Dr. Stiggins: His Views and Principles/Chapter 3

by Arthur Machen

III: A Popish Poet—Democracy the Touchstone of our Faith—Free Churches in Heaven.

I THINK that when you were last kind enough to come and see me I promised, rashly enough, perhaps, to offer some remarks on the Vision of the Italian of the thirteenth century, as contrasted with the Vision of a little child in the England of to-day. I have been considering the subject with some care in the interim, and I hope I shall redeem my promise to your satisfaction, but before I do so I want to say that my phrase, "kind enough to come and see me" is no mere idle compliment. You have been so good as to promise to do your best to put my views before the world, and I assure you that I regard this as a very great service. For, I have long felt that we Free Church ministers have pushed the virtues of modesty and humility so far that in us they have almost become vices. You remember the parable of the Talent in the Napkin? Well, I am not quite sure whether, in the classic phrase, we ministers ought not to say de nobis fabula narratur; we have shrunk so sedulously into the shade, we have so strenuously avoided the pitfalls of advertisement, that I am really afraid that we are in danger of hiding the Talent and concealing our Light. I am not speaking at haphazard, for the question has been before me for some time, and I have gone rather carefully through the files of the leading Liberal organs for the past few weeks. What is the result? Here is my analysis of the paper which is said to be most closely identified with the cause of the Free Churches. You see that in the last three weeks Dr. Clifford's name occurs but twenty-five times, and that the total number of times that other Free Church ministers' names are mentioned is only two hundred. The case is much the same with this other journal which is also popularly supposed to be a supporter of Liberalism and the Cause of Humanity in politics and religion; and I do not wonder that some of our friends are beginning to suspect the existence of wire-pulling and to hint at a deliberate boycott. I say I do not wonder at the existence of such a state of feeling, and I must say that I have known a very good case made out on feebler evidence than this. For what do we find in these papers? Here is "News from the Vatican" occurring three times in three weeks; here is "The Pope's Health" twice; here, and here again is a "Pronouncement of the Most Holy Synod," and here we have "Pastoral Letter of the Patriarch of Jerusalem"; a valuable piece of news which you will find in three papers which call themselves Liberal. "Liberal"; save the mark! What, I ask, has the health of that unhappy old man, the self-styled "Prisoner of the Vatican," to do with Protestant Englishmen? Did Hampden die, did the stern, sure justice of England lead the wretched Laud to the block, in order that the degenerate Englishmen of to-day should be informed as to the pronouncements of him whom our sturdy ancestors called "the Man of Sin"? You have read how our good old Puritan forefathers abolished the semi-Pagan, semi-Popish, wholly superstitious observance of Christmas, how good men, even in our day, have refused to allow the accursed thing, plum pudding, to enter their doors, you know what an example of serious household discipline the great Milton set to the world, how the unutterable infamy of pleasure on the Sabbath was prohibited, how the plague-spot of the theatre was stamped out by those stout Commonwealth's men. And, I ask, was all this done that Englishmen and Protestants should be regaled with the doings of Cardinals, with the movements of a person calling himself Merry del Val? Merry del Val! What a name for a professing Christian! There is offence in the very sound of it; it seems to suggest to the densest ear the noise of the unholy revelries of the Vatican, surpassing the worst orgies of Nero and Tiberius; it reminds me of the book of which I shall shortly speak more fully—Dante's "Divine Comedy." Rome is unchangeable; the Papist of the thirteenth century writes a "Divine Comedy," and the Cardinal of the twentieth century is named Merry del Val! Verb. sat. sap.

And again, what have we to do with "most Holy Synods," with the decrees of decayed and corrupt churches, which are well known to have remained in a state of absolute immobility since the sixth or seventh century, to be fossilised relics, as it were, of the darkest ages, when the very elements of modern science were unknown, when the possibilities of steam had not dawned on the minds of the wildest dreamers? What has Jerusalem or its "Patriarch" to say to Battersea? Are we to be instructed in the simple religion of the Gospel by a city which has not the elements of popular government, which has never heard of the Nonconformist Conscience, which would regard a Church Tea on the day called Good Friday as an outrage? Let Jerusalem shew us the rude beginnings of progress, the mere outlines of civilisation, before we listen to her dictates. What manufactures can that once proud city now display? I am aware of none, save of superstitious objects made of cedar wood growing on a hill which is traditionally called the Mount of Olives, and therefore, of course, cannot be anything of the kind. Is there anything remotely resembling our Boards of Guardians at Jerusalem, are there electric trams, is there even an efficient service of steamboats run on the brook Kishon? We know there is not, and I tell you that my blood boils when I see so-called Liberal journals devoting their space to the utterances of the "Patriarch" of such a decayed village as this, while the proceedings of the Evangelical Churches in Protestant and Progressive Battersea are slighted and neglected. Only a week ago the female workers of my own church were entertained at tea by Mr. Josiah Gupp, one of my principal deacons, and a wealthy manufacturer of imitation leather. The proceedings were of the most interesting kind; we all drove over to Mr. Gupp's palatial villa at Clapham, and I assure you that I have never seen a more pleasant sight than the innocent mirth of our maidens—they had brought a few gentlemen friends with them—as they sported in the shade of Mr. Gupp's back-garden. Tea was served in the parlour, with ham and tarts galore, and afterwards all joined in the singing of the grand old psalm:—

Ten thousand at left-hand shall fall,
Ten thousand at thy right,
But none shall harm thee not at all,
Nor nothing thee affright.

 

Then there were the speeches; a gentleman told us about the hardships of a missionary's life in the South Seas, of the bitter persecution to which he himself had been subjected by a Popish Power, for the "offence" of causing a law to be passed by which drawing water on the Sabbath Day was made punishable by hard labour for life. Then a young gentleman, a student, I believe, of the Guildhall School, and evidently a person of great talents, sang us "The Holy City," and I said a few words on "Institutional Christianity: or, It Doth not Appear what we shall be," words which I trust may not be altogether fruitless. Your interest is very kind: I merely demonstrated that we had good reasons for believing that Christianity, which in the earliest days was a pleasant social club on a liberal basis, would probably return to these lines after centuries of error, and find its centre in the social tea, the true sacrament of our enlightened times, the Agape of the Protestant Christian. Well; to return to this especial gathering; harmless games were resumed by the young people in the dusk of the evening, the garden resounded with their simple mirth, and so a happy day came to a close. Will you believe me, I searched the morning papers in vain for any account of our proceedings; and yet in one paper there was a long review of some work on the Early Fathers by a Dean of the Establishment, while another contained an article not only advocating Socialism, but (by sly hints), dogmatic Christianity!

Are you surprised, then, that some of us suspect wheels within wheels, and a carefully organised scheme for the suppression of Free Church news? The instance which I have cited might seem to many evidence almost conclusive of the existence of such a dastardly plot; and when I tell you that a few weeks ago I was present at a meeting of the Peckham Congregational Church, which unanimously passed resolutions demanding the immediate dethronement of the Czar, the Sultan, the Shah, and the Empress of China, at the same time requiring the whole of British India to be handed over to the Bengali Baboos and the Grand Lama of Tibet; when I tell you that merely the briefest references to this most important and representative gathering appeared in two or three papers, you will not, I imagine, be far from a conviction that the boycotting hypothesis is proven up to the hilt.

And yet, I do not myself believe that this is the case. I cannot think that convinced Christians, as the editors and staffs of Liberal journals of course must be, would lend themselves to any such nefarious schemes; I have come to the conclusion that we ourselves, the ministers of the Free Churches, are to blame, and as I told you just now it seems to me that we have shrunk too long in obscurity. Everyone is aware that the Establishment has long since cast dignity to the winds in this matter, that every country parsonage is a centre of bold and blatant self-advertisement. That being so, we must meet them on their own ground; we shall not, I hope, descend quite so low as "Father" Lowder, "Father" Mackonochie, or "Father" Dowling; still, we must make our voices heard, and in no uncertain tones. It is for this reason that I welcome your presence here, that I thank you for your promise to make my opinions known to the world.

Now, at last, then, we can begin to consider the subject to which I invited your attention. I told you the other day how my little Albert described to me his simple vision of the heavenly country, and I mentioned the shock it gave me to turn from his simple undenominational piety to the work of the Popish poet, Dante. Ah! what a change. See; I open the volume at haphazard. What does my eye light on? The scene is in Hell, and Dante hears the sighs

"That tremble made the everlasting air,"

rising from a great multitude of people. His guide informs him that none of these persons had sinned:

"—and if they merit had,
'Tis not enough, because they had not baptism,
Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest."

But what is this but the sacramentalism of the Church Catechism? To what end have we strained every nerve and sinew to put a stop to the teaching of such doctrine as this in the People's Schools if we are to encourage our young men and maidens to subject themselves to the same contagion in another form, under the specious pretext that this work we are examining is a literary masterpiece. But the fact is that from beginning to end this "Divine Comedy" literally bristles with dogma and dogmatic definition. One is absolutely amazed at the glib manner in which the words of the Great Book are taken in their crude, material signification, as for example in the passage I have just quoted; and there is another passage, a whole canto indeed, in which the woman Beatrice is made to discourse of the Incarnation, the Immortality of the Soul, and the Resurrection of the Body, each of these dubious and questionable terms being understood in its literal sense; apparently in utter ignorance of the higher spiritual meaning that a liberal theology has shewn to be latent in such phrases as these. Definition is piled on definition, dogma on dogma; nay, Tests of all kinds are rampant, for in three Cantos Dante is examined by Peter, James, and John upon Faith, Hope, and Charity! And the whole poem is permeated by the spirit of the deplorable and ridiculous scholastic philosophy which enslaved Europe for so many centuries, which discussed such questions as "How many angels can dance upon the point of a needle?" by the spirit of the idolatrous mass, by quotations from Popish hymns and from the Romish version of the Psalms. All this may be Christianity, but it is certainly not the Christianity of Battersea! I have been informed that there was a Dean of the Establishment who devoted his life to the study of this Dante; I can only say that I can quite believe it! One can understand that such a man would be a rancorous opponent of Simple Bible Teaching in the People's Schools.

And now the question I ask is this—and you will pardon me if I ask it with indignation—how long are the Protestant People of England going to bear the free circulation of this book? Are the efforts of Free Churchmen and Liberals to be stultified, is our great success at the polls to be nullified by teaching such as I have indicated, not only sown broadcast throughout the land, but recommended by persons in high places, and enforced by the shadowy terrors of an imposing reputation? Is England Protestant and Undenominational or not? If it claims these titles, and I think it has done so in no doubtful manner, let there be an end of all this; let us not suffer the Evil Thing which we are pitching out of the school windows to come in again by the study door. It is of little use, believe me, to insist on Simple Bible Teaching at one moment, and to teach the Baptismal Figment at the next, even though this pernicious doctrine appear on the pages of an Italian Poet. As for Freedom, I suppose you do not wish for freedom to sell poisons, freedom to vend arsenic and strychnine? If we are Protestants the "Divine Comedy" should be suppressed. Is not the spirit—the immortal soul—of higher import than the perishing and transitory body? Shall we shut the public-house door, and open the leaves of this book, which reeks of Catholic Dogma from the first page to the last?

I think that the rock on which you and many others are inclined to split is a very dangerous one, and I believe it would be as well if I "charted" it once for all, so that you and those who think with you may avoid the peril for the future. The rock in question is this: you and indeed many excellent people have, I think, some vague and ill-defined idea to the effect that Licence, misnamed Toleration, is, or should be, one of the special marks of Liberals and Protestants. I do not quite know how this idea originated, possibly from such phrases as "the intolerance of Rome," "the tyranny of kings and nobles," which are often used, and very properly used, by Liberals and Evangelical writers. Of course, all kings and nobles are tyrants, and cruel tyrants to boot; but you surely would not have their opponents, the oppressed people, endeavour to govern by the methods of the jelly fish? We know that the Czar of Russia and the bureaucrats are remorseless tyrants, guilty of the most infamous cruelties; but do you suggest that their miserable victims should throw bombs charged with rosewater? At any rate, if you search history you will find no justification for this very curious theory of yours. I don't think there was much "tolerance" about Bluff King Hal when he had to deal with recalcitrant abbots and friars; Queen Elizabeth, unless I am mistaken, stamped out Popery without much hesitation, as Tyburn Tree could bear witness, and the triumphant and glorious Puritans of the seventeenth century (sturdy followers of good old John Knox), suppressed the idolatrous worship of Rome and Canterbury under the sanctions of death and transportation. Again, in France, during the Revolution I fear you would miss your favourite virtue (as you think it), in the actions of the Revolutionary Government, in the so-called "massacres," in the prisons, in the thousands of executions which took place under the very insignia of triumphant Liberty. And to-day, in the United States, the freest country in the world, perhaps the only country which is truly free, I am told that there are not wanting certain instruments of coercion which can be applied, if need be, to those who deliberately set themselves against popular sentiment. It is not many weeks ago since I saw the very interesting account of the proceedings taken by Mr. Comstock and the Society for the Suppression of Vice against a certain Art Club which had committed the gross indecency of making studies from the nude. Now the American People (very wisely, in my opinion) does not approve of Art, suspecting, and rightly suspecting, that the word in nine cases out of ten is used as a veil for obscenity; the consequence is that the disgusting publications of this self-styled "Art Club" have been seized, and the members of the society bound over for prosecution. Again, you will have noted the case of Maxim Gorky. Sacerdotalists have said hard things about the American Marriage Laws, which indeed breathe the genial spirit of an advanced and liberalised Christianity, and are, therefore, naturally unacceptable to our friends the priests. Yet, there is a moral sentiment in America which puts us to the blush, and the Russian having outraged that sentiment, found himself homeless—in the freest country in the earth.

Well, you see my point, do you not? I hope I have convinced you that at no time and in no country has the prevalence of Protestant and Liberal opinions been accompanied by that languid acquiescence in evil which masquerades under the name of "tolerance"; we are not "tolerant" now, we never have been "tolerant," and unless under compulsion, we never will be. We fight for the Good and the True, and (as Liberal leader-writers say when a Liberal Government is in office) wars cannot be made with rosewater. I trust that by this time I have quite convinced you that there was nothing inconsistent with Liberal and Protestant principles in my demand for the suppression of the works of Dante.

I do not wish to stifle a reverent curiosity as to the Future Life. Far from it; I have told you how my boy's anticipation of his Heavenly Home touched and pleased me, and, as I said, why should not the vision of an English child attached to a Free Church, a member of a well-governed community, be as acceptable and as probable as that of the old time seer, who must have lived under conditions that we should deem revolting? At all events, to the earnest Christian there are many sources of information open; let him read "The Gates Ajar," for example; a touching anticipation that life in Heaven will be extremely like life in the smaller villages of the United States of America. And, if we consider the matter seriously, can we find much amiss in such an anticipation? I have often felt that many of my brothers are unduly timorous when speaking on this subject; modern, enlightened, and advanced in most matters, they seem, if I may say so, still somewhat under the bondage of ecclesiastical tradition when they approach the question of eschatology. They use, I mean, the figures and the symbols which John uses, which no doubt may have appealed forcibly enough to the uneducated, unscientific Christians of the early centuries; to men whose eyes were dazed, as it were, with the barbaric pomp of the Temple services, or with the gorgeous pageantry of pagan Rome. Of course, this is a subject which requires delicate handling, but perhaps you will remember that I have already pointed out to you that in Holy Writ (which I need not say is the Life and Inspiration of all Evangelical Churches), one must, it may be, be prepared to recognise certain elements as local and temporary in their scope. Nor do I think this view need present much difficulty to the earnest enquirer; it is surely not an impossible task to disentangle the great Basic Principles of Christianity from the setting of brilliant Orientalisms which, no doubt, recommended these principles to the particular audience to which they were first addressed. Shall I give you my test? Well, it seems simple enough. Ask yourself these questions:—Does such or such a doctrine or utterance appeal to me personally as finely Christian? Is it in accord with the modern spirit? Can I imagine such an utterance being received with "loud and continued applause" at a Liberal meeting? Would this doctrine satisfy the ethical demands of a modern man of science? Can I conceive of such a rite as this suggesting itself spontaneously to a representative assembly of Free Churchmen? And perhaps best of all—the final and conclusive test—Is this a doctrine on which the party could go to the country, with the certainty of being returned by a triumphant, a "thumping" majority? I do not claim this test as an absolute discovery; indeed, I am very glad to be able to call the testimony of a distinguished brother minister, the Rev. C. H. Kelly, ex-president of the Wesleyan Conference, who in his charge to the newly-ordained ministers, is reported to have said that "they had to preach to an age that was antagonistic to formality. Men would not listen to doctrinal statements unless they were practical. It was a democratic age. Crowns and lawn sleeves did not count for much to-day. If Paul or Wesley returned to the earth now, they would have to act differently. If Martin Luther came back to Germany, he would have to act differently, if for no other reason than from the fact that the Kaiser was living."

Yes; there does seem some slight inconsistency between the sentence about "crowns" and the sentence about the Kaiser; but that apart, note how the preacher goes to the root of the matter, how he gives in practice the same rule that I have given in theory. "Tell the democracy what the democracy wants to hear," is the Rev. C. H. Kelly's message: "Test the Bible by the judgment of the democracy," is mine. How far and how well we have travelled from the spirit of the text (no doubt adapted to Syrian modes of thought) which bids us beware when all men speak well of us, and tells us to rejoice in being evilly spoken of, maltreated, persecuted, imprisoned, put to death! The preaching of Paul brought him bonds, and beatings, and execution; Luther no doubt ran great risks, even Wesley was pelted, insulted, reviled. How different the stories of such men from the careers of the late venerated Pastor of the City Temple! Yes, Democracy and Protestantism have led us far.

Well; to apply our test to the particular matter under consideration. I said that my brother ministers seemed to be unduly bound by obsolete eccelesiastical tradition in discussing the sublime subject of our future eternal happiness; and I should like to ask some of them whether they honestly think they would be really happy in such a heaven as John (if it be John) describes for us. You know the vision: the description of the glowing and bejewelled Court of Heaven, the elders in white robes with crowns of gold, the seven lamps of fire, the vials full of odours (incense, I am afraid, were the truer translation), the prostration and adoration of the elders, the angel with the censer to whom was given much incense. If we are quite sincere, we must confess that all this is a description of a gorgeous and elaborate ceremonial; and I must add that it reads much more like an account of "High Mass" in a Romish or Ritualistic Church than anything else with which I am acquainted. I need scarcely say that neither I, nor any Free Church minister known to me, would be at all happy or even comfortable during the performance of such a ceremonial as John describes. Taking into consideration the fact that we spend our whole lives in denouncing such ceremonial, in warning our people against its insidious, meretricious, and theatrical attractions (whoredoms of the Scarlet Woman, our plain-spoken forefathers called such rites), considering that our Puritan ancestors fought and bled and died and feared not even kings, so that such abominations should be swept out of the land, considering that even in these days stout John Kensit was martyred for his efforts to make all such idolatries impossible; considering all this, I say, is it not a little ridiculous that we should bid our people look forward to certain things as the perpetual joys of heaven, while, with what seems to me startling inconsistency, we order them to shun these very things like the pestilence on earth?

Why should we not be candid? Why do we not confess that John's symbols are ill-chosen and dangerous, for our times at all events; that the Congregationalists of Peckham, the Baptists of Battersea, the Wesleyans of Tooting have long passed beyond the spiritual region which was occupied by half-clad, ignorant, uncivilised fellahin and fakirs in the Syria of the first century? But do we quite realise this? Are we not, even the best of us, bound by that superstitious reverence for the past which has been responsible for so much mischief and error, which has enslaved and still enslaves the souls and bodies of men? Would it not be as well if we realised, once for all, that the average seventh standard boy or girl from the school over the way is in many respects the superior of the whole body of the Apostles? I believe there are persons, even in this age, who despise or pretend to despise modern progress, who assert that main drainage, pure water, electric trams—in fact, all the results of applied science—are entirely unimportant. But we are not concerned with the pseudo-mediævalists, but with the British Democracy, and I think it is time we appealed to them on their own ground, that we shewed ourselves not merely spiritual but also practical, when we wish to set forth the Reward that is in store.

I heard a story once that pleased me. An American Revivalist was endeavouring to excite the devotion of his congregation by dwelling on the heaven of John. In the midst of his most eloquent passage a sturdy, ringing voice came from the back of the hall: "What's the matter with Kentucky? It's God's own state, anyway, and that's good enough for me!" I cordially sympathise with the utterer of that sentiment; I sympathise too with a little American boy in a somewhat similar story. The child came crying to the Sunday School Superintendent, and said he didn't want to go to heaven because his teacher had told him that there would be no chewing gum there, nor any Britishers to whip.

My good friend, we shall all say, if we are sincere, "what's the matter with Kentucky" (or Battersea!); we shall all demand our chewing-gum and our Britishers to whip. For otherwise, do we not confess that we are ashamed of our daily occupations, of our daily interests in life; do we not, in fact, plead guilty to leading lives that are essentially wrong and distorted? Unless we are ready to join the Eastern fakir and the Western monk in their miserable blasphemy, we are far from pleading guilty to any such accusation. On the contrary, we say boldly that we are placed in this world to use it, to get on in it, to better its condition by healthy political activities, to make money in it by the judicious exercise of the faculties that have been given us. The world has always worshipped success, and the world has been right; and I have no doubt that these goodly activities in which we have joined together below will be prolonged eternally in heaven. We cannot say how it can be so, but we know that it will be so, and in perfect measure. There will be no violent break, no sudden dislocation of all our interests and all our activities, as John imagined, and as many excellent but mistaken people imagine to this day. The respectable suburban citizen, who has read "Self-Help" to advantage, who has realised the inner meaning of the Parable of the Talents, has amassed an honest fortune by his successful handling of some useful product, and has been the prop and stay of some excellent Evangelical cause—a man like this will not be hurled suddenly into a world to which business methods are altogether unknown, in which the simple Gospel service of the Free Churches is replaced by complicated and mysterious rites, which seem to outvie the impious splendours of Popery. No; "Work without worry" will be, I think, the motto of the Heavenly City. Even the Romish Monk realised in his dark and contrasted fashion something of the limitations of this earthly sphere:—

Brief life is here our portion,
Brief sorrow, short-lived care:

Though, of course, his is a pessimism coloured by the gloomy superstition of Rome. Yet, in spite of the advances that have been made, we must confess that the faithful Christian has still many trials, many difficulties to overcome. I once knew a good man who was interested in milk, and I am sure that his life was as innocent and simple as the product in which he dealt. He is now, I trust, in the enjoyment of glory; his heirs are certainly in the enjoyment of considerable affluence. The father was a Christian man; his descendants, I regret to say, have attached themselves to the Establishment. Well, I have known this worthy gentleman to come to me with tears in his eyes while he recounted the annoyances and hindrances that were thrown in his way by the harassing and un-English methods of the Government Inspectors.

"What do they want, doctor?" I have heard him say: "What will satisfy them? That's what I want to know. We have a poor fellow in our employment who has been consumptive for the last three years; he's a handy man, and naturally I don't pay him full wages, as he's getting rather weak now. You can't expect a man to pay a full day's wages for a half-day's work—at least, not out of the Parables. After all, if you only give a man a penny a day it's hardly worth while paying a fellow to keep the time-sheet. You don't often find out the Good Book in a mistake, do you, doctor? But I wish I knew how the owner of that vineyard managed to keep down wages as he did. The unions wouldn't stand it now for a moment. But I suppose we shall know all about it when we get to heaven."

My friend was a shrewd man-of-the-world, and I often derived great benefit from listening to such keen commentaries as these on the Scripture story. But on this occasion to which I am referring, he grew almost beside himself with indignation as he told me that he was threatened with "trouble" because he persisted in keeping on his unfortunate assistant, who was slowly dying of consumption. "Do they want me to throw the poor fellow out into the street?" he exclaimed. I sympathised with him to the best of my ability, and then he went on to say that this was the least of his worries. There was trouble about the comparatively harmless chemicals that he used to preserve the lacteal fluid in its pristine freshness, there was trouble about a case of typhoid occurring in a cottage adjoining the dairy, and an impertinent person who had made a kind of domiciliary visit to the cowsheds had gone away talking of "disgusting substances from diseased udders" finding their way into the milk. Then there was the question of attenuation; my poor old friend pointed out that milk "stuffed with cream" (as he put it) wasn't wholesome. "The public don't want it," he said, "they wouldn't look at it if they got it; any more than they'd drink beer made out of malt and hops, whiskey made of malt, or brandy distilled from wine."

"Ah," he concluded; "the world's a hard place, and what with the rates and taxes, I don't think we get much out of it in the end."

I comforted him, as I say, and when I reminded him of that stream which waters Paradise and makes the angels sing, suggesting that he might be placed in charge of its source, and that there would be no sighing or sorrow there, he looked more cheerful. He knew that there would be no Inspectors among the Shining Ones. Yes; earthly Trusts may be threatened; but no powers of evil will be suffered to break the everlasting "Corners" of our Heavenly Mansion.

There will be no break, no solution of continuity. Science has wiped the dimness from our eyes; we no longer look for the instantaneous scene-shifting, if I may use the expression, which seems to have characterised earlier and less enlightened views—views which seem to have regarded heaven as a transformation scene in a celestial pantomime. The trumpet will not sound; we shall not all be changed in the twinkling of an eye, for Science teaches us that the Divine Process is a gradual one, and heaven is, after all, but the grand goal of Evolution. Trumpets, of course, are quite impossible, and out of the question.

And need I say that the principle applies (as how should it not?) to the religious world as to the secular? Here again I am inclined to think that some of my brother ministers are a little inconsistent. Again and again I have heard sermons and read papers which seem to look forward to a final abolition of all denominational ties, to a union of all into one vast and eternal denomination. We are asked to imagine a heaven in which there will neither be Baptists nor Methodists, Congregationalists nor Bible Christians, where Presbyterians will be unknown, and Sandemanianism will be sought for in vain. But if this is the ideal, why do we not try to realise it on earth? If such is the goal to which we are moving, to what purpose the labour and expense involved in building churches and administering the affairs of the three hundred denominations which make such a brave show in the useful Whittaker? If we are to be One (in this mechanical sense), hereafter, why do we not endeavour to be One now and on earth? I must say that the inconsistency is too apparent to escape remark.

The truth is, of course, that a merely mechanical unity is not recommended to us on earth, nor promised as a reward hereafter. Let us leave such unity as that to slaves and priests: Christianity is not a thing to be governed by the cast-iron rules of the mathematicians, and in the purely spiritual order in which Evangelical Christians move and have their being, two and two are constantly making five. In this spiritual sense, in the vital sense (the only one which really matters), all the Free Churches are already One, as the Enemy has found to his cost, as the polling booths testified not very long ago. As for the phrase, "our unhappy divisions," I repudiate it altogether. Our divisions are most happy; they are but another witness to the infinite Diversity in Unity which characterises the whole of Creation. Do we wish that all flowers had been roses, all trees oaks, all metals gold, all places of worship exactly like the City Temple, all pastors perfect duplicates of Dr. Clifford, all hills Primrose Hills, all suburbs Batterseas? No, a thousand times no! Not in this dull mechanical sense was the great Aspiration for Unity uttered, and so far am I from deploring the divisions amongst us, that I wish that I could read each morning of the rise of a new denomination—of a new and dewy bud, as it were, shooting forth from the parent stem, with the freshness and innocence of the dawn still lingering like a glory about its yet unopened petals, rare with the prospect of future usefulness and beauty, promising a rich crop of churches to add still fresh graces to our imposing streets, to delight the world with more unheard of discoveries in the art of architectural ornament. No: many are the colours, the lights and the shades that go to the painting of a great picture—"The Doctor" is not one uniform hue—and each Protestant Denomination is but a varying pigment in the Great Masterpiece which will at last be exhibited to the angels.

 

As in earth, so in heaven. We may alter a hymn which has always pleased me, because though written, I believe, in the Dark Ages, it offers a fine witness to the sanctity of the Sabbath. Still, for the moment, let us read it thus:—

O what the joy and the glory must be,
Endless Free Churches the blessed ones see!

 

Nay, if England alone, this little island in the Northern Sea, can shew to-day Three Hundred distinct denominations, how vast, how awe-inspiring will be the Infinite Divisions of Eternity!