But, after all, there are few trials to which a man of lofty intentions
and an elevated ideal can be exposed, more severe than the entirely
unexpected one which comes upon him when he has had his way, and finds
himself for the first time in the much desired position in which he can
carry out all the plans of his youth. Perhaps few people arrive so
completely at this point as to acknowledge it distinctly to themselves;
for, to be sure, human projects and devices have a knack of expanding
and undergoing a gradual change from moment to moment. Something of the
kind, however, must accompany, for example, every happy marriage; though
perhaps it is the woman more than the man who comes under its influence.
The beautiful new world of love and goodness into which the happy bride
supposes herself to be entering comes to bear after a while so
extraordinary a resemblance to the ordinary mediocre world which she has
quitted that the young woman stands aghast and bewildered. The happiness
which has come has made a more subtle happiness, that ideal perfection
of being to which she has been more or less looking forward all her
life. Colin, when he had gone through all his trials, and had fairly
reached the point at which the heroic and magnificent existence which he
meant to live should commence, found himself very much in the same
position. The young man was still in the fantastic age. To preach his
sermons every Sunday, and do his necessary duty, and take advantage of
the good society at St. Rule’s, did not seem a life sufficient for the
new minister. What he had thought of was something impossible, a work
for his country, an elevation of the national firmament, an influence
which should mellow the rude goodness of Scotland, and link her again to
all the solemn past, to all the good and gracious present, to all the
tender lights and dawns of hope.
Colin had derived from all the religious influences with which he had
been brought in contact a character which was perhaps only possible to a
young Scotchman and Presbyterian, strongly anchored to his hereditary
creed, and yet feeling all its practical deficiencies. He was High
Church, though he smiled at Apostolic succession; he was Catholic,
though the most gorgeous High Mass that ever was celebrated would have
moved him no more than one of Verdi’s operas. When other enlightened
British spectators regarded with lofty superiority the poor Papist
people coming and going into all the tawdry little churches, and singing
unintelligible Latin, horribly out of tune, Colin for his part looked at
them with a sigh for his own country, which had ceased to recognise any
good in such devotion. And all through his education, from the moment
when he smiled at the prayer-book under the curate’s arm at
Wodensbourne, and wondered what a Scotch peasant would think of it, to
the time when he studied in the same light the prelections of the
University preacher in St. Mary’s, Colin’s thought had been, “Would I
were in the field!” It appeared to him that if he were but there, in all
his profusion of strength and youth, he could breathe a new breath into
the country he loved. What he meant to do was to untie the horrible
bands of logic and knit fair links of devotion around that corner of the
universe which it has always seemed possible to Scotsmen to make into a
Utopia; to persuade his nation to join hands again with Christendom, to
take back again the festivals and memories of Christianity, to rejoice
in Christmas and sing lauds at Easter, and say common prayers with a
universal voice. These were to be the outward signs; but the fact was
that it was a religious revolution in Scotland at which Colin aimed. He
meant to dethrone the pragmatic and arrogant preacher, whose reign has
lasted so long. He meant to introduce a more humble self-estimate, and a
more gracious temper into the world he swayed in imagination. From this
dream Colin woke up, after the rude experience of the objectors, to find
himself at the head of his seven hundred and fifty communicants, with
authority to say anything he liked to them (always limited by the
knowledge that they might at any time “libel” him before the presbytery,
and that the presbytery might at any time prosecute, judge, and condemn
him), and to a certain extent spiritual ruler of the parish, with a
right to do anything he liked in it, always subject to the approval of
the Kirk-Session, which could contravent him in many ingenious ways. The
young man was at last in the position to which he had looked forward for
years--at last his career was begun, and the course of his ambition lay
clear before him. Nothing now remained but to realize all these
magnificent projects, and carry out his dreams.
But the fact is that Colin, instead of plunging into his great work,
stood on the threshold struck dumb and bewildered, much as a bride might
do on the threshold of the new home which she had looked forward to as
something superior to Paradise. The position of his dreams was obtained,
but these dreams had never till now seemed actually hopeless and
preposterous. When he took his place up aloft in his high pulpit, from
which he regarded his people much as a man at a first-floor window might
regard the passers-by below, and watched the ruddy countrymen pouring in
with their hats on their heads and a noise like thunder, the first
terrible blow was struck at his palace of fancy. They were altogether
different from the gaping rustics at Wodensbourne, to whom that good
little curate preached harmless sermons out of his low desk, about the
twenty-first Sunday after Trinity, and the admirable arrangements of the
Church. Colin upstairs at his first-floor window was in no harmless
position. He was put up there for a certain business, which the
audience down below understood as well as he did. As for prayers and
psalm-singing, they were necessary preliminaries to be got over as
quickly as possible. The congregation listened and made internal
criticisms as the young minister said his prayers. “He’s awfu’ limited
in his confessions,” one of the elders whispered to another. “I canna
think he’s fathomed the nature o’ sin, for my part;” and Colin was
conscious by something in the atmosphere, by a certain hum and stir,
that, though his people were a little grateful to find his first attempt
at devotion shorter than usual, a second call upon them was regarded
with a certain displeased surprise; for, to be sure, the late minister
of Afton had been of the old school. And then, this inevitable preface
having been disposed of, the congregation settled down quietly to the
business of the day. Colin was young, and had kept his youthful awe of
the great mysteries of faith, though he was a minister. It struck him
with a sort of panic, when he looked down upon all those attentive
faces, and recalled to himself the idea that he was expected to teach
them, to throw new light upon all manner of doctrines, and open up the
Bible, and add additional surety to the assurance already possessed by
the audience that it was a very well-instructed congregation and knew
all about the system of Christian theology. It gleamed upon Colin in
that terrible moment that, instead of being a predestined reformer, he
was a very poor pretender indeed, and totally inadequate to the duties
of the post which he had taken upon him thus rashly; for, indeed, he was
not by any means so clear as most of his hearers were about the system
of theology. This sudden sense of incapacity, which came upon him at the
very moment when he ought to have been strongest, was a terrible waking
up for Colin. He preached his sermon--but with pale lips and a heart out
of which all the courage seemed to have died for the moment; and betook
himself to his manse afterwards to think it all over, with a horrible
sense that, after all, he was a sham and impostor, and utterly unworthy
of exercising influence upon any reasonable creature. For, to be sure,
though a lofty ideal is the best thing in the world, according to its
elevation is the pain and misery of the fall.
The consequence was that Colin stopped short in a kind of fright after
he had made this first discovery, and that, after all his great
projects, nothing in the world was heard all that winter of the young
reformer. To return to our metaphor, he was silent as a young wife
sometimes finds herself among the relics of her absurd youthful
fancies, contemplating the ruin ruefully, and not yet fully awakened to
the real possibilities of the position. During this little interval he
came gradually down out of his too lofty ideas to consider the actual
circumstances. When Lauderdale came to see him, which he did on the
occasion of the national new-year holiday, Colin took his friend to see
his church with a certain comic despair. “I have a finer chancel than
that at Wodensbourne, which was the curate’s object in life,” said
Colin; “but, if I make any fuss about it, I should be set down as an
idiot; and, if any man has an imagination sufficiently lively to
conceive of my ploughmen entering my church as our poor friends went
into the Pantheon----”
“Dinna be unreasonable,” said Lauderdale. “You were aye awfu’ fantastic
in your notions; what should the honest men ken about a chancel? I
wouldna say that I’m just clear on the subject mysel’. As for the
Pantheon, that was aye an awfu’ delusion on your part. Our cathedral at
Glasgow is an awfu’ deal mair Christian-like than the Pantheon, as far
as I can judge; but I wouldna say that it’s an idea that ever enters my
head to go there for my ain hand to say my prayers; and, as for a
country kirk with naked pews and cauld stone----”
“Look at it,” said Colin with an air of disgust which was comprehensible
enough in a Fellow of Balliol. The church of Afton was worth looking at.
It illustrated with the most wonderful, almost comic, exactness, two
distinct historic periods. At one end of it was a wonderful Norman
chancel, gloomy but magnificent, with its heavy and solemn arches almost
as perfect as when they were completed. This chancel had been united to
a church of later date (long since demolished) by a lighter and loftier
pointed arch, which, however, under Colin’s incumbency, was filled up
with a partition of wood, in which there was a little door giving
admission to the church proper, the native and modern expression of
ecclesiastical necessities in Scotland. This edifice was like nothing so
much as a square box, encircled by a level row of windows high up in the
wall, so many on each side; and there it was that Colin’s lofty pulpit,
up two pairs of stairs, rigidly and nakedly surveyed the rigorous lines
of naked pews which traversed the unlovely area. Colin regarded this
scene of his labours with a disgust so melancholy, yet so comical, that
his companion, though not much given to mirth, gave forth a laugh which
rang into the amazed and sombre echoes. “Yes, it is easy enough to
laugh,” said Colin, who was not without a sense of the comic side of his
position; “but if it was your own church----”
“Whisht, callant,” said Lauderdale, whose amusement was momentary; “if I
had ever come to onything in this world, and had a kirk, I wouldna have
been so fanciful. It’s well for you to get your lesson written out so
plain. There’s nae place to speak of here for the prayers and the
thanksgivings. I’m no saying but what they are the best, but that’s no
our manner of regarding things in Scotland. Even the man that has maist
set his heart on a revolution must aye begin with things as they are.
This is no a place open at a’ times to every man that has a word to say
to God in quietness, like yon Catholic chapels. It’s a place for
preaching; and you maun preach.”
“Preach!” said Colin; “what am I to preach? What I have learned here and
there, in Dickopftenburg for example, or in the Divinity Hall? and much
the better they would be for all that. Besides, I don’t believe in
preaching, Lauderdale. Preaching never did me the least service. As for
that beastly pulpit perched up there, all wood and noise as it is----”
but here Colin paused, overcome by the weight of his discontent, and the
giddiness natural to his terrible fall.
“Well,” said Lauderdale, after a pause, “I’m no saying but what there’s
some justice in what you say; but I would like to hear, with your ideas,
what you’re meaning to do.”
To which Colin answered with a groan. “Preach,” he said gloomily; “there
is nothing else I can do: preach them to death, I suppose: preach about
everything in heaven and earth; it is all a priest is good for here.”
“Ay,” said Lauderdale; “and then the worst o’t is that you’re no a
priest, but only a minister. I wouldna say, however, but what you might
pluck up a heart and go into the singing business, and maybe have a
process in the presbytery about an organ; that’s the form that
reformation takes in our kirk, especially with young ministers that have
travelled and cultivated their minds, like you. But, Colin,” said the
philosopher, “you’ve been in more places than the Divinity Hall. There
was once a time when you were awfu’ near dying, if a man daur say the
truth now it’s past; and there was once a bit little cham’er out yonder,
between heaven and earth----”
Out yonder--Lauderdale gave a little jerk with his hand, as he stood at
the open door, across the grey, level country which lay between the
parish church of Afton and the sea; and the words and the gesture
conveyed Colin suddenly to the lighted window that shone feebly over the
Campagna, and to the talk within over Meredith’s deathbed. The
recollection brought a wonderful change over his thoughts. He took his
friend’s arm in silence, when he had locked the door. “I wonder what he
is doing,” said Colin. “I wonder whether the reality has fallen short of
the expectation there. If there should be no golden gates or shining
streets as yet, but only another kind of life with other hopes and
trials! If one could but know!”
“Ay,” said Lauderdale, in the tone that Colin knew so well; and then
there was a long pause. “I’m no saying but what it’s natural,” he went
on afterwards with some vagueness. “It’s aye awfu’ hard upon a man to
get his ain way; but once in a while there’s one arises that can take
the good out of even that. You’ll no make Scotland of your way of
thinking, Colin; but you’ll make it worth her while to have brought ye
forth for a’ that. As for Arthur, poor callant, I wouldna say but his
ideal may have changed a wee on the road there. I’m awfu’ indifferent to
the shining streets for my part; but I’m no indifferent to them that
bide yonder in the silence. There was one now that wasna in your case,”
continued Lauderdale; “_he_ was aye pleased to teach in season and out
of season. For the sake of the like of him, I’m whiles moved to hope
that a’s no so awfu’ perfect in the other world as we think. I canna see
ony ground for it in the Bible. Naething ever comes to an end in this
world, callant;--and that was just what I was meaning to ask in respect
to other things.”
“I don’t know what you mean by other things,” said Colin; “that is, if
you mean Miss Meredith, Lauderdale, I have heard nothing of her for
years. That must be concluded to have come to an end if anything ever
did. It is not for me to subject myself to rejection any more.”
Upon which Lauderdale breathed out a long breath which sounded like a
sigh, and was visible as well as audible in the frosty air. “It’s aye
weel to have your lesson written so plain,” he said after a minute, with
that want of apparent sequence which was sometimes amusing and sometimes
irritating to Colin; “it’s nae disgrace to a man to do his work under
strange conditions. When a lad like you has no place to work in but a
pulpit, it’s clear to me that God intends him to preach whether he likes
it or no.”
And this was all the comfort Colin received, in the midst of his
disenchantment and discouragement, from his dearest friend.
But before the winter was over, life had naturally asserted its rights
in the mind of the young minister. He had begun to stretch out his hands
for his tools almost without knowing it, and to find that after all, a
man in a pulpit, although he has two flights of stairs to ascend to it,
has a certain power in his hand. Colin found eventually, that he had
after all a great deal to say, and that even in one hour in a week it
was possible to convey sundry new ideas into the rude, but not stupid,
minds of his parishioners. A great many of them had that impracticable
and hopeless amount of intelligence natural to a well brought-up Scotch
peasant, with opinions upon theological matters and a lofty estimate of
his own powers; but withal there were many minds open and thoughtful as
silence, and the fields, and much observation of the operations of
nature could make them. True, there were all the disadvantages to be
encountered in Afton which usually exist in Scotch parishes of the
present generation. There was a Free church at the other end of the
parish very well filled, and served by a minister who was much more
clear in a doctrinal point of view than Colin; and the heritors, for the
most part--that is to say, the land-owners of the parish--though they
were pleased to ask a Fellow of Balliol to dinner, and to show him a
great deal of attention, yet drove placidly past his church every Sunday
to the English chapel in St. Rule’s; which is unhappily the general
fortune of the National Church in Scotland. It was on this divided world
that Colin looked from his high pulpit, where, at least for his hour, he
had the privilege of saying what he pleased without any contradiction;
and it is not to be denied that after a while the kingdom of Fife grew
conscious to its other extremity that in the eastern corner a man had
arrived who had undoubtedly something to say. As his popularity began to
rise, Colin’s ambitions crept back to his heart one by one. He preached
the strangest sort of baffling, unorthodox sermons, in which, however,
when an adverse critic took notes, there was found to be nothing upon
which in these days he could be brought to the bar of the presbytery.
Thirty years ago, indeed, matters were otherwise regulated; but even
presbyteries have this advantage over popes, that they do take a step
forward occasionally to keep in time with their age.
This would be the proper point at which to leave Colin, if there did not
exist certain natural, human prejudices on the subject which require a
distinct conclusion of one kind or another. Until a man is dead, it is
impossible to say what he has done, or to make any real estimate of his
work; and Colin, so far from being dead, is only as yet at the
commencement of his career, having taken the first steps with some
success and _éclat_, and having recovered the greater part of his
enthusiasm. There was, indeed, a time when his friends expected nothing
else for him than that early and lovely ending which makes a biography
perfect. There is only one other ending in life, which is equally
satisfactory, and, at least on the face of it, more cheerful than dying;
and that, we need not say, is marriage. Accordingly, as it is impossible
to pursue his course to the one end, all that we can do is to turn to
the other, which, though the hero himself was not aware of it, was at
that moment shadowing slowly out of the morning clouds.
It is accordingly with a feeling of relief that we turn from the little
ecclesiastical world of Scotland, where we dare not put ourselves in too
rigorous contact with reality, or reveal indiscreetly, without regard to
the sanctity of individual confidence, what Colin is doing, to the
common open air and daylight, in which he set out, all innocent and
unfearing, on a summer morning, accompanied as of old by Lauderdale,
upon a holiday journey. He had not the remotest idea, any more than the
readers of his history have at this moment, what was to happen to him
before he came back again. He set out with all his revolutionary ideas
in his mind, without pausing to think that circumstances might occur
which would soften down all insurrectionary impulses on his part, and
present him to the alarmed Church, not under the aspect of an
irresistible agitator and reformer, but in the subdued character of a
man who has given hostages to society. Colin had no thought of this
downfall in his imagination when he set out. He had even amused himself
with the idea of a new series of “Tracts for the Times,” which might
peradventure work as much commotion in the Church of Scotland as the
former series had done in the Anglican communion. He went off in full
force and energy with the draft of the first of these revolutionary
documents in the writing-case in which he had once copied out his verses
for Alice Meredith. Poor Alice Meredith! The bridle which Colin had once
felt on his neck had worn by this time to such an impalpable thread that
he was no longer aware of its existence; and even the woman in the
clouds had passed out of his recollection for the moment, so much was he
absorbed with the great work he had embarked on. Thus he set out on a
pedestrian excursion, meaning to go to the English lakes, and it is hard
to say where besides, in his month’s holiday; and nothing in the air or
in the skies gave any notice to Colin of the great event that was to
befall him before he could return.