Page:Collingwood - Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll.djvu/314

Rh 290 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF At the beginning of 1894 a Baptist minister, preaching on the text, " No man Uveth to himself," made use of " Sylvie and Bruno " to enforce his argument. After saying that he had been reading that book, he proceeded as follows : — - A child was asked to define charity. He said it was "givin' away what yer didn't want yerself." This was some people's idea of self-sacrifice ; but it was not Christ's. Then as to serving others in view of reward : Mr. Lewis Carroll put this view of the subject very forcibly in his " Sylvie and Bruno " — an excel- lent book for youth ; indeed, for men and women too. He first criticised Archdeacon Paley's definition of virtue (which was said to be " the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness,") and then turned to such hymns as the following : — Whatever, T.ord, we lend to Thee, Repaid a thousandfold shall be, Then gladly will we give to Thee, Giver of all ! Mr. Carroll's comment was brief and to the point. He said : " Talk of Original Sin I Can you have a stronger proof of the Original Goodness there must be in this nation than the fact that Religion has been preached to us, as a commercial specu- lation, for a century, and that we still believe in a God ? " [" Sylvie and Bruno," Part i., pp. 276, 277.] Of course it was quite true, as Mr. Carroll pointed out, that our good deeds would be rewarded ; but we ought to do them because they were good, and not because the reward was great. In the Preface to " Sylvie and Bruno," Lewis