CAMBRIDGE SERMONS.*

WE live in an age which professes to despise the pulpit, but certainly profession and practice were never farther apart, if we may judge from the multitude of human beings who sit with eager, upturned faces, listening to any man who has really plunged a little into the darkness they are dimly dreading—the darkness which now and again bites into their very souls—and is prepared to tell honestly what he has found. Amongst those who can thus influence their fellows the writer of the sermons before us might, if he chose, rank pre-eminent. That he does not choose, that for a hundred men who have listened to London preachers we shall scarcely find one who has ever heard Dr. Abbott preach, is probably due to his own profound conviction that he that believeth need not make haste, and that after all, the widest service is the widest sway, and consequently, perhaps, that he may believe himself to be doing more for the generations to come by pursuing his own patient and laborious work, than by occupying any position of more direct influence upon the reli- gious thought of the moment. To such men, however, oppor- tunities are apt to come unsought, and not a few, now at the very turning-point of their lives, will be thankful for the occasion which called Dr. Abbott to preach before the University of Cam- bridge. We have to do in the sermons before us with a man who fears nothing, ignores nothing, takes nothing for granted. There is not a word of the " you ought to do what you ought," so irritating to the minds of men perplexed above everything to find out the foundation upon which any " ought " at all rests. The preacher in this case has no fear of light, from whatever quarter it may come,—only wants to be sure there is enough of it. The preface of a book is often the best indication—we had almost said revelation—of an author's real aim and attitude in relation to the subject of which he treats, and in the instance before us we specially recommend it to the careful attention of the reader. With extreme fairness, as it seems to us, Dr. Abbott faces the position of Christianity at this moment on its darkest side. He sees on that side educated men " throwing away the name of Christian without ever having really apprehended what is meant by faith in Christ," and "fairly intelligent believers " haunted by a terrible dread lest " the very belief in a God. should be exploded next year through the unearthing of some new fossil demonstrative of the Darwinian theory, or the divinity of Christ subverted by the discovery of a couple of uncial manuscripts." Then, cataloguing many an exploded thought once held as vital • Cambridge Sermons. Preached before the University, by the Bev. EdWifs Abbott, D.D London: Macmillan and CO. 1816. to the position, but the shock of whose dissolution that position still, as are some planets even now, in a dense steaming atmosphere, rendering life impossible for natures such as ours—pointed at, perhaps, by the human inhabitants of some other world as a planet on which no human life could ever exist, a perplexing problem of waste—next, as its heat departed, and the increasing coolness made life possible, re- ceiving—Science itself can do no more as yet than guess how—some vital germ. If, in the end, after ages of preparation for the reception of this vital germ, after ages more of development, during which life has been shaped by the Creator in a continuous progress from the first vital thing, called by whatever name, up to that higher developed ideal of mankind which, centuries hence, is to appear made like in all respects to God the Maker, through conformity to the Son of God—if, at last, when the earth has done its work as a school of life, the worn-out car- case of our planet, emptied of its vital heat, is to be left, even like our present moon, to be a minister of light to some other planet, or to be a home for some strange kind of life to us unknown—what is there in all this at which the Christian, of all men, need feel alarm ? He who can unflinchingly see committed to corruption the body of a man, God's noblest structure known to us, made in His image, can he not bear to think that there may come a time when the body of this planet may in like manner be bereft of the life that tenants it, and be mingled with other silent stars, those sons of God that cease their shouts of living praise for a season?"

introduction to his main subject,—" that though it is a dangerous merely putting back the cause of earthly life one link further. doctrine to teach that one may believe whatever is useful to believe, Indeed, he asks, and we see in imagination the expression of yet, to some extend, carefully watched and restricted, it is a the upturned faces as he asks the question, " are we not in danger reasonable inference for those who believe in a Supreme Good, that of exaggerating the theological interest attaching to the at present whatever belief about God produces moral good in man must have unknown process by which God created the first germ of life ? some elements of truth." Few people will deny that a natural As a chemical question it may be of the highest interest, but need readiness to recognise excellence is by no means the possible at- it be so very interesting theologically ?" At the utmost, he tribute of an ignoble nature, but there are many of whom, as Dr. observes, after tracing the theories for the much misnamed Abbott justly hints, it may be said, as of the slanderer in ,, banishment of life," the result attained would amount to a Othello, they are "nothing if not critical." And a cynical critic, proof that all apparently lifeless matter was potentially vital, just writing of the late Canon Kingsley, he says, remarks, "For as a glass may be potentially electrical. "I could stand," he people who want a cheerful, bracing creed, it is a good thing to be says, " by the side of such an investigator with good-will and optimists, but events have made it increasingly difficult to follow gratitude, wishing him God-speed in his laborious path, in the the wholesome propensity of men to find an opinion true as soon full conviction that, if he were successful, he would succeed, not as it is found to be edifying." Whereupon Dr. Abbott remarks, by banishing God's laws, but by obeying them." He then passes " As I read science, never have scholarship and history seemed so on to the theory of evolution, which, broadly speaking, we take likely to combine to help us to a higher comprehension of Christ's him to accept in its entirety ; and he asks, assuming the fact of

character Never before has science shed such a lustre on evolution,—what is the evolving principle ? and he answers,—there the wonders of God's works, revealing progress where we fancied are other subordinate principles, as will shortly be seen ; but the relapse, and law where we had been able to see nothing but fundamental principle at work in the development of life is death, caprice." We are, he tells us, very emphatically warned by a —lavish, illimitable death. We will not do Dr. Abbott the in- foremost apostle of science to beware of the sin of rejecting his justice to abbreviate the pages in which he traces the working of gospel, and he believes a minister of God has no choice but to this principle up to the conclusion that science is but helping those endorse that warning, and he therefore proposes in the lectures who believe in God to believe in Him more reasonably :- which follow to listen not only to the authoritative inculcations ,, Apparent waste, and pain, and lavish death are found of old as they of science, but to " lean forward to catch her whispers, her are found now ; but the waste is in some cases proved to bo apparent, conjectures, her floating fancies." One only scientific con- and not real ; the pain is found to conduce to the development of new jecture he proposes to exclude from his consideration, —

namely, the theory that man is an automaton, and this simply on found mixed with good. then as now, and even more then than now_ the ground that "it is one that can hardly ever become practically evil with good, and ugliness with beauty,—but beauty, from the first interesting." We wish we had space to show how Dr. Abbott triumphing over ugliness, and evil more and more subordinated to good." illustrates his subject as be proceeds, but we must go on with him Then comes the patent, if one-sided objection to a divine govern- to his second lecture, in which, carrying out his purpose to con- ment. Is it not true that in proportion as an animal rises in the eider the discoveries of science, and accepting, tentatively, at all scale of creation, in that proportion he becomes capable of wider events, even its suggestions and conjectures, he determines to ask aberration from the laws of nature? Does not increase of faculty honestly in each scientific assumption,—Is there anything (sub- and of freedom imply increase of fault? In a most masterly way stituting the name of God for Nature) that makes the divine Dr. Abbott pursues the argument to the point where the objector .name jar with the context ? We cannot better show one mode in is certain to urge,—" So, then, the result of all these ages of pre- which Dr. Abbott has carried out this thought than by quoting a paration, of conflict overruled to development, of agony trans-

.single passage :— muted into a basis of instinct,—the result of all this divine " Assume for a moment that it may be true—though in its totality it has been scarcely put forth at present as more than a hypothesis—but too, he enters, and it brings him to his third lecture, the creation assume that this earth of ours, the stores of heat being spent at last, of man,—a juncture at which he reminds his audience that they will, after some thousands or millions of years, become an uninhabitable

globe. Assume also the birth and growth of our globe in the manner conjectured and described by astronomy: first, a mere shapeless portion moderately educated Christians, able to comprehend an un- of a nebulous mass revolving round a centre common to the whole; then technical exposition of a scientific theory and with sense to a portion appropriating shape and unity, and a motion of its own, and, distinguish between a scientific theory, and a theological in- in accordance with the laws of motion, taking the place assigned to it in

the solar system; then, from a gaseous mass becoming a fluid mass and ference, "much oppressed with the atmosphere of religious gradually putting forth an outer and more solid crust, but shrouded distrust," and knowing it to be well to face fairly inevitable has more than survived, Dr. Abbott admits frankly, " We may have to give up something. Truth is often enclosed and preserved for centuries in a hard shell of error, in time the shell is burst and cast away." And further on, he adds, "Let us hope for a gradual and continuous development of religious knowledge eliminating error mainly by the appropriation and assimilation of fresh truth." And thus having the key to his position, we may briefly follow him through the train of thought which succeeds, not unaware we are dealing with writing already so condensed that to condense further is to injure. Yet we must try to set a few of the main points before the reader, if only in the hope that he may be led to study more fully for himself the little volume before us.

We do not know any really similar work of which we can say, as we can of this, that we turned the pages with a fear lest the con- clusion of a given subject should come too soon. In the intro- ductory lecture, Dr. Abbott alludes to the mischief done in the name of religion through long ages by the opposition to the dis- coveries of science, though he justly observes parenthetically that the root of that mischief is not all on one side, since scientific men have been apt to commit the blunder of mixing theological inferences with scientific facts, and have not unfrequently assumed the proposition," if my thesis is true, there is no God," whereupon, "taking them at their word, the Christian who has made up his mind that there is a God, has not thought it worth while to discuss the scientific thesis." But, asks the lecturer :—" In the face of past experience, ought we not to give up our suspicious dread of that part of God's revelation which is called science, and instead of shrinking, instead of timidly acquiescing, instead of coldly accepting, ought not we, the children of light, thankfully and reverently to wel- come fresh light, from what source soever it may come?" Again he states—and we must not forget we are dealing with merely the

to the position, but the shock of whose dissolution that position still, as are some planets even now, in a dense steaming atmosphere, rendering life impossible for natures such as ours—pointed at, perhaps, by the human inhabitants of some other world as a planet on which no human life could ever exist, a perplexing problem of waste—next, as its heat departed, and the increasing coolness made life possible, re- ceiving—Science itself can do no more as yet than guess how—some vital germ. If, in the end, after ages of preparation for the reception of this vital germ, after ages more of development, during which life has been shaped by the Creator in a continuous progress from the first vital thing, called by whatever name, up to that higher developed ideal of mankind which, centuries hence, is to appear made like in all respects to God the Maker, through conformity to the Son of God—if, at last, when the earth has done its work as a school of life, the worn-out car- case of our planet, emptied of its vital heat, is to be left, even like our present moon, to be a minister of light to some other planet, or to be a home for some strange kind of life to us unknown—what is there in all this at which the Christian, of all men, need feel alarm ? He who can unflinchingly see committed to corruption the body of a man, God's noblest structure known to us, made in His image, can he not bear to think that there may come a time when the body of this planet may in like manner be bereft of the life that tenants it, and be mingled with other silent stars, those sons of God that cease their shouts of living praise for a season?"

Passing on through a rapid review many of the boundless pos- instincts or faculties ' - death is found to be the condition of higher life ;

beauty is found to he unsuspected power in the world; evil is indeed

guidance is to increase the possibility of error." Into this point, are not there to criticise the accuracy of scientific theories, but as the solar system; then, from a gaseous mass becoming a fluid mass and ference, "much oppressed with the atmosphere of religious sibilities revealed by astronomical science, with the apparent almost limitless impossibilities it reveals also, and meeting the question so likely to arise, " Why was this waste of substance made?" and proving that that apparent waste is not proportion- ately greater than the waste of life to be found here daily in every square foot of earth and in every drop of water, Dr. Abbott goes on to the unsolved question of the origin of life, and meeting boldly even the wild hypothesis—known to most of our readers as the speculation of an eminent scientific man—"that our satellite the moon may have transmitted to us the germs of life," he remarks : "If planetary transmission of vital germs could be proved to be a law, that would no doubt be a grand law, but regarded as an isolated case it would be of no great interest, questions before entering on the absorbing work of active life. He would have them assume that twenty years hence most of the fresh discoveries of science will but demonstrate the truth of much which at present remains unproved, and in desiring that assumption, clearly gives in his own adhesion to the belief that it will be so, expressing, at the same time, his own conviction that there is nothing in such expectation that need cause fear to a rational Christian. And in expressing this honest conviction, Dr. Abbott has done a service most of us require some bold friend to perform for us between the cradle and the grave,—namely, seize the thing which has so frightened us in the dark, and shake it out straight in the light of the sun.

But we have to proceed to the question the lecturer next touches. "In virtue of what faculty did man rise from his lower level and be- come what he is ? Science will answer, in virtue of the faculty of

attention." He traces the results of this faculty up to the moment when social union caused by fear requires something more than fear

to sustain it, more, too, than mere abstinence on the part of the tribesman from injuring his fellows. "Union in war implies obedience and discipline ; union in peace implies law." " With the introduction of law comes of necessity the revelation of sin."

"From henceforth man and nature were at strife." And we have before us a remarkably fine passage which our limits will not allow us to quote, 'wherein man is portrayed as recognising in himself this new faculty of will, and attributing the same faculty to his new enemy, so that Nature personified assumes the aspect of a foe and an avenger. "Now comes Religion into the field, religion, the art of bribing spirits (for thus it must be regarded in its lower aspect),"—strong language for a quiet clergyman. We hope if it catches the eye of men of Professor Clifford's mental calibre, they will follow out Dr. Abbott's argument to the end, and notice how he looks at all the lower forms of religion, at all the evil wrought in its name, at the bloody sacrifices, the butcheries, the self-torture, the dread, the blackening of all human life. Even Professor Clifford himself could describe the evil in no stronger language. Some, says Dr. Abbott, will be tempted to say, better no religion at all than such a parody.' Man under such influence—we are compelled to suppress much that is valuable to Dr. Abbott's argument for the sake of brevity—" man under such influence, compared with the dog at his side, might seem a retrograde animal." But it was not so. All the law the world has known since has existed from man's recognising a Will external to his own ; he was dimly groping towards that. "The evil consisted in man's attempt to conform the external Will to himself, instead of himself to the Will." Natural selection prepared the way for a truer theology, by discouraging the lower types of religion. We cannot follow out the argument at length, but can give a very simple and easily appreciable result. " The man that could believe in a good -spirit was, other things being equal, at an advantage as compared with the man that could believe in none but bad spirits (even in the struggle for existence, that is). Then, again, we have the arts of life preparing the way for theology. The improvement in weapons takes place, then metals are discovered, beasts destroyed, and at length with the wheat-field, became possible first the idea, then the toleration, then the love of a fixed home. Man's imper- fect theology improved, but men had not attained to the know- ledge of one perfect Will. At this point we pass out of pre-his- tonic times on to the civilisations which some of our philosophers profess to regret, ignoring the fact that ere they perished they were rotten from rind to core ; but we pass to the central figure in human history. One calm thought must. suffice to con- vince an unprejudiced mind that whatever Christianity has done or left undone, it has inaugurated a new force in the history of man's being. Up to this moment, granting every hypothesis, as well as every proved fact of science, the survival of the fittest had been the law of progress. Natural

selection had chosen the strongest, the most cunning, the most beautiful, and now "each phase of- selection had done its work, and a new phase of selection was, at hand ; a selection at

once natural and divine, a selection of the weakest, the humblest, the most unselfish ; this was to be the new conquering race, to survive in the survival of the fittest :"—

"And in this solemn Manifesto the Sovereign of the new Kingdom proclaimed the passing-away of the old Natural Selection and the in- troduction of the new Selection of God :—The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them ; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so : but he that is greatest

among you, let him be as the younger ; and he that is chief, as he that cloth serve."

And says Dr. Abbott, further on, in another lecture, the novelty -of Christ's sayings is not the important question. Grant that every one of our Lord's precepts had been uttered before, what then ? What does this prove, except that the mere utterance of divine precepts was of comparatively little use till quickened by a Spirit ?

We must not follow Dr. Abbott further. His valuable lecture on Christian work, in which he proves that Christianity was not intended to supply a law, but a motive, must remain unglanced at ; and with almost deeper regret we leave unnoticed the pages devoted to the subject of prayer. We can only suggest that thoughtful readers should study this little volume carefully for themselves.