BL 200 .V69 1895 
 Voysey, Charles. 
 Theism as a science of 
 natural theology and 
 
THEISM AS A SCIENCE 
 
 OP 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY AND 
 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
THEISM AS A SCIENCE 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY AND NATUEAL 
 EELIGION. 
 
 EEV. CHAELES VOYSEY, B.A., 
 
 ST. EDMUND HALL, OXFORD ; FORMERLY VICAR OF HEALAUGH, 
 YORKSHIRE ; MINISTER OF THE THEISTIC CHURCH. 
 
 WILLIAMS AND NORGATE, 
 
 H, HENRIETTA STREET, CO VENT GARDEN, LONDON; 
 
 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH ; 
 
 AND 7, BROAD STREET, OXFORD. 
 
 1895. 
 
 Price Half-a-Crown. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 WERTHEIMER, LEA AND CO/ 
 
 CIRCUS PLACE, LONDON WALL, E.C. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 -♦- 
 
 LECTURE I. P.GK 
 
 Introduction 1-12 
 
 LECTURE 11. 
 The Attributes of God 13-22 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 Pain and its Uses 23-32 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 The Moral Nature of Man in Relation to 
 
 Pain 33-43 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 The Conscience and the Moral Codes . 44-56 
 
 LECTURE VI. 
 The Faculty of Love in Man . . . 57-68 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 The Love of God in Relation to the 
 
 Phenomena of Death 69-80 
 
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 The Future Life 81-90 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 On the Term " Personal " as applied to 
 
 God . . 91-101 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 The Place of Human Cruelty in the 
 
 Divine Government of the World . 102-111 
 
 LECTURE XL 
 Theism as a Religion 112-124 
 
 Appendix 125-134 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 By way of Preface to the following Lectures on 
 Theism as a Science^ it may be interesting to 
 state how they came to be written. 
 
 The Principal of a Christian College, eminent 
 for his learning and piety, told me that, after 
 reading my little book, Theis?u, or the Religinii 
 of Common Sense ^ he thought it "scrappy" and 
 not sufficiently systematised ; he also observed 
 that Theism as Natural Religion deserved a better 
 treatment, that a text-book, unfolding its prin- 
 ciples in an orderly manner, might prove useful 
 in colleges and schools. 
 
 In consequence of his suggestion the following 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 Lectures were written, and I liope they will not only 
 be read but ruthlessly criticised, so that any errors 
 may be corrected and omissions supplied. 
 
 I have added, as an Appendix, a very thought- 
 ful letter addressed to me on some of the points 
 raised in these Lectures. 
 
 CHARLES VOYSEY. 
 
 St. Valery, Hampstbad, 
 Se^Jtemler, 1895. 
 
THEISM, AS A SCIENCE. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 Theism, or Natural Theology, is the Science of 
 God. It has three aspects. In the first place, it 
 is a statement o£ what may be known concern- 
 ing God, or surely believed on good reasonable 
 grounds. But, in the very instant of positing 
 that, Theism comes into collision with Atheism, 
 which denies the very existence of a God, and with 
 Agnosticism, which denies that anything can be 
 known concerning God. The third aspect of 
 Theism is that it comes into open conflict with 
 many doctrines derived from so-called Revelation, 
 and destroys the very foundation of Revelation 
 altogether. If Theism or Natural Theology be 
 proved to be reasonable and true, it renders Reve- 
 lation superfluous ; and where it is not superfluous, 
 it is shown to be misleading and false. No treatise 
 of Theism would, in my opinion, be complete, 
 unless it be more than a mere statement of its 
 
positive beliefs. It must also meet Atheism and 
 Agnosticism and refute tliem. It must also prove 
 both its independence of so-called Revelation and 
 its superiority to it. 
 
 Our first step in this treatise must be to recall 
 the resources on which we entirely depend for any 
 knowledge at all. I use the term " we " simply to de- 
 note average sensible men and women : for it is onlv 
 to such that any argument can be addressed. AVe 
 have three faculties of our common human nature 
 which are universally regarded as higher in function 
 and in importance than our bodily faculties. Rea- 
 son, Conscience and Love are the names ordinarily 
 given to these three higher faculties of our nature. 
 Every one knows what is meant by them. Of 
 Reason, or the thinking faculty, nothing need be 
 said, because there is little or no ambiguity about 
 the term ; but of Conscience, or the sense of duty, 
 it is needful to say something by way of caution 
 and definition. Conscience must not be confounded 
 with a code or codes of morals. These codes have 
 their origin in reason and experience, and differ 
 somewhat under different skies and in different 
 aofes. Conscience does not chano-e. It is the 
 same always and everywhere — the feeling that 
 we ought to do what we think to be right and 
 not to do what we think to be wrong. It is the 
 sense of duty, the sense which we express by the 
 words " I ought " and " I ought not." Love, alas ! 
 is also a word very often misused, even degraded 
 
and profaned. But in this argument " Love " will 
 be used to denote the desire to bestow real welfare. 
 It is much more than that, which we cannot put 
 into words ; but less than that, true love cannot be. 
 Eeason, the thinking faculty, Conscience and Love 
 constitute our chief sources of all knoAvledo-e what- 
 ever ; and, therefore, are in still greater rec[uisition 
 when we are searchino; for knowledo-e of thino-s 
 invisible, spiritual and divine. Each faculty has 
 its sphere of special application, but all work in 
 harmony in such a quest as the pursuit of the 
 knowledge of God. 
 
 To these faculties some would add what they 
 call " the religious instinct," the sense of awe, the 
 universal tendency to create gods, to personify and 
 deify the powers of Nature, and to fear or court 
 the favour of departed ancestors. I purposely 
 leave out this " religious instinct " from my cate- 
 gory of resources, because it is too imaginative, 
 and has been proved by history to be the source of 
 the wildest and most pernicious superstition. It 
 has more often created devils than gods. My con- 
 tention is that average sensible men and women 
 have within themselves the sources of an adequate, 
 though limited, knowledge of God ; and that those 
 sources are the mind, the conscience and the pure 
 affections. This is the ground on which it is 
 claimed that Theism or Natural Theology is based 
 on facts which no one feels inclined to dispute. 
 This is why Theism is called " Theology," or a 
 
 B 2 
 
science of God. This is why it is called "Natural" 
 Theology, or a science based exclusively upon 
 natural facts, and in strict harmony with them. 
 
 Having our tools ready and bright, let us begin 
 by answering the challenge of Atheism — "Theism 
 is only a pretended science, for it rests on the pure 
 assumption that there is a God." Now, we must 
 either give substantial proof that there is a God, 
 or cease to prate about a science concerning that 
 which has no existence at all, or the existence of 
 which is a pure assumption. 
 
 AVhen Eobinson Crusoe, believing himself to be 
 on a desert island and its only human inhabitant, 
 saw the prints of another human foot (not his own) 
 on the sands, it was an absolute proof that another 
 man had been on the spot. Human beings are so 
 constituted that they are compelled to admit the 
 force of evidence like that. The evidence for the 
 existence of God is precisely similar in kind, 
 though immeasurably stronger in both quantity 
 and degree. The whole world of phenomena 
 known to us is one vast and varied collection of 
 proofs that there is a living God behind the 
 phenomena, and without whose will they could not 
 not be. Proofs of what ? and proofs to whom ? 
 Proofs of the existence of a superhuman Being 
 who knows and wills. Proofs to those beings who 
 have experience in themselves of knowledge and 
 will. Such an One, apart from all moral attributes, 
 purely on the ground of His manifested knowledge 
 
and purpose, we call God. We are forced to 
 recognise the vastly snperior power, deeper wisdom, 
 and higher skill than any power, wisdom or skill of 
 human beings. \Ye are forced to see that there is 
 only one such superhuman Being ruling and order- 
 ing the complex forces of nature ; that He has no 
 rival, that He sits alone and supreme as Lord and 
 Governor of the universe. But, inasmuch as some 
 persons find it difficult to realise this fact regarding 
 the world as a whole, like that legendary man who 
 " could not see the forest for the trees," it will he 
 useful, if not al)solutely necessary, to give the 
 proof of the existence of God from one simple and 
 common object within reach of ordinary observa- 
 tion, just as Robinson Crusoe saw the proof of 
 another man having visited the island in the foot- 
 prints on the sand. If we can divest our minds of 
 all foreo'one conclusions it will be all the better. 
 
 -"o 
 
 Here are two beings standing, as it were, face 
 to face. Here is a man. There is a tree. We 
 know that the man is a being possessed of reason, 
 mind, or intelligence. He looks at and thinks 
 about a tree in order to learn what the tree can 
 teach him. He first notices what the tree has in 
 common with himself. It is an organised body. 
 It is alive. It lives, like himself, only when within 
 reach of atmospheric air. It sprang from a seed. 
 It depends largely on sunshine. It grows. It 
 bears fruit, i.e., seed. It is reproductive. It is 
 also sure, like himself, to die. 
 
Having taken stock of tlie likenesses, lie tlien 
 notices the unlikenesses. He can move from 
 place to place ; the tree is fastened to one 
 spot. He derives his nourishment from animals 
 and vegetables. The tree is nourished by the 
 earth and v^^ater direct from the soil, and 
 still more by the atmospheric air. The man's 
 breathing differs also from the breathing of the 
 tree — at all events during sunlight. He breathes- 
 in oxvo-en and breathes- out carbon. The tree does 
 the reverse. 
 
 For immediate purposes, the tree differs from 
 the man in uses. He has numberless functions to 
 fulfil, not one of which could be fulfilled by the 
 tree. The few obvious functions of the tree cannot 
 be fulfilled at all by the man. The tree may serve 
 for shade and for the nestling of birds, it may 
 serve to l)ear fruit for food, or, when cut down, for 
 timber or fuel, or, when sunk for myriads of years, 
 to form coal. The man has no such purpose to 
 serve, nor ever will have. Well, by this time the 
 man sees that he is not a tree, nor the tree a 
 man ; and yet both of them are there, side by side, 
 without their will. Neither of them were con- 
 sulted before birth whether they would like to be 
 born at all ; much less whether one should be a 
 man and the other only a tree. Neither could the 
 tree nor the man make themselves, or make the 
 origins from which they sprang ; or cause them- 
 selves to difier or to resemble each other in any 
 
particular. The man conscious of powers and 
 wisdom vastly greater than those of the tree, 
 Ivnows that, were his powers and wisdom to be 
 multiplied a thousand times, he could never make 
 a tree himself, or give life to anything which had 
 not life ; still less would he he able to endow men 
 and trees and a multitude of other creatures with 
 power to propagate their own species. Moreover, 
 just as the tree is rooted in the ground, and lives 
 by nourishment drawn from the soil and water and 
 the air, so is the marvel of its existence rooted in 
 many sciences. Not only mathematics, dynamics, 
 geology, chemistry, botany and biology, but even 
 astronomy also, enter into the calculation of how the 
 tree came to be there at all, and why it is exactly 
 what it is and not something else. The widest know- 
 ledge in man is not nearly equal to the variety and 
 the depth of the problems which the tree involves. 
 
 What, then, is the inevitable conclusion of 
 the man after this examination of the tree ? 
 It is proved to him that both he and the tree 
 are not mere accidents and sports of Nature, 
 but products, designedly made for different pur- 
 poses, designedly made in some things to resemble 
 each other, designedly made in other things to 
 differ. Whoever it be that produced these two 
 products, or either of them, was One who knows 
 and wills. It was some intelligent Being who 
 really knows the difference between a man and a 
 tree ; who had a purpose or purposes in causing 
 
8 
 
 each to live, and who kiieAV how to carry out His 
 intention. You may call such a Being by any 
 name you please (we call Him God, and we say 
 Him instead of It to denote the fact that He is 
 livino^ and knowino- and willins; now as ever, that 
 He is not an unconscious thing). I say, call Him 
 what you like. But no one in his senses will dare 
 to denv the existence of such a Beino; ; nor can 
 any Agnostic, thereafter, say that God is absolutely, 
 wholly, unknowable ; for He is now known to have 
 power and purposes, and therefore to be an in- 
 telligent Being — One who knows and understands 
 what He is doing and for what ends. If people who 
 call themselves Atheists or Agnostics, and whO' 
 object to this idea of a personal God, would just try 
 to realise what is exclusively meant by the T heist 
 when he calls God " personal," they would see that 
 all grosser anthropomorphism is banished from the 
 term, and all that is left is the idea of a God who 
 knows, who is i3erfectly aware of the difference 
 between a man and a tree, and, therefore, between 
 one man and another ; a God who knows ante- 
 cedents and knows consequents, who manifests 
 purposes and fulfils many before our eyes, though 
 manv more are too far-reachino- for our siijht or 
 thought. We are compelled moreover to conclude 
 that mind or intelligence does exist and work,, 
 apart from and independently of a human brain. 
 Henceforth, it will be absurd to think that brains 
 are essential to intellio;ence or to its activitv. To 
 
a living man the l^rain is essential, but not to a 
 Living God. The foregoing proofs of the intel- 
 ligence of God compel us to say, further, that 
 an unconscious God, an ignorant God, a God 
 without a mind and without a plan — all these are 
 contradictions in terms, and have no right to dis- 
 port themselves as philosophical. And therefore 
 the denial of them, the admission of their absurdity, 
 stultifies the position of those who go on repeating 
 that nothing concerning God can be known. I say, 
 that, given only a man and a tree, we must, if we 
 wish to be considered sensible men and women, 
 admit that they are both products of a Conscious 
 Being who had a purpose in producing them ; in 
 other words, they are products of an intelligent 
 will. If the tree will not suffice to explain to a 
 man the origin of the forest of God's works in the 
 universe, and that wdiich is meant bv intellio;ent 
 purpose manifested throughout all phenomena, 
 nothing ever will. The fault will lie in the man, 
 in the obscuration of his faculties, in a kind of 
 mental blindness for which there is certainly no 
 cure in logic, but Avhich will one day be cured by 
 blessed influences far transcending our poor finite 
 reasoning and words. " A man convinced against 
 his will is of the same opinion still," is a proverb 
 expressing the difficulty which some minds feel 
 in accepting a conclusion correctly drawn from 
 premisses which they admit to be true. I cannot 
 therefore expect to convince everybody in the 
 
10 
 
 world by my logic. All I expect to do, and hope 
 to succeed in doing, is to silence opponents, and to 
 make it impossible for an objector to give any 
 reasonable refutation of my demonstration. 
 
 Whatever object in Xature clear!}' manifests to 
 to the human mind a purpose for its existence, or 
 purpose in its organisation, proves the pre-existence 
 of an Intelligent Being who has caused it to be 
 what it is and to do what He intended it to do. 
 
 An important objection to what is called the 
 Argument from Design has been kindly put for 
 my consideration in the following words : — 
 
 "There is a difficulty raised by some with reference to the 
 Design Argument. It is stated with reasoning which I cannot 
 see my way out of, though at the same time I cannot accept it, 
 that every sign of design is in itself so much proof of want of 
 power in God ; that design implies dealing (with a certain 
 amount of wisdom and poAver greater than our own) with diffi- 
 culties which already existed and which were out of His power 
 to alter in themselves. In fact, that He had to deal with the 
 eternal and uncaused matter and force already in existence, and 
 that the fact of adapting means to ends proves God to be Second 
 and not First." 
 
 By way of answer to this objection, let us first 
 recall what I have set forth as the Aro-ument from 
 
 o 
 
 Design. It is simply this : If any object shows 
 purpose in its construction, or purpose in its uses, 
 it necessarily proves the pre-existence and the 
 
11 
 
 activity of an intelligent will. I do not see liow 
 the objection, which I have just read, at all 
 touches the Design Argument as stated by myself. 
 That argument would hold good whether the intel- 
 ligent will, i.e., God, worked upon material already 
 existing independently of Himself, or worked upon 
 material which He had created for the purpose. In 
 either case His purpose and adequate power to 
 fulfil it would be proved. 
 
 But the objection demands consideration from 
 another point of view. The objection is made not 
 to disparage the Argument from Design so much 
 as to reduce God from His conceived position as 
 First and sole Cause of all things, and to place 
 matter and force before Him as First Cause and as 
 indeed supreme. Now, I have made no assump- 
 tion at all as to which was First — God, or the 
 matter and force — or whether they are co-eternal. 
 But our objector assumes that matter and force 
 were First and God was Second. That assumption 
 is, in my opinion, unscientific. It is purely specu- 
 lative, and may be right or wrong. It is nothing 
 but a guess. Yet I think a little reflection will 
 show that it is more likely to ])e wrong than right. 
 For matter and force are of no use without mind 
 to order and control them. Matter and force could 
 never give birth to that mind which is essential to 
 their proper and purposive action, and without 
 which there could be no intelligent product. God 
 is either caused or uncaused ; if caused out of 
 
12 
 
 uncaiisecl matter and force, then matter and force 
 would be that intelligent will which works with a 
 purpose and produces products. That intelligent 
 will would be the real God, and no other would be 
 required. But if God be uncaused^ then He is not 
 the product, but the antecedent, of matter and 
 force. It is therefore more thinkable that a stupen- 
 dous mind like that of God should have created 
 both matter and force, to subserve His purposes, 
 than that matter and force should have been eternal 
 and uncaused, waiting through the cycles of a past 
 eternity for the birth of a God who should begin 
 to control them and reduce the chaos to order. 
 
 When the objector says, "every sign of design is 
 in itself so much proof of want of power in God," 
 he does not quite finish his own sentence. He 
 ought to have said, " want of power in God to do 
 what I think He ought to do." That is the real 
 crux^ the true cause of the objection. The signs of 
 design do not please him, because the product, thus 
 far, does not correspond Avith his notion of what 
 God ought to have done. But possibly in God's 
 eyes everything is just as it should be ; everything 
 is working for the best by the best possible means ; 
 and possibly God knows more about it than the 
 objector. 
 
13 
 
 LECTUKE II. 
 
 In tlie first Lecture on Theism as a Science, we 
 asserted that Theism is rightly called a Science 
 because it is based exclusively on facts, on natural 
 facts which are beyond all dispute. Our first step 
 was to prove the existence of God by observation of 
 any common object in Nature, such as a tree, inter- 
 preted by human intelligence. And this was neces- 
 sarily accompanied by the discovery of some of 
 God's attributes, viz., knowledge, power, and will. 
 Were these all that could be known concerning 
 God, they would be sufficient to silence, if not to 
 convince, the Atheist who denies God's existence, 
 and the Agnostic who says we can know nothing 
 about Him. But the human mind is capable of 
 still further investigation, and human nature at its 
 best demands it. We have other faculties besides 
 Reason, which will not be satisfied by the mere dis- 
 covery of a God who knows and wills, but which 
 ask, with reiterated and passionate eagerness. Is 
 this God o-ood or evil ? Does He care or does He 
 
14 
 
 not care that men should be ris-hteous ? What are 
 His final purposes with individuals and with the race? 
 Is He a God whom moral lacings, like us, are bound 
 to recognise and to obey ? Is He a God whom 
 aspiring men can trust, love, and adore ? Here, 
 again, unless we base all our arguments on fact, we 
 cannot pretend to be scientific. We make no as- 
 sumptions, we will not ignore testimony that is 
 adverse, we will not call evil good or good evil for 
 any reason in the world, not even to vindicate the 
 moral character of God. For truth is to the soul 
 of man what air is to his body. It is essential to 
 life. The soul cannot subsist on falsehood or on 
 shams. We are so constituted that we feel the 
 imperative duty, as w^ell as the necessity, of believ- 
 ing and embracing only that which seems to us to 
 be true. We simply wrong ourselves when we 
 make-believe we believe that which is not capable 
 of reasonable proof. I have dwelt on this point 
 with apparently too great emphasis, because Faith 
 and Reason have been set in a false opposition both 
 by atheists and by orthodox believers. Faith is always 
 reasonable, grounded on sufficient evidence. If not, 
 it is not true faith but credulitv. And so Reason 
 begets true faith or trust in God. If the reasoning 
 be defective, or deal with false premisses, it does 
 not beget faith but doubt and distrust — or, what is 
 worse still, misplaced trust. Hence it w^ill be seen 
 how necessary it is, in such an enquiry as vre are 
 pursuing, to cleave stedfastly to indisputable facts. 
 
15 
 
 Now, it is a very important fact of human nature 
 that we are not content with discovering only 
 knowledge, power, and will in God, unless we can 
 discover also that He is good and that His purposes 
 are likewise good. It is conceivable that know- 
 ledge and will may he possessed by a superhuman 
 Being utterly indifferent to right and wrong, or 
 even by one who is utterly malignant ; or we 
 might conceive of a Being possessing these attri- 
 butes who was partial and capricious, having benig- 
 nant purposes towards some of His creatures and 
 malignant purposes towards all the rest. Human 
 beings have invented such gods as these, and we 
 wish we could say that all civilised mankind have 
 outo-rown a belief in them. The fact that they 
 have been and are still believed in will have to be 
 reckoned with in its proper place. 
 
 Now, how can we certainly tell whether God be 
 good or evil ? Are there any facts within reach 
 that can give us the right clue to such a trans- 
 cendant issue ? (3wing to the differences in our 
 moral codes, owing to the different ideal of 
 supreme goodness in the minds of different men, 
 it is notorious that what some men call good, 
 others will call evil, and vice versa. Monstrous 
 as it may sound, it is absolute truth to say that 
 such diversities of moral opinion are flourishing 
 and conflicting this very day, and in our own 
 civilised communities. I know some persons who 
 think it wrong that any one should ever suffer any 
 
16 
 
 pain, be the subject of any grief whatever, and 
 that any one should die. They call pain and death 
 " evils " ; i.e., moral evils in the Being who 
 caused them. They regard life and pleasure as 
 unmixed "good"; i.e., as evidence of goodness 
 in the Being who caused them. Their sole stan- 
 dard of all good is the happiness or pleasure which 
 anything may afford. Hence satisfaction of desires 
 is accounted the highest " good." Disappointment 
 of desire is only " evil." Others we find taking 
 quite the opposite view, thinking and feeling sure 
 that pain and grief and disappointment and death 
 itself are all means of producing the highest kind 
 of good, a kind infinitely higher than what the other 
 folk call life and pleasure. And therefore they 
 believe that it is not wrong but right in the Being 
 w^ho caused the pain and sorrow and death that 
 these things should occur. The standard of good 
 is so different between these two classes of thinkers 
 that the Pessimists can hardly be brought to under- 
 stand what their opponents say. 
 
 Now, if you grasp this fact and give it due heed, 
 you will see how it must affect the answer to the 
 question. Is God good or evil ? All will depend on 
 what is meant by "good" and "evil" in the mind of 
 the questioner. If physical pain, e.g., be regarded 
 as evil, and if any physical pain be traceable — as it 
 certainly must be — to the will of God, the inevit- 
 able conclusion is that God is not good. And that 
 is the spoken or unspoken thought this very day of 
 
17 
 
 millions of Cliristians and Agnostic Pessimists. I 
 find tliem everywhere and even on the borderlands 
 of our own Theism, would-be Theists, but pre- 
 vented by seeing God as malignant, because He is 
 the author of suffering and death. It is necessary, 
 therefore, that before we can see the goodness of 
 God Ave must have a different — I should say a 
 higher — standard of goodness than that of the 
 people who think it wrong in God to inflict 
 physical pain. A child of two or three years 
 old cannot be expected to regard its mother as 
 good and loving when she takes away its doll, 
 or gives it nasty medicine, or chastises it. The 
 mother must bear its impatience and its unjust 
 reproaches until the child is old enough to know 
 that the deprivation of pleasure and the infliction 
 of pain were acts of loving goodness which nothing 
 short of a true mother's love demanded. The 
 enquiry into the moral character of God is there- 
 fore an intensely moral question, involving our own 
 estimate of a certain standard in morals. What we 
 shall think concerning God will depend on what we 
 are. He will be in our eyes "good" or "evil" 
 according to our previous estimate of good and evil 
 in the events and conditions of human life. More- 
 over, such an enquiry as this cannot be rightly 
 entered upon without due regard to the limitations 
 of our mental faculties and to the necessarily defec- 
 tive knowledge which they enable us to attain. It 
 would be wholly unreasonable and even childish to 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 suppose tliat we can solve every moral problem in 
 the universe ; that we, having come so recently 
 into existence, should be able to fathom the depths 
 of the Divine purposes which fill the ocean of 
 Eternity ; that we, who cannot even tell what 
 shall be on the morrow, should be able to pierce 
 the veil of an interminable future. Some at least 
 of God's purposes must be hidden from us ; and 
 the utmost we can hope to feel in regard to them 
 is a confidence arising from the conviction witliin 
 ourselves that if ice had adequate power and ade- 
 quate wisdom, everything would turn out for the 
 best in the best of all possible worlds. There is 
 no mistake about that. This is a fact of human 
 nature at its highest, and ought to be suflficient 
 ground for hope, provided we can trace a definite 
 good purpose in some of those arrangements and 
 conditions which lie within reach of our observa- 
 tion. That is to say, it is reasonable to infer the 
 unknown from what is known. Even among men 
 this is accepted as reason for trust. Character is 
 inferred from one or more manifestations of con- 
 duct, and although the frailty and uncertainty of 
 human character and conduct are proverbial, yet 
 our lives are, for the most part, influenced by that 
 trust or distrust of each other which is begotten by 
 trustworthy or untrustworthy conduct. In like 
 manner, scientific truths rest upon the inference 
 of certainty and constancy drawn from obser- 
 vation of the trustworthiness of natural laws. 
 
19 
 
 To God we do not attribute vacillation or caprice, 
 we ascribe to Him an unchangeable nature and 
 disposition, so that if any of His known actions 
 are discovered to be good, and if a good pur- 
 pose be revealed in some of His plans, it is only 
 reasonable to expect that He will be good in 
 ever^'thing else, everywhere, and to all eternity, 
 provided nothing is absolutely proved to the con- 
 trary. 
 
 The only difficulty which appears to me to have 
 any weight is that of discerning and demonstrating 
 a purpose of good in things and arrangements that 
 are commonly called evil — such as pain, death, and 
 sin. The beneficence and bounty of God are 
 already admitted to be so widespread and so plen- 
 teous that life itself is considered to be a pleasure 
 and a privilege which no sane person would wil- 
 lingly part with. " All that a man hath will he 
 give for his life," has been a proverb for thousands 
 of years. The creation of faculties on purpose to 
 confer or to increase pleasure — such as the sense 
 of beauty, the delight in healthy activity, and in 
 the indulgence of our law^ful appetites — is sufficient 
 to prove the good-will of the Creator towards His 
 creatures. It is only when the exceptions to the 
 rule confront us, when pain, grief, and sin destroy 
 our comfort and poison our pleasure, that any 
 moral explanation is required. And this, I say 
 again, can only be satisfactorily reached by scientific 
 methods, by recourse to facts and to facts alone. 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 Let us now take as wide a survey as we can of 
 the universe, or of such part of it as we can speak 
 of with certainty. 
 
 The most important fact about the universe is 
 that it is certainly two-f okl. One aspect is material,, 
 the other is non-material, e.g.^ there is the visible 
 material brain in man, and there is also the invisible, 
 non-material thought or mind, with which it is 
 closely associated. Let us call this the spiritual 
 part, for convenience' sake. The universe itself is 
 manifestly material, even the impalpable, invisible, 
 ether revealing to us its material nature by its 
 measurable movements in space under the influence 
 of light and electricity. But every part of this 
 material universe depends for what it is on spiritual 
 activity which has no material attributes, and which 
 we call mind or thought, because it is cognate to 
 our own spiritual part, to our own thought or mind. 
 In fact, we only see the spiritual there in the 
 material universe and acting upon it, because we 
 have it in ourselves, but, of course, in a very low 
 degree as compared with its extent and activity in 
 the universe at large. Now, the material part of 
 the universe has one distinctive feature wdiich must 
 be well noted, for if w^e disregard it, w^e shall miss 
 the key to the moral problems we need to solve. 
 The material part is always changing, more or less 
 rapidly assuming certain forms, manifesting organic 
 life and inorganic combinations, fulfilling certain 
 purposes, and then declining, decaying, and — to 
 
21 
 
 use a mundane expression — dying. If God be 
 regarded as the Creator and as the Preserver of 
 the universe, He is no less surely its Destroyer. 
 He may not lose an atom of the substance, He may 
 preserve every atom for new combinations, for a 
 new heaven and a new earth, but the day comes 
 w^hen the old universe disappears and He practically 
 •destroys every vestige of that long-lasting wonder 
 of use and glory, and forthwith begins to create 
 all things new. And this destruction of the old 
 and construction of the new is continually going 
 on with varying degrees of rapidity in every part 
 of the material universe. It was a magnificent 
 forecast of the Hebrew Psalmist who said: "Thou, 
 Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of 
 the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thine 
 hand. They shall perish ; but Thou remainest. 
 Yea, they all shall wax old as doth a garment, and 
 as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they 
 shall be changed. But Thou art the same, and 
 Thy years shall not fail." 
 
 Looking at the universe in another aspect we 
 find the presence everywhere of spiritual forces 
 which the constitution of the human mind compels 
 us to regard as differing from, and superior to, the 
 material. We notice within ourselves the per- 
 manence of our own consciousness throughout all 
 the changes of our body. It is computed that 
 every atom of our body is replaced by fresh 
 matarial every seven years, and yet the mind and 
 
'^I 
 
 memory retain their identity, and nothincr is so 
 precious, so yital, to us as the preseryation of 
 self-consciousness, personality, indiyiduality, or 
 whateyer you like to call it. To lose that sense of 
 identity would be practical annihilation. Moreoyer, 
 we are all cony i need that our spiritual part is 
 immeasurably superior to our bodies, that it has 
 the right to rule the whole man. And when we 
 carry this thought of contrast between the spiritual 
 and the material beyond ourselyes into the yast 
 and myriad Ayorlds around us, we kno\y that there 
 is no sun or star or Milky AVay comparable for 
 one moment in yalue and in importance to the soul 
 of an intelligent, upright and loying man. It is 
 only in the light of this distinction, this contrast 
 between the spiritual and the material, that we can 
 possibly pursue the profound inyestigation we haye 
 undertaken. We cannot eyen attempt to find out 
 wdiether God be good or evil until, by proper 
 recognition of the contrast between things spiritual 
 and things material, we haye made it possible to 
 understand tlie meanino^ of the terms fi-ood and eyil. 
 The more we know of the facts of our own 
 complex nature, the better able shall Ave be to find 
 the knowledge of God. 
 
2a 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 
 So far we have come to the condiision that there 
 is a God, viz., a superhuman Being ruling the 
 world, and having power, intelligence, and will ; 
 and, in our last Lecture, we raised the simple ques- 
 tion, Is this God good, or evil, or indifferent ? It 
 was shown that the answer to this question would 
 depend on the meaning given to those terms 
 " good " and " evil " in the mind of the questioner. 
 The general beneficence or bounty of God was not 
 in (question ; but the difficulty of proving His good- 
 ness lies in the obtrusive presence of those things 
 and conditions which are commonly called " evils." 
 These are Pain, Death, and Sin. Inasmuch as Pain 
 is most frequently felt to be a moral objection to 
 the government of God, I will take this first, 
 thouo:h to mv mind it does not seem so formidable 
 an objection as the existence of Sin. For the pur- 
 poses of our enquiry we ought to have in our minds, 
 if not a formal definition, at least a clear perception 
 of the essential element in all forms of pain. Pain, 
 
24 
 
 as we know, comes from countless varying sources 
 and takes as many forms. But every pain, in any 
 shape, and coming from any source whatever, is 
 j-omething which the sufferer does not like, some- 
 thing which arouses opposition, something which 
 he desires and perhaps tries to get rid of or to 
 reduce to its lowest power of annoyance. In this 
 portion of our work we must deal exclusively with 
 human pain, leaving for separate examination, but 
 not forgetting, the pains endured by the rest of the 
 animal world. 
 
 The question then arises : Is God evil because 
 He subjects us to things and conditions which 
 we do not like ? This can be immediately and 
 adequately answered in the following words : — 
 If God subjects us to pain in any form for the sake 
 of our own true welfare — to confer upon us bene- 
 fits which are worth having at the price of suffer- 
 ing, and to confer such benefits as we could not 
 possibly enjoy without the preliminary suffering — 
 then God is not evil, but He is good. You may 
 urge here that this answer rests upon a hypothesis, 
 and so it does ; but inasmuch as this treatise on 
 Theism is intended to l)e scientific, we j^roceed at 
 once to prove that a great many pains suffered by 
 mankind are not only directly and indirectly pro- 
 ductive of our highest welfare, but are the only 
 means known to us at present whereby that welfare 
 can be attained. Whether God could have secured 
 for us that welfare bv anv other means mav be an 
 
25 
 
 interesting enquiry by itself ; but it must not be 
 allowed for one moment to obscure the definite 
 issue now raised, which is this : Are any of our 
 pains the means by which we attain true welfare ? 
 
 Reo:ardino^ ourselves at first as mere animals, 
 then welfare must surely involve life and safety. 
 Both of these are secured to us by pain. The new- 
 born bal)e owes its continuance of life to the pain 
 of huno-er which makes it crv out. Unless that 
 sign were made, unless pain caused it, the mother 
 would not know when her bal)e was hungry, and 
 might not be in a hurry to supply its wants. She, 
 too, must feel pain when her infant cries, in order 
 to induce her to render immediate relief ; and if 
 she suckles her child, it gives her great pain to 
 withhold the nourishment, so that the very earliest 
 conditions of human life depend upon pain. Much 
 more goes on in the nursery which would illustrate 
 the needful operation and the beneficial con- 
 sequences of pain. 
 
 Pain is also one great source of animal safety. 
 Pain Avarns us of a thousand dangers to which we 
 should fall victims without any hope of escape. If 
 fire did not burn, or sharp instruments did not hurt, 
 or noisome gases did not choke, we should never 
 learn to protect ourselves or to avoid countless 
 sources of destruction. Intense tropical heat, or 
 intense cold, if we did not feel them as pains, 
 would quickly make an end of us. Further illus- 
 tration is needless. 
 
26 
 
 Still regarding ourselves from the animal point 
 of view, we find that pain, and nothing but pain, is 
 the origin of all the safety and comfort of civil- 
 ized life. The discomforts endured by our primaeval 
 ancestors — of which, indeed, we know" nothing by 
 experience, and only a little by reading — goaded 
 them to invent and to learn arts by which the pains 
 of subsistence could be lessened. They learned by 
 jiain to provide themselves with fire, food, clothing, 
 shelter, weapons, and protection from wild beasts. 
 Pain was at the root of every single development 
 of greater safety and comfort. And if you skip 
 over the hundreds of centuries wdiicli have inter- 
 vened, tell me to what else we owe every possible 
 improvement we make to-day, unless it be to pain. 
 Some discomfort, some uneasiness, some foe to 
 health, to rest or to enjoyment, is always at the root 
 of every discovery and appliance which render life 
 more safe or more enjoyable. It is a fact that 
 where savages find maintenance of life perfectly 
 easy, they make no advance and no effort towards 
 civilization. There is little or nothing to impel 
 them to improve their condition. I'ain has been 
 our slow but sure educator in those laws of Nature 
 which regulate health and strength ; and although 
 we be always slow to learn, yet the lessons get 
 learnt at last, and the infractions of these laws and 
 the consequent pain and disease have been our sole 
 teachers. 
 
 Xow I ask you to look at mankind in a higher 
 
27 
 
 aspect, say, as intelligent beings. Pain has been the 
 means of raising and quickening our intelligence. 
 It has made us searching and enquiring, eager for 
 knowledge, because knowledge was found to be 
 necessary for the avoidance or mitigation of pain. 
 It is pain which is the mother not only of all in- 
 ventions, but of all the sciences. If any science 
 w^as acquired which led to man's welfare, it quickly 
 begat another science more or less cognate ; while 
 the pseudo- sciences, such as Alchemy and Astrology 
 — both of which arose out of pain — passed sub- 
 sequently into the true sciences of Chemistry and 
 Astronomy. 
 
 I make a slis-ht dio-ression here to remind vou 
 that Astrology as well as Alchemy arose out 
 of pain. Alchemy, of course, came from the pain 
 and dread of poverty, through men seeking to 
 acquire riches without the trouble of working for 
 them. But Astrology was pursued in order to 
 avoid the evil influences which certain stars and 
 planets were believed to possess, and which a know- 
 ledge of their tricks might enable men to avert. 
 Wherein we discern that not only physical pain but 
 imaginary pain also, the mere dread of pain, leads 
 to science. We might almost with exactness 
 declare that all the activities of both body and 
 mind have been developed and augmented out of 
 the desire to avoid or to remedy pain. If therefore 
 there be anything to be thankful for in the so-called 
 blessings of civilization — and we must admit that 
 
28 
 
 there are many such things — we cannot deny that 
 their invention and their development are traceable 
 chiefly, if not entirely, to pain and to the natm-al 
 instinct of trying to avoid or to remedy it. 
 
 Let us take another step. The development of 
 the sense of duty is largely traceable to pain. It is 
 so easy nowadays to respect each others' rights 
 that we forget how that principle first arose and 
 how it became established. When one man hurt 
 another, causing him pain either in mind, body, or 
 estate, the injured party learnt then and there by 
 his pain that the other man had no right to injure 
 him. Then he argued, "If I have rights as against 
 him, he has rights as against me ; therefore I have 
 no right to do to him as I would wish him not to do 
 to me." And it is worthy of notice that all the 
 existing religions of the world have this maxim 
 among their first principles of morality. This 
 lesson concerning rights, although so ancient, is not 
 yet learned as it ouo-ht to be ; but it is beino: 
 learned slowly and surely by the pain caused 
 through every existing and tolerated wrong. I have 
 seen negroes in Jamaica utterly unconscious of any 
 wrong in stealing ground-produce from their 
 neigh])ours ; but no sooner did they possess a little 
 plantation of their own and somebody stole from it 
 — thus hurting and giving them the pain of being 
 robbed — than they l)egan to be scrupulous about 
 stealing from their neighbours. This is a kind of 
 parable ; but it is especially appropriate in these 
 
29 
 
 days wlien some so-called rights are being dis- 
 covered to be wrongs, and when some of those 
 who would right these Avrongs do not apply the 
 canon of righteousness to remedy them. Any way, 
 the grievous pains of the poor in our own times 
 will lead sooner or later to the greater development 
 and to the ultimate predominance of the sense of 
 duty. 
 
 When we come still higher up in the scale of 
 human qualities, we find that pain has done more 
 for us here than in any other sphere. It is 
 remarkable that those virtues, which we all admire 
 most, are called by names which would have no 
 meaning but for the pains and sorrows of men. 
 Patience, fortitude, courage, endurance and perse- 
 verance can only live where pain has to be endured, 
 disappointment of desire and inevitable difficulties 
 have to be overcome. Remembering that all forms 
 of pain are strictly things and conditions that we do 
 not like ; if they were all removed, the virtues 
 which their presence creates would die out. AYith- 
 out pain there would be no patience, no fortitude, 
 no courage, no endurance. 
 
 Aye ! and above and beyond all these manly 
 qualities tliere stands the loveliest daughter of 
 pain — sympathy. AVhere would sympathy have 
 been seen or heard of in a world in which there 
 was neither pain nor grief ? Why, the very word, 
 your golden, heavenly word " sympathy," has no 
 meaning without pain and sorrow. Sympathy 
 
30 
 
 could never have come to a, 2)ainless, tearless, 
 griefless world. The cost of human suffering is 
 a cheap one to pay for this priceless honour and 
 o-lorv. And we need that sufferino- still, for the 
 lesson of sympathy is not yet fully learned. 
 
 And yet again there is another and deeply 
 important aspect in which pain must be regarded. 
 How comes human nature to be capable of feeling 
 pain at all ? How, in short, was man made sensi- 
 tive to pain ? Simply by the self-same process and 
 machinery by which he derives any pleasure at all. 
 The same nervous system by which it is possible 
 for him to be tortured is also the only avenue to a 
 single pleasure. The more sensitive he is to pain, 
 the more keenly he enjoys all that is pleasurable. 
 We might have been secured absolute immunity 
 from pain, but only by being cut off likewise 
 from all possible enjoyment. Moreover, pain is a 
 necessary alternative to pleasure. Every pleasure, 
 continued long enough, palls upon us and becomes 
 an unspeakable bore, or at least loses all quality of 
 pleasure. Every pleasure is heightened by alter- 
 nations with pain. Every pain, e.g.^ Avhich some 
 of us are now feeling from the severe cold, will 
 only heighten our pleasure when the thaw comes. 
 In the low^er sphere of animal desires, it is a 
 notorious fact that the lono-er desire remains un- 
 satisfied, the keener is our relish for gratification 
 when it comes. And all unsatisfied desire is jiainfid. 
 Some pleasures are absolutely created by conditions 
 
31 
 
 of pain tlirougli disease ; and tlie poor sufferers 
 have physical delight in breathing more freely, or 
 in moving an arm or leg, while we healthy ones 
 are never conscious of such enjoyments at all. 
 
 And in the higher sphere of the spiritual life 
 pain adds infinite zest to our delight and trust in 
 God. Many owe to pain any awakenins; of the 
 soul to God at all. Pain has not onl}' made man 
 improve himself and his own conditions, has not only 
 made men more kind and dutiful to each other, not 
 only has given birth to the loveliest virtues of 
 nobility and sympathy, but has brought us home to 
 God as to " our Refuge and Strength and our very 
 present help in time of trouble." And in the face 
 of these facts, which defy contradiction, our own 
 rational answer to the question before us is that 
 God is not evil, but God is good because He does 
 subject us to things and conditions which we do 
 not like. 
 
 I do not say that you cannot bring any damaging 
 charge against pain, or point to any moral mischief 
 which it has done. I io-nore notliins; of that kind, 
 but I believe the mischiefs of pain are only 
 temporary and quite easily curable. But I do say 
 that in the face of the evidence of the history of 
 the world and the marvellous lovely development 
 of human character which only pain could achieve, 
 the few exceptions and anomalies do not weigh a 
 feather against the proof of the faithful goodness 
 of God in bringing us into a world of pain and 
 
32 
 
 sorroAY, in order to confer upon us the best and 
 truest welfare. But as yet we have hardly beo:un 
 our proofs of His goodness. Those who wish to 
 know more of it would do well to go, not into the 
 halls of luxury or into the gardens of ease and 
 plenty, hut into the lazarettos and the ghettos of 
 the world, to look into the homes of real want, 
 into the wards of hospitals, and into the secrets of 
 the broken-hearted. These are the temples of the 
 the Divine Glory, the resting-place of the true 
 Shechinah, the open doors into the mysteries of 
 the Eternal Love. 
 
33 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 Ix our last Lecture it was proved that a vast 
 amount o£ the pain endured by human Ijeings was 
 the means by which the best and truest welfare of 
 mankind had been acquired. It is freely admitted 
 that there are many forms of suffering and many 
 special instances of it which, in our present state 
 of ignorance, cannot, with equal certainty, be shown 
 to be conducive to welfare. At the same time, 
 until the final issue of them is disclosed, it cannot 
 be proved that such pains are not equally beneficial 
 with those pains which have been manifestly proved 
 to be so. It is important to remember that our 
 failure to see a good purpose in any part of God's 
 work does not and cannot vitiate the good purpose 
 of those sufiferings which we have clearly seen to 
 be beneficial. On the contrary, it is more reason- 
 able to infer that all the dealings of God are equally 
 good, when some of them have been proved to be 
 so, than to infer that He is bad from those evils 
 which we cannot explain, or for which we are at 
 present unable to see a good purpose. And this 
 
 D 
 
3-1 
 
 conclusion is immensely strengthened by reference 
 to some facts of our human nature, which I will 
 now set before you. 
 
 Man is a moral being, i.e., he is conscious of the 
 difference existing between moral good and moral 
 evil. His codes of right and wrong may be defec- 
 tive and partially erroneous — this does not affect 
 the aro:ument — he knows that there is a right and 
 and a wrong, and that the right ought to be fol- 
 lowed and the wrong ought to be avoided by every 
 responsible being. Moreover, as a moral being, he 
 knows, almost without being taught, that motives 
 determine the moral quality of every action ; that 
 it is wrong to do a good action from a bad motive ; 
 and that sometimes, though very seldom, it is right 
 to do a bad action with a good motive — e.g\, to tell 
 a lie to frustrate the purpose of a criminal, or to 
 mislead a murderous lunatic. Sometimes the life 
 of a person dangerously ill can only be saved by 
 deceiving him. It is, without question, an essen- 
 tial element in morality to act with a good purpose, 
 viz., the purpose of promoting true welfare. Now, 
 it is natural and inevitable to ascribe this moral 
 sense in man to God who is his Maker. For one 
 of the most obvious facts of human nature is that 
 the conscience, or sense of duty, recognizes God 
 as the source of its imperious authority. It is part 
 of our very nature to feel when we do right (i.e., 
 what we believe to be right) that we are obeying 
 God ; and likewise when we do wrong (thinking it 
 
35 
 
 to be wrong) we are disobeying and displeasing 
 God. I cannot answer for what others may think ; 
 but this fact of my nature is a certain proof to me 
 that the Author of my conscience must Himself be 
 good. For the opposite conclusion is so absurd. 
 It is manifestly unreasonable. How could an evil 
 god take steps to make me feel that I ought to be 
 good ? Yet endeavours have been made in this 
 century to ascribe the origin of conscience in man 
 to any other source but God, to trace it to mere 
 selfishness or utilitarian principles, even to the 
 desire for human praise. When I come to deal 
 more particularly with the Conscience in these 
 Lectures, I Avill endeavour to expose the fallacy of 
 such arguments ; but for the present I am content 
 with insisting on the fact that, even if the origin 
 of conscience were to be traced to low, selfish 
 principles, now that it has reached its present 
 development it does bear testimony to the goodness 
 of the Divine authority which it recognizes. How- 
 soever its origin may be explained you cannot 
 explain away its connection in the human mind 
 with the authority of God. And in that very 
 recognition it bears testimony to the certainty that 
 God is righteous. When appealed to, the Con- 
 science demands that the course of the world 
 should, before all things, be righteous, should be 
 good in the process and good in the final issue. 
 Therefore it is that some men in their impatience 
 either blame God or disbelieve in Him altogether, 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 because tliej cannot discern the goodness of the 
 process, or predict with certainty the goodness of 
 the issue. And what is this, hut a fresh and 
 vigorous testimony to the force and supremacy of 
 the Conscience in man ? It will not tolerate a God 
 Avho is not " righteous in all His ways, and holy in 
 all His thoughts." Whenever, therefore, we are 
 confronted wdtli any instance of pain in which, 
 owing to our defective knowledge, we are unable 
 to see any good purpose, we must fall back first on 
 our invincible confidence in our sense of right, on 
 our own certainty that right and only right ought 
 to be done ; and, in the second place, we must look 
 straight and steadily at the fact that we do not and 
 cannot yet see the end to which that special sufter- 
 ing may lead. It is not reasonable, it is not just, 
 to argue a bad purpose from any process which is 
 unfinished or only just begun. And if the purpose 
 be good, and if a wisdom higher than our own have 
 adopted the process as the best available, we are 
 not competent to find fault with it on any grounds 
 of justice or reason. Why, even if Ave had nothing- 
 hut these insoluble problems of evil before us, even 
 if we had not one of the innumerable proofs of the 
 moral value of suffering which beset us on every 
 hand ; we should still have no right to question 
 the goodness of God until we saw the issue of the 
 process and until we could discover some better 
 means to reach it, because our consciences are 
 sufficient to prove that He who made them ought to 
 
87 
 
 be good l)oth in His purposes and in His methods. 
 Thus the very Conscience which suggests and 
 demands an enquiry into God's moral character 
 brings to it the only reasonable answer, in spite of 
 all difficulties and anomalies. We know what we, 
 under the influence of conscience, would certainly 
 do if we had the power and the wits to do it. We 
 should devise nothing but what was good, and we 
 shoiUd always choose the best means of bringing it 
 about. And I ask. Who has made us to feel like 
 this ? The only answer is, God ; and if God's 
 thoughts and ways are not at least as good as ours 
 at their best, then He has managed to create and 
 endow beings who are better than Himself, and 
 therefore into whose hands He ought promptly to 
 surrender the control and welfare of the world. 
 
 But there is another aspect of pain which I have 
 not touched. jMan, as I have just been saying, is 
 a moral being, and can only be one in proportion to 
 his freedom of will — a very limited freedom, if you 
 like ; but, such as it is, it is the essential condition 
 of any degree of morality at all. Now, in looking 
 abroad on the pains of the Avorld, we find by far 
 the greatest part arises through the misuse of our 
 freedom, throuo-h our action in direct disobedience 
 to moral law. The greatest and worst of human 
 sufferings have been caused by selfishness, by ex- 
 cessive or unlaAvful indulgence of appetite, by am- 
 bition, by covetousness, and by direct cruelty. 
 There is no ferocious beast of prey comparable to 
 
38 
 
 the human beast when he is swayed by selfishness 
 and bad passions. v^Man can be the most cruel of all 
 creatures on the face of the earth.j And the plain 
 truth must be stated that the most horrible tor- 
 tures which have ever been devised were invented 
 by Popes, Cardinals, Bishops and Priests to punish 
 heretics and to maintain the absolute power of the 
 Christian Church. There is no record in the wide 
 world so awful, so unspeakable in its genius for 
 cruelty, as the record of the tortures inflicted by 
 the Church in the name of Christ. And to all 
 these physical horrors must be added the even 
 deeper cruelty of torturing the minds of men, 
 women and children by ghastly fears ; of aggra- 
 vating infinitely the horrors of death by threats of 
 eternal damnation in the flames of hell-fire. Do I 
 forget that all these awful wrongs were perpetrated 
 beneath the eye and without the interference of 
 the Almighty God ? I never could see, in all the 
 moral problems of Nature, anything so ghastly or 
 difificult of solution as this. This is the worst form 
 in which a charo;e ao;ainst God's o-oodness and com- 
 passion could be brought. To allow a whole "civi- 
 lised " world to be subject to the most painful of 
 terrors ; to permit the sacrifice of hundreds of 
 thousands to torture unspeakable ; to allow men 
 to imagine that it was His will they should perpe- 
 trate these horrible cruelties and not to move a 
 finger to disclose the vicious falseness of their 
 creed and the devilishness of their boasted Chris- 
 
39 
 
 tianitv — all this seems to me by far the most 
 terril)le indictment against God which the world 
 has ever heard. I know of no greater service to 
 mankind than to vindicate the perfect goodness of 
 God in His faithful silence and non-interference, 
 and I know of no greater honour than to be able 
 to do it — an honour which I cannot even hope to 
 deserve, tliough I will try my best. 
 
 When the mandate went forth that man was 
 to be a moral being and, endowed with a limited 
 freedom of will, Avas to learn for himself the 
 difference between things good and things evil 
 step by step ; was to learn by experiment, not 
 bv success only but also by failure ; he was then 
 and there foredoomed to undergo an ordeal of 
 suffering such as only a God could foresee. That 
 which has passed already we know too well ; what 
 is passing now before our eyes we also know ; 
 what is to come we do not know, except that it 
 could never be worse than it was under the tyranny 
 of the Church. 
 
 One lesson at least ought to be learnt from this 
 horril)le aspect of the Christian Church, which is 
 this : — All false beliefs, all idolatries, lead sooner 
 or later to crimes. The connection between the 
 two is written down in lines of l3loodslied and 
 crueltv which cannot be wiped out. It is of in- 
 finite importance that men should not hold false- 
 hood, or worship idols ; it is of infinite importance 
 what they think and believe concerning God, be- 
 
40 
 
 cause that belief, so far as it lias any hold upon 
 them at all, has an enormous influence upon their 
 conduct to each other. The perversion of religion 
 to purposes of ambition and worldly interests is 
 worse than haying no religion at all. This at least 
 we must learn from the history of the Churcli in 
 the dark ages. 
 
 The only way in Avhich the goodness of God can 
 be vindicated in the presence of these awful facts 
 is to discover a benign and holy purpose in giving 
 to men that measure of freedom which God knew 
 they would be sure to misuse. The whole question 
 turns upon that purpose ; for if we can discover a 
 good purpose, it will go a long way towards the 
 vindication of the process ; but if we cannot dis- 
 cover a good purpose, the process is more than 
 ever incapable of vindication. Now all philosophers, 
 and students of ethics have agreed that without 
 some freedom of choice there can be no virtue. 
 One could spend hours in illustration, but it is (juite 
 needless. But what is the immediate effect of any 
 freedom ? It is the action wdiich is determined by 
 the strongest motives ; and, until men have been 
 trained by experience, the lower motives prevail^ 
 and men act upon the impulses of their animal 
 nature, and behave at first like beasts and fiends. 
 Sooner or later these actions are seen to produce 
 no true welfare at all, but misery and woe : and by 
 that misery and woe men are taught to see that 
 they had been making a wrong use of their freedom. 
 
41 
 
 By slow degrees men learn to see the awful differ- 
 ence between following their lower impulses and 
 resistino; or controllina; them ; bv slow dea^rees 
 they come to feel, as well as to think, that the 
 actions which cause so much pain and grief are 
 morally evil, and that actions which cause true 
 welfare are morallv o^-ood, and so a change is 
 made — still very gradually^ — in their own affections 
 and desires ; they begin at last to hate and loathe 
 the evil, and to love and folloAV that which is good. 
 But this is the verv and onlv chane-e which can 
 raise men, which can lift them out of the condition 
 of brute beasts and enable them to pursue the true 
 welfare of themselves and of each other. No such 
 change could be possible unless forced upon them 
 by actual experience of good and evil with their 
 respective consequences ; and no such experience 
 would be possible unless they had a given amount 
 of freedom. So the freedom which God gave and 
 the little gleam of moral light which came with it 
 are manifestly designed to raise men from the 
 lower state to the higher, from the brutal into the 
 human. 
 
 Whatever God may know that we do not know, 
 we cannot discern any other method possible by 
 which God could evolve moral beings at all, or 
 make any degree of real goodness possible. There 
 is a value in the perfect machine, which is simply 
 made to go right ; and I do not deny God's power 
 to have made us mere machines incapable of 
 
42 
 
 swerving from His laws ; but then sucli machines 
 would have had not the least moral value, not 
 having any moral quality, neither good nor bad, 
 but outside the pale of virtue because absolutely 
 irresponsible. But the goodness in man which 
 God has been developing by this fearful process is 
 a goodness which has an infinitely higher quality 
 than mere correctness of action. It is a sponta- 
 neous preference for goodness in the presence of 
 a choice between good and evil, both of which have 
 become known to us, and could only be known, 
 bv the terrible ordeal throuo;h which we have 
 passed. The study of goodness leads us to infer 
 that God's goodness must be also of the highest 
 kind ; a perfect freedom of choice between good 
 purposes and bad purposes, between good processes 
 and bad processes, and that having this choice He 
 always prefers and adopts the best. Anyway, we 
 have firm hold now of the fact that true virtue, 
 real goodness in man, could only become possible 
 under the conditions in which we live, and that 
 these conditions have involved and still involve a 
 vast amount of pain and misery caused alone by 
 men's selfishness and cruelty, and must continue 
 to be caused until the painful consequences at last 
 compel men to renounce the wickedness and to 
 curb the unlawful desires which breed nothing but 
 misery. 
 
 The awful picture of tyranny and cruelty held 
 up for our abhorrence in the history of the 
 
43 
 
 Christian Cliurcli teaches at least this lesson : 
 That God does not and never will swerve from His 
 high and holy purpose when once it is chosen. 
 Whatever pain and misery it may cause for a time, 
 the process must go on ; it must not be arrested or 
 interfered Avith ; it must work its way out to the 
 final issue — which, judging even only from what we 
 now see, is sure to surpass all our highest dreams 
 of human welfare. We cannot l)elieve that He 
 witnesses the awful cruelties of man to man 
 without the deepest sympathy ; but if He knows 
 that some day the whole world of men, women and 
 children, victims of cruelty and perpetrators of 
 cruelty alike, will one day bless Him for every 
 pang and for every shame they have had to endure. 
 His eternal rio-hteousness and love will be satisfied. 
 His very faithfulness demands that neither sin nor 
 vSorrow should vanish out of the earth till the 
 eternal welfare of mankind which they are intended 
 to procure has l)een finally gained. 
 
44 
 
 LECTURE V. 
 
 In the last Lecture tlie moral aspect of man'3 
 nature was but sliglitly touched upon. And before 
 we go further I think it will be well to meditate 
 more closely upon the Conscience. Vie have to 
 bear in mind that the principle on which Theistic 
 Belief is based is that God cannot be inferior to 
 the best of His creatures, or to the best that they 
 can conceive. 
 
 Let us enquire what is the proper function of the 
 Conscience. Li the first jdace, it seems to be a 
 faculty distinct from the ordinary reflective powers 
 of the mind which we sum up under the term 
 Reason. I do not now enquire how Conscience is 
 in the first instance generated, or whether or not it 
 be some phrenological organ more or less con- 
 spicuous as a bump on the human head. It is 
 neither my province nor within my grasp to settle 
 such questions as to its origin or physical construc- 
 tion ; I have only to deal with it as it seems to 
 most men to act a part in our complex nature and 
 to influence our conduct. In afl^rming, then, the 
 distinctness of Conscience from the Reason or pure 
 Intellect, I only speak of it as it appears to my 
 
45 
 
 thought. Conscience does not and cannot teach me 
 what is right and what is wrong. Only my Reason 
 can tell me that ; hut as soon as I perceive what is 
 riaht mv Conscience commands me to do it ; as 
 soon as I perceive what is wrong, my Conscience 
 forthwith commands me not to do it. Many have 
 been the strifes in the Avorld owing to the confusion 
 between Conscience and the moral codes. Our 
 knowledge being defective, our reasoning sometimes 
 fallible, our conclusions as to right and wrong must 
 be sometimes false, and yet the Conscience only 
 sanctions what seems to be right, and forbids only 
 what seems to be wrong. It follows, as a matter 
 of course, that people will sometimes do wrong- 
 conscientiously, i.e., not knowing it to be wrong, 
 but believing it to be right. " The time will come 
 when he that killeth you will think that he doetli 
 God service," is a good illustration of this per- 
 version of mind. Many persons will thereupon 
 jump to the conclusion that Conscience is not to be 
 trusted, and that it must be over- ruled by superior 
 authority external to itself ; whereas the fault lies 
 not with the Conscience but with the Reason which 
 is imperfectly enlightened. The Conscience has 
 nothing whatever to do with drawing the con- 
 clusions of the Reason ; its only function is to 
 endorse with all the weight of its sanction whatever 
 the Reason has pronounced to be right. Conscience, 
 oven in its apparently worst perversions, is not 
 perverted at all, is still loyal to the best that is put 
 
46 
 
 before it. It cannot help us to make up our minds 
 in the least degree ; it waits quietly till this process 
 is completed by the Reason, and then steps in with 
 its powerful mandate to demand that the best 
 alternative should be adopted and pursued. It has 
 always seemed to me a great mistake to blame the 
 Conscience for those moral errors which have been 
 perpetrated in its name. Conscience is ever loyal to 
 duty as duty, never sanctions any WTong as wrong, 
 is a perpetual witness in the soul of man for all 
 righteousness ; and it differs in different men (and 
 in each man at different times) only in strength and 
 intensity, in its power to control the life ; it does 
 not differ in being morally inferior and superior. 
 If my Conscience sanctions what another man's 
 Conscience would condemn, this only shoAvs that 
 there is a moral difference of opinion in our 
 respective minds, not that his Conscience is more 
 loyal to what is right than my Conscience, nor 
 mine more loyal than his. 
 
 Looseness of language is largely responsible 
 for many popular errors. We often speak of 
 one man as conscientious, and another as un- 
 conscientious, w4ien the real difference we wish 
 to describe is the difference of their moral opinions. 
 We ought never to use these terms, "conscientious" 
 and " unconscientious," except to distinguish be- 
 tween the man who obeys his Conscience and 
 the other who disobeys it. We take too much for 
 granted that our estimate of what is right and 
 
47 
 
 wrong is shared by everyone else alike ; and then 
 come to the false conclusion that those who do not 
 do Avliat we believe to be rig-lit are acting against 
 their Consciences. Whole races of men have been 
 stigmatised as wanting in conscientiousness because 
 they are remarkably untruthful ; others because 
 they are habitual thieves ; others because they love 
 to shed innocent blood, and their land groans with 
 murder; others because they are frivolous, fickle, 
 and vain ; others because polygamy is their law ; 
 others because they practise polyandry. In all 
 these cases, you find Conscience quite as much at 
 work as in ourselves, commanding what is believed 
 to be right, forbidding what is believed to be 
 wrong. Some men lie, and steal, and murder, &c., 
 through their want of clear and vigorous perception 
 that lying, stealing, and murder are wrong. Their 
 education has been deficient, and the inherited ten- 
 dency to these habits has not been resisted ; they are 
 ever ready with reasons to justify their conduct or to 
 make verv lio-lit of it. Otherwise it would have 
 been impossible for whole populations to connive at 
 these outrages, and to shield the guilty from the 
 penalties of the law. But these same people, 
 taught from their youth up to regard some act of 
 religious observance as the liio:liest of all duties, 
 and the neglect of it the most wicked of crimes, 
 are very, very conscientious in the discharge of 
 that " duty " and manifest the functions of 
 Conscience in that particular to a striking degree. 
 
48 
 
 If ever the question is raised : " Why does the 
 Conscience bid you do this ? " the sole answer 
 always is : " Because it is right." Xever in any 
 case is it " Because it is wrong." The Conscience 
 is, I grant, not equall}^ strong in all men. In 
 some natures it has more, in others less, power to 
 influence the conduct. But this is only like all other 
 human faculties. The Reason, the imagination, 
 the affections, the hopes and the fears vary con- 
 siderably in strength and degree in different men ; 
 and so also the Conscience varies ; in some it is the 
 lord of the whole life ; in others it is hustled into 
 a corner and seldom suffered to raise its voice. 
 But it is sufficiently universal to be argued from as 
 the common property of human nature ; and in 
 reasoning about Him who is the source and 
 fountain of all things, the Conscience is as much 
 entitled to be considered as the Intellect. More- 
 over, if we would argue fairly, we must take the 
 average quality of the Conscience rather than the 
 more rare instances of those who hardly exhibit 
 any Conscience at all. In a treatise on the Intellect 
 of man, it would be manifestly unfair to take only 
 the undeveloped state of it as it appears in a child, 
 or the diseased condition of it as it appears in an 
 idiot. So in speaking of the Conscience of man we 
 ought to take it in its more complete and perfectly 
 healthy development in the noblest moral examples, 
 rather than in its earlier and undeveloped state. 
 We are searchino- for indications of a Divine Beins; 
 
49 
 
 among the products in the universe ; we have 
 found, so far, that man is the noblest of them 
 known to us, l)y reason of his Intellect alone ; but 
 we find that he has something else, which, in his 
 own estimation, he reckons nobler still than 
 Intellect — viz.. Conscience, or the faculty which 
 uro:es him to do what is ris-ht and avoid what is 
 wrong ; and this faculty is, in its normal exercise, 
 the greatest blessing, but one, of all the blessings 
 which man possesses. 
 
 In the first place, it marks afresh our superiority 
 to the physical world. AVhile everything around 
 us is by the laws and constitution of its nature 
 designed for selfishness, to win its way, if it can, 
 in the struo-o^le for existence : while even the body 
 of man with all its functions has precisely the same 
 nature, and might lawfully (were it not for the 
 Eeason and Conscience) study its own comfort 
 and well-being alone, and might, without the 
 smallest scruple, enrich and adorn itself by and 
 throuo:h the ruin of others ; while the unbridled 
 indulgence of our physical instincts would lead us 
 to the most profound animalism and bestiality, 
 without any perception of their baseness, the 
 Conscience is the chief faculty of our nature which 
 rescues us from the degradation and actually alters 
 the whole natural course and tendency of our lives. 
 That Ave should, to some extent, lead animal lives 
 is not merely inevitable, but necessary and good ; 
 and therefore we find the Conscience, when duly 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 enlightened by Reason, sanctioning a certain 
 degree o£ animalism for the very purpose of 
 carrying out a benevolent design ; but the checks 
 and limits which the Conscience puts upon our 
 self -indulgence are of a nature to cause us at times 
 positive pain and annoyance. We cannot obey the 
 Conscience in everything without trampling on our 
 physical nature and sometimes not without per- 
 manent injury to our health and brain. Self-denial 
 and mortification of the flesh (and I use these 
 terms in the very widest sense and not merely in 
 the sense of asceticism) are absolutely necessary 
 to the perfect supremacy of the Conscience when 
 enlightened by Reason. If my Reason tells me 
 that such and such a thing is wrong, [i.e., will inflict 
 injury on others], f/tat does not necessarily prevent 
 my wishing to do it. I cannot help icishwg to do 
 it if the o-ratification be verv great, and do it I 
 should to a certainty, but for that wonderful 
 monitor within who says, "How can I do this great 
 wickedness and sin against God ! " The collision 
 is so complete between the higher voice and the 
 impelling instinct, that one can only feel that the 
 two are radically different in kind and must have 
 had a different source. This struggle between a 
 strong desire and a higher law within the same 
 breast, if it gives any witness, bears testimony to 
 the exalted nature of man, and drives him in 
 thought to the threshold of that Heavenly Home 
 where he was born and cradled. To have the 
 
51 
 
 power of doing intentionally what one shrinks from 
 doing, and to deny oneself the pleasure which is so 
 fascinating and which one longs to do, is to prove 
 the immense superiority of our inner selves over the 
 visible universe. 
 
 Here I must pause to notice an objection which 
 has been urged, that whenever we obey Conscience 
 we only do so to gain a greater pleasure than we 
 relinquish. It is said that we are still selfish after 
 all, and dread remorse more than the present self- 
 denial. Xow, I cannot of course speak for others, 
 but for myself I deny this with my whole soul. 1 
 am perfectly certain that it is neitlier fear of 
 greater pain nor hope for greater joy that makes 
 me endeavour to obey my Conscience. On some 
 occasions I have had nothing at all but pain for 
 doing what I thought to be right, and I did it too, 
 o-rudo'ino'lv ln^n reffrettini^: mv own self-denial, and 
 at the time wishing that I had not been so con- 
 scientious. It is unfair to mankind to put such a 
 construction upon their submission to that im- 
 perious call of Conscience. To us who are 
 believers in God, perhaps the hope of being 
 perfectly conformed to His holy will, in some far 
 off future, may be an attraction entering into more 
 than half our moral struggles ; but nothing can be 
 more false than to say it is always so, or to deny 
 the possibility of a man doing what his Conscience 
 demands from the most disinterested motives. 
 For does not Conscience itself sit in iudonient with 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 Reason upon motives as well as conduct ? Does it 
 not condemn as unworthy all motives of action 
 the core and kernel of which is selfishness ? No 
 doubt, in our imperfect state, our motives are not 
 always pure and perfectly disinterested ; but the 
 soul of man has, at all events, risen up to that 
 height in which it deliberately distinguishes pure 
 from impure motives, distinguishes between selfish- 
 ness and unselfishness ; and while it gives its 
 solemn approval to the nobler, it condemns and 
 denounces the baser. There is all the difference 
 between seeking to be true to one's higher nature 
 and seeking greater happiness. It is true we 
 cannot avoid the happiness, but we disqualify 
 ourselves for its attainment the moment we fix 
 upon it a longing eye. What determines our 
 choice is the vStrength of our conviction that a 
 thing is right, not the possibility of our being the 
 happier for it afterwards ; for we often do right 
 with the certainty of our suftering for it. The 
 efforts made by some to depreciate the force and 
 value of Conscience are unworthy of men who 
 profess to be students of facts and phenomena ; for 
 if there had been no cases of genuine disinterested 
 doing of duty for duty's sake, we should never have 
 been able to discover the diflPerence between that 
 and seeking our own happiness. Man has detected 
 the superiority of the one motive over the other, 
 only after having witnessed the higher motive in 
 others, or having experienced it in himself. Had 
 
53 
 
 it never Leen clone, men would never have imagined 
 that it could be done. 
 
 And this brings me to notice that the Conscience 
 enlightened by Reason always urges us to do good 
 to our fellow-men rather than to give them pleasure. 
 An unenlightened benevolence, such as the animal 
 instinct of an indulgent parent, which leads to the 
 spoiling of a child, is a mere impulse to give 
 pleasure, and is on that ground actually condemned 
 by the enlightened Conscience because that pleasure 
 not only does not tend to the child's real and 
 lasting good, but tends even to his present and 
 future degradation. In its higher state the Con- 
 science bids us aim exclusively at the cultivation of 
 iill virtue in ourselves and in others. It teaches us 
 always to subordinate pleasure to goodness, and 
 often deliberately to forego and withhold pleasure 
 that o-oodness mav ensue. Truth and riohteousness 
 would be preferred, not only before wealth and 
 comfort here below, but even before an eternity of 
 mere enjoyment without personal holiness. Thus, 
 on every side, it seems that the superiority of our 
 inner nature becomes an antagonism to the outAvard 
 and visible. " The flesh warreth against the spirit, 
 and the spirit against the flesh, and these are con- 
 trary, the one to the other." The contrast and hos- 
 tility between them we all feel ; but which of the 
 two do we reckon the higher, the nobler, the truer 
 part of man ? Surely, the Conscience, the Conscience 
 which makes us mortify our flesh with its afl'ections 
 
54 
 
 and lusts, which often and often mars our pleasure 
 and embitters our contact with each other, upbraids 
 us with reproaches and stings us with remorse. 
 That voice which hushes our cry for pleasure, 
 which will not endure a single selfish plea, but 
 demands unquestioning obedience, and bids us fall 
 down in the very dust before the Majesty of Duty — 
 that voice, I say, we all in our secret hearts revere, 
 whether or not we obey it as we should. At least, 
 we pay to it the homage of our inmost souls, and 
 feel how great and grand it is to be its slave. 
 We have here, tljen, something in man which we 
 cannot find in the physical universe, where pleasure 
 is the aim of everv livino- thins;. Everv sino-le 
 being in every class of animal life, including the 
 body of man, is constituted to seek its own pleasure 
 first ; but in man we find a principle entirely at war 
 with the universal instinct, a power that forces us 
 to break the natural law of mortal life and to seek 
 for that which is supremely higher than mere 
 animal safety and enjoyment. For the sake of 
 goodness, men have learnt not merely to suflfer pain 
 and loss themselves, but to undergo the still worse 
 2)ain of inflicting suflfering upon others. We would 
 deliberately hurt their bodies and mortif\^ their 
 desires, if by so doing we could raise them into the 
 exalted condition of goodness. 
 
 Now to me, I confess this fact is a far greater 
 revelation of what God is than the intellect of man. 
 For ignoring altogether the fact that men have 
 
55 
 
 almost universally regarded the Conscience as the 
 vice-gerent of God, the mere possession of a poAver 
 which claims the mastery over our whole natures, 
 which disturbs our animal repose, and which 
 demands the deliberate surrender of pleasure for 
 the sake of truth, righteousness, and every form of 
 duty, brings us face to face with a Power, which, 
 whatever it be, is absolutely transcendent over 
 nature, and reveals to our mind the existence of 
 another world altogether, in and around us, in 
 which the laws and forces of the visible universe 
 have only a subordinate place. Were we to grant 
 that our intellect is only an animal organism, we 
 should still be at our wits' end to account for the 
 Conscience on purely physical grounds ; and we 
 could never get over the anomaly and absurdity of 
 the universe evolving and evolving itself cycle after 
 cycle till it produced an element at variance with 
 its own laws, a power and a force which deliberately 
 set them at defiance, and a conscious being who 
 calmly rejected for the sake of virtue the most 
 enticing pleasures placed in its path. If we could 
 get over the intellectual difficulty of Atheism, we 
 coidd never get over the difficulty which is pre- 
 sented by the Conscience. I do not denj- that 
 there is antagonism in the physical universe. The 
 struggle for existence abounds everywhere ; it is in 
 accordance with its own principle of "Evervone for 
 himself"; but this antagonism is wholly different 
 from that which exists between two distinct por- 
 
56 
 
 tions of one and the same being ; greater still is 
 the difference when we observe that the higher law 
 often condemns as morally wrong what Nature 
 herself tempts us to do. 
 
 The corollary to all this argument is as simple 
 as it is reasonable and true. The God who 
 implanted the Conscience in man is (Jne who 
 desires our goodness, and therefore must Himself 
 be good — "righteous in all His ways and holy in 
 all His thoughts." I cannot pursue the enquiry 
 further at present : it is enough that the human 
 Conscience is not mereh^ superior but antagonistic 
 to the selfish principle in nature to prove that if 
 we woidd search for indications of the Deity, we 
 must make man the chief field of our enquiry. 
 
57 
 
 LECTURE YI. 
 
 It will bG desirable, before we go further, to 
 recapitulate what I hope has been proved in our 
 search after tlie knowledge of God. There is an 
 intelligent Being who has purposes, and fulhls 
 them, to account for the phenomena of Nature. 
 That Being is also good, having good purposes and 
 taking the only steps to carry them out w^hicli we 
 can discover to be possible. Moreover, we have 
 seen that He is good in having ordained for us 
 conditions which are painful, which we do not like, 
 and even in permitting us a certain amount of 
 freedom which He foresaw that we should misuse to 
 the temporary detriment of ourselves and of each 
 other. In fact, the worst cruelties of man to man 
 are proved to be an inevitable part of that process 
 which produces ultimate higher welfare — a welfore 
 otherwise unattainable. Now the whole of this 
 conclusion rests on the facts of human nature. 
 
 It is a fact that we are intelligent beings capable 
 of understanding and exercising purpose, and of 
 choosing means for its fulHlment. We are also 
 
58 
 
 moral beings, i.e., possessed of Conscience, or sense 
 of duty, whereby we naturally resent anything that 
 seems unrighteous in the course of Nature. As 
 moral beings we expect and demand that the course 
 of Nature should be right ; in other w^ords, 
 Conscience owns obligation to, and recognises the 
 authority of, only a God who is good. I wish to 
 emphasize this essential feature of Theism, which 
 might otherwise be overlooked among the many 
 arguments brought forward to vindicate the 
 goodness of God in certain particulars. All these 
 subsidiary arguments are profoundly interesting, it 
 is true ; but they derive their sole force from the 
 primary fact that we have Reason and Conscience 
 as parts of our common human nature. For 
 without these faculties we could not discern the 
 Divine purpose nor the divine goodness ; and 
 supposing, for a moment, that all our reasonings on 
 the goodness of the course of Nature had broken 
 down and Avere incapable of demonstration, we 
 should still have our Reason and Conscience left to 
 us to prove that our Maker is both wise and good, 
 althouoh we were still unable to see the w^isdom 
 and goodness of His purposes and methods. The 
 basis of all our knowledge of God is to be found in 
 the higher faculties of human nature. It is here, 
 therefore, that I take my stand as a defender of 
 Theism on scientific grounds. Although I liave 
 said perhaps more than any one else in illustration 
 of the goodness of God's purposes even in things 
 
59 
 
 painful and evil, I am conscious tliat my induction 
 is only partial and not complete — in the very nature 
 of things it could not be complete ; but, in that 
 case, it cannot by itself he made the sole basis of a 
 claim to any knowledge of God. Once more I 
 repeat, all knowledge of God comes to us through 
 what He has caused us to he. So far we have 
 dealt only with two of the three faculties which 
 distinguish us as human l^eings. The present 
 Lecture will lirino- us to the consideration of the 
 faculty of Love. 
 
 The proposition to he proved is that Love in man 
 greatly extends and elevates our knowledge of God. 
 If we once get into our minds a clear perception of 
 what true Love is, what is the kind of love which 
 all good men acknowledge and admire as the purest 
 and best, we shall then have raised a standard 
 helow which our conceptions of God cannot fall. 
 We shall invest Him, our Maker, with the highest 
 quality of which we have any experience. We do 
 not, of course, im})ly that even then our knowledge 
 of God will he complete or adequate, hut that, so 
 far as it goes, it will he true knowledge and not 
 merelv a o-uess in the dark. (_)ur hest and noblest 
 thought of Him can never even approach the 
 reality ; hut, such as it is, poor even at its hest, 
 it will he enough, and more than enough, to de- 
 velop our Xatural Theology into Natural Religion 
 of the highest type yet known among men. 
 
 But this shows the supreme im})ortance of 
 
60 
 
 having in our minds a true conception of what the 
 purest and noblest Love really is. I pass over the 
 baser meanings in which the sacred word Love is 
 too often profaned by being used to denote unlawful 
 passion. But there are many instances in which the 
 word Love is applied to quite innocent and beautiful 
 relations, but from which is entirely absent that 
 which constitutes the highest and purest Love. To 
 take a very common instance, that of over-indul- 
 gent parents who, in the eyes of wiser persons, 
 spoil their children. They do love their children 
 after a sort ; they admire them and are amused by 
 them, and they do not like to see them unhappy or 
 to hear them cry. A shrewd neighbour says by 
 way of remonstrance — " You should not let your 
 children have their own way so much. You are 
 too kind to them." But, overhearing that, I should 
 have said — " Xo, you are ?wf too kind to them, but, 
 in your ignorance of true love, you are actually not 
 kind enough to them. Your weak and unwise in- 
 dulgence is a sort of cruelty, not true parental love 
 at all. In fact, you are laying up a store of sorrow 
 and shame for your children in years to come." 
 
 And some children think and say they love their 
 parents, only because of the so-called good things 
 obtained from them, or because thev are indulo-ent 
 and let them have their own way. Such love is 
 a misnomer. It is not love to their parents, but 
 really selfish regard for themselves, only called by 
 another name. 
 
61 
 
 Then there are the lovers, dear young creatures, 
 whom it is always a pleasure to meet by the way- 
 side, who think and say that they love each other, 
 because they enjoy each other's company and are 
 fond of endearments and all the sweet innocent 
 tokens of mutual admiration. Yet all this may 
 consist without any real love at all. The tie that 
 binds them is often nothing but selfishness and love 
 of pleasure. And perhaps such lovers marry ; and 
 instead of love, there is a sort of understanding 
 like a contract of give and take — a quid j^ro quo^ a 
 background of bargain — " I will love you as long 
 as you love me, and only so long." 
 
 The test of true love generally begins with 
 sorrow or pain of some kind. An old proverb 
 says, " When poverty comes in at the door, love 
 flies out at the window." When that occurs, it 
 shows that love was never there to fly out, but 
 onlv the billino- and cooino- of sillv birds, the 
 poorest simulation of love. When poverty or 
 sickness or trouble comes, then it will be seen 
 whether there be any true love there at all, for 
 onlv a true love will stav. In true love there is 
 not a grain of selfishness. 
 
 Many mistake admiration for love ; and, alas ! 
 the women too often encourage this mistake by 
 being content Avitli admiration only, and indignant 
 when it is withheld. And many, many more, both 
 men and women, will only give what they call their 
 love for an equivalent, demanding and exacting 
 
62 
 
 some return for it in sympathy or praise or help, 
 and ceasing to " love," as they call it, when these 
 returns are not forthcoming. There is no true 
 love in any of these types of human character and 
 relation. It is merely selfishness finely dressed 
 and taking a roundabout journey — that is all. 
 
 How then shall we define true love ? It is an 
 emotion, a strong emotion, impelling us to confer 
 the best possible good upon the object of our love, 
 to be occupied only with that. It is absolutely 
 unselfish and opposed to all selfishness. It seeks 
 no reward but the success of its endeavour to do 
 good. It shuns no pain, no sacrifice, in that 
 endeavour ; and all the pain, all the sacrifice in- 
 volved, only increases the rapture of its indidgence. 
 Love does not merely bring happiness to the loving- 
 soul as a consequence of its endeavours. It is 
 happiness in itself. It is happiness to feel the mere 
 impulse. It is greater happiness still to gratify it 
 by eflfort. Let us note more especially its perfect 
 disinterestedness. The love of a mother for her 
 babe is a recos-nised tvpe of that perfectlv unselfish 
 love. This, in the purely animal sphere, is shared 
 likewise by all creatures towards their tender oflf- 
 spring. But in the higher human sphere, the love 
 of parents for their children, when it is pure, is 
 always disinterested. The children's true welfare 
 is pursued Avith faithful steadfastness and at the cost 
 of personal sacrifices such as are known only to 
 true fathers and mothers. They do not look for a 
 
63 
 
 quid pro quo, for any return except the success of 
 their loving endeavours to promote their children's 
 well-being. The highest praise ever given by one 
 man to another is to say, " He was a father to me," 
 or of a woman, " She was like a mother," True 
 fatherly and motherly love is the highest form in 
 which love can be manifested to us, and this has 
 often been shown by men and women who have 
 never had any children of their own. This is why 
 we have felt that the name of Father is the best 
 and highest Xame which has ever been given to 
 God. Love is thus more than conscientiousness, 
 although it includes conscientiousness at every step. 
 It is conscientiousness o-lorified bv a delioht and 
 eagerness in performance. Love leaps u]) to do 
 gladly what mere sense of duty would drive us to 
 perform in a half-hearted way. Love turns all 
 drudgery into a delight, and immensely adds, to its 
 list of duties, the conferring of benefits far beyond 
 the maximum demanded by a moral code. Love, 
 too, quickens our anxiety to find out what is best 
 to be done, will not let us leave it to chance or 
 reckless speed whether, or how, relief or benefit 
 shoidd be conferred. Love thus expands the Con- 
 science and quickens the Reason, and even on this 
 ground only it would rightfully claim the supremacy 
 over the whole man. 
 
 Furthermore, we see how love, and love only, can 
 supjily the motive power to the knowledge and sense 
 of duty already residing in the Keason and Con- 
 
64 
 
 science. It is the great distress of a good man that 
 lie knows pretty well what is right, and that he feels 
 that he onght to do it ; hnt one thing is lacking — the 
 fire and heat to set the moral machinery in motion. 
 We lack the impnlse, we lack the fire and enthu- 
 siasm which will enable us to overcome the hard, 
 cold inertia of our own selfishness. But " Love 
 conquers all things," as we used to write in our 
 copybooks at school, and having learnt it then, we 
 quickly forgot it ; and so the love which God gave 
 us to warm us into active duty has been allowed to 
 grow cold and wither and die, leaving us only our 
 self-regard and self-interest to keep us from the 
 grosser vices and to preserve our respectahility. 
 There is not a man living in so-called civilisation, 
 of any creed under heaven or of no creed at all, 
 wdio does not know and who will not admit that if 
 love swayed the hearts of all, this earth would 
 become a heaven, nearlv all its woes w^ould dis- 
 appear, and sorrow and sighing would flee away. 
 We know this to a certainty. We know that love 
 would enable every one to do his fullest duty and 
 ever so much more, and yet that every fulfilment 
 of it and every so-called sacrifice in the doing of it 
 would be a supreme pleasure. 
 
 I do not, cf course, Avisli to disparage either 
 Reason or Conscience. They are indispensable to 
 human welfiire, and Love itself would be blind and 
 stupid and make terrible mistakes if either Reason 
 or Conscience were to be crippled or withdrawn. 
 
65 
 
 But I do say Ayitli truth, and witli a certainty of 
 carrvino- conviction to every heart that knows "what 
 true love is, that it is the best and noblest of all 
 the faculties which God has given us, and is 
 therefore, on the principles of Theism, that one 
 product in the universe which best reveals to us 
 what God is. If He has made us loving or 
 capable of love, He must l)e loving too, at least as 
 loving as the most loving among men. As we have 
 sun": in our hvmn this morning : — 
 
 " For the love Thou seiidest shows us 
 How that stronger love must glow ; 
 By its very depth reveaHng 
 Other depths of deeper feeling. 
 God alone can know. 
 
 " Teaching us of love unuttered, 
 
 Ever springing, ever new ; 
 Whose unfathoraed depth and beauty 
 Cheer our sorrows, gild our duty, 
 
 Perfect, constant, true." 
 
 And if you still ply me with demands for proof, 
 I repeat that the character of God is to be dis- 
 covered in the intense goodness of His purposes 
 and in the goodness of His methods. And there 
 is no other sphere than that of human love in 
 which that goodness of purpose and goodness of 
 method are so brilliantly displayed. For all will 
 own that Love itself is an impulse to do only 
 good and the highest discoverable good to our 
 fellow-men. All will own likewise that Love in 
 itself and in its action is the highest pleasure of 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 which we are capable ; that it is a great delight 
 to be loving and to do anything for love. In this 
 way, God, desiring us to do our duty, is seen to 
 be trying to make it easy for us to do, not merely 
 easy, but attractive, so that we need not to be 
 driven to it, or scolded into doing it, or threatened 
 into doing it ; but may do it spontaneously — 
 rejoicing over it the more, the more pain it may 
 cost us. 
 
 I would ask the Pessimist here, What on earth 
 could you devise that could be so good as this, 
 or so good in its method ? You may growl and 
 say, " It does not answer. Men and women will 
 be selfish till the crack of doom." But I tell you 
 that whenever it has been tried it is the grandest 
 success. Love never fails. If there be ftiilure 
 anywhere, it is in ourselves who have neglected 
 to stir up the gift of God which is within us, and 
 have yielded ourselves with a fatal ease to self- 
 indule-ence and self-interest instead. And if you 
 rail at God because human love is not strong 
 enough for the place, does not rule and reign 
 over us as it might and as it ought, then I say 
 look at the whole course of God's evolution of the 
 world. It is slow but sure. He does not rake up 
 the seeds He has just planted to see how they are 
 growing, but gives them all ample time to develop 
 their latent forces so as to make certain the residt 
 at which He aims. Just as surely as God grows 
 an oak from an acorn, so does He grow human 
 
67 
 
 love by slow development out of the apparently 
 cold and hard heart of man. And nowhere, not 
 even in our unloving heart, hath He left Himself 
 without witness. For when the heart is as cold 
 and selfish as any stone, the Conscience cries out 
 that it ought not to be cold and selfish, but warm 
 and loving. Our very sense of duty tells us we 
 owe more to our brother man than merely his 
 rights ; that we owe him our sympathy and 
 affection and kind words, kind excuses and kind 
 looks when we can o:ive him no more. The 
 influence of Love is striking indeed in our relations 
 with the so-called Avicked and perverse. It is here 
 that the power of Love is seen in its triumph. 
 Love seeks the amendment and the reclamation of 
 sinners ; concerns itself not at all with reprisals 
 and restitutions, but only with the sinner's personal 
 reformation. Love tries only to make men better 
 for their own sake and not for the benefits which a 
 loving heart may receive from them. Our love for 
 sinners — for those who have actually injured us — 
 explains to us God's own loving attitude to those 
 who are rebels against His authority and hinderers 
 of His good work on earth. Yes, and God has 
 sent Love upon earth to heal our strifes and divi- 
 sions, to reconcile foes, to turn the hearts of the chil- 
 dren to the fathers and the fathers to the children, 
 to enable us to bear long with injustice and per- 
 versity, to make kind excuses, and to forgive freely, 
 if need be, seventy times seven times a day. God's 
 
 F 2 
 
68 
 
 gracious gift of love gives tlie lie direct to tljat 
 most cruel of all texts, " I came not to bring 
 peace upon earth, but a sword. I am come to set a 
 man at variance against his fjither and the daughter 
 against her mother, and a man's foes shall be those 
 of his own household. Whoso lovetli father or 
 mother more than me is not worthy of me ; and 
 whoso loveth son or daughter more than me is not 
 worthy of me." Whoever spoke these wicked 
 words on earth was certainly not a teacher sent by 
 that God who gave to mankind the unspeakable 
 gift of love. All we need to heal our strifes is to 
 love one another more till we are able to speak 
 our honest thought, and to hear opinions which we 
 <lo not agree with, without quarrelling. 
 
 I think I have proved that He who made us is a 
 righteous and loving God. Many an inference, 
 beside, of joyful hope may be drawn from this 
 •established fact. On another occasion I shall 
 endeavour to draw those inferences. In my next 
 Lecture I shall deal with the revelation of God's 
 Love in the phenomena of Death. At present I 
 shall be content if Theism be admitted to be a true 
 Natural Theology, scientifically verified, based only 
 on facts. 
 
 ]\Iay God grant that our hearts may so burn 
 with true Love to each other that we may see 
 and adore and perfectly trust in the Infinite and 
 Eternal Love from whence all goodness flows ! 
 
69 
 
 LECTURE VII. 
 
 We have now to consider the Love of God in rela- 
 tion to the phenomena of Death, At first sight it 
 seems that, in completely separating those who love 
 one another, Death is more inconsistent with Love 
 than any other pain or trouble to which we are ex- 
 posed. Love, even in its highest and purest form, is 
 wounded and crushed by the loss of love on either 
 side and also by the total interruption of intercourse. 
 Permanence of the emotion and the continuance of 
 intercourse are essential to the happiness of true 
 love. Death is therefore opposed to love, and in- 
 consistent with it so far as it breaks finally and 
 completely all earthly intercourse between those 
 who love one another. Such " parting is pitiful 
 pain " and cannot be anything else. Yet God kills 
 and separates ; and so far as this mortal life is con- 
 cerned, there is no remedy, no redress. How then 
 can He be a loving God ? It is to this supreme 
 and solemn enquiry that we must betake our- 
 selves. 
 
 Let us bei>:in with a few 2:eneral observations on 
 
'0 
 
 what is called the "sacredness of human life." We 
 are so constituted that our own life is very dear to 
 us ; we feel constantly the desire to protect and to 
 prolong it ; and even when, through deep anguish 
 or morbid depression, we wish it were over, our 
 Reason and Conscience forbid us to put an end to 
 our life and urge us to bear anything rather than 
 destroy it by our own hand. But the lives of others 
 ^re more precious to us than our own. To the 
 lionour and glory of man it belongs to risk life and 
 to face death bravely and calmly in the defence of 
 those we love — aye, and even in the discharge of 
 the well-knoAvn duty of defending our Queen and 
 country. The ships that go down at sea, the life- 
 boat, the fire-engine, and the coal mine are sur- 
 rounded Avitli noble memories of those who have 
 cheerfully given their lives to rescue men and 
 women who were utter strangers to them. The 
 sacredness of life, then, is l)y no means regarded, 
 even by us mortals, as supreme. Other things are 
 more sacred still ; and even here, in this house of 
 God, vou and I can feel the old flame of that still 
 more sacred Love which tramples on the love of life 
 when our beloved are in danger. At this very 
 hour I would kill a man with the most deliberate 
 purpose, if by no other means I could prevent his 
 perpetrating a murder or an outrage on my wife 
 and children. If I could not kill him first, he 
 should only reach them by trampling over my dead 
 body. And I cannot imagine any future period of 
 
71 
 
 existence when I should cease to feel as I do now. 
 We observe further that many men and women 
 have preferred death to dishonour, have died in un- 
 speakable torture rather than tell a lie or profess to 
 believe what their hearts denied. So there are 
 things more sacred, more precious to us, than life 
 itself. 
 
 But now let us more closely examine Death as it 
 affects us in the natural human relations. I take 
 the case of a, mother at the bedside of her sick 
 child. Her one great passionate longing is to keep 
 alive and sound the body of her child and to ward 
 off the horrible event of a iinal separation. This is 
 the natural and inevitable condition of physical 
 existence in these relations. The mother cannot 
 help loving the child's body and wishing to preserve 
 it and to keep it near to her as long as she lives. 
 We see the same desire intensely strong between 
 husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and deeply 
 attached friends. It needs no justification, it is an 
 imperious instinct ; but if we began to look for rea- 
 sons for it, there are plenty of them and all well- 
 grounded. All lives ought to be precious and all 
 lives are precious to those who love them. The 
 body is the sole means by which a loving inter- 
 course can become possible or be maintained. Cut 
 off the agency of the body, and the intercourse 
 ceases. And with that of course vanishes all the 
 service, all the delight which loving service can 
 confer on both the giver and receiver. To us the 
 
72 
 
 death of our beloved must seem cruel. Seldom^ 
 indeed, is it anything but grievous at the time, and 
 for long after. Yet many and many are the divine 
 consolations which reach us as we pass on our soli- 
 tary way through the vale of tears. And many of 
 those who have trodden that path have lived ta 
 thank our Father " for the bitter pangs of separa- 
 tion by death." 
 
 Now, it is clear beyond all question that man and 
 
 his Maker stand here on very different ground. 
 
 AVithout a word of further preface, I say, it is clear 
 
 and certain that God does not love our bodies as we 
 
 love the bodies of our dear ones. It is essential to 
 
 human physical love that it should be permanent ; 
 
 that the body should remain with us ; that we 
 
 should keep it so long as we ourselves live and love 
 
 it. But God is ruthlessly killing these bodies, old 
 
 and vouno:, stroncr and weak, useful and useless, 
 
 with apparent indiiference or wanton caprice every 
 
 moment Ave draw breath. These bodies are mere 
 
 things wanted by Him only for a short term, ta 
 
 serve, w^e are sure, some good purpose ; but only 
 
 so long as He wants them and as they may serve 
 
 His grander purposes which we do not see. If God 
 
 be said to love any material thing in the universe^ 
 
 it is a misuse of terms ; for He cannot love it, as. 
 
 a mother loves her babe, when He can deliberately 
 
 part with it and destroy it, casting it away like a 
 
 faded flower or a withered leaf. Let me warn you 
 
 here that I am not imputing any wanton caprice or 
 
73 
 
 cruelty to God in inflicting death at any time in any 
 place or in any manner which He may choose : I am 
 only afflrming that God does not love the bod}^ of 
 any one in the same sense that it is loved by a 
 mother or father or husband or wife or brother or 
 sister or cherished friend. Because, if God did so 
 love it, He would not part with it, much less des- 
 troy it. 
 
 Where then are we to look for any solution of 
 this great mystery of Death in its antagonism 
 aorainst Love ? You will remember that at the 
 beffinnino' of these Lectures I warned vou that vou 
 could never find any solution of the deep problems 
 of life unless you kept continually before your 
 minds the distinction between the material and the 
 spiritual. All the material is visibly and certainly 
 transient ; nothing continues in one stay ; forms 
 and combinations dissolve and disappear one after 
 another, so that the elements which composed them 
 may pass into other forms and into new combina- 
 tions. It is even so with the human body ; it 
 changes from the germ into the babe, from the babe 
 into the youth, then into the man, and grows older 
 and older till it beo-ins to decav and at last to die. 
 It is calculated that all the atoms which compose a 
 human body are replaced by neAV atoms every seven 
 years, so that an old person of eighty-four years has 
 had twelve different bodies. Still the identity of 
 person and memory remains and shows signs of 
 permanence which are entirely absent from the 
 
74 
 
 body. Xow remember that ice are not the 
 bodies in which we live and move and love and 
 have interconrse one with another. We are non- 
 material, super-material beings which, for distinc- 
 tion's sake, we call spirits or souls. We trace 
 ourselves therefore to Spirit and not to matter ; to 
 God Himself and not to the blood of our parents, 
 who only begat our bodies. We are the offspring of 
 Him in whom dwells perfect intelligence, righteous- 
 ness and Love ; we are the offspring of God, for 
 we too possess intelligence, goodness and love 
 which are not material at all, but are spiritual in 
 their very essence and can only have come from 
 Spirit. But we have already seen that the posses- 
 sion of these spiritual faculties definitely and 
 certainly proves the good purpose of our Maker in 
 conferring them ; and that is the same thing as 
 saying that God is good and loving. Yes, but 
 what is that He loves ? It is the spirit, the soul, 
 the man, the woman, the child, that He truly loves 
 — not the bodies or houses in which those spirits 
 dwell — but the precious and immortal tenants who 
 occupy and use them for a brief space according 
 to His will. 
 
 For here I must draw a distinction between the 
 mere bounty and kindness of God and the Love of 
 God. By and by I hope to show that it is out of 
 bounty and kindness that God has sent Death into 
 the world, in spite of all our tears and lamentations ; 
 but I must distinguish between His mere kindness 
 
< o 
 
 and His Love ; between the ol)jects of the one and 
 the objects of the other. The one set of objects to 
 whom He is only kind are transient. The other 
 set of objects Avhich He loves are permanent, and 
 can never be separated from Him by death of the 
 body or by anything else. Just as the mother 
 would never part from her babe if she could help 
 it, or unless it would be very soon restored to her, 
 so, if God's Love is only as great as hers. He will 
 never part from His dear chilch'en, not even from 
 one of the mvriad souls which He has beo-otten. 
 And this truth was known and recorded by a 
 Hebrew Prophet thousands of years ago, " Can a 
 woman forget her sucking child, that she should not 
 have compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, 
 she may forget, yet will I never forget thee." As I 
 have said re^^eatedly, we are souls, not bodies. We 
 are spirits born out of the Love of God, and 
 destined to live in His Love to all eternity, or 
 else God does not love so much as the poor, frail, 
 mortal mother. It may be that every other body 
 in the universe has a soul too, every bird, beast, 
 reptile, insect, and every fish in the sea : nay, more, 
 every tree and herb of the field, every weed and 
 every flower. This may be only a beautiful dream; 
 but I allude to it so as not to mislead you, in 
 speaking of man as a spirit born and begotten of 
 God, to think that man is the only object of the 
 everlasting Love of God. Whatever He loves will 
 never perish, we may be quite sure. But all these 
 
76 
 
 outward things and forms do perish ; that is the 
 fact; and therefore, though He may be kind to 
 them and lavish upon them infinitely varied beauty 
 and happiness, He does not love them. 
 
 XoAV, let us turn to the thought that God 
 displays His kindness even in ordaining Death. 
 One obviously kind and generous purpose in Death 
 is to provide for a perpetual succession of living 
 creatures who can thus enjoy their short span of 
 the pleasures of life. The world is, so to speak, 
 as full as it can hold of living creatures, and if any 
 more are to come the living must make room for 
 the unborn. They must die that others may live. 
 Only a hard selfishness could object to this. I 
 have had my turn in this beautiful and delightful 
 w^orld of human life. Why should 1 begrudge to 
 others after me the pleasure Avhich I have enjoyed? 
 Is it grateful, is it decent, to murmur when the 
 messenger comes to tell me that my time is up and 
 that my work is done, that another life is waiting 
 for me to move on, and that I must now leave my 
 place to be filled by him ? If this were all, it 
 ought to be enough to stop a good-hearted man 
 from complaining that Death is a Divine institution. 
 
 But this is not all. If it were not for Death, the 
 very pleasures of life would be destroyed. Tr}-, if 
 vou can, to imaoine a world of men and women 
 Avho never died, never lost their present conditions, 
 but were doomed to live on here, on this isolated 
 planet, without the smallest hope of release. How 
 
i i 
 
 tlie mere thought of such n dreary future woukl 
 poisou every pleasure of the preseut hour ! How 
 our licarts would siuk at the awful outlook of the 
 impossibility of our spirits ever escaping from the 
 bondage of the flesh : all hope of progress and wider 
 experience absolutely shut out, and the weary 
 myriads of humanity facing one another in endless 
 monotony till every pleasure was gone and every 
 emotion worn out by dismal repetition ! And the 
 most awful consequence of the banishment of Death 
 would be that this lovely life of ours would be 
 bereft of its children. Not a babe to be seen in all 
 the wide world, not a sound of childisii laughter 
 would ever be heard ; all the divine lessons w^hicli 
 we now learn from the young would be impossible ; 
 all the SAveetest part of our nature which we derive 
 only and solely from the possession of children, or 
 from guardian contact with them, would never be 
 developed at all. Love in its sweetest, highest 
 and most beautiful form would never appear to teach 
 us the best and highest we can think and know of 
 God. As Longfellow sings for us : — 
 
 " Come to me, ye children I 
 For I hear you at your phiy, 
 Aud the questions which have vexed me 
 Have vanished quite away. 
 
 " Ye open the Eastern windows 
 That look towards the sun, 
 Where thoughts are singing swallows 
 And the brooks of mornins: run. 
 
78 
 
 " In your hearts are the hirds and the sunshine, 
 In your thoughts the brooklets flow ; 
 But in mine is the "wind of Autumn, 
 And the first fall of the snow. 
 
 " Ah ! what would the Avorld be to us 
 If the children were no more ? 
 We should dread the desert behind us 
 
 "Worse than the dark before. 
 
 « * * * 
 
 " Come to me, ye children ! 
 And whisper in my ear, 
 What the birds and the winds are sieging 
 In your sunny atmosphere. 
 
 " For what are all our contrivings, 
 And the wisdom of our books, 
 When compared with your caresses, 
 And the gladness of your looks ? 
 
 " Ye are better than all the ballads 
 That ever were sung or said ; 
 For ye are living poems. 
 
 And all the rest are dead ! " 
 
 If God were to abolish Death, He woiikl therein 
 and thereby at one stroke plnnge us into the depths 
 of darkness and turn our planet into a hell. If I 
 could not look forward to dying some day, I should 
 be of all men the most miserable. 
 
 I could go on to speak of the vast benefits which 
 mankind has reaped wholly and solely by the 
 scythe of Death. When Ave think of all the labour 
 and stren2;th and skill which have been created only 
 by the endeavour to postpone Death and to 
 mitigate the pains and weakness of disease and 
 decay which lead up to it ; when we recall the 
 
79 
 
 noble and beautiful virtues of patience and forti- 
 tude, of tenderest pity and compassion, of faithful 
 service rendered by our doctors and nurses ; wlien 
 we think of the loving charity with which the 
 broken hearts of the widow and the fatherless have 
 been bound up ; when we see the souls of men and 
 women rising out of the ashes of their despair into 
 faith and hope, crying out like Job, "The Lord 
 gave and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be 
 the name of the Lord ! " — when all such enormous 
 leaps have been taken in man's nature, and all due 
 to the ordaining of Death as the inevitable sequence 
 of life, it is not reasonable, it is not just, to find 
 fault with God for this His method of raisinsr us 
 above the low level of mere animalism. And all 
 these, you will observe, are purely mundane reasons 
 for the institution of Death. 
 
 I have said yet not a word about that " inheri- 
 tance undefiled and that fadeth not away " into 
 which Death ushers us. Having proved that God is 
 not only just but loving, we are forced to infer that 
 He loves us, that it was only out of Love that we 
 were born, and only for Love's sake that our bodies 
 must die, and we, set free from the bondage of 
 corruption, shall wing our flight into those realms 
 of joy and glory which His loving heart is surely 
 preparing for us. It is this which really explains 
 everything, which teaches us not to dread Death 
 at all, but to greet it as God's sweet messenger 
 sent to call us to a brio;hter home. " Li thv lio-ht," 
 
80 
 
 says the Psalmist, " shall we see light." In the 
 light of God's Love we see light beyond all the 
 darkness of the tomb. In that we can absolutely 
 rest Avitli a confidence sure and steadfast ; and the 
 mere flash of h across our darkened souls ought to 
 set up within us an entirely new way of regarding 
 ourselves, our mortal bodies, our life here, and the 
 certain blessed Death in which it must end. 
 
 I have said nothing, though I have plenty to say, 
 of the visible tano-ible mercies which Death so 
 often brings even to the weeping survivors. It 
 always seems to come as a shock, to be untimely 
 to those whose feehngs are for the time harrowed 
 by it. But sooner or later the mourners come to 
 be reconciled to their sorrow\ Sooner or later they 
 begin to see how timely and suitable and lovingly 
 ordered was that very death which had over- 
 whelmed them with orief. The tokens of the love 
 of the livino- God are not far to find if we have but 
 trustful hearts and eyes to look for them. As a rule 
 those who have suffered most not only complain 
 the least, but are loud and eloquent in their praises 
 of Him to whom they owe all their joy and all 
 their blessed sorrow ; out of whose very love they 
 were born into the world beloAV, and out of whose 
 love they will pass through the gates of Death into 
 the eternal Life of the w^orld to come. 
 
 " Let us in life and death 
 
 Boldly Tbv truth declare, 
 And publish with our latest breath 
 Thy love and guardian care." 
 
81 
 
 LECTURE VIII. 
 
 Our subject this morning will be again that which 
 occupied us in the last Lecture, viz., The Love of 
 God in relation to the phenomena of Death. I will 
 not repeat any of the foregoing arguments. The 
 special work which I have marked out for mvself 
 now is to deal with the fact that a life after death is 
 only an inference or corollary drawn from the already 
 established proofs of the love of God towards us ; 
 that there is absolutely no scientific demonstration 
 of a future life yet discernible ; that it is a hope 
 but nothing more ; a hope only strong and active 
 because it is reasonable ; a hope made all but cer- 
 tain by seeing what the alternative would be if 
 there were no life for us after death. I will state 
 the objection to this part of the Theistic theology 
 in the strongest terms I can select. An objector 
 may say : " Your entire system of Theistic belief 
 rests, after all, upon a mere assumption, upon a 
 belief or expectation for which the facts of jS^ature 
 to which you appeal afford not the slightest 
 ground. You yourself would admit that if there 
 be no life for us after the death of our bodies, the 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 alleged love of God towards us would fall to the 
 ground ; and, however wise or good His plans and 
 purposes might be, He could not truly love us, as 
 we understand love in its highest form, if He could 
 willingly part with us or cast us away as He casts 
 away our bodies. Thus, in the ultimate resort, your 
 whole system of Theism rests on hypothesis or 
 assumption and not on proved fact. For, if your 
 hypothesis of a future life be ftilse, the noblest 
 element which you attribute to God disappears ; 
 and, so far as love is concerned, man would then 
 be better than his Maker. And the moment you 
 touch that point, the moment you disprove a future 
 life (if it be disprovable) in that moment you have 
 destroyed the entire principle on which Theism 
 rests. You are confronted by a fact which upsets 
 your fundamental proposition that God must be 
 at least as good as the best that man can be or 
 can imagine." 
 
 Now, this objection is, I grant, extremely difficult 
 to meet, except for one fact. The objection itself 
 is based on hypothesis — that is to say : The ob- 
 jector is arguing on the assumption that there is no 
 future life for us. If there be no evidence amount- 
 ing to positive demonstration, such as science would 
 recognise — such alone as I could myself accept — 
 that there is a life for us after death, so likewise 
 there is no such evidence that we cease to live when 
 our bodies die. At present both these conflicting- 
 theories are assumptions and nothing more. So 
 
83 
 
 that even if Theism were to be discredited, owing 
 to its dependence on the one hypothesis, it coukl 
 not be overthrown l)y the other, so long as that also 
 remains an hypothesis unproved. The aspect of 
 the objection is now so altered that it seems much 
 less formidable. For Avhen two varying hypotheses 
 are in the field, recourse must be had to the balance 
 of probabilities. Which of the two has the greater 
 claim on our reasonable acceptance ? Which of 
 the two hypotheses is more in accord with facts 
 already known and indisputable ? Theism has 
 already given absolute proof that the Intelligent 
 Maker of man is wise and good and loving in 
 having imparted to us a certain measure of intelli- 
 gence, goodness and love with the obvious purposes 
 of producing both goodness and happiness — happi- 
 ness indeed through goodness — for each individual 
 and for the whole of mankind as a race. Theism 
 has thus proved as a fact that the attainment of 
 high and noble character, of the best and loveliest 
 dispositions and motives, is the purpose for which 
 we have been so endowed. But the fact is no less 
 clear and certain that this purpose is not entirely 
 fulfilled by any man's life here on earth. The best 
 of us all are the least satisfied with that small 
 measure of goodness we have reached, as compared 
 with our ideal of what it ou^-ht to be and with what 
 human nature is capable of attaining, if only time 
 and conditions be duly allowed. Only by granting 
 such time can the good purpose [of our higher 
 
 G 2 
 
84 
 
 faculties be accomplished. Theism has established 
 all this as an immovable rock from which the 
 human mind cannot be shaken. Surely this affords 
 a very high degree of probability for the hope of a 
 life to come. 
 
 Moreover, the experience of souls ought to count 
 among the facts from which to draw reasonable 
 inferences ; and no experience of souls is more 
 striking or more well-substantiated than the tie of 
 devout affection between them and their God ; the 
 intense and supreme love of the soul for its most 
 rio;hteous and lovino; Father in whom all its trust 
 reposes and to wdiom all its most fervent aspirations 
 ascend. Whatever happens to the body, the souls 
 of these His dear children so cling in feitli and love 
 to God that they are positively sure of never fading 
 away out of His presence, never letting go of His 
 hand. It is in the highest degree improbable that 
 God would create and encourage such passionate 
 affection towards Himself, knowing all the while 
 that with the stroke of the scythe of Death all this 
 iovino; intercourse would absolutelv come to an end 
 for evermore. And if, further, w^e see what grand 
 endeavours and noble sacrifices have been made 
 during this life for the one sole purpose of being 
 good and growing better, and with the one chief 
 hope of becoming at last so pure and holy and 
 loving as perfectly to satisfy the requisitions of a 
 perfectly Holy and Loving God — then I think w^e 
 may fairly say that nothing is so improbable as 
 
85 
 
 that a good God \yould disappoint those high and 
 disinterested hopes, and requite those conscientious 
 sacrifices by ruthless, heartless extinction. Were 
 that possible, it would be a servile flattery and a 
 conscious falsehood to say that God was good. 
 
 To take even lower ground, it seems highly 
 improbable that God takes no cognizance of the 
 true and beautiful love which sometimes exists 
 between us in our several relations, and that He 
 separates finally and for ever at death the souls 
 which truly loved each other on earth. At night- 
 fall, or before a journey, or when long and painful 
 earthly separations have to be borne, we could 
 hardly bring ourselves to say '• farewell," or even 
 '' good night," were it not for the strong hope 
 within us that the parting is only for a time ; and 
 before many hours, or days, or months, or years 
 are passed we shall be re-united to those we love. 
 It is just that hope which saves us from a torment 
 too great to bear. So with the bitter pains of 
 separation by death it is sometimes the only con- 
 solation left that in some new, some utterly un- 
 imagined, life beyond the grave we earnestly hope 
 and even expect to meet again in wonder, love, and 
 praise. The very failure of our best endeavours 
 here, the cruel disappointments of our life and love, 
 the unfinished work, the unsolved problems, the 
 unrighted wrongs of this lower life, all tend to 
 strengthen, if not to frame, the very foundations of 
 that hope for a life to come, and to bring it to the 
 
86 
 
 ver2:e of a certain conviction. The more we need 
 God liere on eartli to help us to he good, the more 
 certainly we trust that in another world He will 
 fulfil and over-pass our highest desires, and, " when 
 we awake up after His likeness, we shall he satisfied 
 therewith." 
 
 Set over against these prohahilities what you 
 please ; they will not weigh a feather against what 
 I have urged. All you can do is to reiterate that 
 physical science is absolutely silent upon the 
 question and must in the very nature of things he 
 so, because it deals only with material forces and 
 phenomena. The hypothesis of our life being 
 absolutely closed by the death of our bodies cannot 
 be breathed without doing violence to the Reason, 
 Conscience and Heart of man. It stultifies all that 
 God has revealed to us of His good purposes ; it 
 represents Him as doing outrageous wrong to His 
 creature man ; and. worst of all, denies to Him a 
 single spark of fatherly love for His children. It 
 makes our creation " a blunder infinite and 
 inexcusable." If believed in seriously, in these 
 days of greater light and keener insight, it would 
 make religion impossible, and in a large number of 
 cases would absolutely destroy the strongest 
 motives for morality. Any regard for character 
 and personal cultivation of secret virtue would be 
 impossible to all but the rarest few, even if one 
 man could be found to live so heroically knowing 
 that the grave would bury his noblest aspirations. 
 
87 
 
 But now I must remind you of tlie fundamental 
 facts upon which the higher assumption of a future 
 life really rests. These are the facts of our own 
 consciousness, w^hich are the result of the very 
 nature which has been given to us. Our Eeason, 
 Conscience and Love, all together, compel us to 
 feel that if only we had the power and knew the 
 best means to adopt, even we poor mortal men 
 w^ould carry out the good purposes of human life 
 and faculty to their fullest achievement. We could 
 not stop short till those ends were attained. We 
 could not admit of failure or loss in one single 
 instance. Righteousness and Love — even only as 
 far, or as little, as we know them — demand such a 
 sequel and will be content with no other and no 
 less. So that our hypothesis is not merely a guess 
 in the dark, but based upon the surest facts of all 
 that is hio-hest and best within us. God must be 
 at least as good and loving as ourselves, else 
 there is no God at all. Of course, I do not say 
 anj'thing so ignorant and wild as that God is 
 thereby tied down to our conceptions of what is 
 good, or to our imagined methods of doing it : but 
 wdiereinsoever these conceptions of ours differ from 
 the thoughts of God Himself, ours will be invariably 
 lower and worse than the thoughts and ways of 
 God. If God disappoints any of our expectations, 
 it is only to give us something in its place infinitely 
 better still. And a wide outlook upon the history 
 of His dealino'S with our race and with many 
 
88 
 
 individuals absolutely confirms this statement and 
 proves that His purposes and plans are always far 
 better for us than our own. Men have always been 
 right in their expectation of "a good time coming," 
 but nearly always WTong in their prediction of the 
 details of wdiat that good should be. The results, 
 too, have always shown that God's fulfilment of 
 man's hopes turns out better than their highest 
 expectations. There is ample ground, then, for 
 hoping and feeling sure that Death is only the door 
 opening to a higher life. It has been revealed to us 
 by the unquestioned facts of our human nature. 
 
 Yet, I admit that it has not been hitherto demon- 
 strated with mathematical certainty. Men have 
 wondered why this certainty has been withheld and 
 only a strong hope left to us instead. They have 
 tried in vain to make it more sure, and in that 
 endeavour have resorted to the most feeble and 
 even ridiculous methods and arguments — such as 
 necromancy and alleged miracles of the resurrec- 
 tion of the body, which are not of the smallest 
 value, but rather hindrances to our right conception 
 of any life to come. My belief is that God has 
 hidden that life from us bv an impenetrable barrier, 
 because any true revelation of it to us before 
 death would be impossilile ; because we have no 
 experience and no faculty which would enable us to 
 understand or to appreciate it. But even were it 
 possible, surely the revelation of what is to follow 
 death would do an unspeakable amount of harm. 
 
89 
 
 The mere hope and desire for it have already done 
 some mischief in the world among people who did 
 not sufficiently feel the supreme importance of doing- 
 their duty here on earth diligently and disinter- 
 estedly. For such as these, a revelation of the life 
 after death would be an unmixed evil. Indeed I 
 do not see how the moral government of the 
 world could be carried on as well as it is, nor 
 how the highest and purest motives for virtue 
 could be sustained, when once a vision of the 
 coming glory were vouchsafed to us. It is 
 enough that God has taught us the supreme delight 
 of trying to please Him without hope of reward, 
 and the delio'ht of livino- a life of Love to one 
 another. In these high felicities we may be per- 
 mitted to catch a glimpse of what our bliss will be 
 when our obedience is perfect and our Love at last 
 without a surviving spark of selfishness. But 
 beyond that, we are far better off with only a hope 
 than we could be if we had any certain knowledge 
 or demonstration of the life to come. 
 
 It belongs then especially to Theism as a Science 
 of Natural Theology to furnish the surest and most 
 reasonable grounds for faith and hope, for absolute 
 trust in a Ilighteous and Loving God, and for a 
 sure and certain hope of an uninterrupted life of 
 communion with Him — l)oth trust and hope based 
 on the solid grounds of fact in our own constitution 
 as human and spiritual beings, and on arguments 
 legitimately and logically drawn from them. The 
 
90 
 
 alternatives are nowhere. They shrivel up into 
 fragments of diseased and withered thought, the 
 product only of disordered minds. Let us comfort 
 and cheer ourselves in the words of the poet : — 
 
 " Thou knowest all the future ; gleams of gladness 
 
 Bj stormy winds too quickly overcast ; 
 Hours of sweet fellowship acd parting sadness, 
 
 And the dark river to be crossed at last. 
 Oh ! What could hope and confidence aftbrd 
 To tread that path but this — Thou knowest, Lord ? " 
 
91 
 
 LECTURE IX. 
 
 If these Lectures on Theism bore no other fruit, 
 they seem to me to have a special value in calling 
 forth the objections of thoughtful men who are no 
 less anxious than ourselves to arrive at the truth. 
 If we meet these objections in the right spirit 
 and by fair argument, the result will be that any 
 errors into which we may have fiillen will have a 
 chance of being corrected ; and, on the other hand, 
 our own position will be materially strengthened if 
 we can meet and refute the objections. I am sure 
 of your hearty sympathy with me in such endea- 
 vours, although of necessity the close reasoning and 
 minute examination of terms used must be to a 
 certain degree hard and dry. Both my hearers and 
 myself must exercise patience in the task. A clever 
 lawyer writes to me thus : — 
 
 "I have been reading your Lectures with much interest. As 
 you know, I am with you almost entirely, but the difficulties to 
 my mind arc chiefly the following : — 
 
 1. Does proof of intelligent or beneficent design necessarily 
 imply the existence of anything which can be called personality 
 in the Deity ? 
 
92 
 
 2. The difficulty of reconciling the existence of persecution 
 with any benevolent system." 
 
 Our attention must be directed now exclusively 
 to the first of these two difficulties. And upon 
 that difficulty mv friend still further enlaro-es in the 
 following words : — 
 
 "I quite follow all the arguments in favour of the various 
 attributes of the Deity because these are all capable of being 
 expressed in langunge comprehensible by us, and are merely more 
 or less transcendental improvements upon similar attributes which 
 we recognise from day to day in our fellow-creatures. The diffi- 
 culty to my mind is to associate them with immaterial Deity. 
 Most minds can, I feel, only realise that which partakes of a more 
 or less material character. The expression ' God is a Spirit ' 
 only means to most men something which is actually material 
 but is only less material than a body. Directly they associate 
 with the concept of this Spirit anything in the nature of human 
 attributes, however glorified or spiritualised, I feel that they iu 
 effect materialise their Deity, and in introducing the personal 
 element they materialise hiui and in effect erect a sort of idol. I 
 doubt whether we can endow a God with these attributes with- 
 out really abandoning the concept, ' God is a Spirit.' " 
 
 Now, I do not know whether, in hearing this 
 statement of the difficult}', you have felt as I do. 
 But my first impression is that my friend is taking 
 a long journey to create a difficulty which does not 
 naturally exist, although I own that almost every- 
 thing has been done in Christendom to create it 
 artijiciallij . That is to say, Christian Religion has 
 been systematically taught in connection with 
 anthropomorphic and materialistic conceptions, so 
 as to render it all but impossible for a mind just set 
 
93 
 
 free from orthodox ideas to conceive of a Spiritual 
 God at all. Hence, no doubt, what my friend says, 
 is not only true, hut finds its exjilanation. Most 
 men do associate the concept of Deity with more 
 or less materialistic ideas. But I will remind him 
 that this error has not been universal in the world ; 
 for some of the Hebrew Psalmists and Prophets 
 attained to the purest possible spiritual concept of 
 God perfectly free from anthropomorphic ideas of 
 "a local habitation and a name." Without beino- 
 conscious of it, I think my friend has grown up with 
 the Christian ideas cHnoino- to him, although he may 
 never have really believed the Christian Creeds. He 
 seems imperceptibly to have caught the prevailing 
 spirit. Certainly it has been the privilege of Theists 
 to become emancipated from all these anthropo- 
 morphic notions and to he able to think of God as 
 true Spirit distinct from material things. I do not 
 mean to say that we can explain or define " Spirit," 
 but we gather much of what it is by the recognition 
 that ive are spirits and not the bodies in which we 
 dwell. We Theists have grown so accustomed 
 to this thought, that we can only think of God 
 as Spirit too — as the Spiritual Source and Father 
 of our true selves. It is true, and we do not 
 forget, that for purposes of human life and mani- 
 festation and communication with one another we 
 are tied and ])ound to a material body and brain 
 without which we cannot, humanly speaking, live 
 and act. But it needs no mental effort to recognise 
 
94 
 
 the existence and activity of spirit quite apart from 
 the agency of a physical brain, because the 
 evidences of an omnipresent intelligence confront 
 us every moment of our lives, and teach us, as the 
 very alphabet of theology, tliat God is not limited 
 in space or subject to the fetters and trammels of 
 our mortal existence and human conditions. More- 
 over, the true Theist has always been, and is 
 proud to confess himself, a pure Agnostic in regard 
 to the mode of the existence of the Divine Beins; 
 and His relation to the world. We not only 
 profess to know nothing of such transcendent 
 themes, but we think the enquiry both futile and 
 worthless. It is no concern of ours how God 
 exists, how pure Spirit can live and act under 
 conditions entirelv different from oiu' own. It 
 would be the depth of folly and wasted time to 
 bestow thought upon questions which are so far 
 beyond reach of our faculties. What really does 
 concern us to know is well within the reach of our 
 thought and experience, and we are wisely content 
 to be true Agnostics in reference to everything 
 that lies beyond. 
 
 But our friend betrays the fact that that terrible 
 term " personality " has been a stumbling-block in 
 his way. The term " personal " as applied to God 
 is a most dangerous one to use unless guarded by 
 the most exact definition. Thousands of persons 
 use it in quite a wrong and misleading sense. 
 Here, again, I am reminded of the mischief 
 
95 
 
 wrouo-ht by the Christian Creeds in reference to 
 this very term. Personality ahnost always implies 
 anthropomorphism of a gross materialistic type. 
 In argning with my friend, then, our first business 
 is to throw that word "personality" into the waste- 
 paper basket, as of no value at all but, on the 
 contrary, grossly misleading. The only thing 
 which concerns us to discover is whether God is 
 a knowing God, or ignorant and unconscious of 
 you and me. I feel sometimes as if I could never 
 cease lamenting over the great Matthew Arnold 
 for doing his very worst to destroy every vestige 
 of a foundation for trust in and communion with 
 God. He held up for scorn the concept of " a God 
 who thinks and know^s and loves." He thus cut 
 at the very roots of all religion and, in an indirect 
 manner, thereby did much to uproot the foundations 
 of all morality. But, in my opinion, his position 
 was deeply false, was absolutely untenable, and had 
 the immediate effect of extinguishing tlie last 
 o^leam of lio-ht still shinino^ on our relations with 
 God. He thought, no doubt, that he could render 
 no greater service to Christ — and so he did — by his 
 total eclipse of a God w4io knows. I preached 
 three Sermons in refutation of his views as set 
 forth in Literature and Dogma when the work 
 appeared in 1873 ; and I take it as a high compli- 
 ment that I was the only one of his critics to w^hom 
 he did not vouchsafe a reply. But the falsehood of 
 his teaching is doomed to perish. The mind of 
 
96 
 
 man — not to speak of his conscience and love — the 
 miud of man is forced hy its very constitution to 
 admit that wherever purpose is manifested there 
 must be knowleds-e. If once vou admit that in 
 any part of the universe there is design — benevolent 
 or otherwise, it matters not — there is a direct 
 revelation to us of knowledge in the mind of the 
 operator. And until you have eliminated the last 
 vestige of purpose in the processes of nature, 
 you will have a Ruler of Nature who knows 
 what He is doino- and who certainlv knows the 
 diiference between a man and a tree. No wonder 
 then that the Atheistic tendencv of the ao'e has 
 shown itself most of all in the endeavour to root 
 out all notion of purpose or intelligence in the 
 operations of Nature. True science has, of course, 
 been too strono; for this Atheistic tendencv, and the 
 intelligent purposes of God have been made ever 
 more clear and wonderful with every fresh addition 
 to our knowledo;e. The late Professor Tvndall, 
 discoursing on crystalline and molecular forces and 
 showing some of their marvellous beauty, said : — 
 
 "I Lave seen these things hundreds of times, but I never look 
 at them without wonder, and, if you allow me a moment's 
 diversion, I would say that I have stood in the spring-time and 
 looked upon the sprouting foliage, the grass, and the flowers, 
 and the general joy of opening life. And, in ray ignorance of 
 it all, I have asked myself whether there is no power, being, or 
 thing in the universe whose knowledge of that of which I am 
 so ignorant is greater than mine. I have a^ked myself, Can it 
 be possible that man's knowledge is the greatest knowledge, 
 that man's life is the highest life ? " 
 
97 
 
 One is almost ashamed to have to appeal to the 
 marvellous arrangements of the cosmos as revealed 
 by astronomy, or, again, by such familiar objects as 
 the bee and the clover, in order to bring reluctant 
 minds to own that Avherever there is manifested 
 purpose there is manifested knowledge in the pur- 
 poser. If people can be found to believe that it is 
 ^11 blind chance, the product of blind, ignorant and 
 unconscious forces, they must not complain if they 
 meet wdth a^ood-natured ridicule, such as Ave are 
 now accustomed to throw at the old orthodox notion 
 that the earth was not a sphere but a plane, round 
 which the sun daily revolved. And the ridicule is 
 justified because the opinion w^hicli is, in this case, 
 ridiculous, is unsupported by a single grain of evi- 
 dence, while it is contradicted by a mass of evidence 
 which it would take a lifetime to register. 
 
 If you want to get rid of the concept of Deity, 
 do so in a fair and intelligent way ; do not deny 
 the intelligence, but posit the intelligence in the 
 subjects of it themselves. Say, if you like, that the 
 suns, stars, planets and satellites move themselves 
 according to their own sweet will ; say, if you like, 
 that the bee designed and made itself, and the 
 clover did the same, and that, w^hile the clover was 
 thinking only of its children, the bee Avas thinking- 
 only of its food. But wherever you posit the pur- 
 pose, you must posit the knowledge requisite to 
 form and to carry it out. You cannot have the 
 one without the other. It is too absurd to attribute 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 such exquisite adaptations as we see in ISTature to an 
 unintelligent and blind unconscious force. Purpose 
 involves a priori knowledge. Science, I tliink, teaches 
 us surely that all things which are revealed to us by 
 astronomy, or by the life of bees and flowers, are 
 products of a mind which had been at work upon 
 them during vast ages before. Science does not 
 say that the bee made itself or could make itself, 
 even if it wished to control or modify its constitu- 
 tion and powers ; neither does science say that the 
 clover laid its own plans for the fulfilment of its 
 maternal wishes by the agency of the bee. Science 
 tells us this instead — that it took ages and ages of 
 development by slow degrees to produce at last the 
 desired co-operation ; and that not one single indi- 
 vidual, bee or flower, had any choice, or exercised 
 any volition, with a view to accomplish it ; each 
 was caused to be what it was, absolutely without 
 its consent or will. It was all the work of a mind 
 distinct from the materials wherewith it wrought. 
 And THAT MIND KNOWS. It is an abuse of language 
 to say tliat He did not or does not know what He 
 has done and is doing. But because He knows, He 
 is then our King and our God. Once prove to me 
 that He knows, and I Avill make you a present of 
 all your abstruse terms, your " personalities " and 
 " spiritualities." He is to me the Living God, if only 
 He be conscious of me and of the rest of His 
 works. 
 
 But if this be all we really need to form our 
 
99 
 
 concept of Deity, then I snbmit tlint it is purely 
 spiritual, that it is absolutely a non-material con- 
 cept ; and, while it forces us to think and speak of 
 God as " He " or " Him," and not as " It," the con- 
 cept is untainted by the smallest admixture of 
 materialistic language or idea. If any one chooses 
 on that ground to call God a "person," in order 
 to distinguish Him from a mere "thing," I would 
 not object ; but all would depend on the preserva- 
 tion of the absolute purity of the spiritual idea of 
 God being One who knows. 
 
 My friend said in his letter what I do not think 
 he Avoidd repeat after hearing or reading this 
 Lecture : — 
 
 "Assuming design and benevolence, I cannot see any greater 
 difficulty in looking upon these us abstract qualities operating 
 throughout space and eternity, without anything in the nature 
 of personal embodiment, than in creating a spiritual entity to form, 
 a vehicle for them in their application to the cosmos." 
 
 "Design and benevolence," let me remind our 
 friend, have no existence at all as "abstract 
 qualities." It is permissible to us to make use of 
 abstract terms for convenience and brevity in dis- 
 cussion, but we ought never to forget that abstract 
 terms are nothing more; they have no real existence; 
 that design has no existence apart from a designer, 
 nor benevolence apart from a benevolent will. If 
 the presence of these qualities be admitted any- 
 where in the cosmos, then and there they prove the 
 real existence of an intelligent and benevolent Being. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 It is not accurate to suggest that we have to create 
 or invent a spiritual entity to account for the 
 presence of design or benevolence in the cosmos, 
 because these carry with them invariably and in- 
 evitably the irresistible proofs of the Being who 
 exercises them. While the sun is burning our 
 heads and blinding our eyes, we do not need to 
 invent or create a solar entity to account for the 
 phenomena. The phenomena and the knowledge 
 of their cause are simultaneous, spontaneous, and 
 independent of any enquiry as to their relation. It 
 is just so with every revelation of purpose in the 
 works of God around and within us. When we see 
 the purpose, we see instantly also the mind of the 
 operator, from whom the purpose comes. The 
 phenomenon and our knowledge of its cause are 
 simultaneous. 
 
 Our subject this morning, no doubt, has been 
 somewhat dry, but it is of the deepest and highest 
 importance to us. It is the very rock on which all 
 our faith and hope are built — to be very sure that 
 God is here and always, and that He knows ; that 
 He knows everything which He has produced ; 
 knows everything as it really is, and not merely as 
 it seems to us. In that knowledge of the past, 
 present and future, which God alone possesses, 
 standeth our eternal life ; it is the rock on which all 
 our trust is based, and which inspires every breath 
 of hope for the time to come. Yet more than all 
 else, it brings us face to face — not with abstract 
 
101 
 
 qualities or concepts of Deity more or less tainted 
 with materialism — but face to face with the Living 
 God Who knows us one and all, throuiih and 
 through ; Who by simple right of His majesty 
 claims our fealty ; Who bv His ijoodness claims our 
 constant loyal obedience and reverent recognition 
 of His rights over us ; and Who, by his matchless 
 Love, claims from us these poor, cold hearts of 
 ours which He has left us free to give or to with- 
 hold, only that we may be as willing to go to Him 
 with the sweet sacrifice as He is willing to receive 
 and to accept it. Yes ! The Living God Who 
 KNOWS ! To see Him once really and clearly is to 
 be a new creature, born again into a true spiritual 
 world, is to pass even from death unto life, out of 
 darkness into His marvellous light. 
 
102 
 
 LECTURE X. 
 
 It will be our duty to-day to take up for considera- 
 tion the second of the two objections or difficulties 
 brought forward by the lawyer whose thoughts we 
 were examining in Lecture IX. I will state it in 
 his own words : — 
 
 " 2. The difficulty of reconciling the existence of persecution 
 with any benevolent system. As to this, I feel little or no 
 difficulty in ucceptingyour arguments that pain is a most benevo- 
 lent institution productive of great good, the greatest good, to 
 the sufferer, but when that pain is produced by active interven- 
 tion of human agency in the shape of persecution, I see a great 
 difficulty. The pain may be productive of great good to the 
 persecu^c^/, but how about the persecu/o/- ? Where does the 
 benevolent scheme produce good to the persecu/or in allowing 
 him to indulge those evil propensities which are to be the means 
 of chastening and perfecting the persecu/erf .' It is notorious 
 that the persecutor becomes worse by the indulgence of these 
 evil propensities. There may be a solution of this difficulty, but 
 at present it is to me a complete paradox." 
 
 And so it must remain, insoluble, so long as we 
 confine our attention to the immediate facts and 
 details. Our standpoint is too low to take in all 
 the breadth and meaning of the phenomena. We 
 must stand further off till we see the relation 
 
103 
 
 which the facts bear towards each other, and till 
 we are able to discern the part they play in the 
 great moral scheme of the universe. An American 
 friend of mine once pertinently asked : " What is 
 the idea in the mind of a llv crawlins; over an oil 
 painting ? The rugged surface and varieties of 
 colour must seem to the fly a hopeless enigma. It 
 needs a more distant view and an intelligent ob- 
 server to detect its meaning or to appreciate its 
 truth and l^eauty." 
 
 Already in this course of Lectures I have touched, 
 but only briefly, on the great question of moral evil. 
 Yet even then, I think, I said quite enough to 
 explain and fully account for even the worst moral 
 evil, viz., human cruelty. Let us go over the 
 ground once more in the simplest manner possible, 
 and we shall discern without difficulty the necessity 
 for those terrible evils by which mankind are slowly 
 but surely brought to learn their folly and to seek 
 after wisdom. 
 
 When we say that God is good, we mean, of 
 course, that His goodness does not consist in a 
 mechanical impossibility to do evil, but it consists 
 in a willing deliberate choice of and preference for 
 goodness. Otherwise He Avould be neither moral 
 nor immoral, but onh'' unmoral. Goodness and 
 righteousness would be terms misapplied to any 
 Beino;, Divine or human, who was mechanicallv 
 incapable of doing wrong. Real goodness always 
 implies choice of a better Avlien a worse is possible. 
 
104 
 
 With the deepest reverence, then, we declare our 
 belief that God is good, if good at all, only from 
 deliberate choice of good purposes and good methods 
 of carrying them out. 
 
 Our next step is to see, as has been already 
 proved, that we learn from our own constitution 
 and conditions that God's purpose or aim with us is 
 to make us, or cause us to grow, good in the same 
 way as He is good — viz., good from deliberate 
 choice and not from a mechanical inability to do 
 wrong. In order to make such goodness possible 
 at all for us, it was necessary that we should have 
 a limited amount of freedom ; that we should be 
 placed in conditions where good and evil are alike 
 possible, where the eternal distinction between the 
 two can be discerned and continually recognised^ 
 where the most bitter experiences can teach us the 
 malignant nature of all kinds of sin, and where 
 blissful experiences can teach us the benignity and 
 priceless value of all forms of obedience to the 
 moral law. Furthermore, we are to learn not only 
 to do right and to avoid evil — that is much, but it 
 is not all or the most important part of our 
 discipline — we have to learn to love what is right 
 and to hate what is evil ; to have our whole will 
 enlisted on the side of goodness and against every 
 form and degree of sin, so that we may prefer to 
 do right even though we suffer for it, and will not 
 be induced to do wrong, however enticing the 
 bribe. And the historv of our race bears me out 
 
105 
 
 in declaring this to be God's purpose witli us here 
 on earth. We know that man has risen, perhaps 
 only a fcAV degrees, but certainly has risen in the 
 tendency to grow better, to love goodness more, 
 and to hate sin more. Man has largely increased 
 his mere knowledge of the difference between good 
 and evil, has raised higher the standard of right by 
 which he thinks all men's hearts and lives ought to 
 be ruled ; and while thus advancing in ethical 
 knowledge, he has acquired a stronger leaning 
 towards the side of goodness, and a stronger 
 aversion to what is base and brutal. At the same 
 time it must not be forgotten that the progress 
 has been very slow, that the process seems only to 
 be besrun here on earth, and nearly all remains to 
 be completed for the individual in some life to 
 come. It needs more than a prophetic eye, it needs 
 the eye of God Himself to picture the far-off issue 
 both for the human race on earth and for the 
 individual after death. Nevertheless, we have 
 faculties which enable us to forecast with certainty 
 that even here beloAV our moral conditions will be 
 one dav immeasurably liioher and purer than they 
 are now, and that God's faithfulness to His good 
 purposes and His matchless love for His children — 
 already disclosed to us — will assuredly work with- 
 out ceasing for the attainment of our perfection 
 and our bliss. If all this be well understood and 
 kept in view, it is surely sufficient to account for 
 the worst evils we have witnessed, and to justify 
 
106 
 
 the great and holy God in permitting them and 
 allowing them to form part of His plans. 
 
 Persecution, it is true, is the worst kind of evil 
 known to us. No cruelty was ever so great as 
 that perpetrated by the rulers of the Christian 
 Church upon those who rebelled against her 
 authority or endeavoured to let a little more light 
 shine on the darkness of Christian errors and 
 impieties. But in the great scheme of moral 
 development, as we see it, more or less aberration 
 cannot count. If we are free at all, we must be 
 free to do the worst we may wish to do, or else 
 the needful lesson by experience will never be 
 learnt. Just as a child learns to stand alone and 
 to w^alk, mainly through the painful experiences 
 of tumblino' and stumblino', so the moral infant 
 learns the difference between good and evil by the 
 pleasant and bitter experiences which each kind 
 of conduct and character entails. The most 
 mournful fact of all, to my mind, is that the 
 worst crimes of the world have been committed 
 under the false impression that they were moral 
 obligations, and that God in heaven was pleased 
 by the tortures inflicted upon His holiest saints. 
 That was ghastly, indeed, and yet there was a 
 necessity even for that, which we can more or 
 less dimly discern. The persecutors needed to be 
 taught that it was "the lie in their right hand" 
 which led them to those fiendish monstrosities. 
 To our eyes they did not seem to learn the lesson ; 
 
107 
 
 thev went on Avitli greater zeal in tlieir pursuit 
 o£ heretics, and exhausted human ing-enuity in 
 inventing instruments of torture. To us they 
 seem to have grown worse by every fresh in- 
 dulgence of the craving for what seemed to 
 them divinely-licensed cruelty. But what do 
 we know about their redl condition ? , How can 
 we possibly declare that none of them had any 
 misgivings as to the rightness of their ferocity ? 
 How can we even guess at what was going 
 on in their hearts, or when or where God 
 opened their eyes to see the enormity of their 
 mistake ? It ought to be enough for us to re- 
 member that, with all their freedom to torture the 
 bodies, they could not touch or corrupt the souls of 
 their victims ; that God Himself had resources, and 
 visibly used them, to i^uitigate the horrors which 
 were endured and to sustain the spirit in its 
 integrity and its hope under excruciating agony. 
 But not only the persecutors, but the rest of the 
 world had to be tauo-ht that " the wrath of man 
 worketh not the righteousness of God " ; and, for 
 aught we know, there was no better way for man- 
 kind to learn to turn with loathing and horror from 
 the principles of the Holy Inquisition than by witness- 
 ing the depths of devilish cruelty to which it sank. 
 I do not pretend to solve such a moral paradox 
 standing by itself a^d on its own merits. I can 
 only approximate to a solution by standing further 
 off and seeing the deep, the indispensable necessity 
 
108 
 
 for the whole scheme of moral discipline to work 
 itself out according to the inexorable laws which 
 God Himself had imposed. The only light which 
 shines iqion such problems is the fact that if any 
 goodness was to be at all, it must be gained only by 
 unrestrained liberty to do evil, and purchased at the 
 price of transcendent wrongs. Miracles, moral or 
 physical, are out of ail question in God's world ; and 
 nothing less than a miracle would have prevented 
 those Popes, and Bishops, and Priests, from working 
 their wicked will against those who had been sent 
 to enlighten and bless mankind by their protest 
 against the tyranny of the Church. What is in the 
 heart, according to the laws which God has imposed 
 on human nature, must and will come out into 
 action unless checked by the natural activity of the 
 controlling forces. Reason, Conscience and Love. 
 Where there is profound ignorance, the law is that 
 dire mistakes will be made : when the Conscience 
 is perverted by a false religion, the law is that the 
 most awful crimes will be perpetrated, and under 
 the sanction of the holiest of names ; if natural 
 human Love be stifled and crushed, if marriage be 
 forbidden to the priesthood, and all natural inter- 
 course between man and woman be denounced as 
 impurity and sin, the law is that out of such hearts 
 all pity will die, and devilish hatred of heretics will 
 take its place, devilish jealousy for the supreme 
 claims of the Church. Such laws as these cannot 
 be broken, cannot be evaded by any moral miracle ; 
 
109 
 
 and it is a mark of God's loving and faithful mercy 
 that His laws shall everywhere else act with dread 
 certainty and Avithout a shadow of turning. If the 
 same dread certainty dogs the steps of a Holy 
 Inquisition or any other less atrocious form of per- 
 secution, we must admire the wisdom and the 
 faithfulness which will not interfere to frustrate 
 the consequences. And besides all this we have 
 not yet seen the fidl consequences. We do not 
 know certainly that the final issue for both perse- 
 cutors and persecuted will not be good and glorious. 
 Viewed on a grand scale, it is a beneficent law 
 that error, superstition and idolatry should beget 
 bigotry, persecution and cruelty. If we are to 
 learn and to grow better by experience, we may 
 not justly complain that that experience is painful 
 and bitter. The very lesson to be learned from 
 this particular class of evils is not learned yet. In 
 these davs of higher civilisation, the methods of 
 cruelty have been modified, it is true ; but the spirit 
 of cruelty has not been wholly expelled. It has 
 been boasted, in my own hearing, by Roman 
 Catholics, that if ever they regained their lost 
 powers, the Church would be morally compelled 
 to stamp out heresy by crushing and burning- 
 heretics. I am told that Cardinal Newman said 
 the same thing. And all priestcraft, in every other 
 Church or sect, is animated by the same spirit. 
 The lesson to be learned from the Dark Ages is 
 very far from being learned yet. 
 
110 
 
 A word or two more has to be said about the 
 ]3ersecutors. It is a curious and striking law that 
 the best of our qualities when corrupted and per- 
 verted produce the worst vices. As the Latins 
 used to say, corrujptio optwii est i)essima. The 
 worst form of corruption is that of what is best. 
 Thus was the corruption of the religious instinct 
 and of brotherly love the worst and blackest of all. 
 We must give those old Inquisitors credit for 
 loyalty to their Church which they looked upon 
 as a Divine institution ; therefore they believed 
 that loyalty to the Church was also loyalty to God ; 
 and we must oive them credit also for a reo-ard for 
 their fellow-men, whose souls they wanted to save 
 from everlasting hell. Both these convictions were 
 utter delusions. They were incarnate lies. No 
 aro-ument can ever make them to be anvthino^ else. 
 But so long as they were honest convictions, un- 
 detected delusions, some de2:ree of excuse mio-ht 
 be uro;ed for the conduct to which thev led, and for 
 the excess of zeal which carried the deluded head- 
 long into the wickedest of crimes. 
 
 And I Avould say, in passing, that we cannot look 
 steadfastly at all this without having forced upon 
 us the deep necessity for controversy on religious 
 and theological subjects. We must see what dire 
 mischief results from thinking that " it does not 
 matter what we believe, so long as our lives are 
 right." This begs the whole question. It does 
 matter enormously what we believe, because sooner 
 
Ill 
 
 or later it affects the riglitness of our life. Sooner 
 or later, whatever falsehood we cling to, will hear 
 the hitter fruits of wickedness. And I, for one, am 
 deeply convinced that the pursuit of truth and the 
 correction and elimination of error should l)e a life- 
 long endeavour, most of all for those who have 
 once " tasted and seen how gracious the Lord is," 
 and who have in any degree derived henefit and 
 comfort from the words and thouglits of those 
 whose controversy has hrought any light upon 
 things Divine. Too often these hlessings are taken 
 with as little regard to the obligations conferred as 
 we take the blessings of sunshine and air. 
 
 Let us not forget the chief but most mournful 
 lesson to be learnt from the cruelties of persecution, 
 viz., the extreme peril of error, especially of error 
 in Theoloo'V and rteli2:ion. Error mav not, as the 
 Church teaches, incur everlasting torments in hell ; 
 but it will nevertheless do unspeakable injury and 
 the worst of all evils ; it will turn men into devils 
 here, and, wherever its evil influences are left un- 
 restrained, it makes a hell upon earth in the souls 
 of all who are enslaved by it. 
 
 Let us all fervently pray, " Lead me, O Lord, in 
 Thy truth and teach me. For Thou art the God 
 of my salvation ; on Thee do I wait all the day 
 
 155 
 one:. 
 
112 
 
 LECTURE XI. 
 
 Hitherto, in this course of Lectures, you will 
 notice that I have dealt almost exclusively with 
 Theism as a Science of Theology, as distinguished 
 from Religion. Even then it was impossible not to 
 say much which belongs to the religious aspect of 
 Theism, because every word descriptive and 
 explanatory of its principles and beliefs would 
 naturally j^^^duce corresponding emotions of 
 reverence, of trust, and of love towards God, and 
 also of joy and hope in the contemplation of our 
 common destiny. But I am supremely anxious to 
 show the excellence of Theism as a Religion even 
 more than as a Theology, because the best and truest 
 Theology ever heard of is comparatively of little 
 use unless it has become also a Religion. If the 
 heart be not touched, or the life be not influenced 
 by it, it is of no use carrying it only in the head. 
 
 Once more, then, let us ask, What is Religion ? 
 It is a state of feelino- towards God resultino- from 
 certain convictions about Him. Our feeling towards 
 Him may be a right feeling or a wrong one. Thus 
 
113 
 
 it becomes possible to have either a true Eeligioii 
 or a false Relio:ion. If your convictions about Him 
 lead you to be afraid of Him, lead you to shun the 
 awful gaze of the Holy One upon your inmost 
 thoughts, lead you to seek the protecting arms and 
 the gracious intercession of a more merciful and 
 lovino- Saviour ; if vour convictions of God's 
 nature and dealings are such as to prevent your 
 placing in Him unbounded trust, and so to raise a 
 barrier of conscious dread — then your Religion is 
 false, and it is false because your Theology is false. 
 On the other hand, if your convictions lead you to 
 look upon God first as a faithful Creator, then as a 
 kind and true Friend, then as a loving and tender 
 Father ; if they lead you to build all your hopes of 
 final goodness and happiness for yourself, for all 
 whom you love and for all mankind, upon His 
 Eternal righteousness and love ; if, still more, your 
 convictions lead you to be perfectly reconciled to all 
 His discipline of the world by sin and sorrow, to know 
 and feel that His Will is always the best : if thus 
 you have grown to trust Him with all your hopes 
 and fears, and to love Him with all your heart and 
 mind and soul and strength ; and if, last but not 
 least, this love is a perpetual impulse causing you 
 to try to do right and to avoid every sin ; if your 
 love to God make vou lono; and strive to be more 
 and more what you know God wishes you to 
 be — then your religion is a true Religion, and it is 
 true because your convictions about God are true, 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 Thus we arrive at once at the conclusion that 
 Theology, though intimately connected with 
 Keligion, is distinct from it ; that Theology may be 
 only opinions, and opinions are not necessarily 
 convictions ; that unless we are convinced in our 
 hearts that such and such a Theology is true, it 
 will not have any religious effect upon our conduct 
 and character. 
 
 And here I state with the utmost confidence that 
 Theism, when it touches the heart, becomes the 
 purest and best Pteligion which was ever known, 
 simply because Theism presents to us the purest, 
 highest, and most fascinating picture of God and 
 His dealings ; yes, and is ready to part with it as 
 soon as ever a higher and truer picture can be pre- 
 sented. Theism gives us that picture of God which 
 most readily and naturally commends itself to 
 human nature in all its phases and stages of pro- 
 gress. To the most exalted saint it is still the 
 noblest conception of God ; and to the poorest, 
 most degraded sinner, it is just the one last word 
 that can be spoken to save and redeem him from 
 destruction and despair. To be told even in the 
 depths of shame and sin that God loves him still ; 
 that he is God's dear child from the beginning, and 
 will be God's dear child to the most distant end ; 
 that God has begotten him out of love, and out of 
 love will never lose him — still less cast him away — 
 all this is, in the truest, highest sense, Salvation. 
 This sense of an eternal friendliness, of a love 
 
115 
 
 incapable of resentment, of a love wliicli will spare 
 no pains, which Avill never grow wearv till the 
 blissful purpose of love be accomplished, is new life 
 from the dead, a new uprising of latent powers for 
 goodness, a touch of heavenly fire that melts the 
 hardest heart, the new birth of a true repentance 
 and a godly sorrow for sinfulness as well as for sins 
 remembered ; it is the vibration of the mute strino;s 
 of the soul touched by the Divine Hand. 
 
 It is often forgotten — though not by me, for I 
 have often reminded you of it — that the preaching 
 of the Gospel by Salvation armies, by Revivalists, 
 by Evangelicals of all sorts, owes all its success to 
 the touching of sinful hearts by the assurance of a 
 Divine love that has come to seek and to save that 
 which was lost. By a roundabout method, by 
 leo;end and hction that will not bear the slio-htest 
 serious historical or moral examination, neverthe- 
 less this end is reached, and, in a sense, the end 
 justifies the means ; at all events where nothing 
 truer or better is known. But Theism can do all 
 this and ever so much more without the delusions, 
 without the legends, without the circuitous method, 
 and best of all without the scandalous imputations 
 against the Father's unpurchased and unpurchase- 
 able love. The preachers of the Gospel say " God 
 is love," but they mean " Christ is love," for they 
 go on to say that " out of Christ " God is only a 
 consuming and revengeful fire. We too say " God 
 is Love " ; but we mean exactly what we say and 
 
 I 2 
 
116 
 
 do not mean anything else. We believe that God 
 is infinitely more loving than any Christ; that "in 
 Christ" God is hidden and defaced, but "out of 
 Christ " He is to be seen in all His glorious fiitherl^^ 
 love face to face with His own child. They say 
 " God is Love" only because it is written in a book 
 or repeated by supernaturally endowed clergy ; we 
 say " God is Love," l)ecause it is written down by 
 the very finger of God on ever} human heart which 
 He has made tender and kind and loving. This 
 word and work of His needs no translation, nor any 
 special order of priests to explain or to verify. It 
 shines out upon us in our commonest of lives 
 whenever we open our eyes. And, of course, on 
 the lips of Theism the Gospel of the love of God 
 means the most perfect severity of justice toward 
 sin. The Christian idea is that the just punish- 
 ment of sin is not borne by the sinner but by 
 somebody else — viz., by the Saviour. The Theistic 
 idea is that no one can escape any part of God's 
 just severity, because it is all needed to save the 
 sinner's soul. To let off the sinner any part of the 
 just penalty, or to lay it upon another, would be to 
 rob the poor soul of the means of its salvation. It 
 would thwart the good purpose of a loving God. 
 
 Moreover, Theism has no perplexing problems 
 for the mind, offers no rival for our affections in 
 the place of God. It is impossible for Christians 
 to preach their Gospel without at least two Gods. 
 And human nature could not be what it is if men 
 
117 
 
 did not love best the God who came and died for 
 them ; and to love but little, if at all, the God who 
 did not come and die himself but sent another in 
 his place. Theism does not thus perplex the mind 
 or distract the heart. " To us there is but one God 
 even our Father," whose Love, we may be sure, 
 would not shrink from any suffering or sacrifice 
 which was actually needed for our salvation ; one 
 and the same God who has caused all things to be 
 as they are, who has begotten us, as His dear 
 children, out of the fulness of His love, and in 
 Whom we and all other souls are eternally safe. 
 To Him alone we owe our repentance, our new 
 birth unto riQ:hteousness, our salvation from the 
 love of sin ; and to Him alone, therefore, we 
 owe all our heart's love and our life's best 
 service. 
 
 And when all this has laid hold of us as deep- 
 felt conviction, religion is natural and perfectly 
 easy to understand. In the first place it removes 
 all difficulty whatever from the so-called problem 
 of praver. Here is our Father, at our right hand, 
 nay, closer and nearer to us than any other being 
 in the whole universe, the only Being in the uni- 
 verse with whom it is possible to come into direct 
 contact ; and we. His children, are close beside 
 Him too — face to flice with Him in the depths of 
 our soul — and we need no longer any theories of 
 prayer before we will speak to Him and listen to 
 His " still small voice." Our communion with 
 
118 
 
 Him will be as spontaneous as the words flow 
 between loving lips on earth, only more so, for 
 we can tell to Him what we hardly dare breathe to 
 ourselves. In the language of an old Hebrew 
 Tlieist, we can say out of the richest experience, 
 " My meditation of Him shall be sweet. I will be 
 glad and rejoice in the Lord." " In the multitude 
 of the sorrows which I had in my heart, Thy 
 comforts have refreshed my soul." " When Thou 
 saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto Thee, 
 Thy face, Lord, will I seek." And you have your 
 Divine Father and Friend to speak to, howsoever 
 and whensoever you like. No man shall ever dare 
 to tell you w^hat you ought to say to Him. It is 
 yours by right of childhood to say whatever you 
 please ; to make even childish petitions to Him if 
 you can make no better ; to show Him of your very 
 folly if you are not wise enough to trust Him ; it 
 is yours by right to put into words every thought, 
 anxiety, or fear that oppresses you. He will re- 
 buke and correct you, be very sure, if He sees fit, 
 when and how He will. But your fellow-man has 
 no right to say a word. The religion of Theism 
 means all that is Ijest and purest in the intercourse 
 of loving friends and in the relation of children to 
 true and wise and loving parents — only it is un- 
 speakably more than this. For if you love God, 
 your hearts will never be absent from Him ; you 
 will live with Him and let every thought lie open 
 to Him from morning till night, all tlie day long. 
 
119 
 
 And if we begin our religious life by prayer, it will 
 grow more and more into praise. The longer we 
 enjoy tbe privilege of communion with God, the 
 less anxious w^e shall be about our bodies and our 
 earthly fortunes, the more we shall trust ourselves 
 to God for everything, the more we shall respect 
 His higher wisdom and the less shall we suggest to 
 Him how He shall help and protect us. The only 
 thing we shall care about is that we may be read}- 
 to do and to suffer all His righteous will. We 
 shall grow more and more grateful to Him for 
 all His mercies past, more absorbed in worship of 
 Him and His love, till our hearts overflow with 
 thankfulness and adoration. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the religious life one anxiety 
 will never be absent. We are reminded every hour 
 and moment of our lives how vast is our responsi- 
 bility in regard to our conduct and character. The 
 daily cry of our souls is : " Make in me a clean 
 beart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." 
 This is the centre of all our highest hopes and our 
 deepest fears. This is the tie which binds us most 
 firmly to our Father's hand, and will not let us 
 break away from His protecting and strengthening 
 grace. We need not only perpetual watchfulness 
 and the strenuous exertions of our own spiritual 
 and moral faculties, but we need also that special 
 help which comes only by prayer and leaning upon 
 God. The stronger we grow and the higher we 
 rise, the more and not less we shall feel our 
 
120 
 
 dependence on Him from Whom all goodness 
 flows. 
 
 And this it is Avhich _^ives Religion its highest, its 
 unique moral value, not only to the individual soul 
 which is under its influence, hut to the Avorld at 
 lars^e. All mankind are sooner or later the hetter 
 for the secret prayers and strivings after holiness 
 of every truly religious soul. That conscientious- 
 ness which is the very life of trustworthiness is 
 ])est maintained by those who are ever praying to 
 God to he kept faithful in whatever duties they 
 may have to perform. And, indeed, it requires a 
 great deal of prayer not merely to secure a faithful 
 discharge of duties to be done, but to keep sweet 
 and pure the motives from which all duty should 
 be performed. Even if our conduct be blameless, 
 we are still making no progress in real goodness of 
 character, unless our motives are absolutely of the 
 highest, or being more refined from day to day. 
 Therefore it is that the Conscience, when coupled 
 with deep and true Religion, z.e., constant commu- 
 nion with God, urges upon us, as the first condition 
 of all true service, the necessity of a loving heart. 
 The oldest commandments on earth are still ever 
 new, ever young — " Thou shall love the Lord thy 
 God with all thine heart, and thy neighbour as thy- 
 self." If we would serve God as He wishes us to 
 serve Him, it must be out of love. We nuist wish 
 to obey Him because we love Him. And the same 
 is exactly true of our service to each other. If our 
 
121 
 
 service is to be the best and highest, it must be a 
 williiio' service out of love for those whom we serve. 
 We must be just, truthful, kind, and merciful to them 
 only because we love them, and not for any selfish 
 end. True Relio;ion is of little worth if it does not 
 deepen and intensify our native goodwill and warm 
 our hearts to our brother man. If w^e thus make 
 our Religion a perpetual source of spiritual culture, 
 of the culture of our highest faculties, we not only 
 grow nearer and nearer to the likeness of God our 
 Father, but we become more and more a blessing 
 and a help to our fellow-men. 
 
 Deeply do I sympathise with the spirit wdiicli 
 animates some in these days with the hope of a Social 
 Reformation such as would put an end to a vast 
 amount of the needless suffering which springs out 
 of present conditions. I admire that man (and it is 
 with difficulty that I refrain from mentioning one 
 such by name) who, whatever be his mistakes or wild 
 theories of reform, feels in his heart that if he 
 would serve God truly, he must serve and help his 
 brothers and sisters. For the talk about love to 
 God Avhile the heart is indifferent to the sins and 
 sorroAvs of mankind is the bitterest mockery and 
 the hollowest of shams. Let not the necessity for 
 some improvement ever be lost sight of. It will 
 take years of the most patient research, possibly 
 generations of abortive experiments, before the 
 right methods of reform can be discovered. But 
 all the while until then, every individual who really 
 
122 
 
 loves God will make it liis daily endeavour — the 
 chief part of his life's work — to act towards every 
 one else with whom he comes in contact, as if he 
 loved him ; he will pray God to make him love 
 all men without regard to their good or bad 
 conduct towards himself, and in every event to 
 return good for evil and to forgive freely every 
 injury and offence. I do not need to he reminded 
 how hard a lesson this is to learn. I only say 
 that Religion is here our best teacher, and that 
 God our Father will never be satisfied with us till 
 we have learned it. 
 
 I have not spoken to-day of Religion as the 
 source of the highest joy, and the best, if not the 
 only, consoler of all sorrow. I have been more 
 concerned with the duties and responsibilities which 
 Religion imposes and which Religion best enables 
 us to fulfil. 
 
 Yet one more word should be spoken in regard to 
 Theism as a means of true progress in the know- 
 ledge and love of God. By all its principles and 
 beliefs Theism impresses upon us the fact that our 
 highest knowledge and thought of God is not yet 
 23erfect, is only true as far as it goes, is necessarily 
 defective, if not absolutely tainted with undetected 
 error. Hence the indispensable necessity for con- 
 tinuing our research after the truth of God — as the 
 Hebrew prophet termed it " following on to know 
 the Lord " ; not being content with our little gleam 
 of light, but longing and striving to get more light ; 
 
123 
 
 to understand more of God's dealings and })urposes 
 with His creatures and with His own children ; to 
 prune oiu' thoughts of Him so that we may get rid 
 o£ all the crudities, the childishness and the meaner 
 parts which hang like withered leaves so defacingly 
 upon our tree of knowledge. We must make ruth- 
 less war upon all detected errors, superstitions and 
 falsehoods, and yet all the time we must be very 
 watchfid and prayerful lest we, too, are carrying " a 
 lie in our right hand " without knowing it. There- 
 fore the true Theist will not only practise contro- 
 versy and criticism upon other beliefs, but will 
 court and entreat criticism of his own most 
 cherished beliefs and principles. Tltat he feels 
 to be his best chance of correcting any error that 
 may lurk unknown to him, and certainly it will 
 be the best means of rooting more firmly the 
 truths which he believes and upholds. He is no 
 true Theist who undervalues the priceless benefits 
 of a searching, scorching criticism, even when 
 made by an unfriendly hand. 
 
 The world owes all its progress in everything, 
 including Theology and Religion, to controversy, 
 to the collision of hostile opinions ; for as the flint 
 dashing against the steel brings forth fire, so does 
 the conflict of honest opinion bring forth the light 
 of truth. We have only to look carefully that in 
 our deepest hearts we are not disputing from the 
 low motives of vain-glory and the triumph of our 
 own opinions, but simply and sincerely out of 
 
124 
 
 love for the truth, love for mankind, and love for 
 God Himself, who is the God of truth. 
 
 If any one will but criticise these Lectures on 
 Theism in this spirit, he will render good service 
 not only to us Theists, but to the Christians also, 
 and to the God of truth whom we serve and 
 trust and love. 
 
125 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Dear Mr. Voysey, 
 
 I have been seeking for an explanation of the 
 enigma which is presented to us in attempting to reconcile 
 the hard facts of the history of religious persecution with 
 your theory of perfect benevolence — which one feels to be the 
 only doctrine that can hope to find acceptance by modern 
 civilisation. Is it possible that the solution is to be found in 
 the doctrine of evolution as applied to religion ? Much of 
 your Lectures seems to me to point to this conclusion. Man- 
 kind are apt to forget that the process of evolution has been 
 going on from time immemorial in matters of religion, as in 
 all other domains pertaining to both physics and metaphysics. 
 Persecution may, like other phenomena which are at first 
 sight inexplicable, be found to be consistent with your 
 theory, and quite comprehensible, if regarded as a mere step 
 or incident in this process of evolution. In physical 
 evolution, even where artificial selection is brought into 
 operation, we find breaks and checks. The subsequent and 
 more perfect type may, and frequently does, " throw back," 
 as breeders call it, to an antecedent and more iuiperfect 
 type, and I think that the same phenomenon unquestionably 
 occurs in every phase of metaphysical evolution. In the 
 latter much more is necessarily left to natural selection than 
 is the case with physical evolution of either men or animals. 
 We need not therefore be surprised if we find greater, and 
 
126 
 
 apparently more inexplicable, difficulties in tracing an 
 unbroken sequence of development, than in the correspond- 
 ing process as applied to physics. In neither case can we 
 expect that the process will show uniform and unbroken 
 advance if we look at the details, but if we take a broad 
 view of the subject as a whole, we shall almost certainly 
 find in each case that the various stages are like the waves 
 which in the aggregate make up the flow of the advancing 
 tide. This does not necessarily advance with each wave, 
 but, on the contrary, some of the waves seem to the eye of 
 the observer to show an actual retreat. Nevertheless, when 
 we regard them patiently as parts of a whole, we find that 
 the tide does advance perceptibly and steadily to high-water 
 mark. Now an individual instance of persecution by itself 
 is a step backwards, and the great wave of persecution which 
 swept over the greater part of the known world during the 
 days of the Inquisition seems at first sight a very formid- 
 able difficulty in the Avay of accepting any theory of per- 
 sistent religious evolution. If, however, we reflect upon 
 the immense period during which the great process of 
 development and the modification of the religious ideas of 
 mankind has been going on, and which covered certainly 
 many thousands of years, with almost equal certainty many 
 tens of thousands, -and in all probability some hundreds of 
 thousands of years, then any period of persecution by the 
 representatives of a particular form of religion, however 
 extended that period may be, sinks into insignificance, and 
 may be treated almost as a negligeable quantity. 
 
 It is further to be noted that it is almost certain that 
 persecution has itself materially contributed to the progress 
 and influence of religion. In almost every case the reaction, 
 consequent upon persecution, seems to have exceeded in its 
 effects the repression which immediately resulted from it. 
 This is partly owing to the refining efi:ect persecution seems 
 to have upon that portion of mankind who sufi:er it. In 
 religion, as in other matters, man seems to improve under 
 the influence of adversity. Prosperity and power, on the 
 other hand, have invariably been productive of deterioration 
 and corruption. If then it be the case that ^persecution is 
 
127 
 
 only an incident in the ebb and flow which ultimately 
 result in the beneficial development of religion, is it not 
 reasonable to assume that any mere detail of its immediate 
 effect on individuals, whether persecuted or persecuting, is 
 a matter which we may with safety assume to be capable of 
 being accounted for satisfactorily if we could follow out the 
 calculations of the Ruler of all things, even although we 
 cannot for the moment see the exact solution ? 
 
 These reflections lead me to another point which you 
 have touched upon in your Lectures, but which seems to 
 me to be capable of much more extended development than 
 you have at present attempted, although I daresay I should 
 find it in some other of your works. I am indeed by no 
 means sure that my ideas, which I will endeavour to 
 express, are not the outcome of some of yours which I 
 have read and almost forgotten. I allude to the possibility 
 of deducing a more general argument in favour of life after 
 death, and ultimate perfection, from this wonderful doctrine 
 of evolution as applied to man. Ever since I began to 
 appreciate something of the truth and value of this doc- 
 trine as applied to physical subjects, and the strength of 
 the evidence in its favour, it has seemed to me that, to a 
 thinking man, it is full of much consolation, and that it 
 contains in itself some of the strongest arguments in answer 
 to the position of the Atheist and of the thorough-going 
 Agnostic. 
 
 I noticed in your Lecture, No. VIII., that you point out 
 that there is no scientific demonstration of a future life, that 
 it rests upon faith and nothing more, and that you say that 
 physical science is absolutely silent upon the question. This 
 may be so in one sense, but I am not sure that you 
 have not somewhat overstated the case, and that physics 
 and metaphysics do not combine in such a manner as to 
 enable us to draw valuable deductions upon this great 
 question. It is one which I daresay you have long ago 
 w^orked out in your own mind, and Avhich I have not had 
 time to develop critically ; but I will endeavour to give you 
 a rough outline of the ideas as they present themselves 
 to me. 
 
128 
 
 I start from the proposition that we know nothing of the 
 soul, either whence it comes, or what it is. We speak of 
 life, the vital spark, instinct, intellect, mind, spirit, and soul, 
 without any knowledge of what they are, where they begin, 
 where they end, or upon what they depend. Philosophers 
 and scientists of all types and shades of religious belief 
 may discuss these subjects from their own points of view, 
 and will vmdoubtedly differ. Physical and metaphysical 
 science are helpless to define with certainty when and how 
 life begins, where instinct ends and intellect begins, where 
 intellect ends and the soul begins, or what is death. No 
 one has yet succeeded in laying down any definitions or 
 laws acceptable to all men on these questions. Their accept- 
 ance or rejection must, I think, much depend upon the 
 idiosyncrasies of individuals, which are infinite in their 
 variety ; and the conclusion arrived at in each case will 
 be more or less affected by the standpoint from which the 
 subject is approached. 
 
 All men are, however, jDractically agreed that there has, in 
 the course of ages, been a distinct and immense advance, 
 not only in what we call knowledge, but in those qualities 
 in mankind which make up what we should call goodness 
 or virtue. There may have been much ebb and flow, but 
 when we look back through the long vista of years now 
 opened to our mental vision by the researches of recent 
 times, this ebb and flow is nothing, compared with the 
 enormous progress which, in the aggregate, has been made 
 towards perfection, by steps which are in themselves some- 
 times imperceptible, and some of which are, or seem to be 
 retrograde. The doctrine of the Creation of Man in the 
 image of God, and his subsequent Fall to a lower state has, 
 to all who dare to think upon the subject at all, become as 
 obsolete as the dead mythologies of the ancients, or the 
 Ptolemaic Theory. We are, according to my view, no more 
 justified at thd present day in talking of it to educated men 
 as a living doctrine, because a few blind bigots still persist 
 in hammering it into the brains of children and grown-up 
 children, than we should be in contending that the old- 
 world belief in witches is still part of the doctrines of the 
 
129 
 
 Roman Catholic Church, because a few Irish savages burn 
 an old woman to drive the devil out of her, as they did in 
 the early part of this year of grace. 
 
 It is a curious and remarkable fact that the innate con- 
 victions of the thinking portion of mankind seem always to 
 have revolted against the doctrines of the Bible and the 
 Church, and to have tended towards belief in the per- 
 fectibility of man and his progressive elevation to a higher 
 state. This is the doctrine that pervades some of the 
 most ancient religions, and which may be seen underlying 
 even the professions of eminent members of the Church 
 itself. 
 
 There is, I should submit, an inherent tendency in man 
 to believe in the doctrine of evolution as applied io spiritual 
 matters. Every man seems to be driven by an irresistible 
 force to form for himself a concept of what he would term 
 a perfect man. Although this concept would differ in each 
 case, as also the estimation of the stage at which mankind 
 have at present arrived in their progress towards realisation 
 of the ideal, still every individual feels that mankind, taken 
 as a whole, have progressed, and are progressing, towards that 
 goal. There is an irresistible conviction that the ideal ought 
 some day to be attained, and indeed that it would be 
 attained, but for the corruj^t passions and propensities 
 Avhich are incident to the animal part of man. These again 
 might in time be subdued and sublimated into something 
 approaching perfection, but that the process is brought to an 
 end by the perishability of the animal part of man, which 
 culminates in what we call " death." The ideal therefore 
 cannot at present be obtained in the individual upon earth, 
 but must be looked for in the dim future, in the same way 
 as we look back through the vista of countless ages, to 
 observe the vast strides that have already been made upon 
 the same road, and endeavour to realise the point from 
 which man started, and that to which he may possibly 
 attain. 
 
 Seeing then that we all believe in a process of evolution, 
 not only in individuals, but in mankind as a whole, and that 
 each generation practically starts, both physically and 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 mentally, from a vantage point as compared with its 
 predecessors, there would seem to be no reason why we 
 should set limits to the perfectibility of the individual man 
 either bodily or mentally. I should contend that it is 
 easier to believe in the perfectibility of the mind, intellect, 
 spirit, and soul (or whatever we choose to call the im- 
 material element in man), than in the perfectibility of the 
 body. The very immateriality of the subject seems to 
 lend itself more readily to the belief ia its perfectibility, 
 because it does not necessitate exact definition of perfection. 
 We are also tempted to believe that the grosser elements 
 of the animal part of man may be gradually eliminated 
 from the jDroblem. Mind and matter, or soul and body, are 
 however, as w^e understand them, so intimately connected, 
 that it is impossible altogether to dissociate them in con- 
 sidering these questions, and immediately we endeavour to 
 do so, we seem to lose control of the argument. It is, 
 however, not only unnecessary, but illogical, so to do, and 
 I cannot but think that if the doctrine of evolution as 
 applied to man be rightly followed out, it will be found 
 that it is quite consistent with the truest conception of the 
 Deity which man is capable of forming. The tendency of 
 theologians always seems to be towards taking man, as they 
 find him now after countless ages of development ; to 
 separate him into what they call the material or animal 
 part, and the mental or spiritual part. They then assume 
 certain attributes for each of these parts, and from these 
 assumptions draw conclusions as to what is, or ought to be, 
 the past history of mankind, and the future of each part of 
 their ideal man. This seems as fallacious a mode of pro- 
 cedure as if we were to take a sheep, ox, or horse of the 
 present day, fully grown and developed, and endeavour 
 to evolve out of our inner consciousness, disregarding all 
 ascertained facts, the past history of the animal itself, and 
 of the genus of which it is now the living representative. 
 This was very much the method of reasoning of the 
 ancients, and we know the fallacies in which it resulted. 
 The only approach to safety in drawing conclusions lies in 
 the careful study of such ascertained facts as the labours 
 
131 
 
 of conscientious toilers in the particular field have placed 
 at our disposal. 
 
 We must therefore start from protoplasm, and follow the 
 process of evolution through its various stages, which are 
 now disclosed to us by the labours of Darwin and those 
 who have followed in his steps. These are now recognised, 
 not as mere speculative theories, but as well ascertained and 
 established facts. We find that after passing through phases 
 of development, which it is quite unnecessary to describe, 
 we arrive at organisms possessing a sort of rudimentary 
 consciousness and intelligent purpose. Although we cannot 
 always trace the connecting links in our present state of 
 knowledge as to what has taken place during the incalculable 
 ages of the past, we know quite enough to follow intel- 
 ligently the process by which this rudimentary intelligence 
 has developed throughout the progressive gamut of living 
 creatures, until we arrive ultimately at its highest mani- 
 festation in man. When we reach the higher grades of 
 animals, we have no difficulty in tracing instinct, will, 
 affection, intelligence, and even conscience, and we can also 
 detect the rudiments of most of these, even in very early 
 stages of development. 
 
 The point which some mammals have attained in these 
 respects is so remarkable as to render it next to impossible 
 to condemn those who say that those mammals have what 
 we are pleased to call a " soul." Some of the links may, 
 as already pointed out, be wanting, but that there is a chain 
 connecting the lowest with the highest organisms no one 
 now doubts. The absence of one or two of the links no 
 more destroys the continuity of the chain than the absence 
 of one or two of the vertebrae in a fossil skeleton would 
 entitle us to deny the pristine existence of the creature to 
 which it undoubtedly once belonged. If then we reflect 
 upon the immeasurable difference and distance between the 
 lowest form, which can be said to show signs of anything 
 approaching to thought and purpose, and the higher mam- 
 mals, and again upon that which separates those lower types 
 of man, which even now remain on the face of the earth, from 
 the great minds which have been as beacon lights to past 
 
 K 2 
 
132 
 
 and present generations, Ave begin to form some idea of the 
 possibility that the process of spiritual evolution may be 
 continued to a point as far surpassing that at which we have 
 at present arrived as the mind of a Darwin surpasses the 
 mind of a cave-dweller. 
 
 Intimately, however, as the development of the spiritual 
 part of living creatures seems in one sense to be connected 
 with the perfection of their physical organisation, we yet 
 find that in another sense there seems to be a curious inde- 
 pendence between mind and matter, for it is by no means a 
 fixed and certain rule that that which we should regard as 
 the most perfect j)hysical development is accompanied by a 
 corresponding perfection of spiritual attributes. We see the 
 contrary occurring in every day's experience of the world. 
 Nay, it is often found that accidental circumstances, which 
 dwarf or prevent physical development, rather tend to bring 
 out and force to precocious maturity some of the finer and 
 more loveable qualities of the soul. 
 
 Theoretically, then, it would seem possible that mankind 
 may, in some future age, arrive, even during their residence 
 upon earth, at a point at which they shall become " as Gods 
 knowing good and evil," and practising only the former. 
 If this be the case, what is there to prevent our believing 
 that this progress towards perfection may be continued by 
 the spiritual part of man after death, when the spirit is freed 
 from the trammels of the body ? 
 
 We do not know, it is true, that the soul or spirit can 
 exist apart from the body, and it is only those who arrogate 
 to themselves a special " gift of the Holy Ghost " who ven- 
 ture to assert dogmatically that any particular result will 
 ensue upon the phenomenon called death. We may, howxver, 
 safely say that it is not more difficult to believe in a future 
 existence of the soul than it is to believe in the phenomenon 
 of life itself. Not even the most presumptuous will attempt 
 to define the exact change that takes place at the coming 
 into existence of what w^e call a " living " creature, either 
 animal or vegetable. We know, nevertheless, that at 
 some particular but undefined and more or less unde- 
 finable moment in the process of development, a change 
 
133 
 
 takes place which manifests itself iu the phenomenon called 
 "life." 
 
 However much w^e may argue about spontaneous genera- 
 tion, and however closely we may approach to proving a 
 negation of the general proposition that such a phenomenon 
 may occur, science has not at present the means of explain- 
 ing the positive phenomenon of " life," and its transmission 
 from parent to offspring. It is no doubt this difficulty 
 which led the writer of Genesis to the use of the poetical 
 phrase, " And the Lord God formed man of the dust 
 of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath 
 of life, and man became a living soul." This may be 
 poetry only and inaccurate, but it is as near the truth, in 
 one sense, as science can go. It is really only the expression 
 of the all-pervading conviction that there is in man some- 
 thing of that which he would call " divine essence," which, 
 being divine, is capable of being perfected and of being here- 
 after restored to perfect communion with the Infinite 
 Being from whom it emanated. How it came into existence, 
 and quickened its earthly envelope, no one knows or can 
 explain. We do know, however, that that event did take 
 place, and that the result was manifested to the senses of 
 man. That the manifestation ceases when w^hat we call 
 " death " supervenes does not, as it seems to me, constitute a 
 logical ground for assuming that the cause also ceases, 
 inasmuch as it existed before the manifestations. 
 
 Next, I would venture to point out that what we call 
 death is no impediment to the conclusions I am seeking to 
 draw. On the contrary, death seems to be that upon which 
 the whole doctrine of evolution depends, that is to say, 
 what we call death is merely a change of the form of 
 matter, which assumes immediately another form, and 
 thereafter shortly develops, and manifests again that wdiich 
 we call life. 
 
 I cannot but think that Darwin, and other great Apostles of 
 evolution, have placed in your hands the key to the solution 
 of the great problems on which you are working, and that 
 the "evolution of religion," well handled, would prove a very 
 attractive subject, and might be made comprehensible to all 
 
134 
 
 intellects, except those of a very low order. A great many 
 people have the germs of the idea already, but, as in most 
 other svibjects, thej^ require the great teacher, who can lay 
 the matter before them in so luminous a manner, that they 
 will feel that he is only clothing in appropriate language, 
 and giving adequate expression to, ideas which exist un- 
 spoken, and in embryo, in their own minds. 
 
 The doctrine of love, which you rightly press so strongly 
 in all your Lectures, seems to me again to be aided by all 
 reflections which tend to establish a conviction of the 
 existence of a logically consistent system throughout the 
 universe. Perfect love, the highest form of love, cannot 
 exist without respect; and I defy any one who reflects deeply 
 upon the teaching of the Church to feel much respect for 
 its Deity. It is, however, possible to respect a God whose 
 proceedings are found to be consistent, and whose " cosmos " 
 is orderly and not capricious. 
 
 I regard each " religion " and all phases of each religion 
 as stages in the great drama of evolution, and the (so-called) 
 " Christian " religion merely as representing several of these 
 stages. 
 
 Yours is another, and, as I believe, the most advanced 
 stage, and the nearest to a religion without dogma and 
 without idols ; and I feel with you, that " Truth before all " 
 is the only motto for those who seek to aid man in his 
 progress towards perfection. In this sense I believe that 
 yours is the only "natural religion," and the only one 
 which can be brought into harmony with science. 
 
 I daresay you will feel that in a great deal of the fore- 
 going I am only passing through my spiritual " measles," 
 and that I ought to have had that metaphysical complaint 
 long ago, and not bothered you with it. As, however, many 
 of your hearers have doubtless to pass through the same 
 stage, it may interest you to read the ravings of my 
 delirium, and enable you to treat others who are suffering 
 from the same complaint. 
 
 H. B. 
 
 Wkrtiikijiior. Lka & Co.. Circus Place, Loiulon Wall. 
 
WORKS BY Rev. C. VOYSEY. 
 
 The Sling and the Stone — s. d. 
 
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 Grounds 10 6 
 
 Mystery of Pain, Death and Sin. New Edition. 
 
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 Defence at York, 1869 ..... 
 
 Appeal to Privy- Council, 1870 
 
 Lectures on The Tiieistic Faith and on the 
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 Lecture on the Church of England 
 
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 Revised Prayer Book and Hymns. Third Edition 
 
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