REV. J. M. WILSON'S ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES.* Tins book consists
of twelve papers on religions questions. Eleven of them are addressees delivered to different audiences, from a Church Congress to a secularist meeting. The twelfth is a letter written to a secularist working man. We may say at the outset that, whatever objections may be taken to these papers, it is perfectly clear that they are the work of a man who is deeply penetrated with a very real religions spirit, and who is intensely, and even almost painfully in earnest. They are certainly often provocative of criticism; but it is im- possible not to criticise with respect. It is unnecessary to say anything about Mr. Wilson's religions standpoint. He is before the world as a " Liberal " in theology. But with regard to the particular essays which compose this book, there are two general observations to be made. In the first place, they deal with religion from the intellectual and scientific point of view. In the second place, Mr. Wilson seems almost always to have more or less prominently before his mind the question of how to win secularists over to Christianity. This appears not only when he is lecturing on" Miracles "to secularists at Nottingham, or on" Inspiration" to secularists at Bristol ; it comes out strongly when he addresses an Oxford audience on " Fundamental Church Principles," and is seen in the paper read to schoolmasters on "Morality in Public: Schools." He himself • Essays and dddresees an Attempt to Treat some Religious Questions is a Hoiantik Spirit. By the Rev. James M. Wilson. M.A., Head Master of Clifton Oolleife, London Macmillan and Co.
has passed through various steps of opinion, from scientific un- belief to the position which he now holds ; and a man who has come to feel so intensely the supreme importance of religious truth is not likely to forget such an experience. At any rate. this problem, "How are we to deal with secularism P" is the problem which appears to press on him most forcibly. And it seems to us that his conception of Christianity is, consciously or unconsciously, affected by the pressure of this problem on his mind.
One of the most marked things about the papers which com- pose this book is that they are so unequal in value. When Mr. Wilson is dealing with his own subject, he is excellent. He is a distinguished man of science, and one of his best papers is the one on "Water." Natural theology, he says, has become a discredited science. Palsy's argument is vitiated by the fact that "adaptation does not always imply design." As far as organic matter goes, evolution has been fatal to natural theology : any given adaptation may be the result of circum- stances. Mr. Wilson reconstructs natural theology on an examination of the properties of inorganic matter, like water, which is not an evolved product. Water has properties which no other kind of matter possesses. In point of specific heat, for instance, it is unique. It can, therefore, absorb and convey heat for great distances. "Heat is taken from the tropics and con- veyed to the rest of the earth. Water not only constitutes the heating apparatus of the world, in virtue of its commonness and its expansion, but it possesses the one exceptional quality which makes it fit to be so used." Water possesses also other unique properties, the contemplation of which raises in our minds the sense, first of order, then of fitness, which passes into adaptation. Thence we infer intelligence and design. "Design implies Mind and Will; and Mind and Will are nothing but Personality." This is an excessively brief outline of Mr. Wilson's argument. He is on his own ground, he understands his subject, and the result is that he writes very well indeed. He has also had a large experience of Public Schools. He has written a paper on "Morality in Public Schools, and its Relation to Religion," and a most excellent paper it is, especially the first half of it. It is the paper of a man who has got hold of his sub- ject thoroughly, and who treats it in a very manly and straight- forward way. It is the paper of a man who has fully grasped the great and varied interests and responsibilities of a school- master, and who has formed an idea which is high without being priggish, of what the schoolboy should be. Mr. Wilson knows his subject well, and is clear and interesting. Again,, as a religious writer, no one could be better than he is, when he is on ground unencumbered by theological speculations. Among the best papers in his book are the two addresses (to secularists) on "Inspiration," and his "Letter to a Bristol Artisan" who bad lapsed into infidelity, and had answered those addresses with the usual arguments of the National "Wormer couched in less virulent language. Mr. Wilson meets the ordinary secularist argument that the Old Testament is immoral, by pointing out that religion is a matter of evolution. Men's capacity for apprehending religions truth has grown. What was moral to Abraham may very well be immoral to us. Mr. Wilson states his argument with admirable force and precision. To take another illustration from these papers, his statement of the relations between Christianity and character leaves nothing to be desired. What makes his" Letter" so remarkable a paper is that it is written with such a firm grasp of the infinite importance of Christianity in its various aspects. He is deeply and intensely
penetrated with the religions spirit.
"Ent it is not only children and the uneducated that need elementary and accommodated views of God and religion to say this would savour of a stupid pride. We all need them. We are not, and cannot make ourselves independent of them, or of forms and discipline in religion. I can sympathise for a time with the Pantheist, who loses himself in the contemplation of Nature, and worships in her temple alone ; or with the Mystic who guides himself solely by the inner light; or with the Sceptic who finds the evidence complete for no theory, and therefore holds none; but not for a permanence or even for long with any of them. I must fall veritably on my knees by my bed-side, and must pray to my Father in heaven, for I know no better name. I must pray for forgiveness, for growth in grace pray for my children, my country, and the Church. And at sash a time. I do not perplex myself with representations of God; I only know that God is, and that prayer is a necessity, and that it is the upward and not the downward look that helps me. I do not know whether my prayer alters God's will. I do not wish it to do so ; I cannot con- ceive its doing so when the laws of Nature axe concerned, except through the laws of Nature : and yet prayer is all the mores necessity. Prayer is not begging on the contrary, it is self.surrender, and giving up of all we hold most dear."
These are the words of one who has thoroughly grasped what religion means. It is the eloquence of transparent sincerity and deep conviction, of a real and genuine man.
On such subjects as we have mentioned, Mr. Wilson is excel- lent. A good part of the book, however, is devoted to theo- logical speculations, and when Mr. Wilson goes off to theological speculations, which he does a good deal even in some of the essays which we have been praising, he lays himself open to severe criticism. His statement of his case as a theologian seems to ne to be vague, and confusing, and ambiguous. For instance, we cannot in the least grasp what is his conception of Christianity, or how important he thinks it. Up to a certain point, it is clear enough. He lays a great deal of stress on the moral side of Christianity, and comparatively little on the dogmatic side. If we go further, we get into difficulties. We will take as an example his attitude towards the doctrines of the Incarnation and Resurrection. Those are doctrines, at any rate, which a man ought to be clear about. There is no doubt that Mr. Wilson believes them himself ; be says so in so many words. But do they form an essential part of his conception of Christianity ? Does he think that a man can be a Christian without such a belief? It is very difficult to suppose that he does. In the first place, these doctrines are, to most Christians, the very root and essence of Christianity, and we have a right to expect that any man who denies that a belief in them is a necessary part of Christianity, should say so in definite and explicit language. In the second place, there are many passages in these papers which, if read naturally, mean that Mr. Wilson thinks that every Christian must believe that Christ was what He time after time claimed to be. But then, so ambiguous a theological writer is Mr. Wilson, that it is not difficult to collect a good many passages the out- come of which is that, in his opinion, a belief in the doctrine of the Incarnation is not necessary to a Christian ; that each man may accept or reject the doctrine at his own good pleasure, God, Mr. Wilson says, will judge us, not for our opinions, but for our lives. Does he really mean that we, or those of us who have had the chance, are not respon- sible for our opinions ? Religion, as "thoughtful Christians" conceive of it, "is primarily principles of life and conduct, and an attitude of mind." It is then purely subjective. Again, he says that "authority to decide questions of learning or effect in the past there is none anywhere ; and, further, it may be added that such questions of fact and learning are not and cannot be religion, though for a time men may think they are." The doctrines of the Incarnation and the Resurrection are as much "questions of fact," as the question whether the earth is round, and the theories of Copernicus, Darwin, and Strauss, which Mr. Wilson gives as examples of questions of fact. It follows that the doctrines of the Incarnation and Resurrection "cannot be religion." Very possibly Mr. Wilson did not mean that, but he has said it. He introduces further confusion by his strange use of the word "religion." Religion "is the caring for duty in all its varied aspects of self-culture, duties to others, duties to God." By religion he must mean Christianity. On that point there can be no doubt. He is talking of the religion taught in Public Schools by such men as Arnold and Moberly. But then he goes on to say that religion is brought home to different men in different ways to one by the sense of "the natural consequences of sin;" to another, "by the elevating charms of greatness and goodness ;" to a third, "by the inspiration of public spirit ;" to a fourth, "by the life and example of Jesus Christ?' But "one whose whole nature is sceptical to his heart's core, sceptical on the ace of all these helps equally, may yet be thoroughly religions." Those who believe that Christ was truly divine, "find in the service of that Master the greatest help to religion." The obvious conclusion is that the Christian need not believe in Christ. Such a belief is only "a help to religion." A man whose "nature is sceptical to his heart's core" may be a Christian. According to Mr. Wilson, Mr. John Morley may be a most religious man. Again, Mr. Wilson is anxious to win back to the Church "the intellectual classes" that "are more or less penetrated with the scientific spirit." For this end the Church must give up her arrogant "pretensions to limit thought," and must see "her true aim." These "men do not hate Christ." Of course they do not. They deny him. We should have thought that it was common knowledge that the great stumbling-block to "those who are more or less penetrated with the scientific spirit" is miracles, and especially the miracle of the Incarnation. Mr. Wilson will not have much success unless he gives that up ; and when be says that " nothing that is uncertain and disputable can be the foundation of a Church," it looks very much as if he were willing to say this in order to win "those who are more or less penetrated with a scientific spirit" over to the Church.
This is the kind of criticism which we make on Mr. Wilson's theological speculations. The meaning of the passages we have quoted is in no case, as far as we can see, altered by the context. Of course, it is possible that all these ambiguities are merely the result of careless writing on Mr. Wilson's part. That in itself is rather a serious thing, especially in a book written "in a scientific spirit." Careless writing is not uufrequently evidence of loose thinking. But it is often difficult to avoid feeling that some of these ambiguities, at least, are to be explained in a different way. Mr. Wilson seems to us to be a little inclined to put the claims of Christianity on the ground not that it is true, but that it is easy ; and to be willing to make extravagant con- cessions, without perhaps grasping what they really mean, in order to gain converts. That is an attitude with which we have no sympathy. It is no use to ignore obstacles. A poet whom Mr. Wilson admires has said,— " How very hard it is to be A Christian."
Christianity is difficult ; you cannot make it easy ; least of all by shirking the difficulties. In any case, whether Mr. Wilson has thought the subject through or not, these vagnenesses, ambiguities, and inconsistencies seem to us to constitute a very serious defect in his theological reasoning.
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