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VII.

WHY WE TOOK DOWN THE SUN.

N aged elm stands on the brink of the tiny rivulet which forms the nominal boundary between the grounds of the Lodge and the Cottage orchard. A slight rustic seat clasps its knotted trunk. A pleasant restingplace in summer, when the fierce light beats through the branches; or in autumn, when the yellow leaves fall with a gentle rustle upon the open volume over which the student bends. Even in winter, wrapped in a huge bearskin coat, with a pipe of Cavendish in your cheek, and seated on the lee-side (and as the seat quite encircles the tree, you can always keep the bole between you and 'the airt of the wind'), the spot is one where you can sit for an hour and listen to the chirping of the sparrows among the leafless hedges without being actually frozen. I was seated here the other morning, with a small volume of Essays beside me, written by a man for whose character and for whose powers I entertain profound admiration. He is a great theologian and a true poet, and he writes a style that is at once philosophically subtle and richly imaginative. Out of Jeremy

Taylor I know few passages in English ecclesiastical literature that can bear comparison with certain passages in these Essays. His invective is sometimes as gorgeous as Dryden's satire. I do not know precisely to what sect he belongs; but no one can read these eloquent vindications of the Christian life without feeling that he is at heart, if not in name, a Christian. I had been reading one of the noblest essays in the book,—a critical, poetical, and metaphysical estimate of Theodore Parker's Theology, rich in imaginative invective and bold logic,— when I was interrupted by the Doctor.

'Ah!' he exclaimed, looking at the volume which I laid down as he approached, 'You had better take care what you are about. If our Synod find you reading James Martineau aloud, they will burn you in the Grass Market.'

'But I thought you had given over burning people in the Grass Market?' I said innocently.

'Well, we had for a year or two; but we are going to take to it again. Great is the devil, and great are his works, and we must make a stand at once, or go to the wall. So we have had our thumb-screws oiled, and we mean to try them immediately on unbelievers like yourself. We'll see if we can't put the truth on its legs again.'

'My heresies are not very extensive; I only hold with Dryden-Dryden is it not?

Divines can say but what themselves believe,
Strong proofs they have, but not demonstrative;

For were all sure, then all sides would agree,
And Faith itself be lost in certainty.

To live uprightly, then, is sure the best;

To save ourselves, and not to damn the rest.'

'Mind you don't end as Dryden did,' replied the Doctor,

'And Her alone for my director take,

Whom Thou hast promised never to forsake.

Extremes meet, and the Laodicean, they say, makes a first-rate inquisitor.'

I knew that he spoke in irony, but I answered him, 'What would you have? who am I that I should judge my brother? who am I to condemn my neighbour? I hope and trust that I am right; but in this world absolute certainty is a dream.'

'You will never be a missionary, a crusader, the herald of a new faith. Think you the Moslem would have overrun the East, like a fiery plague, had he rested on a mere "" balance of probabilities"? had the first Christians been unconvinced that God had spoken directly to their souls, would Paganism have fallen? It needs a faith of a firmer and closer texture than yours to conquer the world.'

'It may be but if the belief be false, it is as well perhaps for all parties that it should fail to conquer. Butler ridicules that "inner light" which has instigated every form of persecution. We are appealing to the poets,—you recollect what he says?

For what bigot could ever draw
By inward light a deed in law?
Or could hold forth by revelation
An answer to a declaration?

I

I do not say that his ridicule or his logic is just. do not say that a man may not be thoroughly persuaded in his own mind. I say only that in this world-looking to the conditions under which the mind works-we can never be entitled to force our convic

tions upon other people.'

'Well, of course, I agree with you,' the Doctor said, dropping his tone of irony, and resuming his natural tone. 'But these Thugs do try a man's patience, especially if he hasn't much of the commodity.'

'And who are the Thugs?' I inquired.

The Doctor thereupon proceeded to sketch the position, moral, social, and ecclesiastical, of the Thug.

'The British, like the Indian, Thug, holds that, in religion as in war, any stratagem is justifiable. He strangles his adversaries whenever he gets the chance. Being on "the Lord's side" he is entitled to use weapons which could not be decently used in a secular contest. He scatters foul epithets, and attributes base motives, in a lofty spirit of Christian forbearance. The world may occasionally denounce "the calumniator," but "he is prepared to suffer in his Master's cause;' and meekly bowing his head, he repeats with variations the original offence. In the old times it happened once or twice that these men rose up in force, and took pos

session of the government for the purpose of carrying into practice their own religious ideas.

They were to hold no truce with the powers of evil. Whoever did not agree with their theological system was accursed, and was to be treated after the fashion in which the Israelites treated the Canaanites. North of the border, the Covenanters, south of the border, the Puritans, represented the chosen people. Fortunately the leader of the fanatics united with his zeal, rare common sense, a courageous moderation, and tolerably clear notions of political expediency. He humoured while he restrained, and his iron but healing hand kept the passions of his followers within decent bounds. Since then they have never again succeeded in wresting the reins of government out of the hands of lay statesmen; but, except that it has undergone an inevitable process of deterioration, the spirit of the chosen people remains unchanged. The nineteenth-century Thug, though but a sorry representative of the men who won Cromwell's battles, continues to occupy substantially the same ground. He sees the same distinct line of demarcation between the people of God and the people of the devil. He belongs to the elect; he has been rescued from the eternal wrath which awaits a guilty world. The men of that world he cannot now shoot down, or burn, or imprison, or torture; but he can separate himself from them, he can speak evil things of all who wander across the line, of all who venture to preach charity and brotherly kindness, of all who enjoy the world which God has made, or who em

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