Page:A charge delivered at the ordinary visitation of the archdeaconry of Chichester in July, 1843.djvu/51

47 which implies that something is morally wrong. Perfect health is unconscious: there is something diseased as soon as we begin to search into and reason about the functions of life. Points must be disputed or doubted, or at least cannot be self-evident, cannot be seen and felt in action and energy, if they need to be discussed and proved by syllogisms: and no syllogisms in the world will make people cling to a system which does not attest its mission by the powers and virtues which heal the spiritual wounds of mankind. Neither will any syllogism detach or estrange men from a system which they know and feel to be a source of healing and benediction to their inmost life. Let us exhibit this, and we may lay aside nine-tenths of our argumentation. What men want is a reality which will solve their own perplexed being, guide their repentance, bring them into fellowship with Christ our Redeemer, console them in sorrow, stay them up in the season of temptation, in the hour of death, in the day of judgment. If we will but give such a Church to them, they will defend it by the earnest practical controversy of loving and obeying it.

I will add only one more remark. In all earnestness, there is danger of an abrupt, unsympathising, and repulsive tone. It is the fault incident to strong characters, and especially to those that do not spare themselves. Such men often degenerate into a dryness and hardness of mind, in which they are well