A MODEEX "SYMPOSIUM." 



33 



tions require a something more vast and more en- 

 during than anything created. He alone is suffi- 

 cient for the heart who made it. The contempla- 

 tion of him, and nothing but it, is able fully to open 

 and relieve the mind, to unlock, occupy, and fix 

 our affections. We may indeed love things cre- 

 ated with great intenseness ; but such affection, 

 when disjoined from the love of the Creator, is 

 like a stream running in a narrow channel, im- 

 petuous, vehement, turbid. The heart runs out, 

 as it were, only at one door; it is not an expand- 

 ing of the whole man. Created natures cannot 

 open to us, or elicit, the ten thousand mental 

 senses which belong to us, and through which 

 we really love. None but the presence of our 

 Maker can enter us ; for to none besides can the 

 whole heart in all its thoughts and feelings be 

 unlocked and subjected. It is this feeling of 

 simple and absolute confidence and communion 

 which soothes and satisfies those to whom it is 

 vouchsafed. We know that even our nearest 

 friends enter into us but partially, and hold in- 

 tercourse with us only at times ; whereas the 

 consciousness of a perfect and enduring presence, 

 and it alone, keeps the heart open. Withdraw 

 the object on which it rests, and it will relapse 

 again into its state of confinement and constraint ; 

 and in proportion as it is limited, either to cer- 

 tain seasons or to certain affections, the heart is 

 straitened and distressed." 



Now, Christians hold that God's faithful ser- 

 vants will enjoy hereafter unspeakable bliss, 

 through the most intimate imaginable contact 

 with him whom they have here so tenderly loved. 

 They will see face to face him whose beauty is 

 dimly and faintly adumbrated by the most ex- 

 quisitely transporting beauty which can be found 

 on earth ; him whose adorable perfections they 

 have in this life imperfectly contemplated, and 

 for the fuller apprehension of which they have so 

 earnestly longed here below. I by no means in- 

 tend to imply that the hope of this blessedness 

 is the sole or even the chief inducement which 

 leads saintly men to be diligent in serving God. 

 Their immediate reason for doing so is their keen 

 sense of his claim on their allegiance ; and, again, 

 the misery which they would experience, through 

 their love of him, at being guilty of any failure 

 in that allegiance. Still the prospect of that fu- 

 ture bliss, which I have so imperfectly sketched, 

 is doubtless found by them at times of invaluable 

 service in stimulating them to greater effort, and 

 in cheering them under trial and desolation. 



Such is the view taken by Christians of life 

 in heaven ; and, surely, any candid infidel will at 

 39 



once admit that it is profoundly harmonious and 

 consistent with their view of what should be 

 man's life on earth. To say that their anticipa- 

 tion of the future, as it exists in them, is gross, 

 sensual, indolent, and selfish, is so manifestly be- 

 yond the mark that I am sure Mr. Harrison will, 

 on reflection, retract his affirmation. Apart, how- 

 ever, from this particular comment, my criticism 

 of Mr. Harrison would be this : He was bound, 

 I maintain, to consider the Christian theory of 

 life as a tcholc ; and not to dissociate that part 

 of it which concerns eternity from that part of it 

 which concerns time. 



And now as to the merits of this Christian 

 theory. For my own part, I am, of course, pro- 

 foundly convinced that, as on the one hand it is 

 guaranteed by revelation, so on the other hand it 

 is that which alone harmonizes with the dicta of 

 reason and the facts of experience, so far as it 

 comes into contact with these. Yet I admit that 

 various very plausible objections may be adduced 

 against its truth. Objectors may allege very 

 plausibly that by the mass of men it cannot be 

 carried into practice ; that it disparages most un- 

 duly the importance of things secular ; that it is 

 fatal to what they account genuine patriotism ; 

 that it has always been, and will always be, in- 

 jurious to the progress of science; above all, 

 that it puts men (as one may express it) on an 

 entirely wrong scent, and leads them to neglect 

 many pursuits which, as being sources of true 

 enjoyment, would largely enhance the pleasura- 

 bleness of life. All this, and much more, may 

 be urged, I think, by antitheists with very great 

 superficial plausibility ; and the Christian contro- 

 versialist is bound on occasion steadily to con- 

 front it. But there is one accusation which has 

 been brought against this Christian theory of life 

 — and that the one mainly (as would seem) felt 

 by Mr. Harrison — which to me seems so obvious- 

 ly destitute of foundation that I find difficulty in 

 understanding how any infidel can have per- 

 suaded himself cf its truth : I mean the accusa- 

 tion that this theory is a selfish one. There is no 

 need of here attempting a philosophical discus- 

 sion on the respective claims of what are now 

 called " egoism " and " altruism : " a discussion 

 in itself (no doubt) one of much interest and 

 much importance, and one, moreover, in which I 

 should be quite prepared (were it necessary) to 

 engage. Here, however, I will appeal, not to 

 philosophy, but to history. In the records of the 

 past we find a certain series of men, who stand 

 out from the mass of their brethren, as having 

 preeminently concentrated their energy on the 



