perhaps he may not try to explain, but change the subject and read
a story of real people like that of the prodigal son or the good
Samaritan. The child may be made to understand that while the door is
always shut against a sin, it is always open for the sinner who repents.
The sensitive child takes up the “Pilgrim’s Progress” and reads of the
way Christian went on his way to the heavenly city, meeting all kinds
of people, yet apparently without sympathy for most of them. “Why did
he leave his wife and little children in the City of Destruction and go
off alone? If he knew that the city was to be burned up, why didn’t he
stay with them? He doesn’t seem to care very much for what happens to
people who are not of his set.” So it seems to be. Mr. Hold-the-world,
Mr. Money-love, and Mr. Save-all walk along with him, and then they go
off the path to look into a silver-mine. Christian doesn’t take the
trouble to find out what became of them. Bunyan says coolly, “Whether
they fell into the pit by looking over the brink or whether they went
down to dig, or whether they were smothered by the damps that commonly
arise, of these things I am not certain; but this I observed, that they
were never seen that way again.” Christian goes on after the tragedy
perfectly unconcerned, singing a cheerful hymn. It was none of his
business what happened to those who wandered off the road. He is rather
pleased than otherwise when Vain-Confidence falls into the pit. When
“the brisk young lad,” Ignorance, joins him Christian converses with
him only long enough to find out his name and where he came from. Then
instead of trying to improve him he leaves him behind. Poor Ignorance
trudges after, but he never can catch up.
All this is right in an allegory. Ignorance must be left behind,
Vain-Confidence must perish in the pit; from the City of Destruction we
must flee without waiting for others to follow. This is a very simple
lesson in the way of life. The next lesson is more difficult and it is
quite different,--how to treat ignorant and vainglorious and otherwise
imperfect _persons_.
The first thing we have to remember is that they are persons, and that
persons are quite different from allegorical characters. Persons can
change their minds, they can repent and aspire after a better life, and
above all they have feelings,--which abstract virtues and vices do not
have. Does not the cruelty of the good chiefly arise from the fact that
they do not see all this?
In a preceding essay we have considered Hawthorne’s judgment on the
characters which he himself created. His most powerful story of sin
and retribution wears to his eyes “a stern and sombre aspect too
much ungladdened by the tender and familiar influences which soften
almost every scene of Nature and real life.” He was aware that he
was depicting not all of life, but only one aspect of it. He saw the
characters of the “Scarlet Letter,” as they saw themselves, “in a
kind of typical illusion.” He was fully aware that his treatment was
symbolic rather than realistic. Real life is infinitely more complex
and therefore more full of possibilities of good than any symbolic
representation of it.
I do not think that good people are really as cruel at heart as one
would be led to think from their words, or even from their acts. I
remember a good professor of theology who was discoursing on the way in
which the Canaanites were destroyed in order that Israel might possess
the land.
“Professor,” asked a literal-minded student, “why did the Lord create
the Canaanites, anyhow?”
“The Lord created the Canaanites,” answered the professor, “in order
that Israel might have something on which to whet his sword.”
The words were bloodthirsty enough; and yet had I been a Canaanite in
distress I should have made my way at once to the good professor’s
house. I am sure that the moment he saw me he would have taken me in
and ministered tenderly to my distresses and protected me from an
unkindly world. But I should have taken the precaution to let him
see me before he learned my name. A Canaanite in the abstract would
be an abomination to him, and I would have to take pains to make him
understand that I was a human being.
The word “cruel” is in its derivation akin to “crude;” it is that which
is raw and unripe. Like all other good things, righteousness at first
is crude. Crude righteousness takes no account of the difference
between a sinner and his sin; it hates both alike with a bitter hatred,
and visits on each the same condemnation. It is harsh and bitter. For
all that it is a good thing, this unripe fruit of righteousness. Give
it time and sunshine, and it will grow sweet and mellow.
The Riverside Press
_Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co._
_Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
Transcriber’s Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.