"Sir," said Dr. Barlow, "the scene which I have lately witnessed at Mr. Tyrrel's makes me serious. If you and I were alone, I am afraid it would make me bold. I will, however, suppress the answer I was tempted to make you, because I should not think it prudent or respectful to utter before company what, I am persuaded, your good sense would permit me to say were we alone!"
"Doctor," replied the good-tempered, but thoughtless man, "don't stand upon ceremony. You know I love a debate, and I insist on your saying what was in your mind to say. I don't fear getting out of any scrape you can bring me into. You are too well-bred to offend, and I hope I am too well-natured to be easily offended. Stanley, I know, always takes your side. Sir John, I trust, will take mine; and so will the young man here, if he is like most other young men."
"Allow me then to observe," returned Dr. Barlow, "that if Mr. Tyrrel has unhappily deceived himself by resting too exclusively on a mere speculative faith—a faith which by his conduct did not evince itself to be of the right sort—yet, on the other hand, a dependence for salvation on our own benevolence, our own integrity, or any other good quality we may possess, is an error not less fatal, and far more usual. Such a dependence does as practically set at naught the Redeemer's sacrifice as the avowed rejection of the infidel. Honesty and benevolence are among the noblest qualities; but where the one is practiced for reputation, and the other from mere feeling, they are sadly delusive as to the ends of practical goodness. They have both indeed their reward; integrity, in the credit it brings, and benevolence, in the pleasure it yields. Both are beneficial to society: both therefore are politically valuable. Both sometimes lead me to admire the ordinations of that overruling power which often uses as instruments of public good, men who, acting well in many respects, are essentially useful to others; but, who, acting from motives merely human, forfeit for themselves that high reward which those virtues would obtain, if they were evidences of a lively faith, and the results of Christian principle. Think me not severe, Mr. Flam. To be personal is always extremely painful to me."
"No, no, Doctor," replied he, "I know you mean well. 'Tis your trade to give good counsel; and your lot, I suppose, to have it seldom followed. I shall hear you without being angry. You, in turn, must not be angry, if I hear you without being better."
"I respect you, sir, too much," replied Dr. Barlow, "to deceive you in a matter of such infinite importance. For one man who errs on Mr. Tyrrel's principle, a hundred err on yours. His mistake is equally pernicious, but it is not equally common. I must repeat it. For one whose soul is endangered through an unwarranted dependence on the Saviour, multitudes are destroyed, not only by the open rejection, but through a fatal neglect of the salvation wrought by him. Many more perish through a presumptuous confidence in their own merits, than through an unscriptural trust in the merits of Christ."
"Well, Doctor," replied Mr. Flam, "I must say that I think an ounce of morality will go further toward making up my accounts than a ton of religion, for which no one but myself would be the better."
"My dear sir," said Dr. Barlow, "I will not presume to determine between the exact comparative proportions of two ingredients, both of which are so indispensable in the composition of a Christian. I dare not hazard the assertion, which of the two is the more perilous state, but I think I am justified in saying which of the two cases occurs most frequently."
Mr. Flam said: "I should be sorry, Dr. Barlow, to find out at this time of day that I have been all my life long in an error."
"Believe me, sir," said Dr. Barlow, "it is better to find it out now than at a still later period. One good quality can never be made to supply the absence of another. There are no substitutes in this warfare. Nor can all the good qualities put together, if we could suppose them to unite in one man, and to exist without religion, stand proxy for the death of Christ. If they could so exist, it would be in the degree only, and not in the perfection required by that law which said, do this and live. So kind a neighbor as you are, so honest a gentleman, so generous a master, as you are allowed to be, I can not, sir, think without pain of your losing the reward of such valuable qualities, by your placing your hope of eternal happiness in the exercise of them. Believe me, Mr. Flam, it is easier for a compassionate man, if he be not religious, to 'give all his goods to the poor,' than to bring every thought, 'nay than to bring any thought' into captivity to the obedience of Christ! But be assured, if we give ever so much with our hands, while we withhold our hearts from God, though we may do much good to others, we do none to ourselves."
"Why surely," said Mr. Flam, "you don't mean to insinuate that I should be in a safer state if I never did a kind thing?"