RELIGIOUS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 937, 14 February 1890, Page 6

RELIGIOUS.

EPISCOPAL COMMON SENSE. (The World.)

Speaking broadly, tne want in religions teaching is that of kind manliness, which includes self-respect, self-restraint, and oommon sense. Instead of these we have mysticism, and condemnation of the passions and instincts inherent in humanity, and of the impulses necessary for the advancement of society. Our preachers preach ‘ into the vague ’ dealing no more with human life as it is and must be than if they took for their text one of Grimm’s fairy-tales. Of the many thousands who preach every Sunday to the Knglish people, presumably teaching them things good to know and possible to follow, we might almost count on our fingers those who strike a manly chord, whose precepts touch the possibilities of every-day practice, or who incalculate tho bare outlines of civic virtues. A few do, but so few as not to count in the average. When, then, a man like the Bishop of Peterborough speaks to men as a man, and not as a phantom, we feel how much the Church loses when lfc gives to theological subtleties the influence which should be thrown on to the facte of life But one of the weak places in our system of Church government is the lack of disciplinary education among our young men A youth of twenty-three, who knows absolutely nothing of real life—who has skimmed the mere surface of its obligations and learnt only the mere rudiments of its duties, who knows nothing of the interdependence of passion and virtue, and as little of difficulty and responsibility—this ine'enuus puer is setrup to speak of spiritual things aud practical moralities to men grown gray in the stiuggle to reconcile fact with precept, nature with ievolation, the nec.-s ities of good government with the Sermon on tho Mount. His examination for Orders touches only his knowledge of the Bible, the Fathers, and the leading authorities on Exposition. It does not include one shred of knowledge of human nature, of political or social wisdom. There is no one to toach him ; for unless tha Bishop -> 1 o ordains, and the chaplain who examim-e bun are wiser than their order, tin re is uo oue to

understand hie lack by fuller knowledge. ‘The world, the flesh, and the devil ’ oovers the whole area of actual life, and * My kingdom is not of this world ’ includes the rest. When, by chance, we have a masculine utterance dealing with things as they are, and showing where the sin of sins lies—in excess—we feel as if a breath of fresh air had come into the close atmosphere of a stifling room. Between the vague disquisitions of respectable orthodoxy and the hysterical extravagance of Dissenting enthusiasm, such a speech as that of the Bishop on the 25bh ult. gives new life to a man who wishes to live according to the higher law, yet to keep his head level, and his mind free from visionary thoughts of impossible attainments.

Dr Magee tonched the right note: the State has nothing to do with moral evil as evil. It has to punish consequences which do harm to the community ; but a man’s sin, as sin, is his own affair. If a man loses his self-control he has to answer to himself for his fault. If, in that loss, he injures his neighbour, he has to answer to the State. He might have ramped and raved in the privacy of his own chamber, and the police had no right to interfere. His conscience has to take up the running when his fit or anger is over ; but tho State holds him harmless. This may be taken as the example for a'l other personal sins, which become sins by disproportion. In treating of gambling and betting, the Bishop might have said more than he did ; for, after all, direct gambling and direct betting are but specific forms of one of the inalienable conditions cf human action. In everything we do we stake our success on the chance of a favourable result. Life is a perpetual gamble, dealing with unknown forces and incalculable events. Love itself is gambling, with death or change as the adversary, and happiness as the stake ; and not a business is undertaken which is not as much a matter of chance as the rise and fall of shares on the Stock Exchange, or the winning of the Derby by the favourite. Butjmen seldom go to the root of things, and first principles are overlooked by those who attack results. The results of gambling in the ruin of a man’s fortune are easy to see ; and the bystanders call on the State to interfere. But, save when the State itself suffers, as the Bishop says, the sin of self-ruin on the colour of a card is a man’s own affair, and the State does wisely not to make it a crime, except under certain public conditions. A gambling hell, where the play is not fair, and where men are ruined by being robbed, is a very different thing from a private club where the members may play whist for suoh points as they may agree among themselves. The one touches the public, and therefore the State , the other is essentially private and individual. There is the same difference between the two as there is between a man’s privately fuddling himself at home, and getting mad drunk at the bar of a pnbliehouse, when he hits out right aud left, and, if he is an American, ‘ draws iron ’ and shoots his neighbour through the head. The old ground of debate, as to whether a man could commit a sin on a desert island, where he would hurt no one by his example or his actions, is a case in point. It lie 3in the distinction between crime and sin—hurt to the community and self*degradation. The duty of the State is to repress the first, of the individual to conquer the latter. In religious emotions logic and reason go by the board. The * illative sense ' stretches beyond its grammatical meaning, and is synonymous with every kind of contradictory conviction. These convictions differ too widely to be of oecumenical or unified influence. Where Cardinal Newman sees the ‘ kindly light ’ he sought for in * authority ’ and his own submission, the Salvationist convert, who was yesterday a criminal, without teaching, training, or misgiving, sets himself to be the leader of souls and the unauthorised exponent of Christ. He does not know the Ten Commandments ; he does not know his own language ; but the « illative sense ’ he possesses serves him instead of intellectual light, and his hearers are satisfied with their rather misty lantern. The half pagan and wholly reasonable axiom of Pope, that his faith cannot be wrong whose life is in the right, meets with no favour from these excited Irregulars, who demand a certain run of thought, and hold it superior to action. All these converted thieves and pious ruffians, these preaching prostitutes and testifying misdemeanants, have not a trace of modesty. Their ‘ illative sense ’ stops short of vulgar moralities, and they do not hesitate to commit crimes in their crusade against sins. Here the Church of Rome shows no more wisdom than do our own excited sinners turned saints. She would return and coinfcrfc, but she would not give the converted wolves the the charge oE innocent flocks. She would see the incongruity, the indelicacy of this translation, and the repentance of her lost sheep returned to the fold would be proved in silence and obedience. Meanwhile the first proof a converted criminal gives of his sincerity in religion is to break the laws of his country, and to call his crime godliness and its punishment matyrdom. We want a few more men like the Bishop of Peter, borough to clear the air of cant, and tear apart the films which superstition has wovon over the reason. We want things to be readjusted, and morals to be placed on their proper basis ; and, above all, distinction between crime and sin—offences against the State and a man’s wrongdoing to his better self—to be made as broad and as the Bishop has made it, and as all wise-judging men know it to be.