124 REV. PREBENDARY WACH, D.D., ON ETHICS AND RELIGION. 
religion as in revelation, and secondly that their highest 
and final development is inseparable from the truths of the 
Christian religion. 
On the former of these points, let us first inquire how the 
general standard which this ethical movement has in view 
came to be discerned. Its great object is to promote the 
good hfe; the star they follow is that of righteousness. ‘The 
gospel which they preach,” we are told (p. 57), “is essentially 
this, that the good life is ane to all without the 
previous acceptance of any creed, irrespective of religious 
opinion or philosophic theory ; that the w ay of righteousness 
is open, and can be entered directly without a previous 
detour through the land of faith or philosophy.” But what 
isa good life, and what is the righteousness here contem- 
plated? It will not, I think, be questioned that, generally 
speaking, the good life which all these Societies have in view 
is that which is recognized as the ideal in modern civiliza- 
tion—generally speaking, the ideal of a Christian gentle- 
man. 
It must be from this point of view that Sir John Seeley, 
in the opening lecture of the volume (p. 26), advises the 
Society he addresses to ‘ enter once for all into the heartiest 
and most unreserved alliance with Christianity,” and says 
(p. 30) that “ After all Christianity is the original Ethical 
Society. It has the ancient tradition and store of  pre- 
cedents, it has the ubiquitous organization, it has the unap- 
proachable classical literature; it has the long line ot 
prophets and saints. We are all, morally, its children, and 
most of us are not even its grown up children.” <A similar 
recognition of the ethical standard of Christianity, and a 
similarly generous recognition of the ethical services of the 
Christian Church pervades all the Essays, with perhaps one 
exception. “A good life” and a true ethical standard is, 
in short, in the main the Christian life and the Christian stan- 
dard, though no doubt these writers and societies reserve the 
right of questioning and modifying it in detail. But taking 
it on the whole as indicating the ideal in view, it is perti- 
nent to make some inquiries respecting it. 
How was it originally called into existence, and how has it 
since been maintained? There can, I think, be no question 
that it was called into existence by the authority of Christ 
and His Apostles. The primary moral principles of Christ- 
lanity were asserted, no doubt, by the Jewish Church; and 
deep and noble moral truths and ideals had grown up under 
