w from this
mode of reasoning; for they are becoming every day more apparent. The
demand is made that we should abandon our Christianity on grounds which
logically involve the abandonment of any belief in the providential
government of the world and in the moral responsibility of man. Young
men are apt to be far more logical than their elders. Older persons are
taught by long experience to distrust the adequacy of their premisses:
consciously or unconsciously they supplement the narrow conclusions of
their logic by larger lessons learnt from human life or from their own
heart. But generally speaking, the young man has no such distrust. His
teacher has appealed to Nature, and to Nature he shall go. The teacher
becomes frightened, struggles to retrace his steps, and speaks of 'an
infinitely wise and beneficent Being'; but the pupil insolently points
out how

Nature, red in tooth and claw,
With ravin, shrieks against his creed.

The teacher urges, 'All that is consistent with wise and omnipotent Law
is prospered and brought to perfection:' [30:1] and the pupil replies:
'You have limited my horizon to this life, and in this life the facts do
not verify your statement.' The teacher says, Believe that you--you
personally--'are eternally cared for and governed by an omnipresent
immutable power for which nothing is too great, nothing too
insignificant.' [30:2] The pupil says: 'My Christianity did show me how
this was possible; but with my Christianity I have cast it away as a
delusion. I could not stop short at this point consistently with the
principles you have laid down for my guidance. I have done as you told
me to do; I have "ratified the fiat which maintains the order of
Nature," [30:3] and I find Nature wholly

Careless of the single life.

I will therefore please myself henceforth.' The teacher speaks of 'the
purity which alone sees God;' and to him the expression has a real
meaning, for his mind is unconsciously saturated with ideas which he has
certainly not learnt from his adopted philosophy: but to the pupil it
has lost its articulate utterance, and is no better than sounding brass
or a tinkling cymbal. Hence the pupil, having thrown off his
Christianity, too often follows out the principles of his teacher to
their logical conclusions, and divests himself also of moral restraints,
except so far as it may be convenient or necessary for him to submit to
them. Happily this has not bee