“Ah, a little lax--a little remiss!” he said playfully, and with an
expression of relief. “Professional men get into these ways. They
have much to distract them. At least, you cling fast, no doubt, to the
fundamental truths of Christianity?”
“I believe from the bottom of my heart,” said I, “that the Founder of
it was the best and sweetest character of whom we have any record in the
history of this planet.”
But instead of soothing him, my conciliatory answer seemed to be taken
as a challenge. “I trust,” said he severely, “that your belief goes
further than that. You, are surely prepared to admit that He was an
incarnation of the God-head.”
I began to feel like the old badger in his hole who longs to have a
scratch at the black muzzle which is so eager to draw him.
“Does it not strike you,” I said, “that if He were but a frail mortal
like ourselves, His life assumes a much deeper significance? It then
becomes a standard towards which we might work. If, on the other hand,
He was intrinsically of a different nature to ourselves, then His
existence loses its point, since we and He start upon a different basis.
To my mind it is obvious that such a supposition takes away the beauty
and the moral of His life. If He was divine then He COULD not sin, and
there was an end of the matter. We who are not divine and can sin, have
little to learn from a life like that.”
“He triumphed over sin,” said my visitor, as if a text or a phrase were
an argument.
“A cheap triumph!” I said. “You remember that Roman emperor who used to
descend into the arena fully armed, and pit himself against some poor
wretch who had only a leaden foil which would double up at a thrust.
According to your theory of your Master’s life, you would have it that
He faced the temptations of this world at such an advantage that they
were only harmless leaden things, and not the sharp assailants which we
find them. I confess, in my own case, that my sympathy is as strong when
I think of His weaknesses as of His wisdom and His virtue. They come
more home to me, I suppose, since I am weak myself.”
“Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me what has impressed you as
weak in His conduct?” asked my visitor stiffly.
“Well, the more human traits--‘weak’ is hardly the word I should have
used. His rebuke of the Sabbatarians, His personal violence to the
hucksters, His outbursts against the Pharisees, His rather unreasoning
petulance against the fig-tree because it bore no fruit at the wrong
season of the year, His very human feeling towards the housewife who
bustled about when He was talking, his gratification that the ointment
should have been used for Him instead of being devoted to the poor,
His self-distrust before the crisis--these make me realise and love the
man.”
“You are a Unitarian, then, or rather, perhaps, a mere Deist?” said the
curate, with a combative flush.
“You may label me as you like,” I answered (and by this time I fear that
I had got my preaching stop fairly out); “I don’t pretend to know what
truth is, for it is infinite, and I finite; but I know particularly well
what it is NOT. It is not true that religion reached its acme nineteen
hundred years ago, and that we are for ever to refer back to what was
written and said in those days. No, sir; religion is a vital living
thing, still growing and working, capable of endless extension and
development, like all other fields of thought. There were many eternal
truths spoken of old and handed down to us in a book, some parts
of which may indeed be called holy. But there are others yet to be
revealed; and if we are to reject them because they are not in those
pages, we should act as wisely as the scientist who would take no notice
of Kirschoff’s spectral analysis because there is no mention of it in
Albertus Magnus. A modern prophet may wear a broadcloth coat and write
to the magazines; but none the less he may be the little pipe which
conveys a tiny squirt from the reservoirs of truth. Look at this!” I
cried, rising and reading my Carlyle text. “That comes from no Hebrew
prophet, but from a ratepayer in Chelsea. He and Emerson are also among
the prophets. The Almighty has not said His last say to the human race,
and He can speak through a Scotchman or a New Englander as easily as
through a Jew. The Bible, sir, is a book which comes out in instalments,
and ‘To be continued,’ not ‘Finis,’ is written at the end of it.”
My visitor had been showing every sign of acute uneasiness during this
long speech of mine. Finally, he sprang to his feet, and took his hat
from the table.
“Your opinions are highly dangerous, sir,” said he. “It is my duty to
tell you so. You believe in nothing.”
“Nothing which limits the power or the goodness of the Almighty,” I
answered.
“You have evolved all this from your own spiritual pride and
self-sufficiency,” said he, hotly. “Why do you not turn to that Deity
whose name you use. Why do you not humble yourself before Him?”
“How do you know I don’t?”
“You said yourself that you never went to church.”
“I carry my own church about under my own hat,” said I. “Bricks and
mortar won’t make a staircase to heaven. I believe with your Master that
the human heart is the best temple. I am sorry to see that you differ
from Him upon the point.”
Perhaps it was too bad of me to say that. I might have guarded without
countering. Anyhow; it had the effect of ending an interview which was
becoming oppressive. My visitor was too indignant to answer, and swept
out of the room without a word. From my window I could see him hurry
down the street, a little black angry thing, very hot and troubled
because he cannot measure the whole universe with his pocket square and
compasses.
Think of it, and think of what he is, an atom among atoms, standing at
the meeting point of two eternities! But what am I, a brother atom, that
I should judge him?
After all, I own to you, that it might have been better had I listened
to what he had to say, and refused to give my own views. On the other
hand, truth MUST be as broad as the universe which it is to explain, and
therefore far broader than anything which the mind of man can conceive.
A protest against sectarian thought must always be an aspiration towards
truth. Who shall dare to claim a monopoly of the Almighty? It would be
an insolence on the part of a solar system, and yet it is done every
day by a hundred little cliques of mystery mongers. There lies the real
impiety.
Well, the upshot of it all is, my dear Bertie, that I have begun my
practice by making an enemy of the man who, of the whole parish, has the
most power to injure me. I know what my father would think about it, if
he knew.
And now I come to the great event of this morning, from which I am still
gasping. That villain Cullingworth has cut the painter, and left me to
drift as best I may.
My post comes at eight o’clock in the morning, and I usually get my
letters and take them into bed to read them. There was only one this
morning, addressed in his strange, unmistakable hand. I made sure,
of course, that it was my promised remittance, and I opened it with a
pleasurable feeling of expectation. This is a copy of what I read:--
“When the maid was arranging your room after your departure, she cleared
some pieces of torn paper from under the grate. Seeing my name upon
them, she brought them, as in duty bound, to her mistress, who pasted
them together and found that they formed a letter from your mother to
you, in which I am referred to in the vilest terms, such as ‘a bankrupt
swindler’ and ‘the unscrupulous Cullingworth.’ I can only say that we
are astonished that you could have been a party to such a correspondence
while you were a guest under our roof, and we refuse to have anything
more to do with you in any shape or form.”
That was a nice little morning greeting was it not, after I had, on the
strength of his promise, started in practice, and engaged a house for
a year with a few shillings in my pocket? I have given up smoking for
reasons of economy; but I felt that the situation was worthy of a pipe,
so I climbed out of bed, gathered a little heap of tobacco-dust from the
linings of my pocket, and smoked the whole thing over. That life-belt of
which I had spoken so confidingly had burst, and left me to kick as best
I might in very deep water. I read the note over and over again; and for
all my dilemma, I could not help laughing at the mingled meanness and
stupidity of the thing. The picture of the host and hostess busying
themselves in gumming together the torn letters of their departed guest
struck me as one of the funniest things I could remember. And there
was the stupidity of it, because surely a child could have seen that my
mother’s attack was in answer to my defence. Why should we write a duet
each saying the same thing? Well, I’m still very confused about it all,
and I don’t in the least know what I am going to do--more likely to die
on the last plank, than to get into port with my ensign mast-high. I
must think it out and let you know the result. Come what may, one thing
only is sure, and that is that, in weal or woe, I remain, ever, your
affectionate and garrulous friend.