Morning light [afterw.] The New-Church weekly

N opening the first page of the Book of the New Year, there is, to all thoughtful minds, a sense of the import and issues of the Future. It is not that one day in itself is more marked than another, as a matter of dates and figures. We might have our landmarks at one period of the earth's annual course or at another; the urgent point is, not where we should have them, but that we should not miss them. These endings and beginnings of the several stages of life's journey may be of lasting value to us, if they cause us to "look before and after;" to realize our moral and spiritual position, to ascertain whither our purposes and practice are tending. That is why we do well to remember to help each other to realize the meaning of the commencement of a New Year, and to wish each other in all earnestness and heartiness a happy course through so much of it as we may be permitted to spend here.

To many people of average sensibility and of good habits, it may seem quite a needless task to inquire as to one's own moral and spiritual position and tendency. With actions moderately free from blame, and with a conscious knowledge of the relative misdoings of others, we are not inclined to scan too closely our own motives, in every trifling incident, especially as we may feel secure that they compare favourably with those of men and women around us. Herein is our spiritual danger. The better nature is so liable to be laid asleep by the specious reasonings induced by earthly inclinations, that we need all that the tolling bell of the departing year can teach us, to rouse us into newness of life. If man was a mere thinking and feeling machine, destined to run in the level groove of a soulless mediocrity, then the common notion just referred to, which so many persons entertain in practice if not in theory, would have some rational basis. But if we regard every human unit as a soul in which the divine fire of life has been kindled, for the purpose of reaching high possibilities yet unknown, of realizing a special individuality in full scope and perfectness, we see then the awful fallacy to which such reasoning is likely to lead.

It is thus that the need of a clear and unbiassed judgment of ourselves upon ourselves becomes impressed upon the mind. But even then it is too much taken for granted that such a genuine view of our own individual quality can in each case be obtained. That it may be obtained under proper conditions is certain, but what is not so certain is how far in each instance these necessary conditions exist. It was John Foster, who, in his remarkable essay on Decision of Character, a book which every young man should read, pointed out how what is called judgment, "mocked with imperial names," was dragged at the wheels of the triumphal car of the ruling passion. This is indeed the danger to which all men and women are most exposed. We think as we will or desire to think. Our judgment, as we style it, is steadily bent in the direction of our inclinations. Nothing is more absurd in the eyes of an observer of another, to note how often he will give up the real for the seeming, how often he will turn to the left when he ought to go to the right, and all because a lurking passion, which he will not own to himself, is silently drawing him in that direction in spite of the dictates of his better knowledge, and the once sound understanding which he before possessed. And if this is so with others, how about ourselves? Can we not see on some special occasion how passion has warped judgment, how the impulses of the hour overmastered the movements of the mind, and

how, in such a crisis at least, we rushed on a course which in calmer moments, or in matters wherein we were not personally concerned, our understanding would not have approved? And if we perceive this here and there, by notable examples, may we not be led to agree that in the thousand and one minor acts of life, where the motive is not evident, and the tendency is obscure, we have too frequently allowed the wish to garble justice, tendency to mislead judgment, and the soft pleadings of sophistry— like the voice of Jacob-to win the blessing of the blinded reason for the baser and the more worldly choice?

It will be well to be rid of the delusion that a definite and accurate judgment respecting our inner selves is an easy or slight matter. Even in looking at things around us, there is more difficulty than at first appears. No more forcible instance of this could be found than in the struggle through which parties in this nation have just been passing. We have observed that in the late general election, not only those who had some previous political experience, but nearly three millions of new voters were called upon to give a decision individually, which would affect for good or ill the wellbeing of this country, and to a relative extent of the world. As partisans waxed eloquent, they inveighed the more fiercely against the errors of theory and faults of conduct of their neighbours. Good and great men on either side of the controversy, expressed the most diverse views and counsel to those whom they addressed; and in the midst of so many conflicting authorities, the earnest elector must in many cases have been sorely puzzled. The far-reaching issues of a wise, as compared with an unsteady conduct of public affairs; the consciousness that many steps in legislation can never be recalled; the knotty problems relating to society and industry;-all these, to an honest thinker, must have been serious and trying. The easy plan of assuming all virtue on one side of the arena, and all the vice on the other, might have been satisfactory when politics was but a game of follow-the-leader, but would not now satisfy any candid mind. Also the old fashion of holding hereditary opinions, would not now serve with any whose understandings had been aroused to think for themselves. Therefore, when, by a broad and comprehensive glance at the political world we see such momentous questions presented to men, and the difficulties surrounding a genuine decision are seen to be so great,-how much more difficult must it be to make and to keep without swerving that wise choice upon which depends the personal issues of the everlasting future !

The old doctrine of Election seems to have been one of the efforts of the Middle Ages to get rid of the wearisome necessity for human choice which human Free-will involves. What need of men troubling themselves with religious scruples, and torturing themselves with self-examination, if it was true that each one who was born "a child of God" would by His almighty power be saved in spite of any errors of his earlier years? It was not difficult to argue that as the Lord knew all things, He must know who would be saved and who would be lost, and thus men were practically predeştined. It was natural too that such a doctrine, saving all believers the trouble of choice, and rendering calm judgment and self-questioning hardly necessary, should commend itself to the mental indolence of a large class of professing Christians. But there was an awful side to this. If God really elected a certain number of the human race as His children, destined to endless happiness, then there must be the other portion of the human race who were destined only to be "sons of perdition," and who from birth to death were only "ripening" for

judgment. Besides this, who could say which were the favoured ones, and who were the children of wrath? There was no distinguishing external mark by which one class could be certified from the other. Creeds and formulas were set up; a passionate acknowledgment, a fervent faith, was held to be a prelude to some inner sense of conversion, which proved that the one who experienced it was a child of grace. Yet these manifestations, often due more to hysteria than to conviction, were felt even by those who underwent them to be shadowy and insufficient. Fits of deep despondency in rapid succession, followed such ecstatic scenes of spiritual exaltation; and the Christian world gradually turned away from a theory which involved the condemnation by our Heavenly Father of a large part of mankind to everlasting misery, before any one of them had drawn a breath in the world.

But this doctrine of Election did not lose its hold upon men, until it had saddened and darkened some of the sweetest and noblest lives. Fine spirits would naturally look around first, and would then look inward. They would look on the world of humanity, instinct with love and beauty, in spite of error and in spite of wrong. They would then look inward for that solemn assurance of their own salvation, without which the world would be a living tomb. If they thought honestly, with the fear of God before their eyes, if they reflected calmly, they could not be re-assured. They would see on the walls of the chambers of imagery within the dark semblance of lurking passions; they would see the faint outlines of vile imaginings; and here and there the blurred remnants of some holy picture which had been partly effaced to make way for a lawless vision. Seeing these records in their own memories, and looking down into the evil tendencies of their own hearts, what wonder is it that such earnest Christians-and they were manyconcluded that they were eternally lost, beyond hope of grace or pity. Of such was the gentle poet William Cowper, who was often so much affected by these forebodings that his reason several times gave way. And one of his last poems, "The Castaway," expresses the wringings of his miserable heart.

We see, therefore, that all the efforts of human reason to get rid of her responsibility for wise choice and consistent progress in religious matters have more than failed. They may have satisfied here and there a few self-sufficient beings, blest with little capacity for sound reason, but they cursed with continual and awful fears, as to their future, those who were earnest and sincere. What was most terrible to bear was the feeling that whatever a human being might do, however blameless his life, however sweet his temper, however self-denying his actions, if the irrevocable decree was written that he should be one of the lost, all his doings here would accentuate his fate. How thankful may we be, that neither by inheritance nor acceptance are we the victims of so disastrous a religious system. To walk in the serene conviction that the great Father of mercies has destined all men to everlasting happiness, and that it is only by wilful and perverse misdirection of their energies that they can turn aside from it, is a privilege unknown to past ages. To recognise the Divine tenderness, in the provision that all who have not the complete freedom of moral choice here will be given full opportunities hereafter, is a beam of light from the Sun of Righteousness. To perceive that even the wilful and wicked are in the after state placed with their like, where they will be of all places in the universe least miserable, this is the New Church antidote to the popular notions of the Christian hell.

Let us then recognise the fact, on the threshold of this New Year, that the election of the future lies with us. It is an important, a solemn decision we have to make, but it need not move us to despair; and it is not one decision, but a continued series of decisions, apparently trifling in themselves, when a perverted judgment would betray us, and when a just choice alone will make for righteousness, and enable us to pursue our heavenward way. Herein is the great difference between modern and mediæval theology. In the old days conversion was an instantaneous affair. Salvation was a one-act drama, in which one incident was the only essential feature. But now it is generally agreed that religion is like the gold and silken thread, which must be interwoven with the warp and woof of our daily life, to beautify and enrich it. We must seek the Lord's salvation, but it must be the gradual result of prayer, of self-examination, not some great and instantaneous miracle such as Naaman desired. We must tread the path of duty and self-denial, remembering that

Life is a business, not good cheer :

Ever in words.

And to walk justly in the road to the supreme happiness, the wealth of love and heavenly beauty with which God would endow us, we must know the bearings and tendencies of our natures. We must own, with George Herbert, that in his unregenerate state

Man is no star, but a quick coal
Of mortal fire:

Who blows it not, nor doth control
A faint desire,

Lets his own ashes choke his soul.

I would, therefore, as the best wish I can now frame for the future year, trust that you may be ever gaining, day by day, a sound intense judgment. It can hardly fail to be weak and uncertain at first, as all first efforts are. the dove sent forth from the ark could find no rest for the sole of her foot amid the tempestuous waves, so our purer and sweeter thoughts will at first move disconsolate above the waves of fallacy, stirred by the storms of passion which occupy the earthly mind. But if we persevere and open the windows of our souls to Divine influences, the waves subside; the earth again becomes our own, in a truer sense than ever before, and we enter into a new sphere of love and joy. Clouds may come, but the bow of promise is ever seen athwart them, and we are able to pursue our onward course, with the sweet consciousness that we shall be able to go forward freely through the varying seasons of our spiritual year. We shall have the seed-time before the harvest, and we shall know that the harvest will depend upon the seed, and our way of sowing it. We shall have the periods of cold, when our sternest resolution and clearest judgment will be necessary; but we shall also have the warm following beams of the Divine love, cheering us on to new advances. The winter may precede a brighter summer of the soul, and the night of trial, if passed faithfully, will give place to the breaking light of a better morning. So I would hope that our lives may be guided, and in this spirit will wish you all-A Happy New Year. J. W. T.

THE HEAVENWARD PATH.

VII.

"The obedience of faith."-ROM. xvi. 26.
(Concluded from p. 5.)

NE mistake is the fruitful parent of others. Hence expedients have to be sought out to reconcile the otherwise irreconcilable. For example: it is insisted that salvation and meetness for heaven are com

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Morning light [afterw.] The New-Church weekly, Выпуск 1119,Том 9