sphere of human duties, and woke to his earthly relationships one by one, the son, the brother, the citizen, the master.'

There are some beautiful passages in a sermon on "The first Miracle,' one of which we will quote, illustrative of the complete humanity of Christ.

'Our humanity is a whole, made up of two opposite poles of charac ter-the manly and the feminine. In the character of Christ neither was found exclusively, but both in perfect balance. He was the Son of Man-the human being-perfect man. There was in him the womanheart as well as the manly brain; all that was most manly, and all that was most womanly. Remember what he was in life; recollect his stern, iron hardness in the temptation of the desert; recollect the calmness that never quailed in all the uproars of the people, the trai that never faltered, the strict, severe integrity which characterised the Witness of the truth; recollect the justice that never gave way weak feeling which let the rich young ruler go his way to perish if he would-which paid the tribute-money-which held the balance fair between the persecuted woman and her accuser, but did not sufer itself to be betrayed by sympathy into any feeble tenderness-the justice that rebuked Peter with indignation, and pronounced the doom of Jerusalem unswervingly. Here is one side or pole of human cha racter, surely not the feminine side. Now, look at the other; recollect the twice recorded tears, which a man would have been ashamed to show, and which are never beautiful in man except when joined with strength like his; and recollect the sympathy craved and yearned for as well as given-the shrinking from solitude in prayer-the trembling of a sorrow unto death-the considerate care which pro vided bread for the multitude, and said to the tired disciples, as with a sister's rather than a brother's thoughtfulness, "Come ye apart the desert, and rest awhile." This is the other side or pole of human character, surely not the masculine.'

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Almost the first glance into these sermons will reveal to you the spirit of a man who longs for truth and reality more than for daily bread-of a man who cuts sheer down into the heart of things, and who resolutely will strip life and religion of all that is conventional, and look then at them not as they seem, but as they eternally are. There is as little of the Churchman about him as possible; you might read ten sermons out of a dozen, and not know that he was a clergyman. But, as with Kingsley and Maurice, you are here and there slightly annoyed that he should be so anxious about the Prayer Book, and should spend so much superior force of intellect to make his statements square with the formulas of that manual. But let that pass. We can, neverthe less, appreciate such passages as the following. Speaking of the ministry of John the Baptist, he says, 'We have another cause to assign for John's success. Men felt that he was real. Reality is the secret of all services. Religion in Jerusalem had long become a thing of forms. Men had settled into a routine of externals as if all religion centred in these. Decencies and proprieties formed the sub

stance of human life.

And here was a man in God's world once more, who felt that religion was an everlasting reality; here was a man once more, to tell the world that life is sliding into an abyss; that all we see is but a shadow; that the invisible life within is the only real. Here was a man who could feel the splendours of God shining into his soul in the desert without the aid of forms. His locust-food, his hair-garment, his indifference to earthly comforts, spoke out once more that one at least would make it a conviction to live and die upon, that man does not live upon bread alone, but on the living word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And when that crowd dispersed at sunset, and John was left alone in the twilight, with the infinite of darkness deepening round him, and, the roll of Jordan by his side, reflecting the chaste clear stars, there was something there higher than Pharisaic forms to speak to him. There was heaven and eternity to force him to be real. This life was swiftly passing. What was it to a man living like John, but a show and a dream? He was homeless upon earth. Well, but beyond, beyond, in the blue eternities above, there was the prophet's home. He had cut himself off from the solaces of life. He was to make an enemy of the man of honour, Herod. He had made an enemy of the man of religion, the Pharisee. But he was passing into that country, where it matters little whether a man has been clothed in finest linen or in coarsest camel's-hair; that still country, where the struggle storm of life is over, and such as John find their rest at last in the home of God, which is reserved for the true and brave. If perpetual familiarity with such thoughts as these cannot make a man real, there is nothing in this world that

can.'

As a fitting supplement and commentary to the foregoing passage, take the following from the sermon on 'The Glory of the Divine Son,' as illustrative of his deep insight into the real nature of life's struggle:

'The ascetic life of abstinence, of fasting, austerity, singularity, is the lower and earthlier form of religion. The life of godliness is the glory of Christ. It is a thing far more striking to the vulgar imagination to be religious, after the type and pattern of John the Baptist -to fast to mortify every inclination-to be found at no feast-to wrap ourselves in solitariness and abstain from all social joys—yes, and far easier so to live, and far easier so to win a character for religiousness. A silent man is easily reputed wise. A man who suffers none to see him in the common jostle and undress of life easily gathers round him a mysterious veil of unknown sanctity, and men honour him for a saint. The unknown is always wonderful. But the life of Him whom men called a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners, was a far harder and a far heavenlier religion. To shroud ourselves in no false mist of holiness: to dare to show ourselves as we are, making no solemn affectation of reserve or difference from others: to be found at the marriage feast: to accept the invitation of the rich Pharisee Simon and the scorned Publican Zac

cheus: to mix with the crowd of men, using no affected singularity, content to be creatures not too bright or good for human nature's daily food and yet for a man amidst it all to remain a consecrated spirit, his trials and his solitariness known only to his Father, a being set apart, not of this world, alone in the heart's deeps with God to put the cup of this world's gladness to his lips and yet be unintoxicated: to gaze steadily on all its grandure, and yet be undazzled, plain and simple in personal desires: to feel its brightness, and yet defy its thrall: this is the difficult and rare and glorious life of God in the soul of man. This, this was the peculiar glory of the life of Christ, which was manifested in that first miracle which Jesus wrought at the marriage-feast in Cana of Galilee.'

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We make no apology for so many extracts, inasmuch as they serve as the best introduction of the author to the reader. In reading these sermons we have often been reminded of two very different men, both of whom have exerted a deep influence on the religious culture of the present day John Foster and Thomas Carlyle. There is the deep solemnity of thought and feeling which you find in Foster, and the same stern rebuke of fashionable sins and follies. But in Robertson the great intellectual feats are performed with more facility and grace than in Foster. And, on the other hand, in Foster's lectures you passages which are like volcanic eruptions of thought-grand and fearful, illuminating the horizon far and wide. If Foster had had Robertson's early and university education, he might have added more of the latter's dexterous strength to his own depth and original might. But we are more frequently reminded of Thomas Carlyle. Though there is not a particle of affectation, nor a trace of imitation, to be found in these sermons, you cannot help feeling how much unconscious influence the great Pagan has exercised upon the mind of this great Christian clergyman. Carlyle worships intellect, and strength, and beauty, like his great idol, Goethe. But Robertson worships Christ as the incarnation of God and goodness, Christianizes all the influence he has received from the Titan at Chelsea, reposes upon the grand faith of the New Testament, and enjoys the sublime triumph over Sin and Death, which Christ, and Christ alone, can impart to erring man. That pure and lofty spirit, after a brief sojourn here amid the toils of thought and action, has gone-gone where doubt receives its solution, and faith its bright reward.

Christian Doctrine and Controversy.

'There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversy, his senses awakened, his judgment sharpened, and the truth more firmly established. Being permitted, falsehood will appear more false, and truth the more true.'-MILTON: On True Religion.

'Nor is it at all incredible, that a book which has been so long in the possession of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscovered. For all the same phenomena, and the same faculty of investigation, from which such great discoveries in natural knowledge have been made in the present and last were equally in the possession of mankind several thousand years before." BISHOP BUTLER: Analogy of Religion.

JUDAS ISCARIOT.*

age,

Was Judas insane? This is a question more frequently put than settled by any satisfactory reply. To those who look upon the entire and shallow policy of the whole of this man's discipular life, which he undoubtedly regarded as a profound act of self-concealment, his parting with so grand a chance of gold for thirty pieces of silver, or his supposing that the return of the blood-money would bring his bad associates to their senses, as proofs of a lack of ordinary reason, the belief in Judas's want of adequate rational powers is inevitable. It does, indeed, to us appear incredible that the betrayer, if sound, could persuade himself that he was able to conceal the genuine state of his soul from that Divine Master of his, whom he daily witnessed to be giving proof with what promptitude he read all souls. But if Judas was insane, how came he among the disciples of Christ, who, on other occasions, showed how sensitively he declined the attendance of a healed maniac? (Mark v. 19.) When insanity begins there is an end of responsibility; and whatever might have been the mischievous conduct of Judas Iscariot, he could not have been justly liable to the imputations of Christ, who accused him of betrayal, and said, 'It had been good for that man if he had not been born!'. If the conduct of Judas in sundry of its aspects presented itself to us as actions without adequate reasons, or purposes impossible of fulfilment, or motives that, however labouring to conceal themselves, must become known, this is only in harmony with any sinful course reviewed by right reason; for what but madness is the self-destroying progress of the drunkard, the thief, or the unclean, who are all the time laying the flattering unction to their souls how cleverly they have managed their affairs, and what extraordinary exceptions they are to the rule of equal-handed punishment? All sin is a species of moral madness; but because it is only

* The Editor inserts this paper, not by any means as expressing the opinions of the Christian Spectator' on this subject, but as presenting an able and original statement of that side of the question which the writer has adopted. While it is probable that no reader will be able to give his assent to the author's opinions, there will be very few, we are sure, who will not be glad to have had an opportunity of knowing and weighing them.

moral, it retains its culpability: and it is this moral madness which, to the review of adjusted reason, becomes that fierce element of remorse, of which everyone has too much conscious knowledge.

Had it been the design, however, of Judas Iscariot, by his betrayal, to have injured Christ or his cause, he would certainly have adopted a different plan of proceeding. He might not be learned, nor have in him any of that believing foresight which would have enabled him to prefigurate his own conduct a thousand years afterwards; but it required neither to have convinced Judas, that whatever fate might attend the names of Caiaphas, Pilate, or Nicodemus, the name of Christ would survive that generation, and that his story would be read by remote nations. Now, if the traitor only thought of injuring Christ by his malevolent communication with his sacerdotal accomplices, would have concocted some story plausible enough to secure it cre dence with the court parties. He might have launched against his private character some of the inuendoes in which modern scepticism occasionally indulges; or he might have weakened the proofs of his celestial commission by denying that his miraculous power was always efficacious; or have attempted to criminate Christ either in the sin cerity of his patients, or the honest intentions of his disciples. Had any of these accusations been brought by Judas Iscariot against Jesus Christ, or others as imaginable, they would have shown a deeper baseness of purpose, and a heart more maliciously antagonistic to his Master. Bad enough, indeed, was Judas Iscariot, but he was not thus far lost to every sense of propriety as to take a pleasure, apart from his own interest, in the degradation of his Master. It may be a hopeless, and even a thankless, employment to show that Judas was not a tithe as guilty as many of our quasi religious writers, who, with vastly more evidence of the Saviour's power before them, rise against it all, reverse the maxims of common sense, set all historic proof at defiance, treat with contumelious scorn the brief annals of his disciples, and dare to proclaim that if Jesus Christ were not an ordinary man, he was an impostor! And yet these men mix among us without being signalized by any mark of scorn, while every nominal Christian child mentions the name of Judas with a feeling which belongs only to the chief of sinners.' As we are not the final judges of each other, it is only an exercise of that charity which we hope future show to the present, not to make men greater sinners than they really were; and above all things, by a discriminating judgment in those qualities and circumstances that so materially modify the value of all human actions to avoid the Sultan's rule, that all bad acts are superlatively evil. The conduct of Judas was a perfidy of a rare order, but it was not as perfidious as it might have been, or he would have attempted to blacken the character of Christ, and to blast the designs of his apostles, or have originated such slanders of both, of the end of which the most critical acumen could have never dared to predict. Had Judas hated Christ or despised his apostolic brethren, he would have made such efforts, and as he did not, there is room to believe that he in reality respected his Master and his disciples, and treated

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