I feel with Jefferies that "by day or by night, summer or winter, beneath trees the heart feels nearer to that depth of life which the far sky means. The rest of spirit found only in beauty, ideal and pure, comes there because the distance seems within touch of thought."
The general effect of forests in tropical regions must be very different from that of those in our latitudes. Kingsley describes it as one of helplessness, confusion, awe, all but terror. The trunks are very lofty and straight, and rising to a great height without a branch, so that the wood seems at first comparatively open. In Brazilian forests, for instance, the trees struggle upward, and the foliage forms an unbroken canopy, perhaps a hundred feet overhead. Here, indeed, high up in the air is the real life of the forest. Everything seems to climb, to the light. The quadrupeds climb, birds climb, reptiles climb, and the variety of climbing plants is far greater than anything to which we are accustomed.
Many savage nations worship trees, and I really think my first feeling would be one of delight and interest rather than of surprise, if some day when I am alone in a wood one of the trees were to speak to me. Even by day there is something mysterious in a forest, and this is much more the case at night.
With wood, water seems to be naturally associated. Without water no landscape is complete, while overhead the clouds add beauty to the heavens themselves. The spring and the rivulet, the brook, the river, and the lake, seem to give life to Nature, and were indeed regarded by our ancestors as living entities themselves. Water is beautiful in the morning mist, in the broad lake, in the glancing stream or the river pool, in the wide ocean, beautiful in all its varied moods. Water nourishes vegetation; it clothes the lowlands with green and the mountains with snow. It sculptures the rocks and excavates the valleys, in most cases acting mainly through the soft rain, though our harder rocks are still grooved by the ice-chisel of bygone ages.
The refreshing pour of water upon the earth is scarcely greater than that which it exercises on the mind of man. After a long spell of work how delightful it is to sit by a lake or river, or on the seashore, and enjoy
"A little murmur in mine ear,A little ripple at my feet." [7]
Every Englishman loves the sight of the Sea We feel that it is to us a second home. It seems to vivify the very atmosphere, so that Sea air is proverbial as a tonic, and makes the blood dance in our veins. The Ocean gives an impression of freedom and grandeur more intense perhaps than the aspect of the heavens themselves. A poor woman from Manchester, on being taken to the seaside, is said to have expressed her delight on seeing for the first time something of which there was enough for everybody. The sea coast is always interesting. When we think of the cliff sections with their histories of bygone ages; the shore itself teeming with seaweeds and animals, waiting for the return of the tide, or thrown up from deeper water by the waves; the weird cries of seabirds; the delightful feeling that with every breath we are laying in a store of fresh life, and health, and energy, it is impossible to over-estimate all we owe to the sea.
It is, moreover, always changing. We went for our holiday this year to Lyme Regis. Let me attempt to describe the changes in the view from our windows during a single day. Our sitting-room opened on to a little lawn, beyond which the ground drops suddenly to the sea, while over about two miles of water were the hills of the Dorsetshire coast—Golden Cap, with its bright crest of yellow sand, and the dark blue Lias Cliff of Black Ven. When I came early down in the morning the sun was rising opposite, shining into the room over a calm sea, along an avenue of light; by degrees, as it rose, the whole sea was gilt with light, and the hills bathed in a violet mist. By breakfast-time all color had faded from the sea—it was like silver passing on each side into gray; the sky was blue, flecked with fleecy clouds; while, on the gentler slopes of the coast opposite, fields and woods, and quarries and lines of stratification begin to show themselves, though the cliffs are still in shadow, and the more distant headlands still a mere succession of ghosts, each one fainter than the one before it. As the morning advances the sea becomes blue, the dark woods, green meadows, and golden cornfields of the opposite coast more distinct, and the details of the cliffs come gradually into view, and fishing-boats with dark sails begin to appear.
Gradually the sun rises higher, a yellow line of shore appears under the opposite cliffs, and the sea changes its color, mapping itself out as it were, the shallower parts turquoise blue, almost green; the deeper ones deep violet.
This does not last long—a thunderstorm comes up. The wind mutters overhead, the rain patters on the leaves, the coast opposite seems to shrink into itself, as if it would fly from the storm. The sea grows dark and rough, and white horses appear here and there.
But the storm is soon over. The clouds break, the rain stops, the sun shines once more, the hills opposite come out again. They are divided now not only into fields and woods, but into sunshine and shadow. The sky clears, and as the sun begins to descend westwards the sea becomes one beautiful clear uniform azure, changing again soon to pale blue in front and dark violet beyond: and once more as clouds begin to gather again, into an archipelago of bright blue sea and deep islands of ultramarine. As the sun travels westward, the opposite hills change again. They scarcely seem like the same country. What was in sun is now in shade, and what was in shade now lies bright in the sunshine. The sea once more becomes a uniform solid blue, only flecked in places by scuds of wind, and becoming paler towards evening as the sun sinks, the cliffs which catch his setting rays losing their deep color and in some places looking almost as white as chalk, while at sunset they light up again for a moment with a golden glow, the sea at the same time sinking to a cold gray. But soon the hills grow cold too, Golden Cap holding out bravely to the last, and the shades of evening settle over cliff and wood, cornfield and meadow.
These are but a part, and a very small part, of the changes of a single day. And scarce any two days are alike. At times a sea-fog covers everything. Again the sea which sleeps to-day so peacefully sometimes rages, and the very existence of the bay itself bears witness to its force.
The night, again, varies like the day. Sometimes shrouded by a canopy of darkness, sometimes lit up by millions of brilliant worlds, sometimes bathed in the light of a moon, which never retains the same form for two nights together.
If Lakes are less grand than the sea, they are in some respects even more lovely. The seashore is comparatively bare. The banks of Lakes are often richly clothed with vegetation which comes close down to the water's edge, sometimes hanging even into the water itself. They are often studded with well-wooded islands. They are sometimes fringed with green meadows, sometimes bounded by rocky promontories rising directly from comparatively deep water, while the calm bright surface is often fretted by a delicate pattern of interlacing ripples, or reflects a second, softened, and inverted landscape.
To water again we owe the marvellous spectacle of the rainbow—"God's bow in the clouds." It is indeed truly a heavenly messenger, and so unlike anything else that it scarcely seems to belong to this world.
Many things are colored, but the rainbow seems to be color itself.
"First the flaming redSprang vivid forth; the tawny orange next,And next delicious yellow; by whose sideFell the kind beams of all-refreshing green.Then the pure blue that swells autumnal skies,Ethereal play'd; and then, of sadder hueEmerged the deeper indigo (as whenThe heavy-skirted evening droops with frost),While the last gleamings of refracted lightDied in the fainting violet away." [8]
We do not, I think, sufficiently realize how wonderful is the blessing of color. It would have been possible, it would even seem more probable, that though light might have enabled us to perceive objects, this could only have been by shade and form. How we perceive color it is very difficult to comprehend, and yet when we speak of beauty, among the ideas which come to us most naturally are those of birds and butterflies, flowers and shells, precious stones, skies, and rainbows.
Our minds might have been constituted exactly as they are, we might have been capable of comprehending the highest and sublimest truths, and yet, but for a small organ in the head, the world of sound would have been shut out from us; we should have lost the sounds of nature, the charms of music, the conversation of friends, and have been condemned to perpetual silence: and yet a slight alteration in the retina, which is not thicker than a sheet of paper, not larger than a finger nail,—and the glorious spectacle of this beautiful world, the exquisite variety of form, the glory and play of color, the variety of scenery, of woods and fields, and lakes and hills, seas and mountains, the glory of the sky alike by day and night, would all have been lost to us.
Mountains, again, "seem to have been built for the human race, as at once their schools and cathedrals; full of treasures of illuminated manuscript for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons for the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper. And of these great cathedrals of the earth, with their gates of rock, pavements of cloud, choirs of stream and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars." [9]
All these beauties are comprised in Tennyson's exquisite description ofOenone's vale—the city, flowers, trees, river, and mountains.
"There is a vale in Ida, lovelierThan all the valleys of Ionian hills.The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen,Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,And loiters, slowly drawn. On either handThe lawns and meadow-ledges midway downHang rich in flowers, and far below them roarsThe long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravineIn cataract after cataract to the sea.Behind the valley topmost GargarusStands up and takes the morning; but in frontThe gorges, opening wide apart, revealTroas and Ilion's column'd citadel,The crown of Troas."
And when we raise our eyes from earth, who has not sometimes felt "the witchery of the soft blue sky;" who has not watched a cloud floating upward as if on its way to heaven, or when
"Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roofThe mountain its columns be." [10]
And yet "if, in our moments of utter idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky as a last resource, which of its phenomena do we speak of? One says, it has been wet; and another, it has been windy; and another, it has been warm. Who, among the whole chattering crowd, can tell me of the forms and the precipices of the chain of tall white mountains that girded the horizon at noon yesterday? Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came out of the south, and smote upon their summits until they melted and mouldered away in a dust of blue rain? Who saw the dance of the dead clouds when the sunlight left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like withered leaves? All has passed, unregretted as unseen; or if the apathy be ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is gross, or what is extraordinary; and yet it is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the sublime are developed." [11]
But exquisitely lovely as is the blue arch of the midday sky, with its inexhaustible variety of clouds, "there is yet a light which the eye invariably seeks with a deeper feeling of the beautiful, the light of the declining or breaking day, and the flakes of scarlet cloud burning like watch-fires in the green sky of the horizon." [12] The evening colors indeed soon fade away, but as night comes on,
"How glorious the firmamentWith living sapphires! Hesperus that ledThe starry host, rode brightest; till the moonRising in clouded majesty, at length,Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw." [13]
We generally speak of a beautiful night when it is calm and clear, and the stars shine brightly overhead; but how grand also are the wild ways of Nature, how magnificent when the lightning flashes, "between gloom and glory;" when
"From peak to peak, the rattling crags amongLeaps the live thunder." [14]
In the words of Ossian—
"Ghosts ride in the tempest to-night;Sweet is their voice between the gusts of wind,Their songs are of other worlds."
Nor are the wonders and beauties of the heavens limited by the clouds and the blue sky, lovely as they are. In the heavenly bodies we have before us "the perpetual presence of the sublime." They are so immense and so far away, and yet on soft summer nights "they seem leaning down to whisper in the ear of our souls." [15]
"A man can hardly lift up his eyes toward the heavens," says Seneca, "without wonder and veneration, to see so many millions of radiant lights, and to observe their courses and revolutions, even without any respect to the common good of the Universe."
Who does not sympathize with the feelings of Dante as he rose from his visit to the lower regions, until, he says,
"On our view the beautiful lights of heavenDawned through a circular opening in the cave,Thence issuing, we again beheld the stars."
As we watch the stars at night they seem so still and motionless that we can hardly realize that all the time they are rushing on with a velocity far far exceeding any that man has ever accomplished.
Like the sands of the sea, the stars of heaven have ever been used as an appropriate symbol of number, and we know that there are some 75,000,000, many, no doubt, with planets of their own. But this is by no means all. The floor of heaven is not only "thick inlaid with patines of bright gold," but is studded also with extinct stars, once probably as brilliant as our own sun, but now dead and cold, as Helmholtz tells us our sun itself will be some seventeen millions of years hence. Then, again, there are the comets, which, though but few are visible to us at once, are even more numerous than the stars; there are the nebulae, and the countless minor bodies circulating in space, and occasionally visible as meteors.
Nor is it only the number of the heavenly bodies which is so overwhelming; their magnitude and distances are almost more impressive. The ocean is so deep and broad as to be almost infinite, and indeed in so far as our imagination is the limit, so it may be. Yet what is the ocean compared to the sky? Our globe is little compared to the giant orbs of Jupiter and Saturn, which again sink into insignificance by the side of the sun. The sun itself is almost as nothing compared with the dimensions of the solar system. Sirius is calculated to be a thousand times as great as the Sun, and a million times as far away. The solar system itself travels in one region of space, sailing between worlds and worlds, and is surrounded by many other systems as great and complex as itself; and we know that even then we have not reached the limits of the Universe itself.
There are stars so distant that their light, though traveling 180,000 miles in a second, yet takes years to reach us; and beyond all these are other systems of stars which are so far away that they cannot be perceived singly, but even in our most powerful telescopes appear only as minute clouds or nebulae. It is, indeed, but a feeble expression of the truth to say that the infinities revealed to us by Science,—the infinitely great in the one direction, and the infinitely small in the other,—go far beyond anything which had occurred to the unaided imagination of Man, and are not only a never-failing source of pleasure and interest, but seem to lift us out of the petty troubles and sorrows of life.
[1] Beattie.
[2] Tennyson.
[3] Thomas à Kempis.
[4] Gray.
[5] Shakespeare.
[6] Tennyson.
[7] Trench.
[8] Thomson.
[9] Ruskin.
[10] Shelley.
[11] Ruskin.
[12]Ibid.
[13] Wordsworth.
[14] Swinburne.
[15] Symonds.
We have in life many troubles, and troubles are of many kinds. Some sorrows, alas, are real enough, especially those we bring on ourselves, but others, and by no means the least numerous, are mere ghosts of troubles: if we face them boldly, we find that they have no substance or reality, but are mere creations of our own morbid imagination, and that it is as true now as in the time of David that "Man disquieteth himself in a vain shadow."
Some, indeed, of our troubles are evils, but not real; while others are real, but not evils.
"And yet, into how unfathomable a gulf the mind rushes when the troubles of this world agitate it. If it then forget its own light, which is eternal joy, and rush into the outer darkness, which are the cares of this world, as the mind now does, it knows nothing else but lamentations." [1]
"Athens," said Epictetus, "is a good place,—but happiness is much better; to be free from passions, free from disturbance."
We should endeavor to maintain ourselves in
"That blessed moodIn which the burden of the mystery,In which the heavy and the weary weight,Of all this unintelligible worldIs lightened." [2]
So shall we fear "neither the exile of Aristides, nor the prison of Anaxagoras, nor the poverty of Socrates, nor the condemnation of Phocion, but think virtue worthy our love even under such trials." [3] We should then be, to a great extent, independent of external circumstances, for
"Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage,Minds innocent and quiet takeThat for a hermitage.
"If I have freedom in my love,And in my soul am free;Angels alone that soar aboveEnjoy such liberty." [4]
Happiness indeed depends much more on what is within than without us. When Hamlet says the world is "a goodly prison; in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst," and Rosencrantz differs from him, he rejoins wisely, "Why then, 'tis none to you: for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison." "All is opinion," said Marcus Aurelius. "That which does not make a man worse, how can it make his life worse? But death certainly, and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things happen equally to good men and bad, being things which make us neither better nor worse."
"The greatest evils," says Jeremy Taylor, "are from within us; and from ourselves also we must look for our greatest good."
"The mind," says Milton,
"is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
Milton indeed in his blindness saw more beautiful visions, and Beethoven in his deafness heard more heavenly music, than most of us can ever hope to enjoy.
We are all apt, when we know not what may happen, to fear the worst. When we know the full extent of any danger, it is half over. Hence, we dread ghosts more than robbers, not only without reason, but against reason; for even if ghosts existed, how could they hurt us? and in ghost stories, few, even those who say that they have seen a ghost, ever profess or pretend to have felt one.
Milton, in his description of death, dwells on this characteristic of obscurity:
"The other shape,If shape it might be call'd that shape had noneDistinguishable, in member, joint, or limb;Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,For each seem'd either; black he stood as night;Fierce as ten furies; terrible as hell;And shook a deadly dart. What seem'd his headThe likeness of a kingly crown had on."
The effect of darkness and night in enhancing terrors is dwelt on in one of the sublimest passages in Job—
"In thoughts from the visions of the night,When deep sleep falleth on men,Fear came upon me, and trembling,Which made all my bones to shake.Then a spirit passed before my face;The hair of my flesh stood up.It stood still, an image was before mine eyes.There was silence; and I heard a voice sayingShall mortal man be more just than God?"
Thus was the terror turned into a lesson of comfort and of mercy.
We often magnify troubles and difficulties, and look at them till they seem much greater than they really are.
"Dangers are no more light, if they once seem light; and more dangers have deceived men than forced them: nay, it were better to meet some dangers half way, though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches; for if a man watch too long, it is odds he will fall asleep." [5]
Foresight is very wise, but foresorrow is very foolish; and castles are at any rate better than dungeons, in the air.
Some of our troubles, no doubt, are real enough, but yet are not evils.
It happens, unfortunately too often, that by some false step, intentional or unintentional, we have missed the right road, and gone wrong. Can we then retrace our steps? can we recover what is lost? This may be done. It is too gloomy a view to affirm that
"A word too much, or a kiss too long,And the world is never the same again."
There are two noble sayings of Socrates, that to do evil is more to be avoided than to suffer it; and that when a man has done evil, it is better for him to be punished than to be unpunished.
We generally speak of selfishness as a fault, and as if it interfered with the general happiness. But this is not altogether correct.
The pity is that so many people are foolishly selfish: that they pursue a course of action which neither makes themselves nor any one else happy.
"Every man," says Goethe, "ought to begin with himself, and make his own happiness first, from which the happiness of the whole world would at last unquestionably follow." It is easy to say that this is too broadly stated, and of course exceptions might be pointed out: but if every one would avoid excess, and take care of his own health; would keep himself strong and cheerful; would make his home happy, and give no cause for the petty vexations which embitter domestic life; would attend to his own affairs and keep himself sober and solvent; would, in the words of the Chinese proverb, "sweep away the snow from before his own door, and never mind the frost upon his neighbor's tiles;" though it might not be the noblest course of conduct; still, how well it would be for their family, relations, and friends. But, unfortunately,
"Look round the habitable world, how fewKnow their own good, or, knowing it, pursue." [6]
It would be a great thing if people could be brought to realize that they can never add to the sum of their happiness by doing wrong. In the case of children, indeed, we recognize this; we perceive that a spoilt child is not a happy one; that it would have been far better for him to have been punished at first and thus saved from greater suffering in after life.
It is a beautiful idea that every man has with him a Guardian Angel; and it is true too: for Conscience is ever on the watch, ever ready to warn us of danger.
We often feel disposed to complain, and yet it is most ungrateful:
"For who would lose,Though full of pain, this intellectual being,Those thoughts that wander through Eternity;To perish rather, swallowed up, and lostIn the wide womb of uncreated thought." [7]
But perhaps it will be said that we are sent here in preparation for another and a better world. Well, then, why should we complain of what is but a preparation for future happiness?
We ought to
"Count each affliction, whether light or grave,God's messenger sent down to thee; do thouWith courtesy receive him; rise and bow;And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, cravePermission first his heavenly feet to lave;Then lay before him all thou hast; allowNo cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,Or mar thy hospitality; no waveOf mortal tumult to obliterateThe soul's marmoreal calmness: Grief shall beLike joy, majestic, equable, sedate;Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free;Strong to consume small troubles; to commendGreat thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to the end." [8]
Some persons are like the waters of Siloam, and require to be troubled before they can exercise their virtue.
"We shall get more contentedness," says Plutarch, "from the presence of all these blessings if we fancy them as absent, and remember from time to time how people when ill yearn for health, and people in war for peace, and strangers and unknown in a great city for reputation and friends, and how painful it is to be deprived of all these when one has once had them. For then each of these blessings will not appear to us only great and valuable when it is lost, and of no value when we have it…. And yet it makes much for contentedness of mind to look for the most part at home and to our own condition; or if not, to look at the case of people worse off than ourselves, and not, as people do, to compare ourselves with those who are better off…. But you will find others, Chians, or Galatians, or Bithynians, not content with the share of glory or power they have among their fellow-citizens, but weeping because they do not wear senators' shoes; or, if they have them, that they cannot be praetors of Rome; or if they get that office, that they are not consuls; or if they are consuls, that they are only proclaimed second and not first…. Whenever, then, you admire any one carried by in his litter as a greater man than yourself, lower your eyes and look at those that bear the litter." And again, "I am very taken with Diogenes' remark to a stranger at Lacedaemon, who was dressing with much display for a feast, 'Does not a good man consider every day a feast?' … Seeing then that life is the most complete initiation into all these things, it ought to be full of ease of mind and joy; and if properly understood, would enable us to acquiesce in the present without repining, to remember the past with thankfulness, and to meet the future hopefully and cheerfully without fear of suspicion."
[1] King Alfred's translations of theConsolations of Boethius.
[2] Wordsworth.
[3] Plutarch.
[4] Lovelace.
[5] Bacon.
[6] Dryden.
[7] Milton.
[8] Aubrey de Vere.
"Through labor to rest, through combat to victory."
Among the troubles of life I do not, of course, reckon the necessity of labor.
Work indeed, and hard work, if only it is in moderation, is in itself a rich source of happiness. We all know how quickly time passes when we are well employed, while the moments hang heavily on the hands of the idle. Occupation drives away care and all the small troubles of life. The busy man has no time to brood or to fret.
"From toil he wins his spirits light,From busy day the peaceful night;Rich, from the very want of wealth,In Heaven's best treasures, peace and health." [1]
This applies especially to the labor of the field and the workshop. Humble it may be, but if it does not dazzle with the promise of fame, it gives the satisfaction of duty fulfilled, and the inestimable blessing of health. As Emerson reminds those entering life, "The angels that live with them, and are weaving laurels of life for their youthful brows, are toil and truth and mutual faith."
Labor was truly said by the ancients to be the price which the gods set upon everything worth having. We all admit, though we often forget, the marvellous power of perseverance, and yet all Nature, down to Bruce's spider, is continually impressing this lesson on us.
Hard writing, it has been said, makes easy reading; Plato is said to have rewritten the first page of theRepublicthirteen times; and Carlo Maratti, we are told, sketched the head of Antinoüs three hundred times before he wrought it to his satisfaction.
It is better to wear out than to rust out, and there is "a dust which settles on the heart, as well as that which rests upon the ledge." [2]
But though labor is good for man, it may be, and unfortunately often is, carried to excess. Many are wearily asking themselves
"Ah whyShould life all labor be?" [3]
There is a time for all things, says Solomon, a time to work and a time to play: we shall work all the better for reasonable change, and one reward of work is to secure leisure.
It is a good saying that where there's a will there's a way; but while it is all very well to wish, wishes must not take the place of work.
In whatever sphere his duty lies every man must rely mainly on himself. Others can help us, but we must make ourselves. No one else can see for us. To profit by our advantages we must learn to use for ourselves
"The dark lantern of the spiritWhich none can see by, but he who bears it."
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that honest work is never thrown away. If we do not find the imaginary treasure, at any rate we enrich the vineyard.
"Work," says Nature to man, "in every hour, paid or unpaid; see only that thou work, and thou canst not escape the reward: whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought: no matter how often defeated, you are born to victory. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it." [4]
Nor can any work, however persevering, or any success, however great, exhaust the prizes of life.
The most studious, the most successful, must recognize that there yet remain
"So much to do that is not e'en begun,So much to hope for that we cannot see,So much to win, so many things to be." [5]
At the present time, though there may be some special drawbacks, still we come to our work with many advantages which were not enjoyed in olden times. We live in much greater security ourselves, and are less liable to have the fruits of our labor torn violently from us.
In olden times the difficulties of study were far greater than they are now. Books were expensive and cumbersome, in many cases moreover chained to the desks on which they were kept. The greatest scholars have often been very poor. Erasmus used to read by moonlight because he could not afford a candle, and "begged a penny, not for the love of charity, but for the love of learning." [6]
Want of time is no excuse for idleness. "Our life," says Jeremy Taylor, "is too short to serve the ambition of a haughty prince or a usurping rebel; too little time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy the pride of a vainglorious fool, to trample upon all the enemies of our just or unjust interest: but for the obtaining virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and modesty, for the actions of religion, God gives us time sufficient, if we make the outgoings of the morning and evening, that is our infancy and old age, to be taken into the computations of a man."
Work is so much a necessity of existence, that it is less a question whether, than how, we shall work. An old proverb tells us that the Devil finds work for those who do not make it for themselves.
If we Englishmen have succeeded as a race, it has been due in no small measure to the fact that we have worked hard. Not only so, but we have induced the forces of Nature to work for us. "Steam," says Emerson, "is almost an Englishman."
The power of work has especially characterized our greatest men. Cecil said of Sir W. Raleigh that he "could toil terribly."
We are most of us proud of belonging to the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. It may be said of us with especial truth in Wordsworth's words that
"The world is too much with us; late and soonGetting and spending, we lay waste our powers."
Yes, but what world? The world will be with us sure enough, and whether we please or not. But what sort of world it will be for us will depend greatly on ourselves.
We are told to pray not to be taken out of the world, but to be kept from the evil.
There are various ways of working. Quickness may be good, but haste is bad.
"Wie das GestirnOhne HastOhne RastDrehe sich JederUm die eigne Last." [7]
"Like a star, without haste, without rest, let every one fulfil his own hest."
Newton is reported to have described as his mode of working that "I keep the subject constantly before me, and wait till the first dawnings open slowly by little and little into a full and clear light."
"The secret of genius," says Emerson, "is to suffer no fiction to exist for us; to realize all that we know; in the high refinement of modern life, in Arts, in Sciences, in books, in men, to exact good faith, reality, and a purpose; and first, last, midst, and without end, to honor every truth by use."
Lastly, work secures the rich reward of rest, we must rest to be able to work well, and work to be able to enjoy rest.
"We must no doubt beware that our rest become not the rest of stones, which so long as they are torrent-tossed and thunder-stricken maintain their majesty; but when the stream is silent, and the storm past, suffer the grass to cover them, and the lichen to feed on them, and are ploughed down into the dust…. The rest which is glorious is of the chamois couched breathless in its granite bed, not of the stalled ox over his fodder." [8]
When we have done our best we may wait the result without anxiety.
"What hinders a man, who has clearly comprehended these things, from living with a light heart and bearing easily the reins; quietly expecting everything which can happen, and enduring that which has already happened? Would you have me to bear poverty? Come and you will know what poverty is when it has found one who can act well the part of a poor man. Would you have me to possess power? Let me have the power, and also the trouble of it. Well, banishment? Wherever I shall go, there it will be well with me." [9]
The Buddhists believe in many forms of future punishment; but the highest reward of virtue is Nirvana—the final and eternal rest.
Very touching is the appeal of Ashmanezer to be left in peace, which was engraved on his Sarcophagus at Sidon,—now in Paris.
"In the month of Bul, the fourteenth year of my reign, I, King Ashmanezer, King of the Sidonians, son of King Tabuith, King of the Sidonians, spake, saying: 'I have been stolen away before my time—a son of the flood of days. The whilom great is dumb; the son of gods is dead. And I rest in this grave, even in this tomb, in the place which I have built. My adjuration to all the Ruling Powers and all men: Let no one open this resting-place, nor search for treasure, for there is no treasure with us; and let him not bear away the couch of my rest, and not trouble us in this resting-place by disturbing the couch of my slumbers…. For all men who should open the tomb of my rest, or any man who should carry away the couch of my rest, or any one who trouble me on this couch: unto them there shall be no rest with the departed: they shall not be buried in a grave, and there shall be to them neither son nor seed…. There shall be to them neither root below nor fruit above, nor honor among the living under the sun.'" [10]
The idle man does not know what it is to rest. Hard work, moreover, tends not only to give us rest for the body, but, what is even more important, peace to the mind. If we have done our best to do, and to be, we can rest in peace.
"En la sua voluntade é nostra pace." [11] In His will is our peace; and in such peace the mind will find its truest delight, for
"When care sleeps, the soul wakes."
In youth, as is right enough, the idea of exertion, and of struggles, is inspiriting and delightful; but as years advance the hope and prospect of peace and of rest gain ground gradually, and
"When the last dawns are fallen on gray,And all life's toils and ease complete,They know who work, not they who play,If rest is sweet." [12]
[1] Gray.
[2] Jefferies.
[3] Tennyson.
[4] Emerson.
[5] Morris.
[6] Coleridge.
[7] Goethe.
[8] Ruskin.
[9] Epictetus.
[10] From Sir M. S. Grant Duff'sA Winter in Syria.
[11] Dante.
[12] Symonds.
"For what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."—MICAH.
"Pure religion and undefiled is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."—JAMES I.
"The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
It would be quite out of place here to enter into any discussion of theological problems or to advocate any particular doctrines. Nevertheless I could not omit what is to most so great a comfort and support in sorrow and suffering, and a source of the purest happiness.
We commonly, however, bring together under this term two things which are yet very different: the religion of the heart, and that of the head. The first deals with conduct, and the duties of Man; the second with the nature of the supernatural and the future of the soul, being in fact a branch of knowledge.
Religion should be a strength, guide, and comfort, not a source of intellectual anxiety or angry argument. To persecute for religion's sake implies belief in a jealous, cruel, and unjust Deity. If we have done our best to arrive at the truth, to torment oneself about the result is to doubt the goodness of God, and, in the words of Bacon, "to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a raven." "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," and the first duty of religion is to form the highest possible conception of God.
Many a man, however, and still more many a woman, render themselves miserable on entering life by theological doubts and difficulties. These have reference, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, not to what we should do, but to what we should think. As regards action, conscience is generally a ready guide; to follow it is the real difficulty. Theology, on the other hand, is a most abstruse science; but as long as we honestly wish to arrive at truth we need not fear that we shall be punished for unintentional error. "For what," says Micah, "doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." There is very little theology in the Sermon on the Mount, or indeed in any part of the Gospels; and the differences which keep us apart have their origin rather in the study than the Church. Religion was intended to bring peace on earth and goodwill toward men, and whatever tends to hatred and persecution, however correct in the letter, must be utterly wrong in the spirit.
How much misery would have been saved to Europe if Christians had been satisfied with the Sermon on the Mount!
Bokhara is said to have contained more than three hundred colleges, all occupied with theology, but ignorant of everything else, and it was probably one of the most bigoted and uncharitable cities in the world. "Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth."
We must not forget that
"He prayeth best who loveth bestAll things both great and small."
Theologians too often appear to agree that
"The awful shadow of some unseen powerFloats, though unseen, among us"; [1]
and in the days of the Inquisition many must have sighed for the cheerful child-like religion of the Greeks, if they could but have had the Nymphs and Nereids, the Fays and Faeries, with Destiny and Fate, but without Jupiter and Mars.
Sects are the work of Sectarians. No truly great religious teacher, asCarlyle said, ever intended to found a new Sect.
Diversity of worship, says a Persian proverb, "has divided the human race into seventy-two nations." From among all their dogmas I have selected one—"Divine Love." And again, "He needs no other rosary whose thread of life is strung with the beads of love and thought."
There is more true Christianity in some pagan Philosophers than in certainChristian theologians. Take, for instance, Plato, Marcus Aurelius,Epictetus, and Plutarch.
"Now I, Callicles," says Socrates, "am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider how I shall present my soul whole and undefiled before the judge in that day. Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when the time comes, to die. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same. And in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict."
"As to piety toward the Gods," says Epictetus, "you must know that this is the chief thing, to have right opinions about them, to think that they exist, and that they administer the All well and justly; and you must fix yourself in this principle (duty), to obey them, and to yield to them in everything which happens, and voluntarily to follow it as being accomplished by the wisest intelligence."
"Do not act," says Marcus Aurelius, "as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good….
"Since it is possible that thou mayest depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly. But to go away from among men, if there be gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods, or devoid of Providence. But in truth they do exist, and they do care for human things, and they have put all the means in man's power to enable him not to fall into real evils. And as for the rest, if there was anything evil, they would have provided for this also, that it should be altogether in a man's power not to fall into it."
And Plutarch: "The Godhead is not blessed by reason of his silver and gold, nor yet Almighty through his thunder and lightnings, but on account of knowledge and intelligence."
It is no doubt very difficult to arrive at the exact teaching of Eastern Moralists, but the same spirit runs through Oriental Literature. For instance, in theToy Cart, when the wicked Prince wishes Vita to murder the Heroine, and says that no one would see him, Vita declares "All nature would behold the crime—the Genii of the Grove, the Sun, the Moon, the Winds, the Vault of Heaven, the firm-set Earth, the mighty Yama who judges the dead, and the conscious Soul."
Take even the most extreme type of difference. Is the man, says Plutarch, "a criminal who holds there are no gods; and is not he that holds them to be such as the superstitious believe them, is he not possessed with notions infinitely more atrocious? I for my part would much rather have men say of me that there never was a Plutarch at all, nor is now, than to say that Plutarch is a man inconstant, fickle, easily moved to anger, revengeful for trifling provocations, vexed at small things."
There is no doubt a tone of doubting sadness in Roman moralists, as inHadrian's dying lines to his soul—
"Animula, vagula, blandulaHospes, comesque corporisQua nunc abibis in loca:Pallidula, rigida, nudula,Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos."
The same spirit indeed is expressed in the epitaph on the tomb of the Duke of Buckingham in Westminster Abbey—
"Dubius non improbus vixiIncertus morior, non perturbatus;Humanum est nescire et errare,Deo confidoOmnipotenti benevolentissimo:Ens entium miserere mei."
Many things have been mistaken for religion, selfishness especially, but also fear, hope, love of music, of art, of pomp; scruples often take the place of love, and the glory of heaven is sometimes made to depend upon precious stones and jewelry. Many, as has been well said, run after Christ, not for the miracles, but for the loaves.
In many cases religious differences are mainly verbal. There is an Eastern tale of four men, an Arab, a Persian, a Turk, and a Greek, who agreed to club together for an evening meal, but when they had done so they quarrelled as to what it should be. The Turk proposed Azum, the Arab Aneb, the Persian Anghur, while the Greek insisted on Stapylion. While they were disputing
"Before their eyes did pass,Laden with grapes, a gardener's ass.Sprang to his feet each man, and showed,With eager hand, that purple load.'See Azum,' said the Turk; and 'seeAnghur,' the Persian; 'what should beBetter.' 'Nay Aneb, Aneb 'tis,'The Arab cried. The Greek said, 'ThisIs my Stapylion.' Then they boughtTheir grapes in peace.Hence be ye taught." [2]
It is said that on one occasion, when Dean Stanley had been explaining his views to Lord Beaconsfield, the latter replied, "Ah! Mr. Dean, that is all very well, but you must remember,—No dogmas, no Deans." To lose such Deans as Stanley would indeed be a great misfortune; but does it follow? Religions, far from being really built on Dogmas, are too often weighed down and crushed by them. No one can doubt that Stanley has done much to strengthen the Church of England.
We may not always agree with Spinoza, but is he not right when he says, "The first precept of the divine law, therefore, indeed its sum and substance, is to love God unconditionally as the supreme good—unconditionally, I say, and not from any love or fear of aught besides"? And again, that the very essence of religion is belief in "a Supreme Being who delights in justice and mercy, whom all who would be saved are bound to obey, and whose worship consists in the practice of justice and charity toward our neighbors"?
Doubt is of two natures, and we often confuse a wise suspension of judgment with the weakness of hesitation. To profess an opinion for which we have no sufficient reason is clearly illogical, but when it is necessary to act we must do so on the best evidence available, however slight that may be. Herein lies the importance of common sense, the instincts of a General, the sagacity of a Statesman. Pyrrho, the recognized representative of doubt, was often wise in suspending his judgment, however foolish in hesitating to act, and in apologizing when, after resisting all the arguments of philosophy, an angry dog drove him from his position.
Collect from the Bible all that Christ thought necessary for his disciples, and how little Dogma there is. "Pure religion and undefiled is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." "Suffer little children to come unto me." And one lesson which little children have to teach us is that religion is an affair of the heart and not of the mind only.
Why should we expect Religion to solve questions with reference to the origin and destiny of the Universe? We do not expect the most elaborate treatise to tell us the origin of electricity or of heat. Natural History throws no light on the origin of life. Has Biology ever professed to explain existence?
"Simonides was asked at Syracuse by Hiero, who or what God was, when he requested a day's time to think of his answer. On subsequent days he always doubled the period required for deliberation; and when Hiero inquired the reason, he replied that the longer he considered the subject, the more obscure it appeared."
The Vedas say, "In the midst of the sun is the light, in the midst of light is truth, and in the midst of truth is the imperishable being." Deity has been defined as a circle whose centre is everywhere, and whose circumference is nowhere, but the "God is love" of St. John appeals more forcibly to the human soul.
The Church is not a place for study or speculation. Few but can sympathize with Eugénie de Guréin in her tender affection for the little Chapel at Cahuze where she tells us she left "tant de misères."
Doubt does not exclude Faith.
"Perplexed in faith, but pure in deedsAt last he beat his music out.There lies more faith in honest doubt,Believe me, than in half the creeds." [3]
And if we must admit that many points are still, and probably long will be involved in obscurity, we may be pardoned if we indulge ourselves in various speculations both as to our beginning and our end.
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;The soul that rises with us, our life's starHath had elsewhere its setting,And cometh from afar;Not in entire forgetfulness,And not in utter nakedness,But trailing clouds of glory do we comeFrom God who is our home." [4]
Unfortunately many have attempted to compound for wickedness in life by purity of belief, a vain and fruitless effort. To do right is the sure ladder which leads up to Heaven, though the true faith will help us to find and to climb it.
"It is my duty to have loved the highest,It surely was my profit had I known,It would have been my pleasure had I seen."
But though religious truth can justify no bitterness, it is well worth any amount of thought and study.
I hope I shall not be supposed to depreciate any honest effort to arrive at truth, or to undervalue the devotion of those who have died for their religion. But surely it is a mistake to regard martyrdom as a merit, when from their own point of view it was in reality a privilege.
Let every man be persuaded in his own mind
"Truth is the highest thing that man may keep." [5]
To arrive at truth we should spare ourselves no pain, but certainly inflict none on others.
We may be sure that quarrels will never advance religion, and that to persecute is no way to convert. No doubt those who consider that all who do not agree with them will suffer eternal torments, seem logically justified in persecution even unto death. Such a course, if carried out consistently, might stamp out a particular sect, and any sufferings which could be inflicted here would on this hypothesis be as nothing in comparison with the pains of Hell. Only it must be admitted that such a view of religion is incompatible with any faith in the goodness of God, and seems quite irreconcilable with the teaching of Christ.
Moreover, the Inquisition has even from its own point of view proved generally a failure. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
"In obedience to the order of the Council of Constance (1415) the remains of Wickliffe were exhumed and burnt to ashes, and these cast into the Swift, a neighboring brook running hard by, and thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes into Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over." [6]
The Talmud says that when a man once asked Shamai to teach him the Law in one lesson, Shamai drove him away in anger. He then went to Hillel with the same request. Hillel said, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. This is the whole Law; the rest, merely Commentaries upon it."
The Religion of the lower races is almost as a rule one of terror and of dread. Their deities are jealous and revengeful, cruel, merciless, and selfish, hateful and yet childish. They require to be propitiated by feasts and offerings, often even by human sacrifices. They are not only exacting, but so capricious that, with the best intentions, it is often impossible to be sure of pleasing them. From such evil beings Sorcerers and Witches derived their hellish powers. No one was safe. No one knew where danger lurked. Actions apparently the most trifling might be fraught with serious risk: objects apparently the most innocent might be fatal.
In many cases there are supposed to be deities of Crime, of Misfortunes, of Disease. These wicked Spirits naturally encourage evil rather than good. An energetic friend of mine was sent to a district in India where smallpox was specially prevalent, and where one of the principal Temples was dedicated to the Goddess of that disease. He had the people vaccinated, in spite of some opposition, and the disease disappeared, much to the astonishment of the natives. But the priests of the Deity of Smallpox were not disconcerted; only they deposed the Image of their discomfited Goddess, and petitioned my friend for some emblem of himself which they might install in her stead.
We who are fortunate enough to live in this comparatively enlightened century hardly realize how our ancestors suffered from their belief in the existence of mysterious and malevolent beings; how their life was embittered and overshadowed by these awful apprehensions.
As men, however, have risen in civilization, their religion has risen with them; they have by degrees acquired higher and purer conceptions of divine power.
We are only just beginning to realize that a loving and merciful Father would not resent honest error, not even perhaps the attribution to him of such odious injustice. Yet what can be clearer than Christ's teaching on this point. He impressed it over and over again on his disciples. "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
"If," says Ruskin, "for every rebuke that we titter of men's vices, we put forth a claim upon their hearts; if, for every assertion of God's demands from them, we should substitute a display of His kindness to them; if side by side, with every warning of death, we could exhibit proofs and promises of immortality; if, in fine, instead of assuming the being of an awful Deity, which men, though they cannot and dare not deny, are always unwilling, sometimes unable, to conceive; we were to show them a near, visible, inevitable, out all-beneficent Deity, whose presence makes the earth itself a heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf children sitting in the market-place."
But it must not be supposed that those who doubt whether the ultimate truth of the Universe can be expressed in human words, or whether, even if it could, we should be able to comprehend it, undervalue the importance of religious study. Quite the contrary. Their doubts arise not from pride, but from humility: not because they do not appreciate divine truth, but on the contrary they doubt whether we can appreciate it sufficiently, and are sceptical whether the infinite can be reduced to the finite.
We may be sure that whatever may be right about religion, to quarrel over it must be wrong. "Let others wrangle," said St. Augustine, "I will wonder."
Those who suspend their judgment are not on that account sceptics, and it is often those who think they know most, who are especially troubled by doubts and anxiety.
It was Wordsworth who wrote
"Great God, I had rather beA Pagan suckled in some creed outworn;So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn."
In religion, as with children at night, it is darkness and ignorance which create dread; light and love cast out fear.
In looking forward to the future we may fairly hope with Ruskin that "the charities of more and more widely extended peace are preparing the way for a Christian Church which shall depend neither on ignorance for its continuance, nor on controversy for its progress, but shall reign at once in light and love."
[1] Shelley.
[2] Arnold.Pearls of the Faith.
[3] Tennyson.
[4] Wordsworth.
[5] Chaucer.
[6] Fuller.