THE

DISPENSATION OF PAGANISM.

ROMANS XV. 8, 9.

Now I say, that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the Fathers; and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name.

In the discourse of last Sunday, it was my endeavour to show how appropriate was that description of Revelation, which asserts it to be "good tidings of great joy to all nations." Your attention was called to the fact that in all ages and all countries the minds of men have been perplexed by the conflict of Good and Evil which they saw around them and felt within them; and that, while the form in which these perplexities and doubts occurred to them varied as the course of the world advanced, their essence still remained the same. We observed that the voice

of Nature, speaking aloud in all her works, and the voice of Conscience whispering in the deepest recesses of man's heart, united in testifying that there was but one God, the Maker and Preserver of the Earth and all its inhabitants, a Being of infinite Power, Wisdom, and Goodness, whose will it was that his creature Man should here below typify those attributes, by being wise, and just, and pure, and free, by subduing the brute forces of Nature to his will, by subjecting his will to his reason, and by enlightening his reason at that source of Divine light, which, through the conscience, lighteth every man that cometh into the world. But, while acknowledging this law under which he lay, and striving to fulfil it, we saw that Man's onward course was continually checked by interposing obstacles,that every conquest over Evil produced a new enemy, stronger than the last,—that every social improvement carried in itself the germ of new social evils ;-and that thus that faith in an overruling Providence, without which nothing can furnish peace to the spirit, was perpetually shaken, and often overturned.

But, in reviewing the successive phases under which the same phenomenon reappeared in the different ages of the world, we confined ourselves almost entirely to what may be called the speculative difficulties of the case. We considered Man

almost exclusively in the character of an observer; and we found that in this capacity Paganism afforded him no means of resolving the riddle which everything without him and within him forced upon his notice. In the present discourse I shall endeavour to point out the much greater perplexities which arose from other causes than merely intellectual difficulties. These, indeed, where they lie in such a region as the one of which we are treating, rarely fail to produce in the spirit of him who has long and earnestly tried to resolve them a passionate desire for rest, which demands certainty as the most precious boon that can be bestowed. Tired of the harassing struggle in which he has been engaged, the baffled inquirer will often accept repose from any hand which may offer it,-acquiesce in a theory far more unsound than many which he has previously rejected,—and voluntarily close his eyes lest he should perceive some flaw in it which may force him to recommence his search after the Truth.

But let us endeavour to form some estimate of the effect which the situation of Man, not merely as an inquirer, but as an agent and sufferer in the complex web of human destinies, produced upon his view of the laws by which they were governed. Let us contemplate him, not viewing from some safe eminence the warring powers of

Good and Evil in the several regions where they exhibit themselves, but himself a party in the strife, hurried along by the throng, carried sometimes into the ranks of the one combatant, sometimes into those of the other! Let us behold him now fallen on the earth, trampled under foot, vainly appealing to the mercy, the justice, the reason, of the crowd which crushes him; and now, catching the enthusiasm which he sees, swelling the shout of the insane multitude, and joining them in their headlong course over all that he before reputed sacred. For such is life, and as such has it in all ages been recognised by those who for a space have succeeded in disengaging themselves from the eddy, and scanning, with a hurried glance, the course of the foaming surge before it again swept them along with it. No one, however much he may desire it, can insulate himself. The strong, the wise, the just, cannot altogether escape the control of the weak, the foolish, and the wicked;-nay more, they cannot secure themselves from the contagion of their influence. It is the insight into this truth that made those sages of ancient times, who most exceeded the intellectual stature of their contemporaries, concentrate the results of their meditation in aphorisms which in almost all cases bear upon the practical conduct of Man ;*

This is the universal character of the early moral Philosophy of Greece.

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it was this which induced one who, perhaps more than any, appreciated the dignity of speculative knowledge, to declare that the true end and object of life was not to know but to act. And if to the few, who by long and laborious exertions succeeded in emancipating themselves from the control of the interests of every-day life, still the conduct of that every-day life appeared a matter of such importance, what must it not have been to the common man? To him the interests which surround him make up the Universe: he cannot raise himself up to the height to which Philosophy climbs, and discern in the past the cause, or in the future the alleviation of miseries to which he is subjected. He feels these in all their reality, and from them all his ideas, both as regards his relation to his fellowmen and to the Being who rules over him, take their colour. The conception that his adversity may be really intended as a blessing, is one which he cannot realize to himself: neither can he endure the sight of iniquity in prosperity. His discontent finds vent in a bitter hatred of those who have apparently been more favoured than himself, accompanied with all the various attempts, which the ingenuity of superstition has been able to suggest, to divert the partiality of the Dispensers of Fortune to himself. To

* Aristotle.