{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45122/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45122","id":"gutenberg_45122","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45122","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Life","Philosophy","Religion","Theology"],"text":"Transcriber's note:\n\nText enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\nSmall capital text has been replaced with all capitals.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration: coverpage]\n\n\n\n\nTHOUGHTS ON\n\nLIFE AND RELIGION\n\n\n\n\n  THOUGHTS ON\n  LIFE AND RELIGION\n\n  An Aftermath from the Writings of\n\n  THE RIGHT HONOURABLE\n\n  PROFESSOR MAX M\u00dcLLER\n\n  BY HIS WIFE\n\n  THIRD IMPRESSION\n\n  London\n\n  ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND\n  COMPANY LTD.\n\n  1907\n\nEdinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis book has been prepared in accordance with a wish expressed by\nmany known and unknown admirers of my husband's writings, who desire\nto possess in a portable form the passages that have specially\nappealed to them in his different works, and in the _Life and\nLetters_.\n\nI have taken this opportunity of adding extracts from private\nletters, and from the writings he left unfinished, which would not\notherwise have become known to any but his own family or a few\nintimate friends.\n\nThose who have read the _Life and Letters_, do not need to be told\nthat Max M\u00fcller lived from his earliest years in the firm conviction\nthat all is wisely ordered in this life, and 'all for our real good,\nthough we do not always see it, and though we cannot venture to\nfathom the wisdom guiding our steps through life.'\n\nTo others his unswerving trust and faith as shown in these extracts\nmay be a revelation, for he seldom talked on such subjects. This\ntrust and faith gave him strength through the bitter struggles of\nhis early life, taught him resignation during the years when the\ndearest wish of his heart seemed unattainable, supported him later\nwhen those he tenderly loved were snatched from him by death, and\nupheld him in his last long and depressing illness.\n\nMy earnest desire is that this little book may prove a help and\ncomfort to many exposed to like trials, and strengthen those whose\npath now stretches before them as a sunny avenue, to meet the\nsorrows that almost surely await them as life advances.\n\n  GEORGINA MAX M\u00dcLLER.\n\n  _June 11, 1905_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                             PAGE\n\n  The Art of Life,              1\n\n  The Beautiful,                4\n\n  The Bible,                    6\n\n  Children,                    12\n\n  Christ, the Logos,           13\n\n  Christianity,                21\n\n  Death,                       34\n\n  The Deity,                   44\n\n  The Divine,                  57\n\n  Doubts,                      60\n\n  Evolution of Religion,       66\n\n  Faith,                       70\n\n  The Fatherhood of God,       73\n\n  Future Life,                 74\n\n  The Infinite,                87\n\n  Knowledge,                   96\n\n  Language,                    99\n\n  Life,                       103\n\n  Love,                       121\n\n  Mankind,                    129\n\n  Mind or Thought,            132\n\n  Miracles,                   135\n\n  Music,                      138\n\n  Nature,                     139\n\n  Obscurity,                  142\n\n  Old Age,                    143\n\n  Religion and Religions,     145\n\n  Revelation,                 184\n\n  The Rig-Veda,               189\n\n  Science,                    190\n\n  The Self,                   192\n\n  Sorrow and Suffering,       198\n\n  The Soul,                   208\n\n  Theosophy,                  215\n\n  Truth,                      217\n\n  The Will of God,            222\n\n  Wonder,                     226\n\n  Words,                      228\n\n  Work,                       230\n\n  The World,                  233\n\n\n\n\nTHE ART OF LIFE\n\n\nTo learn to understand one another is the great art of life, and to\n'agree to differ' is the best lesson of the comparative science of\nreligion.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nThere is a higher kind of music which we all have to learn, if our\nlife is to be harmonious, beautiful, and useful. There are certain\nintervals between the young and the old which must be there, which\nare meant to be there, without which life would be monotonous; but\nout of these intervals and varieties the true art of life knows\nhow to build up perfect harmonies.... Even great sorrow may be a\nblessing, by drawing some of our affections away from this life to\na better life ... of which, it is true, we know nothing, but from\nwhich, when we see the wisdom and love that underlie this life, we\nmay hope everything. We are meant to hope and to trust, and that is\noften much harder than to see and to know.... The greatest of all\narts is the art of life, and the best of all music the harmony of\nspirits. There are many little rules to be learnt for giving harmony\nand melody to our life, but the thorough bass must be--love.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nOne thing is necessary above all things in order to live\npeaceably with people, that is, in Latin, _Humanitas_, German,\n_Menschlichkeit_. It is difficult to describe, but it is to claim\nas little as possible from others, neither an obliging temper\nnor gratitude, and yet to do all one can to please others, yet\nwithout expecting them always to find it out. As men are made up\nof contradictions they are the more grateful and friendly the less\nthey see that we expect gratitude and friendliness. Even the least\ncultivated people have their good points, and it is not only far\nbetter but far more interesting if one takes trouble to find out\nthe best side and motives of people, rather than the worst and most\nselfish.... Life is an art, and more difficult than Sanscrit or\nanything else.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWe become chiefly what we are more through others than through\nourselves, and happy is the man whose path in life leads him only by\ngood men and brings him together with good men. How often we forget\nin judging others the influences under which they have grown up. How\ncan one expect a child to be truthful when he sees how servants, yes\noften parents, practise deceit. How many children hear from those\nto whom they look up, expressions, principles, and prudent rules\nof life, which consciously or unconsciously exercise an influence\non the young life of the child. Yet with how little of loving\nintrospection we pass our judgments.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIf you want to be at peace with yourself, do not mind being at war\nwith the world.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nTHE BEAUTIFUL\n\n\nIs the Beautiful without us, or is it not rather within us? What we\ncall sweet and bitter is our own sweetness, our own bitterness, for\nnothing can be sweet or bitter without us. Is it not the same with\nthe Beautiful? The world is like a rich mine, full of precious ore,\nbut each man has to assay the ore for himself, before he knows what\nis gold and what is not. What, then, is the touchstone by which we\nassay the Beautiful? We have a touchstone for discovering the good.\nWhatever is unselfish is good. But--though nothing can be beautiful,\nexcept what is in some sense or other good, not everything that is\ngood is also beautiful. What, then, is that something which, added\nto the good, makes it beautiful? It is a great mystery. It is so to\nus as it was to Plato. We must have gazed on the Beautiful in the\ndreams of childhood, or, it may be, in a former life, and now we\nlook for it everywhere, but we can never find it,--never at least in\nall its brightness and fulness again, never as we remember it once\nas the vision of a half-forgotten dream. Nor do we all remember the\nsame ideal--some poor creatures remember none at all.... The ideal,\ntherefore, of what is beautiful is within us, that is all we know;\nhow it came there we shall never know. It is certainly not of this\nlife, else we could define it; but it underlies this life, else we\ncould not feel it. Sometimes it meets us like a smile of Nature,\nsometimes like a glance of God; and if anything proves that there is\na great past, and a great future, a Beyond, a higher world, a hidden\nlife, it is our faith in the Beautiful.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\n\n\nTHE BIBLE\n\n\nThe fault is ours, not theirs, if we wilfully misinterpret the\nlanguage of ancient prophets, if we persist in understanding their\nwords in their outward and material aspect only, and forget that\nbefore language had sanctioned a distinction between the concrete\nand the abstract, between the purely spiritual as opposed to the\ncoarsely material, the intention of the speakers comprehended both\nthe concrete and the abstract, both the material and the spiritual,\nin a manner which has become quite strange to us, though it lives on\nin the language of every true poet.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nCanonical books give the reflected image only of the real doctrines\nof the founder of a new religion; an image always blurred and\ndistorted by the medium through which it had to pass.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nThe Old Testament stands on a higher ethical stage than other sacred\nbooks,--it certainly does not lose by a comparison with them. I\nalways said so, but people would not believe it. Still, anything to\nshow the truly historical and human character of the Old Testament\nwould be extremely useful in any sense, and would in nowise injure\nthe high character which it possesses.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nIf we have once learnt to be charitable and reasonable in the\ninterpretation of the sacred books of other religions, we shall more\neasily learn to be charitable and reasonable in the interpretation\nof our own. We shall no longer try to force a literal sense on words\nwhich, if interpreted literally, must lose their true and original\npurport; we shall no longer interpret the Law and the Prophets as if\nthey had been written in the English of our own century, but read\nthem in a truly historical spirit, prepared for many difficulties,\nundiscouraged by many contradictions, which, so far from disproving\nthe authenticity, become to the historian of ancient language and\nancient thought the strongest confirmatory evidence of the age, the\ngenuineness, and the real truth of ancient sacred books. Let us but\ntreat our own sacred books with neither more nor less mercy than\nthe sacred books of any other nations, and they will soon regain\nthat position and influence which they once possessed, but which the\nartificial and unhistorical theories of the last three centuries\nhave wellnigh destroyed.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nBy the students of the science of religion the Old Testament can\nonly be looked upon as a strictly historical book by the side\nof other historical books. It can claim no privilege before the\ntribunal of history, nay, to claim such a privilege would be to\nreally deprive it of the high position which it justly holds\namong the most valuable monuments of the distant past. But the\nauthorship of the single books which form the Old Testament, and\nmore particularly the dates at which they were reduced to writing,\nform the subject of keen controversy, not among critics hostile to\nreligion, but among theologians who treat these questions in the\nmost independent, but at the same time the most candid and judicial,\nspirit. By this treatment many difficulties, which in former times\ndisturbed the minds of thoughtful theologians, have been removed,\nand the Old Testament has resumed its rightful place among the most\nvaluable monuments of antiquity.... But this was possible on one\ncondition only, namely, that the Old Testament should be treated\nsimply as an historical book, willing to submit to all the tests of\nhistorical criticism to which other historical books have submitted.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nWhat the student of the history of the continuous growth of religion\nlooks for in vain in the books of the Old Testament, are the\nsuccessive stages in the development of religious concepts. He does\nnot know which books he may consider as more ancient or more modern\nthan other books. He asks in vain how much of the religious ideas\nreflected in certain of these books may be due to ancient tradition,\nhow much to the mind of the latest writer. In Exodus iii. God is\nrevealed to Moses, not only as the supreme, but as the only God.\nBut we are now told by competent scholars that Exodus could not\nhave been written down till probably a thousand years after Moses.\nHow then can we rely on it as an accurate picture of the thoughts\nof Moses and his contemporaries? It has been said with great truth\nthat 'it is almost impossible to believe that a people who had been\nemancipated from superstition at the time of the Exodus, and who had\nbeen all along taught to conceive God as the one universal Spirit,\nexisting only in truth and righteousness, should be found at the\ntime of Josiah, nearly nine hundred years later, steeped in every\nsuperstition.' Still, if the writings of the Old Testament[1] were\ncontemporaneous with the events they relate, this retrogressive\nmovement would have to be admitted. Most of these difficulties\nare removed, or considerably lessened, if we accept the results\nof modern Hebrew scholarship, and remember that though the Old\nTestament may contain very ancient traditions, they probably were\nnot reduced to writing till the middle of the fifth century B.C.,\nand may have been modified by and mixed up with ideas belonging to\nthe time of Ezra.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n  [Footnote 1: The reader is reminded that these lectures were\n  published in 1891, before English theologians had reached any\n  generally received results in the study of the dates of the\n  various parts of the Old Testament. It would be more correct now\n  to substitute 'the Pentateuch' in the above sentence for the 'Old\n  Testament.' For a statement of the modern views of the several\n  periods to which the different books may be assigned, see Canon\n  Driver's _Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_.]\n\n\nMay we, or may we not, interpret, as students of language, and\nparticularly as students of Oriental languages, the language of\nthe Old Testament as a primitive and as an Oriental language? May\nwe, or may we not, as true believers, see through the veil which\nhuman language always throws over the most sacred mysteries of the\nsoul, and instead of dragging the sublimity of Abraham's trial and\nAbraham's faith down to the level of a merely preternatural event,\nrecognise in it the real trial of a human soul, the real faith of\nthe friend of God, a faith without stormwinds, without earthquakes\nand fires, a faith in the still small voice of God?\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIs it really necessary to say again and again what the Buddhists\nhave said so often and well, that the act of creation is perfectly\ninconceivable to any human understanding, and that, if we speak of\nit at all, we can only do so anthropomorphically or mythologically?\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nCHILDREN\n\n\nAll seems so bright and perfect, and quite a new life seems to\nopen before me, in that beloved little child. She helps me to look\nforward to such a far distance, and opens quite a new view of one's\nown purpose and duties on earth. It is something new to live for, to\ntrain a human soul entrusted to us, and to fit her for her true home\nbeyond this life.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nI doubt whether it is possible to take too high a view of life\nwhere the education of children is concerned. It is the one great\nwork entrusted to us, it forms the true religion of life. Nothing\nis small or unimportant in forming the next generation, which is to\ncarry on the work where we have to leave it unfinished. No single\nsoul can be spared--every one is important, every one may be the\ncause of infinite good, or of infinite mischief, for ever hereafter.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nCHRIST, THE LOGOS\n\n\nAn explanation of _Logos_ in Greek philosophy is much simpler than\nis commonly supposed. It is only needful not to forget that for the\nGreeks thought and word were inseparable, and that the same term,\nnamely _Logos_, expressed both, though they distinguished the inner\nfrom the outer _Logos_. It is one of the most remarkable aberrations\nof the human mind to imagine that there could be a word without\nthought, or a thought without word. The two are inseparable; one\ncannot exist or be even conceived without the other.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nIn nearly all religions God remains far from man. I say in nearly\nall religions: for in Brahmanism the unity, not the union, of the\nhuman soul with Brahma is recognised as the highest aim. This unity\nwith Deity, together with phenomenal difference, Jesus expressed in\npart through the _Logos_, in part through the Son. There is nothing\nso closely allied as thought and word, Father and Son. They can\nbe distinguished but never separated, for they exist only through\neach other. In this matter the Greek philosophers considered all\ncreation as the thought or the word of God, and the thought 'man'\nbecame naturally the highest _Logos_, realised in millions of men,\nand raised to the highest perfection in Jesus. As the thought exists\nonly through the word, and the word only through the thought, so\nalso the Father exists only through the Son, and the Son through the\nFather, and in this sense Jesus feels and declares himself the Son\nof God, and all men who believe in Him His brethren. This revelation\nor inspiration came to mankind through Jesus. No one knew the Father\nexcept the Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and those to whom\nthe Son willeth to reveal Him. This is the Christian Revelation in\nthe true sense of the word.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nSmall as may be the emphasis that we now lay on the _Logos_\ndoctrine, in that period (_i.e._ of the Fourth Gospel) it was the\ncentre, the vital germ, of the whole Christian teaching. If we read\nany of the writings of Athanasius, or of any of the older church\nfathers, we shall be surprised to see how all of them begin with the\nword (_Logos_) as a fixed point of departure, and then proceed to\nprove that the Word is the Son of God, and finally that the Son of\nGod is Jesus of Nazareth. Religion and philosophy are here closely\nrelated.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nWhat is true Christianity if it be not the belief in the true\nsonship of man, as the Greek philosophers had rightly surmised,\nbut had never seen realised on earth? Here is the point where the\ntwo great intellectual currents of the Aryan and Semitic worlds\nflow together, in that the long-expected Messiah of the Jews was\nrecognised as the _Logos_, the true Son of God, and that He opened\nor revealed to every man the possibility to become what he had\nalways been, but had never before apprehended, the highest thought,\nthe Word, the Logos, the Son of God.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nEternal life consists in knowing that men have their Father and\ntheir true being in the only true God, and that as sons of this same\nFather, they are of like nature with God and Christ.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nWhy should the belief in the Son give everlasting life? Because\nJesus has through His own sonship in God declared to us ours also.\nThis knowledge gives us eternal life through the conviction that we\ntoo have something divine and eternal within us, namely, the word\nof God, the Son whom He hath sent. Jesus Himself, however, is the\nonly begotten Son, the light of the world. He first fulfilled and\nillumined the divine idea which lies darkly in all men, and made it\npossible for all men to become actually what they have always been\npotentially--sons of God.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nWe make the fullest allowance for those who, from reverence for\nGod and for Christ, and from the purest motives, protest against\nclaiming for man the full brotherhood of Christ. But when they say\nthat the difference between Christ and mankind is one of kind, and\nnot of degree, they know not what they do, they nullify the whole of\nChrist's teaching, and they deny the Incarnation which they pretend\nto teach.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nThe Ammergau play must be very powerful. And I feel sure just now\nnothing is more wanted than to be powerfully impressed with the\ntruly human character of Christ; it has almost vanished under the\nextravagant phraseology of hymns and creeds, and yet how much\ngreater is the simple story of His unselfish life than all the\nsuperlatives of later Theology. If one knows what it is to lose a\nhuman soul whom one has loved--how one forgets all that was human,\nand only clings to what was eternal in it, one can understand\nthe feelings of Christ's friends and disciples when they saw Him\ncrucified and sacrificed, the innocent for those whom He wished to\nguide and save.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nJesus destroyed the barrier between man and God, the veil that hid\nthe Holiest was withdrawn. Man was taught to see what the prophets\nhad seen dimly, that he was near to God, that God was near to every\none of us, that the old Jewish view of a distant Jehovah had arisen\nfrom an excess of reverence, had filled the heart of man with fear,\nbut not with love. Jesus did not teach a new doctrine, but He\nremoved an old error, and that error, that slavish fear of God, once\nremoved, the human heart would recover the old trust in God--man\nwould return like a lost son to his lost father, he would feel that\nif he was anything, he could only be what his God had made him,\nand wished him to be. And if a name was wanted for that intimate\nrelation between God and man, what better name was there than Father\nand Son?\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThose who deprived Jesus of His real humanity in order to exalt\nHim above all humanity were really undoing His work. Christ came\nto teach us, not what He was, but what we are. He had seen that\nman, unless he learnt himself to be the child of God, was lost.\nAll his aspirations were vain unless they all sprang from one\ndeep aspiration, love of God. And how can we love what is totally\ndifferent from ourselves? If there is in us a likeness, however\nsmall, of God, then we can love our God, feel ourselves drawn\ntowards Him, have our true being in Him. That is the essence of\nChristianity, that is what distinguishes the Christian from all\nother religions. And yet that very kernel and seed of Christianity\nis constantly disregarded, is even looked upon with distrust. Was\nnot Christ, who died for us, more than we ourselves? it is said. Or\nagain, Are we to make ourselves gods? Christ never says that He is\ndifferent from ourselves; He never taught as a God might teach. His\nconstant teaching is, that we are His brethren, and that we ought to\nfollow His example, to become like Him, because we were meant to be\nlike Him. In that He has come near to God, as near as a son can be\nto His father; He is what He was meant to be. We are not, and hence\nthe deep difference between Him and us.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThen it is said, Is not Christ God? Yes, He is, but in His own\nsense, not in the Jewish nor in the Greek sense, nor in the sense\nwhich so many Christians attach to that article of their faith.\nChrist's teaching is that we are of God, that there is in us\nsomething divine, that we are nothing if we are not that. He also\nteaches that through our own fault we are now widely separated from\nGod, as a son may be entirely separated and alienated from his\nfather. But God is a perfect and loving Father--He knows that we can\nbe weak, and yet be good, and when His lost sons return to Him He\nreceives them and forgives them as only a father can forgive. Let\nus bestow all praise and glory on Christ as the best son of God.\nLet us feel how unworthy we are to be called His brothers, and the\nchildren of God, but let us not lose Christ, and lose our Father\nwhom He came to show us, by exalting Jesus beyond the place which He\nclaimed Himself. Christ never calls Himself the Father, He speaks of\nHis Father with love, but always with humility and reverence. All\nattempts to find in human language a better expression than that of\nson have failed. Theologians and philosophers have tried in vain\nto define more accurately the relation of Christ to the Father, of\nman to God. They have called Christ another person of the Godhead.\nIs that better than Christ's own simple human language, I go to my\nFather?\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nChrist has been made so unreal to us, He has been spoken of in\nsuch unmeasured terms that it is very difficult to gain Him back,\nsuch as He was, without a fear of showing less reverence and love\nof Him than others. And yet, unreal expressions are always false\nexpressions--nothing is so bad as if we do not fully mean what we\nsay. Of course we know Christ through His friends only, they tell us\nwhat He told them--they represent Him as He appeared to them. What\nfallible judges they often were they do not disguise, and that, no\ndoubt, raises the value of their testimony, but we can only see Him\nas they saw Him; the fact remains we know very little of Him. Still,\nenough remains to show that Christ was full of love, that He loved\nnot only His friends, but His enemies. Christ's whole life seems\nto have been one of love, not of coldness. He perceived our common\nbrotherhood, and what it was based on, our common Father beyond this\nworld, in heaven, as He said.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIANITY\n\n\nChristianity is Christianity by this one fundamental truth, that\nas God is the father of man, so truly, and not poetically, or\nmetaphorically only, man is the son of God, participating in God's\nvery essence and nature, though separated from God by self and\nsin. This oneness of nature between the Divine and the human does\nnot lower the concept of God by bringing it nearer to the level of\nhumanity; on the contrary, it raises the old concept of man and\nbrings it nearer to its true ideal. The true relation between God\nand man had been dimly foreseen by many prophets and poets, but\nChrist was the first to proclaim that relation in clear and simple\nlanguage. He called Himself the Son of God, and He was the firstborn\nson of God in the fullest sense of that word. But He never made\nHimself equal with the Father in whom He lived and moved and had\nHis being. He was man in the new and true sense of the word, and in\nthe new and true sense of the word He was God. To my mind man is\nnothing if He does not participate in the Divine.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nTrue Christianity lives, not in our belief, but in our love, in our\nlove of God, and in our love of man founded on our love of God.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nTrue Christianity, I mean the religion of Christ, seems to me to\nbecome more and more exalted the more we know and the more we\nappreciate the treasures of truth hidden in the despised religions\nof the world. But no one can honestly arrive at that conviction\nunless he uses honestly the same measure for all religions.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nThe position which Christianity from the very beginning took up\nwith regard to Judaism served as the first lesson in comparative\ntheology, and directed the attention even of the unlearned to a\ncomparison of two religions, differing in their conception of the\nDeity, in their estimate of humanity, in their motives of morality,\nand in their hope of immortality, yet sharing so much in common that\nthere are but few of the psalms and prayers in the Old Testament in\nwhich a Christian cannot heartily join even now, and but few rules\nof morality which he ought not even now to obey.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nIt was exactly because the doctrine of Christ, more than that of\nthe founders of any other religion, offered in the beginning an\nexpression of the highest truths in which Jewish carpenters, Roman\npublicans, and Greek philosophers could join without dishonesty,\nthat it has conquered the best part of the world. It was because\nattempts were made from very early times to narrow and stiffen the\noutward expression of our faith, to put narrow dogma in the place of\ntrust and love, that the Christian Church often lost those who might\nhave been its best defenders, and that the religion of Christ has\nalmost ceased to be what, before all things, it was meant to be, a\nreligion of world-wide love and charity.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nThe founder of Christianity insisted again and again on the\nfact that He came to fulfil, and not to destroy; and we know\nhow impossible it would be to understand the true position of\nChristianity in the history of the world, the true purport of the\n'fullness of time,' unless we always remember that its founder was\nborn and lived and died an Israelite. Many of the parables and\nsayings of the New Testament have now been traced back, not only to\nthe Old Testament, but to the Talmud also; and we know how difficult\nit was at first for any but a Jew to understand the true meaning of\nthe new Christian doctrine.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nThere is no religion in the whole world which in simplicity, in\npurity of purpose, in charity, and true humanity, comes near to that\nreligion which Christ taught to His disciples. And yet that very\nreligion, we are told, is being attacked on all sides. The principal\nreason for this omnipresent unbelief is, I believe, the neglect of\nour foundations, the disregard of our own bookless religion, the\nalmost disdain of Natural Religion. Even bishops will curl their\nlips when you speak to them of that natural and universal _religion_\nwhich existed before the advent of our historical religions, nay,\nwithout which all historical religions would have been as impossible\nas poetry is without language. Natural religion may exist and does\nexist without revealed religion--revealed religion without natural\nreligion is an utter impossibility.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nThere can be no doubt that free inquiry has swept away, and will\nsweep away, many things which have been highly valued, nay, which\nwere considered essential by many honest and pious minds. And yet\nwho will say that true Christianity, Christianity which is known by\nits fruits, is less vigorous now than it has ever been before? There\nhave been discussions in the Christian Church from the time of the\nApostles to our own times. We have passed through them ourselves, we\nare passing through them now.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nWhen we think of the exalted character of Christ's teaching, may\nwe not ask ourselves once more, What would He have said if He had\nseen the fabulous stories of His birth and childhood, or if He had\nthought that His Divine character would ever be made to depend on\nthe historical truth of the _Evangelia Infantiae_?\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nMuch of the mere outworks of Christianity cannot hold the ground\non which they have been planted, they have to be given up by force\nat last, when they ought to have been given up long before; and\nwhen given up at last, they often tear away with them part of the\nstrength of that faith of which they had previously been not only\nthe buttress outside, but a part of the living framework.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nWhat we call Christianity embraces several fundamental doctrines,\nbut the most important of them all is the recognition of the Divine\nin man, or, as we call it, the belief in the Divinity of the Son.\nThe belief in God, let us say in God the Father, or the Creator\nand Ruler of the world, had been elaborated by the Jews, and most\nof the civilised and uncivilised nations of the world had arrived\nat it. But when the Founder of Christianity called God His Father,\nand not only His Father, but the Father of all mankind, He did no\nlonger speak the language of either Jews or Greeks. To the Jews,\nto claim Divine sonship for man would have been blasphemy. To the\nGreeks, Divine sonship would have meant no more than a miraculous,\na mythological event. Christ spoke a new language, a language\nliable, no doubt, to be misunderstood, as all language is; but a\nlanguage which to those who understood it has imparted a new glory\nto the face of the whole world. It is well known how this event,\nthe discovery of the Divine in man, which involves a complete\nchange in the spiritual condition of mankind, and marks the great\nturning-point in the history of the world, has been surrounded by\na legendary halo, has been obscured, has been changed into mere\nmythology, so that its real meaning has often been quite forgotten,\nand has to be discovered again by honest and fearless seeking.\nChrist had to speak the language of His time, but He gave a new\nmeaning to it, and yet that language has often retained its old\ndiscarded meaning in the minds of His earliest, nay sometimes of His\nlatest disciples also. The Divine sonship of which He speaks was\nnot blasphemy as the Jews thought, nor mythology as so many of His\nown followers imagined, and still imagine. Father and Son, divine\nand human, were like the old bottles that could hardly hold the new\nwine; and yet how often have the old broken bottles been preferred\nto the new wine that was to give new life to the world.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nIf we have learnt to look upon Christianity, not as something\nunreal and unhistorical, but as an integral part of history, of\nthe historical growth of the human race, we can see how all the\nsearchings after the Divine or Infinite in man were fulfilled in the\nsimple utterances of Christ. His preaching, we are told, brought\nlife and immortality to light. Life, the life of the soul, and\nimmortality, the immortality of the soul, were there and had always\nbeen there. But they were brought to light, man was made fully\nconscious of them, man remembered his royal birth, when the word had\nbeen spoken by Christ.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nWe must never forget that it was not the principal object of\nChrist's teaching to make others believe that He only was divine,\nimmortal, or the son of God. He wished them to believe this for\n_their own_ sake, for _their own_ regeneration. 'As many as received\nHim to them gave He power to become the sons of God.' It might be\nthought, at first, that this recognition of a Divine element in man\nmust necessarily lower the conception of the Divine. And so it does\nin one sense. It brings God nearer to us, it bridges over the abyss\nby which the Divine and the human were completely separated in the\nJewish, and likewise in many of the pagan religions. It rends the\nveil of the temple. This lowering, therefore, is no real lowering\nof the Divine. It is an expanding of the concept of the Divine, and\nat the same time a raising of the concept of humanity, or rather\na restoration of what is called human to its true character,--a\nregeneration, or a second birth, as it is called by Christ Himself.\n'Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nThere is a constant action and reaction in the growth of religious\nideas, and the first action by which the Divine was separated from\nand placed almost beyond the reach of the human mind, was followed\nby a reaction which tried to reunite the two. This process, though\nvisible in many religions, was most pronounced in Judaism in its\ntransition to Christianity. Nowhere had the invisible God been\nfurther removed from the visible world than in the ancient Jewish\nreligion, and nowhere have the two been so closely drawn together\nagain and made one as by that fundamental doctrine of Christianity,\nthe Divine sonship of man.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nChrist spoke to men, women, and children, not to theologians, and\nthe classification of His sayings should be made, not according to\ntheological technicalities, but according to what makes our own\nheart beat.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThe yearning for union or unity with God, which we see as the\nhighest goal in other religions, finds its fullest recognition in\nChristianity, if but properly understood, that is, if but treated\nhistorically, and it is inseparable from our belief in man's full\nbrotherhood with Christ. However imperfect the forms may be in\nwhich that human yearning for God has found expression in different\nreligions, it has always been the deepest spring of all religions,\nand the highest summit reached by Natural Religion. The different\nbridges that have been thrown across the gulf that seems to separate\nearth from heaven and man from God, may be more or less crude and\nfaulty, yet we may trust that many a faithful soul has been carried\nacross by them to a better home. It is quite true that to speak of\na bridge between man and God, even if that bridge is called the\nSelf, is but a metaphor. But how can we speak of these things except\nin metaphors? To return to God is a metaphor, to stand before the\nthrone of God is a metaphor, to be in Paradise with Christ is a\nmetaphor.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nThe Christian religion should challenge rather than deprecate\ncomparison. If we find certain doctrines which we thought the\nexclusive property of Christianity in other religions also, does\nChristianity lose thereby, or is the truth of these doctrines\nimpaired by being recognised by other teachers also?\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nLove--superseding faith--seems to be the keynote of all\nChristianity. But the world is still far from true Christianity, and\nwhoever is honest towards himself knows how far away he himself is\nfrom the ideal he wishes to reach. One can hardly imagine what this\nworld would be if we were really what we profess to be, followers\nof Christ. The first thing we have to learn is that we are not what\nwe profess to be. When we have learnt that, we shall at all events\nbe more forbearing, forgiving, and loving towards others. We shall\nbelieve in them, give them credit for good intentions, with which, I\nhope, not hell, but heaven, is paved.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nOur religion is certainly better and purer than others, but in the\nessential points all religions have something in common. They all\nstart with the belief that there is something beyond, and they are\nall attempts to reach out to it.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nHow little was taught by Christ, and yet that is enough, and every\naddition is of evil. Love God, love men--that is the whole law and\nthe prophets--not the Creeds and the Catechism and the Articles and\nthe endless theological discussions. We want no more, and those who\ntry to fulfil that simple law, know best how difficult it is, and\nhow our whole life and our whole power are hardly sufficient to\nfulfil that short law.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nChrist's teaching is plainly that as He is the Son of God so we are\nHis brothers. His conception of man is a new one, and as that is\nnew, so must His conception of God be new. He lifts up humanity, and\nbrings deity near to humanity, and He expresses their inseparable\nnature and their separate existences by the best simile which the\nworld supplies, that of Father and Son. He claims no more for\nHimself than He claims for us. His only excellence is that which is\ndue to Himself--His having been the first to find the Father, and\nbecome again His Son, and His having remained in life and death more\none with the Father than any one of those who professed to believe\nin Him, and to follow His example.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIf Jesus was not God, was He, they ask, a mere man? A _mere_ man? Is\nthere anything among the works of God, anything next to God, more\nwonderful, more awful, more holy than man? Much rather should we\nask, Was then Jesus a mere God? Look at the miserable conceptions\nwhich man made to himself as long as he spoke of gods beside God?\nIt could not be otherwise. God is one, and he who admits other gods\nbeside or without Him degrades, nay, denies and destroys the One\nGod. _A_ God is less than man. True Christianity does not degrade\nthe Godhead, it exalts manhood, by bringing it back near to God,\nas near as it is possible for the human thought to approach the\nineffable and inconceivable Majesty of the true God.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIf I ventured to speak of God's purpose at all, I should say,\nthat it is not God's purpose to win only the spiritually gifted,\nthe humble, the tender hearted, the souls that are discontented\nwith their own shortcomings, the souls that find happiness in\nself-sacrifice--those are His already--but to win the intellectually\ngifted, the wise, the cultivated, the clever, or better still, to\nwin them both. It would be an evil day for Christianity if it could\nno longer win the intellectually gifted, the wise, the cultivated,\nthe clever, and it seems to me the duty of all who really believe in\nChrist to show that Christianity, if truly understood, can win the\nhighest as well as the humblest intellects.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\n\n\nDEATH\n\n\nTrust in God! What He does is well done. What we are, we are through\nHim; what we suffer, we suffer through His will. We cannot conceive\nHis wisdom, we cannot fathom His love; but we can trust with a trust\nstronger than all other trusts that He will not forsake us, when we\ncling to Him, and call on Him, as His Son Jesus Christ has taught us\nto call on Him, 'Our Father.' Though this earthly form of ours must\nperish, all that was good, and pure, and unselfish in us will live.\nDeath has no power over what is of God within us. Death changes and\npurifies and perfects us, Death brings us nearer to God, where we\nshall meet again those that are God's, and love them with that godly\nlove which can never perish.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWould that loving Father begin such a work in us as is now going\non, and then destroy it, leave it unfinished? No, what is will be;\nwhat really is in us will always be; we shall be because we are.\nMany things which are now will change, but what we really are we\nshall always be; and if love forms really part of our very life,\nthat love, changed it may be, purified, sanctified, will be with\nus, and remain with us through that greatest change which we call\ndeath. The pangs of death will be the same for all that, just as the\npangs of childbirth seem ordained by God in order to moderate the\nexceeding joy that a child is born into the world. And as the pain\nis forgotten when the child is born, so it will be after death--the\njoy will be commensurate to the sorrow. The sorrow is but the effort\nnecessary to raise ourselves to that new and higher state of being,\nand without that supreme effort or agony, the new life that waits\nfor us is beyond our horizon, beyond our conception. It is childish\nto try to anticipate, we cannot know anything about it; we are\nmeant to be ignorant; even the _Divina Commedia_ of a great poet\nand thinker is but child's play, and nothing else.... No illusions,\nno anticipations; only that certainty, that quiet rest in God, that\nsubmissive expectation of the soul, which knows that all is good,\nall comes from God, all tends to God.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nAs one gets older death seems hardly to make so wide a gap--a few\nyears more or less, that is all--meantime we know in whose hands we\nall are, that life is very beautiful, but death has its beauty too.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWe accustom ourselves so easily to life as a second nature,\nand in spite of the graves around us, death remains something\nunnatural, hard and terrifying. That should not be. An early death\nis terrifying, but as we grow older our thoughts should accustom\nthemselves to passing away at the end of a long life's journey. All\nis so beautiful, so good, so wisely ordered, that even death can be\nnothing hard, nothing disturbing; it all belongs to a great plan,\nwhich we do not understand, but of which we know that it is wiser\nthan all wisdom, better than all good, that it cannot be otherwise,\ncannot be better. In faith we can live and we can die--can even see\nthose go before us who came before us, and whom we must follow.\nAll is not according to our will, to our wisdom, but according to\na heavenly will, and those who have once found each other through\nGod's hand will, clinging to His hand, find each other again.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nIf we are called away sooner or later we ought to part cheerfully,\nknowing that this earth could give no more than has been ours, and\nlooking forward to our new home, as to a more perfect state where\nall that was good and true and unselfish in us will live and expand,\nand all that was bad and mean will be purified and cast off. So let\nus work here as long as it is day, but without fearing the night\nthat will lead us to a new and brighter dawn of life.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nAnnihilation ... is a word without any conceivable meaning. We\nare--that is enough. What we are does not depend on us; what we\nshall be neither. We may conceive the idea of change in form, but\nnot of cessation or destruction of substance. People mean frequently\nby annihilation the loss of conscious personality, as distinct from\nmaterial annihilation. What I feel about it is shortly this. If\nthere is anything real and substantial in our conscious personality,\nthen whatever there is real and substantial cannot cease to exist.\nIf on the contrary we mean by conscious personality something that\nis the result of accidental circumstances, then, no doubt, we must\nface the idea of such a personality ceasing to be what it now\nis. I believe, however, that the true source and essence of our\npersonality lies in what is the most real of all real things, and in\nso far as it is true, it cannot be destroyed. There is a distinction\nbetween conscious personality and personal consciousness. A child\nhas personal consciousness, a man who is this or that, a Napoleon,\na Talleyrand, has conscious personality. Much of that conscious\npersonality is merely temporary, and passes away, but the personal\nconsciousness remains.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nOne look up to heaven, and all this dust of the highroad of life\nvanishes. Yes! one look up to heaven and that dark shadow of death\nvanishes. We have made the darkness of that shadow ourselves, and\nour thoughts about death are very ungodly. God has willed it so;\nthere is to be a change, and a change of such magnitude that even\nif angels were to come down and tell us all about it, we could not\nunderstand it, as little as the new-born child would understand\nwhat human language could tell about the present life. Think what\nthe birth of a child, of a human soul, is; and when you have felt\nthe utter impossibility of fathoming that mystery, then turn your\nthoughts upon death, and see in it a new birth equally unfathomable,\nbut only the continuation of that joyful mystery which we call a\nbirth. It is all God's work, and where is there a flaw in that\nwonder of all wonders, God's ever-working work? If people talk of\nthe miseries of life, are they not all man's work?\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nGreat happiness makes one feel so often that it cannot last, and\nthat we will have some day to give up all to which one's heart\nclings so. A few years sooner or later, but the time will come, and\ncome quicker than one expects. Therefore I believe it is right to\naccustom oneself to the thought that we can none of us escape death,\nand that all our happiness here is only lent us. But at the same\ntime we can thankfully enjoy all that God gives us, ... and there is\nstill so much left us, so much to be happy and thankful for, and yet\nhere too the thought always rushes across one's brightest hours: it\ncannot last, it is only for a few years and then it must be given\nup. Let us work as long as it is day, let us try to do our duty, and\nbe very thankful for God's blessings which have been showered upon\nus so richly--but let us learn also always to look beyond, and learn\nto be ready to give up everything,--and yet say, Thy Will be done.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIt is the most painful work I know looking through the papers and\nother things belonging to one who is no more with us. How different\neverything looks to what it did before. There is one beautiful\nfeature about death, it carries off all the small faults of the soul\nwe loved, it makes us see the true littleness of little things, it\ntakes away all the shadows, and only leaves the light. That is how\nit ought to be; and if in judging of a person we could only bring\nourselves to think how we should judge of them if we saw them on\nthe bed of death, how different life would be! We always judge in\nself-defence, and that makes our judgments so harsh. When they are\ngone how readily we forget and forgive everything, how truly we love\nall that was lovable in them, how we blame ourselves for our own\nlittleness in minding this and that, and not simply and truly loving\nall that was good and bright and noble. How different life might be\nif we could all bring ourselves to be what we really are, good and\nloving, and could blow away the dust that somehow or other will fall\non all of us. It is never too late to begin again.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThe death of those we love is the last lesson we receive in\nlife--the rest we must learn for ourselves. To me, the older I grow,\nand the nearer I feel that to me the end must be, the more perfect\nand beautiful all seems to be; one feels surrounded and supported\neverywhere by power, wisdom, and love, content to trust and wait,\nincapable of murmuring, very helpless, very weak, yet strong in that\nvery helplessness, because it teaches us to trust in something not\nourselves. Yet parting with those we love is hard--only I fear there\nis nothing else that would have kept our eyes open to what is beyond\nthis life.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIt is strange how little we all think of death as the condition of\nall the happiness we enjoy now. If we could but learn to value each\nhour of life, to enjoy it fully, to use it fully, never to spoil\na minute by selfishness, then death would never come too soon; it\nis the wasted hours which are like death in life, and which make\nlife really so short. It is not too late to learn to try to be more\nhumble, more forbearing, more courteous, or, what is at the root of\nall, more loving.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThe great world for which we live seems to me as good as the little\nworld in which we live, and I have never known why faith should\nfail, when everything, even pain and sorrow, is so wonderfully good\nand beautiful. All that we say to console ourselves on the death\nof those we loved, and who loved us, is hollow and false; the only\ntrue thing is rest and silence. We cannot understand, and therefore\nwe must and can trust. There can be no mistake, no gap, in the\nworld-poem to which we belong; and I believe that those stars which\nwithout their own contrivance have met, will meet again. How, where,\nwhen? God knows this, and that is enough.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nGod has taught us that death is not so terrible as it appears to\nmost men--it is but a separation for a few short days, and then,\ntoo, eternity awaits us.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWe live here in a narrow dwelling-house, which presses us in on all\nsides, and yet we fancy it is the whole universe. But when the door\nopens and a loved one passes out, never to return, we too step to\nthe door and look out into the distance, and realise then how small\nand empty the dwelling is, and how a larger, more beautiful world\nwaits for us without. How it is in that larger world, who can say?\nbut if we were so happy in the narrow dwelling, how far more happy\nshall we be out there! Be not afraid. See how beautifully all is\nordered; look up to the widespread firmament, and think how small\nit is in comparison with God's almighty power. He who regulates the\ncourses of the stars will regulate the fate of the souls of men, and\nthose souls who have once met, shall they not meet again like the\nstars?\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThose who are absent are often nearer to us than those who are\npresent.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWe reckon too little with death, and then when it comes it\noverwhelms us. We know all the time that our friends must go, and\nthat we must go, but we shut our eyes, and enjoy their love and\nfriendship as if life could never end. We should say good-bye to\neach other every evening--perhaps the last good-bye would find us\nthen less unprepared.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThere is something so natural in death. We come and we go, there is\nno break.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWhat is more natural in life than death? and having lived this long\nlife, so full of light, having been led so kindly by a Fatherly hand\nthrough all storms and struggles, why should I be afraid when I have\nto make the last step?\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEITY\n\n\nWe clearly see that the possibility of intercourse between man and\nGod, and a revelation of God to man, depends chiefly or exclusively\non the conception which man has previously formed of God and man.\nIn all theological researches we must carefully bear in mind that\nthe idea of God is _our_ idea, which we have formed in part through\ntradition, and in part by our own thinking. God is and remains\n_our_ God. We can have a knowledge of Him only through our inner\nconsciousness, not through our senses.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nOur duties toward God and man, our love for God and for man, are\nas nothing without the firm foundation which is formed only by our\nfaith in God, as the Thinker and Ruler of the world, the Father of\nthe Son, who was revealed through Him as the Father of all sons, of\nall men.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nThough Christianity has given us a purer and truer idea of the\nGodhead, of the majesty of His power and the holiness of His will,\nthere remains with many of us the conception of a merely objective\nDeity. God is still with many of us in the clouds, so far removed\nfrom the earth and so high above anything human, that in trying\nto realise fully the meaning of Christ's teaching we often shrink\nfrom approaching too near to the blinding effulgence of Jehovah.\nThe idea that we should stand to Him in the relation of children\nto their father seems to some people almost irreverent, and the\nthought that God is near us everywhere, the belief that we are also\nHis offspring, nay, that there has never been an absolute barrier\nbetween divinity and humanity, has often been branded as Pantheism.\nYet Christianity would not be Christianity without this so-called\nPantheism, and it is only some lingering belief in something like a\nJove-like Deus Optimus Maximus that keeps the eyes of our mind fixed\nwith awe on the God of Nature without, rather than on the much more\nawful God of the soul within.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nThe idea of God is the result of an unbroken historical evolution,\ncall it a development, an unveiling, or a purification, but not\nof a sudden revelation.... What right have we to find fault with\nthe manner in which the Divine revealed itself, first to the eyes,\nand then to the mind, of man? Is the revelation in nature really\nso contemptible a thing that we can afford to despise it, or at\nthe utmost treat it as good enough for the heathen world? Our eyes\nmust have grown very dim, our mind very dull, if we can no longer\nperceive how the heavens declare the glory of God.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nA belief in one Supreme God, even if at first it was only a\nhenotheistic, and not yet a monotheistic belief, took possession of\nthe leading spirits of the Jewish race at a very early time. All\ntradition assigns that belief in One God, the Most High, to Abraham.\nAbraham, though he did not deny the existence of the gods worshipped\nby the neighbouring tribes, yet looked upon them as different from,\nand as decidedly inferior to, his own God. His monotheism was, no\ndoubt, narrow. His God was the friend of Abraham, as Abraham was\nthe friend of God. Yet the concept of God formed by Abraham was a\nconcept that could and did grow. Neither Moses, nor the Prophets,\nnor Christ Himself, nor even Mohammed, had to introduce a new God.\nTheir God was always called the God of Abraham, even when freed\nfrom all that was local and narrow in the faith of that patriarch.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nTo some any attempt to trace back the name and concept of Jehovah\nto the same hidden sources from which other nations derived their\nfirst intimation of deity may seem almost sacrilegious. They forget\nthe difference between the human concept of the Deity and the\nDeity itself, which is beyond the reach of all human concepts. But\nthe historian reads deeper lessons in the growth of these human\nconcepts, as they spring up everywhere in the minds of men who have\nbeen seekers after truth--seeking the Lord if haply they might feel\nafter Him and find Him--and when he can show the slow but healthy\ngrowth of the noblest and sublimest thoughts out of small and\napparently insignificant beginnings, he rejoices as the labourer\nrejoices over his golden harvest; nay, he often wonders what is\nmore truly wonderful, the butterfly that soars up to heaven on its\nsilvery wings, or the grub that hides within its mean chrysalis such\nmarvellous possibilities.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nThe concept of God arises out of necessity in the human mind, and\nis not, as many theologians will have it, the result of one special\ndisclosure, granted to Jews and Christians only. It seems to me\nimpossible to resist this conviction, where a comparative study\nof the great religions of the world shows us that the highest\nattributes which we claim for the Deity are likewise ascribed to it\nby the Sacred Books of other religions.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nWe can now repeat the words which have been settled for us centuries\nago, and which we have learnt by heart in our childhood--I believe\nin God the Father, Maker of heaven and earth--with the conviction\nthat they express, not only the faith of the apostles, or of\noecumenical councils, but that they contain the Confession of\nFaith of the whole world, expressed in different ways, conveyed in\nthousands of languages, but always embodying the same fundamental\ntruth. I call it fundamental, because it is founded, in the very\nnature of our mind, our reason, and our language, on a simple and\nineradicable conviction that where there are acts there must be\nagents, and in the end one Prime Agent, whom man may know, not\nindeed in His own inscrutable essence, yet in His acts, as revealed\nin Nature.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nThe historical proof of the existence of God, which is supplied to\nus by the history of the religions of the world, has never been\nrefuted, and cannot be refuted. It forms the foundation of all the\nother proofs, call them cosmological, ontological, or teleological,\nor rather it absorbs them all, and makes them superfluous. There\nare those who declare that they require no proof at all for the\nexistence of a Supreme Being, or if they did, they would find it\nin revelation, and nowhere else. Suppose they wanted no proof\nthemselves, would they really not care at all to know how the\nhuman race, and how they themselves, came in possession of what, I\nsuppose, they value as their most precious inheritance? An appeal\nto revelation is of no avail in deciding questions of this kind,\nunless it is first explained what is really meant by revelation. The\nhistory of religions teaches us that the same appeal to a special\nrevelation is made, not only by Christianity, but by the defenders\nof Br\u00e2hmanism, Zoroastrianism, and Mohammedanism, and where is the\ntribunal to adjudicate on the conflicting appeals of these and other\nclaimants? The followers of every one of these religions declare\ntheir belief in the revealed character of their own religion, never\nin that of any other religion. There is, no doubt, a revelation to\nwhich we may appeal in the court of our own conscience, but before\nthe court of universal appeal we require different proofs for the\nfaith that is in us.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nGiven man, such as he is, and given the world, such as it is, a\nbelief in divine beings, and, at last, in one Divine Being, is not\nonly a universal, but an inevitable fact.... If from the standpoint\nof human reason no flaw can be pointed out in the intellectual\nprocess which led to the admission of something within, behind, or\nbeyond nature, call it the Infinite or any other name you like, it\nfollows that the history of that process is really, at the same\ntime, the best proof of the legitimacy and truth of the conclusions\nto which it has led.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nThere is no predicate in human language worthy of God, all we can\nsay of Him is what the Upanishads said of Him, No, No! What does\nthat mean? It meant that if God is called all-powerful, we have\nto say No, because whatever we comprehend by powerful is nothing\ncompared with the power of God. If God is called all-wise, we have\nagain to say No, because what we call wisdom cannot approach the\nwisdom of God. If God is called holy, again we have to say No, for\nwhat can our conception of holiness be compared with the holiness\nof God? This is what the thinkers of the Upanishads meant when they\nsaid that all we can say of God is No, No.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nIf people would only define what they mean by knowing, they would\nshrink from the very idea that God can ever be known by us in the\nsame sense in which everything else is known, or that with regard\nto Him we could ever be anything but Agnostics. All human knowledge\nbegins with the senses, and goes on from sensations to percepts,\nfrom percepts to concepts and names. And yet the same people who\ninsist that they know God, will declare in the same breath that\nno one can see God and live. Let us only define the meaning of\nknowing, and keep the different senses in which this word has been\nused carefully apart, and I doubt whether any one would venture\nto say that, in the true sense of the word, he is not an Agnostic\nas regards the true nature of God. This silence before a nameless\nBeing does not exclude a true belief in God, nor devotion, nor love\nof a Being beyond our senses, beyond our understanding, beyond our\nreason, and therefore beyond all names.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nEvery one of the names given to this infinite Being by finite\nbeings marks a stage in the evolution of religious truth. If once\nwe try to understand these names, we shall find that they were all\nwell meant, that, for the time being, they were probably the only\npossible names. The Historical School does not look upon all the\nnames given to divine powers as simply true or simply false. We look\nupon all of them as well meant and true for the time being, as steps\non the ladder on which the angels of God ascend and descend. There\nwas no harm in the ancient people, when they were thirsting for\nrain, invoking the sky, and saying, 'O, dear sky, send us rain!' And\nwhen after a time they used more and more general words, when they\naddressed the powers (of nature) as bright, or rich, or mighty, all\nthese were meant for something else, for something they were seeking\nfor, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him. This is St.\nPaul's view of the growth of religion.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nWhen God has once been conceived without 'any manner of similitude,'\nHe may be meditated on, revered, and adored, but that fervent\npassion of the human breast, that love with all our heart, and all\nour soul, and all our might, seems to become hushed before that\nsolemn presence. We may love our father and mother with all our\nheart, we may cling to our children with all our soul, we may be\ndevoted to wife, or husband, or friend with all our might, but to\nthrow all these feelings in their concentrated force and truth on\nthe Deity has been given to very few on earth.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nIf the history of religion has taught us anything, it has taught\nus to distinguish between the names and the thing named. The names\nmay change, and become more and more perfect, and our concepts of\nthe Deity may become more perfect also, but the Deity itself is\nnot affected by our names. However much the names may differ and\nchange, there remains, as the last result of the study of religion,\nthe everlasting conviction that behind all the names there is\nsomething named, that there is an agent behind all acts, that there\nis an Infinite behind the finite, that there is a God in Nature.\nThat God is the abiding goal of many names, all well meant and well\naimed, and yet all far, far away from the goal which no man can\nsee and--live. All names that human language has invented may be\nimperfect. But the name 'I am that I am' will remain for those who\nthink Semitic thought, while to those who speak Aryan languages\nit will be difficult to invent a better name than the Vedanta\nSa_k_-_k_id-\u00e2nanda, He who is, who knows, who is blessed.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nHowever much we may cease to speak the language of the faith of our\nchildhood, the faith in a superintending and ever-present Providence\ngrows only stronger the more we see of life, the more we know of\nourselves. When that Bass-note is right, we may indulge in many\nvariations, we shall never go entirely wrong.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWe do not see the hand that takes our dear ones from us, but we\nknow whose hand it is, whose will it is. We have no name for Him,\nwe do not know Him, but we know that whatever name we give, He will\nunderstand it. That is the foundation of all religion. Let us give\nthe best name we can find in us, let us know that even that must be\na very imperfect name, but let us trust that if we only believe in\nthat name, if we use it, not because it is the fashion, but because\nwe can find no better name, He will understand and forgive. Every\nname is true if we are true, every name is false if we are false. If\nwe are true our religion is true, if we are false our religion is\nfalse. An honest fetish worshipper even is better than a scoffing\nPope.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIn the ordinary sense of knowledge we cannot have any knowledge of\nGod; our very idea of God implies that He is beyond our powers of\nperception and understanding. Then what can we do? Shut our eyes\nand be silent? That will not satisfy creatures such as we are.\nWe must speak, but all our words apply to things perceptible or\nintelligible. The old Buddhists used to say, The only thing we can\nsay of God is No, No! He is not this, He is not that. Whatever we\ncan see or understand, He is not that. But again I say that kind of\nself-denial will not satisfy such creatures as we are. What can we\ndo? We can only give the best we have. Now the best we have or know\non earth is Love, therefore we say God is Love or loving. Love is\nentire self-surrender, we can go no further in our conception of\nwhat is best. And yet how poor a name it is in comparison of what\nwe want to name. Our idea of love includes, as you say, humility, a\nlooking up and worshipping. Can we say that of God's love? Depend\nupon it, the best we say is but poor endeavour,--it is well we\nshould know it,--and yet, if it is the best we have and can give, we\nneed not be ashamed.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nAnd now that generations after generations have passed away, with\ntheir languages--adoring and worshipping the Name of God--preaching\nand dying in the Name of God--thinking and meditating on the Name\nof God--there the old word stands still, breathing to us the pure\nair of the dawn of humanity, carrying with it all the thoughts and\nsighs, the doubts and tears, of our bygone brethren, and still\nrising up to heaven with the same sound from the basilicas of Rome\nand the temples of Benares, as if embracing by its simple spell\nmillions and millions of hearts in their longing desire to give\nutterance to the unutterable, to express the inexpressible.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nTHE DIVINE\n\n\nIt was, after all, the Jew who, in the great history of the world,\nwas destined to solve the riddle of the Divine in man. It was the\nsoil of Jewish thought that in the end gave birth to the true\nconception of the relation between the Divine in nature and the\nDivine in man.\n\n_Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nWhen the Divine in the outward world has once been fully recognised,\nthere can be nothing more or less divine, nothing more or less\nmiraculous, either in nature or in history. Those who assign a\ndivine and miraculous character to certain consecrated events only\nin the history of the world, are in great danger of desecrating\nthereby the whole drama of history, and of making it, not only\nprofane, but godless. It is easy to call this a pantheistic view of\nthe world. It is pantheistic, in the best sense of the word, so much\nso that any other view would soon become atheistic. Even the Greeks\nsuspected the omnipresence of the Divine, when, as early as the\ntime of Thales, they declared that _all_ is full of the gods. The\nchoice here lies really between Pantheism and Atheism. If anything,\nthe greatest or the smallest, can ever happen without the will of\nGod, then God is no longer God. To distinguish between a direct and\nindirect influence of the Divine, to admit a general and a special\nprovidence, is like a relapse into polytheism, a belief in one and\nmany gods.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nHuman nature is divine nature modified. It can be nothing else.\nChrist, in shaking off all that is not divine in man,--let us call\nit by one general name, all that is selfish,--resumed His own\ndivinity.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nGod comes to us in the likeness of man--there is no other likeness\nfor God. And that likeness is not forbidden, Christ has taught us\nto see and love God in man. We cannot go further. If we attempt\nto conceive anything more than human, our mind breaks down. But\nwe can conceive and perceive the Divine in man, and most in those\nwho are risen from the earth. While we live our love is human, and\nmixed with earthly things. We love and do not love--we even hate,\nor imagine we do. But we do not really hate any man, we only hate\nsomething that surrounds and hides man. What is behind, the true\nnature of man, we always love. Death purifies man, it takes away the\nearthly crust, and we can love those who are dead far better than\nthose who are still living: that is the truth. We do not deceive\nourselves, we do not use vain words. Love is really purer, stronger,\nand more unselfish when it embraces those who are risen. That is why\nthe Apostles loved Christ so much better when He was no longer with\nthem. While He lived, Peter could deny Him--when He had returned to\nthe Father, Peter was willing to die for Him. All that is so true,\nonly one must have gone through it, felt it oneself, in order to\nunderstand it. If one knows the love one feels for the blessed, one\nwants no temporary resurrection to account for the rekindled love of\nthe Apostles. They believed that Christ had truly risen, that death\nhad no power over Him, that He was with the Father. Was not that\nmore, far more, than a return to this fleeting life for a few hours,\nor days, or weeks, or than an ascent through the clouds to the blue\nsky? Ah! how the great truths have been exchanged for small fancies,\nthe _mira_ for the _miracula_.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nDOUBTS\n\n\nThere is certainly no happier life than a life of simple faith; of\nliteral acceptance, of rosy dreams. We must all grant that, if it\nwere possible, nothing would be more perfect. I gladly acknowledge\nthat some of the happiest, and also some of the best men and women\nI have known, were those who would have shrunk with horror from\nquestioning a single letter of the Bible, or doubting that a serpent\nactually spoke to Eve, and an ass to Balaam. But can we prevent the\nlight of the sun and the noises of the street from waking the happy\nchild from his heavenly dreams? Nay, is it not our duty to wake the\nchild, when the time has come that he must be up and doing, and take\nhis share in the toils of the day? And is it not well for those who\nfor the first time open their eyes and look around, that they should\nsee by their side some who have woke before them, who understand\ntheir inquiring looks, and can answer their timid questions and\ntell them in the simple-hearted language of the old poet:\n\n    'There lives more faith in honest doubt,\n    Believe me, than in half the creeds.'\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nThere is an atheism which is unto death, there is another atheism\nwhich is the life-blood of all true faith. It is the power of\ngiving up what, in our best, our most honest, moments, we know to\nbe no longer true; it is the readiness to replace the less perfect,\nhowever dear, however sacred it may have been to us, by the more\nperfect, however much it may be detested, as yet, by the world. It\nis the true self-surrender, the true self-sacrifice, the truest\ntrust in truth, the truest faith. Without that atheism religion\nwould long ago have become a petrified hypocrisy; without that\natheism no new religion, no reform, no reformation, no resuscitation\nwould ever have been possible; without that atheism no new life is\npossible for any one of us.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nHow many men in all countries and all ages have been called\natheists, not because they denied that there existed anything beyond\nthe visible and the finite, or because they declared that the world,\nsuch as it was, could be explained without a cause, without a\npurpose, without a God, but often because they differed only from\nthe traditional conception of the Deity prevalent at the time, and\nwere yearning after a higher conception of God than what they had\nlearnt in their childhood.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nThere are moments in our life when those who seek most earnestly\nafter God think they are forsaken of God; when they hardly venture\nto ask themselves, Do I then believe in God, or do I not? Let them\nnot despair, and let us not judge harshly of them; their despair may\nbe better than many creeds.... Honest doubt is the deepest spring of\nhonest faith; only he who has lost can find.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nIf we have once claimed the freedom of the spirit which St. Paul\nclaimed: to prove all things and hold fast that which is good: we\ncannot turn back, we cannot say that no one shall prove our own\nreligion, no one shall prove other religions and compare them with\nour own. We have to choose once for all between freedom and slavery\nof judgment, and though I do not wish to argue with those who prefer\nslavery, yet one may remind them that even they, in deliberately\nchoosing slavery, follow their own private judgment quite as much\nas others do in choosing freedom.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nOur own self-interest surely would seem to suggest as severe a trial\nof our own religion as of other religions, nay, even a more severe\ntrial. Our religion has sometimes been compared to a good ship that\nis to carry us through the waves and tempests of this life to a\nsafe haven. Would it not be wise, therefore, to have it tested, and\nsubmitted to the severest trials, before we entrust ourselves and\nthose dear to us to such a vessel. And remember, all men, except\nthose who take part in the foundation of a new religion, or have\nbeen converted from an old to a new faith, have to accept their\nreligious belief on trust, long before they are able to judge for\nthemselves. And while in all other matters an independent judgment\nin riper years is encouraged, every kind of influence is used to\ndiscourage a free examination of religious dogmas, once engrafted on\nour intellect in its tenderest stage. We condemn an examination of\nour own religion, even though it arises from an honest desire to see\nwith our own eyes the truth which we mean to hold fast; and yet we\ndo not hesitate to send missionaries into all the world, asking the\nfaithful to re-examine their own time-honoured religions. We attack\ntheir most sacred convictions, we wound their tenderest feelings,\nwe undermine the belief in which they have been brought up, and we\nbreak up the peace and happiness of their homes. Yet if some learned\nJew, or subtle Brahman, or outspoken Zulu asks us to re-examine the\ndate and authorship of the Old or New Testament, or challenges us\nto produce the evidence on which we also are quite ready to accept\ncertain miracles, we are offended, forgetting that with regard to\nthese questions we can claim no privilege, no immunity.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nIf we can respect a childlike and even a childish faith, we ought\nlikewise to learn to respect even a philosophical atheism which\noften contains the hidden seeds of the best and truest faith. We\nought never to call a man an atheist, and say that he does not\nbelieve in God, till we know what kind of God it is he has been\nbrought up to believe in, and what kind of God it is that he\nrejects, it may be, from the best and highest motives. We ought\nnever to forget that Socrates was called an atheist, that the early\nChristians were all called atheists, that some of the best and\ngreatest men this world has ever known have been branded by that\nname.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nI have heard and read the worst that can be said against our\nreligion--I mean the true original teaching of Christ--and I feel\nthat I am ready in mind, if not in body, to lay down my life for the\ntruth of His teaching. All our difficulties arise from the doctrines\nof men, not from His doctrine. There is no outward evidence of the\ntruth of His doctrine, but the Spirit of God that is within us\ntestifieth to its truth. If it does not, we are not yet disciples of\nChrist, but we may be hereafter.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nBe certain of this, that to repress a doubt is to repress the spirit\nof truth; a doubt well spoken out is generally a doubt solved. But\nall this requires great seriousness of mind--it must assume an\nimportance greater than anything else in life, and then we can fight\nour way through it. God is with us in our struggles.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nEVOLUTION OF RELIGION\n\n\nEvolution is really the same as history, if we take it in its\nobjective sense. Subjectively, history meant originally inquiry,\nor a desire to know; it then came to mean knowledge, obtained by\ninquiry, and lastly, in a purely objective sense, the objects of\nsuch knowledge.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nWe may discover in all the errors of mythology, and in what we call\nthe false or pagan religions of this world, a progress towards\ntruth, a yearning after something more than finite, a growing\nrecognition of the Infinite, throwing off some of its veils before\nour eyes, and from century to century revealing itself to us more\nand more in its own purity and holiness. And thus the two concepts,\nthat of evolution and that of revelation, which seem at first so\ndifferent, become one in the end. If there is a purpose running\nthrough the ages, if nature is not blind, if there are agents,\nrecognised at last as the agents of one Will, behind the whole\nphenomenal world, then the evolution of man's belief in that Supreme\nWill is itself the truest revelation of that Supreme Will, and\nmust remain the adamantine foundation on which all religion rests,\nwhether we call it natural or supernatural.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nThe same changes in the idea of God, which we see in the different\nbooks of the Bible, take place in the different chapters of our own\nlife. The child cannot but represent God to himself as a venerable\nman, walking about, warning and reproving the creatures He has made.\nThe child has no higher conception as yet which it could apply to\nGod; if it heard of a higher one it could not grasp it. But as the\nchild grows and gathers in higher conceptions, the lower must give\nway to the higher. As long as the evidence of the senses is the only\nevidence which a child knows, he demands a visible God. When he\nlearns that the human senses are different modes of apprehension,\nthat according to their very nature they can never apprehend except\nwhat is limited, then the mind involuntarily surrenders the visible\nGod, it believes in God as a Spirit. And so the growth of each man,\nand the growth of the whole human race, goes on, and will go on;\nand I cannot see how, if the world goes on as it has hitherto, it\ncan be otherwise but that much of the language of the New Testament\nalso will have to be surrendered. Changes have lately taken place\nwith the word _person_. Many things which were formerly comprehended\nunder personality have been discovered to be mere accessories, and\nabove the more material conception of personality, of individuality,\nor of the I, a higher one is rising, that of the _Self_. The\nI, the personality, is made up of many things which are purely\ntemporal--which are dear to us on earth, but which will pass away,\nwhile the Self will abide for ever. Need we wonder, therefore, that\njust those who wish to transfer only their highest to the Godhead\nbegin to shrink from speaking of a personal God? or insist on\ndefining the word 'personal' so that it should exclude all that is\nincompatible with a perfect, unlimited, unchanging Being? What led\nto such expressions as 'God is Love' but a feeling of reverence,\nwhich shrank from speaking of God as loving as we love? This process\nwill go on as long as the thoughts and words of mankind grow and\nchange. Let us learn only from the Bible that those who spoke of God\nas walking about in Paradise spoke as children, did the best they\ncould, gave all they had, and who shall say that their two mites\nwere in the sight of God less precious than all our creeds and\nphilosophies? They too will change, they too will be looked upon by\nfuture generations as the language of children. But He to whom our\nthoughts and prayers are addressed will interpret all languages and\ndialects. Before Him the wisdom of the man will not sound much wiser\nthan the trustful ignorance of the child.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nFAITH\n\n\nNext to our faith in God there is nothing so essential to the\nhealthy growth of our whole being as an unshaken faith in man.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nLet us trust in Him to whom alone we owe all our blessings. If we\ndo not forsake Him, He will never forsake us--we cannot fathom His\nlove, but we can trust.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nSeparation loses its bitterness when we have faith in each other and\nin God. Faith in each other keeps us close together in life, and\nfaith in God keeps us together in eternity.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThose who remember the happiness of the simple faith of their\nchildhood may well ask why it should ever be disturbed. Knowing\nthe blessedness of that faith we naturally abstain from everything\nthat might disturb it prematurely in the minds of those who are\nentrusted to us. But, as the child, whether he likes it or not,\ngrows to be a man, so the faith of a child grows into the faith of\na man. It is not our doing, it is the work of Him who made us what\nwe are. As all our other ideas grow and change, so does our idea\nof God. I know there are men and women who, when they perceive the\nfirst warnings of that inward growth, become frightened and suppress\nit with all their might. They shut their eyes and ears to all new\nlight from within and from without. They wish to remain as happy as\nchildren, and many of them succeed in remaining as good as children.\nWho would blame them or disturb them? But those who trust in God\nand God's work within them, must go forth to the battle. With them\nit would be cowardice and faithlessness to shrink from the trial.\nThey are not certain that they were meant to be here simply to enjoy\nthe happiness of a childlike faith. They feel they have a talent\ncommitted to them which must not be wrapped up in a napkin. But the\nbattle is hard, and all the harder because, while they know they are\nobeying the voice of truth, which is the voice of God, many of those\nwhom they love look upon them as disobeying the voice of God, as\ndisturbers of the peace, as giving offence to those little ones.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThere is a difference between the childlike faith of a man (all real\nfaith must be childlike) and the childlike faith of a child. The one\nis Paradise not yet lost, the other Paradise lost but regained. The\none is right for the child, the other is right for the man. It is\nthe will of God that it should be so--but it is also the will of God\nthat we should all bear with each other, and join, each in his own\nvoice, in the great hymn of praise.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nFaith is that organ of knowledge by which we apprehend the Infinite,\nnamely, whatever transcends the ken of our senses and the grasp of\nour reason. The Infinite is hidden from the senses, it is denied by\nReason, but it is perceived by Faith; and it is perceived, if once\nperceived, as underlying both the experience of the senses and the\ncombinations of reason.\n\n  _Science of Language._\n\n\n\n\nTHE FATHERHOOD OF GOD\n\n\nWherever our Father leads us there is our Fatherland.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nMan must discover that God is his father before he can become a\nson of God. To know is here to be, to be to know. No mere miracle\nwill make man the son of God. That sonship can be gained through\nknowledge only, 'through man knowing God, or rather being known of\nGod,' and till it is so gained it does not exist, even though it\nbe a fact. If we apply this to the words in which Christ speaks\nof Himself as the Son of God, we shall see that to Him it is no\nmiracle, it is no mystery, it is no question of supernatural\ncontrivance; it is simply clear knowledge, and it was this\nself-knowledge which made Christ what He was, it was this which\nconstituted His true, His eternal divinity.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\n\n\nFUTURE LIFE\n\n\nOne wonders indeed how kindred souls become separated, and one feels\nstartled and repelled at the thought that, such as they were on\nearth, they can never meet again. And yet there is continuity in\nthe world, there is no flaw, no break anywhere, and what has been\nwill surely be again, though how it will be we cannot know, and if\nonly we trust in the Wisdom that pervades and overshadows the whole\nUniverse, we need not know.\n\n  _Auld Lang Syne._\n\n\nEven if we resign ourselves to the thought that the likenesses and\nlikelihoods which we project upon the unseen and unknown, nay, that\nthe hope of our meeting again as we once met on earth, need not\nbe fulfilled exactly as we shape them to ourselves, where is the\nargument to make us believe that the real fulfilment can be less\nperfect than what even a weak human heart devises and desires?\nThis trust that whatever is will be best, is what is meant by\nfaith, true, because inevitable, faith. We see traces of it in\nmany places and many religions, but I doubt whether anywhere that\nfaith is more simply and more powerfully expressed than in the Old\nand New Testaments: 'For since the beginning of the world men have\nnot heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O\nGod, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for\nHim' (Isaiah lxiv. 4). 'As it is written, Eye hath not seen nor ear\nheard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which\nGod hath prepared for them that love Him' (1 Cor. ii. 9).\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nThe highest which man can comprehend is man. One step only he may\ngo beyond, and say that what is beyond may be different, but it\ncannot be less perfect than the present; the future cannot be worse\nthan the past.... That much-decried philosophy of evolution, if it\nteaches us anything, teaches us a firm belief in a better future,\nand in a higher perfection which man is destined to reach.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nIn our longings for the departed we often think of them as young\nor old, we think of them as man or woman, as father or mother, as\nhusband or wife. Even nationality and language are supposed to\nremain after death, and we often hear expressions, 'Oh! if the\nsouls are without all this, without age, and sex, and national\ncharacter, without even their native language, what will they be to\nus?' The answer is, They will really be the same to us they were\nin this life. Unless we can bring ourselves to believe that a soul\nhas a beginning, and that our soul sprang into being at the time of\nour birth, the soul within us must have existed before. But however\nconvinced we may be of the soul's eternal existence, we shall always\nremain ignorant as to how it existed. And yet we do not murmur or\ncomplain. Our soul on awakening here is not quite a stranger to\nitself, and the souls who, as our parents, our wives, and husbands,\nour children, and our friends, have greeted us at first as strangers\nin this life, have become to us as if we had known them for ever,\nand as if we could never lose them again. If it were to be so again\nin the next life, if there also we should meet at first as strangers\ntill drawn together by the same mysterious love that has drawn us\ntogether here, why should we murmur or complain? Thousands of years\nago we read of a husband telling his wife, 'Verily a wife is not\ndear that you may love the wife, but that you may love the soul,\ntherefore a wife is dear.' What does that mean? It means that true\nlove consists not in loving what is perishable, but in discovering\nand loving what is eternal in man or woman. In Sanscrit that eternal\npart is called by many names, but the best seems that used in this\npassage, Atma. We translate it by Soul, but it is even higher and\npurer than Soul, it is best translated by the word _Self_. That\nwhich constitutes the true Self, the looker-on, the witness within\nus, that which is everywhere in the body and yet nowhere to be\ntouched, that which cannot die or expire, because it never breathed,\nthat is the Infinite in man which philosophers have been groping\nfor, though 'he is not far from every one of us.' It is the Divine\nor God-like in man.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nThe southern Aryans were absorbed in the struggles of thought:\ntheir past is the problem of creation, their future the problem of\nexistence, and the present, which ought to be the solution of both,\nseems never to have attracted their attention, or called forth their\nenergies. There never was a nation believing so firmly in another\nworld, and so little concerned about this. Their condition on earth\nwas to them a problem; their real and eternal life a simple fact.\nThough this is true chiefly before they were brought in contact\nwith foreign conquerors, traces of this character are still visible\nin the Hindus as described by the companions of Alexander, nay,\neven in the Hindus of the present day. The only sphere in which\nthe Indian mind finds itself at liberty to act, to create, and to\nworship is the sphere of religion and philosophy, and nowhere have\nreligious and metaphysical ideas struck root so deeply in the mind\nof a nation as in India. History supplies no second instance where\nthe inward life of the soul has so completely absorbed all the other\nfaculties of a people.\n\n  _India._\n\n\nOur happiness here is but a foretaste of our blessed life hereafter.\nWe must never forget that. We shall be called away, but we shall\nmeet again.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWe must have patience--and we all cling to life as long as there are\nthose who love us here. Those who love us there are always ours.\nNothing is lost in the world. How it will be, we know not, but if\nwe have recognised the working of a divine wisdom and love here on\nearth, we can take comfort, and wait patiently for that which is to\ncome.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nTruly those who die young are blest. And shall we find them again\nsuch as they left us? Why not? It is really here on earth that\nthose whom we love change, it is here that they die every day....\nWhere are all those bright joyous faces which we look at when we\nopen our photograph books from year to year? On earth they are lost,\nbut are they not treasured up for another life, where we shall be\nnot only what we are from day to day, never the same to-morrow as we\nwere yesterday, but where we are at once all that we can be--where\nmemory is not different from perception, nor our wills different\nfrom our acts? We shall soon know--till then surely we have a right\nto be what we are, and to cling to our human hopes. The more human\nthey are, the nearer the truth they are likely to be.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nI believe in all our hopes we cannot be human enough. Let us be what\nwe are--men, feel as men, sorrow as men, hope as men. It is true\nour hopes are human, but what are the doubts and difficulties? Are\nthey not human too? Shall we meet again as we left? Why not? We do\nnot know _how_ it will be so, but who has a right to say it _cannot_\nbe so? Let us imagine and hope for the best that, as men, we can\nconceive, and then rest convinced that it will be a thousand times\nbetter.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThe inward voice never suggested or allowed me the slightest doubt\nor misgiving about the reality of a future life. If there is\ncontinuity in the world everywhere, why should there be a wrench\nand annihilation only with us? It will be as it has been--that is\nthe lesson we learn from nature--_how_ it will be we are not meant\nto know. There is an old Greek saying to the effect, to try to know\nwhat the gods did not tell us is not piety. If God wished us to know\nwhat is to be, He would tell us. Darwin has shown us that there is\ncontinuity from beginning to end.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nI believe in the continuity of Self. If there were an annihilation\nor complete change of our individual self-consciousness, we might\nbecome somebody else, but we should not be ourselves. Personally, I\nhave no doubt of the persistence of the individual after death, as\nwe call it. I cannot imagine the very crown and flower of creation\nbeing destroyed by its author. I do not say it is impossible, it\nis not for us to say either yes or no; we have simply to trust,\nbut that trust or faith is implanted in us, and is strengthened by\neverything around us.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nDo we really lose those who are called before us? I feel that they\nare even nearer to us than when they were with us in life. We must\ntake a larger view. Our life does not end here, if only we can see\nthat our horizon here is but like a curtain that separates us from\nwhat is beyond. Those who go before us are beyond our horizon at\npresent, but we have no right to suppose that they have completely\nvanished. We cannot see them, that is all. And even that, we know,\ncan last for a short time only. We have lived and done our work in\nlife, before we knew those we loved, and we may have to live the\nsame number of years separated from them. But nothing can be lost:\nit depends on ourselves to keep those we loved always near to our\nthoughts, even though our eyes look in vain for them. The world is\nlarger than this little earth, our thoughts go further than this\nshort life, and if we can but find our home in this larger world, we\nshall find that this larger home is full of those whom we loved, and\nwho loved us. There is no _chance_ in life; a few years more, a few\nyears less, will seem as nothing to us hereafter.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nI fully take in the real death (of my child), I know I shall follow\nand die the same real death, and through that same real death I\ntrust the spirit of Christ will be my guide and helper, and bring\nme to a better life, and unite me again with those whom I have\nloved, and whom I love still, and those who have loved me and love\nme still. God is no giver of imperfect gifts, and He has given me\nlife, but life on earth is imperfect. He has given me love, but love\non earth is imperfect. I believe, I must believe in perfection, and\ntherefore I believe in a life perfected and in a love perfected.\n'Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders--Gott helfe mich Amen.'\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIt seems hard, it seems so unintelligible, so far above us, that we\nshould know nothing at all of what is to come--that we should be\nso completely separated for a time from those whom we love. Whence\nall these limits? whence all those desires in us that cannot be\nfulfilled? The limits teach us one lesson, that we are in the Hands\nof a Higher Power. Wonderful as our body and our senses are, they\nare a prison and chains, and they could not be meant for anything\nelse.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nOf what is to come, what is in store for us, we know nothing; and\nthe more we know that, the greater and stronger our faith. It must\nbe right, it cannot be wrong. Why was the past often so beautiful?\nBecause all tends to beauty, to perfection, and the highest point\nof perfection is love. We are far from that here, yet all the\nmiseries of this life, or many at least, would vanish before love.\nLife seems most unnatural in what we call the most highly civilised\ncountries--the struggle of life is fiercest there. Rest and love\nseem impossible, and yet that is what we are yearning for, and it\nmay be granted us hereafter.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nHow is it that we know so little of life after death? that we can\nhardly imagine anything without feeling that it is all human poetry?\nWe are to believe the best, but nothing definite, nothing that can\nbe described. It is the same with God, we are to believe the best we\ncan believe, and yet all is earthly, human, weak. We are in a dark\nprison here; let us believe that outside it there is no darkness,\nbut light--but what light, who knows?\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWait, wait, do not ask. Children ask every year what the Christ\nChild will bring them, but they are not told, they wait in the dark\nroom. Every year they expect something quite new, but it is always\nthe same old Christmas-tree, with its lights and flowers, and all\nthe rest. And why should it be so different when the door opens,\nand we step out of this dark life into the bright room? Why should\nall be different? We have stepped into this dark room here on earth,\nand how often did we think it was very bright and very warm. We\nshall step into another room, and it will be brighter, warmer, more\npure, more perfect.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWhat is past, present, future? Is it not all one? only the past and\nthe future somewhere where at present we cannot be. Wait a little\ntime, and the eternal will take the place of the present,--and we\nshall have the past again,--for the past is not lost. Nothing is\nlost--but this waiting is sometimes very hard, and this longing very\nhard. Friends go on all sides, it seems a different world, yet there\nis work to do, and there is much left to love.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIf immortality is meant for no more than a continuance of existence,\nif by a belief in immortality on the part of the Jews is meant no\nmore than that the Jews did not believe in the annihilation of the\nsoul at the time of death, we may confidently assert that, to the\nbulk of the Jewish nation, this very idea of annihilation was as\nyet unfamiliar. The fact is that the idea of absolute annihilation\nand nothingness is hardly ever found except among people whose\nmind has received some amount of philosophical education, certainly\nmore than what the Jews possessed in early times. The Jews did not\nbelieve in the utter destruction of the soul, but, on the other\nhand, their idea of life after death was hardly that of life at all.\nIt was existence without life. Death was considered by them, as by\nthe Greeks, as the greatest of misfortunes. To rejoice in death is a\npurely Christian, not a Jewish, idea. Though the Jews believed that\nthe souls continued to exist in Sheol, they did not believe that the\nwicked would there be punished and the good rewarded. All rewards\nand punishments for virtue or vice were confined to this world, and\na long life was regarded as a sure proof of the favour of Jehovah.\nIt was the Jewish conception of God, as infinitely removed from this\nworld, that made a belief in true immortality almost impossible for\nthem, and excluded all hope for a nearer approach to God, or for\nany share in that true immortality which belonged to Him and to Him\nalone.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nOur angels live in heaven, not on earth. We only recognise the\nangelic in man, even in those we love the most, when we can no\nlonger see them. They are then nearer us than ever, we love them\nmore than ever. Happy are those who have such angels in heaven,\nwho draw our hearts away from earth and fill them with longing for\nour true home. They lighten the burden of life, they give a quiet,\ngentle tone to the joys of life, and they teach us to love those who\nare left to us on earth, it may be but for a few days or years, with\na love which we never knew before, a love which bears all things,\nbelieves all things, and gladly pardons all things.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nLife Eternal. Why do we so seldom face the great problem? With me\nthe chief reason was the conviction that we can _know_ nothing--that\nwe must wait and trust--do our work for the day which is--and\nbelieve that nothing can happen to us unless God wills it. Know,\nwhere knowledge is possible; believe, trust where faith only is\npossible.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nI know we shall meet again, for God does not destroy what He has\nmade, nor do souls meet by accident. This life is full of riddles,\nbut divine riddles have a divine solution.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nTHE INFINITE\n\n\nThough we cannot know things finite, as they are in themselves, we\nknow at all events that they are. And this applies to our perception\nof the Infinite also. We do not know through our senses what it\nis, but we know through our very senses that it is. We feel the\npressure of the Infinite in the Finite, and unless we had that\nfeeling, we should have no true and safe foundation for whatever\nwe may afterwards believe of the Infinite. Some critics have urged\nthat what I call the Infinite ... is the Indefinite only. Of course\nit is.... We can know the Infinite as the Indefinite only, or as\nthe partially defined. We try to define it, and to know it more\nand more, but we never finish it. The whole history of religion\nrepresents the continuous progress of the human definition of the\nInfinite, but however far that definition may advance, it will never\nexhaust the Infinite. Could we define it all, it would cease to be\nthe Infinite, it would cease to be the Unknown, it would cease to be\nthe Inconceivable or the Divine.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nWhat we feel through the pressure on all our senses is the pressure\nof the Infinite. Our senses, if I may say so, feel nothing but the\nInfinite, and out of that plenitude they apprehend the Finite. To\napprehend the Finite is the same as to define the Infinite.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nWe accept the primitive savage with nothing but his five senses.\nThese five senses supply him with a knowledge of finite things; the\nproblem is how such a being ever comes to think or speak of anything\nnot finite, but infinite. It is his senses which give him the first\nimpression of infinite things, and force him to the admission of\nthe infinite. Everything of which his senses cannot perceive a\nlimit is to a primitive savage, or to any man in an early stage of\nintellectual activity, unlimited or infinite. Man sees to a certain\npoint, and there his eyesight breaks down. But exactly where his\neyesight breaks down, there presses upon him, whether he likes it\nor not, the perception of the unlimited or infinite. It may be\nsaid this is not perception in the ordinary sense of the word. No\nmore it is, but still less is it mere reasoning. In perceiving the\ninfinite, we neither count, nor measure, nor compare, nor name. We\nknow not what it is, but we know that it is, and we know it because\nwe actually feel it and are brought in contact with it. If it seems\ntoo bold to say that man actually sees the invisible, let us say\nthat he suffers from the invisible, and this invisible is only a\nspecial name for the infinite. The infinite, therefore, instead of\nbeing merely a late abstraction, is really implied in the earliest\nmanifestations of our sensuous knowledge. It was true from the very\nfirst, but it was not yet defined or named. If the infinite had not\nfrom the very first been present in our sensuous perceptions, such\na word as infinite would be a sound and nothing else. With every\nfinite perception there is a concomitant perception or a concomitant\nsentiment or presentiment of the infinite; from the very first act\nof touch, or hearing, or sight, we are brought in contact, not\nonly with the visible, but also at the same time with an invisible\nuniverse. We have in this that without which no religion would have\nbeen possible, we have in that perception of the infinite the root\nof the whole historical development of religion.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nNo thought, no name is ever entirely lost. When we here in this\nancient Abbey,[2] which was built on the ruins of a still more\nancient Roman temple, seek for a name for the invisible, the\ninfinite that surrounds us on every side, the unknown, the true\nSelf of the world, and the true Self of ourselves--we too, feeling\nonce more like children kneeling in a small dark room, can hardly\nfind a better name than 'Our Father, which art in Heaven.'\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n  [Footnote 2: Westminster.]\n\n\nThe idea of the infinite, which is at the root of all religious\nthought, is not simply evolved by reason out of nothing, but\nsupplied to us, in its original form, by our senses. Beyond, behind,\nbeneath, and within the finite, the infinite is always present\nto our senses. It presses upon us, it grows upon us from every\nside. What we call finite in space and time, in form and word, is\nnothing but a veil or a net which we ourselves have thrown over the\ninfinite. The finite by itself, without the infinite, is simply\ninconceivable; as inconceivable as the infinite without the finite.\nAs reason deals with the finite materials supplied to us by our\nsenses, faith, or whatever else we like to call it, deals with the\ninfinite that underlies the finite. What we call sense, reason, and\nfaith are three functions of one and the same perceptive self; but\nwithout sense both reason and faith are impossible, at least to\nhuman beings like ourselves.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nThe ancestors of our race did not only believe in divine powers\nmore or less manifest to their senses, in rivers and mountains,\nin the sky and the sun, in the thunder and rain, but their senses\nlikewise suggested to them two of the most essential elements of all\nreligion: the concept of the infinite, and the concept of law and\norder, as revealed before them, the one in the golden sea behind the\ndawn, the other in the daily path of the sun.... These two concepts,\nwhich sooner or later must be taken in and minded by every human\nbeing, were at first no more than an impulse, but their impulsive\nforce would not rest till it had beaten into the minds of the\nfathers of our race the deep and indelible impression that 'all is\nright,' and filled them with a hope, and more than a hope, that 'all\nwill be right.'\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nThe real religious instinct or impulse is the perception of the\ninfinite.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nAll objects which we perceive and afterwards conceive and name must\nbe circumscribed, must have been separated from their surroundings,\nmust be measurable, and can thus only become perceivable and\nknowable and namable.... They are therefore finite in their very\nnature.... If finiteness is a necessary characteristic of our\nordinary knowledge, it requires but little reflection to perceive\nthat limitation or finiteness, in whatever sense we use it, always\nimplies a something beyond. We are told that our mind is so\nconstituted, whether it is our fault or not, that we cannot conceive\nan absolute limit. Beyond every limit we must always take it for\ngranted that there is something else. But what is the reason of\nthis? The reason why we cannot conceive an absolute limit is because\nwe never perceive an absolute limit; or in other words, because in\nperceiving the finite we always perceive the infinite also.... There\nis no limit which has not two sides, the one turned towards us, the\nother turned towards what is beyond; and it is that Beyond which\nfrom the earliest days has formed the only real foundation of all\nthat we call transcendental in our perceptual, as well as in our\nconceptual, Knowledge.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nThe infinite was not discovered behind the veil of nature only,\nthough its manifestation in physical phenomena was no doubt the\nmost primitive and the most fertile source of mythological and\nreligious ideas. There were two more manifestations of the infinite\nand the unknown, which must not be neglected, if we wish to gain a\ncomplete insight into the theogonic process through which the human\nmind had to pass from its earliest days. The infinite disclosed\nitself not only in nature but likewise in man, looked upon as an\nobject, and lastly in man looked upon as a subject. Man looked upon\nas an object, as a living thing, was felt to be more than a mere\npart of nature. There was something in man, whether it was called\nbreath or spirit or soul or mind, which was perceived and yet not\nperceived, which was behind the veil of the body, and from a very\nearly time was believed to remain free from decay, even when illness\nand death had destroyed the body in which it seemed to dwell. There\nwas nothing to force even the simplest peasant to believe that\nbecause he saw his father dead, and his body decaying, therefore\nwhat was known as the man himself, call it his soul or his mind or\nhis person, had vanished altogether out of existence. A philosopher\nmay arrive at such an idea, but a man of ordinary understanding,\nthough terrified by the aspect of death, would rather be inclined\nto believe that what he had known and loved and called his father\nor mother must be somewhere, though no longer in the body....\nIt is perhaps too much to say that such a belief was universal;\nbut it certainly was and is still very widely spread. In fact it\nconstitutes a very large portion of religion and religious worship.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nNature, Man, and Self are the three great manifestations in which\nthe infinite in some shape or other has been perceived, and\nevery one of these perceptions has in its historical development\ncontributed to what may be called religion.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nLike all other experiences, our religious experience begins with the\nsenses. Though the senses seem to deliver to us finite experiences\nonly, many, if not all, of them can be shown to involve something\nbeyond the Known, something unknown, something which I claim the\nliberty to call infinite. In this way the human mind was led to\nthe recognition of undefined, infinite agents or agencies beyond,\nbehind, and within our finite experience. The feelings of fear, awe,\nreverence, and love excited by the manifestations of some of these\nagents or powers began to react on the human mind, and thus produced\nwhat we call Natural Religion in its lowest and simplest form--fear,\nawe, reverence, and love of the gods.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nThe perception of the Infinite can be shown by historical evidence\nto be the one element shared in common by all religions. Only\nwe must not forget that, like every other concept, that of the\nInfinite also had to pass through many phases in its historical\nevolution, beginning with the simple negation of what is finite, and\nthe assertion of an invisible Beyond, and leading up to a perceptive\nbelief in that most real Infinite in which we live and move and have\nour being.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\n\n\nKNOWLEDGE\n\n\nThe lesson that there are limits to our knowledge is an old lesson,\nbut it has to be taught again and again. It was taught by Buddha,\nit was taught by Socrates, and it was taught for the last time\nin the most powerful manner by Kant. Philosophy has been called\nthe knowledge of our knowledge; it might be called more truly the\nknowledge of our ignorance, or, to adopt the more moderate language\nof Kant, the knowledge of the limits of our knowledge.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nMetaphysical truth is wider than physical truth, and the new\ndiscoveries of physical observers, if they are to be more than\nmerely contingent truths, must find their appointed place\nand natural refuge within the immovable limits traced by the\nmetaphysician.... It is only after having mastered the principles\nof metaphysics that the student of nature can begin his work in the\nright spirit, knowing the horizon of human knowledge, and guided by\nprinciples as unchangeable as the pole star.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nThere is no subject in the whole realm of human knowledge that\ncannot be rendered clear and intelligible, if we ourselves have\nperfectly mastered it.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nThe bridge of thoughts and sighs that spans the whole history of\nthe Aryan world has its first arch in the _Veda_, its last in\nKant's _Critique of Pure Reason_. In the _Veda_ we watch the first\nunfolding of the human mind as we can watch it nowhere else. Life\nseems simple, natural, childlike.... What is beneath, and above, and\nbeyond this life is dimly perceived, and expressed in a thousand\nwords and ways, all mere stammerings, all aiming to express what\ncannot be expressed, yet all full of a belief in the real presence\nof the Divine in Nature, of the Infinite in the Finite.... While\nin the _Veda_ we may study the childhood, we may study in Kant's\n_Critique_ the perfect manhood of the Aryan mind. It has passed\nthrough many phases, and every one of them ... has left its mark.\nIt is no longer dogmatical, no longer sceptical, least of all is\nit positive.... It stands before us conscious of its weakness and\nits strength, modest yet brave. It knows what the old idols of\nits childhood and youth were made of. It does not break them, it\nonly tries to understand them, but it places above them the Ideals\nof Reason--no longer tangible--not even within the reach of the\nunderstanding--but real--bright and heavenly stars to guide us even\nin the darkest night.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nAll knowledge, in order to be knowledge, must pass through two\ngates, and two gates only: the gate of the senses and the gate of\nreason. Religious knowledge also, whether true or false, must have\npassed through these two gates. At these two gates, therefore, we\ntake our stand. Whatever claims to have entered in by any other\ngate, whether that gate is called primeval revelation or religious\ninstinct, must be rejected as contraband of thought; and whatever\nclaims to have entered by the gate of reason, without having first\npassed through the gate of the senses, must equally be rejected, as\nwithout sufficient warrant, or ordered at least to go back to the\nfirst gate, in order to produce there its full credentials.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\n\n\nLANGUAGE\n\n\nThe history of language opens a vista which makes one feel almost\ngiddy if one tries to see the end of it, but the measuring-rod of\nthe chronologist seems to me entirely out of place. Those who have\neyes to see will see the immeasurable distance between the first\nhistorical appearance of language and the real beginnings of human\nspeech: those who cannot see will oscillate between the wildly\nlarge figures of the Buddhists, or the wildly small figures of the\nRabbis, but they will never lay hold of what by its very nature is\nindefinite.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nBy no effort of the understanding, by no stretch of imagination, can\nI explain to myself how language could have grown out of anything\nwhich animals possess, even if we granted them millions of years\nfor that purpose. If anything has a right to the name of specific\ndifference, it is language, as we find it in man, and in man only.\nEven if we removed the name of specific difference from our\nphilosophic dictionaries, I should still hold that nothing deserves\nthe name of man except what is able to speak.\n\n  _Science of Thought._\n\n\nEvery language has to be learnt, but who made the language that\nwas to be learnt? It matters little whether we call language an\ninstinct, a gift, a talent, a faculty, or the _proprium_ of man;\ncertain it is that neither language, nor the power of language,\nnor the conditions under which alone language can exist, are to be\ndiscovered anywhere in the whole animal kingdom, except in man.\n\n  _Science of Thought._\n\n\nIt was Christianity which first broke down the barrier between Jew\nand Gentile, between Greek and Barbarian, between the white and the\nblack. _Humanity_ is a word which you look for in vain in Plato and\nAristotle; the idea of mankind as one family, as the children of one\nGod, is an idea of Christian growth; and the science of mankind,\nand of the languages of mankind, is a science which, without\nChristianity, would never have sprung into life. When people had\nbeen taught to look upon all men as brethren, then, and then only,\ndid the variety of human speech present itself as a problem that\ncalled for a solution in the eyes of thoughtful observers; and from\nan historical point of view it is not too much to say that the first\nday of Pentecost marks the real beginning of the science of language.\n\n  _Science of Language._\n\n\nAnd now, if we gaze from our native shores over the vast ocean of\nhuman speech, with its waves rolling on from continent to continent,\nrising under the fresh breezes of the morning of history, and slowly\nheaving in our own more sultry atmosphere, with sails gliding over\nits surface, and many an oar ploughing through its surf, and the\nflags of all nations waving joyously together, with its rocks and\nwrecks, its storms and battles, yet reflecting serenely all that\nis beneath and above and around it; if we gaze and hearken to the\nstrange sounds rushing past our ears in unbroken strains, it seems\nno longer a wild tumult, but we feel as if placed within some\nancient cathedral, listening to a chorus of innumerable voices: and\nthe more intensely we listen, the more all discords melt away into\nhigher harmonies, till at last we hear but one majestic trichord, or\na mighty unison, as at the end of a sacred symphony. Such visions\nwill float through the study of the grammarian, and in the midst of\ntoilsome researches his heart will suddenly beat, as he feels the\nconviction growing upon him that men are brethren in the simplest\nsense of the word--the children of the same father--whatever their\ncountry, their language, and their faith.\n\n  _Turanian Languages._\n\n\n\n\nLIFE\n\n\nAll really great and honest men may be said to live three lives:\nthere is one life which is seen and accepted by the world at large,\na man's outward life; there is a second life which is seen by a\nman's most intimate friends, his household life; and there is a\nthird life, seen only by the man himself, and by Him who searcheth\nthe heart, which may be called the inner or heavenly--a life led in\ncommunion with God, a life of aspiration rather than of fulfilment.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nWhere Plato could only see imperfections, the failures of the\nfounders of human speech, we see, as everywhere else in human\nlife, a natural progress from the imperfect towards the perfect,\nunceasing attempts at realising the ideal, and the frequent triumphs\nof the human mind over the inevitable difficulties of this earthly\ncondition--difficulties not of man's own making, but, as I firmly\nbelieve, prepared for him, and not without a purpose, as toils and\ntasks, by a higher Power, and by the highest wisdom.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nOur life is not completely in our hands--we must submit to many\nthings which we may smile at in our inmost heart, but which\nnevertheless are essential, not only to our happiness, but to our\nfulfilling the duties which we are called to fulfil. We ought to\nlook upon the circumstances in which we are born and brought up as\nordained by a Higher Power, and we must learn to walk the path which\nis pointed out to us!\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nIt is difficult to be always true to ourselves, to be always what we\nwish to be, what we feel we ought to be. As long as we feel that,\nas long as we do not surrender the ideal of our life, all is right.\nOur aspirations represent the true nature of our soul much more than\nour everyday life. I feel as much as you, how far I have been left\nbehind in the race which I meant to run, but I honestly try to rouse\nmyself, and to live up to what I feel I ought to be. Let us keep up\nour constant fight against all that is small and common and selfish,\nlet us never lose our faith in the ideal life, in what we ought to\nbe, and in what with constant prayer to God we shall be, and let\nus never forget how unworthy we are of all the blessings God has\nshowered down upon us.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nI feel quite thankful for any little misfortune; it is like paying\nsomething of the large debt of happiness we owe, though it is but a\nvery trifling interest, and the capital we must owe for ever.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nI thought a long time about my happiness, and my unworthiness, and\nGod's unbounded mercy. And then I heard the words within me: 'Be not\nafraid.' Yes, there must be no fear. Where there is fear there is no\nperfect love. Our happiness here is but a foretaste of our blessed\nlife hereafter. We must never forget that. We shall be called away,\nbut we shall meet again.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nI begin to be quite thankful for my disappointment--we all want\nwinding up, and nothing does it so well as a great disappointment,\nif we only see clearly Who sent it and then forget everything else.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nOne sometimes forgets that all this is only the preparation for what\nis to come hereafter. Yet we should never forget this, otherwise\nthis life loses its true meaning and purpose. If we only know what\nwe live for here, we can easily find out what is worth having in\nthis life, and what is not; we can easily go on without many things\nwhich others, whose eyes are fixed on this world only, consider\nessential to their happiness.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThe spirit of love, and the spirit of truth, are the two\nlife-springs of our whole being--or, what is the same, of our whole\nreligion. If we lose that bond, which holds us and binds us to a\nhigher world, our life becomes purposeless, joyless; if it holds us\nand supports, life becomes perfect, all little cares vanish, and we\nfeel we are working out a great purpose as well as we can, a purpose\nnot our own, not selfish, not self-seeking, but, in the truest sense\nof the word, God-serving and God-seeking.... Gentleness is a kind\nof mixture of love and truthfulness, and it should be the highest\nobject of our life to attain more and more to that true gentleness\nwhich throws such a charm over all our life. There is a gentleness\nof voice, of look, of movement, of speech, all of which are but the\nexpressions of true gentleness of heart.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIt is impossible to take too high a view of life; the very highest\nwe take is still too low. One feels that more and more as our life\ndraws to its close, and many things that seemed important once are\nseen to be of no consequence, while only a few things remain which\nwill tell for ever.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nI don't believe in what is called worldly wisdom. I do not think the\nworld was made for it--with real faith in a higher life I believe\none can pass through this life without let or hindrance. What I\ndread are compromises. There are false notes in them always, and a\nfalse note goes on for ever.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nHow thankful we ought to be every minute of our existence to Him who\ngives us all richly to enjoy. How little one has deserved this happy\nlife, much less than many poor sufferers to whom life is a burden\nand a hard and bitter trial. But then, how much greater the claims\non us; how much more sacred the duty never to trifle, never to waste\ntime and power, never to compromise, but to live in all things,\nsmall and great, to the praise and glory of God, to have God always\npresent with us, and to be ready to follow His voice, and His voice\nonly. Has our prosperity taught us to meet adversity when it comes?\nI often tremble, but then I commit all to God, and I say, 'Have\nmercy upon me, miserable sinner.'\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThere is something very awful in this life, and it is not right to\ntry to forget it. It is well to be reminded by the trials of others\nof what may befall us, and what is kept from us only by the love of\nour Father in heaven, not by any merit of our own.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nHow different life is to what one thought it when young, how all\naround us falls together, till we ourselves fall together. How\nmeaningless and vain everything seems on earth, and how closely the\nreality of the life beyond approaches us. Many days were beautiful\nhere, but the greater the happiness the more bitter the thought that\nit all passes away, that nothing remains of earthly happiness, but a\ngrateful heart and faith in God who knows best what is best for us.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nOh! if we could even in this life forget all that is unessential,\nall that makes it so hard for us to recognise true greatness and\ngoodness in the character of those with whom this life brings us in\ncontact for a little while! How much we lose by making little things\nso important, and how rarely do we think highly enough of what is\nessential and lasting!\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nYou must accustom yourself more and more to the thought that here is\nnot our abiding city, that all that we call ours here is only lent,\nnot given us, and that if the sorrow for those we have lost remains\nthe same, we must yet acknowledge with gratitude to God the great\nblessing of having enjoyed so many years with those whom He gave us,\nas parents, or children, or friends. One forgets so easily the happy\nyears one has had with those who were the nearest to us. Even these\nyears of happiness, however short they may have been, were only\ngiven us, we had not deserved them. I know well there is no comfort\nfor this pain of parting: the wound always remains, but one learns\nto bear the pain, and learns to thank God for what He gave, for the\nbeautiful memories of the past, and the yet more beautiful hope for\nthe future. If a man has lent us anything for several years, and at\nlast takes it back, he expects gratitude, not anger; and if God\nhas more patience with our weakness than men have, yet murmurs and\ncomplaints for the life which He measured out for us as is best for\nus, are not what He expected from us. A spirit of resignation to\nGod's will is our only comfort, the only relief under the trials\nGod lays upon us, and with such a spirit the heaviest as well as\nthe lightest trials of life are not only bearable, but useful, and\ngratitude to God and joy in life and death remain untroubled.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nBy a grave one learns what life really is--that it is not here but\nelsewhere--that this is the exile and there is our home. As we grow\nolder the train of life goes faster and faster, those with whom we\ntravelled together step out from station to station, and our own\nstation too will soon be reached.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIt seems to me so ungrateful to allow one moment to pass that is\nnot full of joy and happiness, and devotion to Him who gives us all\nthis richly to enjoy. The clouds will come, they must come, but they\nought never to be of our own making.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThe shadows fall thicker and thicker, but even in the shade it is\nwell, often better than in full sunshine. And when the evening\ncomes, one is tired and ready to sleep! And so all is ordered for\nus, if we only accommodate ourselves to it quietly.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nAs long as God wills it we must learn to bear this life, but when He\ncalls us we willingly close our eyes, for we know it is better for\nus there than here. When so many whom we loved are gone before us,\nwe follow gladly; and the older we become here, the more one feels\nthat death is a relief. And yet we can thankfully enjoy what is\nstill left us on earth, even if our hearts no longer cling to it as\nformerly.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nOur life here is not our own work, and we know that it is best for\nus all just as it is. We ought to bear it, and we must bear it; and\nthe more patiently, yes, the more joyfully, we accommodate ourselves\nto it, the better for us. We must take life as it is, as the way\nappointed for us, and that must lead to a certain goal. Some go\nsooner, some later, but we all go the same way, and all find the\nsame place of rest. Impatience, gloom, murmurs and tears do not help\nus, do not alter anything, and make the road longer, not shorter.\nQuiet, resignation, thankfulness and faith help us forwards, and\nalone make it possible to perform the duties which we all, each in\nhis own sphere, have to fulfil.... The darker the night, the clearer\nthe stars in heaven.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nHow different life might be, if in our daily intercourse and\nconversation we thought of our friends as lying before us on the\nlast bed of flowers--how differently we should then judge, and\nhow differently we should act. All that is of the earth is then\nforgotten, all the little failings inherent in human nature vanish\nfrom our minds, and we only see what was good, unselfish, and loving\nin that soul, and we think with regret of how much more we might\nhave done to requite that love. It is curious how forgetful we are\nof death, how little we think that we are dying daily, and that\nwhat we call life is really death, and death the beginning of a\nhigher life. Such a thought should not make our life less bright,\nbut rather more--it should make us feel how unimportant many things\nare which we consider all-important: how much we could bear which we\nthink unbearable, if only we thought that to-morrow we ourselves or\nour friends may be taken away, at least for a time. You should think\nof death, should feel that what you call your own is only lent to\nyou, and that all that remains as a real comfort is the good work\ndone in this short journey, the true unselfish love shown to those\nwhom God has given us, has placed near to us, not without a high\npurpose.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWhat a marvel life seems to be the older we grow! So far from\nbecoming more intelligible, it becomes a greater wonder every day.\nOne stands amazed, and everything seems so small--the little one can\ndo so very small. One ought not to brood too much, when there is no\nchance of light, and yet how natural it is that one should brood\nover life and death, rather than on the little things of life.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nIf we only hold fast the belief that nothing happens but by the will\nof God, we learn to be still and can bear everything. The older\none grows, the more one feels sure that life here is but a long\nimprisonment, and one longs for freedom and higher efforts.... How\nsmall and insignificant is all in this life when we raise our eyes\nabove. Gazing up to the Lord of the Universe, all strife is made\neasy. We speak different tongues when we think of the Highest, but\nwe all mean the same thing.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIt is sad to think of all that was and is no more, and yet there is\nsomething much more real in memory than one used to think. All is\nthere but what our weak human senses require, and nothing is lost,\nnothing can be lost except what we know would vanish one day, but\nwhat was the husk only, not the kernel. I have learnt to live with\nthose who went before us, and they seem more entirely our own than\nwhen they were with us in the body. And as long as we have duties to\nfulfil, so long as there are others who lean on us and want us, life\ncan be lived a few years longer, it can only be a few years.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nLife is earnest! is a very old lesson, and we are never too old\nto learn it. 'Life is an art' is Goethe's doctrine, and there is\nsome truth in it also, as long as art does not imply artful or\nartificial. Huxley used to say the highest end of life is action,\nnot knowledge. There I quite differ. First knowledge, then action,\nand what a lottery action is! The best intentions often fail, and\nwhat is done to-day is undone to-morrow. However, we must toil on\nand do what every day brings us, and do it as well as we can, and\nbetter, if possible, than anybody else.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWhat can we call ours if God did not vouchsafe it to us from day to\nday? Yet it is so difficult to give oneself up entirely to Him, to\ntrust everything to His Love and Wisdom. I thought I could say,\n'Thy Will be done,' but I found I could not: my own will struggled\nagainst His Will. I prayed as we ought not to pray, and yet He heard\nme. It is so difficult not to grow very fond of this life and all\nits happiness, but the more we love it, the more we suffer, for we\nknow we must lose it and it must all pass away.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nOur idea of life grows larger, and birth and death seem like morning\nand evening. One feels that as it has been so it will be again, and\nall one can do is to try to make the best of every day, as it comes\nand goes.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThe things that annoy us in life are after all very trifling things,\nif we always bear in mind for what purpose we are here. And even in\nthe heavier trials, one knows, or one should know, that all is sent\nby a higher power, and in the end must be for our best interests.\nIt is true we cannot understand it, but we can understand that God\nrules in the world in the smallest and in the largest events, and\nhe who keeps that ever in mind has the peace of God, and enjoys his\nlife as long as it lasts.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nLife may grow more strange and awful every day, but the more strange\nand awful it grows, the more it reveals to us its truest meaning\nand reality, and the deepest depth of its divinity. 'And God saw\neverything that He had made, and behold it was very good.'\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nEnjoy the precious years God has added to your life, with constant\ngratitude, with quiet and purity of soul, looking more to the\nheavenly than to the earthly: that gives true joyfulness of soul, if\nwe _every moment_ recollect what is eternal, and never quite lose\nourselves in the small, or even the large cares of life.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nIf we live on this earth only, if our thoughts are hemmed in by the\nnarrow horizon of this life, then we lose indeed those whom death\ntakes from us. But it is death itself which teaches us that there is\na Beyond, we are lifted up and see a new world, far beyond what we\nhad seen before. In that wide world we lead a new and larger life,\na life which includes those we no longer see on earth, but whom we\ncannot surrender. The old Indian philosophers say that no one can\nfind the truth whose heart is attached to his wife and children. No\ndoubt perfect freedom from all affections would make life and death\nvery easy. But may not the very love which we feel for those who\nbelong to us, even when they are taken from us, bring light to our\neyes, and make us see the truth that, by that very love, we belong\nto another world, and that from that world, however little we can\nhere know about it, love will not be excluded. We believe what we\ndesire--true--but why do we desire? Let us be ourselves, let us be\nwhat we are meant to be on earth, and trust to Him who made us what\nwe are.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nYes, every day adds a new thin layer of new thoughts, and these\nlayers form the texture of our character. The materials come\nfloating towards us, but the way in which they settle down depends\nmuch on the ebb and flow within us. We can do much to keep off\nforeign elements, and to attach and retain those which serve\nbest in building up a strong rock. But from time to time a great\nsorrow breaks through all the strata of our soul--all is upheaved,\nshattered, distorted. In nature all that is grand dates from such\nconvulsions--why should we wish for a new smooth surface, or let our\nsorrows be covered by the flat sediment of everyday life?\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIf we feel that this life can only be a link in a chain without\nbeginning and without end, in a circle which has its beginning and\nits end everywhere and nowhere, we learn to bear it, and to enjoy it\ntoo, in a new sense. What we achieve here assumes a new meaning--it\nwill not altogether perish, whether for good or for evil. What is\ndone in time is done for ever--what is done by one affects us all.\nThus our love too is not lost--what is loved in time is loved for\never. The form changes, but that which changes, which undergoes\nchange, remains itself unchanged. We seem to love the fleeting forms\nof life, and yet how can we truly love what is so faithless? No, we\ntruly love what is, and was, and will be, hidden under the fleeting\nforms of life, but in itself more than those fleeting forms however\nfair. We love the fair appearance too, how could it be otherwise?\nbut we should love it only as belonging to what we love--not as\nbeing what we love. So it is, or rather so it ought to be. Yet while\nwe are what we are, we love the flower, not the sightless grain\nof seed, and when that flower fades and passes away, we mourn for\nit, and our only comfort is that we too fade and pass away. Then\nwe follow there, wherever they go. Some flowers fade sooner, some\nlater, but none is quite forgotten.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIt would be difficult to say at what moment in our young lives real\nresponsibility begins. The law fixes a time, our own heart cannot\ndo that. Yet in spite of this unknown quantity at the beginning, we\nbegin afterwards to reckon with ourselves. Why should we protest\nagainst a similar unknown quantity before the beginning of our\nlife on earth? Wherever and whenever it was, we feel that we have\nmade ourselves what we are; is not that a useful article of faith?\nDoes it not help us to decide on undoing what we have done wrong\nand in doing all the good we can, even if it does not bear fruit,\nwithin or without, in this life? A break of consciousness does not\nseem incompatible with a sense of responsibility, if we know by\nreasoning, though not by recollection, that what we see done in\nourselves must have been done by ourselves. And even if we waive the\nquestion of responsibility for the first two or three years of our\nlife on earth, surely we existed during those years though we do not\nrecollect it,--then why not before our life on earth?\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWe must learn to live two lives--this short life here on earth with\nits joys and sorrows, and that true life beyond, of which this is\nonly a fragment or an interruption. When we enter into that true\nlife, we shall find what we cannot find here, we shall find what we\nhave lost here. If only so many things did not seem so irregular, so\nunnatural. The death of young children before their parents. We love\nthem better because we know we can lose them--that is true--but yet\nit is a hard lesson to learn.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nOne month will go after another, till at last this journey is over,\nand we look back on it grateful for the many pleasures it has given\nus, grateful for the company of so many kind friends whom we met,\ngrateful also for the struggles which we had to go through and which\nwill appear so small, and so little worth our tears and anguish,\nwhen all is over and the last station and resting-place reached in\nsafety.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nLOVE\n\n\nI cannot help thinking that the souls towards whom we feel drawn\nin this life are the very souls whom we knew and loved in a former\nlife, and that the souls who repel us here, we do not know why, are\nthe souls that earned our disapproval, the souls from whom we kept\naloof, in a former life. But let us remember that if our love is\nthe love of what is merely phenomenal, the love of the body, the\nkindness of the heart, the vigour and wisdom of the intellect, our\nlove is the love of changing and perishable things.... But if our\nlove, under all its earthly aspects, was the love of the true soul,\nof what is immortal and divine in every man and woman, that love\ncannot die, but will find once more what seems beautiful, true, and\nlovable in worlds to come, as in worlds that have passed.... What we\ntruly love in everything is the eternal _\u00e2tman_, the immortal self,\nand as we should add, the immortal God, for the immortal self and\nthe immortal God must be one.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nWe must not forget that if earthly love has in the vulgar mind been\noften degraded into mere animal passion, it still remains in its\npurest sense the highest mystery of our existence, the most perfect\nblessing and delight on earth, and at the same time the truest\npledge of our more than human nature. To be able to feel the same\nunselfish devotion to the Deity which the human heart is capable of,\nif filled with love for another human soul, is something that may\nwell be called the best religion.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nWhat the present generation ought to learn, the young as well as the\nold, is spirit and perseverance to discover the beautiful, pleasure\nand joy in making it known, and resigning ourselves with grateful\nhearts to its enjoyment; in a word--love, in the old, true, eternal\nmeaning of the word. Only sweep away the dust of self-conceit,\nthe cobwebs of selfishness, the mud of envy, and the old type of\nhumanity will soon reappear, as it was when it could still 'embrace\nmillions.' The love of mankind, the true fountain of all humanity,\nis still there; it can never be quite choked up. He who can descend\ninto this fountain of youth, who can again recover himself, who can\nagain be that which he was by nature, loves the beautiful wherever\nhe finds it; he understands enjoyment and enthusiasm, in the few\nquiet hours which he can win for himself in the noisy, deafening\nhurry of the times in which we live.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nWould not the carrying out of one single commandment of Christ,\n'Love one another,' change the whole aspect of the world, and sweep\naway prisons and workhouses, and envying and strife, and all the\nstrongholds of the devil? Two thousand years have nearly passed, and\npeople have not yet understood that one single command of Christ,\n'Love one another'! We are as perfect heathens in that one respect\nas it is possible to be. No, this world might be heaven on earth, if\nwe would but carry out God's work and God's commandments, and so it\nwill be hereafter.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nIf we do a thing because we think it is our duty, we generally fail;\nthat is the old law which makes slaves of us. The real spring of our\nlife, and of our work in life, must be love--true, deep love--not\nlove of this or that person, or for this or that reason, but deep\nhuman love, devotion of soul to soul, love of God realised where\nalone it can be, in love of those whom He loves. Everything else\nis weak, passes away; that love alone supports us, makes life\ntolerable, binds the present together with the past and future, and\nis, we may trust, imperishable.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nLove which seems so unselfish may become very selfish if we are\nnot on our guard. Do not shut your eyes to what is dark in others,\nbut do not dwell on it except so far as it helps to bring out more\nstrongly what is bright in them, lovely, and unselfish. The true\nhappiness of true love is self-forgetfulness and trust.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThere is nothing in life like a mother's love, though children\noften do not find it out till it is too late. If you want to be\nreally happy in life, love your mother with all your heart; it is a\nblessing to feel that you belong to her, and that through her you\nare connected by an unbroken chain with the highest source of our\nbeing.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIs there such a thing as a Lost Love? I do not believe it. Nothing\nthat is true and great is ever lost on earth, though its fulfilment\nmay be deferred beyond this short life.... Love is eternal, and\nall the more so if it does not meet with its fulfilment on earth.\nIf once we know that our lives are in the hands of God, and that\nnothing can happen to us without His Will, we are thankful for\nthe trials which He sends us. Is there any one who loves us more\nthan God? any one who knows better what is for our real good than\nGod? This little artificial and complicated society of ours may\nsometimes seem to be outside His control, but if we think so it is\nour own fault, and we have to suffer for it. We blame our friends,\nwe mistrust ourselves, and all this because our wild hearts will not\nbe quiet in that narrow cage in which they must be kept to prevent\nmischief.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nDoes love pass away (with death)? I cannot believe it. God made\nus as we are, many instead of one. Christ died for all of us\nindividually, and such as we are--beings incomplete in themselves,\nand perfect only through love to God on one side, and through\nlove to man on the other. We want both kinds of love for our very\nexistence, and therefore in a higher and better existence too the\nlove of kindred souls may well exist together with our love of God.\nWe need not love those we love best on earth less in heaven, though\nwe may love all better than we do on earth. After all, love seems\nonly the taking away those unnatural barriers which divide us from\nour fellow creatures--it is only the restoration of that union\nwhich binds us altogether in God, and which has broken on earth\nwe know not how. In Christ alone that union was preserved, for He\nloved us _all_ with a love warmer than the love of a husband for\nhis wife, or a mother for her child. He gave His life for us, and\nif we ask ourselves there is hardly a husband or a mother who would\nreally suffer death for his wife or her child. Thus we see that even\nwhat seems to us the most perfect love is very far as yet from the\nperfection of love which drives out the whole self and all that is\nselfish, and we must try to love more, not to love less, and trust\nthat what is imperfect here is not meant to be destroyed, but to be\nmade perfect hereafter. With God nothing is imperfect; without Him\neverything is imperfect. We must live and love in God, and then we\nneed not fear: though our life seem chequered and fleeting, we know\nthat there is a home for us in God, and rest for all our troubles in\nChrist.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nLet us hold together while life lasts. Hand in hand we may achieve\nmore than each alone by himself. We are much less afraid when we are\ntwo together. The chief condition of all spiritual friendship is\nperfect frankness. There is no better proof of true friendship than\nsincere reproof, where such reproof is necessary. We are occupied\nin one great work, and in this consciousness all that is small must\nnecessarily disappear.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWhy do we love so deeply? Is not that also God's will? And if so,\nwhy should that love ever cease? What should we be without it? I\ncannot believe that we are to surrender that love, that we are to\nlose those who were given us to love. Love may be purified, may\nbecome more and more unselfish, may be very different from what\nit was on earth, but sympathy, suffering together and rejoicing\ntogether, lies very deep at the root of all being--were it ever\nto cease, our very being might cease too. We cannot help loving,\nloving more and more, better and better. Thus life becomes brighter\nand brighter again, and we feel that we have not lost those who are\ntaken from us for a little while. We love them all the more, all the\nbetter.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nHow selfish we are even in our love. Here we live for a short\nseason, and we know we must part sooner or later. We wish to go\nfirst, and to leave those whom we love behind us, and we sorrow\nbecause they went first and left us behind. As soon as one looks\nbeyond this life, it seems so short, yet there was a time when it\nseemed endless.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThe past is ours, and there we have all who loved us, and whom we\nlove as much as ever, ay, more than ever.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nMANKIND\n\n\nThe earth was unintelligible to the ancients because looked upon\nas a solitary being, without a peer in the whole universe; but\nit assumed a new and true significance as soon as it rose before\nthe eyes of man as one of many planets, all governed by the same\nlaws, and all revolving around the same centre. It is the same with\nthe human soul, and its nature stands before our mind in quite a\ndifferent light since man has been taught to know and feel himself\nas a member of a great family--as one of the myriads of wandering\nstars all governed by the same laws, and all revolving around the\nsame centre, and all deriving their light from the same source.\n'Universal History' has laid open new avenues of thought, and it\nhas enriched our language with a word which never passed the lips\nof Socrates, or Plato, or Aristotle--_Mankind_. Where the Greek saw\nbarbarians, we see brethren; where the Greek saw nations, we see\nmankind, toiling and suffering, separated by oceans, divided by\nlanguage, and severed by national enmity,--yet evermore tending,\nunder a divine control, towards the fulfilment of that inscrutable\npurpose for which the world was created, and man placed in it,\nbearing the image of God. History therefore, with its dusty and\nmouldering pages, is to us as sacred a volume as the book of\nnature. In both we read, or we try to read, the reflex of the laws\nand thoughts of a Divine Wisdom. We believe that there is nothing\nirrational in either history or nature, and that the human mind is\ncalled upon to read and to revere in both the manifestations of a\nDivine Power.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nThere are two antagonistic schools--the one believing in a\ndescending, the other in an ascending development of the human\nrace; the one asserting that the history of the human mind begins\nof necessity with a state of purity and simplicity which gradually\ngives way to corruption, perversity, and savagery; the other\nmaintaining that the first human beings could not have been more\nthan one step above the animals, and that their whole history\nis one of progress towards higher perfection. With regard to\nthe beginnings of religion, the one school holds to a primitive\nsuspicion of something that is beyond--call it supernatural,\ntranscendental, infinite, or divine. It considers a silent walking\nacross this bridge of life, with eyes fixed on high, as a more\nperfect realisation of primitive religion than singing of Vedic\nhymns, offering of Jewish sacrifices, or the most elaborate creeds\nand articles. The other begins with the purely animal and passive\nnature of man, and tries to show how the repeated impressions of\nthe world in which he lived, drove him to fetichism and totemism,\nwhatever these words may mean, to ancestor worship, to a worship of\nnature, of trees and serpents, of mountains and rivers, of clouds\nand meteors, of sun and moon and stars, and the vault of heaven, and\nat last to a belief in One who dwells in heaven above.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\n\n\nMIND OR THOUGHT\n\n\nWherever we can see clearly, we see that what we call mind and\nthought consist in this, that man has the power not only to receive\npresentations like an animal, but to discover something general in\nthem. This element he can eliminate and fix by vocal signs; and he\ncan further classify single presentations under the same general\nconcepts, and mark them by the same vocal signs.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nLanguage and thought go hand in hand; where there is as yet no word,\nthere is not yet an idea. The thinking capacity of the mind has its\nsource in language, lives in language, and develops continually in\nlanguage.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nAll our thoughts, even the apparently most abstract, have their\nnatural beginnings in what passes daily before our senses. _Nihil\nin fide nisi quod ante fuerit in sensu._ Man may for a time be\nunheedful of these voices of nature; but they come again and again,\nday after day, night after night, till at last they are heeded. And\nif once heeded, those voices disclose their purport more and more\nclearly, and what seemed at first a mere sunrise becomes in the end\na visible revelation of the infinite, while the setting of the sun\nis transfigured into the first vision of immortality.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nAs the evolution of nature can be studied with any hope of success\nin those products only which nature has left us, the evolution of\nmind also can be effectually studied in those products only which\nmind itself has left us. These mental products in their earliest\nform are always embodied in language, and it is in language,\ntherefore, that we must study the problem of the origin, and of the\nsuccessive stages in the growth of mind.\n\n  _Science of Thought._\n\n\nIf language and reason are identical, or two names, or two aspects\nonly of the same thing, and if we cannot doubt that language had\nan historical beginning, and represents the work of man carried on\nthrough many thousands of years, we cannot avoid the conclusion\nthat before those thousands of years there was a time when the first\nstone of the great temple of language was laid, and before that time\nman was without language, and therefore without reason.\n\n  _Science of Thought._\n\n\n\n\nMIRACLES\n\n\nIf once the human mind has arrived at the conviction that\n_everything_ must be accounted for, or, as it is sometimes\nexpressed, that there is uniformity, that there is care and order in\neverything, and that an unbroken chain of cause and effect holds the\nwhole universe together, then the idea of the miraculous arises, and\nwe, weak human creatures, call what is not intelligible to us, what\nis not in accordance with law, what seems to break through the chain\nof cause and effect, a miracle. Every miracle, therefore, is of our\nown making, and of our own unmaking.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nIt is due to the psychological necessities of human nature, under\nthe inspiring influence of religious enthusiasm, that so many of the\ntrue signs and wonders performed by the founders of religion have\nso often been exaggerated, and, in spite of the strongest protests\nof these founders themselves, degraded into mere jugglery. It is\ntrue that all this does not form an essential element of religion,\nas we now understand religion. Miracles are no longer used as\narguments in support of the truth of religious doctrines. Miracles\nhave often been called helps to faith, but they have so often proved\nstumbling-blocks to faith, and no one in our days would venture to\nsay that the truth as taught by any religion must stand or fall by\ncertain prodigious events which may or may not have happened, which\nmay or may not have been rightly apprehended by the followers of\nBuddha, Christ, or Mohammed.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nOur Lord's ascension will have to be understood as a sublime idea,\nmaterialised in the language of children. Is not a real fact that\nhappened, in a world in which nothing can happen against the will of\nGod, better than any miracle? Why should we try to know more than we\ncan know, if only we firmly believe that Christ's immortal spirit\nascended to the Father? That alone is true immortality, divine\nimmortality; not the resuscitation of the frail mortal body, but the\nimmortality of the immortal divine soul. It was this rising of the\nSpirit, and not of the body, without which, as St. Paul said, our\nfaith would be vain. It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh\nprofiteth nothing.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\nIt will be to many of the honest disciples of Christ a real day of\nDamascus, when the very name of miracle shall be struck out of the\ndictionary of Christian theology. The facts remain exactly as they\nare, but the Spirit of truth will give them a higher meaning. What\nis wanted for this is not less, but more, faith, for it requires\nmore faith to believe in Christ without, than with, the help of\nmiracles. Nothing has produced so much distress of mind, so much\nintellectual dishonesty, so much scepticism, so much unbelief, as\nthe miraculous element forced into Christianity from the earliest\ndays. Nothing has so much impeded missionary work as the attempt to\npersuade people first not to believe in their own miracles, and then\nto make a belief in other miracles a condition of their becoming\nChristians. It is easy to say 'You are not a Christian if you do\nnot believe in Christian miracles.' I hope the time will come when\nwe shall be told, 'You are not a Christian if you cannot believe in\nChrist without the help of miracles.'\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\n\n\nMUSIC\n\n\nMusic is the language of the soul, but it defies interpretation. It\nmeans something, but that something belongs not to this world of\nsense and logic, but to another world, quite real, though beyond\nall definition.... Is there not in Music, and in Music alone of all\nthe arts, something that is not entirely of this earth?... Whence\ncomes melody? Surely not from anything that we hear with our outward\nears and are able to imitate, to improve, or to sublimise.... Here\nif anywhere we see the golden stairs on which angels descend from\nheaven and whisper sweet sounds into the ears of those who have ears\nto hear. Words cannot be so inspired, for words, we know, are of the\nearth, earthy. Melodies are not of the earth, and it is truly said,\n\n     'Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.'\n\n  _Auld Lang Syne._\n\n\n\n\nNATURE\n\n\nThere is nothing so beautiful as being alone with nature; one sees\nhow God's will is fulfilled in each bud and leaf that blooms and\nwithers, and one learns to recognise how deeply rooted in one is\nthis thirst for nature. In living with men one is only too easily\ntorn from this real home; then one's own plans and wishes and fears\nspring up; then we fancy we can perfect something for ourselves\nalone, and think that every thing must serve for our own ends and\nenjoyments, until the influence of nature in life, or the hand of\nGod, arouses us, and warns us that we live and flourish not for\nenjoyment, nor for undisturbed quiet, but to bear fruit in another\nlife.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWhen one stands amid the grandeur of nature, with one's own little\nmurmurings and sufferings, and looks deep into this dumb soul,\nmuch becomes clear to one, and one is astounded at the false ideas\none has formed of this life. It is but a short journey, and on\na journey one can do without many things which generally seem\nnecessary to us. Yes, we can do without even what is dearest to our\nhearts, in this world, if we know that, after the journey we shall\nhave to endure, we shall find again those who have arrived at the\ngoal quicker and more easily than we have done. Now if life were\nlooked upon as a journey for refreshment or amusement, which it\nought not to be, we might feel sad if we have to make our way alone;\nbut if we treat it as a serious business-journey, then we know we\nhave hard and unpleasant work before us, and enjoy all the more the\nbeautiful resting-places which God's love has provided for each of\nus in life.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nIn the early days of the world, the world was too full of wonders\nto require any other miracles. The whole world was a miracle and a\nrevelation, there was no need for any special disclosure. At that\ntime the heavens, the waters, the sun and moon, the stars of heaven,\nthe showers and dew, the winds of God, fire and heat, winter and\nsummer, ice and snow, nights and days, lightnings and clouds, the\nearth, the mountains and hills, the green things upon the earth, the\nwells, and seas and floods--all blessed the Lord, praised Him and\nmagnified Him for ever. Can we imagine a more powerful revelation?\nIs it for us to say that for the children of men to join in praising\nand magnifying Him who revealed Himself in His own way in all the\nmagnificence, the wisdom and order of nature, is mere paganism,\npolytheism, pantheism, and abominable idolatry? I have heard many\nblasphemies, I have heard none greater than this.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\n\n\nOBSCURITY\n\n\nThere may be much depth of wisdom in all that darkness and\nvagueness, but I cannot help thinking that there is nothing that\ncannot be made clear, and bright, and simple, and that obscurity\narises in all cases from slovenly thinking and lazy writing.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nOLD AGE\n\n\nSharing the happiness of other people, entering into their feelings,\nliving life over once more with them and in them, that is all\nthat remains to old people. I suppose it was meant to be so, the\nprincipal object of life being the overcoming of self, in every\nsense of the word.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThis is a lesson one has to learn as one grows older, to learn to\nbe alone, and yet to feel one in spirit with all whom one loves,\nwhether present or absent.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nYou cannot escape from old age, whether it comes slowly or suddenly,\nbut it comes unawares, and you suddenly feel that you cannot walk\nor jump as you used to do, and even the muscles of the mind don't\nhold out as they used. Well, so it was meant to be, and it will\nbe pleasant to begin again with new muscles, and to take up new\nwork. After seeing a good deal of life, I still think the greatest\nsatisfaction is work: I do not mean drudgery, but one's own findings\nout.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nAs one is getting old, and looks forward with fear rather than with\nhope to what is still in store for us, one learns to appreciate more\nand more the never-failing pleasure of recalling all the bright and\nhappy days that are gone. Gone they are, but they are not lost.\nEver present to our calling and recalling, they assume at last a\nvividness, such as they hardly had when present, and when we poor\nsouls were trembling for every day and hour and minute that was\ngoing and ever going, and would not and could not abide.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nRELIGION AND RELIGIONS\n\n\nGod is not far from each one of those who seek God, if haply they\nmay feel after Him. Let theologians pile up volume upon volume of\nwhat they call theology, religion is a very simple matter, and that\nwhich is so simple and yet so all-important to us, the living kernel\nof religion, can be found, I believe, in almost every creed, however\nmuch the husk may vary. And think what that means! It means that\nabove and beneath and behind all religions there is one eternal, one\nuniversal religion, a religion to which every man belongs, or may\nbelong.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nTrue religion, that is practical, active, living religion, has\nlittle or nothing to do with logical or metaphysical quibbles.\nPractical religion is life, is a new life, a life in the sight of\nGod, and it springs from what may truly be called a new birth.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nOur senses can never perceive a real boundary, be it on the largest\nor the smallest scale: they present to us everywhere the infinite as\ntheir background, and everything that has to do with religion has\nsprung out of this infinite background as its ultimate and deepest\nfoundation.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nI cannot bring myself to take much interest in all the controversies\nthat are going on (1865) in the Church of England.... No doubt the\npoints at issue are great, and appeal to our hearts and minds, but\nthe spirit in which they are treated seems to me so very small. How\nfew men on either side give you the impression that they write face\nto face with God, and not face to face with men and the small powers\nthat be. Surely this was not so in the early centuries, nor again at\nthe time of the Reformation?\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWe live in two worlds; behind the seen is the unseen, around the\nfinite the infinite, above the comprehensible the incomprehensible.\nThere have been men who have lived in this world only, who seem\nnever to have felt the real presence of the unseen: and yet they\nachieved some greatness as rulers of men, as poets, artists,\nphilosophers, and discoverers. But the greatest among the great have\ndone their greatest works in moments of self-forgetful ecstasy,\nin union and communion with a higher world: and when it was done,\nsuch was their silent rapture that they started back, and could\nnot believe it was their own, their very own, and they ascribed\nthe glory of it to God, by whatever name they called Him in their\nvarious utterances. And while the greatest among the great thus\nconfessed that they were not of this world only, and that their\nbest work was but in part their own, those whom we reverence as the\nfounders of religions, and who were at once philosophers, poets,\nand rulers of men, called nothing their own, but professed to teach\nonly either what their fathers had taught them, or what a far-off\nvoice had whispered in their ear.... The ancient religions were\nnot founded like temples or palaces, they sprang up like sacred\ngroves from the soil of humanity, quickened by the rays of celestial\nlight. In India, Greece, Italy, and Germany, not even the names of\nthe earliest prophets are preserved. And, if in other countries\nthe forms and features of the authors of their religious faith and\nworship are still dimly visible amidst the clouds of legend and\npoetry, all of them, Moses as well as Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha\nand Mohammed, seem to proclaim with one voice that their faith was\nno new faith, but the faith of their fathers, that their wisdom was\nnot their own wisdom, but, like every good and perfect gift, given\nthem from above. What should we learn from these prophets who from\ndistant countries and bygone ages all bear the same witness to the\nsame truth? We should learn that though religions may be founded\nand fashioned into strange shapes by the hand of man, religion is\none and eternal. From the first dawn that ever brightened a human\nhearth or warmed a human heart, one generation has told another\nthat there is a world beyond the dawn; and the keynotes of all\nreligion--the feeling of the infinite, the bowing down before the\nincomprehensible, the yearning after the unseen--having once been\nset to vibrate, have never been altogether drowned in the strange\nand wild music of religious sects and sciences. The greatest\nprophets of the world have been those who at sundry times and in\ndivers manners have proclaimed again and again in the simplest words\nthe simple creed of the fathers, faith in the unseen, reverence for\nthe incomprehensible, awe of the infinite, or, simpler still, love\nof God, and oneness with the All-Father.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nI have endeavoured to make clear two things, which constitute the\nfoundation of all religion; first, that the world is rational, that\nit is the result of thought, and that in this sense only is it the\ncreation of a being which possesses reason, or is reason itself (the\n_Logos_); and secondly, that mind or thought cannot be the outcome\nof matter, but on the contrary is the _prius_ of all things.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nReligion is not philosophy; but there never has been a religion,\nand there never can be, which is not based on philosophy, and does\nnot presuppose the philosophical notions of the people. The highest\naim towards which all philosophy strives, is and will always remain\nthe idea of God, and it was this idea which Christianity grasped in\nthe Platonic sense, and presented to us most clearly in its highest\nform, in the Fourth Gospel.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nThere has been no entirely new religion since the beginning of the\nworld. The elements and roots of religion were there, as far back\nas we can trace the history of man; and the history of religion\nshows us throughout a succession of new combinations of the same\nradical elements. An intuition of God, a sense of human weakness\nand dependence, a belief in a Divine government of the world, a\ndistinction between good and evil, and a hope of a better life,\nthese are some of the radical elements of all religions. Though\nsometimes hidden, they rise again and again to the surface. Though\nfrequently distorted, they tend again and again to their perfect\nform. Unless they had formed part of the original dowry of the human\nsoul, religion would have remained an impossibility, and the tongues\nof angels would have been to human ears but as sounding brass, or as\ntinkling cymbals.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nIn lecturing on the origin and growth of religion, my chief object\nhas been to show that a belief in God, in the immortality of the\nsoul, and in a future retribution, can be gained, and not only can\nbe, but has been gained, by the right exercise of human reason\nalone, without the assistance of what has been called a special\nrevelation. In doing this, I thought I was simply following in the\nfootsteps of the greatest theologians of our time, and that I was\nserving the cause of true religion by showing, by ample historical\nevidence, gathered from the Sacred Books of the East, how, what St.\nPaul, what the Fathers of the Church, what medi\u00e6val theologians,\nand what some of the most learned of modern divines had asserted\nagain and again, was most strikingly confirmed by the records of all\nnon-Christian religions which have lately become accessible to us. I\ncould not have believed it possible that, in undertaking this work,\nI should have exposed myself to attacks from theologians who profess\nand call themselves Christians, and who yet maintain that worst of\nall heresies, that during all the centuries that have elapsed and\nin all the countries of the world, God has left Himself without a\nwitness, and has revealed Himself to one race only, the Jews of\nPalestine.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nIf there is one thing which a comparative study of religions places\nin the clearest light, it is the inevitable decay to which every\nreligion is exposed. It may seem almost like a truism that no\nreligion can continue to be what it was during the lifetime of its\nfounders and its first apostles. Yet it is but seldom borne in mind\nthat without constant reformation, _i.e._ without a constant return\nto its fountain head, every religion--even the most perfect, on\naccount of its very perfection, more even than others--suffers from\nits contact with the world, as the purest air suffers from the mere\nfact of being breathed.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nTo each individual his own religion, if he really believes in it,\nis something quite inseparable from himself, something unique,\nthat cannot be compared to anything else, or replaced by anything\nelse. Our own religion is, in that respect, something like our\nown language. In its form it may be like other languages; in its\nessence, and in its relation to ourselves, it stands alone and\nadmits of no peer or rival.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nThree of the results to which, I believe, a comparative study of\nreligion is sure to lead, I may here state:--\n\n     1. We shall learn that religions, in their most ancient form, or\n     in the minds of their authors, are generally free from many of\n     the blemishes that attach to them in later times.\n\n     2. We shall learn that there is hardly one religion which does\n     not contain some truth, some important truth; truth sufficient\n     to enable those who seek the Lord, and feel after Him, to find\n     Him in their hour of need.\n\n     3. We shall learn to appreciate better than ever what we have\n     in our own religion. No one who has not examined patiently\n     and honestly the other religions of the world can know what\n     Christianity really is, or can join with such truth and\n     sincerity in the words of St. Paul, 'I am not ashamed of the\n     gospel of Christ.'\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nMany are the advantages to be derived from a careful study of\nother religions, but the greatest of all is that it teaches us to\nappreciate more truly what we possess in our own. Let us see what\nother nations have had and still have in the place of religion, let\nus examine the prayers, the worship, the theology even, of the most\nhighly civilised races, and we shall then understand more thoroughly\nwhat blessings are vouchsafed to us in being allowed to breathe\nfrom the first breath of life the pure air of a land of Christian\nlight and knowledge. We are too apt to take the greatest blessings\nas matters of course, and even religion forms no exception. We\nhave done so little to gain our religion, we have suffered so\nlittle in the cause of truth, that however highly we prize our own\nChristianity, we never prize it highly enough until we have compared\nit with the religions of the rest of the world.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nThe spirit of truth is the life-spring of all religion, and where it\nexists it must manifest itself, it must plead, it must persuade, it\nmust convince and convert.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nAs there is a faculty of speech, independent of all the historical\nforms of language, there is a faculty of faith in man, independent\nof all historical religions. If we say it is religion which\ndistinguishes man from the animal, we do not mean the Christian\nand Jewish religion: we do not mean any special religion: but we\nmean a mental faculty or disposition, which, independent of, nay in\nspite of, sense and reason, enables man to apprehend the Infinite\nunder different names, and under varying disguises. Without that\nfaculty, no religion, not even the lowest worship of idols and\nfetishes, would be possible; and if we will but listen attentively,\nwe can hear in all religions a groaning of the spirit, a struggle\nto conceive the inconceivable, to utter the unutterable, a longing\nafter the Infinite, a love of God.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nLike an old precious metal, the ancient religion, after the dust\nof ages has been removed, will come out in all its purity and\nbrightness: and the image which it discloses will be the image\nof the Father, the Father of all the nations upon earth; and the\nsuperscription, where we can read it again, will be, not in Jud\u00e6a\nonly, but in the languages of all the races of the world, the Word\nof God, revealed where alone it can be revealed--revealed in the\nheart of man.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nIf we granted that all religions, except Christianity and Mosaism,\nderived their origin from those faculties of the mind only which,\naccording to Paley, are sufficient by themselves for calling into\nlife the fundamental tenets of natural religion, the classification\nof Christianity and Judaism on one side as _revealed_, and of the\nother religions as _natural_, would still be defective, for the\nsimple reason that no religion, though founded on revelation, can\never be entirely separated from natural religion. The tenets of\nnatural religion, though they never constituted by themselves a real\nhistorical religion, supply the only ground on which even revealed\nreligions can stand, the only soil where they can strike root, and\nfrom which they can receive nourishment and life.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nThe intention of religion, wherever we meet it, is always holy.\nHowever imperfect, however childish a religion may be, it always\nplaces the human soul in the presence of God: and however imperfect\nand however childish the conception of God may be, it always\nrepresents the highest ideal of perfection which the human soul, for\nthe time being, can reach and grasp. Religion therefore places the\nhuman soul in the presence of its highest ideal, it lifts it above\nthe level of ordinary goodness, and produces at last a yearning\nafter a higher and better life--a life in the light of God.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nI suppose that most of us, sooner or later in life, have felt how\nthe whole world--this wicked world, as we call it--is changed as if\nby magic, if once we can make up our mind to give men credit for\ngood motives, never to be suspicious, never to think evil, never to\nthink ourselves better than our neighbours. Trust a man to be true\nand good, and, even if he is not, your trust will tend to make him\ntrue and good. It is the same with the religions of the world. Let\nus but once make up our minds to look in them for what is true and\ngood, and we shall hardly know our old religions again. There is no\nreligion--or, if there is, I do not know it--which does not say,\n'Do good, avoid evil.' There is none which does not contain what\nRabbi Hillel called the quintessence of all religions, the simple\nwarning, 'Be good, my boy.' 'Be good, my boy,' may seem a very short\ncatechism, but let us add to it, 'Be good, my boy, for God's sake,'\nand we have in it very nearly the whole of the Law and the Prophets.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nIn order to choose between different gods, and different forms of\nfaith, a man must possess the faculty of choosing the instruments\nof testing truth and untruth, whether revealed or not; he must\nknow that certain fundamental tenets cannot be absent in any true\nreligion, and that there are doctrines against which his rational or\nmoral conscience revolts as incompatible with truth. In short, there\nmust be the foundation of religion, there must be the solid rock,\nbefore it is possible to erect an altar, a temple, or a church: and\nif we call that foundation natural religion, it is clear that no\nrevealed religion can be thought of which does not rest more or less\nfirmly on natural religion.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nUniversal primeval revelation is only another name for natural\nreligion, and it rests on no authority but the speculations of\nphilosophers. The same class of philosophers, considering that\nlanguage was too wonderful an achievement for the human mind,\ninsisted on the necessity of admitting a universal primeval\nlanguage, revealed directly by God to men, or rather to mute\nbeings: while the more thoughtful and more reverent of the Fathers\nof the Church, and among the founders of modern philosophy also,\npointed out that it was more consonant with the general working of\nan all-wise and all-powerful Creator that He should have endowed\nhuman nature with the essential conditions of speech, instead of\npresenting mute beings with grammars and dictionaries ready-made.\nThe same applies to religion. A universal primeval religion revealed\ndirect by God to man, or rather to a crowd of atheists, may, to\nour human wisdom, seem the best solution of all difficulties; but\na higher wisdom speaks to us out of the realities of history, and\nteaches us, if we will but learn, that 'we have all to seek the\nLord, if haply we may feel after Him, and find Him, though He is not\nfar from every one of us.'\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nThe study of the ancient religions of mankind, I feel convinced, if\ncarried on in a bold, but scholarlike, careful, and reverent spirit,\nwill remove many doubts and difficulties which are due entirely\nto the narrowness of our religious horizon; it will enlarge our\nsympathies, it will raise our thoughts above the small controversies\nof the day, and at no distant future evoke in the very heart of\nChristianity a fresh spirit and a new life.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nNo judge, if he had before him the worst of criminals, would treat\nhim as most historians and theologians have treated the religions\nof the world. Every act in the lives of their founders which shows\nthat they were but men, is eagerly seized and judged without\nmercy; every doctrine that is not carefully guarded is interpreted\nin the worst sense that it will bear; every act of worship that\ndiffers from our own way of serving God is held up to ridicule and\ncontempt. And this is not done by accident but with a purpose, nay,\nwith something of that artificial sense of duty which stimulates\nthe counsel for the defence to see nothing but an angel in his\nown client, and anything but an angel in the plaintiff on the\nother side. The result has been--as it could not be otherwise--a\ncomplete miscarriage of justice, an utter misapprehension of the\nreal character and purpose of the ancient religions of mankind;\nand, as a necessary consequence, a failure in discovering the\npeculiar features which really distinguish Christianity from all\nthe religions of the world, and secure to its founder His own\npeculiar place in the history of the world, far away from Zoroaster\nand Buddha, from Moses and Mohammed, from Confucius and Laotse. By\nunduly deprecating all other religions we have placed our own in a\nposition which its founder never intended for it; we have torn it\naway from the sacred context of the history of the world; we have\nignored, or wilfully narrowed, the sundry times and divers manners\nin which, in times past, God spake unto the fathers by the prophets;\nand instead of recognising Christianity as coming in the fulness\nof time, and as the fulfilment of the hopes and desires of the\nwhole world, we have brought ourselves to look upon its advent as\nthe only broken link in that unbroken chain which is rightly called\nthe Divine government of the world. Nay, worse than this, there are\npeople who, from mere ignorance of the ancient religions of mankind,\nhave adopted a doctrine more unchristian than any that could be\nfound in the pages of the religious books of antiquity, _i.e._ that\nall the nations of the earth, before the rise of Christianity,\nwere mere outcasts, forsaken and forgotten of their Father in\nheaven, without a knowledge of God, without a hope of heaven. If a\ncomparative study of the religions of the world produced but this\none result, that it drove this godless heresy out of every Christian\nheart, and made us see again in the whole history of the world the\neternal wisdom and love of God towards all His creatures, it would\nhave done a good work.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nDo you still wonder at polytheism or at mythology? Why, they are\ninevitable. They are, if you like, a _parler enfantin_ of religion.\nBut the world has its childhood, and when it was a child, it spoke\nas a child, it understood as a child, it thought as a child, and in\nthat it spoke as a child its language was true. The fault rests with\nus, if we insist on taking the language of children for the language\nof men, if we attempt to translate literally ancient into modern\nlanguage, Oriental into Occidental speech, poetry into prose.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nReligion is inevitable if only we are left in possession of our\nsenses, such as we really find them, not such as they have been\ndefined for us. We claim no special faculty, no special revelation.\nThe only faculty we claim is perception, the only revelation we\nclaim is history, or, as it is now called, historical evolution. But\nlet it not be supposed that we find the idea of the Infinite ready\nmade in the human mind from the very beginning of our history. All\nwe maintain is that the germ or the possibility, the Not-yet of that\nidea, lies hidden in the earliest sensuous perceptions, and that as\nreason is evolved from what is finite, so faith is evolved from what\nfrom the very beginning is infinite in the perceptions of our senses.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nEach religion has its own peculiar growth, but the seed from which\nthey spring is everywhere the same. That seed is the perception of\nthe infinite, from which no one can escape who does not wilfully\nshut his eyes. From the first flutter of human consciousness, that\nperception underlies all the other perceptions of our senses, all\nour imaginings, all our concepts, and every argument of our reason.\nIt may be buried for a time beneath the fragments of our finite\nknowledge, but it is always there, and, if we dig deep enough, we\nshall always find that buried seed, supplying the living sap to the\nfibres and feeders of all true faith.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nInstead of approaching the religions of the world with the\npreconceived idea that they are either corruptions of the Jewish\nreligion, or descended, in common with the Jewish religion, from\nsome perfect primeval revelation, the students of the science of\nreligion have seen that it is their duty first to collect all the\nevidence of the early history of religious thought that is still\naccessible in the sacred books of the world, or in the mythology,\ncustoms, or even in the languages of various races. Afterwards\nthey have undertaken a genealogical classification of all the\nmaterials that have hitherto been collected, and they have then only\napproached the question of the origin of religion in a new spirit,\nby trying to find out how the roots of the various religions, the\nradical concepts which form their foundation, and before all, the\nconcept of the infinite, could have been developed, taking for\ngranted nothing but sensuous perception on one side, and the world\nby which we are surrounded on the other.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nA distinction has been made for us between religion and philosophy,\nand, so far as form and object are concerned, I do not deny that\nsuch a distinction may be useful. But when we look to the subjects\nwith which religion is concerned, they are, and always have been,\nthe very subjects on which philosophy has dwelt, nay, from which\nphilosophy has sprung. If religion depends for its very life on\nthe sentiment or the perception of the infinite within the finite\nand beyond the finite, who is to determine the legitimacy of that\nsentiment, or of that perception, if not the philosopher? Who is to\ndetermine the powers which man possesses for apprehending the finite\nby his senses, for working up his single, and therefore finite,\nimpressions into concepts by his reason, if not the philosopher? And\nwho, if not the philosopher, is to find out whether man can claim\nthe right of asserting the existence of the infinite, in spite of\nthe constant opposition of sense and reason, taking these words in\ntheir usual meaning? We should damnify religion if we separated it\nfrom philosophy: we should ruin philosophy if we divorced it from\nreligion.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nWho, if he is honest towards himself, could say that the religion of\nhis manhood was the same as that of his childhood, or the religion\nof his old age the same as the religion of his manhood? It is easy\nto deceive ourselves, and to say that the most perfect faith is a\nchildlike faith. Nothing can be truer, and the older we grow the\nmore we learn to understand the wisdom of a childlike faith. But\nbefore we can learn that, we have first to learn another lesson,\nnamely, to put away childish things. There is the same glow about\nthe setting sun as there is about the rising sun; but there lies\nbetween the two a whole world, a journey through the whole sky, and\nover the whole earth.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nI hope the time will come when the subterranean area of human\nreligion will be rendered more and more accessible, ... and that\nthe Science of Religion, which at present is but a desire and a\nseed, will in time become a fulfilment, a plenteous harvest. When\nthat time of harvest has come, when the deepest foundations of all\nthe religions of the world have been laid free and restored, who\nknows but that those very foundations may serve once more, like\nthe catacombs, or like the crypts beneath our old cathedrals, as a\nplace of refuge for those who, to whatever creed they may belong,\nlong for something better, purer, older, and truer than what they\ncan find in the statutable sacrifices, services, and sermons of\nthe days in which their lot on earth has been cast; some who have\nlearnt to put away childish things, call them genealogies, legends,\nmiracles, or oracles, but who cannot part with the childlike faith\nof their heart. Each believer may bring down with him into that\nquiet crypt what he values most, his own pearl of great price--the\nHindu, his innate disbelief in this world, his unhesitating belief\nin another world; the Buddhist, his perception of an eternal law,\nhis submission to it, his gentleness, his pity; the Mohammedan, if\nnothing else, his sobriety; the Jew, his clinging through good and\nevil days to the one God, who loveth righteousness and whose name is\n'I am'; the Christian, that which is better than all, if those who\ndoubt it would only try it--our love of God, call Him what you like,\nthe infinite, the invisible, the immortal, the father, the highest\nSelf, above all, and through all, and in all, manifested in our love\nof man, our love of the living, our love of the dead, our living and\nundying love.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nIf we see the same doctrines, sometimes uttered even in the very\nsame words, by the Apostles, and by what people call the false\nprophets, of the heathen world, we need not grudge them these\nprecious pearls. When two religions say the same thing, it is not\nalways the same thing; but even if it is, should we not rather\nrejoice and try with all our might to add to what may be called the\nheavenly dowry of the human race, the common stock of truth which,\nas we are told, is not far from every one of us, if only we feel\nafter it and find it?\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nReligion, when looked upon not as supernatural, but as thoroughly\nnatural to man, has assumed a new meaning and a higher dignity when\nstudied as an integral part of that historical evolution which has\nmade man what he is, and what from the very first he was meant to\nbe. Is it no comfort to know that at no time and in no part of the\nworld, has God left Himself without witness, that the hand of God\nwas nowhere beyond the reach of the outstretched hands of babes and\nsucklings; nay, that it was from those rude utterances out of the\nmouth of babes and sucklings, that is, of savages and barbarians,\nthat has been perfected in time the true praise of God? To have\nlooked for growth and evolution in history as well as in nature\nis no blame, and has proved no loss to the present or to the last\ncentury; and if the veil has as yet been but little withdrawn from\nthe Holy of Holies, those who come after us will have learnt at\nleast this one lesson, that this lifting of the veil which was\nsupposed to be the privilege of priests, is no longer considered as\na sacrilege, if attempted by any honest seekers after truth.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nReligion consists in the perception of the infinite under such\nmanifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nNo opinion is true simply because it has been held either by the\ngreatest intellects or by the largest number of human beings at\ndifferent periods in the history of the world. No one can spend\nyears in the study of the religions of the world, beginning with\nthe lowest and ending with the highest forms, no one can watch the\nsincerity of religious endeavour, the warmth of religious feeling,\nthe nobleness of religious conduct, among races whom we are inclined\nto call pagan or savage, without learning at all events a lesson of\nhumility. Anybody, be he Jew, Christian, Mohammedan, or Brahman, if\nhe has a spark of modesty left, must feel that it would be nothing\nshort of a miracle that his own religion alone should be perfect\nthroughout, while that of every other believer should be false or\nwrong from beginning to end.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nThe more we study the history of the religions of the world, the\nclearer it becomes that there is really no religion which could be\ncalled an individual religion, in the sense of a religion created,\nas it were _de novo_, or rather _ab ovo_, by one single person.\nThis may seem strange, and yet it is really most natural. Religion,\nlike language, is everywhere an historical growth, and to invent a\ncompletely new religion would be as hopeless a task as to invent a\ncompletely new language. Nor do the founders of the great historical\nreligions of the world ever claim this exclusive authorship. On the\ncontrary, most of them disclaim in the strongest terms the idea\nthat they have come either to destroy, or to build a completely new\ntemple.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nThe whole world in its wonderful history has passed through the\nstruggle for life, the struggle for eternal life; and every one\nof us, in his own not less wonderful history, has had to pass\nthrough the same wonderful struggle: for, without it, no religion,\nwhatever its sacred books may be, will find in any human heart that\nsoil in which alone it can strike root and on which alone it can\ngrow and bear fruit. We must all have our own bookless religion,\nif the sacred books, whatever they may be, are to find a safe and\nsolid foundation within ourselves. No temple can stand without that\nfoundation, and it is because that foundation is so often neglected\nthat the walls of the temple become unsafe and threaten to fall.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nThe heart and mind and soul of man are the same under every sky, in\nall the varying circumstances of human life; and it would be awful\nto believe that _any_ human beings should have been deprived of that\nlight 'which lighteth _every_ man that cometh into the world.' It\nis that light which lighteth every man, and which has lighted all\nthe religions of the world, call them bookless or literate, human\nor divine, natural or supernatural, which alone can dispel the\ndarkness of doubt and fear that has come over the world. What our\nage wants more than anything else is _Natural Religion_. Whatever\nmeaning different theologians may attach to _Supernatural Religion_,\nhistory teaches us that nothing is so natural as the supernatural.\nBut the supernatural must always be _superimposed_ on the natural.\nSupernatural religion without natural religion is a house built on\nsand, and when, as in our days, the rain of doubt descends, and the\nfloods of criticism come, and the winds of unbelief and despair blow\nand beat upon that house, that house will fall because it was not\nfounded on the rock of bookless religion, of natural religion, of\neternal religion.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nEvery religion, being the property of the young and the old, the\nwise and the foolish, must always be a kind of compromise, and,\nwhile protesting against real corruptions and degradations, we must\nlearn to bear with those whose language differs from our own, and\ntrust that in spite of the tares which have sprung up during the\nnight, some grains of wheat will ripen towards the harvest in every\nhonest heart.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nIn all the fundamentals of religion we are neither better nor worse\nthan our neighbours, neither more wise nor more unwise than all the\nmembers of that great family who have been taught to know themselves\nas children of one and the same Father in Heaven.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nWhat can a study of Natural Religion teach us? Why, it teaches us\nthat religion is natural, is real, is inevitable, is universal. Is\nthat nothing? Is it nothing to know that there is a solid rock on\nwhich all religion, call it natural or supernatural, is founded? Is\nit nothing to learn from the annals of history that God has not left\nHimself without witness in that He did good, and gave us rain from\nheaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts, and the hearts of\nthe whole human race, with food and gladness?\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nWhile on the one side a study of Natural Religion teaches us that\nmuch of what we are inclined to class as natural, to accept as a\nmatter of course, is in reality full of meaning, is full of God,\nis in fact truly miraculous, it also opens our eyes to another\nfact, namely, that many things which we are inclined to class\nas supernatural, are in reality perfectly natural, perfectly\nintelligible, nay inevitable, in the growth of every religion.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nThe real coincidences between all the religions of the world\nteach us that all religions spring from the same soil--the human\nheart; that they all look to the same ideals, and that they are\nall surrounded by the same dangers and difficulties. Much that\nis represented to us as supernatural in the annals of the ancient\nreligions of the world becomes perfectly natural from this point of\nview.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nTo those who see no difficulties in their own religion, the study\nof other religions will create no new difficulties. It will only\nhelp them to appreciate more fully what they already possess. For\nwith all that I have said in order to show that other religions also\ncontain all that is necessary for salvation, it would be simply\ndishonest on my part were I to hide my conviction that the religion\ntaught by Christ, free as yet from all ecclesiastical fences and\nentrenchments, is the best, the purest, the truest religion the\nworld has ever seen.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nTo expect that religion could ever be placed again beyond the\nreach of scientific treatment or honest criticism, shows an utter\nmisapprehension of the signs of the times, and would, after all, be\nno more than to set up private judgment against private judgment. If\nthe inalienable rights of private judgment, that is, of honesty and\ntruth, were more generally recognised, the character of religious\ncontroversy would at once be changed. It is restriction that\nprovokes resentment, and thus embitters all discussions on religious\nsubjects.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nSo far from being dishonest, the distinction between a higher and\na lower form of religion is in truth the only honest recognition\nof the realities of life. If to a philosophic mind religion is a\nspiritual love of God, and the joy of his full consciousness of\nthe spirit of God within him, what meaning can such words convey\nto the millions of human beings who nevertheless want a religion,\na positive, authoritative, or revealed religion, to teach them\nthat there is a God, and that His commands must be obeyed without\nquestioning?\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nPeople ask what can be gained by a comprehensive study of religions,\nby showing that, as yet, no race has been discovered without some\nword for what is not visible, not finite, not human, for something\nsuperhuman and divine. Some theologians go even so far as to resent\nthe discovery of the universality of such a belief. They are anxious\nto prove that human reason alone could never have arrived at a\nconception of God. They would much rather believe that God has left\nHimself without witness than that a belief in something higher than\nthe Finite could spring up in the human heart from gratitude to Him\nwho gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our\nhearts with food and gladness.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nPhysical religion, beginning in a belief in agents behind the great\nphenomena of nature, reached its highest point when it had led the\nhuman mind to a belief in one Supreme Agent or God, whatever his\nname might be. It was supposed that this God could be implored\nby prayers and pleased by sacrifices. He was called the father\nof gods and men. Yet even in his highest conception, he was no\nmore than what Cardinal Newman defined God to be. 'I mean by the\nSupreme Being,' he wrote, 'one who is simply self-dependent, and\nthe only being who is such. I mean that he created all things out\nof nothing, and could destroy them as easily as he made them, and\nthat, in consequence, he is separated from them by an abyss, and\nincommunicable in all his attributes.' This abyss separating God\nfrom man remains at the end of Physical Religion. It constitutes its\ninherent weakness. But this very weakness becomes in time a source\nof strength, for from it sprang a yearning for better things. Even\nthe God of the Jews, in His unapproachable majesty, though He might\nbe revered and loved by man during His life on earth, could receive,\nas it were, a temporary allegiance only, for 'the dead cannot praise\nGod, neither any that go down into darkness!' God was immortal, a\nman was mortal; and Physical Religion could not throw a bridge over\nthe abyss that separated the two. Real religion, however, requires\nmore than a belief in God, it requires a belief in man also, and\nan intimate relation between God and man, at all events in a life\nto come. There is in man an irrepressible desire for continued\nexistence. It shows itself in life in what we may call self-defence.\nIt shows itself at the end of life and at the approach of death, in\nthe hope of immortality.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nSo long as we look on the history of the human race as something\nthat might or might not have been, we cannot wonder that the student\nof religion should prefer to form his opinions of the nature of\nreligion and the laws of its growth from the masterpiece of Thomas\nAquinas, the _Summa Sacr\u00e6 Theologi\u00e6_, rather than from the _Sacred\nBooks of the East_. But when we have learnt to recognise in history\nthe realisation of a rational purpose, when we have learnt to look\nupon it as in the truest sense of the word a Divine Drama, the plot\nrevealed in it ought to assume in the eyes of a philosopher also,\na meaning and a value far beyond the speculations of even the most\nenlightened and logical theologians.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nThe question is whether there is, or whether there is not, hidden\nin every one of the sacred books, something that could lift up\nthe human heart from this earth to a higher world, something that\ncould make man feel the omnipresence of a higher Power, something\nthat could make him shrink from evil and incline to good, something\nto sustain him in the short journey through life, with its bright\nmoments of happiness, and its long hours of terrible distress.\n\n  _Preface, Sacred Books of the East._\n\n\nIt has been truly said, and most emphatically, by Dr. Newman, that\nneither a belief in God by itself, nor a belief in the soul by\nitself, would constitute religion, and that real religion is founded\non a true perception of the relation of the soul to God, and of God\nto the soul.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nIt may be truly said that the founders of the religions of the world\nhave all been bridge-builders. As soon as the existence of a Beyond,\nof a Heaven above the earth, of Powers above us and beneath us, had\nbeen recognised, a great gulf seemed to be fixed between what was\ncalled by various names, the earthly and the heavenly, the material\nand the spiritual, the phenomenal and nomenal, or best of all, the\nvisible and invisible world, and it was the chief object of religion\nto unite these two worlds again, whether by the arches of hope and\nfear, or by the iron chains of logical syllogisms.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nReligion, in order to be _real_ religion, a man's own religion,\nmust be searched for, must be discovered, must be conquered. If it\nis simply inherited, or accepted as a matter of course, it often\nhappens that in later years it falls away, and has either to be\nreconquered, or to be replaced by another religion.\n\n  _Autobiography._\n\n\nReligion is growth, never finished. From the lowest to the highest\nstages it is growth, not willed only, nor given only, but both. The\nlowest stages may seem very imperfect to us, but they are all the\nmore important. Language and mythology show us the old path on which\nman travelled from Nature to God.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThere is no lesson which at the present time seems more important\nthan to learn that in every religion there are precious grains; that\nwe must draw in every religion a broad distinction between what is\nessential and what is not, between the eternal and the temporary,\nbetween the divine and the human, and that though the non-essential\nmay fill many volumes, the essential can often be comprehended in a\nfew words, but words on which 'hang all the law and the prophets.'\n\n  _Preface, Sacred Books of the East._\n\n\nReligions were meant to be many, like languages. To us, one language\nfor the whole human race would seem to be far better; but it was\nnot to be. Each language was to be a school for each race, a talent\ncommitted to each nation. And so it is with religion. There is\ntruth in all of them, the whole truth in none. Let each one cherish\nhis own, purify his own, and throw away what is dead and decaying.\nBut to give up one's religion is like giving up one's life. Even\nthe lowest savage must keep his own old faith in God, when he\nbecomes converted to Christianity, or he will have lost the living\nand life-giving root of his faith. If people would only learn to\nlook for what is good in all religions, how far more beautiful the\nworld would appear in their eyes. They dig hard enough to get the\nore from out a mine, they sift it, smelt it, purify it, and then\nkeep the small pieces of gold they have got with all this trouble,\nforgetting the _scoriae_ and all the refuse. That is what we must\ndo as students of religion; but we do the very contrary--we hug the\n_scoriae_ and shut our eyes to the glittering rays of gold. Jews\nand Christians are worse in that respect than all other people.\nIt may be because their religions are freer from human impurities\nthan all other religions. But why should that make them blind to\nwhat is really good in other religions, why should it blind them so\nmuch that they look upon other religions as the work of the Devil?\nThe power of evil has had its work in all religions, our own not\nexcepted--but the power of goodness prevails everywhere. Till we\nknow that, life and history seem intolerable. It would not put an\nend to missionary labour, it would only make it more a labour of\nlove, less painful to those whom we wish to win, not away from their\nGod, but back to their God, Him whom they ignorantly worship, and\nwhom we should declare unto them, according to our own light, such\nas it is, less dark than theirs on many points, but yet dark, as\nthose know best who, like St. Paul, have striven hardest to look\nthrough the glass of our own weak human mind.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIf people would only learn to see that there is really a religion\nbeyond all religions, that each man must have his own religion which\nhe has conquered for himself, and that we must learn to tolerate\nreligion wherever we find it! Christianity would be a perfect\nreligion, if it did not go beyond the simple words of Christ, and\nif, even in these words, we made full allowance for the time and\nplace and circumstances in which they were spoken--that is, if we\nsimply followed Christ where He wishes us to follow Him. We have\ngone far beyond those times and circumstances in many things, but\nin what is most essential we are still far behind the teaching of\nChrist. How many call themselves Christians who have no idea how\ndifficult it is to be a Christian, a follower of Christ! It is easy\nenough to repeat creeds, and to work ourselves into a frame of mind\nwhen miracles seem most easy.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nIt was the duty of the Apostles and of the early Christians in\ngeneral to stand forth in the name of the only true God, and to\nprove to the world that their God had nothing in common with the\nidols worshipped at Athens and Ephesus. It was the duty of the\nearly converts to forswear all allegiance to their former deities,\nand if they could not at once bring themselves to believe that the\ngods whom they had worshipped had no existence at all, they were\nnaturally led on to ascribe to them a kind of demoniacal nature,\nand to curse them as the offspring of that new principle of Evil\nwith which they had become acquainted in the doctrines of the early\nChurch.... Through the whole of St. Augustine's works, and through\nall the works of earlier Christian divines, there runs the same\nspirit of hostility blinding them to all that may be good, and true,\nand sacred, and magnifying all that is bad, false, and corrupt,\nin the ancient religions of mankind. Only the Apostles and their\nimmediate disciples venture to speak in a different and, no doubt,\nin a more truly Christian spirit of the old forms of worships....\nWhat can be more convincing, more powerful, than the language of St.\nPaul at Athens?\n\n  _Science of Language._\n\n\nThose who believe that there is a God, and that He created heaven\nand earth, and that He ruleth the world by His unceasing providence,\ncannot believe that millions of human beings, all created like\nourselves in the image of God, were, in their time of ignorance, so\nutterly abandoned that their whole religion was falsehood, their\nwhole worship a farce, their whole life a mockery. An honest and\nindependent study of the religions of the world will teach us that\nit was not so, ... that there is no religion which does not contain\nsome grains of truth. Nay, it will teach us more; it will teach us\nto see in the history of the ancient religions, more clearly than\nanywhere else, the _Divine education of the human race_.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nThe Divine, if it is to reveal itself at all to us, will best reveal\nitself in our own human form. However far the human may be from the\nDivine, nothing on earth is nearer to God than man, nothing on earth\nmore godlike than man. And as man grows from childhood to old age,\nthe idea of the Divine must grow with us from the cradle to the\ngrave, from grace to grace. A religion which is not able thus to\ngrow and live with us as we grow and live, is dead already. Definite\nand unvarying uniformity, so far from being a sign of honesty and\nlife, is always a sign of dishonesty and death. Every religion, if\nit is to be a bond between the wise and the foolish, the old and\nthe young, must be pliant, must be high and deep and broad; bearing\nall things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all\nthings. The more it is so, the greater its vitality, the greater the\nstrength and warmth of its embrace.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\n\n\nREVELATION\n\n\nTrue inspiration is, and always has been, the spirit of truth\nwithin, and this is but another name for the spirit of God. It is\ntruth that makes inspiration, not inspiration that makes truth.\nWhoever knows what truth is knows also what inspiration is: not only\n_theopneustos_, blown into the soul by God, but the very voice of\nGod, the real presence of God, the only presence in which we, as\nhuman beings, can ever perceive Him.\n\n  _Autobiography._\n\n\nThere is nothing in the idea of revelation that excludes progress,\nfor whatever definition of revelation we may adopt, it always\nrepresents a communication between the Divine on one side and\nthe Human on the other. Let us grant that the Divine element in\nrevelation, that is, whatever of truth there is in revelation, is\nimmutable, yet the human element, the recipient, must always be\nliable to the accidents and infirmities of human nature. That human\nelement can never be eliminated in any religion.... To ignore that\nhuman element in all religions is like ignoring the eye as the\nrecipient and determinant of the colours of light. We know more of\nthe sun than our forefathers, though the same sun shone on them that\nshines on us; and if astronomy has benefited by its telescopes,\n... theology also ought not to despise whatever can strengthen the\nfar-sightedness of human reason in its endeavour to gain a truer\nand purer idea of the Divine. A veil will always remain. But as in\nevery other pursuit, so in religion also, we want less and less\nof darkness, more and more of light; we want, call it life, or\ngrowth, or development, or progress; we do not want mere rest, mere\nstagnation, mere death.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nIt was the sense of an overpowering truth which led to the admission\nof a revelation. But while in the beginning truth made revelation,\nit soon came to pass that revelation was supposed to make truth.\nWhen we see this happening in every part of the world, when we can\nwatch the psychological progress which leads in the most natural way\nto a belief in supernatural inspiration, it will hardly be said that\nan historical study of religion may be useful to the antiquarian,\nbut cannot help us to solve the burning questions of the day.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nI believe in one revelation only--the revelation within us, which is\nmuch better than any revelations which come from without. Why should\nwe look for God and listen for His voice outside us only, and not\nwithin us? Where is the temple of God, or the true kingdom of God?\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThere are Christian mystics who would not place internal revelation,\nor the voice of God within the heart, so far below external\nrevelation. To those who know the presence of God within the heart,\nthis revelation is far more real than any other can be. They hold\nwith St. Paul that man is in the full sense of the word the temple\nof God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth within him, nay, they\ngo even further, and both as Christians and as mystics they cling\nto the belief that all men are one in the Father and the Son, as\nthe Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father. There is no\nconflict in their minds between Christian doctrine and mystic\ndoctrine. They are one and the same in character, the one imparted\nthrough Christ on earth, the other imparted through the indwelling\nspirit of God, which again is Christ, as born within us. The Gospel\nof St. John is full of passages to which the Christian mystic\nclings, and by which he justifies his belief in the indwelling\nspirit of God, or, as he also calls it, the birth of Christ in the\nhuman soul.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nI cannot connect any meaning with a primeval revelation, or with\nan original knowledge of God. A knowledge of God is surely at all\ntimes impossible; man can only trust, he cannot know. He can feel\nthe Infinite, and the Divine, he can never class it or subdue it by\nknowledge. The question seems to me, how our unconscious relation\nto God, which must be there and can never be destroyed, becomes\ngradually more and more conscious; and that is what one can best\nlearn to understand in the history of the various religions of the\nworld--so many voyages of discovery, each full of sufferings and\nheroic feats, all looking towards the same Pole, each to be judged\nby itself, none, I believe, to be condemned altogether.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nTo assume that every word, every letter, every parable, every\nfigure was whispered to the authors of the Gospels, is certainly\nan absurdity, and rests only on human ... authority. But the true\nrevelation, the real truth, as it was already anticipated by the\nGreek philosophers, slowly accepted by Jews, like Philo and the\ncontemporaries of Jesus, taught by men like Clement and Origen in\nthe ancient Greek Church, and, in fine, realised in the life of\nJesus, and sealed by His death, is no absurdity: it is for every\nthinking Christian the eternal life, or the Kingdom of God on earth,\nwhich Jesus wished to establish, and in part did establish. To\nbecome a citizen of this Kingdom is the highest that man can attain,\nbut it is not attained merely through baptism and confirmation; it\nmust be gained in earnest spiritual conflict.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\n\n\nTHE RIG-VEDA\n\n\nThe _Veda_ alone of all works I know treats of a genesis of\nGod-consciousness, compared to which the Theogony of Hesiod is\nlike a worn-out creature. We see it grow slowly and gradually with\nall its contradictions, its sudden terrors, its amazements, and\nits triumphs. As God reveals His Being in nature in her order, her\nindestructibility, in the eternal victory of light over darkness,\nof spring over winter, in the eternally returning course of the\nsun and the stars, so man has gradually spelt out of nature the\nBeing of God, and after trying a thousand names for God in vain,\nwe find Him in the _Veda_ already saying: 'They call him Indra,\nMitra, Varuna; then they call him the Heavenly, the bird with\nbeautiful wings; that which is One they call in various ways.'...\nThe belief in Immortality is only the other side, as it were, of the\nGod-consciousness, and both are originally natural to the Aryan race.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nSCIENCE\n\n\nEvery true Science is like a hardy Alpine guide that leads us on\nfrom the narrow, though it may be the more peaceful and charming,\nvalleys of our preconceived opinions, to higher points, apparently\nless attractive, nay often disappointing for a time, till, after\nhours of patient and silent climbing, we look round and see a new\nworld around us.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nA new horizon has opened, our eyes see far and wide, and as the\nworld beneath us grows wider and larger, our own hearts seem to\ngrow wider and larger, and we learn to embrace the far and distant,\nand all that before seemed strange and indifferent, with a warmer\nrecognition and a deeper human sympathy; we form wider concepts, we\nperceive higher truths.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nWhat is natural is divine; what is supernatural is human.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nMan is the measurer of all things; and what is Science but the\nreflection of the outer world on the mirror of the mind, growing\nmore perfect, more orderly, more definite, more great, with every\ngeneration? To attempt to study nature without studying man is as\nimpossible as to study light without studying the eye. I have no\nmisgivings, therefore, that the lines on which this College (Mason\nScience College) is founded will ever become so narrow as to exclude\nthe science of man, and the science of that which makes man, the\nscience of language, and, what is really the same, the science of\nthought. And where can we study the science of thought, that most\nwonderful instance of development, except in the languages and\nliteratures of the past? How are we to do justice to our ancestors\nexcept by letting them plead their own case in their own language?\nLiterary culture can far better dispense with physical science than\nphysical science with literary culture, though nothing is more\nsatisfactory than a perfect combination of the two.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nTHE SELF\n\n\nAs behind the various gods of nature, one supreme deity was at last\ndiscovered in India, the Brahmans imagined that they perceived\nbehind the different manifestations of feeling, thought, and will\nalso, a supreme power which they called Atma, or Self, and of\nwhich the intellectual powers or faculties were but the outward\nmanifestations. This led to a philosophy which took the place of\nreligion, and recognised in the self the only true being, the\nunborn and therefore immortal element in man. A step further led\nto the recognition of the original identity of the subjective Self\nin man, and the objective Self in nature, and thus, from an Indian\npoint of view, to a solution of all the riddles of the world. The\nfirst commandment of all philosophy, 'Know thyself,' became in the\nphilosophy of the Upanishads, 'Know thyself as the Self,' or, if we\ntranslate it into religious language, 'Know that we live and move\nand have our being in God.'\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\nThe death of a child is as if the flash of the Divine eye had\nturned quickly away from the mirror of this world, before the human\nconsciousness woke up and thought it recognised itself in the\nmirror, often only to perceive for a moment, just as it closes its\neyes for the last time, that that which it took for itself was the\nshadow or reflection of its eternal self.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nA man need not go into a cave because he has found his true Self;\nhe may live and act like everybody else; he is 'living but free.'\nAll remains just the same, except the sense of unchangeable,\nimperishable self which lifts him above the phenomenal self. He\nknows he is wearing clothes, that is all. If a man does not see it,\nif some of his clothes stick to him like his very skin, if he fears\nhe might lose his identity by not being a male instead of a female,\nby not being English instead of German, by not being a child instead\nof a man, he must wait and work on. Good works lead to quietness of\nmind, and quietness of mind to true self-knowledge. Is it so very\nlittle to be only Self, to be the subject that can resist, i.e.\nperceive the whole universe, and turn it into his object? Can we\nwish for more than what we are, lookers-on--resisting what tries to\ncrush us, call it force, or evil, or anything else?\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThe impression made on me by the look of a child who is not yet\nconscious of himself and of the world round him is that of still\nundisturbed godliness. Only when self-consciousness wakes little by\nlittle, through pleasure or pain, when the spirit accustoms itself\nto its bodily covering, when man begins to say _I_ and the world to\ncall things _his_, then the full separation of the human self from\nthe Divine begins, and it is only after long struggles that the\nlight of _true_ self-consciousness sooner or later breaks through\nthe clouds of earthly semblances, and makes us again like the little\nchildren 'of whom is the Kingdom of Heaven.' In God we live and move\nand have our being, that is the sum of all human wisdom, and he who\ndoes not find it here, will find it in another life. All else that\nwe learn on earth, be it the history of nature or of mankind, is\nfor this end alone, to show us everywhere the presence of a Divine\nprovidence, and to lead us through the knowledge of the history of\nthe human spirit to the knowledge of ourselves, and through the\nknowledge of the laws of nature to the understanding of that human\nnature to which we are subjected in life.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nTo my mind the birth of a child is not a breach of the law of\ncontinuity, but on that very ground I must admit the previous\nexistence of the Self that is here born as a child, and\nwhich brings with it into this new order of things simply its\nSelf-consciousness, and even that not developed but undeveloped\npotentia, in a sleep. When afterwards a child awakes to\nself-consciousness, that is really its remembrance of its former\nexistence. The Self which it becomes conscious of, remember, is in\nits essence not of this world only, but of a former as well as of a\nfuture world. This constitutes in fact the only distinct remembrance\nin every human being of a former life. There are besides indistinct\nremembrances of his former existence, viz. the many dispositions\nwhich every thinking man finds in himself, and which are not simply\nthe result of the impressions of this world on a so-called _tabula\nrasa_. Unless we begin life as _tabula rasa_ we begin it as _tabula\npreparata_, as _leukomata_, and whatever colour or disposition,\nor talent, or temperament, whatever there is inexplicable in each\nindividual, that he will perceive, or possibly remember, as the\nresult of the continuity between his present and former life.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWhat, then, is that which we call Death? Separation of the Self from\na living body. If so, does the body die because the Self leaves it,\nor does the Self leave the body because it dies? What has life to do\nwith the Self? Has the Self which for a time dwells in a living body\nanything to do with what we call the life of that body? Does the\nSelf take possession of a body because it lives, or does the body\nlive because the Self has taken possession of it? The difficulty\narises from our vague conception of _life_. Life is only a mode of\nexistence. Existence is possible without what we call life, not\nlife without existence. To live means to be able to absorb, but\nwho or what is able? The Self exists, it is sentient, capable of\nperception by becoming embodied. It is perceptive because sentient,\nit is conceptive because perceptive. The difficulty lies in the\nembodiment. It is there where all philosophy becomes ridiculous.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nKnowledge belongs to the Self alone, call it what we will. The nerve\nfibres might vibrate as often as they pleased, millions and millions\nof times in a second; they could never produce the sensation of\nred if there were no Self as the receiver and illuminator, the\ntranslator of these vibrations of ether; this Self that alone\nreceives, alone illumines, alone knows, and of which we can say\nnothing more than that it exists, that it perceives, and as the\nIndian philosophers add, that it is blessed, _i.e._ that it is\ncomplete in itself, serene, and eternal.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nNothing eternal can have a beginning, and there can be no immortal\nlife after death, unless our true immortal life has been realised\nhere on earth. Hindu philosophers called those who had realised\ntheir true, immortal, eternal, or divine Self 'free while living.'\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nSORROW AND SUFFERING\n\n\nHow mysterious all this suffering is, particularly when it produces\nsuch prostration that it must lose all that elevating power which\none knows suffering does exercise in many cases. It seems sometimes\nas if a large debt of suffering had to be paid off, and that some\nare chosen to pay a large, very large sum, so that others may go\nfree. We have our own burden to bear, but it is a burden that seems\nto make other things easy to bear--it strengthens even when it seems\nto crush. But how could one bear that complete prostration of all\npowers which must make death seem so much preferable to life. And\nyet life goes on, and people care about a hundred little things, and\nbreak their hearts if they do not get them.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nSuch trials as you have had to pass through are not sent without a\npurpose, and if you say that they have changed your views of life,\nsuch a change in a character like yours can only be a change in\nadvance, a firmer faith in those truths which have been revealed\nto the dim sight of human nature, a stronger will to resist all\nfalsehood and tampering with the truth, and a deeper conviction that\nwe owe our life to Him who has given it, and that we must fight His\nbattle when He calls us to do it.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nGod knows that we want rain and storm as much as sunshine, and He\nsends us both as seems best to His love and wisdom. When all breaks\ndown He lifts us up. But when we feel quite crushed and forsaken and\nalone, we then feel the real presence of our truest Friend, who,\nwhether by joys or sorrows, is always calling us to Him, and leading\nus to that true Home where we shall find Him, and in Him all we\nloved, with Him all we believed, and through Him all we hoped for\nand aspired to on earth. Our broken hearts are the truest earnest of\neverlasting life.\n\n  _Life._\n\nWe must submit, but we must feel it a great blessing to be able to\nsubmit, to be able to trust that infinite Love which embraces us on\nall sides, which speaks to us through every flower and every worm,\nwhich always shows us beauty and perfection, which never mars, never\ndestroys, never wastes, never deceives, never mocks.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThere is but one help and one comfort in these trials, that is, to\nknow by whom they are sent. If one knows that nothing can happen to\nus without Him, one does not feel quite helpless, even under the\ngreatest terrors of this life.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nHow little one thinks that many trials and afflictions may come upon\nus any day. One lives as if life were to last for ever, and as if we\nshould never part with those who are most dear to us. Life would be\nintolerable were it otherwise, but how little one is prepared for\nwhat life really is.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWhy is there so much suffering in this world? I cannot think it\nimproves us much, and yet it must have its purpose. All these are\nquestions far too high for us--we are like children, and more\nthan children, when we come to think of them. All we know is that\nwhere we catch a glimpse of God's handiwork, either in the natural\nor moral world, it is so wonderfully perfect, so beyond all our\nmeasures, that we feel safe as in a good ship, however rough the sea\nmay be. Whatever we may believe, or hope, or wish for, will be far\nexceeded by that Higher Will and Wisdom which supports all, even us\nlittle souls.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThe sorrows of life are inevitable, but they are hard to bear, for\nall that. They would be harder still if we did not see their purpose\nof reminding us that our true life is not here, but that we are here\non a voyage that may be calm or stormy, and which is to teach us\nwhat all sailors have to learn, courage, perseverance, kindness, and\nin the end complete trust in a Higher Power.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nSorrow is necessary and good for men; one learns to understand that\neach joy must be indemnified by suffering, that each new tie which\nknits our hearts to this life must be loosed again, and the tighter\nand the closer it was knit, the keener the pain of loosening it.\nShould we then attach our hearts to nothing, and pass quietly and\nunsympathetically through this world, as if we had nothing to do\nwith it? We neither could nor ought to act so. Nature itself knits\nthe first tie between parents and children, and new ties through\nour whole life. We are not here for reward, for the enjoyment\nof undisturbed peace or from mere accident, but for trial, for\nimprovement, perhaps for punishment; for the only union which can\nsecure the happiness of men, the union between our Self and God's\nSelf, is broken, or at least obscured, by our birth, and the\nhighest object of our life is to find this bond again, to remain\never conscious of it and hold fast to it in life and in death. This\nrediscovery of the eternal union between God and man constitutes\ntrue religion among all people.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nEvery one carries a grave of lost hope in his soul, but he covers it\nover with cold marble, or with green boughs. On sad days one likes\nto go alone to this God's acre of the soul, and weep there, but only\nin order to return full of comfort and hope to those who are left to\nus.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThe sorrows of life, like all other things, pass away, and the\nlarger the number who await us beyond, the easier the parting from\nthose we leave behind.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nGrief is a sweet remembrance of happiness that was.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThere is the old riddle always before me, why was ... taken from me?\nHuman understanding has no answer for it, and yet I feel as certain\nas I can feel of anything that as it is, it is good, it is best,\nbetter than anything I can wish for. One feels one's own ignorance\nwhy what seems so right and natural should not be, and yet one knows\nit could not be. One hides one's head in the arms of a Higher Power,\na Friend, a Father, and more than a Father. Wait, and you will know.\nWork, and you will be able to bear it.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nPeople think that grief is pain, but it is not so: Grief, the\nabsorption in the quiet recollection of what was, but is no longer,\nis a pleasure, a consolation, a blessing.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nThose who would comfort us by bidding us forget our grief, and join\ntheir happy gatherings, do not know what comfort is. Hearts which\nhave suffered have a right to what the world may call grief and\nsorrow, but what is really a quiet communion with those whom we\nlove, and whom we can find no longer among the laughter of the happy.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWhat can we pray for? Not for special gifts, but only for God's\nmercy. We do not know what is good for us, and for others. What\nwould become of the world if all our prayers were granted? And yet\nit is good to pray--that is, to live in all our joys and sorrows\nwith God, that unknown God whom we cannot reason with, but whom we\ncan love and trust. Human misery, outward and inward, is certainly\na great problem, and yet one knows from one's own life how just the\nheaviest burdens have been blessings. The soul must be furrowed if\nit is to bear fruit.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWhat is the tenure of all our happiness? Are we not altogether\nat the mercy of God? Would it not be fearful to live for one day\nunless we knew, and saw, and felt His Presence and Wisdom and Love\nencompassing us on all sides? If we once feel that, then even death,\neven the death of those we love best and who love us best, loses\nmuch of its terror: it is part and parcel of one great system of\nwhich we see but a small portion here, and which without death,\nwithout that bridge of which we see here but the first arch, would\nseem to be a mere mockery. That is why I said to you it is well that\nhuman art cannot prolong our life for ever, and in that sentiment I\nshould think we both agree. I have felt much for you, more than I\ncared to say. We are trained differently, but we are all trained for\nsome good purpose, and the suffering which you have undergone is to\nme like deep ploughing, the promise of a rich harvest.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThere is a large and secret brotherhood in this world, the members\nof which easily recognise each other, without any visible outward\nsign. It is the band of mourners. The members of this brotherhood\nneed not necessarily wear mourning; they can even rejoice with the\njoyful, and they seldom sigh or weep when others see them. But they\nrecognise and understand each other, without uttering a word, like\ntired wanderers who, climbing a steep mountain, overtake other tired\nwanderers, and pause, and then silently go on again, knowing that\nthey all hope to see the same glorious sunset high up above. Their\ncountenances reflect a soft moonlight; when they speak, one thinks\nof the whispering of the leaves of a beech forest after a warm\nspring shower, and as the rays of the sun light up the drops of dew\nwith a thousand colours, and drink them up from the green grass, a\nheavenly light seems to shine through the tears of the mourners, to\nlighten them, and lovingly kiss them away. Almost every one, sooner\nor later, enters this brotherhood, and those who enter it early may\nbe considered fortunate, for they learn, before it is too late, that\n_all_ which man calls his own is only lent him for a short time, and\nthe ivy of their affections does not cling so deeply and so strongly\nto the old walls of earthly happiness.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWe cannot know, we cannot name the Divine, nor can we understand\nits ways as manifested in nature and human life. We ask why there\nshould be suffering and sin, we cannot answer the question. All we\ncan say is, it is willed to be so. Some help our human understanding\nmay find, however, by simply imagining what would have been our\nlife if the power of evil had not been given us. It seems to me\nthat in that case we, human beings as we are, should never have had\na conception of what is meant by good: we should have been like\nthe birds in the air, happier, it may be, but better, no. Or if\nsuffering had always been reserved for the bad, we should all have\nbecome the most cunning angels. Often when I am met by a difficulty\nwhich seems insoluble, I try that experiment, and say, Let us see\nwhat would happen if it were otherwise. Still, I confess there is\nsome suffering on earth which goes beyond all understanding, which\neven the truest Christian love and charity seems unable to remove\nor mitigate. It can teach us one thing only, that we are blind, and\nthat in the darkness of the night we lose our faith in a Dawn which\nwill drive away darkness, fear, and despair. Much, no doubt, could\nbe done even by what is now called Communism, but what in earlier\ndays was called Christianity. And then one wonders whether the\nworld can ever again become truly Christian. I dare not call myself\na Christian. I have hardly met the men in all my life who deserved\nthat name. Again, I say, let us do our best, knowing all the time\nthat our best is a mere nothing.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nTHE SOUL\n\n\nThe name of the immortal element (in man) was not given to man as a\ngratuitous gift. It had to be gained, like the name of God, in the\nsweat of his face. Before man could say that he believed his soul\nto be immortal, he had to discover that there was a soul in man. It\nrequired as great an effort to form such a word as _anima_, breath,\nand to make it signify the infinite in man, as to form such a word\nas _diva_, bright, and to make it signify the infinite in nature.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nTo us the two words 'body and soul' are so familiar that it seems\nalmost childish to ask how man came at first to speak of body and\nsoul. But what did he mean by soul? What do we ourselves mean by\nsoul? Think of the many meanings contained in our word soul. Our\nsoul may mean the living soul; it may mean the sentient soul; it may\nmean the seat of the passions, whether good or bad; it may mean\nthe organ of thought; and lastly, the immortal element in man. The\nquestion we have to ask is not how man arrived at a name for soul,\nbut how he came for the first time to speak of something different\nfrom the body.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nThe discovery of the soul, the first attempts at naming the soul,\nstarted everywhere from the simplest observations of material facts.\nThe lesson cannot be inculcated too often that the whole wealth of\nour most abstract and spiritual words comes from a small number of\nmaterial or concrete terms.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nWe see that the way which led to the discovery of a soul was pointed\nout to man as clearly as was the way which led him to the discovery\nof the gods. It was chiefly the breath, which almost visibly\nleft the body at the time of death, that suggested the name of\nbreath, and afterwards the thought of something breathing, living,\nperceiving, willing, remembering, and thinking within us. The name\ncame first, the name of the material breath. By dropping what seemed\nmaterial even in this airy breath, there remained the first vague\nand airy concept of what we call soul.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nThe worship of the spirits of the departed which, under various\nforms, was so widely spread over the ancient world, could not but\naccustom the human mind to the idea that there was something in man\nwhich deserved such worship. The souls of the departed were lifted\nhigher and higher, till at last they reached the highest stage which\nexisted in the human mind, namely, that of divine beings, in the\nancient sense of that word.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nThe problem of uniting the invisible and visible worlds presented\nitself under three principal aspects. The first was the problem\nof creation, or how the invisible Primal Cause could ever come in\ncontact with visible matter and impart to it form and meaning. The\nsecond problem was the relation between God and the individual\nsoul. The third problem was the return of the soul from the visible\nto the invisible world, from the prison of its mortal body to the\nfreedom of a heavenly paradise. The individual soul as dwelling in a\nmaterial body forms part of the created world, and the question of\nthe return of the soul to God is therefore closely connected with\nthat of its creation by, or its emanation from, God.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nWhen the original oneness of earth and heaven, of the human and\nthe divine natures, has once been discovered, the question of the\nreturn of the soul to God assumes a new character. It is no longer\na question of an ascension to heaven, an approach to the throne of\nGod, an ecstatic vision of God, and a life in a heavenly Paradise.\nThe vision of God is rather the knowledge of the divine element\nin the soul, and of the consubstantiality of the divine and human\nnatures. Immortality has no longer to be asserted, because there\ncan be no death for what is divine, and therefore immortal, in man.\nThere is life eternal and peace eternal for all who feel the divine\nSpirit as dwelling within them, and have thus become the children of\nGod.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nNo doubt the soul must find it difficult in childhood to accustom\nitself to the human body, and it takes many years before it is quite\nat home. Then for a time all goes well, and the soul hardly knows it\nis hidden in a strange garment till the body begins to be weakly,\nand can no longer do all the soul wishes, and presses it everywhere,\nso that the soul appears to lose all outward freedom and movement.\nThen one can well understand that we long to be gone, and death is\na true deliverance. God always knows best when the right time comes.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nLet us remember that we do not know what the soul was before this\nlife--nay, even what it was during the first years of our childhood.\nYet we believe on very fair evidence that what we call our soul\nexisted from the moment of our birth. What ground have we, then, to\ndoubt that it was even before that moment? To ascribe to the soul a\nbeginning on our birthday would be the same as to claim for it an\nend on the day of our death, for whatever has a beginning has an\nend. If then, in the absence of any other means of knowledge, we\nmay take refuge in analogy, might we not say that it will be with\nthe soul hereafter as it has been here, and that the soul after its\nearthly setting will rise again, much as it rose here? This is not\na syllogism, it is analogy, and in a cosmos like ours analogy has\na right to claim some weight, in the absence of any proof to the\ncontrary.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nThere is a question which has probably been asked by every human\nheart--Granting that the soul cannot, without self-contradiction,\nbe mortal, will that soul be itself, know itself, and will it know\nothers whom it has known before? For the next life, it is said,\nwould not be worth living if the soul did not recollect itself,\nrecognise not only itself, but those whom it has known and loved on\nearth. Here analogy alone can supply some kind of answer: 'It will\nbe hereafter as it has been' is not, in the absence of any evidence\nto the contrary, an argument that can be treated with contempt. Our\nsoul here may be said to have risen without any recollection of\nitself and of the circumstances of its former existence. But it has\nwithin it the consciousness of its eternity, and the conception of\na beginning is as impossible for it as that of an end, and if souls\nwere to meet again hereafter as they met in this life, as they loved\nin this life, without knowing that they had met and loved before,\nwould the next life be so very different from what this life has\nbeen here on earth--would it be so utterly intolerable and really\nnot worth living?\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nWhen the soul has once reached that union with God, nay, when\nit lives in the constant presence of God, evil becomes almost\nimpossible. We know that most of the evil deeds to which human\nnature is prone are possible in the dark only. Before the eyes of\nanother human being, more particularly of a beloved being, they\nbecome at once impossible. How much more in the real presence of a\nreal and really beloved God, as felt by the true mystic, not merely\nas a phrase, but as a fact? As long as there is no veil between\nhim and God, evil thoughts, evil words, and evil deeds are simply\nimpossible to one who feels the actual presence of God. Nor is he\ntroubled any longer by questions, such as how the world was created,\nhow evil came into the world. He is satisfied with the Divine Love\nthat embraces his soul; he has all that he can desire, his whole\nlife is hid through Christ in God, death is swallowed up in victory,\nthe mortal has become immortal, neither death nor life, nor things\npresent, nor things to come, is able to separate his soul from the\nlove of God.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\n\n\nTHEOSOPHY\n\n\nThis venerable name (Theosophy), so well known among early Christian\nthinkers, as expressing the highest conception of God within the\nreach of the human mind, has of late been so greatly misappropriated\nthat it is high time to restore it to its proper function. It should\nbe known once for all that one may call oneself a theosophist\nwithout ... believing in any occult sciences and black art.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, IV._\n\n\nThere is nothing esoteric in Buddhism. Buddhism is the very opposite\nof esoteric--it is a religion for the people at large, for the\npoor, the suffering, the ill-treated. Buddha protests against the\nvery idea of keeping anything secret. There was much more of that\nesoteric teaching in Br\u00e2hmanism. There was the system of caste,\nwhich deprived the S\u00fbdras, at least, of many religious privileges.\nBut I do say that even in Br\u00e2hmanism there is _no such thing as\nan esoteric interpretation of the S\u00e2stras._ The S\u00e2stras have but\none meaning, and all who had been properly prepared by education\nhad access to them. There are some artificial poems, which are\nso written as to admit of two interpretations. They are very\nwonderful, but they have nothing to do with philosophical doctrines.\nAgain, there are erotic poems in Sanscrit which are explained as\ncelebrating the love and union between the soul and God. But all\nthis is perfectly well known, there is no mystery in it.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nTRUTH\n\n\nWhat is wanted is the power of sifting evidence, and a simple love\nof truth. Whatever value we may attach to our own most cherished\nconvictions, there is something more cherished than all of them, and\nthat is a perfect trust in truth, if once we have seen it.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nTrue reverence does not consist in declaring a subject, because it\nis dear to us, to be unfit for free, and honest inquiry; far from\nit! True reverence is shown in treating every subject, however\nsacred, however dear to us, with perfect confidence, without fear\nand without favour; with tenderness and love, by all means, but,\nbefore all, with unflinching and uncompromising loyalty to truth.\n\n  _Science of Religion._\n\n\nDo we lose anything if we find that what we hold to be the most\nvaluable truth is shared in and supported by millions of human\nbeings? Ancient philosophers were most anxious to support their own\nbelief in God by the unanimous testimony of mankind. They made the\ngreatest efforts to prove that there was no race so degraded and\nbarbarous as to be without a belief in something divine. Some modern\ntheologians seem to grudge to all religions but their own the credit\nof having a pure and true, nay any concept of God at all, quite\nforgetful of the fact that a truth does not cease to be a truth\nbecause it is accepted universally. I know no heresy more dangerous\nto true religion than this denial that a true concept of God is\nwithin the reach of every human being, is, in fact, the common\ninheritance of mankind, however fearfully it may have been misused\nand profaned by Christian and un-Christian nations.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nIf Comparative Theology has taught us anything, it has taught us\nthat there is a common fund of truth in all religions, derived from\na revelation that was neither confined to one nation, nor miraculous\nin the usual sense of that word, and that even minute coincidences\nbetween the doctrines, nay, between the external accessories of\nvarious religions, need not be accounted for at once by disguised\nborrowings, but can be explained by other and more natural causes.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nCan there be anything higher and better than truth? Is any kind of\nreligion possible without an unquestioning trust in truth? No one\nknows what it is to believe who has not learnt to believe in truth,\nfor the sake of truth, and for the sake of truth only.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nIt may be quite right to guard against dangers, whether real or\nimaginary, so long as it is possible. But when it is no longer\npossible, the right thing is to face an enemy bravely. Very often\nthe enemy will turn out a friend in disguise. We cannot be far\nwrong, if we are only quite honest, but if we are once not quite\nhonest over a few things, we shall soon become dishonest over many\nthings. In teaching on religion, even on Natural religion, we must\nlook neither right nor left, but look all facts straight in the\nface, to see whether they are facts or not, and, if they are facts,\nto find out what they mean.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nSome people say that they can derive no help, no comfort, from what\nthey call spiritual _only_. Spiritual _only_--think what that _only_\nwould mean, if it could have any meaning at all. We might as well\nsay of light that it is light only, and that what we want is the\nshadow which we can grasp. So long as we know the shadow only, and\nnot the light that throws it, the shadow only is real, and not the\nlight. But when we have once turned our head and seen the light, the\nlight only is real and substantial, and not the shadow.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nWe find in the Upanishads, what has occupied the thoughts of man at\nall times, what occupies them now and will occupy them for ever--a\nsearch after truth, a desire to discover the Eternal that underlies\nthe Ephemeral, a longing to find in the human heart the assurance of\na future life, and an attempt to reunite the bond which once held\nthe human and the divine together, the true atonement between God\nand man.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, III._\n\n\nWe have toiled for many years and been troubled with many\nquestionings, but what is the end of it all? We must learn to become\nsimple again like little children. That is all we have a right to\nbe: for this life was meant to be the childhood of our souls, and\nthe more we try to be what we were meant to be, the better for us.\nLet us use the powers of our minds with the greatest freedom and\nlove of truth, but let us never forget that we are, as Newton said,\nlike children playing on the seashore, while the great ocean of\ntruth lies undiscovered before us.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nNothing I like better than when I meet a man who differs from me;\nhe always gives me something, and for that I am grateful. Nor am I\nat all so hopeless as many people, who imagine that two people who\ndiffer can never arrive at a mutual understanding.... Why do people\ndiffer, considering that they all begin with the same love of truth,\nand are all influenced by the same environment? Well, they often\ndiffer because one is ignorant of facts which the other knows and\nhas specially studied.... But in most cases people differ because\nthey use their words loosely, and because they mix up different\nsubjects instead of treating them one by one.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\n\n\nTHE WILL OF GOD\n\n\nThrough my whole life I have learnt this one lesson, that nothing\ncan happen to us, unless it be the will of God. There can be no\ndisappointment in life, if we but learn to submit our will to the\nwill of God. Let us wait for a little while, and to those whose eyes\nare turned to God and eternity the longest life is but a little\nwhile,--let us wait then in faith, hope, and charity: these three\nabide, but the greatest of these is charity.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nWhatever happens to us is always the best for us, even if we do not\nat once understand and perceive it.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nSurely everything is ordered, and ordered for our true interests.\nIt would be fearful to think that anything, however small in\nappearance, could happen to us without the will of God. If you\nadmit the idea of chance or unmeaning events anywhere, the whole\norganisation of our life in God is broken to pieces. We are we\ndon't know where, unless we rest in God and give Him praise for all\nthings. We must trust in Him whether he sends us joy or sorrow.\nIf he sends us joy let us be careful. Happiness is often sent to\ntry us, and is by no means a proof of our having deserved it. Nor\nis sorrow always a sign of God's displeasure, but frequently, nay\nalways, of His love and compassion. We must each interpret our\nlife as best we can, but we must be sure that its deepest purpose\nis to bring us back to God through Christ. Death is a condition of\nour life on earth, it brings the creature back to its Creator. The\ncreature groans at the sight of death, but God will not forsake us\nat the last, He who has never forsaken us from the first breath\nof our life on earth. If it is His will we may live to serve Him\nhere on earth for many happy years to come. If He takes either of\nus away, His name be praised. We live in the shadow of death, but\nthat shadow should not darken the brightness of our life. It is\nthe shadow of the hand of our God and Father, and the earnest of a\nhigher, brighter life hereafter. Our Father in heaven loves us more\nthan any husband can love his wife, or any mother her child. His\nhand can never hurt us, so let us hope and trust always.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nOur lives are in the hands of a Father, who knows what is best for\nall of us. Death is painful to the creature, but in God there is\nno death, no dying; dying belongs to life, and is only a passage\nto a more perfect world into which we all go when God calls us.\nWhen one's happiness is perfect, then the thought of death often\nfrightens one, but even that is conquered by the feeling and the\nfaith that all is best as it is, and that God loves us more than\neven a father and mother can love us. It is a beautiful world in\nwhich we live, but it is only beautiful and only really our home\nwhen we feel the nearness of God at each moment and lean on Him and\ntrust in His love.... When the hour of parting comes, we know that\nlove never dies, and that God who bound us closely together in this\nlife will bring us together where there is no more parting.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nOur meeting here on earth with those we loved was not our doing. We\ndid not select our father and mother, and sisters and brothers. We\ndid not even explore the whole world to discover our friends. They\ntoo were more or less given us, the choice was given us, and the\nsphere of choice was determined and limited. Hence we seem to have\na right to say that they were meant for us, and we for them, and\nunless we believe in accident, who is there by whose will alone they\ncould have been meant for us? Hence, if they were meant for us once\nby a Divine, not by our own will, that will can never change, and we\nhave a right to hope and even to believe that _what has been will\nbe_, and that we shall again meet and love those whom we met and\nloved here. This is faith, and this is comfort, but it is greater\nfaith, and greater comfort still, if we close our eyes in the firm\nconviction that whatever will be, will be best for us.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\n\n\nWONDER\n\n\nThere are few sensations more pleasant than that of wondering. We\nhave all experienced it in childhood, in youth, in manhood, and\nwe may hope that even in our old age this affection of the mind\nwill not entirely pass away. If we analyse this feeling of wonder\ncarefully, we shall find that it consists of two elements. What we\nmean by wondering is not only that we are startled or stunned--that\nI should call the merely passive element of wonder. When we say 'I\nwonder' we confess that we are taken aback, but there is a secret\nsatisfaction mixed up with our feeling of surprise, a kind of\nhope, nay, almost of certainty, that sooner or later the wonder\nwill cease, that our senses or our mind will recover, will grapple\nwith these novel expressions or experiences, grasp them, it may\nbe, know them, and finally triumph over them. In fact we wonder at\nthe riddles of nature, whether animate or inanimate, with a firm\nconviction that there is a solution to them all, even though we\nourselves may not be able to find it. Wonder, no doubt, arises from\nignorance, but from a peculiar kind of ignorance, from what might be\ncalled a fertile ignorance; an ignorance which, if we look back at\nthe history of most of our sciences, will be found to have been the\nmother of all human knowledge.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\n\n\nWORDS\n\n\nWhat people call 'mere words' are in truth the monuments of the\nfiercest intellectual battles; triumphant arches of the grandest\nvictories won by the intellect of man. When man had formed names\nfor body and soul, for father and mother, and not till then, did\nthe first art of human history begin. Not till there were names for\nright and wrong, for God and man, could there be anything worthy of\nthe name of human society. Every new word was a discovery, and these\nearly discoveries, if but properly understood, are more important to\nus than the greatest conquests of the kings of Egypt and Babylon.\nNot one of our greatest explorers has unearthed more splendid\npalaces, than the etymologist. Every word is the palace of a human\nthought, and in scientific etymology we possess the charm with which\nto call these ancient thoughts back to life.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nCannot a concept exist without a word? Certainly not, though in\norder to meet every possible objection we may say that no concept\ncan exist without a sign, whether it be a word or anything else.\nAnd if it is asked whether the concept exists first, and the sign\ncomes afterwards, I should say no: the two are simultaneous, but in\nstrict logic, the sign, being the condition of a concept, may really\nbe said to come first. After a time, words may be dropt, and it is\nthen, when we try to remember the old word that gave birth to our\nconcept, that we are led to imagine that concepts came first, and\nwords afterwards. I know how difficult it is to see this clearly. We\nare so accustomed to think without words, that we can hardly realise\nthe fact that originally no conceptual thought was possible without\nthese or other signs.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, I._\n\n\n\n\nWORK\n\n\nIf you have found a work to which you are ready to sacrifice the\nwhole of your life, and if you have faith in yourselves, others will\nhave faith in you, and, sooner or later, a work that must be done\nwill be done.\n\n  _Gifford Lectures, II._\n\n\nWhat flimsy things the so-called pleasures of life are--how little\nin them that lasts. To delight in doing one's work is life--that\nis what helps us on, though the road is sometimes very stiff and\ntiring--uphill rather it would seem than downhill, and yet downhill\nit is.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nA distaste for work is only another name for a distaste for duty,\na disregard for those commandments which hold society together, a\ndisregard of the commandments of God. No doubt there is that reward\nin work that after a time it ceases to be distasteful, and like many\na bitter medicine becomes liked, but that reward is vouchsafed to\nhonest work only.\n\n  _MS._\n\n\nWork is the best healer of sorrow. In grief or disappointment try\nhard work; it will not fail you.\n\n  _Autobiography._\n\n\nNo sensible man ought to care about posthumous praise, or posthumous\nblame. Enough for the day is the evil thereof. Our contemporaries\nare our right judges, our peers have to give their votes in the\ngreat academies and learned societies, and if they on the whole\nare not dissatisfied with the little we have done, often under far\ngreater difficulties than the world was aware of, why should we care\nfor the distant future?\n\n  _Autobiography._\n\n\nPut your whole heart, or your whole love into your work.\nHalf-hearted work is really worse than no work.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nMuch of the best work in the world is done by those whose names\nremain unknown, who work because life's greatest bliss is work,\nand who require no reward beyond the consciousness that they have\nenlarged the knowledge of mankind and contributed their share to the\nfinal triumph of honesty and truth.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nTrue immortality (of fame) is the immortality of the work done by\nman, which nothing can make undone, which lives, works on, grows\non for ever. It is good to _ourselves_ to remember and honour the\nnames of our ancestors and benefactors, but to them, depend upon\nit, the highest reward was not the hope of fame, but their faith\nin themselves, their faith in their work, their faith that nothing\nreally good can ever perish, and that Right and Reason must in the\nend prevail.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nIt is given to few scholars only to be allowed to devote the whole\nof their time and labour to the one subject in which they feel the\ndeepest interest. We have all to fight the battle of life before we\ncan hope to secure a quiet cell in which to work in the cause of\nlearning and truth.\n\n  _Chips._\n\n\nWhat author has ever said the last word he wanted to say, and who\nhas not had to close his eyes before he could write _Finis_ to his\nwork?\n\n  _Autobiography._\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORLD\n\n\nThere is no other Christian explanation of the world than that God\nthought and uttered it, and that man follows in life and thought\nthe thoughts of God. We must not forget that all our knowledge and\nhold of the world are again nothing but thoughts, which we transform\nunder the law of causality into objective realities. It was this\nunswerving dependence on God in thought and life that made Jesus\nwhat He was, and what we should be if we only tried, viz. children\nof God.\n\n  _Silesian Horseherd._\n\n\nI cannot help seeing order, law, reason or Logos in the world, and I\ncannot account for it by merely _ex post_ events, call them what you\nlike--survival of the fittest, natural selection, or anything else.\n\n  _Last Essays._\n\n\nThink only what it was to believe in an order of the world, though\nit be no more at first than a belief that the sun will never\noverstep his bounds. It was all the difference between a chaos and\na cosmos, between the blind play of chance and an intelligible and\ntherefore an intelligent providence. How many souls, even now when\neverything else has failed them, when they have parted with the\nmost cherished convictions of their childhood, when their faith in\nman has been poisoned, and when the apparent triumph of all that is\nselfish, ignoble, and hideous has made them throw up the cause of\ntruth, of righteousness, and innocence as no longer worth fighting\nfor, at least in this world; how many, I say, have found their\nlast peace and comfort in the contemplation of the order of the\nworld, whether manifested in the unvarying movement of the stars,\nor revealed in the unvarying number of the petals and stamens and\npistils of the smallest forget-me-not. How many have felt that\nto belong to this cosmos, to this beautiful order of nature, is\nsomething at least to rest on, something to trust, something to\nbelieve, when everything else has failed. To us, this perception of\nlaw and order in the world may seem very little, but to the ancient\ndwellers on earth, who had little else to support them, it was\neverything because, if once perceived, if once understood, it could\nnever be taken from them.\n\n  _Hibbert Lectures._\n\n\nWe must learn to see a meaning in everything. No doubt we cannot\nalways see cause and effect, and it is well we cannot. It is quite\ntrue that we do not always get our deserts. And yet we must believe\nthat we do--only if we knew it, the whole fabric of the world would\nbe destroyed, there would be neither virtue nor vice in the whole\nworld, nothing but calculation. We should avoid the rails laid down\nby the world because we should know that the engine would be sure\nto come and mangle us. In this way the world holds together, and it\ncould not in any other way.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nThere is to me a beauty and mystery and sanctity about flowers, and\nwhen I see them come and go, no one knows whence and whither, I ask\nwhat more miracles do we want,--what better, more beautiful, more\norderly world could we wish to belong to than that by which we are\nsurrounded and supported on all sides? Where is there a flaw or a\nfault? Then why should we fear unless the flaws are within us, and\nwe will not see the blessing and the rest which we might enjoy if\nwe only trusted to the Author of all that beauty, order, and wisdom\nabout us. It is a perfect sin not to be happy in this world, and\nhow much of the misery which there is, is the work of men, or could\nbe removed by men, if they would but work together for each others'\ngood.\n\n  _Life._\n\n\nPrinted by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the\nEdinburgh University Press.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nMinor typographical errors have been corrected without note.\nIrregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as\nprinted.\n\nPage 81: \"There no _chance_ in life ...\" The transcriber has\ninserted \"is\".","title":"Thoughts on Life and Religion: An Aftermath from the Writings of The Right Honourable Professor Max M\u00fcller","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":47003}