[214] "Who is now made wretched by the fear of hell?"
Possibly the belief in the material hell, the decadence of which he here triumphantly assumes to be so general, may have considerably diminished; but experience has shown that, with the advance of refinement, there is a concurrent growth in the intensity of moral sensibility, whereby the waning terrors of a future material hell are more than replaced by the agonies of a conscience self-convicted of wilful violation of the right. The same simple faith has, in its practical results, been rich in the records of the humble whom it has exalted; of the poor to whom it has been better than wealth; of the rich whose stewardship of worldly prosperity it has sanctified; of the timid whom it has rendered bold; and of the valiant whom it has raised to a divine heroism—in fine, of miracles of transformation that have impelled to higher and nobler tendencies and uses the powers and gifts inherited or acquired by man in his natural state. They who possess this faith, and cherish it as a priceless possession, may calmly oppose to the philosophic reasoning against the existence of [215] a Deity and the rationalness of entreating Him in prayer, the simple and sufficient declaration, "I believe." Normal-minded men, sensible of the limitations of human faculties, never aspire to be wise beyond what is revealed. Whatever might exist beyond the grave is, so far as man and man in their mutual relations are concerned, not a subject that discussion can affect or speculation unravel. To believers it cannot matter whether the Sermon on the Mount embodies or does not embody the quality of ethics that the esoteric votaries of Mr. Froude's "new creed" do accept or even can tolerate. Under the old creed man's sense of duty kindled in sympathy towards his brother, urging him to achieve by self-sacrifice every possibility of beneficence; hence the old creed insured an inward joy as well as "the peace which passeth all understanding." There can be no room for desiring left, when receptiveness of blessings overflows; and it is the worthiest direction of human energy to secure for others that fulness of fruition. Is not Duty the first, the highest item of moral consciousness; and is not promoting, according to our best ability, the welfare of our fellow creatures, the first and [216] most urgent call of human duty? Can the urgency of such responsibility ever cease but with the capacity, on our own or on our brother's part, to do or be done by respectively? Contemptuously ignoring his share of this solemn responsibility—solemn, whether regarded from a religious or a purely secular point of view—to observe at least the negative obligation never to wantonly do or even devise any harm to his fellows, or indeed any sentient creature, our new apostle affords, in his light-hearted reversal of the prescriptive methods of civilized ethics, a woful foretaste of the moral results of the "new, not as yet crystallized" belief, whose trusted instruments of spiritual investigation are the telescope and mental analysis, in order to satisfy the carpings of those who so impress the world with their superhuman strong-mindedness.
The following is a profound reflection presenting, doubtless, quite a new revelation to an unsophisticated world, which had so long submitted in reverential tameness to the self-evident impossibility of exploring the Infinite:—
"The tendency of popular thought is against [217] the supernatural in any shape. Far into space as the telescope can search, deep as analysis can penetrate into mind and consciousness or the forces which govern natural things, popular thought finds only uniformity and connection of cause and effect; no sign anywhere of a personal will which is influenced by prayer or moral motives."
How much to be pitied are the gifted esoterics who, in such a quest, vainly point their telescopes into the star-thronged firmament, and plunge their reasoning powers into the abyss of consciousness and such-like mysteries! The commonplace intellect of the author of "Night Thoughts" was, if we may so speak, awed into an adoring rapture which forced from him the exclamation (may believers hail it as a dogma!)—
"An undevout astronomer is mad!"
Most probably it was in weak submission to some such sentiment as this that Isaac Newton nowhere in his writings suggests even the ghost of a doubt of there being a Great Architect of the Universe as the outcome of his telescopic explorations into the illimitable heavens.
[218] It is quite possible, too, that he was, "on insufficient grounds," perhaps, perfectly satisfied, as a host of other intellectual mediocrities like himself have been, and even up to now rather provokingly continue to be, with the very "uniformity and connection of cause and effect" as visible evidence of there being not only "a personal will," but a creative and controlling Power as well. In this connection comes to mind a certain old Book which, whatever damage Semitic Scholarship and Modern Criticism may succeed in inflicting on its contents, will always retain for the spiritual guidance of the world enough and to spare of divine suggestions. With the prescience which has been the heritage of the inspired in all ages, one of the writers in that Book, whom we shall now quote, foresaw, no doubt, the deplorable industry of Mr. Froude and his protégé "popular thought," whose mouth-piece he has so characteristically constituted himself, and asks in a tone wherein solemn warning blends with inquiry: "Canst thou by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection!" The rational among the most loftily endowed of mankind have grasped [219] the sublime significance of this query, acquiescing reverently in its scarcely veiled intimation of man's impotence in presence of the task to which it refers.
But though Mr. Froude's spiritual plight be such as we have just allowed him to state it, with regard to an object of faith and a motive of worship, yet let us hear him, in his anxiety to furbish up a special Negro creed, setting forth the motive for being in a hurry to anticipate the "crystallization" of his new belief:—
"The new creed, however, not having crystallized as yet into a shape which can be openly professed, and as without any creed at all the flesh and the devil might become too powerful, we maintain the old names, as we maintain the monarchy."