c epistles. I therefore by no means charge this
tendency indiscriminately on the New Testament.

3. It laid down that "the time is short; THE LORD IS AT HAND: the
things of this world pass away, and deserve not our affections: the
only thing worth spending one's energies on, is, the forwarding of
men's salvation." It bade me "watch perpetually, not knowing whether
my Lord would return at cockcrowing or at midday."

While I believed this, (which, however disagreeable to modern
Christians, is the clear doctrine of the New Testament,) I acted an
eccentric and unprofitable part. From it I was saved against my will,
and forced into a course in which the doctrine, having been laid
to sleep, awoke only now and then to reproach and harass me for
my unfaithfulness to it. This doctrine it is, which makes so many
spiritual persons lend active or passive aid to uphold abuses and
perpetuate mischief in every department of human life. Those who stick
closest to the Scripture do not shrink from saying, that "it is not
worth while trying to mend the world," and stigmatize as "political
and worldly" such as pursue an opposite course. Undoubtedly, if we are
to expect our Master at cockcrowing, we shall not study the permanent
improvement of this transitory scene. To teach the certain speedy
destruction of earthly things, _as the New Testament does_, is to cut
the sinews of all earthly progress; to declare war against Intellect
and Imagination, against Industrial and Social advancement.

There was a time when I was distressed at being unable to avoid
exultation in the worldly greatness of England. My heart would, in
spite, of me, swell with something of pride, when a Turk or Arab asked
what was my country: I then used to confess to God this pride as
a sin. I still see that that was a legitimate deduction from the
Scripture. "The glory of this world passeth away," and I had professed
to be "dead with Christ" to it. The difference is this. I am now as
"dead" as then to all of it which my conscience discerns to be sinful,
but I have not to torment myself in a (fundamentally ascetic)
struggle against innocent and healthy impulses. I now, with deliberate
approval, "love the world and the things of the world." I can feel
patriotism, and take the deepest interest in the future prospects of
nations, and no longer reproach myself. Yet this is quite consistent
with feeling the spiritual interests of men to be of all incomparably
the highest.