44 



LECTURES AND ESS A YS 



menaces, and judgments covering not 

 only the world that now is, but that 

 which is to come I have noticed with 

 mournful interest how trivially men seem 

 to be influenced by what they call their 

 religion, and how potently by that 

 " nature " which it is the alleged province 

 of religion to eradicate or subdue. From 

 fair and manly argument, from the ten- 

 derest and holiest sympathy on the part 

 of those who desire my eternal good, I 

 pass by many gradations, through deli- 

 berate unfairness, to a spirit of bitter- 

 ness, which desires with a fervour inex- 

 pressible in words my eternal ill. Now, 

 were religion the potent factor, we might 

 expect a homogeneous utterance from 

 those professing a common creed, while, 

 if human nature be the really potent 

 factor, we may expect utterances as 

 heterogeneous as the characters of men. 

 As a matter of fact, we have the latter ; 

 suggesting to my mind that the common 

 religion, professed and defended by 

 these different people, is merely the 

 accidental conduit through which they 

 pour their own tempers, lofty or low, 

 courteous or vulgar, mild or ferocious, 

 as the case may be. Pure abuse, how- 

 -ever, as serving no good end, I have, 

 wherever possible, deliberately avoided 

 reading, wishing, indeed, to keep, not 

 only hatred, malice, and uncharitable- 

 ness, but even every trace of irritation, 

 far away from my side of a discussion 

 which demands not only good-temper, 

 but largeness, clearness, and many-sided- 

 ness of mind, if it is to guide us to even 

 provisional solutions. 



It has been stated, with many varia- 

 tions of note and comment, that in 

 the Address as subsequently published 

 by Messrs. Longman I have retracted 

 opinions uttered at Belfast. A Roman 

 Catholic writer is specially strong upon 

 this point. Startled by the deep chorus 

 of dissent which my " dazzling fallacies " 

 have evoked, I am now trying to retreat. 

 This he will by no means tolerate. " It 

 is too late now to seek to hide from 

 the eyes of mankind one foul blot, one 

 ghastly deformity. Professor Tyndall 



has himself told us how and where this 

 Address of his was composed. It was 

 written among the glaciers and the soli- 

 tudes of the Swiss mountains. It was 

 no hasty, hurried, crude production ; its 

 every sentence bore marks of thought 

 and care." 



My critic intends to be severe : he is 

 simply just. In the " solitudes " to 

 which he refers I worked with delibera- 

 tion, endeavouring even to purify my 

 intellect by disciplines similar to those 

 enjoined by his own Church for the 

 sanctification of the soul. I tried, more- 

 over, in my ponderings to realise not 

 only the lawful, but the expedient ; and 

 to permit no fear to act upon my mind, 

 save that of uttering a single word on 

 which I could not take my stand, either 

 in this or in any other world. 



Still my time was so brief, the diffi- 

 culties arising from my isolated position 

 were so numerous, and my thought and 

 expression so slow, that, in a literary 

 point of view, I halted, not only behind 

 the ideal, but behind the possible. 

 Hence, after the delivery of the Address, 

 I went over it with the desire, not to 

 revoke its principles, but to improve it 

 verbally, and above all to remove any 

 word which might give colour to the 

 notion of " crudeness, hurry, or haste." 



In connection with the charge of 

 Atheism my critic refers to the Preface 

 to the second issue of the Belfast 

 Address. " Christian men," I there say, 

 " are proved by their writings to have 

 their hours of weakness and of doubt, as 

 well as their hours of strength and of 

 conviction ; and men like myself share, 

 in their own way, these variations of 

 mood and tense. Were the religious 

 moods of many of my assailants the only 

 alternative ones, I do not know how 

 strong the claims of the doctrine of 

 ' Material Atheism ' upon my allegiance 

 might be. Probably they would be very 

 strong. But, as it is, I have noticed 

 during years of self-observation that it is 

 not in hours of clearness and vigour 

 that this doctrine commends itself to my 

 mind ; that in the presence of stronger 



