^ The publication of the papers (afterwards published under the title of Unto this Last) in the Comhill Magazine raised a storm of indignant protest; even a theological heresy- hunt could not have been more fast and furious. The essays were declared to be "one of the most melancholy spectacles, intellectually speaking, that we have ever witnessed." "The series of papers in the Comhill Magazine," wrote another critic, " throughout which Mr. Buskin laboured hard to destroy his reputation, were to our mind almost painful. It is no pleasure to see genius mistaking its power, and rendering itself ridiculous." The papers were described by the Saturday Beview as " eruptions of windy hysterics," "absolute nonsense," "utter imbecility," "intolerable twaddle"; the author was "a perfect paragon of blubbering"; his "whines and snivels" were contemptible; the world was not going to be " preached to death by a mad gover- ness." The last passage of the book in particular filled the Saturday reviewer with indignant disgust. Let us hear the passage, for the author considered it one of the best he ever wrote, and it has reached many a mind and touched many a heart. He had been pleading for wiser consumption, for fairer distribution, for a more thoughtful direction of labour, for a simpler mode of life, and then continued thus : —
"And if, on due and honest thought over these things, it
1 George Eliot, Janet's Repentance.
170 JUDGING PREMATURELY
seems that the kind of existence to which men are now summoned by every plea of pity and claim of right, may, for some time at least, not be a luxurious one ; — consider whether, even supposing it guiltless, luxury would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our sides the suffering which accompanies it in the world. Luxury is indeed possible in the future — innocent and exquisite ; luxury for all, and by the help of all ; but luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant; the crudest man living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold. Kaise the veil boldly ; face the light ; and if, as yet, the light of the eye can only be seen through tears, and the light of the body through sackcloth, go thou forth weeping, bearing precious seed, until the time come, and the kingdom, when Christ's gift of bread, and bequest of peace, shall be "Unto this last as unto thee"; and when, for earth's severed multitudes of the wicked and the weary, there shall be holier reconciliation than that of the narrow home, and calm economy, where the Wicked cease — not from trouble, but from troubling — and the Weary are at rest." l
(3) Judge no one's discipline before the time. Do not judge your own. Perhaps you think that discipline harsh. Perhaps you think it singularly unsuitable. You are tempted to imagine that your spiritual character would have been better nurtured and your spiritual interests better served had God taken another method with you — assigning you a different burden, leading you a different way. Not so. You may be sure that the burden fits your shoulders, that the path fits your feet, as they fit those of no one else. Wherefore be obedient, be patient, be hopeful. What you know not now you shall know hereafter, if not in this life, certainly in the day that makes all things clear.
T[ We judge others according to results ; how else ? — not knowing the process by which results are arrived at.2
(4) Judge no one's destiny before the time ; you know not the determining elements. They are often hidden from you in life, and some who have passed as opponents of religion have, Nicodemus-like, been its secret friends. And in death the data may be hidden too. I speak with caution, even with trembling, remembering the danger of abuse; but I say that while the possibility of a late repentance permits no one to presume in his own case, it permits no one to despair in the case of others.
1 E. T. Cook, The Life of Buskin, ii. 6.
2 George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss.
i CORINTHIANS iv. 5 171
•jf I have not much sympathy with those who have great suspiciousness about false religion. I have not much sympathy with strong, positive [condemnatory] affirmations about people's religion, where there is nothing decidedly bad. I have not much sympathy with those who are not disposed to admit and to hope that there may be reality where there is the appearance of some little good thing toward the Lord God of Israel.1
If The tragedy of our lives is not created entirely from within. " Character," says ISTovalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms — "character is destiny." But not the whole of our destiny. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was speculative and irresolute, and we have a great tragedy in consequence. But if his father had lived to a good old age, and his uncle had died an early death, we can conceive Hamlet's having married Ophelia, and got through life with a reputation of sanity, notwithstanding many soliloquies, and some moody sarcasms towards the fair daughter of Polonius, to say nothing of the frankest incivility to his father-in-law.2
If A sailor, who had long been the object of a mother's prayers, but had nevertheless lived a godless and a thoughtless life, was swept overboard in a storm. While he struggled in the waves a vision of his past rose before him, vivid, concen- trated, intense, together with what seemed a last opportunity of making his peace with God. That vision he improved. That opportunity he embraced. Then and there he repented. Then and there he gave himself to Christ. "When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord : and my prayer came in unto him, into his holy temple." And his first thought after the transaction was this: "I shall die a Christian, and my mother will never know of the change." But she did know ; for he lived to tell her, and to testify to others besides, by the consistency of his Christian walk and faithfulness of his Christian service.3