(2) The fear of the Lord lies at the foundation of knowledge because knowledge, understood as the mere accumulation of facts, is inoperative upon life. The way from the head to the heart is stopped by a hard rock, which must be softened and cut through before a constant and reliable communication can be established. And in order to this, which is of first and paramount importance, if knowledge is to be of any real use to help and renovate man, the affections must be wrought upon at the very outset of teaching ; the information imparted must stir fear and hope and love in the breast ; and these must break up the stony way, and get diffused over the torpid heart, and stir it into action for good. But what fact will you disclose, what knowledge impart, which shall stir these affections ? Fear and hope and love are insepar- ably connected in man with personal agency. Unless such agency intervene, i.e., if the object of these feelings be only a material one, fear becomes mere terror, hope mere expectation, love mere profession. And what personal agency will you bring in at the beginning of knowledge, which shall supply, and continue to supply, the exercise of these affections, so as to guarantee through life that knowledge shall not be barren or unprofitable ? God has wisely placed about our infancy personal agencies exciting all these affections. He has continued around us through the greater part of life personal agencies on which fear and love and hope more or less depend. But all these pass away from us, and we from them. There is but one personal agent, whose influence and presence can abide through life, can alike excite fear and ^ Letters on Church and Religion of W. E. GladsUme, ii. 327.
2o6 THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM
hope and love in the infant, in the child, in the youth, in the man, in the aged, and on the bed of death ; and that one is God Himself. And unless He be known first, and known throughout, knowledge will abide alone in the head, and will not find a way to the heart ; man will know, but will not grow by it ; will know, but will not act upon it; will know for narrow, low, selfish purposes, but never for blessing to himself or to others; never for the great ends of his being — never for glory to his God. The fear of the Lord is not a barren fact, like the shape of the earth or the course of the seasons ; it is a living, springing, trans- muting affection, capable of enduing even ordinary facts with power to cheer and bless, and to bear fruit in men's hearts and lives.
^ Exactly in the degree in which you can find creatures greater than yourself, to look up to, in that degree you are ennobled yourself, and, in that degree, happy. If you could live always in the presence of archangels, you would be happier than in that of men ; but even if only in the company of admirable knights and beautiful ladies, the more noble and bright they were, and the more you could reverence their virtue, the happier you would be. On the contrary, if you were condemned to live among a multitude of idiots, dumb, distorted, and malicious, you would not be happy in the constant sense of your own superiority. Thus all real joy and power of progress in humanity depend on finding something to reverence, and all the baseness and misery of humanity begin in a habit of disdain. Now, by general misgovernment, I repeat, we have created in Europe a vast populace, and out of Europe a still vaster one, which has lost even the power and conception of reverence ; — which exists only in the worship of itself — which can neither see anything beautiful around it, nor conceive anything virtuous above it; which has, towards all goodness and greatness, no other feelings than those of the lowest creatures — fear, hatred, or hunger ; a populace which has sunk below your appeal in their nature, as it has risen beyond your power in their multitude; — whom you can now no more charm than you can the adder, nor discipline, than you can the summer fly.^
(3) In New Testament times " the fear of God " has blossomed into "the love of God." The characteristic Old Testament designation of religion as " the fear of Jehovah " corresponds to the Old Testament revelation of Him as the Holy One — that is,
1 Ruskin, Crovm of Wild Olive, § 137.
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as Him who is infinitely separated from human existence and hmitations. Therefore is He " to be had in reverence of all " who would be about Him — that fear or reverential awe in which no slavish dread mingles, and which is perfectly consistent with aspiration, trust, and love. The Old Testament reveals Him as separate from men ; the New Testament reveals Him as united to men in the Divine Man, Christ Jesus, Therefore its keynote is the designation of religion as " the love of God " ; but that name is no contradiction of the earlier, but the completion of it.
Tl It hardly entered into the mind of a Hebrew thinker to conceive that "fear of the Lord" might pass into full, whole- hearted, and perfect love. And yet it may be shown that this was the change effected when Christ was of God "made unto us Wisdom " ; it is not that the " fear," or reverence, become less ; it is that the fear is swallowed up in the larger and more gracious sentiment. For us who have received Christ as our Wisdom, it has become almost a truism that we must love in order to know. We recognize that the causes of things remain hidden from us until our hearts have been kindled into an ardent love towards the First Cause, God Himself ; we find that even our processes of reasoning are faulty until they are touched with the Divine tenderness, and rendered sympathetic by the infusion of a loftier passion. And it is quite in accordance with this fuller truth that both science and philosophy have made genuine progress only in Christian lands and under Christian influences. Where the touch of Christ's hand has been most decisively felt, in Germany, in England, in America, and where consequently Wisdom has attained a nobler, a richer, a more tender significance, there, under fostering powers, which are not the less real because they are not always acknowledged, the great discoveries have been made, the great systems of thought have been framed, and the great counsels of conduct have gradually assumed substance and authority. And from a wide observation of facts we are able to say, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge " ; yes, but the wisdom of God has led us on from fear to love, and in the love of the Lord is found the fulfilment of that which trembled into birth through fear.^