His university course was characterized by that independence and sincerity of conviction which was always to hold its own way unwavering and unbroken. Although "passing the examinations of the University with the highest distinction," he left it on the threshold of honors which in a national university are the open avenues to every place. It was simply a conviction of duty, and obedience was imperative. He would not even allow his name to remain on its roll, which would admit of his return to the place which he might claim. Then he went up to London, as nearly all young Englishmen of higher culture go. John Sterling soon followed him, and together they made adventure in literature and journalism. They became owners and editors of The Athenæum, then a new weekly literary journal, and each in the intervals was engaged in writing a novel, soon to become the form in which the literature of this Victorian age in England was to find its highest achievement. But this work, passing into the hands of a publisher, did not appear until after the course of Mr. Maurice had wholly changed. Carlyle, in that essay of singular literary art, the Life of John Sterling, says of the articles in The Athenæum that their character soon began to attract notice in London, and describes Sterling's work as "crude, imperfect, but singularly beautiful and attractive, good reading still;" but Sterling himself always recognized his obligations to Maurice, and writing to Hare said, "Of what good you have found in the Athenæum, by far the larger part is attributable to him."

But the thought of Maurice was changing. The obstacle to his graduation at the University had been his refusal to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles. Now he was led not only to subscribe to them, but in 1828 he took orders in the Church of England. Yet he still shrank so strongly from the risk of any distrust, that he refused to return to Cambridge, and entered his name at Oxford, from which he graduated. Sincere in his refusal to subscribe to these Articles, he was sincere again in his subscription to them. But he had come to hold them as the articles of a church to which there belonged an organic life; he held them, if the distinction may serve to express it, as a doctrine, and not as the definition of a dogma, and instead of finding their acceptance a bondage, as in some formal limitation of thought, he found a truth whose acceptance was freedom.

He became the curate of a country parish, where he remained until 1839. He was

then made the chaplain at Guy's Hospital in London. This field of work left its impress upon his thought, and in his writings at that time appears a sympathy with the suffering of men, with the sorrow and pain of the world, the crying of its anguish and its grief, but there comes out also a larger and higher conception of humanity. There was also the society of doctors, towards which he was always drawn, because "they believe in health." He then became the chaplain at Lincoln's Inn, where again he was brought into the society of lawyers and judges of courts, and at last, quite recently, he became the incumbent of St. Peter's chapel in Vere st., under the crown patronage,-"bringing to the very homeliest close the long-sustained series of his pastoral work." Through all this period, which extended to the very close of his life, to visit the sick, to counsel the erring, "to increase the store, and mend the shelter of the poor," to wait at a wedding and a funeral, to gather persons for confirmation in the church,-to be the minister of his people, this was his chief work and this "his primacy."

He held two academic positions. For a brief interval he occupied the chair of Professor of Divinity and Modern History in King's College, London. From this he was removed in 1853, on the publication of certain writings which he would in no way modify. It is from this incident and the following controversy which stirred the religious newspapers that he is known here, rather than by the large services of a long life. The position which he took was never changed, and he says at a later time in reference to it: "I have long felt that I cannot preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, in the length or breadth of it, while I am compelled to lay down limits of space and time for the operation of God's grace and Redemption." In 1866 he was made the Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge.

At one time he delivered the "Boyle Lectures," and again the "Warburton Lectures." But the mere catalogue of his writings would fill one of these pages. Lectures, sermons, essays, tracts, letters, were sent forth on nearly every subject which agitated most deeply, during a period of forty years, the thought of England, and their influence was nearly always apparent on the life of England. He somewhere says of one of the earlier Fathers, that the titles of his writings are of interest, as indicating the thought of the age in which he lived and his

relation to it, and this may apply as well to his own writings. Among the titles of them are, The Kingdom of Christ; The Religions of the World, and their relation to Christianity; Learning and Working; The Church a Family; The Claims of the Bible and Science; Lectures on Education; The Doctrine of Sacrifice; The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament; The Unity of the New Testament; The Conflict of Good and Evil in our day; The Workman and the Franchise; The Commandments considered as Instruments of National Reformation; The Ground and Object of Hope for Mankind.

His writings always betray a certain indifference to form. They have often, hardly one would say a crude, but still an unformed | character. It is not a lack of appreciation of art, for that appears in a very high degree, nor is it a disdain of the art of composition, but it is the characteristic of one who, having a word to utter and a message to give, is chiefly intent upon that. There is thus no regard for a formal rhetoric, and no cadence of tone nor balance of words, and no antithesis is allowed to divert him from the object of his thought. The expression is thus rarely obscure, although often involved. The style is simple and homely, while yet often interrupted by phrases and passages of singular beauty, and sometimes rising into great eloquence. It most frequently has the form of a direct address, as if of a person to a person, and there is a reluctance to use any other form. There is humor and strong irony, and sometimes a rare satirical power, but this always has a side of truth and is never unkindly.

There is constantly evidence of the most ample and thorough scholarship. The lectures on Literature, on Church History, on Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, show a thorough study of the original works which pass under review on these subjects. There is a catholic spirit which enables him to give a fair representation of the most opposite systems and a large sympathy which brings him near to men. There is a broad grasp of the spirit of an historical period, and the character of historical movements, which can only come from a knowledge of the working of spiritual and moral forces in the world. It is not the knowledge nor the acquisition of the schools. It discerns that which is substantial from that which is accidental. It is quick to penetrate any pretense and is not imposed upon by any form. This appears in the estimate of historical characters, and

In the review of his writings, it would exceed our limits to attempt more than a brief indication of the value of the more important of them. There are some, as those on The Claims of the Bible and Science, and on The Workman and the Franchise, which, although containing fragmentary passages and suggestions of value, can hardly be said to add much to the subject. But simply this suggestiveness he might regard as of higher merit, and consistently with his whole thought he held suggestiveness as the first quality in any writer. The Kingdom of Christ is one of his earlier works. But its value is impaired by its diffuse and cumbersome style, and one often in the process of thought is detained too long from the conclusion, and it seems thus only an effort toward the larger conception which came in later years. Thus his work on the Gospel of St. Luke was afterwards published as in some way a substi tute for this earlier work. But it is of value for its apprehension of opposing systems and schools of theology, and their reconciliation is found in a higher unity. Its aim is the application of a Christian principle to the, whole organization of society. The volume called Theological Essays throws light upon the relation of his thought to the historical development of many subjects of which it treats, but it is not on the whole the best or the fullest expression of it. His work on

ethics, while holding the chair of moral philosophy at Cambridge, appeared in two volumes, on The Conscience and on Social Morality. There is no work on its subject in the whole range of English literature, although the attainment of the English mind has been far higher here than in any other department of philosophy, which may be brought into comparison with this in its scope or constructive power. The works which present only a dry mechanical notion, as that of Whewell, or simply the application of some abstract propositions, are poor and barren in comparison with it. It is in direct conflict with the advocates of a so-called principle of independent morality, which is rather, in the isolation of man from all relations, a principle of immorality. It traces the process and realization of a moral life and order in the family and the nation and humanity—a principle of domestic and political and universal morality. The development of a universal principle is sought in the great historical periods of the modern world. It is necessary to notice a volume to which a sequel afterwards appeared, entitled, What is Revelation? It was called out in a controversy with Mr. Mansel, and is scarcely equal as an argument to many essays which appeared during the discussion following Mr. Mansel's lectures, and one may not regret that he fails to give in any formal statement a reply to the inquiry which is the title to his volume. He wrote many prefaces and introductions to books, but these had rarely more value than usually attaches to this style of literature. A preface to a dramatic work by Mr. Kingsley is chiefly to be noticed for its justification of a clergyman as a writer of dramas, which one would think would depend wholly on the quality of the dramas.

An English critic has described his History of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, in its intellectual character, as his great work. In comparison with his really great work, which is in Theology, and his work there we believe has been very far beyond that of any man of his generation, this history only illustrates the extent of his scholarship and the truth of his philosophical principles. The defect of the work is obvious, as it often betrays rather the reflection of the historian than the central aim and principle of the system or age of which he writes; it retains oriental forms and systems of thought which belong rather to merely religious speculation than to the development of philosophy; it is also disposed to connect the thought of the

great masters of philosophy too closely with the problems of this age, whenever they may throw any light upon its tendencies, and while this is full of suggestion, yet the men of whom he writes suffer by it a detachment from their own age. It is no disparagement to say that it is inferior to the histories of some German writers, for this has been the field of their highest critical power. But the sketches of the philosophy of Plato, of the metaphysics of Aristotle, of the Mediaval philosophy, of Spinoza and Hobbes, are perhaps the best in English literature. It is comprehensive, and there is scarcely any great name omitted from the period which it embraces. embraces. It is thoroughly realistic, and the idea is apprehended as becoming real. Mr. Maurice says justly in his preface that he has always written as a theologian. And still this gives to some of these sketches a singular and profound beauty. Thus in the record of this "search after wisdom," Plato becomes a prophet of the human soul, an interpreter of its deepest aspiration and desire, but they are longings which have their object and fulfillment only in Him who has come into the world: thus Spinoza is striving through forms of thought, with i herited elements of knowledge and with the questions of his own age, toward the perfect revelation of God. The characterization of a man or system is often gathered up in a single phrase or sentence. He says of Socrates, "It was evident that he had been able to minister to other minds because he knew so well what was passing in his own, and had sought out every principle as the solution of an actual difficulty." The Republic of Plato-illustrating a subject constantly recurring in philosophy, the relations between the mind of man and the constitution of society" is not "imaginary," but its aim is to "ascertain the conditions of political unity," to "search out the idea, and to trace what notions are inconsistent with it, or have sought to make themselves part of it." There is a thorough appreciation of the position and influence of Locke, but he says of him, quoting his own phrase: "All the most earnest questionings of men, in every age and in every direction, had, according to Locke, 'begun at the wrong end.' From Socrates to Spinoza, nearly all searchers after truth, to whatever schools they might belong, pagans or Christians, Nominalists and Realists, Dogmatists and Skeptics, Catholics and Protestants, had been losing themselves in an ocean of being."" After saying that it had been Plato's great object to explain what

6

he meant by an "idea," and how it differs from a "notion," he adds of Locke, "He does not indicate in any one syllable of his essay that he had a glimpse (we do not say of Plato's meaning, but) of the possibility that he had a meaning." Voltaire he characterizes as "the skeptic of the salons," Savonarola is "the Dominican Reformer, the enemy of ecclesiastics and artists, the ruler and prophet of Florence." Hobbes he describes as the most "courageous of Dogmatists." Richard Hooker is justly represented as "the English politician of the sixteenth century." The brief sketch of Edwards has for us a special interest; it is historical, and thus brings Edwards into a relation with his age; it is critical, and his real work and service are not obscured by the reflected admiration of a domestic and provincial tradition. It gives more attention to Edwards than is usual in a history of thought of a foreign writer. He says of Edwards: "Belonging to the eighteenth century, to the times when happiness was represented as 'our being's end and aim,' his conception of God fades from that of a supremely righteous into a upremely happy Being.' We are not sub ituting a phrase of our own for his; it is th one he has chosen. And it is not (what rase could be, in so clear and logical a writer?) an insignificant one. It is the antecedent of a long series of consequences. This happy Being is removed from all participation in the miseries of his creatures. To conceive his bliss as in any way affected by them is impossible, is profane. Think what a rent must come from the mixture of this new cloth with the old garment. The righteous Being must desire righteousness; he must punish unrighteousness. But the serenely happy Being cannot be disturbed by the sight of what is wrong, cannot be afflicted by the sufferings of the wrong-doer. He can only rejoice that a law which he has created can execute itself. Think next of this conception standing side by side with the faith that the Man of Sorrows is the express image of this being; that he who bore all griefs for the sake of man is His only begotten Son." But this, the writer adds, is not the only instance in which the eighteenth century conception of morality exercises its most baleful influence over Edwards. "He is most anxious to prove that his doctrine does not interfere with human responsibility or even human liberty, in the right sense of these words. His great distinction of physical and moral necessity will be quite sufficient, he hopes, for this purpose. So long as he is occupied

But

His

in refuting his opponent, he uses that distinction ably and effectually. But when the great distinction is to do its positive work, when the New England doctor undertakes to explain what choice men are able to exercise-how they become responsible for their failures he has no resource but to introduce a machinery of motives which are presented to the man, which act first upon his understanding and then upon what is called his will. No doubt these motives interpose a convenient barrier between the will of man and the will of God. No doubt it may be a comfort to some to think we are not directly under the government of God; we are only under the government of motives. certainly an old Puritan would not have found any comfort in the confession of such mediators. He would have said: "These motives are new Gods which our fathers knew not.' He would have cried to the true God to break such idols in pieces." He represents "the Puritan faith of Edwards as weakened by his faith in Locke." The history of philosophy carefully traces the influence of the moral speculation of an age upon its political character. It would not justify the scheme of a philosophical library which should include the philosophy of nature, and omit the philosophy of politics. own work on the prophets and kings of the Old Testament is a contribution to political literature of the highest value. His political principles led him to the strongest sympathy with the United States in the late war. The brief reply which he wrote to the paper of Mr. Carlyle closed with the inquiry "whether the corner-stone of society was slavery, or one who died on the cross the death of a slave." No period in history attracted him more than the Puritan age, and the development of Puritan principles in America. Thus he says in a characterization of Milton, "He knew through the failure of his own age that freedom did not depend upon these human agents. Every step in his painful discoveries had led him more to see that it belongs to the spirit of man; that parliaments and protectors can give it as little as kings-preachers as little as prelates; that all may do something to crush or weaken the hearts in which it should dwell and grow; that all may do something to strengthen it in those hearts, if they will confess a God who demands obedience of his creatures as the condition of their freedom. The sense of this union was never so strong in Milton as in those evil days on which he complained that he had fallen. The men

who were flushed with insolence and wine showed him how indifference to the one involved the loss of the other. 'Paradise Lost' and 'Paradise Regained' embodied his conception of their separation and their reconciliation. There is the greatest possible contrast between the lofty and various music of a poem, and the vulgar actualities of a colonial existence; yet it seems to me sometimes as if New England were a translation into prose of the thought that was working in Milton's mind from its early mor ing to its sunset.”

1 e life of Mr. Maurice was one of wide acti ty. In the true spirit of the workman, he worked with faith and freedom towards the realization of his idea. It was a life of unceasing toil. He was the founder, and from its institution until his death the Principal, of the Workingmen's College in London, the first ever opened in the city. He had here at last the support of Messrs. Davies and Hughes and Ruskin and Rossetti and Wool

man.

He was the actual founder and always the foremost promoter of Queen's College for women. He was one of the earliest advocates of the organization of workmen, and the institution of a principle of co-operation instead of competition in labor. It illustrates the extent of his service that at dates of wide interval he delivered the opening lecture to the "Metropolitan Evening Classes for Young Men;" he gave a series of lectures on "the co-operative principle of organization for workmen," and a series on learning and working which is an argument for the education of adults.

If one would compare with the wild and wicked schemes which furnish epigrams for some of our labor reformers,-men whose only labor is to sow tares on every new and open field,—if one would compare with these the expression of truths whose recognition alone can save men and nations, which though they may often seem only the tradition of an old imposture, or a worn-out wisdom, have yet given strength to all noble civilization, he may turn to the slight book of Mr. Maurice on The Commandments as Instruments of National Reformation. The spirit in which Mr. Maurice worked may be traced in a brief passage from the Letter which formed the preface to his lectures at the opening of the Workingmen's College. "We have never doubted that the country must look for its blessings through the elevation of its working class; that we must all sink if that is not raised. We have never dreamed that that class could be benefited by losing its

We

We have

working character, by acquiring habits of ease or self-indulgence. We have rather thought that all must learn the dignity of labor, and the blessing of self-restraint. could not talk to suffering men of intellectual or moral improvement without first taking an interest in their physical condition, and their ordinary occupations; but we felt that any interest of this kind would be utterly wasted, that it would do harm and not good, if it were not the means of leading them to regard themselves as human beings made in the image of God. We have never thought that we could help them to be individually wise or individually good if we forgot that they were social beings, bound to each other by the ties of family, neighborhood, country, and by a common humanity. never thought that we could make them understand what that common humanity means, or even what is implied in any of these subordinate relations, unless we could speak to them of a Son of Man in whom they have a common interest. We have believed that in order to do that we must go deeper still; that the Son of Man must be the Son of God; that there is no brotherhood for human beings if there is not a common fatherhood." The life formed through ceaseless work in this spirit justifies the words of Dean Stanley, in his memorial sermon in Westminster Abbey. "It was a life not of peace, but of constant warfare, of war against all that was mean, and base, and false. It was a life not of peaceful ease, but of incessant, unwearied toil-a bush ever burning, and, as it burned, consumed with its own inextinguishable zeal for God's house and God's honor, burning with a fiery flame that consumed the mind and body that enclosed it."

But Mr. Maurice's great work has been in theology. The best presentation of this, on the whole, is in the volumes on the Old and New Testaments. These are, The Patriarchs and Lawgivers and The Prophets and Kings of the Old Testament; and The Unity of the New Testament, which includes lectures on the Gospel of St. Matthew and the writings of St. Paul; The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven, being lectures on the Gospel of St. Luke, the Gospel of St. John, the Epistles of St. John, and Lectures on the Apocalypse, or book of the Revelation of St. John the Divine.

These, although written at wide intervals, and without any unity of design, form a complete series. To them may be added the volume of sermons on The Doctrine of Sacrifice, and the volumes of sermons preached at