_Hotel Belvedere, Davos, [December 26, 1880]. Christmas Sermon._
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I was very tired yesterday and could not write;
tobogganed so furiously all morning; we had a delightful day, crowned by
an incredible dinner--more courses than I have fingers on my hands. Your
letter arrived duly at night, and I thank you for it as I should. You
need not suppose I am at all insensible to my father's extraordinary
kindness about this book; he is a brick; I vote for him freely.
... The assurance you speak of is what we all ought to have, and might
have, and should not consent to live without. That people do not have it
more than they do is, I believe, because persons speak so much in
large-drawn, theological similitudes, and won't say out what they mean
about life, and man, and God, in fair and square human language. I
wonder if you or my father ever thought of the obscurities that lie upon
human duty from the negative form in which the Ten Commandments are
stated, or of how Christ was so continually substituting affirmations.
"Thou shalt not" is but an example; "Thou shalt" is the law of God. It
was this that seems meant in the phrase that "not one jot nor tittle of
the law should pass." But what led me to the remark is this: A kind of
black, angry look goes with that statement of the law of negatives. "To
love one's neighbour as oneself" is certainly much harder, but states
life so much more actively, gladly, and kindly, that you can begin to
see some pleasure in it; and till you can see pleasure in these hard
choices and bitter necessities, where is there any Good News to men? It
is much more important to do right than not to do wrong; further, the
one is possible, the other has always been and will ever be impossible;
and the faithful _design to do right_ is accepted by God; that seems to
me to be the Gospel, and that was how Christ delivered us from the Law.
After people are told that, surely they might hear more encouraging
sermons. To blow the trumpet for good would seem the Parson's business;
and since it is not in our own strength, but by faith and perseverance
(no account made of slips), that we are to run the race, I do not see
where they get the material for their gloomy discourses. Faith is not to
believe the Bible, but to believe in God; if you believe in God (or, for
it's the same thing, have that assurance you speak about), where is
there any more room for terror? There are only three possible
attitudes--Optimism, which has gone to smash; Pessimism, which is on the
rising hand, and very popular with many clergymen who seem to think they
are Christians. And this Faith, which is the Gospel. Once you hold the
last, it is your business (1) to find out what is right in any given
case, and (2) to try to do it; if you fail in the last, that is by
commission, Christ tells you to hope; if you fail in the first, that is
by omission, his picture of the last day gives you but a black lookout.
The whole necessary morality is kindness; and it should spring, of
itself, from the one fundamental doctrine, Faith. If you are sure that
God, in the long run, means kindness by you, you should be happy; and if
happy, surely you should be kind.
I beg your pardon for this long discourse; it is not all right, of
course, but I am sure there is something in it. One thing I have not got
clearly; that about the omission and the commission; but there is truth
somewhere about it, and I have no time to clear it just now. Do you
know, you have had about a Cornhill page of sermon? It is, however,
true.
Lloyd heard with dismay Fanny was not going to give me a present; so F.
and I had to go and buy things for ourselves, and go through a
representation of surprise when they were presented next morning. It
gave us both quite a Santa Claus feeling on Xmas Eve to see him so
excited and hopeful; I enjoyed it hugely.--Your affectionate son,