less of God's appointment than the cancer preying on the human form.* No doubt it is noble to submit without repining to suffering which is unavoidable, or which is required for some good end. The cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?' But there Jesus believed that his self-sacrifice was demanded for a great purpose. Where it is voluntarily endured for no good end, it is mere asceticism,† a feeling so rife in the early ages of Christianity. * In More's Utopia, persons afflicted with painful and incurable disorders are persuaded to allow themselves to be put to death; but they must not destroy themselves 'before the priest and counsel have allowed the cause of their death.' Vol. ii. pp. 134–137, Ed. of 1808. The spirit of asceticism still lingers among us. One is sorry to see our laureate wasting-to use no harsher term-his great powers to foster this baneful superstition in that otherwise beautiful episode of the Holy Grail. The fair saint to whom is vouchsafed the vision of the holy grail had earned that privilege, we are told by Sir Percival, her brother, by prayer and fasting 'till the sun Shone and the wind blew thro' her; and I thought She might have risen and floated when I saw her.' How much healthier is Milton's conception of a saintly lady (victorious, we must suppose, in the trial and struggle by which virtue is attained): 'A thousand livried angels lacquey her, Driving far off all things of sin and guilt, And turn it by degrees to the soul's essence, Asceticism itself may perhaps be referred to the common infirmity of our nature shown in pushing to a morbid excess our efforts to escape evil. Observing the mischiefs which proceed from excess of sensual gratification, we have come to regard the opposite extreme to this indulgence as in itself a good. To be able to make sacrifices for worthy ends is the first step towards attaining to a great character. But to make sacrifices we must be ready to endure suffering. Hence has grown up the fallacious notion that suffering is itself a good, and is pleasing to the Deity; and so it has taken the shape of asceticism, to which in one way or another the Church has always been favourable. I am far from saying that the removal of evil, physical and moral, from the world, and the advancement of man's well-being and happiness here, is the only pursuit worthy of engaging the attention of mankind, or that it is sufficient to satisfy all man's higher aspirations. The old questions which have forced themselves upon the attention of thoughtful men in all ages-whence man came and whither he is going, and what is to be the aim of all his strivings-will still present themselves; and for those who have leisure and imaginative faculty for such high speculation, there can be no more interesting pursuit. All I wish to contend for is that those who are content to devote their energies to what they see to be practical and useful to themselves and their fellow-creatures in what Ι regards their well-being and happiness in this world, are not to be deemed less entitled to the esteem and gratitude of mankind than those who indulge in lofty aspirations after the unseen and the spiritual. With regard to the former, we have at least the satisfaction of feeling that progress is certainly made. From day to day we acquire a greater command over the things which concern this life, and the means of happiness and the diminution of suffering in this world. With regard to the latter speculations, lofty and interesting as they are, it is doubtful whether (apart from what is claimed by the Church for direct revelation) any progress has been made in the last 2,000 years. Whether we are destined for a future existence or not, I cannot admit that this world is nought, or that its concerns are not worthy of our most earnest attention. I cannot doubt that man's most pressing duties regard the earth in which his lot has been cast; and in the study of this world, and in the discharge of those duties, he will assuredly find abundant scope for the exercise of his highest faculties : Er stehe fest und sehe hier sich um, Dem Tüchtigen ist diese Welt nicht stumm.-GÖTHE. We seem as yet, as Sir John Lubbock has remarked, but on the threshold, as it were, of civilisation. It is probable that man, collectively speaking, is far from having reached the limits of intellectual, social, or moral development, and it is certain that, with regard to the physical means of promoting man's well-being on earth, he has by no means exhausted the infinite capabilities of external nature. Social and other changes are continually in progress, whether we observe them or not; and in giving these a useful direction and impulse much may be done by individual energy, ever sustained by faith in a law of good, of the working of which we see traces on every side evolving a new and better age out of the old; and to do our part, however humble, in effecting these changes for the general goodnot neglecting, meanwhile, to strew our path so far as we may with flowers, and to enjoy our present share of the blessings around us--is the main business of life.* At the same time I wish to observe that the system I advocate is by no means adverse, as it is sometimes contended, to the highest culture-to whatever tends to elevate and purify the inward primary powers of man; all that has helped to exalt man's life to its present spiritual height—to religion, morality, poetry, the love of the beautiful in every form. To act upon * We should all of us do well to follow the example of Bacon in his zeal for advancing the progress of the world. Believing,' he says, in his preface to the De Interpretatione Naturæ, 'that I was born for the service of mankind, and regarding the case of the Commonwealth as a kind of common property, which, like the air and water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might be best served, and what service I was myself best fitted to perform.' it is not to undervalue the divine and the spiritual, but to insist that what is called the divine and the spiritual shall be kept in due subordination to the reason and the practical faculty of man, and shall not be allowed to degenerate into superstition and fanaticism. The aspirations of our religious nature require to be kept under the guidance of reason not less than the impulses of our physical nature. Under their influence, and aided by the force and elevation of character which they are capable of bestowing, we may attain to heights of virtue, and may accomplish deeds which, in their absence, would be quite impossible. What is to be guarded against is the superstitious notion that persons so influenced are acting under the special inspiration or guidance of Providence, and that what they do is therefore necessarily right. Nothing is more natural than to entertain such feelings. Oliver Cromwell has been accused of hypocrisy in his frequent professions of belief that God was fighting on his side; but there seems no sufficient ground for saying that the belief was not sincere. In his memorable despatch to the Speaker of the House of Commons after the battle of Naseby, he says: "Sir, this is no other but the hand of God, and to Him alone belongs the glory, wherein none are to share with Him.' And no doubt this belief, so fervently entertained by him and shared by the troops under his command, inspired his |