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The
Homely Virtues

By
Ian Maclaren

("■.ev.John Witscn)

Author of " Beiide the Bonnie Brier Buih,'

"The Mind of the Muter,"

etc., etc.

Toronto :

The Copp Clark Co., Limited

1902

lSC;i39

COPrilOHT, I9at. BV DODD, MEAD * COMrAIIY

CdHVKlOHT, jq..,, BV Jons WaISIIN

/■•/rsl EdiltoH puUisktd Oclattr, iqox

INTRODUCTORY

ORDirAKY PEOPLE

SxRAKiHTNESS

II.

Thoroughness

III.

Kindness

IV.

Thrift

Gratitude

VI.

Reverence

VII.

Moral Courage

VIII.

Courtesy

I
s

ORDINARY PEOPLE

Ordinary People

It sometimes occurs to one that as
there are so many philanthropic so-
cieties in our day and another would
make no great difference, it might
be useful, as well as kindly, to estab-
lish a society for the protection of
ordinary people. Its subjects would
be all persons above the age of
twenty-one who had never written
a book, nor a magazine article, nor a
pamphlet, nor a letter to the "Times " ;
who had never stood for Parliament,
nor addressed a political meeting, nor
taken the chair at a charitable gather-
ing, nor moved a vote of thanks to a
speaker ; who do not hold any view
entirely their own on the doctrine
of the Christian Church, or the origin
of the Bible, or the relation of the
sexes, or the division of property ;

Homely Virtues

who are not distinguished players at
anything, nor brilliant conversation-
alists, nor wickedly sarcastic, nor un-
printed poets— persons, in fact, who
do their daily duty, and pay their
debts, and act a neighbour's part, and
speak about the weather, and go to
Church ; persons who are not orig-
inal nor brilliant nor erratic, who are
neither inventors nor reformers nor
cranks, nor anything else except law-
abiding, tax-paying, housekeeping,
kind-hearted citizens-commonplace
people. They endure great wrongs
in our day, and no one is trying to
redress them, although the world is
going crazy with sentiment. No great
man of letters has commonplace
people within his horizon (although
Scott and Dickens had a tender

Ordinary People

regard for them). The modern writ-
er elaborates for the elect who can
admire his precious style ; thoughtful
preachers talk over the heads of plain
folk, and address themselves to what
are called the thoughtful, who are
understood to be always wrestling
with high-class problems or giving
themselves to amazing missions. Art,
if the painter wishes to save his repu-
tation with superior critics, abandons
scenes of homely life and simple
human motives and labours on pictures
which have to be explained like prize
puzzles and might as well be painted
for the Martians as for the average
man of this world. The ordinary
person is ignored and browbeaten
and made to understand that his
conversation is a stupidity, that he
9

Homely Virtues

himself is a weariness, and that unless
you can sparkle, however feebly,
you have no reason for existence.
The ordinary person feels his position,
and, although it may seem amazing
in a creature of lower organisation, is
quite as sensitive as the bright people
who have the wonderful ideas and
say the striking things. It is pathetic
to hear him explain, if he be up in
years, that "we old fogies are out of
it now," and that the young people
know everything; and if he is still
young, that he is " not a clever chap,"
but that there is " no use my trying to
take a hand in conversation." Yet
the old man may have done a good
day's work in the world, and the
young fellow may hav a level head
and both may be of far more value

Ordinary People

than people whose tongues ne.er
cease and who have a windmill in
their heads. So I want to make a
plea for ordinary folk who are good
and for ordinary ways of goodness.

It is a consolation for an ordinary
person to remember that he belongs
to the vast majority of his race and
that if he be outdistanced in talk, he
will succeed in the vote. Out of a
hundred thousand inhabitants in a
city only a handful would be recog-
nised upon a public platform, <ind
out of that handful some were not
known yesterday and will be for-
gotten to-morrow. The great man
of one town may never have been
heard of in the next town ; his fame
does not extend two stations along
the line. A few men have a national

llomdy Virtues

reputation, but it is always a question
of argument whether such and such
; name win survive its genera::'

score of names to the immortal roll
of the ages. When the generations
pass across the stage of time, we on ;

dent.fyafacehereandthere-aMoset
an Alexander, a Paul, a Luth.r J

Cromwell.a Napoleon, a Washingtn

aNewto„,aDar>m,aFaradayiand

eotHers,per,,p3 great in their day

redu rf^''"'^'"^'-^^'^'-now

Tntrr^'^'^^^^'^^^^^'-'^^^^e

Perhaps an ordinary person m

find comfort in th> fact that, after alf
ameless people have done some of

Who made the first flint knife? Who

Ordinary People

first cultivated the land ? Who first
constructed a boat ? Who first lit a
fire? Who invented the alphabet?
Who first struck on the idea of nu-
merals ? Who first established gov-
ernment ? Who carried out the first
barfer? Who built the first house?
No one knows, but those were the
great inventors and pioneers of the
race, and beside their achievements
many great discoveries which have
v/on men fame and rank are not
worthy to be compared. What is
the inventor of a reaping machine to
the man who first sowed seed ? Or
the inventor of the steam engine to
the man who first put out to sea in his
own boat? Besides, when you come
to extraordinary men, who write their
names on the pages of history and
13

Homely Virtues

before whom we all justly bow. how
do we know there was not an ordinary
person behind them who has to divide
the credit? Bunyan gave us the
Pi.gnm« Progress," but we do not
know the names of the good old

women whom he heard talking about
rehg,on as they sat in the sun. and

whose words gave a new direction to
h'shfe. Lord Shaftesbury will long
be held m honour in England for
thesocal reformation that he wrought
but place, if you please. Lord Shaftes-
bury s nurse, who taught the lonely
?; '^; P""^'P'" °f godliness,
ihe hall nngs with applause when
a distmguished scholar obtains his
degree, but what of the country
schoolmaster who first inspired him
with the passion for learning? The

Ordina v People

multitude talk of i distinguished ca-
reer ; they do not think of the man's
father, who toiled and saved and
sacrificed himself that the lad might
have his opportunity. What of the
great man's motiier, whose name is
nothnz/ autint* marketplace?

A very c try womai , yet she was
the motF 'this distiirjuished man.
She nurs. im, she trai led Mm, she
comfi'rte?"! aim, sh« inspired him; it
is possib'e that "-his ordinary woman,
as you judge hi ,^ . e Kim his brains.
He stands upo lei shoulder, and is
seen of all mm, while she is unseen.
Ever' famous ' s raised upon the
lives )f othiTs t a ^'enetian palace
rests upon fl- ' s beneath the water.
What, also, ur ay ask, could the
extraorainary ptupie do without the
>s

Homely Virtues

ordinary? It is the enthusiasm of a
nation which places a statesman in
power and enables him to carry out
beneficent laws. It is the patience
and courage of the common soldiers
which givf 'he victory to the general.
It is the skill and intelligence of
artisans that secures the success for
the capitalist. It is the audience,
eager and responsive, which inspires
the poet. The prosperity of a country
depends on the millions of people
who are doing their tale of work every
day, bringing up their children in
respectability and religion, and dis-
charging humble household duties and
resisting every-day temptations ; the
•rena of national life depends upon
what a multitude of people are think-
mg and feeling and wishing and striv-

Ordinary People

ing; and the goodness of the common-
wealth is made up of the character o*"
an innumerable number of undistin-
guished folk. We may not be phil-
osophers, nor travellers, nor statesmen,
nor conquerors, yet we ordinaries have
our own sphere. We are the soldiers
in the army which won the battle ; we
are the multitude to whom the thinkers
spoke; we are the voters by whom
the statesmen legislate; we are the
force of which historians write. There
are thousands of volumes containing
the record of births in the archives
of the registrar -general, and the
keeper is accustomed to shew a cele-
brated entry here and there. But all
the pages of all the volumes are filled
with names, and each name represents
a person who has been born into the
'7

Homely Virtues

world, and, in many a case, has lived
to old age and has done his piece of
work. Without this nameless and
innumerable multitude there had been
no work and no race.

Can anyone be sure who is doing
the most valuable and lasting work,
how the accounts are to be struck at
the close of the day ? Does it follow
of necessity that a woman who makes
clever speeches on the platform is
rendering greater service to her gen-
eration than the house mother, who
has guided her household well, and
secured the peace and comfort of home
to her husband and children ? Can
the minister who preaches to thou-
sands in the great city be certain that
he deserves more of the Church than
his country colleague who is quietly

Ordinary People

building up the character of young
men who shall by and by make the
strength of the city ? Is a brilliant
writer a greater gain to the common-
wealth than a silent merchant who has
extended its commerce to the ends of
the earth and filled a thousand homes
with plenty ? It is impossible to say;
it is not necessary to make compari-
son ; it is sufficient to remember that
fame may not always mean value, and
that the soundest work in the world
may be done by obscure people.

When all has been said, it remains
that the one thing we are called upon
to do, and the one thing for which
weshall bejudged,isourduty. There
is some particular work which lies to
everyone's hand which he can do
better than any other person. What

Homely Virtues

we ought to be concerned about, is
not whether it be on a large scale or
a small — about which we can never
be quite certain — nor whether it is
going to bring us fame or leave us in
obscurity — an issue which is in the
hands of God — but that we do it, and
that we do it with all our might.
Having done that, there is no cause
to fret ourselves or ask questions
which cannot be answered. We may
rest with a quiet conscience and a
contented heart, for we have filled
our place and done what we could.
Thr. battle of life extends over a vast
area, and it is vain for us to enquire
about the other wings of the army ;
it is enough we have received our
orders, and that we have held the few
feet of ground committed to our

Ordinary Peoj/le

charge. There let us fight and there
let us die, and so fighting and so
dying in the place of duty we cannot
be condemned, we must be justified.
Brilliant qualities may never be ours,
but the homely virtues are within our
reach, and character is built up not
out of great intellectual gifts and
splendid public achievements, but out
of honesty, industry, thrift, kindness,
courtesy, and gratitude, resting upon
faith in God and love towards man.
And the inheritance of the soul which
ranks highest and lasts forever
character.

STRAIGHTNESS

Straightness

It seems a far cry from the fifteenth
Psalm to a modern exchange, and the
circumstances of the East long before
Christ, and of the West in our day,
are very different. Yet it is a sug-
gestive fact that the moral judgment
of the Jewish psalmist and a Western
merchant agrees to the letter upon the
description of a man of honour. No
doubt the psalmist, with his genius
for religion, states the case for decision
after a more impressive fashion —
" Lord, who shall abide in Thy Taber-
nacle ? Who shall dwell in Thy Holy
Hill ? " and the merchant would rather
ask, in our secul"' form of speech,
" Is he the right kind ? " It is natural
for the Jew to enquire who is fit for
fellowship with God, and natural for
the Anglo-Saxon to ask who is fit for

Homely Virtues

fellowship with men. But it comes
to the same thing in the end, for if a
man's morality gives him entrance to
God's Tabernacle, he will be welcome
in any respectable human society ; but
if a man be cast out on moral grounds
from such society, he may not hope
to dwell in God's Holy Hill. The
Old Testament writer would call his
ideal man righteous, which is one of
the lordly words of human speech,
and we, in our anxiety to keep clear
of cant, would prefer to sum him up
as straight; but let us understand that
this familiar term, handed about among
old and young, religious and non-
religious, is simply the homely equiv-
alent of righteous. An idea, like a
soldier, has its parade uniform and its
working dress, and straight is the un-

Straightncss

dress of righteous. Righteousness in
the Old Testament is not a theological,
but an ethical word, and has to do
not with a person's creed, but with
a person's character. The righteous
man of the Psalms is the righteous
man the world over, in every ex-
change, every club, every society, every
workshop. And in calling righteous-
ness by the name of straightness, we
have acclimatised this noble quality
in the speech of modern life.

There are two types of men, and
by their comparison we can remind
ourselves what is meant by straight.
There is the man who may be clever
and interesting and good-natured, and
even, in a sense, pious, 'liot on whom
you may not depend. If you ask
him an inconvenient question, he will
27

Homely Virtues

prevaricate i„ his answer, and you

-.11 find that his words have a double
"jeaning so that whil you wait for

h.ni at the front and, as you suppose.
onydoorofthehouse.hehassneLd
out at the back door Ifyou n,ake
» bargam w,th him, it will be your
wsdom to have his proposal i„ black
and wh,te without delay, since the

chances are if the market goes against
h'm he w,ll assure you, with many a
profession of regret, that you mis-
understood his figure. When goods
are delivered by this man, it is abso-
lute y necessary to verify every quality
by he sample, since, through some

carelessness on the part of his people,
an inferior value is apt to be sent.

^ ^' '''^' ^°^ ''«i«ance in some
emergency, you may take it for granted
a8

Straightness

that his affairs are much worse than
he has told you ; and if he succeeds
in borrowing money, he will have a
hundred excuses for not repaying it.
Should his firm be compelled to stop
payment, very strong remarks indeed
will be made upon the condition of
his books; and if he becomes bank-
rupt, the chances are he will be re-
fused a discharge. When he plunges
into a controversy, he will misquote
his opponent's words, or wrench them
out of their context; and when he
played games at school, hi- came as
near cheating as he could. He is

tricky,shifty,smooth-tongued,double-
faced, not straight.

Over against hin cliere is the
man who may be plain in manner,
and blunt of speech, and slow in
29

Homely Virtues

understanding, and who, perhaps,

may make no profession of religion,

but who can be depended upon

at all times, in every word he

speaks and in everything he does.

His smile may not be so faking

nor his style so plausible, but he

looks you in the face and his

words have the accent of sincerity.

He means what he says and he says

what he means, and if vou mmfP h;™

yoj will never be

in the lurch,
may be long in coming to a de-
cision and he may he hard in a bar-
gain. When the bargain is made,
whether by word of mouth or a nod
of the head, just as much

as by

letter which has been copied, he will
stand by it, though he lose his last
penny. He will not whine about his

Straightuess

losses, for they are the fortune of war,
nor will he brag about his honesty,
for he expects that to be tak^n for
granted. If you have to meet him in
debate, he may press you hard and
be very keen in his views, but he will
always deal fairly with you, looking
for the sense ofwhat you said, an'' . '
taking any advantage of the w '
If he has a quarrel with you, he -v >
have it out with you face to face, anc
would scorn to slander you behind
your back. He also may be unable
some day to pay his debts, and that
will be the bitterest trial of his life ;
well, he will work night and day to
regain his prosperity, and then he will
pay his creditors, every one, with
interest. Never was he known to
make capital out of any doubtful
31

'Ml

ill

Homely Virtues

point in a game, for, though he was
eager to win, he was still more deter-
mined to win like a sportsman. And
this is what we mean by a straight
man.

There are many things for which
one may fairly criticise the world, and
by that I mean the people who do not
profess to be religious; but let us
freely acknowledge that they have at
least one good quality, and that is an
honest appreciation of straightness.
The man who cheats at a game, who
goes back upon a bargiin, who shirks
the post of danger, who filches away
another doctor's patient, who ex-
poses a woman's frailty, who brings
up the catastrophe in a man's private
hfe, is despised and cast out by the
world. The pariah of the world is a

ill

Straightness

sneak, and for him there is no more
mercy than for a rat. Upon the
other hand, while one firmly believes
that the Church of Christ sets upon
the whole an example of unparalleled
virtue, yet one is haunted with the
feeh. : that the Church has not always
laid enough stress upon righteous-
ness, in the Old Testament sense of
the word, and that she has given the
idea the cold shoulder. She has
enforced the commandments which
touch on piety and on purity; she
has not given so clear a sound upon
the commandment of truthfulness.
If ai . man denied the creed or if any
man was a gross evil-liver, the Church,
except in her worst times, would deal
strictly with him ; but if he were
simply dishonest and disingenuous,
33

Homely Virtues

mean and tricky, she has been apt to
let him alone, so that he came to feel
that she did not care, and his own
conscience was lowered. Perhaps one
might go furth sr, and say that crooked-
ness has been a rehgious sin and has
almost had the sanction of the Church
although it has ever received themani-
festjudgmentsofGod. Abraham was
the father of the faithful and a noble
type of religion, but Abraham lied to
Pharaoh with just that kind of lie
which finds its shelter beneath the
shadow of religion. He played upon
words, saying that Sarah was his
s.ster, which, in a sense, she was, but
allowing Pharaoh to understand that
she was not his wife, which of course
she was. It was not a downright
falsehood, but a guarded and calcu-

Straightness

kted departure from the truth, a
policy in which the religious con-
science has shown itself an adept.
There is a kind of man who will not
drink nor swear, who believes in the
deity of Christ and the eternal punish-
ment of the wicked, but who has no
more idea of personal honour than a
fox, and who will do things at which
a high-class man of the world would
be aghast. We are inclined some-
times to think that if a man be
religious, he must be straightfor-
ward, and if he be straightforward,
he must be religious. But we have
leaped too hastily to a conclusion,
for there are people with a genuine
sense of religion who are as crooked
as a corkscrew, and there are people
who would never dream of calling

Homely Virtues

themselves religious, but yet they
are as straight as a die. As, for
■nstance, Jacob in the one class, and
11 the other suc^ , man as the
Duke of Wellington among English-
men, and Abraham Lincoln among
Americans.

Nothing has brought such scandal
on religion in public life as the dis-
honesty of a certain kind of religious
people who will call themselves by
the name of Christ, and take part in
religious tneetings, and set themselves
up as censors of morals, but who
betray the trust of poor investors,
and bring banks to ruin, and start
bogus companies, and make discredit-
able bankruptcies, and obtain pos-
session of the means of relatives and
trustful people, and who tirn out

Straightness

bad work, so that every decent man
condemns them, and, when they are
not cunning enough, the law fortu-
nately lands them in prison. With
their mixture of Phariseeism and
duplicity, with their cant and their
lying, such people are a reproach and
a byword, and are ever being flung in
our faces. While they are praying and
preaching, young men are declaring
everywhere that it is because of them
they are not Christians. If the Old
Testament gospel of morality had
been more stringently preached, the
Church would not have been cursed
with the presence of men who have
dared to speak for her, but whom
neither God in His Holy Hill, nor
the world in her market-places, can
tolerate, because they do not walk
uprightly nor work righteousness.
37

Homely Virtues

Nor has the Church as an historic
body established 30 high a claim as
one would like for straightforward-
ness. Why is it that priests have
earned so bad a name and been so
keenly hated by the people? Why
has one order been expelled from
nearly every country i„ Europe, and
has often brought cruel persecutions
upon Us fellow Christians? It were
a slander to say that all priests are
bad, smce many have been men of
smgular devotion and of vast sacri-
fices; but it is a fact that, as a class
pnests have been less than straight.'
I hey have used words in a double
sense; they have practised the doc-
tnne of reserve; they have invented
astounding excuses for falsehood-
they have brought casuistry to the'
38

Straightiiess

height of a science. One of their
chief characteristics has been that rat-
like cunning which Browning illus-
trates in the priest of the " Ring and
the Book." Whether called priests
or not, all ecclesiastics are tempted to
be crafty and diplomatic. They
make up catching motions ; they de-
vise subtle schemes of policy ; they
are afraid of exciting prejudices ;
they are fond of ambiguous words.
Certainly no one has ever said that
they were simple and guileless. There
are fair grounds for saying that while
the Church has taken the intellectual
failing of heresy and made it into a sin,
she has condoned the moral failing of
trickery and almost raised it to a
virtue.

Has it ever happened to us to have

i!|!

Homely Virtues

a dispute, say, about a statement we
have made, or about a matter of
business, or about family affairs, or
even about a game with a man of the
world, and he told us plainly that we
had acted dishonourably ? Not ille-
gally—which is a different matter,
and has to be tried by a different
standard— but dishonourably, as be-
tween man and man, when tried by
the working code of straightness.
If he was wrong, it was a bitter
moment that he should have thought
so badly of us ; but if he was right,
was it not ghastly ? What did we do'
m that moment when the light was
suddenly turned on in the cellar of
our souls, and we saw the loathsome
creatures of darkness making for their
holes? Did we acknowledge our sin to
40

Straightness

man and God, or did we try to justify
ourselves, and afterwards — which
is the cheapest thing that we could
do — pretend that we were martyrs for
religion's sake ? When Pharaoh told
Abraham to his face that he was a
liar, it was one of the lamentable
paradoxes in the history of religion,
for in that hour Pharaoh stood higher
than Abraham before the conscience
of men and in the sight of God.

If anyone be conscious that he has
a taint of crookedness in his blood,
and that he is inclined to play tricks;
if he has already been exposed and
put to shame because he did not speak
the truth, and his hands were not
clean, lei him face the situation and
bestir himself There is nothing but
contempt and humiliation in store for

Homely Virtues

the dishonourable man at the hands of
the world, nothing but self-reproach
and self-loathing within his own soul.
His own wife, try as she may, will
not be able to respect him, and his
children, as one thing after another
becomes plain to them, will be
ashamed of him. And whatever he
believes and however he prays, there
can be no welcome for him with God,
who is the fountain of truth and
righteousness. The thoughts of men
are often foolish and their judgments
vain ; but, after all, i .y honour
straightness. The ways of God are
ofter> dark and past finding out, but
of one thing we may be sure, the
blessing of God rests upon righteous-
ness, both in this world and in that
which is to come.

THOROUGHNESS

Thoroughness

When one's position is assured he can
go where he pleases, and as thorough-
ness 'vill appear in many humble
places before this article is ended, it
may be well to remind ourselves at
the beginning that it holds high rank
in the religious life. Our Master was
inspired by this principle when He
would allow no disciple to turn Him
from the Cross, and ceased not in His
high endeavour till He had finished
the work which His P'ather gave
Him to do. He was severe upon
impulsive profession without stability
of action, and He gave His highest
praise not to brilliant ability, but to
faithful service. His commandment
unto His followers was to be faithful
unto death, and His promise a crown
of life. St. Paul exhorts his converts

Homely Virtues

to work out their salvation with fear
and trembHng, and declares that all
the energy of his life was gathered to
a point, " this one thing I do." One
of the chief conditions of victory in
the Kingdom of God is thoroughness.
The same law runs in ordinary
life, and he only need expect to attain
success and win the honour of his
fellow men who is thorough. The
reason why men fail is, in five cases
out of six, not through want of in-
fluence or brains, or opportunity, or
good guidance, but because they are
slack; and the reason why certain men
with few advantages succeed, is that
they are diligent, concentrated, per-
severing and conscientious — because,
in fact, they are thorough. One sees
every day the story of the hare and
46

Thoroughness

the tortoise repeated, when the bright
man is outdistanced by an unpromis-
ing competitor, because he is self-
confident and erratic. An irregular
swiftness has no chance in the end of
the day against the pace which may
be slow, but is unresting. As the
conditions of labour in every depart-
ment of human life become more
exacting, there will be no use for the
shiftless and incapable men. His
preserves, where he can mismanage
and not be punished, are growing
fewer every year ; neither a merchant,
nor a college tutor, nor the Church,
nor the public service will tolerate
him soon ; the day is close at hand
when even the English army will
have none of him, and the last resort
of brave incapables will be closed.

Homely Virtues

Society is beginning to demand tiiat
whatever a man professes to do he
must be able to do, or else Society
will wash her hands of an unprofitable
servant. If the slack man does not
mend his ways, he will have to go to
the workhouse.

People conceal their inherent slack-
ness from themselves by all kinds of
ingenious excuses. When they are
caught tripping in their own depart-
ment of knowledge it is because their
minds are so taken up with principles
that they cannot keep hold of every
minute detail, or they blame their
treacherous memory — as if their
minds were simply crammed with
goods, but this tricky servant brought
the wrong article. When they miss an
engagement or have not finished
48

Thoroughness

their work in time, it is due to the
multitude of their affairs. As if we
did not know that the busiest man
is usually the most exact and the
idlest man has his time most crowded.
M'hen things come to the worst,
they fall back on absent-mindedness,
which they secretly consider to be
associated with genius, and which
ought to place them beyond criticism.
No doubt there are people who seem
to have been born without the faculty
of memory, just as there are people
who are born blind, and there are
other people in whose mind there is
a loose wheel, just as there is a cer,.ain
proportion of our fellow men in
lunatic asylums ; but, as a rule, those
excuses, when they are boiled down,
simply come to persistent and cul-
pable slackness.

Homely Virtues

Thoroughness can prove itself in
various ways, and not least by honest
thinking. It is not good to be a
bigot, and to give no credit for
intelligence to our opponents, either
in politics or in religion ; but there is
something worse than bigotry, and
that is instability — to have no opinion
except what is pumped into you by
your neighbour, or to have one opin-
ion to-day and another to-morrow,
or never to rise above opinion, and to
reach conviction. This type of man
is neither Liberal nor Conservative,
neither Republican nor Democrat ;
in England he is said to have a cross-
bench-mind, and in America he is
called a mugwump, and in neither
country does he receive any great
measure of intellectual respect. His

Thoroughness

indecision may be due to a certain
quality of mind which never can come
to a conclusion, and never can take a
side strongly, but the chances are
that want of conviction means intel-
lectual indolence. Surely it is our
duty to think out the great subjects
of lift; to our furthest limits, to form
our creed by the best light God has
given us, and having won our creed,
to live and defend it. Let us believe
something with all our might, and
while the best thing is to believe in
Christ and to be a thoroughgoing
Christian, the next best thing is to
believe, as St. Paul once did, another
creed, and to be true to it, for the
day will come when God will give to
the honest thinker more light, and he
will be all the braver soldier of Christ

Homely Virtues

because he had been a brave enemy.
We would respect ourselves more
and be stronger men if we could only
take our stand somewhere, and,
where we stood, be prepared to die.
Thoroughness should also brace
our habits in daily life. No doubt
there is an accuracy which is niggling
and a regard for order which is
slavish ; there is also an inaccuracy
and a disorder which disfigure life
from morning till evening; and to
escape being a Pharisee in this macter
one need not be a publican. Some
people seem to have made a rule of
unpunctuality ; they are late in rising,
late for meals, late for trains, late for
engagements, late even for pleasure ;
they are exact and accurate in one
thing only — in being so many minutes

Thoroughness

behind time. They are dull of hear-
ing in the morning, their watches are
ever going slow ; beyond all other
people they are detained by unex-
pected visitors or sudden duty. No
one may depend upon them; they
are a trial unto their friends and the
scorn of their enemies ; and the cause
of their shame is slackness. There
is the woman who is always badly
dressed, without neatness and without
taste ; and when you see a woman with
unmended gloves and a torn dress, you
may be sure that she is an incapable
housekeeper and a helpless wife, for
if a woman has not spirit enough to
keep her dress in repair she is bound
to be slack in every duty of life.
There is the man who writes so badly
that he is convinced himself that he

Homely Virtues

has a literary gift, in which case the
profession of letters has the easiest
condition of entrance and the largest
number of members among all the
departments of human activity.
Illegible writing is a slovenly habit
for which no excuse can be offered
except want of education, and its
punishment falls on innocent people,
on postmen, on clerks, on busy pro-
fessional men, and on friends who
cannot understand the news that
has been sent The school, large
or small, which does not teach its
boys to write should be marked
inefficient, and the people who will
not do their best to write legibly
should be classed with the illiterate.
Thoroughness should be vindicated
in the work to which we have been

Thoroughness

called and by which we have to be
judged. If we play a game, let us
strive to play it well, and not be a
" footy " ; if we undertake a piece of
work, let us finish it to the last jot
and tittle. If we profess a subject of
knowledge, let us have it at our
finger ends. If wc take up a scheme,
let us see it through; and if we
choose a side, let us play the man.
There is honour for the man who can
be trusted to the end and whose
work does not need to be done over
again, who can always be found in his
own place, and will always do what is
expected of him. There is continual
dishonour for the person who is slip-
shod and unreliable, and fickle and
lazy, for he is like the reed which
pierces the hand that leans upon

Homely Virtues

it. Nowhere is thoroughness more
needed than in religious work,
nowhere is slackness more prevalent.
There are Christians who serve Christ
as diligentlv and faithfully as they do
their earthly work, and they shall not
miss their reward ; but many of Christ's
servants would not be tolerated for a
week by any other master. The
poorest joint-stock company in the
land is better served by its directors
than many congregations are by their
office-bearers. There are no teachers
anywhere so ignorant and so casual
as certain Sunday-school teachers;
there is no clerk in a dry goods store
dare treat his duty as lightly as
some of the voluntary officers of the
Christian Church. They will absent
themselves without leave and without

Thoroughness

excuse; they will never enquire how
their work is being done or whether
it is done it all ; they will not take the
trouble to prepare themselves to do
it, and they are not concerned when
it fails in their hands. They will
place their pleasure and their fancies,
and their social engagements, and
their imaginary ailments before their
Christian duty. And it would be
difficult to say how little must be the
burden, how short must be the time,
that they would be willing to count
an obligation upon them and would
be prepared to face. One is some-
times inclined to propose a general
resignation of the Christian staff, and
then an invitation to all who were
prepared to do Christ's work as well
as the work of the worid is done.

Homely Virtues

and it might be that three hundred
thoroughgoing men like the Band of
Gideon would do -vu-. for Christ
than ten times the number of irre-
sponsible casuals.

And thoroughness takes its highest
form in character, where slackness is
a germ of destruction. One of the
most disappointing and dangerous
people in society is the man or
woman who is agreeable, and plau-
sible, and sparkling, and amusing, but
insincere, changeable, and unprin-
cipled and facile. There is no dis-
loyalty, no baseness, such a person
may not be capable of, not so much
because he is immoral, but because
he is slack. You must not count
him a friend, since he may cast you
off to-morrow ; you must not assume
he will stand temptation, since his

Thoroughness

character is weak at the foundation.
Character is the ground of trust and
the guarantee for good living, and
that character only is sound which
rests upon a good conscience and a
tlean heart and a strong will.

What one fears is that a slovenly
habit of work may in the end mean a
slovenly soul, for character is estab-
lished by action. As we carry our-
selves in an innumerable series of acts
from morning till night, doing our
work slackly with detached mind
and nerveless hands, or doing it
thoroughly with a scrupulous con-
science and full purpose of heart, we
are either building our house upon
the sand, and the first flood will
sweep it away, or upon the rock,
against which the fiercest flood will
beat in vain.

Ill

KINDNESS

Kindness

It seems as if there were a fashion
in virtues as in dress, and that private
kindness were more at home in the
past than in the present. The gener-
ation which is bidding us good-bve,
and whom in our superior moments
we criticise, 'vas not ashamed of
generous emot:jns. Our fathers met
their fellow creatures upon a basis of
unaffected cordiality; they took an
affectionate interest in the affairs of
their friends ; they were still capable
of shaking hands. Their faces gave
proof of the warmth within ; they did
not pose nor use falsetto adjectives ;
they were sincere, straightforward,
warm-hearted Oar generation is apt
to receive its frends upon a r-tage,
with the gesture and expression fixed
by the rule of fashion ; it is shocked
63

Homely Virtues

by any outbreak of human feeling,
and will smile feebly when wished a
Happy New Year, as if apologising
for a lapse into barbarism. It con-
ceals affection and suppresses feeling,
although practising little tricks and
artificial moods for dramatic effect.
Amid this cant of up-to-date lan-
guage, this smart attitudinising, this
" perfect devotion " to a hundred
different people, this calculated rap-
ture over an incident which is
forgotten next minute, this studied
enthusiasm for a cause taken
up by some great lady, this weari-
some hypocrisy of manr rs, one
longs for the unconventio al sim-
plicity and the reality of other days.
We grow weary as we hear the note
of conversation taken from a pitch
64

Kindness

fork, as we see fkces arranged for an
occasion, and then disarranged again
to be ready for the next scene. We
welcome as a relief the veriest
Philistine with a heart in his bosom
and no fear of man before his eyes,
who grasps our hand like a man and
drives us before him in the joy of
meeting.

The depreciation of kindness in
private life, which is one of the
features of our day, is very largely
due to the fashion of intellectualism,
but yet human nature below the
surface of crazes and phrases remains
the same, and his fellows still judge
a man by his heart rather than by his
head. When the jury is selected, not
from a coterie, but from the market-
place, the person who is kind will
65

Homely Virtues

ever be preferred to the person who
is clever, and " thoughtful," to use a
cant word of our day, is still less
than warm-hearted. Walter Scott
and Dickens will ever have a larger
hold upon the people than Hardy
and Meredith, not because their art
is finer, but because their spirit is
kindlier. An affectionate child is
more welcome than those monsters of
modern precosity who furnish their
foolish parents with sayings for
quotation, and who have worn out
all healthy sensations at the age of
ten. The girl who is honest, unaf-
fected, considerate, good natured,
still receives the prize of respect and
of love. No young man is better
liked than he who has a genuii
interest in the aged and little children,

Kindness

in poor lads and in weak people.
People mention with pathetic delight
that although such and such a man
be so able, yet none is more mindful,
and here it is interesting to note how
the mind is brought under subjection
to the heart, for when we say mind-
ful we do not mean intellectual, but
helpful. Women who create around
them a quiet and genial atmosphere
will never want for grateful subjects.
Hot temper is condoned by the world
if there be in the man a heart of love
yet greater than the passing flash of
rage. People will put up with hasty
words and discourteous actions for the
true heart which is behind them, and
will remember the shining of the sun
long after they have forgotten the
thunderstorm. Many a sinner against
67

Homely Virtues

God and man has been forgiven both
in heaven and earth because he loved
much. No cleverness and no success
can redeem heartlessness. People who
are not constant and sympathetic, who
are showy and affected, may imagine
that they are admired — they are really
detested. The chief crown of life is
the love of your fellow men, and that
is ever given to those who have a
heart.

If any one should think that the
value of kindness is exaggerated let
him remember its moral quality. Why
is it that some people are unkind?
Usually because they are hard or
cynical, or thoughtless or worldly.
In short, because however ready may
be their flow of sentiment or graceful
their manners, they are at the core

Kind

ness

thoroughly selfish. They do not
help their neighbours, because they
are always engaged furthering their
own personal interests ; they do not
feel for their neighbours, because their
own joys and sorrows absorb their
whole stock of emotion ; they do not
think about their neighbours, because
their one imperious subject is them-
selves. They are the slaves of a
masterful egotism, which thinks and
feels and acts in terms of self; to
which the world is but the stage
scenery for a single character and
other men only a chorus. What
does it mean that a person is kind ?
That he remembers other people,
that he is not bound up with his own
affairs, that he is capable of making
sacrifices, that he is willing to serve
69

Homely Virtues

his fellow men. It means that his
heart is not of stone, hut of flesh, that
his spirit is not of the world, but of
Christ. Religion may be tested by
many virtues, but it may be safely
said that its surest proof is kindness.
One may be pure and honest and
industrious, but if he is not kind he
is so far less a Christiin. One, on
the other hand, may have many
faults, but if there be in him a pitiful
and friendly heart, he is so far a
Christian. He who shows not mercy,
it is fair to argue, has never tasted
the mercy of God, and he who
never thinks of his brother has never
realised how God has thought of him.
While he that loves proves that he
has been loved, for love is of God,
and he who helps p oves that he has

Kindness

been helped by Jesus Christ. When
we rate kindness as a form of facile
good humour, we are depreciating this
virtue; it is nothing else than the
love of God in common life.

"For mercy, pity, peace, und love,
Is God our Father deur ;
And mercy, pity, peace and love,
Is man His child and cure , . .

And alt must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew.

Where mercy, love and pity dwell,
There God is dwelling, too."

Another reason why we ought to
make much of kindness is that unkind-
ness contributes so largely to human
misery, and kindness to happiness.
There are the major and the minor
trials of life, and the major trials,
thank God ! do not come often,
71

Homely Virtues

although their shadow may remain
for years. We are apt to think that
they are beyond human consolation,
and yet the mourner will tell you
that in the day of sore distress he
was greatly comforted by a letter, by
a word fitly spoken, by a call at the
rig; it time, by a little attention. The
hci'rf is lonely in the straits of life
and is thankful for company; it is
wounded and bruised and wiii^mes
the wine and oil. '("he y..>od
Samaritan is the proof . r G<x!, a.: i
the children of afflicticm ' .uj: fl.i*^
they have not been fors brn. i iv ,
IS no balm for sorrow, no re( Mvor.-.?
ment for faith outside the Bible iike
your neighbour's kindness. Much of
the sorrow of life, however, springs
from the accumulation, day by day

Kindness

and year by year, of little trials —
a morning letter written in less than
courteous terms, a wrangle at the
breakfast table over some arrange-
ment of the day, the rudeness of an
acquaintance on the way to the city,
an unfriendly act on the part of
another firm, a cruel criticism need-
lessly reported by some meddler, a
feline amenity at afternoon tea, the
disobedience of one of your children,
a social slight by one of your circle, a
controversy too hotly conducted.
The trials within this class are innu-
merable, and consider not one of
them is inevitable, not one of them
but might have been spared if we or
our brother man had had a grain of
kindliness. Our social insolences, our
irritating manners, our censorious

Homely Virtues

judgment, our venomous letters, our
pin-pricks in conversation, are all
forms of deliberate unkindness and
are all evidences of an ill-conditioned
nature.

Is not the burden of life, with its
labours and anxieties, temptations
and bereavements, heavy enough
without our voluntary additions?
Why should our neighbour's temper
be embittered, and his heart wounded,
and his peace broken, and the limited
joy of his life be reduced by our
thoughtless deeds and by our foolish
words, when we might have done so
much to add to his joy and to help
him along his way ? Ought we not
to make a covenant with ourselves
and ask God to seal it with His
blessing, that whether or not we be

Kind

ness

able to give large sums of money or
to render great services, whether or
not we be able cr brilliant, that at
least we will be kind from the time
we rise to the time we lie down— in
our homes, in our offices, through our

pleasure and through our work to

the people of our blood and to the
people of our acquaintance r Let us
resolve that if we are out of sorts or
if we have been disappointed in our
work, we will not take it out of our
neighbours, our wife and children,
our servants, or our clerks ; that we
will not debate and wrangle in speech
about politics and religion and a
hundred other things of less impor-
tance, till every one is on edge ; that
if we know that a person has some
fad, we will give it a wide berth and

Homely Virtues

save our brother from himself; that
if there be some innocent subject on
which he loves to talk, that we will
be his attentive hearers. That if
anyone has had a success, that we will
make muda of it; that if anyone
has had a reverse, we will let him know
that we also suffer ; that we will never
pass a friend without a signal of good
will; that if we hear evil gossip we
will immediately bury it, and that if
we hear a good report about anyone,
we will blaze it abroad; that wc will
carry ourselves patiently with tire-
some, irritating, sour, and uncharitable
people. And to this end that we will
curb our vanity, pride, and self-
importance and evil temper.

Might we not also go a little
further and resolve that every day we

Kindness

will do at least one act of kindness to
some neighbour. Let us write a
letter in such terms that the post will
bring pleasure next day to some
house ; make a call just to let a friend
know that he has been in our heart;
give a young man starting in business
some bit of work to encourage him
in his first year; send a gift on some
one's birthday, or on his marriage
day, or on Christmas day, or on any
day we can invent; exert ourselves
to get a widow's son into a situation
T a lad into a school. Ifwehavea
carriage, let invalids have the use of
it; if we have a box in the concert
hall, let us remember that Providence
has given some people the love of
music without silver and gold ; let us
make children glad with things which

fm^im

Homely Virtues

they long for and cannot obtain.
And a thousand other things which
we could do within a year if we had
eyes to see and a heart to feel, and
had the will to take some trouble.
If every one did an act of daily kind-
ness to his neigbour, and refused to
do any unkindness, half the sorrow
of this world would be lifted and
disappear.

What we mean to do let us do
quickly, for life is short, and, as has
been said, we shall not come this way
again. The sun will soon be setting
for every one of us and we will be
coming to the Master to give an
account of the day's work and to
receive His judgment. And we are
going to be judged by nothing more
or less than by -(ur kindness or our

Kindness

unkindness. They who were kind
shall go to the right hand-He said
't who Himself is Judge-and they
who are unkind shall go the left hand,
for inasmuch as we have done it unto'
the least of His brethren, we have
dealt kindlv with the Lord Himself.

IV
THRIFT

Thrift

Thb Miracle of the Loaves and
Fishes is an illustration at once of
magnificent generosity and of careful
economy, and reminds us of the
difference between abundance and
waste. The guests whom the Master
entertained were in number about
five thousand, they had of the loaves
and fishes simple, wholesome fare,
as much as they wou' 1. When they
were satisfied the fragments of broken
bread and unused fish were gathered
up by the apostles and placed in
baskets, and this was done according
to the command of Christ that
nothing should be lost. As Nature,
with all her boundless resources and
lavish display of beauty, yet skil-
fully and anxiously uses up every
scrap of her material and refuses to
83

Homely Virtues

recognise such a thing as refuse, so
Jesus with the power of creation at
His disposal will not allow that the
remains of a feast he flung away, but
insists that what has noi been needed
by His guests shall be kept for some
poorer people. It is a convincing and
authoritative application of the law
of thrift.

Thoughtless people are apt to
make a contrast between generosity
and thrift, as if they are not more
likely to be the complement of one
another, and the reason of their
mistake is a misunderstanding of
both ideas. Generosity such people
confound with extravagance, and
thrift they spell meanness, and so
they conclude that if a man spends
his money in every foolish whim and

Thrift

injurious gift, he is as large-hearted
as he is open-handed. While if his
neighbour makes conscience of every
shilling which he lays out either on
himself or on other people, and
studies how he can best utilise the
means of which God has made him
trustee, that he is both close-fisted
and lean hearted. According to this
view of it, extravagance even in its
more vulgar and ostentatious form is
a vice so splendid that it is equal to
a virtue, and thrift, even when it is
guided by the highest principles, is
so petty and sordid a virtue that it is
next door to a vice.

As there is no vice without a

certain kinship to virtue, and no

virtue which is not in danger of being

sold into the slavery of vice, one

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Homely Virtues

recognises that extravagance is with
some men a proof of kindness, and
that in some forms it is not without
its attraction. When one bestows
his benefits upon so large a scale that
he gives far more than can be used,
he may not always be blamed, for
our Lord Himself did not limit
Himself by the appetite of His
guests, but made an overflowing
provision with enough and to spare.
There is a thrift which is so cold
and accurate that it seems to weigh
every morsel in the scales of a chemist,
and to be concerned about grains and
scruples, and one is not drawn to the
host who has studied his guests'
appetites so carefully that when the
feast is ended the last loaf and fish
are also gone. Waste is the shadow

Thrift

upon generosity, miserliness on thrift,
and It IS a grave question whether
the wastrel or the miser is a greater
curse to the community, but cer-
tainly the miser is the more unlovely
character.

Thrift is like some misunderstood
character in history, and has to be
redeemed from opprobrium ; and Car-
lyle, who removed the dust of many
years from the portrait of Cromwell,
and placed him where he ought to
be, among the chief rulers of England,
has also done his best to redeem the
idea of thrift. He points out with
much force that upon this despised
and commonplace virtue, which supe-
rior people are apt to assign to hard-
working peasants and little trades-
men, has been built up great and
87

Homely Virtues

strong empires. " For my own part,
I perceive well there was never yet
any great empire founded, Roman,
English, down to Prussian or Dutch,
nor in fact any great mass of work
got achieved under the sun, hut it
was founded even upon this humble-
looking quality of thrift, and became
achievable in virtue of the same." It
was largely to rigid economy, which
sometimes no doubt touched the ex-
treme of avarice, that Frederick the
Great partly owed his power. It
was to the saving habits of the French
country folk, which no doubt are
sometimes sordid and grinding, that
their nation owed its recovery from
the great disaster of 1871. And it
is their simple life and careful use of
means which has secured to the work-

Thrift

ing people of Holland and Switzer-
land their modest and contented
prosperity. A great empire may be
able to endure the strain of lux-
ury for a while, either through the
accumulated resources of the past or
the immense riches of its land, which
explains why Britain and the United
States can be so wasteful as they are
and yet be so strong, but it still
remains true <-hat thrift is the con-
dition of continued prosper- for
the State, and waste the destruction
of a nation.

The laws which guide the affairs
of a nation create also the character
of an individual, and I doubt whether
the superstructure of any character
be sound which does not rest upon
thrift as one of its foundation stones;
89

Homely Virtues

for thrift is not to be thought of as
the mere accumulation and invest-
ment of money, it is the e-idence of
certain qualities which .ire more
precious than silver and gold. When
you know that a family are thrifty,
then they may or may not be clever,
agreeable, good-natured, popular, but
you do know that they must be
industrious, honest, persevering, sim-
ple living. Thrift, if you go into the
matter, proves foresight in the regu-
lation of life, a steady principle of
action, a constant self-denial in little
things, and a certain willingness to
endure hardships. It would be a
rare thing indeed to find a thrifty
person lazy, shiftless, unreliable,
irresolute. You may take for granted
that he will be clear of head and

9°

HL'l

Thrift

strong of will, independent of human
opinion, and true to his own con-
science. He cannot be soft who
lives in this atmosphere ; he cannot
be weak who has passed through this
temptation ; he cannot be a fool who
has so often had to say no.

Justice is seldom done to the
thrifty, and a great deal more than
justice is done to the thriftless. A
curious glamour seems to surround
the man who takes no thought about
to-morrow in another sense than
Jesus intended, who flings his money
right and left in every form of social
extravagance, who is hail fellow well
met with every man upon a basis of
meat and drink, and sport and pleas-
ure, who does not deny himself any-
thing which can minister to his

Homely Virtues

appetite or his tastes, or which will
tend to notoriety and display. Peo-
ple call him by various flattering
names which all come to this — that
he is the type of good nature ; beside
him the careful and saving man is
counted to be niggardly, shabby,
mean, and self-regarding; and with
the majority of people he would be
discredited. But the soundness of
a man's heart is not to be finally
judged by the foolish tips with which
he demoralises servants and reduces
them to flunkies, nor by his willing-
ness to stand the cost of champagne
and cigars, nor by his taste for
expensive articles which he does not
need, nor by the lavish scale on
which he lives. Do you find in
your experience that this man is as
92

Thrift

ready to give to the great causes
of religion, and philanthropy, and
education, and charity, as he is to spend
his money upon feasts and shows, on
purple and fine linen ? Have you
never discovered in this man of over-
flowing geniality and reputed warmth
of heart a remarkable reluctance to
part with his substance for worthy
and unselfish ends, and an amazing
wealth of mean excuses when he is
asked ? Are you not haunted with
a suspicion that at any moment this
large-hearted man may embrace your
purse in his affection, and this fine,
open-handed fellow may open his
hand not to give, but to borrow ?
And did you ever know this capital
fellow to pay anything which you
ever lent him ? When he dies, is it
93

Homely Virtues

h i

[II J

I i

not found, in nine cases out of ten,
that he has made no proper provision
for his wife and children, but has
wasted on himself and his boon com-
panions, or at best on his selfish
habits of life, the money which ought
to have secured for them a home and
comfort ? When the hat goes round
for his family, are you not tempted
then to revise your judgment and
to realise the hoUowness of his char-
acter ? Open-handed ? Yes, to him-
self and the people that are like him.
Not niggardly ? No, except to those
who have depended on ''im. Give
the thrifty man his due; if he be
not popular with the glutton and the
wine bibber, he has some good points.
It is he, I suspect, who gives the
largest subscription on Hospital

<)4

I'hrift

Sunday, not your light-hearted spend-
thrift, and it is his kind which main-
tains the great institutions of charity.
You need not be afraid that he will
sponge on you for mo-ey— he is not
so mean as that, or that his widow
will have to go out begging— he is
not so shabby as that. If he prac-
tises self-denials which you may
despise— taking :: car instead of a
hansom, traveling third-class instead
o. first, going to a quiet hotel instead
of to a fashionable one, dnnking water
instead of wine, it is he himself at the
worst, and not you, who is going to
suffer. It is not this man who will
impoverish society, nor tax his
neighbours for <;he upkeep of 'limself
and his family. If he lives simply
he lives surely, also honestly and
95

I ■
i i|

Homely Virtues

beneficently, and that no thriftless
person ever does, or ever will do,
while the world lasts.

It is not young men and women
brought up in the practice of thrft,
and accustomed to simple and whole-
some ways of life, who are afraid to
marry because they cannot have a
large house, and surround themselves
with expensive furniture, and indulge
in a hundred luxuries, and begin
upon the levol where their father
and mother have ended. Marriage
in what is called society is decreasing
because young men and women are
afraid, not of poverty, but of sim-
plicity, and desire not comfort, but
luxury, because they have not learned
to save, and because they are not
prepared to save ; and therefore many
96

Thrift

young women are growing shallow,
and affected, and cynical, and fast, and
many young men calculating, selHsh,
soft and vicious. Thriftlessne^ . there-
fore has its Nemesis, thouj,^h it seems
the most venial of sins, in wasted
hearts, which is worse than wasted
money; in worldly lives, which is
worse than want of prudence.

Thrifty people consider together
their ways and means, and keep their
expenditure well within their income.
It is not they who run into debt and
have large accounts with tradesmen ;
who are continually receiving dunning
letters, and have to humble them-
selves with false, cringing excuses;
who keep poor shopkeepers out of
their money and bring them often to
bankruptcy; who if they pay any-

; i|

Homely Virtues

thing will sooner pay their wine mer-
chant than their doctor, and who if
they had a little money at hand would
rather make up a party for a horse
race or a theatre than give it to the
best cause that ever asked for help.
Luxurious people often carry a high
head, looking down on tradesfolk
and on their quieter neighbours ; but
at any rate it was the tradespeople
who threatened them, not they the
tradespeople, and if their neighbours
be quiet, at least they pay their debts ;
and I had rather be the greengrocer
in my little shop who was cheated
than "^e fashionable woman in her
carriage who cheated him.

Will people never understand that
whether we live simply or extrav-
agantly, whether we pay our debts at
98

Thrift

once or after several years, whether
we use the means God has given us
for selfish or noble ends, is really a
moral question? The thriftless
nation, the thriftless family, the
thriftless person has broken one of
the laws, both of nature and of Christ
and will suffer punishment in deca-
dence of character, in loss of self-
respect, and in callousness of honour
While the frugal and careful man is
blessed to-day with peace of mind
and a good conscience, and the
respect of those neighbours who
know the difference between sham
and reality, between truth and false-
hood.

GRATITUDE

Gratitude

It is pleasant to come upon a cluster
of Alpine flowers blooming amid a
waste of snow, and it is with the
same feeling one reads what the town
of Jabesh-Gilead did for Saul in the
iron age of Jewish history. It is one
of the Idylls of the Old Testament.
The connection between this place in
the rough country beyond Jordan
and the King of Israel was established
long before Saul began his ill-fated
career, and is a romantic story. The
Tribe of Benjamin had so offended
the rough conscience of Israel by
sheltering shameless criminals that it
was almost exterminated, and the
survivors were forbidden to marry
into other tribes. This mciint that
there would soon be a tribe less in
Israel, and the heart of the nation
103

Homely Virtues

was touched. Some expedient must
be found to supply Benjamin with
wives, and since Jabesh-Gilead hid
not joined in the war, and was
supposed to be friendly to the
offending tribe, the men of Israel
seized four hundred young women
of the place and handed them over
to Benjamin. The women carried
off in this fashion linked together
Benjamin and Jabesh-Gilead, and a
tradition of friendship v^as created,
something like that which existed,
through marriage also, between the
Scots and the French.

Pass about three centuries, and
Jabesh-Gilead is in sore trouble. The
ancient enemy of their nation had
attacked this outlying, lonely place,
and offered its inhabitants the alter-

Gratitude

native of hopeless resistance or a
shameful humiliation. In straits,
they bethought themselves of their
hereditary kinsmen of Benjamin, and
sent a swift embassy to Saul, who
was already known as "a mighty
man of valour." He came to meet
them like another Cincinnatus from
the plough, and on the hearing of
their story the Spirit of God descended
upon Saul. He killed his oxen,
which he would never need again,
and sent the fragments as a fiery cross
through Israel. The heart of the
nation was stirred, and in a few days
Saul was at the head of the army of
Israel. He bade Jabesh-Gilead be
of good courage, for help was at hand,
and the people waited for him as the
little garrison of Lucknow for their
105

Homely Virtues

deliverers. Saul came and smote the
Ammonites with such calculated skill,
that there were not two of them left
together. It was Saul's maiden
victory and a splendid feat of arms,
and oo the old tie, rudely formed
long ago, was re-knit by this friendly
succour in time of need.

Pass some forty years now, and
Saul's day of trouble has come, and
the gallant king lies dead on the field
of Gilboa. The Philistines were not
generous foes, and Saul had been the
hammer of their race. When they
found his body, they cut ofF his head,
whom living they had been afraid to
meet, and hung it in the Temple of
Dagan ; they fastened his body to
the walls of Bcthshan, and placed his
armour in the house of the Goddess

Io6

Gratitude

of the Grove. Alas for Saul ! The
armies of Israel were scattered, and
David was in hiding. Who is to
rpmember the fallen king and rescue
his remains from insult? There is
one place where his memory is green
and where mothers tell their children
what Saul did for their fathers in the
brave days of old. As soon as the
sad news of Gilboa reached distant
Jal jsh, her valiant men resolved to
do by Saul dead as he had done for
them living. They made a swift
night march to Bethshan, and
brought away the bodies of Saul and
his three sons. They buried their
ashes in a public place at Jabesh, and
they made great lamentation over
the king. Saul was laid to rest
among the people he had saved, and
107

Homely \'irtues

he had the best of all monuments —
the people's gratitude.

It is the custom nowadays to
criticise the defective morality of the
Old Testament, and nothing is easier
than to make comparisons to our
advantage between the ways of the
generations past and our own. How
fierce and revengeful, how callous
and brutal were the heroes of Hebrew
history in the ighting period ! And
so the modern, with his dainty senti-
ment and effusive philanthropy, is
inclined to treat those hard-fisted
fighters as savages ; but he forgets the
age they lived in and the work they
had to do. Without doubt painting
is a more delicate art than hewing,
but until the stone be quarried and
cut there will be no walls to paint,

iu8

Gratitude

and the men of the former days
blasted the stone with sweat and
danger and laid the strong founda-
tion of the Kingdom of Righteous-
ness. It is easy for us at a later
stage to decorate the rough-hewn
walls which Ironsides built sword in
hand, and to add the tenderer graces
of Christianity to their more austere
virtues. Are we certain that while
we have gained we have not also lost,
and that while we despise the past
for its rudeness we have not allowed
some of its strength to stay i" There
are virtues which belong to a golden
and are

age

hardly possil

age of iron, and such are mercy and
charity. Let us put those achieve-
ments of advanced civilisation to our
credit, but let us remember that the

I !l

109

Homely Virtues

history of morals is not one of
unbroken progress. The simpler
times had their own virtues, which
' ve not always been carried forward,
and do not always take kindly to our
climate. There are extinct animals
and there are extinct arts. If we do
not give heed in our softer days,
there may come to be extinct virtues;
and one that is in danger of starvation
amid the complacence and toleration
of modern life is gratitude.

It was this way in the old days, to
which we may transport ourselves at
a time for change of air. If ati^ one
ha«.'. done you or yours a bad turn
with malicious intentions, then you
did not pretend to forget his injurious
deed, but rather made it a matter of
conscience to remember it. You

Gratitude

followed your enemy with unwearied
hatred, and when the opportunity
came you paid him back with interest
for what he had done unto you. If,
on the other hand, anyone helped
you or yours in a strait of life, then
were you bound to him with hooks
of steel. You gave him the loyalty
of your heart, and were ready at any
Hiie to stand by his side, and if God
1 His mercy afforded you the chance,
ou rewarded this man an hundred-
fuid for the kindness which he had
shown unto you or to your father.
The history of Israel abounds with
instances of traditional hatred, such
as the vendetta against the Amale-
kites, whom the Jews slew without
mercy, because the Amalekites had
fallen on their fathers as they went
III

fll.

Homely Virtues

up from Egypt to the land of Canaan;
such as the friendship to the Kenites,
who must be spared because they
guided the children of Israel on their
march through the wilderness. What
as done on the larger scale of
national ii.'e has also been seen in
many a transmitted feud and many a
bequeathed debt of private life. Some
may be living who can recall the day
when people hated their enemies and
loved their friends after the good old
fashion, and perhaps they are inclined
to thank God that a better state of
feeling now obtains, and that we do
not live in a state of perpetual feud.
Certainly we ought to be thankful
for every decrease in malice, bitter-
ness, and revenge, and for the spread
of a kindly and forgiving temper.

Gratitude

We must not, however, plume our-
selves too much upon our charity,
nor use that fine word forgiveness
too loosely. If a woman is willing
to pocket any past affront to gain an
ignoble entrance into a higher social
circle, and will accept an invitation
from those who once insulted her, or
if a merchant will do business greedily
for the sake of a hundred pounds
with a firm which did their best to
ruin him in some crisis of trade, do
not let us ascribe this poor spirit to
the influence of Christ's Cross, nor
count this meanness any improve-
ment on the Judges who washed out
their wrongs in blood and did not
sell their forgiveness for a dinner or
a purse of gold. It is cant to say
that the average man of the world is
113

Homely Virtues

more merciful than our uncompro-
mising forefatliers ; he is more
cautious, more politic, more worldly,
more cowardly. Besides, we can
never get rid of a vice without the
risk of weakening its corresponding
virtue. Granted, if you please, that
we are less vindictive; will anyone
say that we are as grateful? Do parents
inculcate the quality of gratitude
upon their children as one of the
leading obligations of life? Are
masters and servants bound together
to-day by this ancient tie? Does
our popular literature exalt this duty
as did the Hebrew writers ? Has
not the worst cynicism of modern
times been distilled into that proverb
which is so often heard, " Gratitude
is a lively sense of favours to come " ?

Gratitude

Can anyone deny that the sense of
debt to those who have rendered
service either to our people or our-
selves nas weakened ? Has it not
come to this, that in the past men
hated their enci.iies and loved their
friends, but now we forgive our
enemies and forget our friends ?

There are three persons short of
the Highest who have established
upon each one of us an unanswerable
claim of gratitude, and one too often
forgotten is the public servant of the
State. If anyone surrenders his
favourite tastes and sacrifices his time
and devotes his talents to do for uf
either in the Parliament of the city or
of the realm, what must be done yet
what w cannot do for ourselves, are
not we that man's debtor? Is it

Homely Virtues

right to sit upon this man like a jury
upon a criminal, to oppose the best
thing he wishes to do, because he
does not belong to cur party, though
we be all of the same State, to
embitter his life with insinuations,
denunciations, and gibes, and to forget
in some hour of popular disfavour his
long, patient, faithful services ? It is
natural that people should have their
political leaning ; it is base that they
should not vie in gratitude to every
man, patrician or plebeian, who has
done well by the Commonwealth, and
who seeks no other reward than the
approval of his conscience and the
approbation of his fellow-citizens.

The second person can easily be
found in any society, and perhaps
most easily in a commercial city.

ii6

Gr^ititude

You began life— let me put the case
—poor and lonely, with no help save
God's and the friend whom He gave
you. This man took you by the
hand, and aided you with advice,
inf-^ductions, business, and private
kindness. It is an old story now,
and the wheel of fortune has revolved,
so that you who were poor are rich,
and the one who was rich died poor.
God has given to you the opportunity
of showing the stuff of which your
heart is made, and of tasting the
sweetest pleasure within human reach
—doing good to them who have done
good to us. What care have you
had of your benefactor's widow, what
service have you rendered to his son?
Have you been to them what their
father was to you.? Shame on the
"7

Homely Virtues

ingrate who could forget the friends
of early days, or deny his debt of
obligation ! Shame on the womaii
who casts off her old neighbours
because she has got among richer
people and stands a few inches higher
in the social scale. There are none
so true as the friends of our adversity,
none so fickle as the friends of our
prosperity.

And tiie third person to whom
you owe more than you can ever pay
or ever imagine, is your mother.
She endured more for you, served
you more patiently, loved you more
fondly, thought of you more con-
stantly, and hoped for you more
bravely, than any other person you
have known on earth, or ever will
know save your wife (or your hus-

ii3

Gratitude

band), if indeed they can always be
excepted. If your mother be spared
to you, then are you bound to make
her a first charge on your Hfe as you
desire a peaceful conscience and as
you shall answer before the Judgment
Seat of God. She must be encom-
passed with every observance of
comfort, and honour, and gentleness,
and love. With sacrifices also, if so
be it will please her, of tastes, and
occupation, and time, and even
friendships, and after you have done
all that you can think of and any one
can suggest, you will still remain a
hopeless bankrupt, for the love
wherewith she loved you. If she
has passed from this life, and is now
with God, then keep the command-
ments which she laid upon you in
119

Homely Virtues

your youth, though now you be a
grey-headed man, and follow in her
steps, even as she followed Christ.
Honour all women and serve them
in purity and chivalry for her sake,
and may your tongue cleave to the
roof of your mouth and your right
hand lose its cunning, may your name
be blotted from he Lamb's Book of
Life, and your portion be taken from
among the inheritance of the saints,
if while she is living you sin against
your mother, or if she be dead you
forget her love.

REVERENCE

Reverence

Mr. BurKLE, in that brilliant frag-
ment ofliterature, " The History of
Civilisation," has, no doubt, fallen
into the vice of generalisation, and is
too apt to dazzle his readers by
plausible conclusions, but he has
sense upon his side in pointing out
the influence of climate on the
character of nations. It would be
too much to say that to know a
people's physical environment is to
infer their religious creed, for you
would be hampered by an embarrass-
ing wealth of exceptions, and yet the
complexion of creeds has not been
unaffected by scenery. Within the
Catholic Church the worship of the
Madonna has risen to its height in
Europe with the degrees of the
thermometer, being most reserved

133

Homely Virtues

amid the northern Germans, most
exuberant among the southern
Italians. In no circumstance is it
likely that the inhabitants of the
steaming valley of the Nile could
have as sttrn a faith as the lonely
inhabitants of the veldt. Nor could
one expect the same outlook upon
religion fioni a Scots Highlander,
living at the foot of hills along which
the mists are moving, and on the
edge of a melancholy ocean, as from
an Italian, whose house is set in an
orange grove, where a blue, tideless
sea breaks on the beach with gentle
murmur. It is almost inevitable that
the inhabitants of a soft climate
should be touched with the spirit of
joyful confidence and those of colder
skies should develop a certain aus-
terity of faith.

124

Reverence

One may avail himself of Mr.
Buckle's idea, and suggest that the
religious climate changes with the
generations, and has more bracing
and more relaxing /.ones. It goes
without saying that while faith in its
essence mi'st ever be the same, the
particular standpoint of our fathers
is not that of their children. They
dwelt upon the depravity of human
nature, the horror of sin, the holiness
of God, the helplessness of the soul,
the sovereignty of the Divine Mercy,
and the unsearchable purpose of the
Divine Will, themes full of awe and
majesty. Therefore did they humble
themselves before God and cast their
souls upon His pity. They sought
anxiously for a ground of pardon,
"5

1 1-

Homely Virtues

and searched themselves for signs of
the Divine calling. They dared not
boast of His favour, but they walked
humbly before Him and hoped for
His salvations. Theirs was an inward,
intense, and lowly religion. We are
inclined to dwell on the possibilities
of human nature, the wide hope of
the Incarnation, the revelation of the
Divine Fatherhood, the compass of
God's love, the full assurance of
faith, the joy of the present life, and
the glory of the life to come. Our
religion is, therefore, more out-
spoken, unfettered, high - spirited.
About the saint of the former day
it was written, " he feared God ";
but of our good man you read in his
biography that he was a " bright "
or a " happy " Christian.
126

Reverence

It is futile to recall days v nirh are
gone, or to reproduce theii ir.oods,
for the time spirit bloweth wnere ic
listeth, and, rightly used, it is the
spirit of God. We have cause to be
thankful, because we have learned
not to despair of our race, to think
of our fellow men as brethren, and
to remember that a man has more to
do in this world than save his own
soul. Our religion is less morbid,
gloomy, introspective, and selfish;
but there are times when, looking
out through the palms upon this
expanse of blue, one wearies for the
strong salt air of the Atlantic and the
grandeur of the hills when the sun
shines through the mist. One is
haunted with the conviction that if in
our day we have gained joy and
127

Homely Virtues

charity, we have lost in devoutness
and humility, and that we have
almost bidden good-bye to rev-
erence.

Religious problems were once dis-
cussed with impressive seriousness
by men who were standing in the
holy place and speaking in the pres-
ence of the Most High. We prefer
to discuss them in fiction, which
seems to have no restraint and
sometimes no decency, in the pages
of enterprising serials, in clever
dinner-talk over the walnuts and the
wine. Once men prayed to God, as
Abraham did for Sodom, with chas-
tened voice, and humbled themselves
before Him, like Isaiah in the holy
place, and waited for Him as those
that watch for the morning. Then
128

Reverence

the name of God was seldom used,
and the soul was a sanctuary, into
which none but its Maker had a
right to enter, and religion might not
be lightly handled in common talk.
Religious people of to-day, i„ pro-
portion to their fervour, allow them-
selves to shout the name of the
Almighty without any term of adora-
tion, to paddle among the sacred
affairs of the soul with rude, intrusive
hands, to introduce the son of God
into the squalid situations , ,mon

life, and to make allusions o, ghastly
familiarity to the Third Person of
the Holy Trinity. It seems as if
the curtain were being torn down
from the holiest of all, and the place
where the glory of God rests in human
hfe, turned into a common street.

I2i)

Homely Virtues

; 'i

Can we wonder if religion has lost
the saving sense of reverence ? that
its influence upon the people is
failing? that the public worsliip of
God is decreasing in every land, and
that even if a crowd gather to hear a
sermon, they will not come to pray ?
that the day of rest which God has
given unto men, when once a week
at least men may have quietness
wherein to examine their souls and
bring them into touch with thi ' ngs
which are unseen, is being crowded
with business and pleasure ? that
the head of the household no longer
builds his altar unto God, and gathers
his family round it as they journey
through this world to that which is
to come ? that the spirit o':' prayer,
by which the human soul is bound
130

Reverence

by golden chains unto the feet of
God, is dying out from amongst us ?
that with every year a lower view
is taken of the mystery of marriage,
and fewer people seek the blessing
of God upon that sacred act, which
they are coming to regard as nothing
but a civil contract? and, which is
not the least calamity, that the bonds
of filial piety are being loosed before
our eyes, so that parents are ceasing
to use their authority as the vice-
gerents of God, and children do not
pretend to render that becoming
obedience which is one of the beauties
of youth?

What strikes one trying to gauge

the spirit of the day is an appalling

want of gravity. Not only young

or silly people, but almost every

131

ft ■

ii!

1: I

Homely Virtues

person is infected with a spirit of
intellectual frivolity. Books have
had to give the second place to
magazines, and serials themselves are
beirg swamped by the most trifling
papers. The drama has abandoned
the nobler themes, both of instructive
comedy and wholesome tragedy, and
can find no other subject than the
degradation of pure love and the
ridicule of the marriage state. No
subject, either social or political, is
thought out with care and conscience
till its principles be discovered, but
is rather turned into a popular catch-
word or a mercenary appeal. And
the mind of the people, untrained by
thinking, and unwilling to listen to
anything except clever, cheap, sophis-
tical talk, is carried away now in one
132

Reverence

direction, now in another, and
expends itself in gusty moods of
unreasoning rage or ignoble enthu-
siasm.

Without reverence for the Eternal
verities, many calamities must befall
a people. And certainly without
this fear no man can do lasting work.
Mr. Stopford Brooke, in his admir-
able monograph on Tennyson — itself
one of the most beautiful pieces of
literary work of recent years — insists
that one of the conditions of Tenny-
son's eminence was his reverence.
He was impressed by the greatness
of his Art, and could not do anything
slightly or unworthily. The masters
of physical science, as distinguished
from its second-rate compilers, have
been animated with the same austere

'33

I !

il;

Homely Virtues

spirit — taking the shoes from off
their feet before their burning bush,
the mysterious and irresistible powers
of Nature. He who is pert and
forward, puffed up with slight attain-
ments and unawed by the vastness
of knowledge, will never come to
any perfection nor be admitted into
the secret place of wisdom. It is the
student who stands before the house
of knowledge, modest, patient, single-
minded, conscious only of his own
poverty and the unspeakable riches
within, to whom Wisdom will open
her gates, and on whom she will
bestow her hidden treasures.

" Make knowledge circle with the wind,
But let her herald reverence fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bears seed of men and growth of
minds."

134

Reverence

Reverence is also one of the sure
foundations of character, for without
It one may indeed have many glitter-
ing and superficial traits of cleverness
and ingenuity, of bright emotion and
restless energy, but he cannot have
illumination of conscience, dignity of
soul, sincerity of mind, and the
highest purity of life. Nor is it
likely that one can obtain the gracious
qualities of sympathy, charity, and
sacrifice. It is only as the soul is
bowed before the things which are
lovely that it will carry itself both
bravely and tenderly. Do we realise
how poorly we sometimes show besides
the type of former days ? " Benev-
olence," says one well able to speak,
" uprightness, enterprise, intellectual
honesty, a love of freedom and a

'35

Homely Virtues

hatred of superstition are growing
around us; but we look in vain for
that most beautiful character of the
past, so distrustful of self, so trustful
of others, so simple, so modest, so
devout, which even when, Ixion-like,
it bestowed its affections on a cloud,
made its very illusions the source of
some of the purest virtues of our
nature."

And revc'-e :, lies at the root of
right living, for one of the first prin-
ciples of conduct is obedience. If
we do not learn when young the
habit of respect, to honour our father
and our mother, to obey those set
over us without questioning or
grudging, to give precedence to age,
both in our speaking and our doing,
to admit the sacred claim of suffering
130

Reverence

and affliction, and to bow ourselves
before the highest rank on earth, the
splendour of moral goodness, then
for us no perfection of soul will ever
be possible. For us there is likely
in the future many a squalid defeat,
and perhaps some irrevocable moral
catastrophe. The irreverence of
youth grows into the profanity and
rebellion of later years, and is the
parent of anarchy, both in the family
and in the State. " It is," says
Ruskin, " his restraint which is hon-
ourable to r not his liberty. . . .
From the mmistering of the Ar-
changel to the labour of the insect,
from the poising of the planets to the
gravitation of a grain of dust, the
power and glory of all creatures, and
all matter, consist in their obedience,
137

Homely Virtues

not in their freedom. The sun has
no liberty — a dead leaf has much.
The dust of which you are formed
has no liberty. Its liberty will come
— with its corruption."

And, therefore, I say boldly, though
it seems a strange thing to say in
England, that as the first power of a
nation consists in knowing how to
guide the Plough, its second power
consists in knowing how to wear the
Fetter.

138

VII
MORAL COURAGE

Moral Courage

Moral courage is obeying one's
conscience, and doing what one be-
lieves to be right in face of a hostile
majority ; ind moral cowardice is
stifling one's conscience, and doing
what is less than right to win other
people's favour. It is a calamity
both in Church and State that this
high-spirited virtue is not more
common, and that opportunism is so
general. Men are wanted every-
where with the courage of their con-
victions, who will not trim their sails
to every popular gale, nor change
their creed at anyone's bidding, but
will follow conscience through fire
and water. Such stalwarts of prin-
ciple like St. Paul telling the Corin-
thians that their judgment was a very
small thing to him ; like Athanasius,
141

Homely Virtues

standing alone against the world ; like
Luther declaring " I can do no other
wise ;" like John Knox steeling him-
self before the tears of a Queen, are
rare in human society. What haunts
one in political speeches is the idea
that the speaker is not declaring the
best thing he knows, but is tickling
the ears of the groundlings. What
pains one in many a sermon is the
suspicion that the preacher must
know more than he savs, and that he
has tuned his voice to the prejudices
of his people. What weakens the
power of the press — that fine instru-
ment for popular education — is the
certainty that its leader-writers are
perfectly aware of the ability and
honesty of the other side, but argue

as if they were fools or knaves in
142

Moral Courage

order to please their party, and the
moral power of society is reduced by
the large number of people who hold
their consciences in subjection to
social expediency. Your neighbour
may have convictions which he has
purchased with the blood of his
heart, and for which, on due occasion,
he would be ready to suffer, but you
cannot be sure of the fact if it
happens that his opinions are always
those of the majority. As far as you
can see he maintains an attitude of
guarded neutrality, till it appears on
what side the majority lies, and then
their opinion turns out to be what
he has always held ; but if that
majority should dwindle into a
minority, your neighbour has a mind
open to education. How many of
143

Homely Virtues

one's acquaintances have grit enough
to form a conviction on a matter of
right, and to defend righteousness
when unrighteousness is popular ?
One in six is as many as could be
expected, but it is not necessary to
impute wilful dishonesty to the other
five, or to suggest that they have
outraged their conscience. They
! ave simply trained their conscience
to calculate by numbers, and to
identify righteousness with the
majority vote. They would not have
hated Christ in the year thirty-three,
but they would never have crossed
the rabble which yelped for His cruci-
fixion. They are not bad people,
they may be good-natured and well-
meaning people — they are simply
without backbone — moral cowards !
144

Moral Courage

Suppose, to make a study in moral
cowardice, your friend has agreed
with you in the morning to follow a
certain line of action, because it is
right, and there is not much differ-
ence among intelligent men about
righteousness. An hour afterwards
he meets A, who has a biting tongue,
and ridicules your action. B, who is
a very rich man, says a little later
that he at least will have nothing- to
do with it. Later still C declares
that it will be very unpopular, and
hour by hour various letters of the
alphabet attack, disown, and condemn
what you intended to do. None of
the letters represent much conscience,
and none of the arguments touch the
moral question, but they have the
cumulative effect of suggesting to
145

Homely Virtues

your friend that if he does this thing
he will be made uncomfortable. His
resolution crumbles away before this
flood, and in the evening the fashion
of his countenance has altered. On
thinking over the matter, he now sees
some difficulty, and feels that it would
be well to wait a little. You remind
him that this is not a matter of
expediency, but of justice. " Quite
so," he says, " no doubt, but—" and
he hesitates. You know then that
he has been sending up kites all day
to see how the wind is blowing, and
that he has no mind to go in its
teeth. It is a collapse of conscience,
and your friend does not propose to
cast in his lot with a minority of one.
He shambles off inwardly ashamed,
but he will not face that combination
146

Moral Courage

of letters. Germans in the middle
ages were terrified by a mysterious
institution called the Vehm-Gerichte,
which veiled itself in mystery, and
administered a rude justice to wrong-
doers. People's imagination was
appalled at the thought of a body
which surrounded them on every
side, and took notice of their smallest
action. The Vehm-Gerichte of our
time is opinion, which by its potent
and intangible influence holds most
people in bondage. In the Church
it is called orthodoxy (or it may be
heterodoxy) ; in politics, party ; in
society, fashion; in trade, custom.
Its authority lies in combination and
impersonality. Our fellow men,
taken one by one, are not very
impressive personages, neither much
147

Homely Virtues

wiser nor much better than ourselves,
but let them slip on the mask and
mount the judgment seat, with this
sanction, " ^-eople say," and the
average person makes an abject sur-
render.

Moral courage has four degrees,
and the first is not to be afraid of
your opponents. This is really no
great attainment, for he does not
deserve the name of man who can be
browbeaten by scolding or threaten-
ing. Insolence of this sort is not
unwelcome, for it stiffens resolution
and rouses pride, and delivers one
from the snare of compromise, and
sets one with his back to the wall.
If one is to be tried, let him pray for
an unscrupulous and venomous antag-
onist. It is a higher degree of
148

Moral Courage

courage not to fear your friends.
Hundreds who arc as strong as a
rock to resist those who hate them
are as weak as water in the hands of
those who love them. Oh, the sor-
row of it that we should be tempted
to do something less than what is
right by those whom we trust, and
hindered from doing the highest
thing we know by those who love us
most. Many a woman shrinks from
duty for fear of her husband— the
amazement on his face ; many a hus-
band falls beneath himself for fear of
his wife — the amazement on her
face. So they who have stolen our
hearts sometimes also steal our cour-
age. He is braver still who does
not fear the Cross of Christ; who
has no secret clauses in his treaty

149

Homely Virtues

wit*' Christ about truth or duty;
who puts no personal inclinations,
no family ties, no class custom*, no
business profit above Christ, who
will follow anywhere when Christ
leads, and do anything that Christ
commands. But the highest courage
of all is not to be afraid about one's
self. Is there any more admirable
instance of manliness than St. Augus-
tine's searching out the mistakes in
his writings, and recanting them
before he died, for there is nothing
we are more concerned about than
our reputation, nothing v/e are more
unwilling to do than to confess that
we were wrong. When anyone is
brave enough to unsay the worse for
the better, then surely he is a true
man, and will stand fast for right-
eousness.

150

Moral Courage

Certain people have special need
of moral courage, and one is a young
man in the city. His safest plan is
to bid good-bye to compromise, and
not to burden himself with an excess
of courtesy in the hour of tempta-
tion. A tempter is most quickly
daunted when he is most roughly
handled. Have nothing to do under
any excuse with drinking men, is
sound advice ; allow no fool to blas-
pheme religion in your hearing;
come down upon the beast who tells
an evil story ; cast your shield over
the weak comrade who is ready to
fall. There are times when a hot
temper and a sharp tongue are good
servants to the Kingdom of God,
and when war to the death is the
wisest policy. The second person

•51

Homely Virtues

is a woman in society, for women are
apt sometimes to be sad cowards.
They are afraid to dress as their ' .-st
friends would like to see them,
because it would be i m fashionable ;
afraid to give simple dinners, because
their neighbours are extravagant;
afraid .0 allow their daughters to
wor!; for themselves, because it might
iuwer their station ; afraid to give a
children's party without wine, because
they might be thought stingy ; afraid
to have their poor relations in the
house, because of the servants ;
afraid to be economical, because of
the same critics. They are in bon-
dage to all kinds of people, from
their rich neighbour to their house-
maid. One wonders that some
woman does not pluck up courage

Moral Courage

and say, " I don't care what people
may think, 1 am going t(. .^o what 1
judge to be right." If she only
dared, that woman would find a
dozen in her circle to follow in her
steps, and her courage would rein-
force the moral capital of a district.
And a third person is the member of
a poor Communion, who needs cour-
age that he may not deny his faith.
If any Christian discovers that his
soul will be better cared for in
another than the church of his
nativity, then let him emigrate at
once, for religion is more than
churches. But for a man to desert
the church in which he was bred for
no other reason than that another is
more fashionable, is being ashamed
of your mother because you have

>53

Homely Virtues

risen in life, and comes very near to
the sin of Judas Iscariot. It reveals
a character of soul unfit for Christ's
kingdom, and this mean spirit, if it
spread, would poison religion in its
life-blood. Such treachery inflicts a
double injury, embittering the church
the coward leaves with a sense of
wrong, and infecting the church he
joins with a suspicion of worldliness.
Every man ought to make conscience
of his faith, and he who is true to his
church, although the sun be not
shining upon her, even unto the loss
of position and goods, has given the
surest pledge that he will be faithful
to his Lord and be a good citizen of
the Commonwealth.

The vindication of moral courage
is in the judgment of God, and when
154

I I

Moral Courage

anyone stands alone for conscience
sake, we do not well to be angry
with him, and we must not be found
fighting against him. If his con-
science be overscrupulous, then let
us see that we deal gently with him
and give him more light— rendering
thanks to God that the man has so
much conscience, and remembering
that no community can have too
much among its members. If the
man's conscience be sound, then as
we would not war against God Him-
self, let us be careful not to injure
this witness. He may be a reformer
before the Reformation, running like
John the Baptist to make the way
for Christ ; he may be a trustee,
holding a moral heritage for our
children; he may be a sentry,

•55

Homely Virtues

keeping watch where the enemy will
creep in the darkness. It matters
nothing that power and numbers, as
well as the voice of the mob, are
against this man. Their verdict is
neither infallible nor final ; St. Paul
has the better of Felix now, and
Luther of the Diet of Worms.
What do they think of this solitary
man yonder whence they can look
down and see this world

" Spin like a fretful midge."
What if the principalities and powers
of God, if the great cloud of wit-
nesses, and the multitude no man
can number, are with this lonely
confessor. He dared to say " right,"
and his poor voice is drowned for
the moment by the clamour of the
world ; but let no one think it has
156

Moral Courage

been silenced, or is ever going to be
silenced. His word proceeds upon
its journey through the illimitable
reaches of space ; it gathers force as
it goe> where the brawling of foolish
men has long died away ; it is echoed
from one world after another as it
passes, and at last reverberates from
the Throne of the Most High, like
the sound of many waters. This is
the Magna Charta of moral freedom ;
here is a ground where the weakest
may stand alone. We are not the
subjects of some petty province, we
are the citizens of a greater Rome.
If Jewish courts denied St. Paul his
rights, or Roman judges forgot jus-
tice, then he had his own' proud
resort : " I appeal unto C^sar," and
once those words had passed his lips
157

Homely Virtues

none dare do him hurt. It was to
Caesar he had appealed and to Cssar
he must go. So from the petty cus-
toms and passing opinions of this
world the righteous man makes his
appeal to the Judge of all, and if
God shall justify him, it is a small
matter although the whole world has
condemned him.

158

VIII
COURTESY

Courtesy

When Matthew Arnold was preach-
ing culture to the Philistine multi-
tude with all the zeal of a missionary
and some of his inevitable narrowness,
he used to complain that people'
imagmed culture to be simply some
slight smattering of Greek and Latin.
And when one pleads for courtesy,
one IS afraid that people may suppose
that he IS simply meaning manners.
Mere manners are a code of etiquette
which varies in different countries
and with different ages, so that what
's rude m France may be usual in
t-ngland, and what we consider fool-
ishness in the West may be the custom
of the East. They constitute a body
of rules which condescend upon the
most trivial affairs-how it becomes
US to eat and drink, to dress and

i6i

Homely Virtues

carry ourselves, to speak to persons
of another rank, and to perform
public functions. With this sum of
minute and varying regulations the
teacher of religion has nothing to do,
because it has no ethical value, and
may be safely left to those remark-
able books in which an immortal
being is instructed how rightly to
address a letter to a baronet, or how
he ought to use a finger glass at
dinner. All the same, it is foolish
to flout the customs of society, for
they are intended upon the whole to
make life more agreeable, and to
compel a rude person to observe
decency of demeanour ; but a vast
distinction must be drawn between
manners, which have to do with form,
and that which lies behind manners
162

ins
rm

of
the
do,
,nd
rk-
•tal

lOW

at
lish
for
to
to
:rve
I'ast
een
irm,
lers

Courtesy

and is infinitely more serious — cour-
tesy. One has known many people
whose manners, through the disad-
vantage of early days, or through a
certain desultoriness of nature, were
open to frequent criticism, and yet
he has loved them for their goodness.
One has also known people who
acquitted themselves perfectly in
every situation of social life, but who
were treacherous, cruel, selfish, and
evil-living. Certainly manners in
the common sense do not make the
man, for Charles II. had an almost
irresistible charm of personal address,
and George IV. was called the first
gentleman in Europe, while I fancy
there have been many prophets and
apostles who would have come to
grief amid the ways of a court. Are
163

Homely Virtues

we not in danger of being biassed in
our judgment of our neighbour by
his outward carriage, and have we
not done great injustice, both by
allowing ourselves to be attracted by
really bad men, who are witty and
graceful, and to be repelled by really
good men, because they happen to
have neither tact nor humour ? It is
by the soul and not by any trick of
speech that we ought to estimate our
fellow man, and he who fears God
and loves his brother demands hon-
our at our hands.

We may, however, be gravely con-
cerned that manners in our day seem
to be decaying, because there is
reason to suspect that the cause is
moral quite as much as social. We
allow ourselves to treat our parents

I6*

Courtesy

as our equals, to talk in public on
unpleasant subjects, to argue with
women beyond the point of due
deference, to introduce politics and
religion in general conversation, to
bawl and shout, and generally to be
loud in what we say and do. This
is understood to show the liberty of
modern life, when old-fashioned
scruples and pedantic dignity have
disappeared, and everybody has been
emancipated — children from respect
to their parents, youth from venera-
tion towards old age, men from
chivalry towards women, and a man
from the very respect of himself
Life is supposed to be brighter and
more piquant, but yet with all the
excellences which are assigned to the
new man, and the new woman, and
165

Homely Virtues

the new child (who is often the most
offensive of the three), one may be
pardoned a backward look of wistful
regret to the gentleman of the olden
time. Perhaps he was a trifle formal
and tedious, but how admirable in
his urbanity of speech, his service of
women, his subordination to superiors,
his graciousness to inferiors, and his
unobtrusive reserve about the sancti-
ties of life ; and one remembers the
lady of the olden times, so soft of
voice, so winsome with her gracious
ways, so persuasive of purity by her
very face, so inspiring unto every
noble deed by her very presence, who
did not lift up her voice nor cause it
to be heard in the street.

It is not wise as a rule to make
comparisons between classes, but I

Courtesy

am inclined to think that if it comes
to the spirit of courtesy, which Ins
behind all manners, that respectable
working people, say our artisans and
their wives, will make a betfcr show
than their masters and their wives
They will be less concerned about
their own dignity — which is always a
sign of vulgarity; they will have
more regard to the claims of other
people; they will be more anxious
not to hurt another's feelings, and
they will be quicker to render ser-
vices in the little exigencies of life ;
and all this is the fruit of courtesy.
Were any woman (and I count this
a perfect test) traveling with a younfj
child and some articles of luggage, it
would be better for her as a rule to
take a place in a third-class, rather

Homely Virtues

than in a first-class carriage. The
chances are that among richer people
— unless they gathered from some-
thing she said or from her name
upon a dressing-case that she was a
person of distinction, in which case
they would take any trouble in exact
proportion to their own meanness —
that they would eye her with dis-
pleasure, convey to her that the child
was a nuisance, ignore the sfi .^,^le
with her luggage, and make her glad
to leave the compartment. Were
she to travel with an artisan and his
wife, they would bid her welcome,
and make her feel at home, and
anticipate her wants and encompass
her with observances, because she
was a lonely woman with a child.
And the service of a woman and a

Courtesy

child is more ihan manners — is the
climax of courtesy.

Courtesy is really doing unto
others as you would be done unto,
and the heart of it lies in a careful
consideration for the feelings of other
people. It comes from putting one's
self in his neighbour's place, and
trying to enter into his mind, and it
demands a certain suppression of
one's self, and a certain delicate
sympathy with one's neighbour. So
far as our abounding egotism reigns,
we are bound to be discourteous,
because we shall be so blindly im-
mersed in our own affairs that we
cannot even see the things of others.
So far as we break the bonds of self
and project ourselves into the life of
our brother man, we are bound to be
169

Homely Virtues

I I

courteous, because we shall now be
interested in what is dear to him.
This man also has a family and a
business ; this man also has had sick-
nesses and trials. Imagine! We
must not therefore talk without
ceasing about our children, our
interests, our afflictions, our life.
This man also has a church, and a
creed, and opinions of his own, and
a history. Remarkable ! We must
not, therefore, assume that our kind
of religion, and our traditional views,
and our favourite notions, and our
particular set make the whole round
world. This man beside us also has
a hard fight with an unfavouring
world, with strong temptations, with
doubts and fears, with wounds of the
past which have skinned over, but
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Courtesy

which smart when they arc touched.
It is a fact. And when this occurs
to us we are moved to deal kindly
with him, to bid him be of good
cheer, to let him understand that we
are also fighting a battle, we axe bound
not to irritate him, nor press hardly
upon him, nor help his lower self
We must feel as a brother towards the
man beside us, and say to him the
things that we should like to have
said to us, and tr-rat him as we should
desire to be treated when our hands
arc hailing down and our hearts are
heavy. And this is the very essence
of courtesy.

Just because the machinery of life
is so apt to be heated, one keenly
appreciates those who are ever deftly
pouring in the cooling oil, by their

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^^fLwmim

Homely Virtues

patience and their tact, their sweet-
ness and their sympathy. And one
resents keenly that class of people
who are honest and well meaning, but
who are persistently discourteous
and are not ashamed — I mean the
man who is credited with what is
called a bluff, blunt manner, and who
credits himself with a special quality
of downrightness and straightfor-
wardness. He considers it far better
to say what he thinks, and boasts
that he never minces his words, and
people make all kinds of excuses tor
him, and rather talk as if he were a
very fine fellow, beside whom civil-
spoken persons are little better than
hypocrites. As a matter of fact, no
one can calculate the pain this out-
spoken gentleman causes in a single
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Courtesy

day, both in his family and outside.
Nor have I ever been able to under-
stand why he is praised, or even
tolerated, and why he is not sharply
dealt with as an offender against the
social peace. He is said to deal
faithfjlly with any person whom he
disapproves— it would be right to say
he deals insolently ; and what is
called faithfulness is, generally, unpar-
donable impudence. " His bark,"
it is said, " is worse than his bite,"
and one hopes it may be, but I do
not see what consolation it is for me,
when this ill-mannered person barks
at my heels, that he has not also
bitten me. I object to his barking,
and if he persists I am justified in
using a stick. No man has any
right to lecture his neighbour, or to

'73

Homely Virtues

intrude upon his neighbour's privacy,
or to wound his neighbour's feelings,
and when he does so in his role of
the plain-spoken man, then he ought
to be made to understand the differ-
ence between reality and rudeness,
and taught to keep a civil tongue in
his head. No doubt there are occa-
sions when courtesy is no longer an
obligation, but practically they may
be limited to a few experiences for-
tunately very rare in life. If any
man should so forget himself as to
speak disrespectfully of one's mother
or one's wife, or if anyone should set
himself deliberately to insult one's
religion, or if one should seek to
lead a person from the paths of vir-
tue, then it is not the time to pick
one's speech, or to safeguard this
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Courtesy

ruffian's sensibility. "Get thee
behind me, Satan," was what the
Perfect Man said to His own friend
when that friend was suggesting that
He should avoid the Cross, and we
can say nothing stronger than that to
a deliberate offender. There are
times when the steel hand should be
used without the velvet glove, when
the strongest words of speech are
called for, and in the end are the
kindest.

Controversy, on the other hand,
ought rather to be an opportunity
for the most careful and generous
courtesy. If anyone differ from us
in politics or religion, or in the affairs
of business or our family, we are
bound to believe that he loves truth
as passionately, and desires to fulfil

'75

Homely Virtues

righteousness as fully, as we do, »ml
that if in rhis matter he has not sevn
so clearly, yet that he is as religious,
as intellij :"nt, as high-princi}>ied, and
as kind-hearted as we consider our-
selves to be, or as, i» our highest
moments, we really ire. It is unpar-
donable to impute to an opponent
mercenary moti\'es of action, dis-
loyalty to the common cause of
goodness, indifference to the highest
ends, and personal unworthiness of
character. This is bad manners, and
proves an inherent pettiness and
squalor of soul — the moral narrow-
ness of a man who cannot imagine
goodness dissociated from his opin-
ions, or carried out by other than his
methods. Controversy is a severe
trial of temper and character, but we
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^ if

5 li

Courtesy

ought to be thankful that if it
has sometimes turned friends into
enemies, it has also as often turned
strangers into friends. There have
been famous debates in history,
wherein opponents have sent their
articles, one to the other, before
publication, that any unfair argument
might be noted and omitted, and in
his own limited experience the writer
can bear testimony that this hon-
ourable custom is still observed.

Surely there is no one who does
not desire to live after the rule of
courtesy, and there is no way of
attaining this fine spirit except by
keeping high company. Just as we
live in the atmosphere of nobility,
where people are generous, and
chivalrous, and charitable, and rev-

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Homely Virtues

erent, shall we learn the habit of
faultless manners, and acquire the
mind which inspires every word and
deed with grace. And the highest
fellowship is open unto every man,
and he that walks therein catches its
spirit. For the very perfect knight
of human history, who carried Him-
self without reproach from the cradle
to the grave, was our Lord and
Master Christ, and the rudest who
follow Him will take on the character
of His gentleness.

178