Let us turn to the question of slavery. It is objected by some that there is no direct denunciation of slavery in the Scriptures. I am not now concerned with the Old Testament; but I may yet, in passing, say, that whilst Moses could hardly refuse to recognise slavery as a prevailing institution, he still gave laws concerning it which mitigated its horrors to the utmost, and placed the Jewish slave in a condition, moral, social, and spiritual, utterly unlike to his condition in any heathen state. As regards the Gospel, we must remember, once more, that Christ was not a political reformer, not professedly a social reformer, not even primarily a moral reformer. His mission was to elevate men's whole spiritual nature; and this He did by the infusion into society of a new religious or spiritual principle. It did not fall in with the purposes of that mission to descend to every detail of social life, still less to regulate political institutions. So, He never denounces war, nor imperial tyranny, nor even the political factions of the Jews. It is scarcely a question that sudden emancipation of a great slave population is never desirable. And if the first Christians had preached against a deeply-rooted social institution, they might easily have produced great political convulsions, and have ultimately rendered less tolerable than ever the conditions of those whom they desired to befriend. But the principles of Christ's teaching are directly adverse to slavery, and their progress has invariably tended to mitigate, and at length to eradicate it. The principle of the brotherhood of all men, of their common interest in God, of their common humanity with Christ; the principle that there was neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, neither bond nor free, in the great Christian commonwealth, but that all were one in Christ—this principle cannot be worked out without destroying the abject servitude of one man to another. And, as a matter of fact, this is what it has done. "The change brought about was gradual, but it was sure. At first monks, especially eastern monks, refused to be waited on by slaves. Then missionaries never lost an opportunity of redeeming slaves.... Ecclesiastical legislation declared the slave to be a man, and not a thing, or chattel; laid it down as a rule that his life was his own, and could not be taken without public trial; enforced on a master guilty of involuntary murder of his slave penance and exclusion from the communion; opened asylums to those who fled from their master's cruelty; declared the enfranchisement of the serf a work acceptable to God. The abolition of domestic slavery was one of the most important duties incumbent on the missionary energies of the mediæval Church."[149] It is sad, indeed, to think how the plague of slavery again broke out on the discovery of the West Indies and of America—slavery, too, in one of its most revolting and debasing forms; but it still is true that Christianity and Christian missions have struggled with it from the first, and that now, at length, it seems to be yielding, and there is good hope that it may ere long be utterly subdued.
In every way Christianity has been the pioneer of civilization, and the giver of social comfort and peace. Very truly, many colonists from Christian lands have given to the colonies which they founded not comfort, nor peace, nor civilization; but it has been because they have left Christian lands and not carried their Christianity out along with them. Often, indeed, they have only laid waste heathen lands and oppressed heathen races; and Christianity following after them, has had to undo the evil, which apostate Christians had inflicted. Still we may challenge any one to show a single instance, in which civilization in modern times has spread to any place to which Christianity has not first found its way. We may challenge any one to deny, that, where Christianity has been forsaken or neglected, there have sprung up, instead of it, as in revolutionary France, cruelty, licentiousness, and social degradation.
Christianity, once more, has been favourable at least to the development of mind, the cultivation of letters, the advancement of science. It is easy, of course, to say that there have often been efforts among Christians to check the progress of science, still more frequently panic terrors as to its unexpected discoveries. It is easy to point to Galileo, easy to speak of the fate of geology in the earlier days of the present century, of the reception of Mr. Darwin's theory now. As to Galileo, we may at once disown the Inquisition as representing the Christian faith. But it is unnecessary to deny that an appearance of antagonism between faith and science, or faith and literary criticism, will alarm timid believers, and so may lead to temporary misunderstandings between Christians and men of science or of literature. Yet look at past history and say, first, whether science and philosophy and literature did not for centuries find their only shelter in the Church, even under the deepest shadows of its cathedrals and monasteries. When all the world besides was unlettered and ignorant, learning flourished among the schoolmen, philosophy and even physical science were pursued, as far as they then could be pursued, by ecclesiastics and divines. The name of Roger Bacon stands out conspicuously as one who, in the cell of a convent and under the garb of a friar, carried inquiries into physical truth to a height which, considering his date and his difficulties, may compare even with the great and rapid discoveries of the present day. In short, it may be said truly and fearlessly, that whilst the only other religious systems in the world, which deserve consideration, Mohammedanism, Brahminism, and Buddhism, have either stifled, or at the best stunted science and made stagnant civilization; Christianity has fostered learning of all kinds, and has been in itself the highest civilization ever known.
I have naturally dwelt upon the external development of the religious life of Christians, not upon its inner being. A lecture on evidence, must of necessity appeal to that which can be known and read of all men. Yet I might, if there were time, point to the characters of individual Christians as proof of the elevating, ennobling, purifying, sanctifying power of the teaching of Christ, of the contemplation of Christ, and of the love of Christ. I will content myself with quoting words which many here have read, and read with interest, long ago. The author of "Ecce Homo" writes: "That Christ's method, when rightly applied, is really of mighty force, may be shown by an argument which the severest censor of Christians will hardly refuse to admit. Compare the ancient with the modern world. 'Look on this picture and on that.' One broad distinction in the characters of men forces itself into prominence. Among all men of the ancient heathen world, there were scarcely one or two to whom we may venture to apply the epithet 'holy.' In other words, there were not more than one or two, if any, who, besides being virtuous in their actions, were possessed with an unaffected enthusiasm of goodness, and besides abstaining from vice, regarded even a vicious thought with horror. Probably no one will deny that in Christian countries this higher-toned goodness, which we call holiness, has existed. Few will maintain that it is exceedingly rare. Perhaps the truth is, that there has been scarcely a town in any Christian country since the time of Christ, where a century has passed without exhibiting a character of such elevation that his mere presence has shamed the bad and made the good better, and has been felt at times like the presence of God Himself. And if this be so, has Christ failed? or can Christianity die?"[150]
Let us apply this test to one or two of the greatest and best of the heathen philosophers. Take Socrates first. Is it possible to imagine an apostle of Christ joining, as we know that Socrates joined, in drinking bouts where many were intoxicated, not himself drinking willingly, but when pressed making deeper potations than any one besides, yet never exhibiting symptoms of drunkenness?[151] It cannot be conceived that the unutterable licentiousness of Alcibiades, manifested during one of those drinking bouts, could have been so manifested, I will not say in the presence of St. Paul or St. John, or in the presence of any Christian clergyman since them, but even in the lowest assembly of English drunkards.
Take Marcus Aurelius: Mr. Lecky, the eloquent and able writer on "European Morals," has held him up as an example of what pure philosophy can do, and has challenged comparison between him and the most exalted and sanctified of the followers of Christ. We may well acknowledge the nobleness, the disinterestedness, the simplicity, and the elevation of his character. No absolute and irresponsible governor of men has ever been more "clear in his high office." Yet the concessions, which his panegyrist has made concerning him, separate him off by a broad line of demarcation from the highest types of Christian holiness. When his wife died, for his children's sake he would not contract a second marriage; but he preferred the society of a mistress. When he persecuted the Christians, an act which we may perhaps attribute to mistaken conscientiousness, he not only persecuted them, but he derided their sufferings. Could we in these days even call a man Christian who could so err? Professed Christians, no doubt, fall into licentiousness, but then they know they are in act repudiating their Christianity. Christians, alas! have persecuted those whom they regarded as heretics. But we must look fairly at the sad history of persecution before we simply say that Roman emperors did no more. In the first place, persecution was not inconsistent with the principles of heathenism, nor is it inconsistent with the principles, if such there be, of atheism or of atheistic philosophy; but it is wholly inconsistent with the principles taught by Christ, and can only have been tolerated when those principles had been perverted or obscured. In the next place, Christian persecutors, believing that their own form of Christianity was the only faith that could save mankind, esteeming therefore those who defiled that faith as more dangerous to mankind than any robbers or murderers, thought consistently, though erroneously, that they were bound to stamp out heresy as they would stamp out pestilence in their cattle sheds, or moral pestilence in their homes and villages. In the third place, though deeds of violence always harden the hearts of those that do them, it is well known that even inquisitors, so far from ridiculing the sufferings of their victims, often decreed those sufferings with trembling hands and broken accents, and eyes filled with tears. Persecutors are no types of Christian excellence; the truest Christianity utterly repudiates them; but even persecutors have generally been so, not from love of persecution, but from a deep and painful conviction that persecution was a duty and a necessity.
It will be replied, and very truly, that for all this, Socrates and Marcus Aurelius were grand specimens of humanity, rising to a noble height of moral greatness in an age of cruelty and licentiousness, and that we cannot expect them to have been all that we should expect from a Christian apostle or from a Christian king. Granted most heartily this. It only proves that Christianity has raised our standard of excellence and has raised the characters of those who embrace and follow it immeasurably above the highest standard and the noblest characters of the world, which had never heard of Christ.
I must bring my words, my most feeble and imperfect words in this high argument, to a close. I have tried to show that the life of Christ, and the teaching of Christ, as we have them recorded in the most unsuspicious records,—records which could not possibly have been the gradual concoctions and concretions of subsequent times, the careful afterthoughts of enthusiasts or impostors; that the life and teaching of Christ were original in the highest degree, not calculated to attract from any pandering to prejudice or to passion, that they exhibit the most marvellous ideal of simple grandeur or grand simplicity; that the power which they exercise is from no apparent effort—not even from reasoning and argumentation,—but from the strength of truth, and from their satisfaction to human want; that the power which they exercised, and yet exercise, is the greatest moral power ever tried upon man; that they have raised, and yet do raise, men and nations to a greater height of civilization, humanity, and purity, than anything has ever raised them before. And I ask, How can we account for the fact that all this has been done by the teaching of one unlettered Peasant in the most despised corner of a despised land? Is there any phenomenon in moral science, or in physical science, which demands a patient and honest investigation more seriously than this?
There are those who think the influence of Christianity is on the wane. I confess I can see no sign of this; though, without doubt, its enemies are many, and the wish is father to the thought. But I will just put my case in one other shape, which will more or less deal with this question of decay, and then I will end.
If an assembly of 500 or 1,000 persons could be gathered together, in any city of Europe, or European America, it being provided that all of them should be intelligent, well-educated, high-principled, and well-living men and women; and if the question were put to each of them, "To what influences do you attribute your high character, your moral and social excellence?" I feel no doubt that nineteen out of twenty of them would, on reflection, reply, "To the influence of Christianity on my education, my conscience, and my heart." I will suppose a yet further question to be put to them, and it shall be this: "If you were to be assured that the object you hold dearest on earth would be taken from you to-morrow, and if at the same time you could be assured with undoubting certainty that Jesus Christ was a myth or an impostor, and His Gospel a fable and a falsehood, whether of the two assurances would strike upon your heart with the more chilling and more hope-destroying misery?" And I believe that nine-tenths of the company, being such as I have stipulated they should be, would answer, "Take from me my best earthly treasure, but leave me my hope in the Saviour of the world." This is the effect produced upon the most civilized nations of the world by the teaching of four years, and the agony of a few hours, of One who lived as a peasant, and died as a malefactor and a slave. "Whence had this man this wisdom and these mighty works?"