AN ORDER OF COUNSELLORS.
WE print elsewhere a proposal from a oorrespondent which we commend to the attention of the Agenda Club. Our correspondent believes, and we think that there is truth in what he says, that there is an office waiting to be discharged by those who are willing to act as disinterested advisers to persons in mental or moral distress. It will be asked at once : "But why should not people who have some great burden on their minds, or are doubtful how to act in some matter of delicacy, apply to their friends instead of coining to a stranger?" The question can be answered at once. Because it is common experience that when a person is weighed down with an exceptional trouble he reveals it least easily to those with whom he is most intimate. Possibly it is because he is ashamed ; possibly, again, because his decision will affect his daily association with those he knows and likes best, and therefore they would be, in a sense, judging in their own cause if they were consulted. Every one knows that often a schoolboy will make a clean breast of something to a person he is only slightly acquainted with, while his parents remain in ignorance of what may be one of the most important facts in his life. Of course if we all had some one to whom we could turn for sympathy and advice in a quite impersonal way (if we may thus express ourselves), we might not accept the advice even though we valued the sympathy. Advice, it has been said, is only given to be rejected. But we do agree with our correspondent that the more intimate we are with our friends, the more embarrassing it frequently is to take them into our confidence in certain respects. There is a place for counsellors whom we can regard, as we have said, imper- sonally,—who do not excite in us the embarrassment of personal knowledge and affection.
We would, however, go further than our correspondent. He says that his proposal "refers solely to practical questions, and not to the even more difficult problems of the conscience." But why not also in affairs of the con- science, if under that head we may place—as we surely may—the innumerable troubles into which boys and young men may fall ? These are often hard put to it to know how to extricate themselves honourably from a scrape. We assume, naturally, that the imagined Order of Counsellors would give honourable advice which would very often be unpalatable advice. But the moral support and encouragement of a man or boy who if left alone might shrink from the right course would be counsel in the best sense. If the counsellors acted only within the limits which our correspondent suggests, one might consider that the conditions are all met by pro- fessional advisers,—by lawyers, doctors, and clergymen. A solicitor could get you out of a money scrape as well as any man; a doctor could tell you better than an amateur how to act if it were a question (such as our correspondent has in mind) of informing or keeping in ignorance a relation as to the nature of his disease; and a clergyman could be trusted to give humane and just advice on most subjects. Where the useful condition of " impersonality " would come in would be in those very cases where men would turn to their professional advisers scarcely more readily than to their close friends.
We approach dangerous ground, no doubt. It will be objected that the counsellors of the Agenda Club would soon become the depositaries of felonious secrets, and find themselves the accessories of crimes. Of course the counsellors would have to act with much discretion, but they would be chosen for the possession of that quality. They would not become in the nature of things the possessors of more felonious secrets than doctors and clergymen, and they would urge their clients to put themselves right with the law. If the proposal of atonement were finally rejected, the counsellor could not continue to advise; he would dismiss the confidence from his mind. If—as would generally happen—the person seeking advice had not outraged the law, but only moral custom and the feelings of his parents, the counsellor should certainly urge complete candour towards parents as the best course. Every parent has more of the sympathy which comes from knowledge of the world and the weakness of man than it is always possible, or in the abstract wise, for him to admit. But if his son boldly and with perfect frankness demanded that sympathy, the son would be astonished to discover how willingly help and affection and understanding would be accorded to him. The trouble is to make the young man recognise the existence of this great reserve fund of sympathy in his parents. Might it not be got over by a wise counsellor? He could bring the father and son together in cases where such bringing together would otherwise be impossible.
The difficulties of giving counsel of this sort cannot be denied ; but then the Agenda Club has been formed to attempt difficult things. All kinds of spiritual and mental complexities would come into play. There is a type of mind which rejoices in morbidly laying itself bare—in lacerating and humiliating itself—just as there is a corresponding type which delights in receiving such confidences. Morbidity should be absolutely condemned on both sides in the spirit in which Browning rebuked it in his poem "Confessions ":—
" What is he buzzing in my ears ? Now that I come to die, Do I view the world as a vale of tears?'
Ah, reverend sir, not II" When all has been said, sympathy is precious, because it may help a man along a difficult path just when his resolution or his experience needs fortifying. But if a man has the strength necessary' for his ordeal, the best counsel always comes from himself. There is a wonderful passage in Eoclesiasticus (chap. xxxvii.) which treats of this very question of counsel :-
"Every counsellor extolleth counsel : but there is some that connselleth for himself. Beware of a counsellor and know before what need he hath : for he will counsel for himself: lest he east the lot upon thee, and say unto thee, Thy way is good: and afterward he stand on the other side, to see what shall befall thee. Consult not with one that suspecteth thee : and hide thy counsel from such as envy thee. Neither consult with a woman touching her of whom she is jealous: neither with a coward in matters of war : nor with a merchant concerning exchange: nor with a buyer of selling : nor with an envious man of thankfulness: nor with an unmerciful man towline kindness : nor with the slothful for any work : nor with an hireling for a year of finishing work : nor with an idle servant of much business : hearken not unto these in any matter of counsel. But be continually with a godly man, whom thou lmowest to keep the commandments of the Lord, whose mind is according to thy mind, and will sorrow with thee, if thou shalt miscarry. And let the counsel of thine own heart stand : for there is no man more faithful unto thee than it. For a man's mind is sometime wont to tell him more than seven watchmen, that sit above in an high tower."
The counsellor who uses his friends as experiments in order that he may profit by their experience, as the Prince was
supposed to profit by the sufferings of the whipping-boy, is a familiar type. And so one might go on through all the list of counsellors, admit the singular justice of the criticism in each case, and arrive at the irresistible conclusion that "a man's mind is sometime wont to tell him more than seven watchmen, that sit above in an high tower." Still, we could not get on without our watchmen. We believe that a. party of watchmen in a high tower—above the mists of pettiness and casuistry and self-deception—might give invaluable help to those who for want of such a clear vision flounder in difficult country and are in danger of being lost.
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