1 ,2.1 ,:i.i/. 
 
 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J. 
 
 BV 4253 
 
 .T44 
 
 1886 
 
 
 
 Thorn, John Hamilton 
 
 , 1808- 
 
 1894. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Laws of 
 
 life 
 
 after 
 
 the 
 
 mind 
 
 nf rhri 
 
 Qt 
 
 
 
 
LAWS OF LIFE 
 
 AFTER THE 
 
 MIND OF CHRIST 
 
^^ 
 
 LAWS OF LIFE', UL. 11 
 
 "^eiCAL Si 
 
 MIND OF CHRIST 
 
 AFTER THE 
 
 The Law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. — St. Paul. 
 
 DISCOURSES 
 
 BY / 
 
 JOHN HAMILTON THOM. 
 
 The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children 
 of God. — Romans viii. i6. 
 
 Let the same mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. — 
 Philippians ii. 5. 
 
 FIRST SERIKS. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
 1886. 
 
iTh4 rights 0/ translation and j/ reproduction are reserved^ 
 
TO 
 
 REV. JAMES MARTINEAU, LL.D., D.D. 
 
 AND 
 
 WILLIAM B. CARPENTER, C.B., F.R.S., M.D., LL.D. 
 
 AS RESPECTIVELY REPRESENTING 
 
 THE MINISTERS AND LAYMEN 
 
 AT WHOSE DESIRE IT HAS BEEN PUBLISHED 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS 
 
 INSCRIBED. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 God's Love Impersonated, the Substance and Definition 
 OF Christianity ... i 
 
 II. 
 
 The Universality of Christianity ... .« i8 
 
 III. 
 Aptitudes for Discipleship ... ,^ ... 34 
 
 IV. 
 Grounds of Trust in God 47 
 
 V. 
 The Goodness and the Severity of God , ... 64 
 
 VI. 
 
 Ours to work out what God works in us 80 
 
 VII. 
 Knowing AND Doing .. , .. ... 97 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Spirit willing, the Flesh weak 114 
 
viii Contents, 
 
 IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Circumstance, "THE UNSPIRITUAL god" 131 
 
 X. 
 
 Heart Secrets of Joy and Bitterness 148 
 
 XL 
 Moralities without the Spirit of Life 164 
 
 XIL 
 No Supererogation in Spiritual Service 182 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Brotherhood towards the unattractive and the 
 
 repellent ... , igg 
 
 XIV. 
 The judging Spirit 2i5 
 
 XV. 
 The Morality of Temper 234' 
 
 XVI. 
 Self-denial 25^ 
 
 XVIL 
 A Perfect Man, who offends not in Word 266 
 
 XVIII. 
 Strengthen what remains 281 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Not of the World, as Christ was not of the World 295 
 
Contents. ix 
 
 XX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Our Lord's " Trouble of Soul " 30S 
 
 XXL 
 
 Spiritual Counterparts to Temptation and Despon- 
 dency 323 
 
 XXIL 
 Loving God with our Strength 341 
 
 XXIIL 
 Disquiet of Spirit 357 
 
 XXIV. 
 Quiet from God 372 
 
 XXV. 
 
 From the Seen to the Unseen 389 
 
LAWS OF LIFE 
 AFTER THE MIND OF CHRIST. 
 
 I. 
 
 (llftvijSittenitu, t\u %m\mmx^im ni the ^rni^ 
 
 Mi i^ in ©a^T, 
 
 Matt. v. 17 : 
 *' I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." 
 
 Romans xiii. 10 : 
 " Love is the fulfilling of the Law." 
 
 V0LU:\IES have been written in the attempt to define 
 the " PecuHarities of Christianity." It was taken for 
 granted that it must have an unique essence, whereas 
 its distinction is in having an unique fulfilment. It 
 was forgotten that its supreme characteristic, Catho- 
 licity — the intuitive recognition of its intrinsic beauty 
 by every soul that is alive — its power, wherever it can 
 show its presence, to kindle life in souls that before 
 seemed dead — are inconsistent with unshared attri- 
 butes, with the isolation of a nature separated from 
 the fundamental aptitudes and synipathies of human- 
 
 B 
 
2 Christianity, the Impersonation 
 
 kind. Nothing that is catholic can be pecuHar, except 
 in the degree in which it developes and harmonizes 
 common properties. 
 
 Christianity has its crowning distinction ; but this 
 does not consist in introducing new elements into the 
 spiritual world ; it consists in perfecting, above all in 
 impersonating, what was already there. Christ came 
 to make all things new ; but renewal is not innovation 
 or reversal ; it is exactly the opposite ; it is building 
 upon the ancient foundations, it is growth from the 
 original stock. Christianity is not the root of whatever 
 is good in human nature, for that was in it from the 
 beginning, its inspiration and its law ; nor is it the 
 flower, the promise of the complete outcome, for that 
 also was before in saints and prophets and all good 
 men's lives ; it is the consummation, the full rounded 
 fruit, and that never was before, and, except approxi- 
 mately, alas ! never has been since. Christ introduced 
 no new germ into the human constitution ; man was 
 made in God's image ; he combined the elements in 
 a symmetry only foreshadowed as an ideal until he 
 showed it in the actual, and quickened the real, ruling, 
 nature that is in us into consciousness and tension by 
 revealing in life the end for which we all are living. 
 Christ came not to preach any new doctrine, but to 
 make the Truth, the everlasting gospel of the life of 
 God in the soul of man, known in its substance, in its 
 concrete presentation. 
 
of God's Love, 3 
 
 If asked to declare, what then is distinguishing in 
 Christianity, we can only say that Christ is the earthly 
 fulfilment of our universal vocation, " Be ye perfect, 
 even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect." 
 This is the function of the Son of Man, to give men 
 their Heavenly Father, the Father whom he knew, 
 the God with whom he lived in communion, in the 
 personal relations of spirit with spirit. To teach theo- 
 logies would have been no new thing; to preach 
 theologies in the belief that through them we are 
 making acquaintance with realities, is an occupation 
 and an illusion of which the world never wearies ; but 
 to have the living God mirrored in a human soul, as 
 face answers to face in a glass, this was not the old 
 work of announcing abstract truths about God, it was 
 to reveal God Himself. We have no means of know- 
 ing God except by knowing His image in our own 
 nature. The knowledge of God was lost to the world, 
 because the image of God had been lost out of the soul. 
 Christ, through obedience to the inward promptings, 
 kept the mirror pure, without flaw or soil, and so 
 manifested the Father in the Son. Theife is no other 
 mirror, to which we have access, in which He can 
 spiritually be seen as He is. Other mirrors, as those 
 of outward Nature, are dead mirrors which have to 
 convey their symbols to a living soul, there to be in- 
 terpi'eted. How could we know God if we saw Him 
 only in the reflection of a soul that is itself unclean. 
 
4 Christianity, the Impersonation 
 
 clouded, distorted ? If there had been no unsolled 
 mirror, we could have known God under no adequate 
 living type. " If ye had known me, ye should have 
 known my Father also." " We, beholding as in a glass 
 the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image^ 
 from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." 
 
 If, in addition to being the Truth in living presen- 
 tation, impersonating in himself our spiritual relations 
 to God and man, it is maintained that Christ came 
 into the world to teach new doctrines, it is a simple 
 test to ask, " What new doctrines t " Not the doctrine 
 of God's Unity, for that was the central light of Hebrew 
 inspiration. Not the doctrine of His Providence : 
 " The Lord is my Shepherd ; I shall not want. He 
 maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; He leadeth 
 me beside the still waters. Yea, though I walk through 
 the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, 
 for Thou art with me ; They rod and Thy staff, they 
 comfort me." Not the doctrine of His Spirituality : 
 " Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit } Whither shall 
 I flee from Thy presence ? Thou hast beset me behind 
 and before, and laid Thine hand upon me." Not the 
 doctrine of His holy Spirit communing with our spirit, 
 and purifying the fountains of our life : " Create in me 
 a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within 
 me. Cast me not away from Thy presence, and take 
 not Thy holy Spirit from me." Not the doctrine of 
 Immortality : there was a class among the Jews marked 
 
of God's Love, 5 
 
 off by its disbelief, and to them Christ deemed it 
 enough to say that the words they used implied the 
 doctrine they denied : " He is not God of the dead, 
 but of the living." Not the doctrine of His universal 
 Fatherhood : " God created man in His own image ; " 
 and St. Paul told the Athenians it was in the heathen 
 poets, known of all men, because there is a spirit in 
 man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him 
 understanding. Not the doctrine that there is no 
 acceptable Worship but spiritual service : " Sacrifice 
 and offering Thou didst not desire : burnt-offering 
 and sin-offering Thou hast not required. I delight to 
 do Thy will, O my God : yea. Thy law is within my 
 heart." Not the doctrine of religious Duty, with in- 
 exhaustible springs in the affections and the will : 
 for the precept is of old, " Thou shalt love the Lord 
 thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and 
 with all thy mind, and with all thy strength ; and thy 
 neighbour as thyself" No ; God did not begin to be 
 the Father of Spirits in the reign of the Emperor 
 Tiberius. If, then, every spiritual truth had from 
 Him a witness in the soul before, what was reserved 
 ibr Christ ? What gloiy remained for him t The 
 glory of accomplishment ; the glory of fulfilment ; 
 the glory of being the holy child and fellow-worker of 
 whom saints and prophets had felt the possibility and 
 spoken ; the glory of the obedience of Love, through 
 which the Father and the Son were one. 
 
6 Christianity^ the Imperso7iation 
 
 Doubtless, if we pass out of the region of religion 
 into the region of theologies, we readily find men de- 
 claring that Christ taught new doctrines about God. 
 And here is exactly the test of what does, and of what 
 does not, belong to the realities of Revelation. If it 
 is concerned with schemes of salvation, with theoretical 
 explanations of God's dealings with sinners and with 
 sin, with a system of theological credits exhibiting 
 how guilt may be forgiven and God remain holy, how 
 a violated law may be vindicated and the violator 
 escape, — then indeed Christianity may be represented 
 as essentially a new dogmatic system ; but the new 
 doctrines will be elaborations of the intellect on specu- 
 lative difficulties supplied by itself, not one of which 
 could be referred to the simplicity of Christ. Nothing 
 belongs to the revelation that is in Christ which had 
 not first a witness within the spirit through the whisper 
 of the Father. Any doctrine that is not a fulfilling of 
 the Law that is in our nature, of the Prophets that are 
 in our souls, of which the Holy Spirit gave no hint 
 from the beginning, may be true or may be false, but it 
 belongs to theology, not to religion — it comes through 
 the speculating intellect, not from the inspired soul. 
 To the order of spiritual life already in the world, 
 divinely given in its essence and its forecastings, Christ 
 added nothing except — mark the grandeur of the ex- 
 ception — its completion. He was not the seed of our 
 eternal life — that is from the Holy Spirit ; he was the 
 
of God's Love. y 
 
 life itself made manifest. " I am come to fulni ; " " I 
 am come that ye might have life, more and more 
 abundantly." It is not that God began to be our 
 Father in Christ, but that in Christ a Son was found, 
 in all things loving, in all things trusting, in all things 
 obedient. Then for the first time the world saw, in 
 the living form of holy Love, the image in which we 
 are made. 
 
 God's children, in this unlike His other creatures, 
 do not grow by merely constitutional laws ; the con- 
 ditions of each energetic movement of our real life 
 being of the nature of an effort in communion and 
 co-operation with our Father's Spirit. We do not go 
 on to our perfection by involuntary progress, but by 
 listening for, and obedience to, the inspirations of God, 
 who imparts from Himself the type of our being. 
 Without this voluntary effort of communion we fall 
 from a spiritual to a merely natural life, as creatures 
 sustained by air or water would collapse when void of 
 the element of their being. The element of our real 
 life is intercommunion with God, — God opening the 
 communion by the invitations and promptings of His 
 Spirit, we keeping it open by the reverent hearkening 
 of our souls, and the devoted obedience of our wills. 
 Men fall into evil as if it was the law of their being, 
 not because evil, as evil, has an original root in our 
 nature, but because we leave nature to go alone, with- 
 out conscious reference to the personal living guidance. 
 
8 Christianity, the Impersonation 
 
 which if we drop we lose the co-ordination of our being, 
 our connection for the time with the regulating power 
 of our spiritual life ; we are then, as it were, detached 
 from the governing law of our nature. When we say 
 of Christ that he restored to the w^orld the image it 
 had lost, we mean, as he said of himself, that he was 
 never alone, never unguided ; that there were ever two 
 wills concurrent in him, the originating and inspiring 
 will of the Father, the consenting and co-operating 
 will of the Son ; that the life which he lived was the 
 life of God in him. "As I hear, I speak." "The 
 works that I do, I do not of myself; the Father who 
 dwelleth in me, ^He doeth the works." Conscience 
 itself is fellowship with a Prompter in our souls. If a 
 man says, " I am alone ; I am self-sustained, self- 
 developed ; I know no law but the law of my own 
 individual constitution," — in St. Paul's language, he is 
 natural and not spiritual ; in that he is alone, he is not 
 yet consciously a child of God. 
 
 If we accept it as the distinction of Christ that he 
 was the impersonation of God's holy love in humanity, 
 we still desire to know how his character was gene- 
 rated. How did it come into existence .'* Out of what 
 fountains did it flow } Our proper perfectness is 
 relative to the perfectness that reveals itself to us. Is 
 there any principle of feeling and of purpose in us 
 which, by responding to God at every point where He 
 touches us, would develope in us also, in elemental 
 
of GocTs Love, g 
 
 fulness, the image in which we were made ? There is 
 only one spring of spiritual life common to us and to 
 God — love for what is good and holy. Perfect love 
 is the essence of the Father ; and to impersonate in 
 human conditions and limitations the love breathed 
 from the fountain Spirit the glory of Sonship, the 
 substance of Christianity, the definition of Christ as 
 revealer of God to man, and of man to himself No 
 new religious doctrine, capable of being conveyed in 
 words, can be referred to Christ. His greatness is 
 that, through the grace given him and the grace of 
 his obedience, he was the reflected fulness of the love 
 that is in God. It was not the affection of love 
 working from itself, but love for God as He personally 
 exists within the soul, that generated the character of 
 Christ. Love is not abstract, no self-developed senti- 
 ment ; it is an affection meeting the kindling touch of 
 a living person, acted upon and drawn forth by the 
 properties of that person. What might we become if 
 the spring of spiritual love in us was acted upon by 
 the properties, the personal approaches, of God, to the 
 extent of the susceptibilities given to us ? We might 
 become as Christ. It is not that we have the image 
 of God in us as an acorn has the image of an oak, and 
 that we grow as the oak grows, from its environment, 
 but that we have capabilities of feeling and responding 
 to God's Spirit which, through the constraining ener- 
 gies of love, conform us to Himself. , With us, too, 
 
lo Christianity^ the Impersonation 
 
 according to our measure of assimilating love, " What- 
 soever the Son seeth the Father do, these things doeth 
 the Son likewise." " What shall I do that I may 
 inherit eternal life ? " Christ did not give the vague, 
 formless, unsubstantial answer, " Thou shalt love : " but,, 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God " — not with one 
 part, but with every part of the nature to which He 
 personally commends Himself — " Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
 mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength ; 
 and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," — as 
 we must do if we love the Father of us all. Now that, 
 as a precept, was known before. But supposing the 
 precept to be kept, what manner of men should we 
 become, what Is the human image this inspiring Love 
 would give ? That was not known. That was the 
 question reserved for Christ to answer, not in words, 
 for it cannot be answered in words, but in living 
 manifestation as the incarnate Revelation. The end 
 of Revelation is Life, is Character. Through the 
 obedience of love, to be the Character that is the end 
 of Revelation is the ctifferentia of Christ, the substance 
 and definition of Christianity. To meet this by 
 raising a metaphysical question as to the possibility of 
 perfectness in a human being, or in any being short 
 of God, is altogether away from the mark, the 
 betrayal of a half-hearted faith, the disowning of a full 
 disclpleship from a shallow form of unbelief. The 
 
of God's Love. ii 
 
 question is not of ih.^ finality of man or angel ; and 
 there, is no question, as to the originality, or the com- 
 pleteness, of the Christian type of life. " God, who in 
 divers portions, and in diverse manners, spake in time 
 past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these 
 last days spoken unto us in His Son, who is the efful- 
 gence of His glory, and the very image of His sub- 
 stance." In no other way is it possible to define the 
 peculiarity of Christ. He is the light that is in us 
 when it has become life ; the inspiring love when it is 
 impersonated. 
 
 If still we are asked. How came this .^ — how came 
 Christ to be an unique pattern of the life that is offered 
 to us all ? — we can only answer. That is the mystery 
 not only of his, but of every other individuality. What 
 makes one man differ from another in the type of his 
 being } It is the secret of all personality. It is true 
 of every genuine life, that it is hid, like Christ's, in God. 
 How came Shakespere to transcend all others, and 
 yet to be recognized by all others as, in his sphere, 
 only a fuller representative of their own nature t It 
 is his characteristic to be always natural ; yet, whilst 
 feeling him to be natural, we also feel that he is almost 
 infinitely beyond our individual power of imagination 
 or execution. I am not explaining, far less explaining 
 away, the mystery of Christ ; I only say it is no unique 
 difficulty, though of exceptional degree. We all poten- 
 tially are what by the grace of God we might be. He 
 
12 Christianity, the Imperso^tation 
 
 did what we do not : he used the grace of God. How 
 is it that one man differs from another in the holiness 
 of his will ? It is the same mystery. How is it that 
 men seem to take equal delight in God, with their 
 hearts, with their minds, with their souls, — and yet not 
 love Him alike, or at all, with their strength, with their 
 Wilt, with the great energetic powers that must become 
 what they love, or else loathe themselves, and tremble 
 and shudder at their own hollowness ? 
 
 We may be told, as by Professor Tyndall in his 
 sketch of Faraday, that Love is tender, yielding, sym- 
 pathetic, and cannot prompt or sustain the great and 
 awful attributes of a perfect form of Character. That 
 is the fallacy of one who does not get beyond abstrac- 
 tions, who is thinking of the sentiment of Love evolving 
 its object from itself The true question is, whether 
 we are capable, made capable by our Father, of a 
 growing devotion towards every perfection that is in 
 Him, when, by His Spirit in us. He has quickened us 
 to the perception of it .^ What aspect of spiritual 
 completeness, merciful or awful, melting as pity, in- 
 flexible as holiness, enterprising and self-sacrificing as 
 faith and hope, is not a love for some perfection that 
 is in God, a love from which we know we should fall 
 away, even in conception and desire, if we were not held 
 up to its height by our personal clinging unto Him ? 
 A true love of God must embrace every element of 
 power, every aspect of reality, from the softest glow of 
 
of God's Love. 13 
 
 compassion to the cleansing fire of holy indignation, if 
 these belong to the Spirit of God, and God commends 
 Himself to the spirits He has made. We have not 
 to create, or to imagine, our own type of perfectness. 
 That God does for us in coming Himself to a nature 
 made in His image. If He does not do that, then the 
 whole question falls to the ground ; we are not reli- 
 gious beings at all, and are capable of no growth but 
 the natural growth of circumstance and constitution. 
 To love God " with all our heart," is to know the spi- 
 ritual passion of measureless gratitude for loving-kind- 
 ness and self-devotedness to goodness ; to love Him 
 "with all our mind," is to know the passion for Truth 
 that is the enthusiasm of Science, the passion for 
 Beauty that inspires the poet and the artist, when all 
 truth and beauty are regarded as the self-revealings of 
 God ; to love Him "with all our soul," is to know the 
 saint's rapture of devotion and gaze of penitential awe 
 into the face of the All-holy, the saint's abhorrence of 
 sin and agony of desire to save a sinner's soul ; and to 
 love Him " with all our strength," is the supreme spi- 
 ritual passion that tests the rest,^the passion for reality, 
 for worship in spirit and in truth, for hcing what we 
 adore, for doing what we know to be God's word, the 
 commanding allegiance that has the collected might 
 of the Will behind every spiritual desire to force it 
 forwards to its end, the loyalty that exacts the living 
 sacrifice, the whole burnt-offering that is our reason- 
 
14 Christianity, the rmpei^sonation 
 
 able service, and in our coldest hours keeps steadfast 
 to what seemed good when we were aglow. The 
 character of Christ, in its manifold unity, was the 
 blended presence of all these forms of Love in one 
 personality, each chastened and rounded by the cohe- 
 rence and impulse of the rest. Was there not the 
 same holy love for men's souls in the searching, 
 awakening words, "Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! " 
 as in the pleading, vindicating words, " Forgive them ; 
 they know not what they do ? " The love that is of 
 God is as holy as it is tender, as unyielding as it is 
 unhating. Not of the love of God, but only of some 
 one filament of religious sensibility taken for the 
 whole, could it be true that it is feeble-hearted either 
 in forcing ourselves on enterprise and sacrifice, or in 
 looking for endurance, effort, martyrdom, from those 
 we love, if through these lies the way of truth and 
 holiness, of spiritual honour and peace with God. 
 
 It may be objected, that to define Christ as the 
 impersonation of God's Love does not embrace the 
 whole of his recorded being — that, for instance, the 
 Resurrection is omitted. But the Resurrection, how- 
 ever historically regarded, makes no part of the genesis, 
 or of the inner vitality, of Christ. Doubtless a belief 
 in the Resurrection was of critical efficacy in converting 
 the Apostles and the world, but it w^as of no efficacy 
 in producing the soul of Jesus, and cannot enter into 
 any definition of his personality. Though it has 
 
of God's Love, 15 
 
 worked as a gleam of light on God's imperishable 
 union with His children, its immediate action was to 
 lift the disciples from a Messianic to a spiritual con- 
 ception of the kingdom of heaven. The Resurrection, 
 however interpreted, belongs to the scaffolding of 
 Christianity, not to the soul of Christ. 
 
 What, then, are the considerations mainly concerned 
 in the question, " What is it to be a Christian ? " The 
 distinctest and fullest answer to which words are 
 adequate was given by Christ : '' Be ye perfect, as 
 your Father who is in heaven is perfect." The con- 
 crete answer was in his own personality, the reality 
 of life which no statement of doctrines, no articles 
 of belief, though they were all true and all accepted, 
 could compass or picture.* In spiritual substance 
 it is to have "the same mind in us that was also 
 in Christ Jesus." It is to seek and serve God in the 
 faith and hope w^hich perfect love creates, delivered 
 from the fear which perfect love casts out. It is to 
 live in His presence ; to watch for His visitings ; to 
 know through the depths of our being that a holy God 
 who loves us must hold us responsible for our faithful- 
 ness to the quickenings of His grace; it is to have 
 
 * " Were I to define divinity, I should rather call it a divine life than 
 a divine science ; it being something rather to be understood by a spiri- 
 tual sensation than by any verbal description, as all things of sense and 
 life are best kno\vn by sentient and vital faculties." — Smithes Select 
 Discourses, p. i : Cambridge, 1859. 
 
1 6 Christianity, the Impe^^sonatioit 
 
 the large bountifulness of heart, and where possible of 
 hand, of the children of Him who causes His sun to 
 shine on the evil and the good, and makes His rain to 
 fall upon the just and upon the unjust ; it is that ful- 
 filment of the old commandment which makes the 
 commandment ever fresh, in dear acknowledgment of 
 claims that never can be cancelled, debts of the heart's 
 own making, always being registered anew against 
 itself: "A new commandment I give unto you, that 
 ye love one another, — as I have loved you, that ye 
 love one another ; " it is the love which cannot deny 
 itself as God cannot deny Himself, and so will refuse 
 no service and will countenance no wrong ; which can 
 urge its dearest upon solitude, suffering, privations, 
 sacrifice, and death, if through these is their fellowship 
 with Him who blesses ever and in all ways, but who 
 will not go with us in anything that brings spiritual 
 hurt, and will not spare us in anything that brings 
 spiritual good. 
 
 It is but in a poor measure that any of us are 
 Christians, in all the susceptibilities and in all the 
 works of Love, in the vast range of its spirit from 
 adoring humility for ourselves before God to self-for- 
 getting enthusiasm for the kingdom of heaven ; but it 
 is in the power of us all more and more to draw our 
 being from the Holiest known to us, breathing in us 
 or realized for us, — and by the most infallible and 
 Christ-like way — the surest, the sweetest, and the 
 
of God's Love. 17 
 
 humblest — to make earthly life more and more 
 heavenly, worshipping in spirit and in truth by 
 honouring and serving our Father in honouring and 
 serving His children. 
 
II. 
 
 John xvii. 20: 
 
 "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also that shall believe 
 on me through their word ; that they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, 
 art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us : that the 
 -world may believe that Thou hast sent me." 
 
 These words imply that there is to be no period of 
 earthly progress in which men shall pass beyond dis- 
 cipleship to Christ : that his method is inexhaustible, 
 himself a symbol of the living God, as fresh in signifi- 
 cance, as uninjured by time, as the everlasting hills. 
 Since they were spoken mankind has advanced inde- 
 finitely, but that vast and indescribable progress has 
 not altered the spiritual position of humanity in rela- 
 tion to Jesus Christ. Not when he came to his own 
 and his own received him not — when amid Judea's 
 low and fierce fanaticism, forestalling the progression 
 ■of ages, he spoke of universal interests in a universal 
 language — not then more signally than now was he 
 the needed Saviour and Healer of men's souls, the 
 unapproached Teacher, the unworn Ideal, the only real 
 Person to whom it would not shock the religious feel- 
 
The Universality of Christianity,^ 19 
 
 ings of mankind to apply the titles, Son of Man and 
 Son of God. Humanity has been regenerated again 
 and again since the expected Messiah of the Jews dis- 
 appointed their fierce faith by assuming the spiritual 
 Lordship of human-kind ; a new order of society has 
 sprung up to which Hebrew Prophet and Heathen 
 Sage would alike be strange ; so that no effort of the 
 ■most instructed imagination can station us as perfect 
 observers among the contemporaries of Christ : as a 
 moral, a political, a social, a scientific, a religious being, 
 man has again and again been new-born, but still 
 Christianity holds its place. We stand but where the 
 first disciples stood, far-off gazers — its kingdom of 
 heaven to us as to them is a hidden land ; and though 
 whither we go we know, and the way we know, yet 
 unless we too repent and be converted, we cannot 
 enter into this realm of God. 
 
 And all past changes are but heralds of future pro- 
 gress : each growth in grace and knowledge reveals 
 more clearly the infinitude that lies before us ; the 
 advance of our nature is as sure as the duration of 
 time ; yet no one, whom now it leads, suspects that 
 Christianity is to be left behind — no one fears that 
 its spirit shall become too contracted, its motives too 
 impure, its ideals too easy, its heaven too low ; and 
 place the human soul where you will, Jesus — the Way, 
 the Truth, and the Life — is still beyond it, a Way not 
 trod, a Truth not fathomed, a Life not lived ; and we 
 
20 The Universality of Christianity. 
 
 are no nearer to any exhaustion of the riches that are 
 in Christ than we are to having scaled the heavens 
 when we reach a mountain's top. 
 
 This, to all who can say it heartily, is the greatest 
 evidence of our religion, disclosing in it a kindred 
 character with the vastness of creation, with the soul 
 of man, with the Spirit of God. It appeared, compara- 
 tively speaking, in the spiritual youth of the world : it 
 gave what men could take : it held in reserve a trea- 
 sury of light to be poured upon the eye and the soul 
 as they were able to bear it : as our sensibility to 
 Goodness has increased, its perfect Pattern has come 
 forth into fuller relief: as our Spirituality has strength- 
 ened, it has introduced us more directly to God ; 
 common life has been transfigured, purer visions have 
 come down out of heaven upon earth, new paths 
 leading upwards have opened before our feet. 
 
 All this is only matter of observation : explain it as 
 we may, Christianity has led the soul, and is now, as 
 it ever was, in advance of the soul. There is no mark 
 of age upon it : it is not tarnished by use and by long 
 handling : men have not reached and repeated it 
 until they have wearied of it. It is as fresh to-day as 
 when Jesus entered into the desert and brought it forth 
 from the bosom of God. Spiritual Understanding, 
 Aspiration, Affection — it has baptized them all into 
 the life that was for the Light of the World, and now 
 their purified sight can find nothing nobler than itself; 
 
The Universality of Christianity. 21 
 
 it is still the holiest thought, the highest goal, the 
 world possesses. Religious institutions decline and 
 perish, the friends of the Bridegroom fail; but the 
 unfading Lord himself draws through all ages the 
 souls of men, the Church of the living God. 
 
 This is the characteristic of Christianity that marks 
 it as a Universal Religion. What, we may inquire, are 
 the features which give it this character of universality, 
 which make it one with the truth and with the opera- 
 tions of God — not hidden from the child, opening on 
 the man, quickening the most advanced, filling the 
 loftiest saint with the deepest lowliness } 
 
 I. Christianity, on one side of it, corresponds with 
 Nature and with Providence in the ina7iner of its teach- 
 ings. It has, indeed, what they have not, both a spoken 
 and an unspoken Word. Nature is a vast Symbol of 
 God, where, though no voice is heard, to reason and 
 the spiritual faculty are clearly declared the invisible 
 things of the Eternal Mind. The heavens above have 
 their lessons, of infinitude and sublimity to the common 
 observer, of order and eternal law to instructed thought. 
 The earth beneath is heaved up, and lo ! the history of 
 Providence stereotyped in the rocks, as with the letters 
 of a printed book ! Experiment, to use Lord Bacon's 
 image, unsatisfied with its spontaneous evidence, puts 
 Nature to the torture, and wrests her secrets with the 
 scrutiny of an inquisitor ; and the most advanced are 
 the most convinced that, in Newton's memorable 
 
22 The Universality of Christianity. 
 
 words, we are still but as children gathering shells 
 and pebbles on the shore, with the ocean of Truth 
 unexplored before us. 
 
 Now when we speak of Nature witnessing more 
 fully to God from age to age, it is not meant that, 
 sensibly to us, Nature varies : the change is in the 
 receiving mind : the book is the same, the interpreter 
 is different. The same page is before us, but a new 
 light has fallen on the letters, a severer effort of thought 
 is collecting their meaning. The same influences are 
 breathing from its face, the same spirit moving on the 
 waters, but a more genial eye, a more filial soul, has 
 caught their import. The same secrecy, the same 
 reserve and silence, are over the external world ; there 
 is no voice nor sound ; but the symbol is understood,, 
 and the spiritual God displays Himself to His children,, 
 clothed in garments of light, in His presence-chamber 
 of the universe. It is in this way that Nature has the 
 character of universality : she gives to all whatever 
 they can take ; and no man's power of taking lessens 
 her power of giving. Now with God in Christ we have 
 the same method of instruction as with God in Nature. 
 The greatest truths are rather communicated to spiri- 
 tual apprehension, as seeds of future growths, through 
 kindling faith, affection and thought, than expressly 
 stated. Christ has given us no definition of what 
 Christianity is, for how define in words what is em- 
 braced only in a life which has no limit but God } The 
 
The Universality of Ckristimiity. 23 
 
 works and life of Christ are in truth as illuminated 
 facts, true to experience but anticipatory of progress, 
 foreshowing our goal to make clear our destination 
 and be a stimulus on the way — indications of things 
 to come, not mere emblems and symbols as in the 
 universe, but witnesses tit kind. They serve to show 
 us the Father through the only spiritual medium we 
 know, the soul of a man. " The Son can do nothing 
 of himself ; but whatsoever he seeth the Father do 
 these things doeth the Son likewise." And a man 
 worthy to be a Son of God is a more unanswerable 
 declaration of heavenly life, of human immortality, 
 than material or sensible evidences could possibly be — 
 than a voice penetrating the cold ear of death — than 
 Lazarus and the widow's son showing some of the 
 re-unions of heaven upon this side the grave, or attest- 
 ing angels and a visible ascension to the skies. The 
 only thought that has ever stood in the way of a uni- 
 versal faith in immortality, is the fear, derived from 
 ourselves, that human nature is unworthy of an eternal 
 union with God, and Christ has taken that fear away. 
 In him, in the embodied Truth, in the Word made flesh 
 — there is the lesson as soon as you can read it, the 
 motive as soon as you can appreciate it, the key of 
 the spiritual mysteries as soon as you feel them to 
 be mysteries, the heaven of reconciliation with God 
 through love and the work of love, self-sacrifice, as 
 soon as you hunger and thirst for its peace. 
 
24 The Universality of Christianity. 
 
 II. In consistency with this character of univer- 
 sality, providing for all the utmost they can take, 
 there is no attempt in the Gospels to define the 
 amount of truth which spiritual man may collect 
 from the living manifestations of God. Our Lord 
 never thought of measuring the light which his own 
 spirit may convey into a kindred soul. A WORD of 
 God we have, a living and incarnate Word ; but zvords 
 of God we have none. Any revelations that words 
 could convey must be of limited and definite things. 
 If Christianity was of this order, it would be no 
 blessing to our spiritual nature. It might speak of 
 immortality ; but if it laid no quickening hand upon 
 the inner springs of life, where would be its evidences 
 of heavenly power ? An oracle of Truth set up to 
 deliver responses on all spiritual questions would be 
 death to the priesthood of the soul, an extinguisher of 
 the oracle within, of the light that lighteth every man 
 who Cometh into the world. Revelation — notwith- 
 standing what great logicians tell us, who take their 
 religion not from the receiving soul but from the 
 analyzing intellect — is no mere regulative guidance, 
 directing us how to steer our way through life and 
 death to the presence of a God whose nature we do 
 not know and whose morality we do not share ; neither 
 is it a certain measured portion cut out of the immen- 
 sity of Truth and communicable in words : it is the 
 orcranic union of the branches with the Vine, the 
 
The Universality of Christianity. 25 
 
 fellowship of God's children, exhibited in one of them, 
 with the Source of spiritual truth and life. 
 
 III. For the Morality of Christ has the same uni- 
 versal and inexhaustible character. If you would 
 learn Christian Duty, no man can teach it to you by 
 systematic instruction ; you must go to Jesus Christ — 
 not to his words only, as to the Ten Commandments, 
 but to himself ; you must be of his spirit, and receive 
 its intimations of what Christ would do if he stood 
 where you stand now. There is in Christianity no 
 more of definite legislation about Life than there is 
 of definite teaching about Truth. Its worship is a 
 sense of God, a child's devotion and obedience to a 
 Father ; and whatever prayers that faith inspires, 
 whatever endeavours it sustains, whatever desires it 
 reduces into harmony w^th the Will of God, these 
 make the piety of a Christian. Its morality is a 
 spiritual service, a sense, ever growing, of what is 
 due to those who, through a common fellowship with 
 God, are in everlasting fellowship with 21s. These 
 are the springs of all piety and of all goodness ; and 
 whatever sacrifice and sympathy, whatever surrender 
 ^f perishable ease and indulgence to the spirit of 
 reality and mercy, whatever fruits of toil and patience, 
 of submission and of forgivingness, of aspiration and 
 humility, these inward bonds with God and our 
 brother may require from us, in this world or in any 
 world, these we acknowledge as the implicit duties 
 
26 The Universality of Christianity, 
 
 of a Christian man. At present only with faltering 
 steps, in some feeble and broken way, are we even 
 aiming or striving to keep the law of the spirit of 
 life, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and 
 all our mind, and all our soul, and all our strength, 
 and our brother as ourselves. The time may come, if 
 we are but simple and true, adopting more and more 
 of Christ's standard as it becomes the genuine reach 
 of our souls, the genuine expression of our own good- 
 will, when to us too to resist not evil, to give our cheek 
 to the smiter, to go two miles with him who would 
 constrain us to go one, to love our enemies, to do good 
 to those who hate us, will be felt to be no more than 
 the natural conduct of those who have God for their 
 Father — only the natural life of the children of Him 
 who, noticing no insult to Himself, outwardly avenging 
 no wrong we do to Him, no ingratitude we display, 
 no service we withhold, is true to His own goodness 
 without distinction of persons, causing His sun to 
 shine on the evil and the good, and sending His rain 
 on the just and on the unjust. 
 
 If it had been told us by what details of action we 
 Avere to serve God — if authoritative guidance was so 
 full that the inward prompting never was required 
 and so never at a fault — then there could be no life 
 in ourselves ; and though we might perform moralities 
 as a servant obeys orders, we could never become the 
 children of our Father's Spirit. 
 
The Universality of CJmstianity. 27 
 
 IV. And the sanctions of Christian Morality are of 
 the same universal order. It claims no right over the 
 human soul except through the constitution God has 
 eiven us, the law of Perfection in us. The character- 
 istics of a member of the kingdom of God are set forth 
 under the form of Beatitudes, of the spiritual consum- 
 mations of our own being. Its rewards are /;/ kind, in 
 the kingdom of heaven within, in mercy to the merciful, 
 in peace to the peace-makers, in a vision of God to 
 the pure, in the consolations of the Heavenly Com- 
 forter to those who comfort sorrows that are not their 
 own. These are the grounds on which we claim for 
 Christian Morality a universal character ; for who will 
 presume to measure the forms of piety which a know- 
 ledge of God as really our Father may inspire — what 
 virtues of endurance, what submission in disappoint- 
 ments and privations, what conquests of soul over 
 sense, of duty over pain, what rapt blessedness of 
 humility looking^ever upv/ards, a filial spirit, a faith like 
 Christ's, may generate .^ Who will presume to define 
 what sublime aspects brotherly love may assume, what 
 burdens it may take upon itself, what enterprises it 
 may attempt, to what depths of guilt and suffering it 
 may carry the knowledge of Him whom to know 
 is life and peace t And who will presume to deter- 
 mine the blessedness of such a service, what commu- 
 nications of Himself God may make to those who 
 purely love Him, or to limit the joy of a soul that has- 
 
28 The Universality of Christianity, 
 
 once learned to know that it is more blessed to give 
 than to receive ? This is Christian Morality ; these 
 are Christian sanctions. Having no natural limit but 
 God, are they not fitted for universal man, in all variety 
 of circumstance, and at any stage of his everlasting 
 progress ? 
 
 V. The outward forms of Christianity present no 
 exception to this universality : it has no rigid authori- 
 tative ritual, but finds a vehicle and a passage for its 
 spirit in whatever mode of worship is natural to each 
 nation or each sect. The glory it reveals is only 
 faintly emblemed in the vast cathedral, and can make 
 the humblest house of prayer the presence-chamber of 
 the Almighty. The Eastern and the Western Churches, 
 Romanism and Protestantism, Prelacy and Puritanism, 
 Symbolism and Quakerism, find no word of authority 
 condemning the peculiar taste of each ; they are all 
 right in that which they affirm, and they are all wrong- 
 in that which they deny. Whatever institutions it has 
 originated are in subservience to a spiritual purpose ; 
 and when the purpose is provided for without them, 
 the Christian is not bound. Our Lord's principle holds 
 universally of religious institutions : that the Sabbath 
 was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Its 
 instrumental aids, its ordinances as they are called, its 
 sanctuary services, its professional servants, all but its 
 prophets, and these are not official persons, are ready 
 to pass away the moment it can be shown, or in his 
 
The Universality of Christianity, 29 
 
 own case by any earnest man it is devoutly thought, 
 th^t the health of his soul, his progress in the Christian 
 life, is independent of their help. God forbid we 
 should be so little of Christ's freemen as to recognize 
 in these — in Sabbaths, Priests, Ministers or Sacra- 
 ments — anything permanent, anything essential ! We 
 know nothing in the Gospel of this nature except its 
 power to minister to the growing life of the soul, to 
 draw us to God our Father, to destroy selfish desires, 
 to make us holy and merciful like Christ ; and if we 
 live to the Spirit, we are no longer under the Law. 
 Here, again, Christianity appears in its universal cha- 
 racter, saying of every man who has life in himself, 
 *' Loose him and let him go," but compelling no man 
 to walk alone who needs the sympathy and shelter of 
 a Church ; with forms and helps for those who require 
 them, but laying no yoke or burden upon those who 
 find them impediments, not aids, to their inward life. 
 In all such things we must have entire respect for 
 individual liberty, sincerity and truth : nothing can be 
 more unspiritual, a more direct heresy against Christ, 
 than to estimate the communion of a man's soul with 
 God by his observance of modes and times of worship 
 that seem natural to us. Luther, in the temper of 
 generous extravagance which marked him, told his 
 followers to make Sunday a day of conspicuous recrea- 
 tions, a noisy holiday, in protest against any attempt 
 to force it upon them as a Divine ordinance. The 
 
30 The Universality of Christianity, 
 
 kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy- 
 in the Holy Spirit. If these are present, who will say 
 that anything is wanting ? " Who may refuse," said 
 the Apostle, " to baptize with water those whom the 
 Holy Spirit has baptized ? " or what would it matter if 
 they did refuse ? 
 
 VI. And so it is in Christ himself that naturally the 
 universality of his religion most conspicuously appears. 
 There is no limiting mark of place or time or family 
 upon him. Even when retaining the local accidents 
 of language, he sets aside whatever does not belong 
 to eternal life and universal man. He is a free spirit 
 in communion with God's Spirit, taking the help of all 
 the past, but not bound by it. The Law does not 
 limit him : he came to fulfil it by giving its spirit wider 
 applications. The Temple does not awe him ; God is 
 a Spirit : it was profaned by traffic, and unbrotherly 
 exclusion, and unspiritual sacrifice ; and only when it 
 disappeared would men learn to look within and find 
 the indwelling God : destroy it, and the true Temple, 
 the sanctuary of the Soul, remains. The Son of Man — 
 in equal relations to all, of peculiar relations to none— 
 is of no country, of no descent, of no form of worship. 
 It was the goodness of a Samaritan, it was the reli- 
 gious faith of a Gentile, that he praised, as beyond 
 anything that Israel could show. His own nation 
 rejected him because he moved free of their traditional 
 ways. Compare him with the greatest of his followers. 
 
The Universality of Christianity, 31 
 
 He would not have reasoned like St. Paul. Catholic 
 an spirit as was the Apostle of the Gentiles, it is im- 
 possible to conceive Christ using arguments derived 
 so much from what is technical, or that need so much 
 of special interpretation. He would not have given 
 the partial view of the Fourth Gospel, spiritual as that 
 is: we need the other three to furnish the divine 
 humanity of Christ. He understood the Baptist, but was 
 not understood of him. To the message of impatience, 
 " Art thou he that should come, or must we look for 
 another } " he could send an answer that declared the 
 nature of the kingdom that could not be forced, and 
 in the same breath gave full honour to the offended 
 Prophet who had done his own special work so well. 
 He understood every man's limitation, as not wrong 
 in itself, but as only a part of the true fulness. It is 
 this that makes him the universal Saviour, understand- 
 ing every one, and presenting no dark side himself. 
 Those deep-lying inspirations, affections and principles, 
 the witnesses of God in us, which in others are wrapped 
 up among accidental associations, partial feelings, 
 national habits, inherited prejudices, and distorting 
 personal inclinations, were in him the whole of his 
 being. It is this which makes his character a natural 
 one to nations most dissimilar in everything else. The 
 spirit of Christ is independent of geographical rela- 
 tions. Its first progress was in the Oriental world, 
 where no habit of life, hardly a daily thought or occu- 
 
32 The Universality of Christianity. 
 
 pation, was the same as ours ; and it has moved West- 
 wards ever since, showing that man as man is essen- 
 tially one, and that race is nothing but an enriching 
 diversity. The Love which is naturally born of our 
 human affections — the inward Law which no con- 
 science has failed at some time to proclaim — the 
 sense of Him from whose Spirit who can flee ? — Hearty 
 Mind, Soul, Will, working all together, and carried, by 
 God's great help, into life — make the natural magic 
 Avhich has drawn all men unto him. The guilty did 
 not shun him. They feared no insult of rebuke from 
 guileless Purity. A holy mind can awaken in a sinful 
 heart the most absolute repentance, but not the burn- 
 ing heats of shame ; for real penitence knows no 
 limits to its voluntary humiliation, and shame par- 
 takes too much of impotent self-defence and galled 
 pride for the utter sorrow of the contrite. He of 
 whom it is not on record that he ever uttered a 
 severe word except against pretence, hypocrisy of 
 heart, was the great Physician of souls, whom Phari- 
 sees thought to injure by the testimony that sinners 
 followed him. The Moicrner is very near to " the Man 
 of Sorrows," for we are all sharers in the discipline 
 that formed the Son of God. The Saint lives upon 
 " the imitation of Christ." What more can Faith de- 
 mand .'* What nearer fellowship with Heaven can man 
 on earth desire } Whatever criticism may do with 
 man's report of these things — and let it freely do its 
 
The Universality of Christianity, 33 
 
 best, for only good can come out of the truth — nothing 
 now can disturb the spiritual fact that God has revealed 
 His Son in ns, and that the life that we live, earth- 
 wards and heavenwards, we live by the faith of the 
 Son of God. 
 
 And it is upon this deep unity that our Lord rests 
 the real evidence that God had sent him to be a 
 Saviour, a Leader and Reconciler of men. " I pray 
 that all may be one ; as Thou, Father, art in me, and 
 I in Thee, that they also may be one in us : that the 
 world may believe that Thou hast sent me." This 
 surely is a religion that cannot be outgrown. This>. 
 as we read it, is Christianity ; and blessed shall those 
 disciples be, of whom the Son of Man shall have no 
 more cause to be ashamed in the presence of his 
 Father, than they have cause to be ashamed of him 
 and of his words before the face of men. 
 
 D 
 
III. 
 
 John i. 48 : 
 
 **Nathanael sailh unto him, Whence knowest thou me?" 
 
 What are the dispositions of heart which would 
 attract to him who possessed them Christ's most hope- 
 ful regards ? What the natural elements that furnish 
 the happiest aptitudes for discipleship ; the cast and 
 frame of spirit that is the peculiar seed-bed of the 
 Christian graces ? 
 
 Prior to experience, we might have greatly erred in 
 forecasting the make of mind on which Christ would 
 look with expectation. If without the Gospel notices 
 of his elective affinities we had conjectured an ideal 
 disciple, we should probably have m.ade a consistent 
 strictness more prominent than sensibility ; chosen 
 passionless bosoms for our Lord's head to rest upon, 
 and living stones all of one pattern to build the glory 
 of his Church. 
 
 But those who drew to themselves the expectations 
 of Christ, as most likely to reward the travail of his 
 soul, were of a different type. Peter's impulsive readi- 
 
Aptitudes for Discipleship, 35 
 
 ness, eager but self-ignorant ; ever generously moved, 
 though ever unequal to the movement ; his heart rush- 
 ing into trials for which his soul had not prepared him ; 
 springing to meet his Lord on every stormy water, and 
 sinking in panic reaction when the peril and the terror 
 were close upon him : — St. John's sensitive affection, 
 of the feminine type, not free from its natural admix- 
 ture of over-jealous vehemence ; desiring for himself 
 the place upon his Lord's breast, and fire from heaven 
 on his foes : — J\Iary, who sat at his feet, with uplifted 
 eyes, drinking in the spirit of eternal life, whilst the 
 work of the passing hour fell unheeded from her hands : 
 — Martha, eager to do him fitting honour though de- 
 tained for the moment by the homely cares of love 
 from the Mount of Meditation : — Zaccheus, struggling 
 between spiritual desires and an ungenial occupation : 
 — the Woman who had sinned but was forgiven be- 
 cause she mourned and loved much : — the Youth in 
 the innocent flush of freedom from transgression within 
 his small sphere of duties, whom, our Lord, beholding, 
 loved for his ingenuous boast of all known tasks per- 
 formed, and for his ingenuous, though ineffectual, 
 sorrow when the boast proved vain ; retiring from his 
 self-assertion when the testing word found out the 
 weak place in his soul : — these are some of the instances 
 in Gospel story which show the affinities of Christ 
 what susceptibilities of spirit he deemed most open to 
 <jod and reality, most receptive of the seeds of good- 
 
o 
 
 6 Aptitttdes for Discipleship. 
 
 ness, most likely to repay a heavenly culture with the 
 richest returns, though for the time only native wild 
 flowers were in possession of the soil. 
 
 In determining from such hints the congenial rudi- 
 ments of character for the action of Christ, it is clear 
 that we must drop whatever does not touch the sensi- 
 bilities of heart and soul, whatever does not enter into 
 the natural qualifications for one or other of the Beati- 
 tudes. Intellect, genius, sagacity, power over men and 
 things, capacity for affairs, recede from our view. These 
 are great qualities which a member of the kingdom 
 of heaven may splendidly use in its service if he pos- 
 sesses them, but they will not make him a member of 
 that kingdom. They reach their purest glory when 
 they enter and serve therein, but they do not them- 
 selves open the door. The powerful instruments which 
 a man's natural gifts place at the command of his will, 
 do not determine the spirit that directs them, or the 
 cause to which they give their strength. The " under- 
 standing heart," the moral affections, the soul's hunger 
 and thirst for love, for beauty and for righteousness, 
 with the thrill of its inward response to all goodness, — 
 these draw to their service every other part of our 
 nature, as instruments by which the spirit works its 
 will, or as interpreters to the soul upon its watch of 
 the possibilities of life, of the opportunities of God. 
 The vital question is, Has the love of God reached 
 the will } or, Is it only a lambent glow on occasional 
 
Aptitudes for Discipleship. 3 7 
 
 affections ? If the first, it is for ever reaching forth to 
 fresh conquests and endeavours in the directions of its 
 natural service. No one who loves God with mind, 
 and heart, and soul, and strength, could be content to 
 live in ignorance of the order of God's thoughts, of the 
 laws by which He works, and according to which all 
 effective work must in God's world be done. " What- 
 soever the Son seeth the Father do, these things doeth 
 the Son likewise :" that is the test of a filial love which 
 extends to the whole field of divine co-operation, and 
 makes all knowledge and all power handmaids of 
 Religion. No one, with a love born of God, could 
 mourn over the evil and the sorrow that are in the 
 world, and sigh for the coming of the kingdom of 
 heaven, yet be indifferent as to his own possession of 
 the piercing insight, the glorious vigour, the endow- 
 ments for destruction or persuasion, the full armour, 
 with which in the great emblematic picture the Arch- 
 angel rushes as on the wings of light against the Prince 
 of Darkness. A genuine love of God, and of what is 
 dear to God, will enlist the whole nature, mental, emo- 
 tional, instrumental ; but there is no corresponding 
 security that intellectual strength and joy will awaken 
 the soul's thirst for the living water, or open a man's 
 heart to receive in spiritual graces the imprint of the 
 life of God. One glance at Nathanael, one glance at 
 Peter, discovered to our Lord their natural fitness for 
 discipleship ; though the one had just scornfully asked 
 
38 Aptitudes for Discipleship. 
 
 *' Can anything good come out of Nazareth ? " and the 
 other, until re-cast in the moulds of Christ, was more 
 entitled to his name as " a rock of offence " than as a 
 foundation-stone. 
 
 In looking, then, for the genial soil of the Gospel, 
 we expect to find it in no rigid types — in no hard 
 natures, without life from within to break surface 
 shape and polish — in no frigid consistency fixed so 
 soon and fast because the elements that compose it 
 are so scanty, and fresh impulses that would disturb 
 its small completeness are not encouraged ; but rather 
 in- the receptive heart surrendering readily to the 
 movements of a life diviner than its own, delivered 
 from the barrenness of minute self-scrutiny by floods 
 of inspiration from the Fountain of being, and though 
 ever as in an agony of unfulfilled desires, yet never in 
 despair as to what it was, or what it is, or what it is. 
 to be, whilst the touch of heavenly power is still felt 
 within it. 
 
 The first aptitude for affinity with Christ is the pos- 
 session of a living soul, susceptible to the natural signs 
 of goodness. An impressionable nature may depend 
 on original organization, and an incalculable addition 
 thus be made to power and personal responsibility ; 
 but it is not in that form that it is in strongest rela- 
 tions to the kingdom of heaven. What is born of the 
 flesh is but flesh ; only what is born of the spirit is 
 spirit ; and there is no strength of spirit where there 
 
Aptitudes for Discipleship, 39 
 
 is no strength of will. Great natural sensibility is apt 
 to become self-idolatrous; to attribute to itself its easy 
 exaltations of thought, its ready splendours of feeling; 
 to mistake for its own the visioned life to which 
 through quick perception and kindling imagination it 
 is vividly admitted ; to confuse rapid apprehension 
 with rooted being, and glide into the fatal readiness, 
 complacent and aesthetic, which comprehends every- 
 thing, and is nothing. The metallic liveliness which 
 responds to every touch and echoes every sound, may 
 come from, or conduce to, emptiness of spirit, — the 
 vivacity of surface thought, daring to deal rhetorically 
 or speculatively with all the aspects of life, supplying 
 the zest and colour that satisfy for a time, and conceal 
 while they satisfy shallowness of soul and poverty of 
 being. I should greatly fear for any one who had a 
 remarkable facility of spiritual utterance — not neces- 
 sarily for his present sincerity, but for the depth of 
 the soil. Moses and Isaiah pleaded with God that 
 they could not speak ; and all the w^ords of Christ 
 would scarce exceed the bounds of some modern 
 sermons. To be familiar with the prominent aspects 
 of holy things, to be master of the forms in which 
 they address themselves to the common imagination, 
 to know how to let the hands fall on the key-notes of 
 emotion, — this may be wide apart from the hidden 
 man of the heart, the inner experience, deep, awful, 
 conflicting, half unveiled, half concealed, which he who 
 
40 Aptihides for Discipleship. 
 
 has most of it will least profess to understand, and of 
 which whoever will speak, drawing his knowledge 
 from himself, will assuredly do so with stammering 
 lips, and with an effort more exhausting than physical 
 toil. It is not the susceptibility which is a constitu- 
 tional gift that is a sure inlet for Christ, but that of 
 the serious heart, in awe of itself, in awe of God, 
 desiring what is real. It is fed on silent communion, 
 on the long gaze of the soul into the heart of Christ 
 as conscience puts anew the seal of obedience on the 
 measure of grace given to it receiving more and more 
 of the fulness of life, " grace upon grace." 
 
 The heart that has begun to hunger and thirst for 
 the bread and the water of life, discerns by a divine 
 instinct the nourishment it needs. It finds, as Christ 
 found, universal parables of nature. The spiritual 
 meaning comes forth from the natural emblem. Light 
 streams through the veil. It sees " the beauty in the 
 grass, the glory in the flower;" and if these are perish- 
 able, so much the more the intuitional inference of 
 Christ has its emphasis, " If God so clothe the grass 
 of the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into 
 the oven," with what garments of righteousness and 
 light shall He clothe the children of His Spirit! Espe- 
 cially no sign of the divine meaning in our human 
 relationships escapes a heart so opened. The intended 
 becomes the real ; through the earthly imperfection 
 the heavenly form is seen. Parent, child, wedded 
 
Aptititdes for Discipleship. 41 
 
 hearts, — In these, beneath the troubled surface of our 
 poor infirmities, we behold what God is offering to us 
 what yet remains to be ; and nothing then, nor sin 
 nor death, can take it from our faith. God has shown 
 it to us ; the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Our 
 spiritual life is all prophetic ; and what is yet unful- 
 filled is the kingdom of heaven within us. Men of 
 deep hearts know this in the failures of expression ; 
 their words and tones have unfathomable meanings. 
 
 And, pre-eminently, the sign of a living soul is its 
 discernment of the spirit of God in others, speaking 
 in their acts, disclosed in their unconscious personality, 
 evidenced in their sensitive reserves, shining in their 
 face when they know it not. We have the standard 
 example of this spiritual discernment, the instance 
 which shows us what it might be, in the testimony 
 of Christ to Nathanael, and, in its lower degree, the 
 witness of Nathanael to Christ. " Jesus saw Nathanael 
 coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite 
 indeed, in whom is no guile ! Nathanael saith unto 
 him. Whence knowest thou me } Jesus answered and 
 said unto him. Before that Philip called thee, when 
 thou wert under the fig-tree, I saw thee ! Nathanael 
 answered and saith unto him. Rabbi, thou art the Son 
 of God ; thou art the King of Israel ! " Do we suppose 
 that there was nothing in the natural signs of spiritual 
 being to justify the immediate confidence of Christ "i 
 " I saw thee, when thou wert under the fig-tree!" He 
 
 ^/ 
 
42 Aptittides foj^ Disciples hip. 
 
 knew what there he had seen, when the Inmost soul 
 was reveahng itself through the struggle of prayer in 
 that Israelite indeed, who was intently wrestling with 
 God at a moment when to him there was no eye in 
 the universe but the All-seeing Eye on which his own 
 was turned. Or, do we suppose that there was nothing 
 in the words, and in the face, of Christ to command 
 the instant and absolute confidence of Nathanael ? 
 " Rabbi, thou art the Son of God ! " Nathanael knew 
 what Christ had seen ; and we must have stood in 
 that presence, and seen the eye, and felt the tones of 
 our Lord, and have had deep things in our hearts 
 which that look conveyed to us were clearer to him 
 than to ourselves, before we can reach the grounds of 
 Nathanael's conviction, that before him was the dis- 
 cerner of spirits, the master of his soul, yea, the fufil^ 
 ment of the secret things of God, and the Desire of 
 the Nations. Whoever does not understand how this 
 might be, and yet involve no more than spirit recog- 
 nizing spirit, has everything to learn of the mightiest 
 inlets of Faith. 
 
 The descriptive word by which our Lord character- 
 ized Nathanael, " an Israelite indeed,"— a striver with 
 God, without guile, — a Jacob without Jacob's craft, — 
 exhibits the kind of heart to be successful in that 
 search, and most sure to recognize, and be recognized 
 by, him w^ho knew the Father, and had the light and 
 peace of His spirit resting upon him. As was seen m 
 
Aptititdcs for Discipleship. 43 
 
 the historic type of religious selfishness whom our Lord 
 named, it is possible to be a seeker after God in the 
 spirit of self-seeking. There is a sense of God that 
 makes a man sensitive about himself, and so carries 
 the taint of spiritual guile. To be unoccupied about 
 ourselves, about what God or man may think of us, if . 
 only we may find more and more of Him and of His 
 light, in seeking or serving, is a rare measure of spiri- 
 tual simplicity. We are not always absolutely sincere 
 even in unbosoming ourselves to the All-searching Eye. 
 Our very prayers are not free from unreality. We ^ 
 confess, and are not ashamed ; we adore, and are not 
 awed, or bowed down, or rendered speechless. We 
 say what we could not say if we were really speaking 
 to God ; we tell Him of what He knows and we do 
 not know ; we tell Him of what we are, instead of 
 rising into His light ; we linger around ourselves, 
 instead of going out of ourselves to meet Him and 
 have Him acting upon us. Even our prayers are from 
 our own level ; and dwelling on our own states, occu- 
 pied with self-regards, do not acquaint us with God. 
 We try to use suitable language to a God who is 
 outside of us, and are not transfigured by His presence 
 within us. But we are changed into the same image 
 by looking on the glory that is in God's face, not by 
 brooding over the shadows that are on ourselves. We 
 best learn our blindness when it is passing away in 
 fresh light given us by Him. We best learn our weak- 
 
44 Aptitudes for Discipleship. 
 
 ness when we fall in His service ; our falls are then 
 divine teachings and steps of progress. Self-know- 
 ledge is self-deliverance when it comes to one who is 
 living for God. No one is so little oppressed with the 
 care of his own reputation ; he is otherwise occupied. 
 He unveils himself, unconsciously, in the self-forget- 
 fulness of a great pursuit. No sensitive reserves, false 
 shame, or fear of failure, hold him back from service. 
 He has no disguises, for he has no side ends. Even 
 li^ like Peter, he is weak and presumptuous, it is shown 
 in right endeavours, in enterprises beyond his strength 
 to which his strength will grow. And if, like Nathanael, 
 he shrinks alarmed, with offended pride, at a word of 
 undue praise — " How knowest thou me ? " — he yields 
 at once, like Nathanael, to a spiritual presence that 
 meets and transcends his own. 
 
 The most genuine sign of a religious sensibility 
 which passes into the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, is 
 the compassionate heart which cannot separate the 
 sense of Fatherhood from the affections and the obli- 
 gations of Brotherhood. The fellowship of love is 
 conscientious, and with the joy takes up the duties, 
 the burden and the cross, of its divine relationship. 
 It rejoices with those who rejoice, and weeps with 
 those who weep. It is pained by human suffering, as 
 though the blow was on our own breast ; troubled by 
 misery's dark despair, as though the shadow was on 
 our own soul ; stricken and moved by the evil that is 
 
Aptitttdes for Discipleship. 45 
 
 in the world, as though the responsibility was all with 
 us, and ours the place of charge in our Father's house 
 of that compassionate Brother who would bear every 
 man's sins and carry every man's sorrows. To the 
 love which draws towards Christ, inspiring the con- 
 science and the will, nothing is too great, nothing is 
 too small. In the simplicity of service it makes the 
 Beatitudes its own, having the blessing that is on the 
 merciful, on the peace-maker, on the pure in heart and 
 the meek in spirit, on the mourning for woes that are 
 not our own, on the hunger and thirst for the inex- 
 haustible things of God. 
 
 For it was not without deep significance that Christ 
 pronounced on the seeker after God in whom was no 
 self-seeking, the blessing offered to the first Israel in 
 the vision of the night, and lost through guile : "Thou 
 shalt see the heavens opened, and the angels of God 
 ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." 
 For is not such a heart the place where the communi- 
 cations of earth and heaven are carried on, whence 
 the prayer and the sigh go up, to which angels of 
 grace come down t Is not all life, to such a heart, as 
 the ladder set up on earth, reaching unto heaven, with 
 the divine messengers passing to and fro, and the Lord 
 God standing above it t Is not, to such a heart, every 
 suggestion of love a whisper from the Mercy-seat, 
 every prompting of conscience a mandate from the 
 Holy Spirit ? And whether to any one life here is for 
 
46 Aptitttdes for Discipleship, 
 
 few or for many days, whether the ladder of ascent is 
 long visible from this its lower side, or early taken up 
 and lost to sight, what is that to him or us, if only 
 whilst still it rests upon the earth the heavenly mes- 
 sengers come and go ! If only at every overture from 
 God we close with Him at once, not making terms, 
 like Jacob, but leaving all with Him, like Christ, — if 
 only as each angel in succession presents his hand he 
 has his hand accepted, to lead us where they point, — 
 the angel of the divine Benignity, who spreads our 
 table, and, filling our cup with the water of life, our 
 heart with the wine of love, invites natural thankful- 
 ness to rise upwards into spiritual trust, — the angels 
 of Chastening, who baptize with the Holy Spirit and 
 with cleansing fire, — the angels of Faith and Hope, — 
 the angel of Charity, ever nearest to the throne of 
 God, — if these are honoured and entertained, as one 
 would entertain angels, not unawares, then what mat- 
 ters it from what step of the ascent — whether when 
 age is laden with all the spoils of earth, or with young 
 eyes yet glistening in their first wonder — the last angel, 
 whose face towards earth is the face of Death, but 
 turned heavenwards burns with immortal life, bears us 
 within the veil, to the kindred of our spirit within our 
 Father's house ! 
 
IV. 
 
 jNIark iv. 40 : 
 
 "'And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye 
 have no faith ? " 
 
 Ix our human relations, to withhold confidence 
 where confidence has been deserved, is justly held to 
 be one of the surest signs of an ignoble temper. Now 
 how far, according to this rule, are we honourably- 
 bound to have trust in God ? How far are our rela- 
 tions to Him analogous to human relations, so that 
 distrust, want of faith, is of that kind which in regard 
 to a fellow-man would, with all generous natures, 
 reflect deep discredit upon ourselves ? For this is the 
 ultimate ground of appeal. Religion is a personal 
 relation — the relation of person to Person. It is not 
 simply a state of human character ; that is Morality : 
 it is our whole inward and outward life, as that life is 
 sustained, coloured and inspired by our personal rela- 
 tions with God. Whatever secret strength would pass 
 away from us, whatever hues of rich colour would be 
 taken out of our existence, whatever hopes would have 
 
/ 
 
 48 Grounds of Trust in God. 
 
 no support, if God was nothing- to us, and we -were 
 simply left alone with our own nature — all that belongs 
 to Religion. Without Religion we might have all that 
 Philosophy, all that a noble or prudential Morality, all 
 that Knowledge, can bestow ; we should lose all that 
 depends on Faith. For Religion carries us quite be- 
 yond isolated human nature and its laws : it gives us 
 a Heavenly Arm to lean on, an infinite Life to draw 
 from : it is reliance in regard to all that is yet unknown 
 legitimately growing out of our own experiences. Faith 
 is no arbitrary demand that God makes on man : He 
 establishes His claim upon it, before He asks it from us. 
 
 Faith, however different in its nature from logical 
 certainty, has yet its own sufficient evidence, and in 
 sensibility to this evidence mainly consists spiritual 
 discernment as distinguished from intellectual clear- 
 ness. Christ could not reasonably have looked for 
 undisturbed hearts in the disciples when the storm was 
 raging and the ship was sinking, unless he had pre- 
 viously given them grounds of trust, which ought to 
 have carried the conviction that he was in God's keep- 
 ing until his destinies were fulfilled, that Messiah's 
 mission could not be accomplished by his perishing 
 there in the Lake of Galilee. Their profession of dis- 
 cipleship implied so much, and gave him a right to 
 complain of their " little faith " in a moment of natural 
 terror and alarm. 
 
 Now, has God made for Himself a clear right to 
 
Grotcnds of T^^ust m God. 49 
 
 put this same question to us, as often as we doubt or 
 tremble ? Why are ye so fearful, and how is it that 
 ye have no faith ? " Has He a claim upon our confi- 
 dence ? Is there enough of His love known to us, to 
 win entire reliance on His goodness in those other 
 ways of His which as yet are dark ? What might He ^ 
 have done for His vineyard that He has not done ? 
 Short of explaining Himself to limited intelligence, 
 which must be an impossibility, what has He left 
 undone of a spiritual nature that might have kindled 
 readier faith in the hearts of His children ? If Christ 
 could make this claim, what must be the claim of God, 
 who claims Christ as only one of the manifestations 
 of His love ! With how much more force may the 
 God of Nature and of Christ — who made the human 
 heart, who conducts the discipline that strengthens 
 and matures it, who sent a Son of Man to interpret 
 and display on man its spirit and its meaning — put 
 this question to His children, "Why are ye so fearful ? 
 How is it that ye have no faith ? " 
 
 What, then, are the known facts of God's relations 
 to us that ought to produce trust in regard to the yet 
 uninterpreted cases ? What are the certainties that 
 ought to colour and determine our sentiments towards 
 all that has not yet come to the light ? What are the 
 unmistakable signs of desire to bless, the proofs of 
 character, of holy purpose, that ought to win confi- 
 dence in regard to all those ways of God that have 
 
 E 
 
50 Groimds of Trust in God. 
 
 not yet reached their issues ? What are the manifest 
 instances of essential goodness on which, when we 
 doubt Him, He might rest His case, and ask, as with 
 the tender reproach of a wounded Friend, " Why have 
 ye no faith ? " 
 
 The difficulty of showing, by a universal argument 
 God's claim upon the faith of men, is to know what 
 level of human experience to assume as a just exhibi- 
 tion of the measure of His mercies to all mankind ; 
 lest we take it so high as to be open to the answer 
 that we speak of mercies as common which some do 
 not enjoy, or we make it so low, and so outward, as not 
 to present a true account of God's personal relations 
 to human nature. It is in fact a question of individual 
 experience, and never can be presented in an average 
 form. For in all such general balances we can look 
 only at the external condition, which is no index to 
 the measure in which God's Spirit has touched the 
 individual heart. He may have wrought for His Spirit 
 an access to faith through inward experiences of suf- 
 fering which has not been opened to Him ^through 
 the easy lives of the prosperous. Trial may quicken 
 spiritual discernment ; absence of worldly good may 
 throw the heart upon the One Good ; while fulness 
 and pleasure go thoughtless on their way. We can 
 never tell by looking at a man's outward condition 
 what access God has found through it for the commu- 
 nications of His Spirit. It is not the lot, but God's 
 
Grotmds of Trust in God, 51 
 
 visitation to the heart in and through the lot, that 
 makes the just measure of His claim upon individual 
 trust ; and hence the difficulty of presenting that claim 
 under any general expression. 
 
 We are all inclined to see God, not in our ordinary 
 experience, but rather in something that He adds to 
 it, or in something that He takes from it. Those to 
 whom ease and comfort are things of course, are apt 
 to lose the freshness of their thankfulness for these 
 every-day mercies, and to grow far more sensitive to 
 the occasional interruptions to their blessings than 
 they are to the blessings themselves ; whilst those to 
 whom hardship is their habitual condition, and peace 
 and joy the exceptions, feel these to be the strongly 
 marked moments in existence, sources of vivid thank- 
 fulness, salient points that remain in the memory of 
 the heart. Even though with both we should suppose 
 the ordinary state to be one of religious indifference, 
 yet the exceptional experiences, which carry emotion 
 with them, with the habitually prosperous may be felt 
 only as interruptions to his peace, difficulties in fact 
 against God's love ; whilst with fthe habitually suffer- 
 ing and hard-striving, the exceptional experiences are 
 moments of ardent gratitude, perhaps of rapture and 
 relief. The one may be led to complain only be- 
 cause the common course of his blessings is broken 
 by an unwonted calamity, whilst the other is freshly 
 awakened to God's goodness when his habitual hard- 
 
52 Grounds of Trust in God. 
 
 ships are broken by an unlooked-for joy. The inequa- 
 lities of external condition carry with them, therefore, 
 no corresponding inequalities of sensibility to God ^ 
 and the true average of God's claim upon our faith is 
 not found by balancing the outward fortunes of men, 
 but by an attempt to estimate the degree in which God 
 commends Himself to the individual heart, through 
 Avhatever condition. How, then, does God make good 
 a universal claim upon human faith ? 
 
 I. His own faithfulness in outward Nature, some page 
 of which every man must daily read, is an open and 
 enduring pledge of His equal faithfulness in spiritual 
 things, that no intimation of intention to the human 
 heart, no whisper of purposed good, kindling hope 
 and partaking of the nature of a promise, shall fail of 
 its accomplishment. The Psalmist saw this sign of 
 God's truthfulness. His constancy to His Avord once 
 spoken, wherever we can trace Him, guaranteeing His 
 constancy where we cannot : " For ever, O Lord, Thy 
 word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is to all 
 generations. Thou hast established the earth and it 
 abideth. They continue this day according to Thine 
 ordinances ; for all are Thy servants." The constancy 
 of God where common observation or science can 
 follow him, is a sign of His character as the Teacher 
 and Father of Spirits, which we do not sufficiently 
 connect with the tenderness of His regard for man. 
 For why does His power in any observed direction 
 
Grounds of Trttst in God. 53 
 
 •confine itself to appointed tracks, and go forth only in 
 one order ? Why does He never in the same circum- 
 stances depart from the once established custom of 
 His way ? Surely He is a God of Law, in our sense 
 of Law, that is, of invariable sequences, only out of 
 the wonderful condescension of His love. He imposes 
 these uniform conditions on His own action only that 
 man may be instructed — may learn, as in no other way 
 he could, to partake and avail himself of God's wisdom 
 and of God's power. These periodic successions of 
 natural beauty, familiar, yet virtually infinite in variety, 
 to us, do not exhaust the Almighty, are not perhaps 
 peculiarly dear to Him. These laws and properties of 
 matter, relied upon by us, are not necessary directions 
 of His power. His will could change it all ; yet nothing 
 fails, nothing is fickle ; He works as steadfastly as 
 though He were the Servant of man, and not the free 
 Lord of all things. An expectation created by Him 
 never disappoints. Man's collected lesson is never 
 turned mockingly into vanity. What was true once, 
 remains true eternally. An observation of Nature 
 wisely made to-day, serves the remotest ages. God 
 keeps with us the compact of His works. And this 
 is measureless goodness ; it is an infinite condescen- 
 sion. A God who did not love us, who did not wish 
 us to know and rely on Him, who did not seek to have 
 a moral claim upon our confidence, would not thus 
 sustain our faith ; He would mock our labour and our 
 
54 Grounds of Trust in God. 
 
 hopes ; He would turn our wisdom into folly ; what 
 we had learned to-day, make untrue to-morrow ; lead 
 us through painful processes, with eager expectations 
 of like results, and fail us in the end. In this, His 
 constancy to His ways. He has never shaken the faith 
 of His children, though. He has interpreted Himself 
 by showing in Christ the spirit in man that should be 
 inspired by His will and moulded by His rule. God 
 neither mocks, nor is mocked. We may use or abuse 
 His gifts : He remains faithful to the offered conditions. 
 He does not disappoint hopes of His own raising; 
 He does not countenance capricious fickleness ; He 
 does not avert natural consequences ; He holds us 
 fast in perso7ial bonds. Hislawsdo not fail us ; His 
 power does not succour us if we sin presumptuously. 
 We must be true as He is true, our faith resting upon 
 His faithfulness. 
 
 n. If we have this faith in God's faithfulness, then 
 the personal relations He holds with us through the 
 experiences He gives us, are not merely present states 
 of man, they are acts of Divine promise, and His faith- 
 fulness in the natural world becomes voucher for those 
 intimations of His ultimate love which these relations 
 convey. Human life itself, with the faculties that 
 accompany it, is surely a sufficient basis on which to 
 rest God's claim upon the faith of men, — Man, as 
 essentially he is, with a nature in harmony with the 
 conditions amid which he is stationed — with intellect 
 
Groimds of Trust in God. 55. 
 
 to interpret — with power to ' subdue and use — with 
 love to make himself a home — with imperishable affec- 
 tions to reveal the prophetic nature of that home, if 
 he will only be true enough to ascribe the aspirations 
 that are in him, not to himself, but to the Inspirer of 
 his heart. God's goodness it is that has given us the* 
 power to doubt His goodness. The creatures that 
 have no hopes are troubled with no doubts. It is the 
 vision of bliss He has opened on our souls that enables 
 us to ask. Does God mean to mock us ? If we had 
 no faculties to acquaint us with higher things, we 
 should have no opportunity of distrusting Him who 
 has brought these higher things so nigh to us. If the 
 first race of men, as they stood on the yet unconquered 
 earth, could have had the present condition of human 
 life and adornment, our mastery over and enjoyment 
 of the world, intimated to them in a way analogous 
 to that in which a heavenly existence is now revealed 
 to us, their utter unbelief would have been much more 
 reasonable than our present feebleness of faith in the 
 heavenly consummations. For God, meanwhile, has 
 been educating man to great thoughts and to vast 
 hopes, habituating him to rich possessions and to 
 mighty conquests. He has led us on to the belief 
 respecting ourselves, that with God all things are pos- 
 sible. Contemplate the first man placed upon this 
 earth, left alone with the raw materials of nature, with 
 its clay, its rocks, the things that lie buried in its 
 
56 Gi^oimds of Trust in God. 
 
 strata. Could a more hopeless enterprize be con- 
 ceived ? Look now to the face of our present civi- 
 lization for the measure of unfolded gifts, of hidden 
 greatness, that God had lodged within him. Conceive 
 him in his helplessness looking out upon the ocean, 
 dark, mysterious, sundering ; he has crossed it by a 
 path that no fowl knoweth, that the vulture's eye hath 
 not seen. Picture him lifting blank eyes to the mid- 
 night heavens ; he has reduced them to the most 
 perfect of the sciences, interpreted their laws, and 
 entered into the conceptions they give of the immen- 
 sity of God's works and of the order of God's mind. 
 And with these hints of permitted fellowship with the 
 Author of Being, can he be justified in distrusting any 
 pledge of yet unattained good which God has whis- 
 pered to him ?•' 
 
 III. But more individually: Is there not a secret 
 assurance to every man of, I will not say the happi- 
 ness that is open to him, but of something infinitely 
 higher than happiness — of the blessedness that is open 
 to him, the progress, the growth, the contentment of 
 being, the resources for true life, simply in faithfulness 
 to God and to his own spirit? Is not that sigh of 
 every heart when it looks back upon life, and wishes 
 it had the course to run again, that it might retrieve 
 its errors and garner its possibilities, an acknowledg- 
 ment of this } Let a man but recount his opportuni- 
 ties. He knows what he would be now, if every day 
 
Grounds of Trust in God, 57 
 
 had been faithful, wise and trusting, as every day might 
 have been ; what might now have been his knowledge 
 or his works ; what a home he might have made for 
 himself in the hearts of men ; what a harvest of bless- 
 ings have laid up with God, when he rests from his 
 labours and his works shall follow him. And does 
 not every man feel that still he is free to take up the 
 great work of Life and Growth, and to pursue it with 
 the same certainty of success ? And is not this con- 
 viction of the very essence of faith, the most living 
 proof of the goodness of God working in us that it 
 may generate faith ? 
 
 IV. Connect all this with the claim which God 
 makes upon our faith through the universal affections 
 of our nature. There are few who have never felt how 
 simple are the elements which in a right state of the 
 desires would be sufficient for the blessedness of life — 
 what sources of joy there are in a loving heart ; and 
 there is no condition of human existence which God 
 does not strive to irradiate with this prophetic light, 
 110 circumstances in which its presence would not more 
 than compensate for mere adversity. And how diver- 
 sified the forms in which this light from God appears 
 even within the limits of a single family — in the lustrous 
 eyes of childhood, in the confidingness of helplessness, 
 in the fellowship of equals, in the unworldliness of 
 age ! As we grow purer and wiser, simple natural 
 affections more and more seem to be the wealth of 
 
58 G7'ouiids of Trust m God. 
 
 our life, the element of our immortality. All the other 
 joys of life taken together do not amount to as much 
 as this, the most diffused, the most accessible of them 
 all, without some provision for which no human being 
 can be born into the world. And even if cut off from 
 its objects, or never given the full enjoyment of them, 
 still in the most solitary heart may they reveal the 
 possibilities of God, the depths of peace that lie within 
 the pure desires of human nature. For it would be a 
 sad mistake to suppose that faith in the future can be 
 built only on an experience of ripe happiness ; it is 
 built on our capacity of sympathy, and it is quite 
 enough for this purpose if we can be made to feel that 
 there are the seeds of blessing in us. Indeed, in the 
 absence of mortal realizations, the sense of God as the 
 Father of Spirits, drawing to Himself the hearts of 
 men, filling them with hopes, trusts, and craving- 
 affections, may be more immediate evidence of His 
 goodness than any possible amount of temporal satis- 
 faction. Yet this cannot be weighed or numbered ; it 
 cannot be submitted to general examination in proof 
 of Heavenly love, and as one of the feeders of faith. 
 Who knows the secret rapture, the silent prayer, the 
 loving contemplation, the devout patience, the unask- 
 ing contentment in toil and hardship, the ungrudging 
 heart of the desolate, in witnessing, or furthering, joys 
 they cannot share ! These, the highest manifestations 
 of God's presence with us, are known only to the indi- 
 
Grounds of Trust in God. 59 
 
 vidual, and are necessarily overlooked when we collect 
 our proofs of His claims upon our faith from off the 
 outside fields of visible life. Yet at what heart has He 
 not sought an entrance for these feelings ? To whom 
 has He not given these pledges ? To whom have they 
 not come and shown His intent to bless, though we 
 have not yet received the blessing ? 
 
 But God's love is not always clear : No ; else should 
 we walk by sight, not by faith ; and what we now call 
 Religion could have no place in a world where God 
 never appealed to the trusts of the soul. For no one 
 will maintain that a religious heart is shown in ac- 
 knowledgingmercies which cannot be denied, which are 
 so real and so present that they may be touched and 
 counted. These, with the quickenings of God in our 
 own hearts about which we cannot be mistaken, are the 
 positive certainties which become the justifying ground 
 of boundless faith, — that margin of experience from, 
 which Vv^e collect the evidence of His goodness, the 
 grateful memories of His love, that make us trust the 
 Infinite Unknown. And the true piety begins, or 
 rather it begins to be tested, to have its spirit tried, of 
 what sort it is, when we cannot walk any more by 
 sight. It would be no proof of the faithfulness of 
 human friendship to acknowledge open offices of love 
 where no ground of doubt could be found or trial of 
 sentiment be shown. But if a friend, who had long 
 given every evidence of stainless honour, of disinter- 
 
6o Gromtds of lyust in God, 
 
 ested goodness, of never awakening an expectation he 
 did not satisfy, is suddenly shrouded in some mystery, 
 then comes the time to test, not him, but us — to try 
 the quality of friendship, and show what spirit we are 
 of. But we treat God as no man would treat a friend, 
 and expect to hold him. And in regard to God the 
 injustice of distrust is aggravated by the impossibility 
 of preventing clouds of mystery floating between the 
 Infinite Intelligence and the frail spirits of us His 
 creatures. 
 
 There are mysteries in God's providence, and there 
 is a necessity that there should be mysteries ; but still 
 the one question remains, "Are the known ways of 
 God so full of goodness, that faith in Him for the yet 
 unknown is]a claim that He may justly make } " What 
 are these mysteries ? So far as they are of a moral 
 , nature, with which alone we are concerned, they arise 
 / from this — that all earthly experience is for the educa- 
 tion of our souls, in kinship to God Himself ; in the 
 notable words of Christ, that we may come to have 
 life in ourselves. It was mystery that made possible 
 the existence of such a being as Christ — the mystery 
 that goodness should suffer — the mystery that the 
 innocent should seem stricken of God and deserted — 
 the mystery that the righteous should be delivered 
 into the hands of the unrighteous, that power should 
 wait upon sin, and the holy One of the Father have 
 no place to lay his head. Remove such mysteries 
 
Groimds of Trtist in God. 6i 
 
 and you remove the Cross, you remove the spiritual 
 glory of Christ ; and human goodness without a 
 struggle, without a difficulty, without a temptation, 
 could only be spontaneous movements following natu- 
 ral instincts ; that is, it could only be an animal deve- 
 lopment. We should become only as God's creatures 
 who cannot disobey His will, and cease to be His 
 children who give Him our hearts. 
 
 But, in fact, there are no more mysteries connected 
 with the sufferings than there are with the blessings 
 of life. Here is a man steeped in afflictions : if in 
 this state the man glorifies God by his faith, by his 
 patience, by his love, a great spiritual work is accom- 
 plished and the mystery disappears ; and every man 
 exposed to sorrow, to what are called mysterious dis- 
 pensations, has so far the power of illustrating God's 
 providence, of drawing the veil from off the face of the 
 Almighty. But suppose that no such spiritual fruit 
 appears ; still the mystery is not greater than in the 
 case of another who, surrounded by blessings, shows 
 himself insensible to the claims of God upon him. 
 There is at least as much mystery in godless pros- 
 perity as in godless suffering ; the mystery, if it is 
 right to call it such, is in the spiritual insensibility, 
 and that will disappear when our Father's discipline 
 has had its perfect work. 
 
 It is too easy for all of us to understand how men 
 come to disobey God through sloth and passion ; but 
 
62 Groimds of Trust in God, 
 
 it is not so easy to understand how we come to want 
 consolation through distrust of His goodness, through 
 doubt of His purpose to fulfil the promises of His 
 Spirit in us. We can understand sin better than we 
 can understand distrust, except so far as sin obliterates 
 confidence in God. Temptation may kindle evil pas- 
 sion, and a great sorrow may for a time overflood the 
 soul ; but on what grounds shall we explain a lasting 
 ^ want of faith in God's love, or in His great designs for 
 \^ us ? And the times are fast passing away in which 
 any of us may yet have the filial privilege of showing 
 our earthly confidence in God : when we enter within 
 the veil we may see face to face. When Thomas laid 
 his hands on the print of the nails, he had lost the 
 blessedness of faith, of recognizing the Christ by his 
 spiritual signs. And when God to our new-born eyes 
 shall disclose all His ways of love, our first feeling 
 may be the deep shame that we ever could have 
 doubted, — as it may add a surpassing joy to heaven 
 itself that whilst clouds and thick darkness were around 
 Him we had never distrusted the purpose of his love. 
 Surely, it is the end of all discipline, of all mysteries, 
 to give us this tried trust in God, to make us children 
 of our Father with the love that casts out fear, so that 
 here on earth we may come to dwell as in the temple 
 of the Almighty's presence, listening for the whispers 
 of the Comforter. Has God not given earnest enough, 
 to trust Him for what remains to be fulfilled ? In 
 
Grounds of Trust m God. 6 
 
 o 
 
 every moment of fresh insight, of shamed thankfuhiess 
 for newly-discovered mercies, of mystery revealing 
 holy purpose, of love raised from earth to heaven by 
 sorrow and by death, — surely, we must put the question 
 to ourselves, " How can we ever be fearful again, or 
 suffer faith to fail ? " As often as unexpected peace 
 comes out of darkness, out of the agony of our souls 
 in the times when the light of our life goes out and 
 we grope alone for God, and the heart becomes more 
 prophetic, memory more quickening than possession, 
 and we know a quiet that passeth understanding, 
 surely, our souls should be looking forwards, gathering 
 strength to meet all terrible experiences that have been 
 to others, and may be to us, necessary parts of our 
 Father's providence. How is it that we do not learn 
 the open lesson of Christ's life — amid what unlikely 
 circumstances of trial, loneliness, anguish, and deser- 
 tion, the best beloved of God may appear ? It is not 
 ours to have full insight into our Father's ways ; but 
 how can we deny that we have pledges of His good- 
 ness which a child's heart ought to accept, pledges 
 which, in our most suffering or desolate moments, 
 entitle God to ask, " Why are ye so fearful ? How is it 
 that ye have no faith ? " 
 
V. 
 
 ®ft^ (^Mwm Mil i\u ^mxiUj of &$L 
 
 Romans xi. 22 : 
 " Behold the goodness and the seventy of God.'* 
 
 The cases of difficulty in our moral life are those of 
 conflicting or mutually qualifying feelings, when con- 
 trasted sentiments struggle together and modify each 
 other, and adequate expression has to be given to them 
 all. In an act of judgment upon the character of an 
 historical event, or of a transaction within our own 
 times, touching our bosoms and interests, it is easy to 
 be engrossed by one impression — to take what is called 
 a strong view of a subject, which generally means to 
 mistake some single feature for the whole countenance 
 of a deed — to regard with an unmixed feeling of sym- 
 pathy or censure, as if it was a simple question of 
 absolute right or absolute wrong, some most compli- 
 cated interest in which, as in most things human, good 
 and evil have blended together in mystic fellowship. 
 Or, where the difficulty is not one of right judgment, 
 but of the faithful and courageous, yet scrupulous, 
 utterance of that judgment, when the mental act of 
 
The Goodness and the Severity of God. 65 
 
 discrimination has been performed, and what remains 
 is to give legitimate effect to it ; as, to take the simplest 
 illustrations, when in private life the character of your 
 friend has become a subject of anxiety and solicitude, 
 and the difficulty is to give such expression of your 
 tender regard as will convey also the expression of your . 
 highest moral sentiment ; or when in political life the 
 character of l your party, of those you act with, along 
 with much that you approve has become complicated 
 with some impure element or mode of administration 
 that you cannot approve, and the difficulty is, on the 
 one hand, not to weaken what you deem a vital cause, 
 and, on the other, not to stand pledged to anything 
 from which your own loftiest honour secretly recoils ; — 
 in all such cases it is easy to be silent or to speak 
 partially, but to give faithful, and at the same time 
 judicious, expression to your whole state of mind, is 
 perhaps the most delicate problem in practical morals. 
 And there is, for the most part, very little respect due 
 to what are called decided characters, men who can 
 settle things in a summary manner, — in whose field of 
 vision there are so few objects that what they do see 
 stands out in absolute prominency, like a tower upon 
 a plane, — who have no doubts because they are without 
 the fineness and fulness of perception that give the 
 materials of doubt, — whose force of impulse has an 
 uncontrolled strength from the narrowness of their 
 sympathies, and who, having once determined upon 
 
 F 
 
66 The Goodness and the Severity of God, 
 
 what to them seems good, can set themselves to beat 
 down whatever stands in apparent opposition to it, with 
 no discrimination and with no relentings. It would 
 be painful, perhaps over-curious, to inquire how far 
 the most conspicuous practical successes have been 
 owing to this obtuseness of vision, to this hardness of 
 purpose, which, open to no perception but one, touched 
 by no sentiment but one, has swept into destruction 
 whatever was associated with the interest it was seek- 
 ing to destroy, leaving it no place to return and har- 
 bour in. In the work of Religious Reformation, for 
 example, how much has the world lost, and lost for 
 ever, of the sublimest efforts of man's genius, of his 
 devotion to the eternal and the spiritual labouring to 
 express in outward and adequate symbols his ideas of 
 worship, only because those outward monuments of 
 the invisible, vast, shadowy, undefined as the sentiment 
 of Reverence itself — those mystic courts of Prayer that 
 might have breathed to latest generations the inspira- 
 tions of loftiest piety, giving a tone to the mind like 
 strains of solemn music — had become associated with 
 a superstition, and the ruthless hand of Reformation, 
 instead of carefully separating and cleansing it away, 
 with an impulse of fierce hate rather levelled with the 
 dust the temples where it dwelt. Those losses are 
 irrecoverable ; for, in the first place, the descendants of 
 such fell reformers are too apt to inherit their ungenial 
 antipathies ; and, in the second, it would appear that 
 
The Goodjiess and the Severity of God. 67 
 
 only once in the history of a people can there be 
 that predominance of Symbolism in the expression of 
 religious ideas, that subjugation of all thoughts and 
 interests by the spiritual element in an unartlculate 
 form, through the mystic utterance of Art and Archi- 
 tecture, of which these were the products. Men strive 
 to express through the forms of Art the aspirations and 
 ideas which they cannot define in words ; but that is 
 •a stage in its religious life and manifestation which 
 never occurs twice in a nation's history. Protestantism, 
 with its defined theology and sharp verbal distinctions, 
 has seldom built a cathedral, or originated or needed 
 an architecture, of its own ; all the distinctive ideas it 
 has it can express in words. Doubtless it would be a 
 weakness of sentiment to deplore such losses, if God 
 saw that the ancient superstition would return and 
 nestle beneath its ancient altars so long as the altars 
 stood, and even have power to seduce and assimilate 
 to itself the purer w^orship ; but since God's acts of 
 providence are, as it were, determined by the wisdom 
 and strength of man, it may still be permitted us to 
 deplore that man had not, and has not, that union of 
 largeness, force and tenderness of nature, w^hich, in the 
 reformation or destruction of what is evil, makes it 
 safe for him to preserve the beautiful or the solemn, 
 with which it had become so intimately united as to 
 seem part of its life and working. — You may spoil a 
 man for a popular reformer by giving him too many 
 
68 The Goodness and the Severity of God. 
 
 sympathies ; as you may spoil him for a popular orator 
 by giving him too many perceptions. 
 
 The only description of decided character that is 
 truly moral, is when, in the strength of equal and full 
 justice to all the interests involved, we are enabled to 
 resist a mere impulse ; and when the impulse we do 
 obey is not one of passionate purpose or of wilful 
 sympathy, but the resultant of all the real forces, flow- 
 ing out of the large wisdom, the wide thoughtfulness, 
 the delicate and careful susceptibility, of a just and of 
 a gentle nature. Not to work right onward with a 
 bHnd unmodified energy, nor to pursue one object 
 with an undivided gaze, is the test of the true decision 
 of character ; but to have your tempered judgment as 
 firm and forcible as other men's unqualified passions, — 
 in the largeness of your view to lose nothing of the 
 concentration of your purpose, — to be as truly devoted 
 to all the i7iterests of a case, as earnest to do entire 
 justice, as other men are to carry a single point, whose 
 brain burns with only one desire, who have only a 
 single impulse to work out. The man who acts only 
 on a predominant feeling, though it be a good one, 
 soon ceases to gain respect even for his goodness. 
 He is considered as one carried away by his own 
 nature, without wisdom or breadth of character, follow- 
 ing his instincts, rather than as one capable of looking 
 with a moral eye upon all the interests concerned, and 
 if necessary of putting a restraint upon himself in 
 
The Goodness mid the Seve^'ity of God, 69 
 
 order to do what is right, zvhat is best. In the Latin 
 language — and all language is full of concentrated 
 wisdom, as of poetry and logic — the same epithet ex- 
 presses the outwardly contrasted but cognate qualities 
 ofweakness and of violence ; for a man is at once weak 
 and violent who is not the master of himself, who goes 
 off on an impulse, whose conscience does not preside 
 over and hold in hand all the forces of his nature. 
 
 This view of the tempered character of man, of the 
 necessity ifi him for balanced and blended qualities, 
 may prepare us for finding the same sort of union in 
 the character of God, the same modified and restrained 
 modes of action, the same absence of simple impulse, 
 of pursuing a single end, or manifesting a single 
 affection to the forgetfulness of others, — the perfect 
 comprehension in Him of every interest, and the 
 real harmony of such mutually qualifying frames as 
 are brought by our text into apparent opposition : 
 ■" Behold the Goodjiess and the Severity of God." Why, 
 for example, is there anything in the universe but 
 'dear, undeniable manifestations of God's tenderness ? 
 Because the impulse that shrinks from giving pain 
 does not express the whole of God's character in 
 relation to man : holiness, free-will, self-determination, 
 must be developed in God's children, if they are to 
 be like Him, equally with mercy or trust in mercy, 
 and in His sight who seeks to impart Himself belong 
 t-o the fulness of His love. 
 
y 
 
 70 The Goodness and the Severity of God. 
 
 Even in those manifestations of God which are most 
 declaratory of His Goodness, the outward aspect of 
 Love clouds over, and His attributes of Severity break 
 forth. There are in Nature revelations of Him who 
 made it, and who must have impressed His own 
 character upon it, with which it would seem impossible 
 to connect any other sentiment than of the mercies of 
 the creative Mind, — mornings, like the first freshness 
 of the new created world, — evenings, on which the 
 peace of a serener life might seem to have fallen 
 already, were it not for golden vistas which clearly 
 tell that we are still but in the outer court of God's 
 glories, — scenes, as far as eye can reach, blending 
 every variety of natural object into the unity of a 
 picture, where the moral Image impressed upon the 
 soul is that of celestial Beauty and of celestial Love, 
 and on the very air, if It Is from God, so pure and 
 kindling is its touch, floats the living spirit of His 
 Goodness. Yet Nature, the same Nature, can wear 
 the impress of the sternest and most terrific attributes. 
 Nor is it necessary to instance the dread fastnesses, 
 the bleak wastes, where nothing lives ; the same spot 
 will serve for illustration of the Goodness and of the 
 Severity of God ; and the landscape that to-day was 
 rich with waving harvests, a living page like a gospel 
 in the Book of Nature, may to-morrow lie broken 
 down beneath pitiless elements, as if some omnipotent 
 enemy to man was working an evil will, and in the 
 
The Goodness and the Sevej'ity of God. 7 1 
 
 wailings of the blast listening for the cries of the 
 famished. 
 
 We have the same manifestations of Goodness 
 qualified, and no doubt completed, by Severity, in the 
 moral scenery of our life, in the joys and the griefs of 
 the Affections. There are elements of human blessed-. 
 ness sometimes brought together which only a God of 
 Love could have moulded to each other with so fine 
 an adaptation, and which, like the first happiness of 
 Eden, it might well be supposed, as in primeval legend 
 and poetry, that only an evil being could look upon 
 with a purpose to destroy ; yet where does God mani- 
 fest His severity with so inflexible a will as when some 
 blight of sin or death falls upon the bosom of families, 
 and no tears, no pity for the desolation that is left, can 
 win the victim from His hands — no supplications of 
 the innocent save from retribution the one who has 
 fallen into temptation, and who bears not his own 
 burden, nor suffers alone, but by the ordination of God, 
 and through their very participation in His holiness 
 and His love, sends bitter pangs through the bosoms 
 of the pure t Everywhere does God make this two-fold 
 revelation of Himself, demanding from all who trust 
 in Him the spiritual elements of Faith and Patience, 
 an aspiration after Holiness to which Love in all its 
 forms is tributary, and rearing a Piety not fed by soft 
 rains and sweet sunshine, but hardy enough to strike 
 roots into the rock and struggle with the tempest. 
 
72 The Goodness and the Severity of God. 
 
 Select even our Civilization, which being the highest 
 condition of man must be the highest collective ex- 
 pression of God's Goodness — at what an expense to 
 humanity is it produced ! how fearful the mass of 
 hidden miseries, of dumb ignorance and fierce pas- 
 sions, that lies at its foundations ! I mean not that 
 these things are necessary, or that in any respect the 
 former times are better than the present ; but that at 
 every stage of improvement, taking man as he is, God 
 will consent that the needful price of human suffering 
 shall be paid. 
 
 The Goodness of God, then — let us try spiritually to 
 understand it — is a goodness that does not shrink from 
 the infliction of suffering. It is a goodness that is not 
 incompatible with the permission of pain even to the 
 limits of human endurance. The influence of physical 
 pain in the formation of spiritual character is one of 
 the mysteries of God. He alone can measure the need 
 or trace the working. God alone knows what in this 
 respect any of us may require, or may yet be called 
 either to suffer or to witness. And without shadowing 
 our hearts with unfilial fear — for sufficient for the day 
 is the evil thereof — we should yet be collecting some- 
 thing of the strength of preparation, through some 
 forecasting of the soul, some occasional questioning of 
 ourselves as to how we should endure what God, in 
 the infinitude of that holy Love which will not shrink 
 from any needful suffering, may have to ordain for us. 
 
The Goodness and the Severity of God, 73 
 
 We can in no way make a plea for God's Goodness by 
 attempting to deny the magnitude of human suffering. 
 We can with no safety avert our eyes from the fact, 
 that He can ordain and continue what if a man, with 
 only a man's range of knowledge, could end and did 
 not, he would be inhuman. He can contemplate ex- 
 hausted nature in those moments of dread relief which 
 the intensity of pain necessitates, and unmoved from 
 His purpose re-issue the decree that renews its agonies. 
 He can contemplate the broken heart of Penitence 
 •crushed to the earth in shame, and even from the 
 returning spirit that He loves, forgives and blesses, 
 remove not one pang, lift off not one sad consequence 
 of evil, except the alienation of the heart. It is indeed 
 in the first access of a full repentance that we are most 
 sensible to the Mercy that takes us back, but also 
 suffering most from a sense of the unworthiness that 
 made us drop His Hand and wander in our own ways; 
 and in the same moment we are blessing the Goodness 
 and trembling under the Severity of God. It is all- 
 important to the healthy vigour of our piety, to the 
 just expectations of the spiritual mind, that we should 
 familiarize ourselves and others with the truth, that 
 God's Goodness, and our faith in it, will enable us to 
 endure suffering, but may not exempt us from it. Our 
 reliance upon God's Goodness is not a reliance that 
 we shall know no hours of agony — hours from which 
 Christ prayed to be saved, and found that it was not 
 
y 
 
 74 The Goodness and the Severity of God. 
 
 possible. The only faith permitted to piety is that 
 God afflicteth not willingly, that He has a purpose 
 of surpassing Love which no weakness or leniency of 
 nature prevents Him to work out, and in reference ta 
 which His Severity is the perfection of His Goodness, 
 not the impulse, but the wisdom, of a Father's Mind. 
 
 Nor is it in the way of Retribution only, in permitting 
 the consequences of every evil hour, whatever may 
 intervene, to have their course, that we behold the 
 Severity of God. We derive a new confidence in God's 
 Mercy in our own case from the Cross of Christ ; for 
 what can we ask more than to be linked to the same 
 lot, to be sharers in that same treatment as the Son of 
 God ? We learn this, then, from the life and death of 
 him in whom the Father was well pleased, that suffer- 
 ing is not essentially penal, that in it our Father may 
 be not punishing, but glorifying, moulding us, and by 
 the same processes, after the likeness of Christ Jesus, 
 who himself was made perfect by suffering. The 
 purest spirit that God afflicts, the gentlest spirit that 
 God exposes to an adverse world, will not compare its 
 purity or its gentleness with the Son of God. Let us 
 seek for his view of the Sevejdty of his Father : " Now 
 is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, 
 save me from this hour ! but for this cause came I to 
 this hour. Father, glorify Thy name ! " In that prayer 
 lay the view of God's Providence which was afterwards 
 worked out upon the cross. Can sufferings that lead 
 
The Goodness ajid the Severity of God. 75 
 
 to such glory be counted anything but the afflictions 
 that are but for a moment ? and is the Severity that 
 moulded the Son of God not Goodness also ? 
 
 There are two opposite errors respecting God's cha- 
 racter, and our connections with Him, according as 
 the one or the other of these His attributes, His Good-, 
 ness or His Holiness, is dropped from our view. There y 
 is the Calvinism, and its kindred creeds, that takes 
 account of His severity without taking equal account 
 of His universal Goodness ; and there is that descrip- 
 tion of general religion, of easy and languid sentiment, 
 that is ready to cast everything upon His Goodness 
 and to omit His Severity altogether. I know not a ^ 
 more presumptuous, a more unholy view of God, than 
 this general trust in His placability, this loose reliance 
 that we may draw to any extent upon His forgiving 
 mercies, — not up to the measure in which we seek to 
 be one with Him, but up to whatever measure we may 
 need to be forgiven. This is the feeling of those who 
 have cultivated no personal sense of God, no spiritual 
 union with Him, but who make general acknowledg- 
 ment of their sins and their shortcomings and their 
 need of mercy, and would seem to have persuaded 
 themselves that this loose confession of their need is 
 all that is required to ensure them unmeasured grace 
 and forgiveness. But forgiveness is not the remission ^ 
 of penalty, leaving the man what he was; it is the 
 restoration of union with God. His mercy indeed is 
 
76 The Goodness and the Severity of God, 
 
 infinite ; but then it is the mercy of a holy God that 
 embraces us, and not the unmoral compassions of a 
 Being made in our own image. Dreadful is that per- 
 version of the truth that man is made in God's image, 
 which first obliterates His image in us through spi- 
 ritual carelessness, and then supposes that He is made 
 in ours. The New Testament is, as its name imports, 
 a covenant. It is not an offer of unconditional pardon, 
 for pardon is reconciliation, and God is conditioned by 
 Himself. " Draw nigh to me, and I will draw nigh to 
 you, saith the Lord." Forgiveness is ever in the mea- 
 sure of the communion of spirit. Mercy is infinite 
 and unconditional ; pardon is not. Your own will, 
 your own sin, can say. No. The Prodigal could not 
 prevent the Infinite Love following the lost sheep into 
 the wilderness, or searching, though with the besom of 
 affliction, for the spiritual gold recklessly cast away ; 
 but the moment in which he came to himself, and said, 
 " I will arise and go to my Father," depended upon 
 changes within his own spirit. God will manifest His 
 Goodness, not in our way, but in His way ; and the 
 only Goodness that is consistent with absolute Love 
 identifies Mercy with Holiness, and leads into His 
 presence through the evangelical ways of repentance 
 and newness of life. Indeed, when we consider it, 
 God's goodness to men consists in qualifying them for 
 the fullest blessedness of their nature, a nature made 
 in His own image ; so that He shows mercy only by 
 
The Goodness and the Severity of God, 77 
 
 bringing them into assimilation with Himself. He 
 can send of His own joy through any spirit only in 
 proportion as it Is In harmony with His Will, or, as 
 Christ expressed it, " one with Him''' 
 
 And even in our human relations, the Idea of a 
 tender and wise father conveys this union of Goodness, 
 and of Inflexibility, For certainly, to our conception 
 of the perfectness of that character, the element of 
 tenderness Is not more necessary than the element of 
 inviolable Authority, of supreme regard for the highest 
 Good, and of an absolute adherence to what is Right. 
 And God alone has all the tenderness, and nothing of 
 the weakness, of a Father. With Him alone there is 
 unmeasured Goodness, but no leniency, no mitigation 
 of holy Law. Leniency, relaxation of Law, Is ever a 
 confession of weakness, of llabiHty to err ; for It either 
 implies something not right, not perfect, in the original 
 requirement, or else an inability to enforce it through 
 a defective sense of the supreme Importance of follow- 
 ing out the highest interests to the subjugation of all 
 others. With God the inviolableness of Law is the 
 bond of His Goodness ; for His laws being in them- 
 selves the highest expressions of His wisdom and His 
 loving-kindness, not to execute but to relax them 
 would show the absence of Mercy. 
 
 And not towards God only, but towards any moral 
 being, there Is no Love having in it the elements of 
 stability that does not largely partake of the sentiment 
 
78 TJie Goodness and the Severity of God, 
 
 of Reverence, a reverence that knows there are certain 
 things which will not be conceded. No character that 
 cannot mingle Severity with its Goodness is capable of 
 inspiring such a sentiment. In God our trust is perfect, 
 because we know that His Goodness and His Sacred- 
 ness are one, and can be crossed by no misleading 
 affection. The sense of its unchangeableness is ever 
 the dearest part of an affection ; but there is no human 
 imchangeableness except in the permanence of moral 
 qualities. And hence the elevation we are conscious 
 of when we lift ourselves to the love of God, the serene 
 peace which an affection at once so lofty and so secure 
 breathes through the powers. And though human 
 affections can never find in human objects a divine 
 perfection, yet they may find a moral constancy, an 
 abiding truthfulness and trustfulness of nature; and 
 then how many corroding fears are removed, and what 
 a noble and devoted love may not imperfect, if they 
 are only trustworthy, beings be fitted to sustain ? Let 
 no one, though tempted on the tenderest side of his 
 nature, depart in anything from the truth of his own 
 being, from that in man which corresponds with the 
 Severity of God. Pliancy, yielding, the easy moulding 
 of one's own sense of Right to the inclinations of ano- 
 ther, are the certain means to loosen the foundations 
 of influence, to make light and unsubstantial the feeling 
 of regard, to remove even the possibility of that moral 
 rest and confidence for the heart, which is the mightiest 
 
The Goodness and the Severity of God, 79 
 
 Tiold that one being can have upon another, the nobi- 
 lity and the strength of the affections. Even a child -^ 
 2:rows fretful and thankless beneath an uncertain rule, 
 under the weak indulgence that cannot refuse nor 
 restrain ; and so necessary is the sentiment of Reve- 
 rence to the right working of every human heart, that 
 childhood is not only better, but infinitely happier, 
 under the steady government that yields nothing to 
 the wilfulness of caprice, and makes it felt that the 
 very tenderness which cannot be doubted is yet never 
 administered in violation of a higher sentiment. And 
 we all are children in reference to the One Supreme ; 
 and we all have serener hearts because with Him there 
 is no variableness nor shadow of turning, and that, 
 knowing both the aims and the ways of His Goodness, 
 we know also the Severity with which He adheres to 
 them. And as a tender and wise parent lifts a happy 
 child into companionship with himself, and makes, not 
 relaxed duties, but shared interests, sympathy and fel- 
 lowship, its sweetest reward, — so, in His dealings with 
 each of us, Goodness and Severity are the personal 
 appeals, the living methods, by which the Father of 
 Spirits works the deepest word of His grace : *'Be ye 
 holy, for I am holy : " " Be ye followers of God, even y 
 as dear children." 
 
VI. 
 
 PlIILIPPIANS ii. 12, 13: 
 
 "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God 
 that worketh in you both to will and to do of His own good pleasure." 
 
 It was the remark of a heathen morahst, that for 
 the sake of life we lose the ends which make life worth- 
 living. In the throng of cares or pleasures, we let 
 slip the central interest. In the variety or struggle of 
 existence, time passes pleasantly or pressingly ; and 
 we think not of the " divine work " which the great 
 Master-builder has appointed us to shape and finish 
 here out of the materials given by Him. And this it 
 is that exposes men to the wear and fret of circum- 
 stance, for it strips them of the sustaining thought 
 that there is one grand and constant aim which they 
 may for ever be working out with such means as God 
 provides ; and it leaves them without conscious guar- 
 dianship of the sacred ark which they are to bear 
 aloft in safety, to be beaten upon for no purpose by 
 the mischance of the time and the wave of accident. 
 
 There are, it may be, some men so constituted that 
 
Ours to work out what God works in us. 8 1 
 
 for them it is less essential that the great aim of life 
 should be consciously before them, to remind them of 
 the work they have to do with the daily details of 
 discipline : they turn naturally to the right course ; 
 they take intuitively the healthy view of circumstance ; 
 God's Spirit finds so little resistance in their nature 
 that they take it for their own ; their spontaneous 
 affections are in unconscious harmony with the ulterior 
 designs of His Providence ; cast like others on the 
 open sea of life, and subject to crossing winds and 
 waves, without laborious study of the spiritual chart 
 or painful shaping of their wills, they are found on the 
 heavenward way. But these are the exceptions, and 
 rather good than great, rather saints than heroes. 
 Most men accomplish the " end for which they were 
 born, the cause for which they came into the world," 
 not by their spontaneous affections, but by the high 
 strain of Conscience, by calling in the force of Prin- 
 ciple and Will : God's Spirit strives with theirs : only, 
 through deliberate resolve do they choose the higher 
 guidance : only through daily self-denial do they 
 repress the encroachments of the lower nature : they 
 have passions and self-love which would interrupt the 
 calm flow of progressive life, and break its unity into 
 aimless sloth, tumults and wanderings : their mem- 
 bers are not by nature instruments of Righteousness : 
 only, as our Lord said, by plucking out the right eye, 
 by cutting off the right hand, can they prepare them- 
 
82 Ours to work out what God works in tis. 
 
 selves for God's service : when they feel the solicitings 
 of the world and the hour, there is no unenforced 
 security that they will draw it into the direction of 
 the final goal: when they are crossed by circumstance, 
 there is no spiritual instinct that will turn it to easy 
 use, and make it contribute to shape the work of God. 
 Such is the mass of men ; and for them it is essential 
 that they keep constantly before the inward eye the 
 great design of life, the one unchanging aim amid 
 all the fleeting accidents — that, not trusting to spon- 
 taneous impulse or natural enterprise, on the warp 
 appointed from above they should purposely work 
 according to a pattern shown to them by God. 
 
 And what is this one aim in life to which all gifts, 
 all opportunities, all times, all labours, have a common 
 relation ? There is a continuity in our days, a purpose 
 that runs through them all, not to be perfected before 
 the night comes, nor laid aside in our lightest hours — 
 a scheme that we are not impatiently bent on finishing 
 off, for we know that it will fill all existence. This 
 great work, which continues by us in all vicissitude, 
 and elevates us above the broken projects of the day 
 and the hour, and draws something from every thread 
 of life that but touches us and is gone, is the building 
 up of ourselves after the great hopes and models that 
 God has opened upon us. This is the business of life, 
 the aim to be held aloft above thronging circumstance 
 or imperious care, the temporary joy of the heart, or 
 
Ours to work out what God works in us, 83 
 
 the anguish of its discipline. These latter are but the 
 tides in the affairs of men, the currents and the winds 
 with which, favouring or adverse, purpose, faith and 
 energy, fail not to make the port. The labour may be 
 severer, the experiences more awful ; but no man who 
 in anything has achieved victory ever wished that the' 
 contest had been easier, the prize less nobly won ; and 
 ivho that escapes shipwreck regrets the sublime and 
 terrible moments through which his soul has passed ? 
 We would not tempt God by any presumption : we 
 are not speaking of difficulties as desirable, but as 
 inevitable: he who seeks or braves moral danger is 
 certainly not the one who is prepared to meet it : it 
 was in no such vaunting spirit that Christ contemplated 
 the daily cross of duty ; nor could anything keep us 
 from shrinking from before the face of moral pains and 
 terrors, but the religioiLs belief that the Framer of our 
 being has determined for each the primary conditions 
 within which he is to work out his own salvation — 
 that whatever be the lot, within that lot a divine life 
 is possible. God spoils no man's work— sets before 
 no man an impossible problem ; but gives to each the 
 positions in which a faithful spirit, not counting the 
 cost, may achieve peace and glory. Christ entered on 
 his life with a knowledge of its design — with its pur- 
 pose before his soul : all outward things seemed counter 
 to that purpose — nay, let it be remembered for the 
 comfort of those who strive to sway others for their 
 
84 Ottrs to wo7^k out what God works in us. 
 
 good and cannot sway them, that the history even of 
 his own personal influence was a series of disappoint- 
 ments from which he endured pains severer than the 
 bitterness of death: witness that dejection and lamen- 
 tation over a people that repented not — witness the 
 inaptitude and desertion of the Apostles in his last 
 hours — from which he could release his soul only by 
 escaping from such thoughts to take refuge with his 
 God : sympathy in any sustaining sense, fellowship of 
 spirit, kindred help on earth, for him, except with 
 God, there was none : on the beloved disciple's breast 
 he was alone with the Father: when he died, man 
 saw but the shame of the death, and only God had 
 regard unto the sacrifice : with a life that in its out- 
 ward aspects seemed in the moment of his death 
 at every point a failure, he alone, because he looked 
 not to the verdict of his times, but to his eternal place 
 in Providence, accomplished the end for which he was 
 born, and lived the life of a Son of God. I said that 
 there were those whose spontaneous spiritual affections 
 seemed to carry them safely onwards without a hard 
 struggle ; but they are never the men who aim at the 
 highest things, or press towards the last mark. Who 
 equally with Christ were ever moulded to take God's 
 guidance for their own, and, whilst obeying nature, to 
 be working out Divine Perfection .^ Yet he had to 
 strive for mastery, and in the " trouble of his soul " 
 to summon before him the " cause for which he came 
 
Ours to work oiU what God works in us. 85 
 
 to his hours " of trial, before he could live for Reality 
 alone, and make the power of circumstance, which, if 
 yielded to, had marred God's purpose in him, the 
 ministering servant of his glory. And shall we strive 
 less against our weaker selves than Christ found 
 necessary — shall we trust the spontaneous nature, the, 
 instinct, or inclination, or direction of circumstance, 
 which, if he had not laid his hand in the hand 
 of God, would not have availed to guide aright the 
 course of Christ ? If we are to sustain our souls by 
 looking to the ^^ end for which lue ivere bornl^ which 
 the defeats and disappointments of the hour cannot 
 destroy and may advance — which passing evil, loss 
 and sorrow, cannot wrest from us, and may help us 
 more nobly to secure — we must have clear before us 
 our own conscious relation to this design of life, the 
 personal work of man, the part that our own free-will 
 and energy, our individual faith, hope, love and courage, 
 have to perform in bringing the purpose of our spirit, 
 of God in our spirit, to bear strongly on the circum- 
 stance of our lot. All that is outside of us — our life 
 as men see it, or as men make it — and that natural 
 type of constitution, physical and mental, which alone 
 is oViV fate, though even it is largely in our power — 
 these can vary the scene, or alter the conditions within 
 which otcr personal work is to be done, but they can 
 neither defeat it nor advance It ; nothing can do this 
 but the faithlessness or the fidelity of the soul to the 
 
S6 Ours to work out what God works in us, 
 
 end that God has set before us. All men in whose 
 souls the Christian Ideal has a place — in whom, to 
 use St. Paul's words, God has revealed His Son — 
 have their work in life divinely given ; they are as 
 artists possessed of a great conception, with faculties 
 and materials for its execution ; and if only the 
 Thought lives, the Image in the spirit takes form and 
 body, the glory will be measured, not by the means 
 and appliances, the workman's ample endowments 
 and facilities, but rather by the degree in which the 
 want of these was more than supplied by the love, 
 force and purpose, of the /^rj^;^^;/ power. 
 
 But it may be feared that this concentrated purpose 
 of working out our own salvation is not the healthy 
 way to that result ; that it may have in it something 
 too much of self-regard ; that an habitual shaping of 
 ourselves after a model, and a care for our own perfect- 
 ness, may interfere with the freedom, the uncalculating 
 self-sacrifice of a generous heart ; that by seeking our 
 own salvation, even though we remember that salvation 
 means the wholeness of our being, we may sink into 
 spiritual selfishness, even such spiritual self-seeking as 
 is not absent from the far-famed Imitatio Christi, a 
 monkish transcript of our Lord ; that while the Will is 
 laboriously doing this imitative work, the Affections, 
 the spirit of Life, the creative springs of Good, may 
 be insensibly weakened. It might be possible, indeed, 
 in this way to reduce Christianity to an outward law, 
 
OiLTs to work out zuhat God works in us. Z^j 
 
 instead of what it really is, a standard zuithin the spirit 
 itself^ a divine affection working outwardly because it 
 is genuine and must manifest its life. This refined 
 danger, in order to obviate it, will require us to speak 
 of a Christian Life^ rather than of a Christian Character 
 — of what we are to do for others and for God, rather, 
 than of what we are to make ourselves — of self-sacrifice 
 and surrender, rather than of self-formation — of the 
 brother's hand stretched out in help, rather than of the 
 same hand kept at home and applied in artist fashion 
 to ourselves. Men may be intensely selfish in edu- 
 cating themselves, may spend their whole spare time 
 in self-improvement, and refuse to give an hour of it 
 to enlighten others ; and though we might dismiss the 
 objection by saying that such self-education is not the 
 formation of a Christian character, yet if there are two 
 ways of regarding the sam^e thing, that which is the least 
 likely to ally itself with limitation or perversion ought 
 to be preferred, and the self-concentration that may 
 attach to the idea of seeking our own perfection will 
 find no encouragement in the constant purpose of 
 leading on earth the life of Christ. 
 
 The Christian life may be regarded either as a 
 frame of spirit to which we are to mould ourselves, 
 undisturbed by the opposition of events, like Christ 
 asleep amid the storm, or as a gracious Will, a loving 
 and powerful Energy which is to go into intense action, 
 to touch the outward strife of the world with trans- 
 
88 Ours to work out what God works m us. 
 
 figuring light, like Christ "going about doing good," 
 opening blind eyes, casting out evil spirits, cleansing 
 the heart of penitence with its own tears. The sum of 
 Christian Perfectness cannot be reduced under either 
 of these views, and can only be embraced within them 
 both — for self-discipline, self-control, self-correction, 
 will be necessary even with a spirit full of all healthy 
 and beneficent directions ; but it is the last of them, 
 that which places the Christian essence in benevolent 
 energy and creative life, which is the most comprehen- 
 sive of them both, of the power and of the peace of 
 the divine mind of Christ, for there is no way so suc- 
 cessful to keep the heart above the world as to give 
 the life for its sake. 
 
 It is this view, that the aim of existence for every 
 man is to have in himself the power of the Christian 
 life, that reduces to unity the work and the mission of 
 mankind, whatever be their circumstances, whatever 
 be their individualities. There are many types of ser- 
 vice and of excellence possible to man ; but through 
 all its forms the heart of Goodness ever is the same. 
 Human character is indefinitely varied : not so the 
 affections which good men manifest, the spirit in which 
 good men act. These are few and simple, and for all 
 the same. The few spiritual elements make an infinite 
 variety of manifestation as they become blended with 
 differing mental powers amid the diversified conditions 
 which God appoints. For the conditions, mental or 
 
Otirs to work out what God works in tcs. 89 
 
 external — for our place, whether determined by our 
 capacity or by our opportunity, we may not be respon- 
 sible ; but solely for the completeness with which in 
 given circumstances the few spiritual principles per- 
 form their work. We could not even classify the 
 forms of Christian character, the diversities of power 
 and grace, that may result from all the possible com-' 
 binations of differences of nature and differences of 
 opportunity conscientiously used and served ; yet all 
 spiritual life is in its essence one and the same thing ; 
 to be children of God, working in His spirit, is the 
 definition beyond which it cannot go ; and whatever 
 be its sphere or its gifts, its form or its power, it can 
 be no more, it can do no more, than is Involved in 
 having a filial trust in God, in having a brother's heart 
 for man, in acting upon the principle of lending our 
 strength to the weak, and of overcoming evil with 
 good. A Christian life, under any conceivable condi- 
 tions of mind and matter, is simply faithfulness to 
 these few principles ; to work out our own salvation, 
 is only to give life and body to these affections. The 
 conditions are not of our framing, nor are the affec- 
 tions of our generating, for the Heavenly Spirit has 
 inspired us with them ; but whether we will bring 
 them to perfection or let them die — whether we will 
 personally do our part — whether we will breathe the 
 energy of Conscience into our instinctive love, and 
 give an adequate life to the prompting m us of the 
 
90 Oti7^s to work out what God wo7^ks in tis. 
 
 Eternal Spirit — whether we will deny our own ease- 
 and conquer our own sloth when a divine suggestion^ 
 enters our hearts that a brother should be helped — 
 whether, when the witness to God's Love is only His 
 still, small voice within us, whilst all without us is a 
 thick, dark cloud of death or evil, our faith and affec- 
 tion will follow the inward or the outward pointing — 
 whether we will put forth our free-will to serve the 
 inspirations of the Almighty, or use our free-will 
 aeainst the inward movements of God — this has been 
 left to us ; and it is the question of our Salvation. 
 And it is a question that comes alike to every man : 
 capacity, power and place, may vary the answer, but 
 leave the question the same for each, as in the parable 
 of the Talents one question was put to all — what 
 account they had to give of what had been committed 
 to them. Of what real significance are the differences 
 that separate men, so long as those differences are not 
 the fruits of sin ; or what the overwhelming importance 
 of visible success in this view of the design of life ? 
 The aim for which we give our best strength is every- 
 thing, the visible success as nothing : true faith may 
 be the greatest, goodness and fidelity at the highest, 
 when visible success is at the least. If, indeed, you 
 regard it as your mission, the sign that God is with 
 you, to make all things straight in this world, to guide 
 events to fortunate issues, to erect a kingdom of heaven 
 by the happy ordering of circumstances, to have no* 
 
Ottrs to wo7^k out what God works in tts. g i 
 
 failures in your attempts to serve your fellow-men, no 
 moral troubles in your homes, no sins in those who 
 are under your influence, — there are many things that 
 will not permit you to accomplish that design in life, 
 and Christ himself was successful in none of these 
 things. But what are the circumstances in which you, 
 cannot have faith in God — maintain a brother's heart 
 for man — bear the burdens of the weak according to 
 your strength — oppose good to evil, and so work out 
 in God's way the destinies of a spirit whose meat and 
 whose drink it is to do in these things the will of our 
 Father which is in heaven ? Station, gifts of mind, 
 happy or unhappy conditions, are of no significance 
 in relation to the question of a man's salvation. God 
 tasks us all ; but t/ie nature of the task, the place where 
 He puts us, though providence with Him, is accident 
 with us, and of no essential interest. Social differences 
 between men — an outward distinction where there is 
 no real distinction, or where the real distinction is just 
 the reverse of what appears — where the higher quali- 
 ties are in the subordinate place — where capacity and 
 faculty are with the servant, and with the master infe- 
 rior natural properties of mind and soul — these make 
 opportunity for some of the most beautiful graces of 
 the Christian character, for simplicity and humility, 
 freedom from self-assertion, and true dignity, and so 
 far are arrangements of God for the promotion of our 
 spiritual education ; but the spiritual honour and the 
 
92 Ours to work out what God works in us, 
 
 accidental honour may be found together, or may be 
 found apart. Essentially it is the same glory that 
 God provides for every man — co-operation with His 
 Spirit according to our power and place — and the same 
 spiritual effort to secure it He requires from all ; but 
 the office, and the complication of events, amid which 
 the forces of the soul dutifully maintain their tasked 
 life, He largely keeps in His own hands. So far as 
 God orders a man's lot and determines his natural 
 powers, it is Divine appointment ; but to serve Him 
 zvhere He has placed us — and one place is just as 
 essential as another, the foundation-stone Vv^hich no 
 man sees even more essential than the groined roof 
 which draws all eyes, — to be true to the opportunities 
 of our place, — to use and develop what is committed 
 to us, — trustful, helpful, merciful, dutiful, overcoming 
 evil with good, — that remains with the man himself, 
 and is his Salvation. 
 
 I do not know that language is capable of assigning 
 more accurately their respective parts to God and man 
 in the joint work of our spiritual education, than is 
 accomplished in the remarkable antithesis of St. Paul : 
 " Work out your own salvation : God Himself works 
 in you what you ought to will and what you ought to 
 do." The working iii us is God's part ; the working 
 out in word, act, thought and character, is ours. God 
 puts into the heart the suggestions, the promptings, 
 the aspirations, the commanding sense of Right, which 
 
Oicrs to work out what God works m us. 93 
 
 point the way that He would have us to go. The in- 
 spiration is our Father's : the holy desire, the merciful 
 impulse, the fair vision of Good, proceed from His 
 Spirit : what He asks from us is the energy to be 
 fellow-workers with Him in these given directions for 
 the sake of a fuller union with Himself ; for, in the^ 
 language of Christ's parable, " all that He has is ours." 
 This is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The expres- 
 sion Holy Spirit is confined in the Scriptures to the 
 personal communion of the living God with the con- 
 scious soul of man. That personal communion God 
 is for ever seeking ; but it is as true of our personal 
 intercourse with God as it is of our intercourse with 
 men, that one spirit has the power of veiling itself 
 against another ; and even God could not force Him- 
 self upon us without destroying the freedom and self- 
 determination which make us spiritual beings. We 
 can quench His Spirit if we will. The impulse that is 
 long disregarded seems to retire from the heart, not 
 because God ceases to be there, but because the heart 
 becomes insensible. Let a man disturb his soul with 
 wrong, with mean cares or selfish anger, and go forth 
 amid Nature — its spiritual ministry is stopped ; it gives 
 him no peace, no enlargement, no sacredness ; though 
 the mountains, the skies, the air, and the presence of 
 God in them, remain the same. He never leaves our 
 n'ature without the witness of Himself ; but we all 
 know what dear human solicitings, palpable to every 
 
94 Ours to work out zvkat God works m tis. 
 
 sense, we can harden ourselves against, what imploring 
 looks and words we can come to treat as if they did 
 not exist. God seems to withdraw Himself from us 
 more quickly than man does, for there is no sensible 
 presence : we must watch for Him if we would hear 
 Him : He speaks only to the listening soul. Selfish 
 affections and relaxed wills can obscure the divine 
 prompting of Love and Conscience. Their best in- 
 spirations men can call by some contemptuous name 
 of visions and dreams, because they are not willing to 
 realize them, because they will not lend to God the co- 
 operation of their patience, prayer and struggle, to fulfil 
 His Fatherly suggestion to us all of a life of gracious 
 peace, of purity, of freedom from passion and corroding 
 cares, of calm devotion to truth and goodness. From 
 Him comes the unbidden prayer, the quick-shooting 
 detestation of our sin, the sudden sense of sacredness 
 in life, which the air of the common world again blows 
 away. When a high aim, a merciful thought, breaks 
 like instantaneous light, then God is working i7t us ; 
 and it is ours to work out the suggestion, " with fear 
 and trembling" lest through delay or apathy we should 
 lose the opportunity. Do we doubt whether such things 
 are ? What ! Do we sit down and plan all our good 
 impulses ? Is it by an effort of our will that we sum- 
 mon into our minds every prompting of mercy, every 
 aspiration after holiness? Does no Peace passing 
 understanding whisper to us, " Be still, and know that 
 
Ours to work out zvkat God works in tis. 95 
 
 I am God " ? Does no unsolicited direction gush up 
 from mysterious fountains, as unexpectedly as though 
 God broke silence and audibly spoke to us ? Life in 
 any real sense is not concerned with man alone ; it is 
 man working together with God. The inward work 
 of divine suggestion God performs ; and if we are 
 practically faithful, ere we have accomplished one good 
 thought, one prompting of the Spirit, another and a 
 higher dawns upon us. It is not Christ's teaching that 
 we are only to be students and observers of his inspi- 
 ration. God does not leave us to receive guidance and 
 comfort at second-hand — to hear of Him, but never to 
 feel Him. He works in ns ; and Christ's highest office 
 is to show us the Father, to awaken a consciousness 
 of the Holy Spirit in ourselves, that we may come to 
 be one with God even as he was. 
 
 We are often told in these days that Christianity 
 requires some new utterance to give it power, some 
 development of undiscovered energy to make it equal 
 to the world's salvation. It wants nothing but a faith- 
 ful heart to take it up ; it wants nothing but that man 
 should do his part. If any man wills to do His Will, 
 he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God. 
 Are we to hear from easy men, or from the mere critics 
 of religion, that Christianity is failing t Have any of 
 its Cross-bearers told us so, the workers or the martyrs 
 of any age 1 God sends us the captive heart, the listen- 
 ing spirit, the obedient will, that we may work out the 
 
96 Otcrs to work out what God works in us. 
 
 great salvation of knowing that a man's life consisteth 
 not in the things that he possesseth ; that we too 
 might live like God's children, and our Father be 
 gracious to us as to him that dwelt in His bosom ; 
 that faith, hope and charity, fail not from the earth ; 
 and that the Comforter abideth for ever ! 
 
VII. 
 
 John xlii. 17: 
 •• If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." 
 
 There is a vast body of spiritual truth which can- 
 not be said to be known until it has been lived, con- 
 sisting chiefly of the acquaintance with God inherent 
 in those frames of our being which the Beatitudes 
 authenticate. That the meek inherit the earth, with- 
 out the cares of ownership enjoy it as their own and 
 God's, walking amid its glories without disquieting 
 ambition or lust of possession — that the pure in heart 
 have an unsoiled mirror for God — that to the merciful 
 it is impossible not to know that the Author of every 
 gracious thought is merciful and gracious — that the 
 peacemakers are in the spirit of their Father, feeling 
 strife and confusion to be the abnegation of God — 
 that a life of generous love and self-surrender removes 
 morbid or visionary fears, and places us in a real 
 harmony with the whole order of Providence, — these 
 are truths of which we cannot say, " If ye know these 
 things, happy are ye if ye do them," but rather, " In 
 
 H 
 
98 Knowing and Doing. 
 
 doing these things, ye know of the doctrine that it is 
 of God.". 
 
 Still, in regard to " these things " we may have suffi- 
 cient experience of them to know them to be realities, 
 and yet not have entered farther into their blessedness 
 than to be made aware of the infinite depths of peace 
 they open to one who would live entirely in them. 
 There is a light of experience in the soul that opens 
 the true way of life even to those who do not follow it. 
 God gives to all some knowledge of goodness and of 
 its spiritual joy, so that, if we do not pursue it, we put 
 His grace aside and have no cloak for sin. All men 
 have at least moments of meekness, of forbearance, of 
 generosity, of sanctity of feeling, of hunger and thirst 
 for righteousness, in which the Beatitudes stand con- 
 fessed, so that by such brief yet commanding expe- 
 rience we become involved in the responsibilities of 
 knowledge, and are left without excuse before God if 
 it has not its perfect work. He gives to all enough of 
 spiritual experience to show clearly the onward track 
 of His will, the line of light and blessing running on 
 Into the infinite future ; and, having opened to us the 
 Way, the Truth, and the Life, leaves us, though never 
 alone unless we will have it so, to the perils of our 
 freewill, either to follow in the path He has marked, 
 taking as from Him whatever meets us on that path, 
 and not turning back, though where we looked only for 
 blessings we suddenly find the cross in our hands, — or 
 
Knowing and Doing. 99 
 
 •else to lose that higher guidance by falling into the 
 ways of the natural man — the man, not of inspiration, 
 but of instinct, passion, wilfulness and ease — as St. 
 Paul expresses it, " through unrighteousness suppress- 
 ing the truth," arresting the spring and flow of God's 
 Spirit in us. 
 
 There is another class of religious truths, of which 
 it is possible to have an intellectual knowledge, which 
 we can recognize without their first passing into the 
 substance of our own spiritual experience. We learn 
 them otherwise than by direct consciousness. Such 
 are our intellectual convictions of an adequate Author 
 of creation, a God who has impressed the order of His 
 own Mind upon the universe, the manifest laws of His 
 providence, His purpose in our being as declared in 
 our moral constitution, with such assurance of immor- 
 tality as may be grounded on what we discern of the 
 attributes of God, on the aspects of this world requir- 
 ing remoter issues for their justification, and on man's 
 inexhaustible capacity for progress. But whether we 
 know by the irresistible presence of the Holy Spirit 
 in us, as in all the great movements of conscience, or 
 through intellectual convictions founded on reason- 
 ings whose authority binds the mind, in either case 
 Kncivledge will not make us blessed. The tree of 
 Knowledge is not necessarily the Tree of Life, nor 
 always does it lend its sap to it. Knowledge is power, 
 tut only intellectual or instrumental power — a com- 
 
V 
 
 lOO Knowing and Doing. 
 
 mand over means, not a love for ends, nor always an 
 impulse towards them ; and what knowledge does for 
 us in all " these things" is simply to make us subjects 
 for God's just judgments, to bring us under the action 
 of His spiritual laws, so that righteously He may bless 
 or righteously condemn. To " know these things " may 
 be no more than that by an undeniable inward experi- 
 ence we have felt God's Hand setting us right on the 
 way of life, and almost seen the paternal look that 
 invited as if it would not be resisted, full at once of 
 entreaty and of judgment, gentle, searching and holy ; 
 but " to do them " remains with us after God has laid 
 this responsibility upon us, and so opened our eyes 
 that we can never again fold the cloak of ignorance 
 against that piercing look, and escape judgment. 
 
 Now the evil is, that with all of us knowledge has 
 a tendency to become a substitute for spiritual action 
 and reality, and so deceives the conscience. We would 
 become as gods from eating of the tree of Knowledge, 
 instead of sons and servants on the daily bread of Life. 
 That which we abundantly know, and never dream of 
 denying, we not unnaturally suppose to have passed 
 into our spiritual frame, into the very substance of 
 our being. But, alas ! whatever we know, or think 
 we know, we are only what we have done. It is not 
 thought, it is not belief, that constitute the great 
 realities of character, but the kind of spirit that breaks 
 from us in speech and action — the temper, the will, the 
 
Knowing and Doing, lor 
 
 love, that rule us, and the zvork we do in this world 
 of God's, where the helpless and the helpful, the sor- 
 rowing and the sympathizing, the sinful and the holy, 
 so contribute to shape and educate one another that 
 we cannot say wJdch become the greatest benefactors, 
 the strong to the weak, or the weak to the strong. 
 Now to this living energy which makes a man a real 
 servant of the Almighty, a fellow-worker with God, 
 a spiritual force co-operating with Providence, which 
 gives him a power to wrestle with temptations and 
 hold them under his feet, to soothe or share suffering, 
 through the touch of human fellowship to renew 
 heavenly hope in the weary and heavy-laden, — to this, 
 all Intellectual culture, all religious knowledge, may be 
 totally external, as far removed as the enjoyment of 
 a sublime fiction, even to the intoxication of delight, 
 from a likeness to its hero. Of the mass of educated 
 men, for example, to whom all knowledge is open, 
 how many — how many proportionally, for the positive 
 number is large and is growing — take a real part in 
 that great warfare with evil in which man is daily 
 vanquished and God is daily grieved — how many 
 strive with another's sin as with their own mortal foe, 
 enter into the thick of the strife and the suffering, and 
 with their own hands lift the burden and beat back 
 the tempter ? This is a matter in which none of us 
 can afford to cast the first stone. I am speaking of 
 the reserve force of God, if only it could be moved to 
 
I03 Knowing and Doing. 
 
 come into active service — of those who are set apart 
 from many forms of temptation, planted on high, in- 
 structed in wisdom, nurtured in pure homes, girt round 
 with social fences which Shame itself in Virtue's 
 absence would hardly dare to cross. When all these 
 shall make it a part of their ozvn business, as one 
 day they will, to aid the spirit and power of God in 
 the conscience of a weak or exposed brother, will 
 the moral progress of society, will the cause of Christy 
 will the kingdom of heaven upon earth, look so feeble 
 and far off as now it does ? It is not that men are 
 now wanting in benevolence, that they are unwilling 
 to give or to suffer, but that, somehow, we have not 
 yet learned the secret of contributing to the spiritual 
 force of the world — that even when we are willing, we 
 do not know how on behalf of another to enter into 
 personal contest with his evil — that our conscience 
 has not yet reached the point that, as often as God's 
 purposes are baffled before our face, whilst we had a 
 disposable power that we did not bring to His aid, we 
 feel His defeat as though our own souls had been the 
 battle-ground. And yet we presume to despair of 
 the world, to despair of mankind, to despair of any 
 universal reign on earth of knowledge, purity and good- 
 ness ! That is presumptuous sin. We are not entitled 
 to despair of anything that concerns God, of anything 
 in which He employs us, until at least we have tried 
 our utmost, spent our best strength and found it all 
 
Knowing and Doing, 103 
 
 unavailing. So far as the future is concerned, there is 
 great hope in the fact, with large vindication of God, 
 that the forces of Good and Evil have never yet come 
 into full collision — that all the good have never yet 
 found out the way of striving with the world's sin and 
 sorrow, as if for the deliverance of their own spirits ; 
 and until they have done this, we are not in circum- 
 stances to despair of God's Providence. One Man ^ 
 did this, and from, his heart all despair vanished ; he 
 " saw Satan like lightning fall from Heaven." 
 
 And not only may those who are affluent in reli- 
 gious knowledge take no correspondent part in the 
 spiritual warfare of the world — they may fail to repel 
 the evil even from their own borders. For, a man to 
 whom you can say nothing of God that he does not 
 seem to know already may readily confuse familiarity 
 Avith religious views with a religious experience, and 
 mistake plentiful information for habitual communion 
 and obedience. Our full assent to spiritual truth often 
 blinds us to its practical forgetfulness ; for how should 
 we suspect ourselves of setting at nought our own 
 doctrines and rules of life, which we are prepared to 
 prove or to maintain against all gainsayers } Even 
 the richness of sentiment which large intellectual re- 
 sources bring, an independence upon others for perhaps 
 our strongest interests, may stifle real tenderness of 
 feeling, real charity of life ; for those whose sensibilities 
 are habitually touched through the imagination by an 
 
I04 Knowing and Doing, 
 
 intellectual medium of pictures and conceptions — who 
 can enjoy love, terror and pity, and the beauty of life, 
 as a mental luxury — will not naturally suspect them- 
 selves of hardness of heart, or of apathy towards suf- 
 fering, even when they shun all contact with actual 
 evil, and know nothing of the homely self-denials, the 
 face-to-face intercourses with the world's rougher and 
 coarser ways, of a working beneficence. How many 
 are moved to admiration by Christ's treatment of tlie 
 polluted and the penitent, who would not suffer the 
 correspondent guilt of this world to touch even the 
 hem of their garments, and yet are ready to mistake 
 the sensibility that thrills for the heart that helps and 
 suffers, that is willing to identify itself with the lowly 
 and fallen, if only it may share with them its own 
 strength, its treasure of hope and holy things ! The 
 thoughts that stock the mind, the pictures and emo- 
 tions that are so familiar to the nerves and the fancy, 
 may by their vividness conceal from us that they are 
 but gliding images crossing the field of mental vision, 
 with no real effect upon ourselves, either as agents 
 or as sufferers, — that their truth does not sanctify us, 
 nor their power strengthen us, nor their sweetness 
 subdue us. 
 
 Now this it is which practically breaks interest in 
 religion. It is a matter of Doing and of Being, and 
 we make it a matter of Knowing. The administration 
 of religion has become associated with the rhetori- 
 
Knowing and Doing. 105 
 
 cian*s art ; the prophet has sunk into the orator, 
 and spiritual teaching is made a matter of doctrines 
 and of words. But who, now, can speak a new word 
 about God, and Duty, and Christ, and divine things ? 
 Revelation itself seems stale, and men turn away, 
 exclaiming, "All is barren." But if they came to it 
 with the feeling that their sole interest in it was to 
 transfer " these things " into the substance of their own 
 being, what a revolution might take place in their 
 mode of regarding the simplest matters affecting God 
 and Christ ! The interest of the intellect alone, of 
 speculative knowledge, is rapidly exhausted in religion, 
 and is kept alive only by a succession of artificial 
 terrors or stimulants. AH spiritual interests that do 
 not pass into action and become new growths of 
 character, all passive feelings that bring no exercise, 
 waste the springs of health. Sensibility, penitence, 
 aspiration, the shocked gaze of self-knowledge, only 
 consume the soul, burn its strength to ashes, when they 
 do not move the struggling effort to escape from self, 
 and take some actual step into the onward infinite of 
 Goodness. It is as though we stood in a motionless 
 trance, and watched slowly burning out in our lamps 
 the oil whose flame was given to guide our steps upon 
 some forward way. Coleridge has remarked that 
 " Truths, of all others the most awful and interesting, 
 are too often considered as so true, that they lose all 
 the power of truth, and lie bedridden in the dormitory 
 
io6 Knowing and Doing. 
 
 of the soul ; " but, " that there is one sure way of giving 
 freshness and importance to the most commonplace 
 maxims — that of rcjiectijig on them in direct reference 
 to our own state and conduct, to our own past and 
 future being. To restore a commonplace truth to its 
 first tmcommon lustre, you need only translate it into 
 action." And so there is one and only one way of 
 keeping alive a growing interest in religion, and that 
 is by the endeavour to convert it into our own being, 
 to have no thought of God or Christ, no view of life 
 or heaven, which we do not seek so to weave into our 
 temper and our spirit that it may mould our deeds 
 and breathe our peace. 
 
 We cannot be surprised at the weariness which 
 besets people on religious subjects considered in a 
 merely didactic way, except when some party or 
 personal interest is excited in matters of speculative 
 theology in which for the most part no purely religious 
 feeling is involved; for the vital truth lies in a few 
 simple spiritual experiences, in a few simple spiritual 
 convictions ; and what can be said to give a man an 
 interest in prayer who does not pray, who has no daily 
 aim of living in intercourse with God, and does not 
 know either the difficulties or the blessedness of this 
 heart communion : or what can make a deep and 
 earnest theme of Christian humility to one who does 
 not invite into his soul the gaze of the All-perfect, 
 whose thoughts are for the most part on things as low 
 
Knowing and Doing, 107 
 
 or lower than himself: or of the meekness and 
 gentleness of Christ to a man who will not reflect that 
 nothing short of the Spirit of our Father in us can 
 keep us guileless, forbearing and forgiving, with a love 
 that hopes all things and thinks no evil, and who 
 therefore never stands still in sudden horror at himself, 
 and asks God and man to pardon him, when he finds 
 that in his thoughts he has been offending against 
 holy charity ? If our interest in religion was one with 
 our effort to be ourselves in all " these things " one of 
 God's spiritual forces — holy, for God is holy — merci- 
 ful, for God is merciful — how could the interest of that 
 life-struggle ever fail ? What earnest word of faith 
 and truth, though it was old as the ages, would not 
 have for us a fresh and infinite significance ? And 
 then, instead of seeking religious excitement in the 
 direction of new knowledge, rather might we entreat, 
 as those of old, " that the Word should not be spoken 
 to us any more ;" that responsibilities full of arduous 
 interest were crowding too fast upon us ; that already 
 our views were far above our life and leaving us hope- 
 lessly behind ; that our temper, and habits, and frame 
 of soul, had yet to be brought into conformance with 
 the relations already discerned ; that " such knowledge 
 \vas too high for us, and we could not attain unto it." 
 We must think that instead of there being too little 
 spiritual light in this world for our guidance, there is 
 far too much for our peace, faithless as we are. Rather 
 
 v^ 
 
io8 Knowing mid Doing, 
 
 are we all living under a Light that is too strong for 
 us — accustomed to hear great truths until they have 
 lost their power — treating God's inspirations with that 
 kind of effortless familiarity which destroys respect — 
 enervated by a spiritual climate where we find enjoy- 
 ment without exercise — enfeebled by the growing dis- 
 proportion between what we know and what we are, or 
 what we strive to do. Buddha's definition of Virtue 
 is, the agreement of the Will with the Conscience. 
 
 Vast indeed are the responsibilities of Knowledge : 
 to have the veil lifted up, the eyes opened, so that 
 never again can we put off our obligations, nor know, 
 like unburdened children, the untasked times of our 
 ignorance, and plead in innocence, " Lord, I knew not 
 that it was Thy Will." It is indeed true that if we 
 know these things, happy are we if we do them ; but 
 it is equally true that if we do them not, then unhappy 
 are we that we know them. For the servant that knew 
 his Lord's will and did it not, is beaten with many 
 stripes ; and there is hope of recovered blessedness 
 only so long as the inward wounds are acutely painful, 
 and Conscience is so actively alive that she never 
 drops the lash. To see as with God's eyes and yet 
 do our own works and follow our own will, is to meet 
 light everywhere whilst we are looking for a place 
 where dark deeds may hide. Whither shall we go 
 from Thy Spirit? Whither shall we flee from Thy 
 presence } 
 
Knowing and Doing. 109 
 
 Now we all know the whole body of Christian truth: 
 our tongues could speak it with unfaltering readiness. 
 We look up to Heaven and call God our Father ; we 
 look upon man and say he is our Brother ; we look 
 upon the earth and say it is the scene of Providence, 
 the temple not built with hands, where day unto day 
 uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth know- 
 ledge ; we look within and say that though the out- 
 ward man perish, the inward man may be renewed 
 day by day ; we look upon death and say it is our 
 birthday into immortal life, and that we are changed 
 only because flesh and blood cannot inherit the king- 
 dom of God : — our eyes have seen, our ears have heard, 
 all this, so that never again can we steal back to an 
 irresponsible time : we " hiozv these things " so fully 
 that God Himself can make us know them better only 
 through the doing of His Will. Yet if knowledge 
 multiplies responsibilities, happy are we if we accept 
 them, for then we have our Lord's money with usury ; 
 we have ourselves added something, the something 
 that makes them ours, to that which He has given — 
 we have added the fellowship of our own spirit and the 
 toil of our own will. Yet are there many to whom the 
 very thought of responsibilities is grievous. We speak 
 not of rebelling wills, but of timid, trembling spirits, to 
 whom God is hardly felt as a Father, so terrible Is His 
 aspect as a Judge — to whom Religion assumes the 
 form only of conscious unworthiness, and diseased 
 
no Knoiving and Doing, 
 
 introspection and agonizing questions, showing that 
 they cling too close to themselves, that they do not 
 throw off self-regarding fears in the blessed life of 
 Action and Endeavour, that they do not seek in that 
 direction the freedom of their being, with Duty as a 
 clear way on which to travel, and the sense of God as 
 a life-element. It is a true saying, that " doubt of 
 whatever kind can be ended by action alone ; " for 
 God's blessing is always with unselfish labour. He 
 blesses the effort even when it does not reach its mark, 
 and in the sense of blessing the doubt is lost in peace. 
 Under the strokes of earnest force the glow of life 
 comes out in warmth and joy, and all that is morbid 
 in us retires into forgetfulness, as not belonging to one 
 who is in any real relations with the healthy purposes 
 of God. 
 
 There may, indeed, be much true life in us that God 
 does not permit to be conspicuously manifested : out- 
 ward action is only the sign of an inward power, the 
 place and the manner in which a spiritual force shows 
 itself to be present ; and often God Himself contracts 
 the means and opportunities of this activity. We are 
 not to suppose that such visible activity is necessary 
 to the inward life of a great spirit ; this would be to 
 confound the sign with the thing signified. The most 
 energetic spirit in the world may, by physical debility 
 or other causes, be made the prisoner of the Lord, and 
 denied for the present a full sphere of manifestation ; 
 
Knowing and Doing. 1 1 1 
 
 and, as meek love has often shown, power is not lost 
 by such compression, rather is it chastened and hus- 
 banded, if only the willing heart remains and all the 
 outlets used that God leaves open. That God has 
 circumscribed our life may add a peculiar element of 
 trial, but often it defines our way and cuts off many 
 tempting possibilities that perplex the free and the 
 strong ; whilst it leaves intact the whole body of 
 spiritual reality, with the Beatitude thereon, " that if v/e 
 know these things, happy are we if we do them." We 
 know that God orders the lot ; and to meet it with 
 the energies it requires and permits, neither more nor 
 less — to fill it at every available point with the light 
 and action of an earnest and spiritually inventive mind, 
 though its scene be no wider than a sick chamber, and 
 its action narrowed to patient suffering and gentle, 
 cheerful words, and all the light it can emit the thank- 
 ful quiet of a trustful eye, — without chafing as though 
 God had misjudged onr sphere, and placed us wrong, 
 and did not know where we could best serve Him — 
 this is what, in that condition, we Jiave to do — filial 
 service enough through which to draw very nigh unto 
 God, and " the doer shall be blessed in his deed." 
 
 And, in fact, we know not in what circumstances 
 of apparent feebleness, of lowliness or limitation, or 
 of utter unlikeliness, God may permit great spiritual 
 power to show itself, and become His minister to the 
 widest extent and in the highest things. The Disciples 
 
112 Knowing and Doing, 
 
 thought that Christ was altogether out of his place 
 when he was washing their feet ; yet this was the 
 occasion on which the text was spoken. God, they 
 thought, had no need of a Messiah for such offices ; 
 he ought to have been taking up his great power and 
 reigning. And so he was, if they had known it. He 
 knew it well ; for it is perhaps the most marvellous 
 perfection, the most unapproachable height of the Son 
 of Man, that he could speak consciously of his own 
 place and mission, speak of himself as set to be an 
 Example and Forerunner, and yet lose nothing of the 
 simplicity of his spiritual life, of its fresh flow from God. 
 Ordinary men are so totally incapable of this, that we 
 have come to regard self-consciousness as something 
 wrong in itself ; but that is our limitation. That we 
 may know all that God has designed us for, all that we 
 may be, and yet refer nothing to ourselves, Christ has 
 shown to be possible. " Ye call me Master and Lord ; 
 and ye say well, for so I am." He is ever the true 
 Master and Lord of men who will serve, help and 
 deliver them. Service, helpfulness, guidance, is lawful 
 mastery in this world. And this is a power in itself 
 so divine that circumstance and place cannot conceal 
 it ; it is always making itself felt. It has broken forth 
 from that lowly chamber and that blinded company^ 
 and filled the earth with its glory. " If any man will 
 be great among you, let him become the servant of 
 all." " If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye 
 do them." 
 
Knowing and DoiJig. 113 
 
 To use the words of one of the Cambridge Latitu- 
 dinarians, which, though spoken more than two 
 hundred years ago, alas ! neither his own Church, nor 
 any other Church, has yet fully understood — Christian 
 knowledge "is a knowing of 'the truth as it is in 
 Jesus,' as it is in a Christ-like nature, as it is in th^t 
 sweet, mild, humble, loving spirit of Jesus, which 
 spreads itself, like a morning sun, upon the souls of 
 good men, full of light and life." * 
 
 * Smith's Select Discourses, p. 8 ; Cambridge, 1859. 
 
VIII. 
 
 Matt. xxvi. 41 : 
 
 ' ' Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation : the spirit indeed 
 is willing, but the flesh is weak." 
 
 There are two natures in each of us : the body and 
 the soul, the instincts and the aspirations, the prompt- 
 ings of the spiritual nature, and the gravitation towards 
 ease or self-indulgence of the natural man. And for 
 the most part the two natures are suffered to maintain 
 an independent existence, neither being brought into 
 permanent subjection, but weak and powerful by turns, 
 each having its way in its season of predominance. 
 
 And so little do we question ourselves about any 
 ruling purpose, any order and symmetry of life — a 
 long habit of committing ourselves to courses that are 
 determined by accident, by pressure from without, by 
 inclination, has so stifled a demand for the harmony 
 and unity of being, which all other creatures instinc- 
 tively observe, that we escape any painful or revolting 
 sense of discord and inconsistency : we not only yield 
 
The Spirit willingy the Flesh weak. 115 
 
 to changing moods, but seem to carry our whole nature 
 into them ; so that being, for the time, natural in each 
 of our states, we make nature its own justification, 
 without inquiring which nature it is we are obeying, 
 and live without suspicion of the manifold contradic- 
 tions our characters present. 
 
 This is the description of a being in whom con- 
 science takes no place of command, and is only a 
 co-ordinate power, one among the crowd of directing 
 inchnations ; and it is very much the habitual life of 
 us all : we do as nature inclines, or as circumstances 
 determine ; we are what we are, or we are as it may 
 happen ; but we impose no law upon ourselves, and 
 enforce no unity of spirit. Thus Peter was perfectly 
 natural, and perfectly sincere, in the sense of reflecting 
 truly the whole feeling of the time, when he vowed 
 that he would cheerfully go to meet death for his 
 Master, and no doubt, if the crisis had come at the 
 moment, would have proved equal to the boast ; and 
 then, yielded to the next direction of his nature, which 
 happened to be one of mere 'weariness and exhaustion, 
 sinking into slumber when wakefulness was most 
 needed ; and then, awoke suddenly, without fore- 
 thought or preparation, to find danger close at hand, 
 and yielded to an instinct of terror, and let the coward- 
 prompting carry him to such a pitch of surrender to 
 the nature that was uppermost, as in his Lord's pre- 
 sence, and with panic oaths, to deny that he knew 
 
1 1 6 The Spirit willing, the Flesh weak. 
 
 him ; and then, met the eye of Christ, and yielded to 
 that power, and went out and wept bitterly. 
 
 Wherever the soul is put in charge of the life, wher- 
 ever there is spiritual solicitude and clear perception 
 of the duty of self-discipline, such easy submission to 
 mere tendencies becomes impossible ; at least a painful 
 sense of discord is created, a disturbed self-conscious- 
 ness appears ; and if there is still a divergence between 
 the Spirit and the Flesh, it is no longer because each in 
 its season is permitted its own way, without an attempt 
 to reconcile them, but because the willingness of the 
 Spirit is left at the mercy of the unguarded weakness 
 of the Flesh, and then all the peculiarities of positive 
 sin come into existence, — namely, a sense of defeated 
 desires, of betrayed purposes, of abandoned right, with 
 the testimony of a guilty conscience. 
 
 There are three imperfect states in which the rela- 
 tions of our actual life to our ideal, or rule of life, may 
 exist : two of them absolutely wrong, the third only 
 an approximation to right. Instead of introducing 
 the ideal life into the actual life, as outward conditions 
 and the growing strength of the affections and the 
 conscience will permit, a man may give over any real 
 attempt to embody a heavenly spirit in an earthly 
 life, and yet, in a meditative, sentimental, self-centred 
 dream, devote himself to the contemplation of what is. 
 good and perfect ; and this is the mystic's way of living 
 above the world, and of having a unity of being. His 
 
The Spirit willingy the Flesh weak. 1 1 7 
 
 ideal and his actual are never mfelt opposition, because 
 he turns from the actual and lives in the ideal alone. 
 
 Again, there is the antithesis of this, when the actual, 
 life as it is, this warm, breathing world, is embraced 
 with healthy zest and energy, whilst the ideal of life 
 is unthought of and disappears ; and this is the way 
 in which the natural man has a unity of being. With 
 him the ideal and the actual are never in recognized 
 opposition, because he turns from the ideal and lives 
 in the actual alone. The mystic ignores the actual, the 
 kingdom of God in the world ; the natural man ignores 
 the ideal, the kingdom of God in the soul ; and neither 
 even attempts the true problem of life, which is to 
 incorporate the ideal in our actual — to be in this world, 
 according to our power and our place, what Christ was, 
 even the Word made flesh. By obliterating one side 
 of God's demands upon us, though we cannot reach 
 spiritual harmony, we may, for a time, escape conflict. 
 
 And, thirdly, there is the mixed state, the common 
 condition of us all, in which the ideal and the actual 
 are brought, or sought to be brought, into some prac- 
 tical correspondence — but feebly, fitfully, incompletely 
 — in which the prompting of the spirit often yields to 
 temptation, and infirmity prevails with the express 
 knowledge of sin. This may be a more Christian con- 
 dition than that of the mystic or of the natural man, 
 for at least the true spiritual problem is before us, the 
 work and achievement of THE WILL in our earthly 
 
ii8 The Spirit willhtg, the Flesh zueak. 
 
 discipline distinctly set out ; yet is it a condition of 
 more suffering; for the sense of internal discord is 
 painfully awakened, the willing Spirit and the weak 
 Flesh are in felt opposition, and unless strength is 
 obtained for the higher principle, it may end in dis- 
 tresses of conscience from which the mystic and the 
 worldling, to whom the sense of sin is not present, can 
 now escape. Spiritual unrest, so far better than unreal 
 peace, may mark a soul that at least is seeking God, 
 longing after Him, though as yet it has not found 
 Him. 
 
 Now it is this condition of spirit, this state of recog- 
 nized infirmity, in which a weakness, a temptation, 
 that is against our conscience, against our desires, yet 
 conquers us, which we are at present to consider. We 
 may desire to be what is right, to do what is right, 
 and yet be practically thwarted by our own weakness, 
 whilst yet a power to conquer remains with us, if we 
 would exert it. *' The good that I would," says St. 
 Paul, describing this condition, "I do not: the evil 
 which I would not, that I do." When does this take 
 place t What Is the nature of the cases in which the 
 willing spirit is thus betrayed and defeated by the 
 mortal instruments t 
 
 I. There are impulses from the spirit, promptings 
 from within, which are not properly ours until we 
 have made them so, by breathing, and living, and 
 having our being within their inspiration. They come 
 
The Spirit willing , the Flesh weak. 1 1 g 
 
 by no effort and from no merit of our own ; they are 
 of God's grace, and make no part of our individual 
 personality until we appropriate them by entire fidelity 
 of being. No creature can make for its nature dictates 
 and directions higher than those which its Creator 
 gives it. No creature except man can abuse or be 
 unfaithful to nature, or to any part of it ; and in us it 
 would be the perfection of goodness, of blessedness, 
 simply that we should persevere in executing the mer- 
 ciful, righteous and gracious things that God suggests 
 to us. Man's province is not that of supplying himself 
 with inspirations, but that of earnest and loyal obe- 
 dience, against the resistance of lower inclinations, to 
 those which God supplies. " Work out your own sal- 
 vation," says the Apostle, " for God of His own accord 
 is always working in you." We have nothing to do 
 with the work of inspiration, but only with the work 
 of obedience, which fits us for higher inspirations. 
 You are on the way perfectly to find God and your 
 own blessedness, if you will only permit Him at each 
 stage of your growth to be your ruling spirit. He 
 gives the divine direction, suggests the generous pur- 
 pose, prompts the merciful act ; from Him is the 
 impulse of kindness, the vision of love, the hunger of 
 the heart for pure, unselfish joy. It is ours to work 
 together with His Spirit, yielding our members as its 
 instruments, and so to glorify ourselves in Him. 
 Now these divine promptings, in the moments they 
 
^ 
 
 1 20 The Spirit willing ^ the Flesh weak, 
 
 are upon us, are so strongly felt, and bring a peace 
 so strange and clear, that we arrogate them as ours 
 already, and forget the conditions of possession — that 
 they are really the solicitings of God, of the Holy 
 Spirit in the soul, the door of heaven opened for a 
 moment by God's Hand to give us a gleam of the in- 
 corruptible blessedness — not ours yet, but our Father's 
 call upon us for the corresponding works of sacrifice 
 and love ; and that to mistake them for ours, at that 
 stage, is to confuse God's province with our own, that 
 which He works in us with that which we have to 
 work out. 
 
 Hence is it, to take the simplest illustration, that 
 men make gracious offers which they do not perform, 
 utter words which raise expectations that they never 
 realize ; not that they were insincere in the act of 
 promise, for then a kindly impulse was upon them, 
 and they spoke as the spirit moved, and if the feeling 
 could have executed itself then and there, it would 
 no doubt have had its fulfilment; but the details of 
 labour, of practical effort, by which alone any such 
 desires can be executed, were not present to the con- 
 science ; and though the promise was made without 
 conscious insincerity in the act of its utterance, it was 
 made with levity and without spiritual thoughtfulness. 
 The cost was not counted ; the tower was in the air, 
 not one stone of it laid, whilst yet we spoke of it as 
 a thing accomplished ; and this profession of real pur- 
 
The Spirit willing, the Flesh weak. 121 
 
 pose, the putting it forward as fact, though never to 
 be made good by faithful deeds, was a presumptuous 
 sin. If the wiUing spirit had but remembered, as in 
 honesty it ought, that only by some strain on weak 
 and infirm parts of us, which often claim indulgence 
 on their own account, can any such purpose be exe- 
 cuted, the whole extent of our engagement would 
 have been before us in the same moment that the 
 impulse to enter into it was most powerful, — and 
 instead of a luxury of feeling to which we were in 
 nowise entitled, we might have had an honourable 
 purpose that would have justified itself. All unkept 
 promises, that came from a righteous impulse when 
 they were spoken, are examples of the willingness of 
 the Spirit and the weakness of the Flesh. 
 
 To confound God's inspirations with our own good- 
 ness, leads to failure in another way. Knowing the 
 reality of the impulse, the desire of the spirit, and 
 unconsciously accrediting ourselves with it, we are not 
 led to suspect the poverty or insufftciency of our efforts 
 in its service. Conscious of what we have felt, we 
 attribute the willingness to ourselves, the failure to 
 circumstance ; whereas the momentary willingness was 
 from God, and the practical failure was entirely our 
 own. We colour our poor being with the glory of the 
 great and merciful thoughts which God puts into us ; 
 whilst in reality nothing is ours but the personal 
 sacrifice we have made, the labour we have given, the 
 
 / 
 
122 The Spirit, willing, the Flesh weak, 
 
 amount of conscientious will we have put forth against 
 disabling weakness ; and in judging of this, we must 
 not add to it the prompting of the spirit, but rather 
 weigh the prompting against the work, to see if the 
 practical effort which alone is ours, is adequate to the 
 inspiration which is entirely God's. 
 
 Take the case of Benevolence, for example ; not in 
 the form of casual, self-relieving charity which eases 
 the pain of sympathy by unconscientious alms, but 
 of that considerate and effective help, not without 
 sacrifice, which produces large results — by full and 
 well-timed aid restores a family to the opportunities 
 from which by inevitable pressure they were sinking, 
 or confers at once a new power and scope of action on 
 some important undertaking. How often do we con- 
 clude with ourselves, knowing the desire of the Spirit, 
 that we have really gone to the limits of our means, 
 to the limits of prudence, and yet find that it requires 
 only the will of the Flesh to be excited, some inclina- 
 tion that we dare not in comparison identify with the 
 Spirit of God, to make the available means appear in 
 the requisite abundance ! A picture, an ornament, an 
 entertainment, an article of refinement or luxury, a 
 journey of pleasure, after our charity has, as we think, 
 been strained, will draw from us what would warm 
 the life of some good endeavour, and place us, as the 
 world reckons such things — for in matters of pecuniary 
 generosity the world sells great reputations very^ 
 
The Spirit willing, the Flesh weak. 123 
 
 cheaply — in the ranks of munificent benefactors. Not 
 that the work of art, or the kixury, or the journey of 
 pleasure, are wrong in themselves ; there is nothing in 
 all this world that is wrong in itself except as it is in 
 conflict with something that is better. There is nothing 
 in our nature, or in all the desires of our nature, ce;-- 
 tainly not in the infirmities of the flesh, which is wrong 
 in itself, provided it keeps its place — provided what is 
 lower does not encroach upon what is higher — pro- 
 vided that, by choice of a worse when a better is before 
 us, we do not forfeit the benediction, " Blessed is he who 
 condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth ! " 
 II. The willing spirit is betrayed by infirmity when, 
 leaving the weaker nature unconsidered, we do not 
 provide for the difference between the ideal, or distant, 
 contemplation of difficult action, and the unexpected 
 resistance v/hich suddenly makes its appearance when 
 the action has to be done. We fail in action because 
 we have not foreseen the defalcation of the feeble, 
 shrinking, capricious instruments by which, or with 
 the consent of which, all difficult action has to be 
 performed, — the loosened nerves, the reluctant brain, 
 the faint heart, the exhausted or slothful body craving 
 its own indulgence. These, if no watchful guard of 
 prayer has stood above them, to anticipate inaction 
 and suppress rebellion, will assuredly in the moment 
 of execution refuse their part of the task, and mock 
 the visionary purpose of the soul. There is a serene 
 
 ^ 
 
124 The Spirit willing ^ the Flesh weak. 
 
 and lustrous state of spirit when we contemplate life 
 and duty without immediate reference to practical 
 difficulties : the friction of circumstance is not present ; 
 our weakness is not felt, for action is not then required ; 
 the images of hope and possibility come delightfully 
 near to us out of the ideal future ; they take defined 
 forms and float in tranquil light ; and if we only 
 remembered, in that hour of clear inward vision, that 
 all the conditions of the problem of possession were 
 not then before us, that there is another and a weaker 
 self which yet has to be the agent in the works of the 
 spirit, that only through its service and sacrifice can 
 the soul execute its purpose, we might bring our 
 whole being under the same dominion, place both our 
 strength and our weakness under the guardian Hand 
 of God, and win the humble confidence that in the 
 crisis of trial no unexpected enemy could rise up and 
 cast us down. I suppose most of us have had expe- 
 rience of the different aspects under which a difficult 
 duty appears, when viewed calmly over-night, and 
 when brought bodily into the practical glare of the 
 next day. Whatever is the point of difficulty, — a con- 
 fession to be made, a painful question to be plainly 
 asked, a weakening connection to be decisively broken, 
 a doubtful way that opens or closes our future to be 
 questioned where it leads, a real sacrifice that con- 
 science suggests, but which man could not ask, to be 
 made secure against our possible shrinkings and weak- 
 
The Spirit willing'y the Flesh weak. 125 
 
 ness by the one bold word that commits us to it, — 
 how many have thrown away their peace, reputation 
 and most blessed hopes, cast their earthly fate out 
 of their own hands, solely from the difference in the 
 character of their resolutions between the evening and 
 the morning, between the time when the Spirit spoke 
 alone, and the time when the Spirit and the Flesh 
 mixed their counsels ! It is related in the histoiy of 
 the Martyrs, that some sought that glory with so false 
 a zeal, that they never remembered the feeble, sensi- 
 tive nature that had to suffer until the pains of death 
 stood before them, and then, trembling and terror- 
 struck, sunk into compliance with the persecutors 
 mandate. And that is precisely the case with all of 
 us who suffer the willingness of the Spirit to be 
 betrayed by the weakness of the Flesh : we will not 
 prepare ourselves to be martyrs, witnesses for God. 
 
 III. The willing Spirit is often defeated by more 
 definite infirmity. There may be a weakness, or even 
 a vice, in the character, which, though it resists and 
 obscures the directions of the Spirit, does not alto- 
 gether destroy them. Some one self-indulgence may 
 taint a multitude of noble qualities, not killing them, 
 but spoiling them of their fruits. One unguarded 
 part of us will at a critical moment make our whole 
 strength like water, and leave us nothing but the con- 
 sciousness of ineffectual desires and the bitterness of 
 shame. All that we hold most dear may be rendered 
 
 / 
 
126 The Spirit willifig, the Flesh weak. 
 
 impossible to us by rixox^fits of weakness. The desire 
 of the heart may be prevented by an angry word, a 
 haughty look, a passing temper. The purpose of a 
 life may be defeated by the sluggard's bed, by aimless 
 absence of mind, by an unguarded stupor of the soul 
 in the moment of need for vigilant promptitude and 
 energy, as when the disciples slept in Gethsemane, 
 and awoke, panic-stricken, to forsake their Lord, with 
 whom they would not watch and pray. 
 
 Sometimes the infirmity that undermines the great 
 aims of existence, and keeps us for ever on the lower 
 rounds of ambition's ladder, is an indulged shrinking 
 from patient industry in the slow steps by which the 
 foundations of intellectual strength are laid. Many 
 are the cases in which the eager spirit dreams of 
 eminence and might achieve it, but the light nature 
 recoils from application, and even the elements of 
 mental power are left unmastered. How many of us 
 never know what rich things God has put into our 
 nature, what glorious possessions lie hidden thick and 
 clustered in the cells of thought, and live in ignorance 
 even of our own great faculties, because we will not work 
 those inward mines ! All who labour with the mind 
 know the fear and hopelessness with which any difficult 
 subject is at first approached, and the sudden light 
 that breaks upon it when the act of attention is long 
 sustained. And it is just that act of attention, the 
 sustaining of the spirit against the natural recoil of 
 
The Spirit willing, the Flesh zueak. 127 
 
 any weaker part, that makes all the difference between 
 success and failure, between greatness and nothing- 
 ness. 
 
 IV. And sometimes the willing spirit will, if un- 
 guarded, have its purpose and its peace snatched away 
 from it, not by an evil temptation, but as it were by 
 the Hand of God Himself, In storms of life and reverses 
 of fortune that seem to change the whole aspects of 
 existence. Death, coming at an unlooked-for time, 
 taking w^ithout a warning the strong mind that held 
 our weakness up — the loving heart, with which all 
 thoughts of earth's happiness were twined — overpower- 
 ing trouble so dark that death would brighten it — the 
 deep pollution of another coming very near our own 
 life — sudden trials of principle in new and abnormal 
 circumstances that shift our whole position, and render 
 inapplicable all ordinary habits of mind — these over- 
 throw many a character, or rather they test its sub- 
 stantial spirit, and prove what its insight, prayer, and 
 watchfulness had been. For even here It is still true 
 that " there hath no temptation taken us but such as 
 is common to man." We know that all these things, 
 in their most unexpected and terrible forms, are a 
 portion of God's ways with men, possibly therefore 
 within our own lot. We might break the keen edge 
 of their suddenness, and by prayer and watchfulness 
 have laid down " the way of escape, that we should be 
 -able to bear them." 
 
128 The Spirit willi^ig, the Flesh weak. 
 
 V. And if the willing spirit, goodness of purpose 
 and the inspiration of God, can fall before constitu- 
 tional infirmity left without a spiritual guard, what 
 shall we say of those who wilfully nurse the weakness 
 that degrades them, who not only neither watch nor 
 ^ pray against the lower nature, but solicit its tempta- 
 tions, provoke its passions, excite them when they 
 would slumber, until the body and the soul have sq 
 changed places that even the willingness of the spirit 
 disappears ! 
 
 One remark in the way of exposition: Christ is not 
 describing the peculiar case of the disciples, but the 
 general case of human nature. He is describing what 
 he understood to be his own case as well as theirs, and 
 he observed for himself the means of spiritual protec- 
 tion which he recommended to them. It is the pro- 
 perty of Spirit to be willing for all good things ; it is 
 the property of Flesh instinctively to withdraw itself 
 from strain and pain ; and the Spirit has unlimited 
 power in God of control over the lower and instru- 
 mental nature. By the exertion of that power, which 
 we always can exert if zve zvill, both Flesh and Spirit 
 reach a perfection and beatitude otherwise unattain- 
 able by either. This no doubt involves an account of 
 the origin of sin the direct opposite of that which pre- 
 vails. Christ says, "the Spirit is willing," that the 
 child is born a member of the kingdom of heaven ; 
 St. Paul says, " God is ever working in us," so that sin 
 
The Spirit willing, the Flesh weak. 129 
 
 consists in the weakness that suffers His prompting's 
 to plead in vain. And whether this is not the true 
 account of his own evil, that he sins against the sug- 
 gestions of the Holy Spirit in him, let every man ask 
 his own heart. 
 
 And in whatever respect we have had experience .of 
 infirmity, in whatever direction our weakness appears, 
 we know that spiritual power is unlimited, and that 
 we can, if zue zuill, make the lower nature the servant 
 and instrument of the Spirit. It is a question for \ 
 the Will alone, in persevering co-operation with the 
 Spirit of God. And at least, in every hour of danger, 
 in every crisis of life, before going where we know that 
 temptations lie in wait, before venturing upon seas on 
 v/hich the treasures of faith and conscience may be 
 strewn like wrecks upon the waters, shall we not hear 
 our Lord pleading with us his own example — "What! 
 could you not watch with me one hour .^ Watch and 
 pray, that ye enter not into temptation : the spirit 
 indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." 
 
 For be it ever remembered that Christ feared and ^ 
 trembled in his previsions and meditations, and no- 1 
 where else — when the danger was yet absent, never / 
 when it was present. How wonderful, indeed, is the 
 self-knowledge he displayed — that he, who was never 
 betrayed by infirmity, should so arm himself against 
 it, in those great hours of inspiration when weakness 
 does not naturally appear, and others arc apt to re- 
 
130 The Spirit willing, the Flesh iveak. 
 
 member nothing but their intentions and their strength ! 
 He knew what is in man, and how it is that God per- 
 fects His strength in our weakness, and makes His 
 grace sufficient for us. 
 
IX. 
 
 Cimtm^tetti:^, ''t\u wmpfxtMl gad/' 
 
 Matt. xxiv. 26 : 
 
 " If they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert ; go not forth : 
 behold, he is in the secret chambers ; believe it not. For as the light- 
 ning Cometh out of the East, and shineth even unto the West, so shall 
 also the coming of the Son of Man be." 
 
 There is a natural tendency, from which the pre- 
 sent age with its vaunted culture is not free, to put 
 faith in material agencies as causes of results in no 
 intelligible connection with them. Our moral secu- 
 rities are mainly mechanical ; mind is becoming a 
 department of physics ; and the searchers into the 
 mysteries of thought and the special facts of the invi- 
 sible world conduct their inquiries through material 
 media. These are the gold-seekers and alchemists of 
 the modern world ; and their first principle is, that 
 physical conditions and processes are our spiritual 
 illuminators. 
 
 In Education, the old faith in an exact training, a 
 vigorous discipline of mind, has been yielding to a 
 growing confidence in the dexterous appliance of 
 favourable circumstances. The old idea, that the true 
 
132 Cwcimistance, ''the iinspirihial godr 
 
 method was through the effort of the pupil, and the 
 fittest subjects for its exercise and richest results the 
 abstract sciences and the severest forms of language, 
 has been passing into the belief that the effort belongs 
 to the teacher, that the pupil, without toiling to acquire, 
 may be made to receive, and that the fitting matter 
 for this method is the communication of facts, as if 
 the current coin of general knowledge available in the 
 world, not the development of faculty and power, was 
 the object of the school. 
 
 In Medicine, it seems the general impression that 
 where nothing is known, nothing is unlikely ; that 
 where all things are possible, or not shown to be im- 
 possible, a trial of anything cannot be refused ; that 
 nothing in the way of remedy can be so apparently 
 unreasonable as to exempt from the obligation of 
 giving it a chance ; and that to desire an explanation 
 before you are committed to new expedients, is a fatal 
 pedantry. But here, as everywhere, to have to look 
 for Circumstance without a law of guidance, is to leave 
 the spirit without peace. 
 
 In political and social life appears the same easy 
 faith in the power of Circumstance to produce radical 
 good, as, for instance, that by a physical arrangement 
 of the machinery of elections, both true and precious 
 results may be obtained from those on whose political 
 morality, patriotism, honour or honesty, there is no 
 reliance. 
 
Ch'cumstance, ''the nnspiritnal god'' 133 
 
 Still more painfully in its own realm of spiritual 
 reason has the reasonable spirit been dethroned, by 
 unnatural attempts to reach the invisible through 
 bodily manifestations, from which it is difficult not to 
 revolt with a mixed protest of the understanding and 
 the soul, in earnest effort to turn away the hearts of 
 men from outward refuges of lies to those inward laws 
 of our eternal life and light which are the methods of 
 the spirit, and never will abate one tittle of their severe 
 and serene enactments. 
 
 The same mechanical reliances, trusting for inward 
 good to outward accidents, are manifested in relation 
 to the moral health of individuals. Circumstance, 
 " that unspiritual god," * is with many their first and 
 last hope ; change of scene, of occupation, of external 
 condition, the only regenerating influence they dis- 
 tinctly recognize. They think to exhibit spiritual 
 results from other than spiritual sources, and by re- 
 arranging a man's lot to transform his character. Not 
 in the power of the Will over self and over circum- 
 stance, but in the power of favourable circumstances 
 over it, lies their expectation of a new life. But it is 
 a blind game ; Heaven only knows what are favour- 
 able circumstances, — and it is not in that direction, 
 but in the ruling and nourishment of his own spirit, 
 that God has given to man knowledge and power, 
 and placed his responsibility. 
 
 * Lord Byron. 
 
134 Ciracmstaiice, " the mispiritual god!' 
 
 Yet, hope from Circumstance is not without large 
 reason, and its abuse perhaps is partly the temporary 
 reaction sure to spring from the long neglect of natural 
 laws. Certainly there is a mighty power in Circum- 
 stance, and as certainly there has often been an igno- 
 rant and cruel forgetfulness of that fact, a rigid exaction 
 of the tale of work from minds either incapacitated b}^ 
 constitution, or subject tohard and witheringinfluences 
 or otherwise placed under impossible conditions. 
 But to yield to Circumstance its full power, both in 
 opening and in shutting the heart of man, is very far 
 from conceding that there is no power above Circum- 
 stance, or from sinking into the dreary materialism 
 that God, instead of living and moving in our souls 
 only touches us from without. Doubtless the vices 
 of men often come from their circumstances ; but as 
 doubtless the great virtues of men are in the direct 
 face of Circumstance, and inward strength of Will is 
 more at our own command than outward facilities or 
 exemptions from temptation. 
 
 Reliance on Circumstance, on " the unspiritual god," 
 has for its natural fellow the common system of excuses 
 which finds the explanation of evil in the element of 
 temptation. But i temptation is an occasion, not a 
 cause, and no more an occasion for shameful trans- 
 gression than for magnanimous duty. Since the first 
 man said, " It was the woman did it," the men of 
 Adam's mould have not been ashamed to acknowledsj-e 
 
Circwnstance, "the tmspiritttal god!' 135 
 
 that, when tempted, in their own soul was no virtue, 
 in their own will no resistance. If temptations justify 
 sin, then the spiritual life, and Christianity, and man's 
 strength in God, are words that signify nothing ; for 
 no man could sin if no man was tempted, and only 
 in resistance to the tempter can the spirit's allegiance 
 have existence or exercise. A Christian man, indeed, 
 when most strict with himself, will yet be tender to 
 another, not knowing all the case ; but what if our 
 tenderness relax that other's strength, — though it is 
 not tenderness, but only looseness and remissness, that 
 will have this effect. Let our tenderness spring freely 
 from our justice, our humility, our self-knowledge, our 
 generous insight, but never from a relaxed holiness, 
 an ungodly concession to the might of Circumstance. 
 No reasonable man will deny that Circumstance ought 
 to be considered, and wisely marshalled, and tenderly 
 dealt with, — but every spiritual man will deny that it 
 ought to rule, or that to it ever can belong the right 
 to shrive and justify. It was not denied that man 
 lives by bread, when it was declared that he lives not 
 by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
 out of the mouth of God, by every inspiration from on 
 high, every holy prompting, every exalting hope, every 
 sense of responsibility to the Source of our being, and 
 that from these is drawn an order of strength that 
 comes not from food or wine. " I have meat to eat 
 that ye know not of" 
 
136 Circiunstance, ''the tmspiritiial god!' 
 
 The same spirit of outward dependence is shown 
 in the undue importance attached to what is called 
 Experience. It would appear a general belief that all 
 valuable wisdom comes from an extensive acquaint- 
 ance with men and things, and knowledge of life, as it 
 is more to be trusted than the great primal teachers, 
 the authoritative voices in our nature, the original 
 shapings and directions of our being, the whispers and 
 leadings of God. " The wisdom that is from above," 
 the wisdom from within, is a fountain of goodness, 
 " full of mercy and of all good fruits." It. would not 
 be untrue to say, that in all essential things Expe- 
 rience is the teacher only of fools, of those who have 
 gone astray through turning a deaf ear to the voice of a 
 prior and more legitimate teacher. There are invaluable 
 lessons of life — much skill, much helpfulness, knowledge 
 of where the need is and sympathy should be — which 
 Experience alone can supply ; but alas for him who 
 has got his virtues from his experience of life, for then 
 his first experiences must have been of wrong-doing, 
 and his later experience but the corrector of errors, or 
 of vices, through penal consequences. To our spiritual 
 being the experience of life is not the fountain of 
 right, the source of law, though it ever confirms and 
 seals with its testimony the teachings of nature and 
 of God. In these fundamental things, he who, con- 
 stfc^ined by Experience, at last " comes to himself!' 
 has first fled from himself ; he who, coerced by trouble 
 
Circtunstance, ''the unspirittcal god!' 137 
 
 reduced to the coarse and bitter husks of a wasted 
 life, says at last, " I will arise, and go to my Father," 
 has first known, and been obdurate to, his Father's 
 voice. That " Honesty is the best Policy " is a teach- 
 ing of Experience ; but it was well said, that he 
 who has waited for this experience to teach him 
 honesty, or who is honest only in the faith of this 
 experience, the first began his course in knavery, and 
 the second remains a knave at heart. It is not know- 
 ledge of the world that makes a child's heart shrink 
 from meanness, falsehood, dishonour : this wisdom is 
 not borrowed from Experience, but that which shapes 
 Experience when it is best shaped. It would be dan- 
 gerous error to inculcate on the young, as a lesson in 
 modesty, such deference to older experience as might 
 v/eaken their reliance on the primal teachings of God. 
 In no way has spiritual life been so much dwarfed, 
 severed from its feeding spring, as by the substitution 
 of the wisdom of man for the fresh inspirations of God. 
 In truth, in the highest things experience of life is not 
 our guide, but rather the touchstone of our weakness, 
 for we all degenerate, if not from the attainments, cer- 
 tainly from the ideals of our youth. The best man is 
 worse than his thought ; and the worst has not extin- 
 guished the inciting light that lighteth every man that 
 Cometh into the world. Experience is a mighty helper, 
 but sometimes a timid counsellor, an unspiritual leader. 
 ■Often the wisest counsel, that which alone subdues the 
 
138 Circumstance, ''the tmspirittial god!' 
 
 difficulty, is the simplest utterance of sincerity and 
 truth, a wisdom that comes from babes. Nor when 
 experience is most helpful does it supply the moving 
 power it wisely directs. It gives fitness for functional 
 offices, makes a man a good servant of special work, 
 but not from it are the issues of life, with the generous 
 heart, the noble purpose, the desire and impulse after 
 things good and honourable on which all other fitnesses 
 are moulded. To the uncorrupted, the use of Expe- 
 rience is not to impart principles of life, but to aid in 
 the application of them ; and he is the nearest to God, 
 the readiest disciple of His Spirit, who for the former 
 purpose needs the least of it, who remains for ever, as 
 Christ said he was born, a member of the kingdom of 
 heaven. Even a knowledge of men, as distinguished 
 from a knowledge of man, comes not so much from, 
 acquaintance with the world, as from self-knowledge, 
 the reading and searching of our own spirit. The 
 \/ faithfulness of Shakespere's portraits, drawn from all 
 
 regions of life, is not owing to their being transcripts 
 from a world-wide experience, but from his insight 
 into the laws and possibilities of the nature in himself. 
 The keys of sympathy are with him who knows every 
 secret of his own heart And hence the obligation 
 to individuality of life ; hence our exemption from 
 dependence on accidental advantages for our spiritual 
 peace, grace and treasure ; hence our direct account- 
 ability to God for the highest demands He makes 
 
Circumstance, '' the tmspiritttal gody 139 
 
 upon those whom He calls to His service ; hence the 
 privilege of youth to impress the law of its own con- 
 science upon Experience, not as subject to it, but as 
 framer and master over it ; hence, too, the respect 
 which all men owe to youthful aspiration, until the 
 respect has been forfeited, the aspiration dishonoured, 
 by moral infidelity. 
 
 The same unreal dependence on Circumstance is 
 shown in the exaggerated importance ascribed to 
 peculiar advantages of education in the formation of 
 eminently endowed minds. There is, indeed, except 
 with those to whom God has given the irrepressible 
 power of genius, a certain amount of culture necessary 
 to excite the natural fertility of the soil, and to this 
 extent development may depend on Circumstance ; 
 but once education has gone so far as to give a man 
 the idea of self-culture, to reveal to him his own nature 
 and his responsibilities to it, there are no essential 
 advantages, aids or incitements, which he may not 
 find, or draw, within his reach. Biography abounds 
 in the conquests and resources of self-made men. No' 
 one moved from within to the development of genius,. 
 or bent on the acquirement of special knowledge, was 
 ever stopped by the want of outward appliances. 
 There is, indeed, a culture which is mere deposit on the 
 surface of the mind from intercourse with the society 
 • of whose life and ideas we partake, and is literally 
 a product of circumstances ; but for a man once 
 
140 Circitmstance, ''the tmspiritual godr 
 
 awakened there is no indispensable help, even in the 
 highest directions, which God has not placed within 
 reach of us all. What the Prophet said of the great 
 principles of life, is true also of whatever is essential 
 for the growth of those principles, that it is not neces- 
 sary to go up to heaven for them, nor over the seas, for 
 that they are very nigh to us, even in our hearts, that 
 we should know them and do them. Within these 
 limits, the influences that build up the loftiest cha- 
 racter, or nourish the richest seeds of intellectual life 
 and beauty, are near, around, and within us all. And 
 in this, Experience itself teaches us a great lesson of 
 humanity, of brotherhood, destructive of class pride 
 and class distinctions — that the most favoured in out- 
 ward advantages are not so far removed from their 
 fellow-men as they may think, or fear, they are ; for, if 
 only the spiritual eye is open, whatever is indispensable 
 for our blessedness or our perfectness lies close to the 
 common nature and also to the common lot of us all. 
 All the glories of outward nature are revealed in every 
 landscape, in every sky, in every sunset, to whoever 
 has cherished the inward sense, learned to look with 
 his spirit through his eyes, and mused till "the fire 
 burned," anywhere on God's creation. To all such, 
 what the poet says of the healing power of the 
 simplest natural influences over the impressible heart 
 and tender spirits of the convalescent, a charm un- 
 
Circumstance, ''the nnspij^ittial gody 141 
 
 noticed in the season of rude health and pre-occupied 
 
 thoughts, is true at all times : 
 
 " The meanest floweret of the vale, 
 The simplest note that swells the gale. 
 The common earth, the air, the skies, 
 To him are opening paradise." * 
 
 Even the influences which are most peculiar, as 
 belonging not to Nature but to Art, are yet denied 
 to none, for every one who meditates on beauty, who 
 contemplates ideals, is in soul an artist. The outward 
 embodiment, the sensible reality in space, is not neces- 
 sary to the inward power of the thought. The arche- 
 types are in the mind, and only shaped, and to others 
 made visible, by the tool. And so the spirit of man, 
 " partaking of the Divine Nature," in imagination goes 
 beyond the earthly workmanship of God, and ventures 
 without impiety — nay, out of its piety, its worship of 
 the perfect — to conceive of a beauty not realized on 
 earth. Christ said of a man who spoke out of the 
 intuitions of his uncorrupted nature, that he was not 
 far from the kingdom of God ; and so, none of us need 
 be far in any direction from the sources of all perfect- 
 ness. Nature herself only expresses in outward form 
 some of the possibilities that through her God suggests 
 to all. It is not denied — far from it — that the full 
 presence of the outward influence, in Art or Nature, 
 may be a signal blessing, as the touch of Christ, the 
 
 * Gray. 
 
142 Ciiximistance, ^' the unspiritual godr 
 
 sight, the sense of his goodness, may awaken a soul 
 sinking into moral insensibility, and exalt to new 
 heights the hopes and visions of the best, — but only 
 that to no one once awakened can the outward circum- 
 stance necessitate, or justify, an arrest of growth. All 
 the influences that have led to all the heroism of the 
 world, to all the greatness of history, lie in the primi- 
 tive suggestions of the pure in heart, and no man has 
 succeeded in expressing half the beauty that is in the 
 heart of the " little child " of Christ. What is most 
 needed for moral greatness is the simplicity to avow, 
 the courage to maintain, the primal dictates. And so it 
 is the highest result of old age to return to the heart 
 of childhood, to verify, through trial, chastenings and 
 corrections, the original teachings of God, even as it 
 will be the highest result of Christianity itself to bring 
 at last the whole world to the issues of Abraham's 
 faith, through which he believed God and was His 
 friend. And we must not say that to make good this 
 earliest forecast would be little to gain from all expe- 
 rience since, for it is everything, or contains every- 
 thing, to restore us to ourselves, to nature and to God, 
 to make us independent of things accidental, to open 
 perfectness on every spirit quickened from within, 
 and through experience itself to bring the solemn 
 conviction that we ourselves are the makers of expe- 
 rience, owing our responsibiHty to God because He 
 gives us of His own nature, and calls us to do the 
 
Ci7^citmsta7ice, ''the inispiritual gody 143 
 
 works of our Father, — and, as Christians farther recog- 
 nize, has shown us the full type of life in giving us a 
 Son of God in our humanity. 
 
 And so Christianity itself, though requiring a certain 
 condition of human nature to become universal before 
 it reaches that completion of its tendencies which wijl 
 be the kingdom of God on earth, has always itself to 
 create the circumstances that aid its further progress. 
 By the action of Christ's life and faith on individual 
 hearts, Christianity has to call into existence the 
 conditions of its own growth. We sometimes hear 
 the question asked, " Is Christianity to regenerate the 
 world ? Or must we wait for some great social revo- 
 lution to create the circumstances in which Christianity 
 can begin to act ? " Vain is the hope, by any outward 
 changes or reconstructions of society, to expect a 
 sudden enhancement of Christianity to authorize the 
 cry, '' Lo, Christ is here ! " or, " Lo, Christ is there ! " 
 except so far as, here or there, the spirit of Christ is 
 becoming a moving and moulding power in individual 
 souls. We speak, in our vague, irresponsible way, as 
 if Christianity was now on earth a living person who 
 had undertaken the direction and government of 
 human affairs, and whom we are tempted to distrust 
 or forsake because of his failures. But the living 
 Christ is in heaven, and Christianity on earth lives and 
 acts in individual hearts by the spirit of the Comforter 
 to whom, in seeming defeat, he committed his work 
 
144 Chxunistance, ''the 2inspi7'itiial gocir 
 
 and himself, and saw of the travail of his soul and was 
 satisfied. You, all of us, every one who recognizes its 
 truth and takes its name, is now, each in his place 
 responsible, and alone responsible, for the fulness of 
 its action. We hear men ask, with a strange shallow- 
 ness, " Why does not Christianity, if it is true, effect 
 mxore than it does T Far more reasonably might they 
 ask, " Why does not God do more than He does with 
 this sinning and suffering world .-* " The real question 
 is, "Why do not ivc do more, with our faith in Chris- 
 tianity, and our faith in God ? " — and, 'What do our 
 deeds reveal of the character of that faith ? " It would 
 be well to lay to mind the simple truth, that there is 
 no Christianity in the world but the faith which the 
 spirit of the Comforter commends — in the Fatherly 
 grace of God ; the nearness of each to Heavenly care ; 
 the impress and imitableness of His holy Child ; in 
 the flow of mortal transition, the onward movement 
 of all humanity to immortal rest in God. These, the 
 leaven of the faith that works by love, make the Chris- 
 tianity to which we look for the kingdom of heaven 
 on earth ; and these come from no favouring circum- 
 stance, but from our acceptance of the witness of God 
 in, or against, whatever circumstance. " If any man 
 shall say to you, * Lo, here is Christ ! ' or ' Lo, there 
 is Christ ! ' believe him not. If they shall say to you, 
 * He is in the desert ; ' go not forth : or, ' Behold, 
 he is in the secret chambers ; ' believe it not. For as 
 
CirciLinstancc, ^^ the imsphntiial god!' 145 
 
 the lightning cometh out of the East, and shineth even 
 unto the West, so shall the comlns: of the Son of Man 
 be." As no man can hide, yet no man can mark, the 
 progress of the day, from dawn to noon, from noon to 
 glowing west, so is it with the coming of the Son of 
 Man, an imperceptible diffusion in which light is com- 
 municated from point to point, in seasonal colour from 
 infancy to age, each heart, each life, each spiritual emi- 
 nence that has caught the radiance, becoming a centre 
 of emanation until the knowledge of God shall flood 
 the earth as the waters cover the great deeps. To 
 compute the signs of Christ's coming is to number the 
 hearts that are filled with his wisdom, the lives trans- 
 figured by his spirit, that pass through the successive 
 phases of our mortality in some transparent fellowship 
 with him who lighted all the w^ays of life for every 
 man who cometh into the world. 
 
 And the resulting lesson of all these thoughts is, 
 that each of us should feel that our great responsibili- 
 ties are not so much derived from the circumstances 
 in which we are, hard or happy, genial or unnourishing, 
 as from the nature that God has given us, once quick- 
 ened to a knowledge of itself, its source and its end. 
 The insight of a pure heart will find a sufficiency of 
 all good and blessing, of all grace and ornament of 
 spirit, in the materials and opportunities of the most 
 common life. And not here nor there, not in this new 
 arrangement nor in that, must we look for Christ to 
 
 L 
 
146 Circumstance, ''the mispiritual god!' 
 
 come unto us, through some happy appHance to reheve 
 the spirit of its burden, but rather invoke and soHcit 
 him from within, and burn up the baser alloy of our 
 nature, the weak, low and sinning elements, in flames 
 of the Spirit's prompting love and cleansing fire. 
 Herein is the work assigned to the individual soul, to 
 have life in itself, to make our sphere, whatever it is, 
 sufficient for a reign of God within ourselves, for a true 
 and full reign of our Father's abounding Spirit- 
 thankful, unutterably thankful, if with the place and the 
 companionship assigned to us we are permitted to 
 build an earthly tabernacle of grace, and goodness, and 
 holy love, a home like a temple ; but, should this be 
 denied us, resolved for our own souls that God shall 
 reign there, for ourselves at least that we will not, by 
 sin, or disobedience, or impious distrust, break with our 
 own wills our filial connection with our Father — that 
 whether joyful or sorrowing, struggling with the per- 
 plexity and foulness of circumstance or in an atmo- 
 sphere of peace, Avhether in dear fellowship or alone, our 
 desire and prayer shall be that God may have in us a 
 realm where His will is law, and where obedience and 
 submission spring, not from calculating prudence or 
 ungodly fear, but from communion of spirit, ever 
 humble aspiration, and ever loving trust. The elements 
 of Jiappiness in this present life no man can command, 
 even if he could command himself, for they depend 
 on the action of many wills, on the purity of many 
 
Circumstance, ''the ttnspirittial god!' 147 
 
 hearts, and by the highest law of God the holiest 
 must ever bear the sins and sorrows of the rest ; but 
 over the blessedness of his own spirit Circumstance 
 need have no control ; God has therein given an 
 unlimited power to the means of preservation, of 
 grace and growth, at every man's command. We 
 know the Beatitudes of Christian life : and these are 
 so far from being a product of Circumstance, that 
 only against the contradiction, and in the conquest 
 of. Circumstance do they reach their heights. 
 
 We can all be, if we will, and at our will, not indeed 
 great and profitable servants, mighty ministers of His 
 that excel in strength, but meek spirits hearkening to 
 the voice of His word, faithful children that love His 
 rule, and, notwithstanding the complexity of circum- 
 stance and of sorrow, the peace of God is ever given 
 not as the world giveth, and passeth understanding. 
 
X. 
 
 Proverbs xiv, lo : 
 
 **Thc heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not 
 intermeddle -with his joy." 
 
 There is less of Joy, more of Bitterness, in life 
 than the visible circumstance would lead us to expect. 
 Why is it that with so many of the elements of happy 
 being — with multitudes to whom all the necessaries of 
 existence are as things secure — with buoyant energies, 
 and countless interests, and a field of work, and God's 
 sure laws — with a limit to the power of sorrow over 
 us, and no limit to the joy and hope of a spiritual 
 being — there is yet so much of sadness and dissatis- 
 faction over life, so much of troubled and constrained 
 existence whose signs are written on the faces of men, 
 but whose causes lie concealed in the hidden places of 
 their souls ? Nothing will account for this but som.e 
 derangement of the spiritual nature, conscious or un- 
 conscious. By how slight a thing is peace spoiled I 
 How nearly won ! How narrowly lost ! Observe the 
 multitudes of men — see the outward smoothness and 
 
Heart Secrets of Joy mid Bitterness, 149 
 
 promise — strip the coverings from their hearts — look 
 for the drop of bitterness that turns their food to 
 poison ! What Is it ? In most cases it is sin — sin in 
 some form, a sin of our own, or the sin of another ; 
 and If not a sin which we can touch and define, yet 
 that measure of sin which denies us the feeling- of 
 fellowship with God, of having no barrier of separation 
 raised by ourselves between us and Heaven. It is 
 true that the sin which brings our sadness may grow 
 out of our circumstances — that is, it may not spring 
 from evil desires which we purpose to indulge, but 
 from difficulties that our strength cannot cope with, 
 that our wills cannot conquer, that our wisdom recoils 
 from in confusion and despair ; yet, when we fail so 
 to deal with the elements of spiritual life and service 
 placed at our disposal as to keep our souls within the 
 shinings of God's light and love, if our want of energy 
 is want of self-denial, there is no distinction between 
 deserting God and yielding to circumstance. And 
 in fact the energy not to desert the Right, as God 
 shows it to us, is all that is essential to peace. If the 
 inward law has been kept, God will rescue us from 
 bitterness, though we have had no outward success, 
 no imm.edlate victory over the erring, suffering, or sin- 
 ning souls cast in our way or bound In with our course 
 of life ; for Christ himself had not that kind of success. 
 What is essential is something of the consciousness of 
 Christ, that our failure is not owing to permitted sin, 
 
150 Hccwl Secrets of Joy and Bitterness. 
 
 to low insensibility, to the absence of holy desire or 
 strenuous endeavour. Strange is the blessedness of 
 those hearts which in utmost failure can feel that they 
 have not wilfully disunited themselves from God ! 
 Their sorrows are as the sorrows of the Man of Sorrows, 
 the sorrows of earnest love, wounded in its sympathies, 
 disappointed in its nearer hopes, but with no bitterness 
 and with no despair. 
 
 Let us seek for some of the sources of Bitterness. 
 They are common to us all. No man is free from 
 them, though the manner and the measure of their 
 power is the secret of the individual. 
 
 I. Is it too much to say that there is a root of evil 
 in every man, known only to himself? Is it general- 
 izing beyond our justifying grounds if we charge 
 upon every heart some secret sin. Well, if it were 
 not so, we must think that the instinct of joy which 
 is natural to unaccusing hearts, the presence and the 
 vision of God which is the Beatitude of the pure, 
 would more often than it does flow forth in irrepres- 
 sible serenity, and make earth like to heaven. We 
 infer from the general absence of peace, the general 
 absence of spiritual order. And if a man looks into 
 himself, he knows that for himsetf he could unveil 
 the secret. Each of us could tell the well-known 
 way which the perverted thoughts will take when we . 
 are thrown upon ourselves in silence and solitude. 
 Each of us could tell the canker, the miserable heart- 
 
Heari Secrets of Joy and Bittemiess. 151 
 
 burning-, the lost rest in God, the broken reed of self, 
 which often in the watches of the night takes all 
 holiness from the time, and troubles the stillness and 
 the darkness. Is there not some root of Bitterness, 
 some vice, some soreness, some ignoble wound, some 
 infirmity, some unhappiness of temper, which ,we 
 loathe, but to which we return as slaves, and cannot 
 break our chain ? How little does the world know 
 us ! And how little do we know the world ! We 
 guess neither the loftinessj nor the lowness, of those who 
 are around us. How much of wisdom and of good- 
 ness may be united to a weakness and a littleness 
 which theorists would pronounce to be incompatible 
 and impossible ! How many grave and honoured 
 men Avould be covered with shame if compelled to 
 disclose the small things that sting their conscience 
 and discompose their peace ! Haman could not 
 possess his soul in quiet as long as Mordecai sat at 
 the king's gate ! How many shadows of evil passions, 
 of some envy, resentment, or unmastered pride, haunt 
 our secret chambers and pollute our thoughts ! Is it 
 from a childlike trust in the inexhaustible measures 
 of God's compassion, or is it from insensibility to His 
 holy Presence, that we so carefully hide from men 
 what we know to be quite open to Him ? These 
 bitternesses the heart knows, and God knows ; and 
 both know that they could not be if our humiliation 
 had with us its perfect work — if it so taught us to 
 
152 Heart Secrets of Joy and Bitterness, 
 
 know our weakness that we took security against our 
 evil, and, escaping from our meaner selves, found our 
 true selves in the constancy of our communion with 
 the Holy Source of peace. 
 
 11. There are roots of a^ Bitterness that cannot be 
 communicated, in the sense of our responsibility both 
 for the character and for the happiness of others. 
 We are all centres of influence — powers of God in 
 the world ; and very soon the circumstances of our 
 life — claims for protection from those who come near 
 to us, if they are weak — claims for co-operation in 
 noble service, if they are strong — determine the nature 
 of our responsibility. There is a period in life at 
 which this feeling can no longer be escaped. We 
 know that we are not at liberty to do what we please 
 with ourselves — not even to choose our own paths of 
 service — that there are other relations than those 
 between God and our own souls, and that God, often, 
 it may be, as consequences of our own acts and wills, 
 has charged us with them. It is the peculiar joy of 
 childhood that it is free from such sense of responsi- 
 bility ; it is not yet its brother's keeper ; the heavy 
 burden of the world's sins and sorrows it does not 
 touch with one of its rosy fingers. The awful pro- 
 blems of evil and wretchedness break not the uncon- 
 scious flow of its objective existence. Its thought of 
 God is perplexed by no fear that the dread shadows 
 which rest upon His Providence are all cast by the 
 
Heart Secrets of Joy and Bitterness. 153 
 
 guilt, selfishness and shortcomings of tLs, His fellow- 
 workers. How idly do they speak who think that all 
 care and woe, and sense of wrong in later life, is 
 owing to a virtue they have lost, dropped for ever on 
 the sunny slopes where their innocence dallied with 
 joyous nature, lay on the lap of earth drinking sin 
 unburdened life from God ! No ; it is not a virtue 
 which once we had and have lost, but a virtue which 
 had not then begun to assert its claims over us, that 
 makes the difference. The most critical moment in y 
 existence, could it be marked, would be that in which 
 vv^e pass out of a freedom from all moral anxiety 
 for others, into the solicitudes, obligations and self- 
 questionings of a responsible life, charged not with 
 ourselves alone, but \vith the virtue and the peace of 
 our fellows. There is nothing in a child's life that a 
 man might envy but its exemption from this — and 
 that not wisely ; but in times of failure and dis- 
 appointment, when those with whom our own spiritual 
 life is in any way bound up seem to be gliding away 
 from, all firm footing — when God puts the question, 
 *' Where is thy Brother } " and our souls cannot give the 
 clear answer — that we had done our best, and sacrificed 
 all for his integrity, and would have held him up at 
 the risk of being dragged down ourselves — or when 
 we see the souls of men passing to swift destruction, 
 falling into the open pits of the most obvious sins, 
 and reflect that, as they fall, each of them is a witness 
 
154 Heart Secrets of Joy and Bitte7niess. 
 
 to some failure of moral power in their brethren, 
 failure in the will, or in the wisdom, or in the energy 
 to save — then there is a bitterness, perplexed rather 
 than softened by the fact that w^e scarcely know to 
 what extent we are guilty, — a bitterness which tempts 
 us to think that there is nothing in the crown of our 
 manhood, nothing in our independence or our self- 
 dependence, that we would not thankfully exchange 
 for childhood's irresponsible life, when duty ceased and 
 conscience put no questions after we had rendered 
 obedience to the law of another's will. 
 
 We know, indeed, that the responsibility which is 
 the source of so much bitterness is also the source of 
 all our nobleness. But to have God's holy Love for 
 ever inciting you, and no interpreter of what His 
 Love would have you to do but the experience of 
 your own conscience — to know not how much or how 
 little it demands on behalf of those "who are perishing 
 or ready to perish — this breaks the peace of those 
 whose spiritual susceptibility is beyond the measure 
 of their clear discernment, or of their energy of action. 
 In the visions of the night the images of the living, 
 the shadows of the dead, pass in array before their 
 souls, and seem to bear v/itness against them. This is 
 the characteristic moral difference between manhood 
 and childhood: this makes the sorrow of the one so 
 circumstantial and momentary, the sorrow of the 
 other so deep-rooted in spiritual ground. To these 
 
Heart Secrets of yoy and Bitterness. 155 
 
 two periods, of unburdened freedom and of tasked ^ 
 solicitude, might be applied the Apostle's words, "I 
 was alive zuitJioiit the Law once ; but when the Com- 
 mandment came, sin awoke and I died ; " for the life 
 of childhood appears so spontaneous and free because 
 as yet the spirit of no law makes indefinite demands 
 upon it ; and the life of man so troubled and full of 
 reproach, because the Will and Love of God, the 
 spirit of life in Christ Jesus, has laid its boundless 
 claim upon us. 
 
 It is well that there should be a season when our 
 nature grows out of itself without the sense of oppres- 
 sive obligation ; yet would it not be well to escape 
 liability to suffering by deferring too long the period 
 of responsibility. A burdened childhood is unnatural ; ^ 
 but youth taking no charge but of its own pleasures 
 is of wretched promise, and most difficult is the tran- 
 sition to a true life. The arrogance of enjoyment, the 
 appropriation of so much without some sacred feeling 
 of thankfulness and charge. Is indeed to store the 
 roots of bitterness, an infatuated rudeness towards 
 Providence, full of ominous forecastlngs of the lessons 
 by which Heaven, In its severe mercy, will have to 
 check the unchastened insolence of nature in its 
 animal recklessness and pride. 
 
 IIL There is, I suppose, some bitterness to all men, 
 a sorrow not easily communicated, in the disappoint- 
 ment which experience brings of their ideal of life. 
 
156 Hca7^t Secrets of Joy and Bitterness. 
 
 The dreams of their youth have miscarried. They 
 are not to themselves, nor to the world, nor yet to 
 those to whom they are most, all that was once in 
 their purpose, perhaps in their power, to be. Life 
 dims the hope of a great vocation, of being in some 
 signal sense servants and agents of God, or, even when 
 the aim itself grows clearer, takes its fulfilment from the 
 present, removes the vision to a distance. Necessarily 
 so perhaps, for no true man can equal his aspiration. 
 If a man touched his mark in life, what would it show 
 but the meanness of his aim ? It is said of a great 
 sculptor that in his latter days he was found in bitter 
 weeping because in the execution of a work of creative 
 art he had satisfied himself, equalled his own concep- 
 tion, dejectedly lamenting that his exhausted genius 
 had departed from him. That his work was up to his 
 idea was to him a mark, not of the wonders of his 
 execution, but of the degradation of his thought : the 
 hand had outgrown the mind. Our bitterness, how- 
 ever, is not from exhausted but from unfulfilled ideals ; 
 and if instead of forgetting what is behind in ever 
 hopeful eftbrt to reach forth to what is before, to work 
 his thought outwards into life, a man gives himself a 
 prey to a pining self-consciousness, and sits down not 
 to redeem but to realize his disappointment, he eats 
 of the very roots of a bitterness that is not nourishing. 
 These secret sorrows are, in some guise, common to 
 men : — some besetting sin ; some fear that God may 
 
Heart Secrets of Joy and Bitterness. 157 
 
 require another's guilt or misery at our hands ; or, far 
 apart from all self-regarding fear, troubled thoughts of 
 those whom we are helpless to save ; some failure of 
 our own dream of life ; some fading away of visions 
 that once exerted over us a prophet's power ; and 
 perhaps we ought to add, some peculiarity of consti- 
 tution and moral nature which, like St. Paul's thorn 
 in the flesh, exposes us to trials and difficulties into 
 which others have no insight, — even as every man has 
 perhaps sone fitness and faculty, some comhinatioii of 
 qualities, peculiar to himself, which, if he would be 
 content wath it, and cultivate it faithfully, would open 
 to him an original career, and make the great dis- 
 tinction of his being. 
 
 I pass to some of the secret Joys with which a 
 stranger may not intermeddle — nay, which often cannot 
 be communicated even to those who of all the world 
 are the farthest removed from strangers. Such are all 
 the truest moments of spiritual life, the resorts of the 
 soul of God in joyful or in difficult times. Of the 
 relations of our own soul to God hardly may Ave speak 
 at all, and certainly not of its joys, lest we speak un- 
 wisely or presumptuously, and fall from God to self 
 in the act of speaking. Yet is there a peace which 
 passeth understanding, for it comes direct to the spirit 
 from the Source of life, and has no natural affinity 
 with the severe and trying circumstances which of 
 themselves could not have produced it. " I have meat 
 
158 Heart Secrets of Joy and Bitterness, 
 
 to eat," said Christ, " that ye know not of." Even In 
 the midst of outward failure, a consciousness of com- 
 munion with God's nature, of striving for ends dear to 
 Him, will bring a confidence of the ultimate success 
 of truth and righteousness, of purity and love, as alone 
 in accordance with that eternal and all-penetrating 
 Life which must in the end conform all things to itself. 
 The holiest feeling of security is not drawn from out- 
 ward triumphs or signs of coming changes, but from 
 that vision of the soul which sees directly into the 
 Mind of God and cannot doubt. What is a martyrdom, 
 but a great attestation serenely given to this spiritual 
 conviction and insight } Indeed, much might be 
 learned of the highest mysteries of man's nature in 
 the times of Its most real contact with Its Source, by 
 a close examination of the last hours and words of 
 those who have greatly died. There are many anec- 
 dotes of Illustrious men passing away by the block 
 and scaffold with strange words of almost playful joy. 
 This Is not to be deemed unseemly, far less unnatural : 
 It becomes us to observe, not pronounce beforehand as 
 though we had the measure and standard In ourselves, 
 ivhat is naturat to great spirits when they lay down 
 life rather than break their union with the living God, 
 or defile the temple of His Spirit by any unfaithful- 
 ness. The records of their deaths are our only means 
 of knowledge ; and certainly strangely cheerful have 
 been the last hours and words of many martyrs, and 
 
Heart Secrets of Joy and Bittej^ncss. 159 
 
 often in cases when faithfulness was perhaps loyalty 
 to honour rather than conscious loyalty to God — when 
 the instinct of honour was rather a root than a fruit of 
 religious faith. Not that this is a kind of death which 
 men ought to set before them as something to be 
 aimed at, but that, simply as observers of man, we 
 ought to know and admit that great natures in the 
 moments preceding a violent death can rise into a 
 state of serene thought, when the load of existence 
 is cast off, the burden dropped, and the spirit floats 
 in ether. It is not for us to call this unreal, because it 
 is a joy with which the stranger may not intermeddle ; 
 rather is it of the deepest interest to the most common 
 man that such is the natural action of the immediate 
 approach of dissolution on men of great soul, who 
 witness to a great faith, or are inspired by a great 
 purpose. 
 
 Will it be said that such was not the death of the 
 Son of Man .? True ; but only because his was greater, 
 only because there was in it a deeper sacredness, a 
 more intense fellowship, than entered into the cases 
 we have cited. They died for the cause they were 
 identified with, at peace with themselves, happy in 
 their own faithfulness. He died serene about himself, 
 but in travail of soul for all the world, full of solicitude 
 for the weak and trembling hearts in whom alone his 
 life survived. The spiritual condition of all around 
 him pressed too close upon the great question of the 
 
i6o Heart Secrets of Joy and Bitterness. 
 
 world's salvation, to permit his last moments to take 
 their hue only from the relations of his own soul to 
 God. There is therefore nothing in his death of the 
 joy of one who has thrown off the burden of earth, 
 who was released from the weary ways of men, for his 
 fellowship with humanity forbad all such rapture of 
 liberation ; but higher than this was the presence of 
 everything that was true at once to heaven and to 
 earth—" Behold ! thy Mother ! Behold ! thy Son ! " 
 " Father, forgive them : " " It is finished : " " Father, 
 into Thy hands I commend my spirit." 
 
 Sometimes Christian mourners seem to know a joy 
 with which strangers may not intermeddle. The more 
 passionate children of earth are tempted to impute 
 insensibility to those whose tears God holds back — to 
 those who from the first had put death and the eternal 
 trust into the contemplation of their hearts, and never 
 afterwards forgot the earthly tenure or the heavenly 
 issue. There is often a light on the brow of bereave- 
 ment, which the Avorldly mistake for cold composure. 
 The unchastened natures in whom the natural affec- 
 tions and sensibilities overpower spiritual insight and 
 reflection, do not appreciate, for they do not under- 
 stand, the quiet of a heart not in subjection to the 
 earthly aspects of trial. Strong human affections in 
 their union with the visible realities of this life so 
 absorb their being, that their union with the invisible 
 realities of God seem to be not so much heavenly as 
 
Heart Scorts of Joy and Bittejniess. 1 6 1 
 
 unearthly and unnatural. Yet Christ indicated the 
 parting benediction which the good leave with us in 
 their hour of death — " If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, 
 for I go to my Father," — not the warm gladness of 
 the heart, but the sacred peace of the spirit. 
 
 All real experiences of God's communion with our 
 nature partake of a joy with which a stranger cannot 
 intermeddle. To speak of them seems to betray a 
 divine secret, to make common the place where the 
 Most High condescends to meet us. At least we 
 cannot speak of such experience until it is gone. Our 
 souls have come down from the Mount before human 
 intercourse begins — and then we must speak of things 
 that were, rather than of things that are — for we are 
 quite alone when we are in true communion with God, 
 and prayer is as solitary as death. So powerfully is 
 this felt, that in the presence of the most expressive 
 symbols of God's Spirit, as in the more glorious parts, 
 or the more solemn hours, of the temple not made 
 with hands, silence is the frame of worship, and to 
 speak is to break the spell. A mind seems light and 
 trivial, untouched by awe and reverence, that can 
 obtrude its feeling when God Himself is finding 
 access to us, and nature melting away into a spiritual 
 consciousness of the Almighty's Presence. So in the 
 most intense moments of their inward life men do not 
 speak to one another their joy, their love, their trust, 
 or their awe : at the touch of imperfect speech we fall 
 
1 62 Heart Sec7xts of Joy and Bitterness, 
 
 out of our mystic fellowship ; instead of the divine 
 fact we have 'only its human representation, and a 
 consciousness of the most perfect sympathy seeks no 
 utterance of zvords. 
 
 Two great Lessons should remain with us : — one, 
 of the thoughtful consideration which may be due to 
 those whose secret griefs or latent difficulties we do 
 not know, and whose joys, inexplicable to us, we may 
 misinterpret. We are bad judges of the bitterness or 
 of the blessedness of another's life, for we see only 
 the surface even of circumstance, and know not what 
 may be beneath. How often do we judge and con- 
 demn as wilful sins the workings of disease that can- 
 not be mastered, and are the fit objects of a deep 
 compassion ! How many does the world deem 
 happy whose hearts are silently breaking ! How 
 many the families that seem blessed with all the 
 gifts of God, beneath the cover of whose roofs are 
 deeper woes, worse foes to love and peace, than 
 death, or pain, or hunger ! How many are the cir- 
 cumstances in which there is nothing so bitter as 
 congratulation, and nothing so stinging as praise ! 
 Why, then, should the tongues of men deal so lightly 
 Avith the deep mysteries of our joys or our virtues, 
 our griefs or our sins, our merits or our shame, not 
 reflecting how wide they are of the mark, or what 
 wounds they touch ? And why, with the knowledge 
 V that we have of ourselves and of pur own secrets, are 
 
Heart Secrets of Joy and Bitterness, 16 
 
 v) 
 
 we all so ready to sit in judgment upon others, as 
 though we knew them through and through, and held 
 them in the hollow of our hands ? 
 
 And the other great Lesson is, that we prize above 
 all price healthy natures, healthy minds, hearts and 
 habits; and they are healthy natures, and they oiily, 
 that seek communion for all their feelings — with man 
 when it is legitimate, but if not with man, then with 
 God. Alas for us if He is one of the strangers to whom 
 we cannot tell our griefs, and who does not inter- 
 meddle with our joys ! Alas for him who has a 
 bitterness within that he confesses neither to man 
 nor to God, but recounts to himself, and hides in 
 his heart ; for surely its roots must be in sin, or in 
 Avorldly discontent, or in morbid self-regard ! There 
 is no good reason that the most secret thing that is in 
 us, joy or woe, should not flow out to our fellow-men, 
 except that love for them, or sacredness and humility, 
 may stay our lips ; and there is no reason whatever 
 that it should not be poured into the bosom of God, to 
 be cleansed and removed, or approved and sanctified, 
 so that nothing shall remain but what the all-pitying 
 Father can take into nearer union with Himself. 
 
XL 
 
 llUvantir.^ milmit the ^\mi of %\ft 
 
 IMark X. 17 
 
 ** And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, 
 and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good ^Master, what shall I do that 
 I may inherit eternal life ? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou 
 me good ? There is none good but one, that is God. Thou knowest 
 the Commandments : Do not commit adultery, Do not kill. Do not steal. 
 Do not bear false witness, Defraud not. Honour thy father and thy 
 mother. And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I 
 observed from my youth. Then Jesus beholding him, loved him, and 
 said unto him. One thing thou lackest : go thy way, sell whatsoever 
 thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven : 
 and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that 
 saying, and went away grieved ; for he had great possessions." 
 
 In studying the Life of Christ, it is most quickening 
 to observe the breakings forth of what may be called 
 his natural character, extemporaneous expressions of 
 feeling showing how passing incidents affected him, 
 — connected rather with his involuntary, self-acting 
 temper, with the morality of his heart, the constant 
 climate of the soul, than with deliberate principle, or 
 finished outline, or severe proportion. How much is 
 there in every good man's life the omission of which 
 could not justly expose him to human censure, but 
 
Moralities luithotU the Spirit of Life. 165 
 
 the commission of which adds to his character exqui- 
 site beauty, and gives to all who witness it new revela- 
 tions of his heart ! How much more is laid open of 
 our determining dispositions, of the energy of our 
 affections, by a picture of our morality taken fresh 
 from life, a sketch of our procedure in any real emer- 
 gency, than by the most elaborate development of 
 principles, or the most formal setting forth of moral 
 standards ! A separate treatise on the character of 
 each would not tell us so much of the Priest, the 
 Levite and the Good Samaritan, as is brought out 
 by the single touch of light falling on him from the 
 I\Iaster's hand : that the one made as though he did 
 not see the wounded man at all ; the other looked at 
 him, and passed by on the other side ; the third went 
 up to him and took care of him. No statement of his 
 spiritual beliefs, no discourse upon his character, not 
 even his owm Sermon on the Mount, will set Christ so 
 fully before us as one action, or one word, from him- 
 self at a critical moment : the flood of light poured 
 out upon the Samaritan woman when no one else was 
 by — the defence of the wasted ointment — his lofty 
 silence before Caiaphas — his sorrowful gentleness with 
 Pilate. The difference between this and elaborate 
 description is the difference between a statue and a 
 living man. The statue has an absolute perfection of 
 expression and outline, but fixed and uniform ; the 
 man has a relative perfection, assuming free attitudes 
 
1 66 Moralities without the Spirit of Life. 
 
 of grace and power with every fresh occasion, accord- 
 ing to the need of the time and the swaying of his 
 heart. Christ's perfectness had nothing of the statue- 
 like: it had no rigid pose of dignity or fear of bending ; 
 it was human all over, but with the humanity that 
 trusts in nature and lives in the smile of heaven, as a 
 child that is unconscious of wrong before a parent's 
 face. It was free, flexible, native to the circumstances 
 that required it and called it forth — never below and 
 never above an occasion — at home in the moralities 
 of a juncture, whether it was to protect a child from 
 rudeness, to take it to his arms and bless it in words 
 whose power has shed consecration on every child 
 since born into the world, or to look to God, in sight 
 of the Cross that seemed to close an unfinished work, 
 and say. Thy will be done ! 
 
 We have in the text a picture of Christ's incidental 
 morality, an illustration that may give us no additional 
 knowledge of Christian principles, but that lays bare 
 his very spirit, and we behold how gentle was his 
 heart — how his temper, reflecting his principles, steeped 
 in eternal truth, never lost an opportunity of surround- 
 ing a human occasion with pure light, and introducing 
 a man into the kingdom of heaven upon earth. The 
 narrative describes a character of very imperfect good- 
 ness, of a goodness that was not yet within the sphere 
 of eternal life, and adds, that " Jesus beholding him, 
 loved him." Even in that there is a touch of divine 
 
Moralities zuithoitt the Spirit of Life. 167 
 
 reality. For who in the delineation of a Son of God 
 would of his own design throw in the acknowledgment 
 that he loved the imperfect ? He loved him, not 
 assuredly for his imperfection, but. because beneath 
 imperfections, perhaps intertwined with them, he saw 
 something that was good, some genuine grace of sin- 
 cerity, some guileless reality : and he could love that, 
 and hope great things from it when the Light touched 
 it, though it was far from perfect and had its promise 
 shadowed by the neighbourhood of evil. And there 
 was the broad, wise Charity that spoke the Son of Man, 
 whose trust and patience nothing that is genuinely 
 Jmman could dismay or repel — the sympathetic power 
 that made and makes him the Saviour of the lost — 
 the power of detecting the element of goodness in 
 every heart — aghast at nothing but hypocrisy — for- 
 giving every word spoken against himself, provided 
 it is not an insult to the Holy Spirit speaking at the 
 same moment in the conscience, a bearing of false 
 witness against God — a confidence in any sound part 
 that is left in a man's inward life, however narrow 
 it may be — a confidence in appealing to it, in using 
 it as a centre from which light may spread to the 
 darkened spaces of the soul, as a station from which 
 to work the spiritual leverage that may lift the whole 
 being to himself. Though in the case of this rich 
 youth the traits of his self-portraiture were open to 
 ridicule and satire, if these had been possible to Christ, 
 
1 68 Moralities zvithoiU the Spirit of Life. 
 
 beyond any other sketch of character the New Testa- 
 ment contains, Jesus knew what was in the man and 
 loved him, because, though he was very imperfect, full 
 of moral platitudes and of boastful self-confidences, 
 there was yet a soul of honest goodness in his shallow 
 forwardness, and Christ saw it. There are those, and 
 followers of Christ, who can see the evil, but do not 
 see the good ; and they know not what is in a man, 
 and they love him not. Any eye can discover faults : 
 it is only the good who are never blind to kindred 
 goodness. 
 
 There is often a singular engagingness, much lov- 
 ingness, in characters that have but little of the 
 continual spring of fruitful principle, or of a con- 
 sistent fulness of action. There is a class of minds 
 of which it may serve for a description that you 
 cannot help being attracted by them, whilst you can- 
 not entirely respect them. Some of them attract us 
 by the rightness and beauty of their impulses, the 
 play and warmth of their affections, though we know 
 that the impulses are excessively irregular, and the 
 affections, if not capricious in their objects, at least 
 very uncertain in manifestation, and far indeed from 
 constant lights of sacrifice and love. Others of them 
 attract us because of a gentle and equable goodness, 
 a sure serenity of peace, even though we know that 
 its sphere is mediocrity — characters whose tender 
 conscientiousness keeps them kind and faithful, full 
 
Moralities zvithoiU the Spirit of Life. 169 
 
 of delightful repose, in the regularities of duty, but 
 who never put forth an unexpected virtue out of the 
 accustomed walk, never take a new step on the by- 
 paths or on the loftier heights — who keep in the open 
 day and the blessed sunshine, taking calmly and 
 bravely the familiar things that meet us there, though 
 the day should suddenly darken and the sunlight 
 depart, but who explore no tangled thickets and scale 
 no mountains of the Lord, — men of whom you would 
 never say that, since spiritual power was incalculable, 
 and spiritual life of inexhaustible richness and force, 
 you could not tell of what they were capable, or what 
 great things they might do — on whom you might 
 stake your life for all reliable qualities, but whom you 
 would fear to commit to great emergencies in which 
 the spirit must guide itself — of whom you never have 
 a moment's fear that they will go shamefully wrong 
 on a plain path — of whom you never have a moment's 
 hope that they will go exceptionally right, and dare 
 to be greatly good. 
 
 Now, these two varieties of goodness — the Emo- 
 tional and the Ethical — owe their separation from 
 each other far more to constitutional accidents than 
 to any difference in spiritual principle or in voluntary 
 self-determination. It is the nature of one of them to 
 be much dependent on his impulses ; it is the nature 
 of the other to be much dependent on his serene 
 affections and his habitual ways ; and neither with 
 
1 70 Moralities ivitJiout the Spirit of Life, 
 
 the one nor with the other is there the direct personal 
 introduction of the forces that reside in God, of a 
 standard of character, or a spirit of life, to sustain 
 those impulses when they are good, at the constant 
 pitch of their occasional inspiration — to carry the 
 sentiment of those habits into fuller developments in 
 more trustful endeavours and wider ranges of delight. 
 And yet the latter class, the men of habit, are apt 
 to be severe, and in the contrast self-laudatory, upon 
 the former class, the men of impulse ; whereas, in 
 fact, the only difference between them is a difference 
 of constitutional temperament. There is in both a 
 common and a radical want. It is a mistake, and a 
 prevailing one, that the children of impulse are pecu- 
 liarly open to the charge of being unprincipled. The 
 children of habit, though not exhibiting such contrasts, 
 because moving in a smaller range, know just as little 
 of the power of a spiritual principle, of the ever re- 
 newed expansiveness of the children of God. The 
 men whose standard never rises, let their level be 
 where it may — whose life never flowers afresh, let its 
 regular yield be what it may — have certainly as little 
 claim to pretend that they are the fit embodiment, the 
 full fruit and practical amplitude of a great spirit of 
 duty. No doubt, moral mediocrity that is reliable and 
 stable is for many a practical purpose far more useful 
 than irregular impulse, however high it may shoot, or 
 whatever beauties it may unfold at uncertain times ; , 
 
Moralities witJwut the Spirit of Life. 171 
 
 and this utilitarian difference will explain their com- 
 parative values wherever utility is barely or meanly 
 guaged ; but they must both alike resign pretensions 
 to be the representatives of a spirit or a principle of 
 goodness. 
 
 For what is it to have a principle of life and action ? 
 It is to have an affection in the heart, an aim before 
 the will, and to indulge that disposition, to get nearer 
 to that aim, not by doing to-day what you did 
 yesterday, but by any enlargement of sympathy, 
 any strangeness of companionship, any eccentricity of 
 effort, that will only fitly consummate the ends, 
 though the means were never used before, and are a 
 novel machinery of your own creation. He is a man 
 of vital principle who, out of love for the end he con- 
 templates, out of reverence for the right he sees, is 
 ready to do anything that will lawfully serve it. He 
 is without living principle, a plant in a dry ground, 
 however regular his performances, Avho never inquires 
 what better or more abundant fruit he might have 
 upon his tree of life. The principle of life is a prin- 
 ciple of growth : with any living thing, animal, vege- 
 table or spiritual, when it ceases to grow it begins to 
 die ; and the peculiarity of the spiritual is in this, 
 that v/ith it there is no necessity of decay, of ceasing 
 to grow and beginning to perish. Extreme old age is 
 growing as long as it is ripening its fruit, working off 
 the earthly acidity and sharpness, daily perfecting its 
 
172 Moralities witJiout the Spirit of Life, 
 
 peace, and, now beyond the accidents of blight or 
 storm, waxing sweeter and mellower in faith, hope 
 and charity. 
 
 It is one thing to be orderly and regular ; it is quite 
 another thing to live in the spirit of any principle of 
 Goodness. And the men of order and method are too 
 ready to believe that they are the patterns of consis- 
 tency, so that with very many system and regularity 
 are the moral equivalent of a spirit of life ; and when 
 they accredit a man with principle, they only mean 
 that he is steady, and that they know where to find 
 him. It is a great and indispensable quality,- without 
 which no man is worth much to others or right in the 
 sight of God ; but he is spiritually alive, akin to 
 eternal life, only when working in the service of the 
 fountain-springs of Goodness. For, put men into new 
 circumstances, into new associations — mix them up 
 with strange, ungenial people — remove their social 
 fences — render their self-regarding habits, their re- 
 serves, their protections against their fellow- creatures, 
 impossible to them — bring them face to face with the 
 world on their personal merits — reduce them to that 
 circumstantial equality with every other man which 
 accident may occasion with any of us, and death will 
 bring to us all — or, without such change, show them 
 applications of principles they avow outside their 
 ■sheltered walks — ask them to realize some great good 
 by intercourses and by methods that gall their social 
 
Moralities without the Spirit of Life. 173 
 
 prejudices and involve some present awkwardness — 
 nay, only strip their goodness for a time of all popular 
 countenance — let the world's respect or gratitude dis- 
 appear — let no hearts bless them and no man smile on 
 them' — then would it be seen whether they have a root 
 of spiritual growth, and can save their souls alive ; or 
 whether in any real sense they are destitute of prin- 
 ciple, and suffer custom, timidity, caste, pride, habits, 
 to be the masters of their being. 
 
 Something of this was in the character of the rich 
 youth whom yet our Lord loved, seeing how genuinely 
 he believed in himself, and how ignorant he was of 
 the root of evil that was in him. His heart was very 
 gentle ; his habits were very correct ; his spirit was 
 not alive. A conscientious observer of the formu- 
 lated moralities, he never suspected that he could be 
 weighed and found wanting ; for we are told that with 
 the alacrity of confidence he came "running," and 
 kneeling down with the forward reverence of one who 
 expects to be approved and blessed, giving honour 
 whence honour was to come, he asked our Lord, 
 " Good Master ! what shall I do to inherit eternal 
 life } " The meagreness of his soul was laid open by 
 the first words Christ spoke to him, if he had under- 
 stood them ; but if he had been capable of instantly 
 understanding them, he never w^ould have asked the 
 question ; and since he could not see at once that the 
 all-perfect God v;as the only spring and measure of 
 
1 74 Moralities without the Spirit of Life. 
 
 goodness and everlasting life, our Lord put to him the 
 very elements of duty, and then appealing to their 
 principle, led him upwards to the truth. " Why 
 callest thou me good ? There is none good but one, 
 that is God. But if thou wouldst enter into life, thou 
 knowest the Commandments" — purity, humanity, jus- 
 tice, truth, personal honour, filial piety, brotherly love. 
 " Master ! all these have I obsei-ved from my youth 
 up." And now came the test. Then get at the heart 
 of the Commandments, and do its bidding. Leave 
 the stale form of goodness, and let its principle bear 
 ampler fruit. Love is the fulfilling of the Law ; give 
 Love the life that will now best serve its spirit. " Go 
 thy way ; sell whatsoever thou hast and give to the 
 poor ; thou shalt have treasure in heaven ; and come, 
 take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at 
 that saying, and went away grieved ; for he had great 
 possessions." 
 
 Now, it would show but a shallow insight into the 
 springs of character if we were to content ourselves 
 with saying that the love of riches was the root of all 
 this evil. That, indeed, was the rock on which he 
 happened to split, but he would equally have split on 
 any other stone of offence, on love of ease, or of 
 station, or of pleasure ; and this was rather the occa- 
 sion of showing his weakness than itself the root of 
 his weakness. Any other requirement equally new 
 would equally have betrayed in what a narrow round 
 
Moralities without the Spii^it of Life. 175 
 
 ■of observances he lived and moved and had his being. 
 What, then, did his character want ? He had morahties 
 enough. " All these have I kept from my youth up. 
 What lack I yet 1 " He wanted what so many want — 
 he wanted an informing spirit that would drive this 
 traffic for eternal life out of the spiritual courts ; he 
 Avanted the understanding that it is eternal life, the 
 soul's fellowship with God, that draws us to measure- 
 less good works, and not any measure of good works 
 that is the purchase-money of eternal life ; he wanted 
 the spiritual discernment that our Father's service 
 is perfect freedom, not task-work nor duty-work to 
 be performed as exercises and repaid with rewards, 
 labours and sacrifices in which we have no delight 
 counted out to God as the price of a paradise in which 
 self-denial is to cease and effortless joy begin, but the 
 lifting up of our hearts towards perfect goodness, and 
 the reaching forth of our hands, or the cutting of them 
 off, at the irresistible bidding of truth or love. He 
 wanted a temper that worked not for Heaven, but iu 
 a heavenly spirit ; that worked not as a servant for 
 Avages, but as a son for fellowship, seeing that the 
 Father of us all cannot be served by any works of 
 self-seeking, but only by those who work as He works, 
 blessing and doing good ; that this alone shapes the 
 forms of duty ; and that so to know and love God as 
 to do this is to /lave eternal life, and to grow in it for 
 evermore. Christ exhibited to him eternal life in one 
 
176 Moralities without the Spi^'it of Life. 
 
 of its living manifestations, in one of the fruits of its 
 spirit ; but it was strange, it was not in his forms ; and 
 what would have flowed freely from the soul's trust 
 and love, could not be wrung from prudence computing 
 the price of salvation, and he would not do it. 
 
 The nature of the particular requirement which was 
 made the test of life is a point that by no means 
 claims our chief attention, except, indeed, so far as it 
 is itself an illustration that the forms of goodness are 
 for ever changing in order that they may the better 
 serve its spirit. To sell all that one has and give it 
 to the poor may be very bad political economy to-day ; 
 nevertheless, it may have been heavenly wisdom then : 
 and to spend what one has in the spiritual interests of 
 the poor, throwing it all, and ourselves with it, into a 
 common fund for that purpose, as the Apostolic age 
 did for a season, is quite a different thing from giving 
 it in kind to the poor, for their material maintenance 
 in exemption from honourable service. It is not 
 necessary here to defend Christianity against a charge 
 of weak economic science. A word from St. Paul will 
 do that : " If any man will not work, neither shall he 
 eat." Political economy is competent to instruct me 
 what I am to do with what I have if I mean to grow 
 rich, but not what I am to do with It if I mean to do 
 right and to grow in eternal life ; for then, and with 
 her consent too, for she makes no pretensions beyond 
 her province, I may freely part with it all, if only it 
 
Moralities without the Spirit of Life, i 
 
 // 
 
 makes others rich in priceless blessing, and relaxes no 
 nerve of their moral strength. 
 
 Original methods and walks of sacrifice were opened 
 in those early years of Christianity when all things 
 were becoming new. It was a period of transition ; 
 and the new spirit that was come into the world must 
 find its own ways and make its own means. To go 
 with all that one had and take a place of equal bro- 
 therhood with the untaught and the poor — to spend 
 it in their spiritual service — to find in this kingdom of 
 love and heaven the true riches of the soul — to bear 
 any hardship such service might encounter — to take 
 the Cross itself as the earthly badge and symbol of 
 those who would spend and be spent for the eternal 
 life of men — to do this in the name of the Son of 
 Man was the best way then of serving God and the 
 interests of God for that time and for all time after ; 
 opening to all the fountain of inspiration, never to be 
 closed again, so that the waters of which he that drinks 
 shall thirst no more, should flow by the common road 
 of life on which the wayfaring man must pass. Surely, 
 if ever the living heart of Goodness should have been 
 ready to extricate itself from its old habitudes and 
 adopt the methods and estimates of Heaven, it was 
 when Jesus invited an eager youth who professed to 
 be seeking eternal life to take up the Cross in the 
 name of God's fatherhood and man's brotherhood and, 
 leaving all else, to follow him. 
 
 N 
 
I "j^ Adoralities luithoitt the Spirit of Life. 
 
 The occasion was peculiar : not so the feebly-pulsing 
 heart, the spiritual decrepitude even in a youth, the 
 flaw in sincerity, that proved unequal to the occasion. 
 These are still losing for us all the new occasions of 
 God that every day presents. How seldom do we 
 take it home to us that eternal life is the life of the 
 spirit of Love — of a love that, human or divine, if not 
 conscientious, is nothing — of a spirit that is never for 
 one moment without new opportunity, whether we are 
 working for others or living with them, and whether 
 its expression, according to the occasion, is a kind 
 word and a kind look, as when Christ blessed the little 
 children, or the cross on which the Master died ! How 
 apt are we all to fall back on our Moralities, and plead 
 " All these have I kept from my youth up ! What 
 lack I yet ? " And if one in the Master's spirit was to 
 open to us some quite original way of sacrifice, with 
 Love for its clear light, but with thorns on the road 
 and crosses, not gardens and waters, b}^ the way-side, 
 would there be no tendency to shift away from the new 
 soliciting — to pretend, nay strive to believe, that it was 
 visionary — to smile it down or to frown it down — and, 
 if that failed, to go away grieved because we too had 
 great possessions, great possessions in the quiet ways 
 of life which we could not bear to leave, even though 
 our Lord had called ? 
 
 We shall be able to take every way of eternal life 
 that Love opens to us, when Love is really the ruling 
 
Moralities ivitJwiit the Spirit of Life. 1 79 
 
 •spirit in us — when we work, not for heavenly wages. 
 but from the kingdom of heaven within. We shall 
 then go through strait gates and narrow ways, and 
 take up every cross, not because these things entitle 
 us to rewards, but because they meet us on the path 
 which Love must pass along. The rich youth— the 
 thirst of whose soul for eternal life his moralities did 
 not altogether satiate, for his question was perhaps 
 some indication of a spiritual unrest out of which at 
 last loftier sacrifice, a freer self-surrender, a purer desire 
 for goodness and for God, might come — from the 
 want of that leading spirit, could not accept a plain 
 direction from the Master at whose feet he kneeled : 
 the Master himself, because he had that spirit, could 
 •find room in his heart, weighted as it was, to love 
 that faint-souled man who was grieved to do wrong, 
 though he could not yet do right. 
 
 There is nothing we ought more to desire than the 
 power of separating from our life the spirit that should 
 mould our life, so as clearly to discern how far that 
 spirit is unclothed, how far we are from having put on 
 the Lord Jesus. 
 
 It is true that this great power of Love is not a 
 matter that is immediately at our own command. We 
 are not responsible for the quantity of it that God has 
 naturally endowed us with, but only for the conscien- 
 tiousness that cherishes and fulfils v/hat we have. It 
 will grow, if we will let it bear its fruit. Different types 
 
i8o Moralities ivithoiU the Spirit of Life. 
 
 of Love there will always be. Passionate ardours, 
 enthusiastic affections, mighty fires of impulse, a man 
 does not create for himself God asks only for what 
 He gives. Yet we can do much, of our own will, to 
 concentrate the warmth of our nature, and when we 
 are musing the fire will burn. Some are born without 
 the force of feeling that carries others into rapt de- 
 votion towards God and measureless sacrifice for man. 
 If Love, then, is indeed the spring and the beginning, 
 for Conscience itself cannot act until Feeling presents 
 it with something to choose and to act upon, — since 
 we cannot commence before the beginning, it might 
 seem that we were spiritually helpless where Love was 
 naturally weak, and that the vast spiritual differences 
 among men were simpl}^ matters of original endow- 
 ment. But the spiritual difference of men is not in 
 natural affection, and is not in genius, widely different 
 as these are, but in the Conscience and in the Will, and 
 these are responsible for cherishing and for sanctifying 
 the constitutional materials of feeling and of percep- 
 tion that God has given. Whether a man is marked 
 by nature for a Spiritualist or a Realist, a Mystic or 
 a Moralist, a Saint in soul or a Hero in action, an in- 
 creasing volume of Love will find its channel in any of 
 these courses, if the Will is pure and true. Nor, if the 
 spiritual forces are faithful, will these forms of Love 
 keep separate ; they will tend to pass into one another 
 and kindle the whole nature to a glow ; for if " the end 
 
A lor all tics luitJioitt the Spirit of Life. i8i 
 
 •of the commandment is Charity." It is not the charity 
 that has sympathy for everything and moral indigna- 
 tion against nothing, but " charity out of a pure heart, 
 and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." 
 
 The Love that is rooted in Conscience and in God, 
 living daily in the works that are as its daily bread 
 of life, will every day grow richer In Inspiration and 
 expression, and make itself and all things new. 
 
XII. 
 
 Luke xvii. lo : 
 
 " So Iike\\ise ye, when ye shall have done all tliose things which are- 
 commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants : we have done that 
 Avhich was our duty to do." 
 
 It is essential to a constraining sense of what it is 
 " our Duty to do," that the expressions of character 
 should be felt to emanate from principles that admit 
 of no discretionary obedience ; that the lighter, higher 
 or finer graces, which seem rather spontaneous than 
 obligatory, should, when distinctly contemplated, be 
 seen to rest, not on a basis of sentiment, but on a 
 basis of conscientiousness. We are apt to count as 
 ornament, superadded charm or drapery, styles and 
 forms of Goodness which to a truer discernment would 
 appear necessary products of its essential spirit ; and 
 so the {^\\ grand roots of perfectness, instead of fully^ 
 flowering in our nature, issue in moralities that are 
 rather of a civil than of a spiritual order, whilst all 
 beyond is regarded as of a voluntary decorative cha- 
 racter, or classed with virtues of imperfect obligation. 
 
No Supererogation in Christian Sei^viec. iS 
 
 o 
 
 Many of the clearest claims of conscience, of the most 
 legitimate fruits of right-mindedness, are thus stripped 
 of the binding force of Duties, and referred to some 
 vague sentiment whose demands have no authorita- 
 tive enforcement. It is not seen that the utmost beauty 
 of Holiness is rooted in the very nature of Holiness, 
 inseparable from a diitifid obedience to the simple 
 requirements of its spirit. Perhaps the most remark- 
 able example of this tendency is the manner in which 
 men narrow the claims of Justice, and whilst over- 
 looking all the finer suggestions of her spirit, yet escape 
 from themselves, and from the world, the imputation 
 of unrighteousness. We often assume to be acting 
 from loftier feelings partaking of the nature of Gene- 
 rosity, whilst in fact we have reached only to a most 
 slender appreciation of what simple Justice would 
 require. We confuse our ideas of Goodness by sup- 
 posing that it springs from a great variety of sources y 
 some of which are more essential than the others, and 
 that it has a great variety of forms, some of which are 
 works of supererogation, moulded by an unsubstantial 
 sentiment, the absence or the violation of which in- 
 volves no forfeiture of righteousness ; whilst in truth 
 all possible goodness, the moment it is distinctly con- 
 ceived, takes the obligation oidicty, and consists simply 
 in being true in action and in feeling to the full claims 
 of the relations in which we stand. Justice, to one 
 who discerns what on all sides is due from him, in his 
 
184 No Supererogation in Christian Ser^vice. 
 
 indebtedness to God, covers the whole ground of Righ- 
 teousness, and of more than is ordinarily comprehended 
 in Righteousness, of spiritual perfectness and the beauty 
 of holiness. All the sensibilities of our nature are of 
 use only as they become feeders of our fuller sense of 
 Christian obligation : until they are this, they are 
 wasted and abused, failing to accomplish that for 
 which they were given. The utmost graces of cha- 
 racter are, after all, nothing more than the actions and 
 offerings of a just spirit fairly meeting its obligations — 
 obligations which not to discern Is of the nature of 
 spiritual blindness, and when discerned, not to honour 
 and discharge is of the nature of wilful sin. There 
 are men of iron conscientiousness, who never evade a 
 known duty, but deficient in delicacy of perception, in 
 sypathetic observation, in quickness and range of 
 moral feeling, in spiritual promptings, who would be 
 and do more, if only they discerned that more was 
 involved in the legitimate demands of Righteousness ; 
 who, if they did not spontaneously flower into moral 
 loveliness, would at least do their best to perform its 
 outward deeds, if only it came to them in the shapes 
 and with the claims of Equity. And there are others, 
 men of sensibilities, who are habitually abusing the 
 finest opportunities of life, the clearest claims of the 
 affections, without discerning that in so doing they 
 are ceasing to be honest, failing to meet the just 
 demands of the relations they assume. The former 
 
No Stipcrcrogatiou in Christian Service. 185 
 
 require that their conscientiousness should extend to 
 gracious impulses and suggestions of goodness to 
 which they are now insensible : the latter require that 
 their sensibilities should become conscientious : botJc 
 require to see that the beauty of holiness, the utmost 
 grace and charm of life, as only the adequate responses 
 of a clear-sighted spirit to equitable claims, can be no 
 more than that which it is " our Duty to do." 
 
 Take the relations of Piety : the duties of man are 
 the rights of God — debts of the spirit — that rest on a 
 basis of conscientiousness the moment His real claims 
 arc understood. It is our personal relation to God 
 that makes the suppressed premiss of the Apostle's 
 reasoning, "To him that knowcth to do good and 
 doeth it not, to him it is sin." Be what we may, do 
 all we can, we are but unprofitable servants in the 
 sense that we have done no more than that which it 
 would be unrighteousness not to do. We have but 
 used talents, not our own but entrusted to us, for pur- 
 poses which were the conditions of the gift — con- 
 ditions not outwardly enforced, but morally existin 
 
 t>» 
 
 and assuming a character of absolute obligation the 
 instant they are perceived. Our lives are not our 
 own ; our powers are not our own ; our breath is not 
 our own ; we righteously hold them but for the ends 
 of Him who gave them : not to employ them for His 
 ends is the abuse of a trust, and to employ them 
 against His ends, to turn a gift against its Giver, to 
 
1 86 No StLperei^ogation in CJmstian Service, 
 
 use the breath of hfe in disowning and dishonouring 
 Him whose inspiration it is, is not the less injustice 
 because it is impiety. When a man once opens to a 
 consciousness of the purposes of God in our personal 
 being, of the spiritual fellowship and co-operation, 
 which is the end for which we are inspired by the 
 Almighty's Spirit and upheld by the Almighty's 
 power, then he is bound to those ends not by 
 gratitude or aspiration only, but by simple justice-: 
 no distinction can be recognized between what is- 
 spiritual and what is moral in his obligations ; in no 
 way is it possible to conceive how he could more dis- 
 honestly violate a right than by wilfully refusing to 
 fulfil God's holy claims upon his nature ; and the 
 offence is not the less against natural honesty because 
 God is supernatural. In truth, to a spiritual man, to 
 a man with whom the living God makes an integral 
 part of every interest he pursues, of every question 
 he considers, there is no assignable difference in the 
 binding nature of Religion and of Morality ; they both 
 consist in the willing conformity of life and spirit to 
 the full demands of the relations we discern. All that 
 we have is God's, given for known purposes, which 
 our hearts and souls approve ; and to pervert them 
 to other purposes seems as plain unrighteousness, as 
 manifest violation of a trust, as any that human law 
 in human relations has the power to define. It may 
 be said that man did not solicit the trust ; but he 
 
No SiLpcrcTOgation in Christian Sei-vice. 187 
 
 holds the gifts. In the language of the parable, he 
 retains his Lord's money. There was a naive discern- 
 ment of clear justice in the passionate advice of Job's 
 wife — Renounce God, and die ; as though in common 
 equity annihilation must deliberately be accepted by 
 one who chooses to thwart Him by whom we live. -It 
 is true that the duty of pursuing spiritual perfectness 
 does not come alone in the form of debts due to 
 another. We have our own nature to honour, serve 
 and glorify ; all God's claims come in the form of 
 Beatitudes ; He is no outward creditor ; He is within 
 us, inviting us to do justice to ourselves ; to accept 
 our own blessedness in acknowledging our debts to 
 Him ; but all this only enforces the righteoiLs claim, 
 and leaves us without excuse if we turn away from 
 that which is at once God's right and man's privilege. 
 It is the function of all such inward movements and 
 perceptions, of all such echoes of God within ourselves, 
 not indeed to set up a dreamy or fanciful standard, 
 but to quicken and adorn the great principles of god- 
 liness, to convert affections into duties, duties into 
 affections, so that the deepest and richest suggestions 
 of heart, mind and soul, shall make authoritative, irre- 
 sistible demands on the Conscience and the Will. 
 
 And from our divine if we descend to our purely 
 human relations, still the richest or the most graceful 
 virtue is but equity — truth of life expressing truth of 
 discernment — and any failure in such expression. 
 
1 88 No S2tpc7X7'ogation in Christian Scrvit 
 
 ce. 
 
 according to the proportion of our discernment, is 
 not imperfect Goodness only, but the violation of 
 recognized Duty. 
 
 Take the primal relation — of the first man to the 
 first woman — ^justly held to be the most binding, 
 beyond the ties of blood, because determined by our- 
 selves. In our necessary human relations we but 
 accept what nature provides for us : this we elect for 
 ourselves ; in this, therefore, personal responsibility 
 is at its height, personal fidelity absolutely plighted. 
 Divest it of every colouring but that which cannot be 
 taken off without violating conscientious honour, and 
 the demands of Justice, covering the whole ground of 
 sentiment, stand out in the nature of the relation as 
 clearly as if they had been specified in the terms of a 
 contract, and are not so specified, not because they 
 are not of an equitable nature, but because they are 
 too refined in spirit, too large and subtle in variety, to 
 be embraced within the cunningest form of words, — 
 and because Equity itself declare that what derives 
 its essential value from being freely rendered, would 
 in its very nature be destroyed if reduced to contracts. 
 There are debts which, though they are paid on the 
 asking, so far as then they can be paid, it is yet the 
 grossest injustice to be compelled to ask for — when 
 the necessity of asking destroys their value, turns 
 enchanted wealth, the mintage of the heart, to dross 
 and refuse. In the primal relation — the only per- 
 
N'o Stipe rcrogat ion in Christian Scj^vice. 189 
 
 sonal relation that is absolutely voluntary in that 
 family life which is the true unit, the ideal represen- 
 tative of society itself — the two natures are designed 
 by God each to complete the other ; and each under- 
 takes, with no vain confidence indeed, but in good 
 faith, according to the measure of the gifts that g.re 
 in them, to supply nature's wanting complement, w ith 
 such a reverence for personal rights as will preserve 
 each from limiting the free development of an inde- 
 pendent being. They are each the other's share of 
 whatever is good in the contrasted natures of each, 
 so far as they are contrasted. In this they undertake 
 to make one another's earthly futurity, and close their 
 mortal destin\'. The possibilities of human life are 
 then so far exhausted. These are the conditions of 
 equity in which they stand, each pledged to represent 
 their own side of human nature, and each, in a unique 
 relation, closing against the other all nearer participa- 
 tion in the richest ministries of life than that which 
 themselves supply. Then, is there any unrighteous- 
 ness that will compare with unrighteousness here — 
 any dishonesty like that which robs the injured of 
 their peculiar share in human nature itself — which 
 takes the one chance, and kills it — which takes the 
 place that God made for one Avho will give help,, 
 grace and strength — and fills it with a form which 
 it becomes impossible to honour ? For it is not happi- 
 ness that is the indispensable necessity in this or in 
 
iQO No Stipcrerogation in Christian Service. 
 
 any relation, but honour, truth, reverence and trust. 
 In this relation, at least, nothing that we have to give 
 can be of the smallest value unless we can give also a 
 confidence in our nobleness and truth — a character 
 that a pure nature may trust and cleave to. And 
 where this is necessary to satisfy the essential idea 
 of the relation sustained, its highest fulfilment can be 
 no more than the discharge of debts. This is not to 
 confound sentiment and feeling with a sense of jus- 
 tice : it is to say, that sentiment and feeling when at 
 their height will show their reality in this, that they 
 enlarge to their own dimensions our conceptions of 
 that which it is our bounden Duty to do. 
 
 Descend to the next relation — that of Parent and 
 Child — and trace the claims of Justice. Once you 
 have entered the region of moral life, the instincts 
 are but the quickeners of higher sentiments that 
 make parental devotedness on the one hand, filial 
 piety on the other, obligations of righteousness. 
 The parent designedly incurs the most sacred respon- 
 sibility — has, in fact, solicited God to lay it upon him 
 — and if not accountable for their constitutional capa- 
 bilities — though it is impossible to say to what extent 
 he is not so — is accountable for his own dedication 
 to the direction and formation of minds united to 
 him by self-sought and imperishable ties. We hear 
 parental fidelity placed among the highest virtues ; 
 and if this means that it is an indispensable virtue. 
 
No Supererogation in Christian Service. 191 
 
 it is so far true ; but the horror that all men feel at 
 the absence of it — the infamy of an unnatural parent 
 — shows that the violation of parental duty is most 
 shocking, rather than that the discharge of it is most 
 excellent. When we speak of the great virtues, 
 we surely mean something that average men may 
 want without being consigned to indelible disgrace. 
 Parental fidelity is not among the great virtues in 
 that sense, for a man cannot want it without being 
 disgraced — and that cannot confer peculiar distinction 
 the absence of which brings peculiar dishonour — 
 which is in fact the recognized duty of all men in 
 vv-hom nature is not outraged. It may indeed be 
 discharged in a manner that raises it to the rank of 
 a great virtue, when in the subordination of affection 
 to principle, of instinct to reverence for the highest 
 good. Love becomes Sacrifice ; but this will be found 
 only with those who feel that all self-surrender, all 
 self-purification, all denial of pleasure, however inno- 
 cent in itself, that is not compatible with the faultless 
 performance of offices they have chosen to sustain, all 
 efforts to adorn and perfect human nature in them- 
 selves for the sake of their children, when carried to 
 the highest pitch, amount to no more than being 
 simply true to the just demands of relations of which 
 they have invited and assumed the obligations. 
 Deep affections may sweeten and bless those duties, 
 but they also define them — that in their utmost height 
 
192 No Supererogation in Christian Sen 
 
 nee. 
 
 and depth they are no more than duties — that those 
 who do the most do nothing that righteousness could 
 spare, and are unprofitable servants in the sense of 
 doing only that which it is their Duty to do. 
 
 And there are the corresponding equities to be 
 reverenced by the child, even if he has ceased to be 
 a child and has become a man. The parent has his 
 claims of Justice — not so much for love, or gratitude, 
 or personal affection — not so much for unfailing re- 
 spect, a thoughtful care, and tender deference — these 
 are great — debts always owing, always remaining to 
 be paid — yet they arc minor. His great claim is, that 
 his labour to make an upright man be not cast away, 
 that he be not dishonoured in his own offspring. Is 
 it Just to have received everything, even life — to have 
 known the long years of anxious thought — to be the 
 object of lesson, prayer and sacrifice — to feel that all 
 this was done, not for their blessedness, but for ours — 
 and yet to start aside through selfish passions and 
 break the hopes that have centred in us — to destroy 
 the peace of those whose peace is in our well-being — 
 to overthrow the image v/hich gave its highest purpose 
 to existence, the fall of which is like casting them 
 down from heaven, the image that is broken being 
 indeed the image of God in their child .-^ If a man 
 could have only himself to consider, no Father in 
 heaven, no parent on earth, no friend, no brother, he 
 might be supposed to have a right to do what he 
 
No StLpcrerogation in Clunstian Sei^vice. 193 
 
 pleased with himself, even to give his own soul to 
 perdition. But he knows that he cannot do this 
 without the deepest wrongs to others, without de- 
 stroying just expectations sown in the dearest soil 
 and with the most precious seed. Suppose a man to 
 have the right of sinning against himself, a contra- 
 diction in terms, even then would it be conceivable 
 that he could have the right of blighting the existence 
 of others who have deposited their own life within 
 his t We understand a man being carried away by 
 passion to the injury and abuse of his own nature. 
 An impure man will for the time obliterate his soul ; 
 a lover of ease and present pleasure will throw away 
 his own natural gifts and God's special opportunities ; 
 but a man who has no care for himself incurs his 
 deepest condemnation, in that he has no care for 
 others, and most of all because he can strip the re- 
 lation of a child of all that is sacred in it, and make 
 the relation of a parent one of unnatural wretchedness 
 and anguish. No one can fail in even the highest 
 observances of filial piety, without in that measure 
 making the springs of life to become springs of 
 poison, turning back the course of nature. 
 
 Once more : a grand idea of Justice, of the magni- 
 tude of that which it is their Duty to do, should 
 animate the conscientiousness, and so sustain the 
 self-respect, of all orders of that great toiling class 
 who, if they are without the sense of work faithfully 
 
194 ^0 S2tpei^erogatio7i in Chi'istiaii Sei^vice, 
 
 performed, have nothing else wherewith to dignify 
 their life. For there is no profession which in material 
 returns pays for its anxieties and toils, if it is not 
 exalted and sweetened by the sense of uncalculating 
 Duty rendered to God in the ungrudging service of 
 mankind. If all that men get out of it is the suste- 
 nance of life, more or less ample, it would be better to 
 revert to the rudest simplicity of nature than to endure 
 for such an end the complicated cares of our present 
 civilization. Every profession has some idea of 
 service at its basis, in a lofty devotion to which all 
 its better members find their justification and reward. 
 In some such sentiment is the dignity of ever>- true 
 life, the nurse of its perfectness, and the spring of 
 its contentment. And every earnest man in all pro- 
 fessions must find this sustaining sentiment in the 
 consciousness of faithful work, of doing out without 
 abatement that which it is his Duty to do, a faithful- 
 ness of which men reap the benefit, but of which 
 often from the nature of the case God alone can be 
 the witness. The early religious sculptors, preparing 
 themselves for their task by prayer, by communion 
 with the saints, by meditation on unearthly beauty, 
 would put no imperfect work out of their hands, even 
 when so placed that it could not possibly be seen ; and 
 when questioned why the concealed parts of statues, 
 removed from human sight, should be so exquisitely 
 wrought, said that the eyes of the angels were there. 
 
No Supererogation in Christian Service. 195 
 
 Their own eyes were there, and they loved their 
 work for their own thought of it, not for what men 
 would say of it. This love of perfection, for per- 
 fection's sake, in imitartion of the workmanship of God, 
 is the secret delight and sustaining strength of every 
 worker whose faithfulness is great. Every stroke of 
 conscientious labour justifies his spirit, works out his 
 salvation, lifts him to the rank of a spiritual labourer ; 
 for often failures in fidelity cannot he detected by any 
 practicable inspection ; and when the dishonest work 
 shows itself at last, the dishonest w^orkman can no 
 longer be discovered. In this respect the righteous 
 labourer who never spares himself in bringing his work 
 to perfection, is truly a spiritual man, inasmuch as he 
 works, "not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in 
 singleness of heart fearing God." By perfect work 
 conscientiously performed his life is hid in God, and 
 with Him he lays up testimonies to the righteousness 
 of his spirit in all those cases where no eye could 
 detect a flaw in the work, a dishonesty in its perform- 
 ance, until it broke in ruin, and then the doubt would 
 remain whether the fault was in the material or the 
 man. How many of the most constantly recurring 
 forms of disaster and distress, consuming spiritual 
 elements of time and strength — how many of the most 
 dreadful forms of human calamity — in sudden exposure 
 to pain and death, the burning dwelling, the sinking 
 or flaming ship, the exploding engine, the breaking 
 
196 No Supererogatio7t in Christian Service. 
 
 carriage with its freight of life — may be direct though 
 remote results of dishonest workmanship ? There, in 
 Avoes and losses that admit of no valuation, may be the 
 fruits of some workman's unrighteousness, — in that he 
 did not deliver his own soul by doing all that it was his 
 Duty to do. These are consequences which, it may be 
 more conscientious labour, another stroke of the hand, 
 a truer adjustment of the eye, would have prevented 
 coming into existence. And are these results of dis- 
 honesty to come to the light in such agonizing shapes, 
 and the dishonesty itself for ever to hide in darkness ? 
 Are a man's unrighteous works to be thus awfully 
 manifested, and the man himself never to know it, or 
 be known ? Impossible ! These, too, are laid up in 
 the memory of God ; and the man who, for the sake 
 of saving himself, in carelessness, or fraud, or self-indul- 
 gence, has left the work of his hands imperfect, will 
 surely have to meet the look of all the woe that has 
 ensued, and know his own unfaithfulness to be its cause. 
 And this holds equally of the unfaithfulness of all pro- 
 fessions. What unstayed evil may lie at the door of 
 the educator, of the statesman, of the producer, the 
 trader, the lawyer, the physician, the preacher, of the 
 servant, of the master, because they did not love perfect 
 work, because they did not accomplish themselves 
 for perfect work, because they did not do that which 
 it was their Duty to do, we shall all one day have to 
 know. 
 
No Supere7vgation in Christian Service. 197 
 
 We cannot examine the other relations of life to 
 show in detail that when we have done our utmost we 
 have barely met the claims of Justice — we are un- 
 profitable servants — we have done no more than that 
 v/hich was our Duty to do. Truly the ancients were 
 not without large reason when they called Justice -the 
 queen and mistress of the virtues. We may seize the 
 principle here evolved, and apply it to all our relations 
 with God, and to all our intercourse with men : we 
 may come to see that the highest virtue is but simple 
 conscientiousness, — the highest heroism, the gentlest 
 courtesy, the most Christian grace of spirit, no more 
 than a true recognition of what is due to God and 
 man ; that no piety can overpay our divine, that no 
 charity can overpay our human debts. There are no 
 mere ornaments which, being within our contempla- 
 tion and within our power, it is a grace to have, and 
 yet no disgrace to be without : there are no free-will 
 offerings which it is a merit to make and yet no 
 demerit to withhold : it is impossible in any direction 
 of grace or of goodness to be without failure in posi- 
 tive Duty, if we neglect to attain to that which our 
 hands might touch if we stretched them as far as we 
 might. And this is not to divest our nature of its 
 sentiments, and impulses, and free, suggestive Love ; 
 it is to 2Lse these ; to make them the enlighteners of 
 Conscience, enlarging its bounds and deepening its 
 authoritative voice ; to identify their most gracious 
 
iqS No Sup ever ogatio7i in Christian Sei^vice. 
 
 suggestions with the clear demands of Righteousness, 
 which to violate is to fall from the class of the merely 
 unprofitable servants, and sink to the level of those 
 who knew their Lord's will and did it not. 
 
 This is a doctrine that may perhaps lower our sense 
 of human merit ; but, if it does this, it will do so by 
 the highest tribute that can be paid to human nature, 
 by enlarging the measure of what is expected from 
 it, by raising nearer to God the character of its work, 
 the standard of its aims. 
 
XIII. 
 
 Matt, xxiii. S : 
 " All ye are brethren." 
 
 The essence and the bond of human fellowship is 
 identity of nature before God. " Have we not all one 
 Father ? Hath not one God created us .? " No spiritual 
 relationship can be separated from a living recognition 
 of its natural consequences. We cannot claim kindred 
 with God and evade its legitimate inferences and 
 expressions ; the penalty of neglect in the conse- 
 quential duty is growing blindness to the spiritual 
 reality. By considering the fulness of their natural 
 outflowings we invigorate the great spiritual senti- 
 ments which are the fountains of life in us, or we 
 become aware of the stagnancy in which we suffer 
 them to be. 
 
 It follows from our Brotherhood that the smallest 
 justice, the poorest charity each of us owes to man, is 
 that we should interpret human nature through the 
 best that in ourselves we know of it — that in our 
 estimation of others the known mingled good and 
 
200 Christ's Sense of Brotherhood. 
 
 evil of our own being should suggest to us the un- 
 expressed and concealed good that may co-exist with 
 any evil that is prominent. A man who thinks meanly 
 of human nature must think meanly of himself, or else 
 deem himself above human nature. A man who dis- 
 trusts human nature must distrust himself, and pro- 
 claim that the specimen of human nature he is best 
 acquainted with he knows to be false and hollow ; 
 else he must deem himself an exceptional being — 2^ 
 peculiar and eccentric product of the race, or of 
 another order altogether. It is thus that a cynical 
 distrust of our nature, an habitual imputation of low 
 motives as the solution of apparent nobleness or 
 magnanimity, attributing to Satan the works of the 
 Spirit of God ; incredulity as to disinterested good- 
 ness, is either the self-consciousness of abject life that 
 has so long given Itself up to the lower conditions of 
 feeling and of action, that it has quite fallen out of the 
 range of the higher, — or else it is absolute Inhumanity 
 - — an isolation, and denial of fellowship with man- 
 kind — that swollen and Pharisaic insolence which, 
 knowing some good of itself and believing no good 
 of others, claims a separate rank. This Is an extreme 
 case; but something of this arrogant, self-isolating 
 temper enters into most of our severe judgments of 
 men ; so that the Charity even of the tenderest of us 
 is perhaps not so much as our simple Justice would 
 become, if all whom we condemn had but the full 
 
Christ's Sense of Brotherhood. 201 
 
 and righteous benefit of the pleadings which our own 
 self-knowledge ought to suggest. 
 
 Let us consider, in this light, the two classes with 
 whom mainly it is difficult, in spirit and in truth, 
 to hold the ties and sentiments of a full Christian 
 Brotherhood : first, with the Uninteresting ; secondly, 
 with the Repulsive. 
 
 The peculiarity of the first class is simply negative, 
 — they excite no strong feeling. Now, if we separate 
 the few whom God has endowed with an inexhaus- 
 tible freshness, this is in fact the case with all men, 
 except in their intermittent states. And yet there is 
 no class more exposed to the hard neglect of mankind 
 than those who only are permanently what all ot 
 us are, except occasionally — in their isolation from 
 sympathy — in the wounds they suffer from indifference 
 or contempt — in the deprivation of the genial stimu- 
 lants and encouragements which they especially need 
 — and fearfully, though unconsciously, are they avenged 
 in the barren inhumanity they introduce into those 
 who turn from them with carelessness or scorn ; for 
 it is impossible to have such claims constantly before 
 us, and constantly neglected, without an induration of 
 the heart. 
 
 What is it that makes so large a class incapable of 
 exciting strong interest? Chiefly, I suppose, their 
 want of power to manifest strong interest ; and if this 
 be so, then those who are most richly blessed with the 
 
202 Christ's Sense of Brotherhood. 
 
 power of feeling and exciting sympathy would do well 
 to remember by what a slight change in their nature, 
 in their capacity' — it may be, in their opportunities — 
 they might be reduced to the same helpless condition, 
 if they were to be dealt with after the same measure. 
 Examine those who are fconsigned to indifference. 
 What are their characteristics ? For the most part it 
 might seem that nature had denied them the forcible 
 qualities of character, talent, energy, wit, richness and 
 play of mind, the powers that make us useful and 
 exhilarating, or the powers which make us formidable 
 to others. We must not make Goodness one of their 
 necessary deficiencies, for often the most unselfish 
 Goodness is in those who find themselves totally 
 neglected, only because through some infirmity they 
 want the faculty of expression. But why is this, or 
 any class, abandoned to indifference ? Only because 
 they do not come into our sphere — to co-operate with 
 us, to stimulate us, to cheer us, to amuse us, or to 
 overawe us, and hold us in salutary check — and so 
 they fall out of our selfish regards, though we might 
 enter into their spheres, bringing with us in our con- 
 trasted qualities the very stimulus they need, or in 
 our geniality and gentleness the atmosphere of ease 
 and of encouragement, which perhaps alone had been 
 wanting to educe in them qualities finer and more 
 delicate than our own. 
 
 And to show the ordinary inhumanity of this neg- 
 
Christ's Sense of Brotherhood. 203 
 
 !ect, we have only to remember what circumstances 
 will often dispel it, without any elevation, moral 
 or intellectual, in those who have been exposed to it. 
 Suppose the inherent deficiencies in vivacity, in energy'-, 
 in wit and humour, in all profitable, or exhilarating, or 
 formidable properties, to remain as before, — but add 
 station, add wealth, add the power to distinguish, the 
 power to give and to bequeath, — and there is no more 
 danger to the dullest mortal of forgetfulness or indif- 
 ference. And this may be quite apart from any direct 
 birth of selfishness, or from the smallest expectation 
 of personal benefit to ourselves ; it is only that they 
 have come within the region of our sympathies ; for 
 let the inherent incapacity, with all the uninteresting 
 deadness or dumbness, remain, but add some positive 
 interest of mere condition, add the pitiableness, or 
 terror, or excitement of an apprehended exposure to 
 some great suffering, and the object of indifference 
 may speedily become an object of intense solicitude, 
 of moral cares, hopes, efforts, and of that strong per- 
 sonal interest which soon attaches to any one for 
 whom w^e make sacrifices, for whose welfare we are 
 earnest. 
 
 But the special Inhumanity consists in drawing a 
 line of separation between ourselves and others only 
 because they seem stricken with barrenness ; only 
 because they want more than others the refreshing 
 and awakening which gifted spirits can impart to 
 
204 Christ's Sense of Brotherhood, 
 
 slower natures ; only because they want more than 
 others a generous sympathy to keep off the withering 
 sense of a despised existence ; and in our rude forget- 
 fulness that the qualities we miss in them, because 
 they show neither flowers nor fruit, may yet be deeper 
 rooted in them than they are in us — retarded for a 
 time by the Hand of God laid for purposes of His own 
 on the mere outward conditions of development, by 
 some uncongeniality of position, or even by fineness 
 of texture, and waiting only for their season, freed 
 from, the providential and temporary hindrance, to 
 make a growth of beauty and of vigour that will 
 reverse the relations between us. For we cannot 
 doubt that there are fearful retributions of this kind 
 awaiting us all ; fearful, not because of the outward 
 changes and re-allotment of ranks, but because of the 
 shamed self-knowledge that will then unmistakably 
 be forced upon us, the remembrance of former hard- 
 ness and neglect towards those we might have cheered 
 and perhaps quickened, who then will touch us gently 
 and forgivingly with the light of their brighter gifts. 
 That many a despised being, despised for the very 
 reasons that ought to have marked them out for special 
 tenderness and regard to all gentle and thoughtful 
 natures, will eventually soar above us, and have to 
 condescend to us in the very properties and walks 
 wherein we supposed our superiority to lie — though 
 condescension will not be their feeling — is no more 
 
Chinst's Sense of Brothei'hooei. 205 
 
 than a little self-knowledge might have suggested to 
 us all, and spared us the remorse that then may break 
 our else generous joy when we come to witness so fair 
 a compensation. For every man has felt, or ought to 
 have felt, how much the development of what is best 
 in him has been affected by Accident ; meaning by 
 Accident something that we could not from ourselves 
 have supplied ; that 'Accident has fostered it ; that 
 Accident might have chilled it ; that a change of cir- 
 cumstance, Avithout altering the essence or capabilities 
 of our character, might have altered all its manifesta- 
 tions ; and that the freest, the happiest, the most 
 serviceable exercise of our nature may so depend on 
 kindness, on sympathy, on expectation of good from 
 us, on the genial encouragement of those with whom 
 we live, or for whom we work, that if these were with- 
 drawn we should at once collapse upon ourselves. 
 
 It is in these directions that it is most necessary for 
 us to be reminded of what the spirit of Christ w^ould 
 suggest and enjoin, if it possessed us entirely with its 
 fine Justice, Thoughtfulness and Love. In these days 
 it is not so necessary to enforce the obvious expres- 
 sions of human fellowship, to feed the hungry, to 
 clothe the naked, to instruct the ignorant, to seek the 
 lost, to reform the sinner : these are lessons which, if 
 a man does not hear, he must willfully stop his ears. 
 But there is a class which is neither hungry, nor igno- 
 rant, nor perverse, nor criminal — which utters no cry^ 
 
2o6 Chrises Sense of Brotherhood. 
 
 and excites no alarm, and makes no importunate 
 appeal — the obscure, the neglected, the unhonoured 
 the uninteresting — who have dropped out of the ranks 
 or fallen behind in the race of Life, to whom a refined 
 spirit of Brotherhood would bind us in most gentle 
 fellowship, not assuredly as if we were condescending 
 or even conspicuously helping, but rather in loving 
 reverence before God, fulfilling our own humanity in 
 a sense of our common dependence upon Him from 
 whom Cometh every good and perfect gift, whose 
 touch may draw the richest melodies from natures 
 hitherto all-silent and untoned, and sink into insig- 
 nificance the most splendidly endowed in comparison 
 with those who before were the least distinguished. 
 It is in these directions that we hear the finest whispers 
 of Christ's spirit ; and if we hearken to its stiller and 
 finer tones, there is no danger that we shall be deaf to 
 its fuller voice ; if our hearts are alive to its gentlest 
 dictate, they will not be dead to its plainer require- 
 ments ; if we reverence and follow it here, it will lead 
 us everywhere else whithersoever it ought. This is 
 one of the cases in which he who is faithful in that 
 which seems the least will be faithful also in much ; 
 for if we so chasten our nature as to catch the finest 
 suggestions of our Christian Brotherhood, we cannot 
 close our ears to its louder cries, or harden our hearts 
 to the more conspicuous duties which it proclaims 
 from the house-tops. 
 
Chrisf s Sense of Bivtherhood. 207 
 
 Look now to the remaining class with whom it is 
 most difficult to maintain the full sentiment of our 
 Brotherhood — those whose peculiarity it is, not that 
 they excite no strong feeling, but that the feeling they 
 do excite is one of repulsion and antipathy, — and seek 
 to qualify our rude, impetuous estimate by the justice 
 of self-knowledge. I suppose that no faithful reporter 
 of what actually passes within himself, none but a mere 
 theorist of some imaginary and symmetrical human 
 nature, would be forward to deny the possibility of 
 much good co-existing wath a predominant evil, or of 
 much evil co-existing with a predominant good. And 
 even where the evil is uppermost for the time and has 
 outward expression, a faithful reporter of himself might 
 truly declare that even at that moment it was not the 
 strongest element in him ; that its seeming indulgence 
 was accompanied with an inexpressible bitterness from 
 the consciousness of degradation in its outbreak ; that 
 far other powers were the actual lords of his nature, 
 judging him with an acknowledged supremacy when 
 to all other observers only unqualified evil was as- 
 cendant ; that at his worst times what he appeared to 
 be did not come from the real desires and innermost 
 complexion of his spirit, but from the powerlessness 
 of his will, from the long tyranny of habit, which will 
 keep us in ways that we detest, or from the difficulty 
 of finding in natural expression some outward flow 
 for the zvhole of our being when in a state of conflict. 
 
2o8 Chrisfs Sense of Brotherhood. 
 
 It is difficult for one who has acquired a fixed reputa- 
 tion to appear other than he has been, even after he 
 has become totally changed — difficult for a child in a 
 household, difficult for a man in the world. A heart 
 may be vanquished with relentings, ready to overflow 
 with penitential love, but the kind of expectations it 
 has long excited so determine the treatment it receives, 
 that under a sense of injustice, shame or hopelessness, 
 it finds expression impossible, and the better nature 
 retreats more and more out of sight. And every one 
 knows that his own evil does not always appear to 
 himself in the form of evil ; that, unlike the rest of the 
 world, he stands, not before it, but behind it ; that he 
 sees it through all its originating circumstances, which, 
 at the worst, can give it the character of a natural 
 virtue, justified in its spirit, if not in its form ; and 
 that there needs but some guileless moment to betray 
 the deception, and make our hearts quite open to 
 confession. Most men who act unkind and cruel 
 parts, injuring and suppressing their humanity, do yet, 
 through some disorder of the moral eye, behold them- 
 selves in fair and equitable lights — nay, often believe 
 that they are acting upon some high view of Duty, 
 voluntary witnesses to righteous Principle, when they 
 are Involuntary slaves of selfishness or spleen. And 
 though this is not to be used to excuse any man's 
 evil, yet surely it is to be used, if we would not utterly 
 deny our Brotherhood, as a qualifying medium through 
 
Chrisfs Se7zse of Brothe^^Jiood. 209 
 
 which to see into the real life of others. Certainly we 
 should not have much confidence in that man's self- 
 knowledge who has not learned from himself that it 
 may be that mankind is not so much vicious as dis- 
 ordered — their conscience not so much wilfully bad, 
 as blind, misled, perverted and false ; or who does not 
 know in his own life sufficient evil co-existing with 
 yet abounding good, to render credible, under certain ; 
 unhappy conditions, all the evil that is in the world. 
 When we see our own evil, we know also the good 
 that accompanies it, and so qualifies it that it seems 
 to lose the essence of evil ; but when we see the evil 
 of others, we give them no credit for the good that 
 has no expression and is hidden from our sight. We 
 paint them as we see them, though a moment's in- 
 trospection would tell us that such spiritual portrait- 
 painting would do a gross injustice to ourselves, and 
 that what we see is often but the mask of what we do 
 not see. There is one remarkable fact which is quite 
 decisive : the great Seers and Masters of human nature, 
 who reveal the secrets of all spirits, never depict a 
 man in such totality of evil, that even the best, when 
 introduced into the inner workings of his being, cannot 
 enter into some shuddering sympathy with him. They 
 take us behind the appearances ; they show us the 
 complicated perversions of his heart, the disordered 
 lights through which he looks at things, the circum- 
 stances and the provocations that have deranged him, 
 
 P 
 
2IO Christ's Sense of Bi'otherhood, 
 
 and utter disgust is displaced by a fearful pity. The 
 worst man becomes less hideous when he is known. 
 We understand how such things may be, how they lie 
 within the compass of nature ; that the seeds of such 
 passions and positions exist in ourselves, and might 
 by possible circumstances have been brought to a 
 head ; and being what now we are, if we perceive that 
 we could have fallen to such depths, we must also 
 perceive that we could have been raised from them 
 again. It is only the popular caricaturist who paints 
 for vulgar effect with coarse colours, and knows not 
 human nature, who ever creates a monster — whom 
 the gentlest and the best cannot understand through 
 mysterious sympathy and the dreadful possibility of 
 fellowship. It w^as hence that Aristotle said, that the 
 mighty Dramatists purified human nature through 
 terror and through pity — terror for ourselves lest we 
 should fall into a like case, pity for those who have 
 so fallen. And in forgetfulness of this lies our inhu- 
 manity, when we separate ourselves from Brotherhood 
 with the evil. More i-^//"-knowledge would bring more 
 justice, and more justice more of fellow-feeling ; and 
 we will not even commence this process by using the 
 mingled good and evil we know of in ourselves as a 
 means of revealing to us the latent good that may 
 mingle with the evil that is prominent. The ascend- 
 ing scale of our own reverence and love towards those 
 who are far above us, farther perhaps above its than 
 
Christ's Sense of Brotherhood, 211 
 
 we are above the lowest, might remind us that pos- 
 sibly those below are aspiring even to our poor place 
 — that we are all of us on one ladder, and that on 
 whatever step of it we stand, to all who are but 
 looking upwards the ascent to God and the highest 
 is for ever possible and for ever going on. The rela- 
 tion of the lowest to 71s may be only our relation to 
 those who are far from the highest ; and if so, though 
 the stages are different, the way and the goal are one. 
 The sentiment of Brotherhood, if we are to maintain 
 it in its fulness, requires us to place first in our regards 
 the gifts and properties which we have in common 
 with all mankind, and to subordinate to these what- 
 ever is accidental. It is thus only that each class 
 can correct the biases of its own position, and meet 
 in natural equality on the ground of that common 
 humanity which is the Inexhaustible Inheritance of 
 lis- all. It is thus only, through a profound conscious- 
 ness of the spiritual elements in our nature, that the 
 mutual approach of classes can be a spontaneous 
 result of the meekness of wisdom, and that through 
 each contending against the undue bias of his outward 
 lot, through the dignity of the Lowly and the humility 
 of the High, the Almighty Father of All, not by 
 angry judgments, but by soft attraction, can put down 
 the mighty from their seats, and exalt them of low 
 degree. That which distinguishes every man is the 
 vast dower of our nature, permanent and eventually 
 
2 12 CImsfs Se7ise of Brotherhood. 
 
 the same to all — not the passing accidents of station, 
 fortune or talent, which are mere surface varieties. 
 Men may in some respects be separated for a time — • 
 and, for intrinsic discipline, rightly separated — by 
 differences in rank, power and sphere of occupation, 
 and yet feel that the basis of their being is the same ; 
 but these demarcations, however necessary for the 
 spiritual purposes of God, fail to answer those pur- 
 poses when those whom they socially separate cannot 
 retain through the difficulties of their contrasted posi- 
 tions the full spirit of their Brotherhood. And in 
 truth what is It — in things that are not spiritual — that 
 makes the distinction of the Great ? Set apart the 
 nature that is common to us all, and what distin- 
 guishes the great ones of the earth ? Nothing but 
 the workmanship of the lowly : these make their trap- 
 pings, their ornaments, their luxuries. Strip them of 
 these, and they are reduced to common men. And if 
 one man makes what another man only wears or uses 
 but could not make, which so far is the more dis- 
 tinguished ? Or, what makes the knowledge of the 
 learned but a surplus of that time which the lowly, for 
 a daily maintenance, must spend In his service? These 
 are matters which God can easily balance ; and He 
 will do it speedily. He does it at every grave. But 
 it must never be forgotten that this sentiment of 
 Brotherhood, like all spiritual Instruments, is a two- 
 edged sword, and that it turns the same keenness of 
 
Christ's Sense of Brotkej^hood. 213 
 
 'Spiritual demand upon the low as upon the high. 
 They forget their Brotherhood, and their God, and 
 the inexhaustible riches of their humanity, when they 
 feel degraded by their position, to the full as much as 
 do the lofty when they are puffed and swollen in 
 their pomp. It is surely as vile treason against bur 
 spiritual nature for honourable Labour to feel envious 
 and humiliated in the pompous presence of ostenta- 
 tious Wealth, as for Wealth to indulge some pride of 
 place in presence of the humble Poor. The eyes of 
 neither are towards their God : both have fallen from 
 the high estate of their humanity, and become the 
 slaves of their condition. 
 
 But the chief value of regarding all that is in our- 
 selves as common to every man, is in the power it 
 gives of intimately knowing the various experiences 
 and trials of mankind — of realizing, through sym- 
 pathy, facts, wants and feelings removed from direct 
 observation, and known to us only through our know- 
 ledge of that nature which is the property of us all. 
 By far the largest part of the inertia, the insensibility, 
 the moral indifference of the world, arises from an 
 incapacity to realize the positions where the want 
 exists, and our help might interfere. We are not so 
 much hard, or even careless, as we are dull and slow 
 to understand. It is not so much that we disregard 
 the evils which we see, as that through remoteness of 
 position and the inaction of thouG^htful, imasrinative 
 
214 Christ's Sense of Brother Jiood, 
 
 sympathy, we see them not at all. Every one has had 
 experience of how absence and distance blunt sensi- 
 bility — how even sufferings and wants of which we 
 have the most intimate knowledge, to which perhaps 
 we have daily ministered, can begin to grow indis- 
 tinct when place interposes its screen. There are men 
 who now do nothing, who lose not an hour of the day, 
 not a watch of the night, through their care for human 
 sufferings, who if they saw with their own eyes the 
 things that are, would pour out their wealth like 
 water, and know no rest until they had removed the 
 horrid image from their thoughts. The bearings of a 
 lively and prompt imagination upon the active virtues 
 are often of vital import, making all the difference 
 upon the affections of the presence or of the absence 
 of their exciting objects. The moral imagination of 
 childhood is proverbially quick and true ; it realizes 
 the human feeling under differences of position ; and 
 the natural sensibility, uninjured as yet by a caste 
 education, has not been blunted by selfish resistance 
 to its pleadings. And this is one of the faculties of 
 childhood to which we must return and be converted, 
 if we would enter into the kingdom of God. For this 
 kind of imagination comes mainly from a sensitive 
 heart — it is the result of fresh and simple feeling — 
 and we are shorn of our humanity when, through 
 deadness of sympathy, we have no access to what 
 our nature is feeling, wanting and suffering in the 
 
Christ's Sense of Brotherhood. 215 
 
 various conditions of life- And this barren inhu- 
 manity may exist without either distance or absence : 
 it may exist towards members of the same house- 
 hold : it may, and it does, exist towards those who 
 serve our daily wants, to an extent that more than 
 any other familiar fact shows how poor we are in 
 spiritual accomplishment — how little we have the 
 power, through grace and simplicity of heart, and 
 the insight of sympathy, to overcome the small diffi- 
 culties of contrasted position.. 
 
 Our common nature makes us one with all men, 
 and gives the power of entering into all men's hearts. 
 High or low, rich or poor, happy or unhappy, pure or 
 guilty, learned or ignorant, we may know their inmost 
 being, and hold the key of their spirits. And accord- 
 ingly he who was the full image of that nature v/as 
 reproached by those in whom it was maimed, by the 
 spiritually halt and blind, with being the Friend of 
 Publicans and Sinners. It was one of the many cases 
 in which intended insult redounded to his glory, and 
 thorns wreathed in mockery crowned him as rightful 
 Lord — the universal Sympathizer — who knew what 
 is in man — Son of Man and Son of God, because in 
 him the elements of humanity were all present and 
 all reconciled, fused into the image of Him who 
 spoke and wrought within him. 
 
XIV. 
 
 Matt. vii. i : 
 '• J'udge not, that ye be not judged." 
 
 All men exert some power of praise and censure, 
 and have a circle whom they influence. All, therefore, 
 are capable of affecting the reputation of other men, 
 of directing the moral sentiment of society. And 
 when it is remembered what vague rumours create 
 reputations, prepare the way for favourable or unfar- 
 vourable judgments, predispose for moral impressions 
 or stand in the place of them, this power of influencing 
 opinion, which is exercised by every one, will be re- 
 garded by a man of any conscientiousness as among 
 the gravest of his responsibilities. A man's fate in 
 life may depend upon this floating reputation, which 
 no one is accountable for. Men will, or will not, look 
 to him with expectation, with a view to his filling 
 important offices, on account of impressions which 
 have no certain foundations, but which have become a 
 sort of general feeling, though produced only by one 
 light tongue echoing another. 
 
TIic jztdgiiig Spirit. 217 
 
 Such in its relations to others may be the importance 
 ■of regarding our power of affecting Opinion with some 
 sacredness, with a heart that suggests the fear of doing 
 wrong, and shrinks from the committal of so great an 
 injury. In its relation to ourselves the matter is even 
 more solemn ; for there is nothing more fatal to every 
 kind of excellence, to every grace of thought or feel- 
 ing, than the habit of needlessly judging other men — 
 the habit of forming and uttering sharply defined 
 opinions respecting the invisible spirit that dwells in a 
 man. Even if the justice of an unfavourable judgment 
 was absolutely certain, one might suppose that all 
 earnest and gentle natures, under no necessity of duty, 
 would recoil from giving it form, from lodging it in 
 the minds of others, from shaping a bad reputation 
 for another with their own lips, and giving it currency 
 vv^ith the intent of their hearts. But when we reflect 
 on the uncertainty of all such judgments, on the pro- 
 found mystery that attaches to every man, on the 
 hidden depths, the latent workings, the possibilities 
 unknown of every human spirit, the presumption that 
 volunteers a judgment, as though that solemn and 
 inscrutable nature was a mere transparency, ought to 
 repel and shock us, as partaking of profaneness and 
 impiety. 
 
 And favourable judgments, uttered praise, if more 
 amiable, may be not less arrogant. The self-ignorance 
 betrayed, the amount of worthless or misleading opinion 
 
2 1 8 The jttdging Spirit. 
 
 put Into circulation may be equally great. Men, 
 for instance, of the most restricted reading, totally 
 ignorant of the literature of any department'of thought, 
 will not hesitate to style a man original, if he has 
 enlightened, or surprised, or agitated their minds, 
 making their own ignorance a standard of judgment. 
 He indeed has judged them by showing a power above 
 them, by fathoming their minds and adding something 
 to their depth ; but for them to judge Jdin, to fix his 
 place, to assign his merit, is by necessity of the case 
 quite beyond their province. To acknowledge, and 
 that Avarmly and gratefully, the mental benefits we are 
 conscious of receiving from other minds, is just and 
 natural; but this, when modestly put, is a judging of 
 ourselves rather than of them — a confession of our 
 relation to them, rather than an attempt to fix their 
 relation either to the general human intellect or to the 
 great masters of Thought. But it is the spirit of judg- 
 mcnt, whether right or wrong, the attitude of mind 
 which it implies, that is necessarily poor, enfeebling, 
 ungenerous, injurious to modesty, injurious to pro- 
 gress, placing us in false and presumptuous relations 
 to both God and man. Let us follow this spirit into 
 some of its manifestations. 
 
 I. We do not hesitate to judge those whom God 
 has placed in a condition, the effects of which on 
 character and habit we have no means of correct!}- 
 estimating. We apply the ready standard of our 
 
The J2tdging Spmt, 2 1 9 
 
 own notions to all orders of men. Our condemnations 
 are often only instinctive repulsions, class differences, 
 sentlmxcntal antipathies, arising out of conventional 
 accidents. Either rank, the very high or the very 
 low, when far removed from our spheres, out of our ex- 
 perience, out of our sympathy, is alike subject to the 
 unjust judgments of an uncharitable ignorance. Thus 
 we misjudge the poor when, looking on their modes of 
 life, our sentiments are shocked, and we attribute to 
 them the moral debasement which might be implied 
 by the voluntary introduction of such habits into our 
 own spheres. But all this may be a mere difference 
 of external refinement, an accident of education ; and 
 when Ave judge it severely, we fall into a Pharisaism 
 of our own, attributing impurity to the inside of the 
 cup, because the outside is coarse or plain. For there 
 are many things that pain the eyes of a refined class, 
 that do not in the least hurt or stain the souls of the 
 exposed class. Under the smooth surface of wealth 
 and easy manners, there may be more of that known 
 violation of Right which constitutes sin, more of what 
 corrupts man's nature, of impure thoughts, of mean 
 ambitions, of low cares, of sickly desires, of worthless 
 interests. It is extremely difficult to judge of the 
 amount of zvrong that attaches to any case, — not 
 merely of how far mitigating pleas may be found in 
 temptations and modes of life, but of how far evil or 
 sensuality may be of a kind permanently to injure the 
 
2 20 The judging Spirit, 
 
 spiritual being. For what we call moral evil is not 
 to be confounded with personal sin. We must look 
 on the sensuality of the poor, and on the wasted or 
 corrupt life of the rich, sinning against knowledge, 
 with totally different eyes. The one goes the way of 
 nature without consciousness of wrong, therefore with- 
 out permanent detriment or deprivation of spiritual 
 power. It is the natural man going through the 
 experience of outward evil, without inflicting positive 
 wounds on Conscience, without contracting habits of 
 resistance to the higher guidance of his own spirit, 
 without knowingly placing barriers between himself 
 and God. May there not in this be something to 
 compensate for the difference of external refinement, 
 and even of intellectual culture, and all that amount 
 of positive instruction which being slighted and abused 
 only makes men just subjects for God's judgments 1 
 Here are two classes : the one by necessity of circum- 
 stance seeing m.uch of evil without feeling it to be sin 
 — making acquaintance with it without the sense of 
 guilt — exhausting it — draining it of all novelty or ex- 
 citement, whilst yet the moral and religious feelings 
 lie in the background, slumbering in unreached depths, 
 and have not their power spent, their authority de- 
 stroyed by ineffectual struggles, by faithless yieldings 
 and impotent protests. The lower nature is running 
 its course, eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of the 
 knowledge of good and evil without knowing that it 
 
The judging Spirit. 221 
 
 is forbidden, traversing the whole field of temptation 
 without any feeling of sin, ere yet the diviner mind 
 has awakened ; and when at last it shall feel the touch 
 of God and come forth, may not the outward tempta- 
 tion have used up its strength and exhausted its re- 
 sources, and the new-born spirit, freed from its spent 
 solicitations, and with a vast energy nurtured in hard- 
 ships, surrender itself without restraint and with an 
 infinite joy to the fresh life that then has opened upon 
 it ? It may go far to compensate for differences of 
 education and of external refinement if it is possible 
 that with the toivest evil may be known, and have its- 
 power exhausted, and yet sin not be contracted. With 
 the other class, the instructed, the refined, the edu- 
 cated, there is no personal experience of evil that is 
 not accompanied by spiritual debility, by violated 
 consciences and broken self-respect, by positive dis- 
 obedience and fear of God ; and there are no untried 
 faculties of soul to be yet called forth, no virgin powers 
 in reserve, new instruments of salvation with an unworn 
 life before them. And who will say what may be the 
 progress of the class that now appears unprivileged 
 and exposed, when once the eyes are opened, the soul 
 touched, the race of knowledge, love and holiness^ 
 entered upon with the freshness of a spirit just baptized 
 into unknown delights } Robust powers, if with an 
 untaught yet with an unenfeebled conscience, when 
 God has once stirred them with His Spirit, may soon 
 
2 2 2 The judging Spirit. 
 
 outstrip the poor lassitudes of the instructed who have 
 sinned against knowledge, lost confidence in their own 
 souls, and pass life in weakness and indulgence with 
 unavailing compunctions. We are speaking of possible 
 issues of God's Providence — of what may be hereafter 
 the relative places of those who have abused privileges 
 and of those who had not the privileges to abuse — of 
 those who sinned against knowledge, and of those who 
 knew evil without knowing sin. The first may be last, 
 the last first ; and when we judge the outward form of 
 coarseness and indulgence, we may be invoking just 
 judgment on our own inward sickliness, infirmity and 
 faithlessness — on the poor fruits that have been ripened 
 in tts under so much of God's richer culture. 
 
 II. And even supposing actual sin in the case of 
 the exposed man, still judgment on it proceeding 
 from us may be a condemnation of ourselves. What 
 should zve have been in his place ? What was his 
 education .? What sounds and sights greeted his 
 young sense 1 What were his parents ? Were they 
 gentle, tender, wise, devout, earnest-hearted .? Was 
 there prayer in his childhood's home ? Were order, 
 beauty, love, purity, incitements to goodness, diver- 
 sions from evil, instruments of knov/ledge, all around 
 him ? Or was his whole existence compressed into 
 animal sensations, and his home a mere provision for 
 nature's coarsest wants, with no appliances besides? 
 Were his natural passions stimulated by abuse, pro- 
 
The jtidging Spirit, 223 
 
 voked by unsatisfied cravings ? Shall we merely look 
 at ourselves and at him, and pronounce judgment 
 according to the differences now observable in modes 
 of life, knowledge and conduct ? Shall sin in him be 
 weighed in the same scales as sin in 11s ? Or shall 
 our respectabilities entitle us before God to as high a 
 place as he may win, notwithstanding actual sins ? 
 When opportunities are compared, who will be certain 
 as to the balance of merit ? A saint's life in one man 
 may be less than common honesty in another. From 
 ns, whose consciences He has reached and enlightened, 
 God may look for a martyr's truth, a Christian's un- 
 worldly simplicity, before He will place us on a level 
 even with the average of the exposed classes. We do 
 not consider what God may be expecting from one of 
 ?ts. We perhaps think our lives at least harmless. 
 We do not consider what He may think of them, 
 when compared with the invitations of His that we 
 have slighted, with the aims of His Providence we 
 are leaving without our help, with the glory for our- 
 selves we are refusing and casting away, with the 
 vast sum of blessed work that daily faithfulness in 
 time can rear without overwork on any single day. 
 Here in one class are men whom light is seeking at 
 <^very access, yet they are worldly, selfish, sensual, 
 afraid of death, and utterly unwilling to lead the 
 simple lives of God's children upon earth ; and here, 
 in another class, are men, sinning too indeed, and sin- 
 
2 24 The judging Spirit. 
 
 ning against knowledge, but whose whole existence is 
 a series of temptations in a condition nearly destitute 
 of intellectual, or social, or devotional excitements : 
 shall the first class judge the last without feeling that 
 it is invoking the judgment of God upon itself? 
 
 We do not at all say that circwnstanccs make virtue 
 or excuse wrong, if circumstances mean the external 
 surroundings of a man. The doctrine is vile and lax ; 
 the plea of all sin, that temptation beset it. Of course, 
 else had no sin been possible. The spirit of a man 
 must direct, or resist and subdue, circumstance, and 
 there can be no plea admitted against any distinct 
 utterance of conscience. But if we undertake to judge 
 others, we must remember that difference of circum- 
 stance does often carry with it this other difference — 
 whether or not we have heard any Voice of God dis- 
 tinctly speaking to us — whether or not w^e are self- 
 condemned before Him as knowingly resisting His 
 Will. 
 
 in. In our common life the judging spirit places 
 us in a hard, unfriendly attitude towards both God 
 and man. It is essentially opposed to that genial 
 temper which receives the blessings that come, with- 
 out anxiety to fix their exact place. If we are to 
 judge everything, nothing will be enjoyed freely, nor 
 taken for what it is, but comparatively and with a 
 grudging reference to what inigJit be. The multitude 
 of our blessings will but excite In us the temper of 
 
The judging spirit. 225 
 
 calculation, as to whether they are not less than 
 necessary, and how they might be augmented. Our 
 friends will awaken the discernment of their defects 
 rather than of their merits, of their heart-goodness. 
 Some accidental blemish will kill an essential excel- 
 lence, and a critical spirit chill the impulses of oyr 
 hearts. This spirit condemns itself — it is ready for 
 judgment only because not immersed in a love and 
 activity of its own, to which all such exercises would 
 be alien. It is said that men of genius make the most 
 indulgent of critics, and the reason is obvious • that 
 when creative minds turn to other men's thoughts the 
 simplest suggestion quickens their own fertility — the 
 smallest spark kindles their fervid nature — and they 
 reflect the glory of their own genius on the poor 
 materials over which they were musing when their 
 native fire burned forth. So is it with all really 
 good men : they are not willingly critics of other 
 men. If evil comes before them and forces them to 
 accost it, they can judge it, when necessary, strictly 
 and truly ; but judgment is not their natural work — 
 it is to them, as it is mercifully said to be to God, 
 " His strange work " — their thoughts go with their 
 sympathies — their interest is in the light they are 
 seeking, and not in the length or the denseness of 
 other men's shadows. Contrasted with this judging 
 spirit, there is a happy, genial, modest, receptive 
 frame of mind, open to all influences that come — 
 
 Q 
 
226 The judging Spirit. 
 
 not slighting what a man is because of something 
 else that he is not. It takes whatever of good any 
 one can give, without the spiteful return of defining 
 the other good things that he has not, and cannot 
 give. It is open to men as it is to God — ready to 
 entertain angels unawares — thankful for such benig- 
 nant influence as they have the power of breathing — 
 willing to receive of everybody's fulness — eager to 
 judge no one. 
 
 Unfortunately, to this mellow, grateful and gracious 
 cast of mind, the tone and temper of common society 
 is constantly applying an irritating treatment. This 
 calm, candid, uncritical, thankfully receptive frame, a 
 man cannot preserve without setting his face against 
 a multitude of questioners. We are daily tempted 
 and solicited into rash and self- fettering judgments. 
 The mental interests of society are too few to suffer 
 personal character and faculty to remain uncanvassed. 
 Conversation runs on persons rather than on things, 
 and you are directly asked for an opinion. Great 
 evils come out of such questions. In the first place, 
 you may have no opinion, nor be entitled to have 
 one. Your opinions of men slowly and silently grow 
 up in you ; and scarcely has this process begun when 
 you are suddenly asked to define them. Yet it is 
 probable, such are our habits, that you will not have 
 the simplicity to resist the snare. You will be hurried 
 into precipitate judgment — mere first impressions will 
 
The pidging Spirit. 227 
 
 be hardened into permanent conclusions — you will 
 presumptuously speak of the deep inner nature or 
 unknown capacity of a man from slight and insuffi- 
 cient hints — you will commit yourself to some defined 
 view of him, and never again have the free privilege 
 of open, candid, receptive intercourse unbiassed by 
 your own rash judgment. There is a rudeness and 
 irreverence of nature in thus assuming to judge any 
 man. It is a barren attitude. When we have once 
 judged a man, we have as it were closed his access 
 to us at all unexpected avenues. We are pledged 
 to one view of him — he is no more an infinite possi- 
 bility to us — we have measured him, calculated our 
 expectations from him, and never more can look to 
 him with the freshness and reverence of an undefined 
 hope. A man that will do this towards a child has 
 closed his heart against much that might enrich it. A 
 sage will listen with an interest approaching to awe to 
 the revelations of a child's heart. He is often judged 
 by it ; but judges not that pure, infinite, mysterious 
 depth. And so should it be, as far as possible, with 
 every human spirit. Why should we be asked to try 
 it with our measuring-lines } to say how deep or how 
 shallow it is } Why should we not keep the privilege 
 of Hope, which is so very near to Charity — the power 
 of approaching with an ever-fresh expectation, which 
 it would be well for us should exist even in regard to 
 the most common man t Without this there can be 
 
2 28 The judging Spirit. 
 
 no such thing as respectful and genial intercourse in 
 life. The habit of society in these things is in fact a 
 constant subornation of rash judgments and an irre- 
 verent temper. To look upon ourselves as standards 
 of measure is to cherish smallness, presumption and 
 contempt — to lose that simple freshness which is 
 ever willing to receive without judging. 
 
 We are now speaking of the temper we should 
 cherish towards the really vast and unfathomable 
 spirit of every man, in opposition to the shallow 
 temper of judgment and irreverence ; and not at all 
 of what may be necessary on special occasions when 
 we have to select men, or to aid in selecting them, 
 for special functions, — and to that extent judgment, 
 the best we can form, becomes a duty. 
 
 IV. The judging spirit, with the injustice it leads 
 to, often displays a remarkable ignorance of human 
 nature which would certainly be corrected by some- 
 thing more of self-inspection, and of that generosity 
 towards others which a thorough knowledge of one's 
 self always excites in a just mind. We have a law of 
 symmetry which we persist in applying to others, with 
 a latent consciousness — which ought to be a full con- 
 sciousness — that we could not stand its application to 
 ourselves. Flaws in us are but flaws, because in fact 
 we know that they do not destroy all nobleness in us ; 
 but when they appear in other men we apply our rule 
 of consistency, and conclude summarily that the rent 
 
The judgi7ig spirit, 229 
 
 goes down to the very depths of their nature. Thus a 
 man is often charged with the positive presence of all 
 the vices which our moral logic thinks to be involved 
 in the indulgence of some one passion. But human 
 nature has not this kind of consistency, of rigid sym- 
 metry, either in its good or its evil. There is often 
 much virtue in co-existence with some ungoverned 
 passion — much refinement, and purity of mind, and 
 grace of character, in conjunction with some strange 
 infirmity — which '' the judging spirit'' would pronounce 
 to be incompatible things. Now, no doubt in all such 
 cases spiritual symmetry is broken, and our quick 
 perception of this in regard to another should have 
 its moral action on ourselves in extinguishing in us 
 whatever is essentially inconsistent with the moulding 
 spirit of Christ's mind. But who could apply this as 
 a rule of judgment to other men, without being self- 
 condemned, if measured by his own rule ? Who does 
 not know things of himself, which if he knew of other 
 men there would be some danger of all his respect for 
 them vanishing away t Who is not conscious of some 
 infirmity, some low indulgence, some turn of temper, 
 some form of evil spirit, which does not destroy all 
 grace or goodness, but which he can hardly think of 
 as adhering to another, without its infecting his whole 
 character and tainting him to the core } We take the 
 vice, or the infirmity, as a sample of the whole man, 
 knowing that it would not be a just sample in our 
 
230 The judging Spirit. 
 
 own case. How different from Christ's merciful dis- 
 cernment would have been our clear, sharp, consistent 
 judgments on Peter's denial, on Nicodemus's fear, on 
 Martha's household mind ! We should have sketched 
 them according to the law of uniformity, and so have 
 involved ourselves in our sentence. 
 
 In the same way we misjudge the symptoms of 
 character, little knowing what deep-seated causes 
 there are in the hidden nature for many things 
 which appear to us as manifest iniquity. We pre- 
 sume to judge what we do not know — what we do 
 not understand — and we speak of a human being, 
 fearfully and wonderfully made, as if the inner mys- 
 teries were all open to our eye. And just as many 
 men, with no competent insight or sensibility, will 
 approach great poets and complain — complacently 
 complain, as if they were injured — that all is dark- 
 ness, that they receive not an idea and understand 
 not a word — so, even in our own homes may there be 
 minds presenting dark sides to us, all whose shadows 
 are cast by ourselves. We have not penetrated to the 
 fine spirit of their being — their capacities we have 
 not guessed — their sympathies have escaped us — their 
 wants we cannot meet — their sweetness we cannot 
 gather. We judge them, little knowing that all would 
 be right with something more of largeness and insight 
 in ourselves. Our own deficiency we perhaps could 
 not directly supply ; but we could approach every 
 
The judging spirit. 231 
 
 human being being with some reverence, and rescue 
 ourselves from the narrow spirit of judgment. 
 
 V. There is one large part of our subject which I 
 can only name : the habit of judging of the whole 
 spirit and inward life of a man from the religion he 
 has embraced. Creeds separate, as if the souls of men 
 were of different natures, and one God was not the 
 Father of all spirits. Some men connect all the piety 
 of the world with the peculiarities of faith and wor- 
 ship which they believe to nourish it best in their 
 own case. Can anything good come out of Nazareth ? 
 In one from Nazareth they will not be able to 
 discern plain facts — they will not admit the positive 
 evidences of goodness and piety, of humility, and 
 clinging faith, and devout lowliness of heart. They 
 will deny their genuine character, rather than acknow- 
 ledge that they could come from such a source. And 
 so we close our hearts against one another, and im- 
 prison our own spirit, and forget how much the living 
 God is more than a creed — in how many ways He 
 works — and how near He is to us all ! The kingdom 
 of heaven is within. What are all differences when 
 compared with the oneness of our common nature, 
 made in the one Image, and fed from the one 
 Source } All Christians feel alike the yearning after 
 perfection — the tending towards Him whose Spirit 
 ever draws them — that God is a very ready Helper, 
 in whom we have access to hidden strength, — and 
 
232 The judging spirit. 
 
 that the Son of Man, living on earth the life of a 
 true and trusting Child of the Heavenly Father — 
 humanity reconciled to God — is the divine solution 
 of the problem of our being. Are there any Christian 
 graces which this faith is not adequate to produce — 
 any peace or consolations which it might not breathe ? 
 ** Judge not, that ye be not judged ;" and judge not 
 even when you are judged, 
 
 I have not spoken of judgments that proceed from 
 evil dispositions, from mean suspicions and distrusts 
 that betray the nature of their source ; but rather of 
 those which arise from a want of nobler interests and 
 sympathies — from a deficiency of large and generous 
 life engaged on higher things. Keep your hearts 
 so full of the Spirit of God, of love, hope, faith and 
 kindred activity, that you are freed by necessity from 
 the spirit of judgment and contempt. Keep no vacant 
 chambers, empty of better things, for such evil spirits 
 to flock to for their revels. This is the great salva- 
 tion — to pursue the Good so purely that Evil loses its 
 interest for us, that there is no time for it in our lives, 
 no place for it in our hearts, so full are we of another 
 spirit. There is a vast deal of small regulative wisdom 
 that is of little or no concern to those who are right 
 within, at the fountains of their life. They renew their 
 communion with God's Spirit— they do the work of 
 their Father — they are children of Him " who is good 
 to all, who causes His sun to shine and His rain to 
 
The judging Spirit, 233 
 
 fall upon the just and upon the unjust " — they are 
 disciples of him, "the first-born among many brethren," 
 " who came into the world, not to judge the world, 
 but that the world through him should be saved," 
 
XV. 
 
 James i. 20 : 
 ** The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." 
 
 The means of doing good is the most difficult 
 question in Moral Science. It branches into two — 
 the first occupied with the mixed philosophical and 
 moral consideration of what it is good to do, the 
 second with the purely spiritual and practical con- 
 sideration of the manner and spirit in which it is to be 
 done. Our concern at present is with the last, which 
 for the sake of distinctness we may call " the Morality 
 of Temper." I shall endeavour to establish a principle, 
 and make application of it to some special cases. 
 
 Every one has observed how even a genuine Bene- 
 volence can fail to accomplish what it intends on 
 account of something unhappy in the manner of the 
 act. In Character, however, there is little or nothing 
 of mere mannerism, of what is entirely outside, having 
 no real connection with the state of the spirit ; and 
 the marring manner has its origin in marred and im- 
 perfect feeling. In all the action of Character the 
 
The Morality of Temper, 235 
 
 expression and its inspiration are in very close rela- 
 tions to one another : they are correspondingly full or 
 feeble, gracious or ungracious. The absent manner 
 shows the absent mind ; the inadvertent manner the 
 inadvertent mind ; the inattentive, unobserving, dis- 
 courteous manner the self-occupied, self-important 
 mind; the blunt manner the blunt sentim.ent, s not 
 wilfully rude but actually graceless. Now, when you 
 enter upon an act of Beneficence, the thing obvious to 
 the person you design to benefit, is not the fountain 
 of kind feeling which suggested the act, for that is 
 hidden in the heart, but the style and manner of per- 
 formance, for these are the outward and visible signs of 
 the inward and spiritual grace. From these he receives 
 his impression of the sejttiment of your act, and if these 
 are faulty or wounding, you may raise a set of feelings 
 which will render impossible any serviceable reception 
 of the proffered kindness, or any delightful return of 
 gratitude, and so rob your own deed of all its intended 
 value. Nor is this unreasonable : whether you mean 
 to bestow a fortune, or to correct an error, nothing but 
 pure Love will make either obligation palatable. A 
 man may be excused for mistaking kindnesses for 
 injuries, if they are offered so as to gall his sense of 
 independence ; or for distrusting the purity of your 
 solicitude for his faults, if it breathes no tenderness 
 into your methods of correction. We cannot suppose 
 there is oil upon the waters if their surface is in a 
 
236 The Morality of Temper, 
 
 tempest ; and if Kindness disfigures its own counte- 
 nance, it must not expect the heart of Love within to 
 be visible through the mask of irritation. There may 
 be much, almost everything, of the genuine sentiment 
 of heartfelt regard, but there is also a mixture of some- 
 thing else which, mantling to the surface, presents that 
 repulsive aspect with which it is hard to associate the 
 belief, and which never will work the effects, of pure 
 goodwill. For a man is never irritated except when 
 he has a personal interest concerned ; and the pro- 
 minence given to the personal interest in the act of 
 irritation is fatal to the purity of his power as a 
 benefactor. For example : to help out of a difficulty, 
 to draw out of a disgrace, one who is socially connected 
 with yourself, and by the manner, the temper of your 
 act, to raise the belief that you do so, not from care 
 or love of him, but because his loss of standing or of 
 character would reflect on you and yours, will only 
 extend to him an evil power over you which, so little 
 will he feel bound to you, so meanly will he think of 
 you, he will not scruple to use against you for his own 
 convenience. The extent to which he thinks we would 
 assist him, rather than be socially disgraced by him, 
 becomes simply a fund upon which he can draw, and, 
 however disguised, is pure evil both to him and us. 
 To give spiritual weight to helpful acts, they must be 
 purely benevolent : so far as they are seen to be not 
 self-sacrifice, but self-regard, will their power for good 
 
The Morality of Temper. 237 
 
 be vitiated. How many of us may be complaining of 
 ingratitude, who are only reaping what we sowed, and 
 deserved no returns but what we got ! Kindness, pure 
 from all selfish taint, may be combined with the 
 deepest sorrow or moral distress ; but, so far as there 
 is irritation, it is always the breaking out of a personal 
 annoyance, a self-regarding disturbance. Grief over 
 another, though unreasonable in its extent and sorely 
 oppressive to him for whom it is felt, may yet be 
 purely disinterested, but irritation never. The unhappy 
 manner, therefore, which is in fact the sign of only a 
 //^^-cordial benevolence, the expression of a real 
 reluctance to bear certain painful accompaniments of 
 our goodwill, screens the hidden kindness, and calls up 
 a host of ungenial feelings to disturb the cordial and 
 co-operating reception of the kindness ; and with these 
 two evil operations it is evident how, even in its mildest 
 form, " the wrath of man worketh not the righteous- 
 ness of God." 
 
 But something more is necessary to the power of 
 doing good than a conviction of our pure goodwill. 
 This is the clearing of obstructions ; and, except for 
 the gratitude which is raised by kind intentions, which 
 is itself a good, the work remains to be done. The 
 only real benefits are those which are conferred on the 
 mind, on the power and action of the affections. It 
 is only character that is capable of being essentially 
 and permanently blessed. He is a benefactor indeed 
 
238 The Morality of Temper. 
 
 who contributes to a favourable influence on the inde- 
 pendence of the spirit, on the force of manly honour 
 and self-reliance in the struggle of existence, on the 
 life of the intellect, on the simplicity and unworldliness 
 of the heart, on the rectitude of the will He alone 
 leaveth an immortal impress of his goodwill. He 
 worketh indeed, and for ever, the righteousness of 
 God. But character can be benefited only through 
 an inward elevation of our tastes, joys, pursuits, plea- 
 sures and directions — through a growing delight, or 
 conscientious interest, in the energetic exercise of 
 inexhaustible powers ; for the powers that delight in 
 truth, and the powers that delight in goodness, are 
 without limit, either in themselves or in their objects. 
 The method of a real improvement, even when we are 
 being corrected and chastened, is never by restrictions 
 but always by an accession of fulness, through the 
 increased activity of some neglected grace or faculty 
 in us. If a m.an is ignorant, it is not by exposing the 
 disgrace of his ignorance, or even by exhibiting its 
 disadvantages, but by stimulating his natural love of 
 knowledge, that you will do him good. If a man is 
 rude, it is not by resenting his rudeness, but by 
 making him sentitive to gracious kindness, that you 
 will win him to be courteous. If a man is selfish, it is 
 not by rebuking his narrow-heartedness, nor by bluntly 
 asking him to give his goods to feed the poor, but by 
 awakening in him some spring of living sympathy and 
 
The Morality of Temper. 239 
 
 compassion, that you will make him charitable, with 
 the charity that profiteth his soul. If a man is marked 
 by over-prudence, it is not by lessening his prudence, 
 but by enlarging his love, that you will make him 
 wise with the wisdom from above. He who would 
 bless our intellectual nature must win it to think — to 
 know something of the earnest life of a mind worthily 
 occupied — must encourage it to trust itself and go out 
 upon its own wing, notwithstanding that we are as 
 liable to fall in learning to soar with the mind, as in 
 learning to walk with the feet. He who would bless 
 our affections must call them out, stimulate their 
 natural hunger and thirst, help them to worthier 
 attachments, and leave them., not miserable in the con- 
 sciousness of their degradation, but kindled and erect 
 with the new love he has inspired. Whenever any 
 accession has to be made to Character, Sympathy is 
 the fountain we need to open. Attraction is the work- 
 ing power of the Mind's activity and of the Will's 
 rectitude. All the signals of invitation must be hung 
 around the pursuit we aim to encourage. Every 
 association of mortification is a fetter on the timid 
 intellect, a shadow on the repulsed heart. The effect 
 of man's wrath, whenever it mingles with any of the 
 agencies of Character, is to burden them with an un- 
 natural painfulness. It appeals to none of the leading 
 springs of action. It offers Good with a menace if it 
 is refused, but inspires no love of it. It is a creator of 
 
240 The Morality of Temper. 
 
 antipathies, and even blessings are disguised and dis- 
 tasteful when coloured by its frown. This, then, is our 
 principle. By the excitement of ungenial feelings 
 against himself, and against the good he offers, " the 
 wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God." 
 
 I shall instance the cases to which this principle 
 applies in the order of their increasing connection with 
 general interests ; and first to the case of Education. 
 
 It is in childhood, when we are most the creatures 
 of impression, the victims of accidental, arbitrary asso- 
 ciations, conjoining in thought things that are always 
 presented to us together, whether they have any real 
 connection or not, that chiefly ought to be dreaded 
 unhappy or repulsive feeling uniting itself with any- 
 thing that is to be in close relationship with all our 
 after being. In later life, taught by large experience, 
 we gain, more or less, the power of separating endur- 
 ing blessings from their temporarily painful accompa- 
 niments ; but what does a child know of troubles and 
 sorrows that are blessings in the making, except as 
 troubles and sorrows 1 It cannot see the fruit in the 
 seed, the future in the present ; and if things really 
 good are made to it the sources of unhappiness, it will 
 and it must revolt from them. Just in proportion as 
 the reflective nature is too feeble to know the value of 
 intellectual discipline or endowment, to abstract forth- 
 coming invisible results of future power from the pre- 
 sent pains and restrictions of the educational process. 
 
TJic Morality of Temper. 241 
 
 should there be every care to remove from that pro- 
 cess all avoidable discouragements, and especially that 
 Avrath of man which assuredly is never farther from 
 working the righteousness of God than when it darkens 
 the life and embitters the remembrances of childhood. 
 Injuries, never to be repaired in this world, have been 
 inflicted on the intellectual character through antipa- 
 thies produced by this arbitrary addition of fear, humi- 
 liation and suffering, to all the rest of the difficulties 
 that beset a child's step on the path of knowledge ; 
 for thought cannot work freely when the spirit is timid 
 or humiliated. Yet this is not the worst result ; its 
 affections are the chief sufferers. There is nothing on 
 earth more melancholy than when the shadows of hard, 
 unfeeling Authority fall in dark masses on the spring- 
 ing life of childhood — when the tyranny of Temper 
 stamps on it the correspondent vices of slavery, the 
 servility, the terror and the trick — when irritability is 
 felt like a jarring blow through and through the tender 
 organization, striking down the spirit of joy and trust, 
 even, as some one has expressed it, as if a stone was 
 suddenly cast against a tree wherein the birds are 
 singing. The birds will sing again when the fright is 
 over ; but never again will the music of a child's heart 
 be given out as freely to one whom it has learned not 
 only to dread, but to distrust, as capable of being at 
 any moment unjust and cruel through mere Temper. 
 The m.ost blessed change that has come upon the 
 
 R 
 
242 The Morality of Temper, 
 
 world in our modern days is in so far as, through 
 the genial sympathy and earnest self-government of| 
 parents — for without the self-government the sym- 
 pathy is only careless self-indulgence — childhood has 
 been sheltered from the immoralities of Temper, from 
 an ungenial Rule ; and the power of a loving imitation 
 of a free attraction, has had its natural way. For a 
 prevailing sense of unhappiness, and, what is far worse, 
 of injustice, may be produced by unkindness, apparent 
 or real, by tyranny, by uncertainty, by caprice and 
 wilfulness, by the lawlessness of power and authority, 
 by a self-indulgent arbitrariness, a rude, impatient, 
 overbearingness, wounding and stifling a child's affec- 
 tions, or self-esteem, or just expectations, that will give 
 a chill to the sensitive nature, with a rooted moral 
 distrust, which no after effort of the will is able to 
 remove. Nor is this strange. The whole world of 
 childhood is but a small range, and within that range 
 it comes to see things with a very true eye, to receive 
 impressions that go very deep into the real characters 
 of those who rule it ; and if fear, or uncertainty and 
 moral distrust, with an acute perception of a parent's 
 caprice or weakness, and a child's pure scorn and con- 
 tempt — or, what is worse, a purpose of playing on them 
 for its own ends — inhabit that narrow range of close 
 observation, it is an injurious life, and in some sad 
 form, of alienated affections or of vitiated character, its 
 effects remain. Even the love that has no voluntary 
 
The Mo7'ality of Tevipe7\ 243 
 
 selfishness in it, if it is without method, without prin- 
 ciple, without discipline, soon becomes a corrupting 
 power; for unless childhood is prompted by loving 
 reverence, or disciplined by just authority, it must fall 
 into mere self-will. And it is not of a regulated 
 strictness of life and rule that a child ever feels the 
 hardship : it will conform cheerfully to any amount 
 of orderly work which only its physical strength can 
 bear, and be all the happier for it : it will enjoy even 
 a few indulgences with far more of gratitude because 
 they are indulgences, and even a few pleasures with 
 far more of zest and spirit because they are pleasures 
 and not the wantonness of every day. We cannot 
 recede from one evil in education without danger of 
 falling into its opposite ; and we should not gain by 
 the removal of an ungenial strictness that was some- 
 times cruel, harsh and wrathful to unrighteousness, if 
 we were to have in its place only an indulgence that 
 is always immoral and unprincipled. It is an alarm- 
 ing sign in this direction to find "The Educational 
 Society " of the city of Lyons offering a public Prize 
 for the best Essay on " the causes of the growing irre- 
 verence of children and young persons towards their 
 parents, with proposals for an effective remedy." And 
 the futility of such an offer is not so great as may 
 appear, if we suppose it to be made, not for the sake 
 of the Essay but for the sake of calling national 
 attention to a fact and symptom of the gravest signi- 
 
244 ^/^^ Mo7^ality of Temper, 
 
 ficance. It is only a few years ago that one of the 
 great American Preachers * who is best known in this 
 country, published a discourse on the same fact and 
 symptom. Where America and France are in danger, 
 England is not free. But as for any effective remedy, 
 there can be none except in the characters, the wisdom, 
 the principle, the mature qualities and regulated lives 
 of parents. The age of harsh rule, even to unchastened 
 and unrighteous anger, would be a light evil in com- 
 parison with a generation of parents who, in self- 
 indulgence, in love of pleasure, in carelessness of 
 responsibility, were but children themselves. In the 
 whole life of Christ there is perhaps nothing more 
 solemn aftd affecting than the prayer for himself in 
 his relations to the disciples and to us all — the 
 prayer for himself in the interest of those whom he 
 called his " little cJdldrcn " — " Father, for their sakes 
 I sanctify myself." 
 
 The next interdict which our principle lays upon 
 the wrath of man is to forbid its interference as a 
 moral agent with any of the evils and offences — I do 
 not now mean crimes — of our SOCIAL Life. 
 
 If on the dependent state of childhood it works no 
 good, far less is it likely to have a moral operation 
 Avhere there may be arrayed against it the counter- 
 irritations of a fiery independence. It is a positive 
 relief to a conscience-stricken man to be excited to 
 
 * Dr. Dewey. 
 
The 2Iorality of Temper, 245 
 
 anger. Give him by undue asperity some natural 
 ground of complaint, and he will eagerly turn the 
 rising current into another channel, that in the flood 
 of what he deems a just resentment he may drown 
 the still, small voice. You have provided him with 
 a means of escape from you and from himself. He 
 can now stand forth as the injured instead of the 
 injurer, and your angry interference has only inflamed 
 where it struck. Not, of course, that the pure and 
 gentle, and men steeped in social offences, marked 
 by rudeness, coarseness, discourtesy, levity or vice, 
 are to be received with no difference of feeling or of 
 manner. But anger is not the righteous expression 
 of that difference. Grieve if you will — be as cold as 
 marble if you feel it only conscientious to be so — but 
 be not insulting and irritated. Your reserve will be 
 of more power than your wrath. The anger would 
 only be a cloudy screen on what was pure and good 
 in your moral revolt ; the sorrow, even to tears, might 
 be visible gushings from its spring. For there is such 
 a thing as righteous indignation — there is an instinct 
 of just resentment which our conscience deliberately 
 approves as the warning and weapon of God — there 
 is a revolt from evil, an abhorrence of wickedness, 
 which it is not good for an evil man not to witness, 
 and all expression of which it is not good for us to 
 suppress. He is a man of feeble soul who deals only 
 in correct moral judgments, but never feels a passion 
 
246 The Mo7'ality of Temper. 
 
 for what is good, a detestation of what is wrong. It 
 is good for meanness to have to meet the eye which, 
 " e'en when turned on empty space, burns keen with 
 honour" — it is good for evil-doers, men or children, to 
 have to tremble and betray their guilty secret before 
 a glance of righteous condemnation, as it was good 
 for hypocrites and Pharisees to have to look upon the 
 awful face of the reproving Christ. Only, " be ye 
 angry, and sin not" — which implies no doubt that 
 there is an anger which is not sin. You may be 
 angry if your anger has in it nothing of ill-will or of 
 self-indulgence — if it keeps the law not to render evil 
 for evil ; for this rule admits only the indignation that 
 is shocked and troubled by guilt, that cannot witness 
 iniquity without something of personal anguish for 
 lost goodness, and is the instinctive expression of the 
 deepest sorrow. Moral distress may profitably take 
 the natural form of indignation, \i there is nothing in 
 it of the personal indulgence of irritation, hatred, con- 
 tempt, or vengeance. 
 
 The most delicate of all ministries is remedially to 
 affect an erring mind through social agencies ; and if 
 man's wrath enters into the matter — not as a form of 
 love, but as a form of judgment — there is small hope 
 that there will come out of it the righteousness of 
 God. 
 
 It will be questioned whether it is possible, in the 
 constant friction and provocation of life, that all re- 
 
The Morality of Temper, 247 
 
 sentfulness of temper should be suppressed. It cer- 
 tainly is not possible to him who permits himself to 
 think that it is not. Nothing but the Christian law, 
 growing out of the clear perception that every wrong- 
 doer is an object for the deepest pity, when seen in 
 the light of a brotherly conscience, will give a man 
 the calmness of heart, the greatness of spirit, to love 
 his enemies, to bless them that curse him, to do good 
 to them that hate him. But surely there ought to be 
 some power of producing the right spirit in that fact 
 without controversy, that whenever the wrath of man 
 comes in it is as a worker of unrighteousness. 
 
 Our principle is capable of being applied to some of 
 the difficult questions of penal jurisprudence, though 
 it does not belong to us to make the whole of the 
 application. The arrangem.ents by which a regard 
 for the moral welfare of the criminal, as if he alone 
 was to be considered, are to be combined with the 
 well-being of society, are within the province of Legis- 
 lation — a part of its province, within which they who 
 tread need to be v/ise as serpents and harmless as 
 doves. But our feelings towards the criminal make 
 part of the duty of all, and in fact form the public 
 sentiment which Legislators represent. Briefly, then, 
 there are two things to be remembered — that in the 
 v/orst man a reformation is possible, and that man's 
 wrath will not effect it. To exclude is not the way to 
 assimilate — to punish is not the way to regenerate — 
 
24S The Moi-ality of Temper, 
 
 though some exclusion and some punishment may be 
 unavoidable. We are concerned here only with the 
 spirit of the legislation, not with its machinery ; but 
 we may protest by the meekness and gentleness of 
 Christ, by him who was reproached with being the 
 Friend of Sinners, by him who declared that the 
 physician should be wi-th the sick, that it is by 
 multiplying the occasions of good-will — by new lights 
 in the mind — by new sympathies in the heart — by 
 intercourse, not by separation — that the enemies of 
 society are to be won back to the bosom of humanity. 
 This is not the place to utter what could only be 
 individual opinions on momentous questions ; but it 
 is not a private opinion — it is a Christian law — that 
 what we cannot do in Love, out of the conviction 
 that it is tJie best for him to whom we do it, we must 
 not do at all. The righteousness of Capital Punishment 
 must stand or fall by that rule. If it is not the most 
 merciful doom, which it may be, to one who has so 
 spoiled this life for himself — to a murderer who can 
 never again trust himself or be trusted — there are 
 other and ample means, as by life-long restraint, of 
 protecting society ; and to retain the death punish- 
 ment, if it is not best and most merciful for the 
 unhappy criminal, would be national iniquity. — And 
 how could Christians who believed that the day of 
 death was the day of everlasting doom, the last day 
 of opportunity, inflict it on the sinner red-handed in 
 
The Morality of Temper. 249 
 
 his sin ! That they can do so is evidence, that in 
 their hearts they do not beHeve it. 
 
 And, lastly, the wrath of man worketh not the 
 righteousness of God when employed as an instru- 
 ment of controversy. Wrath has no effect on the 
 understanding; it has an effect on the temper and the 
 w'ill most unfavourable to persuasion. The justifying 
 plea for controversial anger is that error is wilful. 
 Here are two assumptions : first, that there is an 
 error ; secondly, that it is wilful. It is not possible. 
 A man cannot choose to believe wTong, whatever he 
 may choose to profess. He may indeed be led into 
 error by voluntary neglect of the means of know- 
 ledge ; but God punishes that wilfulness by inflicting 
 its natural penalty — the error and blindness to which 
 it leads. Persecuted opinion indeed may summon to 
 its aid a false pride, and as a matter of honour refuse 
 even to listen till every weapon is removed, every wall 
 of separation throw^n down ; but that is Persecution's 
 unrighteous work. When man's wrath is brought to 
 bear upon error, its effect is to raise the spirit of a 
 martyr, and a martyr on the wrong side. It is the 
 unrighteous working of the controversial temper that 
 it renders natural conversion to what is true almost 
 -impossible, and makes resistance almost a virtue, or 
 easily mistaken for one. There is also an undue 
 degree of favour attracted towards cruelly treated 
 opinion. The persecuted error is far more sympa- 
 
250 The Morality of Temper, 
 
 thized With than the persecuting truth. I suppose 
 that often large-hearted men in this country have 
 felt too favourably towards Roman Catholicism as 
 a religious S3^stem, through detestation of its civil 
 wrongs. 
 
 But the most unrighteous effect of man's wn'ath In 
 controversy is when it obscures or distorts the ground 
 of God's love for all His children, through the self- 
 regarding fears and rage of unspiritual men, who 
 think you would rob them of their assured amulet 
 of everlasting safety. For what is all this war about ? 
 About a right belief — the right belief being regarded 
 as the means of salvation. Are we to be in doubt 
 about our having God's Love, until we are certain 
 that we are in possession of God's Truth ? How 
 small are all these things, all honest differences, in 
 the sight of our Heavenly Father ! What must be 
 thought above of the presumption of a man claiming 
 to have God's Truth — and holding himself safe, and 
 others unsafe, because he has it, and they have 
 missed it ! 
 
 There is only one answer with which we are con- 
 cerned to the question — "Master, what shall I do 
 that I may have eternal life 1 — Thou shalt love God 
 with heart, mind, soul and strength — and thy neigh- 
 bour as thyself." 
 
XVI. 
 
 Luke ix. 23 : 
 
 "If any man will come after me, let him deny him.-elf, and take up his 
 cross daily, and follow me."' 
 
 The measure of our spiritual health is in the strength 
 of our conformity to the highest law of our being — 
 in our effectual desire to have our life in Him in whom 
 is no darkness at all — in the filial assurance that, inas- 
 much as our souls are not wilfulh- separated from the 
 fountain of Righteousness, .we cannot lose a Heavenl}- 
 guidance. And since there is no limit to a blessedness 
 that is thus derived, a child of God must desire at each 
 moment to overstep the facilities of past habit, and 
 reach forth to things before. Spiritual life, in all its 
 earnest aspects, is a constant approach towards the 
 Perfect, not without new effort and aspiration at each 
 step. It is not Christian Goodness to obey constitu- 
 tional impulses, and by a happy original conformation 
 to be affectionate, s^entle, s^uileless or devotional. It 
 is not Christian Goodness to shed tears of sensibility, 
 or in the ready glovv' of instinctive pict}' to feci the 
 
252 Self-deniaL 
 
 breath of God wafted to us from earth and sky. It 
 is not Christian Goodness to do what we take instant 
 pleasure in doing, but rather to carry out our higher 
 desires to that point at which what is dehghtful and 
 uphfting in contemplation becomes laborious in exe- 
 cution. Christian Goodness, the goodness of aspiration 
 and the cross, cannot assist in actions which cost the 
 performer no sacrifice, or in emotions which end in 
 their own indulgence. There is in every true life, and 
 in every true hour of life, something of the martyr 
 spirit — of a higher testimony, given at a cost, to the 
 Spirit of God working in us. Spiritual life is life on 
 the scale of immortality, for it has to make continual 
 approach towards God, and God is inexhaustible. 
 Such a conviction would seem to be inseparable from 
 any real feeling of God : it is the root of growth, the 
 spirit of life in Christ Jesus ; and all that falls short 
 of this thirst for more, is but the amiableness of tem- 
 perament or the fixedness of habit. 
 
 Such unqualified statement may provoke the ques- 
 tion : " Are, then, all our prompt and extemporaneous 
 acts, impelled by the very spirit of Love moving freely 
 in the heart, not distinctively Christian in their cha- 
 racter } Are all the delightful charities of life, which 
 it would be pain to place under restraint, not of the 
 nature of Virtue t Are the springings of natural affec- 
 tion, and the emotions of piety that visit us with un- 
 worldly peace, not of the essence of Goodness } " That 
 
Self-denial, 253 
 
 all these things are good and beautiful, testimonies to 
 the purity of our past, full of promise for the future, is 
 not disputed ; but whether they are essentially Chris- 
 tian as distinguished from what is simply natural — 
 whether they have a root of growth in them — whether 
 they are merely complexional, or belong to the ever 
 quickening life of God in us — may be a different ques- 
 tion. In the natural moods of unspoiled childhood 
 there is an affectionateness as beautiful, a tenderness 
 as irrepressible, a purity as attractive, imaged in the 
 clear, unabashed eye that is lighted from an inward 
 fount which no conscious passion has yet stirred — in 
 the silver voice which has yet caught no discord — in 
 the look of repose, of a life drawn from far-off springs, 
 which suggested the angel's whisper — in the smile of 
 gladness which reveals the harmony of the faculties 
 when first adjusted by the Divine Hand ; and yet we 
 ascribe no moral character, we do not attribute vh'iue 
 to the sensibility, the involuntary affections breaking 
 into joy, the dauntless innocence of earliest childhood^ 
 The involuntary nature that is In the child we attribute 
 to its Creator : the goodness which belongs to the 
 spirit under trial does not yet exist. 
 
 It will be no reply to this to say, that the constitu- 
 tional graces of infancy and the confirmed propensities 
 of riper years are not parallel cases, because that the 
 latter have outlived the wear of the world and with- 
 stood the causes that kill natrual feelings ; for so far 
 
254 Self -den ial. 
 
 as this is true do they fall within our stricter rule, 
 involving the alternative choice, the resistance to evil, 
 the preference of right, the energy of will and growth, 
 which enter into the constitution of any service, of any 
 state of character, that is a living sacrifice to God. 
 
 The objector may maintain that these native ten- 
 dencies, coincident with Good, have produced, con- 
 stitutionally though it be, their correspondent actions, 
 until they have settled into solid habits from whose 
 accustomed moulds no strength of opposition could 
 now dislodge them, and tJiat this is VirUie. But Habit 
 is not necessarily CJiristian Goodness ; and if its 
 highest aspect is only the stability of accustomed 
 life, it is certainly not spiritual at all. Faultless 
 habits may be but the signs of a spirit that once 
 was alive, but has long been dead — that has settled 
 on its lees, as the Prophet puts it, and ripens no 
 more. The young man who said to Christ, "All 
 these have I kept from my youth up ; what lack I 
 yet ? " was a person of unexceptionable habits ; yet, 
 because he had no affections all whose roots were 
 alive — no spirit and principle of goodness, bearing 
 ever fresher fruits, and going on unto perfection — he 
 fell away from the Chief who led the Army of Martyrs, 
 and went away grieved because he had great posses- 
 sions, which habit had endeared and could not sacri- 
 fice. Habit is not impulse : it is not affection : it is 
 not sentiment : it is not faith : it is not hope : it is not 
 
Self-denial, 
 
 -OD 
 
 love : it is not suggestive principle : it is nothing, and 
 it has nothing, out of which newer, higher, severer, 
 better life must come. The great service of Habit in 
 the process of our advancement is in the preventive 
 force which it exerts, enabling us to retain a position 
 once reached, opposing the fixedness of its hold to 
 any threatened descent, any relapse on a way already 
 travelled. It is a fenced station on the long ascent, 
 where, with our foot in a groove and protected by a 
 battlement, we are safe from immediate danger, till 
 we have strength to pass onwards and reach a new- 
 lodgment higher on the steep. But Habit by its 
 nature is stationary. It can keep us from falling 
 back, but it is so far from having any impelling power, 
 that it must be jealously watched as naturally adhe- 
 sive and conservative. Religious habits are indeed 
 of priceless value, provided they relate to means 
 and instruments, and are not themselves the ends at 
 which we aim. We should have a habit of Devotion, 
 but not a habit of resting in the same devotions with- 
 out seeking fuller intercourse with God. We should 
 have a habit of doing Good, but not of doing the same 
 good without increase of aim, power and sacrifice. In 
 an age that perhaps is passing away, too much con- 
 fidence was reposed on mechanical habits in the midst 
 of those mighty living forces and passions which, 
 whether for good or for evil, will wear no yoke oi 
 that sort, and whose beauty and glory it is that they 
 
256 Self-deniaL 
 
 shape their own habits, and daily make all things new. 
 Habit, it was said, is everything, habit is a second 
 nature ; and if this is said of the constant employment 
 of means in the service of living affections, it is cer- 
 tainly true ; but if it is said of any fixed states of 
 action and of mind, however high, we might as well 
 say that inertia is everything, that inertia is a second- 
 nature — a nature that has killed the first. Habit is 
 merely the tendency to remain what we are — to go 
 on doing what we have done — to acquire a facility of 
 operation in given circumstances. Unless a living 
 germ of Progress is in you, all that Habit will do for 
 you is to enable you to keep your present status with 
 less effort — that is, to become more and more mecha- 
 nical. Nothing could afford stronger indication of the 
 low views which men formed of Christian life than the 
 efficacy which not long ago was supposed by our 
 religious teachers to belong to this spiritless expedient 
 for keeping hearts right with God, right with that 
 Infinite Father who invites us to be followers of Him 
 as dear children, to be perfect even as He is perfect. 
 Some reputable position, where the tempted virtues 
 might be caserned in safety, would often appear to 
 be the amount of spiritual ambition — some holdfast 
 for the soul, some means of protecting an honourable 
 character from wound or stain, all that was sought 
 for. It would be impossible to cite an instance in 
 which Christ — he whose distinction it is that he lived 
 
Self-deniaL 257 
 
 ever from a sense of the responsibilities of a Son of 
 God — recommended the adoption of such moulds for 
 the soul, into which it may cast itself habitually and 
 reproduce the same forms. He sought to instil prin- 
 ciples of life, to put fruitful roots into the soil, to touch 
 affections whose hunger is never satisfied, whose thirst 
 is never quenched ; and it is characteristic of all sach 
 living principles that they make all things new, that 
 they invigorate their former products, and push forth 
 fresh forms of being — that though at first small as the 
 grains of mustard-seed, they gradually lift their heads 
 to heaven, and spread embracing arms over the earth. 
 The tree that grozus no more has begun to die. 
 Christ's spirit was not represented by the wine that 
 had settled on its lees, but by the wine that would 
 burst the old vessels. 
 
 Yet righteous, or religious, Habit is all too holy, that 
 in exposing its weakness as a spirit of life we should 
 incur the slightest risk of undervaluing the service it 
 performs in preserving many an exposed virtue from 
 the downward road of temptation — in clinging to the 
 purer heart with protecting remembrances — in lead- 
 ing to admonitory acts, suggesting trains of saving: 
 thought in the midst of other influences and on the 
 brink of peril — in shielding from the world's encroach- 
 ments the arrangement of our time, so as to rescue 
 from each day some holy season — in building up 
 a wall of solid works behind our most advanced 
 
 s 
 
258 Self-denial. 
 
 positions, preventing retrogression ; yet all this may 
 be barely conservative, it may make no provision for 
 improvement, it may involve no principle of progress ; 
 and through its aid alone we shall never realize the 
 Prophet's vision of a soul's life in God, we shall never 
 mount up with wings as the eagles, and renew our 
 youth from day to day. It is not the re-inspection of 
 a character just kept from injury, and rubbed daily 
 from the dust and soil of the average world, that can 
 supply the spirit of life that will free us for ever from 
 the law of sin and death. Nor is it the particular state 
 or stage of growth at which our souls die, if we have 
 died by ceasing to grow, that is the essential question, 
 if thus we die at all. " The water that I will give you 
 shall be in you a fountain of water, springing up into 
 everlasting life." The man whose virtues are only 
 habits, and who is contented with that condition, has 
 not yet discerned in his nature the rudiments of im- 
 mortality ; and if he believes in eternal life, he has 
 never put to himself the question, Why } for what 
 purpose } on what grounds of divine fitness, has God 
 assigned him an everlasting existence } If the pur- 
 poses of our being could have been accomplished on 
 a narrower field and in a briefer time, if Habit could 
 consummate our being, God would not have made 
 us eternal : unless we have capabilities for unlimited 
 growth, clearly we have in us no germ of the life of 
 God, no roots of immortality. And as clearly, if we 
 
Self -denial, 259 
 
 ■are children and heirs of God, that there is an eternity 
 of time before us will not save the loiterer from loss, 
 if there is also an unlimited way to travel, and infinite 
 heights to scale. 
 
 Is spiritual life, then, an unending struggle ? Are 
 we never to feel secure ? Is vigilance never to be sus- 
 pended ■ Are we never to breathe freely ? Is there 
 310 haven of peace ? Yes, there is a haven of peace : 
 only, you are never so blessed that you may not be 
 more blessed — you are never so high that you may 
 not be higher — you are never so peaceful that you can 
 have no more of the fulness of life in God. Is that a 
 thing to complain of.? The Christian life is a con- 
 tinual renewal, but only as a walk up a mountain is a 
 continual ascent ; and if the mountain is immeasurable, 
 being indeed the heights of God's own nature, then of 
 course the last summit is never reached ; but if the 
 ascent is ever-freshened health, power and joy, it is 
 matter of privilege, not of hardship, that we are called 
 to ascend for ever. Are we imperfect beings aiming 
 to live after heavenly models ? Of course that implies 
 effort, and the lifting of our eyes to what is above us. 
 And if we are what vve say we are, children and heirs 
 of God, can we ever be anything else than imperfect 
 beings aiming to live after heavenly models t The 
 direct struggle with evil may indeed fall from us, and 
 ought to have fallen from us long since, but the throb 
 of aspiration can never cease in a child of God God 
 
2 5o Self-denial. 
 
 does not call us, however we may doom ourselves, to 
 a repeated contest with the same foes, nor for the same 
 prize ; the warfare of the child is not the warfare of 
 the man, the warfare of the man is not the warfare of 
 the Immortal, that we should think of one decisive- 
 victory, and of ever after holding our crowji in per 
 petuity. If we must strive without ceasing, the fault 
 is our own if it be not daily from a higher station and 
 for a fresh glory. It is this truth which makes Self- 
 denial a perpetual element in that Goodness which 
 Christ inspires with the love and imitation of God. 
 If our aim was short of this, effort might cease with 
 the perfection of habit. It is this which requires a 
 son of God to take up his cross, not on one great occa- 
 sion, but daily, for daily is he called to transcend the 
 past and receive more of the Spirit of his Father. New 
 opportunities, new possibilities, open on advancing 
 steps. Daily and hourly, in the eternal festival, God 
 calls the humble ones, who raise meek ^yQ?> of aspira- 
 tion, to come up and take a higher place nearer to 
 Himself; and at His command they must obey, or 
 forfeit their place in their Father's house. But two 
 things are to be remembered : first, that Effort is not 
 necessarily pain, often indeed in itself the highest joy, 
 and always essential to it ; and, secondly, that Self- 
 denial is not the denial of all our desires, for at least 
 there must be one desire permitted to have its way, one 
 desire indulged, and that the highest of all, the mastei' 
 
Self-denial, 261 
 
 of all, the desire to be one with God, since that is the 
 very desire out of which the denial of Self proceeds. 
 What, then, is Self-denial in its Christian sense ? for 
 clearly, when we deny ourselves, zue are the deniers : 
 it is one self denying another self, the real self, clothed 
 v/ith divine authority, denying the lower and usurping 
 self. It relates to the rightful dominion of conscience 
 and the spiritual affections, overruling the sway of the 
 meaner tendencies. It is our soul's denial of the selfish 
 part of us, of ease, of sloth, of pleasure and of power, 
 that the affections which have not Self for their object 
 may find us ready for their service. It is the supre- 
 macy of our sense of Right among the multitude of our 
 prompters, or against the resistance of our inclinations. 
 It is the starving and binding up of ungenerous desires, 
 that nobler desires may have free course and be glori- 
 fied. It is a command over the sensual passions of. 
 anger, fear, envy, jealousy and irritable Impatience, 
 that other powers, which bring only strength and joy 
 and love, may be the masters of our being. If it 
 mortifies a lower self-love. It is that a nobler self-know- 
 ledge may lift a meek and strong heart to God. It 
 refuses a present pleasure, only because it Is a kind of 
 pleasure that Goodness, Reason, Conscience, Faith, 
 Hope and Charity, could not then take in peace. When 
 it restrains the love of gain, It is because it is pursuing 
 priceless wealth, a gold that the world cannot assay. 
 When it withstands the pleadings of indolence, it is 
 
262 Self-denial. 
 
 that the great ends of life may not be lost In sloth,, 
 sold away for a price on a par with Esau's pottage. 
 If there were no higher demands of our nature, there 
 would be no reason that the lower ones should be 
 restrained. For Self-denial is no monkish virtue, no 
 negative discipline, no recluse's safety, no ascetic's 
 way of recommending himself to God, no pale, timid 
 shadow shrinking from the light and denying itself 
 the natural joys of man, no self-inflicted pain, the price 
 paid here for escape from pain hereafter, no abject 
 creeping on the earth that a Power to whom abjectness 
 is pleasing may deign to cast his eye upon us, — it is 
 the upward life of a child of God, loving what God 
 loves, refusing to be in bondage to anything that 
 would remove him from the light of his Father's face. 
 As we enlarge our experience of the only blessed- 
 ness that has promise of eternal life, inasmuch as it 
 only needs eternal life for its fulfilment, the restraints 
 which the Love of God imposes cease to be felt as- 
 mortifications, for our efforts are then not against our 
 inclinations, but towards our objects. If we deny the 
 lower life, it will serve the higher, and obediently take 
 its own place ; but the spiritual nature never can be 
 reduced to a peaceful subordination. Unless it is 
 supreme, it will blight all meaner happiness as long 
 as it lives at all. And, after all, we have only a choice 
 of what we will deny. Something we must deny : the 
 spiritual jDart of us or the unspiritual part of us ; one 
 
Self-deniaL 26 
 
 or other must be in the place of authority ; they can- 
 not be joint-rulers, though they may be fellow-workers 
 if the spirit is supreme. The real self-renunciation, 
 a living suicide, is when conscience is dethroned, 
 when the soul is enslaved, when the will serves the 
 appetites. God has a voice in every heart ; an.d to 
 quench it, to renounce it, is surely the insane side of 
 Self-denial. Eternal life — the life of the spirit — has a 
 natural hold on every conscience ; and it is terrible 
 self-abnegation to have to dash it impatiently away 
 as often as it shines in upon unfaithfulness and guilt. 
 In moments of purer desire, of troubled awakenings of 
 the soul, there will still be coming visions of a blessed 
 life to the fallen heart that no more can entertain 
 them ; and it is awful when, instead of heralds of the 
 promises of God, they come as witnesses against us — 
 as avenging ministers of His righteous judgments — to 
 tell of peace renounced and fountains closed against 
 ourselves. Inasmuch as the one keeps the law of our 
 whole nature, and the other sinks us for the time 
 lower than the creatures to whom no alternative 
 choice is given, who cannot abuse their nature — the 
 blindness, baseness, madness of self-renunciation, the 
 worst inhumanity, is to subdue the spiritual to the 
 sensual, dethrone our souls, and refuse to be partakers 
 of the life of God. 
 
 That a desire after God is always a reaching forth — 
 that in this sense Self-denial is a constant element in 
 
264 Self-denial. 
 
 the religious life — is shown by the fact that in his 
 most perfect moments the Son of God had occasion 
 for its exercise. From that spirit which sin had not 
 enfeebled, the crowning sacrifice of Self yet wrung the 
 prayer, " If it be possible, let this cup pass from me ; 
 nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done ! " Can 
 7ve pay our highest service, act out our best affections, 
 do God's last bidding, with less need of effort and of 
 prayer ? What, then, have we learned of the way of 
 life ? " If any man will come after me, let him take 
 up his cross daily and follow me," What is our cross ? 
 Is it sin and selfishness which we must crucify within 
 ourselves ? Or, is it persecution for truth and righteous- 
 ness' sake — the martyr's cross — which we must be 
 ready to be crucified upon? Is it the cross which 
 evil passions, or the cross which high privileges and 
 solemn trusts lay upon us ? the cross of Judas, who 
 sold his Lord ; or the cross of Peter, who at times had 
 not strength to own him ; or the cross of Paul, who 
 held nothing to be attained, nothing to be appre- 
 hended — that we had only one thing to do — to forget 
 all behind, as though it was nothing — to reach forth 
 unto things before, and go on unto Perfection ? What 
 rises to each man's thought as the rock of offence in 
 his own spiritual walk ? Is it indolence, or dejection, 
 or envy, or discontent, or unsteadiness of purpose, or 
 an unfaithful stewardship of God's gifts and trusts, or 
 low pleasures, or a soul that never prays ? Let each 
 
Self- denial, 265 
 
 man, according to the conditions of his character and 
 his place, make some definite exertion of Self-denial, 
 some definite attempt to realize a higher and a fuller 
 life, in view of his known deficiencies. Let the man 
 of sloth ask himself for what it is that he is burying 
 the prospects of his being. Let the man of the wprld 
 engage In the strange work of meditation, and search 
 his spirit in the light that does not die. Let the man 
 of selfish pleasures face the awful look of human 
 misery, and then turn his eyes on Christ and God. 
 Let the man of unchastened temper humble himself 
 to some brother who has suffered from his inhumanity. 
 Let the man who suspects that all Is not right within, 
 look with a single eye Into the springs of his life, and 
 begin to set his house In order. And let the man of 
 habits, of whom perhaps all the world speaks well, 
 forego the sweet feeling of security, remember the 
 calling of his nature, take measure of himself as child 
 and servant of the Father who Is his Taskmaster, and 
 walk in the steps of him who took up his cross daily 
 until he died upon it. 
 
XVII. 
 
 IMatt. xii. 37 : 
 
 " I>y thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be- 
 
 condemned." 
 
 James iii. 2 : 
 " If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man." 
 
 What is the true use of speech .? To give know- 
 ledge or to give delight ; to gladden, quicken or teach 
 by the intercourse of mind with mind ; to convey the 
 gifts of one spirit into another, the treasures of one 
 heart into another ; at the very least to give profit or 
 to give pleasure by communication of thought and 
 being ; and in no respect did God endow us with the 
 faculty of language to injure, to corrupt, to wound, or 
 even to use it indifferently. 
 
 There are two w^ays in which a man may offend not 
 in word. He may refrain from ahising speech, and 
 this is the negative virtue ; or he may have respect to 
 its true purposes and tise it without offence in all 
 those ministrations of man's spirit of which it is the 
 instrument and the voice. Now of course it is not 
 
A Perfect Man. 267 
 
 the first of these without the second that Christ or 
 the Apostle had in contemplation : it is to be faultless 
 in the use of an instrument, not merely to refrain 
 from abusing it, that constitutes perfection in that 
 particular matter. 
 
 And yet, taking into view only the negative merit 
 of abstaining from making speech an Instrument and 
 expression of evil, when we consider how fully and 
 how Involuntarily a man's character is breathed Into 
 words, how clearly they betray Avhere his thoughts are 
 directed, and so introduce leading ideas Into other 
 minds, — when we consider the temptations of our life 
 to the occasional Indulgence of harassed, discontented,, 
 impatient, ungenerous or wounded feeling, which finds 
 a ready vent at unguarded lips — that the Mercy which 
 has nothing but forgiveness in its heart will sometimes 
 first upbraid, and the Piety that has no thought of 
 rebelling will yet betray Its humanity and vaunt Its 
 hard case In preliminary murmurs — that a morbid or 
 an irritated mood, too transient to leave permanent 
 marks upon the heart or to have determinate action, 
 win yet use the ready Implements of speech and 
 break Into suppressed utterance, — when we consider the 
 sweet and generous nature a man must have, and his 
 power of command over Its occasional excitements, to 
 be free from blame in this matter, the more we know 
 ourselves, the less shall we think it too much to say, 
 " If anv man offend not in word, the same is a perfect 
 
268 A Perfect Man, 
 
 man." — And when we take into one view our human 
 Habihties to disturbance, in our intercourses one with 
 another, and the trials of our spirit in reference to that 
 Providence with whom we live on trust, walking by 
 faith not by sight, — when we consider that " He who 
 will bring man into judgment for every idle word that 
 proceedeth from him," hath also wrapped us in the 
 darkness of many a mysterious and many a disappoint- 
 ing visitation, expecting the hopeful patience of a loyal 
 love, and, whilst under our own personaFprovocations, 
 has placed us among fellow-being towards whom we 
 are to be instant, in season and out of season, if not 
 with words of helpful love and wisdom, at least with 
 generous forbearance and unhurtful silence, — when we 
 remember our temptations, presuming the strength of 
 the temptation from the prevalence of the sin, to form 
 rash and unjust judgments upon half-knowledge or 
 from sheer moodiness, and, from mere want of better 
 occupation and worthier thoughts, to be idly speaking 
 what we are idly thinking, — to give quick indulgence 
 to disappointment, or irritation, or unsympathizing 
 weariness, — to retaliate in miserable dignity coldness 
 for coldness, indifference for indifference, injustice for 
 injustice, or scorn for scorn ; — and how hard a thing 
 it is from day to day to meet our fellov/-men, our 
 neighbours, or even our own households, in all moods, 
 in all discordances between the world without us and 
 the frames within, in all states of health, of solicitude, 
 
zuho offends not in IVord. 269 
 
 of pre-occupatlon, and show no signs of impatience, 
 ungentleness, or imobserv^ant self-absorption, — with 
 only kind feeling finding expression, and ungenial 
 feeling at least inwardly imprisoned ; nay, when we 
 consider the difficulty of abstaining to speak insincere 
 and empt>' words — a weariness to the flesh and spirit 
 of all who hear them, because we think we are expected 
 to speak, or might do good by speaking, and yet have 
 nothing genuine to say, — we shall be ready to acknow- 
 ledge that the man who has thus attained is master 
 of himself, and in the graciousness of his power is 
 fashioned upon the style of a Perfect Man. 
 
 And, if after having done full justice to the negative 
 merit of abstaining from the abuse of words, we turn 
 to the rare graces and endowments of him who can 
 use them without offence for all the purposes they are 
 empowered to serve, — if we consider that they are the 
 most universal forms in which goodness, beauty, 
 truth, persuasive influence, diffuse themselves through 
 the world — that they are often the only possible ex- 
 pressions of v/hat lies deepest and divinest in our 
 nature, intimations of God, breathings from us, and 
 responsively to us, of a higher life, whispers of the 
 ideal, the " accents of the Holy Spirit " — that by tJiciii 
 living fire kindles other hearts, and gentle wisdom 
 comes like oil on troubled waters — that zvords can 
 minister to sorrow and to sin — that words can pierce 
 a heart living without consciousness of God, and make 
 
270 A Perfect Man, 
 
 it alive to His neglected Presence — that words can 
 give a sense of healing fellowship to lonely bosoms, 
 can arrest agitation on the verge of ungovernable 
 passion, can reach and control without torturing, 
 touch without wounding sensibilities all sore and 
 tender — that words can become the most intimate 
 communings of mind with mind, and the means by 
 which the deepest spiritual affinities are revealed — if 
 we consider this, we shall not dispute that whoever 
 putting words to these their ministries, not as instru- 
 ments of genius, or of any other exceptional gift, but 
 of the deep, true, tender nature that in our measure 
 is possible to us all, offends not in their exercise, and 
 loses nothing of their attainable power, the same is, 
 in the temper of his mind, a Perfect Man. 
 
 We have no indications of character so full and so 
 delicate, no instrument that acts so instantaneously, 
 that exhibits the lightest breathing of thought and 
 feeling so truly, as words. Their " functions are 
 ethereal ; " the spirit makes through them its most 
 intimate revelations. Many are the manifestations of 
 the hidden man, the real man, which reach only to 
 words and tones, which are inarticulate words — and 
 which, if the lips were sealed, would be known only 
 to Him who seeth in secret. Action at the quickest 
 is not instantaneous, and prudence has a moment to 
 take in the wisdom or the safety of giving visible 
 embodiment to passions fluttering in us, or quick- 
 
who offends not in Word. 271 
 
 shooting Instincts of resentment ; but words, sounds, 
 He ready at the gates of feeling, through which they 
 rush at the lightest signal, and betray, without our 
 meaning it, what spirit we are of The involuntary 
 signs of character are always the truest. There 
 might come to us a warning sufficiently solemn when 
 we are told that we shall be judged according to our 
 works ; but it is proceeding with us on a principle 
 more spiritual and searching, carrying the sanction 
 of our own conscience, when we are told that we 
 shall be judged according to our words — "that by our 
 words we shall be justified, and that by our words we 
 shall be condemned." Not that this has any reference 
 to Him whose eye is not upon outward expression, 
 but on the living spirit ; but it may impress ourselves 
 with a more lively sense of the inquisition that God 
 makes into the actual state of the soul ; it may help 
 us to make us aware of the strictness and purity with 
 which He looks within, when we are told that the 
 utterance of every thought, every sound that feeling 
 prompts into being, goes to make up the evidence 
 which is to justify or to condemn, which is added b}- 
 the self-registering spirit to that long sum of testi- 
 mony, the resultant Self, which we shall one day read 
 and understand as the retributive product of all our 
 history. Back to the heart's shrine, step after step, 
 the Judge forces us. " By thy works shalt thou be 
 judged:" "By thy words shalt thou be judged:" 
 
272 A Pe7'fect Man, 
 
 *' A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, 
 bringeth forth that which is good ; an evil man, out 
 of the evil treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that 
 which is evil : " " Out of the^ abundance of the heart 
 the mouth speaketh." To such genuine manifesta- 
 tions of ourselves, if we apply the rule that " for every 
 idle word a man shall speak he shall give account 
 thereof in the day of judgment," vv^e shall not be wise 
 beyond what is written, or placing ourselves in the 
 judgment-seat, when we say of the men on whose 
 tongues there is no reverence, who can speak lightly 
 of sentiments without which we are poor, ungraced, 
 unhallowed beings, that their words have condemned 
 their spirit ; — when we say of those who welcome 
 images of impurity and reproduce them in other 
 minds, that If by their words they are to be judged, 
 by their words they cannot be justified ; — when we say 
 of those who can deal unfeelingly with what Is mos-t 
 intimate to the being of another, whom no sentiment 
 of reserve or of awe restrains when they speak of 
 character, that their unchastened words betray the 
 absence of the self-knowledge that would stay their 
 unhallowed lips ; — when we say of the things that are 
 absolutely of no real interest to anybody, of the stale- 
 ness, or unprofitableness, or levity, not to speak of 
 worse offences, in which many a life does so wearily 
 abound — that they whose conversation lingers among 
 them are unfitting themselves for that which is the 
 
who offends not in Word. 273 
 
 very essence of spiritual blessedness, intercourse with 
 higher natures, communion with God Himself! 
 
 Our most spiritual poet has attempted a true poet's 
 theme when he describes the functions and ministry of 
 sound, and of all sounds the human voice is the most 
 potent. In the moral, if not in the physical, world, 
 out of the same fountain proceeds sweet water and 
 bitter — out of the same mouth, blessing and cursing. 
 It is the same air which is charged with God's grace, 
 and coloured by His love of beauty, and speaks His 
 power, and is the element of every blessing man 
 enjoys, of every organ he exerts, of every moment of 
 his life, that vibrates also to an evil tongue . 
 
 " How oft along thy mazes, 
 Regent of Sound, have dangerous Passions trod ! 
 
 Oh thou, through whom the temple rings with praises, 
 And blackening clouds in thunder speak of God, 
 Betray not, by the cozenage of Sense 
 
 Thy votaries, wooingly resigned 
 
 To a voluptuous influence 
 That taints the purer, better mind ; 
 
 But lead sick Fancy to a harp 
 
 That hath in noble tasks been tried ; 
 And if the Virtuous feel a pang too sharp, 
 
 Soothe it into patience, — stay 
 
 The uplifted arm of Suicide ; 
 And let some mood of thine in firm array 
 Knit every thought the impending issue needs 
 Ere Martyr burns, or Patriot bleeds ! " * 
 
 * Wordsworth. 
 
2 74 ^ Perfect Man,. 
 
 The most frequent and the most injurious offences 
 of words are those which, by a general abuse of the 
 purposes of intercourse and speech, insensibly wear 
 away elevation and beauty of thought, and send a 
 low spirit through society. Waste and unprofitable- 
 ness of mind is indeed the far-spreading offence of 
 words ; yet so little witnessing against itself, and so 
 diffused, is this evil of unworthy speech, that they who 
 indulge in it will not easily be persuaded of the nature 
 or of the extent of their offence, or know their need to 
 remember in their prayers, " I will take heed to my 
 ways, that I sin not with my tongue." For it is not 
 profaneness, nor impurity, nor irritation, nor the selfish 
 pre-occupation and inconsiderateness that wounds 
 at random, nor untruthfulness and insincerity, nor 
 even the want of conscientiousness in giving utter- 
 ance to what affects the life and spirit of another, 
 common as this is, — it is nothing so definite, so con- 
 centrated, or so malign as these, but a low tone of 
 interests, an absence of intensity of pursuit, of earnest- 
 ness, of ruling ideas and endeavours, of rich and 
 serious feeling, that strips life of its dignity, and con- 
 verts words from the weighty or graceful instruments 
 of lofty or of gentle and genial faculties into the 
 counters and pastime of insignificance. Speech is 
 but the manifested form or configuration of what is 
 passing within, and topics, interests, that are worthy 
 to make the groundwork of any happy and unweary- 
 
who offends not in Word, 275 
 
 ing intercourse, must be brought out of the treasury 
 of an earnest nature, — for every loving and earnest 
 nature has rich treasures, however poor it may be in 
 natural gifts. That any high degree of moral excel- 
 lence is possible only to one who has large interests, an 
 open mind, a largeheart, will not be doubted ; we-will- 
 ingly sacrifice what is lower in us only for the sake of 
 what is higher ; desires, conceptions, purposes, go before 
 attainment ; high feelings are the forerunners of high 
 deeds. Out of their hearts men both speak and live. 
 Looking even to the affections in their commonest 
 forms, we know that the interest of feeling varies in 
 its intensity, as in the purity of its quality, with the 
 sources of sympathy, with the themes of intercourse, 
 with the nature of the meeting-place of minds ; and 
 feeble burns the flame that is kept alive on shallow, 
 sapless things that give to thought no range, to the 
 heart no richness. What strong bonds can exist be- 
 tween those who never enliven, quicken or strengthen 
 one another — under whose touch heart, conscience or 
 intellect, never bound } Either a dearth, of feeling 
 follows a dearth of thought, or feeling becomes pain- 
 fully disproportioned to its objects, and our nature 
 begins to lose the blessed sense of responsive rest and 
 satisfaction. Woe to the sympathy that begins to 
 suspect that it is living unworthily, that there is not 
 enough of loftiness, or of substance, in its being ! Cer- 
 tain it is that there is often a weariness over life which, 
 
276 A Pe7'fect Man, 
 
 with the powers and tastes that God has given 
 us, and the provisions He has made for their inex- 
 haustible indulgence, — with a creation of wonders 
 round about us, and a mind organized to receive 
 them all, — with the solemn concerns of our own 
 higher life and the interests of our fellow-men — with 
 strong affections which it needs a sense of their 
 eternity to legitimate, a faith in their imperishable 
 nature vouchsafed by God Himself, for without such 
 faith no thoughtful man, without inhumanity, dare 
 indulge in them, — that with all this bountiful provision 
 for thought, beauty, sympathy and utterance, there 
 is often a weariness over life which can only mark 
 poverty of ambition, the unworked mind, the vacant 
 conscience unmoved by all the problems of the world 
 around us, the slothful predominance of the natural 
 over the spiritual man. 
 
 What a blessed power is that which some minds un- 
 consciously possess of breathing quickening thoughts 
 and feelings into others : a new life goes forth from 
 them ; they kindle a new order of ideas, and, without 
 meaning it, change the tone of sentiment in all whom 
 they approach ! And this, for the most part, not pro- 
 ceeding from anything extraordinary in their intellec- 
 tual gifts, but simply from the rich suggestiveness of 
 the earnestness or the playfulness of their moral being : 
 they are true ; they are full of real interests ; they are 
 self-forgetful ; they have never to make conversation ; 
 
who offends not in Word, 277 
 
 their tongues do not run before their hearts. This is 
 the high ministr}'- of words, accessible, in a measure, 
 to all genuine natures. Speech was no more given to 
 enfeeble, waste or blister, than it was given to blas- 
 pheme, deceive or slander. And God looks for the 
 tise of His instruments, and not merely for the absence 
 of their abuse. We are not always satisfied with others 
 for abstaining from offence : we take offence even at 
 their silence, at the absence of expected words whose 
 kindness, it may be whose sweet praises or courtesies, 
 we looked for : and well may our silence offend God 
 when, though speaking no evil, we yet utter no 
 gracious, quickening words to relieve the weariness of 
 life, the embarrassments of occasion — fulfil none of the 
 spiritual ministries of speech, soothing, healing or en- 
 livening. There is, of course, no outward remedy for 
 this ; it is no rhetorician's art that will accomplish us, 
 — no skill or exercise in language, — nothing will help 
 us here but moral sweetness and fine spiritual discern- 
 ment. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
 speaketh. Still, after everything has been done in the 
 way of instruction, of large interests and pursuits, 
 of great and responsible employments that open and 
 enrich our nature and place our powers upon the 
 stretch, without which no man knows what he is or 
 what God has given him, even the pure heart must 
 place its freedom under the eye of a fine sympathetic 
 discernment, — nor can we ever dispense in this matter 
 
2/8 A Perfect Man, 
 
 with a religious principle of control. " If any man 
 among you seem to be religious and bridleth not his 
 tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, that man's 
 religion is vain." We cannot, and we ought not if 
 we could, live to ourselves, and keep free from the 
 troubles, the disorders, the passions, the perversities, of 
 the human beings around us ; our thread of life gets 
 tangled, crossed and knotted, by the lives of others, 
 guard it as we may ; our thoughts and hours are not 
 our own, to keep their currents quiet in channels of 
 our choosing ; there is never wanting something to 
 disturb from its balance an unchastened heart, a self- 
 adjusted mind ; there are thwartings, untoward acci- 
 dents, threatened interests, inopportune visitations, 
 defeated plans, spoiled arrangements, under which 
 mere temper will never keep its peace ; and who can 
 move among these things in cheerful wisdom, with a 
 meek, a strengthening, a pacifying voice, and offend 
 not in word, if unguarded, unprompted, by the inward 
 chastener and judge, warning us to "know what spirit 
 we are of" ? 
 
 Yet God puts no strain upon our nature. He has laid 
 no uniform impress upon man's heart, or upon His own 
 world. All states of natural feeling in their place are 
 innocent, " from grave to gay, from lively to severe " — 
 nay, more than innocent, needful to our completeness. 
 Solemnity is but one aspect of simplicity, of sympathy 
 and a healthy mind ; nor must we forget that to 
 
who offends not in Word. 279 
 
 rejoice evermore is the religious frame of spirits. A 
 rigid, severe and stern man, though he was pure as 
 infancy, which indeed he will hardly be, for sympathy 
 is a great cleanser, will neither be able to use words 
 perfectly, nor yet to abstain from their abuse. Some 
 of their functions he will not even conceive, and some 
 of those that he does attempt he will never be able to 
 exercise with a natural grace. No one means, unless 
 he would be wiser than God, that our words should 
 always be important, grave and weighty, but only that, 
 in all our moods, they should be without offence — that 
 to whatever conditions they are addressed, whatever 
 chords they touch, they should come out of a heart 
 that " thinks no evil." 
 
 " Who is a wise man and endowed with knowledge 
 among you. Let him show out of a good conversa- 
 tion his works with meekness of wisdom. And the 
 wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, 
 gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good 
 fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. And 
 the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace, of them 
 that make peace." 
 
 So much depends on tones of voice, the subduing, 
 elevating power of natural language informed by the 
 heart, that the evidences of our Lord's use of speech, 
 as that of Perfect Man, could not fully be reported. 
 Yet ample and memorable are the suggestive testimo- 
 nies, not alone in attitudes of his which we cannot 1 
 
28o A Perfect Man. 
 
 assume — " He spake as one having authority " — " He 
 spake as never man spake " — but also in the magic 
 charm which is purest issue of the Hfe within, and in 
 our measure open to us all — "And all bare him 
 witness, and wondered at the gracious words which 
 proceeded out of his mouth." 
 
XVIII. 
 
 Rev. iii. 2 : 
 
 " Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready- 
 to die : for I have not found thy works perfect before God. " 
 
 When things look difficult, there is an instinctive 
 inclination to abandon the position and seek well-being 
 in an untried sphere. Vaulting imagination lifts us at 
 a bound out of our entanglements, and sets us down, 
 free and unembarrassed, amid the supposed facilities 
 of happier life. Around us are the old troubles which 
 every day turn up afresh — the old difficulties of im- 
 practicable problems and impracticable people — the 
 stale influences which excite to no new effort or hope — 
 the flat and weary habits which there is nothing out- 
 ward to break, and no power within to re-model. It is 
 vain, helpless men begin to think, to stand where they 
 are and disentangle this network — to untie all these 
 hard knots — to introduce order into these arrears of 
 confusion, life and movement into these dead or dying 
 things ; but if they could break away from them alto- 
 gether — if they could escape from the associates who 
 
282 Strengthen what remains. 
 
 hang upon their strength and spoil their purpose of 
 reform, from those wearied friends whose confidence 
 has long gone, and whose hopeless looks turn them to 
 stone — if on an unspoiled field they could start afresh 
 — then the causes of past failure would act no more, 
 and they might be new-born into a life of power. It 
 is the old phantasy, not confined to the heartless or 
 the indolent, the feeble in affection or in will, of those 
 who dream that the problem of life would be more 
 easily solved in any other circumstances than those 
 in which they are. 
 
 And it is true that deliverance does sometimes come 
 from change of atmosphere — a rescue, by external aid, 
 from the familiar fiends that lurk in our paths and 
 haunt our thoughts, whose accustomed spells we have 
 not strength to break. Some hearts have been stifled 
 from their birth, and in translation to new scenes is 
 tJieir only chance that a pure and cool air will breathe 
 freshly on the low fever of existence, or that the sacred 
 aspects of life will ever have internal reflections in their 
 awakened perceptions and desires. — There are many, 
 again, who could not rescue themselves from inveterate 
 habits and evil communications, who yet, if their prison 
 doors were opened by some saviour hand, would re- 
 joice to go forth upon fresh plains, and forget for ever 
 the noisome dungeons of the past. — There are also 
 weak and sickly times in the history of most minds, 
 when existence is distempered, when the grasshopper 
 
Strengthen what remains, 283 
 
 is a burden — when the very blessings of life bring no 
 gratitude, but only a feeling of unfitness and bitter 
 agonies of shame — when the richest opportunities of 
 God come to us only as joyless tasks and care-bound 
 responsibilities — times of darkness, of soul-sickness 
 and disease, in which, though the cure must at la§t 
 work from within, alteratives are needed that reaction 
 may begin. 
 
 The cases in which a change of external circum- 
 stances may possibly regenerate a character are, first, 
 those of an utterly neglected education, in which the 
 conscience, hitherto dormant or stifled, may actually 
 be called into existence by some acquaintance with the 
 purer forms of moral life ; secondly, those in which 
 reviving Virtue, still timid and drooping, desires to be 
 removed for a time from scenes where former enemies 
 abound, and no hallowing memory awakens, and the 
 very air breathes only of past guilt and present shame ; 
 and, thirdly, those in which there is an utter want of 
 adaptation between condition and faculty, between 
 the work we have to do, the position we have to fill, 
 and the aptitudes of Nature; — but where failure in life 
 and peace arises from none of these causes, but from 
 wilfulness, from faithlessness, from inexertion, from self- 
 indulgence, from feebleness of purpose, from suffering 
 things to perish through sheer default, what hope can 
 there be that any new ordering of the outward con- 
 ditions of existence will touch that deeply-seated 
 
284 Strengthen what remains. 
 
 disease, and breathe the only true health, the energy 
 of a conscientious Will, into the enfeebled soul ? A 
 flight from difficulties, which is of the very essence of 
 disloyalty to God and Duty, He who will not be 
 mocked is not likely to accept and crown with victory. 
 Paradise, we are to suppose, was happily ordered, yet 
 the fiend crept in. It was not the Fall of Adam that 
 made man liable to sin, for then how could we account 
 for the sin of Adam himself, who was born before the 
 Fall? And another Eden, if that was all, would surely 
 do no more for us fallen than it did for him before he 
 fell: the old temptations would reappear, the unrooted 
 habits would remain, the old sloth would seek its old 
 indulgence, the evil spirits, if not awed by Conscience, 
 if not banished by the presence of God, dislodged by 
 holy interests and by healthy work, would flock in 
 strength to their garnished homes ; and self-banished, 
 through moral faithlessness, even from a Paradise, 
 our last state of man would be worse than the 
 first. 
 
 Circumstance may greatly aid the Will ; but the 
 strong purpose of the soul — rooting itself in God — is 
 the indispensable power of life. Awaken the resolve 
 of Duty grounding itself on the inspiration of God, 
 and the wilderness shall rejoice and blossom as the 
 rose. Seek to supply the place of that inward strength 
 by happy appliances and facile arrangements, and the 
 garden of the Lord will become a wilderness again. 
 
Strengthen what remains. 285 
 
 It is not by seeking more fertile regions where toil is 
 lighter — happier circumstances free from difficult com- 
 plications and troublesome people — but by bringing 
 the high courage of a devout soul, clear in principle 
 and aim, to bear upon what is given to us, that we 
 brighten our inward light, lead something of a true 
 life, and introduce the kingdom of heaven into the 
 midst of our earthly day. The softest climes make 
 the poorest men. Where everything else is produced 
 easily, the spiritual man is not reared. We have cast 
 from us all that specially links us to immortality and 
 God, that appertains to the education of a spiritual 
 being, when we sigh for mere facilities, and forget to 
 look for strength to Him who appoints our work. If 
 we cannot work out the Will of God where God has 
 placed us, then why has He placed us there ? What, 
 then, is the remedy for all perishing states but to 
 strengthen the things that remain, and call in the 
 grace of God to water the root that still abides } 
 
 If we are perishing, and we are all liable to perish, 
 in our religion, our relations to God, — in our social 
 affections, our relations to one another, — at the secret 
 springs of joy and strength within our own souls, — 
 there is but one explanation, that we neglect the germ 
 of life which the Father has planted in us all. We 
 want nothing but grozvth, growth from the living 
 shoot which God Himself imparts, — for with us, and 
 within us, are the divine seeds of all things needful. 
 
2 86 Strengthen what remains. 
 
 If in sad places of the world, permitted to run to 
 animal waste and confusion, there are those in whom 
 by no act of their own, these seeds of life are stifled, — 
 in whom, without fault of their own, no fresh growths 
 come from the living shoot, and the root itself seems 
 dead, — that at least is not the case with us, and if we 
 are perishing, we perish of our own accord. There is 
 not one of us who might not grow from the living 
 germ, grow by daily obedience to the springings of 
 life in us, until by insensible measures we grew to- 
 wards the fulness of the stature of the perfect man in 
 Christ Jesus. We have all a root of eternal life to 
 grow from, which God is for ever stimulating. We at 
 least have in our souls, and in our homesteads, in our 
 field of work, enough of divine seeds and gifts to 
 enable us to grow for ever towards Him who never 
 withdraws Himself from what He gives — enough of 
 revealed truth and guidance — enough of the fostering 
 aids of human fellowship — enough of inward light 
 from the promptings and presence of our Father's 
 Spirit, if with faithful and obedient heart we lived 
 from these, and sought their increase ; and to no other 
 heart will God enlarge the measures of His grace. In 
 all these directions, if we are poor and needy, the 
 Spirit saith unto us, — Nourish the root that is in 
 you : " Strengthen the things which remain that are 
 ready to die ; for I have not found thy works perfect 
 before God." Religion — the Social Affections — life 
 
Strengthen what remains. 287 
 
 and strength in the individual Soul, — let us consider 
 the perishings of these. 
 
 I. It would seem at present as if in all Churches 
 the one thing needful was no longer a steady growing 
 irom the old root of faith, — that men are not applying 
 and developing, but questioning, the heart- religion 
 which inspired the lives of their fathers, and watched 
 by their dying beds, and closed their eyes in peace. 
 To use the illustration of a great satirist, who speaks 
 bitterly of the religious self-consciousness of these 
 times : If men do not eat their daily bread in thank- 
 fulness of heart, that they may do the work of life 
 upon it, but employ themselves in suspicious analysis 
 of it, to discover whether it is poisonous, or when 
 they eat it, eat it in distrust and fear, it is not likely 
 to contribute to vigorous health. Christianity, it is 
 supposed, is failing in these days, — or, like some 
 revolving light which observes no regular times, has 
 now its dark side towards us, and we are waitmg for 
 the brighter phase which the next revolution may 
 perhaps present. It may be doubted whether in any 
 sect in Christendom there is at present a deep and 
 quiet faith, untroubled by expectation or by fear, 
 such a faith as could say, "Lord, now lettest Thou 
 Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen 
 Thy salvation." We speak as if we were in a transi- 
 tion state, and what might ultimately come out of it 
 it were hard to say — some proclaiming that a new 
 
2 88 Strengthen what remains. 
 
 development of Christianity can alone meet the wants 
 of this enlightened age, and others hinting that 
 Christianity itself is under consideration, and is to 
 have some new judgment passed upon it. Yet it is 
 not at all upon its practical side that Christianity 
 exhibits this questionable shape. It is not the religion 
 of Christ, but its traditional theology, or its traditional 
 history, that is under contention. None of us think 
 that we have not light to walk by, but we pause in 
 our steps to settle the theory of the light A religion 
 to live by — a religion to die by— a religion to bring 
 God near to us in temptations — a religion to enable 
 dying lips to speak in calmest [trust the words of 
 Jesus, " If ye loved me ye would rejoice, because I go 
 to my Father," and the dearest mourners to accept 
 the words as blessed consolation, — all this we have — 
 a religion to overcome the world, and conquer death, 
 and fill the heart with the faith that we are in the 
 keeping of a Heavenly Father, and that we can trust 
 Him to guide us rightly though the veil of flesh is 
 upon our spiritual eyes, and we see not where He is 
 leading us, — this is a religion which is there not a 
 church in all Christendom but believes itself to have, 
 as in truth it has. Yet there is perhaps not a 
 church in Christendom that is not looking for some- 
 thing more that has yet to come, and through dis- 
 satisfaction with what it is and has, poring over the 
 idea that Christianity has not yet assumed a satisfy- 
 
Strengthen zvhat remains. 2 89 
 
 ing form. Now, if this was a lament over practical 
 unfaithfulness, and its consequences to the inner light 
 in withdrawing the secret grace of God, — that our 
 doctrines were so much diviner than our lives that we 
 hardly knew them to be of God because we were such 
 feeble doers of them, — there would be both truth and 
 hope in the lamentation ; but this is not the direction 
 of the general discontent, nor is this the quarter to 
 which we are looking for new light. It is the religion, 
 not the practice of it, that is supposed to want renew- 
 ing. Now we ask, whether in the things of the Spirit 
 new light is to pass from the doctrine to the life, or 
 from the life to the doctrine .^ And, speaking within 
 the bosom of a Church which believes Christianity to 
 be " tJie Word made FlcsJi',' '' the Father manifested in 
 the Son," I am bound to speak my own conviction 
 that we have got all the light that God will ever give 
 us except the light that comes from life, from the 
 Word made flesh again, from the manifestations of 
 Himself which the Father gives to those who love 
 Him, and will to do His Will. It were easy to dream 
 of a Light that would resolve every intellectual doubt, 
 — of a Voice pealing out of heaven in audible words 
 and tones that would melt into every heart, and draw 
 forth its captive affections to be fellow-v*'orkers with 
 Christ in a world where Love alone was the law of 
 being — of a Guidance that would take us by the hand 
 and point as with a sunbeam to the open way of 
 
 U 
 
290 Strengthen zuhar remains, 
 
 peace and duty ; but it is not thus that the Father 
 educates the germ of eternal Hfe, the image of Him- 
 self, which He has planted in His children's souls. 
 They must have life in themselves, and grow by living 
 from the life they have. Nor is the life that is in us 
 left to grope darkly towards its issues. In the mirror 
 of our own nature we can behold with open face the 
 glory of the Lord, and be changed into the same 
 image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of 
 the Lord. Is the knowledge of God that shines in 
 the face of Jesus Christ too little for us 1 Was the 
 Forerunner not tempted enough to be an example and 
 a succour to us also who are tempted "^ Is there no 
 spiritual power sufficient for our occasions in the faith 
 that Gethsemane strengthened and Calvary proved } 
 Are any of us looking in speculative directions for a 
 satisfactory religion, who yet believe that God on one 
 of our brethren has taught the world by sample — 
 shown in him the character, spirit, effort, prayer and 
 peace, of a true child of His, and received him into 
 heaven as the natural home of those who live, and 
 love, and suffer in His Spirit ? Is not this enough of 
 a religion ? Have we put ourselves into it ? Or have 
 we suffered it to come to us in "word," but not in 
 ^' power " .'* If so, it Avere easy to account for any 
 amount of discontent. If so, must not the Spirit that 
 spoke to the Seven Churches now say to us : Live 
 from the principle of life that is in you, cherish the 
 
Strengthen what remains. 291 
 
 spark that is not dead : " Strengthen the things which 
 remain that are ready to die, for I have not found th\- 
 works perfect before God " ? 
 
 But then, it is said, the administration of religion is 
 so powerless amongst us. Alas ! have we no fire of 
 our own that will burn the poorest fuel ? Arc we for 
 ever to wait for the crumbs that fall from other men's 
 tables, and complain that we are not fed ? Does the 
 feeble word fall upon sensibilities prepared to kindle ? 
 Does the prayer become spirit and truth within our 
 own souls ? Do we pray at all, or only listen ? Are 
 -we really the living members of a Church in which 
 'God is the Fountain of force, and the spiritual wave 
 passes from soul to soul, so that, in the words of St. 
 Paul, '' If a stranger was to come among you, an un- 
 iDeliever or a gainsayer, he would be convinced of all, 
 and the secrets of his heart made manifest ; so that 
 falling down on his face he would worship God along 
 Avith you, and report that God is in you of a truth t " 
 
 II. Next to our life in God, our strength depends 
 upon the life of the Affections : and the power of 
 these is more in what ^jc fed than in what is felt 
 toivavds lis. The v\-armth, indeed, that is thrown into 
 the inner forces of our life from the warmth of others 
 towards us is immicasurably dear and strengthening, 
 but to make it our direct aim would be only a form 
 of self-seeking ; it is one of the things that are '' added 
 unto us." In all things it is more blessed to give than 
 
292 StrengtJicu ivliat ranains. 
 
 to receive ; and even as regards those to whom we 
 should never dream of imparting anything — rich 
 hearts that pour their charities hke a flood into our 
 shallow sympathies — strong minds whose steady gaze 
 at once find out our strength and our weakness — • 
 firm hands that make light of difficulties that to us 
 are mountains — it is, after all, not the direct aids they 
 give us, but the genuine reverence li^e give tlieni, the 
 love and admiration we cherish for them, that make 
 them true blessings to us. But in this matter of the 
 Affections, it is very easy in our demands upon the 
 affections of others to forget the natural play and duty 
 of our own, and, unless all is given to iis that we could 
 desire, to deem that the claim upon us is proportion- 
 all}- lessened. It is easy to set up an ideal of the 
 kind of s}-mpathy we should desire, and, if that ideal 
 is disappointed, to act as if we were discharged from 
 the creative work of our own hearts. Yet it may be 
 that the elements of all that we desire are actually 
 present with us, -if only we would spend ourselves upon 
 them. At all events, there are few cases in which our 
 allotted work in life is so fixed as in Avhat relates to 
 the duties of the Affections ; and if to desert a post of 
 danger is the loss of honour, to turn away when the 
 heart is appealed to Is not less to be unworthy of the 
 l^lace where we w^ere stationed by the God of Life and 
 Love. What trust from God is so distinctly ours as 
 the hearts and minds which Nature and Providence 
 
St ycngt licit lu/uil remains. 293 
 
 have woven in with our web of hfe ? And be it that 
 there is, and if our love is wide enough there must be, 
 disappointment, is not the Eternal Spirit daily dis- 
 appointed with us all ? If anything of that inward 
 fidelity to our own charge, which is ever the deepest 
 witness to the long-suffering of God, is passing from 
 us — if any heart-trust, our directest testimony to Him 
 who inspires the heart, is weakening and giving way — 
 ere the bruised reed is broken, the still smoking flax 
 of any yet living affection quenched in death and 
 darkness, let us hear as the pleading of Him whose 
 undeserved love towards us is ever grieved and ever 
 patient '' Strengthen what remains, though ready to 
 die ; I have not found thy works perfect." 
 
 HI. And, finally, of the life of the Conscience, of the 
 individual Spirit, if anything is perishing there, what 
 can we do but lay eager hold, the desperate grasp of 
 men escaping destruction, on what yet remains ? If 
 any voice of God, distinct once, neglected long, has 
 some faint whispers still — if any vision of true life, 
 oft thrust aside, revives sometimes, though in fading 
 colours fast vanishing from the soul — if any memory 
 of early prayers and vows starts suddenly athwart our 
 worldliness to show how changed we are — then to 
 gather up the whispers of that still, small voice, until 
 it speaks again with the authority of Eternal Law — • 
 to detain that vision until it takes clear shape and 
 becomes anew as Christ formed v.ithin us— to go back 
 
294' Strengthen what remains. 
 
 to those early prayers, until amid earth and time we 
 feel ourselves, as of old, God's children and care — 
 these are the ends for which the Heavenly Grace still 
 lingers near us, to beseech us that vre turn not away 
 and die. Only strengthen the things that remain. 
 Cherish the feeblest ember. Quench not the spirit. 
 Of our life in God nothing is for ever lost, whilst any- 
 thing remains. The smallest spark, if we bring it to 
 Him and keep it with Him, He will blow into a flame. 
 To every heart perishing, but not perished, the Spirit 
 of God still speaks the words that strengthened the 
 Churches : 
 
 " I ha\'e set before thee an open door, and no man 
 can shut it ; for thou hast a little strength, and hast 
 not denied my Name. Behold, I stand at the door 
 and knock : if any man hear my voice and open the 
 door, I will come in to him." 
 
 " He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
 saith unto the Churches." 
 
XIX. 
 
 i»t of the mtnU, as CHtrist was wot of tttc 
 
 Joiix xvii. 1 6 : 
 *' They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." 
 
 What is the legitimate influence of those large and 
 necessary interests which are classed together and 
 stamped, not to say stigmatized, with the name of 
 " the World," is a great spiritual question ? What their 
 proper function in the essential work God and our 
 own souls are carrying on, the creation of Character ? 
 How far, and with what view, should they be per- 
 mitted to engage the affections, to occupy the earthly 
 task-time, of beings who, having immortality, must 
 find a bread of life that does not perish in the using ? 
 
 These are questions on which there exists, in some, 
 a perverted, self-regarding, spiritualism which in effect 
 m.akes religion one long protest against the wa}'s of 
 Providence, as though God made the world only for 
 us to despise It and hold ourselves above it ; and 
 again, in others, an unsettled condition of law, indeci- 
 sive of where between rieht and wrone the line lies, 
 
296 Not of the Worldy 
 
 which gives to inch'nation a discretionary power and 
 betrays into latitudinarian practice. 
 
 There is a " presumptuous sin," as of short-sighted 
 creatures, with convex eyes that cannot see an inch 
 before them, pronouncing with microscopic inteUigence 
 on the vast arrangements and complex harmonies of 
 God, in disposing all objects of earthly affection and 
 pursuit under the common brand of things proscribed, 
 which is revoltingly offensive to genial men of healthy 
 common sense, who resent it as nothing short of per- 
 sonal insult, knowing how impossible it is that with 
 them reason and nature ever should succumb to it, or 
 that religious life, if such is its true theory, should ever 
 have a real interest for them. And sometimes in their 
 contemptuous recoil they are alienated from the truth 
 itself, not perceiving that their natural scorn is really an 
 instinctive protest on behalf of God, a protest spiritual 
 in its root, though only carnal in its contempt. 
 
 There is, on the other hand, a state of mdecision as 
 to how far it is right to fall in with the ways of the 
 world, a moral judgment not determined by any de- 
 fined principle as to the lawfulness or unlawfulness of 
 a vast number of desires, amusements, indulgences, 
 objects of solicitude or ambition, v;hicli is most hurtful 
 to Conscience by depriving it of the clear tones or 
 unhesitating authority. Wherever in moral things 
 there is a dubious territory, a debateable land, the 
 timid and scrupulous approach itwith the compunctious 
 
c7S Christ icas not of the JVorld. 2C)j 
 
 uneasiness of a punishing and limiting conscience, 
 without the nourishing vigour or dignity of a clear and 
 righteous resolve , whilst those to whom finer scruples 
 are unknown rush in, unguided by any spiritual law, 
 holding it enough to justify license that there is no 
 positive enactment, no unmistakable warning, like a 
 notice on reserved grounds, forbidding trespass. 
 
 It is therefore of first importance that this spiritual 
 question should be settled, if it is capable of settle- 
 ment ; that religion should neither pass into contempt 
 under the imputation of impracticable requirements, 
 of feeble ignorance of the real meanings of our present 
 life and of the universe which is now our sphere, — nor 
 lose anything of its rightful authority from the indis- 
 tinctness of its boundary-lines in the absence of a dis- 
 criminating rule; that the tender spirit be not com- 
 pressed, mortified, emaciated, as though God's universe 
 was a monk's cell; and that the unscrupulous spirit 
 meet with specific restraints, interposing barriers, clear 
 demarcations, which it must designedly break down 
 before it enters prohibited ground. 
 
 Take the simplest statement of the case : there is 
 the world that now is, and the world that is to be, with 
 the same soul, stationed within the one, discerning the 
 other, to rule itself towards both according to the laws 
 of the soul ; whilst Christ says of those who have his 
 spirit, " They are not of the world, as I am not of the 
 world." It is clear from the most imperfect statement 
 
298 Not of the World, 
 
 of our present position between two contrasted stages 
 of existence, the one the seed-plot and nursery of the 
 other, that what we need is a frame of spirit and a 
 walk in life that will place us in harmony with the 
 purposes of God in both. And though the earthly 
 period is related to the heavenly period, as mortality 
 to immortality, the spiritual life that is common to- 
 both and now holds them togrether, beinq; life in God, 
 must have the same springs of action, the same law, 
 the same standard, the same goal. What is bound on 
 earth is bound in heaven ; what is loosed on earth is 
 loosed in heaven. Living under earthly conditions of 
 task and aim, with the faith of Christ in a kingdom of 
 heaven within us now, and hereafter to be fulfilled, our 
 true work must be the same, whatever outwardly or 
 inwardly may change ; and the golden mean that 
 unites the life that now is with the life In which we 
 have faith, is not the moderation that shares Itself 
 between them which gives the working day to the 
 world and a few prayers, night and morning, to the 
 soul — the week to the earth and the sabbath to heaven 
 — and whose scheme for attending to both is to pass 
 at proper intervals from the one to the other, but that 
 which brings the same heart to both, blends and com- 
 bines them in the same act and thought, fuses them in 
 the light and heat of the soul, moderates our devotion 
 to the present by pursuing it on principles, and using 
 it for ends, which the future will not discredit, — mode- 
 
as CJirist uas not of the IVorld. 299. 
 
 rates our devotion to the future by living for its ideals 
 now, dealing- with the Mammon of unrighteousness in 
 the spirit of the heavenly friends who are to receive us 
 into everlasting habitations. 
 
 How did Christ reconcile earth and heaven ? " They 
 are not of the world, as I am not of the world." If we 
 can determine in what sense one so open to all human 
 sympathies, so tender to all mortal maladies and wants, 
 so directly recognizing the desires and necessities of 
 our natural condition, so simply practical, was yet 
 not worldly, we have solved the question and found 
 the spiritual harmon\- we seek. Christ solved it in his 
 life : that we may do so too, it is necessary to under- 
 stand the principle of his solution. 
 
 The encircling, though not the central or root, faith 
 of Christianity is the immortality of the spiritual part 
 of man, — all-encircling, because, if we are not immortal, 
 we are not, what an Apostle calls us, " partakers of 
 the Divine Nature : " we are not, what Christ calls 
 us. "children of God," heirs of all that is His ; and 
 because, if we are not immortal, though what is noble 
 and right would not change its nature, we could no 
 longer regard discipline, bereaved affection, sorrow, 
 temptation, disappointment, experience of wrong, pain 
 and anguish, as means towards the ultimate perfecting 
 of ourselves and of all our brethren ; they would often 
 themselves be ultimate and insoluble facts of evil. 
 Immortality, therefore, was the great postulate of 
 
300 Noi of the World, 
 
 Christ ; he brought It into the light of Hfe, but he 
 never professed otherwise to reveal it ; he assumed it 
 — to deny it being the negation of the Fatherhood 
 of God, for there is in reality on the part of God no 
 personal relation or friendship between His Spirit and 
 ours if, notwithstanding the hope, the faith, the love, 
 which He feeds, we fall from Him into annihilation. 
 And the law of immortality requires us to withdraw 
 our heart affections from whatever is not eternal in 
 itself, nor fitted to educe, exercise and nourish, some 
 23ortion of us which is eternal. The imperishable for 
 its ov/n sake, the perishable for the sake of the im- 
 perishable, is clearly the law which immortality pre- 
 scribes. Our Christian vocation is " Life brought to 
 Light," that which alone is our life, " the hidden man 
 of the heart," standing clearly out between earth and 
 heaven ; and to be the children of that light is to have 
 our hearts in the treasures, our tastes with the percep- 
 tions and pursuits, our affections on the properties of 
 being, the delights and graces natural and spiritual 
 from which death cannot separate us, if it open to us 
 any world where God is worthily revealed. Whatever 
 has so little of alliance with God's nature that at some 
 time w^e must be parted from it, whatever cannot be 
 with us in heaven, however we may have to deal 
 with it as a thing of discipline, however strengthening 
 it may be to work with it or to fight against it, as 
 a thing for the affections the law of immortality ex- 
 
as C Jurist zuas not of the ll'orld. 301 
 
 -eludes, and warns the heart that would garner no 
 perishable love, " Taste not, touch not, handle not." 
 It is not that the thought of our mortality is to be 
 constantl}' intruding as an external check, the ghastly 
 warning of the skeleton hand, but that estimates of 
 blessedness, habits of thought, for which we shall never 
 need to blush, desires consistent with our immortality, 
 be constantly within us, with pursuits and joys 
 nourished by the waters of unfailing life. Whatever 
 its earthly accompaniments may be, what flows purely 
 out of any portion of our nature which can live in 
 heaven is open to him who would use this world 
 without abusing it. It may be toil for material goods, 
 or silent search for the treasures of knowledge — the 
 active energies of the practical man, or the pregnant 
 abstraction of meditative solitude — conflict with this 
 world's trials, or intense enjoyment of this world's 
 blessings — the indulgence of our natural tastes on the 
 glory of God's works, or of our natural affections on 
 the richer world of the human heart — it may be grave 
 and serious wisdom, or wit, humour and light-hearted 
 gaiety — if only it gives strength and grace to any 
 immortal capacity, it is no more connected with any- 
 thing that Christ condemns as the world than was the 
 mind of Christ himself Meeting all the conditions, 
 opportunities, of earth, he had his conversation in 
 heaven ; for the spirit that is of God makes heaven 
 cver}-\vhcre. 
 
302 Not of the World, 
 
 There is no difficulty in laying down a clear rule as 
 .to the limits within which the pursuit of present things 
 is legitimate : the difficulty is in having the spirit 
 which alone can apply the rule, and give unity to a 
 nature so varied in its susceptibilities, so single in its 
 essence. It is vain to speak of furnishing any one 
 with the right principle on such a question, unless you 
 can furnish him also with the singleness of eye, the 
 purity of will, which both perceive and know what 
 things we ought to do, and have power and grace to 
 do them faithfully. No law, whatever may be the 
 precision of its statement, will enable us to carry it 
 into the midst of complex life, unless our spirits are 
 touched by Him whose presence and promptings with 
 us are ever our highest impulse as to ends, our 
 purest wisdom as to means. There is often a seeming 
 indiscretion, a generous absence of what is called pru- 
 dence, a miscalculation if only this world is considered, 
 which is " Wisdom from above." And who will deny 
 that in any particular case, it is matter of inward 
 intent whether the principle is honoured or infringed ? 
 The temporal goods whose proceeds of enjoyment 
 perish in the using are simply instruments of our 
 mortal condition, which, unemployed to strengthen or 
 adorn what cannot perish, are the idols of a Belial or 
 a Mammon worship : but the desire and effort for 
 earthly possession that are as prayers for our daily 
 .bread, that we may be strong upon it to do all God's 
 
as Christ loas not of the Woj'ld. 303 
 
 Will in grace and thankfulness of heart — where the 
 duties and joys of benevolence, the hunger of our 
 nature for visible and spiritual beauty, the desire to 
 surround ourselves, and all the world if we could, 
 with forms of art that have spiritual meanings and 
 can only be interpreted by the soul they help to 
 avvaken — where the interests of man as a being to 
 be aided, taught, guided, developed, that he may be 
 made a man indeed, are regarded as the legitimate 
 use of riches — where it would be felt as infinite loss 
 to have an unclean breast for the sake of ill-gotten 
 gain, life in God and life without God being incom- 
 mensurable — there all that earthly business is sacred 
 discipline, and it is not sanctity or spirituality, but a 
 blinded sanctimoniousness, or a lean asceticism flying 
 from the real problems of Providence, that dares to 
 call it worldly. Again, the pleasures that only waste 
 time and strength and do nothing to save them, the 
 successive changes and consumers of a frivolous exist- 
 ence, are doubtless frightful modes of being for one 
 moving hourly towards eternity with only his habits 
 for his outfit ; but the pleasures that are the lighter 
 breathings of a pure and earnest spirit, giving the 
 refreshment of new Interests and restored zest for 
 toil ; pleasures that touch the finer, more prophetic 
 senses ; pleasures of sympathy ; pleasure in the 
 pleasures of others, in the joys of children, in the 
 liberation from restraint of a free, gay heart, disporting 
 
304 -^^ot of the M'orld, 
 
 itself In unguarded trustfulness and love ; nay, plea- 
 sure in pleasure, because it is God's Will to bless us, 
 and we take from His hand the full cup of life, or a 
 momentary delight that cheers us by the way with 
 spiritual recognition and answering thankfulness, even 
 as we receive that other cup which Christ prayed 
 might pass, but took and drank with responsive faith ; 
 pleasures that send the soul with buoyancy and grati- 
 tude to its more arduous tasks, — these are virtues and 
 pieties in themselves, and among the best aids to 
 virtues of higher mark that life affords, contributing,, 
 as light upon a picture, to the perfection and finish of 
 Character, like the dear, homely things, of familiar use 
 or joy, placed by the masters of art side by side with 
 things of deepest pathos, to reveal by contrasts the 
 vast range of life the heart of man can purely hold. 
 
 We have the living Christ to interpret his spiritual 
 teaching, and without the example and person of 
 Christ his words would be no real guides to us. They 
 would not be able to save us from any fanaticism, 
 or abuse or evasion of spiritual truth, to which our 
 nature might be prone. It was the same spirit that 
 said in pure love, " Whosoever shall smite thee on the 
 right cheek, turn to him the other also," that also said 
 in pure remonstrance, " If I have spoken evil, bear 
 witness to the evil ; but if well, why smitest thou 
 me } " To be most in the world, in the midst of its 
 real Interests, difficulties, joys, sorrows and problems, 
 
as Christ was not of the Woi'ld. 305 
 
 in the spirit of Christ, is to be most like Christ. The 
 easier way would be to leave the world, and in self- 
 concentrated introspection suppress the life of the 
 soul by seeking to save it. There is but one Christian 
 way of being kept from evil : nothing but the full life 
 of all goodness will preserve us from the power of all 
 evil — of goodness as various in form as the offices that 
 God assigns to various faculty, and makes pure to the 
 pure. Your life in the world may not be my life, nor 
 my life yours, and yet God accept us both as children 
 of His Spirit and members one of another. 
 
 If Christ was not of this world, it was not because 
 he left it to itself, or wrapped himself in mystery, or 
 was without sympathy for any human condition, or 
 untouched by any cry of emotion. He lived as a 
 man among men. He assumed no special sanctity, 
 no signs of separation. He sat at rich men's tables. 
 He associated with those of evil repute and of no 
 repute. He said of himself, that he came eating and 
 drinking. It was charged against him that he was 
 *'gone to be guest with a man that was a sinner." 
 He gave currency himself to the coarse reproach that 
 he was " a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber," not 
 fearing to take it up, and only adding, " Wisdom is 
 justified of all her children." For he who cannot pass 
 blamelessly through the common conditions of our 
 life, taking them as they are, and evading none of 
 them, is no Saint of God and no Saviour of men. It 
 
 X 
 
3o6 Not of the Woi^ld, 
 
 is not to be above any human necessity, but to meet 
 it fully and purely, that tests spiritual power. If the 
 Son of Man was not of the world, it was not because 
 his spirit was not large enough to take in both earth 
 and heaven : it was because this earth was a sacred 
 place where God was unfolding His Providence and 
 men were fulfilling their preparatory destinies ; and 
 when he looked upon them in the light of their im- 
 mortality, his tenderness flowed out even in tears — 
 not the tears that lie near to the eyes, but out of the 
 anguish of his spirit — for those who, in the crisis of 
 the world's opportunity, were rejecting the counsel 
 of God against themselves, not knowing the times of 
 their visitation. 
 
 It is said of every painting that has no clear outlook 
 to the sky, that it leaves a stifling impression on the 
 mind of confinement and limitation. And so of every 
 human life that has no natural outlet to the infinite ; 
 it is then of the world, and of the world only. Yet we 
 have no external measurements for such states of the 
 spirit. Only the individual conscience, and He who is 
 greater than the conscience, can tell where worldliness 
 prevails, with the heavenly outlook closed. Each heart 
 must answer for itself, and at its own risk. That our 
 souls are committed to our own keeping, at our own 
 peril, in a world so mixed as this, is the last reason 
 we should slumber over the charge, or betray the trust. 
 If only that outlet to the infinite is kept open, the 
 
as Christ was not of the World. 307 
 
 inner bond with eternal life preserved, while not one 
 movement of this world's business is interfered with, 
 nor one pulse-beat of its happiness repressed, with all 
 natural associations dear and cherished, with all human 
 sympathies fresh and warm, we shall yet be near to 
 the kingdom of heaven, within the order of the 
 Kosmos of God — in the world, but not of the world 
 — not taken out of it, but kept from its evil. 
 
XX. 
 
 John xii. 27, 28 
 
 " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me 
 from this hour : but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, 
 glorify Thy Name ! Then came there a voice from heaven saying, I 
 have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again." 
 
 Twice on the same day did our Lord exhibit 
 remarkable contrasts between the outward aspects of 
 his fortunes and the emotions of his soul. It was 
 indeed within an hour that he looked upon the City 
 from the Mount of Olives, and unconscious of the 
 triumph that spread his way, of the Hosannahs that 
 rent the air, gazed upon Jerusalem through blinding 
 tears ; and that he stood within the temple court, 
 surrounded for the first and only time with the signals 
 of the accepted Messiah, not flushed with hope, but 
 stricken in spirit, sunk into the deepest places of his 
 being, alone with his destiny and his God. 
 
 We all know something of the power of revolting 
 contrasts to torture human sensibilities ; and the 
 most revolting of all discords is when on the highest 
 
Our Lord's *' Trouble of SoulT 309 
 
 interests a sympathy is offered from which the soul 
 recoils — when through some odious mistake the selfish 
 claim fellowship with the self-devoted, the impure 
 with the holy. When the multitudes went forth to 
 meet Jesus coming to Jerusalem, it was not the uni- 
 versal spiritual Deliverer, but the avenging Messiah — 
 not the Son of Man, but the Son of David — that they 
 hoped to greet ; their thought was not his thought, 
 their expectation was not his expectation ; from such 
 abhorrent sympathy he was forced back into his own 
 being ; their acclamations were less endurable than 
 ever had been their execrations or threatenings of 
 instant death ; their joy was but the presage of 
 coming rage and guilt, a hideous delusion, hollow, 
 false, blind and dark at heart, and he who knew the 
 truth was shaken by the power of appalling contrast 
 in one of the i^\N moments of emotional agitation that 
 ever disturbed that perfect and equal mind. Again, 
 when he stood within the temple, and the people 
 pressed near, and the priest shrank back, whilst 
 strangers from distant Greece expressed their sym- 
 pathy and besought his notice, the power of contrast 
 and of truth is again busy with his spirit ; his eye is 
 upon the reality ; through the acclamations of* Blessed 
 is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," he hears 
 the undertone of disappointed passions, " Crucify 
 him, crucify him ; " he knows that his way of spiritual 
 manifestation is now only by the cross, the grave, the 
 
3IO Otcr Lord's " Trouble of SomI!"^ 
 
 resurrection — that the Christ of God must pass into 
 heaven that no carnal dream may be able to connect 
 itself with him, and the world he came to save be 
 drawn to see him only in his relations to a life divine. 
 " The hour is come that the Son of Man should be 
 glorified. Verily, I say unto you, except a corn of 
 wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; 
 but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." 
 
 It was in this moment of absolute human solitude 
 that the sensitive nature of Jesus realized the provi- 
 dential aspects of his position, and trembled. For 
 what now rested upon him ? The revelation of God 
 in and to man — not by that easy way of miracle 
 which the Tempter suggested, but by the presence of 
 the peace and majesty of God in his person, by the 
 unbroken union of the Son with the Father through 
 scenes of humiliation and anguish, which in their first 
 aspects would seem only to declare that God had 
 rejected him and disowned his claim. What if he 
 should fail ! What if, through some unknown strain, 
 some untried part of nature's weakness, though only 
 for a moment, he should drop the tie that united his 
 spirit to his God ! What if the revelation in human 
 nature of the Father dwelling with the Son should not 
 be made by him ! What, if all should be lost — for here 
 all was lost unless all was gained— through failure of 
 strength at some unsuspected, unguarded place, an 
 instinctive disturbance of the spiritual action of faith 
 
Our Lo7^d's " Trouble of Soul J' 311 
 
 in the last agony of trial ! What if there should be 
 some unknown power in circumstance, in pain and 
 torture, even for an instant to baffle and blind the 
 soul 1 Do we suppose that these thoughts were not 
 his ? Do we suppose that humility, even to self- 
 exhaustion, was not his strength, or that he co«ld 
 have been so calm on Calvary if he had not so 
 trembled in Gethsemane ? Do we suppose that God 
 made him constitutionally perfect, as He makes the 
 flowers and the stars, and that the personal will and 
 soul of Christ had no part in the conflict ? Can any 
 one fail to see throughout all the Ufe of Christ, pre- 
 eminently in his death,, the great purpose that was in 
 him questioning the mortal nature, brooding over it to 
 bring it to a strength that was not its own, exploring 
 it in the light of God to discover possible sources of 
 defeat ? 
 
 We may not be able, with anything approaching to 
 exact truth, to analyze his " trouble of soul ; " we are 
 too far from him fully to understand him ; but we can 
 all feel how natural, to the most prepared spirit, would 
 be the first shuddering sense of unknown trial — the 
 apprehension of concealed causes of failure in so great 
 a mission — the recoil of the mortal nature from the 
 picture in the soul. For it is always in this form of 
 " trouble in the sour' that the great occasions of God 
 first present themselves ; and when the visioji of our 
 calling is before the spirit ere the hour of action comes. 
 
312 Our Lord's " Trouble of Souir 
 
 bringing its inspiration with it — when the energies 
 that rise with the crisis have heard only from afar the 
 summoning Voice, and all the might of Duty lies yet 
 passive, whilst the sensibilities are stretched on the 
 fear and apprehension of vast undertakings — then the 
 highest natures are those that for a time, by necessity 
 of their spiritual rank will be troubled and over- 
 powered — by the necessity that is on them to hearken 
 to the Spirit that speaks to them — to be and to do 
 that to which they are called, whilst, as yet, they know 
 only their human weakness, and dare not arrogate the 
 strength which God supplies. To have the imagina- 
 tion oppressed by the distinct picture of appalling 
 trial, whilst Conscience and the Will are not yet in the 
 circumstances that bring out their might — to have the 
 grandeur and the terror of the forethought before the 
 soul meets the crisis and feels the present inrush of 
 divine power and help — this is the form in which 
 every spirit that sacrifices to God and Duty has first 
 to contemplate its coming hour of martyrdom. And 
 if that first and most terrible crucifixion, without aid 
 from excitement, or sympathy, or the awakening de- 
 mands of external occasion, has been really undergone 
 in the depths of the soul — not one drop, one ingredient, 
 of the cup inwardly untasted — the victory of Duty is 
 won already, and the outward conflict, when it comes, 
 is but the image of a struggle that has passed away. 
 He who trembles in the presence of his own purposes — 
 
Our Lord's " Trouble of Soul" 
 
 0^3 
 
 say rather, at the inward presentation of God's pur- 
 poses to hiai — who distrusts his own strength in the 
 contemplation of appalling Duty — who, after having 
 yielded this its due tribute to sensibility, calls in a 
 mightier Power to subdue that natural weakness, quiets 
 the tremors of the imagination by the suggestions of 
 the soul, and rises to the height of a holy resolve, 
 with no excitement but the kindlings of God's Spirit, 
 and no witness but Him who seeth in secret — may 
 go forth in the confidence that no defeat is possible to 
 that prepared soul, that God will not desert those all 
 whose strength is in Hwi, and, with something of the 
 assured faith of the Master, after his tremblings but 
 before the crucifixion, when nothing was met and 
 known but the weakness within, "the trouble" only 
 of apprehension calmed, the agony only of anticipa- 
 tion passed away, say in peace, "Be of good cheer, 
 / have overcome the world." He had overcome it 
 there where alone the danger lay ; he had left no 
 unexplored place, no unchastened, unstrengthened 
 weakness ; and Calvary, when it came, was but the 
 triumph of a purpose that had anticipated its trial 
 hour, and obtained strength to love and suffer unto 
 death. Never, perhaps, did a holy and filial resolution 
 issue out of the consciousness of weakness, out of tears 
 and tremblings, and go forth to suffer a defeat on the 
 field of the world. And never, perhaps, was a moment 
 of difficult duty met in the confidence that feels no 
 
314 Our Lord's " Trouble of Soul'' 
 
 fears and knows no strugglings, without the spirit that 
 was manifested faUing below the occasion, if not 
 utterly sinking beneath it. Every highest act of self- 
 devotion to God and Duty must be a struggle, since 
 it is the highest that then is possible to us ; and if the 
 struggle has not place in the secret chambers of the 
 spirit, It must take place without preparation, when 
 and where we have no security against defeat. The 
 greatness of the Cross, of the death on Calvary, had 
 its first beginnings when Jesus commenced the conflict 
 within : " Now Is my soul troubled, and what shall I 
 say ? Father, save me from this hour ? " No ; the 
 filial heart of Christ could not say that to God : the 
 Son who knew the Father could not take it upon 
 himself to be his own Providence, and ask the God of 
 Love and Light to avert from him an hour of the 
 Divine appointment. God giv^es the times and the 
 seasons, and man must neither question nor shun 
 them, but use them, and show in them a spirit that 
 walks In the light of Him in whom Is no darkness at 
 all, in all whose face there is not one speck of cloud 
 that man may fear ; knowing that " for this cause," 
 with a knowledge of their fitness, the Father sent 
 them. " Now Is my soul troubled, and what shall I 
 say } Father, save me from this hour : but for this 
 cause came I unto this hour." And now he knows 
 what alone a Son of God could say : " Father, glorify 
 Thy name ! " And God immediately meets the Soul 
 
Oitr Lord's " Trouble of Soul." 
 
 o^:) 
 
 that is raised to meet Him, " Then came there a 
 voice from heaven saying, I have both glorified it, and 
 I will glorify it again." 
 
 Here we have all the transitions of a perfected 
 human spirit, ascending from its consciousness of the 
 weakness of humanity to a diviner strength, in^ its 
 sense of alliance with and rest in God, — and God Him- 
 self breathing peace and confidence on the soul that 
 out of its " trouble " turns to the Father and claims 
 the resources of His Spirit. In the language of St. 
 Paul, it was the natural man that trembled — the 
 spiritual man who leaned his tremblings on the mighty 
 power of God. It was Jesus who said, " Now is my 
 soul troubled, and what shall I say ? Father, save me 
 from this hour : " it was the Christ of God, the soul 
 in communion with Heaven, that said, " But for this 
 cause came I unto this hour : Father, glorify thy 
 name : " and it was to a spirit long trained to leave 
 the issues of things to the Eternal Will, and to listen 
 only for the summoning voice, that the Father spoke 
 the strengthening words : " I have both glorified it, 
 and I will glorify it again." He had glorified it when 
 in the temptation, and, as often as it was renewed, the 
 Sword of the Spirit conquered the world : He had 
 glorified it in those gracious works which were reve- 
 lations of the goodness of Him whose Spirit was in 
 them : He had glorified it in that heavenly Character, 
 that Mind of Christ, the Image of the Father, from 
 
3i6 Ou7' Lord's ^^ Trouble of Soul!' 
 
 whose fountains of sanctity and love it was issued into 
 life : He glorified it again when, through a strength 
 drawn from these tears and prayers, the Captain of 
 our salvation was made perfect through suffering — 
 when the cross could not cloud his love, as the grave 
 could not hold his spirit : and still he glorifies it in 
 the grace and strength derived through him, which 
 are glorifying from age to age the spirits of those who 
 love him : and whenever any disciple of that Master, 
 under pressure of a great responsibility, at the first 
 thought of sacrifice and suffering, obeys the suggestion 
 of nature's weakness — " Now is my soul troubled : 
 Father, save me from this hour" — but afterwards, 
 taught from above, borrows the diviner spirit of the 
 Lord — "But for this cause came I unto this hour; 
 Father, glorify Thy name" — then is God fulfilling 
 His faithful promise to His holy Child, " I have both 
 glorified it, and I will glorify it again." 
 
 Nowhere else, perhaps, could we find so long a 
 train of sentiment, in so brief a compass, so perfectly 
 brought out. We are taught, not by words, but by 
 this lesson from our Lord's life, how the lowliness of 
 a holy heart passes, by natural transition, into the 
 strength of God. It is in the power of us all to parallel 
 in our own experience the first links of this chain. 
 We may all know something of the self-distrust, the 
 shrinking, the weakness and the tears : shall we not 
 follow the way of faith, and self-surrender, and prayer, 
 
Our Lord's " Trouble of Soul.'' 317 
 
 until we too find ourselves resting within the " glory 
 of God " ? Well did the Lord say of himself, that he 
 was not only the Life, biU the Way ; for he has shown 
 us the connections even of our feebleness and our fears 
 with the almighty help of God, and the Heavenly 
 Guide is with us in the " trouble of our soul " as in its 
 joy, in the depths as in the elevations of our nature. 
 It is not, indeed, because we wish to establish a con- 
 nection between any unspiritual weakness of ours and 
 the humanity of Christ, or would cover any unchas- 
 tened feebleness in us by claiming for it fellowship 
 with him, that we rejoice in this full record of his 
 feelings, and that he offers to join us to him on his 
 way to God from that level of emotion in which we 
 can all participate, — but because he exhibits what we 
 call our weaknesses as the very elements out of which 
 God makes strength — because he teaches us to be no 
 longer ashamed of our tremblings of heart, or even of 
 our tears of apprehension — and that, instead of harden- 
 ing ourselves against these true forewarnings of the 
 Spirit, this only safe timidity of the Will, we should 
 not dare to peril our souls in the outward temptation 
 until we had first gone through this internal conflict, 
 entered into counsel with our feebleness in the pre- 
 sence of God, and won from it the promise that in the 
 day of our trial it shall not unexpectedly rise up and 
 betray our holiest purpose. These are the preparatory 
 tremblings, the shrinkings of nature, the despondencies 
 
r8 Our Lord's " Trouble of Soul^ 
 
 of heart, for which God makes His grace sufficient ; 
 these the times and the experiences when He perfects 
 His strength in our weakness. Meet your weakness 
 within your own spirit, and not for the first time when 
 the effort has to be made in the face of trial : within 
 your own bosom, where yet the outward foe has not 
 come, carry on the struggle with nature, with humility, 
 with fear, it may be with indolence and apathy of 
 heart: let our weakness and our strength meet in 
 secret and reason together ; and if, out of that full 
 conference between ourselves and the Holy Spirit, 
 there issues the aspiration of Sacrifice, the resolve of 
 Duty, we may calmly trust that in the time of need 
 God will not be wanting to those who, knowing that 
 they have no strength but in Him, have cast them- 
 selves upon Him. Oh, blessed is he who cometh in 
 the name of the Lord, when he thus teaches us to 
 make the very tremblings and apprehensions of 
 nature the surest preparations for receiving a strength 
 not our own in moments of difficult Duty ! 
 
 If it had been otherwise — if Jesus had assumed to 
 be his own Providence — if he had not taken it for all 
 his work on earth to receive the Mind of God — if he 
 had had no trust in the Love and Guidance of a 
 Heavenly Father, in a Light in which there is no 
 darkness at all — he must have permitted the prompt- 
 ing of nature, " Save me from this hour ! " to have 
 gone into effect. What would not have been lost if in 
 
Ou7' Lord's *' T^'oiible of Soiiir 319 
 
 that one case the providence of man had supplanted 
 the Providence of God ! Everything that has per- 
 petuated his name, that has made him the Image of 
 God in human nature, glorifying his Father by 
 enabling us in the face of Christ to see Him as He is 
 from age to age. Let nature's momentary cry, " Save 
 me from this hour ! " have had way, and the revelation 
 of a perfected Son is lost for ever, God's Image in 
 human nature is withdrawn from mortal eyes, the 
 Cross disappears from Calvary, and with it the all- 
 suffering Love, the divine Patience, the filial Peace, 
 which are the Christ's peculiar honours — the glory of 
 showing a filial mind, and therefore a perfect provi- 
 dence, through the deepest mysteries of discipline. 
 
 And, if God could not, without injuring the essential 
 glory of the Christ, without stripping him of the 
 honour that was involved in the very idea, of his 
 mission, have caused that cup to pass from him — if, 
 in our Lord's words, it was " not possible^' without 
 the sacrifice of all that he now is, to have saved him 
 from that hour of trembling and despondency, is not 
 the same faithful Providence over us also, the same 
 God of Light, in whom there is no darkness at all — 
 and in some " trouble of soul " when we are ready to 
 shrink and pray that God would save us from that 
 dread hour, ought we not to recollect that He cannot 
 do it without injuring our true blessedness to as great 
 an extent as He would have injured the glory of the 
 
320 Our Lord's '' Trouble of Soid" 
 
 Lord, if His Providence had hearkened to the first 
 suggestions of troubled nature, and left unfinished the 
 divine perfection He was forming, by withholding the 
 after great occasions of Christ's life and death ! It is 
 well that we have the record of this " trouble of soul," 
 that we may learn from Christ, what we could not 
 learn from ourselves, how sacred our humanity is even 
 in its fears, and what holy warnings it gives — that 
 we should know how all such weakness passes into 
 strength, that the mission of all such " trouble of soul" 
 is to call beforehand the power of God into the heart, 
 when alone we can be weak without being vanquished, 
 where alone our weakness can prepare the way 
 for victory — and that though we should tremble as 
 Christ did, we can claim no fellowship with Christ 
 unless also, as Christ did, we surrender our tremblings 
 to the suggestions of God's Spirit — " For this cause 
 came I to this hour : Father, glorify Thy name ! " 
 We have very little command over the circumstances 
 in which we may be called by God to bear our part — 
 unlimited command over the temper of our souls, but 
 next to no command over the outward forms of trial. 
 The most energetic will cannot order the events by 
 which our spirits are to be perilled and tested. Powers 
 quite beyond our reach — death, accident, fortune, 
 another's sin — may change in a moment all the con- 
 ditions of our life. With to-morrow's sun, existence 
 may have new and awful aspects for any of us. We 
 
Our Lord's " Trouble of SoulT 321 
 
 know nothing but that in this disposition of things we 
 are called to show a filial heart, the equal mind of 
 Christ — that ''for this cause came zve to this hour " — 
 and that if we put it away from us we may be putting 
 away a glory, a purpose of our Father's Love as great 
 towards tis as our Lord would have put away if he had 
 not turned from nature's instinct to the grace of God. 
 
 And God glorifies His name upon this earth as 
 often as He makes a human soul the image of Him- 
 self — as often as His providence has the witness of a 
 child of His faithful to our spiritual lineage — uphold- 
 ing in the midst of the world the pattern of a life, 
 divine in its faith, immortal in its scope and expec- 
 tation, heavenly in its temper and its law. As the 
 Father of Spirits His highest glory must be to make 
 all spirits see Him as He is, that they may become 
 like unto Himself By what steps He is to lead us to 
 that knowledge : through what shaded ways His Pro- 
 vidence may have to conduct us : by what fiery trials 
 our souls are to be purified : by what crucifixions we 
 are to be wrought to a heavenly temper, it is not given 
 to us to know. In every moment of life we have only 
 to pray, " Father, glorify Thy Name : for this cause 
 came I to this hour." 
 
 Happy they whose past experience tells them to be 
 of good courage } Happy they who can remember 
 how former moments of mortal weakness issued in* 
 heavenly strength — and when new fears and new 
 
 Y 
 
32 2 Our Lord's " Trouble of Soul.^* 
 
 tremblings lead on to the new resolve of Duty, the 
 new prayer to God to do with us as He will, only to 
 glorify His own Name, can hear in their own hearts 
 some blessed whisper of the words, " I have both 
 glorified it, and I will glorify it again." 
 
XXI. 
 
 
 Heb. xii. 12, 13 : 
 
 " Lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble knees ; and make 
 straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the 
 way ; but let it rather be healed." 
 
 To one who observed mankind in a spirit of religious 
 faith, expecting to find God the hidden Strength of 
 every heart, nothing could be more surprising than 
 the general absence of joyousness, of serene, cheerful, 
 hopeful and elevated Life, looking to the eternal con- 
 summations. That men desire their own happiness, 
 even to excess, is constantly asserted ; yet how rarely 
 do we find a man who, with his tenderest sympathies 
 alive and true, can yet clear the trouble from his brow, 
 the mystery from his soul, and live in helpful expecta- 
 tion ! How seldom do we resolve with ourselves that 
 we will banish fear, distrust, unspiritual sorrows, and 
 pass our days in hope, patience, trustful endeavour, as 
 those who at every moment have access to the springs 
 of strength in God, and even in vanished blessings. 
 
324 spiritual Counterparts to 
 
 now hidden from sight, find the most living seeds of 
 faith ! 
 
 The men of whom you hear that they are lovers of 
 their own happiness, when you come to speak to them 
 will perhaps overwhelm you with their griefs ; or, if 
 too sensitive for that, you have only to look into their 
 faces to read the expression of habitual discontent. 
 Now, ungodliness may be shown not in sin only, but 
 in a heart that is full of fear and disquietude because 
 it is not stayed upon God ; and if a tree is known by 
 its fruit, the fruit of the Spirit is not Righteousness 
 only, but also Joy and Peace. Certainly neither the 
 natural desire for joy which exists in all men, nor the 
 spirit of religion as it is conceived amongst us, pro- 
 duces a healthy and hopeful serenity, a cheerful 
 activity, a glad endeavour, a simple, unconscious 
 heroism, a looking to Him who cannot disappoint, 
 and has given so many pledges, with eyes of ever- 
 wistful Hope. The world is full, not of suffering only 
 nor of sympathy with suffering — for these are from 
 God and for good — but of a much worse thing — of 
 depression, of fear, of sighing and lamentation, of the 
 weakness and the piteousness of suffering. Even 
 sympathy has so narrowed its meaning, that it hardly 
 conveys any other idea than that of sensibility to 
 another's sorrow ; and to rejoice with those who 
 rejoice is considered the pare rather of constitutional 
 good-heartedness, of natural than of spiritual fellow- 
 
Temptation and Despondency, 325 
 
 ship. Men will detail their small troubles as if there 
 was no sin in adding to the burdens of existence, no 
 shame or selfishness in needlessly saddening the hearts 
 of the tender ; or if they do not speak, they carry into 
 pubHc the air of their most private cares ; their sad 
 countenances proclaim their woes, and present silent 
 petitions for compassion. 
 
 Yet this is not always the fruit of self-love ; and if 
 it was, the complaint of selfish men when they have 
 missed — as they always will miss — the happiness 
 which is the object of a selfish existence, when 
 through seeking their life they lose it, might be left 
 for correction to its natural retribution. It is the 
 despondency that has its roots in unworthy concep- 
 tion of God that assumes the form of a fatal spiritual 
 disease, as when even religious men confound the 
 suffering which they are told is divine instruction 
 with the high feelings which should meet it, and 
 forget that if blessed are the mourners, yet that the 
 blessedness is not in the mourning, but in the being 
 comforted. Religion has become so closely and so 
 truly identified with the discipline of sorrow, that 
 afflicted minds, though not rising into faith, energy, 
 self-forgetfulness, or any form of Christian heroism, 
 are yet not without the impression that to wear the 
 hue of sorrow is in some way to be marked by the 
 approving finger of God. That men should sink in 
 the struggle of life through the weakness of their 
 
326 spiritual Coti7tterpa7^ts to 
 
 spiritual nature, that they should give over the effort 
 to withstand visible calamity, to support a clear, bright 
 faith in the midst of so many terrible circumstances, 
 and to our merely natural eyes the seeming unfeel- 
 ingness of God, however mournful, could create no 
 surprise : but the evil has a deeper root : this spiritual 
 sickliness is not altogether faithless practice, but very 
 largely perverted religion — and not strength, and 
 peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, but a wan pathos 
 and sorrow have become intimately associated with 
 piety and God. There is no error more insidious, 
 more allied to unspiritual views of religion, more 
 Hkely to generate and nourish selfishness in man, 
 though not springing from it. 
 
 It has happened here, as elsewhere, that we have 
 confounded means with ends, the agencies which 
 God employs with the spiritual frames which God is 
 seeking to create. Suffering is indeed a great and 
 mysterious instrument in God's hands, but until the 
 suffering is subordinated in the response of the soul, 
 the connection with God is not yet established. We 
 must not convert suffering into a substitute for the 
 answer it should elicit, the power it should develop, 
 as if in itself it was a mark of God's grace. Again, 
 the misery of the world, meeting us everywhere, ex- 
 cites a deep and troubled compassion ; and a mournful 
 sensibility to existing wretchedness is mistaken for the 
 right state of feeling towards it ; whereas the faith 
 
Temptation and Despondency. 327 
 
 that there is no evil in God's world without its remedy, 
 and the toil of beneficence never without its reward 
 which that faith creates, and with mourning mingles 
 unsought exhilaration out of God's abounding grace, 
 are the fitting spiritual counterparts. Not the brood- 
 ing shadow of misery, but all the glow and elevation 
 that belong to faith and effort when they are directed 
 against it, make the true worship of Sorrow. The best 
 preservative against the melancholy that attends the 
 contemplation of affliction is in the activity that 
 relieves it — as the restless, discontented Sybarite, on 
 making acquaintance with the real misery of the 
 world, finds for the first time a divine peace enter 
 into his heart, because for the first time forgetting 
 himself and living in the spirit of a generous excite- 
 ment. There is no sorrow that we cannot contemplate 
 with faith and hope if we will only place ourselves in 
 beneficent relations towards it, for it is impossible to 
 think that God is regardless of that for which we are 
 full of helpfulness and mercy. 
 
 Again, our common theology has connected de- 
 jection with piety. Exaggerated views of human 
 sinfulness have made us tremble at the presumption 
 of standing up before our Creator and blessing Him 
 for existence. Even the gratitude which would freely 
 break out of our hearts is discoloured by the dread 
 sense of unworthiness, personal or constitutional, which 
 theology tells us should form the leadmg element in 
 
328 spiritual Counterparts to 
 
 the thanksgiving of so sinful a being. The child whose 
 willing hymn would be joy and praise, is taught first 
 to fear, to smite upon its breast, and cry, God be 
 merciful! I have just been told of a child, a very 
 infant, who under the teaching of its mother has its 
 sleep broken in the night with bursts of weeping and 
 terror for the sinfulness of its nature. Though out- 
 ward sacrifices have ceased, the sacrifice of trembling 
 is still demanded, and parents make their children pass 
 through these fires as to Moloch. Even to be happy 
 amidst His gifts is looked upon as an offence to the 
 Most High, as if we were forgetting our dependence 
 and presuming to be sufficient to ourselves. A shade 
 of fear crosses us in moments of joyful life, lest God 
 should be displeased at the too confident freedom of 
 our being, and, except we pause and make a sacrifice, 
 will speedily recall us to a sense of what we are, and 
 visit us in anger. Some traces of such superstition, 
 some thoughts of a jealous God, lurk in most hearts, 
 depriving us of a Father, and converting religion 
 into tremulous self-regard. A true filial piety would 
 suggest to us that the freedom of a hopeful being, 
 unchecked by terror, was not forgetfulness of God, but 
 a child's full trust in His faithfulness and mercy, com- 
 bined with some just conceptions of the elevations of 
 His nature. 
 
 Here, then, are great evils : Religion embittered ot 
 saddened at its springs — an impression that happy 
 
Temptation and Despondency. 329 
 
 life Is not godly life — a fear that a cheerful spirit must 
 partake of the levity of the world, or of the insensibi- 
 lity of the selfish, or of a presumptuous forgetfulness 
 of our condition of dependence — and these evils 
 elevated into pieties, rooted in false sentiment, sancti- 
 fied by a perversion of the doctrine that suffering is 
 divine experience, and by a distortion of the fact that 
 the Christ was a Man of Sorrows. 
 
 Our first duty is to get rid of enfeebling sentiment, 
 to place at least the true spirit of the religious life in 
 clear light before us, whatever may be the difficulties 
 of abiding in it — that there be no roots of bitterness 
 mistaken for divine seed and sedulously fostered — 
 that at least we know that God has placed fountains 
 of joy and comfort in our nature, whether we have the 
 faith and virtue to keep them open and flowing, or 
 not — and that we deceive not our own hearts by mis- 
 taking sorrow for heavenly-mindedness, and chasten- 
 ing for the peaceable fruits of righteousness to those 
 who are exercised thereby. 
 
 What, then, is Religion regarded as the fruit of the 
 root faith, the informing spirit, of our life? Trust, 
 work, holy courage, hope unfailing, war against all 
 evil in the faith that God is with us and wills us to be 
 victors, righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit. 
 Whatever are our sorrows, unless these have been 
 their fruits, we have as yet been stricken in vain. If 
 you ask, Why does God expose you to affliction if He 
 
330 Spirihial Coimterparts to 
 
 wishes always for a cheerful heart ? you might as well 
 ask, Why does He expose you to temptation if He 
 wishes you always to be holy ? He wishes our spirit 
 to have its joy and strength in the life of faith, the life 
 of the soul, and not to hang on accident. God subjects 
 us to suffering that we may be downcast, no more 
 than He subjects us to temptation that we may sin. 
 The two cases are in all respects analogous : and if 
 you argue that abounding sorrow and calamity are 
 the signs of God's Will that the religion of our life 
 should wear only the meek hue of a wan and broken 
 spirit, you may equally argue that abounding tempta- 
 tions must be followed by concession or monkery, 
 and that defeat, or flight, of the soul is the counterpart 
 to the evil that is in the world. But it is not so : evil 
 in the world is God's summons to all holy thoughts 
 and faithful works, to the protection of prayer against 
 it, the aggression of love upon it ; and sorrow and 
 suffering are equally God's summons to patience, 
 serenity, heavenly-mindedness, the life hidden in Him, 
 the peace that passeth understanding, never cut off 
 from hope, for never cut off from God. Unless we 
 are prepared to maintain that provocation justifies 
 anger — that ingratitude is rightly followed by vindic- 
 tive resentment — that passion and opportunity lead 
 legitimately to indulgence and sin — and so of every 
 form of temptation and its counterpart of evil, — we 
 may not plead that the misery that is in the world, 
 
Temptation and Despondency. 331 
 
 the calamity that is in our own Hfe, have their rightful 
 consequents in a broken and bowed-down heart ; or 
 that fear and trembling, despair and anguish, the long 
 arrest of peace and joy, can be the intended fruits of 
 any visitation of God. 
 
 Will it be said, that no one so argues, that no one 
 so mistakes " the worship of Sorrow," as to confound 
 passive acceptance of grief with a spiritual offering ? 
 What means, then, the plaintive note that almost 
 everywhere is the undertone of our life, — what means 
 that frequent experience, which yet always comes 
 with a painful surprise, that the nearer you approach 
 a man's secret life the less hopeful do you find him, 
 sighing for support, oppressed with the burden and 
 the mystery of existence, — that hardly can a man be 
 found who will confess that, whatever may be his 
 trials, he either sees his way through the darkness of 
 the world, and has strength equal to his day, or that, 
 when he sees it not, he can walk with his hand in the 
 Hand of God ? What means the almost universal 
 profession of care and anxiety, as something to be 
 hugged and proud of — the direction of sympathy to 
 our weakness rather than to our strength — and the 
 limitation of Religion itself to the suggestion of com- 
 fort, the lowest of its offices — comfort, the lowest thing 
 we look for if it is sought directly and for its own sake — 
 the highest thing that comes to us when it comes by 
 surprise, the unsought fruit of spiritual life, the bless- 
 
332 Spiritual Counterpai^ts to 
 
 ing on heavenly-mindedness, which God " adds unto " 
 those who seek first the kingdom of heaven and His 
 righteousness ? Is there no sign in all this that men 
 treat afflictions as if in f/ie7n were the distinguishing 
 stigmata of Christ, and that peace and joy are not 
 what we naturally look for as the marks of a religious 
 life ? Is it possible that this succumbing to sorrow 
 belongs to those who know that its divine fruit is the 
 elevation, and serenity, and unsuspended beneficence 
 of Christ, and that faith in God can have no natural 
 result but an earnest life of Hope, and a quiet heart of 
 Peace ? I deprecate the misunderstanding that I am 
 forgetting, or insensible to, the awful weight of sorrow 
 that is in the world, or in the individual heart. If I 
 am silent about it, it is only because there need no 
 words to give it emphasis. I only say that God, and 
 our life in God, life in the spirit of His Love, is our 
 refuge, and that either there is a mistake as to the 
 spiritual frames affliction ought to elicit, — or there is 
 indulgence in passive sorrow in the face of a diviner 
 knowledge. Is it the case that the evil is entirely one 
 of faithless practice, and that all hearts are purged of 
 that root of bitterness, that there is something devout 
 and sainted in wearing the hue of tribulation, and 
 keeping in subjection the instincts of joy .'^ 
 
 Wherein, then, is the blessedness of those that 
 mourn ? Christ says, in being " comforted " — in the vic- 
 tory of their faith — in the endurance of love, trust and 
 
Temptation and Despondency. 333 
 
 patience — in the untroubled answer of the spiritual 
 nature to the questioning of circumstance ; and until 
 we are thus comforted we are not one with our Leader, 
 nor in communion with our Father's Spirit. It would 
 be well for us to remember, as one of the many lessons 
 that are deposited for us in the language we employ, 
 that comfort means strength, and that the Comforter 
 is the Strengthener. No one who is not lost in super- 
 stition will suppose that the blessing of affliction 
 consists in the sujfermg it brings. It consists in the 
 spiritual response to suffering of one whose confidence 
 in the supreme Source of Love and Goodness cannot 
 thus be overcome ; it consists in the Angels of peace 
 that came to strengthen Christ, when he was willing 
 to drink the cup, that God might glorify His own 
 name. Neither God nor Christ give any countenance 
 to the ascetic spirit, that suffering is to be accepted or 
 desired for its own sake. The sacrifices of Love are 
 dear to God ; but the sacrifices of Self-love, in quest 
 of its own salvation, are not of His exacting. To 
 meet suffering and sacrifice to any extent that we 
 may carry blessing and joy to others, or bear their 
 burdens, is to be in the spirit of God and the fellow- 
 ship of Christ ; but to apply to ourselves a voluntary 
 discipline of pain or pensiveness, not for the sake of 
 others, nor incurred in their behalf, but for the sake of 
 recommending ourselves to God, is a very deadly form 
 of self-love and a frightful superstition. Beneficence, 
 
334 Spirittial Counterparts to 
 
 and the sorrow whose issue is sympathy, need and 
 will employ all the self-sacrifice we are capable of: to 
 spend it on ourselves is to spoil the husbandry of God. 
 But is there nothing divine in lasting sorrow — 
 nothing in it that may befit a child of God, living 
 in union with the Father's Spirit ? Yes, in all sorrow 
 that has its root in Love, and is compatible with faith 
 and hope in God, and into which, whatever unutter- 
 able yearnings enter, there yet enters no self-indulgent 
 helplessness, no abandonment, no despair. A heart 
 that never sorrowed would be a heart that never 
 loved. A heart that sighed after nothing would be a 
 heart from which God had never taken the dearest 
 thing He had given : only let the sigh feed the hope, 
 and rise into holier life instead of sinking into self- 
 pitying. Religion sanctions and sanctifies every 
 sorrow that belongs to pure affections ; but all such 
 sorrow, consisting in the memory of some blessed 
 experience, gives its distinctest shape to Christian 
 expectation, and never can become wretched until, 
 without the trust of gratitude for what has been, it 
 has ceased to be religious, without hope and without 
 God in the world. 
 
 Are there then no afflictions which a religious mind 
 may be excused if it meets only with submission and 
 resignation, unmixed with loftier issues } Must not 
 patience only, but also comfort and peace, wait upon 
 sorrows which no earthly hopes attend } A prostrate 
 
Temptation and Despondency. 
 
 oo; 
 
 body, that can never be equal to the common work, 
 or know the common bliss of life — set apart, as by a 
 word from en high, from the daily affairs of men, who 
 are heard at a distance by the solitary one as if rush- 
 ing past his grave — uncertain reason, oppressed and 
 fluttering — hideous moral evil brought very close to 
 you, clinging to those who colour your existence — the 
 lightning of God falling on your household tent out of 
 a cloudless sky — the invisible Hand laid without warn- 
 ing on those who make the strength of your strength, 
 the life of your life — are these, things to be encountered 
 not only with serene and tranquil faith, but also to 
 evoke new spiritual life ? Of their awful severity there 
 is no question : but how are they to be met ? What, 
 in regard even to these, is the answer of the spirit ? 
 And surely it implies something very hollow to speak 
 of meeting these sad aspects of existence with sub- 
 mission and resignation, but without peace or hope or 
 newness of life ; for if there is no hope, no trust, no 
 call, why should there be submission or resignation, 
 except as the stoic's yielding to necessity, which is 
 not piety, but prudence ? Whence will relief come, 
 such true and divine relief as spiritual insight brings ? 
 " Lift up the hands that hang down, and the feeble 
 knees ; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that 
 which is lame should be turned out of the w^ay ; but 
 let it rather be healed." This may be hard — that is 
 not to be denied ; but is it right, just, holy, lovely — a 
 
33^ Spiritual Counterparts tc 
 
 demand upon the faith that works by love, which the 
 abounding goodness of God, with His clear indica- 
 tions of eternal purpose, entitles Him to make ? 
 
 But it is said that Christ was characteristically a 
 Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief. Yes ; but 
 interpret this aright. He was a Man of Sorrows in 
 no sense which implies that fear, or distrust, or spiri- 
 tual lassitude had entered into him. A good man will 
 bear all men's griefs, until he has borne them away. 
 Sorrows, disappointments, were around him, moulding 
 him on all sides, the element in which his strength was 
 made, his life lived ; but love, faith, hope, the joy of 
 the soul in God, were the inspirations from which they 
 came, and to which they rose. It is entirely a false 
 impression that the designation, a Man of Sorrows — 
 one indeed of no authoritative application to the indi- 
 vidual person of Christ — describes the hue of his sen- 
 timents. It is spiritually impossible that one who led 
 his life of love and prayer should ever be long out of 
 God's clear sunlight ; and if we search his history, there 
 is nothing more evident than that gloom or asceticism 
 made no part of the temper of his soul. We remember 
 the reproach, whence it came, and how it was met : 
 The Son of Man is come eating and drinking: why do 
 the disciples of John /(^^i*^ often and make prayers, and 
 likewise the disciples of the Pharisees ; but thine eat 
 and drink f And he said unto them : " Why should 
 the children of the bride-chamber fast while the Bride- 
 
Temptation and Despondency 
 
 00/ 
 
 groom is with them ? " There is indeed ever some 
 sadness in all aspiration that has not yet attained ; 
 but he who was made perfect by suffering never could 
 succumb to suffering, nor permit the sense of it to be 
 dominant in his nature. We hear twice, perhaps three 
 times, in all that tasked life of a cloud passing overshis 
 mind, floating between him and God, and each time 
 no sooner is mention of it made than we are intro- 
 duced to the fountains of his strength, and behold him 
 taking instant refuge with the Source of peace. In 
 the most suffering moments of his life, suffering never 
 gives the direction to his feelings nor suggests his 
 thoughts. When he is departing from the temple for 
 the last time, the Rejected for ever, he sees the widow 
 with her mite — the beauty of the offering takes posses- 
 sion of his heart, and instead of mourning for himself, 
 he is blessing //^r. At the Last Supper no word of 
 sorrow is breathed by /n7n — no fear but for the imper- 
 fect fidelity of those whom on the morrow he was to 
 leave to their own strength — whilst the sorrow of the 
 disciples is gently reproved as far from the occasion : 
 " Let not your hearts be troubled : ye believe in God, 
 believe also in me." " Peace I leave with you : my 
 peace I give unto you." " If you loved me ye would 
 rejoice, because I go unto my Father." Whilst bear- 
 ing his own cross, there is solicitude for others, but 
 peace for himself: "Women of Jerusalem! weep not 
 for me ; vv^eep for yourselves and for your children ; " 
 
oo 
 
 8 Spiritual Countei^parls to 
 
 and on the cross itself all suffering leads to the sug- 
 gestions of mercy, the prayer of forgiveness, the last 
 directions to love, the consciousness of being perfectly 
 safe in the hands of God. When, then, we call Christ 
 the Man of Sorrows, let us remember what we mean : 
 that he was one whose spiritual nature suffering never 
 ruled — -whose peace, hope and love, sorrow could per- 
 fect, but could not disturb — not a dejected and pen- 
 sive, but a strong and untroubled man, full of the 
 spirit of Power and of God. He passed through the 
 fulness of sorrow as he passed through the fulness of 
 temptation, and had the brightness of his spiritual 
 love dimmed by neither. 
 
 But he who was so strong himself was ever of the 
 quickest tenderness both to the griefs and to the 
 weaknesses of others : and this is just the test that we 
 must apply to ourselves if we would know whether 
 indeed it is God that is sustaining us, and that there 
 if no hardness mingling with our strength. And the 
 more we feel that it is part of our fellowship with him 
 to meet our life with cheerful energy, and, except in a 
 spirit of loving sympathy, to carry our burden to no 
 man's door, to shadow no man's tenderness of heart 
 by the needless exposure of a grief which with God's 
 help we can quell within our own — the more we are 
 impressed by the spiritual duty of standing up in this 
 troubled world, with the arrows of God flying all 
 around us, trustful and hopeful men — the more shall 
 
Temptation and Despondency, 339 
 
 we be ready to become the supports of whatever 
 sorrows need our sympathies — to grasp the hands 
 that hang down and raise them up — to place our- 
 selves in love and self-forgetfulness near the weak and 
 the desolate. We can only give what v\'e have : we 
 cannot give to another the strength that is not our 
 own. " Labour," says St. Paul, " that ye may have to 
 give to him that needeth." " Blessed be God, the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mer- 
 cies and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us 
 in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort 
 them that are in any trouble, by the comfort where- 
 with we ourselves are comforted of God." The 
 sympathy of two dejected, repining minds is but a 
 commerce of self-love. It was he whose own foot was 
 firm upon the rushing wave who was both able and 
 willing to stretch forth his hand to the fearful and 
 the sinking. But no man whose heart is Christian 
 will make the hope and courage he desires for himself 
 a condition of his sympathy, his helpfulness towards 
 others. If the strong man turns away from the 
 weakness of the weak, he only proves that such 
 strength as he has is hardness and self-concentration, 
 far indeed from tender reverence for God's holy pur- 
 poses, and the spirit of him who would not quench' 
 smoking fiax, or break a bruised reed. If " it is more 
 blessed to give than to receive," the blessedness of 
 having is in being able and willing to give. 
 
340 Temptation and Despondency. 
 
 Children, then, of the God of all comfort, and 
 Brothers of every suffering man, we live true to our 
 spiritual lineage, to the family bonds of Christian 
 hearts, only as we go to our Father for light and 
 strength, and " turn not away from our own flesh," 
 but share what is ours, and take of theirs, as God has 
 given to each for the sake of all 
 
XXII. 
 
 I Cor. xvi. 13 : 
 
 *• Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, (|uit ye like men, be stronir." 
 
 A ^lAN of strong character is one whose Will rules 
 his powers, so that such energies as he has are habi- 
 tually submissive to the clear purpose of his spirit. 
 And to this kind of strength, which lies entirely within 
 the province of self-government, every man may 
 approach, however little natural force he may have 
 comparatively with other men. The strength that is 
 required is moral strength, and has no relation to 
 another man's capacities, but solely to our own. Some 
 natures, indeed, much more readily than others, seem 
 to have all their forces under the command of what is 
 highest in them ; but the question for each of us is, 
 not whether wc are more or less than others, nor 
 Avhether the work given to us is lighter or severer, but 
 how can we best improve the gifts of God committed 
 to ourselves — how introduce a full harmony of action 
 into the constituents of our own being, each part of us 
 serving in its rightful place. 
 
342 Loving God with our Strength. 
 
 A clear, fixed aim, and a force of will that compels 
 the various faculties to steady work in its service, 
 these constitute, for each individual, strength of cha- 
 racter. For the difficulty of reaching true strength 
 of character is not in great exertions, but in unity of 
 life. Nothing is more common than great force in 
 some one direction — in some one inclination, passion 
 or faculty : nothing is more rare than a strong man, if 
 by the man you mean the whole man, the symmetry 
 of our entire being, the frame of our life complete 
 through that which every joint supplieth. The men 
 whom the world takes for strong are for the most part 
 only one-sided — ^just as to most minds the half of a 
 truth is far more telling than the whole of it, and to 
 modif}^ the impression by giving the other half will 
 seem to round it off to comparative tameness. Vehe- 
 ment language coming out of half-knowledge and a 
 blind impulse, seems fraught with more vigour than 
 full, just, discriminating speech ; and a man who sees 
 every side of a subject will appear more feeble than 
 the man who, because he sees but one side of it, can 
 speak impetuously and strike with unqualified force. 
 How easy would it be to be strong in some one direc- 
 tion or proclivity of our nature, or in the vigorous pro- 
 secution of single interests ! How easy, for instance, 
 to be strong in the conduct of worldly business, if we 
 might settle down our whole powers upon it, and had 
 never to lift our soul from its pursuit ! How difficult 
 
Loving God ivith ottr Strength. 343 
 
 is it to combine this with every other sentiment that 
 becomes a man — to infuse into this vigour of business 
 the fervent spirit serving God, so that, whilst the hand 
 of dihgence maketh rich, the heart and its treasures 
 have no earthliness in them ! How easy might it be 
 to be strong in Religion, in the devotion of our souls 
 to holiness and truth, if Duty centred in the private 
 thoughts and could be carried on in solitude — if it 
 required no struggle with conflicting things, no trained 
 wisdom to discern our way amid a thousand compli- 
 cations — if asceticism was strength — if monkery was 
 strength — if the anchorite might go to his cell, and 
 had finished his Christian work when prayers, aspira- 
 tions and unearthly desires, had floated in ghostly 
 array through the uninterrupted meditations of his 
 spirit ! All that is easy to any one who chooses to 
 give himself to it. But how difficult is it to be strong 
 in a real devotedness to Goodness, Purity and Truth, 
 amid the contradiction of circumstance and the oppos- 
 ing ways of men — to shape the forms of life after 
 models in the soul — to transfer unmutilated our own 
 sentiments into our own demeanour — to live with men 
 as they are and part with no ideal — to lose no vision, 
 disturb no fountain of peace — to be strong in Christ's 
 interpretation of strength — a physician among the 
 sick — whole among the unsound — spiritual among the 
 worldly — living with God in the midst of crowds — full 
 of love and thought for the world when alone with God ! 
 
344 Lovmg God zuith our SU'eiigth. 
 
 Now this difficulty of living true to our zvJiole nature, 
 including our highest promptings, has always been 
 felt ; but it is spoken of as calamity, as the sign of 
 our human infirmity, as the mark on us of a spiritual 
 degradation, instead of what it really is, the divine 
 distinction of our being, the only possible way of 
 approach towards the All-perfect. Men speak of this 
 difference between religion in the thoughts and reli- 
 gion incarnate^ — between religion disembodied and 
 religion embodied — as if the removal of the natural 
 difficulty would be the most blessed thing that could 
 happen to them ; whereas, if the removal took place 
 m any other way than by the well-earned victory of a 
 faithful Will, it would abolish our distinction as spiri- 
 tual beings, strip us of personal power, of voluntary 
 goodness, of voluntary devotedness, and reduce us, 
 like the other creatures of God, under the fatality of 
 nature and the necessary directions of our own consti- 
 tution. We are slow to recognize our spiritual bless- 
 ings, our peculiar privileges, when they come in the 
 form of grave responsibilities, of high and sacred 
 trusts : we would have the faith of Abraham without 
 its trials ; we would have our souls taken away and 
 their place supplied by instincts ; even our most dis- 
 tinguished man of science wishes he could be wound 
 up like a clock every morning, to go right for twenty- 
 four hours ; we deplore the long intervening contest 
 between the kincrdom of heaven in a child's heart and 
 
Loving God luith our Strength. 345 
 
 its practical attainment in a man's life ; but take the 
 struggle away, and you take with it the spirit that 
 chooses between good and evil, the Will that solicited 
 to ease and pleasure keeps its fellowship with God, 
 places itself within the protection of the Highest, 
 and banishes temptation by the presence of the Holy 
 Spirit. Here, and nowhere else, is the explanation of 
 all the evil we are exposed to. Our natural liability 
 to temptation, our severe struggle upwards, is not a 
 mark of degradation, it is a mark of spiritual rank. 
 Suppose that wc unfolded our higher nature under a 
 direct fatality — suppose that the sentiment conducted 
 to the deed as the instinct to its end — that we hun- 
 gered and thirsted for righteousness with an uncon- 
 trollable appetite which our own will could not restrain 
 or destroy, as we hunger and thirst for food by a con- 
 stitutional necessity — then, however high might be the 
 order of our instincts, we never in this way could 
 become " Children of God," or know what it was to 
 share His holy Will. If we were obedient only as the 
 stars are obedient, as with perfect practical knowledge 
 the bee builds its cell and the bird of passage keeps 
 its time — if with us, as with them, there was no 
 possibility of sin, there could be no sonship with God, 
 no righteousness of God in man, and human obedience 
 would have as little to do with spiritual goodness, 
 would depend as absolutely on the simple fiat of the 
 Almighty, as the material order of nature, or the 
 animal perfection of an eagle. 
 
34^ Loving God ivitJi our Strength. 
 
 What, indeed, constitutes us spirititat beings, 
 accountable for our own peace, for the issues, the 
 issues in character, of the mingling passions, suffer- 
 ings, struggles and desires, which, unseen by the world, 
 are yet our secret experience ? How is it that Con- 
 science, within the circle of real joys and woes, the 
 interior quiet or unrest of the heart, makes every man 
 to feel that he moves a preserver or a destroyer, a self- 
 made or a self-blighted being ? Is it not that God of 
 Himself so inspires our souls that with commanding 
 authority there rise before us images of goodness 
 better than we are, and inviting us to be what as yet 
 we are not ? And, again, as Christians, that these 
 images of diviner life not only pass through our 
 thoughts, but have been brought home to us, face to 
 face, in a son of Man, so that we cannot deny their 
 reality, or that they have rightful judgment over us,. 
 even as the w^ords of Christ judge every man whose 
 conscience they have reached ? " I judge no man ; the 
 words that I have spoken, the same will judge you in. 
 the last day." And who can deny the right of a word 
 of divine truth witnessed to by our own souls, and 
 incarnated in one who was " touched with the feeling 
 of our infirmities, and in all points tempted even as we 
 are," to pronounce our condemnation if we disobey 
 it ? Yet these higher suggestions of God in us will 
 not execute what they image: if left to themselves 
 they will only mingle with all other impulses, and 
 
Loving God with our Strength. 347 
 
 become elements in the general disorder of our being. 
 God and man must become fellow-workers. God's 
 part is to inspire us : man's part is to honour the 
 inspiration. We have our part to do in the salvation 
 of our own souls, and it is to lend oui selves with all 
 the strength we have to what our conscience com- 
 mends to us as the Will of God. And here mainly 
 lies the difference between spiritual weakness and 
 spiritual strength — not so much in our desires as in 
 our will, for often our desires are right when our will 
 is powerless, and our desires are but the breathings of 
 God in us asking to be taken up into our life. A man 
 spiritually strong has a conscientious will. The mea- 
 sure of his natural inspiration, so to speak, the consti- 
 tutional susceptibility of his being, may not be great ; 
 in intellect, in ideality, he may be a mere child in 
 comparison with some self-indulgent man of genius ; 
 but spiritually he is the strong man, and the other is 
 the yielding child. Take a strong man and a weak 
 man, a successful man and an unsuccessful : in the 
 desires of their hearts there may be no discernible 
 difference. But the weak man yields to his miscel- 
 laneous impulses, to the accidental solicitings of the 
 external world, to the chance wanderings of his own 
 faculties. The conscientious man knows that to do 
 that is to surrender all individuality, all personal 
 liberty, all that makes a man independent of the waft 
 of circumstance, all that gives a man the power of 
 
34^ Loving God zviih our Strength. 
 
 doing the Will of God. It is in the feebleness of the 
 Will that most of us sink the natural fruits of God's 
 good Spirit working in us. Few of us are men of 
 corrupt hearts ; but most of us are men of feeble spi- 
 ritual purpose. How few of us have any clear spiritual 
 aim before us at which we are constantly working, 
 though it was only the weeding out of our nature our 
 known infirmities, our known liabilities to evil, — vreed- 
 ing them out, or rather killing them out, by leaving 
 no room for them in a soil that is sown with better 
 seed ! How many of us are shorn of our strength by 
 some mere habit, against which we resolve and perhaps 
 pray ; but the Will being feeble through inaction, when 
 the temptation comes again the yielding nature, un- 
 used to resistance, once more passively submits ! Weak 
 men pray that temptations never may return : strong 
 men pray that as often as they return they may have 
 strength to starve them. How many of us are well 
 aware of our own deficiencies — of how feebly, it may 
 be, we are furnished with the very wealth and disci- 
 pline of mind which our place most needs — of how 
 often difficulties and opportunities are arising, in- 
 cidental to the very matters with which we profess to 
 deal, which we know that we are not competent to 
 meet with a full understanding and a masterly ability ! 
 We even plan our tasks and lay out our course of work 
 to supply what we painfully know to be wanting ; but 
 we are not equal to the fatigue of a long and distant 
 
Loving God with otir StrcngtJi. 349 
 
 purpose, and the capacities unused to constraint soon 
 struggle to be released, that unreined they may go 
 loose according to their own pleasure. This is the 
 case with thousands, whose desires are pure, whose 
 hearts are good, who are even oppressed with a sense 
 of their own removable imperfections, but who have 
 never acquired the power of putting their own faculties 
 under the dominion of their own will, and are there- 
 fore every hour at the mercy of unguided directions 
 of their nature. Sensations, memories, imaginations, 
 impulses, bodily restlessness, start up at random and 
 draw them after them. They accomplish nothing, for 
 in the feebleness of their self-control any accident Is 
 strong enough to call them away. Their whole being 
 is a miscellaneous confusion. They float upon every 
 current that offers, and make no channels for them- 
 selves. The Will becomes totally helpless in the 
 midst of its undisciplined instruments : the image of 
 their own life, of their inward being, grows painful to 
 themselves, for it is a picture of disorder, and they fall 
 into chronic discontent — or they do what so many do. 
 they take refuge in an external life, — the world, with 
 its infinite variet}', carries them from object to object, 
 and pleasantly consum.es their time without in any 
 way tasking their strength. 
 
 The life of average men is an imperfect effort of the 
 Will against this dominion of outward solicitations, and 
 the unmastered condition of their own powers. The 
 
350 Loving God zuith otir Strcjigtlu 
 
 victory remains permanently on neither side. We 
 summ.on energy to do some special work which 
 presses, that we may be dismissed to relaxation with 
 a conscience quieted for the time. We get through 
 the day's necessities, but for the most part never even 
 propose to ourselves the true problem of our being, 
 the reduction of our faculties and passions under the 
 command of our Will, so as to make them ministering 
 servants to the spiritual purpose of our life. So far as 
 we have a scheme of life within which our Will does 
 reign — as in our callings, in our professions, in our 
 amusements, in our favourite pursuits, in our affec- 
 tions — it is for the most part too limited to include 
 our whole nature. We may have great power over 
 some of our faculties for special service, and leave 
 the rest unused. Many a philosopher has his intellect 
 perfectly obedient, but never has acquired command 
 over his temper and his passions. Many a gentle 
 heart has perfectly subdued its passions, but can now 
 by no effort concentrate the mind, or hold the thoughts 
 for an hour together within the same channel. Many 
 a mechanician, many a musician, will work miracles 
 with his hands, or with the organs of his voice, but 
 have nothing else that belongs to him under his 
 control. And religiotts men often construct their 
 religion out of a few of the lower elements of religious 
 sensibility, and never apply their Will, in their care of 
 the soul, to the development of the full image of the 
 
Loving God zuith our Strength. 351 
 
 Divine nature in them. The anomaly is by no means 
 rare of strong religious sensibilities existing in con- 
 nection with a very feeble conscientiousness. The 
 religion of many natures is only a sense of dependence 
 and a desire for protection — it is born of our weakness 
 and seeks support — it proceeds from the emotions of 
 physical wonder, of awe and timid apprehension, and 
 that often vehement love which is passionately grate- 
 ful for undeserved mercies and for averted dangers; 
 but it may comprise no aspiration of the soul, no 
 ■desire for holiness, no hunger and thirst of the spirit 
 after righteousness, after the living God, and so can 
 combine a passionate devotion with flagrant imperfec- 
 tions of temper and of life. Such natures, with some of 
 the lower sensibilities in excess, and the more spiritual 
 ones undeveloped, are the main supports of all that is 
 superstitious in religion. They seize with avidity on 
 Schemes of Salvation, on the special remedies, dis- 
 ciplines, beliefs, oblations, rituals, recommended as 
 the patent medicines of diseased souls. The religion 
 they desire is not one that will educate their strength, 
 but one that will remove their fea;:s, — and specially 
 accommodate itself to what they assume to be the 
 weakness of nature. How few of us reach, or set 
 before us to be reached, that last and perfect state, 
 ^'the spirit of power and of love, and of a sound 
 mind," when struggle is over, the righteous Will acts 
 freely, and no forced discipline needed, for all that is 
 
oo- 
 
 Loving God luitli 07ir St^^ength, 
 
 in us breathes with one consent ! This is the beauty 
 of Holiness, the crowning reward of the faithful. 
 Wonders of patience, love and self-control, are per- 
 formed in God's free spirit The authority of Con- 
 science has become habitual, and now rules as with 
 the serenity of an assured command that never knew 
 the weariness of conflict, the storms of passion, the 
 revolts of caprice and sensibility. Even the energy 
 of a holy Will, still required for the onward way, is no 
 longer prominent, for effort disappears as resistance 
 dies away. This is I^J*^ end of our prayers, the goal 
 of our way — thatjhe' Will of God should be done on 
 earth, even as ii^done^in heaven, by willing spirits. 
 
 Now it is a^conscieiiTious Will, through the power it 
 unquestionably hfes' over our states of voluntary atten- 
 tion, directing it tow^'d^isome objects and calling it 
 away from others, tha^ enables us at last to " watch, 
 to stand fast in Al^ faith, and to acquit us like strong 
 men." We can, when^w^will, determine the interests 
 that shall beheld before our minds. In every moment 
 that we are masters of our own time, we can choose to 
 what objects our attention shall be invited, and from 
 what it shall be withheld. It is this that makes us 
 accountable for ourselves. It is the power of the Will 
 over the attention that makes us responsible for the 
 thoughts, and if for the thoughts, then for the passions 
 and the purposes of our being, for passion and purpose 
 die whenever the Will steadily refuses to permit the 
 
Loving God zuith our Strength. 353 
 
 thoughts to dwell upon their objects. And as the Will 
 can thus kill evil purpose and passion, so can It feed 
 and kindle all good desires by determining what 
 thoughts and what beings shall be invited to dwell 
 within our souls. This really is the difference between 
 a disciplined and an undisciplined man : with the 
 introduction of a conscientious Will commences the 
 reign of individual holiness, of spiritual self-culture, 
 of personal liberty and power. Of course, so far as 
 force of Character is a natural gift, we are not cen- 
 surable for a comparative deficiency ; but we are 
 answerable for the voluntary directions of our 
 thoughts, for the results of that persistent attention 
 to some interests and withdrawal from others which 
 is at the command of our Will. 
 
 This power is greatly promoted by whatever 
 brings the sense of obligation ; and often the way 
 to strengthen a feeble, impersonal mind is to weight 
 it heavily with responsibilities. Hence the dangerous 
 time of life is apt to be when the capacities are ready 
 for action, with nothing as yet to turn them forcibly 
 into one direction, to fix them in earnest vv'ork. How 
 melancholy often is the waste of power between girl- 
 hood and womanhood ! Life has often then no en- 
 forced work — there is no sphere of clear, determined 
 duty: this "unchartered freedom" is too wide, and 
 aimlessness ensues : long hours of uninterrupted 
 leisure follow one another daily, but what is there 
 
 2 A 
 
354 Loving God with ottr Strength. 
 
 to define its employment ? Life is like a sea on 
 which floats a ship bound for no port. But there is 
 a quick weariness in aimless drifting, and liberty 
 becomes a burden when the higher demands of life 
 are left unsatisfied. What wonder if they touch every- 
 thing, and exhaust nothing! And where lies the remedy ? 
 Solely in a conscientious Will that chooses and per- 
 sistently pursues some permanent object, or some 
 large self-culture — some work that will not fail, that 
 may be continued from day to day, every day deepen- 
 ing their tracks — some moral interest, some line of 
 life, the thread of which need not be broken, but lead 
 on, however gently, farther and farther — for not violent 
 efforts, but only continuous ones, are demanded for 
 the truest culture of our nature. Their place is in the 
 centre of all that is human, and their first duty is to 
 do what offers within their own circle ; but it is a 
 v/aste of life for a spiritual being not to have some 
 large interest or purpose that can continuously be 
 pursued in the leisure that God affords. 
 
 There is the correspondent period, when the worth 
 of a man's life yet hangs in doubt — when he ought to 
 ask himself before God what it is that he expects from 
 existence, and entertain great thoughts of what may 
 be open to him, if he does not spoil his future by early 
 purposelessness and retributive incapacity. For there 
 are golden opportunities in life if he will wait for them, 
 and be found fit to seize them when they come : an 
 
Loving God icitli oitr Strength. 355 
 
 existence rich in all needful means, in all lawful 
 power, for those who by purity, by self-control and 
 patient growth, are ready when God calls. I suppose 
 few men have passed middle life without feeling that 
 great occasions have passed out of their hands because 
 of deficiencies in what was abundantly possible to 
 them ; perhaps because they had not laid wider and 
 deeper the foundations of knowledge, and held the 
 intellectual instruments more completely at command. 
 We speak of the good fortune that appears in some 
 men's lives ; but for the most part, the good fortune 
 falls to the strong will, the patient diligence, the faith- 
 ful preparation, that can use the opportunity and is 
 equal to the time. 
 
 And let us live in no doubt of wJiat is strength and 
 ^cuhat is ivcalzncss. It is strength to will and to do : it 
 is weakness to desire and not to do — to wish and not 
 to will — to wish to break a habit and still live in it — 
 to wish to fix the thoughts and let them wander — to 
 wish for the command of a faculty and to acquire no 
 efficient use of it. And strength is not the vehement 
 impulse of one part of us, but the final consent of all 
 that is in us. It is not in the tenderness of a yielding 
 man : nor in the resignation of a cold one : nor in the 
 prudence of a selfish man : nor in the open-handed- 
 ness of a spendthrift. The tender must be firm : the 
 resigned, loving: the prudent, generous : the charitable, 
 self-denying. It was seen in Christ when the morning 
 
35^ Loving God witJi oitr Strength. 
 
 of his greatest glory dawned upon him — watching in 
 trembling and in prayer — in his humility testing his 
 weakness, and collecting his strength in God. Re- 
 member what he said to his disciples, who all failed 
 him in that great crisis, not because their hearts were 
 evil, but simply because their Wills were feeble : 
 *' What, could you not watch with me one hour ? 
 AVatch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation : 
 the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." 
 
 And let us not fall into the vulgar mistake that 
 there Is any strength in restless action, unless that 
 action comes forth from earnest thoughtfulness and 
 has been fed by the inspirations of God. There is a 
 constitutional activity which is often weaker and 
 poorer than silent contemplation. Have the devout 
 strength of meditation that passes outwards into life 
 Avhen the heart muses till the fire burns. For then we 
 are strong in the Lord and in the power of His might : 
 feeling that He who inspires us will also endow us for 
 that which He requires — that He asks no semce for 
 which He does not supply the sufficiency — and that 
 to those who will yield themselves to do His Will, 
 without self-seeking or ambition, "their strength is 
 ever as their day." 
 
XXIII. 
 
 Psalm xlii. 5 
 
 ■** Why art ihou cast down, oh my soul ! and why art thou disquieted 
 within me ? " 
 
 - There h a large amount of spiritual disquiet, of the 
 causes of which the soul may be ignorant ; even as 
 there is a large amount of bodily suffering having its 
 origin in some invisible derangement of a frame fear- 
 fully and wonderfully made, in laws and conditions of 
 health the existence of which is a mystery to the 
 sufferer. A morbid condition of body is for the most 
 part not occasioned by external stroke or violence ; 
 its cause must be detected amid the complicated work- 
 ings of the powers of life : and a morbid condition of 
 spirit is for the most part not occasioned by assign- 
 able calamity, but by some defect of co-operative 
 action in the springs of thought and feeling that make 
 the sum of spiritual being. External injury, definable 
 affliction, are our exceptional experiences: internal 
 derangement, Irregular exercise, disproportioned de- 
 velopment of the powers of life, are constant sources of 
 
358 Disquiet of Spirit. 
 
 uneasiness, permanent violations of the conditions on 
 which God gives the fidness of peace. 
 
 There is another analogy of great practical import- 
 ance between spiritual and bodily disquiet. In neither 
 case will ignorance of the laws of health save us from 
 the consequences of their violation. We may err un- 
 knowingly, but no less do the natural results ensue — 
 no less has that suffering to be borne which is the 
 natural issue of mistaken action. God in the natural 
 world withholds no train of sorrowful effects because 
 man incurs them unawares : if we touch the death- 
 charged element, however innocently, no decree inter- 
 poses to arrest the prompt instruction of a terrible 
 experience ; and though the spiritual penalty of sin- 
 fulness falls only on wilful transgression, yet if we fail 
 to keep the conditions on which God gives quiet, our 
 ignorancc of what those conditions are will not affect 
 the result : the fulness of peace is annexed to certain 
 conditions and to no other, and the disturbance which 
 visits involuntary imperfection is often our first index 
 to a broken law. How often docs it happen, both in 
 the moral and in the economic world, that we knew 
 not there was a vice in our state of being until it came 
 to light in an issue of suffering, and we were made 
 aware of the root of evil by the fruit of woe ! It is 
 the final cause of all such corrective fruit that we 
 should act upon the warning and discover what law 
 of God has been neglected. There Is a physiology of 
 
Disqttict of Spirit. 359 
 
 the soul as there is a physiology of the body, and in 
 the spiritual department of health we must be our own 
 care-takers ; the only physicians that can heal us 
 speak in the still, small voice which is heard by those 
 who listen with the spirit. 
 
 Who does not know from experience that there 
 frequently come upon him states of inward unhinge- 
 ment and unrest, which he cannot account for through 
 any dissatisfaction with his outward lot, or from any 
 stroke of positive affliction ? The spirit is sick within, 
 because of disorder — because of unobserved harmonies 
 — because of inaction or over-action — through some 
 organs stimulated to disease, and some disabled b}- 
 neglect — because of unaccountable fever or lassitude. 
 The laws of spiritual health require a nature equally 
 exercised, with no part unworked or overworked — 
 every faculty directed to its own object and receiving 
 its own joy — keeping our peace full by every urn that 
 is in mind, heart, soul and energ}^, having its own 
 share, giving its own contribution of the waters of life. 
 What St. Paul says of the necessity of each man mak- 
 ing himself, in his place, a vital member of the social 
 body, is equally true of the membership of each of the 
 parts which together make up the individual, — that 
 "the whole body, fitly joined together, and compacted 
 by that which ev^ery joint supplieth, according to the 
 effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh 
 increase unto the edifying of itself in Love " — Love, 
 
360 Disquiet of Spirit. 
 
 pure Charity, an enthusiasm for Goodness in which all 
 personal ends are lost, being the uniting principle of 
 every perfect co-operation in which an orderly subor- 
 dination must prevail. The anxious questioning of 
 the uneasy spirit, not knowing itself — " Why art thou 
 disquieted within me ? " — thus points to neglected laws 
 of life which need be no secrets to us. One or two 
 — they are closely intertwined — of the sources of 
 disquiet I shall attempt to exhibit. 
 
 And, first, the cold encouragement of Conscience — 
 that uncomfortable thought of himself which, without 
 distinctly realizing it, every man has who has a stan- 
 dard in his spirit that rebukes his life. There is no 
 source of disquiet so constant as this — a sense of rup- 
 ture between promise and performance : temper, habits, 
 deeds, ways of life, not true to our souls — a glory in 
 our thoughts, a meanness in ourselves — a two-fold 
 existence, a lofty one from Him who inspires us, a 
 low one in the inertia that resists Him. Few of us 
 know how much we suffer from the absence of uncon- 
 scious self-respect — how much the divine necessities 
 of Conscience, of Righteousness and of Love, afflict 
 us when they do not bless us — how, when refused the 
 fellowship of our lives, they stand apart in awful lone- 
 liness and drop a cold shade of unaccordance, whose 
 chill is felt when its source is not suspected. Few of 
 us know to what an extent this puts a check upon our 
 light-heartedness — how much of every-day happiness 
 
Disquiet of Spirit, 361 
 
 is lost because Conscience will not give us its free 
 smile — how much of innocent enjoyment is spoiled 
 by an undefined sense of defalcation — the distrust of 
 a soul not sufficiently at ease with God to feel a filial 
 right to take His Love — to cast itself amid offered 
 opportunities without a speck of cloud upon the con- 
 fidence that with a full, fresh heart, it may use His 
 aiiercies. Who has not felt the weary unprofitableness 
 of an outwardly happy occasion, which some overcast 
 •of recent unworthiness rendered him incapable of 
 enjoying ? We cannot take the peace to our hearts 
 as if it deserved to be there. And how often does 
 this take place when we are not directly conscious of 
 the spiritual cause ! With a neglected task upon his 
 thoughts, though he may think he is not thinking of 
 it, what is any simple, innocent pleasure, the face of 
 nature, the laughter of children, to a man whose heart 
 these would have made perfectly pure and happy at a 
 holier time ! This is the effect of all burdens on the 
 soul, conscious or unconscious : the\^ spoil us for the 
 daily goodness of God — we are not free to observe 
 and enjoy such things. Again, who has not felt with 
 what a glad heart he can enjoy the stray gifts of God, 
 how entirely he can ^w^ himself up to opportunities 
 of joy, when there hangs over him no doubting sense 
 of dishonoured duty, and, in a spirit free to take what 
 is freely given from above, there is added unto him a 
 Beatitude for which he did not ask ! 
 
362 Disquiet of Spirit. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that every man falls below his- 
 standards, and that even if we did all that is our duty 
 to do, we should still be unprofitable servants. It is 
 no disgrace to us to be below our standards : it would 
 be hopeless degradation to have no standard above 
 ourselves. It is the law of life in us that we reach 
 forth to things not yet attained, that a Christ shall 
 dwell within us to keep us humble. Nor can this* 
 method of growth come to a natural end, for it has 
 no limit but God : as often as we make any real 
 advance, the prospect widens — we stand for our next 
 gaze upon a higher eminence. It is not, then, in this 
 necessary inferiority to our standards that the disquiet 
 of Conscience has its source — it is that we do not press 
 upon our standards so that they and we rise together 
 — that unconsciously we are weaiy of ourselves — 
 weary of an unprofitable life — weary of the involun- 
 tary conviction Avhich saddens but does not brace us, 
 that somehow we have erred and strayed from the 
 right path — that we are not what we might have 
 been — that there must have been clear times for 
 doing something, and we did nothing — occasions 
 ojfcring themselves to our hands which we did not 
 grasp — steps opening for us in which we did not walk 
 — opportunities soliciting in vain. It is part of the 
 punishment of a want of clear energy that in the end 
 we come not to know where or how we missed our- 
 way. 
 
Disquiet of Spirit. 363 
 
 And it may help us to find our path again — to pass 
 clear out of the cold, forbidding shadow which Con- 
 science drops upon all forms of unprofitable life — help 
 us from a barren sense of being wrong into the way of 
 getting right, if we distinctly recognize as the central 
 cause of all spiritual disquiet powers unused, faculties 
 unexercised, large parts of the rich field of our nature 
 left waste and unproductive, with, it may be, a ruinous 
 energy concentrated in some propensities. This is the 
 danger that besets us all. Few of us arc more than 
 partially alive. " Let the dead bury the dead," said 
 our Lord, speaking of those who in the deadness of 
 their souls were not fit. to do spiritual work, to see 
 spiritual meanings, in this world. We live upon some 
 poor fraction of the great inheritance God has given 
 us, and refuse our Father's gifts. Our modes of exist- 
 ence only need the exercise of certain practised facul- 
 ties, our professional walks bring before us only a 
 limited class of interests, whilst the feebleness of 
 disuse comes upon powers that are removed from 
 the daily habits of our being. There is no form of 
 mental or of moral malady, from sin to insanity, 
 from wickedness to torpor — no faidt in character — no 
 flaw m our salvation, the salvation, the wholeness, 
 which is perfect health — that might not be reduced 
 under this class of evil, — unused, unbalanced powers, 
 with varying culpability as the evil has been voluntary 
 or involuntary. 
 
364 Disquiet of Spirit. 
 
 The Jiard-nuiidcd intcllcctualist, who deals with for- 
 mulas, not with feelings — with general truths apart 
 from the affections — who would preach the abused 
 laws of health when oil and wine were instantly 
 needed to keep the sufferer from dying — whom any 
 sentiment would only disturb in investigations, of 
 science or of fact, which require no personal inter- 
 course either with man or God — who would exhibit 
 humanity, as a sculptor, in its marble pose, but not, 
 as a painter, with colour, shade and blended lights of 
 innumerable meanings — is preparing partial death for 
 himself by that exclusive cultivation. He is alive only 
 among things that have no feeling of him ; and has 
 his senses exercised only where for the most part 
 other men see nothing. In times when we want 
 support, not from the intellect, but from the heart — 
 when we want, not knowledge, but fellow-feeling — 
 when we want around us living representatives of 
 God and of His goodness to us — when the remem- 
 brances, or the effects without distinct remembrance, 
 of kindly human sympathies, of helpful brotherly 
 deeds, of spirit sharpening spirit, of something given, 
 of something done, to assist the feeble and the weary, 
 to lighten the burden of daily care, of some services 
 and of some gratitude, would be sweeter than digni- 
 ties, dearer than renown, nearer to our life than all 
 speculation and all antiquity, — then should the sad 
 question arise, ''Why art thou disquieted within me?" 
 
Disquiet of Spirit. 365 
 
 the explanation must come from that neglected portion 
 of the field of our nature where we had dug for no 
 treasures, sought no springs of living water, raised 
 no altars of sacrifice, kindled no fires of household 
 warmth, sowed no seed for God to return a thousand- 
 fold into our bosoms. 
 
 The visionary, the sentimentalist, the voluptuary of 
 emotion, \X\^ phantom man, whose existence is of "the 
 stuff our dreams are made of" — all whose wealth of 
 expressed feeling is but the elaboration of his intellect 
 on forms of the imagination— who, instead of using 
 such rare and beautiful gifts from God's rich power 
 for the grace and elevation of common cares and 
 duties and all the hard necessities of life, withdraws, 
 for the sake of their direct indulgence, from, the work 
 and friction of the real world — has this thin being, 
 superior as he may think it, quite apart from that way 
 of glorified human life on which the true Saviours are 
 seen stooping to wash men's feet — and Samaritans 
 fall in with wounded men— and those are held the 
 greatest who are the most helpful in service — and 
 the divinest light and grace from Heaven is seen to 
 rest for evermore upon the face of One who lived' 
 with common men, and knew all humiliations, and 
 died upon a cross. 
 
 The zv or Idly -minded, who has one interest, through 
 whose whole being there runs a single stream of 
 satisfaction, and that from no perennial source — the 
 
3^6 Disqttict of Spirit. 
 
 sensualist, whose soul only occasionally troubles his 
 foul life — are guilty, and arc deprived of hope and of 
 joy in the proportion in which they live upon meat 
 that perisheth, and the circle of their being, which God 
 made so large, contracts to a vanishing-point. 
 
 Our nature has many springs — it is "the many-foun- 
 tained " — each capable of a different form of life, and 
 rewarded by emotions peculiar to itself. God has laid 
 the burden of our blessedness upon no one of these, 
 but upon them all working harmoniously ; and to 
 transgress this provision of His by practically de- 
 claring that one portion of our inheritance shall 
 suffice for that we will cultivate and use no more, 
 is to go round the fountains whose flowings make our 
 life, to close the most of them, and yet still require 
 that the vessels of our peace shall be full. God 
 gives us a nature made in the image of His own, from 
 which to draw our share of His Beatitude — and we, 
 rejecting the liberality of His gift, think it enough to 
 live in a corner of our being. Nor will even that 
 corner be rich in its own fruits, any more than our 
 fields will bear well their own products unless open 
 to the skies. That our nature contains a capability 
 is surely an expression of God's Will that we should 
 develop it — not, indeed, to a high state of practical 
 perfection, for that may be impossible, but at least to 
 some discernment and enjoyment of His goodness 
 and glory in the things of which it is the organ. It 
 
Disquiet of Spirit. 367 
 
 is impossible to suppose that God planted in us facul- 
 ties whose life and growth are not necessary to our 
 fulness of good ; and yet either this must be the case, 
 or we are resigning large portions of our natural 
 blessedness. Suppose a man, to whom the Heavens 
 say nothing of the glory of God — for whom the Day 
 lias no speech, the Night no knowledge, and the Stars 
 are no more than "patines of bright gold" — for whom 
 Art has no language through eye or ear, and puts no 
 instrument into his hand — to whom Nature speaks no 
 spiritual word — to whom History is a blank, the Past 
 a dark curtain, behind which nothing is seen — who 
 has no materials from which to picture what has 
 •been, to speculate what is to be — to whom all the 
 -Sciences are sealed — to whom Books are dead letters, 
 -with no companionship of spirits — to whom Literature 
 is dumb, Poetry an unmeaning puzzle or an idle song 
 — to whom the Earth has no life, no revolutions, no 
 youth, no antiquity, no future, no wonderful workings 
 of God in its animate and in its inanimate things — to 
 whom an Enthusiasm in the pursuit of anything, of 
 Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Philanthropy, Knowledge, 
 Art, Trade, Politics or Civilization, is unknown, but who 
 had by nature the average gifts and wants of ordinar}- 
 men — suppose this — the supposition is not extreme, it 
 is very easy — and how is it possible for that man's 
 heart to sing with perpetual joy, or what sign of 
 promise would be left to him if neglected and aveng- 
 
^6S Disquiet of Spirit, 
 
 ing Nature did not gnaw at him, if in the stagnation 
 of his life he had not continually to say to his soul, 
 " Why art thou cast down, and why art thou dis- 
 quieted within me ? " 
 
 Of course this is far from applying fully to every 
 one whose soul is disordered, but it has some relation 
 to us all When we are inwardly disquieted without 
 knowing why, we need to be healed by Work, work 
 of the heart, work of the mind, work of the spirit, or 
 work of the hand — by some fresh activity of pursuit 
 or sympathy, to give us that earnest interest in worthy 
 things which is richer than pleasure. What so often 
 keeps men lingering near the seats of gain, long after 
 acquisition has ceased to be a keen desire, but the 
 want of any other great aim in life ? It would not be 
 just to say that this was always the reason, for a 
 position of large success in business may be the 
 widest a man can have for doing good himself, and 
 influencing others for good, for making his spirit 
 felt through every class and every interest of society r 
 nor is the position in any way incompatible w^ith 
 great variety of thought, pursuit and sympathy. But 
 the man who can so use his place, when at last he 
 reaches it, did never, in the previous years, lose his 
 soul or his mind that he might gain the world : if 
 he had, he would retain his place to the end, not 
 because it gave him great opportunities, but because 
 no other life was open to him. 
 
Disquiet of Spirit, 369 
 
 And in society, is there not many a life wasted 
 and vapid, many an old age which cannot be called 
 venerable, because of the absence of spiritual resources, 
 of dignity of thought, of religious wisdom and ac- 
 quaintance with the days of God, of that knowledge 
 of our fellow-creatures which is the basis of beneficent 
 action towards them, of instructed sympathies with the 
 interests of mankind, of grave and weighty cares ? Is 
 there not often a poor tone in conversation, and a 
 relief sought from weariness in a devotion to trifles — 
 not because low things are really preferred, but because 
 nothing else is easily supplied and time hangs heavily? 
 Is there not discontent and gloom, though the spirit 
 looks abroad and, ignorant of its own poverty, wonders 
 what it wants ? Are there not trials of temper, little 
 things treated as if they were great things, perversity 
 and fretfulness which would never be known if our 
 minds had been rightfully exercised and our hearts 
 were worthily filled ? Take even a life of pure 
 affection : how insipid would it become if heart, 
 mind, soul and strength, did not work together ! 
 Look to the love for God that Christ requires from 
 us, knowing that no other love could live for ever — a 
 love not from or with one part of our nature, but 
 from and with every part of it ! 
 
 And some earnest enthusiasm of life is the effectual 
 cure for all disquiet. There will always be minor cares 
 and troubles for those who are at leisure to attend to 
 
 2 B 
 
370 Disquiet of Spirit. 
 
 them ; nor can we be rescued from these except by 
 interests and pursuits that take us out of their region. 
 If a man was to spend his time in watching and cor- 
 recting his faults of temper, he might give himself up 
 to smallness for ever ; but if he could be filled with 
 the zest of devoted and instructed work in the service 
 of any large affection, sweetness and goodness would 
 begin to dwell with him and pettiness vanish away. 
 For despondency and disquiet, like all other evil, are 
 not positive things with which you can contend directly : 
 you cannot seize them and destroy them : they are 
 simply the absence of full and blessed life, and you 
 can dispel them only by happier, richer occupation, as 
 you dispel darkness by letting in the light. All spi- 
 ritual uneasiness is only negative — the absence of what 
 ought to be with us : you cannot take it and eject it, 
 but you can leave no room for it : to reason with it is 
 only to acknowledge it to be a real thing, which it is 
 not : to sweep and garnish the house of your soul will 
 not deliver it from spiritual unrest, if it is empty of 
 Love and of God ; but the presence of Love and of 
 God will flood the whole temple with peace. We 
 cannot encounter the world on its own ground in any 
 of its forms : if we do, we shall be worsted in the 
 combat ; but through better loves and better cares we 
 can carry a charmed life and pass unharmed. 
 
 It is on this account that all lives occupied by some 
 enthusiasm, by some intense pursuit, are so full of 
 
Disquiet of Spirit. 371 
 
 blessedness. Thus there is, perhaps, no happier man 
 on earth than a true artist who lives for his art — 
 whom all knowledge and all purity subserve — in whom 
 the real and the ideal mingle in wholesome propor- 
 tions — the discernment of his eye, the thought of his 
 mind, the creativeness of his spirit, the labour^ and 
 cunning of his hand — whose joy is his duty and whose 
 duty is his joy. And so of every form of life in which 
 there is some enthusiasm, some sense of being engaged 
 with the inexhaustible things of God : Philanthropy, 
 when it is the charity that fills a man's being with 
 thought and love ; Science, when it is a worship ; 
 Religion, when it is a thirst for all perfection, and a 
 thankfulness that sweetens every morsel of our daily 
 bread. 
 
 Enthusiasm, as a constant working power in life, 
 is perhaps not at our command : but to know God — 
 to love Him altogether — to live in the light of His 
 countenance — to be satisfied with a little in some 
 directions, because in others we have so much — to 
 receive all things hopefully because they are from 
 Him — to take the peace of resting in His goodness — 
 to desire all day long, " Oh that my heart were as 
 Thy heart, and that wholly ! " — these are open to us. 
 
 Then, " Why art thou cast down, oh my soul ! and 
 why art thou disquieted within me } Hope thou in 
 God : for I shall yet praise Him who is the health of 
 my countenance, and my God." 
 
XXIV. 
 
 (^nkt fxm (f^M. 
 
 Job xxxiv. 29 : 
 " When He j];iveth quietness, who then can make trouble ? " 
 
 There are those who make trouble for themselves, 
 and are robbed of the quietness God gives, by a haunt- 
 ing sense of insecurity of tenure. The elements of 
 their peace are not permanent ; and while they last 
 are troubled by the fear of disastrous change. With 
 such, the goodness of God would seem to be precarious, 
 always requiring to be made out anew in relation to 
 present fortunes, to the clouds that are passing over 
 their sky — to be believed when they are happy, to be 
 doubted when they are troubled. We have all to 
 confess how little we possess our souls in peace, what 
 small confidence we have in the sure foundations of 
 our repose or joy of spirit, how much more we fear 
 ourselves to be at the mercy of circumstances than we 
 really are. How few walk in the filial faith of Christ, 
 that in God there is no darkness at all, no cloud upon 
 His love, no speck of unfatherly purpose towards us, 
 
Quiet from God. 373 
 
 that could throw an undefined shadow on our spirits ! 
 How many of us live in apprehension of evils that 
 never come ! To how many periods of our lives can 
 we look back that were overcast, and almost lost to us 
 through fear and want of trust — distrust of God, dis- 
 trust of one another — knowing now that they might 
 have been passed in almost radiant bliss, if we could 
 have swept the unreal spectres from our thoughts ! 
 Notv/ithstanding the inevitable changefulness and in- 
 security of outward life, through what long tracts 
 might the river of our being have borne us on full 
 tides of peace, if we could have divested ourselves 
 of Peter's fear that we were about to sink, that the 
 waters would rise above us and overwhelm our souls ! 
 I suppose there are few persons who do not feel now 
 in regard to past years, that through want of faith 
 they threw their own shadows on God's sunshine ; 
 and how blessed all those years might have been if 
 they had drank the cup v/hich each day presented 
 with a thoughtful consciousness of how full it was, 
 if not of joy, at least of the waters of life, believing 
 for all the coming days that each would be sufficient 
 for its own evil. If many of us were asked why( 
 in bygone days we did not take the quietness thatr 
 God gave, seeing that no great calamity has come 
 upon us, I believe we could give no answer, excep t 
 that the shadow of an unbelieving fear was upc ,11 
 our hearts. 
 
374 Quiet from God, 
 
 Nor is this spirit of apprehension, this timid or 
 scrupulous abstinence from the present certainty of 
 Avaking bHss, the best preparation for the inevitable 
 shadows which God Himself throws upon the happiest 
 lot. One who is pallid in the sunshine is not likely 
 to be radiant in the shade. One who in the full 
 light of day will not fill his heart with peace and 
 gratitude, is not likely in the night of trouble to stay 
 his soul on faith. One who in green pastures and by 
 still waters will not taste and see that the Lord is 
 gracious, will scarcely know it when in the shaded 
 valley He hides His face. One who enjoyed no calm, 
 even, tranquil consciousness of God's goodness when 
 it was flowing on through long, quiet years, is not 
 likely to sing His praises when suddenly cast into 
 the deeps — and above all, one who lives timorously 
 and self-regard ingly amid the forecastings of his 
 thoughts, instead of freely and earnestly amid the 
 immediate duties and blessings of his being, is not 
 likely to have the energies, the habitual impulses, the 
 supporting memories which, when afflictions come, 
 make inward power and religious confidence, not a 
 new acquirement to be sought then for the first time, 
 but simply the identity of consciousness, the continuity 
 of life, the onward flow of being. The constancy of a 
 man's spirit to its habitual deep-seated directions is 
 his support and stay in the vicissitudes of existence ; 
 and he who is gratefully active amid the mercies of 
 
Quiet from God, 375 
 
 his God, is not likely to have the sentiment of his 
 being altered towards the same God when he leads 
 for holy ends through some midnight hour of sorrow. 
 " I have considered the days of old, the years of 
 ancient times. Hath God forgotten to be gracious } 
 Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies } >And 
 I said. This is my infirmity : but I will remember the 
 years of the right hand of the Most High." Of course 
 this relates not to the instincts of happiness to which 
 men may surrender themselves like animals ; nor to 
 an unreasoning confidence that to-morrow will be 
 even as to-day ; but to a thoughtful realizing in un- 
 troubled times, m the long peaceful years of life, of 
 the security of our moral blessedness and of God, 
 who is its source, until it becomes impossible that we 
 should direct towards the Heavenly Father any doubt- 
 ing, fearing sentiment, or that we should see Him in 
 two lights. 
 
 We forfeit the quietness God gives, when not 
 through sin, mainly perhaps in this way, that from 
 not collecting our interests on the centre and END 
 of life, upon that which alone is our life, all our dearest 
 supports come to depend upon the instrumental and 
 variable elements of existence. For what is our life .? 
 Surely not the circumstances with which we have to 
 deal, but the soids that deal with them. Surely not 
 the presence, or the absence, even of beings dearer to 
 us than ourselves, but the unchangeable affections, the 
 
37^ Quiet fro7n God. 
 
 inward and abiding relations of our spirits towards 
 them, whether present or absent. Surely not the 
 sphere we act in, its problems or its projects, the 
 apparatus of temptation and discipline, of joys or 
 pains, that God provides for our education, but the 
 measures of our faithfulness, our growth and work 
 within the assigned conditions. Unless this was 
 forgotten, we could not think so ^mreally of life or 
 transfer the interest, as we do, from the permanent 
 spirit to the shifting scene. Call to mind the words of 
 consolation which we offer, or hear offered, to those 
 whom God has in anyway afflicted. We marshal the 
 alleviations ; we number the blessings that are left ; we 
 make out a case that after all there are sufficient ele- 
 ments remaining out of which to construct our earthly 
 tent-house of repose. We go round the circumference 
 of life, forgetting the living soul at the centre, at which 
 alone God directs the stroke of circumstance, and for 
 whose health alone any circumstances, or any possible 
 combination of circumstances, has the smallest per- 
 manent value. How few of us have the directness and 
 simplicity to pass at once from these low shallows to 
 the great deeps of spiritual life — to offer no consola- 
 tions of that sort — to insult no tried heart with this 
 wretched worldly arithmetic which shows not one 
 particle of abiding wealth — to rise ourselves, and raise 
 with us the tried spirit, to those true heights from 
 which we see clearly that all the influences of God 
 
Quiet from God. 2>17 
 
 tend to no edifice of earthly comfort — that here the 
 quietness given of God is in a trusting spirit, in right 
 affections, a heavenly hope, a holy will, however for 
 the growth of these He may touch, change and 
 variously marshal, all the moving woild around us ! It 
 is because we attempt to make our permanent home 
 in interests that are not at the centre, but only among 
 the incidents, of existence, that the tabernacle of our 
 peace is so often broke up. Friends, blessings, joys, 
 all that man's heart clings to, these are aids to life, 
 witnesses for God, immediate messengers from His 
 goodness, nourishers of virtue, pledges of heaven ; but 
 surely God has left mortal man under no power of 
 mistake ; He has taught one lesson since the world 
 began with all the constancy of sacred warnings ; He 
 has sought to colour our very souls with the sentiment 
 that the aim and issue of all blessings, as of all pri- 
 vations, is clearness, soundness, trustingness, at the 
 central spirit — Christ's heart, Christ's faith, Christ's 
 ^vill ; that in these is the quietness of which, unless he 
 " makes " trouble for himself, a man cannot be deprived. 
 No man who thinks at all, and does not turn away 
 his eyes from the constant facts, can well miss this 
 spiritual view of life ; and if he attempts to place the 
 centre of his being anywhere among the conditions in 
 which he is called to act his part, and not within the 
 spirit to which God directs every ray of experience 
 and of light, what can he expect but that all his reli- 
 
37^ Quiet from God, 
 
 ances should break up and vanish with every mortal 
 change ? Most of us are deprived of the consolations 
 of Christ simply because we never reach Christ's view 
 of life. Not living for spiritual ends, spiritual aims, 
 spiritual gains, do not console us. Making our home 
 in the heart of other interests, the earthly house of 
 this tabernacle is dissolved, and there abides no build- 
 ing of God, no house not made with hands, eternal in 
 the heavens. If our eye was single and right sety our 
 whole body would be full of light, and every new dis- 
 position of our lives made by our Father's hand might 
 test, enrich and strengthen, but could not change, the 
 right heart of Obedience and of Faith. 
 
 Let us briefly place before us the quietness which 
 God gives — the abiding refuges of divine comfort and 
 rest — the sources of tranquillity from which no man 
 who has ever attained to them need be separated, 
 unless he make trouble for himself,— with the exception 
 of those mysterious cases of mental disorder which 
 are in the hands of the great Physician, and are for 
 our tenderness, but not for our judgment. Let us 
 place before us that interest in life, that spiritual occu- 
 pation and blessedness, which a man has, inasmuch 
 as he is a man living right with God and seeing with 
 spiritual eyes, and cannot lose. 
 
 God's deep well of quietness is the spiritual nature 
 He gives and feeds : our powers of thought, growth, 
 love, communion with the Spirit of the universe : and 
 
Quiet from God, 2)79 
 
 the strong blessedness of our being consists in the 
 knowledge and perception that nothing essential can 
 fail whilst we are permitted to draw from these foun- 
 tains. Until a man feels that in his own soul there 
 may be a peace, unborn of circumstance and passing 
 understanding — an attitude of trustful waiting and 
 obedience towards every possible aspect of God's pro- 
 vidence, which can exempt him, not from trial, but 
 from wretchedness of spirit, and exalt his being in the 
 effort to conform to the relations he discerns — he has 
 not yet built his house upon the rock, or reached the 
 foundation that cannot be shaken. Christ said of. 
 spiritual man, th.?it " out of himself should flow rivers 
 of living water." Look for a moment upon our nature 
 as in itself a fountain of life, as indeed made up of 
 many fountains, none of which can be closed unless 
 our natural relations with God are neglected or dis- 
 torted. The spirit of man is in mystic fellowship with 
 the universe. We are interpreters of Nature because 
 made in the image of Nature's God. If the mathe- 
 matician and the astronomer can discover the prin- 
 ciples on which the Creator made the worlds, it is 
 because human Reason is a ray from the divine ; and 
 so the universe is a mediator between man and God, 
 and "we think God's thoughts after Him." As a 
 medium of divine communications — as an instrument 
 for conveying appeals from the creative Spirit to kin- 
 dred faculties in the soul of man — as a revealer of all 
 
380 Quiet f7'07n God. 
 
 beauty — as a witness to eternal order — as a sphere of 
 work, eliciting powers and hopes too vast to perish, 
 and clearly prophetic because beyond the needs of 
 earth — as a source of rapturous emotions, an unfailing 
 sympathizer in all our highest thoughts — as type and 
 foregleam of heavenly things — the Universe is in per- 
 manent relations of nurture to man which, once dis- 
 cerned, nothing can disturb but some gross veil cast 
 over the moral nature by disorder and sin. 
 
 And the outward manifestations of God <3:r^ mani- 
 festations only because addressed to a spirit that par- 
 takes of His nature, and therefore can interpret His 
 symbols. The Soul is His witness, ultimately His 
 only witness, for all things else come to have a voice 
 only as they speak to it. It is the source of our faith 
 in divine things ; and so strong is its natural alliance 
 with God, thai- even when disordered by sin and 
 neglect it is possessed of a restorative power, makes 
 spontaneous efforts for recovery, struggles to cast off 
 the consequences of abuse, feels the weight of degra- 
 dation, knows when it is denied its natural air, and 
 sighs for deliverance. If these parts of our nature do 
 not ally us to a kingdom of heaven, to a realm of 
 divine law, we are worse off than if we had only the 
 instincts of the animals ; for then we have, what no other 
 creatures have, faculties that mislead, all whose point- 
 ings and forecastings are false. But this is not credi- 
 ble, except to the believer in a lying spirit in Nature. 
 
Quiet from God. 381 
 
 Is the Source of our being less holy than we are ? Has 
 the Goodness that wells in the human heart no Foun- 
 tain Goodness from which it came ? Is not the 
 breathing life of Benignity and Purity in us, a sign of 
 the infinite measures in which they belong to Him ? 
 It must not be thought that we make changeable 
 things sources of permanent joy and trust when we 
 refer to experiences of goodness as adequate causes 
 of enduring peace and faith ; for the inward expe- 
 rience that God giveth quietness, often as the fruit of 
 suffering, is not changeable, and ought to be enough 
 in all righteous and trusting natures to open springs 
 of joy and confidence that will flow on when external 
 mercies are withdrawn. A susceptible heart, a spirit 
 that knows how to appreciate divine evidences, sees 
 in every touch of God upon pure affection and hope 
 an indication and a pledge of everlasting Good. And 
 this is the Beatitude of a religious heart, that it not 
 only counts but weighs aright the signs and promises 
 of eternal Love. To it a whisper of divine intention, 
 one pure throb of hope and joy^ reveals more of God 
 and Heaven than an earthly paradise to carnal men. 
 
 The right point of view from which to look upon 
 life is of more importance towards a sustaining rela- 
 tion with God than all external mercies. It is not on 
 blessings received, but on the spirit that receives, that 
 peace depends. The creative goodness of the Father 
 of Spirits may possess the heart when the outward 
 
382 Quiet from God. 
 
 life is all a struggle. No peace is so stable as that of 
 him who has once risen to a connection with the Divine 
 holiness, and can understand how the chastening hand 
 may exalt and bless. For in this perception of higher 
 purpose we see already everything coloured with 
 benignity, nay touched with glory. We feel the power 
 and the will to bless, and the promise of His Spirit 
 with us that when the inward fitness comes, we shall 
 open into perfect peace. Indeed, how slight are the 
 changes, some of them inward, some of them outward, 
 that would make even this life a paradise ! Go through 
 the families you know : touch a temper here, change 
 a habit there, open in this one a new affection, in 
 that a new play of mind, a stream of quickening 
 thought — and what more would be wanting to earthly 
 bliss ? There are thousands on the verge of absolute 
 contentment and serenity of soul, wanting only some 
 indescribable thing. How easily, supposing the heart 
 of man prepared, could God make exquisite peace ! 
 How conspicuously does He manifest this power in 
 special moments and places ! In the better times, and 
 higher forms, of domestic life, we can see what easy 
 changes, coming from some new willingness in us, 
 some fresh influx of faith from Him, could exalt each 
 heart, purify its desires, deepen its sacredness, glorify 
 its love, and bring together all the elements of that 
 blessedness which is the quietness of God, — so quiet, 
 because so full. So also in each moment of our 
 
Quiet from God, 383 
 
 deepest enjoyment of the natural world we perceive 
 by what slight changes God could introduce a sub- 
 duing beauty everywhere, soften the air, brighten the 
 sky, temper the elements, throw in the magic of light 
 and colour, and make the whole creation like its most 
 favoured spots. The places on this earth most famed 
 for beauty — the shores of Naples, the lagoons of Venice, 
 the Alpine snows — owe their beauty to the sun ; life 
 passes from them with the warmth of colouring ; the 
 cold form remains, but with the difference between a 
 solar and a lunar rainbow, the body without the soul. 
 And it is so with the human landscape, with the human 
 heart and face : it is the light of God upon them that 
 makes their glory and their joy. Everywhere God 
 shows this power to bless and brighten, the tendency 
 of His Will in this direction, as the latent spirit of all 
 His works and ways. What, indeed, makes the beauty 
 of the earth t In its higher forms, who can hold or 
 describe it } It is in the power it has to stir mysterious 
 sympathies, forereaching desires, holy longings — that 
 it is a meeting-place for our spirits and the Spirit of 
 our God. And it is so with all the moral aspects of 
 our nature. There is a spirit in them better than the 
 outward life they have. The relations of our human 
 affections are felt to be more divine than the forms 
 they take, the manner in which we sustain them. 
 They are felt to breathe of God even when their offices 
 are unworthily discharged, and the sentiment that is 
 
384 Quiet from God. 
 
 in them is feebly represented. And he has the noblest 
 heart who never dissevers from these relations, nor if 
 possible from the persons who sustain them, all the 
 beauty and the holiness which their own nature sug- 
 gests. The very idea of what is involved in the 
 relations of parent, child, husband, wife, brother, as the 
 witnesses to eternal relations whose perfect image is 
 as yet only in the mind of God, exalts the imperfect 
 Present, and presents the Future as a place where all 
 these tendencies shall have their true developments, 
 where all that God suggests as proper to the offices of 
 the heart, shall be found in those that bear them, fully 
 and for ever. 
 
 It is true that our present blessings are all touched 
 with sadness, partly through moral imperfection, 
 partly through the mortal side of human nature. It 
 is clearly impossible without some suffering to adjust 
 the relations of a nature that is finite in some of its 
 aspects, and infinite in others. We are constantly 
 falling short, with a spirit that will not suffer imper- 
 fection to mistake its ease or its pleasure for the quiet 
 of God. Immortality itself is a rupture with the 
 present ; and the present is dear. Our friends cannot 
 pass into celestial brightness without leaving the earth 
 in new darkness. To heaven, which has, is given ; 
 whilst from earth, which has not, is taken away. Pro- 
 gi^ess itself, the highest mark of our immortal rank, is 
 a struggle of the higher nature against the lower, a 
 
Qttiet from God. 385 
 
 breaking away from our present place, a higher fellow- 
 ship, a passing from the seen to the unseen. These 
 are the perishable aspects of an imperishable nature. 
 But where shall we find the quiet of God ? With the 
 glory and the sacredness, or with the perishable con- 
 ditions amid which they are reared ? 
 
 And, under any circumstances, if the heart is only 
 seeking unto God, desiring to do and bear His will, 
 suffering is not misery. We must on no account con- 
 found the pains and woes of our mortal condition, or 
 of our mortal discipline, with a soul that has no peace. 
 Even when full of self-blame, of distrust, and peniten- 
 tial shame, this is a state which is also full of hope 
 For nothing ought we to be more thankful to God 
 than for this power to blame ourselves — to separate 
 what is good and holy and loving in us — and set it 
 up as a judge over us. For this reproving self is our 
 true self. The man who condemns himself is still 
 safe ; God has not cast him off. How strong are the 
 reasons for immovable trust in the hearts of penitent 
 men ! They have not been abandoned. God has not 
 taken His Holy Spirit from them. And if our sins 
 And sorrov/s have taught us wisdom, the offered 
 Paradise is before us still ; the threatening sword 
 flames only over against the delusions we would now 
 leave for ever. 
 
 And whatever be the sources of our quietness with 
 God, they are in no respect affected by the class dis- 
 
 2 C 
 
o 
 
 S6 Qttiet from God. 
 
 tiiictions of life. What in these great realities is true 
 of one man is true of all men, so far as condition is 
 concerned. And we wonder more that the working 
 and the toiling, who deal mainly with the essential 
 things of life and being, and are preserved from so 
 much of what seduces the souls of men, should not 
 perceive this truth, than that the prosperous who are 
 tempted on the weak side of our nature by the pomp 
 and pride of circumstance should escape its power. 
 We wonder, above all, that the artisan, if gifted with 
 any measure of spiritual thought, could have his heart 
 embittered, his trust in God shaken, his kindly rela- 
 tions to society endangered, by any kind of outward 
 distinction. For who knows so well as he that his 
 own hands have made the things of which folly is so 
 proud, and that there is no essential worth in them .'* 
 Pile up as high as you will the outer signs of class 
 distinction — luxury, magnificence, dress, ornaments, 
 equipage, stately buildings, furnishings like a dream of 
 imagination — we can name the trades that wrought 
 them all. Who made the robes in which beauty 
 glides } Will the weaver who made those silks, even 
 if he is half starving, or the lace girl, even if she 
 wrought herself blind, be dazzled by a greatness all 
 the materials of which passed through their own 
 fingers, or, however they may suffer, feel themselves 
 degraded, spiritually humiliated, when brought into 
 comparison with that kind of glory? Surely the class 
 
Qziict from God. 387" 
 
 that made such things Is, so far', superior to the class^ 
 that only wears them. Let men know that their great- 
 ness is in their relations to God, and no man will build 
 his house of pride on a perishable accident, or be 
 abashed by the privations of his honest condition. 
 There is a wailing, sighing spirit in much of pur 
 23opular literature, our modern poetry, and in some ■ 
 -of our modern philanthropy, that is enfeebling and 
 false, inspired by no high sentiment and teaching no 
 healing wisdom, — like the cries of a child in its bodily 
 experience of a world with which it has some sentient, 
 and suffering connections, but on which it has cast no 
 intelligent or spiritual eye. We cannot perhaps ex- 
 aggerate the sufferings of some portions of society, 
 we cannot sympathize with them too much, nor be 
 too strenuous in our efforts to relieve them ; but we 
 must not lose a man in his condition, nor suffer him to 
 lose himself. To the compassions of a tender, and 
 the efforts of a wise philanthropy, we must seek to 
 add that confidence in God, that consciousness of a 
 connection with Him, which will do more to cheer 
 the spirit than food or wine, and more to raise to 
 self-respect than prosperous surroundings. 
 
 And, lastly, I must not shrink from naming the 
 circumstances in which it is most difficult to abide 
 in the quiet of God against the trouble of man : amid 
 the complications of sin, of sin not afar off, but brought 
 very near to us— sin that we cannot hide ourselves 
 
o 
 
 88 Quiet from God. 
 
 from — sin entering within our innermost circle and 
 mingling with our daily life. We can only cite the 
 case of the great Example who fails us nowhere, to 
 show at least that it is possible to be in daily contact 
 with sin and yet not lose peace with God. Whilst 
 bringing the love and power of God to bear upon it, 
 he could not be without Divine companionship. He 
 had with him, in him, the spirit and the strength of 
 the Comforter. He had twelve men to retain within 
 his holy influence ; and, such is man's free will, he did 
 not succeed. Among those twelve there was strife, 
 jealousy, low ambition, avarice, falsehood, treachery, 
 subornation of murder. Yet he could say, " Peace I 
 leave with you : my peace I give unto you ; " and see 
 of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. 
 
 In all our relations with others we have to unite his 
 solicitude for man with his trust in God, a zeal ever 
 passing through a baptism of fire with the victory of 
 faith. To unite these two states, the brotherly love 
 that never rests, the restful faith that works miracles, 
 is ever our difficulty, the problem of Christ's perfect- 
 ness. As we attempt It, as we live in it, " God giveth. 
 quietness, and who then shall make trouble ? " 
 
XXV. 
 
 ^vmx the .f ccw U the ^tujsic^it. 
 
 2 Cor. iv. 16—18: 
 
 '•For which cause we faint not ; but though our outward man perish, 
 yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, 
 which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding, even 
 an eternal weight of glory ; while we look not at the things which are 
 seen, but at the things which are not seen : for the things which are 
 seen are temporal ; but the things which are not seen are eternal." 
 
 There is a form of Character, most peaceful in 
 itself, most healthful in its influence, chiefly shown 
 in composure of mind, in promptitude and evenness 
 of spirit, with that insight into the nature and the 
 bearings of things which confers a ready power of 
 seeing them as they are, and dealing with them 
 according to the order of their real importance. 
 This frame of character depends on the balance and 
 proportion of the faculties ; it is produced by the 
 happiest blending of mental, and of spiritual qualities. 
 It is not Intellect alone ; it is not Goodness alone ; 
 but the constant and active co-operation of a lucid 
 mind, a discerning spirit, a prompt and gentle heart. 
 
390 From the Seen to the Unseen. 
 
 The only single expression in our language capable 
 of completely conveying it is the word Wisdom, 
 perhaps the highest term that can be applied to a 
 moral being. Indeed, the Apostle's account of the 
 ■attributes of Wisdom is a perfect delineation of the 
 spiritual largeness to which we refer : " The wisdom 
 that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle 
 and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and of good 
 fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy," 
 Christ's mind was of that order ; not impulsive, not 
 subject to strong agitations from passing things ; not 
 shaken by events however trying, by insult however 
 rude, as though any possible part of God's providence 
 could take a thoughtful spirit by surprise ; never 
 admitting even the temporary predominance of un- 
 qualified emotion, of untempered views of life and 
 destiny ; — of that largeness which stands prepared 
 for all things, capable of passing from what is greatest 
 to what is least without abruptness or violence to 
 nature, dwelling in that calm wisdom ^^'hich is never 
 at the mercy of circumstance, cast out from the 
 comfort and direction of guiding principles. 
 
 This is the form which all spiritual greatness assumes ; 
 and it stands essentially opposed to passion, to feverish 
 excitement, to storms of emotion, to the tyranny of 
 accident or fortune, to transient and unruly affections. 
 It is never strange with God ; it has long looked 
 .beneath the surface, and known the whole cominsr 
 
From the Seen to the Unseen, 391 
 
 order of His ways. We call this repose of spirit ; but 
 all such repose is the opposite of inaction, for peace 
 is the fulness of power. Human intercourse affords 
 nothing so strengthening as the influence of minds of 
 this order. To be near them is like feeling the pro- 
 tection of a strong hand, a kind voice, a consoling'and 
 assuring word in the agitations of childhood. The 
 perturbations of disordered minds sink insensibly to 
 rest in the presence of one who looks on God with 
 that prepared eye of insight and of trust — who never 
 meets His ways with bewildered confusion — of whom, 
 if ever given up to emotion, we perceive that it is not 
 because faith and reason are taken by surprise, or the 
 balance lost, but because, like Christ at the grave of 
 Lazarus, the heart for a time is permitted to have its 
 way ; for in all such moments of intense emotion the 
 true heart is only taking in the full value of what is 
 vanishing from earth, that love, faith and reason may 
 still possess it as type, prophecy and earnest of eternal 
 mercies. How poor and unfitting the common con- 
 solations and precepts of life are at once perceived to 
 be when offered to minds of this class ! They have 
 meat to eat that we know not of. They have long 
 since built upon the rock, anticipated the great spiri- 
 tual passage from the Seen to the Unseen, and given 
 their trust to God ; and their consolation, when they 
 are tried and desolate, is not again to la}- bare the 
 roots of faith, but so " to do, to desire to do, the will 
 of their Father," as to live upon its fruits. 
 
392 From the Seen to the Unseen, 
 
 That it is the tendency of every portion of God's 
 ways to produce in us this " wisdom " of the spirit, is 
 seen in the provisions of experience to extend our 
 range of thought and interest, to give distance per- 
 manence and reahty to purpose, motive, and expecta- 
 tion. By many an experimental lesson, by many an 
 instructive disappointment, by many a natural but 
 deceptive confidence painfully rectified, by many a 
 veil suddenly dropped on the brightness of promise 
 and the joy of possession, by many a simple pleasure 
 and pure affection found to be more precious than all 
 the world besides, does God lead us to this Wisdom ; 
 and to receive these teachings is the province of the 
 spiritual understanding, and indeed constitutes the 
 whole of the higher education of man. Whatever 
 tends to that enlargement of nature which discerns in. 
 the Present the seeds of the Future, in the affections of 
 Earth the promises of Heaven, in the Seen the symbols 
 of the Unseen, is of God's most tender care for the 
 spiritual growth of His children. Now everything in 
 the divine ordering of our life w^ould seem to have 
 this direction : to teach us to value things not only for 
 what they now are but for what they mean, for what 
 they disclose of God's intent, for the eternal treasure 
 that is folded in them ; and whoever of us is not 
 advancing in this Wisdom is manifestly open to the 
 charge of great natural unteachableness, or of great 
 spiritual negligence. For what are the several stages 
 
From the Seen to the Unseen, 393 
 
 of human life from Infancy to age but so many break- 
 ings of the shell, so many tests of the transitory and 
 of the abiding, so many passages from the Seen to the 
 Unseen, until God widens around us His own Eternal 
 Being, and our reliance at last is upon no circum- 
 stance, but simply upon those inward springs which 
 we know can never fail because they depend upon 
 the faithfulness of the Father of our spirits, In whom 
 their life is ? When all things dear and sacred here 
 are valued as earnest and part-fulfilment of heavenly 
 things, of things kindred in their nature to those 
 experienced now but infinitely richer, then our souls 
 are beyond the reach of accident or event, they are 
 safe with their God, and the worst that can befall them 
 is that they have to be tested, they have to live by 
 faith, they have to rest in the Lord and wait patiently 
 for Him. 
 
 It is characteristic of the stage of childhood that it 
 lives completely in the things that are Seen — that not 
 yet are they sometimes the shadows, sometimes the 
 fore-gleamings, of the Unseen. Hence its peace, for 
 it has not yet outgrown its small world, and no aspira- 
 tion spoils contentment : and hence its vehement 
 sorrow, for the emotion of the time exhausts its being. 
 Its Joy and Its trouble are both entire, because for the 
 time they are Its all, with no unsatisfied ideal to break 
 the one, with no clear-eyed hopes to relieve the other. 
 This Is the only period within which, without guilt or 
 
394 From the Seen to the Unseen. 
 
 weakness, we can take things seen for things eternal, 
 and confuse their meanings with themselves: and how 
 brief it is ! There can be peace within the enclosure 
 of childhood, complete of its kind, because as yet there 
 is harmony between its desires and its sphere ; but 
 once that harmony is broken, there is no more resting- 
 place but that of the spiritual mind which rests on 
 the faithfulness of God. The unconscious child and 
 the conscious immortal are the only two beings whose 
 world is commensurate with themselves. Childhood 
 is a morning hour of unpurchased joy before the toil 
 and heat of the day, ere yet the soul has arisen to 
 envelop us in the shadow and the glory of the Future: 
 and old age should be an evening hour of illumined 
 Rest, when the spiritual lesson has been fully learned, 
 the harmony broken for a time restored for ever 
 between the spirit and its sphere, that as life began 
 with the instinctive joys of irresponsible being, it 
 should close with the conscious peace of tested love 
 and ripened faith. But how many childhoods do most 
 of us undergo before we attain to that Wisdom of the 
 spirit without which a long life is only a grasping at 
 shadows, to the knowledge that all which we see is 
 but the prelude of what we do not see, the sign and 
 sacrament of the Infinite, — that holy and abiding 
 affections, gathered amid the perishable conditions of 
 earthly life, are the eternal treasures which Time 
 accumulates upon us, — and that he whose heart is the 
 
From tJic Seen to the Unseen. 
 
 JVd 
 
 most richly stored with these, and with the cahnest 
 faith can hold them as the pledges of God, is the 
 wisest and the noblest of men ! What, indeed, are 
 guilt and blinding temptation but the Seen shutting 
 out the Unseen, a momentary indulgence outweighing 
 an everlasting reality? Or what the Sorro\\^ of' our 
 mortal life, when it does not know that it is the 
 shadow of an immortal Joy, but the essential Love of 
 God shaken from our confidence by the withdrawal 
 for a time of its own symbol, as though the eternal. 
 God could give His children any blessing, a blessing 
 for their hearts and souls, and that blessing mean 
 nothing permanent ! This indeed would be worse 
 than to give us a stone when we had asked for bread : 
 it would be to give us the bread for which we had not 
 asked, and then turn it into stone. Those great Trusts 
 in God which we call religious principles of life are so 
 many homiCS and refuges for the soul, wherein we rescue 
 ourselves from subjection to apparent things. He is 
 a man of religious principle who can look beyond 
 appearances to the True and the Real, to whom things 
 seen are signs of things not seen, and who looks for 
 the passing away of the symbol that the imperishable 
 Reality may come. And Jic is a man without re- 
 ligious principle, to whom the Present is no more than 
 it appears, freighted with no eternal meanings, whose 
 righteousness has no root in God, his peace no refuge 
 amid the wrecks of time. 
 
39^ From the Seen to the Unseen, 
 
 This is the root of our weakness, that none of us 
 have learned so perfectly the true interpretation of life 
 that we pass with speed and certainty from the signs 
 to the things signified — from perishable forms to the 
 enduring realities of which they are God's earnest and 
 promise — from vanishing joy on earth to everlasting 
 joy in heaven — and see in temptation the way to 
 holiness, in death the birth into life eternal. It might 
 seem as if what we call our religious principles never 
 prepared us for their applications, for we quite lose 
 the benefit of a principle if we have afterwards to take 
 up each separate case upon its own merits — -if we 
 cannot dispose of the events of life as they occur by 
 rules of Faith — if upon every fresh temptation we 
 have to open anew the argument of Righteousness — 
 and on the ground of the most recent sorrow, with 
 hearts yet bleeding, and nerves shaken, and minds 
 suddenly adrift from their earthly moorings, we have 
 to make good the tender mercies of our God in that 
 special instance, before we have a right to ask Faith 
 to remember its great convictions, and to be at peace. 
 For it is in this way only that a man of religious 
 principle has any advantage over a man of no prin- 
 ciple, a man of mere impulse and sensibility. The 
 great question for us all is, Have we, or have we not, 
 these spiritual principles of life } Do we live by faith, 
 or only by sense and passion .? Do we depend on the 
 things that are Seen, or have w^e learned to make them 
 
From the Seen to the Unseen. 397 
 
 emblems and prophecies of the Unseen ? Whatever,, 
 indeed, are our Principles, much will occur in this life 
 to try their strength ; whatever is noblest in us must 
 be tested ; but that touches nothing essential, or 
 touches it only to invigorate it ; for all great sorrow is 
 in the loss of some great blessing, and the depth of 
 affliction only shows how large a pledge of love, how- 
 divine a possession, how full an earnest of His will to 
 bless, our God had previously lent us ; and it is not 
 the natural anguish with which we part from it which 
 will ever be strongest in the tenderest, but our fidelity 
 to the treasure in the heart, the direction of the eye to 
 where it is, the trust and expectation it has left with 
 us, that God regards. 
 
 And whatever may be the mystery of life, none of 
 us can pretend that God takes us by surprise, and has 
 not given us the clue of the divine purpose, — that we 
 suffer unawares. None of us can look upon our life 
 without knowing how it must end : none of us can 
 enter upon its voluntary relations without knowing 
 that there are coming hours which we shall have to 
 meet in the strength of God. And if, yet, we have 
 courage to meet those hours — to prepare for ourselves 
 their inevitable coming by the ties we form — surely 
 it must be because the Unseen shines through the 
 Seen, because a permanent and a heavenly relation is 
 discerned as the divine meaning of the earthly and 
 the perishable one. If that is not so — if that is not to 
 
39^ F7'om the Scat to the Unseen. 
 
 be — if we are not justified in this spiritual interpreta- 
 tion of our life — then all the foundations of Religion 
 in the human soul are shaken into the dust. For in 
 whatever relates to the higher human affections, every 
 true heart discerns that their spirit infinitely tran- 
 scends the life we give them ; and Faith argues, that 
 God, who leaves nothing unfulfilled, means to bring 
 out of them all the beauty which their own nature 
 contains. 
 
 And there is one element of prophetic faith that 
 mortality brings out more strongly than life, inasmuch, 
 at least, as it removes those disturbances of mere cir- 
 cumstance that break the singleness of a spiritual 
 image. Often from the depths of his being a man 
 gives out a clear image of what he is at heart, of what 
 he is in spirit, though his outward life, through stress 
 of circumstance, may be feeble, broken, or discordant. 
 And beyond this, even with those whose whole soul is 
 most fully expressed in their outward life,, the expres- 
 sion at best is only partial and prophetic ; there is 
 always something more, indicated, intimated, as the 
 innermost beauty and goal of the spirit, that is not 
 and as yet cannot be expressed. There is no true 
 life that does not reveal a purer, a richer and more 
 blessed life visioned in its depths, seen like lovely 
 grottos in the deep, radiant with light beneath a 
 heaving and a broken surface. Now, that image is 
 the true man, the real impress and outgoing of his 
 
From the Seen to the Unseen. 399 
 
 spirit ; and when mortality takes away the troubled 
 setting of circumstances, that is the spiritual portrait 
 which alone remains in our hearts. A thousand out- 
 ward things, a thousand causes of arrested develop- 
 ment, proceeding even from the hand of God Himself, 
 may prevent him weaving it perfectly into the texture 
 of his every-day existence, but the idea of himself he 
 gives and leaves, to which he obviously ever desired 
 to be true, that, though it was but shadowed in his 
 earthly being, is the real, the spiritual man ; and when 
 he dies to earth, that is the image which he goes to 
 realize. Into the after-depths of heaven's progressions 
 we cast no glance now ; enough of comfort for us to 
 know that it is never the imperfect life of earth, how- 
 ever dear that was, which we contemplate as restored ; 
 it is the holiest image that lay mirrored within the 
 outward being, but which the limitations of mortal 
 strength did not yet permit to be, that is gone to gain 
 full life and perfect expression before God. And thus 
 in the highest sphere of divine intimation is the Unseen 
 prefigured in the Seen ; and those upon whom this 
 spiritual stamp is strongest, from whom this indicated 
 portraiture comes forth most distinctly, whom with the 
 ■least of change it is easy for us to conceive as dwelling 
 everlastingly in the peace of aspiration, are those who 
 Avhen " parted from us " leave their real image with 
 us, — and, as already caught up into heaven, speak to 
 us of where they are, in the look of angelic beauty, the 
 
400 From the Seen to the Unseen. 
 
 return of immortal youth, on the face of the dead who 
 die in the Lord. 
 
 Does any one believe that these inward, and outward, 
 signs of spiritual things have no eternal realities corre- 
 sponding to them, that these pointings of the soul point 
 falsely ? If so, that is to be without God. He is com- 
 fortless, alone, entombed in himself, to whom the ex- 
 pectations of the pure heart are not the inspirations 
 of our Father. Is it not enough to rescue us from the 
 suspicion that spiritual discernment of a prophetic 
 character may be but a matter of individual feeling, 
 and not the Divine voice in our nature, that such 
 faith is ever strongest in the holiest ? If Christ's 
 last prayer could be, " Father, I will that they whom 
 Thou has given me be w^ith me where I am," must 
 we believe that to that spiritual eye God masked 
 His will by false signs, and suffered His holy one to 
 sustain his last moments with a delusive hope ? If our 
 nature when it is most holy points falsely, it has no 
 faithful Creator. When we are believing in Christ 
 because of the echoes he awakens in our souls, we 
 are believing in God. We believe in, and with, the 
 Son, because " the Father draws us." 
 
 And, if the spiritual signs are real. Love will remove 
 as many fears as Faith. It is not a genuine love that 
 asks the question, " Will not those who now live in 
 heaven speedily so far outstrip us poor, blind, children 
 of earth in knowledge, in conception, in purity, that 
 
From the Seen to the Unseen. 401 
 
 when we go to join them, they may have lost the power 
 of sympathizing with us ? From all such self-regarding 
 speculations of the coldly speculating head the appeal 
 lies to any true heart. Who is so poor in feeling as 
 not to know that the deepest personal dependence of 
 one human being upon another, as indeed our 6wn 
 dependence upon God, rests not at all on equality of 
 knowledge, of wisdom, or of power ! And if Christ 
 desired his disciples to be with him where he is — if 
 God Himself can love us — who that is of God will 
 exclude those whom the Father and the Son receive ! 
 
 But it is not so much on the love that is felt for us, 
 as on the love we are capable of feeling, that our 
 spiritual rank or blessedness depends. What we may 
 be to blessed spirits is a question that Christian sim- 
 plicity will not be forward to ask : enough if we are 
 with them where they are and can behold their glory 
 — if we can revere and reflect their goodness — if we 
 can but brighten in their light, and have so kept our 
 own higher life that spirits of Love and spirits of Know- 
 ledge, the Cherubim and Seraphim of God, will be able 
 to quicken, purify and exalt us to themselves. That 
 they will be very gracious to us there is no fear, for of 
 all such Jesus is the type, and his prayer is, " Father, I 
 will that they whom Thou hast given me be with me 
 where I am." 
 
 And now ours still, for some brief time, is the war 
 with evil. The sting of death is sin. Only a victory 
 
 2 D 
 
402 From the Seen to the Unseen. 
 
 of that evil power can separate us from those whose 
 conflict is finished, whose peace is sealed. Hear the 
 prayer of Christ, that no temptation might detach the 
 disciples from his spirit when he was no more with 
 them ; and in it hear the prayer of all God's emanci- 
 pated for those they leave behind : " And now I am 
 no more in the world, but these are in the world, and 
 I come to thee. Holy Father ! keep through Thine 
 own Name those whom Thou hast given me, that they 
 may be one, as we are ! " 
 
 The Church of the First-born, the innumerable 
 company gathered from all ages, the Martyrs of old, 
 the Saints who have walked amongst ourselves, invite 
 us to join them where they are. And thus may dear 
 memories and yet dearer hopes, the affections of earth 
 and the sanctities of heaven, conspire to keep us 
 faithful and untroubled until the last day ! 
 
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