登陆注册
14819000000001

第1章

1 My foremost design in writing this Preface is to address a word of exhortation to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In the essay which follows, the reader will often find Bishop Wilson quoted. To me and to the members of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge his name and writings are still, no doubt, familiar. But the world is fast going away from old-fashioned people of his sort, and I learnt with consternation lately from a brilliant and distinguished votary of the natural sciences, that he had never so much as heard of Bishop Wilson, and that he imagined me to have invented him. At a moment when the Courts of Law have just taken off the embargo from the recreative religion furnished on Sundays by my gifted acquaintance and others, and when St. Martin's Hall and the Alhambra will soon be beginning again to resound with their pulpit-eloquence, it distresses one to think that the new lights should not only have, in general, a very low opinion of the preachers of the old religion, but that they should have it without knowing the best that these preachers can do. And that they are in this case is owing in part, certainly, to the negligence of the Christian Knowledge Society. In the old times they used to print and spread abroad Bishop Wilson's Maxims of Piety and Christianity . The copy of this work which I use is one of their publications, bearing their imprint, and bound in the well-known brown calf which they made familiar to our childhood; but the date of my copy is 1812. I know of no copy besides, and I believe the work is no longer one of those printed and circulated by the Society. 1 Hence the error, flattering, I own, to me personally, yet in itself to be regretted, of the distinguished physicist already mentioned.

2 But Bishop Wilson's Maxims deserve to be circulated as a religious book, not only by comparison with the cartloads of rubbish circulated at present under this designation, but for their own sake, and even by comparison with the other works of the same author.

Over the far better known Sacra Privata they have this advantage, that they were prepared by him for his own private use, while the Sacra Privata were prepared by him for the use of the public. The Maxims were never meant to be printed, and have on that account, like a work of, doubtless, far deeper emotion and power, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, something peculiarly sincere and first-hand about them. Some of the best things from the Maxims have passed into the Sacra Privata . Still, in the Maxims, we have them as they first arose;and whereas, too, in the Sacra Privata the writer speaks very often as one of the clergy, and as addressing the clergy, in the Maxims he almost always speaks solely as a man. I am not saying a word against the Sacra Privata, for which I have the highest respect; only the Maxims seem to me a better and more edifying book still. They should be read, as Joubert says Nicole should be read, with a direct aim at practice.

The reader will leave on one side things which, from the change of time and from the changed point of view which the change of time inevitably brings with it, no longer suit him; enough will remain to serve as a sample of the very best, perhaps, which our nation and race can do in the way of religious writing. M. Michelet makes it a reproach to us that, in all the doubt as to the real author of the Imitation, no one has ever dreamed of ascribing that work to an Englishman. It is true, the Imitation could not well have been written by an Englishman; the religious delicacy and, the profound asceticism of that admirable book are hardly in our nature.

This would be more of a reproach to us if in poetry, which requires, no less than religion, a true delicacy of spiritual perception, our race had not done great things; and if the Imitation, exquisite as it is, did not, as I have elsewhere remarked, belong to a class of works in which the perfect balance of human nature is lost, and which have therefore, as spiritual productions, in their contents something excessive and morbid, in their form something not thoroughly sound. On a lower range than the Imitation, and awakening in our nature chords less poetical and delicate, the Maxims of Bishop Wilson are, as a religious work, far more solid. To the most sincere ardour and unction, Bishop Wilson unites, in these Maxims, that downright honesty and plain good sense which our English race has so powerfully applied to the divine impossibilities of religion; by which it has brought religion so much into practical life, and has done its allotted part in promoting upon earth the kingdom of God.

3 With ardour and unction religion, as we all know, may still be fanatical; with honesty and good sense, it may still be prosaic; and the fruit of honesty and good sense united with ardour and unction is often only a prosaic religion held fanatically. Bishop Wilson's excellence lies in a balance of the four qualities, and in a fulness and perfection of them, which makes this untoward result impossible. His unction is so perfect, and in such happy alliance with his good sense, that it becomes tenderness and fervent charity. His good sense is so perfect, and in such happy alliance with his unction, that it becomes moderation and insight. While, therefore, the type of religion exhibited in his Maxims is English, it is yet a type of a far higher kind than is in general reached by Bishop Wilson's countrymen; and yet, being English, it is possible and attainable for them. And so I conclude as I began, by saying that a work of this sort is one which the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge should not suffer to remain out of print and out of currency.

同类推荐
  • The Great Stone Face

    The Great Stone Face

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 戒子孙

    戒子孙

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 广卓异记

    广卓异记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • BLEAK HOUSE

    BLEAK HOUSE

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • The Scarlet Car

    The Scarlet Car

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 冥之启示录

    冥之启示录

    这个位面充满着杀戮之息,遥望万里是繁华到过分的都市,可在回头莞尔之时。这个残酷世界的神秘面纱却早已灰飞烟灭……
  • 黑暗居士

    黑暗居士

    无尽的人生,无尽的追求,事业,美人,永生,你即将看到的是一部宏伟的成功与永生之路
  • 年轮之盛世花开

    年轮之盛世花开

    人如何年轮妖如何仙如何世间本一体谁也跳不出贪嗔痴恨爱恶欲即使你是九天之上的最高神明,也妄想跳出这个和案之不会断
  • 第101次擦肩相逢

    第101次擦肩相逢

    雨引发了二人剪不断理还乱的情缘她八岁,他九岁她喜欢偷偷看他游泳的样子,他却喜欢她随风起舞的飘逸一场车祸,让二人措手不及他忘记了她,从此消失在她的生命中空缺了10年十年后二人再不相识,分道扬镳“我多么想牵住你的手不松开,与你地久天长,......我这一生中最大的任务就是,许你一生长安。。。。?
  • 魔法主旋律

    魔法主旋律

    谁说温室的花朵难成大事。头戴束发赤金冠,体挂赤金仙凰甲。手持碧流翠玉枪,身负碎星耀天弓。胯下火云马纵横疆场,震慑古今。看一个温室的花朵如何用自己的能力走上那最高的辉煌。
  • 慈航普渡

    慈航普渡

    人性本善,不论你生前是善人,还是死后化作恶鬼,在我看来你们都应该是平等的,都有再次轮回的机会。我叫陆亭,是一个渡魂人,上天好德,赐我慈悲,普渡万灵。感谢腾讯文学书评团提供书评支持!
  • 夜少爱上霸道女

    夜少爱上霸道女

    那夜,她的家族遭人一夜屠杀,血流城河,只剩她一人逃了了出来。意外的车祸使她忘记了一切,被人带去了世界上最大的杀手组织,经数十年的训练她...
  • 天武圣尊

    天武圣尊

    张浪,一个现代社会的普通人,却机缘巧合来到了一个类似于古代的世界。身陷异界的张浪被卷进波橘云诡、血腥残酷的争斗之中,世家名门的恩怨仇杀,围绕皇权的血腥战斗,一幕幕,一出出,触目惊心。在这一切的背后,隐藏着一个可怕的黑影,他是策动这一切的幕后黑手,还是传说中曾经统治大地的。
  • 御天证神

    御天证神

    叶凡,被人诬陷偷看大夏皇朝三公主洗澡,因此被打入大夏皇朝最荒凉的漠北之地,众人却不知,这不是他的永世沉沦,而是叶凡潜龙升天之时!
  • 中国股市个体投资者行为实证研究

    中国股市个体投资者行为实证研究

    本书首先对影响投资者决策的心理因素进行探讨,并用行为金融学的有关理论进一步解释投资者决策行为模式;然后以行为金融理论为指导,利用中国股票市场个体投资者在二级市场的交易数据进行实证研究,以期发现中国个体投资者单体和群体交易行为特征,并探讨其理性程度。