by lawful means, by frugality, industry, enterprise, has no doubt in modern times conferred great benefits upon society; and such conduct the principles of Christianity certainly do not condemn. If we make the required abatements, we shall not, I think, say more than this, that Christ strongly asserted the greater importance of a future life,—a lesson which surely will not make us unprofitable here, if we keep strictly to the belief that our happiness in that future depends upon our doing our duty here. And, willing as I am to recognise the blessings of industrial progress, I would contend that the love of gain needs to be restrained, that it must be kept subordinate to higher principles, and that Christ's teaching in this matter is very valuable for this end.

Mr. Mill has charged the moral teaching of Christ with being too negative, with dealing too much in thou shalt not' rather than thou shalt.'1 But in the face of such earnest injunctions to active benevolence as are to be found in the Gospels, this charge cannot be sustained. Both by word and example Christ taught a life of active usefulness. His ideal was not the contemplative life, not the life of the monk, or the hermit, or the quietist. He went about doing good. And that system of worship which he taught, viz., instruction in divine things,

1 See Essay on Liberty,' People's Edition, p. 29.

reflection upon God and duty, and man's highest prospects, confession and repentance for sin, prayer, praise, thanksgiving, acts of Christian commemoration, and of fellowship with him and his Church, this system I say he taught, not as a substitute, but as a help to active goodness; and even those who see in worship no good except its natural reflex action upon the mind, must I think allow that such a system was purifying, elevating, strengthening. Compare it with the mysteries, sacrifices, pilgrimages, ceremonies, austerities, priestly ordinances of superstitious worship. Do we not indeed see a contrast?

Christ, it is true, brought out the passive more than the active virtues, as those words are commonly understood. We hear much of love, patience, forbearance, meekness,-less of courage, energy, perseverance. Here, again, we have an instance of the relative and incomplete character of Christ's commands. What he said took a special character from the times. The passive virtues needed most to be raised in men's esteem, and fostered in their practice. Something, too, must be allowed for the religious standpoint. We hear from Christ of humility, not magnanimity. But can we be surprised at this when we call to mind that Christ taught, not as the philosophers, with

human society only in view, but as the messenger from God, who saw man weak and sinful, ever in

relation to God, infinitely great and good.

Can

his teaching be said to cherish a mean or abject character in man, when it bids him always to remember that he is the child of a heavenly father? Christ may not have urged enterprise, energy, perseverance; but when he so strenuously repressed pride, sensuality, contention, did he not take out of the way the most dangerous adversaries to industrial progress? Patriotism, too, it is said, that he neglected. But is not this virtue comprehended in the Christian notion of our duty to our neighbour?

PART III.

I will go on now to my second head, the conformity of Christian doctrine to the teaching of conscience. Here, I allow, that we enter upon less certain ground. The moral faculty in man may reasonably be supposed to be a much better judge of right and wrong between man and man than between man and God. Obviously, the relation of the Creator to his creatures must be far different from that of any man to another. To take an illustration, in all civilised countries nothing has been more strenuously forbidden and checked than

the taking of one man's life by another. Further, it has come to be allowed that the right to take human life, which the state claims, is limited to peculiar cases. Yet life so sacred between man and man is universally held to be at the absolute disposal of God. Ultimately, he gives, and it is for him to take away. Plainly, if life be his gift, it is his part

What Mr. Mill1

to determine the amount of the gift. has said about nature's apparent disregard of life, may be true as regards matter of fact, but, after all, it is no impeachment of God as a moral being. On the hypothesis of religion, viz., that he places us here to prepare for a future state, the only condition needed to justify any seeming abruptness in calling us hence is that the time of the summons will be upon the whole and in the end for our good. We might find other illustrations, as, for instance, an alleged appearance of want of care for veracity on the part of God, inasmuch as he has left man to be so often, so long, and sometimes so mischievously, misled by the appearances of nature. The answer

is of course plain that the obligation to truth exists only in a certain defined relation, that of communicating thought between two beings, and that this relation does not exist in nature between man and God. In short, we may say that no specific human

1 See 'Essay on Nature,' p. 28.

2 Lecky's 'History of European Morals,' vol. i. p. 56.

analogies will correctly represent the relations between God and man. Nor perhaps can any idea which our minds can frame. Hence, if we admit, as I think that we must admit, the validity of the moral law, even for the actions of God, we are embarrassed by questions of form and application. But we are not obliged on that account, I hold, to lay aside the thought before us. Uncertainty as to some matters of detail does not destroy the whole value of knowledge; and if the reasoning of these essays be sound, we can obtain a secure foundation for religion only by assuming that conscience does reveal, not fully I allow, but still, to some extent, really the mind of God. We have to fall back upon highly general principles; to eliminate to the best of our judgment what seems in morals due to the conditions of human life. We may safely say that in any relation between two moral beings the law of charity would hold. The ten commandments have their place only in the relations of this world; but that great commandment, the keeping of which is the fulfilling of the whole law, must hold even for the Almighty himself.

I think it worth while to mention here a distinction which does not need to be pointed out to anyone accustomed to philosophical language, but which may not be known to others. I allude to a difference between the philosophical and the popular use of the