George Eliot."

HE death of this eminently gifted and remarkably popular writer has naturally occasioned the profoundest grief in all our literature-loving circles,-a regret which we instinctively share, although we cannot recognise her as having contributed in any good degree to the formation of healthy ideas and sentiments on the great subject of religion.

This judgment, we are fully aware, will be ascribed, in certain quarters, to theological narrowness on our part. We ourselves, of course, should dispute that explanation. We should be sorry to be "narrower" than Christian truth and charity dictate, and are always. open to any correction which established fact and fair reasoning may substantiate. Viewed in their literary aspect, and in the superb developments of genius and of culture which they supply, the writings of this great authoress have no more ardent admirers anywhere than ourselves. In these respects few writers of her sex have excelled her, and it may be a long time before we shall see her equal.

There is one element in her influence, however, which does not appear to have been generally noticed, but which we cannot but regard as surreptitious and unfair. She seems to be a Christian without Christianity. She appropriates, in an informal way, the higher moral teachings of Christ without acknowledging, so far as we remember, the source from which they have come. Perhaps an exception should be made in favour of " Adam Bede;" but apart from that captivating book-on the whole, the best of all her novels-we do not recollect any reverential or deferential allusions in her writings to Christ as a Teacher, or as an Example, or as a Saviour; and yet, as she writes on, she seems to hold to the rectitude and the majesty of the law of selfsacrifice for the good of others-just that kind of intense and loving interest in others which expresses itself in toil and self-denial for their welfare, but of which we look in vain for full-length instances outside the sphere in which theoretical and practical Christianity is working. She does not help her readers to believe in and worship God, to cherish a comforting and quickening trust in Providence, to anticipate a real and conscious life beyond the grave, or to

repair for deliverance from the guilt and the power of sin to Him who is set forth in the Gospel as the Redeemer of the world. In her novels she does not controvert, nor does she expressly repudiate, the teachings of Christianity. She only leaves them unmentioned. And yet, taking her stand apparently as an outsider, she certainly does inculcate a great deal of what gives to practical Christianity its highest distinction. She does not countenance vice in any of its forms of sensuality, falsehood, or unkindness. She demands all the social virtues. She gives to evil all its features of ugliness-to good all its features of beauty. We suppose that her known rejection of Christianity had an intellectual rather than a moral and spiritual origin, and that it was based on metaphysical and scientific grounds. We are inclined to hope that there was no real hostility in her heart to the Christ of the New Testament, to the Father whom He has revealed, to the faith He inculcates, or to the disciples whom He acknowledges. She simply, for the most part, gives all these matters the go-by, and develops with rare elaborateness and skill her own lofty ideal of human character, in its personal and social aspects, as though the Christianity which has, in reality, supplied her with that ideal had no existence. This may have been undesigned. Probably it was so, but at any rate it is deeply to be regretted. "Adam Bede" stands apart from her other books in regard to these matters. With our ways of thinking, it is not easy to understand how the youthful translator of Strauss could have produced a book characterised by so intense a religious glow. Subsequent literary associations contributed to make her the "Agnostic" she became. She is gone, and death has taught her, as it is destined to teach us all, far greater lessons than she was able to learn from life.

We cannot forbear to express on this page our thankfulness for the letter addressed soon after the funeral to the Nonconformist and Independent by the Rev. Edward White, who was a spectator of the mournful, but instructive, scene. How singular that a sceptic such as was the deceased authoress should have had a distinctively Christian burial! Believers and Agnostics mingled in a common grief and a common sympathy around her grave-men and women to whom Christ is "All, and in all," and others "who have been teaching the English nation for thirty years, as the result of their inquiries into matter and mind, that we can know nothing of the existence of a personal God, or of a life to come; that miracles, especially the

alleged miracles of Christ, are incredibilities; and who have been giving, during all this time, the whole weight of their authority to popular atheism from Britain to Japan." And what were the sentiments with which they parted from their friend-the friend who had endeavoured "to affirm that death, the loss of all conscious existence, is a sort of moral gain, or the loss of all selfishness, by the utter abolition of self"? Dr. Sadlier," the spokesman in this unparalleled gathering," and a gentleman who "believes as little as possible of supernatural Christianity," not only made an address to a living and personal God, invoking His care over the departed spirit, and His providential control of the survivors till they, too, should enter Paradise, but he went on as follows in addressing them :—

"My fellow-mourners, not with earthly affections only, but also with heavenly hopes, let us now fulfil this duty which is laid upon us. As the noblest lives are the truest, so are the loftiest faiths. It would be strange that she should have created immortal things, and yet be no more than mortal herself. It would be strange if names and influences were immortal, and not the souls which gave them immortality. No; the love and grief at parting are prophecies, and clinging memories are an abiding pledge of a better life to come. So, then, we may take home the words of CHRIST: 'Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions.' Great and dear friend, we bid thee farewell, but only for a little while, till death shall come again and unite for ever those whom He has separated for a time."

We have here, indeed, a singular scene. What thoughts arose in the minds of these Agnostic mourners as they were listening to such strong and yet tender utterances of Christian faith and hope? Why were the well-known opinions of the deceased on life, death, and immortality so deliberately and confidently transcended by her eulogist as the grave was closing over her body? Will our Spencers and our Harrisons, fresh from such a grave, dip their pens again into sceptical ink, and write again the "I know not, and I believe not," which looked so grim, and which was felt to be so false when the farewell was taken with the sweet words of the Gospel of the rejected Saviour sounding in their ears? It is likely enough that they will, for philosophical pride is loth to bow to the Nazarine when He says, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," and then vindicates Himself by recalling the dead Lazarus alive from the tomb. But Faith will struggle on till Doubt is extinct, and Hope will outlive Despair, and Christ will "reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet."

64

Christianity v. Science in Belation to Human Suffering.*

"And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!"-LUKE XV. 17.

man.

The

HERE are two questions which it is our duty to put to every
one who claims to come to us as a teacher from God.
first: "What have you to tell us concerning the nature of
God?" the second: "What have you to tell us concern-
ing the nature of man?"

Every religion must have its theory concerning both God and We have a right to ask every religious teacher for these theories before we hear him speak of the relations and duties that arise out of them; and by their truth or falsehood, all the rest that he has to say must be judged-so far, at least, as this: that if he tells us anything concerning God, or anything concerning man, which is demonstrably false we must reject him.

Now, of these two tests, it is quite clear which is the simpler and more easy to apply. Obviously the second. We do know the nature of man, or think we do; of the Divine Nature we are necessarily in comparative ignorance.

To this test I am about to submit that religion in which we profess to believe. There is a theory concerning man's nature and condition on which the whole of this book-the Bible-is based. We are to ask you to consider whether this theory approves itself to you as true, and we are to contrast it with other theories which you are asked to accept instead of it. If the theory be demonstrably false to our nature, we cannot accept it. If it be demonstrably true, commending itself to our innermost being, so that, when the teacher speaks, the very flesh and heart cry out: "I know it to be true by what I feel within me," then we are prepared to go with the teacher as he tells us of the things that we have not seen, of God and of our relations to Him, and of the duties, hopes, fears, promises, and helps of the future -the infinite future that lies in the relations between humanity and God.

*The substance of a Sermon preached before the University of Oxford on Advent Sunday, September 28th, 1880, by the Bishop of Peterborough.

What, then, is the test to which we propose to submit the theory of the Bible concerning the nature of man? It is the test of an admitted and notorious fact. That fact is described in the verse I have read to you, and it is that of the exceptional unhappiness of man. Our Lord in this parable confronts this fact, as every teacher of the Gospel, or Good News, must do if he is to win the attention of men. The hero of this story is more than a sufferer-he is an exceptional sufferer. All the other creatures in the parable-the hired servants in the father's house-have bread and to spare: he alone suffers hunger. He is even a strangely exceptional sufferer, for he who suffers is immensely superior to those who are happy. They are but the hired servants; he is the son, raised above them all in nearness to the father and ruler of the household. Yet he alone is perishing with hunger! Is this a true description of humanity?

That man is unhappy we know. That, at least, is mere commonplace human experience. The poet, the philosopher, the moralist, the satirist treat it in different ways, but they all acknowledge it. Men may laugh at this life of ours, as they do, in one mood; or weep over it, as they do, in another. They may madden as they pore over the mystery of human sorrow. But the confession of all alike, at one time or another, is the same: "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery."

But man is not only unhappy-he is the most unhappy creature in creation! Is not the life of the lower animals one of pure physical enjoyment? They are unvexed by care, untroubled by anxiety, unhaunted by the fear of death. Man is a strange exception to all this. How comes it, as you ascend from one rank to another, in the order of animal existence, by slow and regular and uniform progression, that man, the outcome of ages, the perfection and glory of all these existences, each glorying in its perfection, and each in its turn contributing something as it grew up and passed away out of the scale of creation, or passed into something higher-how is it that, when you come to this crown and glory of all creation, you come to something infinitely more unhappy than all the rest? Man seems to pay the price of his high rank and standing in the great household of the universe by this-that he is capable of an infinity of agonies. We may be fairly told that this is but the working out of a great law that governs all creation that the susceptibility to pleasure must always be purchased by a corresponding susceptibility to pain. And so it may be