Bonheur, and many promises on her part to come to us in England (which,
alas! she never fulfilled) we made our way to London; and, within a few
weeks, Miss Lloyd—one morning before breakfast,—found, and, in an
incredibly short time, _bought_ the dear little house in South
Kensington which became our home with few interruptions for a quarter of
a century; No. 26, Hereford Square. It was at that time almost at the
end of London. All up the Gloucester Road between it and the Park were
market-gardens; and behind it and alongside of it, where Rosary Gardens
and Wetherby Place now stand, there were large fields of grass with
abundance of fine old lime trees and elms, and one magnificent walnut
tree which ought never to have been cut down. Behind us we had a large
piece of ground, which we rented temporarily and called the “_Boundless
Prairie_,” (!) where we gave afternoon tea to our friends under the
limes, when they were in bloom. On a part of our garden Miss Lloyd
erected a sculptor’s Studio. The House itself, though small, was very
pretty and airy; every room in it lightsome and pleasant, and somehow
capable of containing a good many people. We often had in it as many as
50 or 60 guests. In short, I had once more a home, and a most happy one;
and my lonely wanderings were over.
CHAPTER
XV.
_LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES._
_LITERARY LIFE._
For some time before I took up my abode in London I had been writing
busily for the press. When my active work at Bristol came to an end and
I became for four years a cripple, I naturally turned to use my pen,
and, finding from my happy experience of _Workhouse Sketches_ in
_Macmillan’s Magazine_ that I could make money without much difficulty,
I soon obtained almost as many openings as I could profit by to add to
my income. I wrote a series of articles for _Fraser’s Magazine_, then
edited by Mr. Froude, who had been my brother’s friend at Oxford, and
who from that time I had the high privilege to count as mine also. These
first papers were sketches of Rome, Cairo, Athens, Jerusalem, etc.; and
they were eventually reprinted in a rather successful little volume
called _Cities of the Past_, now long out of print. I also wrote many
papers connected with women’s affairs and claims, in both _Macmillan_
and _Fraser_; and these likewise were reprinted in a volume; _Pursuits
of Women_. Beside writing these longer articles, I acted as “Own
Correspondent” to the _Daily News_ in Rome one year, and in Florence
another, and sent a great many articles to the _Spectator_, _Economist_,
_Reader_, &c. In short I turned out (as a painter would say) a great
many _Pot-Boilers_. These, with my small patrimony, enabled me to bear
the expense of travelling and of keeping a maid; a luxury which had
become indispensable.
I also at this time edited, as I have mentioned, for Messrs. Trübner,
the 12 vols. of _Parker’s Works_, with a _Preface_. The arrangement of
the great mass of miscellaneous papers was very laborious and
perplexing, but I think I marshalled the volumes fairly well. I did not
perform as fully as I ought to have done my editorial duty of correcting
for the press; indeed I did not understand that it fell to my share, or
I must have declined to undertake the task. Mr. Trübner paid me £50 for
this editing, which I had proposed to do gratuitously.
I had much at heart,—from the time I gave up my practical work among the
poor folk at Bristol,—to write again on religious matters, and to help
so far as might be possible for me to clear a way through the maze of
new controversies which, in those days of _Essays_ and _Reviews_,
Colenso’s _Pentateuch_ and Renan’s _Vie de Jésus_, were remarkably
lively and wide-spread through all classes of society. With this hope,
and while spending a summer in my crippled condition at Aix-les-Bains,
and on the Diablerêts, I wrote to Harriet St. Leger:—
“I am now striving to write a book about present controversies and the
future basis of religious faith. I want to do justice to existing
parties, High, Low and Broad, yet to show (as of course I believe)
that none of them can really solve the problem; and that the faith of
the future must be one not _based_ on a special History, though
corroborated by all history.”
The plan of this book—named _Broken Lights_—is as follows: I
discriminate the different sections of thinkers from the point of view
of the answers they would respectively give to the supreme question,
“What are the ultimate grounds of our faith in God, in Duty and in
Immortality?” First, I distinguish between those who hold those grounds
to rest on the _Traditional Revelation_; and those who hold them to be
the _Original Revelation_ of the Divine Spirit in each faithful soul.
The former are divided again, naturally, into those who take their
authoritative tradition from a _Living Prophet_, a _Church_, or a
_Book_. But in Christian times we have only had a few obscure prophets
(Montanus, Joseph Smith, Swedenborg, Brother Prince, Mr. Harris, &c.),
and the choice practically lies between resting faith on a _Church_, or
resting it on a _Book_.
I classify both the parties in the English Church who rest respectively
on a Church and on a Book, as _Palæologians_, the one, the _High
Church_, whose ground of religious faith is: “_The Bible authenticated
and interpreted by the Church_;” and the other the _Low Church_, whose
theory is still the formula of Chillingworth: “_The Bible, and the Bible
only, is the religion of Protestants_.”
But it has come to pass that all the distinctive doctrines of
Christianity (over and above Theism) which the Traditionalists maintain,
are, in these days, more or less opposed to modern sentiment, criticism
and science; and among those who adhere to them, one or other attitude
as regards this opposition must be taken up. The Palæologian party in
both wings insists on the old doctrines more or less crudely and
strictly, and would fain _bend modern ideas_ to harmonize with them.
Another party, which is generally called the _Neologian_, endeavours to
_modify or explain the old doctrines_, so as to harmonize them with the
ethics and criticism of our generation.
After a somewhat careful study of the positions, merits and failures of
the two Palæologian parties, I proceed to define among the Neologians,
the _First Broad Church_ (of Maurice and Kingsley), whose programme was:
“To harmonize the doctrines of Church and Bible with modern thought.”
This end it attempted to reach by new readings and interpretations,
consonant with the highest modern sentiment; but it remained of course
obvious, that the supposed Divinely-inspired Authorities had failed to
convey the sense of these interpretations to men’s minds for eighteen
centuries; indeed had conveyed the reverse. The old received doctrine of
an eternal Hell, for example, was the absolute contradiction of the
doctrines of Divine universal love and everlasting Mercy, which the new
teachers professed to derive from the same traditional authority. This
school emphatically “put the new wine into old bottles;” and the success
of the experiment could only be temporary, since it rests on the
assumption that God has miraculously taught men in language which they
have, for fifty generations, uniformly misinterpreted.
The other branch of the Neologian party I call the _Second Broad Church_
(the party of Stanley and Jowett). It may be considered as forming the
Extreme Left of the Revelationists; the furthest from mere Authority and
the nearest to Rationalism; just as the High Church party forms the
Extreme Right; the nearest to Authority and furthest from Rationalism. I
endeavour to define the difference between the _First_ and _Second Broad
Church_ parties as follows:—
“The First Broad Church, as we have seen, maintains that the doctrines
of the Bible and the Church can be perfectly harmonized with the
results of modern thought, _by a new, but legitimate exegesis of the
Bible and interpretation of Church formulæ_. The Second Broad Church
seems prepared to admit that, in many cases, they can only be
harmonized _by the sacrifice of Biblical infallibility_. The First
Broad Church has recourse (to harmonize them) to various logical
processes, but principally to that of diverting the student, at all
difficult points, from criticism to edification. The Second Broad
Church uses no ambiguity, but frankly avows that when the Bible
contradicts Science, the Bible must be in error. The First Broad
Church maintains that the Inspiration of the Bible differs in _kind_
as well as in _degree_, from that of other books. The Second Broad
Church appears to hold that it differs in degree, but _not_ in kind.”
After a considerable discussion on the various doctrines of the nature
and limitations of Inspiration, I ask, p. 110, 111:—
“Admit the Inspiration of Prophets and Apostles to have been
substantially the same with that always granted to faithful
souls;—admit, therefore, the existence of a human element in
Revelation, can we still look to that Revelation as the safe
foundation for our Religion?”
“To this question the leaders of the Second Broad Church answer
unhesitatingly: ‘Yes. It has been an egregious error of modern times
to confound the Record of the Revelation with the Revelation itself,
and to assume that God’s lessons lose their value because they have
been transmitted to us through the natural channels of human reason
and conscience. Returning to the true view, we shall only get rid of
uncounted difficulties and objections which prevent the reception of
Christianity by the most honest minds here in England and in heathen
countries.’”
But in conclusion I ask—
“‘What influence can the Second Broad Church exercise on the future
religion of the world? What answer will it supply to the doubts of the
age, and whereon would it rest our faith in God and Immortality?’ The
reply seems to be brief. The Second Broad Church would, like all the
other parties in the Church, call on us to rest our faith on History;
but in their case, it is History corroborated by consciousness, not
opposed thereto. In the next Chapter it will be my effort to show that
under _no_ conditions is it probable that History can afford us our
ultimate grounds of faith. Meanwhile, it must appear that if any form
of Historical faith may escape such a conclusion and approve itself to
mankind in time to come, it is that which is proposed by the Second
Broad Church, and which it worthily presents,—to the intellect by its
learning, and to the religious sentiment by its profound and tender
piety.”—_Broken Lights_, p. 120.
These four parties, two Palæologian and two Neologian, thus examined,
included between them all the members of the Church of England, and all
the Orthodox Dissenters. There remained the Jews, Roman Catholics,
Quakers and Unitarians, and of each of these the book contains a sketch
and criticism; finally concluding with an exposition (so far as I could
give it) of _Theoretic_ and of _Practical Theism_.
The book contains further two _Appendices_. The first treats of Bishop
Colenso’s onslaught on the Pentateuch; then greatly disturbing English
orthodoxy. The second Appendix deals with the other most notable book of
that period; Renan’s _Vie de Jésus_. After maintaining that Renan has
failed in delineating his principal figure, while he has vastly
illuminated his environment, I give with diffidence my own view of
Christ, lest Traditionalists should, without contradiction, assume that
Renan has given the general Theistic idea of his character. After
referring to the measureless importance of the _palingenesia_ of which
Christ spoke to Nicodemus, I draw a comparison between the New Birth in
the individual soul, and the historically-traceable results of Christ’s
life on the human race. (P. 167.)
“Taking the whole ancient world in comparison with the modern, of
Heathendom with Christendom, the general character of the two is
absolutely analogous to that which in individuals we call Unregenerate
and Regenerate. Of course there were thousands of regenerated souls,
Hebrew, Greek, Indian, of all nations and languages, before Christ,
and of course there are millions unregenerate now. But nevertheless,
from this time onward we trace through history a _new spirit_ in the
world: a leaven working through the whole mass of souls.”...
The language of the old world was one of _self-satisfaction_, as its Art
was of _completeness_. On the other hand:
“The language of the new world, coming to us through the thousand
tongues of our multiform civilization, is one long cry of longing
aspiration: ‘Would that I could create the ineffable Beauty! Would
that I could discover the eternal and absolute Truth! Would! O, would
it were possible to live out the good, the noble, and the holy!’”...
“This great phenomenon of history surely points to some corresponding
great event whereby the revolution was accomplished. There must have
been a moment when the old order stopped and the new began. Some
action must have taken place upon the souls of men which thenceforth
started them in a different career, and opened the age of progressive
life. When did this moment arrive? What was the primal act of the
endless progress? By whom was that age opened?”
“Here we have really ground to go upon. There is no need to establish
the authenticity or veracity of special books or harmonize discordant
narratives to obtain an answer to our question. The whole voice of
human history unconsciously and without premeditation bears its
unmistakeable testimony. The turning point between the old world and
the new was the beginning of the Christian movement. The action upon
human nature which started it on its new course was the teaching and
example of Christ. Christ was he who opened the age of endless
progress.”
“The view, therefore, which seems to be the best fitting one for our
estimate of the character of Christ, is that which regards him as the
great Regenerator of Humanity. _His coming was to the life of humanity
what Regeneration is to the life of the individual._ This is not a
conclusion doubtfully deduced from questionable biographies; but a
broad, plain inference from the universal history of our race. We may
dispute all details; but the grand result is beyond criticism. The
world has changed, and that change is historically traceable to
Christ. The honour, then, which Christ demands of us must be in
proportion of our estimate of the value of such Regeneration. He is
not merely a Moral Reformer inculcating pure ethics; not merely a
Religious Reformer clearing away old theologic errors and teaching
higher ideas of God. These things he was; but he might, for all we can
tell, have been them both as fully, and yet have failed to be what he
has actually been to our race. He might have taught the world better
ethics and better theology, and yet have failed to infuse into it that
new Life which has ever since coursed through its arteries and
penetrated its minutest veins.”
_Broken Lights_ proved to be (with the exception of my _Duties of
Women_) the most successful of my books. It went through three English
editions, and I believe quite as many in America; but of these last all
I knew was the occasional present of a single specimen copy. It was very
favourably reviewed, but some of my fellow Theists rather disapproved of
the tribute I had paid to Christ (as quoted above); and my good friend,
Prof. F. W. Newman, actually wrote a severe pamphlet against me,
entitled “_Hero-Making Religion_.” It did not alter my view. I do not
believe that our _Religion_ (the relation of our souls to God) can ever
properly rest upon History. Nay I cannot understand how any one who
knows the intricacies and obscurities attendant on the verification of
any ancient History, should for a moment be content to suppose that God
has required of all men to rest their faith in Him on such grounds, or
on what others report to them of such grounds. In the case of
Christianity, where scholars like Renan and Martineau—profoundly learned
in ancient and obsolete tongues, and equipped with the whole arsenal of
criticism of modern Germany, France and England,—can differ about the
age and authority of the principal _piéce de conviction_ (the Gospel of
St. John), it is truly preposterous to suggest that ordinary men and
women should form any judgment at all on the matter. The _Ideal Christ_
needs only a good heart to find and love him. The _Historical_ Christ
needs the best critic in Europe, a Lightfoot, a Koenen, a Martineau, to
trace his footsteps on the sands of time. And _they_ differ as regards
nearly every one of them!
But though History cannot rightly _be_ Religion or the basis of
Religion, there is, and must be, _a History of Religion_; as there is a
history of geometry and astronomy; and of that History of the whole
world’s Religion the supreme interest centres in the record of
“The sinless years
That breathed beneath the Syrian blue.”
Yet, as regards my own personal feeling, I must avow that the halo which
has gathered round Jesus Christ obscures him to my eyes. I see that he
is much more real to many of my friends, both Orthodox and Unitarian,
than he can ever be to me. There is nothing, no, not one single sentence
or action attributed to him of which (if we open our minds to criticism)
we can feel sufficiently certain to base on it any definite conclusion,
and this to me envelopes him in a cloud. Each Christian age has indeed,
(as I remark in my _Dawning Lights_), seen a Christ of its own; so that
we could imagine students in the future arguing that there must have
been “several Christs,” as old scholars held there were several
Zoroasters and several Buddhas. Just as Michael Angelo’s Christ was the
production of that dark and stormy age when first his awful form loomed
out of the shadows of the Sistine, in no less a degree do the portraits
of _Ecce Homo_ and the _Vie de Jésus_ belong to our era of sentiment and
philanthropy. We have no sun-made photograph of his features; only such
wavering image of them as may have rested on the waters of Galilee,
rippling in the breeze. I must not however further prolong these
reflections on a subject discussed to the best of my poor ability in my
more serious books.
After BROKEN LIGHTS, I wrote the sequel: _Dawning Lights_ just quoted
above. In the first I had endeavoured to sketch the _Conditions and
Prospects_ of religious belief. In the second I speculated on the
_Results_ of the changes which were taking place in various articles of
that belief. The chapters deal consecutively with Changes in the _Method
of Theology_,—in the _Idea of God_; in the _Idea of Christ_; in the
_Doctrine of Sin_, theoretical and practical; in the idea of the
_Relation of this life to the next_; in the idea of the _Perfect Life_;
in the _Idea of Happiness_; in the _Doctrine of Prayer_; in the _Idea of
Death_; and in the _Doctrine of the eternity of Punishment_.
This book also was fairly successful, and went into a second edition.
Somewhere about this time (I have no exact record) I edited a little
book called _Alone to the Alone_, consisting of private prayers for
Theists. It contains contributions from fifteen men and women, of
Prayers, mostly written for personal use, before the idea of the book
had been suggested, under the influence of those occasional deeper
insights and more fervent feelings which all religious persons desire to
perpetuate. They are all anonymous. In the _Preface_ I say that the
result of such a compilation,
“‘Is necessarily altogether imperfect and fragmentary, but in the
great solitude where most of us pass our lives as regards our deeper
emotions, it may be more helpful to know that other human hearts are
feeling as we feel, and thinking as we think, rather than to read far
nobler words which come to us only as echoes of the Past.’ The book is
‘designed for the use of those who desire to cultivate the feelings
which culminate in Prayer, but who find the rich and beautiful
collections of the Churches of Christendom no longer available, either
because of the doctrines whose acceptance they imply or of the nature
of the requests to which they give utterance. Adequately to replace in
a generation, or in several generations, such books, through which the
piety of ages has been poured, is wholly beyond hope; and the ambition
to do so would betray ignorance of the way in which these precious
drops are distilled slowly year after year, from the great
Incense-tree of humanity.’”
The remainder of the _Preface_, which is somewhat lengthy, discusses the
validity of Prayer for the attainment of _spiritual_ (not physical)
benefits. It concludes thus—p. xxxvi.
“And, lastly, if Religion is still to be to mankind in the future what
it has been in the past, it must still be a religion of Prayer.
Nothing is changed in human nature because it has outgrown some of the
errors of the past. The spiritual experience of the saintly souls of
old was true and real experience, even when their intellectual creeds
were full of mistakes. By the gate through which they entered the
paradise of love and peace, even by that same narrow portal of Prayer
must we pass into it. No present or future discoveries in science will
ever transmute the moral dross in human nature into the pure gold of
virtue. No spectrum analysis of the light of the nebulæ will enable us
to find God. If we are to be made holy, we must ask the Holy One to
sanctify us. If we are to know the infinite joy of Divine Love, we
must seek it in Divine communion.”
This book was first published in 1871; one of the years of the rising
tide of liberal-religious hope. A third edition was called for in 1881,
when the ebb had set in. In a short _Preface_ to this third edition I
notice this fact, and say that those hopes were doubtless all too hasty
for the slow order of Divine things.
“Nay, it would seem that, far from the immediate aurora of such a
morning, the world is destined first to endure a great ‘horror of
darkness,’ and to pass through the dreary and disaster-laden
experience of a night of materialism and agnosticism. Perhaps it will
only be when men have seen with their eyes how the universe appears
without a thought of God to illumine its dark places, and gauged for
themselves where human life will sink without hope of immortality to
elevate it, that they will recognise aright the unutterable
preciousness of religion. Faith, when restored after such an eclipse,
will be prized as it has never been prized heretofore....
“And Faith _must_ return to mankind sooner or later. So sure as God
_is_, so sure must it be that he will not finally leave his creatures,
whom he has led upward for thousands of years, to lose sight of him
altogether, or to be drowned for ever in the slough of atheism and
carnalism. He will doubtless reveal himself afresh to the souls of men
in his own time and in his own way,—whether, as of old, through
prophet-souls filled with inspiration, or by other methods yet
unknown. God is over us, and Heaven is waiting for us all the same,
even though all the men of science in Europe unite to tell us there is
only Matter in the universe, and only corruption in the grave. Atheism
may prevail for a night, but faith cometh in the morning. Theism is
‘bound to win’ at last; not necessarily that special type of Theism
which our poor thoughts in this generation have striven to define; but
that great fundamental faith,—the needful substructure of every other
possible religious faith—the faith in a Righteous and loving God, and
in a life for man beyond the tomb.”
The book contains 72 Prayers; half of which refer to the outer and half
to the inner life. Among the former, are Noon and Sunset prayers;
thanksgivings for the love of friends, and for the beauty of the world;
also a Prayer respecting the sufferings of animals from human cruelty.
In the second part some of the Prayers are named, “In the Wilderness”;
“On the Right Way”; “God afar off”; “Doubt and Faith”; “_Fiat Lux_”;
“_Fiat Pax_”; “Thanksgiving for Religious Truth”; “For Pardon of a
Careless Life”; “For a Devoted Life”; “Joy in God”; “Here and
Hereafter.”
I never expected that more than a very few friends would have cared for
this book, and in fact printed it with the intention of almost private
circulation; but it has been continuously, though slowly, called for
during the 23 years which have elapsed since it was compiled.