“Yes,” said Arthur, apparently in answer to my thoughts, “those ‘high’ services are fast becoming pure Formalism. More and more the people are beginning to regard them as ‘performances,’ in which they only ‘assist’ in the French sense. And it is _specially_ bad for the little boys. They’d be much less self-conscious as pantomime-fairies. With all that dressing-up, and stage-entrances and exits, and being always _en evidence_, no wonder if they’re eaten up with vanity, the blatant little coxcombs!” When we passed the Hall on our return, we found the Earl and Lady Muriel sitting out in the garden. Eric had gone for a stroll. We joined them, and the conversation soon turned on the sermon we had just heard, the subject of which was ‘selfishness.’ “What a change has come over our pulpits,” Arthur remarked, “since the time when Paley gave that utterly selfish definition of virtue, ‘_the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness_’!” Lady Muriel looked at him enquiringly, but she seemed to have learned by intuition, what years of experience had taught _me_, that the way to elicit Arthur’s deepest thoughts was neither to assent nor dissent, but simply to _listen_. “At that time,” he went on, “a great tidal wave of selfishness was sweeping over human thought. Right and Wrong had somehow been transformed into Gain and Loss, and Religion had become a sort of commercial transaction. We may be thankful that our preachers are beginning to take a nobler view of life.” “But is it not taught again and again in the _Bible_?” I ventured to ask. “Not in the Bible as a _whole_,” said Arthur. “In the Old Testament, no doubt, rewards and punishments are constantly appealed to as motives for action. That teaching is best for _children_, and the Israelites seem to have been, mentally, _utter_ children. We guide our children thus, at first: but we appeal, as soon as possible, to their innate sense of Right and Wrong: and, when _that_ stage is safely past, we appeal to the highest motive of all, the desire for likeness to, and union with, the Supreme Good. I think you will find that to be the teaching of the Bible, _as a whole_, beginning with ‘_that thy days may be long in the land_,’ and ending with ‘_be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect_.’” We were silent for awhile, and then Arthur went off on another tack. “Look at the literature of Hymns, now. How cankered it is, through and through, with selfishness! There are few human compositions more utterly degraded than some modern Hymns!” I quoted the stanza “Whatever, Lord, we lend to Thee, Repaid a thousandfold shall be, Then gladly will we give to Thee, Giver of all!”