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THE OLD FAITH 
 
 AND 
 
 THE NEW PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Lectures delivered hekore the Canadian Summer School 
 FOR THE Clergy, in Port HorE, Ont., July, 1899, 
 
 BY 
 
 G. J. LOW, D.D., 
 
 Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa, and Rector of 
 '"rinity Church, Billing^' Bridge. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 f^T 
 
 PRINCIPAL GRANT, OF QUEENS UNIVERSITY. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 
 WILLIAM BRIGGS. 
 1900 
 
Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one 
 thousand nine hundred, by William Briggs, at the Department 
 of Agriculture. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Page 
 
 5 
 
 I. Introductory — "Is the Old Faith Com- 
 patible WITH THE New Philosophy ? " 11 
 
 II. The Doctrine of the Trinity 
 
 36 
 
 III. The Holy Ghost 
 
 V. The Holy Catholic Church 
 
 66 
 
 IV. (a) The Person and Work of Christ - 91 
 (h) The World's Great Sacrifice - - 114 
 
 129 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Canon Low does well in calling the attention 
 of the clergy to the necessity of sympathy with 
 the spirit of the age and country in which they 
 live, and of restating the Old Faith in the lan- 
 guage of modern thought. No generation can 
 escape from this necessity, and least of all our 
 own. For, the point of view from which we 
 regard the universe, history, literature and all life, 
 in its lowest and its highest forms, has entirely 
 changed, and in consequence the voice of a man 
 repeating old formulas — no matter how sacred 
 his office — is as barren as the voice of a parrot. 
 The Christian faith has been in touch with life 
 for nineteen centuries. Must it now be laid 
 aside as an outworn garment, or can it adapt 
 itself to the growth of the twentieth century, 
 with its wide horizon and complex civilization 
 
 6 
 
6 
 
 INTRODUCTIOI^. 
 
 It can do so, only by compreliending the science, 
 the art, the philosophy, the criticism, and the 
 social, economic and industrial problems of our 
 age, and including them in its interpretation of 
 life. This will require its united strength, and 
 the Church is far from being united, though the 
 spirit of union is at work more widely and 
 powerfully than is commonly supposed. 
 
 Dr. Low's definition of the " Old Faith " is in 
 accordance with the famous '* Quadrilateral," 
 which the representatives of the Anglican 
 Communion suggested to other Churches as a 
 possible basis of union. He finds the Living 
 Voice of the Universal Church in the Creed 
 defined by the Councils of Nicaea, Constantinople, 
 Ephesus, and Chalcedon, before the great schism 
 of the Catholic Church into east and west. Now, 
 no one will speak of the dogmas then formulated, 
 save with profound respect, though an acquaint- 
 ance with the inner history of the councils does 
 not tend to win our sympathy or our intellectual 
 submission to their decisions. Time has proved 
 the wonderful perfection of their form. They 
 have been accepted by every section of the Church 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 — Greek, Latin and Protestant. It is also impos- 
 sible to study them, in relation to the contro- 
 versies of the fourth and fifth centuries, without 
 seeing that their authors were strugfjling to 
 express the faith in such terms as would exclude 
 errors which threatened to evacuate Christianity 
 of its distinctive truth and vital power. We 
 can see this, even when studying the long drawn- 
 out formal conclusions concerning: the arithmeti- 
 cal Trinity of the so-called Athanasian Creed, 
 with its damnatory clauses, congruous to the 
 spirit of that age, but so repugnant to the modem 
 spirit. Carlyle at one time made great fun over 
 the controversies about a diphthong, and was 
 wont to pronounce the homoousion and horn- 
 oiousion in his broadest Annandale Doric, to 
 expose the absurdity of which bishops and theo- 
 logians had been guilty. But he subsequently 
 acknowledged that he had been mistaken, as 
 people generally are who ridicule the past, and 
 assume that there was no wisdom in the world 
 till they were born. He saw, on closer investi- 
 gation, that the real question involved was, 
 whether the Church would accept in any form 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the old exploded aud degrading polytheism, or 
 insist upon monotheism, while defining at the 
 same time that complexity in the divine nature 
 which the New Testament reveals. 
 
 But admirably suited as the Nicene Creed 
 was for its age, we find in it, as in the Confes- 
 sions of Faith put forth by every subsequent 
 Council down to the Vatican, a combination of 
 elements, some of them derived from Revelation, 
 and some from contemporary thought ; that is, 
 some of them permanent, and others more or 
 less transitory. " Heaven and earth shall pass 
 away, but my words shall not pass away," said 
 our Lord, with a sublime faith which has been 
 again and again vindicated. So, while the 
 Nicene Creed will not be permanent, His reve- 
 lation of God the Father, and His baptismal 
 formula is a possession forever to humanity. 
 " Love," says Martensen, " is not merely one 
 single aspect of the divine essence, but that 
 essence in its fulness." The definition of God 
 as love delivers us from the conception of Him 
 as simple abstract unity, and necessitates the 
 conception of a self-revealing principle within 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 9 
 
 the divine nature, or of a subject which loves, 
 an object which is loved, and the unity of the 
 two in the Eternal Spirit. 
 
 But while wc cannot place the Nicene Creed 
 on the same level as the Words of Him to whom 
 alone the Spirit was given without measure, 
 this does not mean that the Church should 
 simply accept His words as its creed, and refuse 
 to construct systems of theology. It is quite 
 true that 
 
 " Our little systems have their day ; 
 
 They have their day, and cease to be : 
 Tliey are but broken lights of Thee, 
 And Thou, O Lord, art more than they." 
 
 But it is also true that the human mind must 
 construct systems, for it must perpetually strive 
 to rationalize and unify its thought. When man's 
 mind has widened, when a new fact or law, like 
 a new planet, " swims into his ken," when a 
 new point of view changes the centre of gravity 
 of his thinking, then a new system, or a larger 
 synthesis, which embraces all that was valuable 
 in the old, must be constructed. It is needless 
 
*%■ 
 
 10 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to say that this great work can not be Hghtly 
 undertaken. It is not called for by every 
 generation or every century. It requires long 
 previous travail of spirit. But it must be done, 
 if the Church is to live in the new world which 
 is ever coming into being, and if theology is to 
 retain its old position of queen of the sciences. 
 
 In the meanwhile, let there be the utmost 
 freedom for scholarship and thought, and let 
 boldness be combined with reverence, and godli- 
 ness with brotherly kindness and mutual trust. 
 It is because Canon Low has written in this 
 spirit that I gladly accede to his request to write 
 a brief introduction to the work which he is 
 submitting to the Christian public. 
 
 G. M. Grant. 
 
 Queen's University, Kin(!stox, 
 Christmas Day, 1899. 
 
THE OLD FAITH AND THE 
 NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY, 
 
 That the Christian religion is at present 
 passing through a very grave crisis must be 
 acknowledged by every one wlio reads and 
 thinks. If we of the clergy shut our eyes to 
 that fact we incur our Lord's rebuke : " Can ye 
 not discern the signs of the times ? " The storms 
 of secular learning are beating most violently 
 on the ark of Christ's Church, and alas for the 
 timid or reckless pilots who handle the craft as 
 if the waters were smooth ! It is true the 
 iVLister is within her still, though it may seem 
 as if He were " asleep on the cushion ; " and 
 w^hen the proper time arrives He Himself will 
 say to the winds and the waves, " Peace, be 
 still ! " We know all that. But none the less 
 
 11 
 
12 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 does the Master expect of those to whom He 
 has committed the conduct of His vessel, that 
 they should use all diligence to preserve that 
 which He has entrusted to their charge, and 
 grossly negligent are they if in times of storm, 
 when the winds and waves are contrary, they 
 content themselves with uttering mild platitudes 
 and saying, " All's well ! " 
 
 These are times of fearful storm. Have the 
 mariners of the ship of Christ's Church nothing 
 to answer for in steering her into such a whirl- 
 pool ? Must they not bear their share of blame 
 for having clapped on excessive sail, and for 
 having burdened her with cumbrous and risky 
 freight ? Now, it is ours to face the storm, and 
 for the present distress at any rate to shorten 
 sail, to throw overboard all needless lumber, to 
 dispose of our shifting cargo, to batten down 
 the hatches and clear the decks, and battle with 
 the hurricane for the preservation of that 
 which has been committed to our charge ; to 
 contend earnestly, not for the pious opinion of 
 this or that saint, not for the dogmatic utter- 
 ances of this or that doctor of the Church, but 
 for " the faith which was once for all delivered 
 to the saints." 
 
 If asked. From whence blows the gale ? we 
 answer, From all quarters at once of the scientific 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 18 
 
 and literary horizon ; we are in that storm 
 centre which we have called the "New Phil- 
 osophy." 
 
 The sources of the present disturbance in 
 religious affairs are : 
 
 1. The marvellous advances which ha/e been 
 made within the last half-century in every 
 department of physical science, causing a 
 readjustment of our conceptions of natural 
 phenomena. 
 
 2. The light thrown on antiquity by explorers 
 and excavators, the resurrecting of old monu- 
 ments, the deciphering of old documents, causing 
 a readjustment of our conceptions of past events 
 and giving rise to a new criticism of biblical 
 literature. 
 
 3. The unification and systematizing of all 
 these discoveries by the New Philosophy of 
 evolution, which has given us a new estimate 
 of the universe and has shifted the centre of 
 gravity, so to speak, of all thought. 
 
 4. As a result of these, an all-pervading con- 
 sciousness of the universal reign of law, which 
 is taking more and more hold of the minds of 
 men, making it extremely difficult for them to 
 accept any account whatever of any infraction 
 of that reign of law. 
 
 In short, the spirit of the age can be charac- 
 terized as : 
 
14 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ■^1 
 
 1. Discarding the old traditional view of the 
 creation. 
 
 2. Discarding the old Protestant view of the 
 infallibility of the Bible. 
 
 3. Discrediting a priori any account whatever 
 based on the miraculous, and so prone to discard 
 even the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation. 
 
 This is the tendency of the New Philosophy 
 which is pushing on its victorious way, daily 
 acquiring new territory and scornfully indiffer- 
 ent to the pin-pricks of its theological opponents. 
 
 And now, as I am addressing my clerical 
 brethren, let me speak frankly. I fear but few 
 of us realize how wide-spread is the revolution 
 of thought created by the New Philosophy. I 
 fear we of the seniors do not as a rule sufficiently 
 realize that those scientific theories which we, 
 in our earlier preaching days, were wont to 
 attack with our little shafts and think we had 
 slain, are now holding undisputed sway over the 
 minds of our collegians and of all who are studi- 
 ously inclined. We must bear in mind that the 
 relations of the pulpit to the pew are to-day vastly 
 different from what they were when Goldsmith 
 wrote his " Deserted Village." Then " Sweet 
 Auburn" contained a population who lived in 
 V ] ignorance and placid piety, while the 
 h*^.iors of literature were divided between the 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 15 
 
 rector, the squire and the village schoolmaster. 
 To-day all our Canadian lads and lassies expect 
 to take a university course and to earn their 
 living by some kind of intellectual work. The 
 quondam parson of Sweet Auburn would find 
 himself nonplussed in their midst, and even the 
 village schoolmaster would discover that many 
 a smaller head than his carried much more than 
 ever he knew. " Sweet Auburn " is not only a 
 deserted village ; it is buried out of sight. 
 
 The pastor of any fl'-^k in Canada wdll, if he 
 takes the trouble, ^ i-mong his parishioners 
 many of both sexes who are far better informed 
 than himself in some of the branches of secular 
 learning. He will see on their tables and shelves 
 books, magazines, novels, and even religious 
 works all written from a standpoint which is 
 quite foreign to the worthy cleric, unless he is 
 somewhat acquainted with the New Philosophy. 
 And if he enters into familiar intercourse with 
 them he will soon find that the knowledge 
 possessed by them makes them take the deliver- 
 ances of the pulpit cum grano salis. They may 
 listen courteously to the parson's discourse, but 
 they go away unimpressed, for the pulpit has 
 not touched the real difficulty which their secular 
 reading has forced upon them, but M^hich they 
 do not care to express lest the pulpit should be 
 shocked. 
 
^ 
 
 16 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Brethren, if we of the clergy would be leaders 
 of thought we must know what the educated 
 world is thinking about. 
 
 The New Philosophy, then, with its wide- 
 spread and ever-widening influence, is the gale 
 which the ark of Christ's Church is encounter- 
 ing. Thank God, she has weathered many a 
 storm before, and we know she will eventually 
 come out of this one all the staiincher for her 
 experience. Even now the great strain is of 
 benefit in that it is diverting the attention of 
 the mariners from their own petty squabbles to 
 the imminence of the danger, and to proposals 
 of concerted action in order to avert it, and to 
 pr<iserve their precious cargo. So schemes of 
 union are the order of the day. The Presby- 
 terians and Methodists have, with their " sancti- 
 fied common sense," already given practical effect 
 to this general desire in consolidating their own 
 formerly divided forces into two strong central 
 powers ; and it will not be long, in my opinion, 
 before these two great bodies in Canada will 
 form one organic whole. In the Old Country a 
 noticeable phase of this tendency is the " New 
 Catechism" which has been put forth by the 
 united Free churches of England. It is inter- 
 esting to note how that catechism — as Canon 
 Gore has pointed out — approximates to the lines 
 
INTRUDIHTOKY. 
 
 17 
 
 lion, 
 will 
 
 |,ry a 
 
 [ew 
 
 the 
 
 iter- 
 
 mon 
 
 lines 
 
 
 of our own Church Catechism . and how it 
 conserves and brings into proniinence the great 
 articles of the Old Faith. This new catechism 
 is itself the outcome of the International Series 
 of Sunday School Lessons, anotlior effort towards 
 united action. 
 
 But all parties are not progressing on these 
 lines. Some in their alarm are longing for the 
 \c)ice of some strong, masterful dictator. They 
 see such a one in the Vatican, and they repair in 
 their distress to the Church of Rome, because 
 she avers '' Secnrus jadicat orhis terrarum." 
 That is enough for them. They feel a crying 
 need for such an authority — no other party 
 makes such a claim — and so thev Hee to her. 
 
 Others, again, without going this length, yet 
 long for an authoritative word of command. 
 They go about wringing their hands, as it were, 
 and bemoaning the loss of the Universal Church's 
 "Living Voice." 
 
 I confess I cannot sympathize with these. 
 For my part I am thankful that in these days 
 of transition, when scientific investigation is 
 continually making inroads upon our old ideas 
 of things, the Universal Church has been seized 
 with a severe attack of aphonia ; nay more, I 
 believe the loss of the Liviiiir Voice of the 
 Universal Church was brought about in the 
 
lb THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 providence of God ; that He has overruled 
 events to the end that she should lose her 
 living voice soon after she had formulated the 
 great creed of the Church, which we call the 
 " Nicene," and had lain down in the first four 
 general councils those definitions of the faith 
 which Hooker so beautifully expounds. By 
 that time the Catholic Church had said all that 
 was requisite as to what is de fide, and from 
 that time forward she incurred the danger, 
 incident to all powerful organizations, of over- 
 legislating and over-defining. And as in the 
 older dispensation, almost as soon as the king- 
 dom of Israel (the prototype of the Catholic 
 Church) had arrived at the summit of its pros- 
 perity in the reign of Solomon, almost as soon 
 as the temple had been built and the Divine 
 worship duly established, the nation was split 
 in twain ; and as of that great schism between 
 the North and South the Lord declared, " This 
 thing is of me " (1 Kings xii. 24), so I believe 
 that out of the great schism of the Catholic 
 Church into East and West the Lord has caused 
 the foolishness of men to turn to His praise. 
 That schism cost the Church her living voice ; 
 but she had said enough. From that time 
 forth the Western or Roman section yielded to 
 the temptation to which all strong governments 
 
 iM 
 
 Mill 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 19 
 
 are exposed, the temptation of prescribing every- 
 thing, defining everything, legislating upon 
 everything, leaving no room for anybody to 
 have any opinion of his own upon anything 
 whatever, until at last she laid a yoke upon the 
 necks of the people, which neither our fathers 
 of the Reformation nor we were able to bear. 
 
 On the other hand, the Greek half of the great 
 schism — " the unchanging East " — remained sta- 
 tionary; solidly, stiffly, unalterably conserva- 
 tive ; and so, deaf to all suggestions of advancing 
 knowledge, determined that the philosophy of 
 the tenth century should do for all time, even 
 retaining the Old Style in her Calendar, she has 
 shown her incapacity for growing with the 
 growth of human knowledge. To use a bio- 
 logical expression, through want of adapting 
 the organism to the environments she affords 
 an example of " arrested development." 
 
 Happily the voice of either section is not the 
 Living Voice of the Church Universal. In the 
 Lord's own time, when the need arises, we may 
 be sure it will be restored. In the meantime 
 we abide by what the Church did say before 
 she lost her voice. 
 
 There are others again who, in their alarm at 
 the violence of the gale, seem to be for throwing 
 away everything they can. Like the mariners 
 
20 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 at the time of St. Paul's shipwreck, they would 
 cast overboard not only the tackling^ of the 
 ship, but all the most valuable freight. Some 
 even in the Anglican Church are disposed to 
 eliminate the supernatural in deference to the 
 spirit of the age, and consider that after doing 
 so they have still preserved all the essentials 
 of the Christian religion. The late Matthew 
 Arnold, stumbling at the anthropomorphic con- 
 ception of God, and rejecting the word " person," 
 as predicated of Him, defined Him as " The Eter- 
 nal-not-ourselves," that makes for Righteousness 
 and Religion as "moralit}' touched with emotion." 
 With such minimizing ideas propounded in our 
 midst, Mr Mallock may well ask, as he does in 
 the Nineteenth Century oi December last, " Does 
 the Church of England require belief in any- 
 thing; ? " His conclusion is that she does not. 
 This same reductio ad ahsurduni was very 
 wittily set forth some time ago in a satirical 
 brochure from a Roman Catholic pen, entitled 
 "The Comedy of Convocation," which some of you 
 have no doubt seen. The consequence of all this 
 destructive process is that the Christian world 
 to-day is as divided as the Jewish world was in 
 the time of our Lord on the answer to the great 
 question, " What think ye of Christ ? " What 
 a number of conflicting answers have been given 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 21 
 
 in these last days by the author of " Ecce 
 Homo," Farrar, Geikie, Beecher, Abbott, Theo- 
 dore Parker, Strauss, Baur, Greig, Harnach, 
 Renan and so forth ! Truly we may say that, 
 as of old so of late, " There was a division of the 
 people bocause of Him." 
 
 But to return to Mr. Mallock's query, " Does 
 the Church of England teach anything ? " I 
 would answer, there can be no mistake as to 
 what she requires us to believe. Some of her 
 erratic sons may indeed propound their own 
 theories, for she allows great liberty of speech : 
 she has established no holy office of inquisition : 
 she has no index exjyiirgatorius. But however 
 much freedom or license her sons may assume, 
 there is no mistake as to what she, in her corpo- 
 rate capacity, believes ; for every time that we 
 assemble together in the church to show forth 
 the Lord's death, we give the Church's answer 
 to the question, " What think ye of Christ ^ " 
 And that answer is : 
 
 " I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only 
 begotten Son of God. . . . Very God of Very 
 God . . . Being of one substance with the 
 Father, by whom all things are made ; Who for 
 us men and for our salvation came down from 
 heaven . . . and was made man : and was 
 crucified . . . and was buried. . . . He 
 
Il 
 
 22 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 rose again . . . and ascended into heaven. 
 . . . And ho shall come again with glory. 
 . . Whose kingdom shall have no end." 
 
 Can anything plainer or more definite be 
 required ? If there are some who use these 
 words in a non-natural sense, or allegorical 
 sense, or in any other than the plain sense, we 
 cannot help it. But that is the reason why 
 many of us emphasize that confession of faith, 
 not only by our words, but also by our gestures. 
 We turn to the East, we bow at the Holy Name, 
 and at the mention of the myjtery of the incar- 
 nation, we do everything to show that, what- 
 ever others may believe or not believe, whatever 
 others may add to or detract from the common 
 faith, that is our confession, that is our defini- 
 tion of " the Faith which was once for all 
 delivered to the Saints." 
 
 Of this creed, Manning, on " The Unity of 
 the Church," says (Chap. 1): The Constantino- 
 politan or Nicene Creed has a character peculiar 
 to itself, being the first promulgation of the 
 Christian Faith b}'' conciliary autliority. It may 
 be called, therefore, a conciliary or synodal creed 
 (syniholum synodale), to distinguish it from the 
 baptismal creeds of the several churches of 
 which it was a public representative. 
 
 I trust I have now made clear what I mean 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 23 
 
 by the Old Faith, and what I mean by the New 
 Philosophy. The Old Faith is summed up 
 in the words of the " Nicene Creed," neither less 
 nor more. The New Philosophy is summed up 
 in the word " Evolution," and is expounded by Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer and a host of scientiKc writers. 
 The great question before the Christian world 
 to-day, transcending all other questions and 
 deuiandinor immediate settlement, is this : Is the 
 Old Faith compatible with the New Philosophy ( 
 If it is not, then the Old Faith must yield : for 
 believe me, brothers, the New Philosophy has 
 come to stay. 
 
 I have used the word " compatible " because I 
 dislike the ordinary phrase, " Reconciling re- 
 ligion with science." Reconciling suggests com- 
 promise, a patching up of differences, a truce 
 between hostile forces, and so leaves a false 
 impression. 
 
 Philosophy, which is the sum and substance 
 of all the sciences, is the study of God as mani- 
 fested in His works. Theology is the study of 
 God as manifested in Christ. Now, if both 
 manifestations be of the one God, there can be no 
 hostility. What apparent contradictions there 
 may be are due to our misconceptions. In both 
 God veils Himself as well as reveals; and in both, 
 owing to our limitations, we see " as through a 
 
24 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 glass, darkly." But it is the Church's business 
 to see that they cio not contradict each other — 
 to prove that they are compatible. This grand 
 equation is too intricate for us to solve at sight : 
 mistakes are being constantly made on both 
 sides ; our calculations require incessant correc- 
 tions ; it will take eternal life to work it out ; 
 there are so many unknown quantities. 
 
 That the universe is the manifestation of 
 God in His works all theists of every descrip- 
 tion agree in affirming, and it is the first article 
 of the Old Faith : " I believe in one God the 
 Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth 
 and of all things visible and invisible." No 
 Christian can, therefore, find fault with the 
 earnest, candid investigation of God's works. 
 As Cowper sings : 
 
 ''Philosophy, baptized 
 In the pure fountain of eternal love, 
 Hath eyes indeed ; and viewing all she sees 
 As meant to indicate a God to man, 
 Gives Him the praise and forfeits not lier own." 
 
 And Keble, in his " Christian Year," sings : 
 
 Tliere is a book, who runs may read. 
 
 Which heavenly truth imparts ; 
 And all the lore its scholars Vieed, 
 
 Pure eyes and Christian hearts. 
 
 ill'"' 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 25 
 
 The works of God, above, below, 
 
 Within us and around, 
 Are pages in that Book, to show 
 
 How God Himself is found. 
 
 And St. Paul says (Rom. i. 20) : " The invisible 
 thincrs of Him since the creation of the world 
 are clearly seen, being perceived through the 
 things that are made, even His everlasting 
 power and divinity." 
 
 On the other hand, the proposition that, over 
 and above this manifestation in Nature to whicli 
 all theists assent, God has also manifested Him- 
 self in a special and unique manner in Christ, is 
 not so generally received. It is asserted by 
 Christians, but challenged b\^ sceptics, on the 
 ground of its incompatibility with that mani- 
 festation in Nature which we all acknowledge. 
 
 Here then is the question which must be 
 faced : Is the Old Faith compatible with the 
 New Philosophy ( An affirmative answer has 
 been given by Father Oxenham, Mr. Ward, Mr. 
 Lilley, Mr. St. Geo. Mivart, and many other 
 eminent men in the Church of Rome — by the 
 present Archbishop of Canterbury, Canon Gore, 
 all the authors of Lux Mundi, and many 
 others in the Anglican Church — by the late 
 J. G. Romaines, in his posthumous work, edited 
 by Canon Gore — by the late H}-. Drummond, 
 
26 THE OLD FAITU AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Winchell, Le Conte, Lyman Abbott, A. B. Bruce, 
 G. A. Smith, and many brilliant writers of other 
 communions. 
 
 A negative answer, however, will be given, I 
 fear, by many a devout Christian of the old 
 school, whose conclusion is, " Therefore we must 
 oppose and reject the New Philosophy." I am 
 convinced that both their premise and their 
 conclusion are mistakes, and that theirs is a 
 standpoint from which we shall all before long 
 have to recede. 
 
 A negative answer is also, as a matter of 
 course, given by the sceptics of the day ; and 
 is, alas ! taken for granted or covertly implied 
 in very much of our modern literature. Pro- 
 fessor Goldwin Smith's famous book, " Guesses 
 at the Riddle of Existence," is of value in that 
 it is a compendium, in his own forceful and 
 lucid style, of the various strictures and reflec- 
 tions that have been floating about for years 
 past in newspapers, magazines, novels, and more 
 solid reading matter of our time. 
 
 But Dr. Goldwin Smith was not the first to 
 challenge the Christians of Canada on this 
 question. Thirteen years ago, a widely circu- 
 lated and influential paper, the Toronto Mail, 
 flung down the gage in a ruder and more scorn- 
 ful way, through a series of editorials extending 
 for months. And though these articles must 
 
 1 I 
 
 ' , I I 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 27 
 
 have had thousands of readers no answer was 
 made by the Church at large, so far as I know. 
 Judgment was allowed to go by default. I shall 
 quote largely from these papers because I am 
 sure that in those utterances the thoughts of 
 many hearts were revealed. They state the case 
 from the doubter's standpoint in unmistakable 
 terms. And it is well for us to louk facts in the 
 face; to gauge the full force of the storm we 
 are encountering. 
 
 In the spring of 1886 " the Southern Presby- 
 terian Church, at its meeting in Augusta, Ga., 
 adopted, by a vote of 137 to 13, a resolution de- 
 claring the evolution theory as applied to man 
 unscriptural,and calculated to lead to the denial 
 of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian 
 Faith." Upon that deliverance the Mail of 
 29th May, 1886, thus commented: "There can 
 be no doubt that evolution menaces the essen- 
 tials of Christianity. If man be a development 
 from the lower forms of life, clearly the biblical 
 narrative and the Christian teaching that he 
 was specially created and fell from a high estate 
 vanishes, and with it necessarily the belief in 
 original sin and in his redemption by tlie Son of 
 God. . . . 
 
 " The Southern Presbyterian Church in de- 
 nouncing evolution may be said to have thrown 
 itself right across the path of scientific iuvesti- 
 
28 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 gation ; but after all it has simply reaffirmed its 
 faith in the central Christian dogmas, with 
 which belief in man's derivation from the beasts 
 that perish is quite incompatible. Upon that 
 ground the attitude of the Church must com- 
 mand the respect and support of all Christians. 
 The other churches, perhaps, display greater 
 worldly wisdom in remaining silent, but they 
 must perforce face the issue before long. They 
 have already surrendered many outposts to the 
 scientists. The old beliefs taught in Scripture, 
 that the world was created in six ordinary days, 
 that it was destroyed by an universal flood, that 
 this planet was the pivot of creation, and that 
 the other stars were set in the heavens as lamps 
 for man's benefit, have been pretty generally 
 cast overboard to lighten the ship ; and even 
 orthodox pulpits now deal gingerly with miracles, 
 and sinci! the birth of the science of meteorology 
 have almost ceased praj^ing for changes in the 
 weather. These were in great part non-essen- 
 tials, but this new demand of science that man 
 has not fallen from the grace of God, but has 
 risen from a bestial ancestry which, in turn, 
 sprang from some simple form of vivified matter, 
 must be resisted at any cost if the churches fire 
 to continue to assert the divinity of their cult. 
 " No compromise is possible between the 
 
INTRODrCTORY. 
 
 29 
 
 Christian religion and evolution, the one being 
 not only inconsistent, but wholly at variance 
 with the other. Evolution denies all that the 
 Bible teaches regarding man's fallen nature, and 
 by implication dethrones the Saviour, and for 
 that reason Christianity must combat it, or sub- 
 mit to be classed with those ancient fables of 
 man's own invention, by which he sought to 
 solve for himself the tremendous mystery of his 
 being. The Southern Presbyterians have shown 
 that they, at any rate, are determined to come 
 to close quarters with the scientists and to stake 
 everything upon the contention that the Bible is 
 revealed truth and that the theology grafted 
 upon it is also true. It is a bold step, many will 
 doubtless say a rash one ; but in these days of 
 doubt in the pew and cowardice in the pulpit it 
 is well that one branch of the Church should 
 keep the old flag flying." 
 
 2. On the previous Saturday, viz., 22nd May, 
 1886, an editorial appeared, headed " Churchman 
 and Scientist," froin which I shall give a few 
 extracts as samples. You will notice their in- 
 consistency with the previous article on some 
 points. I do not undertake to reconcile these 
 contradictions, but they show that the paper 
 views the supposed untenableness of Christianity 
 from divers points : " In these days churchmen 
 
30 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 should be as wise as serpents in their mode of 
 handling scientific questions. Science is a do- 
 main in which they have not, to put it mildly, 
 achieved enduring triumphs." 
 
 " The Roman Catholic Church, whose worldly 
 wisdom no one will question, has given scientific 
 theories a very wide berth ever since the 
 Holy Congregation denounced the Copernican 
 teachi ig as ' false and contrary to Scripture,' and 
 upon the same grounds enjoined Galileo 'to 
 abandon the opinions he has hitherto held that 
 the sun is the centre of the spheres and immov- 
 able, whilst it is the earth that moves.' That 
 Church has nothing to say about the theory of 
 evolution. She simply decrees that Roman 
 Catholic scientists may not attack the integrity 
 of the faith, and as she takes care to commit 
 herself to no precise definition of faith relative 
 to the Creation or to the processes of Nature, 
 save and except that God is the ultimate cause 
 of all things, those of her sons who adhere to 
 Darwinism experience no difficulty in keeping 
 the peace with her. Would it not be well for 
 I'rotestant churches and ministers to display a 
 like reserve ? 
 
 " The Bible then, being no manual of science, 
 ui^ :iio:Jern minister should think twice before 
 'titi""^g i':3 authenticity as the inspired Word of 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 31 
 
 i 
 
 God against any theory of science, however 
 iconoclastic, that does not absolutely deny God. 
 Evolution is such a theory. It does not abolish 
 the Deity as is commonly supposed, but simply 
 destroys those anthropomorphic attributes with 
 which man has clothed Him." 
 
 You will observe the inconsistency of these two 
 articles. In the one first quoted the writer com- 
 mends the bold outspokenness of the Southern 
 Presbyterian Church, and taunts all others with 
 their cowardice in not doing likewise. In the 
 second he commends the reticence of the Church 
 of Rome, and advises all Protestants to follow 
 her example. 
 
 3. But, again, I must quote from the article of 
 May 29th. In speaking of the arguments of 
 the thirteen who voted against the bold resolu- 
 tion of defiance, he refers to those who " plead 
 for a non-literal interpretation of the Bible, 
 whatever that may mean. If it mean that the 
 exegetes should stand ready to force the Bible 
 text to yield any meaning that may be called for 
 by the demands or discoveries of science, the 
 answer is, that such downright dishonesty, of 
 which we have already had more than enough, 
 would do as much to discredit the Church as a 
 frank admission that the Scriptures are merely 
 a collection of Semitic myths." 
 
.*i2 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW HHILOSOFHV 
 
 4. An article of February 1st, 188G, entitled 
 " The Creed of Modern Science," closes with 
 these words : 
 
 " We may safely say that while modern science 
 denies in toto the inspired Revelation, it is, 
 nevertheless, compelled to recognize the great 
 central fact of all religions — that there is a 
 Being or .an intelligent force, call it what you 
 will, that reigns over us. The attempt of the 
 French and German philosophers and of the un- 
 scientific school of Bob Ingersoll to east God out 
 of the universe has thus resulted in nothincj." 
 
 5. And once more the editorial of June 5th 
 said : 
 
 " So long as the fundamental truths of our 
 religion are preserved — and they are eternal — 
 we can afford to part with the dogmas of human 
 invention with which they may be overlaid. 
 Indeed, if these be untrue, nothing shall save 
 them ; for we know and can almost perceive 
 from the operation of His laws through the 
 universe, that God is ever lifting man upwards 
 towards the Truth, which is Himself." 
 
 Now, be it observed that, as the dates of these 
 articles show, all this sort of thing had been 
 going on for months in the pages of what was 
 then, I believe, the most widely circulated paper 
 in Ontario. The academic dissertations of Dr. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 38 
 
 Goldwin Smith have been read of late by hun- 
 dreds ; these ad captandum utterances of the 
 Mail of thirteen years ago were devoured by 
 thousands, and have borne fruit. 
 
 Again be it observed, these words were written 
 in 1886. Since that time the New Philosophy 
 has made enormous strides. Many of the theo- 
 ries of that day are established facts now. 1 
 may safely sa}'^ that all writers on scientific sub- 
 jects — whether on chemistry, geology, astronom.y, 
 biology, sociology, or any branch of knowledge 
 whatever; whether in learned treatises for the 
 specialist, or in newspapers and magazines for 
 the layman — base their problems and their theo- 
 ries on evolution as an axiom. 
 
 And since then theology has also in large 
 measure — though often with an ill grace — 
 acquiesced. It is true that Drummond's " Nat- 
 ural Law in the Spiritual World " had already 
 appeared, and caused no small stir in Christian 
 circles. Eat that book was only a tentative 
 effort to " reconcile " religion with science, and 
 half the people who devoured the work when it 
 came out did not detect its drift. Drummond's 
 more mature work, " The Ascent of Man," was 
 not then in existence. It is true, also, that the 
 late Henry Ward Beecher had boldly declared 
 that evolution would yet be acknowledged as the 
 

 34 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 handmaid of Christianity. It is true that in 
 the" Bampton Lectures " of 1884, Bishop Temple, 
 now Archbishop of Canterbury, had ar^ed that 
 evolution was quite compatible with Christian 
 faith, but probably the writer of the Mail 
 articles had not come across them. But tlie con- 
 cessions of the theologians of 1886 were sparse 
 and scant. It is not so now. The publication 
 of Lux Muncfi in 1889 startled th^ leji^pous 
 world by its free admission of the truths of 
 evolution, and by its restatement, so to speak, 
 of the Gospel of Christ in accordance with the 
 New Philosophy. 
 
 I must not omit Dr. A. B. Bruce's work, " The 
 Chief End of Revelation," which was published 
 in 1881, and "Old Faiths in New Licnt," by 
 Dr. Newman Smyth, published in 1882. I did 
 not come across these books until I had written 
 these lectures in the rough. They are works of 
 great value, me judice, which I would strongly 
 recommend to the brethren. 
 
 The argument of the lectures to follow will 
 be on the lines of these works. We propose to 
 accept in full the New Philosophy. We shall 
 not argue that this or that is only an hypothesis 
 at present, and therefore to be ignored, or that 
 this or that link is missing. We will, for the 
 sake of argument, assume or concede the whole 
 
 : It 
 
 
» ■ : I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 35 
 
 system, and then strive to show that the great 
 doctrines of the Christian faith are consonant 
 with the evolution which pervades the works 
 of God — that the " Natural Law has been pro- 
 jected into the spiritual world," to adopt Druni- 
 iiiond's happy phrase ; or, in the language of that 
 grand master of metaphysical theology, Bishop 
 Butler, wo shall endeavor to establish " the 
 analogy of revealed religion to the constitu- 
 tion and course of nature," as interpreted by 
 the New Philosophy. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY ; OR, THE 
 CHRISTIAN CONCEPT OF 00 D : IS IT COM- 
 PATIBLE WITH THE SCIENCE OF THE DAY? 
 
 " The Catholic Faith is this, that we worship 
 one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. 
 Neither confounding the persona nor dividing 
 the substance. . . . 
 
 " For like as we are compelled by Christian 
 verity to acknowledge every person by Himself 
 to be God and Lord ; 
 
 "So are we forbidden bj'^ the Catholic Religion 
 to say, There be three Gods or three Lords." 
 
 So says the Old Faith, or rather the Athana- 
 sian exposition of it, concerning the object of 
 worship. What says the New Philosophy? or 
 rather let us ask, What do those say who, in 
 pursuance of the New Philosophy, have rejected 
 the Old Faith ? They vary in their replies, and 
 may accordingly be divided into four classes, 
 viz. : 
 
 L Theists, who say. There is a God, somehow, 
 somewhere, and we ought to worship Him. 
 
 36 
 
 llilili!! 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 37 
 
 2. Atheists, who say, There is no God, and all 
 worship is frivolous and vain. 
 
 M. Agnostics, who say, We do not know 
 whether there is a God or not ; and so long as 
 we do not know, we cannot worship. 
 
 4. Positivista, who say, We do not know 
 whether there is a God or not ; but we do cer- 
 tainly know that worship is an instinct and 
 necessity of our nature ; therefore we woi'ship, 
 though we don't exactly know what. 
 
 Of these four classes we may dismiss frou) 
 consideration in these lectures the last. Posi- 
 tivism, as it does not .seem to trouble us much, 
 in Canada at all events. 
 
 The second class, Atheism, can also be dis- 
 missed, with the pithy saying of Huxley, who, in 
 one of his lectures, declared that the demonstra- 
 tions of those theologians who think they can 
 tell us everything about God are only exceeded 
 in folly by the assertions of those philosophers 
 who pronounce dogmatically that there is no 
 God. That great physiologist, therefore, agreed 
 with the Psalmist in tliis, that it is onl}'' ihe fool 
 that hath said in his heart, There is no God. 
 
 There remain then for our consideration the 
 two classes of Theists and Agnostics, which the 
 Mail articles have confounded. But indeed 
 there is often great difficulty in drawing the 
 
38 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 line between them. Darwin was undoubtedly a 
 Theist ; he expressed his faith in the Creator, 
 Huxley pronounced himself an Agnostic, and 
 was, in fact, the coiner of the term as designat- 
 ing those who could not decide about the exist- 
 ence of an intelligent First Cause, and who, 
 therefore, gave in the verdict, " Not proven." 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer's ultimate conviction is 
 given in those well-known words with which he 
 closes his treatise on "Ecclesiastical Institutions," 
 which will probably conclude his whole system 
 of synthetic philosophy : 
 
 " One truth must ever grow clearer — the truth 
 that there is an Inscrutable Existence every- 
 where manifested, to which man can neither 
 find nor conceive either beginning or end. Amid 
 the mysteries which become the more mysterious 
 the more they are thought about, there will 
 remain the only absolute certainty that he is 
 ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal 
 Energy from which all things proceed." (See 
 also " First Principles," Part I., close of Chap, ii.) 
 
 From the conclusions of these eminent men 
 the Mail articles take heart of grace in the 
 assurance that all is not lost. The New 
 Philosophy " does not absolutely deny God ; " it 
 has not " cast God out of the universe ; " we 
 may still believe that there is such a Being, 
 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 39 
 
 and so worship Him, each after his own mind, 
 although " modern science denies in toto the 
 inspired revelation." 
 
 Now, let us consider for a moment what is 
 involved in this conclusion. The fundamental 
 question for all theists, all who believe in a 
 Creator, must needs be : Has the Creator ever 
 revealed Himself to man :* Has He ever, at any 
 time or times, so taught men that they could 
 know His will concerning themselves, not by 
 mere inferences, or " feelings," or " aspirations," 
 or instincts ; but directly, objectively, super- 
 naturally ? Has He ever — to use the scriptural 
 phrase — " spoken " to men ? If He has not ; if 
 God has ever left men to seek Him out the best 
 way they could ; if all religions, Christianity 
 included, are to be placed in the same category 
 of blundering approximations to the truth— then 
 all religion is mere guess-work. Agnosticism is 
 the only logical alternative. If Christianity is 
 only one of the feeble tentative efforts to seek 
 the Lord : if it is only, as the Mail insinuates, 
 " a collection of Semitic myths " — then nothing 
 remains for all mankind but to relegate the 
 question of the Deity to the realms of the Un- 
 known, if not Unknowable, and to maintain 
 stoically — " Whether or not there be such a God 
 as men have imajjjined, we cannot tell." 
 
II '111 
 
 40 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 On the other hand, the Christian who believes 
 that God did reveal Himself — did speak — "at 
 sundry times and in divers manners," will readily 
 admit to the philosopher that such revelations 
 were exceptional and extraordinary. He must 
 also admit that any so-called revelation from 
 God, which is incompatible with the positive 
 teachings of the natural world, is ipse facto 
 rendered false. Christian missionaries instruct 
 their Hindoo scholars in geography, because it 
 is subversive of Hindoo mythology and cos- 
 mogony. Modern science is a most potent force 
 in demolishing the foolish traditions of the 
 heathen. But if Christianity uses science to 
 explode the beliefs of rival religions, she must 
 be ready to submit to the same test. The 
 Christian apologists of the Primitive Church — 
 Tatian, Tertullian, Arnobius, Athenagoras, and 
 others — availed themselves of the learning of 
 their day to expose the absurdities of the classic 
 mythology ; they appealed to Reason. So did 
 the Protestants of the sixteenth century. And 
 now the opponents of all Christianity challenge 
 us before the same tribunal ; and Agnosticism 
 avers : If geography explodes the beliefs of 
 Hindooism, so do geology, physiology and 
 chemistry explode the beliefs of Christendom. 
 
 Undoubtedly they do explode, they have 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 41 
 
 exploded, many of our former notions and tradi- 
 tions concerning the origin of things ; but are 
 these notions and traditions of vital consequence 
 to the Christian religion ? Has modern science 
 so expounded the constitution and course of 
 Nature as to render the Old Faith incompatible 
 therewith ? Very many think so, as alas ! the 
 Christian pastor too often learns. 
 
 Who is to blame fox this state of things ? Not 
 the scientist, as such. These are days of speciali- 
 ties in research. The Darvvins and Spencers 
 and Huxleys pursue the study of God's works 
 in their own special departments; they leave 
 theology to theologians ; they honestly proclaim '• 
 " That which we have seen and heard declare we 
 unto you ; see to it whether our researches in 
 our several fields are in conflict with your 
 teachings, or in consonance therewith." 
 
 What is the province of Theology ? To 
 examine her own field of research : to recast, if 
 necessary, her conceptions of revelation in those 
 details which conflict with modern knowledge. 
 She has had to do so before now, again and 
 again, as knowledge of Nature advanced, for 
 these details are not essential to the Catholic 
 Faith. Universal truth can only be educed by 
 the collation of all special truths. 
 
 But to return to those who deny that 0<vi 
 
'XrW 1 
 
 42 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ever revealed Himself to man in any other way 
 than through the phenomena of Nature, let us 
 see what " the Creed of Modem Science," as the 
 Mail terms it, would leave us and what it would 
 cast out. 
 
 It would leave us a First Cause, an Energy, 
 an Infinite Power — that is all. That Power or 
 Being may be conscious or it may not ; science 
 cannot tell ; at any rate it, works by fixed laws ; 
 it cannot work any other way. It is impossible 
 for it to produce any effect whatever out of the 
 regular course of things. It is itself a vast 
 automaton, nothing more. 
 
 And what would this " creed," so called, cast 
 out ? By rejecting all revelation, it casts out all 
 thought, all hope that this God, or Power, or 
 Energy, ever did interfere for man's special 
 benefit, or ever could, or ever will. It casts out 
 all idea that this Power ever told us what He 
 would have us do. It casts out all prayer, for 
 what is the use of praying to this scientist's 
 Automaton ? It casts out all conception of our 
 duty to God, for what duty have we towards 
 Him if He has never informed us ? It casts out 
 all trust in a Divine Providence and all hope of 
 a future life. It casts out all faith and hope 
 and love towards God. 
 
 Now, what comfort can we take from the 
 Mail's assurances that we have all the essentials 
 
 !' ' I 
 
i 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 43 
 
 of religion left if we reject the Christian religion 
 as a revelation from God ? The distinction 
 which the Mail draws between the No-God " of 
 the French and German philosophers and of the 
 school of Ingersoll " and the " Creed of Modern 
 Science" is, to my mind, not worth consideration. 
 Such a god or power as is left us is useless to 
 inspire love, to prompt to holy thoughts or good 
 desires, or to raise our minds to higher things. 
 He is not a Being to be loved, not a Being who 
 loves us or cares specially for us ; but a Power, 
 an Infinite Energy — a Power that, it may be, 
 works for righteousness in a mechanical, mathe- 
 matical way — but yet only a Power — only 
 Infinite Energy. 
 
 Now, in opposition to all this, what is the 
 Old Faith ? It is, that this power is conscious. 
 We acknowledge, as much as Mr. H. Spencer, that 
 God is Infinite Power : but we believe also that 
 He is Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Goodness. 
 W^ithout these two other attributes the infinite 
 power would inspire in our breasts no higher 
 emotion than does a thunderstorm. 
 
 " Lo ! the poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
 Sees God in storms and hears Him in the wind." 
 
 " The Creed of Modern Science " would .simplj' 
 brinj^ us back to that. We Christians, of course, 
 believe in His infinite power, and fhctrfotr we 
 
m 
 
 iir 
 
 44 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 do not limit His power. And since we also 
 believe in His infinite wisdom, therefore we 
 believe that He could, if he chose, reveal His 
 Avill to man in ^"u,ys over and above His revela- 
 tion of pov. er IT Nature. And since we believe 
 also in His infinite goodness, therefore we believe 
 that He has so revealed Himself for our benefit- 
 
 At the same tirre, ve acknowledge that God 
 works by men is aiMi iav'. We assent to the 
 truth of what is c>,lie( ifie Law of Parsimony or 
 Economy in the spiritual '^r^rld. God does not 
 work miracles to-uay, 'icr .. ' He ever, at least 
 such is our Protestant positxon, t.n.ccpt to do what 
 could not be done without miracle. 
 
 In this respect, we who uphold the Old Faith 
 have our acknowledgments to make to the expo- 
 nents of the New Philosophy. Many phenomena 
 which we, ignorant of their physical cause, for- 
 merly attributed to the direct agency of God, we 
 now regard as natural phenomena, governed 
 by law as much as other more familiar things of 
 nature. Within the last fifty years the wonder- 
 ful progress of the sciences has very greatly 
 modified our conceptions, both of God and of 
 His mode of working. We can scarcely appre- 
 ciate how much our ideas have changed within 
 that time ; but a few considerations may help 
 us to form an estimate. 
 
 !i| 
 
I . ! . 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 45 
 
 We all know individually how our own ideas 
 of God have enlarged since we were children ; 
 how they have grown with our growth; how 
 differently we conceive of Him now from what 
 we did when we knelt at our mother's knee to 
 say our first little prayer. And as it is with 
 each individual so it has been with the whole 
 human race. It had its childhood when it 
 " thought as a child, it spake as a child, it 
 understood as a child;" and now in growing 
 older it is learning slowly to put away childish 
 things. As in all other conceptions, so in their 
 ideas of God, 
 
 " The thoughts of men have widened with the process of 
 the suns." — Tennvsoii. 
 
 The idea of God must needs " widen " as our 
 ideas of His universe widen, and they have 
 widened marvellously within the last fifty years. 
 For example, 1 remember, when I was a lad, 
 how the religious world was startled and shocked 
 by a book called, if I mistake not, " More Worlds 
 Than One ; the Creed of the Philosopher and 
 the Hope of the Christian." I remember liow 
 it was vehemently argued that such a doctrine 
 would upset the whole Bible, and must be put 
 down. How is it to-day ? 
 
 Every now and then, when the planetary 
 

 
 46 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 conditions are suitable, everybody — not only the 
 astronomer, or the poet, or the philosopher, but 
 every one who reads a newspaper — can, in some 
 sense, adopt the lines of Longfellow : 
 
 " I give the first watch of the night 
 To the red planet Mars." 
 
 If we read at all, there is periodically forced 
 upon our notice that some star-gazer with his 
 telescope has discovered some new canals in 
 Mars, or some peculiar lights artificially ar- 
 ranged ; and suggestions are made in the papers 
 as to how we terrestrials can in our turn 
 attract the notice of the Martians. All this is 
 so frequently enlarged upon, even in little 
 village weeklies, that it is a common-place now 
 that Mars is inhabited by intelligent beings. 
 And I can see no reason for doubting it. But 
 what does that involve ? Mars is our nearest 
 neighbor, with the exception of our own little 
 satellite, the Moon, which is certainly lifeless. 
 What about Venus ? She is about as near on 
 one side as Mars is on the other, and her con- 
 ditions warrant us in thinking that she, too, is 
 inhabited. Jupiter, the immense, is apparently 
 in a gaseous state as yet ; it is not as advanced 
 in its evolution as the Earth, or Mars, or Venus. 
 In another million years or so it will probably 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY, 
 
 47 
 
 cool down enough to be in a condition to sup- 
 port life. Now these, together with Saturn, 
 Mercury, and so forth, are members of our own 
 solar system, children of our own Sun, the whole 
 lot of planets constituting but one little family 
 out of the hosts of heaven. How about the 
 fixed stars which the ancients mapped out and 
 named ? How about the Pleiades, Arcturus, 
 Orion, of which the sages spoke in the days of 
 Job ? The New Philosophy tells us they are all 
 subject to the same laws of gravity : they go 
 their rounds controlled by the same centrifugal 
 and centripetal forces which govern our own 
 solar system. But not only so, the spectroscope 
 has informed us that these fixed stars are com- 
 posed of the same chemical elements as our own 
 Sun, the same oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, car- 
 bon, iron, lime, and so on, all obeying the same 
 laws of chemical affinity that our system obeys. 
 If so, are these fixed stars, these suns, surrounded 
 like our own Sun by their planetary children ? 
 Certainly ; why not ? They are all under the same 
 chemical and mechanical laws. And how many 
 of such families are there, and how far do they 
 extend? Let us first take our Sun's nearest 
 neighbor (outside of his own family) which is 
 thought to be Capella, in the constellation 
 Auriga — how far is he oflf? Well, light travels 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
ti: ^ 
 
 48 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 at the rate of over eleven millions of miles in 
 one minute — we will speak in round numbers — 
 light from our Sun reaches us in about eight and 
 a half minutes. But the light from Capella 
 takes seventy years or more to reach us. Now, 
 there is a nice little sum to work out : 
 
 Aa 1 minute : 70 yeara : : 1 1 million milea. 
 There is plenty of room, we see, for a large 
 family of satellites like our own Earth to be 
 circling around Capella without interfering 
 with our solar system, and yet Capella is the 
 nearest of all the lixcd stars. There are some 
 stars whose light it has been calculated takes 
 300 years to reach us. others 3,000 years, and 
 others are beyond all calculations. And how 
 many stars are there ? With the naked eye 
 they may be numbered by hundreds, with the 
 largest telescope by hundreds of thousands, and 
 with the telescope aided by photography by the 
 millions. And then probably each one of these 
 stars is as far from its neii^hborinor star as 
 Capella is from our Sun, and then, for all we 
 know, the whole that we can see is but the out- 
 skirts of the universe. The mind becomes be- 
 wildered with these " Immensities and eterni- 
 ties," as Carlyle says. And yet we can say with 
 Job : " Lo, these are parts of His ways : And 
 how small a whisper do we hear of Him ! But 
 
THE DOCTUINJ: of THK TKINITY. 
 
 ¥J 
 
 the thunder of His power who can understand 1 " 
 (Job xxvi. 14). 
 
 And then to think, that all these " multitudes 
 of the heavenly host which no man can number" 
 are under tlie same conditions as our solar sys- 
 tem, are all operated by the same laws of matter 
 and motion. What are we to think of that In- 
 finite Being who " inhabiteth Eternity " ? How 
 different must be our conception of Him from 
 that of the ancients who thou<xht that the 
 Supremo Being dwelt on the top of Mount 
 Olympus ! How much vaster must our idea of 
 God be and, if you please, vaguer ! And we can 
 make allowance for those who, filled with this 
 conception of the vastness of things, feel im- 
 patience with the utterances of some who, as 
 Huxley said, talk of the Almighty as if they 
 knew all about Him. Without doubt the march 
 of astronomical science during the last half- 
 century has tended to make us realize the little- 
 ness of our planet, and of the race that dwells 
 thereon. We listen to that silent voice of 
 Tennyson's, which said : 
 
 "This truth within thy mind rehearse, 
 That in a boundless universe 
 Is boundless better, boundless worse. 
 
 "Think you this mould of hopes and fears 
 Could tindno statelier than his peers 
 In yonder hundred million spheres ? " 
 
50 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 And we repeat with intensified meaning, be- 
 cause with enlarged knowledge, the Psalmist's 
 words : 
 
 " When I consider thy heavens the work of thy 
 lingers, the moon and the stars, which thou 
 hast ordained : what is man that thou art mind- 
 ful of him ? " 
 
 This study of the infinitely great does cer- 
 tainly tend to shake faith, not in the power of 
 God, but in the importance of man. When we 
 contrast all this immensity with our own little- 
 ness we can well cry, " Man is like a thing of 
 naught ; his time passeth away like a shadow." 
 
 However, as a corrective to this depressing 
 thought, let us for a while change our view — 
 let us put aside the telescope and take the 
 microscope. We have pursued the infinitely 
 great and have retired baffled, let us see if we 
 can find the limits of the minute. Modern 
 chemistry is based on the atomic theory. It 
 conceives of the ultimate atom of every element ; 
 i.e., something which is the limit of the minute, 
 something which cannot be divided. Now, 
 valuable as the atomic theory is as a working 
 hypothesis, we ask : Have we practically reached 
 the ultimate atom in anything? What is the 
 smallest possible point ? What is the limit of 
 the minute ? We take our microscope and 
 
 Hit: 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 51 
 
 magnify some little speck of apparent dust one 
 thousand times, and lo ! that speck turns out to 
 . living organism, with body, parts and 
 passions. Let us still further magnify him — for 
 the speck has now become a monster — with 
 little specks just perceptible about his body — let 
 us magnify him, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 times— 
 those specks on his back loom up as monsters in 
 their turn, organisms built up of protoplasm like 
 our own bodies, and protoplasm means a com- 
 binntion of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen 
 — each of which elements consists of its own 
 sr "ial atoms. Why, the very blood that courses 
 i r viens is the home and hunting-ground of 
 countless multitudes of leucocytes and ot <er 
 living things — and it depends upon the propor- 
 tion of beneficent to malevolent creatures in our 
 organism as to whether we are sick or well. 
 And so the study of bacilli, bacteria, and what 
 not opens up a vast field. And we become 
 baffled and bewildered again in our pursuit of 
 the infinitely little as in our pursuit of the 
 infinitely great. And all these living creatures 
 are under the same law of matter and motion. 
 Of these, as of the vast orbs in infinite space, 
 we can say : " He hath given them a law which 
 shall not be broken." 
 
 Oh, surely we feel the truth of those words of 
 
 1. 
 
52 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 a philosopher much older than Herbert Spencer, 
 or Kant, or Spino2,a, or Lucretius, or Plato — 
 Zophar the Naamathite : " Canst thou by- 
 searching find out God ? canst thou find out 
 the Almighty unto perfection ? It is as high as 
 heaven ; what canst thou do ? deeper than hell ; 
 what canst thou know ?" (Job xi. 7, 8.) 
 
 The devout philosopher who ponders on the 
 tremendous discoveries of Nature and yet clings 
 to his faith in Revelation, must needs hef.r those 
 "Two Voices" of Tennyson's within his soul, the 
 one suggesting the littleness, the insignificance 
 of humanity, and the other bidding him " Re- 
 joice, rejoice." 
 
 It is in such distraction of mind that the 
 words of the prophet are so sweet : 
 
 "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my 
 throne, and the earth is my footstool. For all 
 those things hath my hand made, and all those 
 things have been, saith the Lord : but to this 
 man will I look, even to him that is poor and of 
 a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word." 
 (Isaiah Ixvi. 1, 2.) 
 
 For all things — the infinitely great and the 
 infinitely small — are alike naked and open to 
 the eyes of Him with \vhom we have to do — all 
 alike are fulfilling His word, to all alike He has 
 given the same " law which shall not be broken." 
 (Psalm cxlviii. 6, P.B.V.) 
 
 
 V 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITV. 
 
 53 
 
 the 
 
 my- 
 all 
 
 has 
 
 en. 
 
 Such considerations as these should humble us 
 and make us more modest in our assertions 
 about the Deity. They should make us more 
 sympathetic with those who pursue these studies 
 of nature, and who, after having viewed in this 
 great white light " the manifestations of the 
 inscrutable existence " (H. Spencer), cannot ad- 
 just their vision to take in the portraiture of 
 God as is sometimes drawn by the preacher when 
 " expounding " the earlier portions of Genesis. 
 
 To take another instance of this widening of 
 men's thoughts. In my own childhood and 
 youth in England it was a common thing for a 
 coroner's jury to return a verdict, " Died by the 
 visitation of God." Now, tc-day, if such a find- 
 ing were returned , I fear the public would not 
 be satihtiea. They would insist upon the cause of 
 the death, however mysterious and sudden, being 
 ascertained and stated, even if the statement 
 were no more definite than the now popular 
 " Heart Failure." Medical and physiological 
 science have wonderfully advanced in the last 
 fifty years. 
 
 Again, some of you may remember that in 
 1883 we had some very remarkable sunsets. 
 Every evening the whole heavens were suffused 
 with a peculiar rosy glow. Did we l)ecome 
 agitated or thrown off" our balance at what 
 
PP'il'r: 
 
 54 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 woula have been formerly called a blood -red 
 sign ? No, we were calmly inquiring, What is 
 the cause ? For cause there must be. The 
 newspapers of the day, instead of filling their 
 columns with doleful warnings and gloomy 
 forebodings, as would ha^'e been the case fifty 
 years before, gave us the latest theories of 
 science as to what caused the phenomenon, and 
 finally it was concluded that it was due to the 
 volcanic eruptions of Mount Krakatoa in the 
 eastern seas, of which we had been inmiediately 
 informed by telegraph, but which, fifty years 
 ago, we should not have heard of for months 
 after the appearance of those flaming skies. So 
 in former times a comet was looked upon as a 
 terrible portent of God's wrath. But nowa- 
 days intelligence is sent abroad that at such a 
 time a comet will appear in such and such a part 
 of the sky. We are all on the qvA vive to hail 
 its advent, and often we are quite disappointed 
 to find the comet not so big an affair as we 
 expected. 
 
 Now, does all this increased knowledge shake 
 the Christian's faith in God, or diminish our 
 worship of Hini ? By no means ; our faith in 
 Him remains the same, but it is a more intelli- 
 gent faith ; we see all things are His work, 
 though we see more and more clearly how 
 
 '';i. 
 

 THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 55 
 
 uniform and systematic that work is. Our 
 worship of Him is as hearty as ever ; nay, more 
 so, precisely because we know so much more of 
 the manner of His working. We see that God 
 works, and has from all eternity worked, by law 
 — but our appreciation of that reign of law only 
 enhances our adoration. We can still use the 
 poetical 'inguage of the Psalter and feel its 
 force and beauty, though we know much more 
 than the Psalmist did of the laws of nature ; we 
 shall go on singing : 
 
 " He sendeth His springs into the rivers, which 
 run among the hills." 
 
 " He casteth forth His ice like morsels." 
 
 " He sendeth forth His word and melteth 
 them." 
 
 " He bloweth with His wind and the waters 
 flow." 
 
 "He toucheth the mountains, and they smoke." 
 
 " He appointeth the moon for certain seasons; 
 and the sun knoweth his going down." 
 
 Without regard to the protests of science : we 
 are not liable to fall into the crude mistakes of 
 the early fathers and argue that because it is 
 written, the sun knoweth his going down, there- 
 fore he must be a living, intelligent being. Yet 
 we swf^ those words all the same, we feel the 
 force and beauty of the imagery, for we recognize 
 

 56 THE OLD FAITH xiND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 that in these expressions " the letter killeth but 
 the Spirit giveth life," as St. Paul says. 
 
 But now that our knowledge is expanding so 
 wonderfully, we are learning to apply these 
 principles to other expressions in the Bible, and 
 especially to those in the first few chapters of 
 Genesis, which Moses compiled, not to teach 
 natural philosophy to a rude and unlettered 
 people, as the Israelites necessarily were after 
 400 yeai*s of the most degrading slavery ; but to 
 impress upon their minds the one primary truth, 
 that all the things they saw — sun, moon, stars, 
 earth, land, water, trees and living creatures — 
 were created, not by a hundred different gods, 
 as they had been taught in Egypt, but by one 
 God. That there was one God, and only one 
 God. For let us remember that our doctrine of 
 the Trinity has this truth of the unify of the 
 Godhfad as a fundamental axiom. In fact, the 
 word " Trinity " is but an abbreviation. The full 
 description of tlie Catholic faith is as we (|Uoted 
 at the l^eginning — " Wo worship one God in 
 Trinity and Trinity in Unity : neither confound- 
 ing the persons nor dividing the substance." 
 
 And tliis fundamental article of the Old Faith 
 is well expressed in the first of our 39 Articles : 
 " There is but one living and true God ever- 
 lasting, without body, parts or passions; of 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 57 
 
 infinite power, wisdom and goodness ; the maker 
 and preserver of all things, both visible and 
 invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there 
 be three persons, of one substance, power and 
 eternity — the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Ghost." 
 
 Now, while agnostic philosophers can go no 
 further with us than to acknowledge an Onnii- 
 present, Infinite Energy, from which all things 
 proceed, theists will agree with us in believing 
 in a God " of Infinite Power, Wisdom and Good- 
 ness." But they join issue with us at the last 
 clause of our first article, or when we say, " We 
 worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in 
 Unity." These words form a stumbling-block 
 to very many, and objectors characterize these 
 verses of the Quicunqiw as an antinomy, a 
 paradox, a contradiction in terms, an arithmetical 
 puzzle, or as unmeaning jargon, according to the 
 bent of mind of the objector. And they will 
 demand — as indeed they have a right to do — 
 " How can you, with regard to this doctrine, 
 maintain that the Old Faith is compatible with 
 the New Philosophy ? How can you trace the 
 analogy of this your fundamental dogma with 
 the constitution and course of nature on Bishop 
 Butler's lines ? " 
 
 Now, it seems to me that the New Philosophy 
 
I", I 
 
 58 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 has most strikingly illustrated the Christian 
 idea of God. St. Patrick availed himself of the 
 shamrock, and Christian art has used the 
 triangle as symbols, but they are only symbols. 
 The science of these late days has supplied us 
 with a remarkable analogue. 
 
 First of all, let us clear the way by explaining 
 the words " substance " and " person." These 
 terms in their scholastic use are very different 
 from what they are colloquially; indeed, like 
 the words " let " and " prevent," they have 
 almost exchanged places in modern English. To 
 our minds the word " substance " conveys the 
 idea of solidity ; we talk of a substantial house 
 or a substantial meal ; but in philosophy it is far 
 otherwise, for the " substance " of a man con- 
 notes his essential being as abstracted in idea 
 from all " accidents " of flesh, bones, and other 
 parts of the visible organism. So the word 
 " person " formerly implied, not an individual, 
 but rather, like the Latin persona, a presentment 
 or phase. This inversion of meaning of the 
 two words may be made clearer by the follow- 
 ing illustration : 
 
 Physiology informs us that the matter com- 
 posing our mortal frames is in a constant state 
 of flux ; so that in the course of seven years all 
 the material particles are entirely changed. Now, 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 59 
 
 suppose we meet a young man of twenty-one 
 years of age whom we have not seen since he 
 was fourteen. In modern phraseology we might 
 say of him : " This is the same person but his 
 substance has changed," while in scholastic 
 language we should say, "The person has 
 changed but the substance is the same." But, 
 indeed, whatever terms we use concerning 
 Almighty God must needs be inadequate; in 
 speaking of things transcending human know- 
 ledge we are forced to use what Mr. H, Spencer 
 calls " symbols," which must needs fall short of 
 the reality. We simply do the best we can. 
 (" First Principles," Part I, sees. 9 and 31.) 
 
 In the next place, bear with me while I briefly 
 pass in review some of the late deductions of 
 science. 
 
 All phenomena — all things that we see or feel 
 or are in any way cognizant of — are compre- 
 hended by the New Philosophy under two 
 categories, matter and motion. Everything is 
 either matter, or motion, or a combination of the 
 two. Instead, however, of the word ynotion, the 
 words force and energy are now generally used. 
 
 For a long time we have known of the inde- 
 structibility or persistence of matter. Not an 
 atom is ever lost. Any particular object may be 
 destroyed, but not its constituent particles ; they 
 
:\' ,!: 
 
 \'\i 'ii 
 
 1!i:M( 
 
 60 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 only change their condition. We boil a kettle 
 of water until the kettle is empty ; but the 
 particles of water are not lost ; they have gone 
 in steam, and will come down again in rain- 
 drops some day. We burn up a stick of wood ; 
 not an atom of its matter perishes ; some par- 
 ticles go off in steam, others in smoke which 
 will settle down somewhere ; the rest are in the 
 ashes. Nature makes things over and over 
 again with the same materials ; there is no more 
 matter now and no less than there was at the 
 beginning. 
 
 Now, of late years science has discovered a 
 precisely similar law with regard to the other 
 category, the other half of nature, so to speak ; 
 viz., motion, or force or energy, whichever it 
 may be called. There is just so much force or 
 energy, active or latent, neither more nor less 
 than there was at the beginning. No force is 
 lost or spent ; it simply undergoes metamor- 
 phosis. This doctrine is known as the per- 
 sistence of force or the conservation of energy. 
 
 Thus the universe is ever working out a per- 
 petual equation ; or, to vary the figure, Nature 
 ever keeps her accounts by double entry ; there 
 is never a debit anyw^here but there is a corre- 
 sponding credit in some other column. 
 
 Under these circumstances, then, I ask of 
 
 lll'IH'!!'!''' 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE THIN IT Y. 
 
 61 
 
 modern science, " What is light ? " and science 
 answers, " Light was formerly supposed to be a 
 kind of subtle and impalpable matter, but is 
 now known to be force or energy." I ask 
 again, " What is heat ? " and again science 
 replies, " Heat, like light, was once thought to 
 be a kind of matter, and as such received the 
 name of caloric ; but it is now known to be 
 force or energy. I ask a third time, " What is 
 electricity ? " and once more science replies, 
 "Electricity, too, was, till lately, accounted as 
 matter ; we used to speak of the electric 'Jiitid,' 
 but now that term is unscientific, for electricity 
 is not a 'fluid,' but force or energy." I next 
 inquire, "Are these three, then, one and the 
 same thing ? " Science replies, " No ; heat is 
 (juite distinct from light, and light from heat, 
 and electricity from either one ; you must not 
 confound these pevsonw." And then I say, 
 " Since each of these three is distinct from the 
 others, and yet light is energy, heat is energy, 
 electricity is energy ; are there three energies ? " 
 And science answers emphatically, " No ; there 
 is only one energy, one Infinite and Eternal 
 Energy, from which all things proceed." 
 
 Strange, this paradox, this "defiance of the 
 multiplication table," as the doctrine of the 
 Trinity has been called. And stranger still, 
 
62 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 that one can take our theological formula, 
 which the divines of 1,400 3'^ears ago gathered 
 out of the pages of the Book of Revelation, and 
 by merely changing terms can convert into a 
 scientific formula, which physical philosophers 
 have gathered out of the book of nature only 
 within the last score of years or so ! 
 
 Let us see how this theological formula would 
 read, mutatis Tnutandis, as a scientific formula 
 referring to light, heat, and electricity : 
 
 " For like as w^e are compelled by physical 
 verity to acknowledge every 'persona by itself 
 to be force or energy, so are we forbidden by 
 the New Philosophy to say there be three forces 
 or three energies." 
 
 Now, I do not wish it to be understood that 
 the God of our conception is identical with the 
 physicist's energy. We do not worship mechani- 
 cal blind force. We do not conceive of the 
 Supreme Being as a sort of automaton god; 
 still the analogy is very striking — an analogy, 
 be it observed, undreamt of in Bishop Butler's 
 day. And so we may well argue that "the 
 eternal laws of existence," as interpreted by the 
 latest science, iiictead of showing up the Athana- 
 sian formula as nonsensical, have served to 
 elucidate it, and warrant us in continuing " to 
 acknowledge the glory of the Eternal Trinity, 
 
 |!:il 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 
 
 63 
 
 and in the power of the Divine Majesty to 
 worship the Unity." (Collect for Trinity Sun- 
 day.) 
 
 P.S. — And now, having vindicated the truth 
 of this formula and shown its value, allow me, 
 in parenthesis, to express my own personal 
 opinion as to the use of the Quicunque in our 
 public services. 
 
 In the first place, we all understand that the 
 name of "Athanasian Creed" is not correct. 
 As Mason's " Faith of the Gospel " says, it is 
 neither Athanasian nor a creed ; for a creed 
 begins with the word credo, " I believe." The 
 late Dr. Littledale called it more appropriately 
 the Athanasian " Hymn." Instead of a creed 
 proper, it is rather a commentary, by an un- 
 known author, upon what Dr. Manning has 
 rightly called the Creed of the Church ; an 
 expansion of it on the lines of St. Athanasius' 
 teachings. It is no more a " creed " than Pear- 
 son's Exposition is a creed : though as an expo- 
 sition it is invaluable to theologians. Our own 
 Prayer-Book, in the Rubric, reminds us pointedly 
 that it is only " com'rnonly called the Creed of 
 St. Athanasius." 
 
 Then, again, we all know that it has not 
 ecumenical authority. It is not used in public 
 worship in the Greek section of the Catholic 
 
64 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Church. Indeed, it is imposHible to say who 
 composed it, or when it was first used. 
 
 In view of these facts, I cannot but tlnnk 
 that tlie arrangement made for its public 
 liturgical use by the Anglican Reformers was 
 unfortunate. In the Church of Rome it is never 
 used by the laity. It is not inserted in tlieir 
 books of devotion. It is never recited in the 
 Mass — of course. It is only recited in the 
 Choir Offices of " Prime " by priests and monks. 
 It is a technical excursus for professionals. It 
 is not recited, as with us, by a lot of little choir- 
 boys — who might just as well gabble over a 
 table of logarithms — and who sing or say, with 
 the utmost nonchalance, that if any one does not 
 believe all that, " without doubt he shall perish 
 everlastingly." The Romish Church commits 
 no such blunder. She orders her priests to 
 recite it in their own daily oflSce. That is all 
 right. They have been trained in philosophy; 
 they understand its subtle scholastic and meta- 
 physical terms. But to foist that commentary 
 into the public service in place of the simple 
 Apostles' Creed — and that, too, on great festivals 
 like Christmas and Easter, when we have plenty 
 else to occupy our thoughts — and to mingle its 
 harsh and misleading notes of commination with 
 the joyous melody of those services, is to make 
 
 if'!' !., 
 
THE DOCTUINK (»F THE THINITV. 
 
 ()5 
 
 them sound "like sweet bells janj^led out of 
 tune." 
 
 Therefore I am in accord with the American 
 and the Irish Churches, which have followed 
 ancient precedent, in leavinf^ it out of those 
 prayers which are intended for all the baptized, 
 and ^ivin^ it a place by itself for the " profes- 
 sionals." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE HOLY GHOST, THE LORD, THE 
 LIFE-GIVER. 
 
 In the previous lecture it was stated thai, 
 within the last fifty years the wonderful progress 
 which has been made in all the sciences has 
 caused us to greatly modify our conceptions both 
 of God and of His mode of working. Our idea 
 of the Creator Himself must needs enlarge as 
 our understanding of His creation enlarges. 
 Let us see further how our ideas of God's mode 
 of working have been modified by the vast acces- 
 sions to our general knowledge of natural 
 philosophy made within the last half-century. 
 
 "We have pointed out already several instances 
 in which we have insensibly drifted from the 
 religious ideas of former days, when everything 
 abnormal or unusual was put down to the direct 
 interposition of the Deity, discarding all second- 
 ary means. We no longer regard a fearful 
 storm, a tidal wave, an earthquake, a sudden 
 
 death, an outbreak of pestilence as in any way 
 
 66 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 67 
 
 miraculous events ; we know all such are effects 
 of physical causes, just as surely as we know 
 that any new or strange specimen of bird, or 
 insect, or plant which the naturalist may 
 stumble on, must have had progenitors and phy- 
 sical causes for its exceptional character. Never- 
 theless we do not sufficiently acknowledge or 
 realize that all these instances (and countless 
 others which might be adduced) are evidence of 
 the fact that we are advancing, nolens voiens, 
 in our religious ideas — that we cannot remain 
 at a standstill even in our theology ; that, in 
 short, we are beginning to " put away childish 
 things." 
 
 In the childhood of the human race, as in the 
 childhood of the individual, startling phenomena 
 are attributed to supernatural causes, though, 
 indeed, it is right they should be ; for after all, 
 whether young or old, we ought ever to recog- 
 nize that Almighty God is the " first great 
 cause," and this recognition is of far more im- 
 portance to us than any amount of knowledge 
 as to the means by which God effects His ends. 
 On observing any phenomenon the mind of the 
 child, like that of the untutored savage, instinct- 
 ively postulates a cause in some living, thinking 
 being, and rests satisfied with that, indifferent to 
 his TRodus operandi. But as we grow older and 
 
68 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHH.OSOPHY. 
 
 more cultured we want to seek out the why and 
 the wherefore and the how of everything; and 
 so absorbed do we become in these details that 
 we are apt to lose sight of the ultimate cause. 
 
 The little three-year-old child asks his mother 
 who made that river, or that tree, or that moun- 
 tain, or that lamb ; and the mother replies, God 
 made all these — and the mother is right. That 
 is the first thing to instil into the child's mind. 
 As to how He wrought them — the secondary 
 means, the laws of matter and of energy, the 
 modus operandi — all these it will take a life- 
 time for him to learn. 
 
 But in the very question which the youngster 
 puts, he shows a philosophic bent. Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer says : " To the mind as it develops in 
 speculative power the problem of the universe 
 suggests itself. What is it ? and whence came 
 it ? are questions that press for solution. . . . 
 To fill the vacuum of thought any theory that is 
 proposed seems better than none." (" First Prin." 
 Part I., chap, ii., sec. 10.) The theory which the 
 mother suggests to her child and which satisfies 
 him is — God. 
 
 You all know, 1 hope, that charming little 
 Scotch song, " Biggin' Castles in the Air," about 
 
 "The bonny, bouny bairn, wha sits pokin' in the ase," 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 69 
 
 staring at the live coals in the grate and giving 
 loose rein to his imagination. Of him the poet 
 thus moralizes : 
 
 '* For a sae sage he looks, what can the laddie ken ? 
 He's thinkin' upon naething, like mony mighty men." 
 
 I venture to make an amendment to the poet's 
 conclusion. That " bonny bairn " is indeed like 
 " mony mighty men" — not because he's " thinkin' 
 upon naething," but because he, like them, is 
 absorbed in guesses at the riddle of existence, 
 and comes as near as they to a solution. 
 
 " Among all the mysteries that grow the more 
 mysterious the more they are thought about," our 
 great modern philosopher is conscious " that he is 
 ever in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal 
 Energy from which all things proceed." And so 
 is that bonny bairn ; only, thanks to his 
 mother's teaching, instead of saying from which, 
 he says from luhom all things proceed. To be 
 sure, that sounds" anthropomorphic;" to be sure, 
 that may shock the sensibilities of the followers 
 of Mr. Matthew Arnold because that little laddie 
 conceives of this Eternal-not-ourselves as a 
 " person ; " but it makes us think of our Lord's 
 words : "I thank Thee Father, Lord of Heaven 
 and Earth, that Thou hast hid these things from 
 the wise and understanding, and hast revealed 
 them unto babes." 
 
•!'i:i 
 
 70 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Another characteristic of childhood — whether 
 of the individual or of the race — is love of the 
 sudden, the catastrophic, the heroic. It delights 
 in the fairy tales wherein, after the hero or 
 heroine has undergone no end of trouble, the 
 fairy godmother appears in the nick of time and 
 sets everything right with a stroke of her wand. 
 And we " children of a larger growth " still love 
 that ideal, in romance and in the drama. When 
 we have followed the fortunes or misfortunes of 
 the leading characters through the first acts of 
 the drama or the first volume of the novel, it 
 gives us thorough satisfaction to find that at the 
 critical moment some rich relative turns up or 
 some will is found, or some detective has tracked 
 down the villain, or something or other occurs 
 through which virtue is rewarded and vice is 
 punished — and the good people get married and 
 live happy ever after. We feel that this is as it 
 should be ; it satisfies our sense of justice, which 
 is, after all, a craving of our better nature — our 
 " categorical imperative," that right should 
 prevail. 
 
 But, unfortunately, the older we grow and 
 the more experienced we become "n this world of 
 practical reality, the more we are convinced that 
 these opportune crises, wherein all things are 
 ■set right all at once, do not occur as frequently 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 71 
 
 as we think they ought to do. Then the faith 
 of childhood, rudely shaken from its ideals in the 
 stern world of facts, is in danger of vanishing 
 altogether and giving place to pessimism ; unless 
 through better guidance it learns to grasp the 
 thought of the poet : 
 
 ' ' The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceed- 
 ing small." 
 
 And so in all things — as in our ideas of what 
 ought to be so also in our ideas of what has 
 been — "the thoughts of men are widening with 
 the process of the suns;" and modern science in 
 all its branches emphasizes in a way undreamt of 
 half a century ago the truth of the words, " One 
 day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a 
 thousand years as one day." 
 
 This is very noticeable in the modern science 
 of biology. 
 
 Let us fancy our bonny little bairn on board 
 some vessel on the Atlantic or Pacific. After 
 seeing nothing but water for days, he catches 
 sight of an island full of verdure. The little 
 laddie will conclude that God made the island 
 all at once and put it there. His mother will 
 not thwart the laddie's notion ; it is well for 
 him to let the thought of God be paramount. 
 But, by and by, when that child is a youth at 
 
;:h|..| I 
 
 i ..ri'i 
 
 72 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 collct^e he will learn that millions of years before 
 there was a man on earth, nay, before there was 
 any dry earth for man to stand on, the great 
 abyss of water was swarming with little specks 
 of a jelly-like substance, that these little specks 
 were living creatures, capable of moving, feed- 
 ing, growing, reproducing their kind, and cap- 
 able also of building houses for themselves by 
 extracting the lime and minerals from the 
 water ; that those creatures, living in community, 
 founded towns, colonies, empires, at the bottom 
 of the sea ; that as they died their progeny 
 continued their work, building on, year after 
 year, century after century, millennium after 
 millennium, building upon the foundation laid 
 by their ancestors, fathom upon fathom, until 
 at last the coral reef appears above the surface 
 of the deep, and an island is born. 
 
 Again, let us in fancy accompany tliis pair, 
 the mother and child, on their return \ oyage. 
 We approach the white clift's of England, 1,C00 
 feet high. Surely we may reckon these among 
 the " everlasting mountains " of which poetry 
 speaks. But no ; these white masses were once 
 simply ocean mud, in which revelled countless 
 millions of tiny creatures who were born, grew, 
 ate and drank, increased and multiplied, and 
 died, leaving their houses, the shells they had 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 73 
 
 built themselves, to be massed together with the 
 mud and baked into these vast cliffs, which 
 thus become their mausoleums — lasting monu- 
 ments to tell us of lives that were lived countless 
 ages ago. 
 
 But, again, older rocks than even these were 
 l)uilt up by things of life. In our own country the 
 solid Laurentians of the Ottawa, compared with 
 which, in the matter of age, the Alps are mere 
 infants, rocks which were formerly called 
 " Plutonic " as due solely to the action of the 
 earth's internal fires, and " Azoic," that is, en- 
 tirely wanting in animal remains, are now 
 classed as " Eozoic," because there have been 
 discovered traces of animal life in them. As 
 the term " Protozoa " (the fir>^t living crea- 
 tures) was already in use to designate what 
 were then thought to be the earliest forms of 
 life on this planet, a new name had to be 
 framed for this creature which was earlier than 
 the "first," so he was called "Eozoon," the "dawn 
 animal " (Hco^ Cooov). 
 
 Sir Wm. Dawson in his book, "The Dawn of 
 Life," which gives a full account of the dis- 
 covery of this little creature, says : 
 
 " No one probably believes that animal life 
 has been an eternal succession of like forms of 
 being." (I may remark in passing that fifty years 
 
I 
 
 74 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ago everybody believed that from the creation 
 until their own day there had been an unbroken 
 "succession of like forms of being," and with 
 all due deference to the learned author I fear 
 there are some divines yet, who still hold to the 
 six literal days, who will scent heresy in Sir 
 William's words — but to resume the quotation.) 
 " We are familiar with the idea thxtt in some 
 way it (i.e. Life) was introduced: and most 
 men now know, either from the testimony of 
 Genesis or geology, or of both, that the lowe^^ 
 forins of animal life were introduced first and 
 that these first living creatures had their birth in 
 the waters, which are still the prolific mother of 
 living things innumerable." 
 
 And beside all these, there were other forms 
 of life evolving on this globe, forms which fed 
 and grew, and reproduced their kind, and in- 
 creased and multiplied, yet with very great 
 differences ; these were forms of vegetable life, 
 which, beginning with the simplest, branched 
 out in the course of ages into endless varieties. 
 But, indeed, in the earliest and simplest forms it 
 is very hard, if not impossible, to draw the line 
 between the animal and vegetable kingdoms. 
 And now science has laid down the law that the 
 physical basis of life — the underlying matter of 
 all life — is the same in all forms, animal or 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 75 
 
 vegetable. This matter is composed of due pro- 
 portions of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitro- 
 gen, and is called " Protoplasm," which substance 
 is alike in all forms of life, animal or vegetable. 
 
 Let me quote a passage from Huxley's Lecture 
 on the " Physical Basis of Life : " 
 
 "Think of the microscopic fungus — a mere 
 infinitesimal ovoid particle, which finds space 
 and duration enough to multiply into countless 
 millions in the body of a living fly ; and then 
 of the wealth of foliage, the luxuriance of flower 
 and fruit, which lies between this bald sketch 
 of a plant and the giant pine of California, 
 towering to the dimensions of a cathedral spire, 
 or the Indian fig, which covers acres with its 
 profound shadow, and endures while nations 
 and empires come and go around its vast circum- 
 ference. Or, turning to the other half of the 
 world of life, picture to yourselves the great 
 Finner whale, hugest of beasts that live, or have 
 lived, disporting his eighty or ninety feet of 
 bone, muscle and blubber, with easy roll, among 
 waves in which the stoutest ship that ever left 
 dockyard would founder hopelessly ; and con- 
 trast him with the invisible animalcules — mere 
 gelatinous specks — multitudes of which could, 
 in fact, dance upon the point of a needle with 
 the same ease as the angels of the schoolmen 
 
76 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 could, in imagination. With these images be- 
 fore your minds, you may well ask, What 
 community of form or structure is there be- 
 tween the animalcule and the whale, or between 
 the fungus and the fig-tree ? And, d fortiori, 
 between all four ? " 
 
 The answer to this question is given in what 
 follows in the lecture — a lecture which I would 
 advise you all to study. The common bond of 
 all four, the underlying substance of all life is — 
 Protoplasm. 
 
 Perhaps some of you will be scandalized at 
 my asking you to read Huxley ; but I do. I 
 think it is a pity that so few of our clergy are 
 able to cope with the difficulties of mode, i 
 thought because they know little about them, 
 while their flocks do. This lecture on *' The 
 Physical Basis of Life " can be bought (in the 
 Humboldt Library series) for 15 cents. Its 
 very cheapness proves its popularity and its 
 wide circulation. Our incapacity in dealing 
 with these matters is in marked contrast with 
 the priests of the Church of Rome. Let me 
 quote on this point from another of Huxley's 
 addresses, viz., that on " Scientific Education," 
 delivered in April, 1869, and subsequently pub- 
 lished in Macmillans Monthly : 
 
 " In fact, the clergy arc at present divisible 
 
THE HOLY CJHOST. 
 
 77 
 
 into three scetionH : An iinmonse body wlio are 
 ignorant and speak out ; a small proportion 
 who know and are silent ; and a minute 
 minority who know and speak according to 
 their knowledge. By the clergy, I mean espe- 
 cially the Protestant clergy. Our great antag- 
 onist — I speak as a man of science — the Roman 
 Catholic Church, the one great spiritual organi- 
 zation which is able to resist, and must, as a 
 matter of life and death, resist, tiie progress of 
 science and modern civilization, manages her 
 affairs much better. 
 
 " It was my fortune some time ago to pay a 
 visit to one of the most important of the insti- 
 tutions in which the clergy of the Roman 
 Catholic Church in these islands are trained ; 
 and it seemed to me that the difference between 
 these men and the comfortable champions of 
 Anglicanism and of Dissent, was comparable to 
 the difference between our iX'^Hant volunteers 
 and the trained veterans of Napoleon's Old 
 Guard. 
 
 "The Catholic priest is trained to know his 
 business, and to do it effectually. The profes- 
 sors of the college in (|uestion, learned, zealous 
 and determined men, permitted me to speak 
 frankly with them. We talked like outposts 
 of opposed armies during a truce — as friendly 
 
f'. !' 
 
 78 THE OLD FAITH AXD THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 enemies ; and when I ventured to point out the 
 difficulties their students would have to en- 
 counter from scientific thought, they replied, 
 ' Our Church has lasted many ages, and has 
 passed safely through many storms. The pres- 
 ent is but a new gust of the old tempest, and 
 we do not turn out our young men less fitted to 
 weather it, than they have been in former times 
 to cope with the difficulties of those times. Tho 
 heresies of the day are explained to them by 
 their professors of philosophy and science, and 
 they are taught how those heresies are to be 
 met' 
 
 " I heartily respect," Huxley continues, " an 
 organization which faces its enemies in this 
 way, and I wish that all ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tions were in as eflfective a condition. I think 
 it would be better, not only for them, but for 
 us. The army of liberal thought is at present 
 in very loose order, and many a spirited free- 
 thinker makes use of his freedom mainly to 
 vent nonsense. We should be the better for a 
 vigorous and watchful enemy to hammer us 
 into cohesion and discipline ; and I, for one, lament 
 that the bench of bishops cannot show a man of 
 the calibre of Butler of the * Analogy,' who, if 
 he were alive, would make short work of much 
 of the current a priori * infidelity.' " 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 79 
 
 But to return to our subject of Protoplasm as 
 the physical basis of life of all kinds. 
 
 All this accrued knowledge of the last fifty 
 years has resulted in the birth of a new science, 
 viz., the science or study of life rt large in all 
 its manifestations and relations, and this new 
 science is called " Biology." But it seems to me 
 that in their naming of things our worthy 
 scientists have managed to get somewhat 
 mixed up in their Greek, which helps to com- 
 plicate matters. There are two Greek words to 
 express two different ideas, for both of which we 
 in English have only one word, viz., "Life." 
 The two Greek words are ^onT/ and fiios. The 
 distinction between them is lucidly drawn by 
 Archbishop Trench in his " Synonyms of the 
 New Testament," with which valuable work 
 you are all, of course, familiar. I refer you to 
 his chapter 27 as the grounds of my remarks. 
 To be brief, Ccdt) is life in the abstract, /^/o." in the 
 concrete. Zo^V is generic, /^/o? specific. If an 
 author writes the history of some individual 
 from his cradle to his grave, he calls it very 
 properly the biography of that individual, not 
 his zoography. So the study of any specific life, 
 or any particular definite kind of life, might 
 be called biology, while the study of life 
 at large, of life in the abstract, ought to be 
 
80 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 called zoology. But, unfortunately, the word 
 vOi)y/ and its derivatives and compounds had 
 been all used i^p by tlie scientists in reference to 
 (tnimal life {e.g., protozoa, eozoa, paleozoic, etc.) 
 long before the new science \A^as born. And as 
 they concocted the word eozoon to designate 
 the creature wliicli antedated the protozoon — 
 the dawn anitnal which existed before the first 
 animal — so they were obliged through pressure 
 of circumi^tanc^s to take the only other Greek 
 word avail'. ")ie. /i/o?, to designate that larger 
 and more abstract life which they mean in the 
 word biology, just as we have got things mixed 
 with reference to 'substance" and "person." 
 Certainly a Greek of classic times or a Hellenist 
 of the first century would be puzzled if told that 
 zoology was only a brancli of biology. 
 
 But after all, what is this " life," this Cg^^/, as 
 we call it, this fiio^^ as the scientists have it ? 
 Protoplasm, the matter of which all living- 
 things are composed, is one thing ; the principle 
 or force or whatever it be which puts activity 
 into that protoplasm is another thing. We have 
 dead protoplasm out of which life has departed, 
 tlie protoplasm of the corpse, the protoplasm of 
 the meat and vegetables on our dinner table. We 
 have protoplasm into which life has not entered. 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 81 
 
 Take a speck of the wliite of an egg on the 
 point of a needle and there you have protopkism, 
 but in its isokited condition it is not alive. 
 
 What, then, is that principle or force which 
 makes protoplasm to be alive ? This is a moot 
 point among the men of science to-day. There 
 are those who postulate a certain special force 
 which they name Vitality', or Vital Force, while 
 others ridicule this theory. Among the latter 
 was Huxley, as you will see in the lecture to 
 which I have referred. Among the Vitalists, a 
 very prominent one just now is Professor Japp, 
 who was the president of the chemical section 
 of the British Association at its meeting in 
 Bristol last year. His presidential address was 
 an exposition of the doctrine of a vital force. 
 " His presentation of the subject was admirably 
 lucid and his arguments ably marshalled," says 
 his critic, Professor Lloyd Morgan, an anti- 
 Vitalist. {Monint, January, lcS99.) 
 
 In closing. Professor Japp said : " No fortuitous 
 concourse of atoms, even with all eternity to 
 clash and combine in, could compass this feat of 
 the formation of the first optically active organic 
 compound." "I see no escape from the con- 
 clusion," he adds, " that at the moment when 
 first life arose, a directive force came into play." 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his Hst edition of the 
 6 
 
 
 V 
 I, 
 
■ll'Wi 
 
 82 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOrHY. 
 
 " Principles of Biology," speaks in his usual, 
 guarded, reverent way of the " Inscrutable 
 Power which underlies all phenomena," and 
 makes a candid confession of ignorance regard- 
 ing the ultimate reality. And concerning the 
 question in hand he says : " The processes which 
 go on in living things are incomprehensible, as 
 results of any physical actions known to us." 
 " We find it impossible to conceive life as 
 emerging from the co-operation of the com- 
 ponents of protoplasm." Mr. Spencer contends 
 for a principle of activity, or a special kind 
 of energy, duo to that inscrutable " ultimate 
 reality which underlies this manifestation aa it 
 underlies all other manifestations." 
 
 So much for the New Philosophy. What says 
 the Old Faith > " I believe in the Holy Gliost, 
 the Lord, and the Life-Giver " — ro CayoTroior, 
 mark you, not /iioTtoior. The Giver of all life 
 — of life in all its manifold phases — of all that 
 life which, beginning with the lowest forms, 
 the eozoa and the protozoa, has evolved into 
 such infinite varieties, and has culminated 
 in man, whom Gene.sis, with its rich Oriental 
 imagery, describes as made in the image of God, 
 and yet as only a " living creature " like the rest. 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 83 
 
 For be it observed that precisely tlie siuiie term 
 (mTI \L/^^ in Hebrew or '/'^Z'/ Zoo(^a in LXX.) 
 is predicated of man as of the simplest forms of 
 life which the waters brought forth. Gen. i. 20 : 
 " And God said, Let the waters swarm with 
 swarms of living creatures" ( H'^)- Gen. ii. 7: 
 " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of 
 the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the 
 breath of life ; and man became a " — what ? 
 Only a Tl .^ like the coral insect. 
 
 To be sure, the English versions — both 
 authorized and revised — make a distinction, 
 " The moving creature that hath life," they say 
 of the creatures first produced ; but of man, they 
 say he became " a living soul." But I want you 
 to take notice that there is no such differentia- 
 tion in the original Hebrew, nor yet in the 
 Greek of LXX. Wliy this differentiation in the 
 English translations ? Far be it from our 
 thought to answer, " Frau/le pid" ; but we can 
 assuredly answer, " Throu^''h traditional bias," 
 However it be, it is to be regretted that through 
 this differentiation in the rendering of the same 
 identi'^al word, that great truth which the 
 Hebrew i'V-iiptures taught, and which the latest 
 science has verified — that all life is identical in 
 its ultimate analysis— has been obscured. 
 
f'i 
 
 S4 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " In the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth." What a grand, what a sublime 
 opening sentence for that poem of the cos- 
 mogony witli whicli Moses instilled the first 
 rudiments of religion into the minds of those 
 Israelites — vua.. , ignorant, mere " children in 
 understanding," as they must needs have been 
 after 400 years of the most brutalizing slavery ! 
 After seeing their taskmasters worshipiDing cats 
 and crocodiles and beetles, and attributing the 
 thousand phenomena of nature to a thousand 
 creators, how startling, how revolutionary must 
 have sounded that grand sentence ! 
 
 " In the beti'inning God created the heaven and 
 the earth. And the earth was waste and void ; 
 and darkness was upon the face of the deep : 
 and the spirit of God moved upon the face of 
 the waters " — and the world began to thrill with 
 life, and the waters swarmed with swarms of 
 living creatures. 
 
 This much at any rate is quite compatible 
 with the New Philosophy. Indeed, we should 
 not be very far astray if we were to paraphrase 
 our theological formula in the philosophic terms 
 of Mr. Herbert Spencer, as thus : " I believe in a 
 principle of activity — a special kind (or persona) 
 of the Infinite and Eternal Energy'- — the 
 QajoTtoiov proceeding from that ultimate reality 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 85 
 
 which underlies all manifestations ; in whom we 
 live and move and have our beincr." 
 
 " Still bearing amid fire and ice 
 Her banner witli the strange device, 
 ' Excelsior ! ' " 
 
 11 r 
 
 But yet, while it is true that all life is identi- 
 cal in its ultimate analysis, it is none the less 
 true, as Nature and revelation both ti.stify, that 
 the evolution of that life has resulted in won- 
 derful variations and has ever been working 
 onwards and upwards. All through those inter- 
 minable ages of teeming: life, of the strutrcrle for 
 existence and survival of the fittest, while 
 dragons of the prime tare each other in their 
 slime, and spiders ensnared flies, and tigers 
 crouched for their prey, "and the mayfly was torn 
 by the swallow, and the sparrow speared by the 
 shrike" — all through that awful glacial epoch, 
 when half the continents were buried in fathoms 
 of ice and a thousand types of life were swept 
 away — all througli those millenniums of pain and 
 carnage ; Nature, red in tooth and claw with 
 ravin, was prosecuting her ruthless system of 
 selection and pressing on — 
 
 \^ 
 
 "For we know that the whole creation groaneth 
 and travaileth in pair, together until now," says 
 
 i 
 
86 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the Apostle Paul : but, mark you, he does not 
 say, " since the Fall." As the sentence stands, it 
 is perfectly compatible with science : but I fear 
 most theolo<^ians interpreting that sentence 
 would interpolate the words, " since the Fall," 
 and so destroy its scientific value. Let us keep 
 it as St. Paul wrote it ; and as a clue to this 
 mystery of evolution, through pain and suffering, 
 let us cling also to those words of hope, " The 
 earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for 
 the revealing of the sons of God." 
 
 This evolution of life has been upwards and 
 onwards from the eozoon to man — a gradation, 
 of which all grades are attributed in Scripture 
 to the Holy Ghost, tlie Lord, the Life-Giver. 
 " There are diversities of gifts," says St. Paul, 
 " but the same Spirit ; there are differences of 
 ministrations, and the same Lord; and there are 
 diversities of workings but the same God, who 
 worketh all things in all." The Spirit who 
 moved on the face of the waters at the creation, 
 is the author of organic life; who made man, is 
 the author of human life ; who entered Bezaleel 
 and Aholiab to endue them with mechanical 
 skill, and into prophets and kings to fit them 
 for their work, is the author of mtcllectual life ; 
 who teacheth men how to refuse the evil and 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 87 
 
 choose the good, is tlie author of ethical life; who 
 teacheth us of the thiiiirs of God, is the author 
 of spiritual life. " All these worketh that one 
 and the self-same Spirit dividing to each one 
 severally as He will." 
 
 This thoujxht is well brouoht out iind elabor- 
 ated by the late Preb. Sadler, in his sermons, 
 entitled " Abundant Life," as also in chapter 8, 
 section 1 of " The Second Adam and Uie New 
 Birth," which I would recommend you to read, 
 and, of course, Canon Gore's essay in Lux Mundi. 
 
 But is this the limit of life ? Is there no 
 higher step in its evolution ? Yes, there is a 
 higher stage still ; but that is out of the range 
 of science. Science deals with what is and what 
 has been. It takes the Gospel of Christ to tell 
 us what shall ^e. " The earnest expectation of 
 the creation waiteth for the revealino; of the 
 sons of God." If it applies to philosophy for that 
 revealing, it will wait in vain. But through the 
 revelation of God in Christ we are assured that 
 " if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from 
 the dead be in you, He that raised up Christ 
 from the dead shall also quicken (ZojOTrou/ffsi) 
 your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth 
 in you." So we who believe in the Holy Ghost, 
 the Lord, the Life-Giver, who spake by prophets 
 
 II 
 
88 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 and apostles, adopt the words of the Old Faith, 
 " I believe in the resurrection of the dead and 
 the life of the world to come." 
 
 Here, then, we see in the work of the Spirit a 
 gradation, a development, an evolution — an 
 " an.ilogy to the constitution and course of 
 Nature." And so the great mystery of the 
 universe is partially unveiled to us in the record 
 of the revelation. The one and the self-same 
 Spirit, working onward and upward, from lower 
 to higher, has yet mighty things in store, things 
 which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither 
 have entered into the heart of man to conceive, 
 which that same Spirit shall grant us in the ages 
 to come. 
 
 But, as in the natural world, so in the 
 spiritual, there is " surv^ival of the fittest." 
 And as there is degeneracy and atavism in the 
 natural world, so in the spiritual. The Spirit is 
 given "to profit withal," ir., not only to get 
 good, but to do good with it. And the Spirit 
 may be grieved, quenched, driven away. But 
 if we yield ourselves to His influence and 
 " profit withal," then we shall go from strength 
 to strength, from life to yet higher life ; and 
 He, the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life 
 in all its grades — organic life, human life, intol- 
 Jectual life, moral life, spiritual life — will com- 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 89 
 
 plete the evolution of the sons of God in giving 
 us " the promise tliat He huth promised us, even 
 Eternal Life." 
 
 POSTSCRIPT TO LECTURES L-IIL 
 
 Since writing these lectures I have come 
 across a remarkable article which is calculated 
 to modify the estimates formed concerning the 
 wisdom of the Ron.ian Curia, or the freedom 
 accorded by it to the men of science. The 
 article appeared in the Xincfernth Cevttirj/ of 
 May last ; it is entitled " An Outburs of Activ- 
 ity in the Roman Congregations," by the Hon, 
 William Gibson. Mr. Gibson speaks of hi'nself 
 as having some ten years ago belonged to the 
 " Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland ; " but 
 after having become a scientific freethinker, at 
 last he became a " Catholic." The essay seems 
 to me full of thinly-v^eiled sarcasm against the 
 Jesuits who hold sway in the Vatican, and 
 against the Thomist system of philosophy 
 taught by them. I fancy it will arouse no end 
 of hostility, and finally be placed on the Index, 
 like Dr. Mivart's famous article on " Happiness 
 in Hell." Then I suppose Mr. Gibson, like Dr. 
 Mivart, will cry, " Peccavi," and subside. The 
 whole thiniT is very mystifvinir to mo. I cannot 
 understand how one who thinks and writes as 
 
 
 '1 
 
 ill| 
 
 ■»' 
 
 ||' 'IBB 
 
 
 ~' f 
 
90 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 he does can remain in the Church of Rome ; but 
 I suppose it is ' one of those things no fellow can 
 understand' unless he is within the sacred pale. 
 I would ask you to study that article carefully 
 and form your own deductions, and also another 
 of the same import in the May Contemporary 
 Review, headed, " Is a Catholic University Pos- 
 sible ? " and signed, " Voces Catholica3." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 (a) THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 
 
 " Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that 
 God hath sent his only begotten son into the world, that 
 we might live through him." (1 John iv. 9, R.V. ) 
 
 I, 
 
 V. 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 We now approach the groat central fact of 
 the Christian relicrion, in tliat portion of the 
 Nicene Creed which relates to the person and 
 work of our Lord Jesus Christ. We say central 
 fiict, for this paragraph sets forth certain his- 
 torical events, belief in the occurrence of which 
 distino-uishes the Christian faith from all other 
 creeds. 
 
 A great deal of confusion of thought exists 
 about " creeds." Every now and then we read of 
 some orator lamenting the divisions of Christen- 
 dom, and saying, we shall never have Christian 
 union until we have done away with " creeds." 
 We can no more do away with creeds in religion 
 than wo can in our everj^-day affiiirs. As 
 Bishop Butler urges, probability is the very 
 
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 U III 1.6 
 
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92 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 guide of life. All business is based on creed; 
 that is, belief. The grocer buys so much tea or 
 sugar wholesale because he believes that he vrill 
 retail it in reasonable time at a profit. The 
 merchant sells goods on credit (a word closely 
 akin to creed) because he believes he will get his 
 money in due time. The capitalist invests in 
 this or that stock because he believes it will pay 
 a good dividend. The adventurer goes to 
 the Klondike because he believes he will get lots 
 of gold. The jury find their verdict in accord- 
 ance with their belief in the evidence. In all 
 the affairs of this life we walk by faith and not 
 by sight, and the claim of the Positivist that he 
 walka by sight and not by faith will not hold 
 good. So those who think the Church can 
 be organized without a creed are pursuing a 
 phantom. 
 
 Nevertheless, though we may criticize what 
 such people say, we are quite in accord with 
 what they mean, and that is, that creed-making 
 has been carried to an excess, which has re- 
 sulted in the multiplication of competing sects. 
 Christians have insisted on a great variety of 
 articles as terms of communion in their several 
 organizations. These are often based on meta- 
 physical subtleties upon which the wisest men 
 have differed throughout the ages — all of which, 
 
:: 
 
 THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 
 
 93 
 
 
 I.;- 
 
 though interesting and profitable 'opics for the 
 philosophical theologian, have no business to 
 divide Christians into hostile bodies. The Old 
 Faith, the Creed of Nictea, is free of all these 
 subtleties ; it simply states certain facta, which 
 constitute the message that the Church has to 
 deliver. If they are proved false, the Church's 
 occupation is gone ; for those facts are her raison 
 d'etre. They are explicitly declared in the creed, 
 they are all implied in the plirase, " God sent 
 His Son into the world," and are theologically 
 epitomized in one term, " The Incarnation." 
 
 So we agree with our friends who inveigh 
 against creeds, that a vast amount of matter 
 has been insisted upon by many Christian bodies 
 as de fide which should be relegated to some 
 other department of their ecclesiastical systems. 
 But a creed we must have, even as a platform 
 for the proposed reunion. And we cannot do 
 better than go back to the Old Faith of Nica3a. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is not implied that there 
 should be no discussion as to the rationale of 
 that great fact that "God sent His Son into the 
 World " — far from it. There is an unlimited 
 field for philosophers of all schools to exercise 
 their minds upon. And so long as they don't 
 anathematize and excommunicate one another, 
 let them have full liberty to explore. For of 
 
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 i 
 
 94 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 that Nicene Creed it has been well said of old, 
 " Its words are few, but its mysteries are great." 
 "Great is the mystery of godliness, who was 
 manifest in the flesh," says St. Paul. 
 
 On this account we may take exception to a 
 very popular phrase, viz., " The simplicity of the 
 Gospel," at least as that phrase is often used. 
 It creates confusion of thought because the word 
 "simplicity" is an ambiguous term. There is 
 a " simplicity " the antithesis to which is 
 "duplicity" — this simplicity we gladly accord to 
 the Gospel. But there is a simplicity, the antith- 
 esis to which is complexity. In this sense we 
 cannot allow the simplicity of the Gospel. For 
 the bread of life eternal, like the bread of life 
 physical, is complex. All philosophy and all 
 science will fail to fathom its depths. But we 
 feed on the bread of physical life and grow 
 thereby, though we may not be able to scientifi- 
 cally analyse it ; so we feed on the bread of 
 life eternal, even though its ultimate analysis 
 baffles our comprehension. 
 
 Among these complexities of the Gospel are 
 questions which the pious mind would rather 
 pass by, but which the philosophic mind is 
 bound to probe. Su.ch as these : 
 
 1. The Incarnation took place 1900 years ago, 
 What about those who lived before that time ? 
 
«• 
 
 THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 
 
 95 
 
 F .1 
 
 This question was not so serious tifty years ago, 
 when we conceived that the human race had 
 existed only some G.OOO years. But its serious- 
 ness has been enormously enhanced ever since 
 Sir Charles Lyall published " The Antiquity 
 of Man," and since later science has verified, 
 and indeed enlarged, his conclusions. 
 
 2. Again, this occurred in Judea, an obscure 
 little province of the Roman Empire. What of 
 the rest of the world ? This question, again, 
 was not so serious when scholarly attention was 
 confined to the study of those people who spoke 
 Latin and Greek. But the study of Sanscrit 
 and other Asiatic languages (which is quite 
 modern in our universities) has opened up a 
 vast field of literature — exquisite poetry, noble 
 ethics, profound philosophy, seekings after God, 
 " if haply they might feel after Him and find 
 Him " — possessed by hundreds of millions of 
 people in India, Persia, and China, long before 
 Rome itself was built. 
 
 3. Again, this knowledge of the Gospel is 
 even yet confined to a small proportion of 
 humanity. What about the hundreds of mil- 
 lions who are living to-day, and the millions of 
 millions who have passed away, in the (proba- 
 bly) 300,000 years of man's existence, in ignor- 
 ance ? (See Clodd's " Childhood of Religions," 
 Chap, v.) 
 
 iin 
 
 II 
 
96 THt: OLD FAITH AJfD THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 These are problems which, however lightly 
 the pious but superficial mind may treat them, 
 are yet of tremendous import. They are a part 
 of those "mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven," 
 of which our Lord speaks ; " the mystery which 
 hath been hid throughout the ages," of St. Paul ; 
 the things which " the angels desire to look 
 into," of St. Peter. 
 
 If we would seek a solution of those mysteries 
 we shall find the key in that profound discourse 
 of our Blessed Lord's, consisting of a series of 
 parables, which we may call the " Sermon by the 
 Sea " (St. Matthew xiii.), when that was " fulfilled 
 which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I 
 will open my mouth in parables ; I will utter 
 things hidden from the foundation of the world." 
 (v. 35.) And yet it might be asked, what is 
 there so profound in this Sermon by the Sea, 
 which consisted only of a string of homely 
 illustrations ? It is this great truth which we 
 are only just beginning to appreciate in these 
 days of the New Philosophy — that the processes 
 in the Kingdom of Heaven are like unto the 
 processes in the Kingdom of Nature — that the 
 natural law is projected into the spiritual world 
 — that there is a close analogy between revealed 
 religion and the constitution ara course of 
 nature. 
 
THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 
 
 97 
 
 1 
 
 3.' 
 
 r, 
 
 " Behold a sower went forth to sow." In that 
 parable alone we have the main factors of evo- 
 lution — the laws of differentiation — of the 
 organism being conditioned by the environment 
 — of the progress of the whole along with de- 
 generacy of parts — of a spiritual selection anal- 
 ogous to natural selection — of the survival of 
 the fittest — which terms the learned have lately 
 coined to express the mysteries of the kingdom 
 of nature. The key, then, to the solution of the 
 problems which perplex us to-day, is furnished 
 by our Lord Himself, and it is this — God works 
 in revelation as in nature on the lines of evo- 
 lution. 
 
 As to those countless millions who peopled the 
 world since the time of man's first appearance, 
 however remote that time may have been, we 
 can but say with Barnabas and Paul at Lystra 
 (Acts xiv. 16), that God " in the generations gone 
 by had suffered all nations to walk in their own 
 ways," " that they should seek the Lord if haply 
 they might feel after Him and find Him." "The 
 times of this ignorance, therefore, God over- 
 looked," St. Paul tells the men of Athens. 
 
 " Is cvertheless. He left not Himself without 
 witness " throughout those ages. If He in- 
 spired Melchizedek, King of Salem ; and Abim- 
 elech, King of Gerar ; and Jethro, priest of 
 7 
 
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 f! 
 
 iff 
 
 
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 WUhM 
 
98 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Midian ; and Balaam, the Hon of Beor : and Cyrus, 
 the PerHian monarch ; and others who were not 
 Israelites, surely His Spirit was striving with 
 many a man that we have not been told of in 
 every nation and in every age. This we know, 
 that every mental grasp of righteousness, every 
 devout aspiration after holiness, every approxi- 
 mation to the truth, whether in the mind of 
 Plato, or Zoroaster, or Buddha, or of any of the 
 wise men of the East, all are due to that same 
 Spirit from whom all holy desires, all good 
 counsels and all just works do proceed. 
 
 " Behold a sower went forth to sow." At 
 what time the Divine Sower first went forth to 
 scatter the seed of the Word of God, or over 
 what extent among the nations He scattered it, 
 we know not. But of that seed much fell by the 
 wayside ; much fell on stony ground and among 
 thorns, and so was arrested in its development 
 and brought no fruit to perfection. But some 
 fell on good ground, and pre-eminently good 
 ground was the honest and good heart of the 
 father of the faithful, who, "when he was 
 called, obeyed," who received promises which 
 were not fulfilled in his life-time, yet died in 
 faith, believing in the Lord that in due time the 
 promise should be fulfilled : " In thy seed shall 
 all the families of the earth be blessed." From 
 
!»-:• i! 
 
 THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 
 
 99 
 
 the time of the giving of that promise " till the 
 seed came to whom the promise was made " was 
 a period of some two thousand years. But what 
 are two thousand years in geology or in the 
 history of the human race ? 
 
 All through that period God was slowly, 
 progressively educating His chosen people, the 
 children of Israel, as the pioneers of humanity 
 in the way of light and life — not giving them 
 the full light at once, but by degrees, as they 
 were able to bear it. Beginning with the merest 
 elements, " The Word of the Lord was unto 
 them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, 
 line upon line, line upon line, here a little and 
 there a little ; " until at last " God having of old 
 time spoken unto the fathers by the prophets, 
 by divers portions and in divers manners, hath 
 at the end of these days spoken unto us in His 
 Son." 
 
 This gradual unfolding of the knowledge of 
 God — this evolution — is somewhat obscured to 
 us by the way in which the various books — of 
 divers dates and by divers authors — are massed 
 together in the volume of the Old Testament; 
 and by the uncritical way in which of necessity 
 they are usually read and cj noted, as if they 
 were all of one date and authorship. 
 
 And here let me express my conviction — 
 
 
 
 Ill '" 
 
 
100 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 though I fear some will take alarm thereat — 
 that the historical criticism of these days, when 
 it has perfected its work, and verified or rectified 
 its several theories, will be found to have 
 rendered invaluable aid in disentangling many 
 of the perplexities and apparent contradictions 
 which must trouble every thoughtful student of 
 the Old Testament ; in placing that Old Testa- 
 ment before us in better historical perspective, 
 and in elucidating the truth that from the time 
 when the law was given by Moses till grace and 
 truth came by Jesus Christ, the Word of the 
 Lord grew, according to His invariable law of 
 evolution, " first the blade, then the ear, after 
 that the full corn in the ear." 
 
 In this connection let me advise you to study 
 the essay by Dr. Temple, now Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, on the " Education of the World," the 
 introductory to the famous "Essays and Reviews;" 
 also " The Idea of God " and " Through Mature 
 to God," by Professor John Fiske. You will 
 observe that I am recommending to you all sorts 
 of works — many of them by authors whom the 
 orthodox Anglican would deem very question- 
 able — not because I endorse everything that 
 they all say, but because you will find, with 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer, that there is " a soul of 
 truth even in things erroneous," and if the man 
 
THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 101 
 
 tl 
 
 of God would be thoroughly furnished in these 
 days ho must, as St. Paul tells him, " prove all 
 things but hold fast that which is good." 
 
 So we see that for untold ages the mass of 
 mankind were left, as St. Paul tells us, to seek 
 the Lord and find Him as best they could by 
 the light of nature. Theology has always 
 maintained that there is a natural as well as a 
 revealed religion — that the light of nature, 
 honestly followed, would teach men something 
 of God, but that revelation was needed to sup- 
 plement the light of nature and to teach us the 
 way of God more perfectly. 
 
 Now, we Christians declare our belief that 
 God is a being " of infinite power, wisdom, and 
 goodness." Let us inquire how much of that 
 proposition could be determined by the light of 
 nature alone. Let us for the present eliminate 
 the factor of revelation ; let us take the stand- 
 point of the Positivists and of such philosophers 
 as Mr. Herbert Spencer, and frame our theory 
 of the birth and growth of natural religion. 
 We will start from the earliest prehistoric times 
 that have yet been traced ; from tlie infancy of 
 the human race, say, from the Neanderthal man, 
 or from the men of Kent's Hole, and the like, 
 who lived, according to the latest computations, 
 some three hundred thousand years ago. 
 
 f! 
 
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 PI 
 
 102 TUE OLD FAITU AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 These men, the contemporaries of the cave 
 bear, the woolly rhincxjeros and tin; inainmoth, 
 must for generations have been wholly absorljed 
 in the bare strugt^le for existence. Naked, 
 defenceless, they had to fight the huge beasts 
 they met, and either kill or be killed. To main- 
 tain their hold on life; to overcome the obstacles 
 which nature placed in their way at every turn ; 
 to face the terrors and alarms which surrounded 
 them every moment; to fight the savage beasts 
 which met them everywhere — to do all this 
 with their naked bodies and empty hands, with 
 their organs of sight, hearing, smell, and their 
 muscular powers far inferior to many of the 
 creatures with which they had to contend, must 
 have fully occupied their energies for many 
 generations. And, indeed, that was the sole 
 charge which the Creator laid on primeval man. 
 The elohistic account in Gen. i. 28 says, " God 
 blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruit- 
 ful and multiply, and replenish the earth and 
 subdue it: and have dominion {i.e., acquire 
 
 dominion by subduing, )'^*y\ from root H"!"^) over 
 
 : - T 
 
 the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, 
 
 and over every living thing that moveth upon 
 the earth." That was all ; no other duty men- 
 tioned. That was the primitive man's burden ; 
 but what a burden I It was a task which, if 
 
THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 
 
 103 
 
 the RcientistH aro right, it han taken 300,000 
 years to acconij)lish, and indeed, even now we 
 cannot say tlmt this duty has boon fully dis- 
 charged. So we see that at first the chief 
 business of human life was to kill and eat. 
 
 Now, let us in imagination follow the develop- 
 ment of natural religion, as man emerges out of 
 this infancy of the human race. After he had 
 accomplished the hardest part of the duty tirst 
 laid upon him — after he had in some measure 
 subdued the earth and acquired dominion over 
 the living creatures — and we know not how 
 many millenniums that took him — he had more 
 leisure to think of other things. His thoughts 
 turned to the great riddle of existence or, as 
 Mr. H. Spencer terms it, the problem of the 
 universe. " What am I ? Whence came I ? 
 What is this whole universe, and whence came 
 it ?" He must needs frame some theory or other. 
 The first and most obvious thin<j which im- 
 pressed him was the manifestation everywhere 
 of some inscrutable power, of which he himself 
 was the sport and the victim; for this power mani- 
 fested itself to him most vividly in destruction. 
 The wind, the thunderbolt, the storm, the earth- 
 quake, those were the manifestations of a power 
 to be feared. Later on he took notice of other 
 powers, milder, slower, yet most efficient in the 
 
 
 "•'> 
 
 II 
 
104 THE OT,D FATTH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 way of construction. And so, observing the 
 struggles and conflicts in nature, he imagined 
 several powers antagonizing one another. He 
 personified them, and conceived of a god of life 
 and a god of death, a god of heat and a god of 
 cold, a god of night and a god of day, and so on ; 
 and thus he became a polytheist. But growing 
 from childhood to youth, he discerned a measure 
 of that wonderful co-ordination of all these 
 powers with which we moderns are familiar. 
 Then he conceived one Supreme Power, one 
 Great Spirit, one Manitou, one All-Father, one 
 Divas, one Zeus, or by whatever name He might 
 be called, one Lord who is above all gods. Later 
 on, as knowledge grew from more to more, the 
 thought became more and more distinct that 
 this one Supreme Being was without beginning 
 or end — self-existent, eternal. 
 
 Then, as he further increased in years and in 
 knowledge, he observed more and more the 
 wonderful works of this eternal power. He 
 observed that the power was employed, not 
 only according to his earlier impressions to 
 destroy, but also, and still more constantly, to 
 construct, and the mysterious workings of 
 nature would fill him with the conviction that 
 the Supreme Being was of infinite power and 
 wisdom, 
 
THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 105 
 
 So far then, it seems, man could arrive, by 
 the light of nature alone, after the course of 
 many cycles, in his search for God — that " there 
 is one everlasting and true God of infinite power 
 and wisdom." 
 
 Now, in the history of the chosen people, who, 
 enlightened by revelation, were the pioneers of 
 humanity in the way of life, we can trace in 
 epitome the same stages in the development of 
 the idea of God. In Exodus vi. 3, God says 
 unto Moses, " I am Jehovah, and I appeared 
 unto Abraham and unto Isaac and unto Jacob 
 by the name of God Almighty C"|5^ 7^), but by 
 my name Jehovah was I not known unto them." 
 Now what does tliat imply? We must re- 
 member that in the Hebrew language proper 
 names were very expressive. The name of 
 God indicated the worshippers' idea of God. 
 Now "i"]^ 7^ meant power, and especially de- 
 structive power {^^^ from "nj^*), while niH"' 
 indicated the self-existent, the eternal. The 
 main idea of God then, in the times of the 
 patriarchs, was that of power and of power to 
 be feared. " Who regarded the power of thy 
 wrath ? " " Oh, come hither and behold the 
 works of the Lord, what destruction He hath 
 
 * Observe the repetition of TJ^ in Isaiah xiii. 6 and Joel 
 i. 15 "^"ICi^O ^^D " as destruction from the Almighty." 
 
 * 1 i- 
 
 in 
 
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 : ) 'I 
 
106 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 wrought upon the earth." But from the time 
 of the exodus a higher concept of God was 
 instilled into the minds of the Israelites; He 
 was not merely the power that could destroy, 
 the power to be feared, but was Jehovah the 
 eternal. 
 
 And indeed may we not go further, and inti- 
 mate that the plural form, " elohim," used in the 
 opening of Genesis and elsewhere, was a vestige, 
 a relic of earlier times, when men conceived of 
 many antagonistic powers — the fossil remains, 
 so to speak, of primitive ideas embedded in the 
 Hebrew tongue — just as the conformation of 
 our ears, and the gill marks in the embryo, and 
 the vermiform appendix are reminders to tell us 
 what we came from ? 
 
 Then as to the infinite wisdom of God, let us 
 study the Old Testament chronologically and we 
 shall see how the views of the Israelites enlarged 
 during the fifteen centuries of its compilation. 
 Compare, for instance, Genesis xviii. 20, 21 w4th 
 Isaiah xl. 12-17. The later Psalms and those 
 books which are known as the " Wisdom " books, 
 are full of beautiful passages dilating on the 
 Wisdom of God, such as we need not look for 
 in the earlier books. 
 
 We come now tj the third attribute which we 
 ascribe to the Supreme Being — infinite good- 
 
IT 
 
 
 THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 
 
 107 
 
 ness — and we inquire, Could men have learnt 
 that, too, from the light of Nature alone ? I 
 confess I cannot see how. How could primitive 
 man know — how can we know — how can the 
 philosopher or the student of nature know — 
 that God is of infinite goodness ? That God is 
 good — at times — to some, the savage man 
 could, and did, conclude. When the sun was 
 shining, and he was in perfect health and had 
 all he wanted, he could realize that God was 
 good — to him. But when the storms descended, 
 and he was crippled with rheumatism and 
 unable to hunt his prey or secure a meal, he 
 would fail to see where the goodness came in. 
 The victorious tribe returning from war, laden 
 with spoils and dragging their prisoners to 
 slavery or death, would praise their god or gods 
 for the goodness vouchsafed to them ; but how 
 about the wretched captives ? In point of fact, 
 the licfht of nature led men to think of God as 
 very like their own chiefs, and sultans, and 
 moguls, and other Oriental potentates, armed 
 with power which He used arbitrarily, capri- 
 ciously and merely for His own will and pleasure. 
 St. Paul does not say that the goodness of 
 God could be seen "by the things that are 
 made ; " he only saj^s, " His eternal power and 
 divinity " could be so known. Loftier minds 
 
 -I 
 
 ' 1. 
 
 tii 
 
108 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 among the heathen did indeed "trust that some- 
 how good shall be the future goal of ill.'' No 
 doubt there was many a man, as Tennyson 
 sang: 
 
 '' Who trusted God was love indeed, 
 And love creation's final law : 
 Though Nature, rod i tftoth and claw 
 With ravin, shrieked 1*^^ uist his creed." 
 
 For Nature cannot answer the question, Is 
 God of infinite goodness ? She can only reply : 
 
 " Thou makest tliine appeal to me. 
 I Vjring to life, I bring to death : 
 The spirit does but mean the breath : 
 I know no more." 
 
 And man, after interrogating Nature, can only 
 groan, and say : 
 
 " O Life, as futile then as frail. 
 
 Oh, for a voice to soothe and bless ! 
 Wliat hope of answer or redress ? 
 Behind the veil, behind the veil." 
 
 Nature teaches us, indeed, that God cauaeth His 
 sun to shine upon the evil and on the good, and 
 sendeth rain upon the just and on the unjust ; 
 but so He does the cyclone, the earthquake, and 
 the pestilence. The mighty, strong wind may 
 come, and after the wind an earthquake, and 
 
PWi 
 
 THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. 
 
 109 
 
 after the earthquake a fire, and the Lord, 
 as the God of goodness, will not be in them. 
 We need, like Elijah, the " still small voice " to 
 reassure us. It needs a higrher warrant than 
 the phenomena of nature, which veils God, to 
 convince us of His love. That warrant we have, 
 who through Christ see "behind the veil." " In 
 this was manifested the love of God in us, that 
 He sent His Son." Humanity needed that mani- 
 festation of God, that Epiphany, before it could 
 say with assurance "I believe in one God of in- 
 finite power "sdom and goodness." " In this 
 was niani' -ed the Love of God " — love in spite 
 of all the pain and suffering in which the whole 
 creation groaneth and travaileth ; nay, love, 
 because of, and by means of, all this pain and 
 suffering. For consider in the light of evolu- 
 tion what all that pain and suffering have 
 accomplished. Consider how they have de- 
 veloped character and evoked such noble deeds. 
 Consider how they have disciplined man, have 
 educated him, have called iorth his noblest 
 qualities, his courage, his fortitude, his self- 
 control, his pity, his sympathy, his brotherly 
 kindness, his charity — virtues which could not 
 have developed in any way that w^e can conceive 
 of, if there had been no pain or suffering. 
 
 The problem of pain exercised to no end the 
 
 
 4 
 
 M'l 
 
 W 
 
110 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY 
 
 minds of pagan philo.sophers and Cliristian 
 fathers ; and volumes were written speculating 
 on the origin of evil, both physical and moral. 
 That physical and moral evil are closely allied, 
 we admit ; nevertheless in our theology hence- 
 forth we must draw a sharper line of distinction 
 than heretofore between the two. For we shall 
 have to bear in mind that pain and suffering 
 and death — which form the main part of what 
 we recognize as physical evil — have existed ever 
 since the dawn of life. Throughout all those 
 millions of years of geological progress what we 
 have called evil prevailed. "And God saw that 
 it was good." 
 
 We may thank modern science for elucidating 
 this paradox for us : for she has shown us, as 
 was never so clearly shown before, how evil is 
 the necessary complement of good, how evil 
 evolves good, how corruption begets life — "that 
 which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
 die" — the manure heap is required to evolve the 
 lovely flower and the pleasant plant. Partial 
 evil is for the good of the whole. 
 
 Let me commend to you Mr. Illingworth's 
 essay on "The Problem of Pain," in Lux Mundi, 
 and also a treatise on the same by James Hinton, 
 M.D., as well as another book of his, viz., " Life 
 in Nature." 
 
THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. Ill 
 
 Henceforth in this lecture 1 shall not speak of 
 " physical evil." In alluding to pain and death 
 I shall use the word " Suffering " — the equiva- 
 lent of TtaStf^aTa in New Testament. 
 
 Science in unveiling the processes of nature 
 has discovered to us the value of sufferings in 
 the evolution of the past ; it has in so doing 
 thrown a flood of light on the rationale of the 
 incarnation. We see the place it occupies in the 
 evolution that is to be — unless, indeed, evolu- 
 tion has arrived at the end of its tether ; and 
 nature, after carrying, through countless ages, 
 her banner of " Excelsior," after mounting 
 higher and higher in her ascent, is doomed, like 
 the youth of the poem, to perish amid the 
 snows — 
 
 " Still grasping in her hand of ice 
 That banner with the strange device." 
 
 But to those who look forward to the 
 
 " One far-oflf divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves," 
 
 the New Philosophy, with its interpretation of 
 sufferings, has shown the way. Sufferings were 
 indi.spensable for the development of human 
 character ; sufferings were indispensable for the 
 development of the divine in man. God imposed 
 
 : III 
 
 ", '111 
 
 ^ 
 
 :■ % 
 
 
 
 1 1' ;l' 
 
 
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 li 
 
 I Ip'i:'* 
 
112 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the law of sutiering as a constant factor in 
 evolution ; God Himself — with reverence be it 
 spoken — submitted to His own law. "In all 
 their affliction He was afflicted." Human char- 
 acter can only be made perfect through suffer- 
 ings, and " it became Him from whom are all 
 things and by whom are all things, in bringing 
 many sons unto glory to make the Captain of 
 their salvation perfect through sufferings." 
 (Heb. ii. 10.) So we, the sons whom He is bring- 
 ing unto glory, rejoice in " the fellowship of 
 His suffering" (Phil. iii. 10), as "heirs of God 
 and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we 
 suffer with Him." (Rom. viii. 17.) " For as the 
 sufferings of Christ abound unto us, even so 
 also our comfort aboundeth through Christ." 
 (2 Cor. i. 5.) 
 
 And that is why the Cross is our most 
 cheriiihed emblem — because it is the symbol 
 of all pain and anguish and death ; because 
 suffering has been blessed and sanctified by 
 the sufferings of Christ ; because we have been 
 taught by His revelation what the children of 
 men have but lately spelled out of the book of 
 Nature — Via crucis, via lucis (The way of the 
 Cross is the way of light). 
 
 'Ves, there is a development now going on 
 among the sons of men to make them the sons 
 
on 
 sons 
 
 The person and work of christ. 113 
 
 r 
 
 
 of God and heirs of eternal life, of which the 
 incarnation is the factor. There is an evolu- 
 tion to come as well as that which is past, in 
 which Christ is the great evolver. Our con- 
 nection and exact place in the evolution of the 
 past it may be hard to determine — our con- 
 nection and true place in the evolution of the 
 future is beyond peradventure. What we were 
 evolved from need not trouble us. What we 
 are to be evolved into — that is the great ques- 
 tion. All the missing links between man and 
 the lowest animals may never be found. What 
 matter ? The connecting link between man and 
 what he is yet to be has come on earth. God 
 sent His Son, " The mystery of godliness — who 
 was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, 
 seen of angels, preached among the nations, 
 believed on in the world, received up into 
 glory ! " 
 
 " Beloved, now are we the sons of God ; and it 
 doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we 
 know that when He shall appear we shall be 
 like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And 
 every man that hath this hope in him purifieth 
 himself, even as He is pure." 
 
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114 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 (bj THE WORLD'S GREAT SACRIFICE. 
 
 We have so far considered the person of 
 Christ as the factor of man's spiritual evolution ; 
 we have yet to inquire, In what way is this 
 evolution effected ? What is the special function 
 of the Incarnate Word ? 
 
 Here we reach the crwx of the whole matter ; 
 now we must face the objections to the atonement 
 as commonly presented, which many silently 
 entertain, and which Dr. Goldwin Smith has 
 expressed in his book. We must meet the 
 defiant challenge of the Mail : " Evolution men- 
 aces the essentials of Christianity." " Evolu- 
 tion denies all that the Bible teaches, and by 
 implication dethrones the Saviour." " If man 
 be a development from the lower forms of life, 
 the Christian teaching vanishes." 
 
 We concede at the outset, that in the light of 
 the New Philosophy some views of the function 
 of the Christ must " vanish ; " and better so, for 
 they are views which have been distorted by 
 the medium through which we Christians have 
 been looking. The New Philosophy has cleared 
 the atmosphere and given us an insight into 
 the purpose of the incarnation more scriptural, 
 more primitive, and more reasonable. "Great 
 is the mystery of godliness," we know; but 
 
THE WORLDS GREAT SACRIFICE. 
 
 115 
 
 
 ' 1 1; 
 
 that mystery is being more and more cleared up 
 as the operations of God in Nature are being 
 more and more made manifest. 
 
 The favorite " views," or illustrations of the 
 atonement used to be such as these : 
 
 We were like captives in bondage — Christ 
 came and paid our ransom. 
 
 We were like debtors in jail — Christ came 
 and discharged our debt. 
 
 We were like felons condemned to death — 
 Christ came and died in our stead. 
 
 Such similitudes no doubt served their purpose 
 in mediaeval or semi-barbarous times ; but to-day 
 they do not touch the hearts of men ; indeed, 
 owing to radical changes in our judicial and 
 forensic proceedings, they have become out of 
 place, not to say repulsive. It is time that such 
 views should " vanish." 
 
 In the days of the robber barons of the Middle 
 Ages (or, indeed, even yet among the brigands of 
 Thessaly), the illustration of Christ paying our 
 ransom would be cherished as most apt by some 
 rescued captive, but to us it is too suggestive of 
 likening the God of all grace to a brigand. The 
 figure of discharging our debts was well enough 
 in the days of the Vicar of Wakefield and the 
 Fleet prison; but since Charles Dickens and 
 other writers exposed the villainy of those 
 
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 116 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 rapacious harpies through whose nmchinations 
 many a wretched debtor became a martyr, we 
 do not like this similitude. We admire the self- 
 sacrifice of Damon and Pythias, each anxious 
 to give up his own life to save his friend ; but 
 we abhor the ruthlessness of the tyrant of 
 Syracuse perfectly indifferent as to which of the 
 two suffered so long as he got his " satisfaction " 
 by the blood of one of them ; and we do not like 
 to consider the tyrant of Syracuse as the type 
 of our heavenly Father. 
 
 This idea of death by proxy received a reduc- 
 tion to absurdity a few years ago, by an inci- 
 dent which was widely made use of by the anti- 
 Christians of the time to point their moral and 
 adorn their tale. We all know that Mrs. May- 
 brick, who is imprisoned on the charge of poison- 
 ing her husband, has a great number of friends 
 who still agitate for her release. But it may be 
 forgotten that at the time of her sentence the 
 sympathy in her behalf was so widespread and so 
 intense as to almost endanger the Government of 
 the day. At that time a quixotic youth actually 
 offered himself for execution as her substitute. 
 Suppose the Government had accepted the offer, 
 thinking thereby to save themselves from public 
 odium, while, at the same time, "justice " would 
 
THE world's GllEAT SACRIFICE. 
 
 117 
 
 be " satisfied," what would the civilized world 
 have said ? Now let us read the third book of 
 Milton's "Paradise Lost," and we shall see how 
 utterly unworthy of our modern ideas of CJod is 
 the dialogue tliere imagined. What Father 
 Oxenham, in his " Catholic Doctrine of the 
 Atonement" (p. 209), calls "the juridical fiction of 
 a transfer," becomes the more untenable the 
 more we think of it. 
 
 And, moreover, all these illustrations are not 
 true to fact. Christ did not endure pain to 
 secure us immunity from pain — on the contrary, 
 He calls on us to follow Him in bearing pain. 
 He suffered mental and bodily anguish ; so do 
 His disciples. He died in the flesh ; so do we 
 all. He was crucified ; so have been very many 
 for His name's sake. Indeed, we are all called 
 to the " fellowship of His sufferings." 
 
 The theologians of the past found great diffi- 
 culty in explaining the dogma of the atonement 
 on these lines — as Dale, Oxenham and other 
 modern writers have shown — because they con- 
 structed a system of soteriology based on the 
 rude ways and crude laws of men in past genera- 
 tions; they judged of the subject "after the com- 
 mandments and ordinances of men :" but " my 
 thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your 
 ways my ways, saith the Lord." Bishop Butler, 
 
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118 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 with his logical and far-seeing mind, avoided this 
 mistake ; he says of the efficacy of the sacrifice of 
 Christ : " How, and in what particular way, it 
 had this efficacy, there are not wanting persons 
 who have endeavored to explain, but I cannot 
 find that the Scripture has explained it. We 
 seem to be very much in the dark concerning 
 the manner in which the ancients understood 
 atonement to be made ; i.e., pardon to be obtained 
 by sacrifices. And if the Scripture has, as surely 
 it has, left this matter of the satisfaction of 
 Christ mysterious, left somewhat in it unre- 
 vealed, all conjectures about it must be, if not 
 evidently absurd, yet at least uncertain. Nor 
 has any one reason to complain for want of 
 further information, unless he can show his 
 claim to it. 
 
 " Some have endeavored to explain the efficacy 
 of what Christ has done and suffered for us, 
 beyond what the Scripture has authorized; 
 others, probably because they could not explain 
 it, have been for taking it away, and confining 
 His office as Redeemer of the world to His in- 
 struction, example and government of the 
 Church. Whereas, the doctrine of the Gospel 
 appears to be, not onl}^ that He taught the 
 efficacy of repentance, but rendered it of the 
 efficacy which it is by what He did and suffered 
 for us." (" Analogy," Part II., chap, v., sec. 6.) 
 
THE WORLDS GREAT SACRIFICE. 
 
 119 
 
 Many a cultured layman worshipping in our 
 churches, when he hears from the pulpit such 
 illustrations as those we have mentioned, feels 
 repelled : he turns with pain from the mental 
 image which the preacher has conjured up; and 
 yet, withal, he will revert to his Prayer-Book and 
 cry, with all the fervor of faith, " O Lamb of God 
 that takest away the sins of the world ;" he will 
 take comfort in the thought that " Christ, 
 our Passover, is sacrificed for us." 
 
 In all this we are not propounding a new 
 theology. We are simply reverting to that of 
 the Greek fathers of the first four centuries 
 and back of a Latinized Chiistianity. I have 
 already referred you io Fiske's " Idea of God," 
 let me also coinmenc to you Professor Allen's 
 Bohlen lectures on the " Continuity of Christian 
 Thought." 
 
 But while illustrations drawn from the judicial 
 practices of an uncivilized and bygone age have 
 outlived their usefulness, the mystery of the 
 world's great sacrifice has had a flood of light 
 thrown on it by modern science. 
 
 God sent His Son into the world that we 
 might " live through Him." How are we to 
 " live through Him " ? Have we not already seen 
 that the Holy Ghost is the G"ver of life in all 
 its grades ? In what way then is His work to 
 be supplemented by the Incarnate Word ? Let 
 
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120 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 US turn to nature ; let us extend Bishop Butler's 
 reasoning along the line of modern science ; let 
 us trace the analogy between physical and 
 eternal life. 
 
 The modern science of Biology emphasizes 
 two great factors as indispensable to all life. 
 
 1. The life must have a beginning, and this 
 beginning must be imparted. It is now estab- 
 lished that there is no such thing as spontaneous 
 generation, or what the scientists call " Abio- 
 genesis." (See the first chapter of Drummond's 
 " Natural Law," etc.) 
 
 2. The life when begun, must be continuously 
 sustained by feeding — loss of food is loss of 
 life. 
 
 Need we point out how the two great sacra- 
 ments ordained by Christ Himself — the sacra- 
 ment of birth and the sacrament of sustenance — 
 follow the lines of the natural law ? 
 
 The Holy Ghost is the Life-Giver : We must 
 be " born of the Spirit " — but that spiritual life 
 must be continuously sustained by spiritual 
 food. And the Incarnate Word says of Himself : 
 " I am the Bread of lafe." 
 
 But we will follow the New Philosophy still 
 further. That food which sustains animal life 
 can only be furnished by the forfeiture of some 
 other life. We have seen how all kinds of life, 
 
THE would's great sacrifice. 
 
 121 
 
 animal and vegetable, have a common physical 
 basis in protoplasm. But there is this difference : 
 plants can manufacture protoplasm out of 
 minerals, animals cannot ; they must get their 
 protoplasm ready-made ; that is to say, they 
 must sustain their life by destroying some other 
 life. I once more quote from that lecture of 
 Huxley's : 
 
 " Physiology writes over the portals of life — 
 ' Debemur Tnorti nos nostraqiie,' with a pro- 
 founder meaning than the Roman poet attached 
 to that melancholy line. Under whatever dis- 
 guise it takes refuge, whether fungus or oak, 
 worm or man, the living protoplasm not only ulti- 
 mately dies and is resolved into its mineral and 
 lifeless constituents, but is always dying; and, 
 strange as the paradox may sound, could not live 
 unless it died." I wonder if the learned physiolo- 
 gist as he penned those words thought of the 
 lines of Bishop Heber's hymn : 
 
 " Day by day with strength supphed 
 Through the life of Him who died." 
 
 In another of his brilliant essays Huxley 
 makes use of this striking aphorism, " The law 
 of sacrifice is the law of life." We thank the 
 learned biologist for teaching us that word. 
 That is the natural law, the sacrament of nature. 
 
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 122 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 That natural law has been projected into the 
 spiritual world. Eternal life, like physical life, 
 must feed upon life. 
 
 A maxim often quoted by scientists is, " Man 
 is what he eats," though it would be more exact 
 to say, " Man is what he assimilates out of that 
 which he eats." It is a wonderful, a mysterious 
 thing, when we come to think of it — that the 
 golden grain waving in the field or the lamb 
 sporting in the meadow to-day will, before long, 
 be converted, or transmuted, or (to use Huxley's 
 own expression) transubstantiated, into human 
 flesh and blood. 
 
 How was it that worship by sacrifice was so 
 universal a practice from the very infancy of 
 the human race ? We trace back the history of 
 humanity as far as possible, and this peculiar 
 rite confronts us everywhere. All nations — no 
 mfltter how civilized or how degraded, how 
 modern or how ancient, how nearly connected or 
 how widely sundered — have worshipped by 
 sacrifice. The relics of prehistoric man bear 
 testimony to the same observance. How are we 
 to account for it ? Various theories have been 
 propounded — that it was a tradition handed 
 down from some primal revelation — that it was 
 prompted by the sense of guilt and sin — that it 
 was fear of the Supreme Being and a desire to 
 
THE WORLDS GREAT SACRIFICE. 
 
 123 
 
 placate Him in some way. But it seems to me 
 that the most natural and most obvious reason 
 has been lost sight of. Let us frame our own 
 theory of the genesis of sacrifice in the light of 
 nature. 
 
 We have already seen how primitive men 
 were first wholly engrossed in the bare struggle 
 for existence. The main business imposed on 
 them by the Creator was to subdue the earthy 
 to increase and multiply, to acquire dominion 
 over all other living creatures. To fulfil that 
 commission their chief business was to kill and 
 eat, to officiate in that great sacrament of nature. 
 The law of sacrifice is the law of life. 
 
 But when their bettered circumstances gave 
 them time for thought to seek the Lord, when 
 they became conscious of the Infinite and 
 Eternal Power in whom thev lived and moved 
 and had their being, they would think of some 
 mode of offering Him homage. They were im- 
 pelled to call on what they felt was Lord of all. 
 What mode more obvious, what more natural, 
 than that they should convert what was the 
 main function of their lives into a religious 
 function, a sacrijicium ? They had to kill and 
 eat. What more natural than that they should 
 seek the approbation and sanction of the Deity 
 in this most necessary occupation of their daily 
 
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124 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 lives ? The life which they possessed they 
 acknowledged to be the gift of God. The life 
 which they took in order to sustain their own 
 life was equally the gift of God. They asked 
 Him to sanctify and bless the whole transaction, 
 and so they did " eat and drink before the 
 Lord." 
 
 We see, then, that the very first dawnings of 
 natural religion in the savage breast would 
 prompt worship by sacrifice, because men would 
 from the very first be impressed by their sur- 
 roundings with Nature's great sacrament. The 
 law of sacrifice is the law of life. They would 
 naturally make a religious act of what was to 
 them an every-day business and necessity of 
 existence. To kill and eat had been their chief 
 occupation, now they kill and eat "before the 
 Lord." 
 
 Now, be it observed that it was not the mere 
 " killing," hut also the " eating " — in fact, the 
 whole transaction, that constituted the " sacri- 
 fice." 
 
 So it was also in tlie Old Testament. The 
 killing was a subsidiary part and not usually 
 performed by the priest. (See Leviticus.) His 
 special function did not begin till after the 
 victim was slain ; and the sacrifice was not 
 completed till the victim was consumed, which 
 
THE world's great SACRIFICE. 
 
 125 
 
 was partly by fire, but mainly by the priests 
 and worshippers consuming the flesh of the 
 victim and so becoming " partakers of the altar," 
 the whole transaction thus fitly illustrating the 
 great sacrament of nature, that the law of 
 sacrifice is the law of life. 
 
 The expression, *' eating and drinking before 
 the Lord " or before false gods, occurs several 
 times in the Old Testament with reference to 
 Jewish or heathen worship.* By remembering 
 this we shall better appreciate many passages, 
 not only in the Old Testament, but also in the 
 New, such as 1 Cor. v. 7 and viii. to xi., inclu- 
 sive, and Hebrews xiii. 10. 
 
 The Passover, the first appointed and the chief 
 sacrifice of the Israelites, illustrates this very 
 fully. They were ordered to take a lamb, i.e., 
 select it and devote it on the tenth day of the 
 month ; then, " on the fourteenth day at even," 
 it was to be killed, its blood sprinkled, and its 
 flesh eaten ; it was to be entirely 'consumed that 
 same night ; and the whole trai^saction — the 
 eating especially — was called " the Sacrifice of 
 the Lord's Passover." (Exodus xii. 27. )j 
 
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 If a man die shall he live again ? This ques- 
 tion asked by Job so many centuries ago, has 
 
 * See Exodus xxiv. 11 ; xxxii. 6; Judges ix. 27 ; 1 Chron. 
 xxix. 22 ; Deut. xiv. 23, 26 ; xv. 20. 
 
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126 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 been debated ever since. Platonists and Stoics, 
 Pythagoreans and Epicureans, Pharisees and 
 Sadducees fought over it; and Idealists and 
 Materialists, Spiritualists and Positivists are 
 fighting over it to-day. Only some revelation 
 from God can make us sure. " God hath given 
 assurance unto all men in that He hath raised 
 up Christ from the dead." "And this is the 
 record, that God hath given to us eternal life, 
 and this life is in His Son." 
 
 The question is settled, therefore, for us Chris- 
 tians. God hath given us eternal life ; and now 
 we ask. Does this eternal life, like physical life, 
 require to be sustained by food ? Is the natural 
 law of sacrifice projected into the spiritual world ? 
 and if so, what is the food of eternal life ? The 
 whole New Testament is full of the answer. "1 
 am the Bread of Life, he that eateth of this 
 bread shall live for ever. Behold the Lamb of 
 God." 
 
 We see, then, how the light of the New Phil- 
 osophy illumines the Christian dogma of the 
 world's great sacrifice, — immolated once for all, 
 but forever being offered, forever being con- 
 sumed. As the original " sacrifice of the Lord's 
 Passover " did not consist in the mere killing of 
 the lamb, so the world's great sacrifice did not 
 consist in the mere immolation on the Cross. It 
 reached, so to speak, its lowest culmination then, 
 
THE WORLDS GREAT SACRIFICE. 
 
 127 
 
 but it beiran loner before. As the Paschal sacri- 
 fice began on the "tenth day of the month," 
 when the lamb was chosen and devoted, so the 
 world's great sacrifice began when He who, 
 being in the form of God, emptied Himself and 
 was made in the likeness of men — when He " for 
 us men and for our salvation came down from 
 heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of 
 the Virgin Mary and was made man." The 
 world's great sacrifice began with the Gloria 
 in Excelsis, sung by the angels at Bethlehem. 
 No ; we are wrong — it began before that. It 
 began with the Ave Maria. (Luke i. 35.) 
 
 And that sacrifice is not concluded yet. The 
 immolation of the victim was indeed once for all 
 upon the Cross of Calvary. Then the victim 
 became Himself the Great High Priest for ever- 
 more. The "oflfering" of His sacrifice is per- 
 petual before the throne, and the feeding on 
 that sacrifice will never cease until He comes 
 again. And so they who hunger and thirst 
 after righteousness cry, " Lord, evermore give 
 us this bread." 
 
 If then we discard some old similitudes drawn 
 from the social and political practices of ancient 
 times, because they are unsuitable to-day, we are 
 more than compensated by the adoption of those 
 similitudes drawn from the constitution and 
 course of nature on which so much light has 
 
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128 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 been thrown by the New Philosophy ; and they 
 have, moreover, this advantage — they make us 
 realize the Christ within us, and not only the 
 Christ without ; the Christ imparted, rather than 
 the Christ imputed — the second Adam of whose 
 life we must partake as completely as we do 
 that of the first Adam. "Till Christ be formed 
 in you." " Christ in you the hope of glory." 
 " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 
 " Abide in me and I in you." " He that hath 
 the Son hath life." But, indeed, all figures, all 
 types, all analogues fail to exhaust the length 
 and depth and breadth and height of the 
 mystery of godliness, the love of Christ which 
 passeth knowledge. We may well sing : 
 
 "Jesus! my Shepherd, Brother, Friend, 
 My Prophet, Priest and King, 
 My Lord, my Life, my Way, my End, 
 Accept the praise I bring." 
 
 But amid all these types, that which the Lord 
 applied to Himself and which the New Phil- 
 osophy has so beautifully illustrated, becomes 
 more and more dear : 
 
 *' Bread of Heaven, on Thee we feed, 
 For Thy flesh is meat indeed : 
 Ever may our souls be fed 
 With this true and living Bread ; 
 Day by day with strength supplied 
 Through the life of Him who died." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 '■ii; 
 I'll 
 
 I' Hi 
 
 THE HOLY GATHOLIG CHURCH. 
 
 From the time of the publication of Hugh 
 Miller's "Testimony of the Rocks" to that of 
 Gladstone's essays on " The Proem to Genesis," 
 the efforts to " reconcile Genesis and geology " 
 were many and various. These efforts, pains- 
 taking and pious, did good in their day by 
 arresting the tide of alarm and unbelief caused 
 by the revelations of science. But they became 
 ineffective, each in turn, as men of science made 
 further explorations into the realms of nature, 
 and established more and more fully the doctrine 
 of evolution, which the champions of the faith 
 had hitherto ignored. With Drummond's " Natu- 
 ral Law," etc., came a new system of apologetics, 
 based on the acceptance of the New Philosophy. 
 This acceptance is still, we know, distasteful to 
 very many who, at all hazards, would expunge 
 it from their dogmatic systems. But I would 
 beg the theologian to remember always, that 
 9 129 
 
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130 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 whatever theory of the creation he may frame 
 in his own mind, he must never lose sight of 
 these ascertained facts of science : 
 
 1. From the time that this globe of ours was 
 a chaos, " without form and void," until now, 
 was a period of some hundreds of millions of 
 years. 
 
 2. During all that immense period every por- 
 tion of the earth's surface underwent numberless 
 changes, being now land, now sea, now a region 
 of more than tropical heat, now of more than 
 arctic cold. 
 
 3. In the words of Huxley, ** one and the same 
 area of the earth's surface has been successively 
 occupied by very different kinds of living beings." 
 
 In the early part of this century, when geology 
 was in its infancy, various theories were adopted 
 to account for these changes in the structure of 
 animal life which the world has manifestly 
 undergone. In one layer of rock were found 
 the fossils of curious shelled creatures, trilobites, 
 and so forth. In another stratum these disap- 
 peared, and in their stead were found the bones 
 of gigantic monsters of the deep, veritable 
 dragons, and the remains of huge creatures, half- 
 bird, iialf-reptile, terrible, hideous, all now hap- 
 pily extinct. In still another layer of rock the 
 sea monsters had disappeared and given place 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 131 
 
 to maniiiKjtliH, nuistodunH, deiuotlieriumH, and 
 other inon.stors of the land. 
 
 How to account for these succcHsive hiyers of 
 rock and these varied and dissimilar types of 
 animated i^aturo exercised the minds of the 
 scientific world fifty years a^o. The favorite 
 theory among the more pious was that which 
 was named " Catastrophism," that is to say, that 
 the whole world had been subject to numerous 
 catastrophes, in the way of universal fioods, 
 volcanic eruptions, or some fearful and general 
 convulsions of nature, whereby all the living 
 creatures of that time were swept away, and 
 then the Almighty created a new set of creatures 
 for the renewed earth. (See Huxley's address, 
 " Geographical Reform," 1869.) 
 
 This theory, which was popular forty or fifty 
 years ago, because it seemed the most reconcil- 
 able with religion, is now entirely abandoned. 
 It has been seen that while many types of 
 creatures have been obliterated, yet very many 
 other types have persisted through all these 
 cycles of geologic changes unto the present — 
 some with very little variation, others with 
 more, others with none at all. Now, the scien- 
 tific world is unanimous in deciding that these 
 changes were not " catastrophic " but gradual — 
 that through the millions of years of the world's 
 
 III; 
 
 111! 
 
132 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 history some of these types merged into other 
 types, the changes in their structures being 
 gradually forced upon them by changes in their 
 surroundings — changes of climate and of food, 
 and so forth. During these ages not only did 
 the living creatures change in appearance, but 
 the earth herself changed in appearance under 
 the operation of natural forces. The great law 
 of nature for all things, great or small, is the 
 law of continuous progressive change. And 
 that is the first law of evolution. 
 
 And here, I think, we should ask ourselves, as 
 religious men, leaving aside all preconceived or 
 traditional ideas, which of these two modes, the 
 catastrophic or the evolutionary, is the more 
 worthy of our idea of God ? To me there can 
 be but one answer. The catastrophic theory 
 requires us to believe that the Great Creator 
 made first one set of creatures, and then, dis- 
 satisfied with His work, swept them all away 
 with some besom of destruction, and made another 
 set; then, after a period of lesser or greater 
 length, became disgusted with these, annihilated 
 them, and tried again ; and so on time after 
 time, like some human artificer making experi- 
 ments and strewing the floor of his workshop 
 with the chips and remnants of his failures. I do 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 133 
 
 not think Mr. Herbert Spencer is any too severe 
 in calling this the "Carpenter theory of Creation." 
 
 On the other hand, evolution accounts for all 
 these changes — the disappearance of many types 
 of life, the modification of many others, the per- 
 sistence of still more — by a regular system of 
 causation. This eternal law of continuity, this 
 evolution, seems to ^iC a much more worthy con- 
 cept of the working of Him " with whom is no 
 variableness neither shadow of turning," than 
 the system which would compare the Eternal to 
 a bungling workman constantly destroying his 
 own constructions and making fresh ones. 
 
 As we said before, childhood loves the sudden, 
 the catastrophic ; it loves to think of the island 
 clad with verdure emerging in a moment from 
 the sea ; it takes delight in the pranks of fairies 
 and pixies ; it finds a weird charm in the 
 transformation scene of a pantomime. The 
 people of the East, young and old, are still more 
 embued with this ideal than ourselves, as we see 
 strikingly displayed in the "Arabian Nights," 
 with its transformations and bouleversements 
 of every kind. Nevertheless, we may confidently 
 assert that, in the matter of catastrophic change, 
 none of the poets of the East, although they are 
 " of imagination all compact," have excelled our 
 
 
 11 
 
134 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 own Milton, who, out of a few scattered, indeter- 
 minate expressions of the Book of Genesis, man- 
 aged to weave such a tale of the catastrophic as 
 " Paradise Lost." He there pictures 
 
 " Adam the goodliest among men since born 
 His sons, the fairest of her daughters, Eve, 
 
 seated on the grass in a state of tranquil ease 
 and blissful innocence, while 
 
 "About them frisking played 
 All beasts of earth, since ivild, and of all chase 
 In wood or wilderness, forest or den. 
 Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw 
 Dandled the kid ; bears, tigers, ounces, pards 
 Gambolled before them" — and so forth. 
 
 But no sooner had the first pair transgressed 
 the commandments than presto — the lion began 
 to devour the kid, and the spider began to eat the 
 flies, and the sparrow began to eat the spider, 
 and the hawk began to pounce on the sparrow, 
 and the snake began to swallow the hawk, and 
 the man began to kill the snake, and the tiger 
 began to kill the man. 
 
 All this catastrophic rendering of a few sen- 
 tences in Genesis is made ludicrous by our 
 modern knowledge. We must then learn to view 
 these few verses in a far different light. Indeed, 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 135 
 
 we must read them as Orientals would naturally 
 read them. We Westerners find it very hard to 
 enter into the spirit of Oriental literature. Even 
 in their ordinary conversation the Asiatics use 
 lavishly figures of speech — metaphors, hyper- 
 boles, personifications — in a way that we fail to 
 appreciate. The educated Hindoo, or Persian, or 
 Arabian of to-day would be amused at our learned 
 commentators stumbling over such phrases as 
 " God rested on the seventh day," " They heard 
 the voice of the Lord God walking in the 
 garden in the cool of the day," " The Lord 
 smelled a sweet savour," " The Lord said, I 
 will go down and see," concerning Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, and trying to explain them by paral- 
 lel passages. They would be inclined to ask us, 
 '• Have you no poetry in your composition, no 
 imagination, no fancy ? Must everything be 
 said in your logical rule-of -three way before you 
 British gradgrinds can take it in ? " We must 
 learn to read those Oriental writings as Orien- 
 tals would read them. Taken in that way all 
 such passages are full of exquisite meaning and 
 sentiment, but taken in their dry, hard-and-fast, 
 bald, literal sense they become absurd. 
 
 In Sir Samuel Baker's accounts of his journeys 
 " In the Heart of Africa " are several illustra- 
 tions of the language used by the Mohammedans 
 
 •4 
 
 ■m 
 
 11 
 
 III 
 
 i I 
 \ 'fli 
 
136 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 concerning God, which with us would incur the 
 change of that dreadful word, ** anthropomor- 
 phism," but are natural to the poetic tempera- 
 ment of these people. 
 
 In the study, therefore, of the earlier chapters 
 of Genesis we must needs take into account the 
 Oriental writer's cast of mind. And we must 
 also take into account the facts of modern science. 
 In doing so we shall find no difficulty in learn- 
 ing the spiritual lessons conveyed in this sublime 
 epic — nor in giving to it an evolutionary rather 
 than a catastrophic interpretation. Then we 
 shall find that " the letter killeth but the spirit 
 giveth life." 
 
 The evil side of catastrophism, whether in 
 science or in theology, is that it conceives of the 
 Great Supreme Being as working capriciously, 
 fitfully, experimentally, making and destroying, 
 doing and undoing, creating a world in perfec- 
 tion, and then, incense*; it man's conduct, revers- 
 ing the lever and throwing the whole machinery 
 out of gear and destroying all His previous work ; 
 then, relenting and devising a new " plan " 
 whereby something may be saved out of this 
 general wreck. This, let me say, is the blot on 
 what we call Latinized Christianity, as initiated 
 by St. Augustine, elaborated by some of the 
 schoolmen, and brought to completion by Milton. 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 137 
 
 
 But it is entirely foreign to the theology of the 
 Greek fathers of the early centuries. This has 
 been pointed out even by many of those whom 
 we look upon as destructive critics of Christi- 
 anity — such as Draper, A. D. White, and others ; 
 as well as by Prof. Fiske and Prof. Allen, whose 
 " Bohlen Lectures " let me again recommend. 
 
 This catastrophic view of the plan of salva- 
 tion is what the Mail articles had in mind as 
 " vanishing " in the light of the New Philoso- 
 phy. They conceived that this view was essen- 
 tial to the religion of Christ; and they were 
 warranted in so doing, because it has been 
 accentuated by theologians of all denominations 
 and branches and sects of western Christendom. 
 To correct this untenable " view " which now 
 must needs *' vanish," we shall have to go back 
 to Christ — back to the Nicene fathers ; and, 
 thank God, all this can be done without chantj- 
 ing — so far as I can see — one word of our Prayer- 
 Book. 
 
 The catastrophic theory of the creation, criti- 
 cized by Huxley in the address referred to, is 
 now discarded by the men of science ; and the 
 evolution he advocated reigns in its stead. But 
 what is Evolution ? As in many other instances, 
 it is difficult to define the word. Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer's well-known definition is no doubt 
 
 '§ 
 
138 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 sound, but it is too technical to be of popular 
 use ; it mystifies the average mind instead of 
 niP V ;vg things clear.* Let us, then, state it thus : 
 Evo'ution is the word adopted by the New 
 Philosophy to designate the process by which 
 things come to be what they are. It is the process 
 by wbicl- the acorn develops into the oak tree 
 or Mie .,;'4> develops into the fowl. Such de- 
 velop), len cr evolution is readily acknowledged ; 
 bat it is difiit'i'f^ to accept at sight the dictum 
 of thv. p)x^^:y,i, ;'.'.3 tViat all things — from the 
 stars in their cionro..s ..o the mote in the sun- 
 beam — are the result of a like process ; yet that 
 is the dictum of the New Philosophy. The two 
 books which I know of as the best compendiums 
 of this science, and which I would recommend 
 to those who would like to study the subject 
 in brief, are Clodd's " Story of Creation " and 
 Professor Le Conte's "Evolution and its Relation 
 to Religious Thought." Le Conte gives this 
 definition : 
 
 " Evolution is : (1) Continuous progressive 
 
 * Mr. Spencer's definition is, in full (" First Principles," Pt. 
 II., chap, xvii., sec. 145) : " Evolution is an integration of 
 matter and concomitant dissipation of motion, during which 
 the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity, 
 to a definite coherent heterogeneity ; and during which the 
 retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation." 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 189 
 
 change, (2) according to certain laws, and (3) by 
 means of resident forces." 
 
 This process of evolution is applied to all the 
 phenomena of nature — to astronomy (in what 
 is known as the Nebular theory), to inorganic 
 chemistry, and to the organic world. We will 
 confine our attention, however, to this last — the 
 organic world, or the world of animal and vege- 
 table life. If, in this realm, there is "continu- 
 ous progressive change according to certain 
 laws," let us inquire what are those laws which, 
 according to the New Philosophy, have produced 
 such infinite variety of forms out of the primal 
 protoplasmic cell ? 
 
 I have here put the question which has exer- 
 cised, and is still exercising, the greatest scien- 
 tific intellects of the day. What are the factors 
 of organic evolution ? It would be well to read 
 Herbert Spencer's treatise on this. We will 
 point out some of these laws as expounded by 
 Darwin, Helmholtz, Haeckel, Wallace, Romaines, 
 Grant Allen, Fiske and other brilliant authors. 
 
 1. The law of differentiation. As among 
 human beings, so among animals and plants; 
 yes, even among the leaves of the same tree ; no 
 two individuals are precisely alike. Each tends 
 to vary. 
 
 This applies even to the development and 
 
140 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 ^1 
 
 growth of the individual from the embryonic 
 cell. All organisms are composed of protoplasmic 
 cells, which in the first instance seem precisely 
 alike. These cells increase by dividing them- 
 selves (how we know not) into 2, 4, 8, 16, and so 
 on in arithmetical progression. When these 
 subdivided cells remain all alike the result is a 
 jelly-fish or some such molluscous creature. 
 The more the cells differ from one another as 
 they multiply the more complicated is the 
 organism which they construct. And the more 
 complex the organism the higher it is in the scale 
 of creation. There is pretty much of a sameness 
 in all the parts of a jelly-fish ; there is infinite 
 variety in all the cells and parts of a man — some 
 of these parts or organs subserving a noble, 
 some a humble, purpose, as we would deem, yet 
 all essential to the integrity and solidarity of 
 the organism. In Herbert Spencer's terms, the 
 more heterogeneous the cells become the more 
 coherent do they become, and the more defined 
 is the form of the organism. You can cut a 
 slice off the jelly-fish anywhere and it does not 
 seem a bit the worse. 
 
 2. Variations in organisms are transmitted to 
 offspring, and so tend to become hereditary and 
 permanent. Man has taken advantage of this 
 tendency to produce various kinds of pigeons, 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 141 
 
 dopjs, fruits, flowers, and so forth. This is " arti- 
 ficial selection." 
 
 3. What man has done during his short 
 time on earth, nature has been doing through 
 countless millions of years. 
 
 4. This " natural selection " is effected by 
 various causes. 
 
 (a) All organisms — from man to the vegeta- 
 ble fungus — increase and multiply at a rate 
 which renders it impossible for them all to come 
 to maturity. 
 
 (6) In consequence, there is a ceaseless strug- 
 gle for existence, for food and place. In this 
 struggle every organism has its enemy, eager to 
 devour it. 
 
 (c) To survive in the midst of such foes the 
 organism must prove its fitness by superior 
 strength to kill its enemy, or by agility to escape, 
 or by some defensive armor such as that of the 
 hedgehog, or by shamming, imitating some- 
 thing else, as countless insects do, or by hiding 
 away in some little hole, or by emigrating to 
 some other locality, and so forth. 
 
 (d) Besides their active foes the organisms 
 have to contend with other difficulties, such as 
 weather, climate, food supply, which are subject 
 to change. The organisms must adapt them- 
 selves to those changes or perish. Those organ- 
 
142 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 isms which most readily and thoroughly adapt 
 themselves to their environments are the "fittest 
 to survive." 
 
 So far, the Darwinian factor of natural selec- 
 tion, or as Herbert Spencer puts it, " the 
 struggle for existence and the survival of the 
 fittest." But this does not account in full for 
 all these "continuous progressive changes." 
 Other factors are " sexual selection," " physio- 
 logical selection," "geographical selection," etc. 
 
 One very important factor which has been 
 largely exploited by Prince Krapotkin and others, 
 is that of co-operation or mutual aid among 
 some species of animals, which has tended largely 
 to their survival and persistence. The coral 
 insects could not have built up an island unless 
 they had worked together ; ants, bees, wasps 
 are simply marvels in this co-operation. (See Sir 
 John Lubbock's book.) Wild geese, ducks, crows 
 and many other birds learn to protect themselves 
 from their enemies by combining in societies ; 
 so do horses of the plains and other gregarious 
 beasts combine to resist the attacks of the soli- 
 tary carnivore. This factor might be called 
 " sociological selection." 
 
 But another factor of evolution came into 
 force along with the advent of man, and that is 
 Meason. 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 143 
 
 Until then the organism was obliged to 
 adapt itself to its environment or perish. The 
 beast which finds itself in an arctic region, must 
 manage to grow a thick fur and to accumulate 
 fat in its system by the consumption of a large 
 amount of carbo-hydrates, or it will die. It must 
 take the environment as it is, and accommodate 
 its organism to it. But with the advent of 
 human reason comes a new factor, viz., that 
 which, instead of adapting the organism to the 
 environment, learns to adapt the environment to 
 the organism. Man finds himself in a cold 
 region — he builds a house, he wraps himself in 
 skins, he lights a fire ; or he finds himself in an 
 arid desert — he devises some system of irriga- 
 tion and turns the desert into a garden. In this 
 and a thousand other ways man does not need 
 to adapt himself to his surroundings ; he can 
 change the surroundings by his art and skill, 
 and so adapt the " environment " to the 
 
 " organism," 
 
 And now we will confine our attention to the 
 evolution of the human race ; but let us not be 
 uneasy. We are not going to discuss the nature 
 of the missing link, nor the diflferences between 
 the anthropoid apes and men, nor anything of 
 that kind. We will start with the proposition 
 which we all accept — that " God hath made of 
 
144 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all 
 the face of the earth." We acknowledge that 
 we are all descended from one pair — from Adam 
 and Eve. What evolution has occurred amongst 
 ourselves since then ! What " continuous pro- 
 gressive changes" — for better or worse! For 
 there is degeneracy as well as ascent in evolution, 
 as the readers of Drummond's " Natural Law " 
 will remember. The laws of differentiation, of 
 sexual selection, of physiological selection, of geo- 
 graphical selection, of sociological selection — 
 all the laws of evolution have operated in 
 producing the diversities of kindreds, nations, 
 tongues, morals and manners, which are scattered 
 throughout the globe, all from that one pair. 
 Think of the Patagonians and Australian blacks, 
 and the wild men of Borneo, and the pigmies 
 of Africa — and compare them with Plato, and 
 Newton, and Luther, and Washington, and 
 Shakespeare ! 
 
 And the great Darwinian law of natural 
 selection has been at play all the while — the 
 law of the struggle for existence and the sur- 
 vival of the fittest; that is to say, not neces- 
 sarily the best, or the wisest, or the strongest, or 
 the noblest, but the fittest to survive under the 
 circumstances. It is yet a problem, and a most 
 serious one at that, whether the negro or the 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 145 
 
 white man will prove himself the fittest to sur- 
 vive in the Southern States or in Africa. This 
 " natural selection " has been j^oingon arnonf^ the 
 varieties of men from the beginning. Some 
 people profess to be greatly shocked at the 
 accounts in the Bible of the Israelites destroying 
 the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivitea, 
 and the Jebusites; but it is only what we 
 Christians of the latter days have done with the 
 Chippawas and the Senecas and the Iroquois and 
 the Mohawks of this continent. There is a 
 struggle for existence just now between the 
 Americans and the Philippinos, and between the 
 Egyptian troops and the Der\ 4ies. See how at 
 this date the eagles of the western powers are 
 now gathered together around the prospective 
 carcase of the Chinese Empire ! Lord Salisbury 
 well said there are moribund nations and 
 nations in their vigorous prime. And the out- 
 come of all this evolution among the children of 
 men no one can foretell. 
 
 But, alas ! for humanity — and for civilized 
 humanity at that — this natural selection is over- 
 topped by an artificial selection which is in- 
 finitely more dire in its effects. This artificial 
 selection is the industrial "struggle for exist- 
 ence " — a thing unknown among the beasts of 
 the jungle — a terrible problem facing all civili- 
 10 
 
146 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 zatioD txD-day, but a problem which has been 
 solved by creatures whom we despise. " Go to 
 the ant, thou sluggard," says the wise man. 
 " Go to the ant, thou sociological student," we 
 might add. There we find a community in 
 perfect working order. They have their rulers, 
 their hospitals, their nurses, their creches, their 
 servants, their cattle — but no quarrels between 
 labor and capital — no strikes, no deadlocks, no 
 slums in their cities, no " submerged tenth." 
 But with us Immans the industrial struggle for 
 existence, while it brings to the top some multi- 
 millionaires, precipitates a mass of the unsuc- 
 cessful, which throws a lurid and baleful light 
 on our boasted civilization. There, in the slums 
 and congested tenements of all our Christian 
 cities are the millions of our own flesh and blood 
 who can sing the " Song of the Shirt : " 
 
 ' ' Work, work, work, 
 My labor never flags, 
 And what are its wages ? A bed of straw, 
 A crust of bread, and rags. 
 
 " It's oh ! to be a slave 
 Along with the barbarous Turk, 
 Where a woman has never a soul to save, 
 If this is Christian work." 
 
 The social problem is fhe problem of the day, 
 and the condition and prospects ».: humanity at 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 147 
 
 large is the leading study of our time. The 
 literature of sociology in its various aspects has 
 become immense. How civilized societies came 
 to be what they are — in other words, the evolu- 
 tion of communities and states — is the theme of 
 modern scientific historians, such as Green, 
 Lecky, Freeman and the like. Philosophic 
 theories of sociological evolution are propounded 
 by H. Spencer, B. Kidd and others. And we 
 have ideals of what the social state ought to be 
 in Bellamy's " Looking Backward," Henry 
 George's books, and so on. And we have not 
 only thinkers and writers, but also workers, 
 determined that their ideal state of things, what- 
 ever :l be, shall be brought about either by 
 evolution or by revolution. 
 
 Positivism — although, to our minds, fantastic 
 in its methods, falpe in its conclusions, and 
 atheistic in principle —has this to recommend it 
 to many, viz., that it sets up corporate humanity 
 as its ideal, and has stimulated its votaries to 
 think and work so as to bring about the realiza- 
 tion of its ideal — the perfection of corporate 
 humanity. 
 
 Bellamy's " Looking Backward " is one of 
 several attempts to set up an ideal state of 
 things, which have been made at different times, 
 beginning with the Republic of Plato. But the 
 
 !li 
 
 
■HT 
 
 148 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 sage of old had this advantage, that his "Re- 
 public " is based on scientific lines, it obeys the 
 laws of evolution. In that scheme the body 
 corporate has its divers organs, each fitted to its 
 special work. " It is progress through differen- 
 tiation," as Le Conte would say — it is "coherent 
 heterogeneity" in H. Spencer's terms. But 
 " Looking Backward " is rightly so named, for it 
 would make the State equalize and assimilate 
 everything and everybody ; all the cells compos- 
 ing the body politic must be homogeneous, and 
 that would involve incoherence, a nebular con- 
 dition of things. This is a reversal of evolution 
 and would end in "stable equilibrium," or some 
 of those dreadful things the scientists talk about. 
 At least, the social organism would be of the 
 jelly-fish type. 
 
 Mr. B. Kidd's " Social Evolution " is a very 
 suggestive work, well worth study, though I 
 would again remind you I do not endorse all the 
 statements of those authors to whom I refer. 
 But yet we ought to be familiar with all the 
 modern theories which bear on religion. We 
 Anglicans, and indeed all Protest'^nts, must 
 know the last word of science. We cannot 
 afibrd — whatever the Church of Rome may do — 
 to be written of as she is in Mr. Gibson's essay, 
 and in that other most stirring article by 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 149 
 
 " Voces Catholicse," in the Contemporary Review 
 of May, entitled "Is a Catholic University 
 Possible ? " Pray read, mark, learn and in- 
 wardly digest those two articles. Let us learn 
 therefrom wisdom to avoid the tactics of the 
 Propaganda, in sitting upon students of science, 
 or trying to crush out new truths. 
 
 But let me say that Kidd's "Social Evolution " 
 and Lux Mundi, and indeed all the latest philo- 
 sophic and theological works, are mystifying and 
 unintelligible to those who have not first ob- 
 tained a fair comprehension of the New Phil- 
 osophy. 
 
 Mr. Kidd says, in the earlier chapters of 
 " Social Evolution " — and I think most people 
 will agree with him — that of all the volumes of 
 H. Spencer's "Synthetic Philosophy," that on 
 sociology is the least satisfactory. This is to 
 be accounted for, partly because the problem is 
 so exceedingly complex, partly because social 
 evolution is as yet in an incipient stage, but 
 mainly, as Mr. Kidd truly says, because Mr. 
 Spencer and his brilliant disciple, Mr. Grant 
 Allen, have not given its proper place to that 
 most important factor of all sociological progress, 
 viz., Religion. Any system of social philosophy 
 which treats religion as a negligible quantity 
 must come short — because religion (by which 
 
160 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Mr. Kidd means belief in some supernatural and 
 suprarafcional authority) has always influenced 
 the conduct of men, And "conduct," says Mr. 
 Arnold, " is three-fourths of our life." 
 
 We will close this part of our subject by 
 quoting a sentence of Kidd's " Social Evolution": 
 " Despite the complexity of the problem en- 
 countered in history, we seem to have every- 
 where presented to us systematic development 
 underlying apparent confusion." (Chap, x., p. 309.) 
 
 And now, what has the Old Faith to say 
 concerning this last and highest phase of evolu- 
 tion — the evolution of social man, of corporate 
 humanity — this most intricate and confessedly 
 incomplete portion of the New Philosophy ? 
 
 "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy 
 Catholic Church." 
 
 At first sight there seems to be an abrupt 
 transition here — an incongruity — a coupling 
 together of two irrelevant propositions; and, 
 indeed, that charge has been made against the 
 Apostles' Creed. But yet, when thoroughly 
 understood, that second phrase comes in proper 
 logical sequence. 
 
 As in Mr. H. Spencer's philosophy, the prin- 
 ciples of biology and psychology are followed 
 by the principles of sociology ; that is to say, as 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 151 
 
 the evolution of the individual leads up to the 
 evolution of corporate humanity, so in the 
 spiritual world we do not stoji with the spiritual 
 evolution of the individual — individualism must 
 perfect itself in collectivism in the spiritual as 
 in the natural world. 
 
 The weak point in Drummond's first book, 
 " Natural Law," etc., or rather let us say the 
 lacking point, was that it only went as far 
 as the "principles of biology," so to speak. 
 But it is only fair to remember that Drummond 
 himself admitted this in the preface to his work. 
 In consequence of this incompleteness, there was 
 an air of spiritual individualism, I might almost 
 say egoism, throughout t/ie book, which made it 
 objectionable to the more " churchy " amongst 
 us. This feature is prominent in the chapter on 
 " Growth," which leaves the impression that all 
 that the happy object of spiritual selection or 
 " election " has to do is to bask in the sunshine 
 of the Divine favor in otiose calm and passive 
 piety. But this is all right in the initial stage 
 of spiritual life. Spiritual life, like physical 
 life, must begin at the centre and work outwards. 
 It is well for the awakened soul to sing — 
 
 ** I am so glad that Jesus loves me." 
 But that soul is arrested in its development, it 
 
w 
 
 152 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 is dwarfed, if it stays content with that thought. 
 It must grow until it can feel glad that " God 
 so loved the world." 
 
 At the time of the first appearance of that 
 famous book, I wrote a short criticism to this 
 effect in the Toronto Week, and I ended my 
 letter by expressing the hope that Mr. Drum- 
 mond's system would expand and evolve until it 
 took in this idea of collective or corporate 
 Christianity. I rejoice that my hopes were 
 fulfilled. It pleased God to call the gifted 
 author to Himself at an early age ; but before 
 he was called away he had given the world that 
 charming booklet, " The Programme of Christi- 
 anity," which henceforth should be always 
 attached as an appendix to his first work. The 
 burden of that little treatise — the main proposi- 
 tion which he emphasizes and illuminates — is 
 " Christ founded a society." Then his creed was 
 enlarged. It no longer stopped at, " I believe in 
 the Holy Ghost," it added " the Holy Catholic 
 Church." 
 
 For what do we mean by the " Holy Catholic 
 Church ? " We mean that our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 when He came into the world, did not effect its 
 complete regeneration all at once. He might 
 have done so. When He rose from the dead or 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 153 
 
 when He ascended into heaven, He might have 
 caused the whole world to see it. He might 
 have stricken all men to the ground as He struck 
 Saul of Tarsus. He might have effected the 
 conversion of all mankind in a moment. But 
 God does not work in nature or in grace on 
 " catastrophic " lines. No ; the conversion of the 
 world was to be a matter of evolution. The 
 kingdom of heaven "is like a grain of mustard 
 seed " — it was to take a long time, as men count 
 time, to cover the earth. In the matter of the 
 world's salvation as in the matter of the world's 
 creation, God chose to work by law, no matter 
 how long that law might take in working out 
 the issue. For " one day is with the Lord as a 
 thousand years, and a thousand years as one 
 day." And so in order that " the benefits of His 
 passion" might ultimately reach the whole 
 human race, He " founded a society." He did 
 not, like Mohammed or Zoroaster, or other social 
 reformers, write a book. He "founded a society" 
 — a society which was in full working order for 
 years before a line of the New Testament was 
 penned and for generations before the canon of 
 the New Testament was closed. That society 
 was provided by Himself with the equipments 
 which are essential to all societies. He ordained 
 its officers in the Apostles, the mode of initiation 
 
154 THE OLD FATTH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 in Holy BaptiHm, its great central commemora- 
 tive rite in the Holy Eucharist. He pro- 
 vided for its perpetuation — for " a corporation 
 never dies " — by a due succession of its officers. 
 The kingdom of heaven, beginning like a 
 mustard seed, was iltimately to overshadow 
 the whole earth, and was to last till "the 
 end of the world." 
 
 And how was the " corporation " constituted ? 
 Was it to be on the lines of equalizing and 
 assimilating all its members ? Was it to work 
 like a huge rolling-pin — grinding down all 
 inequalities, all unevennesses, till it rendered 
 human society very smooth, very even and very 
 flat, after the manner of Bellamy's " Looking 
 Backward " ? To be sure, at first the disciples 
 had "all things common," but that was only 
 during the incohate, infantile condition of the 
 Church — and even then there were the Apostles 
 as rulers, at whose feet all contributions were 
 laid. Our Lord, " the Head of the Church, which 
 is His body," did not design to reverse the law 
 of differentiation which has brought the world 
 to its present state of evolution. His Church 
 was to be of no jelly-fish type. No ; it was to 
 be, as Mr. H. Spencer would say, coherent 
 through its very heterogeneity. St. Paul, in 
 1 Cor. xii., gives us a presentment of the Body 
 of Christ on scientific and philosophic lines. 
 
THE HOLV CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 155 
 
 I am persuaded that al] schemes of social 
 reform must fail which are based on the senti- 
 ment that " all men are born free and equal." It 
 is a very pretty sentiment, no doubt, but, 
 unfortunately, not supported by facts. All are 
 not born "free" — on the contrary, all human 
 creatures are born exceedingly dependent. We 
 have to go down very low in the scale of creation 
 to be born " free." The mosquito or the moth 
 or the fish lays her eggs and never bothers with 
 them again; their progeny are " free " to shift for 
 themselves as soon as they are hatched. The 
 chick, as soon as it chips the shell, though it 
 may need its mother's or foster-mother's 
 assistance for a while, can yet straddle about 
 and pick up a living very quickly. The higher 
 we get in the scale the less " free " and the more 
 dependent is the individual at birth. In the 
 human race the infant is dependent absolutely 
 on its mother for months and on its parents for 
 years. 
 
 Nor are we bom " equal," all are differentiated, 
 no two even of the same family are exactly 
 alike — some are handicapped in one way, some 
 in another; some have one advantage, some 
 another — either in the " organism " or in the 
 *' environment." 
 
 But one thing is certain, whatever we ma}'^ be 
 at birth, de jure, the individual members of the 
 
156 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 community as they grow up become more and 
 more differentiated. If heterogeneousness were 
 the only condition of evolution our common- 
 wealth would be in a very advanced stage. 
 But that heterogeneity, the philosophers tell us, 
 must be coherent in order to evolve the perfect 
 organism, and these conditions must be brought 
 about by means of "resident forces." But I 
 fear the coherence of the body politic is artificial 
 rather than natural, and that the state may be 
 likened to a mass of heterogeneous elements — 
 jealous, suspicious, hostile — bound up together 
 by the hoops and staves of Acts of Parliament, 
 rather than by " resident forces." Are there not 
 mutterings of discontent heard continually, and 
 is there not danger that some day these hoops 
 and staves may be burst asunder ? What, then, 
 are we to look upon as tliat " resident for ^," 
 inherent and cohering, which can build up a 
 compact and healthy organism ? It is religio, 
 as its name implies, and nothing else will serve. 
 The consciousness of the brotherhood of man 
 ten only arise from the consciousness of the 
 fatherhood of God. The motive power of true 
 religion is love — love to God begetting love to 
 the brethren, as St. John tells us. Diversity of 
 operations and administrations there must be, 
 and among the motive powers of social evolution 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 157 
 
 ambition has its proper function ; but ambition 
 may be over-cultivated at the expense of higher 
 and more noble powers. " Plenty of room at the 
 top ! Get to the top ! " Such advice is inces- 
 santly instilled into the minds of our children. 
 But only one in a thousand can get to the top, 
 and if that is made the one object in life, it will 
 work so that, for every one that gets to the top, 
 there will be nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 failures, disappointed and soured. St. Paul, in 
 the chapter alluded to, does not disallow ambi- 
 tion, but he points out something better still. 
 " Covet earnestly," says he, " the best gifts, and 
 yet show I unto you a more excellent way ; " and 
 then comes that glorious little chapter on love 
 or charity (xiii.). These two chapters should be 
 read together, and then we have the Christian 
 scheme of social evolution. " For as the body 
 is one and hath many member.s, and all the 
 members of that one body being many are one 
 body, so also is Christ." " All the members should 
 have the same care one for another. The 
 head cannot say to the feet, I have no need of 
 you." This is St. Paul's ideal of a Christian 
 community ; but how is it with the body politic ? 
 The trouble is not that there are diversities of 
 organs, but that while it has a plutocrat head it 
 has gangrened feet, and the head does not seem 
 
m 
 
 158 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOaOPHY. 
 
 to feel or care. But the blame must largely rest 
 on the Church for this state of things. She 
 does not provide the religio, " the tie that binds," 
 for she herself is broken up into so many hostile 
 factions that half her force is expended in the 
 " struggle for existence " amongst her own sects. 
 She, who was founded for the healing of the 
 nations, has herself become inoculated with their 
 diseases. 
 
 " Ye are the salt of the earth ; but if the salt 
 hath lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted ? " 
 
 Professor Ely's essays on " The Social Aspects 
 of Christianity " should be read and pondered 
 over, and especially the one delivered before the 
 Brotherhood of St. Andrew, entitled "The Social 
 Crisis and the Church's Opportunity." 
 
 But this state of things, tliough it must cause 
 us much sadness, need not make us despair of the 
 Church. For our divisions and ruinous strifes 
 there should be grave searchings of heart and 
 prayers that " all who profess and call them- 
 selves Christians may be led into the way of 
 truth and hold the faith in unity of spirit in ^he 
 bond of peace and in righteousness of li'" 
 that we all, " speaking truth in love may ow 
 up in all things into Him which is the Head, 
 even Christ, from whom all the body fitly 
 framed and knit together, through that which 
 
THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 i:)9 
 
 every joint supplieth according to the working 
 in due measure of each several part, maketh the 
 increase of the body unto tlio building up of 
 itself in love." (Ephes. iv. 15, IG, R.V.) And if 
 we see, as we do see, the imperfections of the 
 Church and her partial failure, wo may yet 
 remember to our comfort that God hat!i wrou<rht 
 great things through her already ; and there are 
 bright signs of hope — signs of her renewed 
 activity and life, indicating that in this time of 
 the Church's opportunity she will yet be seen of 
 all men as God's agency for perfecting the 
 social evolution of the world. 
 
 " I am the Vine, ye are the branches," says 
 our Blessed Lord. His Church is a vine of 
 which He is the root and trunk, the fountain of 
 its life. That Vine has grown and spread until 
 it well-nigh covers the earth. It has in the 
 course of its existence passed through many 
 vicissitudes, some of her branches have been 
 broken off — some have decayed — some have 
 developed a too luxuriant and morbid growth, 
 full of showy leaves without fruit — some are 
 covered with parasites and unhealthy growths 
 — some branches, once unpromising, have put 
 forth fresh life. All this was to be expected ; it 
 is the Natural Law in the Spiritual World. But 
 the Vine is growing still. She adapts herself, 
 
160 THE OLD FAITH AND THE NEW PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 in time, to various soils and climates. Some 
 of her branches may appear to the unschooled 
 eye too diverse in character to spring from the 
 same root — or a branch to-day may bear a very 
 different appearance from the same branch a 
 century ago. But all this is to be expected. She 
 is a living thing. Her life is Christ Emmanuel. 
 She is the expansion — the extension of His 
 Life. She is His Body — the fulness of Him 
 that filleth all in all. 
 
 So when we review the past and think of 
 what has been already achieved ; how the pro- 
 mise to Abraham, " In thee shall all the families 
 of the earth be blessed," is being fulfilled to-day 
 after all these centuries — when we trace the 
 evolution of the Church of Christ from the 
 " mustard seed " of the day of Pentecost to its 
 vast extension to-day — when we remember that 
 God works in Grace as in Nature, by the slow 
 yet sure laws of evolution ; and when we dwell 
 upon the parting word of the risen Lord to His 
 Body : " Lo, I am with you alway even unto 
 the end of the world " — we have cause to 
 pronounce with increasing faith and fervor : 
 " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church."