And so you see her, here in the days of childhood, and here in her sacred youth, and here in her perfect womanhood, and here borne to her grave.
Such creatures as these _have_ lived--do live yet, thank G.o.d, in the faith of Christ.
291. You hear it openly said that this, their faith, was a foolish dream. Do you choose to find out whether it was or not? You may if you will, but you can find it out in one way only.
Take the dilemma in perfect simplicity. Either Christianity is true or not. Let us suppose it first one, then the other, and see what follows.
Let it first be supposed untrue. Then rational investigation will in all probability discover that untruth; while, on the other hand, irrational submission to what we are told may lead us into any form of absurdity or insanity; and, as we read history, we shall find that this insanity has perverted, as in the Crusades, half the strength of Europe to its ruin, and been the source of manifold dissension and misery to society.
Start with the supposition that Christianity is untrue, much more with the desire that it should be, and that is the conclusion at which you will certainly arrive.
But, on the other hand, let us suppose that it is, or may be, true.
Then, in order to find out whether it is or not, we must attend to what it says of itself. And its first saying is an order to adopt a certain line of conduct. _Do_ that first, and you shall know more. Its promise is of blessing and of teaching, more than tongue can utter, or mind conceive, if you choose to do this; and it refuses to teach or help you on any other terms than these.
292. You may think it strange that such a trial is required of you.
Surely the evidences of our future state might have been granted on other terms--nay, a plain account might have been given, with all mystery explained away in the clearest language. _Then_, we should have believed at once.
Yes, but, as you see and hear, that, if it be our way, is not G.o.d"s. He has chosen to grant knowledge of His truth to us on one condition and no other. If we refuse that condition, the rational evidence around us is all in proof of our death, and that proof is true, for G.o.d also tells us that in such refusal we shall die.
You see, therefore, that in either case, be Christianity true or false, death is demonstrably certain to us in refusing it. As philosophers, we can expect only death, and as unbelievers, we are condemned to it.
There is but one chance of life--in admitting so far the possibility of the Christian verity as to try it on its own terms. There is not the slightest possibility of finding out whether it be true, or not, first.
"Show me a sign first and I will come," you say. "No," answers G.o.d.
"Come first, then you shall see a sign."
Hard, you think? You will find it is not so, on thinking more. For this, which you are commanded, is not a thing unreasonable in itself. So far from that, it is merely the wisest thing you could do for your own and for others" happiness, if there were no eternal truth to be discovered.
You are called simply to be the servant of Christ, and of other men for His sake; that is to say, to hold your life and all its faculties as a means of service to your fellows. All you have to do is to be sure it _is_ the service you are doing them, and not the service you do yourself, which is uppermost in your minds.
293. Now you continually hear appeals to you made in a vague way, which you don"t know how far you can follow. You shall not say that, to-day; I both can and will tell you what Christianity requires of you in simplest terms.
Read your Bible as you would any other book--with strictest criticism, frankly determining what you think beautiful, and what you think false or foolish. But be sure that you try accurately to understand it, and transfer its teaching to modern need by putting other names for those which have become superseded by time. For instance, in such a pa.s.sage as that which follows and supports the "Lie not one to another" of Colossians iii.--"seeing that ye have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the spirit of Him that created him, where"
(meaning in that great creation where) "there is neither Greek nor Jew, circ.u.mcision nor uncirc.u.mcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free." In applying that verse to the conduct and speech of modern policy, it falls nearly dead, because we suffer ourselves to remain under a vague impression--vague, but practically paralyzing,--that though it was very necessary to speak the truth in the countries of Scythians and Jews, there is no objection to any quant.i.ty of lying in managing the affairs of Christendom. But now merely subst.i.tute modern for ancient names, and see what a difference it will make in the force and appeal of the pa.s.sage, "Lie not one to another, brethren, seeing that ye have put off the old man, with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed to knowledge," [Greek: eis epignosin], according to the knowledge of Him that created him, in that great creation where there is neither Englishman nor German, baptism nor want of baptism, Turk nor Russian, slave nor free, but Christ is all, and in all.
294. Read your Bible, then, making it the first morning business of your life to understand some piece of it clearly, and your daily business to obey of it all that you understand, beginning first with the most human and most dear obedience--to your father and mother. Doing all things as they would have you do, for the present: if they want you to be lawyers--be lawyers; if soldiers--soldiers; if to get on in the world--even to get money--do as they wish, and that cheerfully, after distinctly explaining to them in what points you wish otherwise. Theirs is for the present the voice of G.o.d to you.
But, at the same time, be quite clear about your own purpose, and the carrying out of that so far as under the conditions of your life you can. And any of you who are happy enough to have wise parents will find them contented in seeing you do as I now tell you.
295. First cultivate all your personal powers, not compet.i.tively, but patiently and usefully. You have no business to read in the long vacation. Come _here_ to make scholars of yourselves, and go to the mountains or the sea to make men of yourselves. Give at least a month in each year to rough sailor"s work and sea fishing. Don"t lounge and flirt on the beach, but make yourselves good seamen. Then, on the mountains, go and help the shepherd at his work, the wood-men at theirs, and learn to know the hills by night and day. If you are staying in level country, learn to plow, and whatever else you can that is useful.
Then here in Oxford, read to the utmost of your power, and practice singing, fencing, wrestling, and riding. No rifle practice, and no racing--boat or other. Leave the river quiet for the naturalist, the angler, and the weary student like me.
You may think all these matters of no consequence to your studies of art and divinity; and that I am merely crotchety and absurd. Well, that is the way the devil deceives you. It is not the sins which we _feel_ sinful, by which he catches us; but the apparently healthy ones,--those which nevertheless waste the time, harden the heart, concentrate the pa.s.sions on mean objects, and prevent the course of gentle and fruitful thought.
296. Having thus cultivated, in the time of your studentship, your powers truly to the utmost, then, in your manhood, be resolved they shall be spent in the true service of men--not in being ministered unto, but in ministering. Begin with the simplest of all ministries--breaking of bread to the poor. Think first of that, not of your own pride, learning, comfort, prospects in life: nay, not now, once come to manhood, may even the obedience to parents check your own conscience of what is your Master"s work. "Whoso loveth father and mother more than me is not worthy of me." Take the perfectly simple words of the Judgment, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me:" but you must _do_ it, not preach it. And you must not be resolved that it shall be done only in a gentlemanly manner. Your pride must be laid down, as your avarice, and your fear. Whether as fishermen on the sea, plowmen on the earth, laborers at the forge, or merchants at the shop-counter, you must break and distribute bread to the poor, set down in companies--for that also is literally told you--upon the green gra.s.s, not crushed in heaps under the pavement of cities. Take Christ at His literal word, and, so sure as His word is true, He will be known of you in breaking of bread. Refuse that servant"s duty because it is plain,--seek either to serve G.o.d, or know Him, in any other way: your service will become mockery of Him, and your knowledge darkness. Every day your virtues will be used by the evil spirits to conceal, or to make respectable, national crime; every day your felicities will become baits for the iniquity of others; your heroisms, wreckers" beacons, betraying them to destruction; and before your own deceived eyes and wandering hearts every false meteor of knowledge will flash, and every perishing pleasure glow, to lure you into the gulf of your grave.
297. But obey the word in its simplicity, in wholeness of purpose and with serenity of sacrifice, like this of the Venetian maids", and truly you shall receive sevenfold into your bosom in this present life, as in the world to come, life everlasting. All your knowledge will become to you clear and sure, all your footsteps safe; in the present brightness of domestic life you will foretaste the joy of Paradise, and to your children"s children bequeath, not only n.o.ble fame, but endless virtue.
"He shall give his angels charge over you to keep you in all your ways; and the peace of G.o.d, which pa.s.seth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 178: Left, at the Editor"s request, with only some absolutely needful clearing of unintelligible sentences, as it was written for free delivery. It was the last of a course of twelve given this autumn;--refers partly to things already said, partly to drawings on the walls; and needs the reader"s pardon throughout, for faults and abruptness incurable but by re-writing the whole as an essay instead of a lecture.--(_Nineteenth Century_, January, 1878.)]
[Footnote 179: Of course, this statement is merely a generalization of many made in the preceding lectures, the tenor of which any readers acquainted with my recent writings may easily conceive.]
[Footnote 180: The references were to the series of drawings lately made, in Venice, for the Oxford and Sheffield schools, from the works of Carpaccio, by Mr. Fairfax Murray.]