* _The Development of Theology as Illustrated in English
Poetry from 1780 to 1830_. By Stopf ord A. Brooke.
London: Green, Essex-street.
Unitarianism has had wealth and learning on its side for several
generations, it has also enjoyed the services of some men of singular
ability, yet it has signally failed to make an impression upon the
general public. In all probability it ever _will_ fail. Those who like
theology at all, for the most part like it hot and strong. To purge
it of its "grosser" features is to rob it of its chief attraction. The
ignorant and thoughtless multitude want plenty of supernaturalism.
Those who think for themselves, on the other hand, are apt to grow
dissatisfied with theology altogether, and to advance beyond the
somewhat arbitrary and fantastic limits of the Unitarian faith. For this
reason Unitarianism was called by Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of the
great Charles Darwin, a feather bed to catch a falling Christian. Others
regard it as a halfway house between Christianity and Atheism, or even
as a bathing machine for those who would wade, and fear to plunge, in
the waters of Freethought.
Let us not, however, deny the distinction of such advocates of the
Unitarian faith as Dr. Martineau and Dr. Stopf ord Brooke. The latter
was once a clergyman of the Church of England, which he left because he
no longer held her tenets, and in this he was more honest and courageous
than some others who eat the Church's bread and undermine her faith.
Mr. Brooke regards himself as a teacher of positive religion, but in our
judgment his service to liberalism is really negative. His writings and
sermons are a protest, however decorous, against the orthodox theology;
and the protest may be all the more effective, with a certain order
of minds, because it does not show them the ultimate consequences of
freethinking. When they see the preacher aglow with the ardor of his
"purified" faith in God and Immortality, they are encouraged to advance
as far as he has gone, and thus to leave behind them the worst portions
of the creed of their childhood.
Mr. Brooke is well known in the field of literature, and is held to
shine as a critic of poetry. Hence it was that the British and Foreign
Unitarian Association appointed him to deliver the first lecture of
a course "dealing with some aspect of the history and development of
Christianity as viewed from a liberal and progressive standpoint." The
special subject selected was the development of theology as illustrated
in English poetry, and the lecture is now published in a neat little
volume for the general reader.
We notice the frequent recurrence of the phrase "liberal theology."
Naturally we like everybody to be liberal, but we cannot see the
appropriateness of the epithet in this instance. It would sound strange
to talk of "liberal geology" or "liberal chemistry." Why then should
we talk of "liberal theology"? If theology is anything but an effort
of imagination--as _we_ conceive it--it must be a system of ascertained
truth. Its propositions are therefore true or false, but they cannot
be good or bad, liberal or illiberal. Introduce these epithets, and
you make it a matter of taste and preference, or of conformity or
non-conformity to the spirit of advancing civilisation. This is indeed
what Mr. Brooke appears to mean. He seems to regard theology as
liberal or otherwise as it adapts itself to the growth of knowledge
and morality. He goes to the length of admitting that secular progress
precedes religious progress. "The Church," he says, "has always followed
society." The change in theology, which has made it "liberal," or
produced that variety of it, could not have appeared "in early
Christian times, nor in the middle ages; not as long, that is, as the
imperialistic or feudal theory of humanity and its rulers existed."
Still more decisively, if possible, he repeats this statement:--"There
was no chance then of theology changing until the existing views of
human society changed. If theology was to be enlarged, they must first
be enlarged." Now this is a truth which we have always insisted on,
and the reason of it is destructive to "liberal" and all other kinds of
theology. We are told that God made man, but the fact is that man made
God, and what he made he is able to keep in repair. The growing idea of
God's "love" is not forced upon theologians by a study of nature, nor by
a study of scripture. It is forced upon them by the advancing spirit
of humanity. God was once a being who loved and hated, and all the
"liberal" theologians have done is to minimise his hatred and maximise
his love. God has not made any fresh disclosures of himself, as Mr.
Brooke teaches; the theologians have simply brought him up to date, and
they have done so under the compulsion of secular progress.
Mr. Brooke's conception of the Fatherhood of God is creditable to his
feelings. The deity he worships is one who will "effectually call
to himself and effectually keep, at last, all his children to whose
free-will only one thing is impossible--final division from the
sovereignty of his love." But how far is this creditable to Mr. Brooke's
intelligence? It is certainly inconsistent with the teaching of Christ,
and Mr. Brooke calls himself a Christian. It is no less inconsistent
with all we know of Nature, who is supremely indifferent to the fate
of individuals. To talk so consumedly of God's love in this age of
Darwinism, with its law of natural selection based on a universal
struggle for existence, is to fly in the face of common sense. But here,
alas, as in so many other cases, the voice of reason is drowned in the
chorus of sentimentalism.
With respect to democracy, which is a kind of John the Baptist to Mr.
Brooke's form of Christianity, there can be little doubt, we think, that
it has been chiefly indebted to science, which has in three centuries,
since the days of Copernicus and Galileo, done more to advance the
brotherhood of man than has been done by religion from the "first
syllable of recorded time." Mr. Brooke does not concern himself
with science, however; but he nearly agrees with us in the matter of
chronology. A vast alteration in thought, due to whatever causes, had
been going on for centuries. It was a change "from exclusiveness to
universality," and it "took a literary and philosophical form in the
eighteenth century writers in France, and finally emerged a giant in the
French Revolution." In that mighty upheaval "the whole of the ideas of
the old society perished for ever and ever," and what seems to be left
of them is "but their ghosts, a host of pale-eyed, weary phantoms."
This is true and well expressed, but it should be added that most of
the eighteenth century writers in France, particularly those who may be
called philosophical, were vehemently opposed to Christianity, as were
most of the eminent actors in the Revolution. Several of them were
downright Atheists, who would have regarded the "liberal theology" of
Mr. Brooke as a sign of mental feebleness.
Out of the Revolution sprang the vivid conception of the Brotherhood
of Man, and it was this, Mr. Brooke says, that made possible "the
conception of God's universal Fatherhood." In other words, a change in
human ideas rendered necessary a change in theology. Still, we have Mr.
Brooke's word for it, the Churches and sects were the last to move. "In
England," he declares, "the resistance offered to these ideas by the
religious bodies has been always steady and often rancorous." It was
another class of men who seized upon them. These were the Poets, the
"most emotional, the most imaginative, the most prophetic, and the most
clear-sighted of men." Sometimes they kept the name of Christians,
but more often they were called "heretics or infidels, blasphemers or
atheists." Occasionally they _were_ Atheists, as in the case of Shelley,
though it could hardly be expected that Mr. Brooke would emphasise the
fact.
After some pithy criticism on William Blake, who was a forceful
protestor against the old theology, Mr. Brooke passes on to Burns and
Cowper. Of the exquisite satire of _Holy Willie's Prayer_, despite
its "irreverence and immorality," which are after all but matters
of opinion, Mr. Brooke says that it "weakened the worst doctrines of
Calvinism far more than ten thousand liberal sermons have done." Cowper
weakened Calvinism too, though he did so unintentionally. The pathos
and horror of some of his poems, written under the heavy shadow of this
awful creed, did a great deal to discredit it amongst thoughtful and
sensitive readers. The poet was asked how he felt when dying. His answer
was, "I feel unutterable despair." These terrible words prompt Mr.
Brooke to write as follows:--
"They are words which all the good deeds of the professors of Calvinism
will never get over. 'He was mad,' they say; but what drove him mad?
Did Jesus teach in order that men might become insane? for Cowper is
one among millions whom this doctrine of God has ruined morally,
intellectually, or physically. But they have perished, unknown, unheard.
This man was a poet, and his words have told. His personal acceptance
of the horror revealed, as the mockery of Burns did not, the idolatrous
foulness of this doctrine concerning God."
Coleridge's one specific contribution as a poet to a wider theology,
in the opinion of Mr. Brooke, was the closing verse of the _Ancient
Mariner_--which, by the way, is not the closing verse, but the
antepenultimate.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us
He made and loveth all.
Mr. Brooke holds that Wordsworth did a far ampler work by his doctrine
of immanence, which is perilously near Pantheism. Understood, however,
in the spirit of "liberal theology," it will not only finally govern,
but also "bring about at last the complete reconcilement of science and
religion." But we must remind Mr. Brooke that this is sheer prophecy.
It is simple enough to utter the counter prophecy that Wordsworth's
doctrine will do nothing of the kind.
It is in relation to Byron and Shelley that Mr. Brooke really comes to
the point of his essay. Wordsworth and Coleridge turned their backs
upon the Revolution. They were disenchanted. They failed to see that the
throes of birth were not the end of the progressive process. One sought
refuge in Toryism, modified by benevolence; the other in metaphysical
moonshine and esoteric theology. Byron, on the other hand, while not
in the least constructive, or enamored of the more advanced ideas in
religion, politics, and sociology, was filled with a bitter hatred
and satiric contempt for the old order of things, with its lies,
hypocrisies, and oppressions. He embodied what Mr. Brooke calls "the
destroying element of the Revolution," which in him was "directed by
great mental force and a reckless daring." Among other things, he
struck at "the ancient, accredited doctrines of theology, and he struck
savagely." Mr. Brooke is of opinion that the poet "brought free inquiry
on theology to the surface of society." But we think the critic is
mistaken. Free inquiry on theology had been going on in England for more
than a century, and it culminated, on the popular side, in Paine's _Age
of Reason_. How far Byron aided the movement is easy of estimation. To
tell the truth, he hinted disbelief, and scattered doubt over his
pages; but he did no more, he never faced any question manfully; on the
problems of religion his mind was chaotic to the very end. It is this
phenomena which leads Mr. Brooke to infer that Byron believed in the
arbitrary, vengeful God whom he depicted in Cain. "He believes," Mr.
Brooke says, "hates what he believes, stamps with fury on his belief,
and yet clings to it." Such a conclusion, however, is one we cannot
accept. Byron did _not_ believe; his prose, and his letters, prove that
conclusively. But he had not the courage to disbelieve and to proclaim
his disbelief boldly like Shelley, who had a hundred times more real
courage than his attitudinising friend, _Manfred_ is terrible posing;
Mr. Meredith calls it "an after dinner's indigest"; and _Cain_ is rather
skimble-skamble stuff, though Mr. Brooke calls it "the most powerful,
the most human, the most serious thing he ever wrote, and the most
effective"--which is surely a most inept criticism. Byron rarely
succeeded as a serious poet; when he did so it was only in short
flights. He found the proper field for his genius in _Don Juan_. His
province was satire, and the _Vision of Judgment_ is at the top of
English achievement in this direction, A creative imagination he did not
possess, any more than a profound intellect; and it was the perception
of this fact which prompted his impertinent sneers at Shakespeare.
But he had imagination enough to give wings to his satire, and an
inexhaustible wit which played like lightning around the objects of his
indignation or contempt. Never did he reason like Shelley, and it is
clear that he was afraid to; he attacked in his own way what he _felt_
to be false and despicable, and the sword he wielded was ravishingly
(or terribly) brilliant, though it _never cut deep enough_. One loves
to think of him at last, however, laying down his life, as he gave his
substance, for the freedom of Greece. With all his faults, no pious or
cowardly fear of death ever haunted his mighty spirit. How gloriously he
would have died on the battle-field, fighting desperately for the cause
of the people! The last verses he ever wrote showed the troubled
stream of his life running pure at its close. Noble and sincere in its
language, it was a fitting farewell to the world; and although the poet
did not find his "soldier's grave," he died none the less for the cause
to which he had pledged his fortune and the remnant of his strength.
"Shelley did also a work of destruction," says Mr. Brooke, "though in a
very different way from Byron." We should think so indeed! The "also"
is singularly weak in this instance, for Shelley attacked the Christian
superstition directly, and _Queen Mab_ had far more readers than _Cain_,
the cheap, pirated editions being circulated extensively among the
working classes.
"He began," says Mr. Brooke, "by being an Atheist, he ended by
being what we call an Agnostic." But is this any more than a verbal
distinction? It appears to us that Shelley's principles are the same
in _Prometheus Unbound_ as in _Queen Mab_. The change is in their
presentation; the passionate vehemence of youth is succeeded by the
restrained power of manhood. It is true that Shelley sang the praises of
Love--"immortal" Love if you choose to call it so; but Mr. Brooke has
to admit that he did not "give it a personal life." Shelley also "thinks
Immortality improbable," yet, Mr. Brooke says, he "glides into words in
his poems which continually imply it." But this we deny. Allowing for
personification and emphasis, without which there can be no poetry, we
venture to affirm that there is not a single passage, line, or phrase in
Shelley's later poems which is not in essential harmony with his belief
in the mortality of man and the practical immortality of the race. It is
one of the offences of theologians ("liberal" or otherwise) in relation
to Shelley, that they try to turn metaphors into logical propositions,
in order to make the poet give evidence against himself.
In one respect, however, we quite agree with Mr. Brooke. "Liberal
theology" has _not_ yet "reached the level of Shelley's thought," nor
can it ever do so until it ceases to be Theology and becomes simple
Humanity. Mr. Brooke may flatter himself that he has "a higher faith
than Shelley had," but we think he is mistaken. Substitute "blinder" for
"higher" and the expression would be more accurate. Shelley did believe
that Love--not alone, but co-operating with Knowledge--would achieve
the salvation of mankind; but he resolutely refused to talk about man's
"destiny in God the Father," which seems to afford such comfort to the
devotees of "liberal theology." For this he deserves the gratitude of
all scientific Humanitarians, who should protest with all their might
against the attempt to emasculate him into a prophet, or even an advance
agent, of some new form of Godism. "Liberal theology" should beget its
own poet, if it can; it should not try to steal the poet of Humanity.