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A CHRISTMAS SERMON

BY

Robert Louis Stevenson

NEW YORK

1900

A CHRISTMAS SERMON

By the time this paper appears, I shall have been talking for twelvemonths;[1] and it is thought I should take my leave in a formal andseasonable manner. Valedictory eloquence is rare, and death-bed sayingshave not often hit the mark of the occasion. Charles Second, wit andsceptic, a man whose life had been one long lesson in human incredulity,an easy-going comrade, a manoeuvring king—remembered and embodied allhis wit and scepticism along with more than his usual good humour in thefamous "I am afraid, gentlemen, I am an unconscionable time a-dying."

I

An unconscionable time a-dying—there is the picture ("I am afraid,gentlemen,") of your life and of mine. The sands run out, and the hoursare "numbered and imputed," and the days go by; and when the last ofthese finds us, we have been a long time dying, and what else? The verylength is something, if we reach that hour of separation undishonoured;and to have lived at all is doubtless (in the soldierly expression) tohave served. There is a tale in Tacitus of how the veterans mutinied inthe German wilderness; of how they mobbed Germanicus, clamouring to gohome; and of how, seizing their general's hand, these old, war-wornexiles passed his finger along their toothless gums. Sunt lacrymærerum: this was the most eloquent of the songs of Simeon. And when aman has lived to a fair age, he bears his marks of service. He may havenever been remarked upon the breach at the head of the army; at least heshall have lost his teeth on the camp bread.

The idealism of serious people in this age of ours is of a noblecharacter. It never seems to them that they have served enough; theyhave a fine impatience of their virtues. It were perhaps more modest tobe singly thankful that we are no worse. It is not only our enemies,those desperate characters—it is we ourselves who know not what wedo;—thence springs the glimmering hope that perhaps we do better thanwe think: that to scramble through this random business with handsreasonably clean, to have played the part of a man or woman with somereasonable fulness, to have often resisted the diabolic, and at the endto be still resisting it, is for the poor human soldier to have doneright well. To ask to see some fruit of our endeavour is but atranscendental way of serving for reward; and what we take to becontempt of self is only greed of hire.

And again if we require so much of ourselves, shall we not require muchof others? If we do not genially judge our own deficiencies, is it notto be feared we shall be even stern to the trespasses of others? And hewho (looking back upon his own life) can see no more than that he hasbeen unconscionably long a-dying, will he not be tempted to think hisneighbour unconscionably long of getting hanged? It is probable thatnearly all who think of conduct at all, think of it too much; it iscertain we all think too much of sin. We are not damned for doing wrong,but for not doing right; Christ would never hear of negative morality;thou shalt was ever his word, with which he superseded thou shaltnot. To make our idea of morality centre on forbidden acts is to defilethe imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men asecret element of gusto. If a thing is wrong for us, we should not dwellupon the thought of it; or we shall soon dwell upon it with invertedpleasure. If we cannot drive it from our minds—one thing of two: eitherour creed is in the wrong and we must more indulgently remodel it; orelse, if our morality be in the right, we are criminal lunatics andshould place our persons in restraint. A mark of such unwholesomelydivided minds is the passion for interference with others: the Foxwithout the Tail was of this breed, but had (if his biographer is to betrusted) a certain antique civility now out of date. A man may have aflaw, a weakness, that unfits him for the duties of life, that spoilshis temper, that threatens his integrity, or that betrays him intocruelty. It has to be conquered; but it must never be suffered toengross his thoughts. The true duties lie all upon the farther side, andmust be attended to with a whole mind so soon as this preliminaryclearing of the decks has been effected. In order that he may be kindand honest, it may be needful he should become a total abstainer; lethim become so then, and the next day let him forget the circumstance.Trying to be kind and honest will require all his thoughts; a mortifiedappetite is never a wise companion; in so far as he has had to mortifyan appetite, he will still be the worse man; and of such an one a great