It is impossible to exaggerate either the number or
the value of the benefits conferred upon the world by Christianity. No
one can grew weary of tracing out the many ways in which his religion
has blessed his kind; or fail to feel a thrill of pleasure as one of its
benign modes, undiscovered before, presents itself to his view. Even as
a man, whose heart is full of the love of his country, delights not only
to visit its high hills and bold headlands, its stately rivers and still
mountain tarns, its varied scenery of fertile valley and barren moor,
but feels pleasure in watching these in all their moods, from the bright
smile with which they welcome spring, or bask in the noons of summer, to
their dark frown, when they scowl upon the winter storm; so a man, whose
heart is full of the love of his religion, delights not only to study
its sublime doctrines, and ponder its righteous laws, but is pleased to
trace out its subtlest influences, to follow its recorded changes, to
see how it has been affected by man, and how man has been affected by
it. And one of the most striking influences of Christianity is to be
seen in the everyday life of the world. Nor is this to be lightly
thought of. We can never be grateful enough to God for the light which
the gospel has cast upon the hereafter, and the good hopes of
everlasting rest which it holds out to every mortal wanderer weary of
the journey of time, for the balm which it brings to the wounded
conscience, and the holy solaces which it carries into the home of
sorrow, and sheds over the bed of death; but it would ill become us to
render no thanks for the blessings brought us by the gospel in a
high-toned civilisation, and the numberless appliances for the
convenience and comfort of social life. By attending to this aspect of
Christianity we ourselves may see more of the love and wisdom of God;
and some who see not these attributes elsewhere may find them here.
The assertion, that to Christ's life and teaching we
owe the blessings of civilisation, may seem unwarrantable. It will be
said, long before Christ appeared, and His doctrine was promulged, men
had made large advances, not only in ordinary civilisation, but in high
refinement. Greece and Borne had sent forth their artists, their
philosophers, their statesmen, their orators; in Athens, and on the
banks of the Tiber, there stood trophies of genius which men, throughout
succeeding ages, have imitated, but never equalled; in the porch and in
the forum eloquence had been heard more grand and powerful than has ever
flowed from a human tongue elsewhere. We grant at once the greatness of
heathen philosophers and bards, of Athenian sculptors and Roman
lawgivers. We would not pluck a single leaf from the laurel crown that
wreathed the brow of poetry or art. Yet we hold that ancient heathendom,
notwithstanding its boasted triumphs, was not really civilised. For it
must be borne in mind that civilisation does not deal with the few, but
the many; it does not refer to a favoured oligarchy, but to the common
mass. Nor does it consist of triumphs in art and science; it is not even
composed of a wise statute-book, and an upright judge: it consists of
men, made good citizens, respecting the rights of their fellows, keenly
alive to a sense of probity and honour, loving virtue with a common
love, hating vice with a common hatred. Now, in this sense, ancient
heathendom was not civilised. Its masses were not leavened with the
spirit of gentleness, and equity, and truth. It boasted men who,
impelled by the stirrings of their own genius, rose far above their
fellows, and obtained glorious insights into beauty and truth; but these
were separated from the masses, alike by their inherent powers and large
acquirements, and served to adorn, but not to elevate or inform their
kind. Into the crowded city lane and the remote country hamlet
civilisation entered not; there refined tastes and pursuits were
unknown. Look to this picture of ancient heathen life, drawn by a
master's hand: —"If you would witness a scene characteristic of the
popular life of old, you must go to the amphitheatre of Home, mingle
with its 80,000 spectators, and watch the eager faces of senators and
people. Observe how the masters of the world spend the wealth of
conquest, and indulge the pride of power. See every wild creature that
God has made to dwell, from the jungles of India to the mountains of
Wales, from the forests of Germany to the deserts of Nubia, brought
hither to be hunted down, in artificial groves, by thousands in an hour.
Behold the captives of war—noble, perhaps, and wise in their own
land—turned loose, amid yells of insult, more terrible for their foreign
tongue, to contend with brutal gladiators, trained to make death the
favourite amusement, and present the most solemn of individual realities
as a wholesale public sport. Mark the light look with which the
multitude, by uplifted finger, demands that the wounded combatant be
slain before their eyes. Notice the troop of Christian martyrs awaiting,
hand in hand, the leap from the tiger's den. And when the day's
spectacle is over, the blood of two thousand victims stains the ring.
Follow the giddy crowd, as it streams from the vomitories into the
street; trace its lazy course into the forum, and see it there
scrambling for the bread of private indolence, doled out by the purse of
public corruption; and see how it suns itself to sleep in the open ways,
or crawls into foul dens till morning brings the hope of games and merry
blood again; and you have an idea of the imperial people, and their
passionate living for the moment, which the gospel found in occupation
of the world."
And there can be no doubt that the spurious
civilisation of ancient heathendom resulted from the fact that it had no
elevating doctrines appreciable by the masses; no bold revelation of
truth to present to the mind of the peasant; no thrilling gospel of love
wherewith to touch the heart of the artisan. Its mode of reformation was
exactly the opposite of that adopted in the religion of Christ. It
sought to reform from without to within—from the summit to the base—from
the state to the individual. By means of an outward polity, and some
striking examples of the heroic and. the wise, it imagined that the
tastes of a people might be elevated, and their feelings humanised. And
by such a mode it did, at rare intervals, produce good and great men.
But these were not, so to speak, the natural products of the soil,—they
were not the necessary results of a power like the gospel, which, ever
passing from beneath, must inevitably raise some into positions of
influence and honour; they grew up, as it were by miracle, and lived and
died in the solitudes of their own souls, connected with their fellows
only by the air which they breathed, and the ground on which they trode.
But though old heathendom produced such men, it cannot be said to have
been civilised. If the walls of a palace were to be built of rough,
unhewn boulders, loosely put together, and rudely arranged, no one would
regard the building as a triumph of masonic skill, though its front was
graced with the most splendid statues, and its roof adorned with the
costliest spires. And so, since its masses were left unrefined and rude,
without any great power of good to reach them, or any stimulus of strong
hope or right ambition to urge them on, no one can claim a true
civilisation for the old heathen world, though it produced the greatest
philosophers that ever thought, and the greatest poets that ever sang.
These were in it, but they were not of it.
And by what means, then, it will be asked, has
Christianity established and fostered a true civilisation ? It is a
statement which will not be denied, that man can only advance in what is
useful and great when he has obtained true ideas of himself, and of his
relations to his fellows. If he is ignorant of his own dignity and
destiny, his life will become besotted and mean; if unacquainted with
the duties required of him by his kind, nothing will save him from being
unjust, capricious, and cruel. And in no way can right conceptions of
self be so well obtained as by disclosing to each of us a noble past and
a splendid future. History shews how powerfully the consciousness of
having a high ancestry has acted on the development of self-forgetting
bravery and self-denying toil, and all those chivalrous qualities which
have ennobled and adorned the world-life of man. To have had forefathers
famous for doughty deeds—to belong to a family begotten by valour, and
nurtured by honour—has strung many a soul to stand up boldly in the
council against victorious wrong, and nerved many an arm to strike home
to mailed oppression on the field. To be a member of a nation
distinguished for its love of liberty, or renowned for its jealous care
of the arts of peace, yielding from its past many an image of a great
and arduous life, 'cannot fail to foster genuine manliness, and hold up
the coward and the sluggard to contempt and scorn. With much truth it
has been said—"No material interests, no common welfare, can so bind a
community together, and make it strong of heart, as a history of rights
maintained, and virtues un-corrupted, and freedom won. And one legend of
conscience is worth more to a country than hidden gold and fertile
plains." Now, Christianity assigns to us the highest ancestry; for it
tells us that we are "the sons of God, and the joint heirs with Christ."
It assures us that we belong to a community whose fair honour is never
sullied, whose proud liberty has been gained by ' garments rolled in
blood," and "great tribulation;" for it informs us that we are "
fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God." The
poorest and the humblest it allies with the greatest and the noblest;
for it points out to them Christ—the Conqueror of evil, the Lord of
angels, the King of men —as their Elder Brother. And in this way we
maintain that Christianity has ministered, more than any other power, to
the advancement of the human race in all that is great and good; for
thus it reaches and leavens the masses, and fosters the grandest
principles of rectitude and honour within the meanest lot. When the
labourer comes to feel that he is the brother of the Galilean peasant,
and the artisan is taught that he is the brother of Him who wrought at
Nazareth in Joseph's workshop, then labour is made a sacred thing, to be
done, not for the wages of a master, but for the glory of God. At the
forge and in the field, honour as high and courage as true are
exemplified as in the cabinet or the camp; and man advances in all the
virtues which belong to his glorious lineage.
Nor is it only by telling us what we are that
Christianity helps us to right ideas of self, and thus fosters
civilisation; it does the same by informing us what we yet may be. Not
only does it disclose to us a splendid past, it also unfolds a sublime
future. And that man may really advance, he must be certain of his
futurity. If the present life is looked upon as the sum of existence, it
is hardly to be expected that anything will be desired which does not
minister directly to immediate comfort and ease. If no plain information
is given concerning the hereafter, one of two things must happen. Man
will either be so oppressed with doubts and fears about his eternal
future, that, in reference to present duties, he will be utterly unfit
for serious thought or earnest labour, and thus sink into nervous
restlessness or sheer supine -ness; or, casting these doubts and fears
aside, and, resolving, after death, to take his chance, he will remove
one of the strongest curbs upon sinful passions and appetites; and thus,
instead of doing good, will do evil, instead of advancing will
retrograde. Take the case of the old heathen world. It had some
conception of a future; but that conception was only a point for
speculation, and not a spring of action : it was a subject to be
discussed in the school of the philosopher, and not a power to rule in
the workshop of the artisan. And what was the result? That influence
which we now feel to be the mightiest in softening and solemnising life,
calmed no passion, sobered no present pleasure, frightened away no
flagrant crime, inspired no strength to do, and no courage to bear
amongst the masses of heathen men. But Christianity, by revealing
plainly our futurity, and stating distinctly that what we shall be
hereafter depends upon what we are when here, has given us the highest
incentive to present work, and the sweetest solace under present sorrow.
The Christian doctrine of immortality idealises the life of man. It
blunts the edge of pain, takes away the sting of disappointment, abates
the bitterness of the cup of grief, lightens the toils of nature by an
eternal hope, sends an angel of love to help the heavy-laden to bear
their burden, subdues the tyranny of the present by a future sublimely
great, draws over the world which now is the shadow of that which is to
come, and fills us with an earnest wish to make earth more like to
heaven, and thus puts into the hand of the humblest Christian a means of
bettering and adorning the world, mightier than the parchments of
Grecian sages or the swords of Roman warriors.
But not only does Christianity furnish man with true
ideas of self, it also sets before him most plainly his relations to his
fellows. And without a knowledge of these relations there can be no true
civilisation. When a number of men form themselves into a community, and
determine to live together, the first thing they do is to establish, and
bind themselves to defend, the rights of property. This is necessary,
not only for their happiness, but for their very existence. And in the
old heathen world, the utmost advance that man made in rectitude was the
full recognition of these rights; and that recognition, embodied in law,
was the only great moral power by which the masses could be reached.
This being the case, it must be plain that justice was the ground on
which ancient civilisation was based. But justice is not a principle
essentially progressive in reference to all that concerns the general
wellbeing of man. It is satisfied if the duties contained in its own
code of laws be discharged; if they be neglected, it will punish the
delinquency; but it does not prompt the doing of anything beyond its
legal requirements. Hence in heathen states there was no principle that
ever enlarged the claims of man upon man, necessarily engendered deeds
of kindness, and large efforts for the benefit of mankind, and thus one
of the strongest agents in true civilisation was wanting. Theft was
punished; but philanthropy, though honoured, was not of necessity
produced. An inadequate or effete constitution might be reformed; but no
machinery for ameliorating or ennobling life was of necessity created
and put in motion. But the gospel introduced a change. It recognised the
rights of property; but based the recognition of them, not on justice,
but on love. The foundation on which it rested all the rights of manhood
was this broad commandment, ''Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
Now, love is a principle essentially progressive. To aid and bless
evermore and more must be the wish and aim of every soul within which it
rules with power. The nature of its influence is seen most clearly in
Him in whom it was incarnate, and the story of whose life is summed up
in these precious words, ''He went about continually doing good." Hence,
under the gospel the claims of man upon man must ever become more
apparent, and fresh efforts be always made to discharge those claims.
The rich must ever see more clearly that it is their duty to succour the
poor; the strong feel more deeply that they are called upon to protect
the weak ; the wise own more willingly that they are required to
instruct the ignorant; and thus benevolence will be ever fostered, and
courtesy ever developed, and the truest gentleness and heroism ever
displayed. Hence, also, under the gospel the useful arts must flourish;
for every invention that tends to lighten labour, or extend knowledge,
or cheapen bread, is something done for the good of man, and is the
product of Christianity's great law of love. And so we would maintain,
and take history to witness that our words are true, that to the broad
Christian commandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," we
owe most of the grandest proofs of the civilisation of our country and
our time. To it we owe the laws of our country and the comforts of our
homes ; upon it is founded our nation's constitution; and by it, thank
God, are ever guided the counsels of our beloved Queen; to it are we
indebted for the freedom of our opinions, whether civil or sacred; and
it we must thank for the liberty of our press : it reared not only the
school and the college, but the bank and the exchange; it has ever
prompted the investigations of science, and encouraged the efforts of
art; it urges on the steps of the colonist, and nerves the traveller to
explore the resources of regions unknown; to it do we owe every
appliance for the lightening of labour, the bridging of space, and the
conquest of time—our factories, our telegraphs, our railroads on the
land, and our steam-ships on the sea. Whatever is done by man for man,
consciously or unconsciously, is done through the great gospel law of
love.