believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son." To believe in the Holy Ghost is to believe that the Infinite Spirit may, and does, enter into communion with our spirits. Here is a thought which may well excite our enthusiasm and call forth our love. And if it does, we shall be stimulated to walk worthy of this high vocation wherewith we have been called, to conduct ourselves as becometh the children, the sons, the friends of God. But to believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son-even supposing it can be done, even supposing it is possible to attach any definite meaning to the words-is at best but to accept a proposition in technical theology. In the Greek Church men are taught to believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds only from the Father. Yet no one can suppose that their conduct is, on this account, worse than that of Roman Catholics or of English Churchmen. No one can suppose that the conduct of a single member of the Greek Church would be in one iota altered, by his coming to believe that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son.

You may believe

You may believe

I shall continue this subject, if all be well, another day, and point out to you more fully how ideals are connected with creed on the one hand and with conduct on the other. But I have already, I hope, said enough to convince you once and for ever that the important thing is not what you profess to believe, not even what you actually do believe your destiny here and hereafter will depend upon your conduct; and that will be determined by what you love. much, and have a low ideal. little, and your ideal may be transcendently sublime. Many good persons feel sad and anxious at the breaking up of the old orthodoxy, at the increasing disinclination on the part of the highly educated to accept the old ecclesiastical formularies. But for their comfort I would suggest that if, along with all this heresy, there exists, as I think there does, an ever-growing sense of the paramount importance of conduct, the world is after all progressing,-progressing, perhaps, by means of those very changes which they so deeply deplore. Like Elijah of old they say "We, only we, are followers of the

104 Connection between Creed and Conduct.

Lord." But they are mistaken. God fulfils Himself in many ways,-ways undreamed of in their philosophy. "What they know not now, they will know hereafter." They will be unfeignedly thankful when they find that they were wrong.

105

Ideals.

CRE is no necessary connection, we have

THERE

seen, between creed and conduct. A man's creed may be good and his conduct bad. He may have no creed at all—at least nothing that would ordinarily be called a creed—and yet his conduct may be sublime. People who hold the same creed-who really believe in the accuracy and truth of its statements—nevertheless often act in different ways; and people who hold different creeds often act in the same way. The fact is, as I said, men's actions are determined, not by what they believe, but by what they love. Everything we care for has some effect upon our conduct. What we care for supremely determines the quality of our conduct upon the whole, —makes it in the main either good or bad. And

that which a man cares for supremely may be called, as I suggested, his ideal.

Now, ultimately, there are only two kinds of ideals. They may all be classified under two categories. They are all concerned either with pleasure or with character, either with selfaggrandisement or with self-development, either with getting good things or with becoming good. We see every day around us proofs of the fact that men act in accordance with one or other of these ideals. Some will not hesitate to enrich themselves by what is called sharp practice; others would rather be beggared than do anything in the least degree ignoble. Some endeavour chiefly and generally to procure enjoyment for themselves; others are more anxious to give it to their neighbours. Some, as they grow older, become wiser, nobler, greater; others show no signs of development from their manhood to their grave. It is frequently quite manifest to which of these classes a man really belongs. But, manifest or not, every one does belong to one or to the other. He may scarcely know it himself; but if he sits down in a quiet moment