loosely and deceive ourselves, when we ignore the gifts of our civilised order, in all that they have to amaze us, in all that they do to bless us; or, when profiting by all the appliances with which they furnish us, we speak superciliously of their worth. Civilisation has indeed its dark side-a very dark one: there is much that is dreary and forbidding in the history of its growth; and who can look without anxiety at the dangers of its future? But the irreligious and worldly tendencies of civilisation are not to be combated by simply decrying it. What it has of good and true tells of its Author too clearly, and bids us accept its benefits and claim them as coming from God, though they do not come directly through religion. Let us look at the world as we know it, with honest but not ill-natured eyes, calmly and fairly, neither as boasters nor as detractors- -as those who were put here to "refuse the evil and choose the good." Let us not be driven off from the truth, because in the growth of human civilisation there is so much which must make a Christian, or any one who believes in God and in goodness, shudder and tremble.

its terrible concomitant of men

Let us look at it with

made worse by what

ought to make them better. Yet look at it as it is.

Follow the history of a great people, and consider Observe that one great fact, the

what it brings forth.

progressive refinement of our human nature, passing unconquerable when once begun, even through ages of corruption and decline, to rise up again after them with undiminished vigour; keeping what it had gained, and never permanently losing; bringing of course new sins, but bringing also new virtues and graces of a yet unwitnessed and unthought-of type. Observe how, as time goes on, men gain in power,—power over themselves; power to bring about, surely and without violence, what they propose; power to have larger aims, to command vaster resources, to embrace without rash presumption a greater field. See how great moral habits strike their roots deep in a society; habits undeniably admirable and beneficial, yet not necessarily connected with the order of things belonging to religion; the deep, strong, stern sense of justice as justice; the power of ruling firmly, equitably, incorruptly; the genius and aptitude for law, as a really governing power in society, which is one of the most marked differences of nations, and which some of the most gifted are without; the spirit of self-devoting enterprise, the indifference to privation and to the pain

of effort, the impulses which lead to discovery and peopling the earth with colonies; patriotism and keen public spirit, which some religious theories disparage as heathens, but which no theories will ever keep men from admiring. If nations have what, judging roughly, we call characteristic faults, there grow up in them characteristic virtues; in one the unflinching love of reality, in another the unflinching passion for intellectual truth, in another purity and tenderness, or largeness of sympathy. This is what we see; this, amid all that is so dark and disappointing, has come of God's nurturing of mankind through the past centuries.

We can but speak generally; and civilisation has many shapes, and means many things. But let us speak fairly, as we know it. Civilisation to us means liberty and the power of bearing and using liberty; it means that which ensures to us a peaceful life, a life of our own, fenced in from wrong and with our path and ends left free to us; it means the strength of social countenance given on the whole to those virtues which make life nobler and easier; it means growing honour for manliness, unselfishness, sincerity,-growing value for gentleness, considerateness, and respect for others; it means readiness to bear criticism, to

listen to correction, to see and amend our mistakes; it means the willingness, the passion, to ameliorate conditions, to communicate advantages, to raise the weak and low, to open wide gates and paths for them to that discipline of cultivation and improvement which has produced such fruit in others more fortunate than they.

And it has disclosed to us in the course of its development more and more of what is contained in human characters and capacities. We are, in this age, drawing forth with amazement discoveries which seem to be inexhaustible from the treasure-house of material nature. When we cast our eyes back over history and literature, it seems to me that the variety and the disclosures there are as astonishing. Think of the great forms of history, so diversified, so unlike one to another, so unexpected in their traits; think of all that a great portrait-gallery represents, doubtless in but too rank abundance, of vile and bad, but also of high and venerable, of what the world had never yet known but was never more to forget, of originality, of power, of goodness. The examples of actual history are but part in this great spectacle. Think of what fiction, with all its abuses, has done for us,-creating pictures

C

Think

of character, of infinite novelty and interest, in which imagination reflects the real, endless play of life; multiplying and unfolding for the general knowledge types which would otherwise have been lost where they grew up: think of its world of ideal histories, revealing to man himself; showing him with subtle and searching truth things unsuspected or dimly felt, making him understand, better sometimes, as it has been said, than graver teachers, his temptations and self-deceits;—the parables of each generation. again what has been bestowed on man in the perfecting of language, its growth and changes, its marvellous acquisition of new powers, in the hands of the great masters who have forged it anew for their thoughts; the double process going on at once of deepening scientific analysis and continual enlargement by actual use; as in an instrument of music, ever attaining improvement in mechanism, ever, under refined or powerful handling, surprising us with fresh secrets of what it can do. Think of the way in which new faculties, as it were, spring up in us of seeing and feeling, and how soon they are made over to the common stock; how, by art, by poetry, by the commentary of deep and true sympathy and deep and true knowledge, our eyes are