5. But there is also the last and most potent reason of all-T-moral_indecision. There are those who plead honest doubt. But^^is is rarely sincere. An honest doubter is not contented until he has moved heaven and earth to resolve his doubt. It is related of Zaid, the sage of Mecca, who had broken with the national religion, that he stood with his back to the temple crying, "If I knew thee I would worship thee; but alas, I know thee not." Thus day after day he prostrated himself and moistened the ground with his tears. Next to wilful sin, indecision is the most pitiable state of man. To hang in doubt between time and eternity, the world and God, a sin and a crown of life, is, we may believe, if possible, more incensing to the Divine jealousy than, open disobedience. It implies so much light and so much sense of what is good, that doubt has no plea of ignorance. The irresolution is not in the understanding or in the conscience, but in the will. The fault is in the heart. It convicts one of want of love, gratitude, and all high desires
^ D. Davies.
' E. L. Stevenson, Familiar Studies of Men and Books.
426 HALTING BETWEEN TWO OPINIONS
after God; it reveals the stupor and earthliness which is still upon the soul. It proves the absence of faith; of a living consciousness of things unseen, and an active power of realizing what one believes, without which faith is dead. There is upon one a spiritual insensibility, a kind of moral apathy, a listless inattention to any thing which does not make itself felt by forcing its presence upon the senses of the body. And this at last deadens the perceptions of the soul,
^ It always seems to me in reading this passage that it was not intellectual doubt that Elijah referred to, but rather a habit of moral indecision. I do not find any reason for concluding that these Israelites were in great intellectual doubt or difficulty with respect to the actual problem that lay before them. They could hardly have forgotten all the wonders God had wrought, for their national existence was a proof of His power. At that very moment there stood before them the man who was God's repre- sentative, and who exerted such miraculous power that he only bent the knee to Jehovah in prayer, and for three long dreary years the heavens had been shut. Standing there face to face with Elijah, the Israelites can hardly have entertained any very serious doubts as to whether " Baal " or " God " was really God. If you will look at the margin of your Bibles you will find the word " thoughts " suggested, instead of " opinions." " How long halt ye between two thoughts V It is a more general word than " opinion." " Opinion " seems to lead us up into an intellectual region ; " thought " in such a connection may be employed with a moral significance. It is not so much that they had really any intellectual difficulty, as to whether "Jehovah" or "Baal" was God, as that they were in a state of moral indecision as to which of the two they should recognize. This was in the prophet's mind at the moment when he expostulated with them.^
Warn't we gittin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin', Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin'? We'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position. On this side or thet, no one couldn't tell wich one, So, wutever side wipped, we'd a chance at the plunder An' could sue fer infringin' our paytented thunder; "We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible, Ef on all pints at issoo he'd stay unintelligible. Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions, We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh ones; ^ Canon Hay Aitken.
I KINGS XVIII. 21 427
Besides, ef we did, 'twas our business alone, Fer couldn't we du wut we would with our own? An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so, Eat up his own words, it's a marcy it is so.^
l--^ To the strong and unhesitating spirit that sees the right on the one side as if it were written in letters of fire, and absolute wrong on the other, nothing is so incomprehensible as the luke- warm temper that will not be kindled either to love or to hatred, and seeks rather to avoid any decisive choice. So it was with the great poet Dante, who, in his Divine Comedy, describes for us a special region, outside of the Inferno of agony, a kind of Inferno of contempt, which is prepared for those who have lived " without blame, and without praise." There Dante places the angels who " neither were rebellious nor were faithful to God, but were only for themselves " ; and also the shade of him who made the great renunciation, the Pope Celestine, who in his weak piety withdrew into a monastery, rather than face the task of contending with the evils of the world. " Forthwith," says the poet, " I under- stood and felt that this was the crew of caitiffs, hateful to God, and to God's enemies." " Mercy and justice alike disdain them ; let U8 not speak of them, but look and pass them by." Dante's high strong spirit can comprehend energy and purpose, even when exerted in the cause of evil; he has keen sympathy even for some of those whom he regards as for great sins righteously doomed to everlasting punishment. What he cannot comprehend is the man who does not rise to a great opportunity, who hesitates between two opinions, who seeks to withdraw from the conflict, who shirks responsibility .^