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1 2 3

32X

fSf

r f

« II

I ^>

ENTERING ON LIFE

gi §00 Ii for IJoung pen.

CUNNINGHAM GEIKIE, D.D.,

AUTHOR OF " THE LIFE AND WORDS OF CHRIST,"
•'the ENGLISH REFORMATION," ETC.

TENTH EDITION.

ITonboit J
HODDER AND STOUGHTON,

27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLXXXII.

E.*i

Butler & Tanner.

The Selwooil Priuting Worki.

Froms, and London

'^ ( ! CONTENTS.

rAOB

YOUTH .,..►•. X

CHARACTER *.•<«..• 27
COMPANIONS • • 57

i , SUCCESS . « . A • • • • 87

CHRISTIANITY . • • « • • .120

I < HELPS .••»•• t • 160

1 , ■ /J

DREADING • I • • • • • 202 i^- >

I DREAMS *•«»•••• 257

FAREWELL • • 4 • • • • SQI

! 1

YOUTH.

SOME things God gives often: some, He gives
only once. The Seasons return again and againi
and the flowers change with the months, but youth
comes twice to none. While we have it we think
little of it, but we never cease to look back to it
fondly when it is gone.

That we realise its value so poorly while we enjoy it
rises from several causes. What we have for an hour
or a day is prized in some degree rightly, but we are
young for long years together. Then we judge of a
thing only by contrast and comparison, and youth is
all sunshine. It is only as it fades that the shadows
come out and show us what we have lost. One hour
of its spirits and health in later life would be priceless,
because they are gone; but we spend years radiant
with both, and don't know our happiness from never
feeling the want of them. We even weary for a future,
which we reach only to lament having done so. If
the sun rose only once in the year we should know
how to value the light ; as it is, we don't think of it.
In Lapland all the world flocks to see it again after a
six months' eclipse : here, where it rises each day, it
finds us asleep. Water in the desert; summer in

.«

rouTii,

■}'

winter; licallh in sicknctis; youth in age ; want makes
the worth.

There is a third cause, besides • wc arc so thought-
less. Our minds, like buttertHes, light on many
things, but rest on none. Familiarity dulls reflection,
as light on water brightens the surface, but hides the
depths. We get accustomed to things and never
trouble ourselves more about them \ we use, enjoy, or
look at, them, mechanically, and without a second
thought. Like children, each moment engrosses us,
and it is only by an effort we realize either the past
. or the future. A little quiet thinking is good for us
all. Life, like the landscape, needs to be studied,
to be realized in any completeness. It is only by
dwelling on details that we slowly master the whole,
and know either its faults or beauties aright. Half-
an-hour's thought in youth would go far, if used to
contrast it with other parts of the picture of life, to
make it more sensible of its superlative happiness.

I wish to help such a fit of reflection, by setting
the heart and head to think, by some hints and re-
mindings, which are all that the case allows. I can
only suggest what each must follow up, and enlarge,
and vary, from his own experience. I can only
scatter some seeds which each must water and quicken
for himself, for to tell all, would be to live every one's
separate life and write it in full.

Life, like the fountain of Amnion, overflows only
at dawn and early morning. As it gets older it has
still pleasures, but they arc sober and staid, tinged

YOUTH.

it makes

thouglit-
n many
^flection,
lidcs the
id never
enjoy, or
\ second
osses us,

the past
)d for us

studied,
, only by
ne whole,
it. Half-
f used to
)f life, to
ness.

)y setting
and re-
s. I can
I enlarge,
can only
d quicken
irery one's

lows only
der it has
id, tinged

with a darker green or an aiitiinin brown. Spring
leaves have a tint we miss in July or October : their
freshness and soft transparency pass; the brook
sings as it runs ; the river glides quietly, and the sea
moans. Poets always paint the Gods young, and half
of our heaven is in the thought of our youth return-
ing. Everything young is happy ; God gives all
nature so many days' grace before its troubles begin.
There is a universal morning gladness, before the heat
of the day. We spend boyhood and youth in an
enchanted world, with fountains of joy scattering
rainbows. It is a delight simply to live in those
years. '^ As we get older happiness gets daintier,
and needs more and more catering, but in our spring-
time it laughs and thrives on the poorest fare.
Youth is the great alchemist — it and the light, that
turns hill tops to amethyst, and the rough earth to
gold. It transfigures everything to its own bright-
ness, and, like the sun, makes a paviUon of its own
beams.

It is easy to understand how this comes. The
Health we have while we are young gives a charm to
existence. The rosy cheek, the light step, the merry
laugh, the buoyant energy, the unwearying strength,
the Hope that sings over us in the air like Ariel,
whatever the road, are all its gifts. We know that wq

* Augustine calls youth " flos cetatis," the flower of our days ;
Cicero calls it " bona aetas," the blessed time ; and Seneca,
*' sDtas optima," the best of life. The Elizabethan writers often
{.peak of " the primrose of our youth."

^'^i*j*" b''' ^. '8'*

ty4 % fii iiiUnnii

|.-t>.^-:'VjJ

■'■>•

•Hi;

YOUTH.

■V.

have a body only by the pleasure and pride it brings -..
doctors are an enigma, and pains and aches belong to ■
another race. Health is to life what light is to the
landscape, making even bleakness and barrenness
beautiful.

The Hope that alone is worthy the name belongs,-
only to youth.

"Youth is a breeze, 'mid blossoms strayiii;:^;
Where Hope clings feeding, like a bee." •

If it keep up at all in after years it flies low and
heavily, not as it did in the clear morning skies.
Men get incredulous, hard to rouse and easily daunted,
but youth sees the bright side only, and commits itself
at once. It has not been dulled by failures and dis-
appointments of any weight, as yet, and is still chasing
the rainbow. Imagination only slowly yields to sense
and experience, and paints without shadows. It
hates calculation, as a mark of faint-heartedness and
senility. Prudence grows very slowly, and seldom
flowers freely before manhood. Indeed, even then, it
blossoms only in patches in any case : there are
always some twigs or boughs bare to the last. To go
into detail seems waste of time to the young man j he
jumps to conclusions and reflects after he has acted.
But his splendid sanguineness is, after all, the life of
the world ; without it, things would stagnate into a
motionless Dead Sea. It is the living force of growth
and progress, and is often wiser than caution, It

♦ Coleridge,

YOUTIL

makes no account of odds, but neither does the soft
grass that heaves up the flag-stones. It urges the
student to his books, the apprentice in his trade, the
clerk ill his office, and takes a thousand shapes to
suit every ambition. It lightens poverty, toil, danger,
and self-denial, and kindles its day-star all the brighter
for darkness round. Youth has always something
worth while in view : it faces the sun, and the
shadows fall behind, out of sight. It keeps climbing,
sure that it sees the top. It is the true Greek fire
that no waters can quench. It has a power all its own
of summing up in its own favour. If a tithe of its
dreams came true, genius would soon be almost a
drug ; poets be found in each street ; great discoveries
make each day an era; and fortunes leave no one
poor. It looks on the world as it is, as a laggard
which will not do much till it show it the way.

But youthful Hope could do nothing but dream, if
it had not Fresh Energy at its command, ready for
anything. The toil young men undergo, often ior
trifles which they themselves will laugh at, before long,
is amazing. They work harder for pleasure, than
older men do for gain. In their callings, if they take
to them, they go through tasks which, in after years,
will be their boast and wonder. It was when he
was young that Hercules went through his Twelve
Labours. The Student dismisses sleep and trims his
lamp, poor foolish lad, till the morning, burning life
and his oil together. The very writing he does would
be work enough even for the mechanical weariness,

YOUTH .

but when the mental industry he expends is added, it
astounds us. It is the same in every pursuit : at sea,
or on shore ; in the warehouse or the workshop ; in
war and in peace; in the church and the world; youth
bears the strain and carries the flag. Experience may
counsel, but youth pulls the oar. It has the dash, the
spirit, the vital force : the parts are lively, the senses
fresh, and Ambition and Hope clamour, like un-
hooded hawks, for flight. It must do something, and
the harder the better liked. Older men rest on their
laurels, younger men have to gain them, and they will
match themselves against anything that they may do
so. Body and mind alike turn back from nothing.
Youth feels as if it were immortal, and acts in keeping.
And if, in the end, strength and spirits do seem, for a
time, to fail, the fountain refills in a night's repose.
Fatigue rises from sleep fresh as the morning. In
those golden years, our powers, like the unwearying
wings far out on the ocean, seem never to need or to
know a rest.

The Freedom froi\i Care in youth is another spray
in its garland. No one is ever really contented, or
quite clear of something like trouble, but there is a
great difference between the troubles of different ages.
The boy wishes he were a youth ; the youth, that he
were a man : each thinking he has only to be like the
other to be happy. But the man looks backward
instead of forwa^-^l : his golden age, like that of the
Poets, lies in the past. The older we get the more
fondly do we /■emember our childhood and youth.

YOUTIT.

We follow them as they leave us, as the shepherds
the angels, fading away into Heaven. A young man
knows when his work is done, but older men can't
throw off care with their coat. A working man, or a
youth on salary, leaves his business behind when his
hours are up, and what remains is his own, with none
of his master's fears or worries to distract him.-* But
the merchant has a double shadow behind him, thai
of care, and his own. Cares starve in the light soil
of youth : it needs the responsibilities, temptations,
and ambitions of manhood to fatten it before the^
spring rank. But they take a thousand forms as the
years pass ; they dash at the quiet light of home joys,
like moths at lamps ; they perch on the softest easy
chair ; they fly round gilded cornices, like bats, and
by night they stuff the pillow with tliorns, and glare
in between the curtains. The merchant sighs for his
clerk's light-heartedness, as much as the clerk for his
master's position. Fresh cares come with every fresh
gain, and they thrive on losses. Mere living breeds
them. Cares for ourselves, cares for others, and cares
from others ; cares to invest, cares to meet debts,
cares to avoid losses, cares to surmount them ; cares
of a new undertaking ; cares of an old one : there is
no end of them. Everything has its own, as there-
are mites for each forgotten jar in the pantry. They

• Elihu Burritt says that there is no time in life in which we
have so much real leisure as when working for others. He
thinks the apprentice or working man has more chancss of im«
provement than those in any other positions.

YOUTH.

come up in clouds on every side, like gnats in a
■i^)^ swamp.

But whftt cares has youth ? It may say it has them,
and it may feel what it calls by the name, but they are
like breath on a miiTor, j?:one while you look at it, and
only outside, or, like children's tears, are shaken off
by a smile next minute. Its smooth face matches its
spirits as the rough skin of men suits theirs. It has
no headaches from business anxieties ; no heartaches
and bewilderments from its affairs ; it has only to do
with other men's bills and taxes, and it needs have nc
skeleton locked up in its cupboard. If it be discon-
tented it is only because what he has never satisfies
any one. With bright Health, and sunny Hope, and
fresh Energy, and freedom from Care, to let him use
and enjoy them, a young man is master of more, and
more his own master, than he ever will be in after
years.
There is a Generous Warmth and Artless
, Enthusiasm about youth, that mightily helps as well
as adorns it. It has no faint-hearted doubtings about
things or persons, but is whole-souled, either for a
creed, a friend, or a pursuit. Faith dies into cold
questioning after a time, or into still colder indifference.
In middle life we have no such close friends as when
we are young \ early companions are dropped and for-
gotten, and we hardly make more than acquaintances
in their place. The heart grows hard like the hand,
and loses its sensibility. As to pursuits, a middle-
aged man can seldom be said to pursue anything.

YOUTH.

He only follows at a serious citizen step, in some path
opened when he was fresher. A young man is one
with all the world ; an older man gets more and more
isolated and reserved. Conflict with the world;
changes in others, by death, distance, or time ; changes
in ourselves, in position, opinions ; the sedateness of
years; the occupation of mind by many ties and
engagements ; and, above all, the evil that settles on
all of us, like rust on steel, destroy our frankness and
natural warmth. The affections gradually get dull and
slow, like the body. AVe love a youth ; we respect a
man ; and from the same causes : the youth loves, the
man can only respect us. Ardour is known only when
we are young. Men get cold, distrustful, selfish, pru-
dent, grasping, as years grow, unless they fight hard to
prevent it. The heat of the heart grows less, like
that of the body ; the blood gets thinner and poorer
alike in figure as in fact, and it runs sluggishly. In a
young man the soul looks through the face, but the
rough skin of an older man thickens and clouds into
a mask. The child-likeness to the kingdom of Heaven
lingers through opening manhood, as the colours on
clouds fade only slowly as they drift away from the
sun. Each age has its weakness and its strength, but
there is often in youth, a truthful ingenuousness, a
moral manhood, an unselfishness, and a glow, which
are wanting in riper years. Idleness gets the better of
some ; vice of others ; and, in still more, the cold air
of the world throws their nobler nature into a frozen
sleep. Not that youth has all the true worth that we

M- i

'■if-

)■

■ i

1 ; 1

vV i

roi'Tif,

meet : there are snowy clouds on the blue all through
the day, though the glory comes only in the morning'
and as the sun leaves. Young men are warmer,
more zealous, more loveable and more loving, but
there are thousands at any time, in whom principle
has shone out the more steadily and brightly as the
smoke and flame of mere feeHng have passed. But it
is principle less than nature ; conscience rather than
impulse : and wc honour it the more from the contrast
to the rule.

I have not yet named the highest endowment of
youth — its Religiousness. Not that, at its best, it
is all that God requires, for no age can dispense with
His grace, or rise to its ideal, unless it have been
" born from above." But the heart is soft and tender
in early life compared with what it becomes in later.
Principle and reflection, under God, lead mature men
to religion : but it is instinct in youth.* The excesses
we often deplore in it are no proof to the contrary,
for the soil that grows lusty weeds would bear as
vigorous com. There is more natural piety in youth
than after. The soul, like the face, shines while we
are young. It has a susceptibility for religious im-
pressions that passes away as we grow older. There
is much common, in nobler things, to both sexes in

♦ " But for the moral part, perhaps Youth will have the pre-
eminence, a? Age hath for the Politic. A certain Rabbin, upon
thcrtext, Your young men shall see visions, and your old men
shall dream dreai.is ; inferreth that young men are admitteii
nearer to God than old ; because vision is a clearer revelation
than a dream."— Bacon's Essay '« Of Youth and Age''

rouTii.

1 1

sexes m

early life, and, notably, a delicate tenderness, which
survives in the woman, but dies into coldness, in great
part, in the man. The heart controls in youth; in
manhood, the head takes the lead. The affections
are, as yet, free for good or for evil, for, whatever
their bias, the final choice is not yet determined. In
manhood, habits of thought, and aversion from religion
can be changed only at the most terrible cost of
mental and spiritual struggle. The devil, once in
possession, throws us down and tears us in leaving,
and even then, " hardly departs." It is like rending
rock instead of cleaving water ; it is the bursting of a
dam instead of the quiet course of a stream. In
}Outh you get the start of the tares and thorns; in
manhood they have struck root and are already
springing. The leaf takes its eolour while soft and
tender. In spring the soft earth drinks in the light
and the showers : later in the year it is baked and
sodden. All that attracts us in a young man gives the
greater predisposition towards religion : its qualities
need only aright direction; its affections, their supreme
object in God, rather than in man or the world. It is
unnatural in the young not to be religiously disposed.
Compared with what they become if their serious
thoughts be neglected, they are "not far from the
kingdom." It is only by an effort that conscience can
be drowned while we are young men : when we are
older it takes an effort to rouse it. God ^^Testles with
us in the dawning of the day. .

It is an irresistible proof of all this that the gi-eat

►

:;'|

'lit!

'if;

YOUTH.

majority of religious persons become so in early life.
To let that season pass without deciding for God is to
lose the time specially fitted by Him for doing so, for
though He will take us at any age, He seeks us in
our prime, that our whole life may be blessed in His
service. He likes the opening flower rather than one
that is blown and fading. The sacrifices were all
taken from the young of the flock or the herd. For
what else but that they may find their true object in
Him, and gain tlie glory and bliss of their doing so,
has He given us our generous early love, our enthu-
siasm, our religious instincts ? They are too noble to
be lavished on anything less, and find their comple-
ment only in dedication to His service in their earliest
prime. The soft tendrils of life, — they are made to
cling to the Divine, and raise our whole being high
into the shining light.

It needs only a moment's reflection to verify all I
have said. The world, in all its affairs, is mainly
what young men have made it. Manhood and age
may often have taught, but it is youth that makes the
disciples and spreads the doctrine. Age has its share
of ideas as full and noble as that of youth, and often
more nicely tempered, for reflection is the domain of
the one, and action that of the other. The theories
of the fathers are the starting point of the practice of
the sons. As we get older we get conservative, but
the young have no past, only a future. The initiative
in act is with them, as a rule, and not seldom even in
thought. Genius commonly wins its laurels in early

rouTir.

»3

early life.

God is to

ng so, for

eks us in

ed in His

than one

were all

erd. For

object in

doing so,

)ur enthu-

noble to
ir comple-
eir earliest

1 made to
3eing high

.verify all I
is mainly
d and age
makes the
IS its share
, and often
domain of
[le theories
practice of
rvative, but
le initiative
om even in
jls in early

'ife.* In politics, art, science, and morals, older men
stand by maxims adopted in youth ; then perhaps
ultra, but out of date since. The wave runs higher
up the sands with each generation. In war and in
peace, in common life and religion, it is youth by
which things have been mainly shaped as they are.

A glance at facts tells a striking story. Alexander
overthrew the Great King, and saved Europe from
becoming Asiatic, in extreme youth j Bonaparte had
conquered Italy at five-and-twenty ; Don John of
Austria won the battle of Lepanto, and saved Chris-
tendom from the Turk, at the same age ; Cortes was
only thirty when he conquered Mexico ; Byron and
Raffaelle both died at thirty-seven ; Gustavus Adolphus
died at thirty-eight; Pitt and Bolingbroke were mi-
nisters almost before they were men ; Grotius was in
great practice at seventeen, and attorney-general when
he was twenty-four ;t Romulus founded Rome before
he was twenty ; Newton had completed many of his
greatest discoveries, and laid the foundation of all,
before he was twenty-five ; Sir Philip Sydney died at
thirty-two, Beaumont at thirty, Keats at twenty-five,
and Shelley at twenty-nine. Captain Cook had won
his way into notice in the royal navy by twenty-
seven, though his youth had been passed in a coasting
collier.

It has been the same in religion. Luther had won

* Ruskin says that the most beautiful works of ait are all
done in Youth,
t " Coningsby," 89.

»4

rouTii.

r- r

if" I

■l«;i|

Germany to tlie Reformation at tliirty-fivc ; Pascal
wrote a great work at sixteen, and died at thirty-seven
the greatest of Frenchmen; Whitefield and Wesley
had begun the great revival of last century wliile still
students at Oxford, and the former had stirred society
in England before he was twenty-four ; Melancthon
was keenly defending Luther, and had gained the
Greek chair at Wittemberg, when he was twenty-one ;
Calvin published his " Institutes " at twenty-six ; Ed-
ward Irving was at his highest at thirty ; Oberlin was
the Apostle of the Ban de la Roche at twenty-seven ;
Ignatius Loyola was only thirty when he made his
Pilgrimage, and wrote the " Spiritual Exercises." At
this moment what would religion do without the zeal
and labours of the young? They fill our Sunday
Schools, work out our philanthropic endeavours, and
are the strength of every movement. Without them,
the tide would soon turn, and the progress of the
world be stayed. Early vigour and warmth, conse-
crated to God, work miracles. Older men have their
honoured work, and are no less needed than younger,
bui the living force that conquers the world for God ,
is the fresh enthusiasm of opening life. Years may
counsel, and stimulate, and provide the means, but
the hard work must fall mainly on young strength and
zeal. Once won to God, there is no hesitation (^r
half-hearted service. Youth feels itself only a steward,
and gives itself up with unshrinking devotion.

Thus alike in civil and religious affairs, youth has
to play the great part in securing progress. When it

- 'S^

rOUTIL

has passed it docs not seem worlli a man's wliile to
l)egin a career; he may continue in one already
begun, and rise in it indefinitely, but hardly much ^
more. In youUi we grow ; in manhood, broaden.
In thought, as much as in other activities, we work in
youth, and use when past it. The books of most
men advanced in life show age as much as themselves.
From the time of our touching middle life we mostly
live on the past. Curiosity and enthusiasm soon
subside, and rest gains attractions as work loses them.
We grow lazy, and discover that we can do with what
we have learned already ; or we give up the struggle,
and let ourselves drift with the current we cannot
oppose j or we have gained what we wished, and are
inclined rather to take our ease than trouble ourselves.
Ambition dies if kept fasting too long. Life seems
to culminate about thirty with most. Byron, Lord
Brougham, and Augustine fix it at that age, and Dante
' puts the " key of the arcli " at thirty-five. But the
moral is the same whichever we choose. Youth
forges and prepares ; riper life anneals and tempers.
Youth is the spring, but maturity gives the balance,
lilmbers glow with the brightest heat, but it needs
fresh coals to renew and increase the flame.

But youth is not all strength. It has its weakness
as well, and would not be human without it. We
have a fatal taint which we can as little deny as
explain. It comes like the hue of the skin or the
shape of the limbs. Boyhood, indeed, is often both
foolish and wicked even when followed by a beautiful

<?;■

YOUTH.

youth and manhood, and turns to what is cruel, or
impure, or dishonest, as if by an instinct. As the
man wakes, the moral nature shares in the manhood.
But, at the best, there is no claiming perfection. It
is always an effort to do right, and natural to do wliat
we condemn. If we hurt no one else we hurt our-
selves ; waste our opportunities and powers ; forget
our duty, and are contented with a low standard of
thought and action. We need wings to rise, and need
to use them to keep up. There is room for the best
to be better, and they can become so only through
struggle and failure. The ideal seems to recede as
we advance, and height to rise over height till we
would fain rest rather than climb. Two natures
wrestle in our breast, and at no age more fiercely than
in our youth. As it is decided then, it, as a rule,
continues, and light and darkness, Ormuzd and
Ahriman, know it, and strive for the prize. Love
seeks a victory to report in Heaven; sin, a slave
to be at her will, for ever. Truth and Falsehood,
Love and Hate, Heaven and Hell, the Devil and
God, meet in the dawning man as they do nowhere
else.

The weak side of young men is very weak ; weak
in many w^ays. The Passions, as they lead to what is
noblest when under control and rightly directed, hurry
us on to whatever is most disastrous if they break
loose. We do not need to be led into temptation ;
wc have it within us. Jerome and St. Basil tell us
thiit the very desert did not save them from as fiercQ

rOUTH.

fi "

*»*»:.

a conflict as they could have had in cities.* Jerome
honestly tells us he betook himself to the penance of
learning Hebrew, among other ways, to get over the
evil. Youth is prone to excess, and once it begins
does not know how to stop. If it do not determine
in God's strength to turn a deaf ear to seductions
around, or promptings within, if it do not avoid the
least approach to indulgence, it is too likely to lose
itself. It cannot be too watchful or jealously careful.
It is not enough to shun unworthy companions or
hurtful books, or the spectacle of vice ; the imagina-
tion must be kept pure, or the gate is opened to the
enemy. The thoughts are the seeds of acts, and
corrupt us if shown the least favour. Checked in the
suggestion, they die; but let work for a time, they
leaven the whole man. They are the furnace-draught
to blow slumbering sparks to flames. They kindle
passion to a roaring mastery of us if allowed any
entrance. The pure mind is a white lily in the
muddiest waters; but uncleanness in the heart is
leprosy that will show itself soon outside. But to
keep the mind pure ! Nothing is harder. To keep
down weeds in foul soil ; to keep oflf rust in damp
air; to keep off swarming uncleanness, seeking to
nestle in every flower, is not such a task.

The craving for pleasure, at once so natural and so
dangerous, is another opening to weakness. Youth,
sunny, golden-haired youth, ought to be happy, and

• Jerome, Ep. i8, ad Eustochium ; and 95, ad Rusticum.
Qasilii, Ep. 2, ad Gregor., quoted in Gieseler's Gcscbiclite, ii. 4*

YOUTH.

i\S

is made to be so, but its very etliercal temper is its
peril. It can find delight in anything, for it carries it
in its own bosom. It is radiant as Apollo crowned
with sunbeams, and it has his lyre. Dull, pleasureless
youth is another name for disease or oppression. The
merry laugh, the bright smile, the rejoicing spirits,
are gifts of God, to be used, not repressed and for-
bidden. Seriousness does not mean solemnity, and
is all the truer and deeper as the counterpart of a
natural gladness. God made joy, and the devil sorrow.
The baby comes, and the saint dies, with a smile.
The skies are blue, the sea glitters, the flowers arc-
strewn all over the world and far away up the hills,
and the graves are soon hidden by waving grass. It
is well for youth to be happy :

Gather your re ebiids while you may,
.* Old Time is still a flying ;

And flowers which bloom so fair to-day,
To-mono w will be dying.

But we are not to abuse our blessings, or surfeit
ourselves with a gluttony of either one kind or
another. Pleasure worth the name must be innocent,
and must come only as a relaxation from work. To
give oneself up to it is to miss it in any true sense.
Even Cicero, though only a moralist, declares that he
is not worthy to be called a man v,'ho is willing to
spend even a single day wholly in pleasure.'-' Mere
lightness is only a foil to something graver, where the
taste is healthy. It is the vox-humana stop in the
♦ Qui unam diem velit esse in voluptatem.

'^^.

-'^^

w#r/

YOUTH.

solemn roll of the Psalm of Life. To do nothing but
laugh, or to laugh mainly, is to write one's own con-
demnation. It is a shallow stream that dimples all
the way. Nothing hurls worse than frivolity ; nothing
jnfits for business more, or forms worse habits for
success, or wastes the time in which we might mould
the future, and nothing leaves less return. Only to
" g'gg^G and make giggle," as Cowper says of the
clerks in the office he attended, is hardly a fit use of
life. There is something better than laughing, after
all. The story told by Roger Ascham of Lady Jane
Grey opens a new world to mere triflers, and there
are others as pleasant within our reach. Her father
and the duchess having passed by, hunting in the
park, her tutor asked her if she would not like to join
in the sport ? " All the sport in the park," said she,
" is but a shadow of that pleasure I find in this book "
— a volume of Plato she had in her hand. The mind
and the heart are nobler parts of us than our mere
animal spirits, and have enjoyments of their own.
Not to seek pleasure from such higher sources, but to
give ourselves up to inferior, is to barter our birthright
for Esau's pottage. If you be wise you will vary your
pleasures, and add to them by mixing the grave with
the gay. Mere amusement soon cloys, and leaves
even Xerxes to offer a royal gift to any one who could
invent some new spur to his satiety. Nothing grows
duller than mere amusement, and no one needs it so
much as he who has most of it. Hut to be a mere
fribble is not the chief end of man.

.*•

! ■

YOUTH.

Of guilty pleasure I shall say little; the conscience
condemns it. " It is the bait of sin," says Plato.* It
destroys peace, it deadens the feelings, it leads to all
other evils ; its edge shelves so suddenly that we are
out of our depth and gone before we fear danger.
Youth, inexperienced and warm, is in the greatest
peril if it take the first step towards it. There is no
end of the ruin it works to body, soul, and spirit. It
degrades a man in his own eyes j it keeps him in fear
of discovery, and it turns him from all good.

I waive the quantum of the sin,

The hazard of concealing —
But, oh, it hardens all within,

And petrifies the feeling.

The Will in youth is, as a rule, weak and irresolute,
and ready to yield to a stronger, it may be for evil.
Indeed, we lean towards evil rather than good. A
young man is at once simple and trusting, and yet
self-confident. To a certain point he thinks nobody
knows but himself, but he is the very reverse beyond
it. His inexperience makes him dependent, and look
to others. He has no choice in this, for he is only a
learner in the ways of the world, and must have
models and heroes. Unfortunately he too often fixes
on poor ones, for though almost a man in years, he
may be but a boy in simplicity, and be taken with
very gross idols. Credulity dies out but slowly, and
looks at things through exaggeration and wonder.
We are slow in having sound judgment, and still

* i\lovri iiKiap KaKiav. - - ■.

YOUTH,

slower in using it rightly. Most young men have
little or no individuality ; they are rather prints from
some negative they have chosen to copy. They give
themselves wholly when they do so at all. Some
author, or companion, or public man, is re-produced
in fac-simile, so far as may be. Inexperience is timid,
and yields to assertion or fancied authority, and it is
modest and hesitates even when right. It is clay in
the hand of whatever potter may get it to work, and a
climbing plant that clings to grass or weeds if no
better stay be at hand. Vice recruits her victims as
much by want of finnness, and by simplicity, as by a
taste for wrong. That comes with indulgence. Wc
get from one step to another till we are gone. No
one ever intends to be what too many become. They
want the courage to say No at the very first, and all
the rest follows ; the first star in the glass soon runs
the whole way across it Independent, manly self-
respect, is a hedge that keeps out much evil. Prin-
ciple is of course needed, but firmness must give it its
value. If you need copies, as you will, let them be
right ones, and follow them only in what is right.
Never be caught by appearances, or fine names, or
assertions, and never think any evil too small to avoid
it) Temptation never comes with a bare hook. The
asp lies hidden among flowers. The devil gives the
serpent the voice of a friend, and lays the young head
on a silken lap before he sends for the Philistines.

The Rashness of youth needs utmost caution. It
is twin sister to his self-confidence. It misjudges iti

YOUTH.

strength both of doing and resisting. It rushes in
where caution would keep as far off as possible, and
suffers every way by intemperate, ill-advised zeal.
Indiscretion is natural to many, and is only slowly
and bitterly cured, if ever it be so at all Words and
acts equally show it, and its opinions are no less ill-
balanced, and lead to continual trouble, or it may be
to lasting evil for life. Want of sense is as fatal a-s
any other defect, and less bearable by others than
most. It cannot see its error in most cases, but
stands stoutly in self-defence. No one is sure of it in
any conjuncture, for it has no reflection, and thinks
only after it acts. Its feelings are stronger than its
judgment, and it does not know how to look at a
thing in all lights, or how to wait till the morning
before taking its course. It sees only what it feels
for the moment, and exaggerates one part of duty to
the forgetting of others as vital. It thinks Fabius
the Delayer* a warning rather than a model, and
knows nothing of any attack but going straight for-
ward. It is contentious to excess, and claims a mono-
poly of uprightness. It utters all its mind whero a
wise man would keep it till afterwards. It makes the
most preposterous projects, and will hear no counsel.
It is wiser 'in its own conceit than seven men that can
render a reason ; and though led like a child at times,
is wholly intractable at others. Its confidence
largely another name for conceit, and so is its ra
ncss, for it takes ti

and the rubs of life to make a

* Carclator.

YOUTH.

n P-

, \

man know his level, and modestly keep to it. A
great many young men are top-heavy, and only get
trimmed as they go on. They bring one in mind ol
the Earl of Buchan, whose manuscript John Ballantyne
would not print because he had not capital I's enough
in his office ; and they only get modesty and becom-
ing diffidence rlowly. Self-command, humility, sound
judgment, and firmness for good, are hardly spring
flowers, thougli the whole may be found here and
there in some, and one or others in many, in the
*' primrose days " of their life.

Splendid in gifts and capabilities and yet imperilled
by manifold weakness, our early life needs a complete-
ness from outside itself. Its defects must be corrected
and its endowments hallowed ; the one by a perfect
exemplar, the other by a high consecration, and for
both we have nowhere to look but to God. What
the sun is to the flower, sight to the eye, or sound to
the ear, God is to man ; we find our complement only
in Him. Youth, to be all intended by God, must ally
it^Hf with Him : change its own weakness into His
strength ; its blindness into the Avisdom that come?
from above ; its ambition, from things earthly to those
beyond. The tree lives in the air and light, and
would wither if they were gone, and the soul, like a
tree, must spread itself out in the surrounding grace
and presence of God.

We are all made by God for Himself, because
living for Him is at once His due and the supremest
bliss of the creature. He gives nolliing in fee simple;

Yourn.

He only lends on prescribed conditions. Even in
nature there must be a return ; nothing is made only
to receive. The winds and the waves, the clouds and
the rain are only His servants doing His will : not a
leaf or a flower; not a wing in the air, nor a worm,
but is God's steward, with measured power for allottee
ends. The whole universe stands before Him and
ministers to Him. All things living and dead hold
from Him. The highest angel and the moth are afike
dependent. Around us, over us, in all things, we see
ftnly His embodied will,— sailing in the clouds ; roll-
mg through the storm ; shining in calm skies ; waving
in field or forest, or glancing in streams and oceans.
The seasons as they roll are but the varied God.
The universe is full of Him as the sky with day ; it is
only the \ eil behind which He sits dimly visible ;
the garment which at once hides and reveals His
glory.

But if nature be thus a servant; much more such
as we. Our higher gifts are only so much i^rc
responsibility, for the measure of obligation is the Wy
limit of po\v^er. We are put in trust with all that we
have and are — ^youth, manhood, age ; body, intellect,
soul ; our words, thoughts, and acts ; our influence and
our substance ; our time, and all that faithful diligence
and ability can make of it. Nature teaches our duty.
The uttermost leaf repays the gifts of the sun, no less
than the root those of the soil. The air and light and
rain are owned in green branches and sheets of blos-
som. Not a bud refuses its tribute; and what are

)

YOUTH,

«$

our moments but buds which must break into leaves
and fruit, and make all our life beautiful !

But, of all life those early years which are its
opening pride must be most sacred. Our crown ; —
we can do nothing less than cast it at His feet who
gives it, that He may give it us back bright with His
lixvour. If nature return all expected from her, we
can be put no lower. The flower is fragrant from its
bud to its last leaves j light burns from its kindling to
its last moment ; and our stewardship must be no less
comprehensive. To answer our end we must be
God's from the dawn of our days to their close. Life
finds its completeness in being devoted to Him; it
secures its own glory by being, like nature, but in a
sense far higher and nobler, filled with His spirit, as a
jewel with light.

How great the glory of youth thus related to God
is beyond the putting in words. There is nothing
so grand among men. A young life freely given to
its God in the dew of its early hours, with its strength
and unbroken vigour, its energy, its hope and enthu-
siasm, and with its generous and untarnished affec-
tions, is a spectacle equally touching and elevating.
Earth giving its best to heaven ; the child passing to
manhood true to his unseen Father ; the snowy lamb
of our years, the best of the flock, vowed on the altar
of Love and Duty — nothing is more commanding. A
godly youth, in its promise, and its performance, is the
true first-fruits of the world. Early piety is the giving
to God what we delight to give, in our early warmth,

YOUTH,

even to the object of earthly Love — an entire dedica-
tion which forgets self, and finds its supremest joy in
the thought that it may be accepted. Youth, beautiful
always, never looks so divine as wlicn it beams with
the favour of God

CHARACTER.

WHEN a Greek uses the word Character —
for it is a Greek word — he might mean
either the letters of any writing or inscription, or the
impression of a die or seal on a coin or wax, or he
might apply it metaphorically to the qualities shown
in our words and actions — the stamp and image of
our minds or principles. It is widi this use of it I
have to do.

We are all busy, each moment, m this self-revela-
tion. Not a word or act, nor even a look, escapes us
but has our signet on it ; and our lives, as a whole,
are the counterpart of our thoughts, as the image is
of the mould. In the aggregate, they make up our
Character or Simulacrum — our true Ghost, which walks
the earth, living, visible, and potential, both during
our lives and long after. Men's spirits are embodied
not in flesh and blood only, but in their daily words
and doings, as well.

This double life begins with our own beginning,
but it becomes a power for good or evil only as our
intelligence gives us responsibility. We mould it by
our free choice, but we express it often unconsciously.
In one sense it is completed only with life, but its

CHARACTER.

influence affects ourselves and others all through.
We are like the weaver who plies his shuttle and fills
in the web, thread by thread, but has to wait to the
end to see it as a whole. We work on the ^vrong
side, like him, and need Death to reverse it before
we can see it aright. But the loom goes unrestingly,
and the pattern is daily fuller. The point is, whether
we work at God's loom or the Devil's.

Character grows, for the most part, insensibly, as
the life grows at ^rst. Now and then it gets notable
impulses which we can mark, but commonly, it grows
imperceptibly, like our bodies. It drinks in food like
the tree, from both earth and sky, and from hidden
sources in both, and, like it, shows its whole history on
its boughs and branches from the first. The sunshine
and the storm; the cold north wind and the soft
south ; the knife or the neglect, write themselves all
over life, in its knots and gnarls, or smooth branches ;
in its leaning this way or that ; in its stunted barren-
ness or broad shadow ; its bending fruitfiilness, or its
woody wantonness. Not a leaf but leaves its mark ;
not a sunbeam but has told on it, not a rain-drop but
has added to it. The same tree that is soft and
spongy in a fat swamp, with its heavy air, grows hard
and noble on the hill-side. Spitzbergen forests are
breast-high, and Nova Scotia hemlocks mourn their
cold wet sky in long weird shrouds of white moss.
The influences round us are self-registering. Our
spirits, like the winds, unconsciously write their story
ui all its fulness on the anemometer — Life. Slowly

•

CHARACTER.

in light airs, quickly in storms — all goes down. Little
by little the whole comes in the end. Single acts ^
may show Character, but they seldom form it, though
some are supreme and ruling. It grows ring by ring,
and the twig of this year becomes the bough of next.
Our habits are another name for it, and they grow
like the grass. The man's face lies behind the boy's,
but it comes out only after a round of winters and
summers.

We may for a time deceive men as to our character,
but the very cheat is true to nature, when discovered ;
it marks a moral blemish which goes to make up the
man. There is no falsifying character, rightly read 3
to the All-Knowing the man and his act are substance
and shadow. The light and shade write themselves
in a sun picture which is beyond bribery, and does not
know flattery. There are no profiles, like Hannibal's
portrait, to hide a blind side, but only the full face,
like CromweH's, with the warts or wrinkles, as well as
anything nobler.

Character, like a well-cut jewel, shines whichever
way we approach it. Life without it is only a mask.
What is called public opinion is the verdict of the
world on it, and is courted, and dreaded as their
master, by kings and even by nations. It stops
armies; reforms abuses; colours diplomacy; and
makes despots liberal. No will is so overgrown but
its waves are stayed by its feeble sands. Opinion, as
Pascal well says, governs everything, and nothing .
more directly than personal character. To lose it is .

5^'

ClIARACTKR.

ostracism to a king as miicli as to a peasant. Honour,
without it, is lilcc the shout to Herod in his silver
robes that he was a god, when he felt himself being
eaten of worms. A good name is the best jewel in
any crown ; the pearl of great price without which all
others are a lie. Intellect is as sensitive in this as
grosser powers. Social proscription withered all
Byron's laurels and made his life a sad agony, cheered
only by the hope of posthumous vindication. Wealth
quails before it, and offers a kint^'s ransom to win
back even an appearance of respectability. Australia
has many such stories of millionaire convicts. In
common life Character is existence. To feel oneself a
leper is the last misery : it damps all energy^ . ws the
looks, roots up self-respect, and r^akes a man tremble
at the rustle of a leaf. Guilt, real or imputed, feels itself
dogged by a double shadow. It knows its own story,
and thinks every one else knows it. It loses the
bright face and straight look, and dreads the tipstaft
at each corner. A ghost walks the dreary chambers
of a guilty conscience, and there is no laying it.
Penitence may make peace Avith heaven, but not with
ourselves : the spots come out again, let us wash
them in a whole lake of tears. There is no peace to
the wicked. Cain's mark was not limited to murder.
Some men, indeed, are so sunken that their stand-
ing with the world at large does not trouble them,
. Dut even they do homage to the value of Character in
some lesser circle. No one can live without a good
name with some. The lowest have their conDaterni-

CHARACTER.

'•,

ties whose good opinion salves self-respect. We are
climbing plants that must run up something, and cling
to weeds if we have not standards. But in the
measure in which we are indifferent to the loss of
Character we mark our own degradation. To be
happy without it is to be less than a man ; and is a
more terrible punishment than even self-accusation.
Like caterpillars, with the winged Imago eaten out of
them, and nothing but the worm left,* such beings,
without a soul, are only the form and ghastly wreck
of men. There is nothing left to die but the body.

So inexpressibly precious is a good name, that the
very dread of its loss is often fatal. Misfortune often
has slander in its train, and the terror of her evil
tongue many times breaks the spirits and not seldom
the heart. A pointed cannon is nothing to a pointed
finger, when the sensibilities are keen. To think, even
wrongly, that we have lost it, gnaws like the Spartan's
fox. To look men in the face, to stay in the same
neighbourhood, are impossible : old associations are
broken up ; any sacrifice made ; friends left ; and
escape sought in new scenes.

What others besides the victim suffer tells the same
story of its supreme value. No one ever bears all the
burden of real or imputed wrong doing. A father
suffers hardly less than his profligate son, and cer-
tainly feels more, in many cases. Like corruption, a

* The Ichneumon fly does this with different insects :
notably, Avith the Pontia Brassicse, the common Cabbage Butter*
fly. Tho Imago is the future butterfly.

CHARACTER.

speck infects all round it. A whole family withers
under the blight of the lost character of one of its
members, as the whole body is fevered by a local
injury. When the tares are pulled up the wheat comes
with them. What tears, what prayers, what sacrifices,
\\\\2X humiliation does the shadow of shame wring
from a household. Rourd dishonour there is only
desolation.

Character, if well-nigh alone, still commands our
respect or love, in spite of many defects or weaknesses.
Intellect, like ice, is colourless : no one has more of it
than the devil. Power, eloquence, exact morals, so
far as the world sees, knowledge, and Ahitophel's
wisdom, may dazzle or awe, but may after all count
for little in our estimate of their possessors ; but
goodness has our homage and our hearts. It makes
up for many wants. All the world loves my Uncle
Toby ; and what is it that makes us reverence little
children? The Image of God is the same whatever
reflects it, and nothing can make up for its absence.

A good name is one of the few honours which all
mf'n alike desire. Flattery cannot court a monarch
witi, anything beyond it, and the humblest think
themselves still rich if they retain it. Hypocrisy is
the homage that worthlessness pays it. Vice makes a
mask of the skin of Virtue, and whitens its sepulchres
laboriously. There is no sin but seeks to cheat the
world by an alias, and hardly a sinner who does not
cheat himself by apologies and mitigations. We are
all saints by daylight and in public. Men who seem

CHARACTER.

^s^

<-.

insensible to shame in youth often affect severity in
later life : meanness often gives way in age to the love
of praise, and seeks, if not sooner, at least in dying,
to gain the poor consolation of a posthumous character.
Delicate virtue needs airing, and gets it. We honour
j^oodness even by flattering the dead, at once for our
own sakes, and for charity. Blifils' epitaph is a
canonisation, thougli both in life and death he really
had the hatred and contempt he deserved. To have
been related to goodness sheds a mild reflection of it
on ourselves.

Churchyard virtues let us into one of the great
secrets of this universal respect for Character. It is
what men prize most in their fellows in any station,
and the one hope of a desirable remembrance after
death. Fragrance clings to the name of goodness
long after life, as it does to the broken vase or the
withered rose-leaf, and it sheds the same sweetness
everywhere. Cowper's Cottager, and Crabbe's Isaac
Ashford, are saints no less than Edward the Con-
fessor. Plant a rose anywhere it smells the same ; in
a corner it fills the air as much as if it were in the
centre. Character is a power that outlives men for
good more than for evil. Wilberforce has left us
more than a generation ago, but the remembrance of
his lofty principle, unspotted goodness, and universal
Humanity, keeps his name alive in the hearts of men
as sacredly as ever. The mere statesmen of his day
are forgotten, except by politicians ; he is remembered
and honoured by all. Fox had perhaps greater

•>■;

CHARACTER.

-•'r*.

genius, and no one surpassed him in noljle sympa-
thies, but his want of character neutralised all in his
lifetime, and has left him, since, only the tribute of as
much sorrow as admiration. There is a saintly light
round goodness that neither intellect, nor natural
tenderness, nor the most enlightened sentiments, can
create. Even in private life real worth makes itself
felt all round; is honoured and imitated by many
whom it never knows, and long remembered with
respect. It is independent of position or endow-
ments. The grave of the Dairyman's Daughter has
become a pilgrimage, and every neiglibourhood has
its local saint.

It is a touching illustration of its value, that there
is no legacy of more real moment to a child than the
reputation of a parent. To have been the son of one
whose memory lingers like light in the air, is not only
a delightful recollection, and a powerful stimulus, but
a great material aid in life. No household can be
called poor with such an mheritance, nor any parent
really lost whose nobler life still survives in the breasts
of his children, and, while animating them to follow
his example, predisposes others to befriend them.

Character is the only foundation for real success.
There may be a show of prosperity when principle is
awanting, but if it cheat others it never cheats one's-
self. The player himself, behind the scenes, thinks
very differently of the stage effects from the spectators :
he knows the other side of the painted shams, and that
what is gold to the audience is tinsel at hand. Our

CHARACTER.

happiness must be within us or nothing can give it.
What the world calls good fortune is often the worst
for peace and enjoyment. It is not possession, but
desire of it that gives pleasure ; without the spur of
hope or ambition the mind loses its energy, and falls
back on itself in listless satiety. It is the chase that
delights, not the capture; and what looks bright in
the air is often poor enough when we get it. Byron's
figure of our enj®yments being like plucked flowers,
which we must destroy to possess, is true as it is
striking. They are the painted butterflies which a
touch defaces. A clear conscience sings in the breast,
like a bird in a cage, and makes a heaven wherever it
be ; but honour, or money, or place, without it, are
children's toys. Mere getting is not success ; there
are many poor rich men, and many rich poor ones.
To have a soul, like a sun, gilding everything round
it, is the true prosperity : to have our wealth in the
bosom as well as the bank.

Still, while it is thus true that character is success,
it is more ; it gives an open door to whatever advance-
ment or qualifications make possible. To be merely
upright and trustworthy is, of course, insufficient ; for
the porter may be as good a man as his master, and
yet could not take his place. But, with due quali-
fications, a good name is the best means of either
attaining or keeping any promotion. Honest worth
goes far of itself, with very humble abilities ; for mere
common sense and good i^rinciple count far more in
the market than we suppose. A young man may

CHARACTER.

have any capacity, it will weigh nothing if confidence
cannot be put in him. Interest has keen eyes, and
soon appraises its servants at their true value. Ap-
pearances may deceive for a time, but, once detected,
the game is over. It is nothing that there be many
good points ; character alone gives them value. A
Blip may be condoned, but even the suspicion of
anything serious is fatal. The finest fleece goes for
nothing if we see the wolfs muzzle, and we settle the
wind by a very small feather. Want of confidence,
like a rotten foundation, racks and brings down what-
ever may rest on it, be it ever so good in itself. A
look, or a word, may let out a long masked hypocrisy,
and no one can act and forecast so perfectly as to be
never at fault. Many things, of course, may hinder
advancement ; slowness, idleness, want of judgment,
incurable trifling, want of interest in a calling : but
many of these will be borne for long, and patiently
striven with. A flaw in the man, however, is deadly ;
one AvhifF of a moral taint is enough. To be unsteady^
dishonest, untruthful, or in any way unreliable, is
hopelessly capital. An unfaithful servant is worthless
to God or man. Character is the young man's " Open,
Sesame !" before which the treasure houses of life
stand wide for his entrance.

It is a serious thought that, while in one sense we
really live only in our own breasts, since it is there
alone we can be happy or wretched, in another^ we
cannot live for ourselves alone, but colour the story
of others as well. Our own character, if we trace it,

CHARACTER.

tc
d

is a mosaic gathered from many, we seldom know
when or how. A word from one, an act from another,
have turned us this way or that, till we feel that it no
less takes many minds to make a man than to make a
world. It would be a curious feat to distribute all
that is borrowed in any one; the things and words
that would go a-flying, often to strange sources, would
astonish us all. But this makes life so much the more
solemn, and character so much the more momentous,
that, whatever we are, manly or weak, honest or shifty,
thoughtful or thoughtless, thrifty or prodigal, God-
fearing or Godless, mean or large hearted, we are for
others as well as ourselves. Character, for good or
bad, is magnetic, and attracts or repels all in its sphere.
We take our colours, like the clouds, from the light
round us, as we drift into shade or sunshine. Ex-
ample and influence brighten or darken us ; not that
we cannot choose, but that, largely, we do not. When
we least think it we may be affecting others in their
whole destiny. Responsibility sobers men, but none
is to be named alongside mere Living. Consider,
there is no thought uttered by look, or word, or act,
but may move an eternity ; none but sends influences
circling through all ages, not, perhaps, to grow fainter
and die away like a ripple on the ocean, but like sound
on a great gong, to grow louder and louder the farther
. irom the centre. We speak of good or bad stars ; we
are all one or other to some. In an awful sense w(
are each other's destiny. There is no one whose
having lived is not felt in the Abyss, or on the Su-

CHARACTER.

preme Heights, for ever, and how his life may repeat
and reverberate itself there, who can tell ? Character
\s Michael discoursing for God, or the toad whispering
into Eve's ear for the Devil ; each colouring countless
eternities. It is an awful thing to die, but it is a much
more awful thing to live.

But if thus sacred as it affects others, what must
Character be as it bears on our own future. The
things that are, are only preparatory. Time is only
the vestibule of Eternity, and, in itself, not worth the
trouble it brings with it. Our years are the steps up
to the Great Temple ; so designed, but not always so
used. The rough border, like a Chinese garden,
opens into all delights beyond. At the best it is
only the golden thread on the hill-tops; Eternity,
the day that fills the heavens with its mighty light.
But Time decides Eternity. The tree blooms as the
colours laid at the roots determine. The great assize
sits on the deeds done in the body. Every moment
canies the threads to and fro in the loom of life, and
fills in our destiny. The mark of God or of Cain is
slowly coming out on our forehead day by day. Life
is the building-yard, Eternity the ocean ; and as the
ribs, and plates, and girders determine, so will the
voyage e.

All our Being is one, here or elsewhere. It is no
stranger that life should affect the state after it than
that itself was affected by the antecedents of birth,
or that childhood and youth should affect old age.
Aries must come before Cancer ; the Ram before the

CHARACTER.

3<3

Crab. Sowing determines reaiDing : tares yield tares,
and wheat, wheat. The man, as a rule, is only the
development of the youth. Ungoverned will grows
with our growth. Bad principles colour all our life.
The child has already a life before birth, which yet
is the same with our present, and so with that to
which Death will be the birth. We speak of Time
and Eternity as if they were different, but they are
only local names for the same thing. It is all
Eternity with the Immortals, as a river is all one
from the secret springs of the mountains to the ocean.
Life is only the brown shallow in the deep stream
(lowing immeasurably before and after. Its condi-
tions and laws may be different in the next state from
what obtain in this, but so do those of our own first
being from what follow birth ; and we know what
changes pass over the lower creatures in their various
developments. If thus with physical identity, much
more with moral, for on it depends continuance at all.
Break off this life from the next so that there shall
not be one consciousness, but each shall stand by
itself, and you have a new creation, for the man is no
otherwise known to himself but by the continuity of
his thoughts. But, if the same, then, like Zeuxis, we
paint for eternity. The habits of to-day forecast our
to-morrow : and in the complexion of life we have
that of the world to come. AVe make our own lot ;
form our own cliaractcr ; choose our own path in the
few years we are here, for all the ages beyond. Life
carries a greater than Caesar and his fortunes, frail skiff

CHARACTER.

as it is : it carries a Soul and its Eternity. The first
bends of the brook tell which side of the watershed
the river will take, and on which side of a continent
it will meet the ocean, and so with life.

Such a die must needs have care in the throwing.
It must be of unspeakable moment to be right here.
The question is, what standard is to be followed;
what pattern taken? Character means many things
in different mouths, and in different ages and countries.
Pascal hardly exaggerated when he said that it varied
with the parallels of latitude and longitude. There is
one code for one circle, and another for a second.
There are as many consciences among men as there
are prejudices or interests. There is the degraded
conscience and the perverted ; the conventional con-
science and the instinctive ; the educated conscience
and the ignorant. Our own moral sense, our owa
intuitions and inspirations, are clearly unreliable.
They may be talked aside, they may be colour blind ;
they may be choked with weeds and tares till there be
no sign of them ; they may be simulated by Jacobs
seeking their birtliright; they may run to straw, or
ihey may never flower. There is perhaps no crime
that has not been associated with religion. Infanti-
cide has no horrors in China ; murder was sacred in
India ; Plato and the Philosophers allowed nameless
vires in actual life and in their ideal States ; theft was
criminal only when detected in Sparta ; the Inquisi-
tion slaughtered thousands " for the greater glory of
Uod;" Jesuits have written foHos of cases of con-

S
s

CHARACTER.

science with amazing results; amongst ourselves, the
pulpit had nothing to say against the Corn Laws, that
greatest iniquity of modern policy; little against
slavery, in certain circles ; our people have been left
uneducated ; our workhouses are a constant reproach ;
our public-houses ruin the masses by act of parlia-
ment; we have Sheffield revelations of worse than
Thuggism, and coal-pit revelations of women and
children left to work like beasts; Ave have money
worship, and limited liability swindles on every hand ;
and all without spoiling our self-approval or sancti-
monious unction. Some consciences have felt at ease
with each abuse you could name. Conscience is
drugged by the air it breathes, as men get heady in
wine vaults without tasting. I have known a gin-
house keeper who made a habit of sitting before his
bar on Sundays, while waiting for custom instead of
going to church, with his Bible open on his white
apron. The colour of actions, like that of objects,
depends on the light. The man of honoivi of Bishop
Berkeley and Fielding still survives ; selfish, vmprin-
cipled, lewd, but keen to resent affi*onts, true to con-
ventional rules of courtesy, and trustworthy in a
gambling debt, but in that only. The business man,
tender enough, and generous in private, may be rc«
morseless as Fate in his counting-house. He will
make lead idols for the Hindoos, and subscribe to
missions to convert them, on the same day. Your
philosopher Square makes strange applications of
"the fitness of things," or, like Emerson, apologises

4»

CHARACTER.

for all evil as a disease, or as fate, or as good in the
making. However the sensitive and upright may
agree in general laws, or teachers be better than their
systems, men are hopelessly opposed in details, and
the endless imbroglio makes all human theories of no
worth as a standard. Our ideal must be without, and
above us. In our fellows we have only scattered
virtues, and even they imperfect ; so that if we should
wish to gather into one the mangled form of Truth,
and were ourselves equal to the task, we could restore
only a marred and imperfect approach to it after all.
Prismatic colours of goodness, offer, thank God, on
every side, but only in^ watery dust, or transient
touches, or broken arches : the perfect circle is only
seen, now, painted on the clouds and darkness that
are round about the throne of God.

It is in the revealed character of the All Perfect
One alone that we can find the true ideal of our own.
To be partakers of the divine nature is the apotheosis
of ours, and it is possible in a measure. As the dew
or the crystal is filled with the light, our souls may be
filled with God. The spark is kin to the sun, and the
soul to God. Godliness is God-likeness; for God,
like the light, repeats Himself wherever He shines.
The sun is doubled in a thousand waters, and God is
mirrored in all holy souls. To be like the best of
men is to command admiration and love : to be like
an angel is the highest hyperbole of common speech ;
but to be like God is to have the poor raiment of
lower goodness made a white and glistering transfigu-

CHARACTER.

ration. The sun gives day over the illimitable regions
that repose in his beams : the face of God sheds
spiritual day throughout the universe. The light is a
robe to innumerable worlds : the splendour of God is
cast round all His creatures who seek it. y

But, dropping metaphor, where shall we learn what
God is and what we should be? The answer of a
christian man is, in his Word, especially as it makes
known the plan of Redemption. The life, and teach-
ings, and death of Christ, with the illustrations of
Apostles and Prophets, give us at once the perfect
ideal of God and of Man. The character of Jesus
Christ is instinctively felt to offer a stainless and
archetypal manhood, which forbids our accepting any
humbler standard. It might have been difficult to
realise the divine nature and will in mere abstract
commands, or in the conflicting problems of Provi-
dence, but the clouds and darkness that are round the
throne were left behind at the Incarnation, and the
life and words of the Son make known, in a softened
radiance, the Almighty Father. Our eyes can see, and
our hands handle the word of life. Bone of our bone,
and flesh of our flesh, we can gaze, and comprehend,
and copy. The life we ourselves have to live has
been lived, in our own nature and amidst like tempta-
tions. We have to walk no untrodden path : it hay
been opened for us by the feet of Christ. We have
to scale no unattempted heights : the cross of Calvary
looks down on the highest. Other teachers have
urged theory whilst they lamented tUeir own defects,

% "^'

CHARACTER.

but Christ was Himself the perfect exemplar of 11 is
own precepts — Himself the one perfect Christian.
Socrates was said to have brought philosophy from
the clouds to the abodes of men ; but Jesus Christ
familiarised earth with the spectacle of a Divine Life
such as before had been known only to heaven. The
knowledge of God written at first on the heart, had
become worn and effaced, like a weather-stained
legend, but it can be retraced and restored by the
transcript inscribed in the Gospels and the Epistles.
The pure religion of primitive ages had long been lost,
but it has descended again amongst us in the manifes-
tation of God in Christ. We cannot look on the full
light of the sun ; our eyes are too feeble ; but we can
watch and follow it through the mists and vapours
that curtain and soften it. Revelation is the Indian
summer that fills the skies with golden air, through
which we can look at the sun himself. ;

Religion not only gives us, thus, the one only
perfect ideal : it supplies beyond all things else the
loftiest motives. Self is always to be- distrusted, and
obedience for reward must always stand lower than
when it is the delighted expression of love. The true
imitation of Christ knows nothing of wages. There is
not even that delicate flattery of our pride which urged
the Stoic, and still moves the most, as if we might play
the Pharisee at the thought of our goodness.

Love feels it is only owning its debt, whatever it
does, for more received and forgiven than it can ever
repay. It is the service of the delivered to the de-

CHARACTER.

liverer; of the ransomed to Him who has bought him
with a great price. Boasting is abhorrent; humble
gratitude only sighs over unworthiness. Obedience to
God, which is the moulding our character by what is
made known of His, is a steady principle springing
from love. The Almiglity Father rightly claims, for
our creation, and for the ten thousand ' 'jssings of life,
a proportionate loyalty. What we pay the highest on
earth by a natural instinct, is infinitely more due to
the Highest in heaven. But the supreme impulse
must ever be the revelation of His boundless pity in
the story of the Cross. God manifest there is the
cynosure of the universe, and must needs be ours
especially whom it most concerns. It is the star of
our worship, as well as our guide. The New Testa-
ment writers see it ever before them, and rejoice with
great joy at it. " The love of Christ constrains them :"
they are not their own, but led captive at its glittering
wheels. To them to live is Christ : they walk as He
walked ; reproduce His spirit ; copy His acts ; adopt
His whole life that their own may be its image. His
character — that is, the divine — is their transcendent
model.

Along with this personal feeling there is, also, in all
their writings, a still loftier homage to His goodness,
for its own beauty. Scripture is little else than a
hymn of heavenly love. The vision of perfect grace
in the Holy One fills the heart henceforth and for
ever. Earthly love feeds on self-sacrifice, and its
flame is sweeter than incense to the love of God in

■ :

CHARACTER.

Christ. We watch and toil even for the unworthy
when love inspires, and think the labour and pain
their own reward ; how much rather when He for
whom we live is the worship of angels. To be like
Christ is, for its own sake, the supreme ambition : to
be loved in return is heaven. Coid morality will not
do : mere human kindness leaves Him forgotten ;
nothing contents but to be filled with God : to give
ourselves up to sweet passages of love with our Be-
loved ; to live for Him and in Him. Such a frame
touches that of the angels ; it mak(.3 life seraphic ;
our graces breathe like a garden of spices. Character
traced after such an ideal is the outline of Paradise.

But all natures do not rise to this sublime level ;
and for them — perhfops, in a measure, for all — there
need the hopes and fears of the future. Self-interest,
if not undue, is innocent, and conflicts with no duty
or principle. Even Love seeks its reward, by the
grand road of self-sacrifice, for the pe;fect one Him-
self endured the Cross for the joy that was set before
Him. Absolute disinterestedness is impossible if even
to die for love be joy. But to call the golden fruits
that spring from such a root by a doubtful name, is to
confound opposites, and blame the light because it
rejoices in shining. In mortals hope is legitimate for
all our nature : for the heart that it may one day see
Love face to face ; for the mind that it may one day
leave shadows behind ; for the worn body that it may
one day enter immortal rest. Heaven is wide enough
for all, and has all manner of fruits. Wilberforce

CHARACTER.

thy
a in
for
ike
to
not
en

thought of it as love ; Robert Hall, as ease from
pain ; Arnaulcl, as rest. " There will be time enough
to rest in the life to come," said Dr. Herzoj, of
Erlangen, to me last year, at Amsterdam. Richter
says, in one of his Letters, " Shall we not givT our-
selves the joy of dreaming our dream of that over-
flowing heaven which must at last be ours, when, in
the higher and warmer focus of a second world of
youth, loving with higher powers, embracing a larger
spiritual kingdom, the heart, from life to life, will oper
wider to receive the All?" "To depart is to be with
Christ," says St. Paul. " We shall move up and down
like a thought," says Luther. What power a hope so
orbicular must have is thus seen, and what dread the
fear of a lost eternity. The thought of self is part of
our nature, and necessary to it. It does not, indeed,
even when the rewards or evils are present and
sensible, keep from wrong or uphold in good ; but if
the world be bad with them, what would it be without
them? They pass to blame when they stand alone,
apart from loftier principles ; and in that case, as
merely mercenary, weigh nothing with God or man.
Money-changers have no place in the heavenly, more
than in the earthly, ternple. As hand-maidens to the
nobler soul, the desires are ministers of God. Wait-
ing on love, both hope and fear have much to do in
forming and developing Character.

Determined often by the most trivial turns, and yet
built up in its completeness only by the aggregate of
our thoughts and acts through life — big, moreover,

CHARACTER.

with such tremendous issues — it is supremely wise,
and, therefore, imperative, that our character be a
constant care. Of all the works of Phidias or Prax-
iteles, which once drew the admiration of the world,
nothing remains ; but the image within is immortal.
The will and heart are at each moment moulding tliC
spirit for eternity. Socrates used to say that he
wondered how men who were so careful of the train-
ing of a colt, were indifferent to the education of a
child, and left it in any hands; but it comes still
closer to us that we should be enthusiastic on such
insignificancies. and neglect the Divinity that is within
us all. That the soul, rounded by eternity, as a star
by the heavens, should never look into the Infinite
Spaces, is a wonder beyond philosophy to unriddle.
So soon to face the awful splendours and make no
preparation ! The shoreless sea coming up round the
little islet of our life, and we asleep ! A seed of Para-
dise bowers and ambrosial fruits left to be buried in
sand-drifts of neglect 1 Mystery culminates in the
relations of present and future. Slowly in the camera
of the soul comes out the light-picture of character, to
everlasting shame and contempt, or to glory, honour,
and immortality, and to neglect it is to mock our own
destiny. The weed of this life may be raised into a
flower, to spring up again by the Fount of God when
it has withered into the ground here. Have care,
friend ; none can be too great : have heed ; none can
be too constant.

Do nothing as if it were trifling ; to call it so may

CHARACTER,

ase,

|e a

jrax-

>rld,

Irtal.

tlie

be the greatest mistake of your being. In everything
have the one aim — Heaven. Slur no part of your
work. Minute faithfuhiess is needed every moment.
A favourite flower has the gardener's thoughts from
the first ; whatever will tell on the symmetry, tints,
and size of the blossoms, is weighed and cared for.
The soil is mixed and sifted, perhaps gathered from
distant parts ; mouldered turf, the black earth of a
mountain moor, the silver sand of a far-off bed, the
forcing strength of far-fetched enrichments. He covers
it by night, shades it by day, keeps off all weeds,
watches each leaf that no spoiler mar it, removes each
defect, waters it with a tender care, is never weary in
his loving labours. If all this, for a flower that blows
only to fade, the very type of evanescence, — what
shall we do for that true " Everlasting," the heavenly
amaranth — Life, whose blossoms may be sunbright in
Paradise ?

The more care and loving zeal are needed from the
remembrance that nothing is more easily injured.
Like the picture, as yet unfixed, a breath or a touch
is fatal. Like the cistus, the leaves fall with the
shadow of a cloud. Character maintained till death,
is ineffaceable after it passes through it ; but short of
that, the peril is terrible. Repentance, if timely, is
sufficient with God, but there is a fearful risk that
spiritual life may be too far gone for recovery if there
be delay. The charm of early godliness once broken
— offence once allowed an entrance — the sorrow wc
think sincere may pa:;s away before new temptations.

CHARACTER.

Carry your Character, as concerns God, as you would
a priceless gift, which one stumble might shatter.
Towards men it may be lost by the act of a moment,
after the labours of a lifetime ; and once lost, or even
suspected, is hardly to be restored. The results and
hopes of a long voyage perish with one touch of a
rock ; one false turn of the helm and Oblivion rushes
in through the yawning bows. One lie, one act of
dishonesty, one false step that shows, or seems to
show, something wrong, is taken for the speck which
tells the rottenness of the fairest fruit. The momen-
tary gleam of his true nature through an angel face,
showed Uriel the devil behind the mask, even in
the surrounding sun. One stab lets the life out of
Character as well as from the veins ; one leak sinks
the ship; one trickle through the sea-dyke is the
herald of the whole sea ; one rift in the lute and it is
silent. A good name, like Caesar's wife, must be not
only above blame, but above suspicion. It is a
Prince Rupert's drop, of which, if you break the least
tip, the whole is dust. 'J'o lose our balance a moment
is fatal as a stumble on Mahomet's bridge to Paradise.

To keep your Character pure is no easy task. Let
me give you a few hints in aid.

Never forget that v/rong doing cannot repay in the
end. It may promise pleasure or profit, but is the
old story of Eve's apple over again in every case.
Shame, danger, self-reproach, and loss, follow it, as
Hell follows Death in the Apocalypse. Delilah's smiles
were a poor remembrance to blind Samson. The

CHARACTER,

lish thinks little of the bait when it feels the hook.
Let nothing tempt you to a fiilse step, whatever
necessity or pretext may urge. Young men are often
led astray by the fine names given to misconduct. It
is good fellowship, or spirit, or seeing the world, or
v.'ild oats, or the like ; but, after all, death is death,
whatever name you give it. Never think anything too
small to be worth notice. Break one thread in the
border of virtue, and you don't know how much may
unravel. It is the first step that costs trouble ; take
that, all may follow. To look on Bathsheba led to
the whole tragedy that came after. The thought
leads to the look, the look to the word, and the word
to the act Lewdness, drunkenness, theft, are only the
end of perhaps very slight beginnings. He that loses
his way thinks he is going all rightly, till it suddenly
breaks on him that, indeed, he is lost. If the story of
a drunkard were known, it would commonly show
very innocent beginnings ; ])leasant evenings with
friends ; first the sitting with men fond of the bottle,
then the tasting, and in the end the liking it. Dis-
honesty very rarely beging by intended theft ; it is a
loan at first ; then it cannot be repaid ; then it is not
at once detected, and, so, to the sad catastrophe.
Debt for what seemed needed may be the original
impulse ; or to get a trifle for pleasure or luxury ; but
all lead to the same goal. . Or you first look at what
is not your own, then like it, then handle it, and at
last take it. Safety lies only in kcei)ing clear of any
approach to v.hat is doubthil. Keep a mile from it.

CHARACTER.

Along a precipice, the nearer the wall the better. As
the old proverb has it, he that would not hear the
bell, must not meddle with the rope. In the cloudy
regions of snow, among the mountains, absolute silence
is enjoined, lest the vibration of the voice bring down
an avalanche. To look into a depth goes far to make
one leap into it.

"The worst figure of misfortune," says Carlyle,
justly, "is misconduct." The blue summer skies of
the soul are when you look up in the consciousness of
a good name and with a calm bosom. To avoid the
one and enjoy the other, distrust yourself. Pride
goes before many kinds of fall. Confidence is rash ;
humility watchful. Bernard's saying is a good one,
on seeing some one forget himself, "lUe hodie, ego
eras" — "He to-day, I to-morrow." In war a wise
general keeps his force guarded by scouts and pio-
neers, to warn and prepare if danger threaten, and
no approach can be made by the foe without timely
discovery and measures for defence. Have like
caution against deadlier enemies; the temptations
and ambushes of darkness, and the ever threatening
army of the world's desires. Let prudence, humility,
and principle, throw out their watchfulness before
you, and never trust in a fancied security. Youth is
heady and wilful, rash and petulant ; so much so that
the Greeks' word for a young man's act stood also for
anything intemperate and inconsiderate.* As Lord
Bacon puts it, young men are like an unready horse,

CHARACTER.

that will neither stop nor turn. Humble in some
ways, they are foolishly stubborn in others. Safety
lies in diffidence and modesty, not in venturing and
bravado. Some boast of being careless, and laugh off
warning, as if no temptation could pierce their thick
scales of resolutiori. Be jealous of yourselves, and
seek strength from God. If you don't bum your
fingers, you smudge them by handling lighted faggots.
Remember how often you have come short of your
purposes, and walk softly. It is presumption, not
bravery, to skim the edge of broken ice. Be strong
in God, weak in yourself. The stake is too great
when it is your soul. The excitement of risk is in-
adequate to the peril. The game is not worth the
candle. Depend, for forming and keeping your cha-
racter, on fighting, not single-handed, but with
heavenly grace at your side.

Mock characters, like false lights, are worse than
darkness. There is any number of skin-deep saints
in the world at all times ; and sheep's clothing and
long robes are always in great demand in the market.
Indeed, we all use cosmetics of the moral kind to
remove freckles or wrinkles. To meet the respect-
able, smooth-shaved, decorous, venerable Ornaments
of Society we sometimes see, you would not suspect
that any slanders could find birth against men so soft
spoken, so frank, and so confidential. But they do.
Raven black and dead eyes, and drawn-down corners
of the mouth, and an unexceptionable tie, don't
always stand for godliness. Cucullns noii facit

CHARACTER.

monachum — The cowl does not ..lakc tlic friar. Tliat
highly respectable boaiJ of directors, so liale. loud
spoken, Avell fed, seem, every man of them, fit for
l)rizes at an exhibition of comm^rrial moralities ; still,
tliey are in trouble about loans, or contracts, or
prospectuses. That manufactuier sinur, loud in his
pew on Sundays, but makes thirty-five inches to the
) ard on Mondays ; and that prosperous shopkeeper,
has strangely dark windov, s ; and does that one
believe his own puffs ? The millennium has not come
yet, and can hardly be hoped for, by appearances, at
any very short date. Somehow, the pottles do not
show the same strawberries all the way down, in all
cases ; and jockeys sometimes forget to tell a horse's
faults ; and there have been books written on adulte-
rations and tricks in trade ; and men's words or
writings are not always the unclouded expression of
their thoughts. And yet to meet men, how nearly
perfect they seem ; in their suavity, iunocence, an 1
sentiments. There are a good mcuiy Siberian crabs,
and apples of Sodom, and huge pears that look like
honey and eat like wood. We liave our panics, and
thousand liquidations, and a hundred millions of
railway stock unproductive, and Bankruptcy Court
revelations. The crop of knaves and half knaves is
by no means extinct. There is a ciark side to a '^ood
many things besides the moon ; and has not the sun
its spots, not to speak of eclipses that happen pretty
wiflely throughout the universe.

Be you, young man, a contrast to all this. Cha-

CHARACTER.

racter that is only a mask is l)eneath you, and mere
conventional goodress is a lie of the Devil. Deter-
mine, from the first, to be transparent and truthful to
God and your fellows, let Mephistopheles say what he
likes. It is better, after all, to have the Universe on
your side than against you. Curses, like chickens,
come home to roost ; and so do Falsities, if not out-
wardly, yet in your soul. I pray you don't offer a
prophet's chamber in your conscience to Satan, Life
is sacred ; keep it so. We are born for a purpose,
and can serve it only as we serve God, Plumanity is
a whole, not a mere mob of generations, and has a
destiny in which every one has a SLt part. The little
moment of our being is great enough to live well in,
and leave true work bciiind it. Play tlic man, not the
trickster. Evelyn saw men at Leghorn staking their
liberty for life in mad gambling, and, having lost,
presently led off into slaver). He who has to do
with a Lie, stakes his soul, and loses in any case.
Character, pure and noble, chimes in with the eternal
harmonies ; but Falsehood is a hideous clangour, now
and for ever. What any life, however humble, can
do is a secret with God ; it may widen its influence
through ages, or it may leave a trace seen only by
Him. But if valiantly, earnestly, nobly, lived, by the
light of God's truth and laws, it is holy for ever. The
City of God slowly rises through the ages, and every
true life is a living stone in some of its palaces. You
were made for (iod, young man, from eternity, and
no Lie is of Him, be it in trade or profession, in act

■

CHARACTER.

or in word. Insincerities are marks on the devil's
tally, and so are all hypocrisies and shams. Let your
character be real, the shining warp and woof of each
day working out the part God has set you in the great
/oom of Time.

f l«

1 . (

COMPANIONS.

THERE is no influence more powerful in youth,
and sometimes quite through life, than friend-
ship : none more delightful or blessed where it reaches
an approach to its best. " It is the alloy of our
sorrows," says Jeremy Taylor, in his poetical way,
"the ease of our passions, the discharge of our
oppressions, the sanctuary to our calamities, tlie
counsellor of our doubts, the clarity of our minds,
the emission of our thoughts, the exercise and im-
provement of what we meditate."* The poets,
ancient and modern, return perpetually to its praises,
and one of Cicero's most delightful essays bears its
name.

It is so beautiful, indeed, where pure and noble,
that the world has cherished the record of its most
famous examples, both true and fabled. Athenodorus,
who, after dividing his estate with his brother Xenon,
divided it again when Xenon had spent his own share
— Lucullus, who would not accept the Consulship till
his younger brother had enjoyed it for a year — Pollux,
who divided his immortality with Castor — Damon
and Pythias, the philosophers, of whom Pythias was
* The Measure and Offices of Friendship.

COMPANIONS.

so willing to die for his friend — arc sweet echoes of
human love, sent down from generation to generation,
out of Pagan anticiuity.* Scripture adds its own list,
in the story of Jonatlian and David — the heir to a
throne fondly loving and helping him by whom he
knew he was to be supplanted — of Aquila and Priscilla,
who would have laid down their necks for St. Paul,
and of St. Paul himself and young Timothy. In our
own history, many divine instances shine like stars
out of the blue. We have the deathless story of
13eaumont and Fletcher, whose books are twin fruits
on a single stem — and Cowley and his friend Harvey,
Milton and young Lycidas, Gray and West, and the
Richardsons, father and son, have memories of mingled
fragrance. " We make one man," says the elder
Richardson of his son, "and such a compound man
may probably produce what no single man can."
Akenside, when in danger of dying from \vant, had
;^3oo a year allowed him by Mr. Dyson ; Southey
lived for years on the bounty of his friend Wynne ;
Coleridge found a calm harbour in his last years in
Mr. Gillman's, as Dr. Watts had for half a lifetime in
Sir Thomas Abney's ; and Henry Hallam lives a purer
than earthly life in Tennyson's " In Memoriam," as
Edward Irving does in the Threnody of Thomas Car-
lyle. Bright flowers of love, all of them, along the
dusty highways of the world — wet, like Gideon's fleece,
with the dews of Pleaven, in the dryness around 1

* See Jeremy Tfiylor's list of Worthies. The legend of
Damon and Pvthias varies, but the old form of it is best known.

CUJl//\lA7UA'S.

S')

s of

ion,

list,

o a

lie

ilia,

aiil,

our

stars

y of

ruits

|rvey,

the

igled

Looking back from middle or later years, we very
seldom think of ourselves as single figures in tlie
retrospect. Opening life and friendshi]) are twin
thoughts, for we seldom make close friends after it
has passed. Long-ago has always a cDmpanion in
the landscai)e, and Reminiscence is never brighter
than when it wanders over the scenes in which he
bore a part. It is strange how brightly the hill-sides,
and meadows, or winding brooks, where we roamed
together, shine out through the haze of gathering
years. Mutual confidence, long communings, com-
mon thoughts and interests, make life, on the calm
waters of these early memories, float double, like
Wordsworth's swan and shadow. Those distant sun-
lit glades of Recollection 1 We enjoy Friendship
while we have have it, as we do bright skies or the
south wind, without thinking of the source of so much
pleasure, but as we look back on it from farther and
farther removes, it is like looking at sunny hill-tops
through intervening shadows.

Nothing tells on us more than our choice of com-
panions. Fletcher of Saltoun used to say he could
mould the will of a nation if he could give it its songs :
any one could mould the life of a young man, if he
could prescribe his companions. Youth is clay for
whatever potter may put it on his wheel : sensitive
paper for any artist to put what picture on he pleases.
Yet, hardly, for though it have no character developed
as yet, it has tendencies, good and bad, in the germ,
of which the one set may grow or the other, like a

COMPANIONS.

tree of many grafts, of which the same skies that open
some, shrivel others. I think it certain that none are
all bad, whatever they may become, nor any all good.
Youiig saint, old devil, says the proverb, though much
too harshly. Yet, Nero and Caligula were both full of
promise in boyhood. It was their companions, their
j)Osition, possibly a taint of madness, and certainly a
strong dash of Satan in the blood, that gave them the
names they have. It is a story older than Rehoboam,
who paid for it like them, though he seems to have
outlived it. No doubt some have affinities more
hopeful than others ; for morals, I fear, like scrofula
or good health, have a deal to do with one's parents ;
and yet, after all, Christ made no exceptions when he
spoke of little children and the kingdom of Heaven.
I apprehend it is only moral allotropism in any case :
different results from like materials by different treat-
ment, ^here are, at least, no flowers quite black;
let us come back to tliat : though some take one shade,
some another, out of the sunlight ; some are dropped
with blood, and oUiers blow into lilies. Nobody was
ever at his worst all at once, says the Latin proverb.
The rock-pine, hard and straight on the hill-side, is
spongy and worthless in a wet bottom. Nothing
grows below the yew. The channel makes the river ;
broken to endless rapids, it may be, like Jordan — the
Descender — and falling into a Dead Sea, or flowing
through green meadows and past rich cities. No one
is born without the capacity for good. The wayside
in the sower's field may have been as good soil as any,

COMPANIONS,

till trampled hard and barren. Hopefulness may turn
i(. mockery, if without any help, as wheat runs to
worthless grasc if only left to itself. A young man
needs no prompting to forget himself, the leaven of
evil is in him, and, if not counteracted, will work if he
were alone in a wilderness; for solitude, with the
Devil inside us, is as bad as a crowded city. •- To
have our passions master us, is worse than to be sewn
up in the Roman parricide's bag, with a dog, an ape,
and a serpent. But, as things go, nothing tells oftencr
for or against any one, than the associations he makes
in the common course of his youth. It is a standing
explanation of a young man's ruin that he got among
bad companions. We take the colour of the society
wc keep, as the tree frogs of Ceylon do that of the leaf
on which they light, or as Alpine birds change with
winter or sununer. The east wind strips the spring
blossoms : the warm south opens them into clouds of
pink. Ask Shame and Guilt, and they will tell you
they were made what they are by Example and Inter-
course : and on the other hand, Honour and Useful-
ness commonly hasten to own that they owe every-
thing, humanly speaking, to some one they have
copied.

What companions to choose, what to avoid, and
how to judge of either is thus of the first importance.
As helps I submit the following hints.

I. Never form sudden friendships, nor break off
tried ones lightly.

It was a saying of Augustus, lluil he neither began.

COMPANIONS.

nor broke off his friendships rashly/ Phitarch ad-
vises us to try proposed friends as we do coin, before
acceplance. Shakspeare is full of like warnings :

"Tlic friends thou hast, and their adoptiun tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoojjs of steel,
liut do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade." f

Youth is unsuspicious because inexperienced, and
is often as foolish with friendships as a child, who
makes no difference between a knife and his mother's
finger, It thinks it knows more than its seniors, and
takes offence at their warnings. Any fair outside is
enough, or any common pursuit, or hobby. A young
man is extravagant and unsettled, with one passion to-
day and another to-morrow, and gives his confidence
presently to whoever can help or sympathise with his
passing fancy. He is hardly a man as }-et, in some
ways, and feeling like a boy, acts like one. The
world is new to him, and he gives his faith to any one
who, he thinks, knows it. Indeed, the boy hangs
long about us, for good in some ways, for evil in
others. It makes strange heroes, and has extraordi-
nary standards of manliness. Where sense sees only
ground for aversion, simplicity, looking through the
coloured air of exaggeration, sees endless attraction.
It would be amusing, if it were not so sad, to think of
the alliances youth strikes up. Antecedents are no-
llii'g; ac(iuaintancc beforehand is sui)erfluous ; love

* Ainare luc cilo dcsisto, nee leinerc iutipio.
1 llainlet, Act I., Scene 3.

COMPAXIOXS.

^'3

at fiFst sight, and unbounded confidence, in a casual
meeting, are its creed. As a cliild puts everything in
its mouth, a young man takes every one to his heart.
Foolish, unpractical, fond of excitement, gcnsrous,
impracticable, except in its own humours, youth is a
universal philanthropist. To touch another by one
l)oint of similarity in taste or pursuit is to run into one
with him. Its Love is blind and knows nothing of
haif-heartedness. Early life must imitate, for it has all
to learn, but it gives itself up to its tutors. It sees
virtues where others see only vices or r.othing : it
believes in very commonplace heroes, and goes far to
worship them. Stubborn, when crossed, it is led like
a child where its fancy inclines. Like silly fish, it is
caught by mock flies, and they often \ cry poor coun-
terfeits. Let it but think well of any one and il sees
only what it wants to see in him, and becomes his
mere double.

Be slow to make friendships. They are too sacred
and serious to be lightly formed. Remember that, as
Coleridge says, Experience, like the stern lights of a
ship, shows only the way that has been gone over.
Beware of your soft ductility. A companion means a
copy, consciously or unconsciously, for you would not
go with one you did not admire for something. Let
acquaintance be one thing ; intimacy another : the
one for a circle; the oUier for single bosoms. Be
pleasant without being confidential, and you may
learn from most, and do not follow to evil because
you wish hints in things harmless.

COMPANIONS.

The different classes, unfit or fit for friends, might
be variously put. The Fast Young Man stands at
the head, but to describe him is to speak of a class
with many varieties. He varies in every age, but is
as old as Cain. St. Peter gives a glimpse of him, in
his day, as a profligate wanton, a slave to his passions,
spending his nights in wine debauches and vice,
and filling the streets with his roistering noises.*
Alcibiades was a noted instance, if all be true that is
said of him, as to the mutilation of the busts ot
Mercury and his profanation of the mysteries; for
defacing the gods, and mocking the secret rites of
religion, is precisely Avhat the whole race would think
sport, in any age. Catiline and Clodius were samples
worthy of bracketing along with him. It was such
a joke for Clodius to get into Caesar's house, to a
woman's sacrifice, in girl's clothes, to make love to
Pompeia, Caesar's wife ! Shakspeare has a whole
gallery of life pictures of the genus ; — degrading them-
selves ; .breaking their fathers heart ; wasting his sub-
stance ; staining his name ; consorting with any who
could amuse them, however coarsely ; playing with the
laws, and with the public peace ; lowering themselves
every way j and thinking a carouse the greatest enjoy-
ment. Hal was one, till he reformed. The Mohocks
were the flist young men of Addison's day, importing
into London midnight roughness and terror, like that
of the savages whose name they bore. Sandwich and
Wilkes, with Ihcir order of " New Franciscans," and

♦ I Pel. iv. 3.

COMPANIONS.

their motto over Medenham Abbey, " Do as you
like " — finding their sport in turning the most sacred
rites of reh'gion into profane and obscene burlesque —
and Chjjles Fox, the brilliant and dissolute spend-
thrift, gamester, and libertine, might stand for those of
the last third of last century. For later times you can
pick what illustrations you please; they are never
wanting ; unhappily, not even to-day.

How the fast young man gets his name is a question.
I apprehend it hints at his spending whatever he has
in purse, conscience, or health, with equal folly and
recklessness. It depends somewhat on his position
how he may show himself, for every rank, to the lowest,
can boast of him. You find him as readily in the
shop, the warehouse, the office, the chambers, the
universities, or the schools, as in Mayfair or Blackwall.
In every rank he lives for amusement alone, but it is
always such as other men shun. As a rule, he drinks,
or will soon do so, to be like his companions. He
very commonly bets, honourably or the reverse, as
his pocket is still whole, or runs low. If he has the
money, he very probably gambles, and, if he has none,
he will rather stand and see others do so than lose the
excitement. He is nearly always idle or lazy, though
there are strange exceptions in this, as with Byron, who
was as industrious as he was loose. But, for the most
part, his nights leave no energy for his days. His
reading is greatly restricted to play-bills, sporting-lists,
and highly spiced novels, or the issues of Holywell
Street : his hiunts are the streets, taverns, singing-

COMPANIONS.

saloons, and casinos. His thoughts by clay are what
exploits he can organise for the night. His money is
lavished on vice and folly, but he owes for everything
else. Anything solid or useful he hates, and as to
religion, he has left that hull down from the first.
Innocence is simply fair game to him, for banter or
ruin. He mocks at a novice who will not drink, or
keeps his purity, or cares for his Sundays. As I said,
he is fast in spending all that he has, health, morals,
money, character; fast in deadly precocity in every-
thing vile.

Yet it would be a mistake to say that he was wholly
bad. If he were so there would be less danger. No
one is without some good touches : even villains have
their redeeming points, and young fools must have
more, for fastness is often want of thought as much as
anything. Tom Jones was at bottom a far better
fellow than Blifil, though he was as fast as his half
brother was staid. It does not do to condemn men
wholesale : you may condemn their ways, if bad, as
you like. But loo^ morals are all the more dangerous
when joined with good-heartedness. It is no reason
for excusing fastness that it may be joined with good
qualities. Even Nero had flowers thrown on his grave,
and Lady Macbeth could not murder Duncan, he was
so like her father. Dante gives Brunetto virtues in
the seventh circle of Hell. Amiability in a young man,
or other attractions, leads to companionship in spite
of his vices, for no one intends to copy him in them, at
the first A fine voice, lively spirits, that he can tell a

COMPANIONS.

«7

goc'l story, or has a touch of Yorick about hhii ; or
perhaps his good nature leads to acquaintance, and
then all the rest follows. The Devil takes care to
cover his pits with flowers, Simplicity, caught by such
showy charms, or good traits, flies round the candle
till it lies at the bottom, or breaks away with scorched
wings. It thought of the light, but it finds the flame.
Without an idea of harm, it goes where so much is
innocent, only to find that it has got into bad ways,
before it well knows it. The only safety is to have
nothing to do with such risks. ]f you don't want to
hear the bell, don't touch the rope. You may propose
only to go in a little way, where there is no danger,
but the water shelves suddenly, and plunges you as
deep as the others, when you least think. If you
once join a circle it needs more moral courage
than many have to break away from it, for it is
hard to stand ridicule and the petty persecution of
names.

2. The vampire companion is another enemy to be
avoided. The race is as old as sin. Shakspeare,
who knew so much of us all, has drawn him at full

length :

" Eveiy one that flatters tliee
Is no friend in misery ;
Words are easy, like the wind,
Faithful friends are haid to find.
Every man will be thy friend
Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend j
But if store of cro^vns be scant
No man will supply thy want.

c»

c 03 f Pirn '.w

If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call ;
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice.
But, if fortune once do frown.
Then, farewell his great renown ;
They that fawned on him before,
Use his company no more."

There are plenty of trencher friends, plenty of the
sucker order, who stick to you while you have where-
withal, but let you go when you are drained. True
vampires, they fan you with their devil's wings while
they tp.ke your blood. Leeches fasten on the living,
but drop off from the dead. Timon of Athens has
had many heirs to his experience. Let me give you
a story from real life, for which I can vouch. A gen-
tleman, lately dead, had spent a fortune on too lavish
hospitality, till he sank at last to destitution, and was
thankful for a piece of bread or any dole or gift.
He had called on one, then rich, whom he had often
feasted in his better days, telling his circumstances,
and seeking anything he could beg, especially any
cast-off clothing; and the day and hour had been
fixed for him to come again and get what could be
looked out for him. It happened that a second per-
son, one of the same circle, had come on business to
the house at the time when the unfortunate was to
return, and was sitting with the master when a knock

came to the door, and a servant announced Mr. ,

who called by appointment. A faded and worn man,
in wretched figure, bowed himself into the room, and

I-

COAlPANIONS.

after many apologies for unintended intrusion, hoped
that he would not be allowed to disturb the con-
versation ; he would be glad to wait till they were at
leisure. But he had counted on a politeness he was
not to receive. " I can't be disturbed at present, I
am too busy ; and, besides, I must say I don't wish to
be troubled about such things ; you have yourself to
blame for the whole. I really wish you would not
come in this way" — with a ring for the servant to
conduct him out — was the only answer. The shadow
of course retired. " Did I not know that face ?" asked
the first visitor. " Is it not Mr. So-and-so, where you
and I used to dine so splendidly ? He kept a mag-
nificent table." " Yes," said the master of the house,
** it is he, the fool. He spent all he had on grand
feeds, and now he has to come to ask me for some
old clothes. I can't be troubled with him. I always
knew it would come to this." " But he said you had
wished iiim to come?" "Oh, yes; but it's no use
encouraging men of that stamp." The visitor had
been too like the victim in thoughtless free-handed ness,
and the story struck him. He had till then spent as he
gained, in much the same way. Taking a sovereign
from his pocket, he laid it on the table, looked at it,
and addressed it : " Sovereign, thou'rt the best friend
C R has. I'll take better care of thee here-
after than I have done in the past." And from that
day he began to save, dropped his summer friends,
and without ceasing to be generous, ceased to think
that to like his dinners meant to care for himself.

Had Shakspeare some such case in his thoughts when
he wrote in "Timon :"

"Alas, good lord, a noble gentleman 'tis, if he
would not keep so good a house. Many a time and
often I have dined with him, and told him on't ; and
come again to supper to him, on purpose to have him
spend less, and yet he would embrace no counsel,
take no warning by my coming. Every man has his
fault, and honesty (frec-handedness) is his ; I have
told him on't, but I could never get him from it." *

Young men are often victimised by mean hearts
who only care to use them, and then fling them away
like a squeezed orange. They throw themselves in
their way; pretend great interest in them; turn up
morning and night, and flatter and follow. Wagg, in
" Pendennis," is their representative. Beware of them.
It may be money they seek, or some service, or to
make you a tool. " I sought your acquaintance,"
said one of the class to me once, in my boyhood, " to
get you to prepare my birds for me, for I heard you
had taken lessons, and I thought I could save the cost
of going to the stuffer's by knowing you." He was
fool as well as sordid, you will say ; and so he was, to
my great advantage. But it is not always the net is
thus openly shown. It was one of the thousand illus-
trations of Old Richard's story of the axe grinding.
You will be everything while you are turning the
grindstone, but when the edge is finished, your only
thanks is to have your simplicity laughed at, if you be
• Act III., Scene i.

- f

COMPANJONS.

7«

not threatened to have ii told how you wasted youf
time.

Some make acquaintanct.ships which you may think
friendships simply because it suits them to fill up the
hour with you. They want some one to speak to,
and pass their time. While you think them so hearty
they are simply indifferent, and note your weaknesses
to turn them to jokes at you elsewhere. So long as it
is their humour they will be hand and glove with you,
but if anything happen that makes them think you
may ask their help, or if they see you unfortunate,
you are dropped in a moment. A mean man cannot
make friends : his only care is for himself. Honour
is not in his vocabulary, and affection means self
preservation and benefit. Your bloodless people can
never be trusted. You may fetch and carry for thenr
if you like, or give them what you like, their only
thought is how to serve or amuse themselves by
you. Try their friendship by any strain, however
slight, it is a rope of sand. They either have a design
in letting you come about them, or they think they
may find one some day. Their hearts, as Cowper
says, are only muscles to keep up circulation. Time
and constant intercourse make no difference ; they
are no closer at the end than at the beginning.

One word more on this. If you find any one making
you his fag, he is not your friend.

3. Lord Bacon says : " There is little friendship
in the world, and least of all between equals, which
was wont to be magnified. That that is, is between

7«

COMPANIONS,

superior and inferior, whose fortunes may compre-
hend, the one the other.* There can, of course, be
none among those in every point equal, or who think
themselves so, for friendship must ever rest on sup-
posed benefit to be gained, only, of a noble and
worthy kind. Some considerations of mind, person
or character, must attract and be the occasion of the
liking that follows, and love always looks on another
as better than itself in that for which it loves. But I
question if even so great an authority be right in
thinking that they only whose fortunes are so unequal
that that of the one includes or embraces that of the
other, can have true friendship. Dependence is only
compatible with friendship when it is balanced by
some equivalent. If felt as such, it changes friend-
ship to gratitude, not free from constraint. Some can
do favours as if they received them : in that case,
self-respect still fancies equality, but a follower and
client can hardly r'se to a friend. Experience and
history, I apprehend, hardly justify looking to con-
trast of circumstances as most favourable to the
closest attachments. As I think, companions cither
too high above, or too much beneath you, are
undesirable. Some may be really too high for your
good, except in some special cases, others think
themselves so. Avoid both.t Too much money in

"^ Bacon's Essays : Of Followers and Friends.

t Amicitia pares aut accipit, aut facit : ubi incequalitas est, et
alterius eminentia, alterius subjectio, ibi non tarn amicitia, quara
ttdulatio est. — Jerome in Mich. Proph., c. vii. § 51", ed. Migne.

•' Friendship either finds or makes equals : where there is in*

rf»

COMPANIONS.

a friend, unless he be one in many, is apt to tempt
you to keep on a footing with him. Nothing leads
young men oftencr wrong, than unwillingness to seem
l)oor. They get into expenses they cannot stand;
get in debt, and then, no one knows what may follow
As Byron says in his strong, sensible way : " Povertj
means slavery, all the world over," unless, indeed,
one be a Diogenes, to tell Alexander to keep out of
the sunshine, as the only favour we ask of liim, or,
like Jolmson, with independence that can throw
given shoes out at the window, and wear old ones.
A companion with more to spend than yourself, is
likely either to make you fee your inferiority, or you
will feel it of yourself, before long, and lose your
manliness. You sink into a familiar, at the bidding
of a patron, and too often come to tliink your degrada-
tion an honour. Whoever thinks himself entitled to
patronize you is not fit for a friend. Never take up
with one who makes you f( 1 that he thinks himself
condescending in owning yo^ Self-respect demands
that distinctions of outward position be kept back,
and, if there be any affection, they will instinctivel)
be so. Among young men, indeed, there is less feai
of such heartlessness, for as all boys are true demo-
crats, a touch of nature still beautifies youth, and
makes circumstances of less moment. College friends,
often of very different rank, are not seldom none the
less true. Their ingenuousness still looks at persons,

quality, the one up, the other under, there is less friendship than
flattery.''

COMPANIONS,

not accidents. Only do not affect society above you
and strain yourself towards it. Noble natures are
the same in any rank, and good birth or wealth ha\e
often as little pride as their oppositcs. Diogenes and
Plato, opposite in position, were no less contrasted in
spirit : the Cynic trod on the fine lloor of his richer
bfrother, as he was told by him, with more pride, than
he did, himself, to whom it belonged. When it is
sincere, meet friendship half way, if he who offers it
be deserving; true-hearted care for you is too rare
not to be cherished wherever you find it.

Affectation of supc "iority docs not commonly trouble
with friendships, for your very tine youth does not
easily mix with the crowd. His dignity keeps him
aloof, though like other spectral illusions it be invi-
sible save to himself. He speaks little, except in
circles worthy of the honour ; bears himself uneasily
elsewhere; is given to criticism, and is largely dis-
liked. His assumptions go down with some ; let
tliem not do so with you.

Intellectual superiority, or superiority in knowledge,
is a different thing from mere social difference. If
there be sense and modesty with either, the more you
have them in a companion the better. Intellectual
wealth has a right to acknowledgment, and to render
it this only honours you. A friend from whom you
can learn nothing wants a main inducement to inti-
macy. He may make up for the defect by other
endowments or graces, but bright parts or wide know-
ledge In a companion arc ccinal pleasure and profit.

COMPANIONS.

Let him know as much as he may, if he be simple
ami manly, his superiority will be an advantage,
stimulatmg you to exertion to lessen the distance
between you, and costing no loss of right self-respect.
'Die more a man knows, the more humble he is likely
to be, and the less he will thrust his acquirements
oifensivcly fonvard ; for real, conscious knowledge,
like the violet, hides beneath its own leaves, and lets
its presence reveal itself only by the evidence it cannot
conceal.

A companion too much below you is a mistake.
To have a Tony Lumpkin for intimate is no great
honour. Not that you should shun worth because it
is poor, but lowness. Tony had a good fortune, for
his mother says, " she thought he did not want much
learning to spend fifteen hundred a year." That he
concurred with her was shown in his comrades at the
"Three Pigeons," — "Dick Muggins, the exciseman ^
Jack Slang, the horse doctor; little Aminadab, that
grounil th .; music-box ; and Tom Twist, that spun the
pewter platter."-* Never let youi self down: have no
companions rather than bad ones. A poor scholar is
as much a gentleman, if his mind be on a level with
his calling, as if he had an estate ; but the owner o?
a county, with the mind of a chuff or churl, is beneaili
you. What a man's father was is iniliffcrent, if he
were honest, and have transmitted no shame to his
children. There is a peerage of poverty as much as
of title — a peerage both intellectual and moral. Want
• (iolil-milh's " She Sloops to Coiunicr."

COMPANIONS.

of money is no disgrace, else we have to lament His
to whom we all look ; the trouble is when the man is
poor as well as his pui-se.* Refinement of mind, thirst
for knowledge, sensibility, and high principle, are the
grandest court robes. I know no finer type of young
manhood than he, who, fired by a divine impulse, has
consecrated himself to knowledge, and through many
struggles, is true to his vow. The republic of letters
and that of worth know no titles but their own.
The gentleman is not an affair of clothes or pune.
Descent, hereditary culture, the influence of conscioivs
power that comes with gentle birth, are gifts of God ;
but there arc other gifts with which they can make
alliance, where all these are wanting. But be sure
you are not sentimental merely, and that you do not
see qualities that do not exist, for companionship
never levels up, where the inecjuality is essential, but
always levels down.

4. Any sign of want of principle should make you
draw back at once from intimacy or even accpiaint-
ance. Never think any instance too trifling. A chink
lets in light enough to show what full day would do.
A trifle is often the only test you can have, and shows
rottenness as much as a speck of mould on ripe
fruit. Rely on it, the wind may be judged by a
feather. Dishonour of any kind; a thought of dis-

• Non qui parum habct, scil qui plus cupit, pauper est. —
Seneca, Epist. ii.

♦• It is not lie who has little, but he who wants more, that
is a poor man."

rst
le

honesty; any coquetting with a lie, if even with

equivocation only; undutifulncss in any relationships;

wrong done, or even proposed, to employers ; want of

^eart or conscience in any indication, however slight,

ire vanes that sliow the currents of the soul.

Cowper was right :

"I would not enter on my list of friends,
Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
(Yet wanting sensibility) — the man
Who needlessly sets loot upon a worm."

To give pain for amusement, whether by a word or an
act, argues moral defect ; want of thought may by
chance wound), but the regret that follows discovery
atones for the error. Want of heart plays with
feelings, and laughs at the pain it cannot comprehend.
You might as well sow wheat on the soil over an
Arctic ice-heap as frieiidship on such a nature.

5. Make no friend of one who docs not meet your
confidence half way. There is no friendship without
mutual trust. Not that any one is to have all your
thoughts, for frankness, even with a friend, has right
limits. But there are some who only listen, and while
you reveal yourself, keep permanently in the shade*

• Humanitas vetat superbum esse adversus socios ; vetat
nvarum, verbis, rebus, afTectibus ; comcm se facilemque omnibus
prjcstat ; nullum alienum malum putat ; bonum autem suum
idco maxime, quod alicui bono futurum est, amat. — Seneca,
Kpist. Ixxx *iii.

'•True culture forbids pride among companions, forbids being
niggard in words, or acts, or heart ; holds itself free and ready
to all ; is indifferent to no one's troubles, but finds its own good«
there, most, where it can advantage another."

COMPAAVOXS.

themselves ; who worm out your secrets, but keep all
their own ; who learn everything about you, but of
whom you never know anything ; wlio deal in gene-
ralities on their side ; don't care enough for you, or
don't trust you enough, to be unreserved; perhaps
have reasons for silence, not to their credit ; or if
apparently open, show only how they can at once
speak and say nothing. If you find yourself spending
your time on a mystery, change him for one who
respects you enough to drop masks and reticence,
and give you the sight of his inner self. Crafty
men are unfit for friends ; you are a mere pawn on
their board. Some never rest till they look into your
very seal, if they can, from a mere cold curiosity, or
to gossip behind backs about you. Don't hang your
heart upon your sleeve for such daws to peck at.
Simplicity and cunning are no fair match. The cool,
bloodless questioner, who puts you in the box hour
by hour, is not worth your acquaintance, and may
hurt you if you don't leave him. 1.* may be pleasant
enough to look out from a dark chamber into the
light, but the opposite is very much the reverse.

6. Ilr nothing to do with one who jests at what
you or otheib tli^-k srcred. To have no reverence is
to want the higliijr manhood. A light mocker is a
mere fribbU^ hi sen'. Religion ard religious men,
serious anv e nest, are %i above any laughter. With
the pale kla';.^':i7;s so near, and the throne of God
shining througu Jr; v,?^v } ivens, joking is quite out
of place on suci: tni^gi. Life is entirely t(H) solemn

COMPANIONS.

not to be grave. The centre of infinite mysteries,
stretching away through the h'ght by clay, and shining
down ill star splendours by night, it is only manliness
that we be thoughtful. With your awful isolation of
consciousness, — borne on, as you feel yourself, by
unseen forces, like wrack on the sea, or the sailing
clouds — darkness your starting, darkness your goal —
Day stooping to the west even now, and drawing brown
night over all things — nothing becomes you so much
as to fear God. All worship is sacred; for though
there is a right both in object and mode, Error
seeking the light in its poor ignorant ways, is high as
the heavens above indifference. A sneer is of the
pit, and idiot laughter is infinitely beneath the poorest
psalm singing. Some young men, escaped from the
constraints of boyhood, thinlc to show manhood by a
wild revolt from all they were wont to reverence. The
Sabbath is turned to a holiday; public worship for-
saken; all that religion attempts, to better mankind,
met with a scoff; its ministers slandered ; and its
jjeople set down as weaklings. Not that they would
have themselves thought irreligious in all cases ; they
rather ignore the whole subject, as Louis XV. did
death, which was not to be named in his presence.
Avoid the whole class. Ungodliness is infectious ; it
is natural to us all, and needs only encouragement to
grow rank. Respect for religion is the only fence
that keeps evil from breaking down all that is good
in us. It is an edge and border to our lives, without
which they fray out and unravel. To fiing off its

CO.VPANIOiVS.

restraints goes far to break down all others. To mock
or flout shows a coarseness and want of sensibility,
on which no sanctions, however sacred, have any
hold.

7. To make a companion of one A\ho rejects
Christianity, or wavers between it and the religious
schemes of the day, is most unwise, however blamel os?
the morals. Doubt and disbelief once sprung are well
nigh ineradicable. Far better strengthen your trust
than put it in peril. Respect sincerity, but remember
that there is much more for revelation than against
it. Some men of deep earnestneso slide into a mere
natural or philosophic religion from the turn of their
studies, or from the tone of their Universities, or the
influence of some thinker or author. The poetical
temperament affects others, perhaps wilh a dash of
these outside influences as well ; the half-truths, or ex-
agrerations, or extravagancies of orthodoxy, here and
there, add their impulse, and, it may be, the idea ot
making one's ^wn religion has a share. The end is, a
vagueness which, like that of Alexander Severus, puts
Apollonius and Orpheus alongside Jesus Christ, and
reverences a gallery of heroes, of whom the Redeemer
s one. A blind confusion pays equal honour to
Plato, Pythagoras, Plotinus, Mahomet, our Lord, and
Gotama Buddha, and puts the Zendavesta, the Vedas,
tlii Koran, and the Bible on the same footing. It
is very easy to be caught by the novelty and the
apparent breadth of such teaching : set off, perhaps,
by the charms in which genius presents it. You had

C(hlfPAyiONS

better keep out of its way. Mist may look well in
the sun, but it is cold and dreary when over you.
These eclectic religions are but a patchwork from
faded wardrobes ; fashions old in their birthplace,
vamped up for a new market. Some men, as Napoleon
said of Duroc, will believe anything, provided it be
not in the Bible. They take to Spiritualism, perhaps,
or to table rappings, or to Emerson, but the Scriptures
are only old Jew stars, burned out. Some praise the
morality of the Bible, allow its literary merit in parts,
but go no furtlier. They may be men of high edu-
cation, or of little ; may speak with the authority, in
its sphere, of scientific attainments, or from the inspira-
tion of leading articles ; in any case, religion is one of
their open questions in which as much is uncertain as
in any other. Before making alliance with such
opinions, or yielding yourself to their influence, be
sure that you have done yourself justice by being
prepared. To undertake the defence of religion you
need to have the sling and the pebbles, and to
know how to use them. To be grounded in know-
ledge and principles is the condition of service or
safety. Never make a friend of one who destroys
your faith ; keep aloof : do not even defend it rashly ;
study it first, till you feel its \ alue and know its evi-
dence. I am far from urging a weak fear, but it is
rashness, not sense, to have your minds prejudiced
before you let Revelation speak for itself. Truth
shines by its own light, and needs only to discover
Itself to the ingenuous heart to be owned ; and this

! r

COMPAXIOXS.

it does in the ;jciiptuic.s. The force of the internal
evidence which the Bible offers to all who make it
their study, is alone sufficient to turn off any number
of cavils, and withstand any attacks,

8. The Model Companion is one whose character,
formed by religion, shows equal reverence. Christian
rjih, amiability, and intelligence. Undeniable prin-
ciple is not enough ; other qualities may make friend-
ship impossible. Faults of temper or culture may
leave respect, but i)revent love. To be a Christian
does not imply being a perfect one. Imprudence,
dulness, irritability, canity, or other blemishes, may
be found even in thoi . whom we cannot deny to be
good at bottom. Tliey may be unspeakably better
than they were, and still not be very attractive. Old
habits or defects may still show themselves. Cran-
berries taste sour after any sweetening.

But religion must be the foundation. To fear God
is at the root of all true nobility of mind or practice.
To be generous, amusing, quick, intelligent, weigh
little, if the niche in the heart, for God, be empty. It
is almost worse, indeed, when religiousness is a-wanting
amidst much that is pleasant and kindly. It glosses
over the fatal defect, and may make it be thought
of no moment. Amiability and pu. morals are, of
course, so much religion themselves, 1 it without frank
loyalty to God in addition, they are only the virtues of
heathenism, not of Christianity. Vapne reverence,
and natural worship, show a susceptil • for a more
definite faith and homage, but are im ct if either

COJfPAAVOXS.

be wanting. It is not enough to be Scipio, or Marcus
Aurelius ; what is needed is to be a Christian. Nor
s it enough to appropriate Christian moraHty without
acknowledgment, and take credit to ourselves for
what is due to the New Testament. I mean by reli-
gion that which accepts Jesus Christ as the Saviour,
and seeks to reproduce His image in daily life, alike
in spirit and act.

Anything less must fail to secure a healthy influence
of mind on mind. With a lower standard, nothing
prevents mistakes or disaruis temptations, if expe-
diency, impulse, or pleasure plead for them. In such
a rase there is nothing but oar own will, in the last
resort, to check or guide us. Education is arbitrary,
public opinion varies, and natural conscience, even
with the light borrowed from the Bible, may be
clouded, when strong inducements appeal. We must
become our own law, and our will is a servant oftener
than a master. It is not the authority of parents, or
forefathers, that teaches control, says St. Jerome, but
that of God.*

To be a good son to the Father in Heaven is the
only safety in him whom you make your Companion.
There is no limit to the influence of mind on mind,
in friendship, which, as the philosopher says, has
but one soul in two bodies ; and good is more readily
tainted by evil than evil corrected by good. It was
a saying of the Middle Ages, " If you go to Rome

♦ Non parentum aut mnjorum auctorilas, scd Dei, docebit
tnipeiium.

:■::•

COMPANIOA'S.

once you will sec a bad man ; go again, you will
make his acquaintance ; go the third time, you will
bring nim back with you;" an anticipation, by some
centuries, of Pope's well-known lines.* Poppy and
mandragora, loathed at first, are soon indifferent, and,
presently, craved ; and they say that the bird that
once looks in the serpent's eyes, forthwith, helplessly
flutters towards its jaws. Like arctic cold, evil in-
fluence, braved for a time, by and by numbs us, and
brings on Death behind a veil of delightful dreams.
If thus with vice, it is still more so with mere nega-
tions, toned down as they may be by much that is
good or pleasant. The absence of the religious sen-
timent is soon forgotten or forgiven, and we sink to
the same level.

A Christian young man will find no thorough
enjoyment in the friendship of any one who is not
himself a Christian. To have the same likings and
dislikings, the same tastes and turns of mind, is at
the bottom of heartiness ; without it, there will be
disputes, or suppressions, and either cause want of
sympathy. Friends must be twin roses, which hold
each other np by twining as they grow. Difference
on anything which occupies us much, even for the
time, is fatal to friendships, for many are broken by
mere passing heats ; how fatal, then, must it be when
the opposition lies in the tenderest depths of the
soul. To have our most sacred sympathies chilled
by indifference or wounded by antipathy, makes
♦ "Vice is a monster," &c. Essay on Man. Epist. ii.

COMPANIOiXS.

Irlendship impossible. Wallcing opposite ways, caring
/or opposite interests, differing in pleasures, regrets,
and hopes, you may be together, but are never one.
Sympathy is the golden bond of friendship. Our
/astes, pursuits, and affections, are the paths of the
spirit, and he who goes with us must have the same.
Like the two lutes in a chamber, of which to touch
a note on the one, as they say, makes the other
murmur it back, two hearts, to be fit for friendship,
must have common chords.

Still, with all, there needs care and wisdom. Even
to a worthy friend it is not wise to tell everything,
though, except in what must be secret, frankness and
confidence are as delightful as they are profitable. It
was good advice one gave his son, " Make companions
of few, be intimate with one, deal justly with all^
speak evil of none." If you find a friend, think non6
the worse of him that he is not a friend to your faults
as well as yourself. " Every one who spares you is
not your friena," says Augustine, " nor every one who
smites you your enemy; it is better to love with
fidelity than to deceive by good nature." * Nor mus^
you forget that it is necessary to bear and forbear.
Slight faults in a friend always have their counterpart
in ourselves. There is no one who has not abate-
ments. Give and require confidence ; friendship
leaks out of any breach in mutual trust and honour.

♦ Non omnis qui parcit, amicus est ; nee omnis qui verberat,
inimicus. Melius est cum sevcritate diligcre, quam cum lenitato

decipcre. — Aug. Kpist. xciii. 4.

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(716) •73-4503

COMPANIONS.

He who betrays yo.u, whether from intention or
weakness, shows a vital defect. To speak to a friend
must be to speak to a second self A blab or sieve,
far less a traitor, is dangerous. "It is the solace of
this life," says St. Ambrose, " to have one to whom
you can open your heart, and tell your secrets ; to
win to yourself a faithful man, who will rejoice with
you in sunshine, and weep in showers; it is easy
and common to say, * I am wholly thine,' but to find

It true IS as rsrr. '^^

* Amb, de Oiiic. lib. iii.

SUCCESS.

■

MORNING opens with painted clouds, and so
does life. Many coloured dreams of the Fu-
ture sail, slow moving, along the blue — romantic
enough as a contrast to the reality when it comes.
The far-off hills of our Happy Valley lie in the rosy
light, hiding the roughness one day to be climbed, and
sowing the earth with orient pearl. Change the
figure ; call Life a voyage ; it comes to the same.
We sail out of the quiet harbour of early years,
streamers flying, yards dressed, — " Hope in the prow,
and Pleasure at the helm;" but before we gain quiet
waters again, what chances, changes, dangers, failures,
anxieties, fears ! Some, too light, turn over and sink
with the first wind ; some, wrong in the compass, or
driven by a gale, drift on ruin, and perish ; some go
down battling bravely in the wild sea; some come
back again, grey and weather-stained, but sails spread
proudly, the light of home on all faces, deep laden
with the wealth for which they have ventured so
much and so far.

But Success is rightly to be expected, and waits our
wi'ming in far more cases than it is realised. The

SC/CC£SS.

yessel or the seamanship is as often at fault as the
weather, or the bad markets. There are, of course,
clouds of rivals, but there always have been so, and
some prize, at least, is open to most who deserve it.
Even young Hope sometimes half fears as it looks
the world in the face, — and wonders how it is to push
its way through the crowd. But, sursum corda, lift up
your hearts, there's room for every brave and wise
worker in the constant shiftings, openings, and changes
of life. Like a flock of birds on a bough, it may take
time for all to get into their places, but it comes in
the end.

But what is Success ? You may win in one way
and lose in another, and if the loss be the greater, the
balance, after all, is on the wrong side. I take it tnat
the only success worth the name is when a man gains
a living, or a competence, or wealth, without paying
too dear for it. You may buy gold too dear. If you
give health for it you make a poor bargain, as John
Leyden, among many others, so touchingly tells us ;
for what is money without the life to enjoy it. If you
sell your faculties for it, and think of nothing but
gaining it, you give pearls for a bauble, like a painted
Indian ; if you give your soul for it, your self-respect,
your character, your conscience, your peace, your
hope, or any one of them, if you cou/d sell them singly,
what will you think of the exchange when you come
to feel what it means ? True Success is when a fair
share of this world does not cost either moral, or
intellectual, or physical health or life.

SUCCESS.

One of the worst faults of human nature, in every
age, is the worship of Success by itself, apart from the
means used to get it. To be a " successful man" is
enough, no matter what has preceded. Always be-
lieved, this doctrine has of late years been made a fifth
gospel ; if hardly owned, yet commonly acted on, as
the general creed. With the spread of wealth the
moral sense of the nation has become widely de-
bauched. Our old ideas of right and ^vrong have
largely changed places. From the gambling peer to
the mechanic it is the same. Bad work, in some
trades, is unblushingly defended;* though the name
it goes by, — " scamping," condemns it beforehand.
Trades* Union rules are not, I fear, always a para-
phrase of the Two Tables. Joint Stock Companies
have no great reputation. With Houses, once great,
selling a worn-out business as sound and good ;
railway capital, to over a hundred millions, yielding
no dividend ; with cooked accounts of directors and
great contractors; bubble schemes in clouds; with
hordes of desperate speculators afoot to advance their
fortunes by any conspiracy or reckless venture — com-
mercial conscience is in a poor way. If it were only
men of no standing who thus turned swindlers, liars,
or gamblers, it would be less terrible ; the better tone
of more responsible men might counteract the evil, in
part. But it seems as if all the world were playing
double or quits. There is universal distrust, till
capital is left in the vault rather than be risked iu
• Sco the Reports of the Trades' Union Commission.

SUCCESS.

any investment. Names have ceased to have weight
to a sad extent, and reports and prospectuses smell of
brimstone, like quarantine papers. Our commercial
morals seem sinking. Our old name for honesty and
fiiir trading is largely lost. Rogues in grain, gamblers
in cotton, makers and vendors of lies in bales, barrels,
and what not, hold up their face in the streets, and
say Amen at church. Gain, instant and heavy, never
mind conscience or character, is the rage of the day.
Meetings of merchants deplore that pride in a name,
or in mercantile honour, is often too weak to stand
the temptation of a throw for fortune. Failure, they
tell us, no longer brings shame and sorrow ; the old
scrupulous care to avoid it grows rarer and rarer : it is
even part of a plan with too many, to break down
when it suits, that they may build up a second, or
even a third corrupt fortune, on the ruins of those
who have trusted them. A gambler on the flags is
condemned only if he fail ; is shunned only till he
make a fresh hit, and can feast and wine his friends
as before. " Success" covers all, gilds villany, makes
it respectable, gives it place and honour, and makes
honest contempt a libel. But Success worth the
having is not the mere making money ; it is the
keeping a fair name and clear conscience in doing it,
and living for something better than gain. To lose
self-respect for it, or that of those who still have old-
fashioned notions of honour and worth, or to slave for
money, is to put many a thorn in our pillow, and to
wear a fool's cap and bells for the Devil.

-S

■N

si7cci:ss.

But what are the requisites for this higher success ?
Let me give you some hints, y

I. There must be real Industry and Thrift : not
that every one who is busy is wisely so. Many idlers
are busy enough, and nearly all have disguises to cheat
the world and themselves into the thought that they
are not what their consciences, and the keen eyes
of others may call them.

(i.) There is the Laboriously Idle man, always busy
with what is nothing when done — your grown-up
bubble blower ; your human squirrel, driving his
foolish wheel to find himself still at the bottom.
Some of the class, with great duties, neglect them for
laborious play ; Nero, for instance, who let the throne
of the world stand empty to stmm his fiddle, and try
prize poems and charioteering ; or Domitian, great at
fly-catching ; or Louis XVI., tinkering locks when the
state should have been on the anvil ; or George IV.,
who gave what heart he had to the tailors. There
is no end of worthless activities among the idle —
no end of balancing feathers, or thrashing chaff, or
bird-cage hopping. Male fancy-work is as abundant
as female. The number of hobby-horses men ride has
no end, from Dendermonde sieges, in Uncle Toby's
back garden, to Siamese kite flying, or Laputan
theories. Some of the tribe have definite aims ; some
potter on, with the air of grave occupation, at fresh
trifles each day. Their life passes in self-imposed
Sisyphus labours, rolling the barrel up hill to-day, to
repeat the process to-morrow : or in as bad as the

si/cci:ss.

soldier's punishment, of lifting bullets, from spot to
spot, in a useless circle. But these are the graver
varieties : it is far more common to find the industry
only a bustling tumult, which occupies without weary-
ing. Like Sober, in the "Idler," the day is filled,
with most, by petty business and ingenious disguises,
to keep in their own favour, and hide idleness under
worthless hurry and turbulence.

(2.) The Man who is always busy in other men's
work or affairs, while neglecting his own, is another
branch of the family. You will find him ready for
anything you may need, and often when you don't
want him, offering advice and assistance in all things
alike. He is everywhere except in his own house, and
leaves his own interests to take care of themselves
while he haunts other men's places of business, or is
deep with some one at the street corner. He often
affects public affairs ; is on the council, perhaps, or a
great man at committees. He is everywhere but
where he should be, and busy at everything that does
not concern him. Steady work at his own calling he
cannot endure; but the excitement of outside occu-
pation ; the delight of hearing his own voice, or of
showing his knowledge or skill, and the pleasure of
gossip, are his heart's food and clothing. He is often
trying some side scheme for a time to indulge his
dislike of steady application to any one thing, but
after a wild beginning, the second iron is left to cool
like the first. Serious, continuous work, is his abhor-
rence ; he can, at most, make beginnings, or bend to

SC/CCESS.

his calling in fits ; his mainspring is impulse or vanity.
As a rule, he is busy abroad and idle at home.

(3.) The Downright Lazy Man, who does nothing he
can any way help, but leaves things to go as they may ;
who puts off to-day what will cost twice the labour
to-morrow ; who lets chances go past him, rather than
rouse and lay hold of them ; who has always an excuse
for sloth — always a lion in every way ; who, if he must
work, does as little as possible ; who talks longer about
doing than it takes others to act ; who will never stand
if he can sit, and whom nothing can hurry — is a drone
whom nobody either respects or pities.

His life is a long study how to do nothing as if it
were much. As Gibbon puts it of one of the class,
" He well remembers he has a salary to receive, and
only forgets he has a duty to perform." He is com-
monly as mean as he is shiftless; willing to take
without giving any equivalent; toadies, that he may
silence, or that he may gain apologists; trusts to
friends rather than to himself; is never likely to be
disqualified by enthusiasm for any position. Rather
than seek work, if he need it, he waits on in hopes,
like Micawber, of something turning up, or that
death will befriend him by removing some relative,
or he is just about to do something very soon. His
.quarters stretch out to hours, and he lazes through the
day as if never rightly awake. Hints and contrasts
are lost on him, and you might as well try to push
foi-ward a dial shadow. His life is all starts and
failures, unrealised plans and promises, buds that

S(/CC£SS.

never ripen to fruit. He may begin with the brightest
prospects, but he loses them one by one, and at each
remove is lower, till he find some berth where a Sham
can harbour and play out what life remains. Late at
his office, if he have one, or at his business j often
away ; hearty only in idling j he takes himself to com-
panions of his own stamp when free, to while away
the hours in dreary conversation, or he dozes at home.
If he have a business, you know him by the look of
his servants, for they catch his character ; by his stock,
for he lets it get old and faded ; by the dust and dila-
pidation ; by the air of neglect and decay. If a ser-
vant, he keeps his place only from pity, or under
protest in the mind of his masters against their own
weakness, until they can bear it no longer.

(4.) The Man about Town is another variety. He is
commonly easy in pocket, though appearances must
not always be trusted, for many affect die character,
with very little to back their pretensions. But they
are rather his copies than anything more, and trade
on his reputation for money, to make-believe they have
it themselves. The race of adventurers is not extinct,
though not so common or so successful, perhaps, as a
rule, as in the days of Roderick Random. Students,
with or without means, too often fall in love with the
ro/e, and young men of good family or of good educa-
tion, whether richer or poorer, are not seldom caught
by it. As it is expensive, if played well, money must
be forthcoming, by gambling if not by any way better,
or by sponging on those who have it. The days are

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dragged out between the Parks and Pull Mall, or the
Club, or some other lounge ; the evenuigs are given to
the opera, the theatre, or societ)-. Dress and dining
fill up much of the time, and still more of the thoughts.
The race are quite unconscious of earnestness in any
direction ; their whole existence is a succession of light
vacuities, stale jokes, and town gossip. Anything new
is a providence, it gives them something to repeat.
They read nothing, or worse. Their life is as hollow as
it is unnatural. " Society " — its amusements, fashions,
and patronage — is both earth and heaven to them.

(5.) The Jolly Fellow is sti'l another of the great
breed of idlers. Full of animal spirits, he cannot settle
to honest plain-going industry. His thoughts run on
playing much more than on working. When he
should be busy he is planning a holiday, and when
forced to stay at his task he is thinking how he can
spend his next leisure, or how he has spent his last.
He is a great authority in all sports, perhaps about
horses, or, if he cannot aim so high, about dogs ; and
no one can dress a fly better, or tell where the fish
rise in more rivers. He is serious at all, apparently,
only in seeking amusement. He sings a good song,
or likes one dearly ; has any number of stories, and a
loud laugh, and the taverns know him as one of theh:
steadiest patrons, with his companions, o' nights.
Most likely he is up in everything about racing, and
he is a knowing hand with an oar. While young, his
animal spirits suffice to yield the excitement he craves,
but as he ge's older he commonly takes to drink, and

9«

SC^CCESS.

from drink goes down, step by step, to disgrace and

rum.

(6.) Some sink to listless depression and helpless-
ness through misfortune. Perhaps from inherent defects
of character, perhaps from the misconduct of others,
perhaps from the fluctuations of affairs, their prospects
collapse, and, with them, whatever hope or energy
they may have had passes for ever. They live thence-
forward under the shadow of their calamity, hopeless,
spiritless, broken. They have no future, and their past
is only a mist, tinged here and there with faint pris-
matic colours, — wrecks of their hopes; broken rain^
bows of Long-ago. Their troubles have benumbed
them, and left them a mere automatic life. I have
known one of this class sink into a ghost of a man,
silent, passive, except as a huge omnivorous reader, or
L jsy at best only with his long hopeless affairs, as if
Hope still soothed him by fond deceptions, unwilling
to leave any living thing to despair. For the ordinary
work of life he was simply incapable. Dickens paints
one haunting the Law Courts, with his useless bundle
of papers, year after year, tying, untying, reading, and
folding the sad folios, almost mechanically. Pity is
the one feeling for such human shadows ; their fate,
sadness incarnate ; their animate death, a mere dream
of darkness. -

(7.) The Speculator is another type of the Idler,
never wanting, but greatly increasing of late. He hates
work, and avoids any legitimate path to success. His
wits are his capital, and his only concern to make

SC/CCFSS.

money quickly. Feeling or principle are inconvenient
weaknesses of which he knows nothing. He lives
well, and spares himself no indulgence, let who will
pay for his enjoyment. His money, lightly got, is
thrown about with a royal lavishness, and he passes
for rich till the crash comes, and then, woe to his
creditors. It is a fine game for a time, but it does
not pay in the end. Credit fails, his character is dis-
covered, and he sinks out of sight,

(8.) A vulgar horror of commerce, in all its branches,
is a fertile source of Idleness. Some young men are
trained up with the idea that it is not genteel to engage
in it. Situations in Government Offices, Banks, or great
Companies, are the thing for a gentleman. They will
hang on for a Custom House clerkship till they might
have been in^a far better position in a merchant's
counting-house; and settle into servants for life, in-
stead of rising to independence. The professions
have great charms for some of this class. In their
dislike of business or manual labour, they think they
can make an easier living, and take a better position,
in one of the liberal callings. They see that igno-
rance or incompetence have more chance in a pro-
fession than in commerce : that in the one a decorous
sham has nothing to fear, while the other requires
work and ability. You will know them by their utter
want of enthusiasm. They idle while they are students,
and throw their books on one side as soon as they
pass.
^ To succeed in a worthy sense, retaining self revo

SC/CCFSS,

rence, Idleness must be abjured, and that the more as
its approaches are often insidious. Some are born
restless, active, and energetic; others slow and
lethargic, but the mass are neither, at first, and may
school themselves into useful industry, or insensibly
fall into *he opposite. Health, which is one great
secret of success, is a gift of Industry, for the idle
man is never so cheerful or well as the man ^ho turns
willingly to his work. Of course, overwork, Dr work
without open air, injure or ruin it, but, in due measure,
diligence is its condition. The pale student, or
city clerk, would stand his work, and be fresh and
vigorous, if the same justice were done to his body as
to his calling: work and play rightly divided would
keep him in healthy equipoise of muscle and brain.
The sleep of the labouring man is sweet. Industry
economises its leisure at evening or morning, and finds
health while Idleness lies asleep. It is temperate,
and uses its energies rightly, weakening them by no
excesses : its eye is clear ; its brain fresh ; its spirits
cheerful ; its strength firm, and all ready to serve the
vigorous will. Idleness is heavy, listless, absent ; loses
its chances by want of tone, and is good for little. We
often hear of men who half kill themselves to gain a
position : they would have gained it far more surely,
and had enjoyment in their success, had they cared
for their health. It is not industry, but its perversion,
to be industrious foolishly. When Work thus violates
nature, it forfeits much of its good, but, wisely used,
it is the secret of vigour. Feebleness can do nothing

Sl/CCFSS.

as Avell as health. The faculties fail with the bodily
powers. Activity stimulates the young man to all
that makes him strong — the exercise that braces the s
nerves, and makes the limbs alert;, it seeks the early e
morning air, and finds an hour for recreation without
touching on other duties. Even when pressed by too
much confinement, it can make more of its chances
than Idleness could of far greater.

There is no success, in common life, without
Industry. To have the character for it is the pass-
port to favour ; and to practise it, gives, daily, addi-
tional power and worth. In the struggle for life on
every side, laziness is left behind at the starting.
Competition demands application and diligence, if v"
would not be beaten. Men stand too thick on the
ground, and the strong outgrow the weak. Dutch
shopkeeping will not do, now, even in Holland : the
feather-bed and long pipe in the parlour, and lazy
parley before getting up are a tradition. There are
no Sleepy Hollows in modern commerce ; hardly any
in modern life. A little honey has to be gathered from
many flowers. Industry saves the moments: acts
with full knowledge; gives its heart to its work;
keeps its eyes and ears open; is always rather too
soon than too late. It meets opportunity as it comes :
Idleness follows it. It is thoughtful of all that goes to
its aim, and never misses through thinking on other
things. It turns worthlessness into new wealth ; and
is quick at seeing improvements on existing uses. All
that we see bears its mark, for civilization, in every

><-

100

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■'.n

detail, is its creation. It is to Industry we owe it, that
the world is not wild forests, or tangled morasses, or
bleak moors. It has built our cities, drained our
meadows, opened our landscapes to the sun, taught us
to raise our harvests, given us our arts, our govern-
ment, our laws, our science, and our commerce.
Labour is the condition of all improvement. It
takes the sour and worthless wild fruits of the woods,
and cultivates them into luscious delights. It has
given us Cunard steamers for ancient coracles, and
creates, year by year, all the wealth of the world. It
is the eternal law of the Universe. It is sacred and
holy, and was proclaimed before the Commandments.
It has even a wider range of obedience, for it binds
the whole Universe, living and dead, matter and spirit ;
and God Himself works.

Genius, it is sometimes thought, can afford to be
idle; but tiisre could be no greater mistake. It
cannot work without materials any more than lower
abilities. The great names of the world were none of
them Idlers. What years of patient study must Art
spend before it gains its triumphs. There never was
a great book that did not cost unspeakable labour.
We think of Shakspeare as the ideal of spontaneous
genius, but notice Ben Jonson's lines about him :

*' For though the Poet's matter, Nature be,
His Art doth give the fashion. And, that he,
Who casts to write a living line, must sweat, , ^

(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat .4
U'>on the Muse's anvil ; turn the same,
(/ind himself with it) that he thinks to frame ;

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lOI

■4i'>

Or, for the laurel, he may gain a scorn —
For a Good Poet's made, as well as bom." •

Locke's Common-place Books are a lesson to all.
Addison amassed three folios of materials before he
began the " Spectator." Butler's wit, like Sheridan's,
was less unpremeditated than elaborated from notes.
Milton's learning was prodigious ; and who does not
wonder at the industry of men like Erasmus and
Bayle. The fine gold that makes the crown of
Intellect costs weary fires, and dark toils, and long
minute working, before it reaches the brows that
wear it. The God hidden in the sculptor's marble
stands forth only as the reward of unwearied toil.

But Industry has much of the divine in it even with-
out genius. It is so even in literature; Goldsmith
bearing witness. " By a long habit of ^vriting," says
he, "one acquires a greatness of thinking, and a
mastery of manner, which holiday writers, with ten
times the genius, may vainly attempt to equal." In
mechanical arts it is the same ; imitation and skill
go far to rival inspiration.

The Thrift that accompanies it is another element
of success. The Idle are wasters, but Industry makes
much of little ; turns everything to account j and has
few wants. Where Sloth would starve, it makes a
garden ; and what, without it, would be cast aside, it
turns into wealth. It has the secret of true and yet
not ignoble frugality, and fills its twelve baskets with
fragments that Indolence would have neglected to
• Lines to the Memory of Shakspeare,

{

102

SUCCESS.

gather. It has made the barren North richer than the
luxuriant South, and drawn the riches of all climes,
in turn, to the desolate islands of Venice, the sea
swamps of Holland, and the dull cities of England.

2. The Industry that prospers, must, however, be
steady to a given object; not fitful or easily daunted.
AVhatever it undertakes it must do heartily, as a pleasure,
not as a task; thoroughly, not with a failing zeal.
Merely mechanical diligence is never enough ; we must
give ourselves to our work. Devotion and loyalty to
it are the conditions of improvement, and real advance ;
without them we neither do it justice, nor ourselves.
Many fail from divided attention ; trying too much,
they lose all. Coke's motto : — " Non multa, sed mul-
tum," — Not many things, but much, — is the true rule.
Stick to your present sphere till another opens. It is
excellent common sense to " Mind your business, or
it will not mind you." Take a pride in your employ-
ment, whatever it be, and determine that you will
excel in it. To look one way and row another may
do on water, but not on land. Do one thing well
rather than a number badly. To be unsettled and
changeable is the ruin of many. They fly from fancy
to fancy, and rest on none.

Still, be the master of your calling, and don't let it
master you. Application and assiduity must not sink
into slavery. It is the most foolish and the poorest
of bargains, when a man gives his life for what he
never lets himself enjoy. " I have a rich neighbour,"
says Isaac Walton, " who is always so busy that he has

g
a

S[/CC£SS.

io$

no leisure to laugh ; the whole business of his life is to
get money, and more money ; he is still drudging on,
and says that Solomon says : — * The diligent hand
maketh rich ;' and it is true indeed ; but he considers
not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man
happy ; or, as was wisely said by a man of great obser-
vation, * that there be as many miseries beyond riches
as on this side of them.* The keys that keep those
riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle,
that they clog him with weary days and restless nights,
even when others sleep quietly. We see but the out-
side of the rich man's happiness ; few consider him to
be like the silkworm, that when she seems to play, is,
at the very same time, spinning her own bowels, and
consuming herself; and this many rich men do, load-
ing themselves with corroding cares, to keep what they
have, probably, unconscionably got. Let us, therefore,
be thankful for health and a competence ; and, above
all, for a quiet conscience." Sell yourself to no
Devil whatever. Be as active as you like ; study
punctuality ; economise time, especially to noble uses ;
it wastes fast ; its days and hours, more precious than
the rubies about madam's neck, are flying over our
heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return.
But never let mere worldly success engross you ; nor
be a mere gnome working in any mine ; nor a slave of
Mammon. Turn to the Fairie Queene : what weary
swinking and sweltering there is in his dark cavern !
Perseverance does not need to mean having no
thoughts above or apart from gain. Turn the key on

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business when you go home o' nights, and come fresh
to it next morning. There are crowds of volunteer
convicts chained by their own greed to their desk, like
slaves to the oar. Idolatry of money has unnoticed
beginnings, and grows, at last, to soul atrophy, craving
for ever, and for ever hungry. The Gods had an
Olympian meaning when they gave Midas his prayer,
that whatever he touched might turn into gold — and
added, long ears.

3. There must be intelligence. Mere power is use-
less alone. Quick-witted Jacks always get the better
of the slow-witted giants. Whatever the pursuit, in-
ventiveness, adaptability, brightness, must direct and
utilise our force ; and a clear, wise, well-informed head
must find markets or make them. Wooden nutmegs
do find a sale, but it cannot be counted on. Merit
gets its reward as a rule. In the keen stmggle for life
shrewd quickness is indispensable. In business, a man
need not know many books, but he must know his
trade and the world : he may be slow at an argument,
but he must dart at a chance like a robin at a worm:
he may be conservative outside, but in his callmg he
must shape himself to every occasion, and turn his
head or his hands to each fresh inducement. Men
often fail for want of readiness. They run in a
groove, and have no idea how to get out of it. They
want pliableness and versatility. They are Ancient
Egyptians, and think that the man bom a clerk, or a
shoemaker, must die one or the other. Take a lesson
from the very Palms, the hardest and least accommo-

SUCQESS.

los

dating of all woods. In South American forests, rather
than be shut out from the life-giving sun, they turn
into creepers, and climb up the nearest trunk, till
their branches get to the light, high overhead. Have
your eyes open, and your wits awake ; learn all you
can that will help you, and the world is your oyster
to open and enjoy. Never be content to be always a
servant, except in very special instances. It takes the
manhood out of one to be resigned to dependence,
and have no will but a master's. You get a helpless-
ness, after a time, that cannot do, except as a subordi-
nate ; like slaves, who slink back to their owners, unfit
to be free.

Of course the more education you have, the better.
A man in these days is sadly handicapped without
schooling. But even if childhood and early youth
have had little chance, intelligence will strive to make
up its leeway rather than lose ; and the very effort will
sharpen the faculties, and go far to ensure success.
Opie's receipt for his painting is universally good —
Mix the colours with brains. The commerce of Eng-
land is not in the hands of scholars, but of clear-headed
practical men, for the most part, who know their busi-
ness, have their hearts in it, and know how to push it.
Stupid men may happen to succeed, but, as a rule,
they are luggers against ocean racers. Fixed modes
and forms are well in their measure, but there are
limits to red tape. Never stick to a thing simply
because it is old ; never dismiss a proposal because it
is novel. The more intelligent you are, the less likely

io6

SUCCESS.

to be hide-bound by stupid conservatism ; the more
liberal your education, if you be not above your
business, the more chance of your making your mark.
It takes scientific farming to raise wheat on sand, and
modern business life is all sand till intelligence turn it
to loam. Nor should we forget that the men who, in
countless vast enterprises, have proved such incapable
failures ; who have stained our name, and paralyzed
credit, are largely commercial magnates. How much
has it to do with their disastrous incompetence, that
the education, and consequent largeness of view of
these . heroes is, as a rule, only that of the counting-
house and the Exchange ?

4. Industry and Intelligence are two rounds on the
ladder : Character is a third. I don't so much refer
to principles : I have spoken of that kind of Character
elsewhere. I mean the individuality, decision, and
energy, which equally bear the name. The trouble
with some is, that they have no character at all as to
the manly virtues, or habits of mind, which tell on
men and action. Harmless enough, perhaps; they
have no personality, no colour, no opinions, no self-
reliance, no incisive vigour. Perfectly common-place,
they are the train-bearers in the procession of life ;
the lay figures of the world, of whom the portrait of
one would serve for that of a thousand : ciphers of
humanity, who need some true man to stand before
them to give them value : neuters in the hive, whose
worth is only negative ; human clay, for others to
knead, and bake, and build into fortunes. They

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107

rk.
md

don't know what mualy strength of character means;
pass and repass like shadows, and almost beg pardon
for being alive ; speak like women ; sandwich their
sentences with apologies, as if people cared for such
trumpery ; are overtaken by events while still irreso-
lute ; and let the tide ebb before they push weakly off.
They never know their own minds, but, like Coleridge,
debate with themselves the whole journey, which side
of the road they will take, and, meanwhile, keep
winding from one to the other, in their dilemma.
Or they stop at each flower, and turn up each lane,
instead of keeping a-head. Self-respect lies at the
bottom of manly decision : a just and dignified self-
esteem, which does not abase itself meanly before
either things or men. Greed, also, has something to
do with the want of it, for the ass between the two
bundles of hay clearly fell a victim to the wish to
have only the best, and there are a great many long-
eared brethren, heirs of his troubles. Modesty is
becoming, but it does not require you to have no
opinions or choice, and follow each one by turns,
like a lost dog. The meanness that cannot decide
for fear of making a bad bargain, is costly in every
sense. Firmness and decision, after due thought and
inquiry, are inseparable from any conception of man-
liness. It is grand to be self-complete : to hear
opinions, it may be, but to judge and act for one-
self. Fair parts, with common shrewdness, and a
knowledge of the point as v/ell as an interest in it,
are as likely to decide rightly, as a stranger. Advice

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is generally a bow at a venture; it may hit, but,
seldom. We know so little of each other, that it is
always to a more or less conjectural man, or of a
more or less conjectural case, we speak, in the giving
it. Weakness looks round : manliness looks within.
In a difference between friends, it refuses to call in
any third party, and insists that friendship and sound
sense shall settle it. There is the cartilaginous
character, which has nothing harder in it than gristle ;
and there is a softening of the bones, which brings
helplessness. The irresolute man defies definition,
except as such : beyond that, like Hamlet's cloud, he
is either a cloud, a whale, or a weasel, as you may
fancy. You cannot count on him : He is valiant in
advance, but unavailable when you need him, as you
might expect of such a poor leaf in the air. Men
without self-reliance are trees on sand, with roots
every way, but no grip after all, the sport of the first
wind. Self-reliance means other men looking to you ;
the want of it, your looking to other men. A strong
will draws men and things after it, as a boat does the
drift in its wake. Decision and energy go together,
but promptness is needed, as well. Some men are
decided enough in the end, when they should have
been so much earlier. Character of the true type for
success is as energetic in its deliberation and decision
as in the action that follows.

Don't mistake stupid Pride or Obstinacy for Healthy
Decision. I knew a man who affected the commercial
Medc or Persian, and broke his heart by keeping

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109

on in a policy in the face of all warnings. Blindly
self-confident, he had determined upon it, and
would therefore continue it. Doggedness had once
or twice paid him by a turn of the markets, but, this
time, it killed him. Respect for others, and remem-
brance of our past mistakes, are needed as checks.
So, with all qualities : we must balance and temper
them, that none be in excess ; for, in Character,
as in the body, one gross defect spoils all. Violent
temper, or untruthfulness, or breaches of confidence,
or morbid vanity, or want of common sense, or cen-
soriousness, or mere lightness and want of solidity,
may undo you. It is not enough to have good quali-
ties : see that they be not neutralized by some pro-
minent bad one. One bone in the mouth is more
noticed than all the dinner besides. One nail in the
shoe is enough. A young man often wonders how lie
does not get on, or should be disliked, while con-
scious of abilities, generous, affectionate, and the like,
forgetting some fault that taints all his good, like a
dead dog in a green lane. Poor Yorick is an immortal
type of a failure in life, to a large extent, through one
vice ; in his case, indiscretion. A clergyman, he
gloried in pronouncing gravity to be a "mysterious
carriage of the body, to cover the defects of the mind,"
and, like some of his cloth I have known, laughed
himself into disfavour. For though men be ever so
light themselves, they expect a fair measure of soli-
dity from the gowTi and bands. "His life and whim
and gaieK de cmir^^ so abundant, might be charming

SrCCESS.

in a circle fit to appreciate them or himself, but
to the mass of the dull, the stiff, the hypocritical,
the ill-natured, or heartless, they were only so much
Greek fire thrown in mad play over his peace and
prospects. " For with all this sail," says he,''^ " poor
Yorick carried not one ounce of ballast; he was
utterly unpractised in the world ; and, at the age of
twenty-six, knew just about as well how to steer his
course in it as a romping unsuspicious girl of thirteen ;
so that, upon his first setting out, the brisk gale of his
spirits, as you will imagine, ran him foul, ten times in
a day, of somebody's tackling ; and as the grave and
more slow-paced were oftenest in his v/ay — you may
likewise imagine it was with such he had generally
the ill-luck to get most entangled." His " wild Avay
of talking" cost him "ten enemies for every joke,"
till at last neither innocence of heart nor integrity of
conduct could stand up against the plots and malice
of Revenge and Dislike. It is in Character as in
intellect ; the grandest is where no one quality over-
shadows the rest, but each is rounded into the other,
and none are wanting.

Honesty in thought, expression, and deed, are
essential to any success worth the name. In a young
man, absolute truth and uprightness should rise to an
instinct. Industry is, as a rule, associated with them:
partly inspiring them; partly indicating the moral
health of which they themselves are only additional
signs. The Idle and the Industrious have, in their
♦ " Tristram Shandy," vol. i. 3. . ,.

SC/CCESS.

Ill

idleness or diligence, the germs and index of all else.
Industry, like health, makes all work smoothly ; one
organ disordered affects the whole system. Life is
like the air or the sea, which, stagnant, would soon
corrupt ; it is the free breeze and the restless waters
that are invigorating or bright.

Still, Industry and Honesty do not go always to-
gether J but they need to do so to secure success.
To an employer there must be the most loyal fidelity :
his interests must be yours, and your character must
be not only above crime but above suspicion. Let
nothing tempt you to cross the sacred line of perfect
integrity; neither the smallness of the transgression;
intention to repay shortly ; the example or bidding of
others ; the temptations of pleasure ; nor even the
pressure of the keenest necessity. One lie in word
or act opens the door to a thousand. Truth is the
magician's circle, to cross which is to break the spell
and turn all to darkness. One taint of suspicion is
beyond all the gales of Paradise to sweeten again.
Let your Honesty be a law of your being, honoured
for its own sake, not for expediency, else seeming
advantage may outway resolution. Be honest in your
inmost thoughts : and not as to money alone, but
as to all things — ^your time, attention, interest, and
universal conscientiousness. "As to the Lord and
not unto men," is the grand motto. Be above all eye
service. A name for being thoroughly reliable opens
many a door that has much within.
f But stainless uprightness has two sides : to yourself

112

SUCCESS.

as well as a master. Never admit that it is right to
do wrong, and never to it. There is a higher than
any human authority: fear Him. Have only one
morality in business, as out of it : stoop to no fetches,
equivocations; white lies; evasions; impositions, or
tricks. Hate all unveracity as the gates of Hell. It
is a grand story told of Adam Clarke when bid stretch
short measure to make it enough — " I can't do it, Sir,
my conscience won't allow me." His place might be
lost for the time ; but the world is large, and God
owns it. Self-respect, and duty to the Highest, pro-
claim against your setting your foot inside the outer-
most edge of the kingdom of Lies, let the Devil
promise you never so much.

The saying, that one cannot be honest and live, is
as old as sin. You can't be dishonest and live, in
any worthy or noble sense. To get a full purse and
a dead conscience, is a poor exchange. It does not
pay in the long run to have God against you. Rely
on it, all shams, hypocrisies, wrong-doings, and lies,
go to their father some day. It depends from whose
mint your money comes, whether it is better to have
or to want it. Eveiywhere, Honesty walks on
firm ground : dishonesty among pitfalls. Character is
the best capital in the end: the want of it brings
contempt, and, commonly, even worldly ruin. The
same business ability, energy, and value in what is
offered, with Honesty, will always stand their ground
against any schemes or deceptions. Distrust, like
strong weeds, exhausts the soil at one seeding: a
good name gets crop after crop.

St/CCFSS.

Honesty is a sworn foe to Debt, and spends no
more than it earns ; hardly all that. To owe is a
millstone round many a young man's neck that drowns
him in perdition after a time. Be manly enough to
seem what you are, and while you by no means parade
poverty, never hide it at the cost of uprightness.
Make the very best appearance you can, honestly,
but stop there. Pay as you go, and you will save
many a headache. Be content to begin life at the
beginning, and to wait, as others have done, till your
income warrants indulgence, before taking it. Ambi-
tious, reckless commencements are the ruin of thou-
sands, bringing anxiety, overwork, debt; draining
business of capital, and living on creditors rather than
gains. Young men, now-a-days, too often affect, at
the outset, the style their fathers only reached after
thrifty and patient years. They begin with the large
end of the horn, and very often come out at the small
one. Don't take Jonah's gourd for your pattern.
Make it your moral.

Some men seem to think Meanness, both in youth
and through life, a main help to success, but no mis-
take could be greater. The mean man is underhand,
sneaks, listens, bribes, sweats, takes unfair advantages,
has always some reservations, chaffers and haggles for
a sixpence, promises and retracts, gives low wages, is
suspicious of every one, is not to be trusted if a loop-
hole be possible, rebates a poor man's price for a badly
paid job; pinches his house, perhaps, and watches
his wife, if he have one, lest she be generous, or pass

114

SUCCESS.

his niggardly limits. Such a man is despised and
hated, and knows it, for he rarely can meet your eyes,
but looks everyway while he is shuffling out whatever
may save a direct answer. He seldom makes money,
for his name gets abroad, and his first transaction is
mostly his last, in any given direction. He has no
friends j indeed he is as afraid to make them as he is
incapable of attracting them. If he do make money,
it brings him neither respect nor enjoyment.

The hard man is necessarily a mean man, but he
rnay go even further. Woe to the wretch that falls
into his power. He must get money, come how it
may. But a curse comes with it. Generosity and
tenderness are honoured and trusted ; grinding heart-
lessness has risks greater often than its gains, and
is used only by the desperate. Its profits are misery
turned into coin. There is a mildew of public dislike
over the man. Tales go rife of widows and orphans,
and sinking men, done to death by him. His conscience
is held to be either dead or haunted. No matter how
moral he be, or how strictly he pay his debts, his
name suggests execration. If he be a church-goer,
the sight of him spoils the sennon. His money is by
no means success, but most pitiable failure.

Manliness towards his own family is a mighty help
to a young man. To be ashamed of their poverty, if
they be poor, or to neglect them, brings its own
punishment. The brave and frank acceptance of
facts never dishonours : it is their attempted conceal-
ment that does so. Filial or paternal piety advances.

S[/CCFSS.

»»5

A young man's bearing the weight of a parent's age,
giving back part of what he has so long received,
commends itself as a mark of character. To spare a
tax from a small salary, to pay a dead father's debts,
or to help friendship or blood, is to cast our mites
into Christ's treasury, which never gets a gift He does j
not notice and repay a hundred fold. Moral worth /
weighs heavy even in counting-house scales. j

Spirit and Enterprise are mainsprings of success. I
do not mean rashness, nor stupid self-confidence,
which blunder on without sense or rule, but the
vigour and energy which take prudence and principle
to counsel. Lifelessness can never prosper. Stagnant
water corrupts ; it is the quick dimpling stream that
sparkles in the sun. Some men seem to think they
liave only to throw in their line and wait till success
comes to them, and they sit expecting the nibble
they never get. What of your bait, friend : what of
your ground ? Suppose you change both rather than
dangle an idle hook for ever. If your neighbour fi.ll
his basket while yours has nothing, there's something
wrong. The hook, or the bait, or the place, is faulty ;
perhaps you hold your lure too higli for the fish you
can catch; perliaps the worm is sank in the ooze.
Every fish has its fly, but even the right fly is not
enough; you must play it nicely, at the right spot.
You may frighten your trout, instead of tempting them.
You may whip a horsepond for ever without doing
much good, and find another whisk out his dozens
in a bend where you could get nothing. Success is a

"}1 W -""

SUCCESS.

damsel that needs a deal of courting ; crowds of
wooers have made her saucy. If you sit on your stool
amidst dusty packages, behind dirty- windows, with
antiquarian relics ior stock, she will pass by to your
rival. Faint heart never won this fair lady. Give
yourself a fair chance. Too much modesty sinks to a
weakness. As Lady Mary Wortley Montague used to
say, If you wish to get on, you must do as you would
to get in, through a crowd, to a gate all are equally
anxious to reach. Hold your ground, and push hard.
To stand still is to give up your hope. Not that you
should venture beyond what is legitimate ; to do so
is simply to gamble with other men's money, but you
must venture your own, to increase it. You don't
need to turn speculator to avoid being behind. Only
watch opportunities : use your head ; study your busi-
ness. Dryden says no man needs ever fear refusal,
from any lady, if he only give his heart to the getting
her : and, so with Success.

Still, be willing to Work and Wait. You may see
others apparently rush mto prosperity, while you jog
quietly on ; but looks are deceptive. Many a preten-
tious establishment envies an humbler one that dreads
no collapse, and has funds at its banker's. Don't try
to push Providence. To be sale is worth taking time.
Even while under others, there is much in waiting
your turn ; not losing it, but letting it ripen. As a
rule, he succeeds best, who, having chosen a calling,
keeps in it, using every legitimate help to advance-
ment, but avoiding change or unsettledness.

SC/CCESS.

Having chosen a Calling, I say; much turns on that.
Many a failure in life may be traced directly to the
arbitrary choice of a career, by others, for a young man.
To suit a parent or guardian's fancies, perhaps kind,
perhaps wilful and stupid, many are sacrificed to pur-
suits for which they have no taste. In an ungenial
occupation, life is spent in attempts at change, or in
dispirited pining. How many abandon the employ-
ment on which the precious years of Youth have been
wasted, before finally fixing their course in life. To
have to plough down spring crops, and sow again for
a harvest, is a calamity, to be, to the utmost, avoided.
It is always hard to know what to do Avith ourselves in
early youth : our inexperience ; our indecision ; our
very position, leaving us often ill able to take the best
course. It is a true and wise saying; one that
throws more light on the principle that should guidi?
us than any other I know, — " Our wishes are presen-
timents of our capabilities." What a lad sighs to be,
and strives towards, shows for what he is fittest. The
liking is prompted by instinctive aptitude, and goes
far towards securing success. Ferguson's wooden
clock ; Davy's laboratory at Penzance ; Faraday's elec-
tric machine, made with a bottle; Brown of Had-
dington's working at Greek while a shepherd; John
Leyden's turning the country church into a secret
study, were hints of the future men. First love is
commonly last love, as well, in pursuits, as in all tilings.
D' Israeli's epigram has too much truth in it, that —
*' Youth is a blunder ; manhood a struggle ; old age a

lis

success.

regret )" * and from no cause more freciuently than a
wrong start.

But Success, after all, does not depend, finally, on
ourselves alone. There is a Providence that shapes
our ends, rough hew them how we may. The seed and
the soil, the ploughing and v/eeding, go far ; but the
skies have their supreme, indispensable, part in the
harvest. Man proposes, God disposes. We build the
ship and spread the sail, but God sends the winds and
rules the waves. All the light in the world comes, first
or last, from the sun, and so do the colours of all
things, — fields and flowers, and woods and clouds. To
ignore Him who can give or withhold is a want of true
manliness. It argues a vital defect to want religious-
ness; a shallowness of character, and a low moral
organization. Thistle-down globes, borne on the air ;
— let us lean on it lovingly ; it is not to our credit to
disown it.

Providence is not always on the side of the heaviest
battalions after all. God counts something in His own
world. Begin life in His fear ; He can bless a little,
and disappoint great expectations, for the mildew is
His, as well as the sun and the sweet rain. It tells
even with men to be loyal to God. Thorough prin-
ciple is above all sneers, and carries reverence with it,
and confidence. It disarms suspicion, and clears us,
when others are doubted. It fortifies us against what
might otherAvise betray us. Nothing developes good
in us in every way, like it. Honesty and truth are

* " Coningsby."

success.

119

never so pure and reliable as when they have their
eyes on the Highest. Manliness never appears to so
much advantage as when bravely religious. It knows
no compromises, no abatements; custom and expe-
diency are graven images to which it burns no incense.
Temperance, self-control, kindness, industry, steadiness,
and solidity, which arc the great conditions of success,
are natural to it.

As I began, let me end. Outside success is Bir-
mingham jewellery, of which an old copper coal-
scuttle and a sovereign can make, as they say, a thou-
sand pounds' worth. To have lived well is better than
to have made money. Face to face with Eternity, the
great thing is to walk grandly towards it, by faithful
work and Christian humility. If you gain wealth, gain
it worthily, and use it becomingly ; if only a living, sit
in the sun, and thank God for His bounty. And re-
member, in all cares, distractions, and troubles, that as
safety shone from the face of the North Star, on the
slave caught in the tangled southern brake, or lost in
the swamp, or bewildered in the silent woods, it shines
to you only from the face of God. .

CHRISTIANITY.

MAN, alone, of all the creatures, either manifests,
or is capable of the Relii^ious Sentiment. It
>Yas a just as well as thoughtful turn of Ovid, that we
have been made to look towards heaven, while lower
natures look downwards, to teach us the design of
our being and our true glory above all Nature be-
sides.* I have read that none of the humbler races
have the muscle by which man turns his eye upwards,
though I am not anatomist enough to be sure of the
fact. Definitions by some single characteristic have
been tried in all ages, from Plato's " two legged animal
without feathers " to Carlyle's " tool-using race ;" but
it is at least a nobler formula, if, with some of the
Fathers, we set down man's religiousness as his chief
distinction from all other creatures. In the face of
Comte, and Secukiism, and of modem Pantheism, 1
question whether there be such a thing as an Atheist,
or whether there has been ; for whatever philosophy
or indifference may hold in theory, nature breaks out,
in all, at times. Seneca hit it for all ages when he
says, — " They lie who say they can see no proof of

• Os homini sublime dedit, cclumque tuerl '' .; ,

Jussit. ♦ r *':»^

CHRISTIANI'ir.

12 I

the existence of God ; for though they may deny JETmi
by day, they dread Him by night." *

The Hindoo has his three hundred millions oi
Gods; the Negro his fetish; the Indian his Great
Spirit ; and even the most degraded tribes show some
traces of worship, as degraded, perhaps, as themselves.
Locke notwithstanding, it seems as if at least a mdi-
mentary idea of the Divine were universal, if only like
the bony plates that stand for eyes in the blind cave
fishes, and mark the place of the original organ, long
lost by disuse ; or like the broken gap in a ruin, shape-
less and sad, that speaks of the traced window that
once filled it. And as everything in us and around us
has something to say for God, so have the relations
of each grade of creatures to the others. The whole
structure of Nature shows dependence and intercon-
nected unity. From the lowest to the highest, each
is linked to the other, leaving man above the whole, a
contrast in his isolation, unless he can look up to the
Heavens ; — alone — amidst conscious weakness which
craves a strength we cannot find in any human help ;
weakness that is the sport of the infinite forces of
Nature, of the will of our fellows, and of the daily
contingencies of life ; weakness, above all, that is
overshadowed by the tyranny of evil. Our ignorance
distracts and bewilders us, and cries out for light from
above ; our sense of guilt anticipates danger and seeks
to avert it, and our longing for a future life confides

* Mentiuntur qui dicunt se non sentire Deum esse : nam et»i
libi affirmant iuterdiu, noctii tamen dubitant.

122

CHRlSTIANITr.

in a Power that will secure it. In every age, among
all races, rude or refined, the religious instinct is
universal, — the supreme expression of hopes and fears,
which spring, spontaneous, in every human bosom.

But it is not only reasonable that we should be
religious, because Nature prompts : nothing so greatly
dignifies and ennobles us. The higher the objects
that engage our minds and hearts, the higher their
tone and the greater the honour. V/c rise or sink as
we fix our regards worthily or the reverse. Our
affections are the mirror of our nature. Degraded,
they reflect our degradation ; pure and refined, they
reflect their own nobleness. And what we admire or
choose, we even insensibly imitate, sinking progres-
sively towards a low standard or rising towards a
lofty. Our likings mark our moral affinities and de-
velope them. We respect ourselves and are respected
as we look above or below our own level in worth or
intellect. Intercourse with goodness or genius both
honours and raises us. Even mere outward dignity
sheds a light on those in its circle ; we are the more
in honour the nearer the king ; and if, with dignity,
there be illustrious worth, intimacy is a certificate not
only of rank but of character. What, then, shall I
say of Religion ? It looks to the Highest ; the All
Wise and All Good; the Eternal Light that knows
no shadow. If character be fixed by the standards we
choose, what model is there like the All Perfect ? The
mind, like the eye, catches the image of that on which
it is turned. Our life is mainly the transcript of out-

CHRlSTIANlTr.

»23

ward impressions. We must have patterns and arche-
types, and the higher and nobler, the more they raise
us. But what ideal can ever rise, in the presence of
the incommunicable name, as an object at once of
reverend love and imitation? The divine character
is the only unclouded perfection : the uncreated glory,
of which all that is good or fair in the universe is but
the reflected light. Religion proposes nothing less
than the reproduction in the soul of as much as it
can contain of the divine. It sets the throne of the
eternal as the sun of the moral heavens, to which —

As to their fountain, other stars

Repairing, in their golden urns draw light ; —

light in all its beams, and many-coloured glory ; light
that is the life and growth of the Spirit in all its
faculties, as that of the sky is of all things in Nature.
Darkness knows only death : where there is only the
passing or borrowed beam, there may be leaves, but
no more. The flower opens in its beauty only in the
full sunshine, and the soul only in the full light of
God; that is, as it has most of pure and sincere
religion.

Even intellectually, there is every motive to god-
liness. Life is made up of trifles, unworthy of more
regard than is needed. Present interests want grandeur
and loftiness \ and even science or thought, if they
fall short of the spiritual, fail to stir or engage the
depths of our being. Religion alone raises issues and
contemplations fitting our highest powers. Physical

124

CHRISTIANny.

wants and gratifications are beneath more than inci-
dental regard; to seek refinement and culture in a
mere abstract philosophy is not enough. The .soul
moves on a higher plane. Practical studies, however
usefijl or beneficent, leave the higher aspirations un-
satisfied. But to give our minds to the questions
which religion suggests, is to be brought face to face
with all that is grandest and most sublime in the
Universe : the study of higher races as well as our
own. Heaven and God, the soul and its destiny,
are in its sphere. It is the Science of the Eternal.
There are no heights nor depths it is not free, to its
utmost, to explore ; no infinite splendours above, nor
dark shadows of the abys. '^eneath. What is earthly,
and dies with earth, can never compete with the
spiritual and everlasting; can never stir the depths
of the soul so profoundly ; never rouse us so in our
higher faculties. The plain cannot kindle the emo-
tions which are spontaneous amidst the sublimities of
nature ; the mean and the passing can never rival the
noble and the enduring. In religion, everything is
on a scale of unspeakable grandeur : this life, a mere
point from which it looks abroad into the illimitable ;
the interest, eternal; the actors, Spirits; the events,
in keeping with the mysterious regions where they are
transacted ; the principles, opposed, — good and evil,
light and darkness, love and hate, truth and falsehood.
There is nothing insignificant or evanescent ; all has
its proportionate grandeur. Here, issues change, or
■ are passing ; beyond, they only develope. The intel-

ClfRTSTIANJTy.

Icct and the emotions that spring from earth are true
to their origin : resting on frail and material objects,
or linked with grosser passions, they want the spirit-
uality of the Transcendental. The serene heights
where Contemplation delights to wander, look down
from afar on ephemeral hopes, ambitions, and cares
of the world ; their calm and clear air knows nothing
of earthly grossness. The prospect from them sweeps
round a boundless horizon, and shows visions of beauty
unknown below. Literature and art owe all that is
noblest in their creations to religion. They catch a
different tone under its inspiration, and rise to new
ideals. For Homer we have Paradise Lost ; and for
strength in Hercules, majesty in Jupiter, and physical
beauty in Venus, we have the light of Christian
gracLS, subliming, beyond them all, the modern paint-
ing or sculpture. There is nothing in antiquity like
the faces of Faith, Hope, and Charity, or of saints
and martyrs, as drawn by masters of Christian Art.-'
Genius has a wider and loftier range under Revelation
than under Nature. Higher aims ; purer standards ;
the earthly side of life contrasted to a divine and
heavenly, have enlarged the spiritual universe and
ennobled it, as science has the material. The skies
are higher; the stars larger; and the secrets of the
heavens better known, to the soul, as well as to the
intellect. .Relif:;ion does not ignore the humblest

* Yet I think I have seen something of the spiritual in some
rare cases. That of the full length of Marcus Aurelius in the

British Museum, for instance.

126

CHRISTIANITr.

interest of the present, but it ennobles all by higher
motives and loftier ends. Its contemplations will be
the same hereafter as in this life, and will still be
unexhausted after ages. There can be none grander
even in the presence of God than those it meditates
here. On merely intellectual grounds, then, we 1 . se
by neglecting it. The simplest mind must be ex-
panded and raised, by daily converse with Eternity,
beyond his who contents himself with the Present, in
the measure by which the wide sweep of the Future is
greater than the point that makes up this passing life.

The dignity of permitted communion with God,
which religion implies, must needs raise him who
enjoys it above all human distinctions. To wait even
afar off on the Eternal Glorious King is the supreme
honour of any creature. But much more is vouch-
safed : they who do so in loving humility are " sons
and daughters of the Lord God Almighty."

But how are we to know which religion to choose
of the many that offer? Why should w'l be Christians
rather than anything else ?

There are two ways of judging of any man : by
what men say of him, or by what we ourselves find
him ; and so with Religion. Outside, and themselves
sufficient, stand miracles, prophecy, history, testimony,
ready to give their evidence : within, there is the self-
demonstration of moral goodness. I can only glance
at either ; but I shall mainly speak of the second. A
few sentences on the first, however, may be of some
use.

CHRISTIANITY.

127

liigher
will be

till be

Taiider
iditates

e l.se
be ex-
temity,

With the metaphysical objections to miracles, as
impossible, I have little concern. Still, it does seem
venturous for weakness and ignorance to limit omni-
potence, or miap out the paths in which alone it may
travel. It does seem a rather heathen notion to
make God sit a step below Fate on the throne of the
Universe. To have Him supplanted throughout
Nature, by His own laws, till, like the jumble of
human enactments, they paralyze action, is to bind
Him doAvn by conditions in every footstep of H:s
government. Rely on it. He who makes the laws of
the Universe can so select, combine, contrast, and
modulate any number of ten million laws, of which
we know nothing, as to bring what notes He pleases
from the great keyboard of Life or Nature. What we
call laws are only stray glances, wide apart, beneath
the surface of things, when all that is, pulses with
mysterious force. Philosophy may see in them the
wheels and springs that move the All ; jacks wound
up for ten thousand ages, to turn the Universe, with
all its affairs, without the need of intelligence. The
natural instincts of man, .which are the inspiration of
his Maker, think differently. Fi-te, controlling all
things, but, itself, uncontrolled, is a stage property
stolen from the old Stoics, and repainted by their
modem imitators. Vague philosophies, with their
auroral fires, show most in dark skies, and attract for
the time more notice than the calm shining of the
day. To owls, bats, and the like, they may even seem
permanently preferable; but, on the whole, most

128

CHRISTIANIIT.

healthy judgments keep to the sun. Speculation is as
delightful and flattering as it is dangerous. A new
religion, or a new style of treating an old one, creates
a fashion for the time. It lets us talk ; gives us an
air of inquiry and thoughtfulness, and lets us contrast
ourselves favourably with those who content them-
selves with established views. But this capiicious
and light mood is quite out of place in religion. In
spite of all the confidence of new apostles, there is a
very just presumption against their authority. We
know so little, and that so imperfectly, that caution
and modesty urge the greatest care. Our logic limps;
our ignorance joins irreconcilable premises ; we pro-
claim old errors as new truths. In thought, as in
dress, there is only a certain circle of possible change,
and a thing becomes new by ^' ing sufficiently old to
have fallen into disuse. We argue triumphantly when
no one can contradict, and establish conclusions
which a little more knowledge would overturn in a
moment. Minnows may settle it that there are no
tides in the ocean because there are none in their
brook; but it is only because they are minnows. The
Siamese emperor thought it an insult to his common
sense to be told that water grows solid in Holland.
Tides and ice were contrary to minnow and Siamese
experience ; violations of the laws of nature ; miracles,
in short ; and, therefore, d priori impossible. Unfor-
tunately, our Universe is only a shade larger than
theirs, and our knowledge only a candle in the infinite
dark. New laws — new to us, though old as matter—

CHRISTIANirr

129

are common as new stars ; not a few of them in direct
contradiction to our previous conceptions. Our
ignorance fools us on every hand. To a child or a
peasant there is nothing but miracle : with a philosopher,
while the fact continues the same, it gets a new name,
and, with the name, is held to change its whole
character. But the child or peasant may be most
philosophical, after all. Nature's acolyte — the student
— gets an irreverend familiarity with her, like priests
with their images, and sees nothing divine in what
others worship. He foolishly dreams he has got into
her Holy of Holies, and, like Pompey, with that at
Jerusalem, proclaims it empty. Miracles ! bah ! He
knows the Natural Causes, and can do the same over
again himself. But, after all, there are more things in
heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philo-
sophy. Sometimes they touch our sphere like meteors
and pass oif again into higher regions, and then they
are miracles : sometimes, as scientific discoveries,
they unveil themselves to the world, and then they
are only natural laws. Experience is every day en-
larging, correcting former opinions, and dogmatizing
afresh. Our pride and vanity are hopelessly given to
map out the highways of Nature, and to limit her to
these alone in her vast domains. As if we knew the
thousand by-paths along which she may sport herself
as she pleases !

A miracle must be treated by the same rules of
evidence on which we receive anything else. To
argue a thing impossible, in presence of trustworthy

proof that it happened, would be too much for the
keenest logic or the most refined metaphysics But
men's brains do catch them in such very strange cob-
webs. Logic and law settled it long ago that "a
mother is not of kin to her own child,"* after " much
dispassionate enquiry and jactitation of the arguments
on all sides;" and metaphysics have delivered their
opinion, in full court, be-wigged and solemn, that
heaven and earth are only shams and appariticiis,
painted on the brain. Demonstrations beforehand
that miracles are impossible have a dangerous family
likeness to these portentous, philosophical, and
juridical follies. Wisdom does, sometimes, nod.

In the case of the Gospel miracles, the number and
character of the witnesses, men sober and calm, who
speak of what they saw or heard, in a matter-of-fact
way, very different from that of heated enthusiasts;
the utter want of a motive to propagate an imposture ;
the impossibility of conceiving such men as St. John
or St. Paul lending themselves to deception, and the
equal impossibility of their being deceived as to what
they themselves did, as well as saw done ; weighs so
heavily, that I caii see no way of rejecting their evi-
dence without disallowing testimony altogether. It is
striking, moreover, that the early Fathers constantly
speak of miraculous power as still seen in the churches
of their own day. Justin Martyr, a philosopher, ap-
peals for proof of the divinity of his faith to the power
of casting out devils, of heUing, and of prediction,
• Swinburne on Testaments, pi. 7, s. 8. Noticed by Sterne.

CHRISTIANITY.

»3»

shown by many of his fellow-beUevers.* Irenseus, in
the same way, rests the claims of Christianity on the
divine gifts still displayed in the Church. The super-
natural endowments of the Apostles seem to have
died away only by degrees in succeeding generations.
Whether they were withdrawn, as having served their
purpose, or from a fault on the human side, is an
open question ; and so is that other — whether they do
not, still, at times, show themselves, where men rise to
anything like the simple earnestness of apostolic faith.t

The evidence from Prophecy I must leave to
special treatises ; but, if one voice from heaven be
enough, I think we could not have complained had it
been the only messenger, without the array of wit-
nesses we have, besides.

Still, these external proofs, however irrefragable,
cannot be always available. They imply education,
and reading, or the instruction of others : something
outside the Bible itself, and not open to all. His-
torical facts, questions of argument and probability,
discussions more or less abstract, are beyond many,
and, where within reach, may be unsatisfactorily put,
or may fail from the very idiosyncrasies of the enquirer.
Wra. Pitt used to say, even of Butler's Analogy, that
it raised more doubts in his mind than it settled ; and

• Apol. II. \ 6. Dial. § 76, § 82, § 39. Irenaeus II. c. xxii.
( 2. Justin lived from about a.d. 100 to a.d. 165. Iremeus
from about a.d. 140 to about a.d. 202.

t See notices of modern miracles, so believed, in Bush"ell's
'♦ Nature and the Supernatural."

132

CHRISTIANITY.

there is a tendency in us all to think that what takes
much defending is far towards indefensible. To find
a sufficient evidence inside the Bible is, then, the
great point : something within every one's mental
grasp, requiring no scholarship, appealing to our own
consciousness rather than to external facts ; speaking
the universal language of our moral instincts. The
lonely settler, far off in the wilderness, has no means
of knowing how prophecy has been fulfilled, or how
Christianity made its way at first. The sailor, far off
on the ocean, opens his chest at some rare moment of
leisure, for the Bible his mother put in it, and reads
that he who believes will be saved, but he who does
not, v/ill be condemned. On what ground can belief
be asked? Either on none, or on some which he will
find as he reads. If outside proof be indispensable,
the Bible must be imperfect, and, instead of being
supreme, must hold its authority from that by which
its claims are established. A Bible, in that case, sent
out by itself, would be simply a warrant without a
signature : a commission without the seal. But there is
no hint of such a state of things, in Scripture. It
makes no allowance for ignorance ; suggests no excep-
tional cases; but demands acceptance on its own
merits. Not a word is said of supplementary proof to
induce belief: it claims to carry the grounds of con-
viction with it. Its whole tone and language waive
off any officious support. External proofs, it, as it
were, says, "are well in their place — lamps, to guide
to my gates; but, even without them, light fills my

CIIRISTIANITr,

»33

ind
the
ital
wn
ing

temple, and streams out into the darkness, for truth
shines with a heavenly brightness, and the Bible is
her peculiar shrine." Scripture, in short, must be its
own proof. To have to go outside for its warrant
would be fatal.

In what does this inherent, universally patent evi-
dence consist ? Universally patent, that is, to the
mind open to hear, for deafness must blame itself,
not the summons that suffices for others. It must be
something in the Bible that has its corroboration in our
own consciousness, and, as such, can be nothing but
the support of our moral sense and natural instincts.
To feel a thing true is a higher security than any
laboured argument : it endorses it with the assent of
our inmost being. If, then, there be in man an echo
of Christian truth, catching up its doctrines and coun-
sels, and whispering them back as its own voice, there
needs no more, for either peasant or prince. To have
our own nature bear witness is as if God Himself had
spoken, for the instincts within us are His creation.
The truth written on the heart had the finger of the
Almighty to trace it, as much as the tables on Sinai.

It was a favourite argument of the Fathers, when
disputing with heathenism, that there was just such a
concurrence between the Breast and the Book. They
used to speak of the Testimony of the soul, naturally
Christian,* urging that our religion was no new in-
vention, but only the expression of the long pent up,
inarticulate, voice of humanity. They were right.
♦ " Testimonium animse naturaliter Christiana?." — Tertullian.

'34

CHRISTIANITY,

I-

The chimes lie slumbering in the bell till the stroke
awakes them; and what is harsh clangour at hand
comes back from distant echoes in sweet music.
Christianity is the tongue that gives our wishes fitting
voice ; the soft return, in articulate clearness, from the
Eternal Hills, of the wail of cries and prayers that
rises, bewildering, round us.

The Bible doctrine of God is, I think, sufficient
of itself to prove a divine source for the documents
that embody it. Compared with either Pantheism or
Heathenism, Jehovah alone meets the cravings of the
human heart as to its God. The religions of the East
have presented both in their most elaborate complete-
ness, but neither satisfies the instinctive ideal of the
breast. To confound the creature and the Creator,
and deify nature by transfusing the Divinity inex-
tricably through the vast fabric of the universe, turns
Him into mere force and moticr., impossible to realize
as intelligence, or as in any sense a personal object
of worship. Still more : it is, in fact, a deification of
man himself as supremely divine ; for if the living
power astir through all things be God, then man
shows most of it, by adding to mere vital energy the
higher province of thought and will. The highest
manifestation of God is thus human thought — and
man is his own deity. This is Hegelianism and
modern German Pantheism generally ; the creed which
Emerson openly preaches, and which, I fear, Carlyle,
noble, true-hearted, and grand, as he is, endorses.
You have it in part in the words of Vishnu, a member

CHRISTIANITV.

»35

of the Hindoo Triad. "The whole world is but a
manifestation of Vishnu, who is identical with all
things, and is to be regarded by the wise, as not
differing from, but as the same as themselves."
Emerson puts it, — " I am nothing, I see all ; the cur-
rents of the Universal Being circulate through me : I
am part and parcel of God." Hegel's formula is —
" Being and Thought are the same ;" and thus God is u
process continually going on, but never accomplished ;
our thought and God are identical — and man is the
highest manifestation of God. A doctrine of the
Divinity which ends in finding no better God than
man is a poor result of so much philosophy. To
leap at the stars, and fasten in the mud, in such a
way, does not commend itself.

Contrast this with the Scripture doctrine, and the
infinite difference is apparent. Take any part, there
is still the same All-wise, All-powerful Intelligence ;
no mere electric or magnetic current pervading all
things, but a Being endowed with moral qualities, of
which our own nature is '<i faint, because injured copy.
There is no confounding ilim with His works for a
moment. Drawn in simpler metaphors in the earlier
books, as was natural in the childhood of the race,
there are still the same grand lines in the sublime
ideal : the God of Abraham is the God of the New
Testament : the same purity, justice, controlling autho-
rity, and tender Fatherhood, show in the one rs in
the other. The mighty, keystone truth, of the unity
of the Godhead : that God is not only one, but the

»36

CHRISTIANITI'.

Living God, is a gift from Abraham, through the Bible,
to the race. In him the nations of the earth have
already been blessed, in receiving this transcendent
truth, for Judaism, Christianity, and Mahomedanism,
which alone proclaim the Living, Personal God, are,
all alike, sprung from " the friend of Jehovah ;" and the
Bible is the channel through which it has been con-
veyed. How is it that in Scripture only are we safe
from the dreamy abstraction — the vague Nature God,
of ancient and modern philosophy; and find, in-
stead of this divine ether, pervading space, a Being to
whom we can look as our great exemplar and loving
Father ?

The Gods of the various heathen mythologies stand
no comparison with the God of the Bible. The Gods
of the East and West, alike, are worse, in many
ways, than their worshippers. Homer's Gods are only
idealized, unearthly, immortal men, subject to nearly
all our imperfections and passions, bound by the law
of space, needing food and rest, hating and loving
from mere caprice, often at variance among them-
selves, and kindling quarrels to embroil others. They
marry and have children, and, in all respects, are
only colossal men. The Greek priests were wont
to throw the shadow of one of themselves on the
cloud of the sacrifices, and proclaim it the form of a
God : their whole Pantheon was nothing more : mere
human shadows thrown on the clouds. The ignorant
peasants of the Brocken — the crown of the Hartz
mountains, in Saxony — sometimes see, at sunrise or

CIIRISTIANITY.

•37

le,
[ve

Mlt

im.

sunset, a gigantic spectre on the mists of the opposite
hills, and tremble before what they think a super-
natural teiTor, which, yet, is only their own form,
thrown on the masses of morning or evening vapour,
by the rising or sinking sun. Such were and are the
Gods of Heathenism, in every country and age.
David was a contemporary of Homer, and in the
139th Psalm, which the best authority ascribes to him,
proclaims the attributes of the Jewish, who is also the
Christian, God. He worships a Being, omnipresent,
omniscient, all holy ; One who tries the thoughts, and
guides the humble ; the only and ever living God.
We, at this day, read his words as the perfect and
lofty conception of a spiritual and personal God. Still,
— ^after 3000 years, they reveal the sublime ideal,
dwelling in light that is unapproached as unapproach-
able. There could be nothing more grandly exalted :
nothing that commands more instinctive acceptance.
How was it that the chief of a petty race, shut up in
the hills of Judea; of a people then without com-
merce, or adventure by st> a or land, but plain shep-
herds and tillers of the ground; with no schools of
philosophy, and hardly a literature, for only a small
part of even the Bible had then been written ; with no
arts and less science, for the very Temple was the
work of foreign skill ; how came it that he should be
thus infinitely in advance of all mankind, besides,
both then, and in all ages since, on this supreme
question ? Compared even with Plato's conception of
God — the highest outside the Bible — it rises, immea-

V .

138

CHRISTIANITV.

surably, into shadowy Alps of grandeur ; for Plato,
while in some sense hinting at a Supreme Intelligence,
binds it down by an outward Necessity, limits its
power, and associates with it inferior created Gods,
the makers of men. The Supreme Essence, with that
great thinker,* is only a metaphysical abstraction,
above the vulgar, and not to be part of their creed —
a dim conception, vague and impersonal, with no con-
tact with men, or practical bearing on life; a mere
Idea, rising in the brain of the philosopher, and, even
with him, only a sublime speculation. For this cloudy
and abstruse dream, moreover, he may have been
indebted to Jewish sources, for he lived for years in
Egypt, and doubtless had heard of the monotheism of
the neighbouring Palestine. In Egypt itself, the
primitive knowledge of this loftiest truth had long
passed away, for Warburton's theory, that the esoteric
teaching of the Egyptian priesthood included the
divine unity, is long ago given up as without founda-
tion. Egypt, indeed, like all the ancient world, had,
for a time, traces of the first pure faith of mankind —
winged seeds blown over the bounds of Paradise, and
flowering awhile in the common soil of the world, but
soon choked and lost in the thorns and thistles — but
they had faded away. The winged circle had lost its
meaning ; the Gods of Egypt had become a proverb
of contempt. Of a personal, perfect, living, omnipo-
tent God, the Friend and Father, as well as the Ruler
of men, antiquity had no conception. The God of

• \^. C. 429—347.

ito.

CIIRISTIANITV.

130

David is found only in the Bible. By what light was
He revealed — by what but divine ? The sun and God
are seen only by their own beams. This sun-truth
shines with no created light.

The doctrine of our Immortality is another gift of
the Scriptures. Egypt taught it with wonderful clear-
ness in her early history, but it gradually passed away
as a living belief Socrates and Plato had glimpses
of it, but they want the confidence and clearness of
revelation. There is an unspeakable fulness and
definiteness in the announcements of Christ, com-
pared to those of any other teacher. He brought life
and immortality to light, and made them the creed of
the world. He spoke with no faltering weakness, but
with authority, so that his words have sunk into the
heart of mankind for evermore. But for Him we
should have been as dark as if the great secret had
never been known. Egypt had lost it for ages : India
and the East promised only absorption into the Ple-
roma, like a rain-drop into the sea; the transmigra-
tions of Plato had fallen dead on the world; the
Jews of the age of the Apocrypha mixed error with
truth ; the Pharisees of our Lord's day taught in many
cases aright, but they wanted authority, and could
never have formed the creed of mankind. In Rome,
the mistress of the world and representative of heathen
faith everywhere, belief in our immortality was vir-
tually extinct. If Cicero anticipates it in rhetorical
passages; the Chief Pontiff; the highest functionary
of the State Religion, and chosen interpreter of divine

140

CHRISTIANITY.

things to the national conscience — Julius Caesar* —
urges on the Senate to spare the lives of Catiline and
his fellow conspirators, in a speech in which he told
them, that " death is the release from all suffering, not
suffering itself; death dissolves all the ills of mortality ;
beyond it is ^o place either for pain or pleasure.
Wherefore," says he, " keep these men aave to suffer
a fitting penalty : after death there is no more punish-
ment for sin, neither is there any reward for virtue."!
What would tlie future have been but for that clear
light which Christ sheds over it ? But, for this, also,
we are indebted to the Bible.

The Scripture doctrine of Sin, and of our need of
divine aid, in rising from it to a higher life, is one of
those first truths that claim and receive acknowledg-
ment as soon as stated. But it is found in the Bible
alone, and may be searched for in vain, outside its
pages, through all antiquity. In the old world. Sin
was only a disease of the intellect — the fruit of igno-
rance, dulness, or want of intelligence. There was no
such thing as guilt ; no sin, in our sense ; whatever
any one did, however criminal, was, rather, a misfor-
tune, a defect of mental power, an accident separable
from the conception of the man himself. There is no
word in Greek for the morally bad — for Sin : the
expression for it is synonymous with physical evil.
The Greek or Roman had three ways of thinking of
what we call wrong : it was either declared innocent,
or the guilt was transferred to the Gods, or it was irre-
* B. C. 63. t Sallust, Bell. Catil. c. 51.

CHRISTIANITY,

141

and

Itold

not

ure.
iffer

sistible. If he thanked the Gods for what good he
received, he no less laid to their charge what evil he
found in himself. Priests c.>id people, alike, had no
idea, in their ablutions and lustrations, of any thing
more than the removal of a physical, not a moral
stain : propitiatory rites, exactly observed, worked
infallibly by a magical power, to secure whatever end
they sought to obtain, though the heart remained,
throughout, persistently set on evil. The assertion of
Bayle that no Greek or Roman ever asked the Gods
for virtue or other moral qualities, but only for victory,
health, long life, and the blessings of fortune, is only
the factj for, though isolated expressions seem to
speak in a different tone, they are opposed to the whole
spirit of ancient opinion.* Before Christ, antiquity,
outside the Bible, had no idea, nor even the slightest
vestige of one, of what in the Spiritual system is called
Sin. The taint of evil in our race, and the guilt of
wrong acts, as wilful violations of divine law, involving
responsibility, are truths for" the knowledge of whicli
we are indebted to Revelation. Ceremonial humilia-
tion and penitence were reckoned virtues by the
ancient world, but it took credit for all its goodness
as due to itself alone. Seneca, one of the noblest and
loftiest minds of antiquity, tells us that the wise man
lives on a footing of equality with the Gods ; for he is,
really, God himself, bearing within him a part of the
Deity. We are at the same time, he says, companions
of God and His members. The good man differs from
• Ciccio Nat. Deor. iii. 36. f Epis. 59.

142

CHRISTIANITY.

God only by duration : and God, though surpassing
man in duration, yet, as concerns bliss, has no advantage
of Him.* In one point, indeed, the wise man has
even the better of God, since God is in His own nature
already wise, while the man owes his wisdom to him-
self alone. As to fear of the Gods, no one in his sound
senses can have it. They neither can nor will injure
any one, and they are as little capable of receiving as
of inflicting harm, and thus it is utterly impossible for
man to offend them. Even prayer is of no use. Why
lift up the hands to heaven ? Why trouble the Gods,
when you are able to make yourself happy ? It is in
your own hand to be company, on even terms, for the
Gods, instead of appearing before them as suppliants, t
The mind, enlightened by the Bible, recoils from
such haughty and monstrous pride; such false inde-
pendence of God j such confidence in our own merits ;
such boastful self-righteousness. It needs no argu-
ment to make us feel that such an attitude is as idle, as
it is hurtful to our best interests. The modern Stoicism
of our new Religionists meets little response; it is
contrary to the consciousness of mankind, quickened
by the teaching of Scripture. We feel that we are
prone to wrong; that we need help from above to
ennoble and purify us ; that we are free to do right,
and stand condemned if we do evil ; that the sublime
of our position in the Universe is when our darkness
seeks the central light, and our waywardness bows
before the throne of the Highest ; when we seek the
• De Provid. i. f Epis. 41.

CHRISTIANITY.

grace and favour of God. Philosophy must yield to
Scripture in this as in other things; in this, as in
others, the teachings of Revelation are true to our
nature; alone true, when the highest teaching, out-
side, is fatally wrong.

That the Bible should announce as the Ideal of Man
no lower standard than the absolute and infinite per-
fection of the God it reveals, is another characteristic
that shows its origin. Scripture knows no question as
to the motive to virtue; no limitations of its re-
quirements ; nor any compromise with evil, however
slight or specious. Even Socrates, the grandest man
of antiquity, taught that virtue rests on knowledge, and
that evil has its root only in ignorance, or in error.
He had no Moral Ideal, to be sought for ielf ; that
which, for the moment, is profitable, and the pleasure it
brings, were the highest impulse he knew. Moral good,
with him, was only the careful choice of what was
most useful and pleasant. To make a mis lake, and
choose evil, was a foolish blunder, which better know-
ledge would have corrected. All antiquity, aUke, was
tainted in morals. Vices, nameless and disgusting, in
Christian countries, find apologists in the whole litera-
ture of Paganism ; were habitually practised by philo-
sophers and moralists, and were attributed to the Gods
themselves. Slavery, as the designed lot of all but the
Greeks ; exposure of children, and sodomy, were among
the features of Plato's Republic. Aristotle recom-
mends exposure of children, or making away with
them, if weak ; counts it a fault to pardon an injury,

144

CHRISTIANITF.

and a mark of a high spirited man to be as thorough
in hate as in liking. The idea of seeking the image
of Him who is only light, without a shadow of dark-
ness, never entered the mind of the race, except
through the Scriptures, and yet we feel it to be the
absolute and only possible truth. The infinite pro-
gression it opens hereafter, rises to the height of our
cravings, and has a divinity all its own. Instead of
Eastern absorption and loss of Being, an ever ascend-
ing perfection, and nearer likeness to God, is proclaimed
as that for which we were created. Nature seeks no
arguments to convince her that such a future is her
true apotheosis, and that it bears with it the marks of
a divine originfi. To be a perfect Christian, it is felt,
would make one a perfect man ; to reach the Christian
heaven, would be to rise to the God-like.

The Foundation of Virtue, in the Bible theory, is
enough, of itself, to vindicate its origin, as from above.
It is not utility, nor pleasure, nor the will of supe-
rior power, but the essential nature of God, and is
summed up, as to its living principle, in one word — >
Love. Christianity is nothing but the doctrine, that to
love is to be blest ; that Loving is the only true Living.
To give rather than receive is its central law: — to
give to God, to man, to the creatures ; to think less
each day, of Self, and find more delights in generous
goodness. We cannot help feeling that, however hard,
however high beyond us at present, this is the grand
ideal — that self-forgetting love is the truest and deepest
joy ; — love that floods the soul like golden light ; not

CHRISTIANITY.

'45

»<

gioss and sensual, but holy charity. We feel that to
make happy is to be happy, in the highest sense ; that
it is love that lives for others that makes a heaven,
either here or above. We see it in all the holiest in-
stances — in mothers, and sisters, and the great-souled
amongst men ; in the angels, also ; and, even higher,
in the ineffable joy of God, who, like His own sun,
shines on all things with full ray, giving, but never
receiving. A religion which finds its grandest triumph
on a cross, on which Self-sacrifice rejoices to die, in
its infinite love, fathoms the depths of our spirit, and
is higher than human.

But the Love of Christianity has a double beauty,
for, as it is painted in Scripture, while it has a bound-
less pity, it is still, like the sunlight, pure, on whatever
it shines. It has no sully of evil even when turned on
Guilt. It seeks even in its thoughts to be holy, like
God, and its lasting regret is its failure to be so. Far
from admitting the defects and stains of antiquity, it
strives to avoid the very appearance of evil. But
whence comes so lofty a scheme ? How does the
Bible stand out in a light so wholly eclipsing all light
besides ?

It was a famous saying of Cicero,* that Socrates
brought philosophy from hea\'en to earth, introducing
her to private houses, and public squares, and to the
daily life of mankind. It might have been said with
far greater force that Jesus Christ did so with
Heavenly Love. He has changed the world, even
* Cic. Tuac. Disp. V. 4.

146

CHRISTIANITY

already, by the leaven He cast into the mass of
humanity. It is to Him, first, we owe the grand idea
of the brotherhood of the race, that rises, above
patriotism, to a universal philanthropy. There had
been flashes of the same great truth before His day,
as when the statue of -^sop was raised in the market-
place ; or when the line of Terence, that " I am a
man, and think nothing human indifferent to me,"
brought down the thundering applause of the theatre ;
and, even during His lifetime, when Tiberius sent relief
to the ruined cities of proconsular Asia ; but these
were passing gleams in the thick darkness, lingering
reflections from the long sunk light of Paradise. As a
living creed, the brotherhood of man dates from its
proclamation by Christ. Preached through the world,
it was welcomed by some, scouted by most, and, for
many generations, remained too grand and lofty to be
realized even in thought. That it should be proposed
to establish a universal religion was, indeed, one of the
standing objections to Christianity, which condemned
it as folly in the eyes of privilege and philosophy.*
A foreigner and an enemy were synonymous in anti-
quity, and war or dependence were the only relations
of neighbouring states. On this chaos — dark and
waste — rose the light of the new gospel, to climb by
slow ascent to a heavenly noon, in the end.

Such a principle, working only through the hearts
of men, has no easy triumph over gassion and imme-

* Celsus, quotetl in Neander's llibtory, i. 122.

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CHRISTIANITV.

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moria! prejudice, but its results have, from the first,
been divine. Slavery, once universal and terrible, has,
by slow degrees, withered away before it, until its last
lingering traces stand shrunk and bare, like a blighted
tree, ere long to fall and disappear for ever. In
Europe, it has been extinct, in " ts worst forms, I might
say for centuries ; for, though feudalism still kept its
hold, in some countries of Western Europe, in class
disabilities and wrongs, the tap-root of serfdom has
long been cut. Negro slavery, the later form of
involuntary service, has, in our own days, through the
silent influence of Christian sentiment, been ended, in
British possessions, at the price of an imperial ransom ;
the fine paid by a noble race for their share in so
great a guilt : in America, it has perished in the
horrors ot a civil war, of which it was the great cause.
The serfdom of Russia has been abolished within
these few years, and, everywhere, despotism is yielding
its citadels, more or less willingly, to freedom. In
every land the People are rising to manhood ; con-
stitutional guarantees are everywhere the ramparts of
liberty ; civil and religious equality ; education ; free
interchange of commerce ; aspirations after general
peace ; and the thousand ameliorations of humblel
life j are the first golden ears of a fast-coming harvest.
As' the good Genius of the race, Christianity goes
before Humanity, leading it, like a flock, to green
pastures, and beside still waters.

The beneficent results of religion on Society, al
large, may be seen very strikingly in the position of

i48

CHRISTIANITY

women in modern Tfe, compaicd with their ] osition
in antiquity. Vice still abounds, indeed, buc it no
longer enjoys an open reign. It wears a mask of
decorum in public, and seeks darkness for its undis-
guised indulgence. I'ad as things still are, public
sentiment condemns grossness, and honours its oppo-
site. Read Juvenal, or 1 acitus, or Suetonius, and the
change is from night to day, between their times and
ours. The mists may still lie in the hollows, but long
stretches of landscape, then hidden, now shine bnght
in the sun. Our moralists do not now palliate or
defend shameful crime, nor can it be said of out
modern philosophers, as it used to be of the ancient,
that they must be indulged in impurities condemned
in every one else. We have no statues of courtesans
in our churches, as the national sanctuarv at Delphi
had of "Phr3aie:" thanks to the Bible, the moral
tone is unspeakably purer and healthier. The Christian
ideal of Woman is the highest philosophy as well as
the grandest justice, for to raise the ^nother is to raise
the race. We may iali below the standard, but it is
still acknowledged. Home, with its purity, peace,
and love, is a gift of Christianity ; to it, alone, we
OA'e those charms of wife, cr modier, or daughter,
which make it what it is.

Nor is the Amalthea's horn of Christian bounties
yet exhausted. War has, from the first, been pro-
scribed, as well as all that io cruel and fierce. Gladia-
tors no longer fight for a public show; Christianity
long ago put her veto on their bloody display; human

CHRISTIAXirr.

149

sacrifices, common over barbarous Europe, liave long
since ceased to shock mankind; and, even in India,
the suttee pile and infanticide are forbidden. War
itself has been tamed of its fiercest horrors ; indis-
criminate slaughter, tortures, deportation and slavery
of prisoners, are things of the past, and the sentiment
daily grows, that, except rarely, to engage in it, at all,
is a crime, both of rulers and nations. The Missions
of Christianity have, from the first, been a striking
characteristic of its spirit. Other religions may have
begun with the same zeal, but the first glow of activity
has, in their case, given way to the feeble torpor of
age ; but the missionary spirit which conquered Rome
and Europe, is still as vigorous as in the first freshness
of the Faith, and every spot is, at this moment, familiar
to the footsteps of the wandering servant of the Cross.
Everywhere, in all things, whether affecting nations or
individuals, on che grandest scale and on the most
humble, like one of the mighty forces of nature,
Christianity is at work, by its wondrous, ethereal
agency of unselfish love, bettering the world and the
unit. What it has in store for the future is fore-
shadowed in the spring flowers already around us. It
has made a different world, even if things were to
stay as they are, and yet we are only in the opening
flusli of April borders. \Vhat the summer will be, in
the long bright reign of immortal love, who can
conceive ?

How is it that men like the authors of Scripture
should have been able to leave all the philosophy and

•t^-

»50

CITRTSTIANITV.

culture of the world so far behind, and create a scheme
so far beyond their highest conceptions? If supreme
intellect failed, how was it that fishermen, and the
like, have left us what is instinctively felt to be the
very image of the inner soul ? How came they to be
able to lift the veil of Truth, and show us her divine
features in all their beauty, as never seen by man
before ? If Christianity be a creation of their own, it
is a greater miracle to conceive how such men could
have imagined it, than it is to believe that they wrote
under the guidance of the inspiring wisdom of Heaven.
The character of Jesus Christ is, itself, enough to
claim the Bible for God. It bears His sign-manual
in every detail. As it stands in the Gospels and in the
Epistles, it is unique and incomparable, and much
more easily to be conceived as a transcript from a
living reality than as a mere fiction ; as that, especially,
of so many independent writers, of so many tempera-
ments, such various gifts, and often, defective train-
ing. There is a perfect naturalness and freedom in the
various documents, which shows no trace of exaggera-
tion or art : they are simple and unstrained, even when
most above the plane of mere human life. Innocent
as a child, and moved by the loftiest thoughts. He
is painted with the same spotlessness to the last,
and yet in no negative sense, like the mortifications
of an ascetic, but in the midst of an active life, in
which each day called out every varied emotion and
impulse. He never hints at the need of repentance
for Himself, though he makes it essential for all

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CHRISTIAN Hi'.

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besides ; but, in its place, He again and again claims
a perfect faultlessness that sets Him above such a
requirement The best of men are deepest in their
humility at the thought of their shortcomings ; but
Christ, though unequalled for patient lowliness and
sustained religiousness, claims that His life, so far
from showing imperfections or sins, is a mirror re-
flecting the stainless image of God, as the unbroken
pool gives back the shining round of the sun. His
claims and pretensions are greater, in every direction,
than could for a moment be urged by a mere man,
without raising :i horror at the blasphemous folly.
He proclaims that He who has seen Him has seen
the Father as well, and requires that all men should
render equal honour to both. He gives Himself forth
as greater than Solomon : as the way, the truth, and
the Life; as the liglit of the world; the gate of
Heaven ; the centre to which all men would one day
be drawn. He claims power even beyond this present
life, over the dead, who are to hear His voice and
come forth to be judged at His throne. And yet we
never feel the incongruity of such unparalleled claims ;
they never strike us as anything unbecoming, but har-
monize with tlie whole of His being, as fitting and
natural. He has a divine patience, that bears every
form of trouble — hunger and thirst, a homeless life,
the taunts of enemies and betrayals of friends, craft
and violence, meanness and pride ; — He moves amidst
all, as the sun amidst clouds, emerging the same, as
they pass, far below. He sets up a religion which

'!■'

ill

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'52

CIIRISTIANITV.

rests on self-sacrifice ; whose most vivid illustration is
found in the grain that dies to bear ; while promising
rest to the soul even here, He demands that it be
found bearing a daily cross, as He bore, and fainted
beneath, His own. Such a principle was opposed to
all that ever had, or has, obtained among men ; it
offered the highest joy, apparently by the surrender
of all. In an age of local religions, and of unmatched
exclusiveness and national hatreds, He announces a
Faith for the whole race, which shall unite them in a
common and equal brotherhood before their common
Maker and Father. Himself the poorest of men, He
bears Himself with a noble dignity that awes rulers ;
and makes us forget the fact that He had grown up in
the household of a Nazarene carpenter, by His kingly
self-composure and perfect manhood. His teachings
are as original as they are authoritative, embracing all
that is grandest and most mysterious in time and
eternity ; in the nature and wants of man ; and in the
secrets of God, so far as they touch them. He draws
aside the veil, with no faltering hand, from the future,
and lights with a brightness all His own the darkness
stretching over it, as no teacher has ever presumed to
do in any country or age. And with all His loftiness
there is no touch of the pride or arrogance of the
Stoic, but a lowliness which attracts the humblest, as
to their special friend. In a superstitious age. He has
no superstition, but instinctively casts aside all human
distortions and weak credulities. He is as broad in
His charity as He is unbending in His spiritual

CHRISTIANITY.

•53

demands, for He welcomes those whom His nation
rejects; puts aside narrowness, however enforced by
custom ; and in an age of universal ceremonialism,
lays stress only on spiritual life. Unlike other teachers,
the humblest understand Him, even when He speaks
on matters the most sublime and mysterious, for He
has none of the subtleties of the Rabbins ; no tricks
and perplexities of thought and manner ; no abstrac-
tions or refinements ; but, like the light, reveals by
beams themselves invisible. As to morality, set him
alongside even the noblest of common men, and the
difierence grows as we study it. Take Socrates, per-
haps the flower of the ancient world, and he becomes
a foil to the surpassing merits of Christ. We see him
palliating the most revolting and unnatural lust, and
confessing his own habitual proneness to yield to it.*
He visits the courtesan, Theodota, once and again
with his friends, and gives her counsels how to win
and retain her lovers.t He speaks uncertainly always ;
confesses that, at the best, he only guesses and gropes
in the dark, and dies discoursing in part on indifferent
things, and ordering a cock to be offered to Esculapius.
He was, indeed, a wonder in such an age, and had
glimpses of a better than earthly wisdom, sent, I dare-
say, into his heart, as into the hearts of many illustrious
heathens besides, from the throne of God; but,
compared with Jesus Christ, he is a moon compared
to the sun. All the light of ancient philosophy, to

• Xen. Mem. viii. 2.

t Xen. Mem. iii. 13.

••54

CIIRISTIANITV.

use the figiiie of Coleridge, was little better, in the
darkness ol superstition and ignorance, resting on all
things, than that of the lantern-fly of the tropics,
moving ui luminous specks. On die face of the night —
mere gleams and points, of no avail in the gloom
around ; but Christ shines with a steady and universal
brightness. Human philosophy, like a stream through
yielding banks, flows stained and coloured by the times
in which it rises. But the teachings of Christ, like the
river of God, clear as crystal, are unsullied by any
polluting contact with His age or country. School
after school has attempted to revive neglected systems
of human masters, but all have failed : Christianity
beckons us forward to-day as at first. In all other
teachers men have recognised only instructors ; but
Jesus Christ has been worshipped from the first as a
God. The instinct of men has seen in Him no mere
Jewish Rabbi, but the 3on of the Highest. The
heathenism of Greece and Rome, and their philoso-
phies, have faded away like the parhelia — mock suns —
of northern skies : Judaism, in spite of the good
scattered here and there through the rubbish beds of
the Talmud, has died out for eighteen centuries as a
living power, except in its own nationality ; but Jesus
Clirist is extending His invisible kingdom in the hearts
of all races, with each generation ; winning millions
of subjects from every speech and country, and colour;
and indirectly affecting even communities most opposed
to a rule so pure and lofty; raising their morals, widen-
ing their sympathies, and shedding a softened lii^ht

ci/RisTiAXiry.

»55

through their public and private life. How can we
account for such a phenomenon ? It cannot be only
because miracles are recorded of Him and His first
followers, for they have long ceased, and they have
been ascribed to many besides : it can be from nothing
but the living power in His words and story. Meteors
have their course, and burst into darkness ; it is only
the sun which shines the same over all ages. The
conservatism natural to religious belief may give other
Faiths a lingering hold in the area they gained while
in vigour, but they stand like the stagnant and shrink-
ing waters of some passing flood ; not the bright flow
of a steady stream. Other Faiths stand like girdled
trees, monuments of decay, drooping and sickly.
Christianity, like the tree of life, spreads its shadow
with each passing century, and bears all kinds of fruits,
and its leaves are healing. It : seeds, scattered in land
after land, spring fresh and fair in every clime, with
banyan groves from each single shoot. Most cer-
tainly Christianity is the religion of the future. Even
now, it forms the public opinion of the ruling nations ;
its spirit is, insensibly, pervading the world. See how,
for example, in India, it has called forth an attempt
at reforming Hindooism ; has shaken the whole system
of Idol faiths, as the ground-swell of an earthquake
shakes and rends their temples ; and protests against
the most sacred and long-established cruelties in their
rites and worship, liuddh is a tradition ; Mahomet
has ceased to conquer ; but Christ walks on the high
places of the earth.

IS6

CHRISriANITY

It is on such considerations, which might be indefi-
nitely multipled, that the faith of the Bible rests its
claims. Some strike the intellect ; other speak to the
heart \ the whole appeal, like the voice of a choir of
angels, for acceptance by all, for their own sakes. I
shall add only one more : — a light in which the Bible
strikingly shows its divinity, and speaks, to the uni-
versal heart, as a revelation from God, with a force
only second to that of the wondrous character of
Christ. I mean, its power over the spirits of men in
every age, and country, and in every rank, to animate,
control, and sustain them, in every varied circumstance
and need. It is the universal counsellor and friend of
man. In joy and in sorrow ; in poverty and in pros-
perity ; in victory and in defeat ; in health and in sick-
ness ; in solitude and in company ; in thanksgiving
and in prayer ; in pride or in lowliness ; in youth and
in age; in living or in dying, it speaks a universal
language of warning, comfort, and guidance. It has
utterances for every emotion, and applicability to every
case. It may be veiled and weakened by translations,
made, sometimes, by men hardly equal to the task ;
sometimes at second-hand ; but, still, it speaks as no
book or man ever spoke besides. The story of sepa-
rate chapters, or even verses, if it could be known,
would be a record of surpassing interest. In the ex-
perience of every one, some texts shine like stars : as
we think of personal trials they briglitened ; or death-
beds of friends they cheered. Every religious life
borrows, thus, its own secret illumination, from yeai

CIIRISTIANirV.

'57

to year : its own galaxies and bright particular stars,
which have soothed disappointments, tempered cala-
mities, and filled the mind with a calm and steadfast
serenity in the darkest moments. Human composi-
tions catch its power as they embody its spirit and
repeats its words. Kings and peasants, philosophers
and the illiterate, martyrs and confessors, have alike
been cheered, inspired, and sustained by its wondrous
words. It has created the loftiest poetry and the sub-
limest art the world ever knew, and a literature unique
in its power and dignity. There is hardly a chapter
that has not, perhaps, in some of its verses, kindled
sentiments unknown to antiquity. There is a trans-
cendent vigour and life in every page. A single verse
made Anthony sell all that he had, and introduced,
through his doing so, a new era in ecclesiastical his-
tory. At a single warning of the Epistles, Augustine's
hard heart was melted under the fig-tree at Milan. A
single chapter of Isaiah made a penitent believer of
the profligate Rochester. A word to St. Peter has be-
come the stronghold of the Papacy : a word of St. Paul
has become the stronghold of Luther.*

Cromwell charged, at Dunbar, to the cry, — "Arise,
O God, and let thine enemies be scattered ;" and An-
thony drove away his temptations by the samj appeal.
Thomas Arnold murmured in dying, — " If ye be with-
out chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are
ye bastards and not sons;" — and, "Blessed are they
who have not seen, and, yet, nave believed." Selina,
♦ Stanley's liastcm Cb. Ixxvi.

i5«

CI/RISTIAyriT.

Countess of Huntingdon, died quoting Christ's words,
— *' 1 go to my Father." Lady Jane Grey wrote in
the book of the Lieutenant of the Tower before her
execution, — " The day of death is better than the day
of birth." Latimer, at the stake, roused his soul by the
remembrance that " God is faithful, and will not suffer
us to be tempted above what we are able." Luther
died, crying, — " Into Thy hands I commit my spirit."
" The Psalter alone, by its manifold applications and
uses in after times, is a vast palimpsest written over and
over again, illuminated, illustrated, by every conceivable
incident and emotion of men and of nations \ battles,
wanderings, escapes, death-beds, obsequies of many
ages and countries, rise, or may rise, to our view, as
we read it."* What shall we say of a book so many-
tongued, so intensely human, so authoritatively divine ?
Let critics and theorists stumble at words or phrases j
let some things remain to the end " hard to be under-
stood ;" whose voice can it be but God's, which rises,
still and holy, over the turmoil of life, in a thousand
persuasions, commands, and promises, to warn us of
danger, to guide us aright, and to soothe our infinite
cares and sorrows? It is a noble passage in which
Augustine contrasts Antiquity and Scripture, and gives
his fealty as a Christian man must — "In Cicero, and
in Plato, and such writers," says he, " I meet many
things finely said, things that move the spirit ; but in
none of them all do I find these words : — 'Come unto
• Stanley's Eubtein Ch. btxvi.

CHRlSTIANITr.

150

mc all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.'"*

• Thomas Carlyle's words are a fit note : — " In the poorest
cottage are Books, — is one Book, -herein for several thousands
of years the spirit of man has found light and nourishment, and
an interpreting response to whatever is deepest in him ; wherein,
still, to this day, for the eye that will look well, the mystery of
existence reflects itself, if not resolved, yet revealed, and pro-
phetically emblemed ; if not to the satisfying of the outward
sense, yet to the opening of the inward sense, which is the fat
grander result."

HELPS.

W''IIA'"I' a chapter might be written on the Helps
men have invented or accepted to make
friends with the Unseen, here, and hereafter. Some
from God ; some from the Pit — bribes to Dis to keep
back the Fates;— the divinest, too often corrupted
and darkened ; not a few enough to wake infinite
pity : all, utterances or creations of the same unspeak-
able fears and longings. The mystery of Ife ; the
sense of lonely helplessness in surrounding immen-
sity j the clinging, immortal hope in an unseen Pres-
ence, that will one day shine through and save ; the
instinct that will not believe the Universe has no
Father ; the shadow of the pale kingdoms that are to
receive us all ; the dread of something after death ;
the yearning faith in Elysian Fields, beyond the dark
mountains — combine to make man, everywhere, in
some way, religious. Nothing that offers itself as from
above or beneath, wants believers. There is no end
of priests claiming to be the voice of God, and to hold
His power of attorney to bless or curse — Bonzes,
Talapoins, Brahmins, Medicine-Men, of all lands.
Sacrifices, i)cnanccs, charms, scapularics, images, have

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IJEI.PS.

i6i

their millions who trust in them. The whole creation
groans, and cries out, in its poor sad ways, for God.

You, no doubt, pity darkness so gross, and rejoice
that you walk in the light. You knov/ the worthless-
ness of such poor, mock Jacob's ladders, and are
thankful you know so much better. The helps on
which you rely are very different. You have the
Church, the sacraments, books, friends, examples,
prayer, duties, self-denials, resolutions, all noble and
elevating, and fitting aids to a pure spiritual religion.

Very good, my friend ; and yet, what, after all, if
the same principle lie at the bottom of your use of the
best assistances, as, with others, at that of the worst ?
Clearly, it is not what we do so much as the spirit in
which we do it, that gives it its value. In any religion,
or rites, reliance on form and self vitiates all. Instead
of grand realities, they become ghostly deceptions.
The outward act must be the expression of inward
life. Anything whatever is empty form without the
sincerity that gives it its value ; and is not an error in
mode, through which you see the heart beating, better
than greater correctness with indifference ? Acts and
words are but vanes to show how the wind sits in the
soul ; failing that, they are only mechanical, when not
immoral. Outward service, in itself, has no weight;
it is to offer rind for fruit on the altar. Duty, or self-
denial, resolutions, or efforts, are slaves* tasks, apart
from a right frame of mind. If to gain merit, or ground
a claim, they leave the soul as poor as it was. The
favour of God is given only to love and humility.

Ib2

HELPS,

To es vi' i'vU our goods on the poor, or lO let our
body he burneu '.om any motive lower than loving
self-sacrifice, profits us nothing. The drop of cold
water handed in Christian charity, counts more with
the Highest than rivers of oil poured out to buy His
smile. As nothing can help the eye, ^^nthout sight ; or
rouse, if there be no life; worship or practice are of no
worth withe at living religious affections. But, when,
to use Scougal's fine phrase, which brought Whitefield
peace, " the Life of G^d " is " in the Soul," helps are
tendrils to lift our trailing thoughts and desires above
the rank growths of the world, till they throw out their
branches far up in the light.

First in the list, and indefinitely greater than any
other, stands Prayer. We may live near God when
we cannot avail ourselves of some helps to holy living,
but to give up this is spiritual death. Thus vital, it
has been made everywhere possible. In the strife of
tongues, as acceptably as in the congregation ; far
from man, as well as in cities j in our busiest moments,
or in our leisure, we can always pray. Prayer is the
breath of the Christian I^ife.

Some, of course, challenge even this first impulse of
all religion. The advance of science i: turned against
it. The steadfastness and regularity ot the laws of
Nature prove it, they say, at once useless and unphilo-
sophical. How can we expect, it is asked, tliat the
system of the Universe shall be at every one's pleasure,
to stop, or modify, or change, at a word? The
inexorable sequence of cause and effect ; the majestic
processes of creation cannot be thus interrupted.

HELPS.

I6j

d
th

Does not the vast whole move on, serene, through
all ages, l)ound by eternal laws in its least particles, as
in the sweep of suns ? Is there variableness or s'-^xlow
of turn-ing with the Almighty? Is not the v». y v -
tainty of Natural Laws the condition of a' hu; i
action ? How, then, can it be either ex \\\. "^t or
even becoming to pray ?

A sufficient answer to all this, so far ? I pm con-
cerned, whatever some philosophers thihK, is, that
while they say men ought not, Christ says Men ought,
to pray. I take it He knew more of the laws of the
Universe, and of the counsels of God, than any
modern professor, or scientific man, of whatever at-
tainments. Many things in the present must rest on
an authoritative word from above, or lie unsettled
till we gain deeper insight hereafter. And I am quite
willing to accept His for prayer. But it is never well
to appear to shrink behind the shelter of any name.
It is a greater honour to the truth to cast away any
advantages and defend it on equal terms. Let me try
to do so.

Difficulty, or apparent contradiction, are no reason
for discrediting anything. Both are, not seldom, only
in the mind that examines, not in the subject. Irre-
concilable paradox and dilemma meet us on every
side. What of the existence of evil in the Universe of
a holy God? What of absolute foreknowledge and
man's free will ? There is a Providence, and yet we
are responsible. Prayer is not the only matter in
which darkness is mingled with light.

That men have always prayed, in all ages and coun-

.64

HELPS.

tries, is strong reason why they should still continue to
do so. Go where you please, you find some mode of
addressing the higher powers, and it has been the same
from the first. Is it wrong to say that the Race acts
thus by a natural instinct ; that prayer is the irresis-
tible impulse, and law of our Being? Our physical
nature has its own language, and so has our spiritual ;
both intuitive, both spontaneous promptings of some-
thing within. But, if this be so, prayer becomes the
iiommand of God, and a part of His plan in our
moral economy; and to argue against Nature, and
dispute what it demands, is poor philosophy. I
question whether even those who, for the time,
reason down their natural instincts, succeed in sup-
pressing them in the end. The old truth breaks out
again from the inner heart, when trouble seeks its theo-
logy from the heart instead of the head. As Seneca
says of Atheists, that, though they deny God by day
they own Him by night, — objectors to prayer forget
their creed when in extremity.

The constancy and unchangeableness of the laws
of the Universe are admitted as readily oy those who
believe in prayer as by their opponents. But what
are these laws? How many of them are known?
The profoundest scientific man is little ahead of a
child. Look up to where systems beyond systems, —
the sun and its planets and moons drift through the
Infinite, as thistle-downs through the still air. Laws
of the Universe ! What is the Universe ? Pray tell
us, you who make so free with it. Are you silent?

HELPS.

lbs

It is wise to be so. Thought comes back from its
fartnest flight, and folds its wings, wearied and blinded
b}' the splendour, while yet on the very verge of the
shoreless and bottomless All. A few fortunate guesses
And surface reflections from all-surrounding mystery,
make up the known. Yonder sweep ten thousand suns
and systems, circle beyond circle, each distant from
the other as ours from them, — round the pole of the
Universe ; and, still beyond, float countless galaxies,
each filling a heaven of its own, but shrunk, to us,
into faint telescopic light-clouds, in infinite perspective.
Bounds wholly fiiil. From our highest scientific watch-
tower we have only a poor contracted horizon on the
bosom of the illimitable. For all we know, from the
farthest nebula, irresolvable by us, there may stretch
another Infinite, lighted by million suns, the glittering
emperors of the starry kingdoms of innumerable skies.
Know the Universe ! O man, what dost thou know !
Science, like a babe, stands lost amidst apparitions,
appearances, and unknown forces, of the hidden mean-
ing and essence of which it knows nothing. The
conceivable, everywhere, and in all things, passes,
presently, into the inconceivable. Where do we get
beyond the phenomenon, to the thing itself? The
Universe ! It is little better to thee, O wisest man,
than an illusion and shining dream. Canst thou de-
cipher one of all its divine hieroglyphs ? Whence
came it ? Whither is it tending ? Has it opened like
a flower, slow-blooming through Eternities, or did it
break forth as thou seest it, over the Infinite, at a

l66

HELPS.

word? What freight does it bear in those golden
worlds? Silence is best. Come, join me, and bow
the head and worship.

Prayer does not, for a moment, seek to suspend or
violate any law. It does not ask that fire should not
burn, or water drown, though, if God pleased. He
could prevent such results from either. It rests upon
a broader view of things than that of its opponents,
instead of a few laws, it falls back on thousands.
Nature and Life are governed, not by the direct and
simple action of any know forces, but by an endless
combination of circumstance and contingency, a change
in any detail of which wholly alters the issue. The
least motion of the body brings into play thousands of
muscles, and the least change in the course of things
colours countless sequences. In the great kaleido-
scope of Nature and Providence, the lightest touch
varies everything. Every law has countless modifica-
tions by others. In seeking the causes of any results,
the subtlest, that determined the whole, often escape
us. In nature itself, we constantly find our insight at
fault. The same analysis is shown from dissimilar sub-
stances. Influences wholly beyond detection change
structural character and inherent properties. A myriad
possibilities hover unseen over all things, and among
these why not include the power of prayer ? Why may
it not be amongst the contingencies commissioned by
God ; one of the countless mysterious forces we are
forced to own, though we cannot handle or weigh
ihem ? It is the same in the Moral government of the

HELPS.

167

world as in the physical. The delicate scales turn by
a hair. The cry of an infant gave the Jews a Law-
giver, and mankind Christianity. A bird lighting on a
bough, at the mouth of a cave, turned aside the pur-
suers of Mahomet from his hiding-place, and left him
to become the prophet of continents : a chance omen
has often changed the whole current of history. There
is nothing really small in the chain of cause and effect,
and since we cannot see from end to end of it, in one
case in a thousand, if we ever do so, at all, why may
not prayer be an often recurring link ? In a Universe
of mystery, he is surely rash who would presume to
exclude it.

What does it mean to speak of a settled order of
things, which precludes change or modification ? We
fmd ourselves, every moment, moulding events and
compelling Nature into new paths, which, but for our
action, she would not have taken. She is our servant,
not we her slaves. Can God be less free than man ?
/s He supreme, or, like Jupiter, controlled by Fate
and iron Necessity ? We can act on events : has He
to submit to them ? Even with us, results do not
depend directly on physical laws. Mind is constantly
combining and recombining them variously, at its
pleasure. We cannot supersede or violate, but we
can neutralize or develope them. What ar' new dis-
coveries in practical science but adaptation;; t > human
use of hitherto unknown, or intractable natural laws ?
But, if man has this power, what shall we say of
Godl

168

HELPS.

Prayer is no scheme to dispense witli work, nor to
be enabled to disregard any known laws. On the
contrary, it only seeks direction to aid in observing
them. We sow that we may reap, and practise in-
dustry that we may succeed in life, and expect no
freedom from these conditions. But both sowing
and industry depend for their results on more than
our acts. How much must concur to make either
fruitful !

Take heart, then, friend, and go, pray. Both Bible
and reason encourage you to do so freely. Your
affairs cannot bo too insignificant, for who can tell
what may turn on them, and are not all things alike
insignificant before the Eternal? If we pray at all,
we had better keep nothing back. St. Paul's prayers
embraced alike the highest and humblest petitions :
the health of his friends ; his being allowed to revisit
them 3 the removal of the thorn in his flesh ; the
success of his ministry, or the spiritual growth of
the Church.

Still, answers to prayer cannot always be what we
expect. Ignorant of what is best for ourselves or
others, we often ask what wisdom and love must
refuse. All is determined for all, and the wide Uni-
verse is interdependent. What seems least may influ-
ence the whole, as a ripple spreads over the breadth
of the ocean. God knows our wants better than we
ourselves, and knows how they may be granted
without injury to others. We must always pray con-
ditionally. Kven our Blessed Lord went no farther

HELPS.

lAg

than — " If it be possible." We often, unwittingly,
ask a stone for bread, or a serpent for a fish. As
our Father, we are to trust God with a child's faith
and humility, feeling that his giving and withholding
are alike for our good. St. Paul's entreaty, though
thrice repeated, M-as still denied, and, in the end, he
gloried in the infirmity he had deplored. Jonah's
gourd is a lesson for all : the blessing, and the worm
at the root of it, would often come to together, if we
had our own will.

The great end of prayer is spiritual good ; tem-
poral benefits are hardly worth pressing. To have
them dof s not necessarily bring happiness, and they
change with the day. Apart from the Ci^rtainty that
we must often ask unwisely, and, often, what cannot
be granted, our life here is so passing that its interests
must needs be subordinate. Besides, to be always
craving material favours is apt to foster mean thoughts,
and make us selfish and mercenary in our relations to
God. Nor are they in themselves much worth. If
we had everything we could wish in the world we
might still be wretched enough. True wealth and
prosperity is that of the soul, not of circumstances.
It is well to ask whatever we think we need, humbly,
and in submission to higher wisdom, but only in its
right place, and not too urgently. The far noblest
good to ask is that we be brought nearer in spirit to
the Divine, by loving, and humble, acquiescence, and
oneness, with God's will, whatever it order. To be
stnyed on God would be perfect peace. Freed from

170

HELPS,

all anxious fretting; no more worn and burdened
with endless cares ; our weakness, blindness, folly, no
longer striving to guide us, but committing all to In-
finite Power, and Light, and Love, we should walk
through life as little children with their hand in that
of their Father. To feel that God is ordering all
things for the best is to have Heaven. " Not my
will, but Thine," calms every fear. Even He from
whom we have all to learn, passed, thus, in His last
agony, from petition to holy acquiescence, before the
cloud broke, and His serene and holy peace returned.
When He withdrew Himself, and fell upon His face,
and prayed that, if it were possible, the cup might pass
from Him, His trouble still remainec' In His sore
extremity, rising, He comes to His disciples, as if to
seek even the poor aid of human sympathy, but only
to return and renew His cry, with no better answer
than before. Again, still in His agony. He seeks His
friends. It was only when, after He had a third time
withdrawn, and abandoning all request, only uttered
His perfect resignation. His spirit rose calm and tri-
umphant. His human will wholly merged in that of
His Father, there was no longer even an outward
struggle or reluctance. Absolute oneness with the
eternal counsels had returned : He had again the
secret of perfect peace, in having every thought and
care lost in God, and could return to His disciples,
no more to leave them, but to lead them out to see
Him yield Himself to the awful sacrifice.* When we,
• Mrlt. xxvi. 39—46.

■"

//ALPS.

171

Id
lo

like Him, come to be able to abandon all thought of
self, and have no will but the Father's, our souls,
however troubled before, will pass into a perfect
calm.

In such a frame, prayer rises into loving commu-
nion and adoration. Was our Lord always asking,
do you think, when He spent whole nights in prayer?
Surely not : they were, surely, rather given to holy
rapture ; the world lying below, hushed in the dark-
ness, and the Godhead and He, alone, in the stillness.
To let the mind dwell on God, in silent worship, is
the sublime of prayer.

How or when to pray needs no hints where the
heart is right. It would be to tell love how or when
to express itself. Prayer in words is only one form :
however the soul may speak, it is tlie act, not the
manner, which is regarded. The frame of devotion
suffices ; and a tear, or sigh, an uplifted look, or a
tender thought, is noted. Whatever love docs is
prayer. The heart speaks by many tongues, and all
are known to God. A kind act, for His sake, as I
take it, is as true prayer as any other. Laborare est
orare — to work is to pray, and a whole Litany could
not embody more than the widow's mites. A religious
spirit is in some sense praying always, for its acts and
emotions are alike consecrated by devotion. It is a
harp from which every jiassing breath wakes sweet
sounds. The full b'^nvl of the fountain is always drop-
ping. Fixed seasons or secret conveniencos are not a
necessity; the heart may l)e rising to Goil when thertf

172

HELPS.

seems least opportunity. Still, habit and system are
of great advantage. The lamp in the temple never
went out, but it was trimmed each morning and even-
ing. To begin and close the day with special devo-
tion is an instinct of natural piety. In the morning it
seems a hem and border to each day's life, and in the
evening it brings down the dew on the spirit, to wash
off the stain and dust, and to feed and refresh.

Mere formal prayer, of course, is worth nothing.
Still worse, it injures. That is not prayer at all that
does not well up from the heart. At any time, we
need not use many words. When the spirit feels most
it can say least. The Publican could only utter one
sentence for the Pharisee's many.

Need I add, that the name of Christ is the key of
Heaven.

2. Habitual, reverend study of the Scriptures is
indispensable to a healthy religiousness. There is no
book so instinct with God as the Bible ; none that
speaks with such calm authority ; none that so raises
us into the presence of eternal realities. The Sacred
Writers had, beyond all other men, a living sense of
the spiritual and divine. They awaken conscience
as none others do, and they keep it tender, by bring-
ing it constantly to a standard that knows no compro-
sTuse or hesitation. Nowhere else can we find one so
lor.y, so all-embracing, so searching. Like the sun, it
shows motes otherwise hidden. It lights up abysses
of ?vil wiihin us, before unsuspected, and sets before
us a perfect ideal of holiness. There is no walk of

HELPS,

»73

virtue the Bible does not aid ; no forbidden path in
which it does not set an Angel to warn us back.
There are examples, counsels, promises, for all, — and
the archetypal man — Christ Jesus — from whom to
copy. Apart from all else, His presence gives it an
unspeakable charm. Treating, in turn, of all that is
highest, its separate words and phrases are weighty.
Religion without a living study of it, is a blind super-
stition, instead of an intelligent faith ; it slights the
guidance God has vouchsafed us, and follows its own
whims and fancies.

How to make right use of our Bibles is the great
point. To read as a task, or as if the mere words,
understood or not, have some magic power, is to make
it a dead idol. We must understand, if we would •
profit. What is needed to do so ?

The master key to the knowledge of Scr- ture is a
deep sympathy with it. There is a divin iculty in
the religious soul, apart from outward att nents, or
intellectual power, which instinctively re _;nises spi-
ritual truth. It may not know so much the letter
as it might, but it has an intuitive sen^ : the mean-
ing beneath. It may not be able to reason, but it
feels ; and no logic is truer than that of the breast.
Luther's saying is golden : " Pectus est quod theo-
logum facit :" the heart makes the divine. Love, ever
so humble, enters deeper into the mind of God than is
possible to mere intellect. The strong* of all evi-
dence is that of experience. The lowly spirit, feeling
its wants, and seeing the Bible describe them just as \

if -

»74

HELPS.

they are ; its need of help, and reading the Bible offers ;
yearning for God, and finding His character, in all its
relations, what conscience tells it they must be : — be-
lieves, amidst whatever simplicity, with a faith no
knowledge could make more just or well-grounded.

Lut, while knowledge is not essential, it enlarges the
mind and strengthens the convictions, where it is the
servant of love, and humility. To get all the light
God is willing to give us, from Revelation, is due to
Him, to our fellow-men, and to ourselves. It honours
Him as its Divine Author ; it establishes and enlightens
us ; it tends, if kept in its right place, to a higher reli-
gious li<e; and it enables us to vindicate the truth,
when impugned.

. There never was a time in which intelligent Biblical
study was mcie imperative. There is much that is
false and shallow abroad. Self-confident ignorance, or
weak enthusiasm, turn to Revelation — not for humble
practical counsel, but to work out theories, and set
themselves forth as teachers. Seeking the results of
knowledge without the use of the means, the only
fruits are crude theories and brazen impostures. Pious
vanity grows oracular over the sound of a text, and
audacity sets up a sect or religion on detached and
perverted passages. There is no end of theological
maggots. Healthy theology is attacked iu a thousand
ways on the side of the warmest believers in Scripture,
no less than from outside. Thoughtful intelligence,
resting on adequate knowledge, is the antidote and
specific.

H/:rPS.

»7i

But there are other characteristics of the clay, which
need both these, even more. There is everywhere
intense rehgious activity. Strong reaction from pre-
scriptive l)ehef has led to a general freedom of inquiry
in every direction. The grounds of every detail in
received creeds are canvassed. Mere traditional
sanction has no longer force. Nothing that will not
stand the most searching tests of logic and criticism is
accepted. Not only Christianity, but *')." Bible itself,
have to bear the same scrutiny as iu ne first ages.
They have to defend their very existence. Rude
blasts shake the four corners of every doctrine and
evidence, and assail the Canon of both the Old and
New Testaments. I am very far from condemning
the spirit that leads to this fearless demand for a fresh
statement of truth, to meet the advances of thought
and science. As Protestants, we should rather hail
the independence and earnestness that seek to rest
their assent on conviction. I, for one, would certainly
never condemn any honest inquirer, either in secular
or religious science, for stating any supposed disco-
veries. AVe honour truth, not by suppressing inquiry,
but by courting it. An ounce of tried gold is worth
a pound of what may prove dross in the crucible.
Truth is immortal : its beams are the sliining forth of
the present God. A light frivolous spirit criticismg
religious opinion and fact in mere destructive hostility,
is beneath regard ; but reverent, humble investigation,
stops with the human, and only brings the divine into
[jrantJor rclivf. I have no fear eidier for the Bible

170

IIELrS,

or the Cross.* That so many laymen are now en-
lightened students of Scripture, however far they push
their inquiries, if they do so with modest and docile
humility, is one of the most delightful facts of the day.
The more they become so, the better \ if only to keep
the pulpit up to the mark. It can never be hoped, it
should not be wished, that the age of implicit faith,
and prescriptive awe can ever return. There is a
universal demand for credentials, even from what has
been most accredited. Everyt'uing is brought to the
Lydian stone. Great names, traditional dogmas, ac-

• How little truth has to fear in the end from the most
searching criticism, is finely sliown in a sentence in the preface
to De Wctle's Commentary on Revelation, published just before
his death. That such an intellect as his, illuminated by learniny
so vast, and of a freedom and fearlessness so unquestioned,
found that all the mighty labours of his life, led back to the foot
of the Cross, is a fact most significant. Hear the words of the
Titan.

*• This only I know, that there is salvation in no other name
than in that of Jesus Christ, the Crucified, and that nothing
loftier offers itself to Humanity than the God-manhood realised
in Him, and the Kingdom of God which He founded — an Idea
and Problem not yet rightly understood and incorporated intj
the Life, even of those, who, in other respects, justly rank as the
most zealous and the warmest Christians."

♦'Nur d«s weiss Ich, dass in keincm andern Namen Hcil ist
als im Nan n Jesu Christi des Gckrcuzigten, und dass cs fiir die
Menschhci .ichts Hohcres giebt als die in Ihm verwirklichte
GottmenscLuiit und dass von Ihm gepflanzte Reich Gottes, eine
Idee und Aufgabe, wclchc noch nicht recht erkannt und ins
Leben eingefiUirt ist, auch von dcnen nicht, wclche sonst mit
Recht fiir d ifrigsten und warmstcn Christen gcltcr/.''— De
Wette's OlTc ng, Vorwort.

( M

iiKf.rs.

»77

cepted solutions, stand once more at the bar. The
general mind has awaked to its sin)rcmc prerogative
of private judgment. Moral earnestness, widely dif-
fused, rightly holds that the noblest homage to reli-
gion is the accci)tancc of truth, whatever it teach.
Science, clearly established, is no longer feared as an
enemy, but hailed as the voice of God. The cry on
all sides is for more light ; and the feeling, that truth
is divine, wherever found, and whatever its utterances.
Instead of thinking our age light and sceptical, I
think it grave and noble, beyond any before it. It is
a dishonour to Providence to think we go back, or
that t'le light is not steadily gathering, generation after
generation. Truth never stands still ; like the waves
on the beach, if it glide back in appearance, it flows
farther with each, present, return. I believe the day
is slowly rising and spreading, and that the shadows
we see are those of the retreating night. There never
was less theory than at present, or more calm and
laborious induction. Every step, like that of a Roman
legion, is only made on a solid highway prepared in
advance. There are few hasty generalizations. Years
pass in the slow accumulation of facts. To adoj^t
Milton's figure, it is as if the scattered parts of the
lovely virgin, Tnith, were being slowly gathered from
the four winds, and remoulded, limb by limb, into her
original immortal beauty. In science, in history, in
criticism, in politics, in movals, and in religion, there
is a manly and touching enthusiasm for a free, impar-
lial, and thorough sifiiiip; of AX claims or pretences.

178

hi: I. PS.

Truth — moral, intellectual, or physical — is felt to be
only the varied God. The same voice is acknowledged
from the stony leaves of ♦he rocks as from the tables
of Sinai ; and the words of Christ find their echo in
the deepening thought of the race.

To keep pace with the times, and to establish your-
self in a full and intelligent faith, study the Scriptures
with your utmost zeal. You will find it of the greatest
advantage to do so systematically, taking a whole
Epistle or Gospel together, and thoroughly mastering
it, verse by verse. Many helps are ready to your
hand. If you read the Greek, there is no want of
New Testaments, with all the information you need.
If confined to English, you still have aids that leave
little to be desired.* The more you know, the less
fear you will be turned aside by any novelty. Ignor-
ance, or superficial knowledge, is a prey to every new
assertion; thorough acquaintance with Scripture, the
best panoply faith can have.

Still, don't forget that the head and the heart must
go together. There are moral, as there arc chemical,
affinities. We attract and assimilate whatever has
most of our sympathy. If you be in a healthy reli-
gious state, the truth, within, will at once lay hold of
that presented. If not, there can, at the best, be
only a rude suspension of creeds and dogmas in the

• The Greek Testament by Webster and Wilkinsoii ; Dean
Alford's New Testament for English Readers, and the Critical
New Testament founded on Bengel, and published by Strahan,
may be specially commended*

lil

liFJ.rs;.

170

miiul, kepi alloat by outward impulse of education or
habit, but sure to fall, like sand from water, as soon
as these lose their power. Quickened religious sensi-
bilities, Christian humility, and, above all, that frame
that leads to prayer, are essential to our reading the
Hible aright. To speak of Art to the indifferent, or
of music where the ear is a-wanting, is not more idle
than to study the words of Scripture, if there be no
sympathy with its spirit. I am far from wishing you
to look through any man's eyes, or to put any meaning
on the sacred words, which they do not bear on their
face ; I only wish you to read in a reverend temper,
seeking the light from Him who alone can give it.
Think as a Christian, loyjd to your Master, feeling
your need of help, and recognising the voice of God
in that of Apostles and Prophets.

The Religious Life, like the intellectual or physical,
needs Work for its health, or even continuance. We
know death by the still breast and the stopped pulse.
The mind, ceasing to think, has already perished. It
decays in proportion as it is torpid. Even in outward
Nature, the condition of life is restless motion and
change. Mighty forces agitate the whole Universe.
The midnight heavens know no slumber, but move
serene, through the blue depths unresting. Death
itself, passes, ever}^vhere, into new life : the corruption
of to-day into the flowers of to-morrow. The great
life ocean, rounding the farthest stars, is never still,
but stirs, in ceaseless ebb and flow, for ever. All
things are full of labour. It is the first law of universal

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i8o

HELPS.

Being ; the pulse throbbing through the great whole.
Its empire reaches from the throne of God to the
utmost circumference, over material and spiritual alike.
Inaction is the negation of existence.

Religious Life is no exception to the all-embracing
ordinance of work. It dies if it remain a theory. Not
to apply our principles is to deny them ; and graces
left idle presently droop. To slight our convictions
is to destroy the very germs of faith and feeling.
As, on the one hand, any man may make himself
an Atheist speedily by breaking off his personal
communion with God in Christ, so, if he keep this
unimpaired, his religious earnestness must find an
outlet in Christian work.

Praying and Working : we need both. Some have
tried only the praying, but their religion boon showed
morbid results. Monkish life, of the purely passive
type, has been found a mistake in all ages. To seek
to cherish a higher spirituality by a life spent in
secluded devotion, has proved itself a violation of
divine law, by constantly passing into spiritual disease.
Sentiment alone, unsupported by habitual practice,
becomes presently sickly. If the morals remain pure,
the mind more or less succumbs. The constant
introspection ; the unnatural straining after a uniform
elevation of frame and feeling; the neglect of the
body, and the restless mental excitement of purely
spiritual contemplation, affect the brain, till, as in the
case of the Monks of the Desert, in the earlier centu-
ries, and of many enthusiasts down to our own days, —

^ f.

'^ -{,•--

HELPS.

i8i

visions, awful combats with fiends, wild ecstatic rap-
tures, and all the phenomena of mental excitement,
run riot in the crazed fancy. The story of Antony,
true man as he was, is one in its lessons with that of
Simeon Stylites, or of the Grazing Monks, or of the
Monks of La Trappe, at the present. We were never
intended to seek Heaven by withdrawing from duty.
We find it, both here and hereafter, in earnest, practi-
cal love of God and our neighbour ; not in selfish care
for ourselves alone. Reflection and quiet thought,
like glades by the way, niay cheer and refresh, but
must not be made our rest. Love to God is proved
and strengthened by being made practical. We love
the more, the more we love. The good we do re-acts
in ourselves, and we find, in our growing spiritual
health, that it is always more blessed to give than to
receive. We are sent into the world to make it better
and happier, and in proportion as we do so, we make
ourselves both. Our Christian graces are God's
equipment of His true soldiers to fight, for Him,
against the Devil and all his works. It does not so
much matter what it be we specially do, if it be against
the kingdom of darkness. All good is of God, and
every form of good is religious, if religion inspire it.
The world lies in the shadow of great darkness ; any
spark of light we kindle is from the sun. Turning the
soul of a brother to God must ever be the first and
greatest triumph ; lighting up, in a hitherto dark and
chaotic human spirit, the first rays of future immortal
splendours ; but all other earnest and valiant service

l82

HELPS.

is also accepted and duly noted in the Book of
Remembrance. There could be nothing less than the
cup of cold water given to one of God's little ones, in
the name of a disciple, yet it, too, glitters with his
approving smile. Whatever is not wrong is right, in
its due place and measure, and what is right may be
made religious. The sympathies of enlightened Chris-
tianity bend over the whole horizon, like the tender
blue of the sky. No human want or sorrow, nothing
that can any way raise man, or help him to raise him-
self, is disowned. Evil, wherever found, is its natural
enemy, with whom it will make no peace, on any
pretext. Wherever the Devil shows himself, it follows,
strong in God — whether he hide himself in politics,
ignorance, pauperism, sanitary abuses, morals, or
crime. Seeking first to bring back the supreme order
that reigns in its own soul — the loving return of the
heart to its Heavenly Father — it counts all lower order
as a step towards it. Any way — every way, the True
is of God — the False, of the Devil.

What each may do must be left to position and
fitness. The rain, from the same cloud, makes of one
stalk a rose, of another, a Hly ; each with its own
characteristics ; and the same grace of God, falling on
different minds, makes men of different aptitudes. I
know one young man, and some older men, whose
lives are given to Christian philanthropy. They have
leisure, and find a magnificent joy in unselfish devotion
to the poor and wretched. But even occasional leisure
may do much. How many are there who give their

HELPS.

183

•3

one day of weekly freedom to Christian charity :
teaching, or visiting, or relieving ? The Lord be with
them, and remember them in that day ! Where there
is a will, the way will never be wanting. Look round
you ; there is plenty at your hand that needs you.
Only, work. It is a cold world, and you cannot keep
warm, except by constant activity. Make your whole
life sacred by devoting it all to God. Remember —
a religious spirit makes that Christian, which, without
it, might seem indifferent. Specific acts cannot be
prescribed for any one, but where the heart is right it
will colour everything. There is religion in giving
just measure, and full weight ; in selling only honest
goods; in conscientious diligence in your calling,
whatever it be ; in active contentment even while you
prepare for possible advancement; in being good
husbands, or sons, or fathers, or citizens, or neighbours.
There is nothing good that is not, in its measure,
godly. True Christianity does not mean a sluggish
trickle of acts and moods, in a narrow channel of
conventional prescriptions, with every-day life stretch-
ing, in banks of foul ooze, on each side ; it means,
the whole breadth sparkling and flowing with living
waters.

Besides work, there must be Devotion ; not private
only: the sympathies of our nature, the honour of
God, and the good of our fellows, demand a public con-
fession. The temples and churches of all ages express
a want instinctively and universally felt. It cannot
be a mere weakness or superstition, or the effects of

-4

184.

HELPS.

education and custom, which speaks thus from every
generation, but an impulse springing spontaneously
from the depths of our Being. We depend, on every
side, on each other ; like trailing flowers that grow by
interlacing. Absolute isolation would soon be death.
Society is the universal confession that we are incom-
plete apart. In our physical wants, and our intellectual,
we lean on all around us, and it is the same with our
higher. It helps us to pray with more fervour to join
in public services; there is a mysterious power in
ihem that stimulates conscience, intellect, and imagi-
nation ; all indeed, that helps us to realise the present
or rise to the future. Gratitude to God is deepened
when a multitude joins us in expressing it, as no less
due from them all. Humility and regret are felt most,
when the Amen that confesses our shortcomings is re-
repeated by a whole congregation. Dependence on
heavenly mercy is realised doubly when all around
join in the cry for it. The glorious majesty of God
rises more grandly to our thoughts when His praise
goes up like the voice of many waters. Trust in
Him, for the future, is strengthened, when a throng
unite to declare it, and love to each other must surely
be quickened when we kneel together before our
common Father. To neglect public worship is to
deprive ourselves of one of the greatest helps to a
religious life.

• I know it is sometimes said that, as things are, the
quiet of the fields, or of our own home, does as much
good as habitual attendance in God's house. Do you

HELPS.

i8s

think so, after what I have just urged ? But, on other
grounds also, rely on it, you mistake. I frankly doubt
the healthiness of your religious feeling. Mere senti-
ment costs little, is very common, and often deceives.
The poetry of Nature, the vague instincts of wonder
and reverence ; the elevating and calming influences
of reflection, may quicken our sensibilities, and awe
us into a natural devotion. But this is not religion ;
it is only an outward flash which may leave the soul,
after it passes, with no loftier principles, or clearer
convictions than before — mere passing colour, it may
be, on cloud, or on barren rock. Godliness, is not a
set of sensations, but the intelligent worship of a
Father and Ruler, through Christ the Redeemer : it
is not mere emotion, but a new life. The effect of
the beautiful is a matter of aesthetics, not morals :
an image impinged on the brain, not on the heart.
A man may weep at a landscape, or a sunset, and yet
show nothing lofty or pure in his daily practice. I
do not deny that, in a healthy spiritual state, Nature,
or quiet reflection, helps us to rise to God ; but it is
when the eye or the thought is already Christian. The
heart right ; self-confidence humbled ; help sought j
love felt to God as no less holy than pitiful; the
glory of the landscape passes within and transfigures
the soul. But he who can make such use of the
fields, or he who is most in communion with his
Maker at home, is he who oftenest worships in public.
To join in the common devotions of men is the best
aid to private devotion ; and we learn best from

■M

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HELPS.

the spirit we catch in the articulate worship of our
brethren, how to profit by the fainter voice of in-
animate nature . '

It is of no weight to urge that churches are not
always what they should be, either in pulpit or pew.
I wish they were perfect. But how much of the evil
lies in your own fancy or prejudice ? Granting that
there is, too often, painful dulness, or wordy preten-
sion, or dogmatic ignorance, or windy commonplace,
in sermons, and of coldness or inattention, not to be
wondered at, in the pews ; the world is large, and
there are many earnest intelligent preachers, and
many devout congregations, after all. Go where you
feel you get good. There is no need of starving on
husks : turn to where there is bread. He who is of
no use to you, may suit many others. Let nothing
tempt you to worship where both head and heart are
not profited, if you can get what you need elsewhere.
Still, is it not possible that you may paint things too
strongly? When we are disposed to see faults, we
are apt to create them where they do not exist. Some
eyes, like those of one of the spiders — the Aranea
Scenica, if I remember — are little better than cloudy
microscopes, at once magnifying and obscuring what-
ever they look upon. Very homely fare pleases when
we are hungry. If you wish to worship God sincerely
and humbly, and try to think as little as you can of
any defects in the service, it will be a poor one indeed
from which you will not get good.

It may be a great aid in keeping you faithful to the

HELPS.

187

public rites of worship, if you let your mind, now and
then, dwell on the grand ideal the Church presents as
a whole, in spite of the drawbacks in local details.
Rise from the narrower view that gives pj,in, to a
broader and grander. The Church of Christ, em-
bracing all true believers, in all communions, and
every land, is, after all, the living temple of God
amongst men. In it, especially. He vouchsafes His
presence ; and in its members, seen as a whole, we
have the grandest image of ideal humanity. Say,
that no one is perfect ; that many are very much the
reverse ; still, looking abroad over the masses of wor-
shippers, this grace offers in one, that in another, till,
bringing all together, we form, from the whole, a divine
conception of the image of God, restored to our race.
And, if it be, as we know it is, that the good in Man
is God's indwelling Spirit, who has changed him, so
far, into His own perfection, we need only gather
together the broken gleams, into a common centre, to
have before us the awful glory of God, as He of old
rested between the Cherubim. The Temple of the
Christian Church is not a fabric of human hands, like
that which has passed away ; it is a living miracle in
the souls of men. Regarding it thus, we must honour
the mystical shrine of the Godhead. We cannot turn
our backs on that in which Christ still walks amidst
the golden lamps. What though, here and there,
man lowers and obscures the grand ideal ; it remains
in itself the same. To think of the Church Universal
wiU raise us to a loftier frame. What memorials of

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gifts and mercies adorn its walls : what trophies of
love and blessing ! Through Christianity have come
to men all that dignifies and advances the race. Our
laws, morals, culture, humanity, education, spiritual
life, and the future of our world, to which we look
through golden vistas of promise — are but the first
of its gifts, and public worship is its outward acknow-
ledgment.

What Books to read as a help to a religious life, is
a difficult question : tastes, attainments, capacities,
vary so much, that what please some are useless to
others. I am sorry to think it, but I fear it is true,
that our current religious literature is largely inferior.
Sandy deserts of commonplace — morbid diaries ; vapid
stories ; prophecy mongering ; essays on frames and
feelings — dismal swamps — confused jungles of words —
and book-making skimble-skamble — are too common,
and, alas ! only too often popular. Still, there are
many of a far higher class : clear, manly, intelligent
utterances, or plain, unpretending, but useful exposi-
tions or counsels.

Of purely devotional books, as I might call them,
it is even more hard to speak than of others. Lucid
simplicity, and warmth, are the great things needed in
a Manual of spiritual truth. It is well if we can have
genius, but it is not indispensable. A modest essay,
like James's " Guide to Anxious Inquirers," laboured
perhaps in style, and without any brilliance, but
earnest and practical, has proved its value through
many years. The " Christian Year," and other ColleC"

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jRg

tions of Hymns, have, I doubt not, been of unspeak-
able good. Jeremy Taylor's " Holy Living and Dying,"
though too sacerdotal, and hardly fit for use as a
whole, will live as long as the language. It suffers,
like all his Works, by being overloaded with his rich
fancies, and from its want of simplicity in composition
and language. The " Imitation of Christ " is cast too
much on the lines of mediaeval thought to be much
read in our day. Bunyan and Baxter come, perhaps,
nearest the true conception of devotional writers.
" The Pilgrim's Progress," in spite of its passages of
too formal theology,* is one of the great books of the
world, and is full of the richest and wisest teaching.
It cannot be too often read, but should be studied
again and again. Baxter's "Call," and his "Saints'
Everlasting Rest," have a wonderful earnestness and
lorce. It would be a great service to English readers
if some of Luther's devotional pieces, selected judi-
ciously, were accessible in our language : their manli-
ness and strong sense, simple faith, lofty thought, and
intense vitality, are the very medicine needed for our
times. But, of all books to rouse and stimulate
spiritual life, there seems to me none like Augustine's
Confessions. Inspired by so lowly a reverence ; in-
stinct with such power of words; so sublime in its
prayers and addresses to God ; every sentence trem-
bling with such earnest emotion ; God so exalted \
man so abased ; the heart so laid bare ; the affections

* As in the discourse on the four difTerent kinds of Righteous-
ness in Our Blessed Lord. "P. Progress," pt. 2, ch. 4.

so touched — it is, for ever, the living presence amongst
us of one of the grandest intellects and noblest natures
the Church has known.*

Biography, well written, is beyond question the
richest of all general reading. " It is by nature the
most universally profitable, universally pleasant of all
things : especially Diography of distinguished indi-
viduals." t

Of Religious Biographies there are different classes :
those of which that of Henry Martyn, or Brainerd, or
Payson, or Mrs. Winslow, are examples, and those of
a less mystical type. For my part, I could never
make much of religious diaries : self-examinations and
expressions of passing frames, are not to my taste.
But thousands of worthy Christians jirefer them to all
other books of the kind, and find them of the greatest
advantage.

The Lives of men of more thought and action, but
often of equal devotion, who speak less of themselves,
seem to me better reading. Dr. Arnold's Life, for
instance, must always be very helpful to minds of a
certain measure of culture. His letters abound in
principles and suggestions of the highest value, and
his whole life overflows with lessons of faithful work,
and beautiful Christian spirit and wisdom. White-
field's Life, by Philip, stirs the heart like a trumpet,
and must quicken any reader to greater zeal. Mr.

* For English readers Dr. Pusey's Translation is, I think,
the best,
t " Sartor Resartus," 45.

HELPS.

IQl

Stevenson's " Praying and Working " is a book of
golden examples. But the grandest of all recent
Uves, so far as I know, is that of Edward Irving, by
MiS. Oliphant. No wonder Carlyle said, that, take
him all in all, he was the best man he ever knew or
expected to know. By the side of his child-like
humility, tender love, apostolic zeal, sublime fervour,
unwavering faith in God, and grand communion with
spiritual and eternal realities, ordinary Christians seem
like another race.

It is not from the Biographies of men of any parti-
cular class exclusively, however, that you may get
good. Lives of all true men teach much. We may
differ with them on some things ; but in many others
we will be made wiser and better. Indiscriminate
reading, whether of lives or other books, is unwise :
for to study a Life, is to make its subject a companion,
perhaps a teacher, and we need care in our choice of
either. But, while avoiding light, vain, or pestilent
men, dead or alive, there are Biographies which it
would be narrow and weak to neglect, though we may
not go with them entirely. Do not insist on having
only men of one favourite type or school. Nature
abhors uniformity ; and in the region of thought it is
simply impossible. No two peas or leaves are entirely
alike, they say ; far less any two minds. Some religious
people are too apt, like the Egyptian priests, to re-
quire all their lions and sphinxes to be after one pat-
tern. Profit by what is divine in any man, though
you have to make objections at times, and to condemn

192

HELPS.

as well as approve. All the green in the world comes
from the sun, and all the good from God. To de-
nounce and repudiate men who seek truth no less than
we, but see it in some things differently, is unworthy.
We do not need to give up private judgment, because
many of God's s?ints have been Romanists ; nor refuse
to learn from the Lives of Schleiermacher, or Bunsen,
or Robertson of Brighton, who, all, had so much that
was nobly Christian, because they had some opinioiis
which we dispute ; nor turn High Churchmen, from the
Life of Jeremy Taylor ; noi lose the pleasure and profit
of such Biographies as Schiller's, or Richter's, or of
any wise and serious minds, because they went farther
than we, or stopped short of us, in some matters. We
can never be wholly at one with any thoughtful and
truthful book or man. Individuality means contrast
with others; and, without it, there is little to learn
from any one. Colourless lives are apt to leave us
worse than they find us. Men strong of head and
heart, or of heart rather than head, if there must be a
choice, who have done good work in their day, give us
part of their strength as we study them. Healthy
principle, broad sympathies, a deep sense of duty, and
earnest diligence in it, divine insight into truth, wise
intelligence, and, above all, wherever it can be found,
the loving recognition and service of Christ, are always
and everywhere profitable, in any Lives.

In all such reading do not forget that the mere facts
and outward frame of a Life are by no means of most
significance. Try to get to the man himself, and read

HELPS.

'93

1 ^

'•$

his story by the light of his motives and aims. Not to
understand him, is to misinterpret his whole story. A
Life is the sum of a man's thoughts and purposes ; not
the outward procession of act and incident. Failures,
errors, enthusiasms, are often but misdirections of what
is noblest ; blind strivings towards the highest ideals.
Much in every one is the accident of education, age,
opportunities, or temperament. You must strip off
these masks to see the true Life. Try to look at
things as he saw them who did them : to reproduce his
circumstances, and re-live his life. How many great
souls have been misunderstood; looked at by owl's
light of prejudice or ignorance, instead of by God's
light of charity and intelligence ! The external facts
of a Life are but the body, from which no one can
judge the soul ; for unworthiness too often hides under
the finest figure, leaving true manhood and worth with
the mis-shapen. I speak, not of open and evident

vice, but of all else in a career.

But it is quite impossible to limit or define the range
of books from which a healthy mind will get good.
There is a vital Chemistry in morals as in Nature,
which extracts life and beauty from what is otherwise
useless or worse. Not that I would encourage danger-
ous reading in any. Very much the reverse. But
what is so to some, is what others demand. A strong
swimmer is as safe in the blue water as in the shallow,
but let him be sure he is what he thinks himself. To
go after novelty from mere affectation of manliness, or
to be in the fashion, is weak folly. There is always a

194

HELPS.

II ii

school, in every age, followed very much by young
men, who slight whatever is old, in religion, as well as
elsewhere ; and think everything new, oracular. Crude
theories find crude disciples : and dogmatism has
always charms for the ignorant and the mentally feeble.
Hoist nobody's pennant rashly. The scientific me-
thod, so admirable in its place, is apt to turn religion
into an intellectual process, and eliminate the spiritual
element, which is its life. Beware of the di.'orce of
the head from the heart. Before you turn philosopher,
be a Christian, and as your principles and convictions
deepen you will feel free for outside inquiries. To
begin otherwise is to prejudice the mind against
spiritual truth, for the tendency of all scientific pur-
suits, natural or theological, when the religious faculty
has not been trained and developed beforehand, is apt
to be towards rome form of materialism, or nebulous
doubt. There is nothing between us and blank Pyr-
rhonism, if we have not the safeguard of a well-grounded
faith. Loving communion with God in Christ will
carry you unharmed anywhere. " If a man keep this
unimpaired," says Dr. Arnold, " I believe that no in
tellectual study, whether of nature or man, will force
him into Atheism ; but, on the contrary, the new crea
tions of our knowledge, so to speak, gather themselves
into a fair and harmonious system, ever revolving in
their own brightness round their proper centre, the
Throne of God."* Mere speculation, on whatever

I
♦ Dr. Arnold's Life. By Dean Stanley.

HELPS.

195

by young
as well as
liar. Crude
natism has
tally feeble,
entific me-
irn religion
he spiritual
di.'orce of
hilosopher,
convictions
Liiries. To
nd against
entific pur-
ious faculty
land, is apt
T nebulous
blank Pyr-
il-grounded
Christ will
1 keep this
that no in
, will force
; new crea
themselves
Jvolving in
:entre, the
I whatever

points, is not religion. It may be useful, if only to
secure a thorough investigation of facts and opinions,
but as to our spiritual life, if alone, it is the flapping of
a loose sail, keeping us back rather than helping us.
Cold, critical books are the surgeon's knife on the
dead body of Religion, which misses the soul ; — barren
fig trees, with nothing but leaves. An educated man
must, of course, read in many directions, and cannot
always have the faith and warmth in his authors he
might desire, but if they want them, let him supply
both. Still, it is not good, in any way, to engross our-
selves too much with the merely intellectual in religion :
the heart is the man, not the brain, and if intellect be
clear, it is cold. Take care of the fatal drowse that
comes with too long exposure in such air. Turn back,
ever and anon, to something better. The simplest
and humblest Manual that breathes deep religious
feeling ; the plainest Life of a true child of God, or a
few verses of Scripture, will do you more good than
any scientific treatise. The best way to settle any
doubts is to turn from theories about details, or even
on essentials, to books of living and earnest religious
thought and practice, honestly yielding your heart and
life to their lessons. It is in this light that healthy
religious Biography is of supreme good, or, indeed,
any religious book that carries us with % as a true
utterance of the soul.

Nothing is more needed to keep us clear and firm
in our convictions than intelligent views on Christian
Doctrine. Not that we can have every detail of spiri-

196

HELPS,

tual truth reduced to its place in a system, but, still,
without clearness on cardinal points, we must have
sentiments rather than convictions, and be always ex-
posed to change. Christianity is more than a system
of morals ; it is a faith in historical facts as well, and
their bearing on our salvation. The Life and Death
of Christ, and His Resurrection, are no mere accidents
of a grand or touching story, from which we have only
to learn what we can, as from that of any one else.
Our relations to them, and theirs to us, involve our
whole future. To read their meaning aright, and to
accept it, is vital. To know Christ and the power of
His Resurrection, and to understand why so much
stress is laid on his death, is implied in our being
Christians at all, in the New Testament sense. To
overlook them is to ignore the point and burden of
both Epistles and Gospels. Through the whole of
both, morals are introduced only as if incidentally;
the great scheme is a Redeemer, — sinless, yet crucified,
but now risen, by whom we are saved through faith in
His blood. As to morals, they are treated as only this
faith in action. The dislike of any approach to sys-
tematic theology has led to vague denunciations of
doctrine, and no little cant about ethics preceding it.
Take up the New Testament, and you will find that
to speak so is a double mistake. Before any human
systems were framed, it supplied the material which
they all claim only to classify, and it lays the
foundation of the only morals it owns, in Christian
love.

HELPS.

197

How best to study these supreme questions, then, is
beyond all thuigs important. To expect laymen to
turn to theological treatises would be foolish. They
are often dry enough even to those to whom they
are text books, though some have no such defects.*
But the New Testament itself has charms for every
Christian. Theology, grtthered from it, is direct from
the sprirg. It was the only Manual of the first centu-
ries, to which we all look back as the golden age of
the Faith. St. Augustine, the father of systematic theo-
logy, in the modern sense, was not born till a.d. 354,
and what was so long in coming cannot be held indis-
pensable. I do not disparage a well reasoned Scrip-
tural digest of Christian truth. In religion, as in all
other studies, method and order are of the greatest
importance, and that Faith must be the most com-
prehensive, and most intelligent, which rests on the
soundest reasoning, and on such a wide induction of
sacred authority as scientific theology alone can supply.
More than this, I believe it is from the deficiency of
this philosophical treatment of Christian Doctrine it
our pulpits, that much of the religious agitation we
see arises. Still, the fact remains, that the first be-
lievers had no " Institutes " but the Bible, and had to
make their theology from it, in most part, for them-
selves. Take their example. Make the New Testament
your private text book. Ponder it in parts, and as a
ivhole, with the wish and prayer to be taught of God,

♦ Let me instance — The
1868, An admirable book .

Increase of Faith. Blackwoods,

iqS

HELPS.

and with the aid of the best helps you can get, and I
feel assured of your becoming, not only a moralist,
but an intelligent Christian. That you should under-
stand it all is not to be hoped ; for it treats, by neces-
sity, of much that will only be fully known in a higher
state. But you will understand the leading truths of
your faith. Nor need the presence of mysteries trouble
you. Even Uncle Tom had wit enough to say, that,
when he sought a religion, he would seek one above,
not below him. We cannot expect to trace the sun-
beam up to its source : it is enough that it lightens us
where we are.

In these days, I must add a word in behalf of the
spiritual freedom which rests on our private judgment
as the supreme authority in matters of faith. It is the
glory of Christianity that it first proclaimed the divine
right of man to settle his own creed and opinions.
Liberty finds its Magna Charta in the New Testament.
It demands for every one that to his own Master he
standeth or falleth. What neitlier Greek, nor Roman,
nor Jew, had known, is the birthright of Humanity
since the advent of Christ. In religion, He abolished
for ever the rule of the priest. Henceforth, conscience
is responsible only to God. No class of men have
any longer a claim to be authoritative interpreters of
His wU. The race, for the first time, is brought face
to face with its Maker.

Unable at once to use so new and grand a concep-
tion, even Christianity, after a time, fell back into
bondage to the priest. The mind ceased to think,

HELPS,

199

and kneeled at the feet of the Church. Darkness fell,
thick and deadly, over the world. The revolt of the
West, which we know as the Reformation, brought
back the day. Its fundamental principle was the
protesting against interference with the Freedom ot
Thought and Opinion. Its creed is noble. It sets
the Christian minister at your side, as your friend and
teacher, not above you, as a ghostly power between
you and God. It allows no man more influence with
God than another, except that of superior goodness.
It raises the Holy of Holies in the breast, not in a
Church : it knows no sacrifice but a broken heart,
besides that once made on the Cross ; no priest, but
Him who has passed into the heivens ; no priestly
robes, but the holiness of our lives. Be true to this
magnificent heritage.

To question the liberty of thought is as opposed to
reason as it is to instinct. Passive obedience, or self-
annihilation, itself, claimed by any authority, must be
shown a warrant for the demand, before it submits ;
and even its blindest slave must have freely thought
and decided upon this warrant before he received it.
The Church, or any other claimant of spiritual des-
potism, must point out the proofs that show her right.
Nor can it be allowed that any authoritative interpre-
tation be affixed in advance, for the title and power
to do either is the very point to be proved, and can
be acknowledged at all, only when the true meaning
is fixed by individual judgment. Until this is done,
she stands at the bar of the private opinion of every

100

HELPS,

inquirer. We must use our reason to learn that it must
not be used !

The word " Authority," in any such application, is,
indeed, a mere illusion and mockery. Man has no
authority that can bind the thoughts. The bars of a
prison do not convince ; the rack or the stake cannot
force the humblest to reject what he thinks truth.
" You may sew up my mouth," said the philosopher,
" imprison me, load me with chains, but my soul is
free, and will remain so." There can be no belief
without a willing assent. Doubt cannot be com-
manded away : it yields only when its grounds are
removed. If convincing arguments are advanced,
they are sufficient, without authority ; if not, the doubt
remains, and authority stands bafifled by want of
adequate proof of its point. God has made us re-
sponsible only to Himself. We cannot believe, if we
would, what we do not feel to be true. To think at
all, is to judge for ourselves ; to cease to think, is to
cease to be men.

Have nothing to do with any lord of the conscience
but God. All others are mockeries and impostures.
It is in the nature of men to be Popes. We find them
many times in our lives, elsewhere than on the Tiber.
But it is that fell Anachronism who, by himself, and
his satellites, in Protestantism or in Popery, is busiest,
now, to enthral the mind. The shadow of intellectual
slavery threatens again to eclipse the light. Be a free
man. Human authority in matters of religion palsies
the soul. It abjures progress* and denounces all

h >

i ;

HELPS.

201

liberty. Its Encyclicals and Allocutions are the
manifestoes of chaos and night. Shun licence, but
vow yourself to truth, as her faithful knight, to follow
her wherever she may lead. The fair daughter of God,
where can she lead, but, in the end, to His feet ?

I ..

READING.

]

JOHNSON'S answer to the question " Who was
the most miserable man?" — that it was "he who
could not read on a rainy day" — seems pretty
nearly right, if we may judge from the universahty and
immemorial antiquity of books of some kind. Wher-
ever a spark of civilization has kindled any higher
than mere physical wants, they are sure to show them-
selves in some form. It may be going too far back to
admit the literal exactness of an advertisement lately
in all our journals, of " Pre-adamite Literature," or to
accept Paul Ikster's catalogue of our First Parents'
library, or to receive the opinion of some Irish writers,
that there were public libraries in their island before
the Flood, or of some others, who gave Noah a nauti-
cal library in his Ark — but, still. History and Books
dawn together. The grey twilight of the world saw
the stylus busy in the far East, writing sacred poems,
and we know not what else, on thick, fleshy tropical
leaves. Egypt lifts the curtain from her earliest days
to show us, at Thebes, the Temple of Thoth — " The
God of Letters," with the divinity himself sitting
throned over the gate, as the guardian genius of the

I*-.

HEADING.

203

literary wonders of the " Library " within — and Canaan
had its Book City — Kiriath Sepher — and its Gebal, or
Byblos, as the Septuagint reads it, that is — " Univer-
sity Town."* As to Assyria, its clay chronicles lie by
the ton in the British Museum. Asia Minor had its
Pergamos ; Greece and Rome need no mention ; and
Persia had its Medain. Modern books outrun the
forests, now, in their leaves, and, but that the laws of
mortality include them as well as their readers, would
soon leave us no standing room.

There is an endless pleasure in reading. For
books, as Milton says, "are not absolutely dead
things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be
as active as that soul was, whose progeny they are :
nay, they do preserve, as in a phial, the purest efficacy
and extraction of that living intellect that bred them."
They are the true metempsychosis and transmigration
of souls, by which the illustrious dead pass up and
down among men for ever. As Bacon says — they are
like ships that sail through the seas of Time. Indeed,
they are all that remains of the past ; except what
museums have of stray flotsam and jetsam from the
great wreck ; waifs cast ashore from the abyss in which
ail else has gone down. And, after all, without books,
even they would be Sphinx's riddles. All that men have
proposed, discovered, done, felt, or imagined, so far as
it still survives, does so in books, as distant horizons
are refracted, at times, on the vapours of the air.
Kingdoms and empires have shrunk into so r.iany
• Ewald's ** Geschichte des Volkes Israel," i. 354.

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alphabetic characters ; their kings and mighty men,
with all their affairs, wars, triumphs, national calamities;
their cities, and broad territories ; are shrunk into so
many printed words, in so far as they still live. Books
are the speculum in which all the past lives again, as
the future fore-enacted itself in that of the astrologer.
The dead generations revisit the glimpses of the moon
in books, and the story of the world is rehearsed again
for whoever learns to read them. They break down
the barriers between the past and the present, and
make us the heirs of all ages.

Like the minds of which they are the lasting images
and outward presentiments. Books are of all tempers
and tastes ; grave or gay ; learned or entertaining ; for
passing acquaintance or lasting friendship, wise coun-
sellors or light Yoricks ; travellers, poets, philoso-
phers; lovers of science, gossips and quid-nuncs, in
black or in motley, as you may choose. You get into
society, in the widest sense, in a great Librar)', with
the huge advantage of needing no introductions, and
not dreading repulses. From that great crowd you
can choose what companions you pleasej for in these
silent levies of the immortals there is no pride, but
the highest is at the service of the lowest, with a
grand humility. You may speak freely with any, with-
out a thought of your inferiority ; for books are per-
fectly well-bred, and hurt no one's feelings by any
discriminations. You are free of the noblest of all
guilds, if you be a reader ; that mighty brotherhood
of the noblest of all generations ; the wisest, tenderest,

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205

bravest, purest, sunniest, divincst, who have turned
away from outside glare and bustle, to hold golden
discourse with all who seek them, through all ages.
In a Library you become a true citizen of the world \
time and distance are outside traditions, and you
know nothing of death or change. Character must
be elevated by intercourse with lofty thinkers, pure
moralists, devout worshippers, and penitent seekers
after God j the manners must be refined by the perfect
training and finished culture, the sweet delicacy and
refinement, and the lofty ideals, they offer ; and there
can be no delight wanting in the quiet dreams an(i
fancies they awaken, for they hold in their enchanted
bounds the whole realm of the beautiful in nature and
truth. Books are the visible souls of men, and a
good book, like a good life, is filled, as a lamp, with
light.

But, whatever they be, they are your servants.
Kings and princes of intellect, wisdom, and good-
ness, wait on the humblest guests. There is no mood
in which they will not meet you, and Xerxes need not
have sighed for a change of pleasure had he betaken
himself to their offices.

Books are moralists even as they stand on our
shelves, and while still shut. Their humility is a
keen satire on our small pride. They never complain.
We may neglect them ; they say nothing. We sit
amongst them and seek their help, and forthwith they
give us their wisdom, or old world stories, or bright
fancies, or sweet consolations, till we cry enough, and

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bid the dear babblers hush. They know no respect
of persons, but are royally courteous, with their grand
politeness to peasant and peer, alike. We get heated,
and troubled, and puffed up : books keep a lofty sere-
nity, befitting immortals. They, for the most part,
have no passions ; and even where they are affected,
they soon die off to a harmless echo, like distant
laughter. They make us ashamed of ourselves, in
their presence. Our fumes and vapours die away
before their calm rebuke. Our troubles lose their
name before their majestic repose, which they have
reached through perhaps infinitely greater; now —
only forgotten bubbles on the clear flow of their
Eternity. Their immortal peace silently hushes our
fretting. What are our fermentations and whimsies
seen from their serene heights ! They look down on
us from their galleries, and as we catch their eyes we
are silent. Our envies, jealousies, mean ambitions,
petty rancours, and strifes, and exaggerations, gnaw
and consume us, but they know nothing of them all,
and stand lovingly side by side, their heats, and heart-
burnings, and eruptions, forgotten for ever. The
fiercest opponents find an Elis, disturbed by no angry
sounds, on their shelves, and let the dust gather on the
records of their ancient wars. Amidst books, we sit
in the fore-court of Eternity, for these ethereal and
impassive essences know no signs of age after decades
of centuries.

As all the murmurs of our cares and follies sink
into quiet before their tranquillity, so, our fears find a

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207

gentle remonstrance and abatement. What troubles
us, and fills with gloomy forebodings, turns out to be
only a repetition of what has proved harmless in the
past. There is no dread of the swell, rolling towards
us in mountains, after having seen just the same pass
idly under us, and away, behind, over the great wastes.
The new proves to be only the very old, and thought,
like the winds, is found to move in circles. "The
Church in danger," wakes no alarm, when we know
she has many times survived worse crises uninjured ;
and we learn confidence about the State, when books
tell us that what we doubt, and think the Deluge, has,
once and again, proved either harmless o: beneficial.
Our vanity finds its bladder pricked when we find its
triumphs only resuscitations of old failures, and tha^
Daedalus, long ago, tried the same wings, with the
most humiliating results.

The sublime patience and forbearance of books is
like the placidity of the Sphinx ; a perpetual sermon
without words. We lose our tempers, forget self-
respect, get petulant and wanton, and boil over, at
dulness, or inattention, or opposition. If evc^ry whim-
wham we offer be not praised, we think ourselves
ill-used. But there is no such pettiness in books:
you cannot ruffle their calm dignity by any slight, or
stupidity, or contradiction. They shine on us, like
the skies, indifferent to our moods ; and, let us treat
them ever so rudely, look down on us, as if through,
clear and serene air, as Lord Bacon says, " with pity,

• <

and not with swelling or pride."

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READING,

Books are the great trainers of men, for work of
whatever kind. Not that they are the only discipline
or education ; every thing has its lesson if we read it
aright ; but they are the storehouse from which both
Use and Reflection draw their materials. Without
them, we start in life with the wilderness to reclaim
before we can plough or reap : with them, we have
the soil ready to our hand. To clear the trees, drain
the swamps, and prepare for seed, take huge labour,
and weary years, that are spared where pioneers have
preceded. The wastes of ignorance have been re-
claimed by past generations, and he who uses their
knowledge, begins as with the broad English fields of
to-day, instead of with the savage wildness of old,
unbroken woods. Instead of Tubalcain, he has Ste-
phenson for his engineering, and for Jubal's Pan pipes
he has Haarlem organs. Without books, the advances
of all men before us are well-nigh lost, for practice
alone, without education, makes little way. We can
be, at most, empirics, without reasons for acting other
than fancied experience. We have to begin the
alphabet of knowledge, when we should have been
far on in the details. Books compress into hours or
days the thought and invention of ages : they are
machines and tools to utilise strength and realise
what would be impossible without tlieir help. Nature
gives us the capacity only; the tools with which to
work ; books must fit us to use them, and direct us in
doing so ; and they often supply the materials needed.
They are the brick and stone^ the mortar and timber

READING.

2og

of whatever building we propose erecting. John
Hunter and George Stephenson, illustrious instances
of triumph over early disadvantages, lamented to the
last that they had lost years, and were crippled for
life, by their deficiencies. Books show us what we
cannot do, as well as what we can, and the easiest
way. Ignorance attempts impossibilities, and loses
substance, as well as time and spirits, by the mistake.
How many schemes has it supported which natural
laws forbade; how many follies, which knowledge
would have exploded in advance. Books not only
methodize work for us and start us fairly, — they form
the mind, and are for our faculties what manual labour
is to the mechanical arts. With the mind as with the
hand, practice makes skill. They awaken our sleeping
powers; excite the fancy; develope reflection; and
give us mental bone and muscle. Children and th<j
illiterate can think only in broken flashes ; wise read-
ing makes us able to follow the track of a thought,
even where faint, with a patient and practised skill.
We come, by it, to be able to use our faculties ai5
the trained runner his limbs, reaching on, fresh and
vigorous, where others are blown and fall behind. It
is an indispensable element of any wide and lijDeral
culture, and, indeed, its basis; for mere practical
knowledge of a science, or art, or profession, may
leave the mind narrow and hard, familiar only with
its own sheep-walk, but knowing little besides. But
wide and wise reading gives a breadth and liberality
of tone and feeling, by a wide comparison and a jusit

210

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estimate of relative values. It harnesses us for our
work ; guides us to a right course ; leads us to the
front, and gives us the vantage in starting; corrects
vanity and over-confidence, and gives a gentle charity
and humility as sweet to ourselves as to others.

But it must not be thought that books alone make
a man, or that merely to know them is education.
The practical is needed to apply and expand the
theoretical. The farmer, the gardener, the planter,
must perfect by experience what he has acquired the
rudiments of by reading. Neither physic nor law are
to be practically known from books, and none are
more ignorant of the characters of men than those
learned pedants, whose lives have been entirely con-
sumed in colleges and among books.* The mere
reader may be virtually ignorant, because unable to
use what he knows. Mere words and facts, dead and
disjointed, leave a man empty and unfurnished as to
all true education. Mechanical practice perfects in
physical arts : intellectual discipline must be added
to mere knowledge, in higher studies. It was a keen
hit made at Kennaquhair University, to lift the college
Ass through the Dean's class-room window. Know-
ledge and wisdom are by no means identical; you
find huge pyramids of learning built up, not seldom,
with stupidity for mortar. Wisdom may know fewer
words and single, disjointed facts, but she has a
divine insight that looks through the surface of things
to their essence; that quickens dead facts into lifie,

• Vivian Grey, 145.

»r our
o the
rrects
larity

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211

and, without so much book knowledge, knows infinitely
more and higher than mere books, read without her
aid, could teach. Knowledge accumulates, but, at
the best, its brain is only a dusty cobweb full of dead
flies. Wisdom thinks, and makes a solar Drummond
light of a point of dull lime.* . Knowledge is r. huge
feeder but never fattens. I shall have more to say of
what makes true reading : at present, I only warn you
that merely to know is not to be educated. The man
may be undeveloped, while the mechanical faculties of
the brain are vigorous. What is education is, indeed,
a hard question, in these days of universal diffusion of
printing. With the greatest of all books, which has
moulded the higher thoughts of these last ages, since
Ezra gathered it into a Canon, and Apostles completed
it, in the poorest houses, and cheap Shakspeares, and
Poets, and what not, it is hard to say that any man
who can read is uneducated. There are no scales
in which to weigh culture, but surely he is a pooi
goose-cap and feather-brain who sits down to discuss
whether Burns or Shakspeare were illiterate, or to
what length scholarly. Child ! they knew what you
can never know ; they read Man, and knew much of
us all, for evermore ; they were high priests of Nature,
and, like him of old, were let pass inside the Holy of
Holies, and see mysteries hidden from all common

• The Drummond or Lime Light, is an intensely bright light
caused by a jet of oxygen and hydrogen, mixed in the propor-
tions in which they make water, both being turned on a cylindef
of lime.

-J

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READING.

eyes. The greatest men have rarely been great scho-
lars. Knowledge is only Adam before the living
breath made him more than the clay model of a .nan.
The highest intellect cannot keep to the earth long
enough to master vocables and dictionaries as patient
dulness can ; it rises ever and anon towards the sun,
to sail on the bosom of the upper light.

Still, withal, books are the great magicians who
work any miracles at our bidding. They make the
dead, long silent, ages, stir, and speak, and play their
whole fitful drama again for our pleasure and instruc-
tion. What pageants they evoke ! Look through the
chink they open into the long past centuries — the
arrow slits in the dark walls that gird us round — what
glimpses of brightness and moving life ! Mardonius
and Xerxes, Miltiades and Themistocles, Marathon
and Salamis — the whole story of the agony that saved
Western civilisation in its first great peril, is before us.
Alexander at the Granicus, at Issus, and Arbela rolls
back the many-tongued hosts of the great king. Greek
and Barbarian, they have long ago met in peace in the
pale kingdon>s, but in books they come back again,
and pass before us. Greece with its Pericles, its
Phidias, its Socrates, and Plato ; Rome with its kings,
consuls, tribunes, and emperors, are all astir again.
The trumpet wakes from their long sleep the bronze-
clad hosts of Cannce, and Thrasymene, Pharsalia
and Actium. The remorseless, enigmatical Sylla, the
coarse Marius, the mighty Caesar, and the weak
Pompey, live once more. The cold, bloodless, crafty

;

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213

Octavian, the wise Trajan, the restless Hadrian, the
wonderful Antonines, and that long summer of the
world — the happiest age of all history — when the earth
rejoiced and was at rest — that closed with Marcus
Aurelius — rise at our call. But why unrol the vast
canvas; the whole past lives still in books. Then,
how they carry us to all the enchanted realms of
thought. Poetry reproduces Nature round and within
us; the outer visible glory, and the inner life. We
cannot all buy pictures, or even see the fields, or
woods, or clouds ; nor can we all put our thoughts in
such words as we should like, or give right names to
things, or see hidden relations and harmonies — but
the poets do it for us, and create an airy Universe,
peopled with visible thoughts and fancies, and bring
the beautiful into a printed line, and speak our
thoughts for us, and the thoughts of men around, and
bring out the unnoticed unities and contrasts that
make all things one. Poetry is Nature's ^olian harp,
which speaks its lightest Ariel singings or saddest sighs ;
its mirror, in which the sun and the storm-cloud have
each their turn ; and books are its voice. Intellect, in
all its triumphs, embodies itself in books, and speaks
through them to the world. I don't know whether it
be a saying of others or my own, but they have the
eyes of Argus, the swift feet of Mercury, and the
gravity and wisdom of Pallas. No wonder they grow
to be a passion. They are the delight of cliildhood,
the strength and incitement of youth ; the relaxation of
toil ; the companions of solitude ; the consolations of

trouble ; the wisdom of all who use them aright ; the
rejuvenation and anodyne of age. No wonder Cicero
says that he would part with all he was worth, so he
might but live and die among his books. No wonder
Heinsius wrote — " In the lap of Eternity, among so
many divine souls, I take my seat with so lofty a spirit
and such sweet content, that I pity all the great ones
and rich men, that have not this happiness." No
wonder Petrarch was among them to the last, and was
found dead in their company. It seems natural that
Bede should have died dictating, and that Leibnitz
should have died with a book in his hand, and Lord
Clarendon at his desk. Buckle's last words — " My
poor book " — tell a passion that forgot death, and it
seemed only a fitting farewell, when the tear stole down
the manly cheeks of Scott, as they wheeled him into
his Library, when he had come back to Abbotsford to
die. Southey, white-haired, a living shadow, oitting
stroking and kissing the books he could no longer
open or read, is altogether pathetic.
, What to read, and how, are the great questions.

I. Make distinctions. Indiscriminate and depraved
appetite in reading is as fatal as it is degrading. Un-
fortunately, it is not the negroes only who are dirt
eaters. We need to be as careful of our printed as of
our living companions, and of our mental as of our
bodily food.

Immoral books are of course to be avoided, whether
gross and sensual, or unprincipled. Character is as
much needed in books as in nien. Insincere books,

^ i

READING.

*iS

written for a purpose, and partizan books, blind to
anything calm and impartial, are pestilent ; often mis-
leading, and, if not, at least confusing and blunting
the moral sense. I take Warburton's " Divine Lega-
tion," justly or unjustly, as a type of books in which
the pretended aim is not at all the real one ; display
of learning, brilliancy and power of sustaining paradox,
appearing much more the impulse, than belief in any
views, or modest earnestness to advance them. Your
Free-lances in literature, ready to fight under any
leader, with opinions and zeal mercenary as a lawyer's
— their only thought victory and pay, not the right or
the wrong of a thing — who let their conscience on
hire, are happily rare now-a-days ; but, where they show
themselves, are to be shunned. Cobbett's " History
of the Reformation" is perhaps as good an example of
such books as modern days have seen ; a book utterly
unprincipled and untruthful. One-sided biography;
books whose authors take pains not to hear both
sides ; books manufactured ; not conscientiously true
and honest — avoid.

Don Juan literature, of all ages, is pestiferous as
an open ditch in hot weather. No genius, or wit, or
humour, can excuse or neutralise its wantonness.
Unfortunately, there is always a supply of it, not
seldom from the highest, or most pleasing, intellects.
In our day, public opinion forbids licence, but, with
all its outward decorum, corrupting sensational novels,
spiced with inuendoes, and framing their plots with
divorces, seductions, and the like, are immensely

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READING.

popular, while we have at least one new poet of the
Stews. The worst is, bad books, too often, live longer

'S than good ones. Bulwer's early novels will always be
read more than his later, to the infinite injury of
many. Rabelais, that gross satyr and beast-man, has
been reprinted in these last years, and so has
Boccaccio's Decameron, and so have the Dramatists
of the Restoration, though the sale of such books

j^ surely cannot be large. Lewdness has it all it , own
in them. Their wit or beauty are seldom the upper-
mor' thought; if one turn to them often, they taint
the mind. Last century, and the close of the one
before it, have left an obscene ooze of immorality
and grossness behind them, in nearly all the books
Ihey produced. Dryden's translations, Swift's poems,
and the Belles Lettres of the whole period, down to
Johnson, except the Essayists and their like, are foul
as the Serbonian bog. Unreflecting praise of impure
books by men themselves past youth is a great
calamity. Charles Lamb's laudation of " Tom Jones,"
for instance, is right enough, if only the genius of
Fielding be in mind ; but what good can the know-
ledge of human nature, the wise philosophy, or the
good design, do in the face of the loose example of
the hero, and the libertinism in both sexes that
obtrudes itself in every chapter. To lead any one
through such dirty lanes, even to final reformation,
fouls whoever may follow the story. As to " Roderick
Random," and the merely amusing novels of last cen-
tuiy, young men must be far gone before they get a

READING.

^l^

liking to hunt such sewers for chance spoons or
shillings. Charlotte Bronte was right in chiding her
hero, Thackeray, for lauding Fielding as he did, and
in reminding him how much harm indiscriminate praise
of such books as his does to young men such as her
poor brother. It may be, that with a few men, literary
taste, or purposes of study, or strength of principle, or
temperament, may make any reading harmless, as Etty
was one of the purest of men, though spending his
life in painting naked goddesses ; but it can never be
trusted to as the rule. Coarse feeding makes coarse
flesh. Filthiness, like toadstools, springs rank, from
invisible seeds, and the whole race of unclean books
are no better than smuts, and moulds, and mildews.
Never be ashamed to have your mind as pure as you
would have men believe it. Better let the mud lie
unstirred in our nature : there is enough of it to make
us thankful when it has settled, and lets the water run
clear over it.

It is not always possible, however, to have exactly
what you want in books. Unfortunately, our finest
literature is too often disfigured by the coarseness
of the age in which it was written. It lies here and
there even in Shakspeare, like a. stain on snow. Some,
like Milton and Spenser, from their subjects and their
temper of mind, are pure even in the midst of a
corrupt taste ; but the majority take their colour from
the times, as a stream from its banks. No one fond
of reading can keep clear of all that is wrong, for
to do so would be to turn the key on literature, at

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READING,

once. But you don't give up country walks because
you have to huiTy past some spot in your ramble ;
why not hurry past what hurts or offends in a book, as
well ? Everything turns on the spirit and tone of what
we read. With some, passing impurity is an accident j
with others, it is ingrained and essential. To seek
grossness for its own sake argues grossners : to avoid
a great author because he offends good taste here and
there is impossible, if our minds are to grov/. It
depends on the mood in which we meet indelicacy
whether it harm us. Without courting, and while
regretting them, it would not do to proscribe everything
that has any blemishes. Where there is no sympathy,
the passing shadow leaves no mark, " d raises aversion
rather than pleasure. A healthy mind is the great
safeguard. It is predisposition that induces infection :
the poison must have something in the blood, of which
to lay hold, before it can fever us. It is a libel on
any one to say of himself that every spark may catch
and inflame him. If you must do it, as a student, or
from the unavoidable mixture of the bad with the
good — touch impurity as the sea-bird touches the wave,
to rise from it with no trace of the contact, or, like
the light, pure whatever it shines upon. We cannot
always keep under glass, and we meet coarseness
elsewhere than in books. The great thing is to have
strength to repel it. Still, there is plenty for a young
man to read that is pure and good without turning to
the filthy, however mixed with the reverse. I would
not, for example, advise you to begin Tristram Shandy,

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219

though Uncle Toby l)e in it, and Lc Fcvre's Story —
while you have not read Goldsmith, who is as pure as
Tristram is immodest. Many books do no harm after
a time, that are not best to begin with. The less you
have to do with uncleanncss of any kind, the better.
They say thfit serpents cannot let go what they once
have begun to swallow ; it must go down, and stay
there : and so, alas, too often, with evil. To touch it
is to have too much of it. Besides, in any case, selec-
tion is possible. Some books are so vile that to open
them is to look into a steaming crater, with sulphur
fumes meeting you at the first glance. There is much
even in Shakspeare which would have been better
left out. Some of his characters are better unknown,
either in imagination or real life. The Comedies are
too often unworthy of him, but the Tragedies are
magnificent every way. It is, indeed, a wonder that
he is so pure as he is ; so free from the faults of his
age ; with so grand a morality ; so devout a religious-
ness j so lofty a discourse on all that most affects us ;
but, if he were amongst us now, I question if he would
not put his pen through a good many expressioRS,
and issue his own " Household Edition." Still, with
him, you have, at the worst, only threads, here and
there, through pure Parian : earthstains on the diamond,
where, in others, the stray pearls lie scattered, rarely,
over whole banks of vileness.

Iconoclast Literature, which sets out to sneer at, or
contradict, whatever men think most sacred, needs a
voung man to hav-e thoughtful care of it. If read, both

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sides should be so. Nothing is easier than to franw
false hypotheses, and as Dr. Cullen said long ago,
tl ire are always " false facts" to support them. Scien-
tific men and very broad theologians have started
Pilate's question once more, and write away the credit
of all the Thirty-nine Articles in hasty Essays. They
must needs remodel religion, and are ready, like Mum-
mius with the pictures of Apelles, to furnish other
creeds for what they destroy. We are in the cold fit
of our religious history at present: the warmth will
return with reviving health. Religion courts light,
but it asks sunlight. Temperate and reverend criti-
cism can only do good, but light repudiation and
jeering is a mistake, often exposed already. False
preconceptions, and human mistakes and exaggerations
must perish ; but the living truth, which has survived
so much, will outlive any mere modes and notions. A
habit of doubt is fatal to a calm and fair estimate of
moral evidence, and is like to end in mere Pyrrhonism,
where it does not double back to weak superstiti'^n.

The mere leveller is scarce, however, at present.
Gibbon's pretence of respect for Christianity, while
seeking at every s.tep to discredit it, would meet no
favour, I apprehend, now. He would need to be much
more manly, and to wear his true colours. The trouble
with our day is that the very meaning of religion is
changed with too many critics. It has come to be so
comprehensive that it embraces contradictories ; it is
an intellectual state apart froui its objects or aims.
Christianity keeps its place in the list of faiths, but

READING.

til

only as a system of morals, and finds itself bowed into
a lev^e of all possible creeds as one of the company.
Everything is Christianity now-a-days, and Christianity
is everything. Doctrines are ruled aside : ethics alone
are respected. But mere earnestness is not Chris-
tianity. Jonathan Edwards says the most devout man
he ever knew was a Jew ; and any one who watches
at St. Sophia will soon find that Mahomet has followers
as sincere and self-denying as those of Jesus. But,
surely, it is wrong to treat all religions alike, because
some who belong to them are sincere, or because, in
all religions whatever, there must be some good. The
very sentiment itself is right, at the starting — to wor-
ship : and to a certain length all religions spring from
the same impulses, and exhibit similar principles. But,
after all, there is a vast difference between Christ and
other Masters, else we have a pantheon, not a single
Mediator between God and man. Theodore Parker,
perhaps, offends most flagrantly, of modem English-
speaking writers, against our religious ideas, but he is
not so popular as to do much harm. Emerson comes
close behind, substituting the Pantheism of the Vedas
and Puranas, and of Hegel, for revelation; making
himself and man, in fact, the highest manifestation of
God ; His avatar and ever visible presence. How he
shocks us by bracketing the most unlikely names with
that of Christ, all know who read his books. True,
there is much more mud than depth in his utterances,
but obscurity passes for profundity with many. I take
him for cne of the Iconoclasts who would cut down

222

tie smcerest respect for hf, .h ^°"'«' *'*

admfration of him «!1 "^""■' ^"^ with high
f eat-sou,ed, Tho'."; Sl/^^t'l '°-^-'^-'et
l'"ng man has done so m ,.rT ''' ^"P*"^. No
'0 -ke life real an ~ I T^ *^ ^P«'-' ^
ho'^ brief it is, and how ^Tl'l f '^ '""° *° '^al/se
overshadows us. Hirwonir f"''^ *^ ^^«'' '""'"ra

"o- truthfulness, iS^d o? a f hv"' "'• ^' '°-°-
rehgious feeling his 1,™» "rPocnsies ; his deen

picturesque vi^ X Td'^i"' '"^ -"--muC,
springs and prLipks oT hings ^t? T^'^' ""° '"«
'o h.s generation, and even T'.. , v ^™ ^"^ ''°"°"
- earnest of the fame ^,i " te vif"'' ^''^^ ''™
™Joy. But, with all thi, T •! ^ "^'" P«™anently
™an Should ,ield ^ V o'his ll '"" ' ^°""^
reflection ? I think not. That thet "" '"*°'"

as to his religious opinions is itt'r " "T"""^ ^'^P"'^
there is such uncertainf, Significant: where

Would that, ZnonaSr ' r v '^'■°" '^^^°"--
^ects or organizations, thtgrdm' °™' ^^^^'^'"S
wuh Christians in th; o:d,Cr; ^ 'Th 'A'"" ^'^
to do so, he himself would be !r« ! '^"' '''■^^
'edge it; That he is a better mJ)l '° ^"''"°'^-

themselves so. is little, rmo" ftWsT"^ ^''° ^^'^
monopoly of Christian . BuTwhSi^ "° ""''"^ "

-esamehige,cu::^^--r -Xe:

READING.

223

W, and give

Some, with

^ with high

»ig-hearted,
npany. "^q

e spiritual;
^ to realise
'reat future
conscien-
; his deep

agination,
t into the
in honour
give him
nianently
t a young
- without
^ dispute
■• where
e follow. .
-hewing
himself
felt free
cknow-
ho caJl
eans a
place ?
irallel,
mark,
s eye,

the same picturesque individuality of style and treat-
ment, the same worship and noble reverence. As-
suredly it would be contrary to the teaching of the
" Life of Sterling," — that truest and most touching of
all modern Lives — to rank him in any church in the
common use of the word. Nor can the whole cast of
his thoughts and language be understood, except when
read in the light of a great poet's vision, which makes
the vast Universe one indivisible whole, of which the
spark from the forge, and the light of life, are one with
the stars, revealing the Divine Soul we call God.
Young men, for a generation, have been captivated
by the moral and intellectual grandeur of the modern
prophet, and have striven to think him what his own
presbyterian education defines in its Confession, but can
he, without violence to his noble honesty, be spoken
of thus ? Would that he were as clear and full on this
point of points as he might be. Others, without his
head or heart, are like to become very different from
him, by misunderstanding him. Jesus Christ is " our
divinest symbol," but is the " Peasant Saint " no more ?
The Bible is "the most earnest of books" — "the Divine
Hebrew Book," but is our highest guidance our own
nature, instead, or how far beyond earnestness does
the Bible lead us ? I write in no narrow spirit of any
school, but with a deep sense of the infinite mystery
over and around us ; of the awful mystery we ourselves
are. I ask or expect no sharp pre-raphaelitism in the
details of a creed ; vague Turner haze, on the distance,
and upper perspective, would content me ; but to have

224

READING.

all haze, to have not even a clear foreground, leaves
too much room for conjecture, and is liker the con-
fusion of a palette than the intelligent unity of a pic-
ture. Let us at least have a good study, with some
finish in the leading thoughts, if only rough sketching
or vagueness round. Granting that the light does hide
the stars ; it reveals the sun.

To proscribe Fiction as such, is simply absurd ; as
much so as a Maine Law against bottles, not their
contents. What matters it what the bottle be if what
it holds is right ? The worst drinks might be, and I
daresay often are, put in the nicest looking. You
can by no means depend on the mere outside shape
for the quality within. Some books have a character,
and are admitted witho'it remark : history, sermons,
poetry, books of life and manners, and yet, beyond
doubt, many are very inferior -, some positively hurt-
ful. There are histories seemingly written by the
Devil's advocate ; sermons, very poor, or thin, or flat
and worthless — plenty of them; poets with a Bona
Roba for goddess, or with no inspiration at all, and
books of life and manners fitted to ruin both ; and
there are Fictions with all the qualities which graver
forms of literature want. Why, Fiction includes every-
thing, from a parable to Reynolds' novels ; from Pil-
grim's Progress to the Mysteries of Paris. It is only
the bottle in which an author puts whatever he has to
offer — history, poetry, the passionr, travel, description,
politics, religion, pictures of life, outer and inner, with
every idiosyncrasy besides, that seeks publicity, and

READING.

225

chooses the most popular medium for diffusion. Nothing
ever was or can be so universally acceptable as tales
and sketches. Human life and passion must ever be
the most human of all things, and hence the most
engrossing. There is a novel in the British Museum
written for an Egyptian prince royal when Moses was
in his bulrush ark ; and our great-great-grandmothers
used to hang over Madame Scuderi's " Clelia " and
the " Grand Cyrus," in ten volumes a piece, as much
as library catalogues of to-day show all the world
does at this moment. You may string what beads you
choose on the thread of Fiction ; diamond necklaces
or paste ; amber or worthless glass j or if, in savage
fashion, you like them better, you may substitute apes*
teeth. The same dress may be chosen by very different
wearers : to condemn all, or any, for wearing an inno-
cent pattern is preposterous enough. If all the imagina-
tive literature in the world were burned up to-day it
would begin again to-morrow, to the infinite advantage
of authors and book manufacturers generally. To say
that fiction cannot be truth is an error ; it is the
strictest truth to some copy, if it be of the highest class,
for it takes rank only as it holds the mirror to Nature.
Exaggeration or caricature has no vitality : only severe
truth has any lasting popularity. Mere didactic novels
are only essays 'n a catching form, and never keep
their place long. How many read " Coningsby," now,
or " Sybil " ? No one aires to have political theories
and party merits sandwiched with love affairs, and
passed off under the name of a novel. The " Caxtons*

! I

226

READING.

and *'My Novel" have a circle who read them for
their criticism and reflections on men and things :
Scott's novels will always keep a large popularity by
their powers of description and dramatic force, their
historical colouring, and wonderful truthful creative
power. Thackeray's amazing reproductions of Life,
true to Nature as a Flemish painting; crystal dials,
beneath which the wheels and works show themselves
in their finest movements— pure as true, and lofty as
pure ; Jane Eyre's, with their mysterious insight into
the inmost thoughts, and power of putting these
thoughts in words; miracles of moral anatomy and
studies of style : — these and many more — those of
Dickens, pre-eminently, will live with a more or
less undying vitality. If they were not true in the
highest sense, they would perish like the ephemera of
the literary season; windfalls to printers and trunk-
makers.

Not to read Fiction now-a-days would be to make
a vow of ignorance, and count reading heretical.
Imaginative literature never had so wide or so bene-
ficent a reign. It is multiplying readers immensely,
and supplying them with an infinite variety of healthful
food. The greatest trouble is, lest the appetite should
grow tyrannical, and refuse anything in other forms.
Novels have their true place, after all, only as a re-
laxation. To make them a habitual indulgence, to
the exclusion of weighty and systematic reading, is a
great mistake. It is unhealthy to give oneself too
much even to the best fiction: it cannot supply all

■ **^^^^**^*^i», ' '

READING.

t'l")

we need, and indisposes us for the application which
is the condition of soHd attainments. At the best it is
a relish ; not daily bread : it may refine, amuse, indoc-
trinate in a light superficial way; give us wise thoughts
and keen observation, but it cannot supplant serious
and unattractive study, or give comprehensive know-
ledge. It teaches only in weak dilution. It is snow-
shoe literature, with a large surface in proportion to
the weight to be carried : better than nothing for
progress, but far below the plain road and fair walking.
Much of it is suited for mental invalids and persons
of weak digestion ; but a healthy stomac*h wants no
such infusions and weak spoon meat. To affect to
get history from Fiction is to seek grain in the unwin-
nowed chaff-heap, when you might have it clean to
your hand. Mere foolish readers, who fly from novel
lo novel, good, bad, or indifferent ; whose only thought
is amusement, forget what is due to themselves, and
dissipate what powers they have. Coleridge was
right in saying that this unsettledness and dislike of
r^al mental work was one of the greatest evils of
excessive liking for light reading. Make the Novel
an indulgence ; not a pursuit : turn to it as a rest after
work, not in place of conscientious industry, and read
only the best.

Light reading of any kind comes under the same \
restrictions as Novels. Magazine and Review readers
are a countless army. They spend years in detached
and fragmentary reading that, after, all does not make
even an intelligible mosaic, and remain ignorant of

228

READING.

more than separate facts and partial glimpses to the
end. There can be very little to learn when a few
pages can teach it. They carry about a brick as a
model of the temple of Knowledge. Not that current
literature is to be overlooked : due attention to it is
most necessary, that we may advance with our age.
Criticism, Monographs, discussions of questions in any
department of thought or inquiry, stimulate, and keep
us from losing practical interest in men and things.
With solid and able essays, wherever found, I have
no fault. But mere confections are cared little for
by healthy appetites. Dissipation is a bad sign for
either mind or body, and so are the foolish likings of
childhood for mere sweets. Your trifling readers fill
their minds as children fill their pockets : they have
the intellectual counterparts of the cherry-stones, the
broken knife, the bits of glass, the top and string, the
old pipe, and the piece of slate-pencil. They are
never men of any weight, but rather talkers, who read
to-day for talk to-morrow : superficial pretenders to
knowledge, who only show by their fragmentary ac-
quirements their real ignorance. They shine with a
phosphorescent, fish-skin light where it is dark enough :
in the day-time they are invisible. What wretchedness
they must at times sufter is hard to realise. One ques-
tion more, and they are gone, or must speak, at best,
at a venture. They have to take Laurie Todd's plan,
and, for want of stock, tie their gimlets or corkscrew s
on brickbat packages, to look like honest bundles and
fill their shelves. They are like stair mirrors that

READING.

22q

invite you to go this way and that, only to stop you
at the next step. Able writing of any kind has its
value : the trouble is when lazy or superficial readers
limit themselves to an essay, and assume airs on the
strength of it. Beware of royal roads to anything
worth while. By-path meadow was longer than the
straight highway.

The great secret of right reading, as of all other
right work, is that it be conscientious and thorough :
that of one who does not forget that life is brief and
work sacred. An earnest man may be left in the com-
pany of any books. There was a world of significance
in Johnson's putting the motto on his watch — -"EpxcTat
vv^— " the Night cometh." This little islet of our life
— with deep calling to deep round it, for ever, and the
tide covering it, moment by moment — is too small for
any neglect. Eternity comes up like the night, hiding
all things, and blotting out the sun. There is no time
for trifling. The true Pactolus, with every sand golden,
is life.

Shall we read old Books or now ? Read both. You
must know the present to be of use to it, and can
know it best and fully only by knowing the past as
well. Some men have a passion for antiquity that
gives it a monopoly of virtues and good qualities, and,
like Charles Lamb, like nothing that is not in folio :
others, foolishly affect to contemn whatever is old,
with a few exceptions, for their own credit. To be a
mere virtuoso and literary antiquary is a very mechan-
ical taste, and has more to do with type, and printer,

230

READING.

and binding, than contents. It is mere affectation to
think nothing good in reading till it hangs long enough
to have a flavour. Coleridge used to say that a dead
dog at a distance smells like musk, and he might have
added the same of a good many dead books. A thing
is not necessarily better for age, though, as a rule, it
must have had extra life in it to keep so long above
ground. Oblivion is covered with the daily drift of
drowning books, and it takes a strong swimmer to
keep afloat were so many are going down around. I
confess to a profound respect for these survivors o!
long dead and forgotten generations: they are the
old Parrs of the literary world : the Shem, Ham, and
Japhets of the other side of the Flood. An oak that
has kept death at bay for centuries claims that you
uncover to it, though it be hollow in part, and gnarled
and doddered with moss and ivy. The abuse of anti-
quity; the making a whim, and fancy, and beguile-
ment, of it, are the evil.

All the present has its roots in the past, and though
our own times be the true antiquity of the world, yet
the youth has affected the age. To stiv and turn over
the soil is as needful for wise gardening as to look at
the growing stem or the leaves. But to waste time on
the mere rubbish of the past — the books that are no
books, as Charles Lamb calls them ; "Almanacs, Court
Calendars, Directories, Pocket Books, Draught-boards,
bound and lettered on the back," and the like, is a
foolish prodigality. How much that was of no value
must Sir Walter Scott, or Southey, or even Charles

READING.

23«

Lamb have read ? If a thing were old it was enough
for them. But to underrate the past is equally unwise.
To read only new books may give surface, but can
never give depth. The great books of the world, like
the stars, shine only here and there, but the zenith has
them as well as the nadir. We walk in the light of
past intellect for most part ; the present, as a rule, is
only the moon to it. We exaggerate what is close to
us and depreciate the past, or the reverse, as our
humour leads, but both are foolish. The great names
of all ages are the mountain chains of Humanity, from
which descend the treasures of the upper heavens to
water the lower levels.

There are some old books about which all are
agreed — Homer, Shakspeare, Milton, and the mighty
spirits whom the world acknowledge. But the lesser
names are more questioned. No one could choose
for another in such a matter. Taste and opportunity
must decide. Young men will, however, of course,
begin with the modern and \" ork back, so that they
will themselves find what most pleases them. The
poets, the great prose writers, the dramatists, and the ,
few great books of foreign birth — Dante, Cervantes, I
Goethe — wait for you, and will enrich you in propor-
tion as you pay them reverence. You cannot be
familiar with many, but, travelling among them, you
can choose your friendship, and freely settle where to
dwell. There is no gift they have not in their store
— imagination ; learning ; genius ; wealth of words ;
thoughtful philosophy ; divine insight j delicate sym-

232

READING.

patliies ; lofty principle ; wit, humour ; every tree and
ilower that God lets grow in the glorious paradise of
the soul's creations. These reverend ancients touch
the eyes, blind before, and nature, within and around,
stands revealed. Their very names are delights. Shak-
speare and Milton, and Jeremy Taylor, and Fuller,
and Sir Thomas Browne, and Bacon, and the last
century Essayists, and Goldsmith, with his exquisitely
natural simplicity and ease, — and a shining train be-
sides ! Thank God for the great books of the world !
One age can do little ; each generation has its own
miracles. The tree of knowledge grows by slow rings,
and owes its height and grandeur to all the past, since
Eden.

To read every book that comes across one, even of
our own particular kind, as an ostrich eats whatever
comes in its way, is to invite mental and moral
dyspepsia and disease to any stomach less than mira-
culous. Negro dirt-eaters swell out with their vile
load, and yet grow leaner each day. Our time is too
short to let us be indiscriminate, and the world of
books too vast for our subduing more than a very corner
of it. Five hundred thousand in the British Museum,
more or less, are equal, at one a week, large and small,
to somewhere about eight hundred years' work, not to
speak of the yearly increase, spreading out like the
breadth of a river, through these centuries, as educa-
tion and population extend. Take the authorities
quoted in any great book, or where the subject is new
to you, and an infinite sea of names, in multitudinous

READING,

^y^

confusion, stretches round you forthwith. Look into
Baylc's Dictionary, or the notes and references in
Gibbon, or look at poor Buckle's unfinished books, or
at D'Isracli the elder's compilations, and you will be
disposed to repeat Newton's humility about picking up
pebbles at the edge of the great sea. Be sure that
you need not attempt t > know everything. The only
thing possible is to choose some path, and master as
much on eacli side of it as you can.

Make a conscience of reading nothing inferior.
Stupidity or commonplace is tolerable only when no
better can be had ; like bread of moss or sawdust,
that needs a famine to get it down, except with sim-
pletons, who will eat anything. Men gave up acorns
when they grew wheat ; and black bread has no chance
against white, where there is either taste or sense.

Have a careful eye on " denominational literature,"
or class reputations. Even brown paper will rise to
the chimney-pots for a time, if kindly winds lend their
mouths to puff it. Young men, especially, are spell-
bound in their respective circles ; fascinated, like
cocks by a chalk mark, unable to get beyond it c^r rise
from it. Men are accepted as oracles of schools and
sects by the accident of their position, apart from
merit. Your popular preachers, able professors, draw-
ing-room poets, and the like, are too often only plaster
gods. The libraries of young men are largely filled
with books which they will be ashamed of after a few
years. I-,et the world, not a clique, be your assayers,
and take nothing without its mint-mark. Some books,

«34

HEADING.

like Charles Lamb's " Essays," or Wordsworth, nevei
get widely popular, from their very merits; others
sirike the public taste, with far less claim to do so, and
are on every table. Mr. Tupper, in his two hundredth
edition, and Thackeray, read only here and there, tell
a lesson of the value of some popular estimates, at any
rate. Many books live only while their auti.ors are
alive, and go down with them, like the weapons and
gala dress of an Indian chief, to the grave. An elderly
man's library is pretty sure to show lines of back
titles no better than tombstones, on what, when bought,
were fashionable and popular treatises. Elia was very
far from alone, in his indignation at the " things in
books' clothing, perched upon shelves, like false
saints, usurpers of true shrines, intruders into the sanc-
tuary, thrusting out the legitimate occupants."* Be
"hary of giving a book the honour of reading it ; and
as to a place in your library, let it be hard to gain as
the inner mysteries. Respect yourself too much to
take up with indifferent company, either in print or in
brond-cloth.

Choose only the best books, and read them well.
An acre thoroughly worked is better than a farm of
weeds. It is not how much you read, but how much
you make of it that tells. Coke's maxim, " non multa
sed multum" — not many things but much — was
Eldon's motto, and has been the rule with every one,
more or less, who has done much to any purpose ; for
the advice is really as old as Pliny and Seneca.

212.

READING.

^11

tell

Clarendon made favourites of Livy and Tacitus, that
he might catch the characteristics of both for his
History; Rousseau fixed on Pijtarch, Montaigne, and
Locke, as his closest book friends ; and Sir William
Jones used to say he read Cicero through every year.
Lord Brougham was a striking example of weakening
one's self by trying too much. The saying was rightly
applied to him, that " his forte was Science, his foible;
Omniscience," for none of his books, except perhaps
his "Sketches of Statesmen," seem at all likely to
survive him. The old Latin proverb bids us beware of
the man of one book.*

Mai.y men spend more time on beginnings than
would make them know much, if less unsettled, and end
without finishing anything, or knowing anything well.
Desultory reading, like all desultory work, undoes to-
day the progress of yesterday, and leaves only so many,
failures. Butterfly readers, passing from book to book
and resting on none, can get little good. Nor does
it do to jumble books without plan in your head.
Determine on a course, and keep in it till you have
mastered it. If History, let one book follow and cor-
roborate, expand, or continue the other ; only, master
your books as you read. Make your road firm as you
go, and keep to a definite aim. Philosophy, morals,
literature, or science, require system and liequence.
Each step, wisely taken, throws light on the next.
The opinions of one thinker open the way to those of
his successor, or are disproved by him. The books
• r^ve ab homine unius libri.

236

READING,

and acts of one generation are the earing and harvest
of those of an earlier. Thought, like the tides, swings
within fixed limits, with ages for systole and diastole,
ebb and full, and to know to-day you must be a
student of all the past. In the story of men and
nations the roots of the present spread, unseen, through
the soil of antiquity, and need tracing. History, and
all past knowledge, is one, as a river is one from the
hills to the sea, or as the day is one from the dawn to
sunset. A period, or school, or science, even in any
of its subordinate aspects, opens insensibly many in-
quiries, branching everywhere. Any study whatever,
like the Roman Forum, finds all roads lead to it and
from it.

How to read is a great matter. Some books, says
Bacon, are only to be tasted ; others swallowed ; some
few are to be chewed and digested : — that is, some
books are to be read only in part ; others, to be read,
but not curiously ; and some few to be read wholly,
with diligence and attention. It would, indeed, be
impossible to do more ; for if such advice were needed
in Bacon's day, what would he give in ours ? Even
single books are often more than can well be mas-
tered, especially the folios that delighted our fore-
fathers. As Erasmus said, one could not carry Aquinas
on his back, far less in his head. Prynne, without his
ears, poor fellow, had a scribbling demon that drove
his pen over the manuscript and supervision for the
press of nearly two hundred books — all rind, no fruit,
as his contemporaries used to say — and what clerk

READING.

237

would now copy what some authors of his generation
published ! Many books, indeed, may be worthy of
much more honour than we can give them ; but what
can one do. It sometimes seems as if Gibbon were
right, that the Latins and Caliph Omar did more good
than harm, by destroying so much of the literature of
antiquity. It is bad enough as it is, with some hun-
dreds of volumes surviving, but what would it have
been, if, for example, the five thousand books written
by Didymus, the grammarian, had clamoured for notice?
English Literature of any one age would be enough to
take up our life, were it v/ise to turn slaves to any one
hobby. But no one should think of burrowing in any
one literary warren all his days. We need varied
knowledge, and except where special study is needed
for a definite end, sufficient thoroughness is gained by
judiciously plannedreading, without demanding length-
ened attention to single points. Some books neither
require nor suggest much thought; others are made
for it. Not a few readers, however, use books to keep
them from thinking ; as others roll their eyes to secure
vacancy, and bring sleep ; which may be well enough
when we need rest after honest work, but if instead of
it, writes its own condemnation. To think is to live :
Descartes was right in his aphorism — " I think, there-
fore I am."* Education is the growth of the mental
and spiritual man, not of the merely mechanical and
mimetic. Stick whittling is not wood carving, nor
could the greatest dexterity in it make a Grinling

• Cogito, ergo sum.

2$S

READING.

Gibbons. Mere reading may employ only the eye and
the mere outside faculties, while the higher sit within,
unemployed and wasting. To think intelligently and
judge soundly ; weighing, balancing, generalizing ; to
be able to reason as you read, and dispute with your
author till convinced, is the indispensable condition of
a healthy intellect, well grown and proportioned.
The faculties get hopelessly incapable of severe atten-
tion, if not trained to it ; the whole mind is debilitated ;
it loses all appetite for healthy food, or power to digest
it. Desultory reading becomes incorrigible, and think-
ing grows an intolerable aversion. The rambling
knowledge gained by such a reader is a worthless
conglomerate of fragments ; a confused, crude farrago ;
a pudding-stone olio. The mind uneducated in its
manlier faculties is weak as a child's. A shrewd ques-
tion throws it aback, and it can no more argue from
step to step towards a conclusion than if it knew no-
thing. One wing clipped, it can fly up only to come
round, in a circle, to the ground again, presently.

Quick readers can carry little ; they could not run
so if weighted. Coleridge's classification of the varieties
of book users is admirable ; the hour-glass readers,
whose reading, like the sand, runs in, and then out,
leaving nothing behind; the sponge readers, who
imbibe every thing, only to return it as they got it, or
dirtier ; the jelly-bag readers, who let the pure pass
and keep only the dregs and refuse \ and the fourth
— who, like the slaves in Golconda mines, cast aside
all that is worthless, and keep only the diamonds and

READING.

239

gems. Let your mind, like an alembic, distil the
essence from all your studies. Think less of style
than matter : the leaden casket had Portia's treasure.
Each age has its fashion in writing, as in all things,
though it seems, at last, that simplicity and ease had
finally won the day. Make a good book your reve-
rend teacher, with whom discourse, asking and hearing
by turns. To be disputatious is hurtful every way, but
to be passive is equally so. A manly independence,
thoughtful and modest, is the happy mean. In all
your reading aim to be able to think, for he is never
a man who has to take all his thoughts second-hand.
A good reader reads slowly ; makes sure of his mean-
ing; often stops to see that he understands, or to
reflect and judge; and turns back in his mind to
retrace the way he has come. He must needs pay
close attention to all that makes up the sense : that is,
to the separate words ; for to know an author's mean-
ing is, of course, possible only when all his words are
understood. How much lies in this, you may see in
one of John Ruskin's books, in which he analyses a
passage of Milton, as an illustration of the necessity
of such minute knowledge of words, or in any good
criticism of any author. Richter used to make lists
of all the new words he met in his reading ; and so,
no doubt, have all whose vocabularies have been co-
pious, except perhaps Shakspeare, who seems to have
needed no such helps of any kind as the rest of men.
Try to realise the first fresh meaning of any word ;
that common when it was new and living ; to find out

^40

READING.

allusions ; shades of force ; the metaphor that lies
behind most of our commonest ideas, but has been
forgotten by familiarity. Some words of great reputa-
tion would turn out, like Scriblerus' shield, only old
kettle lids; others, with no pretensions, would be
found gold. It is quite amazing how few words most
people really understand. They think they know
them, and read confidently on; but they might as
well have a good many missed out, so far as the sense
is concerned. How much etymology may teach is
seen in that very word " desultory," used so often of
reading, and meaning, to pass from book to book,
as " a desultor," or vaulter, used to leap from horse to
horse — the very type of everything broken, fitful,
inconstant, spasmodic, and rambling.

A thoughtful reader, then, makes much of little,
and cultivates reflection and reasoning that train him
for every mental process. " We learn how to use our
studies," says Bacon, "by observation." To think,
deduce, and contrast, makes each page fruitful, but to
follow any one i mplicit ly makes us mere echoes and
shadows ; Pepper's Ghosts, intellectually. Tree-Frog
minds, that take the colour of the leaf on which they
light for the time, are numerous. Newspapers have
any number of them in their constituencies, who let
the contributor do all the thinking for them; and
there are long rows in the pews each Sunday. Multi-
tudes make a bell-wether of whatever book they last
read, and follow its tinkle with woolly-headed docilit)!'.
A few books well used are worth the whole British

READING,

741

Museum Library with only the eyes awake. Bunyan
had little more than his Bible, and we know what he
did : others, with libraries, have died without leaving
a sign of their mental being. Mere mechanical read-
ing is only a useless fish-like opening and shutt'ng the
mouth on nothing, or makes us disagreeable pedants,
or childish Dominie Sampsons.

But reading books is not all. We may read other
things, while apparently idle. Men might think
Genius wasting its time, when it is most improving it.
Bernard used to say that his books were the woods
and the fields, and his best teachers the beeches and
the oaks. Books are only human : Nature is the
mirror of God. Socrates, intense Athenian cockney
as he was, and Johnson, who was a London one,
thought little of Nature, but much of the study of
Men. Crabbe found a world in the humble circle of
the poor of a country parish ; and White an illimitable
range for his fine observation in a Hampshire rectory.
Genius fringes the commonest leaf or spray with
prismatic colours, and looks at everything through
polarized light. It can find wise and worth) study for
a lifetime in following up hints, or in the least angle
of the great field of knowledge. Science opens the
secrets of the unknown almost as slowly as the soft
winds, or the beating rain-drops, or the sunbeams,
wear into the everlasting hills ; grain by grain, flake
by flake, a loosened stone to-day, a landslip to-
morrow, — but how little, after ages ! The favourite of
Nature wins her smile by knightly devotion, and, for

242

READING.

his reward, she shows herself to him with a *• '*'ner
veil than to others, but still hidden. At times, it may
be, rhe even vouchsafes a distant momentary glimpse
of her features, as if through the green light of leafy
bhades ; but advance brings r-^treat. No Actceon ever
surprises this Diana in the pool. We go out, like
children, fOx a summer day's ramble, and, in life, bring
home only a few wild-flowers, gathered as we wandered
by the edge of a summer brook. We know just
nothing : happiest then when we feel this. What we
do know, we learn best by thoughtful brooding over
read or noticed facts. Men sometimes seem idle when
they are least so. The wheel looks at rest when at
the fastest : the top stands still only when at its
highest. From the commonest occasions the appa-
rently vacant mind may be gathering the grandest
results. The swinging of a lustre in the Cathedral at
Pisa suggested the pendulum to Galileo. The lifting
of a kettle lid by thr steam led the Marquis of
Worcester, in die Tower, to the first steam-engine.
Davy discoverea iodine in the residuum of soap-le/,
from noticing that the Alpine peasants cured their
goitres by the ashes of burned sponge, a mnrin : pro-
duction, like the kelp then used in the manufacture.
Oersted; seeing the needle tiembie by electricit)',
thought his way to the wh^le theory of the Telegraph.
John Hunter came to tie up £ineurismE, from the r)he-
nomer a of the shedding of the horns of Oeer. Thinking
quickens dead facts into life : it turns poor brain-seeds
into silver paradise bowers, and changes darkness to

READING.

*4J

day. Reading should be a Columbus voyage, in which
nothing passes without note and speculation : the
Sargasso Sea, mistaken for the New Indies ; the branch
with the fresh berries ; the carved pole ; the currents ;
the colour of the water ; the birds ; the odour of the
land ; the buttei*flies ; the moving light on the shore.
Let Bacon speak again : — " Read not to believe, and
take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to
weigh and consider." Remember — little may hint at
much ; the illustration of a law that binds the Universe
may show itself in a falling stone ; and a thread may
lead into an unimagined Rosamond's bower.

Some men rec^d too much and think too little : that
is, they read too much for their thinking. By rail, you
can remember no details of a journey : the speed con-
fuses recollections and leaves only general impressions.
To gallop through book after book, is to turn intel-
lectual Gilpins. You might as well be carried blind-
fold, from one point to another, you would know as
much of the road you came. Let the whole bench of
your fliculties sit in full court on whatever you read,
and rather read five good books well than a hundred
with light inattention. Your learned men are often
mere prating coxcombs, and empty goosecaps. Scott's
Dr. Dryasdust has many successors, with endless facts,
scientific, theological, or other, but their learning
makes them only the greater bores.

Never, however, think you have read enough to let
you forswear books altogether, St. Anthony used to
have it said of him how wonderful it was that he. an

244

READING.

uneducated man, without books, should know so
much ; but what would he have known with them to
suggest, and help ? Even the eagle can hardly mount
off level ground ; but, from a height, he leans on the
air, and rises, at once, on strongest flights. If reading
be not a delight it can never yield much. Your idle,
unwilling apprentice makes a poor end of books, as of
any other work. Patience and noble thrift of oppor-
tunity are needed to do much in a field so vast as
knowledge. No day must want its line. John
Hunter's mind used to be compared to a beehive,
with every faculty collecting, arranging, and storing .
the fruits c^ a marvellous industry. Even genius
cannot afford to be idle. How must Michael Angelo
have studied and toiled to be the painter, architect,
and sculptor he was. How much learning is there in
" Paradise Lost." What a worker Scott was. There is
a striking story of him in Lockhart's Life. A knot of
young men had met in a friend's house, close to Sir
Walters, but at an angle with it, so that the back
window looked towards his study. The host's son
seemed to grow unwell as the night went on, and
Lockhart rose to offer him what help he could. " I
shall be well eno.ugh presently," said he, " if you will
only let me sit where you are and take my chair ; for
there is a confounded hand in sight of me here, which
has often bothered me before, and now it won't let me
fill my glass with a good will I " They exchanged
places, and he went on : — " Since we sat down," said
he, " I have been watching it — it fascinates my eye—

READING.

245

it never stops — page after page is finished and thrown
on that heap of MS., and still it goes on unwearied, — •
and so it will be till candles are brought in, and God
knows how long after that. It is the same every
night — I can't stand a sight of it when I am not at my
books." It was Sir Walter Scott — busy with the two
last volumes of " Waverley." * Carlyle is half right in
calling genius only the capacity of infinite labour : half
right — not more, for labour alone would be a poor
exchange for it. The Temple may rise like the palm,
silent as graceful, but th? forests and hill-depths have
sounded for long with the weary preparations. Un-
opened doors rust past opening, and if too much light
blinds, so does too little.

Humility and modesty are indispensable to true
progress. Self-sufficiency is a full cup which lets
additions run over. To learn our mistakes, and undo
our prejudices and preconceptions, is a great end in
reading. Wise books help by pruning our overgrowth
as much as by anything they teach. Our vanity ex-
aggerates our powers and attainments so as to hinder
our learning as we might. A young man needs do-
cility above all things : he has to undo most of his
previous thinking and conclusions. Like the wilder-
ness, there is work enough, to clear, before you can
sow. What is the widest knowledge of any of us all —
far less of a life at its opening ? Look into that little
pond in the field : its circle, small though it be, teems
with mysteries of which we know nothing. As Gibbon

• Loc';hart's Scott, 257.

246

READING.

says, well, the burnished fly on the proud dome of St.
Sophia was a greater wonder than that glory of Justi-
nian's reign. Humphry Davy's figure — the larger the
circle of light, the larger the circle of darkness sur-
rounding it, is and will be the grand truth of the
known and unknown for ever, for there never will
come a day, in unending eternity, when even an arch-
angel shall have explored the Universe, and must >veep
that there are no more worlds to conquer. Michael
Angelo spoke for all true students, when, in his last
days, in a patriarchal age, he drew himself as an old
man in a go-cart, with the motto — "ancora imparo" —
still learning.

" Marshal thy notions into a handsome mctliod,"
says old Thomas Fuller : " one will carry twice more
weight trussed and packed, than when it lies unto-
ward, flapping and hanging about his shoulcfers."
Order in the thoughts is a great economy of labour,
and help to memory. De Quincey's plan as to dates
was a good one : Pisistratus, B.C. 555 ; Herodotus,
B.C. 444 ; Alexander, B.C. 333 ; the culmination of
the Dark Ages, a.d. 999 ; and so on. As to common-
place books, practice and counsel vary. George
Borrow says it has been always a trouble with him
that he could never forget anything. Scott's memory
was " a prodigious machine," as Lockhart says : and
Macaulay apparently never forgot even chance verses.
Sir James Mackintosh had such another wonderful
mental tenacity. But all are not so. Turner's note-
books show constant diagrams 01 skies, with the

READING.

247

names of tlie colours written at each part. Scott tells
how he walked all over Rokeby, noting the flowers,
and how people praised his invention and truth to
nature, when they should have commended his
pocket-book. Sir Thomas Bodleigh wrote to Bacon
to " treasure up the riches he gathered from reading
or reflection in good writings and books of account,
which will keep them safe for your use hereafter."
Swift, indeed, ridicules the young author with an
empty head but a full common-place book ; but his
sneers, in such a case, carry no weight. " Paradise
Lost" was long shaping itself in the mind, aided by
notes. A book of thoughts, not extracts, is the great
desideratum : thoughts are always of use : facts, like
sand, sink to the bottom, after a time. Sydney Smith
and Vicesimus Knox pronounced against common-
place books, but, on the other side, we have Sou they,
Locke, and Addison. There can hardly, indeed, be a
doubt that a judicious index or record of multifarious
reading must keep much within reach that would
otherwise escape us.

Watts says that more is gained by writing out once
than by reading five times ; and Cobbett, who fol-
lowed this plan with the English and French Gram-
mars, seems to have proved its correctness. Montaigne
used to write his opinion of the books he read at the
end of them : Young took the clumsy plan of dog-
earing : Voltaire, like Coleridge, used to write notes
and criticisms on the margin, often adding a double
value to the text.

i^S

READING.

The uses of studies are different in different minds.
" Histories make men wise," says Bacon, " Poets,
witty ; the Mathematics, subtle ; Natural Philosophy,
deep; Moral, grave; Logic and Rhetoric, able to
contend." But it depends on the mind that turns to
them. Still, it is certain that a wise adaptation of our
reading to mental development is most needful ; every
faculty and emotion needs exercise. We must disci-
pline our minds as runners their bodies.

The Health is never to be forgotten. To overtask
ourselves is to destroy the machine on which all
depends. The lament over broken strength as em-
bittering its dearly-bought success, is as old as books.
Every University, and many a private home, has to
lament the death by overwork of those who gave the
fairest promise. It is little that x tree be white in
spring if it be upturned by an early storm : the sight
of its ruin is only the sadder. We need all the
strength we can have to do our work well in the
world, for a weak body hinders the strongest mind,
or breaks down, like a frail hull with too strong an
engine. The thoughts take their cast from the spirits
and physical vigour : our very power of attention,
and the lucidity of the faculties, rises or falls with our
health. Strong manly books are, I apprehend, very
commonly the reflection of sound bodily health, as
well as of mental.

Two original letters in my possession, of Sir Walter
Scott and Thomas Carlyle, enable me to add their
notable counsel to what I myself have said. Duly

READING.

249

ids.

weighed and expanded, they have the guidance of all
lives in them. Their supremely practical air; the
thorough shrewdness and common sense in every
line, mark a characteristic of the highest geniuses of
all ages. Only minute philosophers and mechanical
poets can afford to be above the rules of prudence
and discretion, and can trust, like the heroes and
heroines in romances, to the most improbable deliver-
ances from the foolish dilemmas which want of wit or
forethought may have entailed. Some of the truest
natures have, indeed, been better able to counsel than
to practise, but, theoretically, they have been wise as
Eastern Cadis. Shakspeare was practical and prudent
as the dullest, else he would never have made the
money he did, and died a rich man in Stratford. Then
there are Byron, Scott, Sterne, Fielding, Goldsmith,
Bums, Southey, Wordsworth, who was even rather
mean, I fear, and many besides ; — all, wise in words ;
some in acts, as well. Geniuses are not necessarily
fools, nor is the fact of being a fool any proof of in-
spiration, west of Constantinople, though among the
Turks, idiots certainly are looked up to.
Sir Walter's letter is as follows : —

"Sir, — I am favoured with your letter, enclosing
some lines to the Memory of Burns which show con-
siderable feeling, and talent for versification. As I
am going abroad almost immediately, I cannot profit
by the offer you make me of communicating a larger
poem, my time being at present occupied with neces-

250

READING.

sary arrangements. In general, I trust I shall not
offend you by offering the advice which I myself
received in my early youth \ to read a great deal in
proportion to what I ^vrote, or attempted to write.
Premature publications have seldom, in the history of
Literature, reflected permanent lustre upon the authors,
whereas, when the early season of youth has been
employed in the selection of information, it has rarely
failed to lead the way to the most flattering distinction.
I beg you will not suppose that I mean to discounten-
ance your exertions, although I hold it matter of
conscience, whenever youth applies for advice, to give
it with sincerity. Well-directed ambition, supported
by talents and industry, seldom fails to make good its
object, and I sincerely wish yours may make you a
good poet, and, what is much better, a good and useful
member of society.

*' I am. Sir,

" Your obedient servant,

"Walter Scoit.
" Castle Street, Sunday.''*

[Post-mark, July 3, 1815. On the eve of Scott'j
starting to visit the field of Waterloo.]

Tlie second letter, from Thomas Carlyle, sent to a
young man, applying for literary counsel, as thr.c of
Scott had been, shows clearly enough why so many
hold him in such esteem. No man of any recent
age has moved the hearts of his generation, and,
through the young men, that of the generations rising,

READING.

«5«

wave beliind wave, as Carlyle has, through a long
life. I confess to a profound respect for him, and
gratitude to him, for no one lias more powerfully
quickened my nature. If I have had to write a line
in which conviction has forced me to differ from so
grand a man, I have* done so only because, though
Cato be dear, truth is dearer.

"CllELSRA, llth March, 1843.

" Dear Sir, — Some time ago your letter was deli-
vered me ', I take literally the first free half-hour I
have had since, to write you a word of answer.

" It would give me true satisfaction, could any
advice of mine contribute to forward you in your
honourable course of self-improvement ; but a long
experience has taught me that advice can profit but
little ; that there is a good reason why * advice is so
seldom followed,' — this reason, namely, that it is so
seldom, and can almost never be, rightly given. No
man knows the state of another ; it is always to some
more or less imaginary man that the wisest and most
honest adviser is speaking.

" As to the Books which you, whom I know so little
of, should read, there is hardly anything dt>finite that
can be said. For one thing, you may be btrenuously
advised to keep reading. Any good book, any book
that is wiser than yourself will teach you something, —
a great many things, indirectly and directly, if your
mind be open to learn. This old counsel of Johnson's
'.3 also good and universally applicable : Read tlie

ZS2

READING.

Book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to
read. The very wish and curiosity indicates that yoii
then and there are the person likely to get good of it.
' Our wishes are presentiments of our capabilities :'
that is a noble saying, of deep encouragement to all
true men; applicable to our wishes and efforts in
regard to reading, as to other things. Among all the
objects that look wonderful or beautiful to you, follow
with fresh hope the one that looks wonderfullest,
beautifullest. You will gradually by various trials
(which trials sec that you make honest, manful ones,
not silly, short, fitful ones) discover what is for you
the wonderfnllest, beautifullest ; what is your true
element and province, and he able to abide by that.
True Desire, the Monition of Nature, is much to be
attended to. But here also you are to discriminate
carefully between true desire and false. The medical
men tell us we should eat what we truly have an
appetite for ; but Avhat we only falsely have an appe-
tite for, we should resolutely avoid. It is very true.
And flimsy, * desultory ' readers, who fly from foolish
book to foolish book, and get good of none, and
mischief of all, — are not these as foolish, unhealthy
eaters, who mistake their superficial, 7^Z$-(? desire after
spiceries and confectionaries for the real appetite, of
which even they are not destitute, though it lies far
deeper, far quieter, after solid nutritive food ? With
these illustrations I will recommend Johnson's advice
to you.

•'* Another thing, and only one other 1 will say. All

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253

Books are properly the nxord of the History of Past
Men. What thoughts Past Men had in them ; what
actions Past Men did : the summary of all Books
whatsoever lies there. It ^^n this ground that the
class of Books specifically nam«.d History can be
safely recommended as the basis of all study of Books;
the preliminary to all right and full understanding of
anything we can expect to find in Books. Past His-
tory, and especially the Past History of one's own
Native Country : everybody may be advised to begin
with that. Let him study that faithfully, innumerable
enquiries, with due indications, will branch out from
it : he has a broad beaten highway from which all
the country is more or less visible ; there travelling,
let him choose where he will dwell.

" Neither let mistakes nor wrong directions, of which
every man in his studies and elsewhere falls into many,
discourage you. There is precious instruction to be
got hy finding that we were wrong. Let a man try
faithfully, manfully, to be right ; he will grow daily
more and more right. It is at bottom the condition
on which all men have to cultivate themselves. Our
very walking is an incessant falling : a falling and a
catching of ourselves before we come actually to the
pavement ! It is emblematic of all things a man does.

" In conclusion, I will remind you that it is not by
books alone, or by books chiefly, that a man becomes
in all points a man. Study to do faithfully whatsoever
thing in your actual situation, there and now, you find
cither expressly or tacitly laid to your charge : that is

251-

READING.

your post ; stand in it like a true soldier ; silently
devour the many chagrins of it, as all Jiuman situa-
tions have many ; and be your aim not to quit it
without doing all that it, at least, required of you. A
man perfects himself by work much more than by
reading. They are a growing kind of men that can
wisely combine the two things ; wisely, valiantly, can
do what is laid to their hand in their present sphere,
and prepare themselves withal for doing other wider
things, if such lie before them.

" With many good wishes and encouragements,
" I remain yours sincerely,

" Thomas Carlvle."

One great secret of any right use of books still
remains to notice : tliat we start with he dthy prin-
ciples, honouring the true and the good wherever
found, and having no sympathy with the false and
wrong. It is a brave and noble heart that is instinc-
tively loyal to the right : that handles Ithuriel's spear,
and pricks any lie, wherever met, and however tricked
out. The moral sense as it should be, we stand in
the centre, and have the Universe, round us, no
longer drifting on in confusion, but mapped out in
harmonious orbits and revolutions. The eternal laws
reveal themselves, then, in Providence, as in Nature.
The bow on the clouds is no longer a broken arch,
but rounds into a circle.

We need such a temper continually. Genius,
success, hypocrisy, or reputation, mislead, if there be

READING,

«5S

lently

IsitUc!-

|uit it
A
in by
X can
, can
•here,
wider

no I^ydian stone to try them. It is hard at times to
differ from the general voice, and see truth on a
cross, and falsehood, instead of holiness, written on
the high priest's mitre : hard, amidst trumpet flourishes,
and beneath silver robes, and with a loud-throated
apotheosis from the crowd, to see that Herod is no
God, but a man eaten of worms. Dr. Arnold showed
a fine trait in his instant shrinking at the names of
such men as Caesar or Napoleon : their glory not blind-
ing him to their true character. To read of wasted
genius, like that of Charles James Fox, without cen-
sure, or of a life like that of Wilberforce without
admiration, marks want of tone, and loses the moral
of both stories. Conscience, intelligent and sensi-
tive, has its part in our studies as much as elsewhere.
It abdicates one of its gravest duties, if it do not
play the judge on every life and act that comes be-
fore it.

But not only does a religious sensibility which
courts the full noon save us the shadows and slanting
lights which disturb and warp the sight elsewhere :
nothing can give us so noble a charity. Bigotry
grows on spiritual pride, and that on ignorance. The
more we know, the more we learn why we should be
both humble and tender. In the great church at
Moscow the porch is adorned with portraits of the
most eminent sages and philosophers of antiquity ; as if i
to hint that, though not within the Church, they were
still in its outer courts ; and so with the mind nobly
religious, though the inner shrine be sacred to names

256

READING,

abo, i Ar,; ■ there is no dispute, the good in others is
recog.. ;d n; ' s approaches.

Ixt your rtcidi ig be only a means to an end, and
that end, true, manly work for God, and your fellows.
Remember in all you do, that, as the earth, in all its
heights, and valleys, and stretching plains, has the
great sky everywhere over it, so life is rounded by
God

IS IS

and

ows.

1 its

the

DREAMS.

LIFE begins, continues, and ends with Dreams,
from the sleeping smile in the cradle, to the
babbling of the death-bed, as worn-out nature sinks
into the last sleep of all. Th"^ mind is never at rest,
and never was meant to be so. Its restlessness is a
law of its being. Like the light, it loses its nature if it
stand still, for thought at rest ceases to be, as the
luminous ether that makes the day turns into darkness
when its undulations cease with the sunset.

Nor are there any bounds or prohibitions as to the
sweep of thought, except the limits of its own power.
No fence round the mount can keep it back; it
attempts to explore all heights and abysses, and is to
be honoured in all reverential efforts to do so. Wings
were meant for flight, and God made those of the
spirit as well as any others. The soul is a commoner
of the universe, and wherever it wanders is still in its
own domain. As well blame the flame for seeking
the sun, as the mind for expatiating through all nature
and striving after the unknown. All around. Truth,
like a veiled Isis, invites men to lift the veil if they
can,

2n8

DREAMS.

Through all history this noble freedom and grand
audacity of our nature has found champions noted
above the inglorious multitude of humbler thinkers.
In the darkest ages there have never been wanting
Galileos to protest against the intellect being enslaved.
Through antiquity, in its most distant remoteness,
thinkers rise, age after age, to mould the thought of
their times and to stimulate that of posterity. Early
India has her sages, writing her'^ sacred poems, and
embodying subtle speculations of religious philosophy
in theories still potent ; Greece borrows her dreams,
and from Greece they come down, with modifications
and additions of every generation, to the present.

The freedom of thought that marks our day is one
of its noblest characteristics. Authority over the mind
is relegated, with other exploded follies, to Ariosto's
Limbo, and the Divine Right of Priests has gone the
way of the Divine Right of Kings. Syllabuses and
Encyclicals from whatever Pope, collective or single,
are ignored. And men are right in thus pushing them
aside. That there can be no true authority over
thought is conclusive ground that there should be no
attempt at it. No pains or penalties can reach the
mind. Its secret chambers are sacred to God and
ourselves alone ; a calm Holy of Holies in every man,
where he can retire, safe from all human power, to
commune with the Highest. The spirit lives in an
awful solitude, unapproachable, like its Maker. No
one can force us to believe, nor can we ourselves do
so at our pleasure. The will is servant to the Reason

DREAMS.

!S9

uiid the Heart in matters of Faith, and acts at theii
bidding alone.

Used wisely, this grand independence and liberty
has in it the seeds of all progress ; abused, it leads to
all extravagance and evil. The discovery of new
truth is most precious, but nothing is more hurtful
than lawless speculation. In our own day we have
both. The restlessness of the mind, never contented
with what it has, craves the action, hope, suspense,
and excitement of pursuit, rather than acquisition.

" Our hopes like towering falcons aim
At objects in an airy height,
But all the pleasure of the game
Is, afar off, to view the flight." •

Malcbranche spoke for many, now, when he said that
if he held truth captive in his hand, he would open it
again, and let it fly, to have the pleasure of its recap,
ture. Reaction from the imprudence of dogmatism,
which by asking us to believe too much has led many
to believe too little, has also had great influence in
driving men away from Revelation. Once wandering
from its sure pathway, they are lured farther and farther
by their own fancies, like the traveller in the desert
whom a phantom beckons into unknown wastes if he
once miss his way.

Differing from them, we must not fall into narrow
restrictiveness. We must not only endure toleration,
but should feel it. Speculative error does not neces-

• Prior.

'\l

260

DREAMS.

sarily affect character. The heart is often sounder
than the head, and the life may demand sympathy we
must refuse the opinions. Even among Christians,
as Coleridge says, the feet may be on the Rock of
Ages, while the head is well-nigli anywhere. Bigotry
is no sign of strength, nor is contempt any answer to
argument. Men are often better than their creeds. It
would, indeed, be a pity to think that there were not
good men all over the earth. Men are not necessarily
bad because they may not be Christians, though they
would be so much the better in some ways if they
were so. Let us remember that if the white flower
alone show the unbroken light, the colours on all are
beams from the sun. Night itself is only light asleep,
waiting for the morning to set the ether in motion.
We may regret that other men do not see as we do,
but let us be chary of bitterness. Honest doubt is
half-way towards faith. The Jewish apologue, quoted
by Jeremy Taylor,* is as true as beautiful. " When
Abraham sat at his tent-door, according to his custom,
waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man
stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and
travail, coming towards him, who was a hundred years
of age : he received him kindly, washed his feet, pro-
vided supper, caused him to sit down : but, observing
that the old man ate and prayed not, nor begged for a
blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not
worship the God of Heaven. The old man told him
that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged
• " Liberty of Prophesying," sec. 22, 3.

DREAMS.

x6i

no other God. At which answer Abraham grew so
zealously angry, that he thrust the old man out of his
tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night,
and an unguarded condition. When the old man was
gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where
the stranger was : he replied, * I thrust him away
because he did not worship Thee.' God answered
him, * I have suffered him these hundred years though
he dishonoured me ; and couldst not thou endure him
one night when he gave thee no trouble?' Upon
this, saith the story, 'Abraham fetched him back
again, and gave him hospitable entertainment and
wij,w instruction.' Go thou and do likewise, and thy
charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham."

Speculation has, and can have, only a limited range.
All tlie philosophies of the world fall into a very few
classes. Our faculties are the same in all ages, and
the facts and laws they can investigate remain for ever
urn hanged. The same world of consciousness that
inviics us lay open to the earliest thinkers ; the same
princi] 'les of human action repeat themselves in each
generation, and nature is unchanged since tlie first,
Philosophy must move in a circle, and can only corc
bine existing materials if it seek novelty. The ancients
have stolen all our best thoughts, ages ago, v.x\ 1 the
prophets of to-day must be content to boiiovv the
vamped-up systems of the past. New religions, like
the leaves of succeeding summers, spring from the
decay of those that have gone before.

The one most in vogue in our day is a modified

•T^jyitr'

i'!

-*^-

Z62

DREAMS.

form of Pantheism — the oldest dream of the mind
and heart in religious philosophy. Coming down
through immemorial ages from the plains of early
India, it has captivated thinkers of different schools,
and has coloured many opposite systems. After play-
ing its part in the schools of Greece, it passed into
the era of modern philosophy as part of the eclectic
fancies of Alexandrian mysticism, through Plotinus and
Proclus, and in the writings and teachings of Gnostic
sects. At times hardly more than a poetical dream, it
has at others shown itself as a dreary Atheism, and
while held in some partial way by Christian mystics
on the one hand, it has allied itself with all that is
most destructive and hurtful in Paganism on the other.
You have in Emerson the worst excesses of the school
of Hegel. Thomas Carlyle may have, at times, the
grand but sad tone of a stoic like Marcus Aurelius ;
but he distinctly repudiates Pantheism. The elasticity
of the system, its apparent novelty, its vagueness, its
air of philosophic depth, its room for sentiment and
poetry, its very audacity, v[\ some cases — and above
all, the literary attractions in which it has been pre-
sented, have given it great power for a generation
past, especially among young men.

Ill Mr. Carlyle's case, a lofty earnestness has helped
to win over ingenuous minds. Like the old Stoics,
he feels life unspeakably real, and never fails to urge
the loftiest maxims of morality, and the sacredness of
diligent work. Mr. Emerson, on the other hand, tells
us that man has to learn "that he is here, not to

DREAMS.

263

work, but to be worked upon " — so that in this, as in
many things else, he represents extreme results which
are in direct contradiction to Mr. Carlyle's teaching.
The two are the best illustrations we have of modern
thought, and its most popular teachers, among young
men; let us try to see what it really is, especially
as expounded most fully by Mr. Emerson. First,
however, let me sketch as briefly as possible the
modern sources from which he has borrowed. It
may be tedious to some to do so, but others will thank
me. If you dislike a few pages that must needs be
rather dry, you may skip them.

Immanuel Kant, who, first, in modem times, esta-
blished idealism, or Transcendentalism as it is some-
times called, may be taken as the new source of this
philosophic religion, though many intermixtures from
other [iources, sometimes very different, are found in
its utterances. The name Transcendentalism has in
it the central idea of Kant's system — meaning, that
which transcends or rises above experimental know-
ledge, and is determined, d priori, without argument
or proof, in regard to the principles and subjects of
human knowledge. His fundamental doctrine is that
we know nothing from without, but only from within
the mind, and that v/e know nothing certainly except
our own consciousness, that is, that we are. We have
ideas respecting the appearances around us, but our
knowledge of them is simply a knowledge of the forms
with which the mind itself clothes them. Of the reality
of the apparent objects themselves we can know no-

t6t.

DREAMS.

thing. We act according to the necessity of our con*
stitution, drawing certain conclusions, and these only,
from the data nature affords. But that these conclu-
sions, the uniform testimony of our senses, agree with
external truth, cannot be proved. If the laws of our
mental action were changed, we would, according to
Kant, see everything changed around us. Man is the
self-complete, independent unit, amidst a universe of
siiadows.

This principle laid down, Kant found himself
charged with Atheism, which he repudiated. "It was
urged that, if we can know nothing certainly outside
ourselves, the existence of God and the great doctrine
of man's relation to Him cannot be \ oved. Revela-
tion, of course, could not be acknowledged, since it
must needs come from without Shrinking from the
desolation of a universe in which man alone existed,
amidst illusions and shadows, with nothing possible to
be proved but his own being, he sought to save himself
by demanding that the existence of God, the immor-
tality of the soul, and the freedom of the will, be
admitted as first truths, as the existence of man him-
self had been, already. They must be conceded,
though they could not be proved, as the necessary
basis of a system of morals.

The active faculties of the mind he classed under
two great divisions — the Understanding, which finds
its fit ministry in inductive study, as of the physical
sciences ; and, as a far higher agency, what he called
Pure Reason — which is to guide us intuitively into

DREAMS.

265

the knowledge of " absolute" truth. Understanding
watches and notes the phenomena around us. Pure
Reason combines its judgments, and draws general
conclusions. Our "conceptions" are derived imme-
diately from experience, and hence may be fitly used
in the pursuit of science. But the far nobler office of
" Reason" is to generalise its conclusions and create
" ideas," which are the appointed means of regulating
the " Understanding," which can never, by itself, con-
duct us to essential truth. Thus, the Understanding
is left to the drudgery of life, while *' Reason" con-
trols all its higher interests. It is not likely you can
follo'v all this, for Fichtc himself, Kant's successor,
confesses that he thinks no one can comprehend the
great philosopher's writings if he does not know be-
forehand what they contain. It seems impossible to
defiwC authoritatively what "Pure Reason" means.
Carlyle tries it, and states a great truth ; but Panthe-
ism needs more. " The province of the Understand-
ing," he says, " is of the earth, earthly ; it has to do
only with real, practical, and material knowledge —
mathematics, physics, political economy, and such-
like, but must not step beyond. On the other hand,
it is the province of Reason to discern virtue, true
poetry, or that God exists. Its domain lies in that
higher region whither logic or argument cannot reach ;
in that holier region where poetry, virtue, and divinity
abide ; in whose presence understanding wavers and
recoils, dazzled into utter darkness by that sea of
light, at once the fountain and the termination of all

166

DREAMS.

♦rue knowledge." * Reason, whatever it be, is to in-
vestigate and decide on all religious questions. Our
instincts are to be our only standard and source of
faith. Vague intuitions and impulses, which differ
with education and circumstances, and are coloured,
clouded, disturbed, or blighted by a thousand contin-
gencies, are to decide, without appeal, in morals and
belief. Such is Kant's system in its practical bearings.
There can be no " Revelation ;" we must be content
with the light of our own nature. " The wintry light
of the understanding," " the despotism of the senses,"
is to be renounced, and " free ard ample leave to be
given to the spontaneous sentiment, if we would be
great;" "the low views and utilitarian hardness of
men are owing to their working on the world with the
understanding only." "The doors of the temple
stand open day and night, before every man, and the
oracles of the truth cease never ; yet it is guarded by
one condition ; this, namely, it is an intuition." So
says Mr. Emerson. This hard word " intuition" he
often interchanges with the more familiar name
" genius ;" which may help us a little to the views
of the new religion. " The spontaneous intuitions of
positive reason," to use a sentence of Kant's, "are
the standard in the soul by which we are to judge
the claims of any objects of adoration or article of
belie?:"

But is it true that reason ran create for man a
Religioi , and that he need be under no obligation
» Miscellanies, i. 102, 103.

DREAMS.

it-j

to his Maker for any help in the matter? If so,
why is this grand fact so powerless on mankind ? Why
have we never seen any proof of its truth in any age ?
Whence the hideous immorality of antiquity, with all
its philosophers ? Does the general consciousness of
men coiToborate this doctrine ? Does not the history
of the temples, offerings, prayers, priesthood, litera-
ture, and public and private life of all the past give it
the lie? Everywhere, from all the race, from the
beginning, a need of help from above has been owned,
and can the speculations of a few philosophers be set
over against the agonising confession of a world ? Are
we to return to what Coleridge calls " the sand-wastes
and mirage of a speculative theology," instead of
gathering and coiliJ*tTTg the facts which lie strewn over
nature, experience, and revelation ? Instead of autho-
ritative statements and sure generalization ire we to
use only misty hypotheses and d prion dr ns? Are
we to discard contemptuously, without learing, a
revelation which has been received as thentic by
men of the highest intellect and purest goodness in
untold generations ? Are we to push ^side, without
examination, without argument, despismg its proffered
evidences, and scouting any criticism of its claims, on
the dreamy ground of an " intuition," and try to vault
into Paradise by the wondrous spring-board of this
mental magic ?

John Dryden, in his "Religio Lai ," puts the
claims of Reason in a light as beautiful as it is
striking ; —

168

DREAMS.

ill 'I

*' Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,
Is Reason to the soul ; and, as on high,
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here ; so, Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way.
But guide us upwards to a better day."

Apart from the sad confessions of the heart, and the
lessons of universal experience, the results of specu-
lation in Germany, where Christianity has ebbed to
the lowest, are enough to keep us from trusting to
fuch a philosopher's stone for our morals or faith.
Phaeton has tried his hand again at driving the sun,
bat has only set the heaven of spiritual truth and law
ablaze once more.

A j it accepts and rests on Kant's theory of " Pure
Reason," so the new religion adopts his teachings on
the basis of knowledge, with equal fervour. I must
agian take Mr. Emerson as its fullest exponent. " A
noble doubt," says he, "perpetually suggests itself
whether nature outwardly exists. It is a sufficient
account of that appearance we call the worlds that God
will teach a human mind, and so make it the receiver
of a certain number of congruent sensations which we
call sun and laoon, man and woman, house and trade.
In my utter impotence to test the authenticity of the
report of my senses, to know whether the impressions
they make on me correspond with outlying objects,
what difference does it make whether Orion is up
there in heaven, or some god paints the image on the
firmament of tlie soul?" " Nature is a phenomenon,

DREAMS.

169

not a substance ; " the universe is " the great appari-
tion shining so peacefully on us." He mixes and
confounds the teachings of opposite schools into a
mysterious jargon at which common sense must smile.
Read the words again, and they will need no reply.

After Kant came Fichte as the next hierarch of
German philosophy. Checked by no such fear of
consequences as Kant, he at once discarded the
fundamental truths that philosopher had assumed as
necessary, while confessing their inct ability of proof.
He reduces our only certain knowledge to that of our
own existence, which he granted as a first truth. The
formula of Descartes — " Cogito, ergo sum," " I think,
therefore I am" — was virtually the motto of Fichte.
But the absolute solitude of man in the universe, thus
implied, left its countless phenomena unexplained.
The empty infinite must be filled with at least the
appearance of intelligent force, and for this Pantheism
offered the needed help. Cherished for immemorial
ages along the ancient rivers of the East, it had come
westward before the days of Plato, and had been
through the history of early philosophy the favourite
doctrine of the few, while Polytheism held the mass.
Its dreamy vagueness, and the scope it gives for senti-
ment, has always made it attractive with some, but it
is too abstract and impractical ever to reach mankind
at large. In modem times it owes its revival in
Western Europe mainly to Spinoza, from whom Fichte
borrowed and introduced it into current philosophy
once again. As a middle position between the accept-

270

DREAMS.

ance of a personal god and the black vacuity of
Atheism, he adopted the Pantheistic doctrine of one
absolute existence in all things — in the me, that is, in
man ; and in the not me, that is, the universe at large
— an undefined and undefinable essence pervading all
things, like Plato's soul of the world. Man and crea-
tion were thus alike conceded a spiritual existence;
not a material, however. A pervading soul, one in
man and in the universe around, was the single myste-
rious fact admitted. Of this all-inhabiting force, man
is the highest manifestation, and consequently above
all the universe outside himself. A revelation is hence
a contradiction, since man is himself the supreme
embodiment of the Divine. It is an affront to our
nature to speak of it.

Schelling came next, and pushed Pantheism still
further. Not only are the mind and external nature,
according to him, only parts of the one universal
existence — he claimed for " intuition " that it taught
that man, as the highest manifestation of the Divine
principle, learns in the working of his own thought
the secret of this principle ; that is, that thought i^
the same as creation, so that what we see is only an
humbler repetition by nature of what we do in all the
processes of the mind. Man is raised high over the
universe ai: the Supreme Intelligence, that is, as God.

The m> itle of philosophy next rested on the
shoulders of Hegel, whose jungle of metaphysical
refinements ^ ^s seemed so much in advance of all
before, that disciples have applied to him the

DREAMS,

271

words, "When that which is perfect is come, that
which is in part shall be done away." Not willing to
grant even the solitary postulate of our own being,
he started from the gloomy premis( s that neither the
existence of the world nor our own can be certainly
known. All that we are sure of lies in the relations
between the mind and what it looks at. To form an
idea there must be two opposites. If you think of a
tree, both the tree and the mind are required, and
from the relation of the two the idea of the tree rises.
Ideas thus derived are the only realities in the uni-
verse. But as man alone is capable of this creation
of ideas, which are only another word for thought, he
is God. Thought is the only existence, and as man
alone thinks, there is no other God but human thought,
which, moreover, is continually developing and ad-
vancing. Our thought and God are two names for
the same things.

Here, then, we have reached the highest flight of
Transcendentalism, and it gives us a universe in which
ideas alone are real, and the human mind is the only
God. Man, a dream, looks out on a world of dreams !
Pantheism developed to its final results leaves us in
universal scepticism, or rather reasons everything out
of existence, unless the ghosts called ideas be reckoned
as substances.

It is hard to put such abstract speculations in
simple words, and I know not whether I have been
able to do it altogether correctly or clearly, for even
Germans have their sects of interpreters of the same

272

DREAMS.

teacher. Dc Quincey aflirms that fully a thousand
books have been written to clear up what Kant is sup-
posed to have meant, and his successors are by no
means less misty. With the development of Hegelian-
ism I shall not trouble you, but you will see presently-
how the systems I have noticed are the fountains from
which our English Pantheism has filled its urn.

Thus, in Mr. Emerson's writings, along with Kant's
Idealism, we have all the varying dreams of his
pantheistic successors. He believes in no intelligent
existence but man, and that the universe is only the
reflection of our own thoughts from so many shadows
and apparitions. Rejecting a personal god, he takes
man as the highest manifestation of the Divine, though
he shares it in common with all creation, living and
dead. Like the Germans, he seeks in the language
of India statements of his theory which are not to be
found any way nearer. Jesus Christ is a far more
lightly esteemed authority with him than Krishna, and
the Bible is nothing alongside the Vedas and Puranas.
He lets Vishnu, a member of the Hindoo Triad,
speak for him thus, "The whole world is but the
manifestation of Vishnu, who is identical with all
things, and is to be regarded by the wise as not
differing from, but as the same as themselves. I
neither am going nor coming ; nor is my dwelling in
any one place; nor art thou, thou; nor are others,
others; nor am I, I." "As if," says he, "he had
said, All is for the soul, and the soul is Vishnu ; and
animals and stars are transient paintings, and light i3

thousand
|ant is sup.
ire by no
Hegelian-

presently
Itains from
Jrn.

k'ith Kant's
»s of his
intelligent
s only the
y shadows
i, he takes
ne, though
living and
' language
5 not to be
t far more
ishna, and
i Puranas.

00 Triad,
is but the

1 with all
se as not
selves. I
^veiling in
re others,

"he had
hnu; and
id light i3

DREAMS.

«73

whitewash . . . and heaven itself a decoy." Else-
where he gives his estimate of himself, thus : " I am
nothing ; I see all ; the currents of the Universal
Being circulate through me ; I am part and parcel of
God." Can you make any sense of this ? Is there
any sense in it ?

It is a favourite theme with our new religion tliat
whatever is not new in our faith is worthless, as if
morals grew old and truth decayed. Carlyle exalts
the Bible, but hardly makes it a rule of faith. Mr.
Emerson asks " why we should grope among the dry
bones of the past, or put the living generation into
masquerade out of its faded wardrobe?" but it is an
awkward question for himself after his quotations from
Vishnu and the like as his confessions of faith. To
reject the Bible as old and then turn to Hindooism
provokes a smile.

The new creed heartily adopts Hegel's deification
of man. " Empedocles," says Mr. Emerson, " un-
doubtedly spoke a tnith of thought when he said, * I
am God.' " " That which shews God outside of me
makes me a wart and a wen." " So much of nature as
man is ignorant of, so much of his own mind does he
not yet possess." There is indied no reality but
human thought — all we see is but an appearance and
dream ; our ideas are the only truth ; they are the one
divine fact — that is, God. There is no God besides
man. This is the reasoning — not very much worth
after all — by which Mr. Emerson follows Hegul like
his shadow.

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DREAMS.

*• In his mind all creation is duly respected
As parts of himself— just a little projected ;
And he's willing to worship the stars and the sun,
A convert to — nothing but Emerson.
Life, Nature, Love, God, and affairs of that sort,
He looks at as merely ideas ; in short,
As if they were fossils stuck round in a cabinet.
Of such vast extent that our earth's a mere dab in it ;
Composed just as he is inclined to conjecture her,
Namely, one part pure earth, ninety-nine parts pure lecturer."*

The new religion, having turned its back on Reve-
lation, finds no rest in any one system. It wears a
motley show of speculation, borrowed, like Falstaff's
linen, from a great many hedges. Germany will not
do without the addition of India. As Lord Hough-
ton said of Harriet Martineau, it believes anything,
provided it be not in the Bible. It is half inclined to
believe in Transmigration. As the Brahmin fancies
he existed in other forms on earth before the present
life, and that, unless specially pleasing to Brahma, he
will have still further migrations hereafter, so Mr.
Emerson speaks of " the Deity sending each soul into
nature, to perform one more turn through the circle of
beings" — language which a Hindoo would think very
orthodox. " The soul," says he, " having been often
bom, is, as the Hindoos say, * travelling the path of
existence through thousands of births * — having beheld
the things which are here, those which are in heaven,
and those which are beneath, there is nothing of
which she has not gained the knowledge ; no wonder

• J. R. Lowell,

DREAMS.

27s

that she is able to recollect, in regard to anything,
what she formerly knew." This is simply the Brahmin
doctrine of Transmigration, jumbled up with the fancy
of Socrates — ^his long-vanished dream of Reminiscence,
dead these two thousand years, but raised again to turn
a sentence, and add a touch of mysteriousness.

There is something very sad in the following con-
fession of darkness and ignorance, after all the wild
talk of our being " part of God," as to our future
destiny. " I cannot tell if these wonderful qualities
which house to-day in this mortal frame, shall ever re-
assemble in equal activity in a similar frame, or
whether they have before had a natural history like
that of this body you see before you; but this one
thing I know, that these qualities did not now begin to
exist, cannot be sick with my sickness, nor buried in
any grave ; but that they circulate through the uni-
verse." The confidence of one page is lost in the
other; bold dogmatizing fades into timorous doubt,
until we are left by this new dispensation in blank
ignorance and uncertainty as to eternity. John Ster-
ling can only shut out the questions that meet him in
his slow-dying, and ** sit on the lid" till he has found
the answer, beyond. Emerson, hoping at one moment
for transmigration and final absorption, falters the
next, and owns that the darkness is too deep for his
vision. Compared with this, how grand was the
dream of Socrates, when he saw a beautiful and ma-
jestic woman, clad in white, approaching him as he
lay in prison, about to die, cheering him by the words,

276

DREAMS.

"Socrates, three days hence you will reach fertile
Phthia." * But especially, compared to this, how un-
speakably grand the composure with which Chris-
tianity looks on death, and turns the close of life into
a triumph 1 Set over against it the chant of St. Paul,
like the cry of Land after a weary and stormy voyage,
" O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy
victory ? The sting of death is sin ; and the strength
of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." How
immeasurably nobler, more consoling, and more true
to the instinctive longings of nature, than to be coldly
told, "Tlie individual is ascending out of his limits
into a catholic existence," or that " Death is but the
return of the individual to the infinite." It is a poor
result of so much philosophy, to tell me that I am
like a raindrop, destined presently to fall into the
ocean ; or, like a wave rising from the great waste of
waters, never distinct from them, and even now sinking
back into their bosom. It is little to me to be told
that, though I must cease to be, nature will continue
the same, and that all that lives is only a cloud, which
the ocean gave, but will soon reclaim, or that all the
universe, seen and unseen, is like the little shells cast
out from the depths of the shoreless sea ; seen for an
hour — ^but to be washed back again by retiring
tides. If not in these words, at least in their full
meaning, our new religion annihilates man and makes

♦ A name, from a fertile distiict of Greece, for a region of
future happiness.

DREAMS.

277

Nature an unconscious soul — ^an unintelligent Intelli-
gence !

Freedom of the will, which alone redeems our
nature from mere mechanical instincts, and makes us
at once accountable and rational, has no place in this
school. Since " the human race is God in distribu-
tion," no power from without can influence us either
for good or evil. We must act, by a necessity of our
constitution, as we do, and since we have no separate
personality, we can have neither control nor responsi-
bility. " Let man learn," says Mr. Emerson, " that he
is here, not to work, but to be worked upon." " The
Spiritualist " — that is, not the Spirit-Rapper, but the
Idealist of Mr. Emerson's school — "cannot bring
himself to believe either in Divine Providence or in
the immortality of the soul." This ghastly gospel
knows no hope. For immortality it gives us anni-
hilation; for moral freedom it proclaims only the
irresponsible working of blind machines; and for
Providence we have Fate, which grows over us like
grass " — that is, as the grass grows over the helpless
dead ! Is this the new revelation ? Nothing beyond
this life, and nothing in it better than to be crushed
under the wheels of inexorable destiny ! It reminds
one of the agonies of the old Roman epitaphs, in which
broken hearts and crushed hopes, in their poor Pagan
desolation, bewail and reproach cruel death and re-
morseless doom. For ourselves, we prefer the God
and the future of Christianity.

The different qualities of actions necessarily cease

«73

DREAMS.

with the extinction of free will To do right, or to do
wrong, carries no blame. As with the old Stoics, evil
is a misfortune, or a disease of the mind, as fever might
be of the body. Indeed, Mr. Emerson plainly tells
us that there is no such distinction as that of right and
wrong. " Ethics," he says, " degrade nature," as does
also " religion." " The less we have to do with our
sins the better." " Evil is good in the making — the
Divine eflfort is never relaxed ; the carrion in the sun
will convert itself into grass and flowers ; and man,
though in brothels ^ or gaols ^ or on gibbets ^ is on his way to
all that is good and true." A fine world this would
make, if acted on 1 After this, " Queen Mab " and
" Don Juan " ought to be submitted to the Religious
Tract Society as eminently moral. What parallel is
there between carrion turning to flowers, and the rela-
tions of vice to virtue ? Carrion and flowers are the
same matter in diff"erent combinations ; the one is as
good as the other of its kind ; but evil and good are
opposites. To say that the west is the east "in
making," or that cold is heat in " the making," or
darkness, light, would be to the point, but not the
absorption by a plant of its appropriate food. We
are favoured with repeated warnings against thinking
that there is anything in a worthy life. " Nature," we
are told — that is, all the god there is — ^^h no saint. . . .
She comes eating and drinking and sinning. Her
darlings, the great, the strong, the beautiful, are not
children of the law, do not come out of the Sunday-
school » nor weigh their food, nor punctually keep the

DREAMS,

279

commandments." The entertainment of the " propo-
sition of depravity," it seems, " is the last profligacy
and profanation." What can all this mean? Do
"ethics" — that is, principles of morals — "degrade
nature?" If so, no virtue should be taught; no duty
insisted on. Henceforth, cannibals and philosophers
alike are to look upon morals as a degradation of their
nature. They may act wisely or selfishly, if they like,
for their own good, but there is no right and wrong to
guide them. Thomson was right in speaking of God
as " from seeming evil still educing good," but to say
that evil and good are two names for the same thing,
is an outrage on all our moral instincts. If it be true
that man, though in brothels, or gaols, or on gibbets,
is on his way to all that is good and true, morality is
of no account, vice is as good as virtue ; theft, and all
crime, as good as their opposites, and it is as well for
a man to die by the halter after a life of infamy, as to
end life in honour after a career of public and private
excellence ! But, however this Atheistic Fatalism may
shock most people, Mr. Emerson not only teaches it
in words of his own, but enforces it by a quotation
from his favourite Indian divinity, Vishnu : — " I am
the same to all mankind. There is not one who is
worthy of my love or hatred. They who serve me
with adoration, I am in them and they in me. If one
whose ways are altogether evil, serve me alone, he is
as respectable as the just man ; he is altogether well
employed ; he soon becometh of a virtuous spirit, and
obtaineth eternal happiness." It may seem hard to

28o

DREAMS.

simple minds to conceive how any god can be served
by "ways which are wholly evil" — the new religion
sees no difficulty. Is crime as much worship as virtue?
or, if it ape the postures and words of religion, is that
enough ? In the one case, the universal sentiment of
mankind is outraged; in the other, you have hypocrisy,
or sound, count as much as sincerity.

No rites or forms of worship of any kind can be
expected from a philosophy which gathers into one
the worst and the best, with equal approval. Very
general instructions alone can be given. We are to
let our hearts throb with the throbbing heart of nature,
and to commune with the spirits of the stars, and
woods, and fields; but what this means we are not
informed more closely. One passage alone seems
clear enough to quote. " To lead a heavenly life, one
is to listen with insatiable ears to the voice which
speaks to us from behind, till he rises to an ecstatical
state, and becomes careless of his food and of his
house, and is the fool of ideas." Or he is " to go and
be dumb, and sit with his hands on his mouth, a long,
austere Pythagorean lustrum." Christianity says —
"Work;" the new religion substitutes mystic dreaming
for the healthful medicine of action. To get so
heated, it is not said with what, as to forget one's
meals, or family duties, and to be the fool of ideas,
and, having reached this vacant idiotcy, to sit dumb,
with our hands on our mouth for five years, is surely
little better than the rule of the Bhagavad Gita — the
favourite book of the Hindoos, which Mr. Emerson

DREAMS.

281

frequently quotes — that the devotee who can sit for
days looking at the point of his nose and thinking oi
nothing has reached religious perfection.

It might be expected that the new religion wholly
rejects such restraints as the positive morals of the
Bible. Churches and Sunday-schools are only food
for a sneer, and benevolent associations only so many
modes of folly. Prayer is supremely ridiculous.
"The dull pray, geniuses are light mockers." The
Brahmins of this creed, like their brethren in the East,
think him who turns from all other duties that he
may give himself up to meditation on Om, a holier
man than the pilgrim who wearily toils from afar to
fulfil the prescriptions of his faith. " A heavenly life,"
it appears, is no longer one adorned by practical god-
liness and breathing its spirit, but the falling into
reveries at a landscape, and working ourselves into
raptures of sentiment over it.

As all things are only conjurers' counters which
may pass for each other without notice, we have
startling results in science. We are gravely informed
that the reason why natural philosophers know about
the substances which they study, is that they are
idmtical with them, *^ Animated chlorim knows of
chlorine, and animated zinc knows of zinc. Their
qualities make his career, and he can variously publish
their virtues, because they compose himP Perhaps this
is an illustration in Mr. Emerson's own case of what
he means by a man " becoming the fool of ideas ;"
certainly it illustrates Addison's theory, that only a

sSs

DREAMS.

thin membrane, sometimes invisible, decides whether
one be ranked in that hapless class or turn out a
philosopher.

It is a favourite habit with this school to throw the
reader off his guard by retaining the words of Scripture
when their sense is totally changed ; another, to claim
for heathenism, and every other system by turns, the
same morality, or even doctrines, as Christianity. We
are told that Christianity is in Plato's Phgedo, though
any one who has read it knows that it gives, at best,
only a dim glimpse of our immortality. But assertion
goes for proof with the mass.

A depth of reverential feeling, and a solemnity of
thought in the presence of great truths, are marks of
all lofty minds. Subdued sorrow runs like low music
through real genius. Carlyle shows a deep and
earnest sadness in all that concerns the future life,
tempered only by strong faith in the goodness of God —
a sadness only becoming in a world where "evil, grief,
horror, shame, follies, errors, and frailties of all kinds,
press on the eye and heart." But Mr. Emerson, like
Theodore Parker, can treat all that happens to come
in his way lightly. He is not awed even by the idea
of God, which hushes most men into a reverent
silence. He speaks of " God's grand politeness," as
if audacity was in place in such a connection. Con-
trast with this Jonathan Edwards, in spite of his
unimaginative cast, so filled with the sense of the
Divine Majesty — as he tells us — that he would sit and
sing in a low voice to himself in the fields. Or take

DREAMS.

jR*

kthef
)ut a

Milton's hymn put into the mouth of our great parent
Adam — which Burke's son died in repeating — or take
any of the utterances of lofty souls when gazing on the
Divine glory, and the contrast is complete. The new
religion quenches the imagination and poisons the
heart. With nothing nobler than man or grander
than the present, it is chained to the earth, and has
only a ghastly smile where faith glows like a seraph.
Bad taste and inability to conceive a grand ideal
mark both Emerson and Parker. Jesus is a " hero"
says Emerson, and " we cloy of him as of all such ; if
we get too much of Him He becomes a bore at iast.^'
"The universe," we are told, "has three children,
which reappear under different names in every system
of human thought, whether they be called Cause,
Operation, and Effect ; or, more poetically, Jove,
Neptune, Pluto; or, theologically, the Father, the
Spirit, and the Son." Another flower of his rhetoric is
as follows : " Meantime, there are not wanting gleams
of a better light— occasional examples of the action of
man upon nature with his entire force, with reason as
well as understanding. Such examples are the tradi-
tions of miracles in the earliest antiquity of all nations ;
the history of Jesus Christ ; the achievements of a
principle, as in political and religious revolutions, and
in the abolition of the slave trade ; the miracles of
Swedenborg, Hohenlohe, and the Shakers; many
obscure and yet contested facts, now arranged under
the name of animal magnetism ; prayer, eloquence,
self-healing, and the wisdom of children." How

284

DREAMS.

candid, how delicate, to class together Jesus Christ,
Prince Hohenlohe, Anne Lee, and the Spirit-Rappers!
How full of profound rellcction and wisdom the whole
sentence !

Having heard from the lips of its chief apostle the
doctrines and characteristics of the new religion —
what shall we say of it ? Can we accept it as true
when tried at the bar of philosophy itself? Assuredly
we cannot. The same process of thought by which it
reaches the belief that self exists, carries us on to the
idea of a great first cause. Pantheism is the first step in
an argument, with the rest a-wanting, and stands useless
as a broken arch. Does it satisfy the demands of the
imagination in things of religion — those demands which
are pictures reflected from the heart on the brain?
Assuredly not. " It is a stream without a spring, a
tree without a root, a shadow projected by no sub-
stance, a sound without a voice, a drama without an
author, a pervading thought without a thinking mind,
a universe without a God." Do its doctrines meet
any better fate when tried by the standard to which
they appeal, " the moral sentiment " of the race ? The
testimony in each of us to the prevalence of law, the
obligation of right, the consequences of wrong, the
perpetual government of an invisible God, the need
of redemption, and the inexpressible grandeur and
fitness of the revealed future, frown down the mon-
strous untruthfulness of its theology and morals.

Is it desirable, or is it not, that this philosophy be
accepted as better than Christianity, or should we still

DJiA'AJl/S.

»85

Christ,

)pers!

I whole

cleave to the old ? At the risk of repetition, let mc
recapitulate the leading features of both. If, then, we
turn to the scope of their teaching, they differ at once.
Pantheism does not preach to the mass, but rather
affects to despise the rudeness and ignorance which
seek proof as a ground of belief. Culture is to bring
about the reign of the good and the true. It is to
quicken the sensibilities and fit for that intuitive
insight which reads the most hidden truths at a
glance, and it does not hope to be understood where
that is wanting. Christianity addresses itself to man as
a whole, and claims his acceptance on the strength of
its evidence. Philosophy never raised either a tribe
or a nation; Christianity has clothed the naked
savage, given his language form and system, given
him a spade for a war-club, sent his children to school,
and led himself from degraded ferocity to gentleness,
honour, and love. The god of Pantheism is a vast
dreamy abstraction — incapable of definition— a mere
apotheosis of collective man, with no sympathy be-
tween him and a Higher to direct his will, form his
character, or attract his love. Christianity discloses a
Father in the heavens, the Archetype of all Father-
hood, with open hand, benignant eye, loving voice,
and a care for us that never slumbers nor sleeps.
Pantheism never thinks of directing us to its god for
comfort, or hope, or confidence in trial ; Christianity
tells us that Jehovah is the shadow of a great rock in
a weary land, the Fatlier of mercies, and the God of
all consolation. J

£86

DREAMS.

Indeed, in the craving of the soul in all countries
after a personal god — a craving so intense that, even
in India, the native home of Pantheism, Rajah Rammo-
hun Roy declared that Polytheism, which gives every
man a personal god of his own, is a deep and sincere
belief — and in the perfect counterpart to every want of
the spirit found in the Scripture conception of God,
lie a sufficient refutation of Pantheism, and vindication
of Revelation. Voltaire's saying is right — " Si Dieu
n'existait pas, il faudrait I'inventer " (" if God did not
exist, it would be needful to invent him "). Pantheism
tells us that in sounding the depths of one man's
thoughts, we sound the depths of the universe — that if
we know ourselves, we know all the secrets of being.
Our instinctive sense recoils from the assertion.
Christianity, on the other hand, chords with our innate
conviction in asking, instead, who can, by searching,
find out God ? Pantheism is opposed tliroughout to
the moral sense of mankind : its one ceaseless hum is
that man is all to himself — Law, Lord, Saviour, God,
the Universe. *rhus, at a sweep it destroys all the
relations we would bear to a personal god. It
preaches Fate ; Christianity whispers Providence. It
abolishes all moral government, confounds the quali-
ties of actions, obliterates right and wrong, obedience
and sin, from the vocabulary — dismisses all responsi-
bility from human acts, since they are the inevitable
outgrowth of nature and destiny, and since man,
having no personality, can have no obligation. The
best and the worst are one before Pantheism. Th<

V I

DREAMS.

187

mntries
t, even
.ammo-
every
sincere
want of
f God,
ication
5i Dieu
did not
itheism
man's
-that if
being,
sertion.
innate
rching,
lOUt to
hum is
•, God,
all the
J. It
:e. It
quali-
dience
ponsi-
^itable
man,
The
Th<

deceived and deceiver are both divine. We recoil
from a thought so shocking. Christianity, on the
other hand, speaks the conviction of the heart in its
high morality, and its demand for holiness as the con-
dition of seeing God. It has the response of our
bosoms in warning the sinner, and holding aloft the
reward of righteousness. Pantheism scoffs at media-
tion. Humanity, by the fke on ten thousand altars,
craves it, and Christianity offers it. Pantheism offers
no code, no rules for our guidance towards God and
our neighbour, condemns the practical, honours rhap-
sodies, vagaries, and impulses ; or, if it preach work,
has no living principles to induce *t. Christianity is
sober and practical, and turns to whatever can alle-
viate sorrow, or bless and raise, while her precepts
embrace the whole circle of human relationship.
Pantheism has no future to which to invite us, or by
the prospect of which to cheer us. Absorption, as
when a raindrop falls on the ocean, is the fate of all.
Christianity speaks to the innermost soul of the race
in opening the gates of immortality and letting the
light from beyond stream down on our footsteps.
There is no better test of a system than its fulness to
help when human help is vain. In life we may
dream our theories; dying is the experiment that
proves their worth. If any one wish to see
man alone in the hour of trial, let him read the
last letter of John Sterling to Mr. Carlyle, to which
I have alluded already. Mr. Carlyle had had great
influence over him, as his bosom friend, and is now

288

DREAMS. <

told by the dying man — "Certainty I have none;
&nd I have nothing better for it, but to keep shut
the lid of those secrets, with all tie weights in my
power." But, as Mr. Carlyle's vagueness is not
Mr. Emerson's Pantheism, even this dreary letter
would not be enough for one of his disciples in the
hour of death. Contrast with this agonising uncer-
tainty — with the poor human bravery that tries to
keep down the lid of the future — the triumph of
having death swallowed up in victory, and all tears
wiped from off all faces. Compare its darkness and
unspeakable sadness with the Christian picture of
Bunyan — one tinctured by no philosophy — ^with his
bad spelling, his life in jail, and only a homespun trust
in the word of God. Remember the legend he saw
glittering over the gates of the celestial city, " Blessed
are they that do His commandments, that they may
have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in
through the gates into the city." Listen to the sight
of its glories : " Now just as the gates were opened to
let in the men, I looked in after them, and, behold, the
city shone like the sun, the streets also were paved
with gold ; and in them walked many men, with crowns
on their heads, palms in their hands, and golden harps
to sing praises withal." To shoot out into infinite
darkness and keep as brave a heart as may be, as its
unknown possibilities approach, is all Pantheism can
do to soften a dying pillow. Christianity sheds on
that of a dying saint the splendours of an inheritance
incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not awayjfiUs

DREAMS.

289

his soul with the fall of immortal music, and makes
dissolution only a gentle wafting to immortal life.
Which of the two speaks most strongly to our wants
and longings ? Let us pay our regards to that which
adds another world to this, and weaves roses and
amaranths for our brows when we reach it.

It is a striking enforcement of humility to find
philosophy fail so utterly in making a new religion.
It would be well for all who claim to guide their
fellows in things so weighty, to remember and receive
the conclusion of one who searched for truth with
an earnestness from which our modem faith-makers
might take a lesson. I mean Socrates, who sums up,
in his " Apology," the experience of his life, in the
declaration that Apollo had taught him this one thing,
that human wisdom was worth little or nothing. Better
than the dream of genius, or the intuitions of pure
reason ; better than the world without a God, without
a conscience, without immortality, though ever so
philosophically proved, is the trust of the veriest babe
in whom God has perfected praise. Nobler than the
loftiest deification of man, grander than that he should
be dignified with the most sounding titles, is the prayei
of the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
I set up against our new religionists the picture of
Cowper's Cottager, and leave you to say whether she
or they be the brighter mirror of the highest truth : —

•• Yon Cottager, who weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store,

too

DREAMS.

Content though mean, and cheerful, if not gay.
Shuffling her threads about the livelong day,
Just earns a scanty pittance, and, at night.
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light ;
She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,
Has little understanding, and no wit.
Receives no praise ; but though her lot be such
(Toilsome and indigent) she renders much ;
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true,
(A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew),
And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes,
Her title to a treasure in the skies.
O happy peasant ! O unhappy bard !
His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward :
He, praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come
She, never heard of half a mile from home
He, lost in errors his Vain heart prefers,
She, safe in the simplicity of hers."

FAREWELL.

A PREFACE stands at the beginning of a book,
like a Host at the door of his Inn, to welcome
all comers. As I do not intend to write one, I can
only bid my Reader, Farewell, now, as I leave him,
and I do so with as many good wishes as Erasmus has
packed into his Colloquy on Salutations.

But Farewell, between lovers, means anything rather
than a summary leaving, and so in this case. I have
something to add before we part company.

I have spoken of the helps to a religious life;
there is one on which far too much stress is laid by not
a few. The revived mediaevalism which, in the last
thirty years, has spread over all Europe, from Russia
to Spain, has affected Britain as well. Ecclesiastical
architecture and ornament ; church music ; the
ritual of public worship ; and externalism generally,
have passed from the closets of students to be great
public questions. The neglect into which they had
fallen from puritan times has been avenged by a reac-
tion, which has affected not only episcopacy, but even
nonconformity and presbyterianism, as well. The

291

FAREWELL,

^ ■'..

humblest sects have felt its influence: the Anglican
Church is at this moment convulsed by it.

The right use of art and symbol in religion is thus
one of the weightiest inquiries of our day.

To return to the rude simplicity and bad taste of
the past is as impossible as it is undesirable. Nothing
slovenly or vulgar can be permitted in the worship of
God. To have His house forbidding in itself, or its
engagements, while our own is the reverse, is unworthy.
The gold and frankincense and myrrh are due to the
Saviour at God's right hand, no less than they were
when He lay in the cradle at Bethlehem. We must
break the alabaster box, still, over His feet. The
Lord of all that is fair, in earth or heaven, has a
right to the beautiful in His temple and service.

Still, it is clear that material or sensuous beauty is
by no means the highest to God : the spiritual beauty
of the soul is unspeakably nobler. To have the one
at the cost of the other would be no honour to Him,
but much the reverse. Art consecrated to His service
must not affect us as Art ; its place is, rather, to help
towards a worthier worship. But it may hinder instead
of assisting, if it attract to itself the thoughts thai
should rise to the spiritual ; the soul of worship may
be sacrificed to its mere form and accessories.

The only right use of Art in religion is when it is

I the outward expression of truths felt by the heart. By

itself, it is dead, and, instead of lifting the spirit to

God, drags it down to a mere superstition. External

beauty or harmony, to be other than distracting and

->!K

FAREWELL,

293

flican
thus

•>^-

•^ ^^^

hurtful, must be the counterpart of a grander beauty
and harmony in the spirit ; the visible notes of soul
music; the faint realisation of heavenly dreams and
thoughts within.

Merely formal, it becomes the handmaid of sensuous
excitement, and intellectual pleasure, alone, stirring the
feelings, perhaps, but, instead of freeing and elevating
the mind and heart, only gilding their chains, and
casting a vejl of sentiment over their earthliness.* But
need I say, that all Art or symbol, used as the vehicle
or aid of religion, is exposed to this misuse ? We are
prone to rest in the outward, and put it in the place
of the Ideal. Art becomes the object rather than the
medium of worship. We are the slaves of our senses,
and are prone to stop short, with illusions that please
them, instead of rising to the unseen or spiritual. A
purely spiritual worship is indeed impossible; there
must be material or sensuous helps ; but we are always
ready to lower our conceptions from the divine, if the
human obtrudes itself. The image becomes the idol ;
the music, the religion ; high architectural Art makes
all around artificial. The very word Art implies a
contrast to reality.

The most deeply religious ages have always per-
ceived this tendency, and have, hence, been either in-
different to Art, or opposed to it. The early Christians
abjured it, and even in Tertullian's day, two hundred
years after Christ, it was denounced as idolatry. The

• See on this, UJ/ici's Aiticle— Mensch, in Herzog's Ency-
klopadie, v. 9, 359.

«9*

FAREWELL.

Monkish Reformers of the Middle Ages were equally
earnest against it. A pure and noble genius like St.
Bernard opposed it no less than the rude monks of
Egypt, six hundred years earlier. He speaks with
a grand enthusiasm against the Art introduced into
the churches of his day, as fatal to spiritual religion.
Nothing satisfies us at present but Gothic Architecture
and ornament j he has no words to express his aver-
sion to it. The immense height of the churches,
their immoderate length, their superfluous breadth,
costly polishing, and strange designs, grieve him to
the heart. "The beautiful," says he, "is more ad-
mired than the sacred is revered:" words true of
more ages than his. The ornaments of the walls and
roofs he cannot away with ; the disgusting monkeys,
ferocious lions, horrible centaurs, spotted tigers, and
nameless monsters, human and bestial.* The Puri-
tans had the same dislike of the Arts in religion, nor
have they ever found favour in this relation, where men
were thoroughly earnest. Their development in con-
nection with worship runs parallel with the decay of a
spiritual faith, and the growth of a weak and gross
superstition, as if they were parasites, adorning for a
time, but, in the end, hiding and killing the tree
to which they had clung, or bright-coloured fungi,
growing only on fallen and decayed spirituality.
Youth abhors such religious cosmetics : age employs
them to conceal its defects. In our own day, John

* His diatribe against the Abbey at Cluny. Bernard's time
may be remembered as A.D. I III.

•v

FAREWELL.

*95

C^:

4 ^

I.iskin, the greatest Art-critic Britain has seen, writes
— "The more I have examined the subject, the more
dangerous have I found it to dogmatize respecting the
character of the Art which is likely, at a given period,
to be most useful to the cause of religion. One great
fact first meets me. ... I never met with a Christian
whose heart was thoroughly set upon the world to
come, and, so far as human judgment could pro-
nounce, perfect and right before God, who cared
about Art at all."* Thomas Carlyle, in his fierce
way, puts it even more broadly. " May the devil fly
away with the Fine Arts, exclaimed confidentially,
once, in my hearing, one of our most distinguished
public men ; a sentiment that often recurs to me. I
perceive too well how true it is in our case. A public
man, intent on any real business, does, I suppose, find
the Fine Arts rather imaginary . . . feels them to be
a pretentious nothingness ; a confused superfluity and
nuisance, purchased with cost — ^what he, in brief lan-
guage, denominates a bore." f

That Churches should turn to painted windows,
high roofs, scientific music, and the like, as their
attractions, shows disease both inside and out. Good
taste is imperative, but theatrical effect is a mockery
of the Eternal. Dilettanteism in His service is a
Dance of Death. The House of God is a most solemn
fact : not an Italian Opera, or Philharmonic Hall, or
sacred Drury Lane. Scenic display in the building or

• Stones of Venice, ii. 103.

t Latter-Day Pamphlets, Jesuitism, 34.

2()6

FAREWELL,

service is a travesty on all that is grand in Christianity ;
a degradation of its high mysteries to the level of
pagan and barbarous follies. But externalism is not
confined to what appeals to the eye. How much
better is scientific singing to which the congregation
come as to a performance ? Many go to Churches
confessedly, only to hear the singing or playing. They
forswear their creed to amuse their ears, but are often
lured much farther than they intended. Neither eyes
nor ears are part of the soul. Let Jesuitism, Romish
or Protestant, turn its worship into a play ; keep aloof
from it. Let its call-birds sing as they may ; they do
so to beguile you into the hand of the fowler. If Art
be the temptation anywhere, it neutralises all good.

Spirit and Truth : — the reflex of the Divine nature,
alone make true worship : not incense burning ; nor
masquerading in church cloaks and tippets ; nor
mumming and posturing. Spirit and Truth ; not
singers trilling their quavers, nor high scientific music
of any kind ; nor painted windows, with lying legends,
or barbarous distortions of glass saints and apostles.
The soul can rise to God from the bare hill-top, or
from an upper room ; but it is apt to be kept below by
too great attractions of sight and sound. It is the
heart that makes the music that God likes, after all ;
the beauty of holiness is the best robe for people and
priest ; and the best glory of any temple is the felt .
presence of God.*

• Schleiermacher's words are, unfortunately, as true to-day as
when first written fifty years ago : — " From of Old, Faith has

FAREWELL.

297

ristianity ;
■ level of
ism is not
ow much
gregation
Churches
g. They
are often
ther eyes
, Romish
eep aloof
; they do
If Art
good,
e nature,
ingj nor
-tsj nor
th ; not
fie music
legends,
apostles,
ll-top, or
»elow by
t is the
fter all;
•pie and
the felt.

to-day as
'^aith has

I have urged a manly freedom of thought, but it
is thought that, like Noah's dove, ranges abroad only
to return to its rest when wearied. Lessing's famous
saying, that " if the Eternal Father held in His right
hand the Truth, in His left, the striving after it, and he
had to choose between them, he would clasp His
knees, and say, Father, the left,* — can be accepted
only of intellectual truth. Spiritual truth, once
found, becomes part of ourselves, as the colours, woven
into their tissues by the light, do of the flowers.
The heart seeks rest : only the head seeks excite-
ment and change. ** Philosophy is not philosophy,"
says Cousin, "if it do not touch the abyss; but it
ceases to be philosophy if it fall into it."f Use your
liberty Christianly : let it be first Christian and then
free. Be less given to speculation than practice:

never been general : all along, a few have known Religion, while
millions have only played endless fantastic tricks with the wrap-
pings in which they have dressed her, to which she, sadly smiling,
submits." — Denn schon von Alters her ist der Glaube nicht
jedermanns Ding gewesen ; und immer haben nur Wenige die
Religion erkannt, indess Millionen auf mancherlei Art, mit den
Umhiillungen gaukelten, welche sie sich lachelnd gefallen liisst.
— ^Reden iiber die Religion.

Alfred Vaughan, in his Hours with the Mystics, says well —
"that the introduction of art into religion ends, not by art
becoming religious, but by religion becoming an art."

* Wenn der Ewige Vater in der Rechten die Wahrheit hielte,
in der Linken das Streben danach, und ich soUte wahlen, ich
wurde seine kniee umfassen und sprechen : Vater, die Linke !

298

FAREWELL,

cultivate faith rather than doubt; peace of heart
rather than any subtle inquiries. The holiest spot to
the sinner is the foot of the Cross ; from the height
of Calvary he can look round on all things through
clear air.

Remember, work, not retirement, is your duty and
safety. It is a weakly religion that needs to keep
itself shut up by timid restraints. It was a wise act
and saying of Meletius, of Antioch, on finding Simeon
StyUtes chained to his pillar, to get the chain re-
moved — since " to a man that loves God, the heart is
chain enough."

As to the world : The French proverb has much
that is true in it : — " On vaut ce qu'on veut valoir;" —
one gets the standing he claims.

And, now. Farewell. The Eternal God seeks thee
for Himself; be His alone — the Eternal Light, and
Truth, and Love 1 May thy soul rise, by worthy aspi-
rations and Christian graces, towards Him daily, and
make even of the cares and trials of life, so many
cloud-steps to that high temple where He shows
Himself face to face.

THE END.

Butler & Tanner, The Solwuud Friutiug Wurks, Fiome. and lioudon

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