"How striking a proof is it," says a writer on The Religions of India, "of the strength of the adoring principle in human nature—what an illustration of mankind's sense of dependence upon an unseen Supreme—that the grandest works which the nations have reared are those connected with religion! Were a spirit from some distant world to look down upon the surface of our planet as it spins round in the solar rays, his eye would be most attracted, as the morning light passed onward, by the glittering and painted pagodas of China, Borneo, and Japan; the richly ornamented temples and stupendous rock shrines of India; the dome-topped mosques and tall, slender minarets of Western Asia; the pyramids and vast temples of Egypt, with their mile-long avenues of gigantic statues and sphinxes; the graceful shrines of classic Greece; the basilicas of Rome and Byzantium; the semi-oriental church-domes of Moscow; the Gothic cathedrals of Western Europe: and as the day closed, the light would fall dimly upon the ruins of the grand sun-temples of Mexico and Peru, where, in the infancy of reason and humanity, human sacrifices were offered up, as if the All-Father were pleased with the agony of his creatures!"
"Moral rules," says Matthew Arnold, in his Essay on Marcus Aurelius, "apprehended as ideas first, and then rigorously followed as laws, are and must be for the sage only. The mass of mankind have neither force of intellect enough to apprehend them clearly as ideas, nor force of character enough to follow them strictly as laws. The mass of mankind can be carried along a course full of hardships for the natural man, can be borne over the thousand impediments of the narrow way, only by the tide of a joyful and bounding emotion. It is impossible to rise from reading Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius without a sense of constraint and melancholy, without feeling that the burden laid upon man is well-nigh greater than he can bear. Honor to the sages who have felt this, and yet have borne it!... For the ordinary man, this sense of labor and sorrow constitutes an absolute disqualification; it paralyzes him; under the weight of it he cannot make way toward the goal at all. The paramount virtue of religion is that it has lighted up morality; that it has supplied the emotion and inspiration needful for carrying the sage along the narrow way perfectly, for carrying the ordinary man along it at all. Even the religions with most dross in them have had something of this virtue; but the Christian religion manifests it with unexampled splendor." The Duke de Chaulnes once said to Dr. Johnson that "every religion had a certain degree of morality in it." "Ay, my lord," answered he, "but the Christian religion alone puts it on its proper basis." "It is Christianity alone," said Max Müller, "which, as the religion of humanity, as the religion of no caste, of no chosen people, has taught us to respect the history of humanity as a whole, to discover the traces of a divine wisdom and love in the government of all the races of mankind, and to recognize, if possible, even in the lowest and crudest forms of religious belief, not the work of demoniacal agencies, but something that indicates a divine guidance, something that makes us perceive, with St. Peter, 'that God is no respecter of persons, but that in every nation he that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.'" "There is a principle," said John Woolman—"the man who," it is said, "in all the centuries since the advent of Christ, lived nearest to the Divine pattern"—"there is a principle," said that Christian man, "which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names; it is, however, pure, and proceeds from God. It is deep and inward, confined to no forms of religion nor excluded from any, when the heart stands in perfect sincerity. In whomsoever this takes root and grows, they become brethren."
"The turning-point," remarks Frances Power Cobbe, "between the old world and the new was the beginning of the Christian movement. The action upon human nature, which started on its new course, was the teaching and example of Christ. Christ was he who opened the age of endless progress. The old world grew from without, and was outwardly symmetric. The new one grows from within, and is not symmetric, nor ever will be; bearing in its heart the germ of an everlasting, unresting progress. The old world built its temples, hewed its statues, framed its philosophies, and wrote its glorious epics and dramas, so that nothing might evermore be added to them. The new world made its art, its philosophy, its poetry, all imperfect, yet instinct with a living spirit beyond the old. To the Parthenon not a stone could be added from the hour of its completion. To Milan and Cologne altar and chapel, statue and spire, will be added through the ages. Christ was not merely a moral reformer, inculcating pure ethics; not merely a religious reformer, clearing away old theological errors and teaching higher ideas of God. These things He was; but He might, for all we can tell, have been them both as fully, and yet have failed to be what He has actually been to our race. He might have taught the world better ethics and better theology, and yet have failed to infuse into it that new tide which has ever since coursed through its arteries and penetrated its minutest veins. What Christ has really done is beyond the kingdom of the intellect and its theologies; nay, even beyond the kingdom of the conscience and its recognition of duty. His work has been in that of the heart. He has transformed the law into the gospel. He has changed the bondage of the alien for the liberty of the sons of God. He has glorified virtue into holiness, religion into piety, and duty into love." His was "a religion," says Jeremy Taylor, "that taught men to be meek and humble, apt to receive injuries, but unapt to do any; a religion that gave countenance to the poor and pitiful, in a time when riches were adored, and ambition and pleasure had possessed the heart of all mankind; a religion that would change the face of things and the hearts of men, and break vile habits into gentleness and counsel." "Christianity has that in it," says Steele, in the Christian Hero, "which makes men pity, not scorn the wicked; and, by a beautiful kind of ignorance of themselves, think those wretches their equals." "Great and multiform," observes Lecky, in his History of European Morals,—summing up some of the results of Christianity,—"great and multiform have been the influences of Christian philanthropy. The high conception that has been formed of the sanctity of human life, the protection of infancy, the elevation and final emancipation of the slave classes, the suppression of barbarous games, the creation of a vast and multifarious organization of charity, and the education of the imagination by the Christian type, constituted together a movement of philanthropy which has never been paralleled or approached in the pagan world."
"If there be any good in thee," says the author of the Imitation, "believe that there is much more in others, that so thou mayest preserve humility. It hurteth thee not to submit to all men; but it hurteth thee most of all to prefer thyself even to one." Sir Henry Wotton being asked if he thought a Papist could be saved, replied, "You may be saved without knowing that." "Be assured," said Dean Young, "there can be but little honesty without thinking as well as possible of others; and there can be no safety without thinking humbly and distrustfully of ourselves." "It is easy," said Peterborough, in Imaginary Conversations, "to look down on others; to look down on ourselves is the difficulty." "The character of a wise man," says Confucius, "consists in three things: to do himself what he tells others to do; to act on no occasion contrary to justice; and to bear with the weaknesses of those around him. Treat inferiors as if you might one day be in the hands of a master." "I recollect," says Saadi, "the verse which the elephant-driver rehearsed on the banks of the river Nile: 'If you are ignorant of the state of the ant under your foot, know that it resembles your own condition under the foot of the elephant.'" The stable of Confucius being burned down, when he was at court, on his return he said, "Has any man been hurt?" He did not ask about the horses. Of the death of Sir Roger de Coverley, his butler (Addison himself) wrote to The Spectator: "I am afraid he caught his death the last county-sessions, where he would go to see justice done to a poor widow woman, and her fatherless children, that had been wronged by a neighboring gentleman; for you know, sir, my good master was always the poor man's friend." Fénelon had a habit of bringing into his palace the wretched inhabitants of the country, whom the war had driven from their homes, and taking care of them, and feeding them at his own table. Seeing one day that one of these peasants eat nothing, he asked him the reason of his abstinence. "Alas! my lord," said the poor man, "in making my escape from my cottage, I had not time to bring off my cow, which was the support of my family. The enemy will drive her away, and I shall never find another so good." Fénelon, availing himself of his privilege of safe-conduct, immediately set out, accompanied by a servant, and drove the cow back himself to the peasant. A literary man, whose library was destroyed by fire, has been deservedly admired for saying, "I should have profited but little by my books, if they had not taught me how to bear the loss of them." The remark of Fénelon, who lost his in a similar way, is still more simple and touching. "I would much rather they were burnt than the cottage of a poor peasant." Lord Peterborough said of Fénelon, "He was a delicious creature. I was obliged to get away from him, or he would have made me pious." The influence of such a character brings to mind another passage from Saadi. "One day," he says, "as I was in the bath, a friend of mine put into my hand a piece of scented clay. I took it, and said to it, 'Art thou of heaven or earth? for I am charmed with thy delightful scent.' It answered, 'I was a despicable piece of clay; but I was some time in company of the rose: the sweet quality of my companion was communicated to me; otherwise I should have remained only what I appear to be, a bit of earth.'"
"If thou canst not make thyself such an one as thou wouldst," quoting the Imitation of Christ, "how canst thou expect to have another in all things to thy liking? We would willingly have others perfect, and yet we amend not our own faults. We would have others severely corrected, and will not be corrected ourselves. The large liberty of others displeaseth us; and yet we will not have our own desires denied us. We will have others kept under by strict laws; but in no sort will ourselves be restrained. And thus it appeareth how seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves." Recalling the apologue from Phædrus, paraphrased by Bulwer:—
Addison, in one of the papers of The Spectator, enlarges upon the thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of before that which would fall to them by such a division—by imagining a proclamation made by Jupiter, that every mortal should bring in his griefs and calamities, and throw them in a heap. There was a large plain appointed for this purpose. He took his stand in the centre of it, and saw the whole human species marching one after another, and throwing down their several loads, which immediately grew up into a prodigious mountain, that seemed to rise above the clouds. He observed one bringing in a bundle very carefully concealed under an old embroidered cloak, which, upon his throwing into the heap, he discovered to be poverty. Another, after a great deal of puffing, threw down his luggage, which, upon examining, he found to be his wife. He saw multitudes of old women throw down their wrinkles, and several young ones strip themselves of their tawny skins. There were very great heaps of red noses, large lips, and rusty teeth,—in truth, he was surprised to see the greatest part of the mountain made up of bodily deformities. Observing one advancing toward the heap with a larger cargo than ordinary upon his back, he found upon his near approach that it was only a natural hump, which he disposed of with great joy of heart among the collection of human miseries. But what most surprised him of all was that there was not a single vice or folly thrown in the whole heap; at which he was very much astonished, having concluded with himself that every one would take this opportunity of getting rid of his passions, prejudices, and frailties.
"Passions, prejudices, and frailties!" "There is no man so good," says Montaigne, "who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. [Talleyrand, when Rulhière said he had been guilty of only one wickedness in his life, asked, "When will it end?"] We are so far from being good men, according to the laws of God, that we cannot be so according to our own; human wisdom never yet arrived at the duty that it had itself prescribed; and could it arrive there, it would still prescribe itself others beyond it, to which it would ever aspire and pretend; so great an enemy of consistency is our human condition." Of prejudice it has been truly said by Basil Montagu, in a note to one of his publications, that "it has the singular ability of accommodating itself to all the possible varieties of the human mind. Some passions and vices are but thinly scattered among mankind, and find only here and there a fitness of reception. But prejudice, like the spider, makes everywhere its home. It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all that it requires is room. There is scarcely a situation, except fire and water, in which a spider will not live. So let the mind be as naked as the walls of an empty and forsaken tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented with the richest abilities of thinking; let it be hot, cold, dark or light, lonely or inhabited, still prejudice, if undisturbed, will fill it with cobwebs, and live, like the spider, where there seems nothing to live on. If the one prepares her food by poisoning it to her palate and her use, the other does the same; and as several of our passions are strongly characterized by the animal world, prejudice may be denominated the spider of the mind." "We are all frail, but do thou esteem none more frail than thyself." "Those many that need pity," says Jeremy Taylor, "and those infinities of people that refuse to pity, are miserable upon a several charge, but yet they almost make up all mankind."
"Lord, what is man—what the best of men—but man at the best!" exclaimed the impassioned and pious Whitefield.
It is said that when Leonardo da Vinci had finished his celebrated picture of the Last Supper, he introduced a friend to inspect the work privately, and give his judgment concerning it. "Exquisite!" exclaimed his friend; "that wine-cup seems to stand out from the table as solid, glittering silver." Thereupon the artist took a brush and blotted out the cup, saying, "I meant that the figure of Christ should first and mainly attract the observer's eye, and whatever diverts attention from him must be blotted out." Could we poor mortals just as readily blot out of our lives whatever diverts attention from the real good that is in us, how differently would we appear to others.
"Artists," says Hawthorne, "are fond of painting their own portraits; and in Florence, there is a gallery of hundreds of them, including the most illustrious, in all of which there are autobiographical characteristics, so to speak; traits, expressions, loftinesses, and amenities, which would have been invisible had they not been painted from within. Yet their reality and truth are none the less."
A good woman, who had bred a large family, and led a long life of devotion and self-sacrifice—worn out by care, and weary of her burdens—came at length to what was supposed to be her death-bed. A clergyman in the neighborhood thought it to be his duty to call upon her. He asked her in usual language if she had made her peace with her Maker; to which she replied that she was not aware that there had been any trouble.
"The most important thing in life," said Pascal, "is the choice of a profession; and yet this is a thing purely in the disposal of chance." We, however, take little or no account of the effects of particular professions or occupations upon the mind and character, holding all alike responsible for opinions and conduct. It does not occur to us as possible that even suicide and murder may primarily result from vocation. Rösch and Esquirol affirm from observation that indigo-dyers become melancholy; and those who dye scarlet, choleric.
Cottle, the bookseller, wrote with a pencil some lines on the wall of the room in Bristol, Newgate, where poor Savage died, which were admired by Coleridge. These are two of them:—
So much, alas, must be known to judge of a human life. Could we only know that we cannot know enough to judge one another, to say nothing of the indispensable wisdom that surpasses all knowledge. Happily, God is Judge.
Knowledge, in the common sense, as commonly acquired, what is it?
Some need much time to know a little; others know at a glance all that they can. Cumberland said Bubb Doddington was in nothing more remarkable than in ready perspicuity and discernment of a subject thrown before him on a sudden. "Take his first thoughts then, and he would charm you; give him time to ponder and refine, you would perceive the spirit of his sentiments and the vigor of his genius evaporate by the process; for though his first view of the question would be a wide one, and clear withal, when he came to exercise the subtlety of his disquisitional powers upon it, he would so ingeniously dissect and break it into fractions, that as an object, when looked upon too intently for a length of time, grows misty and confused, so would the question under his discussion when the humor took him to be hypercritical." Coleridge said Horne Tooke "had that clearness which is founded on shallowness. He doubted nothing, and therefore gave you all that he himself knew, or meant, with great completeness." Thucydides said of Themistocles that "he had the best judgment in actual circumstances, and he formed his judgment with the least deliberation." Quick or deliberate, shallow or profound, all are apt to assume to know all, when they may be little wiser, in truth, than Æsop's two travelers who had visited Arabia, and were conversing together about the chameleon. "A very singular animal," said one, "I never saw one at all like it in my life. It has the head of a fish, its body is as thin as that of a lizard, its pace is slow, its color blue." "Stop there," said the other, "you are quite mistaken, the animal is green; I saw it with my two eyes." "I saw it as well as you," cried the first, "and I am certain that it is blue." "I am positive that it is green." "And I that it is blue." The travelers were getting very angry with each other, and were about to settle the disputed point by blows, when happily a third person arrived. "Well, gentlemen, what is the matter here? Calm yourselves, I pray you." "Will you be the judge of our quarrel?" "Yes; what is it?" "This person maintains that the chameleon is green, while I say that it is blue." "My dear sirs, you are both in the wrong; the animal is neither one nor the other—it is black." "Black! you must be jesting!" "Not at all, I assure you; I have one with me in a box, and you shall judge for yourselves." The box was produced and opened, when, to the surprise of all three, the animal was as yellow as gold! In one of the Hindoo books we are told that in a certain country there existed a village of the blind men. These men had heard that there was an amazing animal called the elephant, but they knew not how to form an idea of his shape. One day an elephant happened to pass through the place; the villagers crowded to the spot where this animal was standing. One of them got hold of his trunk, another seized his ear, another his tail, another one of his legs, etc. After thus trying to gratify their curiosity, they returned into the village, and, sitting down together, they began to give their ideas of what the elephant was like; the man who had seized his trunk said he thought the elephant was like the body of the plantain-tree; the man who had felt his ear said he thought he was like the fan with which the Hindoos clean the rice; the man who had felt his tail said he thought he must be like a snake, and the man who had seized his leg thought he must be like a pillar. An old blind man of some judgment was present, who was greatly perplexed how to reconcile these jarring notions respecting the form of the elephant, but he at length said, "You have all been to examine this animal, it is true, and what you report cannot be false. I suppose, therefore, that that which was like the plantain-tree must be his trunk; that which was like a fan must be his ear; that which was like a snake must be his tail, and that which was like a pillar must be his body." Once upon a time a pastor of a village church adopted a plan to interest the members of his flock in the study of the Bible. It was this: "At the Wednesday evening meeting he would announce the topic to be discussed on the ensuing week, thus giving a week for preparation. One evening the subject was St. Paul. After the preliminary devotional exercises, the pastor called upon one of the deacons to 'speak to the question.' He immediately arose, and began to describe the personal appearance of the great apostle to the Gentiles. He said St. Paul was a tall, rather spare man, with black hair and eyes, dark complexion, bilious temperament, etc. His picture of Paul was a faithful portrait of himself. He sat down, and another prominent member arose and said, 'I think the brother preceding me has read the Scriptures to little purpose if his description of St. Paul is a sample of his Bible knowledge. St. Paul was, as I understand it, a rather short, thick-set man, with sandy hair, gray eyes, florid complexion, and a nervous, sanguine temperament,' giving, like his predecessor, an accurate picture of himself. He was followed by another who had a keen sense of the ludicrous, and who was withal an inveterate stammerer. He said, 'My bro-bro-brethren, I have never fo-found in my Bi-ble much about the p-per-personal ap-pe-pearance of St. P-p-paul. But one thing is clearly established, and tha-that is, St. P-p-paul had an imp-p-pediment in his speech.'"
"Having lived long," said Dr. Franklin, "I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but I found to be otherwise. It is, therefore, that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that whenever others differ from them, it is so far error. Steele, a Protestant, in a dedication tells the pope that 'the only difference between our two churches, in their opinions of the certainty of their doctrines is, the Romish Church is infallible, and the Church of England never in the wrong.' But, though many private persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French lady who, in a little dispute with her sister, said, 'I don't know how it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is always in the right.'" "I could never," says Sir Thomas Browne, "divide myself from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that from which, perhaps, within a few days, I should dissent myself." "Whoever shall call to memory how many and many times he has been mistaken in his own judgment," says the great French essayist, "is he not a great fool if he does not ever after distrust it?" "Beware," said John Wesley, "of forming a hasty judgment. There are secrets which few but God are acquainted with. Some years since I told a gentleman, 'Sir, I am afraid you are covetous.' He asked me, 'What is the reason of your fears?' I answered, 'A year ago, when I made a collection for the expense of repairing the Foundry, you subscribed five guineas. At the subscription made this year you subscribed only half a guinea.' He made no reply; but after a time asked, 'Pray, sir, answer me a question. Why do you live upon potatoes?' (I did so between three and four years.) I replied, 'It has much conduced to my health.' He answered, 'I believe it has. But did you not do it likewise to save money?' I said, 'I did, for what I save from my own meat will feed another that else would have none.' 'But, sir,' said he, 'if this be your motive, you may save much more. I know a man that goes to the market at the beginning of each week. There he buys a pennyworth of parsnips, which he boils in a large quantity of water. The parsnips serve him for food, and the water for drink, the ensuing week, so his meat and drink together cost him only a penny a week.' This he constantly did, though he had then two hundred pounds a year, to pay the debts which he had contracted before he knew God! And this was he I had set down for a covetous man." "We shall have two wonders in heaven," said the wise and gentle Tillotson; "the one, how many come to be absent whom we expected to find there; the other, how many are there whom we had no hope of meeting." There is significance in the epitaph by Steele, in The Spectator: "Here lieth R. C., in expectation of the last day. What sort of a man he was that day will discover."
It would seem that, as things are, there is nothing so natural as intolerance; and it is not to be wondered at that the language to express toleration should be of modern invention. Coleridge was of opinion "that toleration was impossible till indifference made it worthless." Dr. King had a different view; he said, "The opinion of any one in this world, except the wise and good, who do not aspire to be even tolerant,—who are too modest to be tolerant, since toleration implies superiority,—is of little consequence." Hunt said of Lamb, that "he had felt, thought, and suffered so much, that he literally had intolerance for nothing." Palgrave, in his Travels through Central and Eastern Arabia, relates of Abd-el-Lateef, a Wahabee, that one day seeing a corpulent Hindoo, he exclaimed, "What a log for hell-fire!" This follower of Mahomet had not only the intolerance, but the conceit of super-excellence that the poor sectarian followers of Christ too often have. When he was preaching one day to the people of Riad, he recounted the tradition according to which Mahomet declared that his followers should divide into seventy-three sects, and that seventy-two were destined to hell-fire, and only one to paradise. "And what, O messenger of God, are the signs of that happy sect to which is insured the exclusive possession of paradise?" Whereto Mahomet had replied, "It is those who shall be in all comformable to myself and my companions." "And that," added Abd-el-Lateef, lowering his voice to the deep tone of conviction, "that, by the mercy of God, are we, the people of Riad."
Upon the subject of toleration and charity, read a part of the remarkable dialogue from Arthur Helps' Friends in Council:—
Dunsford.—It is hard to be tolerant of intolerant people; to see how natural their intolerance is, and in fact thoroughly to comprehend it and feel for it. This is the last stage of tolerance, which few men, I suppose, in this world attain.
Midhurst.—Tolerance appears to me an unworked mine....
Milverton.—There is one great difficulty to be surmounted; and that is, how to make hard, clear, righteous men, who have not sinned much, have not suffered much, are not afflicted by strong passions, who have not many ties in the world, and who have been easily prosperous,—how to make such men tolerant. Think of this for a moment. For a man who has been rigidly good to be supremely tolerant would require an amount of insight which seems to belong only to the greatest genius. I have often fancied that the main scheme of the world is to create tenderness in man; and I have a notion that the outer world would change if man were to acquire more of this tenderness. You see at present he is obliged to be kept down by urgent wants of all kinds, or he would otherwise have more time and thought to devote to cruelty and discord. If he could live in a better world, I mean in a world where nature was more propitious, I believe he would have such a world. And in some mysterious way, I suspect that nature is constrained to adapt herself to the main impress of the character of the average beings in the world.
Ellesmere.—These are very extraordinary thoughts.
Dunsford.—They are not far from Christianity.
Milverton.—You must admit, Ellesmere, that Christianity has never been tried. I do not ask you to canvass doctrinal and controversial matters. But take the leading precepts; read the Sermon on the Mount, and see if it is the least like the doctrines of modern life.
Dunsford.—I cannot help thinking, when you are all talking of tolerance, why you do not use the better word, of which we hear something in Scripture,—charity.
Milverton.—If I were a clergyman, there is much that I should dislike to have to say (being a man of very dubious mind); there is much also that I should dislike to have to read; but I should feel that it was a great day for me when I had to read out that short but most abounding chapter from St. Paul on charity. The more you study that chapter, the more profound you find it. The way that the apostle begins is most remarkable; and I doubt if it has been often duly considered. We think much of knowledge in our own times; but consider what the early Christian must have thought of one who possessed the gift of tongues or the gift of prophecy. Think also what the early Christian must have thought of the man who possessed "all faith." Then listen to St. Paul's summing up of these great gifts in comparison with charity. Dunsford, will you give us the words? You remember them, I dare say.
Dunsford.—(1 Cor. ch. xiii.) "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."
Milverton.—You will let me proceed, I know, if it is only to hear more from Dunsford of that chapter. I have said that the early Christian would have thought much of the man who possessed the gift of tongues, of prophecy, of faith. But how he must have venerated the rich man who entered into his little community, and gave up all his goods to the poor! Again, how the early Christian must have regarded with longing admiration the first martyrs for his creed! Then hear what St. Paul says of this outward charity, and of this martyrdom, when compared with this infinitely more difficult charity of the soul and martyrdom of the temper. Dunsford will proceed with the chapter.
Dunsford.—"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."
Milverton.—Pray go on, Dunsford.
Dunsford.—"Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
"Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
"Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
"Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away."
Milverton.—That is surely one of the most beautiful things that has ever been written by man. It does not do to talk much after it.
Channing closes his Essay upon the Means of Promoting Christianity with this remarkable passage: "If, in this age of societies, we should think it wise to recommend another institution for the propagation of Christianity, it would be one the members of which should be pledged to assist and animate one another in living according to the Sermon on the Mount. How far such a measure would be effectual we venture not to predict; but of one thing we are sure, that, should it prosper, it would do more for spreading the gospel than all other associations which are now receiving the patronage of the Christian world."
At the White House, on an occasion I shall never forget, said a visitor, the conversation turned upon religious subjects, and Lincoln made this impressive remark: "I have never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reservation, to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their articles of belief and confessions of faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for membership," he continued, "the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance of both law and gospel, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself, that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul."
"You may remember," says Farrar, in his Silence and Voices of God, "how, in the old legend, St. Brendan, in his northward voyage, saw a man sitting upon an iceberg, and with horror recognized him as the traitor Judas Iscariot; and the traitor told him how, at Christmas time, amid the drench of the burning lake, an angel had touched his arm, and bidden him for one hour to cool his agony on an iceberg in the Arctic sea; and when he asked the cause of this mercy, bade him recognize in him a leper to whom in Joppa streets he had given a cloak to shelter him from the wind; and how for that one kind deed this respite was allotted him. Let us reject the ghastly side of the legend, and accept its truth. Yes, charity,—love to God as shown in love to man—is better than all burnt-offering and sacrifice." "In thy face," said the dying Bunsen to the wife of his heart, bending over him, "in thy face have I seen the Eternal."
When Abraham, according to another old legend, sat at his tent door, as was his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied coming toward him an old man, stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, who was a hundred years of age. He received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down; but observing that the old man eat, and prayed not, nor begged for blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the God of heaven. The old man told him that he worshiped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God. At which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was. He replied, "I thrust him away because he did not worship Thee." God answered him, "I have suffered him these hundred years, although he dishonored me; and couldst not thou endure him one night?"
"Ah! poor things that we are. We are all sore with many bruises and wounds. The marvel is that our own tenderness does not make us tender to all others."
"He shall be immortal who liveth till he be stoned by one without fault."
"I saw in Rome, once, Anstiss," said Hope, "an old coin,—a silver denarius,—all coated and crusted with green and purple rust. I called it rust; but Aleck told me it was copper; the alloy thrown out from the silver, until there was none left. Within, it was all pure. It takes ages to do it; but it does get done. Souls are like that, Anstiss. Something moves in them, slowly, till the debasement is all thrown out. Sometime, the very varnish shall be taken off."