[22] Saturday Review, 6th April 1872.
This Easter week we have lost a man about whom opinions and feelings were much divided, who was by many of the best and most thoughtful among us looked on as the noblest and greatest of recent English teachers, and who certainly had that rare gift of inspiring enthusiasm and trust among honest and powerful minds in search of guidance, which belongs to none but to men of a very high order. Professor Maurice has ended a life of the severest and most unceasing toil1, still working to the utmost that failing bodily strength allowed—still to the last in harness. The general public, though his name is familiar to them, probably little measure the deep and passionate2 affection with which he was regarded by the circle of his friends and by those whose thoughts and purposes he had moulded; or the feeling which his loss causes in them of a blank, great and not to be filled up, not only personally for themselves, but in the agencies which are working most hopefully in English society. But even those who knew him least, and only from the outside, and whose points of view least coincided with his, must feel that there has been, now that we look back on his course, something singularly touching3 and even pathetic in the combination shown in all that he did, of high courage and spirit, and of unwearied faith and vigour4, with the deepest humility5 and with the sincerest disinterestedness6 and abnegation, which never allowed him to seek anything great for himself, and, in fact, distinguished7 and honoured as he was, never found it. For the sake of his generation we may regret that he did not receive the public recognition and honour which were assuredly his due; but in truth his was one of those careers which, for their own completeness and consistency8, gain rather than lose by escaping the distractions9 and false lights of what is called preferment.
The two features which strike us at the moment as characteristic of Mr. Maurice as a writer and teacher, besides the vast range both of his reading and thought, and the singularly personal tone and language of all that he wrote, are, first, the combination in him of the most profound and intense religiousness with the most boundless10 claim and exercise of intellectual liberty; and next, the value which he set, exemplifying his estimate in his own long and laborious11 course, on processes and efforts, as compared with conclusions and definite results, in that pursuit of truth which was to him the most sacred of duties. There is no want of earnest and fervent12 religion among us, intelligent, well-informed, deliberate, as well as of religion, to which these terms can hardly be applied13. And there is also no want of the boldest and most daring freedom of investigation14 and judgment15. But what Mr. Maurice seemed to see himself, and what he endeavoured to impress on others, was that religion and liberty are no natural enemies, but that the deepest and most absorbing forms of historical and traditional religion draw strength and seriousness of meaning, and binding16 obligation, from an alliance, frank and unconditional17, with what seem to many the risks, the perilous18 risks and chances, of freedom.
It was a position open to obvious and formidable criticism; but against this criticism is to be set the fact, that in a long and energetic life, in which amidst great trials and changes there was a singular uniformity and consistency of character maintained, he did unite the two—the most devout19 Christianity with the most fearless and unshrinking boldness in facing the latest announcements and possibilities of modern thought. That he always satisfactorily explained his point of view to others is more than can be said; but he certainly satisfied numbers of keen and anxious thinkers, who were discontented and disheartened both by religion as it is presented by our great schools and parties, and by science as its principles and consequences are expounded20 by the leading philosophical21 authorities of the day. The other point to which we have adverted22 partly explains the influence which he had with such minds. He had no system to formulate23 or to teach. He was singularly ready to accept, as adequate expressions of those truths in whose existence he so persistently24 believed, the old consecrated25 forms in which simpler times had attempted to express them. He believed that these truths are wider and vaster than the human mind which is to be made wiser and better by them. And his aim was to reach up to an ever more exact, and real, and harmonious26 hold of these truths, which in their essential greatness he felt to be above him; to reach to it in life as much as in thought. And so to the end he was ever striving, not so much to find new truths as to find the heart and core of old ones, the truth of the truth, the inner life and significance of the letter, of which he was always loth to refuse the traditional form. In these efforts at unfolding and harmonising there was considerable uniformity; no one could mistake Mr. Maurice's manner of presenting the meaning and bearing of an article of the Creed27 for the manner of any one else; but the result of this way of working, in the effect of the things which he said, and in his relations to different bodies of opinion and thought both in the Church and in society, was to give the appearance of great and important changes in his teaching and his general point of view, as life went on. This governing thought of his, of the immeasurably transcendent compass and height of all truths compared with the human mind and spirit which was to bow to them and to gain life and elevation28 by accepting them, explains the curious and at present almost unique combination in him, of deep reverence29 for the old language of dogmatic theology, and an energetic maintenance of its fitness and value, with dissatisfaction, equally deep and impartially30 universal, at the interpretations33 put on this dogmatic language by modern theological schools, and at the modes in which its meaning is applied by them both in directing thought and influencing practice. This habit of distinguishing sharply and peremptorily34 between dogmatic language and the popular reading of it at any given time is conspicuous35 in his earliest as in his latest handling of these subjects; in the pamphlet of 1835, Subscription36 no Bondage37, explaining and defending the old practice at Oxford38; and in the papers and letters, which have appeared from him in periodicals, on the Athanasian Creed, and which are, we suppose, almost his last writings.
The world at large thought Mr. Maurice obscure and misty39, and was, as was natural, impatient of such faults. The charge was, no doubt, more than partially31 true; and nothing but such genuine strength and comprehensive power as his could have prevented it from being a fatal one to his weight and authority. But it is not uninstructive to remember what was very much at the root of it. It had its origin, not altogether, but certainly in a great degree, in two of his moral characteristics. One was his stubborn, conscientious40 determination, at any cost of awkwardness, or apparent inconsistency, or imperfection of statement, to say out what he had to say, neither more nor less, just as he thought it, and just as he felt it, with the most fastidious care for truthful41 accuracy of meaning. He never would suffer what he considered either the connection or the balance and adjustment of varied42 and complementary truths to be sacrificed to force or point of expression; and he had to choose sometimes, as all people have, between a blurred43, clumsy, and ineffective picture and a consciously incomplete and untrue one. His choice never wavered; and as the artist's aim was high, and his skill not always equally at his command, he preferred the imperfection which left him the consciousness of honesty. The other cause which threw a degree of haze44 round his writings was the personal shape into which he was so fond of throwing his views. He shrunk from their enunciation45 as arguments and conclusions which claimed on their own account and by their own title the deference46 of all who read them; and he submitted them as what he himself had found and had been granted to see—the lessons and convictions of his own experience. Sympathy is, no doubt, a great bond among all men; but, after all, men's experience and their points of view are not all alike, and when we are asked to see with another's eyes, it is not always easy. Mr. Maurice's desire to give the simplest and most real form to his thoughts as they arose in his own mind contributed more often than he supposed to prevent others from entering into his meaning. He asked them to put themselves in his place. He did not sufficiently47 put himself in theirs.
But he has taught us great lessons, of the sacredness, the largeness, and, it may be added, the difficulty of truth; lessons of sympathy with one another, of true humility and self-conquest in the busy and unceasing activity of the intellectual faculties48. He has left no school and no system, but he has left a spirit and an example. We speak of him here only as those who knew him as all the world knew him; but those who were his friends are never tired of speaking of his grand simplicity49 of character, of his tenderness and delicacy50, of the irresistible51 spell of lovableness which won all within its reach. They remember how he spoke52, and how he read; the tones of a voice of singularly piercing clearness, which was itself a power of interpretation32, which revealed his own soul and went straight to the hearts of hearers. He has taken his full share in the controversies53 of our days, and there must be many opinions both about the line which he took, and even sometimes about the temper in which he carried on debate. But it is nothing but the plainest justice to say that he was a philosopher, a theologian, and, we may add, a prophet, of whom, for his great gifts, and, still more, for his noble and pure use of them, the modern English Church may well be proud.
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1
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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disinterestedness
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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consistency
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| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
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distractions
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| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
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boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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unconditional
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| adj.无条件的，无限制的，绝对的 | |
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perilous
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| adj.危险的，冒险的 | |
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devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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adverted
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| 引起注意（advert的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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formulate
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| v.用公式表示；规划；设计；系统地阐述 | |
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persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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elevation
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| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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impartially
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| adv.公平地，无私地 | |
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partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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interpretation
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| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
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interpretations
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| n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解 | |
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peremptorily
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| adv.紧急地，不容分说地，专横地 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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subscription
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| n.预订，预订费，亲笔签名，调配法，下标（处方） | |
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bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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truthful
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| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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44
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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45
enunciation
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| n.清晰的发音；表明，宣言；口齿 | |
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46
deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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49
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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51
irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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52
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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53
controversies
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| 争论 | |
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