"But now, if we take the Christian code, and suppose the New Testament made the literal guide of in every man, tell me, Mr. Fellowes, what would the consequence? What would you wish otherwise?"
"Why," said Harrington, smiling, "he would, perhaps, object that there would be no more war, and that retaliation would be impossible."
"The former," said I, "we could all endure, I suppose; nor be unwilling to give up the latter, seeing that there would, in that case, be no wrongs to avenge. It would not matter that you would be compelled to turn your right cheek to him who smote you on the left (let the interpretation be as literal as you will), since no one would strike you on the left; nor that you must surrender your cloak to him who took away your coat, since no one would take your coat. But tell me, is there any thing more serious that would follow from the literal and universal adoption of the ethics of the New Testament?" Fellowes acknowledged that he knew of nothing, unless it was a sanction of slavery.
"I do not admit that the New Testament sanctions it," I replied; "and I will, if you like, give my reasons in full, another time. But is there any thing else?"
He said he did not recollect any thing.
"But you would recoil from the literal realization of the systems and codes we have mentioned." He confessed this also.
"The superiority of the Christian code, then," said I, "is practically acknowledged. And it is further often confessed, in a most significant way, by the mode in which the enemies of Christianity taunt its disciples. When they speak of the vices and corruptions of the heathen, they blame, and justly blame, the principles of their vicious systems; and ask how it could be otherwise? When they blame the Christian, the first and the last thing they usually do, is to point in triumph to the contrast between his principles and practice. 'How much better,' say they, 'is his code than conduct!' It is as a hypocrite that they censure him. It is sad for him that it should be so; but it is a glorious compliment to the morality of the New Testament. Its enemies know not how to attack its disciples, except by endeavoring to show that they do not act as it bids them. Surely," said I, in conclusion "this uniform excellence of the Christian ethics, as compared with other systems, is a peculiarity worth noting, and utterly incomprehensible upon the hypothesis that it was the unaided work of man. That there are points on which the moral systems of men and nations osculate, is most true; that there should have been certain approximations on many most important subjects was to be expected from the essential identity of human nature, in all ages and countries; but their deviations in some point or other—usually in several—from what we acknowledge to be both right and expedient, is equally undeniable. That, when such men as Plato and Aristotle tried their hands upon the problem, they should err, while the writers of the New Testament should have succeeded,—that these last should do what all mankind besides had in some points or other failed to do,—is sufficiently wonderful; that Galilean Jews should have solved the problem is, whether we consider their age, their ignorance, or their prepossessions, to me utterly incredible."
It was now very late; and we rose to retire. Mr. Fellowes said, "I should be glad to know what answer you would make to Mr. Newman's observations on three points,—one of them just alluded to,—on which he affirms that undue credit has been given to Christianity; I mean its supposed elevating influence in relation to women, its supposed mitigation of slavery, and its supposed triumphs before Constantine."
I said I would scribble a few remarks on the subject, and would give them to him in a day or two. I remarked that Mr. Newman had treated these great subjects very briefly, but that I could not be quite so concise as he had been.
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