From The Contemporary Review. FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE.* "THEN said 1, Ah, Lord God, they say of me, Doth he not speak parables? The people who said this meant that the prophet was unintelligible to them. His sayings were to them dark sayings. They perhaps could not at once have pointed out which particular sayings they were unable to understand; but some obscurity there was, which made the prophet's speech disagreeably perplexing to their minds. Yet he desired to be understood by those to whom he addressed himself. No genuine prophet has ever been the mechanical vehicle of enigmas which waited for fulfilment as their key. The Hebrew prophet was an impassioned preacher, pouring forth warnings and en. couragements to his own generation. There is a pathetic tone of disappointment and distress in the complaint with which Ezekiel turns to his God: "Ah, Lord God! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?" He In some such words Mr. Maurice was accustomed to utter the feeling of deep distress with which he found himself regarded by most of those around him as difficult to understand. The discovery was a continual surprise to him. His place, also, was among the prophets. had the strongest desire to be as plain and emphatic as possible. But, whilst he lived and was pouring out his eager ut terances, to most of those who heard him his prophesyings were baffling and ob. scure. They did not know exactly what to make of him. They could not help feeling that he was a most impressive person, but they soon perceived that he was neither one thing nor another neither Conservative nor Liberal, neither High nor Low nor yet Broad. It was not easy to see what he was driving at. And during the twelve years that have passed since his death, only the few who have been drawn to him by an inward sympathy have studied with any appreciative interest the volumes which he has left behind • The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, chiefly ERICK MAURICE. With Portraits. 2 vols. Macmil told in his own Letters. Edited by his Son, FRED lan & Co. him. It is probable that his writings become less easy to understand as the circumstances which called them forth, and of which they are full, pass out of memory. The "Life" which has just appeared, and for which his son and biographer Col. Maurice has found abundant material in letters addressed to many correspondents, will have a profound interest for those who desire to obtain a closer knowledge of Mr. Maurice and to understand better what was peculiar and characteristic in him. And the general impression that will be left on the mind of an intelligent reader will be, that he must be looked at as a "prophet," or be put aside as an incomprehensible fanatic. The critic may as well pass him by as hardly worth his notice, unless he will take the trouble to observe how a man, believing himself to be born with a prophetical mission, delivered his testimony in this nineteenth century. All accounts of him like that which the poet laureate has made popular in his charming "Invitation," representing him as a practical philanthropist who was at the same time fearlessly true to his personal convictions, are so inadequate as to be misleading. He had an ardent wish to be practical, and he tried hard to be what he wished; but he had to struggle against noticeably unpractical tendencies in his nature and inclinations. When he was engaged in practical work, his mind was nearly sure to be occupied with the principle or idea which his work was illustrating. He had, indeed, a strong and conscious reverence for facts; but it was for facts as revealing an order, a method, a purpose. His intense desire to sow seed, of principles and ideas, which should bear fruit in institutions and other outward realities, was not without reward; and he was a founder as well as a prophet in relation to the co-operative movement and to the higher education of women and of working men. But his strong points were not those of the inventive philanthropist or the efficient organizer. His fellow-workers early came to regard him as one who brought them inspiration, and those who valued him most learned to look up to him and to ac cept his testimony. His letters make it perfectly clear that he regarded his own position as a peculiar one. He had hardly reached manhood when he began to believe that a special task of witness-bearing was laid upon him. sciousness of a prophetical vocation must imply a good deal of self-confidence, Mr. Maurice is a convincing example that this need not be so. There was in him an extraordinary and almost overpowering humility. His habit of self-depreciation and self-reproach was somewhat trying to his hearers; his readiness to ascribe to himself shameful shortcomings, helpless ignorance and inaptitude, hundreds of Allowance must at the same time be made for one distinct cause of obscurity in his writings, which may be rightly as cribed to a peculiar modesty, but which is not unconnected with his prophetical blunders, might seem to have become a impulse and manner- his habit of allud- mannerism. But no one can read the ing to opinions and movements with "Life" without seeing how painfully sinwhich his readers or hearers could not be cere all this feeling was. His mode of reasonably assumed to be familiar, as if expression was habitually vehement: but the faintest hint was sufficient to bring self-depreciation was rooted in his heredithem clearly to their minds. It was his tary constitution and deepened by his instinct to think others better informed early history; and his fellowship with the than himself; and then he never thought Righteous Father, as it grew continually of himself as communicating information, closer, made him only the more conscious but always as seeking to awaken some of personal unworthiness. inquiry or conviction in those whom he addressed. The very rapid movement of his style carries the reader on with it, so that he hardly takes account of some allusion on which the full understanding of a sentence or a paragraph may depend; and when the subject of the allusion is recognized, the reader may still be uncomfortably conscious of having been unable, for want of knowledge, to estimate duly the force of the comparison or the argument involved in it. But this is not the chief reason why Mr. Maurice has gained the character of being unintelligible. His whole spiritual work, as consciously undertaken and performed, demanded more of patient and exceptional attention than most men have cared to give to it. His contemporaries have had some excuse for being perplexed by him.* If it should seem to any that a con The late Charles Buxton, whose nobly ingenuous mind could not fail to be impressed by Maurice's spir- way become acquainted with him. "Oh, that is the that he was right. I was unable to guess what could As is so generally the case with remarkable men, Maurice owed what was uncommon in him to his mother rather than to his father. She had a rare depth of nature, in comparison with which her husband's spiritual capacity was but ordinary. There is a mildly tragic element in the inner history of the grave Puritan family of which Frederick Maurice was a member. The father was a Unitarian minister and took pupils; the family had good connections and were in comfortable circumstances. Frederick was the only son; three daughters were born before him, and five after him. An hereditary Puritanism formed the religious atmosphere of the family. The father was personally an intelligent Liberal of his time, held in esteem by those who knew him, and receiving the full tribute of dutiful affection from wife and children. But the mother's nature, essentially shy and reserved, was driven inwards by the absence of anything which could tempt it to expand. Her force was reproduced in many of her daughters; in some of them with a readiness of self-assertion which was foreign to her character. When Frederick was ten years old, the three elder sisters renounced Unitarianism; and in a letter written to her father, though he was then in the house, the youngest of them, sixteen years old, gives him this emphatic notice: "We do not think it rice became alienated from the Unitarian consistent with the duty we owe to God creed. "In September, 1881," writes to attend a Unitarian place of worship." Col. Maurice, "she gave her husband a The father replies in a few words, ex- paper which, in consequence of her great pressing deep distress. There is an distress at causing him trouble, seems to observation in one of Mr. Maurice's dia- have taken her nearly a year in composing, logues, which evidently describes his own to ask him how she could, with least pain mother: "My mother's Calvinism came to him, attend some other public worship to me sweetened by her personal grace- than his." The husband, in reply, refers fulness, by her deep charity and great to the younger children: "I will require humility." Ten months after the daugh. their attendance on my ministrations and ter's letter, the mother writes to her hus- their assembling at my domestic altar till band as follows: they can assign a satisfactory reason for their own separation. I have the painful, the afflicting, prospect, from all they see and hear, that they will follow the steps of those who may one day feel the anguish I now feel." The anticipation was fulfilled. All the members of the family, except the father, ceased to be Unitarians. The mother followed her daughters in adopting Calvinistic views; but she could never quite satisfy herself that she was one of I am truly unhappy, my dearest friend, to see how much you suffer. I wish it were in my power to comfort you. . . . I can think of only one cause by which we can in any way have been led to the present circumstances a desire that our children should be serious ... It can be no shame to us that we were obliged to resort to authors of different opinions from ourselves, to give our children serious impressions, to teach them the end for which existence was bestowed upon them. It is, however, a shame to Unitarians in general that they have so few books of this kind. From my own experience, I can say that I am driven to read books which continually introduce doctrines that I cannot discover in the Scriptures, because I find so few Unitarian publications that make an impression on the heart, influencing it by forcible motives to right conduct. You feel an anxiety that the youngest children should not be biassed to doctrines which have separated the elder ones in religious worship from us, though I must say we were never so united in duty. Accomplishments and literature will neither enable them to discharge their duties, nor support their minds in the numerous trials they must have to endure. How anxious I am that now, whilst their minds are tender and easily impressed, they could have books that would give them right views of life, plain directions for duty, and the greatest supports in affliction! I should not like to be responsible for withholding principles from them, for fear of their imbibing doctrines different from my own. [In this distinguishing between principles and doctrines we see one of her son's most constant testimonies anticipated] But in this I cannot judge for you, for though I lament our children's opinions on account of the sorrow you feel, I cannot bring my mind to regret them, whilst I see that they are influential in producing good fruits. ... In the course of another year Mrs. Mau We were brought up very much together. Sons of two dear sisters, almost in the same nursery, in the same school as boys, and continually associated as young men till I went to India in 1830 (when Frederick Maurice was twenty-five), I had great opportunities of watching his early character and progress, and I rejoice to have an occasion of repeating now, what I often said then, that during that time I never knew him to commit even an ordinary fault or apparently to entertain an immoral idea. He was the gentlest, most docile and affectionate of creatures; but he was equally earnest in what he believed to be right, and energetic in the pursuit of his views. It may be thought an extravagant assertion, a mere formal tribute to a deceased friend and companion, but, after a long and intimate experience of the world, I can say with all sincerity that he was the most saintlike individual I ever met-Christ-like, if I dare to use the word. To such a boy, endowed with those |