CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

IN the year 1694, H. A. Francke was profoundly moved by the saying of the Apostle Paul: “God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.” The words henceforth never lost their hold over him, but became the source and impulse of his activity. The origin of very much that has since been done in our country in the name of Christian charity may be dated from that time, and the bold confidence expressed in the Apostle’s words has led to the accomplishment of projects that at one time appeared impossible.

And now, after two hundred years, there is again especial need of that same confidence. It is not that we belong, as did Francke, to a Church in which the duty of Christian charity is neglected, but that the nature of that duty itself has clearly changed, and is now so new and so vast that all our old methods appear inadequate. It seems to be no longer a problem with which individuals can deal, and the principal object of this Congress is to take counsel together, with a view to right action. While particular points require to be discussed on the lines appropriate to each, it is essential to have the whole question set clearly before us, to see plainly what it is we are aiming at, and examine the means at our disposal. We are not, however, now concerned with the problem of social questions in general, but with the duty of the Church and the Christian community.

Such a duty is obvious if we are to apply the Gospel to present circumstances, and I can easily understand the radical tendency of some who would exclude all remoter matters. It is true that historical retrospect is not always free from danger. A good steersman must look ahead, not behind; and a backward glance over the past may check bold action, and see impossibilities where really it is only a question of difficulties. Furthermore, history can never throw light on the path that lies before us. Among the members of this Congress, however, there will be no doubt that the social mission of the Church to-day can be determined only by the help of history, not merely because this is a guide to the shallows and reefs to be avoided, but still more because the different churches in all their aspects, including that of charitable societies, are, in their gradual growth, historic institutions. Unless we are prepared to undervalue all the experience gained in the course of history, we must make up our minds to preserve the links between the present and the past.

Before proceeding to deal with the problem itself, I must call attention to a fact that may well inspire us with hope and gladness. Throughout the whole civilised world questions are now being discussed concerning economic: arrangements and the relations between capital and labour; this is in itself proof that much social work has already been accomplished. It is not long since culture, rights and human dignity were the monopoly of some few thousands amongst all the inhabitants of Europe, while the great masses of people lived dreary lives under tyrannous oppression, possessing neither rights nor education, their whole existence being one long misery. To-day, on the contrary,—at least in our own country, and among many other kindred nations,—all citizens are equal in the eyes of the law; all enjoy the same legal protection; slavery and serfdom are things of the past; a fair amount of knowledge and education are within the reach of all; and labour is respected. Liberty, Equality and Fraternity are in many ways no mere empty words, but the real framework of our individual and social life, the pillars of the building we are raising. All this has been accomplished in the lifetime of a few generations, and it is absurd to question the fact of progress, amidst improvements so obvious and immense.

Yet the retort is frequently made: What in practice have this Liberty, this Equality, this Fraternity proved to be? Have we not been deceived by them in the past? Do they not, on the one hand, threaten us with the rule of ignorance and folly, and, on the other hand, are they not mere catchwords, deprived of real meaning by the dependence of Labour upon that Capital which it does not itself possess? The truth,—say these pessimists,—is that the old oppression still prevails,—in a different cloak, it may be, but, for all that, in an aggravated form; the worst kind of servitude is rife; legal equality, besides being imperilled by the existence of Capital, is at best but a negative good; and education for the masses is a mere possibility, of which they cannot avail themselves! Nominally we are all equal; but in reality a minority lives as before at the expense of a vast majority, whose members are still consumed by cares, and find the rights they have won to be in part but a niggardly instalment of their dues, and at the same time a mockery of their helpless condition.

Those who argue thus are not wholly wrong, but they are not right. The above-mentioned blessings, in which all are supposed to share, may indeed be, and to some extent really are, mere delusions. But just try to remove them now, or even to imagine that they do not exist! They are great and lasting possessions, won with effort, and none the less valuable because not all-sufficient. Blessings they still would be, even though at the present time they should result in intensifying economic difficulties. Retrogression is no longer possible for us; and shame upon those who desire it! Let us rather rejoice in having already achieved much that, a few generations ago, seemed but an empty dream.

I must now, after these introductory remarks, ask you to follow me in a historical retrospect. Before entering upon this, however, it is necessary to consider the underlying historical question of the general attitude of the Gospel towards social arrangements. We shall then glance at the successive epochs of ecclesiastical history, and finally endeavour to answer the question, What is the social mission of the Church of to-day?

CHAPTER II

GENERAL ATTITUDE OF THE GOSPEL TOWARDS SOCIAL ARRANGEMENTS

THE Gospel is the glad tidings of benefits that pass not away. In it are the powers of eternal life; it is concerned with repentance and faith, with regeneration and a new life; its end is redemption, not social improvement. Therefore it aims at raising the individual to a standpoint far above the conflicts between earthly success and earthly distress, between riches and poverty, lordship and service. This has been its meaning to earnest Christians of all ages, and those who are unable to appreciate this idea, fail to appreciate the Gospel itself. The indifference to all earthly affairs, which proceeds from the conviction that we possess life eternal, is an essential feature of Christianity. It is the result of a twofold mental attitude, which may be summed up in the following words: “Fear not, be not anxious; the very hairs of your head are all numbered”; and “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” In accordance with these two precepts two principles arise. One may be called the tranquil, quietistic principle, and the other, the radical; the former impels men to acquiesce, with faith and resignation, in the whole course of the world, whatever it may be, or, however it may develop, while the latter urges them to renounce the world, and live for something new. In the Gospel itself, then, a problem is thus presented, for it is obvious that between the tranquil and the radical principles there is a possibility of conflicts. Indeed, the radical principle, where it predominates to the exclusion of the other, allows of further subdivision according as it finds expression in one of two ways,—either in complete renunciation of the world, or in the attempt to do away with all the existing ordinances of the world, as being all impregnated by sin, combined with an endeavour to establish a new order of world. History will show us how, through directing one-sided attention to one or other of these principles, instead of harmonising the two, Christians have evaded the difficulty.

But the same Gospel which preaches a holy indifference to earthly things, embraces yet another principle: “Love thy neighbour as thyself” This spirit of love likewise is to be a guiding rule of the character built up by the Gospel. Accordingly Christianity originally took the form of a free brotherhood,—a form essential to its very nature, for, after trust in God, the very essence of religion is brotherly love. In addition, then, to the quietistic and radical principles we have a third,—the social, active principle. I give it this name of a social, active principle, because the Gospel nowhere teaches that our relations to the brethren should be characterised by a holy indifference. Such indifference expresses rather what the individual soul should feel towards the world with all its weal and woe. Whenever it is question of one’s neighbour, the Gospel will not hear of this indifference, but, on the contrary, preaches always love and mercy. Further, the Gospel regards as absolutely inseparable the temporal and spiritual needs of the brethren. It draws no fine distinctions between body and soul; sickness is always sickness, and want is want. Thus, “I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink.” Again, when it is a question of giving signs to prove that the promises of God have now been fulfilled, it is said: “The blind see, the lame walk—, . . . and to the poor the Gospel is preached”; while in the Gospel of the Hebrews we read in the story of the rich young man: “Behold many of thy brethren, sons of Abraham, are clad with dung, dying with hunger, and thy house is full of much goods, and there goeth out therefrom nought at all unto them.”Nicholson’s standard translation: but Saunders’ in “What is Christianity?” might be preferred. Thus, in the simplest and most emphatic terms possible, Christians are urged to help the needy and the miserable with all the strength of love. But it is to the rich that the most earnest exhortation is addressed. While it is assumed that wealth tends to make its possessors hard-hearted and worldly, they are warned that their perilous possessions impose upon them the highest responsibility.

A new spectacle was presented to the world: religion hitherto had either clung to what was earthly, adapting itself readily to things as it found them, or else built in the clouds, (and set itself up in opposition to everything; but now it had a new duty—to scorn earthly want and misery, and earthly prosperity alike, and yet to relieve distress of every kind; to raise its head to heaven in the courage of its faith, and yet with heart and hand and voice to labour for the brethren upon earth. The task thus set them has never been wholly abandoned by Christians, who consequently, have held fast the conviction that no economic system can oppose to the mission of Christianity a really insuperable obstacle, while, on the other hand, no economic system can ever release it from its duties.

But does not the Gospel contain much more than this? Does it not include definite teaching on the subject of temporal welfare, and a definite social and economic programme? So indeed men have believed, both in the early ages of Christianity, in the Middle Age, and at the present time; and yet the belief is wrong. Undoubtedly the Gospel contains definite teaching concerning temporal good, but none that could be summed up in the form of national economic laws, and consequently no economic programme. Only if the Gospel or the New Testament be regarded as a legal code, can social and political laws be found in it; but we have no right to regard it thus, and any attempt to do so will speedily end in failure. It is unauthorised, because our faith is the religion of liberty, and its duties are specially imposed upon you, and upon me, and upon every age, as an individual problem for each to solve. And it must needs end in failure, because no self-consistent economic precepts can possibly be derived from the New Testament. Are we, in accordance with the story of the rich young man, to sell all that we have? Or are we, at least, not to lay up treasures for ourselves? Or are we, as taught by the Apostle Paul, to turn to profit every gift, wealth and property included, but so as to convert them into instruments of service? May a Christian never settle vexed questions of inheritance? Is it right for him to make large outlay only, as in the Gospel story, on ointments; or is this always justifiable? May he, or may he not, keep money, in a strong-box? “Labour, working with your hands the thing which is good, that you may have to give to him that needeth”: that surely is the gist of the matter, and firm resistance must be offered to all attempts to read into the Gospel any other social ideal than this: “You are accountable to God for all the gifts you have received, and so for your possessions also; you are bound to use them in the service of your neighbour.” Anything in the Gospel that seems to point in any other direction is merely apparent contradiction, or is relevant only to some particular case, or results from the undeveloped economic conditions and special historical circumstances of the time in which the Gospel arose. An age in which capital was almost always hoarded in a useless way, as a dead thing, cannot be compared with an age in which it is the greatest economic power; and an age which believed the end of the world to be approaching is not to be compared with one which recognises as sacred the duty of working for the future.

But conversely, it does not at all follow from the lack of economic precepts in the Gospel, that the matter is one which does not concern a Christian. On the contrary, where he clearly perceives that any economic condition has become a source of distress to his neighbour, he is bound to seek for a remedy, for he is a disciple of the Saviour. If a man falls into the water, one may help him by simply pulling him out; but if any one is imprisoned in a burning house, the exits being fast closed, the only way to help him is to effect a change in the circumstances: that is to say, to extinguish the fire. The question whether such an act belongs to Christian economics, or is simply and solely Christian, or should rather be called humane, may be left to those who delight in argument. Love knows that it is always bound to help in such a way as to render real assistance .

CHAPTER III

HISTORICAL RETROSPECT

ANY one attempting to describe the attitude of primitive Christians in social matters must above all be careful to distinguish between sayings, discourses, mere exclamations, and even theories, on the one hand, and deeds on the other—a difference not always sufficiently borne in mind. In theory and profession we find an inextricable medley of conservatism and radicalism—experimental ideas, so to say; everything seems to be pervaded by a radical sentiment, which was influenced by “pious indifference” and the prospect of the approaching end of the world. Therefore such sayings as these are often found: “Let no man call anything his own”; “We have all things in common”; “Forsake all earthly possessions,”

And in times of special stress and severe persecution, such words were here and there followed by deeds: some congregation, with a fanatic as leader, actually would sell everything, or go out into the wilderness. In Asia Minor, indeed, there were enthusiast prophets who, for the space of some twenty years, succeeded in overturning the natural order of things by persuading thousands of individuals and several whole congregations to forsake the world. The further tendency to organise a communism, obviously modelled on Plato’s “Republic,” is noticeable in various small heretical communities, without referring to the similar attempt at Jerusalem, of which we have no clear account. Such impulses are, however, no criterion of the general feeling of the time. In the main current of the development of the Church, the whole movement was calm, strong, purposeful—moderate in the best sense of the word. In the most authoritative and widely-read writings we find the subject treated in such terms as the following, taken from the “Epistle of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth.”Lightfoot’s Translation. “So in our case let the whole body be saved in Christ Jesus, and let each man be subject unto his neighbour, according as also he was appointed with his special grace. Let not the strong neglect the weak, and let the weak respect the strong. Let the rich minister aid to the poor, and let the poor give thanks to God, because he hath given him one through whom his wants may be supplied. Let the wise display his wisdom, not in good words, but in good works. He that is lowly in mind, let him not bear testimony to himself, but leave testimony to be borne to him by his neighbour. He that is pure in the flesh, let him be so, and not boast, knowing that it is Another who bestoweth his continence upon him.” Could anything be more moderate?

But in one point, undoubtedly, all Christians worthy of the name were radical, namely, in their opposition to the world of idolatry, of impurity, of sensuality, of debasing pleasures, of cruelty and of hardheartedness, by which they were surrounded. “To keep themselves unspotted from the world” was for the early Christians the highest solution of the “social question in primitive Christian days.” To fight against this world of sin, to suffer and to die rather than be entangled in it—this was the fundamental principle. In this war against sin, they occasionally went a step further, and protested against all that in any way concerns the world and the flesh. But surely it is better that a man should despise the blessings of this life than disgrace himself by abusing them! Those ascetics and martyrs in the fight they fought were fighting for each one of us; they died in order that the world of immorality might perish, or at all events might hide itself in darkness; that at least the vilest and coarsest elements might disappear from the culture and the civilisation that we ourselves have inherited. Philosophers of the highest eminence had spoken and written in fine language of the dignity of man; but they had winked at idolatry, and they did not possess the force of Puritanism against either idols or open immorality. But now had appeared a society able to convert into power and action its message concerning the worth of the immortal soul and the divine sonship of all mankind.

Next to purity of morals, brotherly love was the outstanding characteristic of this society, and we find everything subordinated to the main purpose of binding together individual congregations and the whole body of Christians into one fellowship, ever ready to help its own members and the world around. It was with this end in view that the general organisation of congregations, to the extent of including bishops and deacons, assumed definite form, and developed with such wonderful precision and variety. The bond of brotherhood must not merely imply common worship, but must embrace all the relations of life. Nothing of the sort had yet been seen; and no institution could be compared with it except, perhaps, that of synagogues scattered about the kingdom; but these were limited to one nation, and were less closely bound together. From the religious standpoint there was a real levelling of nationalities, ranks and classes in the Christian congregation, and a true manifestation of that equality which consists in the common possession of spiritual and eternal blessings. Slaves were entrusted with the most influential offices in the Church, and the honour and dignity of women were protected, chastity being a fundamental principle in “renunciation of the world.” Only think, for example, to what tender treatment of female slaves certain of the “Acts of the Martyrs” testify! But above all, the Gospel really was preached to the poor; that is to say, for the first time a spiritual religion was brought within the reach of all, even of the humblest classes. In order to fathom the full meaning of this, one must study the controversies between the heathen Celsus and the Christian Origen. Celsus admits, and approves of the fact, that Plato wrote only for the educated and the virtuous; his view is that only those answering to the Greek “Aristocrats” can reach firm ground in regard to the highest questions of life. To Christians, on the contrary, the real proof of the superiority and truth of their religion lies in the fact that it applies to all sorts and conditions of men: it is not only the religion of compassion, but the religion of humanity. The eighteenth century simply rediscovered what had already been the possession of Christians in the second century.

It is especially noteworthy that the arrangements for doing practical works of love were very closely associated with those of divine worship. In the same place in which heavenly gifts were received, earthly ones were given as well; in the same place in which people were called upon to offer their souls and bodies a living sacrifice to God, they offered their earthly gifts for the needs of the brethren. This was indeed an incentive to giving, and who need be ashamed to receive gifts straight from the hand of God! The same altar-table thus expressed the joint ideas of love to God and love to one’s neighbour. This was the very heart of the “philosophy” which won the admiration of the pagans; and this, together with private deeds of charity, became the most potent means of propaganda. “Where the common interest is concerned, they make no account of cost;” and again, “If one of them suffers, they regard it as something touching all.” This is the testimony of the “scoffer,” Lucian. No charitable institutions had as yet been established, but the whole body, the congregation, fulfilled the functions of a free institution for dispensing brotherly love and practical help.

At the same time the duty of work was inculcated. It was not that any special blessing was thought to rest upon labour, but work was recognised as a self-evident duty. Therefore it was incumbent upon the congregation to help the unemployed and poverty-stricken brethren to find work. “To the sick, give relief; to the sound, work,” is the advice given in an ancient document. No legal maxim of the early Christians can be deduced from this; it is a statement of brotherly obligation. No one was then thinking of far-reaching preventive measures against poverty; for poverty was regarded as a fate, which charity was bound to soften. For a similar reason, the deep mistrust of the Mammon of unrighteousness rarely or never led to the formation of any general rules, wealth too being regarded as a fate, the serious consequences of which had to be averted or at least mitigated by the exercise of love.

Political, legal and economic ordinances were in part recognised, in part merely tolerated. The subject was taught respect for the Emperor and for all in authority, and the slave for his master, while conversely the Christian master was to see in his slave a fellow Christian. As there were no republican tendencies in early Christianity, so too there were no efforts to bring about the emancipation of slaves. At the same time it is true that Tertullian did not think it possible for an Emperor to be a Christian, and slavery was included among the institutions destined to perish with the wicked world.

The Christian was, as far as possible, to leave public and political life alone; opinions and practice varied as to the exact degree in which he might take part in it, and could endeavour to reform it. Such disputes as could be decided without going beyond the congretion were not to be carried into the public law courts, and it was a matter of course that in questions concerning marriage and family life, the Church was to follow the principles of Christianity.

During the course of the second century a development of great consequence gradually took place. From the beginning there had been voluntary teachers and missionaries who had made special sacrifices for the sake of their calling, enjoying at the same time special privileges and esteem; but now these disappeared, and their place was taken by elected and official presidents. These did indeed take upon themselves some of the obligations of the teachers they replaced, and thus give evidence of a high standard of morality; but the privileges of the teachers were theirs also, and they tended more and more to become the leaders of the congregations. These latter, meanwhile, having grown in size, lost their former character, and no longer depended upon the free co-operation of individual members with their different gifts, but became communities of leaders and their flocks, with a bishop at their head. It was a natural and a necessary development, but it tended to encourage two propensities hitherto held in check—the indolence of some, and the ambition of others, under whose control came the whole power and property of the Church. At the same time it was the beginning of a new class-distinction within the congregations, altogether irrespective of religious and moral qualifications.

CHAPTER IV

THE SOCIAL MISSION OF THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY

IT may be said that the Social mission of the Church to-day is both new in kind and of greater urgency than in the past: not because poverty and distress have increased—for that is, to say the least, not capable of proof; nor because the Church is more negligent than before in works of charity—quite the reverse is true; nor yet because self-sacrificing and trained workers are less numerous than hitherto—on the contrary, they have never been so numerous as now. In what sense, then, can the Church’s task to-day be called new and more urgent than in the past? Well, to begin with, history proves that new .and urgent duties never come to light during the dark days of declining movements. In the dreariness and distress that then prevail, all available energy must be exerted to hold fast at least the things that remain. It is only in a progressive age that the obligation to new and higher action can be felt; and so at the present time it is just the progress we have already made that thrusts new tasks upon us. In indicating briefly the various lines along which we have advanced, I hope to say nothing with which you will not all agree.

First, we have no longer to do with classes in a state of tutelage, but, though in some respects they may still be powerless, all have equal recognition, and a certain measure of education now belongs to all. I need not enter in further detail into this matter, in which the immense progress of the last century is clearly shown. It is only in small sequestered districts, or under special circumstances, that it is still possible for the relief of the poor to take the form of patriarchal care or patronage by the upper classes of those beneath them. Now that all classes have dealings with each other on the footing of legal equality, a similar freedom of intercourse on equal terms, whether friendly or the reverse, has become more and more general in all the relations of life—a condition towards which the spread of education and equality of political rights have been largely conducive. This only serves to heighten the contrast between wealth and the lack of it, as represented by Capital and Labour, opposed to each other as though they were impersonal forces; and to render more intolerable a state of affairs in which whole classes of the population, after enjoying a good education and acquiring thereby a genuine taste for the blessings of culture, must yet spend their lives in such straitened circumstances that they are able to appropriate but few of those blessings, and are, moreover, liable to be ruined by the slightest economic disturbance.

Secondly, conscience is more alive, and there is a keener sense of duty than before with regard to the welfare of all the members of society; that is an unmistakable advance, of such cogency as to compel people to take part in it outwardly, even if they do not really do so in their hearts. Moreover, we have learned to regard poverty and distress as a serious social danger, in a sense very different from that formerly thought of, while at the same time we have become aware that no thorough reform can be effected except by preventive means. The obligation arising from the recognition of these facts is an entirely new one, such as no past generation ever felt. In coping with it, the study of sociology and economics is found to resemble that of therapeutics, where attention is more and more being concentrated upon hygiene, the science of preventive measures.

Thirdly, everything to-day is dominated by the mighty power of an economic system embracing the whole world; nothing can escape it; its influenee is felt on the remotest village handicraft; it alters or does. away with existing conditions, and threatens with insecurity the economic existence of whole industries. No wonder that it also affects the organisation of the Church; to mention one point alone, congregational life is endangered by those facilities for migration which follow naturally upon the improved means of communication throughout the world. Both in the great cities, and outside their bounds, there is a vast nomadic population—a class of people in whom, as every page of history shows, it is very difficult to maintain a high standard of morality and religion.

In the fourth place, we are face to face, no longer with merely naïve ideas of Communism, but with Socialistic systems of considerable economic development, founded on a materialistic view of life. These systems and these views are gaining ground among the nations, and already crowds of people are definitely and deliberately giving up, not only membership in the Church, but also the Christian Faith, and Christian ethics, so that Materialism, theoretical and practical, is becoming a power in public life. But even this development can by no means he regarded simply from the point of view which condemns it as “desertion” or “backsliding.” Before talking of desertion, we must prove that there was, to begin with, real membership in a corporate body. But large numbers, who are now termed “deserters,” never did lay claim to living membership, and it is only from having been so long disguised that this fact now appears the more striking and appalling. Such make-believe is, to be sure, under certain circumstances a restraining and humanising influence, and one may therefore regret the disillusionment. All the same, it is a step in advance when one theory of existence is straightforwardly confronted with another. Besides, there are even worse things than deliberate materialism, namely, absolute indifference or calculating selfishness, endeavouring to get what advantage it can for itself from all theories of existence at once, and hating every conviction that threatens to destroy its own comfort and impose duties upon it.

CHAPTER V

THE PURSUIT OF EDUCATION

THE Evangelical Social Congress has imposed upon itself the task of critically investigating all those great movements of the present day which affect moral and social life, whether by acting as a stimulus or as a check, whether by constructiveness or reconstructiveness. Its purpose is to examine their nature, their worth, and to discover the spirit which ought to animate them. There is no doubt that the modern pursuit of education is one of the most prominent social features of our time. But at no period is it possible for one who wishes to study the general conditions of a nation to overlook its educational position; he must determine the standard this has reached, the strength of the interests bound up with education, and the measure of sacrifice made for it. Now in our day these questions are twice as important as they were; for the most cursory glance is enough to show how immensely the pursuit of education has increased. The contrast is so great between the present and the past—even between now and thirty years ago—that the pursuit of a wider and deeper education may positively be said to be an essential characteristic of the present epoch. My task would be well-nigh endless were I to attempt to describe to you all the institutions which this pursuit of education has produced, and in which it manifests itself everywhere. I shall therefore only remind you of a few facts with which you are all familiar.

Let us take, for example, one of the larger German towns. We shall find there many much-frequented public libraries; we shall find, besides technical schools, voluntary and compulsory continuation-schools of every kind. Lectures in every department of knowledge are delivered to every class of audience, and are enlivened and illustrated by experiments and pictures of such excellence as to throw light on the most obscure points and bring the most distant objects near to people. Where there is a university or other adequate means of instruction, we hear of special courses being held in connection with it, in which particular subjects or the elements of the various sciences—their methods as well as their results—are brought within the reach of those who have riot had the advantage of an advanced education at school. By the universities again holiday- and continuation-courses are organised, and by their means those who left the university years ago become acquainted with the latest discoveries of science. Then there are courses of applied science; classes to promote first aid to the injured and care of the sick; instruction in the new code of civil law; series of lectures on social and political subjects and on the theory of education; discussions, or continuous courses of instruction, on fundamental questions of ethics or religion. Not only that, but posters call attention to cheap dramatic performances of the masterpieces of our poets, or to concerts for the people: Bach and Handel may be heard in church, or Beethoven and Wagner in public halls. Not only is there free admittance to museums, but provision is made for expert explanation of the collections and works of art contained in them. Even late in the evening, and right on into the night, there is no pause in the work of supplementing and extending the education of those who could not obtain thorough schooling in their youth; or of instructing aspiring artisans in the underlying principles, the interconnection, and the development of their particular trades. Not only elementary manuals and school-books, but also the best literary works of every civilised nation, are sold at the lowest possible prices; so that any one who knows how to go to work can for ten shillings procure a valuable library for which, only a generation ago, he would have had to pay ten times as much. In the country, too, a new scheme has recently been initiated, and professional agriculturists are being sent to give instruction in farming, fruit-growing, and other rural occupations. In every direction it is clear that that education which in former days only fell by chance to the lot of the few, or was the hard-won prize of the zealous and self-denying student, is now being systematised and made easily accessible to all. Finally, mention must be made of the great quantity of educational matter which finds its way into practically every house through the Press, either in the form of political newspapers or of special journals. Every industry, each handicraft, every branch of manufacture, has its own publication. These contain detailed information about all improvements in the special line of business with which they deal, and they are edited by men who, apart from their very exact knowledge of that particular trade, are well acquainted with the economic dependence of their industry upon other industries, and with the statistics of the produce market and of commerce—in short, by men who possess knowledge of a very extensive and varied character. The Waiters’ Journal, for example, recently came in my way, and showed me with what serious purpose and care such a paper is conducted, and how much advice and information its readers may gain from it.

But in order to complete our review of the contrast between the existing state of affairs and that of a generation ago, we must take particular note of certain classes which are now taking a special part in the upward movement, though at that time they were scarcely stirred by it. I refer to artisans and women. The pursuit of education by these two classes is the really distinguishing feature of the present epoch.

As far as the working classes are concerned, there are many of them who put to shame all other social grades. Quite recently it was once more authoritatively stated at Hamburg that the splendid courses of lectures which have been organised there are mainly attended by the so-called “lower classes.”

CHAPTER VI

MEANING AND VALUE OF EDUCATION

THIS review shows that we are justified in speaking of a modern educational movement, and in regarding it as a distinctive feature of our age. The real question, however, with which we are concerned is that of the ethical and social value of this pursuit of education. But before investigating this, it is necessary to form a clear idea of the essential meaning of education generally, and of the particular character of modern education. We are not now dealing with what is called “Civilisation.” Education and civilisation are, of course, very closely connected; but we are accustomed, and rightly so, to regard civilisation as something external, which may be enjoyed even by those who are little influenced by real culture. We are here concerned with culture.

There are countless definitions of education, and their multiplicity proves how many-sided education is, and from how many aspects it may be regarded. If, in the first place, we consider man with reference to his innate capacities, education will mean the full development of all his latent powers; by education a man will be enabled to become what he really is, or rather, what he has it in him to be. In this view, the highest aim of education is the complete unfolding of a person’s individuality, and, as a result of such self-realisation, an attitude of freedom towards the external world—a return, as it were, to such freedom and simplicity as is the surest token of a self-determined personality:

If, in the next place, we consider man in his relations towards that Nature of which he is a part, education will be seen to have a two-fold function to perform. On the one hand, it will be a weapon of defence against Nature, a protection against her threat of overwhelming force; so far as possible, it will master Nature, gaining possession of her secrets by cunning and skill, in order to subjugate her and make her a willing servant. On the other hand, it is the office of education to lead, by knowledge of Nature, to reconciliation with her; to disclose the intimate connection between all things that have life; and to knit yet closer every healthy bond by which they are already connected. From this standpoint, again, the. highest aim in view is power and liberty.

If, again, we consider man in the light of history, and as a member of the human race, then education will be that which renders a man capable of gathering up with sympathetic understanding all that is human, and of reflecting it again in his own person, which keeps him open-hearted and open-minded, giving him the key to the innermost soul of others, and which makes his intellect and his emotions delicately responsive organs, able to see and hear in regions where the senses are of no avail. Through education he will feel himself at home in many places, and yet will shut himself up in none; he will learn how to shape his own life steadfastly and worthily amidst change and instability, how to make it dignified amidst monotony and triviality, how to gain self-control and patience in face of human littleness, and how to maintain an attitude of reverence towards all that is human and divine.

Lastly, if we think of education in the narrowest sense, in its bearing on the special calling of each individual, then it may be defined as the sum of all that knowledge and skill which are necessary if the duties of our calling are to be discharged with thoroughness, freedom, and ease. Thus in this case, again, freedom is the final result: it is built up in the exercise of one’s profession, and is the reward of those who, instead of being weighed down by the burden of their daily work, so use their knowledge and power that the exercise of them becomes second nature. This education in the narrower sense of the word, technical or professional education, must never be underrated; particular training is the normal starting-point for general education, and without the former the latter is difficult, if not impossible, to attain.

Some among you have very likely smiled at my enthusiastic panegyric on education, or have even felt annoyed. You have thought of the kind of man dubbed “educational pedant,” and of all that has been justly said about him. But those who believe in education as I have tried to define it, will be among the strongest opponents of such sham educationists. For the pedant is to the educated man what Wagner is to “Faust,” or what a lay figure is to a living one—a thing that has no life save in its own conceit! The pedant is devoid alike of toleration and of patience, of freedom and of reverence, of personality and of love; the fruits of knowledge all vanish in his hand, and he holds but husks, which he takes to be the inmost essence of real things.

But, besides these, there have appeared from time to time genuine and serious anti-educationists—no ignorant barbarians, but educated men, who yet oppose education. The attitude is obviously paradoxical, and such that the fallacy might almost be left to perish through its own inconsistency. There have been, and, indeed, still are, highly-educated Romanticists who, having failed to reap all the benefits they had expected to receive from great culture, turn and abuse education, contrasting it unfavourably with Nature, or Life, or something else utterly indefinable. That is no new thing; the eighteenth century had its Rousseau, and we have still our petty but not uninfluential Rousseaus. When they are not opposing education in order to commend a life of impulse, or in order to shake themselves free from all concern for their fellow men, and from all responsibility for the course of human affairs, what they attack is not really education as such, but a false, narrow, corrupt view of education. This was notably the case with Rousseau; therefore our thanks are due to him, and on many points we are at one with him. But we cannot acquiesce when he simply extols Nature at the expense of Education. If there is here no delusory playing with words, and if no extraneous idea is imported into the term Nature, we cannot subscribe to his formula, “Back to Nature.” We ought certainly to be sincere, unaffected, without hypocrisy, and we ought not to let ourselves be captivated by anything that is at variance with our truest being; but Nature cannot be our teacher on all points, for she lacks two elements which to us are absolutely indispensable, that is to say, self-determining personality and goodness. These are not to be learned from Nature, but are found only in life as revealed in history.

But finally, there are yet others—and that among the ranks of our friends—in whom unqualified praise of education arouses mistrust. There are earnest Christians who warn us against esteeming education too highly, and insist at the same time that it can never be of more than limited value. Their position is easy to understand, for, in the first place, in all that concerns the higher life, a sure and confident knowledge of one’s aim and ideal is of such paramount importance that it can compensate for many shortcomings, so that a truly religious man will always be an educated man, though he may happen to possess little “culture.” In the second place, education of any reality and depth can only be the outcome of painful conflict and hard struggle; toil and effort are required to win it and to guard it. Now, since this truth is often forgotten by superficial thinkers, who confuse education with mere erudition; and since they further overlook the fact that education matures but slowly, and involves a lengthy process of gradual growth, or of being educated, with many successive stages, the suspicion with which some earnest people regard our watchword “Education” is well justified. But education itself is not to blame for the superficial and inadequate ideas current about it; therefore every word uttered against it should be carefully weighed. Moreover, it is hardly wise to pass disparaging judgments on education, because religion confers such great blessings. Certainly the want of education is least felt where there is a genuine religious life, so complete in itself as to be capable of transfiguring the whole personality. But if an individual possesses this inner light, and has little education, he is restricted in his outer activities by very definite limitations; while certain specific vocations may be open to him, he is excluded from most, and he must leave to others the work of improving and preserving this world of ours. The fact remains, then, that the only opponents of education are those who are ignorant of its nature, or, at least, mistaken with regard to it—while those who declaim against it usually find themselves in the curiously inconsistent position of thinking in its terms and speaking its language. And even though it may be true that wherever education is decried, we have an indication that there is something unsound or corrupt in the prevailing educational movement, it is utter folly or audacity to wage war against education as such, or to represent it as a matter of no importance. To combat education by any means, or in any kind of utterance, witty or otherwise, with the object of making it appear contemptible or superfluous in the eyes of the people, is to incur the heavy responsibility of confusing and outraging all sound beliefs. From this point of view I regard as very questionable the influence of even Tolstoi’s writings, and can only find sorry consolation in the thought that most of his readers remain unaffected by them, except to the extent of feeling a passing emotion. On the whole, indeed, we may venture to predict that neither these nor any other attempts at repression can check that mighty, urgent impulse towards education which is working in our midst. The movement is stronger and more full of life than ever before; and naturally so, since it is only in our days that the whole world has for the first time become as it were one single arena. Modern facilities of communication have broken down all barriers, and at the present day countless kaleidoscopic impressions assail our senses on every side. The light of publicity flashes upon everything; nothing is hid from the eyes of the world. Competition, in every sense of the word, is the ruling principle everywhere, and in any one question endless others are involved. An uneducated man is utterly helpless in face of such a state of affairs, and there will soon be no quiet corner left, in which he may take refuge. His only arm of defence is education, and in this fact lies the prime cause of the educational movement of to-day.

CHAPTER VII

MAIN FEATURES OF MODERN EDUCATION

LET us now consider the principal direction in which this educational movement manifests itself; for although all education is fundamentally one, from time to time various aspects come to the fore and preponderate. In my opinion, the following stand out clearly as the principal features in our present pursuit of education. First, it shows a hearty preference for such knowledge as is intrinsically real; secondly, its most serious aim is to gain independence, economic and personal; and thirdly, it reveals a longing for a keener sense of life and a desire to obtain a fuller share in life, in one’s relations both to the outer world and to the inner self.

I have said that the new educational movement discloses, in the first place, a strong preference for real knowledge, or, as it might with equal truth be expressed, for a knowledge of the real. To provide this is the object of most of the above-mentioned institutions and enterprises. It is a pleasure to genuine scholars to observe the unfeigned eagerness and zeal with which the pursuit of scientific knowledge is carried on to-day. Fine words and interesting tales no longer suffice; men want to know the world of reality, and to study the progress made by knowledge; that is why single lectures on popular science are being abandoned more and more in favour of consecutive courses of instruction. There is increased interest in the history of the discovery and recognition of reality and truth; or, at any rate, an earnest desire to see facts as they are, and to guard against deceptive appearances. But the most notable point of all is the manner in which the two leading ideas of modern science have spread in all directions, and have already become the test by which to measure the validity of knowledge generally—the theory, that is, of the conservation and transmutation of energy, and the doctrine of evolution. We rejoice that this is the case, and it is a mistake to imagine that it is a step which can ever be retraced. The perception that every special form of energy is an integrant part of a general system, in and through which alone it exists, and that any individual phenomenon possesses reality only as a link in an evolutionary series, is such a revelation as, once perceived, can never again be lost sight of; for through it we are enabled to discern and to comprehend as much of the world around us as it is given to us to know. In this sense the characteristic of our times may justly be said to be the pursuit of realism, and the description is one that we can use gladly, not reproachfully. We rejoice to live in an age in which, in spite of ever-abundant stupidity and superstition, there is such an overpowering impulse towards reality. Honesty and sincerity are at the bottom of it—honest work and sincere endeavour—and I do not hesitate to ascribe to this tendency a high ethical significance. We shall duly examine its limitations, but at any rate those who strive with a single mind to gain a knowledge of the real are, in so doing, showing moral activity, and those who, for the same object, make sacrifice of strength and of means, are making these sacrifices for a moral end.

We saw, in the second place, that this educational movement reveals a fixed intention to gain, by means of education, an independence, both general and economic. What is it that urges crowds of workmen, full of zeal for education, to devote their scanty leisure to technical training and to the further cultivation of their minds? Not merely the yearning for knowledge as such, but also the keen desire to improve their condition, and to win for themselves a more secure position in the labour market by means of increased intelligence and skill. What, again, is one of the principal causes of the great Woman’s movement, to which I have alluded? Here, too, it is the desire for independence, the wish of each one to be self-supporting, and, by means of a fixed occupation, to win for herself a definite and secure place in the world. This is an altogether praiseworthy aim, and may indeed be regarded as an ethical tendency in the strictest sense of the word. A human being, man or woman alike, who has no vocation and no definite sphere is a useless person. One’s calling is the backbone of one’s life, and that which lends it stability; without a settled sphere of duty arid the consciousness of filling a place where one is really required, no life can be healthy. Now, since there are very many girls to whose lot matrimony will never fall, and since domestic work has diminished enormously in quantity as compared with former days, it follows that women must seek for other vocations, and be admitted to them. Nay, one must go further yet, and agree with those who say that no girl ought to be brought up with a view to marriage only, and solely as a future helpmeet for man, but ought rather to be so educated as to be qualified for the duties of some suitable calling. This is a perfectly just demand, not only because the eventuality of marriage is always uncertain, not only because of the importance of improving the pitiable position of countless widows, whose poverty and dependence were formerly regarded as their inevitable destiny, but also because the stage of development we have reached requires that every normal citizen should be able to fend for him or herself, and should look upon independence as both a duty and a right. In other times these matters were regarded differently, but a new epoch has arisen—an epoch to which we are proud to belong. Further results that may be looked for from this dawning movement of reform are the raising of the moral standard of the female sex where this is required, and an ethical improvement in the relations of the two sexes towards each other. It is true that the movement is not free from its own new and peculiar dangers, of which we must speak later; nothing human is without its darker side; but there can scarcely be any doubt that some of the blackest shadows which disfigure the whole circumstances and lot of women can be swept away, or at any rate lessened, by the growth of economic independence among them. It is impossible, for example, that prostitution, either in its coarser or more refined form, should continue to its present extent if the education of women is made to include preparation for definite callings. Then this new order of affairs must necessarily re-act upon men also, and on this point I heartily agree with Mr. Wychgram, one of the most ardent promoters of the woman’s movement, who writes as follows in the opening article of his new periodical, “Women’s Education”: “The furtherance of women’s education will, if it is conducted on sound principles and by right means, prove a blessing both to women themselves and to society generally. For there are two chief considerations: by better training of the feminine intellect we are, in the first place, raising the general position of the sex; and, by doing this, we believe that we are, in the second place, enriching our whole life of culture, by importing into it a new, valuable and reproductive element. To womankind we are giving a higher and nobler independence—a word that can and must be understood in a double sense, ethical and economic. It is true in an ethical sense, because, whatever may be said to the contrary, it is the highest possible development of his mental powers that best fits the man of to-day to take a serious view of life and its duties, and because, in the case of every thoughtful nature, such a grasp of life becomes in turn an inexhaustible source of happiness. In the economic sense, independence raises us above that sad plight in which we are obliged to live by other’s toil, and are unable ourselves to produce any work of value to others. This touches upon questions of the deepest import, and if no thinking man can doubt that happiness consists in work—rightly undertaken, executed, and remunerated—then we must enable women to perform such work.”

We observed, in the third place, that there is manifested in this movement a yearning for a greater sense of life, and for a fuller share in life in all its relations. But this is a matter by no means easy to understand aright. It is not a craving for mere pleasure that I mean, although that, too, might to some extent be justified, and it is very easy for those to scorn it who can easily procure for themselves hundreds of pleasures unattainable by the objects of their righteous indignation. Nor do I mean the latest romantic fancy for frenzied and artificial excitement of the senses; such a practice is the very opposite of true education, and absolutely inimical to it. What I do mean is the endeavour to escape from the dull monotony which is all that life itself still offers to thousands, and to enrich and invigorate existence by widening the range. This purpose has now become a mighty force, animating many who feel that the mere alternation of night and day is not sufficient to keep a man’s faculties healthy, but that he further requires change during the day, and that he can only remain vigorous and alert if he can look beyond his immediate occupation, and share in the general happiness of humanity. But if this wider life of his is to extend beyond the crudest pleasures, he cannot dispense with a certain amount of progressive education, and that which will bind him to others who have similar aims, for in this matter none ever attains his end in isolation. This truth is felt by the aspirants themselves, for it is by no mere chance or coincidence that the movements for social and educational reform work together hand in hand to bring about the enrichment of life. From the ethical and Christian point of view it is impossible to find fault with this struggle, for in view of the fact that every life is considered to have an eternal significance, the end of life is Life itself.

I have tried to indicate the most important and distinctive features of the educational movement of the present day. In the process its ethical and social value have revealed themselves in every direction, without being in any way obtruded by me, and apart from any mention of particular effects. And indeed, numerous as these are, it is not in them that the prime import of the movement consists. I may, for example, point out the beneficial effect that improved education will have upon the question of the housing of the poor—that most urgent problem of social life. Since we may reasonably regard the condition of the home as a fairly exact measure of the education of those who live in it, and since we everywhere observe that higher education leads to a demand for better dwellings, it is obvious that in this point domestic circumstances are affected by an intellectual impulse, and that this can easily be proved. I may also call attention to the fact that higher education tends to promote social equality, and that by it the different ranks and classes of a nation are drawn together, and learn to understand and sympathise with each other. In this connection University Extension lectures are of special value, and it is easy to perceive that underlying all such undertakings is a strong social element, namely, that mutual recognition that makes for unity between the classes. And lastly, I may observe, that educated men are, as a rule, prudent and thoughtful; therefore extreme and eccentric opinions will give way to a growing sense of the necessary limitations imposed by circumstances, and this again will tend to the establishment of social peace. But, as I said before, any particular effects must only be regarded as parts of the general result, which consists in helping the individual by means of higher education to become a real personality, and so to increase his social value also. We cannot see the goal that awaits a nation united in peaceful work, in mutual recognition and in solicitude of class for class, nor the final outcome of a “universal ethical alliance,” in which “all men bind themselves in one, with all their strength, with heart and soul, intellect and affection;” for these, like all ideals, lie beyond our vision. But this at least is certain, that we are not turning our backs upon them, but are in the right way to attain them, if we promote the educational movement in every direction, and, in the midst of our anxiety for economic reform, never cease to look for the ideal, which is after all the most truly real.

CHAPTER VIII

DANGERS OF MODERN EDUCATION

AT the same time we should be guilty of thoughtlessness and of dangerous superficiality if we were content with merely emphasising the great value of the educational movement of the present day from the ethical and social standpoint, and with urging that for this reason it must be encouraged and made use of in every possible way. Rather it is our duty to examine the objections which have been raised against it, and to recognise the special dangers attaching to it; by so doing we shall gain a clearer apprehension of its moral and social significance.

The first danger we have to encounter seems to be that of half-education. Not only “reactionaries,” but even men who are anxious for social improvement and in favour of healthy progress, are among those who view with suspicion the present educational movement, and the institutions founded in connection with it. To these we readily confess that the special dangers of half-education—vagueness, confusion, ridiculous conceit, and discontent—cannot immediately be removed, and may, indeed, in existing circumstances, increase for a time among a certain section. But to oppose the present educational movement and try to repress it on that account, would be the most perverse course of action possible. We cannot repress it, for it is far too strong; we should only force it back in the direction of bad teaching and poor methods of instruction. One cannot hope to combat the dangers of half-education by condemning people to no education at all, but only by providing them with thorough education. The best men must offer themselves for the work, and the best books must be written to facilitate it. While showing to students the most important results of the sciences, it is essential at the same time to arouse in them an interest in scientific methods, and a sense of the enormous difficulty of attaining to positive knowledge in any department. This accomplished—and it can be done—the main point is achieved, and the greatest risk of half-education is averted. Certainly, none can soar aloft to the highest stage of scientific knowledge, nor is there any royal road to learning; great thinkers will stand by themselves to the end of time, and there will always be a kind of knowledge beyond the reach of the general public. But there are grades of knowledge as of education, and it is not true that clear and bracing air can be breathed only on the highest peak of the mountain. The bad associations of the words “popular science”—once almost equivalent to “pseudo-science”—need not always cling to them; indeed, I think they have to some extent vanished. When half-truths and trivialities are excluded, when reverence is awakened for truth itself and the investigation of it, and when the particular kind of knowledge set before each individual is likely to be of real use to him in his daily life, popular science is indeed good and true science.

This last condition brings us face to face with a second danger in the present educational movement—that of indiscriminate levelling. This peril appears to me to be very great, and most pernicious in its effects; it is, indeed, one of the principal causes of half-education at its worst, and would necessarily in the long run prove destructive of all real knowledge. In every single direction its results are fatal; its influence is anti-social, inasmuch as it destroys the firm foundations of society and interferes with the free development of original and independent natures. By “levelling,” I mean the endeavour to impose upon, or at least to prescribe for, all alike an exactly identical education, and as far as possible a precisely similar course of training, regardless of the distinctions of sex, individuality, or vocation. The consequences of such an attempt may be seen in the downfall of ancient schools of learning, but even we ourselves have seen something of these bad results, and shall have to buy our experience more dearly yet. It is easy enough to understand that, with the removal of various external barriers, the simplest plan might seem to be to enforce upon all and sundry one dead level of uniformity. But this is a notion based upon the most superficial and fatal idea of education—as if it were something that could be bestowed upon people like an object altogether outside of themselves, whereas in reality its possibility depends upon its association with the natural characteristics and special vocation of every individual. Apart from these it is mere surface lacquer—the nasty, sticky, shiny stuff that varnish is—or rather, it is something much worse, a poison, capable of destroying vigour and health of mind and soul, and very often of body too. In this respect, I cannot acquit the modern woman’s movement of grave errors in various directions, although it is but just to begin by mentioning certain excuses for them. Such are the hard struggle for daily bread and for bare existence, the laudable ambition to gain economic independence; and further, the lack of thorough qualifications, which hampers women’s work; and the competition with male labour, which is too often forced upon them at the present day. I recognise the force of these excuses, but I can only regard as a grievous mistake the widespread theory that, because woman is the equal of man as regards human value, it straightway follows that the same course of instruction and the same occupations should be thrown open to her as to man. In some quarters there is even an affectation of treating the question of sex, in its bearing on work and civil standing generally, as altogether archaic and irrelevant; and where this leads, as it sometimes does, to an attack upon marriage itself, it is nothing short of social disintegration that we are threatened with. I retract nothing of all I have already urged in justification of the woman’s movement; but I do not admit the conclusion that women’s education must be modelled exactly on the lines selected for the education of men, or that society is in a healthy state when women are competing with men in every sphere of action. Equality does not imply absolute parity, and woman would still not be inferior to man, even if it should be proved that her intellectual average is lower than his. To the eyes of all but the wilfully blind, it has, in any case, long ago been clear that physically woman is less fitted than man for a number of occupations. The difficult task that lies before us is to determine what professions are suitable for women, and to see that these are undertaken only under such conditions as are adapted to the mental and physical organisation of the sex. This task is but newly commenced, and until it is accomplished, there will be constant sacrifice of valuable human lives. In the meantime all care must be taken to avoid any levelling process, the injurious effects of which have already been exposed. Furthermore, although women must certainly not be brought up with a view solely to marriage and the care of a family, that must still be the primary aim of their education. If it is objected that, in the case of men, preparation for domestic life is not the first consideration, the objection indicates at the outset a radically false view of the whole matter. This becomes yet more apparent when we find the old question of the Middle Ages being dis-cussed once more, as to whether matrimony is in any case an estate worthy of a free personality. It is not only by frivolous pleasure-seekers that this question is raised, although the convictions of those who argue it are very far removed from those which, in former days, resulted in monasticism. But all such controversies appear to me to be merely symptoms of a temper both anti-social and opposed to the teaching of the Gospel, and I find in them the very disagreeable expression of a selfishness which is none the more creditable because it seeks to ally itself with the pursuit of education. Although there is unfortunately a whole literature on the subject already—a so-called “polite literature”—I purposely pass over in silence these impious attempts to undermine the foundations of society in this respect, and to throw open contempt upon marriage as an institution.

It is, however, not only in certain developments of the woman’s movement and of the sex-problem that this tendency to unlimited and dangerous levelling appears; it may be observed in other directions also. As a clear expression of the opposite aim, by which we ought rather to be inspired, I will quote a piece of character-drawing from a wonderful speech by Mommsen on the Emperor William I. He says: “The Emperor William was, as all true men should be, a man with a profession. He completely mastered the duties belonging to it, and, as his high calling as a soldier demanded, he spent his life in the theory and practice of military science. There are not many who have as seriously devoted the years of youth and manhood alike to the art of war as he did. Consequently he was amateurish in nothing. He delighted in beauty, and was wont to follow with enjoyment the discussion of learned questions.” This shows us the element that must be introduced, if we are to counteract excessive uniformity. Special training, with a view to individual vocation, must be offered in the first place, and must become both the starting- and connecting-point for all further advance in knowledge, which must henceforth grow round this in concentric, but ever-widening circles. Such a method both avoids the dilettanteism resulting from attempts at absolute uniformity, and at the same time succeeds in producing that true veneration for knowledge, which tends more than anything to open the minds of those who possess it, and to make people more modest.

But there is yet a third danger that must be faced; it arises from the special character of the modern educational movement, with its eager endeavour to attain knowledge of the real—an aspiration which may be productive of the greatest good, but unless it is combined with strict moral training, will do harm. Goethe once said of one of his friends that his ability and learning were greater than his strength of character was able to bear; and in another connection we find the profound saying: “Everything that sets free our intelligence without giving us self-control, is fatal.” That is a terse and striking epitome of the matter; but it is a heavy task that devolves upon educationists. We have to learn that, with all our excellent institutions for the spread of learning and knowledge, we have only accomplished half—nay, not half—of our mission. If we are unable to influence the morals of those whom we are instructing, it is a dangerous work that we are carrying on. All earnest search after truth and pursuit of knowledge does indeed include a high moral element, but this requires to be brought to the light, and explicitly shown to the learners. Above all, the personality of the teacher must be so armed with the moral force of truth as to be able to exhibit it and impress it upon others; in every kind of teaching—in the higher grades no less than in the lower—the personality of the teacher is of pre-eminent importance. We can learn all sorts of things from books and by other impersonal means through which knowledge is transmitted, but we can be educated only by educators—by personalities, whose own force and life make a deep impression upon us. But who can deny that in this respect the work of education at the present time leaves much to be desired? The pursuit of knowledge so eagerly carried on among us now calls for a type of personality full of hope, love, faith, moral power, more mature and possessing a deeper sense of life than ever before. It calls for a personality which will enable every pupil to see that all true education—or formation of character—is transformation, painful in process, but resulting in freedom; something old must perish, something new must come into being and wax strong!

Very closely connected with this is another point which goes to the root of the matter: all true education starts from a complete and definite theory of existence, and it is only valuable in so far as it enables men to see life steadily and see it whole. Yet such a comprehensive view of the world cannot be other than idealistic; that is to say, it must be rooted in the conviction that personal life and moral consciousness are worth more and rank higher than any mere life of nature, and that, as it is in God that we live and move and have our being, we are accountable to Him. But are the intellectual leaders of our nation of the present day animated by such a conception of the universe—that is to say, by a faith that is sure of itself? Who dare affirm it? Since the Enlightenment movement came to an end at the beginning of the nineteenth century, we have had no one consistent, elevating, and ennobling theory of life. Neither the subsequent revival of religious belief nor the great idealistic systems of philosophy have succeeded in giving our people such an outlook on the world. This state of affairs, which has lasted so long already, this lack of faith and diversity of beliefs, is most prejudicial to all healthy progress to-day; it is the cause of our weakness in every direction, including our ineffectiveness in face of the political and ecclesiastical system of Roman Catholicism. We have practically prevailed against materialism as a philosophy; we may liken it to a disease that time and the healing influence of nature have cured; but we are very far from being really sound yet, for such a cure does not produce positive health. It was no theologian, but an opponent of theology, the philosopher John Stuart Mill, who, in his autobiography, wrote as follows: “When the philosophic minds of the world can no longer believe its religion, or can only believe it with modifications amounting to an essential change of its character, a transitional period commences, of weak convictions, paralysed intellects, and growing laxity of principle, which cannot terminate until a renovation has been effected in the basis of their belief, leading to the evolution of some faith, whether religious or merely human, which they can really believe: and when things are in this state, all thinking or writing which does not tend to promote such a renovation, is of very little value beyond the moment.” If we omit the expression “merely human faith,” which to me is meaningless in contra-distinction to religious faith, Mill’s is a most accurate description of the present situation, and of what must necessarily ensue. It is useless to expect that the mere study of particular sciences can avert it; for in this matter neither specialised learning, nor knowledge as a whole, can avail anything. Men must be exhorted to retire into their own souls, in order that, while immense realities throng upon them through their acquaintance with the sciences, they may not overlook or forget the real nature of Reality itself. They themselves, in the first instance, are this Reality—their souls, that existence of theirs which is lifted above nature. This, to be sure, is a matter, not of knowledge, but of faith, since it can be present in the mind only as a struggling and growing conviction; yet it is the motive power of all mental, and ultimately of all social life. “It is characteristic of belief to impel to action; it is characteristic of unbelief to destroy the joy of work, to deny to man his creative destiny, and so to force him back upon bare existence and primitive instinct, till humanity, grown tired of the attempt to spiritualise existence, wearies at last of life itself.” Now modern science has necessarily adopted the genetic method, which consists in going back everywhere to first beginnings, and in tracing things to their original elements, and to the lowest forms from which they appear to have sprung; and this does, indeed, tend to cause great confusion in weak and unstable minds, and to confirm any inclination they may already have to underestimate their own human value. It is not a state of affairs that is bound to last for ever; the time must come when it will be recognised that the gradual development of truth results, like consecutive acts of creation, in bringing to light new marvels of great and valuable power; but in the meantime we are called upon to put forth all our strength to cope with the situation. As far as it is in our power to influence the course of events, we must never encourage the dissemination of knowledge or spread of education, unless at the same time the moral consciousness of those who are taught is invigorated, the inner harmony of their personalities strengthened, and the eternal significance of their lives enriched. This must be our constant aim, but especially with regard to instruction in social history and social questions. Of all current phrases, none is more open to objection than the saying that social life must be regarded in the light mainly, if not altogether, of economics, and economics be considered by itself, and absolutely apart from anything else. Such a dictum is objectionable in the first place because it is false; but it is also regrettable because it lends support to blind and petty prejudices, and hinders ethical progress. Those who give utterance to it in good faith, imagining that such a view will simplify matters and win for them more ready hearing, do not know what they are doing; and fortunately they are refuted by their own practice. At the bottom of all great social questions and all intellectual problems, seekers after truth will always light upon the moral and—closely bound up with it—religious element; these can never be neglected without doing injury both to facts as they really are. and to mankind. But it is no use for us to try to idealise that universe presented to us by a knowledge of the external world and embellish it with all kinds of aesthetic notions: quick eyes will see through I the device, and we shall not thus attain our object. Nothing can satisfy, on the one hand, the sense of the individual value of the human soul, and the requirements of its inner life; and on the other, the ideal set before us of the universal brotherhood of mankind, except the Christian idea of God—“God is the Lord, and He is love.” As we were created by Him and for Him, so too our knowledge and education must be rooted and grounded in Him. This feeling lifts us above the region of the transitory into that of the everlasting and eternal; it ennobles the meanest work, and cancels all mere surface value. In this spirit, then, we must work and educate.

Every member of this Congress is equally persuaded of the truth I have just enunciated, and is convinced that, as beseems Protestants, it is our duty to fulfil this task in enlightened agreement with the traditions of our Evangelical Church. But how much there is to do, and how lacking we are in zeal, assiduity, and persistent effort! The educational movement of to-day has laid open to us an immense field of action, and none can excuse himself by saying that he does not wish to waste his time sowing on the stony ground or among thorns. There is a general readiness to hear, to learn, to exchange ideas, and to ponder new conceptions. There is keen and living interest in the deepest questions which concern human life, as well as in social problems—issues which are most intimately connected, and are, indeed, fundamentally one. The responsibility would be ours if this modern pursuit of education were to end in despair, either because men were not given the bread of life they ask, or because that offered them had ceased to be life-giving; it would be our fault if it were to result in disgust and scepticism, and in the conclusion that reality is barren, and knowledge fruitless. That must never he. May to-day’s Congress help to intensify our feeling of responsibility towards our people, and to increase our strength!

All discoveries—nay, all knowledge, for the time being so exciting in its novelty—soon become cheap and insignificant; but all the same it has eternal life in it, if it gives depth and fuller life to the inward being, and help in the great work of transformation into a higher self.

CHAPTER IX

THE SENSE IN WHICH THE GOSPEL BECOMES A REAL POWER

THE Gospel teaches us that we escape from a barren existence only when we are ready to live for others of our own free will. It is then that we are made to feel more keenly how miserable and empty is the existence of a man intent upon seeking his own. It can, however, be to us a Gospel, only if it further actually brings and proclaims to us the beginning of a life with power. It must act upon us as a renewing force. Yet if it is really to accomplish this it must mean something more than a collection of ideas, which it is our duty and desire to accept. It is, indeed, certain that if we do not dismiss these ideas, but let them in course of time become habitual to us, our resolutions may be very powerfully influenced by them, especially by the thought of a Father in Heaven, inflexibly stern yet full of infinite goodness and mercy. Still, however pregnant the ideas so freely bestowed upon us by the messengers of the Gospel, they can never do more than stimulate the nature that we have: they cannot transform us.

Only in so far as we are able to apprehend the truth of doctrines can we make them our own. We must understand their purport, and perceive that the idea contained is the expression of a reality, revealed to us ourselves. When we find a thought expressing something which we have been made to feel in such an experience, it becomes in a peculiar sense our own. But if, without this, we try to adopt it, we may end by quietly changing it, till it suits ourselves; and if we do not even do this, our inmost being can have nothing to do with it at all. To say that we want to appropriate it can then only mean that, in our intercourse with others, we refuse to say anything against it. It constantly happens that the ideas of the Gospel are only “appropriated” by people in this sense. Many fancy they possess them, to whom they are no more than something they refuse to attack, but are unable to utilise. And many whose earnest endeavour it is to utilise them, work at them continually till they have made them assume such a form as they can assimilate. The result is not that they are transformed, but that the ideas of the Gospel are altered by their own character. The power of the Gospel can never be effectual in its working, while people are so insincere as to propose “to appropriate by faith” the ideas contained therein.

The ideas are always so shaped that their truth is obvious to those alone who in their inward being experience a great transformation. The very conception of God as the Almighty Father is true only when it expresses this kind of experience. When the idea is presented as the message of the Gospel, it may indeed attract us by promising deliverance; but if of the contents of the Gospel we learn nothing more, it will soon recall to our minds many of our own experiences testifying in the opposite direction. In a world so full of suffering no Heavenly Father meets our gaze. Nor can it be in our own hearts that the idea originates of the everlasting power of good, as inexhaustible goodness towards ourselves; for here the consciousness is present that our own nature is altogether in contrast to such goodness. A Gospel, to be deserving of the name, must so operate upon us that we may embrace as very truth the above conception of God. It must have the power so to influence us that the divine character—the capacity freely to live for others—begins to take shape in us. Unless this happens, we can have no real understanding of the message concerning the Father in Heaven, since otherwise we cannot number ourselves among those who are ruled by His goodness.

The Gospel is a message of glad tidings only because, when it really reaches a man, it does not present him with mere ideas, but furnishes practical proof of the love of God, convincing him of God’s infinite goodness towards him. Then begins that inward transformation whereby our lives may be fashioned according to Gospel ideas. We must detach ourselves from what hitherto we have desired for ourselves, and be ready to sacrifice it for the community. Otherwise the Gospel has not yet given us a foretaste of heaven. If we have no free and God-like goodness towards others, we cannot believe in God’s goodness towards us. But the inward emancipation from accustomed habits of possession and enjoyment is possible on one condition only. We must ourselves hold the conviction that the whole meaning of our lives is different from what we had been wont to imagine. We must ourselves experience a new fact, the influence of which upon us is so strong as to lessen the power over our souls of all our former possessions and enjoyments. Our own advantage may be seen to consist in a fact of this kind. We may, for example, recognise clearly what a loss it is to us if vast numbers of our people do not, and possibly cannot, rejoice in the sense of nationality. It is obvious that if we do perceive this fact we may promote social activity and stir .up the will to help; for stupidity is always unsocial. Yet social efforts based upon prudence arc bound by narrow restrictions, whereas there are no limits to the readiness to serve and to help that may be produced by the Gospel. For it results in an experience so rich that it can deliver a man from all cares concerning his own life, making him so free that the commonwealth, rather than his own advantage, really becomes the object of his desires.

The Gospel not only sets ideas before us, but presents us with a mighty fact, such as, once experienced, gives to our life such height and depth as seems to enable us for the first time to perceive its immensity. This fact, which we must not merely “believe,” but ourselves see, is the Person of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament it is enclosed in a series of narratives, as to the authenticity of which no efforts of learning are able to tell us anything very definite. To many Christians the narratives are nevertheless a matter of absolute certainty, while to others they are not so. The decision of this question does not depend upon the moral attitude or religious earnestness of the individual Christian; nor does its determination affect his spiritual fate, or the relation in which he stands to God. On the other hand, if a man is to lay hold of the Person of Jesus, as a reality which he himself cannot choose but admit, he must needs be morally alive; and upon such contact with Jesus Himself depends that inward sense of liberty which constitutes the Christian. Those who are not struck by the sincerity, strength, and wonderful assurance of the man Christ Jesus have no suspicion of what Christianity is. The decision which prompts a Christian to forsake the ways of the world and follow Jesus, leaves them all untouched; their hearts are strangers to the joy that cannot be taken away, and to the delight in active service, which mark the essential difference between one who is, and one who is not, a Christian.

But if we are indeed to apprehend the Person of .Jesus in all its wonderful reality, we need a two-fold method of transmission. One of these is Holy Scripture; the other, human life, permeated and kindled by remembrance of Him—or, to use the old names, Scripture and tradition. Once we have begun to recognise as our greatest good this contact with the Person of Jesus, we shall seek the society of those whom His power has stirred, and the assemblies where He is likely to be preached. Before long we shall note further that, on any ideals we already possess, a new light is thrown continually by thronging memories of Him derived from Scriptural accounts. Thus the mystical power of His Person gives to Biblical tradition a value beyond any that dogma can confer, and, at the same time, is the warrant for complete freedom in scientific study of the Bible. For if we are convinced that this tradition reveals to us the highest gift the world can bestow, we shall also see that here, if anywhere, those laws must faithfully be observed that render possible the successful investigation of reality. Thus the Christian who knows and seeks nothing higher in all the world than the inward life—that is, the Person of Jesus in its power over the mind—is carried far above the conflict which is now agitating Protestantism; above the anxious piety that hardens into a legalism devoid of morality; and no less far above such investigation of truth as, sensible of no bonds of living history to bring it into touch with the traditional, is lacking in all piety.

That Jesus of whom we ourselves have laid hold as a reality, undeniable and wonderful, works in us a transformation exceeding great in power. For contact with Him means that there dawns upon us a revelation of God that can never again be obscured. The first page of a book widely read at the present day contains the statement that no man who has once learned to know Jesus Christ can ever again be quite what he was before. One who can echo Harnack in this, feels that contact with the Person of Jesus marked a turning-point in his life. He may, indeed, often have to confess that it has not been followed in his case by very much that is new, but he will surely always admit in his heart that it might have been. In the Person of Jesus we at least seem to recognise a constant cause of uneasiness—of a disquietude that prevents us from settling down too comfortably in the world. Now, so long as that is our experience with regard to Jesus, He is indeed above us; and only in proportion as He Himself stands in that relation towards us can His words bring us a Gospel. Above all, they can really convince us, only when they interpret and throw new light upon the realities around us. We are told how Jesus Himself endeavoured to remind men of the traces of God’s goodness revealed in their own lives. Yet after all, ultimately the one fact of our experience that lends undoubted testimony to the goodness of God towards us is the manifestation of Jesus Himself. It is when our inmost being is stirred and quickened by His Person that we are able to grasp something of the realities of which He speaks; and then, and not till then, His words become to us a gospel of power. But the fact that Jesus reveals the power and the goodness of God will soon be felt when once we realise that if we call to remembrance His will and His actions, they make demands upon us which are eternally binding. Jesus made provision for this by His death upon the Cross, and by explaining that Death in the Last Supper.

CHAPTER X

CONFLICT BETWEEN THE EVANGELISTIC AND MODERN OUTLOOK

YET the Cross itself would be of no avail if it happened that in seeking our moral goal we had to look beyond Jesus Himself: Along the path of duty He must always be our Guide. This implies not only certainty on our part that He offers no opposition to duties indisputably self-evident to us, but, further, the ever fresh experience that it is the power of His Spirit which actually reveals to us those duties. If we were divided from Him in the work in which we ourselves recognised moral necessity, it would mean a separation radical indeed. We can continue to be Christians, only if we can honestly confess that the growth of moral earnestness and liberty within us brings us into closer touch with Him. Once we perceive any civil obligation of our age to be due to a moral necessity, we must be able to discern in it the victory of Jesus Christ. Otherwise we are indeed severed from Him, and circling already round another sun.

To many, however, at the present time it seems impossible in this kind of work to be reminded of Jesus as a power, and especially so to those who refuse to take the words of Jesus lightly, and possess such a view of the duties of our Age as people can only possess when they are not merely looking on, but are themselves taking part in its work. By rendering to themselves a clear account of the meaning and aim of their exertions, they soon become aware of their remoteness from Jesus, if indeed they think of Him at all.

Many of us devote our life-work to matters in which Jesus not only displayed no interest, but which He could not even know of, since they were not yet in being. Natural science was still unheard of; hence no glimmering conception of natural law enabled men to see an intelligible order in the realities around them; and systematic investigation had not yet extended the dominion of man over nature. In short, every kind of work arising out of natural science, with its own particular forms and aims, was for Jesus non-existent. It may, indeed, be said that both His attitude and ours towards morality are unaffected by that fact. Just as a peasant of to-day may, as regards moral development, put to shame a natural philosopher, so Jesus might still be our Guide in all matters of morality, even though he lived in a world of narrow limitations, whereas to us there is an infinite depth of meaning in realities constituted in accordance with fixed laws.

We cannot, however, fail to note something else which made Jesus quite different from us. He betrayed no stronger interest in those departments of labour and business in which at that time able men were engaged. He was, indeed, acquainted with the husbandman toiling for the fruits of the earth and caring for his live stock. He was familiar also with the banker and the power of capital; yet there is not a word to show that He realised the importance of all these forms of work. He does not seem to have thought that the worth of a man is, as a rule, dependent upon his serving the community in some such way. Had He been as firmly persuaded as we are, that fidelity in this work of the world is the foundation in many a man of eternal righteousness, He would, one would think, have referred to it in some way, since His aim was to help men in their moral needs. Yet the Gospels nowhere relate that He did so; and it may therefore be presumed that in His sight it was not in faithful performance of such work that true righteousness consisted. It necessarily followed as a result of His energy, that He sought to release men from the burden of toil, and set them free for the one thing needful.

There is no need to advance this as our own conclusion, for in every ear those words resound in which Jesus seems to deprive His disciples of the motive for remunerative work in general.

We are not to be anxious. But the origin of all work of the above description is anxiety concerning food and raiment; and the efforts to secure these are incumbent upon man because, since he is a man, he has outgrown a purely animal existence. In proportion as we really desire to be of more value than many sparrows, we develop wants which unaided Nature is not able to satisfy. Thereupon follows anxiety as to how they can be satisfied; and yet we are told: “Be not anxious.” We cannot escape the force of this saying by supposing that in the land where Jesus lived the lavish gifts of nature sufficed for the daily needs of man; for it was just the same there as here. The seed, indeed, grew of itself, but it had first to be sown; and though one man might support life on locusts and wild honey, all could not have done so. People were just as little able as we are to live without work—the result of anxiety with regard to food and clothing. Anxiety is always, moreover, the concomitant of labour. We must take thought for the safeguard of our possessions, in order to assure the success of our work, and we must consider whether the means we can command are sufficient for the task before us. It matters not whether these means of work are implements, landed property, capital; or the intellectual and physical powers we have inherited and developed, and the time at our disposal: such distinctions do not affect the main issue, as to the possibility of performing, without anxiety, the work imposed upon us the day we became men. We must resist the claims of the moment when they threaten to rob us of those instruments of work which will be required by the future. Yet Jesus tells us the reverse. We must, He says, be willing and ready to lend, and not only satisfy requests trenching upon our worldly possessions, but give even more than we are asked; and we must act in like manner with that which is often more precious to us than any goods—our time and our strength.

CHAPTER XI

THE REAL MIND OF JESUS

OF far greater importance, however, than this deliverance from the yoke of a transitory past, is that closer union with Jesus Himself and His inmost thoughts, which is worthy to prevail for ever and ever. Yet it is not by scientific research that this can be attained, but by a moral insight into the moral conceptions of Jesus. Nor can it be denied that from time to time monks, or those who, in their would-be imitation of Jesus, revert to the standpoint of anarchy, do surpass the student of history by retaining closer hold of tradition, and by seeking not merely to know one historic fact out of many but Jesus Christ Himself. In the hearts of individual Christians the spiritual power of Jesus has long supplied what was lacking in Luther’s works upon the Church—that moral insight, whereby we still may recognise Jesus as our Leader and perceive the illuminating truth of the words which, if treated as patterns to be copied exactly, separate men from truth, and so from Christ. A single word of Jesus may kindle this understanding; yet neither any one of them, nor all of them together, can make us realise their truth. This can only happen if we seek Jesus Himself. By this nothing fanciful is meant, but simply the endeavour to understand the mind whence proceeded these wonderful, terrible, and yet gracious words. The words of Jesus, indeed, can be tabulated, but not His moral ideas. For these we can only apprehend when we recognise them as the outcome of a Will that is not something arbitrary, but a mind at peace in eternity.

Of the mind of Jesus and His Person we can gain a clear idea by observing the nature of the moral difference between Himself and those around Him. Does it consist in the principle that righteousness is a matter not only of outward action, but of inward disposition? Is that what is meant by the better righteousness towards which He sought to direct His disciples? But to men familiar with the words of the prophets, “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me,” and with the prayer, “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” this distinction surely was not new. In this respect the difference between Jesus and the righteous of His nation can only have consisted in the thoroughness with which He applied the principle; and this it was that gave Him the right to call them hypocrites. If, however, we stop short at this point, we are far indeed from really comprehending Him in the strength and unity of His mind.

That which is peculiar to the moral thought of Jesus is that He actually develops this principle further, and so for the first time exhibits its full force. He is riot content, like the prophets, to attack hypocrisy in the sense of a deliberate discrepancy between what one really is and what one would like to appear; He also exposes its radical nature. Jesus undoubtedly knew that, in the ordinary sense of the term, the Pharisees were no hypocrites—ready, as they were, whenever the inviolability of the law was at stake, to face death at the hands of the Romans. Nevertheless, Jesus did plainly decide that the fearful corruption of their spiritual nature made them ripe for the judgment of hell. He further tells them that they say, but fail to do; nor do they themselves fulfil the demands which they make. But it was not from want of activity, as commonly understood, that they left any duties undone; they were zealous to the last degree. The thing they lacked was in their eyes of secondary consequence—something for which they had no time, because for them the all-important matter was to fulfil the law with the greatest possible exactitude. To them, therefore, it was not an object of close concern that their will should be sincere and at one with itself, conscious of its eternal right. They did, indeed, aim at fulfilling the law, but only in order to prove themselves righteous, and so to attain something quite different. They wanted to serve two masters—a feat that, according to Jesus, is made impossible by the nature of the will. In seeking to understand in minutest detail a variety of isolated precepts, they overlooked the one essential matter of the law, the demand for justice, mercy, and faithfulness, as a means to genuine fellowship. They were not grounded upon the truth; they neglected that sincerity which must see for itself the meaning and rightful claim of the law, and thus discovers how to fulfil it. They made of the law a burden grievous to be borne, but did not themselves feel its weight, because it was easy for them to satisfy unintelligible demands, and because they rightly saw how possible it is to finish and be quit of such tasks as are not understood. They imagined they really did well-nigh fulfil the law, and looked upon themselves as profitable servants. Meanwhile they were preventing its moral ideas from taking effect, because they thought it not worth while to investigate their truth.

The morality of the Pharisees still flourishes among us. Of the leaders of thought in our nation many are horrified at being told that a man can do what is good only if his will is directed towards the pursuit of truth, as he himself perceives it. They say that, on the contrary, we require “objective” ordinances, telling us quite definitely what we have to do. If they meant that there is general need of law, custom, and personal authority, they would indeed be right. To ignore the fact is as childish as it is dangerous, for only in the peace and order due to these forces can the good make progress among us. What such leaders of our people mean, however, is that to obey these authorities is in itself to do that which is good, and, worse still, that we arrive at a knowledge of the good by deducing it from laws impressed upon us by nature and by history. They therefore declare that they have no eyes to see for themselves what is good. Yet these blind leaders of the blind are full of honest zeal, although different in kind from that of the Pharisees, who are otherwise their prototypes. They at least direct the people towards Jesus Christ,—a fact we acknowledge with gratitude and wish to turn to account.

Only by observing how Jesus goes to the root of the insincerity and indolence underlying this conception of morality can we see clearly the meaning of his moral ideas in their bearing on ourselves.

In the course of His unrelenting war upon the self-deception of the righteous men around Him, He reveals beyond dispute the source of in ward sincerity and singleness of purpose. This, according to Jesus, is implied in the nature of volition. We can only will one thing. Contrive as we may, we cannot serve two masters, and if we persist in attempting it we end in insincerity and enter into conflict with a law within ourselves, the truth of which is evident. Just as the eye must needs be single, not wandering hither and thither, but fixed simply upon one point, if it is really to give to the organism the necessary light, so the whole inward man is full of darkness unless the will can concentrate its every impulse in one direction, in the thought of one eternal goal.