COMMON THINGS IN RELIGION.
Winn we advised the introduction of common things into ser- mons, we used a phrase at present in acceptation, but we were far from meaning that sermons should discourse only on material things in their material utilities, and narrow the discourse of the church to the meanest or most trivial considerations of life. If there was anything equivocal in our language, it was so clearly explained by our excellent correspondent, " A Cheshire Parson," last week, that it would be quite unnecessary to say a word more, unless the very fact of his raising the question renders it useful to carry the explanation a little further.
"If by preaching common things' is meant that we should cease to talk of doctrines apart from life in a hard and technical way, and to exalt mere dry and formal ceremonial enactments unconnected with men's hopes and fears into the place of eternal truth,—if by preaching common things' is meant, that we should ever show that every-day life and all the commonest duties and cases of senators,judges, farmers, blacksmiths, and washer- women, are most closely bound up with the most mysterious laws of God,— then is the phrase a most excellent one. But if it is meant, that we should put physical laws before men, not as based upon spiritual power, but as affording the likhest knowledge,—that we are to tell men that a mere ac- quaintance wir the forces of brute matter or the laws of demand and supply will make drunkards sober or rogues honest ; that Rachel weeping for her children is to be comforted by a lecture upon anatomy demonstrated upon the corpses lying at her feet,—then the advice to preach common things' is false and hateful, springing from ignorance of all whom it concerns."
This would be, not teaching common things, but preaching the parts only of common things, and those parts which it least con- cerns us to understand. The poor child may learn to sweep stairs and to cook mutton-broth from the most ignorant professors of those two arts ; but the real preacher who should undertake the sacred duty of preaching to that poor child, may teach it, that even in the sweeping of stairs and the cooking of mutton- broth, that same humble creature is carrying out laws that regu- late the entire universe, without which the life of the child could not exist, nor the life of its fellow creatures ; that, in fact,
it is performing a duty which carries on the great work of crea- tion.
Nay, the distinction between common things and things not common is purely human—is in itself comparatively narrow and trivial. By things not common, we mean those things which occasion the greatest difficulty to acquire them, and can be shared by the fewest number of people—the very powerful, very rich, or very intellectual ; things useful perhaps to be known, es- sential possibly in their very nature to human kind, but not ne- cessary to be understood by the whole of our kind, at least in these present days. They are, so to speak, the extreme points of knowledge ; and in proportion as they are special they are re- moved from the most general laws. It is the commonest things that are most immediately and essentially bound kip with the greatest laws of the universe—that emanate most directly and obviously to us from the Supreme Power which rules the uni- verse.
For the moment, we may regard the religion of Christian churches as being divided into the dogmatic and mystical—that which appeals directly to the belief and claims acceptance from the instincts and direct knowledge of human nature ; and that which is moral—which treats of the conduct of man in order to con- form to the laws of his Master. In this land, we have to a great extent departed from the Church which had taken up its abode at Rome, and amongst other distinctions is the use that we make of the sermon. The discourse is not entirely unknown in the Roman Church, but it is used seldomer and in a much more limited man- ner. It is, we believe, a great power, especially in producing two grand results. We may consider that the mystical or dogmatic part of religion is sufficiently eared for in the set forms of the service ; but in the sermon the preacher has the means of explain- ing to his congregation how it is that the laws of the creation are peremptorily carried forth in all that moves organic or inorganic life ; how not an atom falls, nor a drop of water is evaporated, but it is by the universal laws ; and how, if we would attain on this earth to the full of the life with which at our birth we are endowed, we must do so by obeying the laws. Our obedience will be the easier to ourselves, and the more complete, if we are ena- bled to understand the nature of the duty and the method of obe- dience.
As if to clench the argument propounded by ourselves and our correspondent, comes a sermon, which was 'recently preached before Queen Victoria at Balmoral, and is now given to the world by the Queen's command.* It is an eloquent, outspoken, and assent-compelling protest against the common notion that religion is for the seclusion of the church, and not for the world—" that prayers, sermons, holy reading, they will scarcely venture to add
God, are for Sundays ; but week-days are for the sober business, the real practical affairs of life." If an existence of ceaseless prayer and unbroken contemplation were essential to salvation, a lifetime of solitude, hardship, and penury, were all too slight a consideration for an eternity of bliss. " But the very impossibility of such a sacrifice proves that no such sacri- fice is demanded. He who rules the world is no arbitrary tyrant prescribing impracticable labours. In the material world there are no conflicting laws _• and no more, we may rest assured, are there established in the moral world any two laws one or other of which must needs be disobeyed. Now one thing is certain, that there is in the moral world a law of labour. Secu- lar work, in all cases a duty, is in most cases a necessity."
Religion is " the art of being and of doing good." It is not " a perpetual poring over good books—religion is not evenprayer, praise, holy ordinances" ; it is not fulfilled by furthering religions or missionary enterprises at home or abroad. Such is the Chris- tian's duty, but his duty terminates not there. On the contrary, he promotes the cause still more effectually in his daily demean- our—in the family, in society, in business transactions, by dif- fusing the influence of Christian principles, "by rising superior to equivocal practices and advantages in trade; by shrinking from every approach to meanness or dishonesty." The school for learn- ing the art of being and doing good" is " not the closet, but the world" ; not some hallowed spot where religion is taught, and proficients, when duly trained, are sent forth into the world, but the world itself—the coarse, profane, common world, with its cares and temptations, its rivalries and competitions, its hourly ever-recurring trials Of temper and character.'
"It is to be remembered that moral qualities reside not in actions, but in the agent who performs them, and that it is the spirit or motive from which we do any work that constitutes it base or noble, worldly or spiritual, secular or sacred. The actions of an automaton may be outwardly the same as those of a moral agent, but who attributes to them goodness or badness ? A musical instrument may discourse sacred melodies better than the holiest lips can sing them, but who thinks of commending it for its piety ? It is the same with actions as with places. Just as no spot or scene on earth is in itself more or less holy than another, but the presence of a holy heart may hallow—of a base one desecrate--any place where it dwells, so with actions. Many actions, materially great and noble, may yet, because of the spirit that prompts and pervades them, be really ignoble and mean ; and, on the other hand, many actions, externally mean and lowly, may, because of the state of his heart who does them, be truly exalted and honourable. It is possible to fill the highest station on earth, and go through the actions pertaining to it in a spirit that degrades all its dignities, and renders all its high and courtly doings essentially vulgar and mean. And it is no mere sentimentality to say, that there may dwell in a lowly mechanic's or house• hold servant's breast a spirit that dignifies the coarsest toils and 'renders drudgery divine.' Herod of old was a slave, though he sat upon a throne ; but who will say that the work of that carpenter's shop at Nazareth was not noble and kingly work indeed!"
• Religion in Common Life : a Sermon. By the Reverend John Cain'. M.A., Minister of Errol. Published by her Majesty's command. Blackwood and Sons.
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