^ How little difference there is between the scruples of the Jewish Christians and those which vex the Church to-day. The scruples which perplex ordinary Christian people, especially young Christians, to-day are commonly connected either with the ritual or with the ethics of religion. Ought fermented wine to be used in the Communion service ? Can every line of a hymn honestly express the feeling of those who sing it ? Is it wrong to play at cards or to smoke cigarettes ? What kinds of recreation are lawful for us on Sunday ? ^
2. St. Paul applies the law of Tolerance. He would have the followers of Christ forbearing one with another as the Master was forbearing with them. Christ was pre-eminently broad and many- sided, touching and attracting human nature in all its aspects. His disciples represent the extremes of temperament, from the sanguine outspoken Peter to the quiet reflective John, and within these all the rest move and act in their own likeness. He is never careful to stamp on them a hard uniformity, but leaves them to their own natural development, and aids them in it. Then, outside this circle, we have groups of all possible colours, — the Pharisee and the Publican, Nicodemus and Zacchaeus, Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene, the woman by the well and the women at the sepulchre, the centurion beside the cross and the thief upon it. He draws all men unto Him, and while there is a change in the depth of their nature, while a higher life is infused into them, it unfolds itself in every direction without constraint, as the earth in spring-time is drawn forth into every
» T. H. Darlow.
ROMANS XV. I 457
form and colour of leaf and flower by the all - sympathetic attraction of the sun. We do not admire enough this generosity of mind in our great Master, so different from that which prevails among the founders of human systems, who cannot be satisfied unless their formulas are repeated, and their minutest features reflected, by all their scholars. His word "came with power," not to stamp with the uniformity of death, but to create the manifoldness of life. How very different was the society which gathered round Jesus of Nazareth from that harsh spiritual despotism which Loyola sought to create under His name !
IF Eeal tolerance means to have a belief, and to be aware of another man's belief which disagrees with it; to consider the disagreement of essential importance ; to have the power, and be able to find an opportunity, of combating, perhaps of extinguishing it ; then, to forbear ; even to let the adverse, the noxious thing work. Not that I understand by toleration a duty to stand neutral in the contest. Only they in such circumstances can be neutral who do not mind; for whom to be tolerant is no virtue. With genuine tolerance the fullest loyal exercise of the same liberty as is allowed to the other side is entirely consistent. All which is inhibited is the use of unfair weapons in the strife.^
1[ In the Life of Cardinal Vaughan, Mr. Wilfrid Meynell gives an account of a visit paid by the Cardinal, when he was Bishop of Manchester, to one of the Salvation Army Shelters. In one room sat a number of women, mostly old women, at various sorts of needlework. " Are any of my people here ? " asked the Bishop, addressing the assembly. And, dotted about the room, aged dames, in the dignity of Poverty, stood up for their Faith. Then the Bishop turned on the Captain : " And do these attend Protestant prayers ? " " They attend the praises of God every evening." " And what do you preach ? " " We preach Christ and Him Crucified, and we shall be very pleased if you will stay and 80 preach Him this evening. We are quite unsectarian." This was too much. " Well, but if I told them that unless they were baptized they could not be saved ? " "I should tell them that it was not true," said the Captain. " And I should tell them that it was not true," echoed Cardinal Manning when we told him the story an hour later; "I should explain to them the Church's doctrine of the Baptism of Desire." ^
^ Surely we might make more allowance for the roads we
* W. Stebbing, Three Essays, 7. ' Life of Cardinal Vaugluan, i. 481.
458 THE PRIVILEGE OF THE STRONG
walk in if the great ends we aim at are the same. Our paths through life are like the great tracks men map out on the seas. They say they go the same way that the ships of old have gone ; they mean they seek the same harbour, round the same head- lands, shun the same quicksands, read the same, sUent, constant stars. But the waves they plough have changed a myriad times ; the great unrest or circumstance has broken into confusion the unquiet road they travel, but they call it still the same, because by the same great eternal sureties, it points them to the same old heaven. So by the sure witness of faith we pass over the restless path of human accident to the great truth harbour that we seek.i