REVIEW. "THE PROBLEM OF LIFE," A series of essay-discourses by Samuel Edger, B.A., of Auckland, New Zealand.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 72, 18 October 1884, Page 4

REVIEW. "THE PROBLEM OF LIFE," A series of essay-discourses by Samuel Edger, 8.A., of Auckland, New Zealand.

Tins volume will be prized by those who knew the late Mr Edger for his sake, and by those who did not it will be equally prized for its own. It is not, indeed, likely to create at once an immense sensation. It has none of the meretricious attractions necessary to captivate the superficial and the shallow. It is a book which the dilettante dreamer and the swallow-like skimmer will soon lay down. But, on the other hand, it is a work which must live because ' it is full of thoughts which cannot die. It is a work which the sincere, earnest truthseeker will read through and through ; a work by which he to whom the search after truth is a passion which each successive discovery inflames to a higher heat will continually be hold spell-bound, and over which he will occasionally shed tears of joy ; a work which he who believes the highest reason and the highest faith to be indissolubly wedded, will come in time to love almost as his morning and evening psalm. This book is a living proof that solid matter can be made as fascinating as light, for, though always profound, it is never prosy. Its style is as exquisite as its thought is deep. But its literary abilities, whether of matter or style, are its least merits, Its supreme worth is in the ethical loftiness and spiritual purity which pervade it. Its genuineness and sincerity are so self-evident, so transparent, that it is utterly impossible to question them. As you read these pages you instinctively say to yourself, Here is no theological huckster dealing in second-hand wares he has picked up at some one else's shop, but a prophet speaking out to others visions of truth which have been borne in upon his own soul so powerfully that he cannot keep them to himself. If a seer means one who has his eyes open to see truths which ordinary men cannot see, few men were ever more truly worthy of the name of seer than Samuel Edger. Like every true prophet, Mr Edger was a man of pre-eminent courage. These essay-dis-courses bristle with sayings as bold as any that ever fell from the pen of a Thomas Carlyle or a Charles Kingsley ; and yet the author never says bold things simply for the sake of saying them. His bravery never sinks to bravado. There is hardly anything polemical about these essay - discourses. Their aim is essentially constructive, not destructive. They do not so much assail error as undermine it by exhibiting the truth of vvhich it is the counterfeit. And, philosophical as these essays are, they are at the same time intensely practical. There is here no abstruse speculation about merely metaphysical questions which concern only the student. "The Problem" here discussed is one which concerns the philosopher, not because he is a philosopher, but because he is a man. Every phase of the pi'oblem touched on is one which is every bit as important to the man of business and the politician as to the scholar. The gravest of all problems, alike to the man of thought and to the man of action, is this : Is it possible for anyone living in such a world as this to overcome the evil of which it is so full ? In brief, this is " The Problem of Life " discussed in these essays. In order to understand their standpoint and aim, it is necessary to read carefully the "Introduction," where we find " The Problem " stated in epitome : — " The question, Is life worth living ? has little or no meaning till we understand how much we put into the term life. Seme people's lives are certainly not, some certainly are, worth living. . . . The only reasonable question seems to be, Is there a conception — an ideal conception— of life, apart from its actual attainment in individual instances : agreatand lofty intention, capable of being wrought out, from entering into which no one is excluded : the very presence of which conception or intention lifts life out of all lowness or meanness, making it sublimely great ? This surely is a simple issue. Its decision may set aside an immense amount of talk, based on an empiricism that could not possibly lead to any one result. It is the aim of these essay-discourses to attempt an answer. It may, perhaps, be categorically summarised in this form :— The worth of life varies in direct ratio with the reality and intensity of the moral distinction. This is the thought that runs throughout. The solution of the great moral problem ; or, to put it into the language of modern science, the evolution of conscience ; this is life. . . . Nothing can be clearer than that if the above moral problem coincides with life, then any gospel of salvation can have no other meaning than the actual destruction of evil and creation of goodness. There is but one salvation : the evolution or development of the conscience in each one of us into God-likeness ; and by what means it may be done is altogether trivial so long as it be really done." The work consists of five parts, each of which comprises a series of essays as strictly consecutive as if they were the chapters of a book. Part lis entitled: — "Lite as it appears in some of its prominent features." It contains sixteen essay-discourses on such subjects as : — The Great Problem of Life ; Deliverance from Evil ; The Passion of the Cross ; The Battle and Victory of Life ; Temptation, its Meaning and Use ; The Spontaneity of the Will ; etc. The first essay-discourse on "The Great Problem of Life " is an expanded statement of the Problem epitomised in the introduction, It is a solemn, masterly discourse on the two texts: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die " and " Hold fast that which is good. " The key-note of the whole work is struck in the opening sentences of this sermon : — " These two passages contain the great problem of life for ever and ever of profound interest to evey soul of man. He who understands this knows what life means and is worth. " The leading thoughts of this essay are, first, that intentional sin is the immediate, final, remediless end of innocence; secondly, that a nice and accurate discrimination between right and wrong is absolutely essential to the attainment of real goodness. The later essays, in this part of the work, work out the ideas :— That the death of Christ is the supreme proclamation of the inreconcilable antagonism between right and wrong ; that His resurrection is just as unmistakeably a declaration that the ultimate victory must be that of the right over the wrong j that man's will is free to attain this victory ; that it needs inspiration to give it strength, and a future life to give it time to make this victory perfect and complete, &c. The following noble passage from the essay on " The Passion of the Cross " is a specimen of the spirit and tone pervading the volume throughout: — "Do we really appreciate the significance of this teaching of the Cross ? Do we see that it is really a new power of life, at once proclaiming the divinity of our religion, and solving the overwhelming, burdensome problem of all human life? Whence come all our mistakes, perplexities, stumblings, sophistries, lies, murders, wars? whence the possibility of all our inward juggleries with conscience and outward hypocrises, but from want of clear perception of right and wrong, of the certain fact that the wrong leads down to death, and the right to God, and that the two can never for a moment or a single step coincide ? Let these things be solved to the

soul and conscienoe of any man, and does there not open up to him a vision of quite a new life? Assuredly, if I know what life means. If now, in place of all our word jangling, our useless creeds, that never gave life to a single soul, our ostentatious ceremonies, our ecclesiastical fopperies — if instead of this, Christ had been proclaimed to these nineteen centuries as the great moral and spiritual truth or sun, shining in our heavens, casting a light into our inward darkness, ever making more defined and unmistakeable the good and the evil, ever unfolding the impossibility of their reconciliation, ever associating with evil every thought from which we naturally shrink, and with good every form of beauty and heaven, that can touch the deepest springs of love : — can we doubt that He would have been the centre of attraction to all human minds, perhaps not in obedience to, but, at least, in profound recognition of, so stupendous and inestimable a revelation from heaven. Religion would not then have been what it is now. Round this PoleStar of all intelligent existence, men must have gathered in reverence or in fear ; because every man must ask, Am I right or wrong ? As right am I blessed ? As wrong am I cursed? And here is the answer." Space will not permit us to touch the remaining parts of the book, in which the application of the problem to the various phases of practical life are dealt with. Our object will be accomplished if we have said enough to induce our readers to secure the book, and study it for themselves. The value of the volume is enhanced by a brief memoir and life-like portrait of the author.