Now, manifestly, it must lead to the most disastrous results when the lower elements of a man's nature are treated as if they were the only, or at any rate the most important, elements. The soul of the sensualist is like a State in which the ignorant, vulgar and stupid mob has usurped the reins of government, and is pro- ceeding to destroy everything better than itself. Enjoyment, which is the proper satisfaction for the sensuous part of our being, is no satisfaction at all for the mind and heart and spirit. The unsatisfactoriness of a life devoted to pleasure may be proved, not only by abstract considerations, but by the fact that those who have lived in this fashion invariably speak of their existence with disappointment and disgust.
^| I have seen the silly rounds of business and pleasure and have done with them all. I have enjoyed all the pleasures of
ST. MATTHEW iv. 4 55
the world and consequently know their futility, and do not regret their loss. Their real value is very, very low ; but those who have not experienced them always overrate them. For myself, I by no means desire to repeat the nauseous dose.1
Tj In one of his Hebrew Melodies Byron speaks in a siniil, strain —
Fame, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possess'd me; My goblets blush'd from every vine,
And lovely forms caress'd me ; I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender; All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.
I strive to number o'er what days
Eemembrance can discover, Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over. There rose no day, there roll'd no hour
Of pleasure unembitter'd ; And not a trapping deck'd my power
That gall'd not while it glitter'd.
The serpent of the field, by art
And spells, is won from harming ; But that which coils around the heart,
Oh ! who hath power of charming ? It will not list to wisdom's lore,
Nor music's voice can lure it ; But there it stings for evermore
The soul that must endure it.
(2) There is a national menace. In these modern days one finds oneself rummaging the pages of Gibbon and Tacitus and Juvenal. Look at those old empires which lived by bread alone ; by riches so enormous that it seems as if God had determined to give money a chance to do its best ; living by power so vast that there were no more worlds to conquer ; living by pleasure so prodigal and so refined and varied that the liveliest invention was exhausted, and the keenest appetite surfeited. Babylon, Rome, Antioch, Ale
1 Lord Chesterfield.
56 A QUESTION OF LIFE
andria, Carthage, — to-day we dare not open to our children the records of the inner life of these communities. We almost hesitate to read its fearful summary in the first chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. The old empires have gone down in ruin, and their pleasures have turned to a corruption which is an offence in the world's nostrils. The old city which rang with the cry of " Bread and the Circus ! " is only a monument now. The tourist wanders over the Palatine, and peers down into the choked vaults of the Caesars' palaces; and the antiquarian rummages where Nero's fish-ponds gleamed, and climbs along the broken tiers of the Coliseum, from which the culture and beauty and fashion of Rome looked down with delight upon Christian martyrs in the fangs of tigers.
Not in material progress then, nor in art and science, nor in the stoicism of absolute duty, is the law of human nature found to lie. We fall back upon the immemorial truth — " Man shall not live by bread alone."
Tj The most helpful and sacred work, which can at present be done for humanity, is to teach people (chiefly by example, as all best teaching must be done) not how " to better themselves," but how to " satisfy themselves." It is the curse of every evil nation and evil creature to eat, and not be satisfied. The words of blessing are, that they shall eat and be satisfied. And as there is only one kind of water which quenches all thirst, so there is only one kind of bread which satisfies all hunger — the bread of justice, or righteousness; which hungering after, men shall always be filled, that being the bread of heaven ; but hungering after the bread, or wages, of unrighteousness, shall not be filled, that being the bread of Sodom.1
3. Christ's attitude to " Bread." — But the subject has another side. There are people who try to get rid altogether of the lower elements. They attempt to eradicate desire, to extinguish instinct, to suppress and annihilate the bodily nature. Principal Caird says, " If the spiritual self is essentially greater than the lower tendencies, why should it not exist without them? If desire and passion drag me down from my ideal life, why should I not escape from their thraldom, and live as if I were a disem- bodied spirit ? Snap the ties that bind me to the satisfactions of
1 Ruskin, Modem, Painters, v. (Works, vii. 426).
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