RELIGIOUS STUDIES IN

NATURE

I

ETHICS OF THE DUST.

TEN LECTURES. (1865.)

The spirit of the philosopher was never more radiant in Ruskin than when talking to children, and especially to girls. In his old age he was "young again" when leading young people in excursions through some of Nature's many great plains and grooves.

The "Ethics of the Dust" is a rare book, not only for the young, but it is advanced reading for many who are no longer young in years. Collingwood tells us that it is practically a report of actual talks with a group of young people whom the Author met in a visit to Winnington in Cheshire. "The method," he says, "is the kindergarten method carried a step, many steps further."

The book is indeed a charming one, written in the form of a Conversation Class where study seems to have blended with play and the inquisitive curiosity of an impromptu class of young ladies, from nine to twenty years of age. This conversational exercise leads to all sorts of questions which result in short talks, or lectures, from the "Old Lecturer" on Crystallography, Theology, Political Economy, and Moral Philosophy.

Carlyle expressed his delight on receipt of an early copy of the book, in a letter in which he says: ""The Ethics of Dust' which I devoured with pause, and intend to look at again, is a most shining Performance! Not for a long while have I read anything tenth-part so radiant with talent, ingenuity, lambent fire (sheet-and other lightnings) of all commendable kinds! Never was such a lecture on Crystallography before, had there been nothing else in it,—and there are all manner of things. In power of expression I pronounce it su

preme; never did anybody who had such things to explain explain them better."

The few selections here given must not be regarded as a fair sample of the interest which the book awakens. The charming personality of the conversations can only be appreciated by reading them and the book is, fortunately, one of those reprints which can be purchased at any bookstore for a few cents.

DIAMONDS AND GOLD DO NOT MAKE HAPPINESS.

Was any woman, do you suppose, ever the better for possessing diamonds? but how many have been made base, frivolous, and miserable by desiring them? Was ever man the better for having coffers full of gold? but who shall measure the guilt that is incurred to fill them? Look into the history of any civilized nations; analyze, with reference to this one cause of crime and misery, the lives and thoughts of their nobles, priests, merchants, and men of luxurious life. Every other temptation is at last concentrated into this: pride, and lust, and envy, and anger all give up their strength to avarice. The sin of the whole world is essentially the sin of Judas. Men do not disbelieve their Christ; but they sell Him.-Lect. I.

RIGHT AND WRONG.

MAY. Well, but if people do as well as they can see how, surely that is the right for them, isn't it?

L. No, May, not a bit of it; right is right, and wrong is wrong. It is only the fool who does wrong, and says he "did it for the best." And if there's one sort of person in the world that the Bible speaks harder of than another, it is fools. Their particular and chief way of saying "There is no God" is this, of declaring that whatever their "public opinion" may be, is right: and that God's opinion is of no

consequence.

.

MARY. And if one is forced to do a wrong thing by some one who has authority over you?

L. My dear, no one can be forced to do a wrong thing, for the guilt is in the will: but you may any day be forced to do a fatal thing, as you might be forced to take poison; the remarkable law of nature in such cases being, that it is always unfortunate you who are poisoned, and not the person who gives you the dose. It is a very strange law, but it is a law. Nature merely sees to the carrying out of the normal operation of arsenic. She never troubles herself to ask who gave it you. So also you may be starved to death, morally as well as physically, by other people's faults. You are, on the whole, very good children sitting here to-day; do you think that your goodness comes all by your own contriving? or that you are

gentle and kind because your dispositions are naturally more angelic than those of the poor girls who are playing, with wild eyes, on the dust-heaps in the alleys of our great towns; and who will one day. fill their prisons, or, better, their graves? Heaven only knows where they, and we who have cast them there, shall stand at last. But the main judgment question will be, I suppose, for all of us, "Did you keep a good heart through it?" What you were, others may answer for;-what you tried to be, you must answer for yourself. Was the heart pure and true-tell us that?-Lect. V.

HEDGEHOG BIBLE READING.

The way in which common people read their Bibles is just like the way that the old monks thought hedgehogs ate grapes. They rolled themselves (it was said), over and over, where the grapes lay on the ground. What fruit stuck to their spines, they carried off, and ate. So your hedgehoggy readers roll themselves over and over their Bibles, and declare that whatever sticks to their own spines is Scripture, and that nothing else is. But you can only get the skins of the texts that way. If you want their juice, you must press them in cluster. Now, the clustered texts about the human heart, insist, as a body, not on any inherent corruption in all hearts, but on the terrific distinction between the bad and the good ones. "A good man, out of the good treasure of his heart, bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth that which is evil." "They on the rock are they which, in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it." "Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." "The wicked have bent their bow, that they may privily shoot at him that is upright in heart." And so on; they are countless, to the same effect. And, for all of us, the question is not at all to ascertain how much or how little corruption there is in human nature; but to ascertain whether, out of all the mass of that nature, we are of the sheep or the goat breed; whether we are people of upright heart, being shot at, or people of crooked heart, shooting. And, of all the texts bearing on the subject, this, which is a quite simple and practical order, is the one you have chiefly to hold in mind. "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."-Lect. V.

HOW TO HELP GOD.

There is but one way in which man can ever help God-that is, by letting God help him: and there is no way in which His name is more guiltily taken in vain, than by calling the abandonment of our own work, the performance of His.

God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the places where He wishes us to be employed; and that employment is truly "our Father's business." He chooses work for every creature which will be de

lightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle ourselves, it is ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not happy ourselves. Now, away with you, children; and be as happy as you can. And when you cannot, at least don't plume yourself upon pouting.Lect. VI.

ERROR IN HUMAN CREEDS.

The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful whatever is right in them will become: and no error is so conclusively fatal as the idea that God will not allow us to err, though He has allowed all other men to do so. There may be doubt of the meaning of other visions, but there is none respecting that of the dream of St. Peter; and you may trust the Rock of the Church's Foundation for true interpreting, where he learned from it that, "in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness, is accepted with Him." See that you understand what that righteousness means; and set hand to it stoutly: you will always measure your neighbors' creed kindly, in proportion to the substantial fruits of your own. Do not think you will ever get harm by striving to enter into the faith of others, and to sympathize, in imagination, with the guiding principles of their lives. So only can you justly love them, or pity them, or praise. By the gracious efforts you will double, treble-nay, indefinitely multiply, at once the pleasure, the reverence, and the intelligence with which you read: and, believe me, it is wiser and holier, by the fire of your own faith, to kindle the ashes of expired religions, than to let your soul shiver and stumble among their graves, through the gathering darkness, and communicable cold.-Lect. X.