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Order of the Bath. A more suitable representative of the Queen could not have been found. His remarkable Indian services had won for him the highest distinctions in the Army; as Colonel of the Life Guards he wore a magnificent uniform; and his tall, handsome, commanding appearance made him a fit representative of England's chivalry. He was upwards of a week on board, and made himself most popular amongst the midshipmen by his simple kindly manner and Irish sense of fun. The second Viscount, staying with me in later years, told me how as a boy he had been celebrated for his violin-playing; he was in request not only in his father's house, but at the Viceregal Lodge, and at all the aristocratic houses in Dublin. At length came a day when he had to choose between his fiddle and his military studies, and the father decreed that the precious old violin must be locked away for a few years; so it was carefully secured in its case; a strong outer box was made; it was securely screwed down, and the valuable package always accompanied Lord Gough in India as part of his personal baggage. Then in due time. came the day when the son had passed his examinations and the choice instrument was to be restored to him; the outer box was unscrewed, but when the case was unlocked and opened, it was found to be empty; the beautiful old violin had been stolen, and Lord Gough had for years been carrying about the empty case. The son told me he had

never played a violin again.

Lord Gough made a great impression on the French generals in the Crimea, and we heard how picturesquely he had played his part in the stately ceremonial.

As I write down the recollections of nigh half a century ago, and the pictures of my midshipman's days rise vividly before my eyes, the midshipman's spirit still lives, unchanged by time. My friends mostly find their interest and excitement in the pursuit of something; there are those who chase the fox and the deer, who shoot small birds and beasts, more or less wild, or pursue balls of various sizes and materials under varying conditions. Some pursue votes; some coin; and many aspire to honours of one kind or another. Captains and Admirals are all very well in their way, and I suppose they are necessary, but they are after crosses and decorations, and titles, and desirable appointments. Even Captain Mends writes: "What I want more than anything just now is to be a Companion of the Bath." The midshipman pursues none of these; he seeks no gain of any kind; he is ripe for any service, any adventure, and any fun; and in old age he can recall no happier days than when he wore his short jacket, with the white patch on the collar which has ever been the proud badge of the British midshipman.

VOL. LXXVI.

3 B

EDMUND VERNEY.

CHRISTIAN DOGMA AND THE

CHRISTIAN LIFE.

WH

HAT benefit can the Christian Life obtain from that renewal of dogmatic conceptions which modern theology necessitates and brings with it? What should be our attitude towards the traditional formulæ and symbols which are still in use in most of the Churches?

I.

We are right in placing the interest of the Christian life, that is the supreme form of the spiritual life, in the first rank of our interests. In saying this I am not speaking in the name of a mere vulgar and short-sighted utilitarianism. In the deepest and most complete sense the spiritual life includes and harmonises all our moral and intellectual powers. Yet we may ask, Does this beneficent action and reaction of the Christian life on scientific activity, and of this latter on the Christian life, exist? Do piety, or religion, and science conspire together mutually to strengthen one another?

When we look on the condition of the Christian world in the last days of this century, now so near its close, are we not struck by a disquieting contrast?

In the practical condition of Christian work we see an incomparable development of beneficent energy. Never has a more numerous army of Christian workmen laboured in the factories of God.

Let us beware, however, of all illusion, of all self-complacency. If we look at Christian thought we perceive a different spectacle and we find symptoms which are of a nature to diminish our confidence; for here reign the greatest uncertainty and deep confusion. It is not that theological activity is not intense, but it does not produce

harmony, and instead of helping practical piety it seems to disquiet and paralyse it, sowing trouble, doubt and confusion.

The labours and progress of scientific theology, in our time, are neither less rich nor less worthy of admiration than those accomplished, in our day, by all the other sciences; but, whilst the development of these last has served marvellously the general prosperity by applying to art and industry their methods which are so pure and their discoveries which are so fruitful, one cannot help asking what advantages religious life and morality have reaped from the scientific labour of theologians? Has it had any other effect than that of troubling the security of the old faith, of shaking the simple confidence of Christians in the solidity and durability of beliefs on which they were accustomed to make their spiritual life itself depend? Hence the discredit thrown on the researches and the results of modern theology. Unfortunately for those who give themselves up to foregone conclusions, who ignore what they might learn, or condemn what they do not understand, such feelings or ideas are useless. They can define for us a certain external attitude, a certain ecclesiastical policy, but they cannot bring back into the conscience the security of faith or the joy of life.

But why lay the blame only on theology and theologians? This state of trouble and perplexity in Christian thought comes from more distant and general causes. What has happened in theology is only the result and effect of a mental revolution making itself felt everywhere else. The conflict which we speak of has arisen between the new culture, the scientific philosophy of our time, and the traditional forms of Christian beliefs which have been imprudently declared to be unchangeable and immovable. We live in a very different world from that of our ancestors. Their representation of the universe makes us smile. The world which modern astronomy, geology, chemistry, biology, reveal to us offers no point of convergence or of coincidence with the cosmological notions of the biblical writers or of the Fathers of the Church, which serve for the framework of their religious ideas. These latter, therefore, float in air without any ties or relation to the realities around us. I do not say that this changed point of view of the universe touches the foundation or essence of religion, but it certainly affects the form of our beliefs. The Christian who seeks to preserve these latter intact is obliged to live a kind of double life. As a modern man he lives in the world of Newton, Laplace, and Darwin; as a traditional believer, not doubting the full verbal inspiration of his Bible, he must, when reading it, forget what he has learned and live again unconsciously in the world as it was before the discoveries of Copernicus. Or if he suspects the opposition, he feels divided in himself, and is forced

either to renounce his faith in the infallibility of Holy Scripture, or to sacrifice his modern culture to the cosmology of the old Hebrews. The first Christians had, for example, no difficulty in representing to themselves a bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven, because heaven was to them a real geographical region absolutely settled and determined in their minds. For the Christians of our time heaven is a spiritual idea. Hence those who are convinced of the bodily ascension of the Saviour and hold to it tenaciously cannot possibly represent it to themselves as an objective fact.

Many other examples are offered to us in the case of certain miracles of the Old and New Testaments, such as the creation of the rainbow after the Deluge, the standing still of the sun and moon at the command of Joshua, the going back of Ahaz's dial, the descent of Jesus into hell, the rising up of Paul into the third heaven, the creation of the world in six days, the situation of the Garden of Eden, and other like matters. No one has studied the history of dogmas without noticing how much there is in the most important of them of old worn-out matter, of dried-up forms, which the most conservative of Christians complacently attenuate, neglect, and eliminate tacitly in their own minds, because such things find no place there. But the least instructed or the most tenacions have a vague consciousness that the position thus created is difficult and dangerous. Unable to give up their culture, unwilling to give up their faith, they endure a perpetual struggle which troubles them and prevents them from enjoying any freedom in their inner life. That is the cause of the great spiritual weakness of which one is conscious under the ardour and fever of an overflowing activity. One is carried along with a sort of violence to the performance of outward works as an escape from the uneasiness for which one knows no remedy.

I see no exception to this universal phenomenon. If any one points to the apparent unity which a powerful discipline maintains in the Roman Catholic Church, one must examine more closely what is hidden under these official appearances, and what troubles and interior discords that silence conceals. How many souls, while inwardly revolting, are silent in France, in Germany, in America! What things does one not hear in confidence when, now and then, some of these men allow one to read what passes within them! Who can tell the tearings asunder, the despair, the moral agony, which are hidden under the roof of a presbytery! Again let me say, we are not speaking here of the unity of government, but of the unity and of the interior peace of the conscience. Well! I fear not to affirm that this spiritual unity is less in Roman Catholicism than elsewhere, or, if you prefer to state it so, that under this system of compression the trouble of souls only diminishes in proportion as the life of the spirit itself diminishes.

What is the

It is in thus studying the common evil from which all the modern religious world suffers that one discovers the depth of that evil. What does it matter that our Christian works are numerous if the source from which they proceed is about to dry up? good of converting the negroes of Africa if in our European civilisation Christianity cannot be loyally confessed by the choicest spirits? In vain has the tree appeared in the late autumn once again laden with fruit. Do we not know the fate which awaits it if the roots are drying up and dying?

The profound evil, the modern evil which is attacking the Christian life, is the menace of a divorce between science and conscience, the intestine strife between our chief faculties, the intelligence and the will. One asks oneself if that which is good is true, and if that which is true is good? The Christian conscience seems to have lost its principle of unity; piety feels the ancient foundations which supported it giving way beneath it. In this formidable crisis can there be a better or more needful service rendered to it than to reassure it against its own fears, to dissipate its doubts, and to give it back its organic unity reconstituted, and therewith its liberty, its peace, its confidence?

II.

Given the nature of the evil, it seems clear that the cause which has produced it, and which is entirely intellectual, alone can cure it. However, before coming to the true remedy, it is necessary to examine the external remedy that empirical doctors advise, and that reactionary minds undertake to apply. This remedy consists in clinging blindly to established tradition, in ignoring the evolution of religious thought, and in maintaining order and unity in the churches. by repressive measures. It is, strictly speaking, the Romish method. Without asking ourselves how far it is applicable elsewhere, let us see what it is worth in itself.

I should go against all my convictions if I disputed the legitimate authority of tradition and the indispensable part which it has in the propagation and maintenance of religious life. We all believe in the communion of saints. The collective Christian soul is always richer than the individual soul. We all begin Christian life by being catechumens, and in some respects we are such all our lives. We are not willing to uproot ourselves, or to let others uproot us from the soil in which we have been planted; we know too well that organisms which are uprooted, if they are not without virtue, at least are without offspring.

But if the authority of tradition is proved to be necessary and legitimate, it must certainly be allowed that it cannot be absolute. All tradition is human and subject to historical conditions. Not one

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