No More Learning

He was vexed, and without thinking, dragged his net through
a pool full of weeds. As he raised it to the surface, he saw in it
three large transparent prawns, which had been blindly dragged
from their invisible hiding-place.
He presented them in triumph to Madame Rosémilly, who
dared not touch them for fear of the sharp, tooth-like point which
arms their heads. At last she decided to take them; and seiz-
ing between two of her fingers the thin end of their beard, she
placed them one after the other in her basket, with some weed
to keep them alive.
Then, on finding a shallower piece of water, she entered it
with hesitating steps, and catching her breath as the cold struck
her feet, began to fish herself. She was skillful and cunning,
with a supple wrist and a sportman's instinct. At about every
cast she brought out some victims, deceived and surprised by
the ingenious slowness with which she swept the pool.
»


## p. 9820 (#228) ###########################################

9820
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
»
Jean was taking nothing; but he followed her step by step,
touched her dress, bent over her, pretended to be in despair at
his awkwardness, and wished her to teach him.
«Show me how," he said; « show me! ”
Then, as their two faces were reflected one beside the other
in the clear water, which the deep-growing seaweeds formed into
a limpid mirror, Jean smiled at the face so near his which looked
up to him from below; and at times threw to it, from the tips
of his fingers, a kiss which seemed to fall on it.
“You are very tiresome,” the young woman said. “My dear
fellow, never do two things at the same time. ”
He replied:-
“I am only doing one. I love you. "
She drew herself up erect, and said in a serious tone:
Come
now, what is the matter with you for the last ten
minutes? Have you lost your head ? »
“No, I have not lost my head. I love you, and at last dare
to tell you so. "
They were now standing in the pool of sea-water that rose
nearly to their knees, and with their dripping hands leaning on
their nets, looked into the depth of each other's eyes.
She resumed in a playful and rather annoyed tone: -
“You are badly advised to speak to me thus at this moment.
Could you not wait another day, and not spoil my fishing ? ”
He replied:-
“Pardon me, but I could not keep silence. I have loved you
a long time. To-day you have made me lose my senses. ”
Then she seemed at once to take her resolution, and to resign
herself to talk business and renounce amusement.
"Let us sit on this rock," she said: “we shall be able to talk
quietly. ”
They climbed on a rock a little higher; and when they were
settled, side by side, their feet hanging down in the full sunshine,
she rejoined:-
My friend, you are not a child, and I am not a girl. Both
of us know what we are about, and can weigh all the conse-
quences of our acts. If you decide to-day to declare your love
to me, I suppose naturally you wish to marry me. ”
He had scarcely expected such a clear statement of the situa-
tion, and answered sheepishly: –
“Why, yes! ”
“ Have you spoken to your father and mother ? »
(
»


## p. 9821 (#229) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9821
“No. I wished to know if you would accept me. ”
She extended to him her hand, which was still wet, and as he
placed his own in it with fervor -
"I am willing,” she said. “I believe you good and loyal.
But do not forget that I would not displease your parents. ”
"Do you think that my mother has foreseen nothing, and that
she would love you as she does if she did not desire a marriage
between us ? »
" True: I am rather confused. "
They were silent. On his part, he was astonished that she
was so little confused and so reasonable. He had expected some
pretty airs and graces, refusals which say yes, a whole coquettish
comedy of love blended with fishing and the splashing of water.
And it was all over; he felt himself bound and married in a
score of words. They had nothing more to say to each other,
since they were in full accord; and they both now remained
somewhat embarrassed at what had passed so rapidly between
them, perhaps even somewhat confused, - not daring to speak
further, not daring to fish further, not knowing what to do.
Translation of Hugh Craig.
THE PIECE OF STRING
From «The Odd Number. Copyright 1889, by Harper & Brothers
I'
T WAS market day, and over all the roads round Goderville the
peasants and their wives were coming towards the town. The
men walked easily, lurching the whole body forward at every
step. Their long legs were twisted and deformed by the slow,
painful labors of the country: by bending over to plow, which
is what also makes their left shoulders too high and their figures
crooked; and by reaping corn, which obliges them for steadiness'
sake to spread their knees too wide. Their starched blue blouses,
shining as though varnished, ornamented at collar and cuffs with
little patterns of white stitch-work, and blown up big around
their bony bodies, seemed exactly like balloons about to soar, but
putting forth a head, two arms, and two feet.
Some of these fellows dragged a cow or a calf at the end
of a rope. And just behind the animal, beating it over the
back with a leaf-covered branch to hasten its pace, went their
wives, carrying large baskets from which came forth the heads


## p. 9822 (#230) ###########################################

9822
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
of chickens or of ducks. These women walked with steps far
shorter and quicker than the men; their figures, withered and
upright, were adorned with scanty little shawls pinned over their
flat bosoms; and they enveloped their heads each in a white
cloth, close fastened round the hair and surmounted by a cap.
Now a char-à-banc passed by, drawn by a jerky-paced nag. It
shook up strangely the two men on the seat. And the woman
at the bottom of the cart held fast to its sides to lessen the hard
joltings.
In the market place at Goderville was a great crowd, a min-
gled multitude of men and beasts. The horns of the cattle, the
high and long-napped hats of wealthy peasants, the head-dresses
of the women, came to the surface of that sea. And voices
clamorous, sharp, shrill, made a continuous and savage din. Above
it a huge burst of laughter from the sturdy lungs of a merry
yokel would sometimes sound, and sometimes a long bellow from
a cow tied fast to the wall of a house.
It all smelled of the stable, of milk, of hay, and of perspira-
tion; giving off that half human, half animal odor which is pecul-
iar to the men of the fields.
Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just arrived at Goder.
ville, and was taking his way towards the square, when he
perceived on the ground a little piece of string. Maître Hauche-
corne, economical like all true Normans, reflected that everything
was worth picking up which could be of any use; and he stooped
down — but painfully, because he suffered with rheumatism. He
took the bit of thin cord from the ground, and was carefully pre-
paring to roll it up when he saw Maître Malandain the harness-
maker on his doorstep, looking at him. They had once had a
quarrel about a halter, and they had remained angry, bearing
malice on both sides. Maître Hauchecorne was overcome with a
sort of shame at being seen by his enemy looking in the dirt so
for a bit of string. He quickly hid his find beneath his blouse;
then in the pocket of his breeches; then pretended to be still
looking for something on the ground which he did not discover;
and at last went off towards the market-place, with his head bent
forward, and a body almost doubled in two by rheumatic pains.
He lost himself immediately in the crowd, which was clamor-
ous, slow, and agitated by interminable bargains. The peasants
examined the cows, went off, came back, always in great per-
plexity and fear of being cheated, never quite daring to decide,


## p. 9823 (#231) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9823
spying at the eye of the seller, trying ceaselessly to discover the
tricks of the man and the defect in the beast.
The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet,
had pulled out the poultry, which lay upon the ground, tied by
the legs, with eyes scared, with combs scarlet.
They listened to propositions, maintaining their prices, with a
dry manner, with an impassive face; or suddenly, perhaps, decid-
ing to take the lower price which was offered, they cried out to
the customer, who was departing slowly:-
“All right: I'll let you have them, Maît' Anthime. ”
Then, little by little, the square became empty; and when
the Angelus struck midday, those who lived at a distance poured
into the inns.
At Jourdain's, the great room was filled with eaters, just as
the vast court was filled with vehicles of every sort, — wagons,
gigs, char-à-bancs, tilburies, tilt-carts which have no name, yel-
low with mud, misshapen, pieced together, raising their shafts to
heaven like two arms, or it may be with their nose in the dirt
and their rear in the air,
Just opposite to where the diners were at table, the huge
fireplace, full of clear flame, threw a lively heat on the backs of
those who sat along the right. Three spits were turning, loaded
with chickens, with pigeons, and with joints of mutton; and a
delectable odor of roast meat, and of gravy gushing over crisp
brown skin, took wing from the hearth, kindled merriment, caused
mouths to water.
All the aristocracy of the plow were eating there, at Maît'
Jourdain's, the innkeeper's,-a dealer in horses also, and a sharp
fellow who had made a pretty penny in his day.
The dishes were passed round, were emptied, with jugs of
yellow cider. Every one told of his affairs, of his purchases and
his sales. They asked news about the crops.
The weather was
good for green stuffs, but a little wet for wheat.
All of a sudden the drum rolled in the court before the house.
Every one, except some of the most indifferent, was on his feet
at once and ran to the door, to the windows, with his mouth still
full, and his napkin in his hand.
When the public crier had finished his tattoo, he called forth
in a jerky voice, making his pauses out of time:-
“Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville, and in general
to all
-persons present at the market, that there has been lost


## p. 9824 (#232) ###########################################

9824
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
this morning, on the Beuzeville road, between – nine and ten
o'clock, a pocket-book of black leather, containing five hundred
francs and business papers. You are requested to return it— to
the mayor's office at once, or to Maître Fortuné Houlbrèque of
Manneville. There will be fifty francs reward. ”
Then the man departed. They heard once more at a distance
the dull beatings on the drum, and the faint voice of the crier.
Then they began to talk of this event, reckoning up the
chances which Maître Houlbrèque had of finding or of not find-
ing his pocket-book again.
And the meal went on.
They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of gen-
darmes appeared on the threshold.
He asked:-
"Is Maître Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, here? ”
Maître Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table,
answered:-
«Here I am. ”
And the corporal resumed:-
“Maître Hauchecorne, will you have the kindness to come with
me to the mayor's office ? M. le Maire would like to speak to
you. ”
The peasant, surprised and uneasy, gulped down his little glass
of cognac, got up, and — even worse bent over than in the morn-
ing, since the first steps after a rest were always particularly dif-
ficult — started off, repeating :
“Here I am, here I am. ”
And he followed the corporal.
The mayor was waiting for him, seated in an arm-chair. He
was the notary of the place, a tall, grave man of pompous speech.
"Maître Hauchecorne," said he, “this morning, on the Beuze-
ville road, you were seen to pick up the pocket-book lost by
Maître Houlbrèque of Manneville. ”
The countryman, speechless, gazed at the mayor; frightened
already by this suspicion, which rested on him he knew not why.
“I-I picked up that pocket-book ? »
“Yes, you. ”
"I swear I didn't even know nothing about it at all. ”
« You were seen. ”
They saw me – me? Who is that who saw me?
"M. Malandain, the harness-maker. ”
>
(
ac
>


## p. 9825 (#233) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9825
Then the old man remembered, understood, and reddening
with anger:
:-
"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal ? He saw me picking up
this string here, M'sieu' le Maire. »
And fumbling at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out of
it the little end of string.
But the mayor incredulously shook his head :-
«You will not make me believe, Maître Hauchecorne, that
M. Malandain, who is a man worthy of credit, has mistaken this
string for a pocket-book. ”
The peasant, furious, raised his hand and spit as if to attest
his good faith, repeating: -
For all that, it is the truth of the good God, the blessed
truth, M'sieu' le Maire. There! on my soul and my salvation I
repeat it. ”
The mayor continued:
"After picking up the thing in question, you even looked
for some time in the mud to see if a piece of money had not
dropped out of it. ”
The good man was suffocated with indignation and with fear.
“If they can say —! If they can say such lies as that to slan-
der an honest man! If they can say — ! ”
He might protest, he was not believed.
He was confronted with M. Malandain, who repeated and
sustained his testimony. They abused one another for an hour.
.
At his own request, Maître Hauchecorne was searched. Nothing
was found on him.
At last the mayor, much perplexed, sent him away, warning
him that he would inform the public prosecutor and ask for
orders.
The news had spread. When he left the mayor's office, the
old man was surrounded, interrogated with a curiosity which was
serious or mocking as the case might be, but into which no in-
dignation entered. And he began to tell the story of the string.
They did not believe him. They laughed.
He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing
his acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his
protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that
he had nothing.
They said to him:-
You old rogue, va ! ”
XVII-615
(C


## p. 9826 (#234) ###########################################

9826
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
And he grew angry, exasperated, feverish, in despair at not
being believed; and always telling his story.
The night came. It was time to go home. He set out with
three of his neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where
he had picked up the end of string; and all the way he talked
of his adventure.
That evening he made the round in the village of Bréauté, so
as to tell every one. He met only unbelievers.
He was ill of it all night long.
The next day, about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a
farm hand of Maître Breton, the market-gardener at Ymauville,
returned the pocket-book and its contents to Maître Houlbrèque
of Manneville.
This man said that he had indeed found it on the road; but
not knowing how to read, he had carried it home and given it
to his master.
The news spread to the environs. Maître Hauchecorne was
informed. He put himself at once upon the go, and began to
relate his story as completed by the dénouement. He triumphed.
“,
“What grieved me," said he was not the thing itself, do
you understand; but it was the lies. There's nothing does you
so much harm as being in disgrace for lying. ”
All day he talked of his adventure; he told it on the roads to
the people who passed; at the cabaret to the people who drank;
and the next Sunday, when they came out of church.
He even
stopped strangers to tell them about it. He was easy now, and
yet something worried him without his knowing exactly what it
was. People had a joking manner while they listened. They did
not seem convinced. He seemed to feel their tittle-tattle behind
his back.
On Tuesday of the next week he went to market at Goder-
ville, prompted entirely by the need of telling his story.
Malandain, standing on his door-step, began to laugh as he
saw him pass. Why?
He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish,
and giving him a punch in the pit of his stomach, cried in his
face:
“Oh you great rogue, va ! » Then turned his heel upon him.
Maître Hauchecorne remained speechless, and grew more and
more uneasy. Why had they called him "great rogue ?
When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern he began again to
explain the whole affair.


## p. 9827 (#235) ###########################################

GUY DE MAUPASSANT
9827
A horse-dealer of Montivilliers shouted at him:
“Get out, get out, you old scamp: I know all about your
string! ”
Hauchecorne stammered:
« But since they found it again, the pocket-book — ! ”
But the other continued:
"Hold your tongue, daddy: there's one who finds it and there's
another who returns it. And no one the wiser. ”
The peasant was choked. He understood at last. They accused
him of having had the pocket-book brought back by an accom-
plice, by a confederate.
He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.
He could not finish his dinner, and went away amid a chorus
of jeers.
He went home ashamed and indignant, choked with rage, with
confusion; the more cast down since from his Norman cunning,
he was perhaps capable of having done what they accused him
of, and even of boasting of it as a good trick. His innocence
dimly seemed to him impossible to prove, his craftiness being
so well known. And he felt himself struck to the heart by the
injustice of the suspicion.
Then he began anew to tell of his adventure, lengthening his
recital every day, each time adding new proofs, more energetic
protestations, and more solemn oaths which he thought of, which
he prepared in his hours of solitude, his mind being entirely
occupied by the story of the string. The more complicated his
defense, the more artful his arguments, the less he was believed.
« Those are liars' proofs,” they said behind his back.
He felt this; it preyed upon his heart. He exhausted himself
in useless efforts.
He was visibly wasting away.
The jokers now made him tell the story of the piece of
string” to amuse them, just as you make a soldier who has been
on a campaign tell his story of the battle. His mind, struck at
the root, grew weak.
About the end of December he took to his bed.
He died early in January, and in the delirium of the death
agony he protested his innocence, repeating: -
"A little bit of string-a little bit of string - see, here it is,
M'sieu' le Maire. »
Translation of Jonathan Sturges.


## p. 9828 (#236) ###########################################

9828
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
(1805-1870)
REDERICK DENISON MAURICE takes high rank among the reli-
gious teachers of this century, more by virtue of what he
was than of what he wrote.
He is of those elect souls
whose insight becomes a guiding force both to themselves and to
their fellows. Of a generation which knew Carlyle and Mill and
Darwin, which was given over to the dry-rot of intellectual despair
in all matters concerning the religious life of man, Maurice seemed
born out of due time. He belonged apparently to an earlier or to a
later day. Yet by force, not of his intellect
but of his faith, he succeeded in turning
many of his contemporaries to the Christ-
ian ideal which haunted him throughout his
life, and which perpetually dominated his
nineteenth-century inheritance of skepti-
cism. Unlike Newman, with whom he was
associated at Oxford, Maurice was content
to find in the Church of England, as in all
churches, only a partial realization of his
ideal of righteousness. He is of those who
believe that the whole truth can never
be revealed to one generation. He shares
FREDERICK D. MAURICE the Platonic belief that the vision of God
becomes gradually apparent through many
This liberalism was the mainspring of his power as a reli-
gious teacher.
His early training had enlarged his sympathies and prepared the
way for his future ministrations. He was born in 1805 of a Unitarian
father, and of a mother who adhered to the doctrines of Calvin. His
first religious problem was to reconcile these differences of faith.
Later his education at Cambridge deepened within him the evangeli-
cal sympathies, which made him long to unite the world under one
banner as Sons of God. Upon leaving Cambridge he undertook the
editorship of the Athenæum in London, and while engaged upon
this work became a member of the Church of England. His resi-
dence at Oxford was the natural outcome of this step.
The strong-
hold of mediævalism was then vital with the presence of Newman,

æons.
a


## p. 9829 (#237) ###########################################

FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
9829
of Pusey, of Keble, and of others who were seeking with passionate
eagerness a refuge from the insistent doubts and difficulties of the
age. The spirit of the age was then trying all men through the re-
ligious faculty. Maurice, as if anticipating the Christianity of the
twentieth century, found the key to all problems, not in an infalli-
ble church nor in infallible reason, but in the everlasting love and
fatherhood of God, and in the universal sonship of men. Cambridge
had increased his liberality; Oxford deepened his idealism. Maurice
would exclude no man, whether Jew, Turk, infidel, or heretic, from
the Divine family; yet in his exalted worship of Jesus he was linked
to the mediaval mystic. This rare combination gave him charm, and
drew to him thoughtful and cultured men who were too large for
narrowed and dogmatic Christianity, yet who longed to give expres-
sion to the soul of worship within them. It drew to him also the
workingmen of London. After Maurice left Oxford he was appointed
to the chaplaincy of Guy's Hospital in London. He held also the
chairs of history, literature, and divinity in King's College, and the
chaplaincy of Lincoln's Inn and of St. Peter's. During his long resi-
dence in London, from 1834 until 1866, the broad and fervent religious
spirit of Maurice found expression in social work. The man who
would knit together all the kindreds of the world in the bonds of
Divine fellowship could not limit his ministrations to certain classes
of society. He was in strong sympathy with workingmen, believing
that their lack of education by no means debarred them from the
apprehension of the highest spiritual truths. His foundation of the
Workingman's College was the outcome of this sympathy. He founded
also Queen's College for women; and thus established still further his
claim to be ranked with the prophets of his time. In 1866 he became
professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge. He died in 1872.
Frederick Denison Maurice was the author of many religious
works, but his pre-eminent power is in his sermons. His Lectures
on Ecclesiastical History, his Theological Essays,' his Kingdom of
Christ,' his Unity of the New Testament,' have literary value in
proportion as they exhibit the spirit of the preacher. In his ser-
mons the luminous spirituality of Maurice and his strength as a writer
find completest expression. The man himself can be most closely
approached in his sensitive and thoughtful letters to his friends.


## p. 9830 (#238) ###########################################

9830
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
FROM A LETTER TO REV. J. DE LA TOUCHE
I
-
HOLDOR House, DORKING, April 14th, 1863.
Do not know whether you will think me less or more fitted
to enter into that tremendous difficulty of which you speak
in your last letter, when I tell you that I was brought up
a Unitarian, and that I have distinctly and deliberately accepted
the belief which is expressed in the Nicene Creed as the only
satisfaction of the infinite want which Unitarianism awakened in
me; yes, and as the only vindication of the truth which Unitari.
anism taught me.
You feel that our Lord is a man in the most perfect sense
of the word. You cannot convince yourself that he is more.
No, nor will any arguments convince you that he is more. For
what do you mean by that more? Is it a Jupiter Tonans whom
you are investing with the name of God ? is it to him you pray
when you say
Our Father which art in heaven”? Is God
a Father,— really and actually a Father? is he in heaven, far
away from our conceptions and confusions,- one whom we can-
not make in the likeness of anything above, around, beneath us?
Or is all this a dream ? is there no God, no father? has he never
made himself known, never come near to men ? can men never
come near to him ?
Are you startled that I put these questions to you? Do
they seem more terrible than any that have yet presented them-
selves to you? Oh, they are the way back to the faith of the
little child, and to the faith of the grown man. It is not Christ
about whom our doubts are. We are feeling after God if haply
we may find him.
We cannot find him in nature. Paley will not
reveal him to us. But he is very near us; very near to those
creatures whom he has formed in his own image; seeking after
them; speaking to them in a thousand ways.
The belief of a Son who was with him before all worlds, in
whom he created and loves the world; who for us men and for
our salvation came down from heaven and became incarnate, and
died, and was buried, and rose again for us, and ascended on
high to be the High Priest of the universe, - this belief is what?
Something that I can prove by texts of Scripture or by cun-
ning arguments of logic ? God forbid! I simply commend it to
you. I know that you want it. I know that it meets exactly
what your spirit is looking after, and cannot meet with in any


## p. 9831 (#239) ###########################################

FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
9831
books of divinity. For we have to find out that God is not in a
book; that he is; that he must reveal himself to us; — that he is
revealing himself to us.
I am not distressed that you should be brought to feel that
these deep and infinite questions - not questions about the arith-
metic of the Bible — are what are really haunting and torment-
ing you. I believe that the clergy must make this discovery. We
have been peating phrases and formulas. We have not entered
into them, but only have accepted certain reasonings and proofs
about them. Now they are starting up and looking at us as if
they were alive, and we are frightened at the sight. It is good
for us to be frightened; only let us not turn away from them,
and find fault with them, but ask God - if we believe that he can
hear us
- to search us and show us what is true, and to bring
us out of our atheism.
How, you ask, can I use the prayers of the Church which
assume Christ's divinity when I cannot see sufficient proof that
he is divine ? That is a question, it seems to me, which no man
can answer for you; nay, which you cannot answer for yourself.
If I am right, it is in prayer that you must find the answer.
Yes, in prayer to be able to pray; in prayer to know what prayer
is; in prayer to know whether, without a Mediator, prayer is not
a dream and an impossibility for you, me, every one. I cannot
solve this doubt. I can but show you how to get it solved. I
can but say, The doubt itself may be the greatest blessing you
ever had, may be the greatest striving of God's Spirit within you
that you have ever known, may be the means of making every
duty more real to you.
I do not know who your bishop is. If he is a person with
whom it is possible to communicate freely, I should tell him that
I had perplexities which made the use of the Prayer Book not
true to as it once was; that I wanted time for quiet
thought; that I should like to be silent for a little while;-I
would ask him to let me commit my charge to a curate till I
could see my way more clearly. That would be better, surely,
than a resignation, painful not merely to your friends but inju-
rious to the Church, and perhaps a reason for severe repentance
afterwards. But I may be only increasing your puzzles by this
suggestion. Of the fathers in God on earth I have no certainty.
Of the Father in heaven I can be quite certain. Therefore one
of my hints may be worth nothing. The other is worth every-
thing.
as
me


## p. 9832 (#240) ###########################################

9832
FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
FROM A LETTER TO REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY
1
MARCH 9TH, 1849.
HAVE done your bidding and read Froude's book (the Nemesis
of Faith'), with what depth of interest I need not tell you.
It is a very awful, and I think may be a very profitable book.
Yes, God would not have permitted it to go forth if he did not
mean good to come out of it. For myself, I have felt more than
ever since I read it how impossible it is to find any substitute
for the old faith. If after all that experience, a man cannot ask
the God of Truth to give him his spirit of truth, to guide him
into all truth, what is left but just what he describes, — doubt;
not merely of existence, but of doubt itself; doubt whether every
superstition may not be real, every lie a fact? It is undoubted
that such a state of mind is possible, - yes, is near to all of us;
Froude is no false witness. But if it is possible, there must be
some one to bring us out of it; clearly the deliverance is not in
ourselves. And what is the Bible after all but the history of a
deliverer; of God proclaiming himself as man's deliverer from the
state into which he is ever ready to sink,-a state of slavery to
systems, superstitions, the world, himself, atheism? The book is
good for this: it brings us to the root of things; and there is
nothing, or there is God. It is good for this: it shows that God
must come forth and do the work for us, and that all the reli-
gions we make for ourselves, whatever names we give them, are
miserable mutilated attempts to fashion him after our image, with
yet such fragments of truth as show that we are formed in his.
THE SUBJECTS AND LAWS OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Text:–«And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye
poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. ” — St. LUKE vi. 20.
S
BEGINS a discourse which has often been said to contain a
code of very high morality for those who forsake the low
level of the crowd, and aim at a specially elevated stand-
ard of excellence. The previous sentence explains to whom the
discourse was addressed. "And he came down with them, and
stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great
multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from
the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to


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(
»
а
be healed of their diseases. Those were the people who heard
Christ say, “Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of
Heaven. ”
We were wont to mitigate the force of this sentence by re-
ferring to the one in St. Matthew's Gospel which most resembles
it. For “poor,” we say, the other Evangelist gives us "poor in
spirit. ” Is not that the sense in which we must understand the
words here? I am most thankful for the expression in St. Mat-
thew, and am quite willing to use it for the illustration of the
discourse in which it occurs. We may find it a great help here-
after in understanding St. Luke. But I must take his language
as it stands. He says that our Lord lifted up his
eyes on
miscellaneous crowd. He cannot have expected that crowd to
.
introduce any spiritual qualification into the words, “Yours is
the Kingdom of Heaven. ” What then did those words import?
.
Might they be addressed to a multitude similarly composed in
London ?
Surely, in this very simple and direct sense. Our Lord had
come to tell them who was governing them; under whose author-
ity they were living. Who had they fancied was governing
them ? One who regarded the rich with affection; who had
bestowed great advantages upon them, who had given them an
earnest here of what he might do for them hereafter.
It was
most natural for poor men to put this interpretation upon that
which they saw and that which they felt. It was difficult for
them to find any other interpretation. It was not more difficult
for the people who dwelt about the coasts of Tyre and Sidon
than for the people who dwell in the courts and alleys of Lon-
don. The difficulty is the same precisely in kind. The degree
of it must be greater, on some accounts, for the dwellers in
a crowded modern city than for those who breathed the fresh
air of Galilee. The difficulty was not diminished for the latter
(I mean for the Galileans) by anything which they heard from
their religious teachers. It was enormously increased. God was
said to demand of these poor people religious services which they
could not render; an account of knowledge about his law which
they could not possess. His prizes and blessings here and
hereafter were said to be contingent upon their performing these
services, upon their having that knowledge. Whichever way they
turned, - to their present condition, to the forefathers to whose
errors or sins they must in great part attribute that condition,


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FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
(
to the future in which they must expect the full fruit of the
misery and evil into which they had fallen, - all looked equally
dark and hopeless.
Startling indeed, then, were the tidings, «Yours is the King-
dom of Heaven. ” Most startling when they were translated into
these: "You have a father in heaven who is seeking after you,
watching over you, whom you may trust entirely. He ruled over
your forefathers.
He promised that he would show forth his
dominion fully and perfectly in the generations to come.
I am
come to tell you of him; to tell you how he rules over you,
and how you may be in very deed his subjects. I am come
that you and your children may be citizens in God's own city,
that the Lord God himself may reign over you. " I cannot ren-
der the phrase into any equivalents that are simpler, more obvi-
ous, than these. And if they were true, must they not have been
true for all that crowd, for every thief and harlot in it ?
not this the very message of John, delivered by Him who could
not only call to repentance but give repentance?
« Yes,” it may be answered, "that might be so, if the lan-
guage only declared to the poor that there was a Heavenly
Father who cared for them no less than he cared for the rich:
but the sentences which follow give them a positive advantage;
it would appear as if the blessing on the poor involved a curse
on the rich. What other force can you put on such sentences as
these? Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled.
Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. But woe unto
you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation. Woe
unto you that are full, for ye shall hunger. Woe unto you that
laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep. ) »
Language so explicit as this cannot be evaded. And I hold
it is greatly for the interest of all of us who are leading easy
and comfortable lives in the world, that it should not be evaded.
If any amount of riches greater or smaller does give us consola-
tion, it is well for us to understand that there is a woe upon
those riches. They were not meant to give consolation; we were
not meant to find it in them. If any laughter of ours does make
us incapable of weeping, incapable of entering into the sorrow
of the world in which we are dwelling, we ought to feel that
there is misery and death in that laughter. Our Lord does not
speak against laughter; he sets it forth as a blessing. He does
denounce all that laughter which is an exultation in our own
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FREDERICK DENISON MAURICE
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prosperity and in the calamities of others. He does promise
that those who are indulging that sort of laughter shall weep.
I use the word promise advisedly. It is a promise, not a threat-
ening; or if you please, a threat which contains a promise. It
is the proof that we are under a Kingdom of Heaven; that God
does not allow such laughter to go on; that he stops it; that he
gives the blessing of sorrow in place of it. And thus all alike
are taught that they are under this fatherly government. All
are shown that the Father in heaven is aware of the discipline
which they need, and will apportion it. All may be brought
to take their places with their brethren in this kingdom. All
may be taught that the common blessings — the blessings from
which one cannot exclude another - are the highest blessings.
All may be brought to know that this one fact, that they have
a Father in heaven, is worth all others. And so that poverty
of spirit which is only another name for childlike dependence
upon One who is above us, and is all good because we have
found we cannot depend upon ourselves, may be wrought by
Him with whom we have to do in rich and poor equally. The
heavenly treasures may be revealed to both, which moth and
rust cannot corrupt, which thieves cannot break through and
steal.
Thus far, assuredly, the tendency of this discourse of our
Lord's has been to level, not to exalt. The Kingdom of Heaven
has not been a prize for those who are unlike their fellows, but
for those who will take their stand by them — who will set up
no exclusive pretensions of their own.
But what shall we say
of this benediction —« Blessed are ye when men shall hate you,
and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall
reproach you, and shall cast out your name as evil, for the Son
of Man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy, for
behold your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner
did their fathers unto the prophets”? And again of this woe
"Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you, for so did
their fathers unto the false prophets”? Is there not here a glori-
fication of the little minority which is persecuted, a denunciation
of the majority which persecutes ?
The comment on the language is in the actual history. Why
was St. Stephen, whom we have been remembering lately, cast
out of the city of Jerusalem and stoned ? Because he was ac-
cused of breaking down the barriers which separated the chosen
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people from the surrounding nations. Why was the young man
at whose feet the witnesses against Stephen laid down their
clothes, afterwards denounced in the same city as one who ought
not to live ? Because he said that he was sent with a message
of peace and reconciliation to the Gentiles. What was it that
sustained and comforted Stephen in the hour when his country-
were gnashing upon him with their teeth? The sight of
the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God; the Savior
and King, not of him and his brother disciples, but of mankind.
What was St. Paul's deepest sorrow, and how was it that in the
midst of that sorrow he could always rejoice? His sorrow was
that his kinsmen after the flesh were to be cut off, because they
were enemies to God and contrary to all men. His joy was in
the thought that “all Israel should be saved;” that “God had
concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. ”
This then was the witness of the little band of the persecuted,
that God is the Father of all; that his Kingdom is over all.
And the determination of that powerful majority of persecutors
was to keep the favor of God and the Kingdom of Heaven to
themselves. Those of whom all men speak well are those who
flatter their exclusiveness; who lead them to think that they
are better than others, and that they shall have mercies which are
denied to others.