_March 16, 1867._
49. You may gather from the facts given you in my last letter that, as
the expression of true and holy gladness was in old time statedly
offered up by men for a part of worship to God their Father, so the
expression of false and unholy gladness is in modern times, with as
much distinctness and plainness, asserted by them openly to be offered
to another spirit: "Chain of the Devil," and "Cancan of Hell" being
the names assigned to these modern forms of joyous procession.
Now, you know that, among the best and wisest of our present
religious teachers, there is a gradual tendency to disbelieve, and to
preach their disbelief, in the commonly received ideas of the Devil,
and of his place, and his work. While, among some of our equally
well-meaning, but far less wise, religious teachers, there is, in
consequence, a panic spreading in anticipation of the moral dangers
which must follow on the loss of the help of the Devil. One of the
last appearances in public of the author of the 'Christian Year' was
at a conclave of clergymen assembled in defense of faith in
damnation.[A] The sense of the meeting generally was, that there
_must_ be such a place as hell, because no one would ever behave
decently upon earth unless they were kept in wholesome fear of the
fires beneath it: and Mr. Keble, especially insisting on this view,
related a story of an old woman who had a wicked son, and who, having
lately heard with horror of the teaching of Mr. Maurice and others,
exclaimed pathetically, "My son is bad enough as it is, and if he were
not afraid of hell, what would become of him!" (I write from memory,
and cannot answer for the words, but I can for their purport.)
[A] _Physical_ damnation, I should have said. It is strange
how seldom pain of heart is spoken of as a possible element
of future, or as the worst of present pain.
50. Now, my friend, I am afraid that I must incur the charge of such
presumption as may be involved in variance from _both_ these systems
of teaching.
I do not merely _believe_ there is such a place as hell. I _know_
there is such a place; and I know also that when men have got to the
point of believing virtue impossible but through dread of it, they
have got _into_ it.
I mean, that according to the distinctness with which they hold such a
creed, the stain of nether fire has passed upon them. In the depth of
his heart Mr. Keble could not have entertained the thought for an
instant; and I believe it was only as a conspicuous sign to the
religious world of the state into which they were sinking, that this
creed, possible in its sincerity only to the basest of them, was
nevertheless appointed to be uttered by the lips of the most tender,
gracious, and beloved of their teachers.
51. "Virtue impossible but for fear of hell"--a lofty creed for your
English youth--and a holy one! And yet, my friend, there was something
of right in the terrors of this clerical conclave. For, though you
should assuredly be able to hold your own in the straight ways of God,
without always believing that the Devil is at your side, it is a state
of mind much to be dreaded, that you should not _know_ the Devil when
you _see_ him there. For the probability is that when you do see him,
the way you are walking in is not one of God's ways at all, but is
leading you quite into other neighborhoods than His. On His way,
indeed, you may often, like Albert Duerer's Knight, see the Fiend
behind you, but you will find that he drops always farther and farther
behind; whereas, if he jogs with you at your side, it is probably one
of his own bypaths you are got on. And, in any case, it is a highly
desirable matter that you should know him when you set eyes on him,
which we are very far from doing in these days, having convinced
ourselves that the graminivorous form of him, with horn and tail, is
extant no longer. But in fearful truth, the Presence and Power of Him
_is_ here; in the world, with us, and within us, mock as you may; and
the fight with him, for the time, sore, and widely unprosperous.
Do not think I am speaking metaphorically or rhetorically, or with any
other than literal and earnest meaning of words. Hear me, I pray you,
therefore, for a little while, as earnestly as I speak.
52. Every faculty of man's soul, and every instinct of it by which he
is meant to live, is exposed to its own special form of corruption:
and whether within Man, or in the external world, there is a power or
condition of temptation which is perpetually endeavoring to reduce
every glory of his soul, and every power of his life, to such
corruption as is possible to them. And the more beautiful they are,
the more fearful is the death which is attached as a penalty to their
degradation.
53. Take, for instance, that which, in its purity, is the source of
the highest and purest mortal happiness--Love. Think of it first at
its highest--as it may exist in the disciplined spirit of a perfect
human creature; as it has so existed again and again, and does always,
wherever it truly exists at all, as the _purifying_ passion of the
soul. I will not speak of the transcendental and imaginative intensity
in which it may reign in noble hearts, as when it inspired the
greatest religious poem yet given to men; but take it in its true and
quiet purity in any simple lover's heart,--as you have it expressed,
for instance, thus, exquisitely, in the 'Angel in the House':--
"And there, with many a blissful tear,
I vowed to love and prayed to wed
The maiden who had grown so dear;--
Thanked God, who had set her in my path;
And promised, as I hoped to win,
I never would sully my faith
By the least selfishness or sin;
Whatever in her sight I'd seem
I'd really be; I ne'er would blend,
With my delight in her, a dream
'Twould change her cheek to comprehend;
And, if she wished it, would prefer
Another's to my own success;
And always seek the best for her
With unofficious tenderness."
Take this for the pure type of it in its simplicity; and then think of
what corruption this passion is capable. I will give you a type of
that also, and at your very doors. I cannot refer you to the time when
the crime happened; but it was some four or five years ago, near
Newcastle, and it has remained always as a ghastly landmark in my
mind, owing to the horror of the external circumstances. The body of
the murdered woman was found naked, rolled into a heap of ashes, at
the mouth of one of your pits.
54. You have thus two limiting examples, of the Pure Passion, and of
its corruption. Now, whatever influence it is, without or within us,
which has a tendency to degrade the one towards the other, is
literally and accurately "Satanic." And this treacherous or deceiving
spirit is perpetually at work, so that all the worst evil among us is
a betrayed or corrupted good. Take religion itself: the desire of
finding out God, and placing one's self in some true son's or
servant's relation to Him. The Devil, that is to say, the deceiving
spirit within us, or outside of us, mixes up our own vanity with this
desire; makes us think that in our love to God we have established
some connection with Him which separates us from our fellow-men, and
renders us superior to them. Then it takes but one wave of the Devil's
hand; and we are burning them alive for taking the liberty of
contradicting us.
55. Take the desire of teaching--the entirely unselfish and noble
instinct for telling to those who are ignorant, the truth we know, and
guarding them from the errors we see them in danger of;--there is no
nobler, no more constant instinct in honorable breasts; but let the
Devil formalize it, and mix the pride of a profession with it--get
foolish people entrusted with the business of instruction, and make
their giddy heads giddier by putting them up in pulpits above a
submissive crowd--and you have it instantly corrupted into its own
reverse; you have an alliance _against_ the light, shrieking at the
sun, and the moon, and stars, as profane spectra:--a company of the
blind, beseeching those they lead to remain blind also. "The heavens
and the lights that rule them are untrue; the laws of creation are
treacherous; the poles of the earth are out of poise. But _we_ are
true. Light is in us only. Shut your eyes close and fast, and we will
lead you."
56. Take the desire and faith of mutual help; the virtue of vowed
brotherhood for the accomplishment of common purpose, (without which
nothing great can be wrought by multitudinous bands of men); let the
Devil put pride of caste into it, and you have a military organization
applied for a thousand years to maintain that higher caste in idleness
by robbing the laboring poor; let the Devil put a few small personal
interests into it, and you have all faithful deliberation on national
law rendered impossible in the parliaments of Europe, by the
antagonism of parties.
57. Take the instinct for justice, and the natural sense of
indignation against crime; let the Devil color it with personal
passion, and you have a mighty race of true and tender-hearted men
living for centuries in such bloody feud that every note and word of
their national songs is a dirge, and every rock of their hills is a
gravestone. Take the love of beauty, and power of imagination, which
are the source of every true achievement in art; let the Devil touch
them with sensuality, and they are stronger than the sword or the
flame to blast the cities where they were born, into ruin without
hope. Take the instinct of industry and ardor of commerce, which are
meant to be the support and mutual maintenance of man; let the Devil
touch them with avarice, and you shall see the avenues of the exchange
choked with corpses that have died of famine.
58. Now observe--I leave you to call this deceiving spirit what you
like--or to theorize about it as you like. All that I desire you to
recognize is the fact of its being here, and the need of its being
fought with. If you take the Bible's account of it, or Dante's, or
Milton's, you will receive the image of it as a mighty spiritual
creature, commanding others, and resisted by others: if you take
AEschylus's or Hesiod's account of it, you will hold it for a partly
elementary and unconscious adversity of fate, and partly for a group
of monstrous spiritual agencies connected with death, and begotten out
of the dust; if you take a modern rationalist's, you will accept it
for a mere treachery and want of vitality in our own moral nature
exposing it to loathsomeness or moral disease, as the body is capable
of mortification or leprosy. I do not care what you call it,--whose
history you believe of it,--nor what you yourself can imagine about
it; the origin, or nature, or name may be as you will, but the
deadly reality of the thing is with us, and warring against us,
and on our true war with it depends whatever life we can win. Deadly
reality, I say. The puff-adder or horned asp is not more real.
Unbelievable,--_those_,--unless you had seen them; no fable could have
been coined out of any human brain so dreadful, within its own poor
material sphere, as that blue-lipped serpent--working its way sidelong
in the sand. As real, but with sting of eternal death--this worm that
dies not, and fire that is not quenched, within our souls or around
them. Eternal death, I say--sure, that, whatever creed you hold;--if
the old Scriptural one, Death of perpetual banishment from before
God's face; if the modern rationalist one, Death Eternal for _us_,
instant and unredeemable ending of lives wasted in misery.
This is what this unquestionably present--this, according to his
power, _omni_-present--fiend, brings us towards, daily. He is the
person to be "voted" against, my working friend; it is worth
something, having a vote against _him_, if you can get it! Which you
can, indeed; but not by gift from Cabinet Ministers; you must work
warily with your own hands, and drop sweat of heart's blood, before
you can record that vote effectually.
Of which more in next letter.