The Spiritual Organ

“Any tyro can see the facts for himself, if he is provided with those not rare articles — a nettle and a microscope.” These words are Mr. Huxley’s. But why the microscope? Suppose the should be provided with “a nettle” only? These inquiries point in a direction which materialists are unwilling to pursue in all its bearings and applications. The introduction of the microscope is an admission that even the keenest eyes cannot see certain substances, forms, and movements, without the aid of optical instruments. Great store is to be set by this admission, for it requires in material investigation precisely what is demanded in spiritual inquiry. Suppose that one of Mr. Huxley’s students should insist upon examining the nettle without the aid of the microscope, and should declare that he is unable to verify Mr. Huxley’s observations Mr. Huxley would properly reply that the inner structure and life of the nettle could not be seen by the naked eye, for they are microscopically “discerned.” Common sense would confirm the justness of this answer, and hold the student disentitled to pronounce any opinion upon the question. Now this is precisely what St. Paul does in treating the subject of spiritual in-

34^ The Pai’aclde.

vestigation; he sa-s that such an investigation cannot be conducted without an orsfan of which the microscope is a good emblem: “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” — the student without the microscope cannot fully or scientihcally examine the plant, neither can any inquirer discern and understand ■’the things of the Spirit of God” without a spiritual organ adapted to the difficulty of the investioation.

It will be remembered that Mr. Huxley desiderated for the ear something equivalent in service to the use of the microscope; thus: “the wonderful noonday silence of a tropical forest is, after all, due only to the dulness of our hearing; and could our ears catch the murmurs of these tiny Maelstroms as they whirl in the innumerable m)’nads of living cells which constitute each tree, we should be stunned as with the roar of a great city.” IfIr. Huxley could discover an instrument which could do for the ear what the microscope does for the eye, he would be entitled to claim attention to it, and to insist that no judgment respecting the air of a tropical forest was of any scientific value that was not formed by the aid of such instrument. This, again, is precisely the ground taken in the Bible; thus: “He that hath ears to hear let him hear,” — “they have ears to hear and hear not.” There is hearini’” and hcariuL’-. Let two men listen

The Spiritual Oi-gaii. 349

to the same music; the one shall be held as by a spell, and the other shall become weary and impatient: to the one man the music is a revela.tion, to the other is a mere noise. In such a case whose judgment would be taken in valuing the music? An artist judging the controversy would say — This is not ordinary music; it is rich in unusual combinations; it cannot be received by the untrained or unsympathetic ear; it can be discerned only h the very spirit of music itself. Such an explanation would be allowed as valid and satisfactory, and’ the opposing opinion, formed without natural or scientific capability, would be held to be impertinent and worthless. It is just so that St. Paul talks upon Christian subjects. He insists that spiritual things must be compared with spiritual; that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; that such things are actually foolishness unto the natural man, so much so that he can neither receive them nor understand them, for they are spiritually discerned: he also explains why the gospel is not seen with equal clearness by all men. “If our gospel be hiS, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine untr them;” and as to his own knowledge of the gospel, St. Paul says, “I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by revelation of Jesus Christ.” So steadfastly does he stand to it that a spiritual microscope or organ is needed. He allows natural wit, sagacity, penetration, no place in this investigation: the gift is special; the power comes down from God. It will, of course, be easy to den) St. Paul’s authority, but mere denial amounts to nothing. In his turn St. Paul might deny the authority of the musical interpreter, and treat with contempt every canon by which painting or eloquence is judged. If we cannot see the organism of a nettle without a microscope, can we see “‘the things of the Spirit of God” without special illumination? A man who will not give an opinion upon the exact structure of a grass-blade without the help of a microscope, ought to be the last man to deny the need of a spiritual organon for the interpretation of spiritual realities. Mr. Huxley will reply that the results of microscopic inquiry are self-illustrative and self-proving; but that is a mere accident of the case, arising from the fact that the thing examined is itself visible: but when did a microscope reveal a thought, or follow all the excitement of a passion? Yet thought and passion are susceptible of intellectual and moral analysis. Men understand each other by common sympathies. The mere mathematician does not understand the poet. Silence and speech may be mutual mysteries. Strangers who never saw each other may prove to be kindred in soul. Call it sympathy, affinity, spiritual faculty, or what you may, there is the fact that some kind of organon is needed for the fullest interpretation of all life that is

The Spii’iiiial Organ. 351

marked by depth and richness. St. Paul gives this fact its spiritual application, or its application to the study of spiritual questions; he says there is a witness of the Spirit — a divine shining in the heart — a birth — without which no man can see the kingdom of God. What is there unreasonable in this view, or improbable? What if religion itself be the instrument through which we read the things of the Spirit of God?

Another illustration supplied by science itself will point in the same direction. There are two shining surfaces afar off; they are both equally bright: viewed by the naked eye there is no difference between them. Now examine them through the polariscope, and the one will show itself to be fire, and the other merely a reflection — not one spark of fire or ray of light in it! So much for the medium of observation. Yet when Christianity teaches that a special organ is needed for the interpretation of spiritual things, the materialist demurs and objects. Science itself being witness, the most piercing eye needs microscopic help; yet science is occasionally unjust enough to deny to others what is indispensable to itself, St. John attributes spiritual knowledge to “an unction from the Holy One,” and St. Paul teaches the same doctrine in words very clear and strong: “Since the beeinnine of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen it, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him” (Isa. lxiv. 4).. ‘’but God hath revealed it unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God’’ (i Cor. li. lo). Such words show that the difficulty of spiritual interpretation was felt long before modern scientists propounded their non-spiritual theories, and they show also that the difficulty was met in the only practicable way, namely by requiring a spiritual organ for the interpretation of spiritual personalities and doctrines. Christian thinkers might have been troubled if no provision had been made for the treatment of this materialistic objection, for then it would have seemed as if “the whole armour of God” was short of one weapon; but the folly was answered before the fool had spoken, that no one might imagine he had gotten an advantage against God.

It may be difficult to express In one word the nature of this spiritual organ; impossible, indeed, unless we go to Jesus Christ who came to reveal the Father. He will give us the universal term. In the Old Testament we have hints, broken and scattered. lights, of which we can make little that is complete and final, but in the sayings of Jesus and the writings which grew out of them we find terms which cover all things. In the New Testament there is one answer to all the great questions which excite human thinking; thus: What is God “^ God is love. What is the oyeatest commandment? Thou shalt love. To whom will God reveal himself? He that lovtth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love* him, and will manifest Myself to him. Love is the universal lanofuao-e, — the child knows it, and the savaQ-e; it blesses earth, and is the very heavenliness of heaven. Not only so; it is the secret of all success, as it is the inspiration of all labour; and more still, it is not only true of Jesus that manifestation follow love, it is equally true of all ordinary things, and therefore presumptively true of spiritual illumination and progress. It may be helpful to the main argument to dwell upon this thought for a moment. To whom will any earnest man most unreservedly manifest himself? To a friend or to an enemy? To a cold critic or a sympathetic listener? Let two of his acquaintances or even kinsfolk be equally intelligent and honest, yet let one of them excel the other in tenderness or appreciativeness, in that one indescribable element which expresses itself in welcome and hospitality — not the welcome of ceremony, or the hospitality of bi’ead — and to which of them will he manifest most of his inner life? He will in effect use the words of Jesus Christ, “I will manifest Myself to him that loveth Me.” This is the testimony of universal experience. To whom will nature reveal itself, — the sea, the hill, the light? To the clown or to the poet? The poet gets something out of “the meanest flower that blows;” Appreciation creates for itself new heavens and a new earth. The wise listener hears music in the wind, the stream, and the twitter of unfamed birds. What does the clown hear, or the sordid man? Noises without order,

A A tongues un]-:nov:n and uninterpreted. Nature says precisely what Jesus Christ says — -” I will manifest myself to him that loveth me.” Illustrations are afforded b)^ every aspect of life. We get out of nature and art what we ourselves bring to them. The Royal Academy is a show of coloured canvas, or a church of lofty and sacred genius, ^.ccording to the capacity, the sympathy, or the reverence of the observer; any dog may see the canvas, but only a painter or a poet can see the picture. We have here, then, a continuance of the same reasonableness that marked the use of instruments, and in addition we have a tender graciousness expressed in the fact that the organ is a simple and universal faculty, which every man holds as part of his very manhood, and which he can exercise under all possible conditions of life.

A remarkable expression, in harmony with this interpretation of love, is used by St. Paul in his epistle to the Romans: — “The carnal mind & enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be;” enmity is set in opposition to love, and carnality in opposition to spiritual-mindedness. The carnal mind is not only enmity against godliness, or some modification or form of religion; it is enmity against God, — the controversy is not with a fraction but with the whole number. But the carnal mind! is not that a remarkable contradiction in terms? Not in terms only, but also in actual life, for the anomaly is known to every observer of human nature. Mind

The Spi7’itiial Organ. 355

may be so overpowered by the gratification of animal appetites as to become the minor quantity in manhood, — the body so overgrown as almos’ to have absorbed the soul. Where this is the case the very idea of God is repugnant, because that idea necessitates government, discipline, responsibility, all of which, again, are founded upon absolute and infinite holiness. Such a mind is at perpetual enmity against God: it is not subject to the law of God (carrying the ideas of government, discipline, and responsibility), neither indeed can be; “they that are in the flesh cannot please God,” — “the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.” More than the gratification of bodily appetites is involved in being “in the flesh” or havino- “the carnal mind.” Self-gratification is a wide term; it is interchangeable with self-trust, self-sufficiency, self-completeness, or self-idolatry. Such selfhood always exists to the exclusion of spirituality; it is enmity against God, and, properly understood, it is enmity. against human nature and against society. The reason — ableness of this ought to be acknowledged by scientists even of the most irreligious class; for the moment they touch any medium or instrument of observation they acknowledge their own incompleteness, and their consequent need of help. The self-satisfied mind is enmity against science as much as against religion. It declares its own sufficiency, and by so much it declines offers of illumination or advancement. St. Paul, therefore, was stating a uni-

35^ -^f<^ Paraclete.

versal truth when he said that “the carnal mind is enmity against God.” Docihty is one of the first conditions of improvement; but docihty and self-sufficiency are incompatible; there is a controversy between them, and accordinof to the settlement of that contention will be the spirit and character of the future man.

From these observations it will be seen that in declining the leadership of the materialists we justify ourselves by denying their qualification to judge spiritual questions. Intellectual vigour as applied in one direction accounts for nothing in such qualification: “having eyes they see not, having’ ears they hear not, and having hearts they do not understand.” Amongr them that are born of women there may not have appeared men of greater intellectual capacity, but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than their chief or king. Evidently so, for it is a hirher kino-dom altogether, involvingf destinies and conferrinor advantaoes which cannot be described in comparative terms. The great error which scientists have committed is having, as S2uh, taken upon themselves to give any opinion upon spiritual subjects; and religious men would commit a similar error if, as such, they undertook to pronounce judgment upon purely scientific questions. A man who has familiarised himself with the orgfanism of a nettle is not therefore entitled to give an opinion upon the inspiration of the Bible, any more than is a man who can compose a sermon therefore qualified to criticise a painting. Scientists, too, may

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avail themselves of the very questionable advantage of supposing themselves able to ignore religion, whereas religious men are bound b)^ their very loyalty to the Christian faith to encourage and applaud the progress of science, and to turn such progress into an occasion of religious thankfulness. Scientists have at present the charm of novelty — almost romance, whilst religious thinkers are reposing upon truths ripened and mellowed by centuries, yet capable of adaptation to the demands of current experience and progress. Controversy between science and religion is wholly out of place, and was not begun by religion. Science falsely so called and vain philosophy have been consistently condemned by Christian apostles, but the very tefms show reverence for what is true and solid both in the one and in the other. Probably that controversy will not be allayed until the relationships (as distinguished from the dogmas) of religion and science be adjusted. Science marks but a single province of human inciuiry, and (not impossibly) is as at present pursued limited to one section of one world: Religion, on the other hand, touches the whole circle of human life, and rules the spirit and habitudes of all worlds. To compare the universal with the limited is to be unjust to both; and to exalt the limited above the universal is to replace the sun with a private lamp. Religion and science has each its peculiar mystery; and if the one is to be avoided or discredited on account of its difficulties, the other muit fall by the rigour of the same law.

JO

In his Synthetic Philosophy (First Principles) Mr. Herbert Spencer concludes an elaborate and able chapter on Ultimate Religious Ideas with a remarkable sug-gestion bearing upon this argument. Having expounded a good many theories, and shown the insufficiency of a good many hypotheses, he says — “Thus the m)-stery which all religions recognise, turns out to be a far more transcendent mystery than any of them suspect — not a relative, but an absolute mystery.... The Power which the universe manifests to us is utterly inscrutable.” In a theologian this tone would have been regarded as dogmatic: certainly its modesty is well hidden by its decisive vigour. But is the doctrine true? So far as.the Bible is concerned it is not true that the absolute inscrutableness of the Power was unsuspected. On the contrary it is affirmed in manifold terms, and specially declared by Jesus Christ. “No man knoweth the Father save the Son;” — ‘No man hath seen God at any time;” — “No man can see God and live.” A recollection of such sentences would have modified the breadth of the foreeoinof assertion, and brouirht down its argumentative value to its proper nothingness. We have already pointed out that this is a question of revelation; the inscrutableness is granted (” Who can find out God, or know the Almighty unto perfection V), but the distinct revelation is also affirmed by Jesus Christ, and that affirmation has created for itself too great an influence in the world to be simply ignored. At the risk of retraversing a few steps, it may be well to recall the emphasis of that affirmation: — “The only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him;” — “No man knoweth the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him;” — “I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world;” — “As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father;” — “If ye had known Me ye should have known my Father also.” With declarations such as these before us, identified with a Name upon which a church is founded, and supported by a character whose purity and beneficence have excited the wonder of the world, is it fair on the part of any philosopher to dwell upon the inscriitableness of God as if no revelation had at all events been professed? If Mr. Herbert Spencer had never heard of the Christian faith he could only have stopped where he has done so; but with that faith before him, he was bound to respect it, at least on intellectual grounds. We insist that it be remembered that Mr. Herbert Spencer has not treated the Christian argument, considered as an anticipation of his own theory, and that therefore the paganism of his logic should not be taken for more than.it is worth.

Looking at the whole ground thus traversed, two convictions have been strengthened by the anti-Christian argument: —

First: That the theoretical exclusion of the spiritual element, instead of diminishing the mystery of human life, greatly and painfully increases it. ‘iewing the whole question as lying within the province of reason, it is to us easier to believe that behind all visible things there is an infinite and eternal Spirit, than to believe that all things are self-existent, self-dependent, and wholly material Our opinion upon this point has been clearly expressed by the author just quoted — “the atheistic theory is not only absolutely unthinkable, but even if it were thinkable would not be a solution: the assertion that the universe is self-existent does not really carry us a step beyond the cognition of its present existence; and so leaves us with a mere restatement of the mystery.” Reason itself is more satisfied with the theory of an”^ independent origin and a supreme rule, than with the theory of no origin and no supremacy. If any man could make good a, proposition to give us a doctrine of the universe I without mystery, and that would satisfy all the inquiries of reason, he would come into the discussion with immense advantage; but instead of such a proposition, we are invited to accept a theory which treats a part as if it were the whole, and offers no answer to the wonder and the sorrow of thuman life. If the Bible were removed from ’ (civilisation, it would leave more mystery behind it than it would take away. With this difference, too: that whilst without it we should have mystery, cold, dark, and despairing, with it we have mystery relieved by light and accompanied by the most pathetic and comforting promises. It cannot be too constantly remembered that the Bible itself fully recognises its own ‘mysteries, and never once asks to be accepted on the ground that it removes every difficulty from human thinking, and renders it impossible for the human Intellect to confound itself by impious speculation. From beginning to end there is mystery in the Bible, but is it not just such m3’stery as the awfulness of eternity might be supposed to throw upon the narrow and troubled way of time? Is not a man a mystery to a child? And being such, is his existence to be denied or his superiority to be questioned? The child himself is a mystery, and the man is but a continuation of the same difficulty. There is a mystery that is natural and proper, even necessary, so to say; and there ma)’ be a mystery which is simply arbitrary, or a mystery to those only who refuse to avail themselves of proffered light. Is there any monotony so intolerable as life would be without mystery? Every day brings its own secret, and the surprise of the coming hour Is often its keenest joy. Properly understood it may be that mystery is but the longer word for mercy. We are drawn forward by the mighty and often gracious power of the Unknown. What is beyond the next curve on the road? May not to-morrow open our prison-door? By such questioning is melancholy kept at bay, and weakness preserved from despair. All our life is set in mystery, from the cradle to the grave: education, enterprise, art, wit, poetry, music, are all caught in the same cloud, a cloud often dark, yet with frino-es of liMit and rents throush which the bkie is seen. Reduce the universe to a self-existent, self-ruHng, and self-terminating machine, and still there will remain the mysteries: — How came it to be? By what means is it kept together? How did we come into it? What is the final appeal of right against wrong? And what is there, if anything, beyond death? Materialism is deficient in compass: it cannot comprehend the whole case: its analysis of a leaf is admirable, but it is lost amidst the secrets of the heart, — it creates more mysteries than it removes, and in the long run it aggravates itself into the greatest mystery of all.

Second: The non- spiritual argument has strengthened the conviction that any creed which discourages the pure aspirations or destroys the honourable hopes of mankind, is presumptively untrue. It will not be denied that in the hum.an heart there is a “pleasing hope, a fond desire, a longing after immortality.” This aspiration brings the most elevatino- and chastenino;’ influences to bear upon human thinking and human activity, and is, on that account, likely to be the expression of a profound spiritual reality. Its extinction would not only leave a great void in the heart, it would also remove encouragements and restraints which are needful to the highest development of strength and the most healthful discipline of character. Granted that goodness should be valued and pursued for its own sake, yet goodness itself is impaired alike in o’-’j

quality and in quantity by being withdrawn from the infinite relationships and bearings which are recognised by Christianity; it is degraded within measurable and even variable limits, and is in cianger of being treated with cunning manipulation and used for selfish purposes. Not only so; immunities are granted to vice, so long as it is wily enough to escape the clutches of the law, by assuring the vicious man that when he has played out his last trick he is as well off as the man who has vainly troubled himself with a conscience, seeing that they both pass into everlasting darkness and silence. If in the common affairs of life men are moved by hope, it is but a fuller application of the same law which is found in the influence of Christian aspiration: the one being the limited, the other the unlimited term. Besides this, any doctrine that promises the universal establishment of righteousness — which asserts the coming of judgment upon every form of evil, and the raising up of every virtue that has been trampled upon — commends itself to the understandins: and the conscience of man as a doctrine that is presumptively true. It is in fact the one doctrine that is needed as the inspiration of honest men and the defence of all holy and generous interests. Under its authority and consolation men can wait hopefully, and whilst they are waiting they can urge the judgments of God upon the attention of evil doers. Withdraw this doctrine, and it is impossible to deny that a great loss has been inflicted upon the human family; a loss which must be the more keenly felt, because all the arrangements of civilised society have been pointed in the very direction of its truthfulness: that is to say, society has been aiming”, in all its encouragements of virtue and all its repressions of vice, to generate’ a social religion, and establish a commonwealth in which reprobacy shall b:^ reduced to a minimum. But these local attempts have been founded upon what appeared to be a universal authority, and have drawn their sanctions from it. Deny that authority or impair it, and you loosen the bonds of social organization, and discourage every hope of perfect union and world-wide peace. Christian doctrine cannot be simply ignored or banished. It has wrought itself too thoroughly into the living tissue of society to be removed without necessitatinor the most intricate and serious consequences. Not only will there be required a reconstruction of society as it exists in Christendom, but every man who has been moved b)’ Christian aspiration will, so to speak, have to divest himself of his old consciousness, and start his whole life from a new centre; in a word, he will have to give the lie to himself, and put to silence all the voices of his own nature which have hitherto been to him as the echoes of the voice of God.

With that wonderful completeness which we have pointed out as belonging to the Bible, the very ground of scientists, so far as they dwell upon the materiality and limitations of human life, has been anticipated in the pages of revelation. It was not

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reserved for the microscope to find out man’s weakness, or to teach him to look to the plants of the field for t’pes of his frailty and perishableness. It might be supposed, from much that has passed under our review, that not until quite recently was it known that there is a protoplasm common to man and to the fading grass; a quotation or two will show how mistaken would be this supposition: “As for man his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place therefore shall know it no more;” “he cometh forth as a flower, and is cut down;” “we all do fade as a leaf.” The Bible does not leave man without humiliation as to the tenure of earthly life: — “The Lord knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust;” “He remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again;” “What is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” Humiliation enough, long before Mr. Huxley came “with these not rare articles, a nettle and a microscope.” On the other hand, the Bible never fails to magnify the inner and better life of man, thus: “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever;” “Thou hast made man a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour;” “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly;” “It doth not yet appear what we shall be; we shall be like

Him, for we shall see Him as He is;” “We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Dr. Tyndall, whose writings cannot be read without the hiohest advantaije, does, indeed, allow that something more than pure materialism is needed to meet the whole circle of human want. With great beauty, he says: “The circle of human nature is not complete without the arc of feeling and emotion. The lilies of the field have a value for us beyond their botanical ones — a certain lightening of the heart accompanies the declaration that ‘Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ The sound of the villagfe bell which comes mellowed from the valley to the traveller upon the hill, has a value beyond its acoustical one. The setting sun when it mantles with the bloom of roses the alpine snows, has a value beyond its optical one. Round about the intellect sweeps the horizon of emotions from which all our noblest impulses are derived.” Yet in the face of these admissions Dr. Tyndall would, unless we greatly misinterpret his meaning, take special care to exclude theology as a possible help to the full satisfaction of human nature. It is not to the theologian but the poet that he extends the hand of welcome:” I think the poet will have a great part to play in the future of the world. To him it is given for a long time to come to fill those stores which the recession of the theologie tide has left exposed; to him when he rightly ur derstands his mission, and does not flinch from the tonic discipline which it assuredly demands, we have a right to look for that heightening and brightening of life which so many of us need. He ouoht to be the interpreter of that power which as

‘Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,’

has hitherto filled and strengthened the human heart.” Such an admission has meanino- in it, and hope, nothwithstanding the dislike, latent rather than fully expressed, of theological study and suggestion. There are not wantinq- men, whose intellectual power Dr. Tyndall himself would be the first to recognise and honour, who believe that the “Poet” has already come with the “interpretation,” and the solace. What if they be right? Dr. Tyndall is longing for a poet; other men, whom he would call great and good, think that in Jesus Christ they have found the “Interpreter” of that power which has been named “Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.” Certainly, Jesus called Him by the name of Father, and spoke much of His love and care. No tenderer words were ever spoken; no deeper words ever challenged intellectual attention; and as for noble deeds His life is full of them. What the “poet” can do more than Jesus did in the interpretation of God, we cannot even imagine. When He blessed little children, and gave lost women a new beginning of life; when He brought the prodigal home, and delivered the poor from the spoiler; and did all this as the will of His Father, — it is not to be wondered at that some bruised and despairing hearts should have taken Him as their Poet, their Teacher, and their Lord. It seemed as if He was the very Refuge which men needed, and a very present help in time of trouble. His voice always sounded as if it migJit have been God’s own; there was so much pathos in it, so much real loving-kindness, and such a soundinof of somethino- far-off and unknown. Possibly, too, those outcast women may have seen further than some proud thinkers, and have known through their very sin and its mortal pain more of Christ’s real nature than could ever be known by self-righteousness and supposed infallibility. Shall we, then, cast off this Man thoughtlessly, and bear our sorrow in darkness until a poet come with new songs and unheard rhythms? The question is serious enough, and much may depend upon the answer. We believe that poets will come, generation after generation until the end of time, but we have no hope that any of them will call God by a tenderer name than Father, or propose a higher obedience than purity and love.