THE ASCENT OF MAN FROM

SAVAGERY.

Morning, May 30th, 1875.

"But Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes. And Adoni-bezek said, Three-score and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me.”—Judges i. 6, 7.

When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.”—LUKE xiv. 13.

*

THAT marvellous passage in the Book of Deuteronomy which I read to you, I saw was very unfamiliar to some of you, and even those who have read it were, perhaps, never struck with the mingled beauty and pathos in it. It is like that coat of little Joseph's-of many colours; but, like what that coat was after the father saw it, oh! so dyed in blood. It tells you that every wrong

* Deut. xxii.

doer captured in the city was to be put to death by stoning. And in another passage of that Old Testament, the commandment is given that every man, woman, and child shall be put to the sword.* The commandment is, of course, preceded by a "Thus saith the Lord;" for that trumpet must be blown before everything, whether it be the slaughter of innocents, or the making of a law. Then, in the twenty-second chapter, it tells you about the little birds and their nests, and bids you be merciful to them. And next it tells you to go out of your way to take back a man's cattle that have strayed. Such infinite sweetnesses and gentlenesses are there, yet such terrible vengefulness; so wrathful, yet so genial.

In the Law of Moses, rightly studied, we see the highest and divinest in man asserting itself amidst things that are low, fierce, carnal, brutal, and beastlike. Whether man is a fallen creature, or whether he began low down in the scale of creation and has worked his way up, I cannot tell you. I have never been in Paradise myself; and, dwelling always on the wrong side of it, I have never seen the "flaming sword," proclaiming on which side lies my life.

* Deut. vii. 2; xx. 16; ii. 34; and Joshua, chapters vi. and viii.

But it is very certain that if you look to the facts of man's life, you will find that, whether any doctrine of evolution be scientifically true or not, there is working out of man, slowly, the ape, the tiger, the beast. For remember, in man is everything that is below man. There is nothing chemical, that is not in the body of man; there is no mechanical motion that does not find its perfectest example in man's organism; there is no element to which he does not claim relationship. Herbert says that everything serves man's body; but as man ascends into the spiritual, all things are made to serve his spirit.* And he says that man is a beast; but this should

*For us the winds do blow,

The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow;
Nothing we see but means our good,

As our delight or as our treasure ;

The whole is either our cupboard of food

Or cabinet of pleasure.

The stars have us to bed:

Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws;

Music and light attend our head.

All things unto our flesh are kind

In their descent and being; to our mind

In their ascent and cause.

GEORGE HERBERT.

("George Herbert, the beautiful psalmist of the seven

teenth century."-EMERSON.)

But

not be so, for he should rise above the beast. those of you who are fond of tracing resemblances, will find that all that there is in the lower creatures is still in us; although it may seem to be worked out, killed, put to death.

One of the most lovely studies in natural history is to see the gradual rise from the lowest to the loftiest, and to see how, as they come into the neighbourhood of man, all things borrow from him. The magpie and the parrot are there, to pick up the crumbs that fall from his table; and, by-and-by, they go to school to him, and learn his speech. The ape tells tales of relationship to man, and the monkey shows signs of a common brotherhood. A cage of monkeys is one of the chiefest pleasures to the satirist—one of the chief joys of the humorist. A monkey is almost the only creature who comes near to man in his pure love of mischief; they share it together. Then there is the ant; he has his savings bank and his store-house. Joseph in Egypt was not more provident than he. He lays up for the winter, and has stores against the time of frost. And some of the divinest instincts of man are seen in the little bees; they come very close to him in their republics, and queenships, and governments of all kinds. Whoso watches a hive of bees, watches

heroics. If, with your finger-nail, you just scratch the mouth of the hive, you shall, in a moment, see two well-appointed sentinels come out to inquire what danger threatens the holy city; and then, when they are assured that all is right, in they go to take up their place again as guards of the house. And they understand sanitary laws; and carry them out, too! Man is the only creature who is deliberately nasty. Whoso watches' the bees watches the instincts of humanity, and higher than those of average humanity.

In this wondrous world, each stone has a history, if we could but read it. All that is in man may be found out of man, and all that is below man has been gradually coming toward him. There is very much of the ape in man now, and you know it. Tigers, and all fierce things, dwell in him.

Wild beasts are naturally cruel; and man is not less cruel, in his savage state. Here, in this chapter of JUDGES, is a man who has made a feast. He has conquered three score and ten kings, and he has got them under his table; and he has cut off their thumbs and their great toes. What can we say, but that he is a beast-a savage beast? In him we see a mixture of civilisation and sneaking savagery. He is like a cat; for a cat is a beast in