THE SERVICE OF MAN.
 
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 SERVICE OF MAN 
 
 -- 
 AN ESSA Y 
 
 TOWARDS 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL,.TRENCH & CO./i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1888
 
 (The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserve* .
 
 DL 
 1775 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE not been able, in consequence of illness, to 
 finish this work according to its original plan. As 
 I may not be in a position to carry it to its proper 
 conclusion, I should like, as briefly as possible, to 
 mention what I wished to add to that already 
 written. 
 
 After the last chapter in the volume, my intention 
 had been to discuss one or two urgent social and 
 economical questions which are daily growing in 
 importance, even amounting to peril if satisfactory 
 answers to them cannot be obtained. 
 
 It is generally admitted by serious and sober 
 observers, that a large social transformation is at 
 once desirable and inevitable. The present con- 
 ditions can, one would think, give satisfaction to no 
 one. The enormous increase of wealth consequent 
 on the application of the steam-engine to industry, 
 has to a very small extent been followed by a 
 corresponding spread of general well-being such as 
 was at one time not unreasonably expected. Even 
 before the commencement of the present depression
 
 * 
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 of trade, there were many unpleasant features in 
 the manufacturing system of Western Europe. But 
 profits were high, and, till within a recent period, 
 seemed likely to increase. The workmen, by judicious 
 and resolute strikes, were able to demand and obtain 
 better wages ; and, although even in the most flourish- 
 ing centres of industry, much pauperism and misery 
 among the unskilled workers were generally present, 
 so long as the revenue, in Mr. Gladstone's phrase, 
 " went up by leaps and bounds," these minor social 
 evils were not likely to attract notice. But, as every- 
 body now knows only too well, a great change has 
 come over the world in the last ten years. Profits in 
 nearly all trades are diminishing, and will probably 
 diminish still more. Hitherto, capitalists have been 
 the chief sufferers ; but it cannot be long before the 
 workmen will have their turn of loss in the form of 
 decreased wages. At the present rate of decline, 
 a point will, before long, be reached, when the 
 employer will get little or no return for his capital 
 invested in manufactures, and when the workman 
 will be able to get no adequate wage for the labour 
 he gives. 
 
 I do not pretend to say that if I had been able 
 to treat this question with the fulness I desired, I 
 should have been able to throw light on a subject 
 which has puzzled more competent persons than 
 myself. In truth, I fear I should be considered a 
 Job's comforter at the best. My view is that the 
 present industrial system is less capable of mending 
 than ending, and that it is, in fact, doomed to a not
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 remote extinction. And this, not because it is offen- 
 sive to persons of fine taste, and destroys rural beauty 
 (the artistic view) ; nor because it makes a few capi- 
 talists very rich, and leaves many workmen very poor 
 (the current Socialist view) ; but because it cannot 
 continue on its own lines ; that with more than a 
 fair field and plenty of favour, it is yet breaking 
 down from inherent vices for which there is no 
 remedy. 
 
 The industrial system had its origin in the latter 
 half of the last century, when Watt and Arkwright 
 brought the power of steam to bear on the produc- 
 tion of commodities. With her easily accessible coal 
 and iron, England had an immense start of the con- 
 tinental countries ; and for a long time was the mart 
 of the world. So long as other countries were 
 content to buy our commodities instead of producing 
 them themselves, the arrangement was highly satis- 
 factory to Englishmen ; and it lasted long enough 
 for many of them to believe that it was a law of 
 Nature that Britons should make and sell goods, 
 and foreigners should buy them. But in time the 
 foreigner took heart, and thought he also would like 
 to make and sell commodities. The result has been, 
 that most of our old customers have become our 
 rivals ; and they compete with us not only in their 
 own markets, which they artfully shield by protective 
 tariffs, but in the barbarous markets of the world in 
 China, East Africa, and elsewhere. 
 
 But the competing foreigner has come late into 
 the field ; and trade and commerce offer no longer
 
 Vlil PREFACE. 
 
 the same returns which they did when England, 
 with her many advantages, set out on her industrial 
 career. Competition is now everywhere of the 
 keenest, and cheapness of production the primary 
 object The result is a race in which no competitor 
 can absolutely win, but one in which all must, in 
 process of time, become exhausted. For there is no 
 fixed goal to be reached ; the goal flies before the 
 runners, and the first in the race cannot avoid 
 ultimate collapse. In each country manufacturers 
 compete among themselves, while they compete also 
 with their foreign rivals. Constantly improved 
 machinery enables a larger out-put at less cost to be 
 thrown upon the market, with the obvious effect, 
 now distressing everybody,- of a well-nigh universal 
 glut, and a growing cheapness never before wit- 
 nessed. In the mean time, profits on capital and 
 wages of labour are tending to the vanishing point ; 
 and the only question is, how long it will be before 
 that point is reached. 
 
 It is obvious that the conditions of trade and 
 commerce are nearly wholly changed within the last 
 fifty years. A small and industrious population like 
 the English, commanding an extensive sea-board, 
 good harbours, and a large commercial marine, sur- 
 rounded moreover, by neighbours chiefly agricultural, 
 could obtain a world-wide trade which moved the 
 wonder and envy of contemporaries. But it was 
 a beau ideal of commercial success which cannot be 
 repeated by imitators, nor even kept up by its 
 original inventors. Our Manchesters and Liverpools
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 were once without rivals in the world. Now they 
 have to contend with an ever-increasing competition, 
 which has already told on their prosperity, and must, 
 in the near future, tell still more. Add to this, that 
 the vastly improved means of transport are now more 
 and more bringing commercial competitors into one 
 great race-course. The English farmer is exposed 
 to competition from America, Russia, and India ; 
 and crushed by importations of corn from those 
 countries which, owing to soil, climate, or greater 
 cheapness of labour, have a greater advantage over 
 England in the cheap production of cereals. Any 
 industry may be killed, as it were by enchantment, 
 in an old country, by the discovery of new means of 
 cheaper production on the other side of the globe. 
 The instability of industries is frightful. The com- 
 mercial atmosphere is more uncertain and capricious 
 than the physical atmosphere, though that is gene- 
 rally taken as a symbol of uncertainty. It is as if 
 our weather were sensitive to, and influenced by, the 
 cyclones of the Indian Ocean; or the terra fir ma of 
 our quiet island were shattered responsively by earth- 
 quakes in Japan and South Carolina. It is little to 
 say that such facts were not dreamed of in the olden 
 time. They would not have been deemed possible in 
 the recent days of Cobden and Peel. 
 
 Some persons in England, and many abroad, 
 believe that these evils are traceable to Free Trade, 
 and recommend Protection or Fair Trade as a remedy. 
 It were much to be wished that so simple a cure 
 were possible ; for the threatened evils are so great,
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 that it is not a time to be punctilious on economic or 
 any theories. The difficulty is to show how the 
 exclusion of foreign goods here would tend to force 
 the purchase of our goods by foreigners ; for that is 
 what a revival of trade means. We may keep out 
 the foreigner as much as we like, but would he much 
 care ? Could any form of retaliatory tariff enable us 
 to dispense with corn, cotton, wool, wine, tobacco, 
 silk, etc., purchased from abroad or from our own 
 colonies ? We want to sell : refusing to buy is no 
 remedy if our old customers are churlish, or, for 
 reasons of their own, indifferent to our wares. On 
 the other hand, the evidence is very far from being 
 in favour of Protection, even in the countries which 
 still maintain it. 
 
 One could wish, indeed, that it was less clear than 
 it is ; that the evils under which modern industry is 
 suffering were of so slight a nature as a reform of 
 tariffs or any fiscal or economic change could remove. 
 We could bear our woes with a more patient mind if 
 all depended on the " bugbear " of Free Trade being 
 promptly exploded. We have no such consolation. 
 The root of the mischief lies deeper: in the exor- 
 bitant over-production made possible by the marvel- 
 lous improvement of machinery, and in the increased 
 facility thereby of dispensing with manual labour. 
 
 Great efforts are made to show that a general glut 
 of commodities is not a source of evil, and that the 
 appreciation of gold has been the cause of the extra- 
 ordinary fall in prices. To those who hold this view, 
 I would put the question why ivory and whalebone
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 have not fallen in price, but, on the contrary, have 
 steadily risen in price during the last decade ? The 
 plain answer, surely, is, that the enhanced price of 
 these commodities is owing to the fact that elephants 
 and whales not being capable of manufacture, nor, 
 till yet, of artificial cultivation, the demand for ivory 
 and whalebone has exceeded the natural supply, and 
 the price of those articles has consequently gone up 
 some 50 per cent. Oysters offer an even more instruc- 
 tive example. Every man of middle age can remem- 
 ber when oysters were sold in the shops at sixpence 
 and eightpence a dozen, and how they rose a few 
 years ago to prohibitory prices of three, four, and 
 even four and sixpence a dozen. The greatly 
 diminished demand which followed in consequence, 
 coupled with the attention devoted to oyster-culture, 
 have at last caused a turn in the market, and now 
 oysters are cheaper than they have been for years. 
 These instances cannot be explained away. The old 
 economic doctrine, that when demand exceeds supply 
 prices will rise, and when supply exceeds demand 
 prices will fall, is one which is assailed in vain. If 
 cotton yarns, pig-iron, silver, and many other com- 
 modities are cheaper than ever they were, it is because 
 there is so much more of them than ever there was. 
 Some points even in political economy are ascer- 
 tained and beyond dispute. 
 
 If it be asked what inference I draw from such 
 facts, the answer is that it is a melancholy one. I 
 believe we are approaching to a great catastrophe 
 in our industrial system, which will be a calamity
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 without precedent since the Black Death of the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
 The praises of the steam-engine are on every 
 tongue, and its merits are obvious enough to a super- 
 ficial glance. Whether it will turn out a benefactor 
 in the long run remains to be seen. It, clearly 
 enough, greatly increased wealth, but it did nothing 
 for its moralization or more beneficial distribution. 
 It also vastly increased population, which is a more 
 questionable boon ; or, to speak plainly, a curse. 
 But we have it, and certainly shall not lay it aside 
 till we are compelled. Now, the proper and direct 
 effect of all machinery is to diminish largely the 
 cost and the amount of manual labour required in 
 the production of commodities. In the first instance, 
 this result was so masked by the rapid growth of 
 English trade, that an increased demand for labour, 
 in form of " hands " serving steam-engines, was 
 brought about. The folly and wickedness of work- 
 men who smashed steam-engines was pointed out 
 with much unction in the early part of this century. 
 Thousands of hands, it was asserted, and quite truly, 
 were employed in the cotton trade, where only 
 hundreds were employed before. But a great change 
 has come over the world with the vastly improved 
 machinery of later years. It no longer admits of 
 doubt that machinery is a rival, and tending to 
 become a triumphant rival, of labour. Machinery is 
 no longer the servant of man, but man has become 
 the servant of the machine. The ideal of manufacture 
 now, would be production without " hands ; " except,
 
 PREFACE. XI ii 
 
 perhaps, a stoker and an engineer. Every day new 
 contrivances are discovered by which human labour 
 can be dispensed with. Were trade expanding, 
 instead of contracting, there might be a compensation 
 in the need of more workers to serve the greater 
 number of machines. But in our present condition 
 the result is doubly injurious to the working classes. 
 Production of commodities by means of improved 
 machinery is made cheaper, and an already glutted 
 market still more flooded at prices barely remunera- 
 tive, at the very time that the merit of the improved 
 machinery chiefly consists in doing with less manual 
 labour.* 
 
 * See two admirable articles in the Contemporary Review of August 
 and September of this year (1887), on the "Great Depression of Trade," 
 by the Hon. David A. Wells. I much regret that these remarkable 
 essays did not appear till several months after this preface was pub- 
 lished; they would have afforded me an immense number of facts and 
 arguments with which to strengthen my thesis. I quote one passage 
 from Mr. Wells' first article. 
 
 " The Report of the United States' Commissioner of Labour for 
 1886 furnishes the following additional illustrations : 
 
 "In the manufacture of agricultural implements specific evidence is 
 submitted showing that six hundred men now do the work that fifteen 
 or twenty years ago would have required 2, 145 men : a displacement 
 of 1545. 
 
 " The manufacture of boots and shoes offers some very wonderful 
 facts in this connection. In one large and long- established manufactory, 
 the proprietors testify that it would require five hundred persons work- 
 ing by hand processes to make as many women's boots and shoes as 
 one hundred persons now make with the aid of machinery : a dis- 
 placement of 80 per cent. 
 
 "Another firm, engaged in the manufacture of children's shoes, states 
 that the introduction of new machinery within the last thirty years has 
 displaced about six times the amount of hand labour required, and 
 that the cost of the product has been reduced one-half.
 
 XIV PREFACE. 
 
 It is difficult to see from what quarter an improve- 
 ment of this condition of things can be expected. Is 
 not that condition more likely to get worse ? The 
 race for cheap production is so severe, that each trade 
 and nation in turn is forced to strain every nerve 
 in order to keep abreast of its rivals. The well- 
 known tendency of profits to a minimum is exempli- 
 fied as it never was before. The cost of production, 
 and the selling price of the manufactured article, 
 must before long coincide. And then what will 
 become of the interest of the capitalist and the wages 
 of the artisan ? 
 
 If the mass of even civilized mankind were not, 
 as Carlyle says, mostly fools, great relief could no 
 doubt be rapidly attained by saving the immense 
 sums now squandered on the armaments unparalleled 
 
 " On another grade of goods the facts collected by the agents of the 
 Bureau show that one man can now do the work which twenty years 
 ago required ten men. 
 
 " In the manufacture of flour there has been a displacement of nearly 
 three-fourths of the manual labour necessary to produce the same pro- 
 duct. In the manufacture of furniture from one-half to three-fourths 
 only of the old number of persons is now required. In the manufacture 
 of wall paper the best evidence puts the displacement in the proportion 
 of one hundred to one. 
 
 " In the manufacture of metals and metallic goods long-established 
 firms testify that machinery has decreased manual labour 33 \ per 
 cent." 
 
 Perhaps the most surprising instance of all is this, that ' ' one skilled 
 workman, paid at the rate of two and a half to three dollars a day, and 
 working according to ante-machine methods in use a few years ago, 
 could make up three dozen pairs of sleeve buttons per day. Now one 
 boy, paid five dollars per week, and working on the most modern 
 machinery, can make up nine thousand pairs in a day." (The italics 
 are mine.) See Contemporary Revieiv for August, 1887, pp. 287, 288.
 
 PREFACE. XV 
 
 in human annals. And the removal of all fear of war 
 would be even a greater gain than the suppression 
 of war-budgets. But men must pay for their follies 
 and passions ; and they do pay, heavily enough. The 
 cost of indulgence in international jealousies and 
 hatreds, even between European countries at the 
 present day, would be difficult to exaggerate ; and 
 even one of the supposed choice products of civiliza- 
 tion, a free and popular press, has become a large 
 source of evil. It is hardly saying too much that 
 the main occupation of most of the newspapers of 
 Europe is to inflame international animosities. Over 
 and over again, war has been barely averted between 
 nations whose populations had every interest, and 
 probably every desire, to keep the peace, but which 
 had been worked up to a pitch of fury against each 
 other by the incendiary fustian served up to them by 
 their daily newspapers. We narrowly escaped war 
 with France, when diplomatic complications ensued 
 after the Orsini conspiracy : and how nearly we 
 grazed a fratricidal war with our American kinsfolk, 
 after the affair of the Trent, dwells in all memories. 
 Whatever difficulty trained diplomatists may have 
 had to settle either of these disagreements, there can 
 be no question that they were greatly aggravated by 
 the incessant pouring of oil on the flame of inter- 
 national discord by the newspapers of all the countries 
 concerned. The greatest misfortune which Europe 
 has experienced in modern times the war between 
 France and Prussia was largely, if not wholly, 
 brought about by the reckless mendacity and venom 
 
 b
 
 XVI PREFACE. 
 
 of the Parisian press ; which, untaught by experi- 
 ence, seems again disposed to repeat its unpatriotic 
 blunders. Not that I think the French press more 
 evil-minded than the press of other countries ; it is 
 only more clever, sparkling, and stimulating, and 
 therefore more dangerous, than its rivals in other 
 lands. 
 
 But valuable as would be a general disarmament 
 and cessation of wars and rumours of wars, simply 
 as affording a pause, a breathing-space, in the midst 
 of our really social troubles, these palliatives would 
 not produce a solution of those troubles ; they would 
 only postpone them for a season, priceless as that 
 postponement would be. If the war waged by can- 
 non and rifles were to cease, the more bitter war of 
 commercial rivalry would remain, probably fiercer 
 than ever, as there would be no competing interest 
 to engage men's minds. 
 
 One would think that it was obvious to casual 
 observation that we are commencing to descend an 
 incline, down which we shall move with accelerated 
 speed, to be brought up at last in general calamity. 
 The difficulty of taking new views of old things and 
 conditions, can alone blind men from seeing the fate 
 before them. The numbers of the unemployed in all 
 large centres are growing from year to year. The 
 palliatives of charity, public-works, state-aid in every 
 form, are still talked of as if there were hope in them. 
 But before the century is at an end, the illusion will 
 have vanished. The production of wealth, as it has 
 obtained in the past, can continue no longer. The
 
 PREFACE. XVI I 
 
 State will be impoverished along with individuals ; 
 and with increasing charges will have less revenues 
 to meet them. Then we shall know what a general 
 or universal commercial catastrophe really means, 
 when the famishing unemployed will not be counted 
 by thousands, but millions ; when a page of the 
 Times will suffice for the business advertisements of 
 London ; and when the richest will be glad to live 
 on the little capital they have left, never thinking of 
 interest. 
 
 No moralist or preacher ever had such occasion 
 to point out the deceitfulness of riches, as will soon 
 be afforded by the industrial collapse. For upwards 
 of a century wealth has been produced with a speed 
 and in a volume quite beyond precedent in former 
 times. If the wealth of Nations were enough to 
 ensure their prosperity and happiness, the countries 
 of Western Europe should be now in a state of 
 unprecedented bliss. It may be doubted if there 
 was ever more misery in the midst of more wealth. 
 Morality is avenged at last ; and the great lesson 
 being brought home, that wealth and its production 
 are not the first nor even the second chief interests 
 of a State ; that the commonwealth demands some- 
 thing else and more from its citizens than a unique 
 pre-occupation to make their own fortunes. 
 
 Bad, however, as the industrial and economic 
 situation is, there is reason to fear that it may pre- 
 sently be made worse by rash and ill-considered 
 attempts to mend it. I am very far from thinking 
 with':! Mr. Herbert Spencer, that " all Socialism in-
 
 xviii PREFACE. 
 
 volves slavery," as I believe that there is a good 
 Socialism as well as a bad ; a Socialism of love and 
 mutual help, and a Socialism of hatred and spoliation. 
 One must shut one's eyes to obvious facts not to 
 realize that, under the mask and name of Socialism, 
 projects- fraught with evil to all classes, but especially 
 to the poor, are being pushed forward with a zeal 
 which is certainly not according to knowledge, and 
 which is difficult to regard as according to honesty 
 of purpose. The condition of growing distress into 
 which large numbers of the population will inevitably 
 fall in a near future, must offer a correspondingly 
 wider field for demagogic arts ; which are none the 
 less effective because they are as old as history, and 
 flourish naturally in all periods of social suffering. 
 Famine, or even short rations, are not calculated to 
 put men in a philosophic frame of mind ; and even 
 the honest and intelligent workman who has had no 
 breakfast, and does not know where he will get a 
 dinner, very naturally lends a willing ear to speakers 
 and writers who tell him that all his troubles might 
 soon be ended if only the " selfish rich " were made 
 to disgorge a portion of their ill-gotten wealth, pro- 
 cured by the sweat of his brow, but which unjust laws 
 have transferred from him to them. The fact is, that 
 one can only lament that such a short and easy solution 
 of the social difficulty as a transfer of wealth from the 
 rich to the poor, could not be put in practice. With 
 all its violation of the commandment, " Thou shalt 
 not steal," it would be a boon and a relief from the 
 chronic care and sadness which now oppress the
 
 PREFACE. XIX 
 
 deserving poor and rich alike. But it is precisely 
 at this point that such proposals break down. And 
 a little reflection shows that the suggested remedies 
 would promptly aggravate every existing evil, and 
 add an endless number to those we have. 
 
 The singular thing is, that in such a commercial 
 country as ours, it should be forgotten or overlooked 
 that trade depends on buying and selling ; and that 
 in every purchase and sale two parties are concerned, 
 one of whom cannot be coerced. Legislation, popular 
 agitation, and resolute combined action, brought to 
 bear on special points, may do much, though not 
 always so much as is often thought ; but there is one 
 thing which they cannot do : they cannot make 
 people buy goods which they refuse to buy. The 
 producer, whether capitalist or workman who, 
 though often enemies in their private relations, are 
 partners with regard to the public may have any 
 number of trials of their own ; but if they cannot 
 succeed between them in producing goods of a quality 
 and at a price which induce the public at home or 
 abroad to buy, they may say and do what they like ; 
 they will remain without customers. .No man of 
 business, from the largest merchant to the petty 
 shopkeeper, is ignorant of this fact. Yet, it is 
 despised or ignored, as a paradox unworthy of notice, 
 by those -who urge that work is to be provided by 
 the State for the unemployed, whether there be a 
 demand for it or not. What is the contention ? A 
 number of men are out of work ; it is heartrending to 
 think that they, their wives and children, are starving.
 
 XX PREFACE. 
 
 Therefore, the State, or the parish, or somebody, 
 ought immediately to improvise work for them. What 
 work ? This is rarely specified with accuracy. If 
 remunerative work work which it would pay any 
 individual or corporation to take in hand is it not 
 certain that the natural cupidity of mankind would 
 long ago have found it out and made a profit by 
 it? If it is not remunerative, who is to bear the 
 loss of useless work, of work of less value when 
 performed than its primary cost ? The State or the 
 ratepayers, will probably be the answer ; with the 
 obvious assumption that the State or local bodies 
 can bear any strain or expense. To inquire whence 
 the State acquires its funds, and whether in a con- 
 dition of decaying prosperity those funds may be 
 regarded as of unlimited expansion, would no doubt 
 be considered by the theorists to whom I refer, as 
 suggested by middle-class cupidity and meanness. 
 
 Now, the modest demand only is, " the construc- 
 tion of wholesome, cheerful homes for the people 
 by the municipalities and county boards ; " " feeding 
 children gratuitously in all board schools, in order to 
 check the physical deterioration only too noticeable 
 among the infants of the rising generation." " The 
 undertaking of useful works for which there was 
 admitted need in the various districts ; such as 
 embankments, roads, etc. : the establishment of light 
 relief works, and factory-work for women all this to 
 be arranged by the local bodies and the State in 
 conjunction, the wages being determined by a board 
 of assessors, and the profits, if any, divided equitably
 
 PREFACE. XXI 
 
 among the people employed." Further, it is of the 
 highest importance that " the people employed " 
 should not over-work themselves ; and this is to be 
 prevented by law " an eight-hours' day, limited by 
 law, in all Government employment." And then the 
 conclusion .with great serenity is drawn, "that these 
 measures would benefit the workers, if carried out, 
 is very clear." * 
 
 About the benefit to the workers from this scheme 
 there will certainly be, in some minds, grave doubt 
 as to its being very clear. But that point may be 
 left for future discussion. The singular charac- 
 teristic to be noticed in these reformers, is their 
 extreme modesty and timidity in " asking for more " 
 of what they consider already as their own. If 
 " wholesome, cheerful homes for the people," and the 
 feeding of children in board schools are to be pro- 
 vided gratuitously by the public, one cannot see the 
 logic or common sense in refusing to provide boots, 
 stockings, corduroys, indeed, all that a working-man 
 may require, either as necessaries or luxuries. Really, 
 it is not worth while higgling about details when the 
 principle is admitted ; and it would be better to say 
 at once that it is the duty of all the well-to-do people 
 to support all the indigent " gratuitously," and so end 
 the matter. 
 
 There is no immediate reason to fear that the 
 thoroughly shrewd and reflective English artisan of 
 the better class has been seduced by the sophistries 
 
 * Letter in the Times, November 17, 1886, signed, " H. M. 
 Hyndman."
 
 XX11 PREFACE. 
 
 of the officious friends who assume to plead his cause. 
 He is pretty well acquainted with the real facts of 
 the case ; and though quite willing, and very rightly, 
 in a rising market, to support a well-planned strike, 
 he looks with coldness on Utopians who are equally 
 ignorant of capital, labour, or hard work. But the 
 intelligent and skilled artisan is an aristocrat among 
 the great mass of workers, whether unemployed or 
 not. He, hardly less than the capitalist, is threatened 
 by the multitude of the unskilled labourers surging 
 around him ; and even by the scarcely lesser multitude 
 of highly-skilled loafers^ who have become convinced 
 that it is more profitable to bawl out that they " have 
 got no work to do," than to attempt to find work and 
 do it. 
 
 For the moment there appears to be no hope of 
 staunching a morbid, or rather, a maudlin sentimen- 
 tality for genuine benevolence is out of the question 
 which insists upon the immediate relief of hunger, 
 however produced. The evil results which must 
 follow such a policy if persevered in, have been often 
 pointed out ; especially by Mr. Herbert Spencer in 
 his articles, " The Man versus the State." " The 
 deserving poor," Mr. Spencer remarks, " are among 
 those who are burdened to pay the costs of caring 
 for the undeserving poor. As under the old Poor 
 Law, the diligent and provident labourer had to pay 
 that the good-for-nothings might not suffer, until 
 frequently under this extra burden he broke down 
 and himself took refuge in the workhouse as at 
 present it is admitted, that the total rates levied in
 
 PREFACE. XXllt 
 
 large towns for all public purposes have now reached 
 such a height that ' they cannot be exceeded without 
 inflicting great hardship on the small shopkeepers 
 and artisans who already find it difficult enough to 
 keep themselves free from the pauper taint ; ' so 
 in all cases the policy is one which intensifies the 
 pains of those most deserving of pity, that the pains 
 of those least deserving of pity may be mitigated." * 
 In other words, every effort is now made by a mis- 
 directed public sentiment to check the beneficent 
 effect of natural selection, which promotes the survival 
 of the hardy, the strong, and the capable, but, on the 
 contrary, to shield the production of the " unfit," the 
 weak, the stupid, and the worthless. 
 
 At this point we reach a full view of the great 
 problem of population. The profound thinker and 
 benevolent man who first propounded it, has received 
 the usual reward of sages and prophets, for seeing 
 further and feeling more deeply than their contem- 
 poraries. Malthus and Malthusianism have long been 
 by-words of scorn and reproach ; and, oddly enough, 
 two parties, usually most hostile to each other, have 
 united in this one object of easting obloquy on him. 
 Christian priests of all denominations, anxious to re- 
 press sexual irregularities, have counselled and pro- 
 moted early marriages from purely religious motives. 
 On the other hand, Democratic Socialists, in their war 
 against Capital and its owners, have maintained that 
 it was only owing to the selfish greed of the rich 
 that the poor could not multiply to the limit of their 
 * " Man Versus the State," pp. 71, 72.
 
 XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 physical capacity. Between the two, Christians and 
 Socialists, Malthusianism has been met with an hos- 
 tility which has few parallels in modern controversy. 
 And even to this day one must consent to be a social 
 pariah, to stand forth as its supporter. 
 
 At last the evils of over-population are becoming 
 too obvious to be gainsaid. Mr. Bradlaugh, with a 
 courage which will no doubt be acknowledged after 
 his death and when the fight is won, has borne the 
 penalty of appearing as a champion of common- 
 sense and human well-being. Not only over-popula- 
 tion generally, but the disproportionate increase of 
 the " unfit " and unworthy, is attracting attention. 
 The provident and the thoughtful marry late and 
 have few children. The criminal and the reckless 
 classes propagate ad libitum. An excellent review 
 of an excellent book in the Pall Mall Gazette of 
 November 9, 1886, thus refers to the subject. Speak- 
 ing of Mr. Arnold White's recent work, " The Problems 
 of a Great City," it says, " He is convinced that 
 the way things go now, it is the feeblest, the least 
 moral, and most worthless classes of the community 
 which multiply the most rapidly. It is the pauper 
 and the criminal class which supplies the human 
 rabbits who multiply in the warrens of our great 
 city. The educated and the well-to-do increase much 
 less rapidly. Hence the annual increase in the popu- 
 lation proceeds mainly from the classes which add no 
 strength to the nation ; and those who are constantly 
 within half-a-crown of starvation, are those who 
 bring forth the multitude of the diseased and in-
 
 PREFACE. XXV 
 
 capable children who bubble out of the ground for 
 torment in this world if not in the next. . . . He 
 stands aghast, like all Malthusians, at early and im- 
 provident marriages ; and appalled at the spectacle 
 of the criminal and pauper class, with low cerebral 
 development, renewing the race more rapidly than 
 those of higher attainments. He demands that 
 statesmen should no longer stand idly by, watching 
 the multiplication of the unfit, and the survival of 
 the weakest and worst of the community. He would 
 have them interfere, by imprisoning for life all 
 habitual criminals, not as a punishment, but in order 
 to prevent them from multiplying their kind." 
 Nothing can be more certain than that we shall soon 
 have a great many more views of this sort. The 
 human race, in old countries at least, by its reckless 
 propagation, is getting jammed into an impasse 
 from which there is no escape. If it has not wisdom 
 enough to limit, or rather, diminish its numbers by 
 prudence, Nature will take the matter in hand, and 
 with her summary processes of pestilence and famine 
 make such a sweep as will somewhat amaze the 
 world. 
 
 " Si nolles sanus, curres hydropicus." 
 
 The criminality of producing children whom one 
 has no reasonable probability of being able to keep, 
 must in time be seen in its true light, as one of 
 the most unsocial and selfish proceedings of which 
 a man nowadays is capable. The right of A. to 
 marry, and to leave to B. the task of keeping his 
 children, has ceased to be a matter of grim humour.
 
 XXVI PREFACE. 
 
 A. and his prolific spouse must be made to realize 
 that few evil-doers are more injurious to the world 
 than they are. They may be models of virtue 
 according to conventional ethics, but those ethics 
 are out of date. The barren prostitute, on whom 
 they probably look down with scorn, does not at 
 any rate aid in swamping the labour-market, nor 
 even in recruiting her own class as they do. We 
 may hope that, in the worst of times, the honest 
 proletary will not selfishly refuse to share his half 
 loaf with his famishing fellow. But, for the sake of 
 the race, we may also trust that he will peremptorily 
 refuse to share his crust with his reckless brother's 
 eight or ten children. 
 
 These and many kindred topics bear obviously 
 on the Service of Man. That Service will not be 
 made lighter or simpler in a democratic Age. The 
 complexity of social problems is so great, they need 
 regarding from so many points of view, their right 
 solution is so important, their wrong solution so 
 perilous, that they can no longer be left to any 
 official or limited class of inquirers. They concern 
 all citizens ; and few duties in our day are so impera- 
 tive as their earnest, persistent, and reflective study. 
 They do not happily need much book-lore. Clear 
 heads and resolute hearts, aided by eyes open to the 
 facts around them, will for this purpose more avail 
 than academic culture. The modern man in search 
 of well-being has two ends to bear in mind : First, 
 his own self-cultivation, especially of his heart, as 
 incomparably most important both to his own hap-
 
 PREFACE. XXV11 
 
 piness and that of others. Secondly, it behoves him 
 to help his fellows to the extent of his power, by 
 such improvements in the practice and theory of 
 life as he can make good by sound reasons. In 
 this direction I admit that he may encounter not 
 prosperity, but persecution or even worse ; but if he 
 is a true man he will not mind that. Nor will the 
 probable gloom of the coming time daunt brave 
 hearts. There is a mauvais pas before us all, which 
 we must get over as best we can. But nerve and 
 resolution can do wonders ; and men never appear 
 and act so much to their advantage as when put 
 undisguisedly on their mettle. Not by the promise 
 of soft and smooth things are they attracted, but by 
 the difficult and the dangerous. Bad as the forecast 
 is, and great as the suffering before long may be, 
 if only adequately realized and faced with neither 
 panic fear nor thoughtless hope, the situation might 
 begin to improve almost at once. If only the de- 
 vastating torrent of children could be arrested for 
 a few years it would bring untold relief. 
 
 The Service of Man is too honourable and in- 
 spiring a service to let us doubt that it will be want- 
 ing in worthy recruits.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY ... i 
 
 II. THE DECAY OF BELIEF ... ... 9 
 
 III. WHY MEN HESITATE ... ... ... 37 
 
 IV. THE ALLEGED CONSOLATIONS OF THE CHRIS- 
 
 TIAN RELIGION ... ... ... 42 
 
 V. ON CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT 64 
 
 VI. MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH ... 87 
 
 VII. WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE ... ... 124 
 
 VIII. THE SERVICE OF MAN... ... ... 177 
 
 IX. ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE... 198
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 A RUINED temple, with its fallen columns and broken arches, 
 has often been taken as a suggestive example and type of 
 the transitory nature of all human handiwork. " Here we 
 see " so runs the parable of the moralist " the inevitable 
 end of man's most ambitious efforts. Time and the elements 
 cast down and consume his proudest fabrics. He builds 
 high, and decorates with sculptured ornament his palaces 
 and fanes. But his work is hardly finished before decay 
 begins to efface its beauty, and sap its strength. Soon the 
 building follows the builder to an equal dust, and the 
 universal empire of Death alone survives over the tombs of 
 departed glory and greatness." 
 
 The parable of the moralist is only too true. Decay and 
 death are stamped not only on man and his works, but on 
 all that surrounds him, on all that he sees and touches. 
 Nature herself decays as surely, if not as rapidly, as the 
 work of his hands. The everlasting hills are daily and 
 hourly being worn away. Alps, Andes, and Himalayas, are
 
 2 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 all in process of a degradation of which there is no repair. 
 Nay, the Sun himself, the universal author and giver of life 
 in our planet, is only a temporary blaze a fire perhaps 
 already more than half burnt out, hastening to its final 
 consummation of cold and lightless ashes. And probably 
 no other fate is in store for the countless stars which 
 bespangle the nightly firmament. The animalcule, whose 
 existence is measured by a summer's day, and the galaxy 
 which illumines the heavens for millions of ages, are alike 
 subject to the common law of all life growth, decay, and 
 death. 
 
 Some may think that an exception ought to be made to 
 this statement in favour of the perennial vitality of Truth. 
 Truth, it will be said, does not wear out, decay, and die. 
 The Elements of Euclid are as true now as they were two 
 thousand years ago. Truths obtained by induction and 
 verified by experiment, or by correct deduction from true 
 principles, do not change and pass away with the genera- 
 tions of men who hold them. It is therefore rash, such 
 objectors would say, to assert that all things connected with 
 man are destined to ultimate extinction. His reason is 
 independent of time, and has that in it which belongs to 
 eternity. All must see this in regard to the incontrovertible 
 truths established by science ; many see it in tuitions of the 
 mind, and others in doctrines of religion supposed to be 
 divinely revealed. It is often added, that it is fortunate for 
 man that, amid the constant change going on in the pheno- 
 menal world, a permanent reality does exist, on which he 
 can lay hold eternal truth. 
 
 It would be careless to overlook the importance of this 
 counter-statement. About the permanence of truth there 
 can be no question. Whether it be obtained by observation, 
 generalization, or deduction, verified by experiment and
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 proof, we may safely assert that such truth will last as long 
 as the human mind remains constituted as it is. But does 
 that entitle us to claim eternal duration for any truth? No 
 one believes that the human race will last for ever. There 
 is a probability amounting almost to a certainty, that neither 
 man nor his dwelling-place will exist beyond a certain, 
 though it may be a very large number of years. Now, when 
 the human race shall have ceased to exist, would it be 
 correct to say that the truths cognized by the human mind 
 will survive it? This could only be maintained by an 
 idealist, who should place their continued existence in some 
 extra-mundane Eternal mind as that of God which may 
 be an article of faith, but hardly of reason. Moreover, if 
 true propositions can exist after all the minds which could 
 affirm them have disappeared, why should they not exist 
 before the phenomenal appearance of those minds? Can 
 we consistently say that the propositions of Euclid existed 
 in the Carboniferous era ? If so, why not assert that all 
 the truths yet to be discovered in the remote future exist 
 at present ? There is no question that things undreamt of 
 in the philosophy and science of to-day, will be trite 
 commonplaces two or three thousand years hence. But 
 are they truths now or yet ? Not only . they are not, but 
 the great probability is, that if they were expressed in words 
 now, they would be denounced as wild and dangerous 
 errors. 
 
 So that it is still legitimate to say that even truth exists 
 for a time, while we admit that verified truth will have 
 a duration co-equal with that of the human race. 
 
 It is to be observed, that the only truths that belong to 
 this permanent class, are the truths of simple observation, 
 or of rigorous scientific inference. They have always been 
 few in number, if compared with the multitude of pro-
 
 4 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 positions held to be true by the mass of mankind. They 
 are now increasing with unprecedented rapidity, owing to 
 the great development of the scientific spirit in modern 
 times. They obviously stand quite apart from the truths 
 supposed to be derived from divine revelation. The latter 
 differ from them both as to the method by which they were 
 obtained, and especially in their durability. Lengthy as 
 may seem the existence of the great religions of the world 
 when measured by our small scale of chronology, yet their 
 transitory, not to say ephemeral, character, is manifest to 
 reflection, and even to observation. Go where we will on 
 the earth's surface, we find traces of bygone men of their 
 tombs, of their ashes, their temples which testify to the 
 former existence of religious beliefs now extinct. These 
 beliefs embodied the most precious and profound of all 
 truths in the devout conviction of those who held them, but 
 they were so far from permanent that often they move the 
 wonder and even the laughter of after-ages. Perishable 
 as are brick, stone, and marble, they have outlived in 
 countless instances the faiths which once wrought them 
 into majestic architecture in their own honour. Temples 
 often survive their creeds by thousands of years. Wind, 
 rain, and frost disintegrate the roof and the walls of a shrine 
 with more or less rapidity, according to climate ; but they 
 are not so swift or potent to destroy the material fabric, as 
 knowledge and science are to undermine the conceptions 
 and assumptions on which the religious beliefs were founded, 
 and for which the sumptuous fanes were erected in a spirit 
 of reverence and sacrifice. 
 
 Not less marked in another respect is the difference 
 between the truths derived from religion and the truths 
 derived from science. The truths of science are found to 
 be in complete harmony with one another. Where this
 
 INTRO D UCTOR Y. 5 
 
 harmony is wanting, it is at once felt that error has crept 
 in unawares. We never give a thought to the alternative 
 hypothesis, that truths in different sciences or departments 
 of knowledge may be inconsistent and mutually hostile, and 
 yet remain truths. On the contrary, we find that the 
 discovery of new truth has invariably among its results the 
 additional effect of corroborating other and older truths, 
 instead of conflicting with them. In the history of science 
 it has often happened that a newly-discovered truth has 
 proved inconsistent with prevalent opinions, which had the 
 sanction of tradition in their favour. But the position has 
 always been felt to be intolerable, and that one of two 
 things must happen either the new truth must reconcile 
 itself with the old opinions, by the necessary modification ; 
 or the old opinions must reconcile themselves with the new 
 truth by a similar process. In astronomy the heliocentric 
 theory, and in biology the circulation of the blood theory, 
 produced the latter result, and revolutionized those two 
 sciences by expelling a number of previously unsuspected 
 errors. In modern times, on the] other hand, the plausible 
 theory of spontaneous generation has been forced to beat 
 a retreat through its proven inconsistency with older truths 
 firmly established. 
 
 Now, with regard to the truths announced with the cre- 
 dentials of a divine revelation, we find a very different 
 state of things. There seems to be no exception to the 
 rule, that the older religions grow the more infirm do they 
 become, the less hold do they keep on the minds of well- 
 informed and thoughtful men. Their truths, once accepted 
 without question, are gradually doubted, and in the end 
 denied by increasing numbers. This fate happened to 
 Greek and Roman polytheism, and according to all appear- 
 ances it is now happening to Hindooism, Islam, and to
 
 6 THE SERVICE OP MAN, 
 
 both Protestant and Catholic theology. We have to con- 
 sider what a very surprising fact that is, on the supposition 
 that any one of these religions is true. All the chief dogmas 
 of the Christian and Mahometan Creeds have been for 
 several centuries before the world. They once were not 
 only believed, but adored. Now the numbers of those 
 who doubt or dispute them are increasing every day. Time 
 has not been their friend, but their enemy. Instead of 
 becoming more firmly rooted in men's esteem and con- 
 viction, instead of revealing unexpected connection and 
 compatibility with other truth, instead of being supported 
 by an ever-growing mass of evidence which would make 
 their denial insane rather than unreasonable, they are seen 
 more and more to lack the proofs and credentials never 
 wanting in the case of genuine truth, from which they 
 differ in this important respect that, whereas scientific 
 truth, though often disputed and opposed on its first 
 presentation to the world, invariably ends by becoming 
 absolutely certain and unquestioned, religious conviction 
 begins with undoubting acceptance, and, after a shorter 
 or longer period of supremacy, with the growth of 
 knowledge and more severe canons of criticism, passes 
 gradually into the category of questioned and disputed 
 theories, ending at last in the class of rejected and ex- 
 ploded errors. 
 
 That the world, in its cultivated portions, has reached 
 one of those great turning-points in the evolution of 
 thought which mark the close of an old epoch and the 
 opening of a new one, will hardly be disputed by any well- 
 informed person. The system of Christian theology and 
 thought which arose out of the ruins of the Roman empire 
 has been gradually undermined, and its authority so shaken 
 that its future survival is rather an object of pious hope than
 
 IN TROD UCTOR Y. 7 
 
 of reasoned judgment. Apologists, indeed, are not wanting, 
 they are perhaps never so numerous ; but they cannot stem 
 the torrent which is rushing away from theology in the 
 direction of science, and that negation of theology which 
 science implies. Regarded as a question merely of specu- 
 lation, the crisis is one of the most interesting which the 
 world has seen, only to be compared to the transition from 
 polytheism to Christianity, in the early centuries of our 
 era, and to the great Protestant revolt from Rome. But 
 the speculative interest pales before the momentous prac- 
 tical interest of the crisis. A transfer of allegiance from 
 one set of first principles to another, especially on subjects 
 relating to morals and conduct, cannot be effected without 
 considerable loss of continuity and order by the way. 
 Many will halt between the two regimes, and, owning 
 allegiance to neither, will prefer discarding all unwelcome 
 restraint on their freedom of action. The corruption of 
 manners under the decaying polytheism in the Roman 
 world, the analogous corruption during the Reformation 
 and the Renaissance, offer significant precedents. It would 
 be rash to expect that a transition, unprecedented for its 
 width and difficulty, from theology to positivism, from the 
 service of God to the service of Man, could be accomplished 
 without jeopardy. Signs are not wanting that the prevalent 
 anarchy in thought is leading to anarchy in morals. 
 Numbers who have put off belief in God have not put on 
 belief in Humanity. A common and lofty standard of 
 duty is being trampled down in the fierce battle of incom- 
 patible principles. The present indecision is becoming 
 not only wearisome, but injurious to the best interests of 
 man. Let Theology be restored, by all means, to her old 
 position of queen of the sciences, if it can be done in the 
 light of modern knowledge and common sense. If this
 
 8 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 cannot be done frankly, on the faith of witnesses who can 
 stand cross-examination in open court, let us honestly take 
 our side, and admit that the Civitas Dei is a dream of the 
 past, and that we should strive to realize that Regnum 
 Hominis which Bacon foresaw and predicted.
 
 C 9 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 
 
 OPINIONS and systems of thought as well as institutions 
 which enjoy a considerable lease of life in the world, have 
 many of the characteristics of organisms, or at least of 
 organs belonging to animated beings. The fact that they 
 came into existence and survived during a longer or shorter 
 period, proves that they discharged a function of more or 
 less utility ; that they were in harmony with the surround- 
 ing conditions, and hence, found both exercise and nourish- 
 ment for their support. If in time they gradually cease 
 to discharge a useful function, become atrophied and dis- 
 appear, their case is almost exactly parallel to the rudi- 
 mentary organs found in so many animals, which, having 
 ceased to be of use, become shrunken and meaningless, 
 and only persist in an abortive form by virtue of the law 
 of heredity. Such organs in the body politic resemble 
 these analogues in the body natural, in that they often 
 continue to exist long after their presence has ceased to 
 subserve any useful purpose of life. The common trait 
 of rudimentary organs belonging to either category, biolo- 
 gical or sociological, is that they survive their use, that 
 they are nourished and live at the expense of the organism 
 in which they exist, and long after they have ceased to 
 make any return for the support they obtain. In the animal
 
 10 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 world, rudimentary organs may or may not be noxious to 
 the organism in which they inhere : in the social organism 
 they unquestionably are so, especially by their occupying 
 the room and preventing the development of active and 
 efficient organs which would succeed and replace them. 
 
 That the Christian religion is rapidly approaching, if it 
 has not already reached, this position, is a part of the 
 thesis maintained in these pages. The decay of belief 
 now general over Christendom, may be regarded from two 
 points of view, and traced up to two distinct causes one 
 rational, the other moral. The current faith has come 
 increasingly into conflict with science in proportion as the 
 latter has extended in depth and area. The isolated points 
 of collision of former days have been so multiplied, that 
 the shock now is along the whole conterminous line between 
 science and theology ; and it would not be easy to name a 
 department of inquiry which has not, in some measure, 
 contributed aid to the forces arrayed against the popular 
 belief. More important still is the changed tone of feeling 
 with regard to this subject. Time was, and even a recent 
 time, when the prestige of Christianity was so great, that 
 even its opponents were overawed by it. But now men 
 are ready to openly avow that they find a great deal in 
 the Christian scheme which is morally shocking; and 
 in the estimation of many minds nowadays, probably the 
 moral difficulties outweigh the intellectual. 
 
 Nothing is more common than the assertion that any 
 objections now made to Christianity are worn-out sophisms, 
 which have been answered and disposed of over and over 
 again by previous apologists. Sometimes we are told that 
 the objections are as old as the time of Celsus, and were 
 refuted by Origen; but, generally, Bishop Butler is the 
 favourite champion who is credited with a preordained
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. II 
 
 victory over all opponents, past, present, and future. Butler 
 was so great a man, and his work, considered as a reply to 
 the shallow deism of his day, was in many respects so 
 successful, that it argues a certain irreverence for his 
 character to load him with false praise and unmerited 
 laurels. But these claims, often made for Butler and 
 others, have their interesting and instructive side. They 
 show how little apt the theological mind is to see the real 
 points at issue, and to recognize the full gravity of the 
 present crisis. To suppose that arguments directed against 
 such disputants as Toland, Collins, or Tindal pertinent 
 as they might be, and, indeed, for the most part were are 
 equally potent when directed against the methods and 
 results of modern science, implies a complete misconcep- 
 tion of the true bearings of the question under discussion. 
 In the early eighteenth century, the light of science had 
 hardly got beyond the first glimmerings of dawn. Mathe- 
 matics and astronomy were the only sciences which had 
 passed into the positive and final stage. Chemistry, 
 geology, biology, historical criticism, were not yet in a 
 position to speak with authority even on subjects in their 
 own province, and were far from being in possession of 
 vast stores of verified truth obtained by rigorous appli- 
 cation of correct methods, such as now impose respect on 
 the most ignorant and careless. The deists were, to say 
 the least, as unscientific as the theologians. Their fancies 
 about the " light of Nature," which was to replace the 
 Christian religion, were as arbitrary and absurd as any 
 mythological legend. Tindal declared the light of Nature 
 to be " a clear and certain light which enlightened all men," 
 and from this fact he inferred that " our duty both to God 
 and man must, from the beginning of the world to the end, 
 remain unalterable, be always alike plain and perspicuous ; "
 
 12 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 a doctrine which had the serious defect of being contra- 
 dicted by the total experience of the human race. Butler 
 had no difficulty in showing that to advance such opinions, 
 was to " talk wildly and at random." No blame attaches 
 to the deists, able and worthy men most of them, for not 
 transcending the knowledge of the age. They attempted 
 prematurely to solve a problem, before the means of 
 solution were at hand. What they would have liked to do 
 was to give a rational explanation of Christianity as an 
 historical phenomenon ; but they had neither the historical 
 nor the scientific knowledge requisite for such an under- 
 taking. They consequently fell back on such vague meta- 
 physical conceptions as the " light of Nature," and essayed 
 to show that Christianity was not mysterious, or that it was 
 as old as the creation mere sophisms which they probably 
 believed, but which were quite incapable of scientific proof. 
 It is not a little surprising that apologists in the present 
 day should be able to deceive themselves as to the im- 
 measurable distance which separates arguments of this 
 kind from the inferences unfavourable to theology deduced 
 from science. The object of science is not to supply hostile 
 data for the use of agnostics against religion ; though 
 there is reason to think that many do believe that to be its 
 chief end and aim. The object of science is knowledge, 
 the increased number of those truths which are capable of 
 verification and proof. If here and there its conclusions 
 conflict with the current theology, the fact is of secondary 
 importance, and of no permanent interest at all to science 
 as such, which is concerned with positive, not negative, 
 results. Every statement and proposition in the most 
 elementary scientific primer probably conflicts with some 
 theology or other. Yet it often seems to be assumed that 
 the sole or the chief object of the labours of scientific men
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 13 
 
 was to find means and arguments to damage the Bible. 
 Scientific men, a most hard-worked and industrious class, 
 have a better appreciation of the value of time, and of the 
 wisdom of minding their own business. They, no doubt, 
 come upon results which are fatal to the currently received 
 opinions about the Bible. But these results interest them 
 much less than they do those who are assured that the 
 Bible is the Word of God. The tables have been turned 
 since the days iwhen Science timidly sued for leave to 
 examine nature, and to draw a few conclusions of her own. 
 Then Theology was queen, and made her power felt. 
 Inquirers worked then, so to speak, with a halter about 
 their necks, and were anxious, above all things, to appease 
 their mighty enemy by every mark of deference and docility. 
 Now the old sovereign has become the suppliant a rather 
 importunate and intrusive suppliant but still by her de- 
 meanour, if not her words, admitting that she has been 
 discrowned. She no longer, with haughty bearing, issues 
 her anathemas on the progress of the human mind, but she 
 is in great anxiety to show that, appearances notwithstand- 
 ing, this progress is not incompatible with her pretensions. 
 Geology seems to contradict Genesis in a very direct and 
 final way. " That is all your mistake," says Theology ; 
 " Geology and Genesis are in most perfect union ; in fact, 
 the science confirms the Scripture so wonderfully, that each 
 reflects light on the other." The fact that the geology thus 
 warmly accepted now, was once resisted with energy and 
 anger as an impious and futile science, is passed over. 
 New light as to its harmony with Scripture was not noticed, 
 until it had attained a position of power which made it 
 more desirable as a friend than as a foe. The fact is 
 suggestive. 
 
 A convenient mode of showing the way in which science
 
 14 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 has cut the ground from under the feet of theology, will be 
 a quotation from a once famous and remarkable book, 
 which, in its day, and for a long time after, was regarded, 
 with justice, as a powerful piece of argument in favour of 
 the current religion. Dr. Samuel Clarke was a man of 
 considerable ability, and of very great attainments ; he was 
 also a man of high and honourable character, and his Boyle 
 lectures, commonly known as his two Discourses " On the 
 Being and Attributes of God," and on " The Truth and 
 Certainty of the Christian Revelation," enjoyed an immense 
 popularity, not only at home but abroad, all through the 
 eighteenth century. The book is now read only by the 
 curious in religious archaeology. In an elaborate argument, 
 intended to show that although the Christian doctrines 
 "may not be discoverable by bare Reason unassisted by 
 Revelation, yet when they are discovered by Revelation 
 they are found most agreeable to sound, unprejudiced 
 Reason," Clarke proceeds to prove that the account in 
 Genesis of the formation of the earth is entirely credible, 
 in the following passage : " That, about the space of six 
 thousand years since, the earth was without form and void, 
 that is, a confused chaos, out of which God formed this 
 beautiful and useful fabrick we now inhabit, and stocked it 
 with the seeds of all kinds of plants, and formed upon it 
 man, and all other specimens of animals it is now furnished 
 with is very agreeable to right reason. For though the 
 precise time, indeed, when all this was done, could not now 
 have been known exactly without Revelation ; yet, even at 
 this day, there are remaining many considerable and very 
 strong rational proofs which make it exceedingly probable 
 (separate from the authority of Revelation) that this present 
 frame and constitution of the earth cannot have been of a very 
 much longer date. The universal tradition delivered down
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 15 
 
 from all the most ancient nations of the world, both learned 
 and barbarous; the constant and agreeing doctrine of all 
 ancient philosophers and poets concerning the earth's being 
 formed within such a period of time out of water and 
 chaos ; the manifest absurdities and contradictions of those 
 few accounts which pretend to a much greater antiquity; 
 the numbers of men with which the earth is at present 
 inhabited ; the late original of learning and all useful arts 
 and sciences; the changes that must necessarily fall out 
 naturally in the earth in vast length of time, as by the 
 sinking and washing down of mountains, the consumption of 
 water by plants, and innumerable other such like accidents, 
 these, I say, and many more arguments drawn from 
 Nature, Reason, and Observation, make that account of 
 the earth's formation exceedingly probable in itself, which, 
 from the revelation delivered in Scripture-history, we be- 
 lieve to be certain." * 
 
 This passage shows what a comparatively easy matter 
 the defence of the Bible was in Dr. Clarke's day. He 
 could, without fear of serious contradiction, make assump- 
 tions which no one would venture to make now. The 
 " strong rational proofs," which show that the earth cannot 
 be much more than six thousand years old, would be hard 
 to find. Why the shrinking and washing down of mountains 
 was evidence of the recent date of the earth is difficult to 
 see ; and the " consumption of water by plants," implying 
 that the water of the globe was being rapidly used up and 
 annihilated, is an interesting example of old notions on 
 chemistry. In the earlier discourse on the existence of 
 God, Clarke had been enthusiastic over the support given 
 to his thesis by the discoveries of his day : 
 
 * " Truth and Certainty of Christian Revelation," p. 187; edition 
 1724.
 
 i6 7Y7.fi 1 SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 " If Galen, so many ages since, could find in the con- 
 struction and constitution of the parts of the human body 
 such undeniable marks of contrivance and design as forced 
 him then to acknowledge and admire the wisdom of its 
 Author, what would he have said if he had known the late 
 discoveries in anatomy and physic, the circulation of the 
 blood, the exact structure of the heart and brain, the uses 
 of numberless glands and valves for the secretion and 
 motion of the juices in the body : besides several veins and 
 other vessels and receptacles not at all known or so much 
 as imagined to have any existence in his days, but which 
 now are discovered to serve the wisest and most exquisite 
 ends imaginable ? " * 
 
 Bacon's famous maxim, that "a little philosophy inclineth 
 men's minds to atheism ; but depth in philosophy bringeth 
 men's minds back to religion," is now being reversed. The 
 early glimpses of the marvels of nature afforded by modern 
 science undoubtedly were favourable to natural theology in 
 the first instance. Knowledge revealed so many wonders 
 which had not been suspected by ignorance, that a general 
 increase of awe and reverence for the Creator was the natural, 
 though not very logical, consequence. But a deeper philo- 
 sophy, or, rather, biology, has rudely disturbed the satis- 
 faction with which " the wisest and most exquisite ends " 
 were once regarded. It is now known that for one case 
 of successful adaptation of means to ends in the animal 
 world, there are hundreds of failures. If organs which serve 
 an obvious end justify the assumption of an intelligent 
 designer, what are we to say of organs which serve no end 
 at all, but are quite useless and meaningless ? Such are 
 the rudimentary organs in plants and animals, the design 
 of which seems only to point to an unintelligent designer. 
 * Page 103.
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 17 
 
 " Some of the cases of rudimentary organs are extremely 
 curious the presence of teeth in foetal whales which, when 
 grown up, have not a tooth in their heads, and the presence 
 of teeth which never cut through the gums in the upper 
 jaws of our unborn calves. . . . Nothing can be plainer 
 than that wings are formed for flight; yet in how many 
 insects do we see wings so reduced in size as to be utterly 
 incapable of flight, and not rarely lying under wing-cases, 
 firmly soldered together." * Again, " Eyes which do not 
 see form the most striking example of rudimentary organs. 
 These are found in very many animals, which live in the 
 dark, as in caves or underground. Their eyes often exist 
 in a welKdeveloped condition, but they are covered by 
 membrane, so that no ray of light can enter, and they can 
 never see. Such eyes, without the function of sight, are 
 found in several species of moles and mice which live 
 underground, in serpents and lizards, in amphibious animals 
 (Proteus, Ccerilia), and in fishes ; also in numerous inverte- 
 brate animals, which pass their lives in the dark, as do 
 many beetles, crabs, snails, worms," etc.f Another strange 
 instance is, " the rudiment of the tail which man possesses 
 in his 3 5 tail vertebrae, and which, in the human embryo, 
 stands out prominently during the first two months of its 
 development. It afterwards becomes completely hidden. 
 The rudimentary little tail of man is an irrefutable proof 
 of the fact that he is descended from tailed ancestors. In 
 woman the tail is generally by one vertebra longer than in 
 man. There still exist rudimentary muscles in the human 
 tail which formerly moved it." J 
 
 That facts of this nature, which have only been a short 
 
 * "Origin of Species," p. 450. 
 
 t Haeckel, "History of Creation," vol. i. p. 13. 
 
 % Ibid., vol. i. p. 289. 
 
 C
 
 1 8 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 time before the world, should fail to convince theologians 
 brought up in a completely different order of ideas, is in 
 no wise surprising. The due weight of facts will no more 
 be allowed than the due weight of arguments, by minds 
 which habit and education, and, perhaps, even a sense of 
 duty, have combined to bias against them. But the effect 
 on the younger and succeeding generations is very great, 
 and is already perceptible. When theology was attacked 
 in front with metaphysical arguments, such as were used 
 by the old deists, it was able to make a very stout and 
 plausible resistance. But now its position, in military 
 phrase, has been turned ; the heights around it and behind 
 are occupied by an artillery which render further defence 
 impossible. Take the instance of the origin of man. The 
 whole scheme of Christian theology is meaningless except 
 on the assumption of the fall of man from a primitive state 
 of innocence and virtue. Unless theologians are prepared 
 to throw over St. Paul, they must hold that "as in Adam 
 all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Perhaps 
 no one doctrine ever believed by man has had a more 
 terrible history than that of " original or birth-sin," which, 
 as the Ninth Article says, is " the fault and corruption of 
 the nature of every man, that naturally is ingendered of the 
 offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from 
 original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to 
 evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit ; 
 and therefore in every person born into this world, it 
 deserveth God's wrath and damnation." But if ever a thesis 
 was demonstrated, it is that man has not fallen, but risen, 
 and that from the lowest level of animal existence. No 
 court of justice ever witnessed a more complete discomfiture 
 of an unfounded claim to a noble title and estate, than the 
 defeat of this theological claim for man, that he was made
 
 THE DECA Y OF BELIEF. 19 
 
 in the image of God, placed in Paradise in a state of purity, 
 yfrom which he fell through disobedience. The result is 
 serious. The New Testament endorses the fall in the most 
 emphatic way ; the Incarnation itself had no other object 
 than that of neutralizing its effects. Yet it is proved to be 
 a mere fiction of a primitive cosmogony. 
 
 The general rejection of miracles is another system of 
 the decay of belief. The once active controversy as to the 
 possibility of miracles has become nearly extinct, because 
 one of the parties to it has been growing steadily in numbers 
 and authority, while the other party has declined. The 
 refuters of Hume address constantly decreasing audiences, 
 and the belief in miracles will shortly (like the belief in 
 witchcraft in the seventeenth century) die a natural death 
 among the educated classes. The notion that the testimony 
 of men, however worthy and sincere, can suffice to establish 
 a miraculous event, is no longer felt to be serious. The 
 testimony of credible witnesses is valueless, unless they be 
 competent witnesses as well competent to observe with 
 patience, accuracy, and coolness, the alleged facts. Were 
 such observers present at the working of the miracles in 
 Palestine which Paley patronizes ? The argument against 
 miracles has gained immensely in force since Hume's day 
 through the growth of the historic method, and the larger 
 conceptions of human evolution which have led to the 
 incipient science of sociology. Hume's principle was tersely 
 and fairly enough stated by Paley thus : " That it is con- 
 trary to experience that testimony should be true, but not 
 contrary to experience that testimony should be false ;" a true 
 statement, but not beyond the reach of plausible objection, 
 as Paley showed. The moment we introduce the historic 
 element, the question seems transferred to a higher court. 
 Primitive, early, and unscientific man, is at all times and
 
 20 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 everywhere prone to see miracle in everything that appears 
 odd or strange to his limited experience. Ignorant of 
 nature's laws, he finds no difficulty in assuming their viola- 
 tion ; he lives in an atmosphere of fiction, fable, and myth, 
 and much prefers a miraculous explanation of an event to 
 a rational or real one. The belief in miracles is universal 
 in wholly unscientific times. With the growth of culture it 
 diminishes; with the extension of science it disappears. 
 Miracles are never supposed to occur except where and 
 when an antecedent belief in them exists. In other words, 
 the belief in miracles depends not upon objective facts, but 
 on the subjective conditions of the witnesses' minds. 
 
 Paley tried to parry the obvious objection that the best 
 way to silence the gainsayers of miracles would be to repeat 
 them. " To expect, concerning a miracle, that it should 
 succeed upon repetition, is to expect that which would 
 make it cease to be a miracle ; which is contrary to its 
 nature as such, and would totally destroy the use and 
 purpose for which it was wrought ; " * a remark less acute 
 than Paley's remarks usually are. Assuming that a miracle 
 reveals the presence of a supernatural power, why should its 
 repetition destroy its miraculous character ; above all, why 
 should it destroy its use ? If miracles are intended to 
 convert the stiff-necked and hard of heart, what more likely 
 way of bringing them to submission than the repetition of 
 miracles ? And according to Scripture, this was precisely 
 the way in which Pharaoh, King of Egypt, was humbled. 
 He resisted the miracles wrought by Moses and Aaron with 
 stubbornness all through the first nine plagues ; but the 
 universal slaying of the first-born broke even his spirit. 
 Such must always be the effect of repeated miracles ; and 
 there can be no doubt that even at this day, in the midst 
 * " Paley's Evidences : Preparatory Considerations."
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 21 
 
 of all this science and scepticism, if miracles were again 
 wrought in a public place and manner, so as to remove the 
 suspicion of trickery and legerdemain, the effect of them 
 would be 'greater than ever it was. Suppose a prophet of 
 God were to appear among us, and announce that he had 
 a revelation to make. According to Paley, his only way 
 of making it would be by miracle ; he therefore would per- 
 form miracles. As all difficulties vanish before Almighty 
 power, one miracle would be the same as another to him ; 
 and let us suppose him to walk on the water, down the 
 centre of the Thames, from Putney to Mortlake. May we 
 not be sure that one such achievement would produce a 
 sensation perfectly overwhelming, not only in London, but 
 to the furthest limits of the civilized world ? If he rapidly 
 followed up this miracle by others fed with a few loaves 
 the crowds on Hampstead Heath on a Bank Holiday, or 
 those on Epsom Downs on the Derby day ; gave sight to 
 a man notoriously blind from his birth, or raised from the 
 dead a putrescent corpse which had lain four days in the 
 grave can we remotely conceive a limit to the excitement 
 which would ensue ? Would not such a reaction against 
 current scientific notions set in, as would sweep everything 
 before it ? Supposing always that the miracles were bond, 
 fide miracles, such as are assumed to have been wrought in 
 Judaea some eighteen hundred years ago, we may even be 
 sure that many, if not all, of the chief men of science would 
 be among the most impressed, if not the most excited, and 
 be prompt to own that they had made a great mistake in 
 asserting the invariability of nature's laws. A complete 
 recast of the philosophy of the inductive sciences would be 
 one of the least results of a manifestation of genuine miracles. 
 As for its effect on the cause of religion, there can be little 
 room for doubt. The passionate yet hopeless yearning,
 
 22 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 which now fills so many minds, to retain a rational belief in 
 the supernatural, would be replaced by a serene joy over 
 the triumph of faith. It may suit Paley to say that repeti- 
 tion of miracles would destroy their use, but he must be a 
 lukewarm theologian who does not at times wish from the 
 depth of his heart that an authentic miracle could be pro- 
 duced. Yet it is at this momentous crisis in the religious 
 affairs of the world, when the enemy is carrying one position 
 after another, and has all but penetrated to the citadel of 
 belief, that no miracles occur that no miracles are claimed, 
 except, indeed, of the compromising species made at 
 Lourdes, and now and then of a fasting girl exhibited in 
 Belgium and in Wales. When no one doubted the possi- 
 bility or the frequency of miracles they abounded, we are 
 told ; that is, when by reason of their number and the ready 
 credit accorded to them, their effect was the least startling, 
 then they were lavished on a believing world. Now, when 
 they are denied and insulted as the figments of a barbarous 
 age, when the faith they might support is in such jeopardy 
 as it never was before, when a tithe of the wonders wasted 
 in the deserts of Sinai and the "parts beyond Jordan " would 
 shake the nations with astonishment and surprise when, 
 in short, the least expenditure of miracle would produce 
 the maximum of result then miracles mysteriously cease. 
 This fact, which is utterly beyond contest, has borne fruit, 
 and will yet bear more. 
 
 Instead of a short chapter, a long volume would be needed 
 to set forth in detail even a spicilegium of the rationalistic 
 arguments which have operated to produce a decay of 
 belief. Any one interested in the subject will easily find 
 them in the appropriate quarters in the attacks on, and 
 still better, in the defences of, the Bible. The width of the 
 breach between reason and faith, between theology and
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 23 
 
 science, is hardly denied ; and the noteworthy fact is, that 
 only one of the parties hopes for, or believes in, an ultimate 
 reconciliation. Reason and science have made up their 
 minds on the subject, and would gladly leave it alone, and 
 attend to their own affairs. It is theology that cannot 
 resign herself to a permanent quarrel, and is always pur- 
 suing science with a mixture of entreaty and reproach, and 
 begging the latter to hear her cause over again, and not to 
 say with cruel harshness that the separation is for good and 
 all. We may, therefore, leave this side of our subject with 
 a concluding observation. 
 
 On no point were apologists more confident than on the 
 impossibility of explaining the uprise of Christianity other- 
 wise than by a supernatural principle. In the words of 
 Archbishop Whately, " No complete and consistent account 
 has ever been given of the manner in which the Christian 
 religion, supposing it a human contrivance, could have 
 arisen and prevailed as it did. The religion exists ; that is, 
 the phenomenon ; those who will not allow it to have come 
 from God are bound to solve the phenomenon on some 
 other hypothesis less open to objection; they are not indeed 
 called on to prove that it actually did arise in this or that 
 way, but to suggest (consistently with acknowledged facts) 
 some probable way in which it may have arisen, reconcilable 
 with all the circumstances of the case. That infidels have 
 never done this, though they have had nearly two thousand 
 years to try, amounts to a confession that no such hypothesis 
 can be devised, which will not be open to greater objections 
 than lie against Christianity." * The passage is interesting 
 on other grounds than the particular one with which we are 
 concerned, and leaves us the alternative of a low opinion 
 either of Whately's candour or of his perspicacity. The 
 * " Logic," bk. iii. 17.
 
 24 THE SERVICE OF MAN'. 
 
 suggestion that infidels had or could have been " trying " 
 for nearly two thousand years to concoct an hypothesis 
 adverse to Christianity, could only be based on a strange 
 ignorance of the state of the human mind during at least 
 three-fourths of that period, or on the safety of such an 
 innuendo in the dark ages when the " Logic " was published 
 (1829). But this need not detain us. The important point 
 to observe is how completely Whately's assertion that a 
 rational explanation of the origin of Christianity has never 
 been given has, by the biblical and historical studies of the 
 last half century, been overthrown. Strauss, F. Ch. Baur, 
 Keim, and Hausrath, to name only the chief writers, have 
 made the early history of Christianity at least as intelligible 
 as other scholars have made the early history of Rome. 
 To the unhistoric minds of the eighteenth century, the 
 uprise of a religion in Palestine in the first century, claiming 
 supernatural authority, seemed as extraordinary and un- 
 accountable as a similar phenomenon would have been in 
 Paris or London. The religious passions, especially among 
 uncivilized races, were at once disliked and misunderstood. 
 Even Robertson the historian could only see in the Crusades 
 " a singular monument of human folly." There was sup- 
 posed to be no alternative between a truly divine relation 
 and an artful fraud designed by priests for their own benefit. 
 Whately's phrase, "supposing Christianity a human con- 
 trivance," points to this crude notion. With enlarged con- 
 ceptions of the variety of man's nature, and historical 
 development, the spontaneous appearance of such a religion 
 as Christianity is now seen to be quite natural and regular 
 in such an age as the first century. The mythopoeic faculty 
 of the human mind at certain stages is capable of more 
 wonderful achievements than any exhibited in the New 
 Testament, and is at this day in full operation in British
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 25 
 
 India, weaving legends and creating gods with unchecked 
 luxuriance. Meanwhile the historical character of the 
 Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles, and the genuineness 
 of several epistles ascribed to St. Paul, have been gravely 
 impugned, and, in the opinion of many, seriously damaged ; 
 an opinion not shaken by the counter-efforts of the Chris- 
 tian apologists. Again, the fortress of theology has been 
 surrounded and commanded by the forces at the disposal 
 of knowledge. 
 
 But mere rationalism, however cogent to some minds, 
 often remains powerless on others, and those frequently 
 possessing the best qualities of intellect and character. The 
 deepest change which this age has seen in reference to 
 men's attitude towards the current theology, has taken place, 
 not in the region of the understanding, but in that of the 
 heart. It is not so much that the Bible, with its miracles 
 and legends, is felt to be untrue and incredible by the 
 trained reason ; a great number of theological dogmas are 
 felt to be morally repulsive and horrible, by the more 
 humane conscience of modern times. This change of 
 sentiment is so great and far-reaching, that there is no 
 wonder that its import is imperfectly seized, or even wholly 
 missed by those whom the accidents of education and 
 surroundings have preserved from its influence. It is a 
 change not^ less momentous than that which placed the 
 Christian converts of the Roman period in a position of 
 passionate hostility to the immoralities and indecencies 
 of decaying polytheism. Even divines are becoming aware 
 that the eternity of hell-torments is a doctrine of waning 
 efficacy, on which it is easy to insist too much. Some are 
 discovering that it lacks Scriptural authority, and beseech 
 us not to believe that anything so dreadful is delivered in 
 the Word of God. The minimising of irksome tenets is
 
 26 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 a frequent resource and an unfailing symptom of decaying 
 faiths. Julian and his pagan sophists essayed to spiritualize 
 offensive Greek myths. There is no ground for doubting 
 the bond fides of such attempts, but they rarely succeed. 
 The obvious question, " If your new interpretation is the 
 right one, why was it not discovered before ? why did what 
 you admit to be dreadful error receive apparently for a long 
 time Divine sanction ? " cannot be answered ; and the 
 question is followed by another : " If your predecessors 
 taught error in the dogmas you discard, what guarantee 
 have you to offer that those dogmas which you still maintain 
 may not some day be discovered to be equally untenable ? 
 How can you be sure that your successors, when hard 
 pressed by the science of their day, will not, like yourselves, 
 find good reasons for throwing them over ? " The eternity 
 of hell torments is a doctrine discarded by a number of 
 divines, who yet cling to the doctrines of the Incarnation 
 and the Atonement. There is nothing to assure us that, 
 in a hundred years' time, these also will not be discovered 
 to be unscriptural. 
 
 The Christian theology, in its main features, was evolved 
 during the most calamitous period which the human race 
 has lived through in historic times. The decline and fall of 
 the Roman empire still remains the greatest catastrophe on 
 record ; the slow death protracted over five centuries of the 
 ancient world. Every evil afflicted men in that terrible 
 time ; arbitrary power, the most remorseless and cruel ; 
 a grinding fiscality, which at last exterminated wealth ; 
 pestilences, which became endemic and depopulated whole 
 provinces ; and, to crown all, a series of invasions by 
 barbarous hordes, who passed over the countries like a 
 consuming fire. It was in this age that the foundations of 
 Christian theology were laid the theology of the Councils
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 27 
 
 and the Fathers. The conception of God, of His relation 
 to, and dealings with, the world, was evolved in a society 
 which groaned under unexampled oppression, misery, and 
 affliction. Needless to say, it was an age of great and 
 almost morbid cruelty : the games of the circus were a 
 constant discipline of the inhuman passions. After the 
 empire had vanished, for long centuries there was no great 
 improvement. The barbarism of the Frankish period may 
 be seen at full length in the pages of Gregory of Tours. 
 The Carling empire was an oppressive tyranny ; the Feudal 
 Age, one of lawless rapine on the part of the strong, and 
 cowering anguish on the part of the weak. It was in this 
 evil time that the Christian Theology was evolved, com- 
 mencing with the great doctrines defined by the Fathers, 
 and afterwards reduced to a logical system by the scholastics, 
 especially by St. Thomas, the Angel of the schools. 
 
 With such visible rulers of the world before them, it is 
 no wonder that men formed very dark and cruel notions 
 of the invisible ruler, who disposed of all things. Cruelty, 
 injustice, arbitrary power, were too familiar to be shocking, 
 too constant to be supposed accidental or transitory. The 
 real world before their eyes was taken as a dim pattern and 
 foreshadowing of the ideal world beyond the grave. God 
 was an Almighty Emperor, a transcendental Diocletian or 
 Constantine, doing as he list with his own. His edicts ran 
 through all space and time, his punishments were eternal, 
 and whatever he did his justice must not be questioned. 
 And thus those words came to be written, " Therefore hath 
 he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will 
 he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he 
 yet find fault ? For who hath resisted his will ? Nay but, 
 O man, who art thou that repliest against God ? Shall the 
 thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou
 
 28 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 made me thus ? Hath not the potter power over the clay, 
 of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and 
 another unto dishonour ? " * which, probably, have added 
 more to human misery than any other utterances made by 
 man. St. Paul's teaching fell on a fertile soil. For some 
 fifteen hundred years the human conscience was not shocked 
 by it. Since the rise of the Arminian theology there has 
 been a gradual and growing revulsion of feeling, and now 
 it is said plainly that the " potter has no right to be angry 
 with his pots. If he wanted them different he should have 
 made them different." The pretensions of " an omnipotent 
 devil desiring to be complimented " as all-merciful, when 
 he is exerting the most fiendish cruelty, are no longer 
 admitted in abashed silence. But if the great difficulty of 
 hell and eternal punishments were happily surmounted, 
 there remain, in the whole Christian scheme of redemption, 
 moral iniquities and obliquities which no good man of the 
 present day, whatever his religion or theology, would willingly 
 be guilty of himself. The notion that God wanted to be 
 propitiated by the death of the innocent Christ, is a 
 thoroughly base and barbarous one ; natural enough in 
 rude ages, when costly sacrifice was a recognized mode of 
 appeasing angry deities, but repellent now. Hardly the 
 most depraved man, in his right mind, would accept the 
 vicarious punishment of one who had not offended him, in 
 lieu of one who had. A high-minded man would endure 
 almost anything rather than countenance such an enormity. 
 The idea is barbarous, well worthy of Chinese conceptions 
 of justice, content if the executioner gets a subject to 
 operate on, but indifferent whether it be the culprit or not. 
 Yet this cruel and barbarous notion is the centre of the 
 Christian religion ; at least, it has not yet been discovered 
 * Romans ix. 18-21.
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 29 
 
 to be unscriptural, I believe. Again, Satan may well give 
 latitudinarian theologians trouble in this world as in the 
 next. When they have explained away his eternal function 
 of tormenting souls in hell, they will have to extenuate his 
 strange temporal avocations on earth, and to explain how 
 they can be permitted by a merciful God. A fallen angel 
 of vast skill, subtlety, and guile, is allowed to tempt men 
 and women, even young children, to commit sin, to allure 
 them away from Christ, to jeopardize their hopes of Paradise. 
 And God, who permits this, is supposed to hate sin. If he 
 had wished sin to abound, what could he have done more 
 than to allow the arch-fiend, aided by legions of minor 
 devils, to go about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may 
 devour, with constant access to men, nay, to their most 
 inward minds, whispering evil thoughts, stimulating criminal 
 passions, and, however often driven away by holy prayer, 
 ever renewing his assaults on poor souls, up to the last 
 moment of mortal agony, when he oftener succeeds than 
 fails in carrying them off to his place of torment. Christ's 
 petition, " Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from 
 the evil one," has never been heard, or it has not been 
 granted. We are always being led into temptation ; we are 
 never delivered from the evil one on this side of the gates 
 of death. A supernatural being who wrecked man's felicity 
 in Paradise, and brought sin and death into the world, is 
 appointed to the office of tempting men at all times, in all 
 places, throughout life ; he is able to enter into the minds 
 of his victims and pervert their souls, in society and in 
 solitude, in sleep, and even in prayer, capable of assuming 
 all disguises, even to appearing as an angel of light. A 
 human seducer, however artful and vile, is restricted as to 
 times and opportunities in corrupting the innocent. Satan 
 has constant and invisible access. Now, a parent or guardian
 
 30 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 who allowed children under his charge to associate with 
 bad characters, would be justly condemned as wanting in 
 a sense of duty and humanity. But God permits something 
 infinitely worse, by the whole difference between an im- 
 mortal evil spirit and the most profligate of earthly tempters. 
 Let any human father try and imagine the anguish with 
 which he would see his innocent, inexperienced daughter 
 walking arm-in-arm with an accomplished and fascinating 
 seducer. Would not his instantaneous step be to put an 
 end to such corrupting intercourse ? Would not public 
 opinion largely condone violent measures on his part, if it 
 should appear that the designs of the villain had been 
 crowned with a calamitous success ? Yet the heavenly 
 father is supposed to see this and far worse every hour and 
 minute of the day ; to see the young, the weak, the unpro- 
 tected, assailed by a supernatural tempter, his own creature, 
 his rebel angel, wholly evil and malignant ; and to see him 
 succeed in his attempt to ruin souls. And then the be- 
 trayed, poor human victim, not the fiend, is punished. The 
 fiend, indeed, is punished, but not for these acts against 
 humanity. The righteous God promptly avenged insub- 
 ordination and disrespect to himself. But ever since man's 
 creation Satan has had compensations. His dominion is 
 ever extending (as all orthodox theologians admit that the 
 number of the damned far exceeds that of the saved), and 
 he is well entitled to boast in the words of the poet 
 
 "To reign is worth ambition though in Hell ; 
 Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." 
 
 The old answer to such considerations was that they were 
 horribly profane, and " must be put down with a strong 
 hand." They impiously meddled with " mysteries " which 
 man in his fallen state could not fathom, but must reve-
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 31 
 
 rently adore. To which it is now replied, that there is no 
 mystery at all in the matter. Barbarous and cruel ages 
 have ever generated barbarous and cruel religions. Nay, 
 obscene and revolting rites and practices, which cannot be 
 named, have been and still are sanctioned by religion. 
 These were outgrown by the progressive nations of the 
 West when Christian monotheism prevailed. And now 
 Christian monotheism is sharing the fate of its prede- 
 cessors ; it is being superseded by the growing conscience 
 of mankind. 
 
 But the fact is that these somewhat old-fashioned con- 
 troversies about the credibility of miracles, the evidences 
 of Christianity, the authenticity of portions of Scripture, 
 and similar topics, are now dwarfed and overshadowed by 
 a far mightier question which has come to the front with 
 great rapidity in this age. The being and attributes of a 
 God have been a subject of esoteric discussion in the 
 schools of philosophers for centuries, but only recently 
 have been seen to pass from the closet to the market-place, 
 and to become one of the deepest questions of the day. 
 No more surprising change of fundamental conceptions 
 will be recorded by the future historians of philosophy, 
 than that which has supervened in the last twenty-five or 
 thirty years in reference to the idea of God. Up to a 
 recent time the sturdiest sceptics as to the truth of reve- 
 lation were mostly deists or pantheists, and often repudiated 
 atheism with warmth. The wittiest scoffer who ever at- 
 tacked Christianity, Voltaire, was a firm deist, and declared 
 that if God did not exist he would have to be invented. 
 The extreme school of Diderot and D'Holbach, even in 
 the sceptical eighteenth century, failed of a wide acceptance. 
 Now the conception of God is freely treated by many of 
 the leaders of philosophical and scientific opinion as a
 
 32 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 transitory phase of thought which the growth of knowledge 
 has finally terminated. The natural history and evolution 
 of the idea of God is traced in calm outline from its cradle 
 to its grave from its nascent form in Animism to its meta- 
 physical presentation as an inscrutable First Cause, the 
 absolute, unconditioned, and unrelated to the phenomenal 
 world. The idea of God has been "defecated to a pure 
 transparency," as one eminent writer phrases it; it has 
 been " deanthropomorphised," to use the language of 
 another. A new and widely-current word has been in- 
 vented to designate the large class of persons (mostly 
 persons of exceptional knowledge and ability) who refuse 
 to entertain any more the idea of a single divine Being, 
 maker of all things in heaven and earth. Agnostics are to 
 be met with on every side ; the place of honour is given 
 to their articles in the most popular monthly reviews ; and, 
 just as in the fourth century the mysteries of the Trinity 
 and the Incarnation were discussed in the streets of Con- 
 stantinople by shopkeepers and their customers, so now, at 
 dinner parties and gatherings of both sexes, the existence 
 of God emerges from time to time as a topic of conversa- 
 tion, ending often in negative conclusions. Every middle- 
 aged man can remember a time when such a transformation 
 of sentiments and opinions would have appeared beyond 
 the pale of possibility. 
 
 As in the case of the Christian theology, the difficulties 
 are twofold, intellectual and moral, which have extinguished 
 in many minds the traditional belief in a Supreme Being. 
 So long as men were able and content to believe in an 
 anthropomorphic deity an infinitely glorified and exalted 
 man- then difficulties were not perceived ; a feeling also 
 of religious awe daunted the mind from looking up and 
 scrutinizing even its own conceptions with a steady gaze.
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 33 
 
 But the growth of knowledge and a higher morality have 
 made the conception of an anthropomorphic God less and 
 less endurable, even to professed theologians, who have 
 been as ready as philosophers to dehumanize the deity. 
 But the difficulty is that, in proportion as the conception 
 of God is stripped of its human attributes and removed 
 away into the absolute, in the same proportion does the 
 conception cease to offer an object capable of exciting 
 human sympathy, and, what is not less important, does it 
 cease to be conceivable. "Similarly, with the logical in- 
 congruities, more and more conspicuous to growing intelli- 
 gence. Passing over the familiar difficulties that sundry 
 of the implied divine traits are in contradiction with the 
 divine attributes otherwise ascribed ; that a god who repents 
 of what he has done must be lacking either in power or 
 foresight ; that his anger presupposes an occurrence that 
 has been contrary to his intention, and so indicates defect 
 of means we come to the greater difficulty : that such 
 emotions, like all emotions, can exist only in a conscious- 
 ness which is limited. Every emotion has its antecedent 
 ideas, and antecedent ideas are habitually supposed to 
 occur in God. He is represented as seeing and hearing 
 this or the other, and as being emotionally affected thereby. 
 That is, the conception of a divinity possessing these traits 
 of character necessarily continues anthropomorphic, not 
 only in the sense that the emotions ascribed are like 
 those of human beings, but also in the sense that they 
 form parts of a consciousness which, like the human con- 
 sciousness, is formed of successive states. And such a 
 conception of the divine consciousness is irreconcilable 
 with the unchangeableness otherwise alleged, and with 
 the omniscience otherwise alleged. For a consciousness, 
 constituted of ideas and feelings caused by objects and
 
 34 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 occurrences, cannot be simultaneously occupied with all 
 objects and all occurrences throughout the universe. To 
 believe in a divine consciousness, men must refrain from 
 thinking what is meant by consciousness must stop short 
 with verbal propositions ; and propositions which they are 
 debarred from rendering into thought, will more and more 
 fail to satisfy them. Of course like difficulties present 
 themselves when the will of God is spoken of. So long 
 as we refrain from giving a definite meaning to the word 
 ' will/ we may say that it is possessed by the Cause of all 
 things, as readily as we may say that love of approbation 
 is possessed by a circle; but when, from the words, we 
 pass to the thoughts they stand for, we find that we can no 
 more unite in consciousness the terms of the one pro- 
 position than we can those of the other. Whoever con- 
 ceives of any other will than his own, must do so in terms 
 of his own will, which is the sole will directly known to him, 
 all other wills being only inferred. But will, as such, is 
 conscious, if it presupposes a motive, a prompting desire of 
 some kind ; absolute indifference excludes the conception 
 of will. Moreover, will, as implying a prompting desire, 
 connotes some end contemplated as one to be achieved, 
 and ceases with the achievement of it ; some other will re- 
 ferring to some other end taking its place. That is to say, 
 will, like emotion, necessarily supposes a series of states of 
 consciousness. The conception of a divine will, derived 
 from the human will, involves, like it, localization in space 
 and time ; the willing of each end excluding from conscious- 
 ness, for an interval, the willing of other ends, and there- 
 fore being inconsistent with that omnipresent activity which 
 simultaneously works out an infinity of ends. It is the same 
 with the ascription of intelligence. Not to dwell on the 
 seriality and limitation implied as before, we may note that
 
 THE DECAY OF BELIEF. 35 
 
 intelligence, as alone conceivable by us, presupposes exist- 
 ence independent of it and objective to it. It is carried 
 on in terms of changes primarily wrought by alien activities 
 the impressions generated by things beyond conscious- 
 ness and the ideas derived from such impressions. To 
 speak of an intelligence which exists in the absence of all 
 such alien activities, is to use a meaningless word. If to 
 the corollary that the First Cause, considered as intelligent, 
 must be continually affected by independent objective 
 activities, it is replied that these have become such by act 
 of creation, and were previously included in the First 
 Cause ; then the reply is, that, in such case, the First 
 Cause could, before their creation, have had nothing to 
 generate in it such changes as those constituting what we 
 call intelligence, and must therefore have been unintelligent 
 at the time when intelligence was most called for. Hence 
 it is clear that the intelligence ascribed answers in no 
 respect to that which we know by the name. It is intelli- 
 gence out of which all the characters constituting it have 
 vanished." * 
 
 On the moral side it is found impossible to reconcile the 
 attributes of mercy and benevolence in the Creator with 
 the condition of the animal world, which presents an almost 
 continued scene of carnage and cruelty, and has done so 
 from its commencement. Not only are the stronger car- 
 nivora fashioned and armed for the purpose of hunting and 
 killing their prey a gazelle or antelope, in a state of 
 nature, is compelled to fly three times daily for its life 
 but innumerable parasites exist in the bodies and at the 
 expense of animals generally much their superiors. " Of 
 the animal kingdom as a whole, more than half the species 
 are parasites." If each individual species, as Agassiz said, 
 * Herbert Spencer, Nineteenth Century Revitw, 1885.
 
 36 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 is an " embodied creative thought of God," his benevolence 
 must be acknowledged to be of a singular character. 
 
 The best apologists admit that a mere metaphysical 
 deity, an absolute First Cause defecated to a pure trans- 
 parency, is not enough. What they wish to restore is 
 a belief in the God to whom they learned to pray by their 
 mother's knee. And they are abundantly justified from 
 their point of view in such a wish. The only God whom 
 Western Europeans, with a Christian ancestry of a thousand 
 years behind them, can worship, is the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob ; or, rather, of St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. 
 Bernard, and of the innumerable " blessed saints," canonized 
 I or not, who peopled the Ages of Faith. No one wants, no 
 j one cares for, an abstract God, an Unknowable, an Absolute, 
 Swith whom we stand in no human or intelligible relation. 
 What pious hearts wish to feel and believe is the existence, 
 "behind the veil" of the visible world, of an invisible 
 Personality, friendly to man, at once a brother and God. 
 
 I The unequalled potency of Christianity as a religion of 
 the heart, has ever consisted in the admirable conception of 
 the Man God, Jesus Christ. Even a power hostile to man, 
 if conceived as embodied in a person, has been felt pre- 
 ferable to vague, passionless, unintelligent force; because 
 a hostile person could be propitiated, could be appealed to, 
 could be brought over to mercy and good-will by prayer 
 land sacrifice. That is to say, that an anthropomorphic 
 I God is the only God whom men can worship, and also the 
 God whom modern thought finds it increasingly difficult to 
 believe in.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WHY MEN HESITATE. 
 
 THE series of arguments and considerations against the 
 current theology, of which a very imperfect summary was 
 attempted in the last chapter, might seem sufficient to 
 bring about a rapid extinction of the vulgar belief; and 
 possibly that extinction is not so far off as both those who 
 wish it, and those who deprecate it, may be apt to think. 
 Still, whatever may be the case in France and Germany, 
 Christianity, if moribund, is by no means dead, in this 
 country at least : the land which has done most to work 
 out the philosophy of evolution, is perhaps still the most 
 Christian in faith and practice remaining in the world. 
 The question arises, why has rationalism, after such brilliant 
 victories, not triumphed completely ? Why is the British 
 Sunday without a parallel in Europe ? Why on that day 
 are museums and theatres still closed, and the churches 
 and chapels full ? The obvious answer that we are the 
 most conservative of races is not satisfactory. We can 
 overturn quickly enough institutions with which we are 
 really discontented. The inference is, that the mass of 
 Englishmen, in spite of the wide prevalence of agnostic 
 views, are not yet satisfied in their hearts that an improved 
 substitute for Christianity can be found. Intellectually, 
 their allegiance to it has been much shaken, but their 
 feelings have not been changed in a similar degree. This
 
 38 THE SERVICE OF MAN'. 
 
 may be explained in two ways. First, a certain slow-footed 
 sureness in the national character, which refuses to move 
 with haste in matters of paramount importance. Among 
 the peoples who embraced the Reformation, the English 
 were the most tardy in their open and general revolt from 
 Rome. Secondly, in no country has Christianity of late 
 years been less offensive to any class of dissidents. Un- 
 limited religious liberty has permitted every shade of 
 religious or irreligious sentiment to assert itself after its 
 own heart, in its own fashion. Even the established church, 
 once so insolent and oppressive, has, on the whole, shown 
 a wise spirit of compromise and toleration, and is, perhaps, 
 less hated now than at any past period of its history. A 
 touch of genuine persecution would long ago have caused 
 an explosion, which would not only have annihilated the 
 establishment, but have reacted injuriously on the other 
 sects. 
 
 In the absence of the stimulus given by persecution 
 even to unpopular opinions, agnosticism has had to make 
 its way on its own merits, so to speak, on a fair field, and 
 certainly with no favour. Among certain groups, with 
 whom intellectual cultivation is the main business of life, 
 it has had a great success, far greater than could have been 
 expected in only a recent past ; but it has not extended 
 and penetrated through the great mass of the middle and 
 upper classes. And the obvious reason is, that agnosti- 
 cism, so far, has not only not had feeling with it, but it has 
 had feeling against it. A belief in the unknowable kindles 
 no enthusiasm. Science wins a verdict in its favour before 
 any competent intellectual tribunal ; but numbers of men, 
 and the vast majority of women, ignore the finding of the 
 jury of experts. They cling passionately to the belief in 
 the supernatural ; they listen even with patience and flattering
 
 WffY MEN HESITATE. 39 
 
 hope to the deeply suspicious and suspected professors 
 of spiritualism and thought-reading, athirst for a hint, a 
 suggestion, an evanescent fact, which would lighten the 
 gloom of the grave. Above all, they will believe, in spite 
 of science and the laws of their consciousness, in a good 
 God, who loves them and cares for them and their little 
 wants and trials, and will, if they only please him, take 
 them at last to his bosom, and " wipe the tears for ever 
 from their eyes." 
 
 " A 1 'enfant il faut sa mere, 
 A 1'ame il faut son Dieu." 
 
 In this respect, at least, Carlyle was a true son of his age, 
 and expressed one of its deepest heart-pangs in that bitter 
 cry of the Everlasting No : " To me the Universe was all 
 void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility : 
 it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling 
 on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. 
 O the vast, gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death ! 
 Why was the Living banished thither companionless, con- 
 scious? Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil 
 is your God ? " That is the true voice of a Christian man 
 who has lost his faith. Some thousand or fifteen hundred 
 years of Christian training has given this passionate turn 
 to the feelings, this infinite craving for sympathy with the 
 Invisible Lord ; who must exist, men fondly say, because 
 to doubt him is to despair. Again Carlyle is represen- 
 tative : " Fore-shadows, call them rather fore-splendours 
 of that Truth, and Beginning of Truths, fell mysteriously 
 over my soul. Sweeter than Day-spring to the Shipwrecked 
 in Nova Zembla ; ah ! like the mother's voice to her little 
 child that strays bewildered, weeping, in unknown tumults ; 
 like soft streamings of celestial music to my too exaspe- 
 rated heart, came that Evangel. The Universe is not dead
 
 40 THE SERVICE OF MAM 
 
 and demoniacal, a charnel-house with spectres ; but godlike, 
 and my Father's ! " 
 
 How little the celestial music soothed the exasperated 
 heart of the care-laden man, his tragic biography is a 
 melancholy witness. 
 
 Though perhaps the chief, the yearning for divine 
 sympathy is not the only ground of men's hesitation to 
 follow the guidance of intellect in this matter. The idea 
 still prevails that Christianity is, after all, the best support 
 of morality extant. WHat system of ethics, it is asked, 
 can compare with the Sermon on the Mount ? There are 
 even some who hold that paradise and hell can ill be 
 spared; the one as incentive to good, the other as a 
 deterrent from evil. How can you expect, it is inquired, 
 self-sacrifice, devotion to duty, if man is to die the death 
 of a dog, and to look for no hereafter ? It is assumed as 
 obvious to common sense that in that case we shall eat 
 and drink, for to-morrow we die. Self-indulgence the most 
 gross, crime the most unscrupulous, are taken for granted 
 to be the natural and spontaneous predispositions of man, 
 if he did not dread having to pay dear for them in the next 
 world. Wickedness and sin are what he naturally likes, 
 virtue and righteousness what he naturally detests. The 
 pleasures of lying, robbery, impurity, and murder are beyond 
 dispute ; they would fill the cup of enjoyment to the brim, 
 could one only get it without fear of after-consequences in 
 the lake of brimstone. Who can be so ignorant of human 
 nature, nay, of his own heart, as to doubt of these all too 
 fascinating temptations and attractions? As it is, even 
 with the fires of Tophet flaming in the distance, men cannot 
 resist their allurements, or prefer 
 
 ' ' The lilies and languors of virtue 
 To the roses and raptures of vice. "
 
 WHY MEN HESITATE. 41 
 
 Therefore, it is only too certain that a general abrogation of 
 Christianity would be at once followed by a reign of 
 universal licence; and, by the lower order of apologists, 
 it is not seldom broadly hinted that that is the desired 
 result Take away the mingled fear and hope of a future 
 state of rewards and punishments, and what possible check 
 can be imagined to the universal indulgence of unbridled 
 desires ? 
 
 Without staying to point out that reasoners of this class, 
 whatever their other merits, cannot be complimented on 
 their estimate of human nature, and that they, at least, can 
 with little grace reproach any opponents with degrading 
 man, we have to remark that the conclusions of the reason, 
 so far as they are adverse to Christianity, are here met, not 
 with arguments, but with threats, with appeals to the passions 
 of a very powerful kind ; and that it can excite no surprise 
 that, on the whole, passion has the advantage in the conflict. 
 We shall try to examine these points with some care, and 
 inquire (i) if religion has really been in the past the solace 
 and consolation it is asserted ; (2) whether Christianity is 
 such a stay and support to morality as it is said to be ; and 
 (3) whether a general outbreak of crime and debauchery 
 may be expected as a natural result of the disappearance of 
 the established theology ?
 
 42 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ALLEGED CONSOLATIONS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 
 
 IT is worthy of remark that, in proportion as Christianity 
 has met with intellectual opposition, a progressive tendency 
 has been shown by divines to veil the harsher and more 
 inhuman features of their creed. The older race of theolo- 
 gians, with no fear of criticism before their eyes, spoke out 
 freely ; they preached high doctrine, and found an austere 
 pleasure in dwelling on the awful judgments of God. The 
 small number of the saved, the multitude of the damned, 
 the narrowness of the way which leads to life, the breadth 
 of that which leads to destruction, were topics on which 
 they loved to dwell and the congregation to ponder. To 
 a large extent this tone has been dropped, and replaced by 
 one to which it is the direct contrary. Preachers prefer 
 to dwell on the cheerful and bright side of religion on 
 its glorious promises, on the delights of the Heavenly 
 Jerusalem. They certainly speak with much less unction 
 of the " wrath to come ; " and if they say nothing to impair 
 the belief in God's justice, which leads him to punish sin 
 with endless torments, they enlarge more on his " mercy," 
 and "the things he hath prepared for them that love him." 
 In some cases, religion is chiefly recommended as offering 
 a graceful and pleasing appendix to life, as depriving death 
 of its sting and the grave of its victory, and opening a
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 43 
 
 prospect up to the sunlit heavens, amid clouds and glory 
 and the most sublime scenery that can be imagined. 
 
 This change of tone which, as a broad matter of fact r 
 cannot, I apprehend, be denied, has followed on as a wide 
 result of the great humanitarian movement which began 
 towards the middle of the last century. When legislation 
 and manners were equally marked by cruelty ; when 
 criminals were tortured to death, and prisoners kept in 
 noisome dungeons reeking with jail fever and swarming 
 with vermin ; when popular sports largely consisted in in- 
 flicting pain on men and animals it is- no wonder that 
 gloomy and inhuman views of religion passed without 
 challenge, or even with favour. The alteration of feeling, 
 together with its cause, were quaintly expressed by an 
 American divine, who had been reproached by an English 
 visitor for too slight an insistance on the eternal damnation 
 of the wicked : " Our people would not stand it, sir," was 
 the reply. But the point which more immediately concerns 
 us is whether the old religion of terror, or its modified and 
 softened modern version, was, or is such a source of solace 
 and inward joy as is commonly assumed. Any one who 
 has had the privilege of knowing intimately one of those 
 rare and beautiful souls in whom a single-hearted piety 
 seems spontaneous, would be slow to deny that such solace 
 may exist. The meek and chastened spirits do occasionally 
 know that peace of God which passeth all understanding. 
 But it is equally certain that that peace is subject to painful 
 interruptions, and that in almost exact proportion with the 
 growth of a tender and watchful conscience does the liability 
 to such eclipses increase. It is the presumptuous, not the 
 truly devout, who dwell always in a complacent conviction 
 of their acceptance and favour with God. All spiritual 
 doctors abound in warnings against the two opposite dangers,
 
 44 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 on the one hand, of over-confidence, self-righteousness, 
 Pharisaism ; on the other, of despair and hopeless des- 
 pondency of ever pleasing God. The proud content of the 
 Pharisee can never be put to the credit of religion, as it is 
 the temper which is most of all condemned by true piety. 
 " Humility, and modesty of judgment and of hope, are very 
 good instruments to procure mercy and a fair reception at 
 the day of our death ; but presumption or bold opinion 
 serves no end of God or man, and is always imprudent, even 
 fatal, and of all things in the world is its own greatest 
 enemy ; for the more any man presumes the greater reason 
 he has to fear." * Any solace, therefore, of this kind, derived 
 from religion, must be repudiated and struck off the account 
 as illegitimate and in a manner fraudulent a deadly spiritual 
 sin seizing the reward of perfected saintliness. It is the 
 anxious and careworn penitent whom we have to consider, 
 those who, when they have done all that they can, still 
 regard themselves as unprofitable servants. Theologians 
 prescribe elaborate remedies against despair as a " tempta- 
 tion and a horrid sin ; " but it is a sin to which the humble, 
 the meek, and the truly devout are exposed, and not the 
 wicked and worldly. How often it has been pushed to 
 the destruction of reason, resulting in religious madness, 
 the statistics of insanity are there to show. Even when it 
 stops short of this fearful consummation, and appears in the 
 milder form of desponding anxiety, and fear lest the sinner 
 has lost favour in the sight of God, those moments of cold- 
 ness and tediousness .of spirit form a heavy deduction from 
 the hours of peace and happiness enjoyed between, as every 
 book of devotion, from the Psalms downward, abundantly 
 shows. " My God, my God, look upon me ; why hast thou 
 forsaken me : and art so far from my health, and from the 
 * "Holy Dying," ch. v. s. 6.
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 45 
 
 words of my complaint ? O my God, I cry in the day-time, 
 but thou hearest not : and in the night-season also I take no 
 rest." 
 
 Thomas a Kempis denies that the truly contrite sinner 
 has any ground even to hope for consolation. " Lord, I 
 am not worthy of thy consolation, nor of any spiritual visita 
 tion ; and therefore thou dealest justly with me when thou 
 leavest me poor and desolate. For if I could shed tears 
 as the sea, yet should I not be worthy of thy consolation. 
 Wherefore I am worthy only to be scourged and punished, 
 because I have grievously and often offended thee, and in 
 many things greatly sinned ; so, then, on a true account, 
 I have not deserved even the smallest consolation." * 
 
 Cardinal Wiseman, in his preface to the English transla- 
 tion of the works of St. John of the Cross, has the following 
 remarkable passage : " It may be considered a rule in this 
 highest spiritual life that, before it is attained, there must be 
 a period of severe probation, lasting often many years, and 
 separating it from the previous state, which may have been 
 one of most exalted virtue. Probably, many whom the 
 Catholic Church honours as saints have never received this 
 singular gift. But in reading the biography of such as have 
 been favoured with it, we shall invariably find that the 
 possession of it has been preceded, not only by a voluntary 
 course of mortification of sense, fervent devotion, constant 
 meditation, and separation from the world ; but also by a 
 trying course of dryness, weariness of spirit, insipidity of 
 devotional duties, and, what is infinitely worse, dejection, 
 despondency, temptation to give up all in disgust, and 
 almost despair. During this tremendous probation, the 
 soul is dark, parched, and wayless, as earth without water, 
 as one staggering across a desert, or, to rise to a nobler 
 * " Imitation," iii. 52.
 
 46 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 illustration, like Him remotely who lay on the ground on 
 Olivet, loathing the cup which He had longed for, beyond 
 the sweet chalice which He had drunk with His apostles 
 just before." A prince of the Church may, no doubt, be 
 trusted to speak correctly on this matter. 
 
 In order to show that these afflictions are not peculiar 
 to Catholics, a few sentences may with advantage be 
 quoted from that strange book of Bunyan's, " Grace 
 Abounding to the Chief of Sinners : " " And now was I 
 both a burden and terror to myself; nor did I ever so 
 know as now what it was to be weary of my life and yet 
 afraid to die. Oh, how gladly now would I have been 
 anybody but myself, anything but a man, and in any con- 
 dition but my own ; for there was nothing did pass more 
 frequently over my mind than that it was impossible for me 
 to be forgiven my transgression and to be saved from wrath 
 to come. ... I found it hard work now to pray to God, 
 because despair was swallowing me up. I thought I was, 
 as with a tempest, driven away from God, for always when 
 I cried to God for mercy this would come in, ' Tis too 
 late ; I am lost : God has let me fall, not to my cor- 
 rection, but to my condemnation.' About this time I did 
 light on that dreadful story of that miserable mortal, Francis 
 Spira a book that was to my troubled spirit as salt when 
 rubbed into a fresh wound. Every sentence in that book, 
 every groan of that man, with all the rest of his actions in 
 his griefs ; as his tears, his prayers, his gnashing of teeth, 
 his wringing of hands, his twisting and languishing and 
 pining away under that mighty hand of God that was upon 
 him, were as knives and daggers in my soul. Especially 
 that sentence of his was frightful to me : ' Man knows the 
 beginning of sin, but who bounds the issues thereof?' 
 Then would the former sentence as the conclusion of all
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 47 
 
 fall like an hot thunderbolt against my conscience; for 
 you know how that afterwards, when he would have in- 
 herited the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place 
 of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. 
 
 " Then should I be struck into a very great trembling, 
 insomuch that at sometimes I could for whole days to- 
 gether feel my very body as well as my mind to shake and 
 totter under the sense of this dreadful judgment of God 
 that should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful 
 and unpardonable sin. I felt also such a clogging and 
 heat at my stomach, by reason of this my terror, that I was 
 especially at sometimes as if my breast-bone would split 
 asunder : then I thought concerning that of Judas, who, 
 by his falling headlong, burst asunder, and all his bowels 
 gushed out." 
 
 If we admit that such periods of depression are at last 
 more than compensated by the ecstasy which may follow 
 them, yet it is obvious that the religious life, in its highest 
 forms, is very far from uniformly leading through paths of 
 pleasantness and peace, as is sometimes assumed. A state 
 bordering on despair, which lasts for years, is no light 
 matter; and it would be no conclusive proof of a carnal 
 mind to hesitate before encountering such anguish, even 
 with the ultimate certainty of its transmutation into ineffable 
 joy. But, as Cardinal Wiseman tells us, there is no cer- 
 tainty of such in this life : only in heaven can the Christian 
 hope for an adequate return for his spiritual trials in this 
 world. " If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we 
 are of all men most miserable," said St. Paul of himself and 
 fellow Christians ; and it follows that neither in the design 
 nor in the result is Christianity adapted to confer the 
 highest earthly happiness : it is not a present solace, but 
 the promise of one hereafter. A future life, however, is
 
 48 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 one of the most enormous assumptions, without proof, ever 
 made ; and yet, on this immense postulate, all the alleged 
 consolations of religion of necessity hang. By considering 
 the case of the truly religious, we have discussed the 
 question, on the most favourable terms to Christianity, as 
 a source of happiness. The profoundly pious are at times 
 refreshed with the " beatific vision " in the course of their 
 pilgrimage. But there are numbers of the half-converted, 
 the worldly, the openly wicked, who believe enough to be 
 full of anxiety and fear, and yet never attain to assurance 
 of complete peace with God ; and perhaps these constitute 
 the majority of professing Christians. If you obtain access 
 to their inmost thoughts you will rarely find that religion 
 has been a consolation to them, but a perpetual source of 
 inward unrest and alarm, though they never have had the 
 strength or the grace to turn finally to God. These pains 
 of the spirit are by no means the only trials which the 
 Christian has to encounter. The prevalence of heresy and 
 schism has ever afflicted devout men in proportion to their 
 devoutness. One of the peculiarities of this age, indeed, 
 is the extraordinary cessation of controversy and absence 
 of new doctrines within the Christian communion. Never, 
 perhaps, since the Council of Jerusalem, has there been so 
 marked an abeyance of serious theological dispute. Middle- 
 aged and old men, who can remember the Tractarian con- 
 troversy, and the Gorham controversy, when the country 
 was filled with tumult about matters of faith, can appreciate 
 the strange, great calm which now prevails. Whether true 
 believers have any reason to rejoice in the change may be 
 doubted. The differences within have been followed by 
 far more serious hostilities from without, and it is the 
 deadly war with the sceptic and the infidel which justly 
 pre-occupies the earnest thoughts of Christian men. This
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 49 
 
 last state, which is worse than the first, tends to make us 
 forget how painful were the anxieties as to the threatened 
 prevalence of "grave error," whenever serious controversies 
 arose ; what fiery pamphlets were published by deans, 
 archdeacons, and even by bishops; what agitated letters 
 appeared even in the secular newspapers ; what meetings 
 were convened, and what danger to Christian verity was 
 apprehended if the faithful did not see to it. The world 
 has rolled so far away from this state of things, that even 
 those who witnessed it, retain but an imperfect recollection 
 of the remote scene. Who can easily recall the excitement 
 consequent on the publication of so anodyne a work as 
 Professor Jowett's edition of St. Paul's Epistles ? How 
 difficult to remember the time when the illustrious Master 
 of Balliol was a persecuted man, considered more than 
 passing rich with forty pounds a year, for teaching Greek 
 as it had not been taught by a Regius professor from time 
 immemorial? But faith was still lively and vigilant, even 
 in that recent past a very pale reflection of its former 
 brightness no doubt. To realize what it once was, and 
 what mental distress it could cause, we must have recourse 
 to reading ; and, with such historical imagination as we can 
 command, revive an extinct controversy; not one of the 
 mightier disputes of the sixteenth century, the dust-cloud of* 
 which reached up to the heavens and obscured the stars ; 
 but a relatively minor one, and only an episode in that, the 
 fate of Jacqueline Pascal. 
 
 Jacqueline, the younger sister of Blaise Pascal, was 
 remarkable for talent and beauty even in her own family, 
 in which beauty and talent were hereditary gifts. Like 
 Pope, she lisped in numbers, and composed verses which 
 were not contemptible before she had learned to read. Her 
 grace of person and manner caused her to be invited to 
 
 E
 
 50 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 play in a comedy before Richelieu, and though only nine 
 years of age, she so charmed the Cardinal that he recalled 
 her father, who had incurred his displeasure, from exile. 
 We have letters of hers written in her twentieth year, in 
 which she gives to her sister, Madame Pe"rier, a lucid and 
 intelligent account of a conference between her brother 
 Blaise and Descartes, when they discussed the discovery of 
 the barometer, and the phenomena of atmospheric pressure. 
 But religion already occupied all her thoughts, and she 
 resolved to become a nun of Port Royal, though, out of 
 deference to her father's wish, she refrained from taking the 
 veil until after his death. "She made all her preparations 
 in my presence," says her sister, Madame Perier, " and fixed 
 the fourth of January as the day for entering the convent. 
 On the eve of that day she begged me to speak about it to 
 my brother, to avoid taking him by surprise. . . . He was 
 much touched, and retired very sad to his room without 
 seeing my sister, who was in- a small apartment where she 
 was wont to pray. She did not leave it till my brother had 
 gone, fearing that the sight of her might give him pain. I 
 gave her the tender messages he had charged me with, after 
 which we all went to bed. But I could not sleep. Although 
 I approved heartily of her resolution, its magnitude so filled 
 my mind that I lay awake all night. At seven the next 
 morning, as I saw that Jacqueline did not rise, I thought 
 that she also had not slept, and I found her fast asleep. The 
 noise I made awakened her, and she asked me the time. I 
 told her, and inquired how she felt, and if she had slept well. 
 She replied she was well and had had a good night. Then 
 she arose, dressed herself, and went away; doing this, as 
 all things, with a tranquillity and composure of soul which 
 cannot be conceived. We took no farewell of each other 
 from fear of breaking down, and I turned away from her
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 51 
 
 path when I saw her ready to go out. In this way she left 
 the world; it was the fourth of January, of the year 1652, 
 she being twenty-six years and three months old." 
 
 Sister Jacqueline, of Saint Euphemia Pascal, was for 
 nine years a nun at Port Royal, and became subprioress 
 and mistress of the Novices. In the latter character, the 
 duty of teaching young children to read devolved upon 
 her, and she introduced into the convent the new system of 
 giving merely the phonetic value of the letters and not 
 calling them by misleading names, which was the invention 
 of her brother Blaise, and obtained afterwards great renown 
 in the " Grammaire Generate " of Port Royal. But the 
 pious Jansenist foundation was already doomed. The 
 Jesuits had not yet avenged the Provincial Letters. Strong 
 with the support of the pope and the king, they produced 
 a formulary, the signature of which was compulsory on all 
 ecclesiastics. It referred to the eternal question of the 
 Five Propositions, and declared that they were in the book 
 Angustiniis of Bishop Jansenius, and were contrary to the 
 faith. Much subtlety was employed to find a means of 
 signing it in a non-natural sense, and the chiefs of the 
 Jansenist party, to escape destruction, visibly wavered. 
 But Jacqueline, like her brother Blaise, was made of 
 sterner stuff, and resisted all compromise with passionate 
 zeal. At last the great authority of Arnauld and Nicole 
 prevailed upon their followers to accept the bitter cup 
 prepared for them by their enemies. Pascal swooned away 
 when this decision was taken. Jacqueline yielded at last 
 to the pressure of her superiors, and signed the formulary, 
 but with such grief and anguish of soul that she predicted 
 she would die of it ; as indeed she did in less than six 
 months. 
 
 The affliction of the just and the prosperity of the wicked
 
 52 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 has always been a serious difficulty to pious persons who 
 combined reflection with devotion. " Wherefore do the 
 wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? Their 
 seed is established in their sight with them, and their 
 offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from 
 fear, neither is the rod of God upon them." * And the 
 prophet goes on to say in his anguish " God hath delivered 
 me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of 
 the wicked. . . . He breaketh me with breach upon breach, 
 he runneth upon me like a giant . . . My face is foul 
 with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death ; not 
 for any injustice in mine hands : also my prayer is pure." f 
 Probably few religious persons have escaped the bitterness 
 of feeling that they were unjustly chastened, that the rod 
 of God was upon them and not upon the wicked. They no 
 doubt repelled the thought with an "Aj>age Satana/" regard- 
 ing it as a snare of the tempter. But because the thought 
 was banished from the mind, was the load removed from the 
 heart ? This is a trial which theologians must admit is all 
 their own a clear addition to the weary weight " of all this 
 unintelligible world." Agnostics at least, when smitten by 
 the sharp arrows of fate, by disease, poverty, bereavement, 
 do not complicate their misery by anxious misgivings and 
 painful wonder why they are thus treated by the God of 
 their salvation. The pitiless, brazen heavens overarch them 
 and believers alike ; they bear their trials, or their hearts 
 break, according to their strength. But one pang is spared 
 them, the mystery of God's wrath that he should visit them 
 so sorely. The exceeding bitter cry of the dying Jesus, 
 " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " never 
 comes to their lips, for it never rises in their hearts. " Jesus, 
 when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the 
 * Job xxi. 7-9. t Job xvi. II, 14-17.
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS, 53 
 
 ghost." A fitting yet terrible end of the Passion ; for what 
 more awful thought could come to a devout believer in 
 God than that he was forsaken of God ? It may well have 
 been this, even more than the nails through his feet and 
 hands, and the spear in his side, which broke the heart of 
 the Son of man, and made Him yield up the ghost. Christ's 
 followers have discovered consolations and viatica in the 
 hour of death which were denied Him. But the most truly 
 humble and devout at times find their chief anguish there 
 where they have most looked for relief. A more pious, 
 God-fearing woman than the charming French poetess, 
 Madame Desbordes Valmore, could not easily be found. 
 But her life was one long scene of bitter trial, poverty and 
 bereavement. At last the cup runs over, and this plaintive 
 cry escapes her : " Yes, Camille, it is very poignant ; here 
 I am alone, without brother or sisters, alone and severed 
 from all the dear souls I have so loved, without the con- 
 solation of surviving them and being able to accomplish 
 their desire, which was ever to do some good. . . . What 
 can one say in the presence of these decrees of Providence ? 
 If one has deserved them, the case is more sad. I often 
 search my heart and try to find out what may have 
 caused me to be so heavily smitten by our dear Creator ; 
 for it is impossible for his justice to punish thus without 
 a cause, and that thought very often suffices to overwhelm 
 me." * 
 
 The above extracts will probably be considered sufficient 
 to show that it is by no means so plain as it is often 
 assumed to be, that the loss of the Christian religion would 
 deprive men of an immense consolation and an abiding 
 source of inward happiness amid the trials of life. There 
 is a serious set-off on the other side, and this was admitted 
 * Sainte-Beuve, " Nouveaux Lundis," vol. xii.
 
 54 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 with no difficulty in the days when the faith was menaced 
 by no danger. " Do not seek," says Jeremy Taylor, " for 
 deliciousness and sensible sweetness in the actions of 
 religion, but only regard the duty and the conscience of it. 
 For although, in the beginning of religion most frequently, 
 and at other times irregularly, God complies with our 
 infirmity, and encourages our duty with little overflowings 
 of spiritual joy and sensible pleasure and delicacies in 
 prayer, so as we seem to feel some little nearer of heaven, 
 and great refreshment from the spirit of consolation ; yet 
 this is not always safe for us to have, neither safe for us to 
 expect and look for ; and when we do, it is apt to make 
 us cool in our inquiries and waitings upon Christ when we 
 want them ; it is running after him, not for the miracles, 
 but for the loaves ; not for the wonderful things of God 
 and the desire of pleasing him, but for the pleasure of 
 pleasing ourselves." * Nowadays, the effort made is in 
 the opposite direction, and to dwell on the "sensible 
 pleasures" and "delicacies in prayer," in order to enhance 
 the contrast between the bright glory and prospects afforded 
 by the religious life, and the gloomy and hopeless future 
 which are supposed to afflict the infidel. The object now 
 is to make religion attractive, and it has been pursued with 
 very marked success. Let any one compare the taste and 
 beauty of a choral service in a modern church or cathedral, 
 with the harsh and grating ugliness which made "going 
 to church " in the days of our youth an ascetic exercise. 
 The coarse, untutored voice of the village shoemaker or 
 tailor, who acted as clerk ; the hideous boxes called pews ; 
 the dolorous and droning music ; the whole framed in a 
 choice specimen of Georgian architecture, barbaric with 
 white-wash and clumsy ornament, will still return to the 
 * " Holy Living," cap. iv. 7.
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 55 
 
 memory in a dreamy mood. These things have gone, and 
 are replaced by what is very often a real artistic success ; 
 good music and singing, the dim religious light of stained 
 windows, flowers, mosaics, or paintings, in churches often 
 not untouched by the spirit of mediaeval beauty. This 
 great reform in the ordering of divine service has passed 
 beyond the limits of the Establishment, and penetrated 
 even among the dissenters, whose chapels no longer display 
 the resolute deformity of a past age. The outward change 
 has been preceded and accompanied by a deeper inward 
 change ; the doctrine of terror has been laid aside, and 
 replaced by a doctrine of mildness and hope, so much so 
 that few realize the gloomy horrors of the old creed. The 
 younger generation has hardly an idea of the dismal 
 spiritual pit in which their fathers lived. In the eighteenth 
 century the case was still worse. The chill shade of 
 religious dread spread beyond the circle of the professedly 
 devout, and darkened life and literature. Only profane 
 revellers passed out of it, and their example was not edify- 
 ing. In what a cavern of black thoughts did Samuel 
 Johnson pass his life, and what a fearful " Horror of the 
 Last " gat hold of him in his latter days. Edward Young, 
 who inveighed against wealth and honours in order to 
 obtain them, adjusted with skill and care the strains of his 
 venal muse to the popular taste, and sang that 
 
 " A God all mercy is a God unjust." 
 
 Few books in the last century were more popular with 
 serious persons than the " Meditations " of James Hervey, 
 which ran through numerous editions when it first appeared, 
 and was still a favourite with pious folk in the earlier 
 portion of the present century. Such pompous and 
 tawdy fustian one would hope could hardly have been
 
 56 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 accepted for eloquence, had it not been supposed to 
 convey vital religious truth. As a poetaster of the day 
 expressed it : 
 
 " In these loved scenes what rapturous graces shine, 
 Live in each leaf, and breathe in every line ; 
 What sacred beauties beam throughout the whole, 
 To charm the sense and steal upon the soul." 
 
 Soul and sense are charmed in this wise : 
 
 " The wicked seem to lie here, like malefactors in a deep 
 and strong dungeon ; reserved against the day of trial. 
 ' Their departure was without peace.' Clouds of horror sat 
 lowering upon their closing eyelids ; most sadly foreboding 
 the blackness of darkness for ever. When the last sickness 
 seized their frame, and the inevitable change advanced ; 
 when they saw the fatal arrow fitting to the strings; saw 
 the deadly archer, aiming at their life; and felt the en- 
 venomed shaft fastened in their vitals good God ! what 
 fearfulness came upon them ! What horrible dread over- 
 whelmed them ! How did they stand shuddering upon the 
 tremendous precipice, excessively afraid to die, yet utterly 
 unable to live. O ! what pale reviews, what startling 
 prospects, conspire to augment their sorrows ! They look 
 backward ; and behold ! a most melancholy scene ! Sins 
 unrepented of, mercy slighted, and the day of grace ending. 
 They look forward, and nothing presents itself but the 
 righteous Judge, the dreadful tribunal, and a most solemn 
 reckoning. They roll around their affrighted eyes on 
 attending friends, and, if accomplices in debauchery, it 
 sharpens their anguish to consider this further aggravation 
 of their guilt, That they have not sinned alone, but drawn 
 others into the snare. If religious acquaintance, it strikes 
 a fresh gash into their hearts, to think of never seeing them
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 57 
 
 any more, but only at an unapproachable distance, separated 
 by the unpassable gulph." * 
 
 Will any one presume to say that for one death-bed 
 which has been smoothed by religion, a thousand have 
 not been turned into beds of torture by such teaching 
 as this ! 
 
 But we must go back to the palmy days of Calvinism, to 
 Scotland in the seventeenth century, to realize fully the 
 revolting devil-worship which once passed under the name 
 of Christianity, and, what is more, really was Christianity, 
 gospel-truth, supported by texts, at every point taken from 
 scripture. No class of literature lies buried deeper in 
 oblivion than old-fashioned theological literature. Its 
 brilliant but transitory life is followed by a perennial death, 
 from which there is no resurrection. Dead divinity is the 
 deadest thing that ever lived. Only now and then a 
 literary historian recalls one of these vanished spectres ; the 
 mass of believers are content to ignore their spiritual 
 ancestry. Take the case of the Rev. Thomas Boston, a 
 minister of the Church of Scotland, who lived in the latter 
 end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth 
 century. Boston was one of the most shining lights of the 
 Scottish Church, and his most famous book, " Human 
 Nature in its Fourfold State," was for a long period almost 
 placed on a level with Holy Scripture. It is certainly a 
 very wonderful book, written with great power, and eloquence 
 of a kind which might well impose upon readers who ac- 
 cepted the writer's premises. It seems written in a white 
 heat of sustained passion, in which the devil-worshipper 
 (for Boston is nothing else), persuaded that he had con- 
 ciliated his devil for his own purposes, deals damnation on 
 all poor wretches not so favoured, with an exultant and fiery 
 * "Meditations among the Tombs," vol. i. p. 94.
 
 58 THE SERVICE OF MAM 
 
 joy which is really astounding to witness. The man would 
 have delighted, one would say, to be a stoker in the infernal 
 regions. Out of a volume of five hundred pages I select 
 a page or two which are nothing but average specimens of 
 a tone of thought which I apprehend would be generally 
 repudiated by theologians nowadays ; so far have we 
 declined from Christian verity.* 
 
 " Consider what a God he is with whom thou hast to do, 
 and whose wrath thou art liable unto. He is the God of 
 infinite knowledge and wisdom ; so that none of thy sins, 
 however secret, can be hid from him. He infallibly finds 
 out all means, whereby wrath may be executed, towards 
 the satisfying of justice. He is of infinite power, and so 
 can do what he will against the sinner. How heavy must 
 the strokes of wrath be, which are laid on by an omnipotent 
 hand ! Infinite power can make the sinner prisoner, even 
 when he is in his greatest rage against Heaven. It can 
 bring again the several parcels of dust out of the grave, put 
 them together again, re-unite the soul and body, summon 
 them before the tribunal, hurry them away to the pit, and 
 hold them up with the one hand, through eternity, while 
 they are lashed with the other. He is infinitely just, and 
 therefore must punish ; it were acting contrary to his nature 
 to suffer the sinner to escape wrath. Hence the execution 
 of his wrath is pleasing to him ; for though the Lord hath 
 no delight in the death of a sinner, as it is the destruction 
 of his own creature, yet he delights in it, as it is the execu- 
 tion of justice. ' Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire 
 and brimstone, and an horrible tempest' Mark the reason : 
 ' For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness ' (Ps. xi. 6, 
 7) ; ' I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will 
 
 * Boston's book first appeared in 1720. It has been republished by 
 the Religious Tract Society.
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 59 
 
 be comforted ' (Ezek. v. 13); 'I also will laugh at your 
 calamity' (Prov. i. 26). Finally, he lives for ever, to pursue 
 the quarrel. Let us therefore conclude, ' It is a fearful 
 thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' " * 
 
 Again, in another place of the same chapter, Boston says 
 " There is wrath upon his soul. He can have no com- 
 munion with God ; he is ' foolish, and shall not stand in 
 God's sight' (Ps. v. 5). ... There is war between Heaven 
 and them (natural men), and so all commerce is cut off. 
 . . . God casts a portion of worldly goods to them, more 
 or less as a bone is thrown to a dog ; but, alas ! his wrath 
 against them appears, in that they get no grace. . . . They 
 lie open to fearful additional plagues on their souls, even in 
 this life. Sometimes they meet with deadening strokes, silent 
 blows from the hand of an angry God ; arrows of wrath, that 
 enter into their souls without noise. ' Make the heart of this 
 people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest 
 they see with their eyes ' (Isa. vi. 10). God strives with them 
 for a while, and convictions enter their consciences; but 
 they rebel against the light ; and, by a secret judgment, 
 they receive a blow on the head ; so that from that time they 
 do, as it were, live and rot above ground. Their hearts 
 are deadened, their affections withered, their consciences 
 stupefied, and their whole souls blasted ; ' cast forth as a 
 branch and withered ' (John xv. 6). They are plagued with 
 judicial blindness. They shut their eyes against the light ; 
 and they are given over to the devil, the god of this world, 
 to be blinded more (2 Cor. iv. 4). Yea, ' God sends them 
 strong delusions, that they should believe a lie ' (2 Thess. 
 ii. 1 1 ). Even conscience, like a false light on the shore, 
 leads them upon rocks, by which they are broken in pieces. 
 
 * T. Boston, " Human Nature in its Fourfold State. The Misery 
 of Man's Natural State," Motive 4.
 
 60 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 They harden themselves against God, and he leaves them 
 to Satan and their own hearts, whereby they are hardened 
 more and more. They are often ' given up unto vile affec- 
 tions ' (Rom. i, 26). . . . Sometimes they meet with sharp 
 fiery strokes, whereby their souls become like mount Sinai, 
 where nothing is seen but fire and smoke, nothing heard 
 but the thunder of God's wrath, and the voice of the 
 trumpet of a broken law, waxing louder and louder, which 
 makes them, like Pashur (Jer. xx. 4), ' a terror to themselves.' 
 God takes the filthy garments of their sins, which they were 
 wont to sleep in securely, overlays them with brimstone, 
 and sets them on fire about their ears, so they have a hell 
 within them." 
 
 It may be doubted if, among all the aberrations of the 
 human mind, anything so horrible as this was ever attained 
 elsewhere ; and this was the creed of the poor Scots for 
 more than two hundred years. In reading the works of 
 such a man as Boston, one is tempted to admit one of his 
 favourite dogmas, that the heart of man is deceitful above 
 all things and desperately wicked. He evidently gloats and 
 revels in the ideas of wrath, brimstone, fiery strokes, stunning 
 blows, and all the apparatus of his infernal torture-chamber. 
 There is a sort of concupiscence of lust in his passion for 
 cruelty ; it tickles his prurient appetite, and reaches to a 
 depravity almost insane. If he stood alone, the case would 
 be merely one of pathology ; but he was a representative 
 man, and spoke in the names of millions in this country 
 and abroad. The power of the human mind to throw up 
 and nourish poisonous growths of this kind is a very sad 
 and regrettable one. It has stained with blood many pages 
 of history, and is not, one is sorry to say, an abomination 
 confined to Christians. The inhuman fanatics of the French 
 Revolution, Marat, Hebert, Fouquier-Tinville and Robes-
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 61 
 
 pierre, are inferior specimens of the same breed. But their 
 lust of cruelty, hideous as it was, had not the infinite scope 
 and transcendental character of Boston's; yet the Reign 
 of Terror in France, which lasted but a few months, is still 
 pointed to by Christians as a supreme instance of the 
 wickedness into which unbelievers inevitably fall. The 
 reign of terror in Scotland, which lasted two centuries, is 
 quietly dropped out of memory, or certainly is never con- 
 signed to the everlasting infamy which is supposed to have 
 overtaken the atheists. On the whole this is an advantage, 
 and the less we deal in retrospective anathema the better ; 
 but then all parties should benefit by the amnesty. Even 
 Carlyle, who ever remained a sort of distorted Calvinist, 
 could see that nothing was gained by " shrieking " over 
 the horrors of the French Revolution ; and agnostics would 
 do well to abstain from hard words about Calvinists. De- 
 terminists and evolutionists must hold that all phenomena 
 of the human mind, whether welcome or otherwise, had 
 a very good reason for their existence, in that they were 
 caused like any other phenomena. Calvinistic or Terrorist 
 principles cannot be too forcibly condemned, discouraged, 
 or counteracted. Like frightful forms of disease they show 
 what terrible evils human nature is exposed to. But we 
 do not properly blame disease, if we are wise; we strive 
 to combat it and prevent its recurring again. The poor 
 victims of disease, whether mental or physical, rather deserve 
 our pity than our scorn. They contracted it because they 
 were exposed to its noxious germs. The antecedent evolu- 
 tion of Scotland and France had produced the moral miasma 
 and the minds ready to receive it, which led to the breaking 
 out of those two dreadful pestilences, Scotch Calvinism 
 and French Terrorism. While they prevailed in their 
 greatest virulence, the minds of men were deformed and
 
 62 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 made hideous, as their bodies might be by small-pox or 
 elephantiasis. 
 
 In this slight retrospect over the darker side of theology, 
 I should misrepresent my meaning if I seemed to blame 
 the men who held opinions, according to my view, very 
 pernicious. Our war should be not with men but with 
 dogmas, principles. The dogmas, under the conditions, 
 were inevitable, just as the Plague of London, under the 
 then conditions of over-crowding and neglect of cleanliness, 
 was inevitable. But we cannot blame the men who suffered 
 from the Plague ; we cannot even blame their ignorance of 
 the laws of health, because they could not then have known 
 better. We now do know better, and we keep down the 
 Plague. In the same way, Calvinism was a creed held by 
 men who could not know better. The antecedent history 
 of Scottish thought had led to a superstitious adoration of 
 a fragment of old oriental literature, the Bible, which was 
 supposed to contain the authentic will and testament of the 
 Creator of the universe. This supposed divine word had 
 been, so it was thought, somewhat kept in the background 
 and slighted by the powerful Catholic Church, which had 
 reigned supreme for centuries, and pressed on men's minds 
 with no light yoke. Every word of this old oriental book, 
 very interesting and valuable in its own way, as a specimen 
 and picture of primitive culture, was imagined to be in 
 the handwriting of the Most High. Every bloody deed 
 recorded, every fantastic and horrible thought enunciated, 
 such as must appear in such a document or collection of 
 documents compiled in such an age, was regarded as 
 approved and authenticated by Almighty Wisdom. When 
 these and similar facts are considered, it does not seem 
 inexplicable that the Scotch and other Calvinists thought 
 and acted as they did. They came to horrible results and
 
 CHRISTIAN CONSOLATIONS. 63 
 
 conclusions, but these were logical conclusions from the 
 premises. Similarly Rousseau and Robespierre were the 
 most logical of men. The fault lies in the premises, in 
 the one case, that the Bible is the word of God ; in the 
 other, that the Contrat Social is the utterance of pure 
 reason.
 
 64 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 
 
 THE next point to be considered is whether the Christian 
 religion is really so strong and efficient a support of morality 
 as it is common to suppose. An affirmative ans\ver is gene- 
 rally taken for granted, as if the case were too obvious to 
 admit of doubt or even of argument. The purity and 
 elevation of the ethics of the gospel are indeed often 
 asserted to be a sufficient proof of its divine origin. Those 
 theologians who wince somewhat under the scientific argu- 
 ment against miracles, recover all their self-possession when 
 they dwell on the ethical side of their creed. If the casting 
 out of devils from demoniacs is admitted to present diffi- 
 culties, on the ground that it was and still is a common 
 Eastern superstition to regard lunatics as possessed by evil 
 spirits, a superstition which the evangelists shared with 
 their countrymen and contemporaries, it is maintained that 
 the Sermon on the Mount is its own evidence of divine 
 inspiration. " Never man spake like this man." The 
 spiritual depth and sublimity of Christ's teaching must, it 
 is argued, be superhuman, from the fact that to this day it 
 has never been surpassed or approached, and never will be 
 in the most remote future. It is agreed that all the great 
 changes and improvements that have been made in public 
 and private morals, between pagan and modern times, must
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 65 
 
 be set down to the vivifying effects of Christianity, which 
 has raised woman, struck the fetters from the limbs of the 
 slave, moralized war, conquest and commerce, in short, 
 done every good thing that has been done in the last sixteen 
 or eighteen centuries. This is that moral evidence for 
 Christianity which is far more convincing than the evidence 
 derived from works of power. Not that the latter is to be 
 slighted or ignored ; but one speaks to the heart, and must 
 abide valid and persuasive through all time ; the other 
 addresses the head, and perhaps may not always be equally 
 cogent. 
 
 Now it will not be necessary for the purpose of this 
 inquiry to dispute the claims thus advanced. Many of 
 them indeed are obviously without foundation, as the raising > 
 of the status of women, and the liberation of the slave. ] 
 But, for the sake of argument, and to avoid complicated 
 side issues, let them be granted ; and even then we main- 
 tain that it can be proved that Christianity is not favourable 
 to morality in the way and degree commonly supposed. 
 And by morality is meant right conduct here on earth ; 
 those outward acts and inward sentiments, which, by the 
 suppression of the selfish passions, conduce most to the 
 public and private well-being of the race. 
 
 Paley, with that clear, but at times somewhat cynical, 
 common sense which marked his acute intellect, is willing 
 to admit that " the teaching of morality was not the primary . 
 design " of the gospel. " If I were to describe," he goes 
 on to say, " in a very few words, the scope of Christianity, 
 as a revelation, I should say, that it was to influence the 
 conduct of human life, by establishing the proof of a future 
 state of reward and punishment, ' to bring life and immor- 
 tality to light.' The direct object, therefore, of the design 
 is, to supply motives, and not rules; sanctions, and not 
 
 F
 
 66 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 precepts. And these were what mankind stood most in 
 need of. The members of civilized society can, in all 
 ordinary cases, judge tolerably well how they ought to act : 
 but without a future state, or, which is the same thing, 
 without credited evidence of that state, they want a motive 
 to their duty ; they want, at least, strength of motive, 
 sufficient to bear up against the force of passion, and the 
 temptation of present advantage. Their rules want authority. 
 The most important service that can be rendered to human 
 life, and that, consequently, which, one might expect before- 
 hand would be the great end and office of a revelation 
 from God, is to convey to the world authorized assurances 
 of the reality of a future existence. And although doing 
 this, or by the ministry of the same person by whom this 
 is done, moral precepts or examples, or illustrations of moral 
 precepts, may be occasionally given, and be highly valuable, 
 yet still they do not form the original purpose of the 
 mission." * In other words, the purpose of the mission was 
 to make men fit for a future state of reward, and to supply 
 sanctions which would deter them from conduct which 
 would make them fit for a future state of punishment. Sal- 
 vation in the next world is the object of the scheme, not 
 morality in this ; and although the two objects may occa- 
 sionally coincide, it is only a casual coincidence. Such 
 difference of ends must lead to a difference of means. The 
 road which is intended to lead to happiness in heaven, 
 must diverge from the road which is intended to lead to 
 happiness limited to this earth. And if anybody says that 
 he does not see the necessity of such divergence, that 
 happiness in heaven may well be only a prolongation of 
 happiness on earth, he may be asked to reflect on the 
 inevitable dwarfing and subordination of this life, a transi- 
 
 * " Evidences of Christianity," Part ii. cap. 2.
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 67 
 
 tory space of a few years, to a prospect of eternal life in 
 heaven. Clearly, if this life is only a short, probationary 
 trial-scene, preparatory to entrance upon eternity ; if, more- 
 over, conduct here is supposed to influence or decide our 
 status there, happiness in this life is not a thing to be con- 
 sidered by prudent and thoughtful persons ; and the conduct 
 which conduces to happiness, either in ourselves or others, 
 here, is evidently a trivial matter compared to the conduct 
 which conduces to happiness hereafter. An eternal future 
 must, in minds capable of even remotely realizing such an 
 idea, overwhelm and crush into insignificance a minute, 
 temporal present. Even a long temporal future suffices 
 to do this. The inconveniences, for instance, of a sea- 
 voyage which is going to land us in an abiding home in the 
 Colonies or India, are born with comparative equanimity 
 or indifference, on the ground 'that they will soon be over, 
 that it does not very much matter, as the real object is not 
 to live happily at sea, but to prepare for happiness and 
 prosperity in the distant land for which we are bound. A 
 colonist does not prepare the outfit of a seaman, does not 
 look upon the ship which carries him as his permanent 
 dwelling-place. He no doubt secures what comfort he can 
 at sea ; but, if he is a wise man, his meditations are directed 
 to his future life on land beyond the ocean. It would be 
 very questionable prudence in him to learn seamanship or 
 navigation, to study charts, and make himself master of the 
 position of shoals and rocks. He would say that such 
 matters concerned persons who intended to pass their 
 working lives on the sea, whereas he had wholly different 
 objects in view ; the soil, the climate, and the crops proper 
 to the country he intended to inhabit, were the things that 
 concerned him. The parallel only fails in the inadequacy 
 of the analogy between the longest life in a colony, aad
 
 68 THE SERVICE OF MAX. 
 
 eternal life in heaven. If life is only a short voyage, 
 destined to terminate in paradise or hell, what thoughtful 
 person could care how he passed it ? If, moreover, he were 
 told on good authority, or such as he considered transcen- 
 dently good, as being divine, that happiness during this 
 life's voyage was more than likely to risk eternal happiness 
 hereafter, his indifference to happiness here, would probably 
 become enmity to it. He would lend but a careless ear to 
 those who urged him to study the conditions and follow the 
 conduct, often painful and irksome, which conduced most 
 to earthly happiness. He would say, as good Christians 
 have always said, "That is not the one thing needful. 
 What do I care for happiness in this vale of tears ? My 
 thoughts are naturally engrossed with the means of securing 
 eternal happiness in the world which is to come." And the 
 reply would be dictated by prudence and common sense. 
 How it happens that, as a matter of fact, so few persons, 
 who yet believe, or say they do, in the future state of reward 
 and punishment referred to by Paley, by the admission of 
 all preachers, take this serious view of their position and 
 duties, is a matter of interesting inquiry, but one which 
 does not concern us at this moment. 
 
 If these arguments are sound, and I scarcely apprehend 
 that they will be disputed, it follows that on d priori 
 grounds we should be justified in concluding that morality 
 would be waived as an end, in comparison with salvation, 
 among the most devout Christians. And this is what we 
 find does happen. It happens also in all churches and 
 sects, showing that it is not an accidental but an essential 
 characteristic of the Christian scheme. But this is a very 
 inadequate statement of the case as it really stands. It is 
 not going too far to say, that the doctrine of all Christians 
 in the final result is antinomian and positively immoral.
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 69 
 
 They do not only not support and strengthen morality as 
 they claim to do ; they deliberately reject and scorn it. 
 They place on a level the most virtuous and the most 
 flagitious conduct, carried on throughout a long lifetime ; 
 and this certainly must be held to be putting as great an 
 affront on morality as it is possible to inflict. 
 
 As these assertions may be regarded as savouring of 
 paradox, I proceed not to give more or less plausible 
 reasons for accepting them as true, but to prove them, and 
 that by the most authoritative utterances of representative 
 Christian doctors. 
 
 It is admitted by all Christians that man is saved only 
 through the merits and passion of Christ. But difficulties 
 arise concerning the true doctrine of justification. The 
 Protestants, speaking generally, hold that a man is justified 
 by faith alone. The Catholics hold that co-operation with 
 grace is needed on the part of man, to ensure salvation. 
 It will not be necessary to enter the labyrinth of subtle 
 disputations which have surrounded this question from the 
 days of the Reformation. To the impartial spectator it 
 would appear that the Catholic view is the more rational, 
 and the Protestant the more scriptural. But this domestic 
 quarrel among theologians does not concern us at this 
 moment, inasmuch as all Christian doctors agree that true 
 repentance and turning to God, however these may be 
 brought about, are rewarded by salvation. Past sins, nay, 
 a whole life of sin, if repented of before death, are a far 
 less obstacle to entrance into paradise, than the most 
 exemplary and virtuous life, if unaccompanied by true faith 
 in Christ. And this, surely, is to discountenance morality 
 in the most direct way, making it the " filthy rags " of 
 which the Calvinists have so much to say. That this is 
 the genuine doctrine of all Christians I proceed to show
 
 70 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 by a few quotations. The Established Church may well 
 come first with the eighteenth article of her creed. " They 
 also are to be had accursed that presume to say, That 
 every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he 
 professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life accord- 
 ing to that Law, and the light of Nature. For holy Scrip- 
 ture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, 
 whereby men must be saved." 
 
 True faith and repentance at the last moment, even 
 in articulo mortis, are sufficient to blot out a life of sin. 
 " There never was a doubt in the Church," says Dr. Pusey, 
 "that all who die in a state of grace, although one minute 
 before they were not in a state of grace, are saved. . . . 
 We know not what God may do in one agony of loving 
 penitence for one who accepts his last grace in that almost 
 sacrament of death." * Thus penitence is everything and 
 morality nothing. Years of sin which may, which are sure 
 to have caused widespread moral evils, to have been a 
 source of corruption and leading astray to the weak and 
 ignorant, are all obliterated by one moment of loving 
 penitence ; that is, they are obliterated as regards their 
 effects on the sinner's status in the next world. He is 
 washed in the blood of the Lamb, and goes to glory. But 
 the partners and companions of his sins, whom he probably 
 seduced, the women he ruined, the youths his example 
 depraved, they survive and will be punished, unless indeed 
 they follow his example to the letter, and close a life of 
 wickedness by an act of timely repentance; and in that 
 case, like him, they will be as well off as if they had led 
 the most virtuous of lives. Can any one presume to say 
 that such doctrine encourages morality? What could dis- 
 courage it more ? 
 
 * " What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment," p. 115.
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. ^l 
 
 The Article just quoted, and the words of Dr. Pusey, 
 may be allowed to stand warrant for the English Church 
 in this particular. Now, let us turn to the Catholic Church. 
 And we will take as her representative an illustrious Saint 
 and Doctor, whose works have received the approbation 
 of his superiors, St. Alphonso de' Liguori. In the first 
 chapter of a book called "The Glories of Mary," it is 
 written : " We read in the life of Sister Catherine, of St. 
 Augustine, that in the place where she resided, there was 
 a woman, of the name of Mary, who in her youth was a 
 sinner, and in her old age continued so obstinate in wicked- 
 ness, that she was driven out of the city, and reduced to 
 live in a secluded cave ; there she died, half consumed by 
 disease, and without the sacraments, and was consequently 
 interred in a field like a beast. Sister Catherine, who 
 always recommended the souls of those who departed from 
 this world, with great fervour, to God, on hearing the 
 unfortunate end of this poor old woman, never thought of 
 praying for her, and she looked upon her, as did every one 
 else, as irrevocably lost. One day, four years afterwards, a 
 suffering soul appeared to her, and exclaimed, 'How un- 
 fortunate is my lot, sister Catherine ! Thou recommendest 
 the souls of all those that die, to God ; on my soul alone thou 
 hast not compassion ? ' ' And who art thou ? ' asked the 
 servant of God. ' I am,' she replied, ' that poor Mary, 
 who died in the cave.' 'And art thou saved?' said 
 Catherine. 'Yes,' she answered, 'by the mercy of the 
 Blessed Virgin Mary.' ' And how ? ' ' When I saw myself 
 at the point of death, loaded with sins, and abandoned by 
 all, I had recourse to the Mother of God, saying, " Lady, 
 thou art the refuge of abandoned creatures : behold me at 
 this moment, abandoned by all ; thou art my only hope ; 
 thou alone canst help me ; have pity on me." The Blessed
 
 72 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 Virgin obtained me the grace to make an act of contrition. 
 I died, and am saved ; and besides this, she, my Queen, 
 obtained that my purgatory should be shortened, by en- 
 during, in intensity, that which otherwise would have 
 lasted for many years. I now only want a few masses to 
 be entirely delivered ; I beg thee to get them said, and on 
 my part, I promise always to pray for thee to God and to 
 Mary.' Sister Catherine immediately had the masses said ; 
 and after a few days that soul again appeared to her, 
 shining like the sun, and said, ' I thank thee, Catherine : 
 behold, I go to Paradise, to sing the mercies of my God, 
 and to pray for thee.' " * 
 
 Nothing can be more plain. A life from youth to old 
 age continued in " obstinate wickedness," is cancelled by 
 an act of contrition, and, after a short purgatorial purifica- 
 tion, the sinner appears "shining like the sun." Could a 
 life of blameless self-denial and virtue have led to a better 
 result? The book I quote is full of such stories. Here 
 is another : 
 
 " Belluacensis relates, that in an English city, about the 
 year 1430, there was a young nobleman, called Ernest, who, 
 having distributed the whole of his patrimony to the poor, 
 became a monk, and in the monastery to which he retired 
 led so perfect a life, that he was highly esteemed by his 
 superiors, and this esteem was greatly increased by their 
 knowledge of his tender devotion to the most Blessed 
 Virgin. It happened that the city was attacked by the 
 plague, and the inhabitants had recourse to the monastery, 
 in order that the religious might help them by their prayers. 
 The abbot commanded Ernest to go and pray before the 
 
 * " The Glories of Mary," translated from the Italian of St. Alphonso 
 de' Liguori, founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. 
 By a father of the same congregation. Page 19. London, 1852.
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 73 
 
 altar of Mary, forbidding him to leave it until he should 
 have received an answer from our Blessed Lady. The 
 young man, after remaining three days in prayer, received 
 an answer from Mary to the effect, that certain prayers were 
 to be said : this was done, and the plague ceased. After 
 a time Ernest cooled in his devotion towards Mary : the 
 devil attacked him with many temptations, and particularly 
 with those against purity, and also to leave his monastery. 
 From not having recommended himself to Mary, he unfor- 
 tunately yielded to the temptation, and resolved to escape 
 by climbing over a wall. Passing before an image of Mary 
 which was in the corridor, the Mother of God addressed 
 him, saying, ' My son, why dost thou leave me ? ' Ernest, 
 thunderstruck and repentant, sunk to the ground, and 
 replied, ' But, Lady, dost thou not see that I can no longer 
 resist ; why dost thou not assist me ? ' ' And why hast thou 
 not invoked me ? ' said our Blessed Lady. ' If thou haclst 
 recommended thyself to me, thou wouldst not have fallen so 
 low ; but from henceforth do so and fear nothing.' Ernest 
 returned to his cell, his temptations- recommenced, again he 
 neglected to recommend himself to Mary, and at last fled 
 from his monastery. He then gave himself up to a most 
 wicked life, fell from one sin into another, and at length 
 became an assassin ; for, having hired an inn, during the 
 night he used to murder the- poor travellers who slept there. 
 Amongst others, he one night killed the cousin of the 
 governor of the place. For this crime he was tried and 
 sentenced to death. It so happened that before he was 
 made a prisoner, and whilst evidence was being collected, 
 a young nobleman arrived at the inn. The wicked Ernest, 
 as usual, determined to murder him, and entered the room 
 at night for this purpose ; but lo ! instead of finding the 
 young man, he beheld a crucifix on the bed, all covered
 
 74 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 with wounds. The image cast a look of compassion on 
 him, and exclaimed, ' Ungrateful wretch ! is it not enough 
 that I have died once for thee ? Wilt thou again take my 
 life ? Be it so. Raise thy hand, strike ! ' Filled with 
 confusion, poor Ernest began to weep, and sobbing, said, 
 ' Behold me, Lord ; since thou shewest me such mercy, 
 I will return to thee.' Immediately he left the inn, to 
 return to his monastery, there to do penance for his crimes ; 
 but on the road he was taken by the ministers of justice, 
 was led before the judge, and acknowledged all the murders 
 he had committed. He was sentenced to be hung, without 
 having the time given him to go to confession. He recom- 
 mended himself to Mary, and was thrown from the ladder ; 
 but the Blessed Virgin preserved his life, and she herself 
 loosened the rope, and then addressed him, saying, ' Go, 
 return to thy monastery, do penance, and when thou seest 
 a paper in my hands, announcing the pardon of thy sins, 
 prepare for death.' Ernest returned, related all to his 
 abbot, and did great penance. After many years, he saw 
 the paper in the hands of Mary, which announced his 
 pardon ; he immediately prepared for death, and in a most 
 holy manner breathed forth his soul." * 
 
 It is quite clear that an ardent zeal to save souls is com- 
 patible with great indifference as to bodies. One would 
 like to know what became of the poor travellers whom the 
 ruffian Ernest murdered in their sleep. Was time granted 
 them to make an act of contrition ? But it is absurd to 
 take such a narrative au serietix. What is serious is the 
 unmistakable character of the teaching implied. And can 
 anything be imagined more cynically immoral ? Here is a 
 man represented as falling into the most abominable anti- 
 social crime which it is possible to commit. The wretch 
 * " The Glories of Mary," p. 48.
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 75 
 
 deserved a hundred deaths for his dastardly midnight mur- 
 ders ; conduct more injurious than his to society simply 
 cannot be conceived. Yet he is not only saved from the 
 gallows by the Mother of God herself, but his life is pro- 
 longed in order that he may have time to repent and to 
 get his precious soul taken to heaven, a place which, by 
 the way, if it contain many such characters as he, would 
 offer very unpleasant company to moral men. 
 
 And let no one reject with impatience the above speci- 
 mens of Christian teaching on the ground that they are 
 not Christian at all, but abject popish superstitions and 
 inventions. Our next witness to prove that in this matter 
 all Christians agree in vilipending a moral life and conduct, 
 and placing it below a life of crime, provided the latter be 
 terminated by an act of repentance and turning to God in 
 time to cheat the devil, shall be the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, 
 who will not be suspected of any leaning to Romish error. 
 This is what he says : 
 
 " Regeneration is an instantaneous work, and justification 
 an instantaneous gift. Man fell in a moment. . . . Shall 
 the devil destroy us in a moment, and Jesus be unable 
 to save us in a moment ? " * Again, " My dear hearer, 
 whoever thou mayst be, whatever thy past life may have 
 been, if thou wilt trust Christ, thou shalt be saved from all 
 thy sin in a moment ; the whole of thy past life shall be 
 blotted out ; there shall not remain in God's book so 
 much as a single charge against thy soul, for Christ, who 
 died for thee, shall take thy guilt away, and leave thee 
 without a blot before the face of God." Again, " Ah ! my 
 friend, let me assure you . . . that there is hope for the 
 vilest through the precious blood of Jesus. No man can 
 
 * "Jesus at Bethesda ; " a sermon delivered by C. H. Spurgeon, 
 April 7, 1867.
 
 76 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 have gone too far for the long arm of Christ to reach him. 
 Christ delights to save the biggest sinners. ... O ye 
 despairing sinners, there is no room for despair this side 
 the gates of hell. If you have gone through the foulest 
 kennels of iniquity, no stain can stand out against the power 
 of the cleansing blood. . . . You great sinners shall have 
 no back seats in heaven ! There shall be no outer court 
 for you. You great sinners shall have as much love as the 
 best, as much joy as the brightest of saints. You shall be 
 near to Christ ; you shall sit with him upon his throne ; you 
 shall wear the crown ; your fingers shall touch the golden 
 harps ; you shall rejoice with the joy which is unspeakable 
 and full of glory. . . . Thirty years of sin shall be forgiven, 
 and it shall not take thirty minutes to do it in. Fifty, sixty, 
 seventy years of iniquity shall all disappear as the morning's 
 hoar-frost disappears before the sun." * 
 
 Two things are to be remarked in connection with these 
 quotations : first, that we have here a singular agreement 
 on one particular point, among divines who usually are in 
 complete antagonism. Dr. Pusey, St. Alfonso de' Liguori, 
 and Mr. Spurgeon, may be regarded as representatives of 
 opinions as widely divergent as could well be found among 
 men calling themselves Christians. Yet they agree in the 
 opinion, that no amount or duration of sin can be accounted 
 as a bar to salvation, provided a suitable act of repentance 
 or contrition has been performed on " this side of the gates 
 of hell." They differ at once, if you ask for details as to 
 how the act of contrition or repentance is to be carried out. 
 Mr. Spurgeon bids the sinner turn to Jesus. St. Alfonso 
 tells him to have recourse to the Mother of God ; the mere 
 words of which precept the great Baptist minister would 
 
 * "A Sermon to Open Neglecters and Nominal Followers of 
 Religion;" March 24, 1867.
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 77 
 
 probably regard as savouring of blasphemy. But the result 
 is the same. A long life devoted to sin can be blotted out 
 in a moment by a change in the sinner's mind. Secondly, 
 this result has exclusive reference to the next world. By 
 the hypothesis in each case, the life in this world is sup- 
 posed to be as good as over; and it has been a life of 
 iniquity, says Mr. Spurgeon, of obstinacy in wickedness, 
 says St. Alfonso. But paradise is attained, nevertheless. 
 Now, can this doctrine be regarded as one leading to 
 morality in this world ? Must it not, rather, have a directly 
 opposite effect ? As many as believe it, and how many 
 millions have, are invited, nay, entreated to believe also 
 that it makes absolutely no difference as to their future 
 welfare whether they lead virtuous lives here below, or the 
 most profligate ; provided they repent a moment before 
 death. Preachers may insist as they will on the dangers of 
 deferring repentance to the last, on the awful results which 
 will follow if the sinner is suddenly cut off, without having 
 had time to make his peace with God. One part of their 
 teaching destroys the effect of the other part They admit, 
 they proclaim that repentance, however late, will take the 
 sinner to heaven. Human nature being as it is, we cannot 
 wonder that the result in this world is varied, and on the 
 whole very unsatisfactory. The minute minority of naturally 
 pious and tender minds embrace the cross with passion and 
 ardent love, not unmixed with holy fear ; they realize fully 
 that they stand in jeopardy every hour ; they work out their 
 salvation in fear and trembling, and not unfrequently are 
 exposed to a strain too severe for their faculties, and they 
 become, like Pascal, morbidly anxious about their future 
 state, or, like Cowper, they pass the limits of sanity, and 
 fall for a longer or shorter time into utter despair. But 
 these are the small minority of Ames cT elite. The bulk of
 
 78 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 mankind are commonplace all round, in their virtues and 
 vices equally; and they languidly believe and languidly 
 practice their belief; but so imperfectly and perfunctorily, 
 that it is the universal complaint and lamentation of preachers 
 of all denominations, that the world lieth in wickedness 
 and is dead in its sins. Nothing could be more frank and 
 candid than Mr. Spurgeon's language to his congregation 
 on this head : "You sin, and yet you come to a place of 
 worship, and tremble under the word ; you transgress, and 
 you weep and transgress again. . . . You are as religious 
 as the seats you sit upon, but no more; and you are as 
 likely to get to heaven as those seats are, but not one whit 
 more, for you are dead in sin, and death cannot enter 
 heaven." * Bourdaloue, the greatest preacher in the classic 
 age of French pulpit eloquence, said : " Nous sommes 
 Chretiens, et nous vivons en pai'ens ; nous avons une foi 
 de speculation; et dans la pratique toute notre conduite n'est 
 qu'infidelite. Nous croyons d'une fac.on, et nous agissons 
 de 1'autre. . . . Avoir la foi, et vivre en infideles, voila ce qui 
 fait le prodige. . . . Ah ! Chretiens, faisons cesser ce prodige, 
 accordons nous avec nous-memes ; accordons nos moeurs 
 avec notre foi ; autrement que n'avons-nous pas a craindre 
 de cette foi profane"e, de cette foi scandalisee, de cette foi 
 dshonoree ? " t 
 
 Again, he says : " N'entend on pas dire sans cesse que 
 tout est renverse dans le monde, que le dereglement y est 
 general ; qu'il n'y a ni age, ni sexe, ni etat, qui en soit 
 exempt ; qu'on ne trouve presque nulle part ni religion, ni 
 crainte de Dieu, ni probite, ni droiture, ni bonne foi, ni 
 justice, ni charite, ni honnetete, ni pudeur ; que ce n'est 
 partout, ou presque partout, que libertinage, que disso- 
 
 * " A Sermon to Open Neglecters," etc. 
 t " Sermon sur la Religion Chretienne. "
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 79 
 
 lution, que mensonges, que tromperies, qu'envie de s'aggran 
 dir et de dominer, qu'avarice, qu'usure, que concussions, 
 que medisances, qu'un monstrueux assemblage de toutes 
 les iniquites." * 
 
 " The title of Christian," says Wilberforce, " implies no 
 more than a sort of formal general assent to Christianity in 
 the gross, and a degree of morality in practice, little, if at 
 all, superior to that for which we look in a good Deist, 
 Mussulman, or Hindoo." \ 
 
 It seems difficult to reconcile these candid admissions by 
 eminent authorities with the current claim made for Chris- 
 tianity as a supremely moralizing influence. But we can 
 hardly be wrong in tracing the general failure of preachers 
 to arouse their flocks to the fact, already dwelt on, that 
 they undo with one hand what they do with the other ; 
 that, anxious above all things to save souls in the next 
 world, and making that infinitely the most important object, 
 they one and all present the doctrine of Justification, 
 though varying much from one another in minor points, in 
 a form which necessarily depreciates the value of morality 
 in this world. With one voice they tell men that all they 
 do is evil and wicked, and that there is no health in them. 
 They dwell with exaggerated language on the sinfulness of 
 sin, and the extent and vileness of human corruption. 
 But, except in a few special cases of unusually sensitive 
 natures, they do not awaken the prick of conscience ; men 
 feeling in a dumb, inarticulate way, that their tone is unreal 
 and conventional, or even merely professional. Even when 
 they do alarm the conscience, they as promptly send it to 
 sleep again by their doctrine that a moment's repentance 
 can put everything straight, and that one plunge in the 
 
 * " Opuscules : Petit Nombre des Elus." 
 t " Practical View," cap. iv.
 
 8o THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 blood of the Lamb will remove all the guilty stains from 
 a sinner's soul. Mr. Spurgeon, in the sermon from which 
 I have already quoted some passages, avows this very 
 openly. " It is the easiest thing," he says, " in the world 
 to impress some of you by a sermon, but I fear me you 
 never will go beyond transient impressions. Like the water 
 when lashed, the wound soon heals. You know, and you 
 know, and you know, and you feel, and feel, and feel again, 
 and yet your sins, your self-righteousness, your carelessness 
 and wilful wickedness cause you, after having said, ' I go, 
 sir,' to forget the promise and lie unto God." But the 
 eloquent preacher had apparently forgotten what he had 
 himself said on the previous page, or at least he had not 
 sufficiently weighed the natural effect of his words. " Thirty 
 years of sin shall be forgiven, and it shall not take thirty 
 minutes to do it in." It is no wonder if men and women, 
 with hearts and minds made dull and heavy with toil and 
 trouble, should remember more easily and pleasantly the 
 consolation conveyed in the last remark than the objur- 
 gation of the previous one ; and should dwell more on the 
 efficacy of repentance when once set about, than on its 
 immediate need and urgency. Consequently, we find that 
 it is the most scrupulous and tender consciences which 
 have most difficulty in embracing the great Protestant 
 dogma of justification by faith alone. " The essence of 
 Luther's gospel is this : that a person so affected, that is, 
 with scruples of conscience, has only one great struggle to 
 go through in order that he may attain the indefectible 
 promise of eternal salvation, and that the struggle is not 
 against those sins, but against his own conscience, which 
 would fain impede his full assurance of immediate pardon." * 
 The records of execution show, on the other hand, that 
 * Ward, " Ideal of a Christian Church : " second edition, p. 171.
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. Si 
 
 malefactors of the deepest dye have often little or no 
 difficulty in turning to Jesus when circumstances compel 
 it. This is acknowledged by the Christian Observer:* 
 " Thousands of deeply penitent and humble-minded persons 
 have lived many years, and perhaps died in a state of deep 
 depression, because they could not attain to that confident 
 assurance that their sins were pardoned, which they were 
 told was essential to salvation ; while murderers have gone 
 to the gibbet, exulting in strains of rapture, as though they 
 were being carried to the stake as faithful martyrs of Jesus 
 Christ." 
 
 But the most momentous authority for holding a life of 
 wickedness on earth immaterial, and no impediment to the 
 promptest ascent into heaven, provided an act of contrition 
 has been performed in time, has yet to be cited. It is that 
 of Christ himself as he hung upon the cross. " And one 
 of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, 
 saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the 
 other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear 
 God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And 
 we indeed justly ; for we receive the due reward of 
 our deeds : but this man hath done nothing amiss. And 
 he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou 
 comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, 
 Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in 
 paradise." f 
 
 This is almost exactly parallel with the case cited by 
 St Alphonso of the woman " who was a sinner." Though 
 it is not mentioned in the gospel, we may suppose and grant 
 that the penitent thief made a due act of contrition ; that 
 Christ was able to see to the bottom of his heart, and that 
 he truly repented him of his sins. Does that in the least 
 * Jan., 1844, p. 16. t Luke xxiii. 39-43. 
 
 G
 
 82 THE SERVICE OP MAN, 
 
 remove the slight which Christ passed upon morality by 
 taking him to paradise in spite of his past evil life ? What 
 did his repentance do to cancel that ? The evil that he had 
 done in the world was still left working behind him ; his 
 bad example ; the insecurity to person and property involved 
 in his robber's career ; the pain and suffering he had caused 
 in any case : all his immorality, in short, was left to work 
 on, and contributed, no doubt, its share to that frightful 
 depravity of the Jewish nation which made them at last 
 insupportable to the Roman world. Yet, was he punished 
 or made to do penance, to make amends to the society he 
 had injured? The human law did indeed give him his 
 deserts, by hanging him as a thief and probably a murderer, 
 and so far morality was avenged. A powerful deterrent 
 was applied, not unlikely to prevent others from doing like- 
 wise. But Christ undid all the effect of that salutary 
 severity in a moment, when he promised him immediate 
 salvation, and for what ? For deferential speech to him- 
 self, which the hypothesis that Christ saw to the bottom of 
 his heart will not allow us to regard as a piece of artful 
 time-serving, suggested as politic in his desperate circum- 
 stances ; but which, without that hypothesis, .would un- 
 doubtedly be open to such a suspicion. Thus preachers 
 have the very highest authority for asserting that turning 
 to God, even at the last moment, will save a soul in the 
 next world, the admitted object of Christianity; and 
 agnostics have equally a right to declare that Christianity 
 thereby shows itself hostile to morality in this world. The 
 penitent thief s life, we may assume, was a pernicious one 
 as far as this world was concerned. What good could his 
 repentance do to any denizen of this earth ? If it be said 
 that it might lead others to repent after a life of crime, the 
 answer is, that in proportion as they resembled him they
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 83 
 
 also would be qualifying for heaven, and not for well-doing 
 in this world. Man may injure his fellows in their most 
 vital interests ; he may rob, murder, " go through the foulest 
 kennels of iniquity ; " there shall not remain in God's book 
 a single charge against his soul, provided he looks to the 
 bleeding Lamb. On the other hand, the best of good 
 works are of no account, are worse than "filthy rags," and 
 no doubt have the nature of sin " unless they be consum- 
 mated in real vital communion with Christ." It would not 
 be easy to conceive a doctrine more injurious to morality 
 than this Christian scheme, on which the morality of 
 the world, as on the surest foundation, is supposed to 
 rest 
 
 Indeed this inherent opposition between morality and the 
 gospel has been held by large sections of Christians as an 
 article of faith. " Luther," says Moehler, " not only taught 
 that Christ had not come to impart to men a purer ethical 
 code, but even maintained that he had come to abolish the 
 moral law, to liberate true believers from its curse both for 
 the past and for the future, and in that way to make them 
 free. The evangelical liberty which Luther propounded, 
 announces that even the decalogue shall not be brought into 
 account against the believer, nor its violation be allowed 
 to disturb the conscience of the Christian, for he is exalted 
 above it and its contents." Moehler goes on to say that 
 the reformers refer to Christ not as the strengthener and 
 sanctifier, but exclusively as the forgiver of sins; .".they 
 regarded the mediator only in his capacity of pardoner." 
 The great Catholic divine is at pains to show the superior 
 moral tone of his communion in this respect But the 
 extracts just cited from St. Alphonso de' Liguori prove that 
 the Catholic Church has no advantage over the Protestant 
 on this point. The Virgin takes the place of Christ as
 
 84 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 a free pardoner of the grossest sins, in consideration of an 
 act of contrition and genuine repentance. 
 
 To the above considerations, it may be added that the 
 doctrine of grace is presented in a way to become a stand- 
 ing rebuke and depredator of morality. " Humility," 
 says Canon Liddon, " is the condition and guarantee of 
 grace ; and, as St. Augustine says, there is no reason, apart 
 from the grace of God, why the highest saints should not 
 be the worst of criminals." * In that statement I suppose 
 all theologians would concur. But it is easy to see how 
 fatal such a doctrine is to a systematic culture of morality. 
 If, at any moment, the best men may become the worst, 
 and vice versa, .as they may be touched by grace or not, it 
 is obvious that morality is a figment of the fancy, having no 
 substantial existence or foundation in the nature of things. 
 The difference is not between good and bad men, whose 
 goodness and badness depends on their moral endowment 
 plus the training they receive, but between the recipients of 
 grace and the non-recipients ; and these are interchangeable 
 according to the good pleasure of God. We can never 
 tell, therefore, whether the greatest sinner now, may not 
 become the greatest saint before his end ; nor whether the 
 best of men may not suddenly become prodigies of wicked- 
 ness. This unknown factor of Grace vitiates all calculation. 
 No doctrine more inconsistent with the facts of human 
 nature can well be conceived, and therefore no more 
 misleading guide of conduct could be adopted. Imagine 
 such a theory applied to agriculture, and that there was no 
 reason, apart from the grace of God, why the most fertile 
 soil should not become the most barren, or the reverse. If 
 such were the case, what inducement would a farmer have 
 to choose good land, and cultivate it with care ? The 
 * " Oxford Sermons : " VI.
 
 CHRISTIANITY AS A GUIDE TO CONDUCT. 85 
 
 worst land might serve him as well as the best, and bring 
 him overflowing crops ; and that with no effort on his part, 
 for "God giveth the increase." He has only to wait or 
 pray for fertilizing grace. Or apply it to the raising of 
 horses or cattle. The grazier or breeder cannot trust to 
 the qualities of his stock. His thoroughbreds may suddenly 
 become valueless animals, which no one would take at a 
 gift ; while his neighbour, who had nothing but screws and 
 low-breeds, has all at once a magnificent collection of 
 superb cattle. Men differ at least as much as animals in 
 their inherited qualities ; and to say that a man naturally 
 courageous, high-minded, benevolent, and just, can become 
 vile and cruel, cowardly or criminal, is not a whit less 
 irrational than to say that a thoroughbred Arab can become 
 a cart-horse. The faulty theory leads, as a matter of course, 
 to disastrous practice. It is no exaggeration to say that 
 the vigilant, painstaking cultivation of the moral side of! 
 man's nature has never been taken in hand with earnest j 
 persistence, because theology has always been celebrating j 
 the power of grace, to the depreciation of ethics. A j 
 miracle of grace, which removes the heart of stone and 
 replaces it by a heart of flesh, might always be expected, 
 or at least hoped for. Punctual performance of the moral 
 law, social duty to the community and individuals, could 
 well be postponed without harm, in view of the celestial 
 transfiguration which converts a sinner from a bond-slave 
 of Satan into a saint of God. If this conversion takes place 
 in the last hour or minute of life, we have seen that by 
 the unanimous consent of theologians of all schools, it is 
 enough ; the object has been attained ; a soul has been 
 saved ; the sinner's past wickedness has been blotted out, 
 as regards its effects upon him. But its effects on society 
 are not considered, and the result must be, and is, solely
 
 86 THE SERVICE OF MAN, 
 
 injurious to morality so far as it relates to conduct in this 
 world. That depends on the performance of social duty ; 
 salvation depends on repentance and the subjective attitude 
 of the soul towards God. And this repentance is powerful 
 to cancel any number of previous breaches of the moral 
 law. In other words, morality is not the one thing needful, 
 but repentance is.
 
 87 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 
 
 IN the previous chapter we saw on the best evidence, that 
 of eminent doctors in various denominations, that true 
 Christian doctrine postponed morality to repentance ; and 
 that salvation in the next world depended on other things 
 than good conduct in this. The obvious inference was, 
 that under such a scheme morality must necessarily be 
 more or less slighted and undervalued, and that the alleged 
 support afforded to ethics by the Christian religion must be 
 either denied or considerably diminished. It will be per- 
 haps useful to confirm this abstract deduction, by examples 
 taken from the past of the actual working of Christian 
 doctrine. If only a tithe of the compliments which it is 
 usual to pay that doctrine be true, it is clear that the more we 
 retrograde into the ages where it held undisputed sway over 
 men's minds, the more moral we ought to find the public 
 and private life of the world. Wickedness and crime are 
 assumed to be the natural result of neglected religion. No 
 other cause is usually thought of in explaining the atrocities 
 of the French Revolution. Here we see, it is remarked, 
 the proper effect of atheism, and forsaking of the divine 
 light of the gospel. Again, the corruption and immorality 
 of the lower Roman Empire show what becomes of man 
 when left to himself. The line of argument is too familiar 
 to need further repetition of it. Now, we may profitably
 
 88 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 consult history as to the truth of these assumptions. Do 
 we find, as a matter of fact, that the Ages of Faith were 
 distinguished by a high morality ? Were they superior in 
 this respect to the present age, which is nearly on all hands 
 ; acknowledged not to be an age of Faith ? The answer 
 must be in the negative. Taking them broadly, the Ages 
 of Faith were emphatically ages of crime, of gross and 
 scandalous wickedness, of cruelty, and, in a word, of 
 immorality. And it is noteworthy that in proportion as 
 we recede backward from the present age, and return into 
 the Ages of Faith, we find that the crime and the sin 
 become denser and blacker. The temperature of faith 
 rises steadily as we penetrate into the past, almost with the 
 regularity which marks the rise of the physical temperature 
 of the air as we descend into a deep mine ; but a neglect 
 and defiance of morality are found to ascend in a corres- 
 ponding ratio. This, it must be owned, is an anomalous 
 result, if morality be indeed so dependent on Christianity 
 as is commonly supposed. When all men believed and 
 doubted not, we should have found, according to the Chris- 
 tian hypothesis, a godly world ; devout people living always 
 with the great Day of Judgment before their eyes, crushing 
 down the lusts of the flesh, in view of the tremendous 
 penalties prepared for those who indulged them. But we 
 find nothing of the kind. On the contrary, we find a state 
 of things to which our imaginations are scarcely able to do 
 justice in these comparatively tame and moral days. A 
 progressive improvement has taken place in men's conduct, 
 both public and private, but it has coincided not with an 
 increase, but with a decay, of faith. This, beyond any 
 question, is the most moral age which the world has seen ; 
 , t and it is as certainly the least believing age since Christianity 
 ' became the religion of the West The inference is plain,
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 89 
 
 that Christianity has not been so favourable to morality as 
 is usually assumed. 
 
 Let us turn back, and take a brief excursion through the 
 ages behind us. 
 
 The present century need not detain us long. Most 
 persons would admit that the state of morals when George 
 the Fourth was king left much to be desired. The scandals 
 of the court were bad enough ; but no court, however bad, 
 can compromise a nation. The mass of the population was 
 coarse, insolent, and cruel, and permitted things which 
 would not be tolerated for a moment now. That there 
 were exceptions, not only of individuals, but of whole 
 though small classes, no one would deny. The Clapham 
 Sect was a conspicuous example in a corrupt world; and 
 many of the dissenters were truly pious, God-fearing people, 
 who had turned away from the prevailing grossness. But 
 these were only fractions of the nation. The general tone 
 was low, violent, and brutal. The drinking, gambling, 
 prize-fighting, cock-fighting, bull-baiting England of the 
 Regency, is hardly to be realized in these decorous days ; 
 though old men " still creep among us," who can partly 
 resuscitate it for us, if carefully questioned. Let one of 
 those venerable seniors be induced to describe the condition 
 of London in his youth, and no hearer will have any doubt 
 as to the extraordinary change for the better which has 
 taken place in the last two generations. 
 
 From this century we pass into history ; and as the 
 object is to ascertain the moral tone of previous ages, let 
 us quote the following passages from a writer, who was 
 selected by common acclamation as "the great moralist," 
 and was one of the most brave, noble, and conscientious 
 men who have ever lived, Samuel Johnson. 
 
 " He talked of the heinousness of the crime of adultery,
 
 "90 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 by which the peace of families was destroyed. He said, 
 'Confusion of progeny constitutes the essence of the crime; 
 and, therefore, a woman who breaks her marriage vows is 
 much more criminal than a man who does it. A man, to 
 be sure, is criminal in the sight of God ; but he does not do 
 his wife a very material injury, if he does not insult her ; if, 
 for instance, from mere wantonness of appetite, he steals 
 privately to her chambermaid. Sir, a wife ought not greatly 
 to resent this. I would not receive home a daughter who 
 had run away from her husband on that account.' " * This 
 was Johnson's settled opinion, as, eleven years after, we find 
 Boswell recording another conversation, in which the same 
 thought recurs. " I mentioned to him a dispute between a 
 friend of mine and his lady, concerning conjugal infidelity, 
 which my friend had maintained was by no means so bad 
 in the husband as in the wife. JOHNSON. Your friend was 
 in the right, Sir. Between a man and his Maker it is a 
 different question : but between a man and his wife, a 
 husband's infidelity is nothing. They are connected by 
 children, by fortune, by serious considerations of commu- 
 nity. Wise married women don't trouble themselves about 
 infidelity in their husbands." \ 
 
 Now, this is a very good instance of the improvement 
 which has taken place in the course of the last hundred 
 years. That very offence for which Johnson said he would 
 not receive his daughter home, if it were committed by a 
 husband, is now so universally admitted to be an injury of 
 the most serious kind, that the statutory law of the land 
 does precisely what Johnson said he would not do, give 
 protection to the injured wife. 
 
 As we go further back in the century, we make a visible 
 approach to the state of nature. Cowardly murders and 
 * Croker's "Boswell," chap 21. \ Ibid., chap. 69.
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 91 
 
 brutal outrages are perpetrated almost with impunity and 
 very little loss of credit by people of the highest rank. The 
 exploits of the Mohocks must have rendered the streets of 
 London in the reign of Queen Anne considerably more 
 dangerous and disgusting than any Californian diggings 
 frequented by the rabble and outlaws of Europe and 
 America in the early days of the gold discoveries. A 
 contemporary says, " There are a certain set of persons, 
 amongst whom there are some of too great a character to 
 be named in these barbarous and ridiculous encounters, 
 did they not expose themselves by such mean and ridicu- 
 lous exploits ; " and their portrait is thus drawn by the 
 Spectator ; " A set of men who have erected themselves 
 into a nocturnal fraternity, under the title of The Mohock 
 Club, a name borrowed, it seems, from a sort of cannibals 
 in India, who subsist by plundering and devouring all the 
 nations about them. The president is styled Emperor of 
 the Mohocks, and his arms are a Turkish crescent. Agree- 
 able to their name, the avowed design of their institution is 
 mischief, and upon this foundation all their rules and orders 
 are founded. An outrageous ambition of doing all possible 
 hurt to their fellow-creatures is the great cement of their 
 assembly, and the only qualification required in the mem- 
 bers. In order to exert this principle in its full strength and 
 perfection, they take care to drink themselves to a pitch 
 that is beyond the possibility of attending to any motive of 
 reason and humanity, then make a general sally, and attack 
 all that are so unfortunate as to walk the streets through 
 which they patrol. Some are knocked down, others 
 stabbed, others cut and carbonadoed. . . . The particular 
 talents by which these misanthropes are distinguished from 
 one another, consist in various kinds of barbarities which 
 they execute upon their prisoners. Some are celebrated
 
 92 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 for a happy dexterity in tipping the lion upon them, which 
 is performed by squeezing the nose flat on the face, and 
 boring out the eyes with their ringers. Others are called 
 the dancing-masters, and teach their scholars to cut capers 
 by running swords through their legs. ... A third are the 
 tumblers, whose office is to set women on their heads, and 
 commit certain indecencies, or rather, barbarities, on the 
 limbs which they expose." * Slitting noses, cutting people 
 down the back, and putting women in tubs which were 
 rolled down Snow Hill, were among their diversions. 
 
 The manners and customs of persons of quality were 
 those of semi-savages. Thackeray, who knew the period 
 well, does not go too far when he says, "You could no more 
 suffer in a British drawing-room, under the reign of Queen 
 Victoria, a fine gentleman or a fine lady of Queen Anne's 
 time, or hear what they heard and said, than you would 
 receive an ancient Briton." This is the manner in which 
 " gentlemen " quarrelled in the good old times : Sir 
 Cholmley Bering, knight of the shire for Kent, and Mr. 
 Thornhill fought a duel, in which the former was killed. 
 This caused a judicial inquiry, and "the first Evidences 
 were such as related to the quarrel begun at the Toy at 
 Hampton Court, April 27, 1711, who deposed that an 
 assembly of about eighteen gentlemen met there at that 
 time, a difference happened between the deceased and the 
 prisoner. Upon their struggling and contending with each 
 other, the wainscot of the room broke in, and Mr. Thorn- 
 hill falling down, had some teeth struck out by Sir Cholmley 
 Bering's stamping upon him." f Naturally a duel followed. 
 " They fought," says Swift, " at sword and pistol this morn- 
 ing in Tuttlefields, their pistols so near that the muzzles 
 
 * Spectator, No. 324. 
 
 t Ashton, " Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne," ch. 38.
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 93 
 
 touched. Thornhill discharged first, and Bering, having 
 received the shot, discharged his pistol as he was falling, so 
 it went into the air." Thornhill was convicted for man- 
 slaughter, but he was apparently soon abroad again, as he 
 was murdered by two men, who stabbed him on horseback, 
 five months afterwards, at Turnham Green. 
 
 The well-known case of the murder of Will Mountford, 
 the actor, by Lord Mohun and Captain Hill, in a ruffianly 
 ambuscade, would seem well suited to show the profligate 
 temper and degraded public opinion in the reign of William 
 the Third. The incident is thus related by Thackeray : 
 
 " My lord's friend, a Captain Hill, smitten with the 
 charms of the beautiful Mrs. Bracegirdle, and anxious to 
 marry her at all hazards, determined to carry her off, and 
 for this purpose hired a hackney coach with six horses and 
 half a dozen soldiers to aid him in the storm. The coach 
 with a pair of horses (the four leaders being in waiting else- 
 where) took its station opposite my Lord Craven's house in 
 Drury Lane, by which door Mrs. Bracegirdle was to pass 
 on her way from the theatre. As she passed, in company 
 of her mamma and a friend Mr. Page, the captain seized 
 her by the hand, the soldiers hustled Mr. Page and attacked 
 him sword in hand, and Captain Hill and his noble friend 
 endeavoured to force Madam Bracegirdle into the coach. 
 Mr. Page called for help ; the population of Drury Lane 
 rose ; it was impossible to effect the capture, and, bidding 
 the soldiers go about their business, and the coach to drive 
 off, Hill let go his prey sulkily, and he waited for other 
 opportunities of revenge. The man of whom he was most 
 jealous was Will Mountford, the comedian. Will removed, 
 he thought Mrs. Bracegirdle might be his ; and accordingly 
 the captain and his lordship lay that night in wait for Will, 
 and as he was coming out of a house in Norfolk Street,
 
 94 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 while Mohun engaged him in talk, Hill, in the words of the 
 Attorney-general, made a pass and run him clean through 
 the body." * 
 
 Mohun was tried for the murder by his peers of the 
 upper house, and acquitted by sixty-nine votes against four- 
 teen. "One great nobleman," says Macaulay, "was so 
 brutal and stupid as to say, After all, the fellow was but a 
 player, and players are rogues." f This on the first blush 
 seems downright atrocious. But there are slightly extenu- 
 ating circumstances connected with the case which make it 
 a degree less horrible. In the first place, the murder and 
 the judgment, as Macaulay points out, were generally con- 
 demned by public opinion. In the second place, the Lords 
 were actuated by a violent esprit de corps, and defending 
 their privileges which were being attacked by the Com- 
 mons. That which largely neutralizes these considerations 
 is the fact that Mohun was a popular character in London, 
 and that the anecdotists speak very kindly of his practical 
 jokes. In the next reign he was singled out for honourable 
 distinction, and accompanied "Lord Macclesfield's embassy 
 to the Elector of Hanover when Queen Anne sent the 
 Garter to H.E. Highness." 
 
 Were the men of that generation infidels, despisers of 
 God's Holy Word, and demoralized by a dreary disbelief in 
 the unseen world ? On the contrary, they were fanatically 
 religious. Their zeal about spiritual matters was fervid in 
 the extreme. A hint that the Church was in danger filled 
 them with gloomy passion. As soon as SacheverelPs trial 
 began " it took up all men's thoughts, so that other business 
 was at a stand. It was clear from the very outset of the 
 trial, that the popular favour was wholly on the doctor's 
 
 * " Lectures on the Humourists." 
 t Macaulay 's " History of England."
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 95 
 
 side. He lodged in the Temple, and came every day in 
 solemn procession through the Strand to Westminster Hall. 
 As he passed, great crowds gathered round his coach, 
 striving to kiss his hand and shouting, ' Sacheverell and the 
 Church for ever ! ' Those who would not join in the 
 shouts were often insulted or knocked down. The ardour 
 of the multitude was even less justifiably shown by their 
 attacks on some meeting-houses, in which the pews were 
 demolished and burned."* The connection between Chris- 
 tianity and morality does not seem very plain here. 
 
 If we now cross the Channel and examine the condition 
 of morals under the Old Monarchy of France, we shall 
 find that the record of Catholicism in this respect is in no 
 wise purer than that of the rival communion. It is a 
 common opinion that the very great licence of manners 
 which distinguished the French upper classes in the latter 
 part of the eighteenth century, was one of the many evil 
 results of the prevalent infidelity propagated by Rousseau, 
 Diderot, and Voltaire. But such an idea has no foundation. 
 Corrupt as was the society which read the novels of Louvet 
 and the younger Crebillon, it was in a variety of ways superior 
 to the society to which Bossuet and Bourdaloue preached, 
 and which flocked to hear the sacred dramas of the spotless 
 Racine. The whole of the reign of Louis XIV. was marked 
 by a great depravity of manners, and this depravity was 
 found quite compatible with an ostentatious and possibly 
 sincere attachment to religion. The king, in spite of the 
 gross immorality of his private life, was a bigot in matters 
 of faith, and he was not an ungraceful or inadequate repre- 
 sentative of the people who looked up to him as to an 
 almost supernatural being. No stress need be laid on the 
 laxity of the gay lords and ladies who filled his brilliant 
 * Lord Stanhope, "Reign of Queen Anne," chap. 12.
 
 96 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 court, although if a firm belief in Christianity were the safe- 
 guard of pure morals, as it is supposed to be, their lives 
 present an unaccountable anomaly; for, as Bourdaloue said 
 to their faces, they lived like pagans though they believed 
 like Christians. The point of interest for us is to note how 
 largely Christianity failed to overcome the flesh and the 
 devil, even in an age when it had entirely its own way, was 
 zealously supported by the State, and able to wield its 
 tremendous sanctions without pause or hesitation. And, 
 again, what we have to take most account of, is the average 
 tone and temper of public opinion with regard to crime and 
 immorality. Sporadic and exceptional crime may occur in 
 any age, and yet cast no reflection on the average standard 
 of morals. It is otherwise when immorality is common, if 
 not general, and when a life of great licence and scandal 
 may be passed without attracting discredit or remark. And 
 this rule applies especially to the conduct of ministers of 
 religion. If the clerical order can indulge in abandoned 
 courses without exciting reprobation, we may be sure that 
 we do an age no injustice in pronouncing its standard of 
 morality to be low. When the officers of an army give an 
 example of cowardice and insubordination, we know what 
 to expect of the rank and file. 
 
 We have many instances during the reign of Louis XIV. 
 which show the great corruption of the clergy in that age, 
 and the little resentment or surprise which it caused. The 
 lives of some of the most prominent ecclesiastics were openly 
 scandalous. The famous Cardinal de Retz led a life of 
 which any decent layman would now be ashamed. But it 
 may be said that de Retz was one of those political church- 
 men who took orders merely with ambitious views to worldly 
 advancement, and who ought not to be considered as true 
 clerics. He also lived in times of revolution, when men's
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 97 
 
 morality is apt to break down. So we will pass him over. 
 These remarks do not apply to Harley de Champvallon, 
 archbishop of Paris. He lived in times of profound internal 
 peace, he never played any part in politics, and he was for 
 years the acknowledged leader and representative of the 
 French Church. He was permanent chairman of the 
 Assembly of the French Clergy, and a preacher of such 
 popularity and power that during a course of his Lenten 
 sermons, the church was kept open at all hours, and foot- 
 men, in order to retain the best places, were forced to spend 
 the whole night in them. Yet he was a man of profligate 
 private life, and not so very private, as his amours were 
 
 notorious. 
 
 " Notre Archeveque de Paris, 
 
 Quoiqu'il soit jeune, a des faiblesses ; 
 Voyant qu'il en avait trop pris, 
 II a retranche ses maitresses ; 
 Les quatre qu'il cut autrefois 
 Sont a present reduites a trois." 
 
 Several great ladies of the Court, la Marquise de Gonville, 
 la Marechale d'Aumont, Madame de Brisseu, were among 
 his conquests, but Madame de Bretonvilliers was his 
 maitresse en titre, as la Montespan was of Louis XIV. He 
 was not even content with these irregularities, but carried 
 off by force Mademoiselle de la Varenne, a public singer, 
 the mistress of a gentleman named Pierrepont. The latter 
 avenged himself in a way characteristic of the age ; he lay 
 in wait with three men, seized the faithless Varenne (who 
 seems to have made no objection to the exchange of a poor 
 for a rich lover) as she was returning to the house the arch- 
 bishop had given her, and had her ummercifully beaten 
 with rods. It was probably his only mode of retaliation. 
 Meddling with Monseigneur and his pleasures was attended 
 with danger and punished severely. Two priests who had
 
 98 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 lampooned him were sent to the galleys, one for life. One 
 of the archbishop's mistresses was the Countess of North- 
 umberland, a former favourite of Charles II. The prelate 
 used to visit her in a convent of Benedictines at Conflans. 
 He died suddenly at a good old age in the presence of his 
 last "amie," la Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, and had his 
 funeral oration pronounced by le pere Gaillard. It appears 
 there was some little trouble in rinding a preacher, a fact 
 creditable to the time, as far as it goes. 
 
 The convents, not without reason, had a bad reputation. 
 Louis XIV., who was not a man to speak evil of religious 
 orders, said of the Carmelites, "Je savais bien qu'elles 
 etaient des friponnes, des intrigeuses, des ravaudeuses, des 
 brodeuses, des bouquetieres, mais je ne croyais pas qu'elles 
 fussent des empoisonneuses."* "There were often," says 
 Michelet, " twelve parlours in a convent, in which each 
 nun, without being heard, could converse with her lover or 
 a female intriguer yet more dangerous." f But Protestants 
 and infidels are only too ready to believe evil of convents 
 as if they all must necessarily be nests of iniquity, a most 
 unjust supposition. Port Royal at this very time contained 
 women of angelic purity. We may therefore leave them, 
 and pass to the lower ranks of the secular clergy. 
 
 A good example of the tone of public opinion with 
 regard to clerical irregularity will be found in the following 
 story : 
 
 " On the yth of November, 1665, the cure of Saint-Babel 
 was condemned to death for a crime he had committed 
 three years before. He was a man of parts, intelligent in 
 matters of business, but carried away by his passions, and 
 not particular in setting a good example in his parish. He 
 
 * Madame de Sevigne, "Lettres," Oct. 15, 1677. 
 t " Histoire de France: Louis XIV.," note iii.
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 99 
 
 was especially ill-famed for his amours, and amusing stories 
 were told about him, amusing if the tone had not been 
 connected with sin and wholly unbecoming his sacred 
 profession. He was accused in the world of having in- 
 structed his female parishioners in an entirely novel manner, 
 and having inspired them with a love remote from the love 
 of God. His turn for gallantry would show itself at such 
 unseasonable moments, that on one occasion, having been 
 sent for by a good woman in mortal sickness to hear her 
 confession, he neglected to administer to her the Sacra- 
 ments, in order to amuse himself in winning the affections 
 of a girl to his liking, whom he found in the house ; and 
 thought no more of the salvation of the mistress, in his 
 design against the honour of the maid. He forgot his 
 character as a priest as soon as he had seen her personal 
 charms, and love overcame duty. Instead of listening to 
 the confession of the one, he employed his time in making 
 his declaration to the other ; and far from exhorting the sick 
 person to die piously, he solicited her who was in good health 
 to live in sin ; and taking her by the hand and the chin, he 
 said, ' What a trial it is for me to be called by a person whom 
 age and sickness have reduced to extremity, and what a joy 
 it would be to come and see you who have youth and 
 beauty. I own that I do not like to hear the story of past 
 sins which these good old women relate to us, and that the 
 sins of youth are much more agreeable. Let madame your 
 mistress think over the way in which she has passed her 
 years, and let us consider how we will pass ours ; let her 
 examine and see if she has sinned, and let me know if you 
 can love one who loves you. Do not be surprised if you 
 see me abandon my duties in order to satisfy my inclination, 
 and, if you love me, regard me as a man and not as a curd, 
 and reflect that you can be at once my mistress and my
 
 iro THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 parishioner, and that you will find in me a pastor and a lover 
 equally devoted.' " 
 
 This worthy priest was not interfered with for this and 
 similar indiscretions. He came to an untimely end by 
 being hanged for the more serious offence of murder, into 
 which he was tempted by a natural exasperation at having 
 been placed in a ridiculous and painful position by one of 
 his flock. It happened thus. At a short distance from his 
 parish he had a grange in which he kept, not only his 
 corn and fruit, but, when occasion required it, the young 
 women whom he fancied. He took reasonable precautions 
 to ensure privacy, and even diverted a road which ran past 
 the grange, in order to escape the curiosity of passers by 
 who might feel a wish to inquire what he was doing in his 
 retreat. Still suspicion was excited, and a peasant, more 
 enterprising and mischievous than the rest, artfully closed 
 the door of the grange and fastened it on the outside, when 
 he had good reason to think that the cure was within, as, 
 indeed, he was, with a young woman, whom he had chosen 
 out of his own church. The imprisoned pair were forced 
 to wait till liberated by a chance wayfarer, and the exposure 
 of the cure was complete. He vowed a terrible vengeance 
 on his betrayer, and soon carried it out by having him 
 beaten to death. The very next day he said mass for the 
 defunct, but the friends of the latter brought the cure before 
 a local tribunal, which acquitted him. It was only three 
 years later, when a special commission of judges, known as 
 Les Grands-jours d'Auvergne, were sent by Louis XIV. to 
 suppress the unbridled crime in Auvergne, that M. Guillaume 
 Boyer, the cure in question, came by his deserts. The 
 Church did all it could to save him. But Colbert was at 
 the head of affairs, and lay-justice had its way. 
 
 Now, to whom are we indebted for this interesting story ?
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 101 
 
 To no other than the illustrious Flechier, the eloquent 
 preacher who became bishop of Nimes. His " Memoires 
 sur les Grands-jours d'Auvergne," are among the choicest 
 pieces of French prose of the early classical period, not 
 without a flavour of "bel esprit" and " preciosite," recalling 
 the Hotel de Rambouillet, but still, by their finesse and 
 style, worthy of the Great Age. But all must admit that 
 the tone of sly humour in which the crimes of the priest 
 are recorded is very singular, and conclusive that clerical 
 irregularities were considered objects rather of mirth and 
 pleasantry than of serious reprobation. Would any clergy- 
 man, especially of so high a character as Flechier, dream 
 of speaking of them in such a strain now ? 
 
 We will now take the case of the famous Abbe de 
 Choisy, as illustrating the kind of life a churchman might 
 lead under Louis XIV., not only without discredit, but with 
 general respect and esteem. The Abbe de Choisy came of 
 a good family " of the robe," that is to say, he belonged to 
 that rich and powerful class of hereditary civil servants who 
 carried on the government of the old French monarchy. 
 His position in the world is sufficiently shown by the fact 
 that his mother, a woman distinguished by her wit and fine 
 manners, could say to the young Louis XIV. that if he 
 wished to become a polished man he ought to frequent her 
 society. One may suppose she did not neglect the educa- 
 tion of her son, and we know, indeed, that she loved him 
 to excess. This was the result of her bringing up. After 
 leaving the theological seminary, for he was intended for 
 the Church from the first, Choisy immediately became an 
 actor, or rather an actress, and for several months appeared 
 on the stage at Bordeaux. His mother, in his childhood, 
 had taken pleasure in dressing him as a girl, partly, perhaps, 
 from private whim, but more probably to please the per-
 
 102 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 verted tastes of Monsieur (Duke of Orleans), the king's 
 brother, who had a passion for wearing female attire. 
 Choisy was nothing loath, and soon surpassed his Royal 
 Highness in his fondness for a woman's costume. In order 
 to gratify his propensity he bought a house, as he himself 
 tells us, in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, in the centre of the 
 " bourgoisie of the people," that he might " dress himself as 
 he liked, among folks who would not complain of anything 
 he did." He soon became noted for his elegant female 
 attire, and though his sex was well known, no one seems to 
 have been scandalized. So far from that, his services were 
 requested in the parish church to present the holy bread 
 and collect the offertory. He became one of the attractions 
 of the church, and a source of great profit to his employers. 
 In one day he collected two hundred and seventy-two livres. 
 People came from other parishes when it was known he was 
 going to collect. " I will admit," he says, " that in the 
 evening at the salut (the benediction) I experienced a great 
 pleasure. It was night, when the talk is free. I heard 
 several times, in different parts of the church, people saying, 
 ' But can it be true that that is a man ? He has good 
 reasons for wishing to pass for a woman.' " 
 
 It may well be supposed that this comedy was continued 
 beyond the walls of the church, for objects less innocent 
 than making strangers stare. Choisy took a large country 
 house near Bourges, where he passed as la Comtesse des 
 Barres, and spent four years in a round of systematic 
 seduction. Details cannot be given ; they are to be found 
 in his own narrative by the curious in such moral monstro- 
 sities. Even more singular than his turpitudes is the 
 chuckling cynicism with which he relates them. Yet he 
 never lost caste for his rascality. Once only, apparently, 
 was he reproved, by the Due de Montausier 3 who told him
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 103 
 
 he ought to' be ashamed of himself for such conduct ; but 
 his clerical brethren seem to have been as accommodating 
 as he could wish. When he went to Bourges, he imparted 
 his secret to the cure, which, as he says, it was only fair to 
 do. But the cure was not in the least scandalized, and 
 came to dine and sup at the rake's house, sitting at 
 table with the innocent little victims, mere children often, 
 of the latter's licentiousness. But that is not all. When 
 the Cardinal de Bouillon went to Rome to attend the 
 Conclave for electing a new Pope, he took Choisy with him 
 as his " conclaviste." He afterwards occupied the same 
 post in the service of the Cardinal de Retz (a worthy pair), 
 and took a part, if we may believe him, in the election of 
 Odescalchi (Leo XI.). He lived till eighty, and was doyen 
 of the French Academy, when he died in great honour as a 
 man of wit and fine manners. It is needless to add that he 
 was "converted" before the end, with what profit to the 
 world does not appear. 
 
 Scotland and Spain share the bad pre-eminence of 
 having been, each in their way, the most fanatical nations 
 in Europe. It would be difficult to say in which of the two 
 religion was made most repulsive and inhuman. In both 
 countries nearly every object was postponed to the protec- 
 tion and propagation of the national faith. But Calvinism 
 in Scotland was more blighting and deadly to all things 
 beautiful than Catholicism in Spain. Terrible as it must 
 have been to know that the invisible eye of the Holy Office 
 was fixed upon your movements, and even upon your 
 thoughts, and that at any moment you might disappear 
 behind its dreaded walls, only to emerge in a San Benito in 
 the ghastly procession to an Auto da Fe", yet Spanish life 
 was not blackened and gnawed into hideousness by the 
 Spanish Inquisition as Scottish life was by the Scottish
 
 104 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 Inquisition. After all, there was joy, laughter, 'and song in 
 Spain ; there were poetry and painting ; Cervantes, Calderon, 
 and Murillo, bright children of the South in whom the world 
 still finds delight. But in Scotland every green and whole- 
 some thing was smitten as by a black frost. " To be poor, 
 dirty, and hungry, to pass through life in misery, and to 
 leave it with fear, to be plagued with boils and sores and 
 diseases of every kind, to be always sighing and groaning, 
 to have the face streaming with tears and the chest heaving 
 with sobs ; in a word, to suffer constant affliction and to be 
 tormented in all possible ways ; to undergo these things was 
 deemed a proof of goodness, just as the contrary was a proof 
 of evil. ... It was a sin to go from one town to another 
 on Sunday, however pressing the business might be. ... 
 No one on Sunday should pay attention to his health, or 
 think of his body at all. On that day horse-exercise was 
 sinful ; so was walking in the fields, or in the meadows, or 
 in the streets, or enjoying the fine weather by sitting at the 
 door of your own house. To go to sleep on Sunday before 
 the duties of the day were over was also sinful, and deserved 
 church censure. Bathing, being pleasant as well as whole- 
 some, was a particularly grievous offence; and no man could 
 be allowed to swim on Sunday. It was, in fact, doubtful 
 whether swimming was lawful for a Christian at any time, 
 even on week days, and it was certain that God had, on 
 one occasion, shown his disapproval, by taking away the life 
 of a boy while he was indulging in that carnal practice." * 
 Life must have been made intolerable by a system of spies 
 and informers who were paid for delating breaches of the 
 Sabbath.f "Sometimes a brother and sister, or a man and 
 
 * Buckle, " History of Civilization in England," vol. ii. pp. 395-398. 
 Buckle corroborates every statement by redundant evidence. 
 t Chambers's " Domestic Annals of Scotland," vol. iii. p. 344.
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 105 
 
 his wife, walking quietly together, would find themselves 
 under the observation of the emissaries of the Kirk. In 
 short, if fanatical belief in Christianity, coupled with the 
 most intemperate zeal in enforcing the precepts of the Bible, 
 could have made a people moral, the Scotch should have 
 been a moral people towards the middle and end of the 
 seventeenth century. Nearly a century of gospel-teaching at 
 the highest pressure should, if Christianity be as favourable 
 to morality as is commonly supposed, have produced 
 very marked results, in the form of correct and orderly 
 living. 
 
 The reality does not correspond with this pleasing in- 
 ference. Indeed, to judge from the accounts left us by 
 Spalding and other contemporaries, the country districts of 
 Scotland presented a savage scene of lawless violence, fre- 
 quently ending in murder. Gentlemen, neighbours, and 
 often relatives, quarrel and fight and kill each other like 
 barbarians, with or without provocation. However, homi- 
 cide, which of all crimes in a peaceful state of society is the 
 most injurious and detested, is often viewed with strange 
 leniency in periods agitated by fervent religious and social 
 or political revolution. In the eyes of ferocious partisans, 
 killing is no murder, when it thins the ranks of their 
 enemies. This was the case in Scotland at the time 
 referred to ; it was so in France, both under the Red and 
 White Terror ; and only recently it was the same in Ireland. 
 We will, therefore, pass over the Scotch manslaying of the 
 seventeenth century, and refer to that milder form of vice 
 which has nearly usurped the name of " immorality " for its 
 own exclusive use in familiar speech, illicit intercourse 
 between the sexes. On no part of ethics have Christians of 
 all denominations laid greater stress than on chastity, yet 
 with far less result in the way of producing purity of
 
 106 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 manners than might have been expected, even among those 
 who made a particular display of religion. 
 
 In 1640, a portion of the covenanting army was under 
 General Monro, on its way from Banff to Aberdeen. " Then 
 Monro and his solders," says Spalding, " marched that night 
 (Friday) to Turriff; Saturday, they marched therefrae to 
 Inverurie and Kintore ; Sunday, they marched therefrae to 
 Aberdeen, and by the way, at Bucksburn, they had a sermon 
 taught by their own minister." They no doubt " hungered 
 and thirsted by the way," and could not pass the Sabbath, 
 though on military duty, without hearing the Word. But 
 when they reached their quarters in Aberdeen, their 
 behaviour left much to be desired. " Of the performances 
 of the covenanting troops occasionally posted in Aberdeen, 
 we hear from the commissary clerk of ' daily deboching ' 
 and ' drinking,' night walking, combating and swearing, and 
 bringing sundry honest women-servants to great misery. 
 Sixty-five of this honest sisterhood were delated before the 
 church courts ; twelve of them, after being paraded through 
 the streets by the hangman, were banished from the burgh. 
 Several were imprisoned in a loathsome vault, while others, 
 more fortunate, found safety in flight." * What was done 
 to the pious profligates who had brought them to this "great 
 misery" does not appear. Later on in the century, the 
 General Assembly felt called upon to proclaim a general 
 fast on account of the backslidings of the people. " There 
 hath been a great neglect," they say, "of the worship of 
 God in public, but especially in families and in secret. The 
 wonted care of sanctifying the Lord's Day is gone, cities 
 full of violence, so that blood touched blood. Yea, Sodom's 
 sins have abounded among us pride, fulness of blood, 
 
 * Burton, " History of Scotland," vol. vi. p. 322.
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 107 
 
 idleness, vanities of apparel, and shameful sensuality." J 
 And there is no reason to believe that this is one of the 
 rhetorical exaggerations of sinfulness common to religious 
 persons in moods of depression. Referring to a slightly 
 earlier date, Mr. Chambers says, " The number of cases of 
 uncommon turpitude in a time of extraordinary religious 
 purism forces itself upon our attention. . . . Offences of a 
 horrible and unnatural kind continued to abound to a 
 degree which makes the daylight profligacy of the subse- 
 quent reign (Charles the Second's) shine white in compari- 
 son. ' More,' says Nicoll, ' within these six or seven years, 
 nor within these fifty years preceding and more.' Culprits 
 of all ages, from boys to old men, are heard of every few 
 months as burned upon the Castle Hill of Edinburgh. 
 Sometimes two together young women who had murdered 
 their own infants were frequently brought to the same 
 scene of punishment. John Nicoll states that on one day, 
 October 15, 1656, five persons, two men and three women, 
 were burnt on Castle Hill for offences of the several kinds 
 here glanced at, while two others were scourged through 
 the city for minor degrees of the same offences." f 
 
 The meaner vices of fraud and cheating, often supposed 
 to be modern inventions from which the pious old times 
 were free, were not uncommon in Edinburgh in the seven- 
 teenth century. "The beer, ale, and wine sold in the city 
 were all greatly adulterated. It was customary to mix wine 
 with milk, brimstone, and other ingredients. Ale was made 
 strong and heady with hemp seed, coriander seed, Turkish 
 pepper, soot, salt, and by casting strong wash under the 
 cauldron when the ale was brewing. Blown mutton and 
 corrupted veal, fusty bread and light loaves, false measures 
 
 * Chambers's " Domestic Annals of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 42. 
 t Ibid,, vol. ii. p. 242.
 
 io8 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 and weights, were common. In all these particulars the 
 magistrates were negligent, so that the people were abused 
 and neglected." * 
 
 One does not see how, under the head of morals, the 
 people of the Ages of Faith were superior to the people of 
 to-day. When we consider that the competition was much 
 less severe than it is now; that the size of the towns 
 was many degrees smaller than at present ; and that the 
 opportunities of escaping observation and punishment now 
 afforded by our immense cities were then correspondingly 
 less, we must admit that the average of morality was sin- 
 gularly low, although the average of religious belief and 
 zeal was singularly high. The few extracts quoted above 
 give a most inadequate impression of the general violence, 
 grossness, cruelty, and licence of the period during which 
 every effort was made and almost every other worthy object 
 was sacrificed with a view to making the people devoutly 
 Christian. We have surely a right to say, after so large and 
 protracted an experiment, that the moralizing element in 
 Christianity has been over-estimated. Here was Chris- 
 tianity at work without any competing principle ; it was 
 zealously supported by the secular power ; yet we find 
 crimes of " uncommon turpitude " co-existing with " extra- 
 ordinary religious purism." It is not an answer to say that 
 but for Christianity matters, bad as they were, would have 
 been worse ; and for this good reason, that a great improve- 
 ment in decency, order, and civilization generally, coincided 
 in Scotland with a marked decline in religious fervour, such 
 as set in about the middle of the last century. What is 
 true and quite fair to allege is, that the Scottish people in 
 the seventeenth century were in that stage of semi-barbarism 
 in which no moral principle is able to take a firm hold. 
 * Chambers's " Domestic Annals of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 240.
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 109 
 
 Only the slow growth of knowledge and industry can 
 civilize such a people. But this is the doctrine of evolution, 
 not of grace. The latter, as emanating from Almighty 
 power, can no more be arrested or withstood by imperfect 
 development in the race, than by moral degradation in the 
 individual. At least, that is the theory. In practice, we 
 may observe, the growth of morality depends on conditions 
 widely remote from those which favour the vigour and 
 tenacity of theological beliefs. As already shown, Chris- 
 tianity preaches salvation in the next world, not morality in 
 this ; and according to the rules laid down, we may not ' 
 doubt that numbers of the Scotch, in the darkest period, 
 after the commission of every crime against human ethics, 
 were at last touched by grace and were saved, or at least 
 should have been. The point does not admit of verifica- 
 tion, and we therefore cannot tell whether celestial happi- 
 ness did supervene as a compensation for the miseries of a 
 barbarous existence on earth. The fact remains, that those 
 miseries were not mitigated, but were often very much 
 increased by a fanatical belief in the words of Scripture. 
 The cruelty and injustice perpetrated in obedience to the 
 disgusting superstition about witchcraft, a thoroughly scrip- 
 tural tenet, fill up one of the most horrible pages in the 
 history of mankind. Sorcerers were burnt in batches of 
 four, five, and even of nine at a time on the Castle Hill. 
 But the more zealous spirits were not satisfied. " There is 
 much witchery up and down our land," says Robert Baillie ; 
 " the English be but sparing to try it, but some they 
 execute." * Our sympathy is justly given, in the first 
 instance, to the wretched victims ; but the mental anxiety 
 and terror of their persecutors must have been no light 
 burden. 
 
 * Chambers's " Domestic Annals of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 244.
 
 no THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 We will now, for a few moments, turn our attention to 
 Spain, the single European country which rivalled Scotland 
 in its zeal for religion. 
 
 One of the liveliest accounts of that interesting nation 
 will be found in the letters of a French lady, who went to 
 Spain in 1679 to attend upon the young queen Henriette, 
 the daughter of the unfortunate Henrietta of England, 
 sister of Charles II. I confine my extracts to the matter 
 in hand the union, or rather, the disconnection of morality 
 and religion. 
 
 " The frequent assassinations in this country, on account 
 of some affront or other, seem to authenticate these facts. 
 If a man receives a box on the ear or a stroke in the face 
 with a hat, nay, with a handkerchief or a glove ; if he be 
 called a drunkard ; or a reflecting word happens to pass on 
 his wife's virtue, these must be wiped off with no less than 
 the blood of the aggressor, and that by assassination. For 
 they say it is not just that, after a signal affront received, 
 the offended party should put his life in an equal balance 
 with the offender. They are so tenacious of revenge that 
 they will not lay aside an injury for twenty years after : if 
 they happen to die before they accomplish it, they will 
 recommend the same upon their death-beds to be executed 
 by their children. I had it from credible hands that a 
 certain person of note, dreading the revenge of his enemy, 
 went to the West Indies, where he staid twenty years, till 
 hearing that both he and his son were dead he returned to 
 Spain, yet not without changing his name for his greater 
 security ; but in vain, for, notwithstanding all his pre- 
 caution, the grandson of his enemy, though not above 
 twelve years of age, found means to hire a ruffian, who 
 assassinated him soon after his return. 
 
 " Most of their assassins are natives of the city of
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. in 
 
 Valentia, a wicked generation, who will venture at anything 
 for money, and are always provided with firearms that will 
 discharge without noise, and stilettoes. ... I was told that 
 a certain Spaniard of note having agreed with one of these 
 Bandoleroes, as they call them, of Valentia, for a certain 
 sum of money to dispatch his enemy, but a reconciliation 
 being made soon after betwixt them, he acquainted the 
 Bandolero with it, desiring him not to put his design into 
 execution though at the same time he allowed him the 
 money as a voluntary gift. But the assassin replied that he 
 scorned to have any of his money without deserving it, to 
 do which he must either kill him or his enemy. The gentle- 
 man being willing to preserve his own life, was forced to let 
 him put in execution what he had designed against the 
 other, unless he would have resolved to seize him, a thing 
 of dangerous consequence in Spain, where these ruffians are 
 so numerous and so closely united that they are sure to 
 revenge the quarrel of any of their companions, which 
 makes Spain the most doleful theatre of tragical scenes in 
 the universe. 
 
 "What is more surprising than all the rest is, that as 
 well those who leave no stone unturned to put their revenge 
 in practice, as those who put them in execution, should 
 engage themselves in certain devotions for the success of 
 their enterprises, at the very time they are going to give the 
 mortal wound to an innocent person of their own religion 
 and country." * 
 
 Now as regards the Spanish observation of the seventh 
 commandment. " The Spaniards are so kind-hearted to 
 one another in love-affairs, that if a man meets his mistress 
 in a place where he has no opportunity of conversing with 
 
 * "The Ingenious Letters of the Lady's Travels into Spain," 
 
 Harris's Collection, ii. p. 756, ed. 1705.
 
 112 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 her in private, he need only go into the next house and to 
 request the master (whether he know him or not) to give 
 him the opportunity of talking with a lady of his acquaint- 
 ance in private in his house, and he is sure it will scarce 
 ever be refused." What is meant by the euphemistic term 
 " talking," is made clear by the following strange disclosure. 
 11 1 remember that, talking the other day with the Mar- 
 chioness d'Alcannizas, one of the greatest and most virtuous 
 ladies of the court, she frankly told us that if a gentleman 
 should be alone with her for half an hour in a convenient 
 place, and not ask her the last favour, she should think he 
 despised her, though she should, at the same time, not 
 grant his request." 
 
 Again, we have to notice the co-existence of a very low 
 moral tone with the most exalted religious zeal, and 
 passionate religious belief. 
 
 It is unnecessary to proceed through the previous cen- 
 turies with so much detail, otherwise it would be easy to 
 show that the sixteenth century was far more immoral, in 
 the widest sense of the word, than the seventeenth. The 
 court of the later Valois is painted for us by the garrulous 
 Brantome ; and one fails to see how it differed, except 
 for the worse, from the Court of Caligula or Commodus. 
 
 The Italians were more refined, but even more wicked, 
 and impressed the English of Elizabeth's reign, by no 
 means a squeamish or fastidious folk, with a " sense of the 
 rottenness of the country whence they obtained their intel- 
 lectual nourishment, with a sense of frightful anomaly, of 
 putrescence in beauty and splendour, of death in life, and 
 life in death." * No one would expect better things of the 
 fifteenth century, in which the Wars of the Roses in Eng- 
 land, and the final struggle against English domination in 
 * " Euphorion," by Vernon Lee.
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 113 
 
 France, had the usual effect of protracted warfare in injuring 
 morality. 
 
 That the fourteenth century, the era of the great Schism, 
 of the captivity of the Popes at Avignon, and of the Black 
 Death, should have been a period of extraordinary licence 
 and crime cannot surprise us. Both civil and ecclesiastical 
 government were impaired by the events of the time, and 
 pestilence is usually followed by moral irregularities. 
 
 So, we pass these ages over, and stop for a moment in 
 the thirteenth century, the age par excellence of beautiful 
 things, when chivalry is supposed to have been in its 
 noble prime, when the Church exerted a calm and serene 
 sovereignty over the kneeling nations, when mediaeval art 
 reached its supreme and chaste perfection, when the 
 philosophy and theology of the Latin Church culminated 
 in works almost as intricate and wonderful as the maze 
 of pinnacles, flying buttresses, arches, and columns which, 
 surviving still in the cathedrals of Amiens or Chartres, sing 
 us a deceptive siren song of beauty which lures us to their 
 epoch as to a Golden Age. It was very far from a golden 
 age. On the contrary, it was an age of violence, fraud, and 
 impurity, such as can hardly be conceived now. We will 
 take it in its ideal moment, in the reign of St Louis, the 
 best of kings, and perhaps the best man who ever lived. 
 We will take as a witness one of his most trusted and valued 
 friends, Eude Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, and we will 
 see what he says of the morals of the clergy of his own 
 diocese which, like a good pastor as he was, he was 
 constantly visiting for the purpose of discipline and reform. 
 
 The Registrum Visitationum, or the diary of the pastoral 
 visits of Archbishop Rigaud, forms a quarto volume of 
 upwards of six hundred closely printed pages. It extends 
 from the year 1248 to 1269. Rigaud had been a Franciscan 
 
 i
 
 114 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 monk, a student at Paris of scholastic philosophy under our 
 famous countryman, Alexander of Hales, and at an early 
 period acquired reputation as a preacher of uncommon 
 eloquence. A tradition obtained that he had been elevated 
 to the archiepiscopal see of Rouen, where he had gone to 
 preach, on account of the impression produced by his piety 
 and learning on the Chapter. Rigaud wished to refuse the 
 proffered dignity, but his professions were disregarded, the 
 Pope, Innocent IV., relieved him of his vows to reject 
 ecclesiastical honours, and he was consecrated archbishop 
 in the month of March, 1248. In the month of July, in the 
 same year, he began his pastoral visitations. He travelled 
 about from monastery to monastery, and sometimes was 
 entertained at the expense of the monks, but more often at 
 his own. Indeed, the religious houses seem frequently to 
 have been in debt, and hardly in a position to give worthy 
 hospitality to so great a lord as an archbishop. He often 
 discovered, both among the secular and the regular clergy, 
 very unclerical habits and amusements, sometimes innocent, 
 at other times very much the contrary. He found the nuns 
 of St. Arnaud had fallen into the evil practice of singing the 
 Psalms and Hours to the Virgin with unbecoming haste 
 "cum nimia festinatione et precipitatione verborum," and 
 ordered, very properly, that one verse should not be begun 
 till a previous one had been finished. The nuns, moreover, 
 did not observe the rule of silence ; and ate meat in the 
 infirmary as often as three times a week. A sick sister 
 would have two or three healthy friends to see her, and 
 regale them with a more dainty repast than the usual convent 
 fare. They all had a measure of wine, but some drank 
 more than others, which was not allowed. Some even gave 
 wine to persons outside the convent, without obtaining 
 leave ; for this offence they were made to go without wine
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 115 
 
 the next day. The nuns also had a fondness for linen 
 chemises and sheets, which were against the rule, and these 
 luxuries were forbidden. On the whole, the convents for 
 women, which Rigaud visited, seem to have been fairly 
 correct, and certainly did not afford examples of the gross 
 licentiousness of the monks and priests. Many of the latter 
 fell under episcopal censure for irregularities which would 
 not nowadays be considered very serious, and give a notion 
 of a rollicking, schoolboyish tone, which has an odd effect. 
 Riding about on horseback in an unclerical garb is noted 
 with disapprobation, and seems to have been a common 
 fault. Buying and selling horses was hardly so venial in a 
 priest; no more, perhaps, was the keeping of dogs for 
 hunting purposes. But it was easy to do much worse. 
 One is surprised to find charges of drunkenness constantly 
 recurring. Frequenting taverns and playing at dice were 
 certainly unbecoming in a clergyman, especially when 
 carried so far as to cause the priest to leave or lose his 
 clothes in the public-house, "aliquando amittit vestes suas 
 in tabernis." One is glad to see that Archbishop Rigaud 
 would not stand such indecorum, and deprived the in- 
 cumbent who had been guilty of it of his living. But these 
 transgressions are insignificant, both in number and gravity, 
 compared with the incessant sin of incontinency, which is 
 alleged on nearly every page in the most aggravated form. 
 Priest after priest is charged with immoral conduct, some 
 with married women, some with keeping two mistresses at 
 once, one with incest with his own niece r * 
 
 * " Item presbyter de Mesnilio David est inobediens et habet pueros 
 suos secum, et concubinam alibi : item duae se invenerunt in domo 
 ipsius et se verberaverunt invicem. Item presbyter de Sancto Richario 
 infamatus de quadam conjugata, parochiana sua. Item presbyter Sancti 
 Remigii notatus de ebriositate, non defert capam, ludit ad talos,
 
 ii6 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 Without a certain monotony of repetition, it is impossible 
 to convey the impression produced by this protracted 
 catalogue of clerical disorders. " We found the priest of 
 Nesle in ill repute, on account of a certain woman who is 
 said to be pregnant by him ; he also trades, and ill-treats 
 his father, who is the patron of the church he holds. This 
 parson fought with a certain knight with a drawn sword 
 amid a clamour and concourse of his friends and relations." * 
 
 "The priest of Gonnetot was charged with criminality 
 with two women, and he went to the Pope about the matter, 
 and when he returned he is said to have offended again. 
 The priest of Wanestanvilla was accused with reference to 
 a woman, one of his own parishioners, and her husband on 
 that account departed over sea. He kept her eight years, 
 and she is pregnant ; he also plays at dice and drinks loo 
 much; he frequents the taverns, does not abide in his 
 church, and goes with a hawk on his fist whenever he likes. 
 Also the priest of Bray-sur- Seine is accused with reference 
 to a certain woman ; and because she refused to live in the 
 presbytery, he went to live with her, and had his food and 
 corn brought to her house. Also the priest of Saint-Just 
 haunts taverns, and drinks till he is full up to the throat. 
 Also Lawrence, priest of Longoeil, keeps the wife of a man 
 who is abroad ; she is called Beatrice Valeran, and he has 
 a son by her.f We found that the priest of Panlyu was 
 famed for incontinency with a maidservant of his, and like- 
 wise with two other women, who afterwards bore him two 
 sons ; also he is noted for inebriety ; he sells his wine, and 
 makes his parishioners drunk. The priest of Auberville is 
 
 frequentat tabernam, et ibi multociens verberatur. Item Magister 
 Walterus presbyter de Grandi Curia, infamatus est de propria nepte et 
 de nimia potatione." "Regest. Visitationum Arch. Rothomagensis, " 
 par Th. Bonnin, Rouen, 1852, pp. 20, 21. 
 * Ibid., p. 19. t Ibid.> p. 29.
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 117 
 
 seriously noted for incontinency, and he married a certain 
 woman with one of his servants, in order that he might have 
 free access to her. Also he had relations with a certain 
 Englishwoman, whom he kept a long time, and sinned with 
 her again after being corrected by the archdeacon ; also 
 with the daughter of a poor woman who lives hard by the 
 cross." * 
 
 Although the nuns, compared with the priests, appear to 
 have been well-behaved, we occasionally meet with convents 
 in which there were great disorders. "We visited the 
 convent of the Blessed Mary of Almeneschiis. There are 
 thirty-three nuns. All are possessed of property : they have 
 saucepans, copper-kettles, and necklaces. They contract 
 debts in the village, and eat and sit at tables in groups. 
 Each nun has money given her to provide for her table and 
 her kitchen. Many are absent from Compline and Matins, 
 and drink after Compline. Sister Theophana is given to 
 drink. They have no regular time for confession or com- 
 munication. Sister Hola lately had a boy by one Michael 
 of Val Guido. Secular persons freely enter the cloister and 
 talk with the nuns. They never dine in the refectory. 
 Dionisia Dehatim is accused of ill-conduct with Nicholas de 
 Bleve. They quarrel finely in the cloister and the choir. 
 Alice, the cantatrix, had a boy by a man named Christian. 
 Also the prioress formerly had one boy. They have not got 
 an abbess, as the last recently died." f . A most improper 
 set of ladies, certainly, considering their vows of poverty, 
 chastity, and obedience. The strange thing is that Arch- 
 bishop Rigaud did not visit them, so far as appears, with 
 any censure ; perhaps their wealth and social position made 
 it impolitic to do so. Indeed, the grosser sins of the flesh 
 
 * " Regest. Visitationum Arch. Rothomagensis," p. 25. 
 t Ibid., p. 82.
 
 Ii8 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 are treated with what we should consider singular mildness. 
 Early lapses from virtue, and even later ones, are pardoned 
 on promise of reform. Only in the case of hardened and 
 persevering sinners are strong measures taken. " We warned 
 them," says Rigaud and in one case "them" included 
 Master Walter, the priest of Grandcure, who cohabited with 
 his niece " we warned and threatened them that if we 
 found them again accused of similar misdeeds we would 
 punish them severely." * And it would not be right to 
 suspect the archbishop of a weak toleration of vice for acting 
 so leniently. The number of offenders was so great that 
 if he had suspended or expelled them all, he would have 
 had few or no priests left to serve the diocese. He probably 
 did the best which the circumstances permitted ; which was, 
 on proof of repeated guilt, to obtain from the culprit a 
 written promise of reform, together with an undertaking to 
 leave his church and the country in case of a relapse into 
 his former depravity. Rigaud has preserved for us a great 
 number of these documents, signed, sealed, and sworn to, 
 by the penitents, and they are extremely curious. In the 
 first place, they show beyond doubt or cavil that the charges 
 were true. Habemus confitentes reos. In the next place, 
 the poor priests seem heartily ashamed and sorry, and own 
 without ambiguity, in often crude language, the faults they 
 have committed ; though probably the drawing up of these 
 confessions was not entrusted to them, but confided to the 
 sterner pens of the archbishop's secretaries ; they acknow- 
 ledge that if they fall again they will have nothing to say for 
 themselves ; that they will give up their curacies without 
 the noise or fuss of a trial sine strepitu judicii and go 
 away. This appears to have been a great point, to get rid 
 of them quietly ; no doubt because a refractory or litigious 
 * "Regest. Visitationum Arch. Rothomagensis," p. 21.
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 119 
 
 priest, especially by appealing to Rome, could give rise both 
 to trouble and scandal.* 
 
 The next witness I would like to call was a cardinal, an 
 intimate friend and co-reformer of the great Hildebrand, 
 Pope Gregory VII., the Blessed Peter Damiani. Unfortu- 
 nately, the very nature of the crimes with which he charges 
 the clergy is so monstrous, that it is impossible, even " in 
 the obscurity of a learned language," as Gibbon said, to 
 give an idea of their character. Dean Milman can only 
 distantly refer to Peter Damiani's " odious book," the " Liber 
 Gomorrheanus ; " and quotes the title of the first chapter as 
 an adequate indication of its contents. Any modern must 
 
 * " Universis presentes litteras inspecturis, Radulphus rector ecclesice 
 de Sana Villa Rothomagensis diocesis, salutem. Noverit universitas 
 vestra quod cum super irregularitate commissa a me, ut dicebatur,- pro 
 eo quod, suspensus et excommunicatus, dicebar celebravisse divina : 
 item super crimine fornicationis et adulterii quod dicebar commisisse 
 cum Robina penildore de Nova-villa : item super eo quod dicebar lusor 
 ad taxillos, et frequentator tabernarum : item super eo quod dicebar 
 capellanum capellze de Rocherobiis vulnerasse graviter cum falcone ia 
 capite ; essem apud bonos et graves, et maxime apud reve"rendum 
 patrem Odonem, Dei gratia, Rothomagensem archiepiscopum adeo 
 diffamatus, quod dictus pater, nolens dissimulare premissa, nolebat 
 super premissis ad inquisitionem contra me procedere, et secundum 
 inquisitionis exigentiam me canonicse subicere ultioni. Tandem ego, 
 quaerens a dicto patre non judicium sed veniam, promisi, sine vi, sine 
 dolo dicto patri spontaneus, quod prredictam ecclesiam meam resignabo, 
 et habebo pro resignata, quandocunque dicto patri placuerit ; volens 
 et concedens quod idem pater possit me privare eadem ecclesia sine 
 strepitu judicii et juris solemnitate in aliquo non observata, quando- 
 cunque sure sederit voluntati. Renunciavi autem spontaneus quoad 
 premissa exceptioni de vi et de metu et litteris a sede apostolica contra 
 premissa concedendis seu etiam impetrandis, et omni auxilio juris 
 canonici vel civilis competenti seu competituro per quod dictse resignatio 
 et privatio impediri valeant vel differi. Juravi pneterea spontaneus, 
 tactis sacrosanctis evangeliis, me contra premissa vel aliquod premissorum 
 per me nee per alium non venturum" ("Regest. Visitationum Arch. 
 Rothomagensis," p. 658).
 
 120 THE SERVICE OF MAX. 
 
 follow his example. It must suffice to say, that nothing in 
 Aristophanes, Athengeus, or Petronius, gives a picture of 
 more bestial depravity than the one drawn by a prince of 
 the Church of the manners of his clerical contemporaries. 
 It is " unspeakable," and with that remark we must leave 
 the subject. But what about grace, what about belief in 
 God, Christ, and the Bible? What about the deterrent 
 effect of the fear of hell, of the purifying effect of the hope 
 of heaven ? These are questions to which an answer were 
 desirable. 
 
 And now, what is the moral to be drawn from this un- 
 pleasant but necessary review ? We have seen that not in 
 one country nor in one age, but all through the Ages of 
 Faith, the most flagrant breaches of the moral law are quite 
 compatible with the most fervent and complete belief in 
 God, in the Bible, and, in short, in Christianity. The usual 
 answer to this objection is that these people may have had 
 faith, but it was not living and saving faith. They believed 
 like the devils, and perhaps did not always tremble like 
 them as well. So let it be. Mere faith, unless it be of a 
 particular kind, is not enough. The heart must be touched 
 by grace, as well as the mind disposed to assent to certain 
 dogmatic propositions. But agnostics say no more and no 
 less. The touching of the heart is everything, and assent 
 to propositions next to nothing. It is abundantly plain that 
 assent to Christian dogmas offers the slenderest guarantee 
 that it will have the desired effect in touching the heart. 
 There never was a moment, from the first teaching of 
 Christianity till the present day, when sincere pastors have 
 not deplored the condition of the greater part of their flocks. 
 That the whole world lieth in wickedness is the constant 
 burden of their complaint. Could better proof be required 
 or given that the supposed connection between belief and
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 121 
 
 morality is illusory ? And it is easy to see that this is not 
 an accidental but a necessary result. By laying all the 
 emphasis of its teaching on repentance and the subjective 
 attitude of the soul towards God, and not on good works 
 performed to individuals and society, Christianity has not 
 applied its force in the right direction for producing the 
 maximum of morality. As this was not its aim, it cannot 
 be censured for not having attained it. But it is open to 
 us to point out that this misdirection of force largely 
 accounts for the low morality of the past, and is one of the 
 chief causes of the decline of theology in the present. It 
 is proved by an experience of eighteen hundred years, that 
 the tremendous sanctions which Christianity wields are 
 inoperative on the majority of minds. They do not realize 
 them ; the threats are not heard, as it were, by the inward 
 spirit. The immediate connection between wrong-doing and 
 going to hell is not grasped. Hell is a long way off, is not 
 visible, and its deterrent efficacy is weakest when the attrac- 
 tion of sinful pleasure is strongest. Only minds of a fine, 
 imaginative power, and naturally tender consciences, seize 
 the whole import of the Christian message. This fact alone 
 would put Christianity at a disadvantage in dealing with the 
 bulk of mankind. Few persons care for remote dangers or 
 evils ; they banish them from their minds, as suggesting 
 gloomy thoughts, and trust to the chapter of accidents to 
 escape them entirely. When preachers enlarge every Sunday 
 on the peril of the unrepenting sinner's condition, and tell him 
 that he may at any moment be summoned before the dread 
 tribunal of an angry God, the young and the strong and the 
 giddy accord to them but a languid assent. They feel in 
 robust health, sudden death by accident or disease is the 
 great exception, and pleasure is very delightful, and within 
 reach. It is a maxim of jurisprudence that prompt punish-
 
 122 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 ment for wrong-doing is vastly more efficacious than even 
 severer penalties long delayed. Suppose ordinary crime 
 were punished, not with the greatest dispatch compatible 
 with justice, but at a remote period in after-life, say, twenty 
 or thirty years after its commission, would not the deterrent 
 effect of the criminal law be even less than it is ? But this 
 is by no means all. In addition to this disadvantage, 
 Christian priests have one and all placed a greater one in 
 their own way as teachers of morality, by their doctrine 
 of repentance and consequent salvation. When, like St. 
 Alphonso de' Liguori, or Mr. Spurgeon, they teach that any 
 amount of crime and sin can be expunged in a moment by 
 sincere contrition and turning to God, even in the last hour, 
 they remove from the cause of morality in this world all 
 the force and urgency of their exhortations, and transfer 
 them to celestial happiness beyond the grave. If they had 
 been able to preach that good works, and good works only, 
 would take men to heaven, they would have occupied a 
 relatively strong position. If they could have said to men, 
 " It matters not how sorry you are for having done amiss, 
 you must smart for it all the same," they would have had a 
 powerful lever to keep men in the right way. But they 
 were tied down by the terms of the divine deed and testa- 
 ment, and forced to use very different language. The 
 lamentable doctrine of Original Sin, and all that flowed 
 from it, the washing away of sins, flight from the wrath to 
 come, forced them to show that, after all, heaven was open, 
 if certain conditions were complied with, heartfelt repen 
 tance, turning to Jesus, confession of sins, receiving the 
 sacrament ; and that, in that case, previous crime or virtue 
 made no difference ; all men justly lay under the sentence 
 of God's wrath, and if He chose to pardon, it was only out 
 of the unspeakable riches of His grace. It was not for man
 
 MORALITY IN THE AGES OF FAITH. 123 
 
 to make terms. So that by exaggerating human depravity 
 and making all men worthy of hell, they came to admit 
 very bad characters into heaven. And quite rightly, from 
 one point of view. Salvation was their object, not 
 morality. They have not aimed at it, and they have not 
 attained it.
 
 I2 4 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 
 
 IN attempting to estimate the past, we are exposed to two 
 opposite temptations, either of which may lead us into 
 serious error. We may be so impressed by the recent 
 advance of knowledge, and the enlarged power of man over 
 nature, the pomp and brilliancy of modern material progress, 
 that we turn with disdain from the humbler science and 
 performance of our ancestors, and, comparing their poverty 
 with our own riches, complacently draw flattering con- 
 clusions to our own advantage. This disposition is a 
 common mark of energetic but uneducated minds, of people 
 who have made their way in the world by force of character, 
 and who nourish a sort of grudge against learning and 
 scholarship. On the other hand, it is a tone so repulsive to 
 minds which have made themselves acquainted with the 
 past, that these are apt to fall into the opposite extreme, 
 and to see with over-clearness the seamy side of the present. 
 The wealth and noisy progress of the present do not impress 
 persons of this type with much respect. They pronounce 
 them to be vulgar and commonplace, and purchased at far 
 too great a cost ; nay, by the ruin of numerous lovely and 
 precious things, which the present age does not miss, only 
 because it is too deeply buried in sordid cares and frivolous
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 125 
 
 pleasures to know anything about them. If one class 
 points to the triumph of industry and the victories of steam, 
 the other draws attention to the meanness of our Art, and 
 the foul defacement of natural beauty, and even the pollution 
 of the air we breathe and the water we drink by factories, 
 tall chimneys, and the ubiquitous screaming tyrant, the 
 railroad. The admirers of the present look out upon the 
 world, which it is their intention to subdue, as conquerors. 
 They are always for " opening up " new countries, which 
 they say conduces to trade and the spread of civilization. 
 The lovers of the past reply that the march of the so-called 
 civilization should rather be called the spread of ruin, vice, 
 and disease ; that the traders look uponthe world rather as 
 buccaneers than as honest men, that they regard it as their 
 oyster which they mean to open with a steam hammer. 
 The interchange of taunts and reproaches goes on in amoebic 
 response, as of peasants in an idyll, and no doubt will not 
 readily be brought to a close. It is referred to here in 
 order to exhibit the difficulty of a task which, at one time 
 or another, we are nearly all of us compelled to undertake, 
 to estimate and fairly judge the past, if for no other purpose 
 than lighting up and enabling us to direct the present. 
 
 A clear perception of the road we have travelled is one 
 of the best indications of our probable course in the future, 
 whether that course be a straight line or a curve. It is 
 obvious, if society be an organism, and few nowadays would 
 deny the fact, that, in order to understand it, we must study 
 its life, behaviour and habits, on the most extended scale. 
 The present is a transitory phase, which is as insufficient 
 for this purpose as a day or an hour would be for the 
 biological study of one of the higher animals. Both those 
 who wish to break with the past and ignore its teaching 
 as so much dross the revolutionists ; and those who on
 
 126 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 various grounds can think of nothing better than an impos- 
 sible return to it the reactionaries ; will find, and indeed 
 have found already, though the extremes of neither party 
 are very docile to the lessons of experience, that knowledge 
 alone can throw light on our path, and that to take senti- 
 ment or passion as our guide is to court catastrophe. Revo- 
 lutionists, who are too impatient and headstrong to wait for 
 the slow but sure effects of evolution, and reactionaries, 
 who are too selfish or stupid to admit the changes which 
 evolution demands, are equal enemies to progress and 
 human well-being. Incessant and minute change is one of 
 the conditions of life, but great and sudden change is 
 disease, and no change at all is incipient death. One of 
 the numerous misfortunes which afflict mankind is the diffi- 
 culty of inculcating this truth ; it appears to be profoundly 
 offensive to the vulgar of all classes, the majority of the 
 race. A salutary change, let us suppose, is obviously 
 required ; it is announced and advised by a reflective 
 individual or group here and there. If they are not too 
 obscure and insignificant to fail wholly in attracting notice, 
 a clamour arises against their monstrous and unheard-of 
 opinions ; for critical turning-points occur in the speculative 
 as well as the practical order ; modes of thought and doc- 
 trines at times need reforming as much as institutions ; they 
 cannot be listened to, they are subversive, atheistic, destruc- 
 tive of man's best interests, and so forth. The change does 
 not take place, or oftener it is not overtly admitted as 
 needed or salutary ; it is kept down and arrested, as far as 
 possible, even ignored. But it is going on underground, 
 as it were ; its partisans increase, and their anger also, till at 
 last comes a time when the dammed up current has accu- 
 mulated an energy which overpowers all obstacles, and it 
 dashes furiously forward, scattering devastation along its
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 127 
 
 course. This is the abstract history of all revolutions in 
 Church or State, in thought or practice. 
 
 These considerations, even if they be deemed over-trite 
 and obvious, are not out of place as introductory to the 
 subject of this chapter ; an attempt to estimate the action 
 of Christianity in the past. In the last chapter it was 
 viewed in relation to its effect on morals ; and facts were 
 adduced which seemed to show that in that respect its 
 operation had been far less salutary and decided than it is 
 customary to assume. At the same time it was shown that 
 morality was never the special objective of Christianity, and 
 therefore any failure to foster morality could not justly be 
 made a reproach against it. No system can be blamed for 
 not accomplishing what it never attempted to do. Luther 
 would have read the previous chapter without discom- 
 posure. He would have said, " No doubt ; the object of 
 Christianity is to save men's souls in the next world, not to 
 make them moral in this. And it does save. That is all 
 I want." On this ground his position is unassailable. 
 Modern apologists have usually forsaken his inaccessible 
 heights, and put in claims, which seem to be more than 
 disputable, for their religion as a guardian of morality. But 
 this is only one side of a large subject. A doctrine so wide 
 and powerful as the Christian has many other sides, and its 
 energy as a social factor is not to be limited to one point 
 of view. Christianity has had an immense influence on 
 politics, literature, and philosophy; it has moulded the 
 minds and characters of many of the most distinguished 
 persons who have adorned the human race. But neither 
 its blind friends nor its blind foes can be expected to do it 
 justice, and possibly full justice will never be done to it till 
 it has ceased to exist. Still, an estimate of its value as a 
 social doctrine must ever appear as one of the most impor-
 
 128 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 tant problems presented by history, an attempted solution 
 of which is almost imposed on serious students who are 
 sufficiently withdrawn from theological prepossessions to 
 regard Christianity neither with love nor hatred, but with 
 that sympathy and respect justly due to one of the greatest 
 phases of human evolution. 
 
 In the learned and profound investigations of continental 
 scholars concerning the origin of Christianity and the 
 growth of the early Church, sufficient attention has not 
 always been accorded to the precise time and place in the 
 order of human evolution in which that religion arose. 
 This is not intended as a reproach to such illustrious men 
 as Strauss, F. C. Baur, Keim, Hausrath, and Renan. They 
 had more immediate work of a specialist kind to do, and 
 might well leave ^t placing of Christianity in world-history 
 to others. But the point is of great importance. It may 
 with reason be doubted, if the fact is as often remembered 
 as it should be, that Christianity arose amid the corruption 
 and decay of the greatest civilization which the human race 
 had seen, amid the death-throes of the ancient world. From 
 the fact that the New Testament was written before that cor- 
 ruption and decay had assumed their final and fatal form, 
 that St. Paul lived and preached in Antioch the Beautiful ; 
 visited Athens while its citizens still retained enough of the 
 old inquiring spirit to " spend their time in nothing else but 
 either to tell or to hear something new ; " and at last came 
 to martyrdom in Rome while the deceptive bloom of 
 imperial splendour still flushed the cheek of the dying 
 mistress of the world it is often assumed that this proud 
 heathenism and pagan glory were overthrown by the meek 
 and unlearned disciples of the Galilean prophet of God. 
 Nothing can be less true than this assumption. The soft 
 autumnal calm, and purple tints as of an Indian summer,
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 129 
 
 which lingered, up to the Antonines, over that wide expanse 
 of empire, from the Persian Gulf to the Pillars of Hercules, 
 and from the Nile to. the Clyde, broken as it was by the 
 year of Revolution of A.D. 69 and the black tyranny of 
 Domitian's reign, was only a misleading transition to that 
 bitter winter which filled the half of the second and the 
 whole of the third century, to be soon followed by the 
 abiding dark and cold of the Middle Ages. The Empire 
 was moribund when Christianity arose. Indeed, Rome 
 had practically slain the ancient world before the Empire 
 replaced the effete Republic. The barbarous Roman soldier 
 who killed Archimedes absorbed in a problem, is but an 
 instance and a type of what Rome had done always and 
 everywhere by Greek art, civilization and science. The 
 Empire lived upon and consumed the capital of preceding 
 ages, which it did not replace. Population, production, 
 knowledge, all declined and slowly died. The Christian 
 apologists, headed by St. Augustine, were justly indignant 
 at the pagan slander which attributed the fall of the Empire 
 to the spread of Christianity. Their answer to the objection 
 was complete, as we can see far better even than they did 
 themselves. But what they could not be expected to see, 
 and what we can see very well, is, that the fall of the 
 Empire, including the loss and ruin of the old philosophy 
 and knowledge, was an indispensable condition of the 
 spread of Christianity. If the blood of the martyrs was 
 truly said to be the seed of the Church, the decay of know- 
 ledge was an equally needed pre-requisite. It will not be 
 denied that this decay of knowledge was present and 
 startlingly rapid. After the silver age which ended nobly 
 with Tacitus and the younger Pliny, Latin pagan literature 
 almost ceases to exist ; and the falling off in the form is 
 not more striking than in the value and quality of the con- 
 ic
 
 130 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 tents. All superstitions revived and flourished apace in 
 the ever-waning light of knowledge. A shudder of religious 
 awe ran through the Roman world, and grew more sombre 
 and searching with the progressive gloom and calamities of 
 the time. A spirit wholly different from the light-hearted 
 scepticism of the Augustan age and later Republic stirred 
 men's hearts, and the strongest minds did not escape it. 
 " The pagans were not one whit behind the Christians as 
 regards belief in miracles and in a future life."* The 
 sun of ancient science, which had risen in such splendour 
 from Thales to Hipparchus, was now sinking rapidly to the 
 horizon ; and when it at last disappeared, say, in the fifth 
 century, the long night of the Middle Ages began. 
 
 But it was in this period of decaying knowledge and 
 civilization that the Christian religion was elaborated and 
 constituted in the historical form which it practically still 
 wears. The creeds and chief dogmas of the Church were 
 worked out in the period which extends from the Council 
 of Jerusalem to the Councils of Nice, Chalcedon, Alex- 
 andria, and Ephesus. No evolutionist would think of 
 speaking in any but respectful terms of the great church- 
 men who laid down the lines along which European thought 
 was destined to travel for a thousand years. The sneering 
 tone of sceptics in the last age is wholly out of place, and 
 arose from pure ignorance of the laws which govern social 
 and intellectual development. The Nicene Creed in the 
 fourth century after Christ was as natural and legitimate a 
 product of the conditions of the time, as was the Socratic 
 philosophy in the fourth century before Christ. What we 
 have to note is, that the Nicene Creed was the product of 
 an age of decay, of disaster, and approaching death, so far 
 as civilization and science were concerned. In every light, 
 
 * Hausrath, "Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte," vol. iii. p. 489.
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 131 
 
 one of the most memorable, and in many respects one of 
 the most noble of human compositions, it yet, as it could 
 not fail to do, bears the marks of its birth-time ; and that 
 time was one of extreme calamity, of growing gloom, ignor- 
 ance and misery. Within two centuries of its promulgation, 
 the Graeco-Roman world had descended into the great 
 hollow which is roughly called the Middle Ages, extending 
 from the fifth to the fifteenth century, a hollow in which 
 many great, beautiful, and heroic things were done and 
 created, but in which knowledge, as we understand it, and 
 as Aristotle understood it, had no place. The revival of 
 learning and the Renaissance are memorable as the first 
 sturdy breasting by humanity of the hither slope of the great 
 hollow which lies between us and the ancient world. The 
 modern man, reformed and regenerated by knowledge, 
 looks across it, and recognizes on the opposite ridge, in the 
 far-shining cities and stately porticoes, in the art, politics, 
 and science of antiquity, many more ties of kinship and 
 sympathy than in the mighty concave between, wherein 
 dwell his Christian ancestry, in the dim light of scholas- 
 ticism and theology. 
 
 The birth of Christianity being on this wise, viz. having 
 taken place in an era of decay and death of art and philo- 
 sophy, of knowledge, of wealth, of population, of progress 
 in every form, and the absence of these things having 
 been one of the chief negative conditions of its growth and 
 prosperity, we must look for the sources of its nourishment 
 in another direction than these ; not in knowledge, or the 
 eager questioning spirit which leads to knowledge, but in 
 the humble spirit which believes and accepts on trust the 
 word of authority ; not in regulated industry, which aims at 
 constant increase and accumulation of wealth, but in the 
 resigned poverty which, scorning this world, lays up riches
 
 132 THE SERVICE OF MAM 
 
 in heaven ; not in political freedom and popular govern- 
 ment, which aims at the progressive well-being of all, but 
 in the stern rigour of arbitrary power, which coerces the 
 vicious and refractory into a little order during their brief 
 sojourn on earth. In the decline and fall of Rome, or, as 
 it would be better to say, in the final ruin of ancient civiliza- 
 tion, the conditions favourable to this order of beliefs or 
 doctrines spontaneously emerged. It is obvious that there 
 could be no question of free institutions or settled industry 
 in an age chastened by every scourge of war, pestilence 
 and famine ; by arbitrary tyranny and military despotism. 
 Knowledge, again, is even more sensitive than capital to 
 the influence of public and widespread calamities, inasmuch 
 as the love of knowledge is rarer and feebler than the love 
 of wealth in most minds. To a man of the fifth century, on 
 the look out for any sphere of activity for his energies, no 
 prospect presented itself in the least similar to what such a 
 man would see now, or would have seen in Athens under 
 Pericles, or in Rome under the Scipios. Public life existed 
 as little as it does at this day in Russia. The pursuit of 
 knowledge for knowledge's sake was out of place in a time 
 when daily existence was not safe from the swords of 
 successive barbarian hordes, or, failing these, from the more 
 cruel onslaught of the merciless tax-collector. That is to 
 say, all the outlets through which modern energy is chiefly 
 expended were then closed ; a man could not serve the 
 state as a citizen, he could not servp knowledge as a man 
 of science, he could not augment wealth as an artisan or 
 master of industry. 
 
 There was only one thing left for him to do to serve 
 God. 
 
 The last and perhaps the most important legacy left by 
 the ancient philosophy to the world was the doctrine of
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 133 
 
 monotheism, the belief in a single supreme God The 
 evolution of this capital idea has never yet been traced with 
 the care it supremely deserves. The common notion that 
 it was wholly derived from the Jews is quite unfounded. 
 The germs of it may be found in Greece in the earliest 
 speculations of the Ionic and Eleatic philosophers. It 
 gradually made its way, by the force of its inherent ration- 
 ality, against manifold opposition, and among the Stoics 
 reached a distinctness and elevation little, if at all, inferior 
 to the highest Jewish conception of Jehovah. The Christian 
 deity was a union of the two monotheistic conceptions, the 
 Greek and the Jewish. Each element was necessary for the 
 conception to attain its full universality and power. The 
 Jew never quite transcended his notions of a tribal God, 
 who had been in an exclusive way the God of his fathers 
 from the beginning ; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob, in whom he had a sort of ancestral right of property, 
 who was bound to him, and to whom he was bound, by 
 covenants and mercies and promises, such as no other 
 nation ever imagined. The Jew was, therefore, on a foot- 
 ing of familiarity and intimacy, so to speak, with his God, 
 to which the metaphysical Greek, with his wide discourse of 
 reason, never attained. To the Jew, God is the great com- 
 panion, the profound and loving, yet terrible, friend of his 
 inmost soul, with whom he holds communion in the sanctu- 
 ary of his heart, to whom he turns, or should turn, in every 
 hour of adversity or happiness. Hear the Psalmist : " O 
 God, thou art my God ; early will I seek thee. My soul 
 thirsteth for thee, my flesh also longeth after thee, in a 
 barren and dry land where no water is. For thy loving- 
 kindness is better than the life itself : my lips shall praise 
 thee. Have I not remembered thee in my bed, and thought 
 upon thee when I was waking ? Because thou hast been
 
 134 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 my helper, therefore under the shadow of thy wings will 
 I rejoice."* On the other hand, the very closeness and 
 specialty of the Jew's relation to Jehovah, made his con- 
 ception of the deity unsuitable to the office of a cosmopo- 
 litan God. I venture to suggest that perhaps the opposition 
 of Peter and the Judaizing Christians to the wider views of 
 St. Paul, arose as much from a reluctance to part with their 
 national God, as from the narrow, ceremonial scruples to 
 which it is ascribed. The Greek was as inferior to the Jew 
 in the depth and intensity of his religious sentiment, as he 
 was superior in mental reach and philosophic power. For 
 him, God is the deity of the intellect rather than of 
 the heart; He is the symbol of "eternal law all-ruling," f 
 and the Hellene all but attained to the impersonal and 
 unknowable reality behind phenomena, which the last word 
 of recent philosophy propounds as the only rational object 
 of worship. 
 
 When these two, each in its way, powerful and stimula- 
 ting notions of God coalesced into one, as they did in the 
 teaching of St. Paul, the effect on the moral and spiritual 
 world was as that of a new force, a new centre of gravity to 
 which all thoughts and feelings naturally tended with an 
 irresistible attraction. The rationality of monotheism as 
 compared with polytheism, of the idea of one all-ruling 
 deity, instead of the anarchy of a crowd of gods and 
 goddesses thwarting each other, recommended the doctrine 
 to all superior minds, as infinitely truer, simpler, and better. 
 Knowledge had progressed far enough to make the uni- 
 formity of nature a credible result of the operations of an 
 
 * Psalm Ixiii. 1-4, 7, 8 (Prayer-book Version, 
 f " . . . firel oijTf /3poTO?s yfpas &\\o n /j.e?ov 
 oSre deots, $) Kotvbv del v&p.ov tv S'IKTI vnvtiv." 
 
 Cleanthis Hymn., 37, 38.
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 135 
 
 eternal mind ; but it had not gone far enough to exclude 
 the notions of miracle and of providential interference on 
 the part of the deity with human affairs. Moreover, the 
 God of the Jews had become, through St. Paul, the God of 
 the universe, and the " Father of all ; in every age, in every 
 clime adored." The influence of the combined ideas on 
 contemporary minds, as it is shown in the writings of the 
 Fathers, is very striking. A tone of exultation and radiant 
 joy seems to possess them when they refer to the new-found, 
 central object of their worship, which contrasts not onl} 
 with the sad, desponding tone of the pagans, but even with 
 Israel's delight in Jehovah, which is rarely without a touch 
 of gloom and foreboding, and with the meek resignation 
 of the Middle Ages, which tremble even more than they 
 believe. Compare the Te Deum of St. Ambrose with the 
 Dies Ira of Thomas of Alano. The two hymns are parallel, 
 often nearly identical, in thought, but profoundly divergent 
 in sentiment. The one bright, full of hope and trust in 
 God ; the other sombre and anxious and care-laden, almost 
 to the verge of despair. Such was the difference between 
 the fifth and the thirteenth centuries. The earlier Chris- 
 tians, reminded, no doubt, by the paganism which still 
 survived, are never weary of setting forth the superior 
 grandeur and consolation of their faith as compared to that 
 of polytheism ; and it is quite easy even for us to see how 
 incalculably the religious sentiment must have been intensi- 
 fied, when its scattered rays, dispersed among a crowd of 
 deities, were all united in the barely tolerable splendour of 
 one Almighty God and Lord. Nowhere does the passionate 
 adoration, and flow of unbounded devotion, show itself with 
 more fervour and power than in the Prayer for all Con- 
 ditions of Men in the Alexandrian Liturgy. The original 
 makes the fragments of it which have survived in modern
 
 136 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 Liturgies appear very pale and tame. Here is a short 
 specimen : 
 
 "O King of Peace, give us thy peace, keep us in love 
 and charity, be our God, for we know none beside thee : we 
 call upon thy name ; grant unto our souls the life of right- 
 eousness, that the death of sin may not prevail against us or 
 any of thy people. Visit, O Lord, and heal those who are 
 sick, according to thy pity and compassion ; turn from them 
 and from us all sickness and diseases, restore them to and 
 confirm them in their strength. Raise up those who have 
 lingered under long and tedious indispositions; succour 
 those who are vexed with unclean spirits. Relieve those 
 who are in prisons or in the mines, under accusations 
 or condemnations, in exile or in slavery, or loaded with 
 grievous tribute." * 
 
 With these intense and absorbing feelings running in a 
 deep but, after all, narrow channel, the Western European 
 world turned to meet and advance into that dread and 
 frightful time designated as the Fall of the Roman 
 Empire. How a fragment or a germ of civilization escaped 
 destruction in that great catastrophe it is not easy to say. 
 It is admitted on all hands that a great debt is owing to the 
 Christian bishops of those days, who were the only officials 
 clothed with authority and honour, who survived the wreck 
 of the Roman bureaucracy. Although this fact redounds 
 rather to the credit of episcopacy than of Christianity, still a 
 fair criticism must admit that as without the previous dignity 
 and prestige obtained by the Christian religion, bishops 
 would not have been there, or in a position to discharge 
 their functions, the final result must be credited to the new 
 faith. It is the more incumbent upon us to acknowledge 
 and assert this, as at a later' date the part played by 
 
 * Bunsen, " Analecta Ante-Nicena," pp. 24, 109.
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 137 
 
 Christianity in politics was very nearly wholly evil. In 
 attempting to estimate, as was proposed, the utility of 
 Christianity in the past, it will simplify our task if we divide 
 the subject under three heads, and consider its Political, 
 Philosophical, and Spiritual action in the world. 
 
 i. The Political action of Christianity. Owing to well- 
 known historical reasons, the natural and legitimate action 
 of the politics suggested or approved in the New Testament 
 was a long time in showing itself. The courtliness of the 
 bishops who incensed Constantine and Theodosius, was 
 evidence that Christian prelates, as such, had no objection 
 to arbitrary power. But that is hardly a reproach, when 
 nothing but arbitrary power was possible. Under the 
 Catholic feudal regime the Church was more often in an 
 attitude of hostility to the secular power than in alliance 
 with it. While the Church was the rival of the State, and 
 bid high for supremacy, it could not coalesce with the State, 
 and support its despotic pretensions. But when, at the end 
 of the Middle Ages, the monarchies of Europe definitively 
 got the upper hand, and aimed straight at arbitrary power, 
 the Church, so far from opposing, was only too ready to 
 help them. A number of texts, which had been over- 
 looked before, were cited to prove the absolute duty of 
 every Christian man to yield passive obedience to kings 
 and governors. It was one of the most critical turning- 
 points in human evolution. In the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries the battle of freedom was fought out. All 
 the monarchies of Europe were moving with rapid strides 
 towards despotism. Nothing can deprive the Dutch of the 
 honour of having been the first to step into the breach and 
 defend, against apparently overwhelming odds, the cause 
 of liberty. The English followed them, nobly but somewhat 
 tardily, under Cromwell. All through this bad time, the
 
 138 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 Christian Church threw its whole weight on the side of 
 oppression ; and the point to be noticed is, that it had the 
 fullest scriptural warrant for its action, and could not con- 
 scientiously have done otherwise. We have all long ago 
 forgotten the opposition of our Jacobites to freedom, and 
 the narrow escape we had of falling under arbitrary power. 
 The weak and worthless Stuarts, with their immense 
 ambition and feeble faculties, were not the chief danger. 
 That lay in the adherence to their pretensions of such 
 saintly men as Bishop Ken, and such noble champions of 
 moral purity as Jeremy Collier. And these men, as they 
 believed all scripture, believed also these texts : " Let every 
 soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no 
 power but of God : the powers that be are ordained of 
 God." " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for 
 the Lord's sake." "Servants, be subject to your masters 
 with all fear ; not only to the good and gentle, but also to 
 the froward." Professor Sewell, commenting on these 
 passages, says with complete truth, " It is idle, and worse 
 than idle, to attempt to restrict and explain away this 
 positive command. And the Christian Church has always 
 upheld it in its full extent. With one uniform, unhesitating 
 voice it has proclaimed the duty of passive obedience." * 
 
 It may be objected that the Puritans and other Christian 
 sects have taken a different view of their religious duties, 
 and shown themselves brave champions of civil freedom. 
 To which it may be replied, that the Puritans, when they 
 were oppressed by Laud and Charles, showed the common 
 human faculty of looking away from and ignoring incon- 
 venient facts which told against them and their cause ; they 
 passed over these parts of scripture. Even Locke, in his 
 answer to Filmer, never attempted to expound these 
 * "Christian Politics," p. lit.
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 139 
 
 formidable texts in a sense favourable to his arguments ; 
 like the able controversialist that he was, he felt that the 
 less said on that subject the better. But further, the 
 Puritans, by their partiality for the Old Testament, became 
 almost Jewish in sentiment, and imbibed a portion of the 
 anti-monarchical spirit of the Hebrew prophets and priest- 
 hood. It was not one of these who would have said, " Let 
 every soul be subject unto the higher powers." And yet, 
 again, the Puritans, when they became supreme in America, 
 showed that they could be as oppressive and intolerant as 
 any Catholics or Anglicans in Europe. 
 
 It is not necessary to expatiate at any length on the 
 import and effect of this authentic Christian and scriptural 
 teaching. We can easily afford to let bygones be bygones. 
 But when the most immodest and unfounded claims are 
 put forward in behalf of Christianity as an unfailing and 
 universal benefactor to mankind, we may certainly be allowed 
 to point out that for two centuries it was a consistent and 
 determined enemy of human liberty and welfare. It took 
 the side of the Stuarts, Bourbons, and Hapsburgs against 
 their subjects, and it was bound to do so by its own 
 principles. An agnostic may pardon this, as one of those 
 errors of which the past is full. But a Christian, who 
 believes in the perennial value and beneficence of his 
 doctrine, must, one would think, experience certain qualms 
 in moments of retrospection. 
 
 2. The influence of Christianity on speculative thought 
 has been far more salutary than it has been on politics, and 
 this not from any accidental circumstance, but in conse- 
 quence of essential qualities in the doctrine itself. It 
 cannot be a mere accident that of the three monotheistic 
 religions, Christianity alone has produced elaborate systems 
 of theology, which in depth and compass can compare with
 
 140 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 any systems of philosophy, ancient or modern. The Jews 
 and Mahometans have each had their disputes and con- 
 troversies inside their own confessions, from which the 
 odium theologicum has not been wanting; but their puny 
 differences cannot be compared to the splendid, far-reach- 
 ing discussions which have repeatedly filled the Christian 
 Churches with the most vigorous and brilliant intellectual 
 life. The subject cannot be treated adequately here. It 
 will suffice to point to the intellectual revival which followed 
 the spread of Christianity, and gave to the world the whole 
 literature of the Fathers, Greek and Latin, in the third, 
 fourth, and fifth centuries, at the very time when pagan 
 literature had fallen into sterility and decrepitude. Even 
 Gibbon, no favourable witness, acknowledges this. Of all 
 writers who have used Latin as their mother tongue, it is 
 ho exaggeration to say that St. Augustine is by far the most 
 original, suggestive, and profound. He is a genuine thinker, 
 not a mere rhetorician like Cicero, Seneca, and the rest. 
 The controversies of the fourth century, which have given 
 rise to much tasteless ridicule, notably the Arian contro- 
 versy, and the witticism suggested that it was preposterous 
 that the world should be divided into hostile camps by a 
 diphthong, these controversies were mentally the most 
 stimulating discussions, not only which the age admitted 
 of, but which have ever occupied men's minds. All the 
 faculties of the reason and logical understanding were 
 brought into play, subtlety the most acute, and discourse 
 of reason the most lofty. When the western world sank 
 into barbarism in the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, 
 theological controversy largely ceased; it was a sufficient 
 task for the West to keep alive, and intellectual luxuries 
 had to be dispensed with. But the moment the warmth of 
 reviving civilization returned to the stiffened minds of the
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 141 
 
 West, deep and searching controversies recommenced. It 
 would be interesting to show how all this mental activity 
 sprang immediately or remotely from the central Christian 
 doctrine, the Divinity of Christ A long struggle was 
 needed to establish that doctrine, but it was worthy of a 
 long struggle. The difference between " homoousion " and 
 " homoiousion " is only that of a single letter, but as Emile 
 Saisset well said, " Probe the matter to the bottom ; between 
 Jesus Christ, man, and Jesus Christ, man-God, there is 
 infinity ; there is, if one may so speak, the whole thickness 
 of Christianity." The subsequent controversies, the Mono- 
 thelite, the Monophysite, and others, are obviously due to 
 the same origin ; and all through the following ages, the 
 Scholastic period, the Reformation, the Jansenist and Jesuit 
 epoch, down to Strauss and Moehier, the same great doctrine 
 has been, in a greater or lesser degree, a potent stimulus at 
 once of philosophical inquiry and historical research. 
 
 3. It is in the action of Christian doctrine on the human 
 spirit, that we see its power in the highest and most 
 characteristic form. Neutral or injurious in politics, favour- 
 ably stimulating in the region of speculative thought, its 
 influence on the spiritual side of characters, naturally 
 susceptible to its action, has been transcendent, over- 
 powering, and unparalleled. The restriction to characters 
 " naturally susceptible " will probably be resented, but it 
 cannot be denied. The great mass of men have at all times 
 been feebly sensitive to the higher spiritual influences of 
 Christianity. It is a fact which all preachers of every 
 denomination are for ever denouncing and lamenting. 
 The true Christian saint is the rarest product in every 
 Christian Church. What is even more noteworthy is, that 
 the terrible menaces of God's wrath and damnation which, 
 till quite recent times, have been universally believed by
 
 142 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 Christian men, have been equally inoperative ; and this to 
 such a degree, that the truly converted and repentant 
 sinners, those who have set about working out their salvation 
 in fear and trembling, have ever been lost in wonder and 
 horror at the reckless folly of the bulk of mankind in lead- 
 ing the lives they did, coupled with their nominal beliefs. 
 Convinced and earnest Christians are always compelled to 
 regard it as madness, or a superlative proof of Satan's 
 power. Volumes of quotations could be given from the 
 highest and best authorities in support of this, as every one 
 conversant with religious literature will be aware. I will 
 restrict myself to two, taken from the works of illustrious 
 men, each in his own confession among the brightest 
 examples of Christian virtue, Blaise Pascal, and Richard 
 Baxter. Pascal says : 
 
 " Rien n'est si important a I'homme que son etat ; rien 
 ne lui est si redoubtable que 1'eternite'. Et ainsi, qu'il se 
 trouve des hommes indifferents k la perte de leur etre, et au 
 peril d'une eternite de miseres, cela n'est point naturel. Us 
 sont tout autres a 1'egard de toutes les autres choses : ils 
 craignent jusqu'aux plus legeres ; ils les prevoient, ils les 
 sentent ; et ce meme homme qui passe tant de jours et de 
 nuits dans la rage et dans le desespoir pour la perte d'une 
 charge, ou pour quelque offense imaginaire a son honneur, 
 c'est celui-la meme qui sait qu'il va tout perdre par la mort, 
 sans inquietude et sans Emotion. C'est une chose mon- 
 strueuse de voir dans un meme cceur et en meme temps 
 cette sensibility pour les moindres choses, et cette Strange 
 insensibilite pour les plus grandes. C'est un enchantement 
 incomprehensible, et un assoupissement surnaturel, qui 
 marque une force toute-puissante qui le cause." ("Pensees," 
 chap. I.) 
 
 Baxter says, "Can you make so light of heaven and hell?
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 143 
 
 Your corpse will shortly lie in the dust, and angels or devils 
 will shortly seize upon your souls, and every man or woman 
 of you will shortly be among other company and in another 
 case than you are now. . . . O what a place you will be in 
 of joy or torment ; O what a light will you shortly see in 
 heaven or hell; O what thoughts will shortly fill your hearts 
 with unspeakable joy or horror ! What work will you be 
 employed in ? To praise the Lord with saints and angels, 
 or cry out in the fire unquenchable with devils? And 
 should all this be forgotten ? And all this will be endless 
 and sealed up by an unchangeable decree. Eternity, 
 eternity will be the measure of your joys or sorrows, and 
 can this be forgotten? And all this is true, sirs, most 
 certainly true. When you have gone up and down a little 
 longer, and slept and awaked a few times more, you will 
 be dead and gone, and find all true that I now tell you ; 
 and yet you can now so much forget it. You shall then 
 remember that you heard this sermon, and that this day, in 
 this place, you were reminded of these things, and perceive 
 these matters a thousand times greater than either you or I 
 could here conceive ; and yet shall they be now so much 
 forgotten ? " * 
 
 That these are only fair samples of the tremendous 
 stimulants applied by preachers to awaken Christian sinners 
 to a sense of their guilt and danger, will be admitted, I 
 suppose, on all hands ; and yet it is equally admitted that 
 they are practically of very slight effect. Baxter, a few 
 pages before, had declared that "the most will be firebrands 
 in hell for ever." And no theologian with a character to 
 lose, till quite recent times, would have had a doubt about 
 it. On theological grounds the matter is sufficiently per- 
 plexing. True believers, like Pascal and Baxter, have at 
 * Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted."
 
 144 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 all times found that in this particular the conduct of men 
 was hardly to be explained. If they believed God's promises 
 and threats, why were their lives such a practical denial of 
 faith in them? The real answer, which divines could not 
 be expected to give, was that the bulk of men had neither 
 sufficient logic, imagination, or tenderness of heart and 
 conscience to assimilate the whole importance and bearing 
 of the Christian scheme. A strong head, which accepted 
 the premises of the Christian doctrine, would not hesitate 
 to work out the conclusions. But the majority of men have 
 not strong heads. A powerful imagination, which realized 
 the awful prospect of a future judgment, and the eternity of 
 bliss or woe consequent upon it, would be only too much 
 appalled by the thought ; as cases of religious madness 
 sufficiently show. The truly meek and tender-hearted, 
 again, have a natural turn for piety; as we see by the 
 negroes, who seem to obtain a saintly spirit of detachment 
 and self-renunciation with far greater ease than the more 
 energetic races of Western Europe. But when among the 
 Western Europeans the saintly character, under the com- 
 bined influences of education and natural endowment, is 
 evolved, the result, as might be supposed, is far more 
 striking, on account of their superior fibre and tempera- 
 ment and general brain-power. The true Christian saint, 
 though a rare phenomenon, is one of the most wonderful 
 to be witnessed in the moral world ; so lofty, so pure, so 
 attractive, that he ravishes men's souls into oblivion of the 
 patent and general fact that he is an exception among 
 thousands or millions of professing Christians. The saints 
 have saved the Churches from neglect and disdain. The 
 hope, even the assertion, has always been that all men 
 could be like them, if only the condition is not easily 
 reduced to words, and cannot be stated in a manner
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 145 
 
 generally satisfactory, but the implication always is that but 
 for some fault in man, or the wiliness of Satan, sanctity 
 might be universal. It would be as rational to say that the 
 poetry of Shakespeare, the music of Beethoven, and the 
 geometry of Lagrange, were accessible to all men. The 
 genuine saint is a moral genius of a peculiar kind ; he is 
 born, not made ; though, like all men of genius, he is sure 
 sooner or later to acquire the best education and that most 
 adapted to his powers. Saintliness is not confined to 
 Christianity. There have been Pagan and Mahometan - 
 saints ; and it would not be easy to find, even in the 
 Christian Calendar, men more naturally saintly than Marcus 
 Aurelius and Abu Beker. What needs admitting, or rather 
 proclaiming, by agnostics who would be just is, that the 
 Christian doctrine has a power of cultivating and develop- 
 ing saintliness which has had no equal in any other creed 
 or philosophy. When it gets firm hold of a promising 
 subject, one with a heart and a head warm and strong 
 enough to grasp .its full import and scope, then it 
 strengthens the will, raises and purifies the affection, and 
 finally achieves a conquest over the baser self in man, of 
 which the result is a character none the less beautiful and 
 soul-subduing because it is wholly beyond imitation by the 
 less spiritually endowed. The " blessed saints," are artists 
 who work with unearthly colours in the liquid and trans- 
 parent tints of a loftier sky than any accessible or visible to 
 common mortals. 
 
 Perhaps there is a certain rashness in attempting to illus- 
 trate these remarks by concrete instances of saintly detach- 
 ment and self-renunciation. Hagiology is not a favourite 
 form of literature nowadays ; and it must be admitted that 
 in the lives of many saints, especially of mediasval times, 
 unpleasant traits and circumstances connected with the 
 
 L
 
 146 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 superstitions of the age are often found in close neighbour- 
 hood with virtues the most beautiful and attractive. Equity 
 demands that we should make the same allowance for men's 
 erroneous moral conceptions of duty, as we do for their 
 erroneous conceptions of intellectual truth, in accordance 
 with the standards and culture of the times. We do 
 not think worse of a philosopher's intellect, who lived in 
 antiquity or the Middle Ages, because he held a number of 
 absurd opinions and theories in astronomy, chemistry, and 
 biology. Those who believe in the empirical origin of 
 moral truth, are bound to be consistent and show the same 
 charity in the one case as in the other. If we take the case 
 of Saint Louis, King of France, we must admit that a man 
 of a more saintly character never, perhaps, existed. If we 
 consider the temptations to which his high position neces- 
 sarily exposed him, and the completeness with which he 
 surmounted every unholy and selfish thought or act, it is 
 difficult not to regard him as the best man that ever lived. 
 Yet it is obvious that in many instances his notions of duty 
 were very wrong or perverted. But though his conscience 
 may not have been always enlightened, his heart was ever 
 right. His abortive and ruinous crusades were the cause 
 of vast misery and harm ; but we cannot wonder that so 
 devout a man strove to carry out one of the great religious 
 ideas and duties of the time, and none the less so because 
 symptoms were arising that the paramount nature of the 
 duty was beginning to be questioned. In his private life 
 he saw sometimes amiss saw duties where none existed. 
 I refer to his exaggerated submission to the imperious 
 temper of his mother, his excessive and often repulsive self- 
 mortifications. But this being fully allowed, there remains 
 a clear surplus of untarnished virtue rarely surpassed. 
 
 There are few tests of a man's spiritual condition more
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 147 
 
 searching and decisive than the temper with which he bears 
 unmerited insult and railing speech. I do not refer to 
 mere self-command, to the self-respect which forbids an 
 answer in kind, and imposes an external calmness of 
 manner on a swelling indignation within. The man of the 
 world, when it suits him, can attain to this much, which 
 yet is not little, considering the common^," impotentia " of 
 mankind. The question is not one of self-mastery under, 
 but of superiority to, insult, which feels no anger or resent- 
 ment at insolence or contempt; and this not from an 
 abject and craven spirit, but from living in a plane of 
 feeling up to which personal insult does not reach. This 
 equanimity in no wise prejudges the question whether 
 injurious language should not be reproved, and in some 
 cases punished, as by a judge for a contempt of court. We 
 are only concerned with that serenity of spirit which is not 
 touched or wounded by opprobrious speech, and all will 
 admit that it is a very rare gift. The following anecdote 
 told of St. Louis, shows the way in which he endured 
 insult : 
 
 As he was sitting in the Court of Parliament, the highest 
 tribunal in France, a woman named Sarrette, who was 
 interested in a suit then being heard, and perhaps dissatis- 
 fied with the decision, exclaimed to the king, " Fie, fie ! a 
 fine king of France you are ; much better were it if another 
 were king. You are only the king of the monks and friars, 
 and the wonder is you are not turned out of the kingdom." 
 The ushers wanted to strike the woman, and expel her 
 from the court. But Louis would not allow it, and said, 
 "What you say is very true, and I am not worthy to be 
 king. It would have been much better had it pleased God 
 that another had been put in my place, who knew better 
 how to govern the kingdom ; " and he ordered his chamber-
 
 148 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 lains to give the woman money. In this last act most 
 moralists would admit that Louis was mistaken. To 
 reward a scold for unseemly conduct in a court of justice 
 cannot be considered justifiable. A fine and imprisonment 
 might have taught Sarrette a useful lesson ; it is clear that 
 she needed one. As a jurist the king was to blame. But 
 the meekness of spirit, which could suggest such an answer 
 to a king and judge, in reply to a gross insult, was surely 
 very wonderful. 
 
 Louis's justice, temperance, and entire self-abnegation in 
 every relation of life are too well known from one of the 
 most charming of mediaeval chronicles, the " Memoires " of 
 Joinville, to make it needful to dwell upon the subject. 
 But to the above-cited example of his humility, it may be well 
 to add an equal proof of his firmness, and that in presence 
 of that very priesthood to whom he was accused of being 
 submissive. " I saw him another time," says Joinville, " at 
 Paris, where all the bishops informed him that they wished 
 to speak with him ; and the king went to the Palace the 
 law-courts to hear them. There was Guy, Bishop of 
 Auxerre, who spoke to him as follows, in the name of all the 
 prelates : ' Sire, the lords who are here, the archbishops and 
 bishops, have charged me to tell you that the Christian faith 
 is perishing in your hands.' The king made the sign of 
 the cross, and said, 'But tell me how this .comes to pass.' 
 ' Sire,' resumed the bishop, ' the reason is that people now- 
 adays think so lightly of excommunication, that they allow 
 themselves to die rather than be absolved, and will not give 
 satisfaction to the Church. The bishops request you, sire, 
 for the love of God, and because it is your duty, to give 
 orders to provosts and bailiffs that all who have remained 
 excommunicated for a year and a day should be constrained, 
 by the seizure of their goods, to receive absolution.' To
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 149 
 
 which the king replied, that he would willingly command it 
 in those cases in which guilt was clearly proven. Where- 
 upon the bishop answered, that the bishops would not 
 consent, at any price, to that condition, and that the royal 
 power had no right to take cognizance of ecclesiastical 
 causes. Then the king said that he would not interfere ; 
 and that it would be against God and reason to force 
 people to obtain absolution when the clergy did them 
 wrong. ' And I will give you an example of this,' he went 
 on to say ' the case of the Earl of Brittany, who pleaded 
 in a state of excommunication for seven years against the 
 prelates of his province, and with such effect that the Pope 
 has condemned them all. If, therefore, I had compelled 
 the Earl of Brittany to seek absolution in the first year, 
 I should have sinned against God and him.' And the 
 prelates had to submit," says Joinville ; " and I never heard 
 that the subject was brought up again." There was no false 
 humility here, but, on the contrary, rare strength, for all it 
 was so softly spoken. Some years after, Louis published 
 the famous Pragmatic Sanction, the French equivalent to 
 our English Statute of Prsemunire, which laid the founda- 
 tion of the liberties of the Gallican Church in opposition to 
 the See of Rome. 
 
 I do not merely admit, but strongly maintain, that St. 
 Louis was a man of such moral elevation and tenderness of 
 nature, that in whatever age of the world he might have 
 lived, and whatever creed he had held, he would have 
 been distinguished as just, upright, and self-sacrificing in 
 an unusual degree. But I think it equally certain that 
 living when he did, at the brightest moment in the Ages of 
 Faith, when the emotional effect of Christianity was at its 
 height, and least disturbed by intellectual opposition, his 
 spirituality was intensified by his creed, till he seems more
 
 150 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 like one of the angels who bow before the Great White 
 Throne than a denizen of common earth. And this is the 
 legitimate and consistent result of Christian training carried 
 to its final perfection by lofty and heroic spirits ; a complete 
 transcending, not only of the sin and corruption of the 
 world, but a passing away from and beyond the world, and 
 human needs and relations, an upward ascent towards the 
 City of God, even before the end of life. The highest 
 crown the Christian can win is that of martyrdom, suffering 
 death for the faith ; by which no benefit is ever supposed 
 to be conferred on men except, perhaps, the example left 
 for imitation by others. The true Christian martyr does 
 everything for Christ. He forsakes all to follow Him, and 
 goes to his doom rejoicing that he has been found worthy 
 to suffer for His name. The original mould in which 
 Christianity was cast cannot be altered; that of a small 
 congregation of meek and lowly men, exposed to the 
 assaults of the " power of darkness," which was allowed to 
 prevail for a season. For them the world was no continu- 
 ing city, for they sought one to come. In the " tabernacle 
 of this present life they did groan, being burdened," and 
 were " willing rather to be absent from the body and to be 
 present with the Lord." The notion that the world can 
 ever be a place of peace and virtuous happiness is never 
 countenanced in the New Testament. The Christian is 
 always considered as one in the midst of a hostile and evil 
 society, from which he must keep apart ; and, if only he is 
 prepared, the sooner he can leave it the better. We find, 
 accordingly, martyrs almost without exception professing, 
 no doubt sincerely, the utmost gratitude for being delivered 
 from this mortal life. As Sir Thomas More said, "St. 
 Cyprian, that famous bishop of Carthage, gave his execu- 
 tioner thirty pieces of gold, because he knew he should
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DOXE. 151 
 
 procure unto him an unspeakable good turn ; " and More 
 himself, when about to suffer, and the executioner asked 
 him forgiveness, kissed him, and said, " Thou wilt do me 
 this day a greater benefit than ever any mortal man can be 
 able to give me." Heroic constancy, even to death, is the 
 note of the martyr, and indeed of every true Christian. 
 And it is this transcendental character of Christian perfec- 
 tion which has ever made it at once such an imperfect 
 fosterer of morality, and such a stimulator of spirituality and 
 heroic passion. No vestige of self may be suffered to 
 remain in the true confessor's heart, in which every human 
 desire must be burnt up by love of the Redeemer. A man 
 must ''hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, 
 and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also," to be 
 a true disciple of Christ. How utterly unequal average 
 human nature is to this transcendent pitch of self-sacrifice, 
 the past and present record of Christianity sufficiently 
 proves. But some have been equal to it, and the heroism 
 of the saints has been illuminated by a radiance which 
 seemed to descend direct from heaven. At all times and 
 in all sects, the blood of martyrs has been the seed of the 
 Church. To men, constituted as they are, the voluntary 
 and deliberate laying down of life by confessors for con- 
 science' sake, is always the most impressive and soul-sub- 
 duing of spectacles, conquering even the cruelty of the 
 persecutors who are consenting unto their deaths. The 
 "face of an angel," remarked in the protomartyr Stephen, 
 is not to be forgotten, and works miracles of conversion and 
 remorse in the solitude of the conscience, when the ghastly 
 scene of stoning without the city, or the burning in the 
 market-place, returns to the memory in the silent watches of 
 the night; and the faith and meekness of the sufferer rise 
 up like accusers from the world of spirits. The meekness
 
 152 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 and docility of the victims are a cardinal point. All 
 bravado and self-assertion dim the lustre of the martyr's 
 crown. " It has been a reproach to the sufferers in the 
 Marian persecution that, smitten on one -cheek, they did 
 not invariably turn the other cheek to the smiter ; " and the 
 remark is true. If we compare the carriage of Rowland 
 Taylor with that of Sir Thomas More we are sensible of the 
 difference. There can be no question as to the single- 
 hearted piety and self-devotion of either. But More, partly 
 perhaps by reason of his superior culture and humanist 
 sense of the " becoming," showed a sweet resignation 
 which contrasts favourably with the boisterous humour 
 and self-consciousness of Taylor. " His degradation was 
 performed by Bonner : the usual mode being to put the 
 garments of a Roman Catholic priest on the clerk-convict, 
 and then to strip them off. Taylor refused to put them on, 
 and was forcibly robed by another ; and then, when he was 
 thoroughly furnished therewith, he set his hands to his side 
 and said, ' How say you, my lord, am I not a goodly fool ? 
 How say you, my masters, if I were in Cheap should I not 
 have boys enough to laugh at these apish toys ? " The 
 final ceremony was for the bishop to give the heretic a blow 
 on his breast with his staff. The bishop's chaplain said, 
 ' My lord, strike him not ; for he will sure strike again.' 
 ' Yes, by St. Peter will I,' quoth Dr. Taylor. ' The cause is 
 Christ's, and I were no good Christian if I would not fight 
 in my master's quarrel.' So the bishop laid his curse on 
 him, and struck him not. When he went back to his fellow- 
 prisoner, Bradford, he told him how the chaplain had 
 said he would strike again, and 'by my troth,' said he, 
 rubbing his hands, ' I made him believe I would do so 
 indeed ! ' " 
 
 The saintly spirit would seem to be wanting here.
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 153 
 
 Indeed, the temper which has fitted men for martyrdom 
 has always been liable to the perversion of a fierce fana- 
 ticism and stubbornness, in which meek resignation is 
 replaced by a savage combativeness regardless of conse- 
 quences. In his subsequent behaviour, Taylor rose to a 
 much higher strain. The scene on the February morning, 
 by St. Botolph's church, where his wife and children had 
 waited for him, " suspecting that he might be carried 
 away ; " the dialogue in the gloom, " for it was a very dark 
 morning, and the one could not see the other," reach the 
 extreme of tragic pathos. " His daughter Elizabeth cried, 
 saying, ' O my dear father ! Mother, mother, here is my 
 father led away ! ' Then cried his wife, ' Rowland, Rowland, 
 where art thou ? ' Dr. Taylor answered, ' I am here, dear 
 wife,' and stayed. The sheriffs men would have led him 
 forth, but the sheriff said, ' Stay a little, masters, I pray you, 
 and let him speak to his wife.' Then came she to him, and 
 he took his daughter Mary in his arms, and he and his 
 wife and Elizabeth knelt down and said the Lord's Prayer. 
 At which sight the sheriff wept apace, and so did divers 
 others of the company." It is needless to repeat further 
 one of the best-known scenes in English history. The point 
 to be noticed is, that Taylor rose to the height of saintliness 
 in proportion as he laid aside his haughty carriage. His 
 answer to the sheriff, who asked him, after his martyr's ride 
 through Essex to Suffolk, how he fared : " Well, God be 
 praised, master sheriff, never better ; for now I know I am 
 almost at home ; " and his meek expostulation to the mis- 
 creant who threw a fagot at him, " which brake his face, so 
 that the blood ran down his visage : " " O friend, I have 
 harm enough ; what needed that ? " attain to the summit of 
 Christian resignation. 
 
 The death of Sir Thomas More has ever been regarded
 
 154 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 as one of the most sublime examples of Christian fortitude 
 on record. His perfect sweetness and self-possession have 
 melted all hearts. He did nothing to provoke his fate, but 
 on the contrary, everything that his conscience allowed him 
 in order to escape it. At no time was he aggressive or self- 
 asserting. When condemned, his carriage was at once 
 meek and manly. 
 
 "When Sir Thomas was come now to the Tower-Wharfe, 
 his best-beloved childe, my aunte Rooper, desirous to see 
 her father whome she feared she should never see in this 
 world after, to have his last blessing, gave there attendance 
 to meete him ; whome as soone as she had espyed, after 
 she had receaved upon her knees his fatherlie blessing, she 
 ranne hastilie unto him ; and without consideration or care 
 of herselfe, passing through the midst of the throng and 
 guarde of men who with billes and halberds compassed 
 him round, there openly in the sight of them all embraced 
 him, not able to say anie word, but : Oh, my father ; oh, 
 my father ! He liking well her most naturall and deare 
 affection towards him, gave her his fatherlie blessing ; telling 
 her, that whatever he should suffer, though he were innocent, 
 yet it was not without the will of God ; and that she knew 
 well enough all the secrets of his hart, counselling her to 
 accommodate her will to God's blessed pleasure, and bade 
 her be patient for her losse. She was no sooner parted 
 from him and gonne ten steppes, when she not satisfied 
 with the former farewell, like one who had forgotte herselfe, 
 ravished with the intire love of so worthie a father, having 
 neither respect to herselfe nor to the presse of the people 
 about him, suddenly turned back, and ranne hartilie to him, 
 tooke him about the necke and diverse times togeather 
 kissed : whereat he spoke not a word, but carrying still his 
 gravity, tears fell also from his eyes ; yea, there were very
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 155 
 
 few in all the troupe who could refrain thereat from weep- 
 ing, no not the guards themselves." * 
 
 To give one more instance of Christian martyrdom ; none 
 the less tragic, because it was enacted, not amid the tumult 
 and profanity of a public execution, but in the inner 
 chamber of a man of genius. At thirty years of age, Blaise 
 Pascal determined to " give up the world," and began that 
 course of mortification and prayer which, there can hardly 
 be a doubt, shortened his days. He forsook his scientific 
 labours, by which he had won, as a youth, a foremost rank 
 among the mathematicians of Europe, devoted himself to 
 reading the Scriptures and meditating his great work on the 
 Christian religion ; of which only fragments, in the form 
 of the immortal "Thoughts," were ever achieved. The 
 physical privations and pain to which he subjected his 
 emaciated body are described at length by his sister, 
 Madame Perier, in a biography which for simple grace and 
 pathos rivals the best of Walton's " Lives." To avoid 
 wandering and worldly thoughts when engaged in conversa- 
 tion, " he took an iron girdle full of sharp points, which he 
 placed next to his flesh ; and when conscious of an impulse 
 to vanity, or even a feeling of pleasure in the place where 
 he happened to be, he struck the girdle with his elbow in 
 order to increase the pain of the punctures." He ate a 
 certain regulated quantity of food, whether hungry or not, 
 never exceeding it, however good his appetite, and never 
 eating less, however great his loathing; and this, on the 
 ground that taking food was a duty, which was never to be 
 accompanied by any sensual pleasure. When his sufferings 
 were acute, and his friends expressed commiseration, he 
 would answer, " Do not pity me ; illness is the state natural 
 
 * "Life of Sir Thomas More, Knt.," by his great-grandson, Thomas 
 More, Esq., p. 264, ed. 172$.
 
 156 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 to Christians, because it places us in the condition we ought 
 ever to be in suffering evils, deprived of all the pleasures of 
 sense, freed from all the passions which afflict us throughout 
 life, without ambition, without cupidity, in the continued 
 expectation of death." He mortified his affections not less 
 than his body, and said that we should never allow any one 
 to love us with fondness ; in fostering such attachments we 
 occupied hearts which ought to be given solely to God ; 
 that it was robbing Him of that on which He set most 
 store. " It is not right that others should attach themselves 
 to me. Even if they do it willingly and with pleasure, I 
 should deceive those in whom I excited such a feeling. 
 Am I not about to die ? the object of their love then will 
 perish. As I should warn people against believing a falsehood, 
 however profitable to me, I should warn them not to attach 
 themselves to me ; for their duty is to spend their lives in 
 striving to please God ; or in seeking Him." At his death 
 there was found sewn up inside the lining of his [doublet, 
 two small pieces of parchment and paper, on which were 
 written in identical words a series of brief sentences, of 
 which the meaning was misconceived by Condorcet, who 
 first published them. The supposition was, that it was a 
 " mystic amulet," which Pascal had worn next his person 
 out of superstitious motives. Its real character is perfectly 
 clear : a solemn record of the hour and date of his conver- 
 sion to God and to a life of asceticism : 
 
 The year of grace, 1654. 
 Monday, 23rd of November, St. Clement's Day, pope and martyr, 
 
 and others in the martyrology. 
 
 Eve of St. Chrysogonus, martyr, and others. 
 
 From about half-past ten at night, till half an hour past midnight. 
 
 Fire. 
 
 God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob ; not of philosophers 
 and learned men.
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 157 
 
 Certitude, certitude. . Feeling, joy, peace. 
 
 God of Jesus Christ. 
 Deum meum es Deum vestrum. 
 
 Thy God shall be my God 
 
 Oblivion of the world and everything save God. 
 He is only to be found by the way taught in the Gospel. 
 
 Greatness of the human soul. 
 
 Righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee. 
 Joy, joy, joy ! tears of joy. 
 
 I have left him 
 
 Dereliquerunt me fontem aquae vivas. 
 My God, wilt thou forsake me ?- 
 
 May I not be separated from him for ever. 
 
 This is life eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, 
 whom thou hast sent. 
 
 Jesus Christ 
 
 Jesus Christ 
 
 I have left him : I have fled from him, denied him, crucified him. 
 
 May I never be separated from him. 
 He can only' be kept by the way taught in the Gospel. 
 
 Renunciation entire and sweet. 
 
 Entire submission to Jesus Christ and to my director. 
 
 Eternal joy for one day's suffering on earth. 
 
 Non obliviscar sermones tuos. Amen. 
 
 " What a noble mind is here o'erthrown," will probably 
 be the thought of many readers. And yet, why should that 
 thought arise? Doctrinal differences apart, can there be 
 a doubt in any candid mind, that Pascal strove with all 
 the force and sincerity of his powerful mind and passionate 
 nature to attain Christian holiness, and that he threw him- 
 self at the foot of the cross as completely and unreservedly 
 as a human being could ? Are his austerities and mortifi- 
 cations objected to ? The form of his asceticism may be 
 questioned by different schools of theology ; but no earnest, 
 thorough-going Christian exists, who does not deny himself 
 one way or another, and admit asceticism in principle. 
 Indeed, asceticism represents a tendency in human nature
 
 158 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 far wider than Christianity, and though liable to frightful 
 perversions, is one of the noblest qualities possessed by 
 man. It is one of the higher forms of courage, which not 
 only endures or disdains suffering, but positively courts it, 
 and finds a passionate and fiery joy in the sharp sting of 
 pain. If man had instinctively the universal horror of pain, 
 which some moralists suppose him to have, he would never 
 have been a hunter or a warrior. The delight of self-mastery 
 in some natures, easily gets the upper hand, and leads, 
 according to circumstances, to the voluntary search for 
 danger and suffering, or to the stern refusal of sensuous 
 pleasure. " Qua? major voluptas quam fastidium omnis 
 voluptatis?" asks Tertullian. The spirit of self-sacrifice is 
 just as much a factor of human nature, as the spirit of 
 self-indulgence, though, like all the higher gifts, less 
 common. The deplorable thing is, that the precious gift 
 should be wasted and thrown away on useless objects. The 
 hero who suffers to save others, contributes a direct and 
 tangible good to the world by his action, and even a higher 
 good indirectly by his example. The ascetic who tortures 
 himself to please a cruel god, does equal harm in both ways, 
 to himself and others. Even the old Hebrew saw this when 
 he wrote that his Lord "would have mercy, and not 
 sacrifice." As regards Christian asceticism, especially in 
 the grosser forms of physical, self-inflicted torture, it is a 
 subject which has not received, it would seem, the attention 
 it deserves from Church historians. It arose early in the 
 Church, which like the austerer philosophic sects, the Stoics 
 and Cynics, was led, by the calamities of the decaying 
 Roman Empire, to take a gloomy and despondent view of 
 the moral government of the universe, and to see the finger 
 of an angry God in the incessant woes with which mankind 
 were then scourged. And, indeed, it is not easy to see, on
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 159 
 
 Christian principles, how voluntary and unmerited suffering 
 can be supposed to be displeasing to God. The whole 
 scheme of Redemption supposes that God was so pleased 
 with the sufferings of the innocent Christ, that, in considera- 
 tion for them, He forgave guilty man. The sufferings of 
 Jesus were entirely voluntary ; His buffetings, scourgings 
 crucifixion, were all endured to expiate man's sin; the 
 ransom for his disobedience, the precious blood-shedding 
 which obtained innumerable benefits. If Christians would 
 imitate Christ, should they not do so in this particular, the 
 most characteristic of His office ? If agony unspeakable, 
 borne by the Divine Son, the Lamb without blemish, was 
 well-pleasing to His father, why should it be otherwise in 
 sin-stained man ? Protestant notions on this subject may 
 be more rational, but they are far less scriptural. The 
 whole idea of Christianity, as given in the New Testament, 
 is steeped in suffering. " Blessed are they that mourn ; " 
 " Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' 
 sake." Why? Because "great is their reward in heaven." 
 The worship of the Man of Sorrows was not intended for 
 the tender and the comfortable. " Whosoever will come 
 after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and 
 follow me. For whosoever will save his life, shall lose it ; 
 but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the 
 gospel's, the same shall save it." Those who assume a 
 tone of sneering and contempt, for the mortifications of the 
 Catholic saints, show that they are true heretics in the 
 primitive sense of the word, inasmuch as they choose and 
 select those words and parts of Scripture only which suit 
 their preconceived views. Let us be rationalists by all 
 means ; but let us be consistent rationalists, and consider 
 the Bible as an interesting fragment of ancient Semitic 
 literature. Those who profess to regard it as the Word of
 
 160 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 God, and yet ignore and neglect some of its clearest 
 precepts, are not consistent. Any vitality which the 
 Catholic revival of these latter years may have had in 
 Europe or America, is clearly traceable to its superior 
 deference to the paramount and universal authority of those 
 Scriptures which all Christians admit as binding in the last 
 court of appeal. 
 
 To return, however, to our more immediate subject the 
 spirituality of mind stimulated by Christianity, in the higher 
 types of the Christian character. 
 
 Within quite recent times, three women have died, who, 
 for complete detachment and recollection, for profound 
 sincerity and devotion to the Cross, may justly be regarded 
 as the equals of any of the saints of old. I do not for a 
 moment pretend to say that there have not been others 
 equally devoted and sincere. Probably there have been 
 many, to me unknown. But these are incontestably eminent 
 enough in Christian virtue, to serve as types of that spiritu- 
 ality which is the most characteristic result of profound 
 Christian belief consistently carried out. The result is in 
 many ways touching, and beautiful in the extreme. It is 
 such flowers of exquisite perfume and beauty, grown in the 
 garden of the soul, which still arrest the attention of a 
 rationalistic age. And nothing can show how far the 
 modern world has drifted away from the old Christian 
 point of view, than the fact that these three sweet saints 
 have made so slight an impression upon it. Had they 
 lived and worked as they did, in the Ages of Faith, their 
 tombs would already have become sacred shrines, to which 
 troops of pious pilgrims would be crowding to kneel and 
 pray. Sister Agnes Jones, Mother Margaret Hallahan, and 
 Sister Dora Pattison, are the three pious women to whom 
 I refer. Their lives have been written by loving hands ;
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 161 
 
 and, in the long series of religious biographies, more touch- 
 ing and graceful portraits would not easily be found. Amid 
 many points of difference as to theological opinion, social 
 position, and character, they yet had striking points of 
 likeness. The passionate love and affection with which 
 they inspired all who came within their influence, show what 
 warm-hearted, generous natures they possessed. Language 
 seems to fail their biographers in attempting to render the 
 devotion with which they were regarded A dying pauper 
 in the Liverpool workhouse, said he thought he was in 
 heaven when Agnes came to his bedside. A patient of 
 Sister Dora stood " up and reverently pulled his forelock 
 as if he had pronounced the name of a saint or angel," 
 every time he mentioned her. Of Margaret it is written, 
 " What struck me most in our dearest mother, was her 
 largeness of heart, and the total absence of self in all her 
 words and actions." A common trait of these remarkable 
 women was a splendid physique and immense bodily 
 strength. Agnes, the least distinguished in this respect, 
 was yet capable of enduring extraordinary bodily fatigue. 
 "After a whole night on duty in St. Thomas's Hospital, she 
 thinks it lazy to go to bed, and spends the day in walking 
 and paying visits." * Of Dora, the surgeon of the Epidemic 
 Hospital said : " Sister Dora could sit up all night and work 
 all day with little or no rest ; and, as far as I could judge, 
 she was neither physically nor mentally the worse for it. 
 Her strength was superhuman. I never saw such a woman." 
 And this will not appear an overstatement in the light of 
 the following anecdote. " A delirious patient, a tall, heavy 
 man, in the worst stage of confluent small-pox, threw himself 
 out of bed in the dead of night, and with a loud yell rushed 
 to the door before she could stop him. She had no time 
 
 * "Life," by her sister, p. 160. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 for hesitation, but at once grappled with him, all covered 
 as he was with the loathsome disease. Her combined 
 strength and determination prevailed, and she got him 
 back into bed, and held him there by main force until the 
 doctor arrived in the morning." * Margaret, if possible, was 
 still stronger. Her biographer says : " Possessed of extra- 
 ordinary muscular power, she was rather proud of hearing 
 herself called as strong as Samson ; and when about seven- 
 teen years of age, seeing some men hesitate to lift a great 
 iron stove, she thought to put them to shame, and carried 
 it unassisted to the top of the house." All three were brave, 
 but Dora was lion-hearted beyond compare, and would face 
 drunken ruffians in the slums of Walsall, into which the 
 police would only venture with caution. 
 
 All had powerful minds, though in no one of them had 
 education been carried very far. Indeed, Margaret was 
 wholly illiterate, and never mastered orthography, geography, 
 or arithmetic. Agnes had the usual education of a young 
 lady of family and position forty years ago. Dora probably 
 was the best trained of the three. But native vigour of 
 mind supplied all defects, and each showed a great faculty 
 of government and organization, though in different degrees. 
 Agnes, who died young, had not time to show her full 
 power ; but the last three years of her life, in charge of the 
 Liverpool workhouse, with its fifteen hundred inmates, 
 testified to her gifts in that direction. Dora was a lovely, 
 fascinating despot, bending all hearts and wills by her 
 supreme charm and force. Margaret was a born ruler, 
 with thoroughly imperial qualities, who could have governed 
 a state in perilous times as well as she governed her 
 convents. If one might venture, in short, to imitate the 
 nomenclature applied to the great Scholastics, we might 
 * " Life," by Miss Lonsdale, p. 159.
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 163 
 
 call Agnes, the Soror Angelica, so ineffably meek, resigned, 
 and nunlike she was, for all her Protestant training ; Dora, 
 the Soror Practica, with her unequalled power of achieving 
 work, whatever it might be; Margaret, the Soror Domi- 
 natrix, by reason of her grand and imposing mind and 
 character, which, in spite of her low birth and want of 
 culture, made her more than the equal of the scholars, 
 nobles, and ecclesiastics of her own Catholic Church. 
 
 Now, is it not evident that all these women were simply 
 women of extraordinary genius ? Dora's conversation was 
 bewitching; her alternate humour and pathos were the 
 delight and solace of her nurses and patients ; and made 
 an observer say that it was easy to see that she might 
 have been a great novelist, if she had not chosen to be 
 something greater and better. Margaret, though she could 
 not spell the simplest words, showed, in her incessant 
 correspondence, great powers of style. Agnes, though* 
 inferior to either in these respects, always writes with a 
 simple, clear, and direct vigour which proves what a calm, 
 strong brain she had. No one of them gave a thought to 
 literature, but one sees that literature was easily within 
 their reach, if they had aimed at it. Their distinction was 
 founded on character, the supreme quality ; warm, fearless 
 hearts, exquisite tenderness of conscience, passionate self- 
 sacrifice, and devotion to duty. Christians by training and 
 inclination, they realized in their fervent hearts the meaning 
 and purport of the gospel. According to the terms of 
 their belief, "they forsook all and followed " Christ in their 
 several ways the Evangelical Agnes, the High- Church 
 Dora, the Catholic Margaret. But even their pious 
 biographers admit that, apart from the gifts of grace, which 
 they were not likely to undervalue, their natural powers and 
 endowments were extraordinary. Of Margaret it is said,
 
 164 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 that even at the first meeting, the most prominent features 
 of her character could not escape notice; "the firm will, 
 the clear and rapid judgment, the boundless power of 
 sympathy, which won her the title of 'everybody's mother.'" 
 Miss Lonsdale tells us how " a hard, sarcastic Scotchman," 
 who was a professed unbeliever, remarked of Dora, whose 
 patient he had been, " She's a noble woman, but she'd have 
 been that without her Christianity." That is just the simple 
 fact of the matter. Such heads and hearts as these are 
 the property of no creed ; they are the choice products of 
 that maligned human nature, which theologians tell us is 
 cursed and lost, unless it believes this or that article of 
 faith. If the saintliness of these holy women depended 
 upon their creed, why do not the thousands and millions 
 who hold the same creed exhibit a like saintliness? " God 
 did not give them the grace," is the theological answer ; 
 and some are still satisfied with it. But the answer is 
 evidently becoming unreal and meaningless. The doctrine 
 of heredity and variation has deprived it of all weight. 
 Strong minds and fervent hearts, like strong bodies, depend 
 upon organization ; on the constitution and quality of the 
 brain. But brains " are begotten, not made," and grace 
 never made a weak brain strong. 
 
 The contemplation of these remarkable women suggests 
 one or two more interesting points of view. 
 
 i. An experience of some eighteen centuries may be con- 
 sidered conclusive as to -the limited hold which Christianity is 
 capable of taking on mankind at large. From the days of 
 St. Paul to the present time, the apathy and worldliness of 
 the great mass of men and women calling themselves 
 Christians, has been the constant lamentation of all sincere 
 preachers. Indeed, the parable of the Sower clearly 
 announces that the fact was to be expected. The seed
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. i(>5 
 
 falls in four different places, and only in one does it bear 
 fruit where it fell on good ground. The Wicked one, the 
 want of root, the cares of this world, and deceitfulness of 
 riches, prevent its growth in the other places, which are 
 evidently supposed to cover by far the larger area ; and the 
 parable of the Marriage of the King's Son, with its con- 
 clusion, " Many are called but few are chosen," leaves no 
 doubt on the matter. The obvious deduction is, that 
 Christianity is only adapted to a very limited number of 
 minds ; that, for one reason or another, the many, called 
 as they may be, will not " hear the word and understand 
 it." And this is exactly what has happened without inter- 
 ruption, for nearly two thousand years; Christendom has 
 never been evangelized, nor near being evangelized. Even 
 the smallest and most select communities of religious 
 persons have their backsliders and formalists, who are, to 
 use Mr. Spurgeon's words, as religious as the seats they sit 
 on. The high Calvinists boldly face the difficulty, and say, 
 " No doubt ; the great mass of mankind are predestined 
 from all eternity to damnation ; it is only the elect who are 
 really Christians, and go to heaven." Calvinism is out of 
 fashion now, and reproached with suggesting very unpleasant 
 notions as to the moral character of the Deity ; but it is 
 consistent and scriptural ; I do not say sensible or orthodox. 
 So far from Christianity being the universal religion it is 
 affirmed to be, it is not even adapted to the majority of its 
 own believers. You must have a very fine and peculiar 
 organization to be a true Christian ; a special genius, which 
 generally declares itself in early life, as special genius is apt 
 to do. A Sister Agnes or Mother Margaret take to vital 
 religion with the spontaneous affinity that Mozart took to 
 music, Newton to mathematics, and Keats to poetry. 
 Religious genius, in its highest form, is as rare, perhaps more
 
 1 66 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 rare, than genius in any other form ; and exalted piety is as 
 unattainable to the common herd as exalted poetry. Bishop 
 Ullathorne, who must have had large opportunities of seeing 
 nuns and others who aimed with special earnestness at 
 a religious life, yet declares of Margaret that she was dis- 
 tinguished from every other holy soul that he had been 
 acquainted with, by three extraordinary gifts, which he 
 mentions : her peculiar love of God ; the pain it cost her 
 to turn from Him to self-introspection ; and her angelic 
 purity. " Rare as suns," he says, " are those souls which 
 seem to act on other souls like a sacramental power, shed- 
 ding the rays of their own inward sense of God and vital 
 warmth of spirit into the souls that come within the sphere 
 of their action." * And similar testimony as to the rarity 
 of the endowments of Sisters Dora and Agnes are forth- 
 coming from those who have had wide experience of 
 religious persons. Yet, good as these pious women were, 
 I suppose no priest or theologian would say that they had 
 attained the furthest limit of Christian perfection. They 
 all thought in their humility that they had fallen far short 
 of it. What hope, then, is there for souls less richly 
 endowed ? 
 
 And let us observe, how this pursuit of a spirituality 
 utterly beyond attainment by ordinary mortals, beautiful as 
 it is when attained, operates injuriously on the morality of 
 average men and women. The standard proposed is so 
 exalted, that instead of attracting the ordinary person to 
 aim at reaching it, it discourages and repels him. He is 
 inwardly conscious that he cannot possibly reach it, even if 
 he tries ever so much. His preacher will probably tell him 
 that, if he trusts in his own strength, he can do nothing ; 
 but that if he will only put all his trust in God and Christ, 
 * Preface to " Life of Mother Margaret."
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. ibj 
 
 the end will be attained. But that is just what he is unable 
 to do. He is exhorted to exert a spirituality of mind 
 which, by the hypothesis, he has not got. It is like telling 
 a man that, if he will only fly, he will reach great altitudes. 
 He has not the wings. Even the saints have generally had 
 long periods of probation and wrestlings with God, before 
 they could attain to that detachment, spirituality and perfect 
 faith, which enabled them to perform the act of complete 
 self-renunciation required. Yet it is recommended to the 
 common multitude, as if it were the easiest thing in the 
 world. 
 
 And what is the result ? Setting apart the openly profane 
 and wicked, who do not give a thought to the subject ; and, 
 without denying it, simply ignore Christianity ; the bulk of 
 worldly, unconverted believers pass their time in a middle 
 state between sin and repentance ; believers, but not doers, 
 of the Word ; wishing they could . embrace their religion 
 with entire earnestness, but too well aware that, constituted 
 as they are, they are unable to do so. Of course, reference 
 is made only to the true-hearted, honest folk who transgress 
 from weakness, and not to the spiritually dead Pharisee who 
 has no doubt about his righteousness. Such are, on all 
 hands, admitted to be worse than the publicans and harlots. 
 But the mass of common-place people who go to church or 
 chapel, who are neither very good nor very bad, neither 
 exceptionally clever nor stupid, the enormous middle class 
 of mediocrities, fairly just, conscientious, and kind-hearted, 
 can it be denied that they are constantly deterred from 
 embracing a serious view of life's duties, just because a 
 standard of such exalted perfection is proposed to them, 
 that they know it is no use attempting to reach it. They 
 perhaps try, and fail, and they are more disheartened than 
 before. They then live with a mildly evil conscience,
 
 16* THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 knowing that they ought to do better. But they are at 
 once told that that is not enough ; that they must do their 
 best ; that they must be perfect, as their Father which is in 
 heaven is perfect. Then they do less than they could, out 
 of sheer, weary dejection. In what other art or science do 
 teachers begin by placing the most arduous problems before 
 their pupils ? Young mathematicians are not set to work 
 on the Differential Calculus in their first lessons ; young 
 artists are not expected to draw like Andrea, and colour 
 like Titian. But the young catechumen is told that the 
 first thing he must do is " to renounce the devil and all his 
 works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all 
 the sinful lusts of the flesh." For the first precept of the 
 first lesson, this must be admitted to be rather hard. How 
 many saints, after a long life's progress in holiness, have 
 been equal to it ? To renounce the devil and all his works 
 cannot be easy, if all that we are told of Satan's power be 
 true. But the "good child" is told that he must do 
 this at once. By a subsequent after-thought on the part 
 of the compiler, the learner is warned that he cannot do 
 this and a great many other things of himself ; he needs 
 God's special grace, " which he must learn to call for by 
 diligent prayer." Probably, to nine children out of ten 
 " diligent prayer," commanded in this way, appears even 
 more obscure and meaningless than renouncing the pomps 
 and vanities of this wicked world. How cruel and heedless 
 to place the last stage of spiritual evolution at the threshold 
 of the neophyte's progress. The whole Catechism and the 
 larger part of sermons and Christian teaching are pervaded 
 by the double error of supposing that the highest religious 
 emotions are attainable by all, and that they may be incul- 
 cated at the earliest period of life. " My duty towards God, 
 is to believe in him, to fear him, and to love him with all my
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 169 
 
 heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my 
 strength." Perhaps the most prompt and certain way of 
 checking an emotion in others, is to tell them that it is their 
 duty to feel it. Tell any one he ought to feel grateful, and 
 you will probably make him ten times more ungrateful than 
 he was before. We may be sure that no one ever loved 
 God, for being told that it was his duty to love him. Wise 
 and good mothers, by gentle and indirect precept and very 
 direct example, have led their little ones to piety ; but then 
 they used the subtle language of the heart. The unreality 
 and inefficacy of sermons, chiefly depend on the trans- 
 cendent disproportion between the doctrine preached, and 
 the capacity to receive it by the audience addressed. A 
 mixed congregation, consisting of men whose thoughts are 
 absorbed in business, and women occupied with dress and 
 frivolities, are spoken to in language which would not be 
 inadequate to the spiritual needs of angels. The result is a 
 discrepancy between faith and practice, which the profane 
 are not slow to tax with hypocrisy. Neither religion nor 
 morals gain by such exaggerations ; only the scoffers at all 
 goodness, who delight in pointing out that so-called religious 
 people are no better than their neighbours. To get the best 
 you can out of men, you must not ask more than they can 
 give. But if you ask for that in the proper way, nearly all 
 but the thoroughly bad will respond. By asking for the 
 impossible, you get little or nothing, or worse than nothing ; 
 a conviction that religion is grimace, and a disbelief in the 
 possibility of virtue. 
 
 And now let us contemplate these three saints from 
 another side ; that of the value of their work, its usefulness 
 in this world, and its power of diminishing human suffering. 
 
 Before I go further, I shall be met with a refusal to allow 
 the question to be stated in this way. It will be said, that
 
 170 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 these ladies considered far more the souls than the bodies 
 of their patients, pupils, nurses, or nuns, as the case may 
 be ; that although they strove earnestly to heal the sick, 
 none more so, yet their real and main object was to win 
 souls to Christ. I am not inclined to deny so obvious a 
 fact ; but it is one with which I cannot deal, because, as 
 regards the result of their labours in that direction, I can 
 form no opinion. It is wholly beyond my power to verify 
 any statement on that head. Of the numbers who died in 
 their presence, soothed and comforted, beyond doubt, by 
 their assured faith, their fervent prayers, and "tranquil, 
 regardant faces," I cannot tell whether any or none ever 
 passed " to where beyond these voices there is peace." 
 The point must be left undecided, to say the least, for want 
 of evidence of an objective kind, as distinguished from 
 evidence of a subjective kind, reposing entirely on faith. 
 Believers must be satisfied with their own belief, until they 
 can advance arguments far more cogent than any which 
 they have hitherto produced in support of it. Agnostics 
 cannot be expected to argue on principles which they reject. 
 But this does not wholly remove a common ground on 
 which discussion can take place. The temporal work of 
 these good women is offered to us, as a proof of what the 
 divine spirit can do when it finds fitting channels. Now, I 
 will vie with any one in celebrating the unselfish devotion, 
 the self-sacrifice, the warm love and sympathy which they 
 all showed in assuaging human suffering, bodily or mental. 
 I cannot read their lives without tears, and the admiration I 
 feel for them may be truly called passionate. I regard them 
 as inexpressibly lovely and attractive human souls, who, led 
 on by their own warm women's hearts, nearly, if not entirely, 
 conquered self, and became like the beautiful alabaster box 
 of ointment of spikenard, very costly and precious, which,
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 171 
 
 when poured out, filled the house with the odour of the 
 ointment. But this profession does not preclude me from 
 pointing out, that if the question is of diminishing human 
 suffering, these pious workers did not take up the problem 
 with any full sense of its magnitude ; did not begin high 
 enough up in their efforts to stop the stream of evil and 
 pain. While the value of good nursing can hardly be 
 exaggerated, it can never be more than an adjunct of 
 practical medicine. It is in biological and pathological 
 research, with the object of discovering and destroying the 
 germs and origin of disease, that science now justly rests its 
 main hope of serving humanity. And is there not already 
 ample reason for looking on this hope as well-founded? 
 The anecdote, quoted a few pages back, of Sister Dora 
 grappling with the delirious patient in his loathsome con- 
 dition from confluent small-pox, presents a graphic and 
 even sensational picture of self-devotion for the welfare 
 of a fellow-creature. The deed was heroic and admirable, 
 whether the sufferer's life was ultimately saved or not. But 
 now, regard the method of science in encountering disease, 
 and this particular malady of small-pox. A man of genius, 
 with his eyes open, observes that milkmaids inoculated with 
 cow-pox are not susceptible to the graver contagion, and 
 Jenner, after careful and elaborate experiments, announces 
 the discovery of vaccination. There is nothing to appeal to 
 the dramatic sympathies in this, nothing to stir emotion in 
 the ordinary spectator. On the contrary, at the time it was 
 considered to afford material for ridicule as a sample of 
 scientific absurdity. But which method has been most 
 profitable to humanity ? Have all the self-sacrifices of all 
 the Doras and Sisters of Mercy in the world, spared man- 
 kind a tithe of the suffering which has been prevented by 
 vaccination ? The epidemic of small-pox at Wai sail, in
 
 172 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 which Sister Dora played so noble a part, appears formid- 
 able and shocking to us, with our modern ideas of the 
 subject. But, in the last century, before Jenner, it would, 
 in the dimensions it had, have been considered beneath 
 notice. Half the population might have been swept away 
 without attracting particular attention. That was the way 
 with small-pox, and people were resigned. It was the 
 finger or the wrath of God, chastening men for their 
 sins. 
 
 Now, as one might expect in these biographies, in no 
 one instance is scientific inquiry ever mentioned as a duty 
 of the slightest importance or value. It would be simple 
 indeed to look for anything of the kind in such a quarter. 
 The point of view is wholly different. God present every- 
 where, doing or permitting all that happens, is the invariable 
 presumption. Sister Dora on one occasion offered to pay 
 a visit to a friend, " But," she added, " of course, if the 
 Master comes and calls for me, and sends us in more cases, 
 I cannot come." The " Master," of course is God; and the 
 cases were cases of small-pox, which he was supposed to 
 send on the one hand, and to call Dora to nurse on the 
 other. This is the prevailing tone. But in neither of the 
 Protestant lives is there any direct railing at science. In 
 the Catholic life it is very different. There we meet the 
 flash of anger and hatred for science, characteristic of the 
 theologian who fears that his God is in danger. Con- 
 sidering her entire want of scientific or philosophical 
 culture, Mother Margaret showed great penetration in her 
 remark on this subject. When she first caught sight of the 
 Britannia Bridge, she exclaimed, " Oh, how wonderful ! 
 But if men do such things as these, they will begin to think 
 they have no need of God." And her biographers tell us 
 she felt a certain satisfaction when some of the wonderful
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 173 
 
 modern discoveries came to nought. She was glad to hear 
 that the laying of the first Atlantic cable had failed ; and, 
 what is still worse, and is a stain on her memory, she was 
 even pleased that, " in spite of storm-signals and meteoro- 
 logical theories, the wrecks on the English coast increased, 
 instead of diminishing in number." * "I like these learned 
 gentlemen to know," she would say, " that God is master." 
 Professor Huxley once likened the temper excited in some 
 portions of the clerical world by the recent growth of 
 physical science, to the anger and alarm with which the 
 savage views the progress of an eclipse ; and that the com- 
 parison was just, these sentiments of Mother Margaret suffi- 
 ciently show. It is a favourite theme with theologians to 
 maintain that the love of God leads to the loftiest and 
 purest love of man, and i John iv. 20 is quoted with effect. 
 But a long experience has shown that a verse of the Psalms 
 is often a truer statement of the actual fact. " Shall I not 
 hate them, O Lord, that hate thee ? " Can we doubt that 
 Mother Margaret, who, for all her warm-heartedness, could 
 rejoice in so dreadful a thing as shipwrecks, just because, in 
 her narrow bigotry, she thought they were a rebuke to men 
 of science, could also have assisted at an Auto da Fe with- 
 out compunction, if told it was required by the interests of 
 her creed ? 
 
 The particular case we have been considering is signifi- 
 cant enough in itself, as typical of the different methods of 
 theology and science, in their contention against human 
 suffering. But it suggests much wider issues ; the whole 
 question of the great campaign against vice, evil, and 
 misery. The principle of Christian charity is to palliate 
 and assuage physical and social evils in their last and 
 extreme form. If you meet a beggar, give him alms ; if 
 * "Life," p. 231.
 
 174 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 you have no money, divide your cloak with him, as did 
 St. Martin. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked. In a 
 word, run with prompt love and sympathy to succour every 
 case of mortal distress that comes within your reach. Do 
 this in remembrance of Christ, and be blessed. He would 
 be a cold and shallow student of history who ventured to 
 speak of this spontaneous movement of the heart with dis- 
 respect. The Christian care for the sick and infirm was 
 unknown to the pagan world. It was the best and only 
 thing to do under the circumstances. Science was not ; 
 and relief, such relief as could be given by poor, unin- 
 structed fellow-men, was all that could be had. But science 
 has slowly and gradually discovered and proved that social 
 and physical evil and pain may not only be soothed, but 
 anticipated and prevented. Not that it neglects palliatives 
 of suffering ; on the contrary, it applies them with an 
 efficacy and power utterly beyond the conception of former 
 ages. But it does more ; it nips evil in the bud, or rather 
 in the seed, and does not wait for its full efflorescence 
 before it attacks it. Physical, social, and moral evil, disease 
 and sin, it regards as so many pathological conditions, 
 which we may reasonably hope to correct, modify,, and, 
 ultimately, to suppress. As regards physical disease, this 
 position would hardly be questioned even by the most 
 orthodox. Several of the most formidable afflictions, to 
 which human and animal bodies are subject, have already 
 been got under control. Small-pox and typhoid fever are, 
 we may say, understood and practically mastered ; that is, 
 they are not allowed to spread and devastate as they 
 formerly did. A number of other maladies, with which it 
 once seemed hopeless to contend, are even now passing 
 into the class of the controllable disorders, as consumption, 
 rabies, and cholera. Similarly, with regard to pauperism
 
 WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS DONE. 175 
 
 and other social disorders. The prompt and easy narcotic 
 of charity is not to be universally proscribed as uniformly 
 evil, but it is ascertained to be of dangerous applica- 
 tion, and liable to aggravate the evil it pretends to cure. 
 Pauperism can only be combated with success, by that 
 knowledge of social and economic laws which corresponds 
 to the knowledge of biological laws in the neighbouring 
 science. It may be proper and wise, in a given case, to 
 divide your coat with a beggar; the only thing that a 
 humane man would or could do. But it is vastly more 
 important to ascertain the social and economic causes of 
 the beggar's existence ; and, if he be a common pheno- 
 menon, to correct those breaches of the laws of social 
 health which make his emergence possible. Again, with 
 regard to ethics. Moral evil, or sin, can only be success- 
 fully corrected by such an investigation and knowledge of 
 man's mental, emotional, and physical constitution, that 
 that part of conduct which is concerned with morals may 
 be directed in a way which conduces to the highest indi- 
 vidual and social happiness and well-being. In a word, the 
 Christian principle is to act from spontaneous charity and 
 benevolence with such means as are immediately to hand : 
 to regard evil, pain and disease, as trials sent by God for 
 his own wise ends ; chastisements, meant for our rebuke or 
 guidance, to make us turn to him, and leave off caring for 
 a temporal, wicked and miserable world. The principle of 
 science is directly contrary. It has already prevented 
 numberless evils, in a way which would have appeared to 
 our forefathers quite miraculous. Admitting that there will, 
 perhaps, be always a residue of unconquerable evils which 
 science cannot hope to remove, it is maintained that the 
 resignation produced by a clear view of the impossible and 
 inevitable is more complete than that which never wholly
 
 176 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 renounces the hope of divine aid. Mother Margaret was 
 quite right in her fears ; " But if men do such things as 
 these, they will begin to think that they can do without 
 God." That thought is rapidly spreading over the civilized 
 world.
 
 ( 177 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 THE results of the previous inquiry would seem to be as 
 follows : 
 
 1. That a wide-spread tendency exists in this, and still 
 more in other countries, to give up a belief in Christianity. 
 And that the scepticism of the present day is very far more 
 serious and scientific than was the deism of the last century. 
 
 2. That the supposed consolations of Christianity have 
 been much exaggerated. And that it may be questioned 
 whether that religion does not often produce as much 
 anxiety and mental distress as it does of joy, gladness and 
 content. 
 
 3. That by the great doctrine of forgiveness of sins con- 
 sequent on repentance, even in the last moment of life, 
 Christianity often favours spirituality and salvation at the 
 expense of morals. 
 
 4. That the morality of the Ages of Faith was very low ; 
 and that the further we go back into times when belief was 
 strongest, the worse it is found to be. 
 
 5. That Christianity has a very limited influence on the 
 world at large ; but a most powerful effect on certain high- 
 toned natures, who, by becoming true saints, produce an 
 immense impression on public opinion, and give that 
 religion much of the honour which it enjoys.
 
 1 73 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 6. That al'though the self-devotion of saints is not only 
 beyond question, but supremely beautiful and attractive; 
 yet, as a means of relieving human suffering and serving 
 man in the widest sense, it is not to be compared for 
 efficiency with science. 
 
 It is sufficiently obvious, that, unless the tendencies 
 which we have been considering, meet with a strange and 
 unexpected arrest, the result, in a not distant future, must 
 be a general disappearance of Christianity from among the 
 more advanced populations of the globe. In making this 
 statement, one naturally recalls the grave irony of the 
 Advertisement prefixed to the first edition of Butler's 
 "Analogy," which is often cited as affording a good example 
 of the way in which the hopes of unbelievers may be 
 deceived. " It is come, I know not how," says Butler, " to 
 be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is 
 not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is, at length, 
 now discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat 
 it, as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among 
 all people of discernment ; and nothing remained, but to 
 set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it 
 were by way of reprisals, for its having so long interrupted 
 the pleasures of the world." The " people of discernment," 
 it is pointed out, were very much mistaken in their assump- 
 tion that Christianity was discovered to be fictitious. The 
 " Analogy " was written nearly a hundred and fifty years 
 ago; and, for a fictitious system, Christianity still shows 
 considerable vitality. The number of new churches and 
 chapels built, the zeal and activity of the clergy and 
 missionaries, the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, 
 and similar facts, are adduced, not without a certain tone 
 of triumph, as sufficient evidence of how groundless and 
 shallow the hopes of the " sceptic " have proved to be in
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 179 
 
 this particular case. Both the original text of Butler, and 
 the modern commentaries upon it, rather show how remote 
 is the scientific and historical point of view from the 
 religious, and what a far-off stage of thought Butler's expres- 
 sions represent. The word "fictitious" alone, as applied 
 to an ancient and wide-spread religion, jars upon the ear. 
 As if great phases of human thought and feeling could 
 be invented, like a stage play, or concocted by designing 
 priests for the sake of gain. That this really was the 
 current deistical opinion is certain, and it was crudely 
 expressed in the famous, silly verses : 
 
 " Natural Religion was easy, first, and plain ; 
 Tales made it mystery, offerings made it gain ; 
 Sacrifices and shows were at length prepared, 
 The priests ate roast meat, and the people stared." 
 
 A wider knowledge of human nature, past and present, has 
 made such trivial conceptions impossible. No form of the 
 religious sentiment is now regarded as fictitious ; but, on 
 the contrary, as the serious and solid result of the stage of 
 evolution in which it appears. Similarly, with regard to 
 making Christianity a subject of mirth and ridicule. No 
 one with a reputation to lose, would think of speaking with 
 levity of the Christian or any religion. Nothing would be 
 considered better proof of incompetence to handle such 
 subjects than such a tone. The world is older and sadder, 
 and, on the whole, wiser than it was in Butler's day. The 
 alleged interruption of the pleasures of the world by Chris- 
 tianity, is open to question as a matter of fact. Pleasures 
 in abundance, and of a sufficiently coarse kind, were in- 
 dulged in without difficulty in the Ages of Faith. The " eat, 
 drink, and be merry " temper is generally discountenanced in 
 theory ; and, even in practice, is less rife than it was among 
 our forefathers.
 
 i8o THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 In fact, the result of historical speculation has been, with 
 regard to Christianity, the same as the result of biological 
 speculation has been with regard to man. Both have been 
 taken from the isolation and independence in which they 
 were supposed to exist, with reference to other members 
 of the same order; and have been included in the larger 
 classification, which places man at the head of vertebrate 
 animals, and Christianity at the head of supernatural 
 religions. The biological view has prevailed, one may say, 
 with surprising rapidity, considering the amount of prejudice 
 which had to be overcome. The historical view has naturally 
 triumphed less completely, inasmuch as scientific history is 
 a much younger science than biology. But the end will 
 be the same. Christianity is already classed, by a large and 
 growing number of the most competent historical inquirers, 
 simply as the last and finest specimen of a group of beliefs, 
 which, in one form or another, are co-extensive with 
 humanity and history. If this view should prove to be 
 slower in gaining acceptance than the biological view of 
 the descent of man, the reason will, probably, be not wholly 
 referable to the position of history in the order of the 
 sciences. Distasteful as it was to human vanity to prove 
 that man had descended from an anthropoid ape, which 
 again had descended from a bird or a reptile, the idea still 
 is one which can be put aside, which ordinary folk need 
 not think of in daily life, and which involves no immediate 
 practical consequences to themselves. The final admission, 
 that Christianity is not fictitious, indeed, in Butler's phrase, 
 but simply a form of thought unsuited to a scientific age, 
 and therefore no longer tenable by an educated population, 
 is attended by far greater difficulties. Very obvious 
 practical consequences are involved in such a conclusion, 
 which cannot readily be ignored. If the belief in God,
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 181 
 
 Christ, and the other articles of the Christian faith must 
 rationally be relinquished, people ask What are you going 
 to put in their place ? What rule of life do you propose to 
 substitute for the one removed ? What is the successor 
 to Christianity as a religion ? Or, will it have no successor ? 
 And some even go so far as to inquire what is to become 
 of those spiritual and .religious instincts, which have hitherto 
 found their exercise and satisfaction in a religion now 
 pronounced to be incompatible with the new knowledge. 
 Natural instincts are not to be suppressed by the theories 
 of savants, however scientific ; and it is argued that the 
 religious sentiment is as much a permanent factor of human 
 nature as the logical intellect ; and must, necessarily, survive 
 its endlessly varied and often unstable conclusions. 
 
 The religious sentiment, or that group of emotions 
 so called, is one thing, and the Christian or any particular 
 religion is another. The religious sentiment has, during the 
 course of ages, assumed many divergent forms, and at this 
 day is represented in the most dissimilar and diversified 
 beliefs and ceremonies. The original elements of human 
 nature are all capable of morphological development and 
 change in their manifestations, although they remain 
 fundamentally the same. Nothing could well be a more 
 permanent constituent of human nature than the instinct 
 which leads to marriage ; but few things have varied more 
 than the institution of marriage. From marriage by capture, 
 through polygamy, polyandry, down to the monogamy of 
 modern states, which still show great differences of detail 
 in their laws on the subject, the legal relation of the sexes 
 have varied with the knowledge, culture, and civilization of 
 the times. It is the same with regard to government and 
 civil institutions, with regard to war and its usages, with 
 regard to the notions of right and wrong. What reason can
 
 182 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 be given to lead us to suppose that the religious sentiment 
 alone should remain fixed and crystallized in one form, and 
 that a recent one, which supervened in historical times, 
 and was preceded by a great variety of previous forms ? 
 Obviously none. 
 
 When, therefore, we are asked what religion we propose 
 to substitute in place of the old one, now threatened with 
 extinction, the answer is, that no such pretension is enter- 
 tained for a moment. Religions are organic growths, and 
 are no more capable of fabrication than animals or plants. 
 The notion that individual men can found religions, that is, 
 invent them out of their own heads, and set them going, 
 is on a par with the notion that men can found states, and 
 create policies which last for ages. Both notions were 
 prevalent, and not irrational once, when neither man nor 
 society was conceived as subject to natural laws. So, it 
 was really belieyed that Lycurgus founded the Spartan 
 State, and Romulus the Roman ; that Moses founded 
 Judaism, and Mahomet, Islam. No misconception could 
 be greater, and none is more certain to disappear. That 
 long prepared changes are often suddenly accomplished, 
 under the inspiring leadership of a great man, is beyond 
 question ; and it is quite natural that the great man's name 
 should be associated with the change in which he took a 
 prominent part. But he did not make the change, in the 
 sense of founding or beginning something new, which would 
 not have existed without him. His function, and it was 
 great indeed, was to have intellect enough to see the need 
 of change, and courage and Will enough to help it forward, 
 to direct forces which were already at hand. All great 
 changes in Church or State exemplify this truth, in pro- 
 portion as we are able to observe them with accuracy of 
 detail. Nothing is more certain than that, in one sense
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 183 
 
 Julius Caesar overthrew the Republic, and founded the 
 Empire of Rome. But how long had such a revolution 
 been preparing ? From the days of the Scipios, or of Sulla 
 and Marius. Or, might it not be dated from the earliest 
 constitution of Rome, which rendered a municipal form of 
 government inadequate, and finally impossible for a wide 
 Empire ? All great social revolutions result from long 
 precedent, although, perhaps, occult growth, as parturition, 
 in the body physical, pre-supposes embryonic growth. 
 Similarly, with regard to the Reformation. Luther, in 
 vulgar Catholic or Protestant opinion, is credited with the 
 whole glory, or infamy, of the revolt from Rome. But, 
 from the days of Wicliffe and Huss, the entire Church had 
 been seething with projects of reform ; and Luther can 
 only claim the honour of having, in the fulness of time, 
 given the critical impulse which liberated forces accumulated 
 during hundreds of previous years. 
 
 There can be no question, therefore, of making and 
 offering a New Religion to the world at the present juncture. 
 Our first task must be, to try and discover what is the 
 spontaneous tendency of thought and sentiment on this 
 matter? What is the direction which evolution may be 
 expected to take ? If that can be ascertained, a great point 
 will be gained. Three courses are always open to men 
 called upon to deal with great social and moral tendencies. 
 They may be blindly resisted ; they may be blindly stimu- 
 lated and hastened ; they may, by careful study and obser- 
 vation of their nature, be largely controlled and directed ; 
 that is to say, they may be dealt with in a spirit of reaction, 
 or in a spirit of revolution, or in a spirit of orderly and 
 conscious progress. Reaction, when conducted on a large 
 scale with unflinching vigour, by no means always fails.
 
 184 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 The Moslem Obscurantists in Spain succeeded in crushing 
 Arab philosophy.* The Catholic Church has several times 
 extirpated opinions, by the efficient method of killing those 
 who held them. In Spain, Bohemia, Italy, and Belgium, 
 Protestanism was stamped out, like the rinder-pest, by 
 prompt and persevering slaughter. It is a method difficult 
 of prolonged application; and it is generally avenged. 
 The state of religion in Catholic countries, and the 
 animosity felt towards it by large numbers of the proletariat, 
 are not encouraging examples. The Protestants have not 
 been behind the Catholics in their willingness to prosecute, 
 but they have seldom had equal power. In Ireland, how- 
 ever, they nearly reached the highest level of performance 
 in that line. With what disaster to all of us, is now only 
 too apparent. 
 
 How evil, on the other hand, the revolutionary spirit can 
 be, has been well shown by France, in the eighteenth 
 century, first, in speculation, and afterwards in politics. 
 The precipitate conclusions of the philosophes, although 
 proceeding on principles fundamentally sound, as subsequent 
 results have proved, were yet marked by a heat and haste 
 which led to the Romantic reaction, and the Idealist and 
 Transcendental Philosophies, which nearly suspended 
 rational speculation for half a century. It is unnecessary to 
 dwell on the indelible harm done to orderly progress by the 
 violence of the Revolution, which to this day supplies 
 reactionaries with some of their best weapons against a 
 large and generous liberalism. Perhaps the sober, prudent, 
 middle course we have mentioned, which, while frankly 
 accepting and using the new lights obtained, does not exag- 
 gerate their illuminating power, is destined in this age to avoid 
 the dangers associated with either of the two extremes, 
 * See Renan, "Averroes."
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 185 
 
 The essence of practical religion at all times has been! 
 Sacrifice. However the origin of religion is to be explained, j 
 and anthropologists in later times seem to have elucidated 
 the subject with much success by ancestor worship, the 
 ghost, and other theories, propitiatory sacrifice has been 
 the unfailing mark and memorial of religious belief. It 
 is unnecessary to produce evidence of -a statement so 
 redundantly supported. What chiefly deserves notice in 
 this connection, is the progressive change in the character 
 of the sacrifice ; corresponding with mental evolution. In 
 earlier times, human sacrifices were, probably, everywhere 
 regarded as the most pleasing and powerful with the deities. 
 Every form of possession valued by primitive people was 
 readily lavished on the altar of the gods, either to avert 
 their wrath or to secure their favour ; cattle, firstfruits 
 especially, as at once the most costly to the worshipper and 
 the most acceptable, to the Divinity. In time, this gross 
 form of propitiation was transcended; and even the later 
 Jewish prophets speak of it with disdain. As the con- 
 ceptions of the moral character of the gods grew loftier, the 
 notion of the sacrifices calculated to please them rose in 
 proportion. As men attained to worthier ideas of moral 
 excellence, they recognized that sacrifice of their own baser 
 instincts was likely to be the most pleasing offering to a 
 moral deity. " A wise man," says a passage in the Institutes 
 of Menu, " should constantly discharge all the moral duties, 
 though he perform not constantly the ceremonies of religion ; 
 since he falls low if, while he performs ceremonial acts only, 
 he discharges not his moral duties" * And the same law 
 prescribes " content, returning good for evil, resistance to 
 sensual appetites, abstinence from illicit gain, purification, 
 coercion of the organs . . . veracity, and freedom from 
 * Mill's "History of India," book ii. cap. 6.
 
 186 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 wrath." * Yet the cruelty and obscenity of the early Hindu 
 religion are beyond doubt. The frank indecencies and 
 immoralities of primitive creeds are in time explained away 
 by mystical allegories of the most spiritual purity. " The 
 lascivious form of a naked Venus," says Gibbon, referring 
 to the fancies of the Neo-Platonists, "was tortured into the 
 discovery of some moral precept or some physical truth ; 
 and the castration of Atys explained the revolution of the 
 sun between the tropics, or the separation of the human 
 soul from vice and error." f The primitive meaning of the 
 phallus in India, according to Mr. Wilson, is entirely for- 
 gotten. "The form under which the Lingam is wor- 
 shipped, that of a column, suggests no impure ideas, and 
 few of the uneducated Hindoos attach any other idea to 
 it than that it is Siva; they are not aware of its typical 
 character." % 
 
 The next point is, that primitive religion had little or no 
 connection with human welfare, apart from the action of 
 supernatural beings. Its chief or only object was to guard 
 the worshipper from injuries which came from the spirit- 
 world, or to procure him benefits from the same origin. 
 From a natural, mundane point of view, primitive religion 
 was oftener evil than good. It sacrificed human life and 
 property on the imaginary propitiation of fictitious deities. 
 It is highly probable, indeed, that even the most horrid 
 primitive cults were indirectly beneficial, as means of 
 discipline, and of adapting to social conditions the semi- 
 brutal instincts of prehistoric man. In that respect, primitive 
 religion resembled war ; which, destructive as it was in one 
 sense, is still recognized as one of the most educational 
 
 * Mill's " History of India," book ii. cap. 6. 
 t " Decline and Fall," c. xxiii. 
 J Note to Mill's "India," loc. cit.
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 187 
 
 phases which humanity has passed through. But, just as 
 the antagonism between sacrifice and morality was gradually 
 overcome, so the hostility of primitive religion to human 
 welfare was in time replaced by an approximation to con- 
 cord between them. The angle of divergence became 
 progressively less. Worship of the gods tended more and 
 more to coincide with the welfare of man. The humanization 
 of the various polytheistic religions of the world has been 
 very unequal, both in degree and rapidity, depending as it 
 necessarily must, on the unequal progress in knowledge and 
 civilization. The Hindus in three thousand years have 
 made less progress in purging their primitive beliefs of their 
 cruelty and grossness, than the Romans did in five hundred 
 years. But the general rule holds good, that a progressive 
 people, even without foreign help from more advanced 
 populations, tends to outlive the primitively barbarous and 
 noxious elements of its creed, and to retain those which 
 harmonize with general utility.* 
 
 The Christian religion has been no exception to this rule; 
 in fact, it would not be easy to mention a religion which 
 has profited more by the general growth of knowledge and 
 civilization than the Christian. It has been claimed, not 
 without a show of reason, that it is a peculiar and exceptional 
 merit of Christianity, that it has been able to adapt itself to 
 most unequal and divergent stages of culture, and that it 
 has met the wants of barbarous and civilized races with 
 equal success. Though the time is obviously approaching, 
 if it has not been already reached, when its alleged adequacy 
 to the needs of civilized society becomes more and more 
 questionable, it may be frankly admitted that Christianity 1 
 has surpassed all other religions in its power of keeping up i 
 
 * Polybius's testimony to the value of the Roman religion, as enforcing 
 honesty, is too well known to need quoting (lib. vi. cap. 56).
 
 1 88 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 '_ with human evolution. The fact is, no doubt, owing to the 
 large element of Greek philosophy grafted on Christianity 
 by the Greek and Latin Fathers, and even by St. Paul. 
 The religion would probably not have survived into modern 
 times, unless it had possessed this elasticity and capacity of 
 modification, which have allowed it to exist side by side 
 with the most divergent beliefs on other subjects. A 
 Catholic Christian of the fifth, and one of the nineteenth 
 century, would, if they could meet in the flesh, agree in 
 reference to the Creeds of the Church, but they would be 
 able to agree in little besides. If we could have a con- 
 versation with the great St. Augustine, we should soon fail 
 to find common ground for argument, whether as to matters 
 of fact, principles of reasoning, or, even as to the inter- 
 pretation of scripture ; and it may even be doubted if the 
 present able and accomplished pope, who has so deep a 
 veneration for St. Thomas Aquinas, would not find a pro- 
 longed discussion on things in general, difficult to maintain 
 with the Angel of the Schools. Yet, St. Augustine, St. 
 Thomas, and Leo XIII., must be admitted to be thoroughly 
 orthodox and authentic Christians. But this flexibility and 
 adaptability of Christianity on the intellectual side, are not 
 the qualities with which we are chiefly concerned at this 
 moment. The point I would bring out, is the incomparably 
 greater emphasis laid by modern Christians, on all that 
 concerns human well-being, than was usually done by their 
 predecessors. In the old days, the Faith, holy living, and 
 especially holy dying, were the great themes of Christian 
 preachers. The true Faith was literally all-important, as, 
 without it, you were hopelessly lost, whatever else you might 
 do or be. Hence, the Faith was to be fought for and 
 suffered for at any cost. Wars, massacres, burnings, tortures, 
 were trivial considerations compared with the one thing
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 189 
 
 needful, which alone could lead to heaven. And we know 
 that these plagues were scattered through many centuries 
 without stint or remorse. After the true Faith was gained, 
 the next chief thing was to make a good use of it, and by a 
 holy life and a repentant death, to save your soul. Earthly 
 miseries, famines, pestilences, ignorance, chronic poverty, 
 were lamentable, no doubt; but the famines and the 
 pestilences were especially so, as manifestations of God's 
 wrath, who was thus chastising a wicked world. Their 
 proper and only antidote was prayer, and repentance, and 
 humiliation before God, who might thereby be induced to 
 stay his hand. Such afflictions were incidental to the lot 
 of man, the appropriate retribution for sin, to be borne with 
 resignation. As for combating them by human means and 
 knowledge, with a view to suppressing them, if such an idea 
 could have emerged, it would have been unquestionably 
 pronounced impious and shocking. The only recognized 
 form of relief was charity; the rich must give of their 
 abundance to the poor, and they would be repaid in heaven. 
 The Church of Rome gave practical effect to this view by 
 the admirable and useful institution of, first, the Freres de 
 la Charite, founded by the Portuguese Johann Ciudad, 
 1497, and afterwards of the Filles de la Misericorde, the 
 work of the saintly Vincent of Paul, 1634. Every form of 
 praise and honour is due to those good men and women, 
 who devoted themselves without stint to the relief of human 
 misery, regardless of the more profitable pursuits of Church 
 politics and theological controversy. But the very foundation 
 of these institutions showed that they supplied a great want, 
 which had not been furnished by the Church before ; and 
 they were, after all, only a small and subordinate section of 
 the vast hierarchy which had shared the dominion of the 
 world with the temporal power. St. Vincent of Paul met
 
 igo THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 in the ranks of the secular clergy with some of his most 
 stubborn opponents.* 
 
 Now, it is hardly too much to say, that in recent times 
 the whole attitude of the clergy in all countries has been 
 changed with regard to social questions. Nearly every form 
 of relief now, in greater or lesser degree, passes through 
 their hands. The improvement of the condition of the 
 poor seems very often to be the chief occupation of many 
 a hard-worked parish priest. To rescue children from 
 vice and temptation, to inform their minds with virtuous 
 principles, to clothe and feed their bodies, to ameliorate the 
 dwellings of their parents, and admit a ray of light and 
 brightness into the squalor of their daily lives, these, and 
 similar objects, occupy the time and minds of Christian 
 ministers to a degree which was never even remotely 
 approached in the past. In other words, Christian doctrine, 
 or, at least, Christian practice, has been gradually brought 
 into harmony with human and terrestrial wants, so as almost 
 to run parallel with them. The world has much changed. 
 The cessation of religious controversy is a surprising 
 phenomenon. In place of the storm and fury with which 
 polemics formerly filled the air, we have now a great calm. 
 The small sputter of theological disputes, still occasionally 
 heard, is as the explosion of squibs and crackers compared 
 to that of the heavy ordnance in the mighty controversies 
 of old. ' 
 
 Thus, we find two permanent factors running through the 
 religions of the past in all their changes of outward presen- 
 tation : sacrifices on the part of the worshipper ; and a 
 gradual approximation of the service of the gods to the 
 service of man. Neither of these factors is the exclusive 
 property of any one religion ; and both of them in some 
 * See Feillet, "La Misere au Temps de la Fronde."
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAX. 191 
 
 degree, perhaps, may belong to all. They are quite capable 
 of detachment and isolation from the surroundings with 
 which they are usually associated in theological creeds. 
 Sacrifice admits of almost infinite degrees both in quality 
 and quantity, from an offering of a pair of turtle doves or 
 two young pigeons, up to a hundred oxen ; from the most 
 partial control of the coarsest passions, up to saintly abne- 
 gation of every impure or selfish desire. And the spirit of 
 sacrifice, the postponing of self to others, the giving up 
 what the natural man loves and values, whether possessions 
 or cherished lusts, is so little restricted to the worshippers 
 of a God or gods, that it may be said in its highest form to 
 be unattainable by them. The worshipper of a god never 
 quite transcends the hope of a recompense for his devotion ; 
 not from men, but from " his Father which seeth in secret," 
 and who shall reward him openly. And this feeling springs 
 inevitably from the very conception of a deity, especially if 
 he be God Almighty. A creature can be on no terms of 
 reciprocity with his Creator; he can only be a recipient 
 from God, never a Tenderer back of good. The very 
 thought of performing an act of kindness or sympathy to 
 God, is absurd. The infinite disparity between the two 
 beings, man and his Maker, has as a consequence that 
 "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." Only 
 to his fellows can man be completely altruistic, " hoping for 
 nothing again." That numbers of men and women among 
 the higher races are capable of acts of unalloyed altruism, 
 in which there is not a vestige of after-thought tending to 
 self-advantage, will only be denied by the naturally cynical, 
 or by those educated in an evil religious or philosophic 
 system. The mother who tends her sick child and scorns 
 any counsels to spare her health and strength ; the rough 
 miner who bids his mate seize the one chance of escape up
 
 192 THE SERVICE OF MAN'. 
 
 the shaft, as he has a wife and children, whereas the 
 speaker is a bachelor ; the surgeon who sucks diphtheric 
 poison from a dying child's throat and dies himself in con- 
 sequence, are examples of the love and sacrifice even now 
 to be found in the nobler hearts. And it is denying evolu- 
 tion in fact and theory, to question the certainty that they 
 will become less exceptional than they now are. But, in 
 this capacity of sacrifice regardless of self we have the 
 purest essence of the best religions ; a human quality which 
 exists, which has been evolved in the long travail of the 
 world, but which may be cultivated with prospects of vastly 
 greater increase now that its supreme beauty and price 
 are perceived and valued. When the mental and moral 
 qualities of man are regarded as subject, in common with 
 other forms of life, to the law of heredity and variation, 
 their cultivation and improvement will be conducted on the 
 scientific basis which has already produced such surprising 
 results in other parts of the vegetable and animal kingdoms. 
 The plasticity of human nature is even yet but little appre- 
 ciated, though what the Spartans, the Stoics, and the Jesuits 
 succeeded in doing with their imperfect empirical methods 
 is suggestive enough. But these, or the two latter, at least, 
 only contemplated the education of the individual. What 
 is wanted is the conscious cultivation, enlightened by 
 science, of society as a whole. 
 
 As regards the end to which religions have in an 
 unconscious way more or less tended the general well- 
 being there will probably be little difficulty in admitting 
 that it is an object which civilized man has proved himself 
 capable of attaining in a considerable measure already. 
 The superiority of the modern nations, not only to savages, 
 but even to their own not very remote ancestors, is beyond 
 dispute ; and this not only in reference to physical well-
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 193 
 
 being, but to all the higher sentiments and endowments of 
 man. Imperfect as our social state still is, heart-rending as 
 the condition of the poor in town and country must be 
 pronounced to be, it is, nevertheless, vastly in advance 
 of previous conditions ; and our own sensitiveness and 
 shame on the subject, though we are not yet sensitive and 
 ashamed enough, are in themselves evidence of improve- 
 ment. Arduous as the social problem is acknowledged to 
 be, and sore as the suffering is likely to be before it is 
 finally solved, few can deny that it is capable of solution, 
 and that by human means. The abolition of laws which 
 favour the rich and strong, and sacrifice the poor and weak, 
 has, in a small way, begun, and we may depend that in a 
 democracy it will not easily be arrested. A better distribu- 
 tion and a moralization of wealth are approaching with a 
 rapidity which is not exaggerated by the panic fears of the 
 amazed Few, who hear with astonishment and horror that 
 the world is no longer made for idlers only. The period of 
 social revolution into which we are about to enter, will 
 probably be marked by many mistakes, and not a few 
 crimes. Man's capacity for blunder is very great. He 
 smarts for his blunders, and in time corrects them. But 
 the point to be noted is, that the social revolution will be 
 accomplished on secular principles ; that this province of 
 practical life is once for all severed from any theological 
 interference. The proletariat of Europe is resolved to have 
 its fair share of the banquet of life, quite regardless of the 
 good or bad things in store for it in the next world.* 
 
 * See the Times (which seldom outruns public opinion), November 
 1 8, 1884. In the third leading article it is said, speaking of the East 
 London Mission : " The great enemy which has to be met in dealing 
 with this class [the poor] is not active hostility, but total and almost 
 impenetrable indifference. Hostility to the clergy, as such, cannot be 
 said to be wide-spread in London. . . . The London artisan looks on 
 
 O
 
 194 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 It comes, therefore, to this, that the spirit of sacrifice 
 evolved in the theological stage is now severed from and 
 independent of its parent Its office is no longer the same. 
 Sacrifice to invisible gods, with prayer sent up to the 
 immortals, imploring pardon, or peace, or some earthly 
 good, have afforded hope and consolation to the sons of 
 men, in the long, dark centuries when knowledge was not ; 
 when visible man and nature were so hostile, that faith and 
 trust in the unseen seemed the only refuge ; that only 
 " beyond the veil " was a sure friend to be found. A bitter 
 experience has at last taught us that the immortals are 
 deaf; that no prayers, however passionate, are heard, save 
 by the care-laden hearts which utter them. 
 
 Thus, the worship of deities has passed into the " Service 
 of Man." Instead of Theolatry, we have Anthropolatry. 
 The divine service has become human service. The accu- 
 mulated experience of mankind is beginning to bear fruit. 
 Two things have been ascertained with sufficient exactness 
 to serve as guides, both in practice and theory. First, the 
 kind of conduct needed by a social condition such as ours, 
 that is to say, the outlines of a progressive morality suited 
 to the present age, are fairly settled. Secondly, the kind 
 of social condition desired, and already partially in view, 
 which shall supersede the present inferior one, is also in its 
 
 the clergyman as at worst a man who is engaged in a work with which 
 he individually has little or no concern ; he does not interfere with the 
 parson, and he hopes that the parson will not interfere with him. . . . 
 Taken in the mass, the lower classes in London are too much occupied 
 in the struggle for existence, and in the attempt to make their lives 
 endurable, to give many thoughts to the other world." The writer 
 contrasts the very different temper of the Parisian ouvrier, who 
 ' ' regards the priest as a monster ; " but he admits that there is an 
 element of active hostility to the clergy in our midst.
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 195 
 
 main features apprehended. The two factors work together 
 to one result, " complete life carried on under social con- 
 ditions." * The Service of Man consists in furthering both. 
 The higher moralization of the individuals composing the 
 social .group will raise the quality of the social group itself, 
 and the improved group will react upon individuals, and 
 enable them to lead higher lives. In a word, we are now 
 in a position to pursue human well-being as a conscious 
 aim, with good prospect of success. We know fairly well the 
 road along which we intend to travel, and we know the 
 kind of human co-operation needed, to enable us to do so ; 
 the type of character and disposition needed to render 
 social help. And we know, further, that society possesses 
 now, in a degree it never possessed before, the means of 
 exacting conformity to this type. Public opinion, as it 
 used to be called, but for which a better expression would 
 be, the " collective conscience," is already able to impose 
 a standard of public and private morals, and to punish, 
 with penalties keenly felt, a manifest inferiority to it. Even 
 in the political world, singleness of purpose, a true public 
 and social spirit, are valued more than great talent and 
 eloquence without them. A life of selfish ease and indul- 
 gence is pardoned to great wealth and position with less 
 readiness than formerly ; and, with the growth of demo- 
 cracy, such a temper must necessarily spread, both in extent 
 and intensity. 
 
 The remainder of our subject will, therefore, be con- 
 sidered under the two aspects just indicated : (i) the 
 improvement of the individual, and (2) the improvement 
 of society. We can serve men firstly, and perhaps chiefly, 
 by improving ourselves, and this in all respects, physically, 
 mentally, morally. Without a high standard of health, 
 * H. Spencer's "Data of Ethics," p. 130.
 
 196 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 duties become difficult or impossible to perform, and our 
 whole efficiency is lessened. In these days of increased 
 knowledge, when so much of youth, and even of manhood, 
 is taken up with preparatory study and training, the longe- 
 vity of its worthier members is a distinct gain to society. 
 A vigorous old age is able to accomplish out of all propor- 
 tion more than several careers, however brilliant, cut short 
 in youth. Few, or none, are now likely to question the 
 value of mental improvement. It remains true all the same 
 that our notions of education are lamentably inadequate, 
 and that the higher forms of it are not even conceived as 
 possible or desirable in our so-called universities. As 
 regards moral training, finally, no one will dispute its para- 
 mount necessity ; but the subject is obscured, and the 
 result vitiated by the emphasis laid by the religious public, 
 not on morals, but on repentance ; not on the vigorous and 
 constant performance of social duty throughout life, but on 
 making our peace with God, some time, it signifies not how 
 short a time, before life closes. What humanity needs is 
 not people who lead unsocial and wicked lives, and are 
 very sorry when about to die ; when, by the nature of the 
 case, they can do no more harm nor good ; but people 
 who, at an early period, begin to render valuable service 
 to the good cause, and continue rendering more valuable 
 service as they advance in years. We cannot take regrets 
 and repentance in lieu of work ; performance only avails. 
 To prevent misconception^ even for a moment, it may be 
 added, that by performance, advance in spiritual life is by 
 no means excluded ; and that the contemplative life is not 
 placed below the active life, but contrariwise, as will be 
 seen further on. 
 
 The improvement of society, again, is an object to which 
 nearly all persons will declare themselves favourable. But
 
 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 197 
 
 many prejudices and passions, largely incompatible with 
 any serious improvement, will need to be overcome, before 
 our advance" in that direction can become as rapid and 
 assured as is desirable. 
 
 There will be no want of work for those who wish to 
 engage in the Service of Man.
 
 198 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 FOR this service to be efficient, it is obvious that men must 
 be adequately trained for it. From time immemorial, 
 education for some object or other has been practised by 
 mankind. The young savage is taught to hunt, fish and 
 shoot with persevering assiduity. Every kind of war implies 
 discipline and drill, however rude. Political life, wherever 
 it exists, inevitably leads to an education fitting men for 
 the treatment of public affairs. Besides these partial ends, 
 religion, in all societies above the lowest, is charged with 
 the general and paramount end of training men in the 
 worship and service of the invisible but all-powerful Being 
 or Beings, who are supposed to dispose of human happiness 
 in this world and the next. This has ever rightly been 
 regarded as the most important of all training, because it 
 concerns every one, and incomparably more momentous 
 interests are involved in its efficient carrying out. The 
 cultivation of human nature, in some degree or direction, is 
 as old as humanity. 
 
 But the partiality and imperfection of this cultivation are 
 equally old. The daily acquisition of food occupies the 
 whole life of the savage, almost as completely as it does the 
 lives of the birds and animals which he snares and kills. 
 With the growth of knowledge and wealth, wider objects
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 199 
 
 engage man's attention, and exact a corresponding culture 
 to secure their attainment. But these ends, though wider 
 than those of savage life, are still very narrow, consisting in 
 success in petty warfare with neighbouring states, or in party 
 struggles within the primitive city. Even the worship of 
 the gods is stiffly exclusive and partial, and confined to 
 local or tribal divinities, who are " jealous " in the extreme 
 of any rivals in popular reverence. 
 
 This imperfection of culture has continued to modern 
 times, though, with every stride in civilization, it has been 
 lessened, and replaced by something better and larger. 
 Yet, it is still obviously local, partial, and imperfect. 
 Nowhere yet does the aim exist to produce the best human 
 being possible ; to train all the faculties of the body, the 
 mind, and the heart, with the sole object of making the 
 most of them. Men are still trained for special trades and 
 professions, for special countries, and, above all, for special 
 religions. And, in the present low development of the 
 human mind and civilization, it cannot be otherwise, or at 
 least, much otherwise. But there can be no doubt that one 
 of the most assured and practical means of improving 
 society, is to improve the individual men and women who 
 compose it. This is strongly but vaguely expressed in the 
 cry for education; though one is often tempted to think 
 that none needs education more than the popular clamourer 
 for it. Still, a great advance has been made in the mere 
 recognition that the cultivation of individuals, however 
 imperfect, is a matter of primary importance to the general 
 welfare. Deeper views on the subject will come in time. 
 
 For the purpose of this essay, we need not regard the 
 subject from this wide and public point of view. We may 
 limit ourselves to the consideration ample enough of the 
 change in the theory of human cultivation, likely to follow
 
 200 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 the substitution of the service of man for the service of 
 God; and we will do so under the three heads (i) the 
 body, (2) the mind, and (3) the heart of man. 
 
 1. On the first we need not dwell long. Medical science 
 has nearly solved the problem of health. The amount of 
 exercise and nourishment, the kinds and qualities of foods 
 and drinks, the limits of work and relaxation, the salubrity 
 of sites and dwellings and clothing, these and similar topics 
 connected with the health of the body physical, are so fairly 
 well understood that any one with a moderately strong con- 
 stitution, amenable to good advice, may keep in satisfactory 
 health. Many of the worst diseases have been almost dis- 
 armed, though a few, like cancer, are said to be on the 
 increase ; and there is a great set-off in the fact that the 
 very success of medical skill and science has produced 
 serious harm by saving numbers of weak and bad consti- 
 tutions, which would formerly have perished, but which now 
 survive to propagate an unhealthy stock ; an evil which will 
 be probably diminished or removed by stricter views of 
 marriage and the procreation of children. The paramount 
 importance of health for the adequate discharge of public 
 and private duties, can escape no one. It is probable that 
 in a reformed public opinion of the future, a breakdown in 
 health, when obviously caused by excess or imprudence, or 
 culpable ignorance, will be regarded as a species of bank- 
 ruptcy, and severely judged. A servant of humanity has no 
 right to be unable to perform his duties to her. 
 
 2. Neither need we dwell long on the cultivation of the 
 mind, interesting as is the subject, and much as there 
 would be to say about it in another connection. The 
 utility of knowledge is now obvious to everybody, and 
 nearly all departments are fairly well-cultivated, some of 
 them with splendid results. Science now is quite able to
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 201 
 
 take care of itself, and we have no reason to fear that it 
 will not be equal to the task. The great danger is specialism, 
 which cultivates one small segment of the vast circle of 
 knowledge, and remains contentedly ignorant of the rest. 
 Specialism cannot be spared, if only for the reason that he 
 who is not a specialist in some one thing, is likely to be 
 a sciolist in all things. But, next to the sciolist, the pure 
 specialist is, perhaps the least efficient servant of man. 
 
 3. I now come to the third, and incomparably the most 
 important, of all the forms of human cultivation, the cul- 
 tivation of the heart and feelings. 
 
 I have already, in a previous chapter, attempted to show 
 that, as a support of morality, Christian doctrine and 
 practice were inherently defective ; inasmuch as that the 
 true end of Christianity was not morality in this world, but 
 salvation in the next. My object must now be to show 
 that a cultivation of human nature on positive and human 
 principles will have a different result ; first, because of the 
 different end ; secondly, because of the different means and 
 theories adopted with a view to that end. 
 
 The cultivation of nature, vegetable or animal, since it 
 has become scientific, has proceeded on the assumption of 
 a universal law of causation, on which were based experi- 
 ment and proof. The agriculturist and the grazier, aided 
 by the chemist, have discovered the most propitious con- 
 ditions, foods, soils, stocks, etc., for their special objects in 
 view, and after great time and pains they have fairly 
 mastered the problem. The only part of it which they 
 have not mastered is the meteorological part ; but in other 
 respects their success has been eminently satisfactory. 
 Even pestilences in the animal and vegetable world are 
 stopped, and prevented from spreading, if not from appear- 
 ing; as the extirpation of the rinder-pest, the silkworm
 
 202 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 disease, and perhaps, most remarkable of all, the destruction 
 of locusts in Cyprus, sufficiently show. It was different 
 even in the Augustan age of Rome 
 
 ". . . alitur vitium, vivitque tegendo, 
 
 Dum medicas adhibere manus ad volnera pastor 
 Abnegat, aut meliora deos sedet omina poscens." * 
 
 Epidemic diseases were regarded by Jew and Gentile as 
 special proofs of the anger of the Deity; whom men 
 sought by prayer and sacrifice to propitiate, that the plague 
 might be stayed. 
 
 ' ' Help us, O Lares ! help us, Lares, help us ! 
 And thou, O Marmar, suffer not 
 Fell plague and ruin's rot 
 Our folk to devastate. " f 
 
 In these cases, we now look for help to the sanitary 
 inspector, or the veterinary surgeon. 
 
 Now, the scientific cultivation of human nature needs the 
 adoption of the same method and principles as have been 
 so fruitful of good results in other departments. We must 
 cease to believe in miracle and divine aid ; and, proceeding 
 on the firm ground of cause and effect, not expect to reap 
 except where and when we have ploughed and sown. The 
 theological doctrine of grace, and the metaphysical doctrine 
 of the freedom of the will, are alike fatal to a steady culti- 
 vation of human nature from a moral point of view. Both 
 presuppose an unknown factor, whose presence or absence 
 cannot be foreseen, and whose action cannot be measured. 
 " It is here, it is there, it is gone," and no one can tell why. 
 It at once upsets prevision of the future, and cancels all 
 record of and inference from the past. 
 
 An authorized expounder J of Catholic doctrine remarks, 
 
 * Verg., "Georg.," iii. 454. f "Song of the Arval Brothers." 
 J Power, "Catechism," vol. ii. p. 33.
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 203 
 
 " Nothing, absolutely nothing, neither little nor much, can 
 be done without the grace of God. We cannot do a good 
 action, nor produce any good fruit conducive to salvation, 
 without the grace of God." " St. Augustine," remarks Canon 
 Liddon, " says there is no reason, apart from the grace of 
 God, why the highest saint should not be the worst 
 criminal." * In an instant, therefore, a criminal may 
 become a saint, or a saint may become a criminal, accord- 
 ing to the good pleasure of God, "who hath mercy on 
 whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." 
 If we assume, as we surely may, that the saintly character 
 is marked by rare and precious qualities, we are made to 
 see, on this theory, by what a frail and uncertain tenure 
 they exist. It is hardly necessary to point out that this 
 doctrine must induce an indifference, almost a recklessness, 
 as to the cultivation of human nature, so far as the heart 
 and feelings are concerned. We cannot be sure for twenty- 
 four hours together whether we shall belong to the diaboli- 
 cally wicked or the angelically good. 
 
 The analogy between the theological doctrine of grace 
 and the metaphysical tenet of free-will is obvious. They 
 both appeared prominently together in the controversy 
 between Pelagius and St. Augustine. Free-will is a sort of 
 secular correlative of theological grace. It delivers over 
 man, not to the arbitrary inspiration of divine grace given 
 or withheld, but to the arbitrary autocracy of his own power 
 of volition ; which can do with him what it pleases, if it 
 pleases. " According to the doctrine of Free-will, there is 
 an ultimate power of choice in the human will, which, how- 
 ever strongly it may be drawn, or tempted, or attracted to 
 decide one way or another by external appeals or motives, 
 is not ruled and decided by such motives, but by the will 
 * "Oxford Sermons," VI.
 
 204 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 itself only."* Again, "While there is life there is hope 
 and there is fear. The most inveterate habits of vice still 
 leave a power of self-recovery in the man, if he will but 
 exert it ; the most confirmed habits of virtue still leave the 
 liability to a fall."t The close analogy, almost amounting 
 to identity, between the doctrines of Free-will and Grace, 
 is here very clearly shown. By encouraging the idea that 
 the most inveterate habits of vice can be reformed by an 
 act of will, the paramount importance of habit is masked or 
 even implicitly denied ; that is to say, that one of the most 
 important and widely dominant laws of biology is denied, 
 or the moral nature of man is withdrawn from its dominion. 
 If the most confirmed habits of virtue are no guarantee 
 against a " fall " (that means, can be ' destroyed by an 
 exertion of the wicked will), it is obvious that patient and 
 protracted effort towards self-discipline and the higher life, 
 is so much labour lost. The subjugation of self and evil 
 desires carried on for years may end in a " fall," and gratifi- 
 cation of our most depraved instincts. And, contrariwise, 
 " inveterate habits of vice " are not the serious danger one 
 might suppose, as the power of self-recovery is always 
 present and capable of throwing them off, if the man will 
 but exert it. While there is life there is hope and fear ; and 
 up to the last the criminal may become a saint, and the 
 saint a criminal, as St. Augustine said. 
 
 It is evident that the doctrine of the freedom of the will, 
 supposes the phenomena of the mind to be exempt from 
 the laws and conditions which regulate the rest of nature ; 
 and the more courageous metaphysicians do not hesitate to 
 make this assumption : " Can the knowledge of Nature," 
 asks the late Professor Green, " be itself a part of Nature, 
 
 * Mozley, " Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination," p. 217. 
 t Ibid., p. 247.
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 205 
 
 in that sense of Nature in which it is said to be an object 
 of knowledge ? " * It is not easy to see why the subject 
 which cognizes the object should be less Nature than the 
 object cognized. The image of an object in the mirror 
 which reflects is as much Nature as the object reflected. 
 However, it is not necessary for the purpose in hand to 
 make a flight into the fine aether of Kantian metaphysics. 
 If we consult fact instead of fiction, we shall conclude that 
 moral qualities are, to say the least, as permanent and 
 durable as any biological phenomena. The digestive 
 functions, the circulation of the blood, and the secretions 
 of the body, are not more periodic and permanent than the 
 passions of the mind. Indeed, the latter are the more 
 lasting and persistent of the two groups. The liver of a 
 miser is more likely to break down in the course of his life, 
 than his passion for gold. The muscular heart of the 
 benevolent man may, and often does, fail, before the 
 spiritual heart which makes him unwearied in doing deeds 
 of mercy. The common sense of mankind has always, 
 when not perverted by the necessities of a theory, recog- 
 nized the permanence of moral qualities, not only in the 
 individual, but in the race 
 
 " Fortes creantur fortibiis et bonis ; 
 Est in juvencis, est in equis patrum 
 Virtus, neque inbellem feroces 
 Progenerant aquilse columbam." f 
 
 That the two doctrines just referred to, of grace and of 
 free-will, have frequently operated to the injury of morality, 
 is proved by examples too numerous to quote. Louis XV., 
 one of the most profligate men in history, was punctilious in 
 his religious exercises ; and, as Carlyle says, used to catechise 
 
 * " Prolegomena to Ethics," p. II. 
 t " Hor." iv. 4. 29.
 
 206 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 the inmates of his harem in the Pare aux Cerfs, " that they 
 might retain their orthodoxy." But the doctrine of grace, 
 which he had no doubt thoroughly grasped, allowed him to 
 feel that he could at any time repent, and that when he did, 
 he would be freed from his sins. In one of the finest his- 
 torical pictures ever drawn, even by Carlyle, we are admitted 
 to the side of the " sinner's death-bed," to see his anxiety 
 for the sacraments, and how he made the " amende honor- 
 able" to God. If it be objected that this is only a sample 
 of Popish superstition, we will take from a sect the most 
 opposed to Catholicism, that of the Scotch Presbyterians, 
 the case of the famous James Erskine of Grange. Dr. 
 Alexander Carlyle, in his amusing autobiography, speaks as 
 follows of this Protestant worthy. Referring to his father's 
 intimacy with Lord Grange (Dr. Carlyle's father, like him- 
 self, was a minister of the Church of Scotland), and to 
 their frequent meetings for prayer, he says : " After these 
 meetings for private prayer, however, in which they passed 
 several hours before supper, praying alternately, they did 
 not part without wine. Notwithstanding this intimacy, 
 there were periods of half a year at a time, when there was 
 no intercourse between them at all. My father's conjecture 
 was, that at those times Lord Grange was engaged in a 
 course of debauchery at Edinburgh, and interrupted his 
 religious exercises. For in those intervals, he not only 
 neglected my father's company, but absented himself from 
 church, and did not attend the sacraments, religious services 
 which, at other times, he would not have neglected for the 
 world. Report, however, said that he and his associates 
 passed their time in alternate scenes of the exercises of 
 religion and debauchery ; spending their day in meetings 
 for prayer and pious conversation, and their nights in 
 lewdness and revelling. Some men are of opinion that
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 207 
 
 they could not be equally sincere in both. I am apt to 
 think that they were. . . . There is no doubt of the profli- 
 gacy ; and I have frequently seen them drowned in tears 
 during the whole of a sacramental Sunday ; when, so far as 
 my observation could reach, they could have no rational 
 object to act a part. The Marquis of Lothian of that day, 
 whom I have seen attending the sacrament at Prestonpans 
 with Lord Grange, and whom no man suspected of plots 
 or hypocrisy, was much addicted to debauchery. The 
 natural casuistry of the passions grants dispensations with 
 more facility than the Church of Rome." * 
 
 There are strong rumours that such contradictions 
 between faith and practice were not unknown in Scotland 
 in a more recent past. 
 
 Now let us take the milder, but not less instructive case 
 of Dr. Johnson. Few men have had more devout faith in 
 God's grace, and more firm belief in free-will, than Samuel 
 Johnson. He was, in intention at least, highly consci- 
 entious. In practice, as he was the first to admit, he often 
 fell short of his standard of duty. We can hardly imagine 
 more fervent prayers and determined resolves than he made 
 with a view to breaking off bad habits and turning over 
 a new leaf. Yet the success was very small, as we learn 
 from the frequent repentances and renewed resolves 
 published by Boswell, e.g. : 
 
 " I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving ; having, 
 from the earliest time, almost, that I can remember, been 
 forming schemes of a better life. I have done nothing. 
 . . . O God, grant me to resolve aright, and to keep my 
 resolutions, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." f 
 
 The chief faults with which Johnson reproached himself 
 
 * "Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle," p. 13. 
 t Boswell, anno 1764.
 
 208 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 were waste of time, procrastination, and a torpid laziness 
 which made early rising almost an impossibility to him. 
 Against these faults he perpetually made resolutions, and 
 prayed fervently for divine help to keep them. He resolved 
 and prayed in vain ; as we know, not only from his own 
 confession, but from abundant other testimony. Boswell 
 is delighted with Johnson's tenderness of conscience, and 
 " fervent desire of improvement." It did not occur to 
 Boswell that he had given, in other parts of his work, ample 
 reasons which accounted for Johnson's failure on this head. 
 Johnson's habits were wholly incompatible with health of 
 mind or body, and they were peculiarly adverse to the 
 alertness of spirit of which he was always lamenting his 
 deficiency. How could a man get up early who always sat 
 up at night as long as he could find any one to keep him 
 company ? How could a man retain a prompt and clear 
 energy of mind, ready for all demands, who never scrupled 
 to gorge himself to repletion whenever he had an oppor- 
 tunity. " I never knew," says Boswell, " any man who 
 relished good eating more than he did. When at table, he 
 was totally absorbed in the business of the moment ; his 
 looks seem riveted to his plate ; nor would he, unless when 
 in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least 
 attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his 
 appetite ; which was so fierce, and indulged with such 
 intenseness, that, while in the act of eating, the veins of 
 his forehead swelled, and, generally, a strong perspiration 
 was visible." * How much of Johnson's physical suffering 
 and moral deficiencies were owing to his habitual gross 
 feeding, could perhaps only be determined by a physician 
 who had carefully examined the patient ; but that his 
 obesity, and shortness of breath, his low spirits and choleric 
 * Boswell, anno 1763.
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 209 
 
 temper, were largely attributable to his self-indulgence, 
 there can hardly be a doubt. 
 
 If Johnson had been a determinist, and cultivated his 
 nature on rational principles, he would have known that 
 while he retained his usual habits he could not overcome 
 his sloth. A light but nutritious diet, sufficient exercise in 
 the fresh air to induce a pleasant fatigue, frequent cold 
 baths, moderation in all liquors, especially tea, and early 
 hours of going to bed, would probably, in a few months, 
 have enabled him to throw off his lethargy. 
 
 The doctrine of determinism is now so generally accepted, 
 that it will not be needful to dwell upon it at any length 
 here. The cumulative argument in its favour, says Mr. 
 Sidgwick, is so strong as almost to amount to complete 
 proof. But its immense importance for the right culti- 
 vation of human nature seems still to be overlooked, even 
 by its most illustrious advocates. Even Mr. Sidgwick is of 
 opinion that the decision of the "metaphysical question at 
 issue in this free-will controversy"* does not involve any point 
 of general practical importance. I am unable to accept this 
 view. It appears to me to be one of those cases in which 
 right theory is all-important, as guiding to right practice. 
 
 If we admit that " From the universal law that, other 
 things equal, the cohesion of psychical states is propor- 
 tionate to the frequency with which they have followed one 
 another in experience ; it is an inevitable corollary, that all 
 actions whatever must be determined by those psychical 
 connexions which experience has generated, either in the 
 life of the individual, or in that general antecedent life of 
 which the accumulated results are organized in his con- 
 stitution," f we must further admit that any theory which 
 
 * "Methods of Ethics," cap. v. 
 
 t Herbert Spencer, "Psychology," vol. i. p. 500. 
 
 P
 
 210 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 tends to discredit or underrate " habit," tends to make 
 human action uncertain and vacillating, tends therefore to 
 weaken the automatic performance of good actions, which 
 is what the well-being of society demands. The free-will 
 theory openly challenges "habit," and encourages the belief 
 that the most inveterate habit may be broken by an act of 
 volition. The attention is therefore directed to the wrong 
 side of the problem. Instead of vigilantly watching against 
 the slow, insidious growth of evil habits, the failure to carry 
 out good resolutions, the frequent indulgence of vicious 
 tastes ; the mind is lulled into a false security by the belief 
 in free-will, imagining itself independent and sovereign, 
 when and while it is being reduced into servitude. The 
 " cohesion of psychical states " is so established by their 
 frequent succession that it becomes organic. If not abso- 
 lutely inseparable, their cohesion is so strong, that only a 
 violent contrary passion or motive is equal to breaking it. 
 The most hardened lie-a-bed, whom neither duty nor 
 interest can rouse from his slumbers, would promptly sally 
 forth if informed that the house was on fire. It is this 
 fact, viz. that even an inveterate habit may be broken by a 
 gust of passion, or a permanent mood of profound emotion, 
 which has given a semblance of rationality to the doctrine 
 of free-will. No determinist ignores or underrates it. A 
 passion of pure love has often saved a man from a swarm 
 of minor vices. All the famous and sudden religious con- 
 versions from evil-living to righteousness, may be traced to 
 the same principle. Ardent love, gratitude, and veneration 
 for Christ, when kindled, are able to snap the chains of 
 habit, and sometimes to prevent their being welded together 
 again. But it is rash, not to say reckless, to trust to a 
 random cyclone of the nobler passions to save us from our 
 sins. It is of the nature of cyclones to be violent, but of
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 211 
 
 short duration. They may never come; they are apt to 
 be transitory. And then the old cohesion of psychical 
 states reappears, the vicious habit returns, probably, more 
 virulent and domineering for its temporary exile, and the 
 last state of that man is worse than the first. 
 
 It is obvious, as already remarked, that the free-will 
 doctrine turns the attention away from the essential and 
 real side of moral cultivation, and directs it to an unreal 
 side. It resembles Sir Kenelm Digby's famous sympathetic 
 powder for the cure of wounds. Digby professed that he 
 would be very sorry not to do his uttermost to make it 
 clear how the powder, " (which they commonly call the 
 powder of sympathy,) doth, naturally and without any 
 magick, cure wounds without touching them, yea, without 
 seeing of the patient ; " and he sets forth how the cure " is 
 performed by applying the remedy to the blade of a sword 
 which has wounded a body ; so the sword be not too much 
 heated by the fire ; for that will make all the spirits of the 
 blood to evaporate ; and consequently the sword will con- 
 tribute but little to the cure. Now, the reason why the 
 sword may be dressed in order to the cure is, because the 
 subtile spirits of the blood penetrate the substance of 
 the blade, as far as it went into the body of the wounded 
 party ; and there keep their residence, unless the fire, as I 
 said before, chase them away." Now, the sympathetic 
 powder is hardly more irrational in surgery than the free- 
 will doctrine is in morals. In both cases the attention is 
 directed to the wrong object, and diverted from the right 
 one. While Digby was applying his remedy to the blade 
 of a sword which had caused a wound, he was giving but 
 little care and attention to the wound itself. Indeed, he 
 says that neither the wound nor even the patient need ever 
 be seen. There would have been little hope of the triumphs
 
 212 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 of modern surgery if this method of treating wounds had 
 prevailed. The real phenomena needing elucidation would 
 not have been studied, and a fiction would have engrossed 
 the attention of the faculty. The believers in free-will have 
 studied ethics and the cultivation of human nature, as 
 Digby studied surgery and the cure of wounds. Their 
 doctrine is the correlative of the sympathetic powder 
 applied to the blade of the sword. The real facts which 
 it behoved them to investigate they have neglected. 
 
 Experience shows that moral or immoral action depends 
 upon the previous training and character of the mind, as 
 much as healthy or morbid secretions depend upon the 
 previous habits and constitution of the body. A man with 
 a criminal nature and education, under given circumstances 
 of temptation, can no more help committing crime than he 
 could help having a headache under certain conditions of 
 brain and stomach. Both the crime and the headache 
 result from a series of antecedent causes culminating in 
 these effects. An unhealthy mode of living and, perhaps, a 
 bad constitution lead inevitably to the one; an evil training 
 and, perhaps, a vicious character combined, lead to the 
 other. In neither case can the Will operate directly to 
 suppress either crime or headache at the moment. The 
 physical ailment may be removed or mitigated by drugs or 
 reformed habits of living, and the moral evil also may be 
 diminished or removed by a complete change in the ethical 
 surroundings of the patient. But neither result is certain ; 
 and depends on numerous circumstances, the age of the 
 individual, the inveteracy of the disease, the constitution or 
 character in either case. 
 
 All cultivation presupposes, in the vegetable, animal, or 
 human subject, original qualities which justify even an 
 attempt to improve them. There are soils which no farmer
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 213 
 
 in his senses would think of ploughing, manuring, and sowing. 
 There are kinds of vegetables and stocks of cattle which are 
 recognized as unfit for profitable culture. They are left 
 alone, either to die out or to survive in a state of nature. 
 In the same way with human qualities ; some original quality 
 is needed to begin upon. We do not give an elaborate 
 musical education to persons who have no power to distin- 
 guish one note from another, nor teach painting to the colour 
 blind, nor mathematics to those arrested by the Ass's Bridge. 
 In other words, cultivation is only rationally applied where 
 there is original quality capable of receiving it. 
 
 Certainly, the moral nature of man does not vary less 
 widely than the other parts of his nature. There are men 
 whose quality is to manifest, from their earliest years, a bias 
 to vicious and malignant crime; who have no good instincts 
 on which a moral teacher can work ; who pursue their own 
 selfish gratification at any cost to others. There are also 
 men whose bias is in the contrary direction ; who, without 
 teaching, or in spite of evil teaching, show a generous, 
 upright, unselfish spirit in all their dealings. And these 
 differences are congenital : such persons differ as much as 
 a cachectic constitution differs from a healthy one. With- 
 out saying that in the one case, therapeutics, and in the 
 other case, moral training, would be quite without effect, 
 we may be sure that neither therapeutics nor moral training 
 will ever turn the bad into the good, the evil constitution 
 or character into the vigorous and moral. 
 
 Before drawing our practical deductions from these facts, 
 let us consider some of these implications. 
 
 Nature knows nothing of merit or desert, but only of 
 qualities : 
 
 " Alike to her the better, the worse, 
 The glowing angel, the outcast corse."
 
 214 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 But for the well-being of man and society, certain qualities 
 in things, animals, and men, are precious in the extreme, 
 as certain other qualities are pernicious. We cultivate the 
 one and discard, or even, if possible, suppress the other. 
 No qualities are so valuable to men in society as the moral 
 qualities in each other's hearts. On nothing does happi- 
 ness so much depend, both immediately and remotely, as 
 upon the good or bad instincts of the fellow-men by whom 
 we are surrounded. Within certain and not very narrow 
 limits these instincts admit of cultivation ; but unless origin- 
 ally present in some degree they cannot be cultivated. 
 Their presence or absence in the individual is no merit or 
 fault of his. Nothing is more certain than that no one 
 makes his own character. That is done for him by his 
 parents and ancestors. The hero was born with his noble 
 and fearless heart ; the saint came into the world with his 
 spontaneous aptitude for good works and lofty feeling ; and 
 the moral monster, the cowardly, selfish, unscrupulous 
 criminal, was born with his evil passions inherited from 
 progenitors, near or remote. No merit or demerit attaches 
 to the saint or the sinner in the metaphysical and mystic 
 sense of the word. Their good or evil qualities were none 
 of their making. A man inherits his brain as much as he 
 inherits his estate. The strong nature, the vivid imagina- 
 tion, the tender conscience, the firm will, all come by 
 inheritance, as much as money in the funds, or a noble 
 demesne of broad acres. The theological doctrine that 
 there is no such thing as merit in the sight of God, that all 
 we have has been received as a free gift, admits of a plainly 
 scientific expression, as a matter of fact.* 
 
 * On this point St. Thomas uses almost Positivist expressions : 
 "Et ideo meritum hominis apud Deum esse non potest nisi secundum 
 praesuppositionem divinae ordinationis ; ita scilicet ut id homo conse-
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 215 
 
 It will perhaps be said that this view does away with 
 moral responsibility; that those who hold it cannot con- 
 sistently blame any crime or resent any injury ; that we 
 should not on this hypothesis reproach a garrotter who half 
 murders us; he is a machine, not a man with free-will, 
 capable of doing and forbearing according to the moral 
 law. It is no more rational to blame him than it would be 
 to blame a runaway locomotive which knocks you down, 
 and mangles or kills you. 
 
 To which the answer is, that the sooner the idea of moral 
 responsibility is got rid of, the better it will be for society 
 and moral education. The sooner it is perceived that bad 
 men will be bad, do what we will, though, of course, they 
 may be made less bad, the sooner shall we come to the 
 conclusion that the welfare of society demands the sup- 
 pression or elimination of bad men, and the careful cultiva- 
 tion of the good only. This is what we do in every other 
 department. We do not cultivate curs and screws and low 
 breeds of cattle. On the contrary, we keep them down as 
 much as we can. What do we gain by this fine language as 
 to moral responsibility ? The right to blame, and so forth. 
 Bad men are not touched by it. The bad man has no con- 
 science; he acts after his malignant nature. The fear of 
 sharp punishment may deter him from evil-doing, and quell 
 his selfish appetites ; but he will not be converted to virtue 
 by our telling him he has moral responsibility, that he is a 
 
 quatur a Deo per suam operationem, quasi mercedem, ad quod Deus ei 
 virtutem operand! deputavit, sicut etiam res naturales hoc consequuntur 
 per proprios motus et operationes, ad quod a Deo sunt ordinatse ; diffe- 
 renter tamen, quia creatura rationalis seipsum movet ad agendum per 
 liberum arbitrium, unde sua actio habet rationem meriti ; quod non est 
 in aliis creaturis." " Summoe Theologicse," Prima Secundse, Quaestio 
 cxiv. art. prim. But for the arbitrary exception in favour of free-will, 
 this view would coincide with mine.
 
 216 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 free agent to choose good or evil, and that he ought to 
 choose the good. His mind is made up to choose the 
 bad. But society, knowing its own interests, has a right 
 to exclude him from its fellowship ; not only to prevent 
 and punish his evil actions, but to suppress him in some 
 effectual way, and, above all, prevent his leaving a posterity 
 as wicked as himself.* Society requires good instincts 
 and good actions. It does not want even alternate sins 
 and repentance ; it wants performance. The soldier, who 
 deserts in presence of the enemy, is deservedly shot. In 
 civil life, there are forms of criminality which are worse 
 than .desertions ; they are open hostilities to the best 
 interests of humanity. 
 
 Nothing is gained by disguising the fact that there is 
 no remedy for a bad heart, and no substitute for a good 
 one. Only on good, unselfish instincts can a trustworthy 
 morality repose. "There are many cases," says Mr. Bain, 
 "where a man's social obedience, the fulfilment of his 
 
 * So Aristotle (" Ethics," lib. x. c. 9) says that some think that 
 legislators ought " cwrei0ou<rt 5e ical cupueoWpois ov<n Ko\dfffis re Hal 
 Ti/juapias eiririOevai, rovs 5' avidrovs 8\<as eopifii>." Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer, arguing against the modern tendency to promote the ' ' survival 
 of the unfittest," remarks, "It rarely happens that the amount of evil 
 caused by fostering the vicious and good-for-nothing can be estimated. 
 But in America, at a meeting of the States Charities Aid Association, 
 held on Dec. 18, 1874, a startling instance was given in detail by Dr. 
 Harris. It was furnished by a county on the Upper Hudson, remark- 
 able for the ratio of crime and poverty to population. Generations ago 
 there had existed a certain ' gutter-child,' as she would here be called, 
 known as ' Margaret,' who proved to be the prolific mother of a prolific 
 race. Besides great numbers of idiots, imbeciles, drunkards, lunatics, 
 paupers, and prostitutes, ' the county records show two hundred of her 
 descendants who have been criminals.' Was it kindness or cruelty 
 which, generation after generation, enabled them to multiply and 
 become an increasing curse to the society around them?" (" Man versus 
 the State," p. 69.)
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 2:7 
 
 bargains, his justice, veracity, respect to other men's rights, 
 costs him a sacrifice with no return, while the omission 
 leads to penalty. Simple prudence would at such a moment 
 suggest the criminal course." * And Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 says, " The truly moral deterrent from murder, is not con- 
 stituted by a representation of hanging as a consequence, 
 or by a representation of tortures in Hell as a consequence, 
 or by a representation of the horror and hatred excited in 
 fellow-men ; but by a representation of the necessary natural 
 results the infliction of death-agony on the victim, the 
 destruction of all his possibilities of happiness, the entailed 
 sufferings to his belongings. Neither the thought of im- 
 prisonment, nor of divine anger, nor of social disgrace, is 
 that which constitutes the moral check on theft; but the 
 thought of injury to the person robbed, joined with a vague 
 consciousness of the general evils caused by disregard of 
 proprietary rights. Those who reprobate the adulterer on 
 moral grounds, have their minds filled, not with ideas of an 
 action for damages, or of future punishment following the 
 breach of a commandment, or of loss of reputation ; but 
 they are occupied with ideas of unhappiness entailed on the 
 aggrieved wife or husband, the damaged lives of children, 
 and the diffused mischiefs which go along with disregard of 
 the marriage tie. Conversely, the man who is moved by a 
 moral feeling to help another in difficulty, does not picture 
 to himself any reward here or hereafter ; but pictures only 
 the better condition he is trying to bring about. One who 
 is morally prompted to fight against a social evil, has neither 
 material benefit nor popular applause before his mind ; but 
 only the mischiefs he seeks to remove, and the increased 
 well-being which will follow their removal." f 
 
 * " The Emotions and the Will," chap. x. p. 530. 1859. 
 t " Data of Ethics," pp. 120, 121.
 
 2i8 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 Nothing can be more clearly put. The feeling, sympathetic, 
 generous heart, which recognizes the rights and claims of 
 others, which is pained by their suffering and rejoices in 
 their joy, is declared to be the only trustworthy source of 
 that social morality on which general well-being depends. 
 In this respect, moral conduct regarded as an art, as it is, 
 indeed, incomparably the finest of the fine arts, does not 
 differ from its inferior congeners. No one expects fine 
 pictures or statues from persons devoid of all aesthetic taste, 
 nor oratorios and operas from those deficient in musical 
 ear. If the interest of society requires a due proportion of 
 altruistic sentiment in each of its members, we can only 
 expect them in those individuals who are correspondingly 
 organized. While all the emotions can be cultivated, none 
 can be implanted or directly infused. In this, as in other 
 cases, we can only cultivate the good sorts, the good stock, 
 and eliminate and discourage, as far as possible, the bad. 
 
 This view will very probably be regarded by some as giving 
 up the cause of morality altogether. If we cannot preach 
 the categorical imperative of right action to every creature, 
 and assume and expect that every one is capable of per- 
 forming it, if he chooses to exert his free-will, our preaching 
 is supposed to be vain; an insincere make-believe, itself 
 immoral. This is very probable; and the foolishness of 
 preaching, as often practised, is perhaps only too evident. 
 But it may be remarked that the cause of music is not given 
 up, because a master counsels a pupil without an ear for 
 music to cease attempting to sing. We may preach morality 
 as we choose, but we shall only be successful with the apt 
 scholars, those who have a foundation of good instincts on 
 which to work. It is, no doubt, much simpler to assume 
 that all are equally competent ; and that, if they do not 
 receive our teaching, it is not because they cannot, but
 
 OX THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 219 
 
 because they will not. Then we arrogate a right to upbraid 
 them, to punish them for their wicked will. They can, if 
 they choose, be quite virtuous and moral. It is an obvious 
 view, recommended by a blunt straightforwardness gratifying 
 to many minds which are disposed to resent and even deny 
 the complexity of nature. 
 
 The determinist is not less but more resolute in teaching 
 morality than his free-will opponent. But he demands 
 pupils who can learn. What shall be done with those who 
 cannot learn belongs to another branch of inquiry, and 
 concerns politics rather than morals. But much is gained 
 by discarding the hope of impossibilities, of ceasing to 
 expect grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles. The extirpation 
 of thorns and thistles, in the literal or metaphorical sense, 
 has its difficulties ; which we have no ground, however, to 
 regard as insuperable. The object to be obtained is good 
 men with good instincts ; not the establishment of a 
 metaphysical theory that all men may be good if they would 
 only choose. So little do we need free-will and deliberate 
 choice between good and evil, that we want a prompt, 
 unreflecting bias towards good. The option between virtue 
 and vice cannot be left an open question. As we see good 
 dogs chasser de race, so we need citizens whose leanings 
 are to virtue's side. And we are likely to get them in 
 proportion as we recognize that good men, like poets, are 
 born, not made, and only in a minor degree the product 
 of training ; albeit that training, in its own sphere, is of 
 paramount importance. 
 
 But training is not often entirely overlooked in practice, 
 even by the partisans of the doctrine of free-will a fact 
 more creditable to their common sense than their logic. 
 The centre of the problem lies in the question, how can a 
 determinist cultivate virtue or good impulses, seeing that
 
 220 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 by his principles he cannot choose his desires ? How can 
 he cultivate a sense of duty, if duty depends on altruistic 
 sentiments, of which he is perhaps devoid ? 
 
 It would be regarded as a truism rather than a paradox 
 to say that a man cannot cultivate athletics without muscles. 
 Some amount of muscle must be present, on which to begin 
 a course of muscular development. In the same way some 
 amount of congenital altruism the tap-root of social 
 morality must be present, or the cultivation of good im- 
 pulses, moral sentiments, or the sense of duty, cannot be 
 even attempted. We should be informed what manner of 
 man the determinist is, who is asked how he can cultivate 
 virtue on his principles. If he is a base-hearted man, but 
 sufficiently versed in psychology to grasp the full import of 
 the question, he would answer that it was obviously im- 
 possible. He would acknowledge a conscious absence of 
 good impulses, and that his only principle of action was 
 the gratification of self. If the determinist, on the other 
 hand, were a man of generous nature, full of meekness, 
 courage and love, he would reply, that cultivation, or the 
 satisfaction of those impulses, was the greatest joy he knew; 
 that though often, through slackness of will, infirmity and 
 selfishness, he failed in his duty (of which he was only too 
 conscious), yet he never felt inward peace, except when 
 cultivating the garden of his soul, following the passionate 
 ideal of his heart in all benign works for others, in all 
 purifying discipline of the spirit within him. Both these 
 men would answer truly ; and the successful cultivation of 
 human nature demands that we should bear in mind the 
 answers of both. The abstract science of morals needs 
 completing and correcting for the cultivation of human 
 nature, by empirical observation of the peculiarities of 
 individual men.
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 221 
 
 " Duty " and " debt " are the same word differently 
 written, and both mean that which is " owed." I " ought " 
 is the preterite of I " owe." The French " devoir " is applied 
 to pecuniary debt and moral duty. In Greek 6<ei'Ao) and 
 6</>etX?7/*a show the same association of ideas. Now, what 
 do we mean by a sense of duty, except a recognition of the 
 claims of others, of neighbour, family, society, or God ? 
 In no respect do men differ more than in this sense of duty, 
 because in no respect are men more unlike than in their en- 
 dowment of egoistic and altruistic impulses. In some persons 
 all sense of the claims of others seems left out from the 
 first. They never seem to regard themselves as owing any- 
 thing to anybody"; but, contrariwise, they consider others 
 always as owing them a great deal. Even borrowed money 
 they repay with pain and regret, and often require the threat 
 or the action of the law to bring them to repayment. This 
 type of character is humourously exemplified in the alleged 
 remark of a spendthrift, who said of a friend less hardened 
 than himself, " He wasted his money in paying his debts ; " 
 the use of money being only excusable, it would appear, 
 when no credit was to be obtained. On the other hand, we 
 have natures who not only are prompt in acknowledging 
 claims upon them, who would fast and starve rather than 
 withhold payment when due, but who perceive debts and 
 duties which neither society nor individuals exact from 
 them ; who willingly offend the world, and, with open eyes, 
 face its anger and resentment, so they may render it a 
 service which no other is ready to offer. The saints, 
 martyrs, and heroes have been of this type. Resistance 
 to passion or strong temptation can only be rationally 
 expected from a mind which combines a habit of post- 
 poning self-gratification to the interests and welfare of 
 others, with an ample endowment of generous and benevc-
 
 222 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 lent impulses. The wave of egoistic passion is met by 
 a counter-wave of altruistic emotion, and according to the 
 character and training one or the other prevails. The 
 characteristic feeling of remorse for breach of duty, or 
 gross-gratification of selfish desire, is evidence of this. 
 Genuine remorse, contrition as distinguished from attrition, 
 always arises from a pain of the altruistic feelings, at having 
 returned evil for good, for having injured a loving heart 
 which deserved different treatment at our hands. Remorse 
 is the note of tender and passionate, but ill-governed 
 natures. There is no anguish like it ; but it is an anguish 
 of which the cold and the selfish are incapable. So little 
 does it fear or wish to evade punishment, that it seeks it 
 and implores it. The grief over our own hard-heartedness 
 is too acute to be assuaged except by sacrifice and penance ; 
 and only in bitter expiation is a slight relief derived for 
 transgression. In religious minds, the reason often gives 
 way when they have been made conscious that they have 
 sinned against and been ungrateful to Christ their Lord, 
 who for them hung upon the tree, was pierced with wounds, 
 reviled, buffeted, and spat upon. Like St. Peter, when 
 they think thereon, they weep. In the naturally generous 
 and tender-hearted, it soon appears and develops with the 
 added years. Education can do much to aid or check its 
 growth. The selfishness of children can be cultivated to 
 any extent. A habit of regard for others may likewise be 
 nurtured. The proverbial selfishness of princes largely 
 depends on this fact. 
 
 Recognition of the " claims " of others, arising from a 
 sympathetic nature, is the root of duty, but by no means 
 the full-grown tree. The size to which the tree will grow, 
 depends upon the mental power, upon the grasp of ideas, 
 which reveals an almost infinite variety of " claimants." A
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE, 223 
 
 kind heart coupled with a narrow mind, cannot conceive the 
 higher forms of duty to the State, to humanity, to unpopular 
 causes. Culture and mental force combined, regulate the 
 quality of the duty paid. The difference between abject 
 superstition and lofty piety, depends on the intellect, not on 
 the heart of the worshipper. 
 
 In all societies, even the most savage, some duties are 
 inculcated on the young by parents and elders ; and certain 
 acts are forbidden or punished, others are applauded and 
 rewarded. The public opinion of society carries on the 
 process. The teaching in childhood, youth, and manhood, 
 is assimilated according to the quality of the learner. The 
 meek, the modest, the kindly, receive in loving trust the 
 word of their elders. They are told they ought to do this, 
 that they ought not to do that, and they accept the obli- 
 gation without hesitation or scruple. The mala prohibita 
 become to them mala in se, and an infraction of the rule 
 laid down appears to them monstrous and profane. In 
 Christian countries duty to God is naturally much insisted 
 on ; and if it does not appear to be always attended with 
 the desired success, the reason is not only in the hardness 
 of men's hearts, but also in the intellectual difficulties 
 involved in theism. 
 
 But whether the paramount duty be paid to God, to the 
 State, to humanity, to great ideas, or any thing or being 
 beyond self, the germ of it always lies in the unselfish 
 readiness to pay a debt, supposed to be owing to another 
 or others. And it often happens that the supposition is 
 wholly false ; that the debt is not owed ; that it is imaginary, 
 not real. But the sense of obligation is not concerned with 
 the matter of a given duty, but only with the form. 
 Conscience alone is a deceitful guide ; like justice it is 
 blind ; it will do evil as readily as good. Its one pre-occu-
 
 224 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 pation is to go out of self and pay its debt, duty, reverence, 
 to object, thing or being whom it wishes to serve. And 
 this is so true, that the sense of duty in its intense forms, is 
 not content with simple disregard of self ; it insists on hos- 
 tility to self, on self-mutilation, mortification, as in the 
 severer forms of asceticism. 
 
 Passion is by no means the worst enemy to duty ; as a 
 strong sense of duty is itself a passion. The passionate 
 natures can often become the most bound by it : witness 
 St. Augustine. The cold heart is the undutiful heart, the 
 heart of stone, which loves neither God nor man. 
 
 Neiv duties. The man who recognizes new duties above 
 those he has been taught to observe ; who sees, beyond the 
 circle of conventional obligation, the dim forms of new 
 claimants on his heart and service, is a moral inventor, an 
 enlarger of human life. Those who saw the claims of the 
 slave were such ; those who see the claims of animals are 
 the same. How many more such have still to be seen ! 
 
 Reward of virtue. The highest conscience has ever felt 
 that the expectation of reward for virtue was unjustified, 
 and almost incompatible with the idea of virtue : " Not 
 unto us, not unto us." " We are unprofitable servants ; we 
 have done that which was our duty to do." These and 
 similar utterances are the natural and wholesome expressions 
 of the devout heart. And the instinct is right which 
 inspires them. The moment we consider duty as a debt 
 which we owe, we feel it does not admit of reward. Is a 
 man to be paid for paying his debts ? How does this view 
 of duty account for resistance to strong temptation ? 
 
 The moment we recognize that we can be in the position 
 of owing something to some one person, cause, or idea, it 
 matters not what form the payment may take ; from coin of 
 the realm up to giving away one's life, it is all one ; meeting
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 225 
 
 an obligation which we have recognized we are under. How 
 we came by the sense of this or that particular obligation is 
 immaterial. It may come through many channels ; religion, 
 public opinion, esprit de corps, or what not. Its fulness and 
 intensity depend far more on the constitution of our minds 
 than on any external influence and teaching. If we are 
 wholly selfish, no teaching will persuade us ; if we are 
 generous, loving, and heroic, we move towards self-sacrifice 
 by a natural gravitation. And the point to be especially 
 noticed by those who make virtue to consist in the choice 
 of the better part, after a conflict of motives, is that the 
 greater the virtue the less there is of conscious self-sacrifice. 
 The egoist who will not sacrifice the meanest of his own 
 pleasures or passions for the greatest need of others, and 
 the hero who gives his life for the " sheep," are the opposite 
 poles of humanity. And so little true is it that virtue only 
 exists after it has gained a victory over base temptation, 
 that the very presence or possibility of temptation stains 
 its purity. In ordinary, civilized life this is so. What 
 should we think of a friend or acquaintance, whoj we knew, 
 passed his time in hard struggles to conquer the sins for- 
 bidden in the sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments ? 
 Yet, according to the doctrine of some moralists, the man 
 who dines with us, and has not had a temptation to steal 
 our spoons, and overcome it, is not virtuous ; if he has not 
 lusted after the women of our household and subdued his 
 impurity, he is not chaste ; if he has not been touched by 
 an impulse to murder us, finally put down, he is not a moral 
 person. 
 
 Now, as regards resisting temptation, it is obvious that 
 in proportion as we are tempted to the commission of 
 selfish sin, our character, and, in a minor degree, our 
 education, are at fault. We have started with an overplus 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 of egoistic sentiment, or we have had, by ill-education, the 
 egoistic sentiment unduly cultivated. We shall behave 
 under temptations according to our character. The 
 doctrines we hold will have little weight in the final result, 
 though they will have some. If we experience strong 
 promptings to murder, rape, or theft, the chances are, 
 whether we believe in Hell or Utilitarianism, we shall gratify 
 our passions. If the altruistic element in us is fairly repre- 
 sented, we shall hesitate, or alternately fall into sin and re- 
 pentance. If self has been " annulled," we shall pass by the 
 temptations, with more or less complete unconsciousness.* 
 
 Moralists have been at great pains to show that through 
 virtue lay the only road to final and complete happiness ; 
 that, on the other hand, crime and sin inevitably led to pain 
 and misery. It was feared that, if any doubt were allowed 
 to rest on the fact that virtue was its own reward, sensible 
 people would refuse so obviously bad a bargain. As Mr. 
 Leslie Stephen eloquently says : " Here we come to one 
 of the multiform and profound problems which has tortured 
 men in all ages. Virtue no one denies it does good to 
 somebody, but how often to the agent ? A belief in justice, 
 as regulating the universe, has been held to imply (I do 
 not ask whether rightly held) that happiness should somehow 
 go along with virtue. To give up the belief in such a 
 supreme regulation, seemed, again, to be an admission that 
 virtue was folly. Yet how can this doctrine be reconciled 
 to the plainest facts of experience ? The lightning strikes 
 the good and the bad; the hero dies in the ruin of his 
 cause ; the highest self-denial is repaid by the blackest 
 ingratitude ; the keenest sympathy with our fellows implies 
 
 9 
 
 * So again St. Thomas : " Magis est non posse peccare quam non 
 peccare." " Summae Theologicae," Prima Secundae, Quaestio cxiv. 
 art. prim.
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 227 
 
 the greatest liability to suffering ; the cold, the sensual, and 
 the systematically selfish, often seem to have the pleasantest 
 lots in life. Great men in despair have pronounced virtue 
 to be but a name ; philosophers have evaded the difficulty 
 by a verbal denial of the plainest truths ; theologians have 
 tried to console their disciples by constructing ideal worlds, 
 which have served for little more than a recognition of the 
 unsatisfactory state of the actual world. The problem so 
 often attacked, will perhaps be solved when we know the 
 origin of evil. Meanwhile we have only to consider in 
 what way it is related to ethical theories." * 
 
 This suggestive passage shows very plainly how imper- 
 fectly the older speculators grasped the problem with which 
 they had to deal. If virtue depend on a number of good 
 instincts or qualities in the agent's mind or heart, benevo- 
 lence, sympathy, courage, and resolution, it would seem 
 obvious that no one could be benefited by these precious 
 endowments more than the fortunate owner of them him- 
 self. Who derives so much enjoyment from a fine ear for 
 music as the musician who has one ? Who profits by an 
 exquisite sense of colour so much as the artist whom land, 
 sea, and cloud keep in an ecstasy of delight ? Much more, 
 would one say, must the generous and passionate emotions 
 of the heart supply an inward fountain of happiness to the 
 richly endowed natures which possess them. To ask if 
 virtue answers, or " pays," is like asking if fine health and 
 bodily strength pay. Probably no one would be without 
 them if he could help it. And yet there can be no doubt 
 that great strength and fine health often lead their possessor 
 into pain, and even death, by tempting him to overtax his 
 powers. It may be said of all the higher qualities and 
 gifts, that under certain conditions they are capable of 
 * Leslie Stephen, " Science of Ethics," p. 398.
 
 228 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 causing as much pain as pleasure to their owners : but 
 these owners do not wish, therefore, to be rid of them. 
 The musician who is tortured by an organ out of tune, 
 would never think of purchasing peace by the loss or 
 destruction of his musical ear. It is the same with 
 regard to Friendship and Love. Their betrayal probably 
 produces anguish as keen as any known to the human heart. 
 But no one capable of either, would ever regret his capacity 
 for love and friendship. Those who doubt their value, or, 
 with Napoleon, hold that they are " foolish infatuations," 
 are out of court, as they have no personal knowledge of 
 qualities they despise. We need not to be told what 
 manner of man he was who declared that the secret of 
 happiness consisted in a good digestion and a bad heart. 
 And the querist, " Why should I do anything for posterity, 
 seeing that posterity never did anything for me ? " receives 
 even now this answer from Society, and will receive it with 
 greater emphasis in the future : " From you, sir, we expect 
 nothing ; but you may expect that your shameless confession 
 of selfishness will not go unpunished." The " unsatisfactory 
 state of the actual world," as Mr. Stephen says, was no 
 doubt a great hindrance in former times to a recognition of 
 the coercive power for good which Society can bring to 
 bear on the selfish and the wicked. But the Christian 
 scheme of rewards and punishments also contributed to the 
 conviction, that only by fear of retribution could men be 
 deterred from evil, and by the hope of recompense be bribed 
 to doing good. A man who did not believe in hell, it was 
 thought, even by good men, had no inducement to practice 
 any virtue or refrain from any vice. Dr. Johnson said he 
 would not believe that Hume's apparent equanimity when 
 dying was sincere, because, on his (Hume's) principles he 
 had no motive to speak the truth. Dr. Young, in his
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 229 
 
 " Night Thoughts," gave utterance probably to the common 
 sentiment, crude and revolting as it sounds : 
 
 " ' Has Virtue charms ? ' I grant her heavenly fair ; 
 But if unportioned, all will Interest wed. 
 
 A Deity believed, will nought avail ; 
 Rewards and punishments make God adored ; 
 And hopes and fears give Conscience all her power. 
 
 Who tells me he denies his soul immortal, 
 Whate'er his boast, has told me he's a knave. 
 His duty 'tis to love himself alone ; 
 Nor care though mankind perish, if he smiles." * 
 
 The line between " portioned virtue " and " interest," does 
 not appear here to be very clearly drawn, and virtue it is 
 intimated can only be chosen for a valuable consideration. 
 But we must admit all the same, that in this respect the 
 theologians had the best of the argument, till the concep- 
 tion of society as an organism had arisen in speculation, 
 with the momentous consequences which that involves. 
 The health of an organism depends on the health and 
 efficiency of its parts ; and the conduct and morals of the 
 individual are now seen to be no longer the private concern 
 of himself only, but very much also of the society of which 
 he is a member. His vice injures and his virtue benefits 
 the body politic, as far as either influence extends. And 
 this is now so well seen, that perhaps the danger is, as Mr. 
 Mill feared, that society and public opinion are tending to 
 be too coercive and despotic, to the injury of that liberty 
 and individuality which are needed for full and vigorous 
 well-being. We may certainly venture to say this much, 
 that society is now able to make knaves, whether they 
 believe their souls to be immortal or not, feel that crime is 
 
 * "Seventh Night," 1169-1182. 
 
 Q3
 
 230 THE SERVICE OF MAX. 
 
 connected with misery rather than happiness; and that 
 virtue, perhaps not of the highest, but yet of a fairly high 
 standard, tends directly to the agent's own comfort and 
 peace of mind. 
 
 Now, as touching the problem which Mr. Stephen says 
 has tortured mankind for ages, the connection between 
 virtue and kappiness, its solution would seem to require a 
 little more precisjng of what is meant by happiness, than is 
 customary in ethical discussions. Obviously, happiness 
 varies as much as men vary; and what constitutes the 
 happiness of one man makes the misery of another. The 
 healthy and the strong have different sources of happiness 
 from the sickly and the weak. The same man at different 
 periods of life has very different forms of happiness. In 
 other words, happiness is a subjective phenomenon, depend- 
 ing upon the conditions and character of the individual. 
 This being so, if we only consider the agent, without refer- 
 ence to the reaction of society upon him, it is obvious that 
 no one course of conduct can be assumed a priori as certain 
 or likely in itself to produce happiness. Virtue may and 
 probably will bring happiness to the virtuous man ; but to 
 the criminal and the selfish, virtue will be probably the 
 most distasteful or even painful thing in their experience, 
 while vice will give them unmitigated pleasure. This 
 view, as Mr. Stephen says, "is calculated to shock many 
 respectable people ; " but that is not a sufficient reason for 
 rejecting it if it be otherwise supported. 
 
 Now, what is a general feature common to all forms of 
 happiness, whether vicious or virtuous? Who are the 
 people who visibly enjoy themselves; who are never or 
 rarely at a loss as to what they shall do with their time ? 
 Is it not those persons who have one or more tastes, 
 inclinations or passions, so strongly marked, that they are
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 331 
 
 always ready or ever thirsting for their gratification, which 
 never comes amiss ? Even the most sensual and repellent 
 vices, may so fill a mind with intense relish and pleasure, 
 that the sensualist is conscious of nothing but one long 
 draught of voluptuous enjoyment Satiety may no doubt 
 be rapidly produced, and health ruined by excess; and 
 then the sensualist has a bad time of it ; but that is because 
 he has been deprived of his pleasures, and he has nothing 
 to fall back on when his vices have left him. But that 
 fact does not invalidate the statement just made, that a 
 passionate pursuit of some one thing, whatever its character, 
 is the primary condition of that glow of pleasurable feeling 
 which we call happiness. The gambler sitting down to the 
 card-table, the gourmand to his dinner, the book-collector 
 buying choice and rare editions, the artist creating types 
 of beauty, the man of science working out momentous 
 problems, the philanthropist seeking and relieving the 
 wretched, though all enjoying very different kinds of happi- 
 ness, have this factor in common, that they are pursuing 
 with keen appetite the object they desire. They are free 
 from the aching langour of ennui ; they escape the hopeless 
 and helpless nausea of the blase mind, which is impotent 
 even to desire. Strong desires or passions, capable of 
 frequent and lasting gratification, are the only materials of 
 happiness. 
 
 We have next to notice that the gratification of all the 
 passions is more or less attended with pain. Indeed, it 
 would seem that all intense pleasures need to be tipped 
 with a sharp point of pain to give them their full zest. 
 The fatigue and danger of most manly sports, constitute a 
 large portion of their attractiveness. As gamblers mostly 
 end by losing all their money, their vice must give them 
 more pain than pleasure, but the fact does not deter them
 
 232 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 from gratifying it. The pains of the drunkard, of the opium 
 eater, of the gourmand, are notorious, but are not often 
 alone sufficient to deter from indulgence in their respective 
 vices. And to this law the higher and nobler passions offer 
 no exception. The ambitious man, say a Napoleon, is always 
 exposed to bitter disappointment and mishaps. The agony 
 of a few nights at Fontainebleau, just before his abdication, 
 had so changed Napoleon's countenance that his intimates 
 were shocked by it. Yet the experience was thrown away 
 upon him, and he was ready to recommence the game of 
 ambition, as soon as opportunity offered, by his escape 
 from Elba. Even the peaceful pursuits of literature and 
 science have their acute crises of vexation and frustrated 
 hope. Hume, the most even-tempered of men, was so 
 mortified by the failure of the first volume of his history, 
 that he would have gone abroad, changed his name, and 
 renounced authorship, had not war broken out between 
 England and France. And, to complete the survey, it 
 must be added, that not even the passionate pursuit of 
 holiness itself is without occasional sharp pain; in proof 
 of which it is sufficient to cite the "Acta Sanctorum," 
 passim. 
 
 A passion for virtue, therefore, is not found to be at any 
 disadvantage, as compared with other passions, in the 
 occasional pain which its gratification involves. If " il faut 
 souffrir pour etre belle," it is also true, " il faut souffrir pour 
 etre bon;" and it is difficult to see what is gained by 
 attempting to disguise the fact. Moralists have been so set 
 upon edification, that they have been over-anxious to per- 
 suade men of the desirability of virtue, by expatiating on 
 the sweetness of its pleasures ; that virtuous people had an 
 ample quid pro quo for their virtue. And so they have at
 
 ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE. 233 
 
 times, and in one sense always ; but they also have dark 
 and bitter moments in which they are ready to faint ; doubts 
 within and dangers without, yea, even death itself in isolated 
 desolation, when "all" forsake them and flee; when the 
 hero has nothing to turn to but his own heroic heart. 
 Individuals, if left to themselves, will follow "their own 
 peculiar bent " in their choice of pleasures, whether they be 
 virtuous or vicious, selfish or self-denying, voluptuous or 
 ascetic. But there can be no doubt which class Society, in 
 its own interests, will prefer that its members should choose, 
 viz. the virtuous, the self-denying, and ascetic. Indeed, the 
 most depraved and selfish of men, whatever his own practice, 
 will wish his neighbours to be virtuous. Though he may 
 be unjust and cruel to others, he will resent injustice and 
 cruelty to himself; though a libertine himself, he will 
 probably insist on chastity in his wife, with much emphasis. 
 Thus even the bad are interested on the side of virtue, as 
 far as the conduct of others is concerned. It only needs a 
 little more improvement in society for this to be generally 
 recognized, as it is already partially recognized, for the 
 disfavour of public opinion to be sharply shown to selfish 
 pursuits and passions, and a steady, persistent encourage- 
 ment of the unselfish and social enjoyments of civic life 
 and duty. A love of good may be cultivated to almost any 
 extent, where the original foundation of an altruistic nature 
 exists. A passionate ideal of excellence can so fill the 
 mind, that no pleasure is felt in anything but in efforts to 
 realize it. " The susceptibility to ideal inflammation is a 
 peculiarity of our nature, varying with constitutions, and 
 affected by various circumstances."* All the desires and 
 passions in characters of normal vigour can, in the proper 
 
 * Bain, "The Emotions and the Will," p. 496.
 
 234 THE SERVICE OF MAN. 
 
 conditions, be thus inflamed, as they can also be starved by 
 systematic discouragement. An ideal society would be one 
 in which an ideal education habitually stimulated and 
 inflamed the good passions, while it starved and discouraged 
 the bad. 
 
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 SHAKSPERE'S WORKS. 
 
 SPECIMEN OF TYPE. 
 
 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 
 
 ACT i 
 
 Salar. My wind, cooling my broth 
 
 Would blow me to an ague, when I thought 
 What harm a wind too great might do at sea. 
 I should not see the sandy hour-glass run 
 But I^should think of shallows and of flats, 
 And see my wealthy Andrew, dock'd in sand, 
 Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs 
 To kiss her burial. Should I go to church 
 And see the holy edifice of stone, 
 And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, 
 Which touching but my gentle vessel's side, 
 Would scatter all her spices on the stream, 
 Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks, 
 And, in a word, but even now worth this, 
 And now worth nothing ? Shall I have the thought 
 To think on this, and shall I lack the thought 
 That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad ? 
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 Is sad to think upon his merchandise. 
 
 Ant. Believe me, no : I thank my fortune for it, 
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 Nor to one place ; nor is my whole estate 
 Upon the fortune of this present year : 
 Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad. 
 
 Salar. Why, then you are in love. 
 
 ^Ant. Fie, fie ! 
 
 Salar. Not in love neither ? Then let us say you 
 
 are sad, 
 
 Because you are not merry ; and 'twere as easy 
 For you to laugh, and leap, and say you are merry, 
 Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed 
 
 Janus, 
 
 Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time : 
 Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
 And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper ; 
 And other of such vinegar aspect 
 
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