use that also is a part of respectability, and we cannot
hope to be received in society without decent possessions. Received in
society! as if that were the kingdom of heaven! There is dear Mr.
So-and-so;--look at him!--so much respected--so much looked up to--quite
the Christian merchant! And we must cut our conduct as strictly as
possible after the pattern of Mr. So-and-so; and lay our whole lives to
make money and be strictly decent. Besides these holy injunctions, which
form by far the greater part of a youth's training in our Christian
homes, there are at least two other doctrines. We are to live just now
as well as we can, but scrape at last into heaven, where we shall be
good. We are to worry through the week in a lay, disreputable way, but,
to make matters square, live a different life on Sunday.

The train of thought we have been following gives us a key to all these
positions, without stepping aside to justify them on their own ground.
It is because we have been disgusted fifty times with physical squalls
and fifty times torn between conflicting impulses, that we teach people
this indirect and tactical procedure in life, and to judge by remote
consequences instead of the immediate face of things. The very desire to
act as our own souls would have us, coupled with a pathetic disbelief in
ourselves, moves us to follow the example of others; perhaps, who knows?
they may be on the right track; and the more our patterns are in number,
the better seems the chance; until, if we be acting in concert with a
whole civilised nation, there are surely a majority of chances that we
must be acting right. And again, how true it is that we can never behave
as we wish in this tormented sphere, and can only aspire to different
and more favourable circumstances, in order to stand out and be
ourselves wholly and rightly! And yet once more, if in the hurry and
pressure of affairs and passions you tend to nod and become drowsy, here
are twenty-four hours of Sunday set apart for you to hold counsel with
your soul and look around you on the possibilities of life.

This is not, of course, all that is to be, or even should be, said for
these doctrines. Only, in the course of this chapter, the reader and I
have agreed upon a few catchwords, and been looking at morals on a
certain system; it was a pity to lose an opportunity of testing the
catchwords, and seeing whether, by this system as well as by others,
current doctrines could show an