which is opposed to Nature in this sense of the word. That region is Morality. So, one may say, Morality and Nature stand ever in an opposition to one another; but that statement must be qualified by recognising that there is originally an essential union between the two, which is gradually being restored through Divine Overruling.1

To describe Morality would be difficult; but to indicate its general character is easy. It is a ribbonlike form, stretching from man to God, showing as between them a commonness of original essence, but, at the same time, an infinite difference of actual state. Or, in a slightly altered aspect, it is a vista between this world and heaven, awing man, and yet charming him to enter on it. It plainly unites man and God; but it as plainly involves a separation between them which looks hopeless. Thus when one perceives Morality with any clearness, one perceives God, but perceives Him infinitely removed.

All who have had Morality brought really before the religious sense, have become aware of two concomitants of it, both so arresting that for many persons they have never again been absent from the mind amidst the varied concerns of life. The one is a Visage, forecasting punishment. The other is a

1 See below, ch. iii.

Voice bidding us strive, with greater effort than men expend on bodily preservation, to lessen the distance of actual state between ourselves and God-to enter the ribbon-like form, or vista, and travel along it, never to turn back.

But while Morality stands in an opposition to Nature in general, yet God makes appearances to us even within Nature, or, as we may say, out of depths below the surface of Nature.1 Also, God is to be perceived in a region that transcends both Nature and Morality.

Above the moral path, many and many have seen, covering the whole form of Morality, a celestial Brightness. This brightness, they have testified, has assumed to them at times the appearance of a Face, like the face of a good man, but far more gentle, and as powerful as it is kind. This they have seen; and this, certainly if mysteriously, is indeed God Himself, bridging over the awful separation, promising to carry men and women, of His own power, towards a better state, instead of leaving them to struggle. Thus, a message eternally proceeds towards us from that brightness. Record of the message is contained in our Bible. The message is rightly called the gospel.

1 See below, ch. iii. and xii.; also ch. xi., under "Charles Kingsley."

Sacred reality, as so understood, may be perceived by all of us through the eternal light. But we have our own special lights also; and these deserve to be regarded with respect according to their degrees of purity.

Foremost among all special lights, yet having a more spontaneous and more abiding nature than the others, is a certain remembrance which we all possess. It is the remembrance of a Life on earth, which has been the central revelation to the world of the Divine Presence.

Of special lights proper the Bible has the right to be regarded as the greatest. The Bible is a record of rare religious experience; and it has become a continual agency for the defining of sacred perception. With the Bible is to be named the guidance of certain influences which are less easily pointed to. This latter guidance is to engage our attention here in a later chapter.

But there has largely prevailed another special light, which has been much confused with the Bible. This is a particular thought about the Bible. It can simply be called Literalism.

Literalism is, more particularly, Bible-and-creedliteralism. It is the thought that the divine authority and the warrant for religious faith are

been the light by which

found, in the first place, in the literal statements of the Bible, both in whole and in part, but also, secondly, in the literal statements of certain creeds as interpreting the Bible. Many people think of it and speak of it as if it had our fathers were guided. And there is much truth in this; for it has had a marvellous dominion. Yet it was never the only light of any truly religious person. And it was by no means that which led those Prophets, Psalmists, and Apostles whom we peculiarly revere. It has come down to us from Jewish teachers, who flourished in the period just before Christianity. But in the hands of Christians it has been an influence far graver than it was as the Jews used it. It has always been a dim light. Nevertheless, it has been a real defining agency. Like a small lamp, or candle, brought into a dark room, it has disclosed concrete shapes instead of vague blackness.

This guidance is not to be spoken of slightingly; but there is reason for speaking of it very seriously.

It is not to be slighted, because in relation to a time in history it was almost certainly an immense power for good. But in our own time one is compelled to notice that it was a very deficient

source of illumination, and that most hurtful errors have been the result of not recognising this.

The good that it did was this, that through many ages there was maintained, under it as the prevailing guidance, a firm apprehension of Morality. This fact has given to it an unalienable dignity. For to have perceived, in all seriousness, the moral relation between oneself and the Most High, is almost to become a new man or woman.

But with every respect towards a light which partly guided our fathers, and has in some measure formed our own early views, we have to recognise now that this light was both deficient and also became the occasion of error.

Literalism was principally deficient in regard to that transcendent brightness which has been alluded to above, as covering over the path of Morality, and, accordingly, in regard to the message which we prize by the name of the gospel. The champions of this defining agency claimed to present the gospel; but when they went on to speak with any detail, it ever proved that their lamp had hardly made this message clear to them. They laid down a new 'law,' rather than proclaimed a gospel. All that they could describe plainly was just Morality-was just the distance of God away, with the coming