Welsh Journals

THE WELSH WEEKLY* March 25, 1892. said about Professor Bhys's present philological studies. Before long we shall have a collection of Welsh fairy tales, based on the collection contributed some years ago to the Cymmrodor, and a work on Celtic epigraphy. Hopes are entertained, too, that he may be induced to publish his series of Eisteddfodic addresses. But the bibliography I have given is, after all, but a partial proof of the severity of his studies. As new philological treatises are successively turned out from the French and German workshops, they are immediately studied and criticised by him. And if he manages to carry out his plan of visiting the Basque country this summer, he will no doubt be able to throw new light on the theories as to the Ibero-Celtic constitution of the "Welsh people. Provided only that health and strength be continued to him, we may feel sure that he has not yet reached the zenith of his fame, or attained to the fulness of thehonour which his own countrymen and the scholars with whom he has to do, have yet to pay him. Although he is never willing to be regarded as a public man, and thinks he can do more good to his country in the study than on platform or in council-chamber, yet it is no "little brief authority " that he wields in educational spheres. The College to which I belong appointed him, not long ago, to be their elector on the University Board which has to elect the Deputy-Professor of Comparative Philology. In Wales he is a member of the Council of each of the three National Colleges. How he finds time for the complete exercise of the three great departments of his activity—study, business, and entertainment—is a question which he is best able to answer. He has, at all events, two priceless helps —a good wife and good health. Of his personal qualities, or of those who have rendered his life happier than any degree of learning or renown could ever do, I have said little or nothing. Even were it needful to say aught under this head, my personal ties—which I may be pardoned for men¬ tioning with some amount of pride—with him are such that I should be unwilling to do so. But Pro¬ fessor Bhys's kindly disposition and his patriotism are sufficiently well attested by the facts I have— though, perhaps, too mechanically—tried to set before those who would fain know more of a man whose talents and industry have made them prouder of their own race. Perhaps I may venture, however, to deduce at least one moral from this biography. It is often said that though a Welshman be brilliant, yet, as a rule, he lacks patience and dogged perseverance at what is often the drudgery of study. Professor Bhys, at leaBt, is an illustrious exception. People tell us that " labour overcometh all things." But they do not tell us the whole truth, for they do not quote the whole text. Vergil did not say any labour was invin¬ cible, but only dogged, unflinching, relentless toil. This is the only road to the heights of art and science:— Labor omnia vincit Improbus et duris urgens in rebus egestas. John Young Evans. REY. J. A. SPURGEON'S LETTER. The following is a copy of a letter sent in reply to votes of condolence with the late Mr. Spurgeon's family. Metropolitan Tabernacle, NewingtoD, S.E., February, 1892. Dear Friend,—The Pastor and church officers desire to acknowledge most gratefully your valued expression of the esteem and regard you cherish for the character and work of their dear departed Pastor, Charles H. Spurgeon ; and thank you warmly for the extreme love and sympathy conveyed to them by your letter duly received. It is indeed a sad, sad loss, and it grows upon the mind the more it is contemplated ; but the work in hand is God's work and cannot fail. It is therefore in firm reliance upon His promised help, that the church here will continue its varied work, so as to perpetuate the service commenced, and thus far carried on, by the " Sainted One," for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The bereaved widow and family are sharers of the comfort, that the universal ex¬ pression of tenderest sympathy and profoundest grief, has besn to all the bereaved, and they unite in this expression of heartfelt thanks. For the Metropolitan Tabernacle Officers, Jas. A. Spuroeon, Pastor. LECTURES ON CHRISTIANITY. BY THE LATE REY. PRINCIPAL D. CHARLES DAYIES, M.A. (Translated for the Welsh Weekly.) LECTURE III.—THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO THE UNDERSTANDING; OR, CHRISTIANITY AND ITS MYSTERIES. (Continued.) Similarly, impressions are made on men's minds of Spiritual things. Such objects of ex¬ perience are the feelings of duty, of accountability, and of guilt. Good men are conscious of aspira¬ tions and desires for a higher degree of holiness ; for a higher state of existence, in which their minds shall have been enlightened, their affec¬ tions deepened, and their nature wholly sanctified. Others repose in reliance upon a person in whom love acts in and through righteousness, for forgiveness and for cleansing. According to Spiritual science, we infer from our experience of these feelings that realities exist without us which produce them, and that these realities are :—God, the moral law, the world to come, heaven and hell, and the Lord Jesus. But scientists may ask, What of superstition? Is not all this superstitious ? We readily admit that Spiritual experience is liable to injury or to disease, analogous to the. disease incident to the bodily senses, and that it is possible for men to have an experience which has no outward reality corresponding to it and producing it. Scientists will not have us to infer that the testimony of the eye and the ear are valueless, because sometimes, on account of disease, they bear false witness to experience. Some, as Christians, will not conclude that the testimony of an inward feeling of spiritual things is valueless, because that-disease of this feeling, which is called superstition, is found in many minds. We hold that the feelings of duty, of accountability, and of guilt—feelings within man which correspond to the doctrines of the Gospel without him—are as reliable facts as the testimonies of the eye and the ear to the existence of the material and external world. Directly, a knowledge through experience is only of value to the individual himself; it is only indirectly that his expression of his experience is of value to others. Many say that they have no proof of the truth of Christianity in their own experience. That cannot in any way refute the testimony of those who declare that they have that proof; for there is greater weight in the positive testimony of a few that they see or experience a thing, than in the negative testimony of thousands that they have not seen and have not experienced it, especially if they have not been in a proper position to see and experience it. But why are there thousands who have not experienced the truths of the Gospel, although they have the Bible in their hands, yes, and are familiar with its contents ? It is impossible to do justice to any book that has ever been written unless the reader will occupy the mental standpoint of the writer. Possibly it might be questioned whether the writer has chosen the best starting-point, as one might doubt whether an artist has taken up the best position from which to sketch a scene in nature ; but we cannot understand an ordinary writer aright without possessing some measure of his spirit, which implies that we place ourselves for the time, as far as we are able, on the mental standpoint which he occupied when- writing. The standpoint of all the holy writers is the Person of the Lord Jesus: therefrom they regarded this world and the world to come, God and man, time and eternity. In order to understand the doctrines at all, the student must place himself on the point of view of the holy writer ; whether he believes in the Divinity of the Person or not, this must be his view-point if he is to understand the Scriptures. While scientists view the doctrines of the Gospel from without, all that they see is the outward " covering of badgers' skins " ; if they entered " through His blood," they should feel that their feet trod holy ground on their way to the Holy of Holies. I believe that if scientists sought, not to believe nor to discuss the divine personality of the Lord Jesus, but simply, at the outset, to assume its truth, and from that assump¬ tion as a standpoint to look with the holy writers at all things in heaven and upon earth, they could not help being His disciples. This is what the true Christian does; and hence he attains to an experience that convinces him of the existence of spiritual realities. But someone may urge that these are mysteries pertaining to the Godhead, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the Exaltation, that are above and beyond experience. Very true ; but we maintain that what is within* experience and what is above ex¬ perience, in the Gospel, are parts of one whole, so that it is impossible for a Christian to deny the truth that is above, without denying the truth that is within experience ; and to deny the latter is clearly impossible. For instance, frequent contemplation of the Lord Jesus and His sacrifice stirs in the heart of the Christian a hatred of sin. That is a matter of experience ; but what creates hatred is the belief that the evil of sin is so great that it was necessary for a Divine Person to sacrifice himself in order to deliver men from it. This is the mystery of the Incarnation and the Atonement. If we leave out of account that the Lord Jesus was true God, and that His sacrifice was a real Atonement, what remains to create a greater hatred of sin in the sufferings of the Lord Jesus than in the sufferings of Stephen, and other martyrs ? This principle is found at the foundation of science no less than at the foundation of Christianity. If there is anything within experience indissolubly connected with some mystery above experience, we never reject the whole because of the mystery of the one part; we rather accept the whole on account of our experience of the other part. The proof given in the experience of anything conquers the mystery that is in it; more, the mystery itself is brought to minister unto experience—an experience of wonder in the infidel, an experience of wonder and worship in the Christian. 2. It is possible to accept the mysteries of the Gospel as truths on the ground of reason. There is a great general principle, in accordance with which we can do this. Whenever a supposed principle or fact exists, which in itself, its con¬ nections, and its scope, cannot be understood or comprehended, but which nevertheless explains facts and solves other mysteries, this principle should be accepted as a truth. Let it be noticed that we do not deem it sufficient that a supposed principle should explain one difficulty, for many suppositions might explain one thing ; we speak of the supposition of one principle explaining many difficulties. In the language of Paul (Eph. v. 13), "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light; " we believe in it as light, not because we can comprehend it, but because it explains other things. (To be continued.)