The Crown of Wild Olive
wrong in what they are desired to do, _is_ strange or wrong. They know
their captain: where he leads they must follow, what he bids, they must
do; and without this trust and faith, without this captainship and
soldiership, no great deed, no great salvation, is possible to man.
Among all the nations it is only when this faith is attained by them
that they become great: the Jew, the Greek, and the Mahometan, agree at
least in testifying to this. It was a deed of this absolute trust which
made Abraham the father of the faithful; it was the declaration of the
power of God as captain over all men, and the acceptance of a leader
appointed by Him as commander of the faithful, which laid the foundation
of whatever national power yet exists in the East; and the deed of the
Greeks, which has become the type of unselfish and noble soldiership to
all lands, and to all times, was commemorated, on the tomb of those who
gave their lives to do it, in the most pathetic, so far as I know, or
can feel, of all human utterances: 'Oh, stranger, go and tell our people
that we are lying here, having _obeyed_ their words.'
Then the third character of right childhood is to be Loving and
Generous. Give a little love to a child, and you get a great deal back.
It loves everything near it, when it is a right kind of child--would
hurt nothing, would give the best it has away, always, if you need
it--does not lay plans for getting everything in the house for itself,
and delights in helping people; you cannot please it so much as by
giving it a chance of being useful, in ever so little a way.
And because of all these characters, lastly, it is Cheerful. Putting its
trust in its father, it is careful for nothing--being full of love to
every creature, it is happy always, whether in its play or in its duty.
Well, that's the great worker's character also. Taking no thought for
the morrow; taking thought only for the duty of the day; trusting
somebody else to take care of to-morrow; knowing indeed what labour is,
but not what sorrow is; and always ready for play--beautiful play,--for
lovely human play is like the play of the Sun. There's a worker for you.
He, steady to his time, is set as a strong man to run his course, but
also, he _rejoiceth_ as a strong man to run his course. See how he
plays in the morning, with the mists below, and the clouds above, with a
ray here and a flash there, and a shower of jewels everywhere; that's
the Sun's play; and great human play is like his--all various--all full
of light and life, and tender, as the dew of the morning.
So then, you have the child's character in these four things--Humility,
Faith, Charity, and Cheerfulness. That's what you have got to be
converted to. 'Except ye be converted and become as little
children'--You hear much of conversion now-a-days; but people always
seem to think they have got to be made wretched by conversion,--to be
converted to long faces. No, friends, you have got to be converted to
short ones; you have to repent into childhood, to repent into delight,
and delightsomeness. You can't go into a conventicle but you'll hear
plenty of talk of backsliding. Backsliding, indeed! I can tell you, on
the ways most of us go, the faster we slide back the better. Slide back
into the cradle, if going on is into the grave--back, I tell you;
back--out of your long faces, and into your long clothes. It is among
children only, and as children only, that you will find medicine for
your healing and true wisdom for your teaching. There is poison in the
counsels of the _men_ of this world; the words they speak are all
bitterness, 'the poison of asps is under their lips,' but, 'the sucking
child shall play by the hole of the asp.' There is death in the looks of
men. 'Their eyes are privily set against the poor;' they are as the
uncharmable serpent, the cockatrice, which slew by seeing. But 'the
weaned child shall lay his hand on the cockatrice den.' There is death
in the steps of men: 'their feet are swift to shed blood; they have
compassed us in our steps like the lion that is greedy of his prey, and
the young lion lurking in secret places,' but, in that kingdom, the wolf
shall lie down with the lamb, and the fatling with the lion, and 'a
little child shall lead them.' There is death in the thoughts of men:
the world is one wide riddle to them, darker and darker as it draws to a
close; but the secret of it is known to the child, and the Lord of
heaven and earth is most to be thanked in that 'He has hidden these
things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes.'
Yes, and there is death--infinitude of death in the principalities and
powers of men. As far as the east is from the west, so far our sins
are--_not_ set from us, but multiplied around us: the Sun himself, think
you he _now_ 'rejoices' to run his course, when he plunges westward to
the horizon, so widely red, not with clouds, but blood? And it will be
red more widely yet. Whatever drought of the early and latter rain may
be, there will be none of that red rain. You fortify yourselves, you arm
yourselves against it in vain; the enemy and avenger will be upon you
also, unless you learn that it is not out of the mouths of the knitted
gun, or the smoothed rifle, but 'out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings' that the strength is ordained which shall 'still the enemy
and avenger.'
LECTURE II.
_TRAFFIC._
(_Delivered in the Town Hall, Bradford._)
My good Yorkshire friends, you asked me down here among your hills that
I might talk to you about this Exchange you are going to build: but
earnestly and seriously asking you to pardon me, I am going to do
nothing of the kind. I cannot talk, or at least can say very little,
about this same Exchange. I must talk of quite other things, though not
willingly;--I could not deserve your pardon, if when you invited me to
speak on one subject, I wilfully spoke on another. But I cannot speak,
to purpose, of anything about which I do not care; and most simply and
sorrowfully I have to tell you, in the outset, that I do _not_ care
about this Exchange of yours.
If, however, when you sent me your invitation, I had answered, 'I won't
come, I don't care about the Exchange of Bradford,' you would have been
justly offended with me, not knowing the reasons of so blunt a
carelessness. So I have come down, hoping that you will patiently let me
tell you why, on this, and many other such occasions, I now remain
silent, when formerly I should have caught at the opportunity of
speaking to a gracious audience.
In a word, then, I do not care about this Exchange,--because _you_
don't; and because you know perfectly well I cannot make you. Look at
the essential circumstances of the case, which you, as business men,
know perfectly well, though perhaps you think I forget them. You are
going to spend 30,000_l._, which to you, collectively, is nothing; the
buying a new coat is, as to the cost of it, a much more important matter
of consideration to me than building a new Exchange is to you. But you
think you may as well have the right thing for your money. You know
there are a great many odd styles of architecture about; you don't want
to do anything ridiculous; you hear of me, among others, as a
respectable architectural man-milliner: and you send for me, that I may
tell you the leading fashion; and what is, in our shops, for the moment,
the newest and sweetest thing in pinnacles.
Now, pardon me for telling you frankly, you cannot have good
architecture merely by asking people's advice on occasion. All good
architecture is the expression of national life and character; and it is
produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty.
And I want you to think a little of the deep significance of this word
'taste;' for no statement of mine has been more earnestly or oftener
controverted than that good taste is essentially a moral quality. 'No,'
say many of my antagonists, 'taste is one thing, morality is another.
Tell us what is pretty; we shall be glad to know that; but preach no
sermons to us.'
Permit me, therefore, to fortify this old dogma of mine somewhat. Taste
is not only a part and an index of morality--it is the ONLY morality.
The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creature
is, 'What do you like?' Tell me what you like, and I'll tell you what
you are. Go out into the street, and ask the first man or woman you
meet, what their 'taste' is, and if they answer candidly, you know them,
body and soul. 'You, my friend in the rags, with the unsteady gait, what
do _you_ like?' 'A pipe and a quartern of gin.' I know you. 'You, good
woman, with the quick step and tidy bonnet, what do you like?' 'A swept
hearth and a clean tea-table, and my husband opposite me, and a baby at
my breast.' Good, I know you also. 'You, little girl with the golden
hair and the soft eyes, what do you like?' 'My canary, and a run among
the wood hyacinths.' 'You, little boy with the dirty hands and the low
forehead, what do you like?' 'A shy at the sparrows, and a game at
pitch-farthing.' Good; we know them all now. What more need we ask?
'Nay,' perhaps you answer: 'we need rather to ask what these people and
children do, than what they like. If they _do_ right, it is no matter
that they like what is wrong; and if they _do_ wrong, it is no matter
that they like what is right. Doing is the great thing; and it does not
matter that the man likes drinking, so that he does not drink; nor that
the little girl likes to be kind to her canary, if she will not learn
her lessons; nor that the little boy likes throwing stones at the
sparrows, if he goes to the Sunday school.' Indeed, for a short time,
and in a provisional sense, this is true. For if, resolutely, people do
what is right, in time they come to like doing it. But they only are in
a right moral state when they _have_ come to like doing it; and as long
as they don't like it, they are still in a vicious state. The man is not
in health of body who is always thirsting for the bottle in the
cupboard, though he bravely bears his thirst; but the man who heartily
enjoys water in the morning and wine in the evening, each in its proper
quantity and time. And the entire object of true education is to make
people not merely _do_ the right things, but _enjoy_ the right
things--not merely industrious, but to love industry--not merely
learned, but to love knowledge--not merely pure, but to love purity--not
merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.
But you may answer or think, 'Is the liking for outside ornaments,--for
pictures, or statues, or furniture, or architecture,--a moral quality?'
Yes, most surely, if a rightly set liking. Taste for _any_ pictures or
statues is not a moral quality, but taste for good ones is. Only here
again we have to define the word 'good.' I don't mean by 'good,'
clever--or learned--or difficult in the doing. Take a picture by
Teniers, of sots quarrelling over their dice: it is an entirely clever
picture; so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done equal to
it; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is an
expression of delight in the prolonged contemplation of a vile thing,
and delight in that is an 'unmannered,' or 'immoral' quality. It is 'bad
taste' in the profoundest sense--it is the taste of the devils. On the
other hand, a picture of Titian's, or a Greek statue, or a Greek coin,
or a Turner landscape, expresses delight in the perpetual contemplation
of a good and perfect thing. That is an entirely moral quality--it is
the taste of the angels. And all delight in art, and all love of it,
resolve themselves into simple love of that which deserves love. That
deserving is the quality which we call 'loveliness'--(we ought to have