Alas! there is no such Apostolic injunction. This contemptuous patience with inferior beings is the attitude ascribed by the Apostle to persons whom he calls wise, but in whose opinion of their own wisdom we can very well see he did not share. St. Paul's true spirit comes out in an injunction which we doubt not Mr. Huxley would approve in physical inquiries, but by no means obeys in religious: 'If any man thinketh that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool that he may become wise.' VI. We are unwilling to conclude without offering a distinct statement of the difference between the method of regarding Christianity which we hold to be reasonable, and that application of the principles of physical science in the sphere of moral evidence to which Professor Huxley adheres. If we were to choose the instance for this purpose which would be most favourable to our own side, we should select some of those great facts or principles of the Christian revelation which have stirred the hearts of millions and do so still, yet which Professor Huxley's controversy never regards. But we shall select that circumstance in the history of our Lord to which the Professor directs unceasing attention because he thinks it the least defensible point in our armour. So extended and so repeated are his comments upon the miracle of the Gadarene demoniac, that (p. 579) he feels bound to apologise for them on the ground of the momentous consequences which flow from the acceptance or rejection of the narrative -consequences, we are bound to say, in which we do not believe. First, then, we consider Scripture narratives without any of that persuasion of the universal validity of the logic of physical science which Professor Huxley adopts. That existence of an unknowable power which Mr. Herbert Spencer regards as part of human knowledge; that gap in physical results which gives us our consciousness—a certain fact in Mr. Huxley's view, but of no logical consequence-is no such blank or nothingness to us. It is the channel of spiritual communication between God and His creatures; much disturbed by human imaginations, yet capable of conveying truth which commands the conscientious obedience of every right-thinking man. It is completely unreasonable, we think, to treat our knowledge of the region outside physical science as supplying us with mere negation. The general voice of mankind is with us in this matter, and Professor Huxley gives no reason why we should resist it. The way of revelation being thus open, we hold that God has used it to send Christianity to man. A combination of proofs convinces us of this. The character of the Lord as depicted in the Gospels; the wonderful system of doctrine unfolded in the Epistles; the growth of the early Christian Church and its trustworthiness in preserving for us in the New Testament the true record on which its own life was built; the transparent honesty and the unequalled spiritual power of those records in themselves; and the varied excellence of mind and spirit displayed in the Apostles, unsurpassed in history except by their Lord-are some of the proofs on which we depend. They are moral proofs, and as such unknown to Mr. Huxley. If he were to recognize them, he would be surrendering the universal validity of the logical methods of physical science. Yet they are proof of that kind upon which human intercourse depends, and without which man would be deprived of all the confidence in his social life. Physical scientists themselves live in ideas and in affections, the proof of which lies beyond their science; Professor Huxley assures us that it is so with him. He repudiates as very insulting and extremely absurd the accusation of applying the methods of physical science to music, painting, and sculpture. What is more, he not only feels emotion, but learns truth by methods which are not physical. Does Mr. Lilly suppose that I put aside as unverifiable all the truths of mathematics, of philology, of history?' (pp. 215-16). And why, then, cannot Mr. Huxley recognize the fact that there are persons who believe in the truth of Christianity upon motives equally allowable but to which the methods of science are equally inapplicable? He himself, so far as he tells us, feels or believes nothing in religion at all. But he need not therefore omit such considerations altogether in his judgments of those who have a faith. He will answer that he only applies the physical measure in cases where science is applicable: of which this narrative is one. But to our judgment there remains after the strictest legitimate application of science a part of the narrative which science does not touch and of which it can give no account: namely, the character of Jesus as depicted in the Gospel story. In three of the Gospels we find this narrative. This would not of itself prove it to rest upon the same evidence as all other parts of our faith. It is not a portion of the history which, like the Resurrection or the Institution of the Eucharist, has received the express sanction of St. Paul and other early believers, or is sealed with the testimony of martyrs. If it were possible that the discovery of new manuscripts should show that the Resurrection was not contained in the earliest form of the Christian documents, a fatal blow to Catholic Christianity would be struck. But if such a discovery could be made in respect of this narrative, no harm would be done to the faith. But we have no intention to doubt its genuineness. It hangs together with the rest, not only in respect of the external testimony of the three synoptists and the acceptance of the early Church, but in respect of the character of the words of Jesus which we find in it. The injunction to the man to return to his friends and tell of his cure contrasts with the direction given to other recipients of cure, and this is perfectly natural, because there was also a contrast in the behaviour of the inhabitants of the place. We therefore believe that the passage is a genuine part of the Gospel record. On the other hand, we admit ourselves unable to understand the demoniac possession of the swine, nor yet their destruction. These circumstances remain mysteries to us, as many other mysteries there be both in Scripture and in life. Professor Huxley does not profess to know any law of science which directly bears against the narrative. He is ready to accept the story if it could be scientifically proved. He only considers it to belong to a class of story common in former conditions of the education of the race, but which has given way as science advanced. He thinks that superstitions and consequent cruelties are encouraged by such an incident appearing in the life of the Saviour, and could have been discouraged or prevented had He discountenanced such conceptions altogether. We cannot see it. The cruelties of religious wars and persecutions have been chiefly exercised about more important questions of the faith, and the most stringent commands of kindness and forgiveness from the lips of Christ have not prevented them. And the general lesson of this narrative is that the devils are subject to Christ and only to be overcome by His help: a doctrine very little fitted to encourage the method of dealing with them which either Chaldæan magic or Christian superstition, Roman or Protestant, have favoured. Nor do we share Professor Huxley's assurance that the progress of science has enabled us to say that all which former ages believed about the spiritual world and its contents, whether evil or good, was mere error. Professor Huxley possesses an unbounded trust in science, and holds that whatever supposed events in history science has not at present explained, it will infallibly explain hereafter; and he makes no reserves for the authority of Christ. We, on the other hand, do not believe that physical science in its sphere will ever be contradicted, but neither do we believe that it will ever explain everything. And our faith in the authority of Christ is unlimited. The contest which the author provokes is therefore not one of physical science against moral and religious evidence. It is only a combat of probabilities. He can but be morally certain that his science applies. We shall believe that his assault on this point will shake the vast and tried array of moral and religious belief which he assails, when we hear that any one for an unexplained and mysterious story loses faith even in a proved human friend or in a trusted earthly record. ART. IV.—THE JOURNALIST IN FICTION. 1. Auld Licht Idylls. By J. M. BARRIE. Seventh Edition. (London, 1892.) 2. A Window in Thrums. By J. M. BARRIE. 1892.) (London, 3. When a Man's Single: a Story of Literary Life. By J. M. BARRIE. Fifth Edition. (London, 1892.) 4. My Lady Nicotine. By J. M. BARRIE. Fourth Edition. (London, 1892.) 5. An Edinburgh Eleven. By 'GAVIN OGILVY.' (London, 1892.) 6. The Little Minister. By J. M. BARRIE. Thousand. (London, 1892.) Twenty-first AMO NG the great army of journalists now earning a livelihood by the practice of writing it was only to be expected that a writer of mark would appear; at all events the brilliant and astonishing career of Mr. Rudyard Kipling has removed this assertion from the field of prophecy, while Mr. Barrie's work has built him up, more gently and soberly, but as surely, a reputation which, if less conspicuous, is no less solid than that of our eastern story-teller. Auld Licht Idylls, his first publication, appeared about the same time as Plain Tales from the Hills became generally known in London, and the book at once arrested attention. The dominie or schoolmaster of Glen Quharity is the supposed narrator, and, after opening with an admirable description of his remote valley under the hand of the mesmeriser Snow,' he goes on to give a kind of natural history of the neighbouring village,' Thrums, and its 1 Thrums is Kirriemuir, in Forfarshire. population of backbent weavers, its ways and works, its four kirks and its one post-office, its wynds and its square, its courtships and marriages, its christenings and its funerals. The wintry feeling pervades the book from first to last; pathos and humour contend in it throughout, and the pathos prevails. As for the 'Auld Lichts,' let Mr. Barrie explain in person: 'One Sabbath day in the beginning of the century the Auld Licht minister at Thrums walked out of his battered, ramshackle, earthen-floored kirk with a following and never returned. The last words he uttered in it were, "Follow me to the commonty, all you persons who want to hear the word of God properly preached, and James Duphie and his two sons will answer for this on the Day of Judgment." The congregation, which belonged to the body who seceded from the Established Church a hundred and fifty years ago, had split, and, as the New Lights (now the U.P.s) were in the majority, the Old Lights, with the minister at their head, had to retire to the commonty (or common) and hold service in the open air until they had saved up money for a church. They kept possession, however, of the white manse among the trees. Their kirk has but a cluster of members now, most of them old and done, but each is equal to a dozen ordinary church-goers, and there have been men and women among them on whom the memory loves to linger. For forty years they have been dying out, but their cold, stiff pews still echo the psalms of David, and the Auld Licht kirk will remain open so long as it has one member and a minister.' 1 This is a good example of the style which is one of the book's chief charms, a style which often conceals the daintiest finish under an appearance of colloquialism. Dialect, though freely used in passages, is not allowed to overstep the patience and the comprehension of an English reader. ་ 2 We make acquaintance in these first studies of the town with nearly all the characters who people Mr. Barrie's tales, -with Mr. Dishart, the Auld Licht minister, of whom it is written, Twenty were his years when he came to Thrums, and the very first Sabbath he knocked a board out of the pulpit;' with Lang Tammas, the precentor, whose box was too small for him, and who, rather than see a U.P. preaching in the Auld Licht kirk, would burn in hell fire for ever; with Tammas Haggart, the 'sarcastic' wit of Thrums, and his wife, Chirsty; Davit Lunan, another literary character, who could read Homer in the original with Rob Angus; Snecky Hobart, the bell man; and a tribe of others, men and women 13 |