“A RETROSPECT.”

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 475, 28 May 1890, Page 3

“A RETROSPECT.”

REV. MR GULLIVER’S FAREWELL. Auckland, May 19! There was a crowded audience at the Temperance Hall last night to hear the Rev. E. H. Gulliver’s address. He said that about thirty years ago a book was published which made considerable noise in the world; it was called “ Essays and Reviews.” The reason why it caused such a sensation was because it was the first time that a number of men of learning and influence in England had placed fairly before the public a statement of views advorse to ordinary orthodox teaching. Among these men was a Dr. Mark Pattison, who shortly before his death published a volume of memoirs in which he gave an account of the stages of thought through which he had passed during his life. He was the son of an evangelical clergyman, and was reared among the influences of a pious English home. From that he passed on to Oxford, where he came under the influence of Dr. Newman and the leaders of the Tracbarian movement; but he was nob able to remain at that point, and gradually his took the philosophic position in which it finally remained. You may say he sacrificed “consistency,” but people are apt. to attach too much importance to that. “IDOL OF LITTLE MINDS.” We need rather “ consistent truth ” to the growth of the germs of thought with which we start in life that was the consistency of Dr. Pattison —accepting as he did the teachings of science at first dimly and uncertainly, but truly and loyally followin'.’ its development and acknowledging its conclusions fearlessly when fairly established. Now, the story of Dr. Pattison’s life is to a great extent the story of my own. I found as I passed on that I reached a place where the road branched in two directions, and over the road to the left I seemed to see written the words “'hypocrisy,” “mentalreservation,” “paltering with truth ; ” while to the right I saw above the track the words “intellectual honesty.” You will do me the justice to say that I did not hesitate; I took the path which leads to truth, although at the cost of being considered inconsistent and untrue to my profession. Whatever our opinions may be, we must agree that it is the duty of a teacher to utter what he deems to be truth as he understands it. Men do nob hesitate to say that our old civilisation is tottering to its fall, and the issues of the future must depend on the truth and earnestness of the leaders of thought to-day. Such leadership cannot come from those whose chief care is the preservation of ancient dogmas and the PROTECTION OF VESTED INTERESTS.

I saw that the thoughts of men were widening, that they were being borne along like corks on the surface of some mighty torrent, nob knowing whither that torrent was carrying them. Realising this, I also realised that I was bound to follow these thoughts out for myself, feebly and imperfectly indeed, but still loyally and truly to see for myself the tendency of our age. We may take up three positions with regard to modern thought—first, the reactionary position of simple hostility; second, the “ reconciling ” position which attempts to patch up a truce and pour the new wine into old bottles with the usual unfortunate result ; or thirdly, we may adopt the wiser course of accepting it frankly and endeavouring to guide it for the best. And whao are these new thoughts ? One is almost overwhelmed at the vision they bring before us, lit up as they are by the new lamps which Science is ever lighting. I saw that they had an inevitable bearing on the old traditions, and I was bound to follow them out. I awoke to the fact (and to many of us it is a painful fact) that we are prepared to welcome truth and discovery up to a certain point, and then say, like Canute, “ thus far and no further !” but no more than he, sitting by the restless tide, could forbid the advance of its waves, can we sbav THE ADVANCE OF THOUGHT, or prevent its covering the whole field of human knowledge. Now, many of us were trained to look on the Bible as something too sacred to be touched, and which must simply be accepted in an unquestioning way. I studied the book of science and found that it, told a different story,— that it pointed to a vastness and a grandeur to which I had previously been a stranger. It told of time before the cloudy nebula massed itself into suns and planets, —my imagination reeled, but my reason was compelled to accept its teaching. Then Geology told its tale of vanished ages, in terms so plain that none could refuse credence, that our earth is not a thing of a few thousand, but of millions of years. Of course I knew that this differed from the Bible teaching, but I felt that God had not given me the gift of reason without the duty of using it fairly and honestly, and that even in regard to a book which my father and forefathers had called God’s Book I must use the same reason which I employ in reading the Book of Nature, —I came then to see that tho Bible was one of a number of books which are recognised as divine by other peoples, though not by our selves, and this led to the comparative study of it. and in so doing I was nob conscious of DISHONOURING THE BIBLE, but rather that I was doing it the greatest honour in my power. I saw clearly that I was bound to accept the new position, and to tell to others the vaster outlook that met my gaze. Though my position with regard to the old volume was thus changed and I had come to regard it in a different way, I still felt that I did not dishonour it. We had been taught that from its pages came all the morality that had guided our lives, but when criticism showed its flaws, and the comparative study of it showed its true nature, then I came to the view that thß Bible is not to be taken as the ground of religion and morality in the present, but rather as the evidence of religion and morality in the past. Under the old view many things that we are taught to revere are contradicted in its pages, but under the new view 1 see that God ha 3 cast over the world the ideas of morality, as he has surrounded it with the air we breathe ; I see that we are bound together not by the mere ties of nationality, not by the white face or the black, bub that all are parts of one majestic whole, of one common humanity. Thus higher thoughts are placed within our reach ; faith in a power above us which vve may still call Father, is still ours, though the old dogmas have for ever passed away. Tom Hood sings—- “ I remember, I remember, The fir trees, dark and high, 1 used to think their feathery tops Reached almost to the sky. It was a childish ignorance, But now ’tis little joy. To know I’m further off from Heaven Than when I was a boy.” They were beautiful lines, bub I could not use them now, because they make Heaven seem a long way off. I feel* that HEAVEN MUST BE REACHED NOW and here, by using all the powers and the reason God has given us in their

highest and noblest way. I see that whereas we were taught to point out to the suffering and oppressed a recompence in the future, it is our duty to strive to give them justice, and the possibility of happiness here. Never before have we had such powers in our hands to help our brothers wherever we see them suffering. Trust no future, howe’er pleasant, Let the dead past bury its dead; Act, act in the living present, Heart within and wod o’erhead. You will ask me, in passing through all this, what has passed away ? I answer that the dogmatism of the past has gone for ever. I can no longer take out as it were a two-foot rule and measure the attributes and powers of the great Creator. The power above me is no less real, and not a lower, bub a higher morality follows the change of view as we learn to act up to our knowledge, and feel the imperative duty of handing forward to futurity

THE LAMP THAT LIGHTS OURSELVES. Such are some of the results of my nine years in Auckland, and they have given mo a peace of mind which formerly I did not possess. Some months ago, as you know, these lectures were begun ab the urgent reguest of some among you, and now I find it necessary to go elsewhere. It is not without great regret that I close these Sunday evening addresses bub I feel the satisfaction that comes of the consciousness of having been as it were the leader of a forlorn hope. It is a noble, though an arduous bask, but it has not been done in vain. As Leonidas with bis handful of Greeks field the pass of Thermopylae against all the Persian hosts, so have we been placed as an advanced guard to roll back the army of superstition. Leonidas fell at the post of duty, but livos still on the proudest page of history : and our example, too, will not be lost in having thus dared to stand alone, following truth ab whatever cost.