Among the new knowledges which the modern sirens tempt you to pursue, the basest and darkest is the endeavour to trace the origin of life, otherwise than in Love. Pardon me, therefore, if I give you a piece of theology to-day: it is a science much closer to your art than anatomy. 169. All of you who have ever read your Gospels carefully must have wondered, sometimes, what could be the meaning of those words,--"If any speak against the Son of Man it shall be forgiven; but if against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the next." The passage may have many meanings which I do not know; but one meaning I know positively, and I tell you so just as frankly as I would that I knew the meaning of a verse in Homer. Those of you who still go to chapel say every day your creed; and, I suppose, too often, less and less every day believing it. Now, you may cease to believe two articles of it, and,--admitting Christianity to be true,--still be forgiven. But I can tell you--you must _not_ cease to believe the third! You begin by saying that you believe in an Almighty Father. Well, you may entirely lose the sense of that Fatherhood, and yet be forgiven. You go on to say that you believe in a Saviour Son. You may entirely lose the sense of that Sonship, and yet be forgiven. But the third article--disbelieve if you dare! "I believe in the Holy Ghost, _the Lord and Giver of life_." Disbelieve that; and your own being is degraded into the state of dust driven by the wind; and the elements of dissolution have entered your very heart and soul. All Nature, with one voice--with one glory,--is set to teach you reverence for the life communicated to you from the Father of Spirits. The song of birds, and their plumage; the scent of flowers, their colour, their very existence, are in direct connection with the mystery of that communicated life: and all the strength, and all the arts of men, are measured by, and founded upon, their reverence for the passion, and their guardianship of the purity, of Love. 170. Gentlemen,--the word by which I at this moment address you--by which it is the first of all your duties through life, to permit all men to address you with truth--that epithet of 'gentle,' as you well know, indicates the intense respect for race and fatherhood--for family dignity and chastity,--which was visibly the strength of Rome, as it had been, more disguisedly, the strength of Greece. But have you enough noticed that your Saxon word 'kindness' has exactly the same relation to 'kin,' and to the Chaucerian 'kind,' that 'gentle' has to 'gentilis'?