not authorized by the Church. Depend upon it, if they would wish for a fair field in which to exercise their temperance and sobriety, She has provided them a more spacious one than any which they can find for themselves. When we see them acting up to Her injunctions with respect to weekly and occasional fasts, then it will be time to inquire whether any further modes of self-denial are requisite or desirable." "I quite agree with what you say respecting the unauthorizedness of new schemes of self-discipline," remarked Sir Thomas Underby: "but you cannot expect me to agree with you as to the unlawfulness of private vows, otherwise I should be denying the advantages of the monastick system." "I only said," returned George Morley, "that vows appeared to me unlawful, when unauthorized by the Church, and taken by a party as the badge, or as in this case as the vital principle of that party. I do not see why private vows should be unlawful : nor do I conceive, though I desire to speak in submission to the better judgment of others, that the monastick vow is unlawful, even if taken for the whole period of one's life, when authorized duly by the Church. Where it is not, as in our own branch of it, I do not see how it could be properly taken; but where, as in foreign countries, the Church has thought fit to allow it, I for one should take it without scruple." 66 'But," said Mr. Wallis, " a great argument with me against the system is, that instead of enjoying the good things Providence has set before them, it leads men to throw them aside, as if they were better and holier for abstaining than for enjoying. Now such an idea seems to me quite at variance with the mild and beneficent spirit of our religion: and I ground my opposition to it on this consideration." "We must however," observed Sir John, "take care that we do not press that argument further than it will go; else we shall be met by the assertion of the duty of self-denial and self-controlment, even in lawful enjoyments, which assuredly is too much neglected in the present day. I think that the principle of singling out one vice, and binding men together in a league against that, has certainly a tendency to encourage men to make slight of others. We should see the folly of the thing, if we applied it to any other kind of crime. Suppose, for example, that a set of men, deeply impressed with the sense of the sin of stealing, should enter into an association to avoid it, and not only so, but to avoid all possible approach, or appearance of approach to it, should take a vow, not merely against abstracting, but against borrowing any thing from their neighbours." 66 you "Laugh as you will," cried Mr. Trenton, cannot deny that infinite good has resulted from the temperance vow. Look at Ireland, for example; do you happen to know how much, since the success of Father Matthew, the duty on spirits has diminished there?" 66 And do you happen to know," asked Sir John Morley, "how much that on opium has increased? Nearly, I take it, in the same proportion." "We read," added his son, "of vast numbers that have taken the vow; I wish we were informed how many have broken it. We see in the reports of the different associations, assertions that very few have done so. Whether the gentlemen who write those reports are quite so particular in their use of the words very few, as less interested parties might be, I will not pretend to determine." "Do you mean then to say," asked Mr. Trenton, "that no good has ever resulted from these societies?" "By no means," returned George Morley. "But to show that good may have occasionally, or even frequently resulted from them, is only to say what may be said of many of the most dangerous and wicked systems ever devised. The fact is, that where teetotalism has had fair play, it has degenerated into downright heresy. In Cornwall, for example, teetotalers have meetings to themselves, not thinking it right to worship with those who disagree with them. Indeed, they would almost appear to exclude from salvation those who keep on in the old fashioned way; and against none is their language more bitter than it is against the poor temperance societies: the members of which will not carry the pledge to so great a length as their more violent brethren. And it is a horrible fact, that in their profane imitations of the LORD's Supper, wine is not employed." “With respect to Father Matthew," said Sir John, "I believe him to be a well meaning man, but his line of conduct is about as void of every due feeling for episcopal pre-eminence (allowing, for the sake of argument, his Church to be the true Church), as ever was displayed by Presbyterian or Independent. A simple Priest, he exercises a kind of hyperepiscopal function in every diocese where it may suit his fancy or convenience to go: he invents a kind of ceremony for the occasion, and seems to think that the efficacy of the pledge depends, not in the intrinsic virtue of an oath, but on the hands by which it is administered. To my mind, there is much in this that looks like vanity, hiding itself (perhaps unconsciously) under the cloke of doing GOD service." son, "that "We are to remember, too," added his after all, this is but a new heresy revived; so true is it, that there is nothing new under the sun." "To what heresy, Mr. Morley, do you allude?" asked Sir Thomas Underby. "That of the Hydroparastatæ, if you recall the name," answered the other. 66 "I had forgotten their existence," replied Sir Thomas. 'Certainly, it is singular enough that a new antidote to vice should turn out to be an old heresy." |