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 Inspiration, and other 
 
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INSPIEATION 
 
INSPIKATION 
 
 a:n^d other sermoi^s 
 
 BeltijctEb in tfje Cfiapel of tfjc JTotmtiling l^ospttal 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED WILLIAMS MOMERIE 
 
 M.A., D.SC, LL.D, 
 
 LATE FELLOW OF ST JOHN's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ; 
 
 PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS 
 
 IN king's COLLEGE, LONDON 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBUKGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIX 
 
 All Rights reserved 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INSPIRATION — 
 
 I. THE EVOLUTION OF THE BIBLE, 
 IL INACCURACIES OF THE BIBLE, 
 
 III. THE GENIUS OF THE JEWS FOR RIGHTEOUS 
 NESS 
 
 IV. CHRIST'S NEW DOCTRINE, 
 
 V. Christ's new motive, . 
 
 VI. the PERSONALITY OF GOD, 
 THE CANON, .... 
 TRUE AND FALSE DISCONTENT — 
 
 T. DISCONTENT IN REGARD TO PERSONAL CIR- 
 CUMSTANCES, 
 
 IL FALSE DISCONTENT IN REGARD TO KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 III. TRUE DISCONTENT IN REGARD TO KNOWLEDGE, 
 
 IV. FALSE DISCONTENT WITH THE WORLD AS A 
 
 WHOLE — PESSIMISM. (a) THE PLEASURES 
 OF LIFE, 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 25 
 37 
 49 
 63 
 76 
 
 89 
 103 
 116 
 
 127 
 
vi Contents. 
 
 V. PESSIMISM {continued) — (b) the necessity for 
 
 PAIN, 140 
 
 VI. PESSIMISM {continued)— {b) the necessity for 
 
 PAIN {continued)^ 151 
 
 VII. pessimism {continued)— {c) its false ideal, 161 
 VIII. pessimism {continued) — {d) the evolution 
 
 OF love, 172 
 
 IX. TRUE discontent WITH THE WORLD, . . 183 
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY, 196 
 
 NEW year's day, 210 
 
 "thanksgiving service" at the foundling, . 219 
 
 science and religion, 231 
 
 patience, 245 
 
 THE SABBATH, 255 
 
 REMARKS ON PREVIOUS SERMON, . . . .267 
 
 COTTER MORISON, 272 
 
Iitspiratio7t, 
 I. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 •' GocllDreatlied into man's nostrils the breath of life; and man be- 
 came a living soul." — Gen. ii. 7. 
 
 '' Prophesying came not in old time by the will of man ; but holy 
 men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." — 
 2 Peter i. 21. 
 
 " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for 
 correction, for reproof," &c. — 2 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
 '•' Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal life. But 
 ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." — John v. 39. 
 
 TKSPIRATION means etymologically a breathing 
 -^ into — a breathing into man by God. It is 
 distinctly the teaching of the Bible that all men 
 are inspired. "God breathed into man's nostrils 
 the breath of life ; and man became a living soul." 
 Our mind, soul, spirit, ego, self, personality — how- 
 ever we may please to term it — is, so to speak, the 
 breath of God. You will observe that this expres- 
 
 A 
 
2 Inspiration. 
 
 sion is a metaphor, — a material metaphor for a 
 spiritual fact. Mind is not, and cannot be, a 
 chemical combination of gases. Our essential self 
 is something very different from the breath of our 
 luno's. What the old Hebrew writer meant was 
 simply that our being was derived from God's, — 
 that it was in kind identical with God's. Every 
 man is inspired ; every man is himself an inspira- 
 tion ; he has been, so to speak, begotten by God ; 
 he is the outcome of God; his real nature is in 
 germ divine. 
 
 In germ divine. This limitation is necessary to 
 cover the fact that there is such infinite diversity 
 observable among men. The mind which any one 
 possesses to start with, is but the germ of what it 
 may eventually become. Its development is differ- 
 ent in different individuals, so different that we 
 are apt to forget their common origin. When com- 
 pared with men of genius, average men seem com- 
 monplace and undivine. It is the former only 
 whom we should generally speak of as inspired. 
 And even in their case we should not apply the 
 word indiscriminately to all they said and did, but 
 we should restrict it to the most remarkable of 
 their achievements. 
 
 There is another restriction which has become 
 common among religious people. They have fre- 
 
The Evolution of the Bible. 3 
 
 quently thought to honour religion by depreciat- 
 ing everything else. God has nothing to do, they 
 imagine, with the productions of art, with the dis- 
 coveries of science, with the meditations of the 
 philosopher, with the labours of the philanthropist. 
 God, they believe — though curiously enough they 
 think at the same time that He was the Creator of 
 the world — God, they believe, is a religious Being 
 only, and never influences men except for the 
 purpose of conveying religious instruction. They 
 therefore restrict the term inspiration to the most 
 remarkable religious writers, and, I may add, to 
 most remarkable religious writers of the past; for 
 somehow or other, I cannot make out how, they 
 have come to the conclusion that all inspiration is 
 at an end. In Christendom the term is generally 
 applied to Biblical writers, and denied to all others 
 even though, in some cases, what they have written 
 is practically the same. 
 
 Now I want you to examine this current doc- 
 trine. I would remark, in the first place, that it is 
 the outcome of self-conceit. Men have delighted 
 to imagine themselves the special favourites of the 
 Almighty, to believe that He did for them what 
 He would not do for others. But the more we 
 study history, the more clear becomes the folly of 
 all such notions, the more certain do we feel that, 
 
4 Inspiration. 
 
 however much men's circumstances may differ, 
 God's dealings with them are always and every- 
 where the same. An unjust Deity would be a 
 contradiction in terms. Nothing but self-conceit 
 could ever have led men to the conclusion that 
 their own scriptures were not only superior to all 
 others, but that they owed their origin to a unique 
 act of mercy on the part of the Almighty. 
 
 Those who have adopted this irrational doctrine 
 have tried to find reasons for it in the Scriptures 
 themselves. In John v. 39 they read, " Search the 
 Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal 
 life." The passage answered their purpose better 
 by the omission of " ye think," which they accord- 
 ingly proceeded to omit, and henceforth quoted 
 the text as, "Search the Scriptures; for in them 
 ye have eternal life." Now, as a matter of fact, 
 Christ said just the opposite. Instead of " search," 
 the translation should be " ye search " ; and what 
 Christ said was this, " Ye search the Scriptures ; for 
 in them ye think ye have eternal life : but ye have 
 not; they testify of me, and ye will not come to 
 me, that ye might have life." In other words, the 
 religious life is something very different from the 
 worship of a book. In this passage Christ is not 
 praising, but emphatically condemning, bibliolatry. 
 
 There is another text by which the current view 
 
The Evolution of the Bible, 5 
 
 of inspiration is supported — viz., 2 Tim. iii. 16, 
 " All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and 
 is profitable for correction, for reproof," &c. This 
 also is a mistranslation. You know, of course, that 
 the word scripture merely means writing, just as 
 the word bible means book. In course of time 
 these terms have come to be restricted to the 
 writings and to the book, which we regard as 
 the writings and the book -par excellence. But it 
 is constantly assumed that the restriction existed 
 from the beginning, and that it is implied in this 
 particular passage in Timothy. Now manifestly 
 the assumption is absurd ; for the writings which 
 we call Scripture had not then been collected into 
 a single whole ; many of them had not even been 
 written ; the very epistle in which this text occurs, 
 an epistle which now forms part of our Scriptures, 
 was at the time in process of composition. It will 
 save confusion if we translate the word, not scrip- 
 ture, but writing. But the important mistrans- 
 lation is in what follows. The apostle does not 
 say " every writing is given by inspiration of God, 
 and is profitable ; " but every writing given by 
 inspiration of God is profitable. Whether it be 
 given by inspiration must be critically determined 
 in each particular case ; but if it be inspired, then 
 the apostle asserts it is profitable, whenever, wher- 
 
6 Inspiration, 
 
 ever, by whomsoever it was written. This is in 
 harmony with, whereas the mistranslation contra- 
 dicts, the teaching of St James, that " every good 
 and perfect gift cometh from the Father of lights." 
 
 There is only one other passage in the Bible 
 which bears directly upon the question of inspira- 
 tion — viz., 2 Peter i. 21, " Holy men of old spake 
 as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Of 
 course they did; and so they will to the end of 
 time! 
 
 Why, then, is it that we regard the Bible as pre- 
 eminently inspired, more inspired than other books ? 
 Are we right in so regarding it ? I think we are. 
 But the reasons by which this view is justified are 
 generally wrong. 
 
 Let us consider some of the grounds on which 
 the common view might be often vindicated. And 
 the first and most obvious is that of style. If the 
 Bible be altogether unique in its origin, if it liter- 
 ally had God for its author, we should naturally 
 expect the style to be different from that of other 
 books, and not only different but superior. Now, 
 when we examine the Bible, what do we find ? 
 Why, we find among its writers the same literary 
 excellences and defects that exist among profane 
 authors ; we find all possible varieties of style, 
 from the most primitive portions of the Pentateuch 
 
The Evolution of the Bible. 7 
 
 up to the perfect art of Job. No one can honestly 
 say that the books of Kings or of Chronicles are 
 better written, or indeed as well, as the histories 
 of Thucydides or of Freeman. And even suppos- 
 ing we discovered in all the books of the Bible the 
 same proofs of genius as we do in the Book of Job, 
 still we have works in profane literature which in 
 point of ability fall little, if at all, short of that 
 great poem. The difference in artistic merit be- 
 tween Job and Faust, e.g., is not such as to war- 
 rant the supposition that while Goethe wrote the 
 one, God alone could have been author of the other. 
 Secondly, it may be said that, though the style 
 and idiosyncrasies of the Scriptural writers were not 
 interfered with, they were nevertheless divinely 
 and miraculously compelled, one and all of them, 
 to give a full, perfect, infallible representation of 
 Deity. But when we come to examine the Bible 
 carefully for ourselves, we see that the representa- 
 tion of the Deity differs from writer to writer, and 
 from age to age. We find, what we find everywhere 
 else, an evolution of the idea of God. Just look at 
 1 Sam. XV. 1-3. Samuel said unto Saul, " Hearken 
 thou unto the voice of the voice of the Lord. Go 
 and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they 
 have ; slay both man and woman, infant and suck- 
 ling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." If a modern 
 
8 Inspiration. 
 
 general were to give such an order, he would be 
 considered a monster of iniquity. But the early 
 Jewish writers imagined that the cruelty and fierce- 
 ness of their own savage natures were actually 
 characteristics of the Deity. Or look at Numbers 
 XV. 32-36 : " While the children of Israel were in 
 the wilderness, they found a man that gathered 
 sticks upon the Sabbath-day. And they brought him 
 to Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. 
 And they put him in ward, because it was not 
 declared what should be done unto him. And the 
 Lord said unto Moses, The man shall surely be put 
 to death : all the congregation shall stone him with 
 stones without the camp. And all the congrega- 
 tion brought him without the camp, and stoned 
 him with stones, and he died ; as the Lord com- 
 manded Moses." What do you suppose Christ 
 would have thought of such proceedings ? 
 
 Here, perhaps, I ought to say a word in extenua- 
 tion of these early writers. At first sight it may 
 appear as if they were dishonest, not to say blas- 
 phemous, in so boldly announcing that their own 
 crude opinions were the opinions of the Lord, in 
 justifying their own cruelty by the assertion that 
 they were fulfilling the divine behests. But I 
 must point out to you that by all such expressions 
 as " Thus saith the Lord," they merely meant to 
 
The Evolution of the Bible. 9 
 
 assert the strength of then- own conscientious con- 
 victions. We ourselves speak of conscience as the 
 voice of God, and yet we know that we have some- 
 times done conscientiously what we afterwards dis- 
 covered to be wrong. Many of the greatest crimes 
 in history, such as the tortures of the Inquisition, 
 have been perpetrated by those who felt perfectly 
 certain that they were acting in harmony with the 
 will of God. I do not want you to condemn these 
 Old Testament writers ; I only want you to see that 
 their views of God were sometimes very low. 
 
 Further, let me ask you to notice, not only do 
 we find in the Bible different theological views ob- 
 taining in different ages, but we also find them co- 
 existing in the same age. The controversies between 
 the priests and the prophets of Judaism, both of 
 whom professed to believe in inspiration, were very 
 much the same as between the Eitualists and Broad 
 Churchmen of to-day. The priests observed to the 
 very last the ceremonialism of early times ; and they 
 were perfectly satisfied when they had offered up 
 the proper number of doves and oxen, when they 
 had duly changed the shewbread, and lighted the 
 proper number of lamps. The prophets looked 
 upon all this with more or less of contempt. The 
 sacrifices of God they taught, the only sacrifices 
 worth offering, were a broken and contrite heart. 
 
lo Inspiration. 
 
 We cannot possibly overestimate the difference 
 — it is practically infinite — between the God of 
 Samuel who ordered the infants and sucklings to 
 be slaughtered, and the God of the Psalmist whose 
 tender mercies are over all His works ; between the 
 God of the patriarchs who was always repenting, 
 and the God of the apostles who is the same yester- 
 day, to-day and for ever, with whom is neither 
 variableness nor shadow of turning; between the 
 God of the Old Testament who walked in the 
 garden in the cooJ of the day, and the God of the 
 New Testament whom no man hath seen or can 
 see ; between the God of Leviticus who was so par- 
 ticular about the sacrificial furniture and utensils, 
 and the God of the Acts who dwelleth not in 
 temples made with hands; between the God who 
 hardened Pharaoh's heart, and the God who will 
 have all men to be saved. 
 
 The Bible, then, cannot be distinguished from 
 other books by the uniformity of its teaching any 
 more than by the uniformity of its style. Between 
 the covers of tliis little volume we find opinions as 
 diverse and contradictory as have ever existed in 
 the world. And, in particular, we can trace in it 
 the development of the idea of God from barbarism 
 up to Hegel. 
 
 Meantime, let me commend to your consideration 
 
The Evolution of the Bible. 1 1 
 
 one idea. The authors of Genesis discovered the 
 truth — and the discovery redounds to their eternal 
 glory — that the spirit of every man is in degree 
 divine. If we forget this, however cultivated and 
 clever we may think ourselves, we have really 
 degenerated, — we are in this respect in more than 
 antediluvian ignorance. The inspiration of the 
 Almighty, however its manifestations may differ, 
 is not restricted to any age or country; 
 
 " The whole round world is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God." 
 
12 
 
 Inspiration, 
 11. 
 
 INACCURACIES OF THE BIBLE. 
 
 TT7E are engaged in considering the subject of 
 * * Inspiration. The view at one time held, 
 even by persons of some amount of culture, is 
 represented very well in the following words of 
 Burgon's : " The Bible is none other than the voice 
 of Him that sitteth on the throne. Every book of 
 it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word 
 of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is the 
 direct utterance of the Most High. The Bible is 
 none other than the word of God ; not some part 
 of it more, some part of it less, but all alike the 
 utterance of Him who sitteth upon the throne, su- 
 preme, absolute, faultless, unerring." Or as Baylee 
 put it, " The Bible cannot be less than verbally in- 
 spired. Every syllable is just what it would be 
 
Inaccttracies of the Bible. 13 
 
 had God spoken from heaven, without the inter- 
 vention of any human agent." 
 
 Now I was beginning to explain to you last week 
 that this theory of inspiration could not possibly be 
 true. If God were in a literal sense the author of 
 the Bible the style of composition must always be 
 perfect, and therefore the same. Whereas, on the 
 contrary, we iind in the books of the Bible all pos- 
 sible varieties of style, more than sufficient to show 
 that they must have been written in the ordinary 
 way by men. Moreover, if God were literally the 
 author of the Bible, it must contain one uniform 
 representation of the Deity; or at any rate, the 
 representations must be consistent with each other. 
 But we find here — as elsewhere — contradictory 
 ideas of God. The superhuman cruelty of the 
 Jehovah of the Pentateuch, and the superhuman 
 tenderness of the heavenly Father of Christ, could 
 not possibly be attributes of one and the self-same 
 Being. 
 
 To-day I pass on to another argument. If the 
 Bible were in a literal sense the work of God, its 
 statements must be always true, scientifically and 
 historically true. But when we come to examine 
 it, we find that it contains innumerable mistakes. 
 And first of the scientific errors. I might give you 
 dozens of illustrations, but one must suffice, — viz.. 
 
1 4 Inspiration, 
 
 the Scriptural account of the creation. The authors 
 of the Pentateuch teach that the world was made 
 in six days. Well, it was not. Science has long 
 since proved that the process of creation must have 
 occupied millions of years. The validity of the 
 scientific doctrine is admitted nowadays even by 
 those who are in other respects orthodox. These 
 semi-orthodox persons are accustomed to say that 
 the Scriptural writers, when they spoke of days, 
 meant indefinite periods of time. But it is mani- 
 fest that they intended nothing of the kind. The 
 injunction to keep the fourth commandment was 
 distinctly based on the six days' theory of creation. 
 " Eemember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. For 
 in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the 
 sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh 
 day : lulierefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, 
 and hallowed it." 
 
 And even if we were willing to renounce the 
 teaching of modern science, we should still be un- 
 able to accept the Biblical account of creation as 
 correct, for it contains within itself a number of the 
 most palpable contradictions. In fact, we have in 
 the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis two 
 distinct stories of creation. This is practically 
 recognised in our lectionary. The first lesson on 
 Septuagesuna Sunday, takes in the first chapter 
 
Inaccuracies of the Bible, 1 5 
 
 and the first three verses of the second chapter. 
 That is one account of creation. The other begins 
 at the fourth verse and finishes with verse twenty- 
 five. How these two different theories come to 
 be placed together, I shall explain to you another 
 day. But that they are, different, and in many re- 
 spects mutually destructive, is evident on the most 
 cursory examination. 
 
 In the first account (i. 20, 24, 26), the birds and 
 beasts are created before man. In the second (ii. 
 7, 19), man is created before the birds and beasts. 
 In the first (i. 20), fowls are made out of the 
 waters ; in the second (ii. 19), out of the ground. 
 In the first (i. 28), man and woman are created 
 together, as the closing and completing work of the 
 whole creation; created also, as is evidently im- 
 plied, in the same kind of way, to be the comple- 
 ment of one another ; and thus created they are 
 blessed together. In the second (ii. 7, 8, 15, 22), the 
 beasts and birds are created between the man and 
 the woman. First, the man is made of the dust of 
 the ground, and is placed by himself in the garden ; 
 then the beasts and birds are made and the man gives 
 them names ; and lastly, after all this, the woman is 
 made out of one of his ribs, not as the complement, 
 but only as a helpmate for the man. The Biblical 
 account of the creation, therefore, is erroneous, not 
 
1 6 Inspiration. 
 
 only because it contradicts the teaching of modern 
 science, but because it contradicts itself. 
 
 In the face of all this, it is pitiful to see able 
 men like Dr Kinns and Mr Gladstone wasting their 
 time in elaborate attempts to reconcile the Penta- 
 teuch with science. These attempts are bound to 
 end in the most ludicrous failure. If the sciences 
 of geology and palseontology did not yet exist, the 
 Scriptural account of the creation might still be 
 seen to be erroneous, because it contains its own 
 refutation. And even if it were otherwise, even if 
 the authors of the Pentateuch did know as much 
 science as we know, what then ? The Bible 
 would be a more interesting literary curiosity 
 certainly, but its real value — as a book of moral 
 and spiritual teaching — would not be one iota 
 increased. 
 
 Once more, the historical inaccuracies in the 
 Bible are as numerous and as striking as the scien- 
 tific. This must be seen at once by any careful 
 student. The fact is established by internal evi- 
 dence. Different writers in the Bible often give 
 contradictory accounts of the same event ; and of 
 two contradictory statements both cannot be true. 
 Compare, e.g., Gen. vi. 20 with Gen. vii. 3. "Of 
 fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their 
 kind, of every creeping thing of this earth after his 
 
Inaccuracies of the Bible. \ j 
 
 kind, tiro of every sort shall come unto thee to keep 
 them alive." " Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the 
 male and the female to keep seed alive upon the 
 face of all the earth." Or compare again the state- 
 ments as to the number of people returned in 
 David's census. In 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, Israel is 
 reckoned at 800,000, and Judah at 500,000. In 
 1 Chron. xxi. 5, the return is 1,100,000 for Israel, 
 and 470,000 for Judah. Or compare again the 
 price which David paid for the threshing-floor. 
 According to 2 Sam. xxiv. 24, it was fifty shekels 
 of silver ; according to 1 Chron. xxi. 25, six hundred 
 shekels of gold. 
 
 And so of dates. In 1 Kings vi. 1, we read, " In 
 the 480th year after the children of Israel were 
 come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of 
 Solomon's reign." But according to all the other 
 Scriptural reckonings, the fourth year of Solomon's 
 reign would be almost 580 years after the exodus. 
 In St Paul's speech in the New Testament, the 
 period from Joshua to Samuel alone is given at 450 
 years. Some semi - orthodox commentators have 
 suggested leaving out the obnoxious sentence. But 
 it is needless to say this only hides the discrepancy 
 from the English reader, and seems a disrespectful 
 way of treating an inspired historian. It affords, 
 however, an interesting example of the manner in 
 
 B 
 
1 8 Inspiration, 
 
 which men sometimes play fast and loose with the 
 theory of verbal inspiration. 
 
 Look again at the dates in connection with Ho- 
 shea, as you have them in the 2d Book of Kings. 
 The writer has evidently been copying from two 
 distinct documents, and he has not noticed the dis- 
 agreement between them. In xv. 30, he tells us 
 that Hoshea began to reign in Israel in the twen- 
 tieth year of Jotham, king of Judah. This he takes 
 from the records of the northern kingdom. In the 
 next paragraph (v. 33), copying from the southern 
 records, he tells us that Jotham only reigned six- 
 teen years altogether. In chapter xvii. he goes back 
 to the records of the northern kingdom, and tells 
 us that Hoshea came to the throne in the reign of 
 Ahaz, who was Jotham's successor. If now he 
 had said in the fourth year of Ahaz, we could see 
 our way through the difficulty, for the fourth year of 
 Ahaz would be at any rate twenty years from the 
 beginning of Jotham's reign. He says however, 
 not in the fourth, but in the twelfth year of Ahaz, 
 king of Judah. The dates here, you see, are hope- 
 lessly and inextricably confused. 
 
 Many of these discrepancies, no doubt, are acci- 
 dental. But some of them are attributed by all 
 eminent Hebraists to deliberate dishonesty. When 
 the writings of the chronicler — that is to say, the 
 
Inaccicracies of the Bible. 19 
 
 author of the two books of Chronicles, Ezra and 
 part of Nehemiah — are carefully examined, it ap- 
 pears that he has wilfully altered the older records. 
 Those alterations were made for the most part in 
 the interests of the clerical body, to which in all 
 probability the writer belonged. He copies large 
 portions, word for word, from the books of Kings 
 and other existing scriptures, but by omissions, 
 additions and alterations, he gives an entirely 
 different representation of the whole course of 
 events. Upon this, however, I need not dwell. It 
 forms no part of my argument, which is simply 
 this : the fact of historical discrepancies — and 
 their existence cannot possibly be denied — dis- 
 proves, once and for ever, the doctrine of Biblical 
 infallibility. 
 
 The New Testament also contains a large number 
 of discrepancies. Sometimes we are able to correct 
 one writer by another ; but in any case the fact re- 
 mains that all the writers are not always accurate. 
 One illustration must suffice. The synoptic gospels 
 assume that the Lord's Supper was the Passover 
 feast. St John shows that it was not. The mis- 
 take into which the synoptic writers fell was very 
 natural. It was known that Christ went up to 
 Jerusalem for the purpose of eating the Passover ; 
 it was known that he actually had a supper with 
 
20 Inspiration. 
 
 His disciples ; and we need not be surprised, there- 
 fore, that the two were regarded as identical. In 
 Matthew and Mark their identity is implied, in St 
 Luke it is explicitly stated. In verse 15, Christ is 
 represented as saying, " with desire I have desired 
 to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." No 
 reader of these narratives could for a moment doubt 
 that Jesus actually ate the Passover. But He did 
 not. He sent His disciples to make ready the Pass- 
 over ; the night before He had supper with them in 
 the prepared room ; and no doubt He said that He 
 had desired to eat the Passover with them. But 
 He did not eat it. He himself was that year to be 
 a paschal Lamb ; and on the afternoon of the day 
 on which the feast would be kept — somewhere 
 about the time when the lambs were killed — He 
 was dying on the cross. All this is made very 
 plain by St John. In chapter xviii. 28, we read 
 how, in the evening after the last supper, the Jews 
 led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Pretorium, "and 
 they themselves entered not into the Pretorium 
 that they might not be defiled, but might eat the 
 Passover," which shows of course that the Passover 
 was yet to be eaten. Evidently then the last sup- 
 per, though St Luke represents Christ as calling it 
 the Passover, was not the Passover, but took place 
 the evening before. 
 
Inaccit7^acies of the Bible. 2 1 
 
 Now an immense number of books have been 
 written, an immense number of lives have been 
 wasted, in the attempt to explain away these and 
 similar contradictions. The task is absolutely 
 hopeless. But even if not, the waste of time 
 would be almost equally great. It is amusing to 
 notice the pleasurable excitement amongst a cer- 
 tain class of persons when, by excavations or 
 otherwise, it is proved that some of the events 
 mentioned in the Bible did actually happen. What 
 is the proof worth ? It refutes the theory that all 
 the Scriptural writers were deliberate liars. But 
 inasmuch as no one ever held such a theory, it does 
 not need to be refuted. And even if we could 
 prove that every scientific and historical state- 
 ment in the Bible was correct, the real value of 
 the Book would not be in the least increased. 
 If all the science and all the history were taken 
 out of it, the Bible would still remain the best 
 Book in the world. I shall speak to you here- 
 after of its essential worth, and explain to you why 
 it may be regarded as pre-eminently — more than 
 other literature — inspired. I do not want you to 
 think less of the Bible than you have been accus- 
 tomed to think, but only to think differently. 
 I want you to exchange — those of you who 
 have not already done so — a childish, slavish 
 
2 2 Inspiration. 
 
 fetish-worship, for a rational, manly, ennobling 
 reverence. 
 
 But, I hear some one say, it would have been 
 better had I let the subject alone. Would it ? I 
 will tell you a story. When Dr William Smith 
 was bringing out his Biblical Dictionary, being 
 a prudent editor and understanding the taste of 
 the public extremely well, he determined that the 
 articles should contain as much science as was com- 
 patible with orthodoxy, and no more. The one on 
 the Deluge was to be written by a man whom the 
 Doctor considered safe, but when it was finished, it 
 turned out to be quite heterodox. There was no 
 time to procure another ; so in that volume of the 
 Dictionary, when we look for Deluge, we only 
 discover, " see Flood." This gave time for a fresh 
 writer to be found ; but when his article was 
 returned, it was worse than the first. It was 
 not allowed to appear: Dr Smith simply wrote, 
 "Flood, see Noah." How he managed with this 
 article, I don't know. But probably by that time 
 the public would stand a little more science. Now, 
 in the editor of a dictionary, I admire such conduct ; 
 it shows great business capacity. But in a clergy- 
 man we expect something more than business capa- 
 city, at least I do. It is a clergyman's duty — if he 
 be fit for his office — to teach the people committed 
 
Inaccttracies of the Bible. 23 
 
 to his charge. It is his duty, so far as in him lies, 
 to remove their prejudices, to correct their errors, to 
 give them ever deeper and fuller views of truth. 
 
 I know the discussion of a subject like the pres- 
 ent is apt to give offence, and that to two very 
 different classes. There are some devout persons 
 who have been accustomed from their infancy to 
 regard the Bible as infallible, and when this in- 
 fallibility has been disproved they feel shocked 
 and stunned, they imagine that they should no 
 longer love the Bible as they did. For these per- 
 sons I have great sympathy ; and I hope to show 
 them, before I have done the present course, that, 
 in spite of all its faults, the Bible does stand alone, 
 unique in the literature of the world. But there is 
 another class of persons for whom I confess I have 
 no sympathy. They are not devout, but only leth- 
 argic. They have a lazy disinclination to look 
 difficulties in the face, a cowardly fear of inves- 
 tigating their beliefs, a puerile dread of what is 
 stigmatised as doubt. They flatter themselves that 
 they already know as much as is necessary for sal- 
 vation, and they are determined never, if they can 
 help it, to know anything more. A new idea dis- 
 turbs, startles, terrifies them. It is the correct 
 thing, they consider, to hold that there are no dis- 
 crepancies in the Bible, and rather than discover 
 
24 Inspiration. 
 
 any, they would be content never to open this book 
 again. Of course upon such people my work is 
 quite thrown away. I am sorry for that, but it is 
 not my fault. 
 
 I will conclude with some verses of Dean Alford's, 
 iiddressed more particularly to clergymen : — 
 
 " Speak thou the Truth. Let others fence 
 And trim their words for pay ; 
 In pleasant sunshine of pretence 
 Let others bask their day. 
 
 Guard thou the Fact ; though clouds of night 
 
 Down on thy watch-tower stoop ; 
 Though thou should see thine heart's delight 
 
 Borne from thee by their swoop. 
 
 Face thou the wind ; though safer seem 
 
 In shelter to abide ; 
 We were not made to sit and dream \ 
 
 The safe must first be tried." 
 
25 
 
 Inspiration, 
 III. 
 
 THE GENIUS OF THE JEWS FOE EIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 T SHOULD like to express for myself and you 
 -*- our sense of sorrow and bereavement. The 
 Emperor William is dead. He died, it is true, in 
 a CTood old age. A more illustrious career no man 
 ever had ; his work will undoubtedly live after 
 him ; but nevertheless his death is a loss — if not 
 an irreparable loss — to the whole human race. It 
 has been quaintly but not untruly said of him, 
 that he made the present century a success. When 
 he came to the throne Prussia was but a second-rate 
 power ; and now the destiny of Europe, the future 
 of the world for many years to come, is centred in 
 the Prussian capital. He was in all respects a great 
 man. Great, first of all, from his strong sense of 
 duty. In an essay which he wrote to his father at 
 
26 Inspii^ation. 
 
 the time of his confirmation, he said, "To be an 
 indefatigable learner and striver for the good of 
 my country shall be the one aim of my public life." 
 And so it always was. He was great enough to see 
 that it was possible and desirable to make Germany 
 into a nation, and great enough to work steadily for 
 this end, even though it lost him for a time the 
 confidence and goodwill of his subjects. He knew 
 that his subjects would believe in him at the last. 
 He was great in discovering, and still greater in 
 allowing himself to be guided by the ablest states- 
 man of perhaps any age. He was great, last of all, 
 in his kindliness. He had not only the bearing 
 and the intellect, but he had also the heart of a 
 king. His people now feel as if they have lost their 
 friend, their father. You can judge the man he 
 was by the way in which he died. He was lying 
 on his simple camp-bed. He talked a good deal 
 about the army and other affairs of State. Some 
 one asked him if he was not tired, to which he 
 replied, " I have no time at present to feel tired." 
 He spoke of his Fritz, his dear Fritz. He listened 
 with pleasure while they read him the 23d Psalm, 
 and after the fourth verse he exclaimed, " Das ist 
 schon." A noble life ! A beautiful death ! A glo- 
 rious entrance into a higher state ! " The kings of 
 the earth do bring their glory and honour into it." 
 
Genius of the Jews for Righteousness. 2 7 
 
 We have now to resume our discussion as to the 
 inspiration of the Bible. It has sometimes been 
 maintained that the Bible came direct from God, 
 that He was its author in the same literal sense in 
 which Newton was the author of the ' Principia,' 
 or Cervantes of ' Don Quixote.' I have explained 
 to you that this cannot be. We find in the Scrip- 
 tures the same diversities of style, the same variety 
 and even inconsistency of teaching, the same scien- 
 tific and historical inaccuracies, which we should 
 find in any other collection of books written 
 in different ages, by different individuals, under 
 different circumstances. And let me ask you to 
 notice this is no mere assertion of mine, it is no 
 whim of the Broad Church i^arty, but a simple fact, 
 which can be verified by every one of you. You 
 have only to read the Bible to discover that it con- 
 tradicts itself. I have given you a few illustra- 
 tions ; I might have given you many more, but you 
 can easily find them for yourselves. And one such 
 instance of contradiction alone is sufficient to prove 
 for ever the human orioin of the Bible. 
 
 " The human origin of the Bible," I hear some 
 one repeat. " At that rate it cannot be inspired at 
 all, it must be a worthless book, an imposture, a 
 fraud. To study it would be a waste of time ; it 
 cannot possibly do us any good ; it has no right to 
 
28 Inspiration, 
 
 any authority over our lives." Softly, my good sir ; 
 not so fast if you please. Why is it men always 
 will persist in rushing from one extreme to its 
 opposite ? Why is it that, when they have got rid 
 of one error, they are seldom satisfied till they have 
 acquired another greater error in its stead ? I will 
 tell you why. Because they are but half educated, 
 and have studied only one side of the subject. In 
 men's attitude towards the Bible we find an il- 
 lustration of the common tendency to extremes. 
 Generally speaking, it is either worshipped as a 
 deity, or trampled in the dust. I want to-day to 
 point out what seems to me the true via media. 
 Of course this is to some extent a verbal question. 
 If you will mean by inspired, written or dictated by 
 God in such a way as to exclude all possibility of 
 mistake, then it is evident from what I have already 
 said that the inspiration of the Bible must be 
 denied by every intelligent and honest man, by 
 every one who does not wilfully shut his eyes to 
 much of the contents of the book which he pro- 
 fesses to reverence as throughout equally divine. 
 But there is no need to define the word in this 
 absurd fashion : there is nothing either in the Bible 
 or out of it to warrant such a definition. Let us 
 see if there be not some other idea involved in the 
 word inspiration which would justify even the 
 
Genitis of the Jews for Righteousness. 29 
 
 most advanced of us in speaking of the Bible as 
 inspired. 
 
 l!^ow I reminded you the other day that, accord- 
 ing to the teaching of the Book of Genesis, every 
 man is in a sense inspired, is himself an inspiration. 
 "God breathed into man the breath of life, and 
 man became a living soul." Every man is in germ 
 divine. It is manifest that if this Scriptural state- 
 ment be correct, the inspiration of the Bible can 
 only be a question of degree. If every man is 
 inspired, the authors of the Bible may have been 
 more inspired than their fellows, but that is all. 
 And what do we mean by being more inspired? 
 Simply that their work stands on a higher level, 
 shows more genius, possesses greater value, — is in 
 a word diviner, than the ordinary work of ordinary 
 men. Generally we do not speak of more or less 
 inspiration. We restrict the term to the more re- 
 markable cases. We should speak of a poet as 
 being inspired when he composed his greatest 
 poems. We even apply the term to ourselves in 
 certain exceptional circumstances. When, for ex- 
 ample, a very bright idea comes into our head, we 
 are so surprised to find it there, the phenomenon 
 is such an unusual one, that we say " it must have 
 been an inspiration." Now let us ask, bearing in 
 mind the way in which the word is used in common 
 
30 Inspiration. 
 
 speech, is there anything in the Bible which would 
 justify us in regarding it as pre-eminently and in 
 a paramount degree inspired? Is there anything 
 which would justify us in distinguishing it from 
 other inspired books ? Is there anything which 
 would justify us in applying to it the term " in- 
 spired " in a special and unique sense ? Yes, there 
 is. The term inspiration, which we are accustomed 
 to apply to anything signally valuable in our own 
 mental or spiritual experience, which we apply 
 more legitimately and in a deeper sense to the 
 remarkable achievements of thinkers like New- 
 ton or poets like Shakespeare, may be applied most 
 legitimately and in the deepest sense of all to the 
 Bible, for it is the most remarkable, the most valu- 
 able, the divinest production of the human race. 
 
 A statement like this is not generally much 
 noticed when uttered from a pulpit in church. 
 People think it is the sort of thing a clergyman 
 is expected to say, and which, therefore, he must 
 say. But those of you who know me at all, are 
 well aware that I am not accustomed to say things 
 because I am expected to say them. Besides, this 
 is a statement which can be proved, and which 
 indeed has been proved. The best proof of it has 
 been given by a layman, the late lamented Matthew 
 Arnold, in his 'Literature and Dogma.' There is 
 
Genitis of the yews for Righteousness. 3 1 
 
 one important point in which I do not agree with 
 hun, and which I think is a very serious mistake.^ 
 But this notwithstanding, he has done more than 
 any one else to establish, beyond all possibility of 
 contradiction, the infinite and eternal value of the 
 Bible. 
 
 Matthew Arnold's proof, summed up in a sen- 
 tence, is this : The Bible, more than any other book 
 in the world, more than all other books in the world 
 put together, will help us to attain to that righteous- 
 ness of conduct upon which our wellbeing mainly 
 depends. Let me explain. Our wellbeing depends 
 upon many things. It will be enhanced no doubt 
 to a certain extent by our ability to surround our- 
 selves with the highest productions of art, by our 
 making ourselves acquainted with the results of 
 scientific research, by our entering on a serious and 
 profound study of philosophy. But it will be de- 
 termined far more by the way in which we behave 
 in the common and commonplace affairs of every- 
 day life. Our eating and drinking and amusements, 
 our attitude towards the varied instincts and im- 
 pulses of our nature, the way in which we treat the 
 members of our family, of our community, of our 
 race, — in one word, our conduct — that is the largest 
 part of our existence. Conduct, says Matthew 
 
 ^ See pp. 65-75. 
 
3 2 Inspiration. 
 
 Arnold, forms on the very lowest estimate at least 
 three-fourths of life. Upon conduct, therefore, our 
 wellbeing must mainly depend. 
 
 Now for rightness of conduct — that is, for right- 
 eousness — the Jews had an enthusiasm which 
 reached the point of genius. Open the Bible 
 almost where you will, and you come upon such 
 sentences as these : " Keep judgment and do right- 
 eousness ; " " Cease to do evil, learn to do well ; " 
 " Offer the sacrifice of righteousness." A sentence 
 which sums up the New Testament, and assigns the 
 ground whereon the Christian Church stands, is 
 this, " Let every one that nameth the name of 
 Christ depart from iniquity." And the Old Testa- 
 ment may be summed up in the same kind of way ; 
 " ye that love the Lord, see that ye hate the thing 
 that is evil ; " " To him that ordereth his conversa- 
 tion aright shall be shown the salvation of God." 
 The Old Testament, no one will deny, is filled with 
 the words and thoughts of righteousness. " In the 
 way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway 
 thereof there is no death." " Eighteousness tendeth 
 to life." " He that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his 
 own death." " The way of transgressors is hard." 
 Nobody will deny that these texts may stand for 
 the fundamental and ever -recurring idea of the Old 
 Testament. No people ever felt so strongly as the 
 
Genius of the Jews for Righteousness. ^ 
 
 Hebrews the supreme importance of conduct. No 
 people ever felt so strongly that succeeding, going 
 right, hitting the mark in this great concern, was 
 the way of peace, the highest possible satisfaction. 
 " He that keepeth the law, happy is he. Its ways 
 are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace. 
 If thou hadst walked in its ways, thou shouldst 
 have dwelt in peace for ever." The law of right- 
 eousness was to be the supreme object of their 
 thoughts. " Let its words be in thy heart ; thou 
 shalt teach them to thy children ; thou shalt talk 
 of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when 
 thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and 
 when thou risest up." That they might keep them 
 ever in mind, they wore them, went about with 
 them, made talismans of them. " Bind them upon 
 thy fingers, bind them about thy neck, write them 
 on the table of thy heart." " Take fast hold of her," 
 they said of the doctrine of righteousness, " let her 
 not go ; keep her, for she is thy life." 
 
 "It may be said that other nations, too, had 
 something of the idea of the importance of right- 
 eousness. They had ; but to feel it enough to make 
 the world feel it, it was necessary to be possessed 
 with it. It is not enough to have been visited by 
 such an idea at times, to have had it occasionally 
 forced upon one's mind by the teaching of experi- 
 
 c 
 
34 Inspiration, 
 
 ence. No ! ' He that hath the bride is the bride- 
 groom.' The idea belongs to him who has most 
 loved it. Common prudence can say, Honesty is 
 the best policy. But Israel and the Bible are filled 
 with religious joy." " Lord, what love have I 
 unto Thy law ; all the day long is my study in it. 
 Thy testimonies are the joy of my heart." Eight- 
 eousness they regarded as the very essence of 
 religion. To fear the Lord was to depart from 
 evil. This was understanding; this was wisdom; 
 this was the best possession. " She is more pre- 
 cious than rubies, and all the things thou canst 
 desire are not to be compared unto her." 
 
 It is a fact then, past all possibility of dispute, 
 that the Jews had a genius for righteousness such 
 as never existed in the world before or since. Men 
 need the Bible as much to-day as they did eighteen 
 centuries ago. It is as essential to human well- 
 being as food, or raiment, or home. It has been 
 from the dawn of history, so far as we can see it is 
 likely long to remain, the most important factor in 
 the education of the race. "Every one is aware how 
 those who want to cultivate any sense or endow- 
 ment in themselves, must be habitually conversant 
 with the works of people who have been eminent 
 for that sense, must study them, catch inspiration 
 from them. Only in this way can progress be 
 
Genius of the Jews for Righteousness. 35 
 
 made. And as long as the world lasts, all who 
 want to make progress in righteousness will come 
 to Israel for inspiration, as to the people who have 
 had the sense for righteousness strongest and most 
 glowing ; and in hearing and reading the words 
 Israel has uttered, those who care for conduct, 
 will find a force and a stimulus they could find 
 nowhere else. As well imagine a man with a sense 
 for sculpture not cultivating it by the help of the 
 remains of Greek art, or a man with a sense for 
 poetry not cultivating it by the help of Homer and 
 Dante, as a man with a sense for conduct not culti- 
 vating it by the help of the Bible. And this sense 
 for conduct is a sense which the generality of men 
 have far more decidedly than they have the sense 
 for art or for science. At any rate, whether this or 
 that man has it decidedly or not, it is the sense 
 which has to do with three-fourths of human life." 
 " This does truly constitute for Israel a most ex- 
 traordinary distinction. In spite of all which in 
 them and their character is unattractive, nay, re- 
 pellent, this petty, insignificant, unamiable people 
 deserve their great place in the world's regard, and 
 are likely to have it more as the world goes on 
 rather than less. It is secured to them by the 
 facts of human nature, and by the unalterable 
 nature of things." More than one of their own 
 
36 Inspiration. 
 
 prophets possessed in an eminent degree that most 
 remarkable characteristic of genius — faith, and pre- 
 dicted the eternal pre-eminence of Israel as the 
 teacher and inspirer of righteousness. " God hath 
 commanded to bless, and it cannot be reversed. 
 He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath 
 He seen perverseness in Israel. Gentiles shall come 
 to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy 
 rising. Darkness shall cover the earth, and gross 
 darkness the people ; but the glory of the Lord shall 
 be seen upon tluer 
 
Inspiration, 
 
 IV. 
 
 cheist's new doctrine. 
 
 TISr many respects, as we have already seen, the 
 ^ Scriptures do not differ from any other collec- 
 tion of human writings. The different authors write 
 in different styles ; they hold different, and often 
 inconsistent, opinions; one writer contradicts an- 
 other, and not unfrequently the same writer con- 
 tradicts himself; the science in the Bible is all 
 wrong ; the history is full of inaccuracies ; and 
 even the moral and religious teaching is some- 
 times barbarous and degraded. I have given you 
 numerous illustrations of all this. With many of 
 them, if you have read your Bibles carefully, you 
 must have been already perfectly familiar. What- 
 ever then we mean by the inspiration of the Bible, 
 we cannot mean that it was written by God. To 
 
38 Inspiration. 
 
 allow ourselves, even for a moment, to entertain 
 such an idea would be blasphemy. 
 
 But I went on to explain to you, that though 
 in this sense the inspiration of the Bible must be 
 denied, there was another sense in which it might 
 be most emphatically affirmed. We apply the 
 term inspiration in common life to the most re- 
 markable achievements of genius, to all the best 
 creations of the human mind. A great poem or 
 a great discovery we should speak of as inspired. 
 We feel that the ordinary, average, typical man 
 would have been incapable of it. The poet, the 
 discoverer, the thinker, seem to us to live more in 
 communion with the Infinite, seem to us to have 
 received the best that is in them direct from 
 God. It is one of the deepest instincts of the 
 race, that every good and perfect gift cometh from 
 above. 
 
 Now I pointed out to you that the word inspira- 
 tion, understood in this sense, may be more fittingly 
 applied to the Bible than to any other production 
 of the human race; for, notwithstanding all its 
 faults, mistakes and shortcomings, it is the most 
 remarkable and the most valuable book in the 
 whole of the world's literature. This assertion, 
 as we saw, was no matter of mere opinion ; it can 
 be demonstrated; it has been demonstrated by 
 
Christ's New Doctrine. 39 
 
 Matthew Arnold. Our wellbeing depends mainly 
 upon the rightness of our conduct, upon what is 
 called, in the language of religion, righteousness. 
 And the Jews had a genius for righteousness which 
 has never been equalled, much less surpassed. 
 Just as the artist receives instruction and stimulus 
 by studying the remains of Greek art, so the man 
 who wishes to excel in conduct will turn naturally 
 to the Bible for help. The old Hebrew seers pro- 
 phesied, thousands of years ago, the eternal pre- 
 eminence of Israel as a teacher and inspirer of 
 righteousness ; and the experience of the race from 
 then to now has confirmed the truth of the predic- 
 tion. The Bible always has been, there seems 
 every prospect that it always will be, the most 
 powerful instrument in the world for the creation 
 and development of righteousness. 
 
 All this would be true if we possessed only the 
 books of the Old Testament, from which last Sun- 
 day my illustrations were mostly taken. Many of 
 the pre-Christian psalmists and prophets possessed 
 an enthusiasm, a love, a passion for righteousness, 
 which could scarcely be surpassed ; and no man can 
 ponder over their burning words without catching 
 something of the spirit of their devotion. But in 
 the development of righteousness, the New Testa- 
 ment has an important and peculiar part to play. 
 
40 Inspiration, 
 
 the nature of which I propose now to explain to 
 you. 
 
 The New Testament may practically be summed 
 up in the one word, Christ. Let us see now pre- 
 cisely what it was that Christ accomplished. What 
 was His relation to that problem of righteousness, 
 which the best of the Jews had been for ages at- 
 tempting to solve ? 
 
 Christ did two things. He gave to the world 
 a new doctrine and a new motive. Many ser- 
 mons, of course, might be preached upon each of 
 these topics, but I have already frequently dis- 
 cussed them with you, and I need therefore do 
 little more than recall to your mind what I have 
 formerly said. To-day I shall speak of the new 
 doctrine, and next Sunday of the new motive. 
 
 And first of Christ's new doctrine. He taught 
 what had never been taught before, and what is but 
 little understood even yet, — the doctrine of right- 
 eousness through love. He adopted the golden 
 rule, which had been already laid down by Hillel, 
 and He carried it further in His own new com- 
 mandment. That this new commandment was in- 
 tended by Him to be fundamental and all-inclusive, 
 can be doubted only by those who, in wilfulness 
 or ignorance, disregard the plain teaching of the 
 gospels. In the farewell address which St John 
 
Christ's New Doctrine. 41 
 
 records, Christ three times enunciates this com- 
 mandment as a summary of all that He requires 
 from men, and declares that their obedience to it 
 would be a sufficient test of their genuine disciple- 
 ship. (1) "A new commandment I give unto you, 
 that ye love one another ; " (2) " This is my com- 
 mandment, that ye love one another ; " (3) " These 
 things I command you, that ye love one another. 
 By this shall all men know that ye are my dis- 
 ciples, if ye have love one to another." If it be 
 objected that the Gospel of St John was of much 
 later origin than the synoptics, and contains a good 
 deal that came from Alexandria rather than from 
 Palestine, I admit it ; but I reply, the objection is 
 here irrelevant. No doubt the metaphysics of the 
 Gospel of St John is Alexandrian, but we may be 
 quite sure that the new commandment belongs to 
 the original tradition. In all that the synoptic 
 evangelists tell us of the teaching of Christ, this 
 commandment is everywhere implied. And St 
 Matthew goes even further than St John ; for he 
 asserts that obedience to the new commandment 
 will not only be the test of our discipleship here, 
 but that it will also determine our destiny here- 
 after. " When the Son of man shall come in His 
 glory, . . . before Him shall be gathered all 
 nations; and He shall separate them one from 
 
42 Inspiration. 
 
 another. . . . Then shall the King say unto 
 them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of my 
 Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from 
 the foundation of the world : for I was an hun- 
 gered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty, and ye 
 gave me drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me 
 in : naked, and ye clothed me : I was sick, and ye 
 visited me : I was in prison, and ye came unto me. 
 Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least 
 of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 
 It is strange that those who have read this passage 
 hundreds and thousands of times, should still be- 
 lieve in the doctrine of "justification by faith." The 
 simple teaching of the Nazarene has been obscured 
 by the misty writings of theologians. But if we 
 set these aside, and look simply to the gospels 
 themselves, the fact is seen to be indisputable, that 
 Christ regarded all sin as a form of selfishness, that 
 He represented unselfishness as the whole duty of 
 man, that for the kingdom of righteousness which 
 He sought to establish He laid down but a single 
 law — the law of brotherhood, that His one distinc- 
 tive doctrine was the doctrine of righteousness 
 through love. 
 
 It needs, I think, but a little reflection to per- 
 ceive the reasonableness and the value of this doc- 
 trine. At first sight it seems strange that Christ 
 
Christ s New Doctrine. 43 
 
 should thus reduce all sins to sin against one's 
 neighbour — 'that is to selfishness, and that He 
 should say nothing of sins against God or of sins 
 against ourself. But if you think for a little, you 
 will see that selfishness implies and includes all 
 other forms of sin. Every sin against one's neigh- 
 bour is indirectly a sin against one's self. Our wel- 
 fare must depend upon our recognition of facts, 
 and we arc brethren whether we know it or not. 
 We are parts of a great organism in which, if one 
 member suffers, all the members suffer. It can be 
 well with us therefore only in proportion as we 
 remember the solidarity — the essential oneness — of 
 the race. And further, sinning against one's neigh- 
 bour is really sinning against God. To injure any 
 created being is to injure the Creator Himself, 
 whose glory consists in the welfare of His creatures. 
 So that every sin we are capable of committing 
 may be justly regarded as a sin of selfishness ; for 
 in committing it, we act as if we were mere isolated 
 units — as if the entire universe, and even God 
 Himself, existed merely for our private gratifica- 
 tion. Contrariwise, perfect unselfishness would be 
 perfect sinlessness. It would help us to do our 
 duty towards ourselves. A man cannot injure him- 
 self without injuring the entire organism of which 
 he forms a part. The more therefore that we love 
 
44 Inspiration. 
 
 our neighbours, the more — paradoxical as it may 
 sound — we shall love ourselves ; we shall be very 
 jealous for our perfection when we remember that 
 it is necessary for the perfection of the race. And 
 further, unselfishness would help us to do our duty 
 towards God. Apart from human love there can 
 be no genuine love of God. " If a man loveth not 
 his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love 
 God whom he hath not seen ? " " That is not first 
 which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and 
 afterwards that which is spiritual." And long 
 before we come to love God consciously as God, 
 unselfishness will help us to serve Him. The ser- 
 vice of man, whether we know it or not, is in real- 
 ity the service of God. There is only one thing we 
 can do for the Almighty, and that is to perfect our- 
 selves and our race. Many so-called infidels and 
 atheists are amongst the most zealous servants of 
 God. There are many who — 
 
 ' ' Adore and worship when they know it not ; 
 Pious beyond the intention of their thought, 
 Devout beyond the meaning of their will." 
 
 Since then selfishness includes, and unselfishness 
 excludes, all sin, it is manifest that the eradication 
 of selfishness by the development of love is the 
 one thing necessary for our salvation. It will help 
 us to perfect ourselves, it will help us to perfect 
 
Chrisfs New Doctrine. 45 
 
 our race, it will help us to glorify God. " He that 
 loveth is born of God ; he cannot sin, because he 
 is born of God." 
 
 And this doctrine is not only profoundly true, 
 but it possesses the greatest practical utility. It 
 is useful because of, and in proportion to, its ex- 
 treme simplicity. Men have generally been be- 
 wildered by the problem of evil. It seems so vast, 
 so complex ; there are an infinite number of ways 
 in which it is possible to do wrong. Priests and 
 moralists have laid down innumerable laws for the 
 regulation of human life. But the task was hope- 
 less : it could never be completed. All their gen- 
 eral principles were sometimes inapplicable ; and 
 in the life of every man each day's experience 
 brought something new, something for which no 
 commandment had been provided. In despair they 
 began to restrict their attention chiefly to cere- 
 monial acts, in regard to which uniformity seemed 
 more likely to be attained. This was especially 
 the case in the time of Christ. "The details of 
 sacrifice and ritualistic purity were elaborated with 
 microscopic nicety." One would have thought that 
 the Levitical law was minute enough, but the Phari- 
 sees were always refining upon it. The cooking of a 
 kid in its mother's milk was forbidden ; whereuj)on 
 the rabbis forbade the eating of a kid and milk 
 
46 Inspiration. 
 
 on the same day, lest by accident the milk should be 
 that of the kid's mother, and in the stomach of 
 the eater kid and milk be cooked together. Months 
 and years were spent in the discussion of questions 
 which, from an ethical point of view, were quite 
 meaningless and absurd. For example, it was long 
 a burning question as to what should be done when 
 the Passover had commenced, if the sacrificial 
 knife had not been properly placed. Hillel was 
 made leader of the great Sanhedrim, because he 
 decided the point satisfactorily. The rabbis exer- 
 cised themselves much — like some friends of ours 
 in the present day — over matters of " Lord's Day 
 observance." Was it lawful to eat an egg which 
 had been laid on the Sabbath ? Was it lawful on 
 that day to untie a knot with both hands ? If a 
 sheep fell into a tank, should it be taken out, or 
 fed in the tank until the next day ? If a cow 
 calved upon the Sabbath-day, should the cow be 
 led to the water, or should the water be carried 
 to the cow ? There were never-ending casuistical 
 discussions about Levitical purity and defilement. 
 Did the flesh only of a carcass defile, or also the 
 hide and the bones ? Did contact with all the 
 books of the Gentiles defile, or only contact with 
 their sacred books ? Which hand should be washed 
 first ? Should ablution stop at the wrist ? Should 
 
Chris fs New Doctrine. 47 
 
 the hands be held up or down ? These refinements 
 reached their acme in the idea that even the Scrip- 
 tures were outwardly impure because written upon 
 animal skins. No wonder the Sadducees said, 
 "The Pharisees will wash the face of the sun;" 
 they might have added, " and remain all the while 
 themselves impure." If their commandments had 
 been everywhere scrupulously obeyed, the evil in 
 the world would not have been one iota diminished. 
 It was Christ's aim to deliver men once and for 
 ever from the slavery of ritualism, and introduce 
 them into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 
 He taught that there was nothing wrong but selfish- 
 ness, that there was but one duty — that of love. 
 Several attempts had been made before Christ, 
 notably amongst the Hebrew prophets, to find a 
 simple expression which would summarise the 
 whole of human duty. For example, " What doth 
 the Lord thy God require of thee but to do justice, 
 love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " 
 But here simplicity was gained at the expense of 
 completeness. It is manifest that the virtues of 
 justice, mercy and humility do not cover the whole 
 field of human existence, whereas the new com- 
 mandment is all-comprehensive in its scope. We 
 cannot conceive circumstances to which it would 
 not apply. Christianity includes everything that 
 
48 Inspiration. 
 
 is reasonable and beautiful and good in other re- 
 ligions ; but it supplements and supersedes them 
 all. The great doctrine of righteousness through 
 love makes it, in the very nature of things, the 
 final religion for time and for eternity. What 
 other religions sought, Christianity has found. 
 
 ' ' There is, we know, one primitive and sure 
 Religion pure — 
 Unchanged in spirit, though its forms and codes 
 
 "Wear myriad modes — 
 Contains all creeds within its mighty span, — 
 The love for God displayed in love for man." 
 
49 
 
 Inspiration, 
 
 CHRIST S NEW MOTIVE. 
 
 TN discussing the question of inspiration we have 
 -*- seen that, while in some respects the Bible 
 resembles every other collection of human writings, 
 it nevertheless possesses one characteristic which 
 renders it unique. A great many extraordinary 
 qualities have been improperly ascribed to it, but 
 it really has one inestimable merit which will alone 
 suffice to place it at the head of all the literature 
 of the race. Amonsj the Jews there once existed 
 a genius for righteousness which has never been 
 equalled ; and even now there is more moral stim- 
 ulus to be derived from their writings than from 
 anything else the" world contains. This would be 
 true if we possessed the Old Testament alone. It 
 is impossible for any one to read the best utter- 
 
 D 
 
50 Inspiration. 
 
 ances of the psalmists and of the prophets without 
 catching something of their enthusiasm for right- 
 eousness. In the last sermon I was beginning to ex- 
 plain to you the special function of the New Testa- 
 ment. We saw that Christ taught an original doc- 
 trine — the doctrine viz., of righteousness through 
 love. The one radical defect of human nature is 
 selfishness : and on the contrary complete unselfish- 
 ness is nothing less than complete righteousness. 
 In fully discharging their duty to others, men will 
 at the same time be perfecting their own nature, 
 and rendering to the Deity the most acceptable 
 service. The whole duty of man, therefore, Christ 
 summed up under the law of love. 
 
 Now this doctrine is profoundly true. I gave 
 you last Sunday a popular exposition of its rationale. 
 You will find a philosophical exposition of it in 
 Hegel. But theory is one thing and practice is 
 another. We may perceive the correctness and 
 even the beauty of a doctrine, and yet find difficulty 
 in applying it. As St Paul puts it, we may '* de- 
 light in the law of God after the inward man, and 
 yet find another law in our members warring against 
 the law of the mind, and bringing it into captivity 
 unto the law of sin which is in our members." In 
 the well-known words of the Eoman poet — 
 
 " Video meliora proboque ; pejora sequor. " 
 
Christ's New Motive. 5 1 
 
 It was not enough, therefore, for Christ to lay 
 down the new doctrine ; it was not enough to teach 
 men the kind of disposition which they ought to 
 acquire : it was necessary that He should help 
 them to acquire it. And He did. He gave men a 
 new motive. Let us see. 
 
 The first thing that must strike any one who 
 reads carefully the history of Christ is the immense 
 importance He attached, not merely to His mission, 
 but to Himself. Every great teacher, with this 
 single exception, in exact proportion to his great- 
 ness, has been willing to be cast into the shade by 
 the glory of the doctrine which he wished to teach. 
 Socrates declared that his only wisdom was a con- 
 sciousness of ignorance, and he constantly con- 
 fessed to his hearers that he was merely a fellow- 
 seeker with them after truth and goodness. The 
 Nazarene maintained, on the contrary, that He was 
 the light of the world, the shepherd of the souls of 
 men, the way to eternal life, the vine or the life- 
 tree of humanity. It is this which distinguishes 
 Christ from all the rest of the world's teachers. 
 " It is common in human history," says the author 
 of ' Ecce Homo,' " to meet with men who assert 
 some superiority over their fellows, but they dream 
 of nothing greater than some partial control over 
 the actions of others for the short space of a life- 
 
5 2 Inspiration. 
 
 time. To a few indeed it is given to influence future 
 ages. Some have appeared who have been as levers 
 to uplift the earth and roll it in another course. 
 Homer by creating literature, Socrates by creating 
 science, Csesar by carrying civilisation inland from 
 the shores of the Mediterranean, Newton by start- 
 ing science in a steady career of progress, may be 
 said to have attained this eminence. But these 
 men gave a single impact, like that which is con- 
 sidered to have first set planets in motion. Christ 
 claims to be a perpetual attracting power, like the 
 sun which determines their orbits. They con- 
 tributed to men some discovery and passed away : 
 Christ's discovery is Himself. To humanity, strug- 
 gling with its passions and its destiny, He says, 
 ' Cling to me — cling ever closer to me.' He com- 
 manded men to leave everything and attach them- 
 selves to Him ; He declared Himself King, Master, 
 and Judge of men ; He promised to give rest to all 
 the weary and heavy laden; He instructed His 
 followers to hope for eternal life from feeding on 
 His body and blood. Further, these enormous 
 pretensions were advanced by One whose special 
 peculiarity, not only among His contemporaries, 
 but among the remarkable men that have appeared 
 before and since, was an almost feminine tender- 
 ness and humility. The 'Lamb of God' He had 
 
Christ s New Motive. 53 
 
 been called by the Baptist. Yet so clear to Him 
 was His own dignity and importance to the race, 
 that in the very same breath in which He asserts 
 it in the most unmeasured language, He alludes 
 also to His humility. ' Take my yoke upon you 
 and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in 
 heart.' Meek and lowly He was ; naturally con- 
 tent with obscurity ; wanting the restless desire 
 for distinction and eminence which is common in 
 great men ; fond of what was simple and homely, 
 of children and poor people; occupying Himself 
 so much with the concerns of others, with the relief 
 of sickness and want, that the temptation to ex- 
 aggerate the importance of His own thoughts and 
 plans was not likely to master Him. And yet we 
 find that He laid claim persistently, with the calm- 
 ness of entire conviction, in opposition to the whole 
 religious world, in spite of the offence which His 
 own followers conceived, to a dominion more tran- 
 scendent, more universal, more complete than the 
 most delirious votary of glory ever aspired to in 
 his dreams." 
 
 The explanation of all this Christ Himself gave 
 when He said, " If ye love me, ye will keep my 
 commandments." The charm of His own person- 
 ality. His own essential lovableness, was the new 
 motive which Christ introduced into the world. 
 
54 Inspiration. 
 
 He knew that we could not begin with a univer- 
 sal love, and so He endeavoured to create in us 
 an enthusiasm for the race by first creating in 
 us an enthusiasm for Himself. 
 
 We must inevitably grow like one whom we 
 supremely love. Now Christ's most remarkable 
 characteristic was self-forgetfulness. It never left 
 Him, even in the darkest hours of His sad tragic 
 life. He was the very impersonation of self-sac- 
 rifice, the very embodiment of love. From the 
 beginning of His ministry until the end, He gave 
 Himself unreservedly to the world. It is impos- 
 sible to discover a single selfish action in the whole 
 career of the Eedeemer. He never gave a thought 
 to His ©wn physical comfort, and yet was always 
 mindful of the wants of those who were about 
 Him. He would not use His extraordinary powers 
 for His own advancement, but was never tired of 
 employing them for the good of others. The great 
 Teacher of the ages was not self-absorbed, but could 
 spare time to be kind and genial even to little chil- 
 dren. He who found it His meat and drink to do 
 His Father's will, was no gloomy egotist, but was 
 fond of showing His sympathy for men by joining 
 them at the social board or at the marriage-feast. 
 He who was so strong as never to yield to the 
 fiercest temptation, was yet so gentle as to make 
 
Christ's New' Motive, . 55 
 
 allowance for sinners whom society would have 
 hounded to destruction. He who had been all His 
 life homeless, knowing not where to lay His head, 
 was careful to provide a home for His mother, even 
 when He was in the very agony of death. He who 
 was in an altogether unique sense the Son of God, 
 delighted to call Himself the Son of man; went 
 about continually doing good; sought not to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister ; and declared that 
 He was ready, like a good shepherd, to lay down 
 His life for the sheep. To love Christ, therefore, 
 is to love Love. There have been not a few who 
 have found it possible to conceive for Christ an 
 attachment, the closeness of which no words can 
 express — an attachment so absorbing that they 
 have said, " I live no more, but Christ liveth in me." 
 " Now such a feeling carries with it of necessity the 
 feeling of love for all human beings. They have 
 been made sacred by a reflected glory. It matters 
 no longer what quality men may exhibit, amiable or 
 unamiable ; as the brothers of Christ, as the objects 
 of His love in life and death, they must be dear to 
 all to whom He is dear. The true disciple of Christ 
 must think of the whole race, and of every mem- 
 ber of it, with awful reverence and hope. If some 
 human beings are abject and contemptible, if it be 
 incredible to us that they have any high dignity or 
 
56 Inspiration. 
 
 destiny, do we regard them from so great a height 
 as Christ ? Are we likely to be more pained by 
 their faults and deficiencies than He was ? Is our 
 standard higher than His ? And yet He associated 
 with the meanest of the race. No contempt for 
 them did He ever express ; no suspicion that they 
 might be less dear to the common Father ; no doubt 
 that they were capable of becoming perfect even as 
 He was perfect." And whoever loves Christ will 
 feel Christ's enthusiasm for humanity. Affection 
 for the Saviour, once implanted in the individual 
 heart, will in time impel its possessor to universal 
 love. 
 
 I pointed out to you last Sunday that Christ's 
 doctrine of righteousness was absolute and final. It 
 is impossible that it can ever be superseded. The 
 same may be said of His new motive. Eighteen 
 hundred years have passed away, and it still re- 
 mains the strongest of all moral influences. We 
 cannot conceive of a stronger. With sublime assur- 
 ance the Saviour declared, " Heaven and earth shall 
 pass away, but my words shall not pass away." I 
 know there are some educated, and many unedu- 
 cated, persons who think that He was wrong. They 
 imagine Christianity is exploded. They regard 
 Jesus Himself as a well - meaning: but ignorant 
 fanatic. I must point out to you, however, that 
 
Christ's New Motive. 5 7 
 
 this is not the opinion of any critic of culture and 
 acumen, who has really taken pains to study the 
 Saviour's life. 
 
 For instance. Napoleon said, " Alexander, Caesar, 
 Charlemagne, and myself founded great empires, 
 but the creation of our genius rested upon force." 
 Jesus alone has founded an empire upon love, and 
 to this day millions would die for Him. Matthew 
 Arnold says, "As the course of the world is for 
 ever establishing the pre-eminence of righteous- 
 ness, so too the course of the world is for ever 
 establishing what righteousness really is — that is 
 to say, true Christianity." 
 
 John Stuart Mill says : " The new commandment 
 to love one another ; the recognition that the great- 
 est are those who serve, not those who are served, 
 by others ; the reverence for the weak and humble, 
 which is the foundation of chivalry, they and not 
 the strong being pointed out as having the first 
 place in God's regard and the first claim on their 
 fellow-men ; the lesson of the parable of the good 
 Samaritan ; that of ' he that is without sin, let him 
 cast the first stone ; ' the precept of doing as we 
 would be done by ; and such other noble moralities 
 ... as are to be found in the authentic sayings 
 of Jesus of Nazareth : these are surely in sufficient 
 harmony with the intellect and feelings of every 
 
58 Inspiration. 
 
 good man and woman to be in no danger of being 
 let go, after having been once acknowledged as the 
 creed of the best and foremost portion of our 
 species. There will be, as there have been, short- 
 comings enough for a long time in acting on them ; 
 but that they should be forgotten, or cease to be 
 operative on the human conscience, while human 
 beings remain cultivated or civilised, may be pro- 
 nounced once for all impossible. . . . The most 
 valuable part of the effect on the character which 
 Christianity has produced, by holding up in a Di- 
 vine Person a standard of excellence and a model 
 for imitation, is available even to the absolute un- 
 believer, and can never more be lost to humanity. 
 For it is Christ, rather than God, whom Christianity 
 has held up as a pattern of perfection. It is the 
 God incarnate, more than the God of the Jews or 
 of nature, who has taken so great and salutary a 
 hold on the modern mind. And whatever else may 
 be taken away from us by rational criticism, Christ 
 is still left ; a unique figure, not more unlike all His 
 predecessors than all His followers, even those who 
 had the direct benefit of His personal teaching. It 
 is of no use to say that Christ, as represented in 
 the gospels, is not historical, and that we know not 
 how much of what is admirable has been super- 
 added by His disciples. . . , Who among His dis- 
 
Christ's New Motive. 59 
 
 ciples or among their proselytes was capable of in- 
 venting the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagin- 
 ing the life and character revealed in the Gospels ? 
 Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee ; as certainly 
 not St Paul, whose character and idiosyncrasies 
 were of a totally different sort ; still less the early 
 Christian writers, in whom nothing is more evident 
 than that the good which was in them was all 
 derived, as they always professed that it was de- 
 rived, from a higher source. . . . About the life 
 and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal 
 originality, combined with profundity of insight, 
 which must place the Prophet of Nazareth, even in 
 the estimation of those who have no belief in His 
 inspiration, in the very first rank of the men of 
 sublime genius whom our species can boast. When 
 this pre - eminent genius is combined with the 
 qualities of probably the greatest moral reformer 
 and martyr who ever existed upon earth, religion 
 cannot be said to have made a bad choice in select- 
 ing this man as the ideal representative and guide 
 of humanity ; nor even now would it be easy, even 
 for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the 
 rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, 
 than to endeavour so to live that Christ would 
 approve our life." 
 
 Carlyle says: "We understand ourselves to be 
 
6o Inspiration. 
 
 risking no new assertion, but simply repeating 
 what is already the conviction of the greatest in 
 our age, when we say that cheerfully recognising, 
 gratefully appropriating, whatever Voltaire has 
 proved, or any other man has proved or shall prove, 
 the Christian religion, once here, cannot again pass 
 away; that in one form or other it will endure 
 through all time. . . . Were the memory of this 
 faith never so obscured, as indeed in every age the 
 coarse passions and perceptions of the world do all 
 but obliterate it in the hearts of most, yet in every 
 pure soul, in every poet and wise man, it finds a 
 new missionary, a new martyr, till the great volume 
 of universal history is finally closed, and man's 
 destinies are fulfilled on this earth. It is a height 
 to which the human species were fated and enabled 
 to attain, from which, having once attained it, they 
 can never retrograde." 
 
 Eenan says : " To tear the name of Jesus from 
 this world would be to shake it to its very founda- 
 tions. Pure Christianity still presents itself at the 
 end of eighteen centuries in the character of a uni- 
 versal and eternal religion. The religion of Jesus 
 is in some respects the final religion. . . . After 
 Him there is nothing more but to fructify and de- 
 velop. All that may be done outside of the Chris- 
 tian tradition will be sterile. . . . Jesus remains 
 
Chris fs New Motive. 6i 
 
 to humanity an inexhaustible source of moral re- 
 generation." And finally, Emerson says : " Love 
 will accomplish what force could never achieve. 
 Love would put a new face on this weary old world, 
 in which we dwell too long as pagans and enemies. 
 An acceptance of the sentiment of love throughout 
 Christendom for a season would bring the felon and 
 the outcast to our side in tears, with the devotion 
 of their faculties to our service. This great over- 
 grown dead Christendom of ours still keeps alive at 
 least the name of one lover of mankind. But some 
 day all men will be lovers, and every calamity will 
 be dissolved in universal sunshine." 
 
 I might give you many more illustrations to 
 show that this is the kind of estimate formed of 
 Christ and of Christianity by the ablest and wisest 
 of mankind. I must confess however that for the 
 majority of men, who are incapable of critical ana- 
 lysis, of original thought, or even of wide reading, 
 it is not so easy to arrive at such conclusions. 
 Ordinary men get their opinions of Christianity 
 from theologians, who have converted the religion 
 of love into a religion of metaphysics. The doc- 
 trine and motive of Christianity have been obscured 
 in clouds of meaningless verbiage. The sweet 
 simple teaching of the Nazarene has been forgot- 
 ten, and in its place men have been offered elabo- 
 
62 Inspiration, 
 
 rate definitions and formulae and creeds. But, 
 believe me, the reign of theology is almost over. 
 When the din and jargon of its controversies have 
 died away, the voice of Jesus will once more be 
 heard, saying what He said eighteen centuries ago, 
 " These things I command you, that ye love one 
 another. If you love me ye will keep my com- 
 mandments." And the time will come when all 
 men will respond, as some have even now respond- 
 ed, — " The love of Christ constraineth us." Then, 
 and not till then, we shall have " the new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness." Then, and not 
 till then, we shall discover all that we owe to Christ. 
 " I heard the voice of many angels round about the 
 throne, and the number of them was ten thousand 
 times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, 
 saying with a loud voice. Worthy is the Lamb 
 that was slain. And every creature which is in 
 heaven and on the earth heard I saying, Blessing 
 and honour and glory and power be unto Him 
 that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamh, 
 for ever." 
 
63 
 
 Inspiration, 
 VI. 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF GOD. 
 
 TTOU remember I told you that the real value of 
 -^ the Bible had been best explained by Matthew 
 Arnold. His argument may be summed up under 
 four heads: (1) Conduct is three - fourths of life. 
 (2) It will be well with a man in proportion as 
 his conduct is right, or in Scriptural phraseology 
 righteous. (3) Conduct can only be righteous when 
 it is in harmony with the Power not ourselves 
 which makes for righteousness. (4) The Bible, 
 more than any other book in the world, tends to 
 bring about this harmony. These four propositions 
 are, as he justly observes, matters of experience; 
 they can be tested and verified by every man. 
 Let me quote again Matthew Arnold's words. " It 
 may be asked — why, even if there is an enduring 
 
64 Inspiration. 
 
 Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness, 
 should we study the Bible that we may learn to 
 obey Him ? Will not other teachers and books do 
 as well ? The answer is, because this Powder is 
 revealed in Israel and the Bible, and not by other 
 teachers and books — that is, there is infinitely 
 more of Him there, He is plainer and easier to come 
 at, and incomparably more impressive. If you 
 want to know plastic art, you go to the Greeks; 
 if you want to know science, you go to the Ary- 
 an genius. And why ? Because they have the 
 specialty for these things, for making us feel what 
 they are and giving us an enthusiasm for them. 
 "Well, and so have Israel and the Bible a specialty 
 for righteousness, for making us feel what it is and 
 giving us an enthusiasm for it. And here again it 
 is experience we invoke — try it. Having convinced 
 yourself that there is an enduring Power not our- 
 selves that makes for righteousness, set yourself 
 next to try and learn more about the Power, and 
 to feel an enthusiasm for it. And to this end take 
 a course of the Bible, and then a course of Ben- 
 jamin Franklin, Horace Greeley, Jeremy Bentham, 
 and Mr Herbert SiDencer, and see which has most 
 effect, which satisfies you most, which gives most 
 moral force." 
 
 This argument of Matthew Arnold's is quite 
 
The Personality of God. 65 
 
 unanswerable; and I think that 'Literature and 
 Dogma,' the book in which it is developed, is a 
 most valuable contribution to the cause of real 
 religion. 
 
 But there is one subordinate argument in the 
 book with which I do not at all agree, which seems 
 to me to involve considerable confusion of thoudit, 
 and which, if it were really valid, would detract 
 considerably from the glory of the Bible, — I allude 
 to Arnold's doctrine of the impersonality of God. 
 He maintains, in the first place, that we have no 
 reason for regarding the Power not ourselves that 
 makes for righteousness as a personal Power ; and 
 in the second place that the Jews in fact did not 
 so regard it, — that it was to them merely the stream 
 of tendency by which things fulifil the law of their 
 being. 
 
 Now as to the first contention that we have no 
 reason for regarding the Power not ourselves as 
 personal, I reply that Matthew Arnold was mis- 
 taken. We have the most cogent reason. He 
 knew little or nothing of metaphysics, or he would 
 have known that the personality of God had been 
 once and for ever proved by Hegel. Of the proof 
 you will find a comparatively simple exposition in 
 the last chapter of my ' Belief in God.' To-day I 
 shall confine myself to Matthew Arnold's second 
 E 
 
66 Inspiration. 
 
 contention, and I shall endeavour to show you 
 that the Jews did believe in a personal God. 
 
 His argument in regard to the Jewish views of 
 God involves two curious mistakes. (1) He con- 
 fuses the idea of the personality of God with 
 the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. (2) He 
 confuses metaphysical facts with metaphysical 
 
 I. He does not distinguish between personality 
 and tri-personality. Because he finds no trace of 
 the one in the Bible, he asserts there is no trace of 
 the other. It is of course quite evident to those 
 who have intelligently read both, that there is 
 nothing in the Bible answering to the so-called 
 Athanasian Creed, still less to the bungling mis- 
 translation of that Creed which we have in our 
 Prayer-books. But Matthew Arnold proceeds to 
 deduce from this fact the conclusion that the Jews 
 regarded God as a mere stream of tendency. This 
 argument is what, in logical language, is called a 
 non sequituT ; it is a fallacy, in which the conclu- 
 sion does not follow from the premisses — has, in fact, 
 nothing to do with it. 
 
 There is, as Matthew Arnold well points out, a 
 great and striking contrast between the complicated 
 theology of St Augustine and the simple theology 
 
The Personality of God. 67 
 
 of the psalmists. In his Soliloquies Augustine 
 prays thus : "■ Come to my help, Thou one God, one 
 eternal true substance, wliere is no discrepancy, no 
 confusion, no transience, no indigence, no death ; 
 where is supreme concord, supreme constancy, su- 
 preme plenitude, supreme life ; where nothing is 
 lacking, nothing over and above ; where He who 
 begets and He who is begotten of Him are one ; 
 God, above whom is nothing, outside of whom is 
 nothing, without whom is nothing; God, beneath 
 whom is the whole, in whom is the whole, for whom 
 is the whole ; Holy Trinity, superadmirable Trinity, 
 superinscrutable, superinaccessible, superincompre- 
 hensible, superintelligible, superessential, super- 
 essentially surpassing all sense, all reason, all in- 
 tellect, all intelligence, all essence, of supercelestial 
 minds. Oh, three coequal and coeternal Persons, 
 the one true God, who by Thyself inhabitest eter- 
 nity and light inaccessible ; one God, three Per- 
 sons ; one essence, power, wisdom, goodness ; one 
 and undivided Trinity; open unto me the gates 
 of righteousness." Compare with this the superb 
 simplicity of, say Psalm cxliii. : " Teach me to 
 do the thing that pleaseth Thee, for Thou art my 
 God. Let Thy loving spirit lead me forth into 
 the land of righteousness." The difference is enor- 
 mous, and it is most important that we bear it in 
 
68 Inspiration. 
 
 mind. There is no suggestion in the latter case of 
 tri-personality. 
 
 But surely it must be evident that personality 
 and tri-personality are different things, and that 
 men may have believed in the former without 
 believing in the latter. There is a doctrine of the 
 Trinity which is at once Scriptural and rational. I 
 have explained it to you in a sermon which has 
 been printed by itself, and which is also contained 
 in my ' Defects of Modern Christianity.' It is not 
 necessary for me now to allude to it any further 
 than to say that the true doctrine of the Trinity is 
 perfectly compatible with the simplicity of the old 
 Jewish conception of God. All I want you now to 
 notice is this — the absence of any reference to the 
 tri-personality of God in the Bible is not, as 
 Matthew Arnold seems to think, tantamount to 
 the denial of His personality. 
 
 11. Matthew Arnold makes a second mistake. 
 He confuses metaphysical facts with metaphysical 
 reasonings. He tells us that the Jews could not 
 have known or written about personality, because 
 they had no turn for metaphysics. Now let me 
 try and explain to you the meaning of the word 
 metaphysical, which Mr Arnold does not seem to 
 have understood. You know what is meant by 
 
The Personality of God. 69 
 
 physical : that stands for everythmg which can be 
 seen or touched, including the human body and 
 brain, and it is very often used to include sensa- 
 tions, thoughts and emotions, which, though they 
 cannot be seen or touched, are yet the correlates, so 
 to speak, of the material changes in the brain. Now 
 the metaphysical is that which lies beyond or be- 
 neath all this. In addition to your body, in addi- 
 tion to your brain, in addition to the molecular 
 changes in your brain, in addition to the thoughts 
 and sensations which correspond to these changes — 
 there is also you yourself. But this self, or soul, or 
 mind, or personality, or whatever you please to call 
 it, though metaphysical, is nevertheless real ; just as 
 much a fact as the sensations or the thoughts which 
 it experiences. It must exist in order to have ex- 
 periences, and still more to bring the variety of ex- 
 periences into the unity of an individual life. Its 
 existence, though occasionally denied, is generally 
 admitted by acute thinkers of all schools. Even 
 Mr Herbert Spencer, who dislikes metaphysics 
 quite as much as Matthew Arnold, nevertheless 
 says, "Personality is a fact of which each one is 
 conscious, a fact beyond all others the most certain." 
 So that we must not allow ourselves to be 
 frightened by the term metaphysics. We must not 
 allow ourselves to suppose that the Jews were in- 
 
70 Inspiration, 
 
 capable of believing in a personal God, because they 
 were not apt at metaphysical speculation. A fact 
 is one thing, reasoning about it is another. This is 
 just as true in the metaphysical as in the physical 
 sphere. Every man who is aware of his own exist- 
 ence is brought thereby face to face with a meta- 
 physical fact. He may not know that it is meta- 
 physical, but his ignorance does not alter the nature 
 of the fact. I daresay there are persons in the 
 world who do not know the meaning of the word 
 physical — the average agricultural labourer, e.g., 
 whose vocabulary consists of only about 300 words. 
 But he is acquainted with many physical things, 
 whether he calls them physical or not. And simi- 
 larly, though he may never have heard the terms 
 metaphysics or personality, he is nevertheless 
 vaguely aware of himself as a person. It is for him, 
 no less than for the philosopher, "a fact beyond 
 all others the most certain." Of course he cannot 
 reason and speculate elaborately about this meta- 
 physical fact ; but neither can he reason and specu- 
 late elaborately about physical facts. And so the 
 Jews — though they were incapable of producing the 
 Soliloquies of Augustine or the Logic of Hegel, 
 though they were incapable of any involved meta- 
 physical speculations — were well enough acquainted 
 with one metaphysical fact, with the fact viz., of 
 
The Personality of God. 7 1 
 
 personality; for to every one of them this was a 
 fact of consciousness. There was nothino; then to 
 prevent the Jews from believing in a personal God. 
 Such a belief would be suggested by their own 
 individual experience. 
 
 And when we turn to the Bible we find it full 
 of expressions that are quite incompatible with 
 Matthew Arnold's view. The God of the Hebrews 
 was a God who could be loved. Listen : " Oh taste 
 and see how gracious the Lord is ; blessed is the 
 man that trusteth in Him. Thou art my hiding- 
 place ; Thou shalt preserve me from trouble. Like 
 as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth 
 them that fear Him. Can a woman forget her child, 
 that she should not have compassion on the son of 
 her womb ? Yea, she may forget, yet will I not 
 forget thee. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not 
 want. He maketh me to lie down in green pas- 
 tures ; 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. 
 As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so 
 panteth my soul after Thee, God. Your Father 
 knoweth what things ye have need of. In every- 
 thing let your requests be made known unto God; 
 casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for 
 you. The hour cometh that ye shall be scattered. 
 
72 Inspwation. 
 
 and shall leave me alone ; and yet I am not alone, 
 for the Father is with me. As the Father hath 
 loved me, so have I loved you." Men could never 
 have loved, still less imagined themselves loved by, 
 a stream of tendency. Matthew Arnold bids us 
 remember that in all such passages we have the 
 language of poetry rather than of science, of emo- 
 tion rather than of thought. But the same might 
 be said of a lover's ode. That is the language of 
 poetry and emotion, and yet there is an objective 
 reality corresponding to it. The reality and the 
 worth of the object are to some extent guaranteed 
 by the strength of the emotion and the beauty of 
 the poem. And so we may feel quite sure that 
 the religious emotion of the Hebrews would never 
 have been evoked by any mere logical abstraction, 
 by any inanimate, impersonal force, such as the 
 " stream of tendency by which things fulfil the law 
 of their being." 
 
 Besides, this is a conception which the Jews were 
 quite incapable of forming. The Athanasian Creed 
 in the Bible would be less of an anachronism. The 
 Jews were not aware that things did fulfil the law 
 of their being. They knew nothing about law in 
 the scientific sense of the term. They did not 
 believe in the uniformity of nature. So far from 
 things fulfilling the law of their being by an inner 
 
The Personality of God. y2> 
 
 necessity, the Jews imagined constant interference 
 from without. The divine personality, to the He- 
 brew mind, was too much like the human. They 
 sometimes credited their God with changeableness 
 and caprice. It was an instance of inspiration, as 
 remarkable as it was rare, when the Deity was de- 
 scribed as " the same yesterday, to-day and for ever, 
 without variableness or shadow of turning." Such 
 a conception was never common among the Jews ; 
 never could have been common before the scientific 
 discoveries of the present century; and indeed it is 
 not yet common amongst ourselves. To credit the 
 Jews, therefore, with a conception which is even 
 now quite opposed to the ordinary man's way of 
 thinking, is a curious instance of inconsistency on 
 the part of a writer who wishes to free the Bible 
 from anachronisms. 
 
 Finally let me say, the conception of a tendency 
 by which things fulfil the law of their being, though 
 scientifically in advance of anything to which the 
 Jews had attained, is a very poor substitute for a 
 personal God. In itself the conception is good and 
 true. The course of nature is uniform ; things do 
 fulfil the law of their being with the most invi- 
 olable regularity. Science has proved this, and 
 in so doing has helped to purify our idea of the 
 
74 Inspiration, 
 
 Deity. It has shown that changeableness, though 
 an attribute of finite personality, does not belong 
 to the Infinite. But it is absurd to argue that 
 God is not a Person simply because He is not a 
 capricious Person. We do not restrict the term 
 personality to madmen, and yet their actions are 
 pre-eminently chaotic, irregular, disorderly, mean- 
 ingless and unpredictable. And to say that the 
 regularity of nature does away with the necessity 
 for a personal God, is to say the very opposite 
 of the truth. Eegularity, order, progress, are the 
 distinctive evidences of mind. There is a far 
 stronger logical necessity for %is to believe in the 
 personality of God than there was for the ancient 
 Hebrews. Men sometimes shrink from applying 
 this term to the Deity, from a sort of spurious 
 feeling of reverence. They say it is dragging 
 Him down to the level of a man. But to call 
 Him a stream of tendency, is to drag Him down 
 to a much lower level. The most poorly endowed 
 individual that ever lived on earth is of infinitely 
 more value, stands infinitely higher in the scale 
 of being, than any stream of tendency, however 
 vast, however powerful. " It is not a question," 
 says Herbert Spencer, " whether we should apply 
 the term personality or something lower to the 
 Deity, the question is between personality and 
 
TJie Personality of God. 75 
 
 something higher." But we have no higher term. 
 If He is less than personal we cannot reverence 
 Him as a superior, we cannot even love Him as an 
 equal ; we are greater than He. He may be to us 
 a matter of curiosity or of wonder ; but as for wor- 
 ship, — we might as well worship the molecular 
 forces or the law of gravitation. And any vain- 
 glorious sense of satisfaction we might feel at hav- 
 ing nothing above us in the universe, would soon 
 be dissipated by the thought, that having nothing 
 above us means having nothing upon which we can 
 rely. If we have been brought into existence by 
 an involuntary stream of tendency, our life can 
 have no purpose and no guarantee. The forces 
 which have thoughtlessly given us being may as 
 thoughtlessly annihilate us. By accident to-day we 
 are here, by accident to-morrow we may be nowhere. 
 So I claim for the ancient Hebrews undying 
 honour, because in the infancy of the race they 
 discovered and taught the fact — without which life 
 would have neither meaning nor hope, without 
 which the universe would be devoid of all stability 
 and beauty — the fact that the world and we have 
 come from a Being who thinks and wills and loves, 
 a Being who maketh the winds His angels, and 
 flaming fires his ministers, a Being whose tender 
 mercies are over all His works. 
 
76 
 
 The Canon. 
 
 rpHE word canon signifies a line, rule, or standard ; 
 -*- and anything which conforms to a rule or 
 standard may be therefore called canonical. The 
 old Alexandrian grammarians used the term can- 
 onical in the sense of classical ; they applied it and 
 restricted it to the best Greek authors, whose writ- 
 ings they regarded as models of excellence. Theolo- 
 gians have used the term canonical in the sense of 
 inspired ; and by the canon of Scripture is meant the 
 authorised catalogue of inspired books. 
 
 The early history of the Hebrew canon is unfor- 
 tunately veiled in obscurity. Something was prob- 
 ably done by Ezra, and still more by ISTehemiah, in 
 the way of collecting the religious writings of the 
 Jews. Tradition asserts that Ezra got together the 
 books of the Pentateuch under the title of the Law 
 of Moses, and that Nehemiah added to this col- 
 lection some of the historical books, some of the 
 Psalms, and some of the prophets. But the first 
 
The Canon. jj 
 
 definite mention of a recognised collection of sa- 
 cred writings is found about two hundred years 
 before Christ in the writings of Jesus, the son of 
 Sirach, who speaks of the law, the prophets, and 
 the other books of the Fathers. We have no means 
 of discovering, however, exactly which books 
 were included in this collection. It is not till 
 the time of Josephus, near the end of the first 
 century, a.d., that we find a complete enumeration 
 of the books which were regarded by the Jews as 
 canonical. The list which Josephus gives corre- 
 sponds with that which we have in our own Old 
 Testament. 
 
 Of the three divisions mentioned by Jesus Sirach, 
 the Jews long continued to venerate the first most 
 highly. This division contained the Pentateuch, 
 and was called the law. According to Philo, it 
 was inspired in a way peculiar to itself. The 
 second division, called the prophets, comprised, in 
 the time of Josephus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, 
 Kings, which were designated the former prophets, 
 as well as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve 
 minor prophets. Euth originally formed part of 
 Judges, and Lamentations part of Jeremiah. The 
 books in this second division — probably because 
 they were of later origin — were much less esteemed 
 than those in the first ; but they were nevertheless 
 
yS The Cano7z. 
 
 read in the public services along with the law. The 
 third division, which Sirach simply calls the rest 
 of the books, afterwards received a title of its own 
 — viz., Chethubim in Hebrew, and Hagiographa in 
 Greek. This division contained the Psalms, Pro- 
 verbs, Job, Canticles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, 
 Esther and Daniel. The books in the third class 
 were regarded by the Jews much as the Apocrypha 
 is now regarded in the Church of England. They 
 were considered of very inferior merit and author- 
 ity, and with the exception of Esther none of them 
 were read in public. 
 
 This canon, though generally recognised, was not 
 considered irrevocably settled till quite the end of 
 the first century. Up to that time the claims of 
 several of the books were hotly discussed. Even 
 Ezekiel, though belonging to the intermediate divi- 
 sion, gave offence because some of its statements 
 seemed to contradict the law. Esther was im- 
 pugned, on the ground that the name of God was 
 never once mentioned in it, and that therefore it 
 could have nothing to do with religion. Some ob- 
 jected to the book of Proverbs because of its incon- 
 sistencies ; others considered Ecclesiastes hereti- 
 cal; and others again declared that Canticles was 
 sensual. Owing to this critical and sceptical spirit 
 on the part of the Jewish rabbis, the suspected 
 
The Canon. 79 
 
 works were in danger of being altogether excluded 
 from the canon. However, in a.d. 90, at a synod 
 or council — these, you know, are the ecclesiastical 
 terms for a committee — at a synod held in Jamnia, 
 it was decided by a majority of votes that the books 
 which had given offence should be formally sanc- 
 tioned as canonical. We should like to know, but 
 of course we cannot, the qualifications of each mem- 
 ber of this synod. We do know, however, that one 
 of the majority — E. Akibee — spoke of the Song of 
 Songs as follows : " No day in the whole history of 
 the world is of so much worth as the one in which 
 the Canticles was given to Israel ; for all the 
 scriptures are holy, but the Song of Songs is most 
 holy ! " 
 
 The decision of the synod of Jamnia was never 
 publicly challenged. A few individual critics con- 
 tinued to be sceptical, but their scepticism had little 
 or no effect upon the current opinion. The third 
 division of the canon was still for a while regarded 
 as relatively inferior ; but by degrees all the books 
 that had been declared canonical came to be re- 
 garded as equally sacred. The canon adopted at 
 Jamnia — the Palestinian canon, as it is called — has 
 never since been altered. 
 
 But there is another canon — viz., the Alexandrian 
 — which was made by the Jews of the dispersion, 
 
8o The Canon. 
 
 and which contains the Apocrypha. This word 
 means concealed ; and the books were so called be- 
 cause, like those contained in the third division of 
 the Palestinian canon, they were not read in the 
 public services. These apocryphal books are first 
 found in a collected form in the Septuagint. 
 This is a Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 which was made in Alexandria in the reign of 
 Ptolemy Philadelphus ; and it receives its name 
 from the fact that seventy scholars were en- 
 gaged in its production. This version, besides trans- 
 lations of the books recognised in the Palestinian 
 canon, contains also a number of more recent 
 writings, many of which were composed originally 
 in Greek, others in Chaldee or Syriac, but few if 
 any in Hebrew. These later productions were 
 never accepted as canonical by the Palestinian 
 Jews, partly from their aversion to Greek litera- 
 ture, and partly because they supposed the prophetic 
 spirit to have ceased with the last of their own 
 prophets. 
 
 The apocryphal books, however, were adopted in 
 the early Christian Church. The Fathers for the 
 first three centuries knew nothing of Hebrew. 
 They used the Greek version of the Old Testament 
 therefore ; and from this version the translation 
 into Latin called the Vulgate was afterwards made. 
 
The Canon. 8i 
 
 The early Fathers constantly quote the Apocrypha 
 with the same respect as the rest of the Bible. The 
 Council of Carthage, at which St Augustine was 
 present and which was held at the end of the 
 fourth century, mentions the apocryphal writings in 
 its enumeration of the canonical Scriptures. And 
 this decision was afterwards confirmed in 1546 by 
 the Council of Trent, which added an anathema 
 against those who did not receive as canonical all 
 the specified books. According to this council, re- 
 cognising the canonicity of the Apocrypha is part 
 of what we must do to be saved. The Church of 
 England, since its secession from the Church of 
 Kome, refuses to admit the authority of the Council 
 of Trent. In fact it only recognises the authority 
 of four councils, in the decisions of which its own 
 doctrines find support, those viz. of Nicea, Con- 
 stantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. In regard to 
 the apocryphal books our Church, like the Lutheran, 
 allows them to form part of the Bible, but denies 
 their inspiration and therefore excludes them from 
 the canon. In other words the English Church 
 has adopted the Palestinian canon and not the 
 Alexandrian. According to the sixth article, the 
 apocryphal books are to be read for example of 
 life and instruction of manners, but are not to be 
 applied to establish any doctrine. The Eeformed 
 
 F 
 
82 The Cano7i. 
 
 Churches of the Continent advocate a strict sepa- 
 ration of the two classes of books, and maintain 
 that the Apocrypha should be excluded from the 
 Bible altogether. The British and Foreign Bible 
 Society has adopted for about forty years the prac- 
 tice of circulating the canonical books alone. They 
 were led to take this course chiefly, I believe, 
 through the clamour of their Scotch subscribers. 
 
 It is, however, quite impossible to draw any 
 definite line of demarcation between the apocryphal 
 books and the rest of the Old Testament. We are 
 justified in the attempt neither by the authority of 
 the early Church nor by common-sense. Perhaps 
 no man did so much in ancient times as Jerome 
 to make a wide distinction between the canonical 
 and apocryphal books. Hence he is reckoned the 
 bulwark of orthodoxy by writers who maintain the 
 absolute validity of the Hebrew canon. Yet Jerome 
 himself uses the apocryphal books in the same way 
 as the canonical. In one passage he quotes Sirach 
 between Matthew and Luke ; and he generally in- 
 troduces quotations from the Apocrypha with the 
 words — " as the Scripture saith." No doubt some 
 of the apocryphal writings are vastly inferior to 
 some of the canonical, but others again are in some 
 respects superior. Compare, for example, the Book 
 of Wisdom with the Book of Ecclesiastes. The 
 
The Canon, ^^i 
 
 latter, as I have explained to you/ was written by 
 a voluptuary and a cynic, who denies immortality 
 and maintains that pleasure is the chief end of life. 
 Ecclesiastes stands morally upon a lower level than 
 Lord Chesterfield's Letters. The Book of Wisdom 
 was written evidently with the purpose of refuting 
 the immoral teaching of Ecclesiastes. The author 
 of the Book of Wisdom puts all Koheleth's favourite 
 doctrines into the mouths of those whom he calls 
 " the wicked " or " the scoffers." In the Book of 
 Wisdom it is the wicked who describe human life 
 as short and miserable ; it is they who call it mad- 
 ness. It is the wicked who assert that we shall be 
 hereafter as though we had never been ; that death 
 and life are determined by chance ; that our body 
 will finally be turned into ashes and our spirit 
 vanish into soft air; and that beyond the grave 
 there is nothing but oblivion awaiting us. It is 
 the wicked who say, " Let us enjoy the good things 
 that are present; let us fill ourselves with costly 
 wine and ointment." In the Book of Wisdom 
 Koheleth is over and over again contradicted point- 
 blank. For example, in reply to his assertion that 
 he never succeeded in finding a single good woman, 
 the writer of the Book of Wisdom observes sarcas- 
 tically that those who despise wisdom must exj)ect 
 
 ^ See my ' Agnosticism.' 
 
84 The Canon. 
 
 to have foolish wives. And in reply to the asser- 
 tion that the wise man dieth as the fool, the writer 
 of the Book of Wisdom remarks that it is only in 
 the sight of the unwise that he seems to die. 
 
 But notwithstanding all this it appears to me 
 that Ecclesiastes is really the more valuable of the 
 two. It is true the author of the Book of Wisdom 
 assumes immortality, but I venture to say no man's 
 faith in another existence was ever strengthened 
 by a perusal of his treatise. It is true that Eccle- 
 siastes denies immortality ; but the author deduces 
 for us, acutely and consistently, the corollaries of 
 the denial. His philosophy of life is so mean, so 
 ghastly, so repellent, that we are startled into 
 reflection. We involuntarily say to ourselves — If 
 the denial of immortality leads to such conclusions 
 as Koheleth's, may not, must not, that denial be 
 erroneous ? So that, if by inspired you mean ortho- 
 dox, then it is the Book of Wisdom which is in- 
 spired ; if you mean clever, then it is Ecclesiastes. 
 And when you talk of " establishing a doctrine," you 
 must remember that there are two classes of people 
 in the world who get their doctrines established 
 in two totally different ways. For one class — by 
 far the most numerous — the doctrine is established 
 when it is stated upon authority ; and this author- 
 ity the Book of Wisdom lacks, because it is ex- 
 
The Canon. 85 
 
 eluded from the canon. But there is another class, 
 small and select, for whom the doctrine is only 
 established when they have worked their way to 
 it for themselves. And for this class the Book of 
 Ecclesiastes would have been of the greatest assist- 
 ance, even if it had been relegated to the Apocrypha. 
 I am very glad however that, in spite of all op- 
 position, it found its way into the canon, because 
 this ensures its being more widely known and read. 
 If it had not been canonical, it would take a brave 
 man to preach upon it ! 
 
 We come now to the N'ew Testament. The idea 
 of a canon of Christian writings had not been con- 
 ceived in the time of the apostles, nor even in that 
 of the apostolic fathers. Tor them the Old Testa- 
 ment alone was inspired and sacred. Justin Mar- 
 tyr, in the middle of the second century, thought 
 very little of the Pauline Epistles, though he 
 esteemed highly 1 Peter, 1 John, and the Apoc- 
 rypha. But even those which he regarded as 
 most valuable he never calls Scripture. Of the 
 Apocalypse he says, " A man among us named John 
 wrote it." In course of time, however, the apos- 
 tolic writings, or those considered apostolic, were 
 canonised, that is to say, raised to equal authority 
 with the books of the Old Testament. It was pro- 
 bably considered necessary to have a code of Chris- 
 
86 The Canon. 
 
 tian writings, divine and perfect like the Old Testa- 
 ment, to which appeal might be made against the 
 heretics, and which would prevent the original tra- 
 dition being lost by the multiplication of spurious 
 and forged documents. And so we find, towards the 
 end of the second century, a recognised canon of 
 the New Testament, consisting of two parts, called 
 respectively the Gospel and the Apostles. The first 
 part contained our four Gospels ; the second con- 
 tained the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of 
 Paul, 1 John, 1 Peter, and the Book of Eevelation. 
 At this time 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, and the Epistles of St Jude and St James, 
 were all regarded as non-apostolical, and therefore 
 non-canonical ; they were put on a level with the 
 Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. 
 In the middle of the third century Origen, while 
 recognising the sanctity of those books which had 
 been already canonised as apostolic, maintains 
 that he was still in considerable doubt as to the 
 worth of the rest. In the middle of the fourth 
 century Eusebius was intrusted by the Emperor 
 Constantine with a commission to make out a 
 complete collection of the Christian writings which 
 should be considered sacred. His list agrees with 
 our own, excej)t that he omits the Apocalypse 
 which he regarded as spurious. But the books 
 
The Canon. %"] 
 
 which he admits he divides into two classes — viz., 
 the homologoumena, or those which were generally 
 received ; and the antilegomena, or those which 
 had been controverted. In the second class he 
 places the Epistles of James, Jude, 1 Peter, and 2 
 and 3 John. The canon of Eusebius was adopted 
 by Athanasins. The latter however added the Apo- 
 calypse, and regarded all the books as having equal 
 claims to be regarded as apostolic and inspired. 
 
 I have only two remarks to make in conclusion. 
 You will notice that there is a serious historical in- 
 accuracy in the sixth article of ours which, after 
 giving the orthodox enumeration of the canonical 
 books, declares that '•' of their authority there was 
 never any doubt in the Church." Some of them, both 
 in the Old and New Testaments, were doubted and 
 disputed for centuries. My second remark is this, 
 there are at least three important omissions in our 
 canon. I allude to the book of Enoch which is 
 quoted by Jude, the Teaching of the Twelve Apos- 
 tles, and the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. 
 Those books contain much that is of very great 
 value, but they were not admitted into the canon, 
 and never seem to have been regarded as having 
 much claim to admission. I suppose this was be- 
 cause they were not written by apostles. But the 
 same reason should have excluded, in the opinion 
 
88 The Canon, 
 
 of all competent modern critics, the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews. The exclusion of the Teaching of the 
 Twelve Apostles, which has only recently been re- 
 discovered, is deeply to be regretted. It would 
 have served to emphasise the importance of con- 
 duct, on which Christ laid so much stress. I 
 shall speak to you about this book some other time. 
 But for the present I will only say that, if it had 
 been included in the Bible, and so recognised as 
 authoritative, the whole history of Christendom 
 would have been different. We should have had 
 less ecclesiastical theology, and infinitely more 
 practical religion. 
 
89 
 
 True and False Discontent, 
 
 IN REGARD TO PERSONAL CIRCUMSTAXCES. 
 
 " Thou shalt not covet,"— ExOD. xx. 17. 
 
 " Covet earnestly the best gifts." — 1 Cok. xii, 13. 
 
 A GOOD many persons who profess to be guided 
 -^^ by the teaching of the Bible seem to have 
 misread these passages. Judging by their conduct, 
 they appear to take the reverse principle for their 
 rule of life — do not covet at all the best gifts, but 
 covet earnestly the worst. There is a strange per- 
 versity in human nature, which inclines us always 
 to do exactly the opposite of what we ought. This 
 is strikingly exemplified in the case of covetousness 
 and discontent. Most men are eager for more 
 money, more pleasure, more admiration ; but they 
 care little, if anything, about possessing a more 
 enlightened mind, a more sympathetic heart, a 
 
90 Discontent 
 
 more noble character. They feel far more jealous 
 at tlie superior wealth of a rich neighbour, than at 
 the superior virtue of a good neighbour. Circum- 
 stances often displease them, but their own conduct 
 never. They are discontented where they ought to 
 be contented ; they are contented where they ought 
 to be discontented. They are dissatisfied with Pro- 
 vidence, but perfectly pleased with themselves. 
 
 Let us look to-day at true and false discontent 
 in regard to personal circumstances. 
 
 And here we must distinguish between circum- 
 stances which are unalterable, and circumstances 
 which are capable of being modified and changed. 
 In matters of the first kind all discontent is bad 
 and foolish. It not only does no good, but it does 
 actual harm; it positively increases the evil at 
 which we grumble. The more we think and speak 
 about the weather, e.g., the more detestable it 
 appears — at least in England, where weather gen- 
 erally means bad weather ; while if we had been 
 thinking and speaking of something else we should 
 probably have forgotten all about our atmospheric 
 surroundings. 
 
 '* Things without remedy should be without regard." 
 
 No doubt discontent may be in some degree con- 
 
in Regard to Personal Circnmstances, g i 
 
 stitutional, a matter of lohysiquc, proceeding rather 
 from a diseased state of nerves than from the 
 mind or heart. But even in these cases there is 
 a good deal that we may accomplish for ourselves 
 by voluntary effort. The mind may exert almost 
 as great an influence upon the body as the body 
 exerts upon the mind. A temperament which is 
 naturally inclined to melancholy may by voluntary 
 effort be considerably modified, if not indeed made 
 altogether sanguine. We should persistently culti- 
 vate the habit — unless we have it by nature — of 
 forcing ourselves to dwell on the agreeable side of 
 things rather than on the disagreeable, of forcing 
 ourselves to think rather of the pleasures which we 
 have than of those which we have not. There is 
 so much pleasantness in life which the most of us 
 lose through want of thought. It is pleasant to 
 exist, to breathe, to move, to talk, to think, to read. 
 But a pleasure must be attended to in order to be 
 felt. And therefore it often happens that pleasures, 
 of which we are actually in possession and which 
 we might be enjoying, are practically lost to us be- 
 cause our attention is all fixed on other pleasures, 
 of which we are not in possession and of which 
 therefore we can only feel the absence. We are 
 like the dog who dropped the real piece of meat, in 
 order to seize upon its shadow which seemed larger. 
 
92 Discontent 
 
 Happiness often lies so close to our feet that we 
 overlook it ; we discover its existence only when 
 it has vanished and cannot be recalled. There is 
 scarcely a faculty more worthy of being cultivated, 
 and there is no faculty so much neglected by most 
 of us, as the faculty for enjoyment, the faculty for 
 perceiving and making the most of the pleasures 
 which are actually ours. If I were the chancellor 
 of a university, I think I should do my best to 
 secure the founding of a new chair, a chair of Life. 
 I don't mean the science of life — biology — there are 
 plenty of chairs for that ; but I mean the art of life, 
 the theory of living well, of living the best possi- 
 ble life, of making the very most of our existence 
 physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually. I 
 daresay, if the thing was to be done properly, we 
 should require several chairs and several professors. 
 But they would all, I am sure, insist upon the im- 
 portance of cultivating the faculty of enjoyment. 
 It may be cultivated. It is cultivated, as a rule, 
 in the highest degree amongst the really wise. 
 The cleverest men and women generally find the 
 greatest pleasure in little things. Indeed, to my 
 mind, this is one of the tests of greatness. 
 
 " Endow the fool with sun and moon, 
 
 Being his, he holds them mean and low ; 
 But to the wise a little boon 
 Is great, because the giver's so." 
 
in 
 
 Regard to Personal Circumstances. 93 
 
 One thing that tends to make people discontented 
 is, that they expect too much happiness, especially 
 of an ecstatic and extraordinary kind. We take 
 an exaggerated view of our right to happiness. 
 "We think we deserve it, we think we ought to 
 have it, and that we are hardly dealt with if it is 
 denied us. "The whim we have of happiness is 
 somewhat thus. By certain valuations and aver- 
 ages of our own striking, we come upon some sort 
 of average terrestrial lot ; this we fancy belongs to 
 us by nature and of indefeasible right. It is simple 
 payment of our wages, of our deserts ; requires 
 neither thanks nor complaint ; only such overidus 
 as there may be do we account happiness; any 
 deficit, again, is misery. Now consider that we 
 make the valuation of our own deserts and our- 
 selves, and what a fund of self-conceit there is in 
 each of us, do you wonder that the balance should 
 so often dip the wrong way, and many a blockhead 
 cry, See, there, what a payment ! was ever worthy 
 gentleman so used ? I tell thee, blockhead, it all 
 comes of thy vanity, of what thou fanciest those 
 same deserts of thine to be. Fancy that thou de- 
 servest to be hanged, as is most likely, thou wilt 
 feel it happiness to be only shot ; fancy that thou 
 deservest to be hanged in a hair-halter, and it will 
 be luxury to die in hemp. So true is it that the 
 
94 Discontent 
 
 fraction of life can be increased in value, not so 
 much by increasing your numerator as by lessening 
 your denominator ; nay, unless my algebra deceives 
 me, unity itself divided by zero will give infinity. 
 Make thy claim of wages a zero then, and thou 
 hast the world under thy feet. Well did the wisest 
 of our time write, it is only with renunciation that 
 life, properly speaking, can be said to begin." 
 
 0. W. Holmes has less quaintly but very forcibly 
 expressed the same truth. " When one of us, who 
 has been led by native vanity or senseless flattery 
 to think himself or herself possessed of talent, ar- 
 rives at the full and final conclusion that he or she 
 is really dull, it is one of the most tranquillising 
 and blessed convictions that can enter a mortal's 
 mind. All our failures, our shortcomings, our 
 strange disappointments in the effect of our efforts, 
 are lifted from our bruised shoulders, like Chris- 
 tian's pack, at the feet of that Omnipotence which 
 has seen fit to deny us the pleasant gift of high in- 
 telligence, with which one look may overflow us in 
 a wider sphere of being." 
 
 Another thing that tends to make us discontented 
 is that we overestimate the importance of happi- 
 ness. We hold an erroneous view as to the desira- 
 bility of being ahvays happy. Happiness is a good 
 thing, a very good thing ; and we should always — 
 
ill Regard to Personal Ci7^cumstances. 95 
 
 '^ace the ascetics — take it most thankfully when we 
 can get it. But it is not the only good thing in the 
 universe. Unhappiness may sometimes be a good, 
 may be even better and more useful than happiness. 
 Some amount of misery is without doubt essential 
 for the development of the individual and the race. 
 " I asked myself — what is this that, ever since 
 earliest years, thou hast been fretting and fuming, 
 and lamenting, and self-tormenting, on account of ? 
 Say, in a word, is it not because thou art not 
 happy ? Because the Thou, sweet gentleman, is 
 not sufficiently honoured, nourished, soft -bedded, 
 and lovingly cared for ? Foolish soul ! What act 
 of legislation was there that thou shouldst be 
 happy ? A little while ago thou hadst no right to 
 be at all. What if thou wert born and predestined 
 not to be happy, but to be unhappy ? Art thou 
 nothing other than a vulture then, that fliest 
 through the universe seeking after something to 
 eat, and shriekingjiolefully because carrion enough 
 is not given to thee ? Close thy Byron, open thy 
 Goethe. There is in man a higher than the love 
 of happiness; he can do without happiness, and 
 instead thereof find blessedness ! Was it not to 
 preach forth this same higher, that sages and mar- 
 tyrs, the poet and the priest in all times, have 
 spoken and suffered; bearing testimony through 
 
96 Discontent 
 
 life and through death of the God-like that is in 
 man, and how in the God-like only has he strength 
 and freedom ? Which God-inspired doctrine thou 
 also art honoured to be taught, and broken with 
 manifold afflictions, even till thou become contrite 
 and learn it ! Thank destiny for these ; thankfully 
 bear what yet remains, thou hadst need of them ; 
 the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By 
 benignant fever-paroxysms is life rooting out the 
 deep-seated chronic disease and triumphs over 
 death. On the roaring billows of time thou art 
 not engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of 
 eternity. Love not pleasure, love God. This is the 
 everlasting yea, wherein all contradictions are solved, 
 wherein whoso walks and works it is well with him." 
 Close thy Byron, open thy Goethe ! One does not 
 like to say anything against the dead, and I feel 
 specially loath to say anything against Byron to- 
 day, when his centenary is being celebrated. He 
 no doubt did a great work politically for Greece; 
 he was no doubt a poet of the highest rank; he 
 could ill be spared from our national literature ; 
 but notwithstanding all this it must be said, for it 
 is true, that his theory of life was rotten to the 
 core. He seems to have held that he had a right 
 to an infinite amount of happiness, and that he was 
 at liberty to whine and howl if he did not get it, 
 
in Regard to Personal Circumstances. 97 
 
 even though his own conduct must have inevitably 
 made him wretched in any rational universe of 
 which it is possible to conceive. 
 
 There is another reason why we are much less 
 happy, and therefore much less contented, than we 
 might be. It is this. We have not learnt to take 
 enough pleasure in the pleasure of other people. 
 The professors of life to whom I have before re- 
 ferred would, I am quite sure, not only insist upon 
 the importance of cultivating the faculty of en- 
 joyment with a view to making the most of our 
 own pleasures, but would also urge its cultivation 
 with a view to making the most of the pleasures 
 of others. " The heart," says a Japanese proverb, 
 " makes the world." What we find the world will 
 depend very much upon what the world finds us. 
 Doing our duty as Christians, learning to live in 
 the lives of others, is one of the surest means 
 towards living a happy life of our own. In this 
 way our pleasures will be increased and our pains 
 diminished ten thousand fold. This is finely illus- 
 trated in one of Adelaide Proctor's poems, where 
 an old man is relating the story of his life to his 
 little niece : — 
 
 *' Hark ! the wind among the cedars 
 Waves their white arms to and fro ; 
 I remember how I watched them 
 Sixty Christmas days ago ; 
 
98 Discontent 
 
 Then I dreamt a glorious vision 
 Of great deeds to crown each year; 
 
 Sixty Christmas days have found me 
 Useless, helpless, blind — and here ! " 
 
 He goes on to relate to her how his soldier- 
 brother had won the fame and renown which he 
 himself had failed to win. And then he says — 
 
 * ' Since the crown on him had fallen, 
 
 Victor in a noble strife, 
 I could live and die contented 
 
 "With my poor ignoble life. 
 I am proud to be his brother. 
 
 Proud to think that hope was true ; 
 Though 1 longed and strove so vainly. 
 
 What I failed in he could do." 
 
 The secret of contentment is, as I before intimated, 
 the secret of happiness. You remember the conver- 
 sation between the keeper and King Henry VI. : — 
 
 " Keeper. Ay, but thou talkest as if thou wert a king. 
 
 King Henry. Why, so I am, in mind; and that's enough. 
 
 Keeper. But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown ? 
 
 King Henry. My crown is in my heart, not on my head ; 
 Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones. 
 Nor to be seen : my crown is call'd content ; 
 A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy." 
 
 But there is another side to this question. 
 Though it is very undesirable to fret and grumble 
 over circumstances which cannot be changed, yet 
 it is most desirable, in so far as our condition is 
 capable of being improved, that we should be suffi- 
 
in Regard to Personal Circumstances. 99 
 
 ciently discontented with it to effect this improve- 
 ment. The morbid discontent enervates and par- 
 alyses. The healthy discontent stimulates and 
 encourages. Instead of lamenting that our cir- 
 cumstances are not made better for us by accident 
 or by Providence, we should set about endeavour- 
 ing to make them better for ourselves. We should 
 always be trying to improve them. No one who is 
 capable of earning £200 a-year should be content 
 with earning £100. No one who can make £10,000 
 a-year should be satisfied with £5000. No one 
 who is worth £100,000 should be willing to take 
 £50,000. And so with regard to position. Every 
 one who is capable of rising to the top of the tree 
 in his profession should be discontented — with a 
 healthy, manly discontent — so long as he finds 
 himself only in the middle. 
 
 " The present is enough for common souls " — 
 and for common souls only. This rivalry, this 
 desire to get on, this determination to outstrip 
 if possible our neighbours, is in reality good for 
 the world at large no less than for the individual 
 whom it inspires. Landor truly says : " Those who 
 are satisfied sit still and do nothing ; those who are 
 not satisfied are the sole benefactors of the world." 
 If you would like to see this proved, you had better 
 read Mallock's ' Social Equality.' " The human 
 
I oo Discontent 
 
 character," as he remarks, " is so constituted that, 
 without the desire of inequality as a motive, the 
 higher forms of skill or even of application are 
 unproducible. In spite of the modest life charac- 
 teristic of the scientific student, in spite of the 
 absence in it of struggle for wealth, or perhaps 
 more properly I may say, because of this absence, 
 we can clearly detect in it marks of a tendency, in 
 proportion as exceptional power is felt, not only to 
 use this power, but to claim a position correspond- 
 ing to it. Let a man of science who has made some 
 great discovery have this discovery claimed for an 
 inferior and later rival, and his indignation will 
 afford a singular revelation to us. He will feel, 
 and very rightly, that he has been defrauded of an 
 honour that was due to him ; and though he may 
 not have thought of it until he finds it to be with- 
 held, the value he has unconsciously put upon it 
 will be revealed to us by his anger at its loss." 
 This desire for inequality, or in other words a 
 healthy discontent, is not a tendency to be crushed. 
 It is an impulse given us from above. It has been 
 at the root of all the great achievements of the 
 human race, achievements which not only benefited 
 the individual by whom they were originated, but 
 indirectly benefited the world through them. But 
 
in Regard to Personal Circumstances, i o i 
 
 for discontent men would never have emerged from 
 primeval barbarism. 
 
 And it seems to me very important that this 
 should be borne in mind in our dealings with the 
 lower classes. The first thing we have to do is to 
 make them discontented, — discontented with them- 
 selves and their surroundings. What ! you say, 
 do they not grumble enough, and too much ? They 
 may grumble perhaps at times about some com- 
 paratively unimportant grievances, but upon the 
 whole the worst phase of their degradation consists 
 in their being too contented. They are, to use 
 Lewis ]\Iorris's words, " sunk in a fathomless slough 
 of content." I am not at all sure that this is 
 sufficiently understood by some of the university 
 workers in the East End at Toynbee Hall and 
 similar institutions. I am inclined to think there 
 is rather too much of the " hail fellow well met " 
 in their deportment towards the lower classes. It 
 is the most cruel kindness. Endeavouring to per- 
 suade these people that they are already as good 
 as their betters, is the most infallible method of 
 preventing them from ever becoming so. If you 
 want really to benefit them, you must begin, kindly 
 but firmly, to make them conscious of their in- 
 feriority. The one thing you have to do is to 
 
I02 Discontent, 
 
 inspire them with a healthy discontent. But there 
 is always a clanger that people with socialistic ten- 
 dencies, in their efforts to produce equality, will be 
 content with levelling down instead of levelling up. 
 For one and all of us that amount of discontent 
 is necessary — neither more nor less — which will 
 incite us, nay compel us, to make continual pro- 
 gress, physical, mental, moral, spiritual, 
 
 " From well to better, daily self-surpast. " 
 
I03 
 
 Tnte mid False Discontent, 
 
 IL 
 
 FALSE DISCONTENT IN EEGAED TO KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 TT is not uncommon, I think, to meet with a false, 
 -*- morbid and hurtful discontent in regard to the 
 limitations of human knowledge. Why, it is some- 
 times asked, have we not been told distinctly 
 and unmistakably whence we came and whither 
 we are going ? Why has it not been explained to 
 us how the world was made ? Why have we been 
 left to discover the mysteries of nature for our- 
 selves, instead of having them divinely revealed ? 
 Why does the acquisition of knowledge require so 
 much effort ? Why is the attainment of certainty 
 difficult, almost impossible ? And in particular, 
 why have not the fundamental doctrines of religion 
 been miraculously unfolded to us, in such a way as 
 to preclude all possibility of mistake? Why, if 
 
I04 False Discontent 
 
 there be a God, does He not reveal His existence 
 •and His character, so that all men may know and 
 believe ? Why, if immortality be a fact, are we 
 not allowed to communicate with those who have 
 gone before ? Why have we not received some 
 definite information as to the life that awaits us 
 hereafter ? 
 
 ISTow I suppose you and I have at times asked 
 some of these questions. We may perhaps scarcely 
 see the presumptuousness of asking them. And 
 yet, taken together, they amount to the modest in- 
 quiry — Why do I not know all about everything ? 
 why am I not omniscient ? why am I not God ? 
 
 The limitation of human knowledge is largely, at 
 any rate, due to the finitude of the human mind. 
 And surely nothing can be more foolish than to 
 grumble at this finitude. God Himself could not 
 have made us infinite. And the finitude of the 
 human mind carries with it, not only the present, 
 but the eternal limitation of human knowledge. 
 The limits may be always receding, but they can 
 never be completely removed. The wisest finite 
 being will not to the end of eternity know the full 
 history of any single particle of matter ; for every 
 such particle is related to an infinite number of 
 other particles, and by them it is conditioned and 
 made to be wliat it is. The history of an atom. 
 
in Regard to Knowledge. 105 
 
 therefore, would require infinite time to study and 
 infinite faculties to comprehend. And if this be 
 true of every tiniest fragment of the material of tlie 
 universe which we can touch and weigh and ana- 
 lyse and experiment upon, how much more pro- 
 foundly true must it be of the infinite and eternal 
 Mind, whom no man hath seen or can see, who can 
 never be fully comprehended except by Himself 
 alone ? 
 
 " If you will think of it," says Mr Savage in his 
 'Belief in God,' "it is almost impossible in the 
 nature of things for an infinite, boundless, absolute 
 Being to reveal Himself as infinite, as boundless, to 
 a finite and limited nature. It is not a question as 
 to whether God would like to reveal Himself to 
 man as He is and all He is ; it is a question of 
 possibility. The Omnipotent cannot commit that 
 which is absurd. Omnipotence itself cannot make 
 a square without four sides to it. Omnipotence 
 itself cannot make a stick without two ends. 
 Omnipotence cannot achieve that which is essen- 
 tially and inherently impossible. And so the in- 
 finite, as infinite, cannot be revealed to the finite. 
 Suppose a man attempts to reveal to me, while 
 I am in the centre of the continent, the Atlantic 
 ocean, — what will he do ? He will try perhaps a 
 verbal description. But unless I have seen the 
 
io6 False Discontent 
 
 ocean, the words cannot mean to me what they 
 mean to the speaker. Suppose he brings me a 
 bucketful of water from the Atlantic, has he re- 
 vealed to me the ocean ? It is only a bucketful 
 of water, no matter where it came from. He is 
 confined by the limits of the method he uses in 
 which to reveal it to me. So the infinite cannot 
 possibly reveal itself as infinite to the finite. It 
 can only manifest itself in limited, confined ways, 
 with broken lights and fragmentary utterances." 
 
 But you would have the revelation very distinct 
 and unmistakable so far as it goes ? Well, there is 
 no possibility of an unmistakable revelation. " Sup- 
 pose that God by an interposition of miraculous 
 power should write His name across the sky in 
 letters of stars, should thus declare that God is, 
 that He loves men, that He desires them to do 
 so-and-so. Tliis would be in some one specific 
 language of the world ; and it would then have to 
 be translated and interpreted to all the rest of the 
 nations. Or if it were written in all the different 
 languages of the world, the meanings of words 
 change from age to age ; languages become obsolete 
 and die; and so in a few hundreds or thousands 
 of years the starry message would have become 
 meaningless. Besides, it would all along be open 
 to any man to question whether this particular 
 
in Regard to Knowledge. 107 
 
 arrangement of stars did not take place under the 
 influence of natural law. If tlieir arrangement into 
 systems and galaxies is no proof of Deity, neither 
 would their arrangement into words and sentences 
 be a proof. " If they hear not Moses and the pro- 
 phets, neither will they be persuaded though one 
 rose from the dead." 
 
 But it may be said, granting the impossibility 
 of an absolute, infallible, unmistakable, complete 
 revelation of the Infinite — granting this, surely 
 we might know more than we do ; the occasional 
 discoveries of genius might have been taught to 
 the race at the beginning; men might have been 
 prevented from wandering century after century 
 in error and delusion; or at any rate we might 
 have been endowed with faculties that would make 
 the acquisition of knowledge as easy and as pleas- 
 ant and as quick, as it is now difficult and painful 
 and slow. Surely this was within the scope of 
 Omnipotence. 
 
 I reply — how do you know ? Perhaps not. You 
 are accustomed to speak of the adaptation which is 
 observable in nature, and I agree with you that 
 there is adaptation. But are you aware what 
 adaptation implies ? Adaptation is the employ- 
 ment of means for the accomplishment of ends ; 
 and of course if the ends could have been accom- 
 
io8 False Discontent 
 
 plished without the means, the means would not 
 have been employed. Adaptation is the overcom- 
 ing of difficulties which are in the way of the 
 adapter, and which, if not overcome, would preclude 
 the accomplishment of his purposes. Everything 
 combines to show that in the case of creation these 
 difficulties were gigantic, and that they are only 
 being gradually conquered during the slow progress 
 of evolution. And besides these initial difficulties, 
 there are others which would inevitably arise from 
 the necessary solidarity or oneness of the universe. 
 Worlds, races, individuals, are not, and could not 
 be, isolated. They are parts of a single whole. 
 Everything in the universe affects, and is in turn 
 affected by, everything else. The development of 
 what we call mind, for example, is no doubt to 
 some extent conditioned by the possibilities and 
 impossibilities of what we call matter. The de- 
 velopment of the individual is conditioned by his 
 circumstances and surroundings ; and these circum- 
 stances and surroundings are conditioned again by 
 an infinite number of events which have been tak- 
 ing place in infinite space throughout infinite time. 
 If any one of these events had been different, the 
 entire character of the universe would have been 
 changed ; perhaps, in that case, there could have 
 been no rational, coherent universe at all. And so 
 
in Regard to Knowledge. 109 
 
 it is nonsense to assume that we might have known 
 more, might have been more highly endowed, more 
 miraculously instructed, more favourably circum- 
 stanced. The problem of creation was a problem 
 of infinite complexity, and how can any finite being 
 dare to say that it could have been more skilfully 
 solved ? It may be absolutely impossible for the 
 Almighty to reveal Himself one whit more clearly 
 or more quickly to one single human being than 
 He has already done. It may be absolutely impos- 
 sible that the circumstances of a single individual 
 should be changed for the better, in any manner 
 that would not involve a change in the entire sys- 
 tem of the universe for the worse. 
 
 And even if it had been possible for the Deity to 
 give us miraculously more knowledge than we pos- 
 sess, it might not have been expedient. The key- 
 note of the universe is progress. We see this in 
 physical evolution; we see it in the development 
 of the human race. And what higher endowment 
 could have been bestowed on us than the capacity 
 for progress? You say, why were we not made 
 perfect at the first, and then there would have 
 been no need for progress ? I reply, an intelligent 
 being cannot be made perfect. He can be put into 
 the way of becoming perfect, and that is the very 
 most that can be done for him. If you think hap- 
 
TTO False Discontent 
 
 piness — no, I will not say happiness, but a certain 
 low form of physical comfort — if you think that is 
 the most desirable life, tlien, I grant, you may logi- 
 cally regret the necessity for acquiring knowledge. 
 But surely comfort is not enough to make an ideal 
 life. If you want to become anything worth be- 
 coming, you must do more than enjoy pleasure. 
 I know of one way only, I can conceive of one 
 way only, in which you can become great or good, 
 and that is through conflict, effort, pain. We need 
 not grumble, therefore, at the difficulty of acquir- 
 ing knowledge. That difficulty is its own reward. 
 It braces and develops the mind just as athletic 
 exercises brace and develop the body. We need 
 not grumble that much must always remain un- 
 known ; it is a matter for thanksgiving. If nothing 
 were left for us to learn, life would become stagnant 
 and monotonous, and, for the best of us at any 
 rate, would lose its chief charm. We need not 
 grumble at the painful consciousness of ignorance 
 which sometimes afflicts us. It serves many im- 
 portant purposes. Darkness has its uses as well 
 as light. We develop the roots of our hyacinths 
 by keeping them in the shade. And similarly it 
 is only after we have realised the disadvantages 
 of ignorance, that we have gained the strongest 
 incentive to knowledge. 
 
in Regard to Knowledge. 1 1 1 
 
 These are just a few out of many considerations 
 that might be offered, all of which tend to show 
 that grumbling at the limits of human knowledge 
 is a most foolish not to say wicked waste of time. 
 This limitation may be inevitable, may even be 
 eminently desirable. The universe as a whole, 
 and our own personal environment and circum- 
 stances in particular, may be in all respects the 
 very best which Omnipotence could devise, nay 
 the very best which Omniscience could conceive. 
 
 And even if the limitation of knowledge were 
 proved to be an evil, — there it is, it cannot be 
 helped ; grumbling at it does no good, but on the 
 contrary does much harm. We saw last Sunday 
 that the more we grumbled at what we did not 
 like, the more sensible we became of its unpleasant- 
 ness, and that thus our discontent actually increased 
 the evils of which we were complaining. We saw 
 too that while we were thinking of what was pain- 
 ful in our circumstances, we were losing, through 
 want of attention, many pleasures which we should 
 otherwise have enjoyed. There are few of us whose 
 circumstances are all painful. There are few of us 
 for whom life does not contain many pleasures, 
 though they may be of a simple and unobtrusive 
 kind. It is scarcely too much to say that it will 
 depend upon the balance of attention whether we 
 
1 1 2 False Discontent 
 
 find life to be agreeable or the reverse. If we will 
 persist in dwelling on its painful elements, we shall 
 lose altogether its brightness and its joy. We 
 saw too last Sunday that the false and grumbling 
 kind of discontent had a depressing, paralysing 
 effect, and prevented us from making any efforts 
 for such improvement of our circumstances and 
 surroundings as would otherwise have been within 
 our power. The time we spend, for example, in 
 lamenting a failure, might have been employed in 
 achieving a success. So here in regard to know- 
 ledge. There are morbid agnostics who are for 
 ever whining about the limitation of human know- 
 ledge; and the more they lament the more they 
 increase the evil of which they complain. They 
 dwell so much upon what is unknowable, that they 
 lose sight altogether of what is knowable. Because 
 they cannot have a physical and a tangible revela- 
 tion, therefore they will pay no heed to any revela- 
 tion whatsoever. Because God cannot be painted 
 on the retina, therefore they will not look for Him 
 with the mind. Because they cannot know every- 
 thing about the supersensible world, they give them- 
 selves up to despair and refuse to know anything. 
 I believe ^ that God has spoken to man, that He 
 
 1 I quote again," with certain verbal alterations, from Savage's 
 'Belief in God.' 
 
in Regard to Knoivledge. 1 1 3 
 
 is speaking to-day, and that in the very nature of 
 thino's, beino" the livino; and workino; God, He must 
 speak to every intelligence that is competent to 
 understand. God has given man a revelation, a 
 revelation in two volumes — volume first, the phy- 
 sical laws and life of the universe; and volume 
 second, the nature and history and aspirations and 
 hopes and struggles of man. Physical nature and 
 man are the perpetual, the living, the progressive, 
 the ever -unfolding revelation of God. God has 
 revealed Himself as existing, as the one, as the 
 infinite, as the eternal,^ as intelligent, as conscious, 
 as personal, as good, as the father and friend of 
 man. Look over the leaves for a moment of this 
 magnificent revelation, and see some of the things 
 therein contained. The greatness of God, His 
 grandeur, is manifest in the stars, the depths, the 
 infinite depths of the heavens over our head ; and 
 even in this world the might and majesty of the 
 mountains, the grandeur of the oceans, the perilous 
 magnificence of avalanches, the precipitous heights 
 and mountainous valleys like the Yosemite; the 
 thunderous grandeur of cataracts like Niagara ; the 
 overpowering greatness that thrusts itself upon 
 us at every turn, and awes us with the fulness 
 of the majesty of the Being of which even those 
 
 ^ So far Herbert Spencer would go. 
 H 
 
1 1 4 False Discontent 
 
 things afford but the faintest suggestion. In the 
 placid brightness of the moon passing across the 
 silvery night sky ; the sheen of the waters under 
 the glancing rays of the sun ; the beautiful tinting 
 of the unfolding rose ; the more beautiful tinting 
 of a maiden's cheek ; the deep unfathomable beauty 
 of a child's eye ; the instinct of beauty in man 
 that forms wonderful statues of stone and covers 
 canvas with the creations of his thought ; all the 
 infinite beauty of the world ; the music of bird- 
 songs; the beauty of the plumage of the bird of 
 paradise ; the wondrous finish of the humming- 
 bird's wing ; the beauty in the heavens above and 
 in the earth beneath; — and all these things are 
 but glints and flashes of the infinite beauty of God. 
 And then the love of God, manifested in the infinite 
 bounty of the universe on every hand; welling 
 up in the feelings of friendship ; incarnate in the 
 mother bending over the cradle of her child, or 
 watching through hours of silent agony day after 
 day, night after night ; the love that binds hus- 
 band and wife together, and creates all the best 
 happiness of the world ; the devotion witnessed to 
 by martyr fires, by the heroic struggles and toils 
 and travels and battles for humanity and for right ; 
 the pity, the tenderness, the charity of men like 
 Wilberforce, of men like Howard, men that cared 
 
in Regard to Knozvlcdge. 1 1 5 
 
 and suffered for those whom they had never seen 
 and wouki never see, — all these things, simply 
 whisperings of what can never be completely ut- 
 tered, of the unspeakable reserve that is behind. 
 
 If all this does not teach us to believe in God, 
 nothing would suffice to do so. It has been enough 
 for many ordinary men and women ; it has been 
 enough for all extraordinary thinkers of the first 
 rank. It was enough for the greatest philosopher 
 of this century, Charles Darwin. "No man," he 
 said, "■ can stand in the tropic forests without feel- 
 ing that they are temples filled with the varied 
 productions of the God of nature, and that there is 
 more in man than the breath of his body." And 
 again : " The chief argument for the existence of 
 God is the impossibility of conceiving that this 
 grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious 
 selves, arose by chance." 
 
 Finally in one word, let me say to believe in 
 God — really and fully to believe in God — is to be 
 freed from every remnant of morbid discontent. 
 It is to believe that whatever is, is best. 
 
 " Yes, in the maddening maze of things, 
 And tossed by storm and flood. 
 To one fixed stake my spirit clings, — 
 I know that God is good," 
 
ii6 
 
 True and False Discontent. 
 III. 
 
 TRUE DISCONTENT IN REGARD TO KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 rpHE subject with which we were engaged last 
 -^ Sunday was false discontent or morbid grum- 
 bling at the limitation of human faculties. Some 
 limitation, as I pointed out to you, necessarily fol- 
 lowed from the fact that we were finite ; our know- 
 ledge is and will always be inevitably limited. 
 And even supposing it had been theoretically pos- 
 sible for the Deity to teach us more quickly and 
 easily and surely than we are at present able to 
 learn, such a kind of education might have been 
 pre-eminently undesirable. But in any case, all 
 abstract considerations apart, the limitations of 
 knowledge which actually exist will not be re- 
 moved by grumbling. Morbid discontent makes 
 us only more conscious than ever of that which we 
 
Trice Discontent. 1 1 7 
 
 dislike. We may become so depressed and para- 
 lysed by thinking perpetually of what cannot be 
 known, that we shall lack the necessary energy 
 to make ourselves acquainted with what can be 
 known. Morbid discontent is always an unmixed 
 curse. 
 
 There is however another kind of discontent, 
 which is not depressing, but on the contrary essen- 
 tially inspiring. This is discontent not with the 
 inevitable, but with that which is capable of im- 
 provement ; not with the possibilities of knowledge 
 in general, but with our own attainments in partic- 
 ular; discontent, not that so much must always 
 remain unknown for every finite intelligence, but 
 that we know so little in comparison with what 
 others know, in comparison with what we might 
 have known, in comparison with what we may 
 yet know. All the vast stores of knowledge 
 which are now in the possession of the race owe 
 their existence in the last resort to this healthy 
 discontent. 
 
 There is something very pathetic, is there not ? 
 about the helplessness and ignorance of the primi- 
 tive man. He knew neither the meanings nor 
 causes of any of the phenomena of nature. He 
 could not guess which of them were recurrent, nor 
 when they would recur. It seemed as if tlie earth 
 
1 1 8 True Discontent 
 
 were the playground of capricious spirits, who 
 made things pleasant or unpleasant for him just 
 as the fancy seized them. At the first eclipse he 
 thought the sun had been swallowed up for ever : 
 during a thunderstorm he imagined that the world 
 was coming to an end; and at all times he felt 
 himself surrounded by a chaos of lawless forces, 
 which were likely at any moment to combine for his 
 destruction. How surprised he must be now if he 
 knows the achievements of his descendants ! We 
 have analysed the material world into a few com- 
 ponent elements, and discovered that earth and sea 
 and air, trees and mountains, the bodies of animals 
 and of men, sun, moon and stars, are nothing more 
 than these simple elements in disguise. We have 
 marked out precisely the course which the earth 
 and the planets pursue ; we know exactly the 
 whereabouts of a comet which has not been visible 
 for generations ; we have discovered the law — the 
 law of gravitation, viz., — which binds all the parts 
 of the universe into a whole. We have estimated 
 with the minutest accuracy the velocity of light 
 and sound and nervous energy ; and we have dis- 
 covered the correlation of physical forces, so that 
 we are able to change one into another at our will. 
 The old chaotic universe has been reduced to order ; 
 its phenomena have been arranged and classified ; 
 
in Regard to Knowledge. 1 1 9 
 
 we can guess pretty accurately what Nature lias 
 done in the past ; we can predict infallibly most of 
 what she will do in the future ; we understand her 
 as well — nay, better — than ourselves. 
 
 Now all these treasures of science are, as I said, 
 the result of discontent. Men soon became con- 
 scious of their ignorance, soon began to chafe under 
 it, soon tried to conquer it. They were not content 
 to remain the playthings of nature ; and so they 
 watched and thought and conjectured and puzzled 
 and reasoned ; and the result is that thousands 
 and tens of thousands of problems which present- 
 ed difficulties apparently insuperable have been 
 completely and for ever solved. These magnificent 
 results have been achieved through the efforts of a 
 few — a comparatively few — inquiring minds. The 
 average man does not inquire. He is not discon- 
 tented. He is perfectly satisfied with what he 
 actually knows — or with what he actually does not 
 know. "Mankind," says Johnson, "have a great 
 aversion to intellectual labour. Even if knowledge 
 were easily attained, more people would be content 
 to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble 
 to acquire it." The truly discontented man, the 
 man of scientific spirit, will devote his life, if needs 
 be, "to read the secret of a weed's plain heart." 
 The falsely contented man would not take the same 
 
1 20 True Discontent 
 
 ainount of trouble, though he knew it would make 
 him master of universal knowledge. 
 
 The true discontent is, I am afraid, much rarer 
 in the mental than in the physical sphere. Most 
 people want to get on — as it is called — in the latter. 
 But most people — I think I may almost venture to 
 say most people — do not want to get on in the 
 former. Dr Johnson, in his Dictionary, has wittily 
 defined enough to be " a little more than you've got." 
 We all realise the truthfulness of this definition in 
 regard to physical matters — in regard to money, for 
 example, and pleasure, and popularity. But in 
 regard to knowledge, Dr Johnson's definition would 
 often be quite inapplicable. Enough knowledge 
 with a vast number of people, is just as much as 
 they've got. If they know grammar, they rather 
 look down upon those who do not. But if they 
 know only the grammar of one language, they have 
 not the slightest desire to know the grammar of 
 two. People like this, of course, never know any- 
 thing about science ; and they do not want to. 
 They look upon scientific pursuits as a waste of 
 time. What is the good of it ? What can it 
 matter whether gravity acts directly as the mass 
 and inversely as the square of the distance, or 
 inversely as the mass and directly as the square of 
 the distance ? The scientific spirit they regard as a 
 
in Regard to Knowledge. 1 2 1 
 
 sort of monomania, or at any rate as an amiable foible. 
 In the East End there are people degraded in body, 
 living in the midst of degrading physical associa- 
 tions, and they are nevertheless contented. And 
 there are people in the West End, degraded in mind, 
 living in the midst of degrading mental associa- 
 tions, passing day after day, week after week, month 
 after month, without ever receiving or exchanging 
 an idea ; reading nothing but the fashionable intelli- 
 gence in the ' Morning Post ' ; talking nothing but 
 small-talk ; eating, drinking, sleeping ; fishing, shoot- 
 ing, hunting; riding, driving, yachting; dancing, 
 flirting, sight-seeing — but thinking, never. And they 
 are satisfied with their mental condition. In fact, 
 satisfied is scarcely the word to express their strong 
 degree of contentment. They are proud of them- 
 selves. They take a special pride in what they call 
 their opinions — I suppose for the reason that they 
 are specially worthless. Where their opinions come 
 from they would find it impossible to say ; but they 
 have got them, and that is enough. They will 
 neither change nor add to them on any considera- 
 tion wliatever. If by chance they hear anything 
 that sounds like a new idea, they shudder and are 
 dismayed. They do not, they naively tell us, want 
 their opinions disturbed. Their poor little stock of 
 notions they regard as a complete system of phil- 
 
122 True Discontent 
 
 osophy, and they pity or despise every one who 
 does not possess the same intellectual treasures. 
 
 It is a strange thing that you always find most 
 humility where there is least apparent need for it. 
 I am constantly meeting with fresh illustrations 
 of this fact. I have, you must know, a very large 
 correspondence. Scores, in the course of the year 
 hundreds of persons write to me about my sermons, 
 my lectures and my books. To the great majority 
 of these writers I feel myself largely indebted. 
 Sometimes they point out blunders into which I 
 have fallen ; sometimes they draw my attention to 
 omissions, the importance of which I had over- 
 looked; sometunes they give me completely new 
 ideas. Now, without a single exception, all the 
 letters which have taught me anything have been 
 written in a modest and diffident manner. The 
 writers address me apologetically. Though they 
 are really conferring a favour, they seem afraid lest 
 they should be taking a liberty. And the modesty 
 of the letter is almost always in exact proportion 
 to its value. I remember one, for example, the 
 writer of which seemed more than usually self- 
 distrustful, in which it was suggested that most of 
 the topics I discussed in a certain sermon would 
 have been better omitted, and that a good many 
 topics which I omitted would have been better dis- 
 
in Regard to Knozvledge, 1 2 3 
 
 cussed. The suggestion was a good one ; my cor- 
 respondent was quite riglit.^ On the other hand, 
 self-complacency and ignorance, impertinence and 
 stupidity, always go together. I sometimes — very 
 rarely however I am happy to say — receive a rude 
 letter, generally anonymous, written in a high and 
 mighty style, simply informing me of the fact that 
 the writer does not approve of me, and drawing 
 explicitly or implicitly the inference that therefore 
 I must be a fool. Now I am never quite able to 
 see that the conclusion follows from the premisses. 
 So that letters of this description teach me nothing, 
 leave me exactly where they found me; and I 
 should be inclined to regard them as altogether 
 wasted, but for the satisfaction which the writers 
 themselves undoubtedly experience. 
 
 Every human being ought to cultivate a noble 
 discontent. We should be discontented with the 
 present state of the world's knowledge and try to 
 add to it ; and especially we should be discontented 
 with the small proportion of existing knowledge 
 which we have at present mastered, and determine 
 that we will continually master more. To add to 
 the world's knowledge, to make fresh discoveries, 
 may be beyond the reach of most of us ; though I 
 think we are far too apt to assume this. If you 
 
 1 A serniou on the Culture of the Body. 
 
1 24 True Discontent 
 
 read the lives of discoverers, what will strike you 
 most is not their genius but their patience. You 
 will be surprised not at the quickness but at the 
 slowness with which their discoveries were made. 
 In fact genius itself has been defined as an infinite 
 capacity for taking pains. I suspect that most of us 
 have brains enough to discover something in some 
 department of human knowledge : what we really 
 lack is the perseverance and the will. 
 
 But setting aside, if you like, the possibility of 
 our adding to the stores of human knowledge, it is 
 within the j)ower of the simplest and the busiest of 
 us to make ourselves every day somewhat better ac- 
 quainted with the results of the labours of others. 
 There was a time when books were only within 
 the reach of the wealthiest, and when scarcely 
 any one but a clergyman could read. There was 
 a time when literature was heavy in all senses 
 of the word, and when it took half a life to wade 
 through a dozen folios, from which after all there 
 was little to be learnt. But now for a shilling 
 — in fact for ninepence — we can buy a science 
 primer as it is called, which will give us in an hour 
 or two a rough idea of the scope and contents of a 
 science. These books are written by the most eminent 
 experts, in the most simple and interesting style, 
 and they will quickly put us in possession of know- 
 
in Regard to Knowledge, 125 
 
 ledge which it took centuries of labour to discover. 
 Make yourselves acquainted with these little books, 
 if you have not done so already. You might per- 
 haps begin with the one on astronomy by Lockyer, 
 or that on geology by Geikie. Then there are other 
 books, a little more expensive but equally simple 
 and even more interesting, which will carry you 
 further in your scientific studies, such as Professor 
 Tyndall's ' Fragments of Science,' or Professor Hux- 
 ley's ' Lay Sermons.' And with regard to religious 
 knowledge, you have such books as 'Ecce Homo' and 
 Caird's 'Philosophy of Pteligion,' containing more 
 thought and more inspiration than whole libraries- 
 full of bygone theology. I commend these last- 
 mentioned books especially to your notice, if you 
 want to make progress in religious knowledge. 
 And I hope you do. I hope you do not think you 
 know all that can be known, all that needs to be 
 known, about the Deity. I told you last week that 
 a finite mind could never completely fathom the 
 mysteries involved in a single particle of matter. 
 How much more difficult must it be to understand 
 the mind and heart of God ! But there is one tiling 
 which may encourage us. Though personality is 
 the greatest mystery in the universe, yet it is easier 
 to know a person than a thing, because here sym- 
 pathy and communion may come to our aid. In 
 
126 True Discontent. 
 
 religion, living and learning are identical. To live 
 a really religious life, is to grow in religious know- 
 ledge. " He that will do His will," said Christ, 
 " shall know of the doctrine." To think of God, to 
 pray to God, to love God, to do the work of God, — 
 all this is helping us to know God. 
 
 ' ' For meek obedience, that is liglit, 
 And following tliat is finding Him." 
 
 Once more let me urge upon you to cultivate dis- 
 content. Eemember what Carlyle says, " That a 
 man should die ignorant who had the capacity for 
 knowledge, this I call a tragedy, even if it happens 
 twenty times in a minute." Think of what there is 
 to learn, think of how little you at present know, 
 think of the value and the glory of knowledge, till 
 you become discontented and inspired, discontented 
 with the present and inspired for the future. You 
 will need all the inspiration you can get. 
 
 " The heights, by great men won and kept, 
 
 Were not attained by sudden fiiglit ; 
 
 But they, while their companions slept, 
 
 "Were toiling upwards in the night. " 
 
127 
 
 True and False Discontent, 
 
 IV. 
 
 FALSE DISCONTEXT WITH THE WOELD AS A WHOLE 
 — PESSIMISM. 
 
 ^.— THE PLEASURES OF LIFE. 
 
 TVISCONTENT, so far as it regards personal cir- 
 ^ cumstances and the limitations of knovvledQ;e, 
 we have already considered. Let us now proceed 
 to look at it in relation to the world as a whole. 
 Tliere is a false discontent, we have seen, which 
 will lead one man to grumble at his circumstances, 
 even at those which are unalterable ; and there is 
 a true discontent which will prompt another to 
 struggle for the improvement of his circumstances, 
 so far as they are capable of being changed. Simi- 
 larly in regard to knowledge, some men are always 
 repining that they do not know everything ; while 
 
128 Pessimism. 
 
 vvitli others the consciousness of ignorance serves 
 only as a stimulus, making them the more deter- 
 mined to know all they can. And the same differ- 
 ence may be noticed in men's attitude towards the 
 world as a whole. Some distinguish themselves 
 chiefly by calling attention to the wretchedness of 
 life ; while others are remarkable for their success- 
 ful endeavours to increase its happiness. There is 
 a right and a wrong way of being discontented with 
 the world. Let us begin with the wrong, with that 
 false discontent at the limitation of human happi- 
 ness, which in its extreme and dogmatic form is 
 called pessimism. This doctrine of despair asserts 
 that life even at the best is not worth living ; that 
 upon the whole pain predominates over pleasure ; 
 and that it would have been better for the world 
 and for men never to have been called out of 
 nothingness. 
 
 Now I should like you to notice that pessimism 
 is a state of mind which can only exist in thought- 
 ful, and indeed in somewhat sympathetic, persons. 
 Sully says : " From the point of view of what is 
 called a healthy common -sense, all inquiries into 
 the worth of human life doubtless seem unnecessary 
 and even ridiculous. The bulk of mankind pursue 
 their various ends as a matter of course, and never 
 raise the question whether the result will compen- 
 
The Pleasu7^es of Life. 1 29 
 
 sate for the toil. . . . The object of pursuit shines 
 afar, drawing to itself fond regard, and inspiring 
 them with the assurance of an attainable good. 
 The world presents itself to very many as fair and 
 rich in treasure, and they rejoice in the fancied 
 security of permanent sources of gladness. They 
 do not care to measure the exact range of the 
 golden rays of happiness. They are only conscious 
 that the earth abounds in well-springs of delight, 
 that beauty and love make the air about them 
 sunny and warm." It is seldom, however, that 
 this feeling lasts uninterruptedly, even with the 
 most sanguine. " The intrusion of unsuspected 
 pain, of a sense of weariness in pursuit, of sharp 
 blows of disappointment, sooner or later disturbs 
 the happy dreamer with a rude shock, and forces 
 on him the impression of discordant evil." But 
 most men recover from the shock, and go on again 
 hoping, as they say, for better luck next time. And 
 even when they feel supremely wretched, they are 
 not tempted to generalise about the wretchedness 
 of the race ; they are too busy thinking of their 
 own trouble. So far from believing that others are 
 equally miserable, they are as a rule inclined to 
 suppose that they themselves are exceptionally 
 unfortunate. But in some cases, owing to temper- 
 ament and environment, men become so morbidly 
 
 I 
 
1 30 Pessiinism. 
 
 sensitive to their own sufferings and to the suffer- 
 ings of the race, that they grow quite incapable 
 of appreciating any of the compensatory joys and 
 pleasures. Evil becomes to them the one impres- 
 sive fact of existence. They dwell upon it and 
 brood over it, till they can think of nothing 
 else. 
 
 The literatures of the world abound with illus- 
 trations of this despondent view of life. " All our 
 days pass away in Thy wrath : we spend our years 
 as a tale that is told. The days of our years are 
 threescore years and ten ; and if by reason of 
 strength they be fourscore years, yet is their 
 strength labour and sorrow ; for it is soon cut off, 
 and we fly away." " Vanity of vanities, all is 
 vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour 
 which he taketh under the sun ? I have seen all 
 the works that are done under the sun, and behold, 
 all is vanity and vexation of spirit." We find the 
 same feeling amongst the Greeks. Theognis and 
 the Sophists say in almost the same words — " The 
 best thing is not to be born ; the next best thing is 
 to die as soon as possible." Menander says, " The 
 gods take to themselves early in life the one they 
 love." So too amongst the Romans Seneca speaks 
 of death as the best invention of nature, and in this 
 he is followed by many of the Stoics. The Persian 
 
The Pleasures of Life. \%\ 
 
 poet, Omar Khayyam, gives the following gloomy 
 description of life : — 
 
 " We are no better than a moving row 
 Of tragic shadow-shapes, that come and go 
 Round with the sun-ilkimined lantern, hekl 
 At midnight by the master of the show; 
 Impotent pieces of the game he plays 
 Upon his chequer-board of nights and da)\s ; 
 Hither and thither moves, and checks and slays, 
 And one by one back in the cupboard lays." 
 
 In the East pessimism has been particularly 
 prevalent. It forms the essence of the religions of 
 Brahmanism and Buddhism. All Hindu philoso- 
 phers are possessed by the conviction that life is a 
 burden ; and their gospel is always the same— viz., 
 that true wisdom consists in a perception of the 
 nothingness of all things, and in a desire to become 
 nothing, to be extinguished. And we find the same 
 spirit in modern times. Diderot, in his letter to 
 Sophie Voland, says : '' To be amid pain and weep- 
 ing the plaything of uncertainty, of error, of want, 
 of sickness, of wickedness, of passion, every step 
 from the moment when we learn to lisp to the time 
 of departure when'our voice falters ; to dwell among 
 rogues and charlatans of every kind ; not to know 
 whence we come, why we are come, whither we 
 go; this is called the most important gift of our 
 
132 Pessimism, 
 
 parents and of nature — life." And in England we 
 have had our Shelley and our Byron. 
 
 " The flower that smiles to day 
 
 To-morrow dies ; 
 All that we wish to stay 
 
 Tempts, and then flies. 
 "What is this world's delight ? 
 Lightning that mocks the night, 
 
 Brief even as bright." 
 
 " Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, 
 Count o'er thy days from anguish free, 
 And know, whatever thou hast been, 
 'Tis something better not to be." 
 
 Leopardi has put it, perhaps, as strongly as it 
 can be put. " One thing only is certain — viz., that 
 pain persists." 
 
 Moreover, several systems of philosophy have 
 been produced in Europe, notably those of Schop- 
 enhauer and Hartmann, the fundamental purpose 
 of which is to show that pain and wretchedness are 
 everywhere in excess of pleasure and joy ; and that 
 this overplus of misery follows inevitably from the 
 very constitution of nature and of man. Schop- 
 enhauer tries to prove that the world is as bad as it 
 can possibly be, if it is to continue to exist at all. 
 Suppose, he says, that any of the perturbations of 
 the planets, instead of being gradually balanced by 
 others, continued to increase, the world would soon 
 
The Pleasures of Life, 133 
 
 reach its end. The earthquake of Lisbon, the de- 
 struction of Pompeii, are only playful hints of what 
 might then take place. A small alteration of the 
 atmosphere, which cannot even be chemically 
 detected, causes cholera, yellow fever, black death, 
 &c., which carry off millions of men ; a somewhat 
 greater alteration would extinguish all life. A very 
 moderate increase of heat would dry up all rivers 
 and springs. The brutes have received just barely 
 so much in the way of organs and powers as enables 
 them to procure, with the greatest exertion, suste- 
 nance for themselves and their offspring. Even of 
 the human race, powerful as are the weapons it 
 possesses in understanding and reason, nine-tenths 
 live in constant conflict and want, always balancing 
 themselves with difficulty and effort upon the brink 
 of destruction. Thus throughout, as for the con- 
 tinuation of the whole, so also for that of each in- 
 dividual being, the conditions are barely and scantily 
 given, but nothing over. The individual life is a 
 ceaseless battle for existence, while at every step it 
 is threatened by extinction. The world, therefore, 
 if it were a little worse than it is, would be de- 
 stroyed. A worse world could not exist. 
 
 And further, he asserts, it follows from our con- 
 stitution that suffering must be the very essence of 
 our life. The things for which we are ever craving- 
 
1 34 Pessimism. 
 
 will never yield us real satisfaction. Our ardent 
 pursuit of happiness springs out of blind instinct, 
 not out of rational choice. Men do not seek to live 
 because they know they can be happy ; but they 
 think they can be happy because an irresistible 
 pressure urges them to live. But all life involves 
 desires, cravings, wants — in a single word, striving ; 
 and this strivino- arises from a sense of defect, 
 which is the only persistent element of our being. 
 Every momentary pleasure is followed by a new 
 sense of pain. Our life is one insatiable thirst. 
 
 Hartmann, too, though he differs metaphysically 
 on many points from Schopenhauer, yet agrees with 
 him in maintaining that there is in human life a 
 decided preponderance of misery. According to 
 Hartmann the world is the result of an act of blind 
 folly on the part of what he calls the Unconscious. 
 
 Now I want to show you that pessimism, whether 
 it be that of the ordinary man, of the poet, or of the 
 philosopher, is radically false. 
 
 In the first place, here as everywhere else, dis- 
 content exaggerates the evil with which it finds 
 fault. Pessimists overestimate the pains, and 
 underestimate the pleasures, of life. The theo- 
 retical pessimists, Schopenhauer especially, have 
 asserted that pleasure is always preceded by pain. 
 This assertion is flagrantly contradicted by every- 
 
The Pleasures of Life. 135 
 
 day facts. " Where is the want, the longing, the 
 striving, the dissatisfaction, the pain, preceding the 
 innumerable sensations of pleasure which are excited 
 in us during a walk on a bright spring morning ? 
 Whether we should enjoy pleasure as much without 
 some previous experience of pain is another ques- 
 tion. But we can all probably recall some happy 
 experience, consisting of a long chain of quiet grati- 
 fications, from whicli pain was wholly absent : days 
 of pleasant sojourn among interesting scenes abroad, 
 days of harmonious intercourse with friends in some 
 lovely retreat, afford examples of such experiences." 
 Pessimists not unfrequently reject all testimony 
 but their own. Hartmann says the opinion of the 
 generality of men on this subject is untrustworthy, 
 because they are inclined to magnify the value of 
 life. But manifestly happiness is a personal mat- 
 ter ; and the individual alone can tell whether he 
 is happy or not. The vast majority of mankind, 
 at any rate, find at least so much pleasure in exist- 
 ence that they are glad to be alive. Even those who 
 believe in the superior enjoyments of the next 
 world, seldom evince any eagerness to leave the 
 inferior enjoyments of this — except perhaps when 
 they are singing hymns in clnirch. Now it is of 
 no use for the philosopher to tell them that, accord- 
 ing to his theory, they ought to be miserable. It is 
 
136 Pessimism. 
 
 his theory which is at fault, and not their feelings ; 
 about them there can be no mistake, for feelings 
 are what tliey are felt to be. 
 
 Furthermore, many of the commonest and the 
 most valuable pleasures of life are completely ig- 
 nored by the pessimists. For example, Hartmann 
 makes no mention of the pleasures of work or of 
 laughter. Work he deals with in its painful aspect, 
 where an excessive degree of it is necessary for the 
 maintenance of life. But he does not speak of the 
 agreeable kinds of muscular activity, such as walk- 
 ing or rowing or climbing ; nor does he say any- 
 thing of the keen enjoyment which the student 
 finds in his intellectual labours. No ; he quietly 
 classifies work amongst the miseries of human exist- 
 ence. And of laughter he does not say a word. 
 Yet " laughter serves to transform all the lighter 
 evils of existence into sources of after gaiety ; it 
 may even throw a glamour of light over some of 
 the gloomiest experiences." One need hardly won- 
 der that a pessimist should be a little shy in talking 
 about it. 
 
 "Life seems to include," says Mr Greg, ''the 
 amplest conceivable provision for a being of the 
 most capacious and various desires. The surface 
 of the earth is strewed with flowers, the path of 
 years is paved and planted with enjoyments. 
 
The Pleasiwes of Life. 137 
 
 Every sort of beauty has been lavished on our 
 allotted home ; beauties to enrapture every sense ; 
 beauties to satisfy every taste ; forms the noblest 
 and the loveliest ; colours the most gorgeous and 
 the most delicate ; odours the sweetest and the 
 subtlest ; harmonies the most soothing and the 
 most stirring ; the sunny glories of the day, the 
 pale Elysian grace of moonlight ; the lake, the 
 mountain, the primeval forest, and the boundless 
 ocean ; the silent pinnacles of aged snow in one 
 hemisphere, the marvels of tropical luxuriance in 
 another ; the serenity of sunsets ; the sublimity of 
 storms ; — everything is bestowed in boundless pro- 
 fusion on the scene of our existence ; we can con- 
 ceive or desire nothing more exquisite or perfect 
 than what is around us every hour. And our 
 faculties are so framed as to be consciously alive 
 to it all. The provision made for our sensuous 
 enjoyment is in overflowing abundance ; and so is 
 that for the other elements of our complex nature. 
 Who that has revelled in the marvels of the world 
 of thought, does not confess that the intelligence has 
 been dowered with at least as profuse a beneficence 
 as the senses ? Who that has truly tasted and 
 fathomed human love in its dawning and its crown- 
 ing joys, has not thanked God for a felicity that 
 passeth understanding ? If we had set our fancy 
 
138 Pessimism. 
 
 to picture a Creator occupied solely in devising de- 
 light for the children wliom He loved, we could not 
 conceive one single element of bliss which is not 
 here. We might retrench casualties ; we might 
 superadd duration and extension; we might wish 
 that which is partial, occasional and transient to 
 be universal and enduring ; but we need not, and 
 we could not, introduce one new ingredient of joy." 
 Of all this pessimists say nothing, 
 
 ' '■ Why wilt thou make bright music 
 Give forth a sound of pain ? 
 Why wilt thou weave fair flowers 
 Into a weary chain ? 
 
 Why turn each cool grey shadow 
 
 Into a world of fears ? 
 AVhy say the winds are wailing ? 
 
 Why call the dewdrops tears '{ 
 
 The voices of happy nature, 
 
 And the heaven's sunny gleam, 
 Reprove thy. sick heart's fancies, 
 
 Upbraid thy foolish dream. 
 
 Listen, and I will tell thee 
 
 The song creation sings, 
 From the humming of bees in the heather 
 
 To the flutter of angel's wings. 
 
 An echo rings for ever. 
 
 The sound can never cease ; 
 It speaks to God of glory. 
 
 It speaks to earth of peace. 
 
The Pleasures of Life. 139 
 
 Above thy peevish wailing 
 
 Rises that holy song, — 
 Above earth's foolish clamour, 
 
 Above the voice of wrong. 
 
 So leave thy heart's sick fancies, 
 
 And lend thy willing voice 
 To the sweet, sweet song of glory 
 
 That bids the world rejoice." 
 
140 
 
 True and False Discontejtt , 
 
 V. 
 
 PESSIMISM {continued). 
 JJ.— THE NECESSITY FOR PAIN. 
 
 A NOTHEE German Emperor has passed away, 
 -^^ after a short and tragic reign. But short 
 and tragic though it was, it possessed a glory all 
 its own. Succeeding in a dying state to the Em- 
 pire, experiencing every day the terrific progress of 
 his ghastly disease, the Emperor Frederick never- 
 theless won, in the short space of three months, 
 the admiration and the love of the whole civilised 
 world, — a kingly, imperial achievement unique in 
 the history of the race. No man ever had a heav- 
 ier burden, but he bore it patiently, even cheerfully, 
 to the end. No man ever had more temptation, 
 no man could ever have more excuse, to shirk 
 
The Necessity for Pain. 1 4 1 
 
 responsibility ; but he devoted himself unsparingly 
 to his duty till he died. You may not perhaps 
 altogether agree with his policy. You may think 
 — as I am inclined to think — that he was too much 
 of a Eadical, that his views were too Utopian ; but 
 we all feel sure that he did most earnestly desire 
 the wellbeing of his subjects, and that in all his 
 public acts he was instigated by this motive alone. 
 To those who knew him he was very lovable ; 
 kind and considerate, with a keen sense of humour 
 and a boyish love of fun. He was a brave soldier 
 and a skilful general. He united in a rare degree 
 the courtesy of a gentleman with the dignity of an 
 emperor. But more than all, he was a good man — 
 one of the best of men ; perhaps if we take every- 
 thing into account, we shall not be far wrong if 
 we say he was quite the best man this century has 
 produced. 
 
 We have seen {A) that the pessimists take an 
 exaggerated view of the miseries of life. I pass 
 on to notice {B) that they overlook the necessity 
 for pain. 
 
 Some pain is manifestly needed as a warning to 
 preserve us from greater pain — to keep us from 
 destruction. If pain had not been attached to in- 
 jurious actions and habits, animals and men would 
 
142 Pessimism. 
 
 long ago have passed out of existence. Suppose, 
 for example, that fire did not hurt, we might easily 
 be burnt to death before we knew that we were in 
 danger. Suppose the loss of health were not at- 
 tended with discomfort, we should lack the strong- 
 est motive for preserving it. And the same is true 
 of the pangs of remorse which follow what we call 
 sin. In point of fact all injurious deeds may be 
 regarded as sins, and the pain which accompanies 
 them may always be looked upon as a punishment. 
 AVhen a man injures himself directly, he really at 
 the same time injures others indirectly, for his own 
 power of usefulness has been diminished. And 
 conversely, when he injures others directly, he 
 really at the same time injures himself indirectly, 
 for his own character has been deteriorated. The 
 actions and habits to which pain, physical or moral, 
 has been attached are bad apart from the pain. 
 And since that pain tends to prevent us from doing 
 ourselves harm, it may be regarded as a token of 
 the wisdom and beneficence of God, as a proof that 
 we live not in the worst possible, but rather in the 
 best possible, world. 
 
 Further, pain is necessary for the development 
 of character, especially in its higher phases. I 
 have pointed out to you before ^ that in some way 
 
 ^ See my ' Origin of Evil.' 
 
The Necessity fo r Pa in . 143 
 
 or other, though we cannot exactly tell how, pain 
 acts as an intellectual and spiritual stimulus. This 
 is a fact of experience. The world's greatest 
 teachers have often, if not generally, been men 
 who have suffered much, e.g., Dante, Shakespeare, 
 Darwin. Shelley has said — 
 
 " Most wretched men are cradled into poetry by wrong ; 
 They learn in suffering what they teach in song." 
 
 I have pointed out to you that suffering develops 
 in us pity, mercy and the spirit of self-sacrifice, 
 and that as a general rule the noblest men and the 
 sweetest women are those who have suffered most. 
 I have pointed out to you that suffering develops 
 in us self-respect, self-reliance, and all that is im- 
 plied in the expression strength of character. Our 
 very pleasures are actually increased by pain ; be- 
 cause wx enjoy our good fortune all the more for 
 having struggled up to it through hardship, conflict 
 and effort. The kind of suffering then which leads 
 to the perfecting of our character, may be regarded 
 as a still further proof of the wisdom and benefi- 
 cence of God, and of the fact that we are living in 
 the best possible world. 
 
 There is another reason why some amount of pain 
 is inevitable, and to this I shall call your attention 
 in the next sermon. 
 
1 44 Pessimism. 
 
 In tlie meantime I want to answer one or two 
 objections which may be raised against all argu- 
 ments of this description. In the first place, it may 
 be said that, however many reasons we may find 
 for part of the misery of existence, we can never 
 account for all. That is quite true. Only, don't 
 you see ? if we can discover reasons for some suffer- 
 ing, we may not illogically believe, or at any rate 
 hope, that there are reasons, good and sufficient 
 reasons, which will account for all suffering, though 
 at present we have not discovered them. 
 
 Further, it may be objected, in the second place, 
 that it is idle to talk of the necessity of suffer- 
 ing, for with Omnipotence there is no necessity. 
 Omnipotence could keep us from injurious conduct 
 without the infliction of pain. Omnipotence could 
 create us perfect to start with, and then there would 
 be no need for the discipline of pain. This objec- 
 tion was very well put in a letter I received last 
 week. " Perhaps finite minds can only learn good- 
 ness by means of suffering ; but in that case whence 
 came this necessity ? If from God — if He made 
 the necessity, so to speak — then He has given us all 
 this pain and unhappiness ; if not, then the neces- 
 sity overrules Him, and takes our fate out of His 
 hands. I should like to believe, not that God can- 
 not help our suffering, but that He means us to go 
 
The Necessity for Pain. 145 
 
 through it all for some as yet undiscovered reason. 
 I should like to believe that there is misery in the 
 world, not in spite of, but because of His love." 
 
 Well, now, let us look this question boldly in the 
 face. It is to be approached with all modesty and 
 reverence, for it is the question as to the possible 
 probable limitations of Omnipotence. But it is a 
 question which we cannot shirk. It is a question 
 to which we nmst find some sort of answer — tenta- 
 tive answer at any rate — if we w^ould vindicate the 
 ways of God. 
 
 At the outset let me warn you against being 
 misled by words. When we use the abstract term 
 omnipotence, we mean a concrete person who is 
 omnipotent, and we generally mean God, who is not 
 only powerful but also wise and good. Well now 
 bearing this in mind, let us see whether there are 
 not some limitations which we must ascribe to the 
 Deity, if we would not be guilty of blasphemy. 
 And first of moral limitations. Those who say 
 that absolutely nothing is impossible with God, 
 must be prepared of course to admit the truth of 
 their assertion in the moral sphere. And some 
 eminent thinkers have even gone as far as this. 
 For God, they say, there is no right and no wrong, 
 except what He chooses arbitrarily to consider such. 
 One moment He may like a thing, and then it is 
 
 K 
 
1 46 Pessimism. 
 
 right. The next moment He may dislike it, and 
 then it becomes wrong. In other worlds and at 
 other times He may have commanded what here 
 and now He forbids ; elsewhere in the future He 
 may forbid what here and now He commands. He 
 might have told us — for anything we know to the 
 contrary He may yet tell us — to hate Himself and 
 to murder one another. With those who hold this 
 view I cannot argue ; we have no common ground 
 on which to stand. Sufhce it to say that such an 
 impersonation of irrational caprice I for one will 
 never worship. My God, though theoretically He 
 may have the power to do something unkind, yet 
 practically He can never exercise this power. He 
 is eternally prevented by His love. The being, if 
 such there were, who had no moral restraint within, 
 who recognised no moral restraint without, I should 
 for ever hate and resist. He is too omnipotent to 
 be adored. 
 
 Now to say that the Deity cannot do wrong is 
 only to say, in other words, that He is not abso- 
 lutely free from limitations and restraint. I think 
 moreover there is another kind of necessity — viz., 
 mathematical, by which even the Infinite is bound. 
 This kind of necessity is so called because it 
 finds its best illustrations in mathematical science. 
 There are, it w^ould seem, other truths besides 
 
The Necessity for Pain. 147 
 
 those in the moral sphere, which Omnipotence 
 itself cannot alter and by which Omnipotence itself 
 must abide. Do you suppose that the Deity could 
 make a square with only three sides or a line with 
 only one end ? Admitting for the sake of argu- 
 ment that theoretically He had the power, do you 
 suppose that under any conceivable circumstances 
 He would use it ? Surely not. It would be pros- 
 titution. It would be the employment of infinite 
 power for the production of what was essentially 
 irrational and absurd. It would be the same kind 
 of folly as if some one, who was capable of writing a 
 sensible book, were deliberately to produce a volume 
 with the words so arranged as to convey no mean- 
 ing whatsoever. The same kind of folly, but infi- 
 nitely worse in degree ; for the guilt of foolishness 
 increases in proportion to capacity for wisdom. A 
 Being therefore who attempted to reverse the 
 truths of mathematics would not be divine. A 
 really divine Being must be restrained by wisdom 
 in the exercise of His power. There is then, I think 
 we may feel assured, a mathematical as well as a 
 moral necessity, to which Deity itself must yield. 
 
 Similarly it seems to me, though we cannot in 
 the present state of knowledge prove it, there may 
 be restraints in the physical sphere equally neces- 
 sary and equally unalterable. For example, when 
 
1 48 Pesswiism. 
 
 it is asked, Why were we not made susceptible to 
 pleasure and insusceptible to pain ? I reply, be- 
 cause most probably it was impossible. If we 
 knew what pleasure and pain really were, we 
 should very likely see that the question was ab- 
 surd. It is probable that susceptibility to pleasure 
 can no more exist without susceptibility to pain 
 than a line can exist with only one end. And 
 even supposing it were theoretically possible to 
 separate the two susceptibilities, it might be pre- 
 eminently undesirable that they should be separ- 
 ated ; and therefore this separation would be prac- 
 tically impossible for a Being who was not only 
 powerful but also wise and good. Would you like 
 to have been made of cast-iron instead of flesh and 
 blood ? Such a metallic frame might have been 
 guaranteed incapable of suffering ; and yet, I fancy, 
 you would rather be what you are. 
 
 It appears to me then that there may be an 
 infinite number of things which are practically im- 
 possible for a Being who deserves to be called God. 
 We are so accustomed to look upon restraints as 
 bad. It is the greatest possible mistake. Restraint 
 may be an excellence as well as a defect. The neces- 
 sity by which the Deity is, to use my correspondent's 
 expression, overridden, may arise from the supreme 
 perfectness of His own essential nature. Why is 
 
The Necessity for Pain. 149 
 
 poetry so much more beautiful than prose ? Be- 
 cause of the restraints of rhythm. Why is a good 
 man's life so much more beautiful than a bad 
 man's ? Because of the restraints of conscience. 
 Many things are possible for a prose writer which 
 are impossible for the poet ; many things are pos- 
 sible for a villain which are impossible for a man 
 of honour. And therefore infinite wisdom and 
 goodness can involve nothing less than infinite 
 restraint. 
 
 But it may be argued, surely Omniscience could 
 conceive of many means by which to accomplish a 
 definite result ; and therefore, though we cannot 
 see how the discipline of intelligent creatures could 
 be effected apart from the instrumentality of pain. 
 Omniscience might have devised a plan. Perhaps. 
 But though Omniscience may conceive of many 
 (jood methods, it can only conceive of one hest 
 method. And God, just because he is God, is 
 necessarily restricted to the last. The alternatives 
 therefore which my correspondent suggests may 
 not be contradictory but complementary. Instead 
 of being opposed, the one may actually involve the 
 other. God may be unable to help our suffering, 
 and yet He may intend us and cause us to suffer. 
 He may be unable to help it for the same reason 
 that He causes it, because it is necessary for our 
 
150 Pessimism. 
 
 development. The misery of the world may exist 
 in spite of and because of His love. We can see 
 that the method which has been adopted for our 
 discipline in life is sometimes good. Does it then 
 require such a very great effort to believe that it is 
 always best ? 
 
^51 
 
 True and False Discontent, 
 VI. 
 
 PESSIMISM {continued). 
 A— THE NECESSITY FOR PAIN (continued). 
 
 OOME amount of pain, we have seen, is necessary to 
 ^ preserve ns from greater pain, to warn us when 
 we are in danger ; and pain is also requisite for the 
 development of the higher phases of human char- 
 acter. I mentioned last Sunday, and we have seen 
 more fully on previous occasions, the important 
 part played by suffering in the development of self- 
 reliance and self-respect, of pity, mercy and the 
 spirit of self-sacrifice. There is also a further ne- 
 cessity for pain arising from the reign of law. To 
 this point I will call your attention to-day. 
 
 At the outset I will frankly admit that, in regard 
 to the laws of nature in general and the laws of 
 
1 5 2 Pessimism, 
 
 life in particular, there is one great difficulty which 
 theists have never been able to remove. The 
 difficulty is this. After due allowance has been 
 made for all the suffering which is useful, either 
 directly or indirectly, in the development of indi- 
 viduals and of races, there still remains an enor- 
 mous amount of agony, for the existence of which 
 it is impossible even to imagine any sufficient 
 reason. Why then, it is asked, are the laws of 
 sentient existence what they are ? There might 
 have been, it is said, other and better biological 
 laws, that would not have entailed such an awful 
 amount of apparently wasted suffering, that would 
 not have involved such an enormous number of 
 lives which come prematurely to an end. The 
 prodigal waste of life ^n nature is used by Lange, 
 the historian of materialism, as an argument against 
 the existence of God, or at least against the exist- 
 ence of a Creator who made the world according to 
 an intelligible plan. " If a man, in order to shoot 
 a hare, were to discharge a thousand guns on a 
 great moor in all possible directions; if, in order 
 to get into a locked-up room, he were to buy ten 
 thousand casual keys and try them all ; if, in order 
 to have a house, he were to build a town and leave 
 all other houses to wind and weather, — assuredly 
 no one would call such proceedings purposeful. 
 
The Necessity for Pain. 1 5 3 
 
 But whoever will study the modern scientific laws 
 of the propagation of species will find every- 
 where the same kind of waste. The perishing of 
 vital germs, the abortion of the process begun, is 
 the rule ; the natural development is a special case, 
 one amongst thousands." " We behold the face of 
 nature," says Darwin, '* bright with gladness ; we 
 do not see, or we forget, that the birds which are 
 idly singing round us mostly live on insects or seeds, 
 and are thus constantly destroying life ; we forget 
 how largely these songsters or their eggs or their 
 nestlings are destroyed by other birds or by beasts 
 of prey." iSTo satisfactory explanation of this can 
 be given. 
 
 It used to be said that everything discordant and 
 repulsive in nature resulted ^rom " the Fall." But 
 that is a doctrine which would be ridiculous, if it 
 were not immoral. It has been asserted by theo- 
 logians that the suffering of animals is intended 
 by the Deity as a punishment for the guilt of man. 
 Those who make this assertion practically identify 
 God with the devil. Only a degraded being, 
 destitute of the most elementary respect for justice, 
 could possibly be guided by the contemptible mo- 
 tives which were formerly attributed to the Al- 
 mighty. We have now learned that a vindictive 
 Deity is a contradiction in terms, and that there- 
 
154 Pessimism. 
 
 fore no such being can possibly exist. But 
 though we have Qot rid of the old-fashioned ex- 
 planation, we have not found any other to supply 
 its place. We are obliged to confess that we do 
 not know of any rational purpose which can be 
 answered by nature's seemingly ruthless waste of 
 suffering and of life. 
 
 The wastefulness of nature is legitimately re- 
 garded by the pessimists as an argument in favour 
 of their views. It seems to me the only argument 
 they have which is worth much. But this argu- 
 ment, I must confess, is a powerful one. It does 
 present a very serious difficulty to those who would 
 believe in the existence of a God, who is at once 
 powerful and wise and good. 
 
 A serious difficulty — but not quite insuperable. 
 Because, as I pointed out to you, if we can some- 
 times see that some suffering is useful and indeed 
 necessary, we have then a logical basis for the hope 
 that there may be satisfactory reasons — though as 
 yet undiscovered — for all the suffering of the 
 sentient world. 
 
 Now it seems to me that pain is to some extent 
 a necessity, not only for the reasons which I have 
 before mentioned, but also because it is inevitably 
 involved in the reign of law. Let us see. 
 
 You all know what is meant by a law in the 
 
The Necessity f 07'' Pain. 155 
 
 scientific sense. It is the way in which nature 
 does things. A law of nature is the connection 
 which we find established between certain causes 
 and certain effects. Gravitation is a law of nature : 
 any piece of matter will attract any other piece of 
 matter with a force which for twice the distance 
 is a quarter as great. The first law of motion is a 
 law of nature : any material body, after being once 
 set in motion, will keep on moving, unless inter- 
 fered with, in a straight line with uniform velo- 
 city. By the reign of law is meant the uniformity 
 of nature. She always does things in the same 
 way. The same causes are always connected with 
 the same effects. Her methods of procedure never 
 vary. Each one of her laws is absolutely unalter- 
 able. Of course the laws of nature, as we have 
 expressed them, are only generalisations from our 
 experience, and the doctrine of the reign of law is 
 merely a still wider generalisation. But there is 
 nothing, and never has been anything, in our ex- 
 perience to impugn them ; every fresh experience 
 affords new confirmation of them; and they are 
 therefore as certain as experience itself. There is 
 no doctrine confirmed by such overwhelming evi- 
 dence as the doctrine of the uniformity of nature. 
 
 Now there is, no doubt, something awesome in 
 the thought of the absolute inviolability of law ; in 
 
156 Pessimism. 
 
 the thought that nature goes on her way quite re- 
 gardless of your wishes and of mine. She is so 
 strong and so indifferent ! But I want you to look 
 at the bright side of this. I want you to see that 
 a world dominated by law is the only world in 
 which it is possible to live a rational life. 
 
 Once men did not believe in tlie reign of law. 
 They always recognised, of course, a certain amount 
 of order and regularity in the phenomena of nature. 
 A very little experience taught them that fire burnt, 
 that food nourished, that poison killed. And they 
 looked with confidence for the repetition of ordinary 
 phenomena under ordinary circumstances. But 
 extraordinary phenomena, they thought, knew no 
 law : these were determined by accident, or by the 
 ever-changing caprices of the gods. One never 
 knew what those old gods would be at. They sent 
 storms, eclipses, pestilences, whenever they hap- 
 pened to be in a rage. They killed men or re- 
 stored them to life, worked all sorts of miracles 
 either pleasant or unpleasant, without any warning 
 or reason or rule. They were always doing some- 
 thing which it was impossible to foresee. Now, do 
 you not perceive that, so far as men believed this, 
 life was reduced to an absurdity ? There was noth- 
 ing firm, fixed, steadfast, on which they could rely. 
 They had no ground of assurance or security. They 
 
The Necessity for Pain. 1 5 7 
 
 might do their best, and be thwarted by a bad- 
 tempered god ; they might do their worst, and be 
 rewarded by the equally irrational caprice of a 
 good-tempered god. Life became a pure matter of 
 chance. There was no inducement to act wisely; 
 a man might just as well — so far as good or bad 
 fortune were concerned — be a fool. 
 
 The modern universe, then, with its reign of law, 
 is an infinitely more desirable place to live in than 
 the chaotic, haphazard world in which the ancients 
 believed. It would be a more desirable place, even 
 though the old gods had only interfered for the 
 purpose of warding off pain and suffering. Any 
 such interference, though it might at first sight 
 appear beneficent, would in reality be cruel ; for it 
 would destroy the rationality of life. The reign of 
 law no doubt often entails on individuals the direst 
 suffering, and the fact that such suffering is not 
 miraculously prevented, is often regarded as an 
 argument against the existence of God. But it is 
 not conceivable that a Being worthy of the name 
 of God should ever interfere with nature in this 
 arbitrary way ; for to do so would at once convert 
 the universe into chaos. The first requisite for a 
 rational life is the certain knowledge that the same 
 effects will always follow, and will only follow, 
 from the same causes; that they will never be 
 
158 Pessimism, 
 
 miraculously averted ; tliat they will never be 
 miraculously produced. It seems hard no doubt, 
 it is hard, that a mother should lose her darling- 
 child by accident or disease, and that she cannot 
 by any agony of prayer recall the child to life. 
 But it would be harder for the world if she could. 
 The child has died through a violation of some of 
 nature's laws, and if such violation were ever un- 
 attended with death, men would lose all induce- 
 ment to discover and obey them. It seems hard 
 no doubt, that girls, young and innocent, like Kate 
 and Lily whom Walter Besant so graphically de- 
 scribes in ' Katherine Eegina,' — it is hard that they 
 should be destitute and wretched. Lily says to 
 her friend, " We liave done no liarm to anybody ; 
 why are we so horribly punished ? There are thou- 
 sands of wicked women who have plenty of food 
 and no anxiety. I have prayed, I have prayed for 
 hours in the night ; I have torn out my heart with 
 prayer ; I have prayed till I felt my words echoed 
 back from the senseless rocks." It is hard for the 
 individual that such prayers are not answered ; but 
 it would be harder for the world if they were. 
 The miraculous providing of food and comfort for 
 one person would lead all others to expect a simi- 
 lar miraculous provision. It seems hard, it is hard, 
 that the man who has taken poison by accident 
 
The Ahcessity for Pain. 159 
 
 dies, as surely as if he had taken it on purpose. 
 But it would be harder for the world if he did not. 
 If one act of carelessness were ever overruled, the 
 race would cease to feel any necessity for care. It 
 seems hard, it is hard, that children are made to 
 suffer for their fathers' crimes. But it would be 
 harder for the world if they were not. If the 
 penalties of wrong-doing were averted from the 
 children, the fathers would lose the stromjest 
 motive to do right. Vicarious suffering has a 
 great part to play in the moral development of 
 mankind. 
 
 Each individual is apt to think that an exception 
 might be made in his favour. But of course that 
 could not be. If the laws of nature were broken 
 for one person, justice would require that they 
 should be broken for thousands, for all. And if 
 only one law of nature could be proved to have 
 been even but once violated, our faith in law would 
 be at an end ; we should feel that we were living 
 in a disorderly universe ; we should lose the sense 
 of the paramount importance of conduct ; we should 
 know that we were the sport of chance. 
 
 In spite of all the suffering it involves, I main- 
 tain that the world is a better world with the reign 
 of law than it could be without. I maintain that 
 the suffering which follows from the uniformity of 
 
1 60 Pessimism, 
 
 nature is no disproof, but on the contrary part of 
 the proof, of the existence of a wise and beneficient 
 God, part of the proof that we are living, not in 
 the worst, but rather in the best possible world. 
 The uniformity of nature makes us feel that there 
 is at the heart of things neither chance nor caprice 
 but Eeason, Eeason in which there is neither 
 variableness nor shadow of turning, Eeason which 
 is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever. Nature 
 by her uniformity assures us that in so far as we 
 discover and obey her laws it will be well with us, 
 well with us precisely in proportion to our know- 
 ledge and obedience. To law we owe all we are, 
 all we have, all we can ever hope for. " Of law," 
 says Hooker, " there can be no less acknowledged 
 than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice 
 the harmony of the world. All things in heaven 
 and earth do her homage, the very least as not 
 beneath her care and the greatest as not exempted 
 from her power ; both angels and men and all crea- 
 tures of wdiat condition soever, though each in 
 different sort and manner yet all with uniform 
 consent, admiring her as the mother of their 
 peace and joy. 
 
i6t 
 
 True and False Discontent. 
 
 VII. 
 
 PESSIMISM {continued). 
 C.-ITS FALSE IDEAL. 
 
 ~IT7E have seen (A) that the pessimists iinder- 
 ^ ^ estimate human pleasures. Hartmann, e.g., 
 quietly puts down work amongst the miseries of 
 existence, ignoring altogether the enjoyment which 
 frequently attends it. And, on the other hand, he 
 does not make any mention of laughter in his short 
 list of what he considers the good things of life ; 
 yet to laughter we owe a very large proportion of 
 the brightness of existence. This is just an ex- 
 ample of what we find constantly in pessimistic 
 books, — they grossly overestimate the misery and 
 underestimate the joy of life. 
 
 We have seen (B) that they overlook the neces- 
 L 
 
1 62 Pessiniisin. 
 
 sity for pain. I have tried to show you that pain 
 forms an essential part of a rational universe. 
 Some amount of suffering follows inevitably from 
 wliat is called the reign of law — that is, from the 
 unchangeableness of the laws of nature. Any 
 world in which it is possible to live a rational 
 life, must be governed by invariable laws. We 
 must know for certain that our welfare will de- 
 pend upon obedience to these laws; we must be 
 quite sure that the same causes will always pro- 
 duce the same effects ; we must be able to rely 
 on the reign of law with full assurance of faith. 
 Sometimes the normal working of these laws will 
 bring disaster — unmerited disaster — upon the in- 
 dividual. But interference with the laws in order 
 to save the individual is impossible, for such inter- 
 ference would amount to the abrogation of the laws 
 altogether, and would at once convert the universe 
 into chaos. We have also seen that there was a 
 still further necessity for pain, partly to serve as 
 a warning and to keep us from greater pain, and 
 partly to develop the higher phases of character, 
 such as self-reliance, self-respect, pity, mercy and 
 the spirit of self-sacrifice. I admitted however that 
 there was far more pain in the world, especially 
 amongst the lower animals, than could be accounted 
 for on these grounds. But, I said, if we could 
 
Its False Ideal. 163 
 
 sometimes find a sufficient reason for some pain, 
 we might not illogically hope that there were suffi- 
 cient reasons for all pain, though as yet we liad 
 been unable to discover them. The point we have 
 reached then is this, some amount of pain — there 
 may be differences of opinion as to how much — 
 but some amount of pain is absolutely inevitable 
 for a rational life of moral development. 
 
 (C.) I come to-day to my third argument against \ 
 the pessimists. They do not seem to approve of a 
 rational life of moral development. They have an- 
 other, and what appears to me an unworthy, ideal. 
 
 N"ow it is only fair to state the arguments of 
 one's opponents in the clearest and most forcible 
 way ; and I have never seen the pessimistic doctrine 
 as to the essential unsatisfactoriness of life more 
 powerfully expounded, than in a paper which I 
 received the other day from a member of the con- 
 gregation. I will therefore read you some extracts 
 from it. The writer begins by drawing a distinc- 
 tion between happiness and satisfaction ; and, while 
 admitting that there is much happiness in the 
 world, maintains that there is little or no satis- 
 faction. She says: ''There may be far more 
 happiness in the world than is generally recog- 
 nised. I think there is. Probably every life has 
 some happiness : a few lives have little else. But 
 
164 Pessimism. 
 
 happiness is not enough, — is not satisfactory. With 
 it there is always a want, a longing ; and the greater 
 one's happiness becomes, the greater is this feeling 
 of unsatisfaction. I do not think that many human 
 beings have ever experienced satisfaction at all; 
 and even those who have experienced it, have kept 
 it but a few moments, which formed a sharp con- 
 trast to the rest of their life. It is generally known 
 only by the want of it. There is a great unsatisfac- 
 tion in life ; and that is the only reason for dreams 
 of satisfaction." The writer then goes on to give 
 illustrations of the various circumstances which 
 specially call forth in us this feeling of unsatisfac- 
 tion. " The effect of scenery," she says, " is more 
 than half pain, especially if it is the sea; sunset 
 or distance of any kind soon becomes unbearable. 
 But perhaps the sense of unsatisfaction is never so 
 strong as under the influence of music. The long- 
 ing and the hoplessness are never more keenly felt, 
 than when music is making us happy with new 
 ideas and hopes." 
 
 She then proceeds to show that this feeling is no 
 accident ; that it is, and must ever be, inseparable 
 from human life ; that it is in fact a law of nature. 
 " Eepose must be impossible unless by a deliberate 
 blinding of all one's perceptions and numbing of 
 all one's energies. Process is the law of the uni- 
 
Its False Ideal. 165 
 
 verse ; one would be unwilling not to progress ; but 
 how can one ever be satisfied while one is struoo-lino- 
 towards the unattained ? As we are hemmed in on 
 all sides by limits and restraints we can never hope 
 for satisfaction. There is nothing for it but to face 
 the idea of an unsatisfied eternity,— an idea which 
 almost makes one long to (/-isbelieve in immortality. 
 The weariness of always striving and never attain- 
 ing, of always longing and never getting, would 
 lead, if one allowed one's self to dwell on it, to a 
 despair in which extinction would be our fond- 
 est hope, not only for ourselves but for humanity. 
 One can only turn one's attention steadily to the 
 grandeur of eternal progress, and dwell on the 
 attainable, carefully avoiding the thought of the 
 unattainable. But the feeling of unsatisfaction 
 nevertheless remains." 
 
 "The old theological view gave some hope of 
 satisfaction in the end. One could wait millions of 
 years if only one had the prospect of getting it 
 some day. It is impossible to return to the heaven 
 of one's childhood. But there was less unsatisfac- 
 tion then. The God of one's childhood was at rest ; 
 but now the idea of progress forms a necessary part 
 of our conception of the Deity. How can there be 
 satisfaction, even for God, while there is an unat- 
 tained ? And how can there ever be any satisfaction 
 
1 66 Pessimism. 
 
 for man, when not only an unattained, but an unat- 
 tainable, must lie for ever beyond his reach ? God 
 and man alike are working on, progressing ; so far 
 it is bright, all the brighter and nobler for showing 
 us more in common between the two than we had 
 at first supposed. But both alike are hemmed in 
 by limitations, both alike are confronted by the 
 great Impossible ; and in face of this T see no pros- 
 pect of satisfaction for God or man now or ever. 
 It seems as if there ought to be something to corre- 
 spond to our longing. If there be in all conscious 
 intelligences an endless desire, impossible in the 
 nature of things ever to be gratified, the universe 
 must be at heart irrational. And belief in the 
 rationality of the universe is the last stronghold of 
 our faith. If that goes, nothing remains. Unless 
 there is a Supreme Eeason pervading all things, we 
 are practically without a God. There may exist a 
 Being greater than ourselves, perhaps greater even 
 than we can ever conceive. But impossibility is 
 greater still; reason and love are comparatively 
 helpless ; God and man alike are ultimately power- 
 less." 
 
 Now that is brilliant writing ; but I venture to 
 think it contains a lurking fallacy. 
 
 There are two ideals of life diametrically opposed 
 — the ideal of rest and the ideal of progress. These 
 
Its False IdeaL 167 
 
 are mutually exclusive. You cannot move on and 
 stand still in the same indivisible moment of time. 
 It is evident that so far as you are at rest, you can- 
 not be ^progressing ; in so far as you are progressing, 
 you cannot be at rest. The pessimists generally 
 assume that the best kind of world would be one 
 in wliich all sentient creatures, from the beginning 
 of their lives to the end, were in possession of 
 everything which they were capable of desiring. 
 But this is an assumption which fills me with 
 amazement, especially when I find it made, as I so 
 often do, by persons of refinement and culture, 
 whose own experience should teach them that there 
 is something far better than sensuous repose. If an 
 uninterrupted state of complete satisfaction be the 
 highest life, then assuredly this earth of ours is 
 the worst possible world. AVe ought to have been 
 kept, miraculously if need be, from everything that 
 could be even momentarily unpleasant. We should 
 have been taught, by instinct or revelation or in 
 some other fashion, everything we ever required to 
 know. But the whole genius of our existence is 
 difterent. AVe have to find things out for ourselves, 
 if we want to know them; we have to learn what 
 is called " experience " by failure and mistakes ; we 
 have to live — if we live at all — by effort, conflict, 
 pain. The key-note of our life is discipline, and 
 
1 68 Pessimism. 
 
 the end of our life is progress. The pessimists 
 generally seem to take it for granted that discipline 
 is a nuisance and progress a bore. But my cor- 
 respondent holds a somewhat different position. 
 She is wiser, but less consistent. She speaks of 
 the grandeur of eternal progress. But she com- 
 plains that there does not go along with this the 
 apathy of eternal repose. It is like the demand 
 for a line with only one end. How can I ever be 
 satisfied, she asks, while struggling towards the 
 unattained ? How could you ever be satisfied, I 
 reply, unless there were an unattained to struggle 
 towards ? The existence of the unattained is the 
 sine, qua non of progress. 
 
 The consciousness of unsatisfaction seems to me 
 nothing else than the consciousness of our powers. 
 My correspondent has told us that scenery, music 
 and happiness make us most sensible of the fact 
 that we are not satisfied. I think she is right. 
 For scenery, music and happiness make us most 
 sensible of the infinite possibilities of our nature. 
 And if this consciousness of unsatisfaction is to be 
 called pain, — remember it is pain which w^e prefer to 
 any inferior pleasure, it is pain which we endeavour 
 and delight to feel, it is the pain of ecstasy. 
 
 Progress no doubt involves effort and work ; but 
 effort and work are in themselves acfreeable. It is 
 
Its False Ideal. 169 
 
 all very well to talk of the pleasures of rest ; and 
 rest is certainly pleasant enough when we are 
 fatigued. But the pleasures of exercise are in- 
 finitely greater. Who would be asleep wheu he 
 might be hunting or rowing or playing tennis ? 
 And I do not at all agree with my correspondent 
 in thinking that our changed views about heaven 
 are a loss. On the contrary I think they are a 
 decided gain. According to the old-fashioned 
 theology, heaven was a place of eternal idleness, 
 where even the Deity had nothing to do. There 
 was repose, no doubt, but it was the repose of 
 death. All the noblest natures recoiled from the 
 thought of spending eternity in such a place, and 
 in such a way. They felt that the life of earth 
 was far diviner in spite of the pain which it some- 
 times involved. They were right. To my mind 
 the saddest w^orld in which there was progress 
 would be infinitely more suggestive of reason than 
 the happiest world in which there was none. 
 
 Of course if progress were impossible, the desire 
 for it would be a curse; if the unattained were 
 always to be unattainable, the longing for it would 
 be hell. But the bitterest pessimist must admit 
 that we are constantly attaining the unattained, ay 
 that we are constantly attaining the unattainable. 
 How many things are to - day commonplaces in 
 
1 70 Pessimism, 
 
 science and art, for the discovery of which our 
 ancestors would have thought it ridiculous to hope 
 even in their wildest dreams I And the impossible 
 itself need no loncjer be reejarded as a bugbear. In 
 spite of the hindrances and difficulties and limits 
 which may liave been in the path of the Creator 
 at the beginning, the world has been created and 
 progress is being achieved. The impossible has 
 not prevented happiness, does not prevent an ever- 
 increasing happiness, and there is no reason to sup- 
 pose tliat in the end it will prevent anything except 
 that which is contradictory, irrational and absurd. 
 
 Who then, I ask, can wish for a w^orld of sensuous 
 repose ? Is not satisfaction that degraded and 
 degrading form of contentment which only a low 
 nature can feel ? Is not unsatisfaction that true 
 and inspiring form of discontent which no noble 
 nature can ever be without ? Is not the possibility 
 of endless progress the highest endowment wiiich an 
 intelligent being can possess ? And does not the 
 fact that we realise this power in ourselves go far 
 to prove that we are living, not in the worst, but 
 rather in the l)est possible, world. 
 
 " Nothing resting in its own completeness 
 Can have worth or beauty ; but alone 
 Because it tends and leads to further sweetness, 
 Fuller, higher, deeper than its own. 
 
Its False Ideal. 1 7 1 
 
 Spring's real glory dwells not in the meaning, 
 Gracious though it be, of her l)lue hours ; 
 But is hidden in her tender leaning 
 To the summer's richer wealth of flowers. 
 
 Life is only bright when it proceedeth 
 Towards a truer, deeper Life above ; 
 Human love is sweetest when it leadeth 
 To a more divine and perfect Love. 
 
 Dare not to blame God's gifts for incompleteness 
 In that want their value lies ; they leave 
 The promise of a far diviner sweetness 
 Than any which as yet we can conceive. " 
 
72 
 
 Tnie mid False Discontent, 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PESSIMISM [continued). 
 /).— THE EVOLUTION OF LOVE. 
 
 T POINTED out ill the last sermon {C) that the 
 -*- pessimistic ideal of life is an ideal of reform 
 rather than of progress. But not only so. They 
 assert {D) that during the course of evolution no 
 progress has been made, or only a progress in pain. 
 They represent to us the history of the universe 
 pretty much as follows. In the beginning, millions 
 of millions of years ago, matter existed as a diffused 
 mass of incandescent vapour, which was in a state 
 of rotatory motion. As it revolved portions of it 
 became detached. Every such portion broken off 
 from the primitive nebula was the beginning of a 
 sidereal system, from which again other masses be- 
 
The Evolution of Love. 173 
 
 came detached and formed planets ; and from these 
 in like manner during their rotation there were 
 still further disruptions, which led to the formation 
 of moons. The whole of our solar system therefore 
 once existed as a single mass of vapour, and the 
 earth was formed, like the other planets, by disrup- 
 tion from a central mass. Even when it had be- 
 come detached the earth was for a long time in a 
 state of incandescence ; but after myriads of years 
 of radiation the surface cooled into the solid state, 
 and the vapours that surrounded it condensed into 
 the primeval ocean. After another long lapse of 
 time there was formed at the bottom of the ocean 
 that curious compound of carbon called protoplasm, 
 which is the physical basis of life. And with life 
 came waste. At first there was only vegetable life. 
 The beds of the oceans and the surface of the earth 
 teemed with it ; but the luxuriance and grandeur of 
 the primeval flora was all thrown away ; there was 
 no eye to see it, no sentient creature to derive the 
 slightest benefit from it. By -and -by however, 
 after still further changes in the atmosphere and 
 the temperature, animal life began, and with it 
 came pain. The old waste continued. Thousands 
 of germs perished for every living creature that 
 came into existence ; those who did actually come 
 to life were liable to accident and to disease ; and 
 
1 74 Pesswtism. 
 
 if they were specially weak, they were as a rule 
 devoured by the strong. With every rise in the 
 zoological scale, organisms become more delicate, 
 and the capacity for pain increases till it reaches 
 its climax in man. The whole creation groans. 
 
 And so the pessimists sometimes turn round 
 upon us and inquire, How about your old argument 
 from design ? We admit, they say, that the world 
 cannot be altogether the work of chance ; there is 
 too much definite, awful, relentless regularity about 
 it for that. But whatever design there may be in 
 it, is an evil design ; if any intelligence has been at 
 work upon nature, it is a devilish intelligence ; if 
 the Creator had a purpose in creation it was none 
 other than the evolution of pain. 
 
 Now you see the pessimists here assume that 
 nothing has emerged in the course of evolution but 
 pain, or at any rate nothing worth speaking of in 
 comparison with pain, nothing certainly which is 
 of sufficient value at all to compensate for pain. 
 A strange assumption for men of education and 
 refinement. Have they never heard of Love ? We 
 can trace its dim beginning as far back as the dawn 
 of sentient life. At first it was but a blind instinct ; 
 but by degrees it was carried, even amongst what 
 we are accustomed to call brutes, to the point of 
 virtue, to the point of heroism ; as when a bird 
 
The EvoltUion of Love. 175 
 
 voluntarily gives up its life for its offspring, or a 
 dog begs off from punishment the child that has 
 been torturing him. In the human race, at the 
 lowest end of the scale I doubt if you could find a 
 person so degraded as never to have denied himself 
 for any one ; at the other end of the scale you find 
 — Christ ; and of Christ it is expressly declared by 
 St Paul that he was but "the first-born of many 
 brethren." 
 
 " The worst possible world," say the pessimists, 
 and yet it is already permeated through and through 
 with love. In the course of evolution love has 
 emerged along with pain, and as I have tried to 
 show you partly by means of pain. Would not 
 this result have been worth, if necessary, ten thou- 
 sand times the cost ? Would any one barter away 
 for a little more enjoyment the highest gift of evo- 
 lution ? Surely, even now, the end justifies the 
 means — any means. Even now there is enough to 
 compensate for millenniums of what we call waste. 
 Waste ! As if anything could be waste which 
 formed part of tlie steady onward move of circum- 
 stances that was to culminate in the birth of love! 
 The Author of the universe, who to the jaundiced 
 vision of the pessimists appears occupied solely in 
 devising pain, has been all along creating love. If 
 this is the result of His bad things — and of course 
 
1 76 Pessimism. 
 
 waste, pain, conflict, taken separately, are bad 
 things — what must be the unsearchable riches of 
 His good things ? The evolution of love is now 
 going on with amazing rapidity. Positive philoso- 
 phers and Christian thinkers, all cultivated persons 
 — except pessimists — recognise its value and its 
 beauty. The number of self-sacrificing men and 
 women, the number of those who have merged their 
 own life and wellbeing in the life and wellbeing of 
 the race, is continually on the increase. And assur- 
 edly the time is coming when there will be a reign 
 of love in humanity, as invariable and as universal 
 as the present reign of law in nature. That is 
 
 " The one, far-off, divine event 
 Towards which the whole creation moves." 
 
 And where is the man who would begrudge his own 
 contribution of suffering towards a consummation 
 so devoutly to be wished ? 
 
 Pessimism, as a system of dogmatic belief, seems 
 to me the meanest and the silliest creed with which 
 ever the earth was cursed. It is mean ; for it 
 assumes that there is nothing valuable but pleas- 
 ure, it assumes that the goodness or badness of the 
 world may be determined by that criterion alone. 
 It is silly ; for its fundamental assertion, that life 
 is not worth living, is flatly contradicted by the 
 
The EvohUion of Love. 177 
 
 vast majority of the human race. Professor Hux- 
 ley, in the 'Nineteenth Century/ though tak- 
 ing a much less optimistic view of life than I 
 have endeavoured to give you, is yet very severe 
 with the pessimists. He says, " If the optimism of 
 Leibnitz is a foolish though pleasant dream, tlie 
 pessimism of Schopenhauer is a nightmare, the 
 more foolish because of its hideousness. Error 
 which is not pleasant is surely the worst form of 
 wrong. This may not be the best of all possible 
 worlds, but to say that it is the worst is mere petu- 
 lant nonsense. A worn-out voluptuary may find 
 nothing good under the sun ; a vain and inexperi- 
 enced youth, who cannot get the moon he cries for, 
 may vent his irritation in pessimistic meanings; 
 but there can be no doubt in the mind of any 
 reasonable person that mankind could get on fairly 
 well with vastly less happiness and far more misery, 
 than find tlieir way into the lives of nine persons 
 out of ten. Men with any manhood in them would 
 find life worth living under far worse conditions 
 than the present." 
 
 But though pessimism as a systematic creed is 
 essentially mean and silly, pessimism as a passing 
 mood of feeling may come to the wisest and the 
 best of us. It may be forced on us by a great his- 
 toric crisis ; it may be forced on us by some over- 
 M 
 
I j^ Pessimism. 
 
 whelming personal calamity ; nay, if we are a little 
 out of health, if we are over-fatigued, if the weather 
 be disagreeable, we may all of us find that we are 
 for the time inclined to be pessimists. In one of 
 the many valuable letters I have received on this 
 subject, the writer points out very acutely how 
 the same circumstances will at one time depress us, 
 which at other times would make us hopeful and 
 glad. By way of illustration she refers to a cele- 
 brated passage in Professor TyndalPs ' Musings on 
 the Matterhorn ' : " Hacked and hurt by time, the 
 aspect of the mountain from its higher crags sad- 
 dened me. Hitherto the impression it made was 
 that of savage strength, here we had inexorable 
 decay. But this notion of decay implied a refer- 
 ence to a period when the Matterhorn was in the 
 full strength of mountainhood. Thought naturally 
 ran back to its remoter origin and sculpture. Nor 
 did thought halt there, but wandered on through 
 molten worlds to that nebulous haze, which phil- 
 osophers have regarded as the source of all material 
 things. I tried to look at this universal cloud as 
 containing within itself the prediction of all that 
 has since occurred. I tried to imagine it as the seat 
 of those forces whose action was to arise in solar 
 and stellar systems and all that they involve. Did 
 that formless fog contain potentially the sadness 
 
The EvohUton of Love. 179 
 
 with which I regarded the Matterhorn ? " Now^ 
 says the writer, that feeling of sadness which in- 
 vaded his spirit at the top of the mountain, was 
 probably due more to the exhaustion of his nervous 
 system than to any change in the mountain itself. 
 The thoughts of decay were his, not nature's. At 
 another time, with his body restored to the normal 
 condition, those very rocks might have made him 
 glad ; they might have given him an assurance of 
 infinite progress, of order brought out of disorder, 
 of life wrung from death ; and seeing how in the 
 natural world strife had given birth to beauty, he 
 might have learnt to hope that it would perhaps be 
 so in the moral sphere, and that all the sufferings 
 which had been involved in the progress of evolu- 
 tion were not worthy to be compared with the in- 
 finite and eternal glory for which they were the 
 necessary preparation. 
 
 But though various causes over which we have 
 no control may lead to our experiencing at times 
 the pessimistic mood, let us take care that we do 
 our best as quickly as possible to shake it off. You 
 remember the high priest of a3Stheticism — before 
 he was married, he is wiser now^ — rather prided 
 liimself on his melancholy. And there are others 
 who do the same. Just as some people think 
 agnosticism a proof of cleverness, so others think 
 
1 80 Pesstmis7n. 
 
 pessimism a proof of culture. Your youthful 
 agnostic, fresh from school, feels his mind to be of 
 such a superior order, that he considers quite be- 
 neath his notice arguments which were powerful 
 enough to convince the mind of Hegel. Similarly 
 there are pessimists who feel themselves possessed 
 of an organism so highly strung, that they are com- 
 pelled to regard as coarse and commonplace pleas- 
 ures which were pure enough and keen enough to 
 fill with ecstasy the heart of Wordsworth. They 
 assiduously cultivate their melancholy. They revel 
 in the poetry of despair. They are positively glad 
 to find the universe out of joint. All this puts 
 them, they fancy, on a higher platform than that 
 occupied by the vulgar herd. They glory in their 
 pessimism as a proof of their superior refinement ! 
 They might as well glory in their toothache as 
 a proof of the superior delicacy of their nerves. 
 There is no delicacy about it. There is nothing but 
 disease. The most delicate nerves in their normal 
 state will never give pain. And so with the pessi- 
 mistic mood. It is abnormal. It is not the sign 
 of a cultivated ear to hear nothing in the world but 
 discords ; it is not the sign of a cultivated eye to 
 see nothing in the world but ugliness ; nor is it the 
 sign of a cultivated heart to discover nothing in life 
 but its worthlessness. The pessimistic mood is an 
 
The Evolution of L ove. \ 8 1 
 
 unhealthy mood. It is a sign tliat something is 
 wrong with him who feels it. Cultivate it ! Fos- 
 ter it ! As well might you cultivate delirium or 
 fever. I tell you it is a disease, and it must be 
 cured. And if you ask me how— I reply, by forc- 
 ing yourself to dwell on the bright, rather than on 
 the dark, side of things. Instead of brooding over 
 waste and pain and disease and disappointment 
 and death, think of pleasure, happiness, beauty, 
 love, life— life with its infinite power and promise. 
 Cultivate cheerfulness ! 
 
 *' wonder of Cosniical Order ! Maker and Kuler of all, 
 Before whose infinite greatness in silence we worship and fall ! 
 
 Could I doubt that the will which keeps this great universe 
 
 steadfast and sure, 
 Can be less than His creatures thought, full of goodness, pitiful, 
 
 pure ? 
 
 Could I dream that the Power which keeps those great suns 
 
 circling around, 
 Takes no thought for the humblest life which flutters and falls to 
 
 the ground ? 
 
 O Faith! thou art higher than all.— Then I turned from the 
 glories above, 
 
 And from every casement new-lit there shone a soft radiance of 
 love : 
 
 Young mothers were teaching their children to fold little hands 
 
 in prayer ; 
 Strong fathers were resting from toil, 'mid the hush of the Sab- 
 
 bath air ; 
 
1 82 Pessimism. 
 
 Peasant lovers strolled through the lanes, shy and diffident each 
 
 with each, 
 Yet knit by some subtle union too fine for their halting speech : 
 
 Humble lives, to low thought, and low ; but linked, to the 
 
 thinker's eye, 
 By a bond that is stronger than death, with the lights of the 
 
 farthest sky : 
 
 Here as there, the great drama of life rolled on, and a jubilant 
 
 voice 
 Thrilled through me ineffable, vast, and bade me exult and 
 
 rejoice." 
 
iS3 
 
 True and False Discontent. 
 
 IX. 
 
 TKUE DISCONTENT WITH THE WORLD. 
 
 TX7E have been engaged for about two months in 
 ' * the consideration of true and false discontent. 
 We first of all noticed discontent in relation to per- 
 sonal conditions and environment. Those who are 
 falsely — i.e., unwisely — discontented, grumble at all 
 their circumstances, even at those which cannot 
 possibly be altered ; while the truly — i.e., the wisely 
 — discontented, are just so far dissatisfied that they 
 feel stimulated to improve such of their circum- 
 stances as are capable of being changed. Similarly 
 in regard to knowledge, some people are always 
 repining that they cannot know everything all at 
 once: while others spend their time in patiently 
 learning to know more and more. And the same 
 difference may be noticed in the mental attitude. 
 
1 84 Trtie Discontent with the World. 
 
 which people assume towards the world as a whole. 
 Some grumble at its being so wretched ; others 
 make it happier. With the former class we have 
 been engaged for several Sundays. We have seen 
 that the world after all is not nearly so miserable 
 as they would have us believe. Even judged by 
 the criterion of pleasure, life for most men is de- 
 cidedly worth living. But this, as I pointed out, is 
 a low criterion. The real purpose of life is progress 
 and development. And looked at from this point 
 of view, we saw that pain itself, about which the 
 pessimists make such a fuss, was often useful and 
 indeed inevitable. 
 
 But just because the purpose of life is progress, 
 just because the environment of human beings and 
 the human beings themselves are capable of im- 
 provement, it follows that we should not be satis- 
 fied with the world as it is. In other words, there 
 is a true, a wise, an honourable discontent, quite 
 different from pessimism, giving us inspiration in- 
 stead of despair. A certain sense of unsatisf action, 
 as we have seen, is the key-note of every noble life. 
 We ought to feel discontented with the present 
 condition of this world, for it is in our power to 
 make it better; and if we were not discontented 
 with it we should never try. 
 
 But this feeling of discontent is often conspicu- 
 
True Discontent zuitJi the World. 185 
 
 ous by its absence. Instead of it we frequently 
 find, especially in commonplace people, a most 
 ignoble contentment. They are quite satisfied 
 with this world, simply because they are having 
 a good time themselves. They make no effort, 
 they have no desire, to improve the condition of 
 those less favourably circumstanced. I remember 
 hearing an amusing description of a sermon de- 
 livered in Westminster Abbey some years ago. 
 The description was given me by a professor of 
 political economy, — a man who was naturally very 
 interested in all economical problems. He never 
 went to church if he could help it, but on this 
 occasion he was obliged to escort some ladies, and 
 so there he was. He told me that for the first five 
 minutes he almost thought he was going to like the 
 sermon. The preacher began by drawing a graphic 
 picture of the miseries of the poor in an over- 
 crowded city : and the professor expected that 
 some suggestions would follow as to how these 
 miseries might be alleviated and diminished. But 
 no. The preacher contented himself with saying 
 that they would receive compensation, at least 
 some of them miglit receive compensation — he was 
 not sure that they all would — but some of them 
 might receive compensation, or at any rate have 
 a better time, in the next world. And therefore 
 
1 86 Trite Discontent zuit/i the World. 
 
 the practical conclusion of the sermon was that 
 their sufferings did not matter, that everything 
 was all right. But the sufferings do matter ; every- 
 thing is not all right. The sermon was the out- 
 come of a false and mean contentment. 
 
 There can, I think, be no doubt that in the past 
 the Church has to some extent fostered such a 
 spirit. The Church has sometimes maintained, or 
 appeared to maintain, the doctrine that our only 
 duty in the world was to prepare to get out of it, 
 that we had nothing of any importance to do upon 
 earth except to make ready for heaven. Wlierever 
 this doctrine came from, it never came from Christ. 
 He denounced in the most unmeasured terms the 
 Pharisees and Scribes and all of His contempora- 
 ries who professed it. Our conduct lure towards 
 our fellows was, He always maintained, the first 
 and all-important consideration. It would depend 
 entirely on this conduct whether we were saved or 
 lost. Kindliness is salvation, both for this world and 
 the next. That is Christ's teaching. Some people 
 do not like it : they would rather be saved in some 
 other way — in any other way. That I can under- 
 stand. But why, when they have discarded all that is 
 most essential in the teaching of Christ, they should 
 persist in calling themselves Christians — that I can- 
 not understand. It is this false assumption of the 
 
Trtie Discontent with the World. 1 8 7 
 
 name of Christian that makes the religion of Christ, 
 which is really the most beautiful religion in the 
 world, so often appear to be the most contemptible. 
 
 In every one who sincerely desires the well- 
 being of his fellow - creatures, there must inev- 
 itably be a keen feeling of discontent with the 
 present conditions of this world — (1) as regards 
 pleasure, (2) as regards knowledge, and (3) as 
 regards character. 
 
 And, first, of pleasure. Though, as I have argued, 
 the world as a whole is not a bad place ; though 
 upon the whole there is more happiness in it than 
 misery ; though upon the whole life for nearly all 
 human beings is worth living ; nevertheless it must 
 be admitted that there is vastly more pain in the 
 world and vastly less pleasure than there ought to 
 be — than there might be. I have said that pain 
 is not altogether a useless thing, that it subserves 
 many important purposes. Now one of the most 
 important of the purposes which pain subserves is 
 this : it affords us a strong stimulus to try to get rid 
 of it. Pain is abnormal and unnatural. Though it 
 is often necessary, it is never intended to be per- 
 manent. It is at best merely a means to an end ; 
 and, paradoxical as it may sound, the sooner the 
 means is removed the sooner the end will be ac- 
 complished. There are people called ascetics, who 
 
1 88 Ti'iLe Discontent zuitk the World. 
 
 think that there is not enough pain in the world, 
 and wlio are always trying to increase it. By fast- 
 ings, flagellations and penances, by inducing people 
 to give up amusements and everything really en- 
 joyable, they do their best to make this world what 
 it was never intended to be — the worst of all pos- 
 sible worlds. But, as I have often told you, Christ 
 was no ascetic. The very Man of Sorrows refused 
 to join in the irrational worship of pain. He never 
 refused pleasure merely because it was pleasant ; 
 never chose pain merely because it was painful. 
 He understood the Father too well for that. As 
 one of my correspondents has ingeniously pointed 
 out, the very way we resent it shows that pain is 
 not one of the laws of our nature, but that on the 
 contrary it arises from a violation of those laws. I 
 believe that in all cases where pain is voluntarily 
 endured for its own sake, the individual is mor- 
 ally as well as physically injured. And I am 
 sure that whenever others are allowed to suffer 
 pain from which they might be rescued, those who 
 allow it are guilty of a great moral wrong. 
 
 Now there is an enormous amount of disease and 
 poverty and wretchedness in our midst, which a wise 
 legislature and a Christian Church might remove. 
 I do not know exactly how. Certainly not in the 
 way which the mob orators of Trafalgar Square 
 
True Discontent luitJi the Woidd. 189 
 
 would recommend : they want to steal the property 
 of the most deserving, — of those who by themselves 
 or their ancestors have made England what it is, — 
 they would like to confiscate all this property and 
 distribute it among the dregs of the community. 
 Nobody but a demagogue inebriated with his own 
 verbosity could ever advocate such a plan as that. 
 But though it is easy to see how not to improve 
 matters, how the condition of the world might be 
 made worse than it is at present, — it is by no means 
 easy to discover the right way to go to work. But 
 this undertaking, difficult though it be, is one of the 
 first duties of the legislature, — is, I believe, tlic first 
 duty of the Church. It is an undertaking which 
 requires great learning and great wisdom, as well as 
 great enthusiasm. Without the learning and the 
 wisdom the enthusiasm may do more harm than 
 good. It will be a hajDpy day for the Church, and 
 a still happier day for the world, when clergymen 
 read less of St Augustine and more of Adam Smith, 
 and when the bishops require all candidates for holy 
 orders to pass an examination in political economy. 
 And even as private individuals each of us is under 
 a solemn obligation to increase pleasure and dimin- 
 ish pain as far as in us lies ; to read and to reflect 
 and to work, with a view to the brightening and 
 gladdening of the lives of our relations and friends 
 
iQO Trtie Discontent with the World. 
 
 and dependants, and of any members of the destitute 
 classes with whom we are, or may become, ac- 
 quainted. That is the first and simplest and most 
 evident duty of every Christian man and woman. 
 
 Secondly. Let me say a word about the healthy 
 discontent as regards the present state of the world's 
 knowledge. I do not mean in regard to that which 
 is known at first hand by experts. There is no 
 room for anything but gratitude and admiration 
 in regard to what scientific men have already dis- 
 covered; and there is no fear but that they will 
 continue to make fresh discoveries up to the furthest 
 limit of human patience and ingenuity. I am re- 
 ferring to knowledge at second hand of what is 
 already known to some one. There is a vast amount 
 of unnecessary ignorance in our midst, both amongst 
 the upper and lower classes. And this ignorance, 
 in addition to the physical sufferings which follow 
 from it, involves mental and moral degradation. 
 An enormous amount of physical misery, especially 
 amongst the very poor, might be easily prevented if 
 they had but the most elementary knowledge of the 
 laws of health, of the properties of food, of the way 
 to make the best of their small earnings. And this 
 knowledge might by the State or by the Church, or 
 better still by the united action of both, be brought 
 within the reach of all. By adopting a more sensible 
 
Trtie Discontent zuit/i the World. 191 
 
 and practical system of education, by means of 
 popular lectures and useful tracts, instead of the 
 wretched things called tracts on which so much 
 money is annually wasted, — in a great variety of 
 ways, if the State and the Church only could make 
 up their minds to it, the poorest classes might not 
 only be made familiar with the elements of useful 
 knowledge, but might also begin to experience some 
 of the lolcasures of reading, on which Mr Balfour so 
 eloquently discoursed at St Andrews. As he truly 
 said, reading for pleasure is a good thing. If you 
 can get people to enjoy books, you at once raise 
 them morally as well as mentally. This alone 
 will save them from the most degrading kinds of 
 physical temptations. 
 
 I admit, of course, that it is a duty of the Church 
 to teach men to read for other purposes than mere 
 pleasure, that it is a duty of the Church to offer 
 men profound instruction upon moral and spiritual 
 subjects. But the Church has too often begun its 
 work at the wrong end. It has gone to men who 
 were not fit for earth, and tried by doctrine or 
 ritual to make them immediately fit for heaven. 
 It has bluntly offered the consolations of religion 
 to those who have hitherto only experienced the 
 consolations of beer. How absurd ! It is like 
 trying to build a house from the roof downwards ! 
 
192 True Discontent with the World. 
 
 " Tliat is not first which is spiritual, but that which 
 is natural ; and afterwards tliat which is spiritual." 
 Christ knew this. He treated men's bodies first, 
 and their souls afterwards. You remember the 
 poor man who couldn't get into the pool. Christ 
 did not preach to him till after he was cured, and 
 then He said, " Go and sin no more." It is no won- 
 der, when the ministers of Christ are ignorant of 
 human nature and destitute of common-sense, that 
 all their efforts to what they call " save " the poor, 
 should be absolutely futile. 
 
 Thirdly. But though it is necessary to attend — 
 and, I think, to attend first — to the bodies and 
 minds of men, that is not all which is required of 
 us. We ought also to be discontented with the 
 present condition of human character. I should like 
 you to read the chapter on the Law of Edification in 
 ' Ecce Homo.' Though philanthropy is an essential 
 part of Christianity, it is by no means the whole. 
 
 " Christ described in one of His parables a man 
 such as philanthropy might produce, if it were 
 perfectly successful — a man enjoying every physical 
 comfort and determining to give himself up to en- 
 joyment — but He describes him with horror rather 
 than satisfaction." And yet Christ was always so 
 eager to relieve physical distress and to promote 
 physical comfort. But if you reflect you will dis- 
 
True Discontent with the World. 193 
 
 cover that the paradox is not very difficult to ex- 
 plain. "A good parent will be careful of the physical 
 condition of his child, will tend him assiduously in 
 sickness, relieve his wants, and endeavour in every 
 way to make him happy. But the good parent will 
 not rest content with seeing his child comfortable 
 and secure from pain. He will consider that other 
 and greater things than physical comfort are to be 
 procured for him, and for the sake of these greater 
 things he will even sacrifice some of his comforts, 
 and see with satisfaction that the child suffers a 
 certain amount of pain and goes without certain 
 pleasures. The affection which pets and pampers 
 its object is not excessive, as it is sometimes de- 
 scribed, but a feeble affection, or rather the affec- 
 tion of a feeble nature. Now the love of Christ 
 for humanity was no such feeble love. It was not 
 an exceedingly keen sensibility, which made Him 
 feel more painfully than other men the sufferings 
 of which the world is full. It was a powerful, 
 calm, contemplative love. It was a love of men 
 for what they might be, a love of the ideal man in 
 each, or as Christ Himself might have said, a love 
 of the image of God in each man. Accordingly, 
 the enthusiasm of humanity in Him did not pro- 
 pose to itself principally to procure gratification 
 and enjoyment for the senses of men, but to make 
 
 N 
 
194 True Discontent with the World. 
 
 the divine image more glorious in them, and to 
 purge it as far as possible from impurities." 
 
 And it is our bounden duty as Christians to use 
 every means to raise men to the moral elevation of 
 Christ. It is our duty, as the apostle expresses 
 it, to " provoke others to love." And how is this 
 to be effected ? *' The enthusiasm of humanity can 
 hardly be kindled except by a personal influence, 
 acting through example or impassioned exhortation. 
 When Christ would kindle it in His disciples, He 
 breathed on them and said, 'Eeceive the Holy 
 Ghost ; ' intimating by this great symbolic act that 
 life passes into the soul of a man, as it were, by 
 contagion with another living soul. Contrivance, 
 however, and organisation may do much in marshall- 
 ing this personal influence, in bringing it to bear 
 upon the greatest number in the most effective 
 way ; it may also do much in preventing man's 
 natural susceptibility to the enthusiasm being 
 dulled by adverse circumstances, and in giving 
 fuel to the enthusiasm where it already burns." 
 As it is the duty of Christians to study human 
 wellbeing systematically with a view to philan- 
 thropy, so is it their duty, with a view to edifi- 
 cation, to consider at large the conditions most 
 favourable to goodness, and by what social ar- 
 rangements temptations to vice may be reduced 
 
True Discontent with the World. 195 
 
 to the lowest point, and goodness have the most 
 numerous and the most powerful motives. Here is 
 a whole field of investigation upon which Chris- 
 tians are bound to enter, and which is a prin- 
 cipal part of the work belonging properly to the 
 Church. 
 
 And if in any degree we are to do our duty in 
 these matters, either as private individuals or as 
 members of the Church, we must be inspired with 
 a noble discontent, we must be determined to leave 
 the world better than we found it. 
 
 " Do not crouch to-day, and worship 
 The old Past, whose life is fled ; 
 Hush your voice in tender reverence — 
 Crowned he lies, but cold and dead. 
 
 For the Present reigns our monarch, 
 
 With an added weight of hours ; 
 Honour her, for she is mighty ; 
 
 Honour her, for she is ours. 
 
 Noble things the great Past promised, 
 Holy dreams both strange and new ; 
 
 But the Present shall fulfil them, 
 What he promised she shall do." 
 
196 
 
 Christmas Day, 
 
 rp 0-DAY is Christ's birthday, — at least it has been 
 -*- set apart throughout Christendom as the day on 
 which the birth of Jesus should be celebrated. From 
 our earliest infancy we have been accustomed to asso- 
 ciate the 25th of December with the manger in the 
 inn of Bethlehem, where the new-born Christ was 
 laid. That event, seemingly so trivial and insignifi- 
 cant, will be celebrated all over the world to-day. 
 There is always a curious contrast, in the case of 
 every man of genius, between the helplessness of his 
 birth and the magic power of his name after he is 
 dead and gone. In the case of Christ this contrast is 
 pre-eminently remarkable. Who could have thought 
 on Christmas Day eighteen hundred and eighty- 
 seven years ago, that the infant lying in that lowly 
 cradle was destined to become the most illustrious 
 personage in the world's history, that to the end of 
 time the day would be called His day and be re- 
 garded as the central point of civilised chronology ? 
 
Christmas Day, 197 
 
 Who could have guessed that that helpless child 
 was to become the acknowledged God of all the 
 most advanced nations upon earth ? Yet so it is. 
 
 A marvellous triumph no doubt, and a triumph 
 with which any one who cared for glory might well 
 be satisfied. But with such a triumph we may be 
 sure Christ would not be satisfied. For all this is 
 perfectly compatible with failure, or comparative 
 failure, in regard to the real purpose of His life, 
 perfectly compatible with the corruption and degra- 
 dation of his religion into something no better than 
 the superstitions which he intended His own reli- 
 gion to replace. And the fact is the outward and 
 visible triumph of Christianity has been attended 
 all along with an inward and less noticeable defeat. 
 The profession of Christianity is respectable, so men 
 are ready enough to call Christ Lord ; and His so- 
 called disciples may be reckoned by hundreds of 
 millions. But in regard to the practice of Chris- 
 tianity—the only thing for which Christ cared— it 
 is quite different. Christianity is practised only 
 by a very small proportion of those who profess it. 
 In fact the great majority of its professors do not 
 seem aware that there is anything practical in it. 
 They regard it as a system of forms and observ- 
 ances and creeds, though for such things Christ 
 cared nothing. This emasculated and degraded 
 
iqS Christmas Day. 
 
 form of Christianity is constantly presented to the 
 world as the religion of Christ. And the more 
 such a S23urious Christianity progresses, the more 
 is the real Christianity of Christ thrown into the 
 shade. 
 
 All religions may be divided into two classes 
 which are diametrically opposed. Christianity, as 
 Christ founded it, belongs to the one class ; Chris- 
 tianity, as since corrupted, belongs to the second. 
 We have, on the one hand, religions which aim 
 at saving men from divine vengeance ; and, on the 
 other, religions which aim at saving men from their 
 own sins. All barbarous religions belong to the 
 first class ; Buddhism and Christ's Christianity to 
 the second. 
 
 Barbarous religions, I say, belong to the first 
 class. These are the religions which come earliest 
 in the world's history, and which men ought to 
 outgrow. Savages are taught by their priests that 
 the gods are spiteful and revengeful beings, but 
 that they may be propitiated by offerings of barley, 
 wine, or blood ; and there — with these propitiations 
 — the religion of savages begins and ends. The 
 gods do not trouble themselves, thinks the savage, 
 about my conduct ; I may please myself about that 
 so long only as I offer them their favourite bribes. 
 Christianity, on the contrary — that is to say, 
 
Christinas Day. 199 
 
 Christ's Christianity — belongs to a totally different 
 class of religions. Christ taught that God was not 
 vindictive, that there was no need to buy His for- 
 bearance, that He was full of fatherly love, more 
 willing to give than we to receive, but that His best 
 gifts could only be received by those whose conduct 
 was itself good. 
 
 In the time of Christ the Pharisees were the 
 representatives of the old barbarous religions, and 
 they were continually finding fault with Christ, 
 who made it evident enough, while He lived, that 
 He believed in a religion of a totally different char- 
 acter to theirs. "There came together certain of 
 the Pharisees and Scribes. And when they saw 
 some of His disciples eat bread with defiled, that 
 is to say with unwashen hands, they found fault. 
 For the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they 
 wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition 
 of the elders. And when they come from the market, 
 except they wash, they eat not. And many other 
 things there be, which they have received to hold, 
 as the washing of cups and pots and brazen ves- 
 sels and of tables. Then the Pharisees and Scribes 
 asked Him, Why walk not Thy disciples according 
 to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with 
 unwashen hands ? He answered and said unto 
 them. Well hath Esaias prophesied of you, you hypo- 
 
200 Christmas Day. 
 
 crites, as it is written, This people honoureth me 
 with their lips but their heart is far from me. 
 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for 
 doctrines the commandments of men. For, laying- 
 aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tra- 
 dition of men, as the washing of pots and cups : and 
 many other suchlike things ye do. And he said 
 unto them. Full well ye reject the commandment of 
 God, that ye may keep your own tradition. . . . 
 There is nothing from without a man that can 
 defile a man. . . . That which cometh out of a 
 man, that defileth him. For from within, out of 
 the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, 
 fornications, murders, thefts, lasciviousness, an evil 
 eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil 
 thino's come from within, and defile the man." 
 
 Now, notwithstanding the plainness of Christ's 
 teaching during His lifetime, notwithstanding the 
 plainness of the account of that teaching which we 
 find in the evangelists, the religion of Christ has 
 been for the most part misrepresented by those who 
 call themselves, and believe themselves to be, His 
 disciples. Much of what passes current as Chris- 
 tianity in Europe to-day is not Christianity at all, 
 bears no resemblance to Christianity, is indeed, in 
 every respect opposed to Christianity. If Christ 
 were in the world now, He would attack Christian- 
 
Christmas Day. 201 
 
 ity — the commonplace Christianity of Christendom 
 — as violently as He ever attacked Pharisaism. For 
 His religion has been transformed and corrupted 
 past all recognition. Broadly speaking it is scarcely 
 too much to say, that the Christianity of Christen- 
 dom is not the Christianity of Christ. From being 
 a religion of conduct it has been made into a reli- 
 gion of ceremony and of creed. From being the 
 highest of all religions, it seems in danger of be- 
 coming one of the lowest. 
 
 This is a strong statement ; but you will find it 
 remarkably confirmed in the various attacks which 
 are made upon Christianity from time to time by 
 hostile critics. They do not see that the Chris- 
 tianity of Christ and the Christianity of Christen- 
 dom are two distinct things, so distinct as to be 
 often antagonistic and contradictory. They fancy 
 that they are attacking the Christianity of Christ, 
 but they are not. They are attacking only a cari- 
 cature, which Christ Himself would denounce just as 
 strongly. We may admit all that they say as against 
 the Christianity of Christendom, and our faith in 
 the beauty and value of Christ's Christianity may 
 be at the same time confirmed. Look, for example, 
 at Mr Cotter Morison's ' Service of Man.' It is 
 written to prove that Christianity is a failure, that 
 men will be happier, and at the same time more 
 
202 CJmstmas Day. 
 
 moral, when we have got rid of it altogether. 
 Mr Morison asserts that Christianity, by its doc- 
 trine of justification by faith, by its insisting on 
 repentance for the past rather than good conduct 
 in the present, by its exaggerated emphasis of belief 
 and its comparative disregard of morality, tends 
 to foster immorality and to make the world more 
 wretched than it need be. Mr Morison, therefore, 
 bids us shake off' Christianity. He urges us to 
 substitute for the ceremonial service of God the 
 practical service of man. 
 
 Now, if the distinction I have so often insisted 
 upon between the Christianity of Christ and the 
 Christianity of Christendom were commonly re- 
 cognised, Mr Morison's book would never have 
 been written. It never occurs to him that the two 
 things are not identical. Yet so different are they, 
 that in attacking the one he does not touch the 
 other ; nay, his condemnation of the religion which 
 he regards as Christianity is a tacit but powerful 
 tribute to the real religion of Christ. 
 
 Christ never taught the doctrine of justification 
 by faith in the Lutheran sense — that is, in the 
 sense of something different from and opposed to 
 works. " He that believeth on me, the works that 
 I do shall he do also, and greater works than these 
 shall he do." " He that heareth my words and doeth 
 
Christmas Day. 203 
 
 them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man who 
 built his house upon the sand; and the rain de- 
 scended and the floods came, and the wind blew 
 and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was 
 the fall of it." Christ never taught that repentance 
 would save a man, apart from the conduct to which 
 a sincere repentance leads. " Not every one that 
 saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of 
 my Father." As for putting creed above conduct, 
 Christ did nothing of the kind. No teacher since 
 the world began ever laid so little stress upon creed, 
 and so much upon conduct, as Jesus of Nazareth. 
 He promulgated no dogmas. He insisted on no 
 articles. He enunciated no definitions. His only 
 creed was the golden rule, and that was not so 
 much a doctrine to be believed as a precept to 
 be obeyed. 
 
 Christianity is generally attacked as a system of 
 creed or of ceremony, seldom as a system of morals. 
 It is admitted by all that Christ's moral teaching 
 was good, if not the best. But it is assumed by 
 the opponents of the Christian religion that morality 
 is only a detail — something of comparative insigni- 
 ficance in the Christian system. And this is true 
 of Christianity as it has so often been misrepre- 
 sented in Christendom. But it is not true of 
 
204 Christmas Day. 
 
 Christianity as understood and unfolded by Christ. 
 He regarded morality as of paramount importance ; 
 in fact He identified it with religion. Duty and 
 salvation, according to Him, were synonymous 
 terms ; but so strangely has Christianity been 
 transformed, that things which Christ ignored 
 have come to be regarded as its very essence, and 
 what Christ asserted to be the one thing needful 
 has come to be altogether ignored. How many 
 persons do you suppose there are in Christendom 
 to-day who, if they were asked to give in a single 
 sentence the pith and gist and essence of Chris- 
 tianity, would ever dream of mentioning the golden 
 rule ? And yet it was in the golden rule that 
 Christ summed up His own religion. How many 
 persons are there, do you suppose, in Christendom 
 to-day who, if they were asked to state in a single 
 word what was necessary for the salvation of the 
 soul, would ever dream of mentioning the word 
 kindness^ Yet, according to Christ, it was this 
 characteristic which determined whether a man 
 was to go to heaven or to hell. " Come.'' Why ? 
 Because you have been baptised and received the 
 Communion. Because you have thought of the Trin- 
 ity without dividing the substance or confounding 
 the persons ? " Depart.'' Why ? Because you have 
 held yourself aloof from the Churches of Christen- 
 
Christmas Day. 205 
 
 dom ? Because you have not believed rightly the 
 doctrine of the incarnation ? No ! Saving the soul 
 is learning to be kind. This may not be orthodox ; 
 but at any rate it is the teaching of the Bible. 
 
 The identification of religion with morality is 
 especially remarkable, when we remember how 
 much God was to Christ. There can be no doubt 
 that Christ did identify the two. We must accept 
 the fact, even if we do not find a reason for it. But 
 we can. At first sight it seems strange that Christ 
 should have reduced all sins to sin against one's 
 neighbour — in one word, to selfishness ; and that, 
 where summarising His teaching. He should say 
 nothing of sins against God, of sins against Himself, 
 of sins which men may commit against their own 
 nature. But if you think for a little you may see, 
 on the one hand that selfishness implies and includes 
 all forms of sin ; and on the other hand that perfect 
 unselfishness is really equivalent to perfect sinless- 
 ness. In the first place, I say, selfishness implies 
 and includes all other forms of sin. For when we 
 sin against our neighbour, we at the same time 
 injure our own moral nature; we displease the 
 heavenly Father, who cares for him no less than for 
 us ; and we crucify the Son of God afresh who, so 
 far as we are concerned, seems to have lived and 
 died in vain. And in the second place, perfect un- 
 
2o6 Christmas Day. 
 
 selfishness is equivalent to perfect sinlessness. For 
 he who would never sin against his neighbour must 
 never sin against himself, nor against Christ, nor 
 against God. The very idea of human brotherhood 
 is based upon that of divine fatherhood. Men are 
 brethren because they are the children of a common 
 Father. And just in proportion as they believe 
 in Him, will they realise and fulfil their obliga- 
 tions to each other. Again, personal devotedness to 
 Christ is the best means of fostering a universal 
 devotedness to the welfare of the race. " If ye love 
 me," He Himself said, ''' ye will keep my words." 
 And no other means will produce the same effect. A 
 passionate enthusiasm for the welfare of humanity 
 will be developed in us, just in proportion as we 
 have learnt to admire and love the great example of 
 self-sacrifice, who sought not to be ministered unto 
 but to minister, and who died, as He had lived, to 
 redeem the world from evil. And with regard to 
 sins against ourselves, we acquire an additional 
 motive against committing them, when we become 
 imbued with a love for others. In injuring our- 
 selves we injure our brethren, both by our example 
 and by our diminished power of usefulness ; and 
 just in proportion as we love our neighbour, shall 
 we listen to the voice which bids us do ourselves 
 no harm. 
 
Christmas Day, 207 
 
 I like Christmas Day. I think it is a more 
 Christian day than any other in the Church's calen- 
 dar. All the observances connected with the season 
 serve to remind us of the morality, the sociality, the 
 geniality of tlie religion of Christ, which at other 
 seasons are forgotten or ignored. The Christmas 
 cards which are sent us and which we send to 
 others, the presents which we give and receive, the 
 decorations in our houses and in our churches, the 
 family gatherings, the dinner-parties, the games, the 
 pantomimes, the dances — the very dances this time 
 of year, you know, have quite a different character 
 from the crowded and unsociable balls of the season 
 — the way in which we wish a Merry Christmas to 
 every one, and really feel as if we meant it, — all these 
 things make one love the season of Christmas better 
 than any other season in the year. And it is to-day 
 at once my duty and my privilege as a minister of 
 Christ, to remind you that the spirit of Christmas 
 Day should be, for a Christian, the spirit of every 
 day. Let us try to make it so. 
 
 It is said that about the time of the birth of 
 Christ certain prophetic souls — shepherds they are 
 called in the New Testament — heard an auQ-elic 
 song, foretelling peace on earth and goodwill to- 
 wards men. For hundreds of years, however, peace 
 and goodwill have been conspicuous throughout 
 
2o8 Christinas Day. 
 
 Christendom by their absence. But there will 
 come a time when the hollowness of orthodox 
 Christianity will be discovered, and when the real 
 Christianity of Christ will take its place. Then, 
 and not till then, will the angel's song be fulfilled. 
 
 " It came upon the midnight clear, — 
 
 That glorious song of old, 
 From angels bending near the earth 
 
 To touch their harps of gold : 
 ' Peace to the earth, goodwill to men, 
 
 From heaven's all-gracious King.' 
 The world in solemn stillness lay 
 
 To hear the angels sing. 
 
 Still through the cloven skies they come 
 
 "With peaceful wings unfurled ; 
 And still their heavenly music floats 
 
 O'er all the weary world. 
 Above its sad and lowly plains 
 
 They bend on heavenly wing ; 
 And ever o'er its Babel sounds 
 
 The blessed angels sing. 
 
 Yet with the woes of sin and strife 
 
 The world has suffered loDg ; 
 Beneath the angel-strain hdve rolled 
 
 Two thousand years of wrong ; 
 And men at war with men hear not 
 
 The love-song which they bring. 
 Oh hush the noise , ye men of strife, 
 
 And hear the angels sing ! 
 
 And ye beneath life's crushing load. 
 
 Whose forms are bending low, 
 AVho toil along the climbing way 
 
 With painful steps and slow, 
 
Christmas Day, 
 
 Look now! for glad and golden hours 
 
 tome swiftly on the wing ; 
 Oh rest beside the weary road 
 
 And hear the angels sing ! 
 
 For lo ! the days are hastening on, 
 
 By prophet bards foretold, 
 When with the ever-circling years 
 
 Comes back the age of gold ; 
 When peace shall over all the earth 
 
 Its blessed banner fling, 
 And the whole world SE^i back the son^ 
 
 Which now the angels sing. ' ' 
 
 209 
 
2IO 
 
 New Years Day, 
 
 '' Thus saitli the Lord, Consider your ways." — Hag. i. 5. 
 " My people will not consider." — Isa. i. 3. 
 
 OTKANGE, passing strange ! God's people — 
 ^ nay, His children, divine beings — will not con- 
 sider. And yet, strange though it is, it is true. In- 
 stead of acting according to the dictates of reason, 
 we act for the most part on impulse, especially the 
 impulse of custom. We are creatures of habit. 
 We go on day after day, week after week, year 
 after year, feeling, thinking, living, as we have 
 been accustomed to do, without stopping to reflect 
 whether our thoughts are wise or foolish, whether 
 our feelings are good or bad, whether our life is ideal 
 or commonplace. We do not consider our ways. 
 Our power of introspection and self-examination, 
 our faculty of sitting in judgment on ourselves, — 
 these are the highest faculties we possess, and we 
 ought to be proud to use them. Yet often and often 
 it may be truly said that we " do not consider." 
 
New Years Day, 2 1 1 
 
 It must be admitted there is a certain excuse for 
 us. We really have very little time. The wear 
 and tear of life — especially London life — is so 
 great, that when we do have a chance of sitting- 
 down for a moment alone, we are far too tired for 
 serious thought. We hurry from one engagement 
 to another — engagements mostly which we are 
 bound to fulfil — as fast as horses or steam can 
 carry us. And when we get home at night, it is 
 time — very often more than time — to go to bed. 
 On the old-fashioned English Sunday, people had 
 plenty of opportunity for reflection in the intervals 
 of worship; but they generally went to sleep in- 
 stead. And under the new fashion we are almost 
 as much hurried as on week-days. We pay calls 
 all the afternoon ; we go out to dinner in the 
 evening ; and we are lucky if we have no engage- 
 ment afterwards. The hour or two we spend in 
 church on Sunday mornings might be conducive 
 to reflection. But generally they are not. Most 
 persons find that the prayers are too long, and in- 
 volve too much repetition and monotony. Robert 
 Hall used to say that there were persons who first 
 prayed him into the spirit, and then prayed him 
 out again. Such is the effect, I fear, of our own 
 liturgy. And then the sermon ; — well, that ought 
 to conduce to reflection, but generally it does not 
 
2 1 2 New Years Day, 
 
 help us much. Either the preacher tells us what 
 we knew before, and then we return more the 
 slaves of custom than ever ; or he tells us what 
 we did not know before, and then as a rule we 
 go home and abuse him, wasting our few moments 
 of leisure in discussing the motes that are in his 
 eyes, which we might better have employed in at- 
 tempting to take the motes, or perhaps the beams, 
 out of our own eyes. A certain allowance, no 
 doubt, is to be made for all men on account of 
 the pressure of circumstances ; and some are less 
 thoughtless than others : but it may be said uni- 
 versally of all of us, that we do not consider our 
 ways as we should, — as we might. 
 
 There is one day in the year when such consider- 
 ation is almost forced upon us — viz., New Year's 
 Day. The first of January, like Janus after whom 
 the month is named, has two faces, one looking to 
 the years that are past, the other to the time that 
 lies before us. We can hardly help remembering 
 to-day that another of our "threescore years and 
 ten " has gone. And this is not a cheerful thought, 
 especially if our past has been in any degree wasted. 
 But never mind ; let us look the thought in the 
 face this morning ; let us for a few moments con- 
 sider our ways. Let us look behind and before. 
 
 And first behind. From our past experience, so 
 
New Years Day. 213 
 
 far as it was bad, we may learn warnings ; so far 
 as it was good, we may find suggestions for making 
 it better still. Out of failures or comparative fail- 
 ures the wise man makes stepping-stones to suc- 
 cess. Let us ask ourselves, therefore, were our 
 ways last year wise ways ? I don't mean — did we 
 never do stupid things ? Of course we did many. 
 Pre-eminently stupid must we be if we are not 
 aware of it; and, on the contrary, we are almost 
 wise if we have sense enough always to discover 
 when we have been stupid. I mean, was the set 
 of our lives, the general tenor and tendency of our 
 lives, — was that wise ? Are we, in spite of the 
 stupid things, upon the whole developing, progress- 
 ing, making the best of ourselves. If not, why not ? 
 Is it all the fault of circumstances ? 
 
 And first, regarding the culture of the body. It 
 is scarcely necessary to say we ought to take care 
 of our health. Injuring our health is suicide — 
 slow perhaps, but suicide none the less. It is 
 through the organism the soul receives its impres- 
 sions and does its work. The wellbeing of the 
 organism, therefore, should be our first concern. 
 How was it with you in this respect last year? 
 Did you live a healthy life ? Or, if circumstances 
 prevented that, did you do what you could to 
 counteract them ? How about your eating and 
 
2 1 4 New Year s Day, 
 
 drinking ? Was that altogether satisfactory from 
 the point of view of self -development ? Did you 
 eat too much to please yourself ? or too little to 
 please some ritualistic clergyman ? How about 
 your recreations ? Did you have enough ? Did you 
 realise the importance of recreation for a healthy 
 and vigorous life ? Or did you keep on with 
 your work when prudence told you you should 
 stop ? Did you always take care that your recrea- 
 tions were of the right sort — really re-creative ? 
 Did you go in for unwholesome amusements ? or 
 for wholesome amusements to an unwholesome ex- 
 tent ? In one word, are you in as good health as 
 you were last year ? If not, why not ? Is it all 
 the fault of circumstances ? 
 
 Secondly, regarding culture of the mind. It is 
 our duty to try and become constantly more per- 
 fect, not only in body but in mind ; and this of 
 course involves the constant endeavour to know as 
 much as we can about as many subjects as possible. 
 Here our development will chiefly depend upon our 
 reading. 
 
 There are people who read nothing but novels. 
 Now I have nothing to say against works of fic- 
 tion : I only want to remind you that they form 
 but one department of literature. The old-fashioned 
 condemnation of novels was absurd. Some no 
 
Nezv Years Day. 215 
 
 doubt are stupid ; but so are some sermons — ^just 
 a few. Some novels are bad; so is some meat. 
 But you would not argue (unless you happen to be 
 a vegetarian) that because some butchers sell dis- 
 eased meat, therefore all meat must be unwhole- 
 some. Apart from the fact that we should some- 
 times read for amusement — the mind needs relaxa- 
 tion as much as the body — there are many works of 
 fiction pregnant with instruction. Novels are the 
 modern form of the drama: Shakespeare would 
 have written them had he lived to-day. 
 
 But it is our duty, as far as possible, to read all 
 kinds of books on all kinds of subjects. Did you do 
 so last year ? You may not have much time. You 
 may be engaged in business all day long, and this 
 leaves little energy for reading. But have you made 
 the most of your opportunities, such as they are ? 
 Have you really tried to know as much as you can 
 about the wonderful world you live in, and to make 
 yourself acquainted with the thoughts of the great 
 and wise and good of all ages ? Are you conscious 
 of your ignorance — comparative ignorance at any 
 rate — in every department of human knowledge ? 
 Do you seriously wish to become less ignorant ? 
 Do you really try to discover magazines, books, 
 persons, that will teach you something ? Do you 
 know more to-day than this time last year ? Have 
 
2i6 New Year's Day. 
 
 all your mental faculties during the past year been 
 strengthened by use ? If not, why not ? Was it 
 all the fault of circumstances ? 
 
 Then, thirdly, there is the culture of the heart 
 — that faculty by which we sympathise with our 
 fellow-men and wish to do them good. We are not 
 doing the best for ourselves unless we are doing 
 the best we can for humanity. Self-development in- 
 cludes living in and for the lives of others. Have 
 you tried to cultivate your faculty of sympathy ? 
 What have you done for others during the past 
 year ? You may have given them some money, 
 you could hardly avoid it, it would have looked so 
 bad if you had not ; but was that all ? Have you 
 made your wife happy ? Do your children feel 
 that there could not be so good and kind a father ? 
 Are your servants glad that they are in your ser- 
 vice ? Are the people you meet at dinners and 
 dances the better or the worse for meeting you ? 
 Are you doing anything, by your words, by your 
 example, by your personal efforts, for the amelior- 
 ation of the race ? Are you trying to improve the 
 world or any part of it, — your country, for example, 
 or your county, your town or your parish ? If not, 
 why not ? Is it all the fault of circumstances ? 
 
 And lastly, as to the culture of the spirit. Com- 
 plete self-development includes not only living for 
 
Nezi) Years Day. 2 1 7 
 
 others, but living with God. Nothing will so help 
 us in doing our duty to others as the thought that 
 we are brethren, that we are the children of one 
 common Father. Besides, in our union with the In- 
 finite lies our own real greatness. By ourselves we 
 are weak, foolish, erring. It is only in communion 
 with God we realise the fact that we are in a sense, 
 that we may become in a higher sense, ourselves 
 divine, — perfect as He is perfect. 
 
 Now what have you done during the past year 
 for your spiritual culture ? Have you sometimes 
 retired into a secret spot, not for the purpose of 
 saying your customary prayers and offering up 
 your customary requests, but that you might be 
 alone with God ? Have you tried to find a church 
 where the service is rendered in such a way as to 
 help your devotion ? Or have you dropped into 
 any church that happened to be at hand, so as to 
 get the thing over as quickly as possible ? Have 
 you sought out a preacher who would teach and 
 stimulate and encourage you? Or have you per- 
 sisted in hearing sermons, the only effect of which 
 was to bore and annoy you ? Are you really anx- 
 ious that your own finite life should be suffused 
 by the infinite life of God ? If not, why not ? Is 
 it all the fault of circumstances ? 
 
 And to-day we should look forward as well as 
 
2 1 8 New Years Day. 
 
 backward ; we should consider our future ways. 
 Have you any scheme or plan of life ? If so, what 
 is it ? Will it bear serious examination ? What 
 do you intend to do this year ? What are you 
 going to make of yourself ? Will you not to-day 
 and now resolve to profit by the past and to be 
 wiser in all time to come ? Will you not to-day 
 and now determine henceforth to do your very 
 utmost to live a noble and progressive life ? 
 
 In conclusion, I should like to wish you all a 
 Happy New Year : — happy, if it may be so ; but if 
 sadness must come, may God give you speedily the 
 interest of tears ! 
 
219 
 
 '' Thaiiksgivmg Service'' at the 
 Foundling, 
 
 T HAVE three things to do to-day. The first 
 -^ arises out of the fact that this is our Jubilee 
 Service. I have to express for myself and you 
 our humble but heart-felt congratulations to her 
 Majesty our Queen, upon the completion of the 
 fiftieth year of her reign, and upon the outburst of 
 enthusiastic loyalty which that event has evoked 
 from all classes of her subjects. Never has a 
 monarch been more worthy of a people's love. If 
 any proof of this were needed, it is to be found in 
 the " complete and beautiful triumph " of Tuesday 
 last. For, as the ' Times ' truly said, " In bygone 
 ages the English people were loyal with little 
 reflection, being ready to cheer any wearer of the 
 crown, and even to give their lives for the 
 sovereign, simply because he occupied the throne. 
 In the present age, the people have become too 
 critical for this impulsive and unreasoning devo- 
 
2 20 *' Thanksgiving Service " 
 
 tion; and their homage, being no longer a mere 
 matter of form, possesses the greater value. The 
 singular strength and warmth of attachment to the 
 Queen, which all sorts and conditions of people 
 delight to manifest, is chiefly due to the prevailing 
 conviction that she cordially reciprocates all their 
 good and kindly wishes." During fifty years she 
 has associated herself with all the joys and sorrows 
 of her people. Hundreds, if not thousands, of her 
 afflicted subjects she has personally endeavoured to 
 console. She has written to them, she has assisted 
 them, she lias sometimes gone and wept with them. 
 They tell a pretty story in Scotland of a poor 
 woman who had lost a child, and who received a 
 visit of condolence from the Queen. The neigh- 
 bours afterwards asked her what the Queen had 
 said. The reply was, "She didna say onything; 
 she jist sat and grat wi' me ! " It is something — 
 it is much — that for half a century she has governed 
 her mighty empire with such unfailing wisdom. 
 But it is more — infinitely more — that she has 
 shown a genuine sympathy for every individual 
 subject whom she knew to be in distress. She 
 has been at once the best of queens and the most 
 womanly of women. With all our hearts we say 
 God bless her! 
 The second thing I have to do this morning is to 
 
at the Foundling. 2 2 1 
 
 give you some little account of the history and 
 objects of the Foundling Hospital. It was founded 
 in 1739, and it owed its existence to Captain 
 Coram. This philanthropic gentleman had, it 
 seems, more than once stumbled over infants who 
 had been left in the streets to die; and he con- 
 ceived the idea of founding an institution where 
 these poor little waifs might be received and nur- 
 tured. In most cases the infants had been deserted 
 by their mothers in order to avoid disgrace. Cap- 
 tain Coram thought it was the duty of a Christian 
 community, not only to prevent the destruction of 
 every such innocent child, but also and specially 
 to help its mother to recover her lost position, and 
 to give her a fresh start in life. He endeavoured 
 to enlist public opinion in favour of such a scheme ; 
 but public opinion was against him, and for seven- 
 teen years he laboured in vain to change it. At 
 last, however, he succeeded, chiefly through the 
 influence of some noble ladies — noble by birth 
 and noble in character. Women have the reputa- 
 tion of being very hard upon one another's failings. 
 And no doubt they sometimes are. But in this 
 institution we have a proof that it is not always so. 
 Had it not been for the assistance of ladies possess- 
 ing great influence in the State, Captain Coram's 
 scheme would never have been carried out. At 
 
2 2 2 ' ' Thanksgiving Service " 
 
 last however a royal charter was granted for the 
 foundation of a hospital which was "to maintain 
 and educate exposed and deserted children." 
 
 For a time the hospital was badly managed and 
 did more harm than good. Captain Coram had him- 
 self pointed out that great care would be needed for 
 the proper working of such an undertaking. But 
 for a long while no such care was shown. The first 
 admission of children took place in 1741 under 
 the following advertisement. " To-morrow at eight 
 o'clock in the evening this house will be opened 
 for the reception of twenty children, under the 
 following regulations. — No child exceeding the age 
 of two months will be taken in, nor such as have 
 the evil, leprosy or disease of the like nature, 
 whereby the health of the other children may be 
 endangered ; for the discovery whereof every child 
 is to be inspected as soon as it is brought ; and the 
 person who brings it is to come in at the outward 
 door and ring a bell at the inward door, and not go 
 away until the child is returned or notice given of 
 its reception ; but no questions whatever will be 
 asked of any person who brings a child, nor shall 
 any servant of the house presume to endeavour 
 to discover who such person is, on j)ain of being 
 discharged." On such occasions the number of 
 applications was greatly in excess of the number 
 
at the Foundling, 223 
 
 of children to be admitted. There were frequently 
 a hundred women at the door, when only twenty 
 children could be received. This gave rise to a 
 good deal of scrambling, not to say fighting, which 
 was eventually put a stop to by making the women 
 ballot for the right of presenting their infants for 
 inspection. Those who drew balls of a certain 
 colour went up first, and if any of their children 
 were rejected on the ground of health or age, 
 ballots were again taken to fill up the vacancies. 
 Of course it is manifest that very little good could 
 come of a system of charity so unguardedly dis- 
 pensed, especially as chance so often favours the 
 least deserving. In fifteen years — viz., from 1741 
 to 1756 — 1384 children were received, or upon an 
 average 92 annually. This was only a small pro- 
 portion of those for whom admittance had been 
 sought. 
 
 The managers however looked forward all along 
 to the time when they should be able to open their 
 hospital upon the most unrestricted plan. At last 
 they applied to Parliament for help. The House 
 of Commons agreed that it was desirable for the 
 hospital to receive all the children offered to it, 
 and grants of money sufficient for this purpose 
 were guaranteed. A basket was accordingly hung 
 outside of the gates of the hospital, and an ad- 
 
2 24 " Thanksgiving Service 
 
 vertisement publicly announced that all children 
 under the age of two months tendered for admis- 
 sion would be received, in pursuance of which on 
 the 2d June 1756, the first day of general recep- 
 tion, 117 children were admitted. 
 
 The new system was even worse than the old. 
 The workhouses handed over all their infants to 
 this convenient receptacle. It happened not un- 
 frequently that a father who was unwilling to be 
 at the expense of keeping his child, would take 
 it by force from its mother and deposit it in the 
 Foundling basket. The hospital was so useful, 
 that from every part of England children were 
 sent up to it by the score. In fact there arose a 
 new trade. There were a considerable number of 
 persons who undertook to convey children to the 
 Foundling Hospital at so much a-head. These 
 traders often found it the simplest and most agree- 
 able plan to pocket the fee without doing the work. 
 At Monmouth a person was tried for the murder 
 of his child, which was found drowned with a stone 
 about its neck ; when the prisoner proved that he 
 delivered it to a travelling tinker, who received a 
 guinea from him to carry it to the hospital. Nay 
 it was publicly asserted in the House of Commons 
 that one man, who had the charge of five infants in 
 baskets, happened in his journey to get intoxicated, 
 
at the Foimdling. 225 
 
 lay all night asleep on a common, and in the morn- 
 ing he found three of the children dead ! A man 
 one day riding into London, being asked what 
 he had in his panniers, answered, "I have two 
 children in each; I brought them from Yorkshire 
 for the Foundling Hospital. I used to have eight 
 guineas for a trip, but lately another man has set 
 up against me, which has lowered my price." Even 
 in cases where children were really left at the 
 hospital, the barbarous wretches who conveyed 
 them, not content with the gratuity they received, 
 stripped the poor infants of their clothing into the 
 bargain, leaving them naked in the basket at the 
 hospital gate. 
 
 In the four years during which this system lasted, 
 15,000 children were received into the hospital. 
 The avowed object of the institution — viz., the 
 saving of life — was frustrated by the magnitude of 
 the scale on which it was attempted. Many of 
 the infants received at the gates did not live to be 
 taken into the wards ; and altogether there was a 
 mortality of over 70 per cent. It became evident 
 therefore that the institution must be worked upon 
 a different principle. The House of Commons 
 decided that the indiscriminate admission of all 
 children into the hospital had been attended with 
 many evil consequences, and ordered it to be dis- 
 P 
 
2 26 '' Thanksgiving Service'' 
 
 continued. For some time after this, owing to 
 want of funds, children were received for payment, 
 and no inquiries were made ; but since 1801 no 
 child has been received into the hospital, either 
 directly or indirectly, with any sum of money large 
 or small. 
 
 The present practice of the governors seems per- 
 fectly unexceptionable. Each application for ad- 
 mission is now decided on its own merits. Any 
 illegitimate child less than twelve months old is 
 eligible, provided its father cannot be found, and 
 provided there are no other relations able or willing 
 to maintain it. Each child must be brought by 
 its mother, who is required to prove, to the satis- 
 faction of the governors, that she had previously 
 borne a good character, and that she is desirous of 
 living in the future an honest and honourable life. 
 In competing cases, where other things were equal, 
 the child of that mother would be selected whose 
 previous character had been the best, and who had 
 the best prospect of retrieving the past through 
 the aid of the institution. In the words of one of 
 my illustrious predecessors, Sydney Smith, "No 
 child drinks of our cup or eats of our bread whose 
 reception, upon the whole, we are not certain to be 
 more conducive than pernicious to the interests 
 of religion and good morals. We help no mother 
 
at the Foundling. 227 
 
 whom it would not be merciless and shocking to 
 turn away; we exercise the trust reposed in us 
 with a trembling and sensitive conscience; we do 
 not think it enough to say, This woman is wretched 
 and betrayed and forsaken, but we calmly reflect 
 if it be expedient that her tears should be dried up, 
 her loneliness sheltered and her wants supplied." 
 There is, I know, a prudish, hellish cruelty which 
 would condemn every deserted mother to everlast- 
 ing despair, and this cruelty is sometimes mani- 
 fested by persons who dare to call themselves 
 Christians. Christians ? Why, when a woman 
 was brouoht to Christ convicted of a far worse sin 
 than that of the persons whose children we receive, 
 what did Christ say ? " Let him that is without 
 sin cast the first stone at her. Woman, hath no 
 man condemned thee ? neither do I condemn thee." 
 We are not concerned to show ourselves more 
 righteous than Christ. I believe there is no in- 
 stitution in London which is more in harmony 
 with the genius of Christianity and with the spirit 
 of Christ than the Foundling Hospital. And if I 
 may say without impertinence before their faces 
 what I have sometimes said behind their backs, 
 I believe there is no body of men who work more 
 conscientiously and more assiduously for the good 
 of others than the governors of this institution. 
 
228 '* Thanksgiving Service " 
 
 The third and last thing I have to do is to say 
 a word or two to those of my young friends behind 
 me who are to-day celebrating their majority. Let 
 me begin by congratulating you on your coming of 
 age. You have passed safely through infancy and 
 childhood and are now grown up. You have 
 received a good education; you have had a fair 
 start in life ; an honourable future is open to each 
 of you. All this is matter for thankfulness. And 
 you have done well to come here to-day to offer 
 up your thanks to Almighty God. 
 
 But there is only one way of truly thanking God, 
 and that is by our lives. The words of our lips 
 are by themselves worthless. Unless they corre- 
 spond to the general tenor of our conduct, they are 
 mere breath — wasted breath — mockery. And there- 
 fore if you really feel grateful, as I am sure you 
 do, you must resolve to show it. And you will 
 never have a better opportunity than to-day for 
 forming such a resolution. You all know what 
 is meant by a red-letter day. In the almanac 
 certain days — such as Sundays and saints' days — 
 are printed in red ink. Just as these red-letter 
 days stand out conspicuously in the almanac, so 
 to-day stands out conspicuously in your lives. It 
 is quite different from the ordinary everyday days. 
 There is a peculiar solemnity and impressiveness 
 
at the Foundling, 229 
 
 attaching to it. A good resolution formed seriously 
 to-day will not soon be forgotten. It will make 
 all the rest of your lives better than they otherwise 
 would have been. There is one simple resolution 
 I want you to make. I want you to remember that 
 you are grown up and resolve to act accordingly. 
 Coming of age is called coming to years of discre- 
 tion. It is not unfortunately always so in fact; 
 but that is what it always should be. Discretion 
 means discernment, — distinguishing between things 
 that differ, between right and wrong, between the 
 desirable and undesirable, between what is wise 
 and what is foolish. It is this discretion or dis- 
 cernment which makes the real difference between 
 a grown-up person and a child. The man or woman 
 who lacks this faculty — or rather who neglects to 
 use it, for we all have it — the man or the woman 
 who does not use the faculty of discretion, is in 
 reality only a baby, a large baby, but a baby for 
 all that. 
 
 Now there are three things which make up your 
 life, and to which this faculty of discretion or dis- 
 cernment is to be applied — thoughts, words, acts. 
 Get into the way of asking yourself. Am I thinking 
 wisely or foolishly ? am I speaking kindly or un- 
 kindly ? am I acting rightly or wrongly ? The 
 more you accustom yourselves to this kind of self- 
 
230 " Thanksgiving Serviced 
 
 examination, the better and nobler will your lives 
 become. If your lives are to be what they should 
 be, you must make a hard fight for it. But realis- 
 ing clearly the difference between what you are 
 thinking and saying and doing, and what you 
 ought to be thinking and saying and doing, is more 
 than half the battle. Evil is wrought by want of 
 thought more than by want of heart. By far the 
 larger proportion of the misery and wickedness in 
 the world is due to the fact that people will not 
 reflect, will not remember that they have come to 
 years of discretion. Do you therefore remember 
 it to-day, and resolve that you will remember it all 
 the days of your life. ' Eemember that you are 
 grown up ! That is text and sermon all in one ; 
 or if you would like it in Scriptural language, — 
 there are some people, you know, who think that 
 a text ought always to be taken out of the Bible, 
 — well I can give you one even shorter than my 
 own — " be men." 
 
Science, and Religion. 
 
 Wliat God hath joined together, let not man j)ut asunder. 
 Matt. xix. 6. 
 
 T WISH to speak to you this morning about the 
 -*- so-called conflict between science and religion. 
 I want to explain to you that what is thus errone- 
 ously described is really the conflict between science 
 and a certain low form of theology. I want to show 
 you that between true religion and genuine science 
 there never has been, and never can be, any in- 
 compatibility. 
 
 I had better begin by explaining terms. Science, 
 you know, means knowledge, — systematised, classi- 
 fied knowledge. Very frequently the word science 
 is taken as standing for the physical sciences ex- 
 clusively. It is so understood, of course, whenever 
 it is regarded as something different from theology. 
 For theology is itself a science ; it is a classification 
 of our knowledge, or supposed knowledge, of God. 
 
232 Science and Religion. 
 
 Theology, therefore, is no more religion than any- 
 other science is religion. It is impossible to over- 
 estimate the mischief which has arisen from con- 
 founding theology with religion. There are no two 
 things in the universe more different. Theology is 
 a science, religion is an art. Theology is theory, 
 religion is practice. Theology is concerned with 
 the intellect, religion with the heart. Theology is 
 formulated knowledge, religion is a mode of life. 
 It has been commonly, almost universally, assumed 
 that an eminent theologian must be an eminent 
 example of piety. But we might just as weU 
 imagine that, because a man was an expert in 
 physiology, he must have a fine 'physique. A 
 theologian is not as such religious, is not neces- 
 sarily religious, any more than an astronomer or a 
 chemist. A theologian may be a worse man than 
 an atheist. There is no more connection between 
 the knowledge of theology and the practice of re- 
 ligion than between the knowledge of geography 
 and the possession of a landed estate. So that even 
 if science and theology were always and necessarily 
 in conflict, it would not follow that there was any 
 incompatibility between science and religion. 
 
 But further, I must point out to you that there 
 are two kinds of theology, and it is only with one 
 of these that physical science ever conflicts. There 
 
Science and Religion. 233 
 
 is, in the first place, a stagnant theology, which as- 
 sumes that all is known which ever can be known 
 regarding the nature of God and the methods of 
 His working, and which objects to any discoveries 
 not provided for in its own cut-and-dried little sys- 
 tem. This was the theology which prevailed during 
 the middle ages, and between which and physical 
 science the conflict was very fierce. In fact the 
 theologians, when they had the chance, were in 
 the habit of literally roasting the scientists. There 
 is however another theology, which is not stag- 
 nant but progressive, which is not opposed to 
 science but which is itself strictly scientific. This 
 rational, progressive, scientific theology recognises 
 the fact that, as truth is infinite, it can never be at 
 any given time more than partially known. This 
 theology is always open to the reception of new 
 ideas, and can therefore never come into conflict 
 with any scientific truths. The rational theologian 
 thankfully accepts the discoveries of the physi- 
 cists, as valuable additions to the knowledge of 
 God. For the physical scientist is concerned, 
 though he may not himself realise the fact, with 
 divine revelation. There could be no such thino- 
 as science at all unless nature were a revelation 
 of mind. Consider. Science, according to Bacon's 
 well-known phrase, is " the interpretation of nature." 
 
2 34 Science and Religion. 
 
 To interpret is to explain, and nothing can be ex- 
 plained which is not in itself rational. Nature is 
 interpretable, because she has an intelligent consti- 
 tution ; and to say that her constitution is intelli- 
 gent, is to say that she is dominated and suffused 
 by thought. Thought can only grasp what is the 
 outcome of thought. Eeason can only comprehend 
 what is reasonable. You cannot explain the con- 
 duct of a fool ; you cannot interpret the actions of 
 a lunatic. They are chaotic, irregular, contradic- 
 tory, meaningless, absurd. It is only in proportion 
 to a man's intellio'ence that his actions bear an 
 intelligible relation to one another. Similarly if 
 nature were merely a fortuitous concurrence of 
 atoms — an irrational system destitute of thought — 
 there would be no possibility of knowledge; she 
 would lack the coherency which only thought can 
 supply. The atoms would be constantly rushing 
 aimlessly about, we could never discover what they 
 were after, we could never foresee what would 
 happen next. Even supposing they had by chance 
 produced such a world as this, no reliance could be 
 placed on them. At any moment they might do 
 something which they had never done before. At 
 any moment the earth might vanish from beneath 
 our feet, or in ten thousand other ways the prevail- 
 ing arrangements might be suddenly reversed. There 
 
Science and Religion. 235 
 
 could be no course of nature, no laws of sequence, 
 no possibility of scientific prediction, in the case of 
 an irrational play of atoms. But, as it is, we know 
 exactly how the forces of nature act, and how they 
 will continue to act. We can express their mode 
 of working in the most precise mathematical for- 
 mulae. All the parts of nature are bound together 
 by intellectual, and therefore intelligible, relations. 
 Progress in knowledge consists in discovering the 
 order, the law, the system — in a word, the reason — 
 which underlies material phenomena. Interpret- 
 ing nature is neither more nor less than making 
 our own the thoughts which nature implies. Sci- 
 entific hypotheses consist in guessing at these 
 thoughts; scientific verification in proving that 
 we have guessed aright. When after many failures 
 Kepler at last hit upon the laws of planetary 
 motion, he exclaimed, " God, I think again Thy 
 thoughts after Thee 1 " Science, then, is but a par- 
 tial copy of an intellectual system coextensive with 
 the material universe. And the devotion to truth 
 which characterises the scientific man is just the 
 determination to give up his own individual fancies 
 and predictions and prejudices, to lay aside his 
 own private and erroneous views, and to adopt 
 the thoughts which are higher than his — the 
 thoughts, namely, of the Infinite thinker. Between 
 
236 Science and Religion, 
 
 the physical scientist and the rational theologian 
 there can therefore be no possible conflict. Their 
 aim is actually identical. They are both seeking to 
 discover the mind of God. 
 
 And it is equally impossible that there could be 
 any conflict between legitimate science and genuine 
 religion. Just as science consists in the free sur- 
 render of the mind, so religion consists in the free 
 surrender of the heart, to the Power which is not 
 ourselves. Just as it is the aim of the scientist to 
 get rid of his own erroneous opinions and to adopt 
 the thoughts which are the thoughts of Nature, so 
 we can only be religious by allowing our hearts to 
 be possessed and ruled by a Love that is purer, by a 
 Will which is holier, than our own. Keligion does 
 for the heart what science does for the intellect. 
 To be scientific is to adopt the thoughts of God. 
 To be religious is to adopt the feelings and sen- 
 timents and emotions and purposes of God. So 
 that the genuinely religious man is not proceeding 
 in a direction opposite to that which the man of 
 science takes ; he is only going further in the same 
 direction. 
 
 Why is it, then, that so many eminent philoso- 
 phers speak and write as if religion and science were 
 necessarily opposed and contradictory ? It is im- 
 portant for us to consider this question. A great 
 
Science and Religion. 237 
 
 name is constantly mistaken for a great argu- 
 ment. And it not unfrequently happens that a 
 person naturally inclined to be religious grows 
 ashamed of his inclination, when a few clever men 
 tell him that religion is unscientific. 
 
 Now there is no doubt a strong bias against 
 religion existing in the minds of many eminent 
 modern scientists. And for this the theology of the 
 middle ages is very mainly responsible. Century 
 after century it did its best to discourage scientific 
 pursuits ; and when it failed in this despicable pur- 
 pose, it avenged itself by the most cruel, not to say 
 fiendish, persecutions. If you think of Copernicus, 
 Galileo, Bruno ; if you read the long, ghastly story 
 of the treatment which for ages scientists received 
 at the hands of theologians ; if you remember that 
 many of the opinions which were once defended by 
 torture and by murder, are now known to be ab- 
 surdly erroneous ; — you will understand why those 
 who devote their lives to the pursuit of physical 
 science should have conceived a dislike for every- 
 thing that has ever been connected with theology, 
 not excluding even the ideas of the soul and of God 
 — ideas which theology has so grossly caricatured 
 and abused. The old medieval theologians thought 
 themselves eminent examples of piety. The modern 
 scientists take them at their word and say — not 
 
238 Science a7id Religion. 
 
 unjustly — if that is religion, the world would be 
 better off without any. 
 
 But further, the hostility of many scientific men 
 to religion may be partly accounted for by the one- 
 sidedness which is very apt to characterise the 
 specialist. Exclusive attention to any pursuit has 
 a tendency to narrow a man's sympathies, and 
 make him intellectually incapable of dealing with 
 matters outside his accustomed sphere of thought. 
 Bacon said, " A little natural philosophy, and the 
 first entrance into it, doth dispose the opinion to 
 atheism ; but much natural philosophy, and wad- 
 ing deep into it, will bring about men's minds to 
 religion." Now, judging by the modern scientists, 
 this is not true. Men like Tyndall and Huxley are 
 no tyros in natural philosophy ; they have " waded 
 deep into it " ; and yet their minds are not brought 
 about to religion. One cause of this, I think, may 
 be found in the fact of their exclusive, or almost 
 exclusive, devotion to physical studies. Men who 
 spend their entire lives in investigating the pro- 
 perties of matter, are in danger of forgetting that 
 there is anything else ; and at last perhaps they be- 
 come absolutely incapable of conceiving the pos- 
 sibility of immaterial existence. Men who enthu- 
 siastically cultivate the intellect are very apt to 
 ignore and neglect the heart. 
 
Science and Religion. 239 
 
 And this one-sidedness generally fosters a spirit 
 of arrogance, which is incompatible with honest 
 and unbiassed inquiry in the obnoxious spheres of 
 thought. The self-complacent conceit of the older 
 theologians has been transferred to some of the 
 modern scientists. All truth is contained in our 
 theology, said the former. All truth will be dis- 
 covered by us physicists, say the latter. Away 
 with your physical experimenters, said the old 
 theologians. Away with your poets and philo- 
 sophers and saints, say the new scientists. 
 
 We can hardly wonder, perhaps — though it is a 
 pity — that they should have been intoxicated by 
 their triumphs in the study of matter. Their 
 spectroscopes have revealed the constituent ele- 
 ments of sun and stars. Their geological surveys 
 have shown, written clearly on the rocks, the his- 
 tory of life from the eozoon up to man. Their 
 telescopes have detected in the Milky Way planets 
 in the very process of creation. Their microscopes 
 have brought the invisible within the range of their 
 vision. They have gone abroad throughout the 
 physical universe weighing, measuring, analysing, 
 foretelling ; and they begin to feel as if nothing 
 could be hid from their instruments of research. 
 '' I have swept the heavens with my telescope," 
 said Lalande, " and have not found a God." " We 
 
240 Science and Religion. 
 
 have examined the brain with our microscopes," 
 say the physiologists, " and have not found a soul." 
 What we cannot discover, say all the materialists, 
 with our physical instruments and by our physical 
 methods, cannot possibly exist. The older theo- 
 logians, foolish as they were, were never guilty of 
 greater folly than this. 
 
 Now do not misunderstand me. Nothing could 
 be further from my intention than to speak of the 
 great masters in physical science without becoming 
 respect. I have the highest possible admiration 
 for them. But what I would most earnestly insist 
 upon is this, — the magnificence of their achieve- 
 ments in physics does not give any authority what- 
 soever to their views upon other subjects. No one 
 can be an expert in everything. And modern 
 physicists, when they wander into the sphere 
 of metaphysics, not unfrequently talk nonsense. 
 Let me give you one striking illustration — viz., 
 Professor Huxley's teaching in regard to the free- 
 dom of the will. His general opinion, as you 
 know, is that we are not free agents, that we are 
 mere machines worked by vital forces. And yet 
 he says, without seeing the inconsistency, "A 
 human being, though a machine, is capable within 
 certain limits of self - adjustment." And again: 
 " Our volition counts for something as a condition 
 
Science and Religion. 241 
 
 of the course of events." That a man of his enor- 
 mous ability should not see the inconsistency, is a 
 very remarkable illustration of the helplessness— 
 the almost childish heli^lessness — of the physicists 
 in alien spheres of thought. Since a machine is 
 incapable of self - adjustment/ to say that I am 
 capable of it is to say that I am not a machine. 
 Since the desire of a being under absolute restraint 
 does not count for anything as a condition of the 
 course of events, to say that mine does is to say 
 that I am so far free. Professor Huxley's views 
 on this subject are self- contradictory and therefore 
 absurd. :N'or is this after all very surprising, since 
 it is a subject which he has not studied. 
 
 We need experts, not only in one or two, but in 
 all departments of investigation. You would not 
 go to a psychologist if you wanted information as 
 to the nature of life, and why should you go to a 
 biologist if you want to be instructed as to the 
 nature of the mind ? To adopt Professor Huxley's 
 opinions on questions relating to the soul, is like 
 going to consult the senior wrangler when out of 
 health, or seeking the advice of a bookworm in 
 the purchase of a horse. The wrangler may have 
 
 1 It is scarcely necessary to mention that the so-called self- 
 adjusting machines must act, like all other machines, as they 
 are made to act. 
 
242 Science and Religion, 
 
 amused himself at odd moments by dabbling a 
 little in medicine ; the bookworm may have be- 
 stridden a horse or two in his day ; still, we might 
 be excused for feeling a little hesitation in accept- 
 ing their judgment as infallible. Similarly, the 
 physicist has a mission in the world which cannot 
 be fulfilled by the metaphysical philosopher ; and 
 the metaphysical philosopher has a mission which 
 cannot be fulfilled by the physicist. This was once 
 recognised by Professor Tyndall. In the eloquent 
 conclusion to the Belfast address he says, "The 
 world embraces not only a Newton but a Shake- 
 speare, not only a Boyle but a Ptaphael, not only 
 a Kant but a Beethoven, not only a Darwin but 
 a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is 
 human nature whole. They are not opposed but 
 supplementary ; not mutually exclusive but re- 
 concilable." That is true — though the agnostics, 
 Tyndall himself among the number, are constantly 
 forgetting it. They seem to imagine that human 
 nature will be explained, so far as explanation 
 is possible, by physical investigators alone. But 
 there are other experts in other departments of 
 human experience; and on what ground can we 
 refuse to listen to them ? Ignoring the arguments 
 of the mental philosopher is as one-sided and un- 
 justifiable as closing one's ears against the teaching 
 
Science and Religion^ 243 
 
 of the physical scientist. Finely has Walt Whit- 
 man said, " We will joyfully accept modern science, 
 and loyally follow it; but there remains a still 
 higher flight, a higher fact — the eternal soul of 
 man. To me the crown of scientism will be to 
 open the way for a more splendid theology, for 
 ampler and diviner songs." 
 
 The ampler songs of which Whitman speaks 
 may not come in your day or mine. Our race as 
 yet is in its babyhood. The agnostics are not 
 alone in their one-sidedness. All men are one- 
 sided more or less. Our vision is blurred, our 
 aims are petty, our sympathies are contracted. 
 But it need not always be so. It will not always 
 be so. There come to some of us now and again 
 moments of prophetic inspiration, when the things 
 of the present are as though they were not, when 
 we live in the far-off future. In a moment such as 
 that, I hear an anthem of surpassing indescribable 
 beauty ; I can distinguish the voices of scientists 
 as they mingle harmoniously with the voices of 
 poets, philosophers and saints. The anthem as- 
 cends to the eternal throne. It is the offering of 
 perfected humanity to God. 
 
 The editor of the ' Whitehall Review ' did me the honour 
 to write a long article upon this sermon. But from the tenor 
 
244 Science and Religion. 
 
 of the article, I was afraid that I had not made the general 
 drift of my argument quite clear. So I sent him the follow- 
 ing letter, which he was good enough to insert : — 
 
 Sir, — In your kindly criticism of my sermon upon 
 Science and Keligion, you say that " Professor Huxley came 
 in for his lashing." I am sorry I should have given you this 
 impression. All that I wanted to insist upon was the fact 
 that experts in physics had no claim to authority in meta- 
 physics. I gave, as an illustration of the metaphysical weak- 
 ness of the physicists, Professor Huxley's remarks upon the 
 freedom of the will, which as I pointed out appeared to be 
 contradictory and therefore absurd, just as the remarks of a 
 mental philosopher would probably be if he attempted to 
 dogmatise on biological subjects. Professor Huxley himself 
 showed brilliantly a little while ago that the Prime Minister 
 of England may be very ignorant of palaeontology — so igno- 
 rant that an eighteenpenny manual would have made him 
 comparatively well informed. And so we need not be sur- 
 prised if a President of the Eoyal Society finds himself at 
 sea, when he attempts to deal with such problems as the ex- 
 istence of the soul or the freedom of the will. Surely it is 
 not " lashing " Professor Huxley to say that he is, and must 
 be, subject to the laws of nature. And it is one of the laws 
 of nature that no man can be an expert in everything. — I 
 remain, sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 A. W. MOMERIE. 
 
245 
 
 Patience, 
 
 " Let patience have her perfect work." — James i. 4. 
 
 npHEEE is perhaps no quality which we so much 
 -■- need, and at the same time no quality in 
 which most of us are so deficient, as that of 
 patience. This word means, as you know, the 
 capacity for bearing or enduring. And there are 
 two things in human life which specially call for 
 the exercise of patience — viz., work and trouble. 
 Let me say a word or two about each. 
 
 And first, of work. Most people have to work 
 in order to live at all. And those who would live 
 worthily, successfully, greatly, must not only work, 
 but work hard, work continuously, work till they 
 die. There is a pathetic little verse — I forget 
 whose — representing a conversation between Man 
 and Destiny. It is as follows : — 
 
 ' ' Does the road wind up hill all the way ? 
 Yes, to the very end. 
 Will the day's journey take the whole long day ? 
 From morn to night, my friend." 
 
246 Patience. 
 
 Now all work tends to become monotonous ; all 
 long- continued work is fatiguing ; all work, just in 
 proportion to its value, necessitates patience — the 
 capacity to endure. But how is this capacity to 
 be acquired and developed ? If we are naturally 
 impatient — as most of us are — how can we make 
 ourselves patient ? I answer, partly by reflection, 
 and partly by practice. 
 
 I would have you all reflect often and long on 
 the power of work. Think of what it has accom- 
 plished in the past. We unfortunately believe too 
 much in genius and too little in toil. And yet 
 every one who has been acknowledged by the world 
 as a genius, has toiled just in proportion to his fame. 
 The power of genius is in reality the power of work. 
 The best definition I know of genius is that which 
 calls it the infinite capacity for taking pains. You 
 will find the truth of this definition illustrated by 
 all the world's greatest men. Tennyson wrote 
 " Come into the Garden, Maud " in five minutes, 
 but spent two months in improving it. Goethe 
 worked at " Faust " on and off till he died. Shake- 
 speare, as Mr Swinburne has pointed out, laboured 
 year after year in improving " Hamlet," not for the 
 contemporary stage, but for posterity. Michael 
 Angelo — you know the old story. A friend called 
 one day upon the sculptor, and found him finishing 
 
Patience, 247 
 
 a statue. Some time after, when he called again, 
 Angelo was still engaged upon the same work. 
 His friend, looking at the figure, said, " You have 
 been idle since I saw you last." " By no means," 
 replied Angelo ; " I have retouched this part and 
 polished that ; I have softened this feature and 
 brought out this muscle; I have given more ex- 
 pression to this lip and more energy to this limb." 
 " Well, well," said his friend, " but all these are 
 trifles." " It may be so," said the sculptor, " but 
 recollect that trifles make perfection, and perfection 
 is no trifle." And there is the same necessity for 
 diligence in all other departments of work. You 
 think that the laws of nature are discovered by 
 inspiration. Well, inspiration it may be, but it is 
 inspiration that moves very, very slowly. Faraday 
 said the first task of the scientific investigator is 
 to invent hypotheses, and his second task is to feel 
 disgusted with them. Kepler found out the actual 
 movements of the planets, but only after ninety- 
 nine failures. Genius is something very different 
 from cleverness ; that is merely talent. It would 
 be almost an insult to call the man of genius clever. 
 The clever man will do a hundred things fairly well, 
 while the genius does but the one. The talented 
 man's productions are admired for a little while, 
 and then they are forgotten. The productions of 
 
248 Patience, 
 
 genius live for ever. But for work, the genius 
 would very often rank below his fellows. Newton 
 was the dunce of his school. Demosthenes was at 
 first a stutterer. There is a story told of a teacher 
 of music becoming indignant with a talented but 
 lazy pupil, and saying to him that a good voice was 
 really an obstacle to good singing. And I heard last 
 year in Italy, that when Madame Albani first went 
 to study under Signer Lamperti, she had so poor a 
 voice that the Meister thought she would never suc- 
 ceed as a singer. On every page of history you 
 will find illustrations of the fact that it is not 
 ability but work which makes success. 
 
 Perhaps we are all agreed that success cannot be 
 expected without work. But the worst of it is we 
 all of us expect too much success for too little work. 
 We look for the greatest effects from the smallest 
 causes ; and these effects we demand with an abso- 
 lutely impossible celerity. We are ready enough 
 to remind our impetuous neighbour that Eome 
 wasn't built in a day. But our own private Eome, 
 we think, is going to be an exception to the rule. 
 And when we find it isn't, we become impatient 
 and feel ready to throw up the game in despair. 
 We are often dissatisfied, not only with the results 
 of our work, but with the work itself. We think 
 we have not accomplished anything when we have 
 
Patience. 249 
 
 really done very well. I remember when I was 
 writing my thesis for my first doctor's degree, 
 every day I said to myself I have done practically 
 nothing ; and yet at the end of three weeks it was 
 finished. That was quick work; but, looked at 
 piecemeal, it seemed to be most hopelessly slow. We 
 must learn to believe in the cumulative effects of 
 work ; and we must learn to wait. The child keeps 
 digging up the seed he has planted, and is disap- 
 pointed because it has not grown. It would have 
 oTown fast enough if he had but let it be. " All 
 the performances of human art at which we look 
 with praise or wonder," says Dr Johnson, " are the 
 results of the resistless force of perseverance ; it is 
 by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and 
 that distant countries are united by canals. If a 
 man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of 
 the pickaxe or of one impression of the spade with 
 the general design and last result, he would be 
 overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; 
 yet these petty operations, incessantly continued, 
 in time overcome the greatest difficulties; moun- 
 tains are levelled and oceans bounded by the 
 slender force of human beings." Sir Jonah Bar- 
 rington used to tell a story of a carpenter who was 
 making a magistrate's bench, and who was laughed 
 at by his companions for the peculiar pains he took 
 
250 Patience. 
 
 in planing and smoothing it. He smilingly observed 
 that he did so to make it easy for himself, as he was 
 resolved not to die till he had the right to sit upon 
 it. And he was as good as his word. He lived to 
 sit as a magistrate on the very bench he had sawed 
 and planed. There, was a man who believed in the 
 cumulative effects of work ; and his faith, like all 
 rational faith, had its reward. 
 
 And we must not only be prepared to wait for 
 success, but we must sometimes be prepared posi- 
 tively to fail. Failures are not agreeable, but they 
 are often useful. At Cambridge the college author- 
 ities are very loath to give a man a scholarship in 
 his first year. They think it makes him lazy ; and 
 so they always withhold it except in cases of extra- 
 ordinary merit. I did not show that extraordinary 
 merit, and I did not get the scholarship. I am 
 very glad. My work was far better the second 
 year than it would have been if I had succeeded 
 the first. A failure is a most excellent tonic for 
 any one who believes in the ultimate power of 
 work. 
 
 And there is one thing more that should be said 
 upon the subject, though it only applies to the few 
 rare individuals who are greatly in advance of their 
 age. These men must be content not only with 
 temporary but even with permanent failure, so far 
 
Patience. 251 
 
 as the verdict of their contemporaries is concerned. 
 And as a rule such men do not mind. Much as 
 they would like to be understood and appreciated 
 by their own age, they are buoyed up by the thought 
 that an authoritative judgment can be passed by 
 posterity alone. When Kepler had finished his 
 great work, he did not expect that it would be re- 
 ceived with enthusiasm ; he was quite prepared to 
 find it ignored. He said in the ever -memorable 
 words — and there is no finer instance of the power 
 of faith — " I may well wait a hundred years for a 
 reader, since God has waited six thousand years for 
 a discoverer." 
 
 Was die Schickung schickt, ertrage ; 
 Wer ausharret wird gekront. 
 
 So much for patience in regard to work. Now 
 let me say a word about patience in trouble, suffer- 
 ing, affliction, or whatever we may please to call 
 it, for which we can see no reason, which appears 
 irremediable, and which does not seem at all likely 
 to lead to anything either for ourselves or others in 
 this world or the next. And here it is far harder 
 to practise patience. Patient continuance in well- 
 doing, wheii we have something to which we can 
 look forward at the end, hard as it is, is compara- 
 tively easy. But how can you expect a man to be 
 patient under what seems useless, needless, wasted 
 
252 Patience. 
 
 suffering ? How can you expect a man to be 
 patient under bereavement, when he has lost one 
 who can never be reiDlaced ? How can you expect 
 a man to be patient when, on looking back over his 
 past life, he sees that it has all been a failure ? 
 Faith in himself is of no use. He feels, he knows 
 that he is helpless. Faith in the power of work is 
 here equally impossible ; work can now do nothing 
 for him, except perhaps momentarily to drown his 
 grief. Under such circumstances patience is ab- 
 solutely impossible, apart from faith in God and 
 immortality. And this faith is what so few of us 
 really have. Though we constantly saij we " believe 
 in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the 
 world to come," we chafe and fret when our wishes 
 are thwarted as if there were no life but the present, 
 as if the grave were the end of all things for us. 
 When trouble comes upon us, we are as impa- 
 tient as if we had never heard of God. We are 
 always ready to preach patience ; why cannot we 
 practise what we preach ? We can exercise faith 
 for other men ; shall we never exercise it for our- 
 selves ? Is it likely that in a well-ordered universe 
 — and we profess to believe that the universe is well 
 ordered — is is likely that our welfare alone has been 
 overlooked ? If it were our destiny to fight impo- 
 tently against surrounding forces, which were bound 
 
Patience. 253 
 
 in the end to destroy us, then there would be an 
 excuse for our impatience. But if there be a 
 God, a loving God, a God who is making all things 
 to work together for good, then our fretful impa- 
 tience is puerile and contemptible. Have we not 
 the glorious hope of everlasting life ? 
 
 Yes ; but this very hope often makes us im- 
 patient. We should like, instead of a hope, to 
 have possessed a demonstration. We should like 
 to know exactly the kind of existence that awaits 
 us in the future. We should like to be allowed in 
 this life some communion with those whom we 
 have loved and lost. And yet in the present state 
 of our mental development, it may be quite impos- 
 sible for us to understand any fuller or clearer 
 revelation than that which has been given to us. 
 Even if it were possible, it might be supremely 
 inexpedient. There is probably no other discipline 
 so useful for us as that of the comparative igno- 
 rance in which we are compelled to remain. At 
 any rate I think we might bring ourselves to the 
 sure and certain hope, that the Author of our being 
 is caring for our future and doing in regard to it 
 that which alone is best. Surely there is enough 
 rationality in the universe, enough joy, enough 
 beauty, enough glory, to discountenance the belief 
 that the end of it all will be nothingness. 
 
254 Patience. 
 
 '•' strive ; yet I do not promise 
 
 The prize you dream of to-day 
 Will not fade when you think to grasp it, 
 
 And melt in your hand away. 
 But another and holier treasure, 
 
 You would now perchance disdain, 
 Will come when your toil is over 
 
 And pay you for all your pain. 
 
 Wait ; yet I do not tell you 
 
 The hour you long for now 
 Will not come with its radiance vanished 
 
 And a shadow upon its brow. 
 Yet far through the misty future, 
 
 With a crown of starry light, 
 An liour of joy you know not 
 
 Is winging her silent flight. 
 
255 
 
 The Sabbath, 
 
 Remember the SalDbatli-day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou 
 labour and do all thy work : but the seventh day is the Sabbath 
 of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, 
 nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid- 
 servant, thy cattle, and thy stranger that is within thy 
 — -ExoD. XX. 8-10. 
 
 TI^^ILL you please listen to the following con- 
 versation between two gentlemen — Mr 
 Orthodox, who keeps the Sabbath or thinks he 
 keeps it, and Mr Heterodox, who doesn't keep it 
 and doesn't wish to keep it. 
 
 Mr H. Why do you keep Sunday ? 
 
 Mr 0. Because of the fourth commandment. 
 
 Mr H. My good sir, that refers to Saturday. 
 
 Mr 0. Yes ; but the day has since been changed. 
 
 Mr H. Who changed it ? 
 
 Mr 0. Well, I don't know. I suppose the 
 apostles. We read in the ]S"ew Testament that 
 they assembled together on the first day of the 
 week, and this answers to the old meetings in the 
 synagogues on the Jewish Sabbath. 
 
256 The Sabbath, 
 
 Mr H. What business had the apostles to change 
 the day ? What business had they to observe the 
 first day when tliey were commanded to observe the 
 seventh ? 
 
 Mr 0. I don't know. But they were apostles ; 
 they were inspired ; it must have been all 
 right. 
 
 Mr H. I should like to ask you another question. 
 Do you believe that the Levitical regulations for the 
 Sabbath are still binding ? that people should have 
 no fires, no candles, no anything ? 
 
 Mr 0. Certainly not. The rigour of the old 
 Jewish Sabbath has been relaxed. 
 
 Mr H. Indeed ! Who relaxed it ? 
 
 Mr 0. I don't know. I suppose the apostles. 
 
 Mr H. What makes you think so ? 
 
 Mr 0. I don't know. 
 
 Mr H. How far has it been relaxed ? 
 
 Mr 0. I can't exactly say. 
 
 Mr H. Well, how do you keep it ? 
 
 Mr 0. I go to church twice. 
 
 Mr H. Is that all ? 
 
 Mr 0. I read a chapter in the Bible. 
 
 Mr H. Is that all ? 
 
 Mr 0. Well, I make the children learn hymns. 
 
 Mr H. Would you like to see the museums and 
 picture-galleries open on Sunday ? 
 
The Sabbath. 257 
 
 Mr 0. No ; certainly not. 
 
 Mr H. Why not ? 
 
 Mr 0. It would involve labour. 
 
 Mr H. Oh, I see ; you don't approve of labour on 
 Sunday. I suppose you give your own servants a 
 holiday. 
 
 Mr 0. Well, no. 
 
 Mr H. That, of course, is one of the obligations 
 which have been relaxed ! 
 
 We need not listen any more. We have heard 
 enough to convince us that the views of Mr Ortho- 
 dox upon this subject are in a state of hopeless 
 confusion. I venture to say there are hundreds 
 and thousands of persons who, if asked the same 
 sort of questions, would give the same sort of re- 
 plies. The fourth commandment, as a matter of 
 fact, is only obeyed by one small sect in England 
 — viz., the seventh-day Baptists. And yet an im- 
 mense number of professing Christians believe that 
 they ought to obey it, and what is still more curious, 
 believe that they do obey it. How wonderful is 
 man's power of self-deception ! Just think of it. 
 People fancy they are obeying a command to keep 
 a certain day in one way, when they keep a dif- 
 ferent day in another way. It is as if they were 
 told to wear a white dress on Monday, and imagined 
 they were complying when they wore a black dress 
 
 K 
 
258 The Sabbath. 
 
 on Tuesday. How can Christianity ever be re- 
 spected by the world at large when people like this 
 are regarded as its representatives ? 
 
 I. Now I want you to observe, in the first place, 
 that the fourth commandment is distinguished from 
 the other commandments in the Decalogue by being 
 exclusively addressee! to Jews. The reasons which 
 were given for its observance are reasons which 
 cannot have any weight with us. In Exodus xx. 
 11, it is based on the six days' theory of creation, 
 which has long ago been exploded. "Eemember 
 the Sabbath, ... for in six days the Lord made 
 heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and 
 rested the seventh day : loherefore the Lord blessed 
 the Sabbath-day, and hallowed it." In Deut. v. 15, 
 it is based on the fact that those to whom it 
 was addressed had been slaves. " Eemember that 
 thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that 
 the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through 
 a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm : there- 
 fore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the 
 
 Sabbath-day." 
 
 II. The fourth commandment is distinguished 
 from the rest by being addressed exclusively to 
 the rich. It is a command given to the owners 
 of men-servants and maid-servants, &c. It was 
 evidently laid down in the interests of the poor. 
 
The Sabbath. 259 
 
 Servants were in those clays mere slaves ; and 
 under the Mosaic government many enactments 
 were made in their favour. This was one. The 
 fourth commandment was intended to secure for 
 them a periodical respite from the excessive toil to 
 which they were generally condemned. 
 
 III. The fourth commandment says nothing about 
 worship. It is a command to rest. The meaning of 
 to keep holy, or to sanctify, is simply to set apart for 
 a particular purpose. It is used in other passages, 
 where the purpose is purely secular. It is the same 
 word which is translated in Jeremiah xxii. 7, " pre- 
 pare " ; and in this passage the word signifies setting 
 apart for war. And so the Saturday was to be set 
 apart for rest, as is shown by the context — "Ee- 
 member the Sabbath-day to set it apart ; in it thou 
 shalt do no manner of work." Of course it is desir- 
 able to take advantage of any special opportunity 
 afforded by any special days for worship and spir- 
 itual contemplation, but this is not keeping the 
 fourth commandment. That commandment was 
 kept by any one who abstained from work and let 
 his servants abstain from work, even though he 
 never once thought of God. It was broken by any 
 one who allowed a single animal to labour, even 
 though he himself spent the entire day in spiritual 
 exercises. Such a man, under the Levitical dispen- 
 
26o The Sabbath. 
 
 sation, would have been put to death. In other 
 words, the first commandment is not the fourth. 
 It is quite possible to keep the first commandment 
 and to break the fourth ; or, vice versa, to keep 
 the fourth and to break the first. 
 
 IV. Christ showed little respect for the tradi- 
 tional and conventional methods — the cant methods 
 — of Sabbatarian observance which were common in 
 His time. In fact they excited His contempt and in- 
 dignation. Then, as now, people would do certain 
 things that suited their own convenience ; but there 
 they would draw the line. Things profitable to them- 
 selves, things they liked or didn't mind, they put on 
 one side of the line ; things unprofitable to them- 
 selves, things they didn't care about, they put on the 
 other side. On the plea of Sabbath observance, they 
 could very often avoid the trouble of doing good. 
 Christ most emphatically condemned all such con- 
 duct. For instance. " He was teaching in one of 
 the synagogues on the Sabbath. And, behold, there 
 was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen 
 years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise 
 lift up herself. And when Jesus saw her, He called 
 her to Him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art 
 loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands 
 on her: and immediately she was made straight, 
 and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue 
 
The Sabbath, 261 
 
 answered with indignation, because that Jesus had 
 healed on the Sabbath-day, and said unto the peo- 
 ple, There are six days in which men ought to 
 work : in them therefore come and be healed, and 
 not on the Sabbath-day. The Lord then answered 
 him and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of 
 you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the 
 stall, and lead him away to watering. And ought 
 not this woman to be loosed from this bond on 
 the Sabbath-day ? " Or read again the following : 
 " It came to pass, that He went through the corn- 
 fields on the Sabbath-day ; and His disciples began, 
 as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the 
 Pharisees said unto him. Behold, why do they on 
 the Sabbath-day that which is not lawful ? And 
 He said unto them. Have ye never read what David 
 did, when he had need, and was an hungered, he, 
 and they that were with him ? How he went into 
 the house of God in the days of Abiathar the 
 high priest, and did eat the showbread, which is 
 not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also 
 to them which were with him ? And he said unto 
 them, the Sabbath was made for man, and not man 
 for the Sabbath." 
 
 V. St Paul puts the observance of the Sabbath 
 on a level with the observance of the new moon. 
 " Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in 
 
262 The Sabbath. 
 
 respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the 
 Sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come." 
 " One man esteemeth one day above another, an- 
 other esteemeth every day alike. Let every man 
 be fully persuaded in his own mind." 
 
 VI. Neither Christ nor the apostles ever gave 
 any instruction as to the observance of Sunday. 
 The modern " Sabbath " is only referred to in Acts 
 XX. 7, and in 1 Cor. xvi. 2. In these passages we 
 simply read, " Upon the first day of the week, when 
 the disciples were come together to break bread, 
 Paul preached to them ; " and " upon the first day 
 of the week let every one of you lay by him in 
 store, as God hath prospered him." 
 
 It follows, then, that the superstitious reverence 
 for Sunday has absolutely no justification. On the 
 strictest theory of inspiration, there is not a vestige 
 of evidence that any divine command was ever 
 given for the observance of any day but Saturday ; 
 and that day was set apart specially, not for wor- 
 ship, but for rest. From the single passage in the 
 Acts just quoted, we are able to conjecture that the 
 apostles were in the habit of meeting together on 
 the first day of the week to commemorate the resur- 
 rection. But we also know, from what St Paul 
 has said, that they attached no importance to any 
 day as such. What the apostles and their imme- 
 
The Sabbath. 263 
 
 diate followers did after their morning service we 
 do not know. But we do know that in post-apos- 
 tolic times Christians went to their work after 
 Church, very much as poor people do now upon 
 the Continent. And from that time to this, there 
 has been every possible diversity in the way in 
 which Christians have kept, or have not kept, Sun- 
 day, — from Calvin who used to play at bowls, to 
 a certain old lady of my acquaintance in Scotland, 
 who, on returning from church, sends for the Cate- 
 chism and the whip, and administers them alter- 
 nately to her children for the rest of the day. 
 
 In regard to Sunday observance, there is only 
 one point of agreement amongst professing Chris- 
 tians. They all keep it in a different manner from 
 that in which the Jews kept Saturday. The Jews 
 would not light a fire, would not walk more than a 
 mile, would not work even a single animal ; and, 
 with that curious prodigality of punishment which 
 goes with an early stage of civilisation, they visited 
 all violation of the Sabbath law with death. To 
 a pious Jew every modern Christian must appear 
 a Sabbath-breaker ; and every modern Christian is 
 a Sabbath-breaker if the fourth commandment be 
 binding upon him. It is high time that we made 
 up our minds on this subject. Either the fourth 
 commandment is binding on us or it is not. If it 
 
264 The Sabbat Ju 
 
 is, let us keep Saturday, or at any rate Sunday, in 
 the way which the fourth commandment enjoins. 
 If it is not, let us frankly say so. And in any case 
 let us give up the canting hypocrisy of professing 
 to obey a law which we know perfectly well we 
 always disobey. 
 
 But though it is desirable to get rid of the super- 
 stitious reverence for Sunday, it is not desirable to 
 do away with the observance of it as a day of rest. 
 Though the fourth commandment in its original 
 form referred, and could only refer, to the Jews, it 
 was founded upon a principle of universal applica- 
 tion — the principle, viz., of benevolence. It may 
 seem surprising that Christ, who cared so much for 
 the poor, should have apparently ignored the fourth 
 commandment. For this there were two reasons. 
 (1) It had led to formalism ; and (2) all that was 
 essentially good in it was implied in the golden 
 rule. As to the particular day on which we should 
 spare our servants, Christ said nothing. He did 
 not care for such petty, paltry details. A day of 
 rest is needed by men and by animals, but it can- 
 not possibly matter which day be kept holy for 
 this purpose. Like the Eucharist, it was left, 
 under Christ's perfect law of liberty, to the indi- 
 vidual judgment and conscience. Calvin suggested 
 that the day should be changed to Thursday. Tyn- 
 
The Sabbath. 265 
 
 dale — I don't mean the heterodox professor of 
 modern times but the orthodox reformer — sug- 
 gested keeping one day in every ten. Of course it 
 is desirable, if possible, that the same day should be 
 observed throughout the same district. But there 
 would be nothing to prevent different days being 
 set apart for the purpose in different districts or in 
 different towns, as is the case with the fast-days in 
 Scotland. And sometimes a particular individual 
 will be unable to keep the particular day which is 
 kept by his neighbours and acquaintances. To me, 
 for instance, Sunday is the hardest day of the week, 
 and I am obliged to use my carriage. But I always 
 let the horse and the coachman have Saturday to 
 themselves. I am one of the very few Christians 
 who, in this respect at least, adhere literally to the 
 fourth commandment. Mr* Spurgeon is another. 
 He once jocularly remarked that his horse was a 
 Jew. So is mine. I am proud to find myself in such 
 good company. But whatever be our own peculiar 
 circumstances and condition, let us never forget 
 that we are all bound to be thoughtfully considerate 
 for others, especially for our dependants, for the 
 poor, for the overworked. We are so apt to rush 
 into extremes. We are ofcen inclined to say, Sun- 
 day has been made into a fetish, a false value has 
 been attached to it, we have outgrown such folly, 
 
266 The Sabbath. 
 
 all days in the week shall be alike for us. But it 
 will always be well that there should be one day in 
 the week, on which we make a special effort to alle- 
 viate the toil of the working classes, to lighten the 
 burden of life for those who are less favourably 
 circumstanced than ourselves. 
 
267 
 
 EEMAEKS ON PEEVIOUS SEEMON. 
 
 After preaching this sermon I received a great number of 
 expostulatory letters. One was from a brother clergyman, 
 " regretting that a minister, whose duty it was to instruct 
 the children of the Foundling Hospital in the principles of 
 Christianity, should," &c. Now I take this opportunity of 
 saying, once for all, that I have absolutely nothing to do with 
 the Foundling children. I am responsible for the Governors 
 and adult congregation. But the children are more fortu- 
 nate. They are in the hands of my friend and colleague, 
 the chaplain. In fact at my suggestion the Governors have 
 arranged that the smaller children shall be sent away before 
 the sermon. And I often feel sorry for those who remain. 
 They are obliged to keep perfectly quiet, which is no easy 
 matter for little people at their age. But they manage to 
 do it marvellously. I never hear a sound of any description 
 from the children's gallery. I hope they will believe that I 
 am very grateful to them. 
 
 Among the other letters was one which is so suggestive 
 that I give it here in full. 
 
 " My dear Professor,— You will forgive me, I hope, for 
 daring to think what I say, and still more to say what I 
 think about this morning's sermon. I look at the subject 
 more or less from your side, and yet I could not help quar- 
 relling very seriously with you. I went with you thoroughly 
 to a certain point, and enjoyed the logical clearance,— and 
 
268 Remarks on Previous Sermon. 
 
 then you, not disappointed, but hurt me. You did not 
 leave the observers of Sunday one illogical plank to stand 
 upon. But surely you might have substituted a yet stronger, 
 because reasonable, ground for their observance, instead of 
 letting them through into the deep waters of general moral- 
 ity and individual judgment to sink or swim. How many 
 can swim, I wonder ? Is not any, even an illogical and stupid, 
 motive better left, as long as it has power to prompt in a 
 right direction i (On this I cannot make up my mind.) 
 And could you not have taught people to distinguish be- 
 tween cant and feeling ? Granted the expediency of show- 
 ing up what was unfounded and absurd, which I do grant, 
 was it quite fair to treat this as the whole motive, and ignore 
 all the feelings and emotions and associations which to many 
 are the strongest arguments in favour of Sunday observance ] 
 The true meaning of a Sabbath, I take it, is felt by the or- 
 thodox, and requires to be brought to light, and then the 
 absurd will disappear. Whereas if the absurd is merely cut 
 up, the heart of the matter has not been reached at all. An 
 undefined feeling remains, that somehow the deed is better 
 than the creed, if one could only see why. And yet the lat- 
 ter having been shattered the former dies ; the creed having 
 been destroyed, the deed to which it prompted will by-and- 
 by likewise vanish. 
 
 " It seems to me that the illogical, slipshod, orthodox rea- 
 soning in favour of Sunday observance, is only a weak after- 
 attempt to justify a practice which does really rest upon a 
 logical foundation. The observance itself, I cannot help 
 thinking, has grown out of, and rests upon, something 
 stronger than any arbitrary law, such as the fourth com- 
 mandment may have been. The observance of Sunday, I 
 cannot help believing, rests upon a deep-rooted, though but 
 half-realised, sense of a great need in the nature of man, — a 
 physical, spiritual and social need. 
 
Remarks on Previous Sermo7Z. 269 
 
 " I. Physical. — The general lightness of having a day of 
 freedom from labour, which should benefit principally the 
 working classes, was your chief argument, I think, in favour 
 of Sabbath-keeping. This philanthropic scheme, you said, 
 should be the outcome of the golden rule, and its application 
 should be left to the individual judgment. Now I wonder 
 how many shop and factory hands would get a holiday, how 
 many people would have cold suppers anything like as often 
 as once a-week, if individual judgment were not strengthened 
 by general feeling, by custom, by combined action ? The 
 application of the golden rule at all in this matter seems to 
 depend upon a recognition of the universal need of rest. 
 Surely if the importance of this were enforced, the foolish 
 obedience to the fourth commandment, to an obsolete and 
 arbitrary law, would give place to a reasonable acquiescence 
 in a custom which was seen to correspond to a universal and 
 perpetual want. 
 
 " II. The observance of Sunday corresponds to a spiritual 
 need, the need — viz., of spiritual refreshment and help. You 
 said that the observance of the Sabbath was, according to 
 the orthodox view, in obedience to the fourth command- 
 ment, but that this command made no reference to wor- 
 ship, and that therefore worship and the day of rest had 
 no logical connection. That may be ; but it surely does not 
 matter whether the two things are logically connected or 
 not. They have been practically associated for generations, 
 and this association appears to me very natural and very 
 sensible. The day of least physical and mental toil is the 
 day best suited for spiritual refreshment, and spiritual re- 
 freshment consists essentially in spiritual action. ' Worship 
 the Lord all the days of thy life ' is a spiritual rule as grand 
 and sweeping as the golden rule in morality, and as difficult 
 of application. Unless we focus them on the particular, we 
 can never effect anything by them. If we live content with 
 
270 Remarks on Previous Sermon. 
 
 God's universal presence, we shall cease to be x^ersonally 
 conscious of it. If we are satisfied with the ever-present 
 possibility of prayer, it will soon become an impossibility. 
 Without some reminders and constraints, without times and 
 forms, we drift inevitably into forgetfulness and carelessness. 
 '- Every day will do ' soon becomes '■ any day will do,' and 
 finally ' no day.' And this is both unwise and wrong. Those 
 to whom the divine presence is familiar in church are the 
 likeliest to recognise it in the world. The spiritual sight 
 only clears through constant and regular use. The conscious 
 and voluntary union of the soul with God in daily life is 
 hard enough with the help of Sundays ! What would it be 
 without % We do need a day apart in which the spirit may 
 be braced in a purer atmosphere. The connection between 
 the first and fourth commandment may possibly not be 
 arbitrary after all, but based on a dim recognition of a har- 
 mony underlying both. 
 
 " III. The observance of Sunday is based on a social need. 
 I cannot help believing strongly in the good of public wor- 
 ship and public observance of seasons. Apart from the pos- 
 sibility of the vast influence of one over many, afforded by 
 the assemblage of a large congregation, public worship must 
 increase the feeling of brotherhood to an untold degree. And 
 how can we have public worship without publicly appointed 
 and accepted times % As a question of mere expediency, it 
 would surely be better that one arrangement should prevail 
 over the widest possible area. Otherwise, if we travelled 
 much, we might frequently come in for several Sundays in 
 succession. This is only one of many inconveniences which 
 would result. But on higher grounds — social and religious 
 — a systematic Sabbath-keeping seems to me most desirable. 
 In fact I cannot help thinking that without it the whole 
 machinery of the Christian Church would fall to pieces, and 
 its great work come to an end. Which particular day the 
 
Remarks on Previoits Semnoii, 271 
 
 choice falls upon appears immaterial. But the one that has 
 been selected by common consent, and which has received 
 the sanction of time, possesses many associations, such as the 
 Resurrection, Whitsuntide, the meetings of the apostles ; 
 and these associations bring it peculiarly into harmony with 
 the spirit of worship. The manner of rest and worship is of 
 course quite a diiierent question. And here I should say 
 the decision must be almost entirely left to the individual, 
 as soon as he is capable of forming a rational opinion on the 
 subject. Since comparative rest is all that can be obtained 
 by any one on any day, and the refreshment of the few must 
 in any case give way to that of the many, I see no reason 
 why galleries and gardens should not be open, and much 
 reason why they should. It would be a fulfilment and not 
 a violation of the meaning of the Christian Sabbath. 
 
 " Through all this rigmarole, if you ever have patience to 
 read it [rigmarole, the young lady calls it ; well, it is rig- 
 marole that would do honour to a philosopher in his prime], 
 can you gather what I felt to-day ? that you were scathing 
 not only a superstitious observance, but a custom based on a 
 real need, — a need all the more pressing because it is so little 
 felt in the present day ; when it seems to me the one might 
 have been destroyed and the other at the same time enforced. 
 Forgive me, please, for all this. My excuse must be your 
 own wish that people would make objections to your face 
 and not behind your back, as I was forced by a horrid verger 
 to do this morning. — Yours very sincerely, ." 
 
 With this letter I most fully agree. My text for the pre- 
 vious sermon was the fourth commandment, " Remember 
 Saturday to set it apart as a day of rest." My reason for 
 saying nothing about worship was, not that I ignored its 
 importance, but that the subject was not mentioned in 
 the text. 
 
272 
 
 Cotter Morison, 
 
 T WISH to speak to you this morning about 
 -*- Mr Cotter Morison's ' Service of Man.' This 
 brilliant book produced a considerable impression 
 in the reading world, and would doubtless have 
 produced more had not the gifted author been 
 obliged, on account of failing health, to hurry on 
 its publication and give it to the world before it 
 was complete. Mr Morison did not overrate the 
 seriousness of his malady, for he has since died. 
 The fact of his lamented death, however, need not 
 prevent me from speaking of his book. I shall do 
 so with all respect. Every one who knew him, 
 liked and esteemed him; and it is impossible to 
 read his treatise without feeling that the author 
 was sincerely concerned for the welfare of the 
 world, and sincerely convinced that the world 
 needed to know and take to heart what he had 
 to say. 
 
 Now, what he had to say, you will remember. 
 
Cotter Morison. 273 
 
 was this. He considered that religion in general, 
 and Christianity in particular, had fostered immo- 
 rality, and that it was incumbent on us therefore 
 to substitute this service of man for the old service 
 of God. Christianity, as he understands it, lays 
 more stress upon creed than upon conduct, urges 
 men to prepare themselves for the future life rather 
 than the present, offers them salvation hereafter 
 instead of commanding them to do their duty here. 
 Christianity is the service of God, and with this, 
 according to Mr Morison, the service of man is in- 
 compatible. We cannot, he thinks, serve God and 
 man : we must choose between them. 
 
 Well now let us see. I would remark, in the 
 first place, that though Mr Cotter Morison knows a 
 good deal about the Christianity of Christendom, 
 he knows scarcely anything — nothing fundamental 
 — about the Christianity of Christ. His views 
 of Christianity are derived from St Augustine, Dr 
 Pusey, Luther, Mr Spurgeon, but not from Christ 
 Himself. We must not find great fault with Mr 
 Morison for this. The error into which he has 
 fallen is a very common one ; clergymen them- 
 selves are constantly guilty of it. The Christianity 
 of the Church, the Christianity of a particular 
 party in the Church, the Christianity of every 
 most contemptible sect, is constantly identified 
 
2 74 Cotter Morison. 
 
 with the Christianity of Jesus. People always 
 will persist in believing that things are identical 
 when they are 'called by the same name. But 
 this is by no means necessarily the case. The 
 name of Christianity has been applied to all kinds 
 of totally different systems of religion, — systems 
 agreeing in nothing except in their disagreement 
 with the intentions of Christ Himself. The average 
 Christianity of Christendom has probably been 
 more opposed to the original Christianity of Christ 
 than to many other religions called by entirely 
 different names. This however Mr Morison did 
 not see, and his failing to recognise so important a 
 fact was fatal to his own book. It deprives the 
 work of all, or nearly all, its force. Much of what 
 he says is valid and effective against Augustinian- 
 ism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, ecclesiasticism ; but 
 just because it applies to these things, it is irrel- 
 evant as regards Christ's Christianity. Nay, in 
 attacking various spurious forms of Christianity, 
 Mr Morison is really supporting, however uncon- 
 sciously, the real Christianity of Christ. 
 
 Let us look, for example, at what he says about 
 the doctrine of justification by faith. " Luther," he 
 remarks, quoting Moehler, " not only taught that 
 Christ had not come to impart a purer ethical code, 
 but even maintained He had come to abolish the 
 
Cotter Morison, 275 
 
 moral law, to liberate true believers from its curse, 
 both for the past and for the future, and in that 
 way to make them free. The evangelical liberty 
 which Luther propounded announces that even the 
 Decalosrue shall not be brouc^ht into account ao-ainst 
 the believer, nor its violation be allowed to disturb 
 his conscience, for he is exalted above it. The re- 
 formers referred to Christ, not as the strengthener 
 and sanctifier, but exclusively as the forgiver of 
 sins ; they regarded the Mediator only in His capa- 
 city of pardoner." And this doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by faith, though connected especially with the 
 name of Luther, has been, in some form or other, very 
 common throughout Christendom. As ]\Ir Morison 
 says, the Catholic Church has no advantage over 
 the Protestant Church on this point. The Virgin 
 takes the place of Christ as a free pardoner of the 
 grossest sins, in consideration of an act of contri- 
 tion or repentance. " It would not be easy," says 
 Mr Morison, " to conceive a doctrine more injurious 
 to morality than this Christian scheme." 
 
 The truth or falsity of this assertion will depend 
 on the meaning you attach to the words contri- 
 tion and repentance. If you intend merely verbal 
 acknowledgment of wrong-doing, then the assertion 
 is true. But if by contrition and repentance you 
 mean heartfelt sorrow, so intense that he who ex- 
 
276 Cotter Moriso7t. 
 
 periences it is thereby converted, changed into a 
 different being, hating what he used to love and 
 loving what he used to hate, then the assertion is 
 false. To forgive wrong-doing without heartfelt 
 repentance would be to encourage immorality, and 
 would be therefore ungodlike. But to refuse for- 
 giveness after heartfelt repentance, would be equally 
 ungodlike and equally fatal to morality ; for if we 
 believed ourselves at the mercy of an unforgiving 
 tyrant, we should be stricken with the paralysis of 
 despair, we should feel that all attempts at refor- 
 mation would be useless. 
 
 And so of faith. This word may be, and has 
 been, used in two completely different senses, just 
 like the words contrition and repentance. The 
 doctrine of justification by faith, as Luther under- 
 stood it and as it has been very commonly under- 
 stood, is not a doctrine of Christ. What Luther 
 meant by faith you will best understand if you call 
 to mind his opinion about the Epistle of St James. 
 Luther did not like it; he called it an epistle of 
 straw, and he wished to expunge it altogether from 
 the Bible. He disliked the epistle for this reason. 
 It laid stress on conduct. "What doth it profit, 
 my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and 
 have not works ? can faith save him ? Faith, if 
 it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Thou 
 
Cotter Morison, 277 
 
 believest that God is one ; thou doest well ; the 
 devils also believe and tremble. Wilt thou know, 
 O vain man, that faith without works is dead ? 
 By works a man is justified and not by faith only." 
 This didn't suit Luther, who was determined to 
 maintain that men were justified by faith only. 
 And by being justified he meant that righteous- 
 ness was imputed to them by the Almighty while 
 they were all the time unrighteous ; and that when 
 they died they would be taken to heaven, though 
 the proper place for them was hell. If by faith 
 then you mean what Luther meant — merely believ- 
 ing intellectually in the creeds, in the articles, or 
 even in Jesus — I quite agree with Mr Morison 
 that it is impossible to conceive a doctrine more 
 injurious to morality than the doctrine of justifi- 
 cation by faith. 
 
 But need I say that this is no doctrine of 
 Christ's ? It is quite true that in our translation 
 of the Bible, even, I am sorry to see, in the Eevised 
 Version, Christ is represented as saying, " G-od so 
 loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, 
 that whosoever helieveth in Him should not perish, 
 but have everlasting life." But the word belief is 
 the very worst word which could possibly have been 
 selected for the purpose of expressing what the 
 Saviour meant. " Except," He said, " ye eat my 
 
278 Cotter Morison. 
 
 flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life in you." 
 That is what Christ understood by faith. By this 
 vehement metaphor He intended, of course, to sig- 
 nify the absorption of His own nature. ISTo words 
 could express a closer or more absolute union. 
 Tliey imply that the Master is to live in the dis- 
 ciples, and to manifest Himself by their conduct. 
 And every real disciple must to some extent expe- 
 rience this strange transformation, must be able to 
 say, with some amount of truth — " For me to live 
 is Christ ; it is not I who live, but Christ who liv- 
 eth in me." It is really time that we gave up talk- 
 ing about belief in Christ. A better word would 
 be trust. But even that is far too weak, unless 
 we persistently bear in mind, that the trust which 
 Christ asks of us is one which involves enthusiasm, 
 self-surrender, love, passion, union. 
 
 And now, let us ask why was it that Christ de- 
 manded faith ? Why ? Just for the sake of help- 
 ing us and stimulating us to that excellence of 
 conduct which, according to Mr Morison, Chris- 
 tianity altogether ignores. Ignore conduct ! Why, 
 no teacher before or since ever laid such stress on 
 it as Jesus of Nazareth. And it was because He 
 laid so much stress upon conduct that He insisted, 
 with equal importunity, upon the necessity for faith. 
 Faith was the means, conduct was the end. " If ye 
 
Cotter Morison. 279 
 
 love me," He said, "ye will keep my command- 
 ments." And what were His commandments? 
 What sort of conduct was it that He wanted from 
 us? Observance of ritual? Ascetic penances? 
 Anything fanatical, useless, irrational? No; but 
 precisely that service of man which Mr Morison 
 so warmly and so nobly advocates. This is often 
 represented as a Broad Church doctrine. If so, the 
 evangelists were Broad Churchmen. Listen ! 
 
 " A new commandment I give unto you, That ye 
 love one another. By this shall men know that ye 
 are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. 
 . . . This is my commandment. That ye love one 
 another. ... I have chosen you, and ordained 
 you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit. 
 These things I command you, That ye love one 
 another." 
 
 " Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men 
 gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ? Even 
 so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; but 
 a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good 
 tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a 
 corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree 
 that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, 
 and cast into the fire. Not every one that saith 
 unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom 
 of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father 
 
2 8o Cotter Mornson. 
 
 which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that 
 day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy 
 name ? and in Thy name have cast out devils ? and 
 in Thy name done many wonderful works ? Then 
 will I profess unto them, I never knew you : depart 
 from me, ye that work iniquity." 
 
 " The kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling 
 into a far country, who called his own servants, and 
 delivered unto them his goods. And unto one he 
 gave five talents, to another two, and to another 
 one ; to every man according to his several ability ; 
 and straightway took his journey. Then he that 
 had received the five talents went and traded with 
 the same, and made them other five talents. And 
 likewise he that had received two, he also gained 
 other two. But he that had received one went and 
 digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After 
 a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and 
 reckoneth with them. And so he that had received 
 five talents came and brought other five talents, 
 saying. Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents : 
 behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. 
 His lord said unto him. Well done, thou good and 
 faithful servant : thou hast been faithful over a few 
 things, I will make thee ruler over many things : 
 enter thou into the joy of thy lord. He also that 
 had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou 
 
Cotter M orison. 281 
 
 deliveredst unto me two talents : behold, I have 
 gained two other talents beside them. His lord 
 said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant : 
 thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will 
 make thee ruler over many things : enter thou into 
 the joy of thy lord. Then he which had received 
 the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee 
 that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast 
 not sown, and gathering where thou hast not 
 strawed : And I was afraid, and went and hid thy 
 talent in the earth : lo, there thou hast that is 
 thine. His lord answered and said unto him, Thou 
 wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I 
 reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have 
 not strawed : thou oughtest therefore to have put 
 my money to the exchangers, and then at my com- 
 ing I should have received mine own with usury. 
 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it 
 unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every 
 one that hath shall be given, and he shall have 
 abundance : but from him that hath not shall be 
 taken away even that which he hath. And cast 
 ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness." 
 
 " When the Son of man shall come in His glory, 
 and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He 
 sit upon the throne of His glory : and before Him 
 shall be gathered all nations : and He shall separate 
 
282 Cottei^ M orison. 
 
 them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his 
 sheep from the goats : and He shall set the sheep 
 on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then 
 shall the King say unto them on His right hand. 
 Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom 
 prepared for you from the foundation of the world : 
 For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat : I 
 was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, 
 and ye took me in : naked, and ye clothed me : I 
 was sick, and ye visited me ; I was in prison, and 
 ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer 
 Him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, 
 and fed Thee ? or thirsty, and gave Tliee drink ? 
 When saw we Thee a stranger, and took Thee in ? 
 or naked, and clothed Thee ? And the King shall 
 answer and say unto them. Verily I say unto you, 
 Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of 
 these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then 
 shall He say also to them on the left hand. Depart 
 from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared 
 for the devil and his angels : For I was an hungered, 
 and ye gave me no meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave 
 me no drink : I was a stranger, and ye took me not 
 in: naked, and ye clothed me not : sick, and in prison, 
 and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer 
 him, saying, Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, or 
 athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison. 
 
Cotter Morison. 283 
 
 and did not minister unto Thee ? Then shall He 
 answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inas- 
 much as ye did it not to one of the least of these, 
 ye did it not to me. And these shall go away 
 into everlasting punishment: but the righteous 
 into life eternal." 
 
 In the face of all this, it is simply preposterous 
 to say that Christ laid more stress on creed than 
 on conduct, that He urged men to prepare them- 
 selves for the future life rather than the present, 
 and that He considered salvation to be of more 
 importance than morality. Christ left behind Him 
 no creed at all. He identified salvation with 
 morality. He asserted, over and over again in the 
 most unmistakable terms, that the only way in 
 which men could prepare for the future life was 
 by doing their duty in the present. So far as this 
 world is concerned, so far as regards what is most 
 fundamental in Christianity, Mr Morison is at one 
 with Christ. But it is the eternal glory of the 
 Nazarene to have taught what unfortunately Mr 
 Morison could not accept, but what perhaps he 
 now understands — that the salvation begun here 
 is to be continued hereafter; that the service of 
 man, whether we know it or not, is in reality the 
 service of God. 
 
284 Cotter Morison. 
 
 " Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase) 
 Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 
 And saw within the moonlight in his room, 
 Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, 
 An angel writing in a book of gold. 
 Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 
 And to the presence in the room he said, 
 ' What writest thou ? ' —The vision raised its head 
 And with a look made of all sweet accord, 
 Answered, * The names of those who love the Lord.' 
 ' And is mine one ?' said Abou. ' ISTay, not so,' 
 Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low 
 But cheerly still, and said, ' I pray thee, then, 
 Write me as one that loves his fellow-men. ' 
 
 The angel wrote and vanished. The next night 
 It came again with a great wakening light. 
 And showed the names whom love of God had bless'd, 
 And lo ! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest ! " 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 
 
WORKS BY PROFESSOR MOMERIE. 
 
 PERSONALITY; 
 
 THE BEGINNING AND END OF METAPHYSICS, 
 
 AND A NECESSARY ASSUMPTION IN ALL POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Third Edition, revised. Crown 8vo, 3s. 
 
 "This is a little book, but it contains more sound philosophy than many 
 
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 to the winds the baseless assumptions of the sense philosophy."— £>'i<is/i 
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 a treatise on philosophy ; but in the case of a little book of the latter kind, 
 recently published anonymously, we have found the arguments so cogent, 
 the style so clear, and the matter at issue so important, that we heartily ^\^sh 
 that the WTiter had allowed himself room for the fuller treatment of his sub- 
 ject We confidently refer our readers to this Avell-reasoned volume."— 
 
 Modern Eevietv. 
 
 '■ Professor Momerie's remarks on tlie doctrines of the defenders of em- 
 piricism present a close, and thoroughly scientific, examination of the views 
 these thinkers put forth as to the nature of sensation, perception, and cog- 
 nition The arguments are throughout conducted with marked logical 
 
 power, and the conclusions are very important in relation to the present 
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 "When published anonymously received a very hearty welcome by all 
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II. 
 THE ORIGIN OF EVIL; 
 
 AND OTHER SERMONS. 
 
 Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, 5.s. 
 
 " Professor Momerie has done well to publish his sermons ; they are good 
 
 reading A real contribution to the side of common-sense religion." — 
 
 Saturday Review. 
 
 "We decidedly recommend them to persons pei-plexed by the speculations 
 of modern science." — Spectator. 
 
 " This is a remarkable volume of sermons. Though it consists of only 
 about 300 pages, it contains an amount of thought and learning which might 
 have been expanded into a bulky io\io."—Glasgoio Mail. 
 
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 the last hundred yoBxs,."— Inquirer. 
 
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 " Die "Vortrjige zeigen allenthalben eine schtine Harmonic zwischen Schrift- 
 wahrheit und Le\)eiiswahvheit."—Deutsches Litteraturblatt. 
 
 " Der Verfasser behandelt in diesen Vortragen wichtige Fragen aus dem 
 Gebiet des christlichen Lebens. Wir heben besonders die liber das Leiden 
 hervor, in denen der Verfasser tiefe beherzigenswerthe Gedanken ausspricht. 
 Wir nehmen keinen Anstand, diese Vortriige zum Besten zii rechnen, was 
 iiber diesen Gegenstand gesagt •woTden."—Christliches Biicherschatz. 
 
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III. 
 DEFECTS OF MODERN CHRISTIANITY; 
 
 AND OTHER SERMONS. 
 
 Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 5s. 
 
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 second part of the volume, nine lectures on the Book of Job ; and we have 
 not read before, Avithin the same compass, a more masterly and interesting 
 
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IV. 
 
 THE BASIS OF RELIGION; 
 
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V. 
 
 AGNOSTICISM. 
 
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VI. 
 
 PREACHING AND HEARING; 
 
 AND OTHER SERMONS. 
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VII. 
 
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 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, Edinbuegh and London. 
 
7iV ONE VOLUME. THE LIBRARY EDITION OF 
 
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