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Cl
REPLY TO A LETTER
FROM
AN EVANGELICAL LAY PREACHER.
BY
PROFESSOR F. W. NEWMAN.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
�TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�REPLY TO A LETTER
FROM AN EVANGELICAL LAY PREACHER.
Dear Sir,—You apologize for trying to convert one
a quarter of a century your senior, by telling me that
you tremble for my state. You express fear, lest at
my age strength of will may resist your efforts ; in other
words, you suggest that wilfulness is the great obstacle
to my going back to opinions, which, I told you, were
the opinions of my youth; were those to which my
education and early connections biassed me ; which I
held in my early manhood, but long ago renounced, from
finding them untenable. Is not your suggestion of my
wilfulness somewhat insolent ? Knowledge and truth
have all my life been my earnest desire, and have never
encountered resistance from my will.
You earnestly desire to know whether I have
meditated on those words, “ When my flesh and my
heart fail me. . . .” What else can you mean, but
that you expect me to tremble at death ? How many
brave men, not religious, not even in ordinary esteem
moral, lay down their lives, without trembling, in the
cause of duty ! Whence comes your quiet assumption
that other men are cowards ? I leave that to your
reflection. For myself I have only to say, that I regard
premature death a great calamity, but death in ripe age
or full time a divine blessing. Death is God’s ordinance
and gift, as much as life ; each is good in its own time.
As to the common talk, that “ it is a fearful thing to
go into the immediate presence of God,” I reply,
�4
Reply to a Letter from
“ we are already, here and always, in His immediate
presence, and never can be more so.” God is not a
visible, tangible form, but an omnipresent Spirit; and
since He is purely good and wise, no man, be he better
or worse, can have sound reason for wishing not to be
in his immediate presence. Yet a guilty man, no doubt,
may wish it; and, it seems to me, you assume that one
who does not agree with you must have a bad con
science.
You frankly appeal to me, “ must we not all confess
that we are sinners ?” and you add needless protestations
of your own consciousness of being utterly vile. Who
denies that we are all sinners ? I never yet knew a
single fool to doubt it. Why impute such absurdity to
me 1 The tenour of your letters leads me to conjecture
that the necessity of “ atonement by blood ” for sin is
such an axiom with you, that you assume one who
rejects it to be so self-righteous, as not to know that
he is a sinner at all. Taking for granted that I am un
reconciled to God, you generously offer to show me the
way of reconciliation,—Christ 1 and you assure me that
my whole nature was corrupt from birth, and has lost
the image of God in which Adam was created.
I have already told you, that you seem to me to
confound frailty with corruption, but you have not
understood me. Since Adam (according to you) sinned,
his primitive nature was frail, yet you do not call it
corrupt, you say it was created upright. If so, neither
can natural corruption be justly inferred in you, from
the very great vileness which you ascribe to yourself.
If you are corrupt, it is your own doing, your personal
sin ■, your nature at birth was as upright and as frail as
Adam’s, but not corrupt. I admit it was frailer in one
sense than that of your Adam, for he was created, it seems,
a full grown man, we began existence as infants. If,
even with this advantage, he sinned on the first tempta
tion, nothing worse could be done by any of us. We
have not lost any of the image of God which a distant
�an Evangelical Lay Preacher.
5
ancestor of ours possessed. The very idea is dishonour
able to the creator, that he would construct a progenitor
endowed with the power of wrecking his whole posterity
by his own single act. We should bitterly censure a
shipwright, who sent to sea a ship laden with 500
emigrants, that foundered under the first feeble side
breeze. Can any one who means to be pious dare to
impute to Man’s Creator the making such a top-heavy
nature for him, that with one sin of one Adam we all
rolled, millions of millions, into an abyss of perdition,
and need a stupendous effort of divinity to save . . . .
a very few!
Moreover, if the creator responsible for my nature is
not God, but some Adam, and God is ashamed of it as
a bad piece of work, (nay, necessarily hates it, as I
understand you,) then God deals with me as a father
who repudiates an affiliated child, denying that it is
his. Hereby, disowning fatherhood, he forbids me to
call him Creator, or to be grateful for an existence
crippled, bastard, and impotent for good.
You are not satisfied with painting to me this world’s
miseries, but you assure me that—not' through God’s
fault! Oh, no ! but through Adam’s fault—an eternity
of sin lies before the vast mass of mankind. But when,
according to you, that mass is utterly helpless, and the
Creator knew they would be so, what, I repeat, are we
to think of his wisdom and goodness (to say nothing of
his Prescience) in so creating Adam ?
In short, I mark three cardinal and pernicious errors,
which you hold as cardinal truth. 1. That man’s
nature is not as God created or intended it ; but that
the Creator has been outwitted (by the Devil, I suppose)
and poor mankind has to suffer through God’s un
wisdom. 2. The horrible and incredible idea that God
will retain in eternal sensitive existence beings who can
do nothing but sin and suffer; whose sufferings are
compared to everlasting flame. 3. That God cannot
remit sin without shedding of blood, but is reconciled to
�6
Reply to a Letter from
us (or reconciles himself to us? or reconciles us to him
self ?—for I do not know which phrase you adopt) by
the blood of Jesus.
You have twice attempted to urge upon me belief in
the theology of the book of Genesis. I must repeat
more pointedly, what is not my discovery, but that of
Christian divines long ago, .that the theology of that
book is very barbaric. What avails it to offer me a
defence of “ God repented that he had made man”
(words which I have not attacked) when all the
thoughts are alike barbarously crude ? “ Sons of God”
beget “giants” out of daughters of men, and corrupt
the earth. God repents that he has made man, and
destroys him by a universal flood. He saves Noah
with seven others, and with all sorts of beasts, under
wholly impossible conditions, and with a result to the
■distribution of animals as certainly false as the deluge.
After it Noah offers a burnt sacrifice of clean beasts,
and Jehovah, like Homer’s Jupiter, smells a sweet savour;
and sets his rainbow in the cloud as a sign, again
like Homer’s notions. Jehovah also resolves never again
to curse the earth for man’s sake, for, says he, there is
no use in it, so wicked are men ! He might as well have
thought of that before the flood. All is of a piece in
these legends. Jehovah eats roast veal with Abraham,
and teaches him the disgusting rite of circumcision as
a religious duty. He honours Abraham, in the very
base conduct of twice passing off his wife as a sister.
So in Exodus, xxiv. 9-11, he shows himself personally
to the seventy elders and to the nobles of Israel.
Christianity professes higher and purer things than
these, but by pressing on us as alike valuable, alike
true, all parts of that very diverse collection of books
which you call the Bible, you damage all your own
better thoughts.
This Pagan notion of Atonement by Blood you make
cardinal in your Christian gospel. “ It is impossible
that the blood of bulls and goats should take away
�an Evangelical Lay Preacher.
7
sin,” says the writer to the Hebrews. True, and
equally impossible for a marls blood, or, if so you will
have it, a God's blood. To suppose moral sin trans
ferred from one being to another, is a barbarous
absurdity ; to transfer the penalty is immoral. It is
not endured in any approved legislation. Jews insist
that it was not endured in Judaism, only ceremonial
“errors” (Heb. ix. 7) had ceremonial atonement: crime
never had any. I believe this to be correct; but that is
to me a question of history, not of theology. If the
Hebrew law taught the immoral idea that blood could
atone for moral iniquity”, so much the worse for it : but
shall Christian hymns therefore smell of the slaughter
house? Alas ! they do. Far better said Paul, “ offer your
selves as living sacrifices.”—Again: “ Unto Israel, saith
God, I will take no bullock out of thy house ; if I
were hungry, I would not tell thee.” The psalmist
who wrote that, knew the vulgar idea of sacrifice to be
the Pagan one, that the gods needed to partake of the
sweet savour. The Psalms and Prophets have truly
little sympathy with bloodshed for sin. Head the 103rd
Psalm (it is but one out of many), you will find no idea
in it that God wants bloody atonement. This coarse
Paganism, as far as I understand, came in only as
metaphor into the earliest Christianity, and did not
attain its sharpest prosaic form until Archbishop
Anselm under our William Kufus. But, unhappily,
Luther and Calvin adopted Augustine’s doctrines as a
basis, and logically rushed into Anselm’s extreme;
thence it has come to vex and damage Protestantism,
and is now presented to us as the Gospel or Good News,
in connection with a corrupt humanity and an eternal
hell. If you will preach such things, you must truth
fully call them Bad News. Well, said David Hume,
that the Protestant Reformation was checked, when the
generation which followed Calvin found that they
had to choose between believing that God was a wafer
or that God was a cruel tyrant.
�8
Reply to a Letter.
The core of the mischief lies in your monstrous and
unproved assumption that hooks called Holy Scripture,
widely different in age, merit, and doctrine, are all
infallible. To me it is as certain as any fact in the
world, that they are often self-contradictory, foolish,
and barbaric; that they often show extreme credulity
in the narrators, and are convicted of error in every
branch,—moral, and theological, as well as literary and
scientific. The very excellences of their more devo
tional parts (to which I do honour on every fit occasion)
are mischievous, if they are allowed to stamp sanctity
on the baser books, and on the unavoidable errors of
the better. You profess yourself “ not to have patience ”
to read criticism on the Bible by men whom you call
“ enemies of the Bible?’ You must then, either be
careless whether books are spurious, or believe that
you have an inward divine gift to distinguish the
genuine. But as I abhor fictitious authorship, and
know the pernicious results of national credulity; as,
moreover, I have no belief that I or you or any man
can know literary facts of the past by an inward
teaching, you surely ought to see the impossibility of
my receiving divine lessons from you, while you
ground them on the Bible, and flatly decline to give
any reason why, against all my own perceptions and
the result of many years’ anxious study, I am to receive
the Bible as authoritative. It may be just worth while
to observe, that, in particular, the narrative books of
the New Testament seem to me to deserve little credit,
and often to misrepresent events and words grossly
and even recklessly. But I hold morality to be far
more important than theology,—earlier in knowledge
and more solid in foundation. Babes in science may
judge soundly of morality, and by it confute the high
pretensions of cursing theologies.
I am, truly yours,
F. W. Newman.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Reply to a letter from an evangelical lay preacher
Creator
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Newman, Francis William [1805-1897]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
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Thomas Scott
Date
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[1873]
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CT212
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Bible
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Reply to a letter from an evangelical lay preacher), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Text
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English
Bible-Criticism and Interpretation
Clergy
Conway Tracts
Religious Disputations
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c8ce00e38cfd26b446c8891cac9431a7
PDF Text
Text
In Memoriam
A MEMORIAL DISCOURSE
IN HONOUR OF
JOHN
STUART
MILL,
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY.
WITH
HYMNS
.AJSTZD
HEADINGS,
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL, FINSBURY,
Sunday, May 2 sth, 1873.
PRICE SIXPENCE.
��HYMN.
Britain’s first poet,
Famous old Chaucer,
Swanlike, in dying
Sung his last song,
When at his heart-strings
Death’s hand was strong.
“ From false crowds flying
Dwell with soothfastness ;
Prize more than treasure
Hearts true and brave ;
Truth to thine own heart
Thy soul shall save.
“ Trust not to fortune ;
Be not o’ermeddling ;
Thankful receive thou
Good which God gave ;
Truth to thine own heart
Thy soul shall save.
“ Earth is a desert,
Thou art a pilgrim :
Led by thy spirit,
Grace from God crave ;
Truth to thine own heart
Thy soul shall save.”
�4
Dead through long ages
Britain’s first poet—
Still the monition
Sounds from his grave,
“ Truth to thine own heart
Thy soul shall save.”
Music by E. Taylor.
w. J. Fox.
READINGS.
How beautiful, upon the mountains,
Are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings,
That publisheth Peace I
Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, have I set watchmen
Who shall never hold their peace, day and night.
Go through, go through the gates ;
Prepare ye the way of the people !
Lift up a standard to the peoples !
Behold my servant whom I uphold,
My chosen one in whom my soul delighteth :
I have put my spirit upon him ;
He shall publish right among the nations.
A bruised reed shall he not break,
And the smoking flax shall he not quench.
He shall publish right in truth.
He shall not grow feeble nor be discouraged,
Till he have established right in the earth ;
And the isles shall wait for his law.
I have called thee for deliverance,
A light of the nations,
To open blind eyes,
To set at liberty those that are bound,
Even them that sit in the prison of Darkness.
Isaiah.
�5
I have heard these words—“ Living in solitude to master
their aims, practising rectitude in carrying out their prin
ciples”—but where have I seen such men ?
To sit in silence and recall past ideas, to study and feel
no anxiety, to instruct men without weariness ; have I this
ability in me ?
The man of character does not go out of his place. He
is modest in speech, but exceeds in action.
He will hold rectitude essential—bringing his work
forth in humility, performing it with prudence, completing
it with sincerity. What he seeks is in himself.
There is a divine nobility and a human nobility. Tobe
a prince, a prime minister, or a great officer, constitute
human nobility. Benevolence, justice, fidelity, and truth,
and to delight in virtue without weariness, constitute
divine nobility. The ancients adorned divine nobility, and
human nobility followed it.
It has never been the case that he who was not sincere
could influence others ; nor that he who possessed genuine
virtue could not influence others.
Whenever the superior man passes renovation takes
place.
The principles of great men illuminate the universe.
The principles they cherish begin with the common duties
of men and women, but in their extent they light up the
'universe.
Confucius.
Buddha was residing at Jetavana. In the night a
heavenly being, illuminating Jetavana with his radiance,
approached him, saying—“ Many gods and men desire to
know the things that are excellent.” Buddha said :
�6
“ To serve the wise and not the foolish, and to honour
what is worthy of honour : these are excellencies.
“To dwell in the neighbourhood of the good, to bear the
remembrance of good deeds, and to have a soul filled with
right desires : these are excellencies.
“To have knowledge of truth, to be instructed in science,
to have a disciplined mind, and pleasant speech : these are
excellencies.
“To honour father and mother, to provide for wife and
child, and to follow a blameless vocation : these are
excellencies.
“ To be charitable, act virtuously, be faithful to friends,
and lead an innocent life : these are excellencies.
“ To be pure, temperate, and persevering on a right path:
these are excellencies.
“ Humility, reverence, contentment, gratitude, attentive
ness to wise instruction : these are excellencies.
“ To be gentle, to be patient, to converse with the reli
gious : these are excellencies.
“ Self-restraint and Charity, the knowledge of the great
principles, and the hope of the eternal repose : these are
excellencies.
“To have a mind unshaken by prosperity or adversity,
inaccessible to sorrow, secure and tranquil : these are
excellencies.
“ They that do these things are the invincible ; they
attain the perfect good.”
Buddha.
Seeing the multitudes Jesus went up into a mountain ;
and when he had sat down, his disciples came unto him.
And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying :—
“Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the king
dom of heaven.
�7
Blessed are the lowly ; for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they who mourn ; for they shall be com
forted.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after jus
tice ; for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful ; for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart ; they shall see God.
Blessed are the peace-makers ; for they shall be called
the children of God.
Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness
sake ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and perse
cute you, and say all manner of evil against you, falsely
.......... for so did they persecute the prophets that were
before you.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a
hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and
put it under a bushel, but in a candlestick ; and it giveth
light to all that are in the house. In like manner let
your light shine before men, that others seeing your
good works may judge of your Father in Heaven.”
Jesus.
Calmly, calmly lay him down !
He hath fought the noble fight;
He hath battled for the right;
He hath won the unfading crown.
‘
Memories, all too bright for tears,
Crowd around us from the past,
Faithful toiled he to the last,—Faithful through unflagging years.
�8
All that makes for human good,
Freedom, righteousness, and truth,
Objects of aspiring youth,
Firm to age he still pursued.
Kind and gentle was his soul,
But it glowed with glorious might;
Filling clouded minds with light,
Making wounded spirits whole.
Dying, he can never die !
To the dust his dust we give ;
In our hearts his heart shall live ;
Moving, guiding, working aye.
Music from Beethoven.
Adapted from Gaskell.
MEDITATION.
Sweet day ! so cool, so calm, so bright,
Bridal of earth and sky ;
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die !
Sweet rose ! in air whose odours wave,
And colour charms the eye ;
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die !
Sweet spring ! of days and roses made,
Whose charms for beauty vie ;
Thy days depart, thy roses fade,
For thou must die I
�9
Only a sweet and holy soul
Hath tints that never fly ;
While flowers decay, and seasons roll,
It cannot die.
George Herbert.
JOHN STUART MILL.
Of old it was said “ The righteous dieth and no man
layeth it to heart.” That at least cannot be said of
England standing beside the grave of her noblest son.
Friend and foe have laid to heart the departure from
the world of one who has left so deep an impress upon
it. The Church journal which honestly exults in his
death, saying it is glad he is gone and does not care
how soon his friends follow him, has laid it to heart.
Those who are busily circulating in private a printed
catalogue of slanders against his fair fame, have laid
it to heart.
Let them rave,
He is quiet in his grave.
They cannot rave his truth out of existence. Their
hatred only reveals how deep his arrow has gone into
the heart of their wrong. Great men may be mea
sured, like towers, by the shadows they cast. Their
elevation is attested by the wrath of the base against
them. But they alone know the height who have
�IO
climbed to it, and caught the grander view it com
mands. And whilst a few, with vulture instinct, are
tearing the sod above the great heart, we may well
turn with a sad satisfaction to the general and real
grief of this people at the sorrowful tidings that the
powerful brain so busy with schemes for human wel
fare is still, that the heart which beat only for man
beats no more. The high-toned and impressive utter
ances of the press have done honour to the national
feeling. Westminster Abbey has asked permission
to enshrine his dust. Prime Minister* and Peer have
joined with philosopher and poet to do homage to his
worth. Whatever posterity may have to say of the
shortcomings of this generation, so much we may be
sure will be recorded in its honour. There is a dreary
catalogue in the past of the great unrecognised, of
mighty spirits sitting in the world at mighty tasks,
and departing, to leave a consecration only to the
vacant rooms where they have laboured, and bring
men as‘pilgrims to pay to their dust the homage
denied to their lives. That day is past. The people
listened to this great man ; bore him to their Parlia
ment ; shaped their law to his thought ; and they now
feel on them the shadow of the dark valley into which
he has entered.
Certain eminent men, in giving their names to the
Committee formed to express in some suitable form
* Since this was spoken, Mr. Gladstone has withdrawn from
the Committee formed to prepare some fit memorial of Mr.
Mill.
�this national feeling, have taken care to say that it
implies no unity of sentiment with Mr. Mill on great
■Questions. However needless such a precaution may
rf be, it is another tribute to his distinctive grandeur. It
rf reminds us again that his fame was won without com
cr pliance. It was not by concession to the opinions of
O others ; it was not by bending before the position or
q principles of the powerful, or reflecting established
q prejudice, that he gained the reverence now accorded
rf him. But it is despite a life-long opposition to such
ot i opinions and prejudices that his genius and character
rt make themselves felt, and prevail like some law of
rt nature. And, indeed, this man’s strength lay in his
rt near relationship to the laws of nature. We may say
a ■ of him as Confucius said of his dead friend, ‘ Heaven
38 alone is great and he was like unto it.” No artificial
£2 systems could allure him from his allegiance to the
X) i order of nature and the order of thought. He had
33 j raised his heart and brain into accord with the truth
to of things, to its vision he was ever obedient, and what
'fl he spoke to men was what he had learned while
KJ sitting as a devotee in his solitude, communing with
»9 eternal reason.
There is a date in my own memory, marked round
with vermilion, when I had the high privilege of pass
ffj ing a day with him amid wood and field, and beneath
fii the blue sky. And while he spoke, leaf and flower
If and sunbeam seemed to weave themselves around him
. J as a frame. His words were their kindred, so real
I 'fl were they, so gentle and so true. To listen was to be
J
if
�12
raised into a purer atmosphere. He spoke of a modern
French philosopher, with whom he had been too much
identified, who had treated certain sciences with a
certain contempt as not being of utility to man. “ As
if,” he said, “ any one could tell what is of utility to
mankind ! How many a truth, seemingly insignificant,
has turned out to be of momentous importance ! How
many inventions, after remaining a long time little
more than toys, have become engines of civilisation !
This little plant I have just plucked, and mean to
examine, who can say it may not be just the one link
needed in a great chain of knowledge ? It is never
safe to regard any fact as small. All that we esteem
great truths have been built up by these apparently
small bits of discovery, and to despise any truth
because we cannot see its use would bring our advance
to a full stop.”
At another time, and when listening to his conver
sation on a totally different subject, I had reason to
observe how each conviction he held ran through
and through him. He was this time speaking of
the downfall of slavery in America, and the prin
ciple he had maintained of reverently treasuring every
truth, however small or seemingly useless, re-appeared
in his faith that right ideas should be pursued, how
ever hopeless or visionary they might appear. From an
intimate acquaintance with the chief anti-slavery men
of America, I had said that they had not at all hoped to
see the success of their labours. They had grown up
from nothing; they had been derided as a handful of
�i3
visionaries; they had agreed that they were vision
aries, and the most sanguine among them had never
dreamed of that near consummation of their hope
which they have lived to witness. 11 It was that very
k fact,” said Mr. Mill, “ that made their power so great,
iS and their victory so complete. Not seeing a near
success, not hoping to reap what they were sowing,
they gave themselves all the more absolutely to the
principle. They were not tempted to compromise it
by any prospect of securing success by doing so. It
is no true Utilitarian principle for men to maintain
only that whose practical outcome and effect they can
see and measure; but it is to trust that the truth is
and must be useful, if not to us, to those who come
after us. To serve the truth thus unreservedly is
itself, too, success, even though it may appear unsuc
cessful. The anti-slavery men of America refused to
sanction a great wrong by participating in the politics
of the country : they would not even vote ; but each
man who abstained from voting thereby really voted
very heavily; and the abolition of slavery which has
followed is the sublimest manifestation of purely
moral power which our time has witnessed. It is
a lesson of the might that may lie in the most
seemingly ineffective and unpractical principle that
we hold.”
This, you will observe, is a restatement in applica
tion to morals and politics, of that principle he had
maintained with reference to Nature, that the smallest
and most useless fact was to be studied and rever-
iv
al
ffi
wi
�14
enced as much as the greatest, and that it was con
stantly turning out that the least was the greatest.
It is hard to preserve patience with those who
have attributed to Mr. Mill the belief in that kind
of Utilitarianism which is coarsely conceived by
themselves as a mere consecration of that which
is convenient or immediately serviceable. The whole
life of this man was devoted to ideals. Above
the heads of time-servers and self-seekers, he passed
on with his eye fixed on the star-like truth from
which he never swerved. I will not dwell on that
which his personal friends know : that he might
have been a man of large wealth had he not
held his income more for solitary students, and poor
scholars, and public purposes than for himself ; but I
may ask with what Idealist can you associate more
ideals than with him ? The right of the labourer in
the land, the secular education of the people, the
emancipation of mankind from superstition, the en
franchisement of women—all visions ! As visions he
espoused them ; as fair ideals he lived for them ; as
dreams unrealised he has gone down amid them to
his long sleep. Yet these were the bright hopes of a
Utilitarian philosopher, of one whose Utilitarianism
consisted in his perfect faith that whatever was true
was also useful, and who had proved to us in the world
that though we do not avail ourselves of that truth,
its utility is already manifested in its power to build
up a noble life and adorn it with spiritual beauty.
It is one of the saddest signs of the degree to which
�i5
the most civilised countries are as yet sunk in super
stition that the majority among us, perhaps, can only
think of such a man as a Sceptic, or an unbeliever in
religion. There was infinitely more religion in his un
belief than can be found in all the Churches of Eng
land. In an epigram of Schiller’s it is said : “ To what
religion dost thou belong?” “To none you could
name.” “ And wherefore to none ?” “ For the sake of
religion.” (Aus Religion.) In an age which bows down
to graven images—none the less graven images be
cause set on inward altars—here was one who would
not bow down to such nor serve them, and straight
way the cry is heard “ Infidel,” “ Atheist !” It really
makes religion a mockery. If Infidelity means such
lives, Heaven send us more Infidels ! The truth was
that he could belong to none of the religions around
him simply because he was too religious. There is
a certain characteristic which is inherent in all fine
natures, that what they they think they also feel. It
was the character of Mr. Mill, beyond all the men I
have ever known, that his feelings went along with
his thoughts. It was not enough for him to know
virtue, he must possess it; and it was not enough for
him to possess it, but he must love it. Truth was his
Lord, and his delight was in the law of that Lord ; and
on that law did he meditate day and night. Con
sequently it was impossible for him to follow the
common plan of saying one thing while he felt an
other ; to repeat creeds not in his heart; or to enter
temples where he must leave truth at the threshold.
�i6
But the habitual reverence of his mind, his essen
tial religiousness, made him in every moment a
worshipper, and every spot whereon he stood a
temple.
In matters of transcendent import with which small
theologians have complete though suspicious fami
liarity, he was reticent. On one occasion within my
knowledge he spoke in conversation concerning the
great subjects of human belief and hope—spiritual
existence and immortality. “ On these things,” he
said, “ there is no positive evidence at all. It is true
that in experience we know of mind only in connec
tion with physical organisation; but this is no evidence
that it may not exist otherwise. There is really no
evidence bearing on the subject one way or the other.
All that can be said is, that the common aspiration of
mankind furnishes a presumption in favour of the
reality of that towards which it aspires; but the actual
proof or confirmation of that presumption must wait
for the further increase of human knowledge. Noth
ing is proved—all is possibility.”
This, may seem a very slight faith beside the inti
mate knowledge copiously poured forth from every
little chapel pulpit, where everything is known about
Heaven and Hell and God, even to the number of
his family; but I believe that Humility will rather
go and sit beside the thinker in his ignorance, and
acknowledge its inability to comprehend the incom
prehensible or utter the unutterable. Socrates once
received a prize in Athens for possessing greater
�i7
knowledge than any other; and that knowledge in
which he excelled was knowledge of his own ignor
ance.
It may be noted of Mr. Mill that he is one of the
very few great authors who have never uttered or
written one word of discouragement. As a political
economist he was the first to encourage the labourer
to believe that his lot might and would be improved;
as a social reformer he was the first to encourage
woman to have faith in her larger destiny; and now
here in the region of religious inquiry, in the moment
when he was warning a friend of the lack of real
knowledge of those high matters, he ended with the
cheering words, “ All is possibility!” He knew full
well how many planets had rolled on overhead, un
discovered through long ages, to be revealed at length
to watchers by night when the instruments for seeing
them had been perfected, to say to us, Because you
know nothing now you will never know anything.
Rather amid the darkness he has sounded the watch
word clear and strong—“ All is possibility.’^ For this
really is the tenor of all he has written. And we may
say that his whole philosophic work was an endeavour
to perfect the lenses and the telescopes of the mind,,
to teach men how to use the instruments of thought,
through which that highest knowledge is to be reached,
if it is ever to be reached. And so great was his
service in teaching men what knowledge is and what
it is not, in teaching them the meaning of words and
the values of their ideas, that I doubt not when all the
�i8
fictions and superstitions have cleared away, if then
any insight into supersensual mysteries is attained,
the age attaining it will canonise as a saint this man
who taught men how to look and whither to look.
The ancient world—to use an illustration suggested
by himself—did not much regard the mathematicians
of Alexandria, who passed what seemed idle days and
nights investigating the properties of the ellipse, but
two thousand years after their speculations explained
the solar system, and through their labours ships now
circumnavigate the globe.
There is a passage which Mr. Mill once wrote about
Plato in which, as I think, he unconsciously described
the task of his own life. He says
“ The enemy
against which Plato really fought was Commonplace.
It was the acceptance of traditional opinions and cur
rent sentiments as an ultimate fact j and bandying of
the abstract terms which express approbation and dis
approbation, desire and aversion, admiration and dis
gust, as if they had a meaning thoroughly understood
and universally assented to. The men of his day (like
those of ours) thought that they knew what good and
evil, just and unjust, honourable and shameful, were,
because they could use the words glibly, and affirm
them of this and of that, in agreement with existing
custom. But what the property was, which these
several instances possessed in common, justifying the
application of the term, nobody had considered ;
neither the sophists, nor the rhetoricians, nor the
statesmen, nor any of those who set themselves
�T9
up or were set up by others as wise. Yet, who
ever could not answer this question was wan
dering in darkness; had no standard by which his
judgments were regulated, and which kept them con
sistent with one another ; no rule which he knew, and
could stand by, for the guidance of his life. Not
knowing what justice and virtue are, it was impossible
to be just and virtuous; not knowing what good is,
we not only fail to reach it, but are certain to embrace
evil instead. Such a condition, to any one capable of
thought, made life not worth having. The grand busi
ness of human intellect ought to consist in subjecting
these general terms to the most rigorous scrutiny, and
bringing to light the ideas that lie at the bottom of
them. Even if this cannot be done, and real know
ledge be attained, it is already no small benefit to
expel the false opinion of knowledge; to make men
conscious of their ignorance of the things most needful
to be known, fill them with shame and uneasiness at
their own state, and rouse a pungent internal stimulus,
summoning up all their mental energies to attack these
greatest of all problems, and never rest until, as far as
possible, the true solutions are reached.
Such was the aim of Plato who lived in an age of
transition, inquiry, doubt, like our own ; and such was
the aim of Mill. Where he saw the houses built on
sand swept away, there at least he would dig deep and
lay foundations which could never be shaken, based
on the truth of things, the eternal rock. We may
build on it in darkness, but there will come those who
�20
shall build on it in light. However much we may
misunderstand those sent to guide and raise us, we
may be sure posterity will make no mistakes. When
they cast their eyes back they will surely detect those
who amid groaning humanity sought only their own
good,—cringed to the strong,—repeated the servile
creed,—their double tongue uttering all that is sordid
and base. And they will pick out those who came to
the rescue of humanity in its time of trial, who stood for
justice and simple truth, faithful unto death.* They
will say that in the grave of John Stuart Mill closed
one of the few sacred lives of history.
There was blended with his intellectual work other
that required a yet higher nature, work that needed
preponderating moral sensibilities, a deep human
sympathy, a rich emotional nature. I have said that
Mr. Mill always felt what he thought,—and whenever
he spoke the blood in his cheek spoke too. But there
were two themes only upon which I have known his
habitual calmness give way to agitation,—two only
where, as he spoke, his mind caught flame and rose
into passionate emotion. One of these was when
before emancipation had taken place in America he
saw humanity enslaved, and a Republic fettered by
the same chain it had bound around the negro. The
other was when he saw women struggling to break
the galling political and social chains inherited from
ancient, from a barbaric past. Into their cause he
* I have remembered here words spoken by Emerson on the
death of Theodore Parker.
�21
entered with an enthusiasm which brought again the
age of chivalry, and the brave efforts he made to
secure woman from hereditary wrong made him to
our prosaic time the figure of St. George rescuing the
maiden from a dragon. The world has felt a silent
sympathy as in the French town he sat, studied, wrote,
at a window overlooking the grave that held that trea
sure of his soul beside whom he now reposes ; but it
has admired as it saw this personal devotion to one
noble woman consecrating him to the cause of all her
sisters. Ah, ye women, who amid many buffets and
sneers are striving to attain a truer position and larger
life, to help man to raise the suffering world to a
higher plane,—ye women, what a friend have you lost!
Daughters of England! weep not for him, but weep
for yourselves and for your children !
The Hindoo standing beside his dead is accustomed
to render him back solemnly to the elements. “ O
Earth,” he cries, “ of thee he was formed, to thee we
commend our brother. Thou Fire, emblem of purity,
dids’t quicken him, to thee we return him. Air that
gave him breath, to thee we yield him. Water that
sustained, receive thy share of him who has taken an
everlasting flight!” Even so must we .consign to
Nature which gave him to us the man for whom we
mourn. Great-hearted brother of all the sons and
daughters of men, brave warrior of truth, you have
fallen at your task suddenly, when your hope and ours
were highest for your future work ; but we consign
you to the elements that worked in and through you,
�22
not without consolation; for we know that the prin
ciples you maintained are deep in the heart of that
nature to which you return. The flowers blooming
over your grave shall write them in the dust, and the
rustling leaves repeat them; the sighing winds will
whisper, the storm will publish them ; they shall move
with the stars in their courses.
Part in peace ! Is day before us ?
Praise His name for life and light;
Are the shadows lengthening o’er us ?
Bless His care who guards the night.
Part in peace ! with deep thanksgiving
Rendering, as we homeward tread,
Gracious service to the living,
Tranquil memory to the dead.
Part in peace ! such are the praises,
God our Father loveth best;
Such the worship that upraises
Human hearts to heavenly rest
Music by Miss Flower..
AUSTIN AND CO.,
PRINTERS,
Sarah F Adams.
17, JOHNSON’S COURT,
FLEET STREET, E.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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In memorium: a memorial discourse in honour of John Stuart Mill ... with hymns and readings
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Conway, Moncure Daniel [1832-1907.]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 22 p. ; 15 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 1. Printed by Austin & Co, 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London.
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South Place Chapel
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[1873]
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Sermons
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John Stuart Mill
Memorial Addresses
Morris Tracts
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Text
ORTHODOXY
FROM THE HEBREW POINT OF VIEW.
BY
REV. THOMAS P. KIRKMAN, M.A., F.R.S.,
RECTOR OF CROFT, NEAR WARRINGTON.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
��ORTHODOXY FROM
THE
HEBREW
POINT OF VIEW.
N the rural rectory-house of my old college-friend,
Henry P., I had the pleasure of making the
acquaintance of Dr. Marcus, a Professor of Mathe
matics in a foreign university, a man of pleasing
manners and varied culture, and distinguished by
original research in his department. ‘This gentleman,
having as professor extraordinary an income by no
means extraordinary, was desirous of a vacant mathe
matical chair in one of our colonies. His reputation
and attainments were far higher than those of any
Englishman likely to become a candidate, and he spoke
English well; but he was unluckily a Jew. My
friend’s recommendation was certain to have weight
with the parties who had the appointment; but a
member of the Church of England was sure to be pre
ferred by them, and to propose to them a Jew appeared
hopeless. Dr. Marcus was a devout Theist of the
school, not of Moses and the Priests, but of Moses
and the Prophets. For genuine priests of all religions
he had little love; and he was at the same time a
hearty despiser of the negation-philosophy of those
sectarians who rejoice in the bigotry of Atheism, Anti
theism, Nontheism, Positivism, Materialism, and what
not, dogmatisms which are becoming so fashionable,
and fancy themselves so scientific and original nowa-days.
“ And why should you not become a member of the
I
�4 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
Church of England ? ” said Mr P. “ I will baptize you
in my church next Sunday but one, if you will declare
your assent to what we call the Apostles’ creed. You
will then be as good a Christian as dozens of our dig
nitaries. We all believe that document in a certain
literal and grammatical sense, with an allowance con
ceded to all but the youngest children, for theological
rhetoric.” “ I am aware,” replied Dr Marcus, “ of the
explanations that divines give of the descent into hell,
of the session at the right hand of God the Father, of
the Holy Catholic Church, of the resurrection of the
body, &c. ; and there is no dishonesty in taking refuge
in them from the letter, thrown open as they are ; but
there is at least one word in that creed which I could
not recite without hypocrisy; it is the word only.
There is no literal and grammatical sense, even with
the light of theological rhetoric, in which I can utter
that word in its connexion. Take that away, and I
will recite your creed, regardless of the self-satisfied
dunces, Jew or Christian, who may affirm that I
cannot honestly do it without committing myself to all
their unwritten, illogical, and childish implications,
and who vent their sectarian spite by frequently
affirming it.”
“I should have expected,” said I, “that in the
article, 1 And in Jesus Christ, his only Son,’ you would
have objected to 1 Christ ’ rather than to 1 only.’ “ The
proposition,” he answered, “ that A, B, or C was or is
the Christ, to me propounds nothing but an empty
name. It is more than a name to thousands of my
ignorant brethren, and was of old far more to millions..
That frantic faith in a conquering Christ to come,
which the mischievous priests of the Levitical system,
and the prophets by whose falsehoods they bore rule,
had stamped on the hearts of my people before your
era, was the perennial fountain of all their shame and
sorrow. Hundreds of devout thinkers and believers
of my faith, along with many of our noblest reli-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 5
.gious teachers, have published our relinquishment of
■that ruinous dream. We no more look for a personal
Messiah, who shall appear for the exaltation of Israel
among the nations, than we desire to restore on Mount
.Zion the bloody worship of our fathers. We cherish
■no longer the old contempt and hatred ’ we have
ceased to pray for the fulfilment of those wild hopes,
or for the restoration of those semi-pagan ordinances.
11 But,” I ventured to enquire, “ does the clause
about the miraculous birth of Jesus present to you no
difficulty? ”
“ I read nothing miraculous,” said he, “ in the literal
.and grammatical meaning of the clause. I myself was
conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin
Mary; for nothing is more God’s own work than the
generation even of a fly; and my mother Mary, whose
first-born I am, was as pure a maid as was ever blessed
in wedlock. The Virgin Mary is to me merely an his
torical designation of the Mother of Jesus, just as the
Maid of Orleans figures in the pedigree of certain
persons in France, who pretend that she was not
burnt, but that she was married. And the virgin who
conceived and bore a son in Isaiah was the prophet’s
lawful wife, as he informs us; and the child was his
offspring. If your creed affirmed that my compatriot
Jesus had come into the world without a human
father, that would be an objection insuperable. Your
contradictory legends of that Hebrew Infancy in your
Greek gospels count for nothing.”
I enquired, “ How do you take the clause affirming
the resurrection of Jesus from the dead?” He replied,
“ I see nothing to prevent its being read as literally
and grammatically as all your divines contrive to read
the descent into hell, which to some of the Fathers
affirmed an actual taste of the eternal fire of torment,
and to all of them involved a most exciting story of
under-ground adventures. Divines now find in it a
simple assertion that Jesus died like other men; and
�6 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
they and I can read in the clause following, if we
choose, with no more violence to the letter, that Jesus
lived on after death, like other men, in conscious per
sonality. The creed does not say that no one else ever
rose from the dead. If it affirmed that the re-animated
body walked living out of the sepulchre, I could not
recite it. As it stands, he who rose again from the
dead is, by all the rules of grammar, he who descended
into hell; that is, the disembodied spirit. Does any
one pretend that he went down thither in the body?
Further, I cannot find in your gospels any record of
the miracle of the resurrection-moment, still less an
attested record. It is not intimated that either man
or angel saw Jesus quit the tomb; and the Romish,
divines, along with some of your own, say boldly that
he passed out through the stone invisibly before it
was removed. The bodily resurrection of Jesus is
nowhere attested as a fact in time and place ■ it is not
even recorded.”
“ But,” said I, “ there are certainties of inference
which it is utter folly to doubt. If after burying your
friend, whose death you had witnessed, you should
find him sitting by your fire; if he should greet you
and converse with you, his hand in yours, with every
evidence of every sense before you that he was your
living friend unchanged, you could not doubt that he
had risen from the dead? ” “I certainly would not
infer,” said the Jew, “that he had so risen: I should
have no right even to infer that he had come in at the
door. An inference from a miraculous fact of the
present moment to any fact in the past or in the
future is not justifiable. Such inferences to past or
future are valid only on the hypothesis that the course
of nature remains the same, that is, on the hypothesis
that no miracle happens. If you were to see oranges
growing on an apple tree in your garden, and satisfied
yourself, by every test of sense and examination, that
they were oranges, it would be a miracle which you
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
7
could not deny or doubt. But could you infer that the
oranges had been preceded by orange flowers on that
tree 1 Could you be certain that the tree would bear
such fruit next year, or that from the pips in these
oranges, orange seedlings would grow1? You might
have an opinion on every question, but if you attempted
to compel me to share your opinion, and made, me
suffer for my doubt, you would commit a crime. I
shook my head, and remarked that that was a dan
gerous style of reasoning.
Once more I inquired, “What sense do you give to the
clause affirming that Jesus will come from the right
hand of the Father to judge the quick and dead ?
“ Much the same sense,” answered he, “which you and
every thinking Christian put into a prediction so very
vague. As I reject with you the old unbelieving
blunder in space that Jehovah was more present on
Mount Zion than upon other hills, so you reject with
me the unbelieving blunder in time, that God s righteous
judgment on the living and the dead is to be first pro
nounced and executed at some far future day. You
are convinced that His judgments are now and ever
working themselves out both on men and nations in
all worlds, by the grand eternal law of His government,
which rules alike on this and on yonder side of the
gravethe law whereby suffering from which no
pardoning priest can save must follow sin, and bliss
which no priestly curse can hinder must be the
reward of righteousness, without revenge, and, in the
long mn, without respect of persons. Not only Jesus,
but every prophet whose words form part of the world s
wealth of divine truth, is at this moment judging the
quick and the dead.” “ That appears to me, ’ I re
joined, “a perilous tampering with the Churchs plain
teaching of her children.” “Do your bishops tamper
less or more,” he inquired, “with their conception of
God sitting at God’s right hand? If they can fritter
away from their lessons to children that plain concept
�8
Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
in space, why not a far less plain concept in time?
Why should ‘ He shall come from that right hand ’ be
literal, and ‘ he sitteth there ’ be not literal at all ? ”
“ I wish,” said Mr P., “ that you would reconsider
your objection to the word only. It is simply equiva
lent to the ancient only-begotten, and you know the
refinements of theologians, both Jewish and Christian,
about that term. It is not a numerical term; it is a
sublimely figurative and vague superlative.” “ All that
I knowreplied the Jew, “ but nothing can overcome
my repugnance to the heathenish flavour which taints
the word. If your grand apostle Paul were here, I
could readily be admitted as a Christian. I am willing
to accept brotherhood among you on the terms which
he proposed to the Romans ; ‘-If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Master Jesus, and believe in thine
heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved.’ Knowing as I do, that Jesus only
affirmed the noblest truths of the law and the prophets,
against those Priests and Pharisees who had so much
debased the religion of the older seers, I can gladly
call him Master; and I believe that God raised him
from the dead in that spiritual body of which Paul
discourses, as I believe that he has raised from the
dead every good man that ever died.”
“ I am delighted,” said I, “ by your reference to that
word of Paul in Romans x. Several times in my pub
lished papers bearing my name, and scores of times in
my sermons, I have declared my conviction that the
confession and the creed which the great apostle of the
Gentiles affirmed 1800 years ago to be sufficient for
Christian fraternity and salvation, ought to be held
sufficient now. What I have written has been circu
lated pretty widely among the dignitaries, but it has
evoked neither answer nor rebuke from any quarter.
If our reverend and right-reverend wranglers would
only bow their stubborn necks to the authority of an
inspired apostle, the sting would be taken out of our
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 9
poisonous sectarianisms.” “Ah! said he, it was a
brief campaign, that of Paul and his band of broad
churchmen against the old priestcraft and hatreds. His
sad prophecy of invading wolves was soon fulfilled.
And so it has ever been in the history of religious
progress. In vain has the army of prophets overthrown
the strongholds of superstition, smashed the old gods,
■and scattered the sacerdotal conjurors. The wily
priests have too soon returned, and made fresh idols of
the battering-rams. When after the struggle of cen
turies the prophets of my people had expelled poly
theism, and established for ever the worship of Jehovah,
the priests were not long in building up their worse
than Pagan tyranny, and they went on heating in the
blinded people that inflation of arrogant frenzy, whose
explosion at last scattered us for ever. Adorable are
God’s counsels; scattered as we are, we have yet a
great part to play, in witnessing among the nations for
the Divine Unity, and against both the ignorant pride
of atheism and the wickedness of priestly cursing.
“ It is fortunate,” said Mr P., “ that our Clerical Book
Society meets here to-morrow. There will be some
dozen of us, and there will be plenty of time for a dis
cussion on this matter. A really practical question
will be a treat, and it will be interesting to hear the
opinions of my brethren about baptizing a Jew on the
terms proposed by Paul; for there are churchmen of all
patterns among us.” “ Let me not be misunderstood,
.said Dr. Marcus : “I am willing to become a member
of your Church, as a society of good and learned men,
for the sake of any advantage that I can receive or
render in all love and honesty. I will not pretend to
believe that my soul will be better saved in your com
munion than in mine, nor shall I think myself one
whit less a Jew for being made a Christian. I main
tain that there is nothing true in your religion which
is not comprised in the noblest truths of mine. I shall
�IO Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
be no more a sectarian if baptized than I am unbaptized,
and I shall continue to deny and detest, as I do nowj
all anathemas whatever upon other virtuous and con
scientious thinkers.”
The morrow came; the party met; and I was per
mitted to be one of them. After the perusal of a
paper by one divine, which seemed to evoke no
animated discussion, the president, Mr P., laid before
them the case of his catechumen, a learned Jew,
desirous of admission into our Church, as he would
seek entrance into any other society, not for the im
provement of his spiritual health, or his chance of sal
vation, but for most honourable reasons pertaining to
this life. “ He declines,” said the president, “ to receive
public baptism, because he cannot assent to every word
of the Apostles’ Creed. He considers our Christianity,
with his present light, to be a corrupted development
of. pure Judaism, not the Judaism of the Levitical
priests who crucified Jesus, but that of the Psalms and
the Prophets, which Jesus sought to restore; and he
believes that when our sectarianisms and those of his
own people have run their course, the two churches
will be one again. We know that there are thousands of
good and cultivated men among us, and not a few among
the clergy, whose notions of religion differ little from
those of my friend, and who are not subjected to any
disadvantage or censure on that account. The gentle
man is willing to qualify himself for baptism by making
the confession and affirming the belief which PauL
declared to the Homans in his tenth chapter to be
sufficient for salvation; that is, to confess with hismouth the Lord Jesus and to believe in his heart that.
God hath raised him from the dead, and this I am surehe will do in the literal and grammatical sense of the
words as they stand. He will profess no adhesion to
our theory of the divine nature of Jesus Christ. By
Lord he means Master, just what the Greek means,
a master whose commandments, especially his great
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View, n
commandment of love, he means to keep, and, to my
personal knowledge, has kept from his yonth np. I
know him to he a godly man of faith and prayer:
Would any of you, being satisfied about his life and
conversation, baptize him on his making this Pauline
profession, and give him a certificate of baptism ? Allow
me to observe, that Paul does not trouble the Romans,
in his concise statement of conditions, with any specula
tion on the pre-existence or divinity of Christ, nor does
he use the title Christ; he expressly bars that, out, as
well as curious inquiries into the mystery of his resur
rection. ‘ Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend up
into heaven,’ i.e., &c., or ‘ who shall go down into the
deep,’ i.e., &c. If words so guarded and deliberate
are intended to be understood in their honest liberal
meaning, I cannot help believing that if Paul were now
among us, he would say, ‘ Baptize him without delay.
Por some moments no one replied; a question so
much out of clerical routine surprised them. The Rev.
Mr A. first rose and said, “Will your Jew declare his
belief that J esus is the Son of God ? I ask this, be
cause on that confession Philip baptized the eunuch ,
and St John says, 1 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is
the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.’”
The chairman answered, “lam sure he will; but he
will tell you that he does not believe him to be the only
Son of God. Nor do you and I, I presume, if we
honestly say to each other, ‘ Beloved, now are. we the
Sons of Godif we believe that we shall see him as he
is, and be like him ; if we maintain with Paul that ‘ we
are children and heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs of
Christ.’ But,” added he, “ my friend is learned enough
to know that in the phrase of 1800 years ago. the Son
of God and the Christ were the same designation ; and
this is abundantly evident from the chapter of John’s
epistle that you have quoted. He considers that old
expectation of the Christ to have been a most fatal
superstition, and that the belief in Jesus as the Christ,
�12 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
though useful at the time, was of no value except as
■equivalent to this,—it is madness to look forward any
.more to the coming of a miraculous Messiah.”
“ We are all bound, of course,” said Mr B., 11 by the
Act of Uniformity in our public Offices ; there we are
bond slaves. But in our private ministrations we have
a large discretion.
I do not see what there is to pre
vent you privately baptizing your friend. If I felt
that I was rendering a service to him and to others,
I think I should do it.”
“ Of course, you would,” said C.: “ it would be un
christian and inhuman to refuse. The Catholic Church
has ever been accustomed to facilitate the entrance into
the ark of salvation, and to extend as far as possible
the priceless blessing of the sacrament of regeneration.
The Catholic missionaries have rescued thousands from
eternal perdition by wholesale baptism; it is said they
have done this with a broom, without confession of any
kind. The consent to receive Christian baptism has
been considered to be sufficient qualification. I am
ready to baptize all the Jews on earth, if they will
permit me, and to teach them the Catholic faith after
wards.”
‘‘There is some countenance,” said D., “for C.’s
notion of baptising without formal statement of dog
matic belief, from the result of criticism on the verse
quoted by A., Acts vii. 37, in which the eunuch is
made to utter a profession of faith. The verse is thrown
out by Griesbach as unquestionably an interpolation,
as proved by the best manuscripts and versions. Nor
is there any account of a creed being pronounced by
the three thousand on the day of Pentecost.”
“ That may be so,” said E.; “ but you will observe
that Philip had preached to him Jesus. He had led
•him, from that text in Isaiah, to the cross on which
hung his dying God and Saviour ; and he saw before
he baptized him that he had a justifying faith, and had
found an interest in the precious blood of the Lamb.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 13
Precisely in the same way, they who were baptized on
the day of Pentecost were such as had gladly received
the word of Peter, who preached to them Jesus, and
taught every one of them to say,
‘ My God, through Jesus pacified,
My God, thyself declare,
And draw me to that open side,
And plunge the sinner there.’
God forbid that any of us should pollute a sacrament of
the church by administering it to a professed infidel.
Souls cannot be saved with brooms. There are thou
sands of regenerate men and women who were never
baptized with water.”
“Does your Jew,” said P., “believe the promises of'
God made to him in baptism ? That faith is the only
thing besides repentance which our church requires of
persons to be baptized.”
“I am certain,” said P., “that he devoutly believes
all God’s promises. No man can discourse more
eloquently on their fulfilment in the past, or on the
glorious accomplishment of them awaiting mankind in
the future. As our catechism does not explain to the
child what are the definite promises of God made to it
on baptism, his general faith will, it is to be hoped,
meet the requirement. I thank you for pointing out
that simple statement in our formularies of what is really
required.”
“ Yes,” said G., “it is satisfactory to dwell on a simple
statement of the church’s meaning, if it be not very
precise : the unpleasant thing is to dwell on statements
and usages absurd and contradictory. It is plain, from
the rubric about baptism of adults, that the church
requires that a candidate should be examined for a
week, after formal notice to the bishop, whether he be
sufficiently instructed in the principles of the Christian
religion : it is equally true that no bishop can tell us
what those principles are, even so far as is required for
�14 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
the instruction of children; and all the leaders of our
sects and schools, inside the church and out of it, are
ready to fight like cat and dog about what those first
lessons should be. To a child they all give this con
venient reply : Do as your priest or preacher bids you
and believe all he tells you. But if I were to ask an
archbishop what is the meaning for me of the first
lessons, of the catechism to children, and press for an
unambiguous answer, he would tell me he was not the
Church, and bid me, as funny Archbishop Sumner did
when so publicly pressed, to read the Word for myself.”
In spite of the rubric we are left to baptize whom we
please,, and no bishop would thank us for troubling
him with formal notice, or for asking his precise opinion.
We baptize infants incapable of instruction. We are
compelled to look gravely into a baby’s face, and ask,
AVilt thou be baptized in this faith '? ’—and we pretend
to hear the baby answer, ‘I will,’ and make solemn pro
fessions about mysteries and duties, because three per
sons, who often know and care as much as the child
about the matter, repeat words of routine prescribed by
act of parliament hundreds of years ago. Wh are ex
pected, to say to the child in after years, ‘You promised
all this by your sureties;’ bewildering its budding
reason and conscience with a sham, instead of appealing
directly to the grand reality, the present teaching of
God in its reason and conscience. We do, indeed
appeal to the latter ; but we cannot prevent the mis
chief done by the respect thus shewn to lip-service and
religion by proxy. We teach the child that two
sacraments are by God’s decree generally necessary to
salvation, that is universally, if we please to put it so,
or not universally, but certainly in your case, if we like
to. put it so: and you may bombard bishops for ten years
v ith demands of information ; they will never tell you
what they mean by that generally. Then, we treat all
alike as Christian people, whether they do or do not
receive the second sacrament for all their lives, and we
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 15
bury them alike in the same sure and certain hope of
life eternal. The men whom we cursed while living,
we send to heaven when dead. We then go and grin
at Popish and heathenish mockeries in religion. We
are to believe that any baptized old woman who is
wise enough to repeat the words of the baptismal
formulary, can, by sprinkling a few drops of water,
make your Jew into a member of Christ, a child of
God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven; and
no bishop is able to undo, nor dares to mend, her
miracle. We are to believe at the same time that he
is a damned child of God for his infidelity, and that if
the spotless life you say he is living were to terminate
while that water is on his nose, he would, without
doubt, perish everlastingly. This is our act-of-parliament Christianity! ”
“It is of no use for us to continue this debate: if we
contradict each other for an hour, we shall be at the
end just where we are now. Absurdities like these
would not be endured in the manuals of any science,
except our sham science of theology. There is
not a bishop among them who would not be proud
to expose every one of them, and to kick it out at
any cost, from any book but the Prayer Book. Such
absurdities will of course disappear in time, in spite of
bishops, as moral and mental culture extend among the
people. The grand third and seventeenth articles of
our Church have already evaporated. Each is now a
husk without an import. The second, the ninth, and
that eighteenth, most atrocious in the Latin, and the
priestcraft of pardons, that fatal fountain of all mischief,
have well-nigh evaporated. In vain do our young
ritualists try to replenish the last from their decorated
pagan pocket-flasks of popery and water. I advise you
to baptize the Jew, and prepare him, if he is willing,
for holy orders in our Church. We want such men to
help us fight that spawn of priestcraft, the materialism
and atheism of our day. There is nothing in our
�16 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
formularies of which he cannot honestly and rationally
unlock the literal and grammatical sense, by using the
keys which our divines and dignitaries are publicly
handling every hour.”
“ That is a little too peppery, friend G.” said H.
“ But we all know you, grim as you look sometimes,
to be as kind-hearted as you are outspoken; and a
little plain speaking can do us no harm. Let us debate
no longer. We shall hope to meet the Jew at luncheon.
We do not often fall in with a godly and learned man
of his persuasion. I, for one, should be greatly pleased
to hear from his own lips a candid statement of his
notions about the value of our Christian evidences, if he
can give it without going into details of harmony and
criticism, which are getting a little old. He may be
able to convey to us a new idea about the matter from
the Hebrew point of view. And I should be glad to
know what account he has to give of the rise and pro
gress of Christianity. What think you all ? ”
All agreed that nothing could be more interesting.
And P. promised that they should be gratified.
We enjoyed ourselves much at P.’s hospitable table,
and after a ramble over his pleasant lawn and shrubbery,
and a feast of strawberries in his garden, we found our
selves again in his library, prepared to listen to the
discourse of the Jew.
“ It is fortunate,” said Dr. Marcus, “ that I can comply
with your request, communicated to me by our friend
P., without touching any of the matters usually dis
cussed in your treatises on what are politely called the
Evidences of Christianity. The point of view from
which an enlightened Jew considers your orthodoxy is
one at which you have probably never tried to place
yourselves. One single consideration demonstrates to
me the falsehood (I use the word historically, I hope
without offence) of your story. This is the language of
your original documents, which is Greek, and Greek
only. If your story were all true, you would certainly
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 17
have vouchers for its truth in the Hebrew tongue, that
is in the Hebrew spoken in Palestine 1800 years
•ago, which differed from the pure Hebrew of the
Old Testament certainly less than your English differs
from the Anglo-Saxon of your fathers of 900 years
ago. First of all, let me state in brief your story.
You say that God was incarnate in the form of a
carpenter of Galilee 1850 years ago 5 that he became
man for the sake of making a revelation, and founding
a religious dispensation which was to supersede that
which he had given to my fathers by the revelations of
his will made in the old Hebrew Scriptures j that after
instructing disciples who adored him as Very God, doing
the most wonderful works of power, and suffering
death on the cross for the redemption of all mankind,
he rose again from the dead in the body which had
been buried, and for forty days more conversed with
his disciples, giving them infallible proof of the reality
of his resurrection j that in that' interval he opened
their understandings, endowed them and their succes
sors to the end of the world with the most awful
powers and authority over the minds and consciences
of the whole human race, speaking to them as he had
always spoken, in that Hebrew which alone they and
their countrymen understood ; and that after his ascen
sion into heaven, he sent down on those chosen dis
ciples a still larger inspiration of his Holy Spirit,
whereby they were gifted and directed to organise in
its Hebrew beginnings as it was through all time to
endure, his Catholic Church, which alone was to be the
channel of his divine grace, and the keeper of his word
and will, for the salvation of all nations : and that for
the more secure preservation of this teaching, he spe
cially inspired one of these disciples to commit to writ
ing, in his native Hebrew tongue, an account of his
works and words. Further, your story is, that the
Catholic Church of this day continues to preserve and
to teach what those first apostles taught, and that there
B
�18 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
has been no gap of oblivion nor faltering in the testi
mony of this Church from its foundation to the words of
God made flesh ; so that you, by virtue of the training
that you have received from your learned and autho
rised teachers, whose knowledge of the original treasure
of revelation you share, are yourselves linked by an
apostolic succession and unerring tradition of all that
is essential in an unbroken chain of loyalty and unfor
getting love to the lips of the Incarnate. This is your
story. Now, here I am, a Hebrew man, speaking to
men, as I suppose, of Hebrew learning, and a man able
to understand the language of that Incarnate Deity,
and of his disciples. I will receive your sacrament,
and subscribe your thirty-nine articles to-day, if you
will repeat to me, as they fell from his lips, three sen
tences of the teaching of that revealing Emmanuel.”
There was a little pause. Then one bore witness that
Emmanuel said “ Epphatha,” another remembered that
be said 11 Talitha cumi.” “Any more,” said the Jew,
“besides the cry upon the cross?” We were com
pelled to own that we had no more. “ The question to
us is a puzzler,” I remarked, “ but it could easily be
answered to any extent if the right man were here.
Dr Manning would be more than a match for Dr
Marcus.” I took out of my pocket-book a cutting from
the Liverpool Mercury, reporting an oration of Dr
Manning in that city in October last, and read as fol
lows :—-“Who told you these things ? You had them
all from me, from me alone, to whom the scriptures
were committed in custody and guardianship, from me
who preserved them and handed them on to this day. . . .
And when men appeal to antiquity, and tell us, ‘ This
is not the primitive tradition of the Church,’ were you
ever in antiquity, or any that belong to you ? I was
there, and as a perpetual witness, antiquity is to me
nothing but my early days, and antiquity exists in my
consciousness to this hour as men grown to riper years
remember their childhood. ... I may say that the
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 19
■Church of God, which testifies at this hour, saw the
Son of God, and heard his words, and was witness of
diis miracles. More than that, it was witness of the
day of Pentecost, and upon it the Holy Spirit descended.
It heard the sound of the mighty wind, and it saw the
tongues of fire; and that which the Church witnesses
to this day it witnesses as an ear-witness, as an eye
witness, of the divine facts which it declares. And
how ? Because that which they saw and heard, they
delivered,” &c. The doctor asks no allowance for
rhetoric he does not condescend to intimate to his
•awe-struck hearers that he is figuring or personifying.
With metallic coolness, with chin outstretched, and ele
vated eyebrows, he stops to put to my Bishop and me
his contemptuous question, and then he swaggers on
in the first person singular—“Were you ever in an
tiquity, or any that belong to you ? I was there, and
■as a perpetual witness, antiquity is to me nothing but my
early days,” &c. All laughed in harmony. And we did
wish that the most reverend Doctor had been there in
his mitred dignity of ears four figures long. We felt
that he would have either silenced the Jew by his
knowledge, or else have knocked the breath out of him
by his—No, put it very mildly, thus
by his stupen
dous modesty, the dare-devil mace-bearer of his Car
dinal graces and virtues.
The Jew -went on : “ Take a possible case. Suppose
that a teacher of men should arise in a. country civilized
enough to have a written literature many centuries old ;
that he should deliver new truth to a chosen body of
disciples; that he should have a strong influence of
love upon their hearts ; that he should lay the founda
tion of a great school to endure after him • and that he
should direct one of his disciples to commit to writing,
under the master’s guidance, and with his sanction for
publication, an account of his sayings and doings in
his own tongue : then there is, if the language of the
document should happen to become an unspoken
�20 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
tongue, a certain probability that not only the docu
ment in the original, but all historic trace whatever in
that language of the teacher’s life and utterances, might
in the lapse of ages perish, and no record of them
remain, except, perhaps, in later tongues. Nobody
can deny that such a loss to literature might occur,
either by mere mouldering and oblivion, or by the
stupidity or malice of after times.
Let us call this chance of loss of all original docu
ments C, and try to consider on what its value would
depend. First, it would depend to a large degree on the
rank and dignity of the teacher. Call this D. If D were
inconsiderable, C might be great. If D were very great,
C would be small, other things being equal. Another ele
ment would be the wisdom of the teacher. Call this W.
Other things being supposed invariable, the chance C
would be higher or lower as W was smaller or greater.
The greater the wisdom of the founder of the school
in his knowledge of the present and his plans for the
future, the smaller would be the chance of his words
in the original perishing from the world’s treasures of
learning. A third element would be the loving in
fluence of the teacher over the heart and memories of
men. Call this L, the mighty power of love. This
has degrees of less and more. If L were nothing
unusual, the chance C of original record perishing
would be higher than if L were very wonderful and
memorable. Apd we may affirm that if other things
were given the same, C would be larger as L was
smaller, and smaller as L was larger. A fourth element
controlling the value of C would be the importance
to all mankind of the teacher’s lessons, along with the
practical value of the institution founded by him.
Call this importance I; then we can affirm as before
that the chance C, all things remaining unchanged
besides, would take, as I were given smaller or greater,
a higher or lower value. Lastly, we may consider the
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 21
influence upon the chance C of the rank and honour
■among men that would attach to the successors of this
teacher in carrying out his plans and working his
institution. Call this honour H; then I say again,
that if all other elements are supposed to be of in
variable value, C would rise or fall as H was incon
siderable or of great estimation. Nothing would
■contribute so surely to make the chance C. small, as a
high degree of renown and power devolving on the
succession of officers in the supposed institution, who
would be proud of their pedigree, and watchful to
preserve its oldest evidences. The value of the chance
thus appears to depend on the product DWLIH,
being small or great as the product is great or small.
It is incorrect to talk of a product of anything - but
numbers. But as we can speak of different degrees of
•dignity, wisdom, love, &c., we may conceive Iff D2 Dg,
Wx W2 W3, . . degrees rising in order, as registered
with more or less exactness, and we could estimate
roughly the value of the product by that of the
appended numbers. So long as these numbers are not
given, so long as some may be imagined great and some
small, we can affirm nothing about the variation of
value of the chance C which depends on the product.
But there are two supposable cases in which we can
pronounce upon the value of C with something like
mathematical precision. If we suppose D, W, L, I, H,
to be each next to nothing, the value of the probability
C will rise to something near certainty. We may say,
that that which has no claim whatever to be preserved
or remembered will of course disappear from the record
of history in process of time. The other case is wflien
D, W, L, I, H, are given as each the greatest possible.
Their product will then be greater than anything
■conceivable, and if one or more of the factors be in
finite, the chance C, which diminishes as the product
increases, will be a vanishing quantity. In that case,
the chance of all original record disappearing is reduced
�22 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
to nothing ; the probability that genuine historic tracesof the teacher’s words and works will be preserved in
his own tongue rises to certainty; and it becomesutterly absurd to believe or to imagine that the record
about him prepared for posterity under his own guid
ance, with wisdom infinite, could possibly be lost in
any convulsions of human affairs, and this in spite of
the pleasure and the pride with which his disciples and
successors in days of civilization would endeavour tomultiply and preserve it : nay, it is ridiculous to
suppose that other records and commentaries on his
doings in the original language would not be handed
down along with it, among the learned, in defiance of
all the hostile agencies of ignorance and of the knaveries
that thrive on it.
11 Now, this latter case is precisely that of your ortho
dox story. You tell me of a teacher who appeared in
Palestine above 1800 years ago, of infinite dignity,
infinite wisdom, and infinite love, none less than theone Eternal God in human form ; that this confessed
Jehovah of my fathers spoke and taught in Hebrew, for
more than thirty years among a lettered people who
could understand no other language, truth indispensable
for the salvation of all mankind ; that he miraculously
inspired Matthew, his disciple, to compose in Hebrew
a history of himself and his teachings; that this
document was committed to the keeping of the Church,
whom his Holy Spirit has never suffered to forget his
words, but has constantly aided in diffusing them; and
■when I asked you, as learned men in possession of all
that your wise and modest Mannings have handed,
down to you, for something that really fell from that
divine mouth, you repeated just three words ! Where
is that Hebrew gospel of Matthew, which Dr Manningsays was committed to his guardianship ? You cannot
find in all your fathers and historians the name of a
man who ever saw a man who pretended to have seen
that document. If your story is true, then this unre-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 23
corded miracle of the utter loss, beyond three short
sentences, of every echo of those utterances of the
Hebrew-speaking God, appears to me greater far than
any of the miracles affirmed in your Greek gospels.”
“ I think,” said P., “that I may thank you, for all
here present, for the pains you have taken to set before
us your argument ; and I am sure it has been highly
interesting to all. Put I am afraid that none of us feels
it to be as convincing as it is elaborate. It carries with
it all through too many unproved assumptions.” “ To
save time,” said Dr Marcus, “ may I beg you to point
them out one at once, and first, that which strikes you
as the most detrimental to my position.”
“ First of all,” answered P., “ you assume, what I am
pretty certain none of us will grant without demon
stration, that the generation whom Jesus and his
disciples after him addressed in Palestine understood
no language besides the vernacular Hebrew of the day.
Does any one here, let me ask, believe that to be a
true statement of the matter ? ”
All evidently were ready to deny the assumption ;
and one of them observed that it was something like
assuming that the people of Wales, a country of like
extent with Palestine, can understand no language but*
Welsh. Another remarked, that if a divine teacher
were to appear in Wales, he would provide that all
documents necessary for the instruction of the world in
general, should be written not in Welsh, but in English;
and that a writing in Welsh would hardly be worth
preserving, and might easily perish, without harm to
history. Another called to mind that Dean Alford, a
very accurate scholar, is inclined to the opinion, in his
notes on the Acts, that the speech of Stephen was
delivered in Greek, from the quotations of the LXX.
which occur in it; where there is a considerable differ
ence between that version and the Hebrew. The Dean
considers it improbable that Luke, translating into
�24 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
Greek a Hebrew speech, containing of course quotations
from the Hebrew Scriptures, would alter those passages
to make them agree with the LXX. And the Dean
affirms it for certain that Greek “was almost universally
understood at Jerusalem.”
“That, matter,” said the Jew, “is easily settled.
Have you a Josephus?”. Josephus was laid on'the
table. “ You are aware,” said Dr Marcus, “ that
Josephus lived in the generation following that of
Jesus, being born some six or seven years after the
crucifixion. If Greek was well understood in Jerusalem
in the time of the former, it would be still more
familiar when the latter flourished. Forty years would
make a considerable increase in the use of the language
in Judea. And as Josephus was of noble birth, and
numbered among the priests, as he informs us, well
educated at Jerusalem, and remarkable from his youth
for his aptitude and love-for learning, we should expect
to find him as much at home in Greek as in Hebrew.”
“ In the last chapter of his Antiquities, which he says
he wrote in the 56th year of his life, he gives this
account of himself, adorned with terms of sufficient
self-commendation :—‘ I have taken pains to acquire a
knowledge of Greek: I have become skilled in it
grammatically, but the habitual use of my native
tongue has prevented my accurate utterance of that
language? 1
tuv
8s ypapb/judraiv s(r7rov8a.oa
tt[v ypaijjijM'ri-A/rpj s/M^sipiav avaXaftuv, rfy
ds ‘Trspi Ttju ‘itpotpopav a%piZsia,v ‘jrarpioc, sxwXvffs
It is plain from this, that Josephus spoke Greek
imperfectly with the tongue of a foreigner. He does
not affirm that he tried to speak it, even at Rome. It
may be doubted that he was able to converse in it
fluently ; for if a man so vain as he evidently was of his
learning had been able to use it habitually with ever
so poor a pronunciation, he would hardly have placed
it on record that his habitual Hebrew prevented his
utterance of Greek. He had learned Greek, as he tells
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 15
ns, late in life, after the destruction of Jerusalem, when
he was near 40 years old. In his first book against
Apion, § 9, he says, ‘Afterwards, (i.e., after the siege)
I got leisure at Rome, and when all my materials were
prepared for that work, I made use of some persons to
assist me in learning the Greek tongue, and by these
means I composed the history of these transactions.’
Then after telling us that he had presented these books,
‘Wars of the Jews,’ to Vespasian and Titus, and to
other Romans, he adds, ‘ I sold them also to many of
our own men who understood Greek,* among whom
were Julius Africanus, Herod, [King of Chaicis] a
person of great gravity, and King Agrippa himself, a
person that deserved the greatest admiration.’
“ It was evidently an unusual tiling for Jews of the
highest rank to read Greek. Ko man would place it
on record that the Marquis of Anglesea or the Duke of
Argyll are English scholars. He informs us in the
preface to his Greek ‘ Wars of the Jews,’ that he had
translated those books into Greek which he had formerly
composed in the language of his own country. That
is, after the year 71, Josephus published in Hebrew
his account of the Jewish wars up to the destruction of
Jerusalem, for the information of his countrymen and
other orientals. This is far from a proof that even the
educated natives of Syria were able to read Greek.”
“ In the section against Apion already quoted Josephus
says, that he was set at liberty out of prison and sent to
accompany Titus to the siege of Jerusalem, and that
he was the only man who could understand the
deserters. Again and again he informs us that he was
employed as interpreter; he was sent several 'times to
parley with the besieged in their native tongue; and in
his sixth Book of the Wars, he gives us im Greek a
long address which, he says, he delivered to them by
-command of Caesar in the Hebrew language. How
* rrjs 'EXXriviKTjs aortas nerecrx'rjKiaLv.
�26 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
Josephus managed to interpret does not appear. Hemay have rendered the various dialects of the deserters,
into polite Hebrew, which was translated by some
Hellenist Jew to Titus in Greek. However that may
be, we have evidence overwhelming that Greek was
not understood at Jerusalem even by the officers to
whom the herald of Titus would mainly address him
self. And it is simply ridiculous to imagine, that the
Jews of the preceding generation to whom Jesus and
his disciples preached, were able to understand a word
erf that language, much more that they were so familiarwith it, that the preservation of a gospel in Hebrew
was of small importance to that nation and the world?’
“ My argument,” continued Dr Marcus,11 is enfeebled
by the distance at which we stand from the facts. It
is not necessary to play at long bowls over eighteen cen
turies ; such a lapse of time may appear to some minds
to condone anything. Every word I have uttered could
have been urged with greater force sixteen hundred
years ago. I could have said all this and more, to thevery first historian of your church; to Eusebius, on
whose most questionable honesty and veracity depends,
as on one single thread, the truth of all your story. If’
you wish to give me a fair chance of testing that truth,
let one of you be Eusebius, and let me be a Hebrew who.
has read his history. Let me be permitted in this
house, the palace of that great bishop in Palestine, to
pay my respects to’ the historian, to request information,
to speak my sentiments candidly, in this first quarter
of the fourth century, when Christianity is newly esta
blished by Constantine as the religion of the Eomaji
Empire, and his friend Eusebius is enjoying his promo- .
tion to the see of Cesarea.”
The idea was novel, and tickled all our fancies.
11 Come along, G.,” said P., “you know Eusebius well,
and I will help you. You shall be Eusebius. Between,
us we shall be able to defeat this Jew.” A folio Euse
bius being placed and opened before them, the two-
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 27
scholars, P. and G. sat together at the table. Therewas a little twinkle in G’s. eye, who evidently enjoyed
the situation. "Whether he had much confidence of
victory, I could not determine ; but from what I had
heard of him as an acute controversialist, I was sure he
would make a manful fight of it, and I prepared myself
for an intellectual treat.
The Jew began, with a grave reverence—“ I think
myself fortunate, most learned Eusebius, in having your
permission to offer you my congratulations on the dig
nity to which your merits, and the great discernment
of your friend Caesar Constantine have raised you, and
in being allowed to ask for a little information for my
instruction on a subject which no living man under
stands so well as you. My inquiries will be confined
to one point, which is of much importance to all Jews
who, like me, desire to acquire more knowledge of the
Christian revelation. I would beg to ask, are there in
the library of Cesarea, which you and your learned
friend Pamphilus have so much enriched, any early
Hebrew documents about the great Nazarene and his
apostles 1 It has occurred to me, that here in this
country, where those great events happened, some two
centuries and a half ago, on ground within a day s
journey from where I stand, that here, if anywhere,,
from the lips of a bishop born in Palestine, I should
obtain the information that I desire.” .
11 I regret to say,” answered Eusebius, “that not a
scrap of genuine Christian writing in Hebrew can be
found in all the Churches of Palestine and Syria. There
are some contemptible heretics, the lowest of mankind,
who possess something in Hebrew ; a heap of corrup
tion and forgery now, whatever it may have once been.
It is a remarkable fact, that in the country where the
Lord Jesus taught, and where his apostles preached
and founded churches for forty years, not a relic of
authentic Christian documents in the vernacular of
their time can be found. If it existed, I should cer-
�2 8 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
tainly have laid my hands upon it.” “And yet,” said
the Jew, “ among those thousands of disciples whom
they made, comprising a great multitude of the priests,
who, as your Greek history affirms, were obedient to
the faith, there must have been numbers, who, for the
sake of their own and of future generations, would be
able and forward to write much in their own ton°-ue
about the wonderful words and works that had to°be
for ever remembered : it seems but a brief space of
time in which everything they wrote has perished.”
“ So it may appear,” was the reply : “ but do you infer
from that that the truth and certainty of the Catholic
faith have suffered any diminution 1 You will give me
no offence by speaking out boldly what you think.”
“ Then, learned Eusebius, I shall be pardoned if I con
fess that to many of us Jews, who have so jealously
guarded through all the agonies which we have en
dured every tittle of that Hebrew revelation which
God gave to us, the fact that you Christians have no
Hebrew vouchers of any kind to show, does appear to
throw a little discredit on your story.” “What is the
use of running your head against a hard fact ? ” replied
Eusebius. “ Here are the Christian churches of Pales
tine, all Greek-speaking communities, except a few of
the. very meanest of the people, all worshipping and
praising God in the Greek tongue, and all descended
by succession never interrupted, as all the world knows
and confesses, from the Hebrew apostles; having the
faith and the ritual, the Hymns and the Scriptures which
have been from the days of the apostles ; but we have
them in Greek : because Greek, after the fearful and
unparalleled convulsions through which this unhappy
land has passed, has driven out the Hebrew. And you
are standing there prepared to prove, I suppose, that
such a transformation of Hebrew churches into Greek
churches is impossible, without the co-existence of He
brew documents, whose preservation through the storms
of two centuries has been impracticable, and would
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 29
have been useless, if practicable. You remind me of
the gentleman, who, finding his friend in the stocks,
began, after hearing his story, to demonstrate to him
by law, that it was impossible for any man to be put
into the stocks, under the like circumstances j to
which the prisoner replied, That is all very learned
but here I am verily in the stocks. The reasoner was
merely running his head, like you, against a fact. I
own, we have lost, to all appearance, every Hebrew
document of our origins. But here we are the one
Catholic and Apostolic church for all that, with all our
documents complete.” “ Such illustrations, replied the
Jew, “are ingenious, and may be useful in the teaching
of children. Suppose that your steward should come
into your library with his account-book in one hand,
and his cash-box in the other ; that the book showed
that in his hands was a balance due to you of 100
minas, while his cash-box contained but 50. You begin
to object to the arrangement: he replies, Figures are one
thing, facts are another: the cash-box speaks for it
self, and that is the fact : count for yourself, and do
not run your head against a fact. That would hardly
diminish your curiosity about what was become of the
other fifty. Pardon me, if I seem too bold. I will not
discuss against you the Question of Hebrew documents
and Liturgies. May I ask for information on two points
only. What is known about Hebrew writing by the
hand of Jesus of Nazareth ? And what is known about
such writing by any of his apostles 1 ”
Eusebius—I am not aware that any writing was
ever spoken of from the hand of the Lord Jesus, except
that short epistle to King Abgarus at Edessa, which
you read at the beginning of my ecclesiastical history.
And to tell you the truth, I half suspect now that I
was taken in in the matter of that letter.
Jew.—That disarms criticism on the truth of the
story. But I must be permitted to say, as one of those
to whom you have given the trouble of reading such
�30 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
nonsense, that if your history is handed down to future
times, as the first attempt to distinguish, as you pretend
to do, between what is genuine and what is spurious in
Christian documents, men will form their judgments on
your trustworthiness, by your long and most positive
detail of what is to be read to this day, as you say, in
the public records of Edessa. These are your words :
‘ There is nothing like listening to the very letters,
which we have taken from the archives,* and have
translated in this manner in the exact words from the
Syrian tongue.’ Of course you do not precisely affirm
what the ordinary reader must infer, that you had ever
seen that Syrian document, or even a copy of it, and
translated it yourself. You were taken in ; and I dare
say you paid handsomely for such a treasure to be the
frontispiece of your history, which occupies, I thinly
rather more space than what you give to your account
of the four gospels. My chief anxiety is to learn what
you know of Hebrew writings by the first disciples of
Jesus.
Eusebius.—All the information that I can give you
on that point is what you read in my history about the
Hebrew gospel of Matthew. Thus : “ So then, of all
the disciples of the Lord, Matthew and John have left
us two memoirs only. And the story goes, that they
took up their pens at the spur of compulsion. Matthew,
when about to depart for some other quarter, gave to
the Hebrews in writing, in their native tongue, the
gospel according to him which he had before preached
to them, and thus made a compensation by a written
document for the loss of his own presence, to those
from whom he was fetched away.” ‘ to /.s/vov rr avrou
vapoveia tovtoiq dp’ay FtfrskXero oia
ypatpr^ u.kzkMipov.’ Then follows the statement of the pressing
reason which induced John to write, namely, to supply
an account of the acts of Jesus before John was cast
into prison.
* eTTiaToXuv airo tu>v dpxeluv 'qiMv avaXT]<f>Geio'2ii>.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 31
Jew.—I must press for some explanation of tlie
■complete loss of the precious Hebrew gospel, in the
course of two centuries. It must have disappeared
above a lifetime ago, or else your learned predecessors
would have secured a copy of it.
Eusebius.—Its loss is of very small consequence,
•since we have the Gospel of Matthew in the exact and
final form in which he meant it to be diffused over the
•civilized world, in the only form in which that diffusion
is best secured, in Greek. How the Hebrew copy
came to be lost, I know not, nor am I bound to tell.
But if you Jews can produce it, or any other Hebrew
writing, we are ready to face the comparison of it with
the Greek which we have preserved. Or, if you have
any evidence of remissness or dishonesty on our part,
you will not offend me by bringing it forward. It is
wonderfully difficult to preserve manuscripts in a perish
ing language. Suppose that I could have the good
fortune to discover a copy of the Hebrew Matthew, I
should carefully deposit it in our library of Cesarea.
But that would not guarantee its existence one hundred
years hence. Some stupid or fanatical official in days
to come might cast it away as so much Ebionitish or
Jewish rubbish; or, in order to make room for some
thing else, he might sell the parchment, if it was good,
to those who make their living by erasing ancient
writing and covering the pages with something more
saleable.
Jew.—Ah 1 You know well, learned Eusebius, that
you would do more than place a copy in your library.
If the discovered Hebrew were a verification of your
Greek Matthew, it would become renowned over the
Christian world as a priceless treasure, infinitely more
valuable than gold or precious stones. Copies of it
would soon be carefully enshrined at all the great
centres of your faith, and no library of any see would
be thought complete without it. It would be impos
sible for that Hebrew text ever to be lost, while
�32 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
Christian creeds and dignities endure. Weakest of all
is your remark, that its preservation would have been
useless even if practicable. Was it of no use, when it
was the only written means of teaching your faith to
the countless thousands who then spoke the various
Syriac and Chaldean dialects, and knew not a word of
Greek, while that Hebrew of Palestine would have been
intelligible? Was it of no use to the nation of the
Jews, amoDg whom, you say, their God was incarnate ?
Would it be of no use now to the myriads of orientals
who could understand it, and cannot understand Greek ?
Would it be of no use to silence me and other men of
learning among my brethren, who consider its loss so
fatal to your evidences ? Affect not to think it would
have been useless. As you have given me leave to
speak, I will candidly tell you what impression is made
on my mind by your account of the Hebrew gospel of
Matthew. When you began to write that history, you
knew as well as now the importance of the question,
What is become of that Hebrew gospel? You were
reluctant to suggest such an enquiry to the reader, yet
naturally desirous of hinting an answer to it, the best
in your power, ready for the time when it should be
raised. Ostensibly you are answering this enquiry,—
how came it to pass that only two of the disciples of
Jesus wrote memoirs? But I fancy I read a desire, of
which, perhaps, you were but half conscious, to meet
and to push aside the query, Why has that Hebrew
gospel been lost ? Out of what you say a good pleader
could extract some explanation like this : the Hebrew
gospel was hardly intended for the whole church, nor
was it of essential importance that it should be pre
served : it arose on a temporary emergency: it answered
a temporary purpose among a certain section of Christians
whom Matthew taught: it was to supply his place for
a season while absent on a sudden journey : Matthew’s
full and final gospel is what we possess. This is not
exactly said; but it is cleverly left to be inferred. It
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 33
is in quite another tone that your divines speak of the
majesty of the Greek first gospel, the leading book of
the church’s treasure for all ages and all nations. But
let that pass. It is no part of my business to-day to
ask how the Greek Matthew came into existence. None
of you pretends to have a ray of light as to when or
where, or by what hand, the supposed translation out
of the Hebrew was made.
What a marvellous contrast there is between the
blaze of historic light which rests as you acknowledge
on the details of time and place concerning the writings
of those two Jews, Philo and Josephus, one contempo
rary with Jesus, the other immediately following him,
and the mysterious unfathomable darkness which hides
from criticism and research all certainty about the birth
place, the time, nay, even the real authorship of these
more modern books of yours, your Gospels, and your
Acts of the Apostles !
Eusebius.—For any thing that you have shewn, or are
able to shew to the contrary, our Greek Matthew may
be no translation at all, but the work just as we have
it of Matthew’s own hand. The greater number of
our learned men affirm this to be so, and I defy you to
disprove the ’assigned authorship of our other books.
Jew.'—-If Matthew wrote Greek, or John either, he
wrote it by miracle. Recourse must be had to the gift
of tongues to defend your account of your oldest Greek
document, the gift of tongues being proved only by a
later Greek document. That is hardly logical enough
to convert a Jew, either now or a thousand years hence.
I will intrude no further upon you, except to ask a
question about your testimony concerning the Ebionites,
those poor despised heretics, half Jew, half Christian.
In your third book, chap, xxv., in your enumeration of
spurious Christian books, after observing about the
Revelation of St John, 1 This some set aside, while
others enumerate it among our accepted sacred books,’
you proceed thus : ‘ And there are some who count
�34 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
among these also the Gospel of the Hebrews, in which
they among the Hebrews who have' received Christ
take special delight.’ Do you mean by ‘ among these,’
among the accepted, or among the spurious books ?
Eusebius.—There is indeed a little ambiguity tested
by strict grammar, but, of course, I mean to put that
( Gospel of the Hebrews ’ among the spurious books.
This is evident from the chapter xxvii., in which I
record that “ the Ebionites use only the Gospel of the
Hebrews, making small account of the other gospels,
and rejecting the Epistles of Paul, whom they designate
an apostate from the law.”
Jew.—Allow me to state one final consideration,
which has great weight in my mind. You say that
Peter, as well as Paul, preached at Rome, and that
Peter was the first Bishop at Rome. Would Peter
forget, when he departed for Rome, that the only
record of those exact divine words which gave him the
pre-eminence among the apostles was in the Hebrew
Gospel of Matthew 1 Would he have no Hebrew train
of enthusiastic followers and admirers when he came
to found the glorious pedigree of that imperial see?
And would they all forget it too ? Eorsooth they were
content to carry with them a mere translation into
Latin or Greek of words like these—‘ Blessed art thou,
Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed
it unto thee, but my Father, which is in heaven.’
‘ And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee
the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever
thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven.’—Matt. xvi. 17. Or words like these—
‘ And if he shall neglect to hear the Church, let him be
to thee as a heathen man and a publican.’—Matt, xviii.
17. If that gospel had existed in Hebrew exactly as you
have it in Greek, that famous play on the name Cephas
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 35
would have decorated in the original tongue thousands
of sermons and episcopal allocutions in both the Greek
and Latin Churches, the genuine pun, not the poor
imitation of it that figures in the gospels in those two
languages. The Hebrew gospel would, so surely as the
crescent moon fills her orb, have been carried to Home,
where it never could have been lost, as well as the
Hebrew of much that is not in Matthew, as the hymns
of Mary and of Simeon, if their use in Christian worship
is so old as it is pretended to be. Inspired hymns do
not easily perish from old liturgies. And above all, the
Hebrew words for hoc est corpus meum which have
become such a terrific mystery, these at least would
have been as familiar as the cry upon the cross, if what
you all say be true about their origin and import in the
first apostolic churches. Your story is not all true.”
Hereupon followed much debate on the evidences.
The main argument, and what we most of us appeared
to rely upon as a confutation of all scepticism, was the
.conversion and testimony of Paul, in comparison of
which the objection from the disappearance of Hebrew
originals appeared to us a trifle. The high churchmen
diverted themselves greatly with the notion of the Jew
that the church’s tradition about the mysterious import
of the eucharistic formula was enfeebled by the absence
of the Hebrew for it in Christian antiquity ; and they
made much of Paul’s testimony in Cor. xi. to that
universal bond of connexion by those awful words
with the very lips of the Saviour; which testimony they
held to be all the more weighty from the confessed
differences that existed between Paul’s school and that
of the apostles at Jerusalem. The Jew said boldly,
that while he held the first epistle to the Corinthians
to be by the hand of Paul, he did not believe that that
apostle ever wrote the passage between the 22d and
33d verses of the 11th chapter. All the proof of the
negative which he had to offer was, first, the antiritualistic teaching of Paul, and secondly, what he
�36 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View:
called the manifest breach of continuity in the locus
and the train of thought, which continuity is perfect if
the ten verses be removed. Before and after, said he,
we have a scene in which people bring their own victuals,
and eat in social estrangement, not waiting for each
other, while some are hungry, and others commit
excess. In the interpolation, as he called it, we
have almost the full-blown eucharistic magic of later
times lugged in by force, with a sermon about it un
worthy of Paul. But we all remarked how much
easier it was to say that than to prove it j and this bit
of criticism so turned the laugh against the Jew as
to deaden partly the effect of his previous argument.
“ The anachronism,” said he, 11 is glaring. It is im
possible that devout men, who had from the first been
tutored by the apostle in the style of that sermon,
would have brought themselves under his lash for such
irregularities. And the anti-climax in the two senses
of the word nfiiJM (vv. 29-34) which the English
translators have faithfully. rendered 1 damnation ’ and
‘ condemnation,’ betrays the bungler.”
Here Mr P. said, “Time presses: I must adjourn
our debate. We have learned what is both new and
important; and if we be not all knaves and cowards,
we shall face this question again. Can we doubt that
good Dean Alford, if he were living and with us to
day, would confess his error about Greek being under
stood at Jerusalem ? I withdraw my first objection to
the reasoning of Dr Marcus; and I return to the ques
tion which I proposed to you at the beginning—Shall
I baptize this Jew?” He then left the library, and
returned with a china basin in one hand and a caraffe
in the other. Setting them down, he said, “Of a
truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons;
but in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh
righteousness, is accepted with Him. 1 Can any man
forbid water,’ that this Jew should not be baptized,
who has ‘ received the Holy Ghost as well as we,’ and.
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
is so much nearer to us in sentiment and learning than
was the heathen Cornelius? Speak, if you object;
but give me a reason?’ No man spoke. Then, turning
to the Jew, he solemnly said, in the exact Greek of
Paul, iav 6fjJo\o'y7]<rrjs sv rw (Sto/jmti (Sou Kupiov ’IjjffW,
.x.r.k., i.e., “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth
Jesus as Master, and shalt believe in thine heart that
God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved.” The Jew answered in the same Greek of Paul,
'O/AoXoyw 'K.upiov ’iytsouv, tl.t.T.., i.e., “I confess Jesus
for Master, and I believe in my heart that God hath
raised Him from the dead.” “ Wilt thou be baptized
in this faith ? ” asked P. “I will,” was the answer.
Then, after pouring out water, P. took him lov
ingly by the hand, and bestowing on him his own
name as he sprinkled his brow, said, “ Henry, I
baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Let us pray.” We all
fervently joined him in the Lord’s Prayer, and we
added most devout Amens to the collects which he
selected. When we rose, after his benediction, from
our knees, two of our number were missing. E. and
his curate had stolen away in silent horror, unable, as
they afterwards explained it, to continue breathing
that atmosphere of infidelity. All present warmly
greeted their new Christian brother, and I was not the
only one who tried to persuade him to seek ordination
in the Church of England, and to join the growing
array of Broad and Deep Believers, with whom our
Priests and priestlings, notwithstanding their noisy
silence and woman-winning charms, have imminent
before them that dangerous reckoning. Is there a
■single dignitary, or aspirant to dignity among them,
said I to myself, who has the manhood to face this
Jew ? Silence is all their' panoply: and silence, in the
presence of History, becomes the quibblers well.
Dr Marcus was requested to state briefly what was
his conception of the facts of the origin of Christianity.
�38 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
He said, “ It is a blunder to talk of one Christianity
rising out of one Judaism. There were two Judaisms :
one the priestly and profligate Judaism of Palestine,
with its hatreds, its ignorant bigotry, its ridiculousletter worship, and its lunatic messianic delusions; the
other, that of the cultured Jews outside Palestine,
whose language was Greek, and whose principal centre
was Alexandria. These two parties had little love for
each other. Josephus informs us how the knowledge
of any tongue besides that of the old Law and the
Prophets was discouraged and despised at Jerusalem.
That was the accomplishment of slaves ! It was a
much admired saying of a Eabbi of Judea, t Cursed is
the man who breeds pigs ; cursed is he who has his
children taught Greek.’ The Jewish thinkers, the men
of science and philosophy, such as it then was, were all
men of Greek training, to many of whom Hebrew was
a foreign tongue. The Septuagint had utterly displaced
among them the original Scriptures. These men
detested the arrogance and airs of . superior sanctity put
on by the butchering priests and drivelling Pharisees
of Jerusalem, and they deplored the ignorance and
immorality of the multitudes who had no idea of
religion beyond the bloody superstitions of the temple.
And there were two first Gospels. Christianity was
the natural and double resultant along two lines of
least resistance of moral and social forces long in conflict.
It was a necessity for Jewish thought and progress,
that the mad visions of a conquering Messiah should
cease, that the waU of hatred which divided Jews from
•. the nations should be thrown down, that the baleful
power of the priesthood should be broken, that the
increasing profligacy of the worshippers who fattened
them should be abated.
“ The character of Jesus, his power over men’s hearts,
his daring attacks on priestcraft and hypocrisy, and
his shocking sufferings from sacerdotal vengeance, gave
occasion to the grand solving movement, and kindled the
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 39
flame of faith in a suffering and risen Christ, soon to
return. On one hand were the believers of Palestine,
for the most part still unmitigated Jews, among whom
thousands of hearts were touched with remorse that
they and their people had crucified the Lord of Glory,
Prince of Life, and the Great Teacher of Love : to this
party belonged the majority of the immediate disciples
of Jesus. On the other hand was the grand army
of progress, the Hellenistic Jews and the Gentile Greeks,
with whom, to the horror of the churches in Judaea,
they consorted. Paul led the van, he who was both a
Hebrew of the Hebrews, and a cultured Grecian. He
preached the suffering Christ who had been revealed
among the people, the risen Christ, by faith in whom
the distinction of Jew and Gentile was for ever at an
end. To Paul the human personality of the wondrous
carpenter’s son was unknown and of small consequence :
nowhere does he make allusion to him, «.e., to “Christ
after the flesh.” He threw all his noble energy and heart
into the work of preaching him whom the people had so
fortunately found, and set him forth as the object of
passionate loyalty and love to Jew and Gentile alike,
and as the divinely-ruling head of the great body in
which all were to be one. And when he spoke ‘ wisdom
among them that were perfect,’ he knew how to clothe
the majesty of that risen Christ with the magnificent
robes which had long been embroidered by the Alex
andrian philosophy of the Logos, a philosophy which
the sacerdotal horde which followed him, with their
sure instinct of provision for the widest and best
paying popular demand, easily transformed into Catholic
Polytheism, protected by murderous anathemas and,
too soon, laws. The helpers of Paul were the devout
men of science of the day: however widely they dif
fered in their daring speculations about the Infinite,
they were all the foes of the old priestcraft, ignorance
and hatred, and bold assertors of freedom in debate.
The adherents of the Jerusalem preachers of Christ,
�40 Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View.
and those of the Hellenist party, repelled each other
as strongly as the older divisions of Judaism. The lat
ter grew and grew, till a sufficient number of different
orders of society had joined the movement to make it
worth the while of shrewd priests and practical men to
take command of it: and this issued in the construc
tion of those sacerdotal jumbles of Judaism and Pagan
ism, decided improvements on the worst forms of both,
which the nations have been pleased to call Orthodoxy.
Already, in the days of Eusebius, the cursing priests
had completely driven out the men of science, and the
chains which for a brief season had been broken were
reimposed on human ^thought and conscience. The
narrower and more impracticable Judseo-Christian
churches of Palestine had dwindled by degrees, after the
desolation of Judsea, down to what the dominant
priestly conquerors of the free Hellenist movement
called the Ebionite heresy. These probably had among
them either the Hebrew composition of Matthew, or
something founded upon it. The churches of Palestine
in the days of Eusebius were no more the descendants
of the first Hebrew Christian communities, than the
landowners of Ireland are the descendants of the old
Celts and Milesians. The Greek church there was an
invasion of foreigners, whose heresy-hunters must
have made wholesale destruction of the memorials and
documents of the first Hebrew-speaking churches of the
land.” In such style did the Jew express himself.
He ended by recommending us to read a tract which
lay in rough proof on P.’s table, “Our First Century,”
published- by Thomas Scott. “It is the work of a
vigorous and learned searcher after truth,” said he ; “I
never saw a pamphlet in any language which contains
in the same compass so much valuable information
about the sublimest problem of history. Yet I do not
agree with all its propositions.”
I have thought it may be a contribution to the great
�Orthodoxy from the Hebrew Point of View. 41
question which is every day more forcing itself into open
discussion, that of the value of our foul sectarian divi
sions and cursing creeds, to place these views and argu
ments of a devout Jew, of scientific habits of thought,
before the reader who shares my devotion and loyalty
to him who said before his torturers : “ To this end was
I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I
should bear witness unto the truth ; ” the old truth, of
Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, of Moses and the Prophets.
“ Let them hear them.” So long as we put our
trust in conjuring and pardoning Priests of no sex, orin semi-sacerdotal Preachers of no science, so long will
there be robbery of Glory to God in the highest,’ and
hindrance to ‘ Peace on earth, and good will towards,
men.’
Croft Rectory, Aw/7. 7, 1873.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH..
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. [Part I]
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Kirkman, Thomas Penyngton
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 41 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh.
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Thomas Scott
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[1873]
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G5507
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Judaism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Orthodoxy from the Hebrew point of view. [Part I]), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Christianity and Other Religions
Conway Tracts
Judaism
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When Hotspur treads the stage with passionate grace, the spectator
hardly dreams of the fact that the princely original lived, paid taxes,
and was an active man of his parish, in Aldersgate Street. There,
however, stood the first Northumberland House. By the ill-fortune
of Percy it fell to the conquering side in the serious conflict in which
Hotspur was engaged; and Henry the Fourth made a present of it
to his queen, Jane. Thence it got the name of the Queen’s Wardrobe.
Subsequently it was converted into a printing office; and, in the
course of time, the first Northumberland House disappeared altogether.
In Fenchurch Street, not now a place wherein to look for nobles,
the great Earls of Northumberland were grandly housed in the
time of Henry the Sixth; but vulgar citizenship elbowed the earls
too closely, and they ultimately withdrew from the City. The deserted
mansion and grounds were taken possession of by the roysterers.
Dice were for ever rattling in the stately saloons. Winners shouted
for joy, and blasphemy was considered a virtue by the losers. As
for the once exquisite gardens, they were converted into bowlinggreens, titanic billiards, at which sport the gayer City sparks breathed
themselves for hours in the summer time. There was no place of
entertainment so fashionably frequented as this second Northumber
land House; but dice and bowls were at length to be enjoyed in
more vulgar places, and “ the old seat of the Percys was deserted by
fashion.” On the site of mansion and gardens, houses and cottages
were erected, and the place knew its old glory no more. So ended
the second Northumberland House.
While the above mansions or palaces were the pride of all
Londoners and the envy of many, there stood on the strand of the
Thames, at the bend of the river, near Charing Cross, a hospital and
chapel, whose founder, William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, had
dedicated it to St. Mary, and made it an appanage to the Priory of
Boncesvalle, in Navarre. Hence the hospital on our river strand
was known by the name of “ St. Mary Rouncivall.” The estate went
the way of such property at the dissolution of the monasteries; and
the first lay proprietor of the" forfeited property was a Sir Thomas
Cawarden. It was soon after acquired by Henry Howard, Earl of
Northampton, son of the first Earl of Surrey. Howard, early in
the reign of James the First, erected on the site of St. Mary’s
Hospital a brick mansion which, under various names, has developed
�190
NOKTIIUMBEELAND HOUSE AND THE PEECYS.
into that third and present Northumberland House which is about to
fall under pressure of circumstances, the great need of London* and
the argument of half a million of money.
Thus the last nobleman who has clung to the Strand, which, on
its south side, was once a line of palaces, is about to leave it for ever.
The bishops were the first to reside on that river-bank outside the
City walls. Nine episcopal palaces were once mirrored in the then
clear waters of the Thames. The lay nobles followed, when they
felt themselves as safe in that fresh and healthy air as the prelates.
The chapel of the Savoy is still a royal chapel, and the memories of
time-honoured Lancaster and of John, the honest King 'of France,
still dignify the place. But the last nobleman who resided so far
from the now recognised quarters of fashion is about to leave what has
been the seat of the Howards and Percys for nearly three centuries,
and the Strand will be able no longer to boast of a duke. It will
still, however, possess an English earl; but he is only a modest
lodger in Norfolk Street.
When the Duke of Northumberland goes from the Strand, there
goes with him a shield with very nearly nine hundred quarterings;
and among them are the arms of Henry the Seventh, of the sovereign
houses of France, Castile, Leon, and Scotland, and of the ducal
houses of Normandy and Brittany I Nunquam minus solus quam
cum solus, might be a fitting motto for a nobleman who, when he
stands before a glass, may see therein, not only the Duke, but also the
Earl of Northumberland, Earl Percy, Earl of Beverley, Baron Lovaine
of Alnwick, Sir Algernon Percy, Bart., two doctors (LL.D, and D.C.L.)
a colonel, several presidents, and the patron of two-and-twenty livings.
As a man who deals with the merits of a book is little or nothing
concerned with the binding thereof, with the water-marks, or with
the printing, but is altogether concerned with the life that is within,
thatjs, with the author, his thoughts, and his expression of them, so,
in treating of Northumberland House, we care much less for notices
of the building than of its inhabitants—less for the outward aspect
than for what has been said or done beneath its roof. If we look
with interest at a mere wall which screens from sight the stage
of some glorious or some terrible act, it is not for the sake of the
wall or its builders: our interest is in the drama and its actors.
Who cares, in speaking of Shakespeare and Hamlet, to know the
name of the stage carpenter at the Globe or the Blackfriars ? Suffice
it to say, that Lord Howard, who was an amateur architect of some
merit, is supposed to have had a hand in designing the old house in
the Strand, and that Gerard Christmas and Bernard Jansen are
said to have been his “ builders.” Between that brick house and the
present there is as much sameness as in the legendary knife which,
after having had a new handle, subsequently received in addition a
�NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE AND THE PERCYS.^lOT
new blade. The old house occupied three sides of a square. The
fourth side, towards the river, was completed in the middle of the
Seventeenth century. The portal retains something of the old work,
but so little as to he scarcely recognisable, except to professional eyes.
From the date of its erection till 1614 it bore the name of
Northampton House. In that year it passed by will from Henry
Howard, Lord Northampton, to his nephew, Thomas Howard, Earl of
Suffolk, from whom it was called Suffolk House. In 1642, Elizabeth,
daughter of Theophilus, second Earl of Suffolk, married Algernon
Percy, tenth Earl of Northumberland, and the new master gave his
name to the old mansion. The above-named Lord Northampton was
the man who has been described as foolish when young, infamous
when old, an encourager, at threescore years and ten, of his niece,
the infamous Countess of Essex; and who, had he lived a few months
longer, would probably have been hanged for his share, with that niece
and others, in the mysterious murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Thus,
the founder of the house was noble only in name; his successor and
nephew has not left a much more brilliant reputation. He was con
nected, with his wife, in frauds upon the King, and was fined heavily.
The heiress of Northumberland, who married his son, came of a
noble but ill-fated race, especially after the thirteenth Baron Percy
was created Earl of Northumberland in 1377. Indeed, the latter title
had been borne by eleven persons before it was given to a Percy, and
by far the greater proportion of the whole of them came to grief. Of
one of them it is stated that he (Alberic) was appointed Earl in
1080, but that, proving unfit for the dignity, he was displaced, and a
Norman bishop named in his stead! The idea of turning out from
high estate those who were unworthy or incapable is one that might
suggest many reflections, if it were not scandalum magnatum to
make them.
In the chapel at Alnwick Castle there is displayed a genealogical
tree. At the root of the Percy branches is “ Charlemagne ”; and
there is a sermon in the whole, much more likely to scourge pride
than to stimulate it, if the thing be rightly considered. However this
may be, the Percys find their root in Karloman, the Emperor, through
Joscelin of Louvain, in this way: Agnes de Percy was, in the
twelfth century, the sole heiress of her house. Immensely rich, she
had many suitors. Among these was Joscelin, brother of Godfrey,
sovereign Duke of Brabant, and of Adelicia, Queen Consort of Henry
the First of England. Joscelin held that estate at Petworth which
has not since gone out of the hands of his descendants. This princely
suitor of the heiress Agnes was only accepted by her as husband on
condition of his assuming the Percy name. Joscelin consented; but
he added the arms of Brabant and Louvain to the Percy shield, in
order that, if succession to those titles and possessions should ever be
�192
NORTHUMBERLAND HOTSE AND THE PERCYS.
stopped for want of an heir, his claim might be kept in remembrance.
Now, this Joscelin was lineally descended from “ Charlemagne,^ and,
therefore, that greater name lies at the root of the Percy pedigree,
which glitters in gold on the walls of the ducal chapel in the castle
at Alnwick.
Very rarely indeed did the Percys, who were the earlier Earls of
Northumberland, die in their beds. The first of them, Henry, was
slain (1407) in the fight on Bramham Moor. The second, another
Henry (whose father, Hotspur, was killed in the hot affair near
Shrewsbury), lies within St. Alban’s Abbey Church, having poured
out his lifeblood in another Battle of the Boses, fought near that
town named after the saint. The blood of the third Earl helped to
colour the roses, which are said to have grown redder from the gore
of the slain on Towton’s hard-fought field. The forfeited title was
transferred, in 1465, to Lord John Nevill Montagu, great Warwick’s
brother; but Montagu soon lay among the dead in the battle near
Barnet. The title was restored to another Henry Percy, and that
unhappy Earl was murdered, in 1489, at his house, Cocklodge, near
Thirsk. In that fifteenth century there was not a single Earl of
Northumberland who died a peaceful and natural death.
In the succeeding century the first line of Earls, consisting of six
Henry Percys, came to an end in that childless noble whom Anne
Boleyn called “ the Thriftless Lord.” He died childless in 1537. He
had, indeed, two brothers, the elder of whom might have succeeded to
the title and estates; but both brothers, Sir Thomas and Sir Tngram,
had taken up arms in the “ Pilgrimage of Grace.” Attainder and
forfeiture were the consequences; and in 1551 Northumberland was
the title of the dukedom conferred on John Dudley, Earl of Warwick,
who lost the dignity when his head was struck off at the block, two
years later.
Then the old title, Earl of Northumberland, was restored in 1557,
to Thomas, son of that attainted Thomas who had joined the
“ Pilgrimage of Grace.” Ill-luck still followed these Percys. Thomas
was beheaded—the last of his house who fell by the hands of the
executioner—in 1572. His brother and heir died in the Tower in
1585.
None of these Percys had yet come into the Strand. The brick
house there, which was to be their own through marriage with an
heiress, was built in the lifetime of the Earl, whose father, as just
mentioned, died in the Tower in 1585. The son, too, was long a
prisoner in that gloomy palace and prison. While Lord Northampton
was laying the foundations of the future London house of the Percys
in 1605, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, was being carried into
durance. There was a Percy, kinsman to the Earl, who was mixed
up in the Gunpowder Plot. Eor no other reason than relationship
�WOBTHUMBEKBEND HOUSE AND THE PEBCYS? 193
with the conspiring Percy the Earl was shut up in the Tower for
life, as his sentence ran, and he was condemned to pay a fine of thirty
thousand pounds. The Earl ultimately got off with fifteen years’ im
prisonment and a fine of twenty thousand pounds. He was popularly
known as the Wizard Earl, because he was a studious recluse,
company ing only with grave scholars (of whom there were three,
known as “ Percy’s Magi ”), and finding relaxation in writing rhymed
■satires against the Scots.
There was a stone walk in the Tower which, having been paved by
the Earl, was known during many years as “ My Lord of Northumber
land’s Walk.” At one end was an iron shield of his arms; and holes
in which he put a peg at every turn he made in his dreary exercise.
One would suppose that the Wizard Earl would have been very
grateful to the man who restored him to liberty. Lord Hayes
(Viscount Doncaster) was the man. He had married Northumber
land’s daughter, Lucy. The marriage had excited the Earl’s anger,
as a low match, and the proud captive could not u stomach ” a benefit
for which he was indebted to a son-in-law on whom he looked down.
This proud Earl died in 1632. Just ten years after, his son, Algernon
Percy, went a-wooing at Suffolk House, in the Strand. It was then
inhabited by Elizabeth, the daughter and heiress of Theophilus, Earl
of Suffolk, who had died two years previously, in 1640. Algernon
Percy and Elizabeth Howard made a merry and magnificent wedding
of it, and from the time they were joined together the house of the
bride has been known by the bridegroom’s territorial title of Northum
berland.
The street close to the house of the Percys, which we now know
as Northumberland Street, was then a road leading down to the
Thames, and called Hartshorn Lane. Its earlier name was Christopher
Alley. At the bottom of the lane the luckless Sir Edmundsbury
Godfrey had a stately house, from which he walked many a time and
oft to his great wood wharf on the river. But the glory of Hartshorn
Lane was and is Ben Jonson. No one can say where rare Ben was
born, save that the posthumous child first saw the light in Westmin
ster. “Though,” says Fuller, “I cannot, with all my industrious
inquiry, find him in his cradle, I can fetch him from his long coats.
When a little child he lived in Hartshorn Lane, Charing Cross, where
his mother married a bricklayer for her second husband.” Mr. Fowler
was a master bricklayer, and did well with his clever stepson. We
can in imagination see that sturdy boy crossing the Strand to go to his
school within the old church of St. Martin (then still) in the Fields.
Kt is as easy to picture him hastening of a morning early to Westmin
ster, where Camden was second master, and had a keen sense of the
stuff that was in the scholar from Hartshorn Lane. Of all the
figures that flit about the locality, none attracts our sympathies so
von. xxxviii.
o
�194 NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE AND THE PERCYS.
warmly as that of the boy who developed into the second dramatic
poet of England.
Of the countesses and duchesses of this family, the most singular
was the widow of Algernon, the tenth Earl. In her widowhood she
removed from the house in the Strand (where she had given a home
not only to her husband, but to a brother) to one which occupied the
site on which White’s Club now stands. It was called Suffolk
House, and the proud lady thereof maintained a semi-regal state
beneath the roof and when she went abroad. On such an occasion
as paying a visit, her footmen walked bareheaded on either side of
her coach, which was followed by a second, in which her women were
seated, like so many ladies in waiting! Her state solemnity went so
far that she never allowed her son Joscelin’s wife (daughter of an
Earl) to be seated in her presence—at least till she had obtained per
mission to do so.
Joscelin s wife was, according to Pepys, “ a beautiful lady indeed.”
They had but one child, the famous heiress, Elizabeth Percy, who at
four years of age was left to the guardianship of her proud and wicked
old grandmother. Joscelin was dead, and his widow married Ralph,
afterwards Duke of Montague. The old Dowager Countess was a
matchmaker, and she contracted her granddaughter, at the age of twelve,
to Cavendish, Earl of Ogle. Before this couple were of age to live
together Ogle died. In a year or two after, the old matchmaker
engaged her victim to Mr. Thomas Thynne, of Longleat; but the
young lady had no mind to him. In the Hatton collection of manu
scripts there are three letters addressed by a lady of the Brunswick
family to Lord and Lady Hatton. They are undated, but they con
tain a curious reference to part of the present subject, and are
thus noticed in the first report of the Royal Com-mission
on Historical Manuscripts : “ Mr. Thinn has proved his marriage
with Lady Ogle, but she will not live with him, for fear of
being ‘rotten before she is ripe.’ Lord Suffolk, since he lost
his wife and daughter, lives with his sister, Northumberland.
They have here strange ambassadors—one from the King of Fez, the
other from Muscovett. All the town has seen the last; he goes to
the play, and stinks so that the ladies are not able to take their
muffs from their noses all the play-time. The lampoons that are
made of most of the town ladies are so nasty, that no woman would
read them, else she would have got them for her.”
“ Tom of Ten Thousand,” as Thynne was called, was murdered
(shot dead in his carriage) in Pall Mall (1682) by Konigsmark and
accomplices, two or three of whom suffered death on the scaffold.
Immediately afterwards the maiden wife of two husbands really
married Charles, the proud Duke of Somerset. In the same year
Banks dedicated to her (Illustrious Princess, he calls her) his ‘ Anna
�NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE AND THE PERCYS. 195
Bullen,’ a tragedy. He says: “ You have submitted to take a noble
partner, as angels have delighted to converse with menand “ there
is so much of divinity and wisdom in your choice, that none but the
Almighty ever did the like ” (giving Eve to Adam) “ with the world
and Eden for a dower.” Then, after more blasphemy, and very free
allusions to her condition as a bride, and fulsomeness beyond concep
tion, he scouts the idea of supposing that she ever should die. “ You
look,” he says, “ as if you had nothing mortal in you. Your guardian,
angel scarcely is more a deity than youand so on, in increase of
bombast, crowned by the mock humility of “ my muse still has no
other ornament than truth.”
The Duke and Duchess of Somerset lived in the house in the
Strand, which continued to be called Northumberland House, as
there had long been a Somerset House a little more to the east.
Anthony Henley once annoyed the above duke and showed his own
ill-manners by addressing a letter “ to the Duke of Somerset, over
against the trunk-shop at Charing Cross.” The duchess was hardly
more respectful when speaking of her suburban mansion, Sion House,
Brentford. “ It’s a hobbledehoy place,” she said; ££ neither town nor
country.” Of this union came a son, Algernon Seymour, who in
1748 succeeded his father as Duke of Somerset, and in 1749 was
created Earl of Northumberland, for a particular reason. He had no
sons. His daughter Elizabeth had encouraged the homage of a
handsome young fellow of that day, named Smithson. She was told
that Hugh Smithson had spoken in terms of admiration of her beauty,
and she laughingly asked why he did not say as much to herself.
Smithson was the son of “ an apothecary,” according to the envious,
but, in truth, the father had been a physician, had earned a baronetcy,
and was of the good old nobility, the landowners, with an estate, still
possessed by the family, at Stanwick, in Yorkshire. Hugh Smithson
married this Elizabeth Percy, and the earldom of Northumberland,
conferred on her father, was to go to her husband, and afterwards to
the eldest male heir of this marriage, failing which the dignity was
to remain with Elizabeth and her heirs male by any other marriage.
It is at this point that the present line of Smithson-Percys begins.
Of the couple who may be called its founders so many severe things
have been said, that we may infer that their exalted fortunes and best
qualities gave umbrage to persons of small minds or strong prejudices.
Walpole’s remark, that in the earl’s lord-lieutenancy in Ireland “ their
vice-majesties scattered pearls and diamonds about the streets,” is good
testimony to their royal liberality. Their taste may not have been
unexceptionable, but there was no touch of meanness in it. In 1758
they gave a supper at Northumberland House to Lady Yarmouth,
George the Second’s old mistress. The chief ornamental piece on the
supper table represented a grand chasse at Herrenhausen, at which
o 2
�196 NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE AND WE PERCYSl
there was a carriage drawn by six horses, in which was- seated an
august person wearing a blue ribbon, with a lady at his side. This
was not unaptly called “the apotheosis of concubinage.” Of the
celebrated countess notices vary. Her delicacy, elegance, and refine
ment are vouched for by some; her coarseness and vulgarity are
asserted by others. When Queen Charlotte came to England, Lady
Northumberland was made one of the ladies of the queen’s bed
chamber. Lady Townshend justified it to people who felt or feigned
surprise, by remarking, “ Surely nothing could be more proper. The
queen does not understand English, and can anything be more neces
sary than that she should learn the vulgar tongue ?” One of the
countess’s familiar terms for conviviality was “junkitaceous,” but
ladies of equal rank had also little slang words of their own, called
things by the very plainest names, and spelt physician with an “ f.”
There is ample testimony on record that the great countess never
hesitated at a jest on the score of its coarseness. The earl was dis
tinguished rather for his pomposity than vulgarity, though a vulgar
sentiment marked some of both his sayings and doings. For example,
when Lord March visited him at Alnwick Castle, the Earl of North
umberland received him at the gates with this queer sort of welcome:
“ I believe, my lord, this is the first time that ever a Douglas and a
Percy met here in friendship.” The censor who said, “ Think of this
from a Smithson to a true Douglas,” had ample ground for the excla
mation. George the Third raised the earl and countess to the rank
of duke and duchess in 1766. All the earls of older creation were
ruffled and angry at the advancement; but the honour had its draw
back. The King would not allow the title to descend to an heir by
any other wife but the one then alive, who was the true representative
of the Percy line.
The old Northumberland House festivals were right royal things
in their way. There was, on the other hand, many a snug, or uncere
monious, or eccentric party given there. Perhaps the most splendid
was that given in honour of the King of Denmark in 1768. His
majesty was fairly bewildered with the splendour. There was in the
court what was called “ a pantheon,” illuminated by 4000 lamps.
The King, as he sat down to supper, at the table to which he had
expressly invited twenty guests out of the hundreds assembled, said
to the duke, “ How did you contrive to light it all in time ?” “ I had
two hundred lamplighters,” replied the duke. “ That was a stretch,”
wrote candid Mrs. Delany; “ a dozen could have done the business
which was true.
The duchess, who in early life was, in delicacy of form, like one of
the Graces, became, in her more mature years, fatter than if the whole
three had been rolled into one in her person. With obesity came
“ an exposition to sleep,” as Bottom has it. At “ drawing-rooms ” she
�NOTTHUMBERLOTD EroWbrANDEn^ PEROVS? 197
no sooner sank on a sofa than she was deep in slumber; but while
she was awake she would make jokes that were laughed at and cen
sured the next day all over London. Her Grace would sit at a win
dow in Covent Garden, and be hail fellow well met with every one of
a mob of tipsy and not too cleanly-spoken electors. On these occa
sions it was said she “ signalised herself with intrepidity.” She could
bend, too, with cleverness to the humours of more hostile mobs; and
when the Wilkes rioters besieged the ducal mansion, she and the duke
appeared at a window, did salutation to their masters, and performed
homage to the demagogue by drinking his health in ale.
Horace Walpole affected to ridicule the ability of the Duchess as a
verse writer. At Lady Miller’s at Batheaston some rhyming words
were given out to the company, and any one who could, was re
quired to add lines to them so as to make sense with the rhymes
furnished for the end of each line. This sort of dancing in fetters
was called bouts rimes. “On my faith,” cried Walpole, in 1775,
“ there are loouts rimes on a buttered muffin by her Grace the
Duchess of Northumberland.” It may be questioned whether any
body could have surmounted the difficulty more cleverly than her
Grace. For example:
The pen. which I now take and
Has long lain useless in my
Know, every maid, from her own
To her who shines in glossy
That could they now prepare an
From best receipt of book in
Ever so fine, for all their
I should prefer a butter’d
A muffin, Jove himself might
If eaten with Miller, at
brandish,
standish.
patten
satin,
oglio
folio,
puffing,
muffin;
feast on,
Batheaston.
To return to the house itself. There is no doubt that no mansion
of such pretensions and containing such treasures has been so
thoroughly kept from the vulgar eye. There is one exception, how
ever, to this remark. The Duke (Algernon) who was alive at the
, period of the first Exhibition threw open the house in the Strand to
the public without reserve. The public, without being ungrateful,
thought it rather a gloomy residence. Shut in and darkened as it
now is by surrounding buildings—canopied as it now is by clouds of
London smoke—it is less cheerful and airy than the Tower, where the
Wizard Earl studied in his prison room, or counted the turns he made
when pacing his prison yard. The Duke last referred to was in his
youth at Algiers under Exmouth, and in his later years a Lord of
the Admiralty. As Lord Prudhoe, he was a traveller in far-away
countries, and he had the faculty of seeing what he saw, for which
many travellers, though they have eyes, are not qualified. At the
�198 NOETHUMBERLAND HOUSE AND THE’ KEHCyS.
pleasant Smithsonian house at Stanwick, when he was a bachelor, his
household was rather remarkable for the plainness of the female
servants. Satirical people used to say the youngest of them was a
grandmother. Others, more charitable or scandalous, asserted that
Lord Prudhoe was looked upon as a father by many in the country
round, who would have been puzzled where else to look for one. It
was his elder brother Hugh (whom Lord Prudhoe succeeded) who,
represented England as Ambassador Extraordinary at the coronation
of Charles the Tenth at Eheims. Paris was lost in admiration at the
splendour of this embassy, and never since has the hotel in the Eue
de Bac possessed such a gathering of royal and noble personages as
at the fetes given there by the Duke of Northumberland. His sister,
Lady Glenlyon, then resided in a portion of the fine house in the
Eue de Bourbon, owned and in part occupied by the rough but cheery
old warrior, the Comte de Lobau.
When that lady was Lady
Emily Percy, she was married to the eccentric Lord James Murray,
afterwards Lord Glenlyon. The bridegroom was rather of an
oblivious turn of mind, and it is said that when the wedding morn
arrived, his servant had some difficulty in persuading him that it was
the day on which he had to get up and be married.
There remains only to be remarked, that as the Percy line has
been often represented only by an heiress, there have not been wanting
individuals who boasted of male heirship.
Two years after the death of Joscelin Percy in 1670, who died the
last male heir of the line, leaving an only child, a daughter, who
married the Duke of Somerset, there appeared, supported by the Earl
of Anglesea, a most impudent claimant (as next male heir) in the
person of James Percy, an Irish trunkmaker. This individual pro
fessed to be a descendant of Sir Ingram Percy, who was in the Pil
grimage of Grace, and was brother of the sixth earl. The claim was
proved to be unfounded; but it may have rested on an illegitimate
foundation. As the pretender continued to call himself Earl of North
umberland, Elizabeth, daughter of Joscelin, “ took the law ” of him.
Ultimately he was condemned to be taken into the four law courts in
Westminster Hall, with a paper pinned to his breast, bearing these
words: “ The foolish and impudent pretender to the earldom of
Northumberland.”
In the succeeding century, the well-known Dr. Percy, Bishop of
Dromore, believed himself to be the true male representative of the
ancient line of Percy. He built no claims on such belief; but the
belief was not only confirmed by genealogists, it was admitted by the
second heiress Elizabeth, who married Hugh Smithson. Dr. Percy so
far asserted his blood as to let it boil over in wrath against Pennant
when the latter described Alnwick Castle in these disparaging words:
At Alnwick no remains of chivalry are perceptible; no respectable
�NOETHUMBERLAND HOUSE AND THE'PEED xS 199
|trainFof attendants; the furniture and gardens inconsistent; and
nothing, except the numbers of unindustrious poor at the castle gate,
excited any one idea of its former circumstances.”
“ Duke and Duchess of Charing Cross,” or “ their majesties of Mid
dlesex,” were the mock titles which Horace Walpole flung at the
ducal couple of his day who resided at Northumberland House,
London, or at Sion House, Brentford. Walpole accepted and satirised
the hospitality of the London house, and he almost hated the ducal
host and hostess at Sion, because they seemed to overshadow his
mimic feudal state at Strawberry I After all, neither early nor late
circumstance connected with Northumberland House is confined to
memories of the inmates. Ben Jonson comes out upon us from Hartshorn Lane with more majesty than any of the earls; and greatness
has sprung from neighbouring shops, and has flourished as gloriously
as any of which Percy can boast. Half a century ago, there was a
long low house, a single storey high, the ground floor of which was a
saddler’s shop. It was on the west side of the old Golden Cross, and
neariy opposite Northumberland House. The worthy saddler founded
a noble line. Of four sons, three were distinguished as Sir David, Sir
Frederick, and Sir George. Two of the workmen became Lord
Mayors of London; and an attorney’s clerk, who used to go in at
night and chat with the men, married the granddaughter of a king
and became Lord Chancellor.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Northumberland House and the Percys
Creator
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Doran, John
Description
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 189-199 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Article from Temple Bar magazine, May 1873; attribution from Virginia Clark catalogue.
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[Bentley]
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Aristocracy
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Conway Tracts
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Northumberland House
Percy Family
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Text
ANNIVERSARY SUNDAY.
A SERMON,
PREACHED AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
OCTOBER 5th, 1873, by the
REV. CHARLES VOYSEY.
[From the Eastern Post, October Wth, 1873.]
On Sunday (October 5 th) at St. George’s Hall, Langham-place,
the Rev. C. Voysey took his text from Nehemiah ii., 20, “ The
God of Heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we, his servants,
will arise and build.”
He said—Readers of the Bible must be familiar with the
interesting book from which my text is taken, which tells the
simple story of the re-building of the walls of Jerusalem after it
had been almost destroyed by the Babylonian armies. The hero
of this great event seems to have been singularly well fitted for his
patriotic work ; for he had three great gifts. He had rare tact,
very high moral principle, and what we might call a desperate
determination. With the first he conciliated the conquerors of his
nation; with the second he kept in order and elevated the half
trained fellow-countrymen on whose exertions he depended; and
with the third he fought hi# way over every obstacle and finished
the work which God had given him to do.
But although these great gifts were natural endowments and
might, have rendered their possessor eminently successful in any under
taking, I believe they were heightened and enlarged by his equally
remarkable faith. Though a captive in the Court of Artaxerxes, to
whom he was cup-bearer, he could not forget the God of his fathers;
while he was surrounded by the luxuries of a King’s palace, he
still remembered with shame and sorrow the daughter of Zion clad
in sackcloth and sitting in ashes. As long as Jerusalem lay in
ruins, there was no joy for him. As long as his countrymen were
captives in a foreign land, there could be no charm for him in
courtly dignity. Identifying Jerusalem with the honour of his God^
�knd regarding its temple as the witness of the Divine presence and
rule, it was a matter of religion with him to seek its restoration, and
to rebuild its ruined walls. Strong in mind and will though he was,
he was not ashamed to lay his cause at the footstool of the most
High, he scrupled not to pray for heavenly strength, for divine
wisdom and for the success of his undertaking, but went as a little
child to his Father’s knee, and besought His blessing and help :—
“ O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the
prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire
to fear thy name, and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day.”
Having sought God’s blessing and favour upon his work, he
roused the enthusiasm of the Jews who still dwelt in the ruined
city, and they said, “ Let us rise up and build.” “ So they
strengthened their hands for this good work.” Nehemiah then
goes on to describe his first encounter with opposition and how he
met it. “ When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah, the servant,
the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed
us to scorn, and despised us, and said What is this thing that ye
do? Will ye rebel against the King? Then answered I and
said unto to them, ‘The God of heaven, he will prosper us, there
fore, we his servants will arise and build.’” We will not pursue
the narrative further into details. It is enough to see how this
brave and strong-minded man, who was the burning sun of
enthusiasm to the hundreds of colder spirits around him, drew
all his courage, and zeal, and hope, from his conscious dependence
upon God, from his intense desire to do His will, and above all,
from the aasurance that “God’s thoughts towards him were
thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give him an expected end.”
I cannot help feeling that this same spirit of dependence on God
is the secret of whatever courage and determination have been
manifested by those who are working in this age to build again the
walls of a mined Faith, and to combat the opponents on all sides
who would have us rather remain in the shackles of a spiritual
slavery or in the lonely wilderness of infidelity.
The gift of tact, which implies a quick discernment of other
men’s moods and wants, and a ready and versatile adaptation of our
conduct and speech in order to win rather than to repel the un
settled inquirer, is no doubt a most needful auxiliary to such work
�3
as ours. But tact is not everything; and this age shows, I think, a
tendency to exalt this happy facility into a virtue, and to prefer
its exercise to that of .the less polished but more serviceable weapon
of plain speech.
The high principle which was so conspicuous in Nehemiah is
the very alpha and omega of success in work like ours. Absolutely,
and before all things else, it is necessary to maintain an
unimpeachable honesty of word or deed, if we would hope to do
the slightest good in the way of emancipating the minds of others.
But this weapon of our warfare is wielded also by many of our
adversaries. Let us say it thankfully, we are well-matched in this
matter of integrity, and the battle would have to be drawn, if the
truer views were to be decided by the greater virtue. As yet,
the struggle cannot be finished on such terms alone, and our
enthusiasm would perish if it were not fed from other streams.
• Of all three, perhaps, a desperate determination is the most
powerful human aid to success in such an enterprise as ours.
Force of will we know can emove mountains, can defy and
dethrone the most ancient of dynasties, «an uproot the most wide
spread of traditions. All the great deeds for good or for evil have
been done by determination, by individual energy of purpose;
men once committed to a cause, holy or unholy, are rendered, by
their self-consecration, dangerous to those things which they oppose.
Half-hearted, luke-warm people are good for nothing but impedi
ment ; never succeed in anything but in getting in the way of the
earnest, and causing an obstruction.
The Nehemiahs of the world are none of these. To have simple
aims like his, to let neither himself nor friend, nor foe, ever come
between h’m and his duty; to win and defy by turns ; to slay
opponents who will take no other warning, and to rebuke and
chastise unfaithful or sleepy allies; to make every event, calculated
or unforeseen, further the sacred end in view; to live in the hottest
toil of the work, yet all a-glow with delight in it; and to be ready
to suffer and die for it when necessary, quite as willingly as to live
and to fight for it; this is to have power—power not easily defeated
not soon exhausted—power that grows by exercise and gathers
force, like the descending avalanche, from the irresistible attraction
which it exercises over surrounding souls.
�4
But not even this, mighty as it is, can always conquer. Some
times “ the weak things of the world confound the things that are
mighty, and things that are not will bring to naught things that
are.” All depends ultimately on the cause itself and not on the
brave men who fight for it. It must be a cause of light, or right,
or truth, or it will surely fail. It must be for the ultimate good
of mankind, or it will surely come to naught. In the language of
religion it must be the cause of God, and not merely a caprice of
man. If this thing be of man, i.e., of man’s ignorance or selfish
ness, it will surely come to naught; but if it be of God, i.e.,
accoding to His most holy and loving will; then who can overthrow
it 1 Nay, who would be so mad as to fight against God 1
Unman gifts, however well-fitted, then, will not by themselves
always accomplish the work on which they are expended. And
those who are wise enough to perceive this fact will not rush hastily
or wildly into any great undertaking relying solely on their own
powers and qualifications; but they will turn it about first in their
own minds to see whether it be a cause likely to benefit mankind
the increase of knowledge, of virtue, or of general happiness;
to discover through these enquiries whether the great will of
Heaven is for them or against them; whether, in the language of
Nehemiah, God will prosper the work of their hands. I feel sure
that it was with this manly deference to God’s Holy Will, and
reliance on His blessing, that we began our united work in this
place two years ago. Not one of ns would have put our hands to
it, had we thought it was against God’s will or to the detriment of
man. Not one of us would have had the heart to begin, as we
did, under such discouragements without the assurance that God
approved our undertaking, and would cause it to prosper. I
honestly say that I don’t know what would have become of me,
under the peculiar pressure of obligations upon most feeble powers,
but for this constant and refreshing comfort of believing that eur
work was a little portion of God’s wosk, and that He would make
good to me those words of peace, “ As thy day, so shall thy
strength be.”
As a society, necessarily compelled to raise funds, we have had
our dark days and gloomy anticipations —not that any one of us
feared for a moment that the cause of pure Theism even in this
�5
city, not to say in the wide world, depended upon the success of
this particular and comparatively insignificant movement—but we
naturally contemplated, with no little sorrow, the possibility of
our share in the great work passing away from us after all we had
gone through to maintain it. In such hours of anxiety, and they
are real though few, we know the blessedness of referring it all
back to God’s blessed will, and of knowing that it must prosper if
it be in harmony with the eternal laws; and if it be in discord with
them, well, the sooner it perish the better. Faith, then gives
fresh courage and determination, as well as keeps the mind in its
original integrity bent not on self-will, but supremely and entirely
given to the will of God.
And observe how entirely different this is from that spirit of
dogmatism which is merely faith in our own opinions. Of course
we must first believe that a thing is true before we can proclaim
it; and we must be persuaded of its essential value to mankind
before we can incur any suffering or odium as a penalty for its
proclamation. But we can feel' this perfect confidence in the
rectitude and value of our opinions, and yet consciously put God’s
will and wisdom above them all; and at the very bottom of our
hearts only wish to serve Him faithfully and to declare His truth,
whatever it be.
Skill, self-reliance, courage and determination are all to be
elevated by the inspiration of faith, and to be refreshed and
re-invigorated by it when wearied and discouraged.
Some, however, may say, How can you be sure that you are
right? In one sense we are not sure, i.e., we are not so arrogant as to
be sure that God has imparted all His truth to us, and to us only;
neither would we dare to say that even if God prospers our work
therefore, the work of other men is wrong and against His will.
But while we are thus decently modest, and confess further the
impossibility of proving that we are right, we feel very very sure
that we are right; so far from holding these opinions for gain, we
are in many cases going against all the predilections of the past,
aud flying in the face of an army of hostile and cruel prejudices.
Our convictions have been forced upon us. The soil of our minds
has been under the tillage of a husbandman mightier than ourselves.
Its rank foliage has been eleared and burnt, the roots of early
�6
culture have been dug up and the sweetly seasoned ground has
been sown with seeds of holy and life-giving fruit—not of our
choosing. The field with its golden harvest is our own, not so the
labour to which we owe its wealth. But once planted with this
precious seed, we cannot reap an alien grain; nor sow again the
tares which the great husbandman has burnt. Whatever grain we
have to give it must be our own or none; we will not lend a borrowed
word; or steal a neighbour’s thought, and say, “ The Lord hath
spoken it.” We speak only that that we do know or firmly believe,
and our surety is not of ourselves; it is the gift of God. Less than
this assurance will not work. Less than this degree of confidence
that we are right would disqualify us for the duties we have assumed.
For any one to speak of God as an hypothesis or probable theory may
be justifiable in itself; but it becomes absolutely misplaced on the
lips of any professed advocate of religion ; the rostrum of a place of
worship is not the suitable place from which to express grave
doubts as to the Being and character of God. Such doubts may,
of course, arise, and Ought not to be suppressed; nothing honest
ought to labour under disabilities of any kind ; but the office of a
religious teacher on religious subjects to an audience whose prayers
and praises to God are just silenced, demands some degree of
certainty and conviction as the raison d’etre of the function. But
there are two ways of doing everything ; and it is quite possible
to avoid dogmatic or dictatorial language while expressing to the
full one’s own earnest convictions.
It is my fervent hope that the truly religious spirit in which
this work of ours was begun may never cease to animate it; if
we are bearing witness in a world darkened by superstition, and
likely to be still more darkened by Atheism, bearing witness of
the love and friendliness of a perfect God, it becomes us both
individually and collectively to live and walk by that faith which
we profess, not to be ashamed of the core and kernel of those
principles which we all hold so dear, and for which so many are
suffering. We stand mid-way between those who have made the
very name of religion a by vord and a reproach by their fables and
dogmas, and those whose aversion to all religion is, therefore,
insurmounta’ le. We must neither fall into the old blunder of
dogmatism, nor timidly comply with the crude and bigoted denials
of a hasty Atheism. While God is to us the greatest reality of
our existence, let us honestly say so, in spite of the Church’s curses
on the one hand, and of the world’s ridicule on the other.
Finally, bear with me if I say a few words of more personal
reference to ourselves. To congratulate ourselves on beginning the
third year of our organization as a congregation, and to flatter one
another upon our success and oui- prospects would be an easy and
pleasant, but not very profitable occupation. To summon you and
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T
all other friends to some heroic action which should excite the
public admiration—always ready enough to fall before the feet of
success—would be to go against the very roots of my nature, and
to wither up the beauty of an action only beautiful when spon
taneous. There are plenty of people agreeing with us who are
able to contribute £10,000 a piece, if the time were come for it.
But I have better things to say than that such a thing had been
done ; better thoughts of congratulation than any degree of personal
success.
We have lived and worshipped together long enough to prove
what is infinitely more cheering than our own permanence and
establishment. We have lived to learn that that pure Theism—that
pure natural religion which is so dear to our hearts—that Faith
which is the life of our souls, and the inspirer of our hope and
enthusiasm, is perfectly safe now from extinction and oblivion. I can
honestly say now that I don t care—speakingas your chosen minister
_ I don’t care now whether the Voysey Establishment Fund sinks
or swims. I do not, except as it would involve the inconvenience
of seeking a new source of maintenance, care one straw whether we
continue to prosper or not. Myself, aye, a hundred more like me,
■might go to the wall and be trodden down, as far greater men have
been ere now, by the tramp of adverse circumstances; but it is too
late to affect the growth and progress of that religion which was
safely planted in men’s hearts before I was born, and had been
loudly proclaimed in this generation—yes, by some under this
very roof, when I was but a boy. The little circle of workers
with which we are identified as a congregation and society, thank
God, is but a drop in a vast ocean of kindred souls. For every
one of us, there are a hundred thousand known, and myriads
unknown* who are on our side and against the falsehoods and
follies of Christianity. •
It is no figure of speech when I say that all over the world are
bn man beings to whom we telegraph, as it were, our loving thoughts
about God; our words fly hither and thither; are read in remotest
regions, far and near ; and wherever they go they do more, far
more, than convert—they awake the echoes of grateful and believing
hearts who have their own joyous tale to tell of God’s loving kind
ness, and of their birth into life. Nor is it only in distant lands,
but more strange still, in churches and sects most foreign to our
si m pip. creed; on one hand the Bomanist and members of all the
Orthodox churches and sects, and on the other, the Unitarian, are
leaving the territory of tradition, and opening their eyes to see ■
not what this, that, or the other man can shew them—but what
God Himself has to show them. Notmerely the Christian but the
Hindoo also is coming under the same leaven and heaving afresh
his quivering breast, always so sensitive to the Divine afflatus. Is
�I
hot tke same spirit stirring also the Jew—the Jew whose ancestor,
amid perils and difficulties a thousand times greater than our own,
looked in the face of God and left incomparable record of their
bliss 1 The Jew is fettered a little still, but the chains chafe his
limbs, and he, too, is pressing on “ into the glorious liberty of the
children of God.”
When I think of what was the state of things more than twenty one
years ago, when I began my clerical life, and glance at the successive
periods of eleven, five, three, and now two years, and contrast the
world’s state, and its rate of progress, to-day with what these were
when I first knew it, I am so abounding in hope and certainty as to the
ultimate conquest of the Church’s Creeds by Theism, that I could
lay down my life to-day, not murmuring that I had seen so little,
but thankful to overflowing that I had seen so much, of God’s
glorious work with the souls of men.
Once more, I say, if your hearts, like mine, are set upon this
noble work, you will surely do as much as you can, and work as
long as you can to help forward the little share which has been
entrusted to us; but for Heaven’s sake do not be afraid of the
consequences, were all of us to be swept into oblivion to-morrow.
Pure and natural religion has struck its roots into the hearts of
men, so that no rude axes can hew it down, nor fiercest storms can
root it up.
Young as I am, and dearly as I love life and its exquisit e
pleasures, one thought have I this day in looking back upon the
past. If God were to call me home or drive me by some mischance
into the wilderness once more; I should still say with old Simeon
in the temple, “ Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared
before the face of all people. A Light to lighten the Gentiles and
to be the glory of thy people Israel.”
EASTERN
Post
steam Printing Works, 89 Worship Street, Finsbury E.C,
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Anniversary Sunday: a sermon, preached at St. George's Hall, Langham Place, October 6th 1873
Creator
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Voysey, Charles [1828-1912.]
Description
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 6.
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Evening Post
Date
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[1873]
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G4829
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Sermons
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Anniversary Sunday: a sermon, preached at St. George's Hall, Langham Place, October 6th 1873), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Morris Tracts
Religion
Sermons
-
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df5aba88fc549cf1b5def8a739235154
PDF Text
Text
THE< RESURRECTION.
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AT THE
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FREE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, CROYDON,
LONDON.
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BY THE
REV. ROBERT RODOLPH SUFFIELD.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Threepence.
��THE RESURRECTION.
Did the Evangelists believe in the bodily resurrection
of Jesus ?
Undoubtedly. But they did not connect it,with
the immortality of the soul or with the conscious
ness of the soul after death; for they attribute to Jesus
the words to the dying thief, “ This day thou shalt be
with me in Paradise,” i.e., on Friday evening, on the day
of my death; and no one supposes the body of the
thief to have shared in the miraculous resurrection at
tributed to the body of Jesus. But as a miracle, un
doubtedly the first disciples believed it.
Did the Evangelists attach special importance to that
miracle 1
Obviously not: their transparent sincerity, their en
tire truthfulness surpassed even their credulity.
We have every reason for concluding the existing
Gospels to be compilations founded upon earlier records
which have perished. Biographies of uncertain author
ship, translated by unknown persons in a disputable
period—biographies not asserting either authorship, or
infallibility, or inspiration, handed down to us through
many varying MSS., cannot be allowed to settle ques
tions of fact, however precious they may justly be to us
as the earliest records of the origin of Christianity.
The very circumstances which exalt the truthful inten
tions of the authors, serve to weaken belief in the in
cidents recorded. The Evangelists agree in certain
general statements, though differing in important de
�4
The Resurrection.
tails j they agree in recording that the body of Jesus
was buried as soon as ever it had been taken down
from the Cross; that the body was privately interred
in a new grave erected in the secluded garden of a
friend ; that “before the break of day the body had dis
appeared ; that no one had witnessed the mode of its
disappearance, or could testify to anything but the fact
that, whereas the body had been laid in the cave serv- '
ing as a tomb, after a few hours it had disappeared,
nothing remaining excepting the winding sheets, folded
and placed on one side; Jesus was seen afterwards,
walking about the garden.
If the Disciples had anticipated the resurrection, and
attached importance to it, they would have taken some
means to secure knowledge of so interesting a prodigy,
whereas none of his apostles see the body of Jesus
buried, or appear at all at the tomb till it is empty.
Joseph of Arimathsea, Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene,
and Mary the mother of Joses, are alone cognisant of
any of the details as to his burial—alone present;
indeed, the gospel limits to the two women the behold
ing where the body of Jesus was laid. His mother
does not appear—only one female relative and one
female friend. But the gospel tells us that even they
left the tomb ; and from Friday evening until Sunday
morning no disciple is described as approaching the
grave. This was not the result of want of affection,
but in consequence of the strictness of the Judaic law
as to the Sabbath. The Paschal solemnities lasted
through an octave. On Thursday this octave had
commenced ; and, according to the first three Evan
gelists, Jesus celebrated the Paschal supper with his
disciples on Thursday evening, imitating the example
of all households. The author of the fourth gospel
contradicts their statements. He wrote many years
after, when a complicated theology had commenced,
and Jewish credulity wished to imagine that Jesus had
died on the day of the sacrifice of the Paschal lamb:
�The Resurrection.--
5
therefore he drops entirely all allusion to the last
supper, which has been called in later times the insti
tution of the Eucharist. The beauty and spirituality of
what is called John’s Gospel must not make us forget
that its lateness of date excuses its insuperable varia
tions as to facts ; and we must prefer the statement
of three books to that of one.
Thus Jesus followed the national custom and cele
brated the Paschal Supper on the usual evening with
his friends, using wine, according to the Rabbinical
practice; on Friday he was put to death—his burial
was hastened because the Saturday being the Sabbath
Day, the Jews, who had legally murdered Jesus, could
not be guilty of the greater crime of touching a dead
body on the Sabbath, and the Sabbath falling within
the octave of the passover was a great Sabbath. His
friends and relations dared not, therefore, offend the
popular prejudice or violate the sabbatical law by
walking on the Sabbath Day • and what would have
been worse, walking to visit a grave. But at the
earliest convenient hour after the close of the great
Sabbath • three women according to one Evangelist,
two according to another, Mary Magdalene alone ac
cording to another, went to visit the grave. The
Evangelists again disagree as to the details, whether two
angels or one appeared—whether the angelic vision
was within the tomb or outside ; whether the stone
was rolled away in presence of the women, or found
rolled away. But amidst these discrepancies, the
narratives agree in showing that no one whatsoever saw,
or professed to have seen, Jesus rise from the tomb.
If the disciples had anticipated the resurrection,
they would naturally have watched night and day
awaiting such a miracle; whereas the two women
came expecting to find the corpse of Jesus, and brought
sweet spices to anoint it, and their only anxiety was
how, on their arrival, they should open the stone gate
of the vault.
�6
The Resurrection.
So little importance had the Apostles attached to
certain figurative words attributed to Jesus, and sup
posed afterwards to have been prophetical of his
resurrection—that when the women go and tell them
that they met Jesus in the garden—that the tomb was
empty—they accuse the women of telling idle tales.
Peter hastening to the tomb, and finding it empty,
is at once satisfied. John follows and also sees the
sepulchre empty, and “he saw and he believed,”—
namely, he saw an empty grave and the winding sheet
lying folded up there. They saw nothing else—they
did not even see the angel or angels, but what they did
see they believed. Afterwards they and others are
described as having seen Jesus, and spoken and eaten
with him. The Evangelist tells us distinctly what
was the common opinion of the inhabitants up to the
time he wrote, viz., that the statement of the soldiers
was true, “ rhe disciples came by night and stole
away the body while we slept.”
Another rumour also existed, the origin of which we
recognise in the surprise of Pilate when Joseph of
Arimathsea asked for the body of Jesus; Pilate
“marvelled if he were already dead,” and sent and
asked the centurion whether he were really dead;
whereupon the governor, on his sole and friendly
testimony, permitted the Arimathaean to take the body.
A rumour spread that Jesus had not quite died on the
cross, but revived under the care of his mother, and
lingered on for some days amongst her friends, and
then sunk beneath his wounds and sufferings.
To meet that rumour, the author of the last Gospel
states that a soldier wounded the side of Jesus with
his lance, causing blood and water to flow, which the
writer unscientifically supposes to afford certain proof
of his death.
Generally when a criminal was crucified, the body
was fastened with ropes to the cross and allowed to
remain for weeks suspended till death ensued as the
�The Resurrection.
7
result of starvation and exposure. The Evangelists
tell us that an additional suffering was inflicted on
Jesus in the piercing his hands. The mental and
bodily torture thus endured by Jesus might be sup
posed likely to cause him at length to swoon away and
become insensible j but hanging thus on the cross for
a few hours would not in itself cause his death, al
though we know that sometimes men of fine organiza
tion and acute sensibility die under some sudden shock
of pain, of fear, or of grief.
As time advanced, belief in the bodily resurrection
of Jesus intensified, amongst Christians, though the
event obtained no credence amongst Jews, Romans, or
Greeks. But after all, the first witnesses can be alone
taken as the establishes of the fact. Some will deem
the evidence sufficient, and will feel a pleasure in
considering that an exceptional portent happened to
one so holy in his character, so exceptional in his
influence.
I appreciate and respect such a feeling, but I do not
share it. To my own mind, a strange portent needing,
to be worth anything, a juridical proof, would rather
confuse my mind, and cause me less to advert to the
simple human grandeur of the moral and spiritual
character of Jesus, as surrounded with myths it floats
down to us amidst the traditions, the love, and the
reverence of millions. If Jesus had not been what he
was, his resurrection would not have made him any
thing. There are many who believe that, as recorded
in 2 Kings xiii., a man was raised from the grave—
but no one reveres or loves him on that account.
We feel an interest in Lazarus because he and his
sisters were loved by Jesus, but those who only believe
in the moral resurrection of Lazarus, and think that
rumour materialised that into a miracle, would gain no
higher thought if they were induced to believe the
portent.
The Evangelist tells us that a great many persons
�8
The Resurrection.
were raised from the dead at the time of the death of
Jesus, and appeared to many in the streets of Jeru
salem. Those persons have never obtained from any
one either love or reverence, but only wonder what
became of them, and why they said nothing about the
death land they had left. The prodigies attributed to
the death of Moses and of Elias, only excite wonder in
the minds of those who believe them; and other
people recognise the resemblance existing between the
legendary mythology and hero worship of all nations
and of all religions. Cultured and reverent minds do
not despise or ridicule the portents which may seem
merely legendary, so long as they are interwoven with
great ideas, and represent in a material form some
lofty thought, some sublime virtue, some external
verity; they only direct attention to the fallacy of a
legend when it is being perverted to mischief.
Has the resurrection of the body of Jesus any
connection whatever with the doctrine of the im
mortality of the soul ? None. Lazarus might have
been miraculously restored to life, and then died and
come to naught, and the same as to Jesus.
Moreover, when Jesus thought he was dying and
said, “ This day thou shalt be with me in paradise,” he
testified his belief in the existence of the soul separate
from the earthly body. His coming from that future
abode to take up his body again would prove nothing,
especially as no word is attributed to him regarding
that state which he is supposed to have left.
If it were necessary for the action of the soul of
Jesus that he should resume his body, and if the
same necessity lies upon us ; Where are souls now 1
unconscious in the graves, or in non-consciousness
where ? and if Jesus thought that, how could he say
“ This day, &c.” If Paul thought that, how could he
say that he longed to depart that he might be with
Jesus.
If the author of the Revelations thought that, how
�The Resurrection.
9
could lie describe the white robed band of saints in
the spirit world.
Undoubtedly Paul attached great importance to the
dogma of the bodily resurrection ; and the unfortunate
adoption of the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians into
the Church of England burial service has accustomed
thoughtless people, f.e., most people, to connect some
how the resurrection of the body with the immortality
of the soul. So sadly has that error possessed minds,
that we often meet with persons who have privately
come to doubt the immortality of the soul, because
they have doubted the resurrection of the body. Such
persons will quote, almost hopelessly, the words of
Paul, 11 If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching
vain, and your faith is also vain.” Your faith in
what ? In the immortality of the soul 1 No !—in the
speedy approach of the glorified reign of the Messiah
over the elect; i.e., faith in an event then universally
looked for by Christians, but which time has proved
erroneous. Before that generation had passed away
the world was to have been devastated with fire, the
Messiah to have come on the clouds of heaven to
gather and protect his chosen people ; i.e., those living
awaiting him and practising righteousness, and those
who had, to the surprise of the other Christians, died.
The death of any of the disciples amazed and dis
couraged all ; it seemed as if the Christian hope
of speedy redemption was failing. The fears of the
living were calmed by telling them that those who had
recently died should be restored to life, (just as Jesus
had been), and be numbered with the rest of the elect,
sharing with them the reign and triumph of the
Messiah. That hope enabled them to bear with pati
ence the miseries and insults to which they were
exposed.
The sublime spiritual teaching of Jesus had already
got lowered, Judaised, carnalised, materialised. His
simple-hearted disciples could not rise up to the
�IO
The Resurrection.
grandeur of his ideal. Their more sophistical suc
cessors adopted all their half-errors, and perpetuated
such by forming them into a theology, and gradually
petrifying it into creeds and formularies. It was
impossible for the Messiah and his saints to reign on
the earth, and to restore an Israel enlarged and
spiritualised, unless they possessed their bodies. ihe
saints who had died without witnessing the accom
plishment of the expectation which was to be realised
ere that generation had passed away must be placed on
an equality with the saints still in the flesh, and,
recovering their bodies, be caught up in the air to
meet the Lord at his second advent.
.
All that Pauline doctrine had nothing to do with
Christianity ; it was simply the Rabbinical fancy intro
duced and cultured for 150 years B.o. During that
period had arisen these ideas as to a Messiah, as also
the dogma of a bodily resurrection. Amidst those
dogmas Jesus had been reared—probably amongst the
ascetics of the Essenes ; possibly he accepted them ;
more probably he spiritualised them. The more we
advance in a critical study of the Gospels, the more are
we enabled to feel out our way, and to apprehend
what Jesus really said and really meant ; and the
further we advance in that reverent and cautious
criticism, the more do we discover the grandeur ot
his ideal.
,
The solemnity of to-day has borrowed and has ma
terialized that which was the. very essence of his
teaching—of a teaching so sublime, and yet so simp e,
we cannot surpass it, and yet it seems that every one
ought to have thought it. Turn from Jewish legends
about triumphant Messiahs—turn from Pauline and
Roman and Anglican legends about resurrections ot the
flesh, and let us contemplate e’er we part that resurrec
tion of the spirit which formed the essence ot the
teaching of Jesus. I speak not of the immortality ot
the soul—Jesus believed it but he did not expound 1,
�The Resurrection.
11
he added nothing to our knowledge or ideas concerning
it ; if he spoke of Hell, it was only in words like those
already used by Plato and by Rabbis ; if he spoke of
Heaven, it was only in the language of Ecclesiasticus
and Zoroaster, chastened by his love of humanity, but
he had his speciality, he had his revelation—to Jesus
the egotistic, self-seeking life was death—the earnest
loving thought and action was, life, the passing from
one to the other, resurrection. That was the essence of
his teaching, “ I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
Receive my great idea, and pass upwards from the
egotism of self, from the valley of the shadow of death,
into the light and the beauty of life, into the sweet
service of humanity. Arise from the grave of the past,
and walk in the light of great ideas, let the dead past
bury its dead, arise and live a life pure, noble, refined,
and gentle. It is only such as those, who live for ever,
borne upwards by the spirit of God. Thus the great
Master, only lowered when they surround him with
fables, stands in tears of charity by the grave of the
heart corrupt stinking amidst the rottenness of the
passions, and to the soul dead in egotism he says “Come
forth,” receive the inspiration of a noble desire : in the
name of God and of humanity arise and live. May that
thought, may that word, be to you and to me, my
brethren, a resurrection and a life—he who believeth
that word can never die.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The resurrection: an Easter morning sermon at the Free Christian Church, Croydon, London
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Suffield, Robert Rodolph
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 43 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Date of publication from KVK.
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Jesus Christ
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Conway Tracts
Jesus Christ- Resurrection
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ILLUSION AND DELUSION;
OK,
MODERN
PANTHEISM
versus
SPIRITUALISM.'
“The burden of the mystery of all this unintelligible world."—Wordsworth:.
CHARLES BRAY,
AUTHOR OF UTHE PHILOSOPHY OF NECESSITY,” “ A MANUAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY.” ETC.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
��ILLUSION AND DELUSION, ETC.
N Mathematics we can all agree ■ in Physics we have
at least learned to call things by the same name;
we understand what we are talking about so far as to
have certain definite admitted facts in common; but in
Psychology every one at present appears to use words
in a different sense, and we talk of Body and Soul,
Matter and Mind, Spirit and Spirits, Knowledge and
Ideas, Matter andMotion and Borce,without any common
ground of assent, or even knowing whether such things,
in the sense in which we use the terms, have any real
existence or not. In this unfenced, hazy, uncultivated
ground superstition still rides supreme. But is it not
possible, and if so, will it not be desirable, to divest
ourselves of the preconceptions time and authority
have attached to these names, and to see how far known
facts will carry us in the knowledge of such things, as
in others in which we are all agreed 1 Accuracy in
Mental Science is the more important, as all sects and
denominations take advantage of the want of it, and of
the darkness that exists to introduce all sorts of ground
less assumptions, and to reason upon them as established
truths. The differences between metaphysicians, and
much misconception and error at present arise, from
their confounding motion and the thing moving ; force
■with that of which it is the force; passive force, which
I
�4
Illusion and Delusion.
they call matter, with active force, which they call
spirit. The question is, have we knowledge enough
to enable us to substitute such very vague conceptions
on these and similar fundamental principles for the
more accurate ones which science requires? I think
we have.
“ All our conceptions,” says James Hinton, in 1 Man
and his Dwelling-Place,’ “ are based on the implied pos
tulate that the world is as it appears. . . . The
advance of knowledge consists in the substitution of
accurate conceptions for natural ones.” This implies
that our natural conceptions are not accurate ones, and
such will be found to be universally the case. In no
single instance is the world what it appears to be tothe common sense or to the vulgar eye. It is a com
plete illusion to all, and delusion to those who believe
in its real existence as it appears to us. The delusion
is not more complete in those who believe that Heaven
is above, in a world that turns round every twenty-four
hours, and in which therefore there can be no above
and below, than it is with respect to the existence of
the earth itself. Let us take a single illustration of the
common belief, and examine it thoroughly by the light
of science. The world, as it appears to the common
sense, is based on the conception that colour is some
thing that belongs to bodies outside ourselves, and the
world without colour would lose all its beauty. And
yet what we call colour is a nervous sensibility, an
idea, a feeling within ourselves. The vulgar idea is
that the green is in the grass, whereas the green is in
ourselves. Equally it will be found that all the other
attributes or qualities ascribed to matter are attributes
of mind and not of matter, and that the world itself is
but an illusion and delusion—a great ghost or mental
spectre. All that is known of matter is its capability
of creating within us these Illusions. Professor Tyn
dall says, “ The atoms of luminous bodies vibrating,
communicate their vibrations to the ether in which they
�Illusion and Delusion.
5
swing, being propagated through it in waves ; these
waves enter the pupil, cross the ball, and impinge upon
the retina, at the back of the eye. The motion of the
ether then communicated to the retina is transmitted
thence along the optic nerve of the brain, and there
announces itself to consciousness as light;.” It would
take, he tells us, 699 million of millions of such waves
to enter the eye in a single second to produce the im
pression we call violet in the brain. We are not
required to count these waves, because that would take
some little time, but as 57,000 of such waves fill an
inch, and light travels at the rate of 192,000 miles in a
.second, we have only to bring the miles into inches
and then multiply one by the other to get the million
■of millions required. It takes 477 millions of millions
of such waves to produce the colour we call red, and
577 millions of millions to produce green. Now let
us examine these facts. The effect produced by this
wonderful motion from without is a nervous impression,
a sensation of light, an idea of colour. Our perception
of colour, it is now known, is dependent upon a parti
cular part of the brain, for if that part of the brain is
not there, or deficient in quantity, people have no
*
perception of colour, i.e., are colour blind, or can only
partially distinguish colours. How, then, can colour
be in the object ? or what possible resemblance or sim* Sir David Brewster says that as many as one person in
twenty-eight cannot distinguish some colours from.others, and
that about one in ninety are colour blind, that is, cannot see
colours at all. Any one, in such cases, may easily satisfy
himself that it is the brain that is deficient; for if he puts his
thumb on the centre of the eye-bsow he will find an indenta
tion enabling him to touch the eye—his thumb will rest upon
the eye-ball. People are equally blind, in about the same
proportion, in other mental faculties. They may be fluent in
speech, full of facts, well read in history, with a generally
good memory, so as to be able to make a great display, and
yet be blind in the reasoning power ; and people are seldom
conscious of their own mental deficiencies, even in colour,
unless they are quite colour blind.
�6
Illusion and Delusion.
ilitude can there be between our feeling or idea and the
object which we say is coloured? The immediate
antecedent of our idea of colour is the motion of the
brain; this motion is communicated, through the eye
and retina, by the ether, and the ether is set in motion
by the reflex action of what we erroneously call the
coloured body. What this particular action is that
produces this effect upon the ether we have no means
whatever of knowing; we only know that it has tn
produce 122 millions of millions of knocks on the eye
less per second from the ether waves to produce the
green colour than the violet, and 100 millions of mil
lions less to produce the red than the green. Then
what is colour ? An idea or feeling within ourselves,
requiring all these links in the chain, and all their
wonderfully varied modes of motion, to produce it. If
any link in the chain is absent—if the brain, or the
retina, or the eye-ball, or the waves of ether, or the
reflex action on the ether, are not there, the effect is
not produced. ' It has probably taken millions of years
to perfect this relationship—to create this faculty of
mind which entirely depends upon this continuous
adjustment of internal relations to external ones. Tyn
dall says, “ We have rays of too high and too low a
pitch to be visible, that is, they are incapable of excit
ing any sensation, or creating within us any idea of
colour.'” Where, then, is the colour? Very nearly the
same motions go on outside of us without creating any
idea of colour or consciousness on our part. The
same, he -says, “ may be said of sound, and probably
sounds are heard by injects, which entirely escape our
perceptions ; and both as regards light and sound, our
organs of -sight and hearing embrace a certain practical
range, beyond which, on both sides, though the ob
jective cause exists, our nerves cease to be influenced
by it.” Metaphysicians used to divide the qualities or
properties of matter into primary and secondary; the
primary—extension, &c., were supposed to belong to
�Illusion and Delusion.
7
things themselves : the secondary—colour, &c., to our
selves ; but observation has shown that there is no
ground for this distinction, no difference between
primary and secondary, that all are equally dependent
upon the action of the brain. Extension, that is, form
and size, as well as weight, order, relative position, &c.,
are all formed in the mind like colour by the action of
forces from without, which set the brain in motion. It
is an illusion and delusion to suppose that there is
anything without ourselves resembling these percep
tions. Our perceptions are all we know or are con
scious of, and how can a perception be like an object,
or anything but itself ? There are no coloured forms
without us ; coloured forms are perceptions. All that
we know of without us are certain powers or forces,
producing certain motions which produce within us
these perceptions, the aggregate of which perceptions
we call the mind, and we are under the delusion that
they really exist out of our own minds, constituting
the external world. The world, however, as we con
ceive it, is created by the peculiar constitution of the
nervous system, which nervous system has been grad
ually increasing in size and complexity since the first
appearance of life on this earth, supposed to be some
100 millions of years ago. Each creature’s ideas, or
forms of thought, depend upon its nervous system, and
vary as that system varies, so that each animal creates
its own world, and carries it about in its own head, that
world varying as the size and Rapacity of that head
varies.
There is not one world, then, but thousands of
worlds, as each creature creates its own, and all made
out of the same stuff, which is not matter, but mind.
What we call matter is an illusion and delusion.
What there may be in reality we do not know, we only
know of something that affects us in a certain way, for
“ we know nothing of- objects, but the sensations we
have from them.” Locke says (book ii., chap. 23, § 29),
�8
Illusion and Delusion.
“ The simple ideas we receive from sensation and reflec
tion are the boundaries of our thoughts, beyond which
the mind, whatever effort it would make, is not able to
advance one jot.” David Hume only puts this a little
more emphatically. He says, “We may observe that
it is universally allowed by philosophers, and is besides
pretty obvious of itself, that nothing is ever present with
the mind but its perceptions or impressions and ideas,
and that external objects become
k
*nown
to us only by
the perceptions they occasion. Now, since nothing is
ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since all
ideas are derived from something antecedent to the
mind, it follows that it is impossible for us so much as to
conceive or form an idea of anyth ing specifically different
from ideas and impressions. Let us fix our ideas out
of ourselves as much as possible; let us chase our
imaginations to the heavens, or to the utmost limit of
the universe; we never really advance a step beyond
ourselves, nor can perceive any kind of existence but
those perceptions which have appeared in that narrow
compass.” That is, no creature can advance a single
step beyond the little world its own brain has created.
He knows nothing of matter, but only of his idea of
matter ; nor of spirit, but of his idea of it; and what
relation these ideas bear to the real truth, and whether
there is any real difference between matter and spirit
he has no means of knowing. .Knowing and perceiving
are to us the same thing. We know or are conscious of
our own perceptions, and what those perceptions are in
themselves we do not know. We know nothing of the
real or essential nature of anything. Any supposed
difference, then, between matter and spirit or between
mind and matter, may be, as far as we know, and pro
bably is, as we shall see, a delusion. All dogmatizing
about such supposed differences proceeds from ignorance,
and all theories based upon them must fall to the
ground, for if we do not know what matter is or what
spirit is, only their different modes of motion or mani
�Illusion and Delusion.
9
festation, how can we know that they differ from each
other, except in such manifestations ?
The brain, and the nervous system that travels to and
from this great nervous centre, have been of> very slow
growth. The brain of a fish bears about the average
proportion to the spinal cord of 2 to 1 ; of the reptile,
of 2 J to 1 ; the bird, 3 to 1; the animal, 4 to 1; and,
lastly, man averages 23 to 1. Sensibility or power of
feeling, which in man we call mental energy, increases
as we thus rise in the scale of being, and always in
proportion to the enlargement and complexity of the
brain and nervous system ; from the creature who is all
stomach to a London Aiderman, who is sometimes
supposed to possess feelings and faculties beyond.
The faculties, both of feeling and intellect, have been
gradually formed during countless ages by the continu
ous adjustment of internal relations to external neces
sities. First, we have exercise, then habit, attended
with increase of structure, this structure is transmitted
to offspring with its functions, and we have then spon
taneous action or instinct as it is called. All our faculties
are instincts,-—organized experience or habits that have
become structure transmitted from parent to offspring,
through innumerable generations, from variety to
variety. It is a most complicated relationship this be
tween external forces and our perceptions, as we have
seen in the faculty which enables us to perceive colour,
and has been doubtless countless ages forming, so that
the whole body upon which it and our other faculties
depend is the most wonderful contrivance of creative
skill with which we are acquainted or can conceive.
The way in which this body and mind have been built
up, part added to part, and function to function, through
the chain of being, since life first appeared on this earth,
probably 100 million years ago, is the great marvel,
and yet we hear endless talk of spirits that possess all
these attributes without this previous probation, and of
souls to whom this wonderful body is only a clog and
�io
Illusion and Delusion.
hindrance to its naturally more perfect action; but
there is not a single fact on record from which we can
infer that there is or can be anywhere such a thing as a
disembodied spirit, and as to this soul, whatever that
may be, we know its action is determined entirely by
the body.
First, we have the monad, the simplest of all organisms,,
of which seven species are at present known. These
do not present any division of functions or of organs.
One of these species, discovered by Huxley, inhabits
the sea at great depths, covering the ground with a sort
of network, and is so homogeneous in its construction
that its spontaneous generation is not thought improb
able. This monad becomes a cell, the original starting
point of all plants and animals. Man at the out
set of his existence, like every other animal, is only an
egg, a simple cell, of almost invisible proportions. This
egg after fecundation becomes an embryo. The female
supplies the egg, the male the fecundation, and there
is considerable dispute as to which performs the most
important part in the production of the new being. It
is asked, “ Does the mother merely supply, as it were,
by the ovum a cradle for the incipient man, and after
wards feed and nurse it until birth; or is it that the
germ is in the ovum of the mother, to which nothing
more than vital action stimulating it to growth is
imparted by the father1?” We know that, however
important a part the woman may play in influencing
through her own nervous system the nervous organiza
tion of the child, yet that the man supplies the germ, and
often thus transmits to his offspring his colour of hair, or
other bodily features, tendencies to disease, and other
characteristics, and also his mental aptitudes, habits, and
idiosyncracies,—some peculiar habits that belonged to the
father not manifesting themselves till late in life. So
early is the soul under the influence of structure and
organisation, that is, of the body. It is significant that the
grades through which man passes in his passage through
�Illusion and Delusion.
[i
the womb are the same in order as the history of the
earth- shows us the different forms of animals have
been, viz., fishes, amphibia, reptiles, birds, and mam
mals, so that we have not only the evolution of the
ages, but the same thing repeated at the gestation
of every superior animal, and this development of the
individual from his cell is, if anything, more difficult to
explain than that of the species, inasmuch as it is ac
complished in so comparatively short a time. There is
nothing more wonderful than the hatching of a bird’s
egg, unless it is the hatching of a man. The different
classes in the earliest stages of their embryonic develop
ment cannot be distinguished from each other, and later
man and the dog are almost identical, and when develop
ment in man is arrested, as in the idiot, no higher
functions are manifested than in some of the lowest
animals, and vastly inferior to the dog. “ Mr Marshall
has recently examined and described the brains of two
idiots of European descent. He found the convolutions
to be fewer in number, individually less complex,
broader, and smoother than in the apes.” “ In this
respect,” he says, “the idiot’s brains are even more
simple than that of the gibbon, and approach that of
the baboon.” The proportion of the weight of brain
to that of body was extraordinarily diminished. We
learn, then, that when man is born with a brain no
higher —— indeed lower —- than that of an ape, he
may have the convolutions fewer in number, and
individually less complex than they are in the brain of
a chimpanzee and an orang; the human brain may
revert to, or fall below that type of development from
which, if the theory of Darwin be true, it has gradually
ascended by evolution through the ages.” * “ The
native Australian, who is one of the lowest existing
savages, has no words in his language to express such
exalted ideas as justice, love, virtue, mercy; he has no
such ideas in his mind, and cannot comprehend them.
* Body and Mind, p. 46. By Dr Henry Maudsley.
�12
‘
Illusion and Delusion.
The vesicular neurine, which should embody them in
its constitution and manifest them in its functions, has
not been developed in his convolutions ; he is as incap
able, therefore, of the higher mental displays of abstract
reasoning and moral feeling as an idiot is, and for a
like reason.” * M. Taine, speaking of the Bearn
peasants, says, “ Here men are thin and pale ; their
bones protrude, and their features are large and severe,
like their mountains. An eternal struggle with the soil
has made-women stunted as well as plants ; it has left
in their eyes a vague expression of melancholy and
reflection. . . . The impressions of the soul and
body modify in the long run the body and the soul;
the race moulds the individual, and the country moulds
the race. A degree of heat in the atmosphere and of
inclination in the soil is the primary cause of our
faculties and passions. . . . The productions of
the human mind, as well as those of organic life, are
only to be explained by the atmosphere in which they
thrive.” On the other side, when the climatic influences
are not too depressing, the necessity which is the
mother of invention, gives increased activity to the
brain, and with it increased size. Centuries of skinning
flints have bred the finest race in Scotland that there is
in the world, and the Scotch brain is the largest in the
world.
These are now well known and acknowledged facts.
The mind depends upon the brain, and the brain upon
the body of which it is part, and the body, not upon
the soul, but upon Life. “ Our thoughts,” says Huxley,
“ are the expression of molecular changes in that matter
of life which is the source of our other vital phenomena.”
Those molecular changes depend upon the perfect action
of every other part of the body, and “ it behoves us
clearly to realize the broad fact, which has most wide
reaching consequence in mental physiology and pathol°gy, that all parts of the body, the highest and the
* Body and Mind, p. 56.
�Illusion and Delusion.
13
lowest, have a sympathy with one another more intel
ligent than conscious intelligence can yet or perhaps
ever will, conceive ; that there is not an organic motion
visible or invisible ministrant to the noblest or to the
most humble purposes, which does not work its appointed
effect in the complex recesses of mind ; that the mind
as the crowning achievement of organization, and the
. consummation and outcome of all its energies, really
comprehends the bodily life. . . . Lower the
supply of blood to the brain below a certain level, and
the power of thinking is abolished ; the brain will then
no more do mental work than a water-wheel will move
the machinery of the mill when the water is lowered
so as not to touch it.” *
The Spiritists, 'or Spiritualists, as they improperly
call themselves, disregard or altogether ignore this close
and necessary connection between mind and body,—
this nice adaptation of one to the other. They think
they have observed a class of phenomena which prove
that mind can exist separately from body ; that spirits
and souls have new faculties adapted to their new
*
sphere of action, without having any idea, however, of
how such faculties are formed. The mental faculties
with which we are acquainted are a nice adaptation of'
internal to external requirements—necessitating certain
movements—which have taken ages to form. But the
Spiritualists, by a sort of hocus-pocus or thimble-rigging
with the words body, mind, soul, have created a sys
tem which, in my opinion, falls to pieces immediately
we know definitely what is meant by such terms.
I think we have sufficient knowledge now to show
definitely what there is that really corresponds to these
words.
We have seen what a perfect piece of mechanism the
body is, “fearfully and wonderfully made
the ques
tion is, what is the power that works it ? It is pre
cisely the same as works the steam-engine, and it re* Body and Mind, p. 102.
Dr Maudsley.
�14
Illusion and Delusion.
quires stoking very much in the same way, and if it is
not stoked or fed regularly it will not go. The source
of this power, as at present traced by us, is the sun;
sun-power divorces the carbon.from the oxygen in
plants, and when the carbon and oxygen come to
gether again this power is restored, whether in the fire
of a steam-engine or in the slower combustion of the
human body. The force of heat is generated, known
to us by its mode of motion. This heat, this peculiar
mode of motion, is correlated or transformed in its
passage through the body into various other modes of
motion, and which we call the functions of different
organs, until it causes the molecular motion of the
brain, on which it resumes consciousness or becomes
sensibility. A function is a force indicating a specific
mode of action. Force seems to intensify as it passes
through the body, one equivalent of chemical force
corresponding to several equivalents of heat or inferior
force, and brain or mental force is the most concen
trated of all. Mind is the highest development of Force.
But what is Force ? We know that it is persistent,
or that it cannot be made to cease to exist, and therefore ■
it is an entity. This admitted, and it cannot now be
disputed, and we have the gist of the whole matter.
It explains numberless difficulties both in psychology
and physics, and here will be found, in my opinion, the
explanation of the phenomena which now so perplex
sincere Spiritualists. Force is not a function of matter,
although it must be the force of something—of some
entity; matter only conditions it, that is, changes its
modes of manifestation ; it is not motion, but the
cause of motion. It is known to us only in its modes
of motion, and hitherto it has been confounded with
motion, and hereby we have lost the secret of much
that has appeared mysterious. Force, as it has been
known to us only by its manifestations, is what we
have been accustomed to call a spiritual entity. If I
turn the handle of a grindstone, force passes from me
�Illusion and Delusion.
*5
into the grindstone, and does its work; as soon as that
force has passed’ out, causing motion elsewhere, the
motion I caused in the grindstone ceases. If I wind
np a watch, force passes from me into the watch com
pressing the spring ; as it passes out, setting the whole
machine in regulated motion, it tells the time. Force
is the active principle in nature, causing motion every
where ; this motion acts in a certain order for a given
purpose, that is, it acts intelligently, and if you add in
telligence to force we have what we call mind or will.
Mind acts both consciously and unconsciously, or what
is called automatically, and what we call physical force
is probably automatic mind.
Now, what happens in the creation of what we call
mind ? The force we take in with the food, after un
dergoing various transformations in the body, is worked
up °into sensibility or consciousness, by . inducing a
peculiar motion in the brain, which we call its molecular
action, so that, as Dr Huxley tells us, “ Consciousness
and molecular action are capable of being expressed by
one another, just as heat and mechanical action are
capable of being expressed in terms of one another.
Consciousness requires so much force to produce it, and
the intensity of an idea or feeling is in proportion to the
amount consumed, and that is generally in proportion to
the size of the nervous centre, or organ, or specialized part
of the brain through which it passes. Thus conscious
ness, like heat, has also its mechanical equivalents.. The
brain, already in motion, is acted upon from without
through the medium of the senses, and the union of
the specific force within with the specific force without
produces an idea which we call a perception. We
have seen how our perception of colour is produced,
and the extraordinary complicated action that is re
quired. If any link in this long chain of outward
sequences is wanting, the idea is not produced ; and if
the food, or internal force is not supplied, or the mole
cular action of the brain is interfered with, by pressure
�i6
Illusion and Delusion.
upon it, there is no consciousness—no ideas or feelings
—and millions of millions of ether wave motions with
out are required to give a simple perception of colour.
Other ideas are formed in the same way, by the union
of force within with force without. We have ideas of
form, size, weight, which together give us our ideas of
extension and solidity, and which are no more solid
and extended than music and colour are. The popular
notion of these things is a belief in that which in fact
does not exist. Forces act upon us from without and
give us what we call perceptions, these are taken up by
other parts of the brain, by what we call our faculties
of relative perception, comparison, causality, &c., and
in this way the external world is created. But it is
only our idea of an external world, which must vary as
the specific structure of the brain varies upon which
that idea depends. But although the world, as we
conceive of it, exists only in our ideas, something exists,
which is real independent of our thoughts, something
that we call force, or a system of forces. Light and
sound, the mental states, might cease to exist, but their
vibratory causes without us would not, and they might
affect other beings'differently organized in quite a dif
ferent way; that which produced light m us might pro
duce sound, or other sensations or ideas, in them, and
vice versa. Perception is the direct action of force
without; Conception is the internal action of the brain
only, producing the same ideas but less vivid; Memory
is a repetition of this action in a given form; Imagina
tion is the re-combination in the brain itself of these
ideas, strong in proportion to the great or less activity
of the brain; and Judgment is either a reference of a
simple perception to its external source, or, as more
generally understood, the action of one class of faculties
upon the others, inducing, among other things, what is
called self-consciousness and reason. These are not
primitive or innate faculties of mind—they have no
organs, they are only modes of action of all the faculties.
�17
Illusion and Delusion.
To be conscious and to know, or consciousness and
knowing, are to us the same things. Consciousness
and sensibility are also the same things—and sensi
bility we divide into ideas and feelings. Knowing a
thing and our idea of it are the same, and an idea
cannot be like anything but itself. We cannot in our
knowledge get beyond or even behind that idea, and it
tells us nothing of itself, still less of anything but itself.
When, then, we speak of matter and spirit, of body,
mind, and soul, as different in themselves, we speak of
what we can and do know nothing about; we speak of
only our ideas of such things, and those ideas do not
differ in themselves, but are the same. The differences
we think we see are differences in modes of action only.
Almost all the controversies on these subjects are
based upon the supposed essential differences in these
objects, of which differences, if any such exist, we
know really nothing. When we talk of the material
man, we mean our idea of him, but that idea is what
has been called spirit.
Having stated facts as they are at present known to
us, let us now give a few definitions based upon them.
Matter is the unknown cause of states of con
sciousness. It produces different sensations in us
by its different modes of motion, and Science is the
mere registration of these different modes of motion.
Men of science give fine names to these motions, and
having named them, assume that they know all about
them, when in fact they know nothing but of these
modes of motion.
‘ ‘ Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to he:
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And thou, 0 Lord, art more than they.”
—Tennyson.
The consciousness, idea, or perception of matter is
the union of the force within, prepared by the molecu
lar action of the brain, and the force without. We
B
�18
Illusion and Delusion.
have matter, motion, and force. Motion, which by
physicists is almost always confounded with its cause,
is nothing, it is a mere change of place, and is of course
inseparable from the thing moving. Force is the
active cause of all motion, and passive force, which is
what we call matter, is the cause of the peculiar and
specific direction which the force takes, its correlation
or transformation. It is force only that acts upon us,
that is upon our bodies or structures, and those struc
tures, when examined, resolve themselves into centres
of force. The more we examine the more the convic
tion is forced upon us that there is but one stuff out of
which all things are made, and that is force, or rather
the unknown of which force is the force. Huxley says,
“ Every form is force visible ; a form of rest is a bal
ance of forces; a form undergoing change is the pre
dominance of one over others.'"’ Matter and mind are
probably the same in essence ; I say probably, for we
know nothing of essences, and we do not know there
fore that there is any difference. Dr Carpenter says,
matter possesses extension, or occupies space, while
mind has no such property; but surely if individual
mind exists, and one mind exists separate and apart
from another, there must be somewhere where it exists,
and that somewhere is what we call space. But if ex
tension is only a form of thought, and there is only
force or mind, then space, like extension, is a form of
thought, or purely subjective, and the universe, with
its supposed enormous distances from star to star, must
be something very different to what we conceive
of it.
Spirit is only sublimated or etherialised matter.
Spirits and souls are, with most people, the same things.
Huxley tells us “ that the alchemists called the volatile
liquid which they obtained from wine, ‘spirits’ of
wine, and as the ‘ spiritus ’ or breath of a man was
thought to be the most refined or subtle part of him,
the intelligent essence of man was also conceived as a
�Illusion and Delusion.
19
sort of breath or spirit; and by analogy, the most re
fined essence of anything was called ‘spirit.’ And
thus it has come about that we use the same word for
soul of man and for a glass of gin.”
Mind.—Sensibility, as distinguished from insensi
bility, or consciousness, as distinguished from uncon
sciousness, is what we call mind. As protoplasm is the
physical base of life, so sensibility is the spiritual base
of mind, the specific form it takes depending on organ
isation. There is no idea or feeling but is connected
with the action of brain or nervous system. The spe
cific action of certain parts of the brain we call forms
of thought, the specific action of other parts we call
feelings, which we divide into propensities and senti
ments. We receive a number of separate impressions
from without, a form of thought gives them unity and
individuality, which unity we call matter, body, or
substance; we have a succession of separate and inde
pendent thoughts and feelings, the same faculty of
mind, or form of thought, gives unity to them also, and
we call them our mind, although it is clear that all the
unity they possess is. given them by a form of thought,
and that each separate thought and feeling is a distinct
entity. The mind is one whole, we are told—and much
is based upon the assumption—and yet it is evident
the idea of individual mind as a whole is a creation
of the mind, in the same way as colour is ; or rather it
is a whole only in the same sense as the body is, which
is composed of many parts, and is always changing
them, so the mind is composed of many ideas and feel
ings constantly changing.
The unity of mind is an illusion, there are individual
thoughts and feelings, and that is all. The unity of
any mind but the one Great Supreme, is a delusion.
Faith, hope, resignation, and all the soul’s highest
aspirations, exist only from their connection, like colour
and music, with organisation; they are feelings spe
cialised by the peculiar structure of certain nervous
�20
Illusion and Delusion.
centres, and if that organisation is not there, like colour,
they do not and cannot exist.
But there must be a substratum of consciousness, a
something that is conscious. What is that? Mind,
says one, soul, says another, brain or matter, says a third,
but none of these are right. The force within, it is,
that under brain action becomes conscious, and the
quantity of this force consumed is always proportionate
to the vividness of the idea or the amount of feeling.
Mental activity and nerve force are the same; mental
force is the strongest of all forces, and being persistent,
it passes from the state we call consciousness into all
the motions of the body, and probably into all the
extraordinary phenomena of so-called spiritual manifes
tations. We are told that “ the nerve and brain organism
is the immediate substratum which has the conscious
ness.” This is a mistake; it is the “ force” that be
comes consciousness, which the brain does not originate,
but only conditions. Again, “the nervous organism,
which is the conscious agent, reacts through the muscles
upon the external world.” Here, also, it is not the
organism, but the force that is the conscious agent, and
reacts, &c. Consciousness is said to be immaterial,
but consciousness tells us nothing of its own nature,
nothing of either material or immaterial.
The Soul.—It is this substratum of consciousness
that is usually called the soul, but in this sense it is
the active principle, conscious or unconscious, of all
things. Man, however, is supposed to have a special
soul of his own. I must confess, however, that I have
not been able to find it, or any use for it. If there is
a special soul, where does it come from? when and how
does it enter into him ? In the germ in which lie
folded up many of the mental attributes of the future
man ? or during what period of gestation, at what period
of animal evolution ? or at birth? No ; the poet says,
“ there lives and moves a soul in all things, and that
�Illusion and Delusion.
21
soul is God ■, ” arid the poet, I think, will prove to be
right.
The Self, the Ego.—Intimately connected with
this soul is the self or ego ; but this also is an illusion
and delusion. The “ ego” is a mere form of thought—
that is, self-consciousness is formed by the brain. Thus
we say “ I think,” when all we are warranted in saying
is, that “ thinking is.” The “ I” comprises both body
and mind, hut the body does not think, it only “con
ditions ” or gives the “form” to thought, therefore “I
think” is wrong. There is a succession of thoughts,
and that is all that we find in the analysis of conscious
ness. The “ I ” of consciousness is an intuition, but
intuitions are not always truths, although they are
generally accepted' as such. Intuitions or instincts
are specialised actions of the brain, hereditarily trans
mitted, to answer definite purposes. The body is con
stantly changing, and the mind is only a change of
thought corresponding; neither body nor mind are iden
tical or the same for any two seconds together, but are
part of, and in constant flux with, all the forces around ;
nevertheless, a part of the brain, whose function it is,
produces the “ ego,” or the sense of individuality, and
personal identity. This part of the brain is sometimes
diseased, and then the “I” or sense of identity is lost,
as is well known in some cases of insanity, and of
double consciousness. This ego has about the same
reality as the external world; there must be something
that produces the feeling, and that is all. It is charac
teristic of living organisms to replace the new material
precisely in the place of the old. A mark on the body
continues through life, the same on the brain, the new
material is placed round the old impressions, so that the
forms of thought and feeling turned out by it are very
nearly, if not precisely, the same. It is the trans
mitted experience of this result that has produced the
intuitional “ I,” or the feeling of identity. Memory is
the result of impressions on the brain, deep and vivid
�22
Illusion and Delusion.
in proportion to our youth and susceptibility. In old
age, when our animal vigour is exhausted, and less
force passes through the brain, and the brain itself be
comes less susceptible of impression, the old, or rather
the early impressions resume their sway, and we return
to our habits of feeling and thinking, and our early
memories. “If,” says Bishop Butler, in his “Analogy,”
“ the old man on the verge of the grave is the same as
the child within the womb, if the mutilated soldier is
conscious that no part of himself is, if to the very edge
of that change which we call death we have watched
the force of mind and soul continued in all its keen
ness, then the belief that what each man calls himself
will be destroyed when the material surroundings which
have been often changed without affecting him are dis
solved, is not justified by anything we see in the world
around us.” But material surroundings never do
change without affecting him, and close observation
show's that a change of mind always accompanies a
change of body.
The Will is generally regarded as our commander,
and free. This is another delusion. It is entirely a
servant, and necessarily obeys cither the last dictate of
the understanding or some strong impulse or feeling.
No doubt the will has a local habitation in the brain,
in a position in which it can best execute these com
mands. The intellect or feeling having determined
what to do, with a power proportioned to the size of
the organs from which the determination proceeds, the
will, like a trigger to the mind, lets off this force in the
direction of the purpose aimed at. Under the very
top of the head, where firmness lies, is the part of the
brain connected with the Ego, and again under this, in
the base of the brain, above the medulla oblongata, is
most probably the part connected wdth the will. This
specialises the control over different muscles. We say
“ I will,” and a bundle of isolated nerve-threads, com
municating with particular portions of the central
�Illusion and Delusion.
23
nervous system, can set to work any set of muscles
through the aid of the vaso-motor nerves, which close
or liberate the flow of blood to any particular part of
the central system.
Truth.—If, then, in the process of substituting
accurate conceptions for “ common sense ” ones we are
obliged to come to the conviction that the latter, or the
ordinary ideas of matter, mind, soul, the I, and the
free will are illusions and delusions, how is it that we
believe in them ? As these ideas result from the natu
ral exercise of our faculties—that is, as it is the func
tion of the brain to produce these illusions, so there is
-a part of the brain whose function it is to produce be
lief in them, or to give the sense of their reality. Each
faculty has its function, and it is natural to us to be
lieve in the result of its activity, but that may have no
relation to the real truth about any tiling. What, then,
is truth ? Truth, to us, is the record of the succession
-of our own consciousness, and of how that is affected
by the infinitely varied modes of motion without us.
But how distinguish the internal workings of our own
mind or brain, our active imaginings, from that which
takes .place without us, and which ought to be the
same to all beings similarly organised ? Observation
•and experience is the test of truth. Different and in
dependent individuals question nature, and if they
invariably get the same answer—that is, the same im
pressions,—that we call the truth. But this is merely
how we are impressed; it tells us nothing more, and
that impression can be like nothing but itself; still it
is all we can know, which is merely affirming what all
philosophers now admit, that our knowledge is only
relative, and not absolute. However it may affect our
•self-conceit, this relative knowledge is all we have, or
probably can have, and it is all that can be of any use
to us. To know what things are in themselves is pro
bably impossible to finite creatures, and how such
things affect other intelligences is of comparatively little
�24
Illusion and Delusion.
consequence to us. The object of nature does not
appear to be to give us any real knowledge, only to in
duce that kind of action in us that shall harmonise
with the things without us, and produce and perpetuate
the largest amount of enjoyment. All opinions may
be erroneous, but all are thus made salutory ; for “ it
is manifest,” as Bishop Butler observes, “ that nothing
can be of consequence to mankind, or any creature, but
happiness.” In this department alone has man any
real knowledge, all else is illusion and delusion. The
knowledge of pains and pleasures is alone absolute
knowledge, and to increase the sum of the pleasures,
the aggregate of which constitutes happiness, has this
wonderful phantasmagoria of a world been produced.
Man is “ the heir of all the ages,” and it has taken
ages to put him together in his present form. The
lowest forms of animal life appeared first, and arenecessary steps to the evolution of the highest. He
has passed through all grades, as is now illustrated in
his passage through the womb. We trace the gradual
evolution and specialisation of nerve centres from the
first appearance of nerve tissue in the lowest animals to
the complex structure of the nervous system of man.
What is rudimentary in savage man becomes more fully
developed as civilisation advances, and this “ progres
sive evolution of the human brain is a proof that wedo inherit, as a natural endowment, the laboured ac
quisitions of our ancestors. The added structure repre
sents, as it were, the embodied experience and memories
of the race..”* And this embodied experience or instinct
represents 30 per cent, of the added structure, which
is the difference in weight between the brains of savage
and civilised man. I know it is customary to speak of
the body, of the material man, in terms of depreciation
and reproach, as merely the instrument by which the
mind communicates with the world without, &c., but
* “Body and Mind,” p. 59, by Dr H. Maudsley.
�Illusion and Delusion.'
25
there is not the slightest evidence to show that mind, asknown to us-—that is, as specialised for special pur
poses here, can act separately or independently from
the body. Body and the succession of thought and
feeling which we call mind, are one and indivisible.
“ Life,” says Schelling, “ is the tendency to individua
tion.” The forces of nature are confined within definite
limits, and work towards a given object. The evolu
tion of the brain depends upon life ; and mind, as it is
specialised in human ideas and feelings, is the result of
brain action. The soul—that is, force, may exist as an
independent essence, but faith, hope, charity, and all
its other supposed attributes exist only from their con
nection, like colour, with organisation. These senti
ments, and the moral feelings generally, have been spe
cialised for a special purpose connected with the rela
tion of man to his fellows. Milton, among our great
and unprejudiced minds, and quite independent of
recent discoveries in cerebral physiology, perceived this
oneness of body and mind. He says, in his “ Treatise
on Christian Doctrine,” “ That man is a living being,
intrinsically and properly one and individual, not com
pound or separable, not, according' to the common
opinion, made up and framed of two distinct and differ
ent natures, as of soul and body—but the whole man
is soul, and the soul man; that is to say, a body, or'
substance, individual, animated, sensitive, and rational.”
This unity of body and mind is now generally ad
mitted by physiologists and scientific men generally,
and those who hold the unity only without, further
investigation into what has been called matter are
called Materialists, which is considered to be a term of
reproach. The Spiritualists think that they have dis
covered a class of phenomena which prove that man is
“ compound or separable,” and that these manifesta
tions appear at the present time as a sort of special
revelation to counteract the above materialistic tendency
�2,6
Illusion and Delusion.
of the age. The late hard-headed mathematician Au
gustus de Morgan, speaking of these phenomena, many
•of which he had himself witnessed, says, “When it
-comes to what is the cause of these phenomena, I find
I cannot adopt any explanation which has yet been
suggested. If I were bound to choose among things
that I can conceive, I should say that there is some
sort of action, of some combination of will, intellect,
and physical power, which is not that of any of the
human beings present. But thinking it very likely
that the universe may- contain a few agencies, say half
■a million, about which no man knows anything, I can
not but suspect that a-small proportion of these agen
cies, say five thousand, may be severally competent to
the production of all the phenomena, or may be quite
up to the task among them. The physical explana
tions which I have seen are easy, but miserably insuffi
cient ; the spiritual hypothesis is sufficient, but ponder. ously difficult.” In the early ages of the world, in the
prevalent ignorance of physics, spirits were the supposed
agents in all those unknown causes which we now
trace to natural law. Psychology is at the present
time where physics was in those early ages, and again
we have recourse to spirits to help us out of our diffi
culties, and supplement our ignorance. And more
than that, these spirits are called up to neutralise and
make of no avail the knowledge we have acquired.
But I would ask the Spiritualists, “Would it not be
better to pause, with Professor de Morgan, until we
■know more, rather than commit ourselves to a ‘ future
state’ so little desirable?” for, as the Professor says, ‘ if
these things be spirits, they show that pretenders, cox
combs, and liars are to Le found on the other side of
the grave as well as this,’ and all seem to have retro
graded, both in mind and feeling, since they were in
the body. Surely we had better satisfy ourselves with
nature’s course, and be content to pass on our powers
•of body and mind, in endless progress, to coming gene-
�Illusion and Delusion.
1”]
rations, than continue our own individual existence
under such conditions.
This idea of ghosts and apparitions and a future state
does not ever appear to have been a comfortable one
all the world over. Among savages, when a chief died
his wives and horses and dogs were slain at his tomb,
that he might have the use of them in the happy hunt
ing grounds where he had gone. Hindoo widows were
burnt (burnt themselves, it was said) on the funeral
pile in the same spirit, and at the present time, although
widows are not burnt, their life is one of continual
penance. A Hindoo widow obtains her husband’s pro
perty, that she may devote it to oblations and cere
monies for the good of her husband’s soul. Should
the lady marry again, the husband is supposed to have
a very bad time of it below, and the daring couple be■corne literally outcasts from all society, and all that
makes life enjoyable. In China this fear of ghosts is
the great barrier to all progress. It is not the living,
but the dead that rule. There can be no railroads, lest
in laying them down the bodies of the dead should be
disturbed, and relations should be haunted by their
-spirits. In this and other Christian countries a future
state is looked upon as a sort of necessary aid to the
policeman, and children are asked if they know where
they will “go to” if they steal or tell a lie. We are
also told by Mr Thomas Wright, the journeyman
■engineer, “ that it is well for society that the masses
have this hope and belief, or they would not endure
the present so patiently as they have done and do.”
Their belief is that the condition of rich and poor will
be reversed in another world, if they do not even rejoice
a little over the fate of Dives. But this kind of con
solation does not appear to be confined altogether to
the working classes. Thus we are told in “ Random
Recollections of the Midland Circuit,” by Robert Wal
ton, a book lately published, that “ a man of the
name of Harrington was tried at Warwick for bias-
�i8
Illusion and Delusion.
phemy. Old Clarke, Q.C., was the leading prosecuting
counsel. Clarke, in the general reply he claimed on
the part of the Crown, inveighed in no measured terms
upon the evil tendency of the man’s writing, especially
those parts which denied the existence of his Satanic
majesty and his various attributes, the doctrine of
future rewards and punishments, &c. Warming him
self as he went on, as he of course would, from the
very nature of his subject, he exclaimed, ‘ Gentlemen, if
there be any truth in what the prisoner asserts, where
are we?’ (A favourite expression of his.) ‘ If there
be no devil and no hell, what is to become of us?
Gentlemen, it is men like those who would deprive us
of all hope here and comfort hereafter.’”
Neither can a “ future state” be altogether a “ gospel
of glad tidings,” even to the orthodox Christian, who
professes to believe that “ Whosoever will be saved,
before all things, it is necessary that he hold the
Catholic Faith,” and that, without doubt, he shall
perish everlastingly,—go into everlasting fire, if he do
not. This Creed includes the belief that Christ “de
scended into Hell,” and that men shall live again with
their bodies, to give account for their own works. We
are told that “ Strait is the gate and narrow the way
that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it,” and
“ that many are called, but few are chosenand truly
this must be, so, if such faith is required. The Scotch
man’s creed, based on the Westminster Confession of
Faith, contains similar consolation. He holds that
God hath appointed the Elect only unto glory, and
that the rest of mankind he was pleased to pass by,
and to ordain them to dishonour, and wrath for their
sin, to the praise of his glorious justice / However
certain a man may be in his self-conceit and selfcomplacency of his own salvation, he must be extra
ordinarily constituted, if such a belief in a Future state
can supply him with any consolation. For myself, I
would rather, a thousand times, give up all hopes of an
�Illusion and Delusion.
29
“ individual ” hereafter, and go back to where I was
before I was born, when, if I was not happy, at least I
did not suffer, rather than that one being should be
reserved to everlasting suffering.
Continued existence does not necessarily imply Im
mortality, fortunately, as all the Spiritualists assume,
for think of the gift of Immortality being considered a
blessing, when, possibly it might be one of endless misery!
Even the poor “ wandering Jew” would rest when this
world came to an end. I cannot imagine how such
devilish conceptions ever got into people’s heads, or how,
having got them there, they can live and even be happy !
Dr Carpenter says: “ I look upon the root of this
Spiritualism to lie in that which is very natural, and in
some respects a wholesome disposition of the kind'—a
desire to connect ourselves, in thought, with those
whom we have loved, and who have gone before us.
Nothing is more admirable, more beautiful, in our
nature, than this longing for the continuance of inter
course with those whom we have loved on earth. . . .
But this manifestation of it, is one which those who
experience this feeling, in its greatest purity, and its
greatest intensity, feel to be absurd and contrary to
common sense.” How much better is the Poet’s
expression of this feeling :—
“ Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature whom I found so fair,
I trust he Ilves in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.”—Tennyson.
We who believe in God,— and not in a being
who exacts an impossible belief, or who elects a few
to glory, and passes the rest by, when he might either
have not created, or have elected all,—as regards a
Future state, hold the faith, that if it is better, all
things considered, that we should, as individuals, con
tinue to exist, we shall be sure to do so; if it is
not better we ought not, and do not, desire to do so.
Surely this is the least selfish faith. I, for one, am
�3°
Illusion and Delusion.
prepared to leave myself for the future, in infinite
confidence in God’s hands.
But are the physical explanations of these so-called
spiritual phenomena so miserably insufficient as De
Morgan represents •them ? I think not; at least they
appear to me to point unmistakeably to the direction
in which the explanation will be found. In the first
place, as we have seen, to know and to be conscious
are with us the same things, and consciousness is what
we call mental, and we know of nothing beyond—that
is, the difference between physical and mental is only
in their modes of manifestation; we know of no essen
tial difference between them. The more we know, the
more it seems probable that all is of one stuff, and that
all is mind, not matter. If so, we must confess that
we know at present but very little of its natural modes
of manifestation, that what little we do know is at pre
sent “practically interpretable only through the methods
and formulae of physics,” and through the language or
terms of physics. Thus an immense amount of what we
call physical force passes through the body, estimated
at 14 millions of foot pounds per day, which, when
subjected to the molecular action of the brain becomes
mind or consciousness, that is, thoughts and feelings.
This force, on leaving the brain again appears to lose its
consciousness, and to revert to physical force, and at
present we know very imperfectly what becomes of it,
or what its real condition is after leaving the brain.
The investigation which Sergeant Cox proposes to make
in his second Vol. of “ What ami?” into Sleep and
Dream, Insanity, Hallucination, Unconscious Cerebra
tion, Trance, Delirium, Psychic Force and Natural and
Artificial Somnambulism, will no doubt throw consider
able light on this subject, and be proportionally inter
esting. Dr C. Darwin’s book on “Expression of the
Emotions in Men and Animals,” is a valuable contribu
tion in this direction ; so also is “ Mysteries of the
Vital Element,” by Dr Eobt. Collyer. Mr Herbert
�Illusion and Delusion.
31
Spencer insists on the general law, that feeling passing
a certain pitch, habitually vents itself in bodily action,
and that an overplus of nervous forces, undirected by
any motive, will manifestly take first- the most
habitual routes ; and if these do not suffice, will next
overflow into the less habitual ones. But Mr Spencer,,
although an able exponent of the persistence of Force,,
has not yet attempted to trace nervous force, beyond
the body, in its action upon other organizations,
neither, as far as I know, does he believe in it. My
own personal experience has been very slight. I have
seen will force acting beyond the body, that is, without
the aid of the muscles, and producing various effects,
both in contact and without, both near and at some
distance. I have witnessed many cures from what
appeared to be the action of the nervous force of one
body upon another, and also one mind as completely
under the control of another, as if they were one, in
what is called Electro-biology. I have satisfied myself
beyond a doubt, that thought reading is a possibility,
having on one occasion seen a mesmerised child tell
the number of three watches, consecutively, each
number consisting of five figures each. These figures
could only have been known to the mesmeriser, who,,
with some difficulty, madti them out by the aid of a
strong light. I have also satisfied myself of the truthof phreno-mesmerism, and that it is not necessarily
connected with thought reading. I have also seen, in
Spiritualist circles, a great deal of humbug and pious
fraud, as well as self-deception.
I have, however, seen quite enough to satisfy me that
the senses, the ordinary inlets to the mind, are not the
only means by which the brain is acted upon from
without. The brain faculties specialize the action of
-mind for special purposes, and the senses direct the
action and limit the quantity of force from without
but these barriers to the more general and universal
action of mind can be partially removed. We are part
�32
Illusion and Delusion.
of all the forces around, and in direct and immediate
connection with them, and but partially individualized.
As star can act on star, at immeasurable distances, so can
one mind upon another within more limited bounds,
when such minds are en-rapport. In thought-reading
we have probably synchronism of vibration between
patient and mesmeriser. We can charge a table with
brain or nervous force, and our volition can act or pro
duce motion through that medium without the aid of
the motor-nerves and muscular contact. In electro
biology the same thing takes place, one brain becomes
charged with nervous force from another, and the whole
of this force is under the direction of one will. We
are surrounded by an atmosphere, the result of cerebra
tion, its character depending upon the nervous centres
or mental faculties from which it emanates. We all
have felt the effect, more or less, of coming into each
other’s atmospheres. There are mental attractions and
repulsions, likes and antipathies among individuals,
varying as they do in chemistry. The amount of force
that goes to the brain may -be artificially increased by
Alcohol, Opium, Haschisch, etc., not only inducing
greatly increased mental activity, but many extra
ordinary phenomena besides. We have nerve force
from mental energy, and mental energy from nerve
force in constant correlation. In trance we have the
same thing, the force being withdrawn from the vital
functions, gives us mind under new conditions, with
increased and additional and abnormal powers. As
force from the sun impinging upon body, produces 699
millions of millions of waves in ether (probably the raw
material of mind) inducing in us the sensation we call
violet colour, so brain force may be carried through the
same ether inducing consciousness, and carrying ideas
in all sorts of ways, at present unknown to us. At
any rate we should hesitate before we call in the aid of
the Spirits, the infallible resort, from the beginning of
time, of ignorance. We ought to be modest and
�Illusion and Delusion.
33
cautious when we reflect that we know only our own
consciousness, and everything else only as it is reflected
there, and that it tells us nothing of its own nature, or
of the nature of anything without its boundaries.
I have to apologize for this digression upon Spirit
ualism, which originally formed no part of my subject,
and .which shortens the space at my command, which
before was too little.
The Moral World.
If the physical world has been created by our forms of
thought connected with the intellect, so has the moral
world been created within us by our feelings ; as a few
simple perceptions have been worked up by the mental
faculties to form the world without, so our simple
pains and pleasures have been worked up by our moral
faculties to make our moral world. To suppose that
there is anything outside ourselves corresponding is as
pure an illusion and delusion in one case as the other.
We are said to be responsible for freedom of will, that is,
we are supposed to’be a sort of first cause in a small way
capable of spontaneous action ; an exception to every
thing else in the universe, to be capable of originating
motion; but this is a contradiction to the now estab
lished doctrine of the persistence of force.
This
doctrine of the conservation of energy furnishes the
modern proof of the truth of what has been hitherto
called Philosophical Necessity. Thus as Oerstead says,
“ everything that exists depends upon the past, prepares
the future, and is related to the whole.” This is the
principle of evolution : “ each manifestation of force
can be interpreted only as the affect of some antecedent
force, no matter whether it be an inorganic action, an
animal movement, a thought or feeling.”* “ Con
sequently, as I have said elsewhere (Manual of
* Herbert Spencer.
c
�34
Illusion and Delusion.
Anthropology, p. 309) “ all actions being equally
necessary—all equally the effect of some antecedent
force, there can be no intrinsic difference between them,
the only difference being one of arrangement. Good
and evil are purely subjective, that is dependent upon
the way in which our sensibility is affected by things
■without. Where we have pleasure it is called good ;
where we have pain evil. Pleasurable sensation
attends the legitimate action of all our faculties, whereas
pain or suffering is not the legitimate object of any
, part of our organization. Praise and blame, reward and
punishment are not a recognition of any intrinsic
difference in actions themselves, but of our wish to
produce one class of actions rather than another as more
agreeable to ourselves. They are intended merely as
motives to action.
Responsibility consists in our
having to bear the natural and necessary consequences
of our actions. The supposition that our responsibility
• consists in our liability to so much suffering for so much
sin or error, if not in this world then in another—that
jut, 'ice requires that if we sin we must suffer—however
ancient, is an altogether groundless notion. The object
of pain or suffering is reformation, and any pain or
punishment that has not that object, any suffering in
excess of that, would be objectless and mere revenge.
Every sin contains its own atonement in the pain or
penalty attached to the natural consequences that
follow it. . . . That retribution would not be just which
included more punishment than was sufficient to correct
the offence and was therefore good for the offender.”
“ If,” as Quetelet says, “ society prepares crime, and the
guilty are only the instruments by which it is executed,”
the strict demands of justice would require that the
sinner, not the saint, should be made happy in another
world, because the sinner having been made to dis
honour in this world, has been the most unhappy here,
and requires compensation.” We hear much of the
“ self-determining will of man, on which his moral
�Illusion and Delusion.
35
responsibility essentially depends.” But what does this
mean but that he may be moved by motives and his
liability to suffer the consequences if he does not ?
'Conscience tells him he must do right, and not do what
is wrong, and it is these consequences that tell him
what is right and wrong. A sense of pain and pleasure,
is the revelation God has given to all mankind, not to be
disregarded or misinterpreted. And what does self
determining mean but that a man must necessarily act
in accordance with the laws of his own nature? A
selfish man acts selfishly and takes the consequences,
and he could not do otherwise in either case, whether
his actions were free or necessary. Fire burns and
water drowns whether we get into them voluntarily or
by accident. Self-determining in this sense applies to
everything organic or inorganic,—everything acts in
.accordance with the laws of its own nature, from an
atom to a monad, and from a monad to God. It is the
power to do this without external constraint that con
stitutes freedom, and it is this experience, organized in
the long ages, that is the source of the instinct or intui
tion that is generally stronger than reason, even in the
best informed. I know that my will is free ; I feel that
I can do as I please, that is the language of intuition but
it is not the less an illusion and delusion. What we
please to do depends upon persistent force passing through
•our organization, the strongest force or feeling always
prevailing, or governing the will. It is our conscious
ness that deceives us in this case, as in so many others,
from it insufficiency ; the fact being that this governing
power or force, does not appear in consciousness, but
only‘its correlation. “Human liberty, of which all
boast,” says Spinoza, “ consists solely in this, that man
is conscious of his will, and unconscious of the causes by
which it is determined.” “ Arrest one of the viscera,
■ and the vital actions quickly cease; prevent a limb
from moving, and the ability to meet surrounding
circumstances is seriously interfered with; destroy a
�36
Illusion and Delusion.
sense organ, paralyze a perceptive power, derange the
reason, and there comes more or less failure in that
adjustment of conduct to circumstances by which life
is preserved.” * It is of such kind of impediments to
free action only of which man is conscious, and it is this
power of adjustment of conduct to circumstances that
constitutes his freedom, and this is a freedom that can
be exercised only in accordance with natural law.
There can be no mental science or social science, or
indeed “ science ” at all where these principles are not
admitted; and the sooner this dire chimera of man’s
freedom of will, which has caused and still causes so
much suffering, is banished the better. The science of
man must be placed on the same foundation as all the
other sciences, and not left to chance as this freedom
implies ; on the contrary we shall take care that the
will is never free but always under the governance of
the cultivated intellect and highest feeling. We shall
then begin to discover that the laws which regulate
men’s birth are quite as important as those by which we
improve our horses, short-horns, sheep, and dogs ; and
our inquiries will be directed, not so much as to where
he is going to, as to where he comes from. Our .gaols
will undergo the change, that, with much labour, we
have effected in our Lunatic Asylums^ and we shall
learn that civilization does not consist in the increase of
wealth, but in the increase of brain, upon which all
thought and feeling depend. When Morality becomes
a Science we shall cultivate brain, as its special organ
ization and harmonious development are essential to
warmth of sentiment, to the sense of the beautiful, and
to religious emotion ; and education in the future will
consist in the developing and perfecting of all the
faculties which make a complete man. Tf the organ-ization is deficient or defective, we can no more feel the
higher emotions than wre can see without eyes. To*•
*• Principles of Psychology, vol. 2, p. 627, by Herbert Spencer-
�Illusion and Delusion.
37
-ensure this development of a healthy and well-formed
brain, “ preaching ” goes but a very little way ; it must
be placed in conditions favourable to its healthy growth.
The increase of wealth is essential, as we cannot engraft
virtue on physical misery, and we must be happy
ourselves to wish to make others happy. As I have
said elsewhere (Education of the Feelings'), 11 To grow
the organization upon which moral action habitually
depends is the work of time, and we must be content
' to wait.”
We may pause here for a brief summary before we
enter a field of thought into which scientific men may
not feel equally disposed to follow me, and which,
with our limited knowledge, necessarily partakes of
much speculation.
Matter is known to us only from its capacity of
creating within us certain sensations which we call
ideas and feelings. “ The conception we have of matter,”
says Herbert Spencer, “ is one which unites independ
ence, permanence, and force.”
Mind is the aggregate of these ideas and feelings,
their character or speciality depending upon the brain.
The World, therefore, is created within us, and
although there is something without us, the world, as
we conceive of it, exists only in our conception. But
although the world is the world of our ideas, and exists
only in thought, it is not the less worthy or wonderful
on that account. It is our wmrld.
The Soul is the force or active power which causes
these ideas, or creates this world ; and more, this force,
■or that which it is the force of, is the stuff out of
which this world is made.
The Will is the subject of “law” like everything
else.
Morality regulates the laws of man’s well-being,
and as it is the “ law ” of his nature to seek his well
being, the interests of morality are sufficiently assured,
whatever may be his opinions on the subject.
�38
Illusion and Delusion.
The Body consists of forces of nature individualized
and acting together for a special purpose. Their action
depends upon the nice balance established between
external and internal relations. It has taken ages tobring together and establish this relationship, and it
is the unity of these powers and their united action
that constitutes the Identity or the Ego. The forces
which compose the body are all capable of acting
separately and are indestructible, but when this unity
of body is destroyed, whether the identity is destroyed
with it, is a question I leave every one to answer for
himself, as it is usually made a question of feeling and
not of reasoning.
Thus Matter, Mind, the World, the Will, in thecommon conception, are illusions, and to many delusions.
What is the Reality underlying them? For myself,
I believe in what natural philosophers call Pre
existent and Persistent Force and its Correlates, and
which to me is the Supreme and Universal Spirit and itsmanifestations. All the phenomena in the universe
consist but in changes of form or transformation of
energy. Matter wrhen closely examined resolves itself
into centres of force, and mind is force or energy,
representing a concentration of all the forces. All
forces readily pass from one into the other, according
to the structure through which they pass. We have
a right, therefore, to infer that there is but one force.
And what is this ? As there cannot be motion without
something moved, so force or power must be the force
of something; and that something to me is the Great
Unknown, its modes of action or manifestations alone
are known to us. But as everything shows the unity
of force, and as all force or power tends to a given
purpose or design, that force must be intelligent, and,
if intelligent, conscious, and the conscious action of
power is will. All power, therefore, is will power,,
and as W. R. Grove, says, “ Causation is the will,
creation the act of God.” The will which originally
�Illusion and Delusion.
39
required a distinct conscious volition has passed, in the
ages, into the unconscious or automatic, constituting
the fixed laws and order of nature.
Here Materialism and Absolute Idealism meet.
Physical force is automatic mind, and this uncon
scious force passing through the brain and subjected
to its molecular action resumes its consciousness consti
tuting that succession of “forms of thought ” and feeling
which man calls his mind. Thus our bodies :—
‘ ‘ Are but organic harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps,
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the soul of each, and God of all.”
Coleridge.
Giordano Bruno taught that “Nature is but a
shadow, a phantom, the mirror in which the Infinite
images himself. The basis of all things is mind, not
matter. It is mind that pervades all. We ourselves
are mind, and what we meet in creation is a corre
sponding mind. Creation does not present mere
traces or footprints of the Deity, but the Deity him
self in his own presence.” For this belief in the 13th
century he was burnt. The world is wiser now, for
there are many who believe with St. Paul “ that God is
all in all,—that of him and through him, and unto him
are all things.” That God is the universe, and the
universe is God; and that, in no poetical, but in a
truly literal sense, “ In him we live and move and
have our being.” “ It is true there are diversities of
operation, but the same God worketh all in all.”
“ God is everything or nothing.” * “ But nature,
which is the time-vesture of God, and reveals him to
the wise, hides him from the foolish.”^
It is as difficult for most people to accept this conclu
sion as it is to believe that the world does not exist
outside of them as it appears to them to do. God the
Victor Cousin.
t T. Carlyle.
�40
Illusion and Delusion.
author of all things is accepted only in theory and in
a very limited and secondary sense, for what then
becomes of sin and evil if it were so, is he the author
of them? The answer is, good and evil are purely
subjective—relative pains and pleasures, the creation
of our own minds; beyond is only good. What we
call the soul’s highest and sweetest emotions are parts
only of the great whole that equally includes the
little, the low, the poor and the helpless, and what to
us are the worthless and the bad.
This Pantheism is as old as the world, the highest
minds in very early ages have attained to it. “ The
earliest known origin,” says E. W. Newman, “ of
Pantheism was in India; where it was taught that
the eternal infinite Being creates by self-evolution,
whereby he becomes, and is, all existence ; that he
alternately expands, and as it were, contracts himself,
reabsorbing into himself the things created. Thus the
universe, matter, and its laws, are all modes of divine
existence. Each living thing is a part of God, each
soul is a drop out of the divine ocean; and, as Virgil
has it, the soul of a bee is a ‘ divinse particula aura?.’ ”
The question is, has modern thought or science added
any thing that helps to make the conception clearer?
I think it has, in the knowledge we now have of the
existence of persistent intelligent force and its unity.
But as we cannot know things in themselves, we can
only judge by analogy, or show how one thing resem
bles another. The human body is a perfect cosmos,
an epitome of the action of the forces of the whole
world. Every action of the body—the heart, the
liver, the lungs, &c.,—that is now performed uncon
sciously or automatically were originally performed vol
untarily ; the spinal cord, on its first appearance, in the
lower animal scale, governed the body consciously and
intelligently, as the brain does at present; it now
governs the body intelligently, Dt not consciously,
u
*
and it does its work quite as well. This is a most
�Illusion and Delusion,
4i
important distinction, as it seems to be universal.
Mind itself may perhaps be truly said to be inseparable
from consciousness, but it acts equally well uncon
sciously, and we have the action of “unconscious
intelligence.” We can only know things through
their manifestations, and this appears to be the nature
of mind. A conscious mental act frequently volun
tarily performed, passes with such frequent repetition
into the involuntary or automatic state, where the
same action is performed equally well unconsciously.
This it appears to do by the aid of structure (whatever
that is in itself) and as far as we know, mind is never
separated from structure or body. That
“ All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul,”
is probably as true as it is poetical. “Thought and
extension,” says Spinoza, “are the internal and external
elements of Being.” In speaking of mind, therefore, we
must regard it, in its modes of manifestation at least,
as both conscious and automatic. Continuing then the
analogy between ourselves and the universe; as many of
the functions of the body are now performed, uncon
sciously but intelligently, and as many of our originally
voluntary acts during our lifetime, such as walking,
talking, &c., have passed into the automatic, so in the
world without the Laws of Nature appear to act
intelligently but unconsciously. All power is Will
power, but the will which originally required a distinct
conscious volition has passed, in the ages, into the
unconscious or automatic, thus constituting the
fixed laws and order of nature. If this view be
accepted the bridge over the gap between nerve
elements and consciousness has been discovered; the
gulf hitherto supposed to exist between matter and
mind is filled up, and such questions as,—Can mere
matter think ? How can mere physical force pass into
consciousness? In the world is mind developed first
�42
Illusion and Delusion.
or last? &c., are answered, and all we have to explain
are the conditions under which automatic mind or
unconscious intelligence resumes its consciousness.
Again, as our body has a centre of volition and intelli
gence so may the universe have. Our earth moves
round the sun, and all power comes to us from thence ;
but the sun moves round some other centre, and that
probably round another, until we approach the great
centre of all, where possibly God’s power may be more
directly exercised, and he may consciously govern all;
here, in the extremities, much of it seems to have passed
into the automatic. And here, as regards this centre,
we have another analogy most important. As the
world to us is the world only of our ideas, so the
universe may exist only in the mind of God. We
know nothing but consciousness, space is a mere mode
or form of thought, and if there is nothing but mind,,
things without ourselves must be very different indeed
As Bishop
to what we intuitively regard them.
Berkeley says, “All permanent existence is in the
Divine Mind,” and, as Hegel considers he has demon
strated, the essence of the world and all things in it is
thought, and Schopenhauer also holds that Will alone
is the dinge an sich, the essence of the world.
What then are we ? Schelling, like Spinoza and our
greatest thinkers, allow only a phenomenal existence
to the object and subject, admitting only one reality,
the Absolute. The individual ego is phenomenal, the
universal ego only is noumenal. This may be made
intelligible by the kaleidoscope : with each turn we
have a different form, this form is the phenomenon, and
passes away, that of which it was composed is the
noumenon, and is persistent. The world is a great
kaleidoscope, 'it is ever on the turn, producing its
infinitely varied forms in ever-increasing brilliancy and
beauty, and ever-increasing pleasurable sensibility.
That which persists or exists is not these forms but
that which is the nexus, or which underlies these ever
�Illusion and Delusion.
43
varying appearances. Thus “There is no death in the
concrete, what passes away passes away into its own self,
only the passing away passes away.”* We continue for
ever to exist as part of the Great Whole, in never-ending
changes of form. The sun sets in all his splendour, it is
equally beautiful on the following day, although the
splendour is not the same; the song of the lark each
returning spring is quite as sweet, although no one asks
or cares if it is the same lark; the night comes to us,
and a new day rises to some new comer, with no loss
of enjoyment, but only increased freshness. Is this for
us an ignoble position ?
Are we so perfect, any
of us, that we would for ever remain as we are?
Is the recollection of our present grub state so
very desirable? We are immortal, for we are part
of God himself, do we wish always to remain in
the childhood of our present individual existence ? To
be thus for ever fellow-workers with God is surely
honourable, by whatever names we may be called.
Through the countless ages, one universal plan prevails
for the elaboration and organisation of a nervous system,
by which unconscious mind shall again become conscious
in all the varied forms of animal life. Each creature has
its own world created in its own head, specially fitting
it to take its appointed place at the common feast.
And here we have the last and most striking analogy
of the human body to the great cosmos. As each of
the countless cells in the human body has a separate
life, and yet constituting the fife of the whole, making
one body, so the aggregate of individual creatures
makes one great nervous system, every beat or change
in which produces intense enjoyment, so great, indeed,
that the necessary pain which we call evil disappearsand is lost.
* Hegel.
TURNBULL AND SUIJARS, I'RtNTKKS, EDINBURGH
�
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Illusion and delusion; or, modern pantheism versus spiritualism
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Bray, Charles
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 43 p. ; ill. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Date of publication from KVK. Includes bibliographical reference.
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Thomas Scott
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[1873]
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Pantheism
Spiritualism
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Conway Tracts
NSS
Pantheism
Spiritualism
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to Bi due.
Vtut Religion an
A SERMON,
PREACHED AT ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
JULY 27th, 1873,
by the
REV. CHARLES VOYSEY.
[From the Eastern Post, August 2nd, 1873.]
On Sunday (July 27th) at St. George’s Hall, the Rev. Charles
Voysey took his text from Psalm xvi., 9, “ I have set God always
before me. He is on my right hand; therefore I shall not fall.”
He said—Our meditations on the supremacy of virtue would
hardly be complete without an effort to discern more clearly the
relation between morality and religion. One of the most important
questions that can be asked is, “ What is the help which Religion
gives to true Virtue ?” I do not say that Religion ought to be
abandoned if it could be proved to be of no value in the promotion
of virtue, because Religion has other functions to fulfil in the
economy of man; but it must be owned that Religion would lose
nine-tenths of its value if it were of no moral use; and our duty
would be to abandon it altogether if it were found to be a hindrance
to morality. I am here forced to stand on the threshold of our
enquiry in order to explain what is meant in this discourse by the
word Religion. One is quite overwhelmed at the mass of different
senses in which this and kindred terms are used, and it is positively
alarming to think of the confusion that must overtake posterity
in trying to understand the theological productions of this age.
One can hardly take up a book or a magazine, or a weekly news
paper, without perceiving the perfect Babel we are in through our
use of ambiguous terms, without any effort at definition. Contro
versy will one day come to a full stop, being choked by its own
jargon. Theological polemic will at length fall into disuse when
the light of day shall reveal every belligerent in the act of “beating
the air,” and thrusting at shadows.
�2
To pass over the long list of senses in which the term religion
is used, I will briefly repeat the definition, or rather the explana
tion, of it which I have often already given. Of course I do not
give this as arbitrary and dogmatic, but only in order to leave no
mistake as to my meaning.
Religion, as I understand and use the term, is the consciousness
of a supreme God and of our relation to Him. It is the conviction
of the heart that there is an invisible One who is Source and
Ruler of the whole universe, and is especially the Lord of our
hearts and lives; whose will is always good and must be obeyed ;
whose purpose is always kind, and may, therefore, be implicitly
trusted; to whom we may turn for guidance, and on whom we
may rest all our hope—in the words of my text, “ I have set God
always before me; He is on my right hand, &c.” To have this
conviction is to be religious. To be destitute of all sense of God,
so as to doubt gravely whether there be a God or not, is to be
irreligious. Again, Religion is not merely an intellectual assent to
the proposition, “ There is a God, and He is good,” for a man may
arrive at this conclusion in various ways, and yet not have any
feeling of loyalty, or trust, or love towards God in his heart.
Religion is intensely, but not exclusively, a matter of emotion.
Observe further, that Religion is much more than mere awe and
reverence. The Pantheist and even the Atheist may feel the
emotions of awe and reverence excited by the contemplation of the
grandeur and beauty of Nature; but while it is regarded as
unconscious, and therefore irresponsive to human aspiration and
devotion, it is impossible to regard it with religious feelings. The
laws of Nature, which is the God of the Pantheist, are regarded
by him as supreme, and nobly loyal to them he endeavours to
become ; but he owns that Nature does not know nor care whether
he obeys her laws or not—that is his own business—nor is she
conscious in the least degree of his loyalty or admiration. The
Pantheist may be ravished with the sight of Nature’s beauty, but
there is no return of his loving gaze, no gratified sense on her part
of having filled her worshipper with bliss. The Pantheist may
also be a very optimist of content and hope, abiding in the immu
tability and certainty of Nature’s operations; but he can never
feel that rest and peace which those souls feel who know what it
�is “to cast their burden on the Lord.” In the Pantheist’s God
there is no consciousness, no individual will, no heart. But
Religion recognises in God all these. It is the characteristic of
religion to attribute to God more than all else—next to righteous
ness—tender sympathy and affection.
I am willing to admit that some of this, which I have called
Religion, may be erroneous, and must be defective. We know how
religion hitherto has been mixed up with errors and falsehood too
patent to remain for ever rooted in men’s minds. But Religion
has outlived all primseval superstitions, and seems to have a
vitality of its own by which it rises from the ashes of burned and
buried creeds. In spite of the thousands who are just now destitute
of all religion whatever, owing to the solemn mockery of maintain
ing a creed no longer credible, and owing in other cases to the
intense disgust at having been so long the dupe of groundless
superstitions; in spite of these, I say, Religion is taking fresh and
stronger root than ever, and is putting forth new leaves, and even
already bearing fresh and wholesome fruit for the healing of the
nations. While morality owes scarcely a single thread of its
binding power to the dying religions of modern Christendom, the
true essence of religion, set free by the destruction of the tissue of
creeds, is filling the air with its fragrance, and making glad the
hearts of those who wept when their idols were shattered.
A modern wit has immortalised himself by describing the present
State of religious feeling—if feeling it may be called—-throughout
orthodox Europe, in these terms : “To believe implicitly what one
knows to be false.” Let us hope that the time will come when it
may be truly described thus : “ To deny openly what one knows
to be false,” and when this stage is reached, “To know certainly what
one believes to be true.” Till this blessed change is consummated,
we have but one duty in regard to, religion. To be utterly true to
the convictions of the hour, and to be honest enough as well as
brave enough to abandon any position proved to be untenable. It
is impossible on this, the deepest and highest of all themes, to
attain the certainty of demonstration ; to have such knowledge of
God as would enable us, or warrant us, to teach with authority, as
if it were scientifically verified, what we feel in our hearts to be
true about God. It is alike impossible for the irreligious to know
�4
that our convictions are false, or our feelings groundless, and it is
unbecoming to dogmatise in the negative, as the orthodox have
dogmatised in the affirmative. Time alone will show who is right
and where lies the truth. Both , of us are on the side of virtue;
both alike regard it as supreme; both of us measure the worth or
the worthlessness of any religion by its influence on the culture of
morals. What better task could we pursue than to investigate to
the very foundation the claim made for religion, that in so far as
it approximates to the truth, or is set free from false admixtures,
it is . a very powerfu laid to virtue1?
Between the orthodox God, whose system is one of bribes and
threats, and the God of Matthew Arnold, who is a “ Power that
makes for righteousness,” and yet has no faculties for knowing
when we are righteous and when we are not; who does not even
know what righteousness is and has no power to think about any
thing—between these two—there is the God of pure Theism, who
“ thinks, and knows, and lovesand is present to the soul as the
most Holy One, the searcher of hearts, the Divine Father who
loves to see His child willingly good—good from choice; a God
who uses no coercion or enticement; who only whispers “ Do this,
because it is right.” “ Do not that, because it is wrong.” Now,
whether this be or be not a delusion of the mind which transfigures
the human conscience into a Divine voice, at all events, it gives a
sanction to the moral sense far more weighty than any other sup
position yet known. It is only natural and human in the highest
degree to attach unspeakable importance to what we believe to be
mandates of the Eternal Will. Every thought, word, or deed,
becomes magnified for good or ill, beyond all calculation, when it
is regarded as conforming to, or rebelling against, the law of the
most Holy One. And this part of religion—our recognition of a
Divine Law-giver, an accuser and a judge—would never fail of its
moral power were we always to 'realise what we profess to believe,
were we “ to set God always before us.” We fail, not because it
is for one instant a matter of indifference to us whether we obey
God or not; but because we cannot, in the presence of temptation,
and under pressure of physical allurements, realize to ourselves
that God Himself is warning us from temptation, or urging us to
perform some arduous duty. Indeed, we are religious in exact
�5
proportion as we do realise His right of control, and in the same
proportion is our religion a help to our virtue.
But, passing from the sense of Divine authority we come to the
still higher conviction of the Divine friendliness—God’s will that
we should be good, joined with God’s willingness to help us to
become good; not by miracle, not by invariable answei' to prayer,
not by uniform rescue from temptation; but by the whole and
mingled method of His discipline. Sometimes we are helped to
virtue by being suffered to taste the bitter fruits of disobedience,
oi’ to be stung by the remorse which belongs to it. But to feel
sure from first to last that One above, the most Holy, has devised
all our past, present, and future as a means for the perfecting of
our natures and the reproduction in ourselves of His own spotless
image, must, without doubt, be a tremendous moral force, because
it adds hope and encouragement of the highest order to the sense
of solemn obligation. I know nothing more terrible than the
weight of sin which used to be heaped upon our young heads by
the reiterated falsehood that we had broken the whole of God’s
law if we were guilty in only one point. It was simple agony to
be assured that a Perfect God demanded, and would be satisfied
with, nothing less than a perfect obedience from man, which we
knew could not possibly be rendered; and one only wonders why
more brains did not give way under the never-to-be-forgotten
weight of sin and doom. It made matters worse; resistance of
temptation more difficult; hope of renewal impossible. One’s only
refuge was in atonement and substitution and imputed righteous
ness ; leaving one no better than before and only an ungrateful
slave. But now, what a change ! Over again we can calmly
repeat, but with an infinitely higher meaning, the old orthodox
formula, “ a Perfect God requires perfect obedience from man,”
Yes, indeed! But when? Not until he can render it. Notone
moment sooner than all his faculties and surroundings shall have
made it possible to him. But what does a “Perfect God” mean, but
one perfectly just, and therefore requiring of us no more than we
can render; so that perfect obedience is only doing our very best
under our circumstances. A Perfect God can require no more;
but He can require no less. Here the burdened sinner is pacified
and encouraged; assured that God does not blame him one grain
�mor© than he Must blame himself; and consoled by the hope that
his present exertions, and even failures, shall work in at length
to the purification of his soul. It is something to be virtuous for,
if one knows that virtue in one little thing will lead to being
virtuous in many great things; and that the more one tries the
sooner one will succeed. It is some encouragement to be as
virtuous us we can be now, to beheve that we shall be perfectly
virtuous hereafter. And this hope and encouragement, I say, are
the direct fruits of true religion. Perfect trust in God’s good
purposes does provide this invaluable aid to virtue. Just, in fact,
as the old falsehood paralysed moral effort through utter despair
of success, and then sent conscience to slumber by saying, “ All
your righteousness is as filthy ragsso the new truth stimulates
to an enthusiasm of virtuous effort, and comforts the soul, not only
by assurances of Divine approval, but by promise of entire success.
Moreover, a religion like this which recognises the universal and
impartial love of God for all mankind is a powerful aid to virtue,
by inspiring affection between man and man. It was, perhaps,
excusable under the old creed to hate those whom God was supposed
to hate, and to count them our enemies; but it is impossible to
feel the same animosity towards anyone in v horn at the time we
recognise one who is very dear to God, and who, like ourselves, is
destined to perfect holiness. The mere fact of our common
relationship to one Divine Father, and our common hope of being
thoroughly cleansed from all sin and cured of all defects, must have
its influence in softening down our asperity, and in awakening our
mercy and forbearance. Whatever helps to kindle affection between
man and man is a real help to virtue. It would be an evil day for
mankind, if a mere sense of duty—invaluable as that is—only re
mained as a spur to right conduct; if our motives for doing good
were to be stripped of the lovely adornments of tender feeling and
sympathy, and our lives were only regulated by the cut and dried
rules of mechanical morals. In truth, it seems to me, though I say
it with all diffidence, that love is the real root of all virtue, and
not its tardy fruit. Men have begun by acting from tender
emotions and kind feelings, and then have discovered that their
conduct was beneficial. Even Utilitarianism must fall back on
love and kindness and the desire to do good, as the root of all
�7
morality. For why should it be right to promote the greatest
happiness of the greatest number, instead of promoting the greatest
happiness of the few who are best able to enjoy and appreciate
happiness 1 Because, behind and beneath it lies the native kindli
ness of the human heart, the instinct of generosity, the longing
that all may share in our happiness, which, when wisely directed
and organised, is called morality or virtue. Most true it is that
we need, the help of reason in the discovery of the best method of
showing kindness j and our defective reasoning requires the cor
rection of experience that we may learn how to select, and how to
perform, what is really best for the common good. But, in general,
the impulses of a kind heart go straight to the point, and are, in
nine cases out of ten, infallibly virtuous.
It is through his affections chiefly that man has ever attained a
true morality, and it is by his’affections mainly that the standard
of morals is kept steadily rising, Love deepens and widens
sympathy, sympathy thus enlarged reveals to us wants and wrongs
and sorrows of others to which we had before been blind, and this
revelation is followed instantly by fresh calls upon our sense of
duty, by new demands of the conscience. If I am my brother’s
keeper, and try to behave accordingly, the longer I keep him, the
more faithfully I watch over'his needs and perils, the morel shall
have to do for him, and the greater will be the claims made upon
my love and sympathy. It is notorious how we grow to love
more those to whom we have shown kindness. In this sense also
it is true that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” The
love born out of bounty is far greater than the love born of
gratitude.
If love then be rightly regarded as the proper root of virtue,
and a religion be found which tends to inspire love between man
and man, that religion must be a powerful auxiliary in promoting
virtue. It is on this ground that we must admire those precepts
of Christianity, and of all other religions, which inculcate “love to
the brethren,” and also detest and abjure those principles, beliefs,
and precepts which inculcate first exclusiveness, and then hatred,
malice and all uneharitableness towards those who are not theolo
gically “ brethren.” As a religion, Christianity—as developed in
Europe and America—has been nearly as much a source of strife
�8
and hatred and selfish ambition, as a source of peace, charity, and
good-will. It has hitherto, therefore, been nearly as great a
hindrance to true virtue as a help to it. By its fruits it can be
known; and by its fruits it must be judged. And in so far as it
has taught what is true, it has blessed mankind; in so far as it has
taught what is false, Christianity has been its bane.
The same sifting will be applied to the Religion of which I have
spoken to-day. Its faults will show its truth and its falsehood ;
will disclose its weakness while declaring its power. Meanwhile, it
is a comfort to know that in the long run truth alone is friend to
mankind, while every falsehood is its foe.
*
EASTERN
Post
Steam Printing Works, 89, Worship Street, Finsbury E.CJ
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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True religion an aid to virtue: a sermon, preached at St. George's Hall, Langham Place, July 27th 1873
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Voysey, Charles [1828-1912]
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 6. Printed by Eastern Post: August 2nd 1873.
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[Eastern Post]
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[1873]
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G3419
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Sermons
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (True religion an aid to virtue: a sermon, preached at St. George's Hall, Langham Place, July 27th 1873), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Conduct of life
Morris Tracts
Virtue
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Text
THE
GOVERNMENT & THE PEOPLE;
A PLEA FOR REFORM. •
' '
BY CHARLES WATTS.
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE LONDON REPUBLICAN CLUB.
The question about to be considered may be divided into two
'
parts—first, Government ; and secondly, the People. The object
in dealing with these divisions will be to show that reform is re
quired upon the part of those who govern, and that improvement
is necessary among those who are governed. Let us understand
what is meant by the word government." It is a term applied to
a body of men who superintend the making and administering
■of laws, and who conduct the general affairs of the nation. A
true government should represent the wishes of the people it
governs ; if it fails to do this, it is an usurpation, and therefore
■unworthy of the support of the community at large. There are
many forms of government, but it will suffice to notice here
two of the principal ones that have hitherto existed in this
country. The author of the “ Rights of Man ” has written
that governments arise either out of the people, or over the
people.” The governments which arise out of the people are
Democratic or Republican, and therefore of a nature to repre
sent the public will, having, as it doubtless would, a prac
tical knowledge of the wants of the people. Now the very
reverse of this is true of the governments of this country. As the
writer just mentioned observes : 11 The English Government is
■one of those which arose out of a conquest, and not out of society,
and consequently, it arose over the people.” The reins of go
vernment in this country have been held by a few aristocratic
persons—so few that a person could almost count them on the
ends of his fingers. When one family had held the reins long
enough to grow tired, and had well filled their pockets, then
they handed the reins to some other aristocratic family, without
■consulting the wishes of the people, and thus our governments
had been kept in a narrow circle, ignoring the working-classes,
who are the great support of the nation. Thus patronage has been
used for personal gratification rather than for the public good.
The great object of successive governments in filling the posi
tions in the Church, has not been to comply with the alleged pious
desires of the people, nor has the morality or qualification of the
persons that have been put into office been always considered;
but the great aim of the “ powers that be ” has been to place
some member of the aristocratic families into good livings. That
has been so patent, that Lord John Russell, in his “ Essay on
the English Constitution,” says : “ In the Church the immense
and valuable patronage of Government is uniformly bestowed
on their political adherents. No talent, no learning, no piety,
can advance the fortunes of a clergyman whose political opinions
are adverse to those of the governing powers;” Thegreat bishoprics
�2
throughout the country have not been filled by men remarkable
for intelligence or moral purity, but by those who had sworn
allegiance to the Government of the time. Bishop Warburton
wrote that the “Church has been of old the cradle and the throne
of the youngermobility.”
A true government should be guided by constitutional laws.
Much has been said recently about our “ glorious constitution.”
When Conservatives, or “ Constitutionalists,” talk of loving the
English constitution, they are indulging in a delusion, because,
-as a matter of fact, we have no political constitution in this
country—not a political constitution in its most comprehensive
sense. What is a political constitution ? “ A constitution is
not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not an idea, but a
real existence ; and wherever it cannot be produced in a visible
form, there is none. A constitution is a thing antecedent to a
government, and a government is only the creature of a consti
tution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its
government, but of the people constituting its government. It
is the body of elements, to which you can refer and quote
article by article; and which contains the principles on which
the government shall be established, the manner in which it shall
be organised, the powers it shall have, the mode of elections,
the duration of parliaments, or by what other name such bodies
may be called; the powers which the executive part of the govern
ment shall have; and, in fine, everything that relates to the
complete organisation of a civil government, and the principles
on which it shall act, and by which it shall be bound. A con
stitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made
afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature.
The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it
alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made ; and
the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.”
In order to have a constitution it is necessary to have a political
programme, drawn up by the people, to which the government
—whether Whig or Tory—should conform, and. be guided by.
Therefore, if we were asked as Republicans whether we would
support a constitutional form of government, the answer would
be, by all means ; but let us have a properly-constructed con
stitution, and not that sham constitution which we have hitherto
had, which has been for the benefit of the few, and to the injury
of the many. What are the defects of the form of government
now in existence ? First, its exclusive and aristocratic nature.
In it there is no provision made for the general representation
of the people. It is only certain classes of society which are
represented. If we analyse the House of Commons, as at
present constituted, we shall find that, while wealth, law, and
land are fully represented, poverty and labour have no bonafide
representatives there. It cannot be a true form of government
where the working classes are thus ignored. True, there are a
few men in the House who sometimes speak boldly on behalf of
the toiling millions, but even those cannot fairly represent the
wants of the excluded classes. Labour requires for its advocates
�3
those who know what it is to toil; poverty needs men to speak for
it who have felt its pangs. And the system that does not allow
this is partial and unconstitutional. The facts which Sir Charles
Dilke gave in his Manchester speech, every working man should
be made acquainted with, for they show the imperfection of our
representative system, and indicate clearly that under its unequal
provisions, the majority of the public are not represented. The
votes of the large towns are more than counteracted by those of
small aristocratic boroughs and counties. Sir Charles Dilke
drew the attention of his audience to the fact that, whereas
136 electors in Portarlington return a Member to Parliament,
the 56,000 electors who are on the register for Glasgow only
have three representatives awarded to them. They were reminded
that, while Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Birmingham,
rqake up with the ten metropolitan boroughs, a population of
five millions, and an electoral body collectively amounting to
450,000 voters, they return but thirty-four members in all; yet
seventy boroughs, with a population about equal to that of Man
chester, and about the same number of voters, send eighty-three
members to the House. Instances also were quoted of counties
returning two members only, though possessing a population and
a number of voters equal to those of other boroughs, which
together return twelve or fourteen. Sixty-two boroughs return
sixty-two members by 42,800 votes, and possess a population of
about 400,000 souls. Hackney, with about the same number of
voters, and nearly as large a population, returns two members
instead of sixty-two ; and as a final illustration, it was stated
that no members sit for 1,080,000 voters, and another no for
83,000. If under the reign of a monarch we are obliged to yield to
this kind of representation, it would be far better that Monarchy
should be swept away, and that we should have that form of go
vernment that would recognise the rights of the working classes.
There is an important defect in connection with the present
mode of government, and that is, its whole machinery is so expen
sive. Take parliamentary elections. There is no fair chance for
a working man to be successful at those elections. Why are they
made so expensive ? Surely it is not necessary under a proper
form of government that a candidate should be kept down under
the weight of money bags, and that the influence of the aris
tocracy should be brought against him, to crush him when he
is doing his best to become a member of Parliament. Not
only are the elections expensive, but the associations therewith
are also expensive. Hence, until we obtain something like a
proper arrangement of elections, and also the payment of mem
bers, we have little hope of having a real and legitimate form ot
government. The expenses attending law are the result of an
imperfect form of government. At present its use is principally
enjoyed by the rich, instead of being within the reach of all
classes. In a properly-constructed constitution, the poor should
be able to avail themselves of the law as well as the rich. Now,
the poor man is obliged to keep clear of the clutches of the law,
in consequence of the enormous expense which it entails. The
�4
salaries which are paid to the legal profession are so high that
many clients have frequently to turn aside, and not pursue the
course of justice. Another great defect in the government is
the present monopoly of land. No more gigantic injustice
could be done to a country than is being perpetrated by the
aristocratic millionaires of England in reference to the mono
poly of land. The land of-the United Kingdom, it has been
estimated, is owned by about 30,000 men, and the bulk of the
land in England and Wales by only 150- families. The Duke
of Richmond and Lord Leconfield own between them, in the
county of Sussex, land to the extent of nearly 800 square miles.
The Marquis of Westminster has an annual income of nearly a
million from his property. The Earl of Derby has ^40,000
per year from land at Liverpool alone, upon which he has never
spent one farthing to increase its value ; while the Marquis
of Breadalbane can ride upon one hundred miles without
going off his own property. Are these things just, and do they
not indicate a necessity for a different form of government to
that under which we are living ? Professor Levi has estimated
that there are 2,000,000 acres of land devoted to deer forests in
Scotland ; and Baillie Ross, of Aberdeen, has made a calcula
tion that 20,000,000 pounds of meat are lost every year through
such misappropriation of land. Many complaints are made as
to thte high price of meat, and some persons have stated that the
working classes ought to do without it. While those who
are willing to do without that which is now becoming almost a
luxury have a perfect right to do so, it is unjust that they
should be compelled to do so because of the monopoly of the
land. Our first and primary duty, is to protest against such
monopoly. In less than 160 years there have been no less than
7,000,000 acres of land enclosed and devoted to the interests
of the aristocrats of the country—for the amusement and be
nefit of those who have never studied the wants of the popu
lation, who never knew what it was to want food, and who
lived idle and—many of them—reckless lives, forgetting the
claims of their fellow countrymen who were starving for that
food which was being denied to them. No wonder that the
people should agitate for the repeal of the Game Laws—laws
which ought not to exist, and which are a curse to the nation,
excluding as they do the people from the advantages of the land.
We do not want to do things recklessly, but we desire that the
present monopoly of the land should be destroyed ; and we are
determined not to rest till our desire is realised. Our inten
tions are to pursue a peaceable advocacy, and we trust ere longto be able to say to the landowners : “You must use the land
for the benefit of all, or give it up to those who are able and
willing to do so.”
There is another serious impeachment against the present
form of government. Whether Whigs or Tories were in office,,
they had ever objected to reforms. The people had met toge
ther in public assemblies, and decided upon the necessity for
reform, and the will of the nation had been almost unanimous
�5
in its favour, but the Government still refused it. So long as the
people acted quietly and temperately, so long had their appeals
been disregarded. The result was, that often in a state of des
peration they did what they would not otherwise have committed
themselves to. The riots we have had in times past were to be at
tributed in a large degree to the refusals of necessary reform by
the Government of the country. Take the struggle for reform
in 1832. What did Wellington do? He who represented the
old form of government put his command in this form : “ The
people were born to be governed, and governed they should be,
and if they would not be governed contentedly, then at the
cannon’s mouth they should be made to obey the ‘ powers that
be.’ ” The Duke affirmed that U nder the Bill it would be
impossible for the government of the country to be carried on
upon any recognised principle of the constitution.” The Duke of
Newcastle said, “ If the Bill passed it would destroy the throne,
despoil the church, abolish the House of Lords, overthrow the
constitution, violate property, desolate the country, and annihilate
liberty.” It was only after the riots of Bristol, London, and Man
chester, when prisons were set fire to, and when prisoners were re
leased ; it was not till the people had committed such actsof des
peration, that the Government granted the reform that had been
quietly asked for. Now, precisely the same thing applied to
Catholic Emancipation. It was not until the Government by
their obstinate conduct had driven the country to the eve of a
civil war that they granted that measure of religious liberty.
The fact is, that hitherto the Governments had granted to force
what to reason they had denied. Governments that did this
were unworthy of support, because as the guide and protector of
the nation, they should endeavour to foster the moral and intel
lectual aspirations of the people, and not make them desperate
by withholding such reforms as they desired.
The leading defects, then, of the English form of Government
are its exclusive and aristocratic nature; its class policy ; its
imperfect representative system ; its monopoly of land, and its
reluctance to grant required reforms. What has been the effect.
of this mode of government on the nation ? Shall we judge of
the tree by its fruits ? Let us turn to the people and endeavour
to ascertain their real condition. This is a fair argument, for if
among the masses the governmental tree has borne disastrous
fruit, is it not a duty to uproot it, that something better may
thrive in its stead ?
If the condition of a people may be taken as a reflex of the
government under which they live, the governing classes of
England have indeed much to answer for. For among the toiling
millions of this country, ignorance, privation, and social inequa
lities exist to an extent perhaps unparalleled in the history of
civilised nations. The two reports presented to the House of
Commons in 1868 and 1870, exhibited the degrading state into
which the agricultural labourers had been driven through class
customs and unequal legislation. The evidence of Mr. Simon,
medical inspector, showed that more than one-half of our southern
�(fTp'.-,-
- sM»
6
agricultural population, was so inadequately fed that starvation,
disease, and ill-trained minds were the necessary results. As
a sample of many like cases, it was mentioned that in Haverhill,
Suffolk, nine out of ten adults could neither read nor write, and
only one in twenty-five could both read and write. The report
states that the population round Mayhill appeared “ to lie en
tirely out of the pale of civilisation, type after type of social life
degraded to the level of barbarism.” It refers to the “ immora
lity and degradation arising from the crowded and neglected
state of the dwellings of the poor” in many parts of Yorkshire.
“ In Northamptonshire, some of the cottages are disgraceful,
necessarily unhealthy, and a reproach to civilisation.” The
Reverend J. Fraser, in his report, says of the wretched con
dition of the parishes in Gloucestershire and Norfolk : “It
is impossible to exaggerate the ill-effects of such a state
of things in every respect............. Modesty must be an un
known virtue, decency an unimaginable thing, where in one
small chamber, with the beds lying as thickly as they can be
packed, father, mother, young men, lads, grown and growing up
girls—two and sometimes three generations—are herded pro
miscuously ; where every operation of the toilette and of nature
—dressings, undressings, births, deaths—is performed by each
within the sight or hearing of all; where children of both sexes,
to as high an age as twelve or fourteen, or even more, occupy
the same bed; where the whole atmosphere is sensual, and
human nature is degraded into something below the level of the
swine. It is a hideous picture, and the picture is drawn from
life;” In alluding to the same class of labourers, Professor
Fawcett writes : “ In some districts their children could not
grow up in greater ignorance if England had lost her Chris
tianity and her civilisation ; the houses in which, in many cases,
they (the labourers) are compelled to dwell, do not deserve the
name of human habitations.” Nor is the condition of many of
the working people in some of our large towns much better.
Despite our boasted national wealth, there are thousands who
exist in daily anxiety as to how to obtain food to eat, and to
whom the rights,, comforts, and pleasures of real living are
strangers. In his work, “ Pauperism, its Causes and Remedies,”
the Professor says: “Visit the great centres of our commerce and
trade, and what will be observed ? The direst poverty always
accompanying the greatest wealth...... Within a stone’s throw ”
of the stately streets and large manufactories of such towns
as Manchester and Liverpool, “ there will be found miserable
alleys and narrow courts in which people drag out an existence,
steeped, in a misery and a wretchedness which baffle descrip
tion.........Not long since, I was conversing with a West-end
clergyman, and he was speaking, not of Bethnal Green, nor of
Seven Dials, but of a street quite within the precincts of luxurious
and glittering Belgravia, in which he knew from his personal
knowledge that every house had a separate family living in each
room. Dr. Whitmore, the medical superintendent of Marylebone, in a recent report, states that in his district there are
�7
hundreds of houses with a family in every room...... Official re
turns show that in London there are never less than 125,000paupers, and that as each winter recurs the number rises to
170,000. There is abundant reason to conclude that a number
at least equally large are just on the verge of pauperism.” Such
facts as these require no comment, they speak in language
terrible enough in all conscience/ We have become so accus
tomed to the Verdict “ died from starvation,” that the extent of
misery it represents is not always fully recognised. It isnot merely
the death of the victim to be contemplated, but the pain of body
and torture of mind experienced ere the spark of life was ex
tinguished ; also the sorrow and bitter pangs of the relatives of
the deceased left to mourn the loss of the one departed. And,
judging by the past, there is but little hope of much improve
ment while the present form of government lasts. Mr. Joshua
Fielden recently stated, in his speech at Todmorden, that in the
last eighteen years our poor rates had increased ,£2,700,000.
Our laws touching imperial taxation are so unjust that its
burden falls unfairly upon the shoulders of the working classes.
Last yeartheimperial taxation in round numbers was ,£70,000,000.
Now,from whom was this revenue derived? During the reign
of Charles II. an important change took place in our fisqal ar
rangements. Up to that time land had borne a more equal share
of the taxation of the country. Charles II., being desirous of
favouring the aristocracy, relieved them of much of the taxa
tion then upon the land, and placed instead heavy duties upon
articles of consumption. From that time up to the presentan
unjust system of taxation had been in existence, and had been
’ working as injuriously as it possibly could upon the labouring
portion of the community. In the last century the land of this
country paid one-third of all the taxes, now it pays less than
one-seventieth. And this palpable injustice has been going on
while land-rents have increased enormously, for the same land
that seventy-two years ago yielded a little over .£22,000,000,
now yields nearly £100,000,000. The following extract is from
"the papers issued by the Financial Reform Union :—
“ The acknowledged principles of all fiscal reforms since the
report of the Import Duties Committee of 1840, are the repeal
of all duties upon the necessaries of life, the remission of unpro
ductive duties, and the abolition of protections and prohibitions.
Notwithstanding this report, a duty is still levied upon corn,
which yields the greatest return when the people are least able
to pay it, and involves a necessity for fourteen other duties,
yielding from nothing to £2, £3, and up to ,£2,841 per annum
each. The total revenue from these sources in 1866-7 was nearly
£800,000 ! The duty on sugar, an article described by Mr.
Gladstone as next to corn in importance as a necessary of life,
produces above .£5,800,000, and involves duties on nine other
articles in which it is an ingredient, yielding a yearly revenue
varying from £1 to .£2,000 per annum. Tea, coffee, chicory,
and cocoa, all of which have become necessaries of life to the
great bulk of the population, produce upwards of ,£3,200,000.
�8
Currants, figs, plums, prunes, and raisins, notwithstanding
dates are admitted free, are taxed to the extent of ,£400,000.
The total revenue from these sources in 1866-7 was <£10,310,056,
or nearly one-fourth of the total revenue from customs and excise.”
A recent writer in the Liverpool Financial Reformer, divided
the community into three divisions—first, the aristocratic, re
presented by those who have an annual income of £1,000 and
upwards ; the middle classes were represented by those who
had incomes from £100 to £1000 ; and the artisan or working
classes were those who were supposed to have incomes under
£100 per year. He then assessed their incomes respectively at
.£208,385,000; £174,579,000 ; and £149,745,000. Towards the
taxation, each division paid as follows : The aristocratic por
tion contributed £8,500,000, the middle classes £19,513,45 3, and
the working classes £32,861,474. The writer remarks : The
burden of the revenue, as it is here shown to fall on the different
classes, may not be fractionally accurate, either on the one side
or the other, for that is an impossibility in the case, but it is
sufficiently so to afford a fair representation in reference to those
classes on whom the burden chiefly falls. Passing over the middle
classes, who thus probably contribute about their share, the re
sult in regard to the upper and lower classes stands thus:—
Amount which should be paid to the revenue by the higher classes
(that is, the classes above £1,000 a year), £23,437,688 ; amount
which they do pay, ,£8,500,000; leaving adifference of £ 14,937,000,
so that the higher classes are paying nearly £15,000,000 less
than their fair share of taxation. Amount which should be paid
by the working classes (or those having incomes below £100),
,£16,846,312 ; amount which they do pay, £32,861,474 ; making
a difference of £16,015,162; so that the working classes are
paying about £16,000,000 more than their fair share. In other
words, the respective average rates paid upon the assessable in
come of the two classes are—by the higher classes, iod. per
pound ; the working classes, 4s. 4d. That is to say, the working
classes are paying at a rate five times more heavily than the
wealthy classes.”
Now, with these inequalities existing, is not a reformation of
government highly desirable ? The happiness of the people
requires it, and the progress of the nation demands it. How is
it to be obtained ? There are two fundamental remedies neces
sary in order to effect true reform. First, the real representa
tion for the people, and, second, their control over the national
purse. Until these are obtained true government will exist only
in name. Let the working classes be united, discreet, and de
termined in their present struggles ; and if the “ stupid party ”
and their supporters will not be “ wise in time,” they must mar
vel not if that electricity that now charges the political atmos
phere shall ultimately strike the present imperfect institutions,
thereby making way for the establishment of principles that
will secure political justice and social equality.
London : Printed and Published by Austin & Co., 17, Johnson’s
Court, Fleet Street, E.C.—Price One Penny.
*
�
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The government & the people: a plea for reform
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Watts, Charles
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 8 p. ; 18 cm.
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[1873]
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Social reform
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Great Britain-Politics and Government-19th Century
Political reform
Social Reform
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
“THE DYER’S HAND:”
A DISCOURSE
PRECEDED BY
THE WAY TO GOD:
A MEDITATION,
DELIVERED AT
SOUTH PLACE CHAPEL,
SUNDAY, 5TH MAY, 1872,
AND REPEATED BY ESPECIAL DESIRE
SUNDAY, 1 8th MAY, 1873.
BY
ALEXANDER J. ELLIS,
B.A.. F.R.S., F.S.A., F.C.P.S., F.C.P.,
Vice-President formerly President) of the Philological Society, &
c
*.
CHIEFLY AS ARRANGED FOR THE SECOND
DELIVERY WITH THE READINGS
THEN USED.
Price 2d,
�ORDER OF THE SERVICE
HYMN 12—Words by Dyer..
“ Greatest of beings, source of life !”
READINGS—
I. “ Love,” from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, in
modem language, as follows, p. 3.
II. “Design,” from Paley’s Natural Theology, as follows,
p. 4.
HYMN 5— Words by Wreford.
“ God of the Ocean, Earth and Sky !”
MEDITATION, “The Way to God,” as follows, p. 9.
ANTHEM 74—From the fourth Gospel.
“ God is a Spirit.”
DISCOURSE, “The Dyer’s Hand,” as follows, p. 13.
HYMN 91—Words by Mrs. Barbauld.
“ As once upon Athenian ground.”
DISMISSAL, as follows, p. 44-
�READINGS.
I.—LOVE.
In listening to an extremely familiar passage rom the first
letter of Paul the Apostle to his Corinthian congregation, which
I shall purposely put into extremely unfamiliar words, in order
to divert your minds from the mere sound to the sense conveyed,
it is as well to recall the context Much confusion, as was
natural, prevailed in all the early Christian congregations as soon
as the founder’s back was turned, and the necessity of correcting
it gave rise to those letters which are the earliest and most
authentic records of the Christian movement that we possess.
Among other troubles in Corinth, every man seems to have
thought himself as good a teacher as any other, save of course the
founder Paul, who therefore strove in his first letter to convince
them of their mistake and induce them to work as parts of a
commonwealth of which there was only one real head, Jesus
himself, in whose ideal image Paul always sank his own per
sonality.
For this purpose, he first applied the well-known
analogy of the body and its members, and then went on to the
Allowing purport (i. Cor. xii., 27, to xiii., 13) :—
“You form collectively Christ’s body upon earth, and each of you
Individually is one of its members. Some of us by God’s disposition
are apostles, others preachers, teachers, sign-workers, healers,
Birectors, speakers in various tongues. Are all apostles, or all
preachers, or all teachers, or all sign-workers, or all healers ?
Can all speak in various tongues, or can all interpret what is
spoken in unknown tongues ? It is certainly the duty of each
individual to do his best to be fitted for the best offices, but I will
shew you a far superior method.
“If I were to speak all human and divine languages, and had
not love, my words would be worthless tinkling. If I had the
highest powers of preaching, if I understood all mysteries, had
�4
gained all knowledge, or had mountain-moving faith, but had not
lave, I should be a mere nothing. I might bestow all my gorJMI
feed the hungry, or deliver my body to the torturer, yet withoB
love, I should have done nothing. Love is long-suffering and
kind. Love knows neither envy nor jealousy, makes no display nor
boasting, behaves decently, insists not on rights, checks anger,,
suspects not evil, has no sympathy with injustice but much with
truth; hides, believes, hopes, endures everything.
“ Love is never wanting. Preachings shall fail, languages shall
cease, knowledge shall die out; (our knowledge is partial and
cur preaching power is partial, and their partial character will not
cease till perfection appears. When I was a child, I spake, I
thought, I reasoned as a child, but when I became a man I put
aside my childish ways. In the same way our vision now is an
enigmatical reflection, but hereafter we shall see face to face.
That is to say, my knowledge is now partial, but hereafter I shall
know as I am known). The power that we now possess, then,
will pass away, but whatever else fails, three things abide, belied
hope, love. And the greatest of these is love}'
IL—DESIGN.
Brief extracts from the three first chapters of Dr. William
Paley’s “ Natural Theology,” (originally published in 1802)
for the purpose of shewing the nature of his argument. fcM
large quantity of intermediate matter has been omitted for
brevity, but nothing is added.
“ In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a
sione, and were asked how the stone came to be there : I mighf
possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had
lain there for ever ; nor would it perhaps be very easy to shew
the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a ivatek
upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch hap
�5
pened to be in that place : I should hardly think of the answer
I had before given—that, for anything I knew, the watch might
have been always there. Yet why should not this answer serve
for the watch as well as for the stone ? Why is it not as admis
sible in the second case as in the first ? For this reason, and for
Ho other, namely, that, when we come to inspect the watch, we
perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its
several parts are framed and put together for a purpose ; for ex
ample, that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce
motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of
the day ; that if the different parts had been differently shaped
from what they are, of a different size to what they are, or placed
in any other order than that in which they are placed, either no
Riotion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or
none which would have answered the use that is now served by
it. This mechanism being observed, (it requires indeed an ex
amination of the instrument, and perhaps some previous know
ledge of the subject to perceive and understand it; but being
once, as we have said, observed and understood,) the inference,
We think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker:
Hiat there must have existed, at some time, and at some place
or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose
>hich we find it actually to answer ; who comprehended its con
struction, and designedits use.
Nor would it, I apprehend, weaken the conclusion, that we
had never seen a watch made ; that we had never known an
artist capable of making one ; that we were altogether incapable
of executing such a piece of workmanship ourselves, or of under
standing in what manner it was performed; all this being no
Riore than what is true of some exquisite remains of ancient art,
of some lost arts, and, to the generality of mankind, of the more
£tjrious productions of modern manufacture.
Neither, secondly, would it invalidate our conclusion, that the.
�6
watch sometimes went wrong, or that it seldom went exactly
right. The purpose of the machinery, the design, and the
designer, might be evident, and in the case supposed would
be evident, in whatever way we accounted for the irregu
larity of the movement, or whether we could account for
it or not. It is not necessary that a machine be perfect, in
•order to shew with what design it was made : still less necessary,
where the only question is, whether it was made with any design
at all.
Neither, lastly, would our observer be driven out of his con
clusion, or from his confidence in its truth, by being told that he
knew nothing at all about the matter. He knows enough for
his argument: he knows the utility of the end : he knows the
subserviency and adaptation of the means to the end. These
points being known, his ignorance of other points, his doubts
concerning other points, affect not the certainty of his reasoning.
The consciousness of knowing little need not beget a distrust of
that which he does know.
Suppose, in the next place, that the person who found the
watch should, after some time, discover that, in addition to all
the properties which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed
the unexpected property of producing in the course of its move
ment, another watch like itself (the thing is conceivable); that it
contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts, a mould for
instance, or a complex adjustment of lathes, files, and other tools
evidently and separately calculated for this purpose.
The conclusion which the first examination of the watch, of
its works, construction, and movements, suggested was, that it
must have had, for the cause and author of that construction an
artificer, whojjunderstood its mechanism and designed its use.
This conclusion is invincible. A second examination presents us
with a new discovery. The watch is found, in the course of its
movement, to produce another watch, similar to itself; and riot
�7
only so, but we perceive in it a system or organisation, separately
calculated for that purpose. What effect would this discovery
have, or ought it to have, upon our former inference ? What,
but to increase, beyond measure, our admiration of the skill
which had been employed in the formation of such a machine!
Or shall it, instead of this, all at once turn us round to an oppo
site conclusion—namely, that no art or skill whatever has been
concerned in the business, although all other evidences of art and
skill remain as they were, and this last and supreme piece of art
be now added to the rest ? Can this be maintained without
absurdity ?
Yet this is atheism.
This is atheism ; for every indication of contrivance, every
manifestation of design which existed in the watch exists in the
works of nature; with the difference on the side of nature of
being greater and more, and that in a degree which exceeds all
computation. I mean that the contrivances of nature surpass the
contrivances of art in the complexity, subtlety, and curiosity of
the mechanism ; and still more, if possible, do they go beyond
them in number and variety; yet, in a multitude of cases, are not
less evidently mechanical, not less evidently contrivances, not less
evidently accommodated to their end, or suited to their office,
than are the most perfect productions of human ingenuity.
��THE WAY TO GOD.
A MEDITATION.
“ Little children !” said the dying Elder, “ Little
children ! Love one another.” “ If a man say, I love
God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he
love God whom he hath not seen ? And this com
mandment have we from him, That he who loveth
God love his brother also.” (i John iv., 20, 21.)
The way to God is through the heart of man!
Not by metaphysical subtleties, where man turneth
his eye inwards to see outwards, can he hope to reach
God.
Not by theological subtleties, where man vainly
strives to fix in words what his mind has failed to
grasp, can he hope to reach God.
Not by creeds and anathemas, where the empty
words of theology are crystallised into a charm or a
curse, can man hope to reach God.
Not by fasting and penance, where man would fain
purchase future bliss by present pain, and mount to
heaven by trampling down earth, can he hope to reach
God.
�IO
Not by fervent prayer, where man vainly beseeches
God to modify eternal laws for temporary ends, can
he hope to reach God.
Not by deep and persistent scientific research, where
the head is awake but the heart sleeps, can man hope
to reach God.
The way to God is through the heart of man!
By mixing with his fellow-men; by learning the
wants of all; by working within his limited circle
towards the general well-being; by identifying him
self with his race ; by feeling that he is above all, and
through all, a man, manly, and is only as a man capable
of effecting aught; by gathering into a focus those
scattered beams of human sympathy which we know
as love; by giving practical direction to vague aspira
tions for improvement; by living for himself but as a
part of others, and for others as for himself; by reach
ing the heart of his fellow-men; thus only can man
hope to reach God.
If man look beyond the present life and indulge in
dreams of a future eternity of well-being, let him not
think of saving his own soul without his brother’s, let
him not expect to enter heaven by a password, let him
not contemplate for a moment the revellers at the
lightsome feast within, and the teeth-gnashers in the
darksome pit without. The heart of man rejects the
contrast, and through the heart of man alone can man
reach God.
�II
Let not man seek to know the counsels of God.
Man is of the earth, earthy ; it is at once his badge
-and his star. What future may be in reserve for our
race none can forecast. If those who have searched
most widely are to be followed most readily, we have
been evolved from very humble beginnings, and may
have a much nobler hereafter. But the future depends
on the present as the present on the past. No nobler
hereafter is possible, if the present fail in its part.
That part is to develop present man ; not to despise
him as worthless, and fix all thought on the super
human. Here is our work, and through it our future.
The heart of man, is man’s noblest organ on earth.
Through the heart of man alone, can he hope to reach
God.
“ Little children !” said the dying Elder, “ Love one
another!”
��“THE DYER’S HAND.”
Walking through a street in Kensington some time
ago, I saw a man without his coat, and with his shirt
sleeves tucked up to the elbows, talking quietly with
another man, now putting one hand in his pocket,
now stroking his chin with the other, evidently in
utter unconsciousness or forgetfulness that his exposed
hands and arms were different from other men’s. But
to me at a distance there was something frightful in
seeing such ordinary living motions performed by
hands and arms which had that green tinge we learn
to associate with putridity. That shiny green arm,
those dead-like fingers that moved with such un
natural life, were a shock to all my sense of the fitness
of things. As I came near, the mystery cleared itself
up in the most prosaic fashion—as all mysteries are
apt to do. I passed before a dye-house, and had
been watching the dyer.
Instantly there came full on my mind that (hundred
and eleventh) sonnet of Shakspere, of which a few
�14
words are so familiar, though the context is little
known. Shakspere laments and excuses his “ public
manners ” as due to the “ public means ” by which
Fortune had provided for his life, and exclaims :—
Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
And almost, thence, my nature is subdued
To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand.
That dyer’s hand, tinged with the most ghastly and
inhuman hue, generated by the dye-vat in which it
had worked, and yet moving all unconsciously as if
nothing ailed it, was by a single stroke of Shakspere’s
pen raised into being the most significant symbol of
men’s thoughts and feelings, “ subdued to what they
work in,” the inherited environment, the geographical
environment, the social environment, which colour
them so completely that they live in total uncon
sciousness of their own peculiarity, though they are
acutely conscious of the different tinge imparted by
a neighbouring dye-vat.
Oh, how few are there among us—are there indeed
any among us ?—I don’t mean among tne handful of
people here assembled, but among the whole circle of
humanity,—who can say, as Shakspere said, that their
nature is only “ almost ” subdued ! How many of us
can from our own hearts, from our own knowledge
that we are dyed and must be cleansed, echo the
fervent wish of the poet, and exclaim : —
�i5
Pity me then and wish I were renewed ,
Whilst like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eisel ’gainst my strong infection ;
*
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction !
No! dyed through and through, green-blooded to
the heart’s core, and not merely on the surface of
our skin; we persist in thinking green-blood to be
the only blood, and are shocked at the unnatural
redness of another’s. We may laugh at that lady in
the story who was struck with the remarkable fact
that wherever she went, whatever society she entered,
whatever subject she discussed, no one was in the
right but herself; yet the only difference between her
and most of us is, that she ventured to say so; we
are silent, but only think the more steadfastly with the
Mahometan carpenter, who replied to Francis New* Also spelled esile and eysell, meaning vinegar, a common dis
infectant. Old French aisil, aissil, aizil, arzil, esil. The form
aisil has even crept into Anglo-Saxon, which, however, has the
older form, eced. All are supposed to come from the Latin
aceium (vinegar). Shakspere puts “ drinking eisel ” among
practical impossibilities. See Hamlet, Act 5, scene 1, speech
106,
Shew me what thou’It do !
Woo’t weep? woo’t fight? woo’tfast? woo’t tear thyself ?
Woo’t drink up eisel ? eat a crocodile ?
I’ll do’t.
�i6
man’s attempts at conversion: “ God has given you
to know much, but not the true faith.”*
The dye which tinges qur every thought and feel
ing is most general and most “fast,” hardest to be
discharged by argument, or to assume a different hue,
when it is rooted in the language which we speak,
and has thus become ingrained in thought. We learn
then inevitably to think under its influence. The
whole inheritance of preceding human thought comes
to us tinged with the same dye. The very threads by
which we would weave the tissue of our own medita
tions, instead of being susceptible of every hue, so
* The story thus reduced to an allusion, is worth giving at
length : “ While we were at Aleppo I one day got into religious
discourse with a Mohammedan carpenter, which left on me a
lasting impression. Among other matters I was peculiarly
desirous of disabusing him of the current notion of his people
that our Gospels are spurious narratives of late date. I found
great difficulty of expression, but the man listened to me with
much attention, and I was encouraged to exert myself. He
waited patiently till I had done, and then spoke to the following
effect :—‘I will tell you, sir, how the case stands. God has
given to you English a great many good gifts. You make fine
ships and sharp penknives, and good cloth and cottons; and you
have rich nobles and brave soldiers ; and you write and print
many learned books : (dictionaries and grammars :) all this is of
God. But there is one thing which God has withheld from you
■and has revealed to us, and that is the knowledge of the true
religion, by which one may be saved.’ When he thus ignored
my argument (which was probably quite unintelligible to him),
�17
that the pattern may shine bright and pure, beautiful
and true, as we conceived it was conceived, are so
dulled by their previous dye, that the result, true as
it may look to our jaundiced eye, is false to every one
whose vision is truer. The few, the very few, who,
conscious of the radical unfitness of their material for
the effect they would produce, seek to mould it by
limiting the signification of current words, or inventing
new to embody their new thoughts, preach too often
to the winds, or worse,—not understood at all, or
misunderstood,—so that the thinker soon finds rea
son to wonder, not that man knows so little, but that
he knows anything, not that a man so often miscon
ceives another’s thoughts, but that he ever approaches
to a conception of what they really are. I am using
no hyperbole, I am stating a sober conclusion which
and delivered his simple protest, I was silenced, and at the
same time amused. But the more I thought it over the more in
struction I saw in the case. His position towards me was exactly
that of a humble Christian towards an unbelieving philosopher;
nay, that of the early Apostles or Jewish prophets towards the
proud, cultivated, worldly-wise, and powerful heathen. This
not only showed the vanity of any argument to him, except one
purely addressed to his moral and spiritual faculties; but it also
indicated to me that ignorance has its spiritual self-sufficiency as
well as erudition ; and that if there is a Pride of Reason, so there
is a Pride of Unreason.”—Phases of Faith ; or Passages from
the History of My Creed. By Francis William Newman.
Sixth edition, i860, /. 32.
�i8
years of thought and observation have forced upon
me, and which, having often previously stated I find
as I live, only more reason to adopt,—when I say
that probably no man does understand any other man.
The vision of our mind’s eye is too deeply affected,
the dye upon our mind’s hand is too ingrained, our
language is clothed with too patched a harlequin suit,
for us clearly to express or clearly to seize what is
expressed. Only those who have aimed at precision,
and have hopelessly failed, or have laboured con
scientiously but vainly to enter into the thoughts of
one who himself has aimed at precision, can fully
comprehend how utterly our nature is subdued to
what it works in, like the dyer’s hand !
Our first observations, as children, are directed to
objects of sensation. It is only by storing up our
hazy memories of individual impressions that we, in
course of time, very clumsily and defectively group
together the immediate results of sensation into aggre
gates, which seem to us the same as those indicated
by the words we hear from others. Subsequent know
ledge, which in its full force is the lot of but a few
special observers, teaches us that every one of those
individual sensations is altogether vague and wanting
in precision; and that we cannot thoroughly depend
even upon regaining the same sensations in ourselves,
—nay, I may almost say, that we can only thoroughly
depend upon never regaining them. All natural
�i9
philosophers know,—I am saying nothing new, I am
merely repeating the very alphabet of science,—that
sensations do not repeat themselves, that when they
are registered by the most cunning devices of man,
each registration differs from its fellow, and that
we can deal only with averages and not with in
dividuals. There are some of the fixed stars, whose
position it is so important for science to de
termine, that they have been observed by hosts
of the most competent men through many years.
Yet we know that it would be more surprising
for any two determinations to agree than for all to
differ, and that what we conventionally assign as their
real place is only an average drawn by most refined
methods of calculation from an examination of dis
crepant data, and though assumed to be true for the
present, is acknowledged to be liable to subsequent
correction. By means of these positions thus assigned,
an observer learns to determine his own personal
liability to error, and knows that that liability itself
*
fluctuates with the state of his health; nay, with the
length of time since he was roused from sleep, or
since his last meal; and he then contrives to allow
for such errors in subsequent observations. Yet
merely seeing a point of light, like a fixed star, dis
appear behind an opaque bar, such as a telescopic
cobweb, is an observation of extreme simplicity com* Known as his “personal equation.
�20
pared with those by- which we obtain the most ordinary
notions of external objects in common life. And if
each observer is known to differ from others, and
even from himself in a matter of such extreme sim-,
plicity, what trust can we have that our individual
sensations are comparable with our neighbours, and
still more that our groupings of those sensations accu
rately, or even approximately, correspond to those of our
neighbours, in the extremely complex determination of
the commonest objects which form our environment?
But these are only starting points. The greater
part of our thoughts and reasonings are occupied with
matters which cannot be made the subject of direct
observation. It is only in its rudest condition, there
fore, that our language consists of mere names of
groups of sensations, such as man, tree, house, land,
water, give, take, black, white, light, heavy, and so
forth. To give some sort of vent to our bursting
thoughts, to convey them however vaguely and inde
terminately, we are forced to resort to those half-felt,
imperfect, often wholly inadequate, misleading analo
gies, which we call metaphors. A term used in our
own individual sense, according to our own individual
experience for some object or act appreciable by direct
sensation, is transferred to another merely meditational
object or act, some inward feeling, which we know to
have no real connection with the first, but which
we vaguely connect with it, as we vaguely see human
�21
features in a bright coal fire. And then we boldly
use that term when speaking to others without any
security either that their sensations derived from the
external objects were originally the same as ours, or
that their inward connection of those sensations with
the thought and feeling which we desire to excite in
them, may, will, or can have any resemblance to our
own. And thus the maze of language goes on to
confusion worse confounded, the dye in our vats be
comes more and more muddy, and the hand that stirs
them more and more hopelessly bemessed.
When the Elohist or Jehovist spake of God’s eye,
God’s hand, God’s outstretched arm, God’s image, he
had in his mind, no doubt, a real tangible, living eye,
hand, arm, and image. The God of the Jehovist
really walked in the garden of Eden in the cool of the
day, and Adam and Eve could really hear his voice,
and attempt to hide—to hide !—from him among the
trees (Gen. iii. 8). When the God of the Elohist
created man in his own image (Gen. i. 27), the Elohist
himself, as has been truly said, created God in the
image of man, and so thoroughly in that image, that
the God of his creation was, like a man, weary with his
own work of creation, and had to rest on the seventh
day from all the work which he had made (Gen. ii. 2).
To us, now and here, and to the more intelligent
preachers throughout Christendom, such words are
mere transparent metaphors, by which we vainly
�22
endeavour—how vainly but few consider—to prefigure
the unfigurable. But they are all dangerous. They
are so thoroughly human that they unconsciously
sway the mind to accept God as a mere exaggerated
man. The pygmy that can barely descry the giant’s
toes seeks to dogmatise on the giant’s whole structure.
The dyer’s hand finds its own colour in what the
dyer wantonly dares to term a hand. The finite
raises its own mental scale to gauge the Infinite !
The Infinite 1 How easy to say ; how hard to
conceive ! On this day, in thousands of pulpits
throughout our own land, and in other thousands of
Christian congregations, men will be standing up and
telling of God’s infinitude, arguing from his infinite
power, his infinite wrath, his infinite mercy in allow
ing his infinite wrath to be infinitely appeased by the
infinite sacrifice of himself in a finite form at the
hands of Roman soldiers instigated by Jewish priests
and a Jewish rabble, before his own infinite self, and
running over the other changes of infinity which fall
so glibly from their tongue, but which have abso
lutely no root in their intellect. Nay, of that they
are proud. They can know all about the powers, the
acts, the results of infinity. They can tell you what
infinity, so far forth as being infinity, can, will, and
must do, without having even the shadow of a con
ception to put behind the word. The mathematician
and the natural philosopher have to deal constantly
�23
with the ever-increasing and the ever-diminishing, and
many of our preachers (very far from all) have had to
bend their minds when- young to such considerations.
But with most of them it has been mere cram, stuff to
be blurted out in an examination, and then forgotten.
Yet here, and here only, have we the least hope of
arriving at any practical conceptions of a matter which
all religious teachers are apt to treat with easy, selfcomplacent confidence. The course of my own
studies during many years, from opening manhood to
the present day, has often brought me face to face
with this problem of infinity, so well known to all
real mathematicians, in the simplest of all relations,
number and space. I have been compelled to give
it long, continuous, and reiterated consideration; to
ponder over it for weeks and months at a time; to
read and study what the best heads had written of it;
to endeavour by every means in my power to catch
some clue to its real nature; to render my thoughts
precise by writing and re-writing ; to see how, at
least, the effects of infinity might be safely inferred,
or its laws partly divined; to comprehend, if it be
possible, the infinite in the finite, the description of
an endlessly increasing path with an endlessly in
creasing velocity in a strictly limited time; to see in
my mind’s eye the relations of various orders of the
infinitely great and the infinitely small; in short, to
bridge the great gulf between the discontinuous and
�24
the continuous. I need scarcely tell you that I have
not done what I have found no other man has done,
but I have had a deep conviction of the limits of
human power forced upon myself. The matters with
which I dealt were not those highly complex, illdefined, worse comprehended conceptions which form
the staple of theology. They were the very simplest
conceptions which the human mind can form with any
approach to precision. And the result ? Did I seem
to come nearer to the goal ? Nay, was I not rather
like the voyager who day after day sees the same hard
circle of horizon limiting his vision, till he misdoubts
the very motion of his ship ? Or like the mountaineer
who briskly begins his route to top the crest before
him, and, that reached, finds only another and steeper
there he had not previously divined, and, topping
that, another and another, till poor “Excelsior ” falls ex
hausted by the way? And this, where the road has been
marked out with so much skill by minds far above my
own, minds which are the very guiding stars of all
human thought.
*
What, then, of matters where all
is guess, where no road is known, where the trackless
ocean spreads without a compass, where the traveller
is involved in the deepest gorges without power to
see or to divine how to scale their precipitous cliffs ?
When shall we learn the lesson of the Titans, and
• Such as Newton and Leibnitz.
�25
know the fate of those who would scale heaven by
piling the Pelion of presumption on the Ossa of
ignorance ?
*
But while we all, at least I hope all whom I address,
acutely feel the purely metaphorical application of
terms implying human form, or any part of the human
form, to the inapproachable object of all human
thought, yet we, are apt, even the wisest and best of
all mankind are apt, to be led astray by human lan
guage,—the inheritance derived from men who held
to a literally humanesque personality of the Deity,—
when the terms do not imply bodily form, but the
best and least corporeal functions of humanity,—
thought, will, love. We may be, I believe we are,
speaking the highest and noblest thing which man
can say of God, when we declare that God is Love;
but let us never forget that such language is purely
anthropomorphic in its origin, and must be held
purely metaphorical in its application. If we seek to
drive it home, to make God Love as we alone know
love, we do not raise man to God, but degrade God
* The Titans are here, as usual, confounded with the Giants
who were said to have scaled heaven. “Thrice,” says Virgil,
Georgies, book I., vv. 281-3, “thrice they endeavoured to pile
Mount Ossa on to Pelion, and roll the woody Olympus on to
Ossa ; thrice father Jove with his lightning threw down the
mountains they had reared.” See also Ovid’s Metamorphoses,
book 1., vv. 152-5.
�26
to man. What is the love we know, the love which
alone we can have in mind when we apply the term,
as the outcome of all the best we can conceive, to the
Inconceivable itself? Turn to that glowing descrip
tion of love by the noble Paul, that passage to which
every heart instinctively reverts which has once
beaten at its sound, and see how thoroughly human,
how utterly un-Godlike, it is in its every part. Reject
the negatives, which constitute the main portion of
the description, as the painter cannot suggest light
but by the accumulation of shade, and see with what
reality we can say that God, like love, suffereth long
and is kind, rejoiceth in or with the truth, beareth all,
believeth all, hopeth all, endureth all (i Cor. xiii. 4,
6, 7.) Aman, dependent man, may do this. But how
can we even magnify long-suffering, kindliness, delight
at the discovery of truth, endurance, belief, hope,
into any conception of God which is not purely
human ? Let us know that it is only our own help
lessness which leads us to say that God is Love ! and
that these words are but the faintest possible glimmer
of that far-off light which we hope we may forefeel,
but certainly can never actually perceive. Let us
beware of pushing home an analogy which has already
led to the revolting conception of a devil, of a power
antagonistic to the Unassailable, to account for what
our human conception of love cannot contain. Mark
how limited is that conception I Strong between one
�27
man and another, love weakens as the circle widens.
In the family and clan it often mixes up with feelings
of merely personal dignity. Towards the nation, even
when strongest and purest, its character is wholly and
completely changed. And when extended to the whole
of mankind, it dwindles down to a very faint glow
indeed. Often mixed with this love is the strongest
antipathy, the haughtiest contempt, the most trans
parent selfishness. Look at the international re
lations which have convulsed Europe and America,
even within the memory of the youngest adult here
present! But extend your heart to the lower ani
mals, to the living but insentient vegetable, to the
inorganic kingdom, and, by slow degrees, love dwindles
to nonentity. Then think what part the whole of
this earth, with all that it contains, plays in that great
hniverse of bodies which the telescope reveals, com
pared to many of which our whole solar system is as
nothing, nay, perhaps, our whole stellar system but
insignificant. But all these are God’s; all these may,
Ike the earth, swarm with a life, an intelligence, a
love, unlike the earth’s indeed, but, if any twilight
motion we can form of God be even remotely correct,
as much bound up with God as our own puny selves.
And then, straining our minds to grasp this mighty
conception, let us again ask ourselves what resem
blance can that Love which we call God, have to
|hat human conception which alone fills our minds
�28
when we utter the word Love on earth ? It is not to
disparage, but to appreciate, not to lower, but to
elevate, not to put aside God as a loveless, emotion
less stone of an Epicurean deity, but to widen our
minds and hearts to some vague panting hope that
the Ineffable may warm us into some power of feeling
what we can neither conceive nor utter, that I ven
ture to call your attention to the utter inadequacy
of man’s noblest formula : God is Love !
But the dyer’s hand is still more apparent in
the moulding of another conception, which it was
my principal object to bring before your notice,
and which will occupy the rest of the time for
which I can venture to claim your attention.
Every lip is ready to speak of God’s “ design; ” of
God’s will, purpose, intention, final cause, motive;
of the reasons which induce him to make things as
they are; of the plan of the universe and the changes
or amendments (f£ new dispensations ” is the favourite
term) which he has introduced into it; of his scheme
of redemption (which, by-the-bye, seems to be con
ceived as occasionally thwartable); of his contrivances
to produce certain effects; of his elaborate system of
rewards and punishments to keep the world in order
(which, however, altogether fails because he has not
succeeded in keeping the Devil in order); of his
mechanical knowledge in availing himself of the pro
perties of bones and tissues in organisation; and so
�29
on, and so on, from the philosopher to the clown,
from Darwin, whom the necessities of language oblige
to speak of the purpose, intention, use of certain
organs, to the poet’s “ pampered goose,” who finds man
created to feed him. Now, before we proceed to
consider this preposterous nonsense, which would not
be worth a moment’s thought if it had not such a
profoundly distorting effect on our mental vision when
directed to the greatest of all subjects, let us inquire
what is the human meaning of the principal word
throughout this Babel, which I have placed first in
order, because it is the key to all the rest. What is
the human meaning of “ design ” ? Clearly, it is only
by knowing human design that we can infer creative
design, and a little consideration will shew that there
cannot be even a remote analogy between the two.
To design was originally to mark out, to trace out, as
the boundary of a city was traced out by a plough,
put it very early acquired in Rome, where the word
is indigenous, that metaphorical meaning in which it
is generally employed. A man designs a machine—
Paley’s watch, for example—what has he done ? He
has himself, or through his predecessors, discovered
“the laws of geometry, the properties of circles, the
Power exerted by a metal spring in uncoiling, the
difference of that power according to the thickness
and length of the spring, and the kind of metal com
posing it, especially the tempering of the metal, and
�3°
the isochronous vibrations of thin and highly tempered
springs, with various other properties of toothed
wheels and levers, which I need not stay to describe.
Now observe, he has discovered all this, he has invented
nothing as yet. What he wants to do is to make a
rod, the hand of his watch, move round in a circle
at a rate bearing an exact relation to the rate at which the
earth revolves on its axis, which revolution he has also
discovered, not invented. Seizing, then, on the fact of
the isochronous vibration of a hair-spring when
properly weighted and properly jogged, he puts these
parts together so that these properties (which he did
not make, nor invent, but only discovered), acting
according to the laws of geometry and mechanics
(which again he did not make, nor invent, but only
discovered), may really produce the required result.
Observe, too, that his knowledge of the laws of this
action is imperfect; there are certain properties of ex
pansion and contraction with heat, which he has not
become sufficiently familiar with, or known how to bring
into destructive opposition; there are certain difficulties
in cutting geometrical figures truly in metal which he
cannot entirely overcome; so that his watch is at best
a very imperfect affair requiring daily correction by
observations—themselves more or less imperfect—on
the presumably invariable motion of the earth. This
is human design. All man's part is to find the
materials, the laws of their action, and the laws by
�3i
which they can be connected; nothing else whatever.
He puts them together, and we say that that grand
abstraction, “nature,” does the rest. Now, if we
apply this to God, we see that some other god must
have made the materials, and their laws, and the laws
of their connection, and that he merely puts them
together ! What a degrading conception ! The great
God, the expression of utter boundlessness, a
mechanical drudge, a piecer of other gods’ goods!
Shame on man that he ever inculcated such a doctrine I
Shame on those natural theologians who would found
our very reason for believing in the existence of God
on such transparent fallacies, which can be knocked
down like nine-pins by the first bowl of a cunning
atheist!
But the conception recurs again and again. Even
natural philosophers, as distinct from natural
theologers, become occasionally involved in its
meshes. Professor Tyndall, in the second of his
series of lectures on Heat and Light, which he de
livered at the Royal Institution in 1872, brought
forward a notable instance, widely accepted, and
hesitatingly admitted by even the founder of that In
stitution, Count Rumford, for the purpose of shewing
pjiow utterly fallacious and presumptuous it is, like
Phaethon to guide the horses of the Sun. Water, as
every one who has learned anything about its prois aware, is liquid at ordinary temperatures, and
�32
as it is cooled down to about 40 deg. Fahrenheit,
regularly and gradually contracts like the column of
mercury in the thermometer. But then a change ensues.
Increase the cold towards freezing and the mercury
continues to contract, but the water expands, till at
freezing it becomes solid ice, occupying much more
space than the water whence it was generated, as most
householders have learned from broken water-pipes.
Hence, as the water cools to 40 deg., it sinks to the
bottom of any pond, lake or river, because it is
heavier, but after 40 deg., and up to and after its be
coming ice, it is lighter and floats on the top, pre
senting a pad against the cold, and hence keeping
the water liquid below, and preventing the whole mass
from becoming one solid lump, destroying all possi
bility of life within it. The importance of this pro
perty to the inhabitants of temperate and arctic
regions is manifest. Without it these climes could not
be inhabited by man or any other animal, as now con
stituted. No other liquid was known to possess the
same properties. What so natural, then, as to say that
God in his providence designed this solitary exception
from the universal law of contractility by cold, for the
benefit and preservation of man ? And men have said
so one after another. The fact is so striking, the re
lation to man, in regions where ice can form, so cleail
that the boldest denier of God’s providence—gene
rally somebody extremely ignorant—would be shaken
�33
when its bearing was made clear. But in the first
place, the fact clearly could not affect those parts of the
world where ice never forms, and in the second place,
at a time when the present arctic and temperate
regions bore tropical vegetation, this law also did not
affect them, though as yet man was not to be found on
the face of the earth j and, lastly, this is not a solitary
exception. When bismuth is sufficiently heated it be
comes fluid, and as heat is withdrawn that fluid also
first contracts and then expands, although no relations
between this phenomenon and the life of man can
be traced. The whole argument was, therefore, one
from ignorance to ignorance, and its present value is
to shew how dangerous, nay, how illogical, how
thoughtless it is, from an isolated circumstance, which
could only have local value, to infer a general propo
sition of a totally different character about a totally
unknown relation. The preacher who is reported to
have found a special providence in the fact (which he
deemed universal) that great rivers flowed by great
cities, did not more burlesque the ways of God to
man than he who founded an argument for God’s
special care of our race on that other remarkable and
more real property of water.
The proof of design is now generally sought for in
organisation, and not in the inanimate world. Paley
“ pitched his foot ” unconcernedly against the ££ stone ”
he found on the heath; for anything he knew, as he
�34
says, it might have lain there for ever. When he was
writing this, at the beginning of the nineteenth cerH
tury, geology was practically an unknown science, or
he might have found a history in the stone which
would have led him to the conception of epochs of
creation preparing the way for man, gravel collected
here to be subsequently dug up, coal gathered there
storing up the sun’s heat for man’s benefit hereafter,
perhaps the very mammoths would have been found
made to yield ivory or bone manure for future genera
tions. Again he was no chemist, or he might have
dwelled much on the chemical constitution of his stone,
and its remarkable adaptation for man’s future habita
tions. He was no natural philosopher, or he might
have dwelled on its specific gravity, and the wonder
ful contrivance by which, though water is lighter and
more mobile than rock, the dry land could appear for
man’s existence. In short, he was only a not very
learned theologian, who, recommended by his bishop
to turn his thoughts to the argument from design,
crammed up his subjects, and, more or less correctly-J
never with the grasp of real knowledge—wove them
into a treatise, with the valuable assistance, as we
have lately learned, of a French book on the same
*
subject.
He was a good plain writer, and, his half
* This last piece of information has been added since this
discourse was delivered. The information was given in the Academy
or Athenceum at the end of 1875 or beginning of 1876, butunfor*
�35
faawledge enabling him to skim over all difficulties, he
has produced a seductive book, which has done an
immense amount of harm in deteriorating our concep
tions of God, and in leading Englishmen to notions
thoroughly anthropomorphic in content, though avoid
ing anthropomorphism in appearance. But the pro
blem of design in older times, when organisation was
less understood, was treated with especial reference to
the subordination of the inorganic to the use of man.
The Elohist, ignorant that rain was formed in clouds
but slightly distant from our earth, placed the
“ extension,” (as the Hebrew word means which we
translate “firmament”) called “heaven,” to divide
the seas from the rain ; and put the sun above us in
this same firmament to rule the day, and the moon to
rule the night (when it was visible), and that wondrous
multitude of other suns, among which our own is
only a third or fourth rate body, he brought in paren
thetically, as “the stars also,” their chief “use ” being,
course, “ for signs and for seasons, for days and for
years,” that is, for man to reckon seed time and harvest
by. The continual addition that God saw that it was
“ good,” naturally implies that it was effected for a
tunately I neglected to make a note at the time, and have been
unable to recover the reference. It was stated, however, that
the resemblance between the French work and Paley’s was
very close, and that even the incident of the ‘ ‘ watch ” is due to
the French original. August, 1876.
�3<S
certain purpose or design beneficial to man (Gen.
chap, i.) All this has gradually gone out. Coperni
can astronomy dissipated the reference of all celestial
bodies to man.
Geology and natural philosophy
ousted design from inanimate objects. But organisa
tion remained, and remains a stronghold.
Who can regard the human eye, the lens, the retina,
the chamber through which the beams pass, the
diaphragm of the iris, the varying aperture of the
pupil, without, in these photographic days especially,
being forcibly reminded of the object glass, the
sensitised plate, the camera, the movable diaphragm ?
And as all these latter are known to be the works of
design, based upon laws of light as regards its refrac
tion through glass, and its chemical action, what is
more natural for the mind just receiving the idea, than
to jump to the conclusion, that, as man adapted the
camera, so God adapted the eye to the laws of light ?
True ; but for the laws of light the eye would not see.
We might almost feel inclined to say that light was
invented for the eye. But the Elohist having placed
light at the earliest epoch (before the sun and the
stars, indeed, whence comes all the light, even the
so-called artificial light that we know}, no theologer
would hit upon this conception, which is not a bit
more extravagant than that the sun was made to rule
the day, which, therefore, must have existed before
the sun. But here, as in the moral government of
�37
the world (which religion had to supplement by a
devil), we run great danger, if we press the argument
home, of imagining the Unerring to be as great a
bungler as poor, designing, fractionally informed man.
If the eye was “designed” for sight, why should so many
exquisite “ contrivances ” exist for defeating that
object? Why should this man be born blind, why
should an Egyptian sun make that man sightless, why
should the focal power of the lens be often—generally,
I may say—so ill adapted to the position of the
retina, that no distinct image can be formed till man’s
knowledge of the laws of optics has taught him the
effect of lenses of glass, and how to grind them ? The
man is yet alive who first found what form of lens
should Ibe given to remedy a not uncommon, but
hitherto unsuspected defect existing in his own eye,
and now generally known to oculists. If the Jews
could ask, in order to explain a certain man’s blind
ness, “ Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he
was born blind ? ” are we right in parodying the
answer, and replying, “ Neither has the AstronomerRoyal sinned, nor his parents; but he was born with
astigmatic vision, that the works of God should be made
*
* A point of light is seen in correct vision as a single point,
but in astigmatic vision not, stigma, a point), it is seen as a
line of very perceptible length. If any one looks at himself in the
hollow or projection of a bright silver table-spoon he sees the
effect of astigmatism, which prolongs or shortens objects, as his
�3§
manifest in him?” (John ix., 2, 3.) Do not such
phrases grate on every soul attuned to God-like har
mony ? And what shall we say of the colour-blind for
whom no cure has been devised, but who as railway
porters on land, or as the look-out at sea, may
imperil or destroy hundreds of lives in a moment
by confusing green with red? The man most capable
*
own face, according to the position in which the spoon is held.
The Astronomer-Royal, Sir George Biddell Airy, when a pro
fessor at Cambridge, used to relate to his class (of which I was a
member) how he detected the nature of the error in his own
eyes, and calculated the proper shape of the lenses (cylindrical
and not spherical) for his spectacles to correct the defect, and
how he found it impossible for years to get any optician who
would undertake to grind them. Now the malformation is well
known and studied, and several oculists (as Liebreich, Bowman,
&c.) are prepared to measure the error, often very complicated,
and order the construction of proper lenses. It is also found that
many eyes, with correct vision when young, became astigmatic
with age. Dr. Liebreich considers this to have been the cause
of the extraordinary vertical lengthening in the drawing of objects
introduced into Turner’s latest pictures.
* See ‘ ‘ Researches on Colour-blindness, with a supplement on
the danger attending the Present System of Railway and Marine
Coloured Signals,” by the late Prof. George Wilson, of Edin
burgh, 1855. “ The great majority of the colour-blind distin
guish two of the primary colours, yellow and blue, but they err
with the third red, which they confound with green, with brown,
with grey, with drab, and occasionally with other colours; and
not. unfrequently red is invisible to them, or appears black”
�39
of passing an opinion on any point of physiological,
optics, the great physiologist, physicist, and mathe
matician, Helmholtz, who had devoted many years
of study to this special subject, and written a classical
work upon it, says, of the human eye, as Professor
Clifford has told us (Macmillan!s Magazine, October,
1872, p. 507, col. 2) : “If an optician sent me that
as an instrument, I should send it back to him with
grave reproaches for the carelessness of his work, and
demand the return of my money.” * Is there, indeed,
a single organ in the human body ordinarily so perfect
that it needs no help from man ? On what do our
physicians and surgeons live ? Was disease part of
God’s design for the doctor’s benefit, or was it a
punishment for the patient’s sin ? And how can we
avoid that last old Judaic notion if we see design in
everything ? Aye, but to give up design is to throw
p. 129. It is now not usual to consider blue a primary colour
a colour-blind friend of my own could not distinguish red from
dark blue ; I have known others who could not distinguish red
from green. “There is every reason to believe that the number
of males in this country who are subject in some degree to thisaffection of vision, is not less than one in twenty, and that the
number markedly colour-blind, that is, given to mistake red
for green, brown for green, purple for blue, and occasionally
red for black, is not less than one in fifty,” p. 130.
* This sentence was added for the second delivery, 18th May,.
‘873-
�4°
everything into the power of chance. Who is this
grim goddess Chance that can assume the reins of the
world because one man differs from another in
opinion ? When the Pope and Cardinals condemned
Galileo for affirming the world’s motion, they were, as
it has been happily said, at that instant whirling round
with it. Our views of the world and its constitution
cannot alter the macrocosm without, but may materially
affect the microcosm within. Let us face this Chance,
and ask again, who art thou ? And in ultimate resort
all the best philosophy of the day replies : Chance is
the sum of all those laws which we have still to
■learn. To say that the world is what it is, bating the
laws we know, through the laws we know not, is surely
nothing terrible, is the merest truism of modern science.
But by all means avoid a name which conjures up a
foul Python that it would need another Phoebus to
destroy.
What, then, can we mean by God’s design, or rather
by that which we humanly call design ? Again, all
the best philosophy has its answer ready: we mean
solely the conditions of existence, that without
which—or that which changed—things would not be
what they are.
*
Stated baldly thus, it seems a most
* It will be at once objected that there is nothing even
approaching to the conception of human design in such a
■statement. Quite true. If we attempted to introduce anything
-approaching to human design, we should have to suppose that
�4i
barren proposition. Most laws of primary importance
have that appearance till their consequences are traced.
As long as we conceive that God meant every particular
state to be what it is, it remains a sin to touch it. We
have even now among us a “ peculiar people,” as they
call themselves, who decline to summon a physician
in case of illness. I have not heard that they insisted
on eating grains of wild wheat instead of bread artfully
prepared with unholy leaven from the bruised com.
Directly we look upon things as being what they are,
owing to certain conditions of existence, we inquire
are these modifiable ? and if so, with what result ?
We experiment, we modify. As the peculiar people—
an “unconditioned” Creator fell into a profound study resulting
in his devising not merely materials, but their laws, all fitting
into some vast and complicated machine, embracing the whole
universe, and having some distinct object which, as w’ell as all
the incidents accompanying its action, (the “evil” as well as
the “good,”) was conceived and intended beforehand, and
which he preferred to effect in this way instead of by a single
hat. Not venturing to claim that intimate acquaintance w'ith
God’s mind, which most preachers practically assert themselves
to possess, I cannot put forward such an hypothesis. It does
not appear to be a particularly edifying conception, and on closer
inspection I find it totally incomprehensible. But “conditions of
existence ” imply no hypothesis. They are a mere statement of
what we find, without superadding any imaginary cause, and
may be, or rather must be, accepted, whatever cause may be
Assigned to them.
�42
and others by no means peculiar, I am sorry to say—
might declare, we dare to correct God’s handiwork.
Think of the sheer blasphemy of such a notion ! Think
how deep that dye must be which could thus obliterate
-every trace of all that is true and beautiful and good I
During an expedition to study the effects of a total
•eclipse of the sun a few years ago, as the astronomers
were preparing to make those observations which tend
•so greatly to establish oneness amidst the diversity of
the universe, some ignorant natives lighted a fire to
frighten off the dragon that was consuming the sun,
and the whole observations would have been nullified
by the smoke had not some English officer seen and
bravely stamped it out. And we here, here in England,
*
here in London, here in the largest city of the world,
speaking a language more widely spoken than any in
the world, need a brave officer like him to stamp out
the fumes which would thwart the only means we have
of even vaguely forefeeling that Being whom no epithet
■Can describe, but which an ignorant crowd believes to
be succumbing to the serpent knowledge.
The dye of humanity is on our hand. Wash it
as we may, either in the Abana and Pharpar of stately
theology that arrogates to itself universal
priort
* So far as I can recollect, this refers to the total eclipse of
the sun on the 12th December, 1871, and the incident mentioned
is illustrated by a drawing in the Illustrated London News of
the time. August, 1876.
�43
knowledge, or in the Jordan of lowly science
(2 Kings, v. 10, 12), that lays down as its first principle,
ignorance of all not yet discovered—wash it as we may,
we cannot wash it clean—but we can know that it A
dyed, and we can lift it up with a clear conscience,
that while panting after God as the hart for the water
brooks (Ps. xlii. 1), we have never knowingly let a
single drop of the dye fall on our shapeless conception
of the Inconceivable. Let us take a lesson from the
Greek myth of Semele. As we can only converse with
the Deity through human conceptions, let us be
content that they are human, and not entreat a
presence which no man can see and live. And, in
*
order that our nature may not be more than “ almost”
subdued to what it works in, let us wear in our “ heart
of heart,”f never to be forgotten, cherished as a
constant warning, as a safeguard against presumption,
as the token of self-knowledge, Shakspeare’s badge of
the Dyer’s Hand 1
* Semele “ was beloved by Zeus (Jupiter), and Here (Juno),
stimulated by jealousy, appeared to her in the form of her aged
nurse Beroe, and induced her to pray Zeus to visit her in the
same splendour and majesty with which he appeared to Here.
Zeus, who had promised that he would grant her every request,
did as she desired. He appeared to her as the god of thunder,
and Semele was consumed by the fire of lightning.” (W.
Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and
Mythology.)
f {Hamlet, act 3, scene 2, speech 14.)
�44
DISMISSAL.
May we each ponder in private, and shew forth in
public, that the way to God is through the heart of
man I
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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"The dyer's hand": a discourse preceded by The way to God: a meditation, delivered at South Place Chapel, Sunday 5th May 1872, and repeated by especial desire Sunday, 19th May 1873
Creator
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Ellis, Alexander John [1814-1890]
Description
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Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 44 p. ; 15 cm.
Series title: South Place Discourses
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[South Place Chapel]
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[1873]
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T340
N206
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Sermons
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work ("The dyer's hand": a discourse preceded by The way to God: a meditation, delivered at South Place Chapel, Sunday 5th May 1872, and repeated by especial desire Sunday, 19th May 1873), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
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Sermons