The struggle was a sharp one ere I could decide that intellectual honesty
demanded that the question of the Deity of Christ should be analysed as
strictly as all else, and that the conclusions come to from an impartial
study of facts should be faced as steadily as though they dealt with some
unimportant question. I was bound to recognise, however, that more than
intellectual honesty would be here required, for if the result of the
study were--as I dimly felt it would be--to establish disbelief in the
supernatural claims of Christ, I could not but feel that such disbelief
would necessarily entail most unpleasant external results. I might give
up belief in all save this, and yet remain a member of the Church of
England: views on Inspiration, on Eternal Torture, on the Vicarious
Atonement, however heterodox, might be held within the pale of the
Church; many broad church clergymen rejected these as decidedly as I did
myself, and yet remained members of the Establishment; the judgment on
"Essays and Reviews" gave this wide liberty to heresy within the Church,
and a laywoman might well claim the freedom of thought legally bestowed
on divines. The name "Christian" might well be worn while Christ was
worshipped as God, and obeyed as the "Revealer of the Father's will",
the "well-beloved Son", the "Savior and Lord of men". But once challenge
that unique position, once throw off that supreme sovereignty, and then
it seemed to me that the name "Christian" became a hypocrisy, and its
renouncement a duty incumbent on an upright mind. But I was a clergyman's
wife; my position made my participation in the Holy Communion a
necessity, and my withdrawal therefrom would be an act marked and
commented upon by all. Yet if I lost my faith in Christ, how could I
honestly approach "the Lord's Table", where Christ was the central figure
and the recipient of the homage paid there by every worshipper to "God
made man"? Hitherto mental pain alone had been the price demanded
inexorably from the searcher after truth; now to the inner would be added
the outer warfare, and how could I tell how far this might carry me?
One night only I spent in this struggle over the question: "Shall I
examine the claims to Deity of Jesus of Nazareth?". When morning broke
the answer was clearly formulated: "Truth is greater than peace or
position. If Jesus be God, challenge will not shake his Deity; if he be
Man, it is blasphemy to worship him." I re-read Liddon's "Bampton
Lectures" on this controversy and Renan's "Vie de Jesus". I studied the
Gospels, and tried to represent to myself the life there outlined; I
tested the conduct there given as I should have tested the conduct of any
ordinary historical character; I noted that in the Synoptics no claim to
Deity was made by Jesus himself, nor suggested by his disciples; I
weighed his own answer to an enquirer, with its plain disavowal of
Godhood: "Why callest thou me good? There is none good save one, that is
God" (Matt, xix., 17); I conned over his prayers to "my Father", his rest
on divine protection, his trust in a power greater than his own; I noted
his repudiation of divine knowledge: "Of that day and that hour knoweth
no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, _neither the Son_, but
the Father" (Mark xiii., 32); I studied the meaning of his prayer of
anguished submission: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass
from me! nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt" (Matt, xxvi.,
39); I dwelt on his bitter cry in his dying agony: "My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt, xxvii., 46); I asked the meaning of the
final words of rest: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke
xxiii., 46). And I saw that, if there were any truth in the Gospels at
all, they told the story of a struggling, suffering, sinning, praying
man, and not of a God at all and the dogma of the Deity of Christ
followed the rest of the Christian doctrines into the limbo of past
beliefs.
Yet one other effort I made to save myself from the difficulties I
foresaw in connexion with this final breach with Christianity. There was
one man who had in former days wielded over me a great influence, one
whose writings had guided and taught me for many years--Dr. Pusey, the
venerable leader of the Catholic party in the Church, the learned
Patristic scholar, full of the wisdom of antiquity. He believed in Christ
as God; what if I put my difficulties to him? If he resolved them for me
I should escape the struggle I foresaw; if he could not resolve them,
then no answer to them was to be hoped for. My decision was quickly made;
being with my mother, I could write to him unnoticed, and I sat down and
put my questions clearly and fully, stating my difficulties and asking
him whether, out of his wider knowledge and deeper reading, he could
resolve them for me. I wish I could here print his answer, together with
two or three other letters I received from him, but the packet was
unfortunately stolen from my desk and I have never recovered it. Dr.
Pusey advised me to read Liddon's "Bampton Lectures", referred me to
various passages, chiefly from the Fourth Gospel, if I remember rightly,
and invited me to go down to Oxford and talk over my difficulties.
Liddon's "Bampton Lectures" I had thoroughly studied, and the Fourth
Gospel had no weight with me, the arguments in favor of its Alexandrian
origin being familiar to me, but I determined to accept his invitation to
a personal interview, regarding it as the last chance of remaining in the
Church.
To Oxford, accordingly, I took the train, and made my way to the famous
Doctor's rooms. I was shown in, and saw a short, stout gentleman, dressed
in a cassock, and looking like a comfortable monk; but the keen eyes,
steadfastly gazing straight into mine, told me of the power and subtlety
hidden by the unprepossessing form. The head was fine and impressive, the
voice low, penetrating, drilled into a somewhat monotonous and
artificially subdued tone. I quickly found that no sort of enlightenment
could possibly result from our interview. He treated me as a penitent
going to confession, seeking the advice of a director, not as an enquirer
struggling after truth, and resolute to obtain some firm standing-ground
in the sea of doubt, whether on the shores of orthodoxy or of heresy. He
would not deal with the question of the Deity of Jesus as a question for
argument; he reminded me: "You are speaking of your judge," when I
pressed some question. The mere suggestion of an imperfection in Jesus'
character made him shudder in positive pain, and he checked me with
raised hand, and the rebuke: "You are blaspheming; the very thought is a
terrible sin". I asked him if he could recommend to me any books which
would throw light on the subject: "No, no, you have read too much
already. You must pray; you must pray." Then, as I said that I could not
believe without proof, I was told: "Blessed are they that have not seen,
and yet have believed," and my further questioning was checked by the
murmur: "O my child, how undisciplined! how impatient!". Truly, he must
have found in me--hot, eager, passionate in my determination to know,
resolute not to profess belief while belief was absent--but very little
of that meek, chastened, submissive spirit to which he was accustomed in
the penitents wont to seek his counsel as their spiritual guide. In vain
did he bid me pray as though I believed; in vain did he urge the duty of
blind submission to the authority of the Church, of yielding, unreasoning
faith, which received but questioned not. He had no conception of the
feelings of the sceptical spirit; his own faith was solid as a rock--
firm, satisfied, unshakeable; he would as soon have committed suicide as
have doubted of the infallibility of the "Universal Church".
"It is not your duty to ascertain the truth," he told me sternly. "It is
your duty to accept and to believe the truth as laid down by the Church;
at your peril you reject it; the responsibility is not yours so long as
you dutifully accept that which the Church has laid down for your
acceptance. Did not the Lord promise that the presence of the Spirit
should be ever with his Church, to guide her into all truth?"
"But the fact of the promise and its value are the very points on which I
am doubtful," I answered.
He shuddered. "Pray, pray," he said. "Father, forgive her, for she knows
not what she says."
It was in vain I urged that I had everything to gain and nothing to lose
by following his directions, but that it seemed to me that fidelity to
truth forbade a pretended acceptance of that which was not believed.
"Everything to lose? Yes, indeed. You will be lost for time and lost for
eternity."
"Lost or not," I rejoined, "I must and will try to find out what is true,
and I will not believe till I am sure."
"You have no right to make terms with God," he answered, "as to what you
will believe and what you will not believe. You are full of intellectual
pride."
I sighed hopelessly. Little feeling of pride was there in me just then,
and I felt that in this rigid unyielding dogmatism there was no
comprehension of my difficulties, no help for me in my strugglings. I
rose and, thanking him for his courtesy, said that I would not waste his
time further, that I must go home and just face the difficulties out,
openly leaving the Church and taking the consequences. Then for the first
time his serenity was ruffled.
"I forbid you to speak of your disbelief," he cried. "I forbid you to
lead into your own lost state the souls for whom Christ died."
Slowly and sadly I took my way back to the station, knowing that my last
chance of escape had failed me. I recognised in this famous divine the
spirit of the priest, which could be tender and pitiful to the sinner,
repentant, humble, submissive, craving only for pardon and for guidance,
but which was iron to the doubter, to the heretic, and would crush out
all questionings of "revealed truth", silencing by force, not by
argument, all challenge of the traditions of the Church. Out of such men
were made the Inquisitors of the Middle Ages, perfectly conscientious,
perfectly rigid, perfectly merciless to the heretic. To them heretics
were and are centres of infectious disease, and charity to them "the
worst cruelty to the souls of men". Certain that they hold "by no merit
of our own, but by the mercy of our God the one truth which he hath
revealed", they can permit no questionings, they can accept nought but
the most complete submission. But while man aspires after truth, while
his brain yearns after knowledge, while his intellect soars upward into
the heaven of speculation and "beats the air with tireless wing", so long
shall those who demand faith be met by challenge for proof, and those who
would blind him shall be defeated by his determination to gaze
unblenching on the face of Truth, even though her eyes should turn him
into stone.
During this same visit to London I saw Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Scott for the
first time. I had gone down to Dulwich to see Mr. and Mrs. Voysey, and
after dinner we went over to Upper Norwood, and I was introduced to one
of the most remarkable men I have ever met. At that time Mr. Scott was an
old man, with beautiful white hair, and eyes like those of a hawk
gleaming from under shaggy eyebrows; he had been a man of magnificent
physique, and though his frame was then enfeebled, the splendid lion-like
head kept its impressive strength and beauty, and told of a unique
personality. Of Scotch descent and wellborn, Thomas Scott had, as a boy,
been a page at the French Court; his manhood was spent in many lands, for
he "was a mighty hunter", though not "before the Lord". He had lived for
months among the North American Indians, sharing the hardships of their
wild life; he had hunted and fished all over the world. At last, he came
home, married, and ultimately settled down at Ramsgate, where he made his
home a centre of heretical thought. He issued an enormous number of
tracts and pamphlets, and each month he sent out a small packet to
hundreds of subscribers and friends. This monthly issue of heretical
literature soon made itself a power in the world of thought; the tracts
were of various shades of opinion, but were all heretical: some moderate,
some extreme; all were well-written, cultured and polished in tone--this
was a rule to which Mr. Scott made no exceptions; his writers might say
what they liked, but they must have something real to say, and they must
say that something in good English. The little white packets found their
way into many a quiet country parsonage, into many a fashionable home.
His correspondence was world-wide and came from all classes--now a letter
from a Prime Minister, now one from a blacksmith. All were equally
welcome, and all were answered with equal courtesy. At his house met
people of the most varying opinions. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, Edward
Maitland, E. Vansittart Neale, Charles Bray, Sara Hennell, W.J. Birch, R.
Suffield, and hundreds more, clerics and laymen, scholars and thinkers,
all gathered in this one home, to which the right of _entrée_ was gained
only by love of Truth and desire to spread Freedom among men.
Mr. Scott devoted his fortune to this great work. He would never let
publishers have his pamphlets in the ordinary way of trade, but issued
them all himself and distributed them gratuitously. If anyone desired to
subscribe, well and good, they might help in the work, but make it a
matter of business he would not. If anyone sent money for some tracts, he
would send out double the worth of the money enclosed, and thus for years
he carried on this splendid propagandist work. In all he was nobly
seconded by his wife, his "right hand" as he well named her, a sweet,
strong, gentle, noble woman, worthy of her husband, and than that no
higher praise can be spoken. Of both I shall have more to say hereafter,
but at present we are at the time of my first visit to them at Upper
Norwood, whither they had removed from Ramsgate.
Kindly greeting was given by both, and on Mr. Voysey suggesting that
judging by one essay of mine that he had seen--an essay which was later
expanded into the one on "Inspiration", in the Scott series--my pen would
be useful for propagandist work, Mr. Scott bade me try what I could do,
and send him for criticism anything I thought good enough for
publication; he did not, of course, promise to accept an essay, but he
promised to read it. A question arose as to the name to be attached to
the essay, in case of publication, and I told him that my name was not my
own to use, and that I did not suppose that Mr. Besant could possibly, in
his position, give me permission to attach it to a heretical essay; we
agreed that any essays I might write should for the present be published
anonymously, and that I should try my hand to begin with on the subject
of the "Deity of Jesus of Nazareth". And so I parted from those who were
to be such good friends to me in the coming time of struggle.