confronted by the most wonderful personality which has ever drawn
breath upon the earth. I am not in a position to affirm or to deny the
exact truth of the miraculous occurrences there related; but the more
conscious I am of the fallibility, the lack of subtlety, the absence of
trained historical method that the writers display, the more convinced
I am of the essential truth of the Person and teaching of Christ,
because he seems to me a figure so infinitely beyond the intellectual
power of those who described him to have invented or created.
If the authors of the Gospels had been men of delicate literary skill,
of acute philosophical or poetical insight, like Plato or Shakespeare,
then I should be far less convinced of the integral truth of the
record. But the words and sayings of Christ, the ideas which he
disseminated, seem to me so infinitely above the highest achievements
of the human spirit, that I have no difficulty in confessing, humbly
and reverently, that I am in the presence of one who seems to me to be
above humanity, and not only of it. If all the miraculous events of
the Gospels could be proved never to have occurred, it would not
disturb my faith in Christ for an instant. But I am content, as it is,
to believe in the possibility of so abnormal a personality being
surrounded by abnormal events, though I am not in a position to
disentangle the actual truth from the possibilities of
misrepresentation and exaggeration.
Dealing with the rest of the New Testament, I see in the Acts of the
Apostles a deeply interesting record of the first ripples of the faith
in the world. In the Pauline and other epistles I see the words of
fervent primitive Christians, men of real and untutored genius, in
which one has amazing instances of the effect produced, on contemporary
or nearly contemporary persons, of the same overwhelming personality,
the personality of Christ. In the Apocalypse I see a vision of deep
poetical force and insight.
But in none of these compositions, though they reveal a glow and
fervour of conviction that places them high among the memorials of the
human spirit, do I recognise anything which is beyond human
possibilities. I observe, indeed, that St Paul's method of argument is
not always perfectly consistent, nor his conclusions absolutely cogent.
Such inspiration as they contain they draw from their nearness to and
their close apprehension of the dim and awe-inspiring presence of
Christ Himself.
If, as I say, the Church would concentrate her forces in this inner
fortress, the personality of Christ, and quit the debatable ground of
historical enquiry, it would be to me and to many an unfeigned relief;
but meanwhile, neither scientific critics nor irrational pedants shall
invalidate my claim to be of the number of believing Christians. I
claim a Christian liberty of thought, while I acknowledge, with bowed
head, my belief in God the Father of men, in a Divine Christ, the
Redeemer and Saviour, and in the presence in the hearts of men of a
Divine spirit, leading humanity tenderly forward. I can neither affirm
nor deny the literal accuracy of Scripture records; I am not in a
position to deny the superstructure of definite dogma raised by the
tradition of the Church about the central truths of its teaching, but
neither can I deny the possibility of an admixture of human error in
the fabric. I claim my right to receive the Sacraments of my Church,
believing as I do that they invigorate the soul, bring the presence of
its Redeemer near, and constitute a bond of Christian unity. But I
have no reason to believe that any human pronouncement whatever, the
pronouncements of men of science as well as the pronouncements of
theologians, are not liable to error. There is indeed no fact in the
world except the fact of my own existence of which I am absolutely
certain. And thus I can accept no system of religion which is based
upon deductions, however subtle, from isolated texts, because I cannot
be sure of the infallibility of any form of human expression. Yet, on
the other hand, I seem to discern with as much certainty as I can
discern anything in this world, where all is so dark, the presence upon
earth at a certain date of a personality which commands my homage and
allegiance. And upon this I build my trust.
XXXVI
The Mystery of Evil
I was staying the other day in a large old country-house. One morning,
my host came to me and said: "I should like to show you a curious
thing. We have just discovered a cellar here that seems never to have
been visited or used since the house was built, and there is the
strangest fungoid growth in it I have ever seen." He took a big bunch
of keys, rang the bell, gave an order for lights to be brought, and we
went together to the place. There were ranges of brick-built, vaulted
chambers, through which we passed, pleasant, cool places, with no
plaster to conceal the native brick, with great wine-bins on either
hand. It all gave one an inkling of the change in material conditions
which must have taken place since they were built; the quantity of wine
consumed in eighteenth-century days must have been so enormous, and the
difficulty of conveyance so great, that every great householder must
have felt like the Rich Fool of the parable, with much goods laid up
for many years. In the corner of one of the great vaults was a low
arched door, and my friend explained that some panelling which had been
taken out of an older house, demolished to make room for the present
mansion, had been piled up here, and thus the entrance had been hidden.
He unlocked the door, and a strange scent came out. An abundance of
lights were lit, and we went into the vault. It was the strangest
scene I have ever beheld; the end of the vault seemed like a great bed,
hung with brown velvet curtains, through the gaps of which were visible
what seemed like white velvet pillows, strange humped conglomerations.
My friend explained to me that there had been a bin at the end of the
vault, out of the wood of which these singular fungi had sprouted. The
whole place was uncanny and horrible. The great velvet curtains swayed
in the current of air, and it seemed as though at any moment some
mysterious sleeper might be awakened, might peer forth from his dark
curtains, with a fretful enquiry as to why he was disturbed.
The scene dwelt in my mind for many days, and aroused in me a strange
train of thought; these dim vegetable forms, with their rich
luxuriance, their sinister beauty, awoke a curious repugnance in the
mind. They seemed unholy and evil. And yet it is all part of the life
of nature; it is just as natural, just as beautiful to find life at
work in this gloomy and unvisited place, wreathing the bare walls with
these dark, soft fabrics. It was impossible not to feel that there was
a certain joy of life in these growths, sprouting with such security
and luxuriance in a place so precisely adapted to their well-being; and
yet there was the shadow of death and darkness about them, to us whose
home is the free air and the sun. It seemed to me to make a curious
parable of the baffling mystery of evil, the luxuriant growth of sin in
the dark soul. I have always felt that the reason why the mystery of
evil is so baffling is because we so resolutely think of evil as of
something inimical to the nature of God; and yet evil must derive its
vitality from him. The one thing that it is impossible to believe is
that, in a world ruled by an all-powerful God, anything should come
into existence which is in opposition to his Will. It is impossible to
arrive at any solution of the difficulty, unless we either adopt the
belief that God is not all-powerful, and that there is a real dualism
in nature, two powers in eternal opposition; or else realise that evil
is in some way a manifestation of God. If we adopt the first theory,
we may conceive of the stationary tendency in nature, its inertness,
the force that tends to bring motion to a standstill, as one power, the
power of Death; and we may conceive of all motion and force as the
other power, the quickening spirit, the power of life. But even here
we are met with a difficulty, for when we try to transfer this dualism
to the region of humanity, we see that in the phenomena of disease we
are confronted, not with inertness fighting against motion, but with
one kind of life, which is inimical to human life, fighting with
another kind of life which is favourable to health. I mean that when a
fever or a cancer lays hold of a human frame, it is nothing but the
lodging inside the body of a bacterial and an infusorial life which
fights against the healthy native life of the human organism. There
must be, I will not say a consciousness, but a sense of triumphant
life, in the cancer which feeds upon the limb, in spite of all efforts
to dislodge it; and it is impossible to me to believe that the vitality
of those parasitical organisms, which prey upon the human frame, is not
derived from the vital impulse of God. We, who live in the free air
and the sun, have a way of thinking and speaking as if the plants and
animals which develop under the same conditions were of a healthy type,
while the organisms which flourish in decay and darkness, such as the
fungi of which I saw so strange an example, the larva; which prey on
decaying matter, the soft and pallid worm-like forms that tunnel in
vegetable ooze, were of an unhealthy type. But yet these creatures are
as much the work of God as the flowers and trees, the brisk animals
which we love to see about us. We are obliged in self-defence to do
battle with the creatures which menace our health; we do not question
our right to deprive them of life for our own comfort; but surely with
this analogy before us, we are equally compelled to think of the forms
of moral evil, with all their dark vitality, as the work of God's hand.
It is a sad conclusion to be obliged to draw, but I can have no doubt
that no comprehensive system of philosophy can ever be framed, which
does not trace the vitality of what we call evil to the same hand as
the vitality of what we call good. I have no doubt myself of the
supremacy of a single power; but the explanation that evil came into
the world by the institution of free-will, and that suffering is the
result of sin, seems to me to be wholly inadequate, because the mystery
of strife and pain and death is "far older than any history which is
written in any book." The mistake that we make is to count up all the
qualities which seem to promote our health and happiness, and to invent
an anthropomorphic figure of God, whom we array upon the side which we
wish to prevail. The truth is far darker, far sterner, far more
mysterious. The darkness is his not less than the light; selfishness
and sin are the work of his hand, as much as unselfishness and
holiness. To call this attitude of mind pessimism, and to say that it
can only end in acquiescence or despair, is a sin against truth. A
creed that does not take this thought into account is nothing but a
delusion, with which we try to beguile the seriousness of the truth
which we dread; but such a stern belief does not forbid us to struggle
and to strive; it rather bids us believe that effort is a law of our
natures, that we are bound to be enlisted for the fight, and that the
only natures that fail are those that refuse to take a side at all.
There is no indecision in nature, though there is some illusion. The
very star that rises, pale and serene, above the darkening thicket, is
in reality a globe wreathed in fiery vapour, the centre of a throng of
whirling planets. What we have to do is to see as deep as we can into
the truth of things, not to invent paradises of thought, sheltered
gardens, from which grief and suffering shall tear us, naked and
protesting; but to gaze into the heart of God, and then to follow as
faithfully as we can the imperative voice that speaks within the soul.
XXXVII
Renewal
There sometimes falls upon me a great hunger of heart, a sad desire to
build up and renew something--a broken building it may be, a fading
flower, a failing institution, a ruinous character. I feel a great and
vivid pity for a thing which sets out to be so bright and beautiful,
and lapses into shapeless and uncomely neglect. Sometimes, indeed, it
must be a desolate grief, a fruitless sorrow: as when a flower that has
stood on one's table, and cheered the air with its freshness and
fragrance, begins to droop, and to grow stained and sordid. Or I see
some dying creature, a wounded animal; or even some well-loved friend
under the shadow of death, with the hue of health fading, the dear
features sharpening for the last change; and then one can only bow,
with such resignation as one can muster, before the dreadful law of
death, pray that the passage may not be long or dark, and try to dream
of the bright secrets that may be waiting on the other side.
But sometimes it is a more fruitful sadness, when one feels that decay
can be arrested, that new life can be infused; that a fresh start may
be taken, and a life may be beautifully renewed, and be even the
brighter, one dares to hope, for a lapse into the dreary ways of
bitterness.
This sadness is most apt to beset those who have anything to do with
the work of education. One feels sometimes, with a sudden shiver, as
when the shadow of a cloud passes over a sunlit garden, that many
elements are at work in a small society; that an evil secret is
spreading over lives that were peaceful and contented, that suspicion
and disunion and misunderstanding are springing up, like poisonous
weeds, in the quiet corner that God has given one to dress and keep.
Then perhaps one tries to put one's hand on what is amiss; sometimes
one does too much, and in the wrong way; one has not enough faith, one
dares not leave enough to God. Or from timidity or diffidence, or from
the base desire not to be troubled, from the poor hope that perhaps
things will straighten themselves out, one does too little; and that is
the worst shadow of all, the shadow of cowardice or sloth.
Sometimes, too, one has the grief of seeing a slow and subtle change
passing over the manner and face of one for whom one cares--not the
change of languor or physical weakness; that can be pityingly borne;
but one sees innocence withering, indifference to things wholesome and
fair creeping on, even sometimes a ripe and evil sort of beauty
maturing, such as comes of looking at evil unashamed, and seeing its
strong seductiveness. One feels instinctively that the door which had
been open before between such a soul and one's own spirit is being
slowly and firmly closed, or even, if one attempts to open it, pulled
to with a swift motion; and then one may hear sounds within, and even
see, in that moment, a rush of gliding forms, that makes one sure that
a visitant is there, who has brought with him a wicked company; and
then one has to wait in sadness, with now and then a timid knocking,
even happy, it may be, if the soul sometimes call fretfully within, to
say that it is occupied and cannot come forth.
But sometimes, God be praised, it is the other way. A year ago a man
came at his own request to see me. I hardly knew him; but I could see
at once that he was in the grip of some hard conflict, which withered
his natural bloom. I do not know how all came to be revealed; but in a
little while he was speaking with simple frankness and naturalness of
all his troubles, and they were many. What was the most touching thing
of all was that he spoke as if he were quite alone in his experience,
isolated and shut off from his kind, in a peculiar horror of darkness
and doubt; as if the thoughts and difficulties at which he stumbled had
never strewn a human path before. I said but little to him; and,
indeed, there was but little to say. It was enough that he should
"cleanse the stuff'd bosom of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the
heart." I tried to make him feel that he was not alone in the matter,
and that other feet had trodden the dark path before him. No advice is
possible in such cases; "therein the patient must minister to himself";
the solution lies in the mind of the sufferer. He knows what he ought
to do; the difficulty is for him sufficiently to desire to do it; yet
even to speak frankly of cares and troubles is very often to melt and
disperse the morbid mist that gathers round them, which grows in
solitude. To state them makes them plain and simple; and, indeed, it
is more than that; for I have often noticed that the mere act of
formulating one's difficulties in the hearing of one who sympathises
and feels, often brings the solution with it. One finds, like
Christian in Doubting Castle, the key which has lain in one's bosom all
the time--the key of Promise; and when one has finished the recital,
one is lost in bewilderment that one ever was in any doubt at all.
A year has passed since that date, and I have had the happiness of
seeing health and contentment stream back into the man's face. He has
not overcome, he has not won an easy triumph; but he is in the way now,
not wandering on trackless hills.
So, in the mood of which I spoke at first--the mood in which one
desires to build up and renew--one must not yield oneself to luxurious
and pathetic reveries, or allow oneself to muse and wonder in the
half-lit region in which one may beat one's wings in vain--the region,
I mean, of sad stupefaction as to why the world is so full of broken
dreams, shattered hopes, and unfulfilled possibilities. One must
rather look round for some little definite failure that is within the
circle of one's vision. And even so, there sometimes comes what is the
most evil and subtle temptation of all, which creeps upon the mind in
lowly guise, and preaches inaction. What concern have you, says the
tempting voice, to meddle with the lives and characters of others--to
guide, to direct, to help--when there is so much that is bitterly amiss
with your own heart and life? How will you dare to preach what you do
not practice? The answer of the brave heart is that, if one is aware
of failure, if one has suffered, if one has gathered experience, one
must be ready to share it. If I falter and stumble under my own heavy
load, which I have borne so querulously, so clumsily, shall not I say a
word which can help a fellow-sufferer to bear his load more easily,
help him to avoid the mistakes, the falls into which my own perversity
has betrayed me? To make another's burden lighter is to lighten one's
own burden; and, sinful as it may be to err, it is still more sinful to
see another err, and be silent, to withhold the word that might save
him. Perhaps no one can help so much as one that has suffered himself,
who knows the turns of the sad road, and the trenches which beset the
way.
For thus comes most truly the joy of repentance; it is joy to feel that
one's own lesson is learnt, and that the feeble feet are a little
stronger; but if one may also feel that another has taken heed, has
been saved the fall that must have come if he had not been warned, one
does not grudge one's own pain, that has brought a blessing with it,
that is outside of one's own blessing; one hardly even grudges the sin.
XXXVIII
The Secret
I have been away from my books lately, in a land of downs and valleys;
I have walked much alone, or with a silent companion--that greatest of
all luxuries. And, as is always the case when I get out of the reach
of books, I feel that I read a great deal too much, and do not meditate
enough. It sounds indolent advice to say that one ought to meditate;
but I cannot help feeling that reading is often a still more indolent
affair. When I am alone, or at leisure among my books, I take a volume
down; and the result is that another man does my thinking for me. It
is like putting oneself in a comfortable railway carriage; one runs
smoothly along the iron track, one stops at specified stations, one
sees a certain range of country, and an abundance of pretty things in
flashes--too many, indeed, for the mind to digest; and that is the
reason, I think, why a modern journey, even with all the luxuries that
surround it, is so tiring a thing. But to meditate is to take one's
own path among the hills; one turns off the track to examine anything
that attracts the attention; one makes the most of the few things that
one sees.
Reading is often a mere saving of trouble, a soporific for a restless
brain. This last week, as I say, I have had very few books with me.
One of the few has been Milton's _Paradise Lost_, and I have read it
from end to end. I want to say a few words about the book first, and
then to diverge, to a larger question. I have read the poem with a
certain admiration; it is a large, strong, rugged, violent thing. I
have, however, read it without emotion, except that a few of the
similes in it, which lie like shells on a beach of sand, have pleased
me. Yet it is not true to say that I have read it without emotion,
because I have read it with anger and indignation. I have come to the
conclusion that the book has done a great deal of harm. It is
responsible, I think, for a great many of the harsh, business-like,
dismal views of religion that prevail among us. Milton treated God,
the Saviour, and the angels, from the point of view of a scholar who
had read the _Iliad_. I declare that I think that the passages where
God the Father speaks, discusses the situation of affairs, and arranges
matters with the Saviour, are some of the most profane and vicious
passages in English literature. I do not want to be profane myself,
because it is a disgusting fault; but the passage where the scheme of
Redemption is arranged, where God enquires whether any of the angels
will undergo death in order to satisfy his sense of injured justice, is
a passage of what I can only call stupid brutality, disguised, alas, in
the solemn and majestic robe of sonorous language. The angels timidly
decline, and the Saviour volunteers, which saves the shameful
situation. The character of God, as displayed by Milton, is that of a
commercial, complacent, irritable Puritan. There is no largeness or
graciousness about it, no wistful love. He keeps his purposes to
himself, and when his arrangements break down, as indeed they deserve
to do, some one has got to be punished. If the guilty ones cannot, so
much the worse; an innocent victim will do, but a victim there must be.
It is a wicked, an abominable passage, and I would no more allow an
intelligent child to read it than I would allow him to read an obscene
book.
Then, again, the passage where the rebel angels cast cannon, make
gunpowder, and mow the good angels down in rows, is incredibly puerile
and ridiculous. The hateful materialism of the whole thing is patent.
I wish that the English Church could have an Index, and put _Paradise
Lost_ upon it, and allow no one to read it until he had reached years
of discretion, and then only with a certificate, and for purely
literary purposes.
It is a terrible instance how strong a thing Art is; the grim old
author, master of every form of ugly vituperation, had drifted
miserably away from his beautiful youth, when he wrote the sweet poems
and sonnets that make the pedestal for his fame; and on that delicate
pedestal stands this hideous iron figure, with its angry gestures, its
sickening strength.
I could pile up indignant instances of the further harm the book has
done. Who but Milton is responsible for the hard and shameful view of
the position of women? He represents her as a clinging, soft,
compliant creature, whose only ideal is to be to make things
comfortable for her husband, and to submit to his embraces. Milton
spoilt the lives of all the women he had to do with, by making them
into slaves, with the same consciousness of rectitude with which he
whipped his nephews, the sound of whose cries made his poor girl-wife
so miserable. But I do not want to go further into the question of
Milton himself. I want to follow out a wider thought which came to me
among the downs to-day.