moral truth. In giving man reason, God furnished him with all he needed; and, therefore, we dismiss the idea of a special and exceptional revelation as useless."

Assuming, then, that I am now face to face with readers who are honestly and sincerely staggered by this line of argument, let me appeal to their candour, while I continue my cautions for Doubters. Let me say to all such :—

CAUTION II. Before you settle yourselves down into this form of unbelief, consider that these fine utterances of moral truth did not stand alone; being spoiled and dishonoured, I may say debased, by other opinions of the same writers, which fell far below the true standard of morality, though those just quoted rose up to such a standard.1

Those who quote these grand sayings of ancient philosophy take care to hide this other side of the question, as making against their position. Yet, in all fairness to the argument, it ought to be duly weighed. It should be known, for instance, that while nature gave man sufficient light for the discovery of some of the highest virtues, she did not

1 I am aware that infidelity raises the same argument against the Old Testament, alleging the narration in it of much which is criminal and debasing. But the difference lies in this, that the Bible merely records such things without approving of them, as I shall show in a subsequent chapter; whereas the heathen philosophers argued in their behalf, and justified them.

Debased by Bad Morals.

4I

give him light enough to see the evil of many sins. Did not Seneca glorify the act of suicide as among the heroic virtues?1 Did not Plato praise the Athenians for cultivating a hatred of forgiveness ? 2 Did he not justify infanticide? Again, in his ideal republic, did he not obliterate the sanctity of family bonds by degrading wedlock, and proposing a community of women ? * Take even

Socrates himself, the wisest and best of the philosophers. Did he not wink with coarse and careless leniency on a form of vice which, in the present day, cannot even be mentioned in

assembly?

any mixed

If, then, these greatest teachers of heathen philosophy thus spoilt their other better opinions by the debasement of morality; if, in spite of their natural power to evolve many noble sentiments and virtuous principles out of their own self-consciousness, they yet fell short, in this manner, of that higher and purer standard of morality which is now made known to us by Revelation; how can it be said that the teaching of nature is sufficient, and that Supernatural Revelation was unnecessary? It must be remarked, too, that in the days of Socrates and Plato, Greece had attained the highest summit of her mental and moral grandeur. If, then, her loftiest spirits still fell short of the full conception of virtue, is it not fair to

1 De Irâ, lib. iii. 15. 3 De Republica, lib. v.

2 Menexenus, § 17. 4 Ibid., v. 14.

D

acknowledge that there was necessarily a wide sphere left for the action of a supplementary Revelation?

:

Let us now pass to another thought :CAUTION III.—It is all very well for ourselves, who look back upon these men as the sages of antiquity, to admire their wisdom, and praise them as the naturally inspired prophets of truth and moral virtue ; but what did they feel concerning their own powers of intuition? Is it not right to inquire what they said themselves about their own powers of inward enlightenment?

If the truth must plainly be told, some of the wisest and best of these heathen philosophers openly avowed their incompetence to settle the great problems of human thought without some other teacher superior to themselves. It is related, for example, of Confucius in China, that he encouraged his disciples in this expectation, stating that, some day or other, a nobler teacher than himself would visit them from the West for the purpose of instructing them in higher principles of truth than he had been able to promulgate. It is told of Socrates also, when discoursing with Alcibiades on the immortality of the soul, that he acknowledged himself quite unable to penetrate the mystery; but, he added, there would one day come a teacher who would make it altogether plain. Listen also to the self-despairing language of Cicero, in which he echoed only the feelings of every philosopher who had gone before him :

Heathen Confessions of Ignorance.

43

"If you should ask me what God is, or what His character and nature are, I should follow the example of Simonides, who, when Hiero the tyrant proposed the same question to him, desired a day to consider it. When he required his answer the next day, Simonides begged two days more; and as he kept constantly desiring double the number which he required before, instead of giving his answer, Hiero with surprise asked his meaning for it, ‘Because,' says he, 'the longer I meditate on it, the more obscure it appears to me.'

If these men, then, who were among the very best and wisest of the heathen, felt so sensible of the incompetence of their own powers to attain to true enlightenment, is it not reasonable for us to believe that Nature, of her own unassisted powers, is utterly unequal to the task of discovering the highest problems of religious truth? And are we not justified in maintaining that, without a supernatural revelation, mankind would still have remained unconscious of them?

CAUTION IV.-Assuming, for the sake of argument, that these teachings of natural religion were even far more perfect than they really are, yet, before we can place them on a level with the teaching of Revelation, so as to convince us that Revelation was unnecessary, ought we not first to inquire whether they carried with them any inherent power to purify the human heart, and to regenerate society?

1 Cicero; De Nat. Deor., lib. i. ch. 22.

When the religion of Nature, as evolved by this wisdom of ancient philosophy, is held to have been sufficient for the moral enlightenment and happiness of the world, we have a right to inquire what elements of power it possessed to expel evil, and to promote the purification of mankind. For if it had no such power, it is impossible to say that it superseded the necessity of a Supernatural Revelation. If all these splendid triumphs of the human conscience eventuated in nothing which was practically corrective of human guilt and misery; if they still left the world as they found it, in all the helplessness of subjection to moral evil, without giving it any onward progress in true purity of life, then it should be honestly confessed that they were after all impotent and effete.

Now, was it not so? What did all the fine philosophy of Socrates or Plato, of Seneca or Epictetus, do for the enlightenment of the masses, for the amelioration or emancipation of the slave, for the elevation of woman, for the extension of philanthropy, or for the improved education of the young? Nothing can be plainer than that while it manifested grand perceptions of truth, it nevertheless added little to those moral forces which influence the world for good. It contained no motive power which was adequate to change the human heart, and turn it from sin to holiness. At the best, it only acted upon a select circle of highly-cultivated minds, and coldly left the rest of society to itself. It had no mission to the ignorant, the outcast, and