When we passed the Hall on our return, we found the Earl and Lady Muriel sitting out in the garden. Eric had gone for a stroll.
We joined them, and the conversation soon turned on the sermon we had just heard, the subject of which was ‘selfishness.’
“What a change has come over our pulpits,” Arthur remarked, “since the time when Paley gave that utterly selfish definition of virtue, ‘_the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness_’!”
Lady Muriel looked at him enquiringly, but she seemed to have learned by intuition, what years of experience had taught _me_, that the way to elicit Arthur’s deepest thoughts was neither to assent nor dissent, but simply to _listen_.
“At that time,” he went on, “a great tidal wave of selfishness was sweeping over human thought. Right and Wrong had somehow been transformed into Gain and Loss, and Religion had become a sort of commercial transaction. We may be thankful that our preachers are beginning to take a nobler view of life.”
“But is it not taught again and again in the _Bible_?” I ventured to ask.
“Not in the Bible as a _whole_,” said Arthur. “In the Old Testament, no doubt, rewards and punishments are constantly appealed to as motives for action. That teaching is best for _children_, and the Israelites seem to have been, mentally, _utter_ children. We guide our children thus, at first: but we appeal, as soon as possible, to their innate sense of Right and Wrong: and, when _that_ stage is safely past, we appeal to the highest motive of all, the desire for likeness to, and union with, the Supreme Good. I think you will find that to be the teaching of the Bible, _as a whole_, beginning with ‘_that thy days may be long in the land_,’ and ending with ‘_be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect_.’”
We were silent for awhile, and then Arthur went off on another tack. “Look at the literature of Hymns, now. How cankered it is, through and through, with selfishness! There are few human compositions more utterly degraded than some modern Hymns!”
“Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee, Repaid a thousandfold shall be, Then gladly will we give to Thee, Giver of all!”
“Yes,” he said grimly: “that is the typical stanza. And the very last charity-sermon I heard was infected with it. After giving many good reasons for charity, the preacher wound up with ‘and, for all you give, you will be repaid a thousandfold!’ Oh the utter meanness of such a motive, to be put before men who _do_ know what self-sacrifice is, who _can_ appreciate generosity and heroism! Talk of Original _Sin_!” he went on with increasing bitterness. “Can you have a stronger proof of the Original Goodness there must be in this nation, than the fact that Religion has been preached to us, as a commercial speculation, for a century, and that we still believe in a God?”