sermon that it has made the whole English contemporary society uncomfortable. That the state of society in which such a piece of corruption as Grandcourt should be not only the leader but the crazing fascination and ideal of the most delicate and fastidious young woman in that society; that a state of society should exist in which pure young girls should be found manoeuvring for this Grandcourt infamy, plotting to be Grandcourt's wife instead of flying from him in horror." Now why does the showing by Smollett make Mr. Lanier shudder, and the showing by George Eliot make Mr. Lanier admire the artist and recognize a moral intent? Simply because Mr. Lanier's standard is a standard of the senses. Smollett and Sterne present the physically unlovely, George Eliot drapes and softens with cultured feminine instinct. And because while the picture reads its lesson it is less repul sive, it seems to the surface observer a nobler work. But— and here is the point-in respect of the older novelists, the world does not agree with Mr. Lanier. He admits it, "As I have said," he says, "these four writers,"-Sterne, Fielding, Richardson, Smollett,-"still maintain their position as the classic novelists and their moral influence is still extolled." Now why? Simply, and this is the link in the chain of thought, that the surface impression from a book does not give its real content. The unconscious force within it far outweighs its immediate and outward influence. And with respect to the strong old writers of a century ago, those of us who as boys loved the vigor, and the manliness, and the tenderness of Uncle Toby do not need to be told why the world refuses to forget him.

Still further, in personal influence, the effective force is the inner light. Not long ago an educator of age and experience said to me that the longer he taught the less did he try to exert conscious personal influence. "For," said he, "the potent factor in any man is his unconscious influence and if after the spell of the personal presence is past,-given the perspective of distance, the unconscious influence should contradict the intended," the what Mr. Lanier might call the moral element,"the distrust will grow, and the last state of that boy will be worse than the first." That is, the admixture of the human in

the exertion of the conscious personal leading was inevitable and dangerous. He would rather point toward the light and efface his own personality.

Now then if in the judgment of the world as to classification of literary works; if in the judgment of the world as to the moral potency of classical works; if in the judgment of the world as to personal influence, the unconscious is the determining factor, may we not find here an answer to the question before us? Is not the presence of the ideal the test of immortal literary work? Is it not true also that the extent with which the eternal and unseen verity is interwoven with the actual as depicted rather than the intent of the human writer, determines the moral content of the work? Is it not true that if the moral

oxygen vivifies it, the work is immortal?

But the moral is not always the didactic and the writer need not be a preacher. In fact, commonly in just such measure as the human preacher intrudes, by just so much is the divine in art clouded. If it does so intrude, the effect is apt to be that we characterize the work as good or bad but straightway forget all about its moral purport.

And indeed, if in the theory Mr. Lanier appears to controvert these positions, in the discussion of the theory as applied to the example he supports them. For instance take his fine analysis of the scientifico-moral attitude of M. Zola. You should read the whole argument. It is so complete and exhaustive that in alluding to it one fears lest he may do it less than justice. Yet it is not unfair to say that as you read it the conviction grows upon you, as Mr. Lanier meant it should grow upon you, that M. Zola's vision is bounded by the human, that the absence of the ideal is its fatal defect, and that it is not only with epigrammatic incisiveness but also with simple truthfulness that Mr. Lanier pronounces this crushing verdict on M. Zola: "The hand is the hand of science; but the voice is the voice of a beast."

Or again we find the same to be true in the equally full, very much needed, and almost uncriticisable, discussion of the phys ical in Whitman. The "Whitman School," to use his term, certainly have moral purpose enough. But they certainly also are not strongly interpenetrated with the ideal, and we do not

feel they are unjustly treated when Mr. Lanier says of their "movement" that "its whole momentum is derived from the physically large which ceased to astonish the world ages ago in comparison with spiritual greatness."

But it is dangerous to reopen this book even to verify a quotation. No sooner does one do this than its charm narcotizes and its striving stimulates and one settles into an attitude of dreamy aspiration. The perfection of the utterance is, too, a perpetual delight. Consider how completely in these few words he combats one phase of modern vagaries.

"Listen to Walt Whitman's reverie, as he looks at some cattle:

'I think I could turn and live with

Animals, they are so placid and self contained

I stand and look at them long and long ;

Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented

With the mania of owning things,

Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.'

The Whitman method of reaching naiveté is here so queerly illustrated that it seems worth while to stop a moment to point it out. Upon the least reflection one must see that animals here must mean cows and well-fed cows; for they are about the only animals in the world to whom these words will apply; 'For,' says Whitman, not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things.' But suppose he were taking one of his favorite night strolls in the woods of Bengal rather than of New Jersey, is it not more than probable that the first animal he met would be some wicked tiger, not only dissatisfied, but perfectly demented with the mania of owning Whitman, the only kind of property a tiger knows." After this, what more is to be said? This particular position of Whitman is not only overthrown, but is annihilated.

Or consider how mercilessly true is this of Clarissa Harlowe. "In 1748 appears Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe in eight volumes which from your present lecturer's point of view is quite sufficiently described as a patient analysis of the most intolerable crime in all fiction, watered with an amount of tears and sensibility as much greater than that in Pamela as the cube of eight volumes is greater than the cube of four volumes."

Yet Mr. Lanier is never unjust. He is always candid in

And che

intent. He loves to praise rather than to blame. impulse of his reader is to praise. How true is this of Walter Scott's novels. "They are the most hale and strengthening waters in which the young soul ever bathed. They discuss no moral problems, they place us in no relation toward our fellows that can be called moral at all, they belong to that part of us which is youthful, undebating, wholly unmoral,-though not immoral,—they are simply always young, always healthy, always miraculous."

What a splendid description in one sentence of George Eliot's work. She "shows man what he may be in terms of what he is." How perfect this sketch of the typical women: "Intense and hungry spirits, first wasting that intensity and hunger upon that which is unworthy, often from pure ignorance of anything worthier, then finding where is worthy and thereafter loving larger loves, and living larger lives."

We leave this book with regret. Its influence is at once large and softening. We remember the personality with tenderness, "sorrowing most of all that we shall see his face no more."

ARTICLE VII.-THE THEISM OF JESUS.

CONCERNING spirit, Jesus taught that it is an essential element in the complex being of man and is clearly distinguished rom the matter upon which it may act or within which it may bide. The flesh is one thing, the spirit another: the two are ontinually contrasted. Spirit is not produced by the body, it may exist apart from it and therefore cannot be dependent upon it for existence. When Jesus would designate spirit as incarnate, acting upon the body and in turn influenced by it, he calls it the soul. The soul of man is his spirit animating the body, energizing the functions of its different organs, regulating its appetites and controlling its desires; and through the body acting upon the world of matter and spirit about him and in return receiving impressions. The attributes of spirit are knowledge, feeling, will, conscience, personality and power. Spirit knowing, Jesus calls mind; spirit feeling, is the heart; spirit choosing, is the will; spirit discerning right and wrong and approving the right while it condemns the wrong, is conscience; spirit conscious that it knows, feels, wills and discerns right and wrong, and conscious that itself thus acting is distinct. from other spirit and from matter, is a person; while power is that preeminent attribute of spirit inherent in all knowledge, feeling, choosing, conscience and personality which originates action and is manifested and measured by the results produced. Christ taught, therefore, that spirit is not a mere abstraction, but a positive reality known by all men. Spirit cannot be seen with the natural eye, nor be grasped with the hand of flesh, nor be heard with the mortal ear: because eye, hand, ear are but matter which however highly organized can neither see, feel nor hear: these all are but instruments of spirit.

Man knows his own spirit and therefore only does he know his body, the material universe, the spirits of other men, the spirit of God. Christ's doctrine of the existence and spiritual nature of God is made by its author fundamental not only to all religion, but to morality as well. He was not content,