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agree with each other, or with herself, I am far from supposing; but they would differ chiefly in such matters as would not forfeit their membership nor lead them to protest against the received doctrine. If, even as it is, the great body of dissenters from the church during the last centuries remained more or less constant to the creeds, except in the article which was compromised in their dissent, surely much more fully and firmly would her members then abide in the fundamentals of faith, tho Scripture was ever so freely put into their hands. We see it so at this day. For on which side is the most lack at this moment-in the laity in believing, or the church in teaching? Are not the laity everywhere willing to treat their pastors with becoming respect; nay, so follow their guidance as to take up their particular views, according as they may be of a Catholic or private character in this or that place? Is there any doubt at all that the laity would think alike if the clergy did? And is there any doubt that the clergy would think alike, as far as the formal expression of their faith went, if they had their views cleared by a theological education and molded by a knowledge of antiquity? We have no need to grudge our people the religious use of private judgment; we need not distrust their affection; we have but to blame our own waverings and differences.

The free reading of Scripture, I say, when the other parts of the divine system are duly fulfilled, would lead at most to diversities of opinion only in the adjuncts and details of faith, not in fundamentals. Men differ from each other at present, first, from the influence of the false theories of private judgment which are among us and which mislead them; next, from the want of external guidance. They are enjoined, as a matter of duty, to examine and

decide for themselves, and the church but faintly protests against this proceeding or supersedes the need of it. Truth has a force which error cannot counterfeit; and the church, speaking out that truth as committed to her, would cause a corresponding vibration in Holy Scripture such as no other notes, however loudly sounded, can draw from it. If, after all, persons arose, as they would arise, disputing against the fundamentals, or separating on minor points, let them go their way; "they went out from us, because they were not of us." They would commonly be "men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith"; I do not say there never could be any other, but for such extraordinary cases no system can provide. If there were better men who, tho educated in the truth, ultimately opposed it openly, they as well as others would be put out of the church for their error's sake and for their contumacy; and God, who alone sees the hearts of men and how mysteriously good and evil are mingled together in this world, would provide in His own inscrutable way for anomalies which His revealed system did not meet.

I consider, then, on the whole that however difficult it may be in theory to determine when we must go by our own view of Scripture, when by the decision of the church, yet in practise there would be little or no difficulty at all. Without claiming infallibility, the church may claim the confidence and obedience of her members; Scripture may be read without tending to schism; minor differences allowed without disagreement in fundamentals; and the proud and self-willed disputant discarded without the perplexed inquirer suffering. If there is schism among us, it is not that Scripture speaks variously, but that the church

of the day speaks not at all; not that private judgment is rebellious, but that the church's judgment is withheld.

I do really believe that, with more of primitive simplicity and of rational freedom, and far more of Gospel truth than in Romanism, there would be found in the rule of private judgment, as I have described it, as much certainty as the doctrine of infallibility can give; for ample provision would be made both for the comfort of the individual and for the peace and unity of the body, which are the two objects for which Romanism professes to consult. The claim of infallibility is but an expedient for impressing strongly upon the mind the necessity of hearing and of obeying the church. When scrutinized carefully it will be found to contribute nothing whatever toward satisfying the reason, as was observed in another connection; since it is as difficult to prove and bring home to the mind that the church is infallible, as that the doctrines it teaches are true. Nothing, then, is gained in the way of conviction, only of impression—and, again, of expedition, it being less trouble to accept one doctrine on which all the others are to depend than a number. Now, this impressiveness and practical perspicuity in teaching, as far as these objects are lawful and salutary, may, I say, be gained without this claim; they may be gained in God's way, without unwarranted additions to the means of influence which He has ordained, without a tenet, fictitious in itself and, as falsehood ever will be, deplorable in many ways in its results.

PART OF LECTURE ON "EMERSON"

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

I have given up to envious time as much of Emerson as time can fairly expect ever to obtain. We have not in Emerson a great poet, a great writer, a great philosophy maker. His relation to us is not that of one of those personages; yet it is a relation of, I think, even superior importance. His relation to us is more like that of the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius is not a great writer, a great philosophy maker; he is the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit. Emerson is the same. He is the friend and aider of those who would live in the spirit. All the points in thinking which are necessary for this purpose he takes; but he does not combine them into a system, or present them as a regular philosophy. Combined in a system by a man with the requisite talent for this kind of thing, they would be less useful than as Emerson gives them to us; and the man with the talent so to systematize them would be less impressive than Emerson. They do very well as they now stand-like "boulders," as he says in "paragraphs incompressible, each sentence an infinitely repellent particle." In such sentences his main points recur again and again, and become fixed in the memory.

We all know them. First and foremost, character. Character is everything. "That which all things tend to educe -which freedom, cultivation, intercourse, revolutions, go to form and deliver-is character." Character and selfreliance. "Trust thyself! every heart vibrates to that iron

string." And yet we have our being in a not ourselves. "There is a power above and behind us, and we are the channels of its communications." But our lives must be pitched higher. "Life must be lived on a higher plane; we must go up to a higher platform, to which we are always invited to ascend; there the whole scene changes." The good we need is forever close to us, tho we attain it not. "On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably dying." This good is close to us, moreover, in our daily life, and in the familiar, homely places. "The unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure duties that is the maxim for us. Let us be poised and wise, and our own to-day. Let us treat the men and women well-treat them as if they were real; perhaps they are. Men live in their fancy, like drunkards whose hands are too soft and tremulous for successful labor. I settle myself ever firmer in the creed, that we should not postpone and refer and wish, but do broad justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with; accepting our actual companions and circumstances, however humble or odious, as the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated its whole pleasure for us. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves: names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and if we will tarry a little we may come to learn that here is best. See to it only that thyself is here." Furthermore, the good is close to us all. "I resist the skepticism of our education and of our educated men. I do not believe that the differences of opinion and character in men are organic. I do not recognize, besides the class of the good and the wise, a permanent class of skeptics, or a class of conservatives, or of malignants, or of materialists. I do

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