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Now; every now and then; and indeed surprisingly often;  Christ finds a word that transcends all common…place  morality; every now and then he quits the beaten track to  pioneer the unexpressed; and throws out a pregnant and  magnanimous hyperbole; for it is only by some bold poetry of  thought that men can be strung up above the level of everyday  conceptions to take a broader look upon experience or accept  some higher principle of conduct。  To a man who is of the  same mind that was in Christ; who stands at some centre not  too far from his; and looks at the world and conduct from  some not dissimilar or; at least; not opposing attitude … or;  shortly; to a man who is of Christ's philosophy … every such  saying should come home with a thrill of joy and  corroboration; he should feel each one below his feet as  another sure foundation in the flux of time and chance; each  should be another proof that in the torrent of the years and  generations; where doctrines and great armaments and empires  are swept away and swallowed; he stands immovable; holding by  the eternal stars。  But alas! at this juncture of the ages it  is not so with us; on each and every such occasion our whole  fellowship of Christians falls back in disapproving wonder  and implicitly denies the saying。  Christians! the farce is  impudently broad。  Let us stand up in the sight of heaven and  confess。  The ethics that we hold are those of Benjamin  Franklin。  HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY; is perhaps a hard  saying; it is certainly one by which a wise man of these days  will not too curiously direct his steps; but I think it shows  a glimmer of meaning to even our most dimmed intelligences; I  think we perceive a principle behind it; I think; without  hyperbole; we are of the same mind that was in Benjamin  Franklin。



LAY MORALS CHAPTER II



BUT; I may be told; we teach the ten commandments; where a  world of morals lies condensed; the very pith and epitome of  all ethics and religion; and a young man with these precepts  engraved upon his mind must follow after profit with some  conscience and Christianity of method。  A man cannot go very  far astray who neither dishonours his parents; nor kills; nor  commits adultery; nor steals; nor bears false witness; for  these things; rightly thought out; cover a vast field of  duty。

Alas! what is a precept?  It is at best an illustration; it  is case law at the best which can be learned by precept。  The  letter is not only dead; but killing; the spirit which  underlies; and cannot be uttered; alone is true and helpful。   This is trite to sickness; but familiarity has a cunning  disenchantment; in a day or two she can steal all beauty from  the mountain tops; and the most startling words begin to fall  dead upon the ear after several repetitions。  If you see a  thing too often; you no longer see it; if you hear a thing  too often; you no longer hear it。  Our attention requires to  be surprised; and to carry a fort by assault; or to gain a  thoughtful hearing from the ruck of mankind; are feats of  about an equal difficulty and must be tried by not dissimilar  means。  The whole Bible has thus lost its message for the  common run of hearers; it has become mere words of course;  and the parson may bawl himself scarlet and beat the pulpit  like a thing possessed; but his hearers will continue to nod;  they are strangely at peace; they know all he has to say;  ring the old bell as you choose; it is still the old bell and  it cannot startle their composure。  And so with this byword  about the letter and the spirit。  It is quite true; no doubt;  but it has no meaning in the world to any man of us。  Alas!  it has just this meaning; and neither more nor less: that  while the spirit is true; the letter is eternally false。

The shadow of a great oak lies abroad upon the ground at  noon; perfect; clear; and stable like the earth。  But let a  man set himself to mark out the boundary with cords and pegs;  and were he never so nimble and never so exact; what with the  multiplicity of the leaves and the progression of the shadow  as it flees before the travelling sun; long ere he has made  the circuit the whole figure will have changed。  Life may be  compared; not to a single tree; but to a great and  complicated forest; circumstance is more swiftly changing  than a shadow; language much more inexact than the tools of a  surveyor; from day to day the trees fall and are renewed; the  very essences are fleeting as we look; and the whole world of  leaves is swinging tempest…tossed among the winds of time。   Look now for your shadows。  O man of formulae; is this a  place for you?  Have you fitted the spirit to a single case?   Alas; in the cycle of the ages when shall such another be  proposed for the judgment of man?  Now when the sun shines  and the winds blow; the wood is filled with an innumerable  multitude of shadows; tumultuously tossed and changing; and  at every gust the whole carpet leaps and becomes new。  Can  you or your heart say more?

Look back now; for a moment; on your own brief experience of  life; and although you lived it feelingly in your own person;  and had every step of conduct burned in by pains and joys  upon your memory; tell me what definite lesson does  experience hand on from youth to manhood; or from both to  age?  The settled tenor which first strikes the eye is but  the shadow of a delusion。  This is gone; that never truly  was; and you yourself are altered beyond recognition。  Times  and men and circumstances change about your changing  character; with a speed of which no earthly hurricane affords  an image。  What was the best yesterday; is it still the best  in this changed theatre of a tomorrow?  Will your own Past  truly guide you in your own violent and unexpected Future?   And if this be questionable; with what humble; with what  hopeless eyes; should we not watch other men driving beside  us on their unknown careers; seeing with unlike eyes;  impelled by different gales; doing and suffering in another  sphere of things?

And as the authentic clue to such a labyrinth and change of  scene; do you offer me these two score words? these five bald  prohibitions?  For the moral precepts are no more than five;  the first four deal rather with matters of observance than of  conduct; the tenth; THOU SHALT NOT COVET; stands upon another  basis; and shall be spoken of ere long。  The Jews; to whom  they were first given; in the course of years began to find  these precepts insufficient; and made an addition of no less  than six hundred and fifty others!  They hoped to make a  pocket…book of reference on morals; which should stand to  life in some such relation; say; as Hoyle stands in to the  scientific game of whist。  The comparison is just; and  condemns the design; for those who play by rule will never be  more than tolerable players; and you and I would like to play  our game in life to the noblest and the most divine  advantage。  Yet if the Jews took a petty and huckstering view  of conduct; what view do we take ourselves; who callously  leave youth to go forth into the enchanted forest; full of  spells and dire chimeras; with no guidance more complete than  is afforded by these five precepts?

HONOUR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER。  Yes; but does that mean to  obey? and if so; how long and how far?  THOU SHALL NOT KILL。   Yet the very intention and purport of the prohibition may be  best fulfilled by killing。  THOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY。   But some of the ugliest adulteries are committed in the bed  of marriage and under the sanction of religion and law。  THOU  SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS。  How? by speech or by silence  also? or even by a smile?  THOU SHALT NOT STEAL。  Ah; that  indeed!  But what is TO STEAL?

To steal?  It is another word to be construed; and who is to  be our guide?  The police will give us one construction;  leaving the word only that least minimum of meaning without  which society would fall in pieces; but surely we must take  some higher sense than this; surely we hope more than a bare  subsistence for mankind; surely we wish mankind to prosper  and go on from strength to strength; and ourselves to live  rightly in the eye of some more exacting potentate than a  policeman。  The approval or the disapproval of the police  must be eternally indifferent to a man who is both valorous  and good。  There is extreme discomfort; but no shame; in the  condemnation of the law。  The law represents that modicum of  morality which can be squeezed out of the ruck of mankind;  but what is that to me; who aim higher and seek to be my own  more stringent judge?  I observe with pleasure that no brave  man has ever given a rush for such considerations。  The  Japanese have a nobler and more sentimental feeling for this  social bond into which we all are born when we come into the  world; and whose comforts and protection we all indifferently  share throughout our lives:… but even to them; no more than  to our Western saints and heroes; does the law of the state  supersede the higher law of duty。  Without hesitation and  without remorse; they transgress the stiffest enactments  rather than abstain from doing right。  But the accidental  superior duty being thus fulfilled; they at once return in  a

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