sudden and startling thrill than the verse at the beginning of the
viiith chapter of the Revelation. _And when he had opened the seventh
seal there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour_. The
very simplicity of the words, the homely note of specified time, is in
itself deeply impressive. But further, it gives the dim sense of some
awful and unseen preparation going forward, a period allowed in which
those that stood by, august and majestic as they were, should collect
their courage, should make themselves ready with bated breath for some
dire pageant. Up to that moment the vision had followed hard on the
opening of each seal. Upon the opening of the first, had resounded a
peal of thunder, and the voice of the first beast had called the
awestruck eyes and the failing heart to look upon the sight: _Come and
see_! Then the white horse with the crowned conqueror had ridden
joyfully forth. At the opening of the second seal, had sprung forth
the red horse, and the rider with the great sword. When the third was
opened, the black horse had gone forth, the rider bearing the balances;
and then had followed the strange and naive charge by the unknown
voice, which gives one so strong a sense that the vision was being
faithfully recorded rather than originated, the voice that quoted a
price for the grain of wheat and barley, and directed the protection of
the vineyard and olive-yard. This homely reference to the simple food
of earth keeps the mind intent upon the actual realities and needs of
life in the midst of these bewildering sights. Then at the fourth
opening, the pale horse, bestridden by Death, went mournfully abroad.
At the fifth seal, the crowded souls beneath the altar cry out for
restlessness; they are clothed in white robes, and bidden to be patient
for a while. Then, at the sixth seal, falls the earthquake, the
confusion of nature, the dismay of men, before the terror of the anger
of God; and the very words _the wrath of the Lamb_, have a marvellous
significance; the wrath of the Most Merciful, the wrath of one whose
very symbol is that of a blithe and meek innocence. Then the earth is
guarded from harm, and the faithful are sealed; and in words of the
sublimest pathos, the end of pain and sorrow is proclaimed, and the
promise that the redeemed shall be fed and led forth by fountains of
living waters. And then, at the very moment of calm and peace, the
seventh seal is opened,--and nothing follows! the very angels of heaven
seem to stand with closed eyes, compressed lips, and beating heart,
waiting for what shall be.
And then at last the visions come crowding before the gaze again--the
seven trumpets are sounded, the bitter, burning stars fall, the locusts
swarm out from the smoking pit, and death and woe begin their work;
till at last the book is delivered to the prophet, and his heart is
filled with the sweetness of the truth.
I have no desire to trace the precise significance of these things. I
do not wish that these tapestries of wrought mysteries should be
suspended upon the walls of history. I do not think that they can be
so suspended; nor have I the least hope that these strange sights, so
full both of brightness and of horror, should ever be seen by mortal
eye. But that a human soul should have lost itself in these august
dreams, that the book of visions should have been thus strangely
guarded through the ages, and at last, clothed in the sweet cadences of
our English tongue, should be read in our ears, till the words are
soaked through and through with rich wonder and tender
associations--that is, I think, a very wonderful and divine thing. The
lives of all men that have an inner eye for beauty are full of such
mysteries, and surely there is no one, of those that strive to pierce
below the dark experiences of life, who is not aware, as he reckons
back the days of his life, of hours when the seals of the book have
been opened. It has been so, I know, in my own life. Sometimes, at
the rending of the seal, a gracious thing has gone forth, bearing
victory and prosperity. Sometimes a dark figure has ridden away,
changing the very face of the earth for a season. Sometimes a thunder
of dismay has followed, or a vision of sweet peace and comfort; and
sometimes one has assuredly known that a seal has been broken, to be
followed by a silence in heaven and earth.
And thus these solemn and mournful visions retain a great hold over the
mind; it is, with myself, partly the childish associations of wonder
and delight. One recurred so eagerly to the book, because, instead of
mere thought and argument, earthly events, wars and dynasties, here was
a gallery of mysterious pictures, things seen out of the body, scenes
of bright colour and monstrous forms, enacted on the stage of heaven.
That is entrancing still; but beyond and above these strange forms and
pictured fancies, I now discern a deeper mystery of thought; not pure
and abstract thought, flashes of insight, comforting grace, kindled
desires, but rather that more complex thought that, through a
perception of strange forms, a waving robe of scarlet, a pavement
bright with jewels, a burning star, a bird of sombre plumage, a dark
grove, breathes a subtle insight, like a strain of unearthly music,
interpreting the hopes and fears of the heart by haunted glimpses and
obscure signs. I do not know in what shadowy region of the soul these
things draw near, but it is in a region which is distinct and apart, a
region where the dreaming mind projects upon the dark its dimly-woven
visions; a region where it is not wise to wander too eagerly and
carelessly, but into which one may look warily and intently at seasons,
standing upon the dizzy edge of time, and gazing out beyond the flaming
ramparts of the world.
XXXII
The Statue
I saw a strange and moving thing to-day. I went with a friend to visit
a great house in the neighbourhood. The owner was away, but my friend
enjoyed the right of leisurely access to the place, and we thought we
would take the opportunity of seeing it.
We entered at the lodge, and walked through the old deer-park with its
huge knotted oaks, its wide expanse of grass. The deer were feeding
quietly in a long herd. The great house itself came in sight, with its
portico and pavilions staring at us, so it seemed, blankly and
seriously, with shuttered eyes. The whole place unutterably still and
deserted, like a house seen in a dream.
There was one particular thing that we came to visit; we left the house
on the left, and turned through a little iron gate into a thick grove
of trees. We soon became aware that there was open ground before us,
and presently we came to a space in the heart of the wood, where there
was a silent pool all overgrown with water-lilies; the bushes grew
thickly round the edge. The pool was full of water-birds, coots, and
moor-hens, sailing aimlessly about, and uttering strange, melancholy
cries at intervals. On the edge of the water stood a small marble
temple, streaked and stained by the weather. As we approached it, my
friend told me something of the builder of the little shrine. He was a
former owner of the place, a singular man, who in his later days had
lived a very solitary life here. He was a man of wild and wayward
impulses, who had drunk deeply in youth of pleasure and excitement. He
had married a beautiful young wife, who had died childless in the first
year of their marriage, and he had abandoned himself after this event
to a despairing seclusion, devoted to art and music. He had filled the
great house with fine pictures, he had written a book of poems, and
some curious stilted volumes of autobiographical prose; but he had no
art of expression, and his books had seemed like a powerless attempt to
give utterance to wild and melancholy musings; they were written in a
pompous and elaborate style, which divested the thoughts of such charm
as they might have possessed.
He had lived thus to a considerable age in a wilful sadness, unloving
and unloved. He had cared nothing for the people of the place,
entertained no visitors; rambling, a proud solitary figure, about the
demesne, or immured for days together in his library. Had the story
not been true, it would have appeared like some elaborate fiction.
He built this little temple in memory of the wife whom he had lost, and
often visited it, spending hours on hot summer days wandering about the
little lake, or sitting silent in the portico. We went up to the
building. It was a mere alcove, open to the air. But what arrested my
attention was a marble figure of a young man, in a sitting position,
lightly clad in a tunic, the neck, arms, and knees bare; one knee was
flung over the other, and the chin was propped on an arm, the elbow of
which rested on the knee. The face was a wonderful and expressive
piece of work. The boy seemed to be staring out, not seeing what he
looked upon, but lost in a deep agony of thought. The face was
wonderfully pure and beautiful; and the anguish seemed not the anguish
of remorse, but the pain of looking upon things both sweet and
beautiful, and of yet being unable to take a share in them. The whole
figure denoted a listless melancholy. It was the work of a famous
French sculptor, who seemed to have worked under close and minute
direction; and my friend told me that no less than three statues had
been completed before the owner was satisfied.
On the pedestal were sculptured the pathetic words, _Oimoi mal authis_.
There was a look of revolt of dumb anger upon the face that lay behind
its utter and hopeless sadness. I knew too well, by a swift instinct,
what the statue stood for. Here was one, made for life, activity, and
joy, who yet found himself baffled, thwarted, shut out from the
paradise that seemed to open all about him; it was the face of one who
had found satiety in pleasure, and sorrow in the very heart of joy.
There was no taint of grossness or of luxury in the face, but rather a
strength, an intellectual force, a firm lucidity of thought. I confess
that the sight moved me very strangely. I felt a thrill of the deepest
compassion, a desire to do something that might help or comfort, a
yearning wish to aid, to explain, to cheer. The silence, the
stillness, the hopelessness of the pathetic figure woke in me the
intensest desire to give I knew not what--an overwhelming impulse of
pity. It seemed a parable of all the joy that is so sternly checked,
all the hopes made vain, the promise disappointed, the very death of
the soul. It seemed infinitely pathetic that God should have made so
fair a thing, and then withheld joy. And it seemed as though I had
looked into the very soul of the unhappy man who had set up so strange
and pathetic an allegory of his sufferings. The boy seemed as though
he would have welcomed death--anything that brought an end; yet the
health and suppleness of the bright figure held out no hope of that.
It was the very type of unutterable sorrow, and that not in an outworn
body, and reflected in a face dim with sad experience, but in a
perfectly fresh and strong frame, built for action and life. I cannot
say what remote thoughts, what dark communings, visited me at the
sight. I seemed confronted all at once with the deepest sadness of the
world, as though an unerring arrow had pierced my very heart--an arrow
winged by beauty, and shot on a summer day of sunshine and song.
Is there any faith that is strong enough and deep enough to overcome
such questionings? It seemed to bring me near to all those pale and
hopeless agonies of the world; all the snapping short of joy, the
confronting of life with death--those dreadful moments when the heart
asks itself, in a kind of furious horror, "How can it be that I am
filled so full of all the instinct of joy and life, and yet bidden to
suffer and to die?"
The only hope is in an utter and silent resignation; in the belief
that, if there is a purpose in the gift of joy, there is a purpose in
the gift of suffering. And as thus, in that calm afternoon, in the
silent wood, by the shining pool, I lifted up my heart to God to be
consoled, I felt a great hope draw near, as when the vast tide flows
landward, and fills the dry, solitary sand-pools with the leaping
brine. "Only wait," said the deep and tender voice, "only endure, only
believe; and a sweetness, a beauty, a truth beyond your utmost dreams
shall be revealed."
XXXIII
The Mystery of Suffering
Here is a story which has much occupied my thoughts lately. A man in
middle life, with a widowed sister and her children depending on him,
living by professional exertions, is suddenly attacked by a painful,
horrible, and fatal complaint. He goes through a terrible operation,
and then struggles back to his work again, with the utmost courage and
gallantry. Again the complaint returns, and the operation is repeated.
After this he returns again to his work, but at last, after enduring
untold agonies, he is forced to retire into an invalid life, after a
few months of which he dies in terrible suffering, and leaves his
sister and the children nearly penniless.
The man was a quiet, simple-minded person, fond of his work, fond of
his home, conventional and not remarkable except for the simply heroic
quality he displayed, smiling and joking up to the moment of the
administering of anaesthetics for his operations, and bearing his
sufferings with perfect patience and fortitude, never saying an
impatient word, grateful for the smallest services.
His sister, a simple, active woman, with much tender affection and
considerable shrewdness, finding that the fear of incurring needless
expense distressed her brother, devoted herself to the ghastly and
terrible task of nursing him through his illnesses. The children
behaved with the same straightforward affection and goodness. None of
the circle ever complained, ever said a word which would lead one to
suppose that they had any feeling of resentment or cowardice. They
simply received the blows of fate humbly, resignedly, and cheerfully,
and made the best of the situation.
Now, let us look this sad story in the face, and see if we can derive
any hope or comfort from it. In the first place, there was nothing in
the man's life which would lead one to suppose that he deserved or
needed this special chastening, this crucifixion of the body. He was
by instinct humble, laborious, unselfish, and good, all of which
qualities came out in his illness. Neither was there anything in the
life or character of the sister which seemed to need this stern and
severe trial. The household had lived a very quiet, active, useful
life, models of good citizens--religious, contented, drawing great
happiness from very simple resources.
One's belief in the goodness, the justice, the patience of the Father
and Maker of men forbids one to believe that he can ever be wantonly
cruel, unjust, or unloving. Yet it is impossible to see the mercy or
justice of his actions in this case. And the misery is that, if it
could be proved that in one single case, however small, God's goodness
had, so to speak, broken down; if there were evidence of neglect or
carelessness or indifference, in the case of one single child of his,
one single sentient thing that he has created, it would be impossible
to believe in his omnipotence any more. Either one would feel that he
was unjust and cruel, or that there was some evil power at work in the
world which he could not overcome.
For there is nothing remedial in this suffering. The man's useful,
gentle life is over, the sister is broken down, unhappy, a second time
made desolate; the children's education has suffered, their home is
made miserable. The only thing that one can see, that is in any degree
a compensation, is the extraordinary kindness displayed by friends,
relations, and employers in making things easy for the afflicted
household. And then, too, there is the heroic quality of soul
displayed by the sufferer himself and his sister--a heroism which is
ennobling to think of, and yet humiliating too, because it seems to be
so far out of one's own reach.
This is a very dark abyss of the world into which we are looking. The
case is an extreme one perhaps, but similar things happen every day, in
this sad and wonderful and bewildering world. Of course, one may take
refuge in a gloomy acquiescence, saying that such things seem to be
part of the world as it is made, and we cannot explain them, while we
dumbly hope that we may be spared such woes. But that is a dark and
despairing attitude, and, for one, I cannot live at all, unless I feel
that God is indeed more upon our side than that. I cannot live at all,
I say. And yet I must live; I must endure the Will of God in whatever
form it is laid upon me--in joy or in pain, in contentment or sick
despair. Why am I at one with the Will of God when it gives me
strength, and hope, and delight? Why am I so averse to it when it
brings me languor, and sorrow, and despair? That I cannot tell; and
that is the enigma which has confronted men from generation to
generation.
But I still believe that there is a Will of God; and, more than that, I
can still believe that a day comes for all of us, however far off it
may be, when we shall understand; when these tragedies, that now
blacken and darken the very air of Heaven for us, will sink into their
places in a scheme so august, so magnificent, so joyful, that we shall
laugh for wonder and delight; when we shall think not more sorrowfully
over these sufferings, these agonies, than we think now of the sad days
in our childhood when we sat with a passion of tears over a broken toy
or a dead bird, feeling that we could not be comforted. We smile as we
remember such things--we smile at our blindness, our limitations. We
smile to reflect at the great range and panorama of the world that has
opened upon us since, and of which, in our childish grief, we were so
ignorant. Under what conditions the glory will be revealed to us I
cannot guess. But I do not doubt that it will be revealed; for we
forget sorrow, but we do not forget joy.
XXXIV
Music
I have just come back from hearing a great violinist, who played, with
three other professors, in two quartettes, Mozart and Beethoven. I
know little of the technicalities of music, but I know that the Mozart
was full to me of air and sunlight, and a joy which was not the
light-hearted gaiety of earth, but the untainted and unwearying joy of
heaven; the Beethoven I do not think I understood, but there was a
grave minor movement, with pizzicato passages for the violoncello,
which seemed to consecrate and dignify the sorrow of the heart.
But apart from the technical merits of the music--and the performance,
indeed, seemed to me to lie as near the thought and the conception as
the translation of music into sound can go--the sight of these four big
men, serious and grave, as though neither pursuing nor creating
pleasure, but as though interpreting and giving expression to some
weighty secret, had an inspiring and solemnising effect. The sight of
the great violinist himself was full of awe; his big head, the full
grey beard which lay over the top of the violin, his calm, set brows,
his weary eyes with their heavy lids, had a profound dignity and
seriousness; and to see his wonderful hands, not delicate or slender,
but full, strong, and muscular, moving neither lingeringly nor hastily,
but with a firm and easy deliberation upon the strings, was deeply
impressive. It all seemed so easy, so inevitable, so utterly without
display, so simple and great. It gave one a sense of mingled fire and
quietude, which is the end of art,--one may almost say the end of life;
it was no leaping and fitful flame, but a calm and steady glow; not a
consuming fire, but like the strength of a mighty furnace; and then the
peace of it! The great man did not stand before us as a performer; he
seemed utterly indifferent to praise or applause, and he had rather a
grave, pontifical air, as of a priest, divinely called to minister,
celebrating a divine mystery, calling down the strength of heaven to
earth. Neither was there the least sense of one conferring a favour;
he rather appeared to recognise that we were there in the same spirit
as himself, the worshippers in some high solemnity, and his own skill
not a thing to be shown or gloried in, but a mere ministering of a
sacred gift. He seemed, indeed, to be like one who distributed a
sacramental meat to an intent throng; not a giver of pleasure, but a
channel of secret grace.
From such art as this one comes away not only with a thrill of mortal
rapture, but with a real and deep faith in art, having bowed the head
before a shrine, and having tasted the food of the spirit. When, at
the end of a sweet and profound movement, the player raised his great
head and looked round tenderly and gently on the crowd, one felt as
though, like Moses, he had struck the rock, and the streams had gushed
out, _ut bibat populus_. And there fell an even deeper awe, which
seemed to say, "God was in this place ... and I knew it not." The
world of movement, of talk, of work, of conflicting interests, into
which one must return, seemed all a fantastic noise, a shadowy
striving; the only real thing seemed the presence-chamber from which we
had gone out, the chamber in which music had uttered its voice at the
bidding of some sacred spell, the voice of an infinite Spirit, the
Spirit that had brooded upon the deep, evoking order out of chaos and
light out of darkness; with no eager and dusty manoeuvrings, no clink
and clatter of human toil, but gliding resistlessly and largely upon
the world, as the sun by silent degrees detaches himself from the dark
rim of the world, and climbs in stately progress into the unclouded
heaven.
XXXV
The Faith of Christ
I read a terrible letter in the newspaper this morning, a letter from a
clergyman of high position, finding fault with a manifesto put out by
certain other clergymen; the letter had a certain volubility about it,
and the writer seemed to me to pull out rather adroitly one or two
loose sticks in his opponents' bundle, and to lay them vehemently about
their backs. But, alas! the acrimony, the positiveness, the arrogance
of it!
I do not know that I admired the manifesto very much myself; it was a
timid and half-hearted document, but it was at least sympathetic and
tender. The purport of it was to say that, just as historical
criticism has shown that some of the Old Testament must be regarded as
fabulous, so we must be prepared for a possible loss of certitude in
some of the details of the New Testament. It is conceivable, for
instance, that without sacrificing the least portion of the essential
teaching of Christ, men may come to feel justified in a certain
suspension of judgment with regard to some of the miraculous
occurrences there related; may even grow to believe that an element of
exaggeration is there, that element of exaggeration which is never
absent from the writings of any age in which scientific historical
methods had no existence. A suspension of judgment, say: because in
the absence of any converging historical testimony to the events of the
New Testament, it will never be possible either to affirm or to deny
historically that the facts took place exactly as related; though,
indeed, the probability of their having so occurred may seem to be
diminished.
The controversialist, whose letter I read with bewilderment and pain,
involved his real belief in ingenious sentences, so that one would
think that he accepted the statements of the Old Testament, such as the
account of the Creation and the Fall, the speaking of Balaam's Ass, the
swallowing of Jonah by the whale, as historical facts. He went on to
say that the miraculous element of the New Testament is accredited by
the Revelation of God, as though some definite revelation of truth had
taken place at some time or other, which all rational men recognised.
But the only objective process which has ever taken place is, that at
certain Councils of the Church, certain books of Scripture were
selected as essential documents, and the previous selection of the Old
Testament books was confirmed. But would the controversialist say that
these Councils were infallible? It must surely be clear to all
rational people that the members of these Councils were merely doing
their best, under the conditions that then prevailed, to select the
books that seemed to them to contain the truth. It is impossible to
believe that if the majority at these Councils had supposed that such
an account as the account in Genesis of the Creation was mythological,
they would thus have attested its literal truth. It never occurred to
them to doubt it, because they did not understand the principle that,
while a normal event can be accepted, if it is fairly well confirmed,
an abnormal event requires a far greater amount of converging testimony
to confirm it.
If only the clergy could realise that what ordinary laymen like myself
want is a greater elasticity instead of an irrational certainty! if
only instead of feebly trying to save the outworks, which are already
in the hands of the enemy, they would man the walls of the central
fortress! If only they would say plainly that a man could remain a
convinced Christian, and yet not be bound to hold to the literal
accuracy of the account of miraculous incidents recorded in the Bible,
it would be a great relief.
I am myself in the position of thousands of other laymen. I am a
sincere Christian; and yet I regard the Old Testament and the New
Testament alike as the work of fallible men and of poetical minds. I
regard the Old Testament as a noble collection of ancient writings,
containing myths, chronicles, fables, poems, and dramas, the value of
which consists in the intense faith in a personal God and Father with
which it is penetrated.