X.

WHAT TO AIM AT.

HE very conception of moral life implies

THE

life under a rule, and directed toward an end. It implies, in short, an ideal element. It is higher in thought and aim than it ever is in practice and fact.

The presence of this ideal element distinguishes the human from the mere animal life. The latter is a constant outgoing, an incessant activity, and nothing more. It has no interior drama, no reflective pauses. The senses are its only media and ministers; impressions are being constantly conveyed through them, and movement is constantly given off as the result; and this is all. It would be shocking to think that there was any thing more, considering how we use animal life-how recklessly we squander it for our pleasure or our profit.

It is the distinction of moral life that it is capable of "looking before and after," that it can reflectively realize its own character and purposes; and it is supposed to rise the higher, and become the nobler, the more completely it

is governed by law, and the more actively it fulfills it. Many, it must be confessed, but feebly own this. Instinct and not principle, habit and not reflection, guide and control their existence, which, in its monotonous or exciting round of sensations, can scarcely claim to be higher than that of the lower animals. Nay, it may fall lower, from the mere circumstance that it is in its essence superior, and that it can not, therefore, be absorbed in a mere sensational activity, without losing itself and becoming corrupted. We never feel this in regard to the lower animals. The constant play and free indulgence of sensations in which their life consists, suggest only a conformity with their nature; and all conformity with nature is beautiful. It is the feeling that a mere sensational existence is not in harmony with the true nature of man, that he has a higher being, which is violated when it does not receive exercise and scope, that makes us look upon such an existence as unworthy of man, and even degrading to him. In point of fact, it always is degrading to him. For just because he is essentially a higher being, he can not preserve his purity, his healthfulness-as the lower animals do-in a mere life of sensation.

Every ethical theory, therefore, has sought to raise man above sense, and inspire him with the

idea of law, however vaguely and imperfectly, in many cases. Even Epicureanism, which, in popular language, has become identified with mere sensual gratification, and a possible philosophy thereof, did not profess to regard man as a mere animal, without intellectual or moral aspirations. It set before him, indeed, pleasure as the highest good, but pleasure according to his nature, not in disregard or contempt of it. Otherwise the pleasure could not possibly be his highest good, and a philosophy which in its very conception contradicted itself would stand in no need of refutation. We may find much to disapprove of in Epicureanism, but we shall not find such silliness and contradictoriness in any great system of thought which has swayed the minds of men.

Stoicism announced the idea of law as its great principle. It set before its disciples a lofty but stern and barren ideal. The law of which it conceived was an "immanent necessity of reason," an unchanging impersonal order governing the universe. To this all must submit, and find peace in submission. "The wise man," says Marcus Aurelius, "calmly looks on the game, and surrenders with cheerfulness his individual existence to the claims of the whole, to which every individual as a part ought to be subservient." This was, beyond doubt, a brave

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and heroic doctrine for heroic creatures. many noble minds in the old Roman world it was a spring of genuine greatness; but a moral ideal which could only appeal to the strength of man's will, and which in its very conception excluded every element of personal sympathy, was totally unfitted for the race as a whole. It started from a defective moral basis, and could only reach, even in the best, a defective moral standard.

It is the boast of Christianity that it sets before man the only perfect ideal of life; an ideal which at once bases itself on a true interpretation of his nature, and which works itself out by a living Divine agency, alone fitted effectually to move and educate him. It enunciates even more faithfully than Stoicism the idea of law; but then it apprehends and represents this law, not as a dead impersonal necessity, but as a living and loving Will in converse with our feeble wills, healing and helping their infirmities. It merges law, in short, in the holy and blessed will of Christ; and the ideal which it paints is neither a stern moralism, which is always saying to itself, "Courage, courage! whatever is, is right;" nor a poetic self-culture, which aims at the fitting and joyous development of every natural faculty; but a life in God, a life in communion with the Highest;

humble, and pure, and self-denying, yet strong, cheerful, and heroic. It starts, altogether unlike Stoicism, from the recognition of human weakness, but instead of holding out any soft palliations for this weakness, it only reveals it-to cure it; and from the Divine strengthening of the "inner man," it builds up the outer life into compact seemliness and virtue.

"All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye."

This is no inadequate expression of the Christian ideal. "For our conversation is in heaven," says St. Paul, "from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus." To have our lives fixed in God and in Christ-to preserve a consciousness of an unseen and higher life ever encompassing ours, and being near to us at once as a presence of holiness and of help; this is the aim of the Christian. A true and noble life on earth he believes can alone spring from communion with heaven. It can alone be maintained and grow up into the " measure of the stature" of a perfect life from an increase of this communion. All that is good on earth is merely a reflection of the good that is above. "If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise," God is the source of them, and Christ the pattern of them. "Whatsoever things are