The sermon was a description of the true nature of Christianity, and Jowett sought to give the description reality by applying it to the present time and present state of the world. The text was taken from St. Luke xviii. 8: When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find

faith on the earth 1?'

Were Christ to appear again on earth, he said, the new Gospel would be the old. It would not be a revelation to clear up our doubts on points of doctrine, and prove the truth of miracles, and explain the nature of a future life; it would only be the Sermon on the Mount, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the simple teaching: 'There shall be no sign given to this generation,' or, In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage.'

But would Christ at His coming find faith upon earth? In other words, what prospect is there of any great moral or religious improvement of mankind?' Jowett's answer was one of hope. He thought that there were indications in our time of a better state of the world for our descendants, if we would read them; the poor were being better educated and placed in a position of improved comfort and healthfulness; and if we pursue this path, the England of a hundred years hence might wear another and a smiling face.' 'The gospel,' he said, 'will not allow us to entertain the fatal doctrine that nations, like individuals, tend necessarily to decay; or that of human evils there is not a great part which kings and statesmen may cause or cure.' In regard to religious differences he already perceived a change; and, though it was not likely or even desirable that all the sects of Christendom should be united, yet the old animosities seemed to be dying out, and men of different opinions were working together

1 Sermon v. in College Sermons.

as they had not done hitherto, recognizing the accidental nature of their separation and the reality of the bond which united them. The opposition of science and religion, of faith and knowledge, would tend to disappear as both were better understood. 'Human life cannot be reconstructed out of the negative results of criticism or the dry bones of science.' And if the truths learned in later life seem to contradict the lessons of childhood, we must remember that no truth can really be at variance with any other, and wait for the reconcilement.'

6

These are a few of the signs of greater harmony prevailing in the world, and of the Spirit of Christ being more diffused among men. They may lead some of us to think of a new epoch in the history of Christianity bearing the same relation to the Christianity of the three last centuries which the Reformation did to the ages which preceded.'

At the close of the year (December 24), in a sermon 1 preached at the Old Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh, Jowett returned to this subject. By a comparison, or contrast, of Bunyan and Spinoza, he illustrated the opposition of faith and reason. And here, as in his sermon at St. Mary's, he dwells on the hope that the dissensions and schisms which divide the Christian world may be, or indeed are being, healed. While some were saying that knowledge would destroy faith, that science was the mortal foe of religion, he would say, 'You cannot destroy what is true and founded on some of the deepest instincts of human nature.' When some exalted the Church and dogma he would say, 'The points in which Christians may and do agree are more, and more important, than those in which they differ. Union is strength.

'It was substantially the same discourse which he delivered when he preached for the last time in

Westminster Abbey, on July 16, 1893.

Let us work together; for there is enough for us all to do, so long as there is evil and misery in the world.' It was this love and charity—this practical view of religion— which endeared him and his teaching to those who felt most keenly the difficulties of faith. More and more, as his life drew to a close, he insisted on this teaching. 'Those who do the works of Christ are Christians,' he said, 'whatever the name they bear.' And again: 'It is not with the very words of Christ, but with the best form of Christianity as the world has made it, or can make it, or will receive it, that we are concerned to-day. There is an ideal which we have to place before us, intimately connected with practical life-nothing if not a life-which may conveniently be spoken of as the life of Christ.'

If no one was more anxious than Jowett to see persons of all denominations gathering together at Oxford and at Balliol, the interest which he took in the services of the College Chapel was not in the least diminished by his wide sympathy. One of his first reforms had been the abolition of the answers to questions on the catechetical lectures. Every Balliol man of those days will remember this institution, which cast a gloom over the service on Sunday afternoons. Dr. Busby, of Westminster, had left money for a lecture to be given in Chapel on Christian Doctrine, and the Lecturer was compelled by the terms of the trust to put up on the Chapel door a number of questions to be answered by those who heard his lecture. Many attempts had been made to get rid of the lecture, or at least of the answers, but in vain. Jowett, on becoming Master, requested Mr. Palmer, the Lecturer for the time, to put up the questions as required, but to take no trouble in inquiring for the answers. This took the sting out of the matter, for of course, in good hands, the lectures were a connected series of excellent sermons, and the

only objection to them was that one preacher was heard too often 1.

Another reform which he now introduced was the shortening of the week-day services. This had occupied his attention for a year or more, and the reform-or change, for perhaps it was not universally regarded as a reform-was only introduced after long and careful consideration, and of course with the sanction of the Visitor 2. The change provoked criticism, but Jowett was certainly right in making it. Feeling so deeply as he did about the value of the Chapel service, he could not do otherwise than attempt to make it as attractive as possible. In the same spirit he promoted the introduction of music into the service, and the building of an organ. "The Chapel services,' he says, in a letter written about this time, 'seem to be successful; we have about thirty men who come voluntarily every day. I find much greater pleasure in going to Chapel than I ever did before.'

In my own undergraduate days, when the Chapel service was dreary enough-very plain prose indeed, except that now and then Jowett read the Epistle-it was one of the jests of the College that some one who proposed to him that there should be singing in Chapel, was met with the question, 'If we can praise God equally well in half an hour, why should we spend three-quarters of an hour over it?' But this, like other stories, is from the 'Apocrypha.' Jowett detested formality and ritualism; with him the spirit was always more than the letter; but he had a heartfelt interest in the services,

1 In a short time the lecture was discontinued, and the proceeds of the fund applied to a prize in theology, in pursuance of a scheme

sanctioned by the Charity Commissioners.

2 Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London.

and wished them to be attractive and well attended. Speaking once of some friends who, though eager in the cause of Church Reform, were not very regular in their own attendance at Chapel-'Our friends,' he said (and he was looking out on the Chapel as he said it)—' our friends are the "buttresses of the Church!"

Jowett's visit to Edinburgh was made for the purpose of delivering two lectures to the members of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. The subject was Boswell's Life of Johnson-a book dear to him almost above all others. I have read it fifty times,' he wrote. Johnson's sound sense, his brilliant powers of conversation, his knowledge of the world, his manliness and resolute struggles against depression, were qualities which appealed to Jowett; he was never weary of quoting him, and applied his words with the greatest ingenuity to the most varied circumstances. The 'Life and Character of Johnson' was a subject which he frequently set for the weekly essay in College, and I well remember the tone in which he once remarked to me that " was a wretched fellow; he brought me an essay on the vices of Johnson.' I do not suppose that the writer of the essay has forgotten the incident. At a later time, when as Vice-Chancellor he was closely connected with the Clarendon Press, he took the keenest interest in Dr. Hill's edition of Boswell's Life, which is dedicated to him as 'Viro Johnsonianissimo.' That such a book as Boswell's could have been written by a man of ordinary ability was quite contrary to his views of what genius is. 'We can

1 'On an occasion when his merits were discussed among some lawyers, a warm partisan of the Chancellor extolled him as "a pillar of the Church." "No," retorted another; "he may be one

of its buttresses, but certainly not one of its pillars, for he is never seen inside its walls."-From Lord Campbell's 'Character of Lord Eldon,' Lives, vii. 716.