ON KEEPING SILENCE FROM GOOD WORDS. 



219 



agnostic than by an orthodox man of business, 

 who goes as regularly to church on Sundays as 

 he does to his office on week-days, and perhaps 

 with the same business-like view of providing 

 comfortably for the future. Exactly so, will be 

 the reply ; your man of science at least knows 

 what he believes and what he does not, and so he 

 handles religious subjects as freely as he does 

 others : whereas, your man of business thinks he 

 believes a good deal about religion, but in the in- 

 ner recesses of his soul there lurks a dim con- 

 sciousness that after all his believing is rather 

 make-believe, and so he prudently eschews relig- 

 ious topics, and confines himself to what he does 

 thoroughly believe in, the price of stocks or the 

 tendency of dry goods. Still, this does not, after 

 all, completely satisfy the question : for there are 

 numbers of intelligent and open-minded men who 

 are in the position neither of our man of science 

 nor of our man of business, but who, whether or 

 not they may accept all the details of orthodox 

 theology, do yet heartily believe in Christianity, 

 and find in it the comfort and stay of their lives ; 

 and yet these men, though they sincerely regard 

 religion as of all subjects the most important, 

 would feel uncomfortable and distressed if it 

 were introduced into discussion or conversation. 

 We must, therefore, look somewhat further for 

 our answer. 



Another reason which may very plausibly be 

 alleged is this. On almost all other subjects, men 

 can agree to differ ; on science, on art, on litera- 

 ture, persons may hold very different views, and 

 yet be able to discuss them quietly and freely : 

 even on politics, men no longer quarrel and re- 

 nounce each other's acquaintance as they did 

 fifty years ago ; but religious questions are almost 

 sure to generate heat. Nor is it difficult to ac- 

 count for this. The belief universal in the mid- 

 dle ages, that the divine judgment of a man de- 

 pends not on his works, but on his opinions, that 

 a mistake in religious dogma is not a mistake 

 merely, but a sin, and that a miscreant is a wicked 

 man, has laid a strong hold not on language only, 

 but also on those floating impressions which, 

 rarely sifted or inquired into, are the motive- 

 springs of most men's actions. And hence, many 

 a man who thinks his neighbor only a fool for 

 agreeing with Lord Beaconsfield or with Mr. 

 Gladstone, thinks him a bad man for agreeing 

 with Dr. Pusey or with Bishop Colenso : and so 

 thinking, while in a political discussion — unless 

 perhaps on the eve of a general election — he will 

 usually keep his temper, on a religious question 

 he will take fire and blaze forth into divine 



wrath. Indeed, it is a curious confirmation of 

 this view, that political questions seem to excite 

 strong feeling in proportion as the religious ele- 

 ment enters into them. Of all home questions in 

 our day, that of the Irish Church disestablish- 

 ment has probably stirred more bitter feeling 

 than any other; and — discreditable as such an 

 avowal must be to the common-sense of English- 

 men — it can hardly be doubted that some addi- 

 tional acrimony has — very unnecessarily — been 

 imported into the Eastern Question by the fact 

 that the High Church clergy have unanimously 

 and enthusiastically taken the Russian, or at least 

 the anti-Turkish side. If intolerance is to exist, 

 it is no doubt better that it should kindle hot 

 words than blazing fagots ; but one cannot help 

 hoping that with the progress of intelligence men 

 may come to perceive that in theology, as in all 

 other branches of knowledge, the air which by 

 stagnating is apt to become unwholesome, is 

 stirred and freshened by discussion, and that, if 

 they will discuss temperately and without heat, 

 they may probably find that their differences are 

 less than they imagined. 



But we must look deeper yet for the ground- 

 cause of the universal reticence on religious 

 topics ; and we shall find it in a change which 

 has silently taken place in the conception of what 

 religion is. We hear it commonly said that re- 

 ligion is a matter entirely between a man and his 

 God — the possessive pronoun in itself seeming to 

 indicate a kind of separate interest as it were — 

 and that the salvation of his own soul is the one 

 supremely important matter for each man. And 

 from this view of religion it naturally follows 

 that to speak of religion means with most people 

 to speak of their own inward condition, of their 

 spiritual symptoms, of their growth in the spirit- 

 ual life. Such religious speech, unless it be be- 

 tween those who are so one in heart and soul 

 that it becomes rather thought than speech, is of 

 all things the most unwholesome. For there is a 

 spiritual as there is a bodily reserve and modesty, 

 the violation of which leads to the loss of self- 

 reverence, and to the profanation of that which 

 is most sacred. But this view of religion is a 

 wholly modern one. To the Hebrew, whose state 

 was his church and whose church was his state, 

 whose public proclamations began not with " N. 

 by the grace of God of the kingdom of Israel 

 king," but with "Thus saith Jehovah" — to the 

 Hebrew, whose politicians were inspired prophets 

 and whose view of foreign nations was that all 

 the gods of the heathen were but idols, but that 

 Jehovah had chosen Jacob for himself and Is- 



