CHAPTER II FREDERICK WILLIAM ROBERTSON IN passing from Friedrich Schleiermacher to Frederick Robertson we are at first strongly impressed with their points of contrast. But after all between the two men there are notable points of likeness. In much they are kindred spirits, and they hold the same general point of view in their estimate of religion, of theology, and of the practical significance of the Christian church. They are alike in their spiritual insight, their delicacy of religious susceptibility, their ardent affectionateness, their fervid emotion, their sturdy independence, their manly courage, their tolerance, their patriotism, their devotion to the practical interests of men, their humanistic culture, and they are both intrenched in the position that "in all matters of eternal truth the soul is before the intellect." It will always be an honor to the Anglican church that it was the spiritual home of Frederick Robertson. But it cannot be claimed that he is a distinctive product of the Anglican church. He was the product of a broader world than that in which his church moves. He had nothing of the churchliness that characterizes the typical Anglican preacher, nothing of his conservatism, conventionalism, and devotion to institutional religion. He was subjective, independent, revolutionary, open-hearted, and fiery. He was immensely human, and no ecclesiastical establishment could bind. his free, imperial spirit. I INFLUENCES DETERMINATIVE OF ROBERTSON'S DEVELOPMENT In point of time, Robertson belongs to the first half of the nineteenth century; in point of influence, to the last half. He was born in 1816 and died in 1853, at the age of thirty-seven years and six months. His public life covers a period of only thirteen years, during which he was not very widely known, even in his own country. It is since his death that his place as a preacher has been established, and it is hardly too much to say that among the educated classes, throughout the English-speaking world and throughout Germany as well, his name has become more widely cherished, and his work more widely influential, than that of any other English preacher of his century. 1. In looking at the career of this singularly gifted and impressive preacher, we note at the outset his distinctive English qualities. Although in remote lineage he may have been Scotch, he had become thoroughly Anglicanized, and he disclosed English rather than Scottish traits. He was, in fact, every inch an Englishman, and he bore the marks of the English culture of the first half of the century. He was, indeed, a man of much finer fibre than the average Englishman, even than the English preacher. His mind was much more speculative, it had a subtler insight, a richer æsthetic sensibility, a much more delicate emotional susceptibility, than most Englishmen possess. But in his basal qualities, those qualities that gave solidity and balance to his and the intuition and the tenderness of woman, with the breadth and massiveness of the manly intellect, besides the calm justice which is almost exclusively masculine." It was this manly independence of character that gave a martial heroism to his too short earthly career. He had the English ethical mind. Gentle toward the weak and suffering, he was fierce in his moral indignation and terrible in his denunciation of cowardly wrong. He had no weak, sentimental notions about punishment, human or divine. "Once in my life," he says, "I felt a terrible might. I knew and rejoiced to know, as I spoke, that I was inflicting the sentence of a coward and a liar's hell." He hated and denounced all sham and hypocrisy with the intensity of Carlyle. But he had the reserve of a gentleman, and the patience of a Christian in all his denunciation. By the patrons of tradition and convention he was regarded as an iconoclast, and it must be acknowledged that in effect, although not in spirit or method, he was revolutionary in his teaching; but still he had the Englishman's caution and his conservative habit of mind. He taught freely and boldly, but positively and constructively. "Let them draw the conclusions, I state truths," he says, and for this reason he was left" unmolested in spite of great grumbling, dissatisfaction, and almost personal hatred." He was democratic in principle while he was aristocratic in sentiment. "My tastes," he says, "are with the aristocrat, my principles with the mob." And in all this he is conscious of fellowship with John Milton. He was the recognized friend of the working-men of Brighton, but he never allied himself even with the Christian socialists. He thought that the mind." It was this English common sense that led him to take a balanced view of all things and secured him against the one-sidedness of his impulses. No modern preacher has entered more deeply than he into the life of Christ, and his spirit of self-sacrificing devotion became almost a passion with him. It might have become a superstition and a supererogatory sort of passion. But he held himself in moral poise, and could say, "I believe the spirit of exceeding self-devotion, as a mere romantic instinct, is but folly." He was almost feminine in his emotional susceptibilities and in the tenderness of his sympathy, but all this was matched by a masculine strenuousness of will that increased in force with the passing years, and held him steadfast to his goal. To a shrinking sensibility that was intensified by the contradictions of life and made morbid by physical disease, was added a virile individuality and Saxon. independence of character. He was humble, yet in high measure self-asserting. He respected the opinions of others, yet in his own opinions he refused to be a partisan. "Save yourself from sectarianism; pledge yourself to no school," is his counsel to the workingmen of Brighton; "cut your life adrift from all party; be a slave to no maxims: stand fast, unfettered and free, servants only of the truth." He kept his own precept, and in the spirit of this independence he spoke with a courage that is an honor to the manliest race of the modern world. What he declares to be true of the poet is true of himself, who also had the poet's mind and heart. "Every great poet," he says, "is a doublenatured man, with the feminine and manly powers in harmonious union, having the tact and the sympathy and the intuition and the tenderness of woman, with the breadth and massiveness of the manly intellect, besides the calm justice which is almost exclusively masculine." It was this manly independence of character that gave a martial heroism to his too short earthly career. He had the English ethical mind. Gentle toward the weak and suffering, he was fierce in his moral indignation and terrible in his denunciation of cowardly wrong. He had no weak, sentimental notions about punishment, human or divine. "Once in my life," he says, "I felt a terrible might. I knew and rejoiced to know, as I spoke, that I was inflicting the sentence of a coward and a liar's hell." He hated and denounced all sham and hypocrisy with the intensity of Carlyle. But he had the reserve of a gentleman, and the patience of a Christian in all his denunciation. By the patrons of tradition and convention he was regarded as an iconoclast, and it must be acknowledged that in effect, although not in spirit or method, he was revolutionary in his teaching; but still he had the Englishman's caution and his conservative habit of mind. He taught freely and boldly, but positively and constructively. "Let them draw the conclusions, I state truths," he says, and for this reason he was left" unmolested in spite of great grumbling, dissatisfaction, and almost personal hatred." He was democratic in principle while he was aristocratic in sentiment. "My tastes," he says, "are with the aristocrat, my principles with the mob." And in all this he is conscious of fellowship with John Milton. He was the recognized friend of the working-men of Brighton, but he never allied himself even with the Christian socialists. He thought that |