In a moral universe, selfishness
involves, rightly and inevitably, suffering--suffering self-sown,
self-determined, and self-merited.
He is the last man in the world from whom one would expect such teaching
to emanate. He seems, in his social moments, a scholar who is scarcely
aware of humanity in his delicious pursuit of pure truth, a man who
inhabits the faery realm of ideas, and drinks the milk of Paradise. But
approach him on other ground and you find, though his serenity never
deserts him, though he is always imperturbable and unassertive, that his
interest in humanity and the practical problems of humanity is as vivid
and consuming as that of any social reformer.
There, in Oxford, among his books, and carrying on his duties as
Principal of Mansfield College, Dr. Selbie, back from holidays spent in
watching the great working world and listening to the teachers of that
world, finds himself not alarmed, but anxious. The voice of religion, he
feels, is not making itself heard, and the voices of churches are making
only a discord. Men are going astray because they have no knowledge of
their course, and the blind are falling into the ditch because they are
led by the blind. How is this dangerous condition of things to be
remedied?
He replies, By the teachers.
What we need at this hour above all other needs is the great teacher,
one able to proclaim and explain the truths of religion, and filled with
a high enthusiasm for his office.
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