“What comfort by Him doe we winne,
Who made Himself the price of sinne
To make us heirs of glory?
To see this Babe all innocence,
A Martyr borne in our defence—
Can man forget this storie?”
Ben Jonson.
It is, however, an error of the day to deplore a falling-off in Christmas commemorations; whereas the enjoyment has but assumed a healthier tone. The Past is ever more picturesque than the Present. We stroll into the Great Hall at Westminster, where our Plantagenet kings feasted at Christmas and Epiphany: it is, however, forsaken and dreary; and, looking up roofward, we can scarcely see the louvre through which the smoke of many huge Christmas fires has gone up; or the noble hammer-beams, or the carved angels, and other glories of this majestic roof. But, step into Inigo Jones’ banqueting-house, at Whitehall; and there you will see the Lord High Almoner distributing the Royal alms, as he was wont to do centuries since. At Windsor the Sovereign herself is superintending the distribution of her seasonable bounty; the Lord Steward fills the hungry prisoner with good things; the good cheer shines upon Ragged Schools and other havens of charity. The moderation observable in our times is conformable to the precept in the Whole Duty of Man, enjoining us not to make the day “an occasion of intemperance and disorder, as do too many, who consider nothing in Christmas and other good times but the good cheer and jollity of them.” It is, however, one of the signs of the more gracious and hallowed tone that the singing of Carols has increased of late years; together with the decoration of churches, and the revival of several minor observances, which tend to show the universality of this improved feeling.
Doubt about Religion.
The Bishop of Oxford, in one of his eloquent Sermons upon the Temptation to Doubt about Religion, thus describes one class of doubts, and, by implication, of doubters:
“There are the doubts which are the fruits of an evil life, which come forth as the obscene creatures of the night come forth—because it is the night; because the darkness is abroad, and they are the creatures of the darkness. These are, for the most part, self-chosen doubts, bred of corruption and of fear; of a clinging to sin and yet of a fear of its punishment; of a conscious resistance to the ways and the works of a God of purity and truth; of an evil interest which men have in finding revelation to be false, because it is a system which, if true, is fatally opposed to them. Men pursued by these doubts are a fearful spectacle. The terrors which at times shake them are often appalling to witness; and yet even these are less awful than the forced grimace with which they try to laugh them off; vaunting their doubts, like the lonely wanderer who sings noisily to conceal or overcome his fear of the darkness, that they may, if possible, scatter by the loudness of their laugh the besetting crowd of their alarms.”
Another class of doubts the Bishop describes are those which address themselves to specific and clearly-revealed points in the revelation, which yet, as a whole, the doubting man does not disbelieve. Against these doubts he would utter his warning, because he believes that their presence, and even their indulgence, is at this moment by no means rare; because their true character is often disguised under the most specious forms; because the young, and among the young the generous, the ardent, the thoughtful, and the inquiring, are often their special victims; and because their cause is one of weakness, both intellectual and spiritual, while their end, when they triumph, is misery here, and, too often, everlasting loss hereafter. Having observed that there must be room for doubts and questions such as these,[22] the Bishop proceeds:
“It may often seem that these doubts are the pauses of modesty, and these questions the interrogations of an inquiring faith. Thus the doubts are cherished and encouraged under the garb of piety, until a habit is formed in the mind of subjecting the written word and the authoritative declarations of faith to the scrutiny of each man’s intellectual faculties; and, according to their decision, of his accepting, modifying, or rejecting them. Now, such a mode of dealing with revelation is exceeding attractive. It promises to make the faith so rational—to give every man a reason for the hope that is in him—to be so free from all forcing of doctrines on him, that it naturally wins to itself young and ardent minds. Yet it is against this that I would so earnestly warn you, and that for the weightiest reasons—for no less a reason than this, that in its very first principle it is subversive of all true faith, and that it is therefore in its consequences full of ruin to the soul.”