Meaning in the World's Work.

7

to other parts of the Sacred Volume. The present verification, carried along a hundred lines of research, will prove that there is meaning in the world's work and in our earthly discipline; a supreme and attainable good to strive after; and that life is worth living, because of Intelligence at the heart of things. To our Father we say—

"Illi sunt veri fideles Tui qui totam vitam suam ad emendationem disponunt." Imitatio Christi.

To our readers we say "Omnia cunctanti," everything to those who wait for as splendour from galaxies of stars afar off, goes forth in different periods of time, and arrives at the earth in widely separated intervals; there are beams of truth travelling from the Great Source which have not yet shone upon our mind, but will surely gladden us. When the grass has withered and the flower faded, when the Scripture Record has a new setting in the light beyond the veil, we shall find, some to our glory, some to our shame, that "the Word of God abideth for ever."

STUDY I.

IS INTELLECT DIVORCED FROM PIETY?

'Christianity did not appear in a barbarous age, nor win acceptance because nations were unintelligent. The Greeks were people of highest natural power in freshest vigour, with radiant intellect pervading the sense of youthful beauty. The Roman is a symbol of the bold and clever leader, with whom to dare is to do. Men of the early Church were of earnest, heavenly minded character-their saintly aspect was in itself a revelation."

IT has been very confidently asserted "that we have not to reckon with religion, its day is gone by, the best minds of our age have forsaken theology, take no account of it, and this is preparatory to a general abandonment of belief in the Supernatural."

The statement is improbable. All that we know of faith and intelligence assures us that the sum total in the twentieth century will be the offspring of the nineteenth, as the nineteenth is of the eighteenth, and must be-unless special, that is miraculous, illumination be given. It may be taken as certain that whatever change takes place in the symbols by which religious faith is expressed, religion, in all essential respects, will remain unchanged. Summarily to throw away ancient beliefs and institutions, to discard the growth and universal experience of moral discipline, can in no case be the work of an individual intellect, or of one age. There ever has been in the past, and, judging from analogy, there ever will be in the future, a recognition of Deity by the highest and purest intelligences.

Lord Bacon says "Are we disposed to survey the realm of sacred or inspired theology, we must quit this small vessel of human reason, and put ourselves on board the ship of the Church." It were better not to quit "the small vessel of human reason," but to use intelligence as a Divinely kindled lamp, and this intelligence will burn brighter if fed with the

Manifestation of the Unknown.

9

oil of faith for the religious sense, the highest which we can entertain, is based upon the aspiration and endeavour after complete fulness of life.

It is easy to understand that men of hard mechanical mind, "who," Scaliger roughly said, "lick the vessel but never touch the pottage," have little or no sense of religion; but it is not easy to understand by what right, with least power to judge of the Supernatural, they assume authority to decide that the world is nothing but matter, containing only material organisms. Why, if our own material organism is governed by intelligence, shall not the universe be governed by Intelligence!

They say " There is no actuality in the Supernatural, no reality in any knowledge we can obtain of it;" but they are well aware that the appearance of things is not the essential reality, and that every phenomenon is the manifestation of an unknown energy, though incomprehensible in the abstract; consequently, the phenomenon is a token of the Supernatural; therefore, the Unknown is knowable so far as He is manifested, unknowable in His essence as the infinite and eternal. Every fact in history, even if it occupy but a moment in time, is rooted in an unsearchable past, and enters an endless future; the first link hides in the past eternal, and the last vanishes in the future eternal; all Nature, on one side, touches the seen, on the other, the unseen. It is an essential part of our nature to be conscious of the Power underlying all -the Great Reality.

In essence God is ever unknown, as everything else is essentially unknown. No term can be used in precisely the same sense of essence and of the phenomenon, of man and of God; there is, none the less, an analogy. In human or limited fashion, we know the Unknown; and the effort to know more, to co-ordinate emotional consciousness and intellectual cognition, is the highest, purest, most strengthening exercise of our reason.

We all admire and applaud the noble Roman, Regulus, who voluntarily returned to torture and death rather than violate duty to his country and faith plighted to an enemy. Who could interpret that man's life and mind by their material

conditions? or, interpreting, would, according to material conditions, have interpreted aright-making hardest task the best delight? We commend Andrew Fuller, who, willing to lose his life in order to serve his country, would not do a base thing to save it. Does not every good man say "I would be virtuous for my own sake, though no man should know it; and clean for my own sake, though no one should see me"? The reality, the animating principle of such holy conduct, resting on universal emotional consciousness of God, is more active and powerful in life than that which is merely intellectual: "Sanctus sanctè sancta tractat."

The fact, moreover, "that no human being, and no society composed of human beings, ever did or ever will come to much, unless their conduct was governed and guided by some ethical ideal,"1 renders our acceptance of that ideal not merely a requisition of common sense, but an indispensable condition to true and lasting welfare. We appeal to the good and the great, whether the highest and best ethical ideal is not found in the Bible? We ask those of high moral nature, whether recognition of Divine love and purity does not make them affectionate and reverential? Whether the things which have been surely believed among us are not the root of national and individual morality? Whether they do not take that place in the heart which, otherwise, superstition would usurp ? Whether it is not right to urge the pure in spirit to maintain these things in integrity? If our race lose faith in the soul's immortality, in Providence, if, on the intellectual side, we lose the recognition of Deity; and, on the emotional side, a yearning for closer union with Deity; we can neither attain nor retain the virtues, happiness, and true civilisation of wellordered communities.

There are, indeed, many reasons for supposing that human nature will expand its powers, and occupy a wider sphere of knowledge and action than the present; but that advancement, if made without the establishment of harmony between our knowledge and our aspirations, will rather bring more anxious cares and sharper pains than augment enjoyment, or secure and enlarge our peace. Appalling facts of the most 1 "Critiques and Addresses: " Prof. Huxley.

Irrational Opposition to the Supernatural.

II

grim and gloomy aspect prove, as Bishop Butler said, that Mankind are for ever placing the stress of their religion anywhere than upon virtue;" and experience shows that sceptical men, denying Divinity, pave the way to sensualism and thence to superstition. It is equally certain that the habits, usages, and propensities of millions of our fellows are not leading them forward to goodness and happiness.

This being matter of fact, the manner of argument against the Supernatural is surprising. We are told-"The teaching of Jesus carried morality to the highest point attained or even attainable by humanity. The influence of the spiritual religion has been rendered doubly great by the unparalleled purity and elevation of His own character . . . so that the 'imitation of Christ' has become almost the final word in the preaching of His religion, and must continue to be one of the most powerful elements of its performance." It "is the highest conceivable by humanity. . . . Its perfect realisation is... extinction of rebellious personal opposition to Divine order, and the attainment of perfect harmony with the will of God."2 Now, would it be believed that, immediately preceding, we find these words "The disciples, who had so often misunderstood the teaching of Jesus, during His life, piously distorted it after His death "?" We are to believe that disciples, capable of receiving, keeping, and handing down to future ages, the highest system of morality attainable by humanity—in the light of which they lived, and for the truth of which they died-" piously distorted" that system! This "spiritual religion" of "sublime simplicity and moral grandeur," putting all other systems to the blush, "uniformly noble and consistent," is really built on "mere human delusion!" Now, no folly is greater than this: to regard the Bible as morally true, yet full of wilful lies; pure, yet defiled by hypocritical assumption of supernatural power and authority; recording the highest attainable morality, yet disgraced by superstition and jugglery of wonders. As if a thing could be really of heaven and heavenly, yet animated by the devil with the breath of delusion and deceit; inspired with highest