Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1880. SECULARISM.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5834, 20 November 1880, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1880. SECULARISM.

It is outside Iho recognised provinco of journalism to discuss questions of a purely religious nature, save iv rare aud exceptional circumstances. But tliere are some topics of an anti-religious character wliich affect so deeply the social and civil welfare of communities as fairly to challenge tho judgment of the Press; and amoug these we rank the wide-spread theory of life named at the head of this article. George Jacob Holyoake is commonly deemed the apostle of secularism. That may be true of its presont day aspect ; but its animating spirit is older than the pyramids, and is traceable to the remotest antiquity of which we possess any literary records. Ancient or modern, however, secularism has essentially but one meaning, and if carried to its logical issues would give an emphatic negation to Mr Mallock' s query, "Is lifo worth living?" Its message is, that man's sole concern is with the present world — that all his hopes and energies should be concentrated on things seen and tangible — and that so'icitude about the imaginary possibilities of a future state is the braud of weakness and of folly. In other words, it would reduce mankind to little better than a race of grubs, with nolof tier'ambition than to wriggle iuto the cosiest nest each one can make for himself, and with no grander principle of action than that of the " survival of the fittest," and " woe to the vanquished !" — let the weak go to the wall. The general adoption of such a philosophy would furnish a powerful impetus to tlie game of " beggar my neighbor," and impart a tenfold bitterness to tho multitudes whose lot is a daily struggle for bread and shelter, while the golden prizes fall as they always must fall, into the hands of: the successful few.

Secularism is lo a largo extent a mere rebound from the ultra-spiritualism which undervalues or condemns what are called earthly pursuits. Commerce is jusfc as much; an ordination of heaven as Christianity itself, and reckless censure is just as unwise in one sphere as iv the other. Mortals must oat or die, aud idleness is the common precursor of penury and want. The desire lo attain tho comforts and refinements of civilisation is at once natural and laudable, and lies for the most part at the root of all our industrial and scientific triumphs. Extinguish these aspirations, and you paralyse effort and put a stop to the world's material progress. There is no law, cither of reason or revelation, which forbids a proper attention to secular affairs, or which debars one from entering the arena and reaping the fruits of honorable toil. In the fierce competition which marks every field of human enterprise in this nineteenth century, diligence in business is almost a necessity of existence, and is indispensable to the prosperity which should gild with sunshine the closing years of life. Work of hand or brain is tho primal and beneficent order of our creation both for individual recompense and for the advancement of the common weal. And the mau who isolates himself from tho fellowship of human interests — who drones life away in rusty indolenco or in giddy pleasures, who fancies that an upturned eye and a muttered prayer aro a sufficient substitute for honest labor — is the victim of a morbid pietism or an Oriental fatalism, and would do well to ponder the homely wisdom of the proverb, "God helps those who help themselves."

But, whilst counteracting this tendency to slight or neglect the duties which belong to us as citizens of the world, the

fundamental vice of secularism is its quiet ignoring of the dual nature of rikti. If human beings are indeed only a higher form of organised animal existence — if they cease to be when tho breath departs from their nostr-ls, and the candle of life is snuffed out in smoke and darkness — then, liko Sardanapulus, "lotus eat and drink for to-morrow we fabl' and the same end awaits the Adg and its master. But if man 1)6 really botter than a sheep, >.£ his intellectual endowments, his moral perceptions, his mysterious spiritual intuitions, aud the splendor of his achievements in all the departments of aft and science, government and philosophy, point to him as a being of silpei'io'r mould, haviug relations aikl Alllnitios immeasurably grancW &an those of earth and time^-ib may well chance that a •sfcheaiQ ot life which shuts out considerations like these may prove in the long run au abortion and a wreck. Forebodings about a hereafter are not engendered by external surroundings, aud by the current religious dogmas of the day. They belong to the original instincts of humanity ; they have given birth to the diversified religious system of tho ages ; they cling to 'lis, like the fabled vest o! Hei'cules, with a tenacity which tears all logical fallacies to tatters ; they haunt the genius of a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Carlyle, a Teunyson, as deeply as they tinge the thoughts and convictions of loss gifted minds. And, in spite of assumed indifference or of noisy bravado, it is doubtful if any man can altogether rid himself of the sense of final accountability, or put aside from him the perplexing but iucxorable problem of "how to make the best of both worlds." Wo stand here in the confluence of two eternities, not as angels who cannot do wrong, not as devils who cannot do right, not as whisps of j straw which must needs become the sport I of evory wind that blows, but as moral | beings placed upou their great trial aud capable of emerging from the conflict with peace and honor • and happy are they who in every calling of life seek to act in harmony with that unseen power of the universe which, in the language of Mathew Arnold, " everywhere and always wprkcth for righteousness."