uld
seek and value cannot be furthered. Coryat, again, and Harington spoke
of the good life. But Coryat seemed to think that any and all life is
good. The line of division which I see everywhere he did not see at
all, the line between the children of God and the children of this
world. I could not say with him that there is a natural goodness in
life as such; only that any honest occupation will be good if it be
practised by a good man. It is not wealth that is needed, nor talents,
nor intellect. These things are gifts that may be given or withheld.
But the one thing needful is the spirit of God, which is given freely
to the poor and the ignorant who seek it. Believing this, I cannot but
disagree, also, with Harington. For the life of which he spoke is the
life of this world. He praises power, and wisdom, and beauty, and the
excellence of the body and the mind. In these things, he says, the
good life consists. And since they are so rare and difficult to
attain, and need for their fostering, natural aptitudes, and leisure
and wealth and great position, he concludes that the good life is
possible only for the few; and that to them the many should be
ministers. And if the goods he speaks of be really such, he is right;
for in the things of the world, what one takes, another must resign.
If there are rulers there must be subjects; if there are rich, there
must be poor; if there are idle men there must be drudges. But the
real Good is not thus exclusive. It is open to all; and the more a man
has of it the more he gives to others. That Good is the love of God,
and through the love of God the love of man. These are old phrases,
but their sense is not old; rather it is always new, for it is eternal.
Now, as of old, in the midst of science, of business, of invention, of
the multifarious confusion and din and hurry of the world, God may be
directly perceived and known. But to know Him is to love Him, and to
love Him is to love His creatures, and most all of our fellow-men, to
whom we are nearest and most akin, and with and by whom we needs must
live. And if that love were really spread abroad among us, the
questions that have been discussed to-night would resolve themselves.
For there would be a rule of life generally observed and followed; and
under it the conditions that make the problems would disappear. Of
such a rule, all men, dimly and at moments, are aware. By it they were
warned that slavery was wrong.