He was a really happy man. He was without father, without mother and without descent. He was an incarnate bachelor. He was a born orphan.
Bacon for Breakfast
Now [1893] when I am abroad, being older and taking less exercise, I do not want any breakfast beyond coffee and bread and butter, but when this note was written [1880] I liked a modest rasher of bacon in addition, and used to notice the jealous indignation with which heads of families who enjoyed the privilege of Cephas and the brethren of our Lord regarded it. There were they with three or four elderly unmarried daughters as well as old mamma—how could they afford bacon? And there was I, a selfish bachelor—. The appetising, savoury smell of my rasher seemed to drive them mad. I used to feel very uncomfortable, very small and quite aware how low it was of me to have bacon for breakfast and no daughters instead of daughters and no bacon. But when I consulted the oracles of heaven about it, I was always told to stick to my bacon and not to make a fool of myself. I despised myself but have not withered under my own contempt so completely as I ought to have done.
God and Man
To love God is to have good health, good looks, good sense, experience, a kindly nature and a fair balance of cash in hand. “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” To be loved by God is the same as to love Him. We love Him because He first loved us.
The Homeric Deity and the Pall Mall Gazette
A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette (I think in 1874 or 1875, and in the autumn months, but I cannot now remember) summed up Homer’s conception of a god as that of a “superlatively strong, amorous, beautiful, brave and cunning man.” This is pretty much what a good working god ought to be, but he should also be kind and have a strong sense of humour, together with a contempt for the vices of meanness and for the meannesses of virtue. After saying what I have quoted above the writer in the Pall Mall Gazette goes on, “An impartial critic can judge for himself how far, if at all, this is elevated above the level of mere fetish worship.” Perhaps it is that I am not an impartial critic, but, if I am allowed to be so, I should say that the elevation above mere fetish worship was very considerable.
Good Breeding the Summum Bonum
When people ask what faith we would substitute for that which we would destroy, we answer that we destroy no faith and need substitute none. We hold the glory of God to be the summum bonum, and so do Christians generally. It is on the question of what is the glory of God that we join issue. We say it varies with the varying phases of God as made manifest in his works, but that, so far as we are ourselves concerned, the glory of God is best advanced by advancing that of man. If asked what is the glory of man we answer “Good breeding”—using the words in their double sense and meaning both the continuance of the race and that grace of manner which the words are more commonly taken to signify. The double sense of the words is all the more significant for the unconsciousness with which it is passed over.