Part 4 (1/2)

or are the signs of Jeremiah and Ezekiel the less childish and indecent because they are prefaced with, ”thus saith Jehovah?” Far be it from me to detract from the glorious morality of portions of the Bible; but if the whole book be inspired and infallible in its moral teaching, then, of course, one moral lesson is as important as another, and we have no right to pick and choose where the whole is divine. The harsher part of the Old Testament morality has burnt its mark into the world, and may be traced through history by the groans of suffering men and women, by burning witches and tortured enemies of the Lord, by flaming cities and blood-stained fields. If murder and rapine, treachery and lies, robbery and violence, were commanded long ago by Almighty G.o.d; if things are right and wrong only by virtue of His command, then who can say that they may not be right once more, when used in the cause of the Church, and how are we to know that Moses speaks in G.o.d's name when he commands them, and Torquemada only in his own? But even Christians are beginning to feel ashamed of some of the exploits of the ”Old Testament Saints,”

and to try and explain away some of the harsher features; we even hear sometimes a wicked whisper about ”imperfect light,” &c. Good heavens!

what blasphemy! Imperfect light can mean nothing less than imperfect G.o.d, if He is responsible for the morality of these writings.

So, from our study of the Bible we deduce another canon by which we may judge of inspiration:

”Inspiration does not prevent moral error.” There is a fourth cla.s.s of inspirationists, the last which clings to the skirts of orthodoxy, which is always endeavouring to plant one foot on the rocks of science, while it balances the other over the quicksands of orthodox super-naturalism.

The Broad Church school here takes one wide step away from orthodoxy, by allowing that the inspiration of the Bible differs only in degree and not in kind from the inspiration common to all mankind. They recognise the great fact that the inspiring Spirit of G.o.d is the source whence flow all good and n.o.ble deeds, and they point out that the Bible itself refers all good and all knowledge to that one Spirit, and that He breathes mechanical skill into Bezaleel and Aholiab, strength into Samson's arms, wisdom into Solomon, as much as He breathes the ecstacy of the prophet into Isaiah, faith into Paul, and love into John. They recognise the old legends as authentic, but would maintain as stoutly that He spoke to Newton through the falling of an apple, as that He spoke of old to Elijah by fire, or to the wise men by a star. This school try and remove the moral difficulties of the Old Testament by regarding the history recorded in it as a history which is specially intended to unveil the working of G.o.d through all history, and so to gradually reveal G.o.d as He makes Himself known to the world; thus the grosser parts are regarded as wholly attributable to the ignorance of men, and they delight to see the divine light breaking slowly through the thick clouds of human error and prejudice, and to trace in the Bible the gradual evolution of a n.o.bler faith and a purer morality.

They regard the miracles of Jesus as a manifestation that G.o.d underlies Nature and works ever therein: they believe G.o.d to be specially manifested in Jewish history, in order that men may understand that He presides over all nations and rules over all peoples. To Maurice the Bible is the explainer of all earth's problems, the unveiler of G.o.d, the Bread of Life. There is, on the whole, little to object to in the Broad Church view of inspiration, although liberal thinkers regret that, as a party, they stop half way, and are still trammelled by the half-broken chains of orthodoxy. For instance, they usually regard the direct revelation of morality as closed by Jesus and His immediate followers, although they allow that G.o.d has not deserted His world, nor confined His inspiration within the covers of a book. To them, however, the Bible is still _the_ inspired book, standing apart by itself, differing from all other sacred books. From their views of inspiration, which contains so much that is true, we deduce a fourth rule:

”Inspiration is not confined to written words about G.o.d.” From a criticism of the book, which is held by orthodox Christians, to be specially inspired, we have then gained some idea of what inspiration does _not_ do. It does not prevent inaccuracy, ignorance, error, nor is it confined to any written book. Inspiration, then, cannot be an overwhelming influence, crus.h.i.+ng the human faculties and bearing along the subject of it on a flood which he can neither direct nor resist. It is a breathing--gentle and gradual--of pure thoughts into impure hearts, tender thoughts into fierce hearts, forgiving thoughts into revengeful hearts. David calls home his banished son, and he learns that, ”even as a father pitieth his children, so is the Lord merciful unto them that fear Him.” Paul wishes himself accursed if it may save his brethren, and from his own self-sacrificing love he learns that ”G.o.d will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Thus inspiration is breathed into the man's heart. ”I love and forgive, weak as I am; what must be the depth of the love and forgiveness of G.o.d?”

David's fierce revenge finds an echo in his writings; for man writes, and not G.o.d: he defaces G.o.d by ascribing to Him the pa.s.sions surging only in his own burning Eastern heart: then, as the Spirit moves him to forgiveness, his song is of mercy; for he feels that his Maker must be better than himself. That part of the Bible is inspired, I do not deny, in the sense that all good thoughts are the result of inspiration, but only as we share the inspiration of the Bible can we distinguish between the n.o.ble and the base in it, between the eternal and that which is fast pa.s.sing away. But as we do not expect to find that inspiration, now-a-days, guards men from much error, both of word and deed, so we should not expect to find it otherwise in days gone by; nor should we wonder that the man who spoke of G.o.d as showing His tender fatherhood by punis.h.i.+ng and correcting, could so sink down into hard thoughts of that loving Father as to say that it was a fearful thing to fall into His hands. These contradictions meet us in every man; they are the highest and the lowest moments of the human soul. Only as we are inspired to love and patience in our conduct towards men will our words be inspired when we speak of G.o.d.

Having thus seen what inspiration does not do, we must glance at what it really is. It is, perhaps, natural that we, rejecting, as we do, with somewhat of vehemence, the idea of supernatural revelation, should oftentimes be accused of denying all revelation and disbelieving all inspiration. But even as we are not atheists, although we deny the G.o.dhead of Jesus, so are we not unbelievers in inspiration because we refuse to bend our necks beneath the yoke of an inspired Bible. For we believe in a G.o.d too mighty and too universal to be wrapped in swaddling clothes or buried in a cave, and we believe in an inspiration too mighty and too universal to belong only to one nation and to one age. As the air is as free and as refres.h.i.+ng to us as it was to Isaiah, to Jesus, or to Paul, so does the spiritual air of G.o.d's Spirit breathe so softly and as refres.h.i.+ngly on our brows as on theirs. We have eyes to see and ears to hear quite as much as they had in Judea long ago. ”If G.o.d be omnipresent and omniactive, this inspiration is no miracle, but a regular mode of G.o.d's action on conscious Spirit, as gravitation on unconscious matter. It is not a rare condescension of G.o.d, but a universal uplifting of man. To obtain a knowledge of duty, a man is not sent away outside of himself to ancient doc.u.ments for the only rule of faith and practice; the Word is very nigh him, even in his heart, and by this word he is to try all doc.u.ments whatever.... Wisdom, Righteous-ness, and Love are the Spirit of G.o.d in the soul of man; wherever these are, and just in proportion to their power, there is inspiration from G.o.d.... Inspiration is the in-come of G.o.d to the soul, in the form of Truth through the Reason, of Right through the Conscience, of Love and Faith through the Affections and Religious Element.... A man would be looked on as mad who should claim miraculous inspiration for Newton, as they have been who denied it in the case of Moses. But no candid man will doubt that, humanly speaking, it was a more difficult thing to write the Principia than to write the Decalogue.

Man must have a nature most sadly anomalous if, una.s.sisted, he is able to accomplish all the triumphs of modern science, and yet cannot discover the plainest and most important principles of Religion and Morality without a miraculous inspiration; and still more so if, being able to discover by G.o.d's natural aid these chief and most important principles, he needs a miraculous inspiration to disclose minor details.”* Thus we believe that inspiration from G.o.d is the birthright of humanity, and to be an heir of G.o.d it needs only to be a son of man.

Earth's treasures are highly priced and hard to win, but G.o.d's blessings are, like the rain and the suns.h.i.+ne, showered on all-comers.

”'Tis only heaven is given away; 'Tis only G.o.d may be had for the asking; No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer.”

* Theodore Parker.

If inspiration were indeed that which it is thought to be by the orthodox Christians, surely we ought to be able to distinguish its sayings from those of the uninspired. If inspiration be confined to the Christian Bible, how is it that the inspired thoughts were in many cases spoken out to the world hundreds of years before they fell from the lips of an inspired Jew? It seems a somewhat uncalled for miraculous interference for a man to be supernaturally inspired to inform the world of some moral truth which had been well known for hundreds of years to a large portion of the race. Or is it that a great moral truth bears within itself so little evidence of its royal birth, that it cannot be accepted as ruler by divine right over men until its proclamation is signed by some duly accredited messenger of the Most High? Then, indeed, must G.o.d be ”more cognizable by the senses than by the soul;” and then ”the eye or the ear is a truer and quicker percipient of Deity than the Spirit which came forth from Him.”* Was Paul inspired when he wished himself accursed for his brethren's sake, but Kwan-yin uninspired, when she said, ”Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation; never enter into final peace alone?” If Jesus and the prophets were inspired when they placed mercy above sacrifice, was Manu uninspired in saying that a man ”will fall very low if he performs ceremonial acts only, and fails to discharge his moral duties”? Was Jesus inspired when he taught that the whole law was comprehended in one saying, namely, ”Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself?” and yet was Confucius uninspired when, in answer to the question, ”What one word would serve as a rule to one's whole life?” he said, ”Reciprocity; what you do not wish done to yourself, do not to others.” Or take the Talmud and study it, and then judge from what uninspired source Jesus drew much of His highest teaching. ”Whoso looketh on the wife of another with a l.u.s.tful eye, is considered as if he had committed adultery.”--(Kalah.) ”With what measure we mete, we shall be measured again.”--(Johanan.) ”What thou wouldst not like to be done to thyself, do not to others; this is the fundamental law.”--(Hillel.) ”If he be admonished to take the splinter out of his eye, he would answer, Take the beam out of thine own.”--(Tarphon.) ”Imitate G.o.d in His goodness. Be towards thy fellow-creatures as He is towards the whole creation. Clothe the naked; heal the sick; comfort the afflicted; be a brother to the children of thy Father.” The whole parable of the houses built on the rock and on the sand is taken out of the Talmud, and such instances of quotation might be indefinitely multiplied. What do they all prove? That there is no inspiration in the Bible? by no means. But surely that inspiration is not confined to the Bible, but is spread over the world; that much in all ”sacred books” is the outcome of inspired minds at their highest, although we find the same books containing gross and low thoughts.

We should always remember that although the Bible is more specially a revelation to us of the Western nations than are the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta, that it is only so because it is better suited to our modes of thought, and because it has-been one of the agents in our education.

* W. R. Greg.

The reverence with which we may regard the Bible as bound up with many-sacred memories, and as the chosen teacher of many of our greatest minds and purest characters, is rightly directed in other nations to their own sacred books. The books are really all on a level, with much good and much bad in them all; but as the Hebrew was inspired to proclaim that ”the Lord thy G.o.d is one Lord” to the Hebrews, so was the Hindoo inspired to proclaim to Hindoos, ”There is only one Deity, the great Soul.” Either all are inspired, or none are. They stand on the same footing. And we rejoice to-believe that one Spirit breathes in all, and that His inspiration is ours to-day. ”The Father worketh hitherto,”

although men fancy He is resting in an eternal Sabbath. The orthodox tells us that, in rejecting the rule of morality laid down for us in the Bible, and in trusting ourselves to this inspiration of the free Spirit of G.o.d, our faith and our morality will alike be s.h.i.+fting and unstable.

But we reck not of their warnings; our faith and our morality are only s.h.i.+fting in this sense, that, as we grow holier, and purer, and wiser, our conception of G.o.d and of righteousness will rise and expand with our growth. It was a golden saying of one of G.o.d's n.o.blest sons that ”no man knoweth the Father save the Son:” to know G.o.d we must resemble Him, as we see in the child the likeness of the parent. But in trusting ourselves to the guidance of the Spirit of G.o.d, we are not building the house of our faith on the s.h.i.+fting sand; rather are we ”dwelling in a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is G.o.d.” Wisely was it sung of old, ”Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it.” Vain are all efforts of priestly coercion; vain all toils of inspired books; vain the utter sacrifice of reason and conscience; their labour is but lost when they strive to build a temple of human faith, strong enough to bear the long strain of time, or the earthquake-shock of grief. G.o.d only, by the patient guiding of His love, by the direct inspiration of His Spirit, can lay, stone by stone, and timber by timber, that priceless fabric of trust and love, which shall outlive all attacks and all changes, and shall stand in the human soul as long as His own Eternity endures.

ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.

IN every transition-stage of the world's history the question of education naturally comes to the front. So much depends on the first impressions of childhood, on the first training of the tender shoot, that it has always been acknowledged, from Solomon to Forster, that to ”train up a child in the way he should go” is among the most important duties of fathers and citizens. To the individual, to the family, to the State, the education of the rising generation is a question of primary importance. Plato began the education of the citizens of his ideal Republic from the very hour of their birth; the nursing child was taken from the mother lest injudicious treatment should mar, in the slightest degree, the perfection of the future warrior. On this point modern and ancient wisdom clasp hands, and place the education of the child among the most important duties of the State. The battle at present raging between the advocates of ”secular” and ”religious” education--to use the cant of the day--is a most natural and righteous recognition of the vast interests at stake when Church or State claims the right of training the sons and daughters of England. No one has yet attempted to explain why it should be ”irreligious” to teach writing, or history, or geography; or why it should ”destroy a child's soul” to improve his mental faculties. It is among the ”mysteries” of the faith, why it is better for our poor to leave' them to grow up in both moral and intellectual darkness, than to dissipate the intellectual darkness by some few rays of knowledge, and to leave the moral training to other hands. If we left a starving man to die because we could only give him bread, and were unable to afford cheese in addition, all would unite in declaiming at our folly: but ”religious” people would rather that our street Arabs grew up both heathens and brutes, than that we should improve their minds without Christianizing their souls. Better let a lad grow up a thief and a drunkard, than turn him into an artizan and a freethinker.

There can scarcely be a better proof of the unreasonableness of Christian doctrine, than the Christian fear of sharpening mental faculties, without binding them down, at the same time, in the chains of dogma. Only a religion founded on reason can dare to train children's minds to the utmost, and then leave them free to use all the power and keenness acquired by that training on the investigation of any religious doctrine presented to them. We, who have written Tekel on the Christian faith, share in the opinion of the Christian clergy, that man's carnal reason is a terrible foe to the Christian revelation; but here we begin to differ from them, for while they regard this reason as a child of the devil, to be scourged and chained down, we do homage to it as to the fairest offspring of the Divine Spirit, the brightest earthly reflection of His glory, and the nearest image of His ”Person”; we would cherish it, tend it, nourish it, as our Father's n.o.blest gift to humanity, as our surest guide and best counsellor, as the ear which hears His voice, and the eye which sees Him, as the sharpest weapon against superst.i.tion, the ultimate arbiter on earth between right and wrong. To us, then, education is ranged on the side of G.o.d; we welcome it freely and gladly, because all truth, all light, all knowledge, are foes of falsehood, of darkness, of ignorance. If we mistake error for truth a brighter light will set us right, and we only wish to be taught truth, not to be proved right.

Most liberal thinkers agree in recognizing the fact that the duties of the State in the matter of education must, in the nature of things, be purely ”secular:” that is to say, that while the State insists that the future citizen shall be taught at least the elements of learning, so as to fit him or her for fulfilling the duties of that citizens.h.i.+p, it has no right to insist on impressing on the mind of its pupil any set of religious dogmas or any form of religious creed. The abdication by the State of the pretended right of enforcing on its citizens any special form of religion, is not at all identical with the opposition by the State to religious teaching; It is merely a development of the very wise maxim of the great Jewish Teacher, to render the things of Caesar to Caesar, and the things of G.o.d to G.o.d. To teach reading, writing, honesty, regard for law, these things are Caesar's duties; to teach religious dogma, creed, or article, is entirely the province of the teachers who claim to hold the truth of G.o.d.

But my object now is not to draw the line between the duties of Church and State, of school and home; nor do I wish to enter the lists of sectarian controversy, to break a lance in favour of a new religious dogma. The question is rather this: ”What are the limits of the religious education which it is wise to impose on the young? Is any dogmatic teaching to be a part of their moral training, and is the dogmatism against which we have rebelled to be revived in a new form?

Are the fetters which we are breaking for ourselves to be welded together again for the young limbs of our children? Are they to be fed on the husks which have starved our own religious aspirations, and which we have a.n.a.lysed, and rejected as unfit to sustain our moral and mental vigour? On the other hand, are our children to grow up without any religious teaching at all, without a ray of that suns.h.i.+ne which is to most of us the very source of our gladness, and the renewal of our strength?”

I think the best way of deciding this question is to notice the gradual development of the childish body and mind. Nature's indications are a sure guide-post, and we cannot go very far wrong in following her hints.

I am now on ground with which mothers are familiar, though perhaps few men have watched young children with sufficient attention to be able to note their gradual development. The first instincts of a baby are purely personal: the ”not-I” is for it nonexistent: food, warmth, cleanliness, comprise all its needs and all our duties to it. The next stage is when the infant becomes conscious of the existence of something outside itself: when, vaguely and indistinctly, but yet decidedly, it shows signs of observing the things around it: to cultivate observation, to attract attention, slowly to guide it into distinguis.h.i.+ng one object from another, are the next steps in its education. The child soon succeeds in distinguis.h.i.+ng forms, and learns to attach different sounds to different shapes: it is also taught to avoid some things and to play with others: it awakes to the knowledge that while some objects give pleasure, others give pain: so far as material things go, it learns to choose the good and to avoid the evil. This power is only gained by experience, and is therefore acquired but gradually, and after a time, side by side with it, runs another lesson; slowly and gradually there appears a dawning appreciation of ”right” and ”wrong.” This appreciation is not, however, at first an appreciation of any intrinsic rightness or wrongness in any given action; it is simply a recognition on the child's part that some of its acts meet with approval, others with disapproval, from its elders. The standard of its seniors is unquestioningly accepted by the child. The moral sense awakes, but is completely guided in its first efforts by the hand of the child's teacher, as completely as the first efforts to walk are directed by the mother. Thus it comes to pa.s.s that the conscience of the child is but the reflex of the conscience of its parents or guardians: ”right” and ”wrong” in a child's vocabulary are in the earliest stages equivalent to ”reward”

and ”punishment;” its final court of appeal in cases of morality is the judgment of the parent.*

* The moral sense does show itself, however, in very young children, in a higher form than this; for we may often observe in a young child an instinctive sense of shame at having done wrong. But the moral sense is awakened and educated by the parents' approval and disapproval. This may be proved, I think, by the fact that a child brought up among thieves and evil-livers will accept their morality as a matter of course, and will steal and lie habitually, without attaching to either act any idea of wrong. The moral sense is inherent in man, and is in no way _given_ by the parent; but I think that it is first aroused and put into action by the parent; the parent accustoms the child to regard certain actions as right and wrong; this appeals to the moral sense in the child, and the child very rapidly is ashamed of wrong, as wrong, and not simply from dread of punishment. I would be understood to mean, in the text, that the wish for reward is the first response of the child to the idea of an inherent distinction between different actions; this feeling rapidly developes into the true moral sense, which regards right as right, and wrong as wrong.

I append this note at the suggestion of a valued friend, who feared that the inference might be drawn from the text that the moral sense was implanted by the parent instead of being, as it is, the gift of G.o.d.

It is perhaps scarcely accurate to call this motive power in the child a _moral_ sense at all; still, this recognition of some thing which is immaterial and intangible, and which is yet to be the guide of its actions, is a great step forward from the simple consciousness of outer and material objects, and is truly the dawn of that moral sense which becomes in men and women the test of right and wrong. So far we have considered the growing faculties of the child as regards physical and moral development, and I particularly wish to remark that the moral sense appears long before any ”religious” tendency can be noted. There is, however, another side of the complete human character which is very important, but which is slow in showing itself in any healthy child; I mean what may be called the _spiritual_ sense, in distinction from the moral; the sense which is the crowning grace of humanity, the sense which belongs wholly to the immortal part of man: the outstretched hands of the human spirit groping after the Eternal Spirit; the yearning after that all-pervading Power which men call G.o.d. I know well that in many precociously-pious children this spiritual sense is forced into a premature and unwholesome maturity; by means of a spiritual hot-house the summer-fruit of piety may be obtained in the spring-time of the childish heart. The imitative instinct of childhood quickly reproduces the sentiments around it, and set phrases which meet with admiration flow glibly from baby-lips. But this strongly developed religious feeling in a child is both unnatural and harmful, and can never, because it is unreal, produce any lasting good effect. Yet is it none the less true that, at an early age, differing much in different children, the ”spiritual sense” does show signs of awakening; that children soon begin to wonder about things around them, and to ask questions which can only find their true answer in the name of G.o.d. How to meet these questions, how to train this growing sentiment without crus.h.i.+ng it on the one hand, and without unduly stimulating it on the other, is a source of deep anxiety to many a mother's heart in the present day. They are unable to tell their children the stories which satisfied their own childish cravings: no longer can they hold up before the eager faces the picture of the manger at Bethlehem, or dim the bright eyes with the story of the cross on Calvary; no longer can they fold the little hands in prayer to the child of Nazareth, or hush the hasty tongue with the reminder of the obedience of the Virgin's son. To a certain extent this is a loss.