<+ CN] LO CNJ <！-- CN <！-- <！-- | 2: ***ſººſ, ！ ' · Zºzſºyo， º ſº.....… • ºº ::.………"ſºrº“）.<！--<） №， º · · · · · ·,·····، «.-،'. ， ， ， , ， , ， ！ * … ∞-*** º ºw roº } • A : 2, . A : x : Ai ac: An A rat Av. A : A' A 12- : A : A : A : * : A A At 2 * * * * * * * * * * * : ' ' ' | | | . PHILOS () PH | CAL LIBRARY ( ) || PROFESSOR GEORGE S. MORRIS, PROFESSO R N T H E U N V E R S TY, : 1 - 2 t ) – l - - , , , l’re sented tº the l n iv e i s : ty of \l hi::1 in. : ). º * s s « º K K tº s 3 3 { º : £a x is r. v. v. v. ºr i.v. iv. iv. v. t.v. iv. iv i \r.lv. iv.iv. iv. iv. v. v . Y. v. v. v., ºr a Y. JP, JT - - / 5 2./ Ryūorris H. 135 rary - -o 7.2. M 0 R A LITY, Mo R A L ||Y. | ??6 *— * * * BY J AM ES PLATT, AUTHOR OP “BUSINESS.” ONE SHILLING. LONDON : SIM PKIN, M A R S HAL L, A N D C O., 4, STATIONERS’ HALL COURT. 1878. (All Rights Reserved.) SE VENTH THOUSAND..] London: Printed by W. J. John SON, 12 , Fleet Street, E.C. CON TENTS, PAGE INTRODUCTION * tº º © e º º ... 7 MoRALITY . e e º º * e e . 19 ARE MEN MoRAL º º © º e º . 81 WHY MEN ARE NOT MoRAL º e º e . 115 How MEN MAY BECOME MoRAL . º e tº . 154 CoNCLUDING RKMARKS . º e e e º . 191 INTRODUCTION, — “What in me is dark, Illumine; what is low, raise and support; That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.” —MILTON. To THE READER. “MoRALITY.” Of the many who, upon reading the title of this book, will be inclined to put it down and content them- selves with saying, “We have already had too much of this sort of thing,” I earnestly ask the little self-denial required to read one more book on so stale a subject. “Morality “ has been treated by me as “practically” and attractively as possible, my object being to get the book read, and more particularly by the “in- differentists.” To the thoughtful, seriously-disposed reader, no excuse is necessary. That men are immoral will be evident to them; and whilst a disease exists they will agree with me that moral surgeons should not shrink from taking every oppor- tunity in their power of explaining not only its nature, but the causes of it, and how the same may be removed. That the subject is an old one, I admit; but it is one that from its importance will always be entitled to man’s first consideration. How to improve the morale of men is emphatically the ques- tion of our time, as there never was a period in our history when it was more imperative for the earnest men of all denomi- nations to join together in one united effort to rouse the latent self-esteem of men, and stop them from drifting on and on with the tide towards moral shipwreck. Train men to love virtue for 8 INTRODUCTION'. its own intrinsic value, and to shun vice because of its inherent, hurtful nature. The best stimulant to awaken and develop man's intelligence would be teaching a knowledge of the natural laws. An understanding of the power of the Infinite Being mani- fested in the immensity of creation, could not fail to call forth the desire to obey, love, and adore Nature's God, whose wisdom is so manifest in the variety of combinations, perfect harmony; and exquisite beauty which the universe presents; His goodness in the abundant provision made for the innumerable and varied wants of all living and organized beings; and His justice in the fact that He governs the whole world by these universal and invariable laws, the observance of which, on the part of man, produces its own reward —happiness; and the infraction of which carries with it its own proportionate punishment—misery: thus at once demonstrating to man the wisdom, justice, and benevolence of the Supreme Ruler. One of the saddest sights in all the world, if not the very saddest, is that of a soul conquered by evil instead of rising above it; and believing in the potentialities of good in every man till they are rendered abortive by his own weakness, my object is to stimulate, by attracting attention to its importance, a more general desire on the part of mankind, not the exclusive few “but the mass,” to the study of their own constitutions, their position in the world, and how best to regulate their conduct so as to avoid misery whilst therein. Many will dissent, owing to their theological opinions, from my conclusion. I must ask of all such to bear the object in mind—viz., the elevation of man's moral nature, and thereby bring out the religious element within him. Our aim is the same ; but where Christianity seems to have failed—seems to have lost the power, I suggest a means whereby the greatest danger of our times, “Indif- ferentism,” may be checked; by showing to mankind that the laws of God are never infringed with impunity, and proving to them the wisdom, justice, and invariable operation of law in relation to all created things, and so thereby lead them to the worship and adoration of their Creator, If to some I may seem to have erred in favouring heathen morality above Christian INTRODUCTION. . . 9 doctrine, my reply is that, looked at in a common-sense, prac- tical manner, the means indicated herein seemed to me the better adapted to secure the end in view ; and I appeal to all sects, all men, to act up to the “higher” part of their natures, and view this subject, the most important of our time, in a wise spirit of toleration, as the “best men’’ of all ages have done. Their object being the good of their fellow-men, they have allowed for the utmost divergence of opinion; and from Christians of all sects I ask what Christ would have been the first to grant, that mutual courtesy and charity to each other's opinion, that respect and honour of the good men in every denomination, and the recogni. tion that the differences which divide them are superficial, while the faith in which they are united is as broad as the law of God. There are men like saplings, that require props to support them until they can stand alone ; or, being weak and easily beaten down, they are content to lie there, and ask compassion for their fate. They may need help, but should be made to arise and fight against their weakness. With proper training, all men might be made stronger to dare and to endure. This has not been attended to, and therefore so many grow up weak, pliant creatures, unable to bear the slightest breath of difficulty or adversity, whilst the majority have never been taught the true reason why they have failed to secure health, success, and happiness in this world. We want more stirring appeals to the intelligent and thoughtful from the pulpits every Sunday, that will carry conviction to the hearers of the real benefit of God's rules. The reign of terror is over, the time to demonstrate how invariably and wisely the laws of Nature act has come, and a belief in God's providence should now be built upon a more sound and enduring basis, by explaining the Great Ruler's policy of enlightered justice. Such teaching, combined with the most humane spirit of tolera- tion, would give at last freedom of thought; and once get the people to know, they will have implicit faith in the laws, of Nature, and thereby perceive that all misery in this world may be traced to man’s infringement of such laws. There are no other means so effectual to check the want of moral earnestness, the 10 INTF OU UC'ſ ION, want of reality in religious beliefs, the half-heartedness and indifferentism of the present day, producing a luxurious, demoral- izing tendency, which must sap at the vigour of the present age, and ultimately produce a decadence of the English as in the Roman and other empires. It augurs ill for any state when its members are not restrained by their inner consciousness from doing immoral acts, and only refrain from untruthfulness or immorality if the same be not authorized by the usages of society, or are legally but not morally honest, acting as if they believed man to be but a handful of dust, a machine to be utilized to the utmost whilst usable, then crumble back to the dust it came from when it has lost the power to act. I am quite indifferent as to the means adopted, so that an earnest effort be made by those who have the power to supplant vice by implanting virtue, and displace an apparent, conventional belief in creeds by a real belief in the laws of God that will be manifested in man’s daily acts. Half, nay, nearly all the exhorta- tions of our times fail—for what ? Because not only are the doctrines not in accord with the intelligence of the times, but where is the teacher or preacher of whom it may be said, “He has lived his religion all his life?” Do we find the lives of Christians, clergy or laity, free from ill-temper, uncharitableness, or spiritual pride ; above all, do they rise above, or speak as though they hated the hollowness and rottenness of hypocritical subterfuges, or respectable expediencies of the time we live in, more than other men 7 There is an old proverb, “Whatever comes from the heart goes to the heart.” We want a more generous, sympathetic kindliness; words kindly meant and gracefully spoken—spoken to the people and not at them; understanding and allowing for their present position; treating them as gently, until they are stronger morally and mentally, as we do children. We want their intelligence stimulated and their efforts roused by more example as well as precept. Teach men that good results from obedience to God’s laws; but also prove to them by your actions that there is a meaning in Christianity, all Christians being tolerant INTRODUCTION. 11 and forgiving, truthful and honest, and refusing to succeed except by an open and straightforward course, feeling that any low or vile act lowers them to the level of their weaker brethren ; and the clergy teaching that all men morally weak may deserve the pity, but certainly not the admiration of their fellows, however ap- parently successful they may seem. Let one and all, clergy and laity, join in condemning mere expressions of faith as the one thing needful, and enforce the religion of “acts; ” as, if the life be not a living testimony of a man's belief, it must be a living lie; and above all, I ask the preachers and teachers of all sects to join in explaining to mankind that by observing and reverently obeying the laws of God is the only way to lead a nobler, purer, and better life. - Theologians object to new views, and oppose every new theory or discovery, as if such were created by man; whereas the greatest men of every age have but “discovered God's methods,” and by explaining His laws have led men to observe, to think, and to obey and reverence God rationally, thereby substituting a religious belief based upon the facts of His works, instead of the orthodox one, which asks mankind to shut their eyes and servilely bend to other men's conclusions. The time has come to look at the world as it is, to speak out plainly in condemnation of the immoralities of our time, to try and ascertain the cause, and thereby check and prevent the effect all good men must deplore. We have all of us a certain influence ; let every man do his best, and manifest by his daily acts the genuine struggle of a truth-loving soul towards the light. It is useless denying facts, and the world need not to be in- formed by me that, while the Bible is deemed a source of valuable instruction to many, not a few of the noblest spirits in the world are intellectually and spiritually instructed and developed beyond the pale of all churches. There is, to many minds, a “Revelation” in the sublime order of the universe and the harmonious evolution of natural phenomena disclosed by science, which is impervious to the anathemas of churches, the assaults of doubt, and the dis- cordant wrangling of sects. Those who believe that the intellectual, moral, and spiritual 12 INTRODUCTION, culture of the human race may be most efficiently advanced by explaining to mankind the divine arrangements, should be manly enough to speak out their thought, and help in this grand crusade, which is truly a revival of chivalry; for is not “truth” the soul of chivalry allied to honour and honesty ? We must be prepared therefore chivalrously to help each other in the struggle for real liberty—equality of freedom in thought and belief, not mere toleration; so that men may fearlessly speak what seems to them the truth, without the fear of the world’s verdict before their eyes. We all fear the world—that invisible and irresponsible tribunal which is always sitting outside our doors; and instead of being taught, alike by example and precept, that it is only to our Creator and our own consciences that we have to answer, we begin life with the belief that we must shape our acts to meet the views of other people—those other people who will measure our conduct by their standard, Sound the depths of our hearts by their plummet; and unheard, undefended, and ignorant alike of our indictment and the sentence, we are convicted and condemned. - *. Do not imagine I would have you treat the world’s opinion with any disrespect ; on the contrary, it cannot be impressed too strongly upon all youths, when beginning the journey of life, to treat the world they enter into with the greatest respect, and let them be thoroughly imbued with the consciousness of not expecting to be respected by the world, until they have done something to deserve it. What I want to enforce is, that men should not be deterred, by “fearing the world’s verdict,” from doing or saying that which seems to their judgment and con- science the right thing to say or do. - To obtain from men this moral courage we require a different cducation. At present all start badly and ill-prepared to endure the vicissitudes of life. They are not trained in a knowledge of themselves or their weaknesses, or the circumspection that is needed, not to fall into the world’s wicked ways; so, thought- lessly or heedlessly, the majority of our youths go into the world quite unprepared for the difficulties they have to encounter. They INTRODUCTION. i 13 are told to do this or that, they are inexperienced and confiding, they have had no warnings, all is fair to them that looks fair, they do as others do, and do not see the poison that lurks below the specious surface. “How oft the sight of means to do ill decds Makes ill deeds done.” To remedy this needs a firm conviction inculcated in people's minds of the doctrine in and throughout all Nature “ of the sur- vival of the fittest.” Nature teaches us in her inexorable way, by punishing us for every infringement of her laws and rewarding us for every observance thereof, the necessity of obedience; and ex- perience proves to us in life that the only true benevolence is teaching the people “self-help,” “teaching them to use their own limbs and not walk on crutches supplied by others” (Smiles' “Self-Help”); and the biographies of good and successful men prove the value of character, most of such men having succeeded in life, because at critical periods in their careers they have overcome the difficulties that surrounded them through being known as men of principle, men whose promises were to be relied on. Teach men to regard their word as their bond, to speak openly, with- out prevarication, subterfuge, or vacillation, to say what they mean, “the naked truth.” Teach them to shun the “odious tactics” of our day, the lies, dishonesty, and cunning; train men to be wise, as it is only by being better informed that you can eradicate from men’s minds the cunning inherited from the savage. Train men to regard all trials as a merciful system of education; and thus prepared to meet life's troubles they will always be calm, masters of themselves, always with a brave heart ; so that if at times the good things seem to pass to others, their inner con- sciousness will remind them it is not always those who seem to have lost in the race who are prevented from most truly winning, so they strike out again determinately for the goal. Adhere strictly to the doctrine of “no effect without a cause,” and give proofs “that those who have failed, and do fail,” have done so from some defect some want of ballast in their 14 INTRODUCTION. character. “Unsuccessful” men have “no stay.” They go off with a deal of spirit; they run as long as they can, and then fall out, lame, beaten, disgusted, when they find society has no winning-post, no goal of rest, that the heat did not mean a couple of miles, or a couple of years, or anything short of life itself. Most of this is remediable by proper training “at the right time; ” otherwise, minds and bodies of a particular order, or, to speak perhaps more correctly, of a general order, soon get tired of their business or profession; they sicken of the treadmill, which seems never to permit a pause. To be successful one must ever be ready to go before the curtains, even if more fit for a sick bed—in fact, to win one must be able to be “doing” always; and my belief is, by proper training and eare, mankind is able to do that which is necessary to ensure success. You can give the young no better compass to guide their lives by than “that as they sow, so shall they reap,” and impress upon them to ob- serve and contrast the vacillations of the unsuccessful with the steadfastness of the successful; the weakness of the one mani- fest in every trouble and difficulty ; the dogged courage of the other; the weak succumbing to the shock which the other by patient perseverance overcame, and so reached the goal. “No man is a free man who has a vice for his master.”— Socrat Es. An old truism, which needs as much enforcing now as in the days of its author. I would diminish the great curse of intemperance, not by locking up drunkards or by Permissive Bills (these do not remove the cause of the mischief), but by elevating men’s ideas and raising their self-respect, by teaching them that all vice, be it drunkenness or aught else, arises from weakness of character, and get them to pity all such as cannot refrain from eaccess in anything as men that have succumbed to temptation and fallen below their nature through yielding to indulgences which have become their master. “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated, needs but to be seen ; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”—POPE. INTRODUCTION. 15 Enforce the truthfulness of the above quotation; and teach all men to guard against the insidious approach of this fatal vice. There are some who can only resist it by total abstinence ; but man, master of himself, should be able to indulge as moderately in drinking as in eating. I strongly advise all to place a limit to this indulgence, and take “medicinally” their glass of porter, glass of wine, or grog in “fixed” quantities, and never between meals. “Cattle know when to go home from grazing, but a foolish man never knows his stomach's measure.” Give men a loathing for drunkenness, by showing them the misery it causes, particularly amongst the poor; get them behind the bar of some gin-palace at the East End, or, in fact, anywhere, and let them watch the effects of this subtle poison as it gets into the brains of men; outside these hells it is easy enough to get examples of what one sees only too often at such places—men and women of all ages, in a state of bestiality, poor degraded creatures, fit figures for a gin-shop portal; and impress upon the beholder what those people once were, what they might have been, and what they are: human wrecks that the fiery waters have washed ashore, fit for nothing good or profitable. “Oh God, that men should put an enemy in their mouth to steal away their brains ; that we should, with joy, pleasure, revel, and applause, transform our- selves into beasts | “To be now a sensible man, by-and-by a fool, and presently a beast ! Oh strange every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil.” “The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices make instruments to plague us.” - —SIIAKESPEARB. “In a region of bleak cold wandered a soul which had departed from the earth, and there stood before him a hideous woman, profligate and deformed. Who art thou, he cried; who art thou, than whom no demon could be more foul or horrible P To him she answered, I am thy own actions !”—Persian. By thus degrading vice in their sight, you will best strengthen their virtuous resolves, their determination to lead a moral life, happier than others, by being free from the unhappiness and misery the others' vices have surrounded them with. Dismiss at 16 INTRODUCTION, once peremptorily from the minds of men that we are all helmless barques, some on a stormy, some on a calm sea, and according to the winds that impel us, reach the haven, or are dashed on the rocks. It is not so ; and the curse of drink, vice, or disease may be palliated and eventually overcome, if governing bodies and teachers would instruct the people how to guard against the origin of these fatal diseases which, by stealthy advances, have become so chronic as to seem to the weak-hearted and ignorant irremedi- able by Art or by Nature. There is an inherent tendency in the human body to maintain health of body and soul. Man’s habits, inherited from the weak- nesses of his progenitors, with the evils of Society around him, disturb this beneficial tendency ; but once teach him the causes of this or that, and how by observance of God's laws his sufferings may be alleviated, and his children be benefited, and you have taken the right steps to remove much of human misery. Alone, it may be argued, man cannot do much, but it is in our power—and if we once saw the gravity of the subject who can doubt the will would be wanting—to compel the governing bodies to act, and by good sewers, water supply, good breathing air, baths, wholesome wash-houses, coffee-houses, &c., raise man’s ideas of purity, and so elevate his tendencies that he would be deterred from the abuse of alcohol, often seduced thereto by the attractive glitter of the gin- palace, compared with his own miserable surroundings. Every step forward is of advantage. Well-sustained efforts by indi- viduals and those in authority would give us health where we have chronic disease, degradation, and untimely death. Common-sense education would teach men how to ameliorate their condition by knowing more, and by observing better, the laws of Nature; so through knowledge and obedience to God’s laws our race may press forward to the beauty of holiness, to the rich enjoyment of a healthy and vigorous existence. Prepare them for that sorrow which comes to all of us, more or less, from the failings of our relations, or others we are connected with ; show them the justness of this indirect suffering, that they may bravely bear it; to shun all shams, or always complaining, INTRODUCTION. 17 as also the wisdom of not being too much elated at any good fortune that attends their efforts. By these means you train them to be good, true men—men determined to lead a life free from fear or self-reproach, never doing anything if there be the least doubt of its being right; and by thus instilling in them, or rousing rather to activity their natural consciences to action, you implant within them the instinc- tive honour of the gentleman, that would make them recoil at the first approach of vice, however skilfully the advance might be made. They can have no better protection or companion in life's journey. - “Be this thy wall of strength, a conscience good, With no committed crime to make thee blanch.”—HORACE. These are the premises upon which, in the following pages, I have based my conclusions that mankind might be trained to lead healthier, more moral, and better lives, and be free also from that unrest and apprehension of the future which now spoils their lives; and by these means, in time, there might reign within our hearts that sense of rest and holy thankfulness, producing within us that peace which passeth all understanding, and is only to be had by those who will earnestly learn and reverently obey the laws of Heaven. To those who will object to my views I only say, “There is always a stand-point from which every effort may be misjudged.” No one would be more willing than myself to adopt another method, if more likely to beget in the minds of men a more earnest method of thought, I care not what it is, but will welcome any plan that seems better adapted than the one suggested in “Morality” to ensure a real belief in men's minds, and which will manifest itself in their daily acts—a need that seems to me so urgent that I have - endeavoured, to the best of my ability, to indicate to all sects and classes the necessity of united action, in making at once a strenuous effort to reconcile religious belief with the enlightened thought of modern Society. “Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.”—POPE. 18 - INTRODUCTION. I must ask the reader to bear in mind the above quotation, as on account of the importance of the subject, I plead for defects by the author. Believe me the views are correct, and if I fail to con- vince you, it arises from my not knowing how to put the matter before you ; but if I can, only get you to interest yourselves in the subject, my reward will equal my deserts. From my critics I only ask that justice they as writers would expect of others; as, if my arguments be sound, criticism to be of any value must show the premises are false, or that the conclusions are not justi- fied upon the premises upon which they are founded. Candid reviewers are our best friends, as it is only by having our faults pointed out that we can make progress. Every book must eventu- ally stand or fall by its deserts. Praise, however abundant, will not keep a worthless book alive for any considerable time; no abuse, however virulent, a good one for ever in the dust. In conclusion, I only claim the merit of adapting the opinions of others upon this abstruse subject, and presenting the same in so plain a manner that the mass can comprehend it; so, if the results be beneficial in interesting many hitherto excluded from studying the subject, it may compensate for any want of originality. As with a play or poem, so with a book, wherein “it seems not so much the perfection of sense to say things that have never been said before, as to express those best that have been said oftenest;” so my efforts have been directed to present things which have often been presented before, but not at a price or in such a manner as was likely to bring the subject of “Morality” before a large class hitherto excluded by the high price of similar works or the abstruseness of the authors. “Go, little book, God send thee good passage, And specially let this be thy prayere, |Unto them all that thee will read or hear, When thou art wrong, after their help to call Thee to correct in any part or all.” - — CIIAUCfIt, TIE AUTHOR, M OR ALITY. If the spirit, which is the master, be kept under control, it follows of itself that his servants will also be restrained. What does it avail if the power, but not the wish, to do Wrong bo vanquished?—BUDDIIA. r MonALITY is defined by Webster to be “the relation of con- formity or nonconformity to the true moral standard or rule; the quality of an intention, a character, an action, a principle, or a sentiment, when tried by the standard of right; the quality of an action which renders it good ; the conformity of an act to the divine law, or to the principles of morals.” The morality of an act, therefore, you will perceive, depends not so much on the action done, as the motive which prompted the act; in the will, not in the deed; not in what we actually do day by day, but in what we actually endeavour to do. A man, for instance, may desire to do an immoral act, and if re- strained therefrom not by his own will, but only by outer circum- stances, his intentions would be the same. “We cannot Nature by our wishes rule, Nor at our will her warm emotions cool.”—Pope. The poet is wrong. Man is a complex being, and has not the power to prevent his senses, when stimulated into activity by the sight of an object they desire, wishing to be gratified ; but, properly trained, he can, and should, make the animal propensi- ties, or lower part of his nature, subordinate and subject to the control of his moral and higher faculties: briefly, he should be the master, not the slave of himself. To rise superior to, and get rid of self, is the surest sign of the higher life; and therefore it is 20 MORALITY, of the greatest importance that man's intelligence be informed of the laws of Nature, that he may comprehend the greater pleasure there is to be derived from its permanency of character, in obeying the moral law, than in yielding to the momentary gratification derived from the indulgence of an immoral desire yielding but a temporary transient pleasure, modified by the ac- companying pain to the higher part of his nature, and the subse- quent remorse whenever any incident leads the memory to recur to the event. Virtue alone is productive of goodly fruits, which yield abund- ance, not only for the time being, but for the future, bringing blessings upon posterity. But sin is barren, and the man who is a slave to his own desires seldom worships God. Be thou good, although mankind speak evil of you, which is better than being bad whilst they think you good. What doth it profit if anyone say that he hath faith and have not works? Can his faith save him 2 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and be filled,” notwithstanding ye give them not the things needful for the body, what doth it profit 2 Faith, if it hath not works, is in itself dead. Morality means regulating our lives by the highest standard of duty, and recognizing the obligation of living one's life in conformity with the Creator's laws, actuated in our intentions, and controlled in our actions, by the desire of doing what we think. will be most pleasing to God, and taking as a standard the highest and purest system of ethics extant, as to what con- stitutes right and wrong in our conduct as man to man; and ever striving after the virtuous, and shunning contact or com- panionship with vice or the vicious. “Keep at the least within the compass of moral actions, which have in them vice or virtue.”—IIooKER. A good man is one whose conduct is regulated by the moral faculties of his nature; and a man is living under the moral law When the whole faculties of his mature act harmoniously together ; MORALITY. 21 or, when there is a conflict between the better and lower parts of his nature, the higher sentiments and intellect act in unison, and hold the animal faculties in subjection. Morality has to do with conduct. By it is meant a code of laws for the guidance of human nature, based upon experience of human nature, to make mankind socially and collectively more amenable to reason, more capable of self-restraint, and with more good feeling and sympathy for their fellow-men. It is the groundwork and seed out of which springs Truthfulness, Honesty, Justice, Humanity, Purity, Self-devotion, Kindness, and Fellow-feeling. Morality exists independent of the beliefs, the laws, the ideas, the power of Christianity, or any system of theology that exists. Men individually and collectively have at all times been found leading pure moral lives, respecting human life, protecting the weak from the strong to the best of their power, yet not giving in their adherence to the religion of their time. Theistic belief is a comfort, and a solace, like the spring sunshine after a dreary winter, giving light and life as it were to the soulless earth, but the belief only indirectly affects morality. This requires to be clearly understood, as so many check inquiry by fear of scepticism, and the belief is engendered that morality depends on religion, and progress and civilization upon both ; so they argue, if you destroy or undermine in any way the influence of one, you must necessarily weaken the other. I am quite willing to admit that the majority of man- kind, at the present period of the wòrld’s progress, would be less likely to yield to moral restraint if the religious belief upon which the moral system is based were rejected, unless a belief could be inculcated upon an intellectual basis, sufficiently cogent to themselves, showing the superior advantages in every way of obedience to the natural laws, and of resisting the attraction of appetite or self-interest. Religion, taken in its highest and truest sense, does not consist of ceremonies and mythologies, but should be the tie which binds the spirit of man to that which he feels to be 22 - MORALITY, beyond him, yet a living presence—above, and yet within him. . There is something sublime in contemplating the wonders of life, of reason, of love, the fitness and aptitude at every time, and in every age, of the resources of Nature, if man but uses his powers, to supply all man needs—even when in the earliest times all seemed to him wondrous and mysterious, awful, for ages terrible, yet, above all, beautiful and glorious, and forcing from him the desire to seek and know the Maker and Ruler there- of, and render his tribute of worship. It is my desire to be as practical as the subject will admit of, as there is nothing more injurious than allowing the mind to dwell on impracticable matters, alike unprofitable and pernicious, whatever their nature may be ; so I put aside altogether the consideration whether man is immortal or not. Morality is reality, is practical; the question of immortality has nothing to do with “right and wrong.” The belief in a future life is a source of refined and elevated pleasure to those who hold it; but if all men agreed to forego this enjoyment, it could not, and would not, produce as its consequences a decline in morality. Morality tells us it is the duty of every one to daily fight upwards for truth and right, to regulate every action of our lives upon the simple plan of “doing to others as we would be done by.” There is no mystery to solve here; we have only to imagine ourselves in the others' place, and decide as our conscience prompts. Con- science, that inward monitor in every soul—how often we reject her suggestions, yet how persistently she perseveres to redeem and keep alive the healthy seed within us ! The voice of con- science is the voice of our father man within us ; that it exists in every soul there cannot be a doubt; there is no perhaps about it—it is there, and the fact should be sufficient to pacify the timid. Virtue is too deeply implanted, is a habit congenial to humanity, and not a mere sentiment likely to be influenced by the theisms of the past and present, or the humanism of the future. The best men are those who live the highest moral life of their age, and it is wiser to make men moral, and rely on their better MORALITY. 23 nature making them religious, instead of getting their adherence to a set of theological doctrines, and trusting to these for making men better. A moralist must be, to a certain extent, religious —the very essence of real religion being the love of, and the striving after, goodness. The moral man is naturally endowed with the power of discerning between the good and the evil; and such men have an innate reverence for the good, even though, and even when, they yield themselves to the evil. But a man may be religious—that is, belong to and conform to the cere- monies of his church or chapel—yet not be a moral man. To many, religion means the method of securing to themselves eternal life; and too much importance has been attached to professions of belief in doctrine, and a so-called faith in their efficacy for protecting men here, and securing their happiness hereafter; and above all conforming to what seems, with many clergymen, to be religious belief— the practice of submitting human life to clerical control. - Moralists, by giving greater prominence to our duties in this world, and endeavouring to prove that all our actions are re- warded or punished in this world, have undermined the bases upon which theologies are founded. But if religion means any- thing, it means making men better; and the time has come for the theologian to unite with the moralist, and by improving man for his duties in this world, prepare him for the life to come. Improve mankind, elevate their idea of goodness, get them to seek for goodness above all things, and you thereby infuse the living element of all religions; as any religious system not seeking the goodness of mankind, and refusing to overthrow the falsehood that has in time overgrown it, is preparing its own decay. What can be more painful to earnest, truth-seeking minds, within or without the pale of any sect of church or chapel, than the pitiful disputes of our times—not as of yore, fighting and suffering martyrdom for the principles upon which its system is founded, but the trivial disputes about words; the dissensions, wranglings about forms of worship, church services, postures, standing or kneeling at prayer, the elevation of the host, hymn-books, organs, 24 MORALITY, innovations in ritual and breaches of ecclesiastical custom : “custom’’ and pride thus holding in subjection the clergyman's true mission of instilling into men's minds the highest possible conceptions of the Deity, and producing thereby purity and reality of worship 7 “If?” true worship consists above all things in a spirit of toleration and charity, how little of it there is apparent on either side in their disputes about words and forms. As means for cultivating the religious spirit, set forms and times for preaching and prayers are of the utmost importance; but when these things are all settled and arranged, the work of inculcating and developing the religious tendency of the human mind has yet to be done—more especially in our time, when not to be real and practical, that is to say, rational in religion as in everything else, is simply to be foolish on the part of the laity, and to show themselves unworthy their position on the part of the clergy, who have first to learn, then to teach the importance of liberty and freedom of thought and spirit as regards religion, or any subject upon the progres- sive development of which the prosperity of the State depends. Their present policy is as impolitic as was the impolicy of those legislators who thwarted the kind arrangements of Provi- dence by placing restraints upon commerce. It is the duty alike of the clergy as of our legislators, to study the laws of the moral world, and make them the ground-work and standard of their own. There is one principle should guide and be adhered to alike by priest and legislator, that all efforts on behalf of man- kind should be in accordance with the natural laws; and the religion is beneficial to the State that has this as its aim, and makes men better than they were, or would be, without its influence. Religion should be the root which gives life, strength, and stability to all the ties and institutions which bind human beings to each other, stimulating into growth, and keeping in active life the moralities as motives for actions, which gives a high standard of virtue, a detestation of vice, without which there can be no true family or national life. Religious MORALITY. . 25. teachers should, above all things, implant the duty of man to do homage to all men, irrespective of their creeds, whose lives have manifested by their acts the being guided from the deepest thought and highest cravings in the search after light and truth. Such men have an immense influence over their fellows, and in- duce belief by their earnestness and zeal, above all by their lives, upon their fellow-men. One individual man may direct the thought, or foment the piety of millions, in his own time and for ages after. The Zoroastrian religion is believed, and Buddhism is known, to have owed its rise to a single great reformer. Mahomet was the source of the enormous religious movement that bears his name. This immense religious influence of single minds may have brought much error, but it must also have brought good—as will at all times the honest efforts of men who seek to eradicate the corruptions and falsehood in the system of beliefs existent at their time. Whatever may be thought of Mahomet in other respects, he did, amidst rank idolatry and a most debased Christianity, proclaim the belief in the living God, and this formed the strength of his appeal to the religious instinct in human nature. - The clergy of our time should rise above much that is obsolete in their system, and, firstly, examine carefully the premises upon which their system is based. What time is spent now, and has been spent in all times, and how much ingenious and refined discussion there has been and is as to the age of the earth, the origin of species, and conceptions of eternity. Let the age of the earth be what it may, man and other species have had a distinct creation, or man and others spring from some lower phase of life. Whether man be or be not immortal, these subjects belong to the unknowable, and are quite immaterial to man's action; we have to do with the present, with the world and human nature as we find it; and the past is only of value in teaching us how to avoid the errors of those who have preceded us. To ensure this result we must put aside all opinions simply resting on having been told as “truths” what our predecessors, however eminent, have believed to be true, and it is the duty of every man to combat the prejudices 26 MORALITY, which, especially in the religious world, still so persistently struggle against the facts of scientific discovery. It will be a long time before such prejudices will be completely abandoned, Still the nation has made an immense advance in knowledge of the most varied and valuable kind during the last twenty years, owing principally to freedom of thought and common- sense generally being too strong to permit the laws still in existence being used against those who profess so-called heretical opinions. With a universal education, we are justified in expecting still greater progress the next twenty years. The range of thought will widen greatly; and to hold its own, to be the directing, stimulating, restraining influence it should be, religion wants men as well as pulpits—living, real, earnest men, with intellect and perception to see the world as it is, to know men as they are; not mere dreaming sciolists, or book- worms, living in their libraries and giving as food to their brains the thoughts of the past, but conscious of and taking the greatest interest in the most forward thought of the greatest thinkers and observers of the present. For clergymen we want men with mental qualities equal to, and moral calibre Superior to, that of their fellows. If they wish to hold their own against the pressure of the times, it can only be done by the possession and exercise of a superior moral nature and higher culture. They should recognize as inevitable that in the future the in- stitution will be comparatively nothing—the man will be all; that they have lost their great elementary strength, dogmatism, which if acquiesced in by the laity, has no influence over their judgment, and which has been sadly shattered by the breaking up of the system of theological thought which has marked our times. They are fighting a losing cause, based on tradition and men's opinions, in opposition to the laws of God, about which there can be no doubt. They must leave the Bible to be resolved into its constituent forces by the power of modern analysis, and be pre- pared for a great change in our general views of it; but above all, as good, true men, they must be prepared frankly and promptly to admit, and prove by their actions in the future, MORALITY. - 27 that “acts” are the real thing, and the best basis upon which a religious life can be built; that mere formal expressions of belief in this or that dogma or creed have not, and cannot have, any influence in making men more truthful and honourable. They must rely on teaching the grand old truth, the Unity of God, the basis of the Jewish religión, a truth that has thrown its hallowing light over nation after nation, genera- tion after generation, around which all other beliefs have grown up; a truth which shall yet be known wherever man is found, which is intended to have a greater influence upon the future, and bless untold numbers of unborn generations. It is strange the clergy should have opposed progress at all times, and that they still fail to see that the doubts and dissents from old opinions does not change or destroy in one iota the spiritual life that throbs at the heart of humanity. No science, truly so called, can ever touch this or destroy it, for the simple reason that its work is outside the spiritual or religious sphere altogether. Scientific presumption may suggest the delusiveness of this sphere, just as in former times religious presumption sought to restrain the inquiries of science. But science has no voice beyond its own province. The weakest and the simplest soul may be taught to recognize the consciousness of the Divine within and about him. Science, properly explained, would strengthen the weaker religious belief; at present, the shadows of doubt overwhelm many, because they are not shown the light. The difficulty of modern speculation is beyond their grasp, and overwhelms them ; but the issue therefrom might be easily explained. The province of religion is to implant in man a belief in and trust in God, supplemented by an intelligible and practical philosophy of morals. All the difficulty and doubt would be solved by teach- ing men that the world is governed by Divine laws, immutable and invariable in their operation. The infallible recipe for scepticism of this or any future age, is to abandon for once and for ever that insult to man’s intelligence, “an infallible Church,” or, that all freedom of thought in reference to religion is deadly 28 MORALITY, Rationalism—to be shunned. Teach men the laws of Nature, make them acquainted with the nature of man, physical, animal, moral, and intellectual; with the relations of the different parts of that nature to each other; and with the relationship of the whole to God and external objects. Doubts are absurd, dis- belief impossible, if the people were properly taught. Let the natural laws be taught the people as part of their ordinary education. Let them be thoroughly impressed with but one dogma. “There's nothing strange in anything, provided the subject be examined to the bottom.” If you cannot explain any- thing, do not fall back on the miraculous or “special ’’ interposi- tion of Providence. Acknowledge your intelligence to be at fault ; do not blame the Creator, or continue any longer to libel Him, by asserting His most complicated and wonderful work, “Man,” was made so inherently weak, that he succumbed to the first assault ; have more faith in God and man, and rise above all the imbecile fears that frighten so many, that the masses will go all awry, if the old landmarks be removed. I have known many professedly “Christian men,” but how few whose lives were in- fluenced by the old light, the faith built thereon, and its promises and threats. As a test of the value of religious teaching, we are referred to the progress of mankind. History seems to indicate that civilization has advanced, in spite of, not through, the aid of religion. Religion should make people happy and contented. Where are such people to be found? Here and there, there are exceptions, but only to prove the rule—a few who have been carefully trained, and in comfortable positions, and wisely practise moderation; but how few people there are who really enjoy the fact of being living, sentient beings, who feel a pleasure in, or are grateful for, the boon of existence. Why is this? Because their minds have not the compass to guide them aright; their minds are not properly balanced ; they begin life so ignorant of the Creator's laws, they suffer so much in acquiring true knowledge; they have to give up, as they part with their youth, so many old faiths and beliefs; they see so much suffering and misery everywhere MORALITY. 29 that the world by nearly all is regarded as an enigma, whereas the key-note of tutor and priest should have been and should be, to make them study it as a mathematical problem. It seems to me of the first importance, alike to the future well- being as to the happiness of the people, that they may be led at once so see that happiness in this world means obedience to the laws of God; and that when the higher sentiments and intellect hold the natural supremacy, an obedience to the dictates of these powers is rewarded with pleasing emotions in the mental faculties themselves, and with the most beneficial external consequences; whereas disobedience is followed by de- privation of these pleasing emotions, and instead thereof there are painful feelings within the mind, and much external evil; for as surely as the pebble cast heaven-Ward abides not there but returns to the earth, so, proportionate to thy deeds, good or ill, will the desire of thy heart be meted out to thee in whatever form or world thou shalt enter. * Know then this truth (enough for man to know), Virtue alone is happiness below.”—Pope. Having once got on the path of truth, “Nature's laws,” founded on observation and the facts of scientific discovery, and making the study of man and his relation to external nature their theme, the clergy may face boldly the grave difficulties that beset all churches of our time. The task may be difficult—greater than any that has beset the preacher in Christian history; but to the men who can preach such a doctrine, who will feel it and give it the expression men must feel in declaring the will of God—a power is within their reach if they will but rise above the prejudices of their past training, and fearlessly face the new sphere of operations on behalf of man- Rind. I believe there never was a time when they had a larger field for their activity, or a fairer hope of influencing and benefiting so large a number of their fellow-men, as the influences which are Sapping and undermining the present order of things are not 30 - MORALITY. directed against religion, but against the doctrines and conclu- sions therefrom that are preached and taught. “As the cosmos of science is more wonderful than crude ideas of the universe, so the Bible was greater when on a canvas of 1,000 years every aspiration, sigh, and prayer of the highest religious consciousness was seen ranged in it, than when it was regarded as composed, preserved, and construed in a manner inconsistent with ordinary mental laws. The real apostacy would be as it would have been for Erasmus to persist in his monastic routine, or for Luther to have continued distributing indul- gences. You must be prepared for reproaches. “Spinoza was the greatest of modern Jews, and Judaism exiled him.” Nothing more simple. This was to be, and always will be. Finite symbols, the prison of the infinite mind, everlastingly protest against the efforts of idealism to widen them. The mind, on its side, everlastingly struggles for more air and light.”—RENAN. “Men rise on stepping-stones * Of their dead selves to higher things.”—IN MEMORIAM. Professor Clifford, in his “Ethics of Belief,” says most truly : “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for any one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” I shall be told men have not the time to study and obey the natural laws. For a time there would be some difficulty; but that the thing is impossible, if once men's minds were directed to the importance of the matter, is simply absurd. These laws, when neglected, punish so severely that the offender loses more time in undergoing his chastisement than would be required in obeying them. Begin with the young, and crush in them by every effort in your power that rank weed “indifference” (the worst infidelity of our time), which kills so many good gifts; implant “hope” of a happy life for all those who will work cheerfully in the present. Is there any limit to what youth, with genius and energy, might accomplish sustained with the faith of what the future has in store for them, conscious of the fact that what they do to-day will have its effect, on subsequent MORALITY, - 31 days, leaving its impress for good or evil, power or weakness, in the formation of their character and habits? “Action, either mental, verbal, or corporeal, bears good or evil fruit, as itself is good or evil; and from the actions of men proceed their various transmigrations in the highest, the mean, and the lowest degree.”—HINDU (BRIGHU). “A poor man watched a thousand years before the gate of Paradise; Then, while he snatched one little nap, it opened and shut.”—PERSIAN. Stamp on the people's brains indelibly— * For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these, “It might have been.’” It is useless thinking of the past, dreaming of what might have been. Like our youth, it has passed away, never to return again. But God never intended man to be miserable, or exist in twilight and darkness, gloom and fear, or live in the state of unrest and anxiety men now do, making one think that too much thought for the morrow is almost worse than too little. There must be some- thing radically wrong for work to seem hateful, and the scent of all roses such as men gather be loathsome. God did not intend this. No ; for all there is the morning glory and the midday heat— aye, even for the most wicked and wretchedest creatures the sun ever shone upon. What a glorious thing life should be, might be, would be, if men were trained to rely on those sources of knowledge, “observation, experience, and reflection,” and availed themselves of the instruction to be obtained by books, teachers, and the other methods which the Creator has so liberally provided for the improvement of the human mind ' Let us hope and pray that those who follow us will make of life a better and happier thing than we have done. There is no effect, however, without a cause; so action is needed: the seed must be sown, or the fruit will not come. The world is striding on, faster and faster every day; and if we do not keep pace with it we must learn to be content, sitting by the wayside and looking at the pageantry of busy life from a distance. It is useless bemoaning our fate because we do not keep 32 MORALITY, pace with the rest. But never barter your healthy conscience for the worldly success, or mad pleasures, or the life of show which to modern ideas seems desirable, but which, in spite of chapel building and hospital endowing, gives you not enjoyment during your life and will profit you not one doit when the end comes, and you are lying in the most awful loneliness—humanity, with crossed hands and blanched face, with impotent body—in the ante-room of eternity, with only a few short beats of your labouring heart separating you from the awful hereafter. “Faith” then will have to rest on its merits, and the reflection arise that your last moments would be more tranquil had “works” been thought more necessary, and many things been done that you could have done, or left undone that have been done. Believe me, faith is ad- mirable, but only as an adjunct or partner with “works.” Theories are very well, but “practice” is above all things necessary—aye, essential. “VIRTUE.-‘Even so—my soul shall triumph.” Thus spake Rama (Hindu). “I was wrong,” he said, and dashed a spray of softened tears from his eyes. ‘Virtue is a service man owes to himself; and though there were no Heaven, nor any God to rule the world, it were not less the binding law of life. It is man’s privilege to know the right and follow it. My soul shall triumph, and dying, give the lie to soulless Destiny, that dares to boast itself man's master.’” You may take as an axiom, that whenever the dictates of the moral and intellectual faculties, combined and enlightened, oppose the solicitations of the propensities, the latter must yield; other- wise, by the constitution of nature, evil will inevitably ensue. A very striking example of this truth is to be found in G. C. Lewis's “Essay on the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion”: “The moral sentiment may be so ill-directed as to deprave the judgment, even when the understanding is remarkably strong. Men of this sort may be great, but cannot be wise, for by wisdom we mean the power of judging when the intellectual and moral faculties are both in a sound state. Napoleon affords a striking instance of the corruptions of the judgment in consequence of the MORALITY, z 33 misdirection of the moral sentiments.” Misdirection is a misnomer of the talented author's. Napoleon's life-work was full of evil instead of good, because he opposed or fought against the direct- ing influence of the moral sentiments. No man ever lived with such splendid opportunities for using his immense intellectual powers for the good of mankind, and no man so fatally abused his trust, made such fearful havoc, or caused such wide-spread misery to such a mass of humanity. The warp was sound, but spoilt for want of moral weft. He should have been the happiest of mortals in mature age, reviewing the happiness caused by his beneficent and wise rule. Can we imagine a more wretched being than himself, or the remorse he must have suffered when reflecting at St. Helena upon how he had wrecked his own life and the lives of others entrusted to his care 2 Any ruler, be he King or Prime Minister, disregarding the moral laws must inflict misery upon the nation he so injudiciously, so short-sightedly governs. The acts of a wise ruler are for ages a law to the empire; his words are for ages a lesson to the people. Where rulers love justice, the people respond readily with service. “As we cut axe- handles, we grasp one handle to hew another. So the wise ruler uses what is in man to reform men.” How different for France, how different for the Napoleonic dynasty, if Louis Napoleon's rule had been actuated by enlightened intelligence, and directed by a high moral code He lacked moral courage, and pandered to the people's foibles; thought of his dynasty, but had not the sagacity to perceive its security could only be by studying the welfare of the people and nation entrusted to his charge ; so when the time of trial came, the rottenness and corrup- tion inseparable from such a selfish system was soon apparent. The fabric was built up by self-esteem and love of approbation, combined, no doubt, with considerable intellect; but he sought admiration of his people from the consciousness of his own import- ance—the much-relished food of his own vanity, instead of having based it upon real benefits conferred on them, through the ruling motive being regard for their welfare and happiness. From the coup d'état (his first fatal error), what a life of doubt and 3 * * * 34 MORALITY. insecurity he must have lived 1 Then came the inevitable catas- trophe. * “God stays long, but strikes at last. The higher the fool, the greater the fall. In every fault there is folly. What is not wisdom is danger.” —OLD ENGLISH PROVERBS. Cowper recognizes these principles of Divine government as to nations and individuals in the following powerful verses, cmbodying the philosophy, as they should the theology, of the nineteenth century:— “The hand that slew till it could slay no more, Was glued to the sword-hilt with Indian gore; Their prince, as justly seated on his throne As vain, imperial Philip on his own, Trick'd out of all his royalty by art, That stript him bare, and broke his honest heart, Died by the sentence of a shaven priest For scorning what they taught him to detest. How dark the veil that intercepts the blazo Of Heaven’s mysterious purposes and ways l God stood not, though he seemed to stand, aloof, And at this hour the conqueror feels the proof: The wreath he won drew down an instant curse; The fretting plague is in the public purse; The canker'd spoil corrodes the pining state Starved by that indolence their minds create, Oh! could their ancient Incas rise again, IIow would they take up Israel’s taunting strain } Art thow, too, fallen, Iberial Do we see The robber and the murderer weak as we? Thou, that hast wasted earth, and dared despiso Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies, Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid Ilow in the pits thine avarice has made. We come with joy from our eternal rest, To see th' oppressor in his turn dpprest. Art thou the god the thunder of whose hand Rolled over all our desolated land, MoRALITY. z 35 Shook principalities and kingdoms down, And made the mountains tremble at his frown P The sword shall light upon thy boasted powers, And waste them, as thy sword has wasted ours. 'Tis thus Omnipotence His law fulfils, And Wengeance executes what Justice wills.” In all stages of life men have yet to learn that the only real happiness is peace of mind arising from a moral life, and that any indulgence of the lower faculties, in opposition to the wish of the higher faculties, means life-long misery and remorse for the temporary gratification. Shakespeare truly said, “Our appetites increase with what they feed upon; ” and once let them be your master, their desires are insatiable, and you have a perpetual craving, growing stronger every time they are unwisely or immorally gratified. Carlyle, illustrating the importance of self-denial, gives the fate of Burns—his sad end, how he sank unaided by any real help, uncheered by any wise sympathy. Counsel, which seldom profits any one, he did not need. In his understanding he knew the right from the wrong, as well, perhaps, as any man ever did; but he lacked the principle of modern honour, that no one shall look for effectual help to another, but that each shall rest contented with what help he can afford himself. The best help one man can give another is the opportunity to use the . strength that God puts into him. I do not mean the help of “patronage,” said to be “twice cursed,” cursing him that gives and him that takes. All such modes of help sap the morale of men. Teach men that only cowards beg. To be worthy of freedom, a man must be above “taking aid” from any man, but rest contented with what help he can afford himself. Self-help is the basis of all honour ; naturally enough growing out of a proper self-respect, which should be inculcated and encouraged as the basis of social morality. Parents and teachers have the power to benefit the young by impressing on them that “Each one should do his best,” before saying, “God wills it otherwise.” There are a great number of stories illustrative of the value and importance * * * * 36 MORALITY, of self-help, as Hercules and the waggoner. Once upon a time—so the story runs—a waggoner's team stuck in the mud. In vain the horses strained at their task; the waggon was immovable; and in his despair—as we all are taught to do—the waggoner appealed to heaven. “O, Hercules, help us !” The only response vouchsafed was the unexpected direction to put his own shoulder to the wheel; but it was enough. The waggoner added the personal weight of his strength, the wheels moved, and the difficulty was surmounted. Put aside the practice of laying our burdens on to Providence, and appealing for help in any difficulty, and teach the doctrine positively to all men that “Heaven helps them who help themselves.” The moral may be common-place, but embodies a world of practical wisdom, and would alter the entire aspect of things in this world, if suffi- ciently understood and acted upon. Whilst young, point out to all their faults, as it is only by knowing them in good time we have the chance of remedying them, if we desire so to do. Teach them that “self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control” are the three things essential to a successful and happy life ; and above all things avoid the too prevalent practice, alike of parents and teachers, who try and impose their will and judgment upon their children. We should not pretend to be wiser than our Creator, and He saw fit to make all men responsible, and give them free- will. Children are new wine ; they must be let ferment freely, or they will never become clear, strong, and full flavoured. Analyze the life of Burns, or any other man of the same type: the blame of his and their failure will be found to rest with them- selves. It is their inward, not their outward misfortunes, that bring them to the dust. Seldom, indeed, is it otherwise ; seldom is a life morally wrecked, but the grand cause lies in some in- ternal mal-arrangement—some want, less of good fortune, than of good guidance. Nature fashions no creature without implanting in it the strength needful for its action and duration; least of all does she neglect her master-piece and darling—the poetic soul. Neither can we believe that it is in the power of any external circumstances utterly to ruin the mind of any man; * sº-sº MORALITY. 37 nay, if proper wisdom be given him, even so much as to affect its essential health and beauty. The sternest sum total of all wordly misfortunes is death ; nothing worse can lie in the cup of human woe ; yet many men, in all ages, have triumphed over death and led it captive, converting its physical victory into a moral victory for themselves, into a real and immortal consecration for all that their past life had achieved. What has been done, may be done again; nay, it is but the degree, and not the kind, of such heroism, that differs in different seasons: for, without some portion of this spirit, not of boist- erous daring, but of silent fearlessness—of self-denial in all its forms-—no great man, in any sense or time, has ever attained to be good. The clergy must think more of the temporal welfare of the people, be less theoretical and more practical. To teach the nation how to be truly prosperous, the teachers must devote more time to this world's concerns. At present the clergy fail from their ignorance alike of the people, and what they need. They should devote more of their study to mankind and science, and the laws of Nature. By so doing they would have the power, from their position, to confer great benefit upon mankind, and they would obtain thereby the surest foundation in the hearts of the people. , The clergy should impress on all who have influence with the people, that the soundest method of benefiting any class—all man- kind, in fact—is to raise their own conception of what they ought eventually to become, and that the desire to rise in life may be satisfied without men quitting the class in which they were born; but, more legitimately, by rendering the appropriate work of that class worthy of any class, by thoroughness, honesty, artistic or scientific skill. Nothing is more needed from the pulpit, from all men who are held in respect, than the continual encouragement to men to begin by developing and respecting themselves—to deserve, at any rate, the respect of their fellow-men, and to be assured and confident from their training that the state of any class of human beings will—nay, must—ultimately conform itself to their intrinsic deserts. ~ 38 - MORALITY. Every man may—and would if properly trained—rise by the sheer force of his own modest self-respect to a position of acknow- ledged moral greatness, which always has attracted, and always will, the affection and reverence of all classes of men. Aspire to be gentlemen: the feeling will keep you above doing mean or unhandsome actions. Be proud yet humble. You hear of people rising from nothing, in every age, in every country, and becoming great men. This arises from talent, doubtless; but it is talent allied to pride forcing it onwards— not talent with vanity to check its progress. We may all of us strive for the merit of zealously and perseveringly pursu- ing our vocation. We are all of us variously gifted ; there is scope for all our diverse capacities, if we would but contentedly plod on, keeping within but up to our strength ; as he who is con- tent to walk, instead of wanting too early to run his allotted path through life, although he may not so rapidly attain the goal, has the advantage of not being out of breath upon his arrival. Teach the working class to estimate at its proper worth, that element they and their leaders have hitherto so much underrated —that powerful element they hate so much, the great element in all departments of labour—the skilled “brain,” which directs their labour, and gives the impulse and potency to the machinery and is the mind of their work. What is the use of an army either of soldiers or workmen, all ready and willing to fight, work or help, yet not able to act or employ their strength, without the trained skilful brain to direct their efforts As regards the army, Fºumbers are useless—nay, worse than useless—unless directed, or if wrongly directed. Trades unionism is now a recognized insti- tution of modern industrial society. Whether we like it or not, we must acknowledge its existence, and its right to exist. The policy is to improve the intelligence of the working classes, so that their action in the future may not be so mischievous to them- selves and society, as it has often been in the past. Teach them to comprehend the inutility of acting contrary to the inevitable laws of political economy. Teach all, employers and employed, to see that their different views of things arise from that cause of MORALITY. * 39 so much of this world's misery—ignorance, or, what is worse, incorrect, incomplete views of subjects, and acting from impressions caused by prejudice, instead of reason. We want the happy union of intelligence with morality, and for the people to understand the power of the human mind, so that men would rise above the soulless, inert things they have been— howers of wood and drawers of water still—but understanding their work, and directing their labours with intelligence. Matter is useless—lifeless, till it is breathed upon and utilized by man using the inherent power implanted in his nature by the Creator. The mass of men require the same rousing into consciousness for their higher nature to have the sway and make them as superior to inert, lifeless matter they have hitherto been. As regards the value of correct views of things, history is nothing but an epitome of man’s failures whenever he has tried to act otherwise than according to law, intellectually and morally; as every moral sentiment, however good in itself, may run into excess. Denevo- lence, for instance, may lead to profusion, or to the practice of generosity at the expense of justice. “Our earthly life should be based on the duty of development. By it alone have we the right to happiness. Truth is eternal, and must, by the laws of God, triumph sooner or later in the individual as in humanity. Sorrow is not evil, since it stimulates and purifies; so will error pass away, calm succeed to storms, and sceptics disappear before the faith built in the reality of God's works. Having faith in the laws of God, and a conduct of life built thereon, would make men happy and contented, and the nation irresistibly unassailable from the harmony and unity of action by its people. The time has come to recognize the fact that the present controversy is no longer between those within and those without the walls of any given Church, but on a wider scale and involving profounder issues. It is a controversy not between spiritualism and materialism, but as to the basis on which our spiritualism is to rest; not as to whether there be a God, but what our views of God are to be, and our duties to the Creator, ceasing from the blind, implicit obedience of children 40 * MORALITY, towards their parent, and asserting the right of judgment and reason to prove, free from all restraint, from all reproach, the “Truth' as revealed and recognized in all departments of science, for men's guidance, and, not resting on the future, to remedy the seeming inconsistencies of the present, but proving a cause for every effect, a punishment for every deviation, a reward for every observance—the highest of all for obedience to the moral and highest dictates of our nature. Once set the ball rolling there is no knowing its result, as the moral elevation of any portion of mankind must tend to the elevation of all. Rouse men from resting tranquil in the belief of immortality, and stir within them a spirit of ceaseless aspiration, only to be satisfied with a ceaseless progress; that virtue shall be rewarded by her own continuance, ‘the wages of going on, and not to die.’”—F. W. H. My ERs, Nineteenth Century, April. The moral sentiments are benevolence, veneration, and con- scientiousness. These may be erroneously directed, or may act in excess, and in either case may give rise to abuses, such as profusion, superstition, and excessive scrupulosity. But the grand distinction between them and the propensities is this: the propensities, acting even legitimately—singly, or in combination with each other, but not in combination with the moral sentiments—have individual interest for their direct object, and do not actively desire the happiness of other beings for the sake of these beings themselves. The actions of the lower animals afford illustrations in point. Men so acting we call selfish ; they are animals, in fact ; that is to say, they have not advanced beyond the animal development. However successful or clever such men are, we feel a contempt for them; their self- absorption, utter, indifference, lack of sympathy with others is painful to behold by any one, however slightly removed from the same moral degradation. The moral powers, on the other hand, acting in harmonious combination with each other, and directed by enlightened intellect, desire the welfare, honour, and happiness of other beings as their direct object. Such men think of others, sympathize with their difficulties and troubles, are ready to lend MORALITY. º - 41 a helping hand, take no mean advantage of any one placed in their power as employer or creditor, do to others as they would be done by in all cases of doubt, view matters between them- selves and others, not selfishly, but by “putting themselves in the other party's place, and so acting as they would, similarly situated, like to be acted by.” I care not for the belief or creed, and think less, of any religious system that does not so vitalize this feeling in the mind of its members that their daily conduct manifests to the world they come in contact with that they may infallibly predict A, B, C, or D will in certain positions of tempt— ation rise superior to the selfish instinct, and yield homage to the God they profess to worship by their obedience to the laws of morality. I go further, and assert such men to be the happiest this world has, always accompanied by the pleasing consciousness of doing good to the utmost of their power, free from all envy and uncharitableness, happy in the present doing good, looking back to the past with pleasing recollections of such acts gleaming like rays of sunshine over their path during the journey of life— having such unbounded faith in God's justice, and His merciful consideration for any weakness latent in their organization, but manfully struggled against; that the future gives them no trouble, whilst death they see the necessity of, as without death there could be no continuous life, and mankind would have been deprived of the pleasures of domestic and family life. “Decay and death are consequences of birth, which is their cause, and towards them we are tending.”—BUDDIIA. It is only “Cowards die many times before their deaths; - The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, - Will come when it will come.”—SHAKESPEARE. Moral men have not this dread fear of the future, but are accom- panied in their journey by that pleasant companion, Hope. 42 MORALITY. “Hope, like the gleaming taper’s light, Adorns and cheers the way; And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray.”—GoLDSMITH. Benevolence has direct reference to other beings. If they are miserable, it feels compassion for them, and desires to relieve them. It purely and disinterestedly desires the happiness of its objects; it loves, for the sake of the person beloved ; if he be well, and the Sunbeams of prosperity shine warmly around him, it exults and delights in his felicity. * -- * Veneration also has reference to others. It looks up with a pure and elevated emotion to the beings to whom it is directed, whether God or our fellow-men, and delights in the contemplation of their great and good qualities. Hope spreads its gay wings in the bound- less regions of futurity. It expects good; “invites us, indeed, to aim at a good which we can live without;” but its influence is soft, soothing, and happy. Combined with the moral sentiments, it has been the cause of all the Utopias of the past for universal happi- ness. Such men have been the best men of their time, sympathizing with and anxious to remove the mass of suffering so many think flesh is heir to. I utterly disagree with the conception that God \ever wished the brutalities and social misery the mass have ever had to endure; and no harm can accrue from suggesting in the time to come a better state of things; only in our time, it is to be hoped, the promised future will be based on the possible, and the efforts of moral enthusiasts be directed by intelligent reason, pointing out to humanity the errors of the past and present, and how only by removing the causes thereof can such suffering be avoided in the future. St. Simon, Fourier, Robert Owen, and other good men of the same type erred in basing their schemes for the good of the community upon too high an ideal of human nature; they planned for man- kind as if they were “what they should be,” instead of what “they are.” Their theories are good, but primarily men require to be elevated up to their views of what man should do for man. We are a long way off universal brotherhood. Still, MORALITY. - 43 idealists delight in the contemplation of perfection; and the anticipating of happier times for humanity gives such brains great delight. When combined with a healthy moral organiza- tion, the sight of a good painting, statue, landscape, or mansion, is as pleasing, although the property of another, as if all were its own—as ideality is a spring that is touched by the beautiful wherever it exists, and hence its necessary enjoyments are as unbounded as the universe. 4. Conscientiousness, the innate judge and jury implanted in every soul, is the great arbiter between self and others. Its function is to regulate the contending solicitations of the lower and higher faculties of our nature. It is the regulator of our animal and moral feelings; and, aided by intellect, it serves to point out the limits which they must not pass. It desires to do to others as we would have them to do to us, and is the guardian of the welfare of our fellow-men, while it sanctions and supports our personal feelings within the bounds of justice. It is a noble feeling—the noblest in human nature. Train men to be just, and the miseries of this world would pass away, as the clouds before the sun's rays. A truly honest man is the noblest work of God. They are rare, and when met with deserve all reverence. What a difference there would be, if for law we substituted justice—if, instead of selecting as judges those who, as counsel; have seemed the most learned in the subtleties of the law and by the greatest knowledge of its intricacies have freed men from its justly-incurred penalties, the most conscien- tious men were chosen to administer justice—men whose lives have manifested the greatest abhorrence of wrong, and whose sense of right and wrong was so acute and clear that instinctively they recognize the difference between meum and tuum. Mankind has bowed the knee too much before intellect, more especially successful intellect ; and has not rated at its proper worth the higher and greater power, “conscientiousness.” In pur- suing the shadow, it has lost the substance—as intellect, however great, without morality is a curse, whether in a Bacon, a Napoleon, a bank forger, a promoter, or merchant prince. The higher faculties give pleasure by doing good to others. The intellect may 44 MoRALITY. become the handmaid of any of the faculties. Allied with the moral faculties, immense good to mankind is the result; by itself, uncon- trolled by conscientiousness, it may devise a plan to murder instead of to bless, to steal as bestow, to rear up or to destroy. But remember, it does mischief only when ill regulated; and to got a proper view of this subject, it must not be overlooked that no systematic effort has hitherto been made to train the human in- tellect to legitimate healthy exercise. Its proper object is to observo the different objects of creation, to mark their relations, and to direct the propensities and sentiments to their proper and legiti- mate enjoyments. It has a boundless sphere of action, and, when properly exercised and applied, is a source of high and inex- haustible delight. The lesson cannot be too strongly enforced, of the importance of training and disciplining the whole mind during the period of its development; of cultivating scientific habits of thought (by which I mean nothing more than strict reasoning based on exact observ- ation) in regard to every subject, and of not allowing ourselves to become “possessed” by any ideas, or class of ideas, that the common sense of educated mankind pronounces to be irrational. I would not for a moment uphold that test as an infallible one. But it ought to be sufficiently regarded, to make us question the con- clusions which depend solely upon our own or other's subjectivity; and to withhold us from affirming the existence of new agencies in Nature until she has been questioned in every conceivable way, and every other possibility has been exhausted. Contrast the authority upon which traditions and systems are based, and upon which religious opinion has grown, and the growth of scientific opinion. Science has had to advance from disagree- ment to agreement; that the agreement is in important matters, the disagreement on subordinate points; that the doctrines common to the whole scientific world are diffused, not by mere traditions, but by the force of new evidence and demonstration acting upon the reason of competent persons; and also not by persecution, reward, or the influence of the civil Government; and that it is for these reasons that the authority of scientific men may be regarded MORALITY. • 45 as trustworthy. This description is not applicable to religion. All mankind, at all times, and in all countries, have agreed in recogniz- ing some form of religious belief, and hence it is safe to assume the necessity for such, also for the belief in a Divine Power, super- human and imperceptible to our senses; but for various reasons there has been no agreement throughout Christendom with respect to any particular form of Christianity. Referring to the rise of Christianity, Celsus says “that it was owing to a spirit of sedition about the time of Jesus, that led one party of Jews to separate from the other, in order to follow his teaching.” And he adds: “Since they multiplied they have become divided into so many sects, each wishing to head a party, and so much do they condemn the one the other, that they have no longer any- thing in common but the name, if indeed one can say they have that.” Splendid irony; and pity 'tis, ’tis true—aye, as true of the Christians of to-day as when Celsus wrote the words in his famous contest with Origen, that most learned of the Greek Fathers in the FIRST Christian century. Sir George Lewis observes : “The Christian religion first as- sumed a dogmatic form in the hands of the later Greeks, who had received from their ancestors the inheritance of a subtle, refined, and abstruse metaphysical philosophy. This instrument of reason- ing and exposition they applied to the Christian religion, and particularly its more mysterious portions. At a later time the Christian theology, now reduced to a more systematic form, passed through the hands of the schoolmen, and was treated in the spirit of the scholastic philosophy. Afterwards the Reformation awakened new controversies, or gave increased importance to old ones. These, combined with other questions, have served to divide Christians into numerous churches and sects, and to keep up continual con- troversies between their respective advocates. Religion, as at present conceived, must be subject to this controversy, because religion, as such, is conversant with matters which are neither the subject of consciousness nor intuition, nor within the range of the senses. This is necessarily the case with all questions concerning the nature of the Deity and his attributes, and the state of human 46 MORALITY, existence after death. Upon these subjects we have no experience derived either from internal consciousness or external sensation to guide us, and accordingly not only the abstract reasoning of natural religion, but the interpretation of the records of revealed religion, give rise to questions for the settlement of which it is difficult[query “impossible”] to find any decisive rule of judgment. Owing to the operations of these causes the various Christian bodies continue to exist side by side with each other, and show little or no tendency to coalesce into a common belief, or recognize a common organ of religious truth. Opinions on scientific matters, although they may spring from different sources, and follow for a time distinct sources, at last flow together into one main stream ; whereas the distinctive tenets of the several Christian Churches not only spring from different sources, but continue to run in different channels. Scientific opinion follows a certain law of progressive develop- ment. While error is gradually eliminated, truth is established by a continually enlarging consensus, like the successive circles made upon the surface of the water. Opinion, however, in the several Christian Churches on the subject of their distinctive tenets, is rather variable than progressive. It oscillates backwards and forwards, but does not tend to a joint action or common centre. All attempts hitherto to reconcile these differences have failed. That an agreement is desirable, and would be of the highest importance to the benefit of humanity, all must admit.” We come then to the pertinent question, as to who men are to be ruled by, fairly looked at, free from prejudice or bias. As the opinions of scientific men tend to converge, and the opinions of theologians tend to diverge, mankind must inevitably be ruled by scientific authority, unless, as I wish and hope, theologians will give up their hitherto cherished notions of their beliefs being above all question, and will consent to have their religious ideas altered to agree with the results of scientific observation and research. The Church is at a momentous crisis in its history; people think year by year more for themselves, and will judge of a tree by its fruit. Teligion claims the merit of all that is good in human nature, yet if moral philosophy has any basis, men are good only in proportion to their MoRALITY. 47 powers of self-denial, and being able to do justice to others in spite of their own convictions. Has the Christian religion given to its professors this spirit of abnegation, of martyrdom? In reply, your serious attention is directed to what follows: An attempt is made to remedy what is felt to be a great wrong by a very large section of the people who demur that their religious faith should debar them from the “national” burial-places. The Government bring in a bill conceding this right, but it is naturally felt that this is only a part of what is needed. The right to be buried is one thing, but silent burial was felt to be an insult; so the Earl of Harrowby moved a new clause: “When the relative or friend having charge of the funeral of a person dying in any parish shall signify in writing to the incumbent of such parish, or to the curate in charge of the same, that it is his desire that one burial of the said person shall take place without the Burial Service of the Church of England, the said relative or person shall there- upon be at liberty to inter the deceased with such Christian and orderly religious services at the grave as he may think fit, or without any religious service ; provided that all regulations as to the position and making of the grave which would be in force in the case of a person interred with the service of the Church of England shall be in force as to such interment; provided further, that notice of the time when it is the wish of the relatives or other persons as aforesaid to conduct the said interment shall be given to the incumbent or curate in charge at latest some time the day before. Provided, further, that the said interment shall not take place at the time of or within half-an-hour before or after any service in the church, or of any funeral already appointed in the churchyard. If any person shall in any churchyard use any observance or ceremony, or deliver any address not permitted by this Act or otherwise by any lawful authority, or be guilty of any disorderly conduct, or conduct calculated to provoke a breach of the peace, or shall under colour of any religious observance or otherwise in any churchyard wilfully endeavour to bring into contempt or obloquy the Christian religion, or the belief or worship of any church or denomination of Christians, or the ministers or 48 MORALITY, any minister of any such church or denomination, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.” “A most humane clause, and very thoughtfully worded.” “An act of grace and kindness all Christians having the power should, if their belief be of any practical value, be glad to have the opportunity of rendering one another.” Yet we find the following declaration in four days received 11,345 signa- tures. Among them will be found 7 assistant bishops, 10 deans, 40 archdeacons, 37 canons, 54 proctors in convocation, and 176 honorary canons and prebendaries. “Thus,” says Dr. Lee, “more than half the English clergy, without any reference to religious or political party, have declared their opinion with regard to Lord Harrowby's amendment. The declaration is still in course of signature, and additional names are being received by every post.” The following is the declaration: “We, the under- signed clergy of the Church of England, being averse to the introduction of such services into the churchyards as would be sanctioned by the Earl of Harrowby's proposed amendment to the Burial Acts Consolidation Bill, hereby declare—(1) That we consider the churchyards (subject to the legal rights of the parishioners to interment) to be the property of the Church of England; (2) that we are opposed to any legislation which shall permit persons not ministers of that Church to claim as of right to officiate in our churchyards, and to use forms and ceremonies therein which are not sanctioned by the English Church.” This unity of thought when their spiritual pride is touched shows how impracticable as a body the clergy are, and will, I fear, prevent their seeing that to the mass of humanity Christian theology has become obsolete, and that men are sick of specu- lations as to the “unknowable,” and want reality, not arguments or sermons based on subtle points of metaphysics, but showing a knowledge of humanity and its needs. Men will no longer be acted upon by that “something” beyond this world we know nothing of, but the faith of the future must be built on the “knowable,” on human nature as it is and what it might be if properly guided. Humanity must be thought more of, the opinions of this or that theological sect less. Religion is brought MoRALITY. - 49 into disrepute when men quarrel and refuse their fellow-men the comfort of a burial service over their remains they have during their lives had faith in. Such conduct may be “theological; ” I suggest it is not religious or moral; and defy the Christian world to find a “non-Christian” who could or would so disregard or violate the rights of conscience or humanity. The House of Lords did a wise act in seeing the necessity of rising superior to the sentimental grievance of a privileged class so that justice might be done to the whole people. The church- yards are not the property of the Church, but are only held in trust by that body for the good of the nation, and the “national" Church should be above that intolerant spirit manifested by its members in opposing a religious service at the burial of the dead unless it be “sanctioned ” by their Church. It would be easy enough to leave all present rights and duties as they are, making no further change than granting permission for burial to any one in the national churchyard, and allowing the burial service over the dead to be read by the minister of the church or chapel the deceased, whilst living, believed in. If the clergy maintain their present attitude, there will be no alternative but to elect trustees, who can act with a more impartial spirit; but it is to be hoped they will accept the inevitable, and wisely bow to a decision they cannot alter, and make the best of the position still left to them. The change will be less intolerable than they imagine, and in a few years, when they have become used to it, they will not only cease to regret the invidious rights they will have surrendered, but will wonder at their present fears, which time will have proved to have been so utterly groundless. But the act should have been their own, the result of their “better nature,” as to do right only from selfish motives, or pressure of public opinion, is hypocrisy; which the clergy should, by example and precept, teach mankind to despise in others, as they should scorn it in themselves. No man deserves to be a clergyman who preaches according to order, or from fear of his congregation; he above all men should only teach or preach what he believes, eschew- ing altogether any effort to reach one of the winnisºº; of this 50 . MORALITY, world by a course PRofessFDLY shaped for one of the winning- posts of the other. Much honour is due to those prelates and peers who, contrary to many traditions, and suppressing many a prejudice, had the moral courage to do justice to the great body of English Non- conformists. The pity.is that the clergy, with such a splendid opportunity in their hands of showing the “practical value” of their professions, should have lost it, and compel the laity to make them be just; but so it has ever been. Like Peter the Hermit, they 'allow their theological zeal to blind their judgment and overrule alike their morality, wisdom, and discretion. Who can doubt the Church has more to gain than lose by meeting their dissenting brethren in a liberal spirit of concession upon this and kindred sub- jects—that their position is to be maintained, not by their “rights,” but their “living acts” showing the value of their teaching and the principles they profess, relying on their wisdom and honour, and demonstrating by their lives their faith in God and His laws 2 It says little for the common sense of the clergy in fighting for a position deliberately abandoned by an assembly justly regarded by them as their steadiest and most cordial ally. The Peers are conservative and stanch friends to the Church, but their experience of public life renders them better judges than the clergy of the practical bearings of the issue; and their vote ought to have been accepted as a friendly warning that, whatever interests the Church may have to defend, it is not in the church- yard and over the grave that she can safely maintain them. The churchyard is the national cemetery of the parish; so much so, that the sole question now at issue is, not whether any one who pleases shall be buried there, but whether he shall be buried with the rites of his own form of worship. The vote of the House of Lords should have convinced alike the Government and the clergy that the time for “common-sense” action had come. Had they been wise or equal to the position, they would have made the neces- sary concession whilst it was possible to do so with grace. That the point must be yielded is inevitable; it is only an act of justice. Is their conduct an indication that they will still, from pride and MORALITY. 51 conceit, stop the progress of mankind all in their power, by checking the desire for knowledge and aspirations for a better life by knowledge of and obedience to the laws of God, and that they will still try to bind the soul within their forms, creeds, and dogmas, and fight over their crotchets; or may it teach them the lesson—so much needed—of in a manly-way acknowledging their error 2 When common sense and justice oppose their “privileges,” or science demonstrates their conclusions to be incorrect, will they earnestly and zealously emerge from their present ruinous position of fighting for humanity with one set of weapons only, made in the old traditional manner, and work for human develop- ment and progress by accepting the truisms of scientific men, and thereby modify their theories and bring them into accord and harmony with the knowledge of the age they live in? It is useless to fight against “truth,” and as the subject matter to which the opinions of scientific men relate is one upon which we can exercise our senses, and on which a practically inexhaustible amount of evidence is accessible to a diligent observer, would it not be wiser to help the work of opening the eyes of mankind, and retain thereby the Church’s influence over their minds, than in forcing men, however unwilling, to become their opponents on the one hand, or indifferent and credulous on the other, and holding all sacred things in contempt? The position of the clergy is a very serious one, asserting, as they do, there can be no moral action unless based on their religious belief, and that civilization and progress depend on the 'influence of religion over men's minds. That religion is a very powerful element there can be no doubt; that it might be made a leverage of immense power I thoroughly believe ; but to help forward man's progress by this important element of civilization needs “a well-placed confidence in the intelligence, wisdom, and desire for truth and justice, above all things in the Christian ministry.” To obtain this power over men you must not simply deny their right to question your own, or deter them from examin- ing the basis of the belief you wish them to form, but you must induce in them a belief that in expounding your doctrines you also 52 . - MORALITY. comprehend and can demonstrate the reason for, and give proofs of, the reasonableness of your belief. As men cannot be judges of all things, let the Church, and all learned bodies that have to do with public instruction, instruct the learner in the conclusions and results at which the most eminent authorities in each department of knowledge have arrived, and, as far as possible, furnish each with an instrument for testing the soundness of the method which each original inquirer may employ. If some choose to be slavish followers, let them be slaves voluntarily and upon conviction ; cease to deny their right to be free to inquire into all things. In re- ligion a man is expected to believe, yet not understand; in science a man may servilely follow the beaten track, but does not, there- fore, necessarily accept the opinions upon the mere on dit of his master, but because he understands and has tested the evidence on which they rest. One cannot be too particular in verifying the first principles upon which a method is based. “Bacon revolutionized philosophy mainly by a change of scientific method, and the subsequent substitution of a set of sound doctrines, of which the proof was understood, for a set of unsound doctrines of which the proof was equally understood.” Mankind must cease to sluggishly acquiesce in any conclusions without troubling themselves to examine their connection with the premises, or adopt any method, theological or scientific, without due inquiry of the truth or false- hood of the first principles, and verify the same, or reason any longer deductively from propositions whose truth has not been established by the proper preliminary process. There seems very little probability of an agreement between the different religious bodies. The belief in God, based upon any theo- logical system, will have a different meaning with nearly all men. Three great classes of religious thought profess belief in a Divine Power; yet one believes the Trinity, the other Allah, the other Nirvana, and each belief excludes the other two. Paley, John Wesley, and De Maistre all devoted much thought to the subject, and were all Christians; but their views of things, human and divine, their ways of looking at life, their method of thinking, their funda- mental assumptions, differed utterly, Who can comprehend the MORALITY. 53 doctrine of the Trinity, that God had a Mother, or the immaculate conception ? Yet those who profess to believe these things stigma- tize as heretics Unitarians and other sects who refuse to profess a belief in this mysterious doctrine, and they are eliminated from the aggregate body as though the problem was solved which is in- soluble. And it may be said generally that all theologians forget the fact that the value of evidence depends absolutely upon the degree to which those to whom it is addressed are convinced of the solidity of the basis on which it rests, and of the value of the method by which its detailed results are reached. It is the know- ledge and not the ignorance of the person to whom such evidence is addressed which gives that evidence its value. This applies to religious questions as well as to others. Before the evidence of theological experts can have any value at all with any person accustomed to judge of the weight of evidence, such a person must, by some means or other, be convinced that the fundamental asser- tions of theology are true, and that the method by which its mere detailed assertions are arrived at is correct. He must be satisfied that theologians resemble astronomers and not astrologers. Does the “testimony of the ages,” the traditions of “the human race,” “the consent of mankind,” “the consent of civilized mankind,” “bind us in reason” to believe in the views of God as given by Christianity ? As to the truth of the conception of God's government of this world, upon which their doctrine must stand or fall—viz., whether man has gradually progressed, intellec- tually and morally, from the beginning ; or whether he was made perfect, yet succumbed to his first temptation, hence the necessity for the atonement and redemption by Christ; it is the problem for our age, if possible, to decide beyond further doubt or question. The nineteenth century needs for such vicws to be maintained some stronger reasoning than “because all men, or all civilized men,” think thus and thus, “therefore it is true.” A belief in God implies much more than that he is superhuman and imperceptible ; and there is little doubt the majority who profess Christianity would be puzzled to define what it means. The word to them, instead of indicating, like the title of an author's works, a 54 MORALITY, multitude of particulars, is but a blind which, on the one hand, excludes knowledge, and on the other leaves them imbued with the knowledge that they possess it. i The God of Christianity is different from the God of Mahom- medans. The Buddhists do not believe in God. The educated Chinese hold exactly the same language about God as Positivists. Confucius “would say nothing of the gods, for he knew nothing about them.” As to the speculations of the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, there was little, if any, connection between the speculations of the few and the beliefs of the many, and the philosophers differed as much, and as irreconcilably, as the meta- physicians of our own days. Common sense tells us Confucius was right; it is wasting time arguing about what must ever be the “unknowable,” and drawing conclusions when we have no premises to build the same upon. Therefore, all argument has ever been, and will be, worthless, as to the origin of God, the world, and its ultimate end. So we find in all ages the majority have thought it expedient to accept the established religious belief of their country and time. With the many, whether true or false, they are utterly indifferent; they have accepted it because it is established, because there is less trouble in agreeing than differing, and by acquiescence they acquire a certain social status, and, above all, by conforming they evade the difficulty of having to give reasons for their belief and disbelief. So it has been, may be, some think ever will be. The few grapple with the subject, and, as honest men, refuse to profess belief until they understand; but the vast multitude, in all times and in all ages, are content to simply accept the beliefs of their time and country. But this tacit acceptance, this silent acquiescence in the reli- gious belief of one's time, can have no real effect, no real action upon the mind of mankind ; and the general laxity of moral tone throughout the world, not only in this, but at all times, is sufficient proof the professed “religion” of the majority is only affected, not real. In the Nineteenth Century for April, James FitzJames Stephens truly says: “Naturally every man will take as a starting- MORALITY. 55 point the belief in which he is educated, and will, as he goes on in life, modify it, more or less, according to an infinity of circum- stances. So, as a rule, men usually have more to whlearn before they can begin to learn on this than on any other subject; but no man should feel humiliated at this, or be dissatisfied with his doubt, or undervalue the later knowledge he acquires, because it Shakes the firm convictions he has been told he ought to have, and hold as dear as his life, simply because the multitude think so and so, and therefore he had better act and think accordingly.” It is a true statement of the case; but what a libel, really, on the existing state of things Entering on our brief span of life, Weighted with so much we have to learn the worthlessness of, so many of our years harassed with the doubt begot from the struggle of the new “knowledge” to oust out the old tradition that has got possession of us—briefly, a false system wasting so many of our precious years! Truly has it been said, “Man is the cruelest enemy of man.” What a difference if, instead of planting tares and weeds to be forced out by the growth of good seed, the good seed was implanted at first—truth in possession from the beginning. Naturally, a more godly and happier harvest for all of us would follow. Civilization and knowledge have produced diversities of opinion, whereas coercive authority has always put a stop to such diversion, as in Spain and Italy—anywhere, in fact, where the people have been, or are, bound in fetters, and freedom of thought has been forbidden by a dominant religious hierarchy, exacting submission from the people, and saying to the brain of man, “Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther,” thereby the progress of civiliza- tion has been arrested; whereas, on the other hand, whenever and wherever the minority have got the better of coercive authority, and have been allowed to take their own course, religious disputes have grown and multiplied to such an extent as to produce the state of things which we now see all over Europe and the United States. The last twenty-five years has been a period of greater progress in civilization, of amelioration in the condition of the people, of greater real freedom and liberty to think, speak, and act, 56 - MORALITY. than any other period in the world's history; owing mainly to the freedom from clerical control caused by their power being under- mined and their influence sapped, by the people generally taking a more active part in religious discussion, and the enlargement of thought engendered by the corresponding differences of opinion; whilst the increased toleration on the part of the laity is one of the most noticeable and characteristic features of that pro- gress. - If much has been done, much still remains to be done in the cause of toleration and freedom of thought. Many persons still, regard everything which has a tendency to discredit theology with disapprobation, because they think that all such speculations must endanger morality as well. Such parties forget that morality has a basis of its own in human nature, and that, even if all theo- logical beliefs were exploded, morality would remain practically unaffected. The theology of an age or country is the theory of the universe, generally accepted then and there. Each nation has its own wisdom and errors, the accumulated instinct of the race that each successive generation inherits ; and their respective “moralities” are the rules of life then and there commonly regarded as binding. One has a great influence over the other; so it is of the greatest importance the theology of the age be sound, if it is to exercise the influence it should on the morals of the people. The general religious beliefs having influence on peoples' conduct, if really entertained by the professed believer, are, that the course of the world is ordered by a good God; that right and wrong are in the nature of a Divine law; that this world is a place of trial, and part only of a wider existence—briefly, a belief in God and a future state. Morality does not depend upon this or that doctrine. Men cannot live together without some rules of life—that is, without some sort of morality. The destruction of religion would involve a moral revolution ; but it would no more destroy morality than a political revolution destroys law. It would substitute one set of moral rules and sentiments for another, as the establishment of Christianity and Mohammedanism did when they superseded MORALITY, - 57 various forms of paganism. The inference is, that theology and morality ought to stand to each other as facts and legislation. “No one would propose to support, by artificial means, a law passed under a mistake, for fear it should have to be altered. To say that the truth of a theological doctrine must not be questioned, lest the discovery of its falsehood should produce a bad moral effect, is in principle precisely the same thing. It is, at least, as unlikely that false theology should produce good morals as that legislation based on a mistaken view of facts should work well in practice. “For instance, if, putting theological considerations aside, it could be shown as desirable that a man whose wife was incurably mad should be allowed to marry again, you will perceive the theological belief in respect to this question will depend on whether they are true or not ; and this question of morality cannot be fully or fairly determined—that is to say, whether any given system of morals is good or bad, until we determine whether the theology on which it rests is true or false. The “morality’ is good if it is founded on a true estimate of the consequences of human action; but if it be founded on a false theology, it is founded on a false estimate of the consequences of human actions; and, so far as that is the case, it cannot be good; and the circumstance that it is supported by the theology to which it refers is an argument against, and not in favour of, that theology.”—SIR JAMEs STEPHENs. Is the Christian idea a correct one, that every noble crown must needs be a crown of thoms; that this life is a world of troubles; that man's nature is corrupt; he is ruined and lost 7 Or has it not been a misdirection on the part of our spiritual advisers, and man's strengthy/been wasted thereby ? Strength, to be well directed, requires to be guided by wisdom, as man without wisdom is like a º: sea without ballast. How few men are trained to apply their knowledge to the best and noblest ends of life How few to whom knowledge is implanted understand the knowledge they possess!—above all, that knowledge is not wisdom, which is knowledge practically and well applied. That a man, however bºſſ, is not capable of being made better, I emphatically deny; 58 . º MORALITY, -\ whilst I sincerely believe “there is a holy spot in every child's heart,” which, by proper direction we might all detect, find out, and work upon for the child’s good. But there is a time for all things. The mind of man in youth is like a field in spring—what- ever is received into it then from the hand of the sower grows more quickly and more luxuriantly than at any later season. If there be no seed in the spring field but that which is lodged in it by Nature, it will soon become a world of weeds, which no labour of the husbandman—nothing but another winter coming to his aid— will destroy. The youth of mankind is not so directed, and the majority, instead of bounding over the rippling waves of life joyously, find their career surrounded by troubles and perils, and are the sport and prey of the slightest storm, and end their lives beaten and broken. - It is a shame to leave all to painful experience, instead of . starting each life stored with the experience of others to be guided by. Experience, if it teaches us anything, teaches us that all things in and about Nature seem antagonistic to the idea that man only inhabits this world to suffer. On the contrary, the writing is plainly inscribed: if we suffer, it is as punishment for transgression, and to warn us in a friendly, fatherly way to alter our conduct. Nature may seem at times a combination of blind and cruel forces, but what sense-entrancing, soul-entrancing loveliness she possesses! The setting sun or a young moon attended by a brilliant planet, hanging dreamily over the sea; the air sweet with violets and primroses; Nature's choristers busy in the trees and air round about us; and the air full of the soft murmur of waves. A beau- tiful night is a positive, undying evidence the Creator meant man to have enjoyment. He has given him beauty; given him where- with to find joy, full measured and pressed downx. A life well spent is one devoted to remove the errors made by man's blindness; and any step forward in teaching him to rationally and wisely enjoy the loveliness of the nature in and about him, and that by doing so gives him a true idea of the battle of life, and the reward of victory, is a life well spent. The first, nay, the salient point for man's advancement is to MORALITY. 59 recognize the fact “that truth has many sides,” and instead of a narrow, sectarian teaching, impress on all men, and pray for all men from the soul, zealously and earnestly, that, from whatever quarter truth and goodness come, orthodox or heterodox, wise or simple, God give men the wisdom and grace to acknowledge and pro- claim it. Cease to call a man a Ritualist because he likes to hear a choir sing in tune; or brand as Low Church any one intimating that the garment worn by the body is of no consequence compared with that in which you attire the mind; or as Broad Church the man who dares to suggest that certain forms of words have little more value than certain forms of dress; worst of all, as heretics, “ Unitarians,” or any religious man not believing in Christianity, and earnest, thoughtful men seeking for the truth. Independent thought, and the fearless expression of it, require great moral courage and honesty of heart. To go against the orthodox opinion of your age, that is true greatness; it is easy enough to go with it. How few clergymen dare say they are more indignant at sins than surplices, or that they could support Ritualism, or any other ism, if it led to righteousness / How few have the moral courage to tell their congregations that if they cannot make or repair their fortunes, they can “all live within their incomes;” may, that it is a theft to live beyond it ! The many may not possess the nerve and pugnacity which fit a man to wrest the prizes of the world from its grasp ; but, properly trained and regularly admonished, few but would possess that other kind of strength which enables a man to narrow his wants within the compass of his means. The advocates of “making an effort” would do more good if at the same time they pointed out the blessings of self-denial and contentment. I am no advocate of a life of pleasure—quite the contrary. Pleasure should always, as a matter of duty, be postponed to one's business in life; but I do most strongly advocate the teaching mankind to step aside and pick every little enjoyment that blossoms by the wayside in their journey through life. ToI.ERATION.—“For a week Abraham would scarce break his fast for fear some hungry traveller might pass, needing his store. 60 MORALITY, Daily he looked out upon the desert, and on a day he beheld the bent form of an aged man, his hair white as snow, tottering toward his door. ‘Guest of mine eyes,” said Abraham, “enter thou with welcome, and be pleased to share my bread and salt.” The stranger entered, and to him was given the place of honour. When the cloth was spread, and the family had gathered round the board, each uttered ‘Bismillah” (“In the name of God,”) save one. The aged guest uttered no word. Abraham said: “Old man, is it not right when thou dost eat thy food, to repeat the name of God?’ The stranger said, ‘My custom is that of the fire-worshipper.” Then Abraham arose in wrath, and drove the aged Geber from his house. Even as he did so a swift-winged spirit stood before the Patriarch, and said, ‘Abraham, for a hundred years the Divine bounty has flowed out in sunshine and rain, in bread and life, to this man; is it for thee to withhold thy hand from him because his worship is not thine º’”—From the Persian. There are no spirits in our day; but we have the records of too many dead—great and good—men’s minds in books for our guidance, too many humiliating records of persecution in the past, that teach us the unwisdom and want of morality in being hostile to any sect, class, or country because of their re- ligious convictions. Morality is needed to prevent interest or inclination from disturbing the balance of the judgment as to what is right or wrong. How degrading, how humiliating, how lowering to the pretensions of those theologians who assert that by their guidance alone can man be a “moral being ” is the fact that, although the Conventicle Act was passed June 30th, 1663, so slow is equal toleration, it was not till June 29th, 1877, that the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice was called upon to decide that a “Nonconformist” was entitled to a Fellowship in Hertford College, Oxford. Mr. Tillyard, a Noncon- formist, was a candidate for a vacant Fellowship, and he was told that he could come up to be examined, but that “if he was first on the list, he could not be elected.” Thereupon Mr. Tillyard declined to come up, and a member of the Church of England was elected as MORALITY, - - 61 a Fellow; but Mr. Tillyard obtained a mandamus, on the ground that there was a virtual exclusion of the applicant. Mr. Justice Mellor might well express his astonishment that it had been gravely argued that the governing body had not refused to examine Mr. Tillyard, “because it bordered upon the ludicrous that Mr. Till- yard should have been examined for an office to which he was in- formed he would not be elected, even if he was successful.” Mr. Justice Lush declared the intentions of the Act of 1871 to be that “religious tests shall no longer eacist, but that the benefits of the colleges shall be ‘freely accessible to all.” And so Mr. Tillyard obtained a peremptory mandamus to the College for his examina- tion, with a view to his election as a Fellow—the “morality,” the sense of justice inherent in human nature compelling theologians at last to be honest towards their fellow-men. But the story shows the natural result of sectarian teaching, and is only another illus- tration of the spirit of exclusiveness developed in another form by the opposition to Lord Harrowby's clause on the Burials Bill, and seems destructive of the high position taken up by the theological world, that “all morality’ depends upon orthodoxy, the conduct of the so-called orthodox being the very antithesis of “morality,” which teaches charity and “doing to others as we would be done by,” . enabling us to rise above bigoted or selfish views in matters of dis- pute between ourselves and others. In all such matters “morality" would adopt another course, and rather err on the side of the stranger that sought entrance within the hitherto closed gates. Our religious teachers, if worthy the position they assume of being inculcators of the “morals of the people,” should have, as regards the claims of Nonconformists, the fastidious sensibility with which gentlemen regard debts of honour. These cannot be “legally enforced,” but to all real gentlemen are a self-acting law unto themselves, which defines their character, and prescribes their pay- ment, and enforces it by an authority which no written law of the land confers. They should be obligations founded on the most refined sensibility of cultivated men; and all the more sacred, ex- acting, and respected, because they are out of the jurisdiction and reach of statute law. If “debts of honour” are scrupulously 62 * MORALITY, paid by “immoral” men—debts the laws would not make them pay, what a contrast to the actions of the “moral clergy’ in Mr. Tillyard's case, in which only the authority of the law made them yield what they claimed as “their exclusive rights”—rights that cannot be maintained either honourably or equitably against the rights of their fellow-citizens. It is repugnant to “morality,” if not to “theology,” for men to pretend to be ignoring this world and only living for the next, yet not only fighting hard for this world’s riches and emoluments, but striving hard to lessen the legitimate competition for the same by excluding opponents, on the ground of their “religious opinions.” It has always seemed to me an anomaly that the clergy, who claim the merit that they as “religious teachers” have been the principal means of civilizing mankind, and that there could be no morality without religion, yet that, as a body, the law has had more trouble with them at all periods of the world’s history (and it is the same in our day) in forcing ecclesiastics to obey the law and “think of the rights of others” than with any other class of men except the lawyers, who fight as obstinately for their privileges to levy black mail upon their fellow-men as the clergy. But the one profession is regarded as selfish; yet if there be any power in religious training, or value in the profession of those who teach it is the one thing above all others that humanizes and elevates, it should have raised clergymen above the longing for power and the loaves and fishes. It is a satire upon their “charity,” trying to exclude Mr. Tillyard in opposition to the laws ; also, that 12,900 clergymen of the Church of England should sign a declara- tion refusing to allow their churchyards, as they call them (the national churchyards, as I prefer calling them), to be used by any one unless a member of their own sect. But do not imagine this feeling is peculiar to the Church of England. Theologians of every sect have manifested at all times this same narrowminded, selfish, inhuman tendency; and the conduct of the clergy with regard to these questions is applicable to their general view of things, and shows they are quite unaware the outside world is now concluding the nineteenth century of the Christian era. Denounce MORALITY. 63 progress as they may, whether it be as regards science, abso- lute freedom of thought, the abolition of all religious tests, equal freedom and position to all religious sects, it is simply a waste of strength on the part of the clergy if they are so ill- advised as to continue their opposition to the one or the other. They may predict what consequences they please ; mankind will think for themselves, more and more every year; and progress will come in spite of them. It would be more wise, and their future would be more hopeful, if they could regard the contest as decided, and prepare themselves calmly to consider the position in which they are left, and the safeguards on which they may still insist. Judged by the acts of Christians, is it right to claim for Chris- tianity that it is the first moral power of the world? “that without its counteracting influence mankind would retrograde into bar- barism?” that by it, and it only, have morality and duty had any influence over the actions of mankind P. How can we reconcile this assumption with the fact that now, and in every age of the world's history, there have been men who reject all dogmatic theology, and even the principles of natural religion, yet have never- theless lived up to a high moral standard; just as there are, and ever have been, many others professing, not always insincerely, to believe in religion, who do the reverse ? The moral sense never has been, and never will be, extinguished among mankind; and in all ages and countries of which we have any real historical know- ledge, there have been conspicuous examples of men who have made morality their rule of life. But I must ask those who adopt the view that there must be a progressive deterioration of general morality if the light of religion be absent or obscured, to remember, that in advocating “morality” as the rule of life, based on a knowledge of God’s laws, we are not opposing religion—viz., adoration and worship of the Creator—but only proving to mankind why they should reverently obey and render homage and worship to such a Supreme Being. “Morality,” properly understood, must make men more moral and intelligent, more human, less criminal, and produce a religious feel- ing far superior to the mental narrowness and sectarian feeling the 64 MORALITY, Christian belief seems to have engendered, and its professors now, and at all times have, manifested—the natural result of a system based on mystery and miracle, and retribution or reward hereafter. I know it will be said that the hope of reward, or the fear of punishment, is not the foundation of religious morality (which, to fulfil the requirements either of religious or the moral sense, must ascend much higher), but because our nature is so con- stituted that the destiny of the individual, for good or for evil, for happiness or the reverse, is inseparably bound up with the moral law of his being ; and because these aids and defences, which result from the recognition of this truth, are necessary for the ascendency of the higher over the lower elements of our nature, and for the education of man to virtue. To this view I reply, that a sense of duty is inherent in the constitution of our nature, and cannot be escaped till we can escape from ourselves. Morals have their own base, and are second to nothing. On the contrary, “Morality” is man’s manifesting by his “acts” the religiousness of his nature. “Religion” may be a profession, but the moral man is a reality—a living testimony that he is guided, in his journey through life, by the highest power inherent in the nature of man. The man who lives a moral life, adding thereto a reverential, intel- ligent worship of the God who created him and surrounding nature, is one of the greatest beings in existence, and as superior to the “believer” by faith, and whose life is lived in contradiction to his profession, as Jesus Christ is to his so-called disciples and “repre- sentatives.” The time has passed for many of Christ's views, and although an advocate that every man should rest content with what he has, because “what he has is all he deserves,” I utterly repudiate and disown the doctrine so long preached by the Christian clergy, “that men should be content to remain in that state God has placed them; ” and in reply to Lord Selborne, as to the efforts of Christianity in abolishing slavery, I assert that this abject, servile, degrading view of humanity preached by Christianity has brought more real slavery, by lowering and degrading man in his own sight, than all the slave-dealers that ever existed. MORALITY, g 65 Teach men a correct knowledge of God and His laws, and implant in their minds, instead of simple contentment, a dislike for all misery and unhappiness; make them understand the same is the result of their own ignorance and wrong-doing; instil into their souls a large and noble acquiescence in the Will which governs the universe; let their past failures teach them how to succeed in the future; teach men it is in the world we can best understand the Creator by His works; that the knowledge of what He would have us do is an inductive process—an ever fresh application of unchangeable truth, Nature's laws, not men's specu- lations, nor the perpetuation of old forms, which, though venerable as the walls of York or the towers of Conway, are for the times as practically useless. The Rev. Dr. Martineau.” observes that “Religion, if not the foundation of morals, is assuredly their crown—the coping that consummates them. Be the conscience what it may, we learn from it at least that there is a better and a worse in the springs of actions which continue forces; and that, whilst it is open to us as a possibility, it is closed against us as a right, to follow the lower when the higher calls. The authority which stamps the one as a temptation, and the other as a peremptory claim, is not, we are well aware, of our own making, for it masters us with compunction, and defies all repeal. Regarding the world as a school of character, our moral nature would lead us to the highest, and only stop short of what it would attain when its course is artificially arrested. Till it is reached, the ethical demand upon us seems to address us in tones too portentous for their immediate signifi- cance; remorse clings to us with a tenacity, aspirations return upon us with a power which reason cannot adequately justify. It is a simple test, but a reliable one; our loves, our longings, our desires may be indulged as belonging to our higher natures, if their gratification has the power to quicken the higher faculties of our nature—whose activity will be our safest protection from the * A Modern “Symposium.” Sir J. Fitzjames Stephens, Lord Selborne, Rev. Dr. Martineau, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Professor Clifford. Subject : “The Influence upon Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief.”—Nineteenth Century, April, 1877. $ 5 66 -- * MORALITY. delusions suggested by the lower faculties, and the temptation soon ceases—saving us from feeling degraded in our own eyes, that sense of irreparable wrong inflicted on another or on our- selves which we call remorse, the avenging spectre of evil deeds. “But in the presence of an objective moral law pervading the universe, administered by a mind wherein it perfectly lives, and continued for man beyond his present term of years, the scale of the ethical passions, and the intensity of admiration and reverence for the good fall into proportionate place, and escape the irony of being at once the ultimate nobleness and the supreme extrava- gance of our nature. Religion, on this side, is but the open blossom of the moral germ implanted within us—the explicit form, developed in thought, of faith implicitly contained in the sense of responsibility and the foreboding of guilt. Its effect, therefore, is to suffuse with a divine light relations and duties which before were simply personal and Social. Christian ethics are true to human life and the experience of right reason; but it is quite probable that a rule of life, one thoughtfully consti- tuted, should be acknowledged in common over the whole range of social duty by persons simply ethical and by those who are also religious. x “But though the decay of religion may leave the institutes of morality intact, it drains off their inward power. The devout faith of men expresses and measures the intensity of their moral nature, and it cannot be lost without a remission of enthusiasm; and, under this low pressure, the successful re-entrance of im- portunate desires and clamorous passions which have been driven back. “To believe in an ever-living and perfect Mind, Supreme over the universe, is to invest moral distinctions with immensity and eternity, and lift them from the provincial stage of human society to the imperishable theatre of all-being. When planted thus in the very substance of things, they justify and support the ideal estimates of the conscience; they deepen every guilty shame; they guarantee every righteous hope; and they help the will with a divine casting-vote in every balance of temptation. The MORALITY. - 67 sanctity thus given to the claims of duty, and the interest that gathers round the play of character, appears to me more important elements in the power of religion than its direct sanctions of hope and fear; yet to them also it is hardly possible to deny great weight, not only as extending the range of personal interests, but as the answer of morality to the retributory verdict of the moral SCI1S6. “Cancel these beliefs, and morality will be left reasonable still, but paralyzed; possible to temperaments comparatively passionless, but with no grasp on vehement and poetic natures; and gravi- tating towards the simply prudential wherever it maintains its ground. “In no race have the excesses of sensual passions been so kept in check as among the Jews. There is no more striking feature in this literature during the moral declension of Greek and Roman society than the horror which it expresses of the pervading dis- soluteness of the pagan world. I believe in the force of religious conviction as the only successful antagonist, on any large scale, of the animal impulses. Query, whether now, with large classes of persons, the outside shell of religion shelters no sincere life, and the private habits betray the inward disintegration which policy or , indifference concealed. The Society of Friends, the Puritans of the seventeenth century, the Catholic peasantry of Ireland, the Wesleyans, have also, it cannot be denied, controlled their irregular desires with an exceptional ease and completeness. A con- scientious man may be described as one yielding to a pressure out of the dark; in truth, religion passing into life, whose development needs the aid of religion to render perfect, when he enters into a new life, and thereby bringing the mind into the attitude of looking up towards an Infinite Perfection, in whose presence it seems guilty. This supplies the true condition of humility, of aspiration, and of felt equality of moral trust for all men before God. “These moods of thought are specifically induced by the contact of higher excellence and a more capacious rule of righteousness; and they are but poorly simulated by the mere sense of personal 68 MORALITY. insignificance amid the immensity of Nature and the awe of the Unknown, and the conscious partnership of us all in the human liability. The moral characteristics of the Christian temper are nothing but the natural portions of a mind standing face to face with the invisible reality of the highest ideals of its conscience and its love. ‘If that presence depart, they cannot survive.’” All this to my mind describes the moral characteristics, not of the Christian but of the religious temper—a temper not caused by theology, but the result of a high moral nature; for theologians and Christians put the wider and more ancient terms of “Reli- gious” and “Hunman.” All these disputants forget that there is no necessity to surrender either religion, morality, or science, neither demonstration on the one hand, nor dogma, worship, and dis- cipline on the other; but we want and shall end by accepting a purely human base for our morality, and withal come to see our morality transfigured into a true religion. Morality has a basis of its own quite independent of all theology whatever; but since morality must be deeply affected by any theology, the morality will be undermined, if based on a theology which is not true ; and, on the other hand, would derive great strength and support from a theology equal to the intelligence and need of the age. If the religious foundation and sanction of morality be given up, will human life sink into depravity? Is morality, without religion, sufficient for general civilization ? Some argue so, yet say theology cannot supply a base for morals that have lost their own; but that morals, though they have their own base, and are second to nothing, are not adequate to direct human life until they be transfigured into that sense of resignation, adoration, and communion with an overruling Providence which is the true mark of religion. If religion were based on science, there would be no probability of morality clashing with it or any of the natural laws; on the contrary, all would be in harmony. Religion, being built upon scientific truths, would be the idealistic exposition of nature's laws. Science satisfies the practical, morality gives rules of action to guide our lives by, and religion the idealistic. All require MORALITY, * * ~ * 69 activity, and to be satisfied—as men have existed in every age highly moral, yet not religious, is a proof that morality does not exist through, or is dependent upon, theology. That religious people have existed at all times who have not been moral, is also strong evidence to be overcome by those who advocate there can be no morality without religion. It is admitted that the highest moral natures combine religious or devotional feeling towards their Creator, and manifest the same by the moral tone of their conduct during their lives. So, before saying a man is not religious because he does not conform to the opinion of this or that particular sect, we must ask you to state distinctly what you understand religion to be. I say that a man may be thoroughly religious, yet not be able to believe in the Trinity or in eternal damnation. A truly religious man is the one who believes in a God, and having a knowledge of His works, worships and reverences him, and shows his earnestness and real belief in striving to act in accordance with the laws of his nature, allowing the lower to be ruled and guided by the higher faculties of his organization. It is a mistake to consider that a man’s religion depends on his adhesion to any particular creed or doctrine. The times call for a practical religion, based on the laws of God—a religion capable of being embraced by all men, everywhere, and at all times. Religion based on correct premises would make the world one huge family, all men brothers, ever seeking to ascertain and obey their common Creator; so producing an intelligent faith, allied with real Hope and Charity, making of this world the paradise. We want more of the earthly and less of the heavenly religion. Abolish theology, and substitute religion. Nothing is so much wanted in these days of divided opinion, party, hatred, and fierce bigotries, as lessons in that true charity which teaches that he who differs from the orthodox, because he sees life and its complications and its marvels other- wise than they do, ought not therefore to be deemed by them reprobate and accursed, or to be called by ugly, contemptuous names, ending in “ist” or “ian.” “His light is different to thine; he sees differently; not so clearly as thou Seest, or so well, 70 . . MORALITY, but clearly as he may. For were thine eyes and thy light a thousand-fold superior to his, still he must see, not with thine but with his own. Bear with him, therefore, with all kindliness and gentleness.”—CARLYLE. Some may remark upon the wonderful conversions that seem to accompany what are termed “Religious Revivals.” No permanent good has ever been done by the “too zealous” promoters of such movements, or by any movement that had not for its object “the turning the man's thoughts inwardly to his own defects,” showing him why he has suffered, and explaining to him how he may in the future lead a purer and better life. Mere expressions of belief . in any person or theological system, or observing its rites and ceremonies, has never done this. When good has been done, it has been by rousing the latent power of good qualities inherent in men, and so stimulating these into activity, that the lower qualities hold thereafter the subordinate position Nature intended them. There has been no conversion, no new being created; the soil must be there, or the seed would not take hold and produce fruit. My own belief is, that we have the means, if we would but take the necessary trouble to find out this spot of goodness in every man, and give him a something in himself—a living, active power, that would curb and quench the hot passions which have torn and harassed him; and thereby, by giving him different views of life, we change his desires, objects, and aims of life. Why have we so many “wrecked” lives? Because they are sent out, like unseaworthy ships, ready to go down in any waters. What most destroys us—the waves of inexorable fate, or our own follies, blunders, errors, sins 2 By the present theological system men feel justified in laying the blame of their own shortcomings upon Providence. Truly, such afflictions are “the visitation of God,” but not in the sense those words are used. Not sent in wrath, or for ultimate evil, but as reminders that we are breaking His laws, obedience to which is so important to our own happiness. We are punished, to induce us to refrain therefrom. Our prayers against war, pestilence, sickness, and for good harvest, &c., are based upon an antiquated method of MoRALITY. •. 71 thought, proved to be wrong by our present knowledge, and implies discontent and an unhappy life, which must be unholy in the sight of Him who in the economy of the universe seems to have one absolute law : He wastes nothing. He by His laws modifies, transmutes, substitutes, supplies material to new uses; but by Him nothing is ever really lost, nothing thrown away; and throughout all, the good of the individual, the good of the greatest number, is always studied; so, when people talk about their “wrecked” existence, you may be sure that, whosoever is to blame, it is not Providence. Preach to all men that to alter their lives requires an intensity of earnestness, a fixedness of purpose; and you will secure the same, if you would tell them why they are weak as they are, and prove to them, however weak, all may be made stronger, and so by degrees the weeds that have become so plentiful may, by steady, persistent efforts, be subdued and kept under, and ultimately eradicated. We are to-day, and shall be to morrow and every coming morrow, that which our actions through the preceding days and years have made us, and no other. You are not what you say to yourself, I will now be, but that which every hour of past being has made you. And your life may be more, accurately tested, as regards its morality, and if you have be the slave or master of your own life and its inherent power, Zby answering the question, not as usual, “What he had airwi. he has,” but “What he was, and what he has become.” When such shall be the text of mankind, we shall have a very different state of society to the present, from the highest to the lowest. The recent scandal after the decease of a celebrated Cardinal shows the absurdity of trying to alter a man’s nature by any theological system that is opposed to Nature. The celibacy of the priest- hood, for instance, is utterly opposed to mature. The man is blamed, but it is the system that is in error, not the man. Do let us ask of men what they can do: the power inherent in humanity is immense. Teach each class all that it can compre- hend, and let religion maintain the high prerogative of elevating , the aspirations, the clergy infusing reverential awe into all men / 72 - MoRALITY, by their discourses of God’s wonderful works and laws—the Church giving her high sanction and approbation to every effort made by earnest men to unravel and understand Nature and her manifold operations, and thereby infusing into all lives a greater interest and intensity, showing us ever the vast importance of goodness, and ceasing to call on us to surrender our claims of reality and humanity; and so once more the realms of faith and adoration would become again conterminous with life, without dis- - turbing, nay, whilst sanctifying the invincible resolve of modern men to live in this world, for this world, with their fellow-men. The little enjoyment we get in this world has always been a mystery to me—how men could have gone on, age after age, without striving to unravel this tangled web. I thoroughly believe, by the constitution of man and external nature, that the Creator intended man to be happy here, and if he be not—and the majority are not—there must be faults need remedying somewhere. How rare to meet any one in this bustling, money-desiring world of ours, who appreciates the beauty of spring-time. The flowers round about are saying grace after rain; the air is full of fresh- ness and perfume; the earth sends up its thanks in a low, tender sobbing; Nature's choristers are jubilant with joy ; the aburnums wave their golden tassels over the head, and the º about us is a-glitter with rainbow-tinted drops. What the bright sunshine and soft rain do for the flowers, good, true religious teaching would do for life, more especially the young life just bursting into bud, giving ideas of God and His creation that would materially alter its aspect of the world, and make everything here—oh, so different —all striving for, instead of against each other; the heterodox being only those who studied self; the orthodox manifesting by their acts the religion they have hitherto professed, a religion that has made men content to eat, drink, and sleep—the few to laugh, and, as they say, enjoy life. But how very few have lived the life all might live! The source of all difficulty about the relations of morality and religion is, that we place our morality—we are compelled by the conditions of all our positive knowledge to place it—in a strictly MORALITY. - t 73 human world. But it is the mark of every theology to place our religion in a non-human world. And thus our human system of morals may possibly be disturbed—it cannot be supported—by a non-human religion. But, on the other hand, it is dwarfed and atrophied for want of being duly expanded into a truly human reli- gion. Our morality with its human realities, our theology with its non-human hypotheses, will not amalgamate. Their methods are in conflict. In their base, in their logic, in their aim, they are heterogeneous. Give us a religion as truly human, as really scientific, as is our moral system, and all is harmony. Our morals, based as they must be on our knowledge of life and of society, are then ordered and inspired by a religion which belongs, just as truly as our moral science does, to the world of science and of man. And then religion will be no longer that quicksand of possibility which two thousand years of debate have still left it to so many of us. It becomes at last the issue of our knowledge, the meaning of our science, the soul of our morality, the ideal of our imagination, the fulfilment of our aspirations; the law-giver, in short, of our whole lives. Can it ever be this whilst we still pursue religion into the bubble world of the whence and the Whither ? In the Nineteenth Century, April, pp. 347–9, Mr. Frederick Harrison observes:— “That morality is dependent on theology; that morality is Independent of religion: each of these views presents insuperable difficulties, and brings us to an alternative from which we recoil. To assert that there is no morality but what is based on theology, is to assert what experience, history, and philosophy flatly con- tradict—nay, that which revolts the conscience of all manly purpose within us. History teaches us that some of the best types of morality, in men and in races, have been found apart from anything that Christians can call theology at all. Morality has been advancing for centuries in modern Europe, whilst theology, at least in authority, has been visibly declining. The morality of Confucius and of Sakya Mouni, of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius, of Vauvenargues, Turgot, Condorcet, Hume, was entirely indepen- '4 MoRALITY. dent of any theology. The moral system of Aristotle was framed without any view to theology, as completely as that of Comte or of our recent moralists. We have experience of men with the loftiest ideal of life and of strict fidelity to their ideal, who cxpressly repudiate theology, and of many more whom theology never touched. Lastly, there is a spirit within us which will not believe that to know and to do the right, we must wait until the mysteries of existence and the universe are resolved, its origin, its government, and its future. To make right conduct a corollary of a theological creed, is not only contrary to fact, but shocking to our self-respect. We know that the just spirit can find the right path, even whilst the judgment hangs bewildered amidst the Churches. - “To hold, as would seem to require of us, the second argument, that, though theology is necessary as a base for morality, yet almost any theology will suffice, Polytheist, Mussulman, and Deist so long as some imaginary being is postulated—this is indeed to reduce theology to a minimum ; since in this case it does not seem to matter in which God you may believe. To say that morality is dependent on one particular theology, is to deny that men are moral outside your peculiar orthodoxy; to say that morality is dependent merely on some form of theology, is to say it matters little to practical virtue which of a hundred creeds you may profess. And when we shrink from the arrogance of the first and the looseness of the second position, we have no alternative but to admit that our morality must have a human, and not a super. human base. “It does not follow that morality can suffice for life without religion. Morality, if we mean by that the science of duty, after all, can supply us only with a knowledge of what we should do. Of itself it can neither touch the imagination, nor satisfy the thirst of knowledge, nor order the emotions. It tells us of human duty, but nothing of the world without us; it prescribes to us our duties, but it does not kindle the feelings which are the impulse to duty. Morality has nothing to tell us of a paramount Power outside of us, to struggle with which is confusion and annihila- MORALITY. - 75 tion, to work with which is happiness and strength; it has nothing to teach us of a communion with a great Goodness, nor does it touch the chords of Veneration, Sympathy, and Love within us. Morality does not profess to organize our knowledge and give symmetry to life. It does not deal with Beauty, Affection, Adoration. If it order conduct, it does not correlate this conduct with the sum of our knowledge, or with the ideals of our imagina- tion, or with the deepest of our emotions. To do all this is the part of religion, not of morality; and inasmuch as the sphere of this function is both wider and higher, so does religion transcend morality. Morality has to do with conduct, religion with life. The first is the code of a part of human nature, the second gives its harmony to the whole of human nature. And morality can no more suffice for life than a just character would suffice for any one of us without intellect, imagination, or affection, and the power of fusing all these into the unity of a man. “The lesson, I think, is twofold. On the one hand, morality is independent of theology, is superior to it, is growing whilst theology is declining, is steadfast whilst theology is shifting, unites men whilst theology separates them, and does its work when theology disappears. There is something like a civilized morality, a standard of morality, a convergence about morality. There is no civilized theology, no standard of theology, no convergence about it. On the other hand, morality will never suffice for life; and every attempt to base our existence on morality alone, or to crown our existence with morality alone, must certainly fail. For this is to fling away the most powerful motives of human nature. - “To reach these is the privilege of religion alone. And those who trust that the future can ever be built upon science and civilization, without religion, are attempting to build a pyramid of bricks without straw. The solution, we believe, is a non- theological religion. - “There are some who amuse themselves by repeting that this is a contradiction in terms, that religion implies theology. Yet no one refuses the name of religion to the systems of Confucius and 76 -- MORALITY, Buddha, though neither had a trace of theology. But disputes about a name are idle. If they could debar us from the name of religion, no one could disinherit us of the thing. We mean by religion a scheme which shall explain to us the relations of the faculties of the human soul within, of man to his fellow-men beside him, to the world and its order around him ; next, that which brings him face to face with a Power to which he must bow, with a Providence which he must love and serve, with a Being which he must adore—that which, in fine, gives man a doctrine to believe, a discipline to live by, and an object to worship. This is the ancient meaning of religion, and the fact of religion all over the world in any age. What is new in our scheme is merely that We avoid such terms as infinite, absolute, immaterial, and vague negatives altogether, resolutely confining ourselves to the sphere of what can be shown by experience, of what is relative and not absolute, and wholly and frankly human.” I think that intellectual progress and a purer social life have been obtained through the mind of mankind rising superior to the narrow, confined views of things alike of Nature and man in all theological systems; and the progress of the laity has compelled the clergy passively to go with it, and ren- dered their attempts to restrain progress futile. Freedom of thought, once obtained, has enabled men to take broader views of things in general, and rise superior to the intolerance incidental to all sectarianism; so that the more correct knowledge of Nature and the higher moral tone have compelled the Church to reluctantly follow: therefore, it is incorrect, as many do, to ascribe to religion the greater desire for truth, &c., of our times. I dissent from those who argue that a declining belief in religion must attack the roots of morality, and, instead of relying on man's “belief.” for his morality, advocate making him “moral” and educating him up to being the religious man. Explain to all men the wonders of creation, of all kinds of life and animate things; the brain, with its wonderful powers of intuition and reason; the domestic affections; love—that subtle power which expands the heart as a flower in spring bursts into bud. Show the e- * & MORALITY, , 77 marvellous power of the Creator, in the fitness of all things round about us, their wonderful adaptability to all time and all climes; how everything has been foreseen and provided for. If from child- hood upward this kind of teaching was prevalent—if men under- stood themselves and their own nature, and especially had correct views of success and happiness in this world—if, instead of making him out inherently bad, and dilating on “original sin” as a kind of curse, he was taught his weaknesses, and so be prepared to restrain the action of the lower, and be guided by the higher faculties of his nature, he must become gradually more moral and religious. “Claude could be good If he would ; Hans would be bad If he could.”—ANDONEUs. The philosophy of these lines should be the basis of our teaching. Explain to Claude, that the power is in himself to be good, and if he be not, the responsibility and punishment of his acts to himself and others will follow, and he has himself to blame; whilst to Hans, let him understand his weakness, his natural tendency to err, and build up and strengthen within him defences to enable him to withstand and keep out of tempta- tion. Nothing would be more beneficial to mankind than a better knowledge of itself. Phrenology and physiology, generally under- stood, would benefit mankind immensely. Inspire man with a de- sire for knowledge; teach him in such a way that he has an interest in what he is being taught ; let him break the bonds of ignorance that have hitherto bound his mind in fetters; give him more liberty, which has had a wonderful influence on modern progress. And the more freedom of thought men have, the more moral will they become under a proper system of training, teaching them to observe, to think, and understand things ; as by comprehending cause and effect their awakened intelligence will soon teach them the importance of rational enjoyment, and arouse in them the desire to rise above their present position. 78 - MORALITY. Cease wasting time in discussing how long the Creator was in making the world, or trying to define the Creator's image. “God hath no shape, nor can the artist's hands His figure frame in shining gold or wood ; God's holy image—God sent—only stands Within the bosom of the wise and good.”—STATIUS. Do not trouble mankind with the insolvable problem, whether they are immortal or not. Such a question has nothing to do with their understanding what is right and wrong. It is incumbent on all of us to ride out daily and do battle with the wolf of doom. We cannot err in doing this ; and in looking back let us have the consolation that all has been done we could do ; and to do what is right has been our aim. Let us understand that we shall succeed “if we really deserve to; ” and that it is wrong to think we have deserved success, but have not got it. “Mortals can only command success, by deserving it.” So accept failure graciously ; and let your present failures lead to your future success, by pointing out your weakness, and wherein you have erred. “Would'st thou know thyself 2 See how others act and sin. Would'st thou know others also P. Look thine own heart within.” —SCHIII.E.R. . Professor Clifford says: “The apparent destructive tendency of modern times, which arouses fear and the forebodings of evil in the minds of many of the best of men, seems to me to be not mainly an intellectual movement. It has its intellectual side, but that side is the least important, and touches comparatively few souls. The true cause of it is a firm resolve of men to know the right at first hand, which has grown out of the strong impulse given to the moral sense by political freedom. Such a resolve is a necessary condition to the existence of a pure and noble theism, which learns what God is like by His works, and, by thinking of man, love for man. Such a doctrine has been taught for ages by good men, and, what is far more important, by example; yet it will seem to many a decline of religious belief. For, assuredly, if men, MoRALITY. 79 learn the nature of God from the moral sense of man, they cannot go on believing the doctrines of popular theology. Such a change of belief is of small account in itself for any consequence it can bring about, but it is of vast importance as a symptom of the increasing power and clearness of the sense of duty. Men need fear no evil consequences from this desire for a ‘real belief’ founded on the knowledge of God's works and obedience to His laws—from a desire to please Him by their conduct, and to satisfy their intelligence by so doing. But there is one reaction which would be a frightful disaster to mankind—viz., a revival of any form of sacerdotal Christianity which would be a matter of practice and not a matter of theory. The system which sapped the foundation of patriotism in the old world; which well-nigh eradicated the sense of intellectual honesty, and seriously weakened the habit of truth-speaking ; which lowered men’s reverence for the marriage bond by placing its sanctions in a realm outside of nature instead of in the common life of men, and by the institution of monas– ticism and a celibate clergy; which stunted the moral sense of the nation by putting a priest between every man and his con- science—this system, if it should ever return to power, must be expected to produce worse evils than those which it has worked in the past. The house which it once made desolate has been partially swept and garnished by the free play gained for the natural goodness of men. It would come back accompanied by social diseases perhaps worse than itself, and the wreck of civilized Europe would be darker than the darkest of past ages.” The real struggle is by men anxious for freedom—freedom to think, to speak what seems to them the truth, so as to get at truth. It is not, as represented, between revolutionists and order, Christianity and unbelief, but between the theology based on old traditions and a religion built upon the knowledge of the present. It is a struggle by earnest men to get nearer to their God, by freeing themselves from the bondage and fetters bound about them by the creeds and ceremonies of man. It is a struggle for the privileges of civilized freemen, civil and religious liberty, rightly understood and honestly practised—liberty in order and in 80 MORALITY, justice. Different forms of government and theology may be . equally good. What has to be considered is the spirit which animates and directs them. What has religion done for civil liberty? Has its professors ever opposed any Government of any kind which left it free ? On the other hand, however good the government or intention, they have always been opposed by “clericalism,” if the act, however beneficial to mankind in general, seemed in the least to affect their imaginary rights, or their beliefs and ceremonies. Briefly, they are as Selfish, and equally deserve with their fellow-men the satire contained in the last of the following lines:— “Each one war detests; Each one still protests, He wishes good alone; Each to good aspires, Each one good desires, And that good his own ''” —THEODORE AGRIPPA DE AUBIGNſ. ARE MEN MORAL 7 “Mankind is broken loose from moral bands.”—DRYDEN. “Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn.”—BURNS. “Some perhaps there are Would count the tricks of men as shrewd and subtle; And yet, I swear, it ſills me with such shame To see what scapins are the world’s great men, That I could weep for wishing to be one. Oh! dullard world, with all your blindfold blame! Oh dullard world, that brands some general If he betrays the trust lic ought to lead | But this, this more refined poltroonery, That never meets you broadly face to face; This moral laches, always on the wheel; This recreant want of root, and faith in self, Which seeks for props in artifice and fraud, And shuffling trick, and ſalse legerdemain, That this dull world it has not wit to sec, But open-mouthed and blatant, it admires.”. —IHistoric Fancies. THERE is a diversity of opinion whether mankind have become more moral as they have advanced in civilization. There cannot be a doubt that progress makes men less rude and brutal, more - amenable to the opinion of their fellow-men, and, as a natural consequence, more guided by their, higher faculties. There- fore, I take for granted, mankind in the aggregate are more moral than their ancestors, although there can be but one answer to the inquiry, “Are men moral?” “No 1" And the object of this book is to indicate the reason why latterly men seem less moral than they were, when, owing to the great advance in civili- zation, it should be the contrary; and to suggest how we may bind 82 •. MORALITY. - ' ' - them again in such bands as will stimulate and strengthen their moral natures. - There can be no subject of greater importance than the morale of a nation ; and if the people have deviated, or are inclined to swerve from morality, and do not obey the moral laws, or adopt them as the basis of their daily actions, it is necessary, and in my opinion has become absolutely essential to the future well-being of the State, that they be guided into doing that which is right, to become again capable of moral action, by becoming intelligent and willing subjects of the moral laws. Making the people properly understand the moral law, “Do as you would be done by,” was never more needed than now, when it has become imperative for the safety of the kingdom that capitalists and labourers should recognize as a truism that, like men and women, they cannot exist without one another; and that they must not only be friends, but show each other that they are friends. In marriage, if one will not be accommodating, why the other must. There is no changing that necessity of nature; and it is wiser for the woman to yield, as the husband should be the head of the home : so also is it wiser for the employed to submit grace- fully to the employer, as head of the concern. If both sides could only see it, their interests are identical; or better still it would be if they could see that “interests,” after all, are not, and never can be, the main thing. Time has done a great deal, and perseverance in common sense and common kindness will do more. Trades’ unionism has been an internecine war, and has hitherto set class against class, sex against sex, till the whole fabric of social life has seemed about to be dissolved into a mere aggregate of hostile atoms, which have lost their cohesive power. The nation has become a house divided against itself ; and if such a state of things lasts, it cannot stand. - “Is it possible to serve God, and mammon 7” “By their acts shall ye know them.” And the acts and habits of our time, of every class, would justify the common belief that “ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Why is this 7 Profit is the legitimate reward of labour, skill, or capital, together or separate. Profit is also the ARE MEN MORAL f : 83 just remuneration of abstinence. Production is not bought by one sacrifice, but by two, neither of which is, by any analysis, resolvable into the other. Those sacrifices are labour and abstinence. The separation and habitual antagonism of these two forces is the grand law of political economy ; unhappily, as man exists at present, it has become to be held to be inevitably the grand law of modern society. Lord Ashburton was reproached for “shooting out the whole bag of equivalents” at the feet of the American Minister. This famous reproach was the highest culogium, as whenever international morals come to be placed on the right footing, “shooting out the whole bag of equivalents” will be the golden rule for negotiators. The same rule applies to labour and capital—buyer and seller. Be honest and frank, desirous of being just, above taking any mean advantage on either side. Tightly understanding their positions, this would be the result: both parties - “Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life.”—TENNYSox. Train men to have a bitter scorn for insincerity and cant, and sham in religion and in life; and respect and admiration—aye, yearning idolatry and affection—for those who have not only glad- doned hours and years of life for us by their presence in the world, but, by giving us new reasons for observing and enjoying it, have widened the world for us, and enriched it and glorified it. One feels so much more certain of nobleness and goodness as good and noble, when one is at liberty to despise and hate meanness and baseness. It makes you feel that there is something really true, when a man rises up and scorns its counterfeit and opposite, how- ever plausible and however popular. Let no sophist, however skilful, blind you to what is wrong or untruthful. No expediency or plausibility can justify designs that Swill not bear the closest scrutiny. Truth is never opposed to itself. No authority, by its indulgences or absolution, or laws of bankruptcy and composition, can destroy the moral truth of right and wrong. Icep your mind so pure that it will instinctively .84° MORALITY. recoil from all insincerity and indiscretion of word or act; and be proof against the casuistry, however ingenious, that in the slightest degree tends to undermine your integrity or cloud your moral perception; otherwise the conscience gets more insensible by degrees, until, with unfaltering voice and unblushing check, you can stand and tell a lie. By a lie I mean an utterance or action which has deception for its object. You can lie without opening your lips. Anything done to give a false impression, or convey a double meaning, a false weight to conduct, or an untrue colouring to a deed, is false, and therefore untruthful. Let your nature be so pure and free from guile that you will never try to reconcile by plausible excuses inconsistency. Things are right or wrong, true or false; so do not call darkness light, or pretend there is sweet- ness in the bitter. Truth has got nearly hopelessly lost in the bewildering labyrinth of the world’s expedient ways and double- tongued casuistry. A lie, with Jesuits, cannot be a lie if uttered with what is called a good intention ; , and the measure of the faithful discharge of dutics is according to the reading of the perverted conscience. Away with such an exposition of Christian truth and churchly doctrine ! Thank Heaven, Jesuitism is not Religion. Teach your children with their first lisping words to search out the truth, to speak only the truth, to love it, and cherish it under all circumstances, and to abhor a lie. It is strange that men can walk barefaced in the midst of a community they have deceived and betrayed. I allude to the promoters of sham companies; the speculators on 'Changes, who by their knavish tricks lower or raise the value of securities, playing with other people's fortunes, often their lives, for their own gain ; the men who issue false shares. Tead the disclosures of Mr. Tweed in reference to the villanies of the Tammany Ring and the Erie Railway Ring, when the two were joined for purposes of mutual aid in plunder ; the stupendous frauds that brought South Carolina to bankruptcy; the disclosure of peculations in many trusted Life Insurance Companies. In a greater or less degree such frauds are always happening, and should impress on people the necessity, before taking stock and shares in any undertaking, of ARE MEN MORAL * 85 knowing the character of the men who have the “power therein.” Shun any company or shop where “truth and honour” are not the policy. There is no other way to avoid being taken in by the one or swindled by the other. The morale of such men must have been originally very low, or the training and surroundings such that “prove men are not moral;” but to go on day after day, and be able to live and look composedly upon the credulous men and women whom, by one fraudulent pretext and another, they have robbed of their little all by their lying statements, show such men to be dead to every sentiment of truth and integrity, leading a loathsome, dishonoured life. All such men, regardless of their wealth, should be treated by society as social outcasts, tainted with that horrible disease, “moral leprosy.” Men are not moral ; but men may be made moral; and the first thing to do is to raise their self-respect by appealing to their intelligence, explaining to them their nature, and its capacity for yielding good where hitherto it has yielded to the evil; and to avoid every habit in their profession, trade, or calling that will not bear the light, or is out of harmony with morality. Their ideas of themselves as human beings must be elevated; ignorant prejudices must be made to melt away by the stern facts of life being brought before men’s minds. Men must be told, as a stern fact, that if God sends the mouths He does not send the bread. They must do their part. God gives every bird its food, but does not throw it into its nest. Men must be taught it is sacrilege to lay their deficiencies on Providence. “Accuse not Nature; she hath done her part; Do thou but thine.”—MILTON. So, instead of the abject, whining, waiting on Providence in expectation of miraculous loaves and fishes, Spartan self-reliance and control should have been, should at once be, the weapon of the clergy wherewith to train men to face and bear “the ills that flesh is heir to.” Man’s best friends are those who wage war against the slavery of the mind, and not only demand but win for their fellow-men 86 MORALITY. the blessing and right of free thought—who elevate man's opinion of himself, so that he will have too much self-respect to live by any other man’s labour; but, stern in the resolution to owe no man anything, will struggle out his own career unaided, too proud to take favours of any one, even Christmas-boxes. There aro large establishments where the employers are cognizant of, and encourage a continuance of this habit, and a certain sum, say 2s. 6d. in every 100 pounds’ worth of goods bought, has to be given. One gentleman I know has established a valuable library with this taa, drawn from sellers; but the custom is degrading to man’s self-respect, and men will never be men till they rise above such ideas. Because A buys of B, I deny his right to exact from him at the end of the year a per-centage, however infinitesimal it may be, upon his yearly purchases; and men properly trained would spurn with contempt that which, literally speaking, is taken, from the legitimate earnings of another man’s labour. Ninety-nine out of one hundred of the recipients of Christmas- boxes, if offered 2s. 6d. as a gift, would reject it as an insult. But custom has got this Christmas-box “gift” to be regarded as a right; otherwise, they would reject it as an insult, as no man worthy of the name will take from another man money he has not earned. W. There seems a decay in the fibre of the national moral character. Such things are possible; as, although mankind may steadily pro- gress by the law of development, yet some men, or nations may de- teriorate. The descendants of those who fought at Marathon and Leuctra were the pliant sycophants and quacks upon whom, even in the corrupter days of Rome, a Juvenal could look down ; greater still, those same Romans who practised by a noble instinct the stoicism which the Greeks only taught, who also knew both how to conquer and how to govern. That great nation had for its representatives none but liars, Swindlers, and cowards, in the days of Quitprand the Lombard. The debasement of the coinage is one of those tempting species of wholesale fraud which have in all nations, more or less produced deplorable effects. A prominent example is offered by Froude in his account of the ARE MEN MORAL.” ..º 87 financial embarrassments which occurred under the Protectorate of Somerset. Parliament was right, on the report of the Bullion Committee in 1816, in enacting, at every hazard, the renewal of cash payments. Any defect in a nation’s currency should be promptly remedied, and any temporary sacrifice essential to that object would be overpaid by its results. There should never be any doubt of the medium of exchange being what it professes to be. We want, above all things, a higher moral tone, and plain-speak- ing as to what is “honesty.” “Thou shalt not steal” must be made clear to all peoples’ understandings. Their moral faculties are blunt for want of use, and want better sharpening than they get. We want more character in mankind, so that men will be indifferent as to what the world says; but having becn shown the right path, are resolved to keep to it, and walk straight, heedless of every one's opinion or censure; determined to wrong no one, and do all the good they can. At the present time they seem reckless and discouraged, so that by ceasing to care what they do, they have ceased to do well. Give them as objects of ambition, not wealth, but honesty, truth, faith- fulness, and pure living. Teach them to use the faculties God has given them; to observe, think, and act for themselves; and to be above aids, helps, and crutches ; and to see that all misery arises from infringement of God's laws; and that ignorance is the only “curse” man is heir to, and that it rests with himself to remove the same. Denounce as traitors to humanity those who maintain that “attempts at inquiry are hurtful to the soul; ” as if the best password to heaven, the abode of truth and light, was ignorance and darkness. They will tell you of the beauty of a child-like faith. Yes; I admit it. Child-like faith is very well in childhood, but the Creator intended all men to act for themselves as soon as possible; and if God has given me a soul that thirsts after know- ledge and inquiry, should I not be despising His own gift by not making use of it? Child-like belief, indeed Let us be candid, and state that it is “indifference" which obtains so much favour in the eyes of those who, for their own interests, keep the world in ignorance and darkness, and crush every attempt to roll the stone away, and bar up every chink to keep the light from entering 88 . i MORALITY, within. And what is the result 7 In every class of Society, from the highest to the lowest, there seems a decadence of morality, and too often in its place that great sin, “hypocrisy.” To the sinner who repented pity and peace have been freely offered. The mere fact of inwardly repenting, of feeling remorse, shows the supremacy again of the better part of the man's nature; but the Dharisee, who, under the semblance of exceptional piety, sins, conceals a deeper infamy than the worst act of the despised Publican. What a scathing satire upon humanity and our institutions is the general opinion, “that an honest man cannot succeed;” but I denounce it as an insult to the Creator to entertain such a thought. Firstly, what is meant by success—wealth, or a higher and purer nature ? A man may rise, yet not succeed; succeed, yet not rise. When they tell you a man cannot honestly succeed, they mean, cannot accumulate wealth as fast as he wishes to, unless he does “dirty acts.” I deny such successful men to have risen. They are like a marbled sepulchre—beautiful without, perhaps, but full of rottenness and corruption within. They have fallen from their manhood, and degraded themselves to the lowest faculties of their nature; whereas the non-successful man has risen—that is, his higher faculties have conquered the lower faculties of his nature. He has not this world's wealth, but he is a giant mentally and morally to the other man. I know lots of both types; and it needs little discernment to recognize the folly of the world, in thinking the successful man to be the one who has lost all other faculties of enjoyment in his insane desire to gratify the one absorbing, insati- able appetite of his nature, acquisitiveness. But I go further, and say, if men were properly trained, the greatest success is to be obtained by “honesty”—a success that will satisfy not one, but all the faculties of his nature. That the majority of the worldly successful men are not honest, I with pain admit; and hence my efforts to implant in the minds of youth higher views of business and of life, urging them to strive by every effort in their power, and the highest culture within their reach, to become fit to bear truthfully and honestly the tasks of a future yet lying bright before them in ARE MEN MORAL.” 89 all the colours of hope. The youth of our day are heirs to an \ amount of free-will and independence, and freedom of thought and speech, for the exercise of their individuality, gained by the glorious struggles of their ancestors—the reformers, statesmen, discoverers, and honest merchants of the past—men who “Nothing common did or mean, Upon that memorable scene.” It will excite ridicule with members of the old school in these days of intense competition, when the struggle to succeed seems more difficult than ever, for one to step from the ranks and advo- cate that those entering on the duties he has undergone should from the first unflinchingly maintain a “morality’ in their conduct and dealing of the highest order. Our experience is not worth much unless we can help younger people with it, and I unhesitat- Ingly assert that “Honesty is the best policy;” that no trader ever lies or cheats, but that he might have succeeded as well or better by having been truthful and honest; and that in every walk of life, if the individual possess the natural capacity, mental and physical, for his vocation, there is no reason why in serving Mammon he necd disgrace his own manhood, or offend and insult his God. , Believe me the time has come for every effort to be made to eradicate and crush out the belief, “that to succeed in life a man must be dishonest.” The belief is general, that traders are not honest—and to speak plainly, they are not. If A, on account of B’s ignorance or faith, charges him more than he would have done had he been less ignorant or confiding, it is an outrage of the moral laws. If A sends in a bill to B for a larger sum than the goods really supplied came to, and the same is paid by B, under the impression obtained of his butler, valet, or manager, that the amount is correct, A is acting in collusion with the servant to de- fraud B. If A sends in a bill to B for goods delivered, that have not been delivered, and the same is paid by B, because he is led to believe by his servant that the goods have been supplied, it is fraud. If a manufacturer sells an article as sound that he knows to be made of shoddy, or sells as “indigo dyed” that which he knows to be . * 90° . . MORALITY, chrome, or common dye, or merely topped with indigo to enable. him to escape an action at law, he is none the less dishonest; or sells goods as a certain width or length, that by some artificial means are pulled out in length or width, or are not the lengths or widths they are said to be ; such acts are “immoral.” Are men “moral” who take advantage of their position to debar their competitors from getting certain classes of goods they sell, so that they may have the monopoly of the sale, and thereby get a better profit than they are justified in having, or could get, if the market was left open. What an outcry there was by the trading class against “Protectionists.” There are “Liberals,” calling themselves “Free- traders,” who are as “Protectionist " in their acts as ever the agricultural classes were. For instance, is it consistent, is it “moral” for A, a Liberal, a Free-trader, to say to B, “You must not make for any one else the goods you supply to me?” To “ protect his interest” he debars B from selling the same articles to any one else. The same remarks apply to “engaged styles.” A buyer says to a manufacturer, “Send me your ranges or samples soon as. ready; I will select those that suit me, and these must not be sub- mitted elsewhere.” This practice is strictly “Protection,” not only increasing illegitimately the profit of manufacturer and merchant, but indirectly it keeps up the price of goods, as the trader thinks more of getting an exclusive right to certain styles, than seeking the best value to be had for his customers. Is it moral? The object is to get a larger profit than the seller is honestly entitled to ; that is to say, a larger profit than he would get if he had to price the goods with a knowledge that his neighbour had the same article to sell. If you say it is necessary, leave off calling your- selves “Free-traders”; but, except to make large fortunes, I deny the necessity; and maintain that the large fortune gained by this kind of collusion, and not through exceptional skill, or the magni-. tude of operations, has been unjustly obtained from your fellow-men. It has alway seemed to me passing strange, how many men, begin- ning with nothing, have left so much behind; as, except in a few instances, it may be taken as an axiom, that such men have either been unjust to the people they buy of, the people they sell to, or the ARE MEN MORAL f : 91 people they employ. Capital can only be legitimately made or in- creased at a certain rate; colossal fortunes in a short period, with- out capital to begin with, are not in accordance therewith. Be determined to make what money you can, for the good it may help you to do whilst here, but “make it honestly,” or not at all. “Perish “Policy” and cunning, Perish all that fears the light. Whether losing, whether winning, . Trust in God, and do the right. Some will hate thee, some will love thee, Some will flatter, some will slight; Cease from man, and look above thee; Trust in God, and do the right.”—Non-IAN MACLEOD. I was pleased to find Mr. Vaughan (see Times, August 16, 1877), when hearing the evidence for the defence in the Artisans' Dwellings Company, interpose, and say the line of cross examina- tion did not affect the question for his consideration. He had to decide whether the persons concerned in the negotiations for the purchase of those properties had put large sums of money into their own pockets which ought to have been saved for the Com- pany. Mr. Besley thought that if he could show a good bargain had been made for the Company, it was a matter for some one's con- sideration. “If the vendors made deductions from the actual value in favour of the persons who conducted these negotiations, it did not concern the Company.” It is surprising that any man could have the audacity to make such a statement in open court, alike as revolting to intelligence as to morality. The parties concerned were buyers entrusted by the Company to buy for them at the lowest possible price; and Mr. Besley's argument, if worth anything, would justify the inference that all buyers are justified in pocketing something out of any transaction they complete, if they can delude themselves into the belief that they have, as buyers for another, got the article so much less than the buyer himself would have done. “Who could trust a buyer upon such conditions 7” How easy for the seller to defraud the real buyer by pretending to make a concession to the agentl This kind of defence is similar to that of those who justify in- \ 92 - . MORALITY, \ correct widths, shoddy, inferior dyes, &c., upon the plea that “value is given for the money.” I reply to all such that, if value bo given for the money, no maker or seller need be ashamed or afraid to say so; and assert that the reasons why such deceptions are practised and kept secret, can only arise either from the desire to get trade under the pretence of giving better value than you are really giving; or to obtain a larger profit than you are entitled to, or would obtain if the intrinsic value of the articles were known to the buyer when purchasing the same. These indirect commissions, of every kind, should be regarded in their true light—they are accessories to fraud; no matter whether “presents” to servants from shopkeepers when paying a bill; to any one holding the position to engage employés; architects or solicitors, demanding commission from stockbrokers or estate agents, on business introduced through their influence. The practice is more general than is credited with buyers for Government, railways, companies, tradesmen; and all the sellers will tell you, that unless they pay this toll, the goods will be com- plainca of, and custom lost; or they cannot sell their goods. Dut the reply here is, as with other matters referred to, if men were really in earnest to be moral men, the difficulty at once vanishes. The system of bribery and corruption would at once utterly collapse, if servants and buyers, brokers and solicitors, knew it was useless cxpecting a bribe, or threatening to transfer the account. They do ..so now, because if A declines to fee them, I will. But let men see the offence in its real light, or let the law be appealed to ; for, legally, every bribe, commission, or present received by an agent or servant, as such, is the property of his employer, and the retain- ing of the same without his knowledge and consent is, substan- tially and morally, embezzlement. The briber ought not to escape, as he is not unfrequently the tempter, though more frc- quently the victim, of this vicious system. The following example will give an idea of what is called com- mercial shrewdness. A and B both buy of C.; A buys a lot of No. 2 cloth, and offers samples to B, as C’s No. 3 quality, at a halfpenny per yard under the maker's price for No. 3. A, thinking ARE MEN MORAL * . . . 93 he has a chance of a bargain, buys; and when the goods are de- 'livered, he fails to detect that the goods are the No. 2 quality; so writes to the maker, asking reason why B can sell A under C’s prices. The agent calls about it; tells A they are No. 2 quality, and exposes the fraud. Goods are often sold as a bar- gain, being So-and-So's make, by “large ’’ houses, although they are only imitations; and the sales being effected by the principal, there can be no mistaking the motive to deceive. A buyer for a large City house, having a large lot of goods in from a manufacturer in need of money, on “appro,” as it is termed, sees the manufacturer coming along the warehouse, and calls out to one of his assistants, “Tell Mr. B, if he calls, we cannot buy that lot of goods, and see they are re- turned at once.” The poor man is in want of money, and by this means a reduction in price is obtained, as, hearing as he comes along the remark intended for his ears, he becomes a more pliable instru- ment in the buyer's hands. I have before stated that only wisdom can baffle, can eventually eradicate, the cunning of the savage unfor- tunately so prevalent. I have also stated that success, not only mental and moral, but material success, can be best obtained by an “honest policy;” but uncri must be trained to be thoughtful, observant beings—not remain mere parrots, afraid to inquire, doubt, or question. They must understand the duties of their position, know their business better than the majority do, and so reduce the harvest of roguery. In letters daily, the spelling is dis- graceful; simply and solely from want of observation. How can it be otherwise, when so much time is wasted over the dead languages; the present being ignored by teacher and priest ? They teach geography. You ask your son, where Cheapside, Walworth, or Bayswater is. “London’’ is an unknown world. He is well up in Africa or the Antipodes. As to London, that is quite out of the question. Hence, necessarily, we get men as buyers who lack decision, have no real judgment of their own, are not naturally adapted for their posts. These men, in looking at ranges, will cut those samples that have been cut before; and shrewd sellers, before going to such buyers, take care to cut such as the buyer is likely to select. There are others who never cut any pattern, however good it 94 . . . MORALITY, \ may be, if it has been already cut, their object being to get styles different to others. Of course, the seller is equal to the occasion, and duplicate sets of patterns are made, so that any that may have been cut are replaced. But all this undermines the morale of trade, and indicates rather that “Low cunning, Which Nature, kind, indulgent parent, gave To supply the place of wisdom to the knave.” A five-pound note will too often decide whether A or B's goods are decided upon. They say there is no friendship in business. “Buyers” for others should remember this, and refuse invitations to the seller's house, going out at the seller's expense for the day to boat-race, Derby, &c. This is done to a large extent, and must inevitably produce what is intended—a bias in favour of the friendly seller. A buyer for another, in honesty to his employer, and all buyers on account of those who buy of them, should be as impartial in purchasing as the judge on the bench. Manufacturers should be enlightened enough not to confine their goods to certain houses, or engage the “select few º' their best styles, or restrict their operations within a limited area. How few manufacturers have common sense enough to trust to the value they give, or moral courage and self-respect enough to rise above the tyranny of the City houses | The City wholesale houses are useful to shop- keepers not able to buy the minimum quantity a manufacturer sells, or in giving credit to a class manufacturers would not trust. “They are very useful in helping a man who can only walk until he is able to run.” But they err in the narrow-minded view they take of things, and, instead of allowing a man to leave them in a friendly way, and . recognizing his being able to do without their aid any longer, they try and restrict him within their limits by threatening to close the account of those manufacturers who may be willing to serve him. This is the weakness of the wholesale house system. No class were more bitter against farmers and landed proprietors for being deluded by protection—for making the consumer pay more for his loaf, so that their selfish interests might be protected ; yet I know of no class, “professedly Liberals,” who are such thorough ARE MEN MORAL 2 * 95. monopolists, such autocrats, as the City magnates, who still try to “compel manufacturers not to serve any one out of the sacred “sprecincts of the sound of Bow Bells,” and refuse to send in enders for bankrupt or other stocks unless the same be confined to their own august body. Whilst this spirit of exclusiveness con- tinues, and manufacturers, merchants, and traders still refuse to Sel’WO more than one or two in a town, we are not a nation of free-traders, and protection is not confined to one class ; but a low morality causes monopoly to reign supreme with all, and prin- cipally amongst those who denounce it as selfish and narrow- minded. They are right; it is selfish—nay, it is not honest. These restrictions have but one meaning: they are intended to prevent “free competition;” and their object is, that the parties concerned may get a larger profit than they could or would be able to, if such articles were sold subject to unrestricted competition. In many cases, to use plain language, it might be called a collusion between manufacturer and merchant to defraud the consumers. It may be advisable here to anticipate a reply that will be made in answer to the preceding statement—viz., that merchants are compelled to practise the same owing to what is called the “leading article” system; which means the policy generally ,' pursued in nearly all trades, of selling articles known to buyers near cost price, with the intention of leading the buyer to infer that all other articles apé sold at the same small rate of profit. This idea originated with the City houses, and for a time was successful; but the time has passed, and buyers generally are not to be gulled by * Still, it cxerts an influence now. Many buyers, before gémmencing operations, like to ask your price for this or that, ſnostly leading articles in their trade, and some, finding you arg’ above the general price, leave, intending to call again; but .6nce caught by the bait of these cunning fishermen, they rarely return to you, but get supplied with all they require where the leading article is sold; so few ſmow what they want, and once get them to begin, they continue buying. One who had had great experience once told me, the largest parcel he ever sold was to one of these shy, suspicious buyers, who, after looking at a lot of * 96 . MORALITY. goods, was going out without buying, when he offered a lot much under price. The bait took, and a good parcel was the result. I have often seen an entire change in a buyer, who, after buying freely, suddenly comes to an article sold by the trade as a leadin article at a halfpenny or penny per yard on cost, and being ask a fair price for this as well as the other goods, he becomes/dis- trustful and anxious to get away, thinking he is in the wrong shop. And it is no reply, in justification of this “Protectionis;” policy, that, having to charge certain articles too low, they rfiust needs adopt a plan by which they can, undetected, charge others too high; as selling too low, with an intention to deceive/is as immoral as adopting illegitimate means to obtain too large # profit. There are fancy articles in every trade liable to depreciation, from change of fashion, &c. I am not condemning an extra profit on such articles (or rather an apparent extra profit, as the loss at some period or other on those that do not sell will reduce the profit to an average), and the style has often been obtained after some trouble, or owing to exceptionally good taste; or if one brings out novelties of one's own; then, for the season, the seller has hs much moral right to extra remuneration as an author has to an interest in his copy- ight, or an inventor to his patent. But the practices I have been condemning are not of this character, but simply that of A, as ā-large purchaser, compelling B to supply him exclusively with certain articles, or A refusing to buy any iongel \of B if he supplies C, so as to compel C to keep on buying of A, and stop his pro- gress after he is in a position to buy of B; .." personally, or with others, telling B if he continue to serve C º not buy his goods, as B can undersell them; or, to confine to them what patterns they select, or, failing this, not to sell them what certain houses buy. All these things are done, and are done with but one object: to get a larger profit out of the buyer—that is, ultimately, out of the consumer—than could be had if trade were as “free and open,” as “unprotected ” as it is thought to be. The merchant is not alone. The class next him will tell you : “If you send your samples to So-and-so, I shall not show thein;” or, “My men have just started in business; if you serve them I must * ... . . " ARE MEN MORAL i. 97 close my account. You must only serve So-and-so in a town,” &c. Or they will ask you to make out a bill at a higher price if they buy an article for a customer, to make the customer think they get nothing out of it. What paltry, contemptible conduct it is : Either do the thing as a favour, or ask a profit for your trouble. Show by your acts that you really believe “Homesty is the best policy.” The clergy should demonstrate more frequently and more forcibly as a fact that this proverb is founded on a law of God, and cannot be infringed with impunity. Who doubts but that the European is superior to the Hindoo by his better brain and higher culture? Who can doubt that the “honest policy,” acted upon by the “higher mind,” and only to be acted up to by the better organization, must be superior to, and must ultimately overcome, a crafty, narrow-minded view of trading, only worthy of savages? This is not a matter of speculation—no mere theory ; but may be demonstrated and proved to be in every man’s life a “living fact.” Instead of sermons trying to give meaning to some text, week after week, why not din into the people's ears that there can be no infraction of the moral, any more than of the physical law without a corresponding punishment 7 The laws of morality, under their scientific aspect, are generali- zations based upon the observed phenomena of society; and whatever may be the nature of moral approbation and disappro- bation, these feelings are, as a matter of experience, associated with certain acts. And if men were taught so that they must believe that breaches of the moral law involve their penalties as surely as do breaches of the physical law, is it not reasonable to infer that they would pause before incurring the penalties 2 The mistake has been in assuming man to be beyond law, free to do as he pleases, by those who argue for his free-will ; or that he is under the guidance of God, as a child is under that of his father. But as Lord Amberley observes (“Analysis of Teligious Belief,” vol. ii., p. 467): “It would be a strange exception indeed to the universal prevalence of unvarying law if human beings were per- mitted to exert independent influence upon the order of events. Not in so slovenly a manner has the work of Nature been per- - 7 98. MORALITY. formed. We are no more free to disturb the harmony and beauty of the universe than are the stars in their courses, or the planets in their orbits. Our courses and orbits are no less fixed than theirs, and it is but the imperfection of our knowledge if they have . not been and cannot yet be discovered. But it would be a lamentable blot upon a universe where all things are fixed by a Power ‘in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning,’ were there permitted to exist a race of creatures who were a law unto themselves.” p Shakespeare has truly said, “The economy of Nature provides a remedy for every complaint.” We are surrounded with objects endowed with qualities fitted, when properly used, to benefit and delight us, and, when misapplied, to injure and distress us; but we are left to find out their qualities by the exercise of our own powers. Wheat is produced by the earth, and adapted to the nutrition of the body; but it may be rendered more grateful to the taste, more digestible to the stomach, and more stimulating to the nervous and muscular systems, by being stripped of its external skin, ground into flour, and baked. Now, when the Creator endowed wheat with its properties, and the human body with its qualities and functions, He pre-arranged all these relations. How many calamities occurred in coal-pits through taking lighted candles and lamps into places filled with hydrogen gas which had emanated from seams of coal, until Sir Humphrey Davy discovered that the Creator had established such a relation . between flame, wire gauze, and hydrogen gas that, by surrounding and covering the flame with gauze, its power of setting fire to flydrogen was suspended. In consequence of this discovery, colliers are able to carry with safety lighted lamps into places highly impregnated with inflammable air. Thoughtless people object to the unpleasant Smell when gas is escaping, failing to perceive the Creator's wisdom and kindness in having given gas this property that we might be warned in time of the danger in our midst. The whole range of physical and organic laws, when thoroughly known, appear to the mind as institutions of the Creator, wise and salutary in themselves, unbending in their & ARE MEN MORAL f .* 99 : operation, and universal in their application. The duty of adapting our conduct thereto should be brought before us by the clergy, with the authority of a mandate from God; raising our obedience above mere acts of prudence, as avoiding damp, being temperate, taking exercise, &c., and enforcing the obligation to comply as a duty imposed by the Creator. By appealing thus to the moral and religious sentiments, and giving reasonable motives for man’s acting in harmony with God's laws, the power of doing so would be greatly increased. Before we can dance well, not only must we know the motions, but our muscles must be trained to execute them; and, in like manner, to enable us to act on precept, not only must we comprehend their meaning, but our intellects and sentiments must be disciplined into the habit of actual performance. The work of acquiring and practically using scientific information con- cerning the natural world, its qualities, and their relations, is to the intellect and sentiments what dancing is to the muscles —it invigorates them; and, as it is from them that obedience to the natural laws must spring, the exercise renders it easy and delightful. Let all children, after a certain age, be taught Nature's laws, their independent and invariable action. Teach them that there can be no effect without a cause; so that they begin life naving faith in “God’s laws.” There is no denying the fact that, as a rule, the mass of the people are taught in such a theoretical, unprac- tical way, that they all expect God's or some one else's help; and the majority do not understand, till too late, that they must rely solely on themselves to make progress here, or be qualified for hereafter. Above all, impress on the young that “business” is an honourable career. Elevate their conception of commerce; teach them what the leaders of commerce have done; raise their minds and souls above being the pettifogging huckster or mere barterer, with no thought but gain, to be made as honestly as the “law” will allow; but, with an active conscience, keeping them strictly to “doing to others as they would be done by.” It can be done, but the race must be begun under more favourable auspices. The youth must know the dangers in his path, and the , 100 MORALITY. world must be prepared to accord honour to the man who can make his way, and pay his way, honestly in business. Such men are rare, and are as noble specimens of humanity as the world can produce; as never a day passes but the man in business is tempted sorely: the little extra profit is so little seemingly to the buyer, so much on the general return to the seller; trade is bad; the money is wanted to pay expenses or meet bills; yet he rises morally equal to the occasion, and refuses to surcharge, or make a sale, if to do so needs deception, or what his moral nature tells him is wrong. No men need a knowledge of God’s laws more than the middle classes—the trading classes—to give them faith, living faith—faith manifested in the daily life rising superior to its temptations. The abstract faith has not made them superior; they have succumbed; and you must insist from the pulpit, platform, stage, and press, that “honesty and truthfulness” are the two things most needed. The daily life must show the reality of the belief that it is wise to be honest, that men will strive to obey their Maker by observing His laws, and, above all, by “doing to others as they would be done by.” No men living, I repeat, have stronger temptations offered them daily to forget this grand, simple, moral faith, the observance of which would revolutionize the world, the value of which is so self-evident, that it is singular that in the year 1878 I should have to ask that “all youths,” before beginning the battle of life, should be well taught the importance, above all things, of understanding and believing that “honesty is the best policy.” Teach them the shallowness, the rottenness of mere legal honesty—viz., only avoiding those acts the law punishes or society condemns. The world is kept right by the sensitive conscience implanted within us, and the majority of us. must be ruled thereby, or the world would recede instead of pro- gress. Still, there seems a growing laxity; and as religion (as at present explained) is losing its restraining power, so is there a greater need for inculcating and stimulating the moral faculties, without which civilization could never have been. I have faith in man, and the morality and intelligence in him, were he properly taught, and had the right compass to steer his life by. The ARE MEN MORAL f 101 moral man needs no bond to make him perform a covenant, or carry out an arrangement. There are many such, and it is the silver lining that shows the morale is still there. The soil is still right, were the proper seed implanted at the right season. But I have known “Christian * people who have failed to meet an en- gagement because there was no deed; fathers acting like Shylocks to their children; sons taking advantage of their father; brother of brother; friend of friend. On the other hand, I have known those who have carried out the wish of a man dying intestate, and divided the property amongst those who had no “legal” right thereto. “The imitation of a label is one of the most prevalent modes of displaying the shabby dishonesty of those who disregard the rights, conferred by a trade mark; but brands and painted marks are imitated with equal boldness, if not so frequently. Soda water bottles, which have in the making been stamped with the name of a particular firm, have, in like manner, got into the hands of persons who fill them with soda water of an obscure and unrenowned quality. Wine casks and cigar boxes, branded with well-known names, have similarly been utilized by the sellers of inferior commodities. Is it true that Birmingham manufacturers often receive orders from merchants to make certain goods, and to stamp on them certain trade marks belonging to third parties; and that the manufacturers do this as a matter of course, ‘all in the way of business?’ Is it true that, in obedience to orders from wholesale houses in the Manchester goods trade, manufacturers will sometimes put two hundred yards of sewing thread on a reel, and paste on it " label denoting three hundred yards? If so, ‘pity 'tis 'tis true,” and indicates a shameful dis- regard of truth and honesty; and such parties ought to be prose- cuted for collusions to defraud. Among metal goods, there was one American company famed for the really good edge-tools manufactured by them. They were imitated at Birmingham, so far as regards a similar mark stamped on each article, or a similar label attached. Of course, the tools, whether good, middling, or bad, were not what they professed to be: they were worthless in 102 MORALITY. the market, but were, nevertheless, sent forth as if made by the original company—a bit of sharp practice very little creditable to the parties concerned. Most amply have foreigners taken their revenge; indeed, it is not improbable that they first began this game, seeing that they had more to gain from a great manufac- . turing nation than we had to gain from them in this way.' Sheffield has been despoiled by them in a notable degree. Knives, files, fish-hooks, needles, &c., made very cheaply of inferior steel, receive in the German workshops (more, perhaps, than in those of France or Belgium) brands, marks, wrappers, and labels so closely resembling those of eminent Sheffield firms, as to deceive all but the most wary. In some instances the foreigners have given the go-by to us with an almost superb audacity; imitating the very . notifications on English wrappers that to imitate that particular trade mark is felony! Print what they may, stamp what they may, English manufacturers of high-class goods find that they cannot ward off this kind of cheating—cheating not of money direct, but of the good reputation which possesses money's worth.” —Chambers's Journal (“A Gurious Picture Book”). “Our attention has been called to a remarkable adulteration of silk fabrics, which it appears has developed into a widely-extended trade that threatens to recoil on the entire silk industry with dis- astrous effects. It is commonly supposed that silk tissues have deteriorated of late years through a practice of mixing silk fibres with jute; but this, it seems, is an error. The flimsy qualities of rich-looking black silks are not produced by any mixture of other fibres, but by means of dyes. It seems that silk manufacturers of Lyons have invented and carried to great perfection a method of mixing gelatinous and weight-giving substances with the dye, and loading the fibres of silk with them to almost any extent. By this means what look rich strong silk tissues are made and palmed off upon the market and sold by dealers at ‘immense sacrifices,’ to the serious injury of the silk trade in general. We have been shown samples of these adulterated fabrics, which to the inex- perienced eye looked fine heavy silks, but which, when stripped of the dye-stuffs by which the threads had been loaded, proved to be ARE MEN MORAL *. 103 the merest gauze. Considerably more than half their weight was dye, and, of course, these stuffs begin to cut and become greasy almost the first time they are worn. Judging by advertisements which we have seen, the trade in these spurious silks seems to be at present a very flourishing one, and is not confined to mere second-class warehouses. The profit on this class of goods is, indeed, too much for the honesty of many merchants, especially when the public will insist on running after a cheap article, whether it be genuine or not. Every one of these spurious fabrics which are advertised at prices which are described as a “sacrifice,’ yields a clear profit of not less than 50 per cent. to the sellers, and the force of the temptation which this gives is driving Sound English and French goods almost out of the market. The English silk-weaving trade has been almost destroyed by this inroad of bad silks, in the manufacture of which Lyons appears to beat the world. It is a perilous kind of triumph, however, and we may soon expect to see the entire silk-weaving industry of France suffering from this dishonest manufacture. Silk goods, good or bad, will come to be discredited more than they have ever been, and some- thing very like general ruin must overtake an already overburdened industry, unless some effort is made to return to honest practices in time. The public in this country should, at all events, take warning, and know that in buying rich-looking cheap silks they may be buying goods three-fourths silk and one-fourth dye.”— Times, Nov. 21, 1877. Trade marks, international trade mark laws, patent laws, may do something to lessen this unfairness—this cheating—of English towards foreigners, as well as of foreigners towards English; bpt we want more than this to eradicate the curse of modern society. Man must cease to be the slave, the worshipper of mere wealth; and all youths intended for commerce must be taught that there is a fitting reward for genius, talent, industry, thrift; but far above all, trained to be gentlemen, above doing dishonourable acts, gaining for them the glorious privilege of “being trusted”—the world know- ing that under all temptations, however urgent their need, they will do no wrong to living soul, but rise superior to the “customs” of i 104. MORALITY... " t their trade or class; never allowing the necessity of making money to cause them to break the Eighth Commandment, obscure their moral sight, or dcaden their moral sense. Such characters are invaluable to a nation like England. What a relief to investors if they knew, by looking at the list of directors of a company, that as A, B, and C are thereon, they are safe in investing their money therein; as such men, they know, will not evade their respon- sibility, or take the position for what it brings them, but would work if they took the office, and retire at once, rather than be a party, directly or indirectly, to the doing of those acts which have so disgraced the last ten years; the committees and directors of financial companies doing, or permitting to be done, dirty acts , which few of the parties implicated would do in their private capacity. But there are too many, for wealth or social status, who, like ef “This very dirty man, with his very dirty face, Would do any dirty act which would get him a place.” The safeguard is to train your children “always to guard zealously from any shame the honour of their name;” so that, at the cnd of their journey, they may, if unsuccessful in the fight, be able to say, “All’s lost, eaccept honour!” Teach them that an honourable man will cling the closer to his friend when in adversity or need. This idea will be ridiculed by that type of man —in business or out of it—the “men of the world,” as they pride themselves on being; “gentlemen’’ who cut a friend as soon as evil report attacks his name, or there is a change in his circumstances for the worse; tradesmen who, thinking a man they have trusted is not so safe as he was, “although they know him to be honest, industrious, and economical,” and to whom a little leniency in his trouble would pull him through, adopt the worldly policy, the shrewd policy of putting a little extra pressure on the poor fellow, and pulling him down by withdrawing the support they Have hitherto given him. Such men deserve what they often get, a bad debt—like the foolish investor who sells out in times of panic, regardless of whether the stock he holds be sound or not, and not having the wisdom to wait, or knowing what to do with ARE MEN MORAL f. i05 the money when he has sold out. Do not mistake my meaning. I should be the last to advise giving credit to needy men, unless they had “chances of success in and around them.” I am alluding to those houses who have credited a man for some time, and when through illness, bad debts, over-buying, being security, losses by investments, &c., he may be in temporary difficulty, the men who ought to pull him through, if of the “men of the world” type, will help to destroy him, by withdrawing the assistance hitherto given, and at a time when it is difficult, if not impossible, for him to replace the same. When one hears this or that man praised for common honesty, it leads one to suppose that dishonesty is the common rule. In agricultural districts you hear also of this or that man having the reputation of being a good landlord, simply because he does not exact more than his due ; but it leads to the inevitable conclusion that the body of English landlords must be unprincipled, when the few are so highly eulogized for taking no more than their own. The Royal Institute of Architects is a body of gentlemen, who, I believe, agree not to accept less than the scale agreed upon. Any body of men uniting together for similar objects, no matter their position, must be regarded as trades unionists; inasmuch as they are acting in opposition to our professed system of “unrestricted competition.” Why cannot lawyers make out their bills so that they need not be taxed ? or builders charge for extras fairly, and so avoid the at present inevitable disputes at settlement 2 How few “honest” or even “religious” people think it wrong to cheat the Revenue. But an incorrect return of property or income-tax, or an invoice declaring bales of goods to be of less value than they are, is really dishonest. Some manufacturers refuse to give “blank invoices,” as these can only be required for one purpose, and refuse also to mark incorrect lengths on tickets and goods for shipping; but others do it. It is all on a par with the rest. “Deceive and cheát—we must do business; all is fair in war and trade,” such men argue. But I do not admit the proposition. We are a nation of shopkeepers; but if all united in appealing to what 106 MORALITY, is good instead of what is bad in human nature, there is no reason why a nation of shopkeepers cannot also be a nation of . gentlemen, even whilst they stick manfully to their duties to the shop. And it should be more generally taught and understood that the one does not necessarily exclude, but should cause, the other. One reason for the “immorality” of our times is the tendency to live up to and beyond one's income, and to live in a style beyond what one’s position justifies. Hence the shifts and pretences and deceit in- separable from such a state of life. It is said that Andrew Marvell, when tempted by Charles II., called in his servant and asked, “What have we for dinner to-day?” “Cold mutton,” was the reply. “What had we yesterday ?” “Cold mutton.” “The day before ?” “Cold mutton.” Marvell turned to the man who was tempting him, and truly said, “The man content to live on cold mutton day after day, and not ashamed to own the poverty of his larder, is not the kind of man to be tempted by bribes.” Andrew Marvell was a fine Englishman, a brave, manly patriot, a satirist and poet. JHe was a Repúblican in Cromwell's day, and neither threat of assassination, nor flatteries, nor proffered bribes, could make him anything else in that of Charles II. Teach men it is not the mere accident of birth they should bow to. Satirise and ridicule as much as possible this abject servility, degrading to all true manhood; but that the men to honour are those who are men—who have power to control all evil desires, ever anxious to live a pure and honest life, satisfied with what is needful, who eat to live and do not live to eat. Teach them that to be truly independent, they must look with disgust upon the preva- lent habit of our times, of aiming at social position by trying to outvie other people, by having larger houses, more gorgeous draw- ing-rooms, more wonderful pictures, bigger conservatories, larger bunches of grapes, more plate, more china, more noise and clamour; that men will at last say, “Hold, we are sick of this pomp and vanity, playing at which one is ever haunted by the spectre of ruin; let us play at some less costly and more rational game, a game in which bluster and brag are nowhere, and man as a rational being living a life in harmony with his intel- ARE MEN MORAL f 107 lectual faculties, guided by his moral and approved by his spiritual nature all in all.” What a contrast ! Hollowness, deceit, selfishness, on the one hand; unselfishness, truthfulness, a tolerant, gentle, liberal spirit, on the other. There should be more sympathy between men. The greater the soul, the sadder it is for the unutterable waste, the unending pain , of life as it is, only alleviated if we carry the one lamp in our hand which will burn through the darkest night and make the light of a home for us in a desert place: it is sympathy with every- thing that breathes. But the law is inexorable, that “Heaven only helps those who help themselves; ” so stamp on people's brains that it is cowardly, mean, despicable to their manhood, to have help or charity—that the receiving of alms, in any form, is only worthy of lackeys. Train all to do anything that is not dishonourable, eat anything that is wholesome, live a life devoid of shame, without caring what the world may say, or, better still, without even knowing that they do not care, or that they are peculiar. By the forma- tion of such character and independence in our youths, you give a stability, a worth of real character, which a knowledge of men as they are makes us appreciate the value of. You would get men that would be alike too intelligent and too moral to practise any immoral custom; that would avoid with disdain—nay, disgust— religious pretences made simply in accordance with “old customs,” or because it is proper, respectable, and others do it. Try and be as perfect as your nature will admit of, by adopting and acting upon the moral precepts of the wisest and best men that have ever lived. Have no moral obliquity or blundering, but look all things fearlessly and fairly in the face. More especially, scrutinize your own actions, and have no deceptions as to the real motives thereof. “Where rich men make money ‘honestly, poor men have to “steal.’” “Success is a rare paint, hides all the ugliness.” Try and be so successful that no paint be needed. However ugly, be as you naturally are. Be above all shams. Paint and powder— faugh! however women can use such disgusting appliances 108 MORALITY, is astonishing. Do they think men are so blind as not to perceive the outer surface P whilst the thought of kissing a powdered cheek or painted lip, or looking at pencilled eyebrows, is alike humili- ating, revolting, and disgusting. Teach men that the only way to succeed beyond their competitors is to acquire, by study and self-restraint, to get the stronger mind, which naturally, inevitably, will succeed over the weaker in opposi- tion to it. You must believe in “possibilities.” It would have been a frightful source of misery, had all men been created with natural capacity to be leaders and masters; but all men may develop, instead of dwarfing, the natural powers they possess. Do not listen to those who tell you that it is impossible to make better men of business, because a man of business is born such, as well as a poet. Many critics of “Business,” to my surprise, asserted this as a truism. It is not so. Some men are born with natural powers better adapted for business and the professions than others, but all men may be enabled to take a higher position in their trade or profession by study and careful training. Some critics seem to agree with the Greek proverb, “That a great book is a great evil; and, necessarily, a lesser book is only a lesser evil.” But little words strike deep sometimes—are as acorns, which grow to timbers, and bear safe to shore, or wreck for instant death, a thousand souls. Much depends on the books you read, the minds you come in contact with, breeding within you thoughts that lead to good or restrain from evil deeds. You should be as careful (or more so) in selecting your books as your companions. With a more correct knowledge of man’s moral nature, my belief is, that it may be recovered from its present diseased state, and be rendered healthy as in its normal con- dition. Even worldly, cynical men have a higher nature in them under the upper crust that seems to stop its healthy action. It may be difficult to get at it; but it is possible so to do, if the effort be seriously and earnestly made. Let it be enunciated from every pulpit, taught by every moral teacher, that “If you have been tempted into evil, you must fly from it ; that it is not falling into the water, but lying in it that ARE MEN MORAL 7 109 - drowns.” Real, earnest exhortation week after week would produce great benefit; as every man is passing through the ordeal and being tempted day by day, and nothing can save him but pointing out to him the insecurity of his position, how he is gradually but Surely being drawn into the vortex that means destruction to the better part of his nature; whilst every effort by him to repel and counteract its insidious approach would be beneficial. As the higher one rises, the higher is your horizon, so the more you Know, the more you will see to be known.” Circe has only power if we are weak. She can only make beasts of those who are content to remain animals. Our yielding or rising superior to temptation is the touchstone of our character. An age is like a climate ; the hardier may escape its influence in much, but the hardiest will not escape its influence entirely. In all Schools of sculpture it is an eternal dispute whether model- ling or drawing be of the most importance; as if both were not equally so. To acquire excellence in the one art, draw unceas- ingly and model unceasingly. Same with religion and morality : to be a good man, be moral ; but, above all, be thankful to God for what He has done for you, and adore and idolize Him for His wisdom and justice. We want a great inspiration to raise our moral stature. Let us revert to Nature. If people oftener saw the break of day, they would vow oftener to keep that dawning- day holy, and would not so often let its fair hours drift away with nothing done that were not best left undone. A knowledge of Nature would best answer the question so often asked, “Why are we here to suffer ?” Because we are all crippled automatons; have been told what to think, but have not been taught how. It is not what the human being knows; it is what he is, should interest us. Every mortal carries about a world in himself—a world unknown, which lives and dies in silence; for what a soli- tude is every human soul | Men's utterances are very mono- tonous, and much alike. It is what is in their heads that is never spoken which is the epic, the idyl, the love sonnet. There is nothing so terrible as to see a soul dead, whilst yet the body still lives. 110 - * MORALITY. It must be clearly understood that whatever is moral or vicious in one man is so in another ; and that an act is morally vicious or morally virtuous in its very nature, independently of any other circumstance whatsoever. In other words, the moral character of an act, an eagression, or a doctrine, is unchangeable; so that what. ever is morally virtuous or morally vicious at one time must be so at all times. If this be not granted, moral vice and moral virtue are necessarily made to depend on circumstances, on the manners and customs of nations, on individual views, and a thousand other contingencies; in a word, morality is denied to have any real and intrinsic existence in the nature of things, and is made to have no other foundation than capricious notions. Moral vice and moral virtue are necessarily of this unchangeable character; and as words and actions were vicious or moral at the beginning, so will they be to the end of the world. Hence I argue, that the highest moral acts and expressions the world has ever known should be its guide in forming ideas of perfection for teaching mankind to strive and attain to. An earnest effort is needed from all men who have influence to try and make man more moral, to waken his slumbering conscience so that it will keep him alive to his wrong-doing. There are things done now daily that make honourably-minded men feel humbled for their fellow-men. Still, there are many who try to act up to their own idea of honour and toleration. Such men are needed to redeem the character of mankind ; men whose word is sufficient; of whom no bond or oath is needed. Mankind should make an idol of “honour.” At the end of your life, however unsuccessful you may have been, you will have spent it well, if, as Francis I. said to his mother, you can feel, “All is lost but honour.” Oh, that it could be said of our business men, as it was of ancient Tyre, “Her merchants were princes, and her traffickers the honourable of the earth !” “The fear o' hell’s a hangman’s whip To haud the wretch in order; I}ut where you feel your honour grip, Let that aye be your border. ARE MEN MORAL f - 111 Its slightest touches, instant pause, Debar a’ side pretences; And resolutely keep its laws, Uncaring consequences.”—BURNs. Be just and tolerant. Is there a bitterer cup for any man to drink than that he tastes when he falls irrevocably in his own csteem : The next bitterest is when a relative or dear friend falls; and we have to look on and see that he has fallen. Forgive him, excuse him, we may; but to put him in the old place is not possible. It is our inner consciousness that does make cowards of us all, the remembrance of our own deeds that makes us dread the look of others, fearing they know of us what we know of our- selves. Our dark deeds haunt us; remorse humbles us, cowers us, and makes us fear and tremble in the presence of our fellow-men. In our solitude how we go over the past; with what keen remorse and bitter humiliation How inexorable is that word “Past !”— no undoing possible, no living over again, no washing out the stains. It may seem hard, but God is just ; and as good deeds carry their reward, so ill deeds must bear their punishment. You may seem to the outside world to be erring with impunity; you prosper in a worldly sense ; your trade increases; your balance grows year by year; but if the past has been evil upon which this structure has been built up, however willing you may now be, that can never be undone, but must live for ever with you and die with you. The knowledge of it will make life tasteless to you—oh, so weary ! and in your happiest moments the inevitable past glides before your mind, and makes the passing sweet bitter. Oh, that more strenuous efforts were made to impress on the young to be “moral,” to be truthful and honest in all things, so as to prepare them to overcome the worldly sophistry as to custom and necessity, that this or that must be done to succeed Aye, they will try to convince you man must be “immoral” even to live. You will see, when too late, yielding to custom was a mistake, an error. You are to be pitied for want of proper teaching, or rather through improper training. But it is all of no avail; remorse is within. We cannot deceive ourselves, however successfully we may fool the world. 112 - womality. You often hear the successful man of the world envied. Believe me, “God’s ways are more equal in the distribution of happiness than we think them.” The inward knowledge of having done right, of having sacrificed one's self for others, is worth all the kingdoms of the world. To have a sound mind and a sound body, and to know you have lived straight, is better than being the richest man in existence. Keep true; never be ashamed of trying to do right; decide on what you think is right, and stick to it. Never be mean, Revenge and threats are mean tools for men to ply. Leave any wrong done you alone: a greater has said, “I will repay.” Trust God and His laws; observe them and obey them : there is no other way to prevent in the future the errors that have arisen in the past from “man’s miraculous mistakes.” Men must be got to see that it is indeed a mistake of extreme fatuity when any human Government, or individual deliberately acts in opposition to the laws of Nature. All restrictive systems, all restraints upon the development of man’s nature, are doomed in time to give way. Despotism causes intellectual poverty. The system is false to nature that trains men simply to obey ; the only true system is one that trains human beings to think. The man who cannot think, who acts without thought, is simply the obedient servant in carrying out another's thought. There can be no progress without originality, and there can be no originality where men are forbidden to inquire and reflect upon their observations. This has been the weakness of theologians, the dread of inquiry; so, in spite of the great power they inherit from the past over the human conscience, they have failed to make men moral, and to “morality” must we trust to answer the poet’s question— - “When shall all men's good Be each man’s rule P’’ Is it so in the Church? Does it not seem incredible, that in 1877 the Bishop of Lincoln should have to write to a curate in his diocese—the said curate having, as a “Christian,” refused to church a woman because she was a Dissenter ? The Bishop observes of Dissenters: “Their dissent is rather a thing of circumstance than of principle. Most of our Dissenters are united with the Church in more important and more numerous ARE MEN MORAI, - 113 points than they are separated from it. They are, in fact, to be regarded by us as members (though in some respects as imperfect and erring members) of the Church. They have the same Bible as we have. They come to church to be married ; their wives (as was the case with your parishioner), come to us to be churched. They bring their friends and relatives to our church- yards to be buried. In all these respects they are not Dissenters, but “Church people,’ and they ought to be treated by us as such, with earnest prayer to Almighty God, that as they are one with us in so many things, so they may be in all things perfectly united with us, and that ‘ they with us, and we with Him, may with one mind and one mouth glorify Him.” I am of opinion, therefore, that the woman who came to church to return thanks to God for her safe delivery from the pain and peril of child-birth, and to avail herself of the prayers and benediction of the Church, ought not to have been repelled, but to have been gladly welcomed by you, and to have been churched. And I desire, that whenever any such case may occur, you should use it as an occasion for the excrcise of Christian charity, and for spiritual edification.” You will observe the apparent toleration of the good Bishop is based upon the assumption that the said Dissenters are entitled to the privileges, only because they are indirectly members of the Church, and such occasions are to be used to edify, and enlighten, and re- claim these “erring members.” It pains me to have to write anything against a body of men who, from their position, should be entitled to and receive of men the greatest respect. There are many now in all sects worthy of man's admiration, for their intelligence, purity of life, and moral courage; and hold worthily an exalted position. I hope to see them all deserve it. To those who will object to my plain lan- guage, I reply in the words of Swift: “But religion, they tell us, ought not to be ridiculed, and they tell us truth; yet surely the corruptions may; for we are taught by the tritest maxim in the world, that religion being the best of things, its corruptions are likely to be the worst.” “A religious act proceeding from selfish views in this world, as 8 114 \ MORALITY, a sacrifice for rain; or in the next, as an oblation in hope of future reward, is concrete and interested; but an act performed with a knowledge of God, and without self-love, is abstract and disin- terested.”—Hindu. - “Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and honour me with their lips, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear towards me is but a precept taught of men therefore the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the dis- cernment of their discerning men shall be hid.”—IIeb. “Oh, thou whose inward parts are void of piety, and whose outside beareth the garb of hypocrisy! hang not a gorgeous curtain before the door of a house constructed of reeds.”—Persian. The clergy should cultivate humanity rather than ceremony, and not give cause for such strong condemnation as that which the American poet Lowell puts into the lips of the Saviour of In eIl 3- “With gates of silver, and bars of gold, Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father’s fold. I have heard the dropping of their tears In heaven these eighteen hundred years.” why MEN ARE NOT MORAL." 115 } WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” “Wirtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometimes by action dignified.”—SHAKESPEARE. “He who learns sciences, and does not practise what they preach, resembles a man who digs, but does not sow.”—Arabic. “I have heard these words: “Living in solitude to master their aims, prac-, tising rectitude to carry out their principles; but I have not seen such men. How can men who cannot rectify themselves, rectify others?”—CoNFUCIUS. “It has never been the case that he who professed genuine virtue could not influence others, nor that he who was not sincero could influence others.”— MENCIUS. “I give to all that I have in this book accused the advice given by a vener- able Sheik to one who lamented that some one had falsely accused him of lasciviousness. He replied, “Put him to shame by your virtue. Let your con- duct be virtuous, be consistent; when it will not be in the power of the de- tractor to convict you of evil.” When the harp is in tune, how can it suffer correction from the hand of the musician P”—SADr. “I shun a friend who pronounces my actions to be good, though they are bad. I like a simple friend, who holds my faults like a looking-glass before my face.”—Persian. “The noblest part of a friend is an honest boldness in the motifying of errors. He that tells mo of a fault, aiming at my good, I must think him wise and faithful—wise in spying that which I see not; faithful in plain admonishment, not tainted with flattery.”—FELTHAM. , a IT has been the drawback with all religious systems, that upon the assumption that they were infallibly inspired, they have always systematically opposed discoveries of Nature's method of working, or laws that seemed antagonistic to the revealed Scripture. Hence they have been debarred from taking the lead, as they should have done from their position, in demonstrating to mankind that every new discovery was another glorious manifestation of God’s works . 116 - - MoRALITY. —another proof of His provident forethought for man’s comfort and welfare. Like Horatio, they have narrowed their vision— kept their eyes shut; whereas it was their special duty to strengthen man's religious nature by keeping him conscious of God’s action in the universe; to prove to man what we owe to our Father in heaven; to strengthen their power of keeping man's morality active and real by the judicious display and explanation of the wonders of the world, and the marvellous power exhibited in the creation of all living things; helping, aiding, and en- couraging, instead of thwarting, despising, and persecuting, the men who have so courageously fought the battle of explaining God's management of the universe. The different results from the two views are at once manifest. Theology treated Science as a foe. In doing so, she fought against Truth, which was bound eventually to conquer; and as the truths of science got hold of men's minds the speculations of theologians naturally lost their hold. Hence the principal reason why the morality of mankind is at so low an ebb at the present time. We are in a state of transi. tion, many floating without a rudder to guide them. This I attri- bute solely to the clergy having opposed progress—not taking the lead in the development of the brain of man; and as no wrong act can be done with impunity, the clergy are punished in losing the proud position held by them in former ages, when they were as much in advance of, as now they are behind, mankind in know- ledge. This is to be regretted, as temporarily it weakens men’s religious emotions; whereas, by the other policy, every step forward would develop and strengthen the religious faculties of mankind. These are inherent, and will soon be roused into action again; but the power of theologians to hold mankind in subservience to their creeds has been undermined, and must succumb as the brain o man begins to use its power to observe and reflect. - To understand this question properly, you must bear in mind that there are “five” distinct theologies: Moral Theology—that . which teaches the divine laws as they relate to moral character and conduct; Natural Theology—the knowledge of God from His works, by the light of nature and reason; Revealed Theology— *. WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL. 117 that which is to be learned only from revelation; Scholastic Theology—theology as taught by the scholastics, or as presented after their principles and methods; Speculative Theology—theology as founded upon, or influenced by, speculation or metaphysical philosophy. A theologian is one who ought to be well versed in the ways of God and of divine things: therefore, you will per- ceive that moral and natural theology are the two theologies that should be followed; whereas revealed theology is that generally adopted, and upon which the different systems of religion rest— religion upon the speculative and scholastic theologies. Hence we have had sectarians and theologians, not “religious men.” To be religious is the recognition of God as an object of worship, love, and obedience; and a man may be truly religious by any system that induces within him the worship of God. Religion is morality, as it designates the feelings and acts of men towards God; whereas theology simply denotes certain ideas of the God wor- shipped. Religion is the highest form of morality, as it means regulating our conduct to the will of God, with the desire to please God; while morality describes man’s duties to man. But the one, once properly understood and followed, necessarily leads up to the other; whereas with theology, once men begin to differ from the ideas put forth of God, it is apt, unless replaced by higher and better views of the Creator, to lead to Atheism. This is the crisis we are passing through. Men refuse to believe any longer the theologian's old ideas respecting the character of God; and it is imperative that an idea of the Creator that will satisfy the mind of man be put forth from the pulpits as quickly as possible; and we also want of our teachers—if they are to have that influence over men's nature they should—a purity of heart and life, and the inward consciousness that “God attributes to place No sanctity, if none be thither brought By men who there frequent.”—MILTON. Men have a difficulty in breaking off the old bondage; they still feel as if they were living in the feudal times—in the days of the 118 - MoRALITY. Inquisition and vassalage. When will they assert their manhood, and refuse to bend the knee to the mere accident of birth, and only do homage to real good men, bowing to the peasant in pre- ference to the prince, if the former excel the latter in his mental or moral gifts 2 There is no chance for such times until the clergy awake from their slumbers and look at the world as it is; and learn and preach what God is from nature; equal to, and training their congregations to be equal to, and familiar with, the literature of the day—familiar with its speculative thought; and every Sunday showing their knowledge of, and interesting their hearers in, the last week's social, political, and ecclesiastical controversies. The Unitarians come the nearest to this, and are the only true “Protestants” of our time, as they practise what the “Reformers” strove for—the acknowledging of no human authority as an in- fallible guide in matters of doctrine; and as a body, they are utterly opposed to “creeds,” which are the trade marks of “ortho- doxy.” By this method alone is it possible to avoid those bicker- ings and divisions, on account of the inelasticity of their creeds refusing, as all “rigid creeds” naturally must do, to correspond or advance with the development of the variously constituted minds of its members. Unitarians believe that it is both the right and the duty of every man to think and decide for himself in all matters connected with religion, and any attempt to form into any one string of propositions the infinite variety of the beliefs of thoughtful minds is essentially at variance with their teaching. As a body, their morale will bear comparison with the “Christian” or any other sect; yet there is a far greater range of theological views in it than in any other. They give to all religions the utmost liberty and freedom of expression, and never try to make “con- verts,” as they honour all religions that have an influence over men’s minds, believing “Their fives Religious titled them the sons of God.”—MILTON. The theology must be right that makes men pious, godly, holy, devout, devotional, conscientious, strict, rigid, exact “To crr, is human; to forgive, divine.”—PoPE. WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL. . 119 This most philosophical of poets is right. That system is the best that breeds in man the divine element of forgiveness, of breadth of view, that gives a greater range of theological views than any other system. The theology for the present time should be so broad, so liberal, so “human,” that it would be utterly im- possible to embody the opinions of the whole denomination in any One creed. “I renounce old time faith and men, But God is near us now, as then; And still the measure of our needs Outgrows the cramping bounds of creeds; The manna gathered yesterday Already savours of decay; Doubts, to the world’s child-heart unknown, Question us now from star and stone; Too little or too much we know, And sight is dim and faith is slow ; The power is lost to self-deceive With shallow forms of make-believe.”—WHITTIER. Never mind what the world may say or think. Seek the truth, not a truth. Strive for the right path, and keep to it. Walk straight, heedless of every one's opinion or censure; but wrong no one. Do all the good you can ; you can do nothing better for your fellow-men or for yourself. Leave every man's religion to his own conscience. No mediation is required between man and his God. Confession is the natural result of an undue magnifying of their priestly functions by the clergy. The practice is rapidly increasing, and if it becomes generally advocated, the last sands of the “Protestant” Church will be running, and the end near at hand. I denounce all clergymen that advocate confession as Jesuits; men who have no right to preach as members of the Reformed Church, the “Protestant ’’ Church; men who would rob man of his liberty; men who are striving to restore the tyranny of the past. Confession and absolution should be opposed by every man ; their only authority is in that love of power inherent in so many minds. The Church has ever liked to dominate the principles, conduct, and consciences 120 MORALITY, of men, and has had far too much power at all times over the women, and imbued the female sex with its own narrow- minded, positive, unreflecting, and unreasonable views of things. Hence the want of charity alike in the clerical and women’s judg- mont. “A man's charity to those who differ from him upon great and difficult questions will be in the ratio of his own knowledge of them. The more knowledge, the more charity.”—NoFMAN McLEOD. The sacerdotalist has long since failed to deserve the high praise accorded him by Macaulay, “ of maintaining his ascendency owing to his intellectual superiority;” and we have instead an egotism, selfish in the extreme, anxious and willing, for the maintenance of his own power and prestige, to do away with all the benefits of the Teformation, and revert again to the Ritualistic ceremonials and confession and absolution. Men must remember the tremendous potency of spiritual power—a power certain to be degraded—a power quite inconsistent with the spirit of the age, or the genius and spirit of Christ's teaching. As Burke said, in his famous impeachment of Warren Hastings, when alluding to the arbitrary power Hastings had claimed: “My Lords, we have no arbitrary power to give, because arbitrary power is a thing which no man can hold or give. No man can carefully govern himself according to his own will, much less can one person be governed by the will of another.” These doctrines of sacerdotal power which some men professed, and which they get some men and more women to be- lieve, imply that we are not so far removed from barbarians as we are often too apt to imagine in this nineteenth century. There are beliefs and acts daily that disgrace alike our so-called freedom and intelligence. I'or the standard of honour or intelligence to be high, it must be free; as, if not free, it cannot be high. To be free, we must not, dare not, allow others, again, to have dominion over our faith or conscience. Look at the recent agitation in France; look below the surface. There is a deeper question involved, and a mightier conflict, than there appears to be—a conflict between the people on the one hand, and clericalism, sacerdotalism, priestcraft —call it what you will—on the other. It is the struggle between WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL. 121 free thought and the responsibility of the individual to his Maker, against ecclesiastical domination—a struggle that admits of no settlement short of the complete triumph of the people. It is not between a republican or monarchical form of government, but between “free” and clerical government. “To our Master we stand;’ and not at the bar, as Paul declared, of any human judgment. Men must go to church or chapel from conviction, not because “it is safer so to do; ” and men must cease to threaten evil consequences in this world or the next to those who cannot think as they do. “Applaud us when we run; console us when we fall; cheer us when we recover; but let us pass on—for God’s sake, let us pass on.” The clergy have not been in earnest; they have not been restlessly, persistently, urging man forward; they have failed signally to impress upon him the value of the edu- cation life affords to all of us. The Sunday discourse has not been the laying bare before him his sins and wickedness of the previous week it should have been. Men and women have repeated like parrots, “We are miserable sinners; ” but not one in a thousand have felt they were so. Whcreas, as Dean Stanley said at Clifton, “Proper education is to encourage us in the hope that impossibilities might become not only possibilities, but actualities.” The whole of our human existence is education—not simply proba- tion, as was once said, but education. The possibilities that have overcome the impossibilities in our daily experience show us that there are yet greater possibilitics which may overcome the yet more formidable impossibilities, as they sometimes seem, beyond our limited experience, beyond our mortal sight, beyond the last great change of all. Through all these various changes, and towards that unseen goal, in the words of Edmund Burke, “let us pass on—for God’s sake, let us pass on.” It is the duty of the clergy to expose men's shortcomings, and urge them, come what may, to fight the battle of life only with right on their side ; come what may, to be sustained in their life's work with the powerful aid of a heart pure before their Maker, and void of offence to any one. Let the result be defeat in the eyes of the world, encourage men to conquer with right, or g ... 122 MORALITY, not at all; above all, never to lose that “love” for “humanity” that enables them always to pity the sinner whilst loathing the sin. Men should love all “God’s” creatures, and strive to be merciful and tender-hearted even towards the most repulsive and abased. We are all fallible. § - “He that docth good to another doeth good to himself, for the consciousness of well-doing is an ample reward.”—SENECA. - “It is the temper of the highest souls, like the palm tree, to strive most upward when it is most burthened.”—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. - Every one who fights against wrong and evil is a hero; and to be good and noble, one must fight always. The Church of the future will be the one which first recognizes the altered aspect of things, and resolves on once more deserving the high position formerly held, and still assumed—a position once deserved, when they befriended the weak against the strong, and maintained their ascendency by their intellectual superiority. The same superiority of knowledge, or even being on a par with the knowledge of the day, combined with earnest precept and good moral example, would give to any Church the directing influence of men's minds. But the power is only to be entrusted to “good men’—not men who buy a “living” as they would the goodwill of a business. Nearly every day, in the Times, one reads: “Next presentation, for sale to the vicarage, &c. Incumbent 77; ” or, “Advowson for sale of a Rectory; Superior residence; prospect of very early possession ; ” “Advowson for sale; near a station; superior gentleman’s house (ten bedrooms), stables, &c.; net income so much, with certainty of so much more, and prospect of immediate possession; ” or, “Advowson for sale; near a good town, good Society, &c. Price moderate; an early vacancy probable.” The advertisements give full details; so the Vicar in possession sees notified to the world the prospect of his immediate decease, &c. And you will perceive, if you read these daily announcements, not a single one appeals to the earnest man, who has made the “cure of souls” his life’s work—to aid, save, and reclaim Weak men, his mission; but they tempt him with the WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL, 123 good society, the comfortable house, the healthy neighbourhood, advantage of the position, the pay, the chance of better pay. And it is rare to read one of such notices without the “prospect of early possession” being made much of, or the moderate price. Men who buy livings are not the men to reform mankind. Talents and eloquence are useless without “moral” character. No “moral” man would buy a living to enable him to reclaim and reform mankind. The man who buys a “living ” is studying his own comfort, his own worldly advancement and social position, like any trader in goods. Men who aspire to guide souls should be above such human frailties, or they have mistaken their voca- tion. Having bought an interest or share in a concern, one can comprehend their eagerness in fighting as they do over their rights. Church patronage is an offence to morality. Because my father has a living in his gift, and I am a second son or a third son, I inherit a living (often kept for me by some one put in till I am old enough for it), quite irrespective of whether the capacity for the trust is in me or not, because it is “my father's property.” Or I get a living bought for me—the right to what is called the “cure of souls,” bought and sold as you would a farm or a trade. I know nothing so injurious to the Church, nothing that has sapped her energy and vitality so much, as this buying and selling of livings. Can there be anything more immoral than men being able to buy such positions; that money, and not capacity or fitness for such important and special positions, should enable people to get and hold them; people appealed to, as it were, in this sense: “My good people, I belong to the elect—those who can pay a heavy sum of money for the privilege of teaching you; and you are bound to come and hear me expound the Word of God; and you are sceptics and heretics if you dare think for your- selves, or dissent from what I tell you is the Word of God; for am I not one of God’s chosen, duly ordained representatives 2 ” Who can wonder at the lax morality of our day—living, as we are, in an age and country divided between infidelity on one side, and an anarchy of creeds on the other—the people disgusted with the disputes of members of the same sect, as much as with the 124 MORALITY, wranglings of one sect against another, and naturally losing con- fidence in their “spiritual advisers,” and feeling there is none competent to guide them aright; yet with the inward desire, the strong feelings, that they must believe, that duty cannot exist without faith? The majority need a faith to guide and uphold them in doing that which is right. Life needs that the old faith be purified and a new one substituted, built on a real instead of a mythical foundation; a faith that will satisfy the understanding of the man—not a faith that satisfied the credulity of the child. With such a living real faith within him, man would soon find some supreme, some universal, some attainable end to strive for, that would be for ever luring him onward, like a steady pilot star, and for ever urging him onward like a favourable wind. “Morality” built on a knowledge of God, and causing man to strive and obey the laws of God, and thereby satisfy his highest conception of duty and faith, will alone bring happiness to man. Are our clergy equal to what the age requires of them? Will they comprehend that it is no true reverence to follow up old lines without extending them? They give dignity if they know how to develop them ; but if they will not step beyond them on vital call, they only make trammels for themselves, and are most unlike those old founders whom they ought to imitate. The chaotic religious beliefs of our day, and more especially the inexplicable severance and gulf which exists generally between moral practice and religious profession, show the imperative need of something being done. The same law applies to the moral as to other mental or bodily organs. Use develops, and non-use causes it to diminish in power. It is very interesting to watch carefully the use of any organ and its development. Without use, an organ dwindles in the course of two or three generations; and with use, it increases. The theory to teach and impress on all men is, that the use of any particular organ or part of the body leads to develop- ment, which, in the course of a generation, becomes hereditary—a kind of instinct; and hence “evolution” depends on physiological action. - - The evils of our times are mainly owing to the want of proper wRY MEN ARE NOT MORAL. 125 leaders—men of mind and soul, above the selfishness and bigotry of mere “clericalism.” Is it not humiliating to think that a clergyman, a “Christian,” a man, above all men, that should be a good, moral man, loving all men as brethren, could make such a speech as the following ; and that the same was cheered, instead of being listened to in silent indignation ? At the Church Congress, held October 12, 1877, Canon Curteis is re- ported to have said (after admitting the debt of gratitude the Church was under to the Dissenting bodies for their help in the past in working out the problem of “Church and State”): “What Churchmen never could forget, and what they must pray earnestly for grace to forgive, was the forcible perversion to secular uses of things which long association had made sacred in their eyes. (Cheers.) An attempt was now being made to desecrate their churchyards—(cheers)—and to render them hateful in their eyes, as scenes in which discord might arise, places where once all was order and peace. (Cheers.) He would ask his Dissenting friends how they could do such things to the Church, and ride, as it were, rough-shod over the sentiments of Churchmen, or, if they wished to call them so, their superstitions. As to the future of Non- conformity, he could only say that if the Burials Bills were passed into law, there would be no further limitations of any kind. (Cheers.) He thought this, the latest instance of Dissenting un- fairness, was to be greatly lamented ; for on what principle of justice could they wish to make the churchyards the theatres of scenes objectionable to Churchmen 7 Dissenters had, however, much mistaken the young Churchmen of the present day if they imagined that they were prepared to allow their churchyards to become either a football for Liberationists to kick about, or a mere agency of the State.” (Cheers,) g The cheers throughout the reading of this part of the “Christian” Canon's paper, show the prevalent feeling in the minds of the clergy generally at a meeting of its leading mem- bers, and wherein the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his speech at the close of the Congress, claimed for it an unflinching deter- mination “to speak the truth in love,” and he thanked all for 126 MoRALITY. having expressed their opinions boldly, freely, thoughtfully, yet kindly. The Archbishop says nothing about the Burials Bill. It would have been better had he reminded Canon Curteis, and those members of the Congress who supported him with their cheers, that wise men yield to the inevitable; and the clergy of the present day should read by the lessons of the past, that the clergy of one generation have been always ready to build the sepulchres of the abuses which their fathers struggled to keep alive, but only a minority among them, as a rule, have ever recognized the necessity of abolishing the abuses or redressing the injustice of their own day. The Archbishop might well express a hope that Christians would “love one another, and act more cordially together in the future,” after intelligent and influential clergymen had denounced as a desecration of our churchyards the admitting therein a fellow parishioner to quiet and orderly burial. “Clergy- men’’ may think so; I deny, on the part of humanity, that any one else considers that the resting-place of his relatives is desecrated by being part of the same enclosure in which Dissenters of all denominations are buried. The real desecration of a churchyard . is the lack of “charity,” which would refuse to recognize as a fellow Christian in death one who could not be denied that character, even though a Dissenter, in life. If the Church was worthy the proud position it assumes, if its teaching was of the inestimable value the clergy attach to and credit it with, would not the result be manifest in its power to make man rise superior to the manifold sins and weaknesses we find him as guilty of now as before the advent of Christianity ? Judged by results, it has not the power to enable man to rise superior to the paltry temptations of this world; and what influence it once had is now lost; whilst the conceit and sinfulness of asserting, as they generally do, “that the Holy Spirit is hovering around them, and guiding them,” is manifest, if one reflects on the misery “religious” persecutions have caused in the past. How the “Christian” has in all ages persecuted and reviled the “Jew;” yet how much more “Christ-like” the Jew has been than the 9 WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL. 127. * * , k ." ... Christian Is it possible to adduce a single instance in which the Jew has taken the initiative in any conflict with Christians ? In every age this much-persecuted and suffering people have obeyed willingly and strictly the laws of the different countries they have sojourned in. As a nation, they have been freer of the stigma of crime, in proportion to their numbers, than, any other that ever existed. Nevertheless, every country in Europe, in its turn, is responsible for the causeless imprisonment and massacre of their families, and the confiscation of their goods. A. Thus saith God: “Observe ye justice, and do righteousness. . Blessed is the man that doeth this ; that keepeth his hand from doing any evil.”—Ileb. “With mercy and forbearance shalt thou disarm every foe. I'or want of fuel the fire expires. Mercy and forbearance bring violence to nought.”—BUDDIIA. - & “A Vedas void of mercy is a holy scripture only in name. He alone is the true worshipper of God, be he Christian, Drahmin, or Pariah, who cherishes all beings with generosity and compassion.” - “Imitate God in His goodness. Be towards thy fellow-creatures as He is towards the whole creation.” The Marquis of Salisbury, in his address at Bradford, having said, “The duty on the part of those who are well off to assist the poor in the time of illness, has been recognized from the carliest period of Christianity,” the Tov. A. L. Green very justly rebuked him as follows: “Presumably, the gifted speaker intended to say, ‘the earliest period of humanity.” If, however, the term Christianity, in its relation to the duties we owe to the sick and the suffering was advisedly used, then I, as a Jew, take ex- ception, not to the word in the abstract, but to its application as a qualitative. I distinctly say that the history of humanity does not date ab initio from the earliest period of Christianity, nor awaited such recognition, but from the earliest period of humanity, as lovingly taught by that holy religion, on the morality of which the ethical canon of Christianity is founded—Judaism.” Charles Reade remarks: “All cliques, however respectable, are 128 MORALITY, public enemies at odd times. Many years ago the country had to compel the clergy to read prayers ‘in a language understanded by the people.’ It really seems incredible—Country v. Clique ! Next we had to compel a clique to give us the laws of England in English. Still more incredible—Country v. Clique ! Dy-and-by we had to force a clique to drop the grossest compost of bad Latin and bad French that nation ever groaned under, and give us our law pleading in English—Country v. Clique ! And now, if it is seriously asserted [Mr. Reade is commenting on Judge Hawkins telling the jury in the Penge case it was useless giving them a copy of the indictment, as they would not be able to understand it] that the Crown attacks the lives and liberties of Britons in a language not ‘understanded” by the country, though the country has to judge both Crown and prisoner, it is time we copied ancestral wisdom, and put our foot on imbecility No. 4.—Country v. Clique !” I must add No. 5, and appeal to all men who want to keep their religion, and at the same time are resolved to maintain their manhood and their freedom of thought, to refuse any longer to have any mediator between them and their Creator—to refuse any longer to make a present of their “common sense” to eccle- siastics of any denomination. We have overcome the tyranny of the State; we must free ourselves from the arrogant assump- tions of the Church, and refuse any longer to submit to the ... priests', as our ancestors' efforts have freed us from the monarch's, control. The sacerdotal party aspire, above all things, to liberate the Church from bondage to the State. Their contention is, not so much that the Church has a right to self-administration, as that the Church is the supreme administrator in this world, and perhaps in the next; that the secular sword, as well as the spiritual, was delivered to Peter; and that the civil power existed only as the delegate of Peter's successors. sº It cannot be too clearly understood in this nineteenth century that the clergy are mere human beings set apart for peculiar functions, and likely to be tempted by the very nature of their functions into erroneous notions of their own importance. So that these seeming why MEN ARE NOT MORAL. - 129 conflicts between Church and State resolve themselves into phe- nomena of social evolution, the common sense of mankind exerting itself to control a groundless assumption. The clergy, claiming for their order to be divine, though as frail in their individual aspect as common mortals; as ambitious, as worldly, as licentious, as unprincipled, as wicked, in fact, as other men; yet, by claiming to be superior by their order to law, have made it difficult at all times for the law to be brought to bear on them. - “What a contrast there is between the proud, State-supported Church of our day, and the Christianity as represented to us in the history of Christ ; and how lovely was the Christianity of the first centuries—the Christianity that was like its Divine Founder in the heroism of its suffering ! It reads like an exquisite legend. A secret God, wandering under the palms of Palestine, preaching to all, the love of humanity, liberty, and equality.”—HEINE. Luther said, “All teaching must rest on the Bible or on reason.” We think the two may be used together. But the time has come for Reason to be the leader ; and men like Spinoza and Heine must not be classed with Atheists. Spinoza taught : “There is only one essence, and that is God. This Entity is in- finite and absolute. All finite entities are derived from, and con- tained in, this one. The infinite Entity is revealed in thought and in space, and these are the two attributes of God. There may be more, but we know them not.” “Only ignorance and malice,” says Heine, “could call this teaching atheistical. No one has spoken of God more sublimely than Spinoza.” “Who was Heine?” a child of Mr. Kingsley’s asked him. “A wicked man,” was the answer ; not merited from a man of Kingsley's breadth of view. Heine's writings will be remembered by the wise, and they tell of a man whose life was filled with rapturous love for humanity, of a man angry until death with the shallow forms and conventionalities possessed no longer of any spiritual import. So he, with all the bitterness of Rousseau, laughs at the shallowness of society, and inveighs against the tyranny of the few. But he unfolds, as many of those so-called 9 ;130 MORALITY, heretics do, noble aims and goodly hopes; showing us how the sanctity of the spirit-essence must remain with humanity, despite the death of forms and of creeds; teaching us how, in the com- plexity of our own hearts, in the thrill that rushes through us at the sight of a woman's beauty, in the tenderness that maintains for us our home as the high altar for the daily sacrifice, there is an assertion of the Divine goodness filling heaven above and earth. beneath, and bidding us hold out unto all men the possibility of the fuller life, * Who is the greatest Sceptic—the believer in Nature's laws, or the believer in revealed religion ? The latter believes in the immaculate conception. He denies, then, that a certain event took place in ac- cordance with laws exemplified in all similar cases. He impugns in . this instance the validity of that inductive process upon which he counts at every step of daily life. He is a scientific sceptic in the strictest sense, for he is throwing doubt upon the trustworthiness of one of the primary ratiocinative processes. The same is true whenever an event admitted by all parties to have occurred is ascribed by one party to supernatural interference. Which man really declines “to take a fact into account" — the man who declares it to be altogether exceptional and supernatural, or the man who regards it as a result of the normal operation of recognized forces 2 Which implies the greatest “scepticism *— the assertion that somebody wrote the Book of Genesis by faculties similar to those which enabled another to write Homer, 'or the assertion that it is utterly impossible that anybody would have written down the legend of the Garden of Eden and the Ark without the direct assistance of God Almighty 7 If it is sceptical to deny one agency, it is equally sceptical to deny the other. What is given to Jehovah is taken from Moses. The character of Christ, we are told, is absolutely perfect. The moral code which He preached is equally perfect. The spiritual force which He revealed is the only one capable of swaying human nature. The appearance of such a teacher, the promulgation of such a code, and the revelation of such truths constitute an event in history so unique that it can be explained WHY MEN ARE NOT MoRAL. 131 by nothing short of a divine intervention. Nay, the discontinuity implied is of so vast an order that nothing can explain the facts short of the stupendous miracle of the incarnation of the Ruler of the universe. Grant Christ to be perfect—is the difference between Him and the best of His race such that it must correspond to the difference between man and Infinity ? Grant His teaching to be of flawless purity and unrivalled power— are we to infer that nothing but the inconceivable catastrophe suggested can explain the knowledge and the power displayed by the Founder of Christianity ? Let us examine a few of the doctrines upon which this excep- tional character is founded. We will begin with this—“He that believeth not shall be damned.” Of all the doctrines preached in His name, none is less Godlike, for none has been productive of so much mischief, and been made a handle for the perpetration of so much cruelty, as this. Wherever the Cross has been raised, the blood of the unbeliever has been shed. In whatever country Jesus and His Gospels have been preached, human beings have fallen victims to creeds, have been put to death, because they did not believe this, or because they did believe that. Read the records of the fate of thousands, nay millions, of men and women who have suffered “martyrdom * because they did believe or did not believe a certain dogma held by one sect of Christians and denied by another. Take a retrospect of the matchlessly barbarous deeds of Christendom, and see the blaze of human bodies, in Smithfield and elsewhere, illuminating the whole atmosphere; or behold the massacres and almost total extinction of the whole nation of Waldenses in Piedmont's Valley; or listen to the echo of the sound of horror which, in the dead of night, awoke the Huguenots of Paris. Instances of this kind are endless; yet many think we have not progressed. Is there a man or woman among us would be guilty of the barbarity and fiendish atrocities of the past? And will not the next step be the universal disbelief of the dogma that has caused so much human misery and suffering, and a better knowledge of God than to imagine He would send any of IHis creatures to 132 MORALITY. “Dreadful Hell, And everlasting pains, Where sinners must with devils dwell In darkness, fire, and chains.” We must banish this conception as one degrading to God, brand as Satanic the horrible conception; and teach men to love , their Maker, not to fear Him. “Follow me ; and let the dead bury their dead,” was to teach the disregard of the most sacred duties of humanity, and betrays an utter ignorance of human nature. To ask men to refrain from paying the last debt of filial love to a parent or child, from shedding our parting tears upon their remains before the portals of the tomb for ever close upon them I deny that such a cruel precept, or that of everlasting punish- ment, can be “divine.” Human nature disobeys the one and doubts the other; but it is inconsistent of Christians to dis- regard what Christ asked them to do. But we find, practically, the lives of Christians do manifest a practical unbelief in Christ's precepts. Take another instance. “That to be poor is a virtue ; ” to be rich, a vice ; as the poor are blessed, and will be inheritors of the kingdom of Heaven, whilst the rich shall have a great difficulty if they enter at all into , that kingdom; that those who now hunger are blessed, but that those who are now full shall hunger; and that woe awaits the rich. From the Right Rev. Prelate the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Pope of Rome, downward through the various gradations of rank, I ask is such a belief believed in, and if not, why preached ? If believed in, the only inference we can draw is, that they would practise their own teaching, and not be led away by the pomps and vanities of this wicked world to disregard the greater blissfulness of the world to come. We see no willingness by the clergy to part with any of the advantages of this world; on the contrary, a desire, as strong as of any other class, to secure all they can of this world’s benefits, although they preach self-sacrifice, and the greater blessings of the next world over those of this. Another precept is “Taking no thought of the morrow’—a why MEN ARE NOT MORAL. . 133 teaching that strikes at the root of all honest industry, frugality, and forethought; a precept showing an utter ignorance of man, and his needs; a precept that, reduced into practice, would destroy the very basis of all prosperous communities, all civilization, all progress, and make the whole world mendicants and savages. Who can fail to observe, if he has not felt, that so far from poverty being a blessing, it is a positive curse 2 When it is not a fault, it is a great misfortune, and carries with it a thousand ills, moral, intellectual, and physical. From what we know of God’s intentions by the operations of Nature, and by the knowledge of our own faculties, poverty is the result of a want of properly-directed industry, or want of thrift in taking care of the results of industry, and follows as a punishment from the infringement of the laws of our Creator—a punishment, more or less, in the power of every man to modify by being industrious, temperate, thoughtful—by being human; that is, by the better, higher part of his manhood taking its proper position, and guiding the animalism of his nature. “Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.” “Take no thought for your life, what you shall eat.” Why do not all Christians reduce these and similar precepts of Christ into practice P Simply because they are unnatural, and they perceive their erroneousness, their moral obliquity, their fanatical and pernicious tendency. Men must choose between the logical method of thought to be deduced from theology, and that to be inferred from the men of science. The priest, like the legislator, must be content to lead the worship of mankind, and obtain his homage, through humbly reporting the ways of God in Nature. These laws have to be reverently sought out and discovered, to be known and rejoiced in ; and it must be distinctly stated that their action is as fixed and inevitable as the law of gravitation, or any of the laws of matter; the work glowing with Heaven's own light and the Almighty's hand, the same at all times and for ever, ever equal to, and best adapted for, all times and emergencies. “Science is the knowledge of the laws of Nature.” “Science is the knowledge 134 MORALITY. of the fixed methods of God's working in the universe;” for God worketh in all things, and science is nothing else than “man’s knowledge of God’s ways.” Such being the case, our legislators and religious teachers should make their laws and define man's duties in harmony with the eternal laws of Nature. Then no right would be conferred by positive law which Nature, that is, which God has not conferred or created as a right ; and no duty would be enforced that was not in accordance with divine law. I say, it is the true mission of the clergy to oppose any action of the Legislature or of individuals based upon “expediency;” as, no matter what the dangers are which seem to threaten and to call for a temporary shield—no matter what the emergency is which seems to demand, however imperiously, a temporary device—the wrong can never be expedient—as nothing that is “morally ” wrong, ever can be politically or socially right. And the clergy should never fail every week to impress upon all, that man may trust the laws of God; and he who dares to be just need not fear that the heavens shall fall. It is their duty—aye, the duty of all men—to avoid and view with suspicion “cunningly-devised measures.” “Those who leave the spring of morality for the stream of expediency, must expect to find themselves in muddy waters.” Take the case of the detectives, which has shaken our faith so seriously in the administration of the police. With a correct knowledge of human nature they would have known that, if they put men of an inferior moral order of mind in power as detectives, to get information from thieves, collusion between the two was inevitable by the laws of Nature. Let us copy Nature, whose great laws, when fairly reached and under- stood, are generally simple. “Oh, how unlike the complex works of man Heaven's easy, simple, unencumbered plan l’” Simple, yet inexorable; universal and inevitable. The true test of a law of Nature is, “that it rules everywhere alike.” Take, for example, the law of gravitation— “The very law that moulds a tear, And bids it trickle from its source, That law maintains the earth a sphere, And guides the planets in their course.” * * * * why MEN ARE NOF MORAL. 135 º “Water, when at the level of the sea, and cooled to 32° of Fahrenheit's thermometer, freezes or becomes solid; when, under a certain pressure, it is heated to 212° of that instrument, it rises into vapour or steam. From the first days to the present this law has been the same ; and water will boil at the same tempera- ture in China, in France, in Peru, and in England; and there is no exception to the regularity with which it undergoes the change, when all the other conditions are the same. This latter con- dition is overlooked by the unphilosophical mind; but to get at truth, this qualification must be attended to in all departments of science. This law relating to water will explain all the laws; so also will the reason why it is misunderstood explain other seeming discrepancies. If water be carried to the top of a mountain 10,000 feet high, it will boil at a far lower temperature than 212°; but this also takes place according to fixed and invariable laws. The atmosphere excrts a pressure on water. At the level of the sea the pressure is everywhere nearly the same, and in that situation the boiling-point is the same all over the world; but on the top of a high mountain the pressure is much less, and the water, not being held down by so great a power of resistance, rises as vapour at a lower temperature than 212°. But this change of phenomena does not indicate a change in the constitution of the water, but only a variation in the circumstances in which it is placed; and hence it is not correct to say that water boiling on the top of high mountains at a lower temperature than 212° is an exception to the general laws of Nature.”—CoMBE. I maintain that the only safe method for improving mankind is, by impressing indisputably on the mind that there are no exceptions to the laws of Nature. The Creator is too wise and powerful to make imperfect or inconsistent arrangements. The error is, in the human mind inferring the law to be that water boils at 212° at every altitude ; when the real law is, that it boils at that temperature under the pressure which occurs at the level of the Sea in all countries; and that it boils at a lower temperature the higher it is carried, because then the pressure of the atmosphere is diminished, 136 - ... " Morality. Mankind have only lately learnt the true principle on which our progress must depend—that is, patient search for, and faithful adherence to, rules that are etermal. What a contrast there would be in the world if, as Lord Gifford said in his address on “Jurisprudence,” law was made a science of, and its excellence and glory as a system were to be what it should be—a system of law made for all the members of the community, without excep- tion, and so expressed and framed as to apply in all places, at all times, and in all circumstances alike How imperfectly have the laws, even of the most advanced countries, accomplished their purposes How imperfectly, for example, have the laws of our own country fulfilled their appointed functions ! How ill, and often falsely, have they defined or misdefined the rights and duties which citizens have and owe in relation to each other How imperfectly and blunderingly have they attempted to protect these rights, and to enforce these duties! A party among the clergy, having discovered that the essence of true religion consisted of the trumpery follies of dress and gesticulations, disturbances occurred, and the Archbishop appealed to the Legislature for further powers. A bill is passed, with the assent of the vast majority of the laity; a judge is appointed, and two notorious offenders are brought before him and condemned. Both dis- cover a slight flaw in the proceedings taken against them, which vitiates the whole process, and they succeed in quashing it, and we find now that all the excitement, passionate meetings, dis- graceful scenes at church, and money spent, have been thrown away. Truly it may be said: How difficult it is to ascertain what the law really is / how expensive to invoke its aid / How slow it moves to the rescue ! How uncertain the result of its intervention | Have not the law's delay, and the law's uncer- tainty, and the law's expense, and the law's injustice been groaned under as ills that flesh is heir to, and that through all generations? At present, frankly, I think we should be as well without it: its delay, uncertainty and expense, and justice so often being pre- vented by some technical plea, gives it too much scope for roguery, and is a bait to tempt the unscrupulous. why MEN ARE NOT MORAL. 137 I disagree with capital punishment; believing the command- ment, “Thou shalt not kill,” to be as incumbent upon the nation as upon an individual: besides, the man or woman who is unfit to live, surely is unfit to die. The nation that legalizes murder teaches murder; it should regard life as too sacred to be taken under any circumstances. There is something so awful in the form in which death is pronounced in an English court, ending with the solemn prayer, “And may the Lord have mercy upon you,” as if all hope of mercy from mankind was over as regards his fellow-mem. It should only be used when it is really intended to carry out the sentence of death; or, as Justice Keating truly said, “The black-cap is a stage-trick; your appeal to Heaven for the sinner face to face with death a solemn mockery;” whilst to terrify a prisoner with the anticipation of a punishment (as for infanticide) absolutely certain not to be carried out—a punish- ment which no variety of circumstances has in one single instance been held to warrant during the space of thirty years, and from which the powerful and growing humanity of the country daily separates us more and more—approaches too nearly to a form of torture, and robs the law too largely of its truth and honour, to commend itself either to the conscience or the policy of the nation. “A life for a life” finds no echo in the just heart. “Earthly power shows likest God’s when mercy seasons justice.” Let us understand Nature's laws; we shall soon make a science of law—order would soon assert its sway. Imperishable founda- tions underlie the apparently formless mass; the mighty maze is not without a plan; and undismayed by difficulties and unappalled by labour, civilization must advance, mankind must progress—can only progress by having confidence that the laws of ihe universe are discoverable, and that these laws are just. A legislator's is a highly responsible position; for it is required the most intelligent and honest men of the time. A member should be cognizant of the most detailed information before he speaks or votes upon any subject. Any attempt to improve our laws should be pervaded with a scientific spirit—that is, a spirit animated only 188 - MORALITY. by the love of truth, and the determination to attain it. Read the debates in Parliament. How seldom can you detect the presence or the power of a truly scientific spirit. How seldom is there a com- manding reference to principle or to truth at all ! How seldom is there a calm consideration of the experiences of the past, or of the probabilities of the future! How seldom do we feel the desire for the good of the whole people throbbing in the sentences of the minister or member, and glowing like light through his speech The orator confines his appeal to partial or local circumstances; he tells of the public meetings of his constituents or of others; he points to the monster petitions; he speculates on the issue of the contest for seats that happen to be vacant; he abuses or taunts his opponents, or at last, boldly avowing or shamelessly showing his carelessness and his ignorance of the whole matter, he opposes the measure, and with brazen inanity talks against time, merely because Government will not propose or pass some other measure, which is as Utopian and visionary as it would be vicious or base. And so the Houses of Legislation become the arena of faction and of party. (Read the “Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield,” and watch how Sir Robert Peel was taunted and badgered, night after night ; and for what? Tor having the moral courage to act as a statesman, and sacrifice worldly ambition for his country’s good!) Instead of the highest and purest motives, the debates too often make manifest that none but unworthy or low and insufficient motives reign. “Where fell Obstruction takes his dogged stand To disconcert what Policy has planned; Where Policy is busied all night long In putting right what Faction has put wrong; Where flails of oratory thresh the floor, That yields us chaff and dust, and nothing more " Practically, of course, it comes to this: “How are we to get better members of Parliament?” How find, how select, how appoint men who will so constitute and so conduct a Legislature that it shall be what it should be 2 Is not this the greatest problem of all science, whether of social or of any other science? why MEN ARE NOT MORAL. 139 How shall we secure our noblest and highest and best men for our noblest and highest and most needful work 2 How to call the noblest and the ablest and the fittest to the highest function ? That is, indeed, the very question of the time, if not of all time. “We have been, and are only living by sufferance, and by make- shifts, till it is answered.” There is only one answer, one solution of what has been considered hitherto an insoluble problem. Men must be trained from the beginning with different views of the world and its Maker. Men must not fight for this or that parti- cular theological or political opinion ; but all must begin life impressed with the conviction, above all things, to discover and to proclaim eternal truth. Nor let it discourage us that the progress will be slow. “Slow grows the palm, and slow the pearl.” We must imbue man with the correct principle to act upon ; show his enlightened hope what is attainable; that he is susceptible of a progress we cannot limit, if he will but patiently search for, and faithfully adhere to, the laws of God. Theological creeds are utterly opposed to the “laws of Nature,” which act, as instanced by me as regards “water ’’ and “gravita- tion,” invariably and inevitably. If so, and the discoveries of scientific men are real, what a delusion and a snare it seems for the - clergy to ask the people to go through the “Litany ” Sunday after Sunday, praying to be delivered from the offences of our forefathers, , when it can be clearly proved that the hereditary transmission of qualities is a law of Nature I Dr. Caldwell observes: “Every constitutional quality, whether good or bad, may descend, by inheritance, from parent to child. And a long-continued habit of drunkenness becomes as essentially constitutional as a predispo- sition to gout or pulmonary consumption. This increases in a manifold degree the responsibility of parents in relation to tem- perance. By habits of intemperance, they not only degrade and ruin themselves, but transmit the elements of like degradation and ruin to their posterity. This is no visionary conjecture, the fruit of a favourite and long-cherished theory; it is a settled belief, resulting from observation—an inference derived from innumerable facts. In hundreds and thousands of instances, parents having 140 . . . MORALITY, had children born to them while their habits were temperate, have become afterwards intemperate, and had other children subse- quently born. In such cases it is a matter of notoriety that the younger children have become addicted to the practice of intoxi- cation much more frequently than the elder, in the proportion of five to one. Let me not be told that this is owing to the younger children being neglected, and having corrupt and seducing examples constantly before them. The same neglect and profligate examples have been extended to all, yet all have not been equally injured by them. The children of the earlier births have escaped, while those of the subsequent ones have suffered. The reason is plain: the latter children had a deeper animal taint than the former.” It was remarked by the celebrated Esquirol, “that the children whose existence dated from the horrors of the first French Revolu- tion turned out to be weak, nervous, and irritable in mind, ex- tremely susceptible of impressions, and liable to be thrown by the least extraordinary excitement into absolute insanity.” t Shakespeare seems to have recognized the laws of the transmis- sion of temporary mental qualities: “Come on, ye cowards; ye were got in fear, Though ye were born in Rome.”—Coriolanus, Act I., sc. 6.. The father of Napoleon Buonaparte, says Sir Walter Scott, “is stated to have possessed a very handsome person, a talent for eloquence, and a vivacity of intellect, which he transmitted to his son. It was in the middle of civil discord, fights, and skirmishes, that Charles Buonaparte married Letitia Ramolini, one of the most beautiful young women of the island, and possessed of a great deal of firmness of character. She partook of the dangers of her husband during the years of civil war, and is said to have accompanied him on horseback on some military expedition, or perhaps hasty flight, shortly before her being delivered of the future Emperor. The murder of David Rizzio was perpetrated by armed nobles, with many circumstances of violence and terror, in the presence of Mary, Queen of Scotland, shortly before the birth of her son, afterwards James I. of England. The constitutional why MEN ARE NOT MORAL. 141 temerity of this monarch is recorded as a characteristic, and it has been mentioned that he even started involuntarily at the sight of a drawn sword. Queen Mary was not deficient in courage, and the Stuarts, both before and after James I., were distinguished for this quality; so that his timid disposition was an eacception to the family character. Napoleon and James form striking contrasts; and it may be remembered that the mind of Napoleon’s mother appears to have risen to the danger to which she was exposed, and braved it; while the circumstances in which Mary was placed were such as must have inspired her with violent fear.” What a vast difference it would make in this world if the clergy were to point out to every man Nature's laws, and cease to pray to God to remove all evils flesh is heir to . What scope for observation, reflection, exercise of the moral senti- ments, and regulation of the animal impulses, the law of heredi- tary descent presents to us ! And, properly explained, so as to be rightly understood, mankind would see the wisdom and justice, and bow with submission to a law which they would per- ceive to be fraught with blessings to the race, when it is known and obeyed. And the very practice of this reverential ac- quiescence would diminish, in a great degree, the severity of their misfortune, as they would see the door of mercy standing widely open, and inviting their return. Every step which each man makes in his own person towards exact obedience, will remove, by so much, the organic evil transmitted through his parents’ transgressions; and he will have the happiness of knowing that his posterity will reap the full benefit of his more dutiful observance of God’s laws. I see no hope for humanity except by such means, as thereby only can man be elevated into a rational being, and perceive that the misery of this world, the wars, diseases, famines, are through in- fringement of certain laws. Mankind will then blame their own folly, instead of uselessly besecching the Creator to remove from them war, pestilence, famine, &c. IYnowing the causes, they will learn how to cure; and by avoiding the causes thereof, prevent a recurrence of the ills some are so fond of telling us “flesh is heir to.” It does seem reasonable to imagine that a training upon this 142 - MORALITY. t basis will do more to make mankind more rational, moral beings than the one we have had so long, of simply deterring men from evil by that of some “future * punishment, to be avoided if the sinner repents and believes in Christ “before he dies.” Teach men, I say, that there is no avoidance of the punishment for every evil act, every wrong done; God punishes every act of disobedience; but all may reap reward in this world by obedience, and they can obey when it pleases them. * Imagine mankind properly trained—to be thoughtful, rational beings; do you think they would go, at the command of any despot or government, to mow down their fellow-creatures, or be shot down in huge masses by others, and their bodies lying in heaps, rotting and breeding pestilence 2 It seems to me blasphemy to attribute such a curse as war or famine to our Creator. Yet, what other inference can be deduced from the teach- ings of theologians? They ask God in their prayers to make wars to cease in all the earth, and give to all people the blessings of peace. Such teaching is only calculated to lead men astray. They must be told such appeals are useless—worse than useless; they must be told, war, misery, famine, disease, arise from certain causes—REMEDIABLE causes; and there is but one way to prevent such effects: by removing the causes thereof. “But war's a game which, were their subjects wise, Rings would not play at.”—CowPER. Men must be taught to ascertain God's laws, and to obey them ; and to cease asking pardon from, and inferentially thereby, blaming God, for the curses that afflict humanity ; but be taught to THANK the Creator for the blessings He has so lavishly bestowed upon them. The teaching of theo- logians was excusable when man was ignorant of his own nature. With our present knowledge thereof, it is a frightful responsibility to still adhere to a training and teaching utterly at variance with our present knowledge of God. Man has reason ;, is capable of discovering his own nature, and its relation to ex- ternal objects; has been left to frame his institutions to ensure his own happiness. The clergy have been the principal opponents at WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL. 143 1 all times to removing man's ignorance, and their opposition still retards his having made known to him his nature and its relations; so that, now, as heretofore, his modes of life have not been adopted from enlightened views of his whole qualities and capacities, but have sprung up from the impulsive ascendency of one blind propensity or another. A new era will begin when man shall study his constitution and its relations; and then the future may exhibit him assuming his station as a rational creature, seeking his happiness where it is only really to be found, and at length thereby attaining to higher gratification than any which he has hitherto enjoyed. The time has come when Religion must enter into harmonious alliance with the order of Nature. Science has banished from the minds of well-educated persons belief in the exercise by the Deity of His power in a supernatural manner as a means of influencing human affairs. Men now act on the belief that this world’s administration is conducted on the principle of an established order of Nature, in which objects and agencies pre- sented to man for his study are to some extent placcd under the control of his will, and are wisely calculated to promote his cnjoyment. The creed of the modern man of science is well ex- pressed by Mr. Sedgwick in the following words: “If there be a superintending Providence, and if His will be manifested by general laws, operating both on the physical and moral world, then must a violation of these laws be a violation of His will, and be preg- nant with inevitable misery. Nothing can, in the end, be expedient for man, except it be subordinate to those laws the Author of Nature has thought fit to impress on his moral and physical creation.” The Rev. Dr. Thomas Guthrie, in his admirable “Plea for Ragged Schools,” observes, that “they commit a grave mistake who forget that injury as inevitably results from flying in the face of a moral or mental, as of a physical law.” Yet the clergy, as a body, ignore, or rather, teach a doctrine that implies the very opposite of this idea of natural order by Providence in regulating the world's affairs - “In all earnestness I put the following question : Are tho 144 - MORALITY. fertility of the soil, the health of the body, the prosperity of individuals and of nations,—in short, the great secular interests of mankind—now regulated by Divine power, exercised in a special and supernatural way? Science answers that they are not. Are they, then, governed by fixed and comprehensible natural laws 2 If they are not, then is this world a theatre of anarchy, and, consequently, of Atheism. It is a world without the prac- tical manifestation of a God. If, on the other hand, as science shows, such laws exist, they must be of divine institution, and worthy of all reverence. But, I ask, in the standard of what Church, from the pulpits of what sect, and in the schools of what denomination of Christians, are these laws taught to either the young or the old as of divine authority, and as practical guides for conduct in this world’s affairs 2 If we do not now ex- perience a special supernatural government of the world, but a government by natural laws, and if these laws are not studied, honoured, and obeyed, as God’s laws, are we not actually a nation without a religion in harmony with the true order of Providence, and therefore without a religion adapted to practical purposes 2 “The answer will perhaps be made, that this argument is rank infidelity; but, with all doference, I reply, that the denial of a regular, intelligible, Wisely-adapted, and divinely-appointed order of Nature, as a guide for human conduct in this world, is, prac- tically, Atheism ; while the acknowledgment of the existence of such an order, accompanied by the nearly universal neglect of teaching and obeying its requirements, is true infidelity, disrespect- ful to God, and injurious to the best interests of man. The public mind is opening to such views as these, and they must in future be met with other arguments than charges of irreligion, and appeals to bigotry and passion.”—On the Relation between Science and Religion, by George Combe. While the philosophy of mind continued a purcly abstract theory, moralists and divines cnjoyed an unlimited privilege (of which they largely availed themselves) of ascribing or denying to human nature whatever qualities best suited their several systems. But now the case is different; and it is the duty of moralists and WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL. 145 divines, in their efforts to form and guide public opinion, to have a knowledge of the constitution, capability, and relations of sublunary things and beings, as being indispensable to the proper exercise and direction of the superior power of the mind. Hitherto, it has not been considered that the little onward purpose of moral and intellectual advancement in the secular occupations of society has arisen from man’s imperfect knowledge, and his defective intel- lectual education has left him incapable of deriving pleasure from the study of Nature and her laws; while, owing to the barbarism which has pervaded society in general, there has been only an im- perfect moral atmosphere in which the superior sentiments could play. Ambition, that powerful stimulant of the mind in social life, has not been directed enough to moral objects, but generally the reverse. The hours which should have been dedicated to the im- provement of their higher faculties, have been either devoted to the pursuit of gain, sensual pleasure, or the objects of a vulgar Vanity, or spent in trifling amusements. But the divines, who should be the leaders of the people—who have had such influence in the past in the formation of public opinion,-so far from discovering that this disorder is not inherent in the constitution of nature, and considering that Christianity, in teaching the doctrine of the supremacy of the moral faculties, necessarily implies the adapta- tion of the human mind to a state of society accordant with that principle, fell into the error of regarding the world not only as deranged in all its parts, but as consisting of elements incapable of natural rectification ; and they thus added strength and perma- nence to the evils originating in ignorance and unbridled passion. I am far from casting blame upon the excellent men who fell into these mistakes; such errors were inevitable at the time when they lived, and with the lights which they possessed; but I point them out as imperfections which, with our present knowledge, all honest men will try at once to remove. Nations, as individuals, necd fear nought if they will but act with intelligence, truth, and just- ness—will, in fact, obey the higher faculties, their moral instincts. Let us all be taught religion, and not sectarianism; hating lies and frauds, even pious ones, spite of what may have becn said 10 146 l MORALITY, in defence of the theory that the end justifies the means; but all of us protesting against lying and chicanery for any purpose, as being contrary to, and subversive of, morality. The interests of truth, or of anything that is good, cannot be promoted by the pro- pagation of falsity. Man must be taught to see his Maker's actions throughout nature in a manner worthy of His divine attributes. The time has passed by to hold man in bondage by promising him eternal bliss on the single and simple condition that he joins those who proclaim the promise of such a state of felicity. We can understand the fanaticism and persecution of the past, when we consider the immense power in superstitious ages of such a doctrine, so solemnly inculcated as it was in the days of Rome's height of power; yet such a terror, as it was then represented to be—enough, one would think, to make all believers forfeit every other interest—failed to do this work, and men were not made better by its influence. And “why?” Because it lacked “truth *—was, in fact, a delusion; honestly believed in by the zealous promulgator, but a delusion. I mean, of course, the promise of eternal happiness to mankind, solely on condition of adopting the faith, and of observing the precepts, of the Gospel. Can our High Church dignitaries believe what they profess and teach? If they do, why not act up to what Jesus said: “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor; and thou shalt have treasure in heaven”? Where is the Christian among the archbishops, bishops, the aristocracy and moneyed class, who really believes in the difficulty of a “rich man entering into the kingdom of Heaven”? Yet these men, shut their eyes as they may, must see hundreds of men about them, worthy men, toiling and labouring, indeed fighting hard, for bare food and clothing all their lives, with the poorhouse—living upon the labours of others, that galls their honest hearts—for the chd; whilst these professedly Christian men revel in plcnty and luxuries, but forgetting the luxury of luxuries—the delight of giving to those who need and deserve. I do not mean alms; I hate the thought of gifts. Wise help is what is so much necdcd, and what the rich could so easily give. With the aristocracy, WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL, 147 what have the majority done for their position? They hold it simply by the accident of birth. Because some ancestor has been a king's mistress, a favoured adviser, or at the best, wom a battle, our predecessors have bestowed upon them immense wealth, for the benefit of themselves and their heirs “for ever.” Many of them having done nothing personally, yet getting so much, are morally bound to prove their title thereto, by setting to work to prove they are worthy the position, and so try and repair the injustice of fortune, by which so many of the higher class so largely profit. Yes, such men should be a sort of human Sunshine diffusing blessings all around them, acting so that the poor men who encounter them would bless the accident. Instead of which, too many are a curse, setting a bad moral example, by their indolent, vicious lives, or getting into honest men's debt, and being so ignorant of, or callous to, the needs of others, they only pay when it suits them. How many noblemen and officers of the Army (gentlemen), leave the country in debt, not intending to return for years, yet have not the morality or courtesy to tell their creditors, or write after they have got away and apologize, or intimate when they mean to pay ! Such men may be Chris- tians; I deny their morality, which means doing to others as you would be done by—not leading a life of selfishness; utterly in- different to, nay, acting so as to ruin and distress others. “That human nature is corrupt, and our heart deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” I say that such a belief is downright “scepticism”—disbelief in the goodness of the Creator. It implies a denial of the natural goodness of man—a refusal to believe that purity, love, and heroism of a certain order can spring spontaneously in the soil of human nature. Where such growths are to be found, they must be taken to have been transplanted from a supernatural Paradise. They are the sporadic plants which have strayed beyond the guarded walls of Eden, and can only struggle against the foul indigenous products by the constant care of the Divine gardener. Every living theology is saturated with such scepticism, for our conviction of the necessity of supernatural aid is measured by our sense of human impotence. 148 MORALITY, The doctrine of the corruption of human nature is the central doctrine of all vigorous theological creeds. The belief in God is, in this sense, simply the opposite pole of disbelief in man. They are reciprocal dogmas, allied as the light and the shadow. The doctrines of Redemption and the Atonement are realized in pro- portion as this need is felt, and die away or are rationalized into their no-meaning wherever it becomes faint; and therefore the belief in the supernatural character of a religion is but the other side of a scepticism as to human virtue, when not reposing upon a supernatural basis, enlightened by supernatural revelation, and stimulated by hopes and fears of a supernatural world. Herein consists the hostility to “unbelief,” which dares to doubt, and asks so many to part with ancient creeds; but once stimulate in mankind a desire for “truth,” and I have every faith in the result. For this reason I advocate a higher “morality;” the rest would soon follow. Once get the actions of mankind to be guided by the highest moral principles, based upon science and a knowledge of the Creator from His works, we should get a very different idea of duty, and very different “moral” beings from those that have re- sulted from the fears held forth to frighten them by theologians. Morality must rest upon the truths which, if fully ascertained, would form the science of “sociology.” “Morality” is essential to the safety of society, and, properly understood, would tend to crush out all anti-social forces; but the process must be slow and stern. If, by the moralist's view, justice does not always strike the individual sinner, by it, it is clearly demonstrated that it falls unre- lentingly on society. ' If a disregard of morality is nothing, but a disregard of the conditions of social welfare, the larger organism is certain to suffer in the long run for an erroneous or degrading standard. The negative guarantee for the triumph of good prin- ciples is, in the last resort, that evil means social degeneration and ultimate destruction. The ceaseless struggle between good and evil implies the existence of impulses tending both ways; but it may be hoped that, as the race becomes more intelligent and more distinctly conscious of its aims, the victory of good may be won at a smaller cost of error and opposition. WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL, 149. What is essential is for us to identify God more with Nature. To effect this, religion might confer the greatest possible help, crushing out indifferentism on the one hand, and scepticism on the other; proving to the former by the importance of the subject as regards his own happiness whilst in this world, to learn of God and obey Him; and demonstrating to the other that such won- derful arrangements must have had an originator far superior in every way to any mortal that ever cKisted; briefly, supplying to each what they need to bring into action the religious tendencies of their nature, that theological creeds and dogmas have quenched. Belief in Nature must cause a belief in the Ruler of Nature; observing Nature must give rise to rever- ence, as knowledge of Nature's laws must in all minds create adoration of the Creator of the same. If I can only get people to believe, and to act up to their beliefs, why differ with me as to the method 2 Let us cease talking of scepticism on the one hand, and credulity on the other. I care not whether men believe by your method or mine, so that they do believe; but I want their belief to be manifest in their daily acts. It must be real and earnest—one exemplified in daily prac- tice, not one of mere conformity and Sunday observance. “It must govern the mind and direct the actions, or it is worthless, an imposition.” “Morality” exists, and, properly explained, would prove in every case that the whole joy of success is poisoned unless honestly attained. Implant in the minds of people what they can understand—the horror of wrong-doing, the genuine love of virtue, as the first thing in human nature to aspire to. But this must be done with the young, to give that instinctive delicate sensitiveness necessary to retain a pure moral nature after mixing with the world and worldly men, which, although it publicly shames the sinner (if found out), as a rule dis- •cusses the laxity of * Tuture, with less tendency to blame for the deviation from "...e path of rectitude than can be un- derstood, except by inferring that they themselves have lost their own innate Scnsitiveness as to what is right, and the . 150 Morality. natural loathing that higher natures have for all that is false and bad. Christians claim for their creed all that is good in human mature. Is the high ground they take justified, if we con- sider human nature as it is, after the many centuries Christianity has been reforming mankind 7 Do we owe to the efforts of the clergy our personal liberty, a scrupulous legality, liberty of worship, freedom of thought 7 Can the Church, or any sect, claim in the nineteenth century such results of humanity as being due to their efforts P Have they made mankind honourable and virtuous 7 No system is worthy our reverence that fails in making men equal to the best their nature admits of, in virtue, honour, and truth. We hear much of the immorality of the past. Our daily papers, our public streets, are evidence of the loathsome and, I believe, unprecedented, vice of the present. In defending Alice Thodes, her counsel, Mr. Gye, in addressing the jury, said, “They could not help blaming her for the conduct which she had shown.” But he pleaded to the jury to dismiss from their minds all know- ledge of that public feeling which had been evinced against the prisoner, as “the particular type of immorality which his client had been guilty of eacisted in every class of Society.” - The defence by the Manchester merchants was “trade customs.” It must be evident to every one, as the Master of the Rolls said, that an overcharge, deliberately made, is fraudulent. An agent being paid a commission to buy for, and who charges his principal higher than he has paid, commits a fraud. If the practice is general, these big merchants must be made to refund; and if this does not root out this curse of our times, they must be punished like other felons. - - The counsel for the manufacturer accused of inciting a work- man to steal his master's property (patterns that he might copy, and so rob the inventor of the benefit of his toil and skill), defended his client by pleading that the bench of magistrates (mostly manufacturers) were more or less guilty of the same offence. Such pleading in open court indicates a general im- I WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL. . 151 pression that there is much “immorality” in our midst, and justifies the conclusion that our religious teachers, the direc- tors of our morality, the class whose duty it is to elevate man's thoughts above worldly desires and selfish objects, have most signally failed in their mission. Men have lost the delicate sense of honour, the fine promptings of an active conscience; they are selfish and avaricious, courting wealth like a miser, to gratify the desire of one faculty of their nature, or to lead a life of luxury, pomp, and vanity. The necessity is imperative on all, to help man in his struggle upward; help to make him more moral, by stimulating his sense of duty, by an intelligent, willing obedience to the laws of God, recognizing thereby the existence of one God, proved by the laws of Nature. We want an intelligent education of the people; understanding what they profess to believe, in opposition to elaborate theological definitions, and erroneous dogmas, inconsistent with the facts of modern science. If men believed in hell, that is, as they believe in pains, they would be other than they are, and would, must act differently to what they do. The undeniable fact that the belief produces so little effect, as preachers are always telling us, proves that the argument has Some weak point in practice. A law is not effective in proportion simply to the severity of the ruler, but also in proportion to his justice. A tyrant makes obedient slaves, not virtuous subjects. Theologians have always made God out to be a tyrant. I know they tell you of His infinite mercy; as if any being who could consign any one to the torments of hell, could have any idea of mercy or justice 1 No; in their anxiety to enforce morality, they have outraged the conscience, and man has rebelled. You invent a judge who punishes savagely, who punishes one man for the sins of another, and who punishes frailties for which he is himself, as the creator, indirectly responsible ! Is it strange that some men refuse to be cowed, and others invent devices for evading your law, as plausible as those by which you would enforce it? But it is useless to tell us that God is to be propitiated by prayer, or that certain ceremonies and beliefs will induce Him to clear off all scores. We tell you, facts are against you. Science proves that 152 - MORALITY, God is just, but also proves that every fault brings its punish- ment. “Nature never forgives.” Impress this fact on man's mind ; stimulate his conscience and intelligence by a know- ledge of Nature’s laws; and you will elevate the moral standard of the race far more than any theological stimu- lant has ever done, or can do. Hell may have been a power- ful weapon when believed in, or not understood, as old bogies are in keeping children quiet when used by foolish nurse- maids; but it is folly, and provokes revolt, instead of obedience, as the child advances to manhood. “Belief,” as Leslie Stephens observes, “is in fact the real scepticism. It can only obtain a show of certainty by banishing all certainty from the world of expe- rience to place it in an arbitrary world of abstraction.” The assumption which underlies all scientific reasoning, of the neces: sity of judging of the future from the past, is systematically rejected. In presence of all the great movements which stir the world, the believer's attitude is one of doubt, suspicion, or absolute hostility. Increase of knowledge makes him tremble for his creed. Social changes involve the decay of the one sacred authority. If he forces himself to believe that, in some sense, a reconciliation between the old and the new is yet possible, he is forced to equivocate, to strain words into no meaning, and to look with doubt upon his allies, who support, above all things, freedom of thought and freedom of expression on all theological questions, detects their historical inaccuracies, their erroneous dogmas, their claim to divine inspiration, and their general inconsistency with modern science and progress. In fact, the one is as anxious to uphold, as the others are to destroy, sacerdotalism, and its attendant enslaving creeds and ecclesiastical errors, which sub- stitute tradition for the immutable truths of natural law. The belief in progress, in some one of its many shapes, is the most characteristic product of modern habits of thought. It is simply the doctrine of evolution applied to political and social theories; and it must permeate and transform all such theories in proportion as they become scientific. A similar transformation must be effected in our moral conceptions. Mankind, in review- WHY MEN ARE NOT MORAL, 153 ing the past, will see where they have erred; and the invariable and independent operation of all Nature's laws gives them the means of ascertaining causes of past failures, and thereby ensuring with certainty future successes. The vision of a supernatural world becomes vivid precisely in proportion as an interest in this becomes dim; if the two conditions are not logically opposed, yet in practice one waxes as the other wanes. We cannot really walk with our eyes fixed both upon cloudland and upon solid earth. Dreams and realities may blind for a time, and the dream be transformed instead of abruptly dispelled; but we have ultimately to choose, and, as we choose, we must become sceptical as to this world or the other. Our hopes must be finite, like most things. We must be content with hopes sufficient to stimulate action. We must believe in a future harvest sufficiently to make it worth while to Sow ; or, in other words, that honest and unselfish work will leave the world rather better off than we found it. It is a tolerable world, So long as one can believe that one's fellow-creatures have plenty of healthy instincts, and enough of really noble instincts to secure a steady, if chequered, social growth; that these instincts do not depend upon our attaining impossible knowledge; and that they will survive all the petty systems founded upon irrational guess- work. It is something to feel a certainty, based upon experience of the case, that we have nothing to fear from unlimited freedom of inquiry, and that we may hope for not merely an indefinite increase of man’s power over the external world, but a higher and more rational social order, and more widely reaching sympathies. “Eye Nature’s walks, shoot folly as it flies, And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh when we must, be candid when we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man.”—POPE. 154 MORALITY, HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. “ISut words are things; and a small drop of ink, Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think I’—BYEON. “”Tis education forms the common mind; Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclin'd.”—PoEE. “All work of man is as the swimmer’s ; the vast ocean threatens to devour him. If he front it not bravely, it will keep its word. By incessant wise defiance of it, lusty rebuke and buffet of it, behold, it bears him as its con- queror along !”—CABLYLE. THE question lies in a nutshell. Men can only become moral by altering the basis of their religion. For the Fall, substitute evolu- tion; for Divine interposition, miracles, and atonement, substitute “law”—unvarying, everlasting “law”—the same at the beginning of the world, now, and for ever; for the speculative theories and theologies built upon myths and legends, substitute “facts” of the universe, the operations of Nature, understandable by the intelli- gence of mankind; and upon this basis build the religion needed for the nineteenth century—a religion for all men, all ages—a religion that could not fail to produce real moral lives, and prove man's religious belief by his daily acts; as the essence of the change would consist in the substitution of “acts” for faith—acts inevit- able, once men are trained to understand God and His ways; and a pure religion would be engendered in the minds of all, once they were brought into intelligent communion with the Creator, through comprehending His wishes by a knowledge of His works. “Oh let my converse, Lord, with Thee, From bonds of error set me free. Let the enlight'ning of my mind Remove the shades that keep me bliud. Grant me the pow'r, the right to see, To love the good, who follow Thee.” How MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. - 155 Men are immoral because they are misled when beginning life's journey; and the facts are so contrary to the dogmas, that the most earnest-minded and true amongst, them, unable to conscientiously say they believe, simply because it is orthodox and proper so to do, become indifferent or sceptical, for no other reason than that Orthodoxy, with its inconsistencies, is the stumbling-block, instead of being the ladder to help them. To remedy this most unsatisfactory state of things, I have advocated teaching man his own constitution, and its relation to external nature, thereby enhancing his estimation of his own being; and, by showing him the wise and just laws of his Creator, once more get him to have faith in, and reverence for, the Supreme Being, who has arranged all things so thoughtfully for his happiness here in this life, that, if man would but be so guided by his reason and moral nature, in his last moments he might say with Thierry, “There is some- thing in the world better than sensual enjoyments, better than fortune, better than health itself; it is devotion to knowledge; it is devotion to truth.” It is an awful thing to reflect upon, that thousands of our young men are drifting into indifferentism or scep- ticism, because the clergy will not boldly face the difficulty, discard tenets they must know to be not really tenable, and preach upon God's works and His laws; instead of which, unless you accept the Bible as a stand-point, they refuse to argue with you, regard you as lost, and take no pains to save you, unless in their own way. Hence we are not religious—we are not moral. We spend money to convert Hindoos, Chinese, Japanese, &c., to what we call religion, when, as regards religious zeal and feeling, they have double what We have; they may want guidance, but there is abundance of it. Behold their sacrifices and self-tortures, to please their idols. Their religion is their all. They are honest; their silks, tea, &c., are as recommended. Our religion bends to our other faculties; their other faculties bend to their religion. Ours is on the surface—a Sunday coat, which we seldom wear; theirs is their under-garment. Much of ours is shallow pretension, based on policy and selfishness; theirs their heart's core. “To make men more moral,” we must at once reverse the teaching of the different Christian sects. “The 156 * MORALITY, spirit must be shown to be above the letter, and professions of belief be disbelieved, unless the men prove their opinions by the lives that come out of them.” Even mental narrowness, bad as it is, is preferable to the moral falsehood of our day. We want, must have, more reality, more moral earnestness of purpose, keeping active that instinctive honour throughout society that would make men and women shun with shame and contempt—aye, with loathing—many of those who, by the accident of birth or their wealth, have the entrée to the best Society, spite of their immoralities. As Carlyle observes, we must “look straight through the clothes at the real man within.” Not what men have, but how they have got it, and what they do with it, must be society’s test of a man’s worth. Let hero worship in all forms be but a dwelling on the strength each one has within himself to be what he seldom is. In Mr. Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King,” the king is the king within the human breast, and the whole work is a beautiful allegory of the subordination of our passions and our powers to the voice of duty. To all I say: Do the duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a duty; thy second duty will already have become clearer. I think it was Dr. Johnson who said, you cannot give people “understanding.” Has any real, systematic effort ever yet been made in the world’s history to stimulate, excite, and move into activity the latent, inherent power of man’s mind 2 On the contrary, every effort has been, and is, made to keep it smothered. For instance, the old theory was, and still is, with those who will not use their brains and eyes, that “we cannot help dying when death comes.” The new idea, founded on a knowledge of man and nature, is, that death never comes, unless when summoned by vio- lated laws, till old age folds us up gradually in a natural and therefore pleasurable decline, after we have no more desire for life or dread of death. Can any one doubt that if those who have assumed so long to speak as if inspired by God, had been qualified to act as God’s representatives, they would not have demonstrated to man that his glorious privilege and imperious duty was to preserve his health, and have awakened his understanding by showing the HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 157 importance of studying the laws of health, and making the obeying of them a matter of conscience, so that being unwell would be regarded and known to be guilt, and lead to repentance and reform 2 What a different world it would be if health, physical, mental, and moral, was regarded as the highest business and duty of life We want the “natural” in all to supersede the “un- natural; ” we want men to know that the greatest pleasure is in returning from transgression to obedience; that all misery here results wholly and solely from violation of Nature's laws. We were intended to be happy here; if we are not, it is because we are disregarding God's laws and living in opposition to Him, and are miserable in consequence, and we can only be happy by removing the cause—disobedience. Many people argue that men's habits are not to be altered by books. In my opinion, the “right book at the right time” is the very thing needed for diverting the mind from an evil tendency to the good, giving ballast and compass to steady, and properly direct the barque of life in safety through the many rocks that surround it. The opinion is general that we must all learn by that expensive, painful teacher, Experience; and that the only knowledge of any value is what one pays for. Quite true, to a certain point; and no one would censure more than myself the pernicious teaching that would lead the young to doubt their fellow-men, and thereby sap the hope of youth in what the future has in store for them. I would rather help to sustain the san- guine spirit; still, I think it wiser to prepare all for, and thereby lessen the shock of, the realities of this world. But, properly taught, there is no need to kill that attribute of all higher souls, true romance—the test of having which is, that it has outlived our youth, indestructible even by the commonplaces, the mean- nesses, the degrading estimate of our motives made by the world or the little-souled, or of those who have not the courage to show that they are greater souled. “The proper study of mankind is man,” “Rnow thyself,” has been told us for ages; nevertheless, of himself man knows least. And no creature presents such an anomalous appearance as man. 158 MORALITY, Viewed in one aspect—inventing torpedoes, delighting in blowing thousands into eternity—he resembles a demon; in his works of charity, his discoveries in science, and his vast combinations for the benefit of his race, he seems a bright intelligence from Heaven. To make him hold the place he should—his powers entitle him to—his intelligence must be awakened to the many and varied evidences of the existence of a Deity, by inciting him to contem- plate the various arrangements or laws, and the Inode in which He governs the world. We must put aside theology, creeds, miracles, fall, atonement, and appeal to man's moral and religious faculties by the “truths” that Nature teaches. Man has faculties given him by his Creator to observe phenomena, to trace causes and effects; and the external world affords scope to these powers. We are entitled, therefore, to say that we are commanded by Divine authority to observe and inquire into the causes that operate in us and around us, and into the results that naturally follow, and to alter and modify our opinions and conduct according to the discoveries which we shall make. While ignorant, man is a helpless creature; but every step in knowledge is accompanied by an augmentation of his command over his own condition. For example, much of our progress during the last half-century has been mainly due to the development of the railway system. All the other vast developments of the power of steam, all the develop- ments of manufacturing, commercial, and mining industry, would have availed but little for the prosperity of the country without those means of internal communication furnished by the locomotive engine to railways brought into use by George Stephenson. Comfort and happiness, prosperity and plenty, have been brought to every one of us by this discovery; and are we not justified in advocating that man should exert his powers to understand and use all the forces of Nature to assist our toil, and alleviate, remedy, and remove material discomfort 7 The following is from Hennell’s “Christian Theism,” p. 23, second edition : “In some steam-engines the steam, after having performed its office of raising and depressing the piston, passes into the condenser and becomes cold water, which, being in this state no HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 159 \ longer fit for the purpose of the engine, is again, by means of pipes, conveyed into the boiler to be converted into steam. That all this is the effect of design, we are so fully convinced by the very sight of it, that, were the designer to stand visibly before us and de- clare it was his contrivance, we would not be more certain of the fact of design. Now, in the human body, the arterial blood, after having supplied nourishment to the various glands, becomes unfit for further use, and is, by a system of veins, carried back to the heart—that very part which, by a connection with the lungs, contains a provision for reconverting it into arterial blood. Accord- ingly, as similar causes produce similar effects, the circumstances which compel us to infer a mental agency in the former case do so cqually powerfully in the latter.” There are men who argue that for men's moral well-being, if it be a question between scientific progress or the death of faith, the arrest of science would be the lesser evil of the two. They say, society can exist without more knowledge, but take away faith, and you snap the mainspring in the clock- work of life. Others argue that all are Atheists who do not subscribe to their exploded dogmas; they ignore Theists—be- lievers in the God of Abraham, Moses, and Christ, the one uni- versal Father and Creator. If true religion means sincere venera- tion of God, implicit trust in Him, where will you find truer religion than among Theists 2 Can there be a higher or more noble idea than Christ's, “God is a Spirit, to be worshipped in spirit and in truth” 2 Theism, based on natural laws, simply substitutes rational real faith for the imaginary—gives us the substance instead of the shadow. Teach man to study Nature, and learn her laws. Appeal to his higher senses, his intellectual and moral facultics; and bid him draw his conclusions only from the mighty works of creation—in the vastness, harmony, and beauty of which—in the inflexible, never-varying, and beneficent laws that govern which, he feels, he hears, he sees God . If you ask me, “How men are to become moral 7” I reply, it is simple enough : Let them take as their Bible “Nature; ” study God’s Word in His works, as in these He declares His existence, His 160 * ~ MORALITY, character, and His will, in language which all mankind can under- stand, and which none can falsify. So, with all due respect, I suggest the superiority, to make men moral, good men, of the Book of Nature over Tevelation. Nature, the study of which teaches the existence of God, shows us His character, and is the only reliable revelation given by God to man—a revela- tion capable of proof; for there can be no doubt how God governs the universe, and it can be shown beyond a doubt that only by the knowledge and observance of the laws of Nature can man’s condition be ameliorated, and his moral con- dition improved. It appears to me that we owe our freedom not to theologians, but to the brave few who here and there have lived in advance of their age, more especially since the sixteenth century, when the grey dawn of moral and scientific knowledge commenced to dispel the superstitious darkness in which the whole of Europe was enveloped. The time has now come to ask the clergy of all denominations to be the ally, not the foé, of progress—to rise above the narrow-souled, intolerant views, still too manifest if they had the power, of olden times; and let bickering, divisions into innumerable sects brimful of animosity against each other, be things of the past. And their new mission—the gospel of the nineteenth century—should be to give correct views of the Deity, and teach men to “ have faith in the laws of God,” and by facts, stubborn facts, prove to men the wisdom of obedience to laws, ex- plaining in everything God’s justness and perfection, that, seeing in the proper light this Being of infinite goodness and purity, man would, must, bend the knee not in mere ceremony and form, but in real homage and worship of God. As to men being Atheists, it is a disgrace to religious teaching if there be such persons. Tell all men, Cast thine eyes about thee; look at the surrounding World, revealing the existence, the wisdom, the glory, the goodness of thy Creator Open the Book of Nature, and read thereinſ IIere wilt thou find and learn everything that thou canst want, or wish to know. Here canst thou contemplate the power, wisdom, and benignity, not of Three Gods in One, but of the One true f{OW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 161 Deity, and learn to love, adore, and glorify Him. Nature's book is much easier to be understood by the meanest capacity than the Book of Christian Revelation. It can be read without know- ledge of Greek idiom or Hebrew points. No portion of it has been, or can be, forged, counterfeited, interpolated, altered, or lost. It requires neither to be transcribed nor translated. It is an everlasting original, written in a universal language, which all mankind can read and understand; and it reveals to man every- thing that he is capable of comprehending. We can learn the attributes of the Eternal First Cause—the Creator and Governor of the universe—from the Book of Nature. Blind is the man who cannot perceive in Nature abundant evidence of the existence of an infinite, intelligent First Cause—of an eternal God. Every- thing in the universe teaches this great truth, from the most evanescent star in the remotest region of space to the meanest glowworm on the road-side; from the sun in the firmament down to the smallest particle of matter that floats in the air; from the largest being in animal creation to the most imperceptible animalcule. Everything in the skies above and in the earth beneath suggests to man a knowledge of the Unseen, and would inspire the mind with love of and a desire to obey Him, if, being properly instructed, he understood God’s laws, and was led to perceive that the whole universe is governed on a principle in which justice and benevolence are the leading features. Surely such a course of training is better adapted to make us “better men,” and inspire us with love of the Creator, than the Christian doctrine which logically teaches us that God has created and does govern all things for the selfish purpose of His own glory. You may take this as a truism, “Whatever is productive of real happiness, God commands us to do ; ” and “Whatever causes pain and misery, He forbids us to do.” He has made our happi- ness the consequence of our obedience, and our misery the result of our disobedience to His laws. This is as apparent in every act of each individual throughout life, as if He had told each of us His manner of rule. Therefore I ask you at once, and for ever to ºcease relying on the miraculous interposition of Providence, 11 162 - 1MORAfiſ'ſ Y, and only have faith in the laws of God; and learn, at last, if thou lovest thine own happiness, and art anxious to really worship God, to study the natural laws—the laws by which the Creator of the universe governs the world we live in. Once you know, you will obey them; and put aside all ideas of the Creator based upon the old beliefs, and rely on what you observe in creation for your knowledge of Him. Gaze at Nature's operations more thoughtfully and earnestly than thou hast done, and learn what you can of her ways. You have been endowed with faculties admirably adapted to understand sur- rounding objects, to take cognizance of their respective properties and laws, and of utilizing and turning them to your advantage, gratification, and happiness. The soil on which thou treadest has a thousand capabilities which require only man's understanding and exertions to yield innumerable comforts. You are subject to the physical, organic, and moral laws, which thou hast only to understand and obey to secure happiness. All laws are uni- versal, invariable, and unbending in their operations, and act independently of each other. Obedience to either is attended with its own reward ; disobedience, with its own punishment. Under the physical and organic laws, fire, excessive heat or cold, destroys the organization of the most pious saint, as well as that of the most impenitent sinner; of the new-born babe, who has never transgressed any moral law, as of the most hardened criminal of seventy years. To use Mr. George Combe's happy illus- tration, in that excellent work, “The Constitution of Man,”, we may frequently find the crew of a ship who obey the physical laws, although they rob, murder, and blaspheme, and commit every species of moral vice on board, yet bring their vessel in safety to its destimation ; while the crew of another ship, who disregard the physical laws in the management of their vessel, but who are, nevertheless, strictly ºnoral, nay, most religiously disposed, still sink in the ocean, and are thus punished for their disregard of the physical laws, notwithstanding their rigorous observance of the moral laws. A proper explanation by the clergy from the pulpit, so that the people would understand this “independent’’ opera- How MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 163 tion of Nature's laws, would do more good to mankind than any Sermon ever yet preached. It is the essential thing needed to let the people understand “why the bad people seem to pass through life without suffering, and prosper, whilst the pious are afflicted, and fail to make their way.” Give the people the key to this enigma—cause and effect. Each gets what he deserves; as we sow, we reap. There is no reward without observance; no punishment unless you disobey a law. But remember, above all, you cannot enjoy “moral fruit” from “physical seed,” or “physical fruit” from “moral seed,” but of cach you always get what you deserve; and from one set of laws you will get naught directly through the observance of other laws. If the most moral or righteous person, by mistake, swallows poison, and destroys the stomach or in- testines, thus violating the organic law, the result is death; or if he takes only a small portion of this poison, so as only in a slight degree to infringe this law, he is, in ea-act proportion to his degree of offence, proportionately punished with sickness, pain, and languor; while another man, who cheats, lies, steals, and tramples upon all the moral laws, but who, nevertheless, obeys the Organic laws, reaps the reward of health—vigour of body and buoyancy of spirit. On the other hand, a man who disregards the moral laws—who lies, who steals, and who murders—suffers pains from remorse of conscience, from being shunned and despised by Society, from imprisonment and its concomitant chastisement, and sometimes from the punishment of death itself; while another man, who scrupulously observes the moral laws, enjoys all the internal delights which spring from the due exercise of his moral faculties, and the benefits which follow from the general esteem and confidence of society. Thus does the Potentate of the universe govern men by the fixed, universal, invariable, and just laws of Nature, obedience to each of which is attended with its own reward—the happiness of the man ; and disobedience thereto, by its own punishment—pain and misery to the transgressor. He has bestowed a definite constitution on physical nature, and on man, as well as on the lower animals, and has placed all of them under the regulation of fixed laws, so that every mode of action 164 MORALITY, is inherent in the constitution of each being, and, under the same conditions, is universal and invariable. The punishment which attends disobedience to the organic law is immediate. The Creator has established a monitor in every sensitive nerve of our frames, whose warning increases in intensity with the degree of danger, punishing the individual in proportion as he has infringed. The effect instantly and invariably follows its proximate cause, and is definite, being proportionate to the degree of violation; and is benevolent in its design, being admirably calculated to arrest the offender in his departure from the laws, which departure, if permitted to proceed to its natural termination, would involve him in tenfold greater miseries. What a contrast there is in such ideas of God’s government of the world, to those of theologians, who can only explain, or rather excuse, what seems to their mistaken ideas irregularities here, by telling men these will be righted hereafter | Punishment has for its principal object the “reformation ” of the offender. Can a punishment which is inflicted long after the offence, which is indefinite in degree and duration—nay, which, by some accounts, is to be infinite and ever- lasting, and has for its object the utter destruction, the eternal damnation of the offender, be for that offender's welfare, or have any benevolent object 7 Is it such as any father, however unmerciful, would subject his children to ? Is it such that the Creator, knowing the difficulties which surround us all, from the acts of those who have preceded us, and who are round about us—a Creator, who, in every law, is seen to be actuated by justice— could inflict, “no matter what the offence might be f* I have no hesitation in denouncing eternal punishment, alike from its malevolent design, vengeful character, and cruel effect, to be utterly at variance with all we know of God, whose works show too much beneficence to justify the belief any longer by man of such an extreme punishment, for, after all, more or less, His dependent creatures. The minute descriptions of hell torments in Baxter's “Saints' Everlasting Rest,” the Rev. T. Boston’s “ Human Na- ture in its Fourfold State,” &c., are revolting, and can only be excused as the offspring of diseased imaginations. HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL, 165 Such teachings have led to disbeliefs, being repugnant to all men with intellectual perception or a high degree of moral emotion. No man who will think for himself can believe that a just God will be so cruel as to punish eternally by far the greater number of the human race for having a sinful nature. Turn, I beseech you, from this and other horrid dogmas of theologians to the works of God in nature: therein we see nothing which indicates eternal punish- ment. Here, the punishment for the violation of God’s law is temporary, and designed to reform the offender; here, all the works of the Creator are impressed with infinite benevolence; here, the human race, from age to age, is progressing in know- ledge, virtue, and happiness; here, the boundless scenes of grandeur and sublimity which surround us are calculated to fill our minds with delight, and make us rapturously admire the har- monious and beautiful designs of the whole scheme of the uni- verse ; here, we can perceive that Infinite Wisdom has adapted every cause to the production of its proper effect, and that Almighty Power has carried the design into execution. Can you doubt that such teaching as this would fail to make men more moral 7 Compare for a moment the result of the two modes of thought upon the human mind | The old idea, cramping the mind with its prohibitions and threats, teaching men to pray to Provi- dence for help when in trouble; that to understand the ways of God is beyond our power, God’s ways being inscrutable to man; whilst the new idea sets the mind free to inquire, makes it an im- perative duty that man should observe and think, should ascertain and manifest his allegiance and homage to the Supreme IRuler by his obedience, and, instead of asking for help in trouble, tells him to ascertain by the power inherent within him the cause, and remove it; so that natural religion, intelligent theism, makes man think of Mendelssohn's Hymn of Praise: “Let all that hath life and breath sing to the Lord.” Such a gospel would make all men adore the Creator; whilst the thought of eternal torment can only, has only, made man dread Him as an “All-powerful Tormentor,” akin to the wretches who, in the name of religion, conceived and had part in the “Holy Inquisition l’ You will perceive that the two ideas 166 - Monary. are utterly conflicting, irreconcilable. In the words of Christ, “Those who are not with us, are against us.” The question is too serious to admit of any compromise. Theology rests on one hypo- thesis; morality and religion, I maintain, on the other. Both cannot be right; which is wrong 2 Each man must judge for himself; but, remember, “Nature never errs,” and “cannot be false.” And do believe me, that the more you know of the laws of creation, the more you will reverence their originator, and see how impossible it is to conceive that the beauties of the universe were meant simply to tantalize us, when contrasted with so much of human sorrow and misery. You have been kept in darkness. Let the flood of light once shine upon your soul; once understand \ Nature as she is, and her laws, you will perceive all misery is for our own errors, and inflicted in mercy to make us pause and avoid the wrong path. You will find the Creator to be infinitely bene- volent, and not inconsistently cruel. Think for a moment what man has endured in the past, suffers in the present; and the innate grandeur of his nature, the inherent vitality within him to struggle onward to the light, becomes apparent to us. He has progressed, has had faith, not through being told of his degraded nature as a child of the Devil and heir of eternal damnation, but in spite of such statements. He has realized in his daily life the boundless. munificence of God's works, and the mass have not really believed that God, their God, would or could ever deal so malignantly with them. No | As His beneficence is manifest throughout nature, so is His goodness to man, a part of nature, displayed in all the laws of Nature, admirably calculated as they are to ensure his happiness. Let us have done, then, at once and for ever, with the barbarous doctrine of eternal damnation; and, instead thereof, study man, and train him to learn and understand the laws of his Creator, and prove to him that by these laws he is punished or rewarded adequately for every violation or observance thereof. The modern idea is in harmony with reason, with the indications of Nature, with the character of God, who, if He has destined man to live in another world, has also ordained that he should enjoy all the good, all the pleasure and happiness, his nature is capable of whilst in this. How MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 167 Many of the diseases of old have vanished in our time before medical science. What has been done for the body, must be done for the mind. The clergy, hitherto entrusted with the “cure of souls,” have been the “blind leading the blind;” shutting their eyes to the plain every-day life about them, more especially if the facts brought under their notice seemed antagonistic to what they considered divine revelation. The first step in improving man is to have prescriptions by men competent to judge what ails him. The mind of man needs balancing, needs proper direction, needs stimulating and sustaining. Men must be taught to know themselves by teachers who under- stand “them.” To raise mankind, to rid society of the horrible revelations in every day’s paper of man's immorality, of the loath- some vice that meets one at all hours in every street, needs a real living faith, a belief in a God, from contemplation of His works, and a reverence and adoration for One so immensely their superior. We want acts that will show that men have a belief in God, mani- fested by the daily lives of all classes in the State, the Church, the shop, the home. We want the substance, “reality; ” not the “shadows” of forms and ceremonies that men have been pursu- ing; which have narrowed the range and crushed the power of thought, made men’s minds sick and feeble, that would be elastic with vigour in a better atmosphere. The way to progress is step by step. Burke truly says, “If we would have a perfect state, we must form perfect citizens. With- out concurrence and adaptation of these to the design, the very best of speculative projects may miscarry.” - “God has conceded two sights to a man : One of man's whole work, time’s completed plan; The other of the minute’s work, man’s first Step to the plan’s completion.”—BROWNING. We look on the far hills towards which we direct our course, but observe chiefly the road we travel. Unless we do so, we fall into the ditch, or run our heads against a wall. For all success in life, whether in dealing with the commonest details of trade or with the higher interests of man, we need both the far sight and the º 168 * MORALITY, near. It is not by fashioning anew the outside of our social man that we shall change its structure. To do that we must deal with its elements; begin by taking away every hindrance to the de- velopment of a true moral life in each ; and value more highly the education of life, as, if each one has his own life to raise, he has also daily opportunities of aiding or impeding others in the struggles of their lives. “To be wisely worldly, and not worldly wise,” copy Wordsworth, who took as his standard the best man he knew or had read of, who had actually lived and worked out for himself the problem of a lifetime to the highest sense of duty; and he said, looking at such a man— “I could not but inquire, Not with less interest than heretofore, But greater, though with spirit more subdued, Why is this glorious creature to be found One only in ten thousand P What one is, Why may not millions be P What bars are set By Nature in the way of such a hope P Our animal appetites and daily wants, Are these obstructions insurmountable P If not, then others vanish into air.” The first step to the realization of an ideal few understood at the time of Wordsworth, but which has become the master thought of English life and literature in the nineteenth century, is for the clergy of all denominations to teach, as Mr. Dale truly says George Dawson did, and to insist on, the every-day duties of life, and give moral teaching in the most practical and effective form, calling all things plainly by name, with no mental reserva- tion. Denounce all shams, all hypocrisy, adulterations, combina- tions, or any efforts to enable men to charge their customers more profit than they are honestly entitled to ; teach them, trade may be “morally ” carried on, and it is as unwise as it is dishonest to lie, deceive, or overcharge; that fraudulent promoters, however rich, or lazy directors, however “good their intentions,” if by means of their names the public are fleeced and ruined, are scoundrels; that life has other duties than to think only of dress and jewellery, din. ners and parties, or the fashionable vanities of the day. Speak HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL, 169 out, so that men of business will know what you mean by honest trading and living within their income; speak clearly, so that all may understand the intention and meaning of your lessons. Do not be satisfied in asking men to be unselfish ; attack the selfish- ness that evades doing aught that is unpleasant or unprofitable. Moral teaching, to be strong, to be effective—and it must be earnest, to do any good—must, as George Dawson says, “be derived from the firmness of your convictions that the laws which govern human life are not to be evaded; that they assert their authority with relentless severity; that it is of no use to try to cheat them ; that they have no pity; that we must obey them, or else suffer the consequences of our disobedience.” He insisted with a frequency, an earnestness, and an energy which showed the depth of his own sense of the importance of this part of his teaching, that what a man sows he must also reap, no matter though he has sown ignorantly or carelessly; that the facts of the physical and moral universe have a stern reality; and that, if we refuse to learn and to recognize the facts, the best intentions are unavailing. The iron girder must be strong enough to bear the weight that is put upon it, or else it will give way; no matter whether the girder is meant to support the roof of a railway station or the floor of a church, or the gallery of a theatre. Hard work is necessary for success in business; and the man who works hardest, other things being equal, is most likely to succeed, whether he be a saint or a sinner. A lie, no matter whether a man has persuaded himself that he is doing right in telling it, is a lie still ; and sooner or later a lie will come home to the man that tells it. The facts of the universe are steadfast, and not to be changed by human fancies or follies; the laws of the universe are relentless, and will not relax in the presence of human weakness, or give way under the pressure of human passion and force. It cannot be too often told all people that they must get at the real facts, must shape their lives according to the actual laws, or they must suffer. No matter though you are sincerely convinced that protection to native industry will secure commercial prosperity, you must abolish protective duties, or the industry of the nation will be 170 - MORALITY, repressed. No matter though you have a most devout and con- scientious belief that by mere praying you can save a town from typhoid fever; if the drainage is bad, and the water foul, praying will never save the town from typhoid. No matter how deep and strong your faith that you will get on in business by merely reading the Bible, and teaching in a Sunday-school, and holding a right religious creed; you will soon be in the Bankruptcy Court, unless you avoid bad debts, unless you are punctual, unless you are industrious, and unless you keep your shelves clear of dead stock. You cannot make a universe for yourself out of your own head. Water drowns, fire burns, whether you like it or not. The conditions of human life are fixed; it is of no use arguing against them; it is of no use to complain of them. You must confess the authority of moral laws; whether you confess their authority or not, you will suffer for breaking them. You must respect the reality of facts; whether you respect it or not, the facts will remain. It should be our first business to discover the laws, and to learn how the facts stand. It must be imperatively enforced on the young that rules are only to assist them in their observations and inductions; and all teaching is useless that has not for its primary object teaching the student to observe and think for himself. “Nature, and Nature’s laws, lay hid in night; God said, ‘Let Newton be l’ and all was light.”—Pope. “That virtue only makes our bliss below, And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know.”—Ibid. As iron, when it has been smelted and purified, gradually wrought and refined by hammering, may be converted into all sorts of vessels, so also would mankind, if taught the way of moral progress from the beginning, learn to observe, and their minds be gradually freed from all impurity; and if they sedulously exert themselves, in time they may elevate themselves into intelli- gent, moral creatures. But as a laden ox that has fallen into a slough, in spite of all weariness, struggles out to one or the other side, without ever thinking of rest, so must a right-minded man labour for nothing but to be free of his imperfections, and avert from himself the pains thereof. HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL, 171 Parents are the best trainers. If we wish to command the course of a stream, we must trace it to its source—receive it as it issues from the womb of the mountain, ere it be- comes swollen into uncontrollable dimensions, and rushes impe- tuously onward to the ocean. It is not enough to begin at school, and throw the burden of physical regeneration on the teachers. The work must commence at home. Parents must be indoctrinated into its absolute necessity, as an incumbent duty which God im- poses upon them. They must take their children at birth, and bring to bear upon them all the beneficent influences which science and experience reveal, and continue the process through life. They should instruct them early in the laws of their being, and enforce the necessity of strict obedience to these laws, and of the advantages to be derived from personal discipline being rigidly practised at all periods of life, and under all conditions. There is no other way; and it would be done if parents were but taught to see the importance of carrying out the principles for the physical, moral, and intellectual improvement of their children. For instance, you have a boy of a thoracic temperament, prone naturally to violent exercises, one of those wild, unruly boys we so often hear of from parents, comparatively averse to mental occupation, to whom school and lessons are a great trouble. We will assume that the parents, soon after birth, were aware of this; can any one doubt but, by a judicious and persevering superintendence, and by gradually and proportionally extending the latter, and withdrawing the incentives to the former, a very beneficial change may, there is every reason to believe, be ultimately accomplished 2 And, again, the encephalic boy, with weak chest and muscles, may in time, by withdrawing the incentives to, and opportunities of, too much mental exercise, and by a properly regulated gymnastic training and muscular czertion in the open air, be greatly improved in bodily vigour, and yet retain his mental powers undiminished, if not improved. And, lastly, the abdominal boy, whose belly is his god, may, by proper regulation of diet, and mental and bodily exercise, be brought within the pale of humanity; whereas, if left to himself, animal indulgence and mental sloth would be his portion for life. 172 - MORALITY, An individual who has a capacious and fully-developed chest, whatever may be his mental qualifications, is not fitted for a seden- tary occupation, where he would be much confined. His large lungs and vigorous circulation would cause a restless longing for a more active sphere of labour, which, if not gratified, would pro- bably terminate in disgust for the office. How many youths get sent home in disgrace because of this Yet parents do not see the folly of trying to thwart Nature, but blame their sons for being obstinate, or being discharged for carelessness, because they will not give their minds to the duties of the office. Once draw the attention of parents to the importance of this subject, they will soon perceive, by the stamp of Nature, that a sedentary occupation was altogether at variance with the tastes, inclinations, and happi- ness of a person so constituted, and they would find for such temperaments pursuits more in accordance with their dispositions, usefulness, and likelihood of success. There can be no doubt that nine-tenths of the failings in life may be traced to disregarding, by parents, of this law of Nature. That, put in the right way, parents would soon carry out these suggestions, no one can doubt. Love of offspring is strong in human nature; although it is sad to think that, for want of proper training, at present they turn their young out upon the World to encounter its difficulties, helpless and unprepared, although they must see they have not the strong instinct of the lower animals to look after and take care of themselves. We may all agree, I think, that any faculty, alike of mind and body, may be improved by cultivation, and may deteriorate through neglect ; also, that every faculty is normally good, but liable to perversion. Therefore there cannot be a better plan than impressing upon all that “every faculty of the human mind is susceptible of being improved by judicious culture.” Not only is this principle of the greatest practical importance, but its stimu- lating value is inestimable, affording as it does opportunity and encouragement to every one (and all of us have more or less need of improvement); and especially should it be clearly explained and impressed upon those who have marked and embarrassing defi- ciencies of character. It is only applying to the mind through its HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 173 organ, the brain, or to a faculty of the mind through its special organ, the same means we make use of to strengthen the arm or increase the flexibility of the fingers—“properly adapted exercises.” The improvement of man does not imply the extinction of any faculty or the creation of new faculties, but “the development and training of all existing mental powers.” The means by which each faculty may be strengthened if too weak, or restrained if too active or influential, will be found fully explained in “How to Read Character,” by S. R. Wells; also in “Phrenology, and How to Use it,” and “The Skull and Brain, and How to Read Character,” by Nicholas Morgan. But do not forget that you must learn to observe for yourself, and to place your reliance and belief on the teaching of Nature, rather than on fallible, though wise and good men. The arrangement of the various organs of the brain in groups furnishes a beautiful illustration of that perfect adaptation of means to end, which characterizes all the works of God. The place of every organ of body and brain is just that which best fits it for its special function; and grouped around it for its support, and for co-operation with it in action, are those organs most closely related to it in function. Unfortunately, with phrenology, people have imagined they had only to read Combe's admirable work, “System of Phrenology,” and buy a shilling bust, and they under- stood the greatest science extant. They read medical books, yet always consult a physician; but the majority have had the pre- sumption to manipulate heads, and give TIIEIR “ phrenological ‘’ indication of character, and, erring in their delineation, have brought the science into contempt and ridicule. Another point has been—“Size, other things being equal, is the measure of power.” Whenever the subject of phrenology is dis- cussed, its advocates are told of numerous instances where Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so have done great things, yet had little heads; and what a fool Mr. So-and-so is, yet look at his massive head, big forehead, &c. But to get a true estimate of character, requires the trained brain to understand the qualifying clause, “other things being equal.” The “other things” which modify this law in the 174 MORALITY, case of the brain are certain physiological conditions, such as temperament, quality, health, respiration, circulation, digestion, activity, excitability, and balance or harmony. All states of the body affect the mind. A lancet will restore a man from delirium to clear thought ; excess of thought will waste his sinews; excess of muscular exercise will deaden thought ; an emotion will double the strength of the muscles ; and at last the prick of a needle or a grain of mineral will in an instant lay to rest for ever the body and its unity, and all the spontaneous activities of intel- ligence, feeling, and action with which that compound organism was charged. Thus, from the summit of spiritual life to the base of corporeal life, whether we pass up or down the gamut of human forces, there runs one organic correlation and sympathy of parts, with a connection as visible as when we see a muscle acting on a bone, or the brain affected by the supply of blood. Of this fact phrenology defies contradiction: The strong thoughts which have moved the world have not been sent forth among men through the agency of weak, sickly bodies, or small brains. The motive-power of muscle and of brain is the same. We can no more write, study, or think energetically and effec- tively when sick than we can wield the axe, the sledge-hammer, or the scythe. Animal power is not mind, but it is something which mind requires in this life for its manifestations. Memory, reason, eloquence, poetry, philosophy, and even morality are affected by disease. A disordered body involves disordered or weakened mental manifestations. Napoleon I., Wellington, Bismarck, and all men in every walk of life who stand pre-eminent in their pro- fessions above their fellows, do so because they have more brains —that is, more mental power—but, above all, they have those nicely-balanced “all the parts working together ” kind of brains, that indicate “the Sound mind in a sound body.” If my reader will think well over the following, I leave his choice between the teachings of natural laws on the one hand, and revealed religion on the other, upon their merits, to his decision. No better evidence of the power of man to remedy and remove the ills that flesh is heir to can be had than the “diminished rate of HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL, 175 mortality in England.” We will compare the Registrar-General's report of 1877 with that of 1780—nearly 100 years since—when, according to Mr. Rickman, the annual deaths were 25 to the 1,000; in 1877, the quarter's rate ending Michaelmas was 17.1 per 1,000 for the United Kingdom; so that in 100 years the rate of mortality, by increased medical and sanitary knowledge, has been reduced one-third ; that is to say, by observation, and using the powers God has given him, man lives, in the aggregate, one- third longer than he did 100 years ago. The plague used to be ascribed to an inscrutable decree of Providence, or as punishment for the nation’s moral iniquities. Fever and ague, up to the early part of the nineteenth century, killed a very large number of people in the country. The clergy and the people, who at that time believed unquestioningly, considered these frightful sources of misery and death as inherent in the constitution of things— visitations of Providence. But, mark this well: after an improved system of drainage was established, and the numerous pools of stagnant water formerly left between the ridges of the fields were removed—after dung-hills were carried to a distance from the doors, and the houses were made more spacious and commodious, every symptom of ague and marsh fever disappeared. In other words, as soon as man removed the cause the effect disappeared. When he left off infringing the organic laws, through exercising his intellectual and muscular powers, the consequences of that infringement ceased. Who is correct—the clergy in describing the misery and death that had been going on for centuries as “God’s work; ” or we, who say, “All this misery was owing to man’s not using the powers given him by his Creator?” The laws of health and of disease have been learnt mainly from observ- ation of the individual animal frame. That poisonous gases are destructive to life, and that typhoid germs are better kept out of water, we all know ; and if we will not attend, why, the failing health and the death-stroke in the family will inevitably follow, more or less closely upon the breach of sanitary law. And I say, the clergy ought to blame the people—if only to clear God in their eyes—instead of praying to God to remove disease and death from 176 MORALITY, our midst, and thereby inferentially blaming the Creator instead of man. For example, if in 1877 the infant death-rate of Wigan is shown by statistics to be about “three º’ times as high as that of Rochdale, and that of Liverpool and Leicester to be higher still than Wigan, who can doubt but that there is something wrong either in the habits of the people or in their surroundings, and that it is the duty of the local or imperial authorities to investigate, dis- cover, and get rid of the effect by removing the cause? How little attention “health * receives | Who thinks of telling the young that “many people die daily for want of breath,” their own carelessness alone preventing them from breathing 2 If we only half breathe—and many scarcely do that—we only half live. Teach the young, at home and at school, to expand their chests, and thereby increase their breathing power. By expanding the chest, life may be prolonged, and health and beauty promoted. To cultivate breathing power and expand the chest, practise the following exercise : Stand erect, throw the shoulders back, and then breathe slowly, freely, and deeply, filling the lungs to their wtmost capacity at every inspiration. Do this several times a day, in the open air, if practicable, and if not, in a well-ventilated room. You will be well rewarded. Copious breathing promotes the pro- cess of digestion, and strengthens the digestive organs as well as the lungs; and good blood is the result of pure food properly assimilated, and fully oaygenated by the copious breathing of pure air, and it is the office of the heart to propel the blood through the system. From the blood are made muscle, nerve, and brain. If the blood be good, these are strong, healthy, and efficient. If the blood be poor, or charged with impurities, the structure built up by it will be weak and disordered; for “the blood is the life thereof.” You will therefore perceive how essential it is for the most efficient action of the faculties that all the developments of the body and brain, and all the physiological conditions of both, be well balanced; that there be no marked excesses or deficiencies; and in estimating the influence of the body upon the mind in any given case, we must not only consider its individual developments and conditions, but the proportions and relative activity and power of HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 177 i each. When all act together harmoniously, “the effective strength of each is increased; while, on the other hand, lack of balance or harmony impedes the action of all.” There are means of stimulating and restraining all the facul- ties, and every unduly-developed propensity should be early sub- jected to hygienic regimen, and the restraining influences of the aspiring and governing intellectual faculties and the moral senti- ments. These may all be cultivated, and gain the controlling power, if man will but make use of the means God has placed within his reach. One of the most important points is for man to remember that he should “ eat to live, rather than live to eat.” Gluttony, drunkenness, tobacco, and all unnatural stimulants, lead to disease, suffering, and premature death. There is no restraint to be relied on against a too strong appetite for drink but to abstain wholly from all beverages except water, and culti- vate the higher faculties—a love of literature, art, and nature, or whatever has a refining and elevating tendency, and especially keep active the moral sentiments. Locking men up, limiting the number of public-houses, granting Permissive Bills, may palliate, but will never cure or extirpate this great curse. Work upon man’s “love of approbation;” rouse his desire to excel and be esteemed; stimulate the love of praise, ambition, affability, and politeness. The desire to please others, by making strenuous efforts to restrain our passions and selfishness, is, as Mr. Combe calls it, “the drill-master of society.” But we must also cultivate self-esteem to inspire self-respect, self-reliance, pride of character, also con- Scientiousness; so that doing, or trying to do, what is right, you will be above caring what people say about you, and have less fear of “Mrs. Grundy.” Esteem yourself as a man so highly as to scorn every mean action. By care you will find yourself restrained from doing wrong or forming improper connections, by an over- whelming sense of the degradation which would result from doing so. When self-esteem is deficient, the individual has no reliance upon himself; and if censured by his superiors, it keeps him in the background, through diffidence of his own judgment. Inferior talents, combined with strong self-esteem, are often crowned with - 12 178 - Morality. far higher success than more splendid abilities and feeble self. esteem. Remember you are men and women, and leading honest, truthful, earnest lives; learn to hold up your head in any com- pany; but you must correct too high estimates of yourselves by the exercise of your reason and the help of phrenology. If you decide on studying phrenology (or, in fact, anything else), begin at the right place—at the beginning; and, having begun rightly, proceed step by step according to the natural sequence of the points to be considered. “Order is Heaven's first law;” and by means of method we make simple and easy what, at first sight, seems complicated and difficult. The brain, or shape of one's head, like the features, is constantly changing. If one improves by study or the practice of an art, or if, from inaction, one deterio- rates, it will soon tell on both brain and character, altering the shape of the head. Self-knowledge has been considered by all wise men, in all ages, the most important and useful of knowledge. Phrenology is the best guide I know of, that enables us to measure our own capacity, to ascertain our strong and our weak points, to learn what sins most easily beset us, and what course to pursue to guard against them and promote virtue, purity, and holiness; how to cultivate the faculties which are deficient or inactive, and how to restrain or control excessive or perverted action. We can, only “make men more moral,” by knowing ourselves aright; we can then set about the work of self-improvement understandingly, and with the best prospects of full success. What folly can be greater than that of applying the same sort of discipline and mode of culture to all children alike The only true education is developing the better faculties, and, by proper discipline, bringing the lower into subordination to the higher, the moral and religious sentiments reigning supreme. In choosing: a pursuit, again, the fact is entirely overlooked or disregarded, that some persons are fitted for one thing and some for another. A few there are who can do almost anything fairly well; but the majority, for their success and happiness, require that their ten- dencies, tastes, and capacities be considered. If this were done, instead of making a poor preacher, an indifferent lawyer, or a EIOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 179 blundering doctor, of a youth, we should follow the boy's own natural predilections, and make him what Nature intended him for— a first-rate mechanic, engineer, or man of business. All very well, if true, you say. Well, truth is always safe, and every truth is con- sistent with other truths. It is error that is dangerous, and sub- versive of morality and religion. If phrenology be false, it can lead to nothing in the end but to the confusion of its supporters and to a merited oblivion; but if it be true, and if, as some assert, materialism follows as a logical deduction from its facts, then, of course, materialism is true, and phrenology would be no more re- sponsible for its existence than chemistry or astronomy is. “It simply makes it known.” Phrenology declares that mind, in this mortal, life, and while linked to matter, is manifested through the brain. What the mind or soul itself is, no one knows, or, in this world, will ever know. Phrenology does not support, but disproves Fatal- ism. Briefly, it teaches that it has found mind in this life connected with matter, and subject, so far as its manifesta- tions are concerned, to certain organic laws. It also recognizes within the limits of its organization; and as an element in the un- alterable laws of life, the freedom of the will, and a consequent personal responsibility. We are not responsible for our being. We are born into this world, made dependent while here upon material organs for our ability to act, and rendered liable to the accidents which happen, to matter, and to the final death of the body. In their arrangement we had no voice—no freedom to choose when or where we would be born, or how we would be endowed in the matter of body and brain; and therefore can have no responsibility, so far as they are concerned. “But there has been bestowed upon us, or rather made a part of our mental constitution, a sense of right and wrong, and with it the power to choose be- tween good and evil, to rise or to fall, to improve or deteriorate; and here we are responsible, not for our facultics, but for the use we make of them.” In the autobiography of Harriet Martineau we read of the gradual movement of a curiously courageous, honest, and in- 180 MORALITY, quiring mind—one, too, singularly earnest in tone and religious in temperament—from positive belief to equally “positive philo- sophy.” She was first shaken by the necessarian doctrine, then altogether upset by a strong impression of the deep selfishness and almost shocking notions of God which appeared to lie at the root of the whole scheme of damnation and redemption embodied in the popular creed—an impression by no means uncommon with those who either approach Christianity from the outside, or eventually get outside of it. The whole theory is in contradiction to what we know of God by His works, and is utterly revolting to the moral sentiments and justness. Miss Martineau says: “I was very religious (far beyond the knowledge and intentions of my parents) till I was quite grown up. I do not know what I should have done without my faith, for I was an unhealthy and most unhappy child, and had no other resource ; yet it used to strike me often, and most painfully, that whatever relief and comfort my religion gave to my feelings, it did not help me much against my faults. Certainly, my belief in a future life never was either check or stimulus to me in the matter of self- government.” She left off prayer (as practised by the orthodox), from its inutility, and keen sense, from this point of view, of its impiety, and considered the theologian’s idea of prayer to be very different to what Christ meant by prayer. And next : “I saw very painfully (I mean with the pain of disgust) how much lower a thing it is to lead even the loftiest life from a regard to the will or mind of any other being, than from a natural working out of our own powers.” X- Mr. Carlyle, in every utterance of his long life, has upheld above all others this principle: the reality of the man; the true life within ; every situation occupied by man has its duty; rise above “Thou must be born again; ” and realize that, in the actual body wherein thy mind has its habitation, there, or nowhere, is thy ideal; and it must be worked out therefrom ; believe, live and be free. Fool l thy ideal is in thyself; the impediment, too, is in thyself. Thy condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same ideal out of. What matter whether such stuff be of How MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 181 this sort or that, so the form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? Thou that persist in the imprisonment of the actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth, “The thing thou seekest is already with thce, here or nowhere, couldst thou only see.” - Tennyson’s “In Memoriam ” lifts heavenward the conception of individual development, and through that the development of the whole race of man. George Eliot's principal aim is to teach “that each should labour to be his best self, and strive toward the highest life he knows.” You will find in her novels the two types—the weaker nature, that feels the retarding influence of all the friction on the road of life, that is wearied by the daily hindrances, or is drawn aside by daily temptation to the by-paths of apparent ease and pleasure; and there is the resolved soul, that looks straight at the duty to be done, and is carried on by an enthusiasm for its ideal. The sum of the small hindrances and temptations to swerve from the straight upward way, represents a much greater force than is in any one grand difficulty to be overcome. A man may gird his loins for battle with a giant, and feel himself a hero in the fight, whose whole purpose in life may be slain by the smile or shrug of a companion, or fade away in the distraction of the petty hindrances that are about him from day to day. In “Adam Bede,” Dinah Morris is a poor Methodist girl, touched with a pure and genuine enthusiasm for the realizing of the Christian life. It is the noble picture of a soul's striving towards its highest known ideal, and all the accessories are in accord with the design to set forth this. Tito Melema, in “Romola,” is a capital example of the other type—the fair face and ſlexible mind, evading what is painful, and so, as such men do, from little cowardly evasions of the trouble men must bear, he passes, step by step, into the way of falsehood. Romola's union with this type of man was a failure; she flies from her husband, but is met by Savonarola (a noble type of what a pricst should be), who bids her return to Florence and fulfil every duty of life, welcome or un- welcome. Nobly she does her duty; and at the close of the book, 182 - MORALITY. we see her triumphant over passion, tender and self-denying, rich in blessings of the poor and plague-smitten, to whom she has been as a pure spirit of help and mercy. She becomes the centre of a home based only upon Christian self-denial; an angel of help to the children who are Tito's, but not hers, and to their simple mother. The priest, here, had done his duty—“taught her for what she lived,” “to bear toil and pain, not as wretched under it, not as wanting to be pitied or admired, but from the highest sense of duty; resolved upon self-denial, submission to God's will, and acting or refraining in all things as conscience and social wisdom requires, putting aside every personal feeling that stands in the way of any act of duty upon the performance of which the happi- ness of others may depend.” “By so doing we best secure our own.” Throughout all George Eliot's writings are examples that “the weaker must be strengthened by the strong, whose duty it is to sustain not only their own lives, but bear the weight also of the weaker lives about them.” “There is no manner of inconvenience in having a pattern pro- pounded to us of so great perfection as is above our reach to attain to; and there may be great advantages in it. The way to excel in any kind is to propose the brightest and most perfect examples to our imitation. No man can write after too perfect and good a copy; and though he can never reach the perfection of it, yet he is likely to learn more than by one less perfect. He that aims at the heavens, which yet he is sure to come short of, is like to shoot higher than he that aims at a mark within his reach.”—TILLOTson. “Men are very seldom disappointed, except when their desires are immoderate, or when they suffer their passions to overpower their reason, and dwell upon delightful scenes of future honours, power, or riches, till they mistake probabilities for certainties, or wild wishes for rational expectations. If such men, when they awake from these voluntary dreams, find the pleasing phantom vanish away, what can they blame but their own folly?”—DR. JoHNSON. • - We have all got our bread to earn, and, if we cannot get it one way, must get it another. But train all to get it honestly, HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 183 and let us have the right principles to work upon. Every living being taken in hand at the right time would, and could, be made better than he is. It will take time, but it is imperative that the work be begun, and the mass of people be no longer left as they are. Strenuous efforts are needed to counteract their vicious tendencies. This will be best done by rousing and stimulating into healthy ac- tivity their intellectual and moral faculties. My advice to every one having a strong tendency to drink, or vice, or vicious habits of any kind, is to take up some hobby or intellectual pursuit or study. The concentration of your mind thereon will alienate the thoughts from the vice, and check the action of the animal pro- pensity; whilst the intellect and moral sentiment, becoming stronger from increased activity, will give you strength to combat and control the desire of the lower part of your nature. It is a great truism that “the devil always finds mischief for idle hands to do.” Such careers as Kurr's, Benson's, and the cheque-forgers in Chicago, who adopted the plan of procuring genuine drafts and cheques for small amounts, and carefully obliterated the same by chemical agencies, and filled in larger sums—similar to what has been done before, but not on such a large scale—show the necessity of mankind being more explicitly and positively taught that “honesty is the best policy.” What a different world this would be if this old-fashioned idea could be impressed universally on the human mind and understanding, and the brain-power and skill of these men were trained to benefit, instead of being wasted in carrying out schemes by which Society is imposed upon; let alone the immense saving to society, if the energy, thought, and money now spent in protecting ourselves from these rogues, were diverted and devoted to productive channels I cannot help thinking that want of proper training has to do with the wasted lives of men endowed with such intelligent perceptions; as, if proper means were taken at the right time, no class of men would see more clearly the terrible odds which are arrayed against them, and that the feeble organization of a few men who seek to prey upon society must inevitably break down sooner or later. The confidence which they endeavour to undermine for their own 184 MORALITY. especial benefit is absolutely essential to the business of the world, which could not be carried on without it; and they know—must know, or could be made to know—that the whole strength of society will, must, in self-defence, when necessary, be put forth to crush them. I shall be told, it is because these men are not religious. I reply, it is because these men have not been taught social and moral science, and the unerring action of God’s laws. There is no system yet extant that impresses on youth that the world is what we make it, and that there is in it more pleasure and happiness than misery and pain. “Oh call not this a vale of tears, A world of care and sorrow; One half the grief that o'er us comes, From self we often borrow. The earth is beautiful and good: How long will man mistake it P The folly is within ourselves— The world is what we make it.* We want a different basis to found good, healthy, true lives upon, that will teach men to have faith in themselves and in God’s laws; and every living being should be thoroughly impressed with the belief that— .“Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small : Though with patience He stands waiting, With eacactness grinds He all.” Men tell me, if it were not for the hopes of a hereafter, life would be unendurable; without the fear of punishment hereafter, they should lead a life of “pleasure.” I say, unhesitatingly and positively, that if theology can do no more for man than pro- duce such ideas, the necessity is imperative for a different mode of making him purer and better. Teach man life is not a curse, but a blessing, if he will but observe and obey the laws of his organization; that for every act of obedience or of goodness he * A good moral song, “The World is what we Make it,” published by Simpson and Co., 33, Argyll-street. HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL, 185 , is rewarded exactly in proportion to his deserts whilst in this world, and for every deviation from those laws, for every immoral thought or act, he will receive a corresponding punishment. To many minds hard facts are very unpleasant, and the idea of a loving Father listening to their prayers for help and giving them aid, is far more attractive. But we must take things as they are, and I would suggest that the worst of scepticism may be, the ignoring and denying the realities of God’s intentions and wishes, now the time has come for mankind to understand them. Properly understood, the law idea is wisest, and the most equit- able; and in advocating the law theory, we recognize as tho- roughly as any believer in revelation, as inherent in man, and needing regular exercise, the spirit of devotion, of spiritual com- munion with an ever-present Power, of fellowship and sympathy with the living world, of awe and submission toward the material world, and yield to no sect in the sense of adoration, love, resig- nation to the Creator. If you give the matter the least thought, worship, based on the solid reality of facts, must be more real and more intense than any to he had of “intelligent beings” by one based on mystery and miracles. The latter idea has done its work, and must give way to the former, which alone is capable of Satis- fying man’s reason, appeals to his highest sensibilities, and is alone capable of reaching to the heights and depths of the spiritual life. * What if earth Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein Each to other like more than on earth is thought?”—MILTON. Religion, and its elements in emotion, attachment, veneration, love, are as old exactly as human nature. They moved the first men and the first women. They have found a hundred objects to inspire them, and have bowed to a great variety of powers. They were in full force long before theology was, and before the rise of Christianity ; and it would be strange, indeed, if this should cease with the decline of either. It is not the emotional elements of religion which fail us; for these, with the growing goodness of mankind, are gaining in purity and strength. Rather, it is the 186 MORALITY, intellectual elements of religion which are conspicuously at fault, We need to-day, not the faculty of worship (that is ever fresh in the heart), but a clearer vision of the Power we should worship. Look at the issue calmly, dispassionately. You will be told, we do not promise “the hope of a better life beyond the grave.” There seems to us no reason for it; the miseries of this world being of our own creation, and the remedies being within our reach. But, on the other hand, if we do not give the “hope” of a better, we utterly repudiate the idea of an “infernal life” beyond the grave, not only because of its inhumanity and cruelty, but as being entirely antagonistic to what we can judge of God by His works. “There is no surer test " of God or man. Contrast the God of evolution and development with the God of miracles and of special providence, the God of natural with the God of re- vealed religion. As to the moral beauty of Christ's life, I yield to no one in admiration thereof, but emphatically deny that He is to be held responsible for the myths which overlay His teaching, or the theology built by others upon His reputa- tion. Believe me, they try to frighten you when they talk of the increase of “Atheists;” it is the largely-increasing numbers every year of “Theists” the clergy dread ; so, if a man expresses openly His doubts as to a dogma, they try modern excommunication and denounce him as an Atheist. But we want to make friends, not foes; to work together for the common weal; so earnestly and anxiously ask the clergy to examine their citadel, and, in repairing all weak and doubtful parts, to use truth only as their cement for the whole. No equivocation or sophistry will avail; they must open their eyes to the fact that the day has come when untenable dogmas and superstitious creeds will no longer be tolerated. Many of the clergy are superior to the creed to which they, in their immature youth, were induced to subscribe, and smart under the sense of being compelled to preach doctrines which their conscience and their common sense tell them to be untrue; but they should be brave enough to quit such a life of moral falsehood, and boldly stand forth and resolve to teach nothing but that for which they can give a satisfactory reason, and thereby gain once more for the HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL. 187 clergy the respect and esteem of the inquiring, educated men of their day. - The power of a nation depends on the brain-power of its people—their power, from proper training, to act correctly in all things, so as to produce the maximum of result from the mini- mum of outlay; the power to understand and think in all emergencies what had best be done, and the will to do it. The moral to be deduced from this theory is that freedom is a better School, even in a military point of view, than the most martial of despotisms, because it develops intelligence and the power of self-help. In the war with Turkey, Russia was weakened not only by the vastness of her loosely-knit territory and the meagreness of her railway system, but by her despotic institutions, which may train men to be obedient, but it is at the expense of those qualities which make men assert them- selves. This prevented her, and will prevent her, making use of her great latent strength. It was not men that Russia wanted, but more man, to borrow Lowell's phrase. The same as regards the commanders alike of the Russian and Turkish armies: the welfare of the army is sacrificed to the éclat of the ruling family. When necessity demands that affairs be put into the hands of the most competent men, all the amour propre of the commander rises in revolt, and he will struggle on, supported by the ruling powers, in the hope of regaining his supremacy by his own talents, till ruin is at hand, or has actually begun. Previous consultation and long consideration can provide the most incom- petent commander-in-chief with a good plan of campaign, which shall run smooth enough as long as the programme is followed, but the moment unforeseen events demand new combinations, your commander by divine right goes off the track. It is the same with the clergy. Year by year they are fighting “a forlorn hope” against the advancing line of positive thought, and they must feel, year by year, more demoralized when they reflect on their false position. What they teach of Providence, His mysteries and miracles, is flatly contradicted by man's daily experience. Men still go through the form of 188 - MORALITY prayer called the Litany, but men, in reality, rely on their actions for getting the needed result. The belief in all effects being the result of certain causes, is steadily increasing, and the thought- ful men are strong enough now to act in defiance of popular credulity, and the theological narrowness of mind which begets uncharitableness instead of Christian kindness, censure instead of forbearance. No man need fear that old tyrant, public opinion, if he has right on his side. Those who will investigate are plentiful enough, and have moral courage enough, to support those who do what they think is right. We want the clergy of all denominations to unite in striving to , make mankind better; that is, to think more of impressing men with the right notion of what is right and what is wrong / “Men are not honest, men are not virtuous.” Men practise expediency, and few living are equal to a life based upon principle, or are pre- pared to act up to, and accept the consequences of living up to, their convictions. I have faith in God’s laws. I have the greatest faith in the immutability, invariable operation of His laws; im- plicitly trust and believe in the doctrine, “that as we sow, we shall reap,” and “that a man must always put the grain in the ground before he can cut the harvest.” I am not advocating senti- mentality, but a practical, common-sense life, based upon know. ledge and morality, as being not only the higher, and therefore the better life, but, being wiser and purer, must necessarily, from the inevitable action of God’s laws, be the happier and more pro- fitable. The basis of the structure needs no other standard than the constant stimulus of man's conscience as to what is right and what is wrong in his daily life. To effect this, religious and moral teachers must know human nature, theoretically and practically, better than they do. What is virtue and what is vice, what is right and what is wrong, all men may be made capable of com- prehending; or, if incapable, what becomes of his rationality, his “responsibility ?” Practically, we find he is “responsible.” There is no doubt about the matter; no use any longer in frightening people about future punishments; now it can be proved that man suffers in this world for every Wrong action—every departure from, HOW MEN MAY BECOME MORAL 189 or disobedience to, the laws of God. You may say, he errs because of his ignorance of these laws. I reply thereto, that by a little attention he can observe, and has intelligence enough to under- stand, and should be reverent and sensible enough to obey them. If he will not act as a rational creature, will yield to his animal desires and instincts, he must pay the penalty of his wilfulness and neglect. All men should be taught to use to the utmost the advantages they possess, naturally, by culture or by inheritance. The most pitiable sight in this world are the members of the so-called “upper class.” Carlyle writes of such men: “You ask him, at the year's end, “Where is your three hundred thousand pounds; what have you realized to us with that ?” He answers, in indignant surprise, ‘Done with it 2 Who are you that ask? I have eaten it; I and my flunkeys, and parasites, and slaves, two-footed and four- footed, in an ornamental manner; and I am here alive by it; I am realized by it to you !” Alas! is there no noble work for this man, too? Has he not thick-headed, ignorant boors; lazy, enslaved farmers; weedy lands? Lands ! Has he not weary, heavy-laden ploughers of land; immortal souls of men, ploughing, ditching, day-drudging, bare of back, empty of stomach, nigh desperate of heart; and none peaceably to help them but he under heaven?” Yes, indeed, there is plenty of noble work for such men to do, if they would only do it. At the end of their journey, how their consciences must reproach them as to “all that thou mightest have been, all that thou mightest have done !” With all their advantages, they wreck their lives for want of the one thing needful—the secret of being happy by aiming at Something higher than the mere gratification of the moment—and lead an aimless, useless life—a life of frivolity; no object in view, no desire or craving after the good, the true, or the beautiful. I care not how regular at church or chapel a man or woman may be, whether the position be the highest or the lowest in the State, it is the office of moral and spiritual teachers to have the moral courage to tell all that they must do the duty of their station; nay, more, to allow a grief to crush us, or use it as a pretext for keeping 190 MORALITY. . . away from the duties incidental to our positions, should be repri- manded. The truth should be spoken by clergymen as to the actions of the members of the Church, without fear or paltering therewith. I f - No man lives up to his ideal; therefore it is imperative that the ideal set before men be of an elevating character, as the loftier the ideal the higher the reality will be ; and, on the contrary, the lower the ideal the more degrading the actual result. Make the future hope a social activity, and we give to the present life a social ideal. Let it be recognized, not that all men are born utterly depraved and in sin, but that parents, by making self- improvement the business of their lives, persistently striving to improve their physical power and mental faculties, and abstaining from everything calculated to act adversely thereto, may improve the constitution and mental and moral condition of their children, the symmetry and comeliness of their forms, and the quality and configuration of their brains. . - “He whose knowledge surpasses his good deeds may be com- pared to a tree with many branches and a scanty root; but he whose good deeds exceed his knowledge, may be compared to a tree with fewer branches and strong roots: if all the hurricanes in the world should come and storm against it, they could not move it from its place.” “The great will not regard as poverty the low estate of that man who abides with equity.” 4 “For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds; And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.”—CoNGREVE. “They who trust God the Almighty, build on no sand.” “Have faith in the laws of God.” CONCLUDING REMARKs, 191 CONCLUDING REMARKS. “All this with indigmation I have hurl’d At the pretending parts of this proud world, Who, swoll’n with selfish vanity, devise False freedoms, formal cheats, and holy lies, Over their fellow fools to tyrannize.”—RocIIESTER. “All falso pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any coun- terfeit last long.”—CICERO. “Men are required who can feel that it is high honour done them for God, and a special mark of His favour to have been selected to stand up- right and steadfast in His cause, dignified with the defence of truth and public liberty.”—MILTON. THAT men are not moral, is beyond a doubt. My desire has been to show that the result is mainly attributable to the error of trying to make men religious, by giving them ideas of the God they ought to revere and worship, based on human systems founded on a wrong premiss: hence we have theological and sectarian doctrine given forth as a divinely inspired revelation, instead of a “religion” founded upon the knowledge of God's will by His works, and its reality manifested by the higher life of its members, compared with that of the non-members. Any religious system that fails to meet man’s wants, that lacks the power of stimulating and keeping active his moral nature, of inducing the desire to know the Creator's wishes, and, by reverently obeying His laws, manifest his worship of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, is false, and not from God. * . . The past is irrevocable; let us begin at once, and so prepare a better future for those who will follow us, striving with all honesty of purpose to do our best, and learning by the errors of the past what that best is. At the present time too much is trusted to “examinations,” which are not, and never can be, a real test I92 MORALITY, of man’s capacity—the man with plenty of assurance, and who has been well “crammed,” beating and pushing aside the more diffident and thoughtful, but less ready competitor. The same remark applies to prizes at School. It is a mistake—the mistake of our entire system. We tempt people to be industrious for the såke of prizes at school, material comfort, and prosperity in life; and to be good, with prospect of heaven after death. The idea to implant is the great and sacred one of “duty”—an idea ignored at home, at school, and in actual life. Impressing on youths and on men that they should be industrious, honest, moral beings from a sense of duty, would, in time, obliterate the evil custom of regarding the prospect of reward and honour as the chief impulse to industry and frugality. To make men better, it is imperative we show them the wisdom of being good, the want of wisdom in being bad, To develop their understanding, we must by degrees get them to observe and think about the works of God. They must then learn to appreciate God, and be free from doubt on the one hand, or childish Super- stition on the other, thus we gradually raise them above the tawdry details of ritual, the wearisome inanity of legend, the impossibility of miracle; and substitute faith in God's laws, the knowledge of which will be their best safeguard against immorality on the one hand, or suffering from those ills we have been told so long “flesh is heir to" on the other; and so, through Nature, we lead man to God, developing and giving legitimate exercise for the religiousness of his nature. The religious life will then become a reality, built on the sure foundation of facts, “daily acts,” and not mere expressions of belief, or pretended faith, or self-infliction of hunger and dirt, that we read of in the lives of saints, which would be hideous if they were not so pitiable. Be men; live your life bravely, cheerfully; do what is right; love all men, and fear none; do to others as you would be done by ; then rise higher to self- denial, self-sacrifice. - It may seem easier to go along on the beaten tracks by the finger-posts, nothing doubting; but it is our duty to learn God’s laws, and obey them ; to work, and try with all our CONCLUDING REMARKS. 193 strength to make our lives as good and true as they can be made. The stage might be made a powerful moral lever. See Mr. Irving in the Lyons Mail, representing two men, so like, yet so unlike—Dubosc and Lesurques. Contrast the wretched, anxious, fear-haunting life of the one, who had dis- graced his manhood and become, a slave to his animal nature, with the calm serenity of the other, a truthful, honest, good man, who, even whilst being led to the scaffold to suffer for the other man's crimes, was content to leave his character to be cleared by God in His own time and way. Purify men's thoughts; raise the tone of their desires; elevate their aspirations ; teach them self- help, and to feel ashamed of being helped; raise the code of honour in every class, so that all would feel that the man who shirks his work, or takes a day’s pay, and only does half a day’s work, is a “thief,” as much as if he had picked his master's pocket. People talk of so much per hour—what would it matter if they asked treble the amount per hour? It is not the rate of wages, it is the amount of work you get done for the money, is the point. High wages they might have, if they would but give an equivalent amount of work in return. The curse of our time is the belief that, by scheming how to idle the day away, they make work, and so benefit their class; and the great evil is keeping down the good men to the level of the bad, instead of trying to raise the worse to be equal to the better. The great want of the masses, nay, of all men—and a want easily supplied if earnestly undertaken—is the knowledge of the doctrine of Nature, “a cause for every effect; ” and all men have intelligence enough, if pro- perly appealed to, to get at the “cause of their troubles.” We want them taught to feel the dignity of labour, of self-help, of self- advancement. We want men imbued with loftier ideas of their own nature, and to understand that the greatest happiness to be had here is by acting in conformity to the principles of justice and morality. Once elevate their ideas, the people will soon perceive, and deplore, or perhaps execrate, their present follies. It is only by raising them out of themselves, by teaching them self-denial, that they will abhor their present grovelling tastes and habits. 13 194 - MORALITY, All men need to be freed from the ignorance incidental to the narrow class feeling, selfishness, of our time. The fee marked upon a barrister's brief is, in theory, not a payment for his services, but a free gift; but, practically, it is payment for a certain duty; and I ask, is it “honest” to keep the fee when the work for which it was paid is not performed ? There can be no objection to the manufacture of an article which contains one part of black silk and six parts of black dye, nor to its use for any purpose for which it is really applicable. The “immorality” consists in giving the stuff a name derived from the ingredient it contains the least of, and selling as “silk ’’ what is a union of silk. and dye. The “fraud" is in selling the dye under the name of the framework; and it is this “false pretence” in all adulterations which needs the action of the law to restrain it. By the adul- teration of seeds a farmer, in paying sixty shillings per bushel for turnip seed, gets half killed or spurious seed, and is defrauded of one-half the value of the seed he purchases. For this gross fraud—worse than any burglary or highway robbery—the “law” fines the villains five pounds for each summons, and five guineas costs. Shoddy cloth, shoddy silk, we have been long familiar with; but this adulteration of seeds, and killing the germinating power, so as to prevent the fraud being detected, as its growth would disclose the worthless character of the seed, shows how widely this cursed system is spreading—only to be stopped by elevating men above such practices. But, in the meantime, it is the duty of the law to treat such “thieves” as it does other thieves, or worse; as such acts are not only fraudulent so far as the customer is concerned, but inflict damage on the country at large, by the great blow it gives to agriculture. The “killed” seed produces nothing, and farmer and consumer suffer, that a few knaves may gain. This offence should be visited by the heaviest penalties for “robbery” the law has power to enforce. To make men morally superior to these villainous practices will be difficult; but is there a nobler one, is there one better suited to those who have adopted the care of souls as their special duty, than to raise man's self-respect, so that he will strive to be nearer the giant Nature intended him for, * CONCLUDING REMARKS. . 195 than the pigmy he is Such a cause is worthy of any effort; and the clergy must at once fell the people to cease any longer to accept the degradation of any class as the inevitable doom of fate OI’ fortune; that submission thereto is a sin, not a virtue, but childish, despicable, and cowardly. I appeal to all men, of every class, to be ambitious of knowledge, of wisdom, of all that lifts their life above its baser parts. Try to feel that, in so far as the mind’s functions go, you will endeavour, to the utmost of your power, to be no one's inferior; and, believing every man to be the architect of his own fortunes, that, in so far as the fashioning of your own existence is concerned, it shall be in accordance with God's laws, and fair to look upon; nothing to shame the gifts from God, or your fellow-creatures ; above all, that nothing has been done to lower your own self-respect and humble you. Be the healthy-minded, inquisitive, knowledge-loving man, ever a good worker at what thou hast to do, and an example to others about you. We need, to make men “moral,” a teaching that will draw out the true, rather than force in a false nature. Men do not gather grapes of thorns, or expect fruit without seed, or results in any- thing except themselves without previous efforts. We want, must have, a different culture. The clergy must wake to the fact that something besides sermons are required of them ; and their sermons must be such as will lead men, through Nature, to God. At present we have a God too often preached whose heaven is a dome of lead, whose rule is a rod of iron, and whose Gospel is not a message of glad tidings, but a system of unnatural repres- sions, an abnegation of all healthy instincts, and a clipping of the wings of every matural joy. Much of the fiery declamation we used to hear so much of is downright blasphemy. What a tyrant they make their God; and how cxultingly they gloat in their descriptions of God's punishments, as if He were the Devil incarnate; instead of drawing a God of justice and forcthought, of love and wisdom, as manifested in all IIis works! Banish all dogmas, and return to Christianity. Teach man to realize in its intensity the conception of the Universal Father, and 196 MORALITY, let his soul become possessed by the idea of establishing on earth the kingdom of Heaven; a human brotherhood, the members of which should be united by bonds of filial and fraternal love, and by allegiance to their invisible King. This conception of the universal Fatherhood of God, irrespective of race or creed, with its corollary of brotherhood of men, has changed, and is destined still further to change, the aspect of the world. At its commence- ment, it was like the wind from Heaven, breathing new life into the withered bones of Judaism ; while to the Gentiles, groaning under the triple yoke of Superstition, despotism, and slavery, it brought the unutterable sense of deliverance which justified the rapturous exclamation of the apostle, “Old things have passed away; behold ! all things have become new.” - Ideas, however, are subject to the law which modifies living organisms—viz., that between them and their environment there is perpetual interaction. Accordingly, Christianity, introduced into a pagan world, became in a measure paganized; and so rigidly did this process proceed after its elevation to the imperial throne, that, after the lapse of a few centuries, we behold in the Papacy a marvellous spectacle, a travesty of the grand conception of Jesus—all civilized nations bound into a living unity, not by allegiance to their invisible King, but to an earthly potentate, who claimed to be His vicegerent. The Roman Catholic Church was, in fact, a vast ecclesiastical empire, wielding immense power over the nations. “The Pope and his army of ecclesiastics,” to quote the words of a recent historian, “held in his hand the string by which to influence the politics of Europe.” The contrast between the religion of Jesus and the worldly spirit of the Papacy, is strikingly illustrated in the famous pamphlet of caricature, published in 1521, by Lucas Cranach, and characterized by Luther as “A Good Book for the Laity.” On the first page was pourtrayed Jesus arrayed in simple raiment; on the page opposite, Pope, cardinals and bishops, assuming lordship over kings; on another page appeared Jesus washing His disciples’ feet, in contrast to the Pope presenting his toe to an emperor to be kissed ; Jesus driving the money-changers out of CONCLUDING REMARKS. r 197 the temple, was contrasted with the Pope selling indulgences, with piles of money before him; and so on, through the entire life of Jesus. The study of the literature of the sixteenth century enables us to understand and to sympathize with the burning indignation which quickened the religious zeal of Luther and his brother reformers, in their revolt against the Papacy. Through their heroic efforts, Christianity was redeemed in a large measure from the degrading influence of sacerdotalism, from the worship of the Virgin, the mass, and other pagan superstitions. But, unfortunately, in re- moving their allegiance from the infallible Church, the Teformers clung with all the more tenacity to the Bible, as the infallible Word of God; and attaching themselves to the letter rather than to the spirit of Scripture, they, in fact, intensified the antagonism be- tween science and religion, which had, unfortunately, characterized the ancient Church. Another fatal error of the evangelical system is the tendency to exalt faith at the expense of reason and conscience, by attaching special importance to those doctrines, such as eternal torment and vicarious satisfaction, which are most revolting to the common sense, and also to the common conscience of mankind. To these and kindred doctrines embodied in the ancient creeds, the Reformers and their followers cling with passionate vehemence; and if we would trace to their source the so-called sceptical tendencies of the age, we must, I believe, take into account, not merely the recent freaks of Ultramon- tanism and the works of advanced thinkers, but also the popular doctrines of orthodoxy. A momentous change is, however, at hand. Hitherto the majority of mankind have accepted their religious belief on external authority, that either of the Bible or the Church. But in the light of modern criticism it is discovered that no authority is infallible—that the claims alike of inspiration and tradition must be brought before the bar of reason and conscience, and that upon their verdict the decision as to the true and the good must ulti- mately rest. “The crisis,” it has been truly said, “though terrific to feeble hearts, fills the strong with hope.” It renews itself from 108 - MORALITY. age to age, scattering to the winds all inadequate conceptions, all dogmas and doctrines out of harmony with the truth of things, and which have lost their hold upon the living spirit of the times. The creeds must undergo a transformation in harmony with the spirit of the age. In many quarters they wear already a wan and ghost-like aspect, and some of the fiercest dogmas, such as the eternity of hell fire, will ere long be regarded as traditions of the past. In support of this assertion I will quote the following words from a discourse published recently by a clergyman of the English Church : “The thought is too horrible, the blasphemy too re- pulsive to dwell upon, the popular creed too unchristian, to be calmly borne with, only men do not believe this creed ; we are, happily, better than our creeds.” “The human heart,” he proceeds, “is too much for us, and refuses to harbour so monstrous a blasphemy; we may repeat the belief with our lips, but the heart loathes and rejects it.” At this crisis in the world's history, it appears to me to be an object of paramount importance that a just conception should be formed of the spiritual goal towards which humanity is tending, in order that the partisans of progress may be enabled, amid the shifting eddies and currents of opinion, to steer their course in the right direction. Now, the fundamental truth of religion, as embodied in the utterance of Jesus, “Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect,” appears to be this: That it is given to man not only to apprehend the existence of God, as an objec- tive reality, but also, through the combined action of reason and conscience, to discern His moral attributes. The Supreme Being becomes the proper object of our religious affections, conscious harmony with whom constitutes man's highest well-being; or, to quote the words of our venerable prophet of the nineteenth cen- tury, “The universe is not dead, but God-like and our Father’s.” A firm hold upon this fundamental truth appears to me to be the one thing needful to calm the unrestfulness of the age ; to curb its materialistic tendencies; to impart nobleness and dignity to life; and to stimulate the efforts of the wise and good to build up humanity into a holy temple, in which God may dwell by His CONCLUDING REMARKS. 199 Spirit. The grand utterance of the Hebrew Sage, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength,” constitutes now, as of old, the fundamental law of life, upon the fulfilment of which depends the highest well-being alike of individuals and communities. - w What is wanted is a more intense realization of the Divine presence. Instruct men as to Nature's laws, explain their wonderful Workings, their independent and invariable operation, and so bring their spirits to feel an unswerving loyalty to the unseen Author of the wonderful reality seen and unseen round about us, and they must love the Lord God with their whole souls. But the human intellect must be freed from the ban placed upon it alike by our orthodox and Catholic brethren. By the dethronement of reason religion has been withdrawn from wide domains of thought and life to the neglect of those wider aspects of faith and duty which can alone bring it into harmony with the requirements of the age. - *. Voltaire, and others of the same type, who only pulled down, deserve censure; as, to justify any one in undermining the popular or national creed, it is imperative before destroying, that we build up a better and truer system, one which will inspire mankind with as true and deep a religion as the orthodox did when its efforts were apparent in the lives of men, and showed that theirs was a real and not a formal belief. I feel the responsibility I have undertaken, but have every faith in advocating the religion of Nature for man's moral amelioration and religious development; and in trying to place some little shoot of divine truth within the mind of my readers, I am content to leave it there until, like the sacred peepul tree planted by the porch of the Hindu temple, it shall silently grow, strengthen, and at last, by the unconscious force of its own life, undermine, and drag down, stone by stone, the worn-out and now useless fabric. - There is no stronger principle in the human soul than loyalty, the sentiment of allegiance to what is higher than our- selves. Hence, the Supreme importance of giving prominence to 200 MORALITY. the grand conception of Jesus, of God’s kingdom upon earth as the ideal towards the realization of which we are invited to be fellow-workers with God himself. The establishment and main- tenance of God’s kingdom involve the knowledge and observance of the laws which He has implanted in the constitution of the universe, alike in the domain of Nature and of life. In the light of this grand ideal, the whole range of human activity would be glorified, and the service of God be transmuted into the service of man. The scientific discoverer, the sociologist, the statesman, the philanthropist, each in his sphere would feel that he was striving to enter into the counsels of the Eternal, and to propound His laws for the guidance of humanity. Even the humblest efforts of duty would be irradiated by the consciousness of Divine approval and sympathy; and thus all our aspirations and endeavours would tend to the realization of the grand ideal embodied in the poet's words— “Come, kingdom of our God! And make the broad earth thine; Stretch o'er her land and isles the rod That flowers with grace divine. Soon may all lands be blest With fruit from life's glad tree, And in its shade like brothers rest Sons of one Family.” - Such conceptions, regularly infused into us, would in time make men very different to the sordid money and position-desiring creatures they have become. They love and worship money, and to get it bully their inferiors, are servile to their superiors, and take advantage of all those who foolishly confide in them. They keep a steady eye on their own interests, and refuse to think of anything else. They have come to love nothing but gold—gold—gold ! that terrible metal which in their hands is omnipotent for evil and impotent for good, which withers their hearts with the dullest of dyes to the dreariest of lusts. “Give me neither poverty nor riches,” said King David; and he was right. - Stick to your profession or business, but do not let the one or the other absorb you; as professional or business men who allow themselves no leisure and have no resources out of their business CONCLUDING REMARKS. 201 or profession, are apt—nay, must, degenerate into money grub- bers, and ultimately be beaten in the race by those others who advance with and are equal to the times. Tact is useless without integrity. Cynicism is not philosophy, and has produced the cold-blooded egotists of our day, who dream of nothing but self-aggrandisement, and call themselves men of the world; and deserve the title in its most ignoble sense, as they do not possess a sympathy or generous feeling in common with the World they profess to represent. Beware of such cynics, or they will make you think the world is full of seeming; and you will be inclined to doubt, distrust the open hand, the frank smile, the candid speech, and suspect them as the cunning masks treachery can assume at will. Worship moral goodness, self-denial, self- sacrifice; and regard such men, and intellectual men, as the true nobility of Nature, whose names are interwoven with the annals of the World, while the titled shadows pass into oblivion, and slumber in the dust of forgotten tombs. “Howe'er it be, it seems to me 'Tis only noble to be good. Rind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.”—TENNYSON, Take the women of the higher class, the daughters of an improvident or needy nobleman—is it possible for human beings to be more “immorally ” trained than they are? Taught from their cradles to look on money and money's worth as the princi- pal good to be obtained in life; with the watchword, “an ex- cellent match,” “a rich marriage,” “an eligible party,” drummed into their ears from the very commencement—it is a loathsome, unwholesome, unhealthy state of things; and the clergy should plainly and unequivocally denounce all such unnatural, unholy barter. There is nothing more despicable under the sun; and no circumstances can excuse a woman for so outraging one of the holiest ties on earth as selling herself for money or position. “And what's its worth P Ask death-beds; they can tell !”—YoUNG. Men and women want shaking out of their moral lethargy from 202 MORALITY. every pulpit, week after week. With bitter scorn should the clergy hold up to derision the “fashionable” religion of the man of the world, which consists in paying so much per year for a pew, and occupying it with more or less regularity. Tell men they make pro- fession of brotherhood—ask them, what they do to rescue a fallen brother or sister P Selfishness has got hold of us, heart and soul, and principally because of the platitudes that reach our ears weekly, that displease men with brains and weary people with hearts. Cease to talk of eternal damnation, which neither preachers nor congrega- tions believe in, and tell the people what earnestness and honest effort would do to rescue this world from being the hell it is to so many. We are all capable of better things, if the iron in us was struck till it was hot and malleable, and kept warm, instead of being allowed to grovel in the dust. For God’s sake, try something that will be of mutual service to men. Make a sincere attempt to tear aside the conventionalities and hollow seeming that masks the selfishness of our relations with each other; cast aside superstition and ceremony, hollow themes and shadowy unrealities that have produced this “selfishness,” the very antithesis of morality, and made men think they can rob or ruin their fellows, and then, by building a church or chapel, or being a subscriber to some hospital, will be sufficient penance. Away with these sham beliefs, and inspire men with a religion they must believe in, and, believing in, will act up to. Make us feel we are under the rule of “One above who sees all,” and whose laws are never infringed with impunity, but that we have the power, if we but will so to do, to learn His wishes, and be happy by reverently obeying Him. We have quite overgrown our venerable and, in its time, large and noble theological shell, and the need of our times is to develop a practical utilitarian morality, and teach people to strive for a , sound and healthy constitution of body and mind, with an in- stinctive dread of all that could corrupt either, which would arrest the natural inclination to many self-indulgences which men are apt to regard now as habitual and necessary. Add to this the phi- losophy of true Christianity, which deems that the happiness of the world at large, and of the next generation in particular, cannot CONCLUDING REMARKS. 203 safely be neglected by any individual whose mere selfishness tempts him to prefer less worthy objects. Patience will be needed; we must wait, not fearful, far less hopeless, having faith in the laws of God, and trusting to the help of those who are working with such admirable energy, courage, and fidelity outside the visible Christian sphere, arising from that spirit in man which searches, and cannot but search “the deep things of God,” and creates for itself a new instrument of thought, which will give to it the mastery of a wider, richer, and nobler world. I am well aware that moral development will not not grow like a fungus; and, therefore, would have man taught that his life should be a continuous struggle of the better faculties, to rule and direct the lower animal instincts of his nature. Give man an object in life to “work up to,” and train him so as to ensure an active putting forth of his practical faculties in the midst of real obstacles. Teach him to be prepared for difficulty; the higher he aims, the more frequently he must expect to fail. At starting, how easy the battle of life seems—how easy to overcome all difficulties, and triumph by one's industry, intelligence, and integrity Well, they are three good friends; and if at last you stand firm, high and great, do not look down in scorn, but in pity, on those who have not been able to succeed, or did not aspire so high as yourself. Re- member your own struggles, how near failure you know it has often been, when the outside world thought all was so prosperous with you. Any man who thinks of his past must admit, with our present surroundings, what a difficult, complex problem life is to solve. Do not forget that the greatest struggle of all is conquering your- self. Outward difficulties may have roused and called forth every encrgy of your self-asserting nature into opposition, and made you strive to contend for and gain the world's social prizes, wealth and position ; yet those others, branded by the world as failures, may have conquered temptations, and be the stronger and better men. “Surely what is most human, is also most divine;” and very little reflection will explain the joy of Heaven over the reformed prodigal, rather than over the ninety-nine properly- conducted persons out of a hundred. A nature disposed to evil, 204 * MORALITY, conquering its weakness, is a far nobler character, no matter how many slips he may have made on the way, than the other ninety and nine men with their minds so nicely balanced and adapted to their surroundings, that they could not err as he had done, and might not so bravely have overcome the same inherent weak- ness of character. All morally weak people deserve pity, as they have to bear the consciousness of their own untruth, and to bear their own censure—heaviest curse of all—like the drunkard who, in delirium tremens, is partly ignorant of his misery, but before and after the attack he realizes in anticipation the purgatory of I)ante’s “Inferno.” - The world can only be made different by life and conduct being based wholly on laws resting on science, and the mind of man free for him to use his intelligence in and by every logical method the intellect can analyse. Philosophy simply means, that every part of human nature acts upon a method, and does not act chaotically, inscrutably, or in mere caprice. Year by year this must be recognized as a truism; and as this grand truth of cause and effect, producing inevitably results for good or evil to humanity, in accordance with man's obedience or disobedience thereto, becomes more generally recognized and more universally acted upon, so will happiness supersede misery in this world. Man is a marvellous and complex being, fearfully and wonder- fully made. He is what he is, as the result of the past ; his future depends on his use of the present. Complicated as the different functions of his body and mind may appear, there is, through the whole, the solidarity of a single unit. Man is one, however compound. Fire his conscience, and he blushes. Check his circulation, and he thinks wildly, or thinks not at all. Impair his secretions, and his moral sense is dulled, discoloured, or de- praved ; his aspirations flag; his hope, love, faith, reel. Impair them still more, and he becomes a brute. A cup of drink too much will degrade his moral nature below that of a swine. Ruled by his savage instincts, his passions and propensities, he is a monster, who, to be feared and hated, needs only to be seen; whilst under the dominion of his intellectual and moral faculties, 2- - - CONCLUDING REMARKs, 205 he is a fit companion for the gods. The comparison is true. His weakness and his strength are wonderful; capable of so much, doing so little. Rightly advised at the right time, who can doubt that the result achieved year by year in the amelioration of the world’s miseries, would be very different 2 This is, more than any previous age, the age of brain—of brain activity. The intel- lectual achievements of the present age give it a character distinct from the ages that have gone into history, and crown it with a glory of which none other can boast of what the human brain is capable of. It is perceived, that if knowledge is a power, thought is the power of our time; and thought, concentrated upon and in conjunction with the varied stores of knowledge accumulated during the past, must give the victories of the future in phi- losophy, literature, statesmanship. Previous to the discovery of the circulation of the blood, physiology was impossible. Before the discovery of oxygen, chemistry did not exist as a science ; and before the advent of Gall, with his great science of phrenology, mental philosophy was but a mass of vague speculations, devoid of scientific basis. I may be told phrenology is not believed in by many scientists. In reply, I ask if the discoveries of Coper- nicus, Kepler, and Galileo, by the older scientists, of Harvey and Jenner by the latter ones, received immediate acknowledgment? That heads differed in size and shape, and people differed in talent and disposition, were recognized facts before the advent of Gall; but that these two classes of facts were related to each other, as cause and effect, was a fact unknown and unsuspected until he taught it. To Gall we owe a new era in branial dissec- tion, and to him is due the praise of establishing the fact, now universally admitted, that “the brain is the organ of the mind; and that a large brain, other things being equal, indicates superior mental ability; that disease of the brain produces insanity; and that we need not expect a very high grade of character in one whose brain is chiefly back of his ears.” In what he did Gall gave the world a basis for a mental philosophy, having its founda- tion in facts easily made scientific and reliable. When his dis- covery shall be as reverently received and thoughtfully acted upon 206 . MORALITY. as it deserves, the world will discover how long it has allowed to lie useless a force which, if properly understood and acted upon, is capable of reforming man to a greater extent than any other idea ever known. By phrenology, psychological phenomena may be explained as readily as eclipses are calculated by the astronomer. We should cease to hear of man having two classes of faculties— the virtuous and the vicious. Phrenology teaches that man has no bad faculties. That some men are gluttons is not accepted as proof that the stomach is a bad organ, or appetite a bad thing, per se; nor is it proof that acquisitiveness or destructiveness are vicious faculties that men sometimes steal or kill. No ; it is only proof, in either case, that the propensities are not, as they should be, enlightened by the intellectual faculties, and regulated by the moral sentiments. Plato, in his “Model Republic,” puts only philosophers in power; and a philosopher is one whose intellect is enlightened, and whose moral sentiments approve all his actions. Let all efforts henceforth be, to make men philosophical rather than theological. The clergy must strive to make “moral” men, and not simply members of, or converts to, their views of Christianity. “Religion” must be superior to, and elevate the people above, that fatal error incidental to all sectarians, of making their belief the rule by which to judge, as right or wrong, the actions of others. Iłeligious teachers must scatter broadcast information as to God’s works, and the wisdom and justice displayed therein; thus sup- plying motives to man's awakened intelligence that will make him willingly yield to the governance of his moral nature, and enable him to satisfy his religious emotions by bending the knee in homage to a God his intelligence informs him is worthy of all the worship he can render. - The education of the people being now general, there is the greater need for developing their moral faculties; as to develop and quicken the intellectual faculties of mankind, and neglect their moral culture, is only to make skilful instead of blundering rogues of men. Hence we find, during the last twenty years, such a great increase in that intelligent class of scoundrels, company promoters, CONCLUDING REMARKS. - 207 who have inflicted such sad distress upon society by pandering to the desire for a larger rate of interest than money honestly em- , ployed can legitimately bring. It is this credulous spirit we want exorcised—men made into thoughtful beings. Is it not enough to make man blush for man that, as recent as 1802, the obstructive class could by their scorn, contumely, misrepresentations, and slanderous imputations—the ordinary bombshells of anti-progres- sionists and would-be dictators of public opinion—get the Emperor Francis the First to prohibit Dr. Gall from teaching his doctrines, and exile him from his country 2 Truth, however, is eternal and unconquerable. It may be kept back for a time by prejudice and selfishness, but, as the wheat plant, which the chilling frosts and snow storms of winter have covered, is in due time brought to light in strength and beauty by the heat of the sun, so does truth rise above error in overpowering majesty. - We must not forget the power that circumstances have in deve- loping latent power. Napoleons require exceptional times to display their rare powers in. Some characters require the atmosphere of prosperity for their proper development; they then grow and expand, and unfold their fairest qualities under the genial influence, as the flowers when basking in the Sun's warm rays. But the sterner spirits, whose influence moulds the world—those who are termed the world's great men, successful men of every class—shrink and shrivel up under the same geniality. They need the bracing air of adversity and difficulty. These men, when the blast comes, rise in unexpected strength; whilst, if the Summer sum had always shone on their path, they might have, would have, passed through life without leaving their mark behind. Steel, when polished, shines the brighter, perhaps, but is still cold as ever. It takes the hard flint stroke to light the spark of fire which lies hidden within. A heavy tile may fall on the acanthus flower, and crush out all love- liness and life, bruising its leaves in the earth's dust; and yet the fragile plant outlives its death, and, rising superior to the incubus, twines its later blossoms around its destroyer, and grows into a pillar of everlasting strength and beauty. Look at St. Paul’s, or any similar structure, how it reminds us by its stately grandeur of the past, and speaks to us of the vast 208 . MORALITY. power of patience, of the value of quiet endurance, of the strength that lies in hope, the hope that nerves a man to work: “Work, for it is a noble thing, With a worthy end in view; To tread the path that God ordains, With steadfast heart and true, That will not quail, whate'er betide, But bravely bear us through. It matters not what the sphere may be That we are here to fill; How much there is of seeming good How much of seeming ill; 'Tis ours to bend the energies,” -- And consecrate the will.”—(From MARTIN LAws.) The proper study, the most important subject of study for mankind, is “man.” Fearfully and wonderfully constructed as he is, great progress has been made in reading the complexity, in reducing this mystery to order. He has grouped the intellectual powers, he has traced to their relations the functions of mind, and ordered the laws of thought into a logic of a regular kind. He has analyzed and grouped the capacities of action, the moral faculties, the instincts and emotions; and not only is the analysis of these tolerably clear, but the associations and correlations of each with the other are fairly made manifest. It wants to be generally understood that every single faculty of man is capable of scientific study; and we want of all concurrence in one important principle —viz., that truthful observation and candid judgment must alone be our guides in the interpretation of Nature, and that that theory of creation is most deserving of our adoption which is most con- sistent with the whole body of facts carefully observed and com- pared. “All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul. Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, -- But looks through Nature up to Nature's God.”—Pop E. “Now, Truth, perform thine office : waft aside The curtains drawn by prejudice and pride.”—COWPER. UNIVERSITY OF MICH IGAN ||||||||| ºrs § *** ** "…ºr. ... º.º. --- ºr -º ſº ºº. . . . … ， ， ·~& ;« » F • * • • •« . . . ; * * * · · · §.ººſ-· · · ·， & ſaepewa ; × °· ·، ***********************************~~~~ ~~~~（~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ： ~~~~ ：، |-***țºs,