EVANGELICALISM AND THIRD-CLASS SOULS.
DEAN CLOSE'S curious letter in last Saturday's Times, in which he calmly suggests that the true remedy for railway unpunctuality is to cut off the third-class passengers again from those advantages of fast trains which they have enjoyed for so short a time, naturally reminds us of the close alliance which has always been remarkable between the creed ordinarily called the creed of Election, and that creed of the Prosperous which is apt to regard worldly failure with ill-disguised contempt. It is true that Dean Close, being a clergyman, overlooks the business aspects of the case. Had he invested his money in railways, he would probably have thought twice about making a suggestion which, if acted on, would strike a serious blow at the financial results of Railway enterprise. Probably nothing has increased the dividends more remarkably than the addition of these third-class carriages to the fast trains. Perhaps, indeed, the increase of dividend has been almost too great. It seems likely enough that it is the attempt to work the new plan without the costly increase of rolling stock and railway porters essential for so largely increased a passenger-traffic, that has caused the increase of confusion and delay. We may feel pretty sure, however, that Dean Close, if he were a large holder of Railway stock, would not have made his singular proposal, and we may feel sure of it from the tone of his own letter. That letter breathes an almost cynical disregard of the worldly interests of the unprosperous class. But such a disregard implies a very deep regard for the interests of the prosperous classes ; and indeed, iu this very same letter, it is evi- dently his feeling of what is due to the well-dressed and well-washed people who travel first and second-class, no less than his disgust for the beer-drinking, unwashed third-class, which encourages the Dean to urge his proposal on the world. " Not seldom have I seen," he says, " respectable persons and ladies hustled about most indecently by a rude crowd totally uncontrollable by the class of railway officials." Evidently no one is " respectable," in the sight of the Dean, who travels third-class, and the mere fact that a man does so, renders it to the Dean a matter of little importance what that man's time or convenience may require. This close connection be- tween undisguised respect in Dean Close for prosperous people and the Evangelical form of faith is by no means a new phenomenon. The Evangelicals have no doubt in many instances been the most daring and successful of philanthropists. It was they, chiefly, who abolished the Slave-trade and slavery, and they who carried the Ten Hours' Bill. But though their fundamental religious principle admits of no recognition of moral caste, yet, in spite of that principle, there has always been a certain special sympathy amongst them with at least a prosperous and comfortable status in life. There are religions which not only do great works of pity and of self-denial—and none has done more than the Evangelical faith—but which hardly appear to be themselves except in the attitude of compassion or of humility. But no one would say this of the Evangelical form of faith. Their most characteristic effort has very naturally been the distribution of Bibles, with them the only human condition of salva- tion ; but when you go beyond this, to the great undertakings by which they have gained most real glory for their faith, like the battle against the Slave-trade and slavery, or any of the various battles on behalf of the English poor, you can hardly help separa-
ting in your mind the Gospel which they preach from the war which they wage, and slightly wondering at the con- nection, or want of connection, between a doctrine which appears to reduce all conditions of life to a level of absolute
spiritual equality, and the enthusiasm which has now and again been born of it for humanising and raising the more wretched of these conditions. And, as we have said, it really is true that, in spite of the zeal which the Evangelical doctrine has certainly more than once generated for noble philanthropic work, there has ever been closely connected with this form of faith a more than com- mon respect for first and second-class souls. Sir James Stephen, in his Essay on the Clapham Sect, furnishes several illustrations
of this tendency. He tells us, for instance, of the first Lord Teign- mouth, one of the great men of that sect, that " there met and
blended in him as much of the spirit of the world and as much of the spirit of the sacred volume as could combine harmoniously with each other." And of a still greater light of the Sect, Mr. Simeon, the same writer gives us the following curious account :— " Let none of those (and they are a great multitude) who have en- shrined the memory of Charles Simeon in the inner sanctuary of their hearts, suppose that it is in a trifling or irreverent spirit that the veil is for a moment raised, which might otherwise conceal the infirmities of so good a man. He was indeed one of those on whom the impress of the divine imago was distinct and vivid. But the reflected glory of that image (such was his own teaching) is heightened, not tarnished, by a contrast with the poverty of the material on which it may be wrought, and of the ground from which it emerges. They who recol- lect the late Mr. Terry, the friend of Walter Scott, may imagine the countenance and manner of Charles Simeon. To a casual acquaintance he must frequently have appeared like some truant from the green- room, studying in clerical costume for tho part of Mercutio, and doing it scandalously ill. Such adventurous attitudes, such a ceaseless play of the facial muscles, so seeming a consciousness of the advantages of his figure, with so seeming an unconsciousness of the disadvantage of his carriage—a scat in the saddle so triumphant, badinage so ponder- ous, stories so exquisitely unbefitting him about the pedigree of his horses or the vintages of his cellar—the caricaturists must have been faithless to their calling, and the undergraduates false to their nature, if pencil, pen, and tongue had not made him their prey. Candid friends were compelled (of course by the force of truth and conscience) to admit that he was not altogether clear of the sin of coxcombry ; and the wor- shippers of Bacchus and of Venus gave thanks that they were jolly fellows, and not like this Pharisee."
Evidently in this case, " the poverty of the material of which the image was wrought" was that kind of poverty which is not a little proud of not being poverty in a worldly sense at all ; and " the ground from which it emerged" was the high ground of conven- tional importance. Perhaps, indeed, the effort which the Evan-
gelical faith has always made to recognise no distinctions, religious or moral, amongst those who accept unconditionally the benefit of the Atonement, tends, by importing a certain bald simplicity into the sphere of religion, to leave the appreciation of the distinction
between first-class and third-class souls keener than ever. Hierar- chical Churches which gratify the feeling for political and social
distinctions even in the sphere of faith, can afford to despise the dis- tinctions of the world ; ethical-minded Churches which enforce ardently the moral distinctions between man and man even on those who profess to have accepted the Gospel, may endeavour to substitute higher standards of aristocracy for the types recognised
in the world ; but the Evangelical Churches which limit themselves to the one central teaching that those who accept the sacrifice of Christ are elect, independently of all moral qualities or absence of qualities in themselves, probably feel more strongly than any others the craving to satisfy, in the world of sense, that keen enjoyment of grade, which they are prohibited from enjoying in the world of faith.
That is one explanation that suggests itself to us of that Evan- gelical tendency, of which Dean Close has just given us a remark- able example, to look upon third-class candidates for salvation as persons of altogether inferior interest, in all respects except the salvage of their souls, to those of superior property and " respect- ability." It is true that time is money to them, as to other people, and that even though they may not be in general quite so reserved, intelligent, and clean as second or first-class passengers, they are just as much entitled to save their time and patience as the occupants of more highly priced seats. But evidently the great. Evangelical dignitary can hardly grasp this aspect of the case. If
he were thinking of their souls and their view of the Atonement, he might possibly speak of them and to them with as much earnest- ness as if they were peers or millionaires. But as it is only their moral convenience and comfort of which he is thinking, he does not hesitate for a moment to express his irritation that they, with cheap tickets and poor clothes, should incommode "respectable" persons, and even endanger life by the delays which they cause.
But it can hardly be merely the bald simplicity of the so-called Evangelical theology which leads to this marked respect for souls of the first and second class. May it not be that the doctrines of election and predestination have also their share in this half-unconscious respect for wealth and rank? The earthen vessels doubtless have no beauty in themselves, but still is it not reasonable to assume that the elect will be usually found to have been made of the stronger kind of clay, and fitted, there- fore, not only to contain heavenly treasure, but earthly treasure also? If few in all are to be saved, why should not the majority of them belong to the respectable classes ? It conduces more to the glory of God on earth when a person of high position, one whom the world honours, treats riches and rank as mere instruments for spreading the Gospel,—and this precisely because it is true that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom. That which is impossible with man, but possible with God, redounds most to the glory of God. Election and predestination, since they take absolutely no account of human merits, may just as well fall, and fall oftener than not, upon those who are also elected and predestined to worldly influence. That would be no derogation from the justice of the divine de- cree, and might possibly contribute to the divine glory. It is obvious at least that because wealth and power minister to human vanity, the grace which overcomes these temptations must have been stronger and fuller than the grace which overcomes minor difficulties, and as the gate is strait and the number of those who enter it few, where is the paradox in supposing that a larger proportion of them will prove to be men in whom the attractions of the world have been defied, than would at first seem fair? There is no such quality as justice in the Evangelical view of election, and when this is the case, is it not natural to think of the field of the greatest temptations as the natural scope for the greatest grace, and the greatest grace as the divine cause of the greatest triumphs ? There seems to us a certain natural affinity between the Darwinian doctrine of natural selection, which shows us how the least hardy types are killed off, and the Evangelical doctrine of divine election, which shows us how the human graces fail till at last only that grace comes out triumphant which has proved its quality by conquering the most formidable difficulties. Both doctrines alike give the palm to the harder grains of nature, and undoubtedly it is the hardest grain of character which has always been connected with Evangelical triumphs, from the days of Calvinism and Puritanism till now. The clay which is chosen for holding predestined divine grace, is not unnaturally clay of the most durable kind.
Again, is there not something in the almost forensic character of the offer which the Evangelical creed makes to man,—that if he will avail himself of the tender of justification by faith only, he shall be saved, and have his share in the merits of the Redeemer's death,—appealing so strongly to the sagacity of enlightened self-interest, that we can hardly wonder at its being associated with an energetic and pushing spirit of the type which belongs naturally to commercial success? Horror of the atrocious folly of not availing yourself of an explicit offer of a very tangible kind, of not accepting a most advantageous contract freely tendered by Christ, has always mingled very strongly with the deep gratitude of the Evangelical creed ; and such a feeling seems to us very naturally associated with the kind of qualities which secure worldly success, and which, in spite of any effort to the contrary, imply a certain contempt for worldly failure. We have often seemed to ourselves to detect in Evangelical addresses something like scorn for the incompetence of the mind which does not grasp eagerly at so good a bargain as that offered by the Gospel. Certainly Dean Close is not the first Evangelical, by any means, who has brought home to us the impression that third-class souls, although undoubtedly they should be wrestled for and saved like other men's, are hardly regarded by this sect with the same deep tenderness and compassion as they are by those who hold other forms of the Christian faith. There has always been a well-marked thread of sympathy with first and second-class earthly pilgrims running through the theology which has gained Dean Close for one of its most energetic modern champions.
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