Even though we should close our eyes to all other considerations, it is vain to ignore the inevitable moral consequences which flow from this mode of reasoning; for they are becoming every day more apparent. The demand is made that we should abandon our Christianity on grounds which logically involve the abandonment of any belief in the providential government of the world and in the moral responsibility of man. Young men are apt to be far more logical than their elders. Older persons are taught by long experience to distrust the adequacy of their premisses: consciously or unconsciously they supplement the narrow conclusions of their logic by larger lessons learnt from human life or from their own heart. But generally speaking, the young man has no such distrust. His teacher has appealed to Nature, and to Nature he shall go. The teacher becomes frightened, struggles to retrace his steps, and speaks of 'an infinitely wise and beneficent Being'; but the pupil insolently points out how
Nature, red in tooth and claw, With ravin, shrieks against his creed.
The teacher urges, 'All that is consistent with wise and omnipotent Law is prospered and brought to perfection:' [30:1] and the pupil replies: 'You have limited my horizon to this life, and in this life the facts do not verify your statement.' The teacher says, Believe that you--you personally--'are eternally cared for and governed by an omnipresent immutable power for which nothing is too great, nothing too insignificant.' [30:2] The pupil says: 'My Christianity did show me how this was possible; but with my Christianity I have cast it away as a delusion. I could not stop short at this point consistently with the principles you have laid down for my guidance. I have done as you told me to do; I have "ratified the fiat which maintains the order of Nature," [30:3] and I find Nature wholly
I will therefore please myself henceforth.' The teacher speaks of 'the purity which alone sees God;' and to him the expression has a real meaning, for his mind is unconsciously saturated with ideas which he has certainly not learnt from his adopted philosophy: but to the pupil it has lost its articulate utterance, and is no better than sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Hence the pupil, having thrown off his Christianity, too often follows out the principles of his teacher to their logical conclusions, and divests himself also of moral restraints, except so far as it may be convenient or necessary for him to submit to them. Happily this has not been the case hitherto in the large majority of instances. The permanence of habits formed in a nobler school of teaching, the abiding presence of a loftier ideal not derived from this new philosophy, and (we may add also) the voice of an inward witness whose authority is denied, but whose warnings nevertheless compel a hearing, all tend to raise the level of men's conduct above their principles. The full moral consequences of the teaching would only then be seen, if ever a generation should grow up, moulded altogether under its influences.