V Never forget, I beg of you, that there must be strong and deep feeling in every fruitful life. It is foolish and dangerous counsel which bids you beware of enthusiasm, and utters the word "sentiment" with a sneer. Only dead things, only dead souls, do not feel. We read of a certain brilliant and cynical prelate, that to him the greatest good in life was to be " amused," the greatest evil to be "bored." "His view of his fellow-men, and especially of Englishmen, was of the lowest. The heart of the English people' he described as ' the last place I should wish to be found in.'" He avowed that he never credited men with any ideals save" how to save sixpence, or gain sixpence, or escape from being robbed of sixpence." What an appalling philosophy! And in our commercial rush and hustle there are only too many influences at work to disparage the emotional side of our nature, to preach a dismal gospel of self-interest, allowing no scope for any enthusiasms that cannot show a dividend. Let me beg you not to think it unmanly-you will not think it unwomanly, nature has seen to that to avow feeling, to own that you have hearts, and to acknowledge that your hearts have rights of their own. The one who rules out this factor in shaping life and conduct is a lost soul. He may escape many an ache and pang, but he will go to his grave without having known the glory of a passionate surrender to the things that are greater, and make us greater, than self-which is to say, he will die without ever having really lived. Believe me, we cannot afford to miss any opportunity for heart-culture; we should of set purpose kindle the torch of our own finest emotions by the living fire which radiates from the great personalities that have made earth better by their presence, a Florence Nightingale, a David Livingstone, an Abraham Lincoln, and many others. It is one of the most disquieting features of the present day that great causes, unselfish ideals do not seem to appeal to the mass of men as they did in the middle of the nineteenth century-that despised middle-Victorian epoch which, with all its shortcomings, could sympathise with every nationality struggling for freedom, took Kossuth and Garibaldi to its heart, and loathed the very name of tyranny. Wordsworth's confession, "We are selfish men," is too true of this age; and as Mr. Zangwill once put it, selfishness is the only real atheism-unselfishness the only real religion. VI We must feel fervently if we are to achieve anything; but we must also feel rightly if we are to achieve things worth achieving. It is not enough to have the heart affirm with every beat that we must do right; we have also to find out what is right, and that is the function of the reason. As has been aptly observed, the oughtness of the ought is one thing, and the rightness of the right is another. The purest motives, unless they are guided and checked by right reason, may head us straight for disaster. We may be quite sure that such and such facts dictate to us one course, and one only: yes, but are they facts, and again, are they all the facts ? We fancy, while we are young and inexperienced, that there is right and wrong clearly marked out on every occasion, just a plain black and white, impossible to be mistaken for each other, and nothing between the two-until we discover that in practical affairs there seldom exists quite such a simple bifurcation; that it is tragically easy to make mistakes; and that again and again what we had taken to be high and eternal principles were only our preferences and prejudices dressed up in judicial scarlet and ermine hired cheaply for the occasion. I had a case of conscience submitted to me the other day just one or two simple factors in a life had been dislocated by the acts of third persons, and the result was such a clash of apparently irreconcilable duties that anything one could say by way of counsel had to be of the most tentative and provisional character. The fact is that while we have an inborn sense of right and wrong, which is to be continually encouraged and cultivated, yet what under any given circumstances is right may be most difficult to discover, and can be discovered only by the faithful and diligent use of the reason; and that task requires skill, patience, a dispassionate spirit, a strong intention of integrity— and in the end often a large margin of forbearance. One thing must still be greatly dark— The moving why they do it; And just as lamely can ye mark How far perhaps they rue it. I cannot too earnestly warn you against the temptation of riding off on what we are pleased to call our intuitions, which too frequently only means that we are too impatient to gather and sift the facts, and prefer to abide by the verdict, not necessarily unbiassed, of our feelings. That way lie danger and injustice, and the terrible snare of self-righteousness. And as in private affairs, so in all reforming movements: not one of these but is imperilled, its successes hampered, its final victory delayed, by the misdirected energy of illdisciplined adherents whose hearts may be all right, but whose heads are unfortunately all wrong. Not a reform which does not suffer for the "shock tactics of unbalanced extremists, especially when they mistake tantrums for testimony, and heroics for heroism. VII A word, and a word only, on this subject-the keeping of the heart-in relation to religion. In this domain above all the heart must speak, the feelings must be stirred, the will be set in motion, or all our confessions of faith will be so much barren dialectics and dreary intellectual pastime. The heart must speak: such a cry as, "He loved me, and gave Himself up for me," is worth volumes of argument. Nevertheless here too the heart's activity needs to be balanced by the head's, in order that emotion, bereft of control, may not spend itself in excess, may not hinder the progress of truth, may not decline to acknowledge God's growing revelation, may not obstinately refuse to live in the present, content to bury itself in the past. A religion which should decline the verdicts of reason in its own legitimate province-say, the discoveries of modern science, or the scholarly criticism of the Bible—such a religion, I say, would sink into credulity, and for credulity the coming age will have less and less Let us do all we can to prevent religion being affected by heart-disease-tremors, painful contractions, degeneration. There is no need for panic; truth is never hurtful; let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. Faith has nothing to fear use. from reason, or religion from science, or reverence from criticism, or the heart from the head; they are allies in the perfecting of mankind, wedded partners, not identical in function, but meant for mutual help, and to work harmoniously together for the same great end. Let us keep our hearts with all diligence; and may the spirit of Christ so sanctify and possess us that it may be ours to help on that better day when Mind and heart, according well, |