A A 9 9 OUTHE RNREGIi 3> 5 1 5 4 RARY > JLIT 2 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES OTHER WORKS BY GOLDWIN SMITH THE UNITED KINGDOM: A Political History. In 2 volumes. The Macmillan Co. Price, $4.00 — 15s. THE UNITED STATES: An Outline of Political History, 1492-1871. The Macmillan Co. Price, $2.00 — 8s. 6d. ESSAYS ON QUESTIONS OF THE DAY, POLITI- CAL AND SOCIAL. Second edition. The Macmillan Co. Price, $2.25 — gs. OXFORD AND HER COLLEGES. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co. Price, $1.50 — 6s. GUESSES AT THE RIDDLE OF EXISTENCE. The Macmillan Co. Price, $1.25 — 6s. A TRIP TO ENGLAND. The Macmillan Co. Price, 75c.— 3s. BAY LEAVES. Translations from the Latin Poets. The Macmillan Co. Price, $1.25 — 5s. SPECIMENS OF GREEK TRAGEDY. Translated. The Macmillan Co. Vol. i, /Eschvlus and Sophocles. Price, $1.25 — 5s. Vol. 2, Euripides. Price, $1.25 — 5s. LIFE OF COWPER. The Macmillan Co. Price, 40c.— IS. 6d. THE LIFE OF JANE AUSTEN. London: Walter Scott. Price, 40c. — IS. 6d. MY MEMORY OF GLADSTONE. With Portrait. Toronto: William^ Tyrrell & Co. Price, 75c. London : Fisher Unwin. Price, is, SHAKESPEARE, THE MAN. Toronto: Morang & Co. Price, 75c. — 2S. 6d. THE FOUNDER OF CHRISTENDOM. Toronto: Morang & Co. Price, 40c. net. IN THE COURT OF HISTORY: An Apology for Canadians who werk opposed to the South African War. Toronto: William Tyrrell & Co. IRISH HISTORY AND THE IRISH QUESTION. The Macmillan Co. of Canada. Price, $1.50 — 5s. mo IRefuge but in ^rutb 6olt)Win Smitb (Seconli EMtton, Enlarges) (5. p. Putnam's Sons 1Rew J!?orl? an& UonSon ■Cbe HtnlclJerbocher pre8» 1909 Copyright, 1907-1908 (In the United States) BY THE SUN PRINTING AND PUBLISHING COMPANY Copyright, Canada, 1908 BY GOLDWIN SMITH Copyright, iqog (In the United States) BY GOLDWIN SMITH Entered at Statiunf.rs' Hall, London, England PREFACE THE letters collected in this volume appeared, with others, in the New York Sun, to the Editor of which the thanks of the writer for his courtesy are due. Appended is a paper on the same subjects commenting on one by the late Mr. Chamberlain, since published in the North American Review. To the Editor of the North American Review also the writer's acknowledgments are due. There appeared to be sufficient in- terest in the discussion to call for the publication of a small edition. iv preface The age calls for religious truth. Nine thousand persons communicated their cravings to the Editor of the London Daily Telegraph. By their side the present writer places himself, not a teacher, but an inquirer, seeking for truth and open to conviction. The position of the clergy, especially where tests are stringent, calls for our utmost consideration. But I submit that it would not be improved by any attempt, such as seems to be made in a work of great ability before me, to merge the theological in the social question. Benevolence may still be far below the Gospel mark, and the Christ- ian faith may suffer from its default; but the increase of it and the multipli- cation of its monuments since the world has been comparatively at peace can- not be denied; while of the distress preface v which still calls for an increase of Christian effort, not the whole is due to default on the part of the wealthier classes. Idleness, vice, intemperance, improvident marriage, play their part. Let us not be led away upon a false issue. There is nothing for it but truth. CONTENTS PAGE Preface ...... iii Introduction ..... i I. Man and his Destiny . . 7 II. New Faith Linked WITH Old . 26 III. The Scope of Evolution . :is IV. The Limit of Evolution . 38 V. Explanations ... 42 VI. The Immortality of the Soul 47 VII. Is there to be a Revolution in Ethics? .... 52 VIII. The God of the Bible . . 55 IX. Conclusion .... 61 The Religious Situation ... 67 INTRODUCTION IT is impossible to read current litera- ture or to go into general society without seeing that religious scepticism is spreading. The scepticism of Vol- taire and Rousseau which preceded the French Revolution was almost killed by the Revolution as well as by the moral characters and social sentiments of its professors. With the return of calm, inquiry recommenced, and is now advancing in the potent forms of phys- ical science and literary research, the progress of which is shaking the edifice of orthodox Christianity to its founda- tion. The progress of dissolution by 2 IRo "Ketuge physical science has been so rapid that in that quarter a complete revolution has taken place within the compass of a single lifetime. Sixty years ago pro- fessors of geology were still struggling to reconcile science with Genesis. Or- thodoxy is now struggling to reconcile Genesis with science. But literary re- search and criticism have also wrought a great change. There lies before me the private correspondence of an emi- nent member of the clerical order who had published an important theological work of orthodox character, but after- wards, it seems, was brought by literary research to the belief that the first three Gospels were grafts upon an unknown stock. What the real position of the clergy is it would be very hard to say. They are learned, they read, they meditate; JBut in Crutb 3 many of them must by nature have open minds. But they are bound, if they are Anglicans or Protestants, by tests. Papacy of course requires total renunciation of the right and duty of inquiry, as Jesuitism does of loyalty to truth. One consequence of the present distraction is not unlikely to be a rush of despair into a Church which pretends to infallibility and supersedes con- science. It is impossible to imagine that men of intellect and culture, men who think and whose ears are open, though they may belong to a clerical order, can believe all that those in Holy Orders are ostensibly bound to uphold, all the miracles, all the creeds, among them the Athanasian Creed which con- signs to eternal perdition whoever doubts that of two co-eternal beings one pro- ceeded from the other. Much of the 4 IRo TRcfugc Protestant dogma, Predestination, for example, is the heritage of the great struggle of the Reformation, which as- sumed a political form and required tests as the bonds and watchwords of the contending hosts. It is not to be supposed that all of a certain nation could be by conviction Anglicans, all of another nation or province Cal- vinists or Lutherans. Accurately to measure the extent to which scepticism prevails is of course impossible. Orthodoxy has still social hold enough to exert a good deal of suppression. Political motives also come in. There is fear of disturbing what is supposed to be and probably has to a considerable extent been a secur- ity for social order. I have seen this feeling carried to the extent of the building of a church by one whom I asut In a;rutb S knew to be a most pronounced unbe- liever. Nor is the fear of social dis- turbance which imposes reticence, if not hypocrisy, unfounded. There can be little doubt that belief in the present state of things as a divine ordinance, and in future retribution, dim as it may have been, has had considerable influ- ence in reconciling the suffering classes to the present order of things. Among the symptoms of religious disintegration may be reckoned the growth of eccentric sects. A sign of the general disturbance as well as of the craving for sorriething supernatural is the growth of such movements as Spiritualism, planchette, table-turning, and other mystical fancies of that kind. I have seen Spiritualism really em- braced, and by people of no mean intellect, as a religion. 6 "Ko HcfixQe but in Girutb Now on many sides is heard a cry for assurance of truth. Thousands raised that cry through one English journal. I take my stand at their side as an inquirer, and one seeking to be taught, not a teacher; anxious, as they are, for light; open, as I doubt not they are, to conviction. I believe in Christ- ian morality and spiritual life apart from any special code of doctrine or ecclesiastical institution. Like my late friend Mr. David Chamberlain I con- tinue to attend a church as a centre of Christian communion. Nothing, I trust, in my writings on this momentous subject will ever be found irreverent. Freedom of expression the time requires. /IDan, anb bis Destiny TIME has passed since I first sought access to the columns of The Sun, ranging myself with the nine thousand who in an English journal had craved for religious light. The movement which caused that craving has gone on. The Churches show their sense of it. Even in that of Rome there is a growth of "Modernism," as it is called by the Pope, who, having lost his mediaeval preservatives of unity, strives to quell Modernism by denunciation. Angli- canism resorts to a grand pageant of uniformity, beneath which, however, 7 8 "Mo IRctugc lurk Anglo-Catholicism, Evangelicism, and Liberalism, by no means uniform in faith. The Protestant Churches proper, their spirit being more emo- tional, feel the doctrinal movement less. But they are not unmoved, as they show by relaxation of tests and inclination to informal if not formal union, as well as by increasing the aesthetic and social attractions of their cult. Wild theosophic sects are born and die. But marked is the increase of scepticism, avowed and unavowed. It advances probably everywhere in the track of physical science. We are confronted with the vital question what the world would be without religion, without trust in Providence, without hope or fear of a hereafter. Social or- der is threatened. Classes which have hitherto acquiesced in their lot, be- JBut tn ^rrutb 9 lieving that it was a divine ordinance and that there would be redress and recompense in a future state, are now demanding that conditions shall be levelled here. The nations quake with fear of change. The leaders of human- ity, some think, may even find it necessary to make up by an increase of the powers of government for the lost influence of religion. Belief in the Bible as inspired and God's revelation of himself to man seems hardly to linger in well-informed and open minds. Criticism, history, and science have conspired to put an end to it. The authorship of the greater part, including the most im- portant books, is unknown. The mor- ality of the Old Testament differs from that of the New, and though in advance of the world generally in those days, lo mo "Refuge in more places than one, as in the case of the slaughter of the Canaanites, shocks us now. There are errors, too, in the Old Testament of a physical kind, such as those in the account of creation and the belief in the revolu- tion of the sun. Of the New Testa- ment, the most important books, the first three Gospels, our main authorities for the life of Christ, are manifestly grafts upon a stock of unknown author- ship and date. They betray a belief in diabolical possession, a local super- stition from which the author of the Fourth Gospel, who evidently was not a Palestinian Jew, was free. There is discrepancy between the first three Gospels and the fourth, notably as to the day and consequent significance of Christ's celebration of the Passover. It is incredible that God in revealing aSut in Crutb n himself to man should have allowed any mark of human error to appear in the revelation. We have, moreover, to ask why that on which the world's salvation depended should have been withheld so long and communicated to so few. There remains of the Old Testament, besides its vast historical interest, much that morally still impresses and exalts us. Of the New Testament there re- mains the moral ideal of Christ, our faith in which no uncertainty as to the authors of the narratives, or mistrust of them on account of the miracu- lous embellishment common in biog- raphies of saints, need materially affect. The moral ideal of Christ conquered the ancient world when the Roman, mighty in character as well as in arms, was its master. It has lived through 12 IWo IRetugc all these centuries, all their revolutions and convulsions, the usurpation, tyr- anny, and scandals of the Papacy. The most doubtful point of it, con- sidered as a permanent exemplar, is its tendency, not to asceticism, for Christ came "eating and drinking," but to an excessive preference for poverty and antipathy to wealth which would arrest human progress and kill civil- isation. We have, however, a Nico- demus and a Joseph of Arimathea, as well as a Dives and a Lazarus. Nothing points to a Simeon Stylites. Self- denial, though not asceticism proper, is a necessary part of the life of a wandering preacher, which also pre- cludes the exhibition of domestic vir- tues. The relation of Jesus with his family seems to have been hardly domestic; we have no record of any Sut in ^rutb 13 communication between him and Jo- seph. In his last hour he provides a retreat for his mother. We cannot appeal from reason to faith. Faith is confidence, and for confidence there must be reason. The faith to which appeal is made is in fact an emotion rather than an intellec- tual conviction. But apart from the Bible, have we any revelation of the nature, the will, the unity, the existence of deity? It must apparently be owned that, though we tremble at the thought, we have none. We are left upon this shore of time gazing into infinity and eternity with- out clue or guidance except such as we can gain either by inspection of our own nature with its moral indications and promptings or by studying the order of the universe. 14 iWo iRefuge We find in man, it is true, a natural belief in deity, which we might think was implanted by his Creator; but it is not found in all men, and in the lower races it assumes forms often so low and grotesque that we cannot imagine its origin to have been divine. Between the God of the Christian and the god of the red Indian there is, saving mere force, no affinity whatever. This we must frankly own to ourselves. The god of the Mexican demanded human sacrifice. On earth the creative power seems to be, as it were, contending against itself. Good of every kind is in con- flict with evil. Slowly and fitfully, with many reverses, good seems to prevail. Humanity as a whole ad- vances, and if we could believe in its collective advance toward an ultimate JBut In Urutb 13 perfection which all who have con- tributed to the advance should share, we might have a solution of the great problem. But of this we have no certain assurance. Multitudes come into being who to progress can con- tribute nothing. There is evil of all kinds that so far as we can see can be followed by no good effect. Plague and famine, with a great part of the common misfortunes of human life, seem merely evil. So, plainly, do the sufferings of animals, sometimes on a terrible scale and apparently quite useless. As long as effort, even painful, is the price of perfection the price must be paid and we acquiesce. But in innumerable cases there appears to be no room for that explanation. The rocks display the fossil remains of whole races of primeval animals produced 1 6 Wo iRefuge apparently only to become extinct. Of the earth itself, man's destined habitation, large portions are utterly uninhabitable. The legendary war be- tween the powers of good and evil, God and Satan, Ormuzd and Ahriman, was a fable naturally devised, though the birth of the two powers and the divi- sion of existence between them is incon- ceivable. Can anything like a clear line be drawn between good and evil? Effort and resistance to temptation may seem necessary ingredients in the formation of a virtuous character. So far we may think we have the clue. But what is to be said of the myriads of cases in which virtuous effort seems to be morally impossible; in the case, for instance, of barbarous or corrupt and depraved tribes or nations in which general example is evil? What is to 3But tn XTrutb 17 be said of deaths in infancy, when there has been no time for character to be formed? To suppose that the Creator could not have helped it, that this was his only way to the production of virtuous beings, is to deny his omni- potence. A Satan with horns and hoofs, struggling against the power of good, used to be the solution of the problem, but belongs to the simple religion of the past. A plan of which we are ignorant, but of which the end will be good, is ap- parently our only explanation of the mystery. The earth is beautiful; we have human society with all its in- terests; we have friendship, love, and marriage; we have art and music. We m-ust trust that the power which will determine the future reveals itself in these. 1 8 "Mo TRefugc The belief that man has an immortal soul inserted into a mortal body from which, being, as Bishop Butler phrases it, "indiscerptible," it is parted at death, has become untenable. We know that man is one; that all grows and develops together. Imagination can- not picture a disembodied soul. The spiritualist apparitions are always corporeal. Free will surely we unquestionably have. Necessarianism seems to assume that in action there is only one element, motive. Reflection appears to show that there are two elements, motive and will; and of this duality we seem to be sensible when we waver in action or feel compunction for what we have done. Is it possible to explain moral repentance or morality at all without assuming the freedom of the will? JSut tn ^rutb 19 Habit may enslave; but to be enslaved is once to have been free. What is conscience? When we re- pent morally are we looking only to the immediate consequences of the act or are we also looking to the injury done to our moral nature? If the latter, does it not appear that there is some- thing in us not material and pointing to a higher life? Much of us, no doubt, is material. Memory and imagination often act unbidden by the will; imagin- ation often when we are asleep. We may find a material element even in the character as moulded by physical or social circumstance or need. But is there not also a conscious effort of self-improvement not dependent on these? That all is material, nothing spiritual, does not seem yet to have been proved. 20 "Wo IRefufle It is by close examination of our own nature and its workings, perhaps, that we are most likely to solve the enigma of our being. The word spiritual surely has a meaning; it suggests self-culture not only for the present but for a higher state. Evolution is a great discovery. But evolution cannot have evolved itself, nor does there seem to have been an observed case of it. Points of similarity between the ape and man are not proofs of transition. Has any animal given, like man, the slightest sign of self- improvement or conscious tendency to progress? The putting on by the mortal of immortality, it must however be owned, bafifles conception. In the apologue of Dives and Lazarus the dead appear still in their human forms and talk to each JBut in trrutb 21 other across the gulf, apparently nar- row, which divides the abode of the damned from that of the blessed. This clearly is the work of imagination. Nor, seeing the infinite gradations of character and the frequent mixture of good and evil in the same man, can we understand how a clear line can be drawn between those who are admitted to heaven and those who are condemned to hell. Mere difficulties of sense or intellect on mundane questions might be met by appeal to the mysteries of a universe which may conceivably be other in reality than to us it appears. But it is to be supposed that divine beneficence would give its creatures all powers of intelligence necessary to their moral welfare, above all those entailing re- ward or punishment in a future life. 22 "Mo iRefufle What is to be said in this connection of man's aesthetic nature, of his sense of beauty and melody? Can they be the offspring of material evolution ? As they meet no material need, we might almost take them for the smile of a beneficent and sympathising spirit. The basis of the gifts no doubt is physical, but we cannot easily understand how they can have been developed by a purely physical process. To ghosts and apparitions of all kinds, spiritualism included, we bid a long farewell. We turn to the universe, of which while we believed in the Incarnation our earth was the central and all-im- portant scene, but in which it now holds the place only of a minor planet. We see order and grandeur inexpressible, but with some apparent signs of an 3But in ITrutb 23 opposite kind: the conflagration of a star, a moon bereft of atmosphere, errant comets and aerolites. In our own abode we have variations of weather, apparently accidental and sometimes noxious, atmospheric in- fluences which beget plagues, ministers of destruction such as earthquakes and volcanoes. The plan, if plan there is, transcends our sense and comprehension. Still, be it ever borne in mind, of the human race, progress, moral and mental, is the unique characteristic, and the one which suggests a divine plan to be fulfilled in the sum of things. It dis- tinguishes man vitally and immeasurably from all other creatures. Fitful, often arrested, sometimes reversed, it does not cease. It may point to an ultimate solution of the enigma of our chequered being such as shall "justify the ways 24 "Wo TRefugc of God to man." This may be still the world's childhood, and the faith which seems to be collapsing may be only that of the child. Whatever trouble, moral, social, or political, a great change of belief may bring, there is surely nothing for it but to seek and embrace the truth. What- ever may become of our creeds and of the dogma, so plainly human in its origin, of some of them, we have still the Christian ideal of character, which has not yet been seriously challenged, does not depend on miracle or dogma for its claim to acceptance, and may continue to unite Christendom. Superstition can be of no use morally ; even politically it can be of little use and not for long. In the Christian ideal we still have a rule of life. Robin- son, the good Puritan pastor, taking. 3But in ^rutb 25 leave of the members of his flock, who were embarking for America, bade them not confine themselves to what they had learned from his teaching, but to "be ready to receive whatever truth might be made known to them from the written word of God." If there is a God, are not all truths, scientific, historic, or critical, as much as anything written in the Bible, the word of God? II •Wew f altb Xinfte& witb ©l& APRE ACHER cites a lecture of mine, delivered nearly half a century ago, a part of which has had the honour of being embalmed in the work of that most eminent theologian, the late Dean Westcott, on The Historic Faith. I turned rather nervously to the lecture to see what it was that I had said. Not that I should have been much shocked had I found that my opinions had even been completely changed. Since that lecture was delivered science and criti- cism have wrought a revolution in theological belief, likely, as it appears to me, to be regarded hereafter as the 26 •fto "Refuge but in Q;rutb 27 most momentous revolution in history. With the whole passage cited by Dean Westcott I will not burden the columns of The Sun, but part of it is this: "The type of character set forth in the Gospel history is an absolute em- bodiment of love, both in the way of action and affection, crowned by the highest possible exhibition of it in an act of the most transcendent self- devotion to the interest of the human race. This being the case, it is diffi- cult to see how the Christian morality can ever be brought into antagonism with the moral progress of mankind; or how the Christian type of character can ever be left behind by the course of human development, lose the allegiance of the moral world, or give place to newly emerging and higher ideals. This type, it would appear, being perfect, 98 iRo "Refuge will be final. It will be final n^t as precluding future history, but as com- prehending it. The moral efforts of all ages, to the consummation of the world, will be efforts to realise this character and to make it actually, as it is po- tentially, universal. While these efforts are being carried on under all the various circumstances of life and society, and under all the various moral and intellectual conditions attaching to particular men, an infinite variety of characters, personal and national, will be produced; a variety ranging from the highest human grandeur down to the very verge of the grotesque. But these characters, with all their varia- tions, will go beyond their sources and their ideal only as the rays of light go beyond the sun. Humanity, as it passes through phase after phase of JiSut in ^Trutb 29 the historical movement, may advance indefinitely in excellence; but its ad- vance will be an indefinite approxima- tion to the Christian type. A divergence from that type, to whatever extent it may take place, will not be progress, but debasement and corruption. In a moral point of view, in short, the world may abandon Christianity, but it can never advance beyond it. This is not a matter of authority, or even of revelation. If it is true, it is a matter of reason as much as anything in the world." I went on to dwell on the freedom of the Christian type of character as em- bodied in the Founder of Christianity from peculiarities of nation, race, or sex which might have derogated from its perfection as a type of pure humanity. In those days I believed in revelation. 30 ifto iRetuge But my argument was not from revela- tion, but from ethics and history. The undertaking of Christianity to convert mankind to a fraternal and purely be- neficent type of character and enfold men in a universal brotherhood, baflfied and perverted although the effort has been in various ways, appears to have no parallel in ethical history. There is none in the Greek philosophers or the Roman Stoics, high as some of them may soar in their way. Aristotle's ideal man is perfect in its statuesque fashion, but it is not fraternal; it is not even philanthropic. Nor does the Christian character or the effort to create it depart with belief in dogma. Do not men who have totally renounced the dogma still cultivate a character in its gentleness and benevolence essen- tially Christian? J8ut (n G:rutb 31 Theory, I have none. I plead, on a footing with the nine thousand corre- spondents of the Daily Telegraph of London, for thoroughgoing allegiance to the truth, emancipation of the clerical intellect from tests, and comprehension in the inquiry not only of the material but of the higher or spiritual nature of man, including his aspiration to progress, of which there cannot be said to be any visible sign in brutes, whatever rudi- ments of human faculties and affec- tions they may otherwise display. But though I have no theory, I cannot help having a conception, and my present conception of the historical relation of Christianity and its Founder to hu- manity and human progress does not seem to me to be so different from what it was half a century ago as when I came to compare the two I expected 32 Mo IRefuge but (n tlrutb to find it. It seems to me still that history is a vast struggle, with varying success, toward the attainment of moral perfection, of which, if the advent of Christianity furnished the true ideal, it may be deemed in a certain sense a revelation. Assuredly it may if in this most mysterious world there is, beneath all the conflict of good with evil, a spirit striving towards good and destined in the end to prevail. If there is not such a spirit, if all is matter and chance, we can only say, What a spectacle is History ! Ill XTbe Scope ot Bvolution IN discussing the ground of ethical science some writers appear to hold that evolution explains all; but surely the illustrious discoverer of evolution never carried his theory beyond the material part of man. He never pro- fessed to trace the birth of ethics, idealisation, science, poetry, art, re- ligion, or anything spiritual in the anthropoid ape. There is here, ap- parently, not only a step in develop- ment but a saltus mortalis, a dividing and impassable gulf. Our bodily senses we share with the 33 34 "Wo TRctUQC brutes. Some brutes excel us in quick- ness of sense. They have the rudi- ments, but the rudiments only, of our emotions and affections. The mother bird loves her offspring, but only until they are fledged. The dog is attached to the master who feeds him, commands him, and if he offends whips him; but without respect to that master's personal character or deserts. He is as much attached to Bill Sykes as he would be to the best of men. The workings of what we call instinct in beavers, bees, and ants are marvellous and seem in some ways almost to outstrip humanity, but they are not, like humanity, pro- gressive. The ant and the bee of thousands of years ago are the ant and the bee of the present day. The bee is not even taught by experience that her honey will be taken again next year. 3But in ^rutb 35 Still less is it possible to detect anything like moral aspiration or effort at im- proving the community in a moral way. Beavers are wonderfully co-operative, but they have shown no tendency to establish a church. Of the science of ethics the founda- tion surely is our sense of the difference between right and wrong, and of our obligation to choose the right and avoid the wrong for our own sake and for the sake of the society of which we are members and the character of which re- acts upon ourselves. This sense seems to me to be authoritative, whatever its origin may be. Different concep- tions of right and wrong may to some extent prevail under different circum- stances, national or of other kinds, giving room for different ethical sys- tems, as a comparison of the ethics of 36 flo "Refuge the Gospel with those of Aristotle shows. Still, there is always the sense of the difiference between right and wrong and of the necessity, individual and social, of embracing the first and eschew- ing the second. If the Christian system is found by experience to show itself essentially superior to all other systems and to satisfy individually and socially, it is supreme, and is presumably the dictate of the author of our being, if an author of our being there is. The necessarian theory, which in this connection is still advanced or implied, largely accepted as it has been, I cannot help thinking is really traceable to an oversight. If in action there were only one factor, that is to say, the motive, the action would seem to be necessary and to be traceable in its origin appar- ently back to the nebula. But surely 3But in ttcutb 37 there are two factors, the motive and the volition. Of the second factor in actions which are matters of course we are not conscious; where there is a conflict of motives or hesitation of any kind, we are. Huxley at one time held that man was an automaton. I believe my illustrious friend afterwards receded from that position. Yet on the necessarian theory automatons we must apparently be. IV Ube Ximit of Bvolutlon YOUR last correspondent on the subject of my letters treats the question lightly. Perhaps he is young, enjoying the morning of life and think- ing little of its close. On the mind of a student of history is deeply im- pressed the sadness of its page; the record of infinite misery and suffering as well as depravity, all apparently to no purpose if the end is to be a physical catastrophe. Comtism, while it bids us devote and sacrifice ourselves to the fu- ture of humanity, can apparently hold out nothing more. 38 IWo TRefuge but in ^Trutb 39 I accept evolution, if it is the verdict of science as to the origin of physical species, the human species included; though it certainly seems strange that, the chances being so numerous as they are, no distinct case of evolution should have taken place within our ken. But the theory apparently does not pretend to account for the development of man's higher nature. That there is a gap in the continuity of development or any supernatural intervention has never been suggested by me ; but it does appear that there is an ascent such as consti- tutes an essential difference and calls for other than physical explanation. In matter, said Tyndall, is the po- tentiality of all life. Matter is what we discern by our bodily senses. What assurance have we that the account of the universe and of our relations 40 mo "Rcfufje to it given us by our bodily senses is exhaustive, or that the moral conscience may not have another source? Apart from anything more distinctly spiritual, where do we get the faculty of idealisation? Is it traceable to physical sense ? Unless the moral conscience has a source higher than mere physical evo- lution, what is to deter a man in whom criminal propensities are strong from indulging them so long as he can do so with impunity? Eccelino had a lust of cruelty. Was he wrong in in- dulging it, so long as he had the power, which he might have had, with common prudence, to the end of his life? I speak, as I have always said, from the ranks; and I am not presuming to criticise Darwin's theory as an explana- tion of the origin and nature of the J3ut in (Icutb 4z physical man. But if the theory is to be carried farther, and we are to be told that man's higher attributes and his moral conscience have no source or authority other than physical evolution, we may fairly ask to see our way. V Bxplanations INTEREST is evidently felt in ques- tions which I have been permitted to treat in The Sun, and after the notices and the queries which I have received there are points on which I should like, if you will allow me, to set myself right. I. The leaning to orthodoxy with which I am gently reproached goes not beyond a conviction, drawn from the study not of theology but of history, that of all the types of character hitherto produced the Christian type, founded on a belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, appears 42 •Wo VctuQC but In Cmtb 43 to be the happiest and the best. At its birth it encountered alien and hostile influences; Alexandrian theosophy, Ori- ental asceticism, Byzantine imperialism. Later it encountered the worst influence of all, that of theocracy engendered by the ambition of the monk Hildebrand. Theocracy, not Catholicism or anything spiritual, has been the source of the crimes of the Papacy; of the Norman raids upon England and Ireland; of civil wars kindled by Papal intrigue in Germany; of the extermination of the Albigenses; the Inquisition, Alva's tri- bunal of blood in the Netherlands, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the perse- cution of the Huguenots, Jesuitism and the evils, moral and political, as well as religious, which Jesuitism has wrought. Through all this, and in spite of it all, Christian character has preserved itself, 44 "Wo TRetuge and it is still the basis of the world's best civilisation. Much that is far out- side the Christian creed is still Christian in character and traceable to a Christian source. II. I fully admit that society can be regulated by a law framed for mutual protection and general well-being with- out the religious conscience or other support than temporal interest. But if individual interest or passion can break this law with impunity, as often they can, what is there to withhold them from doing it? What is the value of a clean breast? III. The fatherhood of God seems to be implied in the Christian belief in the brotherhood of man. By that phrase I meant to characterise Christ- ianity, not to embark upon the question of Theism. It does not seem possible J8ut in ^rutb 45 that we should ever have direct proof through human observation and reason- ing of the existence of deity or of the divine aim and will. To some power, and apparently to some moral power, we must owe our being. We can hardly believe that creation planned itself or that the germ endowed itself with life and provision for development. But what can have been the aim of creation ? What can have led to the production of humanity, with all the evil and suffering which Omniscience must have foreseen? What was there which with- out such a process mere fiat, so far as we can see, could not produce? The only thing that presents itself is char- acter, which apparently must be self- formed and developed by resistance to evil. We have had plenty of " evi- dences" in the manner of Paley or the 46 flo TRetuge but in Crutb Bridgewater Treatises, met by sceptical argument on the other side; but has inquiry yet tried to fathom the mys- tery of human existence? IV. One thing for which I have earnestly pleaded is the abolition of clerical tests, which are in fact renun- ciations of absolute loyalty to truth. Would this involve the dissolution of the Churches? Nothing surely can put an end to the need of spiritual asso- ciation or to the usefulness of the pas- torate so long as we believe in spiritual life. I think I have seen the most gifted minds, such as might have done us the highest service in the quest of truth, condemned to silence by the tests. VI Ube Ummortalits of tbe Soul THERE appeared the other day in the Washington Herald a not- able letter by Mr. Paul Chamberlain on Immortality. It took the same line as an essay on the same question by Mr. Chamberlain's late father, which I had read in manuscript. Both the letter and the essay are on the negative side of the question, which, in the essay at least, is pronounced the happier and better view, as conducive to unselfish- ness. Unselfishness, it must surely be, of a supreme kind. Annihilation is not a cheerful word. Bacon has a highly 47 48 *Ko "Refuge rhetorical passage flouting the fear of death. His was probably not a very loving nature, nor does he seem to have thought of the parting from those we love. The life of the late Mr, Chamberlain was evidently happy as well as good. That of his son, I have no doubt, is the same. But of the lot of the myriads whose lives, through no fault of their own, are, or in the course of history have been, unhappy, often most mis- erable, what is to be said? If for them there is no compensation, can we believe that benevolence and justice rule the world? If the world is not ruled by benevolence and justice, what is our ground of hope? The negative conclusion rids us, it is true, of the Dantean Hell, which paints the deity as incomparably worse JiSut in TTrutb 49 than the worst Italian tyrant, and, as it is to be everlasting, concedes the final victory to evil. We discard all ghost stories and spiritualist apparitions as at most signs of a general craving. We resign all reasoning like that of Butler, who describes the soul as "indiscerptible," assuming that it exists separately from the body. Nor can we be said to have anything that bears the character of Revelation. That the Founder of Christ- ianity looked for a future life, with its rewards and punishments, is evident. But he brought no special message, lifted not the curtain of mystery, did nothing to clear our minds upon the subject. His apologue of Dives and Lazarus shows that to him as to us the other world was a realm of the imagination. 50 flo IRefugc Is there anything in man not physical, or apparently explained and limited by the transient conditions and neces- sities of his present state, anything which gives an inkling of immortality? Our utilitarian morality is the offspring and adjunct of our condition here. But is there not an aspiration to character which points to something more spirit- ual and higher than conformity to the utilitarian code? Heroism and self-sac- rifice are not utilitarian. We can hardly allow the Investiga- tion to be closed by the mere mention of the talismanic formulary Evolution. There may be something still to be said on that subject. Evolution can- not have evolved itself, nor does it seem capable of infallible demonstration. It no doubt postulates vast spaces of time for its action. But within the 3But tn tlrutb 51 space of time of which we in any way have knowledge, apparently no case of spontaneous evolution has taken place. Rudimentary likeness between the frame of the ape and that of man seems hardly in itself a proof of the generation of man from the ape. On no subject, however, does one who is not a man of science or a phi- losopher feel more intensely his de- ficiency, and his need of having his paths lighted by the perfectly free while reverent inquiry, to pray for which has been the object of these letters. VII Us tbere to be a IRevolution in Btbics? A REVOLUTION in theology and in our conception of the government of the universe such as we are under- going is sure to draw with it a revo- lutionary movement in ethics. There lies before me a review article giving an account of a number of books on ethics which are widely at variance, it appears, with the ethics of Christ- ianity. The general tendency of the authors seems to be to reject alto- gether the Christian type of character as artificial and weak, and to aim at 52 t\o IRefuge but in Crutb 53 substituting for it something more robust and, it is assumed, more in accordance with nature. One theorist is represented as regarding humanity in its present form only as transient material out of which is to be wrought the "Superman." In what respect, so far as our conceptions extend, has Christian ethic failed? It has given birth to the patriot as well as to the martyr, to the virtues of the softer as well as to those of the stronger sex. Communities which have kept its rules, as well as individuals, have been happy. The Christian ideal of character and life went essentially unchanged through the violence of the Middle Ages and the vices of the Papacy. It was some- what perverted by asceticism; but it was radically the same character in Anselm or in St. Louis, as it is in their 54 "Ko "Refufle but in Q;rutb counterparts now. Nor does it seem to lose by renunciation of theological dogma. The moral principles and as- pirations of good freethinkers or Posi- tivists remain still essentially Christian. The ethical ideal which is now being set up against the Christian apparently is that of the Greeks. In literature and art Greece, or rather Athens, or, to speak still more correctly, a limited number of free citizens in Athens, was pre-eminent; but its pre-eminence, if we may trust its own moralists, hardly extended to morals. VIII TTbe 6o& of tbe JBMc THERE is a controversy in a branch of the Methodist Church on the subject of the Old Testament, appar- ently raising the practical question whether the Old and the New Testa- ment are rightly bound up together as parts of the same Revelation, though differing in time, and together making up the Christian Bible. Genesis, with its stories of the six days of creation, of the temptation of Eve by the serpent, and the sentence passed on the tempter; of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; of 55 56 "Ro IRefuge the universal deluge, and inclusion of all the animals in the ark; of the loves of the angels; of the Tower of Babel scal- ing heaven, and the deity coming down to arrest it ; of the long-lived patriarchs, may it is presumed be set down as a work of imagination, however superior to other primitive cosmogonies it may be. We do not reach anything like history before Exodus. We are then in the tribal era. Israel, like other tribes, has its tribal god, Jehovah, to whom the people of his tribe owe the same religious loyalty which the people of other tribes owe their tribal deities, though unquestionably the deity of Israel is superior to the deities as the law and institutions of Israel are su- perior to the laws and institutions of other nations. The Jew recognises the JBut (n G^rutb 57 existence of other deities, and often apostatises to them, attracted by the more voluptuous character of their worship. Thus does Solomon, the best mind of Israel. To Chemosh, the tribal god of the Ammonites, is ascribed the same power of giving possessions to his tribe that Jehovah has of giving pos- sessions to Israel. The deity of the New Testament is universal. He sends forth his spiritual missionaries to convert all nations. The deity of the Old Testament is tribal; he sends forth his armies to dispossess and exterminate the people who serve other tribal gods, and who are massacred, as we are repeatedly and exultingly told man, woman, and child. He approves the treachery of Rahab the harlot betraying her country to his own people. His chronicler records S8 IWo IRetuge with complacency David's act in tor- turing to death the people of conquered cities. Christian bigotry read evil les- sons in these pages. The deity of the New Testament is spiritual. The deity of the Old Testa- ment seems almost material. He is visible; he moves with his host; he comes to wrestle in person with the obstinacy of Pharaoh. He takes part in a battle, flinging down great hail- stones from heaven. He seems to have an almost material interest in the sacrifice. He is ever at hand to confer with the leaders of his tribe. About a future state the Old Testa- ment has nothing beyond a vague allu- sion to Sheol, an underworld, perhaps the burial ground of the tribe, from which there was no return. Job, as the reward of his patience, gets, not JSut (n ZTrutb S9 heaven, but the restoration of his wealth. Of the Trinitarian doctrine there is no inkling in the Old Testament. The deity who walks in the Garden of Eden is evidently sole. In the New Testament there are appeals to what is supposed to be pro- phetic language in the Old; but they will be found, it is believed, to be too loose to be accepted as definite predic- tion. "Nazarite" is cited as "Naza- rene. " Between the Old Testament and the New there are four centuries fraught with events which must have had very great influence on the character and ideas of the people. Perhaps a change begins to be seen in the latest books of the Old Testament. It is needless to descant on the value 6o iwo IReluge but in Crutb of the Old Testament as a part of the archives of humanity, or on the civilised and beneficent character, wonderful for the age, of much of the Hebrew law and institutions. It is needless to descant on the beauty and grandeur of the Psalms. Inspiration, natural if not su- pernatural, is here. Miracle apparently must go. So ap- parently must dogma, which reaches its climax in the Athanasian Creed. Divested of miracle and dogma, can Christendom, moral, social, and spiritual, live? That is the absorbing question of the hour. For these controversies we must be prepared after so rapid and momentous an advance of knowledge and thought. Let us hope that they will not be allowed to rend the moral and social body of Christendom. IX Conclusion FAITH'S legend of the fatal Apple, the tempter-Serpent, and the Fall of Man, revived after untold centuries and the passing of myriads of lives, with belief in the Incarnation, the Redemption, and the Trinity, and with the Trinitarian creeds, is apparently passing away. It leaves unimpaired the character and teachings of Christ, with such natural theology as may have been evoked. It leaves unimpaired the moral and social Christendom, with whatever of the spiritual is real. To save Christendom, moral, social, and 6l 62 mo IRetuge spiritual, from dissolution, if this can be done without renunciation of truth, is surely a vital object. The question of a future life, which perhaps with most of us is the question of chief interest, not only for the in- dividual man but for society, remains to be settled by examination of hu- manity. It could hardly be said to be happily settled, if settled at all, by a sharp division of mankind, in whose characters there is no sharp dividing line, into the few who are to be called to bliss and the many who are to be consigned to outer darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. We have hitherto been in a world apart, the all-important scene of the Fall and the Redemption. Our planet now becomes again a member of a universe, the authorship and plan of JBut in XTrutb 63 which must be studied to learn, if possible, what we are and what we are to be. That we may be a part of a universal plan, moving onward with it to some divine end, and seconding it by well-doing, is an hypothesis which seems favoured by the moral phenomena and our consciousness. With the existence of evil, optimism wrestles in vain. We can only hope that it will prove to have been the hard schoolmaster and trainer of good. At all events there is no refuge for us but in truth. Z\)c 1Rcli9iou0 Situation 65 THE RELIGIOUS SITUATION* (From the North American Review.) {EXPRESS myself," says Bishop Butler, ** with caution, lest I should be mistaken to vilify reason, which is, indeed, the only faculty which we have to judge concerning anything, even revelation itself; or be misunderstood to assert that a supposed revelation cannot be proved false from internal characters." "The faculty of reason," he says, "is the candle of the Lord within us against vilifying which we must be very cautious. " 1 Copyright, 1908, by the North American Review Publishing Company. Copyright, Canada, 1908, by Goldwin Smith. 67 68 mo TRefuge What would the world be without religion? That is the dread question which seems now to be everywhere presenting itself. Would even the social fabric remain unshaken? Has not its stability partly depended on the general belief that the dispensation, with all its inequalities, was the ordinance of the Creator, and that for inequalities here there would be compensation hereafter? The belief may not in com- mon minds have been very present; but it would seem to have had its in- fluence. Apparently, it is now depart- ing. In some places it seems tc have fled. Scepticism, with social unrest, comes in its room. What is now the position of the clergy? Keepers and ministers of truth, as they are understood to be, they alone are debarred by ordination JSut in ^rutb 69 vows and tests from the free quest of truth. They are ecclesiastically bound not only to hold, but to teach and preach, as divinely revealed, what many of them must feel to have been dis- proved or to have become doubtful. Their uneasiness is shown by writings, such as Lux Mundi struggling to re- concile orthodoxy with free thought. It is shown by a growing tendency on the part of pastors to slide from the office of spiritual guide into that of leader of philanthropic effort and social reform. It is seen, perhaps, even in the tendency to give increased promi- nence to musical attraction in the ser- vice. Sermons grow more secular. Clerical biographies, such as that of Jowett, sometimes reveal private mis- givings. The writer has even seen the pastorate of a large parish assumed by 70 Tlo "Refuae one who in private society was an evi- dent rationalist and must have satisfied his conscience by promising to himself that he would do a great deal of social good. There is, no doubt, practically more latitude than there was; heresy trials seem to have ceased, and one of the writers of Essays and Reviews became, without serious outcry, Primate of the Church of England. But ordina- tion vows remain; so does the perform- ance of a religious service which includes the repetition of creeds and forms a practical confession of faith. Hollow profession cannot fail to impair mental integrity, or, if generally suspected, to kill confidence in our guides. Read Canon Farrar's Life of Christ and you will see to what shifts orthodoxy puts a clerical writer who was, no doubt, a sincere lover of truth. JBut in C^rutb 71 The religious disturbance shows itself at the same time in the prevalence of wild superstitions, such as Spiritualism, rising out of the grave of religious faith, and attesting the lingering craving for the supernatural, somewhat like the mysteries of Isis after the fall of national religion at Rome. The crisis has come on us rather suddenly, in consequence partly of physical discoveries. Before this won- derful advance of science and criticism combined, there had been comparatively little of avowed, still less of popular, scepticism. Rousseau was a senti- mental theist ; Voltaire erected a church to God. This vast " Modernism, " as the poor, quaking Pope rather happily calls the ascendancy of science and criticism, has changed all. It is con- ceivable that, now as on some former 72 flo IRefuge occasions, the range of discovery may have been overrated and the pendulum of opinion may consequently have swung too far. Evolution, apparently, has still a wide space to traverse, even in what may be assumed to be the material sphere. What can it make of the marvellous stores of memory or of the apparently boundless play of the imagination, which by its working in sleep, sometimes with no assignable materials for the fancy, seems almost to show creative power? Has deity directly revealed itself to man? It has if the Bible is in- spired. Otherwise, apparently, it has not. About the Koran or the Zenda- vesta it is hardly necessary to speak. " The Bible " we call the Old Testament and the New bound up together, as though they contained the two halves of JBut In ^rutb 73 the same dispensation and the moral ideal of both were the same. The his- torical importance of the Old Testament can hardly be overrated ; nor can the lit- erary grandeur of parts of it, or the ad- vance made in social character and in law. When in connection with the ques- tion of American slavery attention was specially directed to the social law of Moses, no careful reader could fail to be greatly struck by its advanced humanity and civilisation. Neverthe- less, the morality of the Old Testament is tribal, while that of the New Testa- ment is universal. The tribal char- acter of the Old Testament morality is seen in the destruction of the first- born in Egypt in order to force Pharaoh to let the Chosen People go; in the in- vasion of Canaan and the slaughter of the Canaanites; in the murder of 74 1^0 TRctnge Sisera; in the approval of the treason of Rahab; in David's putting to torture the inhabitants of a captured city. The attempt to reconcile all this with universal morality by styling it the course of " Evolution" can hardly avail, since the spirit of tribal separatism dominates in the latest books of the Old Testament, Ezra and Nehemiah, where Israelites are not only forbidden for the future to marry with Gentiles, but bidden to put away Gentile wives. It is true there are glimpses of a uni- versal dominion of the God of Israel, and of the happiness to be enjoyed by all nations under it. Still, Jehovah is Israel's God. Were the Old Testament a divine revelation, it would certainly be free from error concerning the works of Deity, which plainly it is not. The JSut (n tTrutb 75 narrative in Genesis of creation, com- pared with other primitive cosmogonies, is rational as well as sublime. But if Professor Buckland could persuade his hearers he could not persuade himself. Largely good the influence of the Old Testament has no doubt been; largely also it prepared the way for the New. That its influence has been wholly good cannot be said. It has furnished fanati- cism with aliment and excuse. It has found mottoes for the black flag of re- ligious war. Is it possible to believe, in face of doubtful authenticity, contradictions as to fact, and traces of local superstition, that the New Testament any more than the Old was dictated by deity? In- spired by the creative power, in common with the other works of creative bene- ficence, as a part of the general plan, 76 mo IRefuge the New Testament may have been. Its morality is not tribal, but universal. " God is a Spirit ; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth"; this beside the well of Samaria by the Founder himself is proclaimed. If there is any privilege it is in favour not of race, but of class, the class being the poor, whose poverty seems counted to them as virtue, per- haps rather to the disparagement of active goodness. Had the New Testament been divinely inspired, would not its authority have been clearly attested? Would not the authorship of its books have been made known? Would the slightest error or self-contradiction have been allowed to appear in it? What is the fact? The authenticity of a large portion of the Epistles of St. Paul seems admitted by asut in Q:tutb 77 critics; of other books of the New Testament the authorship is regarded as doubtful. The three Synoptic Gos- pels have a large element common to them all, and are evidently grafts upon a single document which is lost, and which the critics generally seem inclined to place not earlier than the latter part of the first century. The Synoptics all tell us that when Jesus expired the veil of the Temple was rent. One adds that there was preternatural dark- ness; another that the earth quaked, that the rocks were rent, that the graves opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, came out of the graves after the resurrection of Jesus, went into the holy city, and appeared to many. Such portents plainly must have produced an immense sensation; such a sensation, it may be assumed. 7S iRo TRctnge as would have brought scepticism to its knees. This surely must be legendary, and the legend must have had time to grow. Though grafts on the same original stock, the Gospels are often at variance with each other; as in the case of the genealogy of Jesus, upon which the har- monists labour in vain; in that of the marvels attending his birth; in that of his Last Supper; in that of the Resur- rection, which again baffles the skill of the harmonists. Here, surely, is proof that the pens of the narrators were not guided by Omniscience. Concerning the miracles of the casting out of devils generally, and in particular of the casting out of a legion of devils into a herd of two thousand swine at Gadara, what is to be said? Are these not clearly cases of human imagination JBut in ^rutb 79 set at work by a Jewish superstition? Is it possible that they should have had a place in a divine narrative of the life of the Saviour of the world? The Fourth Gospel omits them. Orthodoxy would fain persuade itself that this was to avoid unnecessary repetition. Satan from the top of a mountain shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth. This seems to imply belief that the earth is a plane. The movement of the star of the Nativity seems to imply belief in the rotation of the heavens. About the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, and, consequently, about its title to belief, there has been endless controversy among the learned. But there are pretty plain indications in the shape of the omission of demoniac miracles and some lack of local know- 8o iRo iRefuge ledge, that it is not the work of a Palestinian Jew. Opening with a refer- ence to the Logos, it strikes the key of Alexandrian philosophy. It is, in- deed, rather theological than historical, so that it has been not inaptly com- pared to the Platonic, in contrast to the Xenophontic, account of Socrates. The theology seems like that of a post- evangelical era. Martineau's conclu- sion is that "the only Gospel which is composed and not merely compiled and edited, and for which, therefore, a sin- gle writer is responsible, has its birth- day in the middle of the second century, and is not the work of a witness at all. " Historically, this Gospel is at variance with the others in its narrative of the Last Supper. "The incidents," says the highly orthodox Speaker's Com- mentary, "are parallel with sections 3But (n ^rutb 8i of the Synoptic Gospels; but there are very few points of actual correspond- ence in detail between the narratives of the Synoptists and of St. John." There appears to have been much disputation among critics and com- mentators, but no room for disputation surely would have been left concerning narratives, equally authentic and in- spired, of a momentous crisis in the life of the Saviour. "At this point, that is to say the beginning of the Galilean ministry, we are again met by difficulties in the chronology, which are not only various, but to the certain solution of which there appears to be no clue. If we follow exclusively the order given by one Evangelist we appear to run counter to the scattered indications which may be found in another. That it should 82 "Mo TRefuge be so will cause no difficulty to the candid mind. The Evangelists do not profess to be guided by chronological sequences." So writes Dean Farrar in despair. Is it likely that such con- fusion would be found in a divine revelation? Would not the narratives have been as well arranged and clear as, by the admission of orthodoxy, they are the reverse? Would the names of the authors of the Gospels, their war- rants and the sources of their informa- tion, have been withheld? Providence surely was not there. If there was a miraculous revelation on which salvation depended, why was it not universal? Why has it all this time been withheld from nations even more in need of it than those to whom it was given ? Are we to suppose that the salvation of these myriads 38ut \n Crutb 83 was a matter of indifference to their Creator, or that Heaven preferred the slow and precarious working of the missionary to the instantaneous action of its own fiat? This is the question which scepticism asks, and which the great author of the Analogy of Religion fails to answer. What did Jesus think of himself and his mission, and of his relation to deity? This it seems impossible without more authentic records clearly to decide. The Gospel of St. John, which is the most theological, would appear to be the least trustworthy of the four. Its author, apparently, sees its subject through a theosophic medium of his own. The idea of the teacher in the mind of the disciples would naturally rise with his ascendancy; so, perhaps, would his own idea. If Jesus is rightly 84 "Ko TRetuge reported, he believed himself to be the Son of God, exalted to union and partici- pation in spiritual dominion with the Father, and destined together with the Father to judge the world. But, in his mortal hour of anguish in Gethsem- ane, he prays to the Father to let the cup pass from him; an act hardly con- sistent with the doctrines of the Atha- nasian Creed. In the immortality of the soul and judgment after death he plainly believes. But he does not sub- stantiate the belief by any explanation of the mode of survival ; nor, in separat- ing the two flocks of sheep and goats, does he say how mixed characters are to be treated. Tribalism seems slightly to cling to his conception of the just gathered in Abraham's bosom. Of his apologue of Dives and Lazarus, the last part appears to show that the world JBut in ^rutb 85 beyond the grave was to him a realm of the imagination. The Sermon on the Mount would ap- pear, by the strong impress of charac- ter it bears, to have special claims to authenticity. So may the Parables habitually employed as instruments of teaching and wearing apparently the stamp of a single imagination. That with Jesus of Nazareth there came into the world, and by his example and teaching was introduced and pro- pagated a moral ideal which, embodied in Christendom, and surviving through all these centuries the action of hostile forces the most powerful, not only from without, but from within, has uplifted, purified, and blessed humanity is an historical fact. "With the civilisation of Christendom no other civilisation can compare. But we have been accus- 86 ViO TRCtUQC tomed to believe that there was a miraculous revelation of the deity. A revelation of the deity, though not miraculous, Christianity may be believed to have been. Revelation, direct and assured, of the nature, will, designs, or relation to us of the deity through the Bible or in any other way we cannot be truly said to have. All that we apparently can be said to have, besides the religious in- stinct in ourselves, is the evidence of beneficent design in the universe; bal- anced, we must sadly admit, by much that with our present imperfect know- ledge appears to us at variance with beneficence: by plagues, earthquakes, famines, torturing diseases, infant deaths ; by the sufferings of animals preyed on by other animals or breeding beyond the means of subsistence; by inevitable JSut in ^cutb 87 accidents of all kinds; by the Tower of Siloam everywhere falling on the just as well as on the sinner. There may be a key, there may be a plan, disciplinary or of some other kind, and in the end the mystery may be solved. At present there seems to be no key other than that which may be sug- gested by the connection of effort with virtue and the progress of a collective humanity. At the same time, we may apparently dismiss belief in a great personal power of evil and in his realm of everlasting torture. The independent origin of such a power of evil is unthinkable; so is the struggle between the two powers and its end. There is no abso- lutely distinct line between good and evil. The shades of character are num- berless. 88 'Mo "Kcfuge Another great change, rather of im- pression than of conviction, has been creeping over the religious scene. We have hitherto, largely, perhaps, under the influence of the Bible, been fancying rather than thinking that this little earth of ours was the centre of all things, the special object of interest to the Creator; and that the grand drama of existence was that enacted on this terrestrial stage and culminating in Redemption. Astronomical science is now making us distinctly feel that this world is only one, and, if magnitude is to be the measure, very far from the most important, of myriads of worlds governed by the same physical laws as ours, forming a system of which ours is a member, while the destiny of the whole system is to us utterly inscrutable ; proofs of the most sublime and glorious JBut in ^rutb 89 order presenting themselves on the one hand, while on the other we see signs of disorder and destruction, errant bodies such as comets and aerolites, a moon without an atmosphere, the conflagration of a star. Whether the whole is moving towards any end and, if it is, what that end is to be, we cannot hope to divine. When with Infinity we take into our thought Eternity, past and future, if in Eternity there can be said to be past or future, our minds are completely overwhelmed. Is belief in a future life generally holding its ground? My friend, the late Mr. Chamberlain, was by no means alone in resigning it. But if this life is all, how can we continue to hold our faith in divine justice? Mr. Chamber- lain, as I said before, was evidently happy as well as good. His life, though go "Mo IRcfugc short and regarded by him as ending in the grave, was to him so much gain, and proved beneficence on the part of the Author of his being. But if Mr. Chamberlain's theory is true, what is to be said in the case of the myriads to whom life has been wretchedness, end- ing perhaps in agony, often without the slightest responsibility on their part? For these unhappy ones would it be well, as Mr. Chamberlain holds it was for him, that there should be no hereafter? Is their being brought into existence only to suffer compatible with our faith in supreme benevolence? Is confidence in supreme justice com- patible with the conviction that the tyrant and the tortured victims of his tyranny, alike, repose for ever in the grave? Such, it is true, was the belief of the Hebrew; indication of any other :S3ut In drutb 91 belief, at all events, he has left us none, unless it be a faint glimpse of Sheol. The philosophy of Job halts accordingly. The Hebrew believed that he would be rewarded or punished in his pos- terity. Positivism tenders us endless exist- ence as particles in a collective human- ity, the "colossal man." But would there be much satisfaction in existence when individuality and personal con- sciousness had been lost? Would the prospect lead the ordinary man to work and suffer for generations to come, at all events, for any beyond the circle of the immediate objects of his love? What the end of the colossal man is to be seems undetermined. The Positivist Church has produced very good and beautiful lives, but its power as a religion to go alone would be more 92 IRo IRetuge clearly seen were not Christianity at its side. Is there or is there not after all some- thing in human nature apparently un- susceptible of physical explanation and seeming to point to the possibility of a higher state of being? Evolution may ultimately explain our general frame, emotional and intellectual, as well as physical. It may in time ex- plain the marvels of imagination and memory. It may explain our aesthetic nature with our music and art. It may explain even our social and political frame and our habit of conformity to law. But beyond conformity to law, social or political, is there not, in the highest specimens of our race at least, a conception of an ideal of character and an effort to rise to it which seem to point to a more spiritual sphere? J8ut In ^rutb 93 The solution, extreme old age cannot hope to see. It can only listen to the voice within, which whispers that there will be mercy for those who love mercy and seek truth. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. Form L9-Series 444 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 995154 2 BR 125 S64n 1909