This page has been validated.
JOWETT'S LIFE
139

words of truth and soberness' (that is, in the Essays and Reviews article), broke out with the phrase 'the sentinel who deserts should be shot.' J. S. Mill, on the other hand, as we are reminded, approved of clergymen who remained within the Church so long as they could accept its formulae 'with common honesty.' I agree with both Mill and Carlyle. The prosecutors held sincerely that the essayist was preaching doctrines utterly inconsistent with Christianity. They not only held this sincerely, but I cannot doubt that they were right in their belief. Accept Jowett's version and the Christian services will become an elaborate mystification. 'Prayer,' he says, '(for fine weather and so forth), as at present conducted, is an absurdity,' or 'an ambiguity of the worst kind.' How then could he join in prayers, which involve absurdity and ambiguity at every clause? How at least could he complain that men believing in the absurdities should try to turn him out? To them he appeared as a 'deserter,' or rather a traitor within the camp, and rightly so if judged by the inevitable consequences of his actions. Mill, no doubt, was also right in saying that Jowett was justified in remaining so long as he could do so in 'common honesty.' He did not