enjoyed as much happiness as I might is that I have felt a painful inability to converse even with those who loved me best upon the workings of my mind. . . . My lips have been hermetically sealed to those who had a right to expect frankness from me." He makes confession of this as a "crime." But we may trace his reticence to causes which the "Life" sets plainly before us, his constitutional reserve and self-distrust, his sensitive and reverential attachment to a Unitarian father and a Calvinist mother, and the steady growth of convictions which diverged equally from Unitarianism and Calvinism. The letter in which he makes these reproaches against himself was writ which, as Col. Maurice says, "he for the first time spoke out at least part of his thoughts to his mother and his sister Emma." Till then, his father seems to have hardly been aware that his son also had found Unitarianism wanting. From that time his theology begins to appear in his letters, and to form more and more the staple of them. Whilst he was musing on things unknown to those nearest to him, the fire kindled, and at the last he spake with his tongue. intellectual and spiritual powers which has not yet the freedom to name God. afterwards became manifest, the earnest Writing to his father in February, 1829, differences of belief on vital questions he says: "One reason why I have not which broke the family harmony must have been intensely painful, and the occasion of incessant anxious inquiry. Few indications remain of what were his inner thoughts during that interesting period of his life. Mr. Maurice himself says, in an autobiographical fragment, "these years were to me years of moral confusion and contradiction; but he does not further lift the veil. It seems to be certain that till he was nearly twenty-five he kept his struggles and searchings and most inward convictions to himself. There is one exception to this reticence, a tantalizing one. It had been assumed that he would become a minister like his father; but at the age of sixteen he expressed a desire to go to the bar, and this led to his leav-ten shortly after a visit to his home, in ing home for a time. During this absence he became intimately acquainted with a lady, a friend of the family, who was a disciple of Mr. Erskine, of Linlathen. Some correspondence took place between them, and her letters, but not his, appear to have been preserved. He spoke of himself with more than a youthful melan choly, as "a being destined to a few short years of misery here, as an earnest of and preparation for the more enduring state of wretchedness and woe," and applied to himself the phrase, "The heart knoweth its own bitterness." His correspondent asks him, "Where is your authority for regarding any individual of the human race as destined to misery either here or hereafter?" and appeals to the character of God, which, if he is love, must be traduced by such a representation. Col. Maurice observes, "It is evidently the first time that this idea has ever been presented to his mind." If this is so, it will follow that from this lady came the most important seed that was ever dropped into Frederick Maurice's mind-the seminal principle of what was most characteristic in his theology. But for some years there is no distinct sign of its having taken root. His utterances during his Cam bridge life, and for a little time after, abundant and eager as they were, dealing with literature and philosophy and life, containing the germs of what he was afterwards accustomed to teach on such subjects, are yet, in marked distinction from his later utterances, expressly untheological. The thought of God was in his mind, a clear and overmastering faith in God was forming itself there, and was really the root of his other beliefs, but he There is sufficient evidence that Maurice made a strong impression on the most intellectual of his contemporaries at Cambridge. Their high estimate of him must have been due to the loftiness of his character, his ardent utterance, and, above all, his penetrating insight. His extreme shyness must have created difficulties in intercourse; he had no academical distinction, no variety or versatility of endowments. But those who were wishing to understand themselves and things around them, found in Maurice a grasp of ideas and principles, an intolerance of conventional fallacies, a defiance of the authority of the world, a power of discerning method and order, which constrained them to look up to him. As a measure of the admiration which it has been possible to entertain for Maurice as a thinker and seer, I will mention — not without shrinking a little from the smile which the esti mate will call forth from the ordinary critic-what Archdeacon Hare once said to me. Referring expressly to the highest endowments, he declared his belief that no such mind as Maurice's had been given to the world since Plato's. But assuredly no one possessing great mental powers has ever laid them more delib-| was negative was bad. erately at the foot of the cross. Having reader of "The Kingdom of Christ," of learnt to see all things in God, the God the "History of Moral and Metaphysical The cautious revealed through Christ, he accepted it as Philosophy," of the Cambridge lectures, his one vocation to bear witness of God. will often feel that he is being hurried on There was no sphere of thought or life too fast, that he is expected to know and which to him was exempt from the pres- see and discriminate, where he is looking ence and operation of God; there was for information. But he may always take none in which he was not himself inter- for granted that the author is looking for ested, and on which the acknowledgment the living truth, the divine meaning, in of God did not seem to him to throw every opinion or system or personal hissome light. He believed that God was tory that he touches, and that he wishes dealing with every man; and he would his reader to apprehend this for himself. sometimes speak as if to name God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,Mr. Maurice evidently describes his own might be enough to awaken a recognition early review of Hare's "Guesses at aim as well as that of others, when in an of the divine presence in the heart of a Truth," written when he was twenty-three, hearer. His writings are mostly sermons; he speaks of those "who make it their but in any writing of his what might be great object to set free their own minds called a tendency to preach was nearly and those of their fellow-men, to feel as sure to be perceptible. If he was giving deeply and think as earnestly as they can, a history of events or of thought, he could and to teach others to do so; who would not describe them without seeking to see bring us to truth, not by tumbling us into and to show how some divine purpose a stage-coach, was revealing itself through the things he road, and which would certainly take us - none of which travel that was relating. When he says paradoxi- wrong, but by lending us a staff and a cally in one of these letters that he found lantern, and setting us forward on our the Book of Isaiah much easier to under- way for ourselves." stand than Lord Mahon's history, he justly says, are not the most popular sort Such persons, he means, no doubt, that Lord Mahon did of guides. not help him to see the meaning, below the surface, by which the occurrences which he reported were connected to gether and made instructive. He himself was ardent in interpreting movements and institutions from the point of view of a divine education of mankind. He took for granted that every leading man, every social creation, had some witness to bear. Of no other man could it be said that he lived more completely in the region of ideas; of no other, that he had a more genuine reverence for facts. He had a great scorn for abstractions; history of all kinds was the authority to which he paid homage. He always declined to consider the opinions of any philosopher apart from his life. Towards all institutions coming down from the past - monarchy, aristocracy, the national Church, other religious bodies, he had what might seem a somewhat blind conservatism; but it was because he regarded them as commissioned to do some divine work, or set forth some aspect of the divine nature; and so far as the existing representatives of such institutions failed to execute their commission, he held that they were doomed to be set aside. His unvarying formula from the beginning of his speculations was, that all that was positive in any system was good, all that reader of Maurice should be prepared, is One stumbling-block, for which the his continual denunciation of systems and and methods. It is hopeless to underopinions as distinguished from principles stand him without being able in some degree to apprehend this distinction. When it is apprehended, it will assuredly be felt to be a most real and vital one. Mr. Maurice hardly assumes that, at the best, we can do without systems and opinions. But he assumes, what every one will admit, that truth and reality exist independently of all systems and opinions; and he assumes further, that men in general are continually forgetful of this independence of truth. They are so from two impulses. The logical faculty, which, as Mr. Maurice held, has a very inferior power for the discovery of truth as com pared with the spiritual nature and the experience of life, is busy and self-assertive, and delights in the creation of a system. And the system which a man has built up or chosen he is apt to value as his own, and to be ready to uphold and contend for. Truth needs to be sought humbly, and with deference to the deeper instincts and to the demonstrations of experience. Mr. Maurice always claimed the methods of inductive philosophy as not only sound in their own sphere, but 8 ple. Looking to their substance, he was in the closest sympathy with the Articles as well as with the Creeds. He even defended the signing of the Articles by youths as the condition of entrance at Oxford, in a pamphlet of which Archdea as the right methods of moral and spiritual and depth and power of philosophic thought produced by any minister of our Church within I know no work comparable to it in reach the last hundred years; and though my opinion on the immediate topic was and still is different from the one therein maintained, I never read a book which so compelled me to love and revere its author. no It might strike some as a paradox that, whilst thus distrusting systems, Mr. Maurice insisted so strongly upon the value of creeds and articles. There may have been something of the enthusiasm of a convert in this insistence. But it seemed to him a sure fact of experience that the Creeds of the Church catholic and the Articles of the Church of England served to "deliver men from the tyranny" of the systems and opinions of the day. He revered the Creeds because they set forth the divine nature and divine acts as objects of human faith. The Thirty-nine Articles he regarded with less reverence, but with genuine respect, as setting forth, in language which had issued from a time of earnest spiritual conflict, the special position of the Church of England, for the guidance of its clergy. Of all things that he thought enslaving, the dominion of religious public opinion seemed to him the most deadly. He was not the less likely to entertain this feeling, because the religious opinion of his day contradicted some of his own most cherished convictions. Against this opinion he took his stand on the Creeds and Articles. In these, as in all things, he looked to the vital constitutive principle rather than to details of expression. phrases or statements he claimed the Subordinate right, or it appeared to him to be the rational course, to interpret somewhat freely in accordance with the dominant princi Creed, affirming with vehemence that no He defended also the Athanasian document warned him so solemnly not to think of men as likely to be punished for intellectual errors. ion, however, about the policy both of imposing the Oxford subscription and of He changed his opinrequiring the Athanasian Creed to be read in churches. the enthusiastic partiality of a convert. I have spoken of his being animated by branch of the Church catholic, never had Certainly, the Church of England, as a a more passionately loyal adherent. This statement may surprise some who have heard of him as a somewhat freethinking clergyman. But those who read this "Life" will see that the loyalty of a convert remained steadfast in him to the end of his days. It was not till he was twen ty-eight, in January, 1834, that he was ordained. the age of twenty-one, he came to London with the intention of preparing for the When he left Cambridge, at bar, but for some three years he was chiefly occupied with literary journalism, making no profession of theological belief. At the end of that time he let it be known that he had been inclining towards the ministry of the Church of England; and, urged apparently by no more definite reason than impulses of humility, he determined to go through the undergraduate course at Oxford. He went there in 1829, and took his degree in 1831. It was a time of peculiar interest, when the thoughts which presently found expression in the Oxford movement and in the Tracts for the Times were stirring in the minds of several persons whose influence was already highly attractive in the university. But there is no sign that pression upon him as to disturb or modify this movement produced any such imthe progress of his own belief. He was becoming more and more convinced that he was called to bear witness to the per fect character of the one God. He writes world always in the condition of childto a sister in January, 1831: I think I am beginning to feel something of the intense pride and atheism of my own heart, of its hatred of truth, of its utter lovelessness; and something I do hope that I have seen very dimly of the way in which Christ, by being the Light and Truth manifested, shines into the heart and puts light there, even while we feel that the light and truth is still all in Him, and that in ourselves there is nothing but thick darkness. ... The thought that had been brought to me as if from heaven, -"the light of the sun is not in you, but out of you, and yet you can see everything by it if you will open your eyes," - gave me more satisfaction than any other could. But his attachment to the historical Church of England was at the same time growing closer and more vital. Our national Church was never separated in his mind from the Church catholic. His early work "The Kingdom of Christ," is an exposition of the nature and characteristics of the Church as a universal spiritual society. But the nationality of the Church in England was almost as dear to him as the catholicity of the Church throughout the world. The nation was in his view as divine a creation as the Church. He could not think of either as without the other. The nation, he held, was properly Protestant; the Church was properly catholic. In the Church of England he found a satisfying home; and nothing pleased him more than to justify and interpret all its institutes and all its services from the point of view of faith in the living God. There was a good deal in what he said about the Church and the sacred ministry and the sacraments that seemed to connect him with the High Church party; as did his almost scornful repudiation of Liberalism. For a short time after he was ordained he was regarded by the Oxford High Churchmen as a man who might give them valuable assistance; but Dr. Pusey's Tract on Baptism shewed him what fundamental differences separated them and him. Mr. Strachey writes, in October, 1836: "I heard him say that he had read Pusey's Tract with the greatest pain, and the conclusion he came to after it was, that if it were true, he might as well leave off preaching, for he could have no message to declare to men from God." And about the same time Maurice complains that the High Churchmen were by preference regarding the doctrines of the Church as authoritative dogmas rather than as truths, and desiring to keep the hood. I have seen a long letter written to him by Dr. Pusey, which sufficiently language were to the Oxford leader. It proves how unintelligible his position and is a kindly meant lecture, given de haut en bas, expressing much annoyance, and mixing correction, reproof, and encouragement. The feeling, too prevalent in the High Church party, that the word was without the direct action of the living God except so far as special Church media or channels could be provided for such action, was enough to put them out of sympathy with Maurice. But he was not drawn to any other party. The spirit of party was always a godless one in his eyes; and he felt a strong conviction that it was his duty, more than that of other men, to stand entirely aloof from all the parties of the day. His letters show how sensitive he was as to the danger of forming another party, were it only a "noparty" party. If there was one thing upon which he was resolved, it was that he would make it impossible to use his name as a party one. That he did not belong to either the High Church party or the Evangelical is easily understood; but it has been very common to reckon him as a leader in the Broad Church party. This description of him became known to Mr. Maurice, and it provoked him into vehement repudiations of "Broad Churchism." Liberalism was the hereditary creed which he had rejected; he had tried it and found it superficial. He did not recognize in it any testimony to the living God; on the contrary, it often seemed to assume that the time was come when the living God might, or must, be dispensed with. The Oxford Broad Churchism, represented in one generation by Archbishop Whately, in the succeeding by Professor Jowett, was what he chiefly had in view when he refused to be called a Broad Churchman; but it is certain that the more plausibly a party name might be applied to him, the more anxiously would he dis claim it. He refers from time to time to the isolated position which he felt constrained to take up; it had accompani ments which were painful to him, but he faced them deliberately; what he had to say to his contemporaries required that he should almost ostentatiously separate himself from parties. His interest in politics was deep and ardent, and he took for the most part the Liberal side in the political agitations of his time; but he did not take his side under the dictation of Liber alism. He was equally ready to justify Toryism and Liberalism by pointing out the sound positive principle at the heart of each; whilst the "platform" and par. tisanship of each were equally distasteful to him. There were two controversies into which Mr. Maurice threw his whole heart and soul, and by which all that was characteristic in his theology was displayed. His watchword in the one was eternal life; in the other, revelation. In both he was not acting as the champion of one school against another, but was bearing a solitary testimony in opposition to what was supported by a nearly unanimous consensus of the religious opinion of the time. It is not easy for those who are breathing the freer air of the present day to realize how imperatively, before the controversy of Mr. Maurice with Dr. Jelf, at least a silent acquiescence in the doctrine of a hopeless future for all who died with out having turned to God was demanded by the current orthodoxy. This hopeless future of never-ending torment was the basis and first doctrine of religion - the pivot upon which all preaching turned. Hell was the name of hopeless evil; heaven of secure bliss. "Die converted, and you will go to heaven; die unconverted, and you will go to hell; and you may die this moment." This was called the Gospel a word which means good news. The doctrine that all were to be made happy in the world to come was associated, to Mr. Maurice's mind, with a heterodox liberalism which had become repugnant to him; after he became a Churchman he had an almost passionate prejudice in favor of catholic orthodoxy, It was not by any tradition or opinion of a school that he was led to rebel against that version of the Gospel. It was the perfect character of God, of which, as he would have said, he had been allowed to have glimpses, that moved him. It had become impossible for him to acquiesce in any account of God's dealings with men, which represented them as essentially unequal, unjust, unloving. "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all," could not be an unmeaning proposition to him. It was not that he did not know the mystery of sin or feel the weight of guilt; to few men that have ever lived has sin been more awful. He knew that God could not compel any man to repent against his will; he could foresee no point of time at which a man must necessarily cease to be impenitent. He had no weak shrinkings from severe punishment. But the notion that the Father of all finally cut off from himself and from any possibility of repentance every man, woman, and child who in the few years of this life did not turn to him, became intolerable to him. To admit it was to do dishonor to God. But that was not all: not only was the doctrine intolerable of itself— it dragged down all theology into a low materialism. Eternal life was commonly used in the received theology for never-ending bliss; but Mr. Maurice found that in St. John eternal life meant the knowledge of the only God and of Jesus Christ whom he sent into the world. It was clear that in the Gospel theology eternity was transfigured; instead of denoting infinite time, it signified that property of the divine nature by which it was above and independent of time. Eternal life was the highest object of man's aspiration, the highest gift of God; but this was knowledge of God, fellowship with God, a partaking of the very life of God. All that was noble and elevating in religion seemed thrust aside and lost, when men were told that the one question for every man was how he could escape endless torment and obtain endless happiness. In his "Theological Essays," Mr. Maurice repudiated definitely and with emphasis this materialistic doctrine. He was at the time a professor of King's College, and the principal of the college, Dr. Jelf, felt called upon to impeach the language of the essays as heterodox and dangerous. The result of his action was that Mr. Maurice was requested by the council to resign the two professorships which he was holding. I remember that on the day on which the chairs were declared vacant he was engaged to give a reading from Shakespeare in the schoolroom of a district in Whitechapel to which I had recently been appointed. He kept his engagement and brought me the news. He spoke no word of anger or of blame; he was not depressed by his dismissal; it was evident that in his restrained and subdued manner he rather gloried in it. He would have welcomed more persecution than fell to his lot, if it had come to him without his provoking it, and if it had served to draw attention to his testimony. He was glad that men should hear that a professor had been dismissed from King's College because he declared that God's love was about his creatures in the future state as well as in this world. Certainly the principal and the council could not have done a worse thing for the creed they supposed to be orthodox than to give occasion for |