420 OUR ACCOUNTABILITY
it. Thou whose whole existence hitherto was a chimera and scenic show, at length becomest a reality ; sumptuous Versailles bursts asunder, like a dream, into void Immensity ; Time is done, and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with hideous clangour round thy soul ; the pale Kingdoms yawn open ; there must thou enter, naked, all unking'd, and await what is appointed thee !
And yet let no meanest man lay flattering unction to his soul. Louis was a Euler ; but art not thou also one ? His wide France, look at it from the Fixed Stars (themselves not yet Infinitude), is no wider than thy narrow brickfield, where thou too didst faithfully, or didst unfaithfully.^
2. The religious and irreligious alike must give account. As Christians we must give account. " The lord of those servants Cometh, and reckoneth with them " (Matt. xxv. 19). They have been justified by faith. They have been united to their glorious Head. They " shall be saved " (1 Cor. iii 15), whatever be the fate of their " work." But what will their Lord say of their work ? What have they done for Him, in labour, in witness, and above all in character ? He will tell them what He thinks. He will be infinitely kind ; but He will not flatter.
The irreligious, the careless, and inconsiderate, must give account — those who say to themselves " To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant." Too many go on always, nearly all do so at times, as if they were not really accountable. They just take the pleasure or the profit of the moment, and think no more of it ; it is to them no more than throwing a stone into the water, which comes together again, and all seems as before.
3. Neither our heredity nor our circumstances will excuse us. The physiologist comes and he tells me that I inherit in my very blood, in the very structure of my brain, in the vigorous or feeble fibre of my nervous organization, the results of the vices and the virtues of a long line of ancestors. No doubt ; but what do you mean by vices and virtues, the results of which I inherit ? Are these names of honour and of dishonour, names of praise and condemnation ? If there was vice in my ancestors, there may be vice in me. If there was virtue in them, there may be virtue in me. But where there is necessity there is neither virtue nor vice.
^ Carlyle, French Revolution, i. 17.
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This doctrine of heredity is no new discovery. It is true that the whole conditions of my life have been determined for me by my ancestors. My strength of muscle, the soundness of my heart and lungs, the limits of my intellectual capacity, have all been settled for me by my birth. And as the result of the moral character of my ancestors my moral life is one of comparative ease or of severe difficulty. But though the conditions of life have been determined for me, my life itself is my own, and that has not been determined for me. The material with which I should work has been given ; the way in which I should treat it has not been given.
You tell me that there are gi-eat masses of men who have never had a chance of moral goodness. They have to give account of themselves without their chance, if that be so. God knows how large their chance was, and how small. Do not resent by anticipation the justice of the Eternal. He will deal with them according to their conditions. " Virtue is impossible to them," you say. Yes, yours. And there are others who, as they look upon you, say " Virtue is impossible to you." Their virtue is. And yet you and I, under the hard conditions of our life, can choose the better path, however feebly we may walk in it ; and who but God can tell what glimmerings of light reach those who seem to sit in outer darkness ? ^
^ I suppose it does not altogether depend upon a man whether he will be a skilful workman or a clumsy workman. Some men are born with a flexibility and a strength of muscle, a keenness of eye, a delicacy of taste — or rather, with the possibility of achiev- ing these things — of which other men are naturally destitute, and to which they can never attain. But every man can do his best, whatever that best may be. It does not lie in our choice what language we shall speak, but it does lie in our choice whether we will speak the truth or whether we will be indifferent to the claims of truthfulness ; whether our language shall be profane or devout, whether it shall be pure or impure. We had no choice into what kind of family we should be born, — whether our parents, our brothers, our sisters, should be rough or gentle, just or unjust ; but it lies with us — whether they are rough or gentle, whether they are just or unjust — to treat them with justice and with kindness. The limits of our physical health and vigour are determined for us by the circumstances in which we were born,