uch as Richard
Congreve, Dr. Bridges, Professor Beesley, Cotter Morison, George Eliot.
But at present it has no more eloquent and earnest advocate than Mr.
Frederic Harrison, who, in _The Creed of a Layman_, and several other
recent volumes, has passionately proclaimed its principles. For more
than fifty years he has been its apostle: 'every other aim or
occupation has been subsidiary and instrumental to this.'[8] It {111}
is true that in some points he has retained his independence, and while
those outside accuse him of fanaticism, some of his fellow-believers
suspect him of heresy.[9] But he himself is assured that in the
worship of Humanity he has obtained the solution of his doubts[10] and
the satisfaction of his spirit, and on his gravestone or his urn he
would have inscribed the words, _He found peace_.[11] There is much
that is marvellously elevated in thought as well as exquisite in
expression, profoundly devout as well as brilliantly argued, in the
narrative of his progress towards his present position. But when his
vehement statements are carefully examined, it will almost inevitably
be seen that all that is good and sensible in them is an unconscious
reproduction of Christianity. His negations disappear: the
affirmations which he makes are those which the Church has always {112}
maintained. The faith of his childhood permeates and strengthens and
beautifies the creed which he adopted in his maturer years. The unity
of mankind, the memory of the departed, the necessity of living for
others, these are no novelties in Christianity. It is in Christ that
they have specially been brought to light, in Him that they find their
highest ratification, without Him they remain unfulfilled, with Him
they attain to consistency and power.

The Great Being, Humanity, is only an abstraction.[12] 'There is no
such thing in reality,' Principal Caird reminds us, 'as an animal which
is no particular animal, a plant which is no particular plant, a man or
humanity which is no individual man. It is only a fiction of the
observer's mind.' There is logical force as well as humorous
illustration in the contention of Dean Page Roberts, that there is no
more a humanity apart {113} from individual men and women than there is
a great being apart from all individual dogs, which we may call
Caninity, or a transcendent Durham ox, apart from individual oxen,
which may be named Bovinity.'[13] Nor does the geniality of Mr.
Chesterto