Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

never to connive at any salutary delusion (as it may appear), but to open the eyes (when opportunity offers, and in proportion as it offers) of those we are instructing, to any mistake they may labour under, though it may be one which leads them ultimately to a true result, and to one of which they might otherwise fail. The temptation to depart from this principle is sometimes excessively strong, because it will often be the case that men will be in some danger, in parting with a longadmitted error, of abandoning, at the same time, some truth they have been accustomed to connect with it. Accordingly, censures have been passed on the endeavours to enlighten the adherents of some erroneous Churches, on the ground that many of them thence become atheists, and many, the wildest of fanatics. That this should have been in some instances the case is highly probable; it is a natural result of the pernicious effects on the mind of any system of blind, uninquiring acquiescence; such a system is an Evil Spirit, which we must expect will cruelly rend and mangle the patient as it comes out of him, and will leave him half dead at its departure. There will often be, and oftener appear to be, danger in removing a mistake; the danger that those who have been long used to act rightly on erroneous principles may fail of the desired conclusions when undeceived. In such cases it requires a thorough love of truth, and a firm reliance on divine support, to adhere steadily to the straight course. If we give way to a dread of danger from the inculcation of any truth, physical, moral, or religious, we manifest a want of faith in God's power, or in his will to maintain his own cause. There may be danger attendant on every truth, since there is none that may not be perverted by some, or that may not give offence to others; but, in the case of anything which plainly appears to be truth, every danger must be braved. We must maintain the truth as we have received it, and trust to Him who is 'the Truth' to prosper and defend it.

That we shall indeed best further his cause by fearless perseverance in an open and straight course, I am firmly persuaded; but it is not only when we perceive the mischiefs of falsehood and disguise, and the beneficial tendency of fairness and candour, that we are to be followers of truth; the trial of our faith is when we cannot perceive this: and the part of a lover of Truth is to follow her at all seeming hazards, after the example of

Him who came into the world that he should bear witness to the Truth.' This straightforward course may not, indeed, obtain the praise of men.' Courage, liberality, activity, and other good qualities, are often highly prized by those who do not possess them in any great degree; but the zealous, thoroughgoing love of truth is not very much admired or liked, or indeed understood, except by those who possess it. But Truth, as Bacon says, 'only doth judge itself,' and, howsoever these things are in men's depraved judgments and affections, it teacheth that the inquiry of Truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it-the knowledge of Truth, which is the presence of it-and the belief of Truth, which is the enjoying of it—is the sovereign good of human nature.'

'There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false and perfidious.'

This holds good when falsehood is practised solely for a man's private advantage: but, in a zealous and able partisan, falsehood in the cause of the party will often be pardoned, and even justified. We have lived to see the system called 'phenakism,' ' double-doctrine,' or 'economy,'—that is, saying something quite different from what is inwardly believed,' not only practised, but openly avowed and vindicated, and those who practise it held up as models of pre-eminent holiness, not only by those of their own party, but by others also.

When men who have repeatedly brought forward, publicly, heavy charges against a certain Church, afterwards openly declare that those charges were what they knew, at the time, to be quite undeserved, they are manifestly proclaiming their own insincerity. Perhaps they did believe—and perhaps they believe still-that those charges are just; and if so, their present disavowal is a falsehood. But if, as they now profess, the charges are what they believed to be calumnious falsehoods, uttered because the same things had been said by some eminent divines, and because they were 'necessary for our position' then, they confess themselves 'false and perfidious;' and yet they are not covered with shame.'

1 See an excellent discourse on Reserve,' by Archdeacon West. See also Cautions for the Times, No. xiii. See also the Essay on Simulation.'

[ocr errors]

ESSAY II. OF DEATH.

EN fear death as children fear to go into the dark; and

Mas that natural fear in children is increased with tales,

so is the other. Certainly, the contemplation of death, as the wages of sin, and passage to another world, is holy and religious; but the fear of it, as a tribute due unto nature, is weak. Yet in religious meditations there is sometimes mixture of vanity and of superstition. You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed, or tortured, and thereby imagine what the pains of death are when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved; when many times death passeth with less pain than the torture of a limb-for the most vital parts are not the quickest of sense and by him that spake only as a philosopher and natural man, it was well said, 'Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa." Groans, and convulsions, and a discoloured face, and friends weeping, and blacks, and obsequies, and the like, show death terrible.

It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy when a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat of him. Revenge triumphs over death: love slights it; honour aspireth to it; grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the emperor had slain himself, pity (which is the tenderest of affections) pro

1 The pomp of death is more terrible than death itself.' Probably suggested by a letter of Seneca to Lucilius, 24.

2 Mate. To subdue; vanquish; overpower.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

4

voked' many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as the truest sort of followers. Nay, Seneca adds, niceness and satiety: Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris; mori velle, non tantum fortis, aut miser, sed etiam fastidiosus potest.' 'A man would die, though he were neither valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft over and over.' It is no less worthy to observe, how little alteration in good spirits the approaches of death make; for they appear to be the same men till the last instant. Augustus Cæsar died in a compliment: Livia, conjugii nostri memor vive, et vale.' Tiberius in dissimulation, as Tacitus saith of him, 'Jam Tiberium vires et corpus, non dissimulatio, deserebant: Vespasian in a jest, sitting upon the stool, Ut puto Deus fio:' Galba with a sentence, 'Feri, si ex re sit populi Romani,' holding forth his neck: Septimus Severus in dispatch, 'Adeste, si quid mihi restat agendum,' and the like. Certainly the Stoics bestowed too much cost upon death, and by their great preparations made it appear more fearful. Better, saith he, qui finem vitæ extremum inter munera ponat naturæ.” It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other. He that dies in an earnest pursuit, is like one that is wounded in hot blood; who, for the time, scarce feels the hurt; and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon somewhat that is good, doth avert the dolours of death: but, above all, believe it, the sweetest canticle is, 'Nunc dimittis," when a man hath obtained worthy ends and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy: Extinctus amabitur idem."10

[ocr errors]

1 Provoke. To excite; to move (to exertion or feeling of any kind, not, as now, merely to anger). Your zeal hath provoked very many.'-2 Cor. ix. 2.

Ad Lucil. 77.

Livia, mindful of our wedlock, live, and farewell.'-Suet. Aug. Vict. c. 100. 4'His powers and bodily strength had abandoned Tiberius, but not his dissimulation.'-Annal. vi. 50.

Strike, if it be for the benefit of the Roman people.'-Tacit. Hist. i. 41. •‘Hasten, if anything remains for me to do.'-Dio. Cas. 76, ad fin.

He who accounts the close of life among the boons of nature.'-Juv. Sat. 357. Dolours. Pains.

'He drew the dolours from the wounded part.'-Pope's Homer.

*Now lettest thou thy servant depart.'—Luke ii. 29.

19 The same man shall be beloved when dead.'

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

'There is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death.

Of all the instances that can be given of recklessness of life, there is none that comes near that of the workman employed in what is called dry-pointing; the grinding of needles and of table-forks. The fine steel-dust which they breathe brings on a painful disease of which they are almost sure to die before forty. And yet not only are men tempted by high wages to engage in this employment, but they resist to the utmost all the contrivances devised for diminishing the danger; through fear that this would cause more workmen to offer themselves, and thus lower wages!

The case of sailors, soldiers, miners, and others who engage in hazardous employments, is nothing in comparison of this; because people of a sanguine temper hope to escape the dangers. But the dry-pointers have to encounter, not the risk, but the certainty, of an early and painful death. The thing would seem incredible, if it were not so fully attested. All this proves that avarice overcomes the fear of death. And so may vanity: witness the many women who wear tight dresses, and will even employ washes for the complexion which they know to be highly dangerous and even destructive to their health.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »