Pleasant to the clerical flesh under such circumstances is the arrival of Sunday! Somewhat at a disadvantage during the week, in the presence of working-day interests and lay splendors40, p. 66on Sunday the preacher becomes the cynosure41 of a thousand eyes, and predominates at once over the Amphitryon with whom he dines, and the most captious42 member of his church or vestry. He has an immense advantage over all other public speakers. The platform orator43 is subject to the criticism of hisses45 and groans46. Counsel for the plaintiff expects the retort of counsel for the defendant47. The honorable gentleman on one side of the House is liable to have his facts and figures shown up by his honorable friend on the opposite side. Even the scientific or literary lecturer, if he is dull or incompetent48, may see the best part of his audience quietly slip out one by one. But the preacher is completely master of the situation: no one may hiss44, no one may depart. Like the writer of imaginary conversations, he may put what imbecilities he pleases into the mouths of his antagonists49, and swell50 with triumph when he has refuted them. He may riot in gratuitous51 assertions, confident that no man will contradict him; he may exercise perfect free-will in logic52, and invent illustrative experience; he may give an evangelical edition of history with the inconvenient facts omitted:—all this he may do with impunity53, certain that those of his hearers who are not sympathizing are not listening. For the Press has no band of critics who go the round of the churches and chapels55, and are on the watch for a slip or defect in the preacher, to make a “feature” in their article: the clergy56 are, practically, the most irresponsible of all talkers. For this reason, at least, it is well that they do not always allow their discourses57 to be merely fugitive59, but are often induced to fix them in that black and white in which they are open to the criticism of any man who has the courage and patience to treat them with thorough freedom of speech and pen.
It is because we think this criticism of clerical teaching desirable for the public good that we devote some pages to Dr. Cumming. He is, as every one knows, a preacher of immense popularity, and of the numerous publications in which he perpetuates60 his pulpit labors61, all circulate widely, and some, according p. 67to their title-page, have reached the sixteenth thousand. Now our opinion of these publications is the very opposite of that given by a newspaper eulogist: we do not “believe that the repeated issues of Dr. Cumming’s thoughts are having a beneficial effect on society,” but the reverse; and hence, little inclined as we are to dwell on his pages, we think it worth while to do so, for the sake of pointing out in them what we believe to be profoundly mistaken and pernicious. Of Dr. Cumming personally we know absolutely nothing: our acquaintance with him is confined to a perusal62 of his works, our judgment63 of him is founded solely64 on the manner in which he has written himself down on his pages. We know neither how he looks nor how he lives. We are ignorant whether, like St. Paul, he has a bodily presence that is weak and contemptible65, or whether his person is as florid and as prone66 to amplification67 as his style. For aught we know, he may not only have the gift of prophecy, but may bestow68 the profits of all his works to feed the poor, and be ready to give his own body to be burned with as much alacrity69 as he infers the everlasting70 burning of Roman Catholics and Puseyites. Out of the pulpit he may be a model of justice, truthfulness71, and the love that thinketh no evil; but we are obliged to judge of his charity by the spirit we find in his sermons, and shall only be glad to learn that his practice is, in many respects, an amiable72 non sequitur from his teaching.
Dr. Cumming’s mind is evidently not of the pietistic order. There is not the slightest leaning toward mysticism in his Christianity—no indication of religious raptures73, of delight in God, of spiritual communion with the Father. He is most at home in the forensic74 view of Justification75, and dwells on salvation76 as a scheme rather than as an experience. He insists on good works as the sign of justifying77 faith, as labors to be achieved to the glory of God, but he rarely represents them as the spontaneous, necessary outflow of a soul filled with Divine love. He is at home in the external, the polemical, the historical, the circumstantial, and is only episodically devout78 and p. 68practical. The great majority of his published sermons are occupied with argument or philippic against Romanists and unbelievers, with “vindications” of the Bible, with the political interpretation of prophecy, or the criticism of public events; and the devout aspiration79, or the spiritual and practical exhortation80, is tacked81 to them as a sort of fringe in a hurried sentence or two at the end. He revels82 in the demonstration that the Pope is the Man of Sin; he is copious83 on the downfall of the Ottoman empire; he appears to glow with satisfaction in turning a story which tends to show how he abashed84 an “infidel;” it is a favorite exercise with him to form conjectures85 of the process by which the earth is to be burned up, and to picture Dr. Chalmers and Mr. Wilberforce being caught up to meet Christ in the air, while Romanists, Puseyites, and infidels are given over to gnashing of teeth. But of really spiritual joys and sorrows, of the life and death of Christ as a manifestation86 of love that constrains87 the soul, of sympathy with that yearning88 over the lost and erring89 which made Jesus weep over Jerusalem, and prompted the sublime91 prayer, “Father, forgive them,” of the gentler fruits of the Spirit, and the peace of God which passeth understanding—of all this, we find little trace in Dr. Cumming’s discourses.
His style is in perfect correspondence with this habit of mind. Though diffuse93, as that of all preachers must be, it has rapidity of movement, perfect clearness, and some aptness of illustration. He has much of that literary talent which makes a good journalist—the power of beating out an idea over a large space, and of introducing far-fetched à propos. His writings have, indeed, no high merit: they have no originality94 or force of thought, no striking felicity of presentation, no depth of emotion. Throughout nine volumes we have alighted on no passage which impressed us as worth extracting, and placing among the “beauties,” of evangelical writers, such as Robert Hall, Foster the Essayist, or Isaac Taylor. Everywhere there is commonplace cleverness, nowhere a spark of rare p. 69thought, of lofty sentiment, or pathetic tenderness. We feel ourselves in company with a voluble retail96 talker, whose language is exuberant97 but not exact, and to whom we should never think of referring for precise information or for well-digested thought and experience. His argument continually slides into wholesale98 assertion and vague declamation99, and in his love of ornament100 he frequently becomes tawdry. For example, he tells us (“Apoc. Sketches,” p. 265) that “Botany weaves around the cross her amaranthine garlands; and Newton comes from his starry101 home—Linn?us from his flowery resting-place—and Werner and Hutton from their subterranean102 graves at the voice of Chalmers, to acknowledge that all they learned and elicited103 in their respective provinces has only served to show more clearly that Jesus of Nazareth is enthroned on the riches of the universe:”—and so prosaic104 an injunction to his hearers as that they should choose a residence within an easy distance of church, is magnificently draped by him as an exhortation to prefer a house “that basks105 in the sunshine of the countenance106 of God.” Like all preachers of his class, he is more fertile in imaginative paraphrase107 than in close exposition, and in this way he gives us some remarkable108 fragments of what we may call the romance of Scripture25, filling up the outline of the record with an elaborate coloring quite undreamed of by more literal minds. The serpent, he informs us, said to Eve, “Can it be so? Surely you are mistaken, that God hath said you shall die, a creature so fair, so lovely, so beautiful. It is impossible. The laws of nature and physical science tell you that my interpretation is correct; you shall not die. I can tell you by my own experience as an angel that you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (“Apoc. Sketches,” p. 294.) Again, according to Dr. Cumming, Abel had so clear an idea of the Incarnation and Atonement, that when he offered his sacrifice “he must have said, ‘I feel myself a guilty sinner, and that in myself I cannot meet thee alive; I lay on thine altar this victim, and I shed its blood as my testimony109 that mine should be shed; and I look for forgiveness and undeserved mercy through p. 70him who is to bruise110 the serpent’s head, and whose atonement this typifies.’” (“Occas. Disc.” vol. i. p. 23.) Indeed, his productions are essentially111 ephemeral; he is essentially a journalist, who writes sermons instead of leading articles, who, instead of venting112 diatribes113 against her Majesty’s Ministers, directs his power of invective114 against Cardinal115 Wiseman and the Puseyites; instead of declaiming on public spirit, perorates on the “glory of God.” We fancy he is called, in the more refined evangelical circles, an “intellectual preacher;” by the plainer sort of Christians116, a “flowery preacher;” and we are inclined to think that the more spiritually minded class of believers, who look with greater anxiety for the kingdom of God within them than for the visible advent of Christ in 1864, will be likely to find Dr. Cumming’s declamatory flights and historico-prophetical exercitations as little better than “clouts o’ cauld parritch.”
Such is our general impression from his writings after an attentive117 perusal. There are some particular characteristics which we shall consider more closely, but in doing so we must be understood as altogether declining any doctrinal discussion. We have no intention to consider the grounds of Dr. Cumming’s dogmatic system, to examine the principles of his prophetic exegesis118, or to question his opinion concerning the little horn, the river Euphrates, or the seven vials. We identify ourselves with no one of the bodies whom he regards it as his special mission to attack: we give our adhesion neither to Romanism, Puseyism, nor to that anomalous119 combination of opinions which he introduces to us under the name of infidelity. It is simply as spectators that we criticise120 Dr. Cumming’s mode of warfare121, and we concern ourselves less with what he holds to be Christian truth than with his manner of enforcing that truth, less with the doctrines122 he teaches than with the moral spirit and tendencies of his teaching.
One of the most striking characteristics of Dr. Cumming’s writings is unscrupulosity of statement. His motto apparently124 is, Christianitatem, quocunque modo, Christianitatem; and the p. 71only system he includes under the term Christianity is Calvinistic Protestantism. Experience has so long shown that the human brain is a congenial nidus for inconsistent beliefs that we do not pause to inquire how Dr. Cumming, who attributes the conversion125 of the unbelieving to the Divine Spirit, can think it necessary to co-operate with that Spirit by argumentative white lies. Nor do we for a moment impugn126 the genuineness of his zeal for Christianity, or the sincerity127 of his conviction that the doctrines he preaches are necessary to salvation; on the contrary, we regard the flagrant unveracity that we find on his pages as an indirect result of that conviction—as a result, namely, of the intellectual and moral distortion of view which is inevitably129 produced by assigning to dogmas, based on a very complex structure of evidence, the place and authority of first truths. A distinct appreciation130 of the value of evidence—in other words, the intellectual perception of truth—is more closely allied131 to truthfulness of statement, or the moral quality of veracity128, than is generally admitted. There is not a more pernicious fallacy afloat, in common parlance132, than the wide distinction made between intellect and morality. Amiable impulses without intellect, man may have in common with dogs and horses; but morality, which is specifically human, is dependent on the regulation of feeling by intellect. All human beings who can be said to be in any degree moral have their impulses guided, not indeed always by their own intellect, but by the intellect of human beings who have gone before them, and created traditions and associations which have taken the rank of laws. Now that highest moral habit, the constant preference of truth, both theoretically and practically, pre-eminently133 demands the co-operation of the intellect with the impulses, as is indicated by the fact that it is only found in anything like completeness in the highest class of minds. In accordance with this we think it is found that, in proportion as religious sects134 exalt135 feeling above intellect, and believe themselves to be guided by direct inspiration rather than by a spontaneous exertion136 of their faculties137—that is, in proportion as p. 72they are removed from rationalism—their sense of truthfulness is misty138 and confused. No one can have talked to the more enthusiastic Methodists and listened to their stories of miracles without perceiving that they require no other passport to a statement than that it accords with their wishes and their general conception of God’s dealings; nay139, they regard as a symptom of sinful scepticism an inquiry140 into the evidence for a story which they think unquestionably tends to the glory of God, and in retailing141 such stories, new particulars, further tending to his glory, are “borne in” upon their minds. Now, Dr. Cumming, as we have said, is no enthusiastic pietist: within a certain circle—within the mill of evangelical orthodoxy—his intellect is perpetually at work; but that principle of sophistication which our friends the Methodists derive142 from the predominance of their pietistic feelings, is involved for him in the doctrine123 of verbal inspiration; what is for them a state of emotion submerging the intellect, is with him a formula imprisoning143 the intellect, depriving it of its proper function—the free search for truth—and making it the mere58 servant-of-all-work to a foregone conclusion. Minds fettered144 by this doctrine no longer inquire concerning a proposition whether it is attested145 by sufficient evidence, but whether it accords with Scripture; they do not search for facts, as such, but for facts that will bear out their doctrine. They become accustomed to reject the more direct evidence in favor of the less direct, and where adverse146 evidence reaches demonstration they must resort to devices and expedients148 in order to explain away contradiction. It is easy to see that this mental habit blunts not only the perception of truth, but the sense of truthfulness, and that the man whose faith drives him into fallacies treads close upon the precipice149 of falsehood.
We have entered into this digression for the sake of mitigating150 the inference that is likely to be drawn151 from that characteristic of Dr. Cumming’s works to which we have pointed152. He is much in the same intellectual condition as that professor of Padua; who, in order to disprove Galileo’s discovery of p. 73Jupiter’s satellites, urged that as there were only seven metals there could not be more than seven planets—a mental condition scarcely compatible with candor154. And we may well suppose that if the professor had held the belief in seven planets, and no more, to be a necessary condition of salvation, his mental condition would have been so dazed that even if he had consented to look through Galileo’s telescope, his eyes would have reported in accordance with his inward alarms rather than with the external fact. So long as a belief in propositions is regarded as indispensable to salvation, the pursuit of truth as such is not possible, any more than it is possible for a man who is swimming for his life to make meteorological observations on the storm which threatens to overwhelm him. The sense of alarm and haste, the anxiety for personal safety, which Dr. Cumming insists upon as the proper religious attitude, unmans the nature, and allows no thorough, calm thinking no truly noble, disinterested155 feeling. Hence, we by no means suspect that the unscrupulosity of statement with which we charge Dr. Cumming, extends beyond the sphere of his theological prejudices; we do not doubt that, religion apart, he appreciates and practices veracity.
A grave general accusation156 must be supported by details, and in adducing those we purposely select the most obvious cases of misrepresentation—such as require no argument to expose them, but can be perceived at a glance. Among Dr. Cumming’s numerous books, one of the most notable for unscrupulosity of statement is the “Manual of Christian Evidences,” written, as he tells us in his Preface, not to give the deepest solutions of the difficulties in question, but to furnish Scripture Readers, City Missionaries157, and Sunday School Teachers, with a “ready reply” to sceptical arguments. This announcement that readiness was the chief quality sought for in the solutions here given, modifies our inference from the other qualities which those solutions present; and it is but fair to presume that when the Christian disputant is not in a hurry Dr. Cumming would recommend replies less ready and more p. 74veracious. Here is an example of what in another place [74] he tells his readers is “change in their pocket . . . a little ready argument which they can employ, and therewith answer a fool according to his folly158.” From the nature of this argumentative small coin, we are inclined to think Dr. Cumming understands answering a fool according to his folly to mean, giving him a foolish answer. We quote from the “Manual of Christian Evidences,” p. 62.
“Some of the gods which the heathen worshipped were among the greatest monsters that ever walked the earth. Mercury was a thief; and because he was an expert thief he was enrolled159 among the gods. Bacchus was a mere sensualist and drunkard, and therefore he was enrolled among the gods. Venus was a dissipated and abandoned courtesan, and therefore she was enrolled among the goddesses. Mars was a savage160, that gloried in battle and in blood, and therefore he was deified and enrolled among the gods.”
Does Dr. Cumming believe the purport161 of these sentences? If so, this passage is worth handing down as his theory of the Greek myth—as a specimen162 of the astounding163 ignorance which was possible in a metropolitan preacher, a.d. 1854. And if he does not believe them . . . The inference must then be, that he thinks delicate veracity about the ancient Greeks is not a Christian virtue164, but only a “splendid sin” of the unregenerate. This inference is rendered the more probable by our finding, a little further on, that he is not more scrupulous166 about the moderns, if they come under his definition of “Infidels.” But the passage we are about to quote in proof of this has a worse quality than its discrepancy167 with fact. Who that has a spark of generous feeling, that rejoices in the presence of good in a fellow-being, has not dwelt with pleasure on the thought that Lord Byron’s unhappy career was ennobled and purified toward its close by a high and sympathetic purpose, by honest and energetic efforts for his fellow-men? Who has not read with deep emotion those last pathetic lines, beautiful p. 75as the after-glow of sunset, in which love and resignation are mingled168 with something of a melancholy169 heroism170? Who has not lingered with compassion171 over the dying scene at Missolonghi—the sufferer’s inability to make his farewell messages of love intelligible172, and the last long hours of silent pain? Yet for the sake of furnishing his disciples173 with a “ready reply,” Dr. Cumming can prevail on himself to inoculate174 them with a bad-spirited falsity like the following:
“We have one striking exhibition of an infidel’s brightest thoughts, in some lines written in his dying moments by a man, gifted with great genius, capable of prodigious175 intellectual prowess, but of worthless principle, and yet more worthless practices—I mean the celebrated176 Lord Byron. He says:
“‘Though gay companions o’er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill,
Though pleasure fills the maddening soul,
The heart—the heart is lonely still.
Where all have gone and all must go;
To be the Nothing that I was,
“‘Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
Tis something better not to be.
“‘Nay, for myself, so dark my fate
Through every turn of life hath been,
Man and the world so much I hate,
I care not when I quit the scene.’”
It is difficult to suppose that Dr. Cumming can have been so grossly imposed upon—that he can be so ill-informed as really to believe that these lines were “written” by Lord Byron in his dying moments; but, allowing him the full benefit of that possibility, how shall we explain his introduction of this feebly rabid doggrel as “an infidel’s brightest thoughts?”
In marshalling the evidences of Christianity, Dr. Cumming directs most of his arguments against opinions that are either p. 76totally imaginary, or that belong to the past rather than to the present, while he entirely180 fails to meet the difficulties actually felt and urged by those who are unable to accept Revelation. There can hardly be a stronger proof of misconception as to the character of free-thinking in the present day, than the recommendation of Leland’s “Short and Easy Method with the Deists”—a method which is unquestionably short and easy for preachers disinclined to reconsider their stereotyped181 modes of thinking and arguing, but which has quite ceased to realize those epithets182 in the conversion of Deists. Yet Dr. Cumming not only recommends this book, but takes the trouble himself to write a feebler version of its arguments. For example, on the question of the genuineness and authenticity183 of the New Testament184 writing’s, he says: “If, therefore, at a period long subsequent to the death of Christ, a number of men had appeared in the world, drawn up a book which they christened by the name of the Holy Scripture, and recorded these things which appear in it as facts when they were only the fancies of their own imagination, surely the Jews would have instantly reclaimed185 that no such events transpired186, that no such person as Jesus Christ appeared in their capital, and that their crucifixion of Him, and their alleged187 evil treatment of his apostles, were mere fictions.” [76] It is scarcely necessary to say that, in such argument as this, Dr. Cumming is beating the air. He is meeting a hypothesis which no one holds, and totally missing the real question. The only type of “infidel” whose existence Dr. Cumming recognizes is that fossil personage who “calls the Bible a lie and a forgery188.” He seems to be ignorant—or he chooses to ignore the fact—that there is a large body of eminently instructed and earnest men who regard the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures as a series of historical documents, to be dealt with according to the rules of historical criticism, and that an equally large number of men, who are not historical critics, find p. 77the dogmatic scheme built on the letter of the Scriptures opposed to their profoundest moral convictions. Dr. Cumming’s infidel is a man who, because his life is vicious, tries to convince himself that there is no God, and that Christianity is an imposture189, but who is all the while secretly conscious that he is opposing the truth, and cannot help “letting out” admissions “that the Bible is the Book of God.” We are favored with the following “Creed190 of the Infidel:”
“I believe that there is no God, but that matter is God, and God is matter; and that it is no matter whether there is any God or not. I believe also that the world was not made, but that the world made itself, or that it had no beginning, and that it will last forever. I believe that man is a beast; that the soul is the body, and that the body is the soul; and that after death there is neither body nor soul. I believe there is no religion, that natural religion is the only religion, and all religion unnatural191. I believe not in Moses; I believe in the first philosophers. I believe not in the evangelists; I believe in Chubb, Collins, Toland, Tindal, and Hobbes. I believe in Lord Bolingbroke, and I believe not in St. Paul. I believe not in revelation; I believe in tradition; I believe in the Talmud; I believe in the Koran; I believe not in the Bible. I believe in Socrates; I believe in Confucius; I believe in Mahomet; I believe not in Christ. And lastly, I believe in all unbelief.”
The intellectual and moral monster whose creed is this complex web of contradictions, is, moreover, according to Dr. Cumming, a being who unites much simplicity192 and imbecility with his Satanic hardihood—much tenderness of conscience with his obdurate193 vice147. Hear the “proof:”
“I once met with an acute and enlightened infidel, with whom I reasoned day after day, and for hours together; I submitted to him the internal, the external, and the experimental evidences, but made no impression on his scorn and unbelief. At length I entertained a suspicion that there was something morally, rather than intellectually wrong, and that the bias194 was not in the intellect, but in the heart; one day therefore I said to him, ‘I must now state my conviction, and you may call me uncharitable, but duty compels me; you are living in some known and gross sin.’ The man’s countenance became pale; he bowed and left me.”—“Man. of Evidences,” p. 254.
p. 78Here we have the remarkable psychological phenomenon of an “acute and enlightened” man who, deliberately195 purposing to indulge in a favorite sin, and regarding the Gospel with scorn and unbelief, is, nevertheless, so much more scrupulous than the majority of Christians, that he cannot “embrace sin and the Gospel simultaneously;” who is so alarmed at the Gospel in which he does not believe, that he cannot be easy without trying to crush it; whose acuteness and enlightenment suggest to him, as a means of crushing the Gospel, to argue from day to day with Dr. Cumming; and who is withal so na?ve that he is taken by surprise when Dr. Cumming, failing in argument, resorts to accusation, and so tender in conscience that, at the mention of his sin, he turns pale and leaves the spot. If there be any human mind in existence capable of holding Dr. Cumming’s “Creed of the Infidel,” of at the same time believing in tradition and “believing in all unbelief,” it must be the mind of the infidel just described, for whose existence we have Dr. Cumming’s ex officio word as a theologian; and to theologians we may apply what Sancho Panza says of the bachelors of Salamanca, that they never tell lies—except when it suits their purpose.
The total absence from Dr. Cumming’s theological mind of any demarcation between fact and rhetoric1 is exhibited in another passage, where he adopts the dramatic form:
“Ask the peasant on the hills—and I have asked amid the mountains of Braemar and Deeside—‘How do you know that this book is divine, and that the religion you profess153 is true? You never read Paley?’ ‘No, I never heard of him.’—‘You have never read Butler?’ ‘No, I have never heard of him.’—‘Nor Chalmers?’ ‘No, I do not know him.’—‘You have never read any books on evidence?’ ‘No, I have read no such books.’—‘Then, how do you know this book is true?’ ‘Know it! Tell me that the Dee, the Clunie, and the Garrawalt, the streams at my feet, do not run; that the winds do not sigh amid the gorges196 of these blue hills; that the sun does not kindle197 the peaks of Loch-na-Gar; tell me my heart does not beat, and I will believe you; but do not tell me the Bible is not divine. I have found its truth illuminating198 my footsteps; its consolations199 sustaining my heart. May p. 79my tongue cleave200 to my mouth’s roof and my right hand forget its cunning, if I every deny what is my deepest inner experience, that this blessed book is the book of God.’”—“Church Before the Flood,” p. 35.
Dr. Cumming is so slippery and lax in his mode of presentation that we find it impossible to gather whether he means to assert that this is what a peasant on the mountains of Braemar did say, or that it is what such a peasant would say: in the one case, the passage may be taken as a measure of his truthfulness; in the other, of his judgment.
His own faith, apparently, has not been altogether intuitive, like that of his rhetorical peasant, for he tells us (“Apoc. Sketches,” p. 405) that he has himself experienced what it is to have religious doubts. “I was tainted201 while at the University by this spirit of scepticism. I thought Christianity might not be true. The very possibility of its being true was the thought I felt I must meet and settle. Conscience could give me no peace till I had settled it. I read, and I read from that day, for fourteen or fifteen years, till this, and now I am as convinced, upon the clearest evidence, that this book is the book of God as that I now address you.” This experience, however, instead of impressing on him the fact that doubt may be the stamp of a truth-loving mind—that sunt quibus non credidisse honor est, et fidei futur? pignus—seems to have produced precisely the contrary effect. It has not enabled him even to conceive the condition of a mind “perplext in faith but pure in deeds,” craving202 light, yearning for a faith that will harmonize and cherish its highest powers and aspirations203, but unable to find that faith in dogmatic Christianity. His own doubts apparently were of a different kind. Nowhere in his pages have we found a humble204, candid205, sympathetic attempt to meet the difficulties that may be felt by an ingenuous206 mind. Everywhere he supposes that the doubter is hardened, conceited207, consciously shutting his eyes to the light—a fool who is to be answered according to his folly—that is, with ready replies made up of reckless assertions, of apocryphal208 p. 80anecdotes, and, where other resources fail, of vituperative209 imputation210. As to the reading which he has prosecuted211 for fifteen years—either it has left him totally ignorant of the relation which his own religions creed bears to the criticism and philosophy of the nineteenth century, or he systematically212 blinks that criticism and that philosophy; and instead of honestly and seriously endeavoring to meet and solve what he knows to be the real difficulties, contents himself with setting up popinjays to shoot at, for the sake of confirming the ignorance and winning the heap admiration213 of his evangelical hearers and readers. Like the Catholic preacher who, after throwing down his cap and apostrophizing it as Luther, turned to his audience and said, “You see this heretical fellow has not a word to say for himself,” Dr. Cumming, having drawn his ugly portrait of the infidel, and put arguments of a convenient quality into his mouth, finds a “short and easy method” of confounding this “croaking frog.”
In his treatment of infidels, we imagine he is guided by a mental process which may be expressed in the following syllogism214: Whatever tends to the glory of God is true; it is for the glory of God that infidels should be as bad as possible; therefore, whatever tends to show that infidels are as bad as possible is true. All infidels, he tells us, have been men of “gross and licentious215 lives.” Is there not some well-known unbeliever, David Hume, for example, of whom even Dr. Cumming’s readers may have heard as an exception? No matter. Some one suspected that he was not an exception, and as that suspicion tends to the glory of God, it is one for a Christian to entertain. (See “Man. of Ev.,” p. 73.)—If we were unable to imagine this kind of self-sophistication, we should be obliged to suppose that, relying on the ignorance of his evangelical disciples, he fed them with direct and conscious falsehoods. “Voltaire,” he informs them, “declares there is no God;” he was “an antitheist, that is one who deliberately and avowedly216 opposed and hated God; who swore in his blasphemy217 that he would dethrone him;” and “advocated p. 81the very depths of the lowest sensuality.” With regard to many statements of a similar kind, equally at variance218 with truth, in Dr. Cumming’s volumes, we presume that he has been misled by hearsay219 or by the second-hand220 character of his acquaintance with free-thinking literature. An evangelical preacher is not obliged to be well-read. Here, however, is a case which the extremest supposition of educated ignorance will not reach. Even books of “evidences” quote from Voltaire the line—
“Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer;”
even persons fed on the mere whey and buttermilk of literature must know that in philosophy Voltaire was nothing if not a theist—must know that he wrote not against God, but against Jehovah, the God of the Jews, whom he believed to be a false God—must know that to say Voltaire was an atheist221 on this ground is as absurd as to say that a Jacobite opposed hereditary222 monarchy223 because he declared the Brunswick family had no title to the throne. That Dr. Cumming should repeat the vulgar fables224 about Voltaire’s death is merely what we might expect from the specimens225 we have seen of his illustrative stories. A man whose accounts of his own experience are apocryphal is not likely to put borrowed narratives226 to any severe test.
The alliance between intellectual and moral perversion227 is strikingly typified by the way in which he alternates from the unveracious to the absurd, from misrepresentation to contradiction. Side by side with the abduction of “facts” such as those we have quoted, we find him arguing on one page that the Trinity was too grand a doctrine to have been conceived by man, and was therefore Divine; and on another page, that the Incarnation had been preconceived by man, and is therefore to be accepted as Divine. But we are less concerned with the fallacy of his “ready replies” than with their falsity; and even of this we can only afford space for a very few specimens. Here is one: “There is a thousand times more proof p. 82that the gospel of John was written by him than there is that the Αναβασι? was written by Xenophon, or the Ars Poetica by Horace.” If Dr. Cumming had chosen Plato’s Epistles or Anacreon’s Poems instead of the Anabasis or the Ars Poetica, he would have reduced the extent of the falsehood, and would have furnished a ready reply which would have been equally effective with his Sunday-school teachers and their disputants. Hence we conclude this prodigality228 of misstatement, this exuberance229 of mendacity, is an effervescence of zeal in majorem gloriam Dei. Elsewhere he tells us that “the idea of the author of the ‘Vestiges’ is, that man is the development of a monkey, that the monkey is the embryo230 man, so that if you keep a baboon231 long enough, it will develop itself into a man.” How well Dr. Cumming has qualified232 himself to judge of the ideas in “that very unphilosophical book,” as he pronounces it, may be inferred from the fact that he implies the author of the “Vestiges” to have originated the nebular hypothesis.
In the volume from which the last extract is taken, even the hardihood of assertion is surpassed by the suicidal character of the argument. It is called “The Church before the Flood,” and is devoted233 chiefly to the adjustment of the question between the Bible and Geology. Keeping within the limits we have prescribed to ourselves, we do not enter into the matter of this discussion; we merely pause a little over the volume in order to point out Dr. Cumming’s mode of treating the question. He first tells us that “the Bible has not a single scientific error in it;” that “its slightest intimations of scientific principles or natural phenomena234 have in every instance been demonstrated to be exactly and strictly235 true,” and he asks:
“How is it that Moses, with no greater education than the Hindoo or the ancient philosopher, has written his book, touching236 science at a thousand points, so accurately237 that scientific research has discovered no flaws in it; and yet in those investigations239 which have taken place in more recent centuries, it has not been shown that he has committed one single error, or made one solitary240 assertion which can be proved by the maturest science, or by the most eagle-eyed philosopher, to be incorrect, scientifically or historically?”
p. 83According to this the relation of the Bible to science should be one of the strong points of apologists for revelation: the scientific accuracy of Moses should stand at the head of their evidences; and they might urge with some cogency241, that since Aristotle, who devoted himself to science, and lived many ages after Moses, does little else than err90 ingeniously, this fact, that the Jewish Lawgiver, though touching science at a thousand points, has written nothing that has not been “demonstrated to be exactly and strictly true,” is an irrefragable proof of his having derived242 his knowledge from a supernatural source. How does it happen, then, that Dr. Cumming forsakes243 this strong position? How is it that we find him, some pages further on, engaged in reconciling Genesis with the discoveries of science, by means of imaginative hypotheses and feats244 of “interpretation?” Surely, that which has been demonstrated to be exactly and strictly true does not require hypothesis and critical argument, in order to show that it may possibly agree with those very discoveries by means of which its exact and strict truth has been demonstrated. And why should Dr. Cumming suppose, as we shall presently find him supposing, that men of science hesitate to accept the Bible, because it appears to contradict their discoveries? By his own statement, that appearance of contradiction does not exist; on the contrary, it has been demonstrated that the Bible precisely agrees with their discoveries. Perhaps, however, in saying of the Bible that its “slightest intimations of scientific principles or natural phenomena have in every instance been demonstrated to be exactly and strictly true,” Dr. Cumming merely means to imply that theologians have found out a way of explaining the biblical text so that it no longer, in their opinion, appears to be in contradiction with the discoveries of science. One of two things, therefore: either he uses language without the slightest appreciation of its real meaning, or the assertions he makes on one page are directly contradicted by the arguments he urges on another.
Dr. Cumming’s principles—or, we should rather say, confused p. 84notions—of biblical interpretation, as exhibited in this volume, are particularly significant of his mental calibre. He says (“Church before the Flood,” p. 93): “Men of science, who are full of scientific investigation238 and enamored of scientific discovery, will hesitate before they accept a book which, they think, contradicts the plainest and the most unequivocal disclosures they have made in the bowels245 of the earth, or among the stars of the sky. To all these we answer, as we have already indicated, there is not the least dissonance between God’s written book and the most mature discoveries of geological science. One thing, however, there may be: there may be a contradiction between the discoveries of geology and our preconceived interpretations246 of the Bible. But this is not because the Bible is wrong, but because our interpretation is wrong.” (The italics in all cases are our own.)
Elsewhere he says: “It seems to me plainly evident that the record of Genesis, when read fairly, and not in the light of our prejudices—and mind you, the essence of Popery is to read the Bible in the light of our opinions, instead of viewing our opinions in the light of the Bible, in its plain and obvious sense—falls in perfectly247 with the assertion of geologists248.”
On comparing these two passages, we gather that when Dr. Cumming, under stress of geological discovery, assigns to the biblical text a meaning entirely different from that which, on his own showing, was universally ascribed to it for more than three thousand years, he regards himself as “viewing his opinions in the light of the Bible in its plain and obvious sense!” Now he is reduced to one of two alternatives: either he must hold that the “plain and obvious meaning” of the whole Bible differs from age to age, so that the criterion of its meaning lies in the sum of knowledge possessed249 by each successive age—the Bible being an elastic250 garment for the growing thought of mankind; or he must hold that some portions are amenable251 to this criterion, and others not so. In the former case, he accepts the principle of interpretation adopted by the early German rationalists; in the latter case he has to show a p. 85further criterion by which we can judge what parts of the Bible are elastic and what rigid252. If he says that the interpretation of the text is rigid wherever it treats of doctrines necessary to salvation, we answer, that for doctrines to be necessary to salvation they must first be true; and in order to be true, according to his own principle, they must be founded on a correct interpretation of the biblical text. Thus he makes the necessity of doctrines to salvation the criterion of infallible interpretation, and infallible interpretation the criterion of doctrines being necessary to salvation. He is whirled round in a circle, having, by admitting the principle of novelty in interpretation, completely deprived himself of a basis. That he should seize the very moment in which he is most palpably betraying that he has no test of biblical truth beyond his own opinion, as an appropriate occasion for flinging the rather novel reproach against Popery that its essence is to “read the Bible in the light of our opinions,” would be an almost pathetic self-exposure, if it were not disgusting. Imbecility that is not even meek253, ceases to be pitiable, and becomes simply odious254.
Parenthetic lashes255 of this kind against Popery are very frequent with Dr. Cumming, and occur even in his more devout passages, where their introduction must surely disturb the spiritual exercises of his hearers. Indeed, Roman Catholics fare worse with him even than infidels. Infidels are the small vermin—the mice to be bagged en passant. The main object of his chase—the rats which are to be nailed up as trophies—are the Roman Catholics. Romanism is the masterpiece of Satan; but reassure256 yourselves! Dr. Cumming has been created. Antichrist is enthroned in the Vatican; but he is stoutly258 withstood by the Boanerges of Crown-court. The personality of Satan, as might be expected, is a very prominent tenet in Dr. Cumming’s discourses; those who doubt it are, he thinks, “generally specimens of the victims of Satan as a triumphant259 seducer;” and it is through the medium of this doctrine that he habitually260 contemplates262 Roman Catholics. p. 86They are the puppets of which the devil holds the strings263. It is only exceptionally that he speaks of them as fellow-men, acted on by the same desires, fears, and hopes as himself; his rule is to hold them up to his hearers as foredoomed instruments of Satan and vessels264 of wrath265. If he is obliged to admit that they are “no shams,” that they are “thoroughly in earnest”—that is because they are inspired by hell, because they are under an “infra-natural” influence. If their missionaries are found wherever Protestant missionaries go, this zeal in propagating their faith is not in them a consistent virtue, as it is in Protestants, but a “melancholy fact,” affording additional evidence that they are instigated266 and assisted by the devil. And Dr. Cumming is inclined to think that they work miracles, because that is no more than might be expected from the known ability of Satan who inspires them. [86a] He admits, indeed, that “there is a fragment of the Church of Christ in the very bosom267 of that awful apostasy,” [86b] and that there are members of the Church of Rome in glory; but this admission is rare and episodical—is a declaration, pro forma, about as influential268 on the general disposition269 and habits as an aristocrat’s profession of democracy.
This leads us to mention another conspicuous270 characteristic of Dr. Cumming’s teaching—the absence of genuine charity. It is true that he makes large profession of tolerance271 and liberality within a certain circle; he exhorts272 Christians to unity54; he would have Churchmen fraternize with Dissenters273, and exhorts these two branches of God’s family to defer274 the settlement of their differences till the millennium275. But the love thus taught is the love of the clan276, which is the correlative of antagonism277 to the rest of mankind. It is not sympathy and helpfulness toward men as men, but toward men as Christians, and as Christians in the sense of a small minority. Dr. Cumming’s religion may demand a tribute of love, but it gives a charter to hatred278; it may enjoin279 charity, but it fosters p. 87all uncharitableness. If I believe that God tells me to love my enemies, but at the same time hates His own enemies and requires me to have one will with Him, which has the larger scope, love or hatred? And we refer to those pages of Dr. Cumming’s in which he opposes Roman Catholics, Puseyites, and infidels—pages which form the larger proportion of what he has published—for proof that the idea of God which both the logic and spirit of his discourses keep present to his hearers, is that of a God who hates his enemies, a God who teaches love by fierce denunciations of wrath—a God who encourages obedience280 to his precepts281 by elaborately revealing to us that his own government is in precise opposition282 to those precepts. We know the usual evasions283 on this subject. We know Dr. Cumming would say that even Roman Catholics are to be loved and succored285 as men; that he would help even that “unclean spirit,” Cardinal Wiseman, out of a ditch. But who that is in the slightest degree acquainted with the action of the human mind will believe that any genuine and large charity can grow out of an exercise of love which is always to have an arrière-pensée of hatred? Of what quality would be the conjugal286 love of a husband who loved his spouse287 as a wife, but hated her as a woman? It is reserved for the regenerate165 mind, according to Dr. Cumming’s conception of it, to be “wise, amazed, temperate288 and furious, loyal and neutral, in a moment.” Precepts of charity uttered with a faint breath at the end of a sermon are perfectly futile289, when all the force of the lungs has been spent in keeping the hearer’s mind fixed290 on the conception of his fellow-men not as fellow-sinners and fellow-sufferers, but as agents of hell, as automata through whom Satan plays his game upon earth—not on objects which call forth291 their reverence292, their love, their hope of good even in the most strayed and perverted293, but on a minute identification of human things with such symbols as the scarlet294 whore, the beast out of the abyss, scorpions295 whose sting is in their tails, men who have the mark of the beast, and unclean spirits like frogs. You might as well attempt to educate the child’s sense p. 88of beauty by hanging its nursery with the horrible and grotesque296 pictures in which the early painters represented the Last Judgment, as expect Christian graces to flourish on that prophetic interpretation which Dr. Cumming offers as the principal nutriment of his flock. Quite apart from the critical basis of that interpretation, quite apart from the degree of truth there may be in Dr. Cumming’s prognostications—questions into which we do not choose to enter—his use of prophecy must be à priori condemned297 in the judgment of right-minded persons, by its results as testified in the net moral effect of his sermons. The best minds that accept Christianity as a divinely inspired system, believe that the great end of the Gospel is not merely the saving but the educating of men’s souls, the creating within them of holy dispositions298, the subduing299 of egoistical pretensions301, and the perpetual enhancing of the desire that the will of God—a will synonymous with goodness and truth—may be done on earth. But what relation to all this has a system of interpretation which keeps the mind of the Christian in the position of a spectator at a gladiatorial show, of which Satan is the wild beast in the shape of the great red dragon, and two thirds of mankind the victims—the whole provided and got up by God for the edification of the saints? The demonstration that the Second Advent is at hand, if true, can have no really holy, spiritual effect; the highest state of mind inculcated by the Gospel is resignation to the disposal of God’s providence—“Whether we live, we live unto the Lord; whether we die, we die unto the Lord”—not an eagerness to see a temporal manifestation which shall confound the enemies of God and give exaltation to the saints; it is to dwell in Christ by spiritual communion with his nature, not to fix the date when He shall appear in the sky. Dr. Cumming’s delight in shadowing forth the downfall of the Man of Sin, in prognosticating the battle of Gog and Magog, and in advertising302 the pre-millennial Advent, is simply the transportation of political passions on to a so-called religious platform; it is the anticipation303 of the triumph of “our party,” p. 89accomplished by our principal men being “sent for” into the clouds. Let us be understood to speak in all seriousness. If we were in search of amusement, we should not seek for it by examining Dr. Cumming’s works in order to ridicule304 them. We are simply discharging a disagreeable duty in delivering our opinion that, judged by the highest standard even of orthodox Christianity, they are little calculated to produce—
“A closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame;”
but are more likely to nourish egoistic complacency and pretension300, a hard and condemnatory305 spirit toward one’s fellow-men, and a busy occupation with the minuti? of events, instead of a reverent306 contemplation of great facts and a wise application of great principles. It would be idle to consider Dr. Cumming’s theory of prophecy in any other light; as a philosophy of history or a specimen of biblical interpretation, it bears about the same relation to the extension of genuine knowledge as the astrological “house” in the heavens bears to the true structure and relations of the universe.
The slight degree in which Dr. Cumming’s faith is imbued307 with truly human sympathies is exhibited in the way he treats the doctrine of Eternal Punishment. Here a little of that readiness to strain the letter of the Scriptures which he so often manifests when his object is to prove a point against Romanism, would have been an amiable frailty308 if it had been applied309 on the side of mercy. When he is bent310 on proving that the prophecy concerning the Man of Sin, in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, refers to the Pope, he can extort311 from the innocent word καθισαι the meaning cathedrize, though why we are to translate “He as God cathedrizes in the temple of God,” any more than we are to translate “cathedrize here, while I go and pray yonder,” it is for Dr. Cumming to show more clearly than he has yet done. But when rigorous literality will favor the conclusion that the greater proportion of the human race will be eternally miserable—then he is rigorously literal.
p. 90He says: “The Greek words, ει?, του? αιωνα? των αιωνων, here translated ‘everlasting,’ signify literally312 ‘unto the ages of ages,’ αιει ων, ‘always being,’ that is, everlasting, ceaseless existence. Plato uses the word in this sense when he says, ‘The gods that live forever.’ But I must also admit that this word is used several times in a limited extent—as for instance, ‘The everlasting hills.’ Of course this does not mean that there never will be a time when the hills will cease to stand; the expression here is evidently figurative, but it implies eternity. The hills shall remain as long as the earth lasts, and no hand has power to remove them but that Eternal One which first called them into being; so the state of the soul remains313 the same after death as long as the soul exists, and no one has power to alter it. The same word is often applied to denote the existence of God—‘the Eternal God.’ Can we limit the word when applied to him? Because occasionally used in a limited sense, we must not infer it is always so. ‘Everlasting’ plainly means in Scripture ‘without end;’ it is only to be explained figuratively when it is evident it cannot be interpreted in any other way.”
We do not discuss whether Dr. Cumming’s interpretation accords with the meaning of the New Testament writers: we simply point to the fact that the text becomes elastic for him when he wants freer play for his prejudices, while he makes it an adamantine barrier against the admission that mercy will ultimately triumph—that God, i.e., Love, will be all in all. He assures us that he does not “delight to dwell on the misery314 of the lost:” and we believe him. That misery does not seem to be a question of feeling with him, either one way or the other. He does not merely resign himself to the awful mystery of eternal punishment; he contends for it. Do we object, he asks, [90] to everlasting happiness? then why object to everlasting misery?—reasoning which is perhaps felt to be cogent315 by theologians who anticipate the everlasting happiness for themselves, and the everlasting misery for their neighbors.
p. 91The compassion of some Christians has been glad to take refuge in the opinion that the Bible allows the supposition of annihilation for the impenitent316; but the rigid sequence of Dr. Cumming’s reasoning will not admit of this idea. He sees that flax is made into linen317, and linen into paper; that paper, when burned, partly ascends318 as smoke and then again descends319 in rain, or in dust and carbon. “Not one particle of the original flax is lost, although there may be not one particle that has not undergone an entire change: annihilation is not, but change of form is. It will be thus with our bodies at the resurrection. The death of the body means not annihilation. Not one feature of the face will be annihilated320.” Having established the perpetuity of the body by this close and clear analogy, namely, that as there is a total change in the particles of flax in consequence of which they no longer appear as flax, so there will not be a total change in the particles of the human body, but they will reappear as the human body, he does not seem to consider that the perpetuity of the body involves the perpetuity of the soul, but requires separate evidence for this, and finds such evidence by begging the very question at issue—namely, by asserting that the text of the Scripture implies “the perpetuity of the punishment of the lost, and the consciousness of the punishment which they endure.” Yet it is drivelling like this which is listened to and lauded321 as eloquence322 by hundreds, and which a Doctor of Divinity can believe that he has his “reward as a saint” for preaching and publishing!
One more characteristic of Dr. Cumming’s writings, and we have done. This is the perverted moral judgment that everywhere reigns323 in them. Not that this perversion is peculiar324 to Dr. Cumming: it belongs to the dogmatic system which he shares with all evangelical believers. But the abstract tendencies of systems are represented in very different degrees, according to the different characters of those who embrace them; just as the same food tells differently on different constitutions: and there are certain qualities in Dr. p. 92Cumming that cause the perversion of which we speak to exhibit itself with peculiar prominence325 in his teaching. A single extract will enable us to explain what we mean:
“The ‘thoughts’ are evil. If it were possible for human eye to discern and to detect the thoughts that flutter around the heart of an unregenerate man—to mark their hue326 and their multitude, it would be found that they are indeed ‘evil.’ We speak not of the thief, and the murderer, and the adulterer, and such like, whose crimes draw down the cognizance of earthly tribunals, and whose unenviable character it is to take the lead in the paths of sin; but we refer to the men who are marked out by their practice of many of the seemliest moralities of life—by the exercise of the kindliest affections, and the interchange of the sweetest reciprocities—and of these men, if unrenewed and unchanged, we pronounce that their thoughts are evil. To ascertain327 this, we must refer to the object around which our thoughts ought continually to circulate. The Scriptures assert that this object is the glory of God; that for this we ought to think, to act, and to speak; and that in thus thinking, acting95, and speaking, there is involved the purest and most endearing bliss328. Now it will be found true of the most amiable men, that with all their good society and kindliness329 of heart, and all their strict and unbending integrity, they never or rarely think of the glory of God. The question never occurs to them—Will this redound330 to the glory of God? Will this make his name more known, his being more loved, his praise more sung? And just inasmuch as their every thought comes short of this lofty aim, in so much does it come short of good, and entitle itself to the character of evil. If the glory of God is not the absorbing and the influential aim of their thoughts, then they are evil; but God’s glory never enters into their minds. They are amiable, because it chances to be one of the constitutional tendencies of their individual character, left uneffaced by the Fall; and they are just and upright, because they have perhaps no occasion to be otherwise, or find it subservient331 to their interests to maintain such a character.”—“Occ. Disc.” vol. i. p. 8.
Again we read (Ibid. p. 236):
“There are traits in the Christian character which the mere worldly man cannot understand. He can understand the outward morality, but he cannot understand the inner spring of it; he can understand Dorcas’ liberality to the poor, but he cannot penetrate332 the ground of Dorcas’ liberality. Some men give to the poor because they are ostentatious, or because they think the poor will ultimately avenge333 their p. 93neglect; but the Christian gives to the poor, not only because he has sensibilities like other men, but because inasmuch as ye did it to the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me.”
Before entering on the more general question involved in these quotations334, we must point to the clauses we have marked with italics, where Dr. Cumming appears to express sentiments which, we are happy to think, are not shared by the majority of his brethren in the faith. Dr. Cumming, it seems, is unable to conceive that the natural man can have any other motive335 for being just and upright than that it is useless to be otherwise, or that a character for honesty is profitable; according to his experience, between the feelings of ostentation336 and selfish alarm and the feeling of love to Christ, there lie no sensibilities which can lead a man to relieve want. Granting, as we should prefer to think, that it is Dr. Cumming’s exposition of his sentiments which is deficient337 rather than his sentiments themselves, still, the fact that the deficiency lies precisely here, and that he can overlook it not only in the haste of oral delivery but in the examination of proof-sheets, is strongly significant of his mental bias—of the faint degree in which he sympathizes with the disinterested elements of human feeling, and of the fact, which we are about to dwell upon, that those feelings are totally absent from his religious theory. Now, Dr. Cumming invariably assumes that, in fulminating against those who differ from him, he is standing92 on a moral elevation338 to which they are compelled reluctantly to look up; that his theory of motives339 and conduct is in its loftiness and purity a perpetual rebuke340 to their low and vicious desires and practice. It is time he should be told that the reverse is the fact; that there are men who do not merely cast a superficial glance at his doctrine, and fail to see its beauty or justice, but who, after a close consideration of that doctrine, pronounce it to be subversive341 of true moral development, and therefore positively342 noxious343. Dr. Cumming is fond of showing up the teaching of Romanism, and accusing it of undermining true morality: it is time he should be told that p. 94there is a large body, both of thinkers and practical men, who hold precisely the same opinion of his own teaching—with this difference, that they do not regard it as the inspiration of Satan, but as the natural crop of a human mind where the soil is chiefly made up of egoistic passions and dogmatic beliefs.
Dr. Cumming’s theory, as we have seen, is that actions are good or evil according as they are prompted or not prompted by an exclusive reference to the “glory of God.” God, then, in Dr. Cumming’s conception, is a being who has no pleasure in the exercise of love and truthfulness and justice, considered as affecting the well-being344 of his creatures; He has satisfaction in us only in so far as we exhaust our motives and dispositions of all relation to our fellow-beings, and replace sympathy with men by anxiety for the “glory of God.” The deed of Grace Darling, when she took a boat in the storm to rescue drowning men and women, was not good if it was only compassion that nerved her arm and impelled345 her to brave death for the chance of saving others; it was only good if she asked herself—Will this redound to the glory of God? The man who endures tortures rather than betray a trust, the man who spends years in toil346 in order to discharge an obligation from which the law declares him free, must be animated347 not by the spirit of fidelity29 to his fellow-man, but by a desire to make “the name of God more known.” The sweet charities of domestic life—the ready hand and the soothing348 word in sickness, the forbearance toward frailties349, the prompt helpfulness in all efforts and sympathy in all joys, are simply evil if they result from a “constitutional tendency,” or from dispositions disciplined by the experience of suffering and the perception of moral loveliness. A wife is not to devote herself to her husband out of love to him and a sense of the duties implied by a close relation—she is to be a faithful wife for the glory of God; if she feels her natural affections welling up too strongly, she is to repress them; it will not do to act from natural affection—she must think of the glory of God. A man is to guide his affairs with energy and discretion350, not from an honest desire to p. 95fulfil his responsibilities as a member of society and a father, but—that “God’s praise may be sung.” Dr. Cumming’s Christian pays his debts for the glory of God; were it not for the coercion351 of that supreme352 motive, it would be evil to pay them. A man is not to be just from a feeling of justice; he is not to help his fellow-men out of good-will to his fellow-men; he is not to be a tender husband and father out of affection: all these natural muscles and fibres are to be torn away and replaced by a patent steel-spring—anxiety for the “glory of God.”
Happily, the constitution of human nature forbids the complete prevalence of such a theory. Fatally powerful as religious systems have been, human nature is stronger and wider than religious systems, and though dogmas may hamper353, they cannot absolutely repress its growth: build walls round the living tree as you will, the bricks and mortar354 have by and by to give way before the slow and sure operation of the sap. But next to the hatred of the enemies of God which is the principle of persecution355, there perhaps has been no perversion more obstructive of true moral development than this substitution of a reference to the glory of God for the direct promptings of the sympathetic feelings. Benevolence356 and justice are strong only in proportion as they are directly and inevitably called into activity by their proper objects; pity is strong only because we are strongly impressed by suffering; and only in proportion as it is compassion that speaks through the eyes when we soothe357, and moves the arm when we succor284, is a deed strictly benevolent358. If the soothing or the succor be given because another being wishes or approves it, the deed ceases to be one of benevolence, and becomes one of deference359, of obedience, of self-interest, or vanity. Accessory motives may aid in producing an action, but they presuppose the weakness of the direct motive; and conversely, when the direct motive is strong, the action of accessory motives will be excluded. If, then, as Dr. Cumming inculcates, the glory of God is to be “the absorbing and the influential aim” in our thoughts and actions, this must p. 96tend to neutralize360 the human sympathies; the stream of feeling will be diverted from its natural current in order to feed an artificial canal. The idea of God is really moral in its influence—it really cherishes all that is best and loveliest in man—only when God is contemplated361 as sympathizing with the pure elements of human feeling, as possessing infinitely362 all those attributes which we recognize to be moral in humanity. In this light, the idea of God and the sense of His presence intensify363 all noble feeling, and encourage all noble effort, on the same principle that human sympathy is found a source of strength: the brave man feels braver when he knows that another stout257 heart is beating time with his; the devoted woman who is wearing out her years in patient effort to alleviate364 suffering or save vice from the last stages of degradation365, finds aid in the pressure of a friendly hand which tells her that there is one who understands her deeds, and in her place would do the like. The idea of a God who not only sympathizes with all we feel and endure for our fellow-men, but who will pour new life into our too languid love, and give firmness to our vacillating purpose, is an extension and multiplication366 of the effects produced by human sympathy; and it has been intensified367 for the better spirits who have been under the influence of orthodox Christianity, by the contemplation of Jesus as “God manifest in the flesh.” But Dr. Cumming’s God is the very opposite of all this: he is a God who instead of sharing and aiding our human sympathies, is directly in collision with them; who instead of strengthening the bond between man and man, by encouraging the sense that they are both alike the objects of His love and care, thrusts himself between them and forbids them to feel for each other except as they have relation to Him. He is a God who, instead of adding his solar force to swell the tide of those impulses that tend to give humanity a common life in which the good of one is the good of all, commands us to check those impulses, lest they should prevent us from thinking of His glory. It is in vain for Dr. Cumming to say that we are to love man for God’s p. 97sake: with the conception of God which his teaching presents, the love of man for God’s sake involves, as his writings abundantly show, a strong principle of hatred. We can only love one being for the sake of another when there is an habitual261 delight in associating the idea of those two beings—that is, when the object of our indirect love is a source of joy and honor to the object of our direct love; but according to Dr. Cumming’s theory, the majority of mankind—the majority of his neighbors—are in precisely the opposite relation to God. His soul has no pleasure in them, they belong more to Satan than to Him, and if they contribute to His glory, it is against their will. Dr. Cumming then can only love some men for God’s sake; the rest he must in consistency368 hate for God’s sake.
There must be many, even in the circle of Dr. Cumming’s admirers, who would be revolted by the doctrine we have just exposed, if their natural good sense and healthy feeling were not early stifled369 by dogmatic beliefs, and their reverence misled by pious phrases. But as it is, many a rational question, many a generous instinct, is repelled370 as the suggestion of a supernatural enemy, or as the ebullition of human pride and corruption371. This state of inward contradiction can be put an end to only by the conviction that the free and diligent372 exertion of the intellect, instead of being a sin, is part of their responsibility—that Right and Reason are synonymous. The fundamental faith for man is, faith in the result of a brave, honest, and steady use of all his faculties:
“Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul according well
May make one music as before,
But vaster.”
Before taking leave of Dr. Cumming, let us express a hope that we have in no case exaggerated the unfavorable character of the inferences to be drawn from his pages. His creed often obliges him to hope the worst of men, and exert himself in proving that the worst is true; but thus far we are happier p. 98than he. We have no theory which requires us to attribute unworthy motives to Dr. Cumming, no opinions, religious or irreligious, which can make it a gratification to us to detect him in delinquencies. On the contrary, the better we are able to think of him as a man, while we are obliged to disapprove373 him as a theologian, the stronger will be the evidence for our conviction, that the tendency toward good in human nature has a force which no creed can utterly374 counteract375, and which insures the ultimate triumph of that tendency over all dogmatic perversions376.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
rhetoric
|
|
| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
affluence
|
|
| n.充裕，富足 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
glibness
|
|
| n.花言巧语；口若悬河 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
attain
|
|
| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
pro
|
|
| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
platitudes
|
|
| n.平常的话，老生常谈，陈词滥调( platitude的名词复数 )；滥套子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
bigoted
|
|
| adj.固执己见的，心胸狭窄的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
zeal
|
|
| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
unctuous
|
|
| adj.油腔滑调的，大胆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
piety
|
|
| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
morale
|
|
| n.道德准则，士气，斗志 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
shun
|
|
| vt.避开，回避，避免 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
stringent
|
|
| adj.严厉的；令人信服的；银根紧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
eternity
|
|
| n.不朽，来世；永恒，无穷 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
curtailing
|
|
| v.截断，缩短( curtail的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
ardent
|
|
| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
advent
|
|
| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
infringement
|
|
| n.违反；侵权 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
inconvenient
|
|
| adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
conformity
|
|
| n.一致，遵从，顺从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
interpretation
|
|
| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
hurl
|
|
| vt.猛投，力掷，声叫骂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
adversaries
|
|
| n.对手，敌手( adversary的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
scripture
|
|
| n.经文，圣书，手稿；Scripture:(常用复数)《圣经》，《圣经》中的一段 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
scriptures
|
|
| 经文，圣典( scripture的名词复数 )； 经典 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
disperse
|
|
| vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
fidelity
|
|
| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
tickling
|
|
| 反馈，回授，自旋挠痒法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
dictated
|
|
| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
charades
|
|
| n.伪装( charade的名词复数 )；猜字游戏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
precisely
|
|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
metropolitan
|
|
| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
bind
|
|
| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
adorn
|
|
| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
pious
|
|
| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
demonstration
|
|
| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
locusts
|
|
| n.蝗虫( locust的名词复数 )；贪吃的人；破坏者；槐树 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
splendors
|
|
| n.华丽( splendor的名词复数 )；壮丽；光辉；显赫 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
cynosure
|
|
| n.焦点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
captious
|
|
| adj.难讨好的，吹毛求疵的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
orator
|
|
| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
hiss
|
|
| v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
hisses
|
|
| 嘶嘶声( hiss的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
groans
|
|
| n.呻吟，叹息( groan的名词复数 )；呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
defendant
|
|
| n.被告；adj.处于被告地位的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
incompetent
|
|
| adj.无能力的，不能胜任的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
antagonists
|
|
| 对立[对抗] 者，对手，敌手( antagonist的名词复数 )； 对抗肌； 对抗药 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
swell
|
|
| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
gratuitous
|
|
| adj.无偿的，免费的；无缘无故的，不必要的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
logic
|
|
| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
impunity
|
|
| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
unity
|
|
| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
chapels
|
|
| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
clergy
|
|
| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
discourses
|
|
| 论文( discourse的名词复数 )； 演说； 讲道； 话语 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
fugitive
|
|
| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
60
perpetuates
|
|
| n.使永存，使人记住不忘( perpetuate的名词复数 )；使永久化，使持久化，使持续 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
61
labors
|
|
| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
62
perusal
|
|
| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
63
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
64
solely
|
|
| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
65
contemptible
|
|
| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
66
prone
|
|
| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
67
amplification
|
|
| n.扩大，发挥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
68
bestow
|
|
| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
69
alacrity
|
|
| n.敏捷，轻快，乐意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
70
everlasting
|
|
| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
71
truthfulness
|
|
| n. 符合实际 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
72
amiable
|
|
| adj.和蔼可亲的，友善的，亲切的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
73
raptures
|
|
| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
74
forensic
|
|
| adj.法庭的，雄辩的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
75
justification
|
|
| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
76
salvation
|
|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
77
justifying
|
|
| 证明…有理( justify的现在分词 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
78
devout
|
|
| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
79
aspiration
|
|
| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
80
exhortation
|
|
| n.劝告，规劝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
81
tacked
|
|
| 用平头钉钉( tack的过去式和过去分词 )； 附加，增补； 帆船抢风行驶，用粗线脚缝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
82
revels
|
|
| n.作乐( revel的名词复数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉v.作乐( revel的第三人称单数 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
83
copious
|
|
| adj.丰富的，大量的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
84
abashed
|
|
| adj.窘迫的，尴尬的v.使羞愧，使局促，使窘迫( abash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
85
conjectures
|
|
| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
86
manifestation
|
|
| n.表现形式；表明；现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
87
constrains
|
|
| 强迫( constrain的第三人称单数 )； 强使； 限制； 约束 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
88
yearning
|
|
| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
89
erring
|
|
| 做错事的，错误的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
90
err
|
|
| vi.犯错误，出差错 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
91
sublime
|
|
| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
92
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
93
diffuse
|
|
| v.扩散；传播；adj.冗长的；四散的，弥漫的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
94
originality
|
|
| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
95
acting
|
|
| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
96
retail
|
|
| v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
97
exuberant
|
|
| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
98
wholesale
|
|
| n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
99
declamation
|
|
| n. 雄辩，高调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
100
ornament
|
|
| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
101
starry
|
|
| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
102
subterranean
|
|
| adj.地下的，地表下的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
103
elicited
|
|
| 引出，探出( elicit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
104
prosaic
|
|
| adj.单调的，无趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
105
basks
|
|
| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的第三人称单数 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
106
countenance
|
|
| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
107
paraphrase
|
|
| vt.将…释义，改写；n.释义，意义 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
108
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
109
testimony
|
|
| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
110
bruise
|
|
| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
111
essentially
|
|
| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
112
venting
|
|
| 消除； 泄去； 排去； 通风 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
113
diatribes
|
|
| n.谩骂，讽刺( diatribe的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
114
invective
|
|
| n.痛骂，恶意抨击 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
115
cardinal
|
|
| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
116
Christians
|
|
| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
117
attentive
|
|
| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
118
exegesis
|
|
| n.注释，解释 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
119
anomalous
|
|
| adj.反常的；不规则的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
120
criticise
|
|
| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
121
warfare
|
|
| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
122
doctrines
|
|
| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
123
doctrine
|
|
| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
124
apparently
|
|
| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
125
conversion
|
|
| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
126
impugn
|
|
| v.指责，对…表示怀疑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
127
sincerity
|
|
| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
128
veracity
|
|
| n.诚实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
129
inevitably
|
|
| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
130
appreciation
|
|
| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
131
allied
|
|
| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
132
parlance
|
|
| n.说法；语调 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
133
eminently
|
|
| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
134
sects
|
|
| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
135
exalt
|
|
| v.赞扬，歌颂，晋升，提升 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
136
exertion
|
|
| n.尽力，努力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
137
faculties
|
|
| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
138
misty
|
|
| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
139
nay
|
|
| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
140
inquiry
|
|
| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
141
retailing
|
|
| n.零售业v.零售(retail的现在分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
142
derive
|
|
| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
143
imprisoning
|
|
| v.下狱，监禁( imprison的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
144
fettered
|
|
| v.给…上脚镣，束缚( fetter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
145
attested
|
|
| adj.经检验证明无病的，经检验证明无菌的v.证明( attest的过去式和过去分词 )；证实；声称…属实；使宣誓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
146
adverse
|
|
| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
147
vice
|
|
| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
148
expedients
|
|
| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
149
precipice
|
|
| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
150
mitigating
|
|
| v.减轻，缓和( mitigate的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
151
drawn
|
|
| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
152
pointed
|
|
| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
153
profess
|
|
| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
154
candor
|
|
| n.坦白，率真 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
155
disinterested
|
|
| adj.不关心的，不感兴趣的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
156
accusation
|
|
| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
157
missionaries
|
|
| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
158
folly
|
|
| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
159
enrolled
|
|
| adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
160
savage
|
|
| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
161
purport
|
|
| n.意义，要旨，大要；v.意味著，做为...要旨，要领是... | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
162
specimen
|
|
| n.样本，标本 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
163
astounding
|
|
| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
164
virtue
|
|
| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
165
regenerate
|
|
| vt.使恢复，使新生；vi.恢复，再生；adj.恢复的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
166
scrupulous
|
|
| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
167
discrepancy
|
|
| n.不同；不符；差异；矛盾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
168
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
169
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
170
heroism
|
|
| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
171
compassion
|
|
| n.同情，怜悯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
172
intelligible
|
|
| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
173
disciples
|
|
| n.信徒( disciple的名词复数 )；门徒；耶稣的信徒；（尤指）耶稣十二门徒之一 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
174
inoculate
|
|
| v.给...接种，给...注射疫苗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
175
prodigious
|
|
| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
176
celebrated
|
|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
177
alas
|
|
| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
178
woe
|
|
| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
179
anguish
|
|
| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
180
entirely
|
|
| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
181
stereotyped
|
|
| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
182
epithets
|
|
| n.（表示性质、特征等的）词语( epithet的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
183
authenticity
|
|
| n.真实性 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
184
testament
|
|
| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
185
reclaimed
|
|
| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
186
transpired
|
|
| （事实，秘密等）被人知道( transpire的过去式和过去分词 )； 泄露； 显露； 发生 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
187
alleged
|
|
| a.被指控的，嫌疑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
188
forgery
|
|
| n.伪造的文件等，赝品，伪造（行为） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
189
imposture
|
|
| n.冒名顶替，欺骗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
190
creed
|
|
| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
191
unnatural
|
|
| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
192
simplicity
|
|
| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
193
obdurate
|
|
| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
194
bias
|
|
| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
195
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
196
gorges
|
|
| n.山峡，峡谷( gorge的名词复数 )；咽喉v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的第三人称单数 )；作呕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
197
kindle
|
|
| v.点燃，着火 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
198
illuminating
|
|
| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
199
consolations
|
|
| n.安慰，慰问( consolation的名词复数 )；起安慰作用的人（或事物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
200
cleave
|
|
| v．(clave；cleaved)粘着，粘住；坚持；依恋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
201
tainted
|
|
| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
202
craving
|
|
| n.渴望,热望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
203
aspirations
|
|
| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
204
humble
|
|
| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
205
candid
|
|
| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
206
ingenuous
|
|
| adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
207
conceited
|
|
| adj.自负的，骄傲自满的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
208
apocryphal
|
|
| adj.假冒的，虚假的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
209
vituperative
|
|
| adj.谩骂的；斥责的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
210
imputation
|
|
| n.归罪，责难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
211
prosecuted
|
|
| a.被起诉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
212
systematically
|
|
| adv.有系统地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
213
admiration
|
|
| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
214
syllogism
|
|
| n.演绎法，三段论法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
215
licentious
|
|
| adj.放纵的，淫乱的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
216
avowedly
|
|
| adv.公然地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
217
blasphemy
|
|
| n.亵渎，渎神 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
218
variance
|
|
| n.矛盾，不同 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
219
hearsay
|
|
| n.谣传，风闻 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
220
second-hand
|
|
| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
221
atheist
|
|
| n.无神论者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
222
hereditary
|
|
| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
223
monarchy
|
|
| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
224
fables
|
|
| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
225
specimens
|
|
| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
226
narratives
|
|
| 记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
227
perversion
|
|
| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
228
prodigality
|
|
| n.浪费，挥霍 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
229
exuberance
|
|
| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
230
embryo
|
|
| n.胚胎，萌芽的事物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
231
baboon
|
|
| n.狒狒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
232
qualified
|
|
| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
233
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
234
phenomena
|
|
| n.现象 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
235
strictly
|
|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
236
touching
|
|
| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
237
accurately
|
|
| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
238
investigation
|
|
| n.调查，调查研究 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
239
investigations
|
|
| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
240
solitary
|
|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
241
cogency
|
|
| n.说服力；adj.有说服力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
242
derived
|
|
| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
243
forsakes
|
|
| 放弃( forsake的第三人称单数 )； 弃绝； 抛弃； 摒弃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
244
feats
|
|
| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
245
bowels
|
|
| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
246
interpretations
|
|
| n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
247
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
248
geologists
|
|
| 地质学家，地质学者( geologist的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
249
possessed
|
|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
250
elastic
|
|
| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
251
amenable
|
|
| adj.经得起检验的；顺从的；对负有义务的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
252
rigid
|
|
| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
253
meek
|
|
| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
254
odious
|
|
| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
255
lashes
|
|
| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
256
reassure
|
|
| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
258
stoutly
|
|
| adv.牢固地，粗壮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
259
triumphant
|
|
| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
260
habitually
|
|
| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
261
habitual
|
|
| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
262
contemplates
|
|
| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的第三人称单数 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
263
strings
|
|
| n.弦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
264
vessels
|
|
| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
265
wrath
|
|
| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
266
instigated
|
|
| v.使（某事物）开始或发生，鼓动( instigate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
267
bosom
|
|
| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
268
influential
|
|
| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
269
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
270
conspicuous
|
|
| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
271
tolerance
|
|
| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
272
exhorts
|
|
| n.劝勉者，告诫者，提倡者( exhort的名词复数 )v.劝告，劝说( exhort的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
273
dissenters
|
|
| n.持异议者，持不同意见者( dissenter的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
274
defer
|
|
| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
275
millennium
|
|
| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
276
clan
|
|
| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
277
antagonism
|
|
| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
278
hatred
|
|
| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
279
enjoin
|
|
| v.命令；吩咐；禁止 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
280
obedience
|
|
| n.服从，顺从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
281
precepts
|
|
| n.规诫，戒律，箴言( precept的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
282
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
283
evasions
|
|
| 逃避( evasion的名词复数 )； 回避； 遁辞； 借口 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
284
succor
|
|
| n.援助，帮助；v.给予帮助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
285
succored
|
|
| v.给予帮助( succor的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
286
conjugal
|
|
| adj.婚姻的，婚姻性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
287
spouse
|
|
| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
288
temperate
|
|
| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
289
futile
|
|
| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
290
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
291
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
292
reverence
|
|
| 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 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
293
perverted
|
|
| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
294
scarlet
|
|
| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
295
scorpions
|
|
| n.蝎子( scorpion的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
296
grotesque
|
|
| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
297
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
298
dispositions
|
|
| 安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
299
subduing
|
|
| 征服( subdue的现在分词 )； 克制； 制服； 色变暗 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
300
pretension
|
|
| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
301
pretensions
|
|
| 自称( pretension的名词复数 )； 自命不凡； 要求； 权力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
302
advertising
|
|
| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
303
anticipation
|
|
| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
304
ridicule
|
|
| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
305
condemnatory
|
|
| adj. 非难的，处罚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
306
reverent
|
|
| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
307
imbued
|
|
| v.使（某人/某事）充满或激起（感情等）( imbue的过去式和过去分词 )；使充满；灌输；激发（强烈感情或品质等） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
308
frailty
|
|
| n.脆弱；意志薄弱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
309
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
310
bent
|
|
| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
311
extort
|
|
| v.勒索，敲诈，强要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
312
literally
|
|
| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
313
remains
|
|
| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
314
misery
|
|
| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
315
cogent
|
|
| adj.强有力的，有说服力的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
316
impenitent
|
|
| adj.不悔悟的，顽固的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
317
linen
|
|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
318
ascends
|
|
| v.上升，攀登( ascend的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
319
descends
|
|
| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
320
annihilated
|
|
| v.（彻底）消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 )；使无效；废止；彻底击溃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
321
lauded
|
|
| v.称赞，赞美( laud的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
322
eloquence
|
|
| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
323
reigns
|
|
| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
324
peculiar
|
|
| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
325
prominence
|
|
| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
326
hue
|
|
| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
327
ascertain
|
|
| vt.发现，确定，查明，弄清 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
328
bliss
|
|
| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
329
kindliness
|
|
| n.厚道，亲切，友好的行为 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
330
redound
|
|
| v.有助于；提；报应 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
331
subservient
|
|
| adj.卑屈的，阿谀的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
332
penetrate
|
|
| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
333
avenge
|
|
| v.为...复仇，为...报仇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
334
quotations
|
|
| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
335
motive
|
|
| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
336
ostentation
|
|
| n.夸耀，卖弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
337
deficient
|
|
| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
338
elevation
|
|
| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
339
motives
|
|
| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
340
rebuke
|
|
| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
341
subversive
|
|
| adj.颠覆性的，破坏性的；n.破坏份子，危险份子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
342
positively
|
|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
343
noxious
|
|
| adj.有害的，有毒的；使道德败坏的，讨厌的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
344
well-being
|
|
| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
345
impelled
|
|
| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
346
toil
|
|
| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
347
animated
|
|
| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
348
soothing
|
|
| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
349
frailties
|
|
| n.脆弱( frailty的名词复数 )；虚弱；（性格或行为上的）弱点；缺点 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
350
discretion
|
|
| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
351
coercion
|
|
| n.强制，高压统治 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
352
supreme
|
|
| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
353
hamper
|
|
| vt.妨碍，束缚，限制；n.(有盖的)大篮子 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
354
mortar
|
|
| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
355
persecution
|
|
| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
356
benevolence
|
|
| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
357
soothe
|
|
| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
358
benevolent
|
|
| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
359
deference
|
|
| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
360
neutralize
|
|
| v.使失效、抵消，使中和 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
361
contemplated
|
|
| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
362
infinitely
|
|
| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
363
intensify
|
|
| vt.加强；变强；加剧 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
364
alleviate
|
|
| v.减轻，缓和，缓解(痛苦等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
365
degradation
|
|
| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
366
multiplication
|
|
| n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
367
intensified
|
|
| v.（使）增强， （使）加剧( intensify的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
368
consistency
|
|
| n.一贯性，前后一致，稳定性；(液体的)浓度 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
369
stifled
|
|
| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
370
repelled
|
|
| v.击退( repel的过去式和过去分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
371
corruption
|
|
| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
372
diligent
|
|
| adj.勤勉的，勤奋的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
373
disapprove
|
|
| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
374
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
375
counteract
|
|
| vt.对…起反作用，对抗，抵消 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
376
perversions
|
|
| n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 )；变坏；变态心理 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |