RESPONSIBILITY.

ST. LUKE, Xiii. 5-7.

"And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place. When Pilate heard of Galilee, he asked whether the man were a Galilean. And as soon as he knew that He belonged unto Herod's jurisdiction, he sent Him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at that time."

How Pilate shrank from decision,-from choice, and responsibility! And what a common, natural feeling that is! scarcely, at first sight, evil, and certainly allied to good; for there may be in it humility, deference to others, even tenderness of conscience, and a fear of doing harm by our ignorance and mistakes. Yet there is, perhaps, no feeling which leads to greater sins of omission, and certainly none which is a more fruitful source of self-deception.

Anything to avoid the responsibility consequent upon decision! We will not determine what we will do in doubtful cases, or such as seem to us doubtful; we turn to others less scrupulous than ourselves, and then, when the point is settled by their actions, say we did not decide it and are not answerable for it and so the act passes from our memory.

Yet, one day, these forgotten responsibilities will awake again, and we shall then see, if we have never seen before, that to say we are not responsible, is, in all cases in which the power of choice is given us, to assert a falsehood.

For what we are all apt to forget, as regards responsibility, is, that we are but accepting it under another form when we allow the actions of others to determine our own.

There are, indeed, cases in which we speak as though men were not responsible; but when we inquire into the meaning of our words, we shall find that although we are using an ordinary mode of expression, we are not by any means expressing a fact. A soldier, it is said, has no choice, and therefore is not responsible when he carries out the orders of his superior; and a child is not responsible when he follows the commands of his parent; and generally speaking, the individuals of a nation are not considered responsible when they obey the laws of the government. But in all these cases the non-responsibility has a limit. Even in the strongest case, that of a child and a parent, there is a superior law—a law by which the child must, in the exercise of its free will, be guided; and in the choice of obedience, or resistance to this highest law, responsibility will at last be found to exist. For instance: if a parent commands his son to commit murder, the command does not in the slightest degree diminish the son's responsibility should he obey. The parent's law is binding on him; be

cause God has said "Honour thy father and thy mother;" but God has also said "Thou shalt do no murder." The power of choice between these two commands still rests with the child; and according to the choice will he be judged.

Still more is this so in other cases. In the weakness and misery of indecision we may give ourselves up to what is called the force of events; or, folding our hands refuse to act at all, because we are afraid of acting wrongly. But we have but hidden from ourselves the choice and the responsibility which are inseparable from free-will. The law of God still stands over us, and if that law bids us act, we break it just as much by refusing to do so, as by acting wrongly. For if necessity exists, it is only, so far as our experience teaches us, in the theories of metaphysicians, which are contradicted by the universal practice of mankind; and it is only necessity which can release any human being-man, woman, or child-capable of reason, from the burden of responsibility in every action of life.

It is surely then the part of wisdom to accept and confront a fact which meets us in every claim of duty, and boldly, yet humbly and trustfully, to shape our course though life accordingly. Responsibility we must have. Education, therefore, whether it concerns ourselves or others, must be based upon the recognition of this truth, if it is ever to produce results useful to man or acceptable to God. Submission and obedience are duties

urgent and imperative; especially in children; but they are so because God enjoins them; and they are binding so far, and so far only, as they are in accordance with the eternal attributes of the Deity-justice, mercy, truth, and purity. Doubtless, indeed, there is in the exercise of obedience, even without reference to its object, much that is valuable. Humility, selfdenial, and self-control, may be, and generally are, involved in it; but the obligation of obedience does not rest upon its moral benefit, but upon the command of God: and therefore it is that obedience to parents is a higher duty than obedience to a selfchosen guide. If, in the process of education, we inculcate obedience as a virtue in itself, without reference to the limits ordained by God for its exercise, we may be training a child well and wisely for the present moment, but we are not fitting it for the responsibilities of life. Such a child may hang upon our words and follow our footsteps, and by our watchfulness be kept from all outward evil; but having never been taught the duty of exercising its own free will, and thus consciously accepting its own responsibility, it will, in all probability, when our influence is removed, throw itself helplessly under the control of the stronger minds with which it may come in contact; and from thenceforth, whether its course be for good or for evil, it will be borne onwards, without fixed purpose, whilst struggling with that tremendous power of a weak will which is the Devil's chief agent in

hurrying us along the downward road of destruction.

And as it is with a child, so it is with ourselves; for we are all children, all weak, and the best among us tempted to shrink from responsibility in the serious affairs of life. And if in dealing with a child our aim should be to awaken it to the necessity of responsibility, even in the very act of obedience, by teaching it that obedience is submission to God's law, and therefore the choice of good in preference to evil, so should it be in our own selfgovernment To shrink from such a necessity is not humility but faithlessness!

Who are we that we are to tremble at the prospect of any duty when God sees fit to appoint it? Have we indeed no help? are we really left alone, to wander, as best we may, through the intricacies of life's tangled wilderness, with no guiding post to direct us, no light to cheer us, no arm to uphold us?—He who gave us the power of choice, He who has made it so indestructible that the most imperative human law and the most abject spirit of weakness can never annihilate it, has He not promised His aid, His Spirit, Himself, to be our Guide? The precious gift which makes us living souls and not machines cannot be intended only as a snare to lead us to our ruin.

False and miserable is the thought, for it is the suggestion of the Tempter, and if we obey it, it will work our destruction in two ways.

It will burden our consciences with sins of com