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1 2 3

^^-^

THE TRINITY OF EVIL.

THE

TRINITY Oy

EVIL,

I. INFIDELITY.

II. IMPURITY.

III. INTEMPERANCE.

BY THE REV,

CANON WILBERFORCF.

. M.A,

TORONTO :

S. k !l U KxGS.

TORONTO WILLARD TRACT DEPOSITORY AND

BIBLE DEPOT,
Corner of Yonge and Temperance Streets.

[All rights res£r-'ed.\

PREFACE.

n^HE three articles which follow,
upon Infidelity, Impurity, and In-
temperance, reprinted by request, are,
with the exception of the appendix to
the last, part of a series entitled "Topics
of the Times," published in the Chris-
tian Commonwealth, a journal con-
spicuous for its courageous advocacy of
right and truth, and deservedly com-
manding an extensive circulation. They
assume no pretension to be other than
popular, and represent a slight attempt
to consider the duty of the Christian

Preface.

towards three dangerous developments
of evil in our day.

The key-note of the whole series in
the Christian Commonwealth was struck
in the first article, in the words of
St. Paul, " Our citizenship is in heaven "
(Phil. iii. 20), and the underlying
thought in all Is, that Christ hath pro-
vided by means of, the living mem-
bers of Kis Body a counteracting
agency to the ever increasing moral
degradation of the natural man. It is
essential to observe, that, without ven-
turing upon a definition of the Church,
it is assumed that a " citizen of heaven "
is not merely one who has accepted the
profession of Christianity and identified

Preface,

Vll

himself with some external organization
under the benediction of Rome, Con-
stantinople, or Canterbury, but one who,
having come in all conscious weakness
to the living Lord Jesus, who Is exalted
to be a Prince and a Saviour, is in
Christ by faith ; such an one, though
his realization of it may be clouded and
dim, though he may be conscious of
much imperfection, is nevertheless one
who Is " In Christ before God, and for
Christ before men ; " he is the heavenly
citizen, that is, he has a residence, a
life, a duty In one condition of being,
or world, and a citizenship and home
in another. A Christian of this stamp,
possessing the secret of a quiet mind

Vlll

Preface.

and the impulse of an active life, ^vill
be used by His Master in saving souls
from sin, guiding men into truth, making
lives and homes brighter, happier, purer,
by bringing into them the peace of God
which passeth all understanding.

This principle of counteraction is a
universal ideal ever in process of realiza-
tion. In our bodies are powerful acids
and chemical forces, which would de-
stroy us if they were not neutralized by
the presence of the mystery of life ;
against life they have no power : simi-
larly, the forces of evil within the
believer are neutralized by the presence
of Him who is the life, and apart
from Him we can do nothing. Simi-

Preface.

larly, again, the destructive and cor-
ruptive influences in the world can only
be effectively checked by the bene-
diction-giving and humanity-exalting
influences of the Christ manifested in
His people, to whom He has said, "Ye
are the salt of the earth." This anti-
septic influence of believers is actively
but secretly operating. In all ranks
there are men and women with hearts
loyally devoted to a personal Lord Jesus,
working secretly like the leaven hidden
in the meal, to whom it is virtually said,
"Fear not, Paul, I have given thee them
that sail with thee."

It is to be hoped that some who pro-
fess and call themselves Christians, will

Preface.

be led to consider the grave question
how far they are in this sense " citizens
of heaven." The name Christian has
been secularized and profaned, the
ethical system implied by it discredited
and dishonoured, not through opponents
but through exponents. It is signifi-
cant that the natives blessed by the
missionary labours of Dr. Judson, ever
declined to speak of him as Christian :
the name savoured of rum and the
slave-trade ; but recognising in him the
living embodiment of his creed, they
called him " the Jesus-Christ man."
U:>on the true *' Jesus-Christ men" will
devolve the duty of counteracting In-
fidelity, Impurity, and Intemperance.

Preface.

The position accorded in the Trinity
of Evil to Infidelity may be considered
open to criticism, and in a general sense
it might perhaps be affirmed that a
man's opinions have no direct effect
upon the morality of his actions ; never-
theless the heart is affected by the head,
and the heart is the mainspring of con-
duct; certainly it does not appear to
have been given to the deniers of the
faith to bless, enlighten, and elevate
mankind. We are prepared, however,
with abundant proof that the tendency
of modern atheism is directly immoral,
and that audacity of opinion not infre-
quently leads to atrocity of conduct. It
is impossible, consistent with necessary

Preface.

reticence, to do much more than hint at
this branch of the subject ; but from
a work entitled " Elements of Social
Science," amongst numerous paragraphs
too gross for repetition, I extract the
following, " Chastity, so far from being a
virtue, is invariably a great natural sin."
" Prostitution should be regarded as
a valuable substitute for a better state
of things ; " and in a pamphlet from
the pen of the most prominent and
aggressive unbeliever of the day the
following expression occurs, referring to
the " Elements of Social Science " :
" This work I specially recommend."

The article upon Impurity was
published previous to the actual com-

mencement of the recent government
prosecution of Mr. Stead. To know
that Mr. Stead, a man remarkable for
tender sympathy and self-sacrificing
readiness to succour the wronged, and
whose lofty motives Mr. Justice Lopes
pronounced unimpeachable, is actually
in prison, whilst the notorious Mrs.
Jeffries, the procuress for a dissolute
plutocracy, is not only at large without
bail, but once more pursuing her ini-
quitous traffic to the open scandal of
her neighbours, is a grievous shock to
the moral sense. Mr. Stead is a can-
didate for our admiration rather than
our pity. "Patiently to suffer for the
truth's sake," is to "lay up a more

XIV

Preface.

exceeding weight of glory ; " the fierce
execrations of the Attorney- General will
not harm him. When *' Balaam is
hired against" a man that he might
curse him, "the Lord turns the curse
into a blessing" (Neh. xiii. 2).

It is satisfactory to know that, amidst
all the decay and inability to distinguish
between right and wrong characteristic
of modern society, the inner heart of
the nation is sound upon this question ;
and to mention Mr. Stead's name in any
large assembly of working men is to
kindle an enthusiasm bursting out into
cheer after cheer. It is simply un-
deniable that Mr. Stead's action alone
secured the passing of the Criminal

Preface.

Law Amendment Act, under which
measure ninety-eight cases of outrage
have been punished in six weeks, /^r<>'-
seven of which were perpetrated upon
little girls under ten years of age. As
to the Judge's gratuitous assertion that
the articles in the Pall Mall '' would
ever be a disgrace to journalism," there
are t-ns of thousands of thinking men
and women who agree with the words
in The Christian newspaper, a journal
which has throughout earned the grati-
tude and admiration of all social re-
formers by its courage and ability, that
this irrelevant, prejudiced, and exag-
gerated utterance will ever remain "a
disgrace to jurisprudence." The ruth-

XVI

Preface.

i-f

I \ '

lessness with which all through this
shameful business the true reformers
have been hunted out for popular ven-
geance, for slight errors in judgment,
and the vampires and voluptuaries suf-
fered to go free, receives an additional
illustration in the bitter persecution of
Dr. Heywood Smith. The persistent
attempt to blast the reputation of, and
extrude from every medical institute, a
pure-minded and honest-hearted phy-
sician on account of what was at its
worst but a generous error, is a serious
blot upon the honourable medical pro-
fession, the more especially as they
cordially approve of certain Acts under
which many thousands of women have

Preface.

xvu

been compulsorily exposed to medical
examination, with no pretence to any
high or generous intention.

From the fires of lust to the coal
mine whence they are replenished the
transition is natural. Thousands of
thinking men in the present day are be-
comJng more and more convinced that
the chief agent in promoting vice and
social corruption is intoxicating drink,
which weakens the will and inflames the
desires, and "for the present distress"
are abstaining from alcohol themselves
and discouraging its use in others.

In an atmosphere thus heavy with
sensuality and corruption, the heavenly
citizen finds his post of duty and his

XVIU

Preface.

call for action ; true it is, that "No man
may deliver his brother, nor make agree-
ment unto God for him ; " yet are
we, each one of us, emphatically our
brother's keepers ; and, identified with
our Lord and Master, living in touch
with Him, we can become in a measure
our brethren's burden-bearers also.
That is a sweet fiction of early days,
which imagines Peter the apostle
wearily bearing the sins of the world
up a rugged mountain side, and meeting
a little child, who invites him to trans-
fer the burden to his infant shoulders.
He places his burden upon the child.
"Now," commands his mysterious
visitor, "carry me." He does so, and

Preface.

XIX

behold the burden has become as a
feather's weight. Thus is "Christ in
us" the bearer of our burdens, and as
we grow up into Him in all things,
we, as Christ-bearers, become the bur-
den-bearers of others.

When the ascending Lord spoke
those words before the cloud at Bethany
received Him out of human sight, " Ye
shall be witnesses unto Me," He epi-
tomized in a single sentence the whole
catalogue of the earthly duties of the
heavenly citizen. It is to no sentiment
or idea, however transcendent, to no
new religious philosophy, however ap-
parendy suited to the world's need ; it
is to a Person, to the Lord Himself

Preface.

as the living Friend of sinners, the one
conqueror of Death and Hades, that we
have to witness. It is for us to con-
vince a fallen sinning world that there
IS — not there once was — One among-
them whom as yet they know not, and
whom to know is life eternal.

God help us each one thus to witness.

" Now unto Him that is able to keep
us from falling, and to present us fault-
less before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy, to the only wise
God our Saviour, be glory and majesty,
dominion and power, both now and
ever. Amen."

Deanery, Southampton.
December t 1885.

•

INFIDELITY.

K^-

- arr'N / ..

INFIDELITY,

" Philip saith unto him, Come and see."-St
John i. 46.

pHILIP was echoing a word of Royal
invitation full of force and power that

was often on his Master's lips when he
answered Nathanael's justifiable scepticism
with the courageous sentence, Come and
SEE. It is as though he had said, " I have
challenged the orthodox belief, I have
declared to you an experience beyond the
lines of conventionality. You ask me for
my proof. I reply, Bestir thyself, experi-
mentalise, investigate, analyse, and thou

If f'

T/ie Trinity of Evil.

J »>

shalt know ; in a sentence, ' come and see.
There is nothing suggestive of timidity,
uncertainty, want of assurance, about this
bold invitation, and, God be praised! it
reaches far beyond the temporary circum-
stances which called it forth. It stands
firm after the lapse of eighteen centuries
as a motto, an example, and an encourage-
ment. It is the voice of Jesus speaking
to the hearts of doubting, anxious, care-
harassed men; it is a call to intimacy, a
guarantee of victory, a promise of rest;
it is real, individual, and close ; it is an
invitation, not to a system, but to a person :
" Come unto Me, and I will give you rest."
Let us endeavour to apply this Royal
invitation to one of the practical difficulties
of modern life. I am speaking from the
assumption, somewhat profound, that we

^^...JL

Infidelity.

have in a measure realized our heavenly-
citizenship. It is well not to flinch from
this, for nothing can more impress the
stamp of consecrated purpose and pra^^-tical
usefulness on life. To be a conscious
citizen of heaven, so far from emancipa-
ting a man from intelligent participation
in the duties of this earth life, accentuates
his corresponding obligation to be light in
the world and salt of the earth. If one
who professes that his heart is in heaven
is living to himself a non-illuminating life,
his creed is not authenticated by his con-
duct, and he knows not the alphabet of
his faith.

A man must be blind to the signs of
the times who knows not that we are
living in " a day of trouble, rebuke, and
blasphemy." A great atid terrible cry is

The Trinity of Evil.

it '

rising up from a sin-polluted world. Ever
and anon the veil is lifted from moral
putrescence, which threatens to poison the
nation, and courts the doom of the verdict
of God : " Shall I not visit for these things
saith the Lord, and shall not My soul be
avenged on such a nation as this ? "

Amongst the prominent cancers of modern
society there stand out three taller than
their fellows, closely interdependent in their
nature, yet each so independently defiling
that they constitute a trinity of destructive
influence. They are Infidelity, Impurity,
and Intemperance. Of the existence of the
first of these, its causes, probable effects,
and the duty of the Christian towards it,
we would speak to-day.

I do not know that it would be correct
to say that there is now more unbelief in

, ,r— b i<i.

Infidelity.

proportion to the population than formerly,
but it has arrived at a new development.
It is more patent, more aggressive, and
above all more recorded, and therefore
more mischievous. There are, probably, not
more atmospheric disturbances than in days
gone by, but our attention is more drawn
to them. Storms are telegraphed from
America, and daily meteorological reports
keep the subject under our notice. Modern
unbelief in like manner is kept constantly
under our observation. At a recent census
in France, out of a population of twenty-
nine millions, seven and a-half millions
openly declared themselves to be of no
religious belief ; and in England, though
I am not aware of any census having been
attempted, there is not a town of any size
without its organized society of unbelievers.

'■ i

77/^ Trinity of Evil.

A considerable proportion of the unbelief
of the day is doubtless confined to frivolous
sceptical chatter spreading its propaganda
in fashionable magazines. Another moiety
is undoubtedly of moral origin, in accord-
ance with the saying of Augustine, that a
man who allowed his senses to rule him
carried about with him five cogent argu-
ments against the faith. In his case the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and
the pride of life choke the Word and blind
the spiritual perception. But there is a
sufficiently formidable residuum which is
not necessarily immoral, and is serious,
determined, and aggressive.

If we permit ourselves to inquire into
the more prominent causes for the spread
of unbelief, I fear the true and reasonable
conclusion will bring shame to many of us.

Infidelity.

How much, for example, is directly to be
attributed to the utterly unspiritual lives
of professed believers ? How much to the
unacting orthodoxy of rigid dogmatists
who, while adhering to the letter of Catholic
tradition, will not stretch out a finger to
assist in removing evils which are turning
this world into a gaol, a lazar - house,
a hell for millions ? How much to the
healthy revolt of a developing humanity
against cramping sacerdotalisms, soul-
withering limitations, and theological cari-
catures of the Divine Being ? How much
to the timid, grudging, persecuting attitude
adopted in times past by men of religion
to the researches of science ? Surely it is
with a tender hand that the ecclesiastical
descendants of the men who in the name
of the Lord burnt Bruno and persecuted

The Trinity of Evil.

Galileo, and sinned against " Him without
whom nothing was made " by quenching
the h'ght of science, should deal with un-
belief. When tempted to be harsh, dog-
matic, and contemptuous towards those who
are unwisely, under the name of Agnosticism,
imagining that they can bow Almighty God
out of His own universe, they should re-
member that science has had her martyrs,
and at the hand of theologians, and that it
was Augustine, the beloved of the Catholic
Church, the theologian of the giant intellect,
who by pronouncing an anathema upon all
who affirmed the existence of antipodes,
threw the arm of ecclesiastical sanction
around error, and strengthened the hands of
the thrice-accursed Inquisition in burning
and torturing those who were the pioneers
of the world's light, liberty, and knowledge.

Infidelity.

What will be the probable effect of a wide-
spread and somewhat arrogant denial of the
faith ? Upon the Church, the invisible
Body of Christ, its effect must needs be stimu-
lating and purifying ; the progress of vital
faith is advanced, and its pungency, as salt
of the earth, intensified, by constant question-
ing and sifting. A period of toleration and
patronage exercises a soporific influence on
the heavenly citizen, and the vitality and
the sin-resisting power of Christ's mystical
body are suspended in proportion as its
mighty truths are imprisoned by limiting
definitions or crystallised into dogmas to be
received without conviction upon authority.
A pillar of the early Church is credited with
the saying that if the word " Trinity " had
never been invented the thing signified by
the word would probably never have been

The Trinity of Evil

doubted. Is there not a moiety of truth in
his utterance? has not the desire for a definite
dogma imprisoned within the walls of a series
of propositions led to a species of Tritheism,
from which that which is wrongly denomina-
ted Unitarianism — for so far as we can judge
this form of negation does not teach the
" unity " but the " unicity " of God— is a not
unnatural recoil ? Whereas the " thing signi-
fied," namely, the Tripartite oneness of the
Divine Being, is "clearly seen, being perceived
through the things that are made" (Rom. i.
20). And " trinity in unity " is found every-
where an incontrovertible fact amidst the
verities of nature, using nature in its widest
sense, comprehending all that is "in the
round ocean, and the living air, and the blue
sky, and in the mind of man." I think we
may say that the atheism of the day, with its

Infidelity.

unsparing criticism, and its determined icono-
clasm, though it may shake visible churches
to their foundations, will leave the true faith,
stripped of human accretions, purer than it
found it. We read of a devouring fire de-
stroying many homesteads and vineyards in
the Pyrenees, but opening by its heat deep
fissures through which gleamed molten silver
hitherto unknown. May it thus be with the
^f Christ. May the fire of attack drive
mi - open confession and strengthen the
faith by increasing the reality of the witness.

When, however, we come to consider the
probable effect of atheism on the nation, we
can only view it as an unmixed evil. Those
best qualified to form an opinion have again
and again declared that atheism, inasmuch
as it is a determined foe to liberty, is nation-
ally destructive. " God," said a master mind

The Trinity of Evil.

of France, at the close of the great revolution,
"is as necessary to a nation as liberty."
Voltaire, the very patron saint of atheists,
has emphasized this thought in the following
pungent sentences: "If the world were
governed by atheists, it would be as well
to be under the immediate rule of those
infernal beings who are depicted to us full
of fury against their victims. In a word,
atheists who have power in their hands
would be as mischievous to the human race
as superstitious persons ; certainly their prin-
ciples will not be opposed to the assassinations
and poisonings which will seem necessary.
They must tend to all crimes in the storms of
life. The atheist, crafty, ungrateful, calumni-
ous, plundering, bloody, reasons and acts as
if he is sure of impunity on the part of men.
For if there is no God the monster is his own

Infidelity.

god ; he immolates to himself whatever he
desires or whatever is an obstacle in his way.
The most tender prayers, the best reason,
make no impression upon him." (" Works,"
Vol. I. pages 136-139. Paris, 1837 edition.)
To the testimony of Voltaire we may add the
recent experience of the ribald blasphemy for
which the editor of an infidel newspaper was
(unwisely as we think) imprisoned, together
with the soul-destroying immoralities incul-
cated in " The Fruits of Philosophy," and the
conclusion at which we arrive is that for men
who profess to long for national progress
under the attractive watchwords of Liberty,
Fraternity, Equality, to encourage or trifle
with atheism is politically as suicidal as
morally it is discreditable.

On the other hand, we are convinced that
the Gospel is the nursery of liberty. " My

The Trinity of Evil.

model," said a statesman recently, " is Oliver
Cromwell." " Mine," replied his friend, also
a member of Parliament, "is Jesus Christ."
He was right. The man who, in the exercise
of the franchise or the wielding of political
influence, has resolved to stand on the prin-
ciples of Jesus Christ, is the best friend of his
country that his country can have. Lord
Shaftesbury records how he heard Lord
Macaulay, in the House of Commons, declare
that "the man who speaks or writes a syllable
against Christianity is guilty of high treason
against the civilization of mankind;" and
Froude, in his essay on Calvinism, expresses
the same thought when he says, "All that
we call modern civilization in a sense which
deserves the name is the visible expression of
the transforming power of the Gospel." It
would be a labour of love to trace the truth

Infidelity.

of this proposition down the ages. In spite
of the not infrequent, reactionary, and bar-
barous cruelties of the visible Church, which
in its excommunications and persecutions
sinned more against Christianity than
humanity, we can recognise that every step
in moral and political progress may be traced
back to the Babe of Bethlehem, who, though
He never promoted a single rebellion, and
never formulated revolutionary propaganda,
quietly sowed moral seed and gave impulses
to human thought which have changed the
aspect of the world, and will, in the end,
subdue all things to God.

Mirabeau, when he was asked how he
would inculcate the principles of national
liberty, replied that he would begin with the
infant in the cradle and let his first lisping
utterance be the name of Washington. The

The Trinity of Evil.

believer will rise higher than this, and say,
Would you have a nation free indeed—
politically, socially, morally, blessedly free;
would you witness the spread of principles
that must inevitably, if they have free play,
overturn all despotisms and crush out more
than half the sorrows of human nature:
begin with the infants in the cradles, and
let the first name they lisp be the all-pre-
vailing name of Jesus : the Divine Regene-
rator of the world, the Infinite and Eternal
Head of humanity, the Immanuel, God
with us ; for " If the Son of God shall
make you free, then shall you be free

indeed."

It remains for us to consider the impor-
tant question of the duty of the heavenly
citizen towards prevailing unbelief. And
first, he must be deeply convinced of the

Infidelity,

truth of the proposition, Magna est Veritas
et prcsvalebit. In " contending earnestly for
the faith once delivered to the saints," his
contention will be rather to persuade man
than to defend God ; not, Uzzah-like, to
imagine that he will uphold that which is
tottering. This reflection will free him from
timidity as to any supposed conflict between
science and revelation. "Without Him was
not anything made that was made." The
investigating faculty of man is the boring
tool whereby the glories of the living God
are dug out of His mines, and in the re-
verent pursuit of natural science the thoughts
of God become visible. The study of Zoo-
logy* Geology, and Ichthyology are directly
prescribed to us in the book of Job as
stepping-stones to the knowledge of God :
" Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach

The Trinity of Evil

thee ; and the fowls of the air, and they
shall tell thee; or, speak to the earth and
it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the
sea shall declare unto thee" (Job xii. 7).
Noble-hearted Charles Kingsley, whose truly
great mind pushed its way upwards through
the false sophisms and intellectual entangle-
ments of the age, drank deep of the cup of
science, and the light of the Spirit of God
within him was fed by the flame ; with his
own lips he told me that it had brought
him nearer to his God, and his dying words,
so calm and true and trusting, were the
witness that he was passing to an endless
life with God. It is a libel upon true science
that it can ever rob us of our Father ; nay,
rather has it unveiled Him ; and it behoves
us publicly to thank science for what it has
done : it has swept away cobwebs, it has

Infidelity.

cleared the atmosphere of false gods and
superstitions; by its discovery of evolution
(if evolution be true) it has brought us
even more face to face with an intelligent,
thinking all-producer, than direct creation.
If we may credit the Rev. Joseph Cook, of
Boston, a marked decline of rationalism in
the German universities has been the direct
fruit of its labours ; by its disproof of
spontaneous generation, its demonstration of
the continuity of the laws of life, the promi-
nence it has given to adaptation, causation,
and design in nature, it has driven the
coarser atheism of the past to assume a
softer title; and if David in days of com-
parative scientific darkness wrote, " The fool
hath said in his heart, There is no God,"
modern research, when carried to its logical
issue, through microscope, spectroscope, tele-

The Trinity of Evil.

scope, and scalpel, deliberately and scien-
tifically replies — Amen.

Secondly, the heavenly citizen will do well
to counteract infidel propaganda through the
printing press ; the tracts and leaflets of
the " Christian Evidence " Society should be
widely distributed, and it would be expedient
for all who are interested in working men's
clubs and mechanics' institutes to supply
them freely with the admirable and instruc-
tive pamphlets written by Mr. Hastings, of
Boston, and sold by Messrs. Bagster under
the title of "The Anti-Infidel Library."
One of these tracts, upon " The Inspiration
of the Bible," is one of the most pungent
and useful ever published. The method of
counteracting unbelief by public debate be-
tween selected champions is eminently un-
satisfactory. The sharp intellectual fencing

Infidelity.

necessary savours too much of the "king-
doms of this world." But where the
Christian champion flinches not from Saul's
armour, and can condescend to his adver-
saries' weapons, though the spectacle is not
edifying the victory is sure, as may be
proved by a study of the shorthand writer's
report of the celebrated " South Place
Debate" between Mr. Bradlaugh and the
Rev. Brewin Grant.

But, thirdly, non tali aiixilio, these are not
the characteristic weapons of a true citizen
of heaven ; with them he may silence, not
convince ; confound, not convert the denier
of the faith. He differs even from the
patriot and the philanthropist, in that to
him believing is not an intellectual but a
spiritual process. They who know the
"secret of the Lord" will rather lead the

The Trinity of Evil.

anxious doubter away from systems, con-
troversies, and debates into the presence of
the Lord Himself. Philip of Bethsaida, in
the history before us, illustrates the true
method ; he had " found Jesus," had re-
cognised in Him the Christ; God's answer
to the hunger and thirst of humanity. Such
a knowledge evidences its reality by its self-
communicativeness ; he rushes to his friend ;
without preface, argument, or explanation,
he says, " I have found the Christ ; " he is
met at once with a chilling retort, which
could easily be modernised into the words,
"You are the victim of an enthusiasm, you
are led astray by emotion ; you have theo-
logy, ecclesiasticism, orthodoxy, and pro-
phecy against you ; * Can any good thing
come out of Nazareth .? ' " Mark the sim-
plicity of his reply; he cannot argue the

Infidelity.

question on its merits ; he has not the power
afterwards exhibited by Saul of Tarsus, of
" proving by the Scriptures that this is the
very Christ," but he knows what he has
found, he can at least invite trial, he is not
afraid to subject the blessed truth which was
flooding his whole being with its vivid light
to the most searching analysis, the closest
investigation : " Philip saith unto him, Come
and see." Here is the one absolutely irre-
fragable Christian eviden e : the power of
Jesus Christ to satisfy every human instinct,
to fill the heart to overflowing, to save to
the uttermost, to elevate the affections, to
perfect the nature, to ennoble the character
of fallen man. This is the witness that we,
citizens of heaven, ought to be able to give
in our own lives. Jesus our Risen Lord
says, Ye are My epistles, " Ye shall be wit-

The Trinity of Evil.

nesses unto Me." " As my Father sent Me,
even so send I you." We ought to be able
to say,—

"Marvel not that Christ in glory
All my inmost heart hath won ;
Not a star to cheer my darkness,
But a light beyond the sun.

"I have heard the voice of Jesus,
Tell me not of aught beside ;
I have seen the face of Jesus,
All my soul is satisfied."

Inasmuch as the best sermon is a life, our
life should so witness that men would be
compelled to acknowledge that "the life
we live in the flesh we live by the power
of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave
Himself for us." In so far as it is not so,
we are responsible for some of the un-
belief; and before we blame sceptics let us
to our knees in penitence and prayer. But,

Infidelity.

thank God, we can overwhelm an inquirer
with examples that come under our know-
ledge in evangelistic work. It is simply
a phenomenon in the realm of fact that
thousands of men and women, sin-stained
and polluted, have been radically changed
and are kept from falling by the power of
the living Lord Jesus, to whom they have
entrusted themselves. We ask the doubter
to "come and see," to inquire and investi-
gate, to put himself in the way of knowing
something of the radical conversion of those
who have found the Lord Jesus, and inform
us if there is any other power or influence
known which can take possession of a de-
graded human being, a mass of hereditary
taints and warps and scars, and quicken,
inspire, purify him; eradicating surely, though
sometimes slowly, the tendencies of Hfe-long

S''i

T/ie Trinity of Evil.

habits. If there were but one such case
known, it would be as worthy, as one has
said, "of a place and explanation as any
alkali in your crucibles, any birdtrack or
ornitholite in the sand," and they are
occurring every day. That they are not
without their effect may be proved by the
following extract from one of the secularist
newspapers : —

"The unquestionable power that Christianity
possesses, under certain given conditions, of
making a worthless life valuable, of reforming
a depraved man or woman, lorms a most
interesting and profitable study. Instances
of its ability to do this are to be found on
every side of us. Much of its strength lies
in the fact that it can justifiably boast of
reclamatory achievements that compel the
admiration and respect of mankind. It sue-

Infidelity.

ceeds in eiTecting rescues from evil in cases
that other moral agencies would regard as
almost hopeless. , . , Speaking only for
myself, I confess my ignorance of any method
by which Rationalism can successfully com-
pete with orthodox Christianity in awakening
a dormant conscience or in suddenly re-
volutionising the habits of a lifetime."

In conclusion, if Philip of Bethsaida speaks
to the believer, similarly and with like
decisiveness does the action of Nathanael
speak to those who know not the Lord ;
and with such are not the churches as well
as the secularist halls filled > Lives there a
doubter who is constrained by motives half
as strong for rejecting Jesus and disputing
His crtientials as those which actuated
Nathanael at that moment ? With him was
the earnest conviction of a lifetime of

The Trinity of I il.

thoughtful study, based on the teaching of
writings he believed to be verbally inspired,
to assure him that Christ would not come
from Nazareth but from Bethlehem, not as
a persecuted working-man evangelist, but
as an emancipating prince. Had he, whilst
pretending to seek for truth, looked down
with contempt upon the enthusiasm of his
friend, his opportunity would have passed.
It was not so. He arose, bestirred himself,
came — how much of the secret of salvation
is wrapped up in that word " come " ! — and
Jesus saw him comings and quick as He ever
is to meet the awaking soul reaching after
Him, rewards Nathanael with such a flood of
God-given demonstration and conviction that
from that moment his heart was filled with
the knowledge of the Lord, and he entered
into the believer's privilege : " Henceforth

Tufidelity.

thou shalt see the heaven opened, and the
angels of God ascending and descending upon
the Son of man."

That word of Royal invitation, "come,"
still rings through the v^^orld. His word
remains pledged, " Him that cometh I will in
nowise cast out." Mysteries, difficulties, of
course there are ; in a . evelation coming
from God their absence would be a stumbling-
block, indeed : but nature is more charged
with them even than revelation. " I have
dissected many a body, and I never found
a soul," argued a sceptical physiologist. " I
liave dissected many an eye, and I never
found sight," replied his believing companion.
It is, to say the least of it, no greater mystery
that my spirit, trustingly lifted heavenward,
shielded to the utmost of my ability from
intervening hindrances, should be fed by the

The Trinity of Evil.

living Christ : that He should grow up into
it, become part of it, until I can say—" I
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; "
than that the broad leaf of the garden veget-
able lifted sunward should be fed by the
sun's rays ; that the sun should so grow up
into it and become part of it, that the very
sunlight could be chemically extracted from
it in the form of carbon, and that it would
be hardly unscientific to say "it lives, yet
not it, but the sun liveth in it." The truest
instincts of man will never be satisfied with
anything short of this, though the constant
raising of our ideal as we grow up into Him
frequently conveys the impression to our
minds that we are not progressing. The
hollow emptiness of mere negation starves
the soul of man. One of the best known
writers on political economy on the Continent

Infidelity.

has recently left the ranks of the Free-
thinkers : when questioned, he replied, N' avoir
rien cest trop pen (to have nothing, it is
too little) ; yes, to have nothing, when, in
Christ, you might have all things, is too
little indeed. It was too little for the six-
teen infidel leaders of London, who in the
last thirty years have turned to Christ and
salvation (see important leaflet, "What be-
comes of the Infidel Leaders," by the Rev.
C. J. Whitmore, 88, Caversham Road, N.W.);
and though there is not necessarily a clear-
ing away of every doubt and difficulty when
you come to Jesus, the strain is removed.
If you inspect the intricacies of the
machinery of one of the great manufacturing
firms, you will come to some parts inclosed
in a locked box, and will be told that of
this the Master has the key ; so there are,

The Trinity of Evil.

and ever will be enigmas connected with

the wondrous dealings of God with man

of which it must be said the Master has the

key\ but, when He is Master, He gives

the witness of the Spirit to those who trust

Him, and in the secret of His presence there

is peace : —

" Ridge of the mountain wave, lower thy crest ;
Wail of Euroclydon, be thou at rest !
Sorrow can never be, darkness must fly.
Where saith the God of God, Peace, it is I."

IMPURITY.

;

II.

IMPURITY.
" 1 am full of the fury of the Lord."— Jer. vi. ii.

*" I ^IS well that the heavenly citizen
should at tinfies be " full of the fury
of the Lord " ; should be on fire with Divine
indignation. He wrestle^ "not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against spiritual wickedness in high
places," and the sound of his rebuke and
warning must ofttimes be in proportion to
the intensity of the peril. " Son of man,"
said the word of the Lord to Ezekiel, "if
thou givest him not warning nor speakest
to warn the wicked from his wicked way

T/ie Trinity of Evil.

to save his life, the same wicked man shall
die in his iniquity, but his blood will I re-
quire at thine hand. Yet if thou warn the
wicked, and he turn not from his wicked-
ness, he shall die in his iniquity ; but thou
hast delivered thy soul."

It is in this spirit that the heavenly citizen
is constrained to deal with that second ma-
lignant influence in the trinity of evil, to
which allusion was made in the previous
paper, namely, the sin of impurity. The
storm of indignation which has burst upon
the Pall Mall Gazette on account of its
recent exposure of flagitious, all-sacrificing
lust, has afforded to many minds an addi-
tional proof that it is characteristic of an
age of peculiar self-indulgence to deprecate
plain speaking about plain sins; to endure
unblushingly the visible manifestation of

Impurity.

evil ; and prudishly to hide the head when
such evils are denounced from pulpit, press,
or platform by their proper names. We
must at once acknowledge that there are
some godly, Christian people who deprecate
the publication of the articles in question ;
but the immense majority of the violent
abuse which has been showered upon the
head of the revealer of the "apocalypse of
evil " has come from the frivolous, the
worldly, the self-pleasing, who have so ex-
hausted their vocabulary in abuse of the
Pall Mall Gazette that they appear not to
have a curse to spare for the defilers of the
temple of the Holy Ghost, the child tor-
turers, the incarnate fiends who have per-
petrated the abominations which the Pall
Mall Gazette has exposed, or the unnatural,
avaricious godlessness of parents who have

The Trinity of Evil.

literally fulfilled the prophecy in Joel iii. 3 :

" They have sold a girl for wine that they

may drink."

In the midst of notorious vices which are

eating like a canker into the heart of modern
society : with not a few of the leaders of
so-called high life living opcily in adultery ;
with some of the main thoroughfares of the
Metropolis so blocked by troops of fashion-
able prostitutes that a man who desires not
to be solicited must walk amidst the cabs
and omnibuses in the streets ; we are told
that the ardcles in the Pall Mall are in-
decent, and we ere treated to the amazino-
spectacle of a Government prosecution
against those who have been endeavouring
though possibly blunderingly and erro-
neously, to check the evil, when notorious
procuresses and wealthy child seducers, well

Impurity.

known to the police, are permitted to go on
their way unmolested. It is a despicable de-
ceit of civilization, it is an insult to right
feeling and common sense, it is, moreover,
nationally perilous, inasmuch as it courts the
explanation that, in the opinion of the au-
thorities, the interests of particular trades and
the reputations of particular persons are of
more importance than national morality in the
^togi^egate and the sufferings of the wronged.
It is not reassuring to observe in the leading
society newspaper the remark that a " num-
ber of gentlemen are trembling and quaking
in their shoes lest they should be implicated
in the revelations." Such GENTLEMEN must
necessarily detest the intrusive forth-teller of
these things " done of them in secret," and
their undistinguishing fury against the Pall
Mall Gazette is accountable when we call

•k«

T/ie Trinity of Evil.

to mind the scandalous hushing up of the
proceedings at Westminster against the
wretched procuress, Mar/ Jeffries, in which
men 01* exalted rank were directly implicated.
(For their names see The Sentinel for June,
1885, published by Dyer, Paternoster Square.)
We feel bound to express the opinion that
these revelations, however nauseous, however
shocking to the moral sense, must tend in
the ultimate issue to moral improvement. It
is undeniable that they have already accom-
plished directly the result of raising the age
at v/hich seduction is punishable by law, and
have rendered it less easy for the would-be
libertine to destroy. By the law of Moses,
when leprosy in all its hideous defilement
was full out upon the sufferer's body he was
no longer ceremonially unclean, partly for the
reason that in that stage the disease was less

:-CE

Impurity.

contagious, partly in that the utter loathsome-
ness of the sight would of itself discourage
contact. The same principle applies to the
scathing exposure of moral leprosy in the ar-
ticles in question. There are minds so foul,
as all who have had remedial dealings with
souls know well, that their prurient appetites
will find some food even in the most sacred
writings ; but here the physical details are
recorded with such sickening minuteness that
they can hardly be imagined to do other than
revolt even the most licentious, and the entire
publication does not contain half the poten-
tiality for inspiring prurience that may be
found within the pages of many a sensational
three-volume novel, the main object of which
appears to be to gloss over sin with a veneer
of sentiment, and to enlist the sympathy of
the reader with, while pretending to con-

! '<

T/ie Trinity of Evil.

the

ith

mdi

dcmn, breaches ot ttie scveni
In no one out of the whole catalogue of
crimes laid bare by the Pall Mall Gasette
does there lie hid so much suggestion of evil,
as in the following sentences from the lead-
ing society journal, a paper to be found in
the house of almost every condemner of the
Pall Mall, Commenting upon an accusation
recently made against an ex-Cabinet minister,
it says, " As a man of fashion (he) ought to
be superior to emotional weakness ; from the
deals of private conduct, which, as one might
imagine, he proposes to himself, effusiveness
or gush should be absent ; while the pursuit
of pleasure should be tempered by a dis-
cretion and astuteness which throw the glam-
our of intellectual ingenuity over the gross-
ness of vice." What counsel can be imagined
more deliberately immoral than this ? Here

Impurity,

is vice varnished over with literary euphem-
ism, spread broadcast into the family life of
the nation with impunity by the editor of
the society journal, whilst the editor of the
Pall Mall Gazette, for exposing and uttering
a warning voice against gross breaches of the
law, is not only smothered with invective,
but has to take his place in the dock as a
prisoner.

Nay, let us rather be thankful that the
conspiracy of silence has been broken at last,
that the fierce sunlight of exposure is beating
in upon the mass of moral rottenness. When
the Hon. Grantly Berkeley, looking back in
his autobiography upon the events of a long
and changeful life, attributes no small share
of the vices and follies of earlier years to his
never having heard in his life one brave
outspoken sermon upon the text, "Thou

TJie Trinity of Evil.

{

shalt not commit adultery," we may lay it
down as an axiom that whrn society is
ashamed to sin it will be time enough for
those whose duty it is to endeavour to stem
the torrent of evil in society to be ashamed
to speak of sin. In the meantime, we thank
God that He hath placed " watchmen upon
the wall of Zion who shall never hold their
peace day nor night ; " men who, in the spirit
of John the Baptist, the royal chaplain who
rebuked a king at the cost of his head, will
"constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke
vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake."
As we look back on the history of man-
kind, as we note the disastrous power of the
lusts of the flesh to distort the strongest
characters, to taint the lives of men and
women, and to poison the springs of family
life, we are compelled to admit that the

Impurity.

sexual impurity of our day is no sudden
development, but an inheritance of evil
deeply ingrained in human nature. Augus-
tine is probably the originator of the theory
that some fearful form of this sin necessitated
the deluge ; the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah, and the extirpation of the Can-
aanites, were the direct consequences of
sexual vice ; the traditions of heathen* my-
thology, the still existing frescoes on the
walls of Pompeii, and the locked room filled
with obscene statuary in the museum at
Naples, indicate the extent of the evil
amongst the ancient civilizations. The wor-
ship of Baal and Ashtaroth, the deification
of the male and female principles in nature,
patronised by Jezebel, the Zidonian queen,
was accompanied with the wildest sensual
licence, which Elijah the Tishbite was raised

The Trinity of Evil.

up by Jehovah to rebuke ; and it was the
same sexual vice, and again in a king's
palace, that Elijah's great antitype, John the
Baptist, so fearlessly challenged and rebuked.
What has been termed the "self-repeating
action of humanity " has carried on the in-
heritance to our own time, and we find our-
selves confronted with a grievous manifes-
tation of the old evil. Recent revelations
have sufficed to convince many that impurity,
not only amongst haunts of squalor, misery,
and vice, but in the highest societies also, is
assuming the proportions of a pestilence, and
threatening the mainsprings of national life.
Statistics are obtainable in ghastly array,
proving beyond question that many of the
general Dnditions of society prevailing in
Imperial Rome, in the early days of Chris-
tianity, are being reproduced in Christian

_, /

Impurity.

England at the present time. This being so
it is in the light of patriotism that it behoves
us first to touch this cancer of modern life,
for the truth is unalterable that " righteous-
ness exalteth a nation," and that national
demoralisation is followed by decrepitude
and decay. All vain-glorious boasting about
prestige abroad, and spirited foreign policies .
is but sounding brass when the life-blood
of a nation is being sapped by voluptuous
corruption. "Thou canst not stand before
thine enemies until ye put away the accursed
thing from amongst you" (Josh. vii. 13)-
What blindness, then, can be imagined more .
suicidal than the conspiracy of silence which
would cast a veil over evil • influences de-
structive to the welfare of a people If it be
true that there are eighty thousand fallen
women plying their terrible trade in London

The Trinity of Evil

alone, and that in other centres of population
the proportion is maintained ; if it be true
that nameless vices and hideous forms of
sin (Rom. i. 26, 27) are increasing amongst
us ; if it be true that had the Jeffries case
not been hushed up, the revelation of the
names of those implicated would have shaken
society to its foundation ; inasmuch as the
purity of a nation in the aggregate will
never rise higher than the purity of its
women, it is the bounden duty of every
patriot and philanthropist to direct his at-
tention to, and deal courageously with, this
hindrance to national well-being. Mirabeau,
when asked at what age he would commence
the education of a boy, is reported to have
replied, " I would begin twenty years before
he is born, by educating his mother." The
inexorable law of heredity convinces us of

<srs_^. .

Impurity.

■

the disastrous effect upon national life of
the converse of this benevolent proposition ;
twenty years before they are born are we
demoralising the coming generation by suf-
fering the contagion of degrading vice to
infect their potential mothers. It is time
then that these questions lying at the root
of national well-being should be pressed
upon the attention of our would-be legis-
lators. We are hearing enough, perhaps
more than enough, of the various items of
the programmes of the contending political
aspirants for power, while a condition of
shameless vice which lowers the whole moral
tone of the nation by enslaving the will
to the appetite, demoralising youth and
degrading womanhood, is, presumably be-
cause it does not supply material for party
warfare, passed over in silence.

The Trinity of Evil.

P I

I I

\t !

Speaking from the lowest platform first,
it is, I am convinced, from an elevated tone
of public feeling alone that improvement
may be anticipated. It behoves society, in
mere self-defence, if from no higher motive,
to bestir itself and extrude from the domestic
circle polluting influences. Surely there are,
amidst the highborn and the influential, a
goodly number " who have not bowed the
knee to Baal, and w^ho have not kissed him "
The peril of the times calls for heroic
efforts. Let them combine to raise the whole
standard of social ethics, in conversation, in
qualification for friendship, in occupation, in
recreation. Let them by mutual agreement
endeavour to abolish the vile social code
whereby one standard of morals is required
of a woman and another of a man. Let
them resolutely exclude from their houses

Impurity.

■■rl

men, whatever be their credentials of birth
or wealth, who are known to be living in
open sin. Let them shake themselves free
from " the devil's cobwebs of guilty custom
and guilty acquiescence," and believe that
the purity and happiness of their daughters
are of more value than coronets or fortunes.
They will have difficulties to contend with,
doubtless, but inasmuch as their influence
will spread downwards and leaven the masses
beneath them, they will justify the existence
of a ruling class and earn the gratitude of
thousands. They are, perhaps, hardly aware
of the extent to which the vices of the poorer
classes are an echo of the manner of life of
those above them in the social scale. Selfish
luxury, ostentation, fortune and title-hunt-
ing, stripped of the veneer of social refine-
ment, are apt to reappear in the hideous

t|!

T/ie Trinity cf Evil

forms of vice common amongst those who
compose the dangerous and criminal classes.
If it may be said with truth of some of
the marriages in high life, too frequently
concluded by the Divorce Court, that " they
have sold a girl for a fortune or a coronet,"
we have no right to be surprised if the
contagion spreads downwards from Belgravia
to Whitechapel ; and if the refined and legal-
ised form of prostitution which legitimatises
the aristocratic bargain by the ceremony of
marriage, repeats itself in the brutal insens-
ibility to parental duty revealed by the Pall
Mall Gazette, and foretold by the prophet
Joel in the words already quoted, "They have
sold a girl for wine, that they may drink."

It would, moreover, greatly tend to miti-
gate the existing condition of things if there
were associations of men in connection with

Impurity.

the White Cross Army or some other branch
Q\ the Purity Crusade, chivalrously pledged,
even if from motives of compassion and
patriotism alone, to protect the honour and
further the interests of women and girls.
If men of culture and standing in society
would combine to mete out the same penalty
to one who deliberately robs a woman of
her purity that they would inflict upon one
who cheats at cards or fails to settle his
racing debts, the effect would be immediate
and salutary. Lives there a criminal on
this earth more despicable, more worthy of
the punishment of social ostracism, than the
man who, by false pretences, by flattery,
by stimulating the impulses of curiosity or
affection deliberately robs a girl of her virtue t
In all the bitter meaning of the term he has
been the ruin of her ; he has destroyed her

The Trinity of Evil.

as effectually and as irrevocably as one who
for a caprice might burn a priceless diamond
into a chip of carbon, from which condition
all the chemists in the world can never
recover it. Himself escaping without loss
or damage, he has condemned her to a life
of shame and degradation, to a condition of
bondage more bitter than negro slavery, to
a hopeless life naturally terminating in a
despairing death, embittered by loathsome
disease; unless, indeed, the blistering
anguish of an unsleeping conscience, ever
reminding her of happier years, drives his
victim into a suicide's grave, and a plunge
into the dark waters tells of one more—

♦' Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery
Swift to be hurled.
Anywhere, anywhere,
Out of the world."

Impurity.

That the deliberate author of a ruin such
as this,— and there are hundreds who boast
of the number of the ruins they have accom-
plished,— should be received into the society
of the just, the upright, and the pure, should
merit the confidence of his fellow-men, and
be entrusted with the responsibility of a
legislator, either hereditary or elected;
should mingle freely with the wives and
daughters of others, is a paradox, an
absurdity, and a crime.

Again, it is to such associations of refor-
mers of society that we must look for the
formation of vigo ous vigilance committees
to watch the general treatment of women ;
to interest themselves in . removing the
disabilities of women ; to protest against,
and, where possible, remove that terrible
incentive to vice, the utterly inadequate

The Trinity of Evil.

remuneration for women's labour ; to watch
narrowly the public-houses and gin-palaces
of the Metropolis and other large towns,
vast numbers of which are dens of infamy
and brothels in disguise. It will be their
duty also to leaven public opinion and diffuse
information — statistical, medical, and legal.
By the means of frequent lectures, such as
Mr. Henry Varley's grand " Sermon to Men,"
the masses should be assured that this form
of vice is as much a sin against human order
as against Divine law, and that the natural
penalties attaching to it are peculiar, fright-
ful, and hereditary. The wretched sophistry
of the argument, not unfrequently urged by
young men, that health cannot be main-
tained without sexual sin, must be exposed
and refuted, and any boasted medical
authority met by the public statement of

*l<

r •

Impurity.

Sir James Paget, that the continent man is
in every case tbe strong man, and that he
would as readily recommend a patient to
steal as to commit the sin of fornication.
The detestable philosophy of selfishness
which underlies the invariable excuse that
the committal of this sin does not involve
wronging the woman if only she be already
fallen, must be constantly combated. As
well might it be urged that no blame would
attach to one who, seeing a woman sinking
in the mud of a tidal river, thrust her, for his
own gratification, one foot deeper down into
the slough, and exculpated himself upon the
plea that he was not the first to cast her in.
Nay, though the necessary retribution may
not be so terrible as that which awaits her
first seducer, every separate sharer in her
gradually increasing degradation is her

The Trinity of Evil,

moral murderer, and guilty before his God.
Further, when once the amount of impurity
that shelters itself under the trashy inflam-
matory fiction that pours from the modern
printing press has been recognised, it is
obvious that any attempt on the part of
society for self-purification will include a
searching censorship over books. If you
would shrink from subjecting your daughter
to the companionship of a man of coarse
mind, wisdom would suggest the same com-
punction at subjecting her mind to the foul
saturation of some of the popular novels of
the day, and you will choose her books with
as much discrimination as you would choose
her friends. We are not prepared to say
that all forms of literary fiction are neces-
sarily demoralising. The method called
fiction is not unknown to the Bible, as may

Impurity.

be seen in Jotham's parable of the trees
(Judg. ix.), and from the allegories of the
New Testament. The harmless fairy-tales
of childhood have sometimes started into
activity the wondering faculty which, stimu-
lating the instinct for reaching into the
unknown, have led at last into the awakened
" faith faculty," whose sole satisfier is God.
Works like the novels of Miss Yonge, and
authors of a similar stamp, have exercised
a refining influence upon many minds, and,
without doubt, social wrongs and class
injustices, and even national sins, have at
times been more successfully attacked under
the guise of clever fiction than by direct
assault. Charles Reade's " Never too Late
to Mend," brought about a distinct mitiga-
tion of prison discipline ; his " Hard Cash "
focussed the attention of thoughtful men

- I lt i ll

The Trinity of Evil.

upon the then existing iniquities of private
lunatic asylums, and brought indirectly relief
to hundreds ; whilst other writings of his
have caused many to consider seriously
whether the relations between employer and
employed were righteously adjusted, and
prepared the minds of men for salutary
changes which have since been effected.
But it is impossible to speak too emphati-
cally of the terrible danger to intellect, heart,
and spirit of the bad book. Of such an one
did an eminent Christian man speak but
recently when he declared that for a quarter
of an hour, when he was a boy, a book was
placed in his hand, the evil impression of
which had never left him, though his hair
v/as grey in the service of Christ. In such
books there are serpent's fangs. We read of
one who in India took down from his shelf

Impurity.

a book, feeling at the same moment a slight
prick in his finger which he attributed to
a pin ; symptoms of poisoning rapidly
appeared, and he was shortly a corpse. A
deadly serpent had been concealed amongst
the books, and had struck its fangs into his
finger. There are books that sting to the
death. Many a ruined life and broken heart
has owed its destruction to literary poison.
Courvoisier attributed his assassination of
Lord William Russell to a state of morbid
sympathy with crime induced by reading the
popular romance "Jack Sheppard." And
many a girl has fallen an easy prey to the
seducer from inflated notions, sentimental
ideas, and poisonous thoughts, instilled into
her mind through novels, feuilletons, and
suggestive poetry. Thus far, at least, may
we fairly look to the instinct of self-protec-

The Trinity of Evil.

tion in society to check corruption, resist
injustice, spread information, and generally
to elevate the moral standard.

It is now meet that we should consider,
in conclusion, the characteristic duty of the
Christian as such, the citizen of heaven,
towards the prevailing impurity. Impurity
is a heart-sin, of which misery and cor-
ruption are the fruits. " Out of the heart,"
proclaimed He who knew what was in
man, "proceed adulteries." This being so,
the labours of philanthropists and reformers
of society, the diffusion of knowledge, the
censorship of literature, and removal of the
disabilities of women, though they will pre-
vail to ameliorate the suffering fever of the
symptoms, must be powerless to touch the
root of the disease. It can only be cured
by One who has the will and the power

iti

mwmmwsfMM!! ^'.

Impurity.

to put a new heart into man. There is a
remedy, perfect and unfailing, for the here-
ditary and acquirec poison of sin-stained
human nature, and this remedy is the
cleansing, healing, keeping power of the
Risen, ever-present, Christ, who has pledged
His word, and heaven and earth shall
sooner pass away than that word be
broken—" Him that cometh unto Me I will
in no wise cast out." The great dramatic
incident of the contest between Elijah and
the prophets of Baal is the prophecy and
the prototype of the power of the Spirit of
Jesus to conquer in man the lust of the
flesh. Baal, the.i;ast god, the delved male
principle in nature, is conquered by the fire
from heaven, and the shattered altar of
Jehovah rebuilt (i Kings xviii.). Thus have,
again and again, the whole licentious crew

The Trinity of Evil.

■■

of passions that have ministered to the
]5aal within been put to death, and the
shattered bodily temple been cleansed and
rebuilt by the Jehovah-Jesus, when the link
of faith and trust has been forged between
His power and a sinner's weakness. The
Gospel accepted ; the good news, that God
was in Christ "reconciling the world to
Himself, not imputing their trespasses," be-
lieved ; the marvellous truth, that not only
has the Father forgiven our sins, but, in
order that He might win our love, robed
Himself in a human soul and body, and
now calls us to a close personal union with
Himself, an interpenetration of life, appre-
hended : this knowledge is so soul-filling
that it quickens, inspires, purifies, and saves.
This Gospel the Christian must first live
and then proclaim. Before he can effectively

Impiivity.

go forth and wield the ministry of recon-
ciliation entrusted to him and say, "We
beseech you in Christ's stead ye be recon-
ciled to God," he must shine. The glorious
ideal form which from Bethlehem to Calvary
manifested God on earth, as it was borne
back into the spirit world, spoke the com-
mand, " Ye shall be witnesses unto Me."
The question is, are we believers thus
shining as lights in the world f If not,
whatever our words, we are hindering the
Gospel we profess to proclaim. " Your
words terrify me," said a courtier of France
to Massillon, "but your life reassures me."
Let us see to it that the inconsistency of
our life reassures no half-terrified libertine.
St. Paul witnessed to the necessity for
watchfulness on the part of the child of
God when he exhorted his young Bishop

t il

The Trinity of Evil.

Timothy in the words " keep THYSELF pure."
Yes, the heavenly citizen, in an atmosphere
stifled with corruption, must keep himself
pure ; he cannot stand before the enemies
of Christ and humanity if the "accursed
thing " is in his own heart ; he must reso-
lutely and persistently search for any trace
of unmortified evil tendency, any unslain
prophet of Baal, and crucify it. When the
old line-of-battle ship Dougal, lying on Ports-
mouth mud, was overhauled after being
fifteen years out of commission, they found
in her a live shell with fuse attached,
which, under the pressure of a child's foot
or the gnawing of a rat's tooth, might at
any moment during those fifteen years have
blown her to atoms. A citizen of heaven
cannot afford thus to have live ,''iells within ;
his safety is in abiding constantly and

Impurity

consciously in Christ. "I am the Lord's"
(Isa. xliv. 5) will be his perpetual pro-
tection ; to Satan he will say, " Touch not
the Lord's anointed"; to human tempters
he will say, "I am not my own, how can
I do this great sin against my God ? " To
his Heavenly Father he will say, "I am
Thine, save me " (Ps. cxix.). There is a
tiny aquatic insect that possesses the ca-
pacity for gathering round itself a bubble of
atmospheric air, encased in which, as in a
crystal vesture, it can plunge into the foulest
water and traverse the muddiest bottom
unsoiled : it is a parable of the believer
abiding in Jesus. Hidden in Him, with
every thought brought into captivity to
Him, living in His presence, the Christian
is safe, and he can walk unharmed through
the world's wickedness. Moreover, thus

The Trinity of Evil.

abiding, living in touch with the Lord,
his words of warning will have power. If
his is a pulpit ministry, he will fearlessly
denounce sins of the flesh, leaving conse-
quences to God. The fact that society
tolerates and condones what it would not
have tolerated in the days when the consoft
of our Queen was living, is partly to be
accounted for by the silence of the pulpit ;
the servant of the Lord must seek for the
Elijah spirit, which can calmly confront an
Ahab with " I have not troubled Israel, but
thou and thy father's house " ; the John
Baptist spirit with its Nazarite separateness
and daring truthfulness, which can withstand
a Herod with the verdict, " It is not lawful
for thee to have hen" Again, though for
this he will find it expedient to address the
two sexes separately, he will speak with

Impurity.

outspoken lucidity to young men with re-
gard to secret sin. There are sins, secret
as the grave, which crush, bhght, ruin the
Divine image in man, and tens of thousands
never hear a warning word against them.
There stood one, on the southern peak of
the Isle of Skye, and watched the eagles as
they soared in the deep blue far above
his head. Suddenly he saw one hesitate,
tremble, begin to descend, close its wings
and fall, dead, a mere mass of feathers to
the ground. Out from beneath its body
crept a tiny weasel which it had captured
as its prey, and holding which in its talons
it had soared aloft. True to its nature, the
weasel had writhed from the eagle's talons,
and fixing its teeth into his life's blood, had
brought him to the ground. Thus has many
a noble young life full of promise been

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The Trinity of Evil.

crushed and ruined by a secret sin ; lightly
treated, little feared, it has sucked the life-
blood of the soul.

Lastly, the heavenly citizen will ever have
the " mind of Christ " towards the fallen ;
filled with the yearning compassion of his
Master, who never shrank from leper's touch
or harlot's tear, he will look upon none as
fallen too far for the glorious remedy to
reach. The Spirit of God never ceases to
strive even with the most polluted and sin-
stained, and the Lord has never ceased to
love His sheep that have wandered from
Him. Not otherwise was it with one poor
outcast who was found dead in a wretched
garret, friendless and starved —

" Oh, it was pitiful.
Near a whole city full, —
Friend she had none ; "

-±-

Tmpurity.

but in her own handwriting, blotted with
her tears, was found that pathetic wail, since
reprinted by the thousand, of which these
stanzas are a part : —

" Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell,
Fell like the snowflakes from heaven to hell ;
Fell to be trampled as filth on the street,
Fell to be scoffed, to be spit on and beat-
Pleading— cursing — dreading to die,

"Selling my soul to whoever would buy;
DeaUng in shame for a morsel of bread,
Hating the living and fearing the dead.
Merciful God, have I fallen so low?
And yet I was once like the beautiful snow."

Would not He whose name is Love "put
these tears into His bottle," and " note these
things in His book"? Would He not read
into these words the prayer, " Wash me, and
I shall be whiter than snow" ? It will be the
duty of the heavenly citizen to find this
chord in the sad hearts, set it vibrating

The Trinity of Evil.

once more, and satisfy it with the glorious
message of the Gospel : " The Lord hath
laid on Him the iniquity of us all." " Come
unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy
laden, and I will give you rest."

III.

INTEMPERANCE.

"The twelfth an amethyst."— Rev. xxi. 20.

TT is an old story, but it is not more old
than true, that a vast proportion of the
disgraceful libertinism referred to in the last
paper, is directly propagated and mainly
supported by the third destructive influence
in the trinity of evil of which we would speak
to-day, namely, Intemperance. It is not too
much to say that without the treacherous,
stimulating, all-destroying power of strong
drink, one-half of the horrors depicted in the
Pall Mall revelations would be impossible.

The Trinity of Evil.

To peruse that shockirijj catalogue of vice,
and mark each occurrence of an allusion to
strong drink, is a painful but suggestive
study; again and again do you come upon
some such saying as *' if possible the girl
is made drunk."

A leading judge of the Divorce Court
— that standing vi^itness of the inability
of birth, education, and refinement to
remedy the evils of the human heart — has
declared that nine out of ten of the cases
upon which he has to adjudicate owe
their origin to strong drink. The police,
whose activity in the detection of crime is
ever in exact proportion to the urgency of
their orders from head-quarters, could tell
you, if they chose, of accursed dens of in-
famy, where tender boys and girls are initi-
ated into the veritable mysteries of Satan ;

MjMBIM I W I WtM-llM l tMMM I IilMIIWI I IIIW

Intemperance,

where, primed with ardent spirits, their
young hearts are seared as with a hot
iron, and they are drawn irresistibly into
the vortex of debasement and ruin, to swell
the dangerous classes of the community.
The columns of the daily papers, the con-
stant utterances of judges, magistrates, coro-
ners, and superintendents of lunatic asylums,
accumulate evidence that the most direct
stimulus to crime, lunacy, and pauperism
is strong drink. Drinking, says the Times
(April, 1881), baffles us, confounds us,
shames us, and mocks us at every point.
It outwits alike the teacher, the man of
business, the patriot, and the legislator.
Every other institution flounders in hope-
less difficulties, the public-house holds its
triumphant course. The administrators of
public and private charity are told that

The Trinity of Evil.

alms and oblations go with rates, doles, and
pensions to the all-absorbing bar of the
public-house, but the worst remains. Not
a year passes in either town or village with-
out some unexpected and hideous scandal,
the outcome of habitual indulgence, often
small and innocent in its origin. Some poor
creature, long and deservedly high in the
respect, perhaps reverence, of the neighbour-
hood, makes a sudden shipwreck of charac-
ter. Under the accumulating influence of
alcohol, aggravated, peihaps, by other still
more powerful, still more treacherous agen-
cies, the honest man turns knave, the respect-
able man suddenly loses principle and
self-respect, the wise man is utterly foolish,
the rigidly moral man forgets his mask and
his code, and takes a plunge into libertin-
ism. It then turns out — what possibly some

lasa

Intemperance.

have suspected— //<!^/ drink is at the bottom
of it. Yes, drink is at the bottom of it.
The fiendish epidemic, prolific of suffering,
suicide, murder, which is mocking every
effort of every philanthropist for the well-
being of the people, is at the bottom of
it. Utterly saddening and disgusting are
the statistics of our national shame, which
have been recapitulated a thousand times.
Equally harassing are the details of deso-
late homes and broken hearts which come
under the individual notice of those minis-
terially engaged in the work of seeking
and saving the wandering. The land is
groaning under a heavy burden. Some idea
of the pecuniary tax may be gained from
the fact that the whole rental of the houses
and of the land in this country, added to
the amount spent in household coal, hardly

The Trhiitv of Evil.

reaches the total spent annually in intoxi-
cating drinks.

The extent to which intemperance is
pauperising the working classes may be
imagined from the example of a ship-build-
ing town in the north of England, where
;£'i2,ooo was paid weekly in wages, ;^4,ooo
of which found its way at once into the
various drink-shops.* In Ireland the sum
annually spent in drink exceeds by two
millions and a quarter the whole rental of
the island. And that the producing power
of the nation is materially diminished by
our drinking habits has been painfully ad-

* The accuracy of these statistics, originally ap-
pearing in the Fall Mall Gazette, was questioned in
Parliament, and the sum mentioned stated to be exag-
gerated, but the questioner was compelled to admit
that a large proportion of the weekly £i2fioo was
spent in drink

Intemperance.

?'3

vcrtised by the English consuls of the
United States, who, in a report forwarded
to their own Government, have remarked
that by reason of drunkenness on Saturday
and Monday, the productive power of Eng-
land has diminished by one-sixth in com-
parison with other countries. (See '* Science
Temperance Text-Book," by Dr. F. R. Lees,
337, Strand. Perhaps the most exhaustive
compendium of Temperance information
ever published.) But this is not all. If
pauperism be a symptom of national decrepi-
tude, — and the author of the " Early Days
of Christianity " declares that every age in
its decline has exhibited the spectacle of
selfish luxury side by side with abject
poverty, — it behoves our national reformers
to contemplate the following facts. We
have in England a vast hereditary pauper

TJie Trinity tf Evil.

class which costs the State ten millions
annually, and it is estimated that some ten
millions more are annually expended in
private charity, added to which the crime
which springs mainly from that class in-
volves an expenditure of another five mil-
lions, a 3um equal in the aggregate to more
than the interest of the National Debt, or
about the cost of -ne army and navy. But,
as has been shown by Dr. Baron (" Le
Pauperisme: ses Causes, ses Remedes") of
all the causes of pauperism the most po-
tent — mo'-e potent probably than all other
causes put together — is drink, as well in
France as elsewhere. In Geneva, it has been
distinctly proved that of one hundred cases
of family destitution relieved by the local
bureau de bienfaisance, eighty are traceable to
t,he drunkenness of the father. In France

Intemperance.

there is one cabaret for every twenty-nine
electors, equal to one for every 105 inhabit-
ants. Judged by this test, the most drunken
departments are the Nord, where there is
a cabaret for every eleven electors, and the
Pas-de- Calais, where there is one for every
fourteen. In La Charente, Le Gers, and Le
Vaucluse, the proportion varies from one in
fifty to one in sixty-nine. In the regions
where cabarets most abound, pauperism is
most rife. In the north relief is granted by
the bureaux de bienfaisance to one inhabitant
in twelve ; in the south-west to one in forty-
seven. Comparing the facilities for drinking
with the facilities for thrift, we find that while
in the Republic at large there is one public-
house for 105 people, there is one savings
bank for every 28,5CX), and one benefit society
for every 5,400. M. C. Play, the author of

The Trinity of Evil.

" Les Ouvriers des Deux Mondes," estimates
the average expenditure in drink and gam-
bling (mostly in drink) of a superior French
workman at £2^ sterling a year. The same
causes that make for pauperism make also
for crime. In the north, there is one crimi-
nal (condamn^) to 269 inhabitants ; in the
south-west, one to 626. Moreover, drink
as it were burns the candle at both ends ;
an encouragement to expense, it is almost
fatal to thrift. In France, as in our own
country, it has been noted that when the
drink bill reaches its highest point under
the influence of prosperity in trade and
higher wages, extravagance of all kinds in-
creases, and the savings of the people are
diminished. For this reason, and for some
others which he mentions. Dr. Baron alto-
gether disbelieves the hypothesis of want

Intemperance.

being a cause of drunkenness ; and contends
that indigence, criminality, and improvidence
are in direct proportion to the number of
puhiic-houses. Yet this is the only point
on which he does not seem to have the
courage of his opinion. He proposes no
repressive or regulative laws as touching
public-houses, but hopes much from the
spread of education and the growth of bet-
ter ideas. But, as the example of Switzer-
land abundantly proves, popular education,
unless accompanied by some material check
on facilities for drinking, is not by itself suf-
cient to keep a people sober. The Swiss
have long been both one of the freest and
one of the best instructed of nations ; never-
theless the Federal Council have just been
constrained to devise an elaborate scheme
for making head against drunkenness, by

The Trinity of Evil.

reducing the number of drink-shops. (See
Spectator, ]\x\y ^ \'i%/it)

We read of a scheme for draining the
Zuyder Zee, whereby fifty million hectares
of land, equal to three whole provinces,
would be gained. Truly if some European
scheme could be devised for draining the
Zuyder Zee of Drink, the increase in the
happiness, morality, and commercial pros-
perity of the nations would be immeasur-
able.

When a case has been as thoroughly
proved before every tribunal as the im-
peachment against intemperance ; when the
Times declares that " there is not a vice,
or a disease, or a disorder, or a calamity
of any kind that has not its frequent rise
in the public-house ; it degrades, ruins, and
brutalises a large fraction of the British

Intemperance.

people;" when it is manifest that drunk-

the

binds the will,

enness deteriorates
clouds the intellect, enslaves humanity ; we
turn naturally to the Government of the
country, imagining that policy and necessity
would induce those in authority to take
immediate steps to alleviate the prevailing
distress. But we turn in vain. A con-
templation of proceedings in Parliament
from 1880, when Sir Wilfrid Lawson passed
for the first time his Local Option resolu-
tion, to 18S4, constrains us to inquire what
there is about the atmosphere of the House
of Commons that appears to paralyse con-
science, disorganise moral instincts, and
blunt the faculties whereby men discern
between right and wrong. We are told in
trumpet tones that drunkenness produces
the "combined evils of war, pestilence,

Tlie Trinity of Evil.

and famine;" that the main object of the
conscientious legislator should be to "make
it easy for people to do right and difficult
for them to do wrong." And behold, when
the utterers of these magnificent truisms
have been enthusiastically placed in power,
partly upon the reputation of such enlight-
ened sentiments, we have to v/itness in four
years twenty-six Bills, aimed at intemperance,
by obstruction, indifference, or "talking out,"
permitted to fail. It is true that we have
to be thankful for some very partial
measures of Sunday Closing, and that last
year one small suggestion became law,
which will not be without its good effect ;
and for that we are indebted to the House
of Lords, namely, the Bill for preventing
the payment of wages in public -houses.
But the action of the Government of the

Intemperajice.

country during the last four years with
regard to Temperance reform, has khidled
in the hearts of thousands of Temperance
voters a sense of wrong too deeply seated
to be easily removed by fresh promises.
It is true, we ought to have known better
than to lean too hard upon a broken reed
for legislative morality in England is a
puzzle and a paradox. The English have
apparently a national obliquity of vision
as to the moral proportions of things ; we
imprison, for example, with unflinching
severity, an apprentice who, under the
pressure of sudden tem.ptation, appropriates
the contents of his master's cash-box ;
while without a qualm we starve the dis-
trict of Mahva, in India, by growing 300,000
acres of land with opium instead of corn,
and for the sake of a few millions sterling

The Trinity of EvU.

to the revenue, curse and destroy the
Chinese by importing amongst them,
against their will, 80,000 chests of poison
annually. Again, in the chaste dignity of
our Pharisaism, we institute a virulent
Government prosecution against those who
have been exposing amongst us some of
the greatest abominations of modern times,
while the '' Minotaurs," the brothel -keepers,
the destroyers of children, though known
to the police, are unmolested. Our national
modesty, moreover, requires that the costume
of our ballet dancers shall be regulated by
all the wisdom of the Lord Chamberlain's
office, while Regent Street is permitted to
be disgraced nightly by an exhibition of
shameless public profligacy that would not
be tolerated for a single day in any other
capital in Europe. This gnat-straining and

Intemperance.

camel-swallowing, which is characteristic of
our nationality, become positively grotesque
when on Sunday morning, as the clock
strikes eleven, you see the policeman order-
ino- off the harmless shoeblack, the working
man's valet ; and this gnat being strained
out, for the rest of the day he is enabled
to swallow comfortably the vast mass of
Sunday trading and labour in gin -palaces,
railways, omnibuses, tramcars. West End
clubs, and tobacconists' shops. We confess,
again, to a positive shock to the moral
sense when we read in our daily paper of
lads fined before the magistrate for playing
some game of chance in the street, and
upon turning over our newspaper we see
glowing accounts of the gambling transac-
tions the aristocracy in a well known
West End racing club, and the betting

The Trinity of Evil.

upon the next horse-race chronicled in the
same type as the last news from Bulgaria,
or the meeting of a Cabinet Council. It
is not, therefore, a matter for surprise that
this national camel-swallowinG: and crnat-
straining has been a prominent feature in
the rise, production, and application of the
470 Acts upon the statute-book professing
to regulate the curse of England, its great
licensed liquor-traffic. But there is a hope
from the very intensity of the evil. The
disasters arising from drink are upon a
scale so vast that it will not be possible
to see

" Truth for ever on the scaffold, wrong for ever on
the throne."

The hope of the future, speaking from the
national, the patriotic standpoint, is in the
working men of England, into whose hands

Tntemperaiice.

every day the future destinies of this coun-
try are being more and more placed. When
once they have clearly perceived that a
sober working class could in five years
carry every measure of reform they desire ;
when once their eyes are open to the fact
that the Immense public -house system of
the country, the deriving of vast sums for
the revenue from the bitter suffering and
grinding pauperism of the people, is a
terrible offence against their class, the
present elaborate system of society-petted
and Government-sanctioned, temptation is
doomed. In spite of the three hundred
millions invested in England's curse, in
spite of the revenue derived, in spite of
its roots deep down in the national life ;
when once the working classes are face to
face with their enemy ; when, looking at

The Tf'initv of Evil.

the accumulated evils pressing upon them,
pointing to the shivering, beaten children,
sworn at, driven on the streets, familiarised
with obscenity and blasphemy from their
infancy, they turn upon the liquor- traffic
and say, " This is your work," it is doomed ;
for

" There is a wound, a grievous wound, that rankles

in the heart
Of those, who, from their homes and all, by tyrant

hands must part ;
It never heals, but rankles on, hke wind, now calm,

then storm,
Till, gath'ring strength, tornado-like, it bursts —

then comes Reform ! "

Lot those in whose votes lies the potentiality
of every measure of reform once be made
to realize the truth that by the " tyrant
hands " of strong drink alone 600,000
families in the United Kingdom never know

Intemperance.

the meaning of that oni word of sweetest
cadence, Home, and the tornado that will
burst upon the great state-supported system
of temptation will assuredly reform it off
the face of the land.

In the meantime, without " Local Option"
the people are voiceless, and until some
sweeping measure of reform is wrung from a
reluctant Government by irresistible pressure,
the main stress will continue to be laid upon
private unselfish philanthropic reform in the
direction of moral suasion, counter attractions
to the public-house, the formation of public
opinion by the diffusion of information, the
organization of Temperance Societies and
Bands of Hope, the enforcing by means of
vigilance committees or otherwise existing
legislation, as to serving drink to intoxicated
persons and young children, and at illegal

The Trinity of Evil.

hours, and the general purification of the
moral atmosphere.

But it is obvious that the deepest responsi-
bility of all rests upon the heavenly citizen ;
that man whose test of being " in Christ
before God " is, that be shall be in all crises
of oppression, tyranny and temptation, "for
Christ before men." Upon him, above all^
has the commission been laid, "Take up
the stumbling-block out of the way of My
people" (Isa. Ivii. 14). To shrink from it
is disloyalty, to falter is to sin, to resist
selfishly, indifferently, is to court the condem-
nation, " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto the
least of these, ye did it not unto Me." What
then can he do } I think I see his duty set
in jewels in the words at the head of this
paper, " The twelfth an amethyst^ Students
of the word of God will recognise the

Intemperayicc.

sentence a:^ part of the singularly beautiful
description of the Holy City, the New Jeru-
salem, which he saw coming down from God
out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband. It is the yearning gaze of
faith, reaching right on to the splendour of
the fadeless morning. " And he carried me
away in the Spirit," says the Apostle, '■ to a
great and high mountain, and showed me
that great city, the Holy Jerusalem, descend-
ing out of heaven from God." It is a calm
source of consolation and encouragement to
the true-hearted soldier of Jesus Christ It
is like the sweec thoughts of home which
come flooding through the gates of a
quickened memory to the mind of some
soldier dying amid the din and smoke of
the battle-field, causing . him to forget his
surroundings, and babble of home and green

100

The Trinity of Evil.

! I

fields. To the heart of God's workers,
wounded to the core by being brought con-
stantly into contact with life under its most
hideous aspect, distress in its greatest in-
tensity, death in its most repulsive forms, it
is like a refreshing shower upon parched
earth to read the unchangeable promise :
"And God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes, and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying ; neither shall
there be any more pain, for the former things
are passed away."

This vision of the Church in heaven is
obviously granted to the Church on earth for
a double purpose. Firsts that we may never
despair at the contemplation of our world,
darkened with sorrow and laid waste with
sin, for the final overthrow of all evil is
here distinctly manifested as a truth of pure

Intemperance.

lOI

revelation; and, secondly, that we may be
stimulated so to labour and to pray that we
may accelerate the glorious event, " looking
for and Iiastingr not hasting unto, but
" hasting^' the Day of God.
■^ It would be beside our purpose to consider
I the whole of this glorious vision of the New
) Jerusalem; the language which foretells it
is mystic, symbolical, supernatural. But I
desire to emphasize one thought from the
inspired imagery, and I would ask all to
think it out for themselves. The city whose
streets are gold, and which needs not the
licrht of the sun or of the moon, is supported
upon twelve foundations, which are twelve
precious stones. Precious stones have ever
possessed in the legendary lore of all nations
a symbolical importance. There is not one
of these precious stones upon which the

J 02

TJie Trinity of Evil.

] ■

,;fl

Heavenly City rests that is not obviously
intended to represent symbolically the final
victory of one of those regenerating prin-
ciples now operating in antagonism to evil.
I humbly submit that I am in no sense over-
straining an analogy, nor grasping at a fanci-
ful interpretation, but literally accepting the
teaching of the word of God by concentrat-
ing your attention upon o?ie of these precious
stones, the twelfth and the /asi of the founda-
tions of the Heavenly City, and inquiring
into its nature and teaching. It says : "The
twelfth an amethyst." An amethyst — and
why an amethyst ? Put aside for the moment
the unbroken chain of legend which has
clustered round the amethyst, and which
corroborates the application I would make ;
treat it from the matter-of-fact, scholarly
point of view ; put imagination on one side,

Intemperance.,

103

and translate the word amethyst literally ; it
can bear but one interpretation-a combina-
tion of two familiar Greek words-" «." not,
and " methustos: a user of strong drink. Its
literal common-sense translation is, " ABSTI-
NENCE FROM STRONG DRINK."

•« The twelfth an amethyst : " The twelfth
regenerating principle upon which, as upon
a foundation-stone, the New Jerusalem alone
can stand, " Abstinence from strong drink 1 ! "
What a marvellous prophecy have we here.
Uttered 1,200 years before the pernicious
art of distillation was invented, it points
distinctly to the peculiar and special peril
of these latter days and its remedy. How
clearly and manifestly true, if in the New
Jerusalem there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there
be any more pain; how manifest to the

104

The Trinity of Evil.

meanest comprehension that one of its foun-
dation-stones must be the victory over that
ever-wasting destruction which, accompanied
by the sigh of hopelessness and the groan of
pain, is brutalising, ruining, pauperising, and
maddening thousands for whom Christ died,
and for whom Christ's followers are in a
large measure responsible !

To be privileged, then, to build this twelfth
foundation-stone by the personal practice
and quiet advocacy of abstinence from strong
drink, is within the scope of the humblest
heavenly citizen. The method possesses the
I advantage of exhibiting a constructive, not
a destructive, activity ; it savours rather of
overcoming evil with good than of pulling
down by aggressive warfare the strongholds
of Satan ; it quietly purifies the social
atmosphere by breathing into it- a healthy

Intemperance.

105

element, as the Eucalyptus gum-tree planted
in the malarious marshes of the Roman Cam-
pagna neutralises the fever poison by its life-
giving exhalations. It would be easy to fill
this paper with examples of the strengthen-
ing, reforming power, in every kind of society,
of the silent witness of total abstinence on
the part of those who never made a platform
speech in their lives, and could not sustain an
argument as to the pathology of intemper-
ance. Let it be an encouragement to the
thousands who, in the face of opposition,
ridicule, and often discouragement, have been
quietly bearing this witness. I pray them to
accept the assurance that although they may
not possess the gift of oratory or the oppor-
tunity for evangelising the masses, they have
none the less been silently establishing the
twelfth foundation-stone of the mystic fabric,

io6

TJic Trinity of Evil.

l\ w

and "shining" (Phil. ii. 15) "as liglits in the
world," with the soft lustre of an amethyst,
for God. If we had the power to penetrate
into the mysteries of the Master Builder's
manufactory, we should estimate at their
proper value the unnoticed, undistinguished
builders of the kingdom of heaven quietly
living and dying to save a world that
knows not how much its owes them. The
extent to which these persuasive preachers
of the best of all sermons — a life, prevail to
change currents of thought and work miracles
in the characters of men, is suggested in the
following beautiful extract from a sermon by
the Rev. J. C. Street, of Belfast : —

" The pages of human history are very
delusive. Not as yet have historians suffi-
ciently grasped the fundamental thought
that the world wants to know about the

Intempera)ice.

10/

people, and is not so much concerned about
kings and rulers, and the movements of
armies, and the intrigues of courts. Enough
if the names of kings and princes are recorded,
unless they have something to distinguish
them other than their rank and title. And
camps and courts, with their excesses and
frivolities, might just be left out of the record,
and no good thing would be missed in con-
sequence. But what we do want to find,
written in glowing records, is this— who have
been the real doers of the world ? who have
taught new truths ? who have lived lustrous
lives ? who have soothed human suffering ?
who have wrestled bravely with individual
and national sin 1 who have saved multitudes
from falling, strengthened the feeble knees,
upheld the sinking arms, put courage into
faint hearts, driven away famine, disease,

io8

The Trinity of Evil.

\ '\

crime, and immorality ? who have been co-
workers with God in aiding the world in its
effort after holiness ? To find these, any of
them, you will need to look most scrutinis-
ingly. Many of the illustrious souls you will
never discover. They have lived, worked
died, and their very names are buried. But
known or unknown, these are the true
apostles, the true representatives of God —
the brethren and sisters of Jesus, the priests
of humanity."

Thank God that amongst the ranks of
total abstainers and humble members of the
Blue Ribbon Gospel Temperance societies
there are hundreds of such priests of
humanity — they judge no man, but with
Rom. xiv. 21 for their text, with the love
of Christ and humanity in their hearts, they
quietly pursue their way, and the wonderful

Intewperance.

109

change of front in all ranks of society,
amongst clergymen, doctors, lawyers, states-
men, is to be attributed more to the influence
of the thousands of abstainers than to the
arguments and statistics of reformers. "I
cannot help thinking," said Mr. Justice
Hawkins at a crimeless assize at Lincoln,
" that a great deal of the happy condition
of the people here must be due to abstinence
from strong drink." And the close corre-
spondence between abstinence and national
prosperity may be implied from the sig-
nificant fact that when in 1884 the loss to
the Excise from a dim'nution in drinking
amounted to two millions and a half, addi-
tional deposits to the amount of ;^2,400,ooo
were made during the same period in the
Post Office Savings Bank.

Who, then will become an amethyst for

The Trinity of Evtl.

God ? If you arc weak, you will be wise to
become one for your own sake ; if you are
strong, you will be still wiser to become one
for the sake of the weak. It is a privilege,
not a command, an expedient to meet a
present distress, not an addition to the
Decalogue. The brazen serpent had proved
itself to be a gift of God, to be therapeuti-
cally worth more than all the doctors in
Israel, but Hezekiah " did right in the sight
of the Lord " when he destroyed it, seeing
it had become a national danger. It is an
unwritten law in God's court of equity that
it is not always right for a free and intelli-
gent being to do that which it is within his
right and his power to do. David had both
the right and the power to drink the water
won for him at the cost of blood from the
well of Bethlehem; had he done so he

Intemperance.

Ill

would have forfeited his identity with his
soldiers by availing himself of an indulgence
no other man could share, and which, more-
over, had been procured at the cost of blood.
Jesus had both the right and the power to
turn stones into bread in the wilderness;
had He done so He would have forfeited
His complete identity with His brethren in
humanity by availing Himself of a method
of sustenance beyond their reach. He had
both the right and the power to deaden
the pangs of crucifixion by the use of the
anodyne of alcohol and mandragora offered
to Him. He used His liberty in refusing,
that He might have fellowship with humanity
In suffering, and speak His seven wondrous
dying words from the Cross. As a Christian
man, a citizen of heaven, I have both the
right and the power to extend to myself

112

The Trinity of Evil.

the indulgence of using intoxicating drink.
If I do so, I cannot place myself by identi-
fication by the side of my fallen brother,
whose only chance of cure lies in uncom-
promising abstinence. If I would take him
by the hand, bid him fix his eyes on Jesus,
and crucify the flesh, I must unfetter my
heart and cleanse my hands by first bear-
ing myself the cross I am asking him to
take up.

I For, my total abstaining brethren, if we
would deeply influence the souls of others
we must be wholly in the Master's spirit.
Let us beware how we conjure with His
name while our heart is far from Him. In
casting out devils — and drink is a devil
if ever there was one in solution, precipi-
tation, or incarnation in this world — the
heavenly citizen must keep in touch with

Intemperance.

113

his Master; and whether he eat or drink,
or abstain from eating or drinking, he must
do it, not for his own satisfaction but for
the glory of God. St. Francis de Salis is
said to have entered, after intense prayer,
the iron cage of a dangerous maniac, and
completely subdued him ; without this con-
stant communion with God and intensity
and frequency in prayer, we modern exor-
cisers are in jeopardy of a repetition of the
" Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who
are ye?" Hidden in Him, our work as
Temperance reformers, though marred by
our imperfection, and hindered by opposition,
shall be memorable in God's sight, for there
shall be over it the mystic light which
crleams from the foundation-stone of the
Heavenly City, of which it is said, "THE
Twelfth an Amethyst." — y

WHAT CAIS THE CLERG\ DO 7
« Like people like priest."— H OS ea iv. 9.
T T has been said in the article upon Im-
purity that it is one characteristic of
an age of luxury to deprecate plain speaking
about plain sins ; to gloss over, with the
meretricious tinsel of euphemism, notorious
vices that eat like a canker into the heart of
society ; it is one of the deceits of so-called
civilization to endure unblushingly the out-
ward manifestations of evil, and prudishly
to hide the head when such evils are de-
nounced by their proper names. Such was
not the custom of the fearless apostle St.

114

Intemperance.

115

Paul, from whose pen has emanated the
Epistle to the Galatians ; and the plain, un-
varnished tale of deadly sins, enumerated
in the fifth chapter under the heading of
" works of the flesh," breathes a refreshing
atmosphere of candour, and encourages all
Christian ministers to clear themselves from
the imputation.

"Who dares think one thing and another tell,
My soul detests him as the gates of hell."

When society is ashamed to sin, it will
be time enough for Christian ministers to be
ashamed to speak of sin ; and in this article
we have to speak of sin— of foul, treacherous,
fascinating sin ; of sin which is the parent of
impurity, infidelity, suffering, suicide, murder ;
of sin that knows no distinction between rich
and poor, man and woman, learned and igno-
rant ; of sin that stamps its cursed label.

■i(

1
i

fi6

T/ie Trmity of Evil.

like the brand of Cain, upon the besotted
features of men and women made in the
image of their God, saying— See, here are
those redeemed by the blood of the Cross,
dedicated body, soul, and spirit to the Lord,
and it is written in their faces that their
God is their belly.

It would be an easy matter to fill reams
of paper with statistics of our English shame.
They have been collected in ghastly and
overwhelming array by Mr. William Hoyle ;
they are within the reach of all ; and they
prove beyond a shadow of doubt that misery,
brutality, and crime are prevailing to a
most alarming extent ; that there is an evil
influence abroad, neutralizing every effort,
mocking every exertion for the promotion of
the well-being of the people. It would be
bad enough if this national destroyer con-

Intemperance.

117

fined himself to binding grievous burdens
upon the pockets of the community ; that in
days when legitimate trade is depressed and
honest men of business are struggling hard
with impending poverty, he should annually
scatter to the winds one hundred and thirty
millions, which, if circulated through useful
branches of commerce, would impart pros-
perity to all ; that, of the millions of rate-
supported paupers, who tax so sorely the
resources of men of anxious toil, he should
claim three out of every four as his own pro-
duction. The mere money tax might be en-
dured. But from the length and breadth of
the land there comes a cry of human suffer-
ing, human agony, human death ; the most
fearful crimes are committed every day, —
brutal assaults by fathers upon their chil-
dren, mothers upon their infants, men upon

The Tr'-W'' of Evil.

each other; and judges, coroners, magistrates,
doctors, hangmen, all give the same unvary-
ing testimony— strong drink is alone, they
say, the cause. One hundred and eighty
thousand persons are licensed to procure
their livelihood by flooding the country with
strong drinlc These occurrences are the
logical consequence ; and the wealth, the
peace, the religion, the prosperity of this
great nation are slowly, but surely, going
down before the pestilence. The most ter-
lible proof of the extent to which this
devilish epidemic is infecting the mainspring
of the life of the nation, and one which can-
not too often be repeated, is to be found in
the report of the visiting justices of the West-
minster House of Correction, which exposes
the appalling fact that in one year between
five and six thousand women were convicted

Intemperance.

119

of drunkenness in this place of punishment

alone.

But in spite of the publicity which is given
in the daily journals to the fruits of England's
national sin, the worst results of it never see
the light in the newspapers or the blue-book.
There are working for God in parts of
London, and other great cities, devoted ones
who are spending their lives in striving to
cast the purifying salt of the gospel of Christ
into the foul pool of iniquity. They could tell
you of the dark deeds that are done in the
so-called homes of the drunkard ; they could
tell you of the cruel blows that fall thick on
wife and child ; they could tell you of wife
and mother lying senseless from some savage
assault, all through the long night until dawn
peeps in at the window ; and the endurance,
the forgiveness, the hope for better things in

I20

• f

.1.

JL^

The Trinity of Evil.

the heart of the poor brave woman con-
strains her to silence, and the outside world
knows nothing of her secret suffering.

Now what is the duty of the minister of
the gospel in conditions such as these ? I do
not mean to imply that the ministers of the
gospel have a monopoly of the responsibility
for the souls of those who are perishing
through drink : the drunkenness of England
is everybody's responsibility. Drunkenness
impoverishes the people, increases taxation,
limits the producing power of the nation — it
is, therefore, a question for the statesman ;
drunkenness deteriorates the race, renders
life less worth living by increasing its sorrows,
multiplying its perils, aggravating its evils —
it is, therefore, a question for the philanthro-
pist, for the pioneer of national libert*
Our ears are tickled in vain by the repetition

Intemperance.

121

of smart epigrams as to England being
" better free than sober," for we recollect
how such epigrams are annihilated by an-
ticipation in the words of Byron —

" Think'st thou that there is no tyranny but that
Of blood and chains ? The despotism of vice.
The weakness, the wickedness of luxury,
The negligence, the apathy, the evils
Of sensual sloth, produce ten thousand tyrants."

But drunkenness locks up the kingdom of
heaven, bars the channels of grace between
the soul of man and the life-giving Spirit of
God, defiles the temple of the Holy Ghost,
crucifies the Son of God afresh and puts Him
to an open shame, is earthly, sensual, devil-
ish ; and therefore it is pre-eminently a
question for the accredited shepherds of
the souls of men.

One of England's greatest statesmen once

122

The Trinity of Evil,

said, "If this evil is to be effectually dealt
with, you must not look to the world or the
legislature to take the initiative, the Church
of Christ must strike the bloiv ; " and it is zve
who have been solemnly set apart by ordina-
tion to fight the battle of the King of kings,
who are constrained to spend and be spent
in liberating the souls whose cure and
government has been committed to us, from
the power of the accursed idol before whom
they Tire bowing down. When we are ir-
diiT^rent, unenthusiastic, temporizing, in the
presence of overwhelming evils such as these,
we are but caricatures — not likenesses — ot
our Divine Master. When we timidly hold
ourselves aloof from this special developm.ent
of the battle between heaven and hell, when,
we take shelter behind the motto, quieta non
inovere, we are as those

I ntemperance.

123

" Who swore the love
Of souls had drawn them to the Church— yet strewed
The path that led to hell with tempting flowers,
And in the ears of sinners as they took
The way to death they whispered peace."

Yes, it is otir question ! It is our question
by the sacredness of our high calling, by the
Name we bow before ; it is our question,
because we are not reformers of society, but
physicians of souls, because with us eternity
overshadows time, because we are bound to
view man as an immortal being in peril by
sin, in pity for the miseries of which our
Master wept on Oliver, in atonement for the
guilt of which He bled on Calvary.

Now what can we as accredited ministers
do to lessen the causes, to diminish the
effects, of this torrent of evil ? I do not
believe it possible for one of us, who has
heartily realized the magnitude of the evil,

124

The Trinity of Evil.

to kneel down before our God with the
prayer, "Lord, what wilt TJiou have me to
do ? " without b'jing at once commissioned to
our corner of the vineyard. But this we can
do — we can divest our minds of prejudice,
we can stop our ears to those who would
soothe us into inaction by bidding us leave
the battle to the gradual influence of in-
creasing knowledge and refinement We
can reflect upon the trifling influence know-
ledge and refinement have had in the past
in purifying the heart of sinning humanity.
Knowledge and refinement ! Were they
wanting to Charles Lamb, the poet and
the essayist ? and did they render less bitter
that pathetic wail, " From what have I fallen,
if the child that I remember was indeed
myself"? Knowledge and refinement ! Are
they wanting to those high-born names

Intemperance.

125

which bespatter the pages of our newspapers
with the filth of the divorce court ? And it
is the testimony of the leading judge of
that court of Sodom, that nine out of
ten of the cases that come before him are
the results of intemperance. First, then, we
can set our faces as a flint against these
commonplaces, which do but mock the agony
of perishing thousands.

Again, believing that the peril of souls is
of more importance than the traditions of
society, the interests of a particular trade,
the platitudes of the press, the babblings of
shallow political triflers, we can shake our-
selves free from what one has well termed
"the devil's cobwebs of guilty custom and
guilty acquiescence." Thus, hitherto, we
have perhaps been tolerating evils rather
than make ourselves unpopular by waging

126

T/ie Triiiiiy of Evil.

war against them. Now we can become
aggressive ; we can constantly keep the
question before the notice of magistrates,
landowners, and the public. At times of
election we can show by our exertions and
our votes that we are in earnest.

We can engage a professional man to
oppose at every brewster sessions the issue
of fresh licences. We can add to our paro-
chial organization an earnest temperance mis-
sionary, whose one duty is to search for the
fallen, to encourage the waverers, to form
public opinion. We can shake ourselves
free from all complicity, by declining to sign
any publican's testimonial ; by refusing ever
to lease an acre of glebe for building pur-
poses without a stringent covenant to ex-
clude public-houses.

We shall possibly become unpopular, the

Intemperance.

127

drunkards will make songs upon us, the
public-house world will hate us. So much
the better for tis. We are striking a blow
for Him whom the world hated before it
hated us. We shall be freely told that by
crusading against the interests of a power-
ful, charitable, state-protected trade, we are
jeopardizing the stability of the Church, and
alienating men from our ministry. If it
were so, then perish the Establishment that
cannot stand without such crutches. But it
is NOT true. The best claim the Establish-
ment can make upon the confidence of the
nation is her readiness to dare all in her
effort to obliterate national sins. The surest
reply the individual clergyman can make to
those who revile him for crusading against
vice is the life of practical, courageous, self-
denying usefulness, for "cujus vita fiilgor, ejus

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The Trinity of Evil

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i I

verba tonitriia'' I am taking it for granted
that in every parish there will be firsts a
Temperance Society, and attached to it a
Band of Hope. Years ago the good Bishop
Stanley, of Norwich, spoke with a prophet's
utterance, and said : "I speak after much
reflection, and as in the presence of God :
I am fully persuaded that temperance so-
cieties will be found the great regenerators
of the country." Yes, and they will be found
also the life and soul of home mission work ;
they will become the nucleus of Bible classes,
prayer-meetings and confirmation classes.
Where a thorough-going temperance society
has been working in a parish, its effects arc
so marked that you are able to say, " Happy
are the people that are in such a case ; yea,
blessed are the people who have the Lord
for their God." And, ucondly, a really good

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Intemperance,

129

Temperance Refreshment-room, — not a dingy,
fly-blown kennel of discomfort, but a bright,
cheerful, gas-lit tavern, where politics may
be talked, and refuge may be had from the
discomfort of washing-day, without the assist-
ance of that which men "put into their
mouths to steal away their brains."

I have but imperfectly indicated some of
the directions in which practical work may
be done. If any are induced by these words
to gird up their loins and plunge into the
battle, I can assure them, from practical ex-
perience, that an abundant reward even in
this world will attend them. It is a noble
strife, for the battle is the Lord's. Under
the banner of the Cross it must be fought ;
that banner is our lock of strength against
the Philistine ; without it we become as other
men.

.-UT

130

The Trinity of Evil.

And when blessing and success attend our
efforts, when returning prodigals are kneel-
ing at our altars ; when, co-operating with
the Spirit of God, we have helped to heal the
bitter waters of the world, self must be
utterly forgotten, the glory must be rendered
to God, and we must echo the words of
Elisha when he cast the salt into the bitter
waters of Jericho : " Thus saith the Lord,
/ have healed these waters."

1 I.

Rutler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Froine, anJ London,