Our Lord and Master, and Savior, knowing this dangerous temptation in this life, when he taught us six or seven petitions in this prayer, took none of them for himself to treat of, and to commend to us with greater earnestness, than this one. Have we not said, "Our Father, which art in heaven," and the rest which follows? Why after the conclusion of the prayer, did he not enlarge upon it to us, either as to what he had laid down in the beginning, or concluded with at the end, or placed in the middle? For why said he not, if the name of God be not hallowed in you, or if ye have no part in the kingdom of God, or if the will of God be not done in you, as in heaven, or if God guard you not, that ye enter not into temptation; why none of all these? but what saith he? "Verily I say unto you, that if ye forgive men their trespasses," in reference to that petition, "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." Having passed over all the other petitions which he taught us, this he taught us with an especial force. There was no need of insisting so much upon those sins in which if a man offend, he may know the means whereby he may be cured; need of it there was with regard to that sin in which, if thou sin, there is no means whereby the rest can be cured. For this thou oughtest to be ever saying, "Forgive us our debts." What debts? There is no lack of them, for we are but men; I have talked somewhat more than I ought, have said something I ought not, have laughed more than I ought, have eaten more than I ought, have listened with pleasure to what I ought not, have drunk more than I ought, have seen with pleasure what I ought not, have thought with pleasure on what I ought not; "Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors." This if thou hast lost, thou art lost thyself.
Take heed, my brethren, my sons, sons of God, take heed, I beseech you, in that I am saying to you. Fight to the uttermost of your powers with your own hearts. And if ye shall see your anger making a stand against you, pray to God against it, that God may make thee conqueror of thyself, that God may make thee conqueror, I say, not of thine enemy without, but of thine own soul within. For he will give thee his present help, and will do it. He would rather that we ask this of him, than rain. For ye see, beloved, how many petitions the Lord Christ hath taught us; and there is scarce found among them one which speaks of daily bread, that all our thoughts may be molded after the life to come. For what can we fear that he will not give us, who hath promised and said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you; for your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things before ye ask him." "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." For many have been tried even with hunger, and have been found gold, and have not been forsaken by God. They would have perished with hunger, if the daily inward bread were to leave their heart. After this let us chiefly hunger. For, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." But he can in mercy look upon our infirmity, and see us, as it is said, "Remember that we are dust." He who from the dust made and quickened man, for that his work of clay's sake, gave his only son to death. Who can explain, who can worthily so much as conceive, how much he loveth us?
FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)
Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans, is called by one of his contemporaries, "the eloquentest man in England." Perhaps those who read his legal arguments before the Star Chamber may not see this eloquence so fully exemplified in them as in his incomparable essays; but wherever he speaks, it is Francis Bacon speaking. It is doubtful if any other man ever lived who has even approached him in the power of controlling his own and subsequent times by purely intellectual means. Until his time, Aristotle had no rival in the domain of pure intellect Since he lived, the higher mind of the world has owned his mastery and has shown the results of the inspiration of his intellectual daring in following, regardless of consequences, the "inductive method," the determination to make truth fruitful through experiment, which has resulted in the scientific accomplishments of the modern world. Lucretius writes of the pleasure of knowing truth as like that a man on shore in a storm has in seeing the struggles of those who are about to be shipwrecked:—
"'Tis sweet when the seas are roughened by violent winds to view on land the toils of others; not that there is pleasure in seeing others in distress, but because man is glad to know himself secure. It is pleasant, too, to look with no share of peril on the mighty contests of war; but nothing is sweeter than to reach those calm, undisturbed temples, raised by the wisdom of philosophers, whence thou mayst look down on poor, mistaken mortals, wandering up and down in life's devious ways."—(Lucretius ii 1, translated by Ramage.)
"Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,
E terra magnum altcrius spectare laborem;
Non quia vexari quenquam est jucunda voluptas,
Sed quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est," etc.
Perhaps the spirit of the ancient learning was never so well expressed elsewhere as in these lines. In what may be called a plea for the possibilities of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Bacon answered it.
"Is there any such happiness for a man's mind to be raised above the confusion of things where he may have the prospect of the order of nature and error of man? But is this view of delight only and not of discovery—of contentment, and not of benefit? Shall he not as well discern the riches of Nature's warehouse as the beauties of her shop? Is truth ever barren? Shall he not be able thereby to produce worthy effects and to endow the life of man with infinite commodities?"
Among the "infinite commodities" already developed from the thought flowing into and out of the mind which framed these sublime sentences are the steam engine, the electric motor, the discoveries of the microscope in the treatment of disease, the wonders of chemistry, working out practical results to alleviate human misery, and to increase steadily from year to year, and from century to century, the sum of human comfort. Looking forward to this, Bacon worked for it until his whole life became a manifestation of his master-thought. It may be said with literal truth that he died of it, for the cold which brought him his death resulted from his rashness in leaving his carriage, when sick, to experiment on the arrest of putrefaction by freezing. The idea came to him. It was winter and the ground was covered with snow. He was feeble, but he left his carriage to stuff snow into the carcass of a chicken he had procured for the experiment. The experiment succeeded, and centuries later, as a result of it, England is fed with the meat of America and Australia, But Bacon died after it, leaving behind him ideas which stamp him as the greatest and brightest, whether or not he was also "the meanest of mankind." On this latter point, he may speak for himself, as he does thus in the volume 'State Trials' from which his speech on Dueling, before the Star Chamber, here used, is extracted:—
(Howell's, Vol. ii.): "Upon advised consideration of the charge, descending into my own conscience and calling my memory to account, as far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of corruption, and do renounce all defense and put myself upon the grace and mercy of your lordships. … To the nineteenth article, vis., 'That in the cause between Reynell and Peacock, he received from Reynell two hundred pounds and a diamond ring worth four or five hundred pounds,' I confess and declare that on my first coming to the Seal when I was at Whitehall, my servant Hunt delivered me two hundred pounds from Sir George Reynell, my near ally, to be bestowed upon furniture of my house, adding further that he had received divers former favors from me. And this was, as I verily think, before any suit was begun. The ring was received certainly pendente lite, and though it was at New Year's tide it was too great a value for a New Year's gift, though, I take it, nothing near the value mentioned in the article."