reason of Moses, but written by the finger of God. Before Moses, revelations had been made to Abraham and the patriarchs; before them to Noah; before Noah to Adam. Never, I entreat you, listen to silly talkers, who would tell you that man sprung out of the ground in a rude and helpless state; that they began with living on pignuts, and scraping holes in the ground; and that God left them to shift for themselves to form their own language, their own society, their own morals, their own religion. God never left them to themselves, till they had first abandoned God. When they did not choose to retain God in their thoughts, God then gave them over to a reprobate mind, but not before. And, till then, He was constantly warning them by his own voice, by parents, and kings, and priests, and prophets. And thus in the East, where these kings, and priests, and prophets were formed into vast empires and hierarchies, standing like a gigantic temple on the solid foundations of antiquity, the light of God's primitive revelations was kept alive; lingering on like the long twilight in northern skies, while on all the rest of the earth, and especially on Greece, a thick darkness fell down, and men were compelled to walk by a light which they kindled for themselves. And yet how little this light could serve them, may be learnt from the fact, that Plato, who, of all the Greeks, approached nearest to the truth, traces the chief part of his knowledge from the East and oriental traditions-that Aristotle wanders wrong as soon as he deserts the instructions of his master Plato- that almost all that is good either in Grecian poetry or Grecian science may be traced to the East, as to a root. As if no knowledge could spring up in man, except it flowed originally from

1 Rom. i. 28.

the first and only fountain of truth-the voice of God. Both Christian, then, and heathen Ethics are based on a revelation from God.

I will mention to you two other points of comparison between Christian and unchristian Ethics. And I dwell on these points at length, because, as you will one day see, the whole character of your ethical study and instruction must depend on your knowledge of them. Building a house is one thing, and choosing between architects is another; but this choice must precede the building, and when it has been wisely made, you have little else to think of. And you are now learning to build up in your own heart that which a holy man of old called “the Inner House of man"- —a shrine of truth, and a sanctuary for the Spirit of God. And you cannot build it of yourself; you must go to architects.

One point, then, to be observed, is, that all systems alike come, and must come to you, with the same declaration, that if you are to study them at all, you must begin by taking the word of their respective teachers as a guarantee for the truth of them. You must act upon, before you understand them; and by acting on them, you will see if they are false. If I offer you a sovereign, you may doubt if it be good; but unless you take it in your hand, as if it were good, and proceed to make some purchase with it, you will never know whether it be good or bad. You are told that a river is ten feet deep. You do not believe it. Will not believing it, ever shew you whether it is so or not? No; you will act at once as if it were that depth. You take a pole of that length, and you sound, and the proof is there at once. If you are told that a book will amuse you, you will never know the fact, till you act precisely the same,

See a very beautiful tract, included in the works of St. Bernard, entitled De Interiore Domo.

as if you were sure it was amusing, and proceed to read it. You cannot learn the truth of any statements, without assuming them as true, and acting upon them, before you have proved them. The proof lies in the application. And thus St. Paul calls faith, or belief in what is told us, the only mode of bringing to the test things which we see not, ἔλεγχος τῶν μὴ βλεπομένων. And still more clearly our Lord says, that if we would know his doctrine, whether it be of God, we must first do his will.

The

If the Church did not insist on these terms, it would be belying the fundamental condition of all human knowledge. Aristotle insists on them likewise. He says that students must believe principles,2 and learn the cause of them afterwards—that they must submit to be guided by their teachers, before they can follow them from the heart. very fact of writing a book implies that you think yourself wiser than your reader. And if you are wiser, he ought to listen to you. He is ignorant, and if he would be taught, he must believe what you say. And we do believe men willingly, when we choose them ourselves. We say to ourselves, This man is clever, or good, or learned; and it is not necessary for me to take the trouble of throwing into syllogisms, and proving by induction, every thing he says. I will trust him without. Look through any book, and see how small a part is ever stated in the form of strict reasoning-how little there is for which any proof is assigned how few readers ever think of supplying the defect themselves! And all which is not thus proved rests upon faith. Look, also, not only to the great schools of ancient philosophy so many of them built upon the words

Heb. xi. 1.

2 Ethic. Nicom. c. 2.

of their master, like the avròç pa of Pythagorasso many more knowing themselves only by the name of their master,—but to the blind fanatical enthusiasm, with which moderns have actually deified the teachers whom they have selected for themselves. So the Alexandrians spoke of their masters. So Lucretius speaks of Epicurus. So Cicero of Plato. So the French worshipped Rousseau. And men in modern days have not scrupled thus willingly to receive the bare testimony of such writers, on the very subjects on which men's opinion may most justly be suspected-namely, abstruse metaphysical and moral problems; while they have rejected or despised the tried and persecuted testimony of the Catholic Church to a simple fact-the fact that a certain system of doctrines has been handed down in it from its first Founder, and that Founder a being of superhuman powers; and that these doctrines have from the earliest times been heard in churches, taught to children, embodied in prayers, set forth in ceremonies before the eyes and ears of thousands in distinct and remote countries. But so it is. When men will not honour their fathers and their mothers, whom God has appointed to be their teachers, they must honour some one, and they will bow down before fools or madmen. When they refuse to retain God in their knowledge, they will worship idols.

One more point of resemblance is worthy of your deepest attention. An ethical system which is not to be perpetuated-which is to die away with its author-is an empty vanity. The mere pride of founding a school is enough to make men look to posterity. But he who possesses a truth, which he knows to be a truth, and a heart which is susceptible of compassion for the blindness of man, and of affection for his fellow-beings, and of zeal for the

glory of God, will make it one of his first objects to preserve that truth in the world down to the latest generations. Earnestness in this object is one of the many signs of a true system. The history of the various machinery invented for this purpose would occupy a long time; but it would be very instructive. Great hierarchies have been the chief means employed in the East. Large bodies of priests, with colleges, revenues, spiritual power, the possession of science and art, and other means of ruling the people, were contrived for the purpose of enshrining truth and communicating it safely to man. And without something of the kind, truth could never be preserved. But, in heathen times, these hierarchies, for the most part, became either so absolute as to command the civil Power, or so weak as to fall under its control; and in either case the truth was corrupted; in the former, by the ambition of the priesthood, now left without a check; in the latter, by the capricious interference of the secular arm. The Greek philosophers endeavoured to establish schools. They named their own successors. But as they had no powers to confer-as these successors were mere individuals and as the doctrines committed to them were originally worked out by human reason, and therefore might fairly be altered by human reason again, their doctrines soon became perverted. Aristotle's was lost almost immediately after his death. Plato's soon degenerated into a system the very opposite of the original. The other sects vanished by degrees. Pythagoras alone seems to have had the idea of establishing a number of branch-societies in different places, each preserving and transmitting the same system of truths, under a religious and mysterious obligation. And these societies, though overthrown by a popular