The Last Miracle Part 26

"Was it for this, then, that Aubrey Langler died?" I thought, "in order that the Church as a political power might be wiped out?" "But was there no moral reaction, Magee?" I asked: "Langler said that there would be, and another friend of mine that there would not."

"Which friend was that?" asked Magee.

"I may tell you and the world some day," I answered, "if he dies before me, but not at present."

"Well, whoever he is, he knows his modern Europe," said Magee. "I don't remember hearing of any moral reaction."

"But, then," said I, "is the Western world left now without any religion?"

"Never a bit," said he; "it is now just beginning to be gus.h.i.+ngly religious. Haven't we, first of all, our store of hereditary religion, unconscious in us? And remember that 'the unconscious is the alone complete.' Religion, I suppose, is whatever binds us back from living to please our primary natural selves? Therefore religion of old said, 'live to please those about you'; and man has roughly reached to that, of old making society possible, now making it solid. But the evolution of 'live to please those about you,' is it not this: 'live to please those whom you cannot even see, the unborn'? All which you may hear Rivers say if you will come with me forthwith to church."

"Which church?" I asked.

"Why, Rivers'--or any of the others."

"But what is it all about?" I asked.

"Haven't I told you about it again and again?" said he: "but with this wilful numbness of yours you won't remember anything. It is a Church of transcendent ambitions, Templeton, aspiring at no less than the planting under heaven before long of a tribe higher than man, though its methods of setting about it are of a naivete bound at first to leave you alien to their mystery of meaning; its theory is that the fowl precedes the egg: it grapples with the parent, beginning at the base of the ladder, its eyes fixed on the flying galaxies; but you wouldn't catch a glimpse of all at your first visit, and, if you find anything _queerish_, remember sacring-bells and praying-mills, and remember that the first British person who happened to broach an umbrella in a public road cast twelve million fools into a brabble of laughter. Anyhow, I challenge you to go twice to the new Church without hungering to go thrice."

"You seem sincere," I said, "but you only wish to win me out of doors, I suppose. Where did Rivers get money from? He didn't use to be rich."

"But the whole hubbubboo is more or less early-Christian-communistic,"

answered Magee: "people pay, because it is costly, and earns its pay.

Socialism just needed a religious nerve, didn't it? and here you have it. The base-wall of all is equality--'if one's neck-muscles alone are brawny,' Rivers always has it, 'he will call no man your lords.h.i.+p.' The idea is to preach and drill the nation into one army, the train-band of the times to come, for Rivers is the arch-foe of heterogeneity, he would have all men as twin as two perfect peas. But the Church is built on pity as well as on aspiration; equality is swallowed up in fraternity; charity is her riches, love is her festival. Run chiefly by women, she is an enthusiasm of the poor for the poor, and for the poorest of the poor, the child to be born; and to the poor a Gospel is again preached.

You will find them all inflamed with the finest faith in the future, full of self-culture, ideality, good fellows.h.i.+p, and good food. The soul, too, is fed with a true emotion and communion of saints, as distinct from a fict.i.tious: wors.h.i.+p takes place."

"You seem quite enamoured," I said. "But wors.h.i.+p of what?"

"Of G.o.d," said he.

"But which G.o.d?" said I, "the old G.o.d?"

"No," said he, "the new G.o.d."

"Ah, the new G.o.d," said I, "He is a most vague person: like Langler, I almost prefer the old G.o.d."

"But is it a question of _preference_?" asked Magee: "prefer as you please, you can't have the old G.o.d: He is as dead as His Church. But His death is, of course, phoenix-death, and the new G.o.d is only vague because the age is new, and men's brains only just enough evolved to see Him darkly; soon, I dare say. He will take the darlingest bright s.h.i.+p-shape. The old G.o.d too at first was pitched too high for men's eyes, hence lapses into idolatry and golden-calfishness, for idolatry is ever a soul-sloth, an idle backsliding to some lower, more facile ideal of one's forefathers; and for us now sluggishly to wors.h.i.+p the old G.o.d would be equally idolatrous; we must stretch up now to the new, so making the stretch facile for our children: all which are not my own ungiven words, but Rivers'; let's go now to him."

"But is this the right day and hour?" I asked.

"There's a service every day at noon," he answered, "we should be just in time."

Well, I let myself be led. As I was getting ready Magee called to me: "by the way, you must put on a belt; one doesn't go in braces and corsets." So I put on a belt, and we went.

It was a sultry day in May, like summer almost, and most strange, I remember, was the look and mood of everything to me that day as we drove to Kensington. Arrived there, under the porch of the church I was struck by a prodigious fresco of Jesus, which was rather a revelation to me, for then first I seemed to see Jesus, a brown peasant in a turban--not going about blessing little children with long hair and nothing on his head in a blazing climate, according to the too churchy fancy of the painters, in defiance of St Paul's "It is a shame for a man to have long hair." Here, anyway, as it struck me, was the Man, the dusky Lily, and though much too garishly painted, it powerfully engaged our gaze.

However, the crowd pressed; we went in.

But never yet had I bowed the head under half so vast a house of man!

most vast, though cheap and unhandsome. Magee and I were so fortunate as to be led far forward toward the stage, and there we sat, each in a pew four feet long--only one person sitting in each pew--while hosts of nuns haunted the aisles and seven galleries, nutmegging the air with incense swung from censers; and I noticed that the roofs were in some way detached, and the air as pure and fresh as in the open.

A young man, parting the curtain, stood and howled out with all his heart a number out of a hymn-book; upon which the host of people started up, and shouted it--Tennyson's "Brook"--"for men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever." But that burden of sound was almost too over-ponderous for the bethundered eardrum! trumpets pealed, organs braved, while the earthquake and brotherhood of it brushed in ague-chills down my back, and was still humming about my head half-a-minute after it was hushed.

The next twenty minutes were taken up with the Blessed Sacrament, partaken of in early-Christian manner, only that there was no table. It was served by a hive of nuns, who bore baskets of sandwiches, fruit, cakes, etc., and water dashed with wine. The sandwiches were rather palpable for my palate! but, as with early-Christians, those who were not hungry no longer partook of the Lord's body, though all drank of his blood, those who were not thirsty drinking from liqueur-gla.s.ses and the thirsty from tumblers. Meantime, a man at the edge of the stage was howling: "though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee...."

And again he howled with pa.s.sion: "he was oppressed, yet he humbled himself, and opened not his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb: yea! he opened not his mouth...."

When this was over the curtains rushed away, the stage was opened, and for some twenty minutes I was the witness of a set of shows. There was no dialogue, and never should I have supposed that means so guileless would persuade to so high a sense of art: each heart, I think, was touched. The shows were little pictures of man in his various doings and modes of being, and we had all to become human, and brothers of one another; in one case it was a dog that caused the music, and we had all to become brothers of the dog and of one another. First, there sprang upon the stage a j.a.panese athlete, naked but for a loin-cloth, who did nothing but parade himself as our pattern, with a few wanton movements about the waist to give a.s.surance of his grace and perfected joy. Then followed a boy and girl who kissed on the sly behind a horrid aunt. Then a Jewish rag-picker, who did nothing but pick up rags, but still moved the springs of one's breast with love of him. Then a woman in a loose garment who lay down on a couch, and we marked the pangs that wrung her; she ran off slimmer than she came on! laughing! with an infant in her arms, while the people pursued her with the acclaims proper to victors.

Then a child was stolen, but its mother was joyfully guided to it by a dog. Then came a s.h.i.+p-boy, a musician who forgot his own name, a grey astronomer, and three or four more.

While our hearts were still fond at these shows an acolyth who took his stand at the front and left of the stage vociferated the shout: "_Blessed are the poor in spirit!_" and at once there appeared on the stage a s...o...b..ack, and also a young man rather shabbily dressed, with a bag in his hand; the young man begged the s...o...b..ack to s.h.i.+ne his boots, for he had stepped into bog: but he made the request with such polite shynesses and diffidences that the s...o...b..ack at once put him down as a n.o.body, and cut some faces at him. When, however, the boots were s.h.i.+ned the shabbily-dressed young man handed the s...o...b..ack a handful of s.h.i.+llings for his pains. The s...o...b..ack, seeing now that here must be a millionaire, gaped so open-mouthed at his riches, that only after some time did he observe that the young man had gone and forgotten his bag behind. The s...o...b..ack then opened the bag, and drew out what was crowded within--an old lady's portrait, a lock of hair, a violin, an etching, and a copy of Ronsard: and the instant he drew out the Ronsard the acolyth who before had shouted out "blessed are the poor in spirit" rang now to the high dome his shout of triumph: "for theirs is the kingdom of the soul!"

The acolyth next shouted out: "_Blessed are the pure in heart!_" and at once there appeared an Egyptian man and woman--Joseph and Potiphar's wife; Joseph had bone tablets in his hand, adding up figures; Potiphar's wife tickled his neck and drew him: Joseph smiled, pinched her cheek, puzzling ever over his figures. Still the woman would have him, she coaxed, she intrigued: Joseph patted her shoulder, shook her ear, without ever budging or looking up out of his tablets. At last the woman drew him over to left-centre, Joseph going unconsciously with her; but at the door itself he woke up, laughed, escaped, as who should say "not for Joseph," leaving his garment in her hands, and instantly was puzzling over his figures again. But now all at once Joseph began to wave out gestures of glad new discovery! The man had detected some mistake in his arithmetic! and the instant he detected his mistake, the acolyth gave out the high shout of triumph: "for they shall see G.o.d!"

Then again the acolyth shouted out: "_Blessed are the merciful!_" and at once there came on a man in brown who cowed a hound, and another man in bright who was kind to it. Years pa.s.sed: and Brown and Bright were both chased in a lane by a madman with a hatchet; but Brown's morose habit of mind had been the seed in him of biliousness and other ills; he hopped on crutches, could not escape; but Bright escaped: and the instant he escaped the acolyth shouted out in triumph: "for they shall obtain mercy!"

And so they tripped on through the Beat.i.tudes, teaching the people biology in parables. Here was a whole new art: the old prejudice of "Christianity" in respect to the stage had ranged to the other pole, and Church had changed into stage. How fruitful within the last few years has been the evolution of these germs we know. At that time no use was made of the bioscope. The shows were changed each day.

All at once, when this was over, one was aware of the presence of Ambrose Rivers, whereat my eyes ran through the hall to its seventh heaven, and saw it all like leaf.a.ge of the aspen-forest, while Rivers advanced from the stage-back bent beneath the storm of cheers. And poised just over the orchestra-pews, with a pure voice that pealed through the vast, he vociferated: "Let us reverence That Which made us!"

Thereupon he fell to his knees, with his arms stretched up straight and parallel; all the people did the same, while the orchestra rendered Vogel's "Eternal Tool"; and Rivers, gazing straight upward, shouted: "Father! hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Give us our bread to-day. And forgive us our debt as we forgive everyone who is in our debt. Amen."[1]

[Footnote 1: The whole of "The Lord's Prayer" as uttered by Jesus; the rest added by commonplace rude people.]

This said, after a minute his arms shot horizontal, his neck bowed, and, still kneeling, he shouted to us: "Let us reverence one another in our human ancestors!"

And while the choir gave "Mild son of man, thy front sublime," all our arms shot horizontal, each wors.h.i.+pper straining to touch the finger-tips of his neighbour to left and right, for the shoulder-joint is capable of no little stretching, with practice.

This done, Rivers rose to his feet with the shout: "Let us reverence the ape, without bending the knee or the neck!"

And thereupon, while the orchestra rendered Brewers' "Ye humble wombs with homage fraught," he put his finger-tips to the ground. Through the building everyone put his or her finger-tips to the ground.

When this was over Rivers shouted: "Let us reverence the half-apes!"

Whereupon, without bending the knees or the neck, he put the first finger-joint to the ground; and while the choir gave Thibaut's "Crooked shapes, the alphabet of life," everyone did the same--or tried to. As it were a wind of breaths began to whiff through the building.

Rivers next shouted: "Let us reverence the dog!"

And with this he put his fists to the ground. We all tried our best to do the same, while the choir gave Sauer-Motti's "Dark Backward and Abysm of Time."

Rivers next shouted: "Let those of us who can reverence all That Which is below the dog!" And with this, without bending the knees or the neck, while the orchestra gave the overture to "The Creation," he put his palms on the ground.

But it was no easy matter to reverence all That Which is below the dog!

I can now do it with nonchalance, but it tried me then. It was not a mere question of putting the palms on the ground, but of keeping them there during three straining minutes, with the eyes of ladies criticising your performance! However, I rose from the effort a straighter man: it is this touching what is beneath without bending the knees which makes soldiers, and also saints. Meantime, I was charmed with the movements of the hosts of nuns and other ladies, who, it was clear, vied with one another in ease and achievement: I thought that some of them must certainly have a selection of lovers.

When this was over Rivers called to us: "Let us sum up and reverence all!" whereat everyone held up a bamboo rod behind the back with the stretched arms, and, sitting tight, swung the shoulders smartly, this way and that alternately, thus hardening the muscles of the back. And so it was during twenty minutes: when we reviewed the Past we stood fronting the stage, but with our necks strained back, looking at the opposite wall; when we aspired to the Future we struck our chests with our knees, an exaggerated going-upstairs; when we were meek we dropped our body upon our heels with force enough to bounce us up again, an exaggerated curtsey, thus oiling the hinges of the knee-joints; when we were merciful we bent far sideward to left and right, trying to touch the ground; when we were pure in heart we bent backward at the waist to touch the ground behind, and so on.

All this was, of course, highly exhilarating, both in itself, and because done in fellows.h.i.+p with a host of people all making the same gestures at the same moment; but it did not yet edify, did not move me religiously; and, because it did not, I thought to my self: "it is not a fitting function for _a Church_." Within a few weeks, however, I was to find how very far at fault I was in this, for the gestures only failed to edify me at first for the reason that in my consciousness there was no correlation between each gesture and its husband idea: _habit_ was essential for that. Thus to nations that do not kneel to pray, nor raise the hand to say "hist!" these gestures are dest.i.tute of pertinence: there is no correlation. But when habit had once set up in my mind a wedlock between gesture and idea, then the gestures became as touching to the soul as they were teaching of a wonder of buoyancy and joy to the body.

When the exercises were over Rivers spoke to the people. By birth or learning he had the lungs of a bull, and to the giddiness of the seventh gallery, I believe, his bellows must have blown. On the whole, he impressed me as a real prophet or outspeaker, speaking his truth like the wayfaring of a force of nature, without humour, ire, respect, or prospect. I can't recall much that he said, but he called the people to joy, telling them that a bad tree could not bring forth good fruit, neither could unhappy men beget happy generations. Joy of heart was their obligation, for they were the ancestors of G.o.d, the future hung on their joys. "Behold!" he howled, "I bring you word! your life is worth living if you live it a little well." Of course, no one yet half knew how to live it well; but, thanks to the pryers and the tryers, one knew a little. Already a howling gaiety might be theirs. One rather good thing was to live a moment at a time, ruminating the moment's relish deliciously, as when that morning on opening his eyes he had said to himself: "Alive! and still young! not a twinge nor a grief throughout!

refugee of a thousand hungry h.e.l.ls! this, then, is my turn in the turning of Eternity: for the men of Misgab and of Bagdad are dead, but I am alaugh for a little while." Then he had run round Hyde Park, and half-way round could not help howling all hey and conversant with wind and the Holy Ghost, to the disgusting of everyone. If there was one thing in this marsh of Divinity more divine than all the rest, it was wind, and ever in March and big November G.o.d was with men; but only those dreamed how divine who ran far into it, and breathed it deeply, and drowned in it, and browsed bedrowsedly upon all the sound and sounds of it. Then he had returned home, and had eaten a ton. If they wished to have boisterously high and holy joy of their breakfast, they must work for it, should run at least a mile or two. Joy, then, gus.h.i.+ng health, and they knew what went all in fusion with gus.h.i.+ng health--chast.i.ty, fortnights of t.i.tanic continence. Who was the happiest and best of men?