第2章 Lay Morals(2)

It may be objected that these are what are called 'hard sayings';and that a man,or an education,may be very sufficiently Christian although it leave some of these sayings upon one side.But this is a very gross delusion.

Although truth is difficult to state,it is both easy and agreeable to receive,and the mind runs out to meet it ere the phrase be done.The universe,in relation to what any man can say of it,is plain,patent and staringly comprehensible.In itself,it is a great and travailing ocean,unsounded,unvoyageable,an eternal mystery to man;or,let us say,it is a monstrous and impassable mountain,one side of which,and a few near slopes and foothills,we can dimly study with these mortal eyes.But what any man can say of it,even in his highest utterance,must have relation to this little and plain corner,which is no less visible to us than to him.We are looking on the same map;it will go hard if we cannot follow the demonstration.The longest and most abstruse flight of a philosopher becomes clear and shallow,in the flash of a moment,when we suddenly perceive the aspect and drift of his intention.The longest argument is but a finger pointed;once we get our own finger rightly parallel,and we see what the man meant,whether it be a new star or an old street-lamp.And briefly,if a saying is hard to understand,it is because we are thinking of something else.

But to be a true disciple is to think of the same things as our prophet,and to think of different things in the same order.To be of the same mind with another is to see all things in the same perspective;it is not to agree in a few indifferent matters near at hand and not much debated;it is to follow him in his farthest flights,to see the force of his hyperboles,to stand so exactly in the centre of his vision that whatever he may express,your eyes will light at once on the original,that whatever he may see to declare,your mind will at once accept.You do not belong to the school of any philosopher,because you agree with him that theft is,on the whole,objectionable,or that the sun is overhead at noon.It is by the hard sayings that discipleship is tested.We are all agreed about the middling and indifferent parts of knowledge and morality;even the most soaring spirits too often take them tamely upon trust.

But the man,the philosopher or the moralist,does not stand upon these chance adhesions;and the purpose of any system looks towards those extreme points where it steps valiantly beyond tradition and returns with some covert hint of things outside.Then only can you be certain that the words are not words of course,nor mere echoes of the past;then only are you sure that if he be indicating anything at all,it is a star and not a street-lamp;then only do you touch the heart of the mystery,since it was for these that the author wrote his book.

Now,every now and then,and indeed surprisingly often,Christ finds a word that transcends all common-place morality;every now and then he quits the beaten track to pioneer the unexpressed,and throws out a pregnant and magnanimous hyperbole;for it is only by some bold poetry of thought that men can be strung up above the level of everyday conceptions to take a broader look upon experience or accept some higher principle of conduct.To a man who is of the same mind that was in Christ,who stands at some centre not too far from his,and looks at the world and conduct from some not dissimilar or,at least,not opposing attitude -or,shortly,to a man who is of Christ's philosophy -every such saying should come home with a thrill of joy and corroboration;he should feel each one below his feet as another sure foundation in the flux of time and chance;each should be another proof that in the torrent of the years and generations,where doctrines and great armaments and empires are swept away and swallowed,he stands immovable,holding by the eternal stars.But alas!at this juncture of the ages it is not so with us;on each and every such occasion our whole fellowship of Christians falls back in disapproving wonder and implicitly denies the saying.Christians!the farce is impudently broad.Let us stand up in the sight of heaven and confess.The ethics that we hold are those of Benjamin Franklin.HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY,is perhaps a hard saying;it is certainly one by which a wise man of these days will not too curiously direct his steps;but I think it shows a glimmer of meaning to even our most dimmed intelligences;I think we perceive a principle behind it;I think,without hyperbole,we are of the same mind that was in Benjamin Franklin.

II

BUT,I may be told,we teach the ten commandments,where a world of morals lies condensed,the very pith and epitome of all ethics and religion;and a young man with these precepts engraved upon his mind must follow after profit with some conscience and Christianity of method.A man cannot go very far astray who neither dishonours his parents,nor kills,nor commits adultery,nor steals,nor bears false witness;for these things,rightly thought out,cover a vast field of duty.

Alas!what is a precept?It is at best an illustration;it is case law at the best which can be learned by precept.The letter is not only dead,but killing;the spirit which underlies,and cannot be uttered,alone is true and helpful.