, ensures
our eternal aspiration, ensures to us the passionate
delight of ceaseless progress.
The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind. 1 7
THE FITNESS OF CHRISTIANITY FOR MANKIND.
* Another parable put lie forth unto them, saying, The kingdom
of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, wh'.ch a man took, and
sowed in his field : which indeed is the least of all seeds : but when
it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so
that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.' —
Matt. xiii. 31, 32.
Those who love variety of colour and variety of form
can scarcely reap a deeper pleasure than is his who
walks slowly through the lower part of one of the
Italian valleys of the Alps when spring is at its height.
The meadows are full of flowers, at once so brilliant,
soft, and manifold of hue, that the grass seems sown
with dust of rainbows. The grey boulders, which lie
like castles on the sloping lawns, are stained scarlet and
gold and bronze with many lichens. Chestnut and
walnut spread their rich leaves below ; above, the oak
clusters in the hollow places ; higher still, the pines
climb the heights in dark battalions. Colour, form,
development, are all different; each flower, leaf, and
tree each variety of grass or lichen, has its own
peculiar beauty, its own individuality.
It seems impossible to include them all under one
term, to say that they are all substantially one thing.
Yet they are all trAnsmuted sunshine. Every fibre,
2
1 8 The Fitness of Christianity fo7' Mankind,
every cell, every atomic arrangement which, enables
each of them to give us the sensation of red, or violet,
or what colour lies between these, has been built up
through means of the force or the forces of the sun-
shine. ^Nevertheless, this one original element has
been modified by the tendency — I use a word which
but expresses our ignorance — of each seed to assume
a specialised form at a certain stage in its growth ; to
be modified by what one would call in mankind its
character. So that we have two things : one simple
source of vegetable life, infinite forms and modifications
of form through which that force is conditioned.
It is a happy analogy by which to arrive at the idea
of the one sj)irit of Christ's life, received and modified
into a thousand forms by difierent characters of men,
and different types of nations. Christianity is like the
sunshine — not a given form, nor imposing a uniform
system of growth — it is a force of spiritual heat and
light, which expands, developes, and irradiates ; a spiri-
tual chemical force which destroys dead things, and
quickens half-living things in the character. It is
assimilated, but according to the original arrangement
of the spiritual atoms of each character, so that it
does not destroy, but enhances individuality ; does not
injure, but intensifies variety.
There has scarcely ever lived a single Christian man
whose Christianity has been identical in form with that
of another, though the species may have been the
same. There is certainly no Christian nation which
has produced a type of Christianity uniform with that
of another. Look at the Apostolic Church, read the
The Fitness of Christianity for Alankind. 1 9
epistles whicli reDiain to us. The letters of S. James,
of S. Peter, of S. Paul, of S. John, differ as the oak
differs from the chestnut, as the fir differs from the
ash-tree. These represent in various forms what the
sunshine has done for them ; the epistles represent, in
various forms of Christian thought, what the spirit of
Christ had wrought in their authors.
I venture to say that there never has existed a set of
religious books which so manifestly despised outward
consistency, and so boldly fell back upon an inner unity
of spirit ; which, though they systematised to a certain
extent, showed more plainly, taken together, that there
was no system in the source from whence they drew
their inspiration ; - which dared more audaciously to
vary their modes of expressing spiritual truths, relying
on, and because of, their appeal to the primary instincts
of mankind.
This was one of the elements which we saw last
Sunday lay at the root of the success of Christianity.
It left individual and national development free, and
it appealed to a common humanity. And, having no
system, it promoted liberty of growth in Mankind, and
when that growth had passed a certain stage, and the
character of the time changed, it changed its form in
turn to suit the new ideas of men. But beneath all
these varied representations there will be always a
few clear principles, and a spirit which will remain
the same. Whether Christianity exist as Calvinist or
Ritualist, Roman Catholic or Lutheran, Wesleyan or
Unitarian, all these forms will have taken their life and
built up their being from the sunlight of Christ.
20 The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind.
It will be easily seen from this, how much I desi^ise
the struggle for uniformity, and how much I dread it
as directly anti-Christian. Unity of spirit we should
endeavour to seek for, and keep in the bond of peace ;
but uniformity ! Imagine a world in which all the
trees were pines.
The effort to establish uniformity is not only the
note of an uncultivated spirit — it is especially the
mark of one who has not studied the teaching of
Christ, nor the teaching of the Apostles. And Chris-
tianity has been especially unfortunate in the way in
which for many ages its followers, foolishly dismayed
by the cry of inconsistency, have made it almost a point
to struggle against Christ's altogether divine con-
ception of a spiritual universe of worshippers at one in
the midst of a boundless variety. Yet, such is the vi-
tality of Christianity, that it has resisted the very efforts
of its own children to nullify its qualities, and remains
as before, a spirit of light and a spirit of life, capable
of endless expansion, ready to alter its form in order to
co-operate with every human movement, and working
out in every human soul who receives it some subtile
phase of its beauty, some delicate shade of its tender-
ness, some new manifestation of its graces.
We have spoken so far of the religion of Christ in
contact with human character ; let us look at it in
contact with some great human interests.
Take politics. Other religions have laid down poli-
tical systems, and bound themselves to ideas of caste,
to imperialism, or to socialism. The latest religion
has woven into its body a most cumbrous arrangement
The Fitness of Chris tia7iity for J\Iankind. 2 1
of mankind and the nations of mankind. Conse-
quently, these religions being tied to the transient,
perished or will perish with the political systems to
which they are bound.
Christianity never made this mistake. It refused to
be mixed up with any political system, or to bind those
who followed it down to any form of political union, as it
had refused to bind them down to any particular form of
religious union. Leaving itself perfectly free, it could
therefore enter as a spirit of good into any form of
government. And it did enter into all forms — patri-
archal, military, feudal, monarchical, imperial, demo-
cratic— as a spirit which modified the evils of each,
and developed their good. It is objected to Chris-
tianity that it does not touch on great political ques-
tions, such as the limits of obedience to a ruler, or the
duties of the State to the citizens, and therefore th^it
it is not a religion for men ; but it does not touch
directly on these questions because its object was to
penetrate them all as an insensible influence. Had it
declared itself imperialist or democratic, it would have
been excluded from the one or from the other. But,
entering into the hearts of men as a spirit of love, of
aspiration after perfection, of justice and forgiveness,
it crept from man to man, tLU in every nation there
oxisted a body of men who had absorbed the spirit of
Christ, who slowly brought about political i-egenera-
tion through spiritual regeneration.
But because it has prevailed in countries where
feudal, systems and the tyrannies of caste have ruled,
it has been accused of having been on the side of
22 The Fitness of C Insist iauity for Mankind.
oppressors of the race. The objection is plausible, but
it is unfair. Some distmction is surely to be made
between a Church made into a political organ and
Christianity itself. When the Church, as in France
before the Revolution, became a mere adjunct to the
throne and threw in its lot with tyrants, it forswore
its Christianity. When it established itself at E-ome
as a tyranny over men's souls, it turned upon its
Founder and re-crucified Him. Moreover, if Chris-
tianity has been accused as the handmaid of oppres-
sion, it is at least just to look on the other side and
see if it has not been the inspirer of the noblest
revolutions. All its fundamental ideas — the Father-
hood of God, the brotherhood of all men in Christ, the
equality of all men before God, the individual respon-
sibility of every human soul, the surrender of all
things for others, the one necessity of salvation for
all alike, emperor and peasant — are spiritual ideas
which bear an easy translation into political ideas, and
which, gathering strength, have proved the ruin of
many tyrannies. If Christianity has any close relation
with a distinct political idea, it is with the idea of a
high democracy ; and if, as some say, the world is
irresistibly tending to democracy, there is nothing in
Christianity to prevent its falling in with this political
tendency. I see no limit to its expansion, should that
take place ; on the conti^ry, I think that it will take
in democracy a further and a more brilliant, a freer
and more devotional development than ever it has yet
done. The atmosphere will be more congenial to it.
Again, take art. Greek religion lent itself to sculpture,
The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind. 2 3
but after a time its ideas were exhausted. It afforded
no universal range of subjects. Some way or anotlier,
h-uman as it was, it was not human enough to enable
it to last. It was of Greece, it was not of mankind.
The religion of Mohammed shut out all painting
and sculpture of living forms from its sacred archi-
tecture. But the Romanesque and Gothic builders, with
a strange instinct that in Christianity there was no-
thing irreligious, and that every act of human life, if
done naturally, or for just ends, even if it were such an
act as war, was a religious act, and that all the world,
animate and inanimate, was holy to the Lord in Christ,
filled porch and arcade and string-course with sculpture
of all things in earth and heaven, symbolised the re-
volving year, made parables of beauty and of terror,
and threw into breathing stone the hopes, the passions,
the fears, and the faith of Christian men.
This was but one field of the immense space which
Christianity ojDened to religious art. No limitations
were placed upon it by the religion ; it was left to
each nation, according to its genius, to develope it in its
own way.
It was the same with poetry as with architecture ;
it lost nothing by the addition of the Christian element ;
it gained, on the contrary, a great subject. And that
subject, in its infinite humanity, in the way it has of
making those who grasp it largely interested in all
things, in the majesty which belongs to it, does not
prevent men from rising into the grand style — that
style which makes a man feel himself divine as he
reads. On the contrary, of the three poets who since
24 The Fitness, of Christianity for Mankind.
Christ liaye possessed tliis style in perfection, two
employed all their power on subjects wliicb. belonged
to Christian thought. The majesty of the subject
reacted on their power of expression. They proved
at least that Christianity does not exclude, but is ex-
pansive enough to include, the art of poetry. IVtore-
over, a religion which appeals to human feeling, which
is nothing apart from Man, whose strongest impulse is
the ' enthusiasm of humanity,' can never be apart from
an art like that of poetry which withers, corrupts, and
dies when it is severed from the interests of men. One
may even go further. Christianity has to do with the
insoluble, with visions which love alone can realise,
with questions to which the understanding gives no
reply, with feelings which cannot be defined, only ap-
proached, in words. It is the very realm in which half
of the poetry of the world has been written.
There is nothing then to prevent Christianity existing
in harmonious relation with all true poetry from age
to age of the world. In itself, it gives a grand subject
to poetry, and both it and poetry have similar elements ;
their common appeal to, and their death apart from,
human interests and feelings ; their common life in a
region above the understanding.
I need not dwell on the arts of music and painting ;
let us pass on to science. Supposing Christianity had
committed itself to any scientific statements or to any
scientific method, it could never have been fitted to ex-
pand with the expansion of knowledge, to be a religion
for a race which is continually advancing in scientific
knowledge. If it had bound itself up with the knowledge
The Fitness of CJmstiardty for Mankind. 25
of its time, it would naturally be subject now to
repeated and ruinous blows. If it bad anticipated tbe
final discoveries of science and revealed them, nobody
would bave believed it then, and nobody would probably
believe it now. Christianity committed itself to nothing.
' Yours is not my province,' it said to science. ' Do
your best in your own sphere with a single eye to truth.
I will do my best in mine. Let us not throw barriers
in each other's way. The less we obstruct each other,
the more chance there is of our finding in the end
union in the main ideas which regulate both our worlds
in the mind of God.'
Foolish men have mixed it up with science and en-
deavoured to bind each down upon the bed of the other,
to make science Christian and Christianity scientific,
but the result has always been a just rebellion on both
sides. The worst evil has been the unhallowed and foi "ed
alliance of the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the
Bible, or of the infallibility of the Church to Chris-
tianity. The moment science was truly born, war to
the death arose against a form of Christianity which
violated the original neutrality of Christianity towards
the pure intellect and its pursuit of its own truths. But
get rid of this alliance, and how is Christianity in oppo-
sition to science ? what is to prevent its being a religion
fit for man in that future when the youngest child will
know more than the philosopher of to-day? It is no
more in actual opposition to science than poetry is.
The river glideth at his OTvn sweet willj
r suppose no scientific man would run a tilt at that.
26 The Fitness of CJiristianity for JManJcind.
Its thought, its feeling, the impression it is intended to
convey, are all out of the sphere of science. Neverthe-
less, the natural philosopher recognises that it appeals
to his imagination. He receives pleasure from it ; he
accepts it as true in its own sphere.
But if he were told that the writer claimed in-
fallibility for his expression, said that it expressed
not only a certain touch of human feeling about the
river, but also the very physical truth about the move-
ment of the river, he would naturally be indignant.
' You have left your own ground,' he would say to the
poet, ' where you were supreme, and you have come into
mine, where, by the very hypothesis of your art, you are
a stranger. You claim my obedience, here, in my own
kingdom, the absolute surrender of my reason in a realm
where reason is the rightful lord. You may be a poet,
but you are denying the first principles of your art.'
Precisely the same might be said to those who are
ill-informed enough to connect the spirit and life of
Christianity with efforts to suppress physical science
or historical criticism as tending to infidelity, or as
weakening Christian truth. It might be said to them
by a wise scholar : ' You may be Christians, but you
are doing all the harm you can to Christianity. You
are endeavouring to bind an elastic and expanding
spirit into a rigid mould in which it will be suffocated.
You are fettering your living truth to physical and
historical theories which have been proved to be false
and dead, and your Christianity will suffer as the
living man suffered when the cruel king bound him
to the corpse. Your special form of Christianity will
The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind. 2 7
grow, corrupt, and die, for it attacks truth.' But if some
Christian people have gone out of their sphere, there
are not wanting philosophers to do the same. ' I know
nothing of God and immortality,' says science, and with
an air as if that settled the question. ' I should thmk
you did not,' Christianity would gravely answer ; ' no
one ever imagined that you could, but I do ; I do know
a great deal about those wonderful realities, and I have
given my knowledge of them to millions of the human
race who have received it, proved it through toil and
pain, and found it powerful to give life in the hour of
death.' ' Proved it,' answers science, ' not in my way,
the only way worth having, the way which makes a
thing clear to the understanding.' But there are
hundreds of things which are not and cannot be sub-
mitted to such a proof. We cannot subject the action
of any of the passions to the explanations of the under-
standing. By reasoning alone, we cannot say what an
envious, jealous, self-sacrificing, or joyful man may do
next, nor explain his previous actions. One might far
more easily predict the actions of a madman.
We cannot give any reason for love at first sight, or,
what is less rare but as real, friendship at first sight.
We cannot divide into compartments the heart and soul
of any one person in the world, saying, This is the
boundary of that feeling; so far this quality will carry
the man in life. For the understanding is but a
secondary power in man. It can multiply distinctions.
It cannot see the springs of life where the things are
born about which it makes distinctions.
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
28 The Fitness of Chrtstianity fo7' Mankind.
What tells us that is poetry? The voice of the un-
derstanding ? ' Mght's candles are burnt out,' it says
— 'it is a ridiculous statement of the fact that the
stars 'have ceased to shine. Day never stands ti^^toe
on the misty mountain-tops. Is that poetry? It is
nonsense.' But the understanding rarely acts alone
in this way ; a higher power in man proves to him, he
cannot tell how, that the lines are magnificent poetry —
nay, that the i^oetry is in the very passages which the
understanding despises.
Let each keep to their own spheres and do their work
therein. Christianity has no weapons in her original
armoury which can be wielded against science, and
science cannot attack spiritual truths with purely in-
tellectual weapons. No one asks for a spiritual proof
that the earth goes round the sun ; it is equally absurd
to ask for a purely intellectual proof of the existence
of an all-loving Father. And it would be wiser if science
kej)t her hands off Christianity. Mankind will bear
a great deal, but it will not long bear tlie denial of
a God of love, the attempt to thieve away the hope
of being perfect and our divine faith in immortality.
These things are more j)i^ecious than all ^Dhysical dis-
coveries. The efforts made to rob us of them, when
they are made, and they are but rarely made, are
not to be patiently endured. They are far less tole-
rable than the ill-advised attempts of Christian men to
dominate over science. These latti^r efforts are absurd,
but the former are degrading to human nature.
It really does not make much matter to the race in
genera], whether the whole science of geology were
The Fitness of Christianity for Mankind. 29
proved to-morrow to have been proceeding on a wrong
basis, or whether the present theory of force be true or
not ; but it would make the most serious matter to
mankind, if they knew for certain to-morrow that there
was no God of justice and love, or that immortality was
a fond invention. The amount of suppressed and
latent belief in these truths, which we should then
discover in men who now deny them, would be perhaps
the strangest thing we should observe ; but it hath not
entered into the heart of man to imagine the awfulness
of the revolution which, following on this denial, would
penetrate into every corner of human nature and human
life.
Both science and Christianity have vital and precious
truths of their own to give to men, and they can
develope together without interfering with each other.
Should science increase its present knowledge tenfold,
there is nothing it can discover which will enable it
to close up that region in man where the spirit com-
munes in prayer and praise with its Father, where
the longing for rest is content in the peace of for-
giveness, where the desire of being perfect in unselfish-
ness is satisfied by union with the activity of the
unselfish God, where sorrow feels its burden lightened
by divine sympathy, where strength is given to over-
come evil — where, as decay and death grow upon the
outward frame, the inner spirit begins to put forth its
wings and to realise more nearly the eternal summer of
His presence, in whom there is fulness of life in fulness
of love. No; as Christianity can expand to fit into
the progress of politics, and to adapt itself to the
30 The Fitness of Christianity foi^ Manki7id.
demands of art, so it can also throw away, without
losing one feature of its original form, rather by
returning to its purer type, all the elements opposed to
the advance of science which men have added to its
first simplicity.
It will be pleasant, if what I have said be true, for
all of us to meet five hundred years hence, and, inter-
changing our tidings of the earth, to find that the
thoughts and hopes of this sermon, in which many of
you must sympathise, have not been proved untrue.
The Higher Jtcdaism and Christianity, 3 1
THE HIGHER JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
* Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets : I
Am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.' — Matt. v. 17.
And the common people heard him gladly.' — Mark xii. 37.
One of tlie most interesting positions in which a
Christian teacher can find himself is when, under the
pressure of new discoveries in science or in histor^^ he
is forced to change his front and take up new ground
for either attack or defence of his faith. It has often
happened that after the army of Christianity has
defended for many years its cause from a particular
place of vantage, that place becomes untenable. It is
the business then of the army to change that position,
and it almost invariably changes it under a cry from the
enemy that the Christian cause is overthrown. The
weaker members of the host itself, who have grown
so fond of the position as to identify the cause
with the ground they held, add to the noise of the
enemy their own feeble wail that Christianity itself is
in danger of destruction. Both the cry and the wail are
out of place. That the Christian army should alter its
front and take up new ground is a known necessity of the
contest. It has done so often in the coiu'se of history, and
we must expect that it will have to do so again. And the
32 The Higher yndaisin and Christianity.
fact is tliat in all these changes it has never lost ground
which it has not more than regained. It has left
behind several positions which were useful at their time,
and in these some stragglers are still fond of loitering ;
it is even trae that some large portions of the army have
gone back to hold abandoned positions in order to keep
up their communications with the past, but the van-
guard is still in advance, ready to meet any difficulties
introduced into the contest by the discoveries of science
or the advance of criticism. It does not deny the truth
of proved discoveries, nor the value of criticism, it
only opposes the inferences drawn from them by persons
afflicted with fanatic infidelity. Their attack is made
upon Christianity as seen entrenched in the old position.
Our answer is that we have abandoned that position,
that it was only temporary, and that its abandonment
has nothing to do with the abandonment of the cause.
' We have,' we say, * absorbed what is proved true in your
discoveries. And now attack us here if you will ; but
do not go on storming into an empty camp and then
saying that you have conquered the Christian host. It
is only a few camp-followers whom you are slaying ; the
veteran army is untouched.'
At this moment, however, the mass of the army is
making the transition. It has not yet understood where
it is going to, nor the capabilities of the position it
will occupy. jS'aturally it is harassed in its march, and
though it does not lose its faith and courage, it does
BufPer a little from confusion. Some, on the assumption
that it still holds verbal inspiration, prove that the
whole of the Bible is unworthv of credit as a revelation,
The Higher 'Jtidaistn and Christianity, 3 3
and it is rather difficult to convince these people that
verbal inspiration is not to be forced on us now, be-
cause some may have held it once. And when, with
the vanguard, we deny that inspiration brings infalli-
bility to any parts of the Bible which belong to the
domain of science or historical criticism, we cut the
ground from under the feet of our opponents by deny-
ing absolutely their major premiss. We have changed
our front. They must seek another field of battle, a new
form of the argument, if they can find it. Meanwhile,
as we are making this transition, a number of minor
attacks are made on us — masked attacks, some of which
we know will answer themselves, and need only be
allowed to exhaust themselves ; others, however, being
in themselves interesting, and opening out attractive
questions, are well worth replying to, especially when
they lead us to dwell on certain distinctive elements
in Christianity. One of these we shall speak of to-day.
The more active investi oration of the ancient relisrions
brought to light many curious likenesses of Christianity.
Not only many of its typical thoughts, but some of the
very phrases used by Christ and his followers were dis-
covered in the writings of Buddhists, Brahmans, Sikh
doctors, Greeks, Eomans, and Jews, who had lived before
his time. It was at once declared that the revelation in
the Gospels was not an original revelation, that Christ
Himself was no more than other great teachers had
been, that what He said had been said before Him. At
the present time this attack has been more plainly
made in public and social discussion by a comparison of
the teaching of the Talmud with the teaching of Christ,
34 The Higher yudaism and Christianity,
and the renewed inference by many persons whom one
meets, that the latter was not original.
In replying to that I put aside the question of dates,
though no critical proof has been offered that the say-
ings in question which are similar in the Talmud and
Christianity were actually in existence before Christ.
But I am willing to surrender this point, and to meet
the whole matter on grounds which will include an
answer to the other member of the question, — that is,
the likeness of Christ's words, not only to the words of
the Jewish, but also of Hindoo, Greek, and Buddhist
doctors. The Talmudical question by itself is of small
imj)ortance. It runs up into a larger question ; it is
part of a whole, and to that whole we reply.
First. We need not be at all astonished at this
similarity; on the contrary, we ought to be surprised
if it did not exist.
I may approach what I mean by an analogy. There
are certain myths common to almost all nations, not
only to the Aryan, Semitic, or Turanian separately,
but to all of them alike. Now these myths stand on
a somewhat different ground from those which arise
out of the transference of poetic language used with
regard to physical phenomena into a mythology of
gods and heroes, for myths of this class vary with
the various races. They occupy also a different ground
from those which arise out of modifications of human
development by race or climate, or any external cause.
For they arise directly out of those consistent and
universal properties of human nature which are as
unchanged in all races as the plan of the vertebral
column is in all the vertebrata. I believe myself that
The Higher yudaism and Christianity, 35
they must develope out of human nature ; that, given
human nature, certain stories are sure to emerge, so that
if a new race of human beings were to arise in some
unreached corner of the world, and be entirely secluded
for centuries from other men, we should find, on its dis-
covery, these constant stories existing in that country.
ISTow apply this analogy to the question before us.
There are certain fundamental axioms of religion, which,
supposing the religious impulse to exist in human
na^ture, must in the course of centuries work their way
through all error to the surface. They lie hid in the
very essence of human nature. Existing during the
era of savagery, they are certain, after it has past, to
develope themselves as guiding principles of feeling and
action. The mass of the common people will be in-
fluenced by them unconsciously, but those men who
rise above the mass in thought, and seclude themselves
for contemplation, will finally come to see them clearly,
a^nd having seen them will express them. It is almost
certain, by the hypothesis, that they will be stated in
all nations by such men in words which bear the closest
similarity. For instance, ' do unto others as ye would
they should do unto you ' is a spiritual saying which
appears in many other religious books than the Talmud,
and the extreme simplicity of the thought will naturally
secure its expression in almost identical phraseology.
In fact, how else can we express it ?
It is, therefore, no matter of astonishment to me, but
the contrary, when I find that those sayings of Christ
v/hich express fundamental ethical truths of human
nature have been expressed before and in similar
36 The Higher y^idaisni and Christianity.
phraseology. If He be, as we believe, perfect Humanity,
it would be passing strange if He did not state the
ancient truths of humanity — and how else could He state
them than in their natural, easy, unsensational form?
They were axioms, they had to be axiomatically stated.
We have now some grounds on which to frame our
answer to the objection that Christ was not original.
It is said, and as if it condemned his revelation : ' See,
Christ says nothing new.'
But ought we to expect the Saviour to be original in
these points ? Did He claim entire originality by itself,
as any mark of his mission ? Was there no light before
his advent, no law written in men's hearts ? And when
He arrived on earth, was He, in a vain striving after
originality, to neglect and ignore the light and the law
which his Father had given to the nations before He
came. On the contrary. He accepted these things as
Divine, embodied them in his teaching, and practically
said to men. These things which My Father's Spirit
taught you in the past, I redeclare in the present, with
His authority.
The fact is. He chose the old expressions by pre-
ference, when He could. He did not wish to be original
in these points. For He knew that his Father had
been working hitherto.
Therefore, I repeat, one of the deepest parts of his work
was to resume in Himself all the past truth, to realise in
Himself aU the past ideals. He came to embody the long-
ings of all mankind, to gather into Himself all the scat-
tered lights of God which had shined before Him in
men's souls, and condense them into a perfect star of
Trutl-.
The Higher ytuiaism and Christianity. 37
He came to be Man, to represent in Himself Hindoo,
Arabian, Chinese, Greek, Roman, Jew — all nations and
tongues ; for tliis follows directly from what seems
the opposite, but is the converse statement — that in
Christ Jesns there is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian,
Scythian, bond or free, but He is all and in all. And
as, one after another, we find in these various peoples
Christ's phrases before Christ, we rejoice — it only proves
our point — that He absorbed all the floating truths of
humanity, passed them through the purifying crucible
of his soul, cleansed them of their dross, and built
them up with others Avhich He revealed, into a temple
of stainless gold.
Our next question is : — In what points did Christ's
teaching of these common truths differ from the Jewish
teaching of them ? What were the original elements in
his revelation?
They were mainly two. First, He wove these truths
up with a human life ; and secondly. He made them
common coin. He went in and out among the people,
preaching and living these truths. And it followed, that
He caused a religious revolution.
But the revolutionary nature of his work is one of
the objections made against it. It is said that his
work could have been done without Him ; that, in fact,
the main truths He taught were slowly filtering into
Jewish society, and even into Gentile society, from the
great reservoir of wisdom among the sages of the Jews,
and that their slow dispersion of wisdom was unattended
by the evils of a revolution and subject to no reaction.
Whereas, this young; enthusiastic genius — so one has
38 The Highe7^ yudaism and Christianity,
heard the Saviour characterised — brought up in Galilee,
where education was not so well maintained as in other
parts of Palestine — broke in upon the quiet progress of
truth, and hurried it forward into a revolution in which
much excellent truth, being given too soon, was after-
wards lost or perverted. And lastly, that his attacks
on the Scribes and Pharisees as recorded in the Gospels
are proof of his want of high training, and even of
his ignorance, for the very things He taught were being
taught by the best among those whom He satirized with
such intemperance.
We reply — reserving the whole question of the evil
or not of a religious revolution at this time for another
sermon — first, that history does not confirm the theory
that the high teaching of the Jewish sages was having
much influence upon the world. We are told that they
taught a large tolerance and a profound charity. Where
is the proof that this teaching was effective ?
Love to one's neighbour as to oneself — patience under
injury — a universal spirit of charity even among those
alone who held a common faith — that men should not
seek the highest place — that the true master was as
one who serveth — these things do not seem to have had
the smallest influence among the Jewish parties during
the last fatal war with Rome.
Aud as to the influence of these truths upon tlie
Gentile world, how many proselytes do we find, and how
were they treated by the boasted tolerance of the higher.
Judaism ? A few swallows do not make a summer, nor
a few thousand proselytes a regenerated world. Nor
does admission into the outer court of the Temple and
TJie Higher yudamn a7id Christianity. 39
exclusion from the inner say much, for the perfect
liberality of the Doctors of the Law.
The fact is, however much they taught these truths,
they did not teach them so as to make them influential.
As to the statement that there were Pharisees to
whom Christ's denunciations did not apply, no one ever
doubted it. There are always men who stand apart
from the violence and bigotry of their time, and the
more bigoted the greater number are, the more will
these isolate themselves. Of such a type Gamaliel is
an instance. But such men, in their turn, react upon
the mass and make its narrowness still more narrow, if
narrowness be the tendency of the time. Moreover, as
we shall see, the isolated culture of these men was,
in itself, almost worse than bigotry. It threw the
common people back into deeper ignorance. One may
imagine the scorn with which Gamaliel would have
treated men like the common Galileans whom Christ
collected round Him, from the ill-concealed contempt
with which he treated the Sanhedrin itself. The more
one considers the matter, the more it seems that Christ's
reproofs were well deserved. It may well be that there
were a few wise and good men who did not share either
in the scorn or the violence of the period. But we have
no right to impute their wisdom to all the hierarchy
in the face of much evidence to the contrary. Six oak
trees in a wood do not make it an oak wood.
But it is said again that the sayings of these wise
men were household words amons^ the Jews, and that
Christ only repeated them. Why then, I ask, did they
not tell upon the world as the words of Christ did?
40 The Higher Judaism and Christianity.
Why did they not inspire men to go forth and preach
them to the world ? Why did they not make an army
of martyrs ? Why did they not overrun in a few years
the Greek and Roman worlds? Why did they not
destroy Heathenism ?
The answer to this will answer also our previous
question : in what points did Christ's teaching of these
common truths differ from the Jewish teaching of
them?
The Jewish teaching did not succeed because it was
not embodied in a person. Christ's teaching differed from
that of the Jewish sages, first, in this, that it was
these truths made real in a life.
The teaching in the Jewish schools was of a noble
religious type. But independent of the fact that the
higher truths were not communicated to such persons as
the shepherds of Bethlehem, the teaching was teaching
and no more. No one dreamed of going among men
and living the truths he taught. And the great mass
of the people do not realise things by description. They
must see in order to know. A lecturer gives a clear
and accurate account of the sea to a class of inland
persons not gifted with much imagination, and they
now possess a mild interest in the information, but
none in the sea itself. On the whole, they do not care to
pursue the subject farther. But suppose that the lecturer
could suddenly transport his pupils to the Atlantic^ and
say, ' Look there ; that is the ocean.' They would not
know as nmch about it as if they had listened for hours
to his lectures, but they would have what they had not
before — a vivid interest in it ; they are inspired to study
The Higher y2idaisni and Christianity, 41
it for themselves, and in the end, because they love it,
and are thrilled by its power and beauty, they learn to
know it better than they could by any elaborate descrip-
tion.
So here, truths were given by the Jewish sages to the
people in the schools, analysed, reduced to proverbial
forms, and they had no universal effect ; they produced
no vital interest.
At last one comes who says, I am the Truth and
the Life. Look here — see my works, behold my life,
what I say, and do, and live; that is the mind and
the character of God. It is easy to put that to the
test ; the spectators are interested ; they do not under-
stand the theory of truth so well at first, but they are
thrilled, inspired, impelled. They cannot rest till they
have seen all they can; they comprehend what they
see ; they return again and again to the human realisa-
tion of the truth.
This was the manner of Christ's teaching, and the
influence of it crept into the study of men's imagination.
Again, it is hard to love merely ideal truth. Unless
truth is connected with a person whom one can love, it
does not get afloat, it lies stranded on the beach.
Preach such a truth as ' Love your neighbour as your-
self,' a.nd it has but little attractiveness till you have
connected it with the life of some one who has fulfilled
it. But then men's hearts are stirred, they love the
man and necessarily the truth which made the man.
Then love gives it vogue — a fire burns in our hearts ;
we must speak or die ; we speak, and the fire is commu-
nicated ; it runs from soul to soul, spreading, kindling
42 The Higher Judaism and Christianity.
as it goes. We want truth embodied in a person whom
we can love.
It was because this was done by Christ that Chris-
tianity succeeded where Jewish wisdom failed. A great
love to a man arose, mingled with a profound venera-
tion for his character. Both these, love and reverence,
were irresistible. Men's hearts were drawn to Him
as the seas are to the moon. He had laid down his
life for them ; they would die for Him. He had borne
witness to the truth in death ; they would die for his
truth. He had lived among them a perfect life, and
what He taught was guaranteed and glorified by it.
It was not so much truths or a system of truths which
they saw. It was Christ as the incarnate Truth. A
central point was given to which all the rays of truth
could be traced, at which their inner harmony was seen ;
and at once the teaching which had this human centre
took fire, force, movement, expansion, and radiated over
the world.
This leads me to the second and the last reason I
shall give for the success of Christianity as contrasted
with the failure of the Jewish sages. It was preached
to the common people.
I have said that truths require to be lived — nay,
more, to be died for — to give them vogue. But that
they should be lived and died for, they must come into
the open arena of the world, among the mass of every-
day men and women ; they must come out of the retired
cloisters of the schools. That they should emerge clearly
and take distinct outlines, such outlines as the populace
can grasp, they must be brought into direct opposition
The Higher ytidaism and Christianity. 43
witli tlieir contraries in the popular tendencies of the
times. They must not be truths of the study, but of
the fishing-boat, and the market, and the exchange,
and the country village. They must not be entrusted
to a few scholars, but sown broadcast over the people.
They must not avoid attack, but meet it; they must
not be kept back for fear of revolutions, but must expect
revolutions and flourish in their atmosphere.
This was the element in which Christ lived, and these
were the tests He chose for his teaching. He made his
truths common property ; He taught them to all alike.
He made no conditions, required no special training.
They were men to whom He spoke ; that was enough
for Christ, and his practice was the keynote of all suc-
ceeding efforts, political or otherwise, to secure liberty
of life and thought for the people. This was what,
it seems, the Jewish doctors did not do. Ta.!5:e the
instance of freedom from the bondage of the law. We
are told that it was preached before Him. Who ever
denied it ? We find it, independent of the Talmud, in
other ancient writings. But again, the question comes.
Why had it no vogue ? Why had it no popular fruit ?
Why did its teaching not create a character like S.
Paul's P Why had it no vital, changing, regenerating
power ?
There was something dead at its root. I believe it
was that it was confined to an intellectual oligarchy,
possessing that indifference to the advance of spiritual
truth which accompanies a merely intellectual concep-
tion of it ; that universal tolerance which lets things
run along, and which loses its good when it becomes
44 ^'^^ Higher yudaism and Christianity.
tolerant of evil ; that hatred of revolutionary movements
which has ever characterised the aristocracy of culture.
Now, if there is one oligarchy more tyrannical and
dangerous to true liberty than another, it is an oli-
garchy of culture ; and that was the position of the Jewish
sages, exceptions of course being understood. It is
inferred, however, that the Jewish schools were demo-
cratic because every man was taught a trade, because
among the roll of their wisest men there were tanners,
carpenters, gardeners, men of the common people. But
if these men were drawn from the ranks, it does not
follow that they were fond of enlightening the class from
which they sprang. On the contrary, these are almost
invariably the worst defenders of their own class, the
most anxious often to keep up a barrier, the greatest
despisers of those among whom they once lived : and as
to the democratic element in such a society, it may last
for a time, but we know from the history of the mediaeval
Church, which drew priests, cardinals, and popes from
the lowest ranks, what its boasted sympathy with the
people came to in the end.
ISTo ; I think we have every reason to conclude that
the text, ' this people who knoweth not the law are
cursed,' is a real picture of what was going on in Pales-
tine at the time of our Lord. If so, can you wonder at
his denunciations ? If the mass of the Pharisees were
keeping up this esoteric learning, this seclusion of
higher truths to a cultured few, are not Christ's words of
indignation justified ? — are you astonished that the very
truths these men held turned to poison in their hearts ?
Above all, is it at all astonishing that these truths had
The HigJier Judaism afid Christianity. 45
no extension, that they did but little work, that they
produced no universal religion ? The chill region of
intellectual knowledge of spiritual truth in which these
doctors lived exiled from it popular enthusiasm. Con-
nected with an exclusive class, they could not be teachers
of the common people. They themselves wanted the
strong life and faithful energy which belong to the
common people. Only in that element could great
truths organise themselves into a religion for men.
Aristocracies, and especially aristocracies of culture, are
not naturally religious ; democracies are. The religions
of the world have arisen from and been supported by
the peojDle. It is very plain that Christ saw and acted
upon that. He committed his truths to fishermen,
publicans, villagers, to Galilseans, to unlearned and igno-
rant men, whose hearts were free and natural, whose
intellects were capable of new thought; He tt'^ew
Himself upon the common people. He gave the loftiest
truths to all men alike. He rejected all clinging to
culture which tended to isolate a class or to limit the
universality of his work. He poured ' light and sweet-
ness ^ on men, but it was a light which shone like
the sun upon all alike, it was a sweetness of thought
and feeling which expended itself upon the unwise as
well as the wise, the outcast from society as well as the
rabbi who was honoured in the Temple.
It was partly this that made his teaching stream like
a river and swell like a sea. It was this partly that
sent it in a few years over Judsea, Greece, Eome, and
Asia. It was partly this that made all nations flow
into it. It was partly this that gave it its expanding.
46 The Highei' Jiidaisju and Christianity.
its conquering power. It was partly this that chimed
in with the great movement of the world towards the
overthrow of a corrupt imperialism and a cruel oppres-
sion of the people. It was partly this that sent its
mighty waves onwards in ever increasing volume, till
they drowned beneath their tide the temples of Pagan-
ism and the ruins of the old philosophies.
It was this which was symbolised at his birth, when
around his sacred infancy knelt in a common worshij)
the men from the East, the rich, the wise, and the nobly
born ; the shepherds from the hills of Bethlehem, poor,
ignorant, and low born ; when intellect and ignorance
alike grew wiser by receiving the kingdom of God as a
little child.
yudaism and Christianity, 47
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY.
* Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor,
and will gather the wheat into his garner ; but the chaff he will
burn with fire unquencliable.' — Luke iii. 17.
' It is (lie glory of Christianitj,' says a modern writer,
' that it carried the golden germs hidden in the schools
and among the silent community of the learned, into
the ma,rket of humanity.' Yes, that is one of the glories
of Christianity as contrasted with esoteric schools, with
that aristocracy of culture which reserves truths to itself
or does not care, in learned laziness, to sj)read them
among the common people. Granting that the Jewish
doctors possessed, before Christ came, many of the
truths He taught, it is plain that, in spite of the
large extension of schools, there was no organised mis-
sionary effort to spread them among the masses. The
phrase, ' this people who knoweth not the law are
cursed,' to whatever date we assign the gospel in which
it occurs, has its importance when we compare it with
another in the gospel of S. Luke : ' The common people
heard Christ gladly.' Whatever may have been the
excellence of the teaching which lay hid among the
wise men of the Pharisees, it is plain that it lay hid,
that the mass of the Pharisees stood apart from the
48 • ytcdaisui and CIuHstianity,
■uneducated masses of the people, and felt that to throw
truth broadcast before them was castmg pearls before
swme.
It is plain that though they possessed in their books
pleasant stories like the parables, in which truths were
represented in simple and natural forms, yet that they
had never gone about to recite them to the fisherman
and the shepherd, never sought by delightful out-of-
door teaching, which laid all nature under contribution,
to brinsr around them. a multitude of men, women, and
children belonging to the people. Whatever their
teaching was, it awakened no popular enthusiasm, it
did not seek for the unlearned and the ignorant by
preference. It is probable that they feared the results :
partly for their own power, which, being exclusive, would
be sure to be endangered by any popular movement ;
partly because they dreaded that a popular reli^'ious
movement might pass into a political one, and involve
them with the Eoman governor. Moreover, the very
theory which depreciates Christianity, in contrast with
the hiffher Judaism, of itself denies that the Jewish
sao-es communicated their truths in an unrestricted
manner to the whole mass of the common people. It
asks, with a kind of suppressed scorn, what you can
expect, when great and golden truths are thrown reck-
lessly among rude and untrained persons, but a whirl-
wind of aimless enthusiasm, and an overthrow of the
quiet house of wisdom. It declares that the revolu-
tionary impulse of Christianity has, while apparently
pushing the world forward, in reality put it back, because
its truths were bestowed on ordinary men before they
yudaism and Christianity. 49
were ready for them. It is a view which has always
characterised exclusive cliques of culture, whether
intellectual or religious. Our small bodies of clever
young men, who have their peculiar admirations in art
and poetry, or political science ; our exquisitely cultured
sects in manners, or in literature, or in morals, or
immorals, one and all, but with different vehemence
and meaning, say, ' These people who know not the
law are cursed.'
I rejoice to feel that Christianity did not accept that
ground, nor begin upon it. Neither Christ nor his fol-
lowers had a shred of that learned exclusiveness which
is content to think and contemplate, but shuns the
rude touch of the common world. They had no well-
bred shrinking from men ; they sought out the sinner,
the poverty-stricken, the leper, the harlot, and th(5
publican. ' It is to you I have been sent,' said Ch: 1st ;
' the kingdom of God is come to you as well as to
others.' He had no thought that one man, by educa-
tion, or learning, or genius, or money, or fame, or by
anything external, was spiritually better than another.
His leather loved men because they were men, and
He loved those best who were humblest, meekest,
and most loving. He favoured no class. He gave
special privileges to no long descent from Abraham.
All were Abraham's children who were like Abraham
in character. He had no fear of results to Himself or to
the people. He did not hold back for an instant be-
cause He saw what would follow his teaching — excite-
ment, reaction, many evils, his own death, his followers'
persecution, the division of the world into opposing
50 yttdaism and Christianity.
camps. He accepted all these as necessary, and went
forward to bear witness to the trntli at all risks, be-
lieving that it was sin to keep back truth because it
would create disturbance — now that the fulness of time
had come.
Hence his action proves that He at least did not
hold the theory of the undesirableness of revolutions.
Indeed we may assume that as He brought a revelation,
He knew that it would upturn the world. Revelations
have always caused revolutions. One follows on the
other, as an outburst of new life follows the advent of
the spring.
There is a certain amount of truth, however, in saying
that revolutions are undesirable ; that one ought not
to make revelations of truths which cause convulsions,
when the people are not prepared for these truths. But
it is the fashion at present to extend this rule too far —
to say that revolutions are always undesirable. It is said,
for instance, that the revolution which Luther worked in
religious thought was premature, that the learning of the
Renaissance, christianised by Erasmus and others of his
type, would slowly have percolated through society and
regenerated it, without bringing in its train the intole-
rance, war, bigotry, and division of sects which followed
the Reformation. It is an exactly analogous asser-
tion to that which is made about Christianity and
the higher Judaism. The only question is — would the
percolating process have succeeded ; would the teaching
of men like Erasmus have had force enough to over-
throw the Epicureanism and infidelity which had
taken new forms with the revival of learning; could
ytcdaism and Christianity. 5 1
it live in a period of change, and disturbance, and wars,
and become a part of them, and modify tliem to its
own end ; would it ever get below the educated and
refined strata of society ?
It never did get below, it could not touch the people's
heart ; it was not a popular movement, it shrank from
vulgarity and the contact of the common sort ; when
war came it retired from the field into contemplation ;
it could not ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm.
And as such, it had, like the higher Judaism, no vogue,
no rush, no rough life in it, no future. If ideas are to
live, I repeat, they must be such as to move the common
people.
It was this that Luther did. It may be answered
that he clung to princes, and opposed the war against
the oppression of the nobles. It is true, but the ideas
he gave were ideas which seized on the hearts of the
common people, and though his action may have been
aristocratic, his thought was making d-emocracy. He
claimed in the realm of religion freedom of thought
for all, and though he opposed the peasant war, and
would have hated the principles of the French revolu-
tion, yet these were both the direct results of a teaching
which men were not slow to transfer from the sphere of
religion to the sphere of politics.
The same is true, certain things being changed, with
regard to Christianity and Judaism. Christ, as Luther
did, saw that this cloistered wisdom which was not
given to the common people would never do anything —
that it had not power to overcome the carelessness,
immorality, and selfishness of the Jewish and heathen
52 Jiidaism and Christianity.
world, and He chose deliberately the sudden revealing
of truth in preference to the system which said : Let
truth slowly filter through the world. He chose revo-
lution.
But we cannot imagine that He chose it, as Luther
did, without knowing what He did. Luther did not see
results ; Christ did. He knew. He felt, with the divine
instinct of one in whom the heart of the whole race
beat, that the revolution which He made was not only
not undesirable, but absolutely necessary. For the
ideas of the old world were exhausted, at least in their
existino- form. Those of them which were true needed
a new spirit. The fulness of time, as S. Paul says, had
come, and if Christ did not act now, decay would have
advanced too far for a resurrection.
The pear was ripe, it would not do to wait till it
was rotten. The objection is that the revelation wrs
given too soon, that it produced a convulsion, and
had all the faults of a convulsion. But there are
times in history when, as in the physical world, the
forces which have been generating for many centuries
reach at last their maximum of expansion. One touch
then, and the earthquake or the revolution takes place.
Of the old Jewish and heathen thought there was
nothing existing but the superficial crust. Beneath,
all had been metamorphosed into elements which
wanted but a touch to reorganise themselves into a
new form of religion. It was the fulness of time;
Christ came ; a new element was added to those already
in solution, and all leaped into life as Christianity.
The very fact on which so much stress has been laid.
yttdaisni and Christianity, 53
tliat the higher Jewish thought resembled the Christian
thought, is a proof of the metamorphosis of the old
Judaic elements. But when it is said that this resem-
blance or identity made the Christian revolution un-
necessary, it is forgotten that though the thought was
new the forms were old. The thoughts of Hillel and
others could not get into acceptance because new
thoughts cannot be communicated through old forms.
Christ Himself saw that clearly. No man. He said,
putteth new cloth on an old garment. Nay more, the
new thought in that case is lost, and so are the old
forms. ' The bottles break, and the wine is spilled. But
new wine is put into new bottles, and both are preserved.'
It is an exact parable of the fate of the higher Judaism
and of the success of Christianity.
Again, supposing that Christ had not caused this
revolution which upturned the old edifice, the edifice
must have perished all the same. It might not have
fallen, as He made it fall, in a moment and with a
crash, but it would have melted away piece by piece.
And if the new ideas had been connected with it and
sent forth, to the world from it, as the theory we are
opposing wishes, the result would have been the de-
struction, for a time at least, of the ideas. They
would have been involved in its ruin. This is what the
sudden revolution of Christianity avoided : Christ con-
nected the new thought with a new form, and directed
it into a right channel.
This also was of importance, that it should be rightly
directed. Had He not come, what would have been the
end ? Would the new thought have gone on filtering
54 ytidaism and Christianity,
slowly throiigli the world ? Bj no means. It was too
strong for that. Its fountain waters were too near
tlie surface. It was too late for slow filtration. Men
strove to keep it back for fear of the excitement it would
cause among the people ; but they could not altogether
restrain it, and it broke forth in isolated places and in
portions, which, because they were only portions of
truth, took false forms. Already, before Christ came,
there had been two political religious revivals of the
worst kind. If He had not come, the new thought
would have taken the form of a political revolution,
and been crushed with it by the Romans; while with its
overthrow would have perished also all that was great
and noble in the old Judaism. It would have been
universal ruin.
Christ came and hewed out for its waters a new and
fitting channel. He led it away from the political
groove where it would have been destroyed, by uniting
it with a spiritual kingdom. ' My kingdom is not of
this world.' He added to it other and deeper thoughts.
He freed it from the danger which beset it from the
side of the Roman government. He gave it free course
over a region wide as mankind, but into which the
Roman power did not care to enter. By these means
He succeeded in retaining all that was good in the
past, and made the growth of the new religion succes-
sive and not sudden, easy and not violent, healthy and
not convulsive. Instead, then, of saying that Christ
caused a revolution which put back the progress of the
world, we should say that He saved the revolution which
was necessarv from the violence which wonld have
ytcdaism and Chi^istianity. 55
brouglit about its ruin ; that He saved it from having
to be done all over again, as, to give a political illus-
tration, has been the case with the French revolution.
What now were the characteristics of this revolution ?
1 . It was destructive. It proclaimed war against the prin-
ciples opposed to it. In this at least it differed totally
from the supposed idea of the Jewish wisdom. To an-
nounce war against the old systems, uncompromising
war, could not be held in that idea. The theory is that
the Jewish sages wished to slowly winnow away the
chaff and leave the corn. It is the idea which naturally
belongs to a high culture. Every cultivated man allows
its excellence, and it is fally contained and accepted in
Christianity, the slowness of the growth of which is
insisted on again and again by Christ. But there are
certain times in history when a great shock is necessary,
and those are the greatest men who can see this and
boldly risk the danger. There arc times when it is too
late to expect that the world can be saved by the instil-
lation of good, times when the chaff is so multitudinous
and so rotten that the. wheat is in a double danger, the
danger of being lost, the danger of being corrupted.
The only thing then is to burn up the chaff at once
with a fire which will not touch the wheat. This,
which cannot be done in the physical, can be done in
the moral and spiritual world. It is the characteristic
property of a noble and living idea, when it gets loose
upon the world, to consume all that is base and dead,
and to assimilate all that is like itself. Christ saw that
the time had come, that the whole world of Jews and
heathens was so choked up with chaff that a slow
56 yudaism and Christianity.
process would be ruin. He seized the moment, He
accepted its dangers, and He sent forth ideas which
flew along like flame, consuming, destroying, but also
assimilating. ' Whose fan was in his hand, and He did
throughly purge his floor, and gather the wheat into
his garner. But the chaff He burned up with un-
quenchable fire.'
It is curious how clearly his Apostles saw, through
his spirit, that the race of the old philosophies and
of Judaism under its old forms was run. The fa-
bric of Roman heathenism was at its highest external
splendour ; the fabric of Judaic morality had never
been so concentrated, so powerful over the souls of
men. It would seem insanity to attack them ; it
would raise a laugh to say that they were dead. And
yet a few unlearned and common men said that both
were effete, that their fabrics were rotten inwardly, that
they only wanted a push to perish. As such, they were
corrupting the world, and no mercy was to be shown to
them. And the rain descended and the wind blew and
the floods beat ujDon those specious houses in every word
which the disciples of Jesus spake, and they fell, and
great was the fall of them. They were founded on the
sand. The result proved that Christianity was right,
for the victory was won against tremendous odds, not by
force of arms but by force of faith and force of thought.
2. But if Christianity was destructive as a revolution
it was also preservative. If Christ sent forth ideas
which consumed the chaff, He sent them forth also to
gather the wheat into his garner. The judgment of
the corrupt elements in the Jewish and heathen worlds
ytcdaism a?id Christianity. 57
enabled Christianity, ere it was too late, to assimilate
their scattered wheat. No noble feeling or true thought,
either in Judaism or in heathenism, perished. They
were taken up and woven into the new fabric. Take
an historical instance. Rome had still a splendid code
and tradition of law, civilised customs, a majestic
mode of building, a literature, an impressive social
culture. These were all bound up with an empire
which, as the years went on, fell ever more rapidly
to pieces. Its death-throes were protracted, but death
was there. Now why, when the northern nations came
like eagles on this carcase, wh}-- did not all these useful
elements perish with it? Because when the nations
came they found all these elements not only in the
dying empire, but in the living Church. Christianity
had taken them into itself, assimilated them ; and so
abounding in life was the new Christian body that it
conquered the conquerors of Eome and handed on to the
new jDeoples which grew out of the barbarian hordes
the unextinguished torches of Roman literature, of Ro-
man law, of Roman culture, of Roman architecture.
It was the same with religion. At Alexandria, at
Rome, in Greece, in the East, wherever Christianity
came, it displayed this wonderful power of collecting
into itself and using the living thoughts of the past,
while it rejected those that had no vitality. It abolished
all the old forms in which these living thoughts had
been clothed, it took the living things themselves, and
modified them so as to unite them to its own life. It
was this which soon collected into the Church almost
all the intellect of the world of that time.
58 yicdaisni and Christianity.
3. Its third element was a civilising power. Neither
Greek science nor Roman culture had power to spread
beyond themselves. The Romans themselves — and we
have the testimony of the Emperor Julian to this — con-
sidered the barbarous Western nations incapable of
culture. The fact was that Rome did not try to
civilise in the right way. Instead of drawing forth the
native energies of these nations, while it left them
free to develope their own national peculiarities in
their own way, it imposed on them from without the
Roman education. It tried to turn them into Romans.
Where this effort was unsuccessful, the men remained
barbarous ; where it was successful, the nation lost its
distinctive elements in the Roman elements, at least
till after some centuries the overwhelming influence of
Rome had perished. Meantime, they were not Britons,
nor Gauls, but s^Durious Romans. The natural growth of
the people was arrested. Men living out of their native
element became stunted and spiritless.
It was of the first importance, then, that some civil-
ising influence should arise which should permit of
free development — which should save the world from
the dilemma of being made altogether in the Roman
pattern, or of remaining in barbarism.
This was the work of Christianity, and it was done
by its ministers, in the first place, not as apostles of
culture, but as persons who spoke to the common wants
of the spirit of man. They made simple statements
which appealed to universal feelings, and for the truth
of which they appealed to the necessities of man. God
is Love, they said ; One h .s come who will give rest to
the weary and heavy-laden ; there is a world in which
ytidaism a7id Christianity. 59
all men are equal, and all brotliers, as children of a
heavenly Father ; the spirit of man is as immortal as
God Himself; the sense of sin in the heart is taken
away by a. Saviour who redeems us by giving us power
to do sin no more. These and others fell like dew upon
the thirsty land of the spirit of man, and awoke into life
the seeds of the spiritual powers ; the resurrection of
the soul to life took place. That was the first step.
One part of the man began to live naturally, freely,
lovingly. But it is the property of life to communicate
itself to all parts of the system in which it begins to
act ; and on the development of the spirit followed the
development of the heart and the intellect. And the
growth was from within outwardly. The Christian
teachers reversed the Roman mode of proceeding.
Hence the peculiar character of any nation was not
lost in Christianity, but, so far as it was good, developed
and intensified. The people grew naturally into their
distinctive type and place in the world.
But was it zeal for science or love of philosophy which
led men to leave the pleasant seats of civilisation to
instruct and help the barbarous nations ? Neither Stoic,
nor Platonist, nor Judaic Neo-Platonist ever did it. IS'o ;
the power which led them forth was the kindling with-
in them of a great love to a divine man, who said that
all men were his brothers, who had given his life for
all, and who declared that those who loved Him should
go forth to preach his good tidings, to heal the sick, to
bind up the broken heart, to deliver those who were
bound, to seek and save the lost. This was work which
the exclusive spirit of the Jewish sages could not do.
The missionary spirit was the product of love to
6o yudaism and Christianity.
Christ. The civilisation of the barbarians was the pro-
duct of the missionary spirit.
And now, in conclusion, we resume all thai has been
said, in another form. That which is true about the
great movements of the world is not without its personal
interest to us, nor without its analogies in our life.
We also have our revolutions.
Much has been said about the crisis which comes
upon many young men after their entrance into life,
wheu, after emerging from the university, the first
overwhelming impression of the movements and com-
plexity of the great world is made upon them. But
little has been said of that more secret upturning
of the soul which takes place in manhood, and of
which the outspoken early movement is but the fore-
runner— the little wave which breaks in foam and noise
upon the beach, before the long, massive, immense
volume of the swell glides silently up the shore to move
the very foundations of the breakwater. Men and
women rarely speak of this ; the only outward sign is a
slight tinge of bitterness. But beneath the quietude a
tempest is at work. The time comes, when a man knows
that if he is to be worth anything, he must be true, he
must get rid of all conventional beliefs and understand
what he means and on what he can rest. The old forms
of his thought are exhausted; the old religion of his
childhood has no words for him ; the very enthusiasms
of his youth he finds but poor images of the unreached
ideals which cry aloud within him. By many impulses
and events, by loves, sorrows, hates ; by clashing with the
yudaism and Christianity. 6i
world, by unexpected agonies in his own heart ; by the
weaving and unweaving of life — bj the direct speech of
God — the elements of a new being have gradually col-
lected beneath the crust of the old. New ideas, new
points of view, new perceptions of the world around, new
phases of old problems, have gradually accumulated till
the ancient forms are no longer able to bear the pres-
sure. The fulness of time has come ; a revolution is
necessary.
It is sore work when that day arrives, and men are
often so tired then that it seems unfair that all the inner
life should be again disturbed, and that, not as before on
the surface, but down to and throughout the very depths
of being. But it is at the peril of our worthiness that
we refuse its call, and hush its elements into a false
peace ; we must go through with it.
The solemn question is — how will its elements break
out? — towards the world or towards God? Shall the
spirit of Theudas and Judas be at its head, or the spirit
of Christ? Will it be ruled by the spirit of meekness,
of dependence on a Father, or by the spirit of display
and self-dependence ? Will the final result of it be —
' N^ot this man, but Barabbas ' — or ' For this end was I
born, and for this cause came I into the world, to bear
witness to the truth '?
There are many to whom these words pf mine, vague
as they are, have their meaning. Such secret revolu-
tions are more frequent every day.
I will not say what is the result if the overthrow of
the old is followed by an overthrow of all, and faith in
God, in morality, in immortality, is drowned ; but I
will say what this revolution is, if it is towards God.
62 yudaism and C hris Haiti ty.
It is also destructive. It brings with it a living
flame whicli burns up our chaff. It goes forth to con-
sume our evil, and it does not cease. It proclaims war
against all that is base, unbelieving, unhopeful, and
unloving. It takes us into union with Christ— tlie
hater, the enemy, and the conqueror of evil.
It is preservative. It destroys nothing which is noble
in our past ; it does not limit or enslave any high thought
or true aspiration ; it does not crush our nature, where
our nature has been godlike. It takes, on the contrary'-,
all things good into itself ; it assimilates their elements,
and informs them with its own life ; it makes them
nobler, greater, and eternal, by uniting them to a new
and living idea, and by directing them to find their
growth and their goal in God, from whom they came.
And lastly, it goes forth to civilise — or, shall we
say, to sanctify the whole man. It penetrates to the
outlying portions of the soul which as yet have not
been touched. It awakens capabilities the existence of
which we did not suspect. It brings into harmony
with God, interests — such as love of art, or the serious
play of imagination, or political or business life— which
we thought could not have anything to do with re-
ligious life. It institutes and cari'ies out an inward
missionary movement to every point of our manifold
nature, till the whole man is saved, ennobled, purified ;
and we are as the world shall be, wholly redeemed and
glorified, body, soul, and spirit.
Therefore, O God our Father, come to us through
Christ this Advent time. Incarnate Thyself in us.
Give to us the revelation which makes revolution.
The Central Truth of Christianity, 63
TKE CENTRAL TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY,
' And the Word was made fleshy and dwelt among us.' — John i. 14.
It happened, once on a time, as men went to and fro
in the world who were interested in the arts, that they
discovered, at different periods, and hidden away in
many countries, portions, it seemed, of exquisite statues
— a foot, an arm, a torso, a broken hand. Something
superb in each of these made men recognise them at
once as perfect. Each nation cherished their separate
piece as an ideal of art ; each drifted into a thousand
suspicions as to the author and his intention ; each
completed the statue from conjecture according to their
own ability. At last, owing to the decay of the nations,
and to the rise of one upon their ruins, all the. several
pieces were collected in one museum. They were still
considered as belonging to separate nations and periods
of art. Dissertations were written and lectures were
delivered upon them ; the ideal completions which each
nation had made of their several pieces were placed
beside them, and the completions studied with infinite
criticism.
One day, however, when the artist world were col-
lected in the museum^ a man whom no one knew,
64 The Central Truth of Christianity.
entered, and slowly went from room to room examining
the famous remnants one after another, but passing by
the completions of each, with some indifference. At
last he approached the group of artists : ' Sirs,' he said,
' I have examined your famous pieces of sculpture, and
their ideal restorations. The restorations are interest-
ing as examples of art at different periods, but worth-
less as a foundation for any true ideal. But, did it never
strike you that all your pieces are of the same time and
by the same hand, and that you have but to bring them
together out of their several rooms and unite them ?
Your ideal statue is among you, and you know it not.'
When he had thus spoken, many laughed and some
mocked, but a few were found to listen ; the greater
part, however, as the stranger grew more earnest, be-
came indignant — for what would become of their art
theories if he were right? — and drove him out of the
museum with ignominy. But the few sought him out,
and it is said that they entered the building by night
and brought together the remnants, the stranger super-
intending, and found it even as he had said. They saw
the statue grow, piece by piece, into unity, but at the
end the head was wanting. A great cry of pity arose —
' What ! ' they wept, ' shall we never see the ideal
realised ? ' But the stranger, as they wept, drew from be-
neath his cloak the head, and crowned the statue with
completeness. And as he did so, he passed away and
was seen no more. But the perfect thing remained — the
pure ideal of divine art, fully realised at last. Then
those few gave up their theories, and their delight in
the separate remnants and their restorations, and went
The Central Truth of Christianity. 65
abroad, taking with tliem the x^erfect thing, to preach
a new kingdom of art ; and when men asked them to
define and theorise art, they stept aside, and unveiling
the statue, said, ' Look and see ; this is Art. If you can
receive it, you too will become artists. This is all our
definition, this is all our theory.' And some believed and
others did not, but slowly the new ideal won its way,
till it grew to be the rule and the model of the greater
part of the artist world.
Of what took place at the museum when the mockers
found their pieces gone — of how they fought against
the possessors of the statue, and denied that it had
anything to do with their lost remnants ; of how they
made counterfeits of these remnants, and clung to their
ancient restorations as the true ideals — I need not tell ;
nor yet of a more pitiable thing — of how in after times
the followers of the true ideal made false copies of it,
modifying it, and introducing their own ideas into it,
and held up these, and not the perfect statue, for the
imitation and aspiration of the world of art. Are not
these things written in history ? But again and again,
the one efi'ort of all true artists since has been to brinsr
back men to the contemplation of that single figure.
This parable illustrates what I have been saying
for some Sundays. The scattered truths of the world
were truths from God. Men wove diverse relierions
round the diverse truths. At last Christ came, and
did not reject, but brought together in Himself, the
previous truths — made them for the first time fit into
one another, so that each took its place; and then
4
66 TJie Central Triith of ChiHstianity.
crowned them with the completmg and new truth —
the truth of the Divine Man.
These two things — the bringing into harmony of
truths and the addition of the truth of the God Man
— are distinctive peculiarities of Christianity, and of
these we speak to-day.
It is not difficult to illustrate what I mean by the
harmonising of truth. Before the time of Newton,
many isolated facts concerning the universe and its
motions had been discovered, but they remained like
isolated lights at a distance from each other. But when
the philosopher came who saw into the life of things,
and the theory of gravitation was born, it made the
previous truths concordant ; their separate lights shot
into its brilliant beam, and the beacon blazed by which
we read the secrets of the universe. It was then that
the astronomer's work became practical. Ho had a
truth wliich gave tenfold value to other truths, and
made them instruments of tenfold power. He had a
truth in which all the phenomena of natm-e were corre-
lated, and as he learnt their several relations, each
became a key to unlock the difficulties of the others.
Much remained unexplained, but he knew now that
investigation and patience were all that were needed.
He had- the key of the universe in his hand ; he was
sure of finding out all truth within the sphere of his
special business.
This is that which Christ did for us. We have granted
that many truths which He declared afresh existed
before his time; but they were isolated, their mutual
connection was not perceived. Hence they had no
The Central Truth of Christianity. 67
regenerative power, but little practical power. Great
men worked at them, carried them out into separate
philosophies, but thej never got any wide popular in-
fluence, and they were finally buried under a weight
of conjectures and conceits. The first enthusiasm they
had created died away — nor, indeed, did they ever pro-
duce that peculiar characteristic of Christianity, an
active and unceasing propagandism.
But under the transforming hand of Christ, these
truths came together into a perfect whole. The truth
of doing good for good's sake became in harmony with
the truth of doing good for the sake of immortal life.
They had formerly clashed, and there are persons yet
who think they clash. The truth that the soul is to
be absorbed in God united itself with the truth of the
distinct personality of the soul, and in uniting, the one
lost its pantheism and the other its isolated r^elf-de-
pendence. The truth that men lived by faith, and the
apparently opposed truth that they lived by works,
found in the love which Christ awoke to Himself a
point where they mingled into one. No truth was left
to sound its note alone, but all together harmonised
arose into
That undistiirbed song of pure concent
Aye sung before the sapphire coloured throne.
If this be true, it forms one of the distinctive qualities
of Christianity. No heathen philosophy had done it,
no heathen religion had attempted it. In fact, they
had not the materials. No Jewish Doctors had suc-
ceeded in it, though they had attempted it. One or
two may have had, as had the heathen, glimpses of it —
68 The Central Truth of Christianity.
all liad a vague susiDicion of it ; but it still remained a
vision till Christ came and supplied the magic word
which gave the spiritual affinity of all truths space and
power to act.
Immediately on coming into harmony, they became
inspiring princij)les in men and instruments powerful
for practical work. They took new and vigorous de-
velopments— as, for example, the truth of immortality.
The men who possessed them were conscious of power,
and they laboured as if they were secure of victory.
They did not mind stating apparently opposed truths ;
they knew that they could give to men a higher truth,
in which the contradictories became two sides of the
same truth. And when the glorious oratorio of Chris-
tian truth was sung, with parts for every nation,
and the chorus rose in which the most diverse found
themselves in harmony, men said, This is unique in
the world's history. Heathenism, philosophies. Oriental
thought, Hebraism, Judaism, have never done work
like this.
But what was the crowning truth which completed
the ideal statue ? — what was the magic word which set
separated truths flowing together? — what was the
directing element which harmonised the varied songs
of truth into a whole ? It was the doctrine, or rather
the fact, of the Divine Man; the truth of the Word
made flesh, the fact that God had entered into Man, had
revealed the Divinity of Man, the Humanity of God.
This is the central truth of the world. This is the truth
without which all other truths fall back into their isola-
tion. This is the key to all the mysteries of life within
The Central Truth of Christianity. 69
and life without. This is the axis on which the whole
sphere of religious truth spins round, without a check,
in exquisite unity of parts, with exquisite unity of
purpose ; and this is the essential difference of Chris-
tianity, the distinctive declaration of Christianity, the
underived and original conception of Christ. No
Gentile nation gave it to the world ; no Jewish sages
brought it forth. It is the only begotten son of Chris-
tianity.
It is true, that both east and west sought to realise
this idea of the unity of the Divine and Human ;
and it has been said, on the one side, that it was de-
rived from the Indian religions, and on the other from
the Greek.
Let us see if this be true.
In the East, the Hindoo conceived of God assuming
the form of man in order to convey truth and to brhig
man to Himself. God condescends to man — so far it
is Christian. But is it the Christian idea? It wants
its very essence, the assumption of the whole nature of
man into deity. Yishnu, when he returns to heaven,
lays aside his human nature. Again, there are many
incarnations of Vishnu, in diverse forms ; there is there-
fore no true conception of the essential and complete
unity of God and Man : once done, it would be done
for ever. Again, as the Hindoo idea developed, its
underlying thought of the antagonism between the
divine and the human, the infinite and the finite, grew
into prominence. We find, when the two are repre-
sented as coming together, that the human element
is annihilated^ and the divine Manhood is therefore
Jo Tlie Central Truth of Christianity.
only apparent, and not real. Hence at last arose tlie
Hindoo conception that the perfect spiritual stage of
any man was only reached when he himself was lost
as an individual, when his Man's nature was consumed
in absorption in the Divine. Finally, in Buddhism,
both God and Man may be said to have perished in
the idea of the absolute Nothing, or, if we take the
materialistic view of Buddhism, in the idea of the all-
containing world. This is not the Christian thought,
nor is it its source.
Turn now to the West, take the Greek effort to find
this unity of the divine and human. The Greek com-
menced at the other end from the Hindoo. The
Hindoo began with God, the Greek with man. The
Hindoo started from the point of entire resignation to
God ; the Greek from the idea of free self-development.
By active effort of intellect and soul, man, thought the
Greek, might attain to union with the Divine, be worthy
to ascend Olympus. This is directly in opposition to
the Christian idea, that Man's nature receives the
divinity through the grace of God, cannot gain it for
itself. It leaves out the idea of sin and defectiveness
in man, which is, according to the Christian thought,
the moving cause of God entering into man. Its end
is the exaltation of man, the end of Christianity is
the glorification of God in the exaltation of man.
Thus, so far as the great typical religions of the
East and West are concerned, the fountain idea of
Christianity is underived, original and distinctive. At
the same time we see plainly that East and West strove
after it, and that Christianity realises for the first time
The Ce7ttral Truth of Christia^iity. 71
for them that which they failed to realise for them-
selves, and realises it so fully that it is only by the
help of this Christian idea that we can understand the
true tendency and work of the old religions.
It is not then in heathenism : is it to be found in
Hebraism or Judaism ? In both of these forms of the
religion of the Jews, there is that which heathenism
wanted — a clear idea of the moral relation between God
and the world ; but the very clearness of this idea, as
it divided, in Hebraism, the All-holy God from unholy
man, stifled the thought that there could be such an
essential relation between man and God as would make
their union possible. We can scarcely imagine any
Hebrew forming out of his religion the idea of Jehovah
becoming incarnate in man. There was a great gulf
between man and God. Later on, the wiser Jews,
feeling this separation and its spiritual pain, sought
to bridge over the gulf by the ideas of a mediating
emanation, or of angels who linked the mfinite God
to His finite children; but the end was, that these
somewhat usurped the idea of God without giving the
idea of man. Later still, there arose the idea which
has been now revived, that the revelation of God to
man was only a general inward revelation of God to
the spirit; that the divine and human were always
mingling in the heart of every faithful and righteous
man. The latter part of the statement holds a truth,
but the whole is not the Christian idea : first, because
it renders any incarnation unnecessary for man ; and
secondly, it denies the historical reality of a perfect
unity of the nature of God and Man in one person.
72 The Central Truth of Christianity.
According to this last Jewisli and modern conception,
portions of God's nature are being ever united to par-
ticular men. According to the Christian conception,
the entire divinity v^as united to universal Man in
Christ. It is not only a communication of qualities, it
is a communication of essence.^
Thus, the peculiar doctrine of Christianity stanas
alone, underived, as from heathenism so from Ju-
daism, but explaining both and fulfilling the v^ants of
both ; so that at last, looking back from our standpoint
in Christianit}^, we can see that all the religions of the
world before Christianity were a preparation for Chris-
tianity, were exhausting all possible ideas that the one
great idea might stand out in lonely pre-eminence, and
yet take into its loneliness all the isolated truths of
the past.
It is not a just theory, then, which says that Judaism,
if let alone, would have done the work of Christianity^
for the main idea of Christianity was not contained in
Judaism. One might as well say that ox3^gen and
hydrogen in the fitting proportions would, if left side
by side long enough, form water in the end without
the combining touch of electricity. Whatever may be
the value of the work of Christianity, centuries of
Judaism would not have done it. Judaism was in fact
getting farther and farther away from the possibility
of arriving at the central idea of Christianity, from
the working, impelling, regenerating idea of a human
God.
* The subject is more fully expanded in the Introduction to Dorner's
Christulogy, from which much has here been taken.
The Central Truth of Christia7iity. "j^
Tlie organic connection of the lesser truths of Chris-
tianity with this the greatest, is too great a subject to
enter upon now. We will close with a restatement of
what we have said as applied to our personal lives.
That which Christ did for the previous truths in the
world. He does for us. We live, before we believe on
Him, as possessors of isolated religious truths. We hold
one at one time and another at another time, till par-
ticular truths, being over-insisted on, grow monstrous,
and the unity of life is broken. We cannot concentrate
our impulses to one end, for they need an inner bond of
thought. One idea contends with another and usurps
the throne of another. They have no wish to act
together. Now it is obedience to the moral law which
rules our conduct, till we drift into Pharisaism ; now it
is the freedom of the Gospel, till we drift into lawless-
ness. The truths we have are excellent, but discon-
nected from their brother- truths they tend to become
half-truths, and their end is, not uncommonly, either to
die of spiritual starvation, or to be changed into false-
hoods. Now, as Christ harmonised and united the
religious thoughts of the world, so, when He is truly
received, does He bring the inner life of the soul into
harmony. Under the reign of his love no truth can
be pushed too far, for a single truth exclusively dwelt
on is the parent of fanaticism or persecution. As the
first principle of his rule of the physical world is order,
so is it in the s}3iritual world of our hearts. He allots
to each quality its work. He brings the truths we
possess into an ordered phalanx, each one in its place
and its best place ; and, concentrating these. He inspires
74 The Cent7^al T7nUh of Christianity.
them with his spirit, and drives them in penetrating
onset against all the evil and falsehood in the soul.
They act together, because, in their centre, as the
king of truths, they possess the knowledge that the
whole nature of Man is united to God.
But here we pause. What that truth does for us as
life goes on, and age and failure come ; what it reveals
when the mountain-pass of death is crossed amid the
freezing air ; what visions of a glory of the Lord to be
revealed in Man, when the rose of eternity expands its
infinitely foliaged cup, where every leaf is a nation and
the stem which bears them Christ — we leave for the
present to the future ; it is enough for us to-day, that
our statue is complete in idea. We have seen the blind
strivings of the world accomplished in the Incarnation.
We have seen the o'ermastering attraction Avith which
Christ drew all truths into Himself, and concentrated
in Himself their light, so that indeed He rose upon
mankind as its universal sun. Let us part with the
maiestic thought, let it be our companion for the
week.
The Central Truth of Christianity. 7 5
TRE CENTRAL TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY.
'And the "Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.' — John i. 14.
The doctrine which, we spoke of last Sunday as the
distinctive doctrine of Christianity was the doctrine of
a divine humanity. Whatever else Christianity derived
from other religions, this at least was underived. What-
ever else was interwoven into the Christian web from
the threads spun by Jewish sage, or heathen philoso-
pher, this was not. It was itself the warp on which the
whole Christian woof was woven. Both Eastern and
Western religions had seen this truth of God and Man
in one, floating, a nebulous dream, before them, and had
tried to resolve it into the guiding star of their thought,
but their efforts closed in failure. The Oriental, begin-
ning with God condescending to man, ended, at the
very moment when he seemed nearest to the true con-
ception, in a deification of the universe, in which God
and man were both lost. The Western, beginning with
man aspiring to God, found its grave in the Alexandrian
Platonism, which, rejecting the deified world of the
Greeks, ended in the conception of one Divine substance
before which everything finite was only phenomenal,
not actual. The Greek ended where the Hindoo began.
76 The Ce7itral Truth of Christianity.
The circle of failure was complete.^ But the proclama-
tion of the true idea explained the failure, and realised
the dream. Christ came, and the fountain idea of a true
union of the Divine and Human broke upwards through
the mountain-top of the world, and streamed on all
sides down through the radiating valleys of the nations,
drawing into itself all the local religious streams, and
developing from itself new rivers of spiritual ideas.
Wherever it came, it fertilised the exhausted plains
of human thought ; wherever it came, new systems of
thought rose like stately cities on its banks ; wherever
it came, it was the highway of civilisation, uniting by
its waters the fresh conceptions of the younger peoples
to the wise ideas of the older, till both were bound
together in spiritual commerce on its stream.
All this has the vagueness of a comj)arison, but
there is not a touch in it for which I have not a
meaning, for to me all Christianity, and all the work
of Christianity can be directly traced to one central
source, the fact that in Christ Jesus Humanity was re-
vealed as divine and Divinity as human ; each side of
the truth being equally important — the entering of God
into man, the entering of man into God. This doctrine
I accept, and for once I must deviate into the first
person, not on the authority of Church or Bible, but
because I feel the necessity of it to me. Not that I am
foolish enough to despise authority. The fact that after
nearly three hundred years of intellectual labour and
of spiritual feeling upon this subject, the present doc-
^ See Dorner's Christology, Introduction.
The Central Ti^ut/i of CImstianity. 'jj
trine emerged as a result cannot be witliout force to
those who believe not only in the power of man to work
out truth, but also in the directing influence of a
Divine Spirit on the world. But authority must be
kept in its place. It is not the edifice, it is the buttresses
of the edifice. It does not make a doctrine true to you
or me, but if we feel a doctrine to be true, it is a support
and strength to feeling. It is the second, not the first.
Make it the first, and you must become the bigot
and the denouncer of all who do not hold your doctrine.
Make it the second, and you are freed from the dread-
ful burden of condemning the Theist, and unchristian-
ising the Unitarian. We feel that the doctrine of the
Divine humanity of Christ is true. Well, does that
lead us to condemn the Theist, or the Unitarian ?
On the contrary, to sympathise with them to a certain
point, because their essential elements are included in
the doctrine we believe. We have reached it first
through Theism, then through Unitarianism, and if we
denounce either, we denounce the stages through which
we have attained the higher form. Theism is true, but
there is a higher truth. To believe in it now as the
whole of truth appears to us to be an anachronism.
To hold what it asserts as a part of truth appears to us
to be a necessity. Unitarianism has a higher truth
than Theism. Listen to this passage : ' Not more
clearly does the worship of the saintly soul, breathing
through its window o^ned to the midnight, betray the
secrets of its affections, than the mind of Jesus of
Nazareth reveals the perfect thought and inmost love
of the All-ruling God. Were he the only born —the
"J?, The Central TriUa of Cludstianity.
solitary self-revelation — of the creative spirit, he could
not more purely open the mind of heaven ; being the
very Logos — the apprehensible nature of God — which,
long unuttered to the world, and abiding in the be-
ginning with Him, has now co-me forth and dwelt among
us, full of grace and truth, '"^ The Hne which divides
that statement from the highest truth we accept of
Christ's nature is very thin. We accept the statement,
but, we pass beyond it to a higher conception which
includes it. Hence I, for one, cannot condemn either
Theist or Unitarian, without condemning a portion of
my own belief.
But what proof is there that the doctrme of which
you speak is the highest? demands the Theist. No
proof amounting to demonstration, I answer. But the
want of the power of demonstrating the tnith to others
is not peculiar to us. Can the Theist demonstrate the
existence of God ? can the Unitarian, immortality P No !
no more than I can the truth of the Incarnation. We
are all, as persons, thrown upon the witness in our own
hearts. We can only see that which we have light to
see.
But we can approach a decision as to which doctrine
is the highest by putting certain questions. On which
theory is the relation of man to God, and of God to man,
most clearly and most nobly explained ? Which theory
explains the greatest number of the facts and feelings
and problems of the sj)iritual world? From which
theory follows most easily and most consistently the
* Endeavours after the Christian Life, vol. ii. p. 349. By James Martineau.
The Central Ti^uth of ChiHstianity. 79
great religious ideas common to us all — the Father-
hood of God, the universal brotherhood of the race, the
progress of man through evil to final good. Which
theory has the greatest number of analogies to the
ideas of the revelation of God in science ?
On some of these points I have already spoken ; we
choose only one to-day — the natural development of the
great religious ideas from the doctrine of the Incarna-
tion.
But first, with regard to the doctrine itself, and the
place which has been given it. I said that it included
the truths taught by the Theist and the Unitarian.
The Theist will reply. It does not include my truth ;
it denies it by the addition of an untruth. I say that
God is One ; you say that the One God is Three.
It is scarcely a fair way of putting it, for we go on to
say that the Three are One. In terms, at least, we
aver the unity of God. Our term ' the three persons '
does not mean three distinct and separate beings, but
three modes of being in one primal Being. We assert,
that is, a complexity of being in God, in contradistinc-
tion to the assertion of a unity which seems to us an
assertion of uniformity of being, not of unity of being.
Now there is no doubt that the more complex a
nature is, the higher it is ; and the more uniform it is,
the lower it is ; and therefore any conception of God
which represents His being as complex, is higher than
one which represents His being as uniform. I cannot
hold the old Hebrew, or the theistic conception of God,
without feeling that I am far behind the vanward of
thought, in that position into which a people emerging
So The Central Triith of Christianity.
from heathenism would naturally enter, as, for example,
the Hindoo youth are doing now. My conception of a
true unity of being, unless the teaching of science
and of the higher national politics is useless to me,
must include complexity of being. This is the truth
which lay hidden in, and gave life to, the errors of
Polytheism ; and instead of throwing away the Avhole
of Polytheism as abominable, I take the root idea of
it and say, the Being of God is multiform in its oneness.
I see in Polytheism the unconscious striving of the
human mind after a higher idea of God than that of the
Theist. It failed, it developed error after error, but it
was not useless ; it prepared the world to receive the
truth which explained and realised its striving — the
truth of the Trinity in Unity.
He is at least on the threshold only of metaphysical
thought who says that a truth which asserts a three-
fold or fourfold Being in God denies His unity of Being.
Suppose that the one constant force of the physical
universe were a living Person. Should I deny his unity
of Being because I said, he is the force electricity,
he is the force magnetism, &c. ; and yet he is Force
alone ; he is one and he is twenty ; he is twenty ' in
one and one in twenty ? I do not deny unity of Being
in this case ; on the contrary, I make it more rational, I
clothe it in higher thought when I maintain its com-
plexity.
Ao-ain, it is said that the Incarnation is an idea
degrading to God.
Surely there may be another aspect of the question.
Is it apart from a noble conception of God that He
The Central Trtith of Clu^isiianity. 8 1
should desire to partake of the lives of His creatures
for the loving purpose of comprehending theai more
perfectly ?
But it is replied, that God without that does com-
prehend us perfectly in Himself? In thought, yes, but
in experience, no. God is impassible, absolute, infinite.
Hov^ is He, vs^ith all His love, to comprehend in Himself
a life like ours, which is relative, full of suflPering, and
finite ? This was the religious difiiculty of the ancient
world. We saw last Sunday how they strove to solve
it by endeavouring to bring God and man into unity.
They failed to do it, but they felt that it was necessary.
There seems thus an intellectual necessity for the
Incarnation. Moreover, instead of jarring against our
idea of God, the Incarnation seems not only natural,
but delightful to conceive. How often have we our-
selves, when affection for the lower creation hns been
kindled in us, desired in idea to enter into their life
for a time, and then to return into ourselves again
with a new consciousness of a lower life than our own,
and with increased ability and desire to hel]3. And if
we have felt this towards a nature not kindred to our
own, how much more may God have felt it towards a
nature in direct kinship with Himself?
It is a noble thought : it ought to commend itself to
all who have ever loved purely and passionately, and
desired to become at one with the being of those they
loved.
I feel that God desires to be born into the being of
all the intelligent creatures that He has made, and
I ask, with reverence, how do we know that He has not
82 The Central Tricth of C/irisfianity.
incarnated Himself in other beings than in Man ? If
other intelligent and spiritual, but defective beings,
live elsewhere in the universe, it may be that the In-
carnation on our earth is not an isolated fact ; it may
be that in His manifold unity there may be many
creature-consciousnesses. Trinity in unity is the ex-
pression of the eternal nature of the Being of God in
its relation to us. But the Being of God may be
infinitely more complex than that. We may learn here-
after that our phrase is but a poor expression of the
thousand modes of Being in the unity of God, that the
Incarnation has many analogies in the universe.
It does not seem irreverent to make these specula-
tions. Irreverence exists in the intention, and the in-
tention here is to exalt and not to lower our idea of
the nature of God.
But what we have to do with is this — the idea of the
union of God and man as the central truth of the
highest religion. We dwelt last Sunday on its unique-
ness, we have suggested to-day its naturalness ; we
proceed to show how easily there flows from it the three
great religious ideas of the world.
And first, the idea of the Fatherhood of God. Ac-
cording to our doctrine, God, in Chiist, has taken all
mankind into Himself as a dependent part of His
Being. That is the idea, and it depends on this — that
Christ, in our belief, was not only a man but Man —
the realisation in one Person of the whole idea which
God had of Man, so that while He represents us each
to ourselves as we ought to be, He also represents and
has taken the whole of the race into God. In God,
The Central TriUh of Christianity. 8
o
therefore, there is now the perfect Man, real to Him,
ideal to us. Man in the eternal and actual world is
one and eternal; but on earth and in time he is im-
perfect, and divided into many men in different stages
of development. These several parts of the great
whole which is to be, must, if our doctrine be true,
be brought up to the level of the ideal Man which
exists in God. God is bound to them in thought as
He is bound to His own nature; and as He is a
Person, and they are persons, that binding relation
is a personal relation, the relation of a loving Thinker
to the thing thought, the relation of a loving Creator
to the thing created. A relation, therefore, of edu-
cation, of infinite care and pity, of redemption ; the
relation of a Father to an erring child, who, seen as
what he will be, not as what he is, is not looked upon
by God as outside Himself, but felt, since he has been
united to all men in Christ, as a part of Himself. This
conception makes the Fatherhood of God a glorious
reality ; makes all the duties which belong to Father-
hood imperative upon God by His loving act of Incar-
nation.
But since God has been united in Christ — not to a few,
but to the whole of the human race — this Fatherhood
is necessarily universal. All doctrines of favouritism
are at once expelled by this ; all despair of races is at
once destroyed; all hopelessness for those who suffer,
and those who are evil, perishes ; all contempt of our
brother-men is no more, for all men are divine in God
since they have been in Christ.
Then comes a crowd of other religious ideas derived
84 T^he Ce7ttral Truth of Christianity.
as naturally from this as rivers from a fountain. For
there follows, if the same belief be true, the necessary
immortality of all mankind. Men are not becoming
immortal ; they are, since all mankind has been united
to God, immortal now. Death, annihilation, must touch
God Himself ere it can touch the meanest human soul,
for all the race is hid in Christ, and Christ is hid in
God.
So, also, the dreadful dream that anyone can be for
ever exiled from God and buried in ever-enduring evil
passes away and ceases to sit as a nightmare on the
bosom of religion. Eor if all men are in idea, and by
right of Christ, contained in God, all men are in idea
and by right holy. Do you think that God will fall
short of His own conception ? do you think that having
once seen the whole race as separate from sin in
Christ, He can for one moment endure the thought that
any one man or woman should be left for ever to the
horrible embrace of evil ? That men should contend
with evil we can understand, that they should suffer
we can bear, that they should wander far from their
Father's house and waste their immortal substance we
can endure, for they are then treated as free subjects
who must develope by effort and through failure ; but
that all this should be done without an end except a
cruel end, that all the pains God takes with us (and
surely if anything is plain to the worst of us, that
is) should be cast as rubbish to the void; that He
should have descended to assume the nature of all men,
and made it divine in Himself, only to cast away as
refuse to be burned the greater part of those whom
The Central Trtith of Chris tia^tity. 85
He had made lioly in Himself — all this does now so
contradict and vilify His revelation, that it is no
wonder that the idea of everlasting damnation should
have destroyed men's belief in the idea of the Incar-
nation. He who believes the one cannot rationally,
thongh he may blindly, believe in the other. No ;
the Incarnation, rightly conceived, necessitates the
final righteousness, godlikeness of all. How long the
making righteous may endure, none can tell; but through
sphere after sphere of just retribution, through the
change of the outward sensuality of earth into inward
suffering, through the change of the miserable circum-
stances of earth into happy circumstances — for I often
think that what many a poor criminal wants to make
him right is not punishment so much as comfort — step
by step, age after age, in world after world perhaps,
all the past dead are moving on, all the future dead will
move on, a mighty stream, to mingle in the ocean of
the righteousness of God on that far-off but certain
day when the idea of the Incarnation of God in the
essential Man will be completely realised — that hour
to which the Apostle, in a lofty flight of inspiration,
looked forward when he said, ^ And when all things
shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also
Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under
Him, that God may be all in all.'
On the last of the great religious conceptions which
follow inflexibly from the fact of God in Man — the
conception of an equal and universal brotherhood of
the race — I have often dwelt from this place. It is
sufficient to say now that its practical results are as
86 The Central Tricth of Christianity.
important as they are many. It is the foundation of all
eifort to civilise barbarian peoples ; it is the root and end
of all noble legislation, of all just government. It is the
inspiring impulse of the theory' and practice of national
education; it is the mainspring of all charity ; it is the
fountain from which flow all redemptive measures for the
outcast and the criminal ; it is the principle on which
all the relations of capital and labour should be based ;
it is the idea which overthrows all tyrannies, all oppres-
sion, all slavery^ all exclusive castes, all class domina-
tion, all attempts to concentrate all the land and all
the money of a country in the hands of a few. It has
been the war-cry and the watchword of all noble revo-
lution. It is leading the peoples of the world, slowly
but surely, to a political future of equality, for religious
conceptions are naturally and necessarily transferred to
political; it is leading the various nations of the world
to a far-off international union, on a higher ground than
that of commercial interest. It will finally end in the
destruction of all international and individual envying,
strife, vainglorying, and trickery to get the U23per hand ;
and in the establishment of a unity of mankind in
which all shall be equal, free, and fraternal, and yet all
diverse and individual, so that the unity of the human
race in some sort, like the unity of God, will exist in
the midst, and because of an infinite manifoldness.
Lastl}^, these three great Christian ideas of the Father-
hood of God, the progress of the race towards final
good, and the brotherhood of all men, are, like the idea
out of which they are born, underived from any other
teaching, and original to Christianity. No Eastern or
The Central Tritth of Ckristiafiity. ^j
Western religion taught them, no Jewish sages conceived
them in anything like a practical form, in anything like
their full extent. We find as it were filmy phantoms of
them here and there, we do not find their substance.
Christ sent them forth to run as living fire through the
world, and their life is derived from the fact of the
union in Him of God and Man.
It is no answer to say that they have been shamefully
misrepresented, practically denied by Christians in the
history of the Christian Church ; that they have often
found their exponents in men called infidels and atheists.
Whoever used them, Christ gave them ; and they lead
the world. Nor can we charge upon Christianity their
slow advance, their comparative failure as yet to accom-
plish their work, their caricatures. Great ideas are
slow of fulfilment ; great ideas are especially liable to
caricature, great ideas are subject to great failures on
their way to victory, and all in proportion to their
greatness.
We may expect their slow development. ' The Lord
our God is one Lord.' How long did the Jewish people
take to learn that ? Nearly a thousand years. One of
the first things we have to learn, if our judgment of the
progress of the race is ever to be just, is that Chris-
tianity, and mankind with it, must move forward into
fulness of truth almost as slowly as the earth into fitness
for man.
We may expect that monstrous caricatures will be
made out of them by men insisting on portions of
them torn away from their whole; we may expect
that they will be made the ministers of the exclusive-
88 The Central Truth of Christianity.
ness and intolerance they came to destroy ; we may
expect that they will be driven into extremes ; but
instead of crying out failure on Christianity, we should
realise that these things are natural, that ideas when
first sown, or when first reclothed in new forms, are
almost always carried beyond their golden mean by the
excitement which they create ; that it seems to be a law
that before ideas are clearly seen as they are, men must
exhaust all their possible excesses and defects, must
experience all their wrong forms before they can grasp
their essence.
Such at least has been, and often will be in the future,
the fate of the Christian ideas. But they still endure,
rising out of all error and mistake, like Alpine summits
after tempest, pure, and clean, and fair. They still live
under a thousand forms, the elements of life and move-
ment in mankind — the Fatherhood of G od, the progress
of man through evil to eternal good, the brotherhood of
the race. These are the leading rays which stream from
the Sun of Christianity — the idea of the union of Man-
hood and Godhead in Christ.
Tlie Beauty of Christ's Character. 89
THE BEAUTY OF CHRIST S CHARACTER.
* Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty.' — Isaiah xxxiii, 17.
Within the last ten years, the human nature of Christ
has been brought prominently forward in England.
This has been due partly to the more direct historical
interest awakened in his life by a book like that of
Strauss, partly to various foreign studies of his life
from the merely biographical point of view ; partly to
the influence of Unitarians like Channing on our
Church, and partly to that of some of our own teachers.
A great deal has been done to present Him more
vividly and more historically before us, but we cannot
say that enough has been done. There have been but
few attempts to trace in Him those subtile shades of
feeling, those finer touches of intellectual and poetic
sentiment, which, after all, make a man real to us. It
is on these I propose to dwell for some Sundays : less
on the moral majesty, and more on the exquisiteness of
his character ; less on the suffering lover of man, and
more on the King in his beauty. So doing, we may
add something to our conception of his individuality.
For when men tell us of his life, and describe his death,
and dwell upon his love. He remains still a vague outline
90 The Beaitty of Chris fs Character.
to many of as ; but when He stops bj the wayside and
the women cluster round Him, and He stoops to lay
his hand on the children's heads and claim them for his
own and for his kingdom ; or when, resting by the well,
He wakes the uncultured woman's interest by half-
mysterious sayings, tinged with something of the So-
cratic irony, but with greater solemnity and profounder
meaning than that of the Sage of Athens — then his
personality begins to shape itself within us. We recog-
nise the uniqueness which belongs to a living character.
It is by dwelling on these things, and by an analysis of
character based upon them, that we may arrive at a
deeper, as well as a more critical, knowledge of the
intense and universal character of his Human Nature.
In mediseval times this humanisation of Christ for
men was done by art. The exquisite simj^licity and
naturalness of frescoes, such as those in the Arena
Chapel, brought Christ and his life home to men's
minds. But though natural, these representations did
not dwell enough on the distinctly human traits in his
life. Series like Giotto's were connected with doctrine,
and so far, removed from simple humanity. They grew
still more doctrinal afterwards, till, from step to step of
idealisation, the Manhood of Christ grew fainter and
fainter in art, and He became only Divine and clothed
with the terrors of Divinity.
But in the thirteenth century, also, the Dominicans
and Franciscans seized on the Passion of Christ as the
special object of religious emotion in his life, and taking
that piece of his Manhood out of the rest, concentrated
men's minds on it alone. Art at once began to supply
The Bemtty of Ckrisfs Character. 9 1
the religious demand for representations of the days of
the Passion, and the people, taught as much by tlie
paintings as by the preachers, saw the Manhood of
Christ only as a suffering manhood. The rest of his
human life passed into all but absolute extinction in
the intense light which was thrown upon the Passion.
Later on, the natural conclusion followed upon this
isolation of one part of Christ's human life in art. He
became only a fine head or a noble figure in the centre
of a picture. He was painted only as a good subject
around which artists could throw a poetical or sesthetic
air. All awe, all faith, all sublimity, all touch of what
was Divine in Him passed away when the last trace of
his pure and natural Manhood was lost in art. For
the}^ go together.
There are many curious analogies in theology to this
limitation in art of the idea of Christ's Manhood. I
wdll only dwell upon a few. After the reformation, and
almost up to the present day, Christ, as a man, has
been continually more and more hidden from us by the
accumulation of theological doctrines round Him. Our
theologians have, like the artists, taken Him farther
and farther from earth, and isolated Him in his divinity
in heaven. We had no Yirgin to fall back upon, and
the result was that English Christianity was severed
more and more from natural human life ; and I do not
know what might have happened had it not been for
the ceaseless protest of the Unitarians, which rose at
la.st into the sphitual beauty of the figure of Christ as
presented to us by Channing.
But this is not the only analog}^ As art, by insisting
92 TJie Bcaiiiy of Christ's Character.
only on tliG Passion, put out of sight tlie rest of
Christ's life, and produced a maimed representation of
his humanity, so did, and so do those theologians,
whether Evangelical or Anglican, who dwell too exclu-
sively on the atonement, the death, and the sacrifice of
the Passion. The result was and is, that Christianity has
been so much made into a religion of suffering, endu-
rance, sacrifice, and asceticism, that all that side of
human life which has to do with healthy, natural joy,
with love of beauty, with what is called profane poetry
and art, with delight in natural scenery, with social
companionship, has been, to a large extent, left un-
christianised, relegated to the realm of the irreligious.
The result of both these tendencies is similar to that
which followed in art, and is seen in the way in which
the ' Life of Jesus ' by Renan was taken up in England.
In a certain sense, that book brought back to reality
the human life of Christ, but it was only as a good sub-
ject for a piece of artistic work ; He was surrounded by
all the faded feebleness of Arcadian sentiment ; He was
the human figure which enlivened pictorial descriptions
of Palestine; his character was made to lose, in the
midst of a detestable sentimentalism, all moral sub-
limity.
Let me pursue the analogy one step further. Among
all the artists who represented Christ's life, one stands
alone for his unique, unconventional, and manifold
treatment of it and its subject. Others have repre-
sented Him in the common humanities of his life, but
they have lacked the power to give with equal grandeur
the awful moments in which his mission was concen-
The Beatcty of Christ's Character. 93
trated. Others have represented Him ideally and with
sublimity, but they have not been able to touch such
subjects as the Supper at Cana without either making
it too ideal or too vulgar. One man alone has mingled,
and without a trace of effort, and with a profound con-
ception at the root of his work, the heavenly with the
earthly, the divine with the human, the common with
the wonderful, the poetical with the prose of daily life,
in his representation of the human existence of Christ.
That man was Tintoret. In his ' Last Supper,' for ex-
ample, it is a common room in which the Apostles and
the Master meet. Servants hurry to and fro ; the evening
has fallen dark, and the lamps are lit ; those who eat
the meal are really fishermen and unlearned men ; here
and there there are incidents which prove that the
artist wished to make us feel that it was just such a
meal as was eaten that night by everyone else in Jeru-
salem. We are in the midst of common human life.
But, the upper air of the chamber is filled with a drift
of cherubim, and the haze of the lamp-light takes that
azure tint with which the artist afterwards filled the
recesses of the ' Paradise,' and the whole soft radiance
of the light falls on and envelopes the upright figure of
Christ, worn and beautiful, and bending down to offer
to one of his disciples the broken bread. It is common
human life filled with the Divine. It is the conception
of Christ's personality which modern theology ought to
possess, because it ought to be the ideal of our own
life.
Nor at the right time is sublimity and awfulness
wanted in Tintoret's conception of Christ's humanity.
94 ^-^^^ BeaiLiy of Christ's Character.
"We pass in his work from the lonely majesty of the
temptation in the wilderness to the unapproachable
agony and solemnity of the burdened head, bowed with
the sorrow of the whole world, of the Christ of the Cru-
cifixion, and from thence to the high sovereignty, yet
homelike tenderness, of the Christ of the ' Paradise,' and
we know as we realise the painter's idea that we look
on one in whom the human nature of the whole race
has realised that divine gloiy of self-surrender for
mankind and conquest of evil which demands of our
hearts the deepest love restrained by the deepest awe.
But when we pass to pictures of Tintoret which repre-
sent the senators and merchants of Venice presented
to Christ, we do not find the Saviour as the unapproach-
able Divinity, but as the friend and lover of man. He
comes down through the air with expanded arms and
joyous welcome, not to judge or to rebuke, but to live
among his servants, his face full of delightful human
feeling, rejoicing that He can in entire sympathy take
a share in their daily work, and bless their common
life.
This mingled conception of divine majesty and human
friendliness, of heavenly power and earthly homefulness,
is the conception of Christ's humanity which we want
to arrive at now, and we are drawing towards it day by
day. One step was made towards it by the work of one
whose honoured age is still with us when he instilled into
the whole of modern theology the thought of Christ as
the federal Head of mankind, as being Himself the con-
tainer of mankind, as the incarnation of the humanity
which has for ever been in God. That idea secured
The Beauty of Chris fs Character. 95
for the man Christ Jesus, and secured for ever, our wor-
ship and our awe. It separated Him from the race as
king" ; it bound Him up with the race as brother ; it
made mankind live and move and breathe in God.
But more was wanted, and is wanted. We want a
Christ entirely one with all that is joyous, pure,
healthy, sensitive, aspiring, and even what seems to us
commonplace in daily life ; we desire Him, while He
is still our King, to be also ' not too bright and good
for human nature's daily food,' for business and for
home ; we wish Him to share in our anxieties about our
children ; to come and hallow our early love, and bless
with a further nobleness all its passion ; to move us to
quietude and hope within the temple of the past where
our old age wanders and meditates ; to be with us when
our heart swells with the beauty of the world, and to give
his sympathy to us in that peculiar passion ; to whisper
of aspiration in our depression, of calm in our excitement,
to be, in fine, a universal friendly presence in the whole
of our common life.
I believe that out of that will spring no diminution of
reverence to Him, no unhappy familiarity, but rather
that deepening of awe, that solemnity of love which arise
towards One whom we have lived with daily, and never
known to fail in the power — sweetest of all, in a world
where so much seems mean and commonplace — of
lifting the prosaic into the poetic by the spirit of love,
of giving us the sense of greatness in things which seem
the smallest, of making life delightful with the feeling
that we are being educated through its slightest details
into children of the Divine Holiness.
96 The Beauty of Christ's CJiaracter.
If in the rest of this sermon and for some Sundays to
come we can reverently enter into the finer shades of
the human character of Christ, we shall gain — I trust
without losing the awe which belongs to Him as Divine
— a deeper sense of his union with onr nature mingled
with a love to Him at once more delicate and home-
like.
I speak, then, of the beauty of Christ's character as
my main subject ; and for the rest of this morning's work
only of one element in it — of his sensibility ; a word I
prefer to sensitiveness, for it includes sensitiveness.
Sensitiveness is the power of receiving impressions,
whether from nature or man, vividly, intensely, and yet
delicately. Sensibility is this passive quality of sensi-
tiveness with activity of soul in addition exercised
upon the impressions received. The more perfect the
manhood, the more perfect is this sensibility. The pos-
session of it in a high degree is the chief source of
beauty of character as distinguished from greatness of
character ; and yet without it no character can reach
the highest greatness. The total absence of it is the
essence, the inmost essence, of vulgarity. The presence
of it in its several degrees endows its possessor, accord-
ing to the proportion of it, with what Chaucer meant
by ' gentilness.' l^ow, when we talk of the perfect
manhood of Christ, and never consider this side of his
nature, we must be making a grave omission — an omis-
sion which removes from our view half of the more
subtile beauty of his character.
It does not seem wrong to say that there was in Him
the sensibility to natural beauty. It has always been
The Bemtty of Christ's Chai^acter. 97
mj pleasure to tliink that He also, like us, wished and
sought that nature should send * its own deep quiet to
restore his heart.' It cannot be without reason that,
when He was wearied and outdone. He called to his
disciples to go away into a desert place to rest awhile ;
that when Jerusalem was loud in his ears. He oftimes
resorted to the glades of Gethsemane ; that when He
desired to pray. He went alone into the hills ; that when
He felt the transfiguration glory coming upon Him, He
ascended the lofty side of Hermon ; that when He
taught, it was by preference by the waves of Galilee,
or walking through the corn-fields on the Sabbath, or
on the summit of some grassy hill. We know that He
had watched the tall ' lilies ' arrayed more gloriously
than Solomon ; that He had marked the reed shaken in
the wind, and the tender green of the first shoot of tbe
fig-tree. We find his common teaching employed about
the vineyard, and the wandering sheep, and the whiten-
ing corn, and the living well, the summer rain, and the
wintry flood and storm. These and many more would
not have been so often connected with his action and
so ready on his lips had not He loved them well, and
received their impressions vividly.
There are those to whom this thought may have no
value, but to others the character of a perfect man wants
this to make it beautiful, and beauty is of necessity an
element of perfectness. It is true that the beauty which
comes of this sensibility to Nature is not so profoundly
tender and varied as that which comes of sensibility to
human feeling, but it is calmer, perhaps more sublime :
there is a glory of purity in it and of passion un-
98 The Beauty of Christ's Character.
deformed by evil, wliich makes the character which pos-
sesses it spiritual, not only with the spiritualit}^ which
unites the spirit to its heavenly Father, hut also with
that which unites the imagination and the intellect to
that part of the being of God which moves in and
is revealed by the beauty and order of the universe.
To many men who have the poetic temperament,
w^ho see as much in a flower as in a book of genius, to
exclude Christ from all this region is to separate them
from Christianity ; to find Him truly there is to hallow
their love of Nature and their work therein, and to fill
with a diviner air those moments of communion with
the universe, when thought is not, but only inspiration.
But still higher in Him was that intense sensibility
to human feeling, which made Him by instinct know,
without the necessity of speech, the feelings of those
He met.
This is the highest touch of beauty in a character.
What is it which most charms us in a friend ? It is
that he can read the transient expression on our face
and modify himself to suit the feeling we are ourselves
but half conscious of possessing; it is that he knows
when to be silent and when to sj^eak ; it is that he
never mistakes, but sees us true when all the world is
wrong about us ; it is that he can distinguish the
cynicism of tenderness from that of malice, and believe
our love thousfh we choose to mask our heart.
Such a friend has not only power of character but
beauty of character. Who is it who is most haunted in
society, around whom people collect as around a perfect
picture ? It is that man or woman who, from sensi-
The Beaitty of Christ's Character. 99
bilitj to the feeling of others, knows how to develope in
the noblest way each personality, whose mediatinor
charity and sympathy bring into musical accord the
several characters of their society, till, all having been
hired to do what each can do best, they learn to work
happily and live happily together.
This is another element of the beautiful character,
and the root of its beauty is sensibility which worketh
by love, and delights in its own power.
He saw Nathanael in the early days coming to Him
from the garden and the fig-tree. He looked upon the
simple and earnest face, and recognised the long effort
of the man to be true. In a moment He frankly
granted the meed of praise : ' Behold an Israelite in-
deed, in whom there is no guile.' A few words more,
in which Christ went home to the secret trials of the
man,, and Nathanael was his for ever.
He met Peter in the morning light, and seeing
through all the surface impetuosity of his character
deep into the strength of his nature, called him Cephas,
the man of rock, on whose powerful character the
infant Church should be built. And Peter, catching
inspiration from the word, saw a new life opening
before him and began to believe in his own power ; too
much at first and for some years, till, in the hour of
bitter failure, the transient force of self-confidence
melted away before the last look of his Master, and
the diviner strength which flows from penitence fulfilled
the prediction of Christ.
When the woman who was a sinner knelt at his
Bacred feet and wept, Christ felt the thrill of con-
lOO The BeatUy of Chris fs Cliaracfer.
tempt which ran from guest to guest, and felt how
bitterly it smote upon the woman's soul. He turned,
and in an exquisite reproof rebuked the scorn, shamed
the scorners, and redeemed the woman by recognition
of her tenderness. Fallen, shamed, the exile of the
world, she was born into a noble life when those words
fell upon her ear : ' Her sins which are many are for-
given her, for she loved much.' When the malefactor
on the cross appealed to Him, Christ saw at once
that the fountain of a noble life had begun to flow.
Without an instant's hesitation. He claimed its waters
for Paradise. When the persistency of Thomas refused
to believe without a sign, another teacher might have
been angry. Christ penetrated to the inner honesty
which prompted the scepticism and vouchsafed a reply
of love. It struck home, and the Apostle's heart was
broken into adoration. It was the same with bodies
of men as with men. He wove into one instrument of
work the various characters of the Apostles, making
./them harmonise with and understand each other. How
/ did He hold together those vast multitudes day by
/ day ? By feeling their hearts within his own. How
I did He shame and confute his enemies ? By an instinct
\ of their objections and their whispers, so that He re-
plied to their thoughts before they were spoken. Men,
women, and children, all who were natural, unconven-
I tional, simple in love, and powerful in faith, ran to
I Him as a child to its mother. They felt the beauty
of character Avhich was born of sensibility to human
feeling and spiritual wants, and they were bound to Him
for ever.
The Beauty of Chris fs Character. loi
Tliis, then, is the Fomider of a religion for man,
a religion not only of the inner and mystical life of
the spirit, but also a religion of feeling and imagina-
tion ; which talks not only of sin, and suffering, and
redemption, but which has entered, in its Author's life,
into those finer touches of sense, and those remoter
haunts of imagination which are at once the minis-
trants and the children of a high culture ; which,
taking its impulse from the natural instinct of Christ
to penetrate by feeling into the lives and hearts of men
and catch their fleeting impressions, and to do this for
all men — so that He saw the beautiful and the strange
in men who seemed to others commonplace — has ena-
bled us, using his instrument of love, to grow ourselves
beautiful in character from continual discovery and
vision of the beautiful in others ; till gaining his power
of seeing in nature the ever-changing forms of one
Divine beauty, and of seeing in man, beneath all evil,
the unalterable traits of that image of the heavenly
which Christ revealed, we grow up into somewhat of
his loveliness of character, and begin to look forward
with a strange, new exultation to the fulfilment of
that ancient promise : * Thine eyes shall see the King
in his beauty.'
I02 ^Hie Beauty of Christ's Character,
THE BEAUTY OF CHRISTS CHARACTER,
* Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty.' — Isaiah xxxiii. 17.
Theee is a difference between the wortliiness and the
beauty of a character. A man's acts and thoughts may
have worth to kindle respect, but not to touch the
imagination with that peculiar pleasure which is de-
rived from the reception of beauty. They are like the
reading of honourable prose ; whereas the same acts and
thoughts by a character which is beautiful as well as
worthy, are like the reading of noble poetrj^ We con-
tinue to read the character of Christ to-day, not for its
worth especially, but distinctly for the poetic beauty
which adorns its worth.
The first of its beautiful elements we found to be sensi-
bility, and we described how intense it was with regard
to impressions received from nature and from man.
But we especially said that this sensibility was neces-
sarily active in a perfect character. It seeks, and that
with passion, to clothe and to realise itself in an out-
ward form. We discussed it in itself last Sunday.
Our object to-day will be to investigate it in action in
the words and deeds of Christ. A certain amount of
repetition of thought will naturally mark what we have
The Beauty of Chrisfs Character. 103
to say, but the tliouglits will be repeated from a ne\^
point of view and in a new form.
Sensibility to nature and man, in action, is sym-
pathy with nature and man, and it is plain that unless
the former passes into and completes itself in the
latter, it soon ceases to be an element of beauty in
character. For nothing is really beautiful which does
not grow, or change, or give us the impression of vital
energy either within itself or employed upon it. This
is doubly true when the beauty spoken of is not phy-
sical beauty, but belonging to a living character like
that of Christ.
First, then, we have to trace, as delicately and as
reverently as we can, how the sensibility of Christ to
the beauty of nature became active as sympathy with
nature.
There are many who possess the former, but who
never employ either intellect or imagination on the
impressions which they receive through its means.
Remaining passive, they permit the tide of this world's
beauty to flow in and flow out again of their mind
without the exercise of any thought upon it. We feel
that that sort of passive unintelligent reception is
uglier in a character than the absence of any sensi-
bility at all. For we are made conscious of a moral
wrong done by these persons to their own character.
They might have made so much of their native power
of receptiveness ; they have done nothing with it. It
is true that Wordsworth, in whom this sensibility was
very great, speaks of a ' wise passiveness,' and of sur-
rendering ourselves at times to those lessons of the
I04 The Beauty of Chris fs Character.
universe which come of themselves, without our seelr-
ing. But this is only at times. No man was ever
more active than Wordsworth about the impressions
derived from his sensibility to natural beauty. He
gave himself up to them, but it was that they might
change, as they flowed in, the whole landscape of his
soul ; that his imagination might, under their influence,
become continually active in new directions of thought
and feeling. And nothing is more remarkable in
"Wordsworth, whose poems are the record of his life,
than the way in which impressions, passively received,
became vital and creative forces in him, when he added
to them the force of his own imagination. So great
was this, that we might almost say that at every hour
of his daily walk among the hills, he became a new-
created man, was different in character from that which
he had been the previous hour. His sensibility to
nature translated itself into so passionate a sympathy
with nature, that he felt towards wood and hill and
stream as he would towards persons whom he loved.
The result was that he became creative ; each feeling
took form as a poem.
The beauty of all this in a character is the imj^res-
sion of life and change it gives, united to the im-
pression of human power in noble intellectual action.
Now, obscure as are the hints we possess with regard
to the sensibility of Christ to impressions received
from nature, yet we have enough recorded to show us
that the same activity of sensibility which belongs to
the poetic, nature belonged to Him.
You remember that passage, when, as He walked
The Beattty of Chris fs Character. 105
silently along, He suddenly lifted np Ms eyes and saw
the fields whitening already to harvest. He received
the impression in a passive mood. It changed the
whole current of his thoughts, and the whole state of
his soul. Immediately thought seized on the change
worked within Him by the impression and expressed it
in words. It marks a beautiful character to be so
rapidly and delicately impressed, but the beauty of the
character becomes vital beauty when the man, through
utter sympathy with and love of what he feels, be-
comes himself creative of new thought.
Again : the poet, in hours when he is not in the
passive mood, makes his sensibility active through the
combining, modifying, and life-conferring work of the
imagination. The impressions received are contrasted
with one another, or composed into unity, or shaped
into a vital form. But though they suffer these changes,
and are made into the form of a poem, which contains,
but is different from, the impressions, the poem itself
does not become out of harmony with the natural beauty
which suggested it. On the contrary, it has a reflex
action on the impressions which caused it, and gives
them deeper meaning; and it enables us to penetrate
below the surface-beauty of the world, and to find there
a spiritual loveliness. It gets into the inner being of
nature and explains it. The poet's sensibility to nature
becomes active as personal sympathy with the living
soul of nature.
This also we find in the character of Christ. Take
a single instance. In an active mood — for He was
teaching — He saw a corn-field by the shore of the lake,
io6 r.i-~ Beauty of C Insist' s Character.
and a number of images streamed into his mind. He
looked on the whole career of the corn-field — the sowing
of the seed, the beaten path through the midst, the
seed downtrodden by the passengers and gathered up
by the birds, the rich harvest in the good soil, the blades
of wheat choked by the rough thicket at the edge, and
towards the hill-slope the patches of withered corn
over the shelving rock, where ,the earth lay loose and
thin.
In a moment all the impressions were taken up by
the imagination, and combined into the parable of the
sower. They were carried into the spiritual world.
They were shaped into a picture of human life, with its
temptations, and its struggles, and its end.
They were gathered up int<-> a poem, which gave
back to nature the impressions received, in a new form,
which clothed the natural scene with new beauty, and
went below its surface into its hidden meaning.
This could only be done by sensibility to nature
becoming sympathy with that inward being of nature
which is the image of the Thought of God. And, indeed,
we meet again and again in his teaching, touches of
thought which make us feel that, to the Saviour, all
the world was not dead but a living thing, informed
and penetrated by God. Again and again, the king-
dom of God is spoken of as symbolised by the growth
of the tree, by the development of the seed, by the
fermentation of the leaven; the character of God,
by the shining of the sun and the falling of the rain
upon evil and good alike; the dealings of God with
man, by the dealings of the gardener with the fig-tree^
llie BeaiLty of Chris fs Character. 107
of the shepherd with the sheep ; the spiritual union of
His people with Himself, bj the union of the vine-
branch with the vine, by the assimilation of bread and
wine with the body for strength and comfort. Every-
where it is the perfection of sensibility to natural
impressions in its activity as sympathy with the being
of nature. Everywhere, as we read, we become con-
scious of the beauty of the character which translated,
by its own Divine vitality, mere sensibility into sensi-
bility as sympathy, mere feeling into living thought.
Once more, on this subject. Sensibility to beautiful
natural impressions, when it is inactive, does not dis-
tinguish clearly between these impressions. It has no
distinctiveness in its praise ; it has only one feeling for
all the different aspects of the world. As such, it at
once becomes inert, degraded, an element of ugliness
in a character. We all know how wearisome is his
enthusiasm who parades the same stock of phrases, who
knows not when to give the praise of silence, whose
feelings are the same, whether he look on a peaceful
landscape or on an Alpine valley, who has the same
undiscerning delight in the beauty of a rose or the
beauty of a violet. This is sensibility degraded by
laziness into a deformity in a character. We turn away
displeased and pained.
The true sensibility becoming sympathy, sympathises
with the distinct nature of each thing it feels, divides
each thing from all the rest, gives to each a dif-
ferent praise, feels for each a different feeling, and
harmonises itself with the tone of each impression.
This is one of the highest qualities of the poet. It is
1 08 The Beauty of Chrisfs Character.
to be found in the character of Christ, and it gives to
it a peculiar and delicate beauty.
We find it suggested in the perfect aj^positeness of the
illustrations He drew from nature to the thouo^hts He
desires to illustrate. ' Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin : and
yet I say unto you. That even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these.' Can anything be
more exquisite than that? — the lilies being not our
lilies of the valley, but the tall crimson flowers which
round about Gennesareth still raise their heads like
kings in splendour.
But this distinctiveness appears still more in the
choice of places for certain moods of mind. Wlien the
lonely struggle of the temptation had to be wrought
out. He went into the wilderness. For communion
with his Father, when He was weary of heart. He
chose the hill-top in its silence beneath the stars ; for
transfiguration, Hermon, when the glory of the setting
sun poured a flood of gold into its valleys; for the
agony, Gethsemane, with olives dark in the moon, and
the rough patter of Kedron over its stony bed. Think
of these things. They speak of acute sensibility in
vital activity ; they give us an impression of delicate
beauty of character.
I have already spoken of this interest of Christ's in
natural beauty as having a real practical bearing upon
our life. But there is something more to say. In it
Christ is seen as the Master and source of natural
religion. Tn his parables, in his wanderings over hill
and plain, in the grove and by the lake. He gathers
The Beatcty of Christ's Chai^acter. 109
vip and claims as Divine, all those dim regrets and
vague ideals, those thoughts which lie too deep for
tears, those moments of ecstacy with nature, when imagi-
nation transfigures life ; all that world of poetry, music,
and art, which the sense of natural beauty stirs in the
heart of man, and creates by the hand of man. And
in this He recognises as his own the natural religion
of to-day, and bids us believe in its beauty and add it
to the spiritual.
JN'ever, men say, was faith weaker than now : never
they own, was the poetic recognition of the beauty and
mystery of the world greater than now. Never, cer-
tainly, did the imaginative sense of the forms of ex-
ternal nature more tell upon the moral temper of
mankind than now. The study of art, the love of
music, the mere sight of the grander scenery of the
world, to see which we make an exodus every year, are
moral agencies which are influencing lives around us,
as really, and in many cases more widely, than the
directly religious teaching we can give. There are
those who condemn these things as leading men away
from the spiritual world. They have forgotten the
teaching of Christ. If all be true which we have now
said, Christ felt these modern feelings, and led men to
God through nature and its works. And it may be
that in this modern tendency, the spirit of Christ is
teaching now as of old ; that from the schools of
theology and the pulpits of our synagogues He is
leading forth the crowd into the fields and the wilder-
ness and b}^ the lake, that He may teach them there in
parables to know and see the King in his beauty.
I lo The Beauty of Christ's Character.
Secondly^ if it be true that sensibility to natural im-
pressions ceases to be a beautiful thing in a character,
unless it become active through sym^^ath}^, it is sLill
more plainly true of sensibility to human feeling. Tt
is a beautiful thing to be sensible to noble conduct, to
feel inspired by courage in another, to rejoice in truth
when truth dies for righteousness' sake, to thrill with
compassion for sorrow. But if these feelings never
realise themselves in practical sympathy, we instinc-
tively feel that they are only another form of sel-
fishness, that men encourage them for the excitement
they afford them, not for the good they urge them
to do to others. They connect themselves in our
mind with the slothfulness which refuses to put them
into work, and the connection of selfishness and sloth
with anything takes from it all vital beauty.
It was not so with Christ. His extraordinary sen-
sibility to human feeling became operative at once as
sympathy, was at once translated into action. I need
scarcely seek for examples of this. It is in all our
remembrance how his tenderness stayed upon the way-
side to satisfy the mother's heart and to bless the
children ; how his compassion felt in itself the weari-
ness of the multitude and gave it rest and food. We
remember how swift was the love which, touched by
the widow's weeping, stopped the bier and restored to
his mother's arms the son ; how strange that passion
of tears at the grave of Lazarus, which wept because
those He loved were weeping even at the moment
when He was about to give back the lost ; how dis-
criminating the sympathy which gave to Martha and
The Beauty of Chrisf s Character. 1 1 1
to Mary their several meed of praise ; how unspeakable
in beantj that translation into words of the sorrow of
the mother and the Apostle, which He felt within Him-
self, and to both phases of which, in utter forgetful-
ness of his own pain, He spoke distinctively : 'Woman,
behold thy son ! ' Friend, ' behold thy mother ! ' And
how delicate and yet what a home-thrust to the shame
and love of Peter, how actively creative in its effects
upon the Apostle's character, was that threefold question,
* Lovest thou me?' All was felt which human feeling
felt, and then all was sympathised with actively, till at
last, upon the cross, all the sorrows of the world were
taken in to Himself and borne in the activity of
voluntary suffering, that they might be for ever, in the
end, lifted off the heart of mankind. It is there, when
intense sensibility to the want, and woe, and sin of men
had led Him to absolute self-sacrifice through sym-
pathy— there, in that bowed head and broken Manhood
— that we realise at last, in the radiance of love which
eye hath not seen, the King in his perfect beauty.
This, then, is loveliness of character for you and me.
Remember, we have no right to boast of our sensibility
to the feelings of others ; nay, it is hateful in us, till
we lift it into the beauty of sympathising action.
One word more upon this sympathy. It was given
to all the world ; but it was not given in a like
manner to all, nor at all times. There is a, certain
unpleasantness in undiscriminating sympathy, which
possesses nothing special nor any moments of reserve.
Such a character is without loveliness ; we find no
mystery in it to charm and lure ; we have no sense of
112 Ths Beauty of Christ's Character.
depths which we should delight to penetrate; we know
all, and having known all, pass on by an irresistible
necessity, and leave that friend behind. He is super-
ficial— in one word, he wants humanity.
Plainly, the sympathy of Christ did not want this
element of beauty. He had, in its fitting place, the
Teutonic quality of reserve. He shrank from over-
publicity; He kept his secret heart for those dearest
to Him, though his love went over the world. He
gave closer sympathy and affection to three among his
disciples than to the others. He gave more tenderness
to Mary than to Martha. Without any favouritism.
He still, as a personal friend, individualised his affec-
tion. He felt the necessity at times for even deeper
.reserve. When the multitude oppressed Him, He went
away with his disciples to the desert ; when his disciples
could not comfort Him, the lonely man went apart to
speak only with his Father. There often hung round
his actions and his teaching an indefiniteness, neces-
sitated by the vast range of his thought, and by the
profound way in which He felt the problems of life
and spoke their explanation, which threw around Him,
and still throws around Him to us, that beauty which
lies in mystery, when it is a mystery which we know by
experience is worth our further search. Still we feel
that He has many things to say to us and to the world
which we cannot bear now. Still He speaks to us in
proverbs and in parables. Still the imagination, the
feeling, and the intellect of man have an endless field
of work in his character and his teaching. Still we are
lured by the beauty of His life to discover in it new
beauty. His character possesses the loveliness which
The Beauty of ChrLsfs Character. 113
belongs to reserve, to distinctiveness of love, to the
mystery which, comes from depth of nature and infinity
of thought.
Therefore remember, that Christ has sanctified what
is good in that quality we call reserve. Do not be too
anxious to give away yourself, to wear your heart upon
your sleeve. It is not only unwise, it is wrong to make
your secret soul common property. For you bring the
delicate things of the heart into contempt by exposing
them to those who cannot understand them. If you
throw pearls before swine, they will turn again and
rend you.
Nor, again, should you claim too mucli openness, as a
duty due to you, from your child, your friend, your wife,
or your husband. Much of the charm of life is ruined
by exacting demands of confidence. Respect the na-
tural modesty of the soul; its more delicate flowers
of feeling close their petals when they are touched too
rudely. Wait with curious love — with eager interest
— for the time when, all being harmonious, the revela-
tion will come of its own accord, undemanded. The
expectation has its charm, for as long as life has some-
thing to learn, life is interesting ; as long as a friend
has something to give, friendship is delightful. Those
who wish to destroy all mystery in those they love,. to
have everything revealed, are unconsciously killing
their own happiness. It is much to be with those who
have many things to say to us which we cannot bear
now. It is much to live with those who sometimes
speak to us in parables — if we love them. Love needs
some indefiniteness in order to keep its charm. Respect,
114 ^-^^ Beauty of Christ" s Character,
which saves love from the familiarity which degrades it,
is kept vivid when we feel that there is a m^'sterj in
those we love which comes of depth of character.
Remember that in violating your own reserve, or
that of another, you destroy that sensitiveness of cha-
racter which makes so much of the beauty of cha-
racter ; and beauty of character is not so common as
not to make it a cruel thing to spoil it.
Again, it is pleasant to think that Christ sanctified
distinctiveness in friendship and love. No character
can be beautiful, though it may be excellent, which
can give the same amount of affection to all alike. It
argues a want of delicacy, and, w^orse still, a want of
individuality in the character, which at once negative
its beauty. There are some who think that they should
strive to bestow equal love on all, and who, on religicus
grounds, avoid particular friendships. It was not Christ's
way, and it ends badly. They only succeed in spoiling
their power of loving and power of sympathy. These
are gained and strengthened by strongly felt and
special love for a few. If you want to give love and
sympathy to all, have profound love for particular
persons ; for you cannot gain the power of loving
otherwise than in a natural manner, and it is unnatural
to love all alike. But love, easily going forth to those
whom you find it easy to love, learns to grow deep
and to double its power — and then spreads abroad like a
stream which is most impetuous at its fountains. Christ
did not love the world less, but more, because He had
peculiar personal affections, and it is to tha.t distinc-
tiveness of love we turn when we would realise the
The Beauty of Chrisfs Character. 115
beauty of his love as distinguished from the majesty of
his love. We are astonished when we think of the
universality of his tenderness — but we have little
comfort from it. Our soul longs for some personal
contact with Him. Then it is that the speciality of
his love for some comes home to us, and we know that
He can give us a distinct sympathy fitted for our
character. His love is universal, for all the race ; it
is particular, to each one of the race. Majesty of cha-
racter meets in this with beauty of character.
Finally, encourage in yourselves the sensibilities of
life. No man is born quite without the power of
receiving impressions from nature, and from human na-
ture, though there are many who have brought death by
neglect upon their native power. To encourage these
sensibilities is not to fall into sentimental indulofence
of feeling, for you can only encourage and increase
them by active exercise of imagination and intellect ;
by active expression of them in the support and comfort
of men. It is those who take no real pains with their
sensibilities, who fall into mere sentiment.
Open your heart to receive the teaching of nature ;
not too passively, lest you lose your individuality, but
letting all your powers fi^eely play upon the lessons
she brings to you ; nor yet assuming too much activity
of intellect upon Avhat you receive from her, lest you
lose the humility of receptiveness.
Open your heart to receive the teaching which comes
to you from human nature. Feeling received and
feeling given back will educate you into a strange like-
ness to Christ. You will learn, like Christ, to find you;
1 1 6 The Beauty of Christ's Character.
religion in human life. Listen lowlj to the simple
common word which is very nigh to us ; for in the com-
mon details, accidents, affections of life — in the common
relations of man to man, and of m.an to animals — in
daily joys, and daily sorrows, that word speaks of the
love of God to us, and of our childlike love to Him.
But, both nature and man speak to us now, as Jesus
spoke, in parables. He who has lost his sensitive-
ness cannot understand these parables.
The Beauty of Christ's Character. 117
TKE BEAUTY OF CHRIST S CHARACTER.
' Tliine eyes shall see tlie King in liis beauty.' — Isaiah xxxiii. 17.
There are human lives wMch. are poems, as there are
lives which are prose. Some have the stately epic
character, and we watch the course of their purifica-
tion through the events of a nation's birth, or the
growth of a religious idea. Others are the centre of
so much of the doing and suffering of men, and move
towards their fate with so deep an influence on the
development of others, that we may well compare
them to the evolution of a drama. Others stand for ;
the most part alone, in a musical unity of life, com- j
plete in themselves, and lovely with noble feeling, j
These are the lyrical souls in the world. /
There are other analogies, but let these suffice./
They are the beautiful lives, lives which we may call
artist work. Each has its own distinct charm ; they
give pleasure as poetry gives it, by the expression of
the beautiful. X Such a life, at its very highest range,
was the life of \Christ. We seek its poetry to-day, and
we weave our th<)ughts of it round that profound phrase
of Milton's, that /poetry must be ' simple, sensuous, and
passionate.' \
Xow if our cQ:ftiparison be true, the beautiful cha-
/
.C-Ci
r'>*»^^ .
1 1 8 The Beauty of Christ's Character.
racier must also possess these qualities in its perfect
development of reposefulness and activity. He must
be simple, otherwise the world cannot be widely affected
by his life and words. There are poets and teachers
who speak only to a small class, touching on obscure
or temporary phases of human thought. They die
with the age which gave them birth. But the greater
prophets speak the language of the common human
heart, and yet have depths of feeling into which only
a few can penetrate. For every superb genius is at
once aristocrat and democrat. The common j)eople
hear him gladly, and yet to few it is given to know his
mysteries.
Again, he must be not only simple, but also sen-
suous ; that is, intensely sensitive to impressions de-
rived through the senses, and continually receiving them.
For it is from the infinite variety of these impressions,
and the ceaseless work of his imagination upon them,
that his character derives the beauty of changeful-
ness — changefulness, however, which is subject to an
inner unity. The soul of such a man is beautiful,
for out of the impulse of these impressions a multi-
tude of feelings, each having almost imperceptible shades
of difference, are born within him, so that he can allot
to each thing its distinctive tone, and to each person
a distinctive sympathy, till at last, his inner life be-
comes like that wonderful world imagined by one of
our poets :
Where do inhabit
The shadows of all forms which think and lire.
Dreams and the light imaginings of men,
And all that faith creates and love desires.
The Beauty of Christ's Cha^^acter. 119
And more than he imagined — the types of all natural
forms and perfect landscapes, the visions which come
to men npon the solitary hills ; the things which hannt
* thought's wildernesses ; ' the air-born, filmy children
of the senses when married to imagination.
Passionate also he must be, for all this received
beauty and feeling remain unshared and unexpressed
unless they be so passionately felt as to ensure expres-
sion. There is beauty in the character which feels
with passion but cannot speak. The pure beauty of
feeling passes into the face ; there are subtile motions
of eyelid and lip which are more than many poems j
there are acts in which whole books, whole lives, are
concentrated. It is passion in silent expression, and
within its sphere the range and forms of beauty are
immeasurable, from the almost imperceptible change
within the smile which records a flying cloud of
transient joy or pain, to the voiceless death in which a
great man's sacrifice ennobles and redeems a nation.
But when the power of speech accompanies the ex-
pression of action, when he who acts passionately can
also strike into words the meaning of his passion and
the sx^irit of his act, and send it down for ever to
thrill and inspire mankind ; then, if the passion which
move him be divinely human and naturally pure, the
crown of the beauty of genius has been reached.
When we talk of passionate poetry we mean too
often that which speaks only of the passion of love.
This is not what Milton meant by his word. He meant
that the poetry was so intense on every subject it
treated, that one knew instinctively, as one read, that
1 20 The Beauty of Chrisfs Character.
the poet had lost in his enthusiasm of expression all
thought of self. Poetry intense on one subject and
not on all, was inferior work ; it was liable to become
overstrained on that one subject, and in doing so it
lost the note of beauty. This has been more or less
the case with many of our so-called passionate poets.
It provokes a smile that Byron — who, with all his
colossal power, was always looking round to see how
the world was affected by his poetry, and whose painful
personality is intruded into his most vivid descriptions
of love and nature — should be called the poet of passion,
and Wordsworth the poet of calm. Wordsworth did not
write much of the passion of false love, nor of the
passion of true love between youth and maiden; but
no passion is at a whiter heat than his when he writes
of a mother's love to a child, or of a husband to a wife,
and we never hear an unmanly note of self-consciousness.
And when his soul was stirred with the greater passions
of humanity — love of liberty, sympathy with a great
nation passing through a storm of revolution, deep
sorrow for the fall of a people from a glorious past, the
aspiration of the heart of mankind to the Infinite,
the majesty of knowledge and the eternity of his own
art — he rises to a height of majestic passion, his words
have the stately step of gods — they burn like the
bush on Sinai, white, but unconsumed.
Still greater was his passion when he lost himself in
nature. Only one other English poet surpassed him in
this, and he, in surpassing him, drifted into a frequent
extravagance, which leads us back to Wordsworth in
the end, as the king of those who have grasped nature
The Bemtty of Chris fs Character. 121
closely and expressed her life intensely. For he had
sobriety in the centre of passion. His sense of fitness,
his sense of simplicity, his sense of temperance as the
cestns of beanty, rnled his most passionate moods with
nature.
Nor did his temperance make his passion less, but
more. It prevented it from losing itself in too rapid
a flame. It intensified it by pressure, while it held
its unused force so sternly under command that it
could be directed at once with full power upon any
point of a subject, and modified so as to give the just
amount of power to each point.
By this calmness in the midst of passion, the highest
beauty of art is reached, and the greatest and noblest
pleasure given.
Now these which are the qualities of beautiful poetry
are the qualities also of the beautiful character, and
belong to human nature in its ideal. They oughfc,
therefore, to have belonged to Him in whom we believe
that human nature reached not only its highest majesty
but its highest beauty.
Take, then, the first — simplicity. It is not of the
simplicity of Christ's teaching that I speak, for to that
I have alluded already, but of the quality in his cha-
racter which corresponds to that which we call sim-
plicity in poetry. That which is simplicity in art is
purity in a perfect character.
Now the beauty of Christ's purity was first in this,
that those who saw it, saw in it the glory of moral
victory.
We talk of the beauty of innocence in a child. That
Ovrf
*'%^,
•/VV^t**
122 The Beauty of Christ's Cha7^acie7\
■was not the beauty of Christ's purity. Exquisite as
it is, we know that it is fleeting, and the sense of its
transiency stains our pleasure. Some speak of the
spiritual beauty which belongs to the untempted life of
one who has never known the world, which shines upon
the faces of those saints whom Angelico conceived in
his cloistered solitude. Neither was that the beauty of
Christ's purity.
The purity of Christ was purity which had been
subject to the storm, which had known evil and over-
come it, which had passed through the dusty ways of
men, and received no speck upon its white robes. A
tempest of trial had only driven it, like the snow on
Alpine summits, into more dazzling spotlessness. It
was beautiful with its own beauty ; it was still more
beautiful, in that it stirred in men the sensation of
moral power, of sustained activity of soul.
And from this purity, so tried and so victorious,
arose two other elements of moral beauty, perfect
justice and perfect mercy. Innocence cannot be just.
It does not know good, it does not know evil : how
can it judge without knowledge ? It would fiing reward
or punishment to those brougEtlbefore it, without know-
ing whether the reward would be reward, or the punish-
ment punishment, to the persons on whom they were
bestowed. It could never apportion mercy, or apportion
justice, to different degrees of penitence or sin. There
is nothing uglier than recklessness, and recklessness is
the characteristic of the judgments of innocence.
Nor is the imtempted saint fit to judge. He does not
know the force of temptation. He is severe and cruel
The Beauty of Chrisfs Character.
when lie seeks to be just ; lie can make no allowances ;
his mercy he calls weakness ; he insists on too much
penitence, more than the sinner can bear ; he drives,
bj the very force of rigid goodness, men into despair.
But Christ is able to be just and yet merciful, because
He is entirely pure. Having known evil and subdued it,
He judges from perfect knowledge. He suffered, being
tempted, therefore He is merciful, knowing the force
of temj^tation ; He met and realised in battle the root
principles of evil, therefore his justice is stern and
unrelenting when He sees these principles ruling the
}ives of men. So it was that He had no words of pity
for the hypocrite, the root of whose life was falsehood :
the only thing which could save the Pharisee was
unrelenting condemnation. So it was that He had
mercy on the publican whose heart He saw to be broken
with penitence, and on the woman who had been over-
taken in a fault. In all the acts of the Saviour there
is no act and no words so beautiful — beautiful for their
daring, for their magnificent trust in human nature,
for their magnificent independence of the opinion of
men, for their perfect marriage of justice and mercy —
as the act and the words of Christ to the woman taken
in adultery : ' Woman, hath no man condemned thee ? '
* No man, Lord.' ' I>reither do I condemn thee : go, and
sin no more.' It was the judgment of perfect purity.
This was not, as some have put it, a divine incapacity
for seeing evil ; it was a divine capacity for seeing good
through evil. '- Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God ' — not only God as He is in His perfect
being, not only God in nature, but also God in man.
1 24 The Beauty of Chris fs Character.
It was this power which Christ possessed as the result
of purity. Wherever there was a shred of good, a
spark of the Divine in the lost and sinful, Christ sa"w
it by the instinct of his purity. He discovered it and
drew it forth, as a magnet would draw from a heap of
chaff one needle-point of steel. There is no loveliness
in a character greater than this, and it stamps the
whole of the Saviour's life. If you would win it, be
pure in heart.
(2.) The second element of beauty in art was sen-
suousness. That word in Milton's sense of it was
entirely noble in meaning. Of its representative in a
character I have already spoken in speaking of the
sensibility of the character of the Saviour to impres-
sions received from nature and from man. But I may
add this, that as the poet produces beautiful -work out
of the multitudinous world of images of things and
feelings which he has received, so the exquisiteness of
the parables and of the words of Christ, both in form
and expression, was the direct result of the knowledge
He had gained from this quality of sensibility. A
Avorld of natural images dwelt within Him ; a world of
varied human feelings, received from all the men aud
women whom He had met, dwelt within Him also.
The parables unite these two worlds in expression.
They make nature reflect man, and man receive from
nature. They make all the doings of nature explain
the life of man; they teach the life of man to find
teaching and comfort in the life of nature. They have
even a deeper thought than this — they make us feel
that God Himself has harmonised us to our habitation ;
The Beauty of Christ' s Character, 125
tliat the miiid of man is fitted to tlie external world,
and the external world to the mind ; and that throasrh
the wedlock of the intellect and the spirit of man, in love
and holy passion,"^ to the universe, as well as through
reverence to Him who established this harmony between
us and nature, we reach, whether in science or in art,
our noblest intellectual height ; and in religion, so far
as natural religion is concerned, our noblest spiritual
life.
He who walks this world, conscious of that inner
harmony between himself and the universe of which
the parables are the expression, walks in the midst of
an atmosphere of beauty. ' The living presence of the
earth' waits upon his steps, and her presence is of
divine loveliness, for it is the form of God's idea.
Everything speaks to him. He sees himself in all he
sees ; but it is himself as he ought to be, and the vi-
sion is inspiring, not degrading. The common air
he breathes, the sunshine and the rain, the growth of
plants, the sea which shimmers and the clouds which
move in light, speak parables to him, of which God as
a Father and Man as a child are the interpretation;
they tell him that in common life he may find his fiist,
perhaps his best religion ; that
The primal duties shine aloft — like stars ;
The charities which soothe, and heal, and bless,
Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers.
To him who has this secret law of harmony, the
universe imparts ' authentic tidings of invisible things,'
* See Preface to the Excursion.
126 The Beauty of Chris fs Character,
tlie beauty of harmonious variety, the beauty of eternal
power, the beauty of activity held in the calm of order.
He lives in this beauty, and he grows beautiful by
communion with it ; he lives in the region of the para-
bles of Christ.
(3.) The third element of great poetry is passion.
We may transfer it directly to a character as an
element of beauty. It is best defined as the power of
intense feeling capable of perfect expression. It is
the source of the beauty of energy and in temperance
is its lasting charm.
It was intense feeling of the weakness and sin
of man, and intense joy in his Father's power to re-
deem, which produced the story of the ' Prodigal Son,'
where every word is on fire with tender passion. See
how it comes home, even now, to men; see how its
profound humanity has made it universal !
' Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.' How that goes home to the
deepest want of the race ; how deep the passion which
generalised that want into a single sentence ; how
intense, 3^et how pathetic — pathetic because intense —
the expression of it ; how noble the temper.ance which
stayed at the single sentence and felt that it was
enough.
And if you seek for the silent passion of action, we
find it in many forms in his life. They speak of
intensity of feeling at once realising itself — from the
driven flio-ht into the wilderness to the vital rush of
his inward glory into the transfigured expression of
his form upon the side of Hermon ; from the moment
The Beauty of Chris fs Character, 127
when He stood on the great s tail's of the Temple, crying,
' If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink,'
to the hour when He wept over the guilt and ruin of
his nation; from the awfulness of the supreme agony
in the garden to the last cry of triumph for a world
redeemed which rose out of the abyss of death upon
the cross. In all it was passion in its noblest forms
and in the intensest expression. It is a beauty of
character which passes into and assumes the diadem
of sublimity.
AU this gives the impression of a nature inspired by
a stream of ever-flowing energy — of a nature all whose
powers were in vital action. It is this easy, natural
activity, this instantaneousness in the marriage of the
thought to the act, which is another element of beauty,
for it suggests, not only passion, but the harmony of
passions and absolute healthiness of soul. In the
midst of a world which gives a false glory to violent
passion and likes to dwell on morbid passion in its
literature, it is delightful to turn to the perfectly active
yet perfectly healthy soul of Christ; its intensity of
feeling subdued to . do his work, so that He could both
act and speak to the point at once.
Again and again in the gospel story we are made to
feel this promptitude and keenness of Christ.
The right thing is always done at the right time,
not a moment too late or too early. We are conscious
of the fire of enthusiasm, but we never find hurry;
there is no divergence from the plan of life under un-
regulated impulse ; the act is never overstrained.
The right thing also is said at the right time, and
128 The Beauty of Chris fs Cha^^acter.
said witL. exquisite knowledge of the less or more which
might have spoiled its influence. There is no irritating
repetition of reproof; one sharp stern phrase is spoken
and no more : ' Get thee behind me, adversary ; ' ' Ye
know not what spirit ye are of — and then silence.
The same may be said of his praise. There is no
flattery ; the central point worthy of praise in the cha-
racter, often a quite unexpected point, is seized on at
once and brought into prominence. ' Behold an Israel-
ite indeed, in whom is no guile ; ' ' I have not found so
gTeat faith, no, not in Israel ; ' ' She loved much ; ' — in
all, the one clear sentence which revealed the man to
himself, and which will remain, because of its absolute
fitness, as his central attribute in our memory.
This is the beauty of energy, the child of passion, in
a nature perfectly at harmony through the exercise of
temperance.
But Christ has been accused of intemperance, espe-
cially in his severe treatment of the Pharisees. If this
be true, perfect beauty of character is gone, for tem-
perance, inasmuch as it keeps all the powers of the
soul from extravagance, ' is the girdle of beauty.' But
I have never been impressed with the justice of this
objection. I can conceive nothing more worthy of
indignation than Pharisaism. In all its forms it is hate-
ful; and not only Christ, but every teacher. Pagan
or Christian, in proportion as he loved truth, mercy,
and righteousness, has denounced it as the worst of
evils. The more true, and pure, and human a man
was, the more indignation would he feel against it,
and it was because Christ was truer, purer, and more
The Beauty of Christ'' s Chai^acter. 129
human than others, that He spoke more strongly than
others.
But were his expressions used in anger, rather than
in indignation? If so, however deserved, they were
intemperate. They do not wear that aspect. In
anger, reason has not time to operate; words rush
almost unwittingly to the lips. Hence, they are inco-
herent; they are unjust; they want the mark of deli-
berate choice ; they run on in unmeaning declama-
tion; they do not hit the point, they do not sting.
But indignation, being a noble and divine quality, is
led by reason and is the servant of justice. It waits
before it speaks. Its denunciation is calm, deliberg-te,
a;nd full ; the words are chosen so as to hit the point
and the evil hard, and in the centre ; they are weighed
so as to be scrupulously just. They bear the stamp
of thought, and they do their work, making the heart
on which they fall jwrithe with shame and pain. A
certain amount of fine irony often goes with this in-
dignation, for there is calm at its root, and irony is the
child, in such matters, of indignation and calm.
Now, Christ's words to the Pharisees have all the
marks of indic^nation and none of the marks of ano^er.
I cannot conceive beauty of character without indigna-
tion at evil. Purity implies it, and indignation, by its
very essence, is restrained to strict justice, laying on its
scourge exactly with the requisite severity and in the re-
quisite place. There was passion in the words of Christ,
but it was divine passion, under the restraint of law.
It did not sin against temperance ; nay, it derived its
force from temperance.
130 TJie Beauty of Ckrisfs Character.
Lastly, passion and energy, limited by temperance,
imply rej)Ose of character. As we cannot attribute re-
pose to that wbicli has not the capability of energy,
so that energy is not noble energy, nor is it directed
by temperance in the midst of its passion, unless it
be capable of profound calm. I will even go further,
and say that all noble moral energy roots itself in moral
calm. Now, as in all art, so also in all human character,
we demand, as in one the appearance, so also in the
other the reality of repose, as a primary element of
beauty. All restlessness — a very different thing from
vital energy — is ugly, having no goal, being full of
vain effort. Activity in repose, calm in the heart of
passion, these things are of the essence of beauty.
And in Him in whom we have found the King in his
beauty this peacefulness was profound. His activity
grew out of his deep quietude of trust in his Father's
will. It mattered little to Him that the turbulence
of parties surrounded Him and the wild mob of Jeru-
salem cried for his death. He passed on in the calm
of one to whom duty was all, to finish the work
given Him to do ; content quietly to live or quietly to
die, unalarmed, and unimpatient, for his Father's law
was his law, and his life and death were hidden in the
stilhiess of God's will ; consistent in self-rule, because He
had escaped from self into union with the perfect good ;
satisfied to suffer, for He reposed upon the promise and
believed in the love of his Father. This is the final touch
of beauty, which gathers into itself, and harmonises,
all the others ; and hence no words are so beautiful as
those in which, having perfect rest Himself, He bestows
The Beauty of Christ's Character. 1 3 1
it as his dying legacy on men : ' Peace I leave with you,
peace I give unto you ; not as the world giveth give I
unto you ; ' and repeats it as his resurrection gift :
' Peace be unto you.'
Let us part with this supreme conception in our
hearts. In the midst of the fevered activity and unre-
strained passion of our life in this great city, seek for
a centre of calm. Find it where Christ found it, in
humble trust in a Father's love ; find it in the calm
which comes of duty accepted as the law of life, duty
to your heavenly Father, duty to your brother-men.
Find it in resolute obedience j so that the spirit of that
solemn inscription over the dead at Thermopylse may be
true of you : ' Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that
we lie here in obedience to their orders.' Find it by
realising in yourself, through union with Christ's spirit
and Christ's life, that deep calm of his which translated
noble passions into noble energy, and moved his energy
forwards within the temperate sphere of law. So will
you see and reflect in character the King in his beauty.
For all moral loveliness, and all spiritual, lies in know-
ing what He meant .when He said : ' Come unto me,
all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.'
1 3 2 Prayer and Natural Law,
PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW.
* Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume
it upon your lusts.' — James iv. 3.
Prayer is in its plainest meaning a petition addressed
to God. We desire Him to give ns some blessing, to
help ns in some difficulty, or to relieve us from some
pain. But tliis meaning, when brought face to face
with the conception of the absolute, or to the test of
modern scientific knowledge, is open to a series of
objections. To escape from these objections other
meanings have been given to prayer. It has been
said, that to labour is to pray : it has been said that
to have communion with God, and to meditate on
Him, is to pray : it has been said, that asi:)iration is
prayer. But however true these definitions may be,
they are not, even taking them all together, an ade-
quate definition, as long as they omit or place in the
background the idea of petition. ISTor do we avoid
the metaphysical, and scientific difficulties when we
ignore petition as being of the essence of prayer. It is
and will always remain its greatest part.
It is wiser, then, if we would retain prayer as an
intellectual conception and not discredit it to our-
selves in the spiritual world, to look its difficulties in
Prayer and Natural Law, 133
tlie face. What are these ? Those which beset it in
the spiritual and moral worlds arise from our idea of
the unchangeability of God. In theology and meta-
physics the further one gets from an idolatrous and
superstitious idea of God, the more one conceives of
Hiui as unable to alter His principles of action with-
out changing His own nature. Suppose for a moment
such a change in God, and the whole spiritual world
would fall to pieces ; nay, more. He would then — and
the phrase is not irreverent for it is founded on His
own self-revelation — destroy Himself.
The difficulties which beset prayer as petition, in
connection with God as the Lord of the spiritual and
moral world, have been discussed from generation to
generation, and on the whole have been fairly answered.
I leave these, then, behind, and take up the other side of
the problem, for at present a new set of difficulties lie
in our path, and occupy public interest. Prayer has
come into contact with scientific discovery, and I ex-
press the problem in theological terms when I say that
the unchangeability of God as Lord of the physical
world is expressed in modern science by the law of
the conservation of force, and that that law denies the
power of prayer to alter any natural sequence.
The law itself is our statement of the fact that all
the forces of the universe — light, heat and electricity,
mechanical and chemical force, and the rest — are con-
vertible into one another, and that the whole sum of
them is a constant quantity. Porce changes its form,
but it is always the same, neither more nor less. No
addition can be made to it, nothing can be taken
1 34 Prayer and Natural Law.
awaj from it. It can be infinitely converted, it cannot
■ — unless we suppose the intervention of a miracle — be
created. Every change in nature is then a matter of
necessity. 'Every change ; — that is the point which so
many seem altogether unable to realise. There are
certain changes which no one would dream of asking
God to make. ISTo one would be likely to pray that
for the sake of relieving our pauper ];)opulation by
additional land, all the lakes in the country should
be suddenly dried up ; or that there should be two
harvests in one year during a famine. This, men
would say, would be miraculous, and we have no right
to demand miracles of God. But, if the doctrine of
the conservation of force be true, when we pray for the
fall of a single shower of five minutes in length, or the
change of the direction of the wind by a single point,
or the evaporation of the faintest waft of cloud, by the
independent will of God, we are asking for a miracle,
and for as real and tremendous a disturbance of
natural law as if we had asked the postponement of
the rising of the sun, or the sudden removal of the
moon from the sky. There is nothing little, or no-
thing great, in the motions of the universe. The de-
mand for the creation of the smallest conceivable wave
of new force, is as serious a demand as that for the
creation of force equivalent to that which builds up a
volcano in a night. In one case and the other we
pray for a miracle, and for miracles equal in import-
ance.
Now apply this to prayers for rain, and the like. A
plague of rain, as it is called, falls upon England. We
Prayer and Natu ra I L aw. 135
oifer up a prayer for its removal. It is worth while to
ask ourselves what we are demanding.
The antecedents which produced a month's rain here
took place some time ago in the equatorial and polar
regions. The vapours taken up by the heat in the
south equatorial regions were swept northwards by the
u^Dper current which descends bearing the waters in its
bosom to become a surface current in the temperate
zone. But in descending it meets the surface polar
current which is now rising to become an upper
current. The cold current condenses the vapour in
the warm current, and rain falls. Now the amount of
rain depends on the amount of water taken up as
vapour in the seas south of the equator, and on the
amount of condensing cold sent southwards from the
polar seas ; and the amount of heat which raised the
vapour, and of cold which made it fall in rain depended
on conditions which took place the year before, and
those on conditions which took place the year before
that, and so on backwards as far as thought can reach.
The amount of rain which fell last week in England is
to the millionth of an inch the exact result of a series
of antecedents which not only took place some time
ago about the equator and the pole, but which go back to
the very beginning of things.
When we pray, then, that God would cause the rain
to cease, we are asking one of two things — either that
He would work a miracle for us, or, if we abjure that
wish, that He would change, not circumstances as they
exist at present, but all the natural phenomena which
have existed on the globe, which is manifestlv absurd.
1 3 6 Prayer and Naht ral La iv.
When I tliink of these things, I find it absolutely
impossible, without the grossest violation of mj reason,
to pray for or against rain, with a belief that God
will answer my prayer. But you will say that God
could do it if He liked. I do not say No to that,
but I have no hesitation in saying, that I should not
dare to ask Him to change the order of the universe
at my desire. Once a man is acquainted with the
processes of nature, and realises what the conservation
of force means, and the results which would follow on
the creation of the smallest possible amount of new
force — results, the end of which he could never see,
which little here might be stupendous elsewhere (for
the fall of a miraculous shower here might necessitate
an earthquake elsewhere and destroy 20,000 souls) —
he would not dare to pray for five minutes' rain which
was not naturally coming. And if he believed that
God would grant his prayer, would he dare, ought he to
dare, to meet the tremendous responsibilities involved ?
I could not ask God to create new force, even if I be-
lieved He would do so.
But there is another and more plausible objection to
this rigid view that no sequence is or can be changed.
It may be urged, that as human will can modify
the future results of things occurring now by changing
the conditions under which those results will develope
themselves — as, for example, I could change the future
climate of a country by cutting down its forest — so it may
be a spiritual law that the human will, acting on God's
will through His appointed channel prayer, may cause
God to interpose conditions which will change the mode
Prayer a nd Na tit ra I Law. 137
in wliicli existing results are taking place. But the two
members of the comparison are not equivalent. The
modification of climate by man is the result of natural
forces naturally used, through a period of many years.
The modification of existing climatal phenomena — the
heat which now prevails, for example — would be the
result of a sudden interposition ; it would not be natural
but prseternatural — it would be a miracle.
But it may be again replied : God could do it within
the sphere of His own laws. He could introduce a
higher law, or rearrange existing laws in a new com-
bination, and so modify the fall of rain or banish the
pestilence, and doing so without a violation of law, it
would not be a miracle.
I answer, that the only true statement of a miracle
which can be received, is that it is the result of a pre-
arrangement by which the ordinary course of nature
changes step, as it were, for a moment, by the will
of God, for some great spiritual result. A miracle
conceived of as a violation of order is an absolute im-
possibilit}'. The alteration, therefore, of the course of
the weather by God's rearrangement into a new com-
bination of existing phenomena, is a miracle with this
exception, that it is not accredited to the conscience of
mankind by having as its end a great and obvious
spiritual result.
In whatever way we look at the question, then, we
pray for a miracle when we pray for the slightest change
in the normal state of the universe.
Are such unknown miracles now continually per-
formed at the call of individual men who do not see
r
133 Prayer and Natitra I Law.
beyond the present ? Those who still believe that the
miraculous is common in nature may pray with perfect
consistency for rain, or fair weather, but they ought
clearly to understand that they are asking God to per-
form miracles.
But those who cannot believe this, those who hold
tha.t a miracle is derogatory to the true idea of God,
unless it is performed for great and ascertainable
spiritual ends — ends which appeal to our reason and
excuse the miracle — cannot pray for rain, or for fair
weather, or for the sudden removal of a pestilence,
without idolatry.
I do not say, I need scarcely assert this, that God
could not perform continuous miracles at the instance
of prayer, for I believe in a Personal Will which
directs the universe towards an ultimate good ; but
I do say that it is to the last degree improbable that
He would do so, and that if He did do so, we could
have no security. Natural laivs would be then at
the mercy of every religious man. Some extremely
good and spiritual persons are very imprudent in the
practical work of the world. If their prayer about
rain, fine weather, thunderstorms, pestilence, and other
things is answered, and answered in accordance with a
spiritual law, so that, in fact, by the hypothesis, it must
he answered, what a state of utter confusion we should
be in ! We could not be certain of the sun rising at the
proper time ; we could not carry out with confidence
any course of action founded on the assumption of the
constancy of natural law.
I do not deny miracles. On the contrary, by deny-
Prayer unci Naticral Law t ^ n
iDff the existence of contmuous miraculous action th.
cause of miracles is saved from ui.ter overthrow I
mamtaiu, given the idea of a personal king of nature
and men, that it is not only conceivable, but to be
expected, that at certain great crises of human history
miracles should take place, with the purpose of initiating
a new spiritual era and for the salvation of the race of
men to redeem whom the sacrifice of the whole order
of the material universe were a price as small as on»
human soul is inconceivably more valuable than the
whole realm of that which we call matter.
But to spread these miracles over the whole of our
human history is not only to destroy the very idea of a
nnracle, but to render the past miracles objects of
the gravest doubt, by making the present supposed
mn-acles absurd. I do not therefore believe that God
interferes in any extraordinary manner with the usual
course of nature. I do not believe that prayer does
either bring or restrain rain : I do not think that it
can check the cholera or divert the lightnino-. At the
same time I believe that God could stay the rain and
dismiss the pestilence, if it were His will, at the voice
of prayer. He may do so for all I know, but it would
make me miserable to think that it were so
Directly, then, we ought not to pray for interference
wita the course of nature. But now another question
comes m. Is it impossible to influence the harvest,
or to avert a pestilence indirectly, through prayer ? Has
prayer a legitimate field of influence in connection with
physical occurrences? I think it has, and in this
way. God is the source of all thought in the brain and
140 Prayer and Nat2iral Law.
of all true intuitions in imagination and spirit, as He
is the source of all force in nature. He lias made, we
know, the force of nature a constant quantity. We are
nowhere told that He has made the force of thought
or the power of imagination constant. We are told
that He is constantly giving grace to the spirit ; we infer
that He is constantly pouring upon men new thought
and new power. Grace is given at the call of prayer ; we
may infer that, certain conditions being fulfilled, ideas
are suggested by Him also to the brain, and noble
thoughts to the heart, and energy bestowed upon the
will. It is a mistake to suppose that His inspiring
power has ceased to work, or that it is confined to
spiritual things. It is by His inspiration that the
artist paints, that the politician thinks aright for the
country, that the poet creates, that the philosopher
conjectures and then proves the laws of the universe.
The influence of God's spirit upon man's spirit is in-
finite. The influence of God's thought upon man's
thought I believe also to be unbounded. It is in this
realm that prayer is of avail. Suppose that long- con-
tinued rain threatens England with a bad harvest. We
ought not to pray that the rain should cease, but we
may pray that God would give intelligence and activity
to farmers that they may make the best of their op-
portunities; we may ask God to- inspire the scientific
chemists to invent such new modes of agriculture as
will reduce the evils of heavy rain to the least possible
quantity ; or we might have prayed in times of Protec-
tion that God would inspire with tenfold force and
energy the leaders of the Anti-Corn Law League. We
Prayer and Natural Law. 141
may pray, in short, either that men may change their
relation to unchanging law, or that they may be led to
pass measures, or to act in accordance with the laAYS of
the universe, so as to range themselves, not against,
but on the side of law. And I have no doul^t that such
prayer is as powerful as it is legitimate, and that God
will answer it.
Take, again, the case of pestilence. It is asking
amiss to pray that God will take it away from us
suddenly, arbitrarily. As long as the causes which
produce and aggravate it are in existence here, it must
come, and all the prayers in the world will not keep it
off. Nay, it would be infinitely the worse for us, if
our prayers succeeded in keeping it away.
But to pray that God would inspire men of intelli-
gence with keenness of observation and steadiness of
investigation in order that they may discover the
causes which awake and stimulate the pestilence ; that
He may inspire men of science with those happy
thoughts which, like Jenner's, all but put an end to a
disease; that He may stir a nation up to vigorous
measures to destroy those conditions which give viru-
lence to a pestilence ; this is a legitimate field for a
prayer which asks for that which it believes it will re-
ceive. Such prayers have force, such prayers do modify,
not directly, but indirectly through the effort of man,
the course of the universe.
We know that God does not interfere with the order
of the universe ; we all but know that He does con-
tinually interfere with the thoughtful and spiritual
life of man : and the interference in the latter case
142 Prayer and Natural Law.
seems to us as natural, as lawful, and as pi'obable as
the interference in the former would seem to us preter-
natural, lawless, and improbable. For what are w-e
praying for ? We are not praying against law, we are
not dashing our heads against the dead wall of the
universe ; we are not bringing our prayers into direct
opposition with all that science teaches us. We are,
on the contrary, praying that the Father of lights,
the God of all knowledge, may enable us to understand
His laws better, may kindle our intelligence so that we
may go with, not against, the current of the motions of
the universe; may bring the impulse of our heart in
prayer into accordance with that revelation of Himself
in nature, the high-priests of which are the men of
science. We are praying that, knowing law, we may be
able by our knowledge to lessen evil. I do not think
that there is any natural philosopher who would say
that this use of prayer was a sin against the law of the
conservation of force
In conclusion, ougnt we to do away with, ruthlessly,
all prayer which asks of God to relieve us of physical
misfortune? Ought we to refrain from praying for
fine weather when one we love dearly is at sea, or to
check the petition on the lips when those who make
our being rich are exposed to pestilence ? That would
seem too hard for the human heart in its moment of
agony and suspense ; and the paradox is that even
when we have no hope, even when we know that God
will not change His laws, we ask Him to do so for us.
There is a natural rush of the heart into petition which
it would be spiritual suicide to check.
Prayer and Nahcral Lazv. 143
Listen to a parable. A certain ruler had two servants,
and said unto tliem, ' Labour every da}^ in the fields
from morn till eventide, or be imprisoned for a time.'
Now it came to pass upon a certain day when the sun
was hot, that both the servants fell asleep and woke
only as evening fell. They heard their master coming-
in and were called to come before him : and the first
came in and said, ^ Master, no prayers can move thee,'
and in angry silence took his sentence : and the other
heard, and knew his master to be faithful to his law,
but because he loved him he could not be silent, but
ran and fell at his master's feet and prayed, saying,
' Release me of the prison.' And his master smiled on
him, and said, ' I cannot ; take him away.' And he arose
and went, but as he went his heart was lightened, and
he said to himself, ' The pain at my hea'ii is gone, for
I have spoken, and my master has smiled on me.' And
he thought of his master's inexorable order, and as he
thought, it grew beautiful in his ej'^es, even while he
suffered in the prison. But his fellow-labourer was
more angry every day with his master, and the prison
grew darker as he chafed against a law which would
not forfeit punishment.
So is prayer, when the inexorable laws of the universe
threaten your life or the life of one you love. Make
no use of it, and your heart breaks from the passion of
hidden grief, or grows bitter from the change of grief
into anger. But use it, pour out your wild petition at
your Father's feet, even though you know it is useless,
and the expression gives relief. The perilous stuff is
lifted off, and you are able to bear the new pain with the
144 Prayer and Natural Law.
old co-Qrage. Yon have cast your care upon a Father, and
thongh He does not stay the blow, He smiles npon yon,
and the prison of your sorrow is made bright with the
thought of His love. A strange conviction of security
comes npon yonr life. ^ He will not err from order,' you
say, ' even to relieve me of my pain ; I can therefore
trust Him as I could not trust Him if I thought my
weak and ignorant will could bend His all-wise will,
directed by His love. His love ! — yes, I feel that His
love would not be worth having, could not be trusted
were it not one with unchangeability.' In this way,
we learn slowly to grow into harmony with His will, to
submit to it with contentment mingled with the pain
we suffer, to say to ourselves, ' Better that His perfect
will should guide me, than that I should be the victim
of my own imperfect will.' The result of that is peace.
Therefore, pray, for it relieves you by expression — it
brino-s God's fatherhood and all its infinite comfort
home to the heart ; it leads to the peace which comes
of recognising that you are in the hands of unchangeable
affection directed by unchangeable Eight.
Lastly. Prayer at such moments produces change of
mind in you towards the suffering you endure. The
prison seemed terrible to the servant, but when he got
there, it was not what he expected. His prayer and the
smile he had won had altered the relation of his feel-
ing towards the punishment, and alteration of character
changes things, not in themselves, but to us. A man
is perishing, I will suppose, in a tempest. His wildest
prayer, he knows, cannot save him or his wife, folded
in his last embrace. But natural feeling will have its
Prayer a7id Natural Lazo. ' 145
way, and fclie prayer, Save 11s, our God, rushes to his
lips. They are not saved, the sea drinks up their life
— but it is no dream, but told by many a survivor, that
in the ghastliest wreck there have been those over whose
faces after prayer there has stolen an expression of un-
utterable peace and joy. Words have been spoken,
which said that death had become beautiful, that spirits
brought into harmony by prayer with the will of a Father,
and beholding the smile upon His face, had seen, by a
wondrous triumph over all that is terrible to man, in the
raging sea and the terror of the midnight hurricane, only
the vision of perfect love, and died as men die in happy
sleep. In this way the necessary expression of impas-
sioned feeling in prayer, which is the poetry of the
spirit, changes our relation to suffering, and so changes
suffering itself into peace or joy.
And now, to sum up all these things. We cannot, dare
not, ought not to ask God to change the order of nature,
with any expectation that He will grant our prayer — yet,
we must use such prayers for the sake of expression of
feeling. And in so. praying to God as our Father, we do
get rid of half our suffering, though not of that which
causes our suffering, and even, in a further result, change
our pain, our punishment, or our misfortune, into causes
of the peace and joy which flow from the realisation
of His Presence with us who is the Lover of our souls.
146 * The Force of Prayer,
THE FORCE OF PRAYER,
' Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and
it shall be opened unto you.' — Matt. vii. 7.
The key-note of my text is the force of Prayer, and it is
our subject this morning. We spoke not long ago of
the difficulties between prayer and science, and I en-
deavoured to find a common ground on which both
could endure the existence of the other.
Our decision was, that if the constancy of force be
true, those who pray for the slightest change of sequence
pray for a miracle. When we pray for a shower of
rain, we ask for as great a miracle as the levelling of
Monte Rosa to a plain. There is no large or small in
nature, except to us — and a change infinitely small to
us may produce immeasurable results. Unless we are
prepared, then, to declare that miracles are things
of daily occurrence — and tliat destroys the notioTi of a
miracle — unless we are prepared to hand over the order
of the weather to the wants and freaks of religious
men, we must give up imagining that our prayer can
change the order of nature, or that God will change, it
at the instance of our prayer. Prayers for rain, for fine
weather, and the whole class of prayers which deal with
physical changes, are impotent so far as these physical
The Force of Prayer. 1 4 7
changes are concerned. Prayer, unless we assume a
miracle, has never altered and does not alter a single
physical sequence. It has no direct influence on na.ture.
The question then arose, whether it had any indirect
influence, or whether a prayer of this class was of any
use whatever. We were forced to consider this, for we
were met by the fact that the human heart in difficul-
ties arising from physical causes naturally rushed into
prayer. It was scarcely possible, we thought, that this
natural impulse had no meaning and no end. I
attempted to give an answer to that question, but as I
left it partly unexplained, I will now add enough, I
hope, to make it clear.
Though prayer does not change law, it changes the
relation of men to law, not physically, but spiritually.
Take for example a national prayer against a pesti-
lence. It will not take away the pestilence, but when a
whole mass of men pray for one thing, attention is
directed to it, enquiry is set on foot, unity of action is
supported, and the pestilence is checked by the discovery
of its causes and their destruction. But if prayer only
did that, it would do no more than a few vigorous
speeches made by physicians might do. It does more.
It puts in motion the mighty engine of moral feel-
ing ; it makes every man conscious of his national
responsibility to God for the health of the nation ; it
kindles the charity which devotes itself to the sick, the
faith which supports endeavour ; it makes each man feel
his sinfulness and his need of God, and his connection
with a rather. And as a consequence of these feelings
a higher tone pervades and a higher spirit fills the
[48 The Force of Prayer.
general life of the people, and the whole effort against
the pestilence is assisted by the immense force which
belongs to the spiritual power of men. In this way,
prayer helps to change man's relation to law, helps to
put him on the side of law. Once on its side, he con-
quers the pestilence according to law.
Again, we said that though it was impossible, without
a miracle, to alter physical phenomena, and therefore
useless if not too daring to ask God to do so, yet that in
the case of scarcity, we might ask God to awake the
energy and arouse the industry of the farmers ; in the
case of pestilence to lead scientific men to discovery of
its causes, and in the case of both to inspire tho"se who
govern with wise measures. This was, we thought, a
legitimate prayer, for God acts directly on the spirit
and intellect of men. But it has been objected to me
that this making of a lazy farmer energetic, or the
inspiration of an idea into a statesman, is in itself a
miracle. I cannot quite discover the ground of the
objection, but I suppose that it is founded on the fact
that thought and emotion are accompanied by vital
changes in the brain matter, and therefore that the
introduction from without of new thought is in fact
equivalent to the introduction of new force. But this
goes upon the supposition, of which no proof can be given,
that motion in the brain is thought and feeling. We
certainly can conceive of them as distinct from physical
phenomena, though in us they may always be attended
with ]3hysical changes. Because the thought that two
and two make four is accompanied by an atomic change,
it does not follow that that atomic change is the
The Foi'ce of Prayer. 149
thought. When a man does a gracious act to a woman
and she bkishes with gratitude, or love, a series of vital
changes takes place, but it cannot be proved that the
vital changes are gratitude and love. Therefore I have
a perfect right to say at present, that the suggestion
of a thought to a man's mind by God, or the awaking
in him of a strong emotion, does not interfere with the
constancy of force. It does not add new force to the
sum of force, but it does do this, it does make the modes
of force interchange, the play of force within its circle
more rapid. But it will be said that force cannot alter
its form without a previous touch of force, and that
therefore the suggestion of thought which alters the
condition of vital forces must be itself an introduction
of new force, and therefore impossible. Well, this is
just the point where we get into the darkness. When
I will to do a duty, I set up a series of vital changes,
but in willing alone, have I intruded something new
into the close-packed realm of force? or is my will
itself a mode of physical force ? It seems to me, no ;
it seems to others, yes. At least it is not proved one
way or another, and till the materialist has given me
full proof of his position, I cannot be said to demand
a miracle, when I say that God speaks directly to the
spirit of man.
Moreover, this which is said to be a miracle is done
every day by man to man. A single sentence from the
lips of a scientific man has stirred a whole series of new
thoughts in another. Averse of the Bible has changed
a blasphemer into a penitent. A great painting has
consoled a sorrowful soul. Love has made the coward
150 TJie Force of Pray m-,
brave, tlie indifferent earnest, tlie lazy energetic ; and
God's action on the intellect and the soul, which I
aver may be secured by prayer, is done in the same
way as that of man on man, only it is infinitely more
subtile and great in proportion to His greater power.
It has nothing to do with miracle. Miracle is a
change in the ordinary sequence of physical events ;
this is the action of the spiritual upon the spiritual,
of mind on mind ; and, if we grant a spiritual world
at all, it seems to be an action not only perfectly lawful,
but also agreeing with our own observation of the
action of our*spirit and mind on those of others.
Once more, miracles are, by the hypothesis, rare.
Such action as I speak of is ceaseless. Love works such
direct ' miracles ' every day ; but mark how it works.
It does not produce any direct change in the physical
world. All the love in the world will not stop the rising
wind which threatens to chill your child to the death
as you stagger belated with her across the snowy moor,
nor stay the tooth of consumption which is gnawing at
the life of your husband. But it will make the child
die in peace looking lovingly into your eyes to the last ;
it will change the husband who has neglected you into
a sorrowing and loving man. The two worlds are
different. Force only acts within force. Spirit acts on
spirit, and both according to their own laws. IN'ow the
influence of which I speak does not enter into the
dominion of physical force, and where it touches it, it
does not interfere with it.
But our main question to-day is, what is the force of
prayer ?
The Force of Pi' ay er. 1 5 1
It derives its force first from its being tlie satisfac-
tion of a want in man. Man needs to worship some
one. In youth, in manhood, he finds friends, objects of
still intenser love. But they do not fill the deep abyss
of his necessity ; the love he bears to them is exclu-
sive, is partly selfish. In their purest and dearest form
our affections do not disappoint, but they do not sa-
tisfy. We are thrown back upon God, not that we
want to lose the earthly affections, but to fulfil them,
to hold them involved and hallowed in a perfect ado-
ration.
But God — what is the God we worship ? Is it a God
without us, only the Maker of the universe, the ab-
solute Source of power, the Lord of law? That con-
ception awakens awe, but not love. Try it in your hour
of unhappiness, and you find while you tremble that you
hate it.
What is the God we worship ? Is it only a God within
us, a spirit moving through our spirit ? We can love
that, but our love has a tendency to pass into familiarity
and straightway all the subtile essence of it is gone. It
disappoints like human love. Or it drifts into an ideal
Pantheism, and God is confused with that Ego, by
which alone I become conscious of the universe. Then
with the fading of the personality of God fades the
reality of adoration.
We must have both, a personal God without us, the
object of awful veneration — a personal God within us,
the object of childlike love. Awe and love combined
are perfect adoration, and in that adoration the soul is
satisfied, earth is glorified, heaven is in our hearts, and
152 The Force of Prayer,
all our liuman love raised into something more intense
and pure wlien it breathes this air of the Eternal.
Prayer is the expression of this adoring love, as
necessary to man as the adoring love is necessary ; and
till awe ceases to exalt the soul, and love to be its food,
the soul of man must pray. Men may call prayer an
absurdity, deny its work, banish its influence, but nature
and God will be too strong for them. These men will
glide into the absurdity they laughed at when their
heart is passionate with sorrow ; and as to banishing
its influence — they must banish veneration and love
from the heart, and then tear away the heart itself, ere
they can banish prayer. Its force is here, within us,
here in the depth of our want.
But this is a force which is derived from its origin.
What is its practical force in life ? One form of its
force is in its reflex action. It has been remarked by a
physician, that the physicians who catch infectious
diseases are those who are afraid or who allow fear to
master them. It is not difficult to account for this.
Fear unhinges the nervous system. . It causes vital
changes during w^hich vital force is lost. The disease
finds the citadel weakened of its defenders, and enters
in. On the other hand, a man whose sense of duty is
strong, or whose sympathy with pain is greater than his
dread, or whose will is master of his nerves, retains his
nervous energy, loses no force — the disease finds no
feeble point in the physical defence. This is the reflex
action of passions on danger.
In the same way prayer acts with force. It does not
directly take away a trial or its pain, any more than a
The Force of Prayer. 1 5 3
sense of duty directly takes iiway the danger of in-
fection, but it preserves the strength of the whole
spiritual fibre, so that the trial does not pass into
temptation to sin. A sorrow comes upon jou. Omit
prayer, and you fall out of God's testing into the Devil's
temptation; you get angry, hard of heart, reckless.
But meet the dreadful hour with prayer, cast your
care on God, claim Him as your Father, though He
seem cruel — and the degrading, paralysing, embittering
effects of pain and sorrow pass away, a stream of
sanctifying and softening thoughts pours into the soul,
and that which might have wrought your fall but works
in you the peaceable fruits of righteousness. You pass
from bitterness into the courage of endurance, and from
endurance into battle, and from battle into victory,
till at last the trial dignifies and blesses your life.
And this brings me to another characteristic of the
force of prayer. It is not altogether effective at once. Its
action is cumulative. At first there seems no answer to
your exceeding bitter cry. But there has been an answer;
God has heard. A little grain of strength, not enough
to be conscious of, has been given in one way or another.
A friend has come in and grasped your hand — you have
heard the lark sprinkle his notes like raindrops on the
earth — a text has stolen into your mind you know not
how. JSText morning you wake with the old aching at
the heart, but the grain of strength has kept you alive —
and so it goes on : hour by hour, day by day, prayer
brings its tiny spark of light tiU they orb into a star,
its grain of strength till they grow into an anchor of
the soul, sure and stedfast. The answer to prayer is
154 The Foire of Prayer.
slow ; the force of prayer is cumulative. INou till life
is over is the whole answer given, the whole strength it
has brought understood.
And tlie lady prayed in heaviness
That looked not for relief,
And slowly did her succour como
And a patience to her grief.
Oh, there is never sorrow of heart
That shall lack a timely end,
If but to God we turn and ask
Of Him to be our friend.
Again. Its force is not only cumulative, but reliev-
ing through expression. There are some griefs, some
passionate moral struggles, some fatal secrets of the
inner life, which we cannot speak to man. For we
cannot give men that knowledge of our whole past,
by which alone its secrets can be justly judged. But
to our Father who knows all we can speak out. He
has no conventional maxims by which to measure us,
no half-experience, no harshness, no jealous injustice
such as amonof men demands to be considered love. He
cannot, therefore, mistake us — we are sure of justice ;
and it is that, not love alone, which we ask from
Him if our souls be true.
Out of the silent loneliness of the heart, then, the
prayer of confession rises to the Fatherhood of God.
The weight is lifted off the soul, at least the unbearable-
ness of it is gone. We have told it all to Him — He
knew it, it is true — what was the need of telling Him?
No need to Him, but comfort to us, for expression gives
relief to tortured feeling. As long as we kept it,
brooded over it, it was like air in a sealed room ; it
grew deadlier, and slowly poisoned all the heart.
The Force of Prayer. 155
Expressed, it was like tlie same air when, the windows
thrown open, the sweet spring breeze came flowing in ;
we rise up — half the horror is gone, half the weight
of the secret guilt is lifted off, we begin to feel ashamed
of having despaired of life ; we begin to feel the duty of
forgetting sin and pressing forward into the work of
righteousness. This is the blessed work of prayer to
God — of simply entrusting to Him all.
It is no strange mysterious work. It has its ceaseless
analogies in our every-day life. The morbid youth of the
German poet poured out all its sickly feeling in his first
prose novel, and it was gone for ever. Burns, riding
across the Highland moor, when the sky was dark with
thunder and the rain fell in accumulating roar, felt his
heart swell almost to breaking with passionate feeling,
and sang to himself that battle-hymn in which we hear
the rushing rain and the elemental war. Elijah on the
mountain, his heart burning with the desertion of a
whole people, felt his passion relieved by the earthquake,
and wind, and fire, and the still small voice represented
to him the calm which had come upon his stormy heart.
Jeremiah, indignant with God,"^ broke into a wild cry, in
which he gave expression to his pain, and relieved, he
felt the fire of duty burn bright again, and took up again
the work of life. And He who was Mankind, burdened
with untold sorrow in the sorrowful garden, did not
hide his agony from his Father, though He knew it
could not be taken from. Him, but expressing it, passed
into the sublime peace with which He drank the cup
* Jer. XX. 7, 8, 9.
156 The Force of Prayer.
and died. Expression relieves the o'erfrauglit heart,
and, the pressure removed, it rebounds into the natural
strength of health. Wordsworth has said it all : —
To me alone there came a thought of grief :
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong.
Yes, if any here are crushed with unshared sorrow,
eaten with the remorse of unhealed and secret sin,
chained to a trial which none can understand, and
therefore wordless to man — sj)read it before the God
of kindness and justice, before the God of human
nature. The method of relief is ready to your hand.
Make use of prayer.
Lastly. It has the power of sanctifying life be-
cause it brings God into life. Twice in the day it has
been for aofes the habit of the race to use this talis-
man ; once for the sanctification of the day, once for
the sanctification of the night. The morning prayer
chimes in with the joy of the creation, with the quick
world as it awakes and sings. It ought to bind itself up
with the rising of the sun, the opening of the flowers,
the divine service of the birds, the glow of cloudy
bars on which the rays of light strike like a musician's
fingers, and whose notes and chords are colour. The
voice of the world is prayer, and our morning worship
should be in tune with its ordered hymn of praise.
But in joy we should recall our weakness, and
ask His presence who is strength and redemption,
so that joy may be married to watchfulness by
humility. Such a prayer is the guard of life. It
prepares us beforehand for temptation : neglect it and
The Foj'ce of Prayer. 157
you fall. It makes us conscious of our Father's
presence, so that we hear His voice in the hour of our
folly or our sin. ' My child, this morning you called
Me to your side ; do not drive Me far away. Bridle that
passionate temper ; restrain that excitement which is
sweeping you beyond the power of will ; keep back that
foolish word which will sting your neighbour's heart ;
do not do that dishonesty; be not guilty of that
cowardice. I am by your side.'
That is the thing which prayer makes real. Prayer,
not only in the morning watch, but prayer sent A*oice-
less from the heart from hour to hour. Then life is
hallowed, wakeful, and calm. It becomes beautiful
with that beauty of God which eye hath not seen. It
is not left comfortless, for prayer brings the Saviour to
our side. In the hour of our grief we hear the voice
of Christ coming down the ages to our soul, tender as
the morning light on flowers, ' Come unto Me, all that
are weary and heavy laden : I will give you rest.' We
hear Him as we sit at business, speaking as He spoke
to Matthew at the receipt of custom, ' Follow Me ; ' and
though we know we cannot rise as did the publican,
for our work is where He has placed us, yet we know
its meaning. We seem to feel his hand in ours in the
passion of our endeavour to do right when duty and
interest clash, and his grasp gives firmness to our
faltering resolution. And when the petty troubles of
life, the small difficulties which sting like gnats, the
intrusions, the quarrels, the slight derangements of
health, have disturbed our temper, and we are in
danger of being false to that divine charity whicli is
158 TJie Fo7^ce of Prayer.
the dew of life, one X3rayer will sweep us back to
Palestine, and standing among the circle of the
Apostles we shall listen to his voice, ' Love one another
as I have loved you.' 'Peace I leave with you, My
peace I give unto you.'
And day being hallowed thus, do not omit to make
holy the night. For whether we sleep a dreamless
sleep, as if sleep had given us for the time to the arms
of his brother death, or wander in the land of ' footless
fancies,' where the brain and its servants, having
escaped from their master, will, play at their wild
pleasure, like things without a soul, we need the pre-
sence and protection of God. In dead sleep who can tell
where the spirit has been, what worlds it has seen, what
lessons it has received, what thoughts have become
entwined with it — thoughts of which we are not con-
scious, but which appear like strangers afterwards,
we cannot tell from whence, within the brain.
Hallow these possible voyages by committing your
spirit into the hands of God.
But still more we need His watchfulness, or, since He
is always watchful, our suppressed consciousness of it,
when sleep opens the ivory gate, and we flitter through
the fairy life of dreamland.
It is not beauty alone which we encounter there, but
mystery more mysterious than that of earth ; strange
words which seem to be warnings ; impressions so vivid
that they stamp the day ; pain and pleasure so sharp
that we cry or dread to dream again ; noble thoughts,
pure shapes of the imagination, which, unremembered
in detail, yet leave behind an inspiring sense of the
The Force of Prayer. i 59
infinite tilings the soul may do ; temptations to sin, cruel
and impure thoughts, terror even and horror which
open to us more dreadful depths of guilt and pain than
we can realise awake.
Take, by the power of prayer, through this wild land
of dreams, the sanctifying presence of One who loves us.
Claim it every night, and it will attend to hallow the
fancies of sleep, to save us from the baseness of dream-
fear, to call back the wandering fancy from impurity.
For prayer, continually lived in, makes the presence
of a holy and loving God the air which life breathes
and by which it lives, so that, as it mingles consciously
with the work of the day, it becomes also a part of
every dream.
To us, then, it will be no strange thing to enter
Heaven, for we have been living: in the thino-s of
Heaven. They have even here become realities, and
when we step across the drawbridge of death, it is no
foreign land we enter, but our native Home. Only the
communion with our Father which we have felt here
through prayer, shall there be so profoundly greater
that prayer will be no more, and praise be all in all.
i6o Immortality.
IMMORTALITY.
* For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for all live unto
him/ — Luke xx. 38.
There is a common reason for the perverse denial
of immortality. It is, that man, when living solely for
this world, cannot believe in a world to come. He who
is blind has no conception of the stars. He who is
without passion cannot believe in enthusiasm. He
who lives for himself cannot believe in self-devotion.
And he who is living a base life cannot believe in a
noble one. If his sonl is plunged in the sensual, he
cannot realise the spiritual. When his whole energies
are given to this world, he cannot conceive or possess
the world to come. There are, then, thousands of men
calling themselves Christians, to whom immortal life
is merely a name, to whom their little life is indeed
' rounded with a sleep.'
Practically, they disbelieve in immortality. They
may even inwardly go further, and deny it to them-
selves, should the question intrude upon their pleasure.
But they do not deny it before the world. Something
holds them back from boasting of their unbelief; a
consciousness that they have thrown aside a noble
thing, a regret which will steal in, that now they can
limnortality. i6l
no longer aspire beyond tlieir present life. Unable to
realise immortality tliemselves, they yet shrink from
an open denial of it with a sense of shame and degra-
dation. But still more, it becomes a dreadful thing to
them, if they have any sensitive reverence left for the
sorrow of Mankind, to throw doubt upon this doctrine.
If true, it is so precious that it seems the race might
bear any suffering provided it was its fate at last ; if it
is only held to be false and not proved false, a man
may well doubt whether, on his own judgment alone,
he should proclaim that he holds it false. There is
a devotion to one's own truthfulness which is, in cer-
tain circumstances, intolerable cruelty to others, and, in
spiritual matters, where proof has not been attained,
unlesf^ we clearly feel that to disclose our opinion is
good for man, we are only Pharisees anxious to placard
onr honesty when we loudly proclaim our negations in
public or in private. Truthfulness without charity is
a vice and not a virtue, as love without truthfulness
to moral right becomes idolatry.
And men in general have felt this, and when they
disbelieved in immortality have held their tongue.
Moreover, they have refrained, because they insen-
sibly felt that the denial of immortality is practically
atheism. Clinging still to the notion of a God, they
connect with Him their ideas of right and wrong. He
is their source, and He allots their sanctions. But no
one can long continue to believe in and to love a God
who is assumed to give us these ideas, and then so
forgets all about His gift and His creature as to plunge
obedience and disobedience into the same nothingness ;
1 6 2 Immorta lity.
or who by wilfully annexing annihilation to all human
lives alike, proclaims that in His eyes, Tiberius, rotting
to a shameless death in Caprea, is on the same level
with the Saviour dying on Calvary for the Truth. One
must feel that such a God would be wicked. He would
deny that very morality which we imagine He has
implanted in us. We should be obliged to deny His
existence in order to retain our morality. To disbelieve
in immortality is to disbelieve in God : with the fall of
the one, falls the other.
And this also men have felt, and I know no instance
where the denial of immortality has not led directly to
atheism. Men did not like to realise, by putting their
denial of immortality into speech, that they did not
practically believe in God at all.
But these motives have now ceased to operate, at least
to the same extent. Matters have taken a new phase.
Immortality is boldly or quietly denied, not only by
impure and selfish men, but by men of culture and of a
hio-h morality. It is accompanied, as it must neces-
sarily be, by latent or overt atheism, as a cause or a
result of the denial.
What are the particular causes of. this denial at
present ? One is the prevalence of certain theological
views which, once largely accepted, are now felt to be
repugnant to the moral sense. Good men, some
among the best and holiest of the race, have held
these views, and lived and died by them. And it is a
strong proof that theological opinions have no necessary
connection with goodness that these men have been so
good. It proves also tha.t we cannot judge the morality
• of one time, so far as it relates to the* morality of
Immortality. 1 6
o
opinions, bj the morality of another time. I'or few
doubted then of the accordance of these opinions with
moral right ; and now many persons, distinctly, and it
seems to me with truth, reject them as immoral.
Among these, the first is the conception of God.
The conception of God's nature which has been laid
before us for many years, has brought many men at
last to turn away from it with dismay and pain. They
feel that the morality of the pulpit on this matter lags
behind the moral feeling of society. God has been
represented, they think, and I think with them, as
selfish, as seeking His own glory at the expense of His
creatures' welfare, as- jealous, as arbitrary, as indul-
ging in favouritism, as condemning all for the sake of
one, as insisting on forms of temporary importance
and binding them for ever on the conscience, as ruining
men for mistakes in doctrine, as claiming a blind sub-
mission of the conscience and the intellect, as vindic-
tive, as the resolute torturer of the greater part of the
human race by an everlasting punishment which pre-
supposes everlasting evil ; as, in one word, anything
rather than the Father revealed in Jesus Christ.
Much of this teaching remains still, though it is pre-
sented under a veil by which its coarser outlines are
modified. It is accei)ted by many who either do not
possess a strong and individual sense of morality, or
who do not think, or prefer not to think on the matter,
lest they should shake the fabric of their easy faith or
spoil their religious sentiment. But, those who do,
and whose moral feeling of right and wrong is sane
and sI;rong, turn away revolted from a God of this
1 04 Immortality.
character, believe that to be immortally connected with
Him would be degradation, even the very horror of hell.
But not having been taught any other God, and
being, to a certain degree, culpably lazy about exa-
mining into the teaching of Christianity for themselves,
they fall back on their last resource, and disbelieve in
immortality. ' It is better to perish for ever, than to be
the slave of such a ruler. We deny his existence,
and we deny the immortality he is said to promise.
But, at the same time, we will be true to our sense of
right and wrong ; we will do what we can to help the
race ; we will have our immortality in the memories of
the future, or in the " Being of Humanity ;" but, as for
ourselves, let us cease, for we could not live with the
Being who has been described to us.'
I^ow, I believe this to be, and no one need mistake
my meaning, a really healthy denial of immortality,
for it is founded on the denial of a false God. And
so far as it is founded on the assertion of a true mo-
rality, so far it is, though these men do not confess it
as such, the assertion of the trae God. The God who
has been preached to men of late has now become to
us an idol, that is, a conception of God lower than we
ought to frame, and a revolt against that conception
is not in reality a revolt against God ; it is a protest
against idolatry. I sympathise strongly, then, with
that part of the infidel effort which is directed against
these immoral views of God's character, though I am
pained by the manner in which the attack is conducted
■ — and it is my hope that the attack will lead our
theologians to bring their teaching up to the level oi
Iinmortality. 165
tlie common moral feeling on this subject, and to reveal
God as the Father of men in all the profound meaning
of that term. The belief in immortality will then re-
turn, for the love of God v^ill return to men. For it is
impossible for any man to clearly see and believe in the
Father as revealed in Christ and not passionately de-
sire to draw nearer and nearer to Him for ever, and
not feel that he must live and continue to live for ever.
Therefore, in order to restore to men such as I have
described a belief in immortality, we must restore to
them a true conception of God. This is, this ought to
be, the main work of the preachers and teachers of this
time. For as long as the morality of the pulpit hangs
behind the morality of religious-minded men, those
religious-minded men will be infidels.
Again, another reason for the prevalent disbelief in
immortality is the selfish theory of religious life. That
theory has almost died away among religious teachers,
but the reaction ag^ainst it still continues. We have
given it up, but it is still imputed to us by our infidel
opponents.
It is said that we are to do good in order to be
rewarded, and to avoid evil, lest we should be punished.
In this doctrine, baldly stated as it has been, there is
nothing which appeals to the nobler feelings of man.
Selfish gratification and selfish fear are alone addressed.
It is a direct appeal to that part of our being which is
the meanest, as if that were the part which could most
readily accept religion. It connects us to God by bonds
of self-interest, as a servant to a patron, not by bonds
of love, as a child to a father.
1 66 Imnijrtality.
Against this theory many rose in revolt, declaring
11 at according to it tlie desire of immortal life was a
selfish desire, and proposing, as an escape from this
selfishness, that men should live a noble life without
hopes for the future. Thej^ set this forth as the highest
form of self-sacrifice. ' Live,' they said, ' doing good,
without hope of reward, only for the sake of good —
hating and fighting with evil, because evil is degradation,
not because it is punished. You cannot do this if you
accept the Christian doctrine of immortal life. For it
nourishes selfishness. It locks a man up in care for
his own safety. On the highest religious grounds, we
deny the doctrine of immortality as prejudicial to a
noble and pious life.'
And if that were really the Christian doctrine, they
would do well in denying it, and we might be driven
to accept their fine-sounding theory of self-sacrifice.
But we meet it, first, by a blunt contradiction of the
false representation of Christianity, from which it has
sprung as a reaction. Christianity says precisely what
these men say, only not in so abstract a manner. It
asks us to do good, not for the sake of abstract good,
but for the sake of being like to God — the personal
goodness. That is not a selfish doctrine, nor does it
lead to selfishness. It urges us to avoid evil, lest we
should become unlike God, in whose image we are,
and whose temple we become. That is not a selfish
motive. It takes us out of self, and makes our life con-
sist in living in God, and because He lives in all the
race, in living through Him in the interests and lives
of all our brother-men. That is not a selfish doctrine.
Lin in or t a lity. 1 6 7
Its reward is not a selfish reward ; it is the reward
of being made unselfish, because made like to God.
' Your reward,' said Christ, ' shall be great, for ye shall
be the cliildren of your Father ; ' that is, resembling
your Father in character.
Nor does Christianity appeal to fear of punishment,
but to the feeling of love. It does not say menacingly,
' Thou shalt not kill, or steal, or be an idolater ; ' it says,
' Love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and thy
neighbour as thyself,' for then, since thou lovest, thou
canst not injure thy neighbour, or sin against God.
It rejects fear as having torment, as belonging to a
spirit of bondage, not a spirit of life. It appeals
throughout to self-sacrifice, self-devotion. It asks us to
live by all that is noblest in us, to walk worthy of our
high vocation — likeness to Christ, who died for men.
It does not proclaim the selfish doctrine on which this
denial of immortality is founded.
But it is plain that it does declare rewards and
punishments; and an objector may saj^, that even on
the supposition that Christianity does not really appeal
to the selfish feeling, yet that the introduction of the
element of rewards has in itself a tendency to produce
selfish feeling.
Certainly, we answer, if the rewards are material, if
they belong in any way to the selfish part of our
nature. But if they have nothing to do with that, but
with that part of our being which lives by the denial of
self and the practice of self-devotion, if they are purely
spiritual rewards, to long after them is not selfish, but
the high duty of the soul. God says, ' Do good, and
1 68 Immortality.
you are rewarded.' How ? Bj an increased power of
doing good. Is it selfisTi to desire that? God says,
' Love me, love yonr brother-men with all your heart,
and you shall be rewarded.' How ? By deeper capa-
bility of loving. Is it selfish to desire that ? The true
statement of the doctrine of rewards at once dissipates
this absurd accusation of selfishness.
To look forward to this increase of the spiritual life,
to this daily growth of unselfishness, and to live and
act in the hope of that and for its sake; it is ridi-
culous to call that a selfish theorj^ To do good, and
to think of the reward of being loved by God and of
becoming more like to God, is no more a selfish life
than to spend one's whole life for one's country, and to
rejoice in the idea of being loved by one's country, and
becoming more worthy of her love, is selfish for the
high-hearted soldier. A life of love lived in the hope
of the reward of becoming more capable of love, does
not encourage in the heart a single germ of selfishness.
And as to immortal life itself, if you choose to sepa-
rate it for a moment from these spiritual qualities of
love, and purity, and truth (which in us are immortal
life) the desire of life, keener, purer, more abounding,
cannot be selfish. For it is a natural appetite of the
human spirit.
Now the lawful gratification of appetite is not
selfish. No one is so absurd as to say that the desire
of food or drink when we are hungry or thirsty, for
the sake of relieving these appetites, is a selfish desire.
No one says that the desire of knowledge for the sake
of knowing is a selfish desire. It is a noble appetite of
Immortality. 1 69
the intellect. Y'et here, when we get into the realm of
the spirit of man, we are told that the desire of
immortal life for the sake of life, and that acting for the
purpose of being a partaker of that life, is selfish, and
encourages selfishness. It is a greater absurdity than
the others. Desire of life is the most natural appetite
of the spirit, and we are in desperate peril of becoming
truly selfish when we crush it, or caricature it, or at-
tempt to live without it.
Indeed, that is often the result. I do not speak now
of those who replace the doctrine of personal immortality
by the mystical and unj^ractical notion of an immortality
in the race, for these at least allow of the existence of
a longing and passion for immortality, of which they
are bound to take notice ; nor of those who frankly, on
scientific grounds, avow that they do not believe in the
existence of a spirit in man aj)art from his mortal frame,
but of those who quietly, on the fantastic ground of
the selfishness of this passion, dej^rive the race of one
of the mighty hopes which make us men.
On the whole, mankind resents this, and resents it
justly. It separates itself from these men who have
separated themselves from the common longing. They
feel their isolation, and retire from the world. Or they
become angry with the world, and mock and scorn its
aspirations. Or they seclude themselves and their
theory in Pharisaic dignity, and thank Fate that they
are not as other men are, blinded by superstition, but
seated aloft in the clear light of unapproachable self-
sacrifice — the martyrs of a grand idea.
The end of it all is that they become as self-involved
1 70 Immoi^tality.
as tlie Simeon Stylites of the poet, as self-righteous, and
as self-conceited. Aiming at the utter denial of self,
they arrive at the utter assertion of self.
And this result follows, because the self-sacrifice put
forward by these theorists is not self-sacrifice at all^ but
the immolation of the best and most asj^iring part of
our nature. They give up what is good, and call it
self-sacrifice. It is an inversion of the truth, for self-
sacrifice is surrendering what is wrong, or pleasurable,
for the sake of good to others. There are certain ne-
cessary elements in an act of true self-sacrifice. It
must be in itself a moral act, and distinctly felt as such
by the actor, else one throws the halo of self-surrender
over evil ; it must not be merely instinctive, but done
with a rational belief that it will produce good ; and
the doer of it must not give up or weaken any eleuient
in his nature, the existence and strong existence of
which, even in a single individual, is of importance for
the progress of the race. It is not self-sacrifice to
crucify a high desire for the sake of attaining an
ideal. It is not self-sacrifice to give up what is true
for the sake of being more true. That is as absurd
as giving up one friend for the sake of being a- more
perfect friend to another. You do not gain, but lose
so much of power of friendship. And those who sur-
render the hope of immortal life, for the sake of being
freed from all thought of self, do not gain the self-sacri-
ficing heart, they only take away one of the motive
powers of self-sacrifice.
On the whole, we want clearer notions of self-sacri-
fice. There are some things we have no right to
Immortality. 1 7 1
give up. It is not self-sacrifice to surrender our con-
science, though we might save a whole nation by doing
so. It is not self-sacrifice to be false to our own soul,
for the sake of those we love, as the martyr would have
been had he worshipped Jupiter, because his father and
mother wept at his feet, and were left to ruin by his
death. It is not self-sacrifice to commit suicide, as in
some novels, for the sake of the happiness of others.
It is not self-sacrifice to marry one who loves you,
because you do not wish him or her to suff'er, when
you do not love in return — it is self-destruction. It
is not self-sacrifice to cast aside immortality, that it
may not vitiate by a taint of self your doing good. It
is spiritual suicide ; nay, more, there is a hidden selfish-
ness in it, for he who does this is endeavouring to
secure his own ideal at the expense of the race of men
whom he deprives of the hope which more than all else
has cheered aiid strengthened them in the battle against
evil. It is selfish to wilfully shut our eyes to this, that
we may indulge a fancy of our own.
For the sake of right reason, if not for the sake of
God, do not let yourself be tricked out of your belief in
immortality by a subtile seeming good, by an appeal to a
false idea of self-sacrifice. First cast aside the theology
which has given rise to this twisted notion of self-sacri-
fice, and then with a clear judgment you will recognise
that the true self-sacrifice is not incompatible with the
reward of that immortal life which is in itself nothing
less than the life of self-sacrifice. Tour smile will then
be a quiet smile when men tell you to give up longing
for immortality, because it is a selfish ground of action.
172 Immortality.
What, you will say, is it selfisli to hope to be for ever
unselfish, is it selfish to desire to be at one with the
life of Him who finds his life in giving Himself away ?
Is it selfish to aspire to that fuller life which is found
in living in the lives of others by watchful love of them ?
These are my rewards, and every one of them ministers
to and. secures unselfishness.
Lastly, there is another reason for the denial of im-
mortality, which arises from theological teaching. It
is the extremely dull and limited notions of the future
life. We have too mu(^h transferred to our northern
Christianity and our active existence of thought the
Oriental conceptions of heaven drawn from the book of
the Revelation. We have taken them literally instead
of endeavouring to win the spiritual thoughts of which
these descriptions are but the form. And literally taken
they are wholly unsuitable to our Teutonic nature. They
make the future life seem to our minds a lazy dreamy
existence, in which all that is quickest and most vital in
us would stasrnate, in which all that makes life interest-
ing, dramatic, active, would perish. It is not needless
to notice this. For it is astonishing how even among
men who should have known better, the early chilcjish
conceptions of heaven remain as realities. I have met
active-minded working-people, and cultivated men, who
looked forward with dislike to death, because they
dreaded the dulness of the next world. Till we have a
hio'her, more human conception of the future life than
that usually given, we shall not restore to society a joy-
ful belief in immortality. Our theology wants a picture
of the world to come, fitted to meet a larger and a
Iinmorta lity. 173
worthier ideal of hnraanitj. If we wisli to awake
interest in the future life, we must add to the merely
spiritual ideas of uncultivated teachers, others which
will minister food to the imagination, the intellect, the
social and national instincts of man ; naj, more, if we
believe in the resurrection of the body, others which
minister to the delight of the purified senses.
We need only go back to the revelation of Christ to
gain the true ground of this wider conception. He
revealed God as each man's Father. T^ow the higfhest
work of a father is education, and the end of God's edu-
cation of man is the finished and harmonious develop-
ment of all his powers. If in the future life our intellect
or imagination is left undeveloped, it is not education ;
and we cannot conceive .of a perfect fatherhood. If
all our powers have not there their work and their
opportunities of expansion, the full idea of fatherhood
is lost. If any of our true work here on earth is fruitless
work, and does not enable us to produce tenfold results
in a future life, no matter what that work may be, work
of the artist, historian, politician, merchant, then the
true conception of education, and therefore of God's
fatherhood, is lost.
No, brethren, we rest on this, ' I go to prepare a place
for you.' A place is prepared for each one of us ; a place
fitted to our distinct character, a separate work fitted
to develope that character into perfection, and in the
doing of which we shall have the continual delight of
feeling that we are growing ; a place not only for us,
but for all our peculiar powers. Our ideals shall become
more beautiful, and minister continually to fresh aspira-
1 74 Immortality.
tion, so tliat stagnation will be impossible. Feelings
for which we found no food here, shall there be satisfied
with work, and exercised by action into exquisite per-
fection. Faint possibilities of our nature, which came
and went before us here like swallows on the wing,
shall there be grasped and made realities. The outlines
of life shall be filled up, the rough statue of life shall be
finished. We shall be not only spiritual men, but men
comj^lete in Christ, the perfect flower of humanity.
And this shall be in a father's home, where all the
dearest dreams of home-life shall find their happy ful-
filment; in a perfect society, where all the charming
interchange of thought and giving and receiving of each
other's good which make our best happiness on earth,
shall be easier, freer, purer, more intimate, more spiri-
tual, more intellectual ; and lastly, in a perfect polity,
' fellow-citiz-ens with the saints,' where all the interests
of large national life shall find room and opportunities
for development ; and binding all together, the omni-
present Spirit of love, goodness, truth, and life, whom
we call God, and whom we know in Jesus Christ, shall
abide in us, and we in Him, ' for He is not a God of
the dead, but of the living : for all live unto Him.'
Immortality, \ 75
IMMORTALITY.
* For he is not a God of tlie dead, but of the living : for all live unto
him.' — Luke xx. 38.
It is remarkable tliat the theological questions which
are now most widely spoken of are no longer those
which presuppose a general confession of Christianity,
but other and deeper questions altogether; questions
the very discussion of which shows how strongly the
foundations of the religious world are moved. It is now
frequently asked whether there be a God or not, whether
immortality be not a mere idol of the imagination. It
is plain, when society has got down to these root ques-
tions, that modern theology in its past form has no
longer the power to do its work, otherwise these things
would be axioms. It is plain that, if Christianity is to
keep its ground, it must go through a revolution, and
present itself in a new form to the minds of men.
It is the characteristic excellence of Christianity that
it is able to do this. For with regard to his own religion
the saying of Christ remains for ever true — that saying
which declares the continued progress of Revelation,
* I have yet many things to say to you, but ye cannot
bear them now.'
But when the time draws near for the growtli of
176 Immortality.
Christian thouglit around a new idea, and for the re-
generation of Christian practice by the life which flows
from the fresh thought, the change is heralded by the
appearance, sometimes in infidel teaching, sometimes in
isolated religious teachers, of scattered and disconnected
truths, which do not naturally belong to the old form of
religion, or Avhich are set up in opposition to it. Being
half-truths, or isolated truths, they point forward to a
complete form which shall supplement and include
them. At the present day many of the new truths,
or rather, of the extensions of the old truths, which
Christianity will have to absorb, are to be found in
infidel teaching, combined with a rejection of immor-
tality and of the being of a God. We shall search
for those truths to-day, and try to show that without
the doctrine of immortality they have no lasting value,
but that in union with it they are of real imj)ortance,
and ought to be claimed for Christianity.
But first, let us examine for a moment what is taking
place at present with regard to Christian and infidel
teaching.
Durinfj the time when an old form of Christian
thought is slowly passing away, having exhausted all it
had to give, it repeats again and again with the garrulity
of old age the phrases which in its youth were the ex-
pressions of living thought and feeling. They fitted
then the wants of men, and they were the means by
which religious life advanced and religious truth
developed. But being naturally cast into a fixed intel-
lectual system, they remained behind the movement they
began ; they made men grow, but men outgrew them,
Immortality. i^j*]
for systems become old, but mankind is always young.
It follows, then, almost of necessity, that when a certain
point in this progress is reached, there will be a strong
reaction against the old form of Christianity, and the
reaction will contain the assertion of that which is want-
ing in the dying phase, and a protest against its weak-
ness. Both the assertion and the protest will often be
combined with infidel teaching, for there will be many
who, seeing these garments of Christianity rotting away,
and hearing them declared to be Christianity itself,
will believe the declaration, and attack not only the g.tr-
ments but the living spirit itself which is waiting to
be reclothed. The infidel teaching on religious subjects
will then consist of two parts, a negative and a positive
part. The negative will deny or ignore all Christian
truth as then taught; the positive will assert some
ideas necessary for the present time and answering to
some of its religious wants. It is the business of
Christian teachers, while setting aside the negations,
to claim as their own those positive ideas which, though
developed in a foreign soil, are yet derived from Chris-
tian seeds. They will say, ' We have learnt from our
enemies ; they have told us what the age desires. In
answer to that desire they have unwittingly fallen back
upon Christian ideas and expanded them, led uncon-
sciously thereto by the ever-working spirit of God.
Those expansions are ours ; we did not see them before,
but we claim them now.' If we do that, the infidelity
of the infidel, that is, his negations, will slowly share
the fate of all negations ; and the scattered truths he
teaches, taken into Christianity, find in it their vital
178 Immortality.
union witL. all its past, and form stepping-stones for its
future growth.
This is the general sketch of the movement in which
we are now involved. We are at that point in it in
which we are beginning to recognise that the infidel is
teaching a few truths which naturally belong to Chris-
tianity. But we have not yet fully assimilated those
truths, or established their connection with those we
possess. Not till that is done will our wider form of
Christian thought be completed.
Let us take the two main forms of infidelity which ^xq-
vail — secularism and Comtism ; the first, widely spread
among the working-classes ; the second— the religion of
positivism, to call it by its other name — held by a small
number of the cultivated class.
Both of these hold in them ideas which ought to be
ours. It is said that these ideas are foreign to Chris-
tianity. On the contrary, I believe that they are the
children of Christianity born in an alien land, and
moreover, that they fit more harmoniously into the
Christian system than into the sjstem with which they
are now united.
Of the coarse brutal secularism which does nothing
but deny and bluster, I have nothing to say ; but there
is another form of it which does not so much deny as
say, ' We do not know ; there may be another life to
come, there may be a God, but we cannot prove these
things. They are wrapped in mystery ; they leave us
in the mystery. God, if there be a God, gives no an-
swer to us. All the feelings which we are asked to
feel about Him, all the hopes and fears which cluster
Immortality. 1 79
round tlie doctrine of immortality, only hinder our
practical work, make us think of ourselves and not of
our duty; nay, more, they do harm, for more suffering and
evil have come upon the race, more cruelty and more
hindrances to progress have arisen from these notions
than from any others. We will put them utterly aside,
and act by faith in other ideas.'
This is their denial, and even from this we may learn
much. For the God the conscientious secularist denies
is the Grod of whom we spoke last Sunday — a God of
arbitrary will, who makes salvation depend on assent
to certain systems of theology, and men responsible
for sins committed before they were born ; who dooms
the greater part of the race to eternal wickedness.
And the immortality he does not care for is an immor-
tality based on the selfish doctrine of which we also
s^Doke, which by working on the fears and greed ot
men produces persecution in public and continual brood-
ing on self in private — above all, which destroys uncon-
scious aspiration. Looking at this, we learn our faults ;
we are driven back to that conception of a Father which
Christ revealed. We are tanght to preach a loftier view
of the nature of immortal life. We turn and say to the
secularist, ' The God whom you reject we reject ; the
immortality you deny, we deny also.'
But we may learn much more from what he asserts
as his religion. He believes that nature contains all
things necessary for the guidance of mankind, that
duty consists in a steadfast pursuit, according to the
laws of nature, of results tending to the happiness of the
race, and that in doing that duty he becomes, happy.
1 80 Immortality.
His God is duty, his Bible is nature, his heaven is in the
happiness of man and the progress of mankind to per-
fection. His sin is in violating natural laws, because
such a violation is sure to bring evil on men.
The two main ideas running through this we ought
to learn to make more prominent in Christianity — the
idea that man has a higher duty to mankind than to
himself, the idea of the progress of the race to perfec-
tion. The first is distinctly contained in the whole
spirit of the life of Christ ; the second in the Christian
conception of God's Fatherhood. But there is no
doubt that our Christianity has not sufficiently dwelt
on these thoughts, and that the Christianity of the future
must absorb them. We accept then with thankfulness
this teaching from without, but we say that to fulfil it
in action and to bring it home to the hearts and lives
of men, there must be added to it the Christian ideas of
God and of immortality. The absence of these deprives
the secularist of any certain ground for that reverence
for human nature and for that faith in ultimate per-
fection without which there can be no joyous self-sacri-
fice for man, no unfaltering work for his progress.
Their absence de]3rives him of the mighty impulse which
arises from a profound love for an all-loving person, and
replaces it by the weaker impulse which is born of love
to an abstraction called duty, or to a 'Humanity' which
is always disappointing the love which is lavished on it,
till our love, feeding on imperfection, becomes itself en-
feebled or corrupt. Their absence deprives him of the
idea which more than all others makes a religious so-
ciety coherent — that all its members are held together
/;;/ ;;/ o rta lity, 1 8 1
by the indwelling in each, and in the whole, of one per-
sonal spirit of good ; of the idea which makes work for
human progress persistent — that all work done here is
carried to perfection in a kindlier world, not only in the
everlasting life of each worker, but in the mighty whole
of a human race destined to slowly form itself, through
the undying labour of each and all in God, into the
full-grown man. And, finally, their absence deprives him
of any large power of appeal to those deep-seated feel-
ings of awe, mystery, and adoration, which are drawn
out in men by the idea of God ; and which are, when
linked to the inspiration which flows from the love of
a perfect man, the source of that enthusiasm which
supports and continues a religion.
Practically, then, we should expect a priori, that
secularism, on account of its negation of God and
immortality, could not float its noble ideas. And this
is really the fact ; it has had many followers, but the
greater number do not remain in it ; they change out
of it into many Christian sects, or they pass from entire
unbelief into credulity. Some are the victims of remote
and strange phases of fanaticism ; others, like Robert
Owen, end in the opposite extreme of ' spiritualism.'
]^or have the societies or sects of secularism any co-
herence; none of them can keep up a permanent organi-
sation, and their quarrels are as bitter as they say that
those of Christians are. The very best among them
pass through life doing their duty to the last, but in a
kind of mournful hopelessness, their heart unsatisfied
though their intellect may be at rest ; for there is, deep
down in their minds, the painful suspicion that clinging
1 8 2 Immorta lity.
to negations may after all be itself as blind a super-
stition as any of tbose which they attack.
To sum lip all, there are a few ideas in secularism
which owe their origin to the insensible growth of the
ideas of Christ among men. These ideas are in advance
of the accepted Christianity of this day, but they are
inoperative in secularism. When we take them into
connection with the belief in God and immortality, they
will become operative, but they will modify the present
form of Christianity.
Secondly, we consider the religion of positivism in
the same light. It maintains, though in a different and
more cultured form, the same views on these points as
secularism. But it avoids negations for the most part,
and confines itself to sa3dng that Christianity has
nothing more to give to man ; that its good influence is
exhausted for the western nations. In it the Christian
doctrine of God and immortalit}^ entirely disappears. In
spite of this, and far more than secularism, it has drunk
deep of the spirit of Christianity : most of its doctrines
may be directly inferred from the teaching of Christ
and the Apostles, and in fact are unconsciously derived
from it. Only it is to be said, that the accredited Chris-
tianity of the day has not yet arrived at these expan-
sions of Christian ideas, that, so far, the followers of
Comte 's religion are in front of us, and that we ought,
in spite of the curious and infidel surrounding of these
new thoughts, to claim them as by right our own and
embody them in Christianity^
The future Christianity will Lave to take into itself
Iinino7^tality. 1 8
J
sucli doctrines as social and international self-sacrifice,
which is a direct and logical expansion of the Christian
doctrine of self-sacrifice. It is surprising", if anything
is surprising, that we have not done this already ; that
in our pulpits we only speak of the self-sacrifice of one
person for another, and almost nothing of the duty of
the citizen to sacrifice himself for his parish, for social
ends, for the State ; of the duty of nations to sacrifice
their own interests for the sake of the community of
nations, and of the duty of the community of nations to
sacrifice much in the present for the sake of the future
welfare of the whole race. N"or must we leave out
other positivist doctrines, such as the necessity of giving
to each of the human faculties their appropriate work
in connection with a large idea of religion — a doctrine
contained, as I think, in S. Paul's view of the relation
of gifts and of distinct characters to the growth of the
race in God, and of the working"^ of these differing gifts
by a divine spirit for that purpose ; nor yet that other
doctrine of the sanctification of all human effort to the
good of man, so that social feeling may be victorious
over self-love, which is in fact the re-declaration, in a
wider form than we declare it, of the whole aim and
spirit of Christ's life ; nor yet that other doctrine of the
union of science, art, and morality into an harmonious
whole, under the regenerating influence of the worship
of humanity — a conception which we shall take, and
only change by replacing the worshij) of humanity by
the worship of the Christ as the representative and
* ' All these workcth that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every
man severally as he will.'
184 Immortality.
concentration into an ideal man of tlie whole race as it
is in God ; nor yet, finally, tliat other idea of the race as
one great Being ever living and moving on by the service
of each to the use of the whole, which is, in truth, the
idea of the race as ' the full-grown man ' laid dowji by
S. Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians, adding, however,
to this last thought that which gives it reality and con-
crete form — the belief in One who is the federal Head of
this great Being, because He is Himself in perfection
that which the race is as yet imperfectly. These are the
doctrines which we gladly receive as expansions of our
Christianity, and by which we modify our present form
of it.
But we shall absorb them, retaining that which
the religion of positivism leaves out as unnecessary,
but without which, as we think, these new ideas die
of starvation — the belief in the Being of a loving
Father, and in the endless life of each and all. That
there does exist in man the desire of adoring an
all-embracing Being, and the desire of iramortality,
positivism, unlike secularism, is too wise to deny, and
it attempts to provide for these two passions in its
religion. Instead of God, it presents us with humanity
conceived of as a vast organism composed of all men
and women who have lived for the sake of mankind.
This is the Being we are to worship, and of whom we
ourselves are part; we devote our thoughts to the know-
ledge of her, our afflictions to her love, our actions to
her service. To become, in the thoughts of men, at
one with this Being whose life renews itself through-
out all time, and to be commemorated and loved by
Immortality. 185
men to come, to have our immortality in the continued
existence and affection of the race — this is the reward
and this the eternal life which this relisfion offers to
our acceptance.
Well, if such an object of worship, and such an
immortality, satisfy the passions and longings, the
existence of which the positivist confesses in others, it
will be very strange. He allows that they do not
satisfy men as at present constituted, that the old
feelings must be driven out before the new gospel be
received. But we are told that education from the
positivist point of view will transfer the feelings now
expended on God to this new Being, and that the
aspirations which now cluster round immortality will
have their satisfaction in the delight of having our
work interwoven with the progress of mankind.
A-gainst these assertions one can only appeal to time
for a full reply. But it does seem true that men, if
they worship, wish to worship what is perfect and
absolute, and that the worship of an imperfect and
growing humanity cannot ever satisfy their wifjh.
And it also seems true that men, if they worship, wish
to worship one whom they can distinctly conceive as a
person in relation with themselves, and in whom, as
the ideal Man, each man can love his race. The
Great-Being of the Comtist does not realise this wish.
The organism of which he speaks is not distinct to
thought, is not a person, is not capable of entering into
separate relations of affection with individuals. The
whole thing, while professing to be specially human,
seems to me specially inhuman. Nor will men, I think,
9
1 86 Immortality.
be satisfied to live onlj in the memory of those to come,
and to exchange the promise of immortal life (growing
fuller, wiser, more intense in work and enjoyment of
growth, more individual and yet less liable to self-
absorption, every day) for the promise of annihilation
except so far as their influence and acts remain in the
continued progress of the race. They will say : ' All
you promise me I have already in Christianity, and
the something more which you do not promise. The
past and all its human story is far more living to
me than it is to you. I belong in Christ (who has
redeemed and i« redeeming all men) to all the spirits
who have been. I am a part, not of a " humanity," all
the back portions of which are dead, but of a mighty
army of living men, who, though called dead to us, are
yet united to us in spirit, and doing human work in
God, in a world to which I am going. ISTor do I only
belong to the j)ast and present of mankind ; I belong
in God, who holds eternity within Himself, to all
the future of mankind. Those yet unborn are living
in Him, and therefore bound to me. And all the
beings of the human race, on earth and in heaven, are
advancing together — a vast polity, under the education
of the Lord and King, whose name is Eternal Love.
Till you can bring your conception up to the level of
that magnificent conception, we refuse to take it into
serious consideration. It is a lower thought, and we
cannot change gold against lead.'
We believe, then, in the eternal progress of the race
in God, not only in the immortality of individuals, but in
the immortality of mankind. It made men fairly object
Immortality. 1 8 7
to immortality wlien it was lield to secure to a few con-
tinuous union with good, and to tlie many continuous
union with. evil. It is to this false and cruel view that
we owe the spread and the strength of secularism. But
day by day the doctrine of the eternity of evil is being
driven into its native nio^ht before a hio^her view of the
nature of God, and a nobler belief in Him as the undying
righteousness. We are beginning to understand what
Christ meant when He said, ' Other sheep I have, which
are not of this fold : them also I must bring ; and there
shall be one flock and one shepherd.' It was a ^ must,'
an imperative duty which the Saviour felt, and He spoke
in the name of God, who feels the same as a necessity
of His relation to us.
The act of creation lays on us a duty. We bring a
child into the world, and the absolute imperative of God
is on us to feed, educate, and love to the end, that to
which we have given life. We do our best for the child,
but we will suppose that all goes wrong. We expend our
love upon him, he rejects it ; we punish, and he hardens
under punishment and leaves us ; we go after him, and
he refuses to return ; we give him up to himself for a
time, and he grows worse, and dies impenitent. But
if we are of a true human nature, we cannot forget him.
Our first thought in the other world is our erring son,
and if we can — and I for one do not doubt it — our one
effort in the eternal life will be to find him out and
redeem him to our heart by any sacrifice which love
can prompt. And even could love not move us, duty
would call us to this righteous quest. We must bring
our wanderer home.
1 8 8 Im7norta lity.
It is so, I firmly believe, with God and men. By tlie
very act of creation God has laid upon Himself a ne-
cessity of redemption. "We wander from Him, and He
punishes us through His spiritual laws ; we reap that
which we have sown ; we fill our belly with the husks
which the swine eat. He lets us eat of the fruit of our
own devices, the day of retribution comes, and our
pleasures turn to gall, our irritated desires become our
hell. Lower and lower still we sink, and suffering is
hard on us, for impenitent man must touch the abyss of
God's chastising tenderness before pride and self be
conquered into penitence. But God waits and works ;
' Them also I must bring ' speaks the necessity which
flows from His Fatherhood. All through our deepest
ruin God's victorious love is opposed to man's reluctant
hatred and despair ; till at last they, being of the finite
finite, and of the dead things of the universe dead, are
shattered to pieces by persistent love ; and the child,
come to himself, calls out from the depths of a divine
misery, ' I will arise and go to my Father.' Far off his
Father sees him, and in triumphant joy receives him :
' This my son was dead, and is alive again ; was lost,
and is found.' It will be thus within eternity, till, in the
fulness of charity, there shall be at last one flock and one
shepherd. Most tender and most true of images. Con-
trast it, in its beauty, with the common notion of the
future of the race ; that notion which has maddened men
into atheism and hatred of immortality — a small flock
on which all the infinite love of the infinite goodness is
outpoured, and beyond its fold a howling wilderness
Iinnwrtality. ■ 1 89
of lost and ruined souls, lost and ruined for ever and
ever, and rained upon by the eternal fires of tlie ever-
lasting anger of a vindictive God. It is not so ; tliat is
not our God — nor that our heaven, nor that the immor-
tality for which we cry. God must bring all His creatures
to Himself. ' There shall be one flock and one shepherd.'
As long as the horror of everlasting punishment, or,
as it may be better expressed, of everlasting evil,
is preached, secularism will keep alive. Eough-think-
ing men at this time of the world cannot stand Mani-
chseism ; and it is no wonder that they deny God,
when one of the main things they are told is that
God either keeps up evil for ever in His universe, or is
unable to put an end to it. Nor is it any wonder that
they become unbelievers in Christianity, when a doc-
trine is linked to Christianity which denies their moral
instincts, and makes them look on God as the sovereign
tyrant 5 which forces them to consider the story of re-
demption as either a weak effort on the part of an in-
capable God, or a mockery by Him of His creatures on
the plea of a love which they see as scornful, and a
justice which they declare to be favouritism. I pro-
phesy, as this doctrine perishes, the resurrection of the
working-classes from secularism into faith in the Father
of men. I foresee a brighter, more joyous, more natural
Christianity, in the midst of which faith and hope shall
abide and love which never faileth. Fifty years hence
we shall all believe in the victorious power of good-
ness, and the test of orthodoxy shall not be that which I
once heard applied to a young clergyman, ' Sir, do you
1 90 Immortality.
believe in the devil ? ' It will be this : ' Do yon believe
in God?'
Again, the doctrine of immortality was fairly objected
to when it led men to dwell on their own salvation as
the first thing, when it promoted the idea of indi-
vidualism to the loss of the idea of association. To this
tendency of the doctrine we owe its rejection by the
positivist religion, for it injured one of the foremost
doctrines of Comte — that self-love must be systema-
tically subordinated to social and international sacrifice ;
that all men and nations ought to be bound together as
one man.
The tendency against which there has been this re-
action is indeed contained in the Christian doctrine : it
does dwell on and deepen individuality. But it was a
shameful thing when men tore away this element of the
doctrine from its brother-element, isolated it, and turned
it, as a half-truth, into a lie. For the doctrine was united
on its other side to the frankest sacrifice of the indi-
vidual to the whole ; nay, it gave men to understand
that without the largest sacrifice, immortal life could
not be attained. ' Whosoever saveth his life shall lose
it,' said Christ, ' and whosoever loseth his life, the same
shall save it.' He Himself xvas the Eternal Life because
He died for the whole world of men. ' I could wish
myself accursed from Christ,' said S. Paul, 'for my
brethren, my companions' sake.' There was no base
individualism in that noble speech ; to have the spirit
which can say it is to have immortal life.
Nor did Christianity in its relation to immortality
shut out the element of association. Its original church
Inwiort.ility. 191
was cliosen from mankind for the purpose of bringing
all mankind into it. The heathen world are spoken of
as apart from it, but only as ilien apart from it; its
object was to unite all nations into one, to bring the
wildest and remotest within its realm. ISTo class was
left out, no classes existed in its spiritual kingdom ;
all were children of God, brothers of one another ; and
this was their immortal life in the spiritual world, that
they all lived in and for each other. The images used
to describe the Christian idea of the Church were
images of association ; a temple built of living stones —
a human body, whose head was Christ, from whom ' the
whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that
which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual
working in the measure of every part, maketli increase
of the body to the edifying of itself in love.' That is
not the doctrine of each man for himself, but of each
for all. The same idea is more fully carried out in
the First Epistle to the Corinthians, chap. xii. And I
must here say that these epistles are not to be taken as
addressed to a close sect of believers ; they were written
to all the Corinthian Church, and through them to all
m.ankind. Nor were these words spoken to specially
holy persons, but to the whole body of men, bad or
good, in that Church; to fanatics, to drunkards who
scandalised the Supper of the Lord; to defenders of
incest ; to men fighting with one another and divided
into religious sects, as well as to the righteous. He
begins by speaking of the diversities of gifts, and of
their use in the progressive education of the whole
body, each ministering that which the other wanted.
192 hn ni 0 7'ta Hty.
He goes on to say tliat ' all have been baptised into one
body, whether Jew or Gentile, bond or free;' for there
was no separation of nations or classes. The isolation of
one from the rest is then condemned, for the body is not
one member, but many ; nor can any member separate
himself from the body because he is not as another,
'- for if the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand
I am not of the body, is it not therefore of the body ? '
Nor can any member say that he can live without the
life of any other member, ' The eye cannot say to the
hand, I have no need of thee — nay, even those mem-
bers of the body which we think to be less honourable,
upon these we bestow more abundant honour, and our
uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For
our comely parts have no need, but God hath tempered
the body together, having given more abundant honour
to that part which lacked; that there should be no
schism in the body, but that the members should
have the same care one for another. And whether
one member suffer, all the members suffer with it;
or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice
with it.' Mazzini himself could not now, eighteen
hundred years after, declare more strongly the prin-
ciple of association ; Comte could not assert more
largely the doctrine of international interdej^endence.
Of course it may be said that these things were
written solely to the Christian Church. That I deny,
if the Christian Church is taken to mean any iso-
lated body at any time in history. They were writ-
ten to describe the ideal of the Christian Church,
and that ideal includes all mankind. They describe
Immo rta lity, 1 9 3
what ought to be the relation of nations to nations, of
nations to tribes of every type and colour, of men to
men all over the world. And they describe what will
be in the fulness of time, when the body of mankind,
past, present, and future, shall be wholly finished, and
the actual be identical with the ideal Man.
It is this mighty conception which we ought to
link to our thought of immortality. Without it, the
desire of eternal life becomes selfish and swiftly falls
to evil ; with it, it grows into the grandest thought
which a man can have on earth; with it, immor-
tality binds itself up with all the noblest speculations
of patriot, philosopher, and lover of man, with all the
ideas of our time which have regard to an universal
and united mankind, giving to them new strength
and coherence, a fresher hope, an unashamed faith ;
and leading them beyond the silence and inaction
of the tomb, where positivist and secularist bury for
ever the mighty drama of the past of men, bids them
look forward with a morning light in their eyes to
the endless beauty and unfailing work of a mankind
so loved, so deeply loved by us, that when for a moment
the thought crosses our brain that it could die and make
no sign, something seems to break within our heart.
1 94 Immortality,
IMMORTALITY,
» For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living : for all live unto
him.' — Luke xx. 38.
It lias been said bj the author of the ^History of
Rationalism ' that ' the discoveries of modern science
form a habit of mind which is carried far beyond the
limits of physics.'
Nowhere is this more true than in the scornful doubt
with which some natural philosophers meet the belief
in immortality, or in the bold denial which they give
it. It is not long ago since I heard a geologist say,
' As a body we have given up the belief in immortality.'
It may be worth while to-day to suggest, first, a cause
for this wide-spread surrender of an old belief among
the men who pursue physical science ; secondly, to look
into the reason they give for their denial, and to see
if that reason be reasonable ; and, thirdly, to suggest a
proof of the doctrine.
1. The cause I believe to be, in the case of many men
of science, an unequal development of their nature ; in
other words, a want of uniform culture. They give up
their whole life and all its energy to the study of
physical phenomena. In these phenomena they find
nothing spiritual. The strata of an ocean-bed tell them
Immortality. 195
nothing, in their vast succession of life and death, of the
eternal continuance of the individual. The combinations
of the elements do not speak of the union of the soul
with the Eternal Soul of God, and in the convolutions
of the brain and the interweaving of the nerves thej
will not discover faith, or love, or reverence; or, not
being able to deny their existence, they say that they
dissolve with the nerve matter of which they are modes
of motion. Not only do they study nothing but these
things, but they put aside any suggestions of spiritual
feeling which may come to them in their work as dis-
turbing elements, as dimming the ' dry light ' in which
they toil. It is no wonder, then, that their spiritual
faculty becomes dwarfed or paralysed, till, not finding
its motions in themselves, they are ready to deny their
existence elsewhere. On the other hand, their peculiar
nabit of mind becomes abnormally developed, and even
their imagination is only used in one direction. They are
like men who should sit all their life in a chair and
exercise their arms violently. Their arms become
immensely strong, their legs so feeble that they cannot
walk. One would not be surprised to hear these persons
say, ' On the whole, as a body, we have given up any
belief in walking being either pleasant or intended for
the human race.' The answer is, ' You are no judge till
3^ou have recovered the use of your legs.'
Nor is one in the least surprised by a similar assertion
on the part of some natural philosophers with regard
to immortality. Given the previous habit of mind and
work, what else but unbelief could ensue ? Only we can
scarcely refrain a smile when the assertion is made
196 Immortality.
with a certain Pharisaic air, ' Nature, I thank thee, I am
not led away by superstition or feeling, even as these
Christians,' and the only possible answer is a smile, such
as the natural philosopher would greet a religious man
with, who had as much neglected his intellect and its
exercise as the denier of immortality has neglected his
spirit and its exercise, and who should say, as if it settled
the whole question, ' On the whole we have ceased to
believe in the truth of the theory of gravitation.'
But again, as there are some who have lost the use of
the religious powers through neglect of them, so there
are others in whom the religious powers seem wholly
wanting. They seem to be born with a radical defect
in their nature, and they can no more 'see the truth or
the necessity of immortality than some who are colour
blind can see the beauty or the use of colour. None
are more upright than this class of scientific men ; they
love truth and pursue after it in physics without one
backward step. But they cannot understand the things
of the spirit, for these are naturally foolishness to
them.
I can see the use, almost the necessity, of this.
Nature has to be ruthlessly examined, forced step by
step to yield her secrets. The good of the race demands
that a certain amount of this work should be done by
men who are not disturbed by the speculations or the
passions of the spirit, and though there are many who
unite with ease the realms of faith and of experiment
under one government, yet there are a few whose work
is needed in physics and who would do but little
therein if they were called on to contend also in the
Immortality. 1 9 7
world of the spirit. These, I think, are so far sacrificed
in this life for the good of the whole; allowed to remain
imperfect men that they may do their own special work
in a perfect manner. And we accept their work with
gratitude, and say to ourselves when we regret their
want, ^ God has plenty of time to finish the education
of His labourers ; that which is deficient here will be
added hereafter.' But at the same time, while we
recognise the excellent work of these philosophers in
their own sphere, we ask of them not to force upon us
the results of their blindness in another resrion. If a
man cannot see red, we do not let him impose on us
the statement that red is not to be seen, even thouo-h
he may be a perfect musician. If a man cannot conceive
immortality, we do not let him impose on us the state-
ment that immortality is a vain dream, even though
he may be a natural philosopher of the first rank. We
are bound to say to the one. As a musician we accept
your criticisms ; as a judge of colour you are of no value ;
and to the other. As a natural philosopher we bow to
your conclusions ; as a judge of the truth or falsehood
of immortality your opinion is worthless.
Again, in no way is the habit of mind of which we are
speaking carried further than in the saying of some phy-
siologists that all thought and feeling are inseparably
bound up with physical form, with nervous centres and
the rest; — that form makes mind, and therefore that
mind, feeling, memory, and the desires, the pain, and
the. joy of that which we call the spirit, perish with
the dissolution of the machine of which they are
part. I have just as good a right to start from the
198 Immortality.
other side, and to say that thought makes form ; — nay,
I have even more right, for by a strict process of
reasoning one may fairly arrive at the statement that
our own frame and the whole material universe is
the product of our own thought. I do not say
that I Iznow this, nor assert that mind makes form,
but it is just as probable .as, and even more pro-
bable, than the opposite assertion. Both statements
are incapable of sufficient proof. Professor Huxley
says that ' when men begin to talk about there being
nothing else in the universe but matter and force and
necessary laws, he declines to follow them ;' and equally
when men say that there is nothing else in the universe
but thouD'ht or will or consciousness, we should decline
to follow them. The latter is far more possible than
the other ; I am myself inclined to believe it, but I do
not know it. All we know Avith relation to our body
and mind is, that certain physical changes take place
simultaneously with every thought and feeling. But no
knowledge of the structure of the brain or nerves can
show us the connecting link between the two, or enable
us to say that physical motion is thought or thought
physical motion. ' The passage from the physics of the
brain,' says Dr. Tyndall, ' to the corresponding facts of
consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite
thought and the definite molecular a^ction in the brain
occur simultaneously, we do not possess the intellectual
organ, nor apparently any rudiment of it, which could
enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from the one
phenomenon to the other. They appear together, we
know not why.' There is no proof, then, that consciousness
Immovtality. 199
is inseparably connected with tlie physical frame, and
therefore no proof that . it perishes with it. The truth,
then, of the doctrine of immortality remains, considered
from the intellectual point of view, an open question,
and to daringly assert that it is untrue is ridiculous in
the mouth of a sensible man.
I may say here, in a parenthesis, that Christianity by
no means denies that thought and form in man are
closely connected one with the other. On the contrary,
the doctrine of the resurrection seems to imply that the
human consciousness needs form in order to be conscious
of itself, for it allots a body to the soul. It does not say,
as some have vainly fabled, that the body we place in
the earth and whose elements pass into the earth, is
raised again : it does say that God gives a spiritual
body to the soul, whatever that may mean. It throws
the matter on the omnipotence of God, and if we believe
in God at all, that a new form should knit itself to a
mind and spirit which have become personal through
the memories and work of a human life is no more
incredible than that they should have been originally
knit together.
Moreover, should it turn out to be true that there is
nothing actually existing but thought, and that our
present bodies are only the product of our power of
presenting to ourselves our own conceptions — then,
supposing that our personal order of thought continues
after that which we call death, it will weave out of its
consciousness, under changed conditions, a new vehicle
for itself, and for ever appear to itself and others to be
connected with form.
200 lm77tortality.
But to return to our argument. The natural philo-
soplier wlio may allow tlie possibility of immortality
will at the same time refuse to consider it as a practical
question, because, before any intellectual proof can
be given of it, a spiritual world must be assumed, and
lie refuses to believe without proof in the existence of
such a world. He takes nothing for granted, he will
have faith in nothing which cannot be proved to the
satisfaction of the understanding.
Now, I want to try and give some reply to this. I
will not assume, as will be seen, a spiritual world. I
will only begin with the assumption of the reality of
a command, outside of our thought, which bids us do
what is right, and supposes that we know what is right.
But, even this is an act of faith, and to that our natural
philosopher objects in any shape.
Well, it seems to me that precisely the same diffi-
culty which he alleges against the consideration of
immortality may be alleged against himself. He too
must begin with an act of faith, and without that be-
ginning he can know nothing at all about the ph}^-
sical world. That he does know something about it
is plain. How did he win that knowledge ? He would
say, by deductive and inductive reasoning, accompanied
by experiment. I do not contradict him, but I say that
he has left out one of the factors of the answer, and a
very important one : he has left out the act of faith
with which he started. He willed, by an impulse within
himself, for which his educated reason can give no proof,
to believe in the existence of a physical world. And with-
out that act of faith he could, by any and every process
Immorta lity. 2 o i
of reasoning, have only arrived at tlie knowledge that lie
knew nothing at all. It is not difficult to make this
clear. By the creation of theories which he afterwards
proved true through their explanation of all the pheno-
mena within their several spheres, by long experimental
arguments conducted from fact to fact, he at last arrived,
step after step, at the conception of one thing outside
himself by which all things are, and of which all things
are forms, and he calls this. Force — the constant force
of the universe. And having thus reduced all things
to one expression, he may think that he knows all
things, or is in the sure way of knowing them. I do
not say that he is not ; but I do say that he assumes
without proof, and by faith, that there is this thing
outside of his thought — this Force, which is the phy-
sical universe. For, without assuming that, what hap-
pens as he goes on thinking ? He will go back and say
to himself, ' Just as I questioned whether red or blue
had any real existence, and found that they had none,
being only the result produced in my brain by sensations
caused in the eye by waves of light of different lengths —
and just as when I asked myself whether light had any
real existence as light, and found on enquiry that it was
only a mode of motion, a form of force, which was light
to me because my eye had certain atomic arrangements,
but which might be electricity to me, if the atoms
of my eye were differently arranged — so now I ask
whether force itself has any real existence apart from
my thought of it, and therefore whether there be a
physical universe at all. And, led by reasoning alone,
I am forced to say that it has iiot, that there is nothing
202 Immortality.
whicli I have not first tlioiiglit, that I can have no
thought without having first thought it. B j reasoning
alone, I come to the conckision that the whole physical
universe is but a picture which my own thought
presents to itself, and therefore that I know nothing
about it as it really is, if it is — for even with regard to
my own thought I cannot say whether I really think
or only think that I think. I have reached a point at
which all certainty disappears. I only know that I
know nothing.'
But when we have arrived at this point, and absolutely
discredited all existence, even our own — for the argu-
ment may be pushed to that — the absurdity of the con-
clusion tells us that there is something wrong in our
method of reasoning, that some factor has been left out.
Our conclusion is that we know nothing, and the
understanding, working alone, brings us to that. But
one man will say, ' The fact is, that I do know something
about the world of nature.' ' Well,' I reply, ' look back
and you will find that you either began with an act of
faith in the reality of the physical universe, or that you
put in that act of faith in the course of your argu-
ment.' To another, who allows that his reasoning has
led him to the conclusion that he can say nothing cer-
tain about physical existence, we reply, ' ISTo, you never
can know, till you have resolved to add the factor of
fiiith in an outward world to your argument.'
We must begin our reasoning by an act of faith in
the existence of a physical world, real at least to us,
practically independent of us; and it is this act of
faith which gives consistence to the whole fabric of our
Immortality. 203
physical knowledge, makes it useful, keeps up our work,
and saves us from yielding to the conclusion to which we
are driven by the work of the reasoning faculty alone.
It is the foundation-stone on which the whole of natural
science is built.
An unknown impulse in our constitution, the origin
of which we cannot trace, determines our will — in spite
of our educated reason — to believe in a physical world.
And that is as much and as absolute an act of faith as
that whereby we believe in God or in the reality of
duty, two things which are one, and which together
infer immortality. When the man of science, then,
says to me, ' I refuse to consider immortality, it sets
out with an act of faith,' I reply, ' You might as well
refuse to consider the physical motions of the universe,
for to do so demands that you should first believe in a
physical universe, a belief for which you can give no
proof at all, till you have believed it.'
And now to apply this to the matter in. hand — to the
question of the proof of immortality. Taking the
understanding alone as our guide, and believing
nothing which cannot be made plain to reasoning, we
arrive in the spiritual region at a conclusion similar to
that which we found in the region of physics — at a
knowledge only that we know nothing of duty, immor-
tality, or God. We ask and ask again, and' the more
we ask the more sceptical we become. This or that
may be or may not be : I know nothing at all. And
this is misery to an earnest man.
But as we find that the natural philosopher begins
by willing to believe that there is a physical world
204 Immortality.
to him, so now in tliis otlier region we ask ourselves
whether there is nothing in us which claims our faith,
and for which we can bring no proof. Is there any-
thing in our consciousness which is independent of our
thought? And as we listen we hear a voice which
says, 'You were not born only to know, bvt far more to
act ; and not to know and through knowledge to act,
but to act and through action to know.' We have an
impulse to moral activity which we feel is one with our
existence, and this impulse seems to be originally
beyond all knowledge, to transcend the realm of the
understanding, to be, not anything we think, but
the ground of all our thinking. And we seem to know
immediately and without any proof — by a different kind
of knowledge, therefore, than that which we gain from
reasoning — that we must obey this impulse or fall into
nothingness. If we take up our old habit and submit
this inner voice to the questions of the understanding,
we are forced to ask if we really feel this impulse or
only think we feel it, and speculation suggests that the
impulse may be only the thought of a thought which
our consciousness presents to us, and that if we act
upon it we cannot know whether we really act or only
seem to ourselves to act. Tenfold darkness of doubt
surrounds us then, and our life becomes like a dream
within a dream. Therefore, in despair, we make a
bold step, and casting away those enquiries which led us
to the abyss of nothingness, we resolve with all our
will to believe that this impulse to moral action is abso-
lutely a real impulse and to obey it as the true calling
of our life. We set aside the understanding at this
Immortality, 205
point, and we call faith to our side. Immediately, we
know not how, we are convinced that right is a reality,
and that we can do what is right and that we shall find
our true and only life in doing it. We are convinced
of this through faith, and our faith arises not from a
series of proofs offered by the understanding, but from
our having freely willed to believe in duty, that is, from
the whole set of our inward character.
And now, having by faith found this clear starting-
point, that we are bound to act according to conscience,
what follows ? The same voice which tells us that we
must act rightly, tells us also, and that necessarily,
that our actions will have a result in the future, and
as our will and action are conceived of as rio-ht, the
conception at once arises of a better world in which our
will and acts shall have their due value. We neces-
sarily look forward to and live in a nobler world.
Where is, then, this nobler world ? The religious in-
fidel may accept so far our argument, but he will
say that this world to which we look forward is to be
found not in any spiritual world but in a future human
world, when man has subdued the forces of the uni-
verse so that they spoil his work no longer, when he
has, by the long effort of those who have been faithful
to the cause of freedom and right, produced a perfect
state in which each shall love his neighbour, and each
nation love its neighbour nation, as himself. This is
the nobler world to which our actions and will aspire,
and in it are their results. Neither immortality nor
a spiritual world need here be inferred from the argu-
ment.
2o6 Immortality.
But, granting tliat mankind will reach, this perfect
state, what is to happen then ? There will be nothing
more to do, nothing to aspire to left, nothing more to
know. Will action then, and aspiration die, and
curiosity fail for food ? If so, men will cease to be men,
mankind will stagnate in its place, or will weep itself
to death, for it will have no more worlds to conquer.
Such is the necessary result of this theory without the
addition of immortal life — and to this miserable end
we can quietly look forward, for this we can work with
energy and patience ! When we have made the race
perfect, we have most utterly ruined the race. It seems
an intolerable conclusion and an absurd one, and there
is no way out of it but either the supposition of the
annihilation of mankind which renders our will to
do right and the effects we inevitably annex to it ridi-
culous in our eyes ; or the supposition that there is
another world where the race goes on under new condi-
tions, to do new work and win new knowledge, where
the will to do right has its highest and most sure
results.
Moreover, our righteous will has but few results in
this world. There are a thousand thoughts which
it determines, a thousand feelings it impels, which
never pass beyond our inner life. The steady volition
towards good of a long life has little result on this
earth. Many of the good things we succeed in putting
into action miserably fail for want of prudence, or even
produce evil in this world. Where, then, are the results
of these things ? where does the will act ? Avhere are
the broken lines, the inner life, completed ? If nowhere,
Immorta lity. 207
and plainly it is not here, then half of our being is
made up of broken ends of thread.
We are driven therefore to think that the nobler
world in which all good action has its own good results,
in which our will (determined towards right) serves
always a noble purpose, is another and a higher world
than this, of which we and all our brother-men are
citizens. In this world our will has power when we
will to do right ; it sets on foot endless results. In
this world, which must be spiritual, because our will is
spiritual, we live and move and have our being now, as
really, nay more really, than we live and move in the
physical world by our outward acts, and when we die
we do not enter a world of which we have had no
experience, but in a more comj^lete manner, as free
from earthly limitations, into a world in which we have
lived already.
We are forced, then, by feeling that our virtuous
will must have results, and by the fact that it has only
a small number of results in this world, to believe in a
spiritual world in which the will, being itself spiritual,
finds its true ends fulfilled. That is the first step in
the argument for immortality, after the act of faith of
which I spoke has been freely chosen by the will.
The second step carries us on to the truth of Im-
mortality.
When I conceive of my wiU to do right having
necessary results in a spiritual world, I conceive of a
law as ruling in that world. If the results must he,
there must be a law by which they are necessary. To
that law I am connected by moral obedience, and
2 o8 Immorta lity.
because it annexes fixed results to virtuous volition in
me and in all men, it is above and beyond our wills.
In it all our finite wills are held, and to it tliey all are
subject. But since the world in which this law is, is
not the world of sense, but a spiritual world in which
will acts, the law of that world cannot be like that
which we call a law here, a mere expression of antece-
dents and sequences, a mere statement of the way ii^
which things are ; it must be a living law ; it must be
self-active reason ; it must be a will.
And it is a Will — the Will from whom all human
wills have flowed, to which all human wills are related,
in whom all human wills have being ; the only self-
existent, the only unchangeable, the only infinite Will,
of whom and by whom and through whom are all things
— God invisible, eternal, absolute, to whom be glory for
ever and ever. The voice I hear in my heart, and to
which I willed to give obedience, and whose reality I
believed at first, I know now was His voice. My will,
which determined to obey that voice, was urged thereto
by this infinite Will. My will is related to Him, and in
Him must have results in the whole spiritual world
which exists in Him and by Him. And this which is
true of me is true of all my fellow-men. As the will of
each is contained and sustained by Him, and has its
own special results in Him, He becomes the spiritual
bond of union which unites me to all the race ; we
all together share our life in Him. And because we
share in His Being and He is eternal and imperishable,
we also know, at last, that we are eternal and imperish-
able— and that, for the certainty of which our soul has
Immortality. 209
longed and cried, is a reality. We are immortal.
Death, as we call it, may touch our sensible vesture, but
it is only a vesture which decays. Our being goes on in
another life, for we live in His Life, and our true world
is not this world. 'We look for a city which hath
foundations.' We abide in Him and He in us, and He
abides for ever.
The parallel, in fact, between the two lines of argu-
ment, is exa;Ct. The natural philosopher having put in,
either at the beginning, or in the process of his work,
a belief in the existence of Force, which is a belief in
an outward world, finds that which he was driven to
assume confirmed at every step of his enquiry. He
cannot understand a number of facts except on the
ground that Force is a reality to him, and he leaves
aside, as unpractical in his work, the question as to
whether it has only an existence in Thought. His
theory of Force explains by far the greater part of
natural phenomena, and is contradicted by none. He
returns then to his starting-point, and says, ' That which
I originall}^ believed without proof, is true. Force is
a real existence.'
Precisely in the same way we prove that the reality
of Duty, w^hich we willed to believe — and which, seen
as we saw it, (not as something developed by the slow
action of social circumstances, but as a command inde-
pendent of our own thought and coming to us from
without,) necessarily inferred a spiritual world, and Grod,
and Immortality— is an absolute reality. It and its
necessary results, which together form our theory of the
Universe of Spirit, solve the greater part of the moral
10
2IO Immortality.
and spiritual problems of life, and are not distinctly
contradicted by any.
But it may be said that the analogy is not exact.
For though Torce or the physical world is proved to
have a real existence to us, it is not proved to have an
independent existence, and some scientific men are in
doubt on that question. All Force, they say, may
be nothing more than Will — Will-Force. Moreover,
though the supposition of its existence explains most of
the phenomena we know, that does not necessarily infer
that it has any existence independent of Thought. We
have no right, then, an objector may say, to infer, be-
cause our theory of the universe of Spirit explains the
moral and spiritual phenomena of human life and its
history, the actual existence of Duty, of a spiritual
world, of God, and of Immortality. We can only infer
their existence in Thought.
Only their existence in Thought ! In what else should
they exist, and what existence can be more absolute?
We ask no more. For taking the ground of those
scientific men who think that Force is Will, they think
no more than we wish them to think, that there is a
Will, and therefore a Thought, in whom the Universe is.
In thinking thus, they grant God, and the real existence
of all things in Him. In thinking thus, the physical
world is no less a reality to them, but more. The
question whether it have independent existence or not
does not touch their work, nor will their work on that
account be of less moment for ever and ever, for the
principles of the order of this apparent world will be
always the same in any other apparent world, however
Immortality. 2 1 1
different from this, for they are fixed in God's Thought.
We have a right, then, to saj that the analogy fits
accurately.
We assume, then, a spiritual world, or rather we assume
the reality of Duty, from which we necessarily infer,
as I said, a spiritual world ; and when we find that the
phenomena of the human conscience and spirit can be
explained on that assumption, we return to our starting-
point and say, ' That which we believed without proof,
is true. There is an imperative beyond our thought
and independent of our consciousness which we are
bound to obey. The moment we will to obey it, we are
conscious that it must have results, and, on further
thought, that these results can only be fully realised
in a world in which Will and Thought alone exist, and
therefore in a spiritual, not a material world. And
granting these things, our will to do right, and a world
in which Will and Thought alone exist, we are forced
to infer One whose Will is absolutely good, and who
contains in His Will our will, and in His self-active
Reason and Will, which are His personality, our person-
ality ; One therefore who is Eternal Life, and the life
of all, the only pure Being, in whom all Being is. And
lastly, we are driven with joy to feel and know, that if
Duty, and a spiritual world, and God, be truths.
Immortality must also be a Truth. If we are insepa-
rably connected with the Infinite and Eternal Will, we
must ourselves be, as derived from Him, infinite and
eternal.
And now, with this knowledge in our hand, we turn
to our life, and find it falling into perfect order. We
212 Immortality.
know whence we have come and whither we are going.
We know the end of all onr brother-men and the
necessary end of all this struggle of Man. Problem
after problem is solved — difB.cultj after difficulty
vanishes away; and if some things remain obscure, we
know that we have but to wait, and our key will unlock
them, when we are able to bear the revelation. Peace
enters our heart, the peace which comes of certain
knowledge. We know and rest in the infinite meaning
of the Saviour's saying : ' Grod is not a God of the
dead, but of the living : for all live unto him.'
Immortality. 213
IMMORTALITY.
* For lie is not a God of the dead, but of tlie living : for all live unto'
him.' — Luke xx. 38.
No ONE can lielp feeling, at this time of the year, a
forecasting of decay. The melancholy skies, the naked
trees, the heavy smell of rotting leaves, the hateful
atmosphere, tell their ow^n story. And influenced as
we are through blood and bone by the elements which
surround us, and by the memories of brighter weather,
the spring of life relaxes, and our thoughts take the
colour of decay.
As it is year after year, is it so for man after man ?
Time goes on, but past years do not live again. The
flower-life goes on, but not the same flowers. And
does mankind go on, but not men ? Have we each our
spring, our summer, our rich and swiftly miserable
autumn, our winter of death, and never another spring?
This is the thought of many at this time. The race
continues, but the individual perishes. Death is per-
sonal annihilation.
Last Sunday we gave some reasons for the prevalence
of this thought among natural philosophers ; to-day we
begin by giving some reasons for its prevalence in
other classes of society, and pass on to consider the
2 1 4 Immortality.
reasonableness or not of annihilation : meaning by
annihilation not, of course, the destruction of the ele-
ments of which our body is composed, but the resolu-
tion into those elements of all that we call thought,
feeling, will, and self-consciousness.
The reasons of the prevalence of this opinion vary
with different types of men and their different lives.
It arises in some from the intensity of youthful ardour,
when it has been overstrained. They have been so full
of life that they have drawn upon it too much, and
drained the source dry. Weary, exhausted, yet still
desirous to find the old enjoyment, they are tossed
between desire and weakness to fulfil desire, till at last
the only comfort seems to be to look forward to an
eternal sleep. ' Why should the vital torment of life
be renewed ? ' they ask, forgetting that it is torment
because life has been misused, not knowing that life is
vital joy when it is used with temperance.
It arises in others, and these chiefly business men,
from the disease of unceasing work. One of the things
which is acting worst on English society is that a
number of men have got into that state in which
recreation is impossible. All the year round, from
morning to night, they pursue their trade or their
profession without a single break, except their heavy
after-dinner sleep. Even in dreams they hunt their
work, like dogs. This is also a misuse of life. All joy
is taken out of it, beauty has no place in its foggy
realm ; even love resolves itself into a dull desire to
provide for one's children. The world is not their
oyster which they open, they are the oysters of the
Immortality, 2 1 5
world. And wlien tliey are deaf and blind to all the
loveliness and passion and movement of life, what
wonder if, having become machines, thej do not care
to run on for ever ?
It arises in the case of a number of cultivated young
men from the depression of failure. Within the last
ten years there has been in the universities an
atmosphere, almost tropical, of refined culture and
scholarship, and in it a number of intellects and
imaginations have been forced, till they are, for the
most part, unfitted to do the rough work of the world.
Educated, then, up to the point at which they fully
comprehend and passionately feel the great things
which men possessing genius have done, it seems to
them, by a very common instinct, that they can either
do the same or at least that they have a right to try.
Hence we have the deluge of second and third-rate
painters, poets, novelists, critics,, and the rest, with
which England is now overspread. They begin with
hope and joy, and after a little deserved applause for
the passin.r; pleasure they have given, mankind, whose
judgment soon gets right, drops them, and they feel
with bitterness that though they have won something,
it is not their ideal, and moreover, that they can never
reach their ideal. The applause does not deceive
them, they are too well educated not to see, when the
first excitement of production is over and they look at
the work to which they have given their best powers,
that they have failed. Disgust of life ensues, a kind of
passionate hatred of themselves. In that atmosphere
no good work can be done, and if they try again the
2i6 Imniortality.
inspiration whicli they had abandons tliem — it was
founded on ignorance of the extent of their powers,
knowledge has dispersed it : the failure is worse than
before. But all this sort of work has unfitted them for
ruder and more practical work. After riding on
Pegasus they cannot get into the traces and pull at the
common chariot of the work of the world. They cease
to act, they bury themselves in their learned and
artistic leisure, and all vivid life is over. The bitter-
ness of failure leads them to utter carelessness of a life
to come. Why should they renew the web which will
crack from side to side again ? — and the inaction in
which they live takes away the desire to live again, for
it takes away the food of life.
Moreover, among persons of this educated type the
same thing holds good, as in the case of the scientific
man who pursues nothing else but science. Devotion
to art or to criticism alone, developes the faculties used
to a strength out of all proportion to the rest. Not
only are the spiritual powers dwindled to a thread for
want of use, so that immortal life is a pretty dream, but
the faculties used, being unbalanced by other important
powers of our nature, are not capable of forming a just
judgment. Criticism, in discussing matters such as the
evidence for immortalit}'', discusses it as ifc would the
evidence for the existence of an early and unimportant
myth. It begins by supposing it is not true ; it leaves
out all the spiritual phenomena which, in the history of
the human heart, have accompanied faith in it ; it treats •
a question which belongs, by the h^-pothesis, to the
realm of intellect and the spirit, as if it were a question
Immortality. 217
of the pure intellect alone. On the face of it, nothing
can be more absurd — as absurd as the late discussion into
which one of our philosophers enters, with regard to a
mother's love for a child, on physiological grounds alone.
It is plain in this case that the critical powers have
become so abnormally developed as to vitiate the purity
of judgment.
On the other hand, the mere aesthetic life tends equally
to a belief in annihilation. A somewhat stern and
energetic manliness is needed in the character of a
highly educated man before he can loot forward with
joy to living for ever. Increase of knowledge and
increased sensitiveness of feeling increase the pain of
living, and though they also increase its joy, yet we
begin to fear joy, for we know the reaction which
follows it. ' Can we bear,' we ask, ' going on with this
struggle for ever ? ' Yes, we can, but only when we are
possessed by the noblest and the strongest ideas, when
we enter into the struggle as men who are resolved not
to retreat a single step. Slowly, then, as we grow
through long battle into veteran warriors, we feel,
not the languid pleasure in beauty, but the glorious
joy of the war for right : and to live for ever becomes
the first desire of life, for we know that it means life
m union with eternal Goodness, Truth, and Love.
This sort of manliness the exclusively sesthetic life
does not cherish but enfeebles. It produces a soft,
rather mournful, habit of mind : it unnerves the more
active powers, it makes men shrink from the clash of
life; its devotion to beauty, for beauty's sake alone,
blurs the sharpness of the lines which divide right and
2 1 8 Immortality.
wrong : everytliing which charms the senses, provided
the charm be a delicate one, is lovely, and whether it is
morally lovely or not is a secondary consideration.
Pain, therefore, disease, strong effort, the struggle of
doubt, the labour to find answers to great problems,
such as this of immortality, become bitter and distress-
ful ; and in absolute seeking after and finding of the
beautiful here, in exquisite enjoyment of it when found,
and in exquisite regret of it when it can be no more
enjoyed, all hope, nay, all possibility of enjoying
another life than the present, passes away, and life
becomes in youth a passionate desire to get all the
j.oy and beauty possible before old age comes, and in
old age a wailing memory of past delight, and a
sorrowful waiting in as much quiet as possible for the
everlasting sleep. ^ Why enter another world ? No
other world can be lovelier that this ; and if I may not
have this, I do not care for another.'
The reasons why many working-men reject immor-
tality I have spoken of elsewhere, but there is one rea-
son common to them and to many educated men. It is
that we are living in a revolutionary period of thought,
and the very fact that any opinion is an old one is enough
to subject it to attack. Now, in the general revolt against
things accredited by custom, not only is the orthodox
faith involved, but also beliefs which, though included in
Christianity, are older than it. Among these is the belief
in immortality. We are doubting now the doctrine that
the ancient Persian, Hindoo, and Hebrew clung to, that
Cicero and Plato rejoiced in holding, that the Maho-
metan does not dream of denying. It seems as if on
Immortality. 219
tliis subject the whole world were going back into the
old savage, or into even a less noble condition, for 1
suppose no man in hours of sober judgment has any
doubt as to the nobleness of the idea of immortalitj^,
and the degradation involved in the idea of annihi-
lation. But the truth is that a vast deal of the denial
of the former among the working-classes and among
the young men and women of the upper classes is not
owing to any thought being expended on the subject,
but simply to the revolutionary impulse in them. ' The
thing is old, let us get rid of it. The conservative
feeling supports it; everything which conservatism
supports we attack : let ns have something new.' And
it is not nnamusing — if we put the religious feeling
about it aside — to watch the self-conscious audacity
with which people try to awake one's astonishment, and
really awake one's pity, by airing in society their faith
in annihilation, as if to believe in it were not intel-
lectually and morally a miserable business.
One would despair of the progress of mankind if one
thought that this would last. But revolutionary periods
end by finding a new channel for their waters, and
though the exhausted ideas of the past perish in the
whirlpool, the noble ideas live and flow on with the
new waters. We are now in a kind of backwater of
the great river of Progress, and spinning round and
round in a confusion of eddies and efforts to get on.
When we have fonnd onr fresh thoughts and got them
clear, we shall get out of the backwater with a rush,
and stream on in that which I like better than revolu-
tion— steady movement, aware of itself, to distinctly
220 Immortality.
recognised ends. But at present everyone is naturally
dissatisfied with, the want of purpose, of clear aims, of
any coherent ideas in social, political, religious, and
artistic life. And the dissatisfaction shows itself chiefly
in all matters which belong to the realm of art, for
in art one always finds the more subtile aspects of any
society reflected. Our more modern poets and painters
find nothing calm or perfect enough in modern life to
represent. They go back out of the present to the
past ; they tell us stories and paint us scenes from the
old Greek and Mediaeval life. They try to recover the
dead motives of a dead life, and a whole school has
sprung up, both in poetry and on canvass, which possesses
much charm, but which is essentially mournful and
retrograde, which smells of musk and ambergris, whose
passion is more that of exhausted feeling trying by
morbid means to sting itself into joy than the frank
and healthy passion of youth, whose notes are not
native to English soil, and whose work does not smack
of the fresh air, nor seem done face to face with na-
ture, but smells of scented rooms, lit up with artificial
light.
Our art has been driven from the present to the past,
and those who enjoy and love it, naturally cease to feel
interest in the future; the whole tone of feeling it
encourages tends to lessen the care for and the belief in
a life to come.
But this cannot last ; the present is always too strong
for the past, and art, and philosophy, and literature,
and with them educated society, will emerge from this
backwater when modern life finds clear aims, and
Inmiortality.
22 1
flow on in new channels. Active life in the present will
then produce art and literature to represent it, and the
interest in the present will make the- future so interest-
ing', that the tendency to believe in immortality will
take to itself fresh life. By that time Christianity —
I mean our present form of it, which is also in this
revolutionary stage of confusion, changing old opinions
for new — will also have refitted itself to the higher
thoughts and wants of men; and its doctrine of immor-
tality, freed from the low ideas with which it has been
surrounded by a dying theology, present once more to
men, longing again to live for ever because they have
found a vital present, a glorious ideal to which they
can aspire with joy.
For, after all, what is at the root of this belief in
annihilation ? It is that our theology has been for some
years presenting to us an idea of God wholly inadequate
to our present intellectual and moral conceptions, and
an idea of man which we now reject as ignoble, and as
untrue because ignoble. Not that this idea of God was
inadequate to past society, or that idea of man ignoble.
They were then as high as most men could receive,
though we always find a few who protested against
them, and rose above the common level. But thouorht
on these subjects is now up to that of the higher spirits
of the past, and theology must rise to the moral and
intellectual level of the present before immortality can
be a universal faith again.
An adequate idea of God, a noble idea of man, these
are the ideas which, reintroduced into theology, will
bring back the belief in immortality, for they will render
2 22 hnniortality.
the theory of annihilation intellectually as well as
morally absurd.
The common notion of God divides His being from
the universe and from mankind. It is so afraid of
being called pantheistic, that it forgets the truth which
is in pantheism. If nature and mankind are, as a
whole or in any of their parts, caj)able of being truly
severed from God, so that the one runs along like a
machine which may run down, or that in the other, one
soul can, by becoming eternally evil, be eternally divided
from the Godhead, then God cannot be considered
absolute nor all-comprehending nor all-powerful for
good. There are points at which His power fails. His
goodness retires from the field, points at which He is
forced to struggle, and the possibility of inferring these
things from the orthodox idea of God is surely incon-
sistent with the idea of Him which we feel now that we
ought to possess. It is really less than we can conceive,
and for us to worship it any longer is idolatry. We
must have an adequate idea of God, and till we get it
into theology, a great number of men who think deeply
will be atheists, and necessarily disbelievers in immor-
tality.
Again, owing to this uncultivated notion of a God
who sits apart, at a distance from us, we are forced
to assume another great power in the universe. If any
one of us, or anything, can have, or retain being, apart
from Him, then there must be another source of being
than His. And, practically speaking, that is what is
held. The artist talks of nature, the philosopher of
law, the theologian of the devil, and we have a dual
/;;/ mortality. 223
government of the world, in which God tends to become
more and more a remote and misty phantom.
Now, I say if we believe in a God at all, that the
only adequate conception of Him which will satisfy
our intellect and heart alike, is one which conceives
of Him as the sole self-existing Being and of every-
thing and everyone as having Being only in His Being.
The life of the universe, of matter and spirit, is one life
— the Life of God infinitely conditioned in and through
a myriad forms. There is not a shred of the world called
the world of nature which is not held in Him, and is not,
indeed. His thought. "We all are, only because we are
in Him and part of His being, our personality held in His
personality. Do not call this pantheism. It may be
pantheism, but it is something more than pantheism.
It is not saying the universe is God, it is saying God is
the universe and something more than the universe.
It is the doctrine which S. Paul inferred from the old
Greek poet : ' In Him we live, and move, and have our
being ; as certain also of your own poets have said, For
we are also His offspring.' It is the doctrine of S. Paul
himself: 'Of Him, and by Him, and through Him
are all things;' and the moment we fully conceive that
He alone is, and that nothing is which is not He, it
becomes intellectually absurd that any soul should go
out as a candle. Once having been, once having had
consciousness, once having had personality, it is ioi-
possible to lose being, consciousness, and personality.
That which is in God, in eternal Being, cannot perish.
But it is not intellectually absurd when God's exist-
ence is denied and to this conclusion men come who
224 Immorta lily.
think of what thej mean by annihilation. They know
that the denial of immortality irresistibly infers atheism,
that if there is Eternal Being, those who have issued
from that Being and have their being in Him must be
immortal : we cannot think the one without thinking
the other. And I want those who so lightly talk of
man dying for ever to clearly understand either that
they are talking nonsense, if they confess a God, or that
they are logically driven into atheism.
For not only is the notion of annihilation of person-
ality— that is, of our consciousness, v/ill, and character
— intellectually absurd in face of an adequate intel-
lectual conception of God, it is also morally absurd in
face of an adequate moral conception of God.
But the fact is that it is not morally absurd to many
of us, because we have no adequate moral conception of
God. The moral inadequacy of our thought of God is
chiefly in this, that we accept a teaching which thinks
of Him as having no duties to His children. We are
told that He has a Sovereign's right to do what He likes
with us, and that we have no business to judge as to the
right and wrong of His actions.
I deny that at once on the ground already laid down,
that our being is held in God's being, and therefore that
what is truth and justice and love to us is the same
in kind in us as in God, and that it is absurd to think
otherwise. But as these teachers do think otherwise,
they go on to infer that things which would seem
unjust if done by a man are not unjust if done by
God. We are told that He creates us to damn us, or
leaves us alone to ruin ourselves, or that He allows us
Innnorta lily. 225
to be children of the devil, things so absolutely immoral
in an earthly father, that we are driven either into a
state of blind submission in which intellect is destroyed
and the moral sense utterly confused, or into absolute
revolt, or into a kind of hopeless drifting carelessness
of the whole matter. And in the last state of mind
are those who still cling by old custom to belief in
God and immortality, but who have no real pleasure
or interest in their belief in whom it produces no
result.
Now, such a want of vital faith is due to a mean
conception of their own moral nature following on a
mean conception of God's moral nature. ' He has left
me to myself,' they say ; ' nay, more, I am told that
I am vile and worthless spiritually, that my nature
is utterly corrupt. If I am so bad,' they go on, ' why
should I care what becomes of me ? If my nature is
corrupt throughout, what is the use of aspiring to be
better ? — nay, I do not believe in my aspirations : am I
not told that they themselves are wicked ? ' This is the
way they have argued long ago. I^ow they have ceased to
trouble themselves about the matter, but the result of
the argument remains as an unconscious influence below
the surface of their life, and the effect is a total loss of
interest in immortality, amounting to practical disbe-
lief of it.
All this is done away with by a true moral concep-
tion of God in His relation to us, based on the moral
ideas which we possess ourselves from Him. He has
sent us forth from Himself, therefore He is bound to
be, we feel, in the highest conceivable sense a Father
-226 Immortality,
to us, and He is our Father. We can never, tlien, be
separated from Him, never let alone by Him, never
shut up by Him in eternal evil. Our Being has come
direct from His, and is now in His Being, therefore our
nature can never be utterly vile. Our asj^irations are
His voice in us ; our justice, truth, and love, such as
they are, are still the same in kind as His.
He is pure moral Being : therefore — since we cannot
divide ourselves from Him and since He is bound as a
Father to educate us — we must reach in the end pure
moral being.
It is thus that from an adequate moral conception of
God we arrive at the second thing I said we wanted
to restore to us the belief in immortality — an adequate
conception of man. We are inseparably united to
pure intellectual and moral Being, and in that union
we are great, and do great things of the brain and of
the spirit.
And now, in conclusion, taking both of these things
together — the greatness of man in God, and the abso-
lute morality of God, which we now know is in kind
the same as ours — let us see if annihilation be not
morally absurd, if the being of God be granted.
Of course I shall speak in what follows of good
men, and it will be said that the argument does not
prove that the wicked will not be annihilated. But
I have already spoken of this question in previous
sermons, and I hold that the destruction of the wicked
is morally and logically impossible if there be a God
who is the only self-existing Being, and if He be a
moral Being. It is a question of redemption beyond
Immortality, 227
this earth, but the present argument deals with the
question as it lies before us in this world.
No one can deny, who is not prejudiced by the low
theological view of our nature, that it is capable of
greatness of character. In every age there have been
men who have foro^otten self for the sake of rio-ht and
truth and for a noble cause, even though the self-forget-
fulness meant death ; men whose glory shines with the
serene light of stars in the sky which arches over his-
tory. Others, too, have been, whose path has lain
apart from fame, the quiet martyrs of self-surrender,
who have died to the joys of life for the sake of others'
jo}^, or borne in the eloquent silence of resignation bitter
pain and grief.
And has all that perished for them ? Has the noble
effort and the faithful life been in vain for those who
lived it? Are they only to live in our memory and
love, but they themselves * to be blown about the desert
dust or sealed within the iron hills ' ? It revolts all
our moral feeling if we believe in a moral God. Either
there is no God, whose children we are, or the denial
of immortality is absurd. There is nothing between
atheism and immortality.
And that infinite thirst of knowledge we possess, that
power of thought which sweeps us beyond the world of
sense and time ; that inexhaustible activity of imagina-
tion by which we create new worlds ; our passionate
cry for the rest which lies in harmony of nature ; our
desire for fuller life when life is filled with great thoughts
and pure and passionate love of man ; that yearning of
the spirit for freedom from sin and for union with truth ;
2 28 Im morta lity.
that ceaseless cry for more light ; our delight in reve-
rencing something better than ourselves, in ideal ex-
cellence ; our intense sensibility to beauty and sublimity
in nature — have these no final cause if God exists ? Didj
He give us these powers of intellect and heart and
spirit — powers which draw their fire from the fire of
His eternal Thought and Will — only to resume them into
Himself, to lure us on to work and then to quench our
light : to make our hopes our hell, our noblest longings
our deepest misery ; to extinguish our exhaustless
effort and curiosity in the degradation of an eternal
sleep ? Did He give us that love of the ideal, that de-
light in beauty, that tearful interest in His universe,
only to make the grave and the wretched dust of our
corruption the vain and miserable end? Has He
written His scorn on all our aspirations after truth
and light and holiness ? Does He smile with con-
temptuous pity w^hen men's hearts go up to Him in
praise for the freshness and radiance of the spring ?
It is incredible. Either the atheist is right, or that
immortality is untrue is absurd.
Look, too, at our triumph over death. When decay
usurps the powers, and memory and life slip from us
like a dream, it is then that our inner beingf most often
rises into beauty and victory. And when the last
act of the man is the assertion of his immortality,
does the Lord of Righteousness contradict him in
contempt ? Is the spirit on the verge of its greatest
loss at its very noblest moment of gain ? does it reach
with faithful effort, and thrilled with divine hope, the
mountain peak, only to topple over the precipice of
Im morta lity. 229
anniliilation ? Then those who believe in God are the
real fools of the world.
Our soul swells with reverence and love for those
who held life as nothing in comparieon with truthful-
ness to right ; our soul is full of a sad condemnation of
those who prefer to live when life is infamous ; and yet
if annihilation be true, God despises the nobility which
we revere, and tacitly approves the infamy which we
condemn. But this is incredible if we conceive of God
as moral : it is hideous. Either, then, there is no God
or annihilation is false.
Finally, it is true of a noble human life that it
finds its highest enjoyment in the consciousness of
progress. Our times of greatest pleasure are when
we have won some higher peak of difficulty, trodden
under foot some, evil, refused some pleasant tempta-
tion for truth's sake, been swept out of our narrow
self by love, and felt day by day, in such high labours,
so sure a growth of moral strength within us, that we
cannot conceive of an end of growth.
And when all that is most vigorous within us, does
God — pure moral Being — does God say No ? Is that
insatiable delight in progress given to the insect of an
hour? Does there seem to be a Spirit who leads us
through life, conquering the years in us, redeeming us
from all evil, bringing in us calm out of sorrow, faith
out of doubt, strength out of trial ; and when He has
made us great of spirit like Himself, does He bury all
that wealth of heart in nothingness ?
What incredible thing is this ? — only credible if there
be no God.
230 * Melencolia. *
melencolia:
* For in much "wisdom is much grief: and lie that increaseth knowledge
increaseth sorrow.' — Eccles. i. 18.
The first impulse of many, on hearing this text, i^ould
be to give it a blunt contradiction. In their opinion,
to increase knowledge is to increase pleasure, and their
opinion is true. The pleasure of a thousand associations
which wake pity, and kindle enthusiasm, and adorn the
meanest place in which a great action has been done,
is the reward of the historian's knowledge. The pleasure
of discovery, of confirming theory by fact, of recreating
the past earth and peopling its plains with life — if these
accompany the common walk of one who knows even a
little of natural philosophy, what deeper pleasures are
his lot whose extensive knowledge can correlate the
facts of many different spheres of science, and so harmo-
nise the universe ?
The pleasure of recognising the truth in the crea-
tions of great poets, of seeing into the secret springs
of human action; of a fine and subtile tolerance, of
playing on the hearts of men, of making society musical
by bringing out of different temperaments accordant
tones ; of giving sympathy and directing help aright
— these are the delights which come of a fine knowledge
^ Melencolia.'' 231
of the human heart. In every region of man's activity,
he that increaseth knowledge increaseth pleasure.
But is this the whole account of the matter? "We
may contradict the text as we please, but we do not in
reality contradict it by asserting its opposite ; we only
complete it by asserting its other half. Both statements
are half-truths. The whole truth of the thing is only
found in the assertion of both. He that increaseth
knowledge increaseth pleasure, and — increaseth sorrow.
For in this world, pleasure and sorrow are two sisters
who never live very far apart. Every pleasure which
comes to the surface of the lake of life has had its
own sorrow born with it in the depths below. Sooner
or later, it too will come to the surface, and the blood-
red lily of pain will rejDlace the sunny lily of pleasure.
Knowledge and toil are the sources of joy, but they
are also the sources of sorrow.
This is what Albert Diirer saw and engraved in his
subtile print of ' Melencolia.' All of you are probably
acquainted with it, and I take it with the passage in
Ecclesiastes as my text, for the key-note of the whole
is, he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
This would be especially true, in the artist's time, of
those who were attempting to penetrate into the secrets
of the physical world. For the true methods of scien-
tific investigation had not been found ; and though the
alchemist and the natural philosopher, whose instruments
are seen in the engraving, lit upon discoveries which
seemed to open vistas of knowledge, they could not
apply them, much less generalise them. At the end of a
long life of work, they were no further than before ;
232 ' Melenco Ha. '
the knowledge the}^ Lad won served only to tantalise
them.
The opening soliloquy of the great German poem may
well express the intolerable melancholy which seized on
all physical students of that time — the bitter conscious-
ness of their fruitless work, their hopeless incapacity
to know.
We are IVeed from that grief, for we are consciously
advancing, having found true methods. But Diirer
must have met many who had worn out their life, and
sometimes their brain, in the service of the crucible.
But the same profound pain besets us in the science of
metaphysics and of theology, and for the same reason —
the want of true methods. Many a thinker who has
spent life in passionate labour to solve the problems of
the soul, is seized, when the energy of the brain begins
to fail, with the biting sorrow which is born of fruitless
labour.
But the sorrow which we describe is never, when
the man is true, a base, but a noble one. And so,
Diirer 's lonely figure, the genius of the labour and
knowledge of the earth, is crowned with the laurel and
winged with the mighty pens of thought and imagina-
tion.
JSTor is this sorrow felt at all times, but at intervals
when labour and thought are, for a time, forgotten, and
in a moment of pause unconscious meditation sets in.
It is the attitude of arrested thought in which the seated
figure reposes, her cheek upon her hand, her compass
idle, her book unread, her instruments scattered idly at
her feet, her keys unused, her very wolf-hound, sym-
' Melenco Ha. ' 233
patliising with lier mood in liis own wa}^, fast asleep ;
her eyes gazing into the void.
Su3h moments are not unknown to us, when the i3en
drops, or the spade falls from the hand, or the analysis
is forgotten, and in an instant we float away upon that
vague ocean of questioning thought whose depths no
sounding-line of ours has ever fathomed. Everyone
knows that the atmosphere of these pauses is that of a
noble melancholy.
Now, what, in the artist's imagination, were the
subtile sadnesses which characterised such a moment ?
We may guess at them by the symbols which he places
round his figure. But they are many : on one only
and what it suggests we speak to-day. Diirer has ex-
pressed the one certainty in this world of uncertainty,
the demonstrative certainty of the science of numbers,
in the four-square tablet fixed above the winged genius
in the w^all of the house, all the sixteen squares of which
contain a number. Whether one adds up these num-
bers horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, they have the
same result.
Now the melancholy which arises from the vague
answers which we can only suggest to many of our
deepest questions is made greater by the clear answers
which our questions receive in science. Distinctness
in one sphere seems to suggest with a mocking irony
that distinctness might be reached in all, if we had
power. We have wings then, but we have the misery
of knowing that they are not strong enough. The more
we know, the greater becomes the number of things we
have to harmonise, the deeper our conviction that we
11
2 34 * Melencolia. *
see through, a glass, darkly. One certainty makes all
onr uncertainties more painful, but it makes tenfold
more |)ainful the uncertainties of the world of the spirit.
The things of the profoundest interest, the existence of
God and what is His relation to us ; the reality of im-
mortality ; the meaning of evil, the use of sorrow ; what
we are, whether ' the cunningest clock in the universe,'
or a living will and spirit, free to act upon and change
the world around us — these things we cannot demon-
strate ; often we float between belief and unbelief of
them, as we float ourselves between life and death. It
is our sincerest sorrow that the things we want most
in our most earnest moments, we know least about,
accurately ; and the things we want least, we are best
acquainted with.
In another way also the increase of scientific know-
ledge increases sorrow. It gives pleasure to those in the
sphere of that knowledge ; it increases the sorrow of
many who are not within that sphere. For the solution
of many scientific problems has set before theologians
and many Christian men who love the old opinions in
which they have been brought up, new diificulties in
their region, new troubles for their early faith. The
unknitting of one enigma is often the knitting together
of a hundred elsewhere. Peace made in one sphere of
knowledge is often war made in another. The suffering
caused among thousands by scientific discoveries is a
real euffering.
Therefore, as Christ's minister, I would ask scientific
men to remember this, and to be tolerant, if those whom
they touch so rudely cry out. It is not from anger
* Melcncolia! 235
tliey cry out so much as from pain. I ask for the
gentleness of superior knowledge, for some feeling that
the scientific sphere of thought does not include all
the interests of men ; for such thought of the suffering
they give to the weak as will lead them to explain how,
in their opinion, their discoveries bear upon matters of
faith. If the leaders of science in England will only
explain their position and try to understand that of the
theologians, omitting a few sneers which for the time
reduce them to the level of their violent opponents,
they will do a real good. I do not want the slightest
relaxation in any effort to find truths, nor the slightest
hesitation in expounding them, because of the suffer-
ing they may inflict. If a thousand old beliefs were
ruined in our march to truth, we must still march on.
But I ask scientific men to do their spiriting gently,
01% as I should say, in the spirit of Christ; severe to
Pharisaism, but kind to weakness and ignorance ; not
too ready to find Pharisaism everywhere nor to expect
too much of others, but presuming that many have
as much real difficulty in accepting their propositions
as they would have in accepting those of the orthodox.
On the other hand, I claim tolerance for the natural
philosophers from the orthodox. The increase of their
knowledge is to many scientific men an increase of
sorrow, for it brings with it isolation from the ranks of
faith. The}' are the servants and soldiers of physical
truth, and they are devoted to their mistress. I know
that they would suffer martyrdom as readily and as
firmly as any of the Christian martyrs rather than deny
their faith. I know that their sacrifice of wealth and
236 ' Melencolia.
of the world to the pursuit of truth would put to shame
the life of many a religious boaster. One need but
mention Faraday to prove this. All the world knows
the sacrifices he made for the sake of science.
But they are often forced to jDut forward truths
which conflict with orthodox views. A cry is at once
raised against them, and they are forced into an atti-
tude of opposition. Their highest duty, the discovery
of truth, is made their greatest sin. They cannot cease
their work without being guilty of the worst possible
falsehood— yet this devotion is made the means of
isolating them, the source of accusations which, if true,
would separate tbem altogether from the realm of
spiritual, even of imaginative feeling. I claim for them
in the name of Christ grateful consideration. Some of
them feel keenly their enforced isolation ; and the scorn
and hard speaking, and sometimes the touch of bravado
in the tone of others, have their roots in the want of
thought and want of charity with which they have been
met.
Thus not only does the increase of knowledge increase
the sorrow which comes with the fresh statement of
theological problems, but it also increases, at j)resent,
the division between religious and scientific men. The
proper remedy for this last sorrowful thing is the ex-
tension of the spirit of Christ's love. If men were to
believe and hope the best of one another, if men strove
to understand each other, we might hope for a quicker
reconciliation between science and religion.
But, resuming our main thread of thought, what is
the remedy for the sadness of increased uncertainty
* Meleiicolia. * 237
whicn growing knowledge has added to spiritual pro-
blems ? The remedy is plainly stated in the New
Testament. But let us see if we cannot approach the
New Testament statement from the side of scientific
practice, and so strengthen its force.
The certainties of science are mixed up also with
uncertainties. Beyond what is known extends a belt
of shadow land, over which the clouds lift and fall. To
say nothing of the fact that many of the assumed
theories of science are not and probably never can be
demonstrated, there are points in all the sciences
where intellect at present fails and where investiga-
tion has no further materials. The cloud settles down ;
the questions, eagerly put, remain unsolved. Towards
these uncertainties what is the practice and the attitude
of men of science? It is, first — I put it in Scripture
words — that of men who possess a ' faith which worketh
by love.' They believe in truth, and their faith works
through love of truth. Nature may seem to en-, seem
to contradict herself, but she does neither the one nor
the other. It is we who are, they say, blind, defective,
ignorant. But if we are faithful to truth and love it ;
if we do not relax our questioning, we shall be rewarded
by finding truth; and if we are not, we shall have
prepared the way for others. It is not only in the
spiritual world but also in the scientific that the words
of Christ are true. ^ Ask, and ye shall receive ; seek, and
ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened to you.'
So, though there is a sadness of science born of
Qncertainty, it is a noble sadness. It is felt only in
moments when work is suddenly suspended ; and the
238 . ' Mclenco Ha. '
effect it has is not despairing, but inspiring. It is a
sadness whicli does not last long enough to crij^ple
energy or to j)ass into despair. It stings, on the con-
trary, into activity, and its legitimate child is hope. It
is a sadness which has wings, and is crowned with
the foliage of spring. For it has faith in truth which
works by love of truth.
Well, what has been the result of this kind of work
spread over many years ? The swiftest and the safest
success ! In other sj^heres, then, and in a different
meaning, this text is true, ' This is the victory which
overcometh the world ; even our faith.' Not credulity,
remember, not trust in authority as such, but faith in
ultimate order : the two highest expressions of which
faith in the case of the physical philosopher are, first,
patience in investigation and reticence of decision — for
* he that believeth shall not make haste ; ' and, secondly,
systematic scepticism, till absolute demonstration is
effected ; for the moment a physical philosopher is so
enamoured of his theory as to consider it proved before
it is proved, he is punished by being rendered blind to
new light.
In every way this is a lesson which we would do well
to learn. We are surrounded with uncertainties be-
longing to the sphere of the spirit. We have enough
light up to a certain point^enough to walk by ; beyond
that, the cloud settles down. We put question after
question ; each one has its own nest of difficulties, and
out of the calm heavens no answer is at once vouch-
safed. Nothing is more astonishing to me than the
way in which people expect, and even claim, that their
* Meleiico Ha. ' 239
spiritual enigmas should at once be resolved without
any trouble on their part, without any work, without
any investigation. They build up theories of theology
and explain all things by their theories ; but they do not
take the pains to bring their theories face to face with
the facts of spiritual life. They are precisely in the
same position towards a true science of the spirit that
the old scholastic philosophers were towards a true
science of nature. Suddenly their theory is forced into
contact with a spiritual fact — the revolt, for example, of
the moral sense of men against the punishment of the
innocent as an adequate satisfaction for the sin of the
guilty — and then the whole theory breaks up into frag-
ments, and they either cling blindly to it in passionate
anger, or they are plunged into the despair of eternal
night. They become fanatics or infidels. Their dark
anger, and their melancholy hopelessness, are alike
ignoble. But for the large class who are not slaves to
theories but touched now and then with the melancholy
born of uncertainty, what is the remedy ?
It is the same in principle as that of the natural
philosopher. It is faith in God which worketh by love
of God. The root of our cowardice, of our hesitation,
of our inactive melancholy, is our faithlessness. We
are not asked at first to believe in certain doctrines, or
in the opinions of men. We are asked to believe in
Eternal Eight, in a Father of spirits whose will is good.
This is the first and foremost step. And belief in this
Being is not credulity, nor is it founded on mere
authority. It is based on the moral intuitions, it
becomes a moral certainty to many by the way it has
240 ^ Melencolia!
answered the personal difficulties of the soul in daily
experience, by the way in which it has supported the
soul in trial, enabled it to conquer evil and grow in
good during the long struggle of a lifetime : it draws
to itself proof after proof by the explanations which it
has given in the past to the spiritual difficulties of the
race. If, then, we believe in absolute goodness, truth,
justice, and love in God, why are we idle, indifferent,
fearful, or ignobly sad, always complaining of the un-
intellio-ible world ? Our faith should be a workinj^r
quality, working through love of perfect right. Then,
when we find evil in the world, apparent contradictions of
love, apparent violations of justice, apparent cruelties,
darkness where we most hoped and expected clear light,
we do not accuse God any more than the philosophers
accuse nature. We accuse ourselves : we are defective,
we say, blind, ignorant. Some evil has set us wrong,
our nature has got twisted. Let us recognise our want
and seek the remedy, let us set our wrong right, cure
ourselves of our evil; feeling sure that, if w^ seek the
Righteous One, He is bound by His nature to help us.
For if we be faithful to God, and love Hioi, if we go on
working, and questioning, striving and experimenting,
asking, asking, in the prayer of action in accordance
with what we know for certain is right, we shall be
rewarded by the slow dissipation of uncertainties. I do
not say that all uncertainties will be cleared away, for
that would mean our perfection. But enough will be
dispersed to enable us to work with hope, to fill us with
a vital certainty of future attainment; enough to in-"
duce us to keep the torch of effort alight, and to hand
* Melencolia^ 241
it on with assurance to the seekers for truth who
follow us.
It is true we are not altogether freed from melan-
choly, but it is no longer what it was. We still fall,
when life pauses and we are weary, into the meditative
melancholy of which we have spoken, but it is the noble
melancholy which nrges us to labour, and is, in fact,
that passing passiveness of thought in which exhaustion
is repaired and new force stored up for toil. For, he
who is instinct with love of God, and rooted in faith in
God, cannot rest in sadness till sadness becomes weak-
ness and hopelessness. His own thought ' drives him
like a goad.' He springs once more into the doing of
justice, love, and truth, and as he does these things the
dawn grows brighter in the sky, the morning comes, and
his life, at last, is flooded with the sunshine of belief
that all is well. His faith has overcome the lazy, faith-
less, lifeless, fearful s^Dirit of the world.
Lastly. This is not a faith in the commandments
and doctrines of men. It is a faith in Eternal Love. It
is not a blind credulity ; it is a faith which the man has
proved in adversity, and by which he has conquered.
It is not a faith which reposes on authority ; it is a faith
which, as it developes, he finds answer one question after
another. It is not a faith which hurries to its end and
is indignant if a spiritual difficulty is not solved im-
medip^tely ; it is a faith which has learnt something of
the slowness with which God educates the race, and
therefore will not rashly make a theory, and say. This,
and this only, is the solution. It is a patient and
reticent faith ; it is, if I may use the word, a sceptical,
242 ^Melencolia.''
that is, an enquiring faith, which is not satisfied with the
light it has, but ever on the watch for brighter light ; it
holds to all opinions and theories slightly, being ready
to surrender them for higher truth. It is satisfied to
clothe itself for the time being in existing formulse,
so long as they help it forward, but always sceptical
of their enduring worth, because it is not sceptical of
progress ; a faith, therefore, which no revolution in
religious thought, no change in religious opinion, no
new discovery in any other sphere of truth which seems
to conflict with its truth for a time, can ever . shake or
paralyse. Nay, it expects these revolutions, for it be-
lieves in progressive revelation. It does not believe
that all truth has been disclosed, and stagnate in that
thought. It believes in a Father who is guiding the
world into the whole of truth, not fixing the world down
to a truth.
This is the true method of seeking into the mysteries
of the spiritual world, and it is a method strictly analo-
gous to that used by the natural philosopher v^ho seeks
into the mysteries of the physical world.
Use it, and however the increase of knowledge may
increase your sorrow, your sorrow under its influence
will be noble while it lasts — invigorating, not depres-
sing. It will kindle you into the action of faith and
love, and in action it will be transmuted into joy.
Meleiicolia. ' 243
'MELENCOLIA.
*For in mucli wisdom is much grief: and lie that increaseth knowledge
increaseth sorrow.' — Eccles. i. 18.
In speaking of this text last Sunday, we considered
only the sorrow which may arise from the increase of
scientific knowledge, and its remedy. We found that
the idea of the German artist in his plate of ' Melen-
colia' was at the root of the whole question. In
moments of quiet thought, when, as is the case with
Diirer's great Genius of Knowledge and Toil, we are
suddenly arrested and pass into the region of specula-
tive questioning, the contrast between the possibility
of demonstrating truth, for example, in the science of
numbers, and the impossibility of demonstrating the
truth, for example, of immortality, weaves a subtile
sadness for our souls.
But there are other causes for melancholy; and
it is interesting to see what the Nuremberg artist
says about them. The great genius, for I must repeat
the description, sits in an hour of pause from labour,
her head resting on her hand, looking forth in resolute
but infinite sadness of thought into the world of
being. Her eyes see, but see nothing of the things
around her ; her arm rests on a great book and her
244 ^ Melencolia!
hand grasps the open compasses. The instruments of
the carpenter, geometer, and alchemist lie at her feet,
where also sleeps a great wolf-hound. Over her head
the square window in the house is divided into sixteen
squares, each filled with a number. In whatever way
you* add these — horizontally, vertically, or diagonally —
they make the same sum, thirty-four ; this, with the
poised balances, expresses that scientific certainty of
which we have spoken. By the side of this square
hangs an hour-glass whose sands are half run, and a
bell. Seated on a millstone leaning against the house,
is a small winged boy with tablet and pencil. Far off,
beyond the platform, the sea is seen, with castles and
towns on the shore : the sun has set, and a fiery comet,
whose rays fill the whole sky, menaces the world below,
but over it arches a rainbow, and across it flies a bat
with outstretched wings bearing a scroll, on which is
written ' Melencolia.'
What did Albert Diirer mean by this ? I said last
Sunday that the first thing to remember in ^^^cplaining
the picture (which is, indeed, an ilkistration of my text
and of the feeling of this whole book of Ecclesiastes)
was that the Angel of Knowledge and Labour was repre-
sented in that hour of sudden arrest of work which
comes not rarely upon our life, when carried away in
a moment into -the world of speculative meditation we
ask ourselves. What has my labour done for others, or
for me ? — what is my knowledge worth ? The temper of
such an hour is one of melancholy. It arose, partly, as
we have seen, from the contrast of one certainty with
many uncertainties, and the terrible irony in that.
* Melencolia. ' 245
It arises, next, from the thoTight tliat life is too short,
even for the most ardent labour, to wrest from the
bosom of nature, or the ocean of the soul, a thousandth
part of their secrets. Before we have, as it were,
crossed the threshold of the temple of knowledge, the
sands in the glass above our head are half run, and we
place the bell there, in readiness to toll our requiem.
Man is not, but is ' like a thing of nought ; his time
passeth away like a shadow.' This is one of the
elements of such an hour of melancholy. And it
is the increase of knowledge which has given it all
its serious pain. For as long as we knew little and
flitted from one enjoyment of sense to another, finding
all our pleasure in the excitements of mere animal
being, life had uo noble value in it. We wished to live,
because it was pleasant to live, and when we thought
of death, it was, not with the solemn melancholy of
which we speak, but either with a light laugh as not
realising it, or, if realising it, with a bitter anger.
But as our knowledge increased, and our labour became
more earnest, and we felt that there were endless
capabilities in us of attaining the first and of making
the second useful to man — then, in an hour of sudden
and secluded thought, when we realised that our life
was more than half over, that all the mighty interests,
hopes, and powers which had come to us, and made
existence a scene of dramatic passion, were soon to
be paralysed with age and smitten with death — then,
the tide of a noble melancholy floated in upon the soul.
Our work rests, our books are clasped, our soul looks
through our eyes far into the future. ' Death comes/
246 ' Melencolia!
we think ; ' is all I have done for others and learnt for
myself lost ? Why may I not live to finish my work,
to complete and round my knowledge ? If death be all,
then the increase of my knowledge is the increase of
my sorrow.'
The remedy and the answer lie in the teaching of
Christ. He has brought, it is true, upon the world, an
increased dread of death, for He has deepened the sense
of moral responsibility. But in deepening responsibility
He has also brought upon the world an increased de-
light in life, because He has made life more earnest,
active, and progressive. Duties which have a clear
fulfilment possible, aspirations which have a true hope
of being realised — these make life interesting, alive,
even passionate. The first remedy, then, when the
haunting thought of death comes to shroud our little
term of being with melancholy, is to take up with
eagerness again the duties and responsibilities of life.
In doing these the sense of life, and necessarily the
sense of joy, will begin again to thrill within us • things
which cannot die and are gifted with the power of
convincing us of their innate immortality — love, justice,
truth, and purity — become ours by the doing of them,
and weave their divine eternity into our being. We
look to Christ, and the two sources of the melancholy
of which we speak — the idea of our work perishing, the
idea of a cessation of the growth of knowledge — vanish
a-way. He died, it is true, when half the natural sands
of life were run. But we see that his labour has not
died with Him. It has passed as a power and life into
tli(? world. While He lived, his words and deeds wei'^
* Melencolia. ' 247
only forcible and productive in Palestine. ISTow that
He lias passed from earth, they have pervaded nations.
And onr work done in his spirit has the same infinite
quality. It does not cease with our breath. It lives
and moves in other men. It is handed on from
generation to generation in a tradition of action,
accumulating force from the new human power which
different men have added to it. Being done in union
with the eternal humanity of Christ, it belongs to and
suits developing mankind — nay, more, it developes with
mankind. All we have to do is to do it now with all
our heart, and soul, and strength, looking unto Jesus ;
and we may rejoice that not one shred of it is lost.
Our echoes flow from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Moreover, we are also freed in Christ from the second
source of this sadness, the idea that our knowledge
shall cease to grow. For in Him we are ourselves
immortal, and the work which we have started, and
left to others here, we carry on ourselves in the larger
world beyond. But if so, it will require added know-
ledge, and indeed in its progress it will necessarily
store up knowledge. In Christ, we know then that
we shall never cease to learn, to investigate, to add to
our stock of knowledge, and therefore to our stock of
power.
Masters of a divine hope, we escape from the shadow
of this melancholy. We watch the sands running
away and listen to the passing bell, if not with joy, at
least with a new growth of resolution in the soul. And
in cheerful effort, and in fortitude of heart, we pass out
248 ^ Melencolia!
of transient sorrow into the activity which exalta the
present life and looks forward to a boundless develop-
ment in the future.
The second source of melancholy in such an hour of
arrested labour is retrospective thought. We look back
from the position which our manhood has reached on
our youth and childhood. We see ourselves like the
tiny genius seated on the millstone, just beginning the
career of learning which we have run ; our wings of
thought and imagination just starting from our shoul-
ders -with the eagerness of important ignorance, with
no shadow of the coming burden of weariness — winning
with tablet and pencil the first elements of knowledge.
Since then we have ceaselessly followed our course. Day
by day we have increased in knowledge ; and what has
come of it all — of the hopes with which we began, of
the unclouded weather of our brain, of the light
' which never was on sea or land,' of the life whose
fountains were so full, of the boundless possibilities we
pictured, of the easy dalliance with our powr ^-s ? Dis-
appointment, and weary thought, and twilight in the
soul, and death, the slow death of power, and the ex-
haustion of the force of faculties by too rapid an use ;
and instead of a boundless range of view, a small defined
horizon, and a voice which says in irony to a soul
doomed never to be contented, ' Be content with your
limitations.' Fame has come to such a man — the laurel
is round his brow ; wealth — the purse is at his feet ;
some practical power, the keys of which are at his
girdle ; but for these things he has ceased to care ; for
' the heavy and the weary weight of the unintelligible
* Melencolia. ' 249
world,' more weary tlie finer our feeling has been made
bj knowledge, more heavj the more subtile and in-
quisitive our thought has been made by accurate
learning, has come upon him. Increase of knowledge
has awakened emotions for which he finds no channel,
has created wants of the soul for which he finds no
food. He desires the higher knowledge, because he
has secured the lower, and there is no voice, nor any
that answereth.
Then, in such an hour of passing melancholy as we
speak of, he envies the light-hearted childhood which
no question troubled ; he remembers sorrows of youth
which were more excellent pleasure than the joys of
afler-life ; the good old time, when he was so miserable.
It were worth all his knowledge to get back again, even
for a day, ^ the wild freshness of morning; ' the early
enthusiasm which sang like the lark, ' at heaven's gate.'
It is still sadder in such an hour, if we look back, not
at our own youth, but at the children whom our career
has inspired, who are beginning as we began — unwarned
by our failure, disbelieving in our grief — with the same
delight and the same hopes ; delight which will grow
as chill as ours, hopes which will droop as ours have
done, and unbelief in sorrow which will grow into faith
in pain, the only faith which in our hour of depression
we possess.
So whether we see in Diirer's symbol of the child-
genius, who sits near the great angel of the knowledge
and toil of earth, the image of her own youth, or the
image of another who is beginning the same exhausting
effort, the thought is still full of melancholy.
250 * Melencolia. '
Now what is the remedy of this retrospective sadness ?
As long as this melancholy which we have described is
transient, as Diirer intended it to be, filling up a paren-
thesis between labour and labour, it is not an ignoble
but a noble melancholy. For it is in reality the cry of
our human nature, in contact with death and failure,
for fuller life. It is the voice of our mightiest and
purest spiritual appetite, making itself heard through
the atmosphere of dull decay.
Only it is mistaken in that to which it looks. It looks
back to youth, and pictures that time as the time when
life was richest and deepest. The spiritual fact is that
in youth we had less life, if we have developed ourselves
truly, than we have now. We are now more complex,
our spiritual and intellectual functions have a larger
number of organs to perform them ; and complexity of
being and specialisation of functions attend and charac-
terise higher life. We may have less careless freshness,
less unsullied purity, less clearness of vision, but we
have more practical power, more ease in sy.hpathy,
and if our vision is less clear it is because we have so
much more to observe and consider. We have stored
up a reservoir of force ; we have taken into ourselves
powers and new elements from all sides. We are like
the great river, which may for a moment regret its
noisy freshness and its crystal clearness when it was
born among the hills, but which with a wiser mind
prefers its full-volumed stream. For it has added to
its waters a thousand rivulets, and with them, tidings
from a hundred hills ; and though its broad tide is
stained with loosened clay, and charged with decaying
* Melencolia! 251
elements, yet it fertilises a whole country side, deposits
far away new deltas for the life and toil of men, and
bears upon its bosom the commerce of the nations.
It is so with our manhood's labour, and the thought
should place a heart of joy in the midst of our melan-
choly.
Moreover, our strong crjang and tears in effort which
has never reached its earthly end, our long and un-
rewarded toil of love and knowledge, are not lost in
us. They are in reality latent powers in the soul,
which in an undefective world will become strength of
thought and ease of attainment. As the forces of the
sunlight stored up in the vegetation of the coal break
forth again millions of years afterwards to cheer a happy
fireside at Christmas time with light and heat, so the
stored-up force of our endurance will manifest itself as
passionate joy under new conditions of being. Nay,
we may even measure the hidden force of life within us
by the depth of our sorrow.
This is the answer we may give ourselves when the
increase of sj)iritual or mental knowledge has deepened
in us, in a transient passage of melancholy, the pain of
the contrast between the hopes of youth and the toil of
manhood.
But, if such a melancholy were to continue — if, as
some do, we cherish retrospect and find our only plea-
sure in remembering what we were, in continually
wailing over dead ideals — then the answer is sharper
and sterner. It is given in the results which this
unmanly melancholy brings. We become useless,
dreamy, slothful men; we become indifferent to the
252 * Melencolia. '
great interests of tlie Present, because we are absorbed
in the Past. We cease to grow, because we are isolated
in self; and he who ceases to grow goes back slowly
into the realm of nothingness and death. We are a
dead weight on the progress of the world. Our idle-
ness is an injury to the race ; and the race rejects and
despises us. Then our melancholy, face to face with
this contempt, changes its nature ; its dainty sweetness
departs, and is succeeded by the coarse sourness of an
old age of scorn.
That is the stern reply of law to the man w^ho indulges
in the continued melancholy of retrospect, to whom
added knowledge has only brought despair of the future.
It is unnianliness to linger thus among the tombs.
Christ calls us to a higher thought of life. Let dead
ideals bury themselves. He says ; come away from them
and follow Me ; there are other ideals in front, better
and larger than the past. S. Paul accepts and realises
the whole position. 'When I was a child, T spake as
a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a- child ;
but when I became a man, I put away childish things.'
There is no unmanly retrospect in that, neither is there
any depreciation of childhood. It had its own ways,
they were good then — it was a joyful time, that too
was good — but to wish it back again, except for a
moment, were unworthy. Manhood brings nobler work,
higher duties ; and the child-life and youth are to be
put away for ever. Nor was this said by one who did
not feel the weight of the trouble which besets manhood.
For he goes on : ' Now we see through a glass darkly ' —
'now we know in part.' But, observe, the pain does
* Melencolia. ' 253
not send him back for comfort, but forward. He steps
out of a barren melancholy, being the possessor of an
earnest faith and a saving hope. The time is comino-
when we shall see face to face, when we shall know as
we are known : indistinct knowledge which bringeth
sorrow, partial knowledge which itself is grief, shall
vanish in clear light of perfect truth, in completed
knowledge, and clearness and completion are faultless
joy. It is the one inspiring element of Christianity
that it throws us in boundless hope upon the future and
forbids us to dwell in the poisonous shadows of the
past. A new and better growth is before us, a fresher,
a diviner, a more enthusiastic life awaits us. We are
to wake up satisfied in the likeness of Christ, the ever-
young Humanity. Therefore, forgetting those things
which are behind, let us press forward unto the mark
of the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus.
Lastly. There is a third source of melancholy in
such an hour of arrested labour which is symbolised
by the German artist and w^hicli illustrates my text.
The ladder, the geometrical figure, the tools of the
architect and the carpenter, lie scattered at the feet of
the genius. They have been used by knowledge for the
labour of men. They are the instruments of that in-
creased knowledge whose child is civilisation. What
have they done for the world ? We see the result in the
engraving. There is the sea — a reminiscence of the
Venetian lagoons, and carrying with it in the artist's
mind the whole idea of the glory and wealth, of the
commerce and civilisation of Venice — and on its borders
are cities, ports, churches, fortifications, watch-towers.
2 54 * Meleiico Ha. *
Has civilisation, the result of toil and knowledge,
brought happiness to men ? No ; but the strifes of theo-
logy, the curse and vice of wealth, wars, and the anger
of nations, men preying on one another, woe and pain
to the weak, evil souls to the strong. So Albert of
Nuremberg, oppressed in his hour of thought with the
misery of the suffering world, suffering from its know-
ledge, and the more it knows, places over the citied sea-
board the fiery comet in the sky, which
Disastrous twilight sheds, and with fear of change
Perplexes nations,
and sends the bat forth to fly across the angry heaven
with the apocalyptic scroll on which is written ' Melen-
colia,' to cry aloud the sadness of the world.
It is a sorrow which we all know in many a paren-
thesis of meditation, a sorrow which of all else is the
most profound and the most consuming.
What is its remedy ? Some will tell you to look only
on the bright side of things, and to enjoy life, ignoring
the evil. Others are content to rest in optimism, and
to believe that all is well. But the real fact is, that
there is more of the dark side than the light, and that
things are not well to us at all, but very ill. Nor is
the joyful faith in God which refuses to see evil that
temper in which the noblest work has been done, noi
does it, in the end, do anything for the world as long
as it refuses to see the wrong in the world. It leaves
its possessor both spiritually and intellectually weak ;
it lulls him into a lotus-eating repose which can do
nothing to redeem mankind, and when the sorrow and
evil of the world are forced home, as they probably will
* Meleiicolia. * 255
be, on such a soul, lie breaks down under the revelation,
overwhelmed.
The true remedy is to penetrate steadily into the very
depths of the dreadful mystery ; to comprehend what
destiny, and evil, and death mean ; to go down into
hell and know it, and conquer it. This is v/hat Christ
did, in resolute action upon earth, and out of this
meeting of evil and sorrow face to face, not by passing
them by and ignoring them, sprang his conquest —
evil was overthrown, sorrow was changed into jo}",
death was swallowed up in victory — because He went
down into hell.
This is what S. Paul did in resolute thought which
refused to smooth away a single difficulty in the mystery
of God's dealing with the world. In chapters ix., x., and
xi. of his Epistle to the Eomans, he deliberately meets
the dreadful questions of the apparent unrighteousness
and unfairness of God's dealings with mankind. Their
terror, their ambiguity, their unrelenting march — he
goes down into the abyss of them all. All his powers
are concentrated into an unflinching gaze into the
darkness. And what was the result ? It was the same
in the region of thought as Christ had arrived at in the
region of action. It was conquest. Listen to what
came of brave resolution to knoAv the worst, to evade
no difficulty : ' For God hath concluded them all in
unbelief that He might have mercy upon all. Oh, the
depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge
of God ; how unsearchable are His judgments, and His
ways past finding out ! for of Him, and through Him,
and to Him are all things. To Him be glory for ever
256 ' Melcnco li a. '
and ever. Amen.' The whole world contained and
living in God. That was the answer.
Brethren, if we wish to win this conquest, we must
do in action and thought what Christ and his Apostle
did— realise the evil of our own hearts and of the
world, fully and entirely, and set ourselves to meet it,
resolving to be true and fearless, to keep our integrity
and purity, so far as possible, clean and bright; but
not in avoidance and ignoring of evil and its mystery,
but in battle with it ; not looking too much to the
other world, but living seriously in this world; not
seeking too much for peace of heart, nor expecting
it, but in much tribulation following Christ ; not queru-
lously complaining of intellectual difficulties, but wait-
ing and working, in sad but resolute faith, towards
light.
I believe victory comes forth from that — practical
success in conquering wrong and setting things right;
and intellectual power able to answer the dreadful mys-
teries which overwhelm humanity.
In this way, the melancholy which Diirer symbolises
does not induce despair, but urges to activity. He seems
to have felt this. There is the light of coming action
in the eyes of the Angel of the Toil and Intelligence of
Earth. She has seen the depths of sorrow and sin, and
they can terrify her mind and chill her energy no more.
She will soon open the book, and move the com]3asses,
and take up again the instruments of the uncontented
toil of knowledge. Pain may be increased by know-
ledge, but it is the pain of the travail of a new birth.
The insight she has gained into evil will make her work
* Melencolia! 2^j
in the future more unyielding", more enduring. In the
very centre of the dark sorrow she has caught a glimpse
of the light of far-off victory ; and so above the bat-
like scroll of melancholy, and the disastrous twilight,
and the menace of the comet, the spiritual artist of
Germany threw the triumphal arch of the- rainbow, the
symbol of a divine but distant hope.
The increase of knowledge includes the increase of
sorrow ; but the knowledge of the depth of sorrow is
the gate of a divine joy.
12
258 Art Expenditure.
ART EXPENDITURE,
' Why vrfts nijl iliis ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given
U> the poor P ' — John xii. 5.
There were, once upon a time, two men who were
friends, but whose characters and pursuits in life were
■different. The one was a lover of Beauty, the other a
lover, as he said, of Use. The latter had given up his
life to ' practical purposes ; ' he had built houses for
the poor, he had arranged the sanitary measures of a
city, he had visited the prisons and the hospitals, and
had toiled to save disease and crime. And his cha-
racter and strength were suited to this work, so that he
did it well.
The other had spent his life in examining the Beau-
tiful ; he had studied its laws in nature and art, and he
devoted himself in retirement to expressing what he
had discovered in the most beautiful manner possible :
his enthusiasm pushed him to think that men would
be interested in his work, and his aim was to awaken
in the world the love of Beauty by giving a high and
noble pleasure. He did not care to teach morality as
the first thing, but to make beautiful things familiar ;
and by bringing these beautiful things before men, to
refine imaginations not as yet refined, till they could
Art Expenditure. 259
see the more ideal beauty. This being his work, and
his character and physical temper being suited to it,
he did it well, and he did nothing else. He did not
visit the poor, nor was he seen in hospitals. His money
was spent on beautiful things such as he wanted for
his work, not on sanitary improvements and model
cottages.
With this life and with this expenditure his friend
became angry. ' What ! ' he said, ' will you make poems
while famine is making death? The poor are perishing;
God's children are being done to death ; disease and
crime are devouring the nation, and you sit still in
your poetic and artistic leisure, producing only words.
Throw away all this useless work, attack evil, expose
oppression, cleanse the foul dwelling, see and realise
what poverty and pain mean. To what purpose is this
waste ? These things which you call beautiful might be
sold for much money, and given to the poor.' So he
spoke in his dark anger ; and the spirit of his friend
was moved, and ■ he went forth into the rude work of
the world. It sickened and dismayed him ; his poetical
power went from him; his faculty for revealing the
Beautiful passed away; his delicacy and sympathy
caused him to break down in contact with crime and
disease. He tried hard, but it was failure ; his life was
ruined, and no good was done. He could not do his
friend's work, and trying to do it, he ceased to be able
to do his own.
Kow, I say that this sort of thing, so Cummon now, is
not only a pity, but that a great wrong is done to man-
26o Art Expendihire.
kind by this Judas cry. Eacli man has his own work,
and it is a shameful thing, if any of us, imagining that
our peculiar work is the only important one, take ad-
yantage of our greater violence of character and di*ag
away our friend from his work to enlist him as our
follower. It is then that we should hear the words of
Christ : ' Let her alone : why trouble ye the woman ?
she hath wrought a good work for Me.' For they are
the consecration of those labours which do not directly
act upon the welfare of men, but indirectly on it
through the awakening of feeling ; they are the con-
secration of the expenditure of time and money upon
things which kindle in the heart the sense of beauty,
and bring with them the thoughts which exalt and
adorn existence. This, with the thoughts bound up
with it, is our subject this morning.
First. It is no wonder that there are many who have
indignation at the apparent waste of time upon the arts,
who demand that all our expenditure should be visibly
reproductive. For the worst sin of our society is its
waste of wealth. Night and day, while the commonest
necessities of decent living are not placed in the power
of those in want of them, Dives and his crew cast hun-
dreds of pounds into the Thames, and excuse themselves
on the plea, so often proved a false one, that expenditure
on dress and luxuries encourages trade and adds to the
wealth of the country. They cannot, and they will not
understand that buying seeds and then burning them
is a different thing from sowing seed in the earth which
will spring up in thirtyfold ears of corn. It is no
wonder, I repeat, that there are many who, indignant
A rt Expenditure. 2 6 1
at tills waste, should call upon all to make tlic directlj
useful the aim of expenditure.
And utility ought always to be the end of expenditure.
But, is there only one utility in relation to the wel-
fare of men? Must all expenditure increase the material
happiness of man ? are we never doing man good, except
when we are providing for his outward wants or giving
him an education which will enable him to get on in
the world ? Even in matters like food and dress are
we forced to restrain our expenditure to that which is
absolutely necessary ? Expenditure beyond the neces-
sary on these things is certainly unproductive, but is it
■7-
always useless ? I answer, that we are bound not only
to assist the poor, but also to charm our society, to
show that we have thought of others by our desire to
delight them. Within certain limits, expenditure on
dress is useful in producing a social ease and charm.
Where it is entirely neglected — in a household, for
example — it produces domestic quaiTels, and it really
means not only carelessness of person, but carelessness
of pleasing.
Expenditure on it is not productive of material good
to others — it is productive of another kind of good
altogether.
Then there is also the question of food. Within
certain limits some extra expenditure on providing
a pleasant banquet for one's friends is not truly unpro-
ductive. It is a symbol of our willingness to please,
of our d-esire to give of om- best to those we love and
honour, and as such it rises out of the common and
material into the spiritual. In both cases persons may
262 Art Expenditui'e.
come to you and saj, ' Why was not tliife di-ess, these
wines, sold for money and given to the poor ?' In both
cases we may reply on the same principle on which
Christ replied.
But observe — the real aim in both these cases in which
I have said that expenditure apparently unproductive
is good, has been the desire to please, the desire to
express affection, the desire to give — the same desires
which filled the woman's heart in the Gospel.
Are those the desires which guide the unbridled ex-
penditure of society on food and dress ? Is that the
aim with which vast sums — vast when one thinks of the
misery they might help to remedy — are uselessly cast
away upon luxurious dinners and costly clothing ?
IS'ot at all. Everyone is aware that the usual aim is
to make a show ; to have society talking of our splen-
dour; to rival our neighbour, not in elegance but in ex-
penditure ; to hear the world talking of the great sums
spent at our supper, or of the endless variety of our
dress. And on the whole, is there a meaner or more
contemptible ambition in the world than this? It is
not the ambition to make the world more beautiful,
it is self-display; it is not the ambition to please
others, it is the desire to win an envious applause at
the expense of others, for half the pleasure derived is
in the thought that others are left behind in this race
of fashionable fame.
Expenditure on food and dress for the sake of display
is vile expenditure. In itself it is coarse, for its aim is
not beauty, and it is unintelligent, for it is blindly
led by the fashion. It is, moreover, wicked, for it
A r/ Expenditu re, 262,
is destroying wealth, and the destruction of wealth is
theft.
But it is allowable within certain limits, when its
aim is the giving of a refined pleasure to others ; when
it is a symbol of love, sympathy, or friendship.
This leads me directly to the story in the text.
Christ, in a certain set of circumstances, consecrated
unproductive expenditure. A costly oil was poured
upon his head. It expressed the love of one who
could find no expression of her love in words. It was
the symbol of a profound tenderness. One who stood
by and who afterwards betrayed, put on indignation,
andj remembering the past teaching of his Master,
thought he would appeal directly to that teaching :
' Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred
pence, and given to the poor ? To what purpose is this
waste ? ' But Christ saw that the woman's heart
needed expression, felt that the love not only made
right, but glorified the expenditure; saw that the
scented ointment was not ointment now, but had been
chanpfed into all the costlier tenderness and lono-
regret of a woman's heart ; and exalting the act into
the realm of the Divine, He put aside the mean utility
which claimed the money for the poor.
Observe in this his largeness of soul. Apparently
He had contradicted Himself. He had said to the young
ruler, ' Sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor.'
Would He not say that this woman had done wrong,
especially when the money was spent on Himself?
But Christ lived far above the sphere in which this
objection could touch his soul. He did not care for
264 Aj't Expenditure,
apparent contradictions, for his sayings were founded
on principles wliich expressed themselves differently
according to the events and characters they met, and
He knew that when men found the principles they
would understand that sayings which seemed contra--
dictory were in reality at one. And the principle on
which his speech to the young ruler, and his address
to this woman were made was this — that all expenditure
should be for the welfare of mankind. The ruler was
to give to the poor and produce material happiness for
those who needed it. The woman had given to the
world one of those acts which by the expression of
profound and noble feeling produces profound and noble
feeling, and this was even a higher use of expenditure
than the other, and productive of a purer welfare to the
race. 'Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached
in all the world, this also which this woman hath done
shall be told as a memorial of her.' You cannot imagine
that Christ looked only to the fame of the woman when
He said these words ; He looked to the true and tender
feelings which her act would kindle in the hearts of
men. He saw faithful and self-sacrificing love — the
desire to give all away for the sake of another — glorified
in her act from generation to generation, and He made
by his aj^proving voice the act eternal. Hence, ex-
tending the principle, all expenditure productive of true
feeling is noble expenditure, is useful, often, in a better
way to man than if it had been given in mere charity,
or lavished on promoting the material comfort of
mankind.
To give a man a roof over his head is important, but
Art Expendittcre. 265
to awake his heart, to feed in him the germs of sympathy,
tenderness, and purity, to stir within him the sleeping
enthusiasm for truth, is still more important.
To get a man on in the world, to let him have welfare
and peace of body, is good, but to refine his imagination,
to lead him to love the beauty of God's world and to
be enthusiastic in his admiration, though he never be
able to express that enthusiasm, is still more important.
These are the works of the. poets and artists ; for I do
not speak now of the higher work done by prophets on
the religious spirit ; and all expenditure of any capital
with these aims in view, is noble, though apparently
unproductive expenditure. Only the same thing applies
to their work which applied to the woman's act. It
must have the expression of fine human feeling at its
root ; it must desire to give pleasure to men ; it must
not be for ostentation or any selfish end. If it be true
to these aims, we may say of it, that wherever humanity
extends, its influence will be productive of good to men.
There are those to whom God has given this work
to do. They must necessarily withdraw from what is
called the practical work of the world and give them-
selves wholly to their particular business. And I want
to say, as my parable has hinted at the beginning, that
all attempts made by persons who see only one form of
being useful to men, to drag the artists, poets, and the
rest of their tribe into the so-called practical toil of the
world, and to torment them in their work by reproaches
and cries of uselessness, are attempts worthy of strong
blame, and in themselves a wicked interference with
God's division of labour. Important and unimportant !
2 66 Art Expenditure.
it is curious how utterly the world misapplies these words.
The work of a great poet or a great artist is much more
important in its results upon the whole race than many
of those things to which history gives undue pre-
eminence. The life and wars of Napoleon fill several
volumes, but their importance is as nothing before the
life and poetr}^ of Wordsworth. Our historians teach
our children all about the battles of Cre9i and Poitiers,
as if the war then waged was not absolutely detrimental
to England; scarcely a word is said about Chaucer, and
WiclifiFe, and the great popular movements of that time.
The quarrels of kings and nobles in our early English
time fill page after page. Few dwell for an instant on
the life of Bseda or the birth of English poetry with
Csedmon, and yet the work of these two men outweighs
in real importance a century of political squabbles. It
is practical work to pass education bills, and to carry out
sanitary measures, but it is not really unpractical, but
even more practical, to influence men nobly through a
great picture, or to kindle their hearts by a great poem.
For the work which appeals to the soul does not end
with the soul it influences ; it spreads from the inward
to the outward, and the feelings which are stirred cannot
rest till they take life in action. The poet opens a new
world to men. He makes an image of Mankind. He
reveals the way in which the human heart acts in many
circumstances and relations of life. He makes all his
readers sympathise with these varied events and men.
In this way the world of the reader is expanded. New
interests are given to him ; h(^ sees in others his own
human nature ; he sympathises with persons all over the
Art Expenditure. 267
world. If he is poor he is made to feel with the rich, if
he is rich he is made to feel with the poor. The idea
of a deep underlying brotherhood takes possession of
hiin — and all this is done for thousands and thousands,
from generation to generation. Most human work
falls into nothingness before this. Further, it pro-
motes the outward practical labour of which so much
is said. For with the expansion of the soul comes the
expansion of the whole nature of the man, and his
awakened and extended feelings carry him into active
exertion for his fellows — if that be his natural labour.
It is the same with him who teaches men to see what
IS beautiful. Some dare to look down upon this man's
life as unproductive. But the Press can tell us of the
wants of the poor, and say that the foulness of England
is a disgrace. It is only a few artists who can teach us
how to see the loveliness of a mountain line or the
chord of colour in an evening cloud, to listen with a
hearing ear to the music of the stream, or to rejoice
in its j)urity. The work of both is good, but the
work of the first rivets the attention of men on the
dreadful and deathful elements of human life, and
makes the poor who listen to it miserable and indig-
nant : the work of the other adds to the life of rich and
poor sweeter thoughts and better elements. It calls
their attention to that which is pure and lovely, and
awakens in them aspiration. He who is taught to see
and delight in the colour of a primrose has something
henceforth in him which will go far to keep him
from cruelty to his wife ; he who has been taught to be
happy in the purity of a meadow stream has something
268 Art Expenditure.
ever afterwards in him which will make him loathe
the dirt in his back-yard.
Moreover this sort ot work fills the hours of a man's
recreation with humanising and blessed influences.
A man learns great lessons in his daily labour, but
the lessons which he might learn in his hours of holi-
day when his heart lies open to receive that teaching
of God which comes without asking, are often higher
because more spiritual. But a certain amount of
teaching is necessary to cause men to open their eyes
and to unclose their heart. Without it, unless in cases
.where there is great natural receptiveness, and even in
these cases teaching is needed for right direction of
observation, the moments of a man's rest are nearly
useless to him. It is the blessed work of the lover
of beauty, who has spent money and time and given
the devotion of a lifetime to gain a knowledge of
loveliness, to teach men to see, to open to them the
sealed book of the Heavens and the Earth, to unfold to
them the meaning of the work of great men in the
arts, to pass on beyond this and to make the heart
thrill with the lessons which flow from the glory of
God in the beauty of the world and the glory of man
in the creations of art. For so the evening walk after
toil, the yearly times set apart from the stormy stress
of life, will be filled with natural piety and noble
thought, with tranquillising research and joy, and the
whole nature set a-growing naturally towards things
which are of good report and of pure beauty.
And it is the infinite importance of all this which
makes one indignant when at a cry of economy men
Art Expendihire. 269
would witlidra-w the flowers from the park, or reduce
the sum doled out with reluctant distress bj the State
for the purchase of beautiful things or their preserva-
tion. It is not even the Judas cry which we hear, it
is not that this money is wanted for the poor : the poor
speak plainly enough that they would rather have their
flowers than their worth in money. But we spend
thousands in diplomacy, the chief end of which appears
to be not to settle international questions, but to
arrange the quarrels of a few kings and queens and to
sow the seed of future wars. No one complains of this
expenditure, but every year a number of blind persons
start up to object to a grant to science or art. We put
off year by year the building of a National Gallery to
preserve and exhibit usefully priceless treasures, things
which may speak to men's hearts when everything we
are fighting about with such eagerness will have no
power to interest anyone ; and we lavish millions on
preparations for destroying our fellow-creatures, as if
it were not true that if diplomacy were placed on a
right basis and made, as it ought to be, a noble instead
of a mean profession — international interests being the
first instead of national ; the interest of the whole body
of nations being felt to be the interest of each ; the
personal interests of great personages being always
placed below the interests of mankind ; the desire for a
free interchange of all good things among nations being
the main object, so that peace would grow out of the
natural movement and play of every nation in and with
its fellow, till Europe, Asia, and America formed one
closely woven web — as if, if these things were done, we
270 Art Expe7iditure,
ought to have any war at all. If even the fourth part
of our thirty millions were let loose for righteous and
remedial work, what might we not do for our country ?
We might then do our duty to the poor and the criminal
without hearing the cry of Judas in our ears if we
expended money on things which smooth and ennoble
life. And the men who do the work of producing and
teaching the beautiful, who toil apart that they may
make new worlds for us and kindle creative emotion
in our hearts, might live their lives without being
tortured by the cries of starving men and ruined
women ; without being troubled by the well-meaning
but foolish persons who say to them : ' Why is not
your work sold for so much, and given to the poor ? '
Yes, we come back in the end to the other side of
"the question. I have pleaded the cause of the poets
and the artists who teach men to see and feel the beau-
tiful in nature and in the heart of man. I have asked
that men who can do the work which produces a price-
less harvest in the imagination and the soul, should
be let alone and not worried out of it by those who
think the visibly useful the only useful. But if they
are to be let alone and to retain the peace of heart
necessary for any great work, we, who cannot do their
work, ought to do that which they cannot do, and
which they would spoil if they tried. We ought to
prepare the way for their influence. Men cannot find
pleasure in beautiful things, nor feel their power,
as long as they are living like the brutes. We ought
to clean London and the country ; to make dwellings
in which men can live without the constant risk of
A rt Expenditure, 271
disease ; to secure that good food is sold ; to have
everywhere pure water in plenty.
You may not be able to apply yourselves directly
to these things, and probably you would do them badly.
But there are many young men among you who in one
way at least may help towards work of this kind. By
writing, by influence in and out of Parliament and in your
business relations, you may work in many ways towards
placing international relations on such a basis as will
set, as I said, a large quantity of our military and naval
money free for practical improvement of the country's
welfare. The number who are doing that now might
be counted in two minutes. I am sure no more Chris-
tian work than that can exist, and if it is done heartily
and with a genuine desire to help the race, it is well-
pleasing to God. You will not see results now ; but
what is man worth unless he has faith in the future,
belief in principles, and sufficient courage to labour
without always wanting like a child to grasp his result
at once ?
Another thing we may do. We may avoid all
expenditure for the sake of show, or for the sake of
pushing our way into higher circles. We may deny
ourselves the wretched pleasure of being pointed at as
men and women who spend more than others in food,
and dress, and luxuries. We may resolve to waste no
more money on things which have no intrinsic value,
whose value passes away in smoke. We may hate
all gambling, betting, and all other ways of that kind
in which wealth is consumed, avoiding all places
wliere this unhallowed robbery of the country is carried
2 7- Art Expenditure.
on. A few men and women in society who should mark
their contempt and hatred of this waste, with the
firmness of good taste, would begin the formation of
a strong public opinion against these things, and
render them in the end as shameful as thej are.
That is ore way at least of serving God and following
Christ, which is in the power of many among you.
If these things were done, a quantity of capital would
be set free which might be employed in practical and
reproductive work. And the outward and visible wants
being supplied, there will be room for well-educated
expenditure on beautiful things which have a lasting
value, and we may call upon the rich to sj^end large
sums in promoting the higher educational wants of the
countr^^ I do not know what a man is a millionaire
for, unless it is that he should undertake great public
works for the nation. Once that was the case in
England, it is continually the case in America. Here
and there among our merchants there are men who
found large libraries and public institutions. But
one does not hear of men possessing almost fabulous
property and who have a fashion of calling themselves
poor, because they needlessly support a number of
establishments, expending, as they ought to do, a year's
income in the space of three or four years, and that not
once but often in their lives, on some great public work.
It is our colossal and hereditary fortunes who ought to
build the National Gallery, who ought to endow science,
who ought to establish libraries and art schools in every
part of England ; who ought to found new colleges at
Oxford and Cambridge for the poorer students j who
An Expendihcre. 273
onglit to feel that overweening wealth can only be
endured in the hands of private persons when a large
public use is made of it. This would be the way to
make a noble reputation, to hand down one's name, not
as a by-word for extravagance or for parsimony, but
blazoned with the gold of honour and bright with the
tears of gratitude.
And there are numberless things which men of lesser
wealth, but with more than they have the right to
spend upon themselves and their estates, may do which
wiU help on the world far better than giving of alms.
They ought to find out men who only want some help
to make them useful to the world, a^nd to put them for-
ward in life. A few hundreds a year would have saved
Keats for us as Calvert saved Wordsworth. It ought
to be understood that money would be forthcoming
whenever in the National Schools a boy rises so plainly
above his fellows as to make it plain that the world
would be the better for his liberal education. It should
be part of the duties of the rich to search for such
men. It should be part of their duty to buy valuable
things for the national collections, and they ought to be
educated, as they are not, to know a first-rate thing
when they see it. Why should public money be spent
on a great picture, when there are five hundred men in
England who could buy it and not know that they had
bought it ? There are fifty other ways in which private
purses can do public duties, but I cannot dwell upon
them now. Let these things suffice.
And to conclude all, it is not unfitting for a Christian
minister to say that the work of artist and poet of
2y4 Art Expenditure.
wliich we have been speaking, and the work of those
who, not being themselves j)i'ophets of the beautiful,
yet labour to help those who are, is, as well as that of
charitable giving. Christian work ; not unpleasing to
the Father of all Light and the King in His Beaut}^
when its aim is not private ostentation but the desire
to give men a noble pleasure and the welfare which
comes through that. Be sure that expenditure for thi'='
purpose, though it may seem unproductive, is not un-
productive ; nor will the Great Judge at the end sup-
port the accuser who may say, like Judas, Why were not
these things sold for much, and given to the poor ?
Child Life, 275
CHILB LIFE.
* Suffer little children '^tQ come unto me, and forbid them not: for of
Kucli ia the Kingdom of God.'— Luke xviii, 16.
It is a bappy thought that the children who climb upon
our knees are fresh from the hand of God, livino- bless-
ings which have drifted down to us from the imperial
palace of the love of God, that they still hear some of the
faint notes of the music of God's life, still bear upon
their faces traces of the uncreated lisfht. Heathen sa^re
and Christian poet have enshrined the thought, each
according to his knowledge, and though there is no
proof of its truth, yet we cannot neglect as quite
fruitless in wisdom so wide-spread an intuition. It is
vain to sneer at it as poetry, in vain at least for some
of us. He cannot scorn this thought who feels, as his
children's faces light up at his coming, not pleasure
only, but an inner sense of gratitude that things so pure,
so close to God, should give to him, with the sense of
his unworthiness deep within, so much and so unsus-
pectingly. Their trust seems to carry with it something
of the forgiveness of Heaven. The man sees the tole-
rant tenderness of God his Father in the child whom
He has sent him — that his little one believes in him,
bestows on him the blessing of an ever-renewed hope.
276 Child Life.
Nor can lie scorn this thought who on philosophic
grounds believes that all living beings are held in God,
are manifestations of part of the Divine thought. He
knows that a phase of that idea which God has of the
whole race, is iucarnate in his child, that his child is
destined to reveal it, that this is the purpose for which
God sent it into the world. Therefore hidden within
this speck of mankind he recognises a germ of the
Divine essence which is to grow into the harvest of
an active life, with a distinct difference from other
lives.
And if, born of these two thoughts, a sadness succeeds
the first touch of joy and gratitude, when the parents
think how soon the inevitable cloud of life will make dim
the heavenly light ; how long, how evil, may be the days
of their child's pilgrimage ; how far he may retreat from
God — yet, we who believe, not in a capricious idol of
power, but in a just "Father who loves — we who hold
tliat there is nothing which is not in God, cannot dis-
trust the end. Our children are in His hands ; they
will some time or other fulfil the work of revealing God;
they must, for God does not let one of His thoughts fail.
If all life be in God, no life ever gets loose from God ; it
is an absolute imperative of the philosophy which denies
that anything can be which is not of God, that nothing
can ever finally divide itself from Him. Our children,
like ourselves, are already saved by right. Years of
what we call time will be needed to educate them into
union with God in fact, but that end is as certain, if
God exist, as God's existence.
This thought of what I may call the divinity of child-
Child Life. 277
hood is still further supported by the exquisite relation
in which Christ put Himself to children. The heart
of woman will never forget that beautiful wa^yside
story where He consecrated the passion of motherhood.
The religious spirit will never cease, when disturbed
by the disputes of the worldlier life, to remember his
words when, bringing the disciples back to the sweet-
ness of early charity. He took a child and placed it in
their midst. The soul distressed with questions of belief
remembers with a touch of peaceful pleasure how Christ
recalled his people to the natural simplicity of faith, to
that higher and deeper religion which lives beyond the
wars of the understanding, when He said, 'AVhoso shall
receive one such little child in My name receiveth Me.'
And when mistaken religious persons press hard upon
the truth and tenderness of the relation of parents to
children, and bid the one look upon the other as children
of the devil — corrupting with their poison the sweetest
source of feeling in the world and the love which of all
human love links us closest to the heart of God, we
fall back in indignant delight upon the words of the
Saviour : ' Take heed that ye despise not one of these
little ones ; for I say unto you, that in heaven their
angels do always behold the face of My Father which
is in heaven.'
And once more, when we think that God revealed Him-
self in the childhood of the Saviour, the thought of the
divinity of childhood becomes still more real. To us
it is much, in our stormy and sorrowful life, to think
of Christ in his manhood conquering and being made
perfect through suffermg ; but when we wish to escape
278 Child Life.
into a calmer, purer air, we turn from the image of our
Master as ' tlie man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief,' dear as that is to us, and look with infinite
pleasure on the earlier days at ISTazareth, imagine Him
playing in the meadow and rejoicing in the sunlight and
the flowers, taking his mother's kiss, and growing in
the peace of love — and so learn to dream of God, re-
vealed not only as the Eternal Father, but, in some not
unworthy sense, as also the Eternal Child.
It is a thought which bathes all our children in a
divine light. They live for us in the childhood of
Christ ; they move for us and have their being in the
childhood of God.
In the directest opposition to all this — to the poetic in-
stinct of Greek and Christian poetry and philosophy, to
the natural instincts of the human heart, to the teaching
and acts of Christ, to the revelation of God in childhood
— is the dreadful explanation which some have given of
original sin. Children are born, we are told, with the
consummate audacity of theological logic, under the
moral wrath of God, are born children of the devil. I
have already denied this from this place, and stated in-
stead of it the fact — that we are born with a defective
nature which may and does lead to moral fault, but in
itself it is no more immoral than colour-blindness. I
have said that this imperfectness is the essential differ-
ence of human nature, that which makes man differ
from God, from angels, from brutes ; that which makes
him, so far as we know, the only being in the universe
capable of progress. It is a defectiveness distinctly
contemplated, distinctly initiated by God, who wished
Child Life, 279
for a being in His universe the history of which should
be the attainment of perfectness through struggle
against defectiveness. As such, the defectiveness of our
children, as well as our own, has in it a thought which
glorifies it. We see in its first developments, and in
the way in which the spiritual element meets it, the
beginning of that noble struggle in which the soul will
have the glory, and pleasure of advance, the delight of
conquest as well as the misery of failure ; the interest
of a great drama, and the final resurrection into freedom
from weakness, error, and restraint.
Whatever way we look, then, upon our children, our
first feeling should be reverence for the divine within
them, infinite desire to help them to recognise that
divine idea, and to express it through life, in a noble
form. This should be the basis of education. If it
were, we should have less bad men and bad women.
For we should remember that children on whom we
can make almost any impression we please, so ductile is
their wax, will become what they are believed to be, will
reverence their own nature when they feel that it is
reverenced, will believe that they are of God, and know
and love Him naturally when they are told that God is
in them.
But the other basis of education has an irresistible
tendency to degrade them, and it only shows how near
they are to God that it does not degrade them more.
What conceivable theory is more likely to make them
false, untrustful, cunning, ugly-natured, than that which
calls them children of the devil, and acts as if the one
object of education was, not to develope the God within
28o Child Life.
them, but to lash the devil out of them ? Let them
think that you believe them to be radically evil, and
the consequences be on your own head. You will
make them all you think them to be. Every punish-
inent will make them more untrue, more fearful, more
cunning ; and instead of day by day having to remit
punishment, you will have to double it and treble it,
and at last, end by giving it up altogether in despair, or
by making your child a sullen machine of obedience.
Instead of trusting your child, you will live in an
atmosphere of constant suspicion of him, always think-
ing that he is concealing something from you, till you
teach him concealment and put lies in his mouth and
accustom him to the look and thought of sin ; and
then — ^havins: done this devilish work and turned the
brightness and sweetness of childhood into gloom and
bitterness, and having trodden into hardened earth the
divine germs in his heart — what happens ? You send
him into the world already a ruined character, taught
through you to live without God in his sou], without
God in the world, to believe in evil and hot in good.
Do not complain afterwards if he disappoint you, if
he turn out a cruel or a dishonouraWe, or a miserable
man. It is you who have made him so, and God will
have a dreadful reckoning with you. ' 1 mistook,' you
will say, as you tremble before His judgment-seat ; ' I
did it for the best.' Alas ! there will be no possible
excuse for you, but this, which links you with the
slayers of Christ, Father, forgive me, for I know not
what I did.'
Teach your child to believe in the goodness ot hi^
Child Life. 281
nature, in his nearness to God. And this leads me to
the first characteristic of childhood, faith; faith, the
quality whose outward form is trust.
It speaks well for the beauty of the human quality
of faith that it is so lovely a thing to us when we see it
pure in childhood. No pleasure is so great as that
which we receive when, in their hours of joy, still more
when sorrow or disease attack them, we see the light of
our children's faith in us shining in their eyes.
It speaks well for the spiritual power of this quality
that it has on i^s such winning force. We grant to it
as we recognise it, what we should grant to nothing-
else — we cannot hold back from its often mute request
anything which is not wrong for us to give. It over-
comes the world in us : it leads us to make a thousand
sacrifices. It charms our weary life, it attracts and
softens our sated heart. It makes us feel our own
velation to God, and what it should be, for it is its eartlily
image. The parents who have not encouraged and loved
this quality in children towards themselves, will have
but little of it in their own relation to God. They will
give no pleasure to the Divine Father, they will have
no natural power with Him.
Having this faith, the child is, as long as it is un-
spoilt by us, fearless, and fearless under the difficulties
of a vivid imagination, not the high imagination which
composes images towards an artistic end, but the un-
tutored quality which works without an impulse or an
aim. On the child's receptive heart everything makes
a strong impression, numberless images are received.
And at night, when no new impressions are made by
la
2 8p Child Life.
outward objects, these images rise up a thronging crowd
in tlie brain. And the work of the brain, just beginning
to learn itself, and as jet under no ordinance of the
will, conij)Oses, combines, contrasts these images into a
thousand fantastic forms.
Spoil the child's faith in the world being good to it
and pleasant ; frighten it with falsehoods to keep it
quiet, tell it a single lie, and let it lose a grain of its
divine trust in jou ; show yourself violent, unreasonable,
harsh, or cruel, and every one of these images may take
a frightful form. What it has suffered from you, the
distrust it has gained from you, will creep like a subtile
element of fear into the creations of its fancy, and
terror is born in its heart.
Again, this unquestioning faith makes the child think
that everything is possible, and as many things are
possible which the fear which reasons deters us from
attempting, the child often does feats which astonish
us. So nations m their childhood, and men inspired
by intense faith, have believed in themselves and done
things called miraculous.
It is unwise to attack too rudely even this self-con-
fidence of childhood. Lessen the child's faith in his
own powers, and you will check the growth of that
happy audacity which in boyhood and youth wins after-
wards so much — that easy daring and self-confidence
which, when it is limited by good manners, is so charm-
ing in society.
Nature herself will teach him humility soon enough,
and you had better let him find out his limits in this
direction for himself She has a way of teaching which
Child Life. 283
is irresistible ; which, though it stops audacity with firm-
ness, yet shows that she is pleased with the audacity ;
which points out a way of conquering herself. And in
the child's relation to his home and society, you yourself
can check the fearless self-confidence when it deerene-
rates into impertinence or thoughtlessness, not by harsh
rebuke, but by appealing to the natural impulse of
affection. The limit placed by saying and enforcing this
— ' Do nothing, my child, say nothing, which will give
pain to others ' — is not a limit which will crush the
natural boldness of the heart. It is a limit wliich
appeals to love, and the desire to be loved is an ele-
ment in the child's nature as strong as faith. It will
be seen to be natural and reasonable, it will be ac-
cepted.
Again, as to this faith in its relation to God, how
does it take a religious form ? Tlie child's religious
faith is, first, faith in you — mother, father, guardian ; to
early childhood you are God. And when you come to
give a name to the dim vision of the growing child, and
call it God, it will grow into form before him, clothed
with your attributes, having your character. If the
child learn to worship an idol — a jealous, capricious,
passionate God — it is not his fault half so much as yours.
What were you to him when he was young ? Were 3^ou
violent, sulky, exacting, suspicious, ruling by force and
not by love? Whatever you were, his God in boyhood
will wear your shape and bear your character, and he
will grow like the character he contemplates. As he
grows older, he needs more direct teaching. He asks
who is God, what is His character, what His will. For he
284 Child Life,
cannot but desire to know tliese things, througli a vague
curiosity, if through nothing more. Tor by and by, God
touches him. Spiritual imi3ulses, slight, but distinct,
come to him in hours of temptation ; voices make them-
selves heard in his heart ; passion renders life exalted,
and in the more wakeful state it genders, the germs of
spiritual life push forth ; nature speaks her dim message
in some lonely moment on the hills or in the wood, and
he is conscious of an undefined want. What has he to
fall back on then? What ideas have you given him to
which he may now fly for solution of the growing pro-
blem ? what forms of thought which the new powers
of spiritual faith and love may breathe upon and make
a living God ? The whole spiritual future of his youth
then trembles in the balance. Fathers and mothers, you
do not know often what you are doing ; what misery,
what bitterness, what hardness of heart, what a terrible
struggle, or what a hopeless surrender of the whole
question you have prepared for your child by the dismal
theology and the dreadful God, and the dull heaven,
which you have poured into the ear of childhood.
Long, long are the years, before the man whose early
years have been so darkened can get out of the deadly
atmosphere into a clear air, and see the unclouded face
of God.
So far for the faith of childhood ; on its love I need
not dwell, the same things apply to it as apply to faith ;
but on its joyfulness and the things connected there-
with we speak as we draw to a conclusion.
The child's joy comes chiefly from his fresh recep-
tiveness. His heart is open to all impressions as the
Child Life. 283
bosom of the earth, is to the heavenly airs and lights.
Nothing interferes to break the tide of impressions
which roll in wave on wave — no brooding on the past,
no weary anticipations of the future. He lives, like
God, in an eternal present. The world is wonderful to
him, not in the sense of awaking doubts or problems,
but as giving every moment some miraculous and vivid
pleasure, and it is pleasure in the simplest things.
His father's morning kindness makes him thrill ; his
food is to him the apples of paradise. The sunlight
sleeping on. the grass, the first fall of snow in winter,
the daisy stars he strings upon the meadow, the fish
leaping in the stream, the warm air which caresses his
cheek, the passing of the great waggon in the street, the
swallows' nest above his bedroom window, the hour of
rest at night, and his prayer at his mother's knee —
all are loved lightly and felt keenly, and touch him
with a poetic pleasure. And each impression, as it comes,
is clothed in simple words — words which often, in their
spontaneousness, their fearless unconsciousness, their
popular quality, their fitness for music, have something
of a lyric note, something of the nature of a perfect
song. For the child lives in a world of unconscious
art. He is fearless in his delight, and when he is
happy he trusts his own instincts as revelations : and
if we could get back in after-life something of this, we
should all be artists in heart. One knows in the highest
genius that, united with manhood's trained power of
expression, there is an eternal element of childhood.
Take, for example, the perfect song, such as the songs
of Shakespeare were. They were spontaneous, sudden.
2 86 Child Life.
poj)iilar, simple, and able to be sung. But above all,
they derive tlieir magic and winning power from the
poet's fearlessness, from bis trust in, and bis delight in
his instinctive emotions. The songs of other poets are
spoiled by their fear of their simplicity being called
absurd by the public, by that doubt whether the thing
is quite right, that thinking about thought, that shy-
ness of one's own feeling which come from want of
that unconscious trust in his rightness and delight in it
which a child possesses. The kingdom of a perfect
song, the kingdom of a perfect work of art, is like the
kingdom of heaven, one must enter it like a little
child.
' Fostered alike by beauty and by fear,' fear which
has its thrill of joy, the child grows into union with the
world, and into consciousness of his own heart, till
' the characters of danger and desire ' are impressed
upon all outward forms, and day by day more vividly
that great enjoyment swells which makes
The SiirfacG of the universal earth
With triumph and delight, with hope and fear,
Work like a sea.
And in quieter moments, calmer pleasures are his — plea-
sures of love given and received, pleasures of childish
friendship, pleasures of first successes in learning and
in new pursuits, pleasures of obscure feelings just
touched, not understood, which make in after-life
Those recollected hours that have the charm
Of yisionary things, those lovely forms
And sweet sensations which throw back our life,
And almost make remotest infancy
A visible scene, on which the sun is shining.
Child Life. 287
We look back on them with reflection, but there was
no reflection, or but little, then ; the life was natural,
un thoughtful, only now and then, amid the full move-
ment of unconscious pleasure, flashes of deeper thought
arose and passed away, a faint touch of something to
come, a weight within the pleasure, a dim sense of
sublimity or calm, a suspicion of what duty meanly
just came and were forgotten, but did not die. They
went to form the heart, to build up that which was to
become the man, and they arose afterwards in maturer
life to impregnate and to elevate the mind.
We spoil all this divine teaching of God and nature
by forcing the child out of his unconsciousness into
self-consciousness, by demanding of him reflection,
by checking the joy of his receptiveness by too much
teaching, too much forcing. Let him remain for a
time ignorant of himself, and abide in his heavenly
Father's hands ; let him live naturally, and drink
in his wisdom and his religion from the influences
which God makes play around him. Above all, do
not demand of him, as many do, convictions of sin,
nor make him false and hysterical by calling out from
his imitative nature deep spiritual experiences which
he cannot truly feel. Let him begin with natural
religion, leave him his early joy untainted, see that he
knows God as love and beauty and sympathy. It is
horrible to anticipate for him the days, soon enough
to come, when sorrow and sin will make of life a
battle, where victory can only be bought by pain.
But if we keep these early days pure and joyful, full
of the blessedness of uninjured faith and unconscious
288 Child Life.
love, we give to the man that to whicli he can pJways look
back with hope, and use for the kindling of effort and
aspiration. For the dim remembrance of their pure
and powerful pleasure, the divinity within them, have
virtue to recall us in after-life, when high feeling is
dulled with the cares of this world, to loftier and better
thoughts ; to nourish and repair imagination when its
edge is bkinted by distress and doubt; to exalt the
soul with hope, that though innocence is lost, yet good-
ness remains to be won ; to tell us, in the midst of the
transient and the perishable, that our life is hidden in
God, and our spirit at home in immortality.
It is true that inimitable innocence and fearlessness,
that perfect trust, that belief that nothing is impos-
sible, that fresh and honest freedom, that divine joy,
cannot be the blessing of the man. He has been driven
out of Eden, and the swords wave for ever over the gate
and forbid return. Bat there is a nobler paradise
before us, the paradise of the soldier spirit which has
fought with Christ against the evil, and finished the
work which the Father has given him to do. There the
spirit of the child shall be mingled with the power of the
man, and we shall once more, but now with ennobled
passion and educated energies, sing the songs of the
fearless land, children of God, and men in Christ.
It is true that, tossed with doubt, and confused with
thoughts which go near to mastering the will, we are
tempted to look back with wild regret to the days,
when children, we dreamt so happily of God, and lived
in a quaint and quiet heaven of our own fanciful crea-
tion, and took our dreams for realities, and were happy
Child Life. 289
ill our belief. But after all, though, the simple religion
is lost, its being now more complex does not make it less
divine ; our faith is more tried, but it is stronger ; our
feelings are less easily moved, but they are dee^^er ;
our love of God is less innocent, but how much more
profound ; our life is not so bright in the present, but
its future is glorious in our eyes. We are men who
know that we shall be made partakers of the child's
heart towards our Father, united with the awe and love
and experience of the man. And then, through death,
again we enter the imperial palace whence we came.
We hear the songs and voices which of old we heard
before we left our home, but we hear them now with
fuller, more manly comprehension ; we see again the
things which eye hath not seen, but our vision pierces
deeper. We worship God with the delight of old, before
we went upon our Wander- Year, but' the joy is more
stately, for it is now the joy of sacrifice ; and all things
now are new to us, for we have grown into men, and
we feel the power and joy of progress. But never, as
we look to Him who led us all our life long until this
day, shall we lose the feeling of the child. Through
all eternity the blessing of the child's heart shall be
ours. In the midst of our swiftest work, in the midst
of our closest pursuit of new knowledge, in the midst
of all the endless labour and sacrifice of the heavenly
life, we shall always turn with the sense of infinite
peace to God, and say, Our Father, suffer a little child,
to come to Thee.
290 You thy and its Questions To-day.
[Jan. 1870.]
YOUTH, AND ITS QUESTIONS TO-DAY,
* Lo, I am witli you alway, even unto the end of the world.'
Matt, xxviii. 20.
Theee are pictures which, to the very close of the
artist's work, want a magic touch to make them perfect
— one point of light, one spark of brilliant colour. At
last the hour comes when all is finished but this. Its
addition is not an after-thought ; one might say that
the picture had been painted with the intention of it
in the creator's mind. He adds it ; it is but a touch,
but it transfigures and completes the work.
Such a touch of finish is my text. All has been told
of the Saviour's work — the lowly birth, the quiet ripen-
ing 3"ears of youth, the entrance into the ministry, the
redeeming, revealing ministry itself, the founding of
the kingdom, the sacrificial death, the resurrection, the
passing into glory, the mission of the disciples to the
whole world — and yet the picture is incomplete. ' Of
what use,' we say, 'is all this, if the revealer of God
and the Saviour of men is gone away from his work
and left it in our feeble human hands ? What beauty
is there in a work which must j)erish, unsupported by
the spirit of its author? The thing is incomplete.'
A.t the very moment that we say this, as we read the
Youth, and its Qtiestio?is To-day. 29 1
gospel, Christ turns and adds tlie perfecting conception :
' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world.'
' The end of the world ! ' — what does it mean ? Lite-
rally, the conclusion of the age, of this present time-
world. There have been many theories with regard
to the manner in which this conclusion will take place.
But bound up with them all and almost up to the
present day, one idea has been constant — the idea of
a terrible catastrophe, in which the whole frame of
things, with cities, nations, men, shall be dissolved in a
fiery ruin, that out of the dissolution a new heaven and
a new earth may be upraised.
So constant and unquestioned was this idea, that
it had an insensible influence on scientific theories,
and the earlier geologists transferred to the past
history of the globe the idea of catastrophes. It was
said that each new series of life and strata had been
ushered in by the total overthrow of the preceding.
Historians shared in the same thought. States and
their work, to theoretical eyes, seemed to be absolutely
swept away. Assyria, Greece, Rome, perished and
left no trace. Catastrophe, convulsion, almost anni-
hilation, marked, they said, the history of earth and
the history of man, and the theologians appealed in
triumph to this as confirming their theory of the close
of the world ; unaware, apparently, that it was their
own idea, with which they had prejudiced the world,
coming back to them again.
But, within the last thii'ty years, an immense change
292 Youthy audits Questions To-day.
has taken place — a cltaiige of idea wliicli has spread
itself over nearly all the realms of human thought.
The idea of uniform evolution has succeeded the idea
of violent catastrophe. As geologists ceased to theo-
rise, and looked closer into the history of the earth,
the conjectured catastrophes faded away one by one.
It was seen that one age slid slowly into another
through insensible changes ; it was seen that the ani-
mal life of the world altered its character even more
slowly than the earth itself; that there was no break;
that transition, instead of being exceptional, was the
rule ; that there were, properly speaking, no transition .
periods ; that it was all transition.
The same change of idea waited upon history ; na-
tions, it was seen, when facts were examined, did not
die suddenly, but decayed. The catastrophe, when it
did take place, was the result of inward and slow
disease, and did not at all produce annihilation. The
elements of the fallen nation lived again in other
forms, and entered into the new national life which
rose over its ruins. Successive nations were like the
succession of forests which we are told clothed Scandi-
navia in the old days, passing, as the climate changed,
from fir to oak, and from oak to beech. Each forest
period was new and different from its predecessor, but
each drew its life from the elements of the preceding.
In the history of nations, as in the history of the
earth, there were no violent transitions. It was seen
that each historical era overlapped its successor, and
modified it, and that new political systems arose, with
a few exceptions, not only within but absolutely out of
Youths audits Questions To-day. 293
the old. Transition never ceased ; it was the law, not
the exception.
And now, as a theological idea had insensibly in-
fluenced history and science, these in turn have had
their revenge, and their idea of slow evolution has
insensibly entered into the region of theology.
In most educated men's minds the expectation of a
catastrophe of the vast character formerly believed
in has utterly passed away. Mankind grows towards
its close as the earth grows, as nations have grown ;
and the close itself of this time- world will not be in a
physical ruin, but in the perfection of the race through
a slow evolution — on the whole uniform — during
which the evil, worldly, and transitory elements will be
gradually worked out.
This is the theory, at least, which we embrace. At
the same time, this theory does not shut out the possi-
bility of a catastrophe or convulsion now and then
occurring, just as we admit the fact of sudden con-
versions like S. Paul's in the history of spiritual
experience. Geologists allow temporary periods of
convulsionary action during which rapid changes took
place in the crust of the earth. Historians cannot
deny that there are instances where nations have sunk,
as it were, like ships in a hurricane, and left scarcely a
rack behind. And it seems true that the slow progress
of the race wants now and then, as our own personal life
does, a kind Of catastrophe to turn up to the surface
elements belonging to mankind which have sunk out
of use.
So, taking in all these conditions, we see the human
2 94 Youth, audits Qitestions To-day.
race going on to an end which is not destruction but
perfection. There has been continual change, generally
slow, rarely rapid ; but on the whole, as we look back,
we see growth, not decay, ruling in the history of the
race. A Divine Spirit has been living in the world, and
will move in it till the close come. It is He who said :
' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world.'
We may live in a time when evolution is more than
commonly rapid ; or in a time when the world is resting
in a kind of Sabbath of progress ; or in a time of cata-
strophe 5 or when two periods are mingled together, the
old overlapping the new. But in whichever stage Ave
live — and each has its own dangers to our spiritual life,
the danger of over-excitement in the first, of inactivity
of soul in the second, of despair of heart in the third, of
confusion of thought in the last, where the mingling of
two periods produces that clashing of opinions in which
the delightful sense of the constancy of truth is lost —
in whichever period we live, our strength in one and all,
our shield against their dangers, is faith in this pro-
mise of Christ, and the boundless hope and kindling
impulse in it : ' Lo, I am with you alway ; even unto
the end of the world.'
We ourselves live in a time which is called a time of
transition, when the old thoughts of men are contending
in a sharp battle with the new — so sharp, that the very
outsiders and camp-followers of the armies 6i the world,
the idle men and women, take an interest and engage
themselves therein in a desultory manner. Men and
ideas astonish and confuse us.
Yoitthy and its Quest ions To-day. 295
Men of wliom we thought little step forward, and, by
force of a strong conviction, take a prominent place.
Men of low intellect, but of great enthusiasm, gain
power. Men whom we trusted as leaders slide back,
afraid of the plunge. Men who led our yonth, now
grown too old to accept the new results of the ideas
they have helped to sow, are content to remain fixed
in a mould which, once capable of expansion, is now
hardening around them. Men who were our ideals,
who have given us impulse and hope, disappoint us.
Fear or the world touches them, or weaknesses, which
had lain latent in their character, arise and taint their
purity of purpose. There is no certainty, it seems,
in men. We become distrustful and indignant. But
it is because we look to men too much, and have not
faith in the man Christ Jesus. It matters after all
but little how men deceive us. We have one Leader
who never disappoints, to whom truth is as dear now
as it was to Him on earth, who encompasses our failure
w^ith his success, our weakness with his strength, our
restlessness with his rest, and lo ! He is with us
always, even to the end of the world.
Ideas trouble us even more than men. We are
hemmed in with a crowd of them, all jostling, fighting
with one another, and in the mellay we cannot quite
distinguish under what banner to array ourselves.
There are ideas, half of the old, half of the new theo-
logy, half marble, half living men, like the prince in
the Arabian story ; and others struggling out of the
soil of perished thoughts, like the dead in Tintoret's
* Last Judgment.' There are religious ideas borrowed
296 Youtky audits Questions To-day.
from Christianity but wliicli deny Christianity. There
are ideas which have all but died, but which are
making a last fight for life ; there are others just born,
which as yet have only interested a few men — and we
are in the midst of it all, seeing much we once believed
overthrown, and not able as yet to comprehend the
new, so that in the noise and mist of the battle, like
that last fight of Arthur's beside the Northern Sea,
there is
Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought ;
For friend and foe were shadows in the mist,
And friend slew friend, not knowing whom he slew ;
And some had visions out of golden youth,
And some beheld the faces of old ghosts
Look in upon the battle.
It is hard in a ' dim, weird battle ' like this to discover
and choose the leading thoughts, whose lights will burn
with self-increasing fire, when the fight is over and the
mist floats away to the west to die in the daylight of
God. An angry feeling, like that of Hamlet, of a duty
laid on us too great for our energy, comes upon our
heart. It is the anger of weakness. ' Why are we born
in such evil times ? Why are we called upon to seek,
to choose, to distinguish true from false forms of
truth ? WTiy have we no peace at heart ? ' These
thoughts are bitter in hours of depression, when illness
besets, or life has for a time gone wrong, and then,
being natural and transient, they are not undignified.
But if they are continued, if they are kept as the sour
food which we give the soul at all. times, they are
unworthy of man and woman. They enslave more
rapidly than any other thoughts the free life and
Youth, a7id its Questions To-day. 297
natural movement of the heart and spirit. They injure
the will, so that it becomes wavering, the victim of
passing thoughts and morbid feelings.
It is then that, remembering our worth as soldiers
of mankind, and of mankind made divine in Christ,
we should resolve, come what will, to contend with our
dif&culty till we disentangle truth, till we find the
sunlight. And if we do not see our way, if the gloom
be too thick for striking, and the noise too loud for
thought, it is our wisdom to wait with patience till there
be sufficient light for action, nor yet to wail over our
fate because we are forced to wait — for more of prac-
tical strength, of that latent power which multiplies
from itself, comes from restrained endurance than from
loosened action.
These thoughts beset us now, when a natural in-
stinct makes us pause to consider human life. And
from the large and abstract thoughts we sweep back
to ourselves and look upon our personal life. We are
like men, to-day, who have just crested a ridge in a
mountain journey. Behind us is the valley of the past
year ; before is another valley and another ridge, over
which our path lies this coming year. We rest upon
the summit for retrospect and prospect, for contempla-
tion and for hope.
We look back. We have had our catastrophes ; our
hours of rest ; our awakenings at the touch of new
thoughts or the advent of new friends ; our secret bitter-
ness, our hours of loneliness, perhaps of despair ; our
visions of ideal joy ; hopes too wild for fulfilment, but
which left their sting of pleasure ; efforts after noble
298 Youth, and its Questions To-day.
ends which failed, but whose failure, since the aim was
so divine, has done our hearts more good than many a
poor success ; sins which, as we look back, seem to have
left an indelible stain upon our lives. Thoughts, feel-
ings, events crowd upon our memory. We have scarcely
breath for quiet thought.
There is one question which we must ask ourselves,
and force the heart into sufficient calm to answer. Has
there been growth P If so, catastrophes of heart or life^
sorrows, sins and failures, are practically nothing in the
balance. They are dead ; let the dead bury their dead.
We have the right in Cbrist to shake them off and start
afresb. The serpent does not keep the fragments of
his old skin hanging about his new enamel. No more
should we. If we feel that we have gained even one new
impulse towards good, that even one sin is weaker than
it was, we are licensed to claim forgiveness ; and God
loves the faithful violence which claims it and in the
claim gains life enough to begin again.
True, we may not be able to distinguish growth. Our
eyes have too many tears in them to see clearly, our
vision of the past is too close to allot to things their true
proportion. For we cannot see after one year the growth
of the oak, we only see the scars where some great
boughs have been torn away by the tempest. But the
thin ring of bark which we do not see is the important
matter, the riven branches are unimportant in com-
parison.
And if Christ's spirit has been with us even in one
additional aspiration which has led to action, then it
is faithlessness and cowardice to sit down upon the
Youih^ and its Qicestions To-day. 299
ridge and wring our hands over the past. Out of that
nothing ever comes ; but out of faith and the effort of
the soul, and ' no continuance of weak-lnindedness/
arises the strong, if tearful, resolution to go forward
trusting in the strength and forgiveness of Him who
is with us always, even to the end of the world
It may be, however, that other elements have come
into our life which give us real reasons for dismay.
There are times when a strange thing happens to us —
when old evils, old temptations which we thought we had
conquered, which had died out of our lives, arise again,
and we tremble with the thought that past effort has
been in vain, that sins cannot have been forgiven
because they appear again.
But there may be an explanation even of this. I
cannot but think that it is not alwavs a note of retro-
gression, but often a note of growth. First, it is not
an experience which comes to unaspiring spirits. It
belongs especially to those who are possessed with the
desire to advance ; to pass beyond the bounds of mortal
thought and find the fount of Truth. The very fact
that we are conscious of it, and feel its bitterness,
proves that the soul is sensitive and on the watch ; and
such a soul cannot be going backwards. It will gird
up its loins for battle, and disperse these foes. They
have been already beaten ; they will fly again before
spiritual courage.
Again, this resurrection of evil things and thoughts
may in itself be caused, not by any cessation of
growth, but by the progress of growth itself. When a
field has been well cleared, and the upper soil purified,
300 Yoicth^ and its Questions To-day.
it will produce but a few weeds. But if in after-years
tlie plough is driven deep through it and the under soil
upturned, .old weeds will reappear. Their latent seeds
are nourished into life by the sunlight and the rain.
It is the same with us. If a catastrophe of sorrow has
come in the j)ast year and upturned the foundations of
life — if a new idea, or a change in the circumstances
of existence, has shaken or torn up our inner life —
we must expect that old evils and old temptations wdll
startle us by their resurrection, just as in a nation's
revolution, evils which had seemed dead arise for a
time again. But they arise because the soil has been
upturned, they arise because a revolution has taken
place, they arise because there is life enough in the
soul not to be content with old things, even though the
peace of them was pleasant. They mark the beginning
of a new era of progress, destined, by its own rush of
novel life, to extinguish the last remnants of these
evils and to be triumphant, if we have faith and courage,
to say, and act upon our speech, ' Lo ! He is with me
always, even to the end of the world.'
Once more. It is becoming the fashion among persons
who take one-sided opinions from science, and talk of
law without investigating the ojieration of nature, to
say, that there is no such thing as forgiveness of sins,
no healing for error. It is the gospel declaration, its
jfirst and last declaration, that sins are forgiven ; and
instead of being a declaration belonging only to Chris-
tianity, it is supported by observation of nature, by
the history of science, by the history of the world, by
the experience of men. Only, the forgiveness is not
YoiUh^ audits Qicestions To-day. 301
tlie anniliilation of the sin, it is its transmutation ; it
does not arise out of ignoring, but out of accepting its
existence, out of looking it firmly in the face, and
resolving to use it as a means of conquering itself.
We see forgiveness in nature. She redeems her evil
when she makes fertile soil from the ashes of the vol-
cano, and covers her ruin with meadow, flowers, and
vines. Her prodigal effort creates new beauty out of
her devastation, and the beauty is richer for the evil,
and by the evil. The hurricane has laid waste the
forest, but it is only the decaying trees and those whose
lofty and overarching heads shut out the light which
perish. A few j^ears after, the pardon of nature fills the
rents of ruin with young plants, rejoicing in the air and
the light. The running fire has devoured the prairie,
it lies before us a coal-black plain. Next year it is of a
fresher green, the flowers have livelier hues. The roots
were untouched, the rain has washed into the earth the
carbon and nitrogen, and the bounteous forgiveness of
nature has made a lovelier life out of the very elements
of her unkindness.
But as this analogy is open to attack, let us take
another. The history of science is the history of ex-
hausted errors. One after another their impossibility
was demonstrated. All the mistakes possible to be
made with regard to the system of the universe were
made. Were they unforgiven ? They were necessary
steps in the progress of knowledge ; one after another
they were found out, and their forgiveness was secured
when men, having experienced and rejected all the
errors, rested securely in the truth. The same law
302 Yoict/i, and its Questions To-day.
holds good in the history of national progress. Nations
advance through exhausting errors, and, as they find
them out, paving with them the path of their progress,
till full forgiveness is realised in the attainment of
true forms of government. But the true w^as found
only through knowing and conquering the false.
To come to the experience of men. Who are the
men who succeed in a noble manner, who influence
the nation's heart, who advance her commerce, who
rule her thought ? They are those who can rise out of
failure and shake it ofi*; who when they err, accept
their error, and say, ' Noav I know where I am weak,
i]iai I will never do again ; ' who look their sin straight
in the face, and say, ' It is bad and vile, but it can
be redeemed by effort, lived down by perseverance in
good ; ' who do not despair and hide their face in a
cowardly remorse, but who believe that the world for-
gives sins if it sees determined action towards their
opposite; who make their mistakes, their failures, the
stepping-stones to their success.
And shall we, because we have laid hold of half a
truth, that results cannot be changed, forget the other
half — that if we change, results, though remaining the
same, change to us ? — shall we in our spiritual life deny
the lesson of nature, and of history, and of human life,
and fold our hands and say, ' There is no forgiveness ' ?
It is true, as they say, that results cannot be changed ;
that they follow upon sins by unalterable law. But
the forgiveness of sins is not in taking away punish-
ment, but in changing the heart with which we meet
punishment. Everyone knows in life how different are
Youths and its QiLestions To-day. 30^
fclie effects of suffering when it comes on ns from one
we hate or from one we love. When we are angry with
God, the natural results of our sins produce in us
hardness, hatred, and misunderstanding of Him. But
when we are led to love Him, the same results, not
changed in themselves, but changed to us, for we are
changed, lead us to penitence, to love of God, to cast
our care and life upon Him. That is forgiveness of
sins. Their moral bui'den is removed, and their in-
evitable results become means of good.
Moreover, everyone knows that there is such a thing
as forgiveness. We have the word, we use it day by
day ; is there no fact which answers to it ? Friends
have forgiven us our wrongs to them, and greater love
has followed on forgiveness. We forgive our children,
even when they sting us most bitterly ; and does God
never rise to the height of the human nature He has
made ? Is the Father's charity below the children's ?
Therefore, I say, because we may redeem the past in
Christ, let us go forward with the patience and effort of
men. We will not despair while we are wise, nor let
the soul in utter faithlessness commit the sin of Judas.
God is mightier than our evil, too loving for our sins.
We shall be punished, but healed through the punish-
ment.
Again, we turn and look upon the valley of the past
year. There, below, are the spots stained by our evil
and our fear. But as we look, a glow of sunshine
breaks upon the past, and in the sunshine is a soft rain
falling from the heaven. It washes away the stain.
The spell is broken which kept us weeping on the ridge.
304 Yotctk, and its Qtiestions To-day.
The phantom cloud of sins, errors, failures, melts away
in the growing light, and from the purity of the
upper sky a voice seems to descend and enter our
sobered heart : ' My child, go forward, abiding in faith,
hope, and love ; ' for ' lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of thie world.'
Yoiithy and its Hope of Progress. 305
fJan. 1870.]
YOUTH, AND ITS HOPE OF PROGRESf^,
* Lo, I am -with you alway, even unto the end of the world.'
Matt, xxviii. 20.
We stood last Sunday on the ridge which divides the
valley of the old year from the valley of the new. To-
day we have passed away from the summit and begun
the unknown descent. Every step brings us and the
nation and the world into a new position, into scenes
similar, it may be, to those we have passed by, but
never identical. It was right the last time we met here
to look back, that we might gather into a practical
form the experiences and lessons of the vanished year.
It is equally right now to look forward, that we may
understand our feelings, clear our hopes from errors,
and muster the armies of the soul in disciplined array
for action. We have indulged ourselves enough in
retrospect. While we are as yet upon the upper ledges
of the hills, we will indulge ourselves in prospect. But
we cannot see clearly ; the mist closes and opens in
the vale below. Strange voices come up to us from
the world beneath, phantom tones of weeping and of
mirth ; notes whose sound we do not know, of friends
whom we shall make in the coming journey, of events
14
3o6 Youth, and its Hope of Progress.
which will alter the movement of life, of passions as yet
unstirred within us which may waken into being.
Mystery lies upon the future, but mystery has its charm
as well as its pain, and conjecture its subtile delight as
well as its delicate dread.
To what are we descending ? Whom shall we meet in
the path ? What joy to transfigure life, what sorrow to
paralyse it, shall we encounter? These are questions
which the soul insists on forming, but which it fears to
form. We are tempted to lie down and rest, to shut
down the lid of life, to quench aspiration because of its
trouble, and thought because of its weariness.
Let us alone, what pleasure can we have
To war with evil ? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
But the soul, mindful of the imperial palace whence
it came, indignantly denies the lotus-eater's thought.
Christ speaks in our spirit and echoes the denial, too
weak, perhaps, to last when unsupported. There falls
upon our ears the promise which brings Divine strength
to human feebleness : ' Lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world.'
Of our own personal looking forward a,nd its aims I
do not speak to-day. Our subject is, how, and to what
we should look forward over tlie world of men.
To whom was the promise given ? — that is a question
which will clear our way. It was given to the nucleus
of the infant Church, the eleven Apostles of Christ.
But — and this is the point — it was given not to them
alone, but to all men in them. For they held their
apostolic office as representatives of the race, not as
Yoictk, and its Hope of Progress. 307
persons divided from the race. They were men whose
work was to hand on their apostleship, till by apostolic
work there should be no further need of apostles ; just
as government is to be transmitted till, by just laws
and wise execution of laws, there is no further need of
government. They were privileged for the purpose of
destroying privilege. They were chosen out of man-
kind in order that all mankind might be included in
their number.
So the promise is to them, and in them to the whole
race. The moment they or any of their followers lost
sight of this, and claimed the promise as especially or
only theirs — claimed the privilege it gave of minister-
ing to men as a privilege which gave them the power
of lording over men, claimed it as isolating them
into a class apart from men, claimed it as giving a
right, and not as imposing a duty — that moment it was
taken away from them till they repented, that moment
their use decayed and they were turned into a curse.
They were blessed and a blessing only when they came
like the Son of Man, not to be ministered unto, but
to minister, as sons of men, not as lords of men.
' Lo, I am with you alway,' was said by repre -
sentative Mankind to the majikind He represented.
And this is in accordance with a theory I have
frequently laid down. Not certain portions of mankind
were taken by Christ into the Divine nature, but the
whole. When the universal Word entered iuto man.
He could not take only any particular manhood into
Himself. That which He took must be as universal as
the thing taken could be by its nature. There was a
J
08 Youth, and its Hope of Progress,
necessity, wliicli I might almost call logical, of the
Divine Word assuming to Himself, not a manhood,
but mankind. Christ is then Humanity. His being is
bound up with mankind's, or rather, mankind's in Him.
Hence it is with a kind of horror that we hear any
limitation of this promise, and with righteousness that
we hate the opinions of those who claim it as alone
their own. For it is an attack upon the entireness of
Christ. If He is not with all Mankind even to the
end of the world. He is not with Himself.
But if He be with mankind as He is with Himself,
present through and in the ages as their heart and
brain, then He is the source whence evolution flows.
And because He is perfect, therefore the race evolves
towards perfection, and evolution towards perfection is
progress. We look forward, then, as Christians, and as
citizens of the world, to the constant progress of man-
kind. We believe that the progress has been constant
up to the present time. There have been, necessarily,
some catastrophes, some convulsions, some recessions
of the tide ; but they were recessions which sent the
wave of freshening liberty higher on the strand.
It is characteristic of some religious persons who re-
strict the universality of Christ, to deny that there has
been any progress of the race. ' The world is not a bit
better than it was;* if anything, it is worse. There is
great material and intellectual progress, but there is no
moral or spiritual progress.'
But when we examine the progress of the whole of
mankind, we must examine not facts occurring here and
there, for these are of little moment, but the ideas which
YoiUhy and its Hope of Progress. 309
direct the nations ; not the petty perturbations of tlie
orbit, but the vast sweep of the orbit itself; not the
advance or the contrary of a year or a decade, but
whether in so many centuries men have attained to a
higher sphere of thought and act, in mass, on larger
and freer principles.
It is impossible to bring forward one half of the proofs
of such a progress, but one is enough. It is plain to
those who read history more for the sake of human ideas
than for its statistics, that many of the ideas which
restricted the equal freedom of men, which implicitly
denied the two great universal ideas of Christianity,
that all men are alike God's children, that all men are
brothers in Christ, have been slowly dying away and are
now rapidly dying. In the decay of these, progress
is seen; in looking forward to their ruin is our best
hope; in proving that their ruin is contained in
Christianity is the reconciliation between the world
and Christianity. And, in fact, the whole current of
history has set against them ; the force of God in man
is opposed to them. They are sinking ships. Some
have already sunk, and the waves of human freedom
have rolled over them with joy. The moment Christ
proclaimed the oneness of the race, their doom was
sealed, but not accomplished. Their final overthrow
was left to the slow work of man, century after century.
Some ask, why God did not get rid of these evils
by an exercise of omnipotence. It is a foolish ques-
tion. There is only one way in which man can get
rid of an evil, and that is by exhausting it. We can-
not get the answer to our question, 'What is right ?' til]
3 lo Youth ^ a7id its Hope of Progress.
we have held fast and battled with the Proteus of evil
through every alteration of his form. We must work
through all possible errors before we find the perfect
good. But we should exhaust them much sooner if
we held fast to the primary ideas which Christ gave
to men. I do not think that anyone can now deny
that the ruin of such ideas as the divine right of kings,,
privileged classes, imperialism, dogmatism and its child
intolerance, the tyranny of priesthoods over the souls of
men, papal infallibility, .the godhead of capital, is logi-
cally contained in the doctrines of the universal Father-
hood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.
There is no need of peculiarly sharp eyes to see that
these have been perishing, aud one of the things we have
to look forward to with joy and triumj)h in the coming
year is new blows being dealt upon them — honest,
downright, and, I hope, merciless blows. Imperialism
is becoming weaker and weaker, and with its fall ' di-
vine right ' will receive a deadlier stroke than we may
at first imagine. There is less dogmatism and intole-
rance in religious circles, and they are trying now to find
a home in irreligious circles. Few things are worse
than the dogmatism of those who boast of being undog-
matic and the intolerance of those who want to make
everybody tolerant by violence of words and bitterness
of satire. The way in which young atheism speaks of
the ' old religions ' has a delicious twang of Phari-
saism about it and a naivete of intolerance Avhich is
irresistibly humorous. But I hope that by falling back
on Christianity we may work out of society the in-
tolerance of pretentious tolerance and the dogmatism
Youth, and its Hope of Progress. 31 1
of infidel circles of tlionglit. This ought to be the
work of the liberal church school.
Priest power over the souls of men never reached
in England the same height that it has done abroad.
The disease came sooner to the surface on the Continent,
and in Germany, Austria, Italj, and Spain, its race seems
to be run. Here, not having exhausted all its forms
so rapidly, it has suffered a galvanic resurrection ; but
as soon as we have absorbed into society the good ele-
ments in its evil, it will go back to its grave and lie there
undisturbed. In Ireland it is worse than ever^ but the
worse it grows the nearer draws its end. All tyranny is
doomed by its very nature to become more tyrannical,
and in that lies latent its destruction. Mankind, like
Grod, is very long-suffering, but when a certain point is
reached, it rises and casts the devil out of its body. When
priestly power in Ireland meddles with education and
limits its further growth, the Irish, who have a passion
for education, will at last arise and do as Austria has
done. It may take ten, twenty, or thirty years, but
who cannot foresee the end ?
Papal infallibility will receive its death-blow on the
day that it is proclaimed, and I hope it may be pro-
claimed. There are some victories which are irreme-
diable ruin.
Privileged classes, whose claims are so tenacious of life
abroad, but which were always healthily opposed here,
and many of which are now being heartily surrendered,
will less and less press their demands and throw them-
selves on an equal footing with other classes into the
ai'ena of life. And this will be their wisdom, for the
312 YoiUk, and its Hope of Progress.
history of privilege is tlie history of the destruction of
those who claimed it. There is one privilege, however, as
rampant as ever. It is the privilege some assume to
themselves of living a life of mere amusement, while the
rest of the world is working. They lounge, they visit
one another, they gossip, they drift uselessly about, they
claim the right of being served and not serving, of taking
and not contributing. They are the worst thieves the
world has, and the worst tyrants. For they rob the world
of the leisure which would be saved were they to do
their work, and of the capital which might be made
productive did they not squander it, and theirs is the
true maxim of all tyrants : ' The world was made for us,
and not we for the world.'
It is their lives which give sharpness and poison to
all the bitter feelings which the poorer have against
the richer classes.
Against all these things the first principles of Christ
are contending ; and they shall conquer, for He is with
mankind, even to the end.
This is the progress we look forward to, and when men'
beo'in to understand that this is the work of Christ's
thought, they will turn to Him not only as Master of
souls, but as King of nations.
It is useless to object that Christianity has been the
hireling of these retrograde and deathful things.
Everyone knows the uses to which priests and kings
and mobs have put Christianity ; but they were obliged
to travesty it first, and it is gross injustice to call these
travesties Christianity. It marks that unfairness of
intellect which is the characteristic note of intolerance.
Youths and its Hope of Progress. 3 1 3
Truth is a good thing, but if a man of ill-temper sets
himself to tell everyone truly what he thinks of them,
to expose all their failures, to lay bare all their wounds,
that sort of truth is a hateful thing. But we do not
cease for all that to reverence truth, because this per-
secuting person has caricatured it. And when we have
got to think for ourselves, and ceased to put our reli-
gion into the hands of persons whom we get to make
it up for us into a system which we swallow whole,
we may have the common sense and the fairness to
say, ' I want to find out for myself what Christ really
did say. I will listen no more to the scholars _ and
their Christianities which they set up to fight with one
another. I will go and listen to the Master Himself,
and *' learn of Him, for He is meek and lowly of heart,
and I shall find rest to my soul.' " Why, is it not
wonderful how a single text like that — falling like
dew upon the land of the heart, swept dry and tearless
by the bitter winds of controversy — disposes at once of
all the attacks made upon Christianity, by proving
that these haughty and tyrannical Christianities were
not Christianity at all ? When were they meek and
lowly of heart ? — when did they ever give rest to the
soul?
And it is a proof of the intense vitality of the true
Christianity that it has survived all these false images
of it, that in the midst of systems diametrically contra-
dictory of the idea of its Founder, thousands lived
divinely and died bravely by the faith they had in
Christ. In the midst of difficulties such as no other re-
ligion had to contend with, difficulties which came from
314 Youth^ and its Hope of Progress.
monstrous and misshapen cliangelings which claimed
to be the true children of Christ's teaching, it j)rodnced
such a band of holj and human men that, with every-
thing apparently against it, it has advanced, and in
it the world. It presses still forward, clothed with
many of the rags with which men have insisted on dis-
guising its perfect form, and the dogs still bay around
it and tear at the ragged drapery, but the time will
come when we shall see it undisguised, clothed only
in the light of God, in perfect beauty ; and ' at the name
of Jesus every knee shall bow.'
What are all these particular religions to its vast
miiversality ? What are these laborious and subtile
sj^stems to its profound simplicity? What are all
theories of government of the people to its divine
Humanity, which embraces every man, without respect
of persons, in the limitless love of God the Father,
and knits each man to his neighbour in the universal
brotherhood of Christ, and passes on to say, with an
onward look to something not realised as yet, that a
national God exists no longer, but a universal God?
The true progress of the race is hidden in the thoughts
of Christ.
We look forward, then, upon this ' bank and shoal of
time,' to the destruction of all false conceptions of the
relations of God to man and of man to man; to the
hail which will sweep away the lingering remnants of
every idea which limits, isolates, and tyrannises over
men. For the Redeemer is with us always — even to the
end of the world.
But we must not expect that this will be done quickly
Youth, and its Hope of Progress. 315
or easily. In the midst of evolution catastrophes will
occur — are, in fact, part of progress, inasmuch as they
turn up to the surface new and needful elements.
Sometimes, when the evil is deep and long-continued,
and especially when it is painted by hypocrisy to look
like good, the forward step cannot be made without the
sun being turned into darkness. We have learned from
France last century, and from America in this, that
' without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.'
We are ourselves learning in Ireland that we cannot
reverse the injustice and oppression of centuries — with
the best intentions in the world — in forty or fifty years ;
that the attempt to heal aggravates for a time the evil,
and produces a period of partial catastrophe. But,
whatever happens, we must not be fearful and unbeliev-
ing, and turn round upon our principles because their
result has surprised some of us. We have but two
things to live by, if we are to be true to Christ — that
God is the Father of all men, and that men are brothers
in Christ ; and our work, to which we are bound to be
faithful unto death, is to carry those out as logically as
we can — consistently with the necessary gradualness of
progress — in national government and in international
politics as well as in the inner kingdom of the soul.
We may be obliged to stay our hand, but never to retreat
from our position. We have precedent for the one —
' I have many things to say to you, but ye cannot bear
them now' — but there is no precedent for the other.
No matter how loud the storm, or the confusion, we must
not ^ive back through a shameful fear of catastrophe.
The disturbance we dread' may be the very thing
3 1 6 Youths and its Hope of Progress.
required to bring to the surface the elements needed
to regenerate the country.
The same things are true in the case of the religious
ferment of which I spoke last Sunday and in the seeth-
ing midst of which we live. Look boldly into it, and
you will see that it tends to two things especiall}", — the
claiming by men of their personal rights as sons of
God and brothers one of another, independent of all
religious systems which assert a divine right to peculiar
privileges ; the claiming by men of their duty to pursue
after truth whithersoever it may lead them, without any
limitation beins: fixed on the work of their intellect and
conscience except that which is supplied, not from with-
out by command of a church or a sect, but from within,
by the intuition and feelings of their spirit.
But he who makes these claims must expect to get
into troubled water. It is a very different thing to
seek after God for yourself, and to take your God upon
authority. You may have a comfortable life of it,
though a degrading one, with the latter ; you will have
a very hard life of it with the other, but it will be the
ennobling life of a warrior. And if you choose the
noble life, there ought to be no continued complaining.
Moments of depression there must be, moments when
the noise of the contest and the confusion of doubtful
thoughts bring with a sense of despair a passionate
cry for rest, but we must not loiter long in that sickly
state. If we have chosen to be free, we must act like
freemen; we must not be slaves to our fear of cata-
strophe, or slaves to our spiritual sloth. We must go
forward into the strife, uplifting our souls to God in
'Youth^ and its Hope of Progress. 3 \ 7
prayer, trusting in the promise that though, the stress
is hard, He is with us always.
Let no man or woman think, who is still young, on
whom the necessary calm of age has not fallen, that
they will have a quiet life, if they are in earnest, for
many years to come, either in the world without or in
the world within them. Development must have its
rude shocks, evolution its transient earthquakes, pro-
gress its backslidings. Accept the necessity, count the
cost, make ready to take ^^our part in the things which
are coming on the earth. Be true to the vast Chris-
tian principles of the Fatherhood of God and the brother-
hood of man ; steadily go to war with every opinion
and system which tends to limit them and to enslave
men. But in fighting against systems and opinions,
do not be betrayed yourselves into intolerance of men,
into inability to see the good in the evil, into any
statement or action which may practically deny that the
men whose views you oppose are children of God and
your brethren in Christ. Constantly keep your temper
in the battle ; guard jealously your power of looking on
all sides of questions ; watch over yourself that you may
be above all things just to men and their opinions. Clear
your minds from narrowness — the narrowness of reli-
gion, the narrowness of scepticism, the narrowness of in-
tellectual vanity ; keep yourself apart from particular
sets of men and opinion. They tend to fix you down, to
limit your life, to fetter your thought, to make you wise
in your own conceits. See that you mix with men
your brothers, with those who differ from yourselves, who
oppose and contradict you. Do not ride at anchor in a
3 1 8 Youth, and its Hope of Progress.
safe and landlocked bay, in cultured comfort of thought,
having put aside all troublesome questions of the un-
known. You cannot quench the spirit within you, with-
out makins: the intellect one-sided and the conscience
intolerant or dull. Rather tempt the ocean paths and
sail on to a boundless horizon, gaining strength from
trial of your skill, wisdom from the storms of life, ten-
derness from its sorrows, love from assisting others, and
faith in the final issue from the clear inward conscious-
ness that you are growing up into all that is best in
human nature, into all that is of Christ. Progress is the
law of the w6rld, it is the law which ought to rule
our lives. See that you are an active part of the great
evolution of the race. What matters after all — the
catastrophes, the convulsions of heart and intellect
which you must suffer, the shattered sail, the midnight
watch in the hurricane, the loneliness of the mid-
ocean ? It is life at least, it is more, it is moving with
the movement of the world, and the world is moving in
Christ.
We look forward, then, with a joy which trembles at
itself and with a hope which is inexhaustible for man.
The proper Man is with us ; the ideal Mankind walks
hand in hand with the imperfect mankind. The spirit
of universal freedom and truth and justice is moving in
the ages. He moves the world on slowly — slowly to us ;
but what are a thousand years to Him ? — and consider,
He has to save not a sect, or a church, or a few
favourites, but all mankind.
The wider your view of Christ's salvation, the more
reconciled you will be to the slowness of progress ; the
Youths and its Hope of Jt^r ogress. 319
slower you see progress to be, the more rational becomes
your hope that all are to be made perfect, even as their
Father.
Therefore, because the future is — though mysterious —
full of divine will towards good, go forward with a cheer-
ful countenance. God keep us faithful to Him, true
to one another, and universal in spirit, in the time to
come.
Take these thoughts with you for the year ; go down
into the valley with your brothers, and work them out
in life. We cannot tell our fate, but our fate matters but
little if Man be going on to good. The mist sleeps over
the valley beneath, but it is transparent to the eye of
faith, and through it we see the river of progress
Roll o'er Elysian fields its amber stream,
and the notes of a great harmony fall upon our ears,
sweet and world- compelling as the voice of Christ, when
lie said, ' Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world.'
320 The Presentiments of Youth,
THE PRESENTIMENTS OF YOVTH.
' Lo, I am witli you alway, even unto the end of the WArlA/
Matt, xxviii. 20.
Do any of us remember the hour, when leavirig home
and school and the boy's life behind us, we camB to the
great university with an eager heart ? Thf first night
in the antique place, how wonderfully we were stirred
by it ! As we looked out of our window on the still
quadrangle, the moonlight poured out like water on the
grave buildings and the grass, and h^ard tiie bells an-
swering one another in the vocal air, it seemed as if the
place were alive with all the dead . The thousand forms
of famous men who thither came with unborn thoughts
within them, which born, sh<rald move the world to
passion and to power, apj^eared to thrill the air with
their unseen presence. A strange low crying, as of
souls who had died hero in their enthusiasm and never
seen their hope, slid by u^^on the wind. The silence
was eloquent with thope secrets which are told to hearts
that listen in the Aour of presentiment, secrets which,
though they seem our own thoughts, are, it may be,
impressions fron> that silent world of souls of which our
intellect know?, nothing but our heart so much. As we
dreamed oui dream, hope and fear, enthusiasm and
The Presentiments of Youth. 3 2 i
depression, interchanged tlieir glow and gloom AYithin
as. The past life — home and school and childhood —
vanished for a time ; we seemed to have been asleep
and only now to have awakened. And with what a
loosened rein we rode forward into the unknown fields
of the future ! Should it be failure or success, fame
or wasted life, enthusiasm deepening into work or
grown craven in the chill of difficulty ; pleasure decay-
ing into pain or pain growing into the pleasure of con-
quest? What companions, what friendships, what
changes, what impulses should we gain and leave and
suffer? A few years, and what sentence should we
pass on the life of youth ? — progress or retrogression ?
It is gone, that time, but its past passions and pre-
sentiments come back again and again in life, come,
most often, men have thought, at the beginning of a
year. "*! do not know that one time or another is more
full of them, for they are of the heart, in whose king-
dom there is neither time nor space, but it is convenient
to speak of them now ; to-day, of the look forward over
our own life, as last Sunday over the world of men.
Progress is our aim, growth in noble things, develop-
ment of every human power to perfection. I assume
that this is your aspiration and your effort. Some
prefer the base contentment of the Circoean island to
the uncontented toil of Ulysses on the wandering sea.
To those I do not speak to-day. The time will come
when God will speak to them in pain and horror of
themselves, and plague them with sore despaii', if not
here, at least in that undiscovered country where the
inevitable law of j)rogress will force them forward til]
32 2 The Presentiments of Yonth.
they begin to enjoy the self-development they hated,
and growth become delight, not pain. But to those
who still aspire, in whom desire of the better life is still
alive, who look forward in hope that some faint grace
of progress may mark the year, we speak this day.
God will look after our education. We may have to
suffer from catastrophe, we may be destined to joy ; we
may undergo the confusion and the pain of an inner
change in the slow or swift development of a crisis in
our life.
These three, catastrophe, joy and change, to either
or to all of these we look forward in this hour of pre-
sentiment.
We take them one by one, we ask if the forecasting
of them has anything to tell us. And first, the presenti-
ments of catastrophe, is there any good in them ? Has
God been unfair to us in leaving them in our nature ?
I think, when they are presentiments regarding
others, that they make our life more delicate. They
give a finer edge to noble passions. Love becomes
dearer through the dream of loss, the joy of friendship
more exquisite from our sense of its transiency. There
are times when the dearest affection and the closest
friendship weary ; we have exhausted one side of them
and have not yet found the other. We are tempted
then to half-rudenesses, small cruelties, want of thought-
fulness ; but these are softened back into affection when
we think that we may lose all in a moment, and only the
memory of the wrong we have done remain. ' In a year
all may be over : let me be more gentle, more loving,
more faithful; more attentive to the slight courtesies
The Presentiments of YoiUh. 323
and thoughtful cares and pleasant speeches which make
up the sum of life. While I have time let me give
all I can. A few more smiles of silent sympathy, a few
more tender words, a little more restraint on temper
may make all the difference between happiness and
half-happiness to those I live with.' And if the pre-
sentiment of loss do this, it does a gracious work. It
brings the heart and life into greater harmony with
Him who loved the little kindnesses, which given, make
their recollected hours the favourite haunt of memory.
But if the presentiment of catastrophe be for our-
selves, it ought to make our inner life more delicate.
More delicate, ina,smuch as there are so many pleasant
and gracious possibilities in our own nature which we
neglect to educate. We might see so much more
beauty if we willed it. We might cause many unknown
feelings to flower if we were not in such a hurry to
feel strong ones. We miss in the swing of excite-
ment many opportunities of giving sympathy in little
things to those we love, which if they had been used,
would have added finer fancies, subtiler and sweeter
shades to our power of feeling. So many thoughts are
just touched and laid aside, half thought and then
forgotten, that it is pitiable how much is wasted in
ourselves. We go through the meadows of our own
hearts crushing with a careless step the flowers.
There is no need to walk so fast. Tread more deli-
cately, more thoughtfully— lest when the catastrophe
comes you find too late that you have not got the good
out of your own nature which ycu might have done.
It may be said that this puts a drag upon the duty
324 The P res en timen ts of Yo u th.
of devoting l\fe with activity to one aim. But I feel
that there is no fear of this being left unpreached, and
moreover that it may be preached too much. Activity
may become feverish; the rush of life may leave no
time for the restoring quiet of gentle happiness. We
save ourselves from weariness and satiety by being
quieter in the march, more delicate in our appreciation
of the wayside thoughts and tenderness of life. And
our activity does not really suffer from this temperance
in the use of it — from our keeping a Sabbath now and
then in the inner life. On the contrar}^, it lasts longer,
it lives to old age, is healthier in its work, more clear-
sighted in its aim.
This is the good of presentiments of catastrophe^
They minister, if we are wise, to progress, by giving
a greater finish, a more adorned completeness, to the
work of life.
But there is one warning necessary; when we find
that they refine the feelings and make subtiler the
thought, we sometimes tend towards indulging in them
with excess. We do not take them as they come, we
create them for the delicate pleasure and the refine-
ment of spirit they afford. They cease then to be
natural and become aesthetic.
The punishment of that is swift. Feeling is over-
refined, and the pleasure is so keen that we do Avell
to suspect that it may be the keenness which comes of
incipient disease. But we have got the habit and go on.
At last, the pain passes into mortification, and, do what
we will, we can feel these subtile things no more. For
The Presentiments of Youth. 325
the more delicate nerves of the heart do not bear much
playing on. They are killed by over-exercise, and with
their death all the exquisiteness of life passes away ; —
all the good which might come of presentiment of sor-
row is lost.
And now, to turn round our thought, if the cata-
strophe which we imagine should really come in the
ensuing year, I do not think that the mode of living
of which I speak is a bad preparation for it. For such
a way of life brings three things with it : self-sacrifice
in thoughtfulness for others; temperance in the in-
dulgence of feeling ; watchfulness for the small bless-
ings of life. These things are good qualities to have
when suffering sweeps over the soul. Sorrow is selfish,
but we have learnt to live in others, and watch for the
love of others ; sorrow is hardening because it ex-
hausts feeling, but we have learnt to be temperate in
the indulgence of feeling ; sorrow makes life a darkness
which may be felt, but we have learnt to look for God's
love in little rays of light. We can then meet cata-
strophe and make progress out of it. And it ought to
minister to progress. For, as I have said already, it
upturns the soil of life and brings new elements to
the surface. We see this even in the outward frame
of those who have met a great change without being
crushed or hardened by it. We meet them after the
wave of pain has passed over them, and there is a new
expression in their eye, a new movement upon their lip,
a new distinction on the brow as if the crown of thorns
had rested there ; the very walk has a new dignity
326 The Presentiments of Youth.
and the attitude a new intelligence. They are changed,
we say.
So is it with the soul. Subtile changes take j)lace
within it, changes for good, if we have been true to the
manhood of Christ, to trust in the Fatherhood of God.
A new river of tenderness has broken upwards from
the under 'ground of the soul and flows forth to fer-
tilise the older thoughts and feelings into a richer
life, with new colours *in the flowers they bear. The
blood-red plant of pain grows among the brighter
flowers of our happiness ; but its presence makes us
gentler in life, more dependent upon God and nearer
to Christ. A strange, new power of inward tears
softens without weakening all the ruder qualities of
our nature. Certain sins, certain temptations, cease
altogether to trouble us. Some way or other they have
disappeared for ever. Vv^e are less worried by little
things, less anxious for the morrow, less absorbed in
the present world. The one great pain has freed us
from smaller pains ; the one great shadow on this
world has made us lift our eyes to the eternal shining
of the other. And strange to say, this carelessness of
the present life is not less enjoyment, less delicacy of
happiness, but more; for the carelessness is for the
ignoble things — for wealth, and the passion of excite-
ment ; not for the noble things — for delight in human
greatness, for the beauty of our Father's world, for the
blessing of love and friendship. These being seen with
new feelings are seen with new exquisiteness in them.
Therefore, if you be destined to catastrophe, let it
work in you new development. Remember we are not
The Prese7ttiments of YoiUk. 327
left alone to meet our sorrow. One is with ns who
works with ns. Onr presentiment may be His note
of warning to His child, and with the dark prophecy
is linked the promise, ' Lo, I am with yon always.'
Secondly, are we ready for the progress which onght
to grow out of joy ? We look forward to joy this year,
bnt there can be no progress got out of it if we seek to
drain it dry in a moment. We need temperance in onr
delight. Some plunge their whole face into the rose
of joy, and become drunk with the scent, bnt in doing
so they crush their rose and break it from its stem.
The leaves wither, the colour dies, the freshness of the
perfume fades, their pleasure is gone.
The wiser man prefers to keep his rose of joy upon
its stem ; to visit its beauty not all at once but day by
day, that he may have it cool and in the dew. He
likes to go from leaf to leaf, understanding the indi-
viduality of every petal, slowly increasing pleasure, till
at last he gets to the heart of the flower and possesses
its last and sweetest odour. In this way all the past
delights which he has had from leaf to leaf are kept, and
go to swell the perfect enjoyment. And this pleasure
is greater than his who has crushed his pleasure into a
moment, for it is more experienced, more complex, and
more delicate. And being so, it also possesses per-
manence. It has not been destroyed by intemperate
handling. It is, after many days, as fresh as when its
happy finder first discovered it. And if, residing at its
heart, its whole influence of odour and colour should
threaten to grow so overpowering as to make satiety
thereof a danger, he leaves the central cup and goes
328 The Presentiments of Youth.
back to wander among tlie leaves again, till re-enjojnng
the lesser deliglits, lie can take back a quiet lieart to
re-enjoj the greatest.
Suppose a new friendsbip enters into your life. If
the man or woman is worth anything to you, they
ought to be worth a great deal. They ought to ad-
vance and quicken your development as you theirs.
They ought to make you more complex, more sympa-
thetic with the great Mankind. One knows — he is a
poor person who does not — how delightful the first
rush of feeling is, when as yet we only hope we have
found another friend, another soul which can touch ours.
Old things become new ; it is like dew upon a thirsty
meadow. Eresh faculties are developed, a fresh eagerness
seizes on the old. The dull places of the spirit suffer
an enchantment. Music — ' sounds which give delight
and hurt not ' — play about the path of life. We look
forward to exploring a new soul, as men who have found
a new continent. But, if led by this early impetuosity,
we rush, without any waiting thought, into the world on
whose verge we stand, we miss all the good of it. We
neglect the delicate shades of feeling and thought
which give permanent interest to a character. Our
rush is wanting in reverence, and the soul we attempt
to know recoils and hides itself. We seek only the one
great point of character which attracts us ; we attain it
and it is all over. It is like men who, inspired by the
mountain passion, hurry to the top and never pause by
the wayside beauty of the path. They come down
tired out ; they have learnt nothing ; they go away
next day.
The Pi'esentiinents of Youth. 329
I think this is unbearable intemperance of character ;
it is worse ; it is an insolence done to the natural
privacy of the soul ; it is a waste of the blessing and
pleasure which God wished to give us in friendship).
There is no progress to be gained from it ; no lessons
to be learnt, no new elements to be developed in us.
We lose everything by hurry. Above all, we lose our
friends, supposing we have won them for a time. They
feel that there has been no real comprehension of their
character, only knowledge of one or two things in
them. They will slowly fall away from us, they cannot
help ifc. And then, when all has been lost, the punishment
is sharp. We feel that we have not been strong enough
to win or keep the good God gave us : nor can we
enjoy the memory even of the pleasure we have had, for
unproductive pleasure leaves pain behind it.
It is the wisdom of life, on the contrary, to receive
our friends as from the hand of God, and to give to the
task of understanding them the same trouble as we give
to the comprehension of the thoughts of God in nature ;
to work out the drama of our love and friendship subject
to the primary feeling in the mind of Christ, reverence
for the human soul. Then, in the midst of the new
enjoyment which they bring us, we shall find additional
power of progress, and the delights of life will be as much
an element of our evolution towards good as its sorrows.
Lastly, we look forward to change, sometimes with
exultation, sometimes with dread ; with the former in
youth, with the latter in manhood.
That prophetic joy with which youth foresees and
welcomes change of light and shade in life, and happi-
15
330 The Prese7ztiments of Youth.
iiess in every change — what man among ns, who knows
what after-life becomes, wonld rudely dash its exultation ?
It is the spring vitality which sends the sap streaming
upwards to fill to overflowing every channel, to nourish
the remotest fibre, of the tree of life. Make the most of
it, lay up your store of joy, prophesy a famous future
in a golden dream of hope, for the power does not come
twice. But oh ! keep it pure. Let thought and feeling,
as they range forward in triumph, be hallowed by the
knowledge that you are the child of God, and called to
be His servant from change to change. Live from one
varied scene to another as if you felt the presence of
Him who is with you always, even to the end of the
world. For there is no sadness so unutterable as that
which comes of the self-destruction of our youthful
prophecies ; of the change of exultation, as years go on,
into slothfulness and depression. It is a terrible thing
to look back, an outworn man, upon the past and be
ashamed of our early inspiration, to see our bright-
haired youth go by us like a phantom, and to hide our
face and cry : That is what I was, what might I not
have been ! Once, ' bounded in a nutshell, I could
count myself a king of infinite space, but now I have
bad dreams.'
There are some who fall »o hopelessly from this ideal
that there is nothing more for them in this life. They
must wait till, transferred to a fairer clime^ they have, so
to speak, another chance. But for others who still retain
enough of purity, enough of vitality to begin afresh,
there is forgiveness to be won ; they look forward unto
change again. But they have received a rude shock,
The Presentiments of Youth. 331
and, though they know change must come, so much
has gone from them, that it is no longer with exulta-
tion, but with a kind of dread, that manhood prefi-
gares any change of life. We fear the loss of interest
in existence, the decay of intellect, the coming of
satiety, the long disease of age. We fear still more
the possible approach of uniformity, of day after day
the same, of the burden and apathy of decay. We
fear change for the losses it may bring if it shatter us
too much, yet we fear the absence of change still more.
But why should we fear when He is with us always,
even to the end ? We nourish no longer, as in youth, a
proud self-dependence. We have a spiritual Presence
within us whom we have made our own, and whose
dearest work is our develoj^ment. We know Him who
went from change to change and in whom the ideal life
grew ever brighter to the close. All change when He is
present is advance. One after one we lose the mortal and
the visible, but we gain the immortal and the invisible.
The mountain-side we climb grows ever more and more
alone — still more desolate of the things we once loved
so dearly — but we are nearer at every step to heaven,
and One waits us on the highest peak who will renew our
strength. The landscape of our youth lies far below,
and the shadows fall around it. We see but faintly
now our childhood's home, the meadows where we
played, the river we passed in boyhood, the path
through the trees where we began to climb the moun-
tain. These things seem centuries ago, dead in the
dead past. It is a feeling not without its touch of
bitterness ; but let us but have heroism of heart to go
332 The Presenthnents of Youth.
on alone, and trust in onr brother Christ enough to
lean npon his secret sympathy, and we shall hear liis
voice give answer to onr heart : ' Be not afraid, it is I.
Lo ! I am with yon always, even to the end of the world.'
Yes, middle age has come npon ns, and we need a
higher help than onr own will to meet the change and
chance of mortal life. They must come, and the solemn
question is, shall we be able to conquer their evil, have
we divine life enough in the spirit to make them into
means of advance ? For it is wise to remember that any
change may be our overthrow.
It is time, then, to examine into our readiness for
temptation. Our passions — are they under our com-
mand ? There is in many persons a ciirious sense of un-
awakened capability of passion — and a fear of its being
awakened in a wrong direction. They have lived a
peaceful, self -restrained life for years, but sometimes —
in a moment — what has been felt as a dim possibility
becomes a reality. A torrent force of passion, in some
hour of change, sweeps over life and for a time masters
and enslaves the will.
Is our will in order ? — have we habituated it in
the power of Christ, and by a great love to his holi-
ness, to conquer daily the motions of sin, the minor
impulses of a passionate nature, the common tempta-
tions of a nature apparently cold ? It is this habi-
tual and prayerful preparation which is the only sure
one, for we know not what one day of change may
bring forth. We may lose in a week the fruit of the
efforts of years. And it is terribly hard in middle life to
get right again ; it is a. weary struggle then to redeem
The Presentiments of YoiUh.
jjj
the devastation of passion. For many years progress
is at an end.
It is the same with other things. Our love of
honesty of sonl, of truth to our own convictions— we
are ready enough to make our boast that the spirit of
the world cannot touch these things. Possibly it cannot,
as we are now. But if a sudden change take place — if
fortune should smile in a moment upon us, or reputa-
tion come in an instant — our self-confidence is but poor
protection. Suppose all we want in life, our highest
aim, that position in which we think we can do most
good and carry out the ideas of a lifetime, were offered
us to-morrow, if we would but modify a few prin-
ciples and forfeit a few convictions — are we prepared
for that ? Not so, unless we have realised and loved
day by day, with prayer and humility, the truth above
all things : and I know that the love we bear to truth is
firmest when it is borne to One who died as its witness
— to One who is the truth, and therefore can give the
truth to men ; to One who has promised as the Truth
to be with us always, even to the end of the world.
It is not too much to say that in middle age, if
the spirit of the world gets hold of a man and he
is false to God and his own soul, he is fixed in degra-
dation for many years ; or the agony with which he is
redeemed exhausts life, and he is to the end a broken
man.
It is a wonderful drama this life of ours, and it
is infinitely strange to separate ourselves at times from
ourselves and look on as a spectator only at our own
little kingdom. It has its beginnings, its rightful
334 ^-^^ Presentiments of Yoicth.
kings, its hours of mob-rule, its battles for existence,
its revolutions, its reorganisations, its usurpers, its
triumphs, and we tremble for its safety as we gaze.
Will it get out of all its trouble and change, into order
and peace at last ? At first we cannot tell. We rush
back and unite our thought to ourselves again, and it
seems that nothing can be done in the darkness and the
anarchy of life. It is our hour of depression. The
chamber of the soul is ' hung with pain and dreams,'
and we ourselves feel like wafts of seaweed swept out
to sea on the strong tide of fate into the midnight.
But stay ; — are Ave so alone, so unhelped, so for-
gotten, so feeble, such victims of blind fate ? Not so,
if a triumphant humanity has lived for us — not so, if
Christ has been in our nature bringing into it the
order and perfection of Divinity, not so if these words
have any value : ' Lo ! I am with you always ;' for then,
we are in Him, and to be in Him is to be fated to
progress passing into perfection, for we are Christ's,
and Christ is God's.
Take up then your life this year, through catastrophe,
through joy, through change, with the courage of
children of God ; with the resolution of kings who wear
the crown, and assume the responsibilities of self-
conquest ; with faith in that immortality of ours in
Christ, the awful inspiration of which dignifies, impels,
and chastens life ; with the ineffable comfort of the
sympathy and strength of Him whose divine Manhood
is with us and all our brothers always, even to the
end of the world.
The Mid- day of Life. 335
TRE MID- J) AY OF LIFE,
THE TRANSITION FROM YOUTH TO MANHOOD.
' Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil
days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have
no pleasure in them.' — Eccles. xii. 1.
Theee are some summer days which, after a clear
morning pass through a season of gloom. The sun
hides itself behind a veil of cloud ; depression falls on
animals and plants. All things retire into themselves,
as if defrauded by the morning brightness. The day
itself seems to feel that it has not fulfilled the prophecy
of its dawning, and lies heavily upon the earth. But
it is only for a time. Just as the manhood of the
day has come, it conquers its early sullenness — the
clouds disperse, the sun breaks out, the birds resume
their song, a new youthfulness runs through the trees.
It is the image of one who, having in later youth
passed through much trouble, and lost during it the
use, and joy, and naturalness of youth, recovers these
in the midst of manhood.
There are other summer days when the freshness
has been more or less constant, when the sun has
never altogether hidden its light, when the morning
breeze has gone on blowing even during the heat of
336 The Mid-day of Life.
noon, wlien noon retains so ninch of moisture tliat the
trees do not droop in the heat, nor the animals take to
shelter. Afternoon and evening come, and this short
stage of freshness passes away, but it has been there.
It is the image of one who has entered on manhood
or womanhood, and yet has retained much of the
fervour, restlessness, and breezy life of youth.
There are other summer days in which the progress
is neither broken by any cloud, nor yet delighted by any
continuance of freshness. When mid-day comes, it
absorbs the morning and all its elements. It is dusty
noontide, warm, full of work, making all things drink
its good, passing naturally and steadily on to the after-
noon and evening.
It is the image of those who have absorbed all the
elements of their youth when they enter upon manhood
or womanhood, and who settle down steadily to the
work of life.
These, then, are three examples out of many of the
way in which we pass from youth into the first half of
middle age, and through the porch of the temple of
manhood and womanhood, enter into the nave. It will
be our work to-day to consider them, their temptations,
and the lessons which belong to them.
1. There are certain characters which in youth lose
part of their youth. Something has stejDped in which
has spoilt life. Sorrow or overwork has taken the
edge from enjoyment by taking away physical health ;
a gloomy homa has repressed enthusiasm; a wilful
self-repression, born of religious asceticism, or of the
demands of exacting friendship, has driven so deep the
The Transition from Youth to Manhood, 337
springs of natural feeling that with all their innate
force they cannot rise to refresh the surface of the heart.
Sometimes these characters never recover : the process
has gone too far, and they will never taste of youth
again till they go home to God. Sometimes they turn
to fanaticism and become the curse of the earth ; but
God, who knows the weakness of men, will be just to
them — victims of fate — and remember that they are
but dust. Sometimes this repression, especially when
inflicted by religious parents, has its result in a reaction
against the tyranny done in the name of God, and
nature crushed in its natural, breaks out in unnatural
channels. The man becomes a blasphemer and a pro-
fligate. The woman flies into the dissipation of the
world, or meets a sadder though often a less sinful fate
— the easy victim of one of those men who make the
murder of womanhood their vile trade and viler pleasure.
But the case we speak of first is a happier one than
these. It is of those characters who after repression,
and when the time of youth is past, grow j^oung again.
Some blessed circumstance, some new affection, some
happier climate of life pierces through the crust to the
spring of youth beneath, and, like the waters of that
artesian well which, coming from their snowy home
among the mountains, were at last struck in the midst
of the American desert and surging upwards turned the
wilderness to a fruitful field, so now, in such characters,
the waters of a hidden life of youth rush upwards, the
more abundant from their long suppression.
It comes on man or woman with a shock of exquisite
bin-prise. They feel as a plant might feel, which, never
338 The Mid-day of Life.
expecting to bloom, opens suddenly in the midst of June
its flower-cups to the soft wind, and the blue sky, and
the visits of the birds and bees. Existence is transfigured.
The soul is gifted with new powers, and the heart with
a wealth of new feelings. They cannot help making
experiments with all these new instruments. Every
day is delightful, for every day there is something fresh
to be tried, and the life of living seems inexhaustible.
Naturally, there is a dissi^^ation of powers, a want of
concentration, a want of foresight, and these things
cominof in the midst of manhood or womanhood are
dangerous to progress.
Again, in these cases, the curious thing is this — a
thing which entangles the threads of life — that the rush
of youth extinguishes the graver and sterner qualities
which naturally belong to manhood and womanhood,
and the man lives with the qualities of the youth, and by
them, and the woman also. They grow older in years,
but younger in nature, and the man does man's work
with a boy's heart, and the woman, woman's work with
a girl's feelings. A few quaint temptations beset such
persons. They are sometimes seized with a sudden
passion to throw by work altogether, like a schoolboy,
and to run away, and it is almost a physical pain to
resist this temptation. Yery often all the work of the
world seems as ridiculous to them as it does to a child,
and to enjoy the only really right thing in life. They
suffer, and not a little, from the want of fitness between
their inner life and their outer work, and the suffering
makes them impatient, and impatience spoils their work.
Their heart is so open to new impressions that, almost
The Transitt07i from Youth to Manhood. 339
like a cliild, they take up one pursuit after another and
finish none, the impression of the present being so
strong that they cannot resist it. Of course all this
produces a certain amount of unfitness for the world
and for their daily labour, so that their fellow -workers
think them unsafe, imj)rudent, and their leadei's, if they
belong to a party, set them aside as incapable of
discipline. The best thing about them is not only
their freshness — so that meeting them is like meeting
a sparkling stream on a thirsty day — but also their
natural individuality. They cannot get into the groove
of things.
Now, what is it that they want ? — for it is plain that
the inevitable fault of such characters is the dissipa-
tion of thought, energy, and life. They want concentra-
tion of will towards a single and a noble aim ; not such
a concentration as will destroy their youthful feelmg
or injure their originality — for the very fact of that
originality in the midst of a world enslaved to customs
is more than other men's work — but a concentration
which will leave their nature free, and yet make its
freedom strong through the rule of law.
We seek this concentration in one aim after another.
But there is alwa^^s the chance of failure, and failure
is followed by despondency, and despondency imprisons
energy, and life is spoilt. Or the aim becomes stained
with a mean or selfish motive, and we are then haunted
with the sense of something radically wrong in us which
strangles all endeavour, and so drift back into our
aimless roving life again.
We want an aim which never can grow vile, an f^-JTn
340 The Mid-day of Life,
which cannot disappoint our hope. There is but one
on earth, and it is that of being like God. He who
strives after union with the perfect Love must grow
out of selfishness, and the nobility of the strife makes
meanness impossible. And as to failure, failure is out
of the question ; our success is secured in the omnipo-
tent Holiness of God.
Concentrate, then, your will on this. Do not wish,
but will to be at one with God. 'Ask, and ye shall
receive ; seek, and ye shall find.'
The habit of concentration won in this sjDiritual
realm, where prayer brings success, soon extends itself
to the realm of intellectual and practical life. Your
youthfulness of spirit is not destroyed, but a centre of
strength is given to its feelings and its acts. Nor is
the number of objects and of interests which you have,
and which give charm and variety to life, limited by
this spiritual concentration of the being towards God ;
on the contrary, you gain a power of harmonising them
into order under the rule of a leading and noble idea.
Your originality is not lessened, but increased, for it
is revealed to us that a special work of God's Spirit is
the development of the peculiar gifts of each man.
The second case I speak of is of characters which,
passing into manhood and womanhood, retain for many
years the elements of youth. This differs from the
first, inasmuch as youth has not been repressed, but
previously enjoyed. Hence the youthfulness of these
persons is not so young as that of which we have
been speaking, and it is mingled naturally with the
graver and steadier thoughts of advancing years. As
The Transition from Youth to Manhood. 341
the chief danger of the former is dissipation of character,
the chief danger of the latter lies in over-fervency of
character. One knows them by their sudden eagerness
vrhen interested, and by the ease with which they are
interested ; by the way in which their nature breaks into
flower at the touch of sympathy ; by the rapid intensify-
ing of all their powers and feelings when they feel them-
selves liked and comprehended, so that they are much
greater and better at one hour than at another ; by the
passion which they put into common things, and the
way in which they exhaust on small work far more
force than is needed. One knows them by their quick-
ness, and by the half-shame which touches them when
they have been over-quick in thought ; by their delight-
ful unconsciousness, and by their quick repression of
feeling when they become suddenly self-conscious, their
whole expanded leaves closing in a moment; by the
intensity also of their self-consciousness when they
have fallen into it. One knows them by their exagge-
rated contempt for form and their exaggerated love for
the informal ; by their love of theories, and their im-
patience and distress when either their theories are
opposed by others, or they themselves are prevented by
circumstances from realising them ; by their harshness
in speaking of those who are commonplace ; by their
impetuosity in reply, and the way in which contradic-
tion astonishes them ; by their frequent one-sidedness,
for their convictions are so strong that they can sel-
dom see the force of opposite convictions ; by the want
of form in what they do and say; by a certain
inarticulateness; by a certain want of finish. One
342 The Mid- day of Life.
knows tliem by sudden fits of weariness of existence
and of sadness, during wliicli life is seen as preterna-
turallj dark, so that older persons smile ; by tbe way
in which sorrow when it comes surprises them, and joy
when it comes gives no surprise ; by the way in which
they trade uj^on their health as if it were inexhausti-
ble, and on feeling as if its enthusiasm could have no
reaction.
All this is complicated by the graver thoughts and
feelings of manhood and womanhood, which in this
case we have conceived as existing side by side with
youth and its fervour.
For the very presence of this young enthusiasm
makes depression darker when it comes spiritually with
doubt, or physically with exhaustion. As the brightest
flowers look the di&mallest upon dark days, so the
brightest natures are the gloomiest when things go
very wrong. In the hour of their depression the re-
covery of belief in God seems im^DOSsible, the toil of life
unbearable. The awful shadow of the unknown lies
heaviest on these ; they feel the darkness more, and
question it more bitterly. When they sin against
their Father, their remorse is so keen that sin seems
unforgivable. As kind as God seems when they are
happy and excited, so severe does He seem when they
are unhappy. Excessively in enthusiasm for work when
all goes well, they are beyond just measure chilled when
all goes ill. Necessarily they are victimised by fluctua-
tions of feeling, and in these fluctuations the force of
will is in abeyance. They become at last, if they
do not take care, like seaweed tossed on the ocean, the
The Transition from Youth to Manhood. 343
mere sport of circumstances, * weak as is a breaking
wave.'
ISTow what we want in this case is not the rootino- out
of youthful enthusiasm, but its direction.
Endeavour to make your enthusiasm self-restrained.
The reason of all these depressions, and the weakness
which follows on a succession of excitements and reac-
tions, is, that we allow our fervour to run wild without
a curb. It exhausts itself, and when trial comes or
doubts attack us we have no force left to meet them.
At once we drop into feebleness and melancholy.
Begin to win the power of will over enthusiasm in
the sphere of your spiritual life. Power of will comes
to man when he claims and makes by faith the Will
of God as his own. Power of self-restraint is gained
when a man so loves the perfection of Christ that he
cannot allow himself to run into every excitement.
He stops and asks himself, 'Would my Master havo
done this ? — would He have smiled upon ifc ? '
A few years of this reference of life to Him, and
life is no longer a mere field of unrestrained abandon-
ment to feeling ; we begin to realise our difficulties, and
what those words mean, ' Can ye drink of the cup which
I drink of ? ' We feel that we shall" want all the ardour
we possess for the long contest against evil, for the
race home to God. W^e learn to economise our force of
enthusiasm, to keep it stored up against the day of the
cross. We solemnly dedicate our life in prayer to our
Divine Father, and ask of Him not to take away our
fervour, but to double it, by giving us the righteous
will which rules it nobly.
344 ^'^^ Mid-day of Life.
The result will be, not the loss of youthful ardour,
but the addition to it, by the will, of strength and calm.
Difficulty will not depress it, but heat it to a white
heat ; doubt will only stir it into regulated action ; for
its source no longer is in ourselves alone, but in the
uncreated fire of the love of God.
Then, having ennobled and disciplined spiritual fer
vour, all other sources of enthusiasm will be ennobled with
it. It will never permit them to be exhausted. Always
directing them to perfect aims, they will, in pursuit
of these, absorb instead of losing new force ; for en-
thusiasm which feeds on noble objects redoubles its
force as much as enthusiasm which feeds on ignoble
objects exhausts its force.
Have, therefore, true and sublime ideals for your
youthful fervour. These will preserve it to old age.
Aspire ardently after truth, purity, many-sided charity,
holiness of life ; let everything else be put under these
things. Be convinced of great truths, feel in the
depths of your heart their beauty and their force. Be
able to say, ' I know that God is my Father, and the
Father of mankind; I know that the world and I have
a Redeemer from evil; I know that mankind has
been made Divine in Christ; I know that there is a
Divine Spirit in me and in Mankind, who is educating
us towards the perfect life. I know One who is the
Resurrection and the Life to all mankind.' You can-
not be convinced of mighty truths like these without
being set on fire by them, and the fire will kindle every
intellectual and imaginative enthusiasm which you
possess into an abiding ardour of action so instinct
The Transition from YoiUh to Manhood. 345
with, that from which it flowed that it will propagate
the sacred energy and set others on fire with the same.
In this manner seek to correct and develope jour youth-
fulness of nature in the midst of advancing years. By
and b}^ calm will come — not the calm of stagnation, but
the calm which sits in the midst of intensity of feeling.
That which disturbs and tosses our unregulated enthu-
siasm is vanity — desire of fame — the intruding element
of personal interests. Our fervour of spirit becomes
quiet, yet strong, when its highest impulse is beyond
ourselves, when we can fix our most ardent wishes
upon Christ, and find in Him the source of a sus-
tained aspiration. For it is not only truths which
inspire us, but truths embodied in One whom we can
love. Pride, selfishness, want of charity, may creep in
when we devote ourselves to noble ideas alone. But
when we love them in a perfect Person who loves us, self
and conceit are wholly lost, and in their loss calm is
made co-ordinate with ardent feeling.
The third and last case we mentioned was that of
characters who pass steadily from youth to manhood,
leaving their youth behind them.
These settle down quietly to work. They have but
little ardour of nature; they are not led astray by the
vagaries of reappearing youth. They enter on their
chosen business, and do it steadily from day to day — the
man his work, the woman hers.
Their tendency, since they have no youthfulness to
complicate their nature, is to become men and women
of one dominant idea — to let their particular business or
profession absorb all the energies of their nature mto
346 The Mid-day of Life.
itself, so tliat one portion of their cliaracter is especially
developed and tlie other portions left untrained. Like
Aaron's serpent, it swallows all the rest. Thej become,
in this way, incomplete men. It is said, and with
general truth, that for a great success in life this absorp-
tion is necessary. But it may be questioned whether
a great success is not dearly purchased at the price of
an imperfect manhood — whether success is the chief
thing in life. Very successful persons are for the most
part not men one would choose for companions in a
voyage, or for friends in the greater voyage of life.
They want variety, they want animation, they are too
often the sated worshippers of their own success. And
what they often are to us they are in reality in relation to
themselves — not men, but the tenth or twentieth part of
a man. But this is not only true of men who succeed,
but also of those who are not successful, yet plod on —
men and women only of one aspiration, of one business,
like those who spend all their life in making the heads
of pins.
It is wise to let something of success go, not to be
anxious even about becoming either the first merchant
or the first pointer of pins, in order that you may be
able to train yourself into a more perfect man. Do not
leave your imagination without its food, or starve your
heart. He is but a poor creature, however famous in
his own peculiar walk, who is the slave of figures, or
of science, or of politics — machines for turning out
machine work. Men ought not to be steam-engines,
nor to work like them, though that seems to be a
The Transition from Yottth to Manhood. 347
prevalent notion. Tliej are born to love and feel, to
imagine and aspire.
ISTor, above all, sliould we let tbe v^orld and its work
quench the demands of the spirit within us which desires
union with the living God. If you allow the noise of
vour enthralling business to drown those inward cries,
they grow fainter then and fainter, and the spirit falls
into lethargy. The noblest portion of your being is left
ignorant as an infant. Ts that to be a complete man ?
Feed that immortal thing with its true food, love to
God, which is love to God's character in Christ ; open its
doors to the education of the Spirit of God, and be not
troubled but rather nobly proud, if your spirit, trained
by His power, prevent some of those many transac-
tions in public life which make a fortune by running
to the very edge of dishonesty, or hinder you from
taking a place the comfort of which would have to be
bought by the sacrifice of convictions. A fortune — a
position — these are not the first things, in spite of the
lying world which says they are. The spirit which can
hold fast to truth, though it means the acceptance of
ruin — the spirit which can refuse to be enriched at the
expense of honour — the spirit which can do nothing
which sins against its neighbour, is better than the life
of Dives or the leadership of the fashionable world.
Educate all your being, for being devoid of the ardour
of youth, and believing in steady work, you are in danger
of becoming a one-sided man. Let your effort be to be
manifold and many-sided, while you cling fast to your
particular work. This is our Christian duty. For Christ
348 The Mid-day of Life.
came to save the wliole of our nature, to present us, at
tlie end, body, soul, and spirit, perfect to his Father. *
Lastly, our religious life settles down into a matter
of habit as we pass into manhood and womanhood, and
this, though coming first to those who have not re-
tained youth, becomes at last the case of the others
also. I speak, then, to all.
Our morality becomes fixed. Truth, purity, and the
rest become habits, like the habit of walking. Beware
lest they become Pharisaic, and pass from habits into
mere forms. There is but one way of avoiding this,
and that is by cherishing a great ideal which will not
let us be satisfied. Christ gives us that ideal : ' Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is per-
fect.' And He Himself supplies the motive, for the
great love which we nourish to Him will sweep us con-
tinually out of the region of formal morality into that
realm where the life of self-sacrifice produces natural
and noble action.
Our views of truth become fixed. Only beware of hold-
ing them as if they were the real essences of which they
are only the forms. Be ready to change them if you
find it necessary for the progress of your spiritual life
that the essential truths you hold should wear new
garments.
Our inner religious life becomes necessarily more fixed,
more a matter of continuous and quiet exercise, and
less a matter of sudden and enthusiastic feeling. We
cannot help sometimes regretting this and fancying
that because we do not feel so keenly, we are less near
God, more near the world. We shall never feel so
The Transition from Yontli to Ma7ihood. 349
deeply again, we think — never recall tliose hours when
life seemed for a time to breathe the air of heaven itself.
But in no case are we right to waste time on such re-
grets. Our business now is to go forward and to redeem
the past. We may not get back the freshness of early
inspiration; but we may attain something better — the
resolute heart of noble faith, which, trusting in a
Saviour of men, has the con Science to take up duty for
his sake and for the sake of men his brothers, and,
though failure and failure come, to win at last, through
the doing of duty, those profounder, calmer, and more
enduring feelings of nearness to God, which will bear
the test of time and overcome at the end the shame
and fear of death.
But, after all, were our religious feelings in youth
deeper than those which we possess now ? Unless we
have been altogether going back, I cannot think so.
They seem to us now, as we look back, to have been
deeper ; but they only seem so. In reality, it is because
we feel more keenly and more strongly now, that we
so canonise our youthful feelings. We impute to
them, unconsciously, our present depth and strength of
passion. We retain in memory the religious impres-
sions of our early life, and we colour them with our own
deeper haes, till they seem much more earnest and
divine than they really were.
The fact is, youth cannot feel so deeply as man-
hood and womanhood, unless manhood and womanhood
have been debased and hardened. Is not doubt of
Grod's love a worse thing to us now than it was when
we were young ? Is not the cry of our hearts for
2, so The Mid-day of L ife.
liglit more unutterable now than in the days when it
came and went so quickly? Is not our hatred of
sin, and our desire to escape from the dreadful circle
of self into life with God and love of all in Christ,
more intense, though far more silent, than it was of
old ? Is not our longing for certainty, for the assurance
of the eternal life in union with our Father, more pro-
found as we advance in years ? Have not this world and
its worldliness, though perhaps we live more in them,
less power over us ? It is not that we feel less, but
that the movement of our feelings is larger, and their
waters so deep that they are less easily disturbed.
But, after all, whether we feel much or little is not
so much matter. The one thing needful for those who
have passed into the stage of life which follows upon
youth is to do the will of God, to consecrate their
manhood and womanhood to the welfare of Man, to
look forward to finishing the work given them to do,
and at last, to the rest which remaineth for the people
of God.
Tlie Afternoon of Life. 35 j
TRE AFTERNOON OF LIFE.
THE EESTOEATIOX OE THE ZN'TEEESTS AND POETRY OF TOTJTH.
• Who satisfietli thy mouth with good things ; so that thy youth is
renewed like the eagle's.' — Psalm ciii. 5.
The afternoon of life is marked by the concentration
of our powers round one centre of work and thought.
In youth, at our first entrance into manhood, we take up
many interests, we make experiments upon our faculties
and on many subjects, and so vivid is our force, and
so large our heart, that we seem to have room for all.
One by one, most of these interests die away. We
discover our inability to carry them further than a short
way, or we cease to care to do so. As our character
developes, many are seen to be out of harmony with it,
or even to check its natural movement onwards ; but
they are useful in telling us what we cannot do and
what we can. At last one or two take special power
over us, and absorb the rest. If they grow naturally
out of our character, if they are fitted to our powers
as the sword is to the hand, our life flows smoothly
to its end. If they are imposed on us by coercion
of others, or of circumstances — and in such a light we
are forced to regard the life of some in this crooked
world — our life is injured and cmr course rugged and
352 The Afternoon of L ife.
painful to the close. But, whetlier our fate be one or
the other, few of us have reached the later manhood
without finding ourselves fixed in one pursuit. The
traveller in the Alps walking in the early morning and
seeing the white clouds change around a mountain-peak,
cannot distinguish at a distance which is the summit,
and which the cloud. iN'ow one form and now another
attracts his eager gaze. But as the sun climbs the
heaven, it lifts the wreathing vapour, and, drawing
nearer, he sees at last, sharply defined against the pure
sky, the one clear cone. So the voyager of life delights
himself in cloud after cloud in the morning of his years ;
but when the afternoon has come, the one thing he has
to do distinctly opens forth, and challenges his efi^ort.
He finds the work of his life. At once all his powers
concentrate themselves on this, and force, once scattered
over a hundred interests, intensifies itself on one. It
is then that life becomes strong, for life is at unity with
itself.
And now, having found our work and settled down to
climb the mountain steadily, there is a further question.
What spirit is at the centre of our life ? Whence do
we draw the inspiration of effort? What is the mo-
tive power which infiuences and colours all our work?
Does it depend on self or on Christ ? It is a solemn
question, for the answer defines whether the real labour
of life will be eternal or not, useful to man or not, a
source of growth or not to our own being.
And when I ask this question in this relation, I really
mean whether a man's life has beyond its special aim
a further aim of devotion to the cause of Man. T
Restoratloji of Inte^-ests and Pochy of Youth.
ODO
mean here by the spirit of Christ the spirit which sub-
ordinates life to the cause of man, for that was the
central spirit of Christ's existence. And something more
I mean. I mean that he who sees the Eace in Christ
sees it at one with God in idea though not as jet in
fact, and beholds himself as one of a great and united
body who are here on earth to slowly grow up into
union v^ith God by faithful work — by long effort at
last to realise that idea which God had of the full-
grown Man, and which Christ now represents in God.
The man, then, who has Christ at the centre of his life
— that is, the great ideas of which Christ is the personal
realisation — cannot settle down into the dulness of man-
hood, content to lose altogether the things which made
his youth so bright and happy. He desires to grow, and
to grow by regaining these in a truer and more lastlno-
form. He cannot abide in that spirit of selfishness
which, by fixing our thoughts on personal success alone,
forbids us to turn aside to seek in work for man hio-her
thoughts to transfigure our life, or to refresh ourselves
with the poetical aspects of man or nature. 'These
things are unpractical,' says self; 'these things are
necessary for your true manhood,' replies the spirit of
Christ. •
How may we recover in manhood, but in a wiser
way, what was noble in our youth — recover our mani-
fold interests, our poetic feeling towards the history of
man and nature — our ideal of the goodness, truth, and
love of man ?
The first two will form the subject of this morning's
sermon; the last the subject for next Sunday.
16
354 -^'^^ Afternoon of Life.
1 . The restoration of manifold interests.
T have said that in settling- into the groove of life
we lose variety of interests. And the danger is lest, in
clinging close to one alone, we develope only one part
of onr being. The student who pulls his philosophic
bonnet over his ears that he may hear nothing but the
whispers of the Ego ; the scientific man to whom there
is nothing in the world but his flint flakes or his gases ;
the theologian who buries himself in his speculations,
forget that they themselves are greater than these
things, and tha.t man is infinitely greater. They hoard
up a little knowledge, but they die with onl}'^ one mem-
ber of their nature developed, and that abnormally,
and their usefulness to others has been almost a cipher.
It is far worse when the object pursued is something
which, pursued for itself alone, is base — money, rank,
position in societj^, fame, things which have no worth
unless they are used for men.
If the spirit of self is at the centre of your life,
there is no doubt of your success in attaining these
things, and the success you win increases the selfish
spirit, till at last you gain the world and lose your
true being. All the way up the mountain of life you
see nothing but one object. No wayside beanty of the
path attracts yon ; those whom you meet do not draw
you to their side in friendship, sincere and deep ; none
of the bright interests which played around your early
life and gave it variety and charm now touch your
imagination. There is no denying that this life is
dull. One has a monotonous interest in going on,
eno^Tgh to keep one alive ; or one has a fierce gam-
Restoi^ation of Interests and Poetry of Youth. 355
bling interest, whicli eats at tlie heart of life like the
worm which dieth not, and wearies even more than
dulness. But there is no true life — no harmonious
movement of all the parts of the character onwards and
together — no dramatic clash of opposed and changing
feeling — no colour nor light made by the play of many
trained faculties upon one another. The spirit of self
has been the chief imj)ulse, and naturally life is joyless.
All thought has knotted itself round yourself and
your family, and there is no feeling, freshening and.
universal, such as is stirred in the heart when great
human interests carry us out of self. True, you succeed.
Self, self-devoted, is sure to win its object, and it forbids
any dispersion of thought. But we have already said,
touching on this subject, ' that it may be well questioned
whether a great success is not dearly purchased at the
price of an imperfect manhood, whether success is the
chief thing in life.' The man of only one set of ideas
is only the fraction of a man, however he may have
perfected that set of ideas. And the worst of it is that
he becomes the bigoted worshipper of his own speciality,
and the theologian and the scientific man mutually
despise each other for blindness to the separate range of
truths on which each insists, not seeing that as long as
they despise any human interests whatsoever they are
uncultui-ed men. The manifold interests of their youth
ought to be recalled, but at the same time they ought
to be combined with necessary unity of aim. Youth
teaches us diversity; the first entrance into middle
age, concentration ; in later life we ought to combine
both, to recover the interests of the one and to retain
35^ The Afternoon of Life.
the power of tlie other. 1 think one can do it best by
the means of two great Christian ideas. One is, that,
as God has called us to perfection, we are bound to
ennoble our being from end to end, leaving no faculty
untrained. The other is, that as Christ lived for man's
cause, so should we. The first will force you to seek for
manifold interests in order to make every branch of
your nature grow ; the second will lift you out of the
monotonous and limited region of self into the infinite
world of ideas.
So you will slowly get back the charm and variety of
youth, only with an important difference. For for-
merly you had no fixed object, and life was dissipated
in pursuit of a number of changing objects, l^ow you
have found your work, and that gives security and an-
chorage to your character. You are fixed to a centre,
but you radiate from it over a hundred fields of interests,
and, living along each line, absorb from these fields a
multitude of new ideas and feelings which vary while
they strengthen your single aim. The new subjects
which you take up and enjoy make you more complex
in thought, more manifold in feeling, and, to your sur-
prise, your real work does not suffer. For when your
character widens you will obtain larger ideas of your
special work, and do it more completely. The new
knowledge and new thoughts are naturally brought to
bear upon the main end, and its import expands, but
not towards selfish aims. The high motive, that all
life and all work is ultimately to be dedicated to the
cause of man, carries you beyond any temporal or }>er-
sonal aims, while it includes them. The pursuit of
Restoration of Interests and Poetry of Youth. 357
your life, wLatever it may be, becomes idealised in tlie
atmosphere of this motive and beautiful therein. An
infinite tenderness and grace belongs to every work
whose highest aim is the aim of Christ — the good of
man. Life then becomes delightful, even of passionate
interest, and the whole of being unfolds like a rose —
full of colour, scent, and beauty.
This is the restoration of manifold interests to life,
and the consequent development of character. It is
one of our highest Christian duties to seek it and
attain it.
2. Restoration of poetic feeling.
We pass our youth in a glorious world. One has
often dwelt upon the joy with which the child receives
the tide of impressions which, wave after wave, comes
in upon him from nature and from man. But they are
received without thought, and they come too rapidly
for feeling : each washes away the previous one. It is
different when childhood has passed and the intellect and
the heart are now developed in youth. As we then learn
something of the long history of our race, and Greece
and E-ome and England become more than mere names
to us, our enkindled intellect makes a hundred theories
with regard to national ideas, their growth and their de-
cay. We generalise, and delight in our generalisations.
It seems almost degrading to the imaginative world in
which we live to bring our glorious generalisations to
the commonplace test of facts. At last a dim sus-
picion begins to haunt us that our palaces have no
foundation ; a scepticism, which we hate at first, forces
us to prove our ideas ; and in a few weeks our ansub-
3 5 8 The Afternoon of L ife.
stantial vision dissolves, and we are left disenclianted.
And now we resolve to be practical, and in a dry light
to search for and to secure facts alone.
It is the same with onr life with nature. In youth
all the world seemed alive. River, rock, and flower
seemed to speak to one another, and to give us back love
for the love with which we met them. We were bound
to the universe, and the universe to us. All things
lived in and for each other, and in the thought of
the mutual love of all we saw and heard of all that
nature gave to us, and we sent back in swift reci-
procation— poetry and art were born within us, and
we moved rejoicing in an atmosphere of beauty. A
certain solemn awe amid the high solitudes of nature,
an imaginative fear, as of a spirit in the air and sea,
added to beauty a sense of sublimity. Then came the
first touch of accurate knowledge to disperse our dream.
Compelled to look at things one by one, we soon lost
the poetic sense of them. It seemed absurd to think of
the love of the stream to its meadows, of the bird to the
flower. Life passed away from the universe, and we
found oiu'selves face to face with a rigid force instead
of a living spirit. Awe, and the terror which creates
the sublime, vanished when we knew the reasons of
things. A little study of electricity, and we soon
lost the delightful awe with which we invested the
thunderstorm. The colours and grace of the flower
departed as we divided its stamens and counted its
petals. We classified it, and it became a name, and not
a living thing. We smiled when we thought of our
poetic world ; after all, it was very commonplace. We
Restoration of Interests and Poetry of Yotcth. 359
sot ourselves to work to grope amid isolated facts, and
all the loveliness of the world decayed.
It is possible to settle down into this, to become the
mere collector of historical facts, the mere investigator
of the surface-life of nature, and for a time it is wise
that we should go through this phase. But to remain
in it to the end is unworthy of a man, an ignoble and
a joyless life. We cannot be content with it. A pas-
sionate desire stirs within us to find our poetry again,
to realise in the history of man an organic unity of
thought, to clothe the skeleton of nature with a living
form. But not as before. We have now possession of
facts, and we must build up our new Avorld of beauty
upon their foundations. In the old dreamland we can
never live again, but we may live in an ideal and yet a
true world ; we may restore the poetry of youth to our
life in its relation both to Man and ISTature.
As to the first, there is no idea which will so rapidly
guide us into a larger and more imaginative view of the
history of man than the great Christian thought which
we owe to Christ, that all the race is contained in
God ; that all are bound together into unity in Him ;
that as all are children of one Father, so all are bro-
thers existing in and for the good of one another.
It is impossible, then, to study any one age or any
one nation as isolated from the rest. It is impos-
sible, then, to think that anything is done by any
nation which does not live in the whole race to influ-
ence it for ever. Invisible bonds bind the whole of
the past to the present and the future. We look upon
nations as living organisms, which grow, and whoso
360 The Afternoon of Life.
seeds when they die spring up in other forms in other
nations. We rise to a still higher thought when we feel
that the whole of Mankind is growing in the growth
of its parts to a Divine end.
Again, we become aware of a living will beneath the
surface- movement of history. We see this Will, which
we call God, in the immense power which individual
men who have genius, and who we feel are inspired by a
Divine idea, have upon history ; we see it also in the great
ideas which influence nations and the race. We see that
facts tell us nothing till we can show their relation to
these ideas — thab if we would know our race and its
nations we must have, not only the annals, but a philo-
sophy of history. At last, out of all this new thought
there slowly emerges the majestic conception of one
great Mankind growing up, century by century, into a
higher, more complex life, and passing onwards to fulfil
itself in union with the idea of God of which it is in
time the manifestation.
Thus, without losing our sense of the truth of facts,
we get back our poetry. We live in a world grander
and more beautiful than our youthful one, and every
new fact we gain goes to swell the majesty of our con-
ception.
Again, in our relation to nature, we can get back what
we have lost. There are different paths to this recovery,
but none lead us to it more directly and rapidly than
the true conception of God. Once we have realised the
thousfht of One Divine Will as the centre of the universe,
we can no longer abide in the realm of unconnected
facts. We feel they must be related to each other,
Restoration of Interests and Poetry of Youth. 361
aud so related as to find themselves in order under a
few ideas, which we may call laws or what we please.
Looking from our facts with this hope, we find at last,
and directly through the help of the imagination, the
great expressions of law which, tested by experiment,
place us in a higher world of thought, no longer the
mere collectors of facts, but the creators of an ordered
universe. And now we hear no longer isolated notes,
but the great symphony of nature — two or three themes
infinitely varied, and the themes themselves so subtly
connected in idea that all together they build up a
palace of lovely and perfect harmony. This is the
restoration in a truer form of the ideal majesty and
the poetic feeling of our youth. And if we add to
this another thought, which does not contradict the
truth of science, but which is beyond its proof — that
all things are filled with the life of God, and have their
motions, organic and inorganic, in Him, being in fact
forms of His thought and manifestations of His life —
we get back still more completely our early poetry,
without the untruthfuhiess which then ensured its
death. The world, long dead to us, begins to live
again. We begin to feel our union with it within the
thought and life of God. We are fitted to it, and it to
us; we receive beauty from it through a thousand
sensible impressions ; we clothe it in new beauty by the
work of our intellect and feeling upon it. The same
living Spirit moves in us and in it, and binds us to it,
till we feel towards mountain, cloud, and stream, and
every lovely spot upon its surface, a feeling which
partakes of personal friendship and affection. More-
J
62 The Afternoon of Life.
over, though, the form of the thought is changed, we
get back, through the higher science, our old imagina-
tion that the things of nature love each other and live
for each other. There is a true intercourse between
air and flowers. Flowers do really breathe. The air
gives its carbonic acid to the plant, the plant gives
back oxygen to the air. The sun is as truly the great
giver of life and force and joy in the world of nature
as in that of the imag^ination. And these are but a
few instances, out of a multitude, of the infinite
association of all things. We are not really wrong
when we say that all things live by giving and re-
ceiving of each other's good.
This is the restoration of poetic feeling to our man-
hood. It is a noble thing to reach ; it dignifies life to
the very close. It dignified the life of him^ who has
lately, full of years and honour, passed away from us,
who was laid last week in the silent Abbey beside one
greater than he, but not more pure of heart, more
faithful to God and to his work, more full of high
enthusiasm for knowledge, and of delight therein. He
kept to the end that eternal childhood which is the
special grace, and perhaps the special power, of genius.
Throusfh accurate science he had reached the true
poetical life with nature, and his old age had greater
pleasure in the beauty of the world than his boyhood.
Building up by philosophic thought the palace of the
universe, he filled it with the love and feeling which all
the loveliness of the universe stirred within his heart.
* Sir John Herschel.
Restoratioji of LiUrcsis and Poetry of Youth. 363
Disdaining nothings finding in all things interest and
delight, he gave as much thought and rapture to the
fungi of the wayside hedge as he gave of old to the
southern stars in those four years of lonely work nigh
to the Cape of Storms. Nor did he miss the higher and
more poetic thought which made the universe, whose
laws he knew, not the slave of law, but alive with the
spirit and wisdom of God. He rejoiced to see, not
force alone, but a Divine will moving in all things ; and
so it came to pass that his ' common thoughts were
piety, and his life gratitude.' He wore his learning
' lightly as a flower,' and wore it as the gift of God.
And as I refer in thought to the beginning of this
eermon, I see that it was given to him to illustrate
that life of manifold interests which leaves no power
undeveloped. He was not enslaved to one branch of
science, nor to science alone. We know over how many
fields of natural philosophy he went his way, but it is
with special pleasure that we think of the wise old man
recalling in age the interests of youth, and finding in
his translation of Homer the charm of the earlier Greek
world encompassing him with the old poetic life. It is
with equal interest that in the scholar we find the
patriot, and hear that it was his voice which in his
village stirred the youths to take up with eagerness
the volunteer movement of Eno^land.
He died, having finished his work faithfully, and
with youthful ardour, to ^he end — a man who had
developed all the powers which God had given him, and
who rendered them up with humility and faith to God
again : not indeed to die here in our memory, or
364 The Afternoon of Life.
there, wliere lie lias gone to cease his labour or to lose
his delight. For, for such as he, in that ampler world
there is ampler work, in that lovelier world there is
higher pleasure.
Yes, brethren, for those who choose growth and not
stagnation, for those who win back, in reverence for
their own nature and for the idea of God within them,
the dreams of youth in a truer and nobler manner, and
add their realisation to the steady work of manhood —
for those who believe that God wishes them to be
perfect, and strive to grow into that perfection — for
those who do not cease to aspire, while they work
within their limits, growth does not cease, it goes on
for ever. For them the promise of my text is true —
their youth is renewed like the eagle's.
The Afternoon of L ife. 365
THE AFTERNOON OF LIFE.
THE EESTOEATION OF OUR IDEAL OF MAN.
* Lord, wliat is man, that thou art mindful of him ? and the son of
man, that thou visitest him ? For thou hast made him a little lower
than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.' —
Psalm viii. 4, 5.
The twofold view taken of man in tliese verses is
remarkable. The Psalmist begins by depreciation. Is
man worthy of the care of God ? Can this creature,
whose time passeth away like a shadow, in himself a
thing of nought, engage the thought and tenderness
of Grod? And in truth, this is often our bitterest
feeling. It seems, at times, when the hopes which
were once so bright have faded from our skies, that
God takes no pride in us, that we and aU our long,
weary effort are nothing to His heart.
But neither we nor the Psalmist can continue to
maintain that view. We feel that it is one-sided. We
learn that God does care for us, that He has some pride
in the creatures He has sent forth from Himself. We
pass from the lowly to the exalted view, and in com-
bining both we find the whole truth. What is man ?
Nothing, it is true, but also, a little lower than the
angels, crowned with glory and honour, having doml -
366 The After7ioo7i of Life.
nion over all the earth. The lowlier view belongs
often to our manhood, the ideal view to onr youth,
the combination of both ought to belong to our later
years.
In the progress from childhood to later manhood, a
portion of which subject we treated last Sunday, our
view of man changes as much as our view of nature.
We begin with a lofty but dreamy ideal of the good-
ness and glory of Man, and the dream often lasts
through our youth. We pass at the beginning of
middle age into a period when our dream is shattered
by disappointment. We are cheated, we come into
contact with false friendship, we discover the vast
extent of evil in mankind, and we are in danger of
settling down into scorn, or indifference to men. It
would be a miserable groove of thought in which to
run down into the grave. But God has provided some
better thing for us. Slowly our early ideal is restored
in another way. We gain a wiser, truer, more chari-
table view of our race. We take into it the lessons
learnt during the time of our disappointment, and yet
we find man crowned with glory and honour. The
crown is mingled with dark weeds, and thorns are
among its gold and jewels, but after all it is a crown.
This, then, is our subject to-day — the restoration, in
the later j^ears of middle-age, of the ideal of mankind.
But, first, we must trace the growth of our ideal
through childhood and youth. It takes its earliest form
throuo'h home. Our mother's care and love ; our father's
watchfulness ; the less deep, but natural kindness of ser-
vants; the joy of holidays, when everyone seems to live
The Resto7^ation of our Ideal of Man. 367
to amuse us ; the pleasant association with our brothers,
sisters, and childish friends, sufficiently varied by quar-
rels, like April showers, to be interesting, create in us
an ideal of mankind. All are loving, true, and faithful
to us, sheltered as we are from wrong in the enclosed
garden of home.
As we pass into boyhood, still innocent, the transient
sorrows and betrayals which we suffer do not touch us
with great pain. Our feelings are not deep enough to
risk much on one person, nor to lose much if we are
disappointed. Our sense of moral right is not keen
enough to suffer much from untruthfulness, nor to know
how evil, evil is. We still believe in men.
Again, nature helps us to idealise man. We see man
through the nature we love, and add to our half- formed
conception of him the sublimity, beauty, or peace of
the scenes in which we find him. Those who have
been young in the midst of the orchards and cool
gardens of mid -England, will remember how they trans-
ferred the sweetness and calm of nature to the life of
the labourer without seeing its evil and its misery.
Those who have lived among sterner scenes, where
man, as in the shepherd-life among the mountains, has
to contend with awful forces, where every rocky gorge
and torrent has its tale of human suffering or human
daring, will recall how their imagination worked till
man became in thought sublime — a living creature
moving as a master among the powers of nature till he
was seen as one of them. This was the experience of
Wordsworth's boyhood. Man was ' ennobled outwardly
oefore his sight.'
368 The Afternoon of L ife.
It is tlms tliat our ideal grows, from the direct
influence of home, and from the transference of the
beauty, passion, and power of nature to those who live
among nature.
We dream of a perfect humanity.
And it is a thing to bless God for to begin life in this
way, to start with belief in the nobleness of our race :
Were it otherwise,
And we found evil fast as we find good
In our first years, or think that it is found,
How could the innocent heart bear up and live ?
Happy is the man who has had in childhood true hearts
and loving hands about him in his home ; happy he,
whose inexperienced thoughts have first communed
with man through the fiir and sublime things of nature.
For liis face is turned towards the truth, his preposses-
sions are of that kind
Without which the soul
Receives no knowledge that can bring forth good,
No sight of evil afterwards, of misery, of meanness, can
ever blot wholly out of his mind hope for the race and
belief in goodness. He can say, when the first bitter-
ness of disappointment is over, ' Well, all this is evil,
but there must be a seed of good ; all this is vile, but
there is worthiness if I could find it — for I have known
a loving home, I have felt true reverence for man.'
Nor, indeed, though much of its simplicity is lost, is
our ideal of man lost as long as youth lasts. We are
then too full of life to look at death, too full of hope
to believe in the victory of wrong, too ready for new
friends and now interests to care much for the loss of a
The Restoration of ozcr Ideal of Man. 369
few : we have so mucli faith in men that we can afford
to part with some, and not recognise that we are the
poorer.
Moreover, books open to us their wondrous world.
We find our heroes, heroes of war and religion, of daring
adventure and self-sacrifice. The poets and artists
seize on us, and man grows beautiful in their pages and
their work. Yast thoughts of a march of nations, of the
terrible games they play, of their mighty rise and fall,
of the causes and the ideas millions have struggled
for and of the passions involved, swell into sublimity
our idea of man, till at last nature becomes second and
man first, the central thing of the universe, dust, yet
akin to godhead, shortlived as the flitting of the shuttle-
through the loom, but crowned with glory and honour,
and all things in subjection under his feet.
No one can say that this ideal lasts. It does not bear
contact with the world. It is a dream, and we wake to
lose it. But in our loss of it, we fall into the other
extreme. We have as mean an opinion of man as we
had a lofty one, and our question is, is that mean
opinion the right one ; is it fit that we should possess
it to the close ? Or can we get back our ideal in a
truer and a soberer fashion, and die with faith and
hope for man, with love for him ruling our thoughts
and action ? That question we may answer by tracing
some of the ways in which we lose our youthful ideal
and find it again, a different, but a securer thing.
Youth is scarcely over before a certain weariness of
our enthusiasm creeps over us. We have worked it
so hard that its sources are exhausted for a time. The
370 The Afternoon of Life,
light and colour fade away from many things, and we
turn upon them with a kind of anger because they give
us no more the pleasure we once received. Then we
begin to play with a kind of cynicism ; we say, emotion
is dead and youth is past, and that all things are indif-
ferent. But there is little reality in our talk, for we are
as fidl of emotion and of life as before. It is simply that
we are tired of the part of enthusiasm, and we want to
play another part and make our life a little more dra-
matic. We are not yet disenchanted, but still this sort
of thing prepares us for disenchantment. We are ready
now, in this half-contempt of enthusiasm, when we get
any proof of the badness of men, to think badly of Man.
Moreover, we have really lost the grand abstract
thought of man which we won from knowledge of books
and art. The little vices and follies of the university or
society, their ' bustling passions,' the small and idle
characters we meet, the petty interests of the common
world in which we move before we enter on the work of
manhood, all tend to break up the general thought of
mankind into its petty particulars. The grand concep-
tion of the whole race, and of nations, as impersonated
in thought, fades away, and we find ourselves forced to
look upon a series of small persons. We drop from
our ideal heights.
Then comes the entrance into real life, into the Avork
of manhood or womanhood, abroad or at home, and our
disillusion begins. We find life harder than we thought,
and men and women very difi'erent from our ideal. We
are in the midst of those who repudiate enthusiasm as
unpractical, to whom self-interest is the first law, and
The Restoration of our Ideal of Man. 371
whose rule is to suspect rather than to trust. Every-
thing goes to overthrow our dream of a high Humanity.
Our aspirations and hopes are ridiculed, and we join,
after a time, in the ridicule. We are cheated and over-
reached in business, or made a tool of in society, and it
is well if we do not join by and by in the same sort of
work, and deal to others the measure we have received.
We thought men would help us when we desired to
help them, give way to us when we had right on
our side, be honourable with us as we with them, and
we find many as hard and cold as granite, and who
will neither help, nor give way to right, nor be just,
if ifc goes against their personal interest. And we
whisper to ourselves, ' We will go with the stream ;
why should not self-interest be our law also ? All are
equally bad, why should we adopt a higher standard of
justice, love, and honour than the rest ? Should we do so
in this whirling tide, where every atom pushes the other
out of its way, we shall never succeed.' And then the
work is done, and the noble image youth presented of
mankind changes into an ugly idol.
A still bitterer blow awaits us often. We have had
a friend, man or woman. He represented to us man-
kind, he embodied for us all our youthful dreams of
faithfulness, honour, and devotion. With him all the
world was fair, things done with him had twofold
worth. Our trust in him was full and clear, and we
should have taken his cause as ours against the world.
When, all in the turn of an hour, we find him false as
hell, mean, one who has used our love for his own ends,
who never gave back one feeling to us that was not
37^ The Afteinioon of Life.
feigned, who lauglied in his sleeve at our trust, and had
not merit enough to be ashamed of his baseness.
With that, the house of life falls in the most hateful
ruin round us. We are soured at the heart. ' All are as
mean and false as he,' we cry in our first passion. We
hate and scorn ourselves for our blindness, and this
gives to our bitterness a keener sting. We doubt our
other friends, we even doubt ourselves ; truth and good-
ness seem to us but cunning forms of ill, and as we
think of our youth, and its ideal of man, our laugh is
half of scorn and half of shame.
Are we to settle down into these things? Is this
contempt of men, and the selfishness and isolation
it engenders, the atmosphere which we shall breathe
through manhood to old age ? God forbid ! — there is
no outward misery which would not be blessedness in
comparison with that. ISTor does the Father of love
leave us in this bitter land. In some hour when the
heart is softened, we become aware of the lesson of
the cross of Christ. Some simple event, in which we
have to act for others, calls us out of our selfishness, and
we are as it were surprised into self-devotion. In a
moment of impulse, we forget ourselves for a child, a
woman, or an acquaintance. At first we smile at the
return of enthusiasm, and half despise ourselves for our
unpractical effort. But the sweetness of the thing
makes its way. We have felt the attractive power of
the cross. He who was lifted up for men draws us to
his life by making us partakers of the joy of sacrifice.
We feel not, as in youth, a pleasure for which we can
give no reason, but pleasure which seems founded on a
The Restoration of our Ideal of Ma7i. 373
law, for the more we give up for others, the deeper and
the purer is, we find, our pleasure.
And in the light of this revelation, we whisper to our
heart, ' The maxim of the world is wrong, self-interest
is not the first thing. I have found men bad because
my rule of life was evil. I will live for others now. I
will try what love, and trust, and the ignoring of wrong
to myself will do towards restoring my ancient joy.'
It is wonderful how men change to a changed heart.
We ourselves being ennobled, see noble things, and
loving, find out love. Little touches of goodness, of
courage, of love in men, which, formerly, looking for
perfection, we passed by, now attract us like flowers
beside a dusty highway. We take them as keys to the
character, and door after door flies open to us. The
man reveals the treasures of his heart. We find aspira-
tion, penitence, tenderness, in those we thought gro-
velling, hard, and selfish. We trust men, we throw
ourselves upon the good in them, and they become
better now that they are not suspected of being evil.
Driven by our new principle to search for good and
not evil, and to find it in all, we take notice of ordi-
nary men whom we have passed over, and it is with an
exquisite surprise that we become conscious of the
vast amount of daily sacrifice done by common men
and women, by those whom we call dull, by those who
have to fight a hard battle like the poor ; of the high
service performed to God in many a simple heart, that,
like a mountain chapel on the wayside, can shelter only
humble worshippers. Delighted we pursue our quest.
Each day unveils something good, and at last our ido-il
374 '^^^^ After 1100 Ji of Life.
is restored again, sunlight breaks again upon the laud-
scax:)e of humanity. Only we see the real thing now,
and not the dream. We see evil with the good, we
see struggle, frequent failure as well as victory, but we
have a manly sympathy with the struggle, and a belief
that failure will be repaired through God, in whom,
through our knowledge of the goodness of man, we are
now, at last, beginning to believe. We do not expect
too much or demand too much, for we know now what
human weakness means ; we make allowances, we have
patience to wait, we suffer long and are bind, and by
and by we are rewarded by finding that we have led a
soul out of selfishness into charity, out of weakness
into power. And so a softer, sweeter, humbler life
becomes ours; an infinite and tender hope for man
swells in our heart ; and slowly there grows up a new
ideal, a new picture of Mankind, truer than our youth-
ful one, further off, but built on deep foundations hidden
in the guiding tenderness of a Father of men whom
we have learned, through the spirit of the Saviour in
our hearts, to trust with His own children.
Then, also, the bitterness of that first betrayal of
friendship passes away. We feel it shameful to make
the lie of one prove the lie of all ; we feel it an insolence
done to mankind to condemn all men because one has
put gall into our heart. Even the hatred which we felt
at first for the deceiver passes at last into a kind of
distant pity for one who was so empty-hearted as to
1)etray. We hate the treachery, we cannot quite hate
the traitor. We never admit him to touch our hand
again, but we forgive him and pass on.
The Restoration of our Ideal of Man. 375
For we sliould feel it disgraceful to be so overcome
bj our disappointment as to drop for ever the bright
conception of our youth or to wholly disbelieve in friend-
ship because one friendship has been foolish. It is the
traitor who is degraded, not we. At the hour of his
>vorst trial, all forsook and fled the Saviour. But He
met them after his death as if nothing had happened.
One, indeed, went to his own place. For so deep a
treachery there was no forgiveness in this world. But
Christ recognised the weakness of the rest, and forgave.
He did not distrust all human goodness, or even theirs,
because they had once wretchedly failed.
Looking on that, we recover our ideal of human
nature^ cur heart opens to new friendships, and Ave find,
taught by our experience, friends who at least are true.
We prove them, and though we discover dross amid
the gold, somehow the dross enhances the value of the
gold. And as the friendship grows it loses its little-
ness, and becomes at last, chastened by many mutual
trials, something on which we can rely for life and
death. Our old ideal is restored, and we can trust it
now.
Once more, that youthful ideal, won from history
a.nd art, of the grandeur of the whole race and its
career, is rudely overthrown when life brings us as men
into contact with the evils of great cities, with the sins
of nations and governments, with, perhaps, things
horrible in the history of our own time. The first
shock, when our early conception of womanhood is over-
thrown in a great city, is followed by a hundred others.
We become aware of whole masses of society living in
376 TJie Afternoon of Life,
habitual crime, and aj)parentlj condemned to it by an
iron fate. Still more miserable when, having loved
national freedom and just government, we see them
violated for many years, men degraded and accepting
their degradation, the gulf between classes deepened,
and such seeds of hatred so'svn, that at last, in an hour
of demoralisation, that which has torn all our hearts
for the last week takes place — madness, despair, and
anarchy on one side, fierce and hateful vengeance on
the other — the queen of European cities consumed by
her own children and her streets choked with the dead,
brothers slain by brothers, till we turn away sick with
pity for miserable man, sick with pain for that which
will be brought in charge hereafter against the sacred
name of liberty. Our ideal of humanity is stained with
evil or made dark with blood.
And is it in this that we are to die ? is this the dread-
ful faith by which we are to live ? When old age has
made the pulse beat less warmly, are we to look back
upon the glorious thought of our growth, and weep for
its ruin, bitterly ? Not so ! the wisdom and patience
of Christ restore a more sober view, give back the light,
and reawake the hope. The soul inevitably reacts from
so profound a gloom, but a sense' of awful mystery and
power remains, born out of the very horror and sin,
and broods in our imagination over the race of man.
And the mystery and power give us a strange suspicion
that that which could sin so deeply must be capable
of high goodness and greatness. It cannot be, we
think, that there is not another side to the affairs of
men. Then, knowing the evil, we recall the good.
The Restoration of ou7^ Ideal of Man. 377
There have been times when men and nations have
toiled and died gloriously for great causes and great
ideas ; when, in some high national sacrifice, a people
have shaken off their evil and proved that man has
glory and honour for his crown, when freedom and
truth have triumphed. There are things which show
still that God has not forgotten men, that He still
reveals Himself in them as truth and justice, still cares
and works for them ; times when, as last year, a long-
tyranny went down with a crash, and the hearts of all
men leaped for joy. And, thinking of these things,
there suddenly start up before us, alit with our new-
born hope, the great Christian ideas which Christ re-
vealed in life and died for on the cross, and the spirit of
which was poured out like fire on men on the day of
Pentecost — the idea of the fatherhood of God, and there-
fore of the childhood of all the race — the idea of the
brotherhood of mankind, to be fulfilled at last — the idea
of a Mankind made divine in Christ, and therefore in
fact destined hereafter to reach, collectively and man by
man, through ages of progressive education, the divine
perfection now secured for it in God. And grasping
with our greatest faith these things as truth, our vague
hopes are strengthened, and in spite of selfishness and
crime, of the horror and pity of the tragedy, we dare to
renew our ideal in a wiser way. We know now the awful
facts of human life, and yet do not despair. We take
with us the troubled human heart of the prophet, and
yet we prophesy the resurrection of nations from guilt,
and of mankind from evil. Below the storms which
toss its wild waves to heaven in anarchy of waters
17
3 7 '5 . ^/^^' Afternoon of L 2fe.
we look into the central heart of the ocean of hnmanitj,
and see its slow current moving on to good. A vaster,
nobler idea of man rises before us : not the sinless,
peaceful ideal of our youth, but the idea of the Titan,
Mankind, possessed by indestructible good, struggling
onwards from age to age against his defectiveness and
his evil towards perfection, worn with a myriad sorroAvs,
stained by a thousand wars, his mighty brow furrowed
with the thoughts and passions of centuries, his heart
beating with love which renews its youth eternally,
with dark hatreds too, which mark his weary steps
with blood ; and yet never relaxing his onward march,
never wholly unconscious of the good within him, never
wholly false to his immoi-tal destiny, never forsaken of
God, but accomplishing from generation to generation,
in a thousand different forms, but through the union of
all in one work of progress and development, that single
aim of perfection which God had in His mind for the
Race when He created Man in His own image and
endowed him with the passion for perfection. It is
thus that we get back our ideal, different indeed, not
so much beautiful as sublime, not filling our hearts
with idle joy, but penetrating them with a glorious
expectation.
And now, we move, as in the presence of majestic
sorrow and effort, among our brothers with bated breath
and loving footstep. The awe of the vast struggle, the
infinite variety of the great drama, add dignity and
solemnity to our life. A faith which exalts the heart and
leads to devotion to the human cause enters into our
heart, when we feel that all Mankind from century to
The Restoration of our Ideal of Man. 2)19
century is working out in form the idea of God, and
must complete it. Patience makes the soul calm, for
the vastness of the conception we now possess of man
reconciles us to the slowness of his progress ; and out of
the thought of it all, and of dwelling on it all — on all the
suffering, toil, mystery, and victory, and the immortal
renewing of them century after century — a fountain of
love and tenderness rises in the heart to soften, sweeten,
and fertilise life ; and within, an infinite hope for man,
half rapturous as we look forward, but now in our so-
bered hearts balanced by the ' pathetic truth ' of life,
makes divine our decaying years, and blesses death
with the faith of Simeon, ' Lord, now lettest Thou thy
servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy
salvation.'
380 The Afternoon of Life,
THE AFTERNOON OF LIFE,
THE BESTOEATION OF BELIEF.
' I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.*
Isaiah xxxviii. 15.
We have spoken for two Sundays past of that second
half of man's middle age, when he settles down for life
into his groove ; when, beginning to descend the hill
towards the graveyard in the valley, he will not change
much more, except through the changes which decay
brings. We asked the solemn question of ourselves,
into what we had settled — into hardness or tenderness
of heart, into width or narrowness of view, into sus-
picion of men or that wisdom of charity which beareth,
believeth, and hopeth all things of men. We saw that
we had found, after many oscillations, the work of our
life, that central point to which our will directed all our
faculties. We asked ourselves what spirit dwelt in
that central point — the spirit of self, or the spirit of
Christ ; the spirit whose wages is death, or the spirit
whose gift is the eternal life of love.
We found that the peculiar dangers of this settling
down w^hich marks the second period of middle-age
were the destruction of youthful ideals, on the ground
that we had found them to be unpractical, and the
The Restoration of Belief. 381
destruction of our youthful belief in the goodness of
men, on the ground that we had been disappointed,
deserted, and cheated ; so that we fell in the first case
into an unpoetical materialism, and in the second into
indifference to human interests, and hardness of heart.
It became a question then how we might escape from
this hardness of heart and recover, but in a wiser way,
all that was noble in our youth. We traced the resto-
ration of our poetic feeling towards nature. We traced
the recovery of our ideal of humanity, but we left the
third untouched — the restoration of belief. This will
form our subject to-day.
In the especial case of Hezekiah, belief was restored
by a great shock which brought him into contact with
reality. He had been living, as many of us live, a
pleasant, prosperous life, till he had really grown to
believe that this world and its interests were the only
things worth caring for. The shadows and mockeries
in which he moved grew more and more substantial
in the way we know so well. His treasures, his art
collections, the beauty of his palace, made him love his
life and dream that it was not a dream — when suddenly
he was brought into contact with the actual things
which lie beneath the apparent. God appeared to him,
not as to Adam in the cool of the day, but as He came
to Job, in the whirlwind and the eclipse, and Hezekiah
knew that he had been living in a vain show. The
answer of his soul was quick and sad : ' By these things
men live, O Lord ; ' these are the blows which teach
men what life really is. But careless prosperity had
382 The Afteinioon of Life.
done its demoralising work on him. There is a certain
unmanly softness in his utterance which speaks of one
whose will had been enervated by a dilettante life, who
never, as long as he lived, would have again firmness
in thought, or decision in action.
Many of you are i)rosperous, happy, and at ease in this
great city. It will be wise for you to remember that
thoughtless prosperity weakens the fibre of the soul.
When one is accustomed to gi'atify on the spur of the
moment every wish, to buy everything that strikes
one's fancy, to live only from day to day, and not from
idea to idea, then the directive power of the will and
the restraining power of the conscience, and even the
distinguishing power of the intellect, are all weakened,
and when that inevitable shock comes, whatever it may
be — for you cannot escape the common fate — you meet
it as an untrained man meets a sudden call upon his
muscular strength — in a soft, exhausted manner. It is
true you are redeemed from carelessness, you become a
servant of God, a believer in the eternal, but you never
become the veteran of the cross ; there is always a tinge
of unmanliness in your Christianity. You go softly,
there is in your soul that bitterness which marks the
weak man.
The blow which sobered Hezekiah was a common
one. It did nothing more than bring him face to face
with death. The process whereby his dependence on
God was restored was uncomj)licated. But there are
far worse shocks than this, and recovery from them
into a godlike life is long and dreadful. There are
things which at first seem to annihilate belief and
The Restoi^ation of Belief. 383
change an indifferent or a liappy nature into earnest,
even savage, bitterness.
One of these is the advent of irrecoverable disease —
protracted weakness, or protracted pain. Suddenly
the victim is stayed in the midst of life and isolated
in his chamber ; or he looks forward and knows that
there is nothing but pain between him and death.
God forgives our human anger then, but we speak
roughly to Him at first. We challenge Him for unfair
treatment, we ask what we have done, we demand if
this is the boasted love of a Father : we curse our day.
It is a dark anger, and may grow in intensity till faith
and love are lost for this life — but it will not reach
that point if we have some greatness of soul, if we are
open to the touch of human love. For, though we are
angry with God, we are not angry with our home and
with our friends. Our misfortune brings round us all
the ministering of common human tenderness ; we meet
with exquisite sympathies, with love which renews its
■flower each day, with infinite delicacy of thought from
men. Our sympathy is kindled in return, the bitter
fount of tears grows sweet, we can only repay the love
we receive by the self-restraint which hinders com-
plaint and keeps us from giving trouble. And then
slowly the soul becomes alive to love ; a delicate sen-
sitiveness to human affection takes possession of the
heart ; unselfishness is the element it breathes ; a noble
patience becomes the habit of the spirit : and through
the benign influence of human love the first step
towards the restoration of belief has been made, the
soil is prepared for the work of the Spirit of God
384 The Afternoon of Life.
And tlieii, one clay, the gospel story in all its sweet
simplicity attracts and softens the sufferer's heart. He
reads of Christ. * He also, the only begotten Son, suf-
fered, and yet the heavenly Father loved Him well.
'Perhaps I too,' he says, 'may be God's son, my suffer-
ing too in some strange manner maybe a portion of His
love to me and to my fellow-men.' The thought trans-
figures pain — an ineffable, inexplicable rush of tender-
ness takes place. We know not why we should love
God. We only know we do. In that hour a bond is
made which eternity cannot dissolve ; the child finds a
Father, and the soul is saved.
And, afterwards, one other thought, the parent of
many consolations, adds its beauty to his inner life.
He reads that Christ's suffering in self-sacrifice brought
redemption unto man. Surely, he seems to dream,
that is no isolated fact. It represents what all self-
sacrifice is doing. ' And I, if I bear with love and
]3atience, may also, through my pain, be saving men,
may fill up that which is behindhand of the suffer-
ings of Christ, may carry on that enduring sacrifice by
which the race is saved. On the wings of that idea,
my solitary life is raised into a region of joy and
triumph. . I too, in my apparent uselessness, am at one
with the Great Labourer. I am not alone. I have
ties which unite me to my brethren ; my suffering links
me to the whole race ; I bear with Christ my cross for
men.'
This is not only the restoration of belief — it is the
victory of life.
But there are more dreadful shocks than that of long
The Restoration of Belief. 385
disease. There is tliat shipwreck which comes of dis-
honoured love. Many things are terrible, but none is
worse than this. To have had the whole of being dis-
solved in one cup, filled, it once seemed to us, with
waters pure as the heaven, whose very touch made life
divine ; and then to find that they were poison, which
infected and then consumed — this is the bitterness of
death held in the intensity of life ; and this, in a world
which looks so fair, is the fate of many who perish of
pain and make no sign.
There is nothing so full of ghastly irony on earth
as the way in which the fate of a man or woman's
life is often cast on a single die, risked in a single
moment ; and when the root of love from whence grows
all the beauty and fruit of the tree of life is bitten
through and through, what remains?
* When all desire at last, and all regret,
Go hand in hand to death, and all is vain ; —
What shall assuage the imforgotten pain,
And teach the unforgetful to forget ?
For some there is no remedy but death and far be-
yond, the immanent tenderness of God ; and these die
in the burning sand — poor children, cast like tender-
coloured shells, too fair and delicate for so rouo-h a
treatment, high up upon the beach by the rude storm.
For others, they live on in a devouring memory ; all the
perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten that little spot of
life for many years. And the memory poisons all belief
in God. It is the wickedest thing in the world to
corrupt and dishonour human love, for those who do it
destroy the faith of those they injure in the love of God
0
86 T/ie Afternoon of Life.
and the kindness of men. In this world the restoration
of their belief seems often beyond the great Healer's
power. The wound has been too wide and deep.
But there are many who recover, whom God leads
out of the desert into the still garden of an evening life
of peace and usefulness, and even joy. Can we at all
trace how this may be ?
Lapse of time does part of the work. If they are
strong of nature — strong to endure as strong to suffer —
if they have enough faith, not to believe in love, for that
may be too much to ask as yet, but only enough not to
deny love ; if they can wait, even with their faces down
in the sour grass of life — the soothing hand of time
touches the bitterness and it slowly dies away. But it
does not touch the memory of love. In the quietude of
middle-life we look back upon our early misery and only
remember the love we felt. The cruelty, the pain, the
fear have become, not overmastering presences, but phan-
toms which are drifting away. Our love was wasted,
was dishonoured as a gift, but in itself it was beautiful,
pure, and true, and it remains what it was. ' It was
sweet to have given all away, it was passionate pain to
have the gift thrown aside and trodden down ; but that
pain has passed, and now only the sweetness of having
given remains with me.'
That exquisite experience, one not rarely felt, so
divine is this nature of ours, is the point on which the
heavenly Father seizes — ' Yes ! my child,' He says, '• it
is no dishonour to have given and not to have received;
it is the very essence of my honour, the long experience
of my life with men. Your bitter trial has been uncon-
The Restoration of Belief. 387
scioiisly tlie image of my longsuffering.' It touclies tlip
soul home, to feel tliat when we thought ourselves
furthest from God, we were unconsciously nearest to
Him; that when our human love was set at nought, we
were closest to Him who loves against rejection and
neglect. And when God speaks to us in this way, He
speaks that which Christ acted among men. He, too,
gave all and received nothing. Pouring infinite love
on men, they despised and rejected Him. But nothing
could change his tenderness into hardness, nor turn
his charity into gall. When all his sacrifice had been
dishonoured. He bent his head and prayed, ' Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.'
And you are saved, faith is restored, hope is re-
newed, the root of love reknits its fibres, the tree of life
puts on again its robe of foliage, recovers all its fruits,
and souls are redeemed by the results of your bitter
experience, when, like Christ, you can turn and saj^,
Father, forgive him. Father, forgive her, for they knew
not what they did.
Once more, there have been and are many of us, who
are conscious that as we have passed into the later
period of life and mingled with the world, our early
faith has also passed away. To all thoughtful men this
is no slight shock.
Our young religion (and I speak of no uncommon
thing) was not only unquestioning but often enthusiastic.
It depended much on those whom we loved. For the
young believe through their affections, and their faith is
coloured by their heart. Not unfrequently, especially
7,SS The Afternoon of L ife.
witliin the last five- and -twenty years, when so many
religious movements had leaders born to attract youth,
the religion of men has been one of exalted devotion
or of poetic sentiment. But, depending much on the
personal influence of special men, and not on personal
union with God, depending more on human direction
than on individual consciousness of a Father won
through unshared and original effort, it became sub-
ject, when inevitable circumstance did away with the
direct influence of which I speak, to reaction. The
youth left the university, the girl left her home, and
met with a multitude of varying currents of opinion.
New views, embodying larger aims, bringing their
hearers more into contact with the race but bound up
with antichristian developments of thought, loosened
the ties of old religious associations and led us un-
consciously to despise the piety of the past as illiberal,
sentimental, or ignorant. Our religious feelings, which
had been without us and not within, slowly and neces-
sarily died away. The war of criticism and of science,
the endless debates, the eagerness of intellectual dis-
cussion which rage around subjects once venerated and
dear, insensibly diminished their spiritual power on
us, for feeling grows cold in an atmosphere of dialec-
tics. The tone of our society, the very literary or pro-
fessional work in which we were involved, the friends
whom we had made, the drift of the current of our
life, all combined to overthrow the building of our early
faith. We became more and more liberal, but we also
became more and more unbelieving. Finally, the day
arrived when the last tie which bound us to the religion
The Restoration of Belief . 389
of our youth was severed by some touch of the knife of
circumstance, and we realised on the sudden, with a
shock which startled us, that our soul was empty.
It is deep distress at first, and we strive to recreate
the past, to clothe our life again with the worn-out
garments. But that must fail — all retrograde move-
ments do. It does more than fail, it produces an
absolute repulsion from the old, and we swing back into
positive unbelief. We have been touching the dead, and
its touch is loathsome, however dear it was. We bury
it out of our sight now, and we are left naked of our
faith.
Are we to settle down into that ? Is that the groove
in which, now that the hair is growing thin upon our
temj)les and the shadow of the grave draws near, we
wish to run down to the end ? Are we truly, entirely
content to commit our whole wondrous life to the
embrace of nothingness ? Is that the lame and impo-
tent conclusion at which, after years of interwoven
feeling and exhaustive thought, and of effort rising day
•by day like the sun, we have finally arrived? Is that
the thing we persuade ourselves is religious in its indif-
ference to reward, and sublime in its self-sacrifice of
blessedness ? I call it ignoble to cease to work for life,
to give up the hope of life, when life means the vital
consciousness and vital action of continuous love. I
call it suicide, not sacrifice, which abjures immortality
and prefers annihilation.
In the name of Christ I ask you not to be content
with this chill phantom of religion, with this miscalled
virtue of sacrifice, which calls upon you as its first duty
390 The Afternoon of Life.
to sacrifice your personality in God. That is to turn a
virtue into a vice.
The fact is you have lost belief because your ]3ast
religion was borrowed too much from others, too much
supported by the influence of another, too little the
direct -communion of your soul with its Father and its
Educator. If you wish for perfection and are not
content to die and love no more, the restoration of
belief may be attained by the personal labour of the
soul. Resolve to rely on none, to accept of no direction
which will free you from the invigorating pain of effort.
Meet your life and its inner questions for yourself alone
with Him whose presence you dimly feel ; and strive
for the highest, and let the highest be this — to live
for ever in God that you may live for ever to ex-
pend yourself for man. Free yourself from the cant
of infidelity. It boasts of love, it boasts of liberality.
Has it no sneer, has it no fanaticism? Its church
is narrower than our strictest sect, its persecution,
had it power, would rival that of the most virulent
fanatic, unless the use it makes now of its only wea-
pons, tongue and pen, be mere playfulness. Playfulness !
Why, the foremost characteristic of our present infidelity
is an appalling absence of humour. No ; I do not find
that denial of the faith produces the growth of charity,
but the contrary, nor yet the growth of that delicate
humour which goes with gentle laughter through the
tangled difficulties of life, and conquers them by half
disbelieving in them.
It is worth trying what one personal effort to bring
ourselves into the relation of a child to a father, in all
The Restoration of Belief. 391
the naturalness and simplicity of that relation, will do
toAvards restoring faith and renewing life with tender-
ness. For this has been the fault of the religion we
have lost. This is why we lost it, that it was not simple
enough. We were not receiving the kingdom of God
as little children. We had encumbered its image with
opinions of men which we had to defend, and in defend-
ing them we ceased to see the simple kingdom of God.
We involved it with the rites and ordinances and tra-
ditions of a sect or a church, and when partisanship had
chilled charity, we ceased to see its universality. We
mixed up its simple elements with peculiar feelings of
ecstasy and remorse, and of spiritual experiences which
separated us from our fellows, and when these transient
things died away we thought that the kingdom had also
died. We placed it in the uncommon, the supernatural,
the wondrous ; we thought it was a blessing given to few.
We forgot that all great and living things are common,
natural, and only not wondrous because custom has
blinded our eyes. The air we breathe is everywhere —
the sun pours out his light and heat in universal pro-
fusion. And the kingdom of God is as universal as the
air and sunlight, is bound up with no particular church,
and demands no feelings unnatural to man. It is of
God, but it is for men. It rests in its heavenly place
far above the fret and fume of contending opinions, but
in the midst also of the heart of mankind. It reposes
on a few simple truths — the Fatherhood of God ; the
Sonhood of Mankind ; the redemption of all through
educating love ; the communion of all with one another
in the work of charity — truths so simple when they are
392 The Afternoon of Life.
grasped, so fitted for the wisest and the poorest, so enno-
bling in their impulse and their influence, so expansive
to enfold and enlighten all the realms of hnman action
and hnman feeling, that we are astonished that we have
been blind so long, and at last cr j, our heart broken with
a great joy, ' Mj Father, make me a little child.'
I know not whether we are yet wearied enough in the
times of early manhood to realise our childhood and His
Fatherhood ; but when some years have passed, and
brought with them the daily burden of life, it is a simple
yet a wonderful comfort to have a second self which is
a child ; to possess a childhood of feeling in the midst of
manhood ; and when the work of the day is passed, to
lay our folded hands upon the knees of God as once we
did upon our mother's knee, and looking up to say,
' Our Father, which art in Heaven.'
The Glory and Work of Old Age. 393
THE GLORY AND WORK OF OLD AGE.
'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy
word : for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.' — Luke ii. 29, 30.
The greatness of man is chiefly in this, that he can
say to pain, I will endure ; and to death, I will conquer
its fear ; and to old age, I will not be querulous — that
he can say and do these things.
The glory of man is chiefly in this, that Christ
enables him to go beyond the Stoic, and to say to pain,
I will not only endure but I will make suffering a step
towards progress ; and to death, I will not only conquer
its fear but open it as the portal of ampler life ; and
to old age, I will not only not be querulous but will,
therein and thereby, finish my inner development before
I go — that he can say and do these things.
To crystallise into finished perfection was the aim and
the ideal of the Stoic. To grow for ever is the aim and the
ideal of the Christian. Death ended the effort and the
pain of the Stoic. Death continues the effort, without
the pain, of the Christian. Perfection is then our object,
and life our delight. We know that both are inter-
woven, that as the power of living increases, the ideal
of perfection becomes higher ; that as we become more
perfect, we become more enraptured with life and capable
of greater pleasure in it.
394 ^^^^ Glory and Work of Old Age.
But before we enter on that delightful progress where
the aspirations and the powers of the soul are equal,
we have to pass through the parenthesis of life on
earth, and win through pain, and weakness, and deca}^
the powers which will break into easy action in the life
to come. We are here to win, not perfection, which
we cannot reach, but as much maturity as is possibLa
for us ; and on our ripening stage by stage in a pro-
gressive and natural manner, depends our power of
beginning at once in the world beyond, our race for-
ward to perfect and more perfect things.
Youth, like spring, has its own work, a work chiefly
of faithful and pure reception of beauty and joy and
goodness, and of enthusiastic delight in these. Man-
hood, like summer, has its own work, the noble expres-
sion in upright labour of the things received in youth.
The later manhood passes, like autumn, through two
phases — the phase of harvest, and the phase of entering
decay. Its work is the storing up of the results of life,
and afterwards such a resistance of the sadness which
comes of having finished all external toil, that the soul
may enter upon the winter of old age with the sense of
beauty unimpaired, though changed ; with a quiet con-
tentment in which the heart can fold its wings around
itself and dwell within their soft and silver shadow;
when life drops all its sails, like that worn-out ship,
which, after much beating on the seas, lets fall its
anchor where lofty cliff's enclose a quiet haven.
"We have dwelt before on the Christian work of youth
and manhood. We will speak to-day of the blessings
and the work of age. There is no need to praise it
The Glory a7id Work of Old Age. 395
overmucli, to represent it, as some do, as a delightful
time. The loss it brings with it is not delightful ; the
wearing out of energies and faculties is not, and cannot .
be, a source of pleasure ; but if we have enjoyed our
spring, and toiled through our summer, and half rea^^ed
and half dreamed through our autumn, and been faithful
through all to manliness and to God, it is a miserable
thing if we are to be conquered by decay at last, and
when winter comes sit wailing over the dying embers of
the fires of life.
The representation which our latest j)oet has given
of the sorrowful and hopeless sadness of old age, of the
pain of its retrospect because the joy and passion of life
can never be felt again, of the sad desire of death and
rest, without any security of life to be — but even so, of
the desire for death because life has now no interest — is
a strange contrast to this noble Jewish hymn, which,
uttered by a man of many years, has thrilled through-
out the ages to this time, and stirred by its sacred and
fine humanity in old men's hearts a quiet energy and
a tranquillising hoj)e. There is in it not sorrow, but the
conquest of sorrow ; not the ]Dain of retrospect, but the
prophetic joy; not the bitterness, but the peace and
hope of death ; not the decay of interest in the world,
but unabated hope for his country, and a vision of
redemption for others than his countrymen ; not the
seeing of sadness, but the seeing of salvation. If the
only message which modern poetry has to bring to old
age be the same effeminate tone which characterised
the poems of one only among the Greek lyrists, we had
better, when the hairs grow grey upon our heads, turn
396 The Glory and Work of Old Age.
from tlie message of this melanclioly pipe, and listen to
the manly notes of the mellow psaltery of Simeon,
' Lord, now lettest Thon thy servant depart in peace,
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.'
What, then, were the gains which blessed this old
man's age ? The first was prophetic power ; not so
much the power of foretelling, as the power of insight
into God's doings. He saw the child and he knew
that it was the Saviour of the world : ' mine eyes have
seen Thy salvation.' And in a moment, before his inward
sight, he beheld the sun of redemption rising in glor}^,
not only over his own people, but in a light which
should lighten the Gentiles also.
This is the glory of a Christian's old age — vividness
of spiritual vision. Memory is fading away, the power
of reasoning clearly is departing, passion is chilled, the
hand has lost its cunning, and the lips their eloquence,
decay has touched all physical and intellectual life, but
the spirit lives, and lives more vitally, more intensely
than ever. It does its own peculiar work better than
in youth and manhood. It sees more clearly into the
life and realities of things. It has gained security of
faith and hope for itself, and in all matters pertain-
ing to the spiritual progress of mankind it sees into
God's plans and rejoices in them.
One does not speak vaguely in saying this. The
biographies which record this strange victory over
decay, this inner life, when all the rest of the man is at
the point of death, are many. And they are found
written, not only. of the cultured and the strong in
character, but of the poor, the ignorant, and the feeble-
The Glory and Work of Old Age. 397
minded. We do not find this in any philosophy or
religion which has denied God and denied immortality,
and we find this victorionsness more distinct and
developed in Christianity than in Judaism. And more-
over, this spiritual power grows stronger in propor-
tion to the decay of the other powers, for earthly
passion and aims cloud the heavenly horizon, the
tyranny of the understanding contends against the
claims of faith, and the perfect health of the body makes
this life too precious to permit much contemplation of
the other.
I do not speak against these things, for youthful
passion, and the exercise of the understanding, and ex-
quisite health are natural, and we ought to work out
their good ; but if they are all^ what have we left when
they decay ? Nothing ! according to a modern theory —
everything ! according to the Christian thought. Their
passing away gives room for the expansion of the
spirit. This, then, is the primary gain of old age. But
it does not come into our possession unless we toil for
it. If life and its work, and the world and its pursuits,
lead us into forgetfulness of God and neglect of our
spiiut, then, when old age comes, the spirit has not
got beyond the stage of infancy. It tries to expand,
but it has never been fed, never, educated, and it
cannot do its work. But Simeon's intuitive vision
came of a life of previous holiness. He had waited
for the revelation of God's salvation, and waiting
meant a life lived with that expectation at its root.
In the midst of the work and turmoil of life he had
grown more and more like to God, and likeness of
39^ The Glory and Work of Old Age.
cliaracter to God gave him prophetic insight into God's
plans for the race, and now, when the hour of out-
ward decay had come, his spirit, which had put forth
stem, and branch, and leaves, in natural progress, sud-
denly flowered.
I would that we could so prepare ourselves for age
that we might remember in the inspiration of youth
as in the labour of manhood, that the time is coming
when our whole life will be dependent on the power of
spiritual being in us, and remembering this, labour to
train the spirit into the likeness of Christ. For,
will you have light or darkness by and by ; the power
of vision in old age, or the impotency of regret ; the
hope which maketh not ashamed, or the effeminate
despair ; the sight of the salvation of the Lord flowing
in freshening tide over all men, or the sight of your
own miserable decay usurping all the view? These
things lie in your own hands.
2. Another remarkable gain blessed the old age of
Simeon, the possession of a liberal religious view. We
find the old man set free from the exclusiveness and
bigotry of his time and of his youth. Those were
strange words upon the lips of a Jew — ' a light to
lighten the Gentiles ! ' They had been said before ;
some, in the esoteric circle of the higher Judaism, were
probably saying them now. But it was not a common
thought, nor a national thought, at the time of Christ's
coming. Those who heard Simeon would be likely to
call him a dangerous Liberal.
Some who hold the view that old age is bigoted in
opinion, will be still more surprised. But after all, youth
The Glory and Work of Old Age. 399
is more narrow and intolerant than age. We callyonng
men liberal because they give utterance to liberal
opinions. But one may hold the truth in unrighteous-
ness, and one may jprofess liberality in illiberality, and
tolerance in intolerance. Those religious or political
liberals who are always thanking God that they are not
as other men are, who consider themselves to be
emancipated, and despise others, are not free from the
charge of Pharisaism. Many young men wear their
liberalism as they wear their clothes, and it no more
belongs to their real self than their clothes do. Talk
to them, and you will find that their abuse and con-
tempt of those whom they call unenlightened and
narrow is as one-sided and intolerant as that of the
hottest of their Ojoponents. But one should not blame
them too much, for intolerance and one-sidedness are
natural to youth. It has not enough experience to be
many-sided, and a large charity is the growth of years,
the last result of many trials.
For this reason, tolerance and a wide religious view
are natural to old age, and it is very pitiable when
we find it without them. Experience of life and
knowledge of men ought to soften down the harsh-
ness of our youthful judgments. It is astonishing as
we grow older, if we have grown in wisdom of love,
how much good we discover in men whom we thought all
wrong, how much we find our severity mistaken. We
learn that there is a root of good at the centre of wrong
opinions, and we seek to draw out that good. We
learn not to judge acts till we are acquainted with
the motives which prompted them, and rather to
400 The Glory and Work of Old Age.
believe all things good of men tlian to systematically
distrust them. Nothing can be worse than the way in
which persons who profess themselves to be liberal con-
demn public men for turning back from liberal views,
and publish their condemnation on the grounds of a
single mistake or of a single speech, on which at least
two opinions are possible. Common sense would lead
one to think that a man does not reverse the acts
and thoughts of a long life in a day. Charity would
wait for further light upon the matter, but neither
common sense nor charity can keep the eager enthu-
siast for liberalism from proclaiming his liberality by
an attack upon the man who has made a slip for the
first time. He pounces at once upon the wound and
tears it open. I think that hateful.
"We leave this sort of thing behind as we grow older.
But even then we do not lose it unless there has been
charity at the root of our early harshness. There is a
severity of judgment which comes of eager love that
men should be right, there is a severity which comes
of eager desire that we should be proved right. It is
the former only which ripens into the wise tenderness
of age.
Again, there is an indifference as to what men believe
and do, which is often mistaken for breadth of view.
It does not ripen into true tolerance in age, but into
contempt of men. For its root is not charity, but the
idleness which is too slothful to form opinions, idleness
whose root is selfishness.
The true liberality of old age is not this indifference.
It is gained by the entrance of the soul into the large
The Glory and Work of Old Age. 40 1
region of the love of God, by deeper communion
with the infinite variety of the character of Christ.
Hence the old man, at one with simple and majestic
jorinciples, passes by the transient forms into which
ideas are thrown by religious men, and looks for the
spirit in which men work, and judges them by that ;
hence he lays aside the outside peculiarities of men's
characters which would have jarred him in youth, and
searches directly for the motives and ideas of the
character ; hence the temporary currents on the sur-
face of public afi'airs, and the local outbursts of evil, do
not much cloud his view of the fortunes of Man ; he
looks deeper, and sees the vast main current sweeping
towards God, he finds beneath the evil the infinite foun-
tain of good. The evils and sufferings of the world lose
their harsh outlines, and their dread, and pain, and are
placed in the inner light of thought. They are there
seen along with the good and joy of the world, till at
last the vision of the great whole dawns upon the soul,
and the man learns to see God moving as a spirit
in all history, and Christ endeavouring in all men's
hearts.
Then he can bend his head to the blow of death, not
in bitterness of anger that humanity has failed, not in
selfish indifference to the welfare of mankind, but in a
sweet contentment that all things are working together
for good, that the Mankind for which and with which
he has worked and suffered like a brother, may be left
with perfect confidence in the hands of perfect love,
that salvation has come and is coming unto all, not only
to favoured, but to neglected races ; for to him the spirit
18
402 The Glory and Work of Old Age.
of Simeon's plirase is ever true, that Christ is a light to
lighten the Gentiles, as well as the glory of his people
Israel.
So he wins the crowning blessing of old age — deep
peace. ' Lord, now lettest Thon thy servant depart in
peace, according to thy word.'
We cannot win that till just before the close. We
long for rest to our unquiet heart and brain, all through
the later days of youth. We must not have it then ;
for had we not our restlessness, how should we overcome
the natural slothfulness of 3"0uth ? We desire in a
more passionate way, in our manhood, for rest from
the burden of this world ; for some relief from the
torrent of anger, and doubt, and passion, and thought,
which, far deeper and more impetuous than ever in
youth, sweeps over the fields of the heart — whenever
toil, relaxed for a moment, gives us leave, in the slumber
of the will, to feel our wants and to question our destiii}'.
But there is no peace for us then. We must work
out our own thought, and that in solitude, for we
have passed by the time when, as in youth, we could
seek for sympath}^ in these things, and entrust our
secrets to another. And the pain and the battle grow
heavier and heavier as life gets nearer to old age,
for day by day we lose the force which enabled us to
distract ourselves in toil. Day by day the inward pain
is increased by the outward efibrt to recall decaying
energy. It is our duty to wage the battle to the end,
and our best comfort, apart from Christ, is that not to
wage it, and to give in, is worse than to go on. But,
if God be true, and Christianity be not a dream, every
The Glory and Work of Old Age. 403
hour of the figlit is storing up in us the capabilities
of active peace when the warfare is accomplished.
It is these capabilities which begin to rise within us
into victory over restlessness when old age has come.
We can contend no more — we have scarcely anything left
to contend against ; we have slain all our foes in the
power of Christ ; we have exhausted all our doubts ; and
as the clouds disperse, the star of hope rises soft and
clear in the pale pure light of the heavenly dawn. We
look on it, and are at rest ; we lay down our armour ;
we lie back contented in the arms of God. We whisper,
humbly, with S. Paul, ' I have fought the good fight.'
We know that the dawn-star of hope will melt away
when the sun rises on our new life, but it will melt in
the light of absolute realisation. We have seen, at
last, God's salvation, and we cry with Simeon, ' Lord,
now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace.'
This, then, is what we are and what we receive from
God, as age draws on. This is the result of the work
of God upon us.
But is there no personal business which we ourselves
are bound to do in age?' This is our last subject, the
special work of age. It is partly outward, partly in-
ward.
Its outward work is the spreading of charity. Old
age should radiate charity from it, till the atmos^^here
of the whole household and the society in which it lives
be warm with its gracious influence. Men, women, and
children should feel softened, and be bettered, by the
presence of its kindliness.
Again, it is the usage of experience for the help of
404 The Glory and Work of Old Age.
otliers. Age should not surrender from weariness of
life its right of giving sympathy, its power of forming
in its calm, and from its long experience, wise judgments
for the troubled lives of others. It ought not to claim
its infirmity as a reason for harshness, or for want of
tender interest. And that it ma}^ be able to do the
good I mention, and to avoid the evil, it ought as much
as possible to live with the young. Else its tendency is
to be absorbed in its own weaknesses and wants ; to
lose interest in the actual movements of the world, and
especially in those movements which are initiated by
the young, which, though sometimes ill-considered
and foolish, are yet the germs of that which will be,
and have at least the one imj^ortant quality of life.
Next to the sad spectacle of seeing a young man mock
the wisdom and despise the warnings of old age, is the
spectacle of an old man who has only indifference for
the enthusiasm and contempt for the ideas of the
young.
The inward work of age is, however, the most impor-
tant. After a time, the outward influence of which I
have spoken becomes less and less ; less direct at least,
more indirect. The old man, the old woman, becoming
weaker, and unable to share in earthly things, retire into
their inner being, and live there a wonderful and vivid
life. It is often said that we know not all the strange
solitary life of children. I do not know if we think
enough of the stranger and more solitary life which fills
the heart of age. More solitary in the present, but oh,
how peopled with the past ! What vivid dreams, what
memories of enthusiasm, of scenes where young love
The Glory and Work of Old Age, 405
moved in luminous air, of early sorrows, of dramas in
wliich life concentrated itself for a few months into
tragedy or comedy; wliat recollections of friendships
which sailed with us over the ocean of life, and there
sank or parted, but left with us new feelings, new
thoughts, sweet tendernesses, dearer now than ever to
the silent heart. What holier memories too are oars,
when, in the calm of age, we look back to the place
where God first touched our heart, and we set up our
Bethel in its plain ; where the blessedness of forgive-
ness in Christ, and the love of Christ, first made us
new ; when, as we went on, temptation met us and He
enabled us to conquer, or, if We failed, to begin again ;
when we grew divinely conscious of an inner Spirit
with us, and that assurance of eternal life began which
years have only deepened. Oh ! none are less alone,
none have a more sweet and vivid life, than many a
silent man and woman in the years of age.
And here we touch on one portion of the inner work
which old age has to do — the edifying of the heart in
noble religion by consideration of the past. Fate cannot
rob the old of remembrance : the memory of love and
joy, of friendship and companionship, is always sweet;
and if the memory be one of sorrow, one may still not be
unhappy if the sorrow has become an intimate part of
life, cherished for its results and for the tenderness with
which it was linked — -since now the pain of it has gone
with the decay of passion. One by one the events of
life are traced in quiet retrospection, one by one they
fall into a kind of religious order ; their causes are
seen, their meaning, and their relation to one another
4o6 The Glory and Work of Old Age.
and to tlie whole of life 5 till at last the conviction that
a Father has been leading him all his life long is fixed
m the old man's mind. He sees that everything in the
2^ast has been ripening him, that he has been made
slovrlj more complete. Then breaks upon him as never
before the assurance of immortality. ' Can this long-
work of God's be for nought ? can this education, every
hour of which was weighty with meaning, end in the
grave ? Is my spirit, at the very moment when it is
most conscious of completion, nearest to extinction P It
is impossible.'
Thus does life in the j^ast confirm faith in the
Fatherhood of God, and make an immortal future real.
Thus, in spiritual brooding over past and future, the
experience of the one and the faith in the other unite
in one divine and glorious hope.
Once more. The inward work of old age consists iji
rounding the soul into as great perfection as possible,
in filling up the broken edges of the sphere of life, in
consolidating the world of our ideas. When we reach
old age, we are conscious, if we are desirous of per-
fection, of a certain absence of finish in our qualities
and in our Christian graces. It is vain to say that
this consciousness implies a diseased self-introspec-
tion. For introspection which would be morbid in
youth and manhood is natural to old age. Unless
inordinately indulged in, no evils follow from it then.
The old man must live much alone. He cannot
do better than prayerfully seek to fulfil what is yet
wanting in his faith, in his charity, in his holiness —
drawing nearer and nearer to conformity with his
The Gloiy and Work of Old Age, 407
Saviour and liis friend ; making himself, tlirougli his
daily companionship with the Spirit of God, more ready
for the everlasting life with God.
Nor can he do better than consolidate and harmonise
into a whole the ideas he has gained in life. Many are
useless — these he will reject ; many are noble, and have
on them the impress of eternity — these he will return to
and dwell on till they become interwoven with his
being, possessions for evQr. For ideas belong to the
sjDiritual nature. All else will be left behind us when
we die ; but these endure, these we shall take with us.
Let us watch and work, that our eternal companions
be worthy of us and of the life to come. ISTo aim in
old age can be nobler than to arrive at death with a
spirit enriched and matured by the possession of puri-
fied ideas. No aim in youth and manhood can be
better than the winning of them.
From this sort of work arises a clear spiritual activity
entirely independent of outward decay. It belongs to the
inner life ; it does not weary like intellectual activity ;
it is more like the easy breathing of a clear atmosphere
than any strenuous labour. In it the mind is cheerful
and hopeful. It blends easily with every emotion, and
heightens emotion without the pain of excitement. In
itself it has an arranging power, so that life harmonised
under its influence is seen as a well-ordered landscape
on which the sun of God's love is shining. In wonder,
and in joy that he has been so cared for, and so led
into maturity, aU thought of self passes from the old
man's life, and he throws his whole being in gratitude at
the feet of his Saviour and his God. It is, in fact, the
4o8 The Glory and Work of Old Age.
first touch, eveu before death, of the pure and perfect
life, the first faint throb of the exquisite existence into
which he is going to enter, the half-realisation on the
borders of the world of light, while yet within the
glimmering shadow, of what communion with God may
mean. Then indeed he feels what Simeon felt when
the long-repressed cry rose to his lips, for he sees the
very Christ : ' Lord, now lettest Thou thy servant
depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salva-
tion.'
CowLEs's Notes on the Old Testameni
I. THE 3IIKOR PROPHETS.
1 vol., 12mo. $2.00.
II. EZEKIEL ANH HANIEZ,
1 vol., 12mo. $2.25.
III. ISAIAH.
1 vol., 12mo. $2.25.
JF. PROVERBS, ECCLESIASTES, AND
THE SONG OF SOLOMOm
1 vol., 12mo. $2.00.
F. NOTES ON JEREMIAH.
1 vol., 12mo. $2.25.
By Rev. HENRY COWLES, D. D.
From The Christian Intelligencer^ N, T.
" These works are desii£^ed for both pastor and people. They embody the re-
snlts of much research, and elucidate the text of sacred Scripture with admirable
force and simplicity. The learned professor, having devoted many years to th«
close and devout study of the Bible, seems to have become thoronirhly furniBhed
vrith all needful materials to produce a useful and trustworthy coiiiinent;iry."
From Dr. Leonard Bacon, of Yah College.
" There is. within my knowledi^'e. no other work ou the same portions of th«
Bible, combining so much of the results of accurate scholarship with so >auch com-
22on-sense and so uiuch of a practical and devotional spirit."
From Rev. Dr. S. Wolcoft, of Cleveland, Ohio.
"The author, who ranks as a scholar with the most eminent graduates of Tele
College, has devoted j'ears to the study of the Sacred Scriptures in the original
tongues, and the fruits of careful and independent research appear in this work
With sound scholarship the writer combines the unction of deep reUgious expe-
rience, an earnest love of the truth, with a remarkable freedom from all fanciful
jpcculation. a candid judgment, and the faculty of expressing his thoughts clearlj
snd forcibly."
Fro7n President E. B. Fairfield, of ITilUdale College.
-*! am very much pleased with your Commentary. It meets awant-nhich
aa* long l^ct-n felt. For various reasons, the wi-itings of the prophets have const'
i-nled II sealed book to a large part of the ministry as wsll as most of the common
people. They ai'e not sufficitntiy understood to' make them appreciated. Yooj
trltif notes relieve them of all tlic-ir want of interest to commoa re&'lers. I tbiatr
van. kave M.id ^ast enoocrh.'''
** A rich list of fruitful topics.''
Boston Commonwealth.
HEALTH AND EDUCATION,
By the Rev. CHARLES KINGSLEY, F. L. S., F. G. S.,
CANON OF WESTMINSTER.
i2mo. Cloth Price, $1.75.
"It is most refreshing to meet an earnest soul, and such, preeminently, is Charles
Kingsley, and he has shown himself such in every thing he has written, from ' Alton
Locke ' and ' Village Sermons,' a quarter of a century since, to the present volume, which
is no exception. Here are fifteen Essays and Lectures, excellent and interesting in
different degrees, but all exhibiting the author's peculiar characteristics of thought
and style, and some of them blending most valuable instruction with entertainment,
as few living writers can." — Hartford Post.
"That the title of this book is not expressive of its actual contents, is made mani-
fest by a mere glance at its pages; it is, in fact, a collection of Essays and Lectures,
written and delivered upon various occasions by its distinguished author; as such it
cannot be otherwise than readable, and no intelligent mind needs to be assured that
Charles Kingsley is fascinating, whether he treats of Gothic Architecture, Natural
History, or the Education of Women. The lecture on Thrift, which was intended for
the women of England, may be read with profit and pleasure by the women of
everywhere." — St. Louis Dcmoc?'at.
" The book contains exactly what every one needs to know, and in a form which
every one can understand." — Boston yoitrnal.
" This volume no doubt contains his best thoughts on all the most important topics
of the day." — Detroit Post.
" Nothing could be better or more entertaining for the family library'." — Z ion's
Herald.
" For the style alone, and for the vivid pictures frequently presented, this latest
production of Mr. Kingsley commends itself to readers. The topics treated are
mostly practical, but the manner is alwaj^s the manner of a master in composition.
Whether discussing the abstract science of health, the subject of ventilation, the
education of the different classes that form English society, natural history, geolog3%
heroic aspiration, superstitious fears, or personal communication with Nature, we
find the same freshness of treatment, and the same eloquence and affluence of language
chat distinguish the productions in other fields of this gifted author." — Boston Gazette.
B. APPLETON & CO., Publishers,
549 & 551 Broadway, N. Y.
Sir HENSY HOLLAND'S BECCLLECTIOKS.
RECOLLECTIONS OF PAST LIFE
By Sir HJENMY HOLLAND, Hart.,
1 vol., 12mo, CJoth. 350 pp. Price, $2.
From the London Lancet.
" The ' Life of Sir Henry Holland ' is one to be recollected, ^nd he has not erred
!n giving an outline of it to the public. In the very nature of thinjrs it is such a
Site as CJinnot often be repeated. Even if there were many men in the profession
captable of living to the a^e of eighty-four, and then writing their life with fair
hope of further travels, it is not reasonable to expect that there could ever 1)6
more than a very few lives so full of incidents worthy of being recorded auto-
eraphically as the marvellous life which we are fresh from perusing. TIir com-
bination of personal qualities and favorable opportunities in Sir Henry Holland's
case is as rare as it is happy. But that is one reason for recording the history of
it. Sir Henry's life cannot be very closely imitated, but it may be closely studied.
We have found the study of it, as recorded in the book just published, one of the
most delightful pieces of recreation which we have enjoyed for many days. . .
Among Ins patients were pachas, princes, and premiers. Prince Albert, Na-
poleon in., Talleyrand, Pozzo di Borgo, Guizot, Palmella, Bulovv, and Drouyn
de Lhuj'S, Jefferson Davis, Lord Sidmouth, Lord Stowell, Lord Melbourne, Lord
Palmerston, Lord Aberdeen, Lord Lansdovvne, Lord Lyndhurst, to say nothing
of men of other note, were among his patients."
F7V7n the London Spectator.
"We constantly find ourselves recalling the Poet Laureate's modernized
Ulysses, the great wanderer, insatiate of new experiences, as we read the story
of the octogenarian traveller and his many friends in many lands :
' I am become a name ;
. For always roaming with a hungry heart.
Much have I seen and known. Cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least and honored of them all.'
You see in this book all this and more than this— knowledge of the world, and
insatiable thirst for more knowledge of it, great clearness of aim and exact ap-
preciation of the mind's own wants, precise knowledge of the self-sacrifices need-
ed to gratify those wants and a readiness for those sacrifices, a distirict adoption
of an economy of life, and steady adherence to it from beginning to end— all of
them characteristics which are but rare in this somewhat confused and hand-to-
mouth world, and which certainly when combined make a unique study of char-
acter, however indirectly it may be presented to us and however little attention
may be drawn to the interior of the picture."
From the Neio York Times.
" His memory was— is, we may say, for he is still alive and in possession of
all his faculties — stored with recollections of the most eminent men and women
of this century. He has known the intimate friends of Dr. Johnson. He travelled
in Albania when Ali Pacha ruled, and has since then explored almost every part
of the world, except the far East. He has made eight visits to this country, and
at the age of eighty-two (in 1869) he was here again — the guest of Mr. Evarts, and,
while in this city, of Mr. Thurlow Weed. Since then he has made a voyage to
Jamaica and the West India Islands, and a socond visit to Iceland. He was a
friend of Sir Walter Scott, Lockhart, Du^ald Stewart, Mme. de Stael, Byron,
Moore, Campbell, Kogers, Crab'ie, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Talleyrand, Svdney
Smith, Macaulay, Hallam, Mackintosh, Multhus, Erskine, Humboldt, Schlegel,
Oanova, Sir Humphry Davy, Joanna Baillie, Lord and Lady Holland, and many
other distinguished persons whose names would occupy a column. In this coun-
try he has known. amon» other celebrated men, Edward Everett, Daniel Webster,
/I(;ary Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Seward, etc. He was born the same year in which
jt)o United States Constitution was ratified. A life extending over such a period,
snd passed in the most active mann^% in the midst of the best society which the
world has to ofi"er, must necessarily be full of singular interest; and Sir Henry
Holland has fortunately not waited until his memory lost its freshness before
^calllne some of the incidents in it."
PRIMARY TRUTHS OF RELIGION.
By Right Rev. THOMAS M. CLARK, D. D., LL. D.,
* BISHOP OF EHODE ISLAITD-,
1 vol,, 12mo. Price, Sl.OO.
From the AlUgemeine Literarsche Zeitung, Berlin :
"We find in this book of the Bishop of Ehode Island a contribution to Christian
apolofretics of great interest and value. The book discusses, in five parts, the problems
of Theism, the fundamental principles of morals, revelation, inspiration, and Chris-
tianity. The great questions pertaining to these several heads Bishop Clark has most
satisfactorily solved with a genuine philosophical spirit, and on the basis of compre-
hensive stuilies. The work gives evidence throughout of the author's tamiliarity with
the fundamental problems of the philosophy of religion. The Bishop is, without
doubt, an eloquent and original thinker; and his woi-k, which, in its logical dcvek)p-
ment, is acute, and clear, and precise, will enchain the interest of the readers lor whom
it has' been written. As a short but exhaustive book for doubters, we greet this pro-
duction of one of the most distinguished members of the American Episcopate, and
wish for it an abiding success."
From the En(/lish Churchman and Clerical Journal, London:
" Bishop Clark has published this pithy treatise to meet the unsettled state of mind
of his own countrymen in relation to the ' fundamental principles of faith and morals.'
The language is "admirably lucid and clear, and the meaning of the writer is never
buried under profound and technical phraseology, too often used in such works. Cler-
gymen will find it excellently fitted for teaching to thoughtful working-men in their
parishes."
From the Church Opinion, London:
"Bishop Clark's work is invaluable, as it is not written in a style above the capabili-
ties of the general public, but, in words easy to be understood, refutes the doctrines
of Positivism."
From a review in the Literary World, London:
" We welcome this book from the pen of an American Bishop. Dr. Clark has done
well in this volume on 'The Primary Truths of Kehgion.' With clearness, concise-
ness, logical force, breadth of tone, wise discrimination, convincing statement, he deals
with fundamental facts. Indeed, the whole work is one which may be put into the
hand of anv thoughtful, sincere unbeliever in the great truths with which it deals.
Its candor "will awaken admiration, and its reasoning lead to faith."
From the yew York Erprefm :
"The author of this valuable little work is a distinguished Bishop of the Protes-
tant EpiscopalChurch. and has conferred a benefit on his co-religionists and on earnest
Christians generally, by the production of this estimable hand-book of Orthodoxy,
Avoiding dogmatic" theology, he clearly and with great eloquence presents tlie scrip-
tural and historical evidences in fovor of revealed rehgion. meeting the cavils of ob-
lectors with calm and well-digested arguments that will claim attention from even
the most confirmed skeptics. The chapters on the evidences of the great truths of
Christianity are especially worthy of commendation. Indeed, the whole work will
prove an acceptable addition to the controversial religious literature of the day."
From the Boston Transcript :
"This clear and candid treatise is not dogmatic, but entirely true to its title. The
writer, in a jjlain and lucid stj'le, addresses himself to the unsettled condition of mind
which prevails so extensively' in regard to the doctrines that underhe all our 'Systeii;s
of Divinitv.' His answers to fundamental questions are given in a catholic spirit tlirit
recognizes' the fact that doubt is not sinful in itself, and there is no httle skepticism
whicli is to be treated with sympathetic and rational consideration."
From The Living Church:
"The book of the Bishop of Ehode Island is timel.y. It is of a kind which the
chui'ch needs. It is fair, honest, and open. It does not sneer at what it does not un-
derstand. It addresses itself in simple and honest terms to honest and thoughtful
men. It is calm and judicial. It states opposing views -svith great fairness ; it takes
up a position which must command respect, and it states it in terms which are moder-
ate, and sliow appi-eciation of the force of opposing views.''
New Yokk : D. APPLETON & CO.. Pttblisheks, 549 & 551 Broadway.
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