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diff --git a/old/55354-0.txt b/old/55354-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e10f055..0000000 --- a/old/55354-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2415 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's What Does History Teach?, by John Stuart Blackie - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: What Does History Teach? - Two Edinburgh Lectures - -Author: John Stuart Blackie - -Release Date: August 14, 2017 [EBook #55354] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT DOES HISTORY TEACH? *** - - - - -Produced by David Thomas - - - - - -WHAT DOES HISTORY -TEACH? - -TWO EDINBURGH LECTURES - -BY -JOHN STUART BLACKIE - -London -MACMILLAN AND CO. -1886 - - - -TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES. - -This book was originally digitized by Google and is intended for -personal, non-commercial use only. - -Footnotes have been relocated to the end of the book. - -Passages originally rendered in small-caps have been changed to all-caps -in the text version of this work. - - - -CONTENTS. - - PREFATORY NOTE. - I. THE STATE. - II. THE CHURCH. - - - -PREFATORY NOTE. - -THE following Lectures were prepared for the Philosophical Institution -of Edinburgh, and were delivered, with the exception of a few passages, -before audiences consisting of Members of that Institution on the -evenings of 8th and 11th December in the present year. - -EDINBURGH, _December_ 1885. - - - -I. -THE STATE. - -Ὥσπερ τελεωθὲν βέλτιστον τῶν ζῴων ἄνθρωπος οὕτω καὶ χωρισθὲν νόμου -καὶ δίκης χείριστον πάντων.--ARISTOTLE. - -HISTORY, whether founded on reliable record, or on monuments, or on -the scientific analysis of the great fossil tradition called language, -knows nothing of the earliest beginnings. The seed of human society, -like the seed of the vegetable growth, lies under ground in darkness, -and its earliest processes are invisible to the outward eye. -Speculations about the descent of the primeval man from a monkey, of the -primeval monkey from an ascidian, and of the primeval ascidian from a -protoplastic bubble, though they may act as a potent stimulus to the -biological research of the hour, certainly never can form the -starting-point of a profitable philosophy of history. - -As revealed in history, man is an animal, not only generically different -from, but characteristically antagonistic to the brute. That which makes -him a man is precisely that which no brute possesses, or can by any -process of training be made to possess. The man can no more be developed -out of the brute than the purple heather out of the granite rock which -it clothes. The relation of the one to the other is a relation of mere -outward attachment or dependency--like the relation which exists -between the painter's easel and the picture which is painted on -it. The easel is essential to the picture, but it did not make the -picture, nor give even the smallest hint towards the making of it. So -the monkey, as a basis, may be essential to the man without being in any -way participant of the divine indwelling λόγος which makes a man a -man. The two are related only as all things are related, inasmuch as -they are all shot forth from the great fountain-head of all vital -forces, whom we justly call GOD. - -The distinctive character of man as revealed in history is threefold. -Man is an inventive animal, and he does not invent from a compulsion of -nature, as bees make cells or as swallows build nests. These are all -prescribed operations which the animal must perform; but the inventive -faculty in man is free, in such a manner that the course of its action -cannot be foreseen or calculated. It revels in variety, and, above all -things, shuns that uniformity which is the servile province of brute -activity. A man may live in a hole like a fox, but his proper humanity -is shown by building a house and inventing a style of architecture. A -man can sing like a bird, but--what the bird cannot do--he can -make a harp or an organ. He can scrape with his nails like a terrier, -but, as a man manifesting his proper manhood, he prefers to make a -shovel of wood and a hatchet of stone or iron. The other animals, -however cunning, and often wonderfully adaptable in their instincts, are -mere machines. Man makes machines. In this respect he is justly entitled -to look upon himself as the God to the lower animals, just as the -sheriff in the counties by delegated right represents the supreme -authority of the Crown. But, above all things, man is a progressive -animal,--not merely progressive as the grass grows from root to -blade and from blade to blossom to perfect its individual type of -vegetable life, but advancing from stage to stage and mounting from -platform to platform for the perfectionation of the race; nor even -progressive as plants and fruits are improved by culture and favourable -surroundings, and what is called forcing, or as the breed of sheep and -cattle is improved by selection. No doubt progress of this kind is made -by man as well as by plants and brutes; but his most distinctive human -progress is made, not by imposition from without, but by projection from -within. These projections from within are what in philosophical language -is called the idea; they proceed from the essential nature of mind, -whose imperial function it is to dictate forms, as it is the servile -function of the senses to receive impressions. These intelligent forms, -coming directly from the divine source of all excellence, and projected -from within with sovereign authority to shape for themselves an outward -embodiment, constitute what in art, in literature, in religion, and in -social organisms, is called the ideal; and man may accordingly be -defined as an animal that lives by the conception of ideals, and whose -destiny it is to spend his strength, and, if need be, to lay down his -life, for the realisation of such ideals. The steps of this realisation, -often slow and painful, and always difficult, are what we mean by human -progress; and it is the dominant characteristic of man, of which amongst -the lower animals there is not a vestige, neither indeed could be; for -so long as they have no ideas, neither reason nor the outward expression -of reason in language--two things so closely bound together that -the wise Greeks expressed them both by one word, λόγος--so -long must it be ridiculous to think of them shaping their career -according to an inborn type of progressive excellence. To do so is -exclusively human. Hence our poems, our high art, our churches, our -legislations, our apostleships, our philosophies, our social -arrangements and devices, our speculations and schemes of all kinds, -which, though they are sometimes foolish, and always more or less -inadequate, deliver the strongest possible proof that man is an animal -who will rather die and embrace martyrdom than be content to live as the -brutes do, neither spurred with the hope of progress nor borne aloft on -the wings of the ideal. - -Of the very earliest state of human society, as we have already said, -history teaches nothing; but, as man is a progressive animal, and the -plan of Providence with regard to him seems plain to let him shift for -itself and learn to do right by blundering, as children learn to walk by -tumbling, we may safely say that the easier, more obvious, and more rude -forms of living together must have preceded the more difficult, the more -complex, and the more polished. And in perfect consistency with this -presumption, we find three social platforms rising one above the other -in human value, duly accredited either by monuments, by popular -tradition, or by the evidence of comparative philology. These three -are--(1) The prehistoric or stone period, from which such a rich -store of monuments has been set up in the Copenhagen Museum, and the -existence of which is indicated in Gen. iv. 22 as antecedent to Tubal -Cain, the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron. (2) The -shepherd or pastoral stage, represented by Abel (Gen. iv. 2), in which -men subsisted from the easy dominance which they asserted over wild -animals, and from fruits of the earth requiring no culture. (3) The -agricultural stage, when cereal crops were systematically and -scientifically cultivated, which, of course, implied the limitation of -particular districts of ground to particular proprietors, and those -agrarian laws which caused the Greek Demeter to be honoured with the -title of θεσμοφόρος, or lawgiver--a step of marked and decided advance, -insomuch that we may justly attribute to it the redemption of society -from the _vagus concubitus_ of the earliest times, and the firm -establishment of the family, with all its sanctities and all its binding -power, as the prime social monad. To the priestess of this goddess -accordingly, amongst the Greeks, was assigned the function of ushering -in the newly-married pair to the peculiar duties of their new social -relation.[1] - -The fact that the family is the great social monad, as it is undoubtedly -one of the oldest and most accredited facts in human tradition, so it -presents to us perhaps the most important of all the lessons that -history teaches--a lesson as necessary to be inculcated at the -present hour as at the earliest stages of social advance; and Aristotle -certainly was never more in the right than when he emphasised this truth -strongly in traversing Plato's fancy of making the state the -universal family, to the utter absorption of all subordinated family -monads. Here, as in one or two other matters, the great idealist would -be wiser than God; and so his philosophy, so far as that point was -concerned, became only a more sublime attitude of folly. The importance -of the family, as the divinely instituted social monad, depends -manifestly on the happy combination and harmonious blending of authority -and love which grow out of its constitution--two elements with the -full development and true balance of which the well-being and happiness -of all societies is intimately bound up. The fine moral training which -the family relation alone can inspire we find not only at our own door, -in the fidelity and self-sacrificing devotion of our noble Highlanders, -who derived their inspiration from the clan system, of which the family -love and respect is the binding element,[2] as contrasted with the -slavish system of vassalage, the badge of feudalism; but in the habits -and institutions of the three great ancient peoples to whom modern -Europe owes its higher civilisation, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, -specially the last,[3] the great masters of the difficult art of -government, who, to use Mommsen's phrase, carried out the unity of -the family through the virtue of paternal authority "with an -inexorable consistency," the beneficial effect of which could not -fail to display itself in social life far beyond the sphere from which -it originally emanated; for obedience to authority is the fundamental -postulate of all possibie societies. With the family, if not absolutely, -certainly with the best and normal state of it, most closely connected -is monogamy; for, though instances of bigamy and polygamy, from Lamech -downwards (Gen. iv. 19) to King David and Solomon in the Old Testament -history, crop up here and there in the oldest times, and even in the -post-Babylonian period, without any formal mark of disapprobation, yet -it is quite certain that the Greeks and Romans were guided by a sound -social instinct when they held the practice of bigamy to be inconsistent -with the proper constitution of a family. What troubles are apt to arise -from a multiplication of contending wives and ambitious mothers the -latter story of King David tells in more unhappy episodes than one; and -generally it may be laid down as one of the great lessons of history -that polygamy, in every shape, is one of those acts of Oriental -self-indulgence which may be sweet in the mouth but has a very strong -tendency to be bitter in the belly, and therefore ought by all means to -be avoided. - -By the instinct of aggregation, which belongs to an essentially social -animal, families will club together into townships or villages, and -townships will be centralised into states. Humanity without townships -would degenerate into tigerhood, or whatever type of animal existence -might express an essentially self-contained, solitary, and selfish -creature; townships without that sort of headship which the word State -implies, would make society cry halt at a stage of loosely-connected -aggregates which would render common action for any high human purpose -extremely difficult, and, in the general case, as human beings are, -impossible. Hence the centralisation of the Attic townships at Athens in -the legendary traditions of the Athenians attributed to Theseus;[4] -hence also the lax confederation of the earliest Latin states under the -headship of Albalonga; and, after the humiliation of that old -stronghold, the more closely cemented union of those states under the -hegemony of Rome.[5] Whatever may be the evils connected with the growth -of large towns, especially when, as in modern times, they have been -allowed to swell to enormous magnitude without regulation or control, it -is one of the undoubted lessons of universal history that the social -stimulus necessary for the creation of vigorous thought, no less than -the centralised force indispensable to great achievement, is found only -in the large towns. The Christians were called Christian first at -Antioch; and, had there been no Rome to unify a little Latium, there -would have been no great Roman Empire to amalgamate the rude barbarians -of the North with the smooth civilisation of the South by the force of a -common law and common language.[6] - -The form of government natural to such infant states as the expansion of -the original social monad, the FAMILY, is a loose but not unkindly -mixture of monarchy, democracy, and aristocracy--the aristocracy -being always the preponderating element. In the single family, of -course, we have only the monarchical element in the father, and the -democratic element in the children; but, as families expand into -townships, it could not be but that the heads of the families composing -it, partly from their age and experience, partly from the force of -individual character, should form a sort of natural aristocracy, while -the less notable and less prominent members would form the δῆμος, -or great body of the constantly increasing multitude of the associated -families. Below these three dominant elements of the body social, there -would always be found a loose company of dependents and -onhangers--the class called Θῆτες in Homer (Od., iv. 644), -and in the Solonian constitution--who had no civic rights any more -than the serfs and vassals of our medieval feudalism. The weakness of -the monarchical and the strength of the aristocratic elements in the -early societies arose from the original equality of the heads of -families, and from the jealousy with which they would naturally look on -any functions of superiority exercised by any of their order naturally -no better than themselves. The king, accordingly, like Agamemnon in -Homer, would claim the homage which the title implies only for purposes -of common action; and even in such cases would always be kept in check -by a βουλή, or council of the aristocracy, of whose will properly -he was only the executive hand; while the great mass of the people, -occupied with the labours that belong to an agricultural and pastoral -population, and unaccustomed to the large views which statesmanship and -generalship require, would come together only on rare occasions of -peculiar urgency. - -The element in that loose triad of social forces that was first -formulated into a more distinct type, and endowed with more imperative -efficiency, was the kingship. The power of the king was increased, which -of course implies that the power of the people, and specially of the -aristocracy, was diminished. And here let it be observed generally that -the progress of civilisation in its natural and healthy career is the -progress of limitation and the curtailment in various ways of that -freedom which originally belonged to every member of the community. The -tanned savage of the backwoods is the freest man in existence; next to -him, the nomad or the wandering gipsy, such as may still be seen in -their glory at St. James' fair in Kelso, whose house is at once -his dwelling-place, his manufactory or place of business, and his -travelling car; least free is the civilised citizen hemmed in on all -sides by police-officers, soldiers, sentinels, door-keepers, and -game-keepers, and the whole fraternity of dignified but unpopular -officials of various kinds whose business it is to the general public to -say No! This accretion of strength to the king proceeded first from his -mere personal influence and the general deference paid to him during the -continuance of a prolonged and easily-exercised sovereignty; all -classes, even the aristocracy, whose ambition is thus kept in check and -their perilous enmities softened, feel the benefit of a wise head and a -firm hand; but the party specially benefited by the kingship is the -demos; for this body, from its position peculiarly liable to be trampled -on by an insolent aristocracy, naturally looks up to the king as the -father of the whole family, who, on his part, feels his position -strengthened and his respect increased by performing with tact and -firmness the delicate functions of a mediator. But the great social -force which operates in giving prominence and predominance to the -monarchy is WAR; and, though war is unquestionably an evil, it is an -evil only as death is, and a form of dying accompanied not seldom with -an exhibition of more manhood than the experience of many a peaceful -deathbed can show. In fact, as stout old Balmerino said on the scaffold -in 1746, "The man who is not ready to die is not fit to -live;" that is, we hold our life under the condition that we may -at any time be called on to sacrifice it, whether for the preservation -of our own self-respect, or for the integrity of the community of which -we are a member. All great nations, in fact, have been cradled in war, -the Hebrews no less than the Greeks and Romans; and it is only an -amiable sentimentalism, pardonable in women, but inexcusable in men, -that, in contemplation of the hard blows, red wounds, and gashed bodies -with which war is accompanied, will allow itself to forget the -hardihood, endurance, courage, self-sacrifice, and devotion to public -duty, of which, under Providence, it has always been the great training -school.[7] There is no profession that I know more favourable to the -growth of noble sentiment and manly action than that of the soldier; and -to its beneficial action in the formation of States every page of -history bears flaming testimony. War, in fact, is the principal agent in -producing that unification so absolutely necessary to social existence, -but which is lost so soon as the headship of the common father of the -expanded clan ceases to be recognised. Thus it was under the compulsion -of war from their Lombardian neighbours on the west and Sclavonians on -the east that the petty democratic communities, which after the -disruption of the Roman Empire occupied the Venetian isles, found -themselves, in the year 697, obliged to elect a king for life, wisely -masking his absolute authority under the name of Doge or Duke. And in a -similar fashion the situation of the Piedmontese, constantly forced to -defend themselves against Gallican and Teutonic ambition, begot in them -a stoutness of self-assertion and a general manhood of character which -up to the present hour has placed them in favourable contrast to the -inhabitants of the southern half of the peninsula; and the manhood -displayed by the Counts of Savoy in asserting their independence against -great odds was no doubt the cause why, in the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, -their lords were allowed to assume and maintain the title of -kings--a circumstance which gave rise to the saying of Frederick -the Great of Prussia, that the lords of Savoy were kings by virtue of -their locality.[8] This is certainly true, not only of Sardinia, but of -all States that ever rose above the loose aggregation of the original -townships. It was the necessity of adjusting matters with troublesome -neighbours that caused a perpetual succession of petty wars; and these -could not be conducted without a prolongation of the power of the -successful general, which acted practically as a kingship. The -successful general in such times did not require to usurp a title which -the people were forward to force upon him; and only a few, we may -imagine, like Gideon (Judges viii. 22), had virtue enough to remain -contented with the distinction belonging to a private station when the -grace of the crown and the authority of the sceptre were formally -pressed upon them by a grateful people. So in Greece we find an early -kingship signalised by the names of Ægeus, Theseus, and Codrus; so in -Rome a succession of seven kings, more or less distinctly outlined, the -last of whom, Tarquin the Proud, stands forward as the head of the great -Latin league, and entering in this capacity into a formal treaty with -Carthage, the great commercial State of the Mediterranean. Closely -connected with war, or, more properly, as the natural development of it -in its more advanced stages, we must mention CONQUEST; that is, the -violent imposition of the results of a foreign civilisation on the -native social foundations of any country. Here, no doubt, there may -often be on the conquering side something very different from a manly -self-assertion--viz. self-aggrandisement at the expense of an -innocent neighbour, greed of territory, lust of power, and the vanity of -mere military glory, which our brilliant neighbours the French were so -fond to have in their mouth. The virtue of war as a training school of -civic manhood does by no means exclude the operation of many forces far -from admirable in their motive; and it is the presence of these unholy -influences, no doubt piously brooded over, that has generated in the -breasts of our mild friends the Quakers that anti-bellicose gospel which -they preach with such lovable persistency. But whatever the motives of -famous conquerors have been, the results of their achievements in the -great history of society have been most important. The imposition of a -foreign type on the peoples of Western Asia by the brilliant conquests -of Alexander the Great, gave to the whole of that valuable part of the -world, along with the rich coast of Northern Africa, a common medium of -culture of the utmost importance to the future civilisation of the race. -The imposition of the Norman yoke 900 years ago on this island gave to -the contentious Saxon kingdoms, by a single vigorous stroke from -without, that social consistency which the bloody strife of five -centuries of petty kings and kinglets among themselves had failed to -produce; while in India the imposition of the most highly advanced -mercantile and Christian civilisation of the West on crude masses of an -altogether diverse type of Asiatic society, presents to the thoughtful -student of history a problem of assimilation of an altogether unique -character, the final solution of which, under the action of many complex -forces, no most sagacious human intellect at the present moment can -divine. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the blessings which -conquest brings with it, when vigorously managed and wisely used, are -lightly turned into a bane whenever the power which has the force to -conquer has not the wisdom to administer; of which unblissful lack of -administrative capacity and assimilating genius the conquests of the -Turks in Europe, and of the English in Ireland, present a most -instructive example. - -The monarchies created in the above fashion, by the combination of old -patriarchal habits with military necessities, however firmly rooted they -may appear at the start, carry with them a certain germ of -dissatisfaction, which, under the influence of popular irritability, -seriously endangers their permanence, and may at any time break up their -consistency. The causes of such dissatisfaction are chiefly the -following:--(1) The original motive for creating a king, the -pressure of foreign war, as war cannot last for ever, in time of peace -will cease to operate, and the instinct of individual liberty, which -belongs to all men, unless when violently stamped out, will revive, and -cause the subjection of all men to the will of one to be looked on with -disfavour. (2) This feeling will be specially strong with the -ἄριστοι, or natural aristocracy, whose individual importance -must diminish as the power of the king increases. (3) A great danger -will arise from the fixation of the order of succession to the throne. -The natural tendency will be to follow the example of succession in -private families, and recognise the right of the son to walk into the -public heritage of his father; but the additional influence thus given -to the king will have a tendency to sharpen the jealousy of the nobles. -And, again, the son may be a weakling or a fool, and utterly unfit to -play the part of a supreme ruler with that mixture of intelligence, -firmness, and tact which the royal function for its fair and full action -requires. (4) And if, in order to avoid these evils, the elective -principle is maintained, either absolutely or within certain limits, the -tendency to faction inherent in all aristocracies, stimulated by the -potent spur of a competition for power, will be increased; and this -factious yeast will work so potently in the blood of the nobles that -they will either reduce the power of the king to a mere name, and change -the government into an exclusive oligarchy, as in Venice, or they will -even go the length of calling in foreign arbiters to heal their -dissensions, which, as in the case of Poland, will naturally end in -subjection to some foreign power; or, lastly, they will dispense with -the kingship altogether, and return to their original mixture of -aristocracy and democracy with more firmly-defined functions and more -reliable guarantees. (5) This result may be precipitated by some -outbreak of that insolence which is so naturally fostered by the -possession of absolute power; the sacredness of personal property and -the reverence of ancestral possession will not be respected by some Ahab -of the day; some young Tarquin or Hipparchus may cast his lustful eye on -the fair daughter of an humble citizen; and then will be unsheathed the -sword of a Brutus, and then uprise the song of a Harmodius and -Aristogeiton, which will sound a long knell to monarchy, during the -manhood of a free, an independent, a self-reliant, and a self-governing -people. - -The system of self-government thus introduced, as the natural fruit of -the elements out of which it arose, would be a mixture of aristocracy -and democracy, with a decided predominance of the former element at -starting, but with a gradually increasing momentum on the side of the -inferior factor in proportion as the mass of the people excluded from -aristocratic privileges by a necessary law of social growth advanced in -numbers and in social importance. Greece and Rome, or rather Athens and -Rome, present to us here two types from which important lessons may be -learned. In both the discarding of the kings was the work of the -aristocracy; but, while the germ of the democratic element was equally -strong in both, in Athens, partly from the genius of the people, partly -from peculiar circumstances, this germ blossomed into an earlier, a more -marked, and a more characteristic manhood; whereas in Rome, in the most -brilliant period of its political action, the form of government might -rather be defined as a strong aristocracy limited by a strong democracy -than a pure democracy, to which category Athens undoubtedly belongs. In -both States the aristocratic element did not submit to the necessary -curtailment of its power without a struggle; but in Athens the names of -Solon (600 B.C.), Clisthenes, Aristides, and Pericles distinctly marked -the early formation of a democracy almost totally purged from any -remnant of aristocratic influence, at an epoch in its development -corresponding to which we find Rome pursuing her system of worldwide -conquest under a system of compromise between the patrician and the -plebeian element, similar in some sort to what we see before our eyes at -the present moment in our own country. To Athens, therefore, we look, in -the first place, for an answer to the question, What does history teach -in regard to the virtue of a purely democratic government? And here we -may safely say that, under favourable circumstances, there is no form of -government which, while it lasts, has such a virtue to give scope to a -vigorous growth and luxuriant fruitage of various manhood as a pure -democracy. Instead of choking and strangling, or at least depressing, -the free self-assertion of the individual, by which alone he feels the -full dignity of manhood, such a democracy gives a free career to talent -and civic efficiency in the greatest number of capable individuals; but -it does not follow that, though in this regard it has not been surpassed -by any other form of government, it is therefore absolutely the best of -all forms of government. All that we are warranted to say is, as -Cornewall Lewis does,[9] that without a strong admixture of the -democratic spirit humanity in its social form cannot achieve its highest -results; of which truth, indeed, we have the most striking proof before -our eyes in our own happy island, where, even before the time which Mr. -Green happily designates as Puritan England, powerful kings had received -a lesson that as they had been elected so they might be dismissed from -office by the voice of London burghers. Neither, on the other hand, does -it follow from the shortness of the bright reign of Athenian -democracy--not more than 200 years from Clisthenes to the -Macedonians--that all democracies are short-lived, and must pay, -like dissipated young gentlemen, with premature decay for the feverish -abuse of their vital force. Possible no doubt it is that, if the power -of what we may call a sort of Athenian Second Chamber, the Areiopagus, -instead of being weakened as it was by Aristides and Pericles, had been -built up according to the idea of Æschylus and the intelligent -aristocrats of his day, such a body, armed, like our House of Lords, -with an effective negative on all outbursts of popular rashness, might -have prevented the ambition of the Athenians from launching on that -famous Syracusan expedition which exhausted their force and maimed their -action for the future. But the lesson taught by the short-lived glory of -Athens, and its subjugation under the rough foot of the astute -Macedonian, is not that democracies, under the influence of faction, -and, it may be, not free from venality, will sell their liberties to a -strong neighbour--for aristocratic Poland did this in a much more -blushless way than democratic Greece--but that any loose aggregate -of independent States, given more to quarrel amongst themselves than to -unite against a common enemy, whether democratic, or aristocratic, or -monarchical in their form of government, cannot in the long run maintain -their ground against the firm policy and the well-massed force of a -strong monarchy. Athens was blotted out from the map of free peoples at -Chæronea, not because the Athenian people had too much freedom, but -because the Greek States had too little unity. They were used by Philip -exactly in the same way that Napoleon used the German States at the -commencement of the present century. DIVIDE ET INFERA is the -politician's most familiar maxim, which, when wisely and -persistently applied, whether by an ancient Macedonia or a modern -Russia, will always give a strong monarchy a decided advantage over -every other form of government. Surround me with a belt of petty -principalities, says the despot, however highly civilised and however -well governed, and I shall know to make them play my game and work -themselves into confusion, till the hour comes when I may appear as a -god to allay by my intervention the troubles which I have fostered by my -intrigues. - -So much for Athens. Let us now see what lessons are to be learned from -ROME. And here, on the threshold, it is quite plain that the abolition -of kingship goes in the first place to strengthen the aristocracy, on -whom as a body the supreme functions exercised by the monarch naturally -devolve. The highly aristocratic type of the early Roman republic, -unlimited from above by any superior power, and with only a slight -occasional check from a plebeian citizenship in the tender bud, is -universally admitted. Plainly enough also it stands written on the face -of the early history of the Commonwealth that the administration of the -aristocracy was marked in no ordinary degree by all that exclusiveness, -insolence, selfishness, and rapacity, which are the besetting sins of an -order of men cradled in hereditary conceit, and eating the bread not of -labour, but of privilege, "_das unverbesserliche Junkerthum_," -as Mommsen calls them. To such an extent did they abuse the natural -vantage ground of their social position that, while the great body of -the substantial yeomanry, who shed their blood in a constant succession -of petty wars for the safety of the State, were stinted of their natural -reward and degraded from their rightful position, the insolent -monopolisers of all dignities and privileges did not blush to take from -the people their natural heritage in the public land, and, for the -enlargement of their own order, to deprive the State of its stoutest -citizens, and the army of its most effective soldiers. The irritation -produced by this insolent and anti-social procedure of the old Roman -landlords, by the law of reaction common to all forces, produced as its -natural consequence a revolt; for, as it has been truly said that the -blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, no less true is it in -all history that the insolence of the aristocracy is the cradle of the -democracy. That happened accordingly in ancient Rome which Sismondi -prophesied might happen in modern Scotland: "If the mighty thanes who -rule in those trans-Grampian regions begin to think that they can do -without the people, the people may begin to think they can do without -them."[10] So at least the Roman plebs thought when, in the year of the -city 259, they marched in a body out to the Sacred Mount on the banks of -the Anio, and refused to return to the city till their just claims had -been conceded and their wrongs redressed. Their wrongs were redressed: -conferences, concessions, and compromises, in a hurried and blundering -sort of way, were made; tribunes of the plebs were appointed, with the -absolute power of stopping the whole machinery of the State with a -single negation; and thus was sown the seed of a democracy destined to -grow into monstrous proportions, and ripen into the bloody blossom of a -military despotism by the hands of the very class of persons who were -chiefly interested in preventing it. - -The different stages of the battle between plebeians and patricians, or, -as we term it, Whig and Tory, as they evolved themselves by a social -necessity from time to time, belong to the special history of Rome, not -to the general philosophy of history with which we are here concerned. -The seed of democracy sown at the Sacred Mount went on from one stage of -expansion to another, breaking down every barrier of hereditary -privilege between the mass of the people and the old aristocracy, till -it ended in the _Lex Hortensia_, passed B.C. 288, which gave to all -ordinances passed by the _Comitia Tributa_--that is, the -people assembled in local tribes and voting independently of all -aristocratic check or co-operation--the full validity of law. And -in this progress of equalisation between class and class in a community, -the Muse of history sees only a special illustration of a general law -that every aristocracy contending for the maintenance of exclusive -privilege against natural right fights a losing battle. But the -necessity of the adjustment of the opposing claims of a conservative and -a progressive body in the State is a very different thing from the -fashion in which the adjustment may be made, and from the consequences -that may grow out of the adjustment. Here there is room for any amount -of wisdom, and unfortunately also for a large amount of blundering. No -man can say that the Roman constitution as it stood, after the plebeians -had broken through all aristocratic barriers, was a cunningly compacted -machine, or that it afforded any strong guarantee against that -degeneracy into licence towards which all unreined democracies naturally -tend. But one thing certainly was achieved. Out of the plebeian and -patrician elements of the body social, no longer arrayed in hostile -attitude, but fronting one another with equal rights before the law, and -adjusting their forces in a fairly-balanced equilibrium, there was -formed a great political corporation, deliberative and administrative, -which for independence, dignity, patriotism, and sagacity, used its -authority in such a masterly style and to such world-wide issues that it -has earned from Mommsen the complimentary acknowledgment of having been -"the first political corporation of all times."[11] This -corporation was the Roman Senate, which ruled the policy of Rome for a -period of 200 years, from the passing of the Hortensian Law through a -long period of African and Asiatic wars down to the civil war of Sulla -and Marius, 88 B.C.--a body of which we may perhaps best easily -understand the composition and the virtue if we imagine the best -elements of our House of Commons and the best elements of the House of -Lords merged in one Supreme Assembly of practical wisdom, to the -exclusion at once of the feverish factiousness and multitudinous babble -of the one assembly, and the brainless obstructiveness and incurable -blindness of hereditary class interests in the other. But there was -something else in the mixed constitution of Rome besides the tried -wisdom and the great practical weight of the Senate. What was that? -There was, in the first place, the evil of an elective kingship--for -the Consul was really an annual king under a different name, as the -President of the United States is a quadriennial king, with greatly more -power while his kingship lasts than the Queen of Great Britain; and this -implied an annual fit of social fever, and the annual sowing of a germ -of faction ready to shoot into luxuriance under the strong stimulant of -the love of power. Then, as in the natural growth of society, a new -aristocracy grew up, formed by the addition of the wealthy plebeian -families to the old family aristocracy, and along with it a new and -numerous plebeian body, practically though not legally excluded from the -privilege of the _optimates_, the old antagonism of patrician and -plebeian would revive, and the question arose, What machinery had the -legislation of the previous centuries provided to prevent a collision -and a rupture between the antagonistic tendencies of the democratic and -oligarchic elements in the State? The answer is, None. The authority of -the Senate, great as it was both morally and numerically, was -antagonised by the co-equal legislative authority of the _Comitia -Tributa_--an assembly as open to any agitator for factious or -revolutionary purposes as a meeting of a London mob in Hyde Park, and -composed of elements of the most motley and loose description, ready at -any moment to give the solemn sanction of a national ordinance to any -act of hasty violence or calculated party move which might flatter the -vanity or feed the craving of the masses. But this was not all. The -tribunate, originally appointed simply for the protection of the -commonalty against the rude exercise of patrician power, had now grown -to such formidable dimensions that the popular tribune of the day might -become the most powerful man in the State, and only require re-election -to constitute him into a king whose decrees the consuls and the senators -must humiliate themselves to register. Here was a machinery cunningly, -one might think, constructed for the purpose of working out its own -disruption, even supposing both the popular and aristocratic elements -had been composed of average good materials. But they were not so. In -the age of the Gracchi, 133 B.C., the high sense of honour, the proud -inheritance of an uncorrupted patrician body, and the shrewd sense and -sobriety of a sound-hearted yeomanry, had equally disappeared. The -aristocracy were corrupted by the wealth which flowed in from the spoils -of conquest; they had become lovers of power rather than lovers of Rome; -lords of the soil, not fathers of the people; banded together for the -narrow interests of their own order rather than for the general -well-being of the community. The sturdy yeomanry again, of which the -mass of the original popular assemblies had been composed, had partly -dwindled away under maladministration of the public lands, and partly -were mixed up with motley groups of citizens of no fixed residence, and -of a town rabble who could be induced to vote for anything by any man -who knew to win their favour by a large distribution of Sicilian corn or -the exciting luxury of gladiatorial shows; in a word, the _populus_ had -become a _plebsy_ or, in our language, the people a populace. -Furthermore, let it be noted that this people or populace, tied down to -meet only in Rome, as the high seat of Government, was called upon to -deal with the administration of countries as far apart and as diverse in -character as Madrid and Cairo, or Bagdad and Moscow are from London. -Think of a mob of London artisans, on the motion of a Henry George, or -even a rational Radical like Mr. Chamberlain, drummed together to pass -laws on landed property and taxation through all that vast domain! But -so it was; and most unfortunately also the original fathers of the -agitation which, at the time of the Gracchi, ranged the great rulers of -the world into two hostile factions, stabbing one another in the back -and cutting one another's throats, and plotting and counter-plotting in -every conceivable style of baseness, after the fashion which is now -being exemplified before us in Ireland,--the authors of this agitation -were not the demagogues, but the aristocracy; as indeed in all cases of -general discontent, social fret, and illegal violence, the parties who -are accused of stirring class against class are not the agitators who -appear on the scene, but the maladministrators who made their appearance -necessary. Man is an animal naturally inclined to obey and to take -things quietly; insurrection is too expensive an affair to be indulged -in by way of recreation; and there is no truth in the philosophy of -history more certain than that whenever the multitude of the ruled rebel -against their rulers, the original fault--I do not say the whole blame, -for as things go on from bad to worse there may be blame and blunders on -both sides--but the original fault and germinative cause of discontent -and revolt unquestionably lies with the rulers. Whatever may be said -about Ireland and the Scottish Highlands, there can be no doubt that in -the case of Rome the original cause of the democratising of the old -constitution and the over-riding of senatorial authority by tribunician -ordinances was the senators themselves, who, in direct contravention of -the public law of the State, with that greed for more land which is the -besetting sin of every aristocracy, had quartered themselves, after the -fashion of colonial squatters, on the public lands, and refused to -surrender them to the State till compelled by the cry of popular right -against might, raised by such patriotic and self-sacrificing agitators -as the Gracchi--patriotic men who attained their object at last by the -only means in their power, but means so drastic that, like doctor's -drugs, they drave out one devil by bringing in a score, and paid for the -partial healing of an incurable disease by destroying for ever the -balance of the constitution, and inaugurating with their own martyr -blood one of the most woeful epochs in human history--an epoch varied by -periodical assassinations and consummated by wholesale butcheries. - -I said the Gracchi attained their object, and that by appointing a -Commission for a distribution of the public lands, such as the friends -of the crofters in the Highlands now propose for the repeopling of the -old depopulated homes of the clan. But I said also that the disease -under which Rome laboured was incurable. How was this? Simply because, -whatever might have been the merits of the special Agrarian Law carried -by the Gracchi, the violent steam by which the State machine was moved -remained the same, the clumsy machine itself remained, and the materials -with which it had to deal in a long and critical course of foreign -conquest became every year larger and more unmanageable. It was not to -be expected either, on the one hand, that a strong and influential -aristocracy should die with a single kick, or, on the other, that a -democracy, which had once learned the power of a popular flood to break -down aristocratic dams, would cease to exercise that power when a -convenient occasion offered. And so the strife of oligarchic and -plebeian factions continued. The political struggle, as always happens -in such cases, became a struggle for personal supremacy; the sanguinary -street battle between the younger Gracchus and the Consul Opimius, -though followed by a lull for a season, was renewed after a few years in -more startling form and much bloodier issues, first between Marius and -Sulla, and finally between Cæsar and Pompey. Such a succession of -embittered civil wars could end only in exhaustion and submission; and -this is the last emphatic lesson which the history of Rome has taught to -the governors of the people. Every constitution of mixed aristocratic -and democratic elements which fails by kindly control on the one side, -and reasonable demand on the other, to achieve that balance of those -antagonising forces which means good government, must end in a military -despotism. That which will not bridle itself must be bridled; and when -constant irritation, fretful jars, and cruel collisions are the bloody -fruit of unchastened liberty, slavery and stagnation seem not too high a -price to pay for peace. - -I have enlarged on the development and decay of the Roman republic, not -only because in point of political achievement Rome is by far the most -notable of the great States of the world, but because in the struggle -between aristocracy and democracy which was the salient feature of its -history from the expulsion of the kings to the battle of Actium, it -presents a very close and instructive parallel to what has been going on -amongst ourselves from the revolution settlement of 1688 to the present -hour. If for annual kings with large power we put hereditary kings with -small power, the parallel is complete.[12] Let us now cast a glance, for -time and space allow us no more, over some modern developments. The -modern States of Europe have good reason, upon the whole, to think -themselves fortunate in their having retained the kingship, which the -Greeks and Romans rejected, either as their original type, or elevated -and glorified from the dukedoms, margravates, and electorates with which -they started. There cannot be much doubt, I imagine, that, if the Romans -had retained their king in a hereditary or nearly hereditary form, he -might have exercised a mediatorial function between the contending -parties that would have prevented those bloody strifes and those ugly -civic wounds with which the record of their political career stands now -so sorrowfully defaced. In the experience of their own earliest story, -Servius Tullius had already shown them how a king in the strife of -classes might step in by a peaceful new model to open the ranks of a -close aristocracy with dignity and safety to a rising democracy; and in -modern times the case of Leopold II. of Tuscany does not stand alone as -an example of what good service a wise king may do in the adjustment of -contending claims and smoothing the march of necessary social -transitions. In fact, the most democratic people amongst the ancients, -in order to effect such an adjustment in a peaceful way, had been -obliged to make Solon a king for the nonce; and the Romans, urged by a -like social pressure, named their dictator, or re-elected their consuls -and their tribunes, in order to secure for the need of the moment that -unity of counsel, energy of conduct, and moral authority which is the -grand recommendation of the kingship. No doubt kings in modern as in -ancient times have erred; they have not been able always to keep -themselves sober under the intoxicating influence of absolute power, and -they have paid dearly for their errors; but we were wise in this -country, while beheading one despot and banishing another, to punish the -offender without abolishing the office. True, a thorough-going and -sternly-consistent republican may ask, with an indignant sneer, What is -the use of a king, when we have shorn him of all honours save the grace -of a crown and the bauble of a sceptre--reduced him, in fact, to a -mere machine to register the decrees of a democratic assembly? But such -persons require to be reminded that there is nothing more dangerous, not -only in political, but in all practical matters, than logical -consistency; that the most narrow-minded people are always the most -consistent, and this for the very obvious reason that they have only -room for one idea in their small brain chambers, whereas God's -world contains many ideas, stiff ideas too, and given to battle, which -must be brought into some friendly balance or compromise, or set about -throat-cutting on a large scale--a process to which consistent -republicans have never shown a less bloody inclination than consistent -monarchists. They must be reminded also that the person of the monarch -is an incarnated, visible, and tangible symbol of the unity of the -nation, of which parties and factions are so apt to be forgetful; and if -our logically-consistent republican may look on this as a matter of -association and sentiment which he will not acknowledge, he must simply -be told that the man who does not acknowledge the important place played -by associations and sentiments in all matters of Church and State knows -nothing of human nature, and is altogether unfit for meddling with the -difficult and dangerous art of politics. He may write books, and lecture -to coteries, and harangue electoral meetings, and delight himself -largely in the reverberation of his own wisdom, but by all means let him -not be a prime minister. To what ends logical consistency can lead a -politician in high places Charles I. and Archbishop Laud learned when it -was too late; and the fate of these two high-perched worthies stands as -a speaking lesson to all politicians, whether of the democratic or the -monarchical type, how easy a thing it is for a man to be a good -Christian and a consistent thinker, and yet on all political matters a -perfect fool. - -Among the notable modern States three stand before us with -an exceptional preference for the democratic form of -government--Switzerland, France, and the great trans-Atlantic -Republic. These must be regarded with curious interest and kindly human -sympathy as great social experiments, by no means to be prejudged and -denounced by any sweeping conclusions made from the unfortunate -breakdown of the two celebrated ancient republics. The experiment in -these cases, as made in altogether different circumstances and under -different conditions, cannot warrant any such denunciations. The -representative system which now universally prevails, and which enables -a most widely-scattered and diverse-minded population to vote with a -coolness and a precision and a large survey of which the urban system of -Greece and Rome never dreamed; the general growth of intelligence among -all classes through the action of cheap education and the large -circulation of cheap books; the rapid and ever more rapid travelling of -contagious thought from the centre to the extreme limbs and flourishes -of social unities; and, above all, let us hope the improved tone of -social feeling in all the relations of man to man, which we owe to the -great Christian principle of living as brother with brother, and sister -with sister, under a common heavenly fatherhood,--these are all -forces largely operating in the present day which justify us in hoping -that many a social experiment which signally failed with the ancients -may be crowned in the centuries which are now being inaugurated with -encouraging success. Of the three which we have named, Switzerland is -the country in which, from topographical peculiarities, the interests of -jealous, neighbours, and the traditional habits of a peasant population -well trained to provincial self-government, the permanence of a -democratic federation may be prophesied with the greatest safety, but at -the same time with the least interest to the general march of humanity. -Ancient Rome, had it continued as compact and as little disturbed by -external forces and internal fermentations as modern Switzerland, might -have remained during the whole course of its career as sober-minded and -as stable as in the days of Cincinnatus, and the yeomanry which were -displaced by huge absentee landlords, and Syrian or Sicilian slaves. The -case of France is altogether different. A republic in an over-civilised, -highly-centralised, bureaucratically-governed country, with a -religiously hollow, hasty, violent, excitable, and explosive people, -seems of all social experiments the least hopeful: and that is all that -can wisely be said of it at present. But the social conditions in -America are altogether different; and the experiment of a great -democratic republic for the first time in the history of the -world--for Rome in its best times, as we have seen, was an -aristocracy--will be looked on by all lovers of their species with -the most kindly curiosity and the most hopeful sympathy. Here we have -the stout, self-reliant, sober-minded Anglo-Saxon stock, well trained in -the process of the ages to the difficult art of self-government; here we -have a constitution framed with the most cautious consideration, and -with the most effective checks against the dangers of an over-riding -democracy; here also a people as free from any imminent external danger -as they have unlimited scope for internal progress. Under no -circumstances could the experiment of self-government, on a great scale, -have been made with a more promising start. No doubt they have a -difficult and slippery problem to perform. The frequent recurrence of -elections to the supreme magistracy has always been, and ever must be, -the breeder of faction, the nurse of venality, and the spur of ambition. -Once already has this Titanic confederacy, though only a hundred years -old, by going through a process of a long, bitter, and bloody civil war, -shown that the unifying machinery so cunningly put together by the -conservative genius of a Washington, an Adams, and a Madison, was -insufficient to hold in check the rebellious forces at war within its -womb. No doubt also it were in vain to speak America free from those -acts of gigantic jobbing, blushless venality, and over-riding of the -masses in various ways, which were working the ruin of Rome in the days -of Jugurtha. The aristocracy of gold and the tyranny of capitalists in -Christian New York has shown itself no less able to usurp the public -land and defraud the people of their share in the soil than the lordly -aristocracy and the slave-dealing magnates of heathen Rome. Nevertheless -we need not despair. The sins of American democracy may serve as a -useful hint to us not rashly to tinker our own mixed constitution -without waiting for a verdict on issues, which, as Socrates wisely says, -lie with the gods; nor, on the other hand, is there any wisdom in -ascribing to the American form of government evils which, as belonging -to human nature, crop up with more or less abundance under all forms of -government, and which may be specially rife among ourselves. We also -have our Glasgow banks, our bubble companies of all kinds, our heady -speculations, our hot competitions, our over-productions, our haste to -be rich, our idol worship of mere material magnificence,--these are -evils, and the root of all evil, with the production of which no form of -government has anything to do, and against which every form of -government will be in vain invoked to contend. - -In conclusion, we must bear in mind that democracy or social -self-government is the most difficult of all human problems, and must be -approached, not with inflated hopes and rosy imaginations, but with -sobriety and caution and a sound mind, and at critical moments not -without prayer and fasting. Before entering on any scheme for rebuilding -our social edifice on a democratic model, we should consider seriously -what a democracy really implies, and what we may reasonably promise -ourselves from its possible success. Of the two rallying cries which -have made it a favourite with persons given to change, equality and -liberty, the one is no more true than that all the mountains in the -Highlands are as high as Ben Nevis, and can only mean at the best that -all men have an equal right to be called men and to be treated as men, -while the other is only true so far as concerns the removal of all -artificial barriers to the free exercise of each man's function, -according to his capacity and opportunities. But this is a mere -starting-point in the social life of a great people. When the bird is -out of the cage, which it must be in order to be a perfect bird, the -more serious question emerges, what use it shall make of its -newly-acquired liberty. Here certainly to men, as to birds, there are -great dangers to be faced; and with nations the progress of society, as -already remarked, is measured to a much larger extent by the increase of -limitations than by the extension of liberties. Then, again, the -fundamental postulate of extreme democracy that the majority have -everywhere a right to govern is manifestly false. No man as a member of -society has a natural right to govern: he has a right to be governed, -and well governed; and that can only be when the government is conducted -by the wisest and best men who compose the society. If the numerical -majority is composed of sober-minded, sensible, and intelligent persons -who will either govern wisely themselves or choose persons who will do -so, then democracy is justified by its deeds; but if it is otherwise, -and if, when an appeal is made to the multitude, they will choose the -most daring, the most ambitious, and the most unscrupulous, rather than -the most sensible, the most moderate, and the most conscientious, then -democracy is a bad thing, at least nothing better than the other -_ocracies_ which it supplants. It is manifest, therefore, that of -all forms of government democracy is that which imperatively requires -the greatest amount of intelligence and moderation among the great mass -of the people, especially amongst the lower classes, who have always -been the most numerous; and, as history can point to no quarter of the -world where such a happy condition of the numerical intelligence has -been realised, it cannot look with any favour on schemes of universal -suffrage, even when qualified with a stout array of effective checks. -The system, indeed, of representing every man individually, and giving -every member of a society a capitation vote, as they have a capitation -tax in Turkey, however popular with the advocates of extreme democracy, -seems quite unreasonable. What requires to be represented in a -reasonable representative system is not so much individuals as -qualities, capacities, interests, and types. Every class should be -represented, rather than every man in a class. Besides, the equality of -votes which democracy demands, on the principle that I am as good as you -and perhaps a little better, is utterly false, and tends to nourish -conceit and impertinence, to banish all reverence, and to ignore all -distinctions in society. Anyhow, there can be no doubt that great masses -of men acting together on exciting occasions are peculiarly liable to -hasty resolutions and violent opinions; all democracies, therefore, are -unsafe which are unprovided with checks in the form of an upper chamber -composed of more cool materials, and planted firmly in a position that -makes them independent of the fever and faction of the hour. A strong -democracy stands as much in need of an aristocratic rein as a strong -aristocracy does of a democratic spur. And let it never be -forgotten--what democracies are far too apt to forget--that -minorities have rights as well as majorities; nay, that one of the great -ends to be achieved by a good government is to protect the few against -the natural insolence of a majority glorying in its numbers, and hurried -on by the spring-tide of a popular contagion. A state of society is not -at all inconceivable in which the many shall make all the laws and -monopolise all the offices of a fussy bureaucracy, while the few are -burdened with all the taxes. Never too frequently can we repeat, in -reference to all public acts, no less than to the conduct of individuals -in private life, the great Aristotelian maxim that ALL EXTREMES ARE -WRONG; that every force when in full action tends to an excess which -for its own salvation must be met by a counterpoising force; that all -good government, as all healthy existence, is the balance of opposites -and the marriage of contraries; and that the more mettlesome the charger -the more need of a firm rein and a cautious rider. He who overlooks this -prime postulate of all sane action in this complex world may pile his -democratic house tier above tier and enjoy his green conceit for a -season; but the day of sore trial and civic storm is not far, when the -rain shall descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat -upon that house, and it will fall, because it was founded upon a dream. - - - -II. -THE CHURCH. - -Οὐ πᾶς ὁ λέγων μοι Κύριε, Κύριε, εἰσελεύσεται εἰς -τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν· ἀλλ᾽ ὁ ποιῶν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ -πατρός μου τοῦ ἐν τοῖς οῦρανοῖς.--Ὁ ΣΩΤΗΡ. - -MAN is characteristically a religious animal; in fact, as Socrates -teaches, the only religious animal;[13] for, though a dog has no doubt -reverential emotions, it cannot be said with any propriety that he has -religious ideas or ecclesiastical institutions, for a very good reason, -because he has no ideas at all: observation he has very keen, and memory -also wonderfully retentive; instincts also, like all primal vital -forces, divine and miraculous; but ideas certainly none, for ideas mean -knowledge; and brutes that have no language properly so called that is a -system of significant vocal signs expressive of ideas, but only cries, -gesticulations, and visible or audible signs expressive of sensations -and feelings, can by no law of natural analogy be credited with the -possession of a faculty of which they give no manifestation. Language is -the outward body and form of which thought and reason and knowledge and -ideas are the inward soul and force; and hence the wise Greeks, unlike -our modern scientists, who delight in confounding man with the monkey, -expressed language and reason with one word λόγος, while what we -dignify with the name of language in birds and other animals was simply -φωνή, or significant voice. If, therefore, there is any thing most -human that history has to teach, it must be about religion. All the -great nations whose names mark the march of human fates have been -religious nations. A people without religion does not exist, or, if it -does exist, it exists only as an abnormal and deficient specimen of the -genus to which it belongs, which is of no more account in the just -estimate of the type than a fox without a tail, or a lawyer without a -tongue; and as for individual atheists, who have been talked about in -ancient times, and specially in these latter days, they are either -philosophers like Spinoza, the most pious of men, falsely baptized with -an odious title from the stupidity, prejudice, or malice of the -community, or, if they really are atheists, they are monsters which a -man may stare at as at an ass with three heads or with no head at all in -a show. - -The form in which religion generally presents itself in early history is -what we commonly call Polytheism, though it is quite possible--a -matter about which I am not careful curiously to dogmatise--that -there may have been in some places an original Dualism, like the ancient -Persian, or even a Monotheism, out of which the Polytheism was -developed. For there cannot be the slightest doubt that, whatever may -have been the starting-point, there lay in the popular theology a -tendency to multiply and to reproduce itself in kindred but not always -easily recognisable forms, like the children of a family or the -cousinship of a clan. But, taking Polytheism as the type under which -history presents the objects of religious faith in the earliest times, -we have to remark that under this common name, as in the case of -Christianity, the greatest contrasts, both in speculative idea and in -social efficiency, stare us everywhere in the face. In the eye of the -Christian or the monotheistic devotee the worships of Aphrodite and of -Pallas Athene are equally idolatrous; but, allowing that these -anthropomorphic forms of divine forces and functions of the universe are -equally destitute of a foundation in fact or reason, the reverence paid -to them by a devout people might be as different as passion is from -thought, and sense from spirit. As the ideal of wisdom in counsel and in -action, the Athenian Pallas no doubt exercised as beneficent a sway over -her Hellenic worshippers as the ideal of Christian womanhood, in the -person of the Virgin Mary, does at the present day over millions of -Christian worshippers. It is only when the cosmic function impersonated -in the polytheistic god, being of an inferior order, leaps from its -proper position of subordination and usurps the controlling and -regulating action belonging to the superior function, that polytheistic -idolatry becomes immoral; though, of course, the very facility of this -usurpation, and the stamp of a pseudo divinity that may thereby be given -to beastly vice, is a sufficient reason for the denunciations of the -heathen idolatries so frequent in the Old Testament, which ultimately -ripened into the spiritual apostleship and monotheistic aggression of -St. Paul. One other striking feature of all polytheistic religions may -not be omitted. They are naturally complete--more catholic, more -sympathetic with universal nature and universal life than monotheistic -religions; if they make a philosophical mistake in worshipping many -gods, they do not make a moral mistake in excluding any of his -attributes. With the polytheistic worshipper everything is sacred: the -sun and the sea and the sky, dark earth and awful night, excite in him -an emotion of reverence. If the Greek polytheist was devout at all, he -was devout everywhere; whereas, under monotheistic influences, there is -a danger that devout feelings may respond exclusively to the stern -decrees of an absolute lawgiver and the awful threatenings of a violated -law. Polytheistic piety, whatever its defects, was always ready to add a -grace to every innocent enjoyment; monotheistic religiousness, as we see -its severe features in some modern churches, contents itself with adding -a solemn sanction to the moral law--a severity which here and there -has not been able to keep itself free from the unlovely phase of -regarding the innocent enjoyments and the graceful pleasantries of life -as a sin. - -So much for the soul of the business; the body is what we call the -Church. And here the very word is significant. In one sense, as a -separate ethical corporation, the ancients had no Church. Why? Because -Church and State were one; or, if they were two, they were too like the -famous Siamese twins that used to be carried about the country as a -show, two so closely connected that they could no more be torn from one -another and live than the limpet can be separated from the rock to which -it clings. With the peoples of the ancient world the State was the -Church and the Church was the State; the priest was a magistrate and the -magistrate was a priest. This identity of two things, or loose -intercommunion and fusion of two things in modern association so -instinctively kept apart, arose from the common germ out of which both -Church and State grew--viz., as we saw in the previous lecture, the -FAMILY. Every father of a family, in the normal and healthy state of -society, is his own priest as well as his own king. In religion and -morals, as well as in all domestic ordinances, he is absolute and -supreme; and the functions which necessarily belonged to him as supreme -administrator in his own family would, under the influence of family -feelings, naturally be conceded to him when the family grew to a clan, -and the clan to a kingdom. And this is the state of things which we meet -with in the Book of Genesis, long before the promulgation of the Mosaic -law, where we read (xiv. 18) that Melchizedek, _king_ of Salem, -went out to bless Abraham, and he was _priest_ of the Most High -God; the distinction between priest and layman, to which our ears are so -familiar, being in this, as in a thousand other well-known instances, -altogether ignored. Not only in Homer, where we find Agamemnon, the king -of men, performing sacrificial functions without even the presence of a -priest,[14] but in the sober historical age we find the King of Sparta -performing all the public sacrifices--being, in fact, in virtue of -his office, high priest of Jove.[15] So closely indeed was the State -religion identified with the person of the supreme magistrate that, when -the kingship was abolished in Greece, and three principal archons and -seven secondary ones shared his functions, one still retained the title -of βασιλεύς, _king_, and had the supervision, or, as we -would say, supreme episcopacy and overseership of all matters pertaining -to religion.[16] The same thing took place in Rome, where the name of -king was even more odious than in Greece; but nevertheless a _rex -sacrificulus_, or _king-sacrificer_, with his _regina_ or -_queen_, took rank in all the public pontifical dinners above the -_pontifex maximus_ himself. The college of pontiffs in Rome, which -had the supreme direction of all religious matters, was not a board of -priests, but of laymen--or at least of laymen who, without any -qualification but some inaugurating ceremony, might be assumed into the -pontifical college; whence the title of _pontifex maximus_, which -the emperors assumed, was no more of the nature of a usurpation than the -title of _imperator_, which belonged to them as supreme commanders -of the army. Who, then, were the priests, and what need of them, at all -if the laity might legally perform all their functions? The answer is -simple. Both in Greece and Rome there were priests and priestly -families, as the _Eumolpidæ_ in Eleusis, specially dedicated to -the service of certain local gods; but there was no order, class, or -body of persons having the exclusive right to officiate in sacred -matters over the whole community. No doubt the social position of -priests in democratic Greece and monarchical Egypt was extremely -different, but in one respect they were identical: in Athens Church and -State were one as much as in Memphis. In Egypt there was a remarkably -strong body or clan of priests enjoying the highest dignities and -immunities; but there is no proof that they were a caste, in the strict -sense of the word; and their virtues were so far from being -incommunicable that, when the Pharaoh did not happen to be a born -priest, but of the military class, he was obliged to be made a priest -before he could be a king; and when once king he became _ipso -facto_ the high priest of the nation, and took precedence of all -priests in all great public acts of religious ceremonial. It must not be -supposed, however, that, though he was supreme in all sacred matters and -the actual head of the Church, to use our language, he could set -himself, like our Henry VIII., to carve creeds for the people, and -imprison or burn devout persons for refusing to acknowledge his -arbitrary decrees. The exercise of sacred functions in the hands of the -masterful Tudor and his Machiavelian minister was a usurpation tolerated -by a loyal people as their readiest and most effective way of getting -rid of the masterdom of the Roman Pope, which in those days pressed like -an incubus on the European conscience; it was invoking one devil to turn -out another, and was successful, as such operations are wont to be, in a -blundering sort of way. But the worshipful "Sons of the -Sun"--for so they were betitled--on the banks of the -sweet-watered Nile, had no monstrous pretension of this kind, and could -not even have dreamt of it. They did not sit on the throne to reform -religion, but to maintain it. Neither in Egypt nor in Greece in those -days was any such thing known as the rights of the individual -conscience; but both kings and people received religious laws and -consuetudes as we do _Magna Charta_; reasonable people, in the long -course of the centuries before Christ, would no more dream of disturbing -the ancestral belief about the gods than they would think of influencing -the settled courses of the stars. It was their very deep-rooted -permanency, in the midst of the startling mutabilities to which human -affairs are liable, that made the fundamental truths of religion so -valuable to their souls; and as to the particular forms under which -these fundamental truths might have been symbolised by venerable -tradition, the people were not given to form themselves into hostile -camps on the ground of any local difference, as we do in Scotland about -ecclesiastical conceits and crotchets; and every devout Egyptian allowed -his neighbour without offence to pay sacred honours to a crocodile or a -cat, convinced that these honours were equally legitimate and equally -beneficial whenever the sacred symbolism peculiar to the worship was -wisely understood. Collisions, therefore, between Church and State, or -between priesthood and kingship, such as signalised the medieval -struggles of the Popes and Emperors, and the convulsions of our infant -Protestant freedom in England, could not take place amongst the ancient -polytheists. A wise Socrates was equally willing with the most -superstitious devotee, when pious gratitude called, to sacrifice a cock -to Æsculapius; and the νόμῳ πόλεως, by the custom of the -State, was the direction which he gave to all who inquired of him by -what rites they ought to worship the gods.[17] Only amongst the Hebrews, -as a people in whose religious habitude polytheistic and monotheistic -tendencies had never come to any decisive settlement of their inherent -antagonism, do I find a record of a very serious collision between -Church and State, after the fashion of our German Henries and -Transalpine Hildebrands in the days of Papal aggression. Scotsmen -familiar with their Bibles will easily see that I allude to the case of -Uzziah, as recorded in 2 Chron. xxvi. 16-20:--"But when he -was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction: for he -transgressed against the Lord his God, and went into the temple of the -Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense. And Azariah the priest -went in after him, and with him fourscore priests of the Lord, that were -valiant men: And they withstood Uzziah the king, and said unto him, It -appertaineth not unto thee, Uzziah, to burn incense unto the Lord, but -to the priests the sons of Aaron, that are consecrated to burn incense: -go out of the sanctuary; for thou hast trespassed; neither shall it be -for thine honour from the Lord God. Then Uzziah was wroth, and had a -censer in his hand to burn incense: and while he was wroth with the -priests, the leprosy even rose up in his forehead before the priests in -the house of the Lord, from beside the incense altar. And Azariah the -chief priest, and all the priests, looked upon him, and, behold, he was -leprous in his forehead, and they thrust him out from thence; yea, -himself hasted also to go out, because the Lord had smitten him." - -So much for Polytheism. That it should have served the spiritual needs -of the human heart so long--five thousand years at least, from the -first Pharaoh that looked down from his Memphian pyramid on the mystic -form of the Sphinx, to the last Roman Emperor that sacrificed white -bulls from Clitumnus at the altar of the Capitoline Jove--is proof -sufficient that, with all its faults, it was made of very serviceable -stuff; but creeds and kingdoms, like individuals, must die. At the -commencement of the eighth century of the Roman Republic heathenism was -doomed in all Romanised Europe, in all Northern Africa, and in Western -Asia, and that for four reasons. The polytheistic religions of the Old -World, created as they were in the infancy of society, no doubt under -the guidance of a healthy instinct of dependence on the ruling power of -the universe, but in the main inspired by the emotions and formulated by -the imagination, without the regulating control of reason, could not -hope to hold their ground permanently in the face of that rich growth of -individual speculation which, from the sixth century before Christ, -spread with such ample ramification from Asiatic and European Greece -over the greater part of the civilised world. If it was a necessity of -human beings at all times to have a religion, it was a no less urgent -problem, as the range of vision enlarged with the process of the ages, -to harmonise their theology with their thinking. And if, on the -intellectual side, the polytheistic religions of that cultivated age -were threatened with a collapse, the sensuous element, always strongly -represented in emotional faiths, was in constant danger of being dragged -down into a disturbing and degrading sensuality. Then, again, when the -Roman Republic, in the age of Augustus Cæsar, had completed the range -of its world-wide conquests, two social forces, unknown in the best ages -of Greece and Rome, viz., wealth and luxury, added their perilous -momentum to the corrupting elements which were already at work in the -bosom of the polytheistic system. And in what a hot-bed of fermenting -putridity these evil leavens had resulted at this period, the pages of -Suetonius and many chapters in St. Paul are witnesses equally credible -and equally tragic. Add to all this the fact that the motley -intermixture of ideas and the inorganic confusion and forced -assimilation of creeds which, accompanied the universal march of Roman -polity, brought about a vague desire for some sort of religious unity -which might run parallel with the political unity under which men lived; -and this desire could be gratified only by placing in the foreground the -great truth of the unity of the Supreme Being, which to vindicate in -pre-Christian ages had been the special mission of the Hebrew race, and -which the Greeks themselves had not indistinctly indicated by placing -the moral government of the world and the issues of peace and war in the -hands of an omnipotent, all-wise, all-beneficent, and absolute Jove. -These and the like considerations will lead the thoughtful student of -history easily to understand how the appearance of such an extraordinary -moral force as Christianity was imperatively called for at the period -when our Saviour, with His divine mission to a fallen race, began His -preaching on the shores of a lonely Galilean lake; and the most -superficial glance at the contents of His preaching, as contrasted with -the heathenism which it replaced, will show how wonderful was the new -start which it gave to the moral life of the world, and how effective -the spur which it applied to the march of the ages--a spur so -potent that we may, without the slightest exaggeration, say that to -Christianity we owe almost exclusively whatever mild agencies tempered -the harshness and sweetened the sourness of crude government in the -Middle Ages; and no less, whatever hopeful elements are at the present -moment working among ourselves to save the British people, at a critical -stage of their social development, from the decadence and the -degradation that overtook the Romans after their great military mission -had been fulfilled. Let us look articulately at the main constituents of -that new leaven wherewith Christianity was equipped to regenerate the -world. These I find to be-- - -(1.) By asserting in the strongest way the unity of God, it at once cut -the root of the tendency in human nature to create arbitrary objects of -worship according to the lust or fancy of the worshipper, and accustomed -the popular intelligence to a harmonised view of the various forces at -work in the constitution of a world so various and so complex as to a -superficial view readily to appear contradictory and irreconcilable. - -(2.) By preaching the unity of God, not as an abstract metaphysical -idea, but as what it really is, a divine fatherhood, Christianity at one -stroke bound all men together as brethren and members of a common -family; and in this way, while in the relation of nation to nation it -substituted apostleships of love for wars of subjugation, in the -relation of class to class it established a sort of spiritual democracy, -in which the implied equality of all men as men gradually led to the -abolition of the abnormal institution of slavery, on which all ancient -society rested. - -(3.) Christianity, by starting religion as an independent moral -association altogether separate from the State, at once purified the -sphere of the Church from corrupting elements, and confined the State -within those bounds which the nature of a civic administration -furnishes. Religion in this way was purified and elevated, because in -its nicely segregated sphere no secular considerations of any kind could -interfere to tone down its ideal, direct its current, or lame its -efficiency; while the State, on the other hand, was saved from the folly -of intermeddling with matters which it did not understand, and -professing principles which it did not believe. - -(4.) Christianity, by planting itself emphatically at the very first -start, as one may see in the Sermon on the Mount, in direct antagonism -to ritualism, ceremonialism, and every variety of externalism, and -placing the essence of all true religion in regeneration, or, as St. -Paul has it, a new creature--_i.e._ the legitimate practical -dominance of the spiritual and ethical above the sensual and carnal part -of our nature--broke down the middle wall of partition which had so -often divided piety from morality; so that now a man of culture might -consistently give his right hand to religion and his left hand to -philosophy, an attitude which, so long as Homer was all that the Greeks -had for a bible, no devout Hellenist could assume. - -(5.) By placing a firm belief in a future life as a guiding prospect in -the foreground, the religion of Christ gave the highest possible value -to human life, and the strongest possible spur to perseverance in a -virtuous career. - -(6.) By appealing directly to the individual conscience, and making -religion a matter of personal concern and of moral conviction, it raised -the value of each individual as a responsible moral agent, and placed -the dignity of every man as a social monad on the firmest possible -pedestal. - -(7.) By making love its chief motive power, it supplied both the steam -and the oil of the social machine with a continuity of moral force never -dreamt of in any of the ancient societies--a force which no mere -socialistic schemes for organising labour, no boards of health, no -political economy, no mathematical abstractions, no curiosities of -physical science, no democratic suffrages, and no school inspectorships, -though multiplied a thousand times, apart from this divine agency, can -ever hope to achieve. - -Thus equipped with a moral armature such as the world had never yet -seen, it might have been expected that the triumph of Christianity over -the ruins of heathenism would have been as complete and as pure from all -admixture of evil as it appears in the great evangelical manifesto -commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. But it was not to be so; nor, -indeed, created as human nature is, could possibly be. The miraculous -virtue of the seed could not change the nature of the soil, and the -sweet new wine put into old bottles could not fail to catch a taint from -the acid incrustations of the original liquor. _Corruptia optimi -pessima_ is the great lesson which history everywhere teaches, and -nowhere with a more tragic impressiveness than in the history of the -Christian Church. What a rank crop of old wives' fables, endless -genealogies, ceremonial observances, worship of the letter, voluntary -humilities, and disputations of science, falsely so called, started into -fretful array before the spiritual swordsmanship of St. Paul, no reader -of the grandest correspondence in the world need be told; but it was not -so much from Jewish drivel, Attic subtlety, or Corinthian sensualism, -that the corrupting forces were to proceed which in the post-Apostolic -age insinuated themselves like a poison into the pure blood of the -Church. It is from within that, in moral matters, our great danger -flows: if the kingdom of heaven is there, the kingdom of hell is there -no less distinctly. The doctrine of Aristotle, and the teaching of -history that ALL EXTREMES ARE WRONG, is ever and ever repeated to -passion-spurred mortals, and ever and ever forgotten. In the green -ardour of our worship we make an idol of our virtue; the strong lines of -the particular excellence which we admire are stretched into a -caricature; our sublime, severed from all root of soundness, reels over -into the ridiculous; we revel and riot and get into an intoxicated -excitement with the fruit of our own fancy; and work ourselves from one -stage of inflammation to another, till, as our great dramatist says, - - "Goodness, grown to a pleurisy, - Dies of its own too much." - -The excess into which Christianity at its first start most naturally -fell was ultra-spiritualism, asceticism, or by whatever name we may -choose to characterise that high-flying system in morals which, not -content with the regulation and subordination, aims at the violent -subjugation and, as much as may be, the total suppression of the -physical element in man. How near this abuse lay is evident, not only -from the general tendency of every man to make an idol of his -distinctive virtue, and of every sect to delight in the exaggeration of -its most characteristic feature, but there are not a few passages of the -New Testament which plainly show that the masculine Christianity of St. -Paul had not more occasion to protest against those Greek libertines who -turned the grace of God into licentiousness, than against those -offshoots of the Jewish Essenes who professed a self-imposed arbitrary -religiosity (Col. ii. 18, 23), even forbidding to marry and commanding -to abstain from meats (I Tim. iv. 3).[18] There is, indeed, something -very seductive in these attempts to acquire a superhuman virtue, whether -they be made by a poet casting off the vulgar bonds that bind him to his -fellows, like Percy Bysshe Shelley, that he may feed upon sun-dews and -get drunk on transcendental imaginations, or by a religious person, that -he may devote himself to spiritual exercises, free from the disturbing -influence of earthly passions. Such a renunciation of the flesh -gratifies his pride, and has, in fact, the aspect of a heroic virtue in -a special line; while, at the same time, it is with some persons more -convenient, inasmuch as when the resolution is once formed and a decided -start made, it is always easier to abstain than to be moderate. -Nevertheless, all such ambitious schemes to ignore the body and to cut -short the natural rights of our physical nature must fail. It never can -be the virtue of a man to wish to be more than man; and every religion -which sets a stamp of special approval on superhuman, and therefore -unhuman, virtue, erects a wall of separation between the gospel which it -preaches and the world which it should convert. In fact, it rather gives -up the world in despair, and institutes an artificial school for the -practice of certain select virtues, which only a few will practise, and -which, when practised, can only make those few unfit for the social -position which Providence meant them to occupy. - -The second excess into which Christianity, under the action of frail -human nature, easily ran was intolerance. This intolerance, as in the -previous case, is only a virtue run to seed; for, as all asceticism is -merely a misapplication or an exaggeration of the virtue of self-denial -and self-control, so all intolerance, or defect of kindly regard to the -contrary in opinion or conduct, is merely a crude or an impolitic -extension of the imperative ought which lies at the root of all moral -truth, and specially of all monotheistic religions. There is, indeed, a -certain intolerance in truth which will not allow it to hold parley with -error; and every new religion with a lofty inspiration, conscious of a -divine mission, is necessarily aggressive: it delights to pluck the -beard of ancestral authority, and marches right into the presence of -hoary absurdity and consecrated stupidity. No doubt there is a boundary -here which the divine wisdom of the Son of God pointed at emphatically -enough when he was asked to bring down fire from heaven on those who -taught or did otherwise; but the evil spirit of self-importance which -prompted this request was too deeply engrained in human nature to be -eradicated by a single warning of the great teacher. This spirit of -arrogant individualism asserted itself at an early period in the -disorderly Corinthian Church very much in the same way as it does -amongst ourselves, specially in Scotland, at the present moment--viz. -by the multiplication of sects, the exaggeration of petty distinctions, -and the fomenting of petty rivalries,--"Now this I say, that every one -of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I -of Christ" (I Cor. i. 12),--a spirit which the apostle most strongly -denounces as proceeding manifestly from the overrated importance of -some secondary specialty, or some accessory condition, of the body of -believers, who thus clubbed themselves into a denomination, and -resulting in an unkindly divergence from the common highway of -evangelic life, and an intolerant desire to override one Christian -brother with the private shibboleth of another, and to stamp him with -the seal of their own conceit. The field in which this intolerant Spirit -displayed itself was of course different, according to the influences at -work at the time; but there is one field which, if church history is to -teach us anything, we are bound to emphasise strongly, that is the field -of dogma; for, if there be any influence that has worked more powerfully -to discredit Christianity than even the immoral lives and selfish maxims -of professing Christians, it is the fixation and glorification and -idol-worship of the dogma. No doubt Christianity is far from being that -system, or rather no system, of vague and cloudy sentiment to which some -persons would reduce it: it has bones, and a firm framework; it stands -upon facts, and is not without doctrines, but it does not make a parade -of doctrines; and the faith which it enjoins, as is manifest from the -definition and historical examples in Hebrews xi., is not an -intellectual faith in the doctrines of a metaphysical theology, but a -living faith in the moral government of the world and a heroic conduct -in life, as the necessary expression of such faith. The mere -intellectual orthodoxy on which the Christian Church has, by the -tradition of centuries, placed such a high value, is, in the apostolical -estimate, plainly worth nothing; for the devils also believe and -tremble, as St. James has it, or as our Lord himself said in the -striking summation to the Sermon on the Mount, "Not they who call me -_Lord, Lord_, shall enter into the kingdom, but they who do the will of -my Father who is in heaven. By their works, not by their creed, ye shall -know them."[19] Nevertheless, the exaltation of the dogma has always -been a favourite tendency of the Church, and the besetting sin of the -clergy. With the mass of the people, to swear to a curious creed is -always more easy than to lead a noble life; while to the clerical -intellect it must always give a secret satisfaction to think that the -science of theology, which is the furthest removed from the handling of -the great mass of men, has in their hands assumed a well-defined shape, -of which the articulations are as subtle and as necessary as the steps -of solution in a difficult algebraic problem. The late Baron Bunsen, for -many years Prussian ambassador in London, one of the most large-minded -and large-hearted of Christian men, in the preface to his great _Bibel -werk_, devotes a special chapter to Dogmatism as a vice of the clerical -mind leading to false views of Scripture; over and above what he calls -the modern revival of scholastic theology in Germany, he enumerates four -dominant epochs of ecclesiastical life in which this anti-evangelical -tendency has prominently asserted itself. These are--(1) the dogmatism -of the great Church councils in the reigns of Constantine, Theodosius, -and Justinian; (2) the medieval scholasticism of the Western Church; (3) -the Protestant scholasticism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; -(4) the dogmatism of the Jesuits, Perron, Bossuet, and others. Had this -dogmatic tendency of the Church contented itself with tabulating a -curious scheme of divine mysteries, though it might justly have been -deemed impertinent, and here and there a little presumptuous, yet it -might have been condoned lightly as a sort of clerical recreation in -hours which might have been worse employed; but it could not be content -with this: it passed at once into action, and in this guise prevailed to -deface the fair front of the Church with gashes of more bloody and -barbarous inhumanity than ever marked the altars of the Baals and -Molochs of the most savage heathen superstitions. - -Another monstrous abuse born out of the bosom of the Church, though not -so directly, is Sacerdotalism. I say not so directly, because the genius -of Christianity is so distinctly negative of all priesthood that, had -there been even an express prohibition of it, its contradiction to the -whole tone of the New Testament could not have been more apparent. Not -more certainly are the sacrifices of the Jewish law abolished in the -sacrifice of Christ, according to the Pauline theology, than the -Levitical priesthood stands abolished in the priesthood of Christ and in -the priesthood of the individual members of his spiritual body (2 Peter -v. 9).[20] Whence, then, came our Christian priesthood? Partly, I -suspect, as the Jewish Sabbath was interpolated into the Christian -Lord's Day, from the nearness and external similitude of the two -things--the presbyter being to the outward eye pretty much the same -as the priest was to the Jewish worshippers; partly from the -self-importance which is the besetting sin of all bodies of men -prominently planted in the social platform, and which induces them to -magnify their vocation, and in doing so stilt their professional pride -up into the attitude of a very stately and a very reputable virtue. The -proper functions of the office-bearers of the early Christian Church, -call them overseers, bishops, or what you will, were so honourable and -so beneficent that, especially with an unlearned and unthinking people, -the reverential respect due to the actors might easily pass into a -superstitious belief in the mystical virtue of the operations of which -they were the conductors; and this ready submission on the part of the -people, holding out a willing hand to the natural self-importance and -potentiated self-estimate of the clerical body, resulted in a -four-square system of sacerdotal control, sacerdotal virtue, and -sacerdotal influence, to which we shall search for a parallel in vain -through all the annals of Asiatic and African heathenism. Nay, I can -readily believe that those who can find a priesthood in the genius of -the gospel and the apostolic institution of the Christian Church, will -naturally be inclined to maintain that the superior power of the -Gregories, Bonifaces, and Innocents of the medieval Church, as -contrasted with anything that we read or know of the Egyptian, Hebrew, -and Roman pontiffs, is the natural and necessary outcome of the superior -excellence of the Christian religion; and this, no doubt, is the only -comfortable belief on which all forms of Christian sacerdotalism can -repose. - -So much for the corruptions of the Christian religion proceeding from -what, in theological language, might be called the indwelling sin of the -Church, unstimulated by any strong external seduction. But this -seduction came. After three centuries of hardship, manfully endured in -the school of adversity, the more severe trial of prosperity had to be -gone through. The Church, which had been declared to be not of this -world, and had stood face to face with the greatest political power the -world ever knew in a position of sublime moral isolation, was now -adopted by the State, and formed a bond of the most intimate connection -with its hereditary persecutors. The starting-point of the oldest -heathen social attitude, the identity of Church and State, seemed to be -recalled; and a Justinian on the shores of the Bosphorus seemed as -really a head of the Church as a Menes or an Amenophis on the banks of -the Nile. But under the outward likeness a radical difference lay -concealed. As an essentially ethical society, with its own special -credentials, its separate history, and its independent triumph, the -Christian Church might form an alliance with a purely secular -institution like the State, but it could not be absorbed or identified -with it. That alliance might be made beneficially in various ways and on -various terms; the civil magistrate might be proud to be called the -friend and the brother of the Christian bishop, or he might humble -himself to be its servant, but he never could be its master. The -alliance therefore was, as it ought to be, all in favour of the -spiritual body; the Church gained the civil power to execute its decrees -and to patronise its missions; but a Christian State could never gain -the right to dictate the creed or perform the functions of the Church. -The idea that there is anything absolutely sinful, or necessarily -pernicious, in the conception of an alliance between the Church and the -State, is one of those hyperconscientious crotchets of modern British -sectarianism at which the Muse of history can only smile. There can be -no greater sin in an Established Church than in an Established -University or an Established Royal Academy. Religion and Science and Art -have their separate and well-marked provinces, in the administration of -which they may wisely seek for the co-operation, though they will always -jealously avoid the dictation, of the State. But, though there could be -no sin in the Church receiving the right hand of fellowship from the -State, there might be danger, and that of a very serious description. -Nothing strikes a man so much in the reading of the New Testament as the -little respect which it pays to riches and the pomp and pride of life, -and worldly honours and dignities of all kinds. "_How can ye -believe who receive honour one from another?_" is a sentence -that cuts very deep into the connection between the Church and State, -which might readily mean the alliance of a secular institution, -delighting in pomp and parade and glittering show, with a religion of -which, like the philosophy of the porch, the most prominent feature was -unworldliness, humility, and spirituality. Here unquestionably was -danger: an alliance in which, as in an ill-consorted marriage, the lower -element was as likely to drag down the higher as the higher to lift up -the lower. And so it actually happened. The Church was secularised. -Alongside of the hundred and one monkeries of stolid asceticism and the -hundred and one mummeries of sacerdotal ceremonialism, there grew up in -the process of the ages a consolidated hierarchy of such concentrated, -secular, and sacred potency that the loftiest crowned heads of Europe -ducked beneath its shadow and quailed beneath its ban. To understand -this, we must take note of the change by which the scattered presbyters -of the primitive Church were gradually massed into a strong aristocracy, -which in due season, after the fashion of the State, found its key-stone -in an ecclesiastical monarch. It was the wisdom of the founders of the -Christian Church not to lay down any fixed norm of official -administration, but to leave all the external machinery of a purely -spiritual institution free to adapt itself to the existing forms of -society as time and circumstance and national genius might demand. The -form of government natural to the Church in its earliest stages was -democratic, with a certain loose, ill-defined element of presidential -aristocracy. But in an age which had bidden a long farewell both to the -spirit and the form of democracy in civil administration, such a form of -government in the Church could not hope to maintain itself. Under the -influence of the magnificent autocracy of Rome in its decadence, the -simple overseer or superintendent (ἐπίσκοπος) of a remote -provincial congregation of believers gradually grew into a metropolitan -dignitary, and culminated in the wielder of a secular sovereignty -sitting in council with the most influential monarchs of Europe. The -epiphany of an absolute monarch with a triple tiara on his head when -contrasted with the simplicity and unworldliness of the primitive -bishops wears such a strange look that it has been judged, especially in -Protestant countries, with a more sweeping severity than it deserved. As -a mere form of government, no man can give any good reason why the -Church should not be governed by a monarch as well as the State; the -bishop of Rome, as supreme head of the body of bishops all over -Christendom, and guided by them as his habitual advisers, was at least -as natural and as reasonable a guide for the direction of the conscience -of Christendom in the Middle Ages as the Council of Protestants who at -Dort, in the year 1618, condemned the greatest theologian and jurist of -the day to pine in a Dutch prison, or the Assembly of Divines in -Westminster who empowered the supreme magistrate to suppress the right -of free thought in the breasts of all persons who were not prepared to -set their seal to the damnatory dogmas of extreme Calvinism. Nay, so far -from there being anything anti-Christian or anti-social in the Popedom -as a form of Church government, we may safely say that in ages of -general turmoil, confusion, and violence, the admitted supremacy of the -visible head of a church founded on principles of peace and conciliation -could not act otherwise than beneficially. But when the person in whom -this moral supremacy was vested became the acknowledged head of a -secular princedom, the case was altered. It was an unhappy day for the -Christian Church, the most unhappy day perhaps in its whole eventful -history, when Pepin, the ambitious minister of the last of the -Merovingian kings, in the year 751, contrived to get out of Pope Zachary -a spiritual sanction for his usurption of his master's throne. -From that moment the Church was doomed to a blazing and brilliant, but a -sure career of downfall. The spiritual abetter of a secular crime had to -be rewarded for his pious subserviency: he received the exarchate of -Ravenna, and became a temporal prince. From that time forward the head -of the Christian Church, who ought to have stood before the world as a -model of all purity, truthfulness, peacefulness, and ethical nobility, -was condemned to serve two masters, God and Mammon, unworldly morality -and worldly power, which was impossible. From this time forward there -was not a single court intrigue in Europe, nor a single plot of any knot -of conspirators, into whose counsels the supreme bishop of the gospel of -peace might not be dragged, or, what is worse, into whose lawless and -ungodly machinations he might not be officially thrusting himself, in -order to preserve some accessory interest or gain some paltry advantage -altogether unconnected with his spiritual function. If there is any one -element, always of course excepting the element of gross sensuality and -absolute villainy, which more than another is adverse to the spirit of -Evangelical Christianity, it is the element of court intrigue, political -contention, and party feuds. In this region love, which is the life of -the regenerate soul, cannot breathe; truth is put under ban; lies -flourish; conscience is smothered; and low expediency everywhere takes -the place of lofty principle. So it fared not seldom with the Popes; and -much worse in the last degree; for wickedness, like everything that -lives, must live by growing, and the seed of secular ambition which was -sown in lies, will grow to robbery, blossom in lust, and ripen into -murder. This anywhere, but specially in Italy, where from the time of -the patrician Scipio, who suppressed the elder Gracchus, the hot -contenders for absolute power, in the eager pursuit of their object, -have never shrank from the free use of the assassin's dagger and -the poisoner's bowl. In fact, if the love of mere animal pleasure -makes a man a beast, it is the love of power that translates him into a -fiend; and of this sort of human fiends Italian history presents as -appalling a register as can be found anywhere in the annals of our race; -and at the top of this register stand some of the Popes, whose names are -as prominent in the story of ecclesiastical Rome as those of Nero, -Domitianus, and Heliogabalus are in the story of the imperial decadence. -When we cast a rapid glance--for it deserves nothing more--on -the revolting record of the Roman Popes in the age immediately preceding -the Reformation, we hear the solemn voice of history repeating again the -maxim above quoted--_corruptio optimi pessima_: when priests -are bad, they are very bad; when the salt of the gospel, which was meant -to preserve the moral life of society from putrescence, has lost its -savour, if not cast out, it is worse than useless--it becomes a -poison. - -Before proceeding to the modern history of the Church, we ought to -emphasise in a special paragraph the fact that one unfortunate result of -the incorporation of the Church with the State was that the Church was -now in a position to request the State to lend its potent aid in -establishing the true doctrine of the gospel and suppressing all -heresies. That the State had a right to do so no man doubted; even in -democratic Greece free-thinking philosophers, such as Anaxagoras, -Diogenes, and Socrates, were banished or suffered death on charges of -impiety; and though, no doubt, political elements, as in the case of the -Arminians in Holland, worked along with the strictly religious feeling -to set the brand of atheism on those men, there cannot be any doubt that -where the State and the Church were so essentially one, persecutions for -unauthorised religious observances were perfectly legitimate, as indeed -the memorable case of the forcible suppression of the Dionysiac -mysteries, more than two hundred years before the earliest of the -Christian martyrdoms in Rome, abundantly testifies. But there was a -double horror in the religious persecution, after the establishment of -Christianity, now inaugurated for the first time--the horror of a -conduct so diametrically opposed to the spirit and the express -injunction of the Founder of the Gospel, in whose defence it was -practised, and the horror also that what was now violently suppressed -was not, as in the case of the Dionysiac mysteries, rather immoral -practices than erroneous beliefs, but simply and nakedly metaphysical -objections against metaphysical propositions in theology, which, whether -true or false, could not be made the subject of State action, or, in my -opinion at least, of ecclesiastical censure, without a flagrant -violation of that law of charity which a large philosophy and a catholic -Christianity equally enjoin. The banishment of Arius to Illyria, as the -civil consequence of the formal signature of the Trinitarian creed by -the decision of the Council of Nice in the year 325, though it made no -small noise in the world in those days, was a very innocent overture to -the barbarous dramas of fire and blood that were in after ages to be -enacted on this evil precedent. There are many grand places rich with -historical lessons in London, and not a few sad ones; but the saddest of -all is Smithfield. I can never pace the stones of this memorable site, -where our noblest Scot, Sir William Wallace, was disembowelled and -quartered to gratify the vengeance of an imperious Norman, without -thinking of the sad fate of the young and beautiful Anne Askew. This -lady, the daughter of a knight of good family in Lincolnshire, under -some of those stimulants of thought which were stirring up the stagnant -traditions of medieval piety, had been led to conceive serious doubts -with regard to the Scripture authority for some of the most universally -received doctrines of the Roman Church. This pious scepticism coming to -the ears of certain leading persons in Church and State, who, after the -example of the Nicean doctors, considered it a sacred duty in matters -pertaining to religion to tolerate no contradiction, first brought this -lady before the Lord Chancellor, who tore her limb from limb on the -rack, because she would not say that she believed what she could not -believe without denying her senses, and then dragged her to the -blood-stained pavement of Smithfield, where she was girt with gunpowder -bags and fenced with faggots, to be burnt to death, as if the God of -Christians were a second and enlarged edition of the old Moloch of -Palestine. And what was her offence--beautiful, young, pure, and -truthful woman, not more than twenty-five years of age--that she -should be treated in this worse than cannibalic style in the name of the -gospel of Jesus Christ? Simply that Henry VIII., in that style of -insolent masterdom which he showed so royally, and conceiting himself, -like a Scotch fool who came after him, to be a considerable theologian, -assumed the right to put the stamp of absolute kingship on the doctrine -of the Church that a piece of bread, over which a priestly benediction -had been pronounced by a priest, was by the mystical virtue of this -benediction changed into flesh, while the fair young lady persisted in -seeing nothing but bread. Let it be granted that the lady was in the -wrong and the churchly tradition right, it never could be right to tear -her flesh to shreds and to burn her bones to ashes because she held an -opinion which, to say the least of it, looked as like the truth as its -opposite. How sad, how sorrowfully sad, and what a commentary on what we -are ever and anon tempted to call poor, pitiful, prideful, and -presumptuous human nature, that Christianity had at that time been more -than fifteen hundred years in the world, sitting in high places, and -walking with triumphal banners over the earth, and yet neither the -princes of the earth nor the rulers of the Church should have retained -even a slight echo of that reproof from a mild Master to a zealous -disciple, to the effect that no man who knew the spirit of the divine -religion which He taught, would ever propose to bring fire down from -heaven or up from hell to consume the unbeliever. - -Such enormities in the doctrine and practice of the Church, as we have -indicated rather than described, could lead to only one of two -issues--Reform or Revolution. The change brought about, though -contenting itself with the milder name, was in fact the more drastic -procedure. The European reformation of Martin Luther in 1517 was a -revolution in the Church, much more radical and much more worthy of so -strong a designation than the political revolution of 1688 in Great -Britain. It is needless to recapitulate the causes of offence; they were -only too patent--insolence, secularity, sensuality, venality, -idleness, vice, and worthlessness of every kind in the Church; but there -were two causes which, in addition to corruption from within, tended to -open the ears of Christendom largely to the cry for Church reform. These -were the stir in the intellectual movement from the days of the author -of the Divine Comedy downwards, enforced by the invention of printing in -the middle of the fifteenth century, which was amply sufficient to -become a danger to even a much less vulnerable creed than that which had -satisfied the crude demands of medieval intelligence; and, in the second -place, the hostility which the insolence and ambition of Churchmen had -roused in the secular magistracy--that is, not only the monarch and -his official ministers, but the great body of the higher nobility who -found themselves ousted from their place in the familiar counsels of the -monarch by the advocates and ambassadors of a foreign potentate. Thus -the two best friends of every Established Church in its normal state -were converted into enemies; and the natural indignation of the common -people at the licentious lives and gross venality of the clergy was -stimulated into an explosion by the desire of the secular dignities to -curb the pride of the clergy, and, it might lightly happen also, to rob -them of part of their overgrown wealth, nominally for the public good, -really for the aggrandisement of the Crown and the nobility. The -shameless nepotism of Pope Sixtus IV., the flagitious lives and -abhorrent practices of the Borgias, more fit for a sensational melodrama -in the lowest Parisian theatre than for the home of a Christian bishop; -the military rage of a Julius, who turned the Church of Christ into a -travelling camp and the bishop's crozier into a soldier's -sword; the literary dilettantism of the Court of Leo X., more eager to -distinguish itself by the elegant trimming of Latin versicles than by -apostolic zeal and Christian purity,--all this, so long as it -disported itself on Italian ground, the aristocracy of England and -Scotland might have continued to look on with indifference; but that the -son of anybody or nobody, in a county of unvalued clodhoppers, should -jostle them in the antechamber of the monarch, and claim precedence in -the hall of audience, simply because he was the supple instrument of an -insolent Italian priest, this was not to be borne; and so the -Reformation came, with the mob of the lowest classes, the mass of the -respectable middle classes, the most influential of the nobility, and -the power of the Crown, all in full cry against the ecclesiastical fox. -The revolution thus volcanically effected, and known in history under -the name of Protestantism, meant simply the right of every individual -member of the Christian Church to take the principles and the practice -of his Church directly from the original records of the Church, without -the intervention of any body of authorised interpreters; and the -necessary product of this right when exercised was first to declare -certain practices and doctrines that had grown up in the Church through -long centuries to be unauthorised departures from the original -simplicity and purity of the gospel; and, further, to deny that there -existed in the Christian Church, as originally constituted, any class or -caste of men enjoying the exclusive privilege to perform sacred -functions, and endowed with a divine virtue to perform sacramental -miracles by their consecrating touch,--in a word, that there was no -priesthood, properly so called, in the Reformed Christian Church. Nor is -this doctrine, as some may think, the teaching only of the Helvetic -confession, what certain persons have been fond to call extreme -Protestantism; for, though the word priest has been retained in the -English prayerbook as a minister in sacred things of a particular grade -and exercising a particular function, the attempt made by Archbishop -Laud and the Romanising party in the Reformed Church of England to -retain in the bosom of the Anglican Church the ideas which the ancient -Jews and the Romish Christians attached to the word _priest_, -proved a signal failure; and for the sacerdotal despotism which it -implied, as well as for the secular despotism which the priest advised -and encouraged the unfortunate king to assert, the adviser and the -advised justly lost their heads. Of all the teachings of Church history, -from the Waldenses in the twelfth century down to the present hour, -there is nothing more certain than this, that between Popery and -Protestantism there is no middle term possible. They may agree, in fact -they do agree, in many essential things, and in a few accidental; but in -the fundamental principle of Church administration they are -diametrically opposed. The principle of the one is sacerdotal authority, -absolute and unqualified; the principle of the other is individual and -congregational liberty. The one form of polity is a close oligarchy, the -other either a free democracy or an aristocracy more or less penetrated -by a democratic spirit. - -The practical outcome of this great Protestant movement, in the midst of -which we live, cannot fail to a reasonable eye to appear in the highest -degree satisfactory. Never was the life of the Christian Church at once -more intensely earnest and more expansively distributive than at the -present moment. On the one hand, the Roman Church, wisely taught by the -experience of the past, though obstinately cleaving to that stout -conservatism of doctrine and ritual inherent in the very bones of all -sacerdotal religions, has been, in the main, studious to avoid those -causes of offence from which the great rupture proceeded. On the other -hand, the Protestant Churches, shaken free from the distracting -influence of sacerdotal assumption and secular ambition, have found -themselves in a condition to permeate all classes of society with a -moral virtue, of whose regenerative action Plato and Socrates, in their -best hours, could not have dreamed. Some people, while gladly admitting -the immense amount of social good that is done by the various sections -of the Protestant Church, never cease to sigh for a lost ecclesiastical -unity, and to lament the unseemly strifes that arise among those that -should be possessed by one spirit and strive together for a common end. -But the persons who speak thus are either sentimental weaklings, being -Protestants, or are Romanists and sacerdotalists in their heart. Variety -is the law of nature in the moral no less than in the physical world; -and the absorption of all sects into one results in a stagnation which -will never be found amongst moral beings, unless when produced by -weakness of vital force from within, or unnatural suppression from -above. The two dominant types of church polity recognised in this -country since the Reformation--the Episcopal and the Presbyterian--of -which the one boasts a more aristocratic intellectual culture, and the -other a more fervid and forcible popular action, may well be allowed to -exist together on a mutual understanding of giving and taking whatever -is best in each, and thus, in apostolic language, provoking one another -to love and to good works. Competition is for the public benefit as much -in churches as in trades. Dissent from any dominant body, even though it -may proceed from the exaggerated importance given to a secondary matter, -will always produce the good result that the dominant body will thereby -be stirred to greater activity and greater watchfulness; so that, in -this view, we may lay it down as one of the great lessons of history -that the best form of church government is a strong establishment -qualified by a strong dissent. As to the proposals which have in recent -times been made for the formal separation of Church and State, they bear -on their face more of a political than of a religious significance. -Impartial history offers no countenance to the notion that Established -Churches, when well flanked by dissent, and in an age when the spiritual -ruler has ceased to make the arm of the State the tool of intolerance, -are contrary either to piety or to policy; and in the desire so loudly -expressed at election contests to lay violent hands on the valuable -organism of church agency existing in this country, the venerated -inheritance of many ages of patriotic struggle, the student of history, -with a charitable allowance for the best motives in not a few, feels -himself constrained to suspect in all such movements no small admixture -of sectarian jealousy, fussy religiosity, and domineering democracy. -Christianity, of course, stands in no need of an Established Church; -religion existed for three hundred years in the church without any State -connection, and may exist again; but Christianity does, above all -things, abhor the stirring up of strife betwixt Church and Church from -motives of jealousy, envy, or greed; and, along with the highest -philosophy and the most far-sighted political wisdom, must protest in -the strongest terms against the abolishing of a useful ethical -institution to gratify the insane lust of levelling in a mere numerical -majority. - -The Church of the future, whether established or disestablished, or, as -I think best, both together, provoking one another to love and to good -works, has a great mission before it, if it keep sharply in view the two -lessons which the teaching of eighteen centuries so eloquently enforces. -Our evangelists must remove from the van of their evangelic force all -that sharp fence of metaphysical subtlety and scholastic dogma, which, -being ostentatiously paraded in creeds and catechisms, has given more -just offence to those without than edification to those within the -Church; the gospel must be presented to the world with all that catholic -breadth, kindly humanity, and popular directness which were its boast -before it was laced and screwed into artificial shapes by the decrees of -intolerent councils, and the subtleties of ingenious schoolmen. And, -again, they must not allow the gospel to be handled, what is too often -the case, as a mere message of hope and comfort in view of a future -world; but they must make it walk directly into the complex relations of -modern society, and think that it has done nothing till the ideal of -sentiment and conduct which it preached on Sunday has been more or less -practised on Monday. In fact, there ought to be less vague preaching on -Sunday, and more specific and direct application through the week of -gospel principle in various spheres of the intellectual and moral life -of the community. If, in addition to this, our prophets of the pulpit -take care to keep abreast of the intellectual movement of the age, so as -not only to stir the world in sermons, but to guide them in the wisdom -of daily life, they have nothing to fear from all the windy artillery -that the speculations of a soulless physical science, the imaginations -of a dreamy socialism, or the dogmatism of a cold philosophical -formalism, can bring to bear upon them. Let them grapple bravely with -all social problems, and prove whether Christianity, which has done so -much to purify the motives of individuals, may not be able also to put a -more effective steam into the machinery of society. If they shall fail -here, they will fail gloriously, having done their best. It is not given -to any people, however great, to solve all problems. When Great Britain -shall have played out her part, there will be scope enough in the -process of the ages for another stout social worker to place the cornice -on the edifice of which she was privileged to raise the pillars. - -The End - - - -FOOTNOTES. - -[Footnote 1] - -Plutarch conjugalia præcepta init. - - -[Footnote 2] - -The word _clan_ is the familiar, well-known Celtic word for _children_. - - -[Footnote 3] - -"Nulli alii sunt homines qui talem in liberos habeant potestatem qualem -nos habemus." _Institut_. i. 9, 2. - - -[Footnote 4] - -Thucyd. ii. 15. The Athenians went further, and attributed to the son -of Ægeus the creation of their democracy (Pausan., _Att_. iii.); but -this, of course, was only the popular instinct, everywhere active, which -loves to heap all graces upon the head of a favourite hero. - - -[Footnote 5] - -See the words of the Latin league, Dionys. Hal. vi. 95, contrasting -strongly with the original collection of autonomous villages described -by Strabo, v. 229, κατἁ κώμας αὐτονομεῖσθαι. - - -[Footnote 6] - -The influence of the great city in centralising the villages and making -a state possible was in Greece philologically stereotyped by the fact -that for _city_ and _state_ the language had only one word, πόλις. The -_city_ was the _state_ in the same sense that the head is the body, for -without the head no living body could be. - - -[Footnote 7] - -ὁ στρατιωτικὸς βίος πολλὰ ἒχει μέρη τῶς ἀρετῆς.--Aristot. Pol. ii. 9. -St. Paul also frequently in the Epistles, and Clemens Romanus (Oxon. -1633, p. 48) refers to the military profession as a great school of -manly virtue. - - -[Footnote 8] - -Spalding's _Italy_, ii. p. 284. - - -[Footnote 9] - -_On Method in Political Science_. - - -[Footnote 10] - -Sismondi, _Etudes sur l'economie politique_, Essai iv. - - -[Footnote 11] - -With which sentence Mr. Freeman agrees. _Comparative Politics_, -Lecture iii. p. 78. - - -[Footnote 12] - -This parallel has been noticed by the thoughtful Germans; see -particularly Zacharia Sulla, i. 40. - - -[Footnote 13] - -τίνος γὰρ ἂλλου ζῴου ψυχὴ πρῶτα μὲν θεῶν τῶν τὰ μέγιστα καὶ -κάλλιστα συνταξάντων ᾔσθηται ὃτι εἰσι: τί δὲ φῦλον ἄλλο ἢ -ἄνθρωποι θεοὺς θεραπεύουσι.--Xen. _Mem_. i. 4. - - -[Footnote 14] - -_Iliad_, iii. 271; and compare Virgil, _Æneid_, iii. 80. - - -[Footnote 15] - -Xen., _Rep. Lac._, i. 15; Herod, vi. 56. - - -[Footnote 16] - -Pollux, viii. 90. - - -[Footnote 17] - -Xen., _Mem_. i. 3. - - -[Footnote 18] - -From the διδαχή τῶν ἀποστόλων, or _Early Teaching of the Apostles_, -lately discovered, ch. viii., we learn that it was the custom of -the early Christians to observe two days of fasting in the -week--Wednesday and Friday.--Edit. Oxford Parker, 1885. - - -[Footnote 19] - -In the διδαχή τῶν ἀποστόλων there is absolutely no dogma. It is all -practice, and this is quite in harmony with the use of διδαχή by Paul -(I Tim. i. 10), and indeed with the whole tone of these two admirable -epistles. - - -[Footnote 20] - -In the διδαχή τῶν ἀποστόλων, c. xiii., the "_prophets_" are said to be -to Christians what the "_high priests_" were to the Jews,--a -phraseology which could not possibly have been used had any priesthood, -in the Hebrew sense, existed in the early Church. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's What Does History Teach?, by John Stuart Blackie - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT DOES HISTORY TEACH? *** - -***** This file should be named 55354-0.txt or 55354-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/3/5/55354/ - -David Thomas - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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