LECT. X. True culture. in an age which exalts culture I appeal for real self-culture. What is true culture? The ability to admire flowers or to paint them, accomplishments, manners? Put so, it is, as Carlyle says, "the windiest gospel that was ever preached." These things are but veneer which may cover rottenness. True culture seeks the inward first, the culture of self-control, a fine Christian stoicism, self-restraint according to the highest moral view of life, to be true of heart, sweet at the core. It is better to subdue our temper, better to curb one passion, and rid the heart of the perilous stuff of unforgivingness than to speak all tongues, True glory. or possess the most perfect taste. It is better to acquire self-mastery than to be an Alexander the The tendency of the day in the direction opposite to the spirit of true culture. Great. “He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city." all is in the power of all. The greatest glory of There is an obvious reason why this view of culture should be insisted on: It looks first of all, I say, to inwardness of life, but the impulse of the day is to get out of self into externals. The hurry and bustle of business, the hurry and bustle of pleasure, the rapidity of social changes, the unceasing craving for something new, the efforts ever renewed to obtain more favourable physical conditions of existence, and the fascinating hopes excited by the recent conquests of science, all tend to depress the action of thought, LECT. X. and to stimulate sensation. The tendency of this works. drift of things is to cause men to be less careful about the moral elements of true character, and more anxious for the thousand luxuries which How it are becoming indeed the secondary necessities of civilized life. Thus it tells indirectly upon the idea of culture, and degrades it into the possession of that which makes a display, which gives distinction, which adds a grace or can be a handmaiden to wealth. As Wordsworth says: "All our life is dressed For show, mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, Wordsworth. So it comes about that culture is divorced from morals, or put in the place of morals as somehow the same thing, though but a mere varnish of the outward man. So it comes about that men in their schemes of education turn away from the advocacy of the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, and would rather believe (what by itself is only sham and cant) that if you teach people how to judge of a good picture you have begun to make them good, as if taste were Taste not morality. If it were, there are roués who would be the most finished moralists. So it comes about, as we in this town know all too well, that there morals. LECT. X. Confusion of ideas. The fear of God the soul of true culture. of culture. are men who seem to think that patronage of the fine arts is as good as living virtuously, soberly, and piously. It is a mere confused medley of wrong and right; right things put into wrong places, and expected to do work of which they are not capable. Taste and accomplishments are very good in themselves, but they are only the fringe of true self-culture. That has for its soul the fear of God. Indeed that fear is the inspiration of it throughout. It builds up the whole character and manhood. It rounds and perfects life, excluding nothing that is true and good, including nothing that is false and impure. Therefore to that man or woman who desires to be truly cultured the word of this law comes thus : Inwardness "Guard the first springs of thought and will." Keep down, hold down, cast out the self that is mean, or false, or passionate. Be master of the worse self; let the Christ in thee, thy true self, rule. Drift neither in thyself nor with the world. Cultivate moral life. Culture looks to Christ. For the Christian indeed there is but one ideal of true culture, viz. to be like Christ. All accomplishments must be built round this ideal or raised up as a consistent superstructure from this foundation in the character of the believer. Paul has a fine exhortation growing out of the sense of this ideal, and inspired by the love of it. "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you." LECT. X. resolve. Here is a standard of fine culture for the most A fine ambitious, which will add a lustre to any character. Go and determine to yield to temper no more, neither short nor sullen; resolve that you will not only curb the tongue and set a watch on the door of your lips, but also that you will restrain the thought of the heart; that you will be kind and gentle as He was. Go and try it. You will have business enough for some time, business which will be good, interesting, profitable to the very last day of your earthly life. LECT. XI. War and capital punishment. Both of present interest.. Is capital punishment right? Conscience demands it. XI. THE SIXTH WORD. PART II. LIFE AND JUSTICE. THERE remain two very important applications of this commandment, which for want of time could not be made in the last lecture, viz. to capital punishment and to war. It so happens that at this present moment both subjects have a special interest for us. We have been on the very brink of a great European war, through the action of Russia in the East; and for the first time for nearly half a century a murderer has just suffered capital punishment in our gaol. Was it right to take that life away? Again, if right, is it expedient to retain capital punishment as the last penalty of justice? My answer is that it is both right and expedient; expedient indeed because right. I venture to assert that, apart from all resentment or desire of social safety, there is an instinctive sense of justice which cannot be satisfied |