PREACHED IN THE
Chapel of St. David’s College, Lampeter
ON THE MORNING AND EVENING OF
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30 th, 1870
BY THE REV. W. G. DAVIES, B.D. Chaplain of the Joint Counties Asylum, Abergavenny
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST
LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL. & CO. CARMARTHEN: W. SPURRELL
1871
“The Clergy everywhere should be emphatically ‘the teachers of people,’ and leaders of modern thought.” The Rector of Merthyr .
A SERMON. I.
Luke x. 42. “ But one thing is needful , and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her .”
The discourses which I have the privilege of delivering in this chapel, are specially addressed to my younger brethren, the undergraduates. I cannot but dwell with pleasure upon the time when I was myself a student in this college. This, together with the fact that I am a native of the lower part of this county, and was brought up among some of the most primitive of the Welsh people, and consequently am familiar with their leading sentiments, manners, and customs, places me, I cannot help feeling, in a state of close sympathy with the greater number of you. Assuming the existence of this fellow feeling, I have chosen, on this occasion, to investigate the social and religious condition of my countrymen in a light which has not yet penetrated into the fastnesses of the popular mind of Wales. I have done this, because the subject is one that elicits ideas of high import, which it is desirable you should know, inasmuch as they ought to prove of signal service to you in your future ministrations.
We are living, you should be aware, in critical times. Old institutions and dogmas are rudely assailed, and challenged to vindicate their right to respect before the tribunal of reason. It is well then that you should have some leading ideas implanted in your mind, so that you may the better be able to comprehend the nature of the change that is coming over us. As this change proceeds, you will probably hear cries of despair from this party and from that, and harsh and uncharitable accusations will be flung by one at the other. Be not therefore in perplexity, but of this be very certain, “The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom ruleth over all;” and though we may see the pet schemes of men ending in signal failure, not for one moment can we suppose that God’s eternal purposes will come to nought, that His word will return to Him void.
“This,” remarks the learned bishop of this diocese, “is an age of restless curiosity, and searching inquiry. If we fail to come at the truth, it is not because we ever shrink from approaching it; not because we let ourselves be stopped by any conventional barriers of usage or authority. We admit no right in any one to judge for us on subjects which we are able to judge for ourselves. We take no opinion upon trust, because it has come down to us with the stamp of an honoured name. We adopt it only after we have made it our own by a rigid scrutiny of its intrinsic claims to our assent. It is an age in which all pretensions to respect and deference are jealously examined, and in which it is more difficult than ever for any false pretences long to elude detection.”[4]
The tendency here described by the bishop, ought to suggest to you the necessity of making yourselves acquainted with the leading characteristics of the time, and urge you so to train your understanding, that you shall be always ready, as the apostle enjoins, to give a reason for the hope that is in you. In Wales, however, owing to her isolated condition, divided like a Milford Haven from the vast Atlantic, it is quite possible that it may be a considerable time before this restless and inquiring spirit will make itself so generally felt as elsewhere. This may be an advantage to you; for, from your tranquil haven, you may be able dispassionately to form a judicial opinion of the commotion which is being felt by others at a distance from you.
Few things indicate more clearly the religious condition of the Welsh people than the closeness with which, in so many respects, they apply, but in a certain limited sense, the principle contained in the text, “But one thing is needful;” namely, to learn and to have the mind of Christ, a requirement far more comprehensive than many seem to think; for does not that good part which shall not be taken away, embrace all the knowledge we can obtain of God’s power, wisdom, and love?
How deeply the cares of life, the “what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?” the anxieties of business, the wild fever of speculation and gambling, the frivolities of a life devoted to the exclusive pursuit of pleasure and excitement, the arduous strain endured in climbing giddy heights of fame, glory, and power; how deeply are all such merely temporal pursuits, even were they innocent, condemned as vanity of vanities, by that loving reproof of our Saviour, “But one thing is needful.” However unmindful we may be of the fact, eternity surrounds and makes prisoners of us all; and what is the whole world with all its pomp, wealth, greatness, and pleasures, viewed in the dimming light of that eternity? What shall it profit a man if he gain everything but what is really needful, everything but the good part, since “when he dieth he shall carry nothing away, his glory shall not descend after him?” This indeed, is a most serious and awful consideration, and no one possessed of proper feeling, can treat it with levity. The grave, without respect of persons, confronts us all with its awe-inspiring illimitable beyond; and we cannot, if we would, brought up as we have been to possess long-standing associations on the side of Christian truth, and in harmony with the voice of conscience and the higher aspirations and presentiments of the soul, bring ourselves to believe that we shall not reap hereafter as we have sown here.
How often have the hills and valley of Wales resounded to stains like these, and long may they do so. But a most important question to ask is, what is comprised in the one thing needful? Are science, literature, and art of only temporary value? In the day of trial will they prove, even when true and pure, but “wood, hay, and stubble,” or will they turn out to be a portion of the “gold, silver, and precious stones” which we can carry with us to the better land?
I shall not, I presume, be far from the truth, when I declare that the Welsh are, on the whole, a God-fearing people; and that they are somewhat remarkable for the manner in which they put into practice the principle contained in the text, “But one thing is needful.” If we except the various pursuits by which they gain their livelihood, the Welsh-speaking portion of my countrymen have few proclivities apart from religion. Their reading is almost purely religious reading; their music, psalmody; their social gatherings, for the most part, clerical meetings, religious camp meetings, and the assembling of Sabbath schools. Their periodical literature consists almost wholly of religious magazines. Secular knowledge, secular music, and well nigh everything approaching to fiction, are by many of them deemed not only valueless but sinful. Y gwir yn erbyn y byd, a motto of which the Welsh nation may justly be proud, expresses the intolerance with which many natives of the Principality regard everything but what they believe to be downright sober truth. Is it the one thing needful? If not, avoid it as mischievous; at all events, “do not spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which profiteth not.” That the great mass of my country-people are remarkable for what many would consider the logical reduction of Christianity into practice, is unquestionable; but are they therefore, any more than St. Anthony and the early pilgrims, who believed they did the same thing, to be pointed out as worthy the imitation of others in all respects?
The Welsh-speaking inhabitants of this country, it must be admitted, live in a manner which has its attractions for primitiveness and homeliness; their wants are few, their passions are much under control, they are self-denying, industrious, and provident; and throughout the Principality, much to its credit, criminal cases but seldom darken the calendar. Such being the social condition of the Welsh, but more especially in the agricultural districts of what has been termed Welsh Wales, though not indeed without exceptions as regards keeping the “body in temperance, soberness, and chastity,” would it not be desirable to take note of the influences which conduce to such a state of things, with the view of bringing the same to bear upon communities, in which so many are deplorably corrupt, criminal, and profane? When, however, we come to consider that one of the leading causes of the peculiarities exhibited by the Welsh, is the isolation resulting from their language, few distinctive points remain in their social economy which admit of being copied with advantage by other communities. Influences which are rapidly changing the character of the English, and the better educated classes in these parts, exercise but a faint effect upon the primitive Welsh; because they are, by their language, shut out from the rest of the world. They are like the river water, which is out of the main current. Their manners, customs, and ideas, all tend to permanency. The sons follow with little change in the steps of their fathers, and the daughters in those of their mothers. As a consequence of this, even in business pursuits, they are, like the French Canadians, deficient in enterprise, and acquire property mostly by saving and self-denial. Like the Chinese, they give one the idea of a people whose development has been arrested at a certain stage, whose inspiration is drawn from the past, and not, as by the Israelites of old, from the future. They love to dwell on the antiquity of their language, and its purity from foreign elements. What they were is to them a source of fond exultation. What they are destined to become, they fear to contemplate.
I claim to be a lover of my country. I admire much the social and civic virtues, and the religious enthusiasm of her people; but I am forced to admit that among the Welsh, as such, there is no onward tendency. That is a great and noble ambition of theirs which urges them to retain their language; and they firmly believe in the prophecy, “ Eu hiaith a gadwant.” But to be equally bent on perpetuating certain peculiarities which unite them with the past as a race opposed to their English neighbours, this desire to surround themselves with a sort of Chinese wall, instead of letting “the dead past bury its dead,” is not the part of true patriotism. For, by blindly adhering to such a stationary policy, they will eventually, as a distinct nation, be submerged by the tide of progress, instead of floating on its surface, and exist about as much in reality as their fabled Lowland Hundred. In everything but political sectarianism, and this only because they are moved to it by political agitators, the Welsh are in fact a most conservative nation.
This primitive condition of the Welsh, however, is not singular. It has existed, and exists even now, in various parts of the world. As an instance with which we have lately been made acquainted, it may be mentioned, that Wallace has found, in some of the islands of the Malay Archipelago, several communities which have no intercourse with the world at large, leading an industrious, peaceful, moral life; committing little or no crime; “showing the work of the law written in their hearts;” and a pattern to many of the inhabitants of so called Christian and civilized countries. When we contemplate such beautiful simplicity and purity of life, we must admit that these people “are not far from the kingdom of God;” and one is tempted to doubt whether civilization with its extremes of wealth and destitution, refinement and barbarism, culture and ignorance, integrity and crime, saintliness and profanity, is the blessing that it is commonly held to be. But yet if we compare the endowments of mankind with those of the more intelligent brutes, we find that man has a capacity for being educated into a higher being in proportion as the race stores up knowledge, a power which opens the vast treasury of nature; whereas the most intelligent of the brutes are but slightly educable, and therefore stationary. While man, however, is gifted with this immense superiority, he does not always turn it to the greatest advantage. Some nations are rapidly advancing; some, having advanced in time past up to a certain point, have either long ago halted, or have gone back to barbarism or worse. Of these three tendencies, the one strongly manifested by the Welsh is halting. What forces there are urging them forward are almost entirely from a foreign source; and the fact that such influences are operating upon them is, by many of their number, regarded as a misfortune, by few as a blessing. Painful, however, as it must be to Welsh patriotism, and high-wrought sentiment, yet it is not to be doubted that the genius of Wales is receding before that of England, as is so clearly evident to those who dwell on the border land, where the two rival powers are brought face to face. And now what I wish my country-people particularly to understand is, that as long as they adopt a policy of stagnation, Cambria is sure to be worsted in the conflict for distinctive existence; because such is the law of evolution, a law which pervades all nature; and to this law I would now draw your attention.
What is called evolution or development in nature is a procedure from simplicity to complexity of structure. The more elaborate and special an organ is, the higher is the function which it has to perform. To select an illustration from the animal kingdom: among the lowest kind of animals called the hydra there is no distinction of parts such as seen in the human body; no nutritive, muscular, and nervous system; no senses, no brain. Each portion of them being complete in itself, these animals can be propagated by simply cutting them into bits. Each part is independent of every other part; as if in this country we had local government, but no central government. The whole is a medley in which there is no division of labour and of responsibility, no interdependence.
How different the case in man’s elevated and complex nature! And how can I express this more forcibly, or in a way better adapted for conveying to you the principle here held in view, than in these words of St. Paul:—“There are many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” The principle here enunciated is that of unity in variety. “The body is one, and hath many members; and all the members of the body, though they be many, are one body.”
The chapter from which these passages are taken demands your special notice, in order that you may see how fully the Apostle’s mind was possessed with the law of unity in variety—many members, yet but one body; and together with the sequel to it, the New Testament song of love, should deeply impress upon our hearts the all important truth conveyed in the words, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members thereof.” There will be diversities in the Church, there cannot be uniformity, but there must be unity. “For as it is noted by one of the fathers,” says Bacon, “Christ’s coat, indeed, had no seam, but the Church’s vesture was of divers colours; whereupon he saith, ‘ In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit.’”
There was a time, even in the memory of living men, when Welsh households had little need of aid from commerce, when almost every kind of food was home grown, and almost every article of clothing home spun and home made. Some lament that this is not still the case. Let these, however, console themselves with the knowledge that as mankind progress, they are made, by division of labour, to become more dependent on each other, and that perforce the law of love, of mutual beneficence, is being propagated in the world, not only by the Christian ministry, but by the agency of commercial, scientific, and literary progress. Not only the inhabitants of the same land, but the various nations of the earth are more and more coming to this, that they can less and less do without each other’s co-operation.
An early stage of society, like that of animal development, is a medley. It is made up of families or tribes, each of which has its own separate organization; and the tendency is, where selfishness and a contentious spirit predominate, to split up into fragments; whereas, on the other hand, where the domestic virtues are highly advanced, and there is a general disposition to sink private interest in public good, men will cling together, thus forming larger communities, exercising more advanced functions, and eventually absorb those weaker tribes which have not acquired these virtues; that is, have not realized, to the same extent, the principle of many members in one body.
It is characteristic of the human mind, in its first attempts to pierce the mists of ignorance and mystery, to embrace, in one view, the whole realm of knowledge, and necessarily to suppose that it is much more limited than it is. The astrologers of old little dreamed that the stars, which were the objects of their superstitions contemplation, were but a small portion of the illimitable universe of worlds. We see at first of any subject which we study but about as much as we see of the stars without the aid of the telescope, or of minute objects near at hand without the aid of the microscope. The realm of knowledge enlarges in proportion as we intimately explore it. The more we discover distinctions, which have been overlooked by previous observers, or the more we differentiate, and at the same time assign the differences their right place in the class, the unity to which they belong, the more we advance that branch of investigation towards which our efforts are turned. In the infancy of knowledge, science, poetry, history, politics, theology, form one medley, like the hydra in the animal world. Pythagoras, because he possessed insufficient powers of abstraction, could not keep mathematics apart from metaphysics, theology, and æsthetics. And Xenophanes must needs, in the philosophical and theological travail of his soul, give expression to his ideas in flowing hexameters. The early ballads were not simply the minstrelsy, but the only chronicles of the period. Out of the medley state, which has now been described, the sciences file in the order of their simplicity, generality, and remoteness from religious, poetic, and political emotion.
The development of knowledge and of civilization, therefore, like that of the animal kingdom, is commensurate with the degree in which labour is divided, while perfect unity is retained. “Now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him. And if they were all one member, where were the body?” (where were the multiplicity in the unity?) “But now are they many members, yet but one body.” As a striking instance of the manner in which civilization is effected by this law Guizot tells us that it is more advanced in modern than in ancient times, because it is more complex. In ancient civilization, there was no country population existing as a class distinct from that of the towns, and exercising a power peculiar to itself. By means of the feudal system, however, the country population has assumed a distinct character in modern times, and it wields an influence which greatly modifies the power of the great populous centres. Here we have another instance of differentiation out of a prior medley state, such as existed in the civilization of Greece and of Rome.
So much chiefly for the doctrine of differentiation; now more particularly for that of unity. Let us never forget that God has fashioned the body in such a perfect manner that there should be no schism among the different members, but that there should be “the same care one for another.” Thus it is found to be throughout the region of animal life. There is, at first, no variety in the unity. As animals ascend in the scale of being, variety emerges; organs having special functions to perform are divided off from the structureless germinal matter; but the oneness of the living being is perfectly preserved; there is no schism among the various parts of the body to which a special sphere of labour is allotted. Now this is just what ought to be the case with the great social body. If it advances from one stage to a higher, it must be by division of labour combined with the union of love. It is by division of labour that men acquire that skill and excellence in the arts, that greater accuracy and extent of knowledge in general which enables them to surpass their forefathers. But here we enter the sphere of will and of moral obligation, choice, and duty; and instead of witnessing that harmonious action of many parts exhibited by the involuntary regions of organic life, we witness all those evils which, if they do not have the effect of awakening a nation to the error of its ways, eventually lead to anarchy and decay. What, however, we mostly behold in civilized communities is, that while some are in a highly advanced state, the majority form an appalling mediocrity, while too many are but paupers and criminals. Yea, the social body is seen to have many weak, many diseased parts; and is often, through strife and dissension, threatened with dismemberment. These are the great trials which civilization has to encounter; and amidst great physical progress, notably amidst and wealthy magnificence, there may be much rottenness at the base.
Since communities as they advance become more divided into members having special offices to perform, there is, where the higher emotions, the source of union, are not in the ascendant, a tendency to an isolation of the parts, to one-sidedness, to a want of “the same care one for another,” to those gross inequalities, those frightful extremes which too often reflect such discredit upon our large towns and cities; social disorders which it is the province of the Church to counteract, laying a heavy weight of responsibility upon her, as well as upon the State; and which are found to exist to a far less extent among a Christian and primitive people like the Welsh.
The lower animals exhibit a well-regulated constitution. They fulfil the purpose of their being; there is no schism among their members. “If we saw the lion,” says George Combe, “one day tearing in pieces every animal that crossed his path, and then oppressed with remorse for the death of his victims, or compassionately healing those whom he had mangled, we should exclaim, what an inconsistent creature, and conclude that he could not by any possibility be happy, on account of this opposition between, the principles of his nature.” Now this is just the opposition which deforms human nature. “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” How is this internal discord to be quelled but by the inner man having the mastery over the inferior propensities of our nature? As long as these latter are not brought under the wholesome restraints of the Gospel, the Master’s easy yoke, the truth which makes us free from carnal bondage; as long as the raging waves of animal passion hear not the voice of Him who says, “Peace, be still,” in vain shall we look for those social and political virtues which constitute the stability of a state; and which, therefore, since self-preservation is the first law of nature, it should be a prime duty of the State to promote. Without vital Christianity, without a large number on the side of God, and forming the salt of the earth, we must expect nothing but general corruption and downfall. We may pride ourselves upon our railways, our steam navigation, our electric telegraphs, and all the rest of our mechanical wonders; we may pride ourselves upon our immense resources, our domestic comforts, our scientific and literary attainments, our proficiency in the fine arts; but if the conscience of the nation be not adequately developed by a devout and enlightened contemplation of God’s holy will, the social body will be constantly reminding us, by its feverish restlessness and by its terrible sores, that it is not nicely compacted together—that “where one member suffers, all the members do not suffer with it,” that we have not paid sufficient heed to “the one thing needful;” and that we are, in consequence, reaping, by way of warning, disquieting and painful intimations that though our progress is rapid, the rails on which we run are alarmingly insecure.
Now among the Welsh people the elements of stability, of unity, are strong, but those of progress or differentiation are weak. Then as regards the people’s social condition in general, it exhibits few of those disheartening extremes which are so often to be met with in our large towns, but presents, with slight deviations, a general level of moderate elevation.
In more civilized communities, and notably in one of them, while the elements of physical and intellectual advancement are in a state of vigorous existence, social virtue and political stability are in a very unsatisfactory condition indeed. There are many members, but they have not arrived at that stage of perfection in which they constitute one body. Let us hope, however, that as chaos preceded cosmos, so it will be with them. Then as respects the various stages of development which exist side by side, they present all the inequalities of a mountain region—
A savage horde amid the civilized; A servile band among the lordly free.
Now these two requirements, variety and unity, when you go hence to proclaim the Gospel, it will be most important that you should promote. The “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” will, doubtless, be to you a prime object of cultivation. But will you not also exert yourselves to kindle in the bosom of your country-people that spirit of progress which results from always adding new truths to those of the past; and from continually realizing more and more the truth, beauty, purity, and grandeur of the indwelling Word of God, namely, “His Word abiding in you,” that is, in the children of light, the only medium through which revelation, as distinguished from the mere outward signs which alone can exist in the Book, is kept, by the Holy Spirit, a living saving power on earth.
II.
“ The world is moving on; the nation which stands still must be left behind. No people can now live upon its remembrances. Like the runners in the ancient games, the nation which surrenders its torch to another, not only loses the race, but loses the light. The whole distinction of English intellect has arisen from its continually looking forward, forgetting the past, and continually anticipating a new day of toils and of triumphs, of severer straggles, but of loftier splendours.” The distinction here pointed out by Dr. Croly, in an essay entitled, “The Cultivation of the Intellect, a Divine Duty of Man,” does not exist to any extent among the great body of the Welsh people, many of whom attach but slight importance to the acquisition of knowledge; because, possessing but little of it themselves, they are naturally disposed to regard it as a matter of mere temporary concern. Even the majority of their religious teachers having, till of late years, no knowledge of any books but the Welsh and the English versions of the Bible, Matthew Henry’s Commentary, and not many more, tacitly, if not openly, encouraged this tendency. For uninformed minds are prone to disparage intellectual attainments, and to interpret the Holy Scriptures, so as to find therein abundant confirmation of their primitive conceptions. Yes, even in our own Church, which did make some pretensions to learning, was to be found, not fifty years ago, too many a parish priest without a library, too many a Trulliber forgetful of the high responsibility of his sacred calling.
But is familiarity with aught but the Bible—with philosophy, science, history, and æsthetics—even remotely comprised in the good part which shall not be taken away from us when we go hence for ever? Yea, is not such knowledge “the wisdom of the world, which is foolishness with God?” and is it not written that “not many wise after the flesh are called?” These questions, I am strongly impressed, indicate the tone of too much of the preaching in Wales. But we need not hesitate to reply that, though the knowledge of evil and of science falsely so called is to be avoided as most pernicious to the soul, the knowledge of good, in all its bearings, cannot be too diligently sought. He who knows nothing but the Bible, as Matthew Arnold reminds us, knows but little of the Bible. Indeed the knowledge of good, yea, and taken in the widest sense, cannot be thought of slight value and of transient importance, without irreverence towards Him of whose existence, intelligence, power, and goodness, it is the great exponent.
That the passion of acquiring a knowledge of God’s works and ways in general was strong in Solomon, we cannot doubt. He, indeed, tells us that in the exclusive pursuit of intellectual truth there is no real satisfaction to be gained, “that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun . . . yea, though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.” All passionate seekers after undiscovered truth know that much mental toil, and probably years of wearisome watching, are demanded before any one can hope to snatch a new secret from the close keeping of the unknown. This must be humiliating to the man of sanguine temperament, but profitably so, because it cultivates within him a longing for the happy time when “we shall know as also we are known.”
Then intellectual attainments, though calculated to satisfy the wants of the perceptive and reasoning faculties, cannot still the cravings of the conscience, cannot meet the demands of the moral and religious emotions. These can find in such food only a stone when hungering for bread, the apple fair to the eye, but ashes under the teeth. When Solomon, therefore, sought for full satisfaction of soul in the exercise of his intellect, and the acquisition of its related knowledge, meanwhile starving his moral and religious nature, it was only to be expected that such a course should be found to lead to “vanity and vexation of spirit.”
But while admitting to the full the humiliating limitations of the mind which Solomon deplores, and that the soul cannot live by intellectual food only, even though it be contained in God’s own Word, yet we fully believe that it is man’s duty, as well as his privilege, to seek for truth wherever to be found; and that he can so cultivate his intellect, and store his memory, as to ensure thereby a greater nearness of soul to his Father in heaven.
The operations of the giant-intellect, we know, are not acceptable to God, except they are imbued with that glow of soul which constitutes the babe-like spirit. But how can the giant-intellect, when thus wedded to the love of holiness, better serve God than by ever realizing more and more of His divine fulness as displayed in all his works and ways?
Although we must allow that no one is so low in the scale of intellectual culture as to be out of the reach of that redemption which is not conceded to learning and talent, but to newness of heart, still we must not forget that the apostle says, “Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children; but in understanding be men.” Let the mental horizon of genius, joined to deepest piety, stretch ever so far away, it encircles but an insignificant portion of that which is open to the glance of Omniscience. Under the most favourable circumstances, the human mind, while in this present tabernacle, must meet with many problems which it “cannot know now, but shall know hereafter.” And now what we would with much stress insist upon is, in opposition to an opinion too prevalent in this part of the kingdom, that the believer who has a mind of little grasp, scantily stored with information, has not the same command of spiritual blessings, does not live so fully the Christian life, does not mount in heart and mind so near to the Redeemer’s throne in heaven, as the believer whose mind has attained a high degree of culture, and amassed large stores of knowledge. It must be so, for the region of divine truth being boundless, he who is ever pushing further into it, and ever striving to embody its purity into his life and practice, must be further advanced than the man who simply loiters near some one spot in this region, as soon as he has gained admittance into it. And now is it competent for the loiterer, say for the man of one talent and little energy, to say to the more gifted and diligent inquirer, “Your labour is in vain; but one thing is needful; and that is simply to pass over the border”?
Is this view, so disheartening to the Christian scholar, in accordance with the teaching of the Word of God? What does the most learned of the apostles tell us in regard to his own experience? “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.” Now this is exactly true to the experience, not only of the Christian yearning for perfect freedom from sin, and a feeling of complete incorporation with Christ, but of every one who longs to surpass his past achievements, from Alexander pining for more worlds to conquer, down to the miser who the richer he becomes the poorer he feels. Thus the great poet, artist, or musician, is never quite satisfied with his accomplished works, but always feels how much better they might be, his ever growing fastidiousness urging him to cry out, Excelsior, excelsior! Highly cultivated minds, more especially if of an imaginative turn, are never satisfied with the real. “The ideal, the ideal,” is their cry. They push on to lay hold of it, but it ever recedes before them. The ideal will always shine far in advance of the real.
This longing for the unattained, when sanctified by the Spirit of God, will never permit the on-pressing Christian to feel that he has finally, and without occasion for further effort, laid hold of the one thing needful. Yea, in the life to come the same feeling will exist, for after ages of looking into the wonders of God’s love, wisdom, and power, the language of the heart still will be, “I count not myself to have laid hold of the divine ideal.”
It is recorded by those who have sought the conversion of the savage that his capacity for receiving Christian truth is commentate only with the contracted character of his intellect, and the low range of his attainments. If he does become a Christian, it is only such views of the Gospel find an abode in his heart as accord with the feeble mental powers which he possesses. And now I would ask, is this degree of truth all that is absolutely necessary for salvation in every ease? Being but a child in intellect, the savage is not yet capable of putting away childish things. But you may think he can be educated, and be thus brought into a state of mind in which the seed of the Word may grow with less stint. But then it is found that his capacity for education, except in rare instances indeed, is very slight. So again I ask, after an attempt has been made to enlarge his mind, is that measure of Christianity which he is capable of realizing all that is absolutely necessary in every case? I take it for granted that your answer to this question is in the negative. Do you not believe that besides the education of individuals, there is, as the result of this, the education of the race; that as the sins of the fathers descend unto the third and fourth generation of them who continue to hate God, the punishment for violation of law increasing in intensity till the guilty race dies out; so God’s mercies in the shape of increasing aptitude for knowledge, refinement, and Christian elevation, are transmitted from generation to generation among those who stedfastly love the Lord? At all events, savage tribes when brought under the influence of civilized nations, instead of becoming civilized themselves, disappear from off the face of the earth. For as the wind which makes the larger flame burn more brightly, extinguishes the lesser and feebler flame, so the manners and customs of advanced life put upon savage nature a strain too heavy to be borne; and this because such a nature needs to undergo that gradual elevation of the race which it would take generations to accomplish.
What is the drift of these remarks? That the more the mind is developed, both intellectually and emotionally, the greater becomes its power of realizing the knowledge of good, and therefore of glorifying God—the Good.
When a gifted man stores his mind with truth, and at the same time strives his utmost to attain purity of heart, his Christian experience must needs be widened, and his whole soul elevated, in proportion to the number of distinct kinds of truth which combine with each other, and with the ruling passion of his life, to form one grand result, many systems of truth all threaded on that one cord, “the love of Christ constraining;” much differentiation, but perfect unity; many members, yet but one body; in short, a state of mind similar in kind to the Son of Man’s. For is there anything in the whole range of the sciences, physical, biological, political, social, and moral; anything connected with the theory and the practice of art; anything relating to the history of the past, even eternity ab ante; in short, is there anything which is not perfectly open to the mind of Jesus? And is He not our elder Brother, and divine Pattern in all things heavenly? Is not the realization, in so far as that privilege is extended to us of His mind, to be the grand object of our life here and for evermore?
To be possessed of talents and of facilities for obtaining for them the highest cultivation, what do these gifts involve? That they should be diligently used in promoting the glory of God who gave them. Can the savage mind know much of God? Can he who knows no more of the infinite ocean of truth than he has explored of it, so to speak, in his rude canoe, know as much as is really essential for you and for me of the redeeming love of Christ? The true answer to this question evidently is, that in a babe’s mind you can expect no more to exist than a babe’s knowledge; it has “need of milk, and not of strong meat;” but “unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required.”
The Christian life then is not a fixed quantity, the same in the child, the savage, the barbarian, and the Welsh peasant, as in the saintly scholars of the Christian Church; but answering to every advance in pure knowledge, there is, in the man after God’s own heart, a corresponding advance in moral and spiritual excellence. For emotions are manifested only in proportion as ideas form the branches round which emotions twine. No well-defined emotion can exist without its related ideas. True, ideas are countless, while emotions are comparatively few, and from age to age retain their identity and freshness, while ideas change and change. Still, however, emotion must enter into union with ideas in order to have any definite existence. The more, therefore, the intellect is stored with knowledge, the greater also must be the number of instances in which ideas and sentiments become associated together.
But what is of more importance still to consider is, that certain ideas can only exist when other ideas have been fully realized first. The former grow out of the latter as branch from trunk, and twig from branch. Certain twinings of feeling with thought must follow, therefore, the evolution of these various grades of ideas. Now the notions in the savage mind are of the lowest grade, and rest assured that his religious feelings, however warmly manifested, cannot reach beyond the level of his knowledge.
Now it must be almost superfluous to ask the question which these remarks suggest. Are all the thoughts and feelings which hold a higher elevation than the lowest, to be deemed, not as the necessaries, but the luxuries of religion? You cannot fail to perceive that the reply to this inquiry must depend on the level you have been made to occupy. If you have been placed in a high position to start from, and if every advantage in the way of mental culture has been extended to you, the one thing needful for you is clearly to push on higher, to enlarge the intellect by searching still further for the true, which to the heart is the good and the beautiful; and to enlarge the heart by cultivating for these latter, an evergrowing love. Moreover, are you not justified in believing, that if you do this, you will be choosing that good part which shall not be taken away from you when you die? For if we are not to forget in heaven that we were once on earth; if we are not to lose the feeling of identity which is to unite our heavenly with our earthly existence, why should it be thought incredible that the knowledge of good which we acquire below should not be one of the links in that chain of identity; more especially as it will be our supreme delight to be always extending such knowledge in the realms of light? Yea, what a source of joy it will be in the bright spirit-land to discover that our mental powers are as compared with their prior state, so much enlarged and strengthened, that we can acquire knowledge with so much more ease and precision than while on earth, and that questions which baffled solution then, are easily solved now. But does not this imply that the remembrance of the earthly life, with its trials, miseries, infirmities, ignorances, and doubts, is the dark surface, which by contrast, heightens the splendour of celestial bliss?
Even in heaven, then, knowledge will be progressively acquired. “No one,” writes Dr. M‘Leod, “surely imagines, that on entering heaven, we can at once obtain perfect knowledge; perfect, I mean, not in the sense of accuracy, but of fully possessing all that can be known. This is possible for Deity only. For it may be asserted with confidence that Gabriel knows more to-day than he knew yesterday.”[23]
Throughout these remarks, it has been supposed that the scholar’s piety is great; for without piety, however extensive his learning, he will have less insight into divine truth than the dullest of God’s own scholars. Truth also impels us to concede that the good qualities of the heart, and intellectual capacity, are frequently bestowed in an inverse proportion upon God’s people; so that many that are first in the one, shall be last in the other, and the last in this shall be first in that.
I have now, to the best of my endeavour, combated a too prevalent propensity, not only of my countrymen, but of most people of little or no education; a sort of complacent resting in ignorance, as if it were the part of a wise man, and most in accordance with the teaching of Holy Scripture, whereas it is, in fact, but the self-excusing Stoicism of the unfledged mind.
But surely since man is endowed with capacities for advancement in knowledge and righteousness, we must conclude that they are bestowed upon him with the intention that he should use them to the greatest advantage. In proof of this conclusion, we find that the nation which does not highly esteem these gifts must be content to give place to one that does; must, indeed, decay, while the other goes on from strength to strength.
And now to apply these remarks more closely to you, my younger brethren, what does your presence in this college imply? That in the estimation of the wisest and best men of our communion, an ignorant ministry is an evil to be avoided, as not only discreditable and injurious to our Church, but dishonouring to Him who gives us talents in order that they may be made the very most of in promoting His glory and His cause.
Ponder well over the fact, that without knowledge it will be impossible for you to raise yourselves to a high level. “The barbarian,” remarks Dr. Croly, “cannot bring the past in aid of the present, cannot ascend a step in civilization on the stone laid by the generation gone; he has virtually no ancestors, and can have no posterity. The red man of the West is, at this moment, the same solitary, fierce, and miserable being that he was a thousand years ago. The Mongol is the same wild, marauding, and miserable being as when he followed the trumpets of Tamerlane.”[24] Now, what is the reason that these people do not advance? It is because they do not begin building the fabric of sound knowledge. And do you not perceive that the same deficiency which keeps them down as a nation, will also keep you down as individuals? If, among these people, one generation laid the foundation, and another and another continually built thereon, they would rise in proportion in civilization and power. The scholar of to-day, therefore, owes his high position to the accumulations of the giant-intellects of the past. “Other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.” The modern scholar by moderate effort, though no giant, stands upon an elevation which was piled up by one generation of learners and thinkers after another with slow, painstaking, and disinterested toil. This rich heritage of knowledge, this grand moral leverage, this high energy of position, constituting the imperative reason for not “breaking with the past”—of which the present is the outcome—it should be your holy ambition to attain. For how can you stretch out a hand to pull others up, unless you occupy higher ground than they? Bear with me then while I tell you that unless you thus strive to fit yourselves for the onerous duties of the sacred calling which you hope to adopt, you will be doing nothing towards averting the downfall of Welsh nationality. Of course, you will meet with too many who will tell you that the only way to do this is to encourage the present fatal tendency of Cambria to live solely on her remembrances. Meanwhile, however, the invincible army of progress, with the tramp of doom to effete nationalities, marches steadily and irresistibly on; and the Welsh, as a distinct race, if not better led and advised, will, by the deadly error of seeking “the living among the dead,” simply become a people of the past.
It is my regard for my country that forces me to say what I do. I hope she will always retain a certain degree of individuality, and live to emulate in her own Welsh way the other great nations of the kingdom. The Scotch do this, why should not we? Honesty, however, forces me to affirm that by clinging unwisely to her antiquated habits when she ought to have out-grown them, Cambria will be thrown down, the advancing host will march over her prostrate form, and she will cease to be a living presence on the earth. “In the strife of tribes, of races, and of nations, in the political as in the physical world,” says the author of Habit and Intelligence, “a process of natural selection goes on, of which the tendency is to give the victory to the best.”[25a] And Bishop Butler[25b] foreshadowed the same law when he indicated that as power and reason united have proved themselves capable of prevailing over power devoid of reason, as exhibited by the brute creation; so there is in society a tendency in power combined with reason and virtue, to overcome opposing power combined with reason and vice; and God be thanked that it is so, namely, that of the righteous it can be said, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” But now let me remind you that in such a combination as power, reason, and virtue, one very generally existing among the people of Wales, there are several degrees of development, and that the higher degree, the more fully differentiated, that which contains most members in one body, will, when brought into competition with it, always, in the course of time bear down or absorb the lower.
As standard-bearers in the army of the great Captain, it will be your duty, therefore, both to God and your own people, while encouraging among the latter that state of firm formation which already is so characteristic of them, to be urgent also in calling upon them to follow you, as bravely you lead the way onward, upward, God-ward.
Considerable stress has been laid in this discourse upon that element of the law of unity and variety—division of labour. Now, in concluding, I would beg to guard you against a misconception on this point which may prove mischievous to you. In my college days, it used to be a subject of complaint with many of the men, that they should have to spend so much of their time in studies, which, as they thought, had no direct connexion with theological training; that is, they were earnest advocates for greater division of labour. I have no doubt there are many of a similar way of thinking among you now. But are you not aware that those who have climbed to a higher elevation than the one you have yet been able to reach, see clearly that all these studies are really necessary to make of you ordinary scholars, gentlemen, and competent parish priests?
Archbishop Whately, in early youth, threatened to become a calculating prodigy; and you may have read that many an intellectual prodigy has been imbecile in every direction but the one in which excellence was manifested. Well, Whately’s parents, instead of being gratified at their son’s passion for numbers, very wisely took alarm. They sought competent advice, and means were taken to prevent his mind taking an abnormal development in one direction, at the expense of its efficiency in others. The result very probably was, that we lost another Colburn or Bidder, but gained an Archbishop Whately.
The conclusion to be drawn from the foregoing account is evident. It is your duty, if you would be well informed, average scholars and thinkers, to acquire more kinds of knowledge than one, and thereby to cultivate all the intellectual faculties of your mind; remembering that the greater the variety which the unity contains, the higher is its position in the scale of created being. Up to a certain point, therefore, we must all try to be universal scholars. After this point has been reached, what makes division of labour necessary is the vast extent to which knowledge has now attained, making it impossible for universal scholars like Leibnitz and the admirable Crichton to exist in these days; to which we must add the limitations, and the variety of bent existing in the mind of men, not forgetting the shortness of time. But then what individuals fail to accomplish the race can; and we have to consider, in the perfection of unselfishness, that we are members of that one body, the universal man; and that what is done by each is done for all. If individuals, therefore, are compelled by stern necessity to study a few branches, and live in faith as regards the rest, yet the race, man, becomes thereby the universal scholar, a source of strength and happiness which makes itself felt even down to the remotest member of the social body.
More especially, do not neglect, while cultivating the intellect, to improve the heart. This would, indeed, be division of labour which is very much to be deprecated. “With the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” “Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifieth.” If knowledge is the great moving power that ensures progress, Christian love, love which fulfilleth the law, is the great source of political stability, social harmony, restoration of soul. Therefore, in the eloquent words of the Bishop of St. David’s, words which in connexion with the present subject well deserve to be quoted,—“‘ Sursum Corda,’ Upward, Hearts,—upward, above all paltry, sordid, grovelling aims and desires: upward, to a level with the dignity of your calling, the privileges and duties of your station, the importance and arduousness of your work: upward, to a fellowship with the wise and good of all ages and all nations: upward to the Father of Lights, the Fountain of all Goodness: Lift up your Hearts. And from the inmost depth of many devoted wills there rises the clear response, ‘ We lift them up unto the Lord.’”[28]
Finally, why should not the leading spirits among you, seriously and prayerfully studying the causes of the rise and fall of nations, band together in a holy alliance, under the title of Young Wales, to promote among your countrymen the spirit of true as opposed to false patriotism; namely, a strong passion for sound knowledge with its elevating, building power, as opposed to mere erudition on the one hand, and on the other, to a complacent resting in ignorance with its heritage of national decadence, and slight store of light and soul-culture laid by for heaven? Such a movement as this, radiating from our chief Collegiate Institution, would be an event, the value of which to the cause of Welsh nationality, it would be difficult to estimate in too high a strain.
SPURRELL, PRINTER, KING-STREET, CARMARTHEN.
FOOTNOTES.
[4] Sermon delivered on the occasion of laying the foundation stone of the Welsh Educational Institution.
[23] Parish Papers, p. 109.
[24] The Cultivation of the Intellect, a Divine Duty of Man.
[25a] Vol. ii. p. 189.
[25b] The Analogy of Religion, part i., chapter iii.
[28] Sermon, on Sound Learning, delivered on the occasion of laying the foundation-stone of the Welsh Educational Institution.