The Eclipse of Faith Part 8

"Had he not believed that, he would not have written.'

"I suppose not. However, how the world should need it, if your principles be true, and every man brings into the world his own particular lantern,--'Enter Moons.h.i.+ne,'--I do not quite understand; or, if it is in need of such illumination not withstanding, why it should not be possible for an external revelation to supply it still better than your illuminati, I am equally unable to understand.

But let that pa.s.s. Mr. Newman concludes that the world does stand in need of this illumination, and that it has had it at various times. In is his opinion, is it not, that men began by being polytheists and idolaters?"

"It is so; and surely all history bears out the theory."

"Many doubt it. I will not venture to give any opinion, except that there are inexplicable difficulties, as usual, on both sides. Just now I am quite willing to take his statement for granted, and suppose that man in the infancy of his race was, in spite of the aid of his very peculiar illumination,--which seems to have 'rayed out darkness,'

--as very a Troglodyte in civilization and religion as you (for the special glory of his Creator, I suppose, and the honor of your species) can wish him to have been. Well, man began by being a polytheist, and very gradually emerged out of that pleasant condition --or rather an infinitesimal portion of the race has emerged out of it, into the better forms of idolatry--(poor wretch!), and from thence to monotheism; that, in short, his polytheism is not the corruption of his monotheism, but his monotheism an elevation of his polytheism. Yet it is, after all, a cheerless 'progress,' which often 'advances backward.' Mr. Newman says that 'the law of G.o.d's moral universe, as known to us, is that of progress; that we trace it from old barbarism to the methodized Egyptian idolatry, to the more flexible polytheism of Syria and Greece,' and so forth; and so in Palestine, from the 'image-wors.h.i.+p in Jacob's family to the rise of spiritual sentiment under David, and Hezekiah's prophets.' (Phases, p. 223)

Yet he also tells us, 'Ceremonialism more and more incrusted the restored nation, and Jesus was needed to spur and stab the consciences of his contemporaries, and recall them to more spiritual perceptions.'

Well, thus came Christ to 'stab and spur'; and faith, I think 'stab and spur' were again needed by the end of the third century. Successive reformers are needed to 'stab and spur' the thick hide of humanity, without which it will not, it seems, go forward, but perversely go backward; and even with this perpetual application of the goad of some spiritual mohoul, man crawls on at an intolerably slow pace. However, 'stab' and 'spur' are needed which is all I am now intent upon."

"Yes; but each of those great souls who have stimulated the dull mind of ordinary humanity derived from its own internal illumination that spiritual light which they have communicated to the rest of mankind!"

"For themselves, perhaps, my friend," said Harrington, "and if they had kept it to themselves in many instances, probably the world would have been no loser. That they had it from within, is true,--if your theory is true. But to others, to the bulk of mankind, they have imparted this light; it has been to mankind an 'external revelation'; it is from without, not from within, that this light has been received, and that the boasted 'progress' of the race has been secured. It remains, therefore, only for your Christian opponent to ask, how it should be impossible that mankind should be indebted to an external revelation by G.o.d, when it is plain that they are indebted for the like from man! And whether it is not conceivable that, if Moses and Socrates and Paul could do so much for them, G.o.d could do a trifle more? You will say, perhaps, on the old plea, that these profounder spirits only made articulate that which already existed inarticulately in the hearts of those whom they addressed; that they only chafed into life the marble statue of Pygmalion,--the dormant principles and sentiments which had a home in the human heart before, only they were unluckily treated as strangers. Well; the same thing may the apologist for the Bible say,--merely adding, that it does more effectually the business of thus awakening 'dormant' powers, and giving a substantive form to the shadowy conceptions of mankind. But it is still, in either case, to the bulk of the world an external revelation, an outward aid which gives them the actual conscious possession of spiritual light, and secures the vaunted progress of humanity. Such are some of my difficulties respecting your theory of the impossibility and inutility of any and all external revelations. I must, in candor, say that our discussion has left them where they were."

"There is one thing," he added, "about your system which I acknowledge would be consolatory to me if it were but true. If man be really in possession of an internal and universal revelation of moral and spiritual truth, you neither can nor need take any trouble to enlighten and convert him. It relieves one of all superfluous anxiety on that score."

"Pardon me," said Fellowes, "it is Mr. Newman's spiritual theory alone which does allow the prospect of success to any such efforts. As he truly says, when the spiritual champion has thrown off the burden of an historical Christianity, he advances, as lightly equipped as Priestley himself. I should say much more lightly. 'What,' says he, 'may we now expect from the true theologian when he attacks sin, and vice, and gross spirituality?' 'The weapon he uses,' to employ Mr. Newman's own language, 'is as lightning from G.o.d, kindled from the spirit within him, and piercing through the unbeliever's soul, convincing his conscience of sin, and striking him to the ground before G.o.d; until those who believe receive it not as the word of man but as what it is, in truth, the word of G.o.d. Its action is directly upon the conscience and upon the soul, and hence its wonderful results; not on the critical faculties, upon which the spirit is powerless.'(Soul, p. 244) Again, he says that such a preacher 'will have plenty to say, alike to the vulgar and to the philosophers, appreciable by the soul.' Hear him again: 'Then he may speak with confidence of what he knows and feels; and call on his hearers of themselves to try and prove his words.

Then the conversion of men to the love of G.o.d may take place by hundreds and thousands, as in some former instances. Then, at length, some hope may dawn that Mohammedans and Hindoos may be joined in one fold with us, under one Shepherd, who will only have regained his older name of the Lord G.o.d.'" (Soul, p. 258)

"By all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of all the nations," said Harrington, "I cannot understand it. How mankind should need such teaching, if your theory be true; how, if they need it, it is possible that you should give it if all external revelation of moral and spiritual truth be impossible; how, if it is impossible, it should be impossible for a G.o.d, by a Bible, to give the like; how you can get at the souls of people at all except through the intervention of the senses and the intellect,--the latter of which you say has nothing to do with the 'soul,' and surely the former can have as little; or how, if you can get at them by this intervention, it is impossible that a Bible should,--is all to me a mystery. But let that pa.s.s. If your last account be true, one thing is clear; that a splendid career is open to you and your friends. You can immediately employ this irresistible 'weapon' for the verification of your views and the conversion of the human race. You can renew, or rather realize, the triumphs of early Christianity;--I say realize, for you and Mr.

Newman believe them to be, for the most part, fabulous, and that it was the army of Constantine that conquered the Empire for Christianity; but you can turn such fables into truths. Surely the least you can do is to be off as a missionary to China or India. Go to Constantinople, my dear fellow, and take the Great Turk by the beard. Nor can Mr. Newman do less than repair to Bagdad, upon a second and more hopeful mission. You will know when you have demolished Mohammedanism, and got fairly into Thibet. Alexander's career will be nothing to it. But alas! I fear it will be only another variety of that impossible thing,--a book-revelation!"

"Nay," said Fellowes, "we must first finish our mission at home, and try our weapons upon you and such as you. We must subdue such as you first."

"Then you will never go," said Harrington.

"Never mind," I said, "Mr. Fellowes; Harrington is very mischievous to-day. But, as he said he would not contest the ground of your dictum, that a book-revelation of moral and spiritual truth is impossible, so he has not entered into it. Will you let me, on a future day, read to you a brief paper upon it? I have no skill--or but little--in that erotetic method of which Harrington is so fond." He a.s.sented, and here this long conversation ended.

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July 7. Harrington and I spent a portion of this morning alone (Fellowes was gone out for a day or two), conversing on various subjects. I hardly know how it was, but I felt a strong reluctance to enter with formality on that one which yet lay nearest my heart, --whether from the fear lest I should do more harm than good; lest controversy should, as so often happens, indurate rather than soften the heart: or perhaps I had some secret distrust of my own temper or his. Yet, if I felt any thing of the last, I am sure I did him injustice; and (I hope) myself. Be it as it may, I thought it better just to exchange a shot now and then,--sometimes it was a red-hot shot too on both sides,--as we pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, in the current of conversation, than come to a regular set-to, yard-arm to yard-arm.

From whatever cause, he gave me abundant opportunity of recurring to the subject, for he was perpetually, and I believe unconsciously, leading the conversation towards it; not, I think, from confidence in his logical prowess, but from the restlessness in which (he did not pretend to disguise it) his state of scepticism had plunged him.

It was curious, indeed, to see how every thing, sooner or later, fell into one channel. For example, I happened to remark, that a cottage in the valley which we saw from his library window would make a pretty object in a picture,--it was the only sign of life in the little valley. "I should like the view itself all the better without it," said he. I observed that a painter would feel very differently; and if there were no such object, he would be sure to put one in. "O, certainly," he replied, "a painter would, and justly; there is no doubt that the shadow of animated existence is very admirable; a picture, I admit, is wonderfully more picturesque with such a picture of life; especially as the painter can and does remove every thing offensive to his fastidious art. He is very apt to regard the objects in his landscapes much as a poet does a cottage, according to Cowper's confession. 'By a cottage,'

says he to Lady Hesketh, 'you must always understand, my dear, that a poet means a house with six sashes in front, comfortable parlors, a smart staircase, and three rooms of convenient dimensions.' As I have looked sometimes down a mountain glen, and seen the most picturesque huts upon its sides, I have thought how little the painter could dispense with them. But, then, how easily the philosopher can: for, alas! I have taken wing from my station, and looked in through the miserable eas.e.m.e.nt, and seen, not only what is disgusting to the senses,--which is a small matter,--but ignorance and disease, and fear, and guilt, and racking pain, and doubt, and death; and I have not been able to help saying, in pity, 'O for absolute solitude!--how much nature would be improved if the human race were annihilated!'"

"The human race," said I, laughing, "is very much obliged to the pity which would thus exterminate them; but as one of them, I should decidedly object to so sweeping a mode of improving the picturesque.

Besides, I suppose you make an exception in favor, yourself, otherwise the picturesque would vanish just when it was brought to perfection.

I am often inclined to say with Paley, though I remember well having sometimes felt as you do, 'It is a happy world after all.' I admit, however, that a buoyant, cheerful, habitual conviction of this will depend on the const.i.tution of the mind, and even vary with the same in its different moods. But I am sure it may be a really happy world, whatever its sorrows, to any one who will view it as he ought."

"I wish you could teach me the art."

"It is," said I, "to exercise the faith and the hope of a Christian, humbly to regard this life as what it is,--a scene of discipline and schooling, a pilgrimage to a better. It is an old remedy, but it has been often tried; and to millions of our race has made this world more than tolerable, and death tranquil, nay, triumphant. Do you remember Schiller's 'Walk among the Linden-Trees'?"

"Perfectly well."

"Do you not remember how the two youths differ in their estimate of the beautiful in nature? 'Is it possible,' says Edwin, 'you can thus turn from the cup of joy, sparkling and overflowing as it is?'--'Yes,'

said Wollmar, 'when one finds a spider in it; and why not? In your eyes, to be sure, Nature decks herself out like a rosy-checked maiden on her bridal day. To me she appears an old, withered beldame, with sunken eyes, furrowed cheeks, and artificial ornaments in her hair. How she seems to admire herself in this her Sunday finery! But it is the same worn and ancient garment, put off and on some hundreds of thousands of times.' But how natural is the explanation of all given at the beautiful close of the dialogue! 'Here,' said the jocund Edwin, 'I first met my Juliet.'--'And it was under these linden-trees,'

says Wollmar, 'that I lost my Laura' It was their mood of mind, and not the outward world, that made all the difference. All nature, innocent thing! must consent to take her hue from it. You have, I fear, lost your Laura,"--simply alluding to his early faith; "or shall I suppose, from your present mood, that you have just met with your Juliet?" I spoke, of course, of his philosophy.

He was looking out of the window; but on my turning my gaze towards him, I saw such a look of peculiar anguish, that I felt I had inadvertently touched a terrible chord indeed. I turned the conversation hastily, by remarking (almost without thinking of what I said) on the beautiful contrast between the light blue of the sky and the green of the lawn and trees; and proceeded to remark on the degree in which the mere organic or sensational pleasures of vision formed an ingredient in the pleasurable a.s.sociations of the complex "beautiful."

He gradually resumed conversation; and we discussed the subject of the "beautiful" for some time. Yet I know not how it was, nor can I trace the steps by which we deviated,--only that Rousseau's summer -day dreams on the Lake of Bienne was a link in the chain,--we somehow soon found ourselves on the brink of the great controversy respecting the "origin of Evil." "I have read many books on that subject," said I; "but I intend to read no more; and I should think you have had enough of them."

"Why, yes," said he, laughing; "whatever philosophers may have thought of the origin of evil, it is a great aggravation of it to read their speculations. The best thing I know on the subject--and it exhausts it--is half a dozen lines in 'Robinson Crusoe.'"

"Robinson Crusoe!" said I.

"Certainly," he replied; "do you not remember that when he caught his man Friday, the 'intuitional consciousness'--the 'insight'--the 'inward revelation' of that worthy savage not being found quite so perfect as Mr. Parker would fancy, Robinson proceeds to indoctrinate him in the mysteries of theology? Friday is much puzzled, as many more learned savages have been before him, to find that the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness of G.o.d had made every thing good, and that good it would have continued had not been for the opposition of the Devil. 'Why G.o.d not kill Debbil?' asks poor Friday. On which says Robinson, 'Though I was a very old man, I found that I was but a young doctor in divinity.' Ah! if all doctors in divinity had been equally candid, the treatises on that dread subject would not have been quite so voluminous; for we close them all alike with the unavailing question, 'Why G.o.d not kill Debbil?'"

Observing this tendency to gravitate towards the abyss, I at last said to him, 'I think, if I were you, having decided that there is no religious truth to be found, I should dismiss the subject from my thoughts altogether. Do as the Indian did, who struggled as long as he could to right his canoe when he found he was in the stream of Niagara; but, finding his efforts unavailing, sat himself down with his arms folded, and went down the falls without stirring a muscle. Let us talk no more on the subject. Why should you perplex yourself, as you apparently do, about a thing so hopeless to be found out as truth? 'What is truth?' said Pilate; and, as Bacon says, 'he would not wait for an answer.' It was a question to which, most probably, he, like you, thought no answer could be given. If I were you, I should do the same. Why perplex yourself to no purpose?"

"I should answer," said he, "as Solon did when asked why he grieved for his son, seeing all grief was unavailing.' It is for that very reason that I grieve,' was the reply. And in like manner I dwell on the impossibility of discovering truth because it is impossible."

I acknowledged that it was a sufficient reason, and that it went to account in some degree for a fact I had remarked in the few sceptics I had come across,--genuine or otherwise,--that they seemed less capable of reposing in their professed convictions than any one else: it is of no avail, they say, to reason on such subjects; and yet they are perpetually reasoning! They will neither rest themselves nor let any one else rest. He confessed it, and said, "The state of mind is very much as you have described it; and you have described it so exactly, that I almost think you, my dear uncle, must know the heart of a sceptic, and have been one yourself some time or other!"

We wound up the morning, which was beautiful, by taking a ride, in the course of which I was amused with an instance of the sensitiveness with which Harrington's cultivated mind recoiled from the grossness of vulgar and ignorant infidelity. We called at the cottage of a little farmer, a tenant of his, somewhat notorious both for profanity and sensuality.

Presuming, I suppose, on his young landlord's suspected heterodoxy, and thinking, perhaps, to curry favor with him, he ventured (I know not what led to it) to indulge in some stupid joke about the legion and the herd of swine. "Sir," said he, scratching his head, "the Devil, I reckon, must have been a more clever fellow than I thought, to make two thousand hogs go down a steep place into the sea; it is hard enough even to make them go where they will, and almost impossible make them go where they won't."

"The Devil, my good friend," said Harrington, very gravely, "is a very clever fellow; and I hope you do not for a moment intend to compare yourself with him. As to the supposed miracle, it would, no doubt, be hard to say which were most to be pitied, the devils in the swine, or the swine with the devils in them; but has it never struck you that the whole may be an allegorical representation of the miserable and destructive effects of the union of the two vices of sensuality and profanity? They also (if all tales be true) lead to a steep place, but I have never heard that it ends in the water. Now," he continued, "I dare say you would laugh at that story which the Roman Catholics tell of St. Antony; namely, that he preached to the pigs'!

--yet it has had a very sound allegorical interpretation; we are told that it meant merely that he preached to country farmers; which, you see, is more than I have been doing."

It was one of the many things which made me a sceptic as to whether he was one. "Harrington," said I, "at times I find it impossible to believe that you doubt the truth of Christianity."

"Suppose I were to answer, that at times I doubt whether I doubt it or not, would not that be a thorough sceptic's answer?" I admitted that it would be indeed.

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July 8. I was already in the library, writing, when Harrington came in to breakfast. "You seem busy early," said he. I told him I was merely endeavoring to manifest my love for his future children.

"You know," said I, "what Isocrates says, that it is right that children, as they inherit the other possessions, should also inherit the friends.h.i.+ps of their fathers."

"My children!" said he, very gravely; "I shall never have any."

"O, yes, you will, and then these sullen vapors of doubt will roll off before the sunlight of domestic happiness. It will allure you to love Him who has given you so much to love. Yes," said I, gayly, "I shall visit you one day in happier moods; when you will wonder how you could have indulged all your present thoughts of G.o.d and the universe. As you gaze into the face of innocent childhood, which shows you what faith in G.o.d is by trust in you, you will say, 'Heaven s.h.i.+eld the boy from being what his father has been?'--you will feel that such thoughts as yours will not do, as the world says; and we shall all go together, you with your wife on your arm, to church there in the in the bright sun and deep quiet of a Sabbath morning, and amidst the music of the Sabbath bells; and as the tranquil scene steals into your very soul, you will say, 'No, scepticism was not made for man.'"

"It is a pleasant romance," he replied, gloomily, "and nothing more.

I shall never love, and shall therefore never wed; though, I suppose, that does not logically follow. However, it does with me; and, consequently, I presume the children are also only in posse. However, what is this instance of your kindness to my possible children?"

he added, more cheerfully.

"I was endeavoring," said I, "on the bare possibility of your retaining as a father all the feelings you seem to entertain at present, to compile for your children (as they must be taught something, and you would wish them, as you say, to know the truth) a short catechism. I think the questions in Watts's First Catechism might do for the poor little souls. The answers (as usual) might not be wholly intelligible till they got older, but still might awaken some notion which in time might ripen into confirmed scepticism."

"Well," said he, laughing, "let me hear what sort of 'religious'

instruction you have provided."

"I had only finished one question," I replied, "when you came in: but I almost think it may be considered a 'Summa Theologiae' of itself.

It is this:--