some one who reads these pages it will perhaps be the last year of his earthly sojourn; but if so, this all-sufficiency will not fail him in the valley of death; and, having crossed that valley, he will find himself on the very heights of Zion, where Christ will be His all-sufficient Portion for eternity itself.

THORNLEY SMITH.

UNCONSCIOUS ORTHODOXY.

II.

LET us find our next illustration of unconscious or undesigned orthodoxy in the sceptical world in relation to the redemption of the world by the death of Christ. It is unnecessary to give any quotation from rationalistic writers to show how obnoxious they consider this central doctrine of Christianity. And yet we contend that this great truth of salvation has been largely confirmed in sceptical quarters. Objections have been constantly raised to the necessity of any such demonstration as the death of Christ. God, we were told, was merciful and forgiving; and, without any declaration of His righteousness, could forgive a world's sin. Even many theologians dwell on the compassion of God, and the absolution from sin, with the most maudlin sentimentality. There is much of this in the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, and writers of his school. Ruskin says, "I believe it to be quite one of the crowning wickednesses of this age that we have starved and chilled our faculty of indignation." And we have a considerable number of sentimental theologians who aptly illustrate Ruskin's position, and entirely merit his rebuke. Their pages are most relaxing: one might well conclude that there was no such thing in the universe as vindictive justice, deliberate anger, retributive punishment. However, that science of our day which has no sympathy with evangelical religion, is so far orthodox that it shows the austerity of law, and the impossibility of this ready forgiveness. It shows that it is a fearful thing to sin, and that to sinners "our God is a consuming fire." Professor Huxley speaks thus: "It is a very plain and elementary truth, that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a game of his or her own. The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from

us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is check-mated-without haste, but without remorse." (Selected Essays, pp. 24, 25.) And again, he speaks of ignorant and lawless men as being "plucked" in nature's university, and adds, "Nature's pluck means extermination." (P. 26.) Comte will not receive ignoble characters into that whole of humanity which, in his system, takes the place of God and immortality. He calls them "mere digesting machines," and dismisses them for ever. (Pos. Catechism, p. 75.) Nay, science has gone beyond all this in clear assertion, and pronounces the doctrine of forgiveness to be illogical and pernicious. "The more this idea of natural law can be made to pervade modern thought, the more will its influence be felt and appreciated in morals as well as in philosophy. So long as the human mind believes in the efficacy of confession, humiliation, and repentance, so long will it feebly resist the temptation to error; but let it once be convinced that certain consequences must inevitably follow from certain acts, and that there is, indeed, in the order of creation," no variableness, neither shadow of turning," and you provide it with one of the strongest incentives to reason and resistance. So far as confession and repentance concern the individual mind, the effect is undoubtedly wholesome; but so far as they relate to general law, which rules for the whole, and not for the individual, it would be reversing all philosophical views of the enduring order of nature to suppose that they could be instrumental either in producing change Goethe once said: "All the course or in procuring exemption." of Providence goes to show that the God of Providence is the same as the severe Jehovah of the Hebrews;" and our scientific men, insisting on the severity of law, are unconsciously, but powerfully, sustaining that Gospel of atonement which gives the supreme illustration of the vindication of law. The relentless Calvinism of rationalistic science is just in season to check the feeble latitudinarianism of the Church, and the wholesome acids of Huxley and Page may correct in the public taste the golden syrups administered by feeble theologians. Modern science teaches that nature is "red in tooth and claw," and boldly affirms what the Church has long affirmed, that if there be such a thing as grace and forgiveness, it must be sought elsewhere than in the realm of creation.

"*

* From a paper read by Mr. David Page at a meeting of the Edinburgh Geological Society, June, 1866.

And objections have never ceased to be raised to the principle of atonement. That the innocent should suffer for the guilty is pronounced false and unnatural—the whole thing incredible. But this principle has been amply recognised of late years in unorthodox circles. The Broad Church party has given this principle special prominence." The very being of God is in self-sacrifice," says Mr. Brooke; and, in common with Robertson, the whole school regard self-sacrifice as the law of the universe. Disregarding just now the controversy as to the forensic or moral theory of the atonement, it is singular that from the free-thinking section of the Church should have come so powerful an assertion of that principle of self-sacrifice embodied in the Cross, and which generations of free-thinkers have loudly called in question. J. S. Mill, too, vehemently claims this principle as belonging to his peculiar system of morals: "Though it is only in a very imperfect state of the world's arrangements that any one can best serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of his own, yet so long as the world is in that imperfect state, I fully acknowledge that the readiness to make such a sacrifice is the highest virtue which can be found in man.......Let Utilitarians never cease to claim the morality of self-devotion as a possession which belongs by as good a right to them as either to the Stoic or to the Transcendentalist. The Utilitarian morality does recognise in human beings the power of sacrificing their own greatest good for the good of others." (Utilitarianism, p. 24.) Surely when we read admissions like these, and from such a quarter, touching the doctrine of sacrifice, we instinctively recall the figure of Simon, a man of Cyrene, who constrainedly bore the Saviour's cross.

We will now glance at the Scriptural doctrine of personal and social regeneration. The Gospel declares that the method to make the world new and happy is to make man a "new creature in Christ Jesus:" "Ye must be born again" is the condition of peace and prosperousness. Out of a new heart, which Christianity promises. to give us, is to grow the Millennial world. Now all this has been questioned and condemned, over and over again. Christianity has been denounced because it did not attempt reformation by direct and decided interference with legislation, institutions, fashions, and manners. But J. S. Mill indirectly sanctions the Gospel method which commences all reformation with deep, spiritual transformations: "In England I had seen and continued to see many of the opinions of my youth obtain general recognition, and many of the reforms in institutions, for which I had through life contended, either effected or in course of being so. But these changes had been attended with much less benefit to human well-being than I should

formerly have anticipated, because they had produced very little improvement in that which all real amelioration in the lot of mankind depends on, their intellectual and moral state; and it might even be questioned if the various causes of deterioration which had been at work in the meanwhile, had not more than counterbalanced the tendencies to improvement. I had learnt from experience that many false opinions may be exchanged for true ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of which false opinions are the result.......I am now convinced, that no great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought." (Autobiography, pp. 238, 239.) And Mr. Greg thoroughly sympathises in the same view: "In truth, those only can safely and serviceably encounter social evils who can both watch, and in some measure imitate, God's mode of dealing with them. Patience; slow and flank approaches; a dealing with roots, not branches-with the seat, not the symptom of the epidemic horror; the preparing, rather than the ordaining of a change or cure-these characterise the treatment of the world's wounds and maladies by Him who is 'patient because eternal,'-together with a majestic indifference to, or rather a sublime endurance of, sorrow, suffering, and sin, during the intervening time, however long, till the seed has borne fruit, and the cause has worked onward to its issue. Few, we believe, will ever effect real, radical, permanent social amelioration, who endeavour to cure evils by direct enactment; whose feelings are too keen and sensitive to wait the time of the Most High, and to contemplate with unflinching faith and patience the sufferings continued through, or by reason of, the remedial process, sometimes even aggravated by it." (Enigmas of Life. Fourth Edit., pp. 160, 161.) This is throughout in confirmation of the method of Christianity from the beginning, but how often has this method been condemned by rationalising and impatient reformers! Christian missions discard all attempts at immediate external reformation, and appealing to the conscience and sentiment of the people, seek, from the heart outwards, slowly, to change the face of the world; and Messrs. Mill and Greg are the eloquent apologists of the Church's programme.

And ultimate, universal, social regeneration is now recognised in the creed of anti-churchly reformers. For ages the glorious visions of the Prophets, in which they beheld a paradisial earth, were scouted as unphilosophical and idle dreams-the Millennium was the Church's Utopia. But many of our critics have changed their ground, and plead for the perfectibility of our race with a fervid

eloquence which would not misbecome the missionary platform of the Church, familiar with such strains for nearly two thousand years. Mr. Greg thus speaks:-"Some believe only that a considerable number of human evils may be materially mitigated; others, more buoyant, have convinced themselves that, with time, patience, and intelligent exertion, every evil not inherent in or essential to a finite existence, may be eliminated, and the yawning gulf between the Actual and the Ideal at last bridged over. This faith is mine. I hold it with a conviction which I feel for scarcely any other conclusion of the reason. I distinctly refuse to believe in inevitable evils. I recognise in the rectification of existing wrong and the remedy of prevailing wretchedness, the work which is given us to do. For this we are to toil; and not to toil in vain." (Enigmas of Life, pp. 5, 6.) And Mr. Mill is entranced with the same dazzling vision: "No one whose opinion deserves a moment's consideration can doubt that most of the great positive evils of the world are in themselves removable, and will, if human affairs continue to improve, be in the end reduced within narrow limits. Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extinguished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and providence of individuals. Even that most intractable of enemies, disease, may be indefinitely reduced in dimensions by good physical and moral education, and proper control of noxious influence; while the progress of science holds out a promise for the future of still more direct conquests over this detestable foe. As for vicissitudes of fortune, and other disappointments connected with worldly circumstances, these are principally the effect either of gross imprudence, of ill-regulated desires, or of bad or imperfect social institutions. All the grand sources, in short, of human suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort; and though their removal is grievously slow-though a long succession of generations will perish in the breach before the conquest is completed, and this world becomes all that, if will and knowledge were not wanting, it might easily be made yet every mind sufficiently intelligent and generous to bear a part, however small and unconspicuous, in the endeavour, will draw a noble enjoyment from the contest itself, which he would not for any bribe in the form of selfish indulgence consent to be without." (Utilitarianism, p. 22.) Thus we may become enthusiasts in the cause of humanity with the justification of Utilitarianism. It is true, the method of lifting society proposed by these secular prophets is that of the mountebank lifting himself in his own basket; still it is very interesting to find that they believe society can be raised to such heaven-touch