words, to convince him that he is only one among others of equal worth with himself, the method of rewards and punishments can never succeed; for it is an appeal to self-interest, which by that appeal is confirmed and strengthened. No; if selfish man is to be raised from self-concern to true justice it must be by something which makes no appeal to his selfinterest, but calls him out altogether from his selfconcern; it must be by the stimulation of his generosity; it must be by self-sacrifice calling for self-sacrifice in

answer.

Prophets and philosophers have indeed combined to establish the thought of God as primarily moral Law-giver and Judge. "Wilt thou not slay the wicked, O God?" I expresses exactly the mental attitude of Kant's Critique of Practical Reason. And the resultant notion of God has a high disciplinary value. Fear of God's wrath and punishment may keep wild impulses in check, though it can never really cleanse the character. But we cannot help noticing that both prophets and philosophers are mainly concerned with the punishment so richly deserved by some one else. This is, in fact, the root fallacy of much moral philosophy; it looks at legislation, divine or human, from outside, as designed to hold in check wicked persons other than the author and his readers. It may be true that those who vote for a law sentencing murderers to death are thinking to themselves, vote that any one who kills me shall be hanged"; but the real meaning of the legislation is that through every citizen says, "I will that if I ever kill a man I may be hanged. The effectiveness of Law and its machinery of enforcement can only be appreciated by those who consider its application to themselves. is natural, but very misleading, to think that there must be a God that those who injure or disgust us by their crimes may be punished or destroyed; the only thing

it

1 Psalm cxxxix. 19.

It

a favourable climate to grow in. My non-resistance, when it is valid, is never mere generosity and kindness: it is the attempt to make my opponent see in himself what I see in him, to lift him in sight of his own ultimate integrity." 1 So, too, the love of God, who makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust, is not that merely amiable quality which shirks the responsibility of action and is properly called sentimentality; it is love active in redemption.

The revelation gives us not only a doctrinal affirmation of the divine love, but its very image. It is always by imagery that principles become powerful over conduct.2 We are not left to conceive the allembracing love of God as a general idea; we can call to mind the Agony and the Cross. There we see what selfishness in us means to God; and if evil means that to God, then God is not indifferent to evil. He displays His utter alienation from evil by showing us the pain that it inflicts on Him. So more than in any other way He rouses us from acquiescence in our own selfishness. By His refusal to discriminate in His love, and by His surrender of Himself for men's evil passions to torment, He wins us to deserve His love and kills the evil passions in a degree that would be impossible by any activity of righteous force.

If, however, we are too hardened in self-complacency to let the appeal of His love penetrate to our hearts (as may happen to respectable people though scarcely to notorious sinners), we cannot take selfish comfort in the thought that He loves us still. Because He loves us, and because that self-complacency is shutting us out from eternal life, He will let our selfishness bring upon us its own fruit of disaster. Incarnate Love, on the very threshold of the Passion wherein that Love is supremely manifest, speaks of Himself

1 C. A. Bennett, A Philosophical Study of Mysticism, p. 141.
2 Cf. Mens Creatrix, chap. xii.

as the stone which the builders rejected and is become the head of the corner: I whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him like dust." He will smash and crush the hard shell of the self-contented soul, at any cost of mere pain and suffering; for though it is no pleasure to Him to see us suffer, however much we may deserve it, He also knows that any volume or poignancy of pain may be worth while if it gives the opportunity for love at last to penetrate and call forth love. The Gospel of God's undiscriminating love has no syllable of consolation for the self-complacent, except in so far as it assures them that the aim of whatever judgement may befall them is to afford a new opportunity for living as they have no desire to live.

For fellowship with God is the goal to which God calls us; it is fellowship with Love-utter, selfforgetful, and self-giving Love. The selfish cannot reach it, except they be first changed into what they are not; and if they could, they would detest it. The Christian Heaven is no selfish reward for sufferings regretfully endured; it is fellowship with God. To go to Heaven means to be used up utterly in service; but that is also Hell for those in whom love has not yet conquered self. In either case it is the truth of all life, for it is the Life of God. If God has not won us by His love into spiritual fellowship with Himself, we are on the way to Hell; if He never does so win us, we must arrive there; 2 if He do so win us we are in Heaven. All turns on our knowledge of and response to God who is Love. He is what He is and His world is what it is; we know or do not know.

1 St. Matthew xxi. 44; St. Luke xx. 18.

It is

2 The Catholic and Evangelical doctrine of Original Sin, which teaches that we are "lost" unless we be redeemed, is thus simply and exactly true, though its supposed historical basis is mythical. I use the word Heaven for final and assured fellowship with God, Hell for final and irrevocable alienation from Him. What the latter involves is further considered in the next chapter.

not scientific or doctrinal knowledge (eidévai) that is here in question, but the knowledge of personal acquaintance (yvwvat). "This is eternal life, to know thee the only true God, and Him whom thou sendedst, Jesus Christ." 1 "This is the true God and eternal life; little children, keep yourselves from idols." 2

CHAPTER XI

ETERNITY AND HISTORY

"I saw Eternity the other night

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,

All calm as it was bright:

And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years,
Driven by the spheres,

Like a vast shadow moved; in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd."

HENRY VAUGHAN.

IN a former chapter 1 we found that History must be capable of apprehension as a single whole, and that such an apprehension would be an experience deserving the name Eternal. This word does not mean mere everlastingness; it means a unitary synthetic apprehension of the whole process of Time and all that happens in it. What other conditions must be fulfilled to make such an apprehension possible we have no means of completely knowing; we can rise to such an apprehension of a short span of time, though even for that it seems that a selection of the events is necessary. When we grasp a period of History, it is a period already past, and our apprehension is limited to the outstanding events, or to what is closely connected with outstanding events or outstanding individuals. Art can take us further into the mystery; the tragedian can give us an experience of the present in the light of its own future. But that is only possible because the play is written before we read it or see it acted. Perhaps the poet or dramatist in act of writing comes nearer. He does not know in advance just 1 Chapter V.