California Regional acility RELIGION FOR- 7=1 LL MANKIND RELIGION FOR ALL MANKIND RELIGION FOR ALL MANKIND BASED ON FACTS WHICH ARE NEVER IN DISPUTE BY REV. CHARLES VOYSEY, B.A. ST. EDMUND HALL, OXFORD FORMERLY VICAR OF HBALAUGH, YORKSHIRE MINISTER OF THE THEISTIC CHURCH LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1903 IDefcicatton. IN ALL HUMILITY I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO MY GOD WHO MADE ME AND ALL MANKIND, WHO LOVES US ALL ALIKE WITH AN EVERLASTING LOVE, WHO OF HIS VERY FAITHFULNESS CAUSETH US TO BE TROUBLED, WHO PUNISHES US JUSTLY FOR EVERY SIN NOT IN ANGER OR VENGEANCE BUT ONLY TO CLEANSE, TO HEAL AND TO BLESS, IN WHOSE EVERLASTING ARMS WE LIE NOW AND TO ALL ETERNITY. 2098804 PREFACE. THE following pages are written for the help and comfort of all my fellow-men, and chiefly for those who have doubted and discarded the Christian Keligion, and in con- sequence have become Agnostics and Pessimists. I have written these chapters to replace the book en- titled Mystery of Pain, Death and Sin, published in 1878, and now long out of print. My object is to bring proofs of the Wisdom and Eighteousness and Love of God in those events and ex- periences which are commonly called " evils ". It is not possible to explain everything, but it is possible to explain by far the greater part. My method is to base every argument on facts undis- puted facts which no one ever even wishes to doubt or deny. I keep absolutely clear of all so-called " Divine Revela- tion " as an authority. I use many of the true and beautiful words in the Bible, especially from the Old Testament, but only as illustrations, never as a basis for belief. The first part of the book is occupied in stating the bare facts on which the Theistic Faith is founded, answering the great question, "What do we know?" From these facts I viii PREFACE have drawn what appear to me to be strictly true and reason- able inferences, exactly as men of science build up their systems on well-established facts. It is for intelligent persons in all ranks of life to judge for themselves whether my inferences are or are not correctly drawn, and thankful shall I be for any correction of error into which I may have fallen. Finally, as my researches into God's facts have immeas- urably increased my admiration of His matchless wisdom and have revealed to me many more wonders of His un- speakable love, working even in the things we most dislike and dread, my heart longs to make known to others the thoughts which have brought so much bliss to my own soul. Oh ! that my words may win many hearts to trust and love Him and to find in His presence the fulness of joy ! I have, therefore, offered this book at a price which will barely cover the expense of production, that it may be within reach of all, and at the same time give proof that the work is not being done with mercenary aims. At the close of the main argument I have added a sermon illustrative of The Theistic Faith as applied to the events of life. It is entitled " The Uncertainties of Life," and was preached on the 29th June last, just after the King had been struck down by the dangerous illness which cancelled all the arrangements for the Coronation. I have also inserted Four Sermons on " Sin and Its Con- sequences," dealing with individual experiences in detail, and I have concluded the work with a Sermon on " The Reason- ableness of Prayer." PREFACE ix One helpful word I may say here : Let all who take up this book remember that God is our best teacher, and not any man, not the wisest and best who ever lived ; there- fore, if we would learn the truth, we must pray to God to teach us what to believe and what to reject out of the human words which lie before us "It is the right and duty of every man to think for himself in matters of religion." So runs the first article of the Theistic Faith. We have only to remember that, if we will, God will help us to think aright. CHAELES VOYSEY. ANNBSLKY LODGE, HAMPSTBAD, N.W., January, 1903. CONTENTS. CHAPTER FAOB I. WHAT Do WE KNOW? 1 II. WHAT Do WE KNOW OF MAN? 9 III. GOD THE SOURCE OF MAN'S HIGHER NATURE . . 18 IV. DEATH 26 V. PAIN 35 VI. PAIN CAUSED BY MAN 43 VII. AVOIDABLE SORROW 52 VIII. BENEFITS AND CONSOLATIONS OF SORROW ... 60 IX. THE FINAL ISSUE OF GOOD 69 X. ORIGIN OF SIN 80 XI. CONSCIENCE AND THE MORAL CODES .... 88 XII. HUMAN LIBERTY 97 XIII. HUMAN LOVE 106 XIV. RELIGION 115 XV. RELATION BETWEEN RELIGION AND MORALITY . . 123 XVI. GROUNDS OF HOPE FOR IMMORTALITY .... 131 XVII. TRUE AND FALSE ANTHROPOMORPHISM .... 139 XVIII. THE TERM "PERSONAL" AS APPLIED TO GOD . . 147 XIX. THE HIGHEST IMPULSE TO MORALITY .... 154 XX. THE OMNIPRESENCE OF GOD 163 XXI. THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE ...... 171 XXII. SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 180 XXIII. THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS 189 XXIV. SIN CAUSED BY LACK OF LOVE 197 XXV. THE SENSE OF SIN AND ITS MORAL VALUE . .207 XXVI. THE REASONABLENESS OF PRAYER . 216 CHAPTER I. WHAT DO WE KNOW ? THE keynote of all that is said or sung or preached in the Theistic Church is the exceeding Love of God towards all men, and the duty and privilege of trusting in Him with our whole hearts. There are various classes who, from various causes, are unwilling or unable to trust Him or to believe in His Love. One of these classes has not yet been able to get over the primal intellectual difficulty of believing that there is a God at all a difficulty felt by very few. It is a mani- fest duty to do all in one's power to help men who are in this state of mind. Moreover, if, when challenged by this class of Agnostics to give some reasonable ground for our belief, we are either silent through incompetence or through lack of respect for the challenge, then we do a double wrong first, to those who have a right to question the grounds of our belief, and, secondly, to the great cause we are supposed to be advocating. On the other hand, if we respectfully listen and lay well to heart any objection which is brought before us, we shall be doing good service not only to those who are hitherto unable to believe as we do, but also to the great cause of God's Truth. The common cry used by unbelievers is, " What do we know, what can we know, about God? " Our plain answer, as Theists, is, We know very little indeed, and in all prob- ability what we now think of God is partly erroneous. But we do know some facts which can only be explained by the existence of a God having certain attributes. In answer to this, some Agnostics dispute the value of our human faculties for the acquisition of knowledge. And this is precisely what many Christians have done when they see that our Theistic Faith is rooted and grounded on the trustworthiness (not the 1 2 DEFINITION OF THE TERMS USED infallibility) of our faculties ; they at once try to discredit those faculties, and argue, from the inadequacy of them to teach all the truth, that they can teach us nothing at all. Christians thus join with some Agnostics in using the same Atheistical arguments in order to throw discredit upon the Theistic Faith. I am constantly meeting with this, and the reason for it is only too obvious. The human faculties are disparaged because, when legitimately exercised, they are antagonistic to the "Christian Revelation," and also, though in a less degree, to the position taken up by the Agnostic. Owing to the paucity of words, the same word has often to do duty in different senses; hence perpetual confusion of thought and strife of tongues. The verb " to know " is a striking instance of this ambiguity. We often say " we know " this or that, when the utmost we mean by the phrase is "we think so," "we believe it," "we have strong grounds for certainty." By the pronoun "we" in this treatise I shall refer to the average men and women of sound mind and fair intelligence. And when I speak of them and ourselves as "knowing" anything, I mean that we are then and there perceiving with the mind some- thing absolutely true ; not necessarily all that is true concerning the object, but part of what is true ; for I suppose all men will admit that it is impossible here on earth to know all the truth about anything we can see or investigate. A brief enquiry into what we do know (according to my definition of knowledge) will, I hope, be exceedingly helpful in trying to answer the supreme question, What do we know about God ? We must begin lower down. We must begin with the simplest examples of true knowledge. Among the first and simplest of these is our knowledge of elementary arithmetic. We know, as absolute truth, that two and two make four ; we know this so certainly that we can maintain it in the face of all contradiction, whether it come from heaven or earth. Some of us who have studied Euclid know also, and with equal certainty, some truths of geometry. These are types of real knowledge, well within reach of the human faculties. We know also many things and truths KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED BY COMPARISON 3 by comparing objects or propositions together, and by obser- vation of their differences. The first thing which we learn by this method to know, is our own individuality, our absolute distinctness from all that is not ourselves. The self and the not-self are thus truly and adequately known to be distinct. Many of us any of us, indeed, who reflect can distinguish between ourselves and our bodies. I do not mean that we can separate them, but we can know the one apart from the other, we can compare and contrast them as two distinct objects of thought. The mere act of thinking proves to us that the human being is a compound of at least two distinguishable parts. Even if the body (i.e., the brain) were the origin of thought, thought would still be a product distinguishable by the human mind from the mechanical movements of molecules in the brain. So far it is true to say we know we are beings who can think, and we know that we have bodies and brains which are not thoughts. Passing from ourselves to the world outside, let us suppose we meet a cart and horse, and a man driving the same. You may say, we know little or nothing about any of the three objects, compared with all that there is to be known about them ; but one thing about each we do know with absolute certainty. We know that the horse is not the cart, nor the cart the man, nor the man the horse. Our knowledge of this is absolutely certain, and can never be other than it is while we are in our right minds. But though this seems but a trifling amount of knowledge in itself, it reveals the principle on which all knowledge is acquired ; it is by comparing one object (or proposition) with another, and by observing the contrast. If we had not this elementary principle as the basis of all knowledge, nothing surely should we ever know of God. It is only because He is distinct (as an object of thought) from all else which is not God, that any thought concerning Him ever arose in the human mind, any real knowledge of Him was ever gleaned. But we must not anticipate. The most important visible portion of the outer world is certainly known to us as not made by the hands or mind of man. We know with certainty that man did not make or cause to be as they are a grain of 4 WHAT DO WE KNOW ? sand, a drop of water, a breath of air, or a spark of fire. We know that man did not make a blade of grass, or a single leaf of bush or tree, not the loftiest mountain nor the lowliest vale, not a cloud in the sky nor a drop of dew. We know, with certainty, that man did not make or set in motion the earth on which we live, nor the other planets, nor the moon, nor the sun, nor the stars, nor any of the wonderful objects now revealed to us through our advance in knowledge, and by our telescopes and microscopes. Neither did we make our- selves, or a single creature that lives and breathes. Man's solitary share in any part of this if share it can be called is in exercising faculties given to him in the adaptation of forces which he did not create. We know all this with absolute certainty. These are truths and facts which no doctrine of evolution can ever nullify or undo. They are past events which even the power of omnipotence cannot reverse. And concerning these objects around us we have learned something, not much, but something which is absolutely true. Not a science we can name but what, in part, is absolutely true. The Chemist, the Naturalist, the Biologist, the Electrician, the Geologist and the Astronomer, amongst others, are all able to tell us that there are objects in nature which are constructed and regulated in their functions and movements according to definite and immutable laws, laws characterised by superhuman wisdom, working not only for particular ends, but working together in absolute harmony for the preserva- tion and welfare of the whole. They will all tell us they know that mere chance is absolutely excluded from the operation of these laws, that everything is the result of antecedent causes ; that whenever changes or developments occur in substances or organisms, they manifestly fulfil some ulterior purpose ; and whenever the power to produce such change does not reside in the subject of that change, the power must reside in something outside of it, in something which is not it ; a motive power must act upon the substance or organism which it does not possess. And whenever there is manifested to us in any process of this kind a purpose or an end to be accomplished, we know with certainty that PURPOSE PROVES INTELLIGENCE 5 some mind or intelligence has had that purpose in view and has furnished the motive power to the substance or organism which was necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose. Here I may give two illustrations, one from the testimony of the Naturalist, another from that of the Astronomer. That master of the prettiest romances of natural history, the late Grant Allen, tells us of the life and economy of the familiar clover, revealing secrets of its marvellous powers of self- preservation and the contrivances for its survival and repro- duction. The intelligence and forethought revealed in its organisation and habits far surpass anything which the skill or mind of man could have produced. We know that these wonderful powers were not originated by the present genera- tion of clover plants. They are all powers which have been transmitted through the countless ages of clover history. There was a time, then, when they were first acquired. The clover was no more able to make itself than you or I are able to make ourselves. Because we know this, we may also say we know that some one of great intelligence caused it to be as it is, and gave to it powers for self-preservation and for re- production. Only intelligence could have conceived the plan or worked it out. Perhaps some one may still be unconvinced that the clover was thus made or caused to be what it is, but that it conceived and carried out the plan for you cannot get rid of the plan by itself, without any creation or derived power. Well, then, the Naturalist shall come in with the crushing fact that the clover, with all the skill and powers attributed to it, is dependent, and has always been dependent, upon a race of insects, viz., bees, without which its seeds could never be fertilised, and the whole race of clover would have disappeared after its first season. What share had the clover in thus providing for its reproduction ? We know that it had none at all ; that even if the clover had made itself, it could not make the bees, by which alone it could be fertilised. So, now, just look at what we know about those simple creatures, the clover and the bee. The clover is so organised that only bees can fertilise it, and the bee is so organised that one of its chief occupations is to gather honey from the clover, and, by its visits, unconsciously to fertilise the clover 6 THE BEE AND THE CLOVER seeds. Here you have 'one purpose manifest, viz., the repro- duction of the clover, which it cannot and does not do by itself. On the other side, you have another purpose manifest, viz., the gathering of honey by the bee, which involves the accomplishment of the purpose of reproduction as regards the clover. We know that the bee no more made itself than the clover made itself, and certainly the bee did not make the clover, nor the clover the bee. Therefore, as you cannot posit the power of constructing the organisms in the organisms themselves, and, as you cannot ascribe the purpose of ferti- lising the clover to the bee any more than you can ascribe the purpose of furnishing honey for the bee to the clover, you have a double purpose which cannot be traced to the subjects concerned, and which is carried out by a double process which neither of them could originate, much less achieve. We know, therefore, that the adaptation of the bee and the clover is the plan and achievement of some third Being who is intelligent and capable. In plain English, we know that a God is necessary to account for the purpose itself and for the means taken to accomplish it. Our other illustration shall be given us by the Astronomer, especially interesting to us just after the winter solstice, the time of our nearest approach to the sun. In the earth's circuit round the sun, an orbit of about 583,000,000 of miles, her average speed is between eighteen and twenty miles a second, so that in one day of twenty-four hours she travels 1,500,000 miles. The orbit is not quite an exact circle, but is elliptical. The sun is not in the centre, therefore the earth must be at one time of her revolution nearer the sun than she is at another. There are two dangers to be avoided one, the danger of falling into the sun ; the other, the danger of running wholly away from it into space. When the earth gets nearest to the sun, there is the risk of her falling into it ; and when she is farthest from the sun, there is the risk of her running away. Now, how are these dangers prevented ? Simply by the earth hastening and slackening her speed to suit the varying conditions. As she approaches nearer and nearer to the sun, as in winter, she has to put on greater speed in order to overcome the stronger attraction of the sun ; and this THE EARTH'S ORBITAL MOTION 7 is what has been occurring lately, and is still the case. We are moving faster to prevent our falling into the sun. In six months' time we shall be at our farthest distance from the sun. The sun's pull upon us will grow weaker, and we shall be in danger of flying off our track altogether unless we diminish speed and give the sun time to get a better grip upon us ; that saves us from our other peril, and, instead of flying off into space, we are bent round and turn the corner in safety. Then the old business begins again, and as we get nearer the sun once more we increase our speed. It is worth remembering, though not quite pertinent to our subject, that the earth, having completed her circuit of 583,000,000 of miles round the sun, and having travelled at various degrees of speed, and been subject to other disturb- ances on her path, nevertheless turns up to time at Greenwich to within the one-hundredth part of a second. To what or to whom is owing the extremely sensible behaviour of the earth twice every year under her changing circumstances? Is she alive and conscious, and has she the regulation of her speed in her own hands ? How does she know when to hasten, when to slacken, so as to be quite safe ? Who will be so hardy as to affirm that the earth is capable of originating and achieving so intelligent, so wise, an action as this ? Acquainted as we are with the properties of those materials of which the earth is composed, we may say with certainty that those materials are not intelligent, but are manifestly under the control of an intelligence not their own, under the control of someone else's mind. We do not here ascribe any miracle to God, nor yet any mechanical appliances in order to carry out His will. But we must ascribe the safety of the Earth in its orbit for millions and millions of years, and the mode by which that safety has been maintained, to a Mind who understands fully the laws of centripetal and centrifugal motion, and imposed those laws upon our planet, as elsewhere, to carry out His purpose of keeping it always in its orbit. If we know anything at all of what we cannot see, at least we know that, as the Psalmist says, " He hath given them a law which shall not be broken." 8 PURPOSE NOT RESIDING IN THE SUBJECTS Now you have had, out of millions, only two illustrations of purpose (which is only the property of mind) carried out by processes, the arrangement of which does not come within the faculties of the subjects concerned. These subjects have been caused to do certain things by a power wholly above them, and for a purpose of which they were not conscious. So far we can say, we know these things. You have only to remember that, if you keep company with your men of science, and follow them into their laboratories and watch them in their researches ; if you read every line of Grant Allen's about the workshops of Nature, and study what Sir Eobert Ball and other students tell us about the wonders in heaven and earth ; better still, if after getting such help you go forth and look into the wonderful and exquisite marvels of Nature for yourself, you will know that the dear God in heaven has beset us behind and before, and has verily laid His hand upon us, that He is about our path and about our bed, and spieth out all our ways ; that the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord and of the bound- less riches of His Wisdom and Power. We cannot get away from Him if we would. Even if, in our blindness, we have shut Him out from our hearts, He can yet steal in upon our ravished eyesight through the door of observation and intellect ; and if we can render Him no greater homage, we may still truthfully say, "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works ; in wisdom hast Thou made them all ; the earth is full of Thy riches." CHAPTEK II. WHAT DO WE KNOW OF MAN ? WE resume our answers to the question, What do we know ? in the hope of answering, by-and-by, the greater question, What do we know of God ? I will first remind you of the main point proved by our knowledge of certain facts in the natural world around us. It is that a mind or intelligence, confessedly superhuman, is manifest in the conception and accomplishment of purposes which were not conceived by the subjects of the given change or development, nor within their own powers of achievement. This forces us to say we know that mind or intelligence exists and acts apart from a human brain and also supremely above it. We observe further that the actions of that Mind are not capricious nor accidental, but are regular and in har- mony with constant law. So far as we see, and so far as human experience and observation have hitherto carried us, we know that this is one of the most striking facts of the world. In the last century we made a further discovery, viz., that the present order or condition of things is the result of a long series of processes by which successive stages of development have been reached, from the simple to the more complex, not by leaps and bounds, but by very slow and gradual changes, every one being inevitable and necessary to produce the re- sults which we now see and know. This method of change from the earliest beginning until now is called Evolution, and, although in some minor particulars the doctrine may be faulty and as a whole incomplete, and therefore not final, Evolution has been demonstrated to be true in the main and is now part of our real knowledge. Since its first announcement by Darwin and Wallace, some of our philosophers have dis- covered that Evolution has been the process carried on in 9 10 EVOLUTION other spheres besides that of the natural physical world. It is now seen to be operative in the sphere of philosophy and ethics, of culture and the arts, and even strikingly so in theology and religion. Growth, and not primal maturity, is stamped upon everything. Slow developments and not miraculous spasms of creative power are universal. Every- thing is caused. Everything grows out of something else. It is so important to remember this all through our present enquiry that I must be excused for repeating it with so much emphasis. [Some facts, however, have not yet been cleared up by Evolution, e.g., the appearance of life on the scene of the inorganic world ; and there are still some missing links undiscovered. J I regret that it is necessary for some, and especially for that class of Agnostics to whose objections we are replying, to remind them what Evolution really is. In many minds it is erroneously conceived as the acting cause of things as they are, and is often spoken of as if it were the living conscious agent of the several changes and develop- ments. I have heard people say, " We want nothing more now to explain the Universe. Evolution has done it all." Now it is necessary to remind them that " Evolution " is only an abstract term used for convenience, to express the sum total of processes which have been carried out. All it can possibly convey to our minds is the method in which the things in the Universe have come to be what they are. There are two very important elementary facts left out of Evolution altogether, viz., the matter or substance affected by Evolu- tion, and the mind and will of the Agent who has adopted Evolution as the method of producing the results as we see them. Evolution, I repeat, is absolutely silent about the origin of the material worked upon and the intelligent will working upon it. A moment's thought will show that Evolution involves both the original matter and the in- telligent will as essential postulates. There must be an intelligent agent and something to work upon. Evolution, remember, is the name given only to a method, not to a substance, nor to any mind affecting the substance. All it tells us is that some mind works upon substance in this particular way. Therefore the firmest believers in Evolution THE SENSE OF CAUSATION 11 have no more ground in their doctrine for a denial of God than they have for a denial of matter. On the contrary, many Evolutionists have discovered in the doctrine one of the strongest grounds for a higher and firmer belief in God, and one of the greatest stimulants to the renewed worship and adoration of Him and His matchless wisdom. All in- tellectual persons should remember, and never forget, that wherever plan or purpose is discerned, it is an unfailing proof of an intelligent will behind it. By the discovery of Evolution as the principal law or method by which things come to be as they are, we have added to the list of facts which we know, and which are and will be the foundation of all we shall ever, in this life, discover of God. Up to this point we have been taking the word " God " to stand for the intelligent cause of the natural world around us. It is a necessity of our own minds to see this superhuman mind active everywhere in spheres over which we men have no control, and therefore it is that our earliest thoughts about a God at all, if they arise spontaneously, are sure to take the form of such questions as these : " Who made me and other men and living creatures? Who made the sun and moon and stars? Who causes the grass to grow and the corn to ripen ? " etc., etc. The child almost always begins with such questions, because it is an essential property of the human mind to seek and demand a cause for what is before it as an object of observation or experience. As a philosopher has said, " The sense of causation in man is the essential basis of all philosophy and of all religion." And this has its common analogy. If we see a painting, we know there is a painter. If we hear music, we know there is a musician. If we read a book, we know that there is a human writer of it. The work or product necessarily involves a worker or producer. Therefore when we see works or products in- finitely beyond the power of man, then we know that the power resides in some one who is superhuman. And when we wish to discover any more than the mere fact of His existence, we study His work still more closely. If plan or purpose be manifested, we discover that He has a mind, essentially like our own, only vastly superior, But what- 12 WORKS, NOT WORDS, OF GOD ever we can discover,, either about His existence or His mind, or any other attribute, nothing, not a scrap of all this can we discover except through His works and an intelligent study of them. We can only learn anything at all out of the books which He has written for our learning, and these books are not books of words which men say that He has spoken, but books of facts which no one can dispute ; of works which He has done and is doing. These facts and works may be and often are described in words by men and women. But the words have no value without the facts which they describe. We learn indeed from the facts alone and not from the human words which tell us that the facts are real. When once we see this, when once we are convinced that the sole source of our knowledge of God if we are ever to have any at all is to be found in the works He has made, it is only common sense to try to know all we can about the works. Then it will occur to us that the noblest and best of all His works is more likely than the lower ones to teach us what He is. We cannot help making this distinction between the lower and the higher works of God, because we are so constituted that we are forced to see the distinction. Whether we use it always correctly or not, we hold within us the power of judging the respective values of different objects, and the mere possession of that power of judgment impels us to use it certainly whenever any question is raised as to the comparative worth of any two objects. We know, for example, that a man's life is of a higher value than his clothes, even of higher value than some of his limbs or one or two of his senses. We know that a good deed, or even a good name is "rather to be chosen than choice silver." We know that quality is better than quantity, that skill is better than strength, that knowledge is better than skill, that good- ness of heart and purpose is better than knowledge, that character is better than conduct, and so forth. Bringing our powers of comparison into the world, we see among the works around us the superiority of man beyond all possibility of question, because man has qualities, faculties and powers of mind superior to those which belong to any MAN THE NOBLEST WORK KNOWN 13 other object within our ken. Surely we need not waste any time in proving or illustrating this fact, which we all well know. Of course there may be, and very likely are, creatures unspeakably higher than man, but of them we know nothing. Man is the highest product or work of God which we know of ; and therefore it is in man that we shall discover the highest truth attainable about that Being, that God who caused man to be and to whom we owe everything that we have and are. And the first thing that strikes us is that man is an imperfect and unfinished being. He has defects and faults ; and history tells us that, as a race, he has been developing and improving ; that intellectually he is stronger, that his knowledge is wider and deeper, that his codes of morality are better, and that his philanthropy and sympathy are greater and more sensitive than all these were at the begin- ning of human existence. Just as every baby who lives to be old passes through slow stages of growth and progress in body and mind, so the whole race has grown up from its infancy into its present attainments. We know all this, and we must remember it when we begin to examine what man is as a key to the knowledge of his Maker. We must remember that man is an unfinished work of God, that each individual is in process of evolution, and that the final result we do not see, and cannot see, till it be accomplished. And I have placed this grave consideration at the outset of our enquiry into the nature of man, lest any one should hastily assert that the so-called "bad side " of human nature is just as true a revelation of God as the good or the better side. This point will be reserved for consideration in a future chapter. Now, we find in ourselves, in average men and women who are sane, the faculty of Reason given to us for the discovery or discernment of truth, for the acquisition of knowledge, and for the right regulation and use of all our other faculties ; therefore eminently for the control of our bodies and various appetites and desires. It is by reason we get our moral codes, i.e., reason is given to us to enlighten the conscience as to what is right and what is wrong. 14 WHAT REASON TEACHES Nothing but good is the object or purpose for which our reason was given to us. Kightly used and in harmony with our other higher faculties, it is a sufficient guide to our own welfare and to the welfare of others. Among other uses of reason it enables us to discern the exercise of reason in the most minute and in the most stupendous works in the universe. By reason alone we discover the existence and action of a God working by laws. So that, whenever one of those laws becomes known to us, we can say we know that our thought in regard to it is the same as God's thought. To take a homely but trustworthy example, we know that the multiplication table is exactly the same to the mind of God as it is to us. Twice two are four is the same in all the universe. So even this very small bit of knowledge enables us to say that if the mind of man can see it as true, the mind of man's Maker must see it as true likewise. Therefore, by having reason, we possess something in common with God Himself. You will remember how Kepler, having made one of the most important discoveries in the laws of astronomy, exclaimed, " O God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee ! " In passing from this subject, I venture to remind some of my fellow- men, especially young men, that, although the gift of reason is so magnificent, it has its limitations and is not quite so magnificent as the mind of God and has no right to find any fault with His works without a complete knowledge of all the facts. At present that complete knowledge is forbidden to us, that is, we are not sufficiently developed to be able to acquire it, nor are our circumstances such as to enable us to see much, or indeed anything, beyond our experience ; there- fore reason itself forbids the folly not to speak of the audacity of suggesting improvements to the Creator in His methods or dealings with the world over which He reigns. I pass now to the wonderful fact that we are moral beings and that we know it. By a " moral being," I understand one who feels an inward obligation to do what he thinks or knows to be right, and not to do what he thinks or knows to be wrong. He is one who understands and feels, " I ought to do this ; I ought not to do that. I ought to do my best to find out what is right and what is wrong; I ought to WHAT CONSCIENCE TEACHES 15 exercise my reason in this research, and not to leave it to chance or to the voice of others. I ought to act or refrain from acting only from the best motives ; not from any desire to be rewarded, nor from any fear of being punished. I ought to do right for its own sake, and not to do wrong because it is wrong." Surely we can say : we know that to feel all this is to be a moral being, to have a Conscience, as it is called. And this sense of duty is pre-eminently a good gift to men. It is part of human nature to be a moral being. If the conscience were always obeyed, if it were never perverted by priestcraft, never over-awed by fears or cajoled by bribes, we should never sin, never, except by mistake, do any kind of wrong to any one or to any other of God's creatures. Now here we have an instance of purpose on the part of the Creator manifest and indisputable and that purpose a good one. The object or purpose of the conscience is to secure the welfare of all mankind, through the free action of each individual. It is an entirely beneficent gift, designed to promote goodness, and happiness through goodness. This gives us the right to say we know that the Author and Giver of conscience is and must be so far Himself righteous. No unrighteous God would wish or try to make His creatures righteous. It would be a contradiction to the axiom, " Like begets like." The very Reason which God has also given us forbids our ascribing the Conscience to a wicked or unmoral God. Moreover, each man's own conscience tells him that the course of the world and its final issue ought, before all things, to be good. As moral beings we are forced to believe in a righteous God who loveth righteousness, or in. none at all. But if conscience tells us so much as this, how much more do we learn by another faculty which in some aspects is higher still than conscience. Thank God ! we can all under- stand, though not all equally well, what Love is. We know that the highest, purest love is something infinitely higher than billing and cooing and mating ; higher than the weak indulgence of silly parents, who screen their children from every scrap of disappointment or wholesome chastisement ; true love, utterly regardless of self, seeks the welfare, and the 16 WHAT LOVE TEACHES truest welfare, of its object. And in doing this, the loving heart counts no cost, shrinks from no sacrifice, but takes delight in giving up everything to defend, to save and to bless. We do know something of such love. We know that the worst sorrows and sins of the world come through the lack of love. We know that the best joys and the richest blessings flow from love alone ; that if love ruled in every heart from this time forth, earth would be no longer an earth but a heaven, more full of gladness than poets or angels have ever sung. Love turns all duty into delight, makes all drudgery joyful ; heals every wound. Can we see no purpose in our being endowed with this unspeakable gift ? We see and know with absolute certainty it was given us that our goodness should be the source of our happiness ; that each one of us should be, and should make all the rest, perfectly good and perfectly happy. For we see now and here, that people are being made good and happy by the exercise of true love. We all know for a certainty that if we had the wisdom and the power to make all mankind good and happy for ever, we should do it. Shall mortal man be more just than his Maker? Shall man be more loving than God? Can you imagine a God causing this human love to be, and Himself with no more love in Him than a stone? It is foolish to say, " We do not know anything," in the presence of fact like this. If there be a God at all ; if there be a God who knows the difference between a cart and a horse ; if there be a God who understands enough of arithmetic and the higher mathematics to give laws to the sun and planets and stars of heaven ; if there be a God who has had anything to do with the construction and evolution of men ; if there be a God who gave us Reason to see and enjoy the truth, to wonder at the marvels of the outer world, who gave us Conscience to bind us to duty and pure motives ; and, finally, if there be a God who poured out upon us the im- measurable, unspeakable gift of Love, then, I say, it is foolish and unmanly to say, " We do not know anything about Him." It is not only ungrateful but rude and ill-mannered to ignore Him. I have now shown only a tiny portion of what we do GOD BOTH GOOD AND KIND 17 know, and stated facts which the hardiest Agnostic has no wish to deny, and if this little modicum of knowledge be admitted as a premiss, the conclusion is inevitable, that we do know something about God. For so much of His works tells us more plainly and forcibly than by the strictest logic or by the finest oratory, that He is both good and kind ; that His plans are for our highest welfare, and that even partially and imperfectly as they are accomplished at present, enough has been revealed by His works to inspire our hearty trust in Him and our adoration of His matchless wisdom, power and love. CHAPTER III. GOD THE SOURCE OP MAN'S HIGHER NATURE. PSALM cxviii. 23 : "Goo is THE LOBD WHO HATH SHOWED us LIGHT." IN pursuit of the enquiry, " What do we know? " assuming, as a theorem to be proved, the existence of a God as the Cause of the visible and invisible universe we have been studying phenomena, have been looking at undoubted facts, and have specially directed our attention to the highest and best of the products within our ken. And this scrutiny has led us inevitably to say we know that an intelligent will is every- where manifested ; while the good purpose of that will has been proved by the mental, moral and spiritual faculties which we know we possess, and which we did not, and could not originate. That is to say, by our Reason, Conscience and Love we discern the Intelligence, the Righteousness and the Love of God who has caused us to be what we are. Here we are confronted by a formidable objection which demands an immediate answer if we can give one. It is, that we have no solid ground for ascribing to God the attri- butes of Goodness and Love, merely because we have them ourselves in a limited degree. It is denied or questioned that God is the source or giver of those qualities to men. So you see that if this objection cannot be met adequately, the basis of Theism is shattered. Unless we do learn something of what God is from His works, there is no possibility of our learning anything of Him at all. This I take to be the position of the Agnostic, who denies or questions our claim to know anything about God. In coming to meet this objection, I see clearly that we cannot add materially to our facts ; we have brought forward the highest objects we know of; for the end in view we know all that can be known, now that we see proofs of intelligence, righteous aims and loving purposes in the 18 THE ALTERNATIVE THEORIES 19 organisation of the highest objects within our range. If these are not sufficient to convey to a given human mind a conviction that the Intelligent Will of the Source of these highest objects is good and kind, it must be because that person questions that a God is the Source or Giver of those moral and spiritual faculties in man. For, once to admit that God is the Source of them is at the same time to admit that He has them Himself. The denial of this is equivalent to affirming that these higher human faculties have produced themselves, or have been developed by and out of unconscious matter alone. No other alternative has appeared that I know of. Therefore it is this statement which we have to tackle : " Keason, Conscience and Love in men have been spontaneously generated, or have been produced only by unconscious matter." In the objection, consciousness or purpose is necessarily excluded from the process ; for to admit either would be to admit a God. Having, as I said, no higher facts to bring forward, we are driven to pure reasoning on the subject, and can only meet the objection by showing that it is less reasonable, less probable, less possible, than the assertion that God is the Source of our higher faculties. The objection, you see, is alternative. Either these faculties are self-produced by human beings, or are produced by unconscious matter. Let us take them singly. First, it is surmised that man's Reason, Conscience and Love are spontaneously originated or self-produced by human beings. Well, I, for one, am not in the least afraid to admit that this might be the case ; I do not affirm that it is, because we do not know it as we know other things. But it is quite possible, quite conceivable, that these faculties arose spontaneously or were self-produced in man. Yet, when we admit this, it does not release us from the necessity of searching and finding out the antecedent cause. We must still ask, Why does man originate or produce in himself these faculties? How did he come to do it? He did it only because a power or collection of powers not his own had previously compelled him to be what he was, constituted him so as to necessitate the development of Reason, Con- science arid Love. Moreover, not only was his constitution 20 or organism thus imposed upon him from without, but his condition and circumstances were also framed and arranged for him. He had little or nothing to do with the institution of the family, the tribe and the nation, etc., which have played their part in the development of his higher faculties. So really, if we admit the self -production, we are no nearer to man's independence of God than we were before. We are still face to face with facts which require purpose and skill and power to explain, which did not, and could not, reside in man himself. Granting that man is so constituted as to have originated and produced in himself these higher faculties, we shall still have to account, in a reasonable way, for the existence and evolution of such a being as man. I venture to say that this first alternative objection has no weight at all against Theism, nor does it in the least degree weaken our inference from the higher faculties of man that God is the Source and Giver of them. We come now to the second alternative of the objection, viz., that the higher faculties of man were developed solely by unconscious matter. This, of course, is equivalent to the denial of any presiding or directing mind. At least it is meant to be that, even if not explicitly stated. In plain English, the assertion that God is the source of man's higher faculties is met by a flat denial. We can only meet the objection by showing the absurdity of the conclusions to which this denial inevitably leads. We know with certainty that Conscience and Love in the human soul are the highest and best objects known to us in all the Universe. Agnostics as well as Theists absolutely agree in this. Well, if God have no Conscience and no Love, then we men are better than He. And if there be no God at all, then we men are the highest and best of all the beings in the Universe so far as we know. It will not do to speculate here about angels and archangela I suppose I may go on to say we know that mankind as a race has only been in existence some hundreds of thousands of years; this is a much higher figure than we have any scientific warrant for, but I purposely exaggerate the length of time this "supreme being," man, has been in existence; because, at its longest, it is such a very short period in THEORY OF UNCONSCIOUS MATTER INVALID 21 comparison with the age of our planet, or that of the solar system, as to be simply ridiculous. We are then asked to believe that man is the first being in the eternal Universe who has possessed the faculties of Conscience and Love, and that these may be traced, nay, must be traced back to uncon- scious matter. I confess that this seems to me very unlikely, if not wholly impossible, and that it is much more possible and far more likely that the sense of duty and the impulse to confer the highest welfare were first and in their fulness in the Eternal One who set the Universe in motion and who has carried evolution on this planet up to the present human stage. Many of the objectors whom we are trying to answer utterly ignore the fact that our Conscience, when in healthy exercise, is associated with the thought of God, of a righteous God who demands goodness from us, and to whom we feel we owe it. Now if there be no God like that, man's Conscience is playing false with him, trying to keep him good and straight by a lie, beguiling, ensnaring him, im- pelling him to self-denial and painful restraints for the sake of virtue, on the false plea that it is pleasing to his Maker, and in harmony with the will and purposes of a righteous God. I do not think Conscience can be so easily got rid of by an accusation that it is a false witness. But if there be no God who knows every secret of the heart and who gave us Conscience that we might be true to His righteous will, then Conscience is a liar and man is a dupe, and the wild beasts and the apes are more wise than he. The various suggestions made to account for the origin of Conscience are all efforts to explain it away and to destroy the Divine sanction which is naturally attributed to it. These so-called explanations might be worth enlarging upon, were it not that in the present day even writers trying to eliminate or minimise God fully admit the enormously increased value and authority of the Conscience. The utmost that these writers can do is to claim that the higher faculties in man are part of the scheme of evolution. And I have already shown that evolution demands an intelligent will to plan out the scheme and to carry it on from first to last ; because the various processes require powers of change and a know- 22 THE REDVCT10 AD ABSURDUM ledge of what is necessary which do not reside in the subjects of change. The absurdity of the idea that man and his higher faculties are solely produced by unconscious matter is still further seen when we observe that in such case there could be no purpose whatever to be fulfilled by man's existence and faculties. If unconscious matter be the sole source and cause of what we are, only unconscious matter can regulate or determine our destiny, here or anywhere. It becomes a matter of mere chance what the final issue of man's existence will be, if there were no plan or purpose or definite issue for which he was sent into existence ; if unconscious matter were his only progenitor. And to speak of unconscious matter as "regulating" or "determining" anything at all is to talk nonsense. To adopt this second objection to Theism is practically to exclude mind and will from the universe alto- gether. I observe, with considerable satisfaction and thank- fulness, that some writers in the Agnostic Journal distinctly repudiate the charge of Materialism and Atheism, and, on the contrary, affirm the existence of manifold proofs of the workings of mind in the processes and adaptations of Nature. This is, in my eyes, the first step, and a great step, towards a rational Theism. In connection with the subject before us, it may be well to say something about two words which for some time have been great bugbears among those who call them- selves "Free-thinkers." These words are Personality and Anthropomorphism. They are very near akin, for the chief objection urged against the expression " a personal God" is, that it is " anthropomorphic." In plain English, that it is a mistake to suppose that God is a person in the same sense as men and women are persons. Now, of course, we Theists know better than that. If ever we apply the term " Personal " to God, it is not in the same sense as that in which we apply it ordinarily to ourselves and each other. Yet it must be always remembered that all our terms on any subject are derived from our own experience ; we can never in this life find any other mode of expressing our thoughts. There are, at least, two ways in which we may legitimately speak of a THE PERSONALITY OF GOD 23 Personal God. Each one of us is an individual being, self- conscious, knowing that he exists as a separate and distinct person, distinct from all other persons and from all other objects, visible and invisible, which are not himself. It is necessary for the human mind to think of God as also an Indi- vidual Being, self-conscious, knowing that He exists as a separate and distinct Person, distinct from all other persons and from all other objects, visible and invisible*, which are not Himself. I observe, in passing, that this knocks on the head the philosophical term " Absolute " as applied to God. God is not an absolute Being, but a relative Being, because there are other things besides Himself which exist. To everything which is not Himself He bears some relation, and therefore He cannot be absolute. Again, each one of us is not only con- scious of himself, but is conscious of or knows other objects. We could not be self-conscious unless there were other objects not ourselves and we knew it. It is only reasonable to say, also, that God is not only self-conscious, but knows every other object which is not Himself. This power of knowing must belong to a person among men ; therefore we call God a personal God because He has the power of knowing. If He knew nothing He could produce nothing, nor ever have any purpose. So far only it seems to me justifiable to apply the term Personal to God ; as, unless He be personal in these senses of the term, He does not exist. But when we extend the application of the word " personal " to the outward form and idiosyncrasies of human bodies, necessitating dimensions in space, weight and locality, motion, effort or conflict, then it cannot, with any show of reason, apply to God, who is pure spirit and has no form or likeness to anything in the universe. Yet even the legitimate use of the word Personal as applied to God is still anthropomorphic. It must be. We have no other mode of thinking about God, still less any other mode of expressing our thought except in terms of human experience, and therefore our highest thought and our most accurate expression of it is, and must be, anthro- pomorphic. It is not necessarily untrue on that account ; but it must be defective and partial, because our thought of God is necessarily limited by our own experience and faculties. 24 ANTHROPOMORPHISM The anthropomorphism which is rightly condemned is such as is represented in the Christian Creeds and too often in the Bible, both of which contain the cruder thoughts of past generations. Nevertheless, in saying this, it is only fair to add that the Old Testament contains also the highest and purest conceptions of God yet reached by man ; e.g., in the Pentateuch, God is declared to be unlike any object or creature in the- whole universe ; and in Isaiah, His thoughts and ways are declared to be higher than the thoughts and ways of man " as the heavens are higher than the earth." We have no alternative but to think and speak of God at all times in language more or less anthropomorphic, remember- ing that both the thought and the words are defective if not erroneous ; and we may speak of a Personal God when we mean a God who is self-conscious, and also knows everything past, present and future. I must add one word by way of explanation, certainly not of apology, for I have carefully avoided pouring ridicule upon any person. I have held up to ridicule certain opinions, which any professed teacher or thinker has a right to do and is bound to do. This process is resorted to in the purest and most truthful book in the whole world, viz., Euclid's Geometry, in which you will find some theorems propounded which cannot be demonstrated or proved in any other way than by making the objection to those theorems ridiculous. This process of reasoning is called the Beductio ad Absurdum, and upon such reasoning depend a number of most important and necessary truths. A boy beginning Euclid will be amazed to find, in the fourth proposition of the first Book, that the theorem is proved to be true only by the utter absurdity which must appear if the theorem were untrue. If untrue, then " two straight lines would enclose a space "- which is absurd. The boy laughs at such a ridiculous event, and so does everybody else who is sane ; and he is forced to acknowledge the truth of the proposition because the contrary of it is unthinkable and ridiculous. I have been driven to use the same kind of argument here in meeting certain Agnostic objections. We cannot directly establish the truth of the alleged fact that man's higher faculties are derived 25 from God ; but we can show the absurdity of any theory which denies it. There are, no doubt, many more points of absurdity which can be brought forward than those I have mentioned. One, however, is sufficient, if valid ; and the most important of all I now repeat. To deny that God is the source of man's higher faculties of Reason, Conscience and Love, involves the denial of the operation of mind every- where else in the universe ; and if there be a God at all, it makes man infinitely superior to Him in those very qualities which men by nature are forced to regard as the highest in themselves. It was once only a postulate, now it is an axiom, that if there be a God at all, He must be at least as good as the noblest of His creatures. To contradict that can only be done by a statement which is ridiculous. My Theistic friends must, for the sake of others, bear patiently with arguments which they no more need than a strong runner needs crutches. But let them not forget that their glorious Faith in God rests primarily on its foundations ; that these foundations are certain facts which Eeason has to interpret, and if our reasoning be unsound, our Consciences and our Hearts will not put up with it ; we will not stake our highest convictions and our noblest aspirations on a lie. If our foundation be not reasonable and true, we cannot build upon it without making fools of ourselves and courting discomfiture and scorn. You know and I know that the great crux is still before us in the objections urged by the Pessimists. Then will be the grand contest, the Olympic festival. And if we would be prepared for that encounter, we must have our facts duly arrayed, and each one, like a good weapon, tested and sharpened, before we can enter the lists. This is my reason for having asked you to make the enquiry WHAT DO WE KNOW? CHAPTEE IV. DEATH. PSALM cii. 25, 26, 27, as quoted in HEBREWS i. 10, 11, 12: "Taou LORD, IN THE BEGINNING HAST LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OP THE KAHTH ; AND THE HEAVENS ABE THE WORK OP THINE HANDS. THEY SHALL PERISH, BUT THOU REMAINEST J AND THEY ALL SHALL WAX OLD AS DOTH A GARMENT ; AND AS A VESTURE SHALT THOU POLD THEM UP AND THEY SHALL BE CHANGED ; BUT THOU ABT THE SAME, AND THINE YEARS SHALL NOT PAIL." JOB xiii. 15 : " THOUGH HE SLAY ME, YET WILL I PUT MY TRUST IN HIM." THESE exquisite words are the keynote of our present meditations. We have come to that point in our enquiry, " What do we know?" when it will be needful to take up what Agnostics and Pessimists call " the other side." We have hitherto fastened our whole attention upon those works and dealings of God which obviously commend themselves to our human Eeason, Conscience and Love. We do not need reminding that there are facts of another kind which do oppose, or seem to oppose, the sense of what is right and the instinct of love and pity within our hearts. These adverse facts cannot be ignored. We know for certain that they cannot by us be all satisfactorily explained. The utmost we can do is to explain some of them, and to show that these are perfectly to be harmonised with Conscience and Love. We can also with certainty prove that the explanations offered by the Christian Revelation are worse than none at all, because they aggravate the difficulties of the problem, and "make confusion worse confounded." The principal facts of an adverse character which we shall have to examine may be classified thus : The facts of Destruction and Death. The facts of Pain and Sorrow. The facts of Moral Evil or Sin. Now we must confine our attention to the facts of Destruction and Death. But it must be remembered that 2G WHY "EVILS" ARE SO REGARDED 27 the three classes of facts sometimes overlap each other and are inseparable. For example, Death is more or less associ- ated with Sorrow, if not also with Pain. Pain and Sorrow may be caused by Sin ; sometimes, though more rarely, causing Sin. And Sin is also the cause of some Death. This overlapping cannot be avoided. But the three classes can be practically treated singly. The reason for treating them at all is because these facts in the universe are by some thinkers regarded as overthrowing the foundations of our belief in a good and loving God. We admit, at the outset, that they seem to do so, and that they do require a moral explanation. But even this fact of their seeming to be unrighteous must be accounted for. Why do any men regard death and pain and sin as marks of an immoral or unmoral ordering of the universe ? The answer is, Because we do not like death or pain or sin. We find that these things disturb our peace, make us, for the time being, unhappy, and rouse us to every effort to get rid of them, to postpone, or to evade them altogether. Man is so consti- tuted in his body that he shrinks from pain and death, and by his moral constitution he regards sin as an evil to be shunned and extirpated because it violates his moral sense, and also is the greatest cause of mental and physical misery. Also men dislike these three things on moral grounds, feel- ing and knowing that the course of the world should be (before all things) right, and these things seem to them to be wrong. Our dislike of anything which disturbs or dis- tresses us is the cause of our repugnance to pain and death and to the presence and activity of moral evil in the world. Out of these three so-called evils, I take the mildest first, viz., Death or Dissolution, as much apart from Pain and Sin as I can keep it. On the whole, it is true that mere death is not regarded as the worst of evils which have to be endured, and therefore we may adopt the common human verdict that death is to be preferred to torture, and still more to dis- honour or moral corruption. Nevertheless it is regarded as an evil, because our natural instinct is to live and to love life. If it were not for this strong instinctive love of life, suicide would be the rule instead of a rare exception in order to 28 DEATH UNIVERSAL escape the toil and hardship of life. At the first experience of discomfort, we should be all running away from the duties which we have been sent here to fulfil. Now, if there is one law in Nature more clear, definite and inevitable than another it is the Law of Death and Dissolution. I prefer now the word " dissolution " to " de- struction " because Death, as is now generally believed, does not destroy anything but the form of life which it attacks. None of the particles composing any living creature, whether animal or vegetable, fluid or gases, are ever destroyed by death, the particles are only disunited, dissolved and left in their unchangeable integrity to go to form new combinations, organic and inorganic. We are distressed by death because it breaks up and dissolves the form of some one we love, or robs the world of the active service of some useful or noble member of the race. It is often a ghastly rending of the tenderest ties, and wherever these ties exist, such a " parting is pitiful pain." If there is a God who has planned the uni- verse and evolved the various objects in it until now, He must know how painful death is to the survivors. Yet Death never spares any one. Sooner or later his scythe mows them all down and has been doing this ever since the human race began, heedless of virtue, heedless of vice, heedless of age and youth, heedless of loves and hatreds, heedless of fame and obscurity, of crowned heads and of the meanest subjects. But all this platitude is out of place and needless, for Death was in the world ages and ages before man ap- peared, before the lowest reptiles and the still earlier monads, even in the earliest period of vegetable life. And long before what we technically call death, which is the dissolution of living bodies, there was the dissolution of inorganic sub- stances, perpetual destruction of old forms in order to make new forms possible ; every step in Evolution being marked and regulated and brought about by means of such destruc- tion of form and recombination of the indestructible atoms. To us it is quite natural to think and speak of the universe, as we see it, i.e., of the sun, moon and planets and the millions of suns which people space, as eternal and everlasting. But every single object among them all is and NECESSITY FOR DEATH 29 ever has been the subject of ceaseless change, passing from its birth to maturity, and from maturity to decay, and from decay to dissolution. The present forms of these galaxies of suns and worlds may change so slowly as to be absolutely unappreciable by human faculties, even if human life were to be prolonged for millions of years. Yet the several stages must be passed through till the final stage is reached, and all the glorious and stupendous suns in the universe will be at last put out and give place to new Heavens and new Earths, according to the universal and invariable law which has doomed every form to destruction. " They shall perish, but Thou remainest : they all shall wax old as doth a garment ; and as a vesture shalt Thou fold them up and they shall be changed ; but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail." Can we wonder then that all the living creatures on a planet like ours fall under the same law of dissolution? Would it not be a direct infringement of the universal law, if our human forms were not to perish, like everything else ? Reason at least assures us that it is unreasonable to expect that mankind should be an exception to the universal law. But even Reason has far more to say about it than this. We even know now that the death of species of vegetables and animals has been in- variably followed by the appearance of other species more suitable to the needs of the occupants of this planet and better suited to its altering conditions. Geology will tell us how necessary was the death of whole races of creatures before their superior successors could be born or flourish. The survival of the fittest is one of the chief features in evolution. And any one can see also that the death of some creatures is necessary for the life of other creatures. Some are manifestly provided to be killed and eaten by others. Even the strictest vegetarian cannot avoid taking the life of his fellow-creatures every time he opens his mouth to take a breath of fresh air or to drink a glass of unboiled water ; and he must kill them by boiling it. It is in vain to plead that the creatures are too small to include in his principle ; for they are not too small to live and to choose their own food and to wed. We must kill, whether we like it or not. 30 DEATH BY PREDATORY ANIMALS Then we see the law of Death not only universal, but aggra- vated, as some suppose, by the carnivorous animals (and a certain few plants) being compelled by their nature and circumstances to kill other living creatures for their own food. If I could make the case out worse I would; for I wish to palliate nothing. A great deal has been felt and said in regard to the killing of animals by beasts, birds, and reptiles of prey. It is alleged that the process is one of torture ; the cat playing with the mouse before devouring it is taken as a standing type of cruelty. On this subject, little can be said, because little or nothing is known about it. We do not know the amount of pain, if there be any at all, endured by the victim. From some limited human experiences of attacks by beasts of prey, it has been proved in a few instances that there was Little or no pain felt at the moment, that the sensibility to pain was, in some way, suspended under the terrible stroke and laceration. We do not know, nor can we know, whether this is the case with inferior animals. This part of the subject of death cannot therefore be included in our enquiry as to what we know. It must be left unexplained till we can obtain more know- ledge. Death would be a dark blot upon the Divine Government of the world if it were not absolutely necessary to the production of a perfectly good result. So the mere fact of Death cannot be rightly considered without enquiring into the purposes for which it is ordained and the final consequences to which it leads. I think we are justified in saying that we know that the following purposes are served by Death : Death is necessary to counterbalance the constant enor- mous production of living creatures. It secures conditions possible for a succession of individ- uals ; and therefore for carrying out the process of evolution. It destroys forms in order that more useful or more beautiful forms may be created out of the permanent atoms. It provides food for an immense portion of animal and vegetable life. It prevents the many terrible consequences which would ensue from decay if decay were not fatal. OBVIOUS BENEFITS OF DEATH 31 It is absolutely necessary for the welfare of the living that many creatures should die ; there would not be room for many more, if for any more, than are living on the earth at one time. Death is also needful to prevent the ghastly consequences of very prolonged life on earth. Human beings could not endure the awful monotony and the endless weariness of life's duties and cares, and the impossibility of any progress in knowledge and virtue. Dreadful too would be the entire absence of little children and youths and maidens in a world where everybody was old and jaded. For it would be im- possible for a world so overcrowded to propagate the species at all. And all the foregoing reasons why Death is a boon to mankind are purely mundane and material. Far higher purposes than these are manifest in the ordaining of Death. In our natural healthy state, we dread Death. We regard it as an evil to ourselves and to others, and so we try to put it off as long as we can. And in that endeavour we are forced to learn how to maintain life by proper food, forced into activity of work and toil in producing food or those useful objects which can be exchanged for food. Thus arise our systems of agriculture and cattle-, sheep- and poultry-farming ; thus arise our productions for clothing and shelter, and all the myriad appliances and inventions for making life more secure and more easy, not only when at home, but in travel by land or sea. And in the pursuit and discovery of these appliances, the mind of man has been enormously expanded and enriched with true knowledge. The value of mere knowledge as a safeguard of life has taken now almost the first place. The natural and proper fear of death has done it all. Yet even this great result of death in the world is as nothing by the side of what it has effected in the soul of man, in developing the conscience and the affections. It was the fear of death for the bodies of wives and children which called forth the loving energies of husbands and fathers and mothers to feed and cherish and protect their families. It was the proximate cause of the earliest form of heroism and 32 DEATH THE PARENT OF VIRTUES nobility of self-sacrifice which led the father to defend his home with his blood and the mother to give up her own life for her babe. It was to avert death from the home, the tribe or the nation that warriors went forth, like men, to slay or be slain. The virtue of physical courage would have been impossible in a world where Death was unknown. Death and the danger of it are thus the parents of virtue. To the simple virtue of courage we must add that of conscientiousness, largely due to the sense of the duty of preserving one's own life as well as that of others. We feel and we know that it is wrong to imperil our own lives for any cause but to save the life of another. We know it is wrong to kill any one except when it is needful to save others from being slain, or in the due execution of those laws which have been instituted to preserve life and to maintain its sacredness. And but for Death we should have had far less sym- pathy. Our doctors, nurses and hospitals are all expressions of human sympathy with the dying, with those who are threatened by death. It was to avert or postpone death that the arts of healing arose, and this could not have occurred but for the sympathy engendered by a common danger. It is out of death that have grown all the higher and nobler aspirations of mankind, all the endeavours to live here below a life lifted above the ephemeral joys and interests of the mere body, and to look forward to new life and endless progress in virtue in the world to come. Death has kept us continually in remembrance of the Lord and Giver of Life, has forced us to fix all our hopes on Him and to say with Job, " Though He slay me, yet will I put my trust in Him." Death has forced us to see that life eternal or end- less youth or unfailing strength is not for the bodies of men, but only for their souls. Death has forced us to see that God does not, and cannot, love our bodies, as we men and women love the bodies of our nearest and dearest ; that God only builds the body as a house for the soul, which He loves, to dwell in ; and that when the body has fulfilled its purpose, the tenant must quit and the house be pulled down and its materials go elsewhere for building of another kind. Death DEATH OUR FRIEND IN DARKEST HOURS 33 forces us to do what we can of duty and love so long as we are here to do it. It warns us not to put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day ; that there is no certainty from minute to minute how long or how short a time we have to live. So, if it teaches trust, it surely also teaches obedience : not only obedience to those good laws of Nature by which life may be guarded and prolonged, but the still more noble obedience to the higher laws of God, which demand a faith- ful use of all our faculties in doing good, in gaining more knowledge, and in growing better every day whilst it is called to-day, remembering that " the night cometh when no man can work." Death, likewise, is our friend in the hour when it seems to be our deadliest foe. Many of us have been through that horrible and thick darkness nearly all will have to go through it some day when the most precious one is taken from us and the lamp of our lives is put out. No such sorrow can ever seem joyous, but grievous, at the time; it is sheer misery, if not despair ; for the separation by death is, for this world, final. Nevertheless, in the Theistic Church, at all events, we thank God " for the bitter pains of separation by Death"; because, although with one hand Death takes away, with the other it gives back an immortal hope, spring- ing veritably out of those bitter pains of separation, out of the very love which is the sole cause of our grief. If we had no love, there could be no regret, no grudging of our beloved to that icy embrace. But because we love, we hope, we still hope to meet again; and the light of God's love to us is a promise that that hope is not vain, and is a promise that cannot be broken. Death to human beings, to those who die and those who survive, is full of blessing and no curse at all. We could not live our noble lives as men without it. It is the parent of some of our highest virtues and the fountain of our dearest hopes. Being the bearer to us of so much lasting good ; being part of a scheme, splendid even in the little fragment we see, we can at least give our flat denial to the old fable which the Christian Scheme of Salvation has interpreted to mean, that Death is the curse of God for the first man's Sin. That will not 3 34 CHRISTIAN VIEW OF DEATH FALSE stand a day in the presence of scientific knowledge, nor will it bear an hour's careful scrutiny in the light of Keason, Conscience and Love in the human heart. Nothing could be more untrue than that well-known passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which says that Jesus took part in flesh and blood " that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death, that is, the Devil : and deliver them who, through fear of Death, were all their life-time subject to bondage." It is untrue that there is any Devil at all. It is untrue that the Devil has the power of death, for God has ordained Death, and in His hand alone our breath is. It is untrue that Death has been destroyed. It is untrue that the fear of Death has been abolished and men's souls have been delivered from it. For God ordained that men should have a wholesome and sufficient dread of Death to make them take proper care of their own lives and of the lives of others. Christianity has not thrown the smallest light on the problem of Death. I do not imagine for one moment that I have disposed of all the moral difficulties involved in Death as a part of the Divine Government of the World. But I trust enough has been said to prove that Death is physically necessary to the continuance and succession of life, and that it is productive of unspeakable benefits to the higher nature of man. If any one, inclined to be wrapped up in himself, is still haunted by the fear of Death, let me commend to him the beautiful, manly and religious words of Epictetus : " Whenever the conditions of life are no longer according to nature possible, He, the Supreme Captain, is sounding the bugle for retreat ; He, the Master of the Great House- hold, is opening the door, and saying to us, ' Come.' And when He does so, instead of bewailing your misfortunes, obey and follow ; come forth not murmuring, but as God's servant who has finished his work, conscious that He has no more present need of you here." CHAPTEE V. PAIN. LAMENTATIONS iii. 33 : " HE DOTH NOT AFFLICT WILLINGLY [HEB. : ' FROM His HEART'] NOB GRIEVE THE CHILDREN OP MEN." THE proposition now before us is that Pain and Sorrow are inflicted or allowed to fall upon us, not through the indiffer- ence or malevolence of God, but because they are necessary and also beneficial. Therefore in so far as God is responsible for the pains and sorrows of mankind, His righteousness and love are unimpeachable. For greater clearness we must separate pain from sorrow, although they greatly overlap. Pain is physical, sorrow is mental. Pain is felt by the body in any of its parts ; sorrow is felt by the soul, in its emotions and affections. Sometimes pain in the body produces sorrow in the heart, as when we grieve over the physical pains of another. Sometimes sorrow produces physical pain by gen- erating actual disease. Intense sorrow has been known to rupture the heart, and thus to kill outright. Nevertheless we must try to fasten our attention first on pain and after- wards on sorrow, each by itself. We begin by noticing the fact that pain is universal ; no human being passes from the cradle to the grave without some form and degree of pain. Some suffer more, others less, but all are at one time or another subject to physical pain. We notice also that some pains are avoidable, other pains are not. Some are incurred through our own fault. Some are caused by the fault of others. Some pains occur through neither. The next point to be noticed is that by the very constitu- tion of our bodies pain is always disagreeable : we dislike pain, we hate it, we dread it, we sometimes even resent it as a wrong done to us, we resist it, we do all we can to avoid it, and when it comes, to be rid of it, to remedy it, or 35 36 PAIN THE SENTINEL diminish its cruel force. A great part of our lives is spent in various endeavours to prevent pain, to guard ourselves and others from its approach. Without always being con- scious of it, we are perpetually waging this war against pain. Our food, our clothing, our shelter, our work and bodily exercise, and our many inventions and appliances to secure health and comfort and luxuries are all designed to prevent or mitigate pain. This is one of the chief and most essential laws of our life as animals. We are fighting a ceaseless battle with pain. Can we not see at once one reason for this natural revolt from pain ? It is that pain is a symptom of disease or injury which may be the prelude of death. Bodily instinct tells us that if we are to live we must drive out the would-be murderer. All the activities of the body combine like an army to expel the foe. And the intrusive, insidious, presence of that foe can only be made known to us by pain. Pain is the sentinel which rouses the whole garri- son. Therefore, most assuredly, pain or the possibility of pain is absolutely necessary to our very life. We see this necessity in the new-born child long before consciousness has begun, nay, at the moment of its birth. Every natural healthy infant cries, i.e., expresses its sense of pain, either from cold or from hunger. If it be not covered with warm clothing, and if it be not promptly fed, it must die. Its pains make it cry out, and unless those pains were felt, it would be utterly defenceless. Yet these pains would be entirely useless to the infant were it not for the Divine plan which has made the mother to feel pain also. To hear the child cry causes her the great mental pain of sympathy, and so she instantly responds to that cry and gives it food and warmth. More- over, if it did not cause her bodily pain to withhold the natural food from her babe, she might not be so ready to respond to its cry. But the physical pain, which would surely result from her neglect to feed it, supplements any unwillingness on her part to do the duties of a mother. And all through the subsequent stages of infancy, pain is a necessary element in the life of the child. It is a constant warning to its mother or nurse that something is wanted, that something is wrong and needs alteration or remedy. 37 And as the child grows it learns day by day through pain what is safe and what is not safe for it to have or to do. It thus learns to walk by the pain which accompanies its earliest experiments, and learns to speak by the distress and inconvenience of not being able properly to make its wants known. It learns that fire burns and water in ponds and rivers is to be cautiously approached ; it learns that eating too fast, or eating too much, will produce indigestion, i.e., pain. It learns that disobedience is dangerous and generally attended by painful consequences. It learns by pain to be sympathetic and unselfish. By the pain of quarrelling with its brothers and sisters it learns to "give and take and to be peacefully disposed. I need not go further into detail. It is enough to prove that among the things we certainly know we do know that some pains are necessary at the very earliest stage of our life on earth, not only actual physical pains, but the pains of sympathy on the part of those to whom our preservation has been entrusted. Follow the merely animal life of man through all its stages, and you will perceive that pain in some form or other is essential to life, is always a warning of some disease or danger which leads to death. Therefore, because pain is necessary, then God is to be thanked and not blamed for sending pain. But further, pain is not only essential to life, but essential to pleasure. We could not so fully enjoy our pleasures if they were not interrupted by intervals of pain. We need a contrast, more or less marked, between the two states of enjoyment and non-enjoyment, in order to enjoy at all. Monotony diminishes and then kills pleasure ; sometimes a pleasure too prolonged turns to positive pain. So are we constituted as to need for our enjoyment of life that it should be varied by pain. Persons who have diseased heart or lungs, producing paroxysms of acute pain, in the intervals of immunity experience pleasure in the mere act of breathing such as you and I, if we are healthy, have no idea of. To the healthy and sound, the pulsations of the heart and the action of the lungs go on without any conscious pleasure at all. It is only a painful interruption to the healthy con- dition that can create for them a positive pleasure. Every 38 AVENUES OF PAIN AND PLEASURE THE SAME person must know of similar facts in his own life, how the relief of some pain of the body or burden of mind is followed by quite an unwonted buoyancy of the spirits, whilst delight and pleasure seem multiplied all around in consequence of the contrast to the previous pain. Scarcely any fact about pain is so little noticed as this. We are always ready enough to cry out when we are hurt, but forgetful of the extra amount of pleasure we get when the pain is gone. If it were only to make enjoyment possible to us, it is a mark of God's goodwill that He causes us to suffer. Yet again, the avenues of pain and pleasure are one and the same. The nervous system, the five senses and the centres of feeling to which they lead, are used alike by pleasing and displeasing objects. If we had no faculty for feeling pain, we could have none for feeling any pleasure ; both must pass to the seat of consciousness along the same road, by the selfsame nerves of sensation. The possibility of pleasure therefore depends on the possibility of pain. That which enables us to enjoy a good meal is the good appetite we bring to it. But what we call a " good appetite " is only the first step taken by our old enemy, or more truly, our old friend, pain, which is beginning to warn us that we must take food or perish. If that food be not within our reach, our " good appetite " turns into the pangs of hunger or the frenzy of unquenched thirst. Just a few hours' disappointment of food and drink will do it. So essential is pain to pleasure. It is no less true of our other natural desires and natural enjoyments. The desire gently prolonged adds enormously to the pleasure of its gratification ; but if too much prolonged, the desire becomes painful. All the foregoing arguments to prove the indispensable necessity for pain to preserve life, and to augment, if not to create, its pleasures, apply to our existence as mere animals. We must now turn our attention to the benefits entirely due to pain which are conferred on mankind as a race of social, intellectual and moral beings. As social beings, it is only through pain that men have been driven to advance from the savage state into the civilised. It was found that the individual could not protect himself from pain so well as when PAIN THE PARENT OF KNOWLEDGE 39 individuals were formed into societies, tribes, nations ; and the subdivision of labour and the erection of various posts of duty for the common good all naturally grew out of the common anxiety to avoid pain. And then came the wonder- ful development of human skill, followed by that of human intelligence, entirely due to the necessity of warding off pain or minimising its effects. Pain has been our great teacher, teacher of agriculture, commerce, literature, art, and science. It has made us restless and enquiring : all our knowledge has sprung out of our pain, just as every man owes his life to-day to the pains of hunger which he felt when an infant. Had it not been for pain and the restless desire to prevent or remove it, there would have been no cultivation of the mind, no discoveries of stored-up treasure in the bowels of the earth, no reading of the wonderful books of Nature which are spread out before us. Our inevitable sufferings have been a per- petual stimulus of our minds to knowledge, of our hands to skill, and of our social instincts to civilisation. To take an extreme instance of this, where it is least likely to be looked for, I quote that of astronomy. This science arose out of the pain of superstitious fear of the alleged evil influence of some of the heavenly bodies. It was not true astronomy then, but its predecessor, astrology, which led " the wise men " of that epoch to watch and study the stars with a view to warn men of their danger, and if possible to avert it. Yet this mere process of watching and studying the stars was the beginning of the true science of astronomy. Later on, as you know, when men began to travel afar by land and sea, the risk of losing their way by night and the painful fear of it led them to turn their observations into means of safety ; and in course of time the mariner's compass was invented, and all other astronomical appliances for safe sailing on the wide sea. Geology too can be traced in like manner to the painful wants of early humanity, which forced them to dig for iron and copper, and gold and silver ; and in doing so they dis- covered coal. Out of their industrial subterranean researches grew the science of geology. Again, you have chemistry growing out of alchemy, a pursuit taken up at first through the dread of the pains of poverty or to supersede the necessity 40 PAIN THE PARENT OF VIRTUE of so much rude toil in earning one's bread. Almost every step in civilisation and in the growth of knowledge may be traced up to pain and the natural repugnance to it, which called forth all the faculties and energies of the body and mind of man. But along with all this evolution and progress in material good, far higher results were being achieved in the moral nature. Character was begun and was cultivated and de- veloped by the continual presence of pain. There was first patience, the power of quiet endurance, or submission to a force which could not be wholly resisted. The virtue of contentment arose by which men's minds could be more or less reconciled to their lot, and they began to acquiesce in a condition which was inevitably imperfect and unfinished. Such patience is still reckoned among the virtues, while im- patience is growing more and more to be regarded as a weakness in the eyes of wiser men. With patience, how- ever, came not a blind and paralysing fatalism, but a manly and intelligent perseverance. In spite of all failures and discouragements, men held on doggedly to their course, pursuing the common enemy pain with ruthless pertinacity and heroic fortitude. Beaten in one direction they tried another. Seeing that their ignorant superstitions were absolutely futile, they took to the stronger ground of truth and fact and wisely laid the foundations of Science though they knew it not. They began to believe in Nature, and felt sure, or at least hopeful, that in Nature they would find the remedies for the evils and pains which she had in- flicted. And these virtues of patience and perseverance were quickly followed by courage. Not only the calm fortitude of endurance, but the heroic rushing into danger, rushing with their eyes open into the infection of fatal disease, into the perils of drowning or into the tortures of fire to rescue the poor bodies of their fellow-men in the hour of mortal peril. Yes, not merely for the beloved wife and children or friends, but for strangers whose very names were unknown. But for pain, such splendid heights of human nature would never have been reached, could never indeed have been known or dreamed of. And nearly every soul amongst us, if we are PAIN THE PARENT OF SYMPATHY 41 not among the heroes of our race, has still the gracious gift of sympathy, the fellow-feeling which makes our hearts heave with sighs of sorrow and our hands pour forth of their abund- ance whenever the cry of want or distress is heard. " One touch of sorrow makes the whole world kin " is all but literally true, and this our sweetest virtue would also have been im- possible and unknown in a world from which pain and sorrow were excluded. Let it never be forgotten : without pain there would have been no patience, nothing to bear ; no perseverance, no stimulus to untiring energy ; no courage, nothing to brave ; no sympathy, no one to feel for or to pity. The triumphs of human nature over its conflicts with pain are achievements grander by far than the marvels of the Solar System, or the glorious expanse of a star-lit Universe. One throb of pity, one heroic self-sacrifice to heal or to rescue is worth all the Universe of material glory. And we know it, and God knows it, and He and we know that in a world without pain such human triumph would have been impossible. Objectors against this scheme on moral grounds must surely be glad to see their objections removed, not by any speculative theory or philosophical assumption, but by the hard dry irresistible facts of human history and human life as we know it. The splendour of it is only rendered more striking and brilliant by the rare exceptions and by the manifest imperfections and incompleteness of the Work. If, even in the twilight of our knowledge, we can discern as fact the little we, know, what will be the glory of the noon-day splendour when the Sun of righteousness shines forth in all His radiance? Pain is necessary. Pain is beneficial. Beneficial not only to the bodies but to the minds and characters and hearts of men. Whoever thought of such a scheme must be good. If God had any share in it, then God is good beyond all words. And if He began it, well may we all trust that some day He will bring it to perfection and show to us its glorious issues. By the necessity of the plan and its necessity I trust has been amply proved we learn that those words are true, " He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of 42 GOD DOES NOT TAKK PLKASTRE IX OFR I'AIX men." He does not ,take pleasure in our pain. He stirs us to resist and cure it if we can. He does not wish any of us to suffer a single pang more than is actually needed to produce the benefits which are His aim. It is enough to know that there is sympathy in Him, because He hath given sympathy to us ; He feels for us and we know it because we feel for each other. If not, how can He be as good and kind-hearted as we ? There is one point more which I think may well be referred to here. We learn by pain to know that we are under discipline, that we cannot have and ought not to expect to have our own way in everything, or to escape what we dislike. It is evidently God's will that we should learn some hard lessons, not the easy ones we should have chosen. And why ? Because man is not wise enough, nor sufficiently experienced to know what is best for him. A wiser mind who knows all is alone able to settle that question. And they are the wise men and women who willingly leave that decision to Him. One cannot imagine a human being to be in a more pitiable woful plight than he to whom God henceforth surrendered the whole management and care of the man himself. And we may go on to say, no world could be more inevitably and irretrievably cursed than that world which God had abandoned to take care of itself and to manage its own affairs. We cannot hope and we do not wish to mend His work, because we cannot wield His power, or rise to the level of His wisdom, least of all attain the height of His matchless love. CHAPTEE VI. PAIN CAUSED BY MAN. IN the previous chapter we only endeavoured to gather a general view of Pain the necessity of it to our existence and the benefit which it brings. There is a great deal more to be said about pain than this. We shall have to consider that immense area of avoidable or preventable pain which we inflict on ourselves and on each other. But before we go further, I must call your attention to a very common error in thought or more correctly to say, error in feeling on the part of those who make the pain that is in the world a ground of accusation against God. It is said and felt that the myriads of sufferings intensely aggravate the indictment of cruelty against God. But a little reflection will expose the hollowness of this charge. Pain can only be felt by the individual sufferer. He cannot feel the pain of any one else. Only in one way can his pain cause pain in others by sympathy, by causing grief and anxiety to any one who loves him. Leaving that aside for the moment, you cannot add one man's pain to another man's pain and so increase the amount of pain. All the pain in the world on which any accusation against God can be based is what each individual suffers ; so that if we can discover that particular individual who suffered most pain, his pain alone would furnish the worst ground of accusation possible. You cannot add up together the pains endured by A, B and C for such a purpose. Each one's pain stands alone, and except by sympathy cannot cause pain in anybody else. However horrified you may be on seeing so many individuals suffer, you cannot reasonably complain of this as an aggravation of the crime of cruelty ; especially after we have seen that to each individual sufferer some pain is both a necessity and a benefit ; and after we 43 44 PAIN NOT INCESSANT have clearly seen that -each individual only suffers (except by sympathy) his own pain ; and since sympathy is universally known to be due entirely to pain and is known and felt to be a beautiful adornment of human nature and the spring of all our noblest exertions and self-sacrifice to prevent or to cure pain, we cannot base any charge of cruelty against God on the score of the pains of sympathy. And one thought more in connection with the foregoing is that no one individual lives a life of uninterrupted pain. To the worst sufferer there come sweet moments, hours of relief. Our doctors tell us that in their worst cases pain is not ceaseless, by no means without some grateful intervals of repose and even pleasure. It is also a noteworthy fact that the greatest sufferers are often quite resigned to their lot, and are full of thankfulness to God for the many com- forts and consolations they receive through trusting in His faithful love ; while for the vast majority of mankind pain is far more rare than pleasure, and is only an occasional and generally brief interruption of natural and healthy enjoy- ment of life. Moreover, whenever pain becomes unbearable, Nature brings relief by destroying consciousness. And all this it is necessary to bring to remembrance in order to counteract the exaggeration of feeling and speech in regard to pain, which is so common among Pessimists. The worst pain of the most tormented sufferer alone is the strongest ground they can ever find for challenging the goodness and loving-kindness of God. And that has been already disposed of by foregoing statements of fact in regard to the necessity and the benefits of pain in general. We can now turn to the main point of our subject and consider the avoidable and preventable pains which we inflict upon ourselves and upon each other. I may possibly alarm some of my readers if I begin by affirming as my own heartfelt conviction that, although we men are responsible to God for all the preventable pains we inflict, yet God Himself is responsible for those conditions of mankind out of which alone these preventable pains arise. If men needlessly inflict paiii upon each other, it is still God who has made men what they are ignorant, imperfect, PAIN CAUSED BY MAN 45 selfish and even cruel. He has given them powers of body and powers of mind, and a limited freedom of choice in the exercise of these powers, in which and by which it is possible for men to injure and hurt one another. At the very outset of these discourses I warned you to remember, as one of the ' first things we learn and can say we know, that men are imperfect and unfinished works of God ; whenever we forget this, we are sure to go astray in our reasoning and our inferences. That old proverb, " Never let children or fools see half-done deeds," is wisdom itself; for neither children nor fools are able to understand or even to guess at the final result. The carpenter, the potter, the statuary, the painter, all have their work in progressive stages which childishness and folly could never understand and would be certain to misinterpret. And really I must apologise to you for saying what everybody knows that this is precisely true of many of God's works ; they are in process of the making, in process of growth and development, in stages of incompleteness, when children and fools are sure to misunderstand His purposes and cannot discern any wisdom or goodness in His methods. To a childish or foolish mind, there seems, for one thing, an enormous waste both of time and products, and unnecessary friction. There must necessarily be this in the works of man. It is only in the works of God that there is no waste at all and no unnecessary friction. But the children retort quite naturally " Look at the waste which is going on ; look at the needless pains and miseries of man ; look at his very slow development and progress ; look here even at some instances of retrogression ; look at the hopeless irretrievable ruin of body and soul to which some men come, and which, alas ! they bring upon others." Every one of the facts which no one can dispute is looked at with childish eyes, from a stand-point of profound but inevitable ignorance. These are half-done deeds of the wise and mighty God, which cannot be justified in the eyes of childhood or folly. It is only when we have become men in understanding, when we have put away childish things, childish ways of reasoning, childish ways of jumping at conclusions, that we begin to discern the over-towering fact 46 WE ARE BUT CHILDREN COMPARED WITH GOD that these deeds of God are only half-done, that we do not and cannot see exactly or fully all that He is aiming at ; our change from mental childhood to manhood makes clear the fact that this present stage of the process is not the final issue, is not the completed work, and that we must give God time not only to finish His work, but also to augment our faculties and to enlarge our knowledge before it is possible for us to form a correct judgment of His purposes and His methods. I mean no disrespect to Pessimists by implying that their views and remarks are childish ; I only want them, as men, to observe that we human beings do stand in relation to the great forces and mysteries of the world not to say in relation to the living God Himself as little children, as comparatively as ignorant and lacking in discernment and right judgment, as infants are, compared with their parents. I say this not only of Pessimists but of everybody else, including most of all myself. The more I know, the more I feel this of myself. Although I may, without boasting, claim that I have written more upon the problems of Pain, Death and Sin than any other writer of this age known to me, I am but a child, a mere infant, in regard to the infinite Power and Wisdom and Goodness which are manifest in the world around us. What is more, I do not see how it can be otherwise, I do not see how it is possible for anybody, however intelligent and enlightened, to feel otherwise than humbled and abased at his own ignorance in the presence of the adorable and infinite knowledge possessed only by the Most High, by Him, tha Eternal who rules over all and who has lived and planned and wrought from all eternity, and to all eternity will never die, never be less wise and good. The same God who teacheth man knowledge, who endowed him with a mind to observe and to reflect, with those gifts gave to him also the power to discern his own ignorance and the limitations of his faculties. He who gave to us the power to say " We know," impels us also to say " We do not know," and never to forget the distinction. You may say I am a long time beating about the bush and not grappling with our allotted theme. But I had a reason for this ; I wanted to prepare our minds especially PAIN CAUSED BY MAN THROUGH IGNORANCE 47 for the weighing of a great proWern, which, I grant, cannot be wholly explained. We may and we do catch gleams of light upon it, but we are too little, too young, too inex- perienced to make that perfect induction which alone would amount to proof. So when you and I bring our best thoughts to bear upon it, the only condition which will qualify us to see any true light at all is the condition of absolute humility and a consciousness of our inability to see any more than a very small portion of the solution of the problem. Thus prepared, we come face to face with the terrible fact that we men injure ourselves and each other by the exercise of powers conferred on us by God for purposes wholly good, and through the conditions of ignorance and other causes for which we are not in the first instance responsible. We must begin by asking, What are the causes of our inflicting pain on ourselves and each other? Eemember that we are speaking now only of avoidable or preventable pains. We incur and inflict these pains partly through ignorance, carelessness, selfishness and sin. Of Ignorance I need say very little. There is avoidable ignorance and unavoidable ignorance. If we took more pains to consider what in our conduct would inflict injury, many of us are good-hearted enough to try to increase our knowledge that we might avoid giving pain. And it is well to remember here that ignorance was the main cause, the original cause of the tortures inflicted by the Christian Church on thousands and thousands of her victims. It was all due to ignorance of God and of what He required of us in our relations to Him- self and to our fellow-men. Much of our ignorance is avoid- able ; and we can see by the course of human progress how much this avoidable ignorance has been removed and how much is now being done to get rid of it entirely. A large part of human energy is being even now concentrated on the acquisition of such knowledge as will prevent in future many of the " ills which flesh is heir to." But if it be our duty, as every one now admits, to substitute knowledge for ignorance, we surely cannot blame God for the consequences of that ignorance which we ourselves are bound to remove. If these consequences were not painful, there would be no effort made 48 CARELESSNESS AND SELFISHNESS to learn more about their causes or to make the slightest advance in our knowledge. And of Carelessness as the cause of much pain, we already see that this is to a great extent avoidable our own fault. Carelessness, thoughtlessness, neglect of proper precautions, leads, as we know, in thousands of cases to disaster and death. In every instance of this the blame lies at our own door, i.e., at the door of the careless person or persons who caused the calamity, e.g., caused injury to his own health and thereby brought calamity on others. If we cannot say that God wished a man to be careless, we cannot say that He wished the calamity to happen ; or that, by the operation of the un- changeable laws of Nature, God " willingly, or from His heart, afflicted the children of men." That He made it possible for man to be careless as well as ignorant is to be justified later on. But men always blame themselves for care- lessness which has brought about disastrous consequences. It must therefore be laid at man's own door and not be charge- able against the most High. The next cause of the infliction of avoidable pain is the inherent Selfishness of human nature, i.e., of a part of human nature. Selfishness is not essentially an evil principle. Up to a certain point it is both necessary and beneficial to the man himself and indirectly to others that he should take care of his body, not only feeding and protecting it, but securing health, strength and cheerfulness by proper self-indulgence. The healthier, stronger and more cheerful he is, the better will he be qualified to benefit his fellow-men. And to a great extent he is also right to be so far selfish as to try to be richer than he already is, if he can do so honestly and without injur- ing or impoverishing his neighbour. But man is not only a selfish being but a reasoning and moral being ; and therefore we all know perfectly well how wrong it is to give way to selfishness at the expense of others and to the detriment of our own higher nature. It is selfishness only in excess which is wrong, when the balance between body and soul has been disturbed, when the control of the body by the soul has been lost or impaired, and consequently we bring injury upon other people as well as upon ourselves. This control of PAIN CAUSED BY MAN ARISES FROM SIN 49 selfishness, by the higher faculties which we certainly possess, has been entrusted to us as the chief duty of life by God Himself. He has indeed transferred to us the responsibility of guarding ourselves and others from avoidable pain. We know this. It is part of our certain knowledge that we men are to blame for our own excessive selfishness which brings injury and suffering. And since all avoidable ignorance, carelessness and un- due selfishness are absolutely condemned by man's own conscience, we see that these are, in varying degrees, Sins sins against God who has written His laws in our very hearts and holds us responsible for disobedience to those laws. That sin is the cause of pain both to ourselves and to each other is, alas ! too obvious to need illustration. Every day and all day we can hear the cry of vicarious suffering not the idiotic theory of "vicarious punishment" which I have elsewhere shown to be a contradiction in terms and therefore impossible but vicarious suffering, i.e., persons who have not done wrong (pro hac vice) having to endure pains caused by others who have done wrong. I can hardly resist the temptation to illustrate this by the Law of Heredity, by which children and children's children to the third and fourth generation suffer more or less through the sins of their forefathers. Many years ago I heard the late Sir Erasmus Wilson lecture upon a certain class of diseases, including scorbutic affections, hip-disease, elephantiasis, leprosy, consumption and insanity, every one of which he declared to be traceable to a sin condemned alike by the law of God and the laws of Nature viz., Prostitution. This sin is proved to be the cause of an enormous amount of preventable pain, and can never be, with any justice, chargeable upon God while men and women are the sole perpetrators of it and the direct cause of the diseases which spring from it. And are we not sadly familiar with the transmitted evils of the sin of drunkenness ? Does it not impair the nervous system and the mental faculties of the drunkard himself? Does it not also generate in his offspring, similar defects, and more and more a tendency to the disease of dipso- 4 50 ALL SINS CAUSE PAIN mania ? Does it not -cause destitution in families ? Is it not responsible for many a catastrophe, and, sadder still to tell, for a black catalogue of other sins, such as lying and fraud? It has now become a taint in the blood. The victim, after repeated rejection of the warnings of conscience and warnings by the bad effects upon his health, finds him- self at last morally helpless, every fibre of his will destroyed, and now has become nothing but a wretched log tossing on a boisterous sea. Kuin of body and soul lies waiting also for the gambler and the betting-man. Think of the tables at Monte Carlo and the season's regular list of suicides ; think of the families hopelessly wrecked on the race-course all through the chains of a vice which was at the beginning only a sin which might have been conquered, but which has now become a virulent and uncontrollable disease of the brain. Then closely con- nected with that there is the sin of Covetousness, whereby men make their own lives miserable and crush down into poverty and gnawing anxiety the lives of hundreds over whom they trample in their inordinate race to be rich. Scarcely less horrible is the covetousness of those who, insist- ing on a strike for higher wages, squander the savings of years of prosperity and reduce whole populations of defence- less women and children to the verge of starvation. To all these sins as causes of avoidable pain we must add every indulgence of desire, every storm of resentful passion, jealousy, anger and lust for revenge by which we make each other suffer and rudely disturb the peace of our own breasts. All our petty selfishnesses, our petty disputes, our petty un- kindnesses and our half-unconscious acts of meanness or neglect, our stingy bargaining, our mercenary way of doing our work, our unfaithful doing of it, our pride, our standing on our own rights and all the daily catalogue of unmentioned faults and sins all go to give pain somewhere and to some- body ; and yet not one of them is really unavoidable. We are each to blame for the pain we have caused, and it is not reasonable or just to complain of any of the sufferings of mankind which are traceable to ourselves, as if they were the arbitrary or capricious acts of a revengeful or cruel God. MAN SELF-CONDEMNED 51 We may do this in angry and resentful reproaches ; but they are only idle words. They cannot drown the voice of con- science, which rises up against us as the voice of God and pronounces the solemn verdict of condemnation : " Thou art the man ! " " Thy brother's blood crieth out unto Me from the ground." "Behold, ye have sinned against Me, and be sure your sin will find you out." It is vain to plead ' ' I did not know. I did not stop to think. I did not like to control my selfish desires. I could not help it. I was carried away by my passion or my temper." Our indignant conscience, ever loyal to the God who gave it, sweeps away all these subterfuges and scatters our vain excuses to the four winds saying : " He hath showed thee, man, what is good. And what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God? " CHAPTER VII. AVOIDABLE SORROW. PSALM xciv. 10 : " IN THE MULTITUDE OP THE SORROWS WHICH I HAD IN MY HEART, THY COMPORTS HAVE REFRESHED MY SOUL." AT the beginning of our special examination of the subject of Pain, I divided it into two parts, which I called Pain and Sorrow, physical pain which hurts the body, and mental or emotional pain which hurts the heart or soul of man. It was impossible wholly to separate them, because nearly all the so-called ills of life run into one another or overlap. Still, sorrow occupies a large field distinct from bodily pain, and some time must be devoted to its consideration. Sorrow is never welcome to us ; we dread its approach ; we resist it ; we sometimes resent it. Sorrow may be roughly defined as a frustration of our self-will. Either we are prevented from gaining what we want, or deprived of something we want to keep. This, I think, is the essence of all forms and degrees of sorrow. " The earth is full of lamentations and mourning and woe," because we cannot get our own way. Sorrows arise through failure of our efforts, through loss of property, or loss of health and other worldly advantages ; through fear of difficulty, discomfort or danger ; through sheer appre- hension and dread of imaginary evils ; through the misfortune or misconduct of those who are dear to us ; through separa- tion from them by vast distances on earth ; and through the final separation by death. Most of all, sorrow comes to us through sin, through our own sin and through the sins of others ; through strife and envy ; through wounded pride and mortified vanity ; through repentance, and repentance deep- ened into remorse ; through the awakening to our own debasement and the consequent sense of estrangement from God. We see that sorrow may be noble or base, that it may arise, e.g., more through loss of reputation than through loss 52 of self-respect, more through detection than through secret shame. Our sorrow may be selfish or unselfish. The sorrow of personal disappointment at the crossing of our will, or the sorrow of sympathy and pity. We see also that, like physical pain, sorrow is sometimes avoidable, sometimes not. The blame of avoidable sorrow lies at our own door, or at the door of our fellow-men. Unavoidable sorrow, we reverently say, lies at the door of God. The problem before us in these discourses requires us to separate the one class of sorrows from the other. So far as any individual is made to grieve by no fault whatever of his own (even though it be by the wrong-doing of others), that particular sorrow is sent to him by God ; so far as the man is not in any way the cause of his suffering, it does come to him by the will or consent of God. And although we may not legitimately accept any statement merely on the ground that it brings comfort, yet as a matter of fact the belief that God has sent or allowed any grief to come is an enormous relief to the believer's mind, and makes his burden of sorrow unspeakably more easy to bear, because he believes that God always and only intends to benefit him by sorrow. When we come to that part of our enquiry as to what benefits are derived from sorrow, a further elucidation of that fact will be made. Unavoidable sorrow does form a conspicuous part of the sufferings of mankind. Let us, however, turn our attention now to the avoidable sorrows which we bring upon ourselves and inflict upon each other. The most common type is that of the frustration of our efforts, the disappointment of our hopes and desires. These sorrows, we notice, are in direct proportion to the strength of our self-will ; of our dogged determination to have our own way. Self-will has a bad name, I know ; but it is a very good servant, though a very bad master. Without some degree of self-will nothing worth doing should we ever do ; nothing worth having should we ever get. No really good work is ever done in the world but by strong determination to break down and trample upon every difficulty and every opposition which stands in the way. Persistence of such force of will is essential to true achievement, to true progress, 54 SORROW ARISING FROM SELF-WILL to true reformation. Self-will is an essential as well as most valuable adjunct to human nature. Even on the highest ethical grounds it must not be disparaged for a moment. It is only the strong self-willed man who can conquer a weakness or resist a temptation. The will is like the nerve and muscle of the arm which wields the weapon ; and if you weaken your will by any kind of excessive indulgence of appetite or in any way break the laws of health, you actually weaken at the same time your moral powers, your conscience, and your mastery of self. Yet this same self-will, so essential and so valuable as it is, may be the cause of much sorrow to our- selves, and certainly intensifies and aggravates it. We poor, imperfect creatures never know when to stop, seem never to know when we are beaten or when the hostile forces around us are too strong to overcome. How many lives are thus made miserable, all through a dogged obstinacy in trying to alter and amend the outward conditions of their lot ! They never seem to recognise the utter impossibility of changing the natures of those with whom they have to live, except in the only way, which they seldom try : viz., by Love ; they never give up the futile endeavour to make others suitable to themselves, and often end in making people around them less able or less willing to meet their wishes. Such dissatis- fied self-willed persons are their own worst enemies, and create endless petty worries and big sorrows for themselves and for others. Precisely in the same way our self-will in excess is the cause of sorrow through personal losses and defeating of our hopes and desires. We set our hearts upon having some- thing we dearly prize. Just in so far as we do this, we create for ourselves the sorrows of disappointment and refuse to be comforted, like spoilt children, because we cannot get what we want or have our own way. But by the very sorrow which this excessive self-will creates, God intends us to learn how foolish we are to be our own tormentors, and to fix our hearts and hopes on the attainment of forbidden or impossible things. Certainly there is no room anywhere for a just complaint against Him when we are the sole cause of our own misery. Epictetus tells us : SORROW THROUGH FEAR 55 "We cry out in our sorrow, 'O Lord God, grant that I may not feel sorrow,' when all the time He has given us the power of not feeling it. He has given us the power of bearing and turning to account whatever happens, so that the greater the difficulty, the greater the opportunity of adorning our character by meeting it." We must learn to keep our self-will in check, and to curb the speed and force of our desires and hopes, so that whenever we cannot have our own way, we shall not be overwhelmed with vexation and distress. Let us turn now to the sorrows created by fear and apprehension. These are far more terrible than the sorrows of disappointment. To a large extent this kind of fear is due to physical causes and natural temperament, and therefore not wholly under our control. Nevertheless, it is infinitely aggravated by our insane methods of dealing with ourselves. Instead of bracing ourselves up to meet a dreaded peril or trouble, we run away from it, we try to evade it altogether. When it is inevitable, we resent instead of submitting to it and bearing it with a good grace. All we think of is how to escape from it ; after it has fallen and all the while it lasts we are in a state of misery and wretchedness, till our very bodies are infected with the poison we secrete whenever we are the subjects of any violent emotion of a painful character. These pains of fear are far more avoidable than the victims of it are aware. Early training of the right sort would render them nearly impossible. We ought to bring up our children to be ready to face and bear what they dislike, and not to run away from it. There is less courage in the world now than in earlier and ruder times when courage was more needed in the battle of life, because parents are too eager to screen their children from suffering of all kinds, and are forgetful of the enormous value of sufferings and sorrows in the development and strengthening of character. As a source of avoidable sorrow there is also the fear of imaginary ills by which the unhappy and apprehensive folk create misery for themselves. We know how close akin this is to disease of the brain, such as hypochondria, hysteria and melancholia. But long before it reaches that acute stage, many people deliberately give way to imaginary alarms, instead of promptly endeavouring to drive them away by 56 SORROWS OF REPENTANCE sheer force of will. They brood over them, they let them settle in the mind and be fruitful and multiply till all the air is peopled with ghosts and imaginary sources of danger and discomfort. This is the worst kind of fear, because it is the least amenable to reason. Argument and persuasion and the array of facts go for nothing to drive out delusions and the magnifying of disastrous consequences out of very small probabilities of harm. Nevertheless it is greatly within our own power to check the growth and the dominance of those fears. They are largely avoidable ; we can, if we only begin soon enough, keep our trembling imagination steady; we can appeal to our own common sense, we can appeal to the germ of the virtue of courage which is still there, and force ourselves to meet the danger and resolve to bear the trouble with fortitude when it comes. We can school ourselves into waiting quietly to see what will happen instead of going more than half-way to meet it, and filling our hearts with the dread of what may never happen at all. Self-control, then, is the best training for the prevention of imaginary fears. Manifestly it is largely due to ourselves that such sorrows ever come at all, and therefore we must blame our- selves and not God for our misery. I turn, now, to the sorrows of contrition and repentance and remorse. Our sense of responsibility is the measure of our sin, and whenever we know that we have done wrong when we might have done right, we are conscious of pain at the heart, we are smitten with self-reproach, and in varying degree are made unhappy. Now, if we are responsible for our actions at all, we must accuse ourselves of having been the cause of our own sorrow. We cannot blame God for it, even if the sorrows of repentance had no blessed fruits. But I think you will see, if you look closely at the facts, that God, by the very constitution of our moral nature, never wishes us to incur such sorrow at all. He begins by appealing to the highest motive first, and, if that fails, He must try a lower one. He first asks us to do right and avoid sin on the highest grounds because obedience is right and because sin is wrong. He appeals also to our love, love for Himself, and love for our brethren. But if these high motives will CONTRAST BETWEEN GOD'S TRAINING AND OURS 57 not keep us in the right way, He must then appeal to lower ones, He must appeal to our dislike of sorrow, to our fear of mental discomfort, and so He has ordained that wrong-doing (of thought, word or deed) shall entail the sorrow of shame and regret, even the pangs of remorse, whereby we learn the folly as well as the sinfulness of wrong-doing, and we are brought back to amendment by the discipline of sorrow which we never need have incurred at all if we had but been wise enough to obey at first. There is a mournful contrast to be observed here between our own training of children and God's. While He begins with the highest motives, we too often begin with the lower ones, and so millions of little children grow up to be men and women with hardly a gleam of light upon the true nature of sin, and with scarcely any higher motive for avoiding sin than the fear of painful consequences, with no hatred of sin for its own sake, with no love of goodness for its own sake, but just left in the dark about the most supreme purpose which God had in view in making us moral beings. They have been taught that regard for safety and comfort is the highest virtue, and that to incur disgrace and worldly adversity is the worst sin. But God is the Divine Alchemist who, even when driven to use the sorrows of contrition and the scourge of remorse, makes them the means of rousing the guilty to a keener sense of their responsibility, and draws them up to the higher level, on which nobler influences than the fear of punishment shall control their hearts and lives. In any case the sorrows of repentance are not such as can be for one moment made a ground of reproach against God. So far as regards our own sins. There remains a wide field of sorrow over the sins (and sinfulness, which is worse) of oar fellow-men. When we come to treat of moral evil, these will, of course, occupy greater attention than can be given now. Yet this may be said pertinent to the subject of sorrow. When we feel grief and distress at the sins of our children or of any one dear to us, it is, or it ought to be, the greatest sorrow we ever have to bear, next to sorrow for our own sin. The best of parents would see their children poor and destitute, weak and sickly, nay, even lying in the cold 58 SYMPATHY FOR SINNERS grave, rather than see them wicked and depraved and base. No amount of earthly misfortune or personal loss or injury can compare for a moment with the debasement of character and ruin of soul which is caused by sinfulness and vice. Even the disgrace of imprisonment, or of death by the hang- man, is not so terrible as a vitiated heart and a will wholly inclined to evil. So the sorrow arising from this source is perhaps the keenest and most severe of all the woes we can suffer. Yet who would wish to feel it less, who could regret that such a sorrow was possible to him, except for its cause ? The more we suffer on this account, the more we acquiesce in it as a wise arrangement, a most kind arrangement, as a privilege and honour granted only to the best and noblest of our race. The more unhappy we are at the sins of those we love, the more like God Himself we feel ourselves to be. It is the sublimest form of sympathy ever felt by the human heart. Only the best of men and women can feel it in all its intensity, and yet God, in His far-reaching love, has often touched with this blessed sorrow the hearts of wicked fathers and mothers by the sight of their children's vicious habits, when nothing else could touch them. No sane human being, therefore, could make this sorrow of pity a charge of wanton cruelty against God. It is created only by men doing that which God Himself has forbidden us to do. Finally, sorrow, like pain, is a sentinel warning us that something is wrong and needs putting right. "God doth not afflict us willingly, nor from His heart doth He grieve the children of men." He sends us sorrow that we may avoid those wrong actions which cause sorrow, not only those actions, but those thoughts and feelings and the expression of them which make ourselves or other people grieve. At a certain low stage of our development, if sorrow did not follow upon sin, there would never be the slightest attempt made to improve. We need the lash when we are not willing to be led by Duty and by Love. We need sorrow, also, to remind us of our birth-right, that we are the very offspring of God, and share in a minute degree His infinitely higher nature. We are taught by sorrow that man's^heart can never be wholly satisfied with earthly SORROW NOT ETERNAL 59 pleasures or possessions, that we are spirits made for the en- joyment of infinite space and endless time, and for the Infinite God who dwells therein ; we need to be taught that in every- thing mundane there is an element of disappointment, and even gratification is fleeting ; while in the soul of man only can be found that perfect, incorruptible, unceasing peace and joy which the whole world can never give or take away. In one little corner of our souls there is no sorrow, never was sorrow, never can be. It is where the light of God's counte- nance shines upon us, and His presence is felt by the human soul, and His gentle words touch the heart, " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." This serene joy is the Divine protest against the possibility of sorrow in that inmost recess of the soul ; and is the Divine sanction of the sorrows which inhere and must inhere in every phase of earthly life, so that the contrast between earthly and heavenly things may be constantly manifest, and that we may learn that things temporal are not things eternal ; that sorrow, however inevitable and beneficial for our discipline in this life, has no place in the life to come, because it cannot enter that innermost shrine of the soul where it can gaze in perfect peace on the Face of our Loving Father. Of the benefits of sorrow, and of the Divine consolations which are provided to meet it, I must speak in another chapter. Meanwhile the Psalmist's words are worth learn- ing and worth remembering: "In the multitude of the sorrows which I had in my heart, Thy comforts have re- freshed my soul." CHAPTEE VIII. BENEFITS AND CONSOLATIONS OF SORROW. OUR present task is to consider what benefits are derived from sorrows, and what consolations are provided for them by our Righteous and Loving Father. Of sorrows which are distinctly avoidable I have already spoken. The benefits arising from them are too manifest to require repetition. Sorrows which arise out of our own wrong-doing or out of the wrong-doing of others inevitably tend to correct wrong-doing, to substitute knowledge for ignorance, to quicken the moral sense and move our sluggish or debased wills by a lower motive when they are impervious to higher ones. We must now attend more particularly to those sorrows which are practically unavoidable, for which we are not really responsible, and which therefore must be taken as coming to us by the will or with the consent of God. Are such unavoidable sorrows designed for our benefit ? Are they necessary to promote our highest welfare ? If these questions can be answered affirmatively, it will follow, not only that God is not to be reproached for causing or allowing these sorrows to fall upon us, but that they are tokens of His great love and goodwill towards us, for which we cannot but render to Him our most grateful praise. Nearly all that we discovered of the necessity and the benefit of physical pain applies equally to pains and sorrows of the heart and mind. The effort to avoid and to relieve sorrow brings out higher and higher faculties of understanding and knowledge, of persistence and energy, of patience and fortitude, and the lovely virtues of sympathy and compassion. But sorrow, being an affliction of the soul, has far higher purposes to serve than those of mere physical pain. As the soul is of unspeakably greater value than the body, so the afflictions needful for its proper development have a far wider and deeper scope. 60 BENEFITS OF SORROW 61 Our first thought about the infliction of sorrow at all is that it is necessary to the life of the soul to be sometimes sorrowful. Absolute quiescence and the absence of all mental discomfort, if it could be attained, would soon result in the complete dominance of our lower nature. The body would occupy the whole horizon of our life and monopolise all our energies. Perpetual gratification of our wishes which is the opposite of sorrow and the entire absence of sorrow would quickly produce an inordinate multiplication of our wishes, and also a diminution of our enjoyment of gratification. The more we got, the more we should want, and the less pleasure would accompany our gains. Sorrow is the manifest corrective of this degeneracy. Sorrow, which is the frustra- tion of our self-will, keeps the desires in check, and adds greatly to the enjoyment of those desires which are gratified. We know this to be so. We can see it any day illustrated by children. Those children are the happiest who are the sub- jects of judiciously applied disappointment and the denial of their requests. Those children are less selfish, less grasping, less fickle, less discontented, and therefore are the happier who do not get all they wish for and are not overloaded with toys and indulgences. Those children are the happiest who have learned to amuse themselves out of scanty appliances, instead of depending upon grown persons to amuse them. But remember that all the difference between the two classes of children is due to the fact that the happiest have had more frustration of their self-will than the others. The same is precisely true of men and women. None are so radically unhappy and discontented as those who can get all they want for the asking. The happiest are those whose lives have been chequered by disappointment, and who have learned to control and curb their desires by finding out the folly of trying to get all they want. They have by sorrow found the greater free- dom of having fewer wants, and being able to feel content with what they have. And of course it is true of sorrow as it is true of pain, that it does add immensely to the enjoyment of gratification to have it alternated with periods of disappoint- ment. Yet all this is nothing compared with the ethical value of 62 MORAL BENEFITS OF SORROW sorrow. Of course the most obvious, as well as the most precious, fruit of sorrow is the sympathy which it begets, and which nothing less than sorrow will ever teach us. And from our sorrow, i.e., from the frustration of our will, we learn the virtues of patience and fortitude, precious stones laid as the foundation of high and noble character, raising us infinitely above the swine-troughs of luxury and self- indulgence. Sorrow teaches self-control in a hundred ways, and sooner or later it calls into exercise the highest and purest love, that love in which sacrifice is turned into rapture. E.g., young married people who think they love one another very much have no idea to what heights love can climb, until one of them is in dreadful pain or danger ; then that sorrow of sympathy or alarm reveals to them what true love is, how perfectly unselfish it is, and what it can bear and do. By-and-by will come the care of children and the almost daily round of sorrows and fears on their behalf, raising still higher the standard of Love Divine which wells up from the human heart, and which alone could force them to inflict sorrows upon their precious darlings in order to secure their highest and eternal welfare. And so it is that by sorrow selfishness is gradually driven away, and the soul left more and more free from its corro- sions, and the mirror left clear and bright the better to receive and reflect the image of the Father's love. And this brings me to observe that in religion we could not do without sorrow. Keligion is greatly due to it. We learn only by the sorrow of failure, disappointment and loss how transient and even trifling are the concerns which belong only to this life and its pleasures. We begin to see and to feel that there must be an invisible spiritual sphere for which our souls were called into existence ; that this earthly animal satisfaction is not our rest, not the haven for which the human spirit was launched on the ocean of life, not the home where we can reach the fulness of joy. It is only sorrow which can teach us to look up, to look above the dust and rubbish of earthly possessions and pleasures to " an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away." It is sorrow which teaches us, " when riches RELIGIOUS BENEFITS OF SORROW 63 increase, not to set our heart upon them " ; when our earthly desires, however lawful and pure, are gratified, not to mis- take the gratification of the body for the gratification of the soul. It is only sorrow that can teach us that when our highest worldly ambitions are fulfilled, the soul is still unsatisfied, and for ever will be unsatisfied until it finds and rejoices in God. And this is also why sorrow begins its divine lessons by teaching us our abject dependence upon powers around us infinitely too strong for us to resist. Perhaps the worst shock to our native pride and self-importance is the first great disappointment we experience. Man does not realise his impotence until he receives a rude rebuff to his arrogant claims. The egotism of man would be simply unbearable if it were not for the sorrows which buffet him and rebuke his gallinaceous pride. Sooner or later the hostile force, which so roughly interferes with his liberty and clips the wings of his ambition, he identifies with that wonderfully wise and powerful Being who has made the earth and the heavens, and into whose presence he has come as a creature infinitely insignificant and helpless. He begins by sorrow to see that his little will must be thwarted, that it is part of the great scheme of things and is essential to its success that he, a poor little tenant of this tiny globe, should not have all he wants or thinks he wants. It grieves him to his heart, of course, to find himself so snubbed by the Divine mastery ; but his sorrow teaches him, at length, to accept his defeat as part of the Divine victory, to be humbled at first by the invincible fact that there is a God who rules over all and over himself as a distinct little person; and afterwards he will only give thanks and adore the Wisdom and Love which have stood in his way and thwarted him in the pursuit of his most cherished hopes. But for sorrow, we should never have learned our limitations, should never have raised our eyes above the low ground of gratified self- will, and should never have learned real humility. All this, too, is a blessed preparation for the higher fruits of sorrow. The sadness of sorrow impels us to seek a remedy or relief. We run to and fro among our friends 64 SORROW BRINGS US TO GOD and neighbours, and ricljly do they pour out upon us their loving sympathy. But we soon see how short a way this goes to help us to remove the cause of our sorrow. Their sympathy helps us to bear it, it is true ; but very rarely can they do more than join their tears and lamentations with our own. They cannot restore what we have lost. They cannot give what we long for in vain. And so by our sorrow and the sadness of our inability to find any relief, we are driven at last to take refuge in Him who is the Author of our life, the Ruler of the world, the ultimate Cause of all that is and happens, and the one sole Being who knows all the depth and darkness of our own wretched hearts. And then we cry out, like the poor mother in the desert, with her son lying at the point of death, " Thou God seest me ! " the last and only hope in the wide wide world ! Thus we see that sorrows of failure, sorrows of loss, sorrows of fear, sorrows of anxiety, sorrows of sympathy and love, all tend (whether designed or not) to drive us into the arms of God, whose -Love is waiting for us, yearning for us to come home to Himself and to find perfect peace. Just as sorrow is the mother of many virtues, so is she the mother of an elementary religion, and, as such, does confer great benefits upon mankind. And all this sorrow is no arbitrary infliction by a malignant, cruel tyrant, nor yet any accident arising from unmindfulness or neglect, but the action of well-designed law to promote the highest welfare. The very life of the soul depends upon it, because it is so constituted as to require this special discipline of sorrow to develop and to train it for real and imperishable goodness and likeness to God, and to teach it to love the best things. The alternation of joy and sorrow is as clearly part of the plan and is no interference with it or obstruction to it, as the alternation of day and night on our planet is part of the plan of our solar system. It is necessary, and it is in the highest degree beneficial, for the soul of man. No doubt we shall now be reminded that sorrow often has quite a contrary effect, and makes some people worse instead of better. I do not for one moment deny that it appears to be so in some cases. We admit that there are CONSOLATIONS OF SORROW 65 instances in which sorrow produces, at first, the reverse of those virtues which could not have birth at all without sorrow. Great agony will sometimes produce cowardice, frenzy, hardness, and cruelty; will make some men brave, and others craven ; some generous, others selfish. It will even drive men to drown their sorrows in drink. These apparent anomalies are only partially to be explained by the fact that different persons are in different stages of their development, and therefore that what will be beneficial at one stage may be highly injurious at another. Certainly sorrow cannot be wholly beneficial unless we are in the right spirit to profit by it. But here again we must remember that all God's works and dealings are unfinished, and that our knowledge is not yet adequate to account for all the anomalies we see. We can at least fall back on the fact that such cases are only exceptional, and that the general effect of sorrow is to produce essential and lasting benefit ; that it is truly as beneficial as it is necessary to our moral and spiritual life and progress. I must now turn to the consideration of the consolations which God provides to enable us to bear our sorrows with patience if not with cheerfulness. Although all that we may say on this subject is strictly true, it can only be understood and recognised as true by those who have gone through the same actual experience. The first and greatest of these consolations is happily the one most commonly felt. It is the deep conviction that God Himself has sent the sorrow ; that it is His hand which is holding to our lips the cup of sorrow, and, like the tenderest mother upon earth, making us drink the bitter draught for our soul's life and salvation. Sorrow is most keenly felt when we can trace it to the ill-will or cruelty of our fellow-men. It exasperates us to dwell on the perfidy and treachery, the malice or revenge or greed which have brought such misery upon us. The longer we dwell upon it with indignation and resentment, the more our sorrow stings. But the moment we rise above this low level of human anger, and begin to see that it could not have happened without God's will, and that He is ultimately responsible for the wrong done to us, our sorrow loses nearly 5 66 CONSOLATIONS ARISING OUT OF LOVE all its sting and our burden begins to grow light ; simply because we have been wise enough to transfer the blame from one who is malignant to One who is only and always kind. We do not feel outraged when we discover that Love was after all at the bottom of the cause of our distress. Our resentment fades away, our indignation cools to zero, our resistance gives place to resignation, and we cry out now, not in anguish, but in loving confidence, " Father, not my will, but Thine be done." Not my will, which is dark, ignorant and blinded by anger, but Thy will be done, which is wise and all-knowing and all-loving. It is the same in all the round of sorrows which we have to bear. Whatever it be, even to the bitter pains of separation by death every sorrow is made lighter and more easy to bear, the moment we see and feel that God has sent it. The reason why we in our Service of Praise deliberately thank God for " the bitter pains of separation by death " is because these pains are the proofs of our love. If we had no love, we should not grieve at the separation. And out of that love and that sorrow grows the strong and unconquerable hope that some day we shall meet again in a world where " sorrow and sighing shall flee away," and " the Lord God shall wipe away tears from off all faces." Yes, we learn to trust in a God who is too wise to make a mistake, too good to be un- kind. And through this blessed assurance the most sorrowful upon earth, those upon whom the heaviest troubles have fallen, are generally and nearly always the most loud in their praises of God's loving-kindness towards them, and are the most peaceful and happy in the consolations and joys which His presence with them always brings. Many a soul, in- deed, would be maddened by grief but for that one rescuing thought, "It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good." " The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord ! " Another consolation is derived from comparing our own troubles with the worse troubles of others. Herodotus tells a pretty legend of a great market once held, to which all the world came in order to exchange each one his own trouble for the lighter trouble of some one else. But after a long day CONSOLATION THROUGH BENEFITS OF SORROW 67 spent in scrutinising each other's troubles, every man went home, as he came, with his own trouble which was, after all, the lightest and most easy to bear. Then there is the great consolation, which comes more slowly, yet none the less surely, of seeing and knowing the fruits of our sorrow in the improvement of our own character, in the strengthening of our fortitude, patience, contentment, in the widening and deepening of our sympathies, and, above all, in bringing us nearer to God and increasing our loving trust in His good purposes. Our sorrow grows into a friend the longer we live to enjoy the moral and spiritual benefits we have derived from it. Looking back upon our early impatience with it, our resistance of it, our resentment against our hard lot, we wonder at the long distance we have travelled so as to be able now not only to bear our sorrow patiently but cheerfully, and to thank God with gladness for having suffered such misery to come upon us. As the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews wisely said, "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous ; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who are exercised thereby." Lastly, one of God's highest consolations is to have our eyes opened to see some of the actual benefits which our sorrow has brought about ; sometimes benefits to others as well as to ourselves. Many a weary one, laden with what seemed to be a lifelong grief, has lived to see what far worse evils have been averted by it, to see how Divine Love and Wisdom had forestalled the greater wretchedness which would certainly have been ours, but for that particular trouble which we dreaded most. To catch but a glimpse of these purposes of His in things painful and sad is to spring, as it were, from earth to heaven at a bound, and to exchange our fond hopes and dreams for a blissful fruition. Yes ; it is the highest bliss on earth to see and know and feel that God is good ; that He is good in all He does and allows, and most good in causing us to endure sufferings and sorrows which we most dread. I speak for myself ; your own hearts, I know, will echo every word when I say : There are some sorrows of my life 68 GOD'S RICHEST GIFT which I do not yet understand, and cannot yet see any good purpose in their infliction. But every one which I could trace to its source and fully account for has proved to me to absolute demonstration that only the wisest and best of all Beings could have devised any benefit so great as that which my sorrow has brought to me. I have had numberless un- speakable blessings to be thankful for, but for none am I so thankful as for those sorrows by which my heart has been drawn closer and bound more firmly to the God I love. " In the multitude of the sorrows which I had within my heart, Thy comforts have refreshed my soul." CHAPTER IX. THE FINAL ISSUE OF GOOD. ROMANS viii. 28: " WE KNOW THAT ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD." I HAVE purposely cut off the words of the Apostle which follow, because it is impossible to admit any limitations to the ultimate triumph of good over evil, and it would be positively revolting to adopt the Calvinistic notions of pre- destination and election. If all things are working together for good only " for those who love God," only for those who have been called or predestinated to an exceptional state of happiness, then we must at once surrender our belief in a perfectly just and loving God, and admit that He is unjust, capricious, and cruel, without a single fatherly feeling towards the majority of men. If all men are not alike destined to attain goodness of character, with all the blessedness which that state involves, then we can only say that it is a shame that any were born into a condition of sin and suffering to end life infinitely worse than it began. In our present stage of mental and moral development, it is absolutely impossible for us to reconcile suffering inflicted without a kind purpose with the existence of a good God. It is equally impossible to reconcile the final triumph of evil with the existence of a good God who is Almighty. Our own hearts tell us that " all things are working together for good " to every human soul, or else there is no God so good as we conceive. If there is not, God must be either (1) able to do this, but unwilling ; or (2) willing, but unable ; or (3) neither able nor willing. If He be able but unwilling, then He is not good. If He be willing but unable, then He is weaker than evil, and Crea- tion is a blunder which even human intelligence and human kindness would have guarded against. If He be neither able nor willing, then God is the direct opposite of our highest conceptions, and He sinks below the level of His own imper- 69 70 FINAL GOOD THE ONLY JUSTIFICATION feet creatures, which is the same thing as saying that there is no God at all. I have stated this in the plainest terms, that it may serve in the place of that demonstration which we cannot furnish respecting the existence and goodness of God and the destiny of man. The dilemma is complete, and I should like to see the arguments overthrown, if they can be overthrown, be- cause they are all we have to trust to, in commending our belief to other men, apart from that religious feeling and personal faith which are of no use to any one but their owner. We want to believe only what is reasonable and true ; if it be in any one's power to show that this belief is false and unreasonable, we will give it up to-morrow, no matter how much personal comfort and hope it may cost us. It will be my object in this and succeeding chapters to show that what is commonly called " sin " or " moral evil " is a necessary part of the Divine plan in bringing all men to a state of goodness and happiness ; and therefore, that it offers no valid objection to the reasonableness of our belief in God's goodness. But it is only fair to confess at the outset that everything depends on the hypothesis of ultimate good. It is still in any one's power to say, " Your theory is a very pretty one, and it would be delightful if it were true ; but you have no proof whatever that there will be a future in which we shall work our way through present evil into perfect goodness." I reply, No, we have no proof of it. At present, I confess, we have no direct evidence that the hypothesis is true. But in the absence of such proof, we are wise in taking the balance of probabilities, and in trying to discover which is the more likely to be true out of contradictory alternatives. We pursue this course in arguing with others because, how- ever firmly we ourselves may be persuaded of any given belief, we cannot prove anything by the mere fact of our believing it ; we cannot transfer our own convictions at will. With all our hearts we may believe in God the Father Almighty and in the certainty of final good to all His creatures, but that goes for nothing with an unbeliever, and so it should. For do not we ourselves reject some of the firm convictions of other men? Do not we hear, quite BALANCING PROBABILITIES 71 unmoved, of fervent prayers offered to Jesus, or to his mother Mary, believing that neither Jesus nor Mary can hear prayers any more than our lately deceased relatives and friends can, and that even if they could hear them, they are powerless to answer them ? The convictions of other men go for nothing as arguments in proof that their belief is true. Hence it is that we more properly resort to what I have called the balance of probabilities. We have to ask which is the more likely that there is a God or that there is not ? That, granting His existence, is He more likely to have moral attributes or none ? more likely to be at least as good and trustworthy as the best of men, or to fall below even the ordinary standard of human justice and kindness ? From a view of His stupendous works, and His wisdom in their creation and guidance, is He more likely to be able or unable to work out the good which we hope for and which we reverently consider it to be His duty to secure for those whom He has called into being ? If, after due consideration of these and such-like alternatives, we conclude that there is no ground of hope for the triumph of goodness, then there is nothing for us but to conclude also that God is not what we mean by the word " good," and that it would be an awful aggravation of our misery to have to live for ever under His iron rule. Indeed, so foreign is such a notion to the human mind, that when the conviction is once reached that God is not good, belief in a God at all is also extinguished, and the idea of God is banished from the mind. And this is the history of much that is called Atheism. The eyes of some men's understanding and sense of right open and open until they perceive the repulsiveness and the falseness of the image of God which has been presented to them by early education or prevailing creeds, and their aver- sion from the horrid picture is so intense that they can escape from the torment of beholding it only by denying the very existence of a God altogether. This shows, however, that they have already interwoven in the very fibres of their nature some idea of a supreme goodness, which made them revolt from the caricature of Deity and abjure the very name by which it had been called. In the same way men have 72 EVERY ONE FINALLY THE BETTER FOR EVIL become avowedly atheistical because their conceptions of Deity were so exalted. Anthropomorphism in any degree shocks their veneration and rouses their indignation. As they can- not know any more of the Divine Being and mode of His existence than the believers around them can, they refuse to acknowledge a God at all, because they cannot depict to their own minds an image of God worthy of that lofty ideal which remains yet undefined in the recesses of their hearts and imaginations. Thus both classes of these professed atheists do, in fact, bear indirect testimony in favour of the conviction that God, if there be a God, must be good and great beyond all human speech and thought. It is for the sake of these more especially that I am pur- suing the present consideration of the objections drawn from sin and suffering, and my apparent digression must be excused on the ground that, as in the pulpit all argument is on one side, it is only fair to make such admissions as we should be driven to make were the discussion carried on in ordinary conversation. This is why it has been deemed desirable to say at the outset that the objection to the goodness of God which meets us in the sins of the world cannot be answered at all, except on the hypothesis that everything is working for the best, and must result in the final triumph of good. To put it more plainly still : Every man, woman, and child must some day be permanently the better and happier for every sorrow borne, for every sin committed. I am here met by an objection which it is necessary to face at once. A thoughtful critic writes thus : "How can any one 'be the better and happier, not only for every sorrow borne, but for every sin committed ' ? It sounds paradoxical, and the objection which naturally occurs is, ' Then what is the use of effort ? ' And yet in a way one sees truth in it. It is pretty much the same, is it not, as saying with St. Augustine, ' that of our vices we can frame a ladder, if we will but tread beneath our feet each deed of shame ' ? Or, as Tennyson puts it, that ' Men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.' Still when temptation assails, the question is practical and important : Shall I be the better and happier eventually for yielding or resisting ? If every sin committed helps one in the end to rise, why is it not better to sin ? How would you answer this?" ANTINOMIANISM : ITS FALLACY 73 My critic is fully justified in regarding rny assertion as a seeming paradox. A precisely similar logical objection was raised against St. Paul's teaching of the Gospel of Grace. When he said that ''Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," the An tinomian asked, " Shall we not sin then, that grace may abound ? " To this he replied by showing that what was meant by " grace " was in reality a death-blow to sin ; that sin lost its power and its charm for those who were the subjects of grace ; and in saying this he spoke the truest and deepest philosophy, because the moral nature of man is, as a rule, strengthened, and not weakened, by encouragement and promise of victory over sin ; and the love to God inspired by His grace makes sin hateful. And I may claim for the theory of sin which I have hereafter to unfold, quite as great, if not a greater, power of purifying the heart and making it more than ever averse from sin. We can repeat, with even more confidence than the Apostle, " Sin shall not have dominion over you," adding our own reason for it: For you are under the law of a Holy God as well as the receiver of His grace. You are doomed to be holy, not unholy. You cannot escape the final destiny of moral purification. But when it is asked, "What is the use of effort against sin, if every sin committed will bear good fruit ? ' ' the best answer that can be made is that there are degrees of goodness in fruit ; and if a benefit be derivable from falling before tempta- tion, a hundred-fold greater benefit is derivable from resisting and overcoming it. To yield to a temptation through its over- whelming force is sometimes the best, or the only, way of learning its vileness and baseness ; and the effort to resist it, even if not strong enough, is so much added to the moral strength of the soul. But there is all the difference between being overcome by a temptation and deliberately committing a sin in order to promote our ultimate good. The former is the inevitable result of a period of growth and transition. The latter is possible only to one who is morally insane not one whit less absurd than for a man to go deliberately and contract a dangerous fever on purpose to improve his health. We are not likely, I think, to expose ourselves any more readily to voluntary and needless pain since we have learned to believe 74 IF EVIL BE ETERNAL, CREATION IS A BLUNDER that pain is a necessary find beneficial discipline for mankind. Neither are we likely to relax our moral energies when we come to learn how a condition of sinfulness is the " necessary postulate of all our virtue." St. Augustine has beautifully expressed the sum and substance of our belief, but the theory leaves untouched the facts of human nature. The conscience in man will ever recoil from sin as the nerves will shrink from physical pain. As the one begets physical effort, so the other begets moral effort, and therefore when temptation assails, none but the moral idiot would willingly yield to it in the hope of improving his moral constitution. That many of us fall, and, alas ! fall from lower to lower depths of iniquity, and some seem to settle down and become almost petrified into moral baseness, we must mournfully admit. But none do this on principle. None have ever wilfully degraded them- selves in the hope of thereby raising themselves to better things. Therefore the statement, " We must be some day the happier and better for every sin committed," should not be pressed to extravagant lengths, nor charged with a mean- ing not sustained by the context. One can only say it when one has transported oneself into the remotest future, and has taken in imagination such a retrospect of the grand and complicated past as is possible only to God. But granting the premisses, this conclusion is inevitable. If God be all- good, all-wise, and all-able, then all things, and therefore even sin itself, must work together for good to every creature under His vast control. If my assertion be true, it will be no waste of time to examine the facts about sin, its origin, its nature, and some of its manifest consequences ; whereas if it be false, we may as well close the enquiry at the threshold ; for if this life be the only one we can ever live, all our highest rectitude can never justify the act of the Creator in having ordered the lives of some to be what they are from the cradle to the grave, but from a moral point of view we should have to regard in great measure the creation of mankind to use words of the late Professor Newman as " a blunder, infinite and inexcusable." The more loyal in that case men were to duty, and the nobler their self-sacrifice for the well-being MORAL EVIL WORSE THAN PHYSICAL 75 of their fellow-men, the more cruel would be their fate, and the more wasteful would be their extinction by death. Weigh, then, the alternatives, and see if it be not on the whole greatly more probable that all things are working together for good to all mankind, than that this life closes the scene of human thought and activity and aspiration. If this be granted, we shall find, I expect, still greater encouragement for our hope in the manifest results of sin as it works under our very eyes. We have now, however, to clear a little and to sharpen our thoughts as to what we are going to talk about. This sin or moral evil. What is it ? How is it caused ? Why do we distinguish it from other pain? Let us take this last question first. There are things in the world which we love, not only better than other things, but in a different way. "It is more blessed to give than to receive." We are more glad, and in a different way glad, to have saved the life of a fellow-creature than to receive any amount of money. We rejoice more in the moral excellence of any one dear to us than we do in his inheriting a large fortune. So likewise there are some things in the world which give us, not only more pain than other things do, but a different kind of pain. We are more wounded by the sense of having done an injury to our neighbour than by having had our own pocket picked. We would ten times a hundred times rather hear of an accident which had injured the body of one of our children than to hear that that child had committed some disgraceful crime, or had fallen into an immoral habit. We can bear to see them suffer in sickness far more easily than we can bear to think of their being liars, or mean, or cowardly, or cruel. Few men and women indeed could be found not to prefer to be the victim rather than the perpetrator of a guilty act. Sin thus differs from physical suffering in being the occasion of deeper distress to the offender himself, and of greater shame and distress to others who may be interested in him. To analyse the difference between the two kinds of suffering is much more difficult, for how can we describe the difference between deep remorse and neuralgia ? Both are acutely painful, but we are distinctly conscious of a differ- ence between the sensations, though we cannot describe what 76 SIN EXCLUSIVELY AN INDIVIDUAL ACT the difference is. The neuralgia may even appear to be the more violent and to convulse the frame with agony, while the remorse hardly disturbs the outside physical serenity or becomes visible at all to an observer. But no one doubts which is the worse to bear ; no one would hesitate in the choice between them. Mental pain is worse than physical pain. On this ground, then, if on no other, it is necessary to consider the subject of moral evil apart from pain, although, as we are well aware, an immense amount of physical suffer- ing is due to moral evil, and moral evil itself is sometimes the direct fruit of physical pain. In replying to the question " What is moral evil ? " we shall do well to avoid the controversies between the intui- tional and the utilitarian schools, not because we do not recognise their great importance, but because these contro- versies do not immediately bear upon the subject before us. What we have to do is, simply to get a clear notion of what sin is ; and in order to do this we must avoid using abstract terms. Just as there can be no suffering without a sufferer, there can be no sin without a sinner. To produce any sinful act there must be at least two factors an impulse to commit the act, and a sense of obligation not to commit it. A man must not only know that the act is wrong, but that he ought not to do it, and he must feel that he could help doing it if he tried. Where there is no such sense of obligation, there can be no sin. But whenever that sense is violated, then the action is sinful. We cannot justly blame a man for any action, however disastrous in its results, if he did it in perfect ignorance of what he was doing, or under such circumstances as deprived him of sufficient self-control. We may take him and punish him, or put him to death, for the safety of Society; but do what we will, we cannot make him guilty if he does not feel guilty. We cannot by our after-verdicts and penalties make any action sinful which was not done by the perpetrator in violation of his own moral sense. Unless a man knows he is doing wrong, and believes himself to be able to refrain from doing it, he cannot feel guilty of sin ; and all our efforts to show him the enormity of his WHAT CONSTITUTES GUILT 77 offence will be thrown away. For mere sorrow at the con- sequences of our conduct is not necessarily remorse or a sense of guilt. If I tread on a particular spot in the street quite unconscious of there being anything unusual in the pavement, and I am afterwards told that my stepping there caused some heavy piece of iron to fall on the head of a person in a cellar beneath and caused his death, I should be made very unhappy, but not in the least degree should I blame myself for the mischance. No amount of pity or sympathy for the victim of the accident would ever make me feel in the smallest degree guilty. But if, on the other hand, I had done some irreparable injury through malice, or even through culpable negligence, an injury which was never traced to my conduct, which never cost me the smile and welcome of a friend or the slightest social obloquy, yet I should bear in my breast a sense of guilt and shame which would embitter all my days. This wide subject of guilt is coming rapidly into public discussion. The mournful events brought out in our Criminal Courts give a fresh impetus to our interest in the relation between crime and insanity ; and although for a long time to come we may be compelled to continue the clumsy expedients to which we now resort for the punishment or discourage- ment of crime, we shall gradually revolutionise our treatment of criminals by first learning more about the real constituents of crime itself. Sin must be wilful, and preventable too, on the part of the sinner to be sin at all. Whatever does not fulfil those conditions is neither moral nor immoral. If an idiot steals, or a maniac commits murder, no one dreams of calling the poor wretch " guilty," because the idiotcy or the madness, if manifested in other ways to a degree strong enough to be recognised, is a guarantee that the act was not done under the conditions necessary to produce guilt. But I need say no more to bring clearly before our minds that by common consent of mankind we never impute guilt to the man who has done wrong either in sheer ignorance or when he could not help it. The only moral evil, then, which we have to consider consists in those acts which were wilful and preventable by the sinner himself. And under the 78 NO SIN POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE MORAL SENSE term acts we must include, not merely actions visible to men or concealed from them, but words spoken which we know to be wrong or false, and even thoughts which we feel to be sinful, and from which really spring all sinful action. For a thought wilfully cherished is as much an act of the human will as a word wilfully spoken or a deed wilfully done. In my next chapter I shall endeavour to prove that the moral sense in man, which in its earliest action almost always, if not invariably, is followed by sin, is the greatest conceivable blessing granted to mankind, and the strongest evidence which we possess, short of demonstration, of the existence and goodness of God. If I can show that there is and can be no moral evil at all without the moral sense, and that what we rightly call " sin " would never have been perceived to be sin, would never have roused the least op- position or a single effort at self-control, unless we had a moral sense ; if I can further prove that the struggle between natural impulse and the moral sense has resulted already in a glorious elevation of our race out of the mire of animalism, and that as we reach one range of summits, heights of virtue more grand and lofty keep rising before us ; if I can prove that the hindrances in our pathway are but stimulants to our moral life and struggle; that even our falls beget greater carefulness and stability in our march ; then, I think, this will go far to justify the ways of God to men, to help us to discern His greater wisdom and love in the discipline to which He has submitted us, and to foster our burning hope that, this life ended, we shall renew our upward course, and climb with ever-increasing freshness and vigour the bright mountain of holiness in the life to come. But one fruit of our labours will surely reward us ; we shall be able to rend in pieces the old legend which tells of a defeated and angry God, of a God who, having made a perfect human being, suffered him to be hopelessly wrecked upon his first voyage across the sea of human responsibility, and then cursed him for his misfortune, dooming him for it to ever- lasting Hell. We shall no longer regard sin as an interference with the Divine plans, or even as a temporary thwarting of Divine purposes. We shall no longer associate our own MORAL VINDICATION OF GOD 79 sense of guilt with a disturbance of the Divine mind or the excitement of Divine wrath. We shall cease to dread un- seen powers of evil which scared our childish imagination, and learn to look for our worst moral foes within the circle of our own unruly wills and of our feeble moral energy. We shall no longer avoid wrong-doing for fear of torture, or follow what is right through hope of reward. We shall learn to love righteousness because it brings to other men welfare and joy, and to cultivate every noble virtue that we may become all that He wishes us to be, who is our Everlasting Friend. CHAPTEK X. ORIGIN OF SIN. ISAIAH zlv. 7: '! FORM LIGHT, AND CREATE DARKNESS; I MAKE PEACE, AND CREATE EVIL. I, THE LORD, DO ALL THESE THINGS." JEREMIAH xxix. 11 : "FoR I KNOW THE THOUGHTS THAT I THINK TOWARD YOU, SAITH THE LORD, THOUGHTS OF PEACE AND NOT OF EVIL, TO GIVE YOU AN EXPECTED END." IN the evolution of the world, as we know it on this planet, there has been a constant struggle for existence and survival among all the species of organic life, both vegetable and animal. In the course of that struggle two features are conspicuous. In one, violence, self-interest, ruthless rapine and destruction ; in the other, a gradual but constant improve- ment in species, a survival of the fittest, most conspicuous in the production of the human race, which is now pre-eminently the supreme being on earth, and irresistibly dominant over all other living creatures. Man is partly distinguished from them by superior intelligence, and by the power inherent in that higher intelligence of controlling and using many of the lower creatures and nearly all the resources of Nature. As a rational animal he is supreme, although we admit that, in some respects, he cannot rival the instinctive power and skill of many small creatures, such as bees and ants. Even in the sphere of intellect he is on common ground with a few of the domestic animals, such as the elephant, the horse and the dog. That is to say, man's intellect is similar in kind to the inferior intellect of such animals. If we want to differentiate man we must look elsewhere, and we find it immediately in the fact that he is a moral being : that he possesses the moral sense or Conscience, as it is called, that faculty by which he discerns that there is a difference between right and wrong ; that some thoughts, words and deeds are right, and others wrong ; that he is compelled by that moral sense to feel : "I ought to do and to be what is right," and "I ought not to do or to be 80 MAN PRE-EMINENTLY A MORAL BEING 81 what is wrong." Moreover and this is a very important point the Conscience binds us to do right for its own sake without any regard to personal consequences, either pleasant or unpleasant, without any hope for reward, without any fear of punishment for disobedience. In like manner Conscience binds us not to do wrong, because wrong is evil and wicked in itself, and not because we may suffer for it. I lay stress upon this fact of the teaching of Conscience because it is so widely ignored, and because the great mass of people have been studiously trained by the Christian and other religions to do right for the sake of reward, and not to do wrong through fear of punishment. Man is, then, a moral being, and in consequence of that privilege his whole life and aim, as an animal, has been altered by it. Had he been left without any moral sense, never would he have dreamed of acting otherwise than according to the dictates of his appetites and passions. He might, and he certainly would, have become the most vicious and brutal of all the creatures, but he would never have known that it was wrong to be vicious and brutal. There would have been no possible perception that anything was amiss ; no matter how awful his condition and his actions, he would have been neither moral nor immoral, but only unmoral, as unmoral as a stone or a steam-engine. Sin would have been impossible. For our present purpose it is not necessary to speculate upon the condition of the first human beings who appeared on the earth, but it is legitimate and reasonable to suppose that they did not differ essentially from ourselves as to the kind of faculties they possessed, although probably those faculties were much more elementary and feeble than our own. In our present enquiry as to what we know, it will be quite sufficient to take for our illustration any ordinary human being and trace the development of his faculties in order to exhibit the change brought about by the development of the moral sense. A new-born babe is neither moral nor immoral, but un- moral, destitute of any moral sense or power of discernment between right and wrong. " Innocent as a new-born babe " is a common proverb which is strictly true. In this purely 6 82 THE " NEW BIRTH " OF THE CONSCIENCE animal stage it is governed or guided by its desires and wants and fears. For a period, varying of course with different children, generally three or four years after its birth, its conduct and actions are controlled chiefly, if not exclusively, by rewards and punishments. If it be obedient to rules imposed upon it, it is rewarded by gifts or praise. If it be disobedient, it is punished by some penalties or blame. For the sake of reward or through fear of punishment its con- duct becomes more or less regulated, and the child thereby acquires some good habits and the correction of some faults, both processes being absolutely needful for its own safety and happiness. But in all this there is not a grain of true morality, nor in any transgression even a trace of sin or guilt. The child is still only an animal under impulse of motives purely selfish. But because it is the child of human parents, and therefore is destined to grow up to be a human being, the day comes at last when the moral sense begins to dawn and the Conscience is a new faculty, hitherto entirely unfelt and unknown. The child commits some act of disobedience, and, instead of being only afraid of punishment, as it used to be, is smitten with shame and self-reproach. For the first time it understands what right and wrong mean ; what is meant by " I ought " and " I ought not " quite apart from conse- quences pleasant or unpleasant. Before its wrong act is detected, before a breath of blame has been heard, the little frame trembles, the eyes are downcast, the face is sad, and the cheeks burn with a strange and painful emotion. In that first moment of guilt and shame, the child is born again, born into a new and higher world of thought and feeling, of hope and fear. It has become a moral being, and now it can under- stand what its mother means when she says it is WBONG to lie or to steal, or to do what is forbidden. I pray you take note of this : You may heap rules and regulations upon your children, and teach them well what things you call right and what things you call wrong ; you can give them a moral code ; you can train them to good behaviour ; but the meaning of " right " and " wrong " you can never teach them, never by all your rewards and punishments can you impart to them the sense of shame and secret sorrow, or the joy of conscious CONSCIENCE THE CREATOR OF SIN 83 rectitude. God. alone, the universal Maker and Source of all things, can give them that. By no miracle, by no Sacra- ment of Baptism, we may be sure, but by natural growth and development of the Divine germ within us, He bestows on that little child the gift of Conscience, the power of discerning moral differences, the sense of everlasting incorruptible obliga- tion to be good when no eye but His can see, and to avoid evil though only physical enjoyment may result from it. It is the one gracious gift which makes us children of God, lifting us into a region where human praise or blame cannot reach us, or, if it be heard with our ears, cannot be listened to for a moment without indifference. To praise a child when it knows it has done wrong, or to blame it when it knows it has done right, cannot silence the verdict of conscience. Conscience is the one essential faculty which, making us truly human, at the same time makes us Divine ; and with- out which, reason is corrupted into cunning, and natural love debased into sensuality. Yes, right and wrong, and the sacred meanings which only the conscience can discern and give to them, are the products only of the moral sense in man ; and this is the gift of God. Therefore it is that there could never have been any sin or moral evil in the world until we had been raised by conscience above the level of mere animals. All the unbridled lust, greed, hatred, and cruelty would have been ten thousand times worse than they are, but not a soul on earth would have found fault with it or tried to mend it, or would have dreamed that there was anything to mend. The light of the conscience alone makes man a sinner. The first sin known and felt to be sin, and followed by shame and the rebuke of conscience, was no " fall " of man, but a step up- wards from the unconscious abysses of sheer brutalism into the at first painful but purer and afterwards blissful air of a higher life. The first sin is the first step to virtue. We begin our flight by knowing ourselves to be sinners, to rise at length into the rapture of saints. " Men rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things." God has done us no wrong, then, in leading us into this world of sin and shame. No language could describe the wrong He would have done had He kept back from us the light of Conscience, and left 84 NECESSITY FOR LIMITED FREEDOM us in the outer darkness of undisturbed animalism and brutality. Among other things which we know in connection with moral evil, we know with certainty that a condition of moral freedom is absolutely essential to true goodness or virtue. Unless goodness be quite voluntary and of deliberate choice for its own sake apart from rewards and punishments, it is not goodness at all. We must, therefore, be placed in con- ditions where sin is not only possible, but is a positive temptation and can only be overcome by heroic resistance. To make any action virtuous, it must be possible to refrain from doing it, and we must have a desire more or less strong to evade the doing of it. We must have sinful tendencies in order to become virtuous at all. A thief has no virtue of honesty while he is still in prison. It is only when he emerges from constraint and is once more free to steal and wishes to steal that he can be virtuous in not stealing. There is no virtue in being honest and sober, when honesty and sobriety have been the habits of life from earliest childhood, and when no temptation to be dishonest or drunken has ever been felt. To drop further illustration, we cannot fail to see that without moral evil, without sinful tendencies, without strong desire to do wrong, there could be no virtue. The means whereby sin could have been kept out of the world would have shut out also all possibility of virtue. When once this fact is recognised and grasped, the whole moral aspect of the conditions of man is changed, and it is enough by itself to vindicate the goodness of God in allowing moral evil to enter His world. And it is worth while to linger over this point, because it throws fresh light upon the goodness of God Himself. If we may lawfully assume that our conception of what con- stitutes goodness is true, viz., that it must be a deliberate choice of goodness when the alternative of evil is present, then we can understand that the goodness of God is due to His own absolute freedom of will and unlimited power of choice between good and evil. I do not mean anything so foolish as that God is ever tempted to do evil, or is ever wavering in His choice ; for that would be impossible to a GOD'S OWN FREE CHOICE OF GOODNESS 85 perfectly good God ; but I do mean to say that as God is a law to Himself, as His will is the only source of the obli- gations which He takes upon Himself, and as an unlimited choice of actions lies open before Him, His goodness consists in a free choice of good instead of evil. It is in this that we discern God's purpose in our discipline by moral evil; because in no other way than by our experience of, and contact with, moral evil could we ever become good like Himself, good from choice and after deliberate determina- tion to prefer good to evil. If that be His purpose and this present condition the only or the best means of its accom- plishments, then we see the necessity of granting us that amount of liberty which we have, and also the necessity of not interfering with it by miracle to hinder any one in his choice. No matter how disastrous the consequences of that liberty would be, He must have known and foreseen it all before, He must have reckoned upon the wildest lawless and licentious exercise of that free-will which it was absolutely necessary to confer if mankind were ever to become good at all. It is in this apparent recklessness of the immediate results that we find a promise of final and eternal good as the outcome of all our sin and shame. His non-interference, by miracle, to interrupt the action of His stern but bene- ficent law is a pledge to us that the law is good, that our freedom of choice between good and evil is both wise and righteous, and that it can only work out in one way in the highest and everlasting goodness of all His children. It is only a question of time, of varying starting posts, of varying speeds of progress, some coming to the goal sooner, some later, some by the shortest route, some by the longest, but all sure at length to win the Crown of Righteousness which the Loving Father is waiting to place on the brows of His victorious children, who will then fully understand and realise what they now rightly call their "glorious liberty." And among the true glories of it may be noticed the grand elevation of motive. By our freedom alone we find it possible to rise above the corrupting motives of self-interest which, so long as they prevail, are fatal to all true goodness. It matters not whether I am enticed and bribed to right 86 ELEVATION OF MOTIVE conduct by money and the good things of earth, or by the purer and more lasting joys of a mythical paradise beyond the grave ; so long as I do right only for what I may get by it and not for its own sake, I am not good at heart in the sight of God. I am selfish still, I am as unlike God as the most wicked upon earth. If I do not love goodness for its own sake ; if I do not long to be good in God's sense of the word ; if I do not pursue goodness at all cost of reward here or hereafter; if I do not offer myself soul and body to do what is right only because it is right, I am not learning the very first lesson God would teach me by giving me my liberty. I am still on the level of the swine-trough, still sharing their husks, still leagues away from my Father's house and starving my soul. So far I have forgotten why I am here on earth and in this world of sin and shame, why God has given me liberty and allowed me to go my own wilful way, and spend my richest faculties in riotous living, in the pursuit and support of lies instead of truth, in setting up false gods for myself, or bowing down before the idols of the market-place and the temple ; I have forgotten whose child I am, who had begotten me of His everlasting Love ; and having lost hold of His hand and turned from His tender watchful eye, I have thrown away the liberty which would have made my whole life glorious. In my silly pride I have called myself my own master which God, indeed, intended me to be, but which I no longer am. I am now my own slave. I am ruled and held in bondage by my lower nature, and cannot move or stir for the chain of my sins. I have bartered my liberty, my God-given liberty, for a galling slavery. And now I see what that liberty was for, had I only used it aright. It would have given me the right motive for action instead of being under the tyranny of lower ones. We often speak and think of God's mercifulness. It is a blessed thought, but few understand how stern and inexor- able is that infinite mercy of His which forces us to reap what we sow and to eat the dust and ashes of our forbidden pleasures. It is His infinite mercy that He will never stoop to be contented with our wretched and flimsy substitutes for GOD'S MERCY SEEN IN HIS JUSTICE 87 goodness, with our outside varnish of manners and respect- ability which pleases our fellow-men only too well, with our low standards of duty and our selfish and worldly motives which, instead of helping us to be good or better, make us even worse than we were before. God's mercy is so great that He will give us no rest in our self-complacency and self- righteousness, but will compel us to go up higher into the love of goodness for its own sake, into a hungering and thirsting after righteousness and not after mere comfort and peace of mind. God's mercy will never stop short of making us good at heart, even as He is Himself. I fear I have been rambling, and carried away by the emotions excited by my own subject ; but let me gather up my thoughts into a few brief but intelligible words. The liberty which God gives us is, within certain limits, perfect, reaching up even to a choice of motives. This He has given that we may, after our many errors and failures, learn to choose the highest motives and try to do good that we may be good at heart and love goodness for its own sake as He does. Therefore He has let us act from lower motives, has allowed us to choose goodness with a view of getting some selfish earthly or heavenly reward for it ; for only by our wrong choice of motive could we ever have learnt that there is a higher and a purer motive ; only by our seeing our mistake could we choose at length the right path and follow it. The history of man is the history of the use and misuse of liberty, and as we are the children of a God whose liberty is absolute and always rightly used, we have to learn how to use rightly our little tether of freedom, and so to grow more and more like Him. The first step is misuse, of course. The result hitherto is every sin that has been committed. The final issue will be that sin and sinfulness will be eternally expunged from the hearts of men, of their own free will. So both my texts are true, " I make peace and I create evil." God does create evil by creating the conscience in man. And the final issue must fulfil the promise : "I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end." CHAPTEK XI. CONSCIENCE AND THE MORAL CODES. A DIFFICULT problem in the matter of Conscience is the well-known fact that men really conscientious or assumed to be conscientious differ widely in their conduct. One. man will feel bound to do something which another man feels bound not to do ; or he will feel bound not to do what another man feels bound to do. Their rules of conduct are absolutely reversed. Even the same individual will at one time of his life deem something to be wrong which he afterwards considers right ; and vice versd,. To assert in such cases of direct opposition that the Conscience is the voice of God within us seems hopelessly false and absurd. And it is chiefly on this ground that Atheists and Agnostics have disparaged the Conscience in man, and ruled it out of court as a witness to the existence and moral government of God. We find this discrepancy in the moral codes, not only between individuals, but between whole races of men. Some have been stigmatised as wanting in conscientiousness because they are remarkably untruthful ; others because they are habitual thieves ; others because they love to shed innocent blood, and their land groans with murder ; others because they are frivolous and vain ; others because polyg- amy is their law; others because they practise polyandry. But the self-same people, taught from their youth up to regard some act of religious observance as the highest of all duties, and the neglect of it as the most wicked of crimes, are very conscientious indeed in the discharge of that duty, and manifest the functions of Conscience in that particular to a striking degree. We know that circumstances, public opinion, and recognised custom furnish occasions of what some people would designate lack of conscientiousness. We see it everywhere outside of us. We see it even in ourselves 88 CONFOUNDING CONSCIENCE WITH MORAL CODE 89 when we are very rigid about some actions and very lax about other actions. To a strict puritan it is a sign of un- conscientiousness to go to a theatre, or to play games on a Sunday. To an honest, truthful mind it seems wicked to prevaricate or dissemble, or to try to deceive in the smallest matter. To an adept in priestcraft no sin is so deadly as defiance and scorn of his priestly claims, while he does not scruple to tell lies and to bid his followers to tell lies in the interests of his Church. It is no uncommon sight for a person possessed by the ecclesiastical craze to ignore and even openly to rebel against the laws of the land, under whose protection he is living, and to make it a point of Conscience to rebel ; placing before him, as his highest duty, resistance to the civil power, to which he, as a Churchman, thinks he owes no duty at all. From such and numberless other instances it would seem as if Conscience were worth- less as a guide to conduct, and as likely as not to lead us astray, instead of leading us aright. Now this is a great mistake ; a mistake which arises out of not clearly perceiving what the Conscience is, and of confounding the Conscience with the Moral Code which we have adopted or which has been imposed upon us. Let it be clearly understood that Conscience is only the impulse, the imperious mandate within, which says we ought to do what we know or think to be right. Conscience does not tell us what is right and what is wrong. This we have to learn by other faculties and in another way. When once we are convinced that such and such an action is right, then the voice of Conscience is heard saying " Thou shalt do it; thou must do it ; thou art bound to do it : utterly regardless of all consequences, and at all cost." But the discovery of what is right is left to our other faculties of Beason and Love at least, it ought to be left to these faculties, which would seldom mislead us, though they are not infallible. But it is not left to them, but has been left to a variety of self-constituted teachers and rulers, who give us a code of morals, ready cut and dried, which may or may not be right, which often is right, and often wrong ; to obey which is generally a good course to pursue, and to disobey it in some instances better 90 HOW MORAL CODES IMPROVE still. When God gave us Reason and Love, He intended us to use both for the guidance of Conscience, and not to lay them aside and take up the crutches of human dictation instead. And I will not be so blind or stupid as to denounce all codes of morality ; for the greater part of them is based on Reason and Love, based on experience and therefore reasonable, based also upon actual personal kind feeling and therefore both reasonable and in harmony with Love. Most of the codes of morality are the corrections of earlier mistakes, of even the sins of our forefathers, by which posterity discovered through painful experience that many things which they practised without due forethought or without any sense of their being wrong, were really wrong and must not be done again, must henceforth be deemed unlawful ; whereupon the Conscience put its ban upon such things. In this way the codes of morality keep on changing from age to age ; the standard is perpetually, though slowly, rising, and what may be lawful now will be unlawful here- after ; what we now merely condone, the next generation will surely condemn. In like manner, some of the sham virtues will be deemed vices, some of the artificial rules, whether of puritanical or monkish austerity, will be first relaxed and then abandoned, some of the flimsy passports into Society will become discreditable. Some of the nefarious customs of commerce now tolerated will be regarded as felony. Certainly, all that is false and rotten in our moral codes will be expunged, and only what is really good and true will survive. But amidst all this change in the rules, Conscience will abide unchanged at least in relation to the moral codes. It will still be loyal to what is thought to be right. Conscience will still bring us face to face with Him, our God, to whom we owe allegiance, and make us feel that we owe it as a duty to Him to do what we believe to be right. From first to last, it will utter its Divine imperious mandate : " Do that which you know or believe to be right. Do not that which you know or believe to be wrong." And in obeying that Voice we are doing more than we are aware of at the time. We are not only by obedience strengthening our own moral CONSCIENCE WEAKENED BY DISOBEDIENCE 91 character, but we are unconsciously raising the standard of the moral code. Because the more the Conscience is obeyed, the more anxious we are to find out what is right, and thus to be continually amending our standards. After all, where we go wrong the most is not in obeying even a poor and defective code of morality, but in not trying to live up to it, such as it is ; in thinking it to be right, and yet not being conscientious enough to follow and obey it. We can never alter the function of Conscience ; but we may, and we do, weaken it by every act of disobedience to it. This is the only way in which Conscience can be changed or deteriorated. Just as your arm will become palsied if you do not use it, just as your eyes will grow blind if you live in darkness, just as your reason will be impaired and at length become useless if you do not exercise it by study and thought, and just as your love will shrink and wither if you do not cultivate your affections, so will your Conscience grow torpid and dumb, unless you keep it alive and sensitive within you by taking good heed of its demands. This, indeed, is why all deviations from strict integrity and plain duty are so dangerous to the soul. God has so ordered it, that the more faithful we are, the easier shall be every duty that follows ; and that the less faithful we are, the easier will it be for us to do evil. It is a law which may be severe, which may be hard to reconcile with His goodness and Love to man ; but in spite of all its moral difficulties, it is an awful fact, which can in nowise be got rid of or ignored. Moreover, these are the only rewards and punishments which God Himself administers. We find that " in keeping [not for keeping] His commandments there is great reward " the reward of success and improvement of character ; while wilful and repeated sin is our moral ruin and degradation. And I think that other law which imposes upon our accept- ance codes of conduct and feeling, whether they be right or wrong, is no less awful and mysterious. It would seem so easy for God to have set up a sentry in every man's heart at least to tell him infallibly what is right and what is wrong, so as to leave him without possibility of doing wrong consci- entiously. I confess it has puzzled me sore, and it perplexes 92 CONSCIENTIOUS OBEDIENCE TO WRONG RULES me still ; yet I hope to find the solution of the problem, or to erect some guide-posts to lead up to it. I think I see some little light in this direction. Men have been nearly always at the mercy of directors and guides, who have claimed for themselves infallibility or its equivalent, Divine authority to dictate the moral codes, even the moral codes of what we ought to think and believe. The mass of mankind have been only too ready, through laziness or cowardice, to yield to those claims and to adopt those codes. But God, as a Father, in His tender love for every soul of man, we may be sure, desires to be to each separate soul its own light and guide. God will not brook the interference, the audacious presumption of any interloper, of any self- constituted Divine representative of Himself. And yet He will not or cannot compel or drive the soul to trust Him and take Him for its sole guide. He will not interfere to prevent intrusion into His sacred and supreme prerogatives. He will have our hearts freely given to Him or not at all. Implicit obedience of children to their parents is a manifest obligation. But what if the parents are wicked, and teach their children to lie and to steal ? God surely holds those children guiltless, if they have committed those crimes in the belief that they were doing right in doing as they were bidden. But the day comes when they are released from that parental authority, and are now bound to exchange it for the direct authority of God. The new sense of independence and of personal responsibility is like the call of the Divine Love, " Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me : My Father, be Thou the guide of my youth? " In exact proportion as they had been conscientiously obedient, even to wicked parents, they have been preparing themselves (though they did not know it) for conscientious obedience to their Father in heaven. The back-bone of a good character is at least there for God to work upon and to clothe with living beauty if they will only let Him. The mass of parents, however, are not criminal. For the most part they are neither very good nor very bad. Only very fallible, very ill-taught, and greatly irreligious. Still, the same conditions rule among children of the ordinary type OBSTACLES TO LOVE OF GOD 93 as amongst the criminal class. The children are bound to obey their parents until they become men and women, and till they are conscious that they must now think for themselves and act for themselves, i.e., on their own direct responsibility to the God who made them. So far then we see clearly that the culture of the spirit of obedience to parents, whether their codes of morality are right or wrong, or partly right and partly wrong, is a step in the right direction, is a necessary and valuable preparation for the acceptance of Divine author- ity and for the dedication of the heart and life only to God. And having reached this stage, it is not, God's fault when the soul, released from parental authority, refuses to accept the authority and guidance of God. He still leaves us free to accept or to reject His claims over us. If we submit, it must be of our own free will or not at all. God will have no slaves in His family. His children must be free. He is a Father, and not a tyrant, and nothing will ever please Him but our freely-given Love. Here, then, we are confronted by two formidable obstacles in the way of young men and young women at once accept- ing the authority and guidance of God. One obstacle is within them, the other is outside. The obstacle within is made up of several factors. First and most serious is ignorance. Their ignorance of God, ignorance of His beautiful and winning Love, ignorance of His delight in teaching and guiding the hearts that trust Him, ignorance of His entire friendliness, ignorance of His supreme desire to bestow the highest welfare, ignorance of the supreme wisdom of taking Him for their guide. Of this ignorance,, more hereafter when we come to speak of the obstacles outside. The youths and maidens may not be to blame at all for this ignorance ; or it may be partly their own fault. Another internal obstacle to giving themselves to God in the hour of their attaining full personal responsibility is the fear that their pleasures will be curtailed, that Conscience may be a very unpleasant attendant on their self-willed excursions into worldly pursuits and into the many fields of animal pleasure and amusement ; they want to be their 94 OBSTACLES THROUGH WORLDLY INTERESTS own masters and to do as they like, and they have an idea very ill-grounded, because grounded upon ignorance that the guidance of God will cripple their liberty and curtail their enjoyments. Besides all this native animal predomi- nance, they fear that strict allegiance to God will bring them more or less into collision with those who have no regard for God at all, with those who are worldly and slaves to custom and fashion ; they dread to incur the disfavour of those who can promote their advancement in life and their mundane prosperity. There may be "money in it," as they say in the language of speculators, and it would not do to adopt religion to such an extent as might cause them pecuniary loss. So the world and the flesh together, play- ing upon an ignorant mind, leave the poor souls but little chance of that surrender to God in which lie all their true welfare and salvation. Their moral codes, restricted to the small and petty requirements of common respectability, make no mention of the supreme duty of life, make no allusion to the giving of the heart to God, and only require such outward conformity to the rites and ceremonies of so- called religion as shall satisfy the claims of others who are not one whit more religious than themselves. With what tender yearning love and pity must the dear God in heaven look upon a poor ignorant and benighted soul, when in answer to His tender call, " My son, give Me thine heart," that son answers, " Give me the portion of goods that falleth to me, that I may leave my home and wander about, and do as I please, and see Thy face no more." Ah, none of us know how God suffers through His erring and wilful children ! But depend upon it, He knows better than we can know how difficult it is for His children to hear His call of love, how hard for them to understand that to obey it is the only road to true peace and joy, how impossible it is for some natures deliberately to resist the strong impulses of passion and ambition and to accept any yoke at all upon their unruly wills and affections, how inevitable it is that in the process of development the "natural" must come first, and after- wards that which is "spiritual"; that if men and women will not take Him for their Father and Friend and Guide, OBSTACLES FROM WITHOUT 95 they must find out by bitter experience the crime and folly of rejecting Him. Now all this internal obstacle is intensified and made doubly strong by the obstacles outside. We spoke just now of ignorance of God as the first obstacle to our giving Him our hearts. If we only knew and saw God up to the highest and clearest vision of Him yet attained by man, there would be not a moment's hesitation in answering to His loving call. We do not fly to His bosom, only because we know Him not ; and one chief cause of this ignorance of God is the false religion so studiously and uniformly taught by the Christian Churches and Sects, and the false ground on which even the true part of Christianity is taught. In the main, I say it cannot be disputed that God has been set forth in the Christian Scheme of Salvation as a God to be dreaded and shunned, an object of terror to all who are not sheltered by Christ or by some priest who claims the power of propitiat- ing God and of forgiving the sins, i.e., remitting the pun- ishment for the sins, of those who come to Confession and attend Mass. There are infinite varieties of the Scheme of Salvation ; but one and all leave an impression on the mind that God is not to be trusted, that without the parapher- nalia of incarnations, mediators, atonements, sacraments, bibles and churches, bishops and priests, God is not to be approached. He is only a "Consuming Fire," and "His wrath abideth " on all who reject the Saviour. His " un- covenanted mercies " are only a euphemism for everlasting cruelty. Any religion which can dispense with the Scheme of Salvation, or bring the soul into its rightful loving rela- tion with God, is condemned by Protestant and Catholic alike. The Jew and the Theist, and even the Unitarian, are still objects of hatred and of dread. "God is not in all their thoughts," may be said of Christians generally, but Christ is there instead. How, then, can children, brought up in such an atmosphere of practical ignorance of God and estrangement from Him, be expected to rush into His arms when they are released from parental control ? Christendom has practically renounced God, and in many instances has taught that the acceptance of His sole rule over us is a crime, 96 GOD BANISHED BY FALSE THEOLOGY the rejection of it the most solemn duty we owe to Christ and his Church. What can the young, who have been brought up in such an atmosphere, do when they come to manhood and womanhood, but shut their ears to God's call and dread it, as if it were the voice of a siren luring them to their destruction? Never has God been so blotted out as by the pernicious errors of human theology. And there was method in the madness. It was to maintain the Divine authority of the Church, i.e., of the individual popes, bishops, and priests, that it became essential to minimise or to deny God's claim of authority over the individual soul. Once let that claim in, and the Church's hold would be gone. Priestcraft would be broken. So in order to keep God's claim from being heard, it was necessary to malign Him, necessary so to preach Christ instead as to make God hideous and dreadful. The Conscience was thus barred and banned from looking up to its rightful Lord ; it was declared to be a deadly sin to look to Him for light and guidance instead of to Christ or to the priest. So we, who have tasted and seen how gracious the Lord is and how blessed are they that trust in Him, can do no good in releasing our fellow-men from their abject slavery and ghastly fears until we have shown them how loving and trustworthy is that blessed God with Whom we have to do. Our witness for Him, poor and wretched as it is, is neverthe- less " the tidings of great joy which shall be to all people " ; it shall become, under God's blessing, " a light to them that sit in darkness and under the shadow of death " ; it shall warm the cold hearts into devout and passionate adoration ; and setting free the captives, shall bring them home into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Why the obstacles referred to have ever been permitted to keep men's hearts away from God is a question which still demands our earnest thought, and which I bring again before you in the following chapter. CHAPTEE XII. HUMAN LIBERTY. REVELATION xv. 3 : " GREAT AND MARVELLOUS ARE THY WORKS, LORD GOD ALMIGHTY ; JUST AND TRUE ARE THY WAYS." I WILL endeavour now to fulfil my promise to consider more deeply the question " Why does God allow the consciences of men to adopt rules of conduct which are wrong, and to submit to the dictation of Churches and Priests who falsely claim Divine authority upon earth?" As I said before, it would seem so easy for God to have set a sentry in every man's heart to tell him truly what is right and show him what is wrong. But this God has not done. Moreover, as we wish to look at the case in its worst possible aspect, the absence of such an infallible guide seems to have aggravated the evil deeds committed, and to have degraded, or at least kept for a time in a state of degradation, the characters of men who, it is assumed, would have been raised higher and sooner had they possessed such an infallible guide. In meeting this objection our first thought is, that if God had placed such a sentry in every man's heart, it would have practically destroyed that liberty which, as we have already proved, is the sole condition in which virtue is possible at all. As some men would have been rightly acting very differently from each other according to circumstances, they would have been horrified to discover that God was giving contradictory rules of conduct, and this they would have set down to caprice or partiality, and so would have lost all trust in Him. More- over, facts of history prove that whenever men have been persuaded that God had ordained a definite line of action or belief, and had entrusted it to a single man like Christ, or to a number of men like the Church, then the most ghastly moral and spiritual evils were begotten to corrupt, mislead, and ruin the souls deluded by the claim. As to codes of 97 7 98 EXPERIENCE INDISPENSABLE conduct and belief God is absolutely silent, so that if we are deceived at all we may not be deceived and misled by Him. The plan of evolution, of growing good men instead of manu- facturing them, demanded not only the freedom essential to virtue, but such exercise of it as would involve experience of all kinds of error and its consequences. We had to learn how to use our liberty aright by the preliminary process of making mistakes and then finding them out to be mistakes which were to be avoided in future. We had to be educated to the personal effort of thinking for ourselves, that we might form right judgments and thus create right moral codes. This could not be done, unless by miracle, in any other way than by experience. Experience has been the ever-present and necessary agent by which anything could be learned at all. If, therefore, experience was absolutely necessary, and if all the history of man proves that by experience of evil, even in its worst forms, the general character and conduct have been ultimately raised, and is ever tending to higher and higher standards, we are bound to conclude that God is justified by the event ; and that when He gave us that liberty, which in its first exercise led us into the experience of evil, He did no wrong but only good ; because good and the highest and most enduring good would in the end result from it. I repeat for the hundredth time that we must never forget that the works of God, as we know them, are unfinished and incomplete ; that only the final issue not yet reached can fully and unanswerably justify ALL His ways. This will recall to our minds the fact that we are growing, that the present conditions of inevitable ignorance, mistakes in judg- ment, and consequent temporary increase and spread of moral evil, are all parts of a process, not in any sense a final result. We are reminded, too, that any kind of mechanical or artificial goodness is not goodness at all in God's sense of the term ; that no one is good in His sight who is not good at heart and loves goodness for its own sake, absolutely without regard to consequences, painful or pleasant ; and such real goodness is only possible where there is liberty. We must remember also that all through the dreadful process of learning to be good, God has never left us without the witness of Conscience, THE LESSONS OF THE " INQUISITION " 99 which tells every man that the first and last of his duties is to be good and to do good always if he can and if he knows how, and this binds him to do his utmost to find out what is good. And it is true, though it might be difficult or impossible to prove, that the evil which men do and adopt is not done or adopted because it is evil, but because they think it to be good. They accept falsehood, e.g., only because it seems to them to be true. It is an impossibility for a human being to believe a statement which he knows or thinks to be false. It is a contradiction in terms. They will persecute and torture heretics only because they think it right, as Jesus said to his followers : " The time will come when he that killeth you will think that he doeth God service." As we all know, the time did come when his professed followers and representatives on earth took to killing other people on the same ground. And even here they were doing God service, but in a way widely different from that which they imagined. Although they were doing what God could not approve, they were indirectly furthering God's plan of teaching men what was right and true by showing in their own proper persons the awful consequences of misbelief, and the awful crimes which must ensue from human beings claiming infallibility and Divine authority upon earth. If it had not been for that false claim, those cruel tortures and murders under the " Holy Inquisition " would never have been per- petrated ; and I refer to all that black catalogue of the crimes of the Christian Church, only because they furnish an extreme instance of the perversion of the human mind, and the outrage of human sympathy and affection which must inevitably follow on the belief in lies instead of truth. Supposing only a hundred years have passed since the tortures of the Inquisition were discontinued, even this short period is enough to show that a large portion of the civilised world were taught by the dreadful experience the lesson intended to be learned. The desire to revive that unspeak- able cruelty, the spirit of persecution in any form, only survives among those who still believe the falsehood that God has conferred Divine authority and infallibility upon 100 DISOBEDIENCE TO REASON, CONSCIENCE, LOVE themselves, and that their Church alone has the true faith, without which every one must " perish everlastingly." It is easy to say, " God could have prevented all this if He had chosen." But it is quite as easy to say, and to prove, that any interference to prevent it would have frustrated the entire plan of leaving men in possession of full liberty in order that they might learn truth and righteousness by experience ; and having once learned it, that they should turn their backs for ever upon falsehood and iniquity. God has set us here to learn our way out of darkness and vice into truth and virtue, with the aid of these distinguishing faculties of human nature Eeason, Conscience, and Love ; and all history testifies that the errors into which men wandered, the crimes they have committed, and the cruelties they have practised, would never have occurred if men had always been reasonable, conscientious, and loving, all at once the three faculties working in harmony. And as they would not be this, in their liberty they chose first to abandon or disregard Reason. It was too much trouble to think for themselves, and still worse trouble to search for and discover what is right. So through laziness or cowardice they let other people think for them ; they let other people impose upon them the lines of duty and belief, and enforce them, not by an appeal to Conscience, but by an appeal to fear, by threats of everlasting damnation. Thus their native faculties were practically disabled, if not utterly paralysed. And when at length their natural human love would have kept them fairly straight, and the sweet claims of family life and affection would have protected them from any very serious departure from rectitude, these sacred claims were disputed by the priestly order, who claimed in Christ's name supreme love and loyalty to him ; and, in his absence, to his Church on earth ; and when it came to action, they claimed supreme loyalty to the priest himself. " He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." So said the man who told his disciples, then and there, that he had come into the world, " not to bring peace, but a sword," on purpose to make VIOLATION OF LOVE WORST OF ALL 101 strife in the home, to set the father against the son, and the mother against the daughter, and the children against both ; so that " a man's foes should be they of his own household." Although all this was one of the chief agents of the Inquisi- tion, the disruption of family peace was unspeakably worse than all the tortures of the Inquisition put together. What is the burning of your living flesh, or the stretching of your body upon the rack, beside the unspeakable horror of the corruption of your heart, and the turning of your God-given love into burning hatred ? Surely here might the God of Love have interfered ! But no ! The whole purpose of lib- erty would have been wrecked by the smallest interference. Men had to be taught, if taught at all, by painful, degrading experience. Just as they would necessarily incur loss and trouble if they held their right hand in the flames or put out one of their eyes, so surely they must inevitably incur trouble and loss if they injure or disuse any one of those Divine faculties, Eeason, Conscience, and Love, which were given them for their safety and welfare. As " the burnt child dreads the fire," so must each individual get burnt by his own experience, that he may dread and shun evil and sin, the neglect of his faculties, and the misuse of his liberty. And as each individual learns something by his own experience, so men are learning by looking at the experience of others. The world is thus flooded by vicarious suffering, the victims being warnings to the rest ; and so the whole race rises by slow and painful steps up the mount of God. Every pain is utilised. Every sin has its needful place in the schoolhouse of Divine discipline. God cannot afford to work miracles of rescue which would cut off a single soul's power of conflict and of triumph. Every son and daughter of His must have their liberty and take the consequences. He has given us a nature elaborately contrived to grow into goodness and holiness like His own. But it must grow, and cannot be artificially made perfect. The scheme is wider than any of us can see. But a corner of the veil has been lifted. We have some horizon, although it be scant ; and within this narrow field of observation and experience we see Him always working for good ; growing His children into 102 GOD FULLY JUSTIFIED IN PRESENT RESULTS men, as He grows the corn: "first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear " ; always helping our infirmities if we will but ask His help ; always helping us by means and powers already given, but which we have allowed to lie dormant and inoperative, until prayer awakens and quickens them ; always helping us to grow, but never by miracle ; never by the smallest interference with that liberty which He hath Himself bestowed. And I think I see that He is justified in His plan, not only because it is essential to any real goodness, and there- fore to the final triumph of goodness, but also because of its manifest results in the production, now and here, of certain noble traits of human character which are not possible apart from the conditions of moral evil. In examining these, let us first remember that it is character rather than conduct which God is aiming to produce. Conduct is of unspeakable importance, but character of infinitely more. The conduct which God approves is only that conduct which grows out of character. We must first be good at heart, before we can do that which can please Him. Surely we see in this a fresh instance of His wisdom and goodness in allowing us to go wrong until we have learned the secret of doing right ; till our motive is absolutely pure. And now if we turn to the results, what do we see ? What can we say we really know ? For one thing, we know that in each soul a conflict has been set up between good and evil, between selfishness and love [with the necessary self-denial], between unlawful desires and the claims of Conscience, be- tween lower motives and higher ones. We know and feel all this ; and surely no true man, only a brute, would regard it as anything but a high privilege and a blessing. This is the first of the benefits derived from the conditions of moral evil ; and apart from those conditions it would have been impossible. Out of this conflict grow the sense of shame and repentance, and a continual aspiration after a higher standard of life and character. There is a hungering and thirsting after righteousness set up in the soul, which nothing less than this can satisfy. Is this no boon, no OUT OF MORAL EVIL GROWS ALL OUR VIRTUE 103 honour, no blessing for mortal man? To every soul that feels it, it becomes a new revelation of God and of His supreme beauty of holiness. It is a new tie of affection and loyalty to Him who of His own free Love begat us and poured upon us His own Spirit of Goodness. To this, again, we must add the blessed virtue of humility, humility towards God a reverential consciousness of our own un- worthiness. " I am not worthy of the least of all Thy mercies." "I am not worthy to be called Thy son;" and towards men that humilitj' which is a constant sense that whatever be our attainments in righteousness, however much our lives may seem to be holier than the lives of others, they may, in God's sight, have been better and done better in proportion to their huge disadvantages than we have been and done in proportion to our greater advan- tages. This is true humility to see and feel that in God's sight we are no better than they, and but for the grace of God we too should have been no better than they, and perhaps worse. When we can feel that, a true humility will make us ejaculate, " God, I thank THEE, and not myself, that I am not as other men are ! " So far we see some traits of character which are approved of all men, and which arise out of personal conflict with our own evil. Let us next consider those virtues which arise directly out of our contact with moral evil in others. Eminent among these is the birth of patience and for- bearance, by which natural indignation and resentment against wrong done to us are at length overcome. Not only is this spirit of forbearance an unspeakable source of happiness to ourselves, but it is lovely in itself as a virtue, and is an enormous antidote to wrong-doing. It goes far to disarm the hostility and to root out the hatred of the offending party. If only we exercise a little patience and drive away our angry feelings, we soon cease to be embittered by the sense of injury, and we gradually melt and soften the heart that was so hard against us. We begin to make excuses for the offender ; we remind ourselves that we too sometimes give offence and need the forbearance of others, and this makes us more ready to bear with them. 104 OUT OF MORAL EVIL GROWS SYMPATHY It is a beautiful virtue not to be hasty in taking offence. And we know that in a world where there were no offences, such a virtue as forbearance would be unknown. Closely akin to this is the sympath} 7 engendered by the consciousness of our own fallibility. Deeply bewailing our own sins, we pity rather than condemn our poor fellow- sinners. We look upon their misdeeds as if they were diseases and misfortunes, and feel all the sorrow for them which we have felt for ourselves when we have done wrong. It is such pity as this which makes us more glad to be sinned against than sinning, because the offender is in a far worse plight. And this sympathy is God's reward for having conquered our anger and resentment We began by being patient and forbearing ; we have grown into genuine com- passion and the pity which is akin to love. And the beautiful virtues grow and ripen and open out all their loveliness when we go on from these earlier efforts to higher efforts still. Out of the conditions of moral evil alone could we ever learn to forgive men's trespasses, to render good for evil, to return blessings for curses, and at last to love our enemies, even as God loves us all, the best and the worst of us, in spite of all our disloyalty and rebellion. If we did but know the bliss of that height of virtue, anger and revenge would soon be banished from this world of strife and hatred. To overcome evil with good is the highest privilege of a human soul, and is the nearest approach we can ever make to the likeness of our Father in Heaven. It has been our bane, too often, even in our efforts to fight with evil and to amend the lives and habits of others, to make them worse than they were before, to aggravate their hostility, to perpetuate their malignity, and to turn their hearts to stone. A little true love, a little true forgiveness, a little genuine effort to overcome evil with good, would have destroyed outright millions of germs of evil and hatred ; whereas, by our want of true and Divine love, we have furnished those evil germs with just the soil and conditions which they wanted to give them life and power of pernicious activity and reproduction. Nevertheless, the blessed Love which conquers all things has been seen in the world, has been felt by many noble hearts by many more than we know of and has achieved its noble conquest over the passions and cruelty of men. No man can stand higher in the scale of humanity than he who is brave enough, God- like enough, to love his enemies and to return good for evil. That is still the noblest, most sublime picture in the whole Bible, where the Christ is hanging on the Cross and the tears and blood flow trickling down and the last words heard from his lips are : " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." That love and pity will for ever endure as the type and symbol of what is most Divine in the heart of man. Thank God ! it has been repeated and repeated in the lives and deaths of millions besides the Christ of Calvary. But wherever found, it still claims the admiration and wins the homage of every human heart, and is the crowning glory of the human race. But how came it ever to be seen on earth at all ? The answer to this question is at once the answer also to the question before us to-day : " Why does God allow men to be misled into every form, of evil by giving them unbridled liberty ? " The answer to both these questions is the same. The condition of moral evil is the only condition in which the highest, most sublime virtue ever seen among men was possible at all. If that sublimity of character is attained, if it could not (so far as we know) be attainable by any other means, then God is amply justified in the minds, the con- sciences, and the hearts of men for bringing us into this world of sin and woe, and giving us the fullest liberty to work our wicked will, or to walk in the paths of holiness and peace. We can, therefore, repeat with the Psalmist : " The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works," and we can sing the song of Moses: "Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty. Just and true^ are Thy ways, Thou King of saints, Thou King of sinners ! " CHAPTER XIII. HUMAN LOVE. HOSBA xi. 4 : "I DREW THEM WITH CORDS OP A MAN AND WITH BANDS OF LOVE." ANOTHER branch of our subject contained in the question, " What do we know ? " demands our earnest attention. We have examined that which concerns our purely reasoning faculties, and that also which is taught us by the moral sense or Conscience. We have dwelt at great length on the seeming ills of life, its pains, its sorrows, its death ; not only on those, but on its ignorance, its errors, its sins, and its vices. So much of our time has necessarily been occupied with the pessimistic aspect of the world, that we might be tempted to compare this book with the scroll of the Prophet, which he describes as "written within and without, and full of lamentations and mournings and woe." It is time to turn to the brighter side, and look at the silver lining of the clouds, lit up from behind by the radiance of the Love of God. The unfairness of pessimism is a serious imputation upon its reasonableness. It almost defeats itself by running counter to the overwhelming mass of facts which are arrayed against it, but which it does not see. If we are to upbraid our Creator for the sufferings which abound, we can do no less than be thankful for the joys and pleasures which so much more abound as to make average life exceedingly precious and suicide exceedingly rare. Among these tokens of His bounty and kind thought for the pleasure of His creatures there is one which, for obvious reasons, is not often referred to in sermons vindicating the loving-kindness of the Lord ; neither is it secretly remem- bered in His favour because it is so universal throughout creation. Like the fresh air and sunshine, it is so familiar and so prevalent as to be taken for granted as if it were our IOC BOUNTY OF GOD MANIFEST IN SEXUAL LOVE 107 right. To me, however, a wonderful instance of God's wisdom and love is manifest in the law by which provision is made for the reproduction of all living things. It is manifestly His Will that creatures should reproduce their kind. And because this is their absolute duty, He has put into them all the strongest possible impulse to fulfil it, and has made obedience to the law the source of the highest gratification. That which was of the first importance and necessity, He has made the object of the strongest desire and the most enjoyable of all the uses of our animal faculties. Moreover, in varying degree, this law is all but universal in the realms of animal and vegetable life. Even the micro- scope reveals its presence, and there is scarcely a single spot on earth to be found where the bountiful and faithful Creator is not making His creatures rejoice in fulfilling His law. It is the common inheritance of man and beast, of bird and reptile and fish, of tree and bush, of grass and corn, of bee and flower, and of the tiniest insect and bacillus. In our poverty of language we have called this universal attraction of opposite sex by the word " Love," a fact only to be regretted because the same word " Love " is used also for something immeasurably greater and higher than that ; and by this confusion, many men and women have been possessed with wrong ideas, and thereby have had their whole tone of life and character lowered all through the practice of calling by the sacred name of Love merely the natural attraction of sex. We speak of young people "fall- ing in love"; we have "love-stories" of which men and women never tire, and for the sake of which they will endure any amount of bad writing, highly-seasoned descriptions, and morbid, not to say immoral, scenes. Love is often nothing but mating, just on a level with the birds and the butterflies, among which the so-called " lovers " make their happy tryst. But although I regret that we have not found a term to distinguish all this from true, real Love of the highest sort, I will not miss the opportunity of saying, as a religious man, what I feel about it all. I delight in that love-making, so long as it is natural and sweet and well under control of manly honour and maidenly modesty. It is a lovely sight ; 108 PROTEST AGAINST MONKISH ASCETICISM it is one of the greatest benefactions of God, who delights in His children's pleasure, and whose very law they are fulfilling when they draw to one another in those holy bonds. And when I see them in the dusk of evening, or on moonlit night, just drinking in the sweetness of the hour, and enjoying the greatest pleasure of their lives, I lift my heart in thankfulness to God who has given them this exquisite respite from the toils and cares of their humdrum existence ; and the only thing that could heighten my pleasure is that they were remembering from Whose love and bounty their joy has come, and were lifting their glad hearts in thanksgiving too. And I say this, not by way of a digression, but because I feel that it is demanded of any one who professes to teach religion, to make a protest deep and loud against apostles, popes, priests, and all the tribe who have denounced this love-making as a pardonable weakness, as a frailty only to be tolerated, or even as a sinful taint displeasing in the sight of God. The monks and ascetics have discouraged and denounced the institution of marriage and the fond endear- ments of family life, at least as imperfections and frailties, and as so much hindrance to saintliness. And in so far as they have succeeded in doing this they have cut down the tree of love at its very roots, and have frustrated the loving purposes of God in its first stages. And, as a consequence of this outrage done by sanctimonious celibacy, they have created vices so abhorrent to Nature that it is impossible to mention them. And I, for one, like a prophet of old, would denounce their asceticism and declare with all the ardour of a grateful heart that God Himself in His holy and loving purposes has drawn man and woman together, and that this delightful " love-making " is a gift of His love, to be enjoyed without misgiving and without guile, and that it is one of the first steps of our animal life upwards into the spiritual. That feeling which we unwisely call "love" is often the birth within us of a real love which is unselfish. It is, perhaps, the first time when a young man experiences the supreme pleasure of forgetting himself in another human being ; and when a young woman feels the supreme pleasure of giving herself up to make another human being happy. TRUE LOVE FAR HIGHER THAN MATING 109 Anyway it is a Divine institution of the first order, and I cry, "Away with those Churches and New Testaments and priests who dare to impugn it and trail over it the defilements of their own insane and perverted ideas ! " Yet, without retracting or weakening a word I have said in its defence, I must say that this common mating which we share with the rest of Creation is not enough to be rested in. We must not stop there. It is, after all, only a starting- point on a long journey, not free from pain and sorrow, which leads, or ought to lead, up to true love. Called by the same name, the " love " which consists in quid pro quo is not true love at all. No real love is born till we rise above the animal into the moral and spiritual sphere. And here we come into the presence of the wonder of wonders, the most astounding achievement of human nature, "the unspeakable gift of God." The Love which we ascribe to Him, absolutely unselfish, disinterested love, would never have been dreamed of by men unless they had first felt it themselves. And no one to this day ever did or ever could know it except by feeling it. And God has helped us to feel it by the conditions in which He has placed us, by the relations of sex to begin with, and by the family life and love which grow out of it. Let us trace it, if we can, step by step. We know what a poor love that is which says or feels, "I will love you so long as you love me"; "I will give you &11 ray best in return for your best." In more brutal plainness, "I love you for what I can get " thus sinking to the lowest depths of the degradation of the word "Love." Of course, this is not love at all. It is a contradiction in terms. It is selfishness, signed and sealed, like a marriage settlement of money. Well, if people " make love " to one another and then marry, and never get any further than this, true love is not yet born within them. It is all to come. But when people do marry " for love," only because they like each other better than any others they have known, and when they do not marry for money, or position, or fame, it is very rare indeed for them to remain in the merely selfish state. They do go on to love one another truly, unselfishly 110 TROUBLE AND PARENTHOOD BEGET LOVE not for what they can get. For in the natural course of things, i.e., in God's good time, there comes some interrup- tion of their unruffled calm and enjoyment. Trouble of some sort comes, the smooth surface of their lives is broken, broken up into angry waves, its limpid blue is changed into dusky lead by the frowning clouds, and their short-lived happiness comes to an end. But in that moment of sorrow or strife, love takes a new leap. It calls for self-denial, it impels to pure disinterested affection ; it has forgotten what it can get, it thinks now only of what it can give. If sickness be the occasion, devout and tender service, however arduous, is willingly endured and becomes a delight. It is not often, if ever, true that " when Poverty comes in at the door, Love flies out at the window." Generally, when Poverty comes in at the door, Love flies in with it. The new trouble creates sympathy and affection hitherto unknown. If strife be the occasion, Love tramples on pride and resentment and finds its joy in mutual confession and forgiveness. Then another step is taken when the first baby utters its plaintive cry and awakens the dormant parental affection, which grows at length into the purest, loftiest love known unto men. The love of a mother for her babe, and of the true father for his children, are standing types of the purest and most unselfish love. Blessed are they who have learned it by their own glad experience ! But scarcely less blessed are they who, not having children of their own, have acted the part of parents to the offspring of others, or to the weak and defenceless around them. For by God's mercy the parental instinct lies in the heart of every man and woman, though it is not always gratified. No greater praise can we bestow on any one than to say, "He was like a father to me " ; or, " She was to me like a mother." So parental love has come to be the highest attribute yet ascribed to God, and the title of " Father " to be reckoned as His truest and holiest name. Even in our poor faulty selves, we know by the conquest it makes over our lower nature, by the sacrifices so gladly, so rapturously offered for Love's sake, that Love is the noblest and fairest of all human endowments. True Love is an intense desire and longing to do good, and the highest GOD'S OBVIOUS PURPOSE IN GIVING US LOVE 111 good, to a fellow-creature, and that at all cost to oneself. In fact, self is forgotten in the ecstasy ; the more we sacrifice for Love, the better are we pleased. Nothing counts beside it. Everything else is dross. Can we, then, pretend that we do not know or understand what this highest human Love is, and what it teaches ? Why, if the Agnostic and Pessimist had won their way all along the line, they could never get over or get through the invincible wonder which Love presents as a witness for God in the hearts of men. For surely we have wits enough to see that there was a purpose in this gift of Love. There never was a purpose in all Creation so obvious as this. It was to make all duty attractive, to make its fulfilment the highest pleasure and satisfaction, to draw our hearts to it " by the cords of a man and by the bands of Love," instead of being driven to it by the lash or by the heavy strain of mere obligation. Love was given us to enable us to "run in the way of God's commandments," and not merely to walk therein, still less to be dragged along the road. God knew how we should feel the strain of obligations and restrictions, the number and weight of our various burdens of duty and toil; God knew how native indolence would be in league with our self- will and self-indulgence to make it difficult to meet our responsibilities and fulfil His behests. He knew likewise that even while we performed our duty and did our task, if not done cheerfully and of a free heart, it would leave us no better in character than before. The motive was com- pulsion or restraint ; it had the taint of slavery and the clang of fetters about it. The heart, howsoever obedient, might still have been wishing all the while to have its own way instead. But now " the unspeakable gift of Love " has been poured in upon it, every duty is a delight, every task a pleasure and a privilege to be welcomed and coveted : not a breath of discontent is heard, nor a sigh for relief or rest, but a glad leaping up of the whole being to meet and greet the duties which Love has transfigured ; a flight as on wings of eagles, to enjoy, rather than to submit to, the Divine behests. By Love alone God makes our burdens light, and turns our duties into pleasures, 112 LOVE IS THE HIGHEST MOTIVE I do not mean that Love alone, without reason or con- science, would accomplish what God wants us to do. So far from it, that all our faculties are wanted for perfect service. Without reason and conscience, Love itself would make grievous mistakes, and has often done so. But when I say that Love alone enables us to fulfil our duties in the way which can alone satisfy God, I mean that Love alone is the motive power, the impulse which is highest and best, and can alone render our conduct perfectly acceptable in His sight. For in Love alone -there is perfect freedom. Only when inspired by Love can the soul fly upwards to God and cry, " Lo, I come to do Thy Will, O my God, I am content to do it : yea, Thy law is within my heart." This explains why so many ages ago the laws of God were summed up into one category, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." It was seen three thousand years ago a thousand years before Christ that Love was all that was wanted to please God and to benefit all mankind. It was seen that because God loved all men, He commanded each single person "Thou" to love all the rest; for loving them, each loving heart would benefit and bless them. If any proof were needed that God loves you and me and all mankind, it is found here before our very eyes, sworn to by our own hearts, that God expects of us and demands of us each one to love every one else within his reach. God could not have better provided for human welfare than by giving some measure of love to every man, woman, and child, and telling us by our Reason that it is the best way to do them good, and by our Conscience that we ought to love them. And all this we know. It is not left to con- jecture. It is not a fine-spun metaphysical theory which the first rough wind of criticism can blow away. But it is hard, dry fact, which no one can dispute, and which is, perhaps, the best and simplest evidence of a God, and of what God is, that can be found within the range of human observation and experience. For just as certain as that that God must be righteous who demands righteousness in man, so it is certain that a God who desired man's highest welfare, THE LOVEWORTHY, TRUSTWORTHY GOD 113 and who desired to combine goodness and happiness insepar- ably together, and who has invented Love as the means of that union, must Himself be a Loving God, a God who understands what Love is, and who feels it Himself, because in no other way possible can Love be understood than by feeling it. Such a God we may certainly trust never to do us wrong, always to be aiming at our highest welfare, and always sure of success. Moreover, such a God may be quite as fully trusted when He is doing or permitting things which we do not like ; when He is crossing our wills, disappointing our hopes, turning our earthly pleasures into dust and ashes, and making His discipline generally as unpleasant as the pessimists say it is. For the self-same troubles and miseries on a smaller scale are the direct and necessary products of the highest and purest love among men, as we can see any day in our homes and nurseries, whenever the highest love, self-sacrifice and not weak indulgence is the sovereign rule and principle of action. We may trust God the more, in spite of His painful discipline, because He is not subject to human infirmities, human caprice, human ebullitions of temper, human errors of judgment, which impede or taint the exercise of parental love on earth. " With Him is no variableness, nor shadow of turning." "He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever," never angry or impatient, never fitful or made testy by our varying moods, never less faithful to us for being distrustful and faithless towards Him ; never giving us up as too bad and too late to mend, never stopping the flow of His eternal love, although we have long ago forfeited every claim upon it. And be sure that that Divine Freedom of God, of which I spoke in a previous chapter, that absolute freedom of choice between good and evil, is always compatible with His unfail- ing choice of goodness, only because a perfect and infinite Love is the motive of every thought and action. He delights in His duty to His world, and, if we would be like Him, we must take delight in our duties too. Let this be our con- cluding thought : in the words of Jeremiah, " Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man 114 GLORYING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD glory in his might ; let not the rich man glory in his riches ; but let him that glorieth, glory in this : that he understandeth and knoweth ME, that I am the Lord, which exercise loving- kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth ; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." CHAPTEK XIV. RELIGION. PSALM Ixxxvi. 9, 10 : " ALL NATIONS WHOM THOU HAST MADE SHALL COME AND WORSHIP THEE, LORD, AND SHALL GLORIFY THY NAME. FOR THOU ART GREAT, AND DOEST WONDROUS THINGS. THOU ART GOD ALONE." YET another subject has to be considered under the question, "What do we Know?" It is the inexhaustible subject of Keligion. Unfortunately, like the word "Love," the word " Religion " has more than one meaning. It is used alike for what is good and for what is bad ; for what has been and still is the greatest blessing, and for what has been and still is the greatest curse. But, in spite of this indisputable fact, all kinds of Religion, good and bad, have a common element. The fundamental idea in all is a consciousness of the ex- istence of a superhuman invisible Being, and it is most important to observe the distinction between consciousness and mere intellectual assent. One can believe in the exist- ence of God in the philosophical necessity for a God and even in His moral government of the world, without any consciousness of Him in the soul, without any sense of relation to Him or of His relation to us. In such a case there is no Religion, in the proper sense of the term. Only when God is felt to be a reality truly affecting our hearts, character, and conduct, can we say that there is any Religion. And this essential feature of Religion is, as I said at first, common to the followers of all religious systems whatever, whether they be true or false, good or bad, or a mixture of both. Religions can only be differentiated by comparing the different feelings towards God felt by different persons or races of men. In some, as we well know, Religion is the consciousness of a God who is trustworthy and lovable, and consequently that Religion will be a source of holiness and happiness. In others, as we also know, Religion is the 115 116 RELIGION VARIES WITH THE THEOLOGY consciousness of a God who is neither trusted nor loved, but dreaded and disliked, and consequently that Religion will be a source of evil and misery. For there can- be no goodness which is enforced by threats and by dread of punishment ; while nothing but wretchedness can ensue from fear. We are, then, justified in distinguishing two kinds of religion; the religion of love towards God, and the religion of being afraid of Him. And inasmuch as we certainly know that the effects of a religion of love are better than the effects of a religion of fear, we are justified in calling the former good and the latter bad. But when we go on to designate the one as "true" and the other as "false," we introduce a part of religion not yet recognised in our argument, viz., Theology. In every religion there is and must be a Theology, more or less clear and definite ; and even vague Theology determines our Religion. That is, what we think about God will determine our feelings towards Him. Our thought or con- ception of Him, i.e., our Theology, will lead us either to love Him or to be afraid of Him or to neglect Him. Thoughts or conceptions of God may be relatively true or false ; more or less true than other thoughts. So it is reasonable and consistent to call the higher conceptions true and the lower ones false, even while we remember that our highest con- ceptions are not perfect nor final ; and remember also that the lower conceptions may not be wholly false. The division, I grant, is a rough one, but needful and of great use for practical purposes. The Religion of love to God is both good and true. The Religion of fear is both bad and false. What makes the difference is the Theology, the thoughts or conceptions of God which differ and are even contradictory. Having cleared our thought as to what Religion is, let us go on to enquire what we really know about it. We are first struck by its universal presence among all races of men. No race which has ever attained civilisation has been without some kind of recognition of some kind of God. Until lately it was generally taken for granted that a few of the lowest savages were destitute of the religious idea ; but more careful recent research has exploded that error ; and now not one race of savages can anywhere be found from THEODORE PARKER'S VIEW 117 which religious ideas are wholly wanting. But without dogmatising on that point, it is sufficient for our purpose to note that Religion of some kind is natural to man. It is a common human instinct, one may call it, to recognise, to be more or less conscious of a superhuman Being or beings, on whose Power and Will the visible universe and ourselves depend, and whom we are bound to obey. How this " religion " arose has been debated in many periods of the history of mankind, but in none more than in the nineteenth century. I am a little doubtful of the utility of taking part in this debate, except for the sake of satisfying the insatiable curiosity of an active human mind, and in the hope of getting hold of a truth which can no longer be doubted. Theodore Parker regarded the Religious sense as a fourth innate faculty distinct from Reason, Conscience, and Love. I would not exactly contradict him without thinking more and knowing more than I know now. But it has often occurred to me that we are in danger of error by the habitual use of abstract terms in which there always lurks a risk of being misled. For example, we see with absolute clearness the distinction between Reason, Conscience, and Love, and the harmony between them also. But without the distinc- tion there would be no harmony. The distinction which it is needful constantly to bear in mind is liable to be exaggerated into the notion that these " faculties " are separate organs of the soul, which gradually become so individualised as to appear like several members of it, like the several members of the body. In this way Religion has been treated as a fourth member of the soul. It has occurred to me that this habit of thought is liable to lead us into error, and that we can do better by coming to see that Reason, Conscience, Love and Religion are not individual faculties, but are only different modes of the action of the one un- divided soul the true ego the true self. When I scrutinise my own being I see two, and only two, absolutely different and distinct objects, viz., myself and my body (body, of course, including brain). I know I am not my body, and my body is not myself. I know I am not my thumb, therefore I am not my brain. Both these are mere instruments which I 118 MUST NOT PERSONIFY HIGHEST FACULTIES use. I am one indivisible being, and I can act and feel in various ways. I can think, I can will, I can determine to do right, I can love my fellow-men, I can trust and adore my Maker. But I do not require separate individual faculties for all these movements and feelings. So long as I am alive and awake I alone am the living source of these various results. I am made, in the first instance, capable of thinking, reasoning, judging, capable of creating and choosing motives, capable of conscientiousness and of pure and ardent affection, also capable of the highest religious feelings towards God. By all this I desire to dismiss from our minds the idea of separate organs of the soul to produce its various manifesta- tions. We hear it said, and possibly have used the same careless mode of speech ourselves, that such and such a person has no conscience, another has no love, another has no religious instinct all which may be perfectly true phe- nomenally, to describe what we see or think we see. But I complain that it is not accurate, not so accurate as to say this or that man does not act conscientiously, does not act lovingly, or does not act religiously. The true soul of the man is there all the while, and, as a soul, it can think and feel and do anything possible at all to a human soul according to its development. So if there is a soul which is not re- ligious, it can become religious ; it is within its own power to feel and act in a religious spirit. And the recollection of this will prevent the idea, which I conceive to be erroneous, that the man has been born destitute of one of his spiritual organs, like a blind man born without eyes. To return now to the question, How did Religion arise ? The answer seems to me to be very simple. Without any conscious logical process, Religion arose out of the very nature of man. As a reasonable and moral being he could not help inferring the existence of a God, and feeling more or less his dependence on God and his obligations to God. Without any great effort of thought, but simply by observing the outer world, his reason forced him to see that it was caused, that it was not a chaos formed by chance, but ordained, ruled, and controlled with obvious purpose by a Power or powers infinitely greater than his own, and by a DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGION 119 mind exhibiting infinitely greater wisdom and knowledge. The idea of causation is inseparable from the human mind, and was no doubt one of the earliest results of its exercise. 1 And when man went on to observe the permanence as well as the regularity of the natural order, he could not help seeing that the Author and Ruler of it does not die like men and beasts and trees and grass, but is ever here working with ceaseless and uninterrupted life and activity. This idea ex- panded into another, viz., that as God never dies, so He was never born, but is the one absolutely eternal, unchangeable Being in the Universe. The next step was to learn by observation of his own inner self that that God knew what the man was thinking, knew his most secret thoughts and actions and feelings, could see in the darkest darkness, and hear the silent wishes and intentions of the heart. There was no escape from His searching eye. Man could deceive his neighbour, but he could never deceive God. His conscience told him so ; and when he did what he knew to be wrong, he was afraid, because God knew it if nobody else did, and God would not hold him guiltless. So man, as man, by virtue of his human nature as a rational and moral being, could not help the development of Religion within him. He was forced to be conscious of a God, and of a God who was on the side of right, i.e., of a God who was good. Man, even in the primitive stage, was also taught by the natural pleasures of life, by the supply of his wants, and by the gratification of his desires, that God was kind and friendly towards him, always ready with His blessed sunshine and refreshing rain to feed and comfort His creatures. In this way a sense of gratitude sprang up, and a sense of trust in the goodwill of God. But, inasmuch as now and then things did not go smoothly, food was scarce, sickness or disaster fell, and death made havoc in his family 1 It may be worth while to state that, among the questions which I put to candidates for the Service of Self-Consecration to God, one is, " Why should we believe that there is a God at all ? " Nearly every answer, out of 175 answers which have been given, is substantially the same as what I have just said. 120 PRIMITIVE IDEAS OF GOD and tribe, man could not at first reconcile all this with the earlier belief in a good and kind God ; and, failing to re- concile it, be imagined that other gods, inferior gods, also existed who were not friendly to man, but hostile and sought to injure and destroy man. Hence their attention was diverted from the good God to the bad gods, whom they sought to propitiate by sacrifices and offerings, and by the thousand expedients resorted to by the fearful to avert Divine wrath and malignity. This was Keligion, too, like the first ; but it was bad and false, and it gradually drove out the other Religion till the good God was forgotten, or remembered only as an ancient and obsolete tradition. The good God required no sacrifices ; only required good and kind feelings to each other. He wanted no thanks, no praise for His benefits, only a right use of them. And although He was so good, they forgot Him, only because the evil gods were so pressing in their demands for sacrifices and bribes to keep them quiet, and to allay their wrath which was always brewing. Here we have before us types of the two different Religions of which I spoke at the first, the Religion of love and the Religion of fear. Both have the common element of a consciousness of a superhuman Being or Beings, and both are therefore Religions ; the one being good and true, the other bad and false. Mr. Andrew Lang, in his book, The Making of Religion, has brought out this contrast with great clearness ; and he asserts that in all the so-called savage races whose present rites and ceremonies and earliest traditions he has examined (and they are numerous), there is an unmistakable primitive tradition of a belief in a God who was never born and who never dies, who knows the secret thoughts of every man's heart, who is kind and friendly to men, and wishes them to be kind and friendly to each other, and who never requires worship or sacrifices, or any kind of propitiation. It is not for me to question the facts adduced by Mr. Lang ; but if they can be upset they surely will be by those writers whom he opposes. If the facts are established beyond doubt, then they furnish the best possible proof that my theory of the origin of Religion is correct. With regard to the bad and PRIMITIVE IDEAS CORRUPTED BY FEAR 121 false Religion of fear, Mr. Lang further proves that this is traceable in nearly all cases to Animism or the Ghost-religion, the dread and worship of dead ancestors, which in time obliterated the true religion of belief in a good God and set up a system of belief in bad gods, and of worship and sacri- fices, the base human spirits taking the throne of the Eternal Spirit of goodness and love. The human substitutes drove out the Divine. And any sane man can see the process and its results going on before our very eyes in Christendom to-day. The natural belief and trust in a God of love has been driven out by an artificial belief in and dread of a God of merciless vengeance and cruelty, viz., the God who cursed the human race for the sin of its first parents, who has sent millions on millions to hell already, and who would have let none escape unless his wrath had been appeased by the blood of his own son. We have seen that Religion is universal and is natural, that it sprang out of the earliest exercise of man's mind and conscience. We have now to observe the connection of Religion with morality, a subject to be more fully treated hereafter. But I will say now that I do not know of any- thing more remarkable than the fact that the Religion of trust and love towards God is the best and strongest impulse and aid to true virtue ; while the Religion of fear is one of its greatest hindrances, and I will state the argument in brief at once. The Religion of love favourably affects the heart and character. The religion of fear only affects the conduct through fear of punishment, stimulates the desire to escape the penalty, not to turn with loathing from the sin itself. Again, we must remember that true virtue is only that which is absolutely disinterested, free from the influence alike of reward and punishment ; true virtue is the heartfelt pre- ference for it, no matter what pain it may cost us to do it, no matter what pleasure may entice us to evade the doing of it. Whereas, on the other hand, under the influence of fear of punishment or of hope for reward, whatever correctness of conduct may be achieved, there is not a grain of goodness or true virtue in it ; the heart is unchanged, the character as bad as before and indeed worse ; this showing how a true religion 122 CHRISTIANS BEAR WITNESS is also good, and how a false religion is also bad ; not only theologically but morally. The tree is known by its fruits. And I can here appeal even to Christians to testify that until the soul loves Christ, there can be no virtue in obedience to Christ. So long as obedience is extorted by fear, it is not virtue, it is not goodness of heart at all : but when men, believing Christ to be God and loving him truly for the bene- fits he is supposed to have conferred, do the deeds of virtue for love of him, then, and then only, are they truly virtuous and their religion is so far both good and true. We repudiate Christianity, of course ; but not this part of it, and not on this ground. All we repudiate is that part of the Scheme of Salvation which is based entirely and exclusively on fear, which necessarily alienates the soul from God and deeply depraves the moral nature of man. We still bewail, as many Christians do also, the absence of that Religion of Love which can alone win and redeem the hearts and lives of sinful men. We still bewail that the great mass of people, especially those under the influence of Priestcraft, have little or nothing else taught them but the Religion of fear, which outrages the Divine Love and corrupts and enslaves the human heart. By-and-by, when the Christian mythology is swept away, and when "God shall be all in all," the essence of the Re- ligion of Love will be more fully seen and valued, and the poor victims of the bad and false parts of Christianity will drive all their fears into the depths of the sea, and stand forth with joy unspeakable in the glorious liberty of the children of God. CHAPTEE XV. RELATION BETWEEN RELIGION AND MORALITY. PSALM xxxvii. 15 : " THE LORD ORDEBETH A GOOD MAN'S GOING, AND MAKETH HIS WAY ACCEPTABLE TO HlMSELP." OUR task now will be to consider the relation between Beligion and Morality. First, we must point out some errors arising from the misuse of the terms, owing to their ambiguity. By Religion is sometimes only meant theology, a knowledge of religious truths or what are called truths. Sometimes the term " Religion " is more accurately applied only to that state of heart towards God which is produced by the theology. This is its true and real meaning. Again, Morality is a term used sometimes to denote the knowledge of what is right and wrong, i.e., a code of morals, and sometimes to denote the actual practice which follows or ought to follow that know- ledge. In this discourse we shall endeavour to keep rigidly to the accurate use of the terms. By Religion we shall denote that state of heart towards God which is one of trust and love. By Morality we shall denote the practice of virtue in the cultivation of character and the regulation of the conduct. We must also fix in our minds the real distinction between Religion so defined and Morality so defined. This is the more necessary because some excellent persons, who have had no experience of Religion, have claimed to be and to be called religious on account of their morality. The distinction is also necessary because some persons have professed to be religious, although their morality is grossly deficient, and their lives, so far as we can see, prove how little real hold Religion has upon their hearts. Of course, true Religion and true Morality are, as a rule, inseparably united. Religion is a sham unless it is expressed and proved by Morality. But the fact of their union shows that they are two distinct objects of thought. They are not exactly one and the same object, or they could 128 124 SOME FEW ARE MORAL WITHOUT RELIGION not be united. Moreover, it is a fact beyond dispute that some persons are eminently moral, even bestow great pains on cultivation of their own character, and therefore lead ex- emplary lives, who nevertheless are not religious, and go so far as to abjure religion and to be utterly agnostic towards God, as they understand the name. All this is very import- ant to remember in our present enquiry. Let us repeat it : Religion can never be true and real without Morality; i.e., without a corresponding effort to be good and to do what is right. But Morality (as is proved by facts) can exist without Religion. Nevertheless this is by comparison extremely rare, while the rule is, that those who are most moral, most con- scientious, most trustworthy, and most devoted to the welfare of others, are those who are also most truly religious. I will take for consideration first these rare exceptions of the truly moral who have no religion. These will be found to have inherited a noble character, to be by nature honour- able and truthful, generous and loving, and to be actuated by great self-respect. For the most part, their conditions of life are eminently calculated to maintain the highest standard of respectability, and, being family men, have their best and purest affections continually called into play ; they have but few temptations, thank God ! or we do not know what would become of them. They seldom experience those deep struggles and spiritual conflicts which beset average men and women. God alone can see how easy, or how difficult, it is for them to maintain such a standard of life and character as to win the confidence and the admiration of those who know them. Such as these are indeed rare, while the majority of irreligious persons, living up to the slender requirements of decent respectability, are scarcely virtuous at all, and make no effort whatever to cultivate and improve their character simply for lack of inducement. They can get on very well without religion, and there is nothing in them to create any noble ambition, there is no care to be any better than they are, and, having no prospect of a life beyond the grave, are indifferent to any moral progress. Any time or thought expended upon it would, in their eyes, be simply thrown away. But of those few noble exceptions of persons lacking NEVERTHELESS LAYING ITS FOUNDATIONS 125 in religion and yet leading beautiful lives and cultivating their character, it may truly be said that, although they are not yet religious, they are laying the foundations deep and strong for the building up of a true and grand Religion. They are doing their best to pave the way, so to speak, to a true knowledge and love of God by fulfilling already the filial duties which He requires. By every act of conscienti- ousness, by every act of loyalty to truth and fact, by every act of justice, generosity and love, and by the control of every unruly or unkind thought, they are qualifying themselves for a place in the household of God, and for "a name better than of sons and daughters," because the hope of heavenly reward had never entered their heads, much less stained their hearts, and because they had tried to be good without any of the privileges and pleasures of a religious life. Moreover, their very rejection of religion was in some cases an act of the highest religion, inasmuch as it was intense reverence for an object worthy of adoration which made them revolt with indignation and disgust from the odious conception of God and His dealings which had been put before them. Such men as these, I say again, stand out in marked contrast from the mass of irreligious persons, who are simply animals ; who boast, indeed, that they are only animals and are not souls. The former class are moral in the best sense without being religious. The latter are neither religious nor moral, inasmuch as they make no moral effort, have no concern for their secret character, and are only even respectable through habit and conformity to custom, or out of mere regard for their own comfort. Now, Religion changes all that. A consciousness of God, especially of God's friendliness and love, makes a man a different being; makes him a new creature, born again, as it were, into a new world of experiences, of fresh light, of unheard-of truths, of new hopes, and fears, and aspirations. He finds that he is a living soul, face to face with his Maker, who is no less his loving Father ; his body, not despised, is only dethroned, it becomes only his earthly house ; and all his faculties become the consecrated instruments of obedience to the Holy Will. His conscience is aroused. He sees new 126 THE EFFECTS OF TRUE RELIGION obligations where before he saw none. He sees faults and sins in himself which he used to think quite lawful and innocent. He finds that his motives for action were mean, if not base, and with his Father's eye upon them he knows they must now be renounced. He sees the blots in craving for reward and dread of penalty. He begins to count human praise and blame as of little or no consequence beside the smile or frown of his God. His behaviour mends, his manners are refined, his social instincts find more easy ex- pression ; and all this time he has been cleansing the springs of action in his breast, he has been learning that unless the tree be good, the fruit will be bad or absent altogether. His chief concern is to cultivate his character, to imbibe principles and to cherish feelings which can alone produce the best and brightest results. Religion it is which makes a man truly virtuous. It makes him an athlete in the spiritual arena, the hero of a hundred fights in the dark places of the soul, where only God's eye can see and His smile give the courage that ends in triumph. Religion makes the animal into the man, raising the whole sphere of his life, energy and aims above the trinkets and amusements of the world ; lifting him to realise the imperishable treasures cf a God-begotten soul and a God-given life, and setting before him the unspeakable privileges of self-denial, self-restraint, self-sacrificing love, in place of the degrading self-indulgence, self-will, and self- aggrandisement which had aforetime beguiled and enslaved him. Religion is the very life of Morality, because of its un- ceasing stimulant to right action by the inspiration of Love. This it is which makes us true of heart, sincere, single- minded, devoted servants to truth and God, faithful friends and brothers and sisters to each other. And no wonder, if Religion to be true at all is Love to God, the whole heart given to Him, the whole life devoted to Him, all our powers consecrated to His blessed service ! There is no impulse to goodness so strong as this, there is none that can so completely purify the motives remember that motives alone determine the excellence of the morality there is no other mode by which the duties and drudgeries of life can be turned into NO VIRTUE IN OBEDIENCE WITHOUT LOVE 127 pleasures and delights. The morality which springs from the religion of Love to God is vastly superior to the morality which springs from being afraid of Him. As in love only there is perfect freedom, so there can be no true virtue which is extorted by fear and threats of punishment ; for then the element of true virtue is wholly wanting. Coercion is the very opposite of a willing and glad surrender and obedience to the Divine behests. It is true that the outward results in conduct may sometimes be similar, but that is not what God will approve. " God seeth not as man seeth. Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh in the heart." And unless Love be there, unless perfect freedom and willing preference for obedience be there, the unwilling surrender is not and cannot be acceptable to God, neither can it be true virtue. For God desires our heart's love as the spring of all action; and there is no virtue when a man obeys through fear of punishment or hope of reward for then he is only loving and serving himself, making a good bargain, giving a quid pro quo, the very opposite of true Love. That man was truly religious and truly moral when he said "The love of Christ constraineth us," because the name of Christ stood to him for God, and the love he felt for Christ was the inspiring motive of his morality. And here I can, perhaps, best illustrate one of the great fallacies exceedingly common and seldom detected, viz., the assertion or assumption that a man's good life is to be taken as a proof that his theology is true. More mischief is done, because the assumption is not usually stated so accurately as I have put it. The common way of stating it is that " a good life is a proof that the man's religion is true," the term "religion" being erroneously used for "theology." Most likely the man's religion is true if a good life be the result of it ; but then only in the sense that his religion is a religion of love towards his God. But that is very different from his theology, which may contain a great deal of error and false- hood. Those well-known words of Pope are incalculably misleading : " For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, 'His can't be wrong whose life is in the right." This is contradicted by repeated and glaring facts. Theology is not Religion, although no Religion can exist without some Theology. Among the many opinions which go to make up a man's Theology, some may be true, others false ; some may have a real hold upon the heart, so as to produce a religion of love to God, or a religion of dread of God. But out of all the opinions which he professes to have, only those opinions which affect his heart will have any results in influencing his life and character. These, as we well know by history and even by daily observation, will be sometimes good and sometimes bad. E.g., the belief in God's love through Christ will have good results, while the belief in Devils and Hell-fire and God's wrath against unbelievers and rejectors of Christ, will have bad results, and lead to bigotry and Smithfield fires and Holy Inquisitions. If I cannot prove it by a perfect induction, I can say, as an old man who has unceasingly studied the subject, that I am certain that good thoughts and good lives are only produced by true beliefs ; and bad thoughts and bad lives are only produced by false beliefs. And it is under this conviction that I have so often em- phatically declared that reconciliation with God, producing the assurance of His love through the mediation of Christ, has borne the good fruits of a loving obedience, and has made good lives follow on a true and real conversion to Christ. But this does not lend one grain of support to the mythology of Christianity, or to the horrible dogmas of the Fall and the Curse and endless Hell, and the death of Christ as a propitiation to God, which are essential to and characteristic of the Christian Creed. On the contrary, all these dogmas, whenever they have been firmly believed and have affected the heart, have produced a bad and false religion of fear, and have produced bad fruits in the lives and characters of those who held it. Another error, not often detected, which grows out of the assumption that a man's good life proves the truth of his theology, is that we even presume to judge, merely by what we see, whether a man's life is good or bad. Now, of course, it is right and our bounden duty to speak of the outward actions of any man, without any hesitation, in terms of praise JUDGMENT OF EACH OTHER FOOLISH 129 or blame. We must form moral judgments upon obvious deeds and even upon words. We must not call good evil, or evil good, nor for one moment be indifferent to the moral difference. But, beyond that, we ought not to judge any man himself, for we see nothing whatever of his heart and secret motives or secret struggles. We fling about our judgments. So-and-so is " a good man," another is " a bad man," in reckless disregard of our inability to know anything at all of the case. The man whom we call " good," may in the sight of God be actuated by very unworthy motives, and be far from true Godlikeness in his soul ; or he may be immeasur- ably below what he ought to be and might easily be with his greater advantages ; while the poor, unfortunate, notorious sinner may be in the sight of God a far better man, having struggles which the so-called good man never encountered, and having done better with his fewer talents and greater disadvantages than the other man whom we presumed to praise. We should drop all this as a disgrace to our own intelligence. A very little clear thought and memory of our- selves would prevent us from committing so foolish a blunder or so presumptuous an arrogance as to pass any moral judgment on anybody at all. Judge and condemn or applaud his actions if you will, but never the man himself. Our moral standards, you see, need raising higher, and the reason for this is because our religion has not yet got such hold of us as to influence and pervade all our thoughts and affections. We are not so good as we might be, because we are not so religious. If we were more absorbed in real devotion and love to God, if we lived perpetually rejoicing in His presence, cheered and warmed by His radiant Love, we should do more than we have done to glorify our Father in Heaven. Our light would shine before men less dimly, less flickeringly, and our good works would woo and win other hearts to love Him too, and to take pride and pleasure in doing His Will. The little light we have, precious as it is, should make us anxious and diligent to get more. We ought to "go on to know the Lord," to learn every day some fresh story of His love, some new proof of His closeness and devotion to us all, 9 130 RELIGION AND MORALITY MUTUALLY REACT For our practice of true virtue is the ladder by which we rise higher and nearer to the glory of His truth and love. As our Reason expands, as our Conscience becomes more keen and quick, and as our human Love more and more fills our hearts to overflowing, so shall we see more and more of Him, and that fresh seeing shall put new life and love into our hearts, ever inspiring and carrying us on to the perfection which awaits us. Thus our Religion will be the life of our Morality, and our Morality will heighten and strengthen our Religion, acting and re-acting upon each other to fulfil the highest and noblest purpose of our being. CHAPTEE XVI. GROUNDS OF HOPE FOB IMMORTALITY. I HAVE been frequently asked for my views on the subject of Life after Death ; and I wonder why anxiety should be felt as to the opinions which any one may hold upon the subject, seeing that we are all in total ignorance, and all opinions must necessarily be speculative. Still, there is no reason to refuse to express an opinion about it, if one has an opinion, or has given any deep thought to the great question. Only let my opinion be taken for what it is a mere individual opinion not binding on any one else. Nevertheless, in speaking on this theme I am. convinced that I am echoing the thoughts and convictions of many millions of my fellow- men, simply because I speak as a common human being, in the simple exercise of those higher faculties which belong to the human race. I am also naturally desirous to keep clear of those branches of the subject which are sometimes made the occasion of strong feeling or sharp conflict. Theism has nothing to do with speculations as to the phenomena of spiritualism or with the doctrine of pre-existence. Theists may hold what opinions they like on these points without disturbing or weakening their trust in God. I take the following passages for our consideration : JOB xiv. 14 : " IF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN ? " PSALM xxxix. 8: "Now, LORD, WHAT is MY HOPE, TRULY MY HOPE IS EVEN IN THEE." The question of one text is answered by the other. The answer often given by Agnostics and others amounts to this: "Man will not live again; a life after death is a grotesque notion. Man is not a soul or spirit, but only an animal, only a material perishable body." And if this account of man be true, physical science so far can hold out 131 132 WHAT AM I AS A MAN ? no hope whatever for a life after death. It seems to me eminently desirable that the rational grounds for a hope of immortality should be re-stated, and I think I cannot do better than simply repeat the reasons which I should give for myself in answer to the question, " If a man die, shall he live again? " Naturally enough, before this question can be answered, I must first find out what I am. I must also distinguish between knowledge and faith ; there are some things which I know for certain, if anything can be known at all. And there are other things which I do not know, yet firmly believe and hope, because they are reasonably drawn by inference from those things which I do know. First, I know that I am a thinking being, that I am a moral being, and that I possess in some measure the faculty of human love. I know, also, that I have a material physical existence as an animal, that I have a body which will certainly die and will never be restored or raised again to life, because its component parts will in course of time be separated and dissolved into their original elementary or atomic conditions, and will go to form part of other bodies, mineral, vegetable or animal. I know that I have had an enormous amount of physical pleasure through my animal life, and also have had to endure some severe pain. But, on the whole, I am very thankful for this physical life. Yet, I am much more thankful for being a soul or spirit, for consciousness that I am alive in a world of wonders, of order, of beauty, and of progress, that I can think and reason upon what is going on around and within me, and that I can recognise many purposes of wisdom and beneficence in that superhuman mind or soul who is the manifest Ruler of the world. I am still more thankful that I am a moral being, more or less sensitive to the contrast between good arid evil, having a deep sense of responsibility to the Author of my life for the proper discharge of my duties to my fellow-men. I thank God especially for my sense of shame and sorrow when I have done wrong or failed to do what I ought. I am especially thankful to have attained such insight into WHAT I AM AS A MORAL AND LOVING BEING 133 true goodness and moral evil as to separate these for ever from the old motives of rewards and punishments; and to see that goodness, to be goodness at all, must be chosen for its own sake and not for reward ; and evil must be forsaken because it is evil and not through fear of punishment. More- over, this little insight is accompanied by a desire, more or less strong, to be, before all things else, good righteous in thought, word and deed. My consciousness of frailty and sin only deepens this desire for righteousness and makes me hope for its complete attainment at the last. I know also with a certainty that I have within me a loving heart. It is no boast. I did not create it. It is the common property of human beings. I have no more credit for being affectionate and well-disposed to my fellow-men than for being a man instead of a woman or for being short of stature. I could not help being what I am. I know I love my kind and would do them all the good within my reach. I am distressed when I cannot do what my sympathy inspires. I am deeply ashamed of myself whenever I wilfully fail in my duty to them or am conscious of feelings of ill-will and enmity and resentment. Eemember, that although I am speaking for myself, there are millions quite as loving as I am, and very likely other millions who are more loving still. But just as I am, only on a level with the average of mankind, possibly below them in this matter of goodwill, if I had but the power and the skill to secure for every indi- vidual that ever lived or will live the most perfect conditions of happiness and of goodness, I would do it, I could not help doing it, I should never rest till I had done it. Now, all this is part of my certain knowledge, my own actual experience of myself, the result of careful and patient self-examination ; facts immensely corroborated by the distress and shame which I feel whenever that goodwill to others is disturbed by anger or by a sense of their injustice. But I am not alone in all this experience. I can appeal with confidence to nearly all my fellow-men to bear me witness that what I have described as myself is also a counterpart of themselves. The Agnostics whom I am now answering, in spite of their materialistic theories, would be forced to confess that the 134 picture is as true of themselves as of ine, and of every one else who is decently humane and sane. And it all comes to this : that we men, if we could, would perfectly develop all the noblest part of man's nature, and would confer upon every individual of the race the most complete goodness and happiness of which our human nature is capable. All we lack is the power and the wisdom requisite. We must here remind ourselves that a human being cannot possibly attain this full perfection within the limits of earthly life. Yet, nothing short of perpetual advance in knowledge can satisfy his mind. Nothing short of perpetual advance in righteousness can satisfy his conscience. Nothing short of perpetual contact with those he loves, and perpetual opportunity for service and self-sacrifice, would satisfy his heart. If this hope of full fruition be ever entertained at all, reason tells us it must be realised in a life to come or not at all. This, of course, does not prove that there will be a life to come. It only proves that it would be right if possible. It is only a necessary link in the argument con- necting our native human goodwill with the possibility of its hopes being fulfilled. One must not forget for a moment that the highest and purest and noblest aspirations of the soul of man will be frustrated entirely unless there be a life to come. Well, now that we have looked at something of what we are, at some undisputed facts of our nature, we are in a better position to examine the grounds on which a reasonable hope for immortality may be based. In the first place, we are at the mercy of God, we are helplessly dependent on the Author and Giver of our lives, on His goodwill towards us, and on His judgment of what is best for each and for all. In regard to this latter point we can know nothing whatsoever. The conditions which He thinks best must remain for us in this life absolutely unknown and unknowable. The utmost we can glean about such a subject can only be by inference from what we already know of ourselves. It is quite legitimate to postulate that death makes a complete end of us because God may think HYPOTHESIS OF ANNIHILATION 135 it would be best for us that we should perish. But the moment you postulate this or any other theory, you challenge reasons for or against it. These reasons are at our command, while certain knowledge is not. We can resort to a balance of probabilities when we are dealing not with known facts, but with mere hypotheses. And so the hypothesis of God thinking it best for us not to live on after death may be met by saying that it is extremely improbable that He Himself would have led us all so strongly to hope for that very thing which He regards as an evil, and that this hope should have been allowed to grow and deepen its hold upon the hearts of men in exact proportion to their moral and rational develop- ment ; that, in fact, the wiser and the better and the more loving men became, the more ardent and confident was their hope for a life of goodness beyond the grave. We must not, however, forget that Buddhists are an exception to this rule ; but this is easily accounted for by the fact that they are held down by a delusion never even questioned, that all existence is an evil in itself. While that conviction remains, it is, of course, unnatural and impossible to wish for immor- tality. Time, however, would be wasted over such a hypothesis, while so much remains to be urged in favour of the goodwill of God as the basis of all hope for immor- tality. I will resume my place in the witness-box, and go on to describe my own reasonings with myself. I know that I long to live through and after death, but only if it be God's will. I should not dare wish for a future life if I knew that it was against His Will. Why ? Because I have greater confidence in His goodwill towards me than I have in my own theories as to what will be best for me. He knows all, while I know so little. His goodness and love must be greater than mine. He must love me better than I could love myself. But if I understand love at all, especially such love as a mother and father feel for their children, and if I ascribe fatherly love to God, then I con- fidently assert that He will not part with me ; that I am precious in His sight, and for very love He will not lose me. It is not a question of my deserts, of being worthy or un- worthy of immortal life ; but a simple question whether He 136 PROOFS OF GOD'S LOVE FOR ME loves me as much as we love our children. It must ever be remembered that we, as animal parents, love the bodies of our children, and would never part from them if we could help it. God is not the father of our bodies, but of us, i.e., our souls, and if He loves us really, He will never part from us. My whole life hitherto has been one long outpouring of His love upon me. He has made me rejoice in my very existence. He has blessed me with the power to think about Him and His ways. He has forced me by my con- science to enter upon the supreme bliss and the hallowing pains of a moral life ; He has turned all duty, all drudgery, into a delight, and sacrifice into ecstasy, by His gift of human love. His goodwill toward me has been proved not only by all this, but by ten thousand tokens of His loving and ceaseless care, in joys and in sorrows, in successes and in failures, in moral triumphs and in sins, in peace of mind and in the stings of remorse. He has acted towards me wholly and entirely as if He loved me very much ; almost as if He had no one else to love. And the best of all is that He has taught me to love Him so that I would do His Will and suffer for it rather than get my own way and have all I want. But if I love Him, it is only because He has first loved me. Now, if all this experience could be blotted out, there would still remain the fact that we poor men, with all our failings, would do the highest good to every one, if only we knew how and were able to do it. Therefore God, who made us what we are, cannot be below that level of goodness and goodwill. But, instead of my own experience being rare, it is that of millions more beside myself ; and I say again, " God hath not left Himself without witness " of His over- whelming goodwill and love towards us men. In that surely lies our hope. "Now, Lord, what is my hope, truly my hope is even in Thee." When our bodies die, death separ- ates us from each other but not from God. The death of our bodies makes not the smallest difference to His contact with us, unless, indeed, it enable us to come nearer still, and to see more clearly the unspeakable light of His love. To us human animals the separation by death is often most bitter. "Parting is pitiful pain." But since we are souls MANY REASONS WHY I OUGHT TO LIVE ON 137 and not bodies, there is no parting from God, but ever nearer and brighter communion. I see many reasons why, if I am God's child, I ought to live on. I want to finish my education, so poorly begun on earth. I want to know more of the mysteries and splendour of a Universe upon whose fringe alone the human mind can hover. I hunger and thirst after the righteousness of a perfect love of goodness, of a true and persistent abhorrence of evil. I do not wish to be for ever condemned to say, as I do now, "When I would do good, evil is present with me." I want to be holy, even as God is holy, and to love Him perfectly with my whole heart. And I wish to meet again those I love and have loved on earth, to know them once more, but freed from those mortal defects which threw dark shadows across the sunshine of our lives, freed likewise myself from my own defects and perversity. I would like to live where there would be no room anywhere for jealousy or suspicion, for any unkind or cruel judgments of each other, for any misunderstandings and the impatience and petulance which they breed. I would like to live where true love would be recognised for what it is, and where all false and vile counterfeits of it would be unknown. I long to live where only the truth would be heard and believed and spoken, where all falsehood and false ways would be impossible. In short, I long to have my nature perfected, my sins washed away, not in the blood of any Lamb, but in the tears of a true and godly sorrow; my defects cured, not by an imputed and sham righteousness, but by the real sanctifica- tion of the spirit and growth in all virtue. I long for a heaven of endless work and heavenly power and will to do it ; where there would be no more grumbling that the days were too short and the arts too long, and the pile of duties to be done and sorrows to be borne were too much for human fortitude and human love. I do not long for greater joy than has been and is already mine the joy of loving God and man. I long only that it may not be broken by intervals of sin and shame, nor my service marred by streaks of selfish- ness or neglect. This is some little gleam of what I hope for. A million voices would echo every word, aye, and sing 138 HOPE FOR IMMORTALITY BASED ON FACTS it too in poetry if they could, which would set the hearts of men on fire. Of the details or the method of such a life I do not care to speak, and care still less to know anything at all. It is enough for me that God knows what I wish for, and that I wish for nothing that is not His will to grant. My hope for the life to come, not only for myself but for all men likewise ; not only for all mankind, but for every spirit of bird, beast, fish or insect, for every spirit of tree and herb and flower, for every soul which the Father of all souls has begotten, is based on scientific grounds, and defended in a scientific method. It is based, as you have seen, on facts and experiences beyond all doubt, and every inference from those facts is rationally drawn. Agnostics can hardly ven- ture to sneer at it any more as a " grotesque notion " or a " delusion." And the strange part of it all is that at every step of the enquiry we are confronted with these unquenchable realities the soul and God which explain everything, and confirm every pious and reasonable hope ; which not only do no violence to reason or contravene any established truth of science, but explain and complete the manifestly defective conclusions of materialistic philosophy, and supply the key to many of the most intricate problems of life. Whenever, therefore, the question crops up, " If a man die, shall he live again ? " the best and most scientific answer that can be given is that one given by the old Psalmist, " Now, Lord, what is my hope ; truly my hope is even in Thee." CHAPTEE XVII. TRUE AND FALSE ANTHROPOMORPHISM. ISAIAH Iv. 8, 9: "MY THOUGHTS ABE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS, NEITHER ARE MY WAYS YOUR WAYS, SAITH THE LORD. FOR AS THE HEAVENS ARE HIGHER THAN THE EARTH, SO ARE MY WAYS HIGHER THAN YOUR WAYS, AND MY THOUGHTS THAN YOUR THOUGHTS." IT has been urged against Theism that it is an Anthropo- morphic Religion ; that instead of God making man in His own image, men have made God in their image ; that any form or degree of anthropomorphism must necessarily be false. In some circles to call any belief " anthropomorphic " is quite enough to condemn it. Any conception of God bearing the slightest resemblance to human attributes (even of the highest) is set down at once as false, as only making a God in the likeness of man. Now if it be forbidden by truth and reason to draw any inference whatever from the facts of the world and our own higher nature, on the ground that the process invariably lands us in some kind of anthropo- morphism, then we shall be logically driven to abandon every thought and feeling connected with religion. Then there will be nothing before us but the darkest and gloomiest Agnosticism, something infinitely deeper in sadness than knowing nothing at all about God ; it will be the settled conviction that God is for ever absolutely unknowable and that all religious thought and feeling are utter waste of time and energy and can never cast even a gleam of light upon the question which has hitherto absorbed the highest aspira- tions and the deepest interest of mankind. And I say here at starting that by no possibility can our thoughts of God be any other than anthropomorphic. We are hopelessly and helplessly tied to the constitution and limitations of our own nature. Every thought about any- thing in the universe must invariably be the result of human 139 140 SOME ANTHROPOMORPHISM TRUE experience. And when it comes to the expression of any thought, every term we use will be drawn and can only be drawn from our human experience. Surely I need not labour that point. Herbert Spencer has left little or nothing to be said upon it. Yet I may remind you that the very terms " Infinite " and " Eternal " as applied to space and time are derived from our experience of space and its boundaries and from our experience of the passing moments and of the fixed periods necessary in the transactions of life. From our experience of limited space we simply remove all the boundaries and we reach the idea of Infinite space. From our experience of time, of longer or shorter periods of time, we remove the idea of limitation and so come to the concep- tion of Eternity, i.e., time which had no beginning and which will have no end. These ideas and terms are purely anthropo- morphic, i.e., derived from human experience, and yet no one would dream of objecting to their validity on that account. Our next illustration is what Herbert Spencer calls " Energy " as applied to God, the " Infinite and Eternal Energy." What is that but an idea drawn from experience, from human energy itself, an exertion of will, an exercise of power ? Both the idea and the term are inevitably anthropo- morphic ; but no one dreams of disputing the fact of super- human energy or the accuracy of the term used to express it. Since evolution has come to be part of our science, it is made more clear than ever that there is Will and there is Power infinitely higher than our own, active throughout the universe. The ideas and the terms are inevitably anthropomorphic, but this does not in the least impair the conviction that they are true. Now I will ask you to notice that while a certain degree of anthropomorphism may be true, a greater indulgence of it becomes manifestly false: and what is still more re- markable the native mind of man detects the falsehood in a moment. We experience energy in ourselves, we see it manifested in an infinitely greater degree in the outer world. But with us energy is more or less a positive effort or exertion, a movement which may even cause pain and always, when long sustained, brings a sense of fatigue. It would be a wrong kind of anthropomorphism to attribute the weakness of man to the superhuman energy above him. It would manifestly be absurd to think that it cost God any effort to move the countless suns and worlds around us, or that it was any trouble to Him to rule the vast universe down to the smallest atom, or that God ever needed rest from His work. The human mind, I say, knows where to stop in its anthropo- morphic conceptions, and where to draw the line and perceive the contrast between man and God ; although man is intensely and absolutely anthropomorphic, he is yet able to see where anthropomorphism begins to be false, and accordingly he out- grows and discards the childish ideas of earlier ages which not only were right in ascribing infinite energy to God but were also wrong in ascribing to Him the limitations and accessories of human weakness. Indeed we do not allow ourselves to think that our human energy is at all perfect or adequate as a picture of the Divine Energy. We know that our experience of energy must be different from God's experience of it, inasmuch as we are finite creatures and He the infinite Creator. All we can swear to, as absolute fact, is the mani- festation of Will and Power similar in kind to our own and yet immeasurably higher and greater. There you have, I think, a trustworthy illustration of the true and false degree of anthropomorphism. Take again Knowledge. Unless there were knowledge infinitely transcending our own, the order of the world could not be maintained. All our discoveries in Science add enormously to this conviction. The discoveries of Science, small as they are hitherto, are all disclosures of an immeasur- able, inconceivable knowledge which God Himself alone must possess. We can find out nothing but what He knew all along, while we are discovering how much more we have still to learn. But when we turn to our own knowledge we find it is all attained by arduous if not painful labour. Everything we know had to be learnt, acquired only with great toil and much self-discipline. We cannot be so absurd as to ascribe the same process of learning to God. The " Knowledge," as we call it, which God has is not only vaster beyond conception, but has not been acquired ; has 142 TRUE AND FALSE ANTHROPOMORPHISM not had to be learned, but is absolutely unlike our knowledge which is microscopic and only gained by great difficulty and toil. Here again there is a false and a true anthropo- morphism. And it is useful and necessary to us to observe the distinction, because when we discern it we see the absurdity of the idea that God could ever be a man or that a man could ever be God. This one function of knowledge makes the anthropomorphic idea of Incarnation ridiculous as well as false. But there are matters concerning our thoughts of God vastly more important than the recognition of His super- human Power and Knowledge. These of course are essenti- ally necessary to the idea of a God at all. But we can never be satisfied with these thoughts alone. Had we no other conception of God, we should have no ground for trust in Him or hope, no impulse to conform to His will, no desire or capacity to hold any loving communion with Him. The greatest necessity of our hearts and minds is to know that He is good, absolutely righteous in all His ways and holy in all His thoughts. Here a true anthropomorphism will help us, while a false anthropomorphism will mislead us. The true anthropomorphism is our conviction that He who made our conscience must Himself be good. The false anthropo- morphism is thinking that all our moral codes are necessarily and always God's thoughts of what is right. Let us enlarge upon these definitions. In ourselves we find the Conscience always bidding us to do what we believe to be right and forbidding us to do what we believe to be wrong. Conscience surely tells us to do right only because it is right, without any hope of reward, even if it costs us much pain to do it : it also tells us that we ought not to do wrong, only because it is wrong, and not through any fear of punishment, and even when the doing wrong will bring us much present pleasure. Conscience also tells us we ought to do our best and take great pains to find out what is right and what is wrong, holding us guilty if we have been careless or indifferent. This is the invariable function of conscience and you may search a long while and never find a flaw in it. Its power and influence over us may ANTHROPOMORPHISM WRONG IN MORAL CODES 143 be weak or strong, but so long as it is alive within us at all, it never varies or wavers in its simple and stern demand. Moreover it is alike in all. We are therefore compelled to ascribe this sense of duty, this conscience to the God who created or evolved it. We are fully justified by Eeason in saying that the Author of the conscience must Himself be good, for no evil God could desire His creatures to be good. This is pure anthropomorphism, but it is none the less true, obviously true. But in the great sphere of Ethics, we find considerable varieties in the codes of morals ; that is, in the things be- lieved to be right and in the things believed to be wrong. These differences appear strikingly in different races of men and in men holding various creeds. We find our own moral codes sometimes change, when a man at one time of his life thinks a particular thing wrong which he subsequently thinks to be right, or a thing right which he afterwards thinks to be wrong. These moral codes are all entirely man-made and are necessarily subject to change and amendment. But the Conscience itself is not man-made, but a part of our human nature which has come directly or indirectly from God and could not have arisen spontaneously. In the matter of moral codes it is evident that anthropomorphism would be wrong, that it would be a grievous error to ascribe to God as duties all the things we believe to be our duties ; also to think that God is forbidden by His perfect conscientiousness never to do what it would be wrong for us to do. His code of morality surely must be different from ours in some particulars, be- cause His position as a Creator differs from our position as creatures, because His knowledge of what He ought to do is infinitely greater than our knowledge of it ; because in fact He is infinitely more righteous than even the most righteous of men. Now let us apply this to some of the facts of the world, some of the things which God alone has ordained and which men know they ought not to do, because they are men and have so little of the knowledge necessary to regulate such actions. Take the fact of death. God is killing some crea- tures every moment of time. The whole world of living 144 GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS SEEN IN KILLING things is constantly perishing when the purpose of their life has been fulfilled. Death of the body passes upon all with- out exception. But we men know that, without very good reason and rare exception, we may not kill wholesale and indiscriminately. We may kill for food. We may kill for cleanliness and sanitation. We may kill for crimes such as murder or treason. We may kill on a large scale in war, if the war be just and needful for the emancipation of the victims of tyranny, or for our own national defence. We may kill also in defence of our wives and children to secure them from dishonour and outrage. But killing wholesale and apparently without discrimination and without a good purpose is absolutely forbidden by our moral codes. Even in cases of incurable disease which is accompanied by un- bearable torture, we dare not take the life from which the poor sufferer implores to be delivered. Why not ? Because we do not know everything. We do not know what the Author and Giver of any life wishes to attain by its pro- longation. We do not know what is necessary for the soul of a suffering body to undergo. Anthropomorphism breaks down here and we cannot attribute our human codes of morality to the Creator without charging Him with wicked- ness. Therefore, as we have already absolute proof in the conscience that God is good and infinitely more good than man, we reasonably admit our ignorance, our incapacity to form a perfect moral judgment and the impossibility of judging rightly the actions of God till we know all the facts and the final issue of what seems to us so strange and so wrong. And when once this habit of mind is set up within us, when we have learned to remember and to realise our own ignorance, and to keep well alive the conviction that the God who gave us conscience is sure to be righteous in all His works and ways, we shall be able to face without dismay the many instances we encounter of suffering for which we see no reason and cannot possibly see the benefit. Our anthropomorphism will help us to feel sure that if we feel sympathy for other creatures in their sufferings which is a noble feeling it is not possible that God should feel less sympathy than our own. If we feel as parents that it is TESTIMONY OF THE HEART OF MAN 145 right to inflict suffering upon our own children for their real welfare, it cannot be wrong for the Father of us all to inflict sufferings upon His children for their highest welfare. And as little children cannot be expected to understand the good purpose or to recognise the love of their parents in many sufferings and sorrows they must inflict upon them or upon their brothers and sisters, so we, only at an infinitely greater depth of ignorance, cannot expect always to understand the good purpose or the self-sacrificing love of God, our Father, when some sufferings and sorrows fall. So far our anthropo- morphism helps us. Let us not carry it to extremes, so as to impute to God our incapacity, our imperfect knowledge, our wavering or intermittent interest in our children's wel- fare, our brutal disregard of parental duties, or our wanton cruelty. Texts of Scripture prove nothing beyond the fact that men's hearts have conceived and men's lips have spoken thoughts full of wisdom, beauty and tenderest consolation, and that too in the presence of grievous and irreparable calamity and when they were undergoing the deepest suf- fering. One and another of God's dear children have said such words as these, dramatically put into the mouth of God Himself : " As one whom his mother comforteth, even so will I comfort thee." " Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, these may forget. Yet will I never forget Thee." " He doth not afflict willingly nor wantonly grieve the children of men." " I know the thoughts that I think toward you, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you an expected end." All such words as these prove absolutely that God has so made the heart of man as to compel him to think of God as higher and better and more loving than himself even in his best and highest moments. I say again, you cannot escape the testimony of your own conscience and love, if you will but listen to them ; and when you turn to an awful instance 10 146 ONLY PATIENCE NEEDED of animal or human suffering, all you can or ought to do as a reasonable man is to say, I don't know, I don't understand it, I cannot see any good purpose in it. Yet I will remember how slight my knowledge is, how impossible it is for me to see the final issue on which alone the Tightness or the wrong- ness of the infliction depends. I will trust Him still. I will still keep my strong conviction that the God who made me conscientious and loving and full of sympathy rflust at least be so Himself, only infinitely more. Only let us be patient and wait for God's time when every secret of His love shall be made known, every moral anomaly amply justified, and every problem of life and destiny cleared up by the glory of His presence, and we shall one day be able to number ourselves among that happy throng " Who saw the darkness overflowed And drowned in tides of Everlasting Day." CHAPTER XVIII. "THE TERM "PERSONAL" AS APPLIED TO GOD. JEB. iii. 4: "Wii/r THOU NOT PROM THIS TIME CBY UNTO MB, MY FATHER, THOU ART THE GUIDE OF MY YOUTH ? " FOLLOWING up our meditations on the true and false Anthro- pomorphism, it may be useful to discuss the question, Is it right or wrong to think and speak of God as Personal ? Manifestly the whole issue turns on the sense in which we use the term "Personal." I shall begin by giving illustrations of its use among ourselves which would be erroneous if applied to God. We naturally refer to the bodies of men and women when we call them persons. They are distinguished from one another primarily and most generally by their bodily form and size, by their infinitely varied expressions of face and movement, by their voice and gesture, and by a thousand minor details which prevent any two persons from being exactly alike. The outward appear- ance constitutes their personality and individuality. It is notable also that the term person is only applied to the human species, never to the lower animals, although in some particulars they have a personality of their own, dis- tinguishing each from all the rest of their own tribe, as in a flock of sheep the shepherd knows by sight every member of his flock, and the huntsman no less distinguishes each hound of the pack, giving to it a separate name. Nevertheless the term person is never applied even to the most intelligent and companionable of animals, but only to human beings. To ascribe personality to God on the same ground of outward form would of course be outrageous ; the initial idea of God being that of pure spirit, without body or parts, not localised in space as all bodies are and must be, but everywhere present and at the same moment. It follows therefore that all resemblances to the modes of human action, such as 147 148 MEANINGS OF PERSONALITY AMONG MEN breathing, speaking, eating, drinking, moving of limbs, physical and mental exertion, the ebb and flow of passions and sentiments, and whatever is characteristic of human nature, can never be properly ascribed to God, except in a purely figurative or poetic sense. All the tales in Pagan, Hebrew, and Christian Scriptures which describe the Gods as assuming the human form and acting like humair beings must be utterly discarded from rational belief in God, and from any sense of the term Personal which we may be com- pelled to retain. For all of them involve that kind of anthropomorphism which we have shown to be false and not only unnecessary but degrading to our conceptions of God. We have in use another sense of Personality by which we describe an especial and striking instance of singularity or superiority of some prominent individual. It was this which gave rise to the custom of calling the minister or priest of any parish, the Parson, equivalent to "the Person," or the Personage who stood in an office supposed to be highest in the community. And it is not infrequent to refer to a man of high rank as a Personage ; all this denoting only a recognition of superiority in degree above the average men and women. This, too, is not a legitimate use of the term Person as applied to God. For while all admit the superior- ity of God, it is not superiority of one among many similar beings, but a superiority in kind as well as in degree. The Divine excellence above the human is rightly compared to the height of the heavens above the earth. God is not in the same plane with man. There is nothing in heaven above or in the earth beneath to which He can be compared. And yet we must come back to ourselves and to poor humanity to find any true grounds for thinking and speaking of a Personal God. If we can find any such ground which is in nowise derogatory of God's infinite majesty, which is essential to our trust and love towards Him, and in which we are entirely justified by Reason, then we may apply the term Personal to .God without fear of folly or impiety. Our true self is the soul and not the body. Our true self is the seat of consciousness and of will, and the source of all PERSONALITY OF THE SOUL 149 thought, feeling and action. Our body is only the instrument through which our soul, our true self, passes into activity or can hold any intercourse with our fellow-men and with the outer world. It is in this true self in which lies our per- sonality, our absolute identity, from the cradle to the grave ; in spite of all the changes in our body, in spite of the fact that every particle of the body has been replaced several times in our life ; a change which, we are told, takes place every seven years. And this abiding self within our bodies is in no way homogeneous with the stuff of which our bodies are composed. It is invisible. It has no shape, no size, no weight, no colour, no material whatever in common with physical substance. It is pure spirit and begets thoughts, wishes, feelings, hopes and fears of a purely spiritual nature like itself. And although immensely influenced by the body in which it dwells and by the outward world around it, it is singly and alone a personal unit responsible to God for all that it is and does and for its proper control of the body, and no less for its neglect of the body and the consequences of all failure to maintain its own supremacy. In this absolute individuality or personality of the soul, we see some true analogy to the personality of God. For as we are distinct as "persons " from each other, we are distinct no less from the Great Spirit, whom we may resemble in being spirits likewise, but who is and must be for ever distinct from us as a father is distinct from his children. Our self-conscious- ness, our thought and our will are all absolutely essential properties of personality. All are spiritual and all are per- sonal. Now although we may not lawfully assign every- thing spiritual in ourselves to God, we may reasonably affirm that we may not ascribe to Him anything which is not spiritual. But inasmuch as our consciousness of personality is spiritual, we may reasonably ascribe such personality to Him and say that He is self-conscious, knows that He is and what He is ; that He is conscious of all else which is not Himself ; that He has thoughts for we see some of these thoughts expressed in His works therefore that He has will, i.e., that He plans and purposes to attain a given end, and chooses the means of attaining it. If, in a microcosm, we 150 KNOWLEDGE AND PURPOSE men possess this consciousness, thought and will, it is really only common sense to ascribe them to our Maker, only in an infinitely higher degree. But in doing this we must conceive of God as a Person, as a separate individual who is distinct from all other individual souls and from everything which is not Himself, and that He knows it. Knowledge and self- knowledge therefore are essential elements in Personality. And to us Theists God is a Person in that sense and cannot be less than Personal. And this is equally true when we examine the funda- mental idea of will or purpose. It is impossible for us to detach the idea of will from personality in the sense in which we understand it. If the outer world proves anything im- mediately and irresistibly concerning its Author, it proves the universal action of a personal will acting always with a purpose and to a given end ; an end not always visible to us, but visible with sufficient frequency to make us sure that nothing is ever done by Him without a purpose. So far, we have been arguing as if we were mere spec- tators and observers of the outer world, as if we formed no part of the world, but were merely watching what goes on, with an intelligent eye. And the conclusion is that an Impersonal Author of Nature is impossible ; that a God who does not know that He exists, who does not know that any- thing else exists, who has neither will nor purpose is not a God at all, any more than a lump of clay or a stone. There is no God at all unless He be a Person, a living God who knows everything and has will and purpose in all He does or causes to be done. Over and above these clear proofs drawn by reason from the world of Nature outside us, are the proofs of God's personality drawn from our own experience and the observa- tion of our higher spiritual faculties. Every human being in whom conscience is alive at all, cannot help the feeling of obligation to some one. "I ought" means and is "I owe it." I owe it to some one who knows that I owe it. Duty is felt as a debt to be paid. But where there is a debtor there must be a creditor, some one to whom the debt is due. If there be anywhere a law demanding obedience there must PERSONALITY OF GOD PROVED BY CONSCIENCE 151 be a law-giver. And so the conscience in man would be meaningless if it did not claim obedience to some one Being who knows whether we are obedient or not. Conscience claims to speak in the name and with the authority of the God who made it. It always bids us to do what we believe to be right and forbids us to do what we believe to be wrong. And God has so made man that whenever he obeys his con- science, he knows it and is satisfied by his obedience ; and that whenever he disobeys his conscience, he knows it and is not satisfied but is distressed and ashamed. He is quite aware, painfully aware, that his disobedience is seen by his Maker, even though no other eye has seen it, and though he may receive human applause for it. If he has disobeyed his own conscience, he knows instantly that he has displeased his Maker, and all the favour and smiles of the world cannot overcome his secret shame. In this, at all events, is revealed the extreme moral danger of denying that God is a Person. If God does not know when a man disobeys his conscience, or if He does not care about his disobedience, sooner or later the conscience would be extinguished, it would have no function to fulfil, but a man's conduct would be solely regu- lated by what is falsely called " self-interest," by hopes and fears, and his character would be of no consequence to him at all. Whatever baseness of heart he cherished, so long as his conduct did not bring upon him disgrace or disaster, he would have little or no desire to improve his heart. Some few might still be saved from moral degradation by self- respect. But only when that self-respect was identified with an intense conscientiousness. The man would then say " I ought," "I owe it to myself to do right. I defraud or outrage myself when I do wrong." Nevertheless, I doubt if this violation of nature and the perversion of conscience could be experienced without great loss of moral power. Under entirely natural conditions, the conscience bears witness to a God who made us and who knows every secret of our hearts and who wants us to be good and to do good. Only by violent effort can that conviction be uprooted or conscience so distorted. To come back to our argument, there is no stronger proof 152 PERSONALITY OF GOD PROVED BY OUR LOVE of the Personality of God than that which is afforded by the Conscience in its natural and healthy exercise. And oh ! what a inercy it is for some of us, who know the fierceness of the struggle between duty and inclination, whose whole lives seem to be spent in a desperate conflict with some be- setting temptation ; what a inercy it is for us that we have something stronger than self-respect to lead us on to victory, something more clean and more refined than the lust for public approval or the dread of public disgrace to help us in the mortal conflict ! If it were not for conscience and for God ; if it were not for our distress at grieving Him, and our true and deep contrition when we have fallen, never could we have held our ground so long, or made any progress upward or onward in the uphill journey, or ever won a single triumph over our besetting sin. I am not sure if I can say, Happy are they who have no temptations, no conflicts, who pass their equable lives in apparent tranquillity, with no such foe to fight, no dust to bite, no victory to win. I only know that the loving eye of God upon us is our only true Salvation in the perils of such warfare, and that it is a mercy to be able to cry unto Him out of the depths, " Hold Thou me up and I shall be safe." " With my whole heart have I sought Thee ; 0, let me not go wrong." Furthermore, the personality of God is proved by the manifestation of will and purpose in the creation of Human Love. Until you are thoroughly weary of the subject, I will go on repeating so that all who have not learnt it may learn that the highest human love known to us, which is most manifest in devotion and self-sacrifice for the true welfare of others, is inconceivable of any being who is not loving ; no one can understand love who has not felt it ; therefore if our love has come from God, it is only because He is Himself loving in the highest degree and has made us partakers of this unspeakable gift and for these purposes : 1. To turn all our duty into delight, to win us to do right of our own free will instead of being driven to it through hope or fear ; 2. To make every one better and happier within our reach ; 3. To fill our own lives with pleasure ; and 4. To CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS PRESENCE 153 enable us to know His own loving-kindness towards us all, and, knowing this, to love Him truly with all our hearts and minds. Only a Living God, only a Personal God, only a God who knows and cares for the real needs of His children, can be a Loving God. Only He, who dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, nevertheless dwells with the contrite and lowly, and is closer to every soul than any other soul can ever be ; only a God like that can be a true object of worship, a trustworthy God, a Faithful Friend and an infinitely tender and pitiful Father. " In all our sorrows, conflicts, woes," we have no need to cry, " Good Lord, remember me," but only to lift our tearful, trustful hearts to Him and say, "Thou, God, seest me." " Teach me to remember Thee." That is enough. Thou seest me and knowest my frame and rememberest that I am as dust. Thou understandest my thoughts long before. Thou needest no reminding of the wants of Thy children. Thou needest not their best and brightest songs of praise. But Thy heart of love longs for love in return. Thou dost long for the loving recognition of Thy children. Thou dost desire me to know and to rejoice that Thou art now and always here with me, that Thou seest me, and Thou askest only for my trust and love. " When Thou saidst, Seek ye My face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek." CHAPTER XIX. THE HIGHEST IMPULSE TO MORALITY. ROMANS vi. 1,15:' SHALL WE CONTINUE IN SIN THAT GRACE MAY ABOUND ? GOD POBBID! SHALL WE SIN BECAUSE WE ABE NOT UNDEB THE LAW, BUT UNDEB QBACB ? GOD FOBBID ! ' I AM continually speaking to you of the love of God, that God is loving unto every man, that God is Love itself. We believe with a fulness of joy that no one was ever born into this world to be a child of endless wrath and an inheritor of everlasting sinfulness ; that every soul was born out of the eternal love of God and is certain, sooner or later, to become holy even as He is holy, and to inherit all the 'bliss which belongs to moral perfection. But now, as of old, those who oppose our Gospel of hope, determined to find fault with it if they can, turn round upon us and say, " You are teaching a most dangerous doctrine, you are uprooting the foundations of all morality, you are encouraging bad people to do just as they like, and to go on in their sinful ways, by promising that everything shall come right at the last ; by fostering the hope of final goodness and happiness you are helping the impure and the sinful to indulge their evil passions without fear of any final perdition." This, in varied form, is what has been said and is still said against the blessed faith and hope of Theism. And although I have met and answered this objection many times already, I must now answer it again. And, first, I would remind you that there is some force in the objection, because there is a grain of truth at the bottom of it, and because history furnishes examples of this very baseness. When Christianity was first preached in the world, the main feeling in the hearts of men towards God was one of abject fear. The terrors of " the wrath to come " 164 DISTRUST OF GOD 1S5 were on everybody's lips, and alarmed every soul. The very Gospel was not only specially addressed to those trembling sinners, but where the fear was wanting, it had to be created and excited by threats of hell. " Flee from the wrath to come." The prevalence of the fear had its cause in the prevalence of moral corruption. The world was awakening to a keener sense of its guilt ; the native goodness in the human heart was recovering itself to perceive and shudder at the excesses into which licentious luxury had plunged Society ; and the fear of a coming judgment and retribution was the normal result of the foregoing sin and vice. It was perfectly natural. For only when our lives are compara- tively pure, our hearts set upon righteousness, and our wills certainly on the side of obedience to God, can we ever realise and feel God's friendliness towards us, or ever attain what is called reconciliation or peace with Him. So with a sin- stained conscience and a knowledge that we do not repent us truly of our sins, nor desire amendment of life and char- acter, we must have a corresponding sense of God's anger toward us ; we feel Him to be hostile, and not friendly ; we cannot believe in His love while we cling to our own wickedness. This loss of trust in God is the punishment or penal consequence of wilful sin. It is of the nature of Sin to alienate us from God ; we feel no longer able to trust Him. Alienation thus grows into fear, and fear into aversion, all through our cherishing of the evil which we know we ought not to do, which we know we ought to put away. The widespread dread of God in the days when the Christian Gospel was first preached is easily and naturally accounted for by the widespread wickedness. But notice in the next place, that the fear begat falsehood falsehood in belief falsehood in the idea of God and of His feeling toward us. All the time God was neither hostile nor angry, not "angry" in the sense in which men under- stood Him to be ; He was patient, long-suffering, and as full of love as ever for His poor blind and sinful children. He knew His good purposes, He knew His unfailing resources of purification, He knew the goodness and bliss to which He would one day bring them all. But they could not see it, 156 THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL they were blinded by their own wickedness to all His exceed- ing goodness, and while their hearts thus accused them, they also misunderstood and maligned His infinite and boundless love. The Christian Gospel burst upon that world of sin with a flood of light and partial truth. Jt went face to face to meet that falsehood, and told the worst of those sinners that though they were guilty yet God loved them still and would save them from the horrible consequences of their sin. Mixed up with errors and falsehoods which to us are glaring enough errors and falsehoods which at this moment I only allude to that Gospel did declare the everlasting love of God for the worst and vilest of men. He had devised and carried out a scheme for their salvation, and all they had to do was to believe it and be saved ; to repent, to wish to do better, to turn round on their shameful past and to be converted and live. And that Gospel was life from the dead to thousands on thousands. It drew them by the cords of love to their dreaded and distrusted God, and made them feel sure that He was still their Friend. It opened the fountain of their tears of repentance, deepened their shame for the prostitution of their lives and faculties, and made them abhor the sins which once they loved ; they surrendered themselves to the God who had redeemed them from their iniquity, and began to walk henceforth in newness of life and to bear the holy fruits of God's Spirit within them. This was the invariable result of the Gospel in those days upon all who understood it rightly and heartily believed it. There were some, however, who heard it and did not understand it, some who heard it and only thought they believed it, accepting only a part of it, by which they missed its whole saving and regenerating power. These men and women had no real repentance in them, no genuine sorrow for sin or sense of shame ; all they thought of were the flames of hell and their own contemptible and wicked selves. They feared the torment of fire ; they did not feel the corruption and degradation of being sinful. So when such as these heard the Gospel, and were told that if they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ they would be saved, it did not reach them as a message: of Divine love and ANTINOMIANISM 157 mercy, but as a mere escape from punishment ; and so they saw in it a delightfully easy way of going on in their sins and escaping the penalty. What was the use, asked they, of taking the trouble to control their passions and of living in a sober and righteous way, if the death of Christ atoned for their sins and his righteousness covered all their im- purities and defects in the judgment day? " Shall we not sin that grace may abound ? Shall we not continue in sin because we are no longer under the law, but under grace? " These were the Antinomians, as they are called, of St. Paul's time, and he had no little difficulty with them. For they never could understand that the Gospel message was a message of the love of God to them, and that the object of it was to win them from the love of sin, to cleanse them from all iniquity. Precisely the same thing occurs to-day in regard to the higher Gospel of Theism. I do not mean to say that any professing Theist says or thinks or feels, "Let us sin that grace may abound," or anything equivalent to it. There may be such, but I have never seen or heard of them. But it is said by our opponents for imaginary Theists ; it is put, as it were, into our mouths as the logical thing to say, "if all men are to be saved at last, why trouble ourselves to fight against sin now ? " Now, our answer to them is, You do not understand our message. You do not see that it is a message of the infinite love of God to a sinful world ; you do not, by experience, know the elevating and transforming power which lies in really believing that God is our Father and everlasting Friend. In the first place you do not understand our message in regard to sin and its punishment. We do not come to sinners promising them the smallest immunity for any wilful sin. We do not say there is to be no punishment because the punishment is not to be everlasting ; we say there must be punishment, not merely to torment, though it will tor- ment, but to correct, to reform and to cleanse you. From this there is no escape God be thanked ! We have, it is true, no schemes of atonement or substitution. Every man must bear his own burden and pay to the last farthing the debt of 158 PUNISHMENT INEVITABLE penalty for his misdeeds. His plea before the judgment seat must be his own. He cannot screen his defects and im- purities beneath the robe of imputed righteousness. His one offering to Almighty Justice must be his own " broken and contrite heart," and the surrender of his will to the will of his loving Father, and nothing else. As he puts off, one by one, his evil deeds and gross desires, and puts on the deeds of righteousness, he shall come nearer and nearer into light and truth, shall see more and more of God, shall feel more and more His everlasting love. He must be his own saviour from his own sin ; and it will rest with himself how long or devious or painful the road shall be from darkness to light, from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. But while we say it shall rest with himself, and that he must be his own saviour, we tell him this likewise for his hope and comfort : The grace of God is ever nigh to all who feel their weakness and their need. God is full of compassion and mercy, and will not break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax ; but gently lifts up those that are cast down, and fans into a flame the smouldering embers of holy resolve. He bids us do our best, that we may strengthen within us those faculties for goodness which are already there ; but He bids us also seek His grace and the sweet influences of His Spirit, that in waiting upon the Lord " we may renew our strength, and run and not be weary, may walk and not faint." Yet in this arduous and tremendous conflict with temptations with- out and weakness within, many and many a soul would break down in sheer despair of victory, if we had no certainty, not even a strong hope, of ultimate success ; our hearts could not stand the enterprise, our courage would give way, and every fall would leave us more helpless than before. To prevent this collapse, to make patience and perseverance possible to us, God whispers the needed word of hope, the promise of final success. And this He gives by opening our eyes to see His infinite and inexhaustible love ; by enabling us to see that out of His love alone were we ever born into His world, and for the sole satisfaction of His love are we preserved and disciplined and chastened by so much sorrow and conflict with sin. He tells us we were born to be BLEMISHES IN THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST 159 good, to grow up at length into His likeness, abhorring evil and loving goodness, being good from a deliberate choice of it, not from an incapacity to be otherwise. He tells us that the path of life leads to Himself, and that path we may make short or long, smooth or rough, blissful or baneful, as we please ; but whatever be our errors, our wanderings, our criminal sloth or slumber, our falls and our entanglements, we must reach Him at last. There shall be none lost, none for ever cut off from finding Him, none too weak or faint but what He will breathe anew into their souls the breath of life. " Work out your own salvation, for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of His good pleasure." This truth once grasped and felt is enough to rekindle hope in the despairing breast, and to fill with high courage the heart of the most faint. This assurance of the ever- lasting and triumphant love of God is the means whereby we are saved from our own sinfulness and from that dread- ful Antinomianism of which we have been speaking. There is nothing selfish about it ; fear of hell never enters the breast ; dread of God's vengeance in any shape disturbs not the soul of him who is listening to the message of the love of God, who is being taught to know why he was born and to what destiny he is consecrated. And I think we have a right to say that our Theistic faith and hope give far less encouragement to Antinomianism than the " Gospel of Christ," even in its least erroneous aspects. For while we have admitted that wherever it was accepted as a message of God's love to the sinful soul, it wrought a beautiful and holy change in the heart and life, we must not forget that some of its essential features were, if not absolutely demoralising, certainly not at all elevating. To wit : the appeal to a craven fear, the appeal to self-interest, was itself a deep blemish ; a*hd if the Gospel had begun and ended in that alone, it would have done nothing to reform the inward character. Then there was the promise of escape from punishment, a most pernicious and deadly doctrine, seeing that, in the first place, it was untrue in fact, and secondly, that it led sinners to be more glad and thankful for their escape from hell, and far less so for the hope of 160 THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST DISHONOURS GOD being morally reformed. Further, the doctrine of imputed righteousness was, in so far as it was realised, a logical dis- couragement to the cultivation of virtue. The converted sinner is told, again and again, that all his efforts to be righteous before God are not only of no avail, but are dis- pleasing to God and an insult to Christ, and will only imperil his safety at the last. And the whole scheme of salvation by the death and sufferings of Christ, when fully seen and carefully weighed, comes to view as a glaring stain and blot on the pure righteousness of God, and really clouds and disfigures His free and gracious love. We see in it His love purchased, and His justice lulled to sleep, by the bribe on Calvary : we see God standing on His own rights like grasp- ing men, and refusing to abate one grain of His pound of flesh. We see Christ more kind than God giving up every- thing, even to life itself, to save the lost. How the true love of God ever pierced through all these fogs and vapours, and shone into human hearts at all, must ever surprise us. It is only a fresh proof of the enormous power of His love that, disguised in such a form, and hampered by such a terrible and horrible admixture of falsehoods, the dim and distorted ray of it was still enough to save the sinner from his own vileness, and to give him newness of life. To many, however, in those days of its early proclama- tion, it was an object of aversion. St. Paul himself confesses that " to the Jews it was a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness." To the Jews it was an unheard-of horror to find their own countrymen proclaiming again a God who delighted in human sacrifice. They who had with so much difficulty been kept from the murderous rites of Canaanitish worship, whose elaborate system of sacrifices of sheep and oxen were only appointed by the Lawgiver in order to prevent his people from offering to Jenovah their sons and their daughters as the Moabites offered them to Moloch they were horrified to hear from the lips of Jews that God had appointed and had accepted a human sacrifice as the propitiation for sin This, indeed, was a stumbling-block, which caused them to turn from the Gospel with detestation and horror. And to the Greeks, it was foolishness. In many respects it was their LOVE TO GOD THE ONLY PURIFYING POWER 161 own old mythology over again, a mythology which not one of their great philosophers believed, which some of them openly derided, and paid for their temerity by a martyr's death. Foolishness, contemptible indeed, by the side of the wisdom of Socrates, Plato, and Epictetus ! But the aversion on the part of Jews and Greeks proves afresh what I have so often declared, viz., that the Gospel of Christ could not make any way among those who were already occupied with a higher and nobler conception of God than that offered to them in the Gospel. It was good and good only for a much lower and baser sort, of which there was no lack in the Empire ; the Antinomians being evidence enough that there were some so base that they accepted the Gospel, and believed in the atonement by Christ, in order that they might go on in their filthy ways with impunity, because by his death the punish- ment of hell was to be evaded. The doctrine of hell, on which the whole Gospel is built, is fast fading out of general belief ; but it is not yet by any means destroyed, and there are already signs of its revival, here and there, among orthodox preachers. There will be more danger of Antinomianism than ever now, if the world of professing Christians take no pains to teach in its place the true doctrine of the love of God, and all that it involves. We all know well enough what we ought to do. The difficulty only lies in our unwillingness to do it, and in the lack of motive strong enough to urge us to it. The only power which can purge our hearts of the love of sin is the love of God, love to Him kindled by His love to us. When we have our hearts fixed on Him in gratitude for life, filled with trust in Him for all men everywhere and for all time to come, and perfect love and adoration of Him for His goodness, the idea of sin is distressing to us, we not only shun but loathe it, and at the bare suggestion of presuming on such love, we exclaim with St. Paul, " God forbid ! " Oh, let it not be ! " Let us not sin that grace may abound." Let not such shameful aggravation of all the sad past be ours ; let not such inhuman ingratitude disgrace us : let not such madness as this pervert and distort all our manliness ! It was this which led the author of the 19th Psalm, after 11 162 IT PENETRATES THE SECRETS OF THE HEART dwelling in rapture on the beauty of God's law, to pray, " O cleanse Thou me from my secret faults. Keep back Thy servant also from presumptuous sins, lest they get the dominion over me. So shall I be undefiled and innocent from the great offence. Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be alway acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength, and my Redeemer." CHAPTEE XX. THE OMNIPRESENCE OP GOD. ISAIAH Ivii. 15 : " THUS SAITH THE HIGH AND LOFTY ONE THAT INHABITBTH ETERNITY, WHOSE NAME IS HOLY ; I DWELL IN THE HIGH AND HOLY PLACE AND WITH HIM ALSO THAT IS OP A CONTBITE AND HUMBLE SPIRIT, TO REVIVE THE SPIRIT OP THE HUMBLE, AND TO REVIVE THE HEART OP THE CONTRITE ONES." AN instinct of piety leads us to cherish with a fond delight the words of prayer and praise which most readily express for us our religious emotions. We even guard them with a tenderness and scrupulous care bordering on a perilous veneration. It jars upon our ears when they are altered or paraphrased. We like them to stand in the exact form in which they have become familiar and dear to us. All this is quite natural and but little open to censure. Still there lurks a danger in this extreme reverence for the form of words, and that danger I feel it to be my duty to point out. If I confine myself to one instance of this, it is because it seems to me more important than almost any other; and if we learn to be on our guard here, we shall readily apply the same caution in using other forms of religious expression. The words which I take for illustration are none other than the first six words of what is called " The Lord's Prayer" "Our Father which art in heaven." These words, I need not remind you, were in use in the prayers of the Jewish Synagogue fifty years before Christ was born. The name "Father in heaven" seems to have been a favourite one with Jesus at an early period in his ministry, as it is found repeated in the Sermon on the Mount no less than seven times and in other places seven times. Strange to say, we do not find it elsewhere at all in the rest of the four Gospels. The phrase originated at a time when the word "heaven" was understood to mean God's abode above the sky ; a place where He lived in unutterable glory, surrounded by angels, 163 164 THE IDEA OF AN ABSENT GOD and from which He looked down upon the earth and the children of men. In those days, although God was believed to know everything that was going on and knew even the secret thoughts and purposes of men's hearts, He was believed to be really located at a distance over our heads above the clear blue sky, which was thought to be a solid canopy and was called the Firmament. Nor was that idea of God's abode above the_sky altogether foolish ; for they did not know that the Earth was a revolving globe, or that the sky over their heads in the daytime was beneath their feet at night. They had no knowledge to correct the impression that God was living in that region from whence came the light and the winds and the rain, in or above the sky. Hence God was believed to be an absent God, living in heaven and looking down upon the earth, and being obliged to send angels or messengers to make known to men His purposes and behests. And this conception of God especially prevailed in the century before Christ and at the time in which he was born. The expression " Our Father which art in heaven ?> was therefore perfectly natural and moreover was quite accurate as conveying their real thought. In many parts of the Gospels, this thought of God being absent in a place called Heaven crops out in the words of Jesus, but in none more strikingly than when he is promising to send the Holy Ghost to his disciples : he says, in the plainest prose, "If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you : but if I depart I will send him unto you. I will pray the Father for you and He shall give you another Comforter whom He will send in my name. I came forth from the Father, and now I leave the world and go to my Father. Yet a little while and ye shall not see me because I go to the Father." All these and many more passages which might be quoted, including his prediction of coming from heaven in the clouds with his angels, and also his declaration " Hereafter shall ye see the heavens opened and the son of man sitting at the right hand of God " ; all these passages show the material ideas of God and of God's abode in heaven which possessed the mind of Jesus himself and his contemporaries, and convey the false idea of an absent God. SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL CONTRASTED 165 And we, in this twentieth century, calling ourselves enlightened and even scientific people, cannot afford to scoff at those materialistic ideas of Jesus ; for the taint of the old error still clings to us. We were brought up in it, we drank it in with our mothers' milk ; " Our Father which art in heaven " were the first words of prayer we were taught to lisp : and all through our lives, our religious expressions have helped to deepen that first false impression of God's distance from us, and it is only with difficulty that any of us have been able to shake it off and to realise the constant universal and close presence of God with us all here on earth. Now I do not propose, or wish, to discard those familiar but deeply misleading expressions of devotion ; all I desire is to guard ourselves, as soon and as effectually as we can, from the errors of thought and feeling to which these venerated expressions give rise. The two terms "material" and "spiritual" are highly convenient to represent two distinct and opposite trains of thought in things pertaining to God. And I think it will greatly aid us in getting rid of the erroneous impressions to which we are all more or less subject, if I bring into contrast some notable examples of material and spiritual ideas. With- out stopping to determine the exact age of the Decalogue which is still under dispute we may regard it as a tolerably early expression of religious ideas among the Israelites. It is remarkable for a high degree of spirituality, very lofty indeed when compared with that of other nations. The second com- mandment, which is against idolatry, forbids the likening of God to anything whatever either in the heavens above or in the earth beneath or in the waters. This is a protest for all time against anthropomorphism, against the idea that God is only a magnified man. Nevertheless it is directly con- tradicted by the words of an Apostle: "In Jesus dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," and by the words of Jesus himself, " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." The best and purest man that ever breathed is no true re- presentation of the ineffable God of "the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity and whose Name is holy." In the words of Jesus and his Apostle we have a type of the material ideas which we are contrasting with the spiritual 166 HEBREW RELIGION INTENSELY SPIRITUAL ideas of the Decalogue. The prophets of Israel said so much on the side of the spiritual that it is impossible to quote all that would illustrate it : it may be summed up in that often repeated question, "To whom then will ye liken Me? saith the Lord." They denounced idolatry on the sole ground that it was an acted falsehood ; and they proved it to be a falsehood, on the ground that nothing in the whole Universe was worthy to be counted as God's image or likeness. But all that, however valuable and true, was didactic ; was con- fined to the intellectual realm of theology. If we want to discern the real spirituality of their thought and feeling we must see how they prayed and how they gave thanks to the living God. And here in the Book of Psalms, not without great blemishes and some material ideas, we find the highest and purest spirituality. The intense nearness of God to their souls, their loving, grateful and adoring sense of His presence, their joy in His sovereign rule over the world and perpetual care of His creation, their delight in setting God always before them, the comfort of the conviction that He was with them day and night, by the green pastures and in the valley of the shadow of death, the bringing to Him not only all their cares and sorrows, but their failures and sins, pour- ing out their hearts before Him and showing Him of their trouble, asking with broken spirits and contrite hearts for His merciful correction and His cleansing chastisement, their constant sense of His nearness and fatherly love and watchfulness all these features, I say, place the Psalms as a book by itself in the literature of the world, as the most truly spiritually-minded product of human thought and piety. There is no parallel to it anywhere ; certainly never in the New Testament, which localises not only a heaven where God dwells apart from men, but a Hell of quenchless flame prepared for the Devil and his angels and likewise for a vast number of lost souls. There is no thanksgiving ascribed to Jesus which is not painful to read. What his private prayers were we are not told ; the longest and most important of his recorded prayers, in company with his disciples just be- fore his death, definitely repudiates his supposed love for the world : "I pray for my disciples : I pray NOT for the world." ERRORS ARISING FROM LOCALISING GOD 167 But there is yet another form in which materialistic ideas are to be found, even in the Book of Psalms. It is the location of God to some particular place or temple, which is called repeatedly the Lord's House and the Lord's dwelling place. Mount Zion was thus designated and the Temple which stood thereon, and most of all the Ark of the Covenant which the Temple enshrined. This again was natural, but it was also wrong and greatly misleading. It was not one whit less wrong in the Jews than it was in the Samaritans who affirmed that God's dwelling place was on Mount Gerizim. It is to the great credit of Jesus that he denounced both. " The hour cometh when ye shall worship the Father neither on Mount Zion nor on Mount Gerizim, but shall worship Him in spirit and in truth." We have the idea still lingering in our speech, if not in our thoughts, that churches and chapels are houses of God in which He is more present than anywhere else. But we are apt to forget that this is only because we pray to Him and praise Him there. The revival of Sacramentalism is a glaring instance of the return to those materialistic ideas and is designed purposely to give them fresh force and emphasis, and the pernicious effect is seen not merely in the idolatrous worship offered to the Bread and Wine which are supposed to be changed into the Body and Blood of Christ, but worse still in the deep hostility to all Dissenters, who worship the same Christ in chapels of their own without any mystical sacramental theories and without any sacerdotal priesthood. And if the materialistic idea be true, it necessitates that hostility and necessitates the view that Dissent and Schism are the worst of all sins. Let us not then be carried away by our words and feelings of reverence for the place of our worship into the foolish idea that God is any more here than in our homes and in the street. We have to fight continually with the tendency to materialise and localise God. We have to be perpetually on our guard, lest our very words of piety should mislead us. An absent God, even though we may call Him " Our Father in heaven," is a false idea and must not be tolerated for a moment by any one who wishes to be spiritually minded and to be guarded from the mischiefs which always arise from 168 TESTIMONY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT erroneous thought. And here I might quote with advantage some passages from the Old Testament which show that this danger was perceived and felt in very ancient times : When Jacob was on the eve of meeting with Esau his brother, whose anger and revenge he was dreading, he lay down to sleep and dreamed that he saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. But when he awoke, he said, " Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not, and I was afraid and said, How dreadful is this place ! This is none other but the house of God and the gate of heaven." When Joseph was cast into prison, it is stated that " the Lord was with Joseph in the prison." To Abraham God promised to be with him. In answer to the prayer of Moses, " If Thy presence go not with me, carry us not up hence," God answers, "Surely I will be with thee." At the Dedication of Solomon's Temple, the King says in his sublime prayer: "But will God indeed dwell on the earth ? Behold the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee : how much less this house that I have builded." In Isaiah we read the words chosen for my text, "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity, whose Name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, but with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." And lastly, I will quote from the 139th Psalm, ' ' Thou art about my path and about my bed. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand upon me. WTiither shall I go then from Thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there : if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utter- most parts of the sea ; even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me." The spiritual conception of God has been beautifully expressed by one of our modern poets : Tennyson says, " Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and Spirit with spirit can meet Closer is He than breathing, and nearer Than hands and feet." BELIEF IN THE OMNIPRESENCE 169 Now tliis is sound Theology, according likewise with true Science. Yet it is not on that account only that it is so im- portant for us to know and believe. Why it is so important is because the belief in God's nearness and constant presence with us is a source both of purity and of peace. From that habitual consciousness and intense feeling that He is with us grows all our deepest sense of the beauty of holiness and of the debasement and vileness of sin. " Thou, God, seest me," first spoken as a consolation by a deserted and outcast mother her child at her feet lay dying for want of water " Thou, God, seest me," was her one last hope. And so it may be for each one of us in our dire extremity of care and sorrow. Yet the words ought not to be left idle and dumb, till the heart's woe bring them to our remembrance. They should be with us night and day to guard us from danger far worse than any that could happen to our frail bodies. We should live in such consciousness of the presence of God as to drive out every evil wish and purpose which may displease and dishonour Him. We should live in such consciousness of His presence as to fill our hearts with all holy desires, all good counsels, and to occupy our hands with all just works. Then we shall have a right and also have the power to make His presence a comfort in our sorrow and our refuge in every time of trouble. But not else. Unless we are at heart de- voted to Him and His good laws, we shall find ourselves debarred from the comforts of His presence when we need it most. Moreover, our very failures and sins shall not hide His face from us, if only we are truly sorry for them, if only we are humble and contrite, if we hate the sins which we deplore, and long to do better in time to come ; then, sinful though we may be, He will dwell with us still and light up all our darkness, His holiness shall not be hidden from us by sin which is repented of, by faults which we humbly con- fess with contrite hearts. So He indeed is not only Father of our souls, but the true Friend of sinners, truest Friend to every one painfully conscious of his own sin and longing and striving to be rid of it. One word more on the phrase "Which art in heaven." Of course God is in heaven. It is quite true. But only 170 GOD IN HEAVEN BECAUSE EVERYWHERE ELSE because He is on earth and within ourselves and everywhere else likewise. The thought of Him in heaven, in the heaven above and in the heaven beneath and all around us, will do us no harm nor mislead us if only we discipline our minds to remember His close and constant presence with us here and now. We may also try to accustom ourselves to the phrase as meaning His infinite superiority to any human father, that His wisdom is greater and His love is greater than any that can be found on earth and among men. Then it will not hurt or mislead us. But whatever else we do, let us never believe in an absent God, let us hold fast to the spiritual conception of an omnipresent God and to the conviction of His tender nearness to us and perfect accessibility to the feeblest wail of His suffering sinful child. Incarnations and mediators and priesthoods and infallible Books and Churches will then have no more interest for us than old lumber, to be put out of sight or burned as soon as may be. Living with God and in the Sunshine of His presence, we shall need no- other God beside Him, no other Saviour from our weak and sinful selves. " God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble." "The Lord of hosts is with us,, the God of Jacob is our refuge." CHAPTEE XXI. THE UNCERTAINTIES OF LIFE. Preached at the Theistic Church, 29th June, 1902, immediately after the King's sudden illness. MATTHEW xxvi. 44 : " THY WILL BE DONE." AN old proverb, even more familiar to us in the French language than in our own, says, " Man proposes, but God disposes." It is quoted by Thomas a Kempis in the Imitatio, but is far more ancient than that. We read in the Book of Proverbs "A man's heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps." We know how true it is. Every one, even little children as well as grown men and women have experienced often in their lives this frustration of their purposes, this disappointing of their fondest hopes. So often is this felt that it becomes a matter of wonder why we go on planning and forming schemes for ourselves with a confi- dence not at all justified by actual experience. We rarely learn the lesson of repeated failure, and, with every fresh hope or expectation, we nearly always forget that the issue does not and cannot entirely depend upon ourselves. In regard to mere expectations over matters which only slightly affect our personal interests, surprises constantly occur, events which seemed certain to happen are shunted at the last moment and the real issue is the opposite of what we so confidently foresaw. In many cases this is a surprise and nothing more. But in those matters where our hopes and wishes are paramount, when it seems almost a matter of life and death to us to gain what we desire or to avert what we dread, disappointment is a source of keen regret and even of misery. Our attention to such unexpected issues has been severely called by the events of the past week. The hearts of the whole nation and empire were beating high with hopes of celebrating one of the grandest spectacles of earthly 171 172 EXPECTATIONS SUDDENLY CRUSHED splendour in the Coronation of King Edward the Seventh. Princes, Potentates, and Ambassadors from every part of the civilised world came flocking to this Metropolis to share our gladness and pay homage to the august Ruler of our vast empire. No expense has been spared to perfect a dis- play of costly ceremonial that was to eclipse every historical precedent. Preparations were made which necessarily in- volved almost the paralysis of ordinary business and even made regular traffic and locomotion difficult, if not impossible. Not within the memory of the oldest Englishman was such a sight seen, or such a pageant dreamed of, as that which our great city was to witness on the Coronation Day. Thus man proposes but God disposes. In a few short hours the bright dream vanished. By no miracle, but by the steady irresistible working of natural laws, the King was struck down in the climax of diseased conditions at the very moment when perfect health was the one essential condition upon which all the high and gorgeous ceremonial depended. Utterly disabled, he was laid upon the bed of sickness, sub- jected to an operation attended with great danger, and became a helpless subject of unselfish distress and sympathetic disappointment. And we all know without being told, how keenly he must have felt for the Queen who was to share the honours and glories of the day, for all his subjects who would be dismayed and even scared by the dreadful tidings, and for the Royal and noble personages whom he had invited as guests to share in our national rejoicings. The sorrows of the King's mind must have made him almost forget his bodily sufferings. Yet all this deep and distressing dis- appointment loses its power to sting and to crush when we see in it only the Hand of God, not an accident or chance coincidence, but a part of God's own plan, a necessary link in the chain of Providence, an event certain to come in God's own way and in God's own time and absolutely according to His will. And to feel this is a great mercy and wonderful relief. Think how horrible it would have been if the disaster for it is a disaster had been traceable to human careless- ness or malice, or to the King's own fault ! We cannot but be thankful that it is so absolutely proved to be the act of "MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES" 173 God Himself working through natural laws. But then this blessed consolation can only be felt and enjoyed by those who know that God is loving, and that in His perfect wisdom, perfect love, He sees and does only what is really best ; in this case, therefore, best for the King himself, best for his distressed and anxious wife and children, and best for all of us. God is too wise to make a mistake ; too loving to be really unkind. Thus " Man proposes, but God disposes." Let us try to make a more particular and practical application of this to ourselves and our common life. With many of our lives the proposed issue lies still before us. With the minority, the issue is already closed. Most of us have followed that call- ing in life which we chose at first. We have had an average of prosperity in it, or we have had more, or possibly have broken down and failed altogether. Numberless second causes have gone to make the chain of events ; human calculation and human endeavour of both sorts, good and evil, have been working their hidden way to bring about the issue. Probably success or failure lay wholly within the range of human responsibility ; but quite as probably it did not. Circumstances entirely beyond our control may have given the turn to our tide of fortune and it may be permitted us to feel that an unseen Hand has ruled and over-ruled every event which at the time seemed to us so natural and so inevitable. And then we have looked forward in our youth to the bright days of courtship and marriage. Some of us have indeed had all we looked for and hoped for ; while others have had far less or only reaped dust and ashes. Our children fill us with expectations and hopes and fears, occupy our sleepless brains with schemes for their welfare or their protection from danger. They grow up under our very eyes, beneath the same roof, impartially loved and cared for ; and yet how differently they turn out in faculties and in tastes, in temperament and in character ; some prosper, some fail. "Man proposes, but God disposes" is proved from day to day and can only be explained by the belief that He wants every individual soul as He made it and not as we think it ought to be, or as we would have made it, if we could. 174 THE NOBLEST ENDEAVOURS OFTEN FAIL Then again in the sphere of our work, for the most part it is true and very encouraging to remember that God does bless with success the good work we undertake for His sake and for our fellow-men if we do our part wisely and well. But it is not always so. We have no right to reckon upon the grand results for which we hope, nor even upon the permanence of those resources which are essential to the performance of the work itself. It pleases God sometimes to allow our best efforts to be thwarted and our good work to come to an end. Yet He knows best what is wanted ; and the honest worker never fails of the high reward of knowing that he has done his best. No failure in results could possibly mar the benefit to his own character which he has gained by faithful effort. Even in the noblest careers of life we sometimes see the highest aims frustrated. In Christian mythology we see the life of Christ ending on a Calvary ; in Pagan mythology, Prometheus, the friend and saviour of mankind, bound to the Caucasian rock. These are but types of hundreds of lives wherein the expectancy of a crude justice is thwarted by the tyranny of events. The Hebrew prophet foretelling the mission and destiny of Israel, said " He shall see of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied," a promise not even yet fulfilled after 2,500 years. "Man proposes, but God disposes." "We know not what shall be on the morrow." Thank God we do not ! But it is the part of a decently wise man to remember the fact and not to reckon upon anything as a certainty, even for a day in advance except the sunrise on the morrow which he may not live to see. And now we are approaching the main thought I wish to set before you to-day : What ought to be our habitual feeling and practice in regard to all proposals, expectations, wishes and fears ? We have to depend so much on our own efforts : and yet we have to be mindful that the issue is not absolutely in our own hands. We men fall easily into one or other of two mistakes, making too much of having our own way, forgetting that a Higher and Better Will than ours holds the issue ; on the other hand, being so impressed with the uncertainty of the issue as to paralyse effort and SELF-RELIANCE TEMPERED WITH SUBMISSION 175 to plunge us into sheer fatalism. In this country there is little danger of the second error. Englishmen are by nature self-reliant and need very little stimulant to exertion. If they want anything in earnest, they set about with great energy to secure it. Their skill may be clumsy, their re- sources inadequately searched and tested; but there is no mistake about their indomitable energy and perseverance in the pursuit of any object of desire. They leave as little as they can to Providence and pay much more attention to the condition of their gunpowder than to Divine protection. Yet it would be well for them not to forget those ancient words : " The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord;" or again, "The way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps," a truth always difficult to learn, because it is hum- bling to a man's pride to be reminded of a Power and Will above his own which can break him like a reed. The better spirit is to remember that "the Lord ordereth a good man's going and rnaketh his way acceptable to Himself." What we all need to be reminded of and to learn is that in all our plans, wishes, fears, we have to reckon with One who is the supreme Ruler of the world, the great Disposer of events. We need to fix our eyes upon Him now and then in this aspect alone, so as to be always conscious that this Divine function is never dropped. It is always there and active, never exercised by caprice or partiality, not by fits and starts, not by miraculous interference, but by ceaseless uniform succession of sequences, the uniformity and the righteousness of which is always seen by Him, but cannot always be seen by us. We need to understand God as the real Ruler of our lives and fortunes, the personal Giver and Withholder of all things in the universe, as the Lord and Giver of life in whom our breath is, the Giver of all gifts which are avail- able at all for any purpose whatever, and therefore as the WILL which ordains your lot and my lot and the lot and destiny of every creature that He has made and sent here to work, to enjoy, to suffer, and to die. Of the marvellous comfort there is to be got out of this 176 WE HAVE NOTHING WE CAN CALL OUR OWN thought I may speak later on ; I am now concerned chiefly with the fact and the proof of it continually before us. Our lives are almost infinitely varied in detail : but one likeness runs through them all, that to a large extent events are placed within our own control : but over and above that, there is the resistless will of One who, " watching over us, neither slumbers nor sleeps." In His hands are the issues of life and death and of all that lies between them. We need to learn at the outset that we have nothing that we can rightly call our own. Everything is lent to us for proper use. Even our very self, the immortal soul to which God has given life and consciousness, is not our own in a sense so true as it is His. And if not even our soul be truly ours, much less is the body we inhabit, and the various faculties wherewith we have been endowed. Our little tether of freedom which we call our will and within which we have rights conceded to us by the Gracious Giver, is not ours to exercise with absolute licence, but only to bring into harmony with the most high and only perfect Will of Him from whom we received it. " Our wills are ours to make them Thine." Still more obviously it is true that all earthly possessions, rights, privileges do not belong to us absolutely, everything belongs to God and is to be enjoyed and used only for the purposes for which they were bestowed. We are but stewards of a property which is not our own and which at any time we may be called on to restore. Rising higher in the scale of such possessions are the priceless treasures of domestic life. There are our parents, who, when we are very young, seem to us immortal and given only for our special comfort and protection. Husband and wife gaze into each other's eyes and the thought seldom crosses their minds that they do not really belong to each other, but are only blessed companions lent the one to the other for the noblest of uses by an Owner whose will may at any time claim one of them for a higher life and for other uses in the unseen world beyond. Fathers and mothers, doting on their children, should never forget that they are GOD IS RESPONSIBLE FOE THE RESULTS 177 but lent to them for a season ; that they have no absolute rights of property in them and that it is unjust to complain when the real owner, the Eternal Father, calls them to their eternal home. It is the same with all our hopes and desires and expec- tations. We have no right to dictate to Him how much fruition we are to enjoy ; how little disappointment we are to be called upon to bear. In our eagerness to have our own way, we blind ourselves to possible results : we do not see the gigantic mischief which might arise out of the gratifica- tion of desires bred out of a profound and hopeless ignorance of the future. If our desires be ever so pure, our aims ever so lofty, this gives us no right to have what we long for or expect. A longer foresight, a deeper wisdom and a more infallible goodness than ours have and ought to have the ruling of the issue. It is only common sense to leave the issue in the hands of One who knows best, who is too wise to make a mistake and too good to be unkind. Yet this sub- mission to the Divine Will does not abate a single effort to attain our end. The call of duty is as loud and paramount as before. We bend all our energy and strength to gain the end put before us, and in the doing of it we find our great reward, whether we seem to fail or not. We do our part at least, but we cheerfully leave the results in God's hands to bless or to blast our work as it may please Him. And after all, this is the spirit in which the best work of the world has ever been done. The workers were always responsible for doing their manifest Duty. They were never responsible for what would come of it. They wrought, believing it to be God's will that they should work. As it was His business and not theirs, He was responsible for the consequences and not they. And this principle applies to all the rest of life, not only to its work, but to its pleasures and privileges. We may enjoy those to the full, conscious that we are, in our very pleasure, doing the Will of God : but ready at any moment to relinquish those pleasures and to exchange them for toil and trouble and loss at His bidding. But alas, how many 12 178 THE ILLICIT CIRCLE WE DRAW AROUND US there are who call themselves religious, and who are religious up to a certain point, who nevertheless both feel and act in a spirit the direct opposite to that of true religion. They draw a circle around them of greater or less radius according to their circumstances and temperament ; outside that circle, they say to themselves, God may do what He likes ; they will submit without murmuring to whatever He may ap- point; outside that circle they say, "God's will be done." But inside that circle He may not, He must not come. The very shadow of His approach within the precincts of their seclusion is resented as a cruelty or at least an injustice. He must not thwart this or that dearest wish of our hearts. He must not drive in upon our sanctuary the rough forces of hostile invasion. This particular object of fear must not be allowed to fall upon us. That pet aversion must not be permitted to annoy us. This precious treasure must not be taken away or even tampered with. That life-long companion must be left with us undisturbed. This special form of success must not be marred. That particular kind of dis- grace must never be permitted. We are willing possibly to be ill, or to have an accident, or to die, but we refuse to live on to be a drivelling idiot and become a helpless log and crushing burden upon those we love. Far worse still is that exclusion of God from the secret will which obeys freely and gladly in some things, but not in all ; which still keeps back some cherished weakness or sin and will not give up what we know to be wrong or not quite right, something which we cannot do without feeling more or less sorry or ashamed of ourselves. There is always a something which we keep back from God ; and in so far as the folly can take expression it im- plores God to go away and not intrude into those recesses whereinto our senseless, furious wills have retreated. " Sense- less," I say, because it is stupid to treat God like that, to submit to His will so intelligently, so lovingly in many other things, and not to submit to Him in all. If He be worth trusting in anything, He is worth trusting in everything. If it be wise in us to acknowledge His superior wisdom and love, it is stupid ever to doubt it or to behave as if we were PEACE COMES WITH ABSOLUTE SURRENDER 179 wiser and more loving than He. If it be wise to obey Him in anything, it is stupid to disobey Him at all. If, then, we wish our hearts and lives to be perfectly happy in a world full of disenchantment, full of disappointment, full of uncertainties, crowded with objects of fear and with hopes .miserably based on fleeting sand, we must rub out that private circle which we drew around us vainly hoping to keep Him and His providence from meddling with our pet schemes and precious treasures ; we must break down every barrier between us and Him and welcome His coming into our sanctuary with a shout of thankfulness and joy. "It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good." When alone with Him and nothing left between Him and us to hide His love or to darken our soul, we can look up into His face and say " Thy will be done," from that day forth we shall live in realms of supreme happiness and find in Him our everlasting rest. " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." For every possible event, " through all the changing scenes of life," there will be an unbroken solace and comfort which will really lift us above all the disturbance and dust and noise of this lower life, and, in place of all that we have willingly surrendered of things perishable and things tem- poral, we shall have no less than the mighty God Himself for our portion ; He, with His Love and Glory, will fill all the empty spaces and the once dark corners in our hearts and we shall at last be satisfied with HIM and hunger no more nor thirst any more for pleasures and treasures that fade away. CHAPTEK XXII. SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. PSALM cxix. 75: "I KNOW, O LOBD, THAT THY JUDGMENTS ABB BIGHT, AND THAT THOU OP VEBY FAITHFULNESS HAST CAUSED ME TO BE TBODBLED." THE foregoing discourses suggest a fuller examination of the truths concerning sin and punishment in the light of common sense. We must remember how vast this subject is, and how impossible it would be to say everything about it in half an hour. We begin by noticing the enormous flood of errors and superstitions which have grown out of false and exaggerated notions of sin and punishment. We need not enumerate them, but, in passing, may wisely recall such errors as those concerning the Divine wrath against poor sinners, the fright- ful fears of everlasting torment or some future retribution, the necessity for propitiating God's infernal wrath, and the introduction of mediators and intercessors and sacrificing priests. Under various forms these errors have prevailed more or less among all races of mankind. The reason for this is that some basis of truth is at the bottom of the errors and superstitions. If we can dig out the truth from the mass of falsehood, it may help us to cast away the corrupting falsehood. Let us then first obtain a clear common-sense view of sin and its consequences. We do not need abstract definitions so much as a good insight into concrete facts. Whenever we sin, we know it; otherwise it is not sin. We may do a wrong to ourselves, to others, or to God, with- out knowing it at the time to be wrong. But so surely as we know it to be wrong and yet do it, then we sin, and we cannot sin in any other way. The immediate result, in a moral being, is the sense of shame, the sense of guilt, the feeling that we have broken some law of right which we ought to have kept, and this is more or less painful to 180 SIN PRODUCES A SENSE OF ALIENATION 181 the sinner. Discomfort, deepening to distress, according to various stages in our moral development, always accom- panies our commission of any sin . That is the law of our constitution as moral beings. In the next place, a sinful act which involves injury to another person at once begets estrangement, alienation, a desire to avoid meeting him, a dread of his displeasure, or a bold determination to meet his expected resentment with defiance. Sin, for the time being, destroys friendship, and between members of one family disturbs peace and drives out love. Here is a fresh condition of pain added already to the pain of self-reproach. And in the case of a religious person, for even religious persons sometimes sin, the greatest pain of all arises from the sense of alienation from God, a conviction that we have done some- thing to displease or distress Him, so that for a time we find it difficult to pray to Him, and quite impossible to come unto Him with joy and thanksgiving. We know we have put ourselves in the wrong more with God than with the brother whom we have injured. The sense of trespass against our fellow-man leads us to cry out with the Psalmist unto God, "Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." The sense of sin against God is so great as to obscure, for the time, the sense of sin against our fellow- man. Here then are three distinct painful consequences of sin, invariably following it at least in religious minds viz., self-reproach (i.e., the loss of self-respect) deepening into remorse ; the loss of harmony and love in our relations with each other, and the loss of peace and loving union with God. But these are not all the painful results. Sometimes, though not always, sin is followed by personal trouble or loss, physical evils of various kind, according to the nature of our sin, loss of health and cheerfulness, loss of property or friends, loss of reputation and esteem. If our sin come within the category of legal offences, we are punished by fine or by imprisonment. More often than not, sin is an expensive pursuit, and entails on the sinner himself more or less personal injury. A far worse consequence of sin is the injury done by it to others, not only by the act and its immediate conse- quences to the injured person, but also by the indirect results 182 FAR-REACHING CONSEQUENCES OF SIN of setting a bad example, generating evil habits, provoking bad temper and resentment, *hus greatly aggravating the one wrong act by spreading mischief far and wide ; and by our sin entailing misery upon our children and hosts of innocent beings. Our one sinful act is like the pebble thrown into the pool, after the first splash spreading the disturbance in ever- widening circles till they break upon the shore. Worst of all is the effect of sin upon our characters ; we can do ourselves no injury so deep and dangerous as by doing wrong. Sin is a kind of attempted suicide, worse than any attempt to kill our own body, for it is an attempt to kill the soul. One sin, unrepented of, and often repeated, is enough to ruin the moral nature. It weakens the will ; it beclouds the highest motives ; it gradually breaks down all the finer scruples, and at last the conscience ceases to feel the pangs of remorse, and sinks to an abyss far below the possibility of recovery here on earth. Through the infinite mercy of God, this stage is seldom reached ; but it too often happens that men sink many fathoms in immorality through persistent indulgence in some one besetting sin. It is known that any one of the three great passions of mankind, drink, lust, and greed, when once it becomes dominant, invariably breaks down the moral will in other directions too. Lying, theft, or cruelty, generally follow in the train of the vices of intemperance, covetousness and lust. Thus sin has the tendency, if not resisted, repented of and overcome, to deprave our manhood, to destroy our rights and privileges as moral beings, and gradually to reduce us far below the level of the beasts, whose worst unconscious acts of what we call rapine and cruelty are innocence itself compared with the habits of an utterly depraved man. And to all such, the way upward to true liie and manhood is inexpressibly hard. To all such the entrance of any true knowledge of God is fearfully difficult, if not impossible. The sinful state, in which a man is wholly given up to sin, not only prevents the light of God's truth and love shining upon his soul, but is the cause and source of all the degrading and pernicious errors and superstitions which abound. It is by wicked men, given over to wickedness, that SIN DEGRADES OUR IDEA OF GOD 183 the blasphemous libels against God were first invented and proclaimed. As a Psalmist dramatically describes God say- ing to such a man, " Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself, but I will reprove thee and set before thee the things that thou hast done." We make God in our own image. He makes us first in His image by giving us Reason, Conscience and Love. Then we defile and deface that divine image. By our sinful deeds and sinful desires freely indulged we rub out that celestial lineament and scrawl our debased caricature in its place ; so that when we come to look into the mirror to see what God is like, we behold a ghastly fiend instead of a loving Father's face, and the whole is a mass "of wounds and bruises and putrefying sores." We might have thought of God as the most beauti- ful, wise, holy and loving Being in the universe. But having tainted and befouled our souls, they had no other image of Him to reflect but that of their own foulness. As a Psalmist says, "With a froward man thou shalt be froward," i.e., seem to him like what he is. This is an awful punishment for sin, i.e., for sin encouraged, cherished, hugged ; yet it is not arbitrary, but inevitable ; not capriciously artificial, but natural, perfectly natural as are all other laws of natural evolution. As St. Paul says of some dreadfully debased people, " Knowing God they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing them- selves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to cor- ruptible man. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed for evermore." No one will deny that in the main rny contention is true, viz., that painful and even awful consequences usually follow upon sin unrepented of, unforsaken. Nor will any one be prepared to dispute that these consequences one and all are inevitable sequences the natural necessary results of sin, and not the arbitrary appointments of an irresponsible power. Still less will any one deny that these consequences are quite sufficiently alarming and awful without any further " revela- 184 NO BLAME TO GOD FOR GIVING US LIBERTY tion" or threat of tortures in endless Hell. The worst penalty a man can inflict upon himself is to degrade and befoul his own nature, to outrage his own Keason, to weaken or pervert his Conscience, and to drive out Love from his own heart. No hell described by Milton or painted by Martin can be anything a thousandth part so dreadful as to destroy one's own soul and to plunge it into the outer darkness where the Love of God never shines. Nevertheless, it is consistent with perfect justice and equity no less than with Divine mercy and love to allow the utmost limits of freedom to do good or to do evil, to choose good or to choose evil, without which no soul can take the first step in virtue, much less can ever rise unto the holiness and bliss for which God, in His love, has designed it. The moment you fetter that freedom, you make virtue impossible. When the conditions are such that we cannot do the evil we wish to do and yet still wish to do it, we are just as bad as if we had actually done it. We must give up our whole hearts to the Love of God and goodness freely or not at all. Then, if this be so, we ought not to reproach God for leaving men and women to the fullest exercise of their liberty in a wrong direction that by their own bitter experience they may see how stupid and blind they have been, that they may learn the folly as well as the wickedness of evil, that they may learn that all the pain and shame of it is their own fault, and that only by repentance and amendment can they rise out of the mire and clay and be lifted upon the rock of righteousness and peace. It is only of the infinite wisdom and love of God that those terrible words are true : " The wicked are like the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, unto the wicked." The fearful consequences of sin may be catted penal, but they are not vindictive. They are ordained to heal, not to destroy ; to bless and not to curse. By no theological fiction can revengeful wrath be proved against God. He may feel the emotions of sympathy and compassion for the self-in- flicted tortures of His sinful children ; but in no wise can He ever be angry with them, in our human sense of anger GOD'S PUNISHMENTS ARE REMEDIAL 185 and resentment. Hence we can see at once the entire false- ness of those views of sin and the Divine punishments which are at the root of the world-wide errors and superstitions to which I alluded at the outset of this chapter. If God be reasonable, just and persevering in His purposes of goodness towards us ; then it follows, first, that all the penal con- sequences are intrinsically beneficial, are in reality blessings sent to reclaim and to save the sinner. Secondly, it follows that whatever God ordains as the penal consequences of sin cannot be evaded without our own direst loss ; and as God's Love is the supreme and irresistible Law of the Universe, it cannot possibly be defeated, and no prayers or sacrifices or mediators or priests can ever turn Him from His good pur- pose in punishing sin, or abate from our penalty the utter- most farthing. But men have been for ever trying to escape the penal consequences of their sin, while Churches and priests have been compelled, for their very existence, to magnify and aggravate those penal consequences by pictures of lurid horror in everlasting torments. Unless they had done so, their pow.er over the people would have been lost. No one, not really afraid of eternal or very prolonged woe after death, would care to trouble himself to consult a priest or a book as to the best mode of escaping it. Therefore it has always been, and it still is, the interest of priestcraft to make and keep the laity in a state of perpetual dread of Divine retribution after death. Thus, too, they perpetuate and deepen the false impression that God's punishments can in some way be evaded by propitiation or atonement procured by some saviour, by masses, by sacraments, by confession and priestly absolution. And all this while not only is dishonour done to God by false representations of His wrath and judgments, not only is the soul thus separated further than ever from its only true Friend and Saviour, its loving and merciful Father, but the sinner is being blinded more than ever to the real penal consequences of sin, to the real divine ordination of healing and redeeming chastisement, and is thus morally injured by being prevented from gaining any benefit from those real punishments, and has his whole attention and anxiety fixed upon escaping 186 FEAR OF PUNISHMENT DEGRADING from imaginary punishments which God has never decreed at all. Still worse, here you have the moral character undergoing a deeper deterioration. Sin is not held up for horror and de- testation on its own account ; but to be dreaded and shunned only for the suffering that it will entail. Selfishness and self-regard are thus rooted in the mind of the sinner more than ever, and so long as he avoids sin only to escape punishment, he is just as wicked as ever at heart. He might almost be heard saying, "If I were only sure I should not go to hell, I would do as I like and sin with impunity, and with renewed satisfaction." Ask the orthodox Churches all round, and every one will tell you that they are Divine Institutions for escaping certain penalties decreed by God against sinners. This is the sole ground on which they were set up ; this is still the sole basis of genuine priestcraft. The sacrificing priest offering Christ on the altar, the baptising priest sprinkling water on an infant's brow, the absolving priest listening to the morbid confessions of a penitent, the autocratic priest claiming implicit and per- fect submission from his captive convert all these functions and others besides are utterly meaningless except as meant to be the appointed channels of salvation from an impending doom. The true idea of punishment for sin, the true idea of God's real loving Fatherhood and tender care for His sinful children, would upset that priestcraft, would not leave one stone of it standing on another which would not be thrown down. God's truth would grind it to powder. Such an issue seems, alas ! far enough off, but the time will come as surely as the walls of Jerusalem were laid in ruins by the armies of Titus. No doubt many a good Christian, and here and there some Anglican-Catholics, as they call themselves, are thinking what a grand retort they can make upon me by saying that they no longer believe or teach an Endless Hell. But that does not mitigate the fundamental lie that, although the penalties for sin are not endless, they are vindictive, not remedial. Now, if they put Purgatory in place of an Endless Hell, and if they plead that purgatory is remedial, and that by their Masses and Sacraments and Absolutions the sinner PRIESTLY ABSOLUTION V. GOD'S CLEANSING 187 can escape from the full measure of purgatory, they then offer an escape from part of that Divine discipline which is intended to heal and cleanse the sinner as much as to say, " If you do as we priests bid you, we can intercept and prevent the full benefit of the Divine discipline and deprive you of God's merciful means of a perfect purification. We can cut off some of the remedies which God sees to be neces- sary for your sanctification." They may play fast and loose as they please with texts, they may even be venturesome enough to deny that their " Lord and Saviour " ever taught the doctrine of never-ending Hell, yet none of them dare to deny that the penalties for sin laid down in the New Testament and in Church dogmas are vindictive, judicial, forensic, call them what you will, but meant and understood in the Uni- rersal Church for eighteen centuries to be decreed by God's wrath as punishments for sin over and above the natural evil and painful consequences. Calvary itself has no meaning, if there had been no curse against the race. The very cross of Christ is rooted in the jaws of Hell-fire. How vast is the work before us in the Theistic Church ! And yet how small and simple and strong is the weapon by which priestcraft will at length be slain. It is this truth : That God really loves all mankind alike, and will love them for ever ; that all His discipline and all His decrees and ordinances of inevitable sequence are all for love ; that His severest punishments are always to heal and restore, never to curse or destroy ; that He needs no baptism to transform little babes or grown up men and women into His children, or to save them from a wrath which He never for one moment felt ; and that all He wants of us is trust, not fear ; willing obedience, not trying to escape the consequences of our sin ; our hearts' love, not a craven dread of His discipline nor an idolatrous running after mediators and saviours and priests which have come between us and Him. And finally, if we are sinners and we all know it, while no one can tell if he be not the very chief of sinners if we are sinners, all He would have us do is to feel the shame and the godly sorrow which lead to true repentance and amendment, to run to Him and not to run away, to bring 188 ALL GOD REQUIRES IS A CONTRITE HEART all our guilt and our backslidings and pour out our broken hearts before Him, not to be screened from His judgments but to be blessed by them, not to escape the due reward for our misdeeds, but to learn to hate them and put them away, and do that which is righteous in His sight. " Make in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Then we may rise and go on our way rejoicing, feeling our- selves reconciled to Him, and His words of peace ringing in our hearts : "I will be merciful unto thine unrighteousness, and thy sins and thine iniquities will I remember no more." CHAPTEK XXIII. THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS. PSALM xxxii. 6 : "I SAID, I WILL CONFESS MY SINS UNTO THE LORD, AND SO THOU FORGAVEST THE INIQUITY OF MY SIN." OUR meditations on Sin and its Consequences will not be complete without a consideration of the subject of Forgive- ness. " The forgiveness of sins " is an item in the Christian Creeds in which all Christians express their belief. But it is not by any means an exclusively Christian phrase. It is as old at least as the days of the Psalmists and Prophets of Israel, and is sweetly exemplified in the story of Joseph and his brethren. We likewise believe in the forgiveness of sins but in a very different sense from that of the Christian. It will therefore be necessary at the very outset to define the term "forgiveness" as it is used in the Christian scheme of salvation, and afterwards as it is used and understood in the Theistic faith. Forgiveness, in the Christian sense, is the remission of a decreed punishment. Forgiveness, in the Theistic sense, is reconciliation with God, the restoration of the sense of harmony with Him which had been broken. Forgiveness, in the Christian sense, was not originated by the founders of Christianity, but inherited by them from the Jewish Levitical system which had overlaid and destroyed the idea of forgiveness set forth by the Psalmists and Prophets. Running through the Old Testament, especially in such books as Deuteronomy, we find the idea of forgiveness always to be that of escape from punishment. The system of rewards and punishments as incentives to moral action was never more pronounced. And why is this? Nothing can be more natural and reasonable. For the threats and promises are for the most part addressed to the nation as a whole, and obviously could have no reference to personal and individual 189 190 OLD TESTAMENT THREATS relations with God. As nations could only have a mundane existence, their prosperity or adversity could only be realised here on earth. God's promises to the nation were only for temporal good; His threatenings were only of temporal disaster. To take but one illustration, and that out of the Decalogue, the fifth commandment runs, "Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." Obviously it meant if the individuals of the nation were obedient and reverent to their parents, their national existence would be prolonged. And the converse would be true; a nation irreverent and lawless towards their parents would, as a consequence and as a punishment, be disinherited and de- prived of their country and national existence. All through the Old Testament runs the idea of national punishments for national and individual sins. And consequently Forgiveness could only mean escape from the threatened punishment. All this was essentially necessary. It was not only true but good. E.g., Jonah warned the people of Nineveh of their sins and of the punishment which awaited them if they did not repent. They did repent. Their punishment was not inflicted. Their city was not destroyed. They were for- given. The mistake arose among the Israelites how it originated does not concern us now of transferring this mundane idea of forgiveness to the personal relations between God and the individual soul. A man commits a trespass, to which is attached a legal penalty, e.g., being cut off from the congregation, but the law provides that by some offering or sacrifice the legal penalty will be remitted and the trans- gressor forgiven and restored to his rights and privileges as a citizen. All well and good for social and national purposes. But when a man, having committed a trespass, had his conscience accusing him of sinning against God, he would very naturally imagine that the offering or sacrifice whereby he escaped the legal mundane penalty would also pacify God and release him from his guilt. The spiritual ideas, if they ever existed, would soon be obliterated by the material process of judicial forgiveness. The trespasser would learn that God was appeased, as well as the priest and the law, if FORGIVENESS NOT REMISSION OF PENALTY 191 he only offered the appointed gift or victim for sacrifice. All this deepened the notion that forgiveness of sin was nothing else than the remission of the penalty ; and of course it could only end in one way, in making trespass more frequent, and in enticing the sinner to sin with impunity, so long as he had a lamb or a pigeon left to take to the priest. Gradually but completely it destroyed all true ideas of sin and its conse- quences; the system of rewards and punishments obscured the terrible wickedness of sin and made impossible the action of any higher motive for good conduct beyond that of self- interest and escape from punishment. The hands only were cleansed, and that for only a brief interval. The heart was left foul as ever, and always ready for fresh iniquity. No wonder, then, that the more spiritually minded among them rose up and made a mighty and indignant onslaught upon the whole system of sacrifices. They denounced it in the name of the Lord. They boldly declared that He had never ordained even the Temple ceremonies, much less the bloodshed of innocent birds and beasts, which turned the Court of the Lord's House into a shambles. The first Isaiah dramatises the Divine thought about these sacrifices in the following words : "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me ? saith the Lord : I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts : and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs or of goats. When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your hand to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations. Your incense is an abomination unto Me. Your new moons and your solemn feasts My soul hateth. They are an offence unto Me. I am weary to bear them. Wash you and make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek justice. Believe the oppressed. Judge the cause of the fatherless and plead for the widow." And Isaiah did not stand alone. Other prophets and psalmists uttered forth the same unsparing condemnation of a system which had so dishonoured and outraged God, and had so deeply degraded men. But mark what the cardinal and fundamental error really was. It was that the forgiveness of sin meant the 192 FALSE IDEA OF FORGIVENESS remission of punishment, the evasion of the penalties which it was thought God had decreed. Now this false idea passed wholesale into the Christian scheme. The New Testament is full of it. With some few bright and glowing exceptions, the parables of Jesus are stained with it. The Fourth Gospel has not one redeeming verse against it. The air of Judaea was saturated with it ; only by this time it had become poisoned with the noxious Babylonian ideas of Devils and Hell-Fire, which made the old Levitical paganism seem quite sweet and wholesome by comparison. Rewards and punishments and forgiveness in remission of penalty were bad enough in the old time ; but in the days of Christ, as recorded in the New Testament, they were a thousand times worse. And Christianity has borne the infection ever since. The sole power for evil exercised by the Church in its darkest ages was vested in that cardinal falsehood of the forgiveness of sins, universally understood to be the escape from Hell-Fire. Purgatory itself was invented to make more easy the application of the wiles of priestcraft. If you recall what I have said on the real, natural, inevitable consequences of sin, you will be able to see how wrong and mischievous it is to teach sinners that the punishments of God can be evaded, that it is wise to try to evade them, and how wrong it is to teach sinners that a man is ever the better for acting under the influence of hope for reward or through fear of punishment. Therefore it must seem to us the depth of folly as well as impiety to think of "forgiveness" in the Christian light as an escape from penalty and a remission of punishment. " Forgive- ness " if indeed we suffer ourselves to think about it at all must seem to us a very different thing altogether. And this I will now endeavour to set forth, drawing my impressions from personal experience and from the corroborative testi- mony of other souls. We shall find great help here in glancing at forgiveness between man and man. There is first the old natural forgiveness which consists in the remission of penalty. In the case of a debt, e.g,, it is common enough to remit the payment of it altogether. In the case of an injury or of RESENTMENT MAKES THE OFFENDER WORSE 193 an insult we can, and do, forgive the culprit by abstaining from legal prosecution, and so allowing him to escape his due punishment. These and other instances illustrate the old ideas of the Levitical and Christian schemes of the for- giveness of sins by God, which I have already condemned. But the occasions on which forgiveness is most commonly required are offences of various degrees between people who love one another, who live together at least in close in- tercourse, even when not bound by ties of blood. Offences always more or less produce estrangement, loss of esteem, loss of friendship, loss of harmony for the time being. On the part of the injured one an offence gives rise to resent- ment, to a feeling of anger, and a chilling, if not a freezing, of the affections. And sadly too often this coolness, this temporary aversion, makes the offender worse, delays his repentance, excites him possibly to further annoyance ; and the longer a reconciliation is delayed the more difficult and impossible it becomes. As we are told by an Apostle, " Let not the sun go down upon your wrath," and in the book of Proverbs, " The beginning of strife is as when one letting out water, therefore leave off contention before it be meddled with." " A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger." Certainly resentment, instead of making the offender ashamed and grieved at his trespass, makes him distinctly worse, and less and less inclined to repent and to ask forgiveness. And until forgiveness is sought and granted there can be no true reconciliation. The estrangement must go on and widen and deepen. Hereby the injured party becomes, in turn, a new offender ; causing fresh evil and sin by his own resentment, by that very anger which he thinks it is so right and just for him to feel and to indulge. A little true reflection would open his eyes to see that so long as he keeps up his angry feelings and his coldness of manner, he is nearly as bad, if not quite as bad, as the person who began the quarrel in the first instance. Now we can see that forgiveness between man and man is nothing less than the driving out resentment and anger from our own hearts, and letting the trespasser know that we have done so. Forgiveness only on the lips or by a false smile is of no 13 194 LOVE THE SECRET OF TRUE FORGIVENESS use. It is of no use to say, "I forgive you," with a heart which is saying all the while, " I will never forget this injury." That is no true forgiveness which cannot at the same time wish and try to forget. True forgiveness is the re-entrance of true love into the heart from which it had been driven out ; the return of that perfect peace and harmony which only real love can produce and maintain. And, although it be a glorious height of human loveliness to forgive in this perfect way " seventy times seven times a day," it is a spirit to be sought and striven after without ceasing, simply because it means the undisturbed supremacy of unwearied love in the heart of him or her who can achieve it. It is a perpetual bar to resentment, which is knocked on the head every time it rises up. You may say it is more than human. I say it is only possible because it is human, because human love can grow to that noble height, and because God gave us love on purpose that it should reign supreme over every other passion of our nature and every moment of our lives. God has given to men " the power on earth to forgive sins " against themselves. So far the duty and privilege of the offended party. Now let us turn to the offender. He has no right to forgiveness, has no right to the restoration of loving and harmonious relations with the one whom he has injured unless he be really penitent, really and truly heart-grieved for his sin. His sham confession without that secret sorrow is of no more use than the sham forgiveness of which I spoke a mere movement of the lips while the heart is not in it. To say, " I am very sorry for the trouble I have caused you," all the while intending, or at least wishing, to commit the same offence again, is only a mockery and hypocrisy which will fiercely revenge itself some day. And with the true heartfelt confession and prayer for forgiveness, there must be no selfish thought lurking behind it. We must not seek forgiveness and reconciliation only for the sake of making ourselves comfortable and escaping the tortures of strife. True love is again at the bottom of true sorrow for sin. True love makes us forget ourselves and think of the misery our sin has caused to another, think only of what we can do WHAT IS THE FORGIVENESS OF GOD? 195 to amend oar mischief, to heal the wounds we have made and to avoid wounding in future. With such pure thoughts of love in our hearts we may well ask for forgiveness, but surely not before. Our only right to forgiveness lies in our honest desire to put things straight and not to offend again. So between man and man forgiveness is a restoration of a broken harmony, a return of mutual love and peace after anger and discord. And the spring and source of real forgive- ness, like that of real repentance, is Love and nothing else or less. I think we shall now understand better the forgiveness of God, though I am quite aware that His forgiveness of us differs in some particulars from our forgiveness of each other. In both cases there has been a loss of harmony and a sense of estrangement through sin. As between man and man, that estrangement is generally on both sides. As between God and us, the estrangement is only on one side, the es- trangement is on ours. In man's case, before he can forgive he has to drive out his resentment. In God's case there is no resentment to drive out. In man's case, another man's trespass does not make him less irritable through the know- ledge that he is himself often a trespasser too. God never trespasses against us, and yet is absolutely patient and un- moved by any anger or displeasure. His love may make Him grieved at the distress we have brought upon ourselves, but He has only to wait patiently, as only a God can wait, for the dawnings of that godly sorrow on our part which will tear aside the veil which our sin has drawn between our souls and Him. Our confession and prayer for forgiveness to God is like our confession and prayer for forgiveness to our fellow- man, in that it springs out of our love to God, which, by His mercy, we have not wholly lost. People, even husbands and wives, who no longer love one another, can never be truly reconciled, never truly repent, never truly forgive each other. Fortunately for the case of God's forgiveness, there was never a moment's rupture of His love to us, never a spark of resent- ment, never a willing hiding of His own face from us. The fault was all on one side, on ours, and for even the worst case He has provided by His own Eternal Love, which can, 196 GOD'S FORGIVENESS UNLIKE ALL OTHER and must, and shall kindle the sacred flame in the coldest and hardest of hearts. By that He will make us truly sorry for our misdeeds, by that He will draw us to His footstool in tears of shame and contrition, and by that the clouds will be rolled away and we shall look upon His face and live. God forgives us at the moment when we feel no more estrange- ment from Him, when we are no longer afraid or ashamed to commune with Him, when, truly penitent, we are ready to undergo all the bitter consequences of our sin which He knows will be the best suited to our case. From this true Divine forgiveness is banished every shred or shade of the Levitical and Christian idea of forgiveness. It has nothing to do with the escape from punishment, whether it be just or unjust. It is concerned not at all with material things, but only and solely with our spiritual relations with God. Moreover, the perfection and beauty of God's forgiveness is seen in the passionate desire it creates in us to walk before Him with a perfect heart, to take no wicked thing in hand, to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God. It leads us to hate the idea of sin and to long for true holiness. Its cry is, " Make in me a clean heart, God, and renew a right spirit within me." It says " I hate the things that made Thee mourn, And drove Thee from my breast." God's forgiveness does not make sin cheap and easy, but harder than ever and more costly. It is the very opposite of the Priest's forgiveness which makes sin cheap and easy ; and hides, instead of revealing, the face of the loving God. One or other of these views of forgiveness must be false. Even if both are false, the Theistic view is whole heavens higher and better than the Christian view. It is more true to nature, more true to facts. It is the best we know. Therefore it is our duty to try to get every one else to see it and to embrace it and to act upon it. CHAPTEK XXIV. SIN CAUSED BY LACK OF LOVE. LDKE x. 27, 28: "Tnou SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY SOUL, AND WITH ALL THY STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL THY MIND J AND THY NEIGHBOUR AS THYSELF. THIS DO, AND THOU SHALT LIVE." A VOICE reaches us from Sweden, the voice of a true Theist who translated the book, Theism, or the Religion of Common Sense, into the Swedish language, calling to us for more sermons about "Sin." He says : " We should have a course of sound, practical sermons on Sin ; there are so many written which are unsound, nonsensical, magical ones, " Morrison's- pill " sermons (as Carlyle would have called them), and every Sunday such sermons are preached from thousands of pulpits. We are in sore need of antidotes." Reflecting upon this appeal, I lighted upon the sermon by Rev. Canon Scott Holland from which our Lessons were taken this morning, and I felt thankful to him for suggesting to me a train of thought by which I could best answer the call from Sweden. The subject of Sin is, indeed, a very wide one, and might profitably occupy us many Sundays, but it is also very sad and, in certain aspects, very depressing. But it need not be humiliating, it need not be even discourag- ing. That sin abounds, not only in what is called " the wicked world," and in the corrupt principles and practices of "the Holy Catholic Church," but also in our own hearts and lives, is beyond words deplorable. Yet it would be ten times more deplorable if sin were not recognised and felt to be sin. It may depress us to remember that, so long as we are poor mortals, we are sure to sin and to fall short of the glory of God's perfections, and even to fall short of what He expects us to be here on earth. Whenever we realise this as regards ourselves, it surely ought to depress us ; no other frame of mind is suitable, is possible for moral beings, as we are, duly alive to the facts of our own experience. Only when we 197 198 GOD GROWS, NOT MAKES, GOOD MEN come to look at our failures in the light of God's good and loving purposes with our race is there a gleam of comfort or hope to be got out of them. God cannot make us perfect all at once ; God cannot make a product which has no antecedent factors, it is a contradiction in terms. But God can, and does, grow good and perfect men, not being limited in time or resources ; He is growing us now, one and all, in every conceivable condition of moral embryo, immaturity, and im- perfection ; that is, in a condition of more or less sin, which is as inevitable now as it will one day be impossible. Our attitude towards sin, then, should be sorrow, not despair; we should be cast down, but not destroyed : manful and heroic in our struggle to do our best, not give way to morbid lamenta- tion because we cannot do all. In every honest attempt to amend ourselves, we are on the side of the Eternal, we are working together with God Himself, we are using the faculties whereby we can grow more like Him every day of our lives. And so long as we are thus striving to avoid sin and to do His blessed Will, we have no cause for the least discouragement, still less for despair. I am indebted to Canon Scott Holland for concentrating my thoughts about sin on those two great commandments which are really only one at bottom, Love to God and Love to man, in keeping of which lies the secret of true human life, its highest privileges and bliss. Sin, after all, is a symptom of a disease, not the disease itself ; and common sense as well as experience teaches that those remedies are unavailing which do not reach the root of disease. Sin, I repeat, is a symptom of something wrong in the system, something wrong with the heart : every trespass, every neglect of duty, is an indication of defect of character, a sign of weakness or of taint which being, as it were, in the blood comes out in the flesh, betraying itself in bad conduct and manners. The truth, then, which I desire to put before you to-day is that all sin is due to lack of love ; not only a viola- tion of the law of love, but a symptom of disease in the heart, a sign that our love is deficient or weak. And with the deepest reverence I declare that God knows not only that this is true but that He Himself is responsible IMPERFECTION NECESSARY TO PERFECTNESS 199 for those conditions of our human life which at present hinder the perfect development and perfectly healthy action of our love. God does not look for impossibilities. He is surely quite as reasonable as the wisest man, only a great deal more so. Therefore He never expects to find figs on a fig-tree when " the time for figs has not yet come." We men know what it is to watch our fruit from the setting of the blossom, to wait patiently for the forces of Nature to develop the fruit, yes, and to assist the natural forces by artificial protection, moisture and heat. We are not dis- mayed or angry on finding our peaches still hard and pale, our grapes dry and sour, because we know that these are proper conditions for the fruit to be in at a certain stage of its growth. It could not be otherwise. If the fruit did not pass through what may be termed the useless and defective stage, it would never arrive at that useful and delicious stage which we call ripeness. Our very word " fruition " tells the story of evolution. It expresses to us the full enjoyment of something for which we have had long to wait. From that we get our word "fruit." Now, we may with reverence think of God as watching us in our development as His children much in the same way as we watch our peaches and grapes. For every soul there is a series of stages to be passed through before ripeness or maturity can be reached, stages of smallness, hardness, sourness, pallor, every one of which stages is indispensable to final maturity. No likeness to God in His goodness and love is possible without that individual growth, without passing through stages which are manifestly imperfect and, as compared with what the final result will be and what the soul is aiming at, are useless, distasteful, if not absolutely noxious. In other words, love must be developed, must be grown and cultivated. It cannot spring into existence perfectly ripe. Knowing this, it would be unreasonable in God to be angry with us for our want of love, even were He only a just though harsh and severe judge, much less can He be angry with us when He is a most merciful and loving Father, and when He knows that our undeveloped repellent stage is necessary for us to pass through before we can become at all like Himself. This 200 IT IS A SIN TO BE AFRAID OF GOD most sweet thought, known long before in ancient time by Prophet and Psalmist, and repeated in the eighteenth century by William Law and the mystics of his school, if duly appre- hended, will never lead to our thinking lightly of sin, can only lead to our loving God more and to our co-operation with Him in the work of turning all our hardness and crudities into the softness of love under the gracious beams of the light of His Countenance. But now it is time to grapple with the theme of this discourse. Sin, we say, is the symptom of the lack of love in our hearts. Especially is this true of those sins which are private and personal against God Himself. It is a sin to be afraid of Him. If you doubt this, any true father on earth will tell you that short of vice and self-degradation the worst pain which his child can inflict upon him is to be afraid of him, to seek the shelter or the compassion of another, of some mediator or intercessor who is not an object of dread. It -is the deepest insult and the most grievous pain to a true father's heart that his child should be afraid of him ; that he should imagine any one to be more kind and loving and merciful than his own father. Well, what does such a sin prove? It simply proves that we do not love God so long as we are afraid of Him. "Perfect love casteth out fear." The two states are incompatible. Take now the sin against God of not trusting Him. Many a soul free from dread of God's anger nevertheless will not trust God even as far as he can see, will not go as a child and take hold of God as a Father and Friend, will not trust Him to advise him in his difficulties, to teach him any truth he wants to know, to guide his steps in the path of life. Such a soul must have a Bible or a Church, or a Christ, or a priest to trust to instead. Such a soul in its perplexity or weakness will turn to any mortal friend or refuge in the world instead of turning to God. That soul does not trust Him. It says " It's no use going to God, He either cannot or will not help me." Then all the darkness and sorrows of life are deepened and embittered by the lack of trust. When misfortunes or losses come, the soul refuses to be comforted, cannot believe that they are of God's ordering, or feels that, if they do come SINS OF UNTHANKFULNESS AND IDOLATRY 201 from Him, this is only a fresh reason for distrusting Him. In all this implied insult (for distrust involves insult) there is sin against God. And again we ask the question, Where is the root of that sin ? Only and solely in our lack of love to God. If we truly love Him, we shall put our whole trust in His Love and Wisdom. Then there is the sin of unthankfulness. To be ungrate- ful to a fellow-man is to do him wrong. We are ashamed of it. How much greater then is the sin of ingratitude towards God, from whom all our blessings flow, to whose mercy and bounty we owe everything that we have and are, and from whose infinite Love has sprung all the human love which has blessed us and redeemed our lives from destruction. But this sin of unthankfulness is entirely due to our lack of love to God. If we did but love Him, we should not forget so many of His benefits, we should not take the mercies which are new every morning as matters of no importance or as matters of course to which we have a right. And for one more illustration, I take the sin of idolatry, of loving and worshipping the creature more than the Creator. The very essence of this sin of idolatry is the lack of love to God, the coldness and estrangement of our hearts, partly due to our own want of thought, partly due to the falsehoods of the creed in which we have been trained. Men are cold to- wards Him through ignorance, estranged from Him by their false fears and dread. They plunge into idolatries of all kinds, fastening their affections which belong by right to Him alone upon objects, persons, institutions unspeakably below Him. The hearts, which He condescends to ask us to give Him only that He may fill them with joy and peace, are given to mediators and saviours, and even to a wretched priest in- stead. If men did but love Him, such sinful departure would be impossible. Now let us turn to the aspect of sin against our fellow- man. And here I must express my gladness and thankfulness that the Rev. Canon Scott Holland has stated with emphasis a truth well known and very dear to us Theists. It is that love to God and love to man are never in conflict ; that at the core they are ever the same ; that love to God involves 202 LOVE TO GOD AND LOVE TO MAN love to man, and love to man involves love to God. These are his words : " This love is utterly and entirely concentrated upon God. It has no other object, so the text asserts. Heart, soul, inind and strength, all these are to be spent wholly in their fulness on God Himself. . . . This is the love which is to be our life. What, then, of our neighbour ? What of our fellows ? Is there to be none for them ? On the contrary, this is the very reason why we are to love them. They are not competitors with God for our love, as if we ought to give them the love that He can spare, as if we ought to love Him much and them a little, as if we had to debate how much we could afford to divide between Him and them. Nay, for they are His and He is theirs, and, in loving Him who begat, we love already him who is begotten. In loving God with all our hearts and all our souls, we, of necessity, find ourselves loving all. . . . The love of God is the love of our neighbour. ... He who loves God loves his brother also by the same act. The love is not divided it is one ; and hence the degree in which we love God is the measure of our love for our neighbours. Do we find our love for our neighbours slack and meagre and ineffectual ? The remedy lies in deepening our love for God." All this is beautiful as well as true. We have only to point out the contrast between this and the words attributed to Christ in the Gospels, " Whosoever loveth father or mother, son or daughter, more than me, is not worthy of me " ; and again, " If any man come to me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, he cannot be my disciple." Every conceivable trespass is due to the want of love. If we loved one another with a pure heart fervently, there would be no more sin between man and man. For love is even more than duty. Not only, as St. Paul says, " Love is the fulfilling of the whole law," but it carries us far and high beyond prescriptive rules of conduct. Where love is absent or cold, sin is almost sure to come in. Among many causes for the trespasses of mankind these three are obvious : 1. That they have low and erroneous notions of what love is. 2. That their love is not warm enough or strong enough to overcome their selfishness. 3. That they are not deeply convinced of the duty of loving every one with whom they come in contact. In regard to the first of these three causes of sin, it is proverbial that the word " love " is so loosely applied as to LOVE THE REAL SAFEGUARD FROM SIN 203 describe purely sensual pleasures, whether lawful or unlawful, mere natural attraction and the expressions of such attrac- tion in fondling and caressing. This is not at all a true or lofty notion of what love is, albeit it often gives rise to real love which eclipses and supersedes the lower notion. True love is always disinterested. There is no looking for a quid pro quo, no conscious or unconscious bartering of endearments which would be withheld if not reciprocated. True love is a fervent desire to do good and only good, and the highest good, to the object of our love. It is absolutely unmindful of reward and regardless of punishment, and, instead of be- grudging any sacrifice, accounts it a privilege and a joy to be a sacrifice. Until this conception of what love is lays hold of men's hearts, they will be proportionately content with the lower notion of it and be unaware of their lack of real love ; consequently they will sin. The second cause of sin I mentioned was that our love is not warm enough or strong enough to overcome our selfish- ness. It is hard to blame others for this, even if we cannot help blaming ourselves. That warmth and goodness of nature which we call love, and is this very day the object which rightly claims and receives the deepest homage of mankind, which indeed has raised an ideal Christ to the throne of Deity, is verily " a gift that cometh of the Lord." One man has more, another has less ; and according to his own degree of it he will be judged by the righteous Judge of all the earth. But, nevertheless, there is a cause of sin wherever it is lacking ; and a cause of the noblest virtue where it abounds. God knows, too, that we are, for the wisest purposes, in a dual state, endowed with instincts of self-preservation and even aggrandisement, and with instincts for the pursuit of pleasure, which, up to a certain point, are perfectly lawful and right and even necessary, in the great scheme of Nature and Evolution. But, as moral beings, as beings who know, or can learn if they like, what true love is and what it demands, we see clearly that our instinct of love is given us to check and curb our lower instinct of self-care and thirst for pleasure; our love is given us to checkmate our selfish instincts whenever they would impel us to do 204 SOCIAL HINDRANCES TO BROTHERLY LOVE what true love forbids. If love fails to make that conquest, the result is sin, the sins of the whole world. If love always prevailed, there could be no trespass. Sin would be impossible. Take any sin you choose, even any sin against ourselves, trace it back to its source and invariably you will find it due to lack of love. The third cause of sin of which I promised to speak is that we are not deeply convinced that we ought to love every one with whom we come in contact. Evidently the condition here hinted at is quite Utopian, and has been attained if at any time only by the fewest and rarest specimens of our race. At present the very existence of society, and the maintenance of order and decency make it impossible to treat all men as equals, or to love all persons with equal warmth and devotion. " Caste " against which we rail so freely in India is just as strong and invincible with us here in Eng- land. Even if the feeling of true love for everybody be in a man's heart, he cannot possibly give free expression to it without probably doing more harm than good. Certainly he would be grossly misunderstood, and expose himself first to ridicule and then to restraint. But without reaching, or even attempting to reach, such superlative brotherly love, it is quite possible for us all to make some approaches towards it, which would quickly do away with the grosser inequalities and oppressions which abound, and which no one can deny, and no one ought to admit without regret and shame. " Put yourself in his place." "How would you like it?" are thoughts which ought to be always uppermost with us, instead of our having to be reminded of them. No one would ever sin against his brother if he stopped to think these simple thoughts before acting. And what most concerns us who are not criminals, who are not thieves or murderers or tyrants, is that good people like us are far too often sinners through lack of love. It is we, I think, who are called to a divine scrutiny of ourselves before we pass judgment on our fellow-sinners. "Judgment is begun at the House of God." The foremost ranks in God's army ought to be most particular, most scrupulous of all, in conforming to the regulations and in showing heroic courage. The sins we THE SINS OF GOOD PEOPLE 205 thoughtlessly commit are so many that it is dangerous to pick out one here and there for notice lest the sin speci- fied be not the one of which we accuse ourselves, and then we go off triumphant in our self-righteousness. But it will be well for us each and all to remember that we may sin against our brother in thought, in word, as well as in deed ; that whenever we think of him as we should not like to be thought of ourselves, whenever we speak of him or to him in terms which would certainly give us pain, we are sinning against him, all because we do not love him as we ought, because we do not mind inflicting upon him some annoyance or injury which would vex ourselves. Of course we try to excuse ourselves, but that only makes matters worse. We cannot get over the fact that we do not love him as we ought or we should never have felt or acted as we did. There is just one illustration of sin which I must give, because it is a sin widely committed by good people and in hundreds of different forms, and seriously affects large classes of the community, doing wrong to the poor and debasing the rich. It is the sin of covetousness, manifested in the demand for cheap things, which creates an artificial competition, actually ruinous to smaller tradesmen, and inflicting personal disaster on whole families ; and where it does not immediately bring bankruptcy, it mars the peace and comfort of many a home, makes a poor shopkeeper grey with anxiety, cripples his resources for the few little pleasures and comforts needed by his wife and children if not by himself too. If I go into a shop and try to get an article worth sixpence, and already cheap at sixpence, for fourpence halfpenny, I then and there commit a grievous sin against my poor brother. The three-halfpence I gain by my thoughtless greed, multiplied as it will be by the sums grasped by other sinners like myself, during one day would amount to many shillings, those shillings representing just the difference between profit and loss, i.e., between success or failure of the tradesman's daily toil. It would be harrow- ing to follow even one man's fall from bad to worse till debt and ruin drive him into the gutter or the workhouse. To wish and try to gain a single penny at the expense of your 206 COVETOUSNESS IS INHUMAN AND BRUTAL neighbour, especially if he be poor and struggling and the victim of competition around him, is, in my opinion, one of the deadly sins, far worse than the common vices which disgrace our streets. It is not human. It is brutal. And covetousness degrades man below the level of the beast. And yet God has given us love to prevent all that, to prevent the possibility of such thoughtless injury to our poor neighbour. It is here that love is wanted, in our common daily lives and common contact with all with whom we have to do. God grant that we may see our duty in a fresh light, and ever have our hearts kindled and ablaze with love to Him and love to each other. " If any man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" Our love to each other is the only ladder by which we climb to Heaven and Heaven is love to Him. CHAPTEK XXV. THE SENSE OP SIN AND ITS MORAL VALUE. PSALM li. 2, 3, 6, 8 : " WASH ME THOROUGHLY FROM MY WICKEDNESS, AND CLEANSE ME PROM MY SIN. FOR I ACKNOWLEDGE MY FAULTS, AND MY SIN IS EVER BEFORE ME. THOU SHALT PURGE ME, AND I SHALL BE CLEAN. THOU SHALT WASH ME, AND I SHALL BE WHITER THAN SNOW. MAKE ME A CLEAN HEART, O GOD, AND RENEW A RIGHT SPIRIT WITHIN ME." AGAIN I invite your attention to the subject of sin this time to emphasise the connection between the sense of sin and the moral reformation it begets. We must recall what was said last Sunday in regard to sin and love, viz., that the chief cause, if not the only cause, of sin is the lack of love. Those who are in the right way of amendment are conscious of their lack of love and grieve over it sincerely, while those who are not conscious of it, and therefore have no sorrow on that account, are for the time being incapable of amendment. Obviously the sense of sin is essential before true repentance can set in, before any real improvement is possible. It is a matter of fact, and not in the least surprising, that really irreligious persons seldom or never have the sense of sin, never feel truly ashamed of themselves or contrite after trespass against their fellow-men. They may be often sorry and greatly disturbed by the consequences of their transgress- ion, they may suffer pain through the breach of domestic peace and the loss of esteem, which are inevitable ; but this distress at the consequences of sin is not to be mistaken for a sense of sin, for the sense of guilt which comes only through a consciousness of having broken the law of God and having displeased Him. Here, more than in anything else, is to be seen the difference between religion and irreligion. The religious man grieves because he has sinned and is sinful. The irreligious man grieves because he has got himself into trouble and is being punished. 207 208 SENSE OF SIN ESSENTIAL TO MORAL PROGRESS Now, in getting down to the roots of this matter, we begin to see the very important place which the sense of sin occupies in the improvement of character and the pro- motion of virtue. So long as that sense of sin is absent or dormant, the sinner cannot improve in character but only in conduct, and whatever improvement may take place in his conduct will only be due to selfish motives, leaving his heart untouched and his soul unconverted. He loves the sin just as much as he did before, and only shuns it with reluctance on account of the discomfort it would bring. In that state, as I said, the man is unconverted. No radical change has taken place in his heart, in his character, in his affections, his hopes or his aspirations. Sin still wears the same aspect of attractiveness, to be indulged in, if possible, with impunity, to be avoided only for the sake of its un- pleasant results. A truly religious man, on the other hand, looks at sin as something disgraceful and degrading in itself. He thinks of God as much more bewailing his sinful state of heart than the transgressions which spring from it. It is what he is, much more than what he has done, which makes the man grieved and ashamed. His sins are signs to him that his heart is wrong, that he is not full of love as he ought to be, therefore not worthy to be a child of God, not in that state of moral earnestness and effort which alone can satisfy his Father's heart. He has everything to deepen his shame and contrition. He feels that his sin is doubled and trebled by the conditions in which God has placed him, and by the very faculties with which God has blessed him. He has been ungrateful as well as disloyal. He has not only trespassed against his brother, causing sorrow and mischief, but he has abused a sacred trust. Something was entrusted to him which he has wasted ; a solemn obligation was laid upon him which he has treated with contempt. And all this against One who is his best Friend. It is his Father whom he has insulted and grieved, as well as his brother whom he has wronged. So he can but lift up his broken heart and cry, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." Therefore when this sense of sin against God LOVE TO GOD BEGETS TRUE REPENTANCE 209 fills the penitent heart, there is no room in it for any selfish fears of punishment, no cry for such deliverance escapes his lips, only repeated and fervent prayers for thorough cleansing and deliverance from the sin in his soul. "Wash me thoroughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin." "Make me a clean heart, God, and renew a right spirit within me." " Cleanse Thou me from my secret faults." Again I remind you that it is religion, and true religion only, which has wrought this refinement and ele- vation of soul. It is love to God which alone could work such a change ; love to God alone which can make a man truly sorry that He is a sinner. This, of course, throws light upon many another passage in the Psalms which speaks of conversion. " The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul;" which means, the Law of Love is the only medicine that will touch it. It is only the Law of Love which melts the hard heart to penitence and godly sorrow for sin. The hundred and nineteenth Psalm teems with verses expressive of the influence of God's Law of Love in making the conscience tender and teaching us to hate sin itself. " I will never forget Thy commandments, for with them Thou has quickened me." " Through Thy command- ments I get understanding, and therefore I hate all evil ways." "O let my heart be sound in Thy statutes that I be not ashamed." " I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost ; seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments." And every word of that experience is confirmed by our own. When once the love of God has entered into our souls, we begin from that moment to have an entirely new view of sin, a new feeling about it, a new shame and a new distress, which we never did or could feel before. We do not wait for the lash of punishment to call our sins to re- membrance. But we feel the disgrace and debasement first, and all our anxieties are fixed on being cleansed and puri- fied, and helped to hate and avoid sinning again. We know how, on returning with broken and contrite hearts to His footstool, the thought of God's great love deepens our guilt even while we are trusting in His merciful and inex- haustible compassion. We know also that this deep sense of 14 210 LOVE TO GOD THE ESSENCE OF CONVERSION sin is the best possible preparation for the next encounter with temptation. So long as we are growing more and more to hate sin, we are growing more and more free from it. The love and worship we render to a Holy God are incompatible with thoughts, words or deeds which are wrong. Loving companionship with His only perfect and pure Spirit is ever a refining and elevating influence in making us hate our own wickedness, and long and strive to be holy even as He is holy. It is when we see how loving God is, that we are won over to His side, are converted to Him, have our wills en- listed on the side of goodness and love, and our poor hearts set ablaze with love to each other. It will then be wise in us to cultivate the sense of sin, to become more and more in the habit of accusing and judging ourselves, of contrasting our faulty and feeble virtues with the demands of a perennial love and self-sacrifice, of looking at the vast gulf which still lies between our imperfect characters and the perfect holiness and love of our Father in heaven. This is the way to true conversion, a conversion which never ceases, a daily renova- tion of jaded faculties, a re-fixing of an unstable will, a daily rising to newness of life ; as the Apostle says, " a putting off the old man with his deeds, and a putting on of the new man which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holi- ness." And as the Psalmist prays, " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." I have now a duty to discharge in dealing with some of those preachers about sin of whom our Swedish friend spoke as delivering " nonsensical, magical sermons " about sin. I wish it were only nonsense of which we have to complain ; it is, alas ! " pernicious nonsense " doing incalculable mischief, such as is always done by the process of Lying for God, or, to speak with greater accuracy, Lying for Christ. In strict obedience to our rule never to attack individual persons, but only false principles and beliefs, I will not give the name of the preacher whose words I am about to criticise and to condemn, although they have been printed and published. Besides this, he is only one out of many who have resorted to the practice of "Lying for Christ." The words of this preacher are as follows : TYPES OF "LYING FOR CHRIST" 211 "This sense of personal demerit is the peculiar product of Christianity: Christ is the author of it." I at once confront that assertion by one or two passages from the Old Testament. "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin hath my mother conceived me." " All our righteousness is as filthy rags." Isaiah cries, " Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips ; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." And Job says, " I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes." These passages are enough to prove that in persons who lived many centuries before Christ was heard of, the sense of personal demerit was exceedingly strong ; so strong, indeed, as only to be expressed by hyperbole. Therefore the preacher says what is glaringly untrue. The sense of personal demerit is not the peculiar product of Christianity, and Christ is not the author of it. The preacher went on to say : " This work has been continued by the Holy Spirit. In His promise of the Comforter, Jesus declared that what He had already done in convincing the world of sin, righteousness and judgment, the Holy Spirit should continue to do. Thus at one and the same moment the world was made aware of its own need and the way of redemption was opened. Nothing like this Christian sense of sin has ever appeared before Jesus." Here, again, is repeated the glaring falsehood about the sense of sin. But the preacher has partly spoken the truth by the introduction of the word " Christian," when he says, "Nothing like this Christian sense of sin has ever appeared before Jesus." And this is how he justifies this particular statement. Jesus says the Holy Spirit is to con- vince the world not only of sin and righteousness, but also of "judgment," by which last term all Christians understand the final judgment and punishment in hell, deliverance from which the preacher calls the world's " need," and says that "a way of redemption was opened," viz., by the propitiating of God's wrath through the blood of Christ. This peculiarly Christian idea has so fixed itself in the preacher's mind that he mixes up the sense of sin with a dread of judgment, i.e., a dread of punishment ; and I admit that he is speaking the 212 MORE "LYING FOR CHRIST" truth when he says that this depraved sense of sin, this Christian sense of sin (depraved by the dread of punishment) was really due to Jesus ; for he certainly was the first founder of a religion who taught the dogma of eternal torments in hell as the basis of repentance and conversion, and as the reason why people should believe on him and accept him as their saviour. So far the preacher is speaking the truth, as it appears to him. But in order to make true what he says, he is obliged to adopt the depraved " Christian sense of sin," corrupted by a dread of judgment and punishment. Here, again, we must notice the contrast between the " Christian " sense of sin and the old Jewish sense of sin which was not corrupted by dread of judgment, but led those simple-hearted, trustful children of God to come to Him for His correction, and to pray for any chastisement that might cleanse them. "Judge me, Lord, according to Thy righteousness." "0 Lord, correct me, but with judgment." " Wash me and I shall be clean." " Cleanse Thou me from my secret faults." Of course it would surprise any one if a Christian preacher, familiar as he must be with the Old Testament, should entirely ignore the written testimony of the Psalmists and Prophets of Israel. Accordingly we find our preacher re- ferring to them and to their experience, but, alas ! only to add another to the falsehoods spoken in behalf of Christ. He says : " Even the chosen people, who are themselves unique in the possession of a knowledge of sin and expiation, show in the passionate language of the Prophets a tendency to fasten regard upon deeds rather than on disposition. No other among the great religions of the world seems to contain any idea of the godly sorrow which worketh repentance. The sense of guilt, as Christians know it, is the effect of the presence of Christ in the world." Of all the libels that could be uttered, you cannot find a greater slander or a more glaring falsehood. Of course the Prophets were bound to rebuke the people for their evil deeds, and specify wherein their wickedness chiefly manifested itself. The prophetic mission was a national one, and it had to be couched in terms suited to the people as a nation. But this did not prevent a constant reference to the sinful state of heart which was the cause of the wicked deeds. The THE PROPHETS AND INDIVIDUAL SINFULNESS 213 Prophets were continually calling upon the people to repent and return to God, to give Him loyal allegiance, to give Him their hearts. In the eye of the Prophets there could be no worse taint or decay of character than forsaking the Lord and going after idols and other gods to serve them. It was, in their eyes, the root of all evil to be irreligious at heart, especially when they were all the while professing to be religious and conforming to the rites of public worship. " This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth and honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me." "Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord and He will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." " Turn unto Me, for why will ye die, house of Israel?" The lament is, "Your sins have separated between you and your God." It was a personal spiritual loss which only true repentance could restore. In their confession of sin they cry, " Our transgressions are multiplied before Thee, and our sins testify against us ; for our transgressions are with us. ... In transgressing and lying against the Lord and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood." Is there no regard for " dis- position " or character in words like these? "I dwell in the High and Holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to re- vive the heart of the contrite ones." "But the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, unto the wicked." " Behold the days come, saith the Lord, when 1 will put My laws in their hearts and in their minds will I write them, and I will be their God and they shall be My people." And if we turn from the Prophets to the Psalmists we find, as I have already shown in this discourse, many instances of that "godly sorrow that worketh repentance," of which our preacher says, "no other (but the Christian) among the great religions of the world contains any idea." Some day justice will be done to those old Psalmists and Prophets, and light shall shine on Christian preachers, so 214 TRUE CONVERSION IS ALWAYS BY LOVE that it can no longer be said of them, " He feedeth on ashes, a deceived heart hath turned him aside, so that he cannot deliver his soul or say, Is there not a lie in my right hand ? " The last falsehood in this preacher's discourse on the Atonement is the following : " Men rise into newness of life, only because they believe that Christ bore our sins in His own body on the Tree. If they did not believe it, their moral regeneration would be impossible ; that they do believe it is the secret of the spiritual miracles that are wrought in human souls wherever that Gospel is preached." We deny that true conversion follows always, or even in most cases, on the preaching of the Gospel. We wish it did. Thousands of earnest Christians lament that it does not. The "spiritual miracle" of conversion is no miracle at all, but in strict conformity with the laws of God and the nature of man. If a man be greatly terrified by threats of hell, and if he can be persuaded that a loving God, called Jesus Christ, has died to save him from that hell, he will love that being, whether he be God or not, and out of love will try to cease from evil and will learn to do well. It is the Love that does it, and only that. And God's desire that the sinner should be converted and live is so vast, so magnani- mous, that He accepts the poor sinner's offering of his heart to Christ as though it were given to Himself, and allows the work of love to produce conversion, although the love is misdirected and the whole Gospel story is a fiction and, worse still, a libel against the God of justice and love. Men rise into newness of life only through that perfect reconciliation with God which comes through the sight of His love to us, and this is the same- in the end, though the processes may be different. The opening of our eyes upon the light of God's countenance is the simple and direct method. The process of the Gospel is complex, roundabout, and so much of a mystery that our preacher himself confesses it to be "past finding out ". Of course we have long since discovered that it will not bear the light of a moral scrutiny. The most terrible fact about it is that it is a real hindrance to simple faith in God and trust in His cleansing converting love, a real hin- drance to our willing surrender to His loving correction. DREAD OF PUNISHMENT SHUTS OUT GOD 215 Our preacher tells a dismal story of a woman so possessed by a dread of the consequences of sin, by a " Christian sense of sin," that " To have told her, in what was almost the last moment of her life, that the Most High could forgive her sins, would have carried no comfort to her heart. The only possible relief for her was to hear of Him on whom the Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all." In that sad tale lies the deepest condemnation of the Christian scheme of salvation and of the so-called Gospel of Christ. No wonder that it is so naturally repugnant to the heart of man as to render necessary a recourse to falsehood in the wild endeavour to uphold it. May God grant us grace to live before men as thoroughly and truly converted to Him, turned from evil to goodness, from selfishness to love. By so doing we shall best help to diminish the number of falsehoods told in honour of Christ, till they are banished from the lips even of orthodox Christian preachers. CHAPTER XXVI. THE REASONABLENESS OF PRAYER. PSALM 1. 15 : " CALL DPON MB IN THB DAY OP TBOUBLE : so WILL I HEAR THEE, AND THOU SHALT PRAISE ME." THE subject of Prayer is continually cropping up in my cor- respondence with thoughtful persons wishing to know more about our Theistic Faith. It may be useful if I state the grounds on which Prayer to God is both reasonable and natural, both beneficial and necessary. In the first place, the whole reasonableness of Prayer turns upon our conception of God. "Prayer," we are told in one of Montgomery's Hymns, " is the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed." But though the term " Prayer " may legiti- mately be taken to cover many of the spoken or unspoken desires of the human heart, that sentence of the hymn is not exact enough for a definition, nor does it truly describe what we understand by Prayer. Men may cherish a very sincere desire to gain some pleasure, to gratify some appetite, lawful or not ; they may have a strong desire to commit a crime or to do some grievous wrong to an enemy. But none of these desires are necessarily made the subject of petitions or re- quests or prayers offered up to God. Prayer is not merely sincere desire, but it is also that desire expressed either in words or in silence to a person, to one whom the petitioner believes to be capable of listening to and of granting or re- fusing his petition. Prayer is an act of speaking to God, as to one who knows and sees the secrets of the heart. And when the soul turns thus to God, as a child to its father or mother, as if to tell Him what it wants, even if no words be uttered, then that is true prayer. But it would be all quite meaning- less and foolish, if not worse, unless the soul that prays firmly believes that God is there, close to it, hearing, seeing, know- ing, yes, and loving it. The Apostle said, " He that cometh 216 PRAYER EXPLAINED BY HUMAN NATURE 217 to God must believe that He exists and that He is the re- warder of those who diligently seek Him." There can be no prayer in the strict sense of the word without this primary basis of believing in a God who knows and loves us, who knows that we are speaking to Him, who wishes us to do so, who is only too willing to give us everything that is really good, and who is more ready to hear than we to pray. Happy are they who thus believe in God. But we cannot impart that faith to any one who has it not. Therefore, it is all but impossible to prove the reasonableness and the benefit of prayer, to any one who has not yet come to believe in a God who knows and loves us. They who believe will pray, must pray, cannot help praying ; while those who believe not, will not and cannot pray. Still there are some on the border-lands of a true Faith in God who might be won over entirely, if they would just look again, and more closely, into human nature and human relationships, and into the human feelings and the human faith which grow out of them. Everywhere around us we see manifestations of depend- ence, of trust, of love between human beings, generating the practice of real prayer to one another and no less on behalf of one another. Some one who has a want goes and prays to some one else to supply that want. More often still, we pray to human beings, not for ourselves, but for those who are dear to us. This human prayer to human beings on earth is not always from the poor to the rich, from those who have little to those who have much ; but as often as not, the prayers are made by the independent to those under their care, by the rich to the poor, by those who have much to those who have less. God has so ordered human lot that very often the suppliant changes place with the giver, and the giver in turn becomes a petitioner. Each has some- thing to give or to lend which the other has not. Human life is full of prayers to each other, and it would be unbearable if the sternness and hardness of mere contract and independ- ence were not thus softened and relieved by mutual wants of unpurchasable and unsaleable things. Not a heart beats anywhere but is a humble petitioner for love, for even the crumbs of sympathy and loving-kindness which are some- 218 CRAVING FOR HELP AND SYMPATHY times only bestowed upon cats and dogs. Never yet was a man, woman or child, but pleaded in words, or in still more touching silence, for a little kindness, a little forbearance, a little pity. And, on the whole, such prayers are often answered even in this cold hard world of ours. But for one who prays to his fellow-creature for himself, there are thousands who pray for their beloved. We are not ashamed to beg for them. We do not hesitate or falter when they are in need or peril. We do not count our words or moderate our importunity when their interests are at stake. And yet we find these prayers go oft unanswered. A cruel fate flings our petition in our face. The friend, in whose love and care we confided, now and again breaks down, is faithless or forget- ful ; or his own good intentions are frustrated by misfortune or by the foul play of others too strong for him ; or he may become sick, and even die. When we pray for our beloved, we not only sometimes get a flat refusal, but we have to reckon on chances of failure which are almost a mockery of our prayers. Let me take one or two illustrations of the anxiety which reminds us that human resources are not equal to the demands of our intense love ; that, with all the kind-heartedness and fidelity in the world, the very best of friends and guardians are not to be depended on to answer fully to our prayer. A dear one lies dangerously ill, or has a severe operation to undergo ; or the perils of childbirth are at hand. When the doctor comes in, we do not pray to him in words to heal the disease or to avert fatal consequences by his skill ; but he reads our prayer in our beseeching eye, in every line of our fear-stricken face, in every quiver of our agitated frame. This is our prayer to him to do his best for our beloved. But poor mortal ! What can he do compared with what we want? He might well answer with the prophet, "Am I God, to kill and to make alive? " We know that he can do much, but we know how little that is to prevail against the perils over which he is powerless. But our prayer for his help is natural, is reasonable, is necessary, notwithstanding his resources and skill are so limited. We turn to him because he is there, because he is good as well as clever, INSTANCES OF THE NEED FOR PRAYER 219 and we may trust him to do his best. Is there no friend in our need higher than he? Then, again, I see a wife whose husband is called away from her side by duties which carry him over the wide seas for months at a stretch. Again and again has that terrible parting to be borne and the " Good-bye " to be whispered from a heaving breast, fears and presentiments rising up like horrid skeletons on every side. He was wrecked once ; he may be wrecked again. By his manly courage and clever organisation he saved a whole cargo of emigrants from the devouring waves ; but next time he may not be so fortunate ; the day may come when the sad parting may be the last, and his dear face never lighten the home again. What a cruel jest it seems to say " Good-bye, take care of yourself." Ah me ! If that were all the hope one had, the poor wife might then and there go and lie down to die of fear. Such trouble as this, needs better help than we can ask from our fellow- men ! And while I am speaking there is another sailing home from India. She and her husband had left their little children here in bitter grief, for the sake of their welfare. They find it impossible to live without them. So the mother has left her husband and is on her way hither to fetch her darlings, and to take them back in safety to their Indian home. What will it be for those little lambs and their broken- hearted father, if she never sees him again ? Think of the chances of danger, the many risks which must be run, the many possibilities of the failure of those fond hopes, and the disappointment of those strong holy desires, and then say, what can we do without a mightier arm to lean upon than mere human resources and skill ? In such times, prayer to God is our only comfort. Presently I will tell you what the prayer ought to be, which alone can bring relief. One more illustration. There may be one of our dear children inevitably severed from the protection and the purifying love of a godly home, and plunged amid scenes of contamination, thrown into contact with people who have utterly low aims in life, who do not care for purity, who do not care for honour, who do not care for truth- 220 THE NEED FOR PRAYER IN MORAL PERIL fulness, whose lives are spent in mere indulgence of animal tastes and appetites, without any regard to self-control, or to the sacredness of human life. All the influences in which that precious child of ours lives and breathes are calculated to destroy or to bring to nought the higher and holier influences of a pure home; almost every one around is a kind of tempter, tending to vitiate the taste and tarnish all the refinement of a sensitive conscience. No danger to the body by sea or land can compare for one instant to the awful peril of losing one's soul I do not mean in a future hell of fire but of losing one's soul here on earth in the foul morasses of sin and bestiality. If we love our child, thus inevitably exposed to perils so terrible as these, where can we go for help and comfort in the extremity of our fear but to Him whose power of saving souls is infinite, and whose brooding love is far stronger, wiser and more watchful than our own ? The agonies of fear on behalf of our dear ones are absolutely unbearable without a refuge higher and stronger than any human help can give. Let us pray never so earnestly to our brothers and sisters to do their best, there is an awful margin left where they are as powerless as our poor selves. It was of all such anxieties that I took cogniz- ance when I put almost at the beginning of our Service these words : " While we know that He needs no reminding of the cares and sufferings of His children, it lightens our hearts to beseech Him to protect and to bless those dear ones whom all our love and wisdom cannot guard from sin and sorrow." And again in our first prayer : " We commend to Thy Fatherly love and care all who are dear to us, especially those who are no longer within reach of our service and help." Now, you will have noticed that I selected for illustration four examples of the need for prayer, three of which concerned temporal good, good for the body ; and one which concerned spiritual and moral good, good for the soul. We must then be careful to draw the distinction between prayer for good to the body, and prayer for good to the soul. May we reasonably and rightly pray to God for both of these needs ? I am one of those who say we may, but I am PRAYERS FOR THE BODY 221 very particular to say also that our prayers for the body must be different from our prayers for the soul, in one very impor- tant point. First, I will tell you why I think we may reason- ably and rightly pray for the body. In all the instances cited, the desire was not a selfish, but a loving one. There was the dear one in peril of death by sickness, or surgery, or in childbirth. Then a husband and wife undergoing the pain and anxiety of a separation, each longing for the other's safety. The third instance was that of the mother leaving her husband to fetch home her babes. All the prayers in these cases are absolutely unselfish, for without real love there could be no anxiety. Now I affirm that any unselfish prayer is absolutely justified. It is the highest expression of our desire for another's safety and welfare. It is moreover so natural as to be inevitable. If you believe in God at all, you must pray to Him in the hour of your trembling anxiety and intense love, that He would preserve and bless the one who is so dear to you, and we have a God-given right to pray so ; we are His children and have a free avenue to our Father's footstool, and a filial claim to be heard by His loving heart. So we have a right to pray for the bodies of those we love. But while it is our right and lightens our hearts thus to cast our care on Him, we must remember that the bodies of His children are not dear to Him as they are dear to each other. In the grandeur of His rule over the world, and in the profound unfathomable wisdom and goodness of His plans, all bodies are perpetually undergoing transformation, ceaseless ebb and flow, growth and decay, life and death ; and therefore, according as He sees best, our bodies are preserved or destroyed. By certain laws which cannot be broken, every body must, sooner or later, perish ; and the only consolation for this is that no body can perish without His will ; that when and where and how He chooses, and at no other time, in no other place, nor by any other means than He chooses can a body live or die. He only asks us to trust His good purpose and His love, when He sends that Angel of Death to carry our beloved ones out of our sight. So when we pray with sighing and tears to Him to save and preserve the bodies of our beloved, we must remember that 222 PRAYERS FOR THE SOUL fact, and with a true heart we shall then add to our prayers " Thy will be done," " Save, oh ! save my child, if it be Thy will," " Spare my dear husband to meet me again on earth, if it be Thy will ; but if not, help me to bear the awful loss and to be quite sure that Thou hast taken him from me only out of Thine infinite love." This is a reasonable and right prayer for the bodies of those dear to us, and if we can pray thus in the hours of extreme anxiety, we shall be able to bear it with comparative ease, and certainly be prepared for our bitterest loss whenever God's time for it shall come. If we believe in God at all, we shall dread the idea of dictating to Him what He should do. How can we know what is best for us? Thousands of times we live to see that what we thought best turns out to be bad, and what we thought our direst calamity has turned into a great blessing. If I thought I could alter God's will with myself or with any one dear to me, I would never dare to pray again : but so long as I pray with a full resignation to His will, it does me good to pray for my beloved ; it makes my fears to flee away and takes all the burden of care from off my aching heart. "It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good." When we come to the question of prayer for the soul, the difference is apparent. We see that God does not care to preserve the body except for a time ; but we know that the soul is a very different thing in His sight. That is His real child. That is what He has begotten. That is what He loves. Just as we love the bodies of our children infinitely more than we love their clothes, so God loves us infinitely more than He loves our bodies, which are only clothes after all. So for the soul we pray in perfect confidence that He will never part with it, will never leave it, nor forsake it ; will ever be a Father and Friend to it, will watch over its discipline, and with sleepless eye follow all its way, its use or misuse of liberty, its growth in virtue, its wanderings into sin and folly ; and He will hear the far-off cry of the prodigal as he comes to himself and bethinks him of the sweet home that he has left and lost, and longs to come back to his Father. We have no reserve in our prayers when we cry out unto God to make and keep our children good. We need not say NONE EVER OUT OF REACH OF GOD'S LOVE 223 tremblingly " If it be Thy will." Ah ! we know all too well that nothing else could ever be His will but that they should be good ; but we know that real goodness is not to be enforced ; it must be freely put on ; real goodness is not machinery but a living growth, it must have vicissitudes, discipline ; sometimes, alas ! it cannot be firmly established except by bitter experience of evil, and never at all can it flourish without temptation. So all the perils of the way a thousandfold more dreadful than mortal disease or death by shipwreck or the most woful bereavements all the perils of the way pass before our anxious eyes till we sink with fear lest our dear ones should go astray and fall into wickedness and shame. Better bury them, aye, a thousand times rather than they should live to be wicked. Death is a boon, a sweet and gracious deliverer, by the side of those fiends who make havoc of a heaven-born soul. To tell us not to pray for loved ones in such peril is to bid us unmake ourselves and turn into stone. If they are beyond reach of our service and help, what a glorious consolation it is to know and believe that they can never be beyond reach of the service and help of their Father above, never beyond reach of Him who will preserve their going out and their coming in from this time forth and for evermore. So we may well pray for those whom we can no longer watch and guard, and train, and help, and guide. But they must pray for themselves too, or else all our prayers will be vain. Unless they hold out their hand to be taken, even God's own hand cannot reach them. The soul is His child, partaker of the Divine nature, partaker of the Divine freedom, partaker of the Divine self-will. God asks for our love ; He cannot and will not force it. The gift must be ours. But only they can pray who truly love Him. When once we have seen our Father's face, it is enough, and we shall thenceforth PRAY WITHOUT CEASING. THE ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS LIMITED WORKS BY REV. 0. VOYSEY. THE SLING AND THE STONE s. d. Vols. L, II., III., IV. Vol. V Vol. VI Vol. VII., ON PROPHECY . Vol. VIII., ON THE PATERNOSTER Vol. IX Vol. X MYSTERY OF PAIN, DEATH AND Six. Enlarged ..... DEFENCE AT YORK, 1869 APPEAL TO PRIVY COUNCIL, 1870 . LECTURES ON THE THEISTIC FAITH AND ON THE BIBLE . LECTURE ON THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND LECTURE ON EVOLUTION . KEVISED PRAYER BOOK AND HYMNS. 1 PRIVATE AND FAMILY PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS BOUND VOLS. OF SERMONS SINGLE SERMONS .... DULWICH TRACTS .... THEISM : OR THE BELIGION OF COMMON SENSE THEISM AS A SCIENCE TESTIMONY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS CONCERNING JESUS CHRIST 36 LECTURE ON CREMATION . . ..06 Out of Print ditto ditto . . 5 Out of Print 4 ditto 6 ditto 10 6 New Edition. Out of Print 7 6 ditto 1 ditto 1 r THE BIBLE . 1 1 . . 6 rd Edition 3 6 ATIONI 3 . 6 . 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