Lestrange was being genially bantered by Rose one day at dinner on what
Rose called "problems of life and being," or "springs of action," or even
"higher ground." Lestrange was oppressively earnest, but he was always
good-natured.
"Ultimately?" he had said, "why, ultimately, of course, you must obey your
conscience."
"No, no!" said Father Payne, "that won't do, Lestrange! Who are _you_,
after all? I mean that the 'you' you speak of has something to say about
it, to decide whether to disobey or to obey. And then, too, the same 'you'
seems to have decided that conscience is to be obeyed. The thing that you
describe as 'yourself' is much more ultimate than conscience, because if it
is not convinced that conscience is to be obeyed, it will not obey. I mean
that there is something which criticises even the conscience. It can't be
reason, because your conscience over-rides your reason, and it can't be
instinct, generally speaking, because conscience often over-rides
instinct."
"I am confused," said Lestrange. "I mean by conscience the thing which says
'You _ought!_' That is what seems to me to prove the existence of God,
that there is a sense of a moral law which one does not invent, and which
is sometimes very inconveniently aggressive."
"Yes, that is all right," said Father Payne, "but how is it when there are
two 'oughts,' as there often are? A man ought to work--and he ought not to
overwork--something else has to be called in to decide where one 'ought'
begins and the other ends. There is a perpetual balancing of moral claims.
Your conscience tells you to do two things which are mutually
exclusive--both are right in the abstract. What are you to do then?"
"I suppose that reason comes in there," said Lestrange.
"Then reason is the ultimate guide?" said Father Payne.
"Oh, Father, you are darkening counsel," said Lestrange.
"No, no," said Father Payne, "I am just trying to face facts."
"Well, then," said Lestrange, "what is the ultimate thing?"
"The ultimate thing," said Father Payne, "is of course the thing you call
yourself--but the ultimate instinct is probably a sense of proportion--a
sense of beauty, if you like!"
"But how does that work out in practice?" said Vincent. "It seems to me to
be a mere argument about names and titles. You are using conscience as the
sense of right and wrong, and, as you say, they often seem to have
conflicting claims. Lestrange used it in the further sense of the thing
which ultimately decides your course. It is right to be philanthropic, it
is right to be artistic--they may conflict; but something ultimately tells
you what you _can_ do, which is really more important than what you
_ought to_ do."
"That is right," said Father Payne, "I think the test is simply this--that
whenever you feel yourself paralysed, and your natural growth arrested by
your obedience to any one claim--instinct, reason, conscience, whatever it
is--the ultimate power cuts the knot, and tells you unfailingly where your
real life lies. That is the real failure, when owing to some habit, some
dread, some shrinking, you do not follow your real life. That, it seems to
me, is where the old unflinching doctrines of sin and repentance have done
harm. The old self-mortifying saints, who thought so badly of human nature,
and who tore themselves to pieces, resisting wholesome impulses--celibate
saints who ought to have been married, morbidly introspective saints who
needed hard secular work, those were the people who did not dare to trust
the sense of proportion, and were suspicious of the call of life. Look at
St. Augustine in the wonderful passage about light, 'sliding by me in
unnumbered guises'--he can only end by praying to be delivered from the
temptation to enjoy the sight of dawn and sunset, as setting his affections
too much upon the things of earth. I mistrust the fear of life--I mistrust
all fear--at least I think it will take care of itself, and must not be
cultivated. I think the call of God is the call of joy--and I believe that
the superstitious dread of joy is one of the most potent agencies of the
devil."
"But there are many joys which one has to mistrust," said Lestrange; "mere
sensual delights, for instance."
"Yes," said Father Payne, "but most healthy and normal people, after a very
little meddling with such delights, learn certainly enough that they only
obscure the real, wholesome, temperate joys. You have to compromise wisely
with your instincts, I think. You mustn't spend too much time in frontal
attacks upon them. You have a quick temper, let us say. Well, it is better
to lose it occasionally and apologise, than to hold your tongue about
matters in which you are interested for fear of losing it. You are
avaricious--well, hoard your money, and then yield on occasions to a
generous impulse. That's a better way to defeat evil, than by dribbling
money away in giving little presents which no one wants. I don't believe in
petty warfare against faults. You know the proverb that if you knock too
long at a closed door, the Devil opens it to you? Just give your sins a
knock-down blow every now and then. I believe in the fire of life more than
I believe in the cold water you use to quench it. Everything can be
forgiven to passion; nothing can be forgiven to chilly calculation. The
beautiful impulse is the thing that one must not disobey; and when I see
people do big, wrong-headed, unguarded, unwise things, get into rows,
sacrifice a reputation or a career without counting the cost, I am inclined
to feel that they have probably done better for themselves than if they had
been prudent and cautious. I don't say that they are always right, because
people yield sometimes to a mere whim, and sometimes to a childishly
overwhelming desire; but if there is a real touch of unselfishness about a
sacrifice--that's the test, that some one else's joy should be
involved--then I feel that it isn't my business to approve or disapprove. I
feel in the presence of a force--an 'ought' as Lestrange says, which makes
me shy of intervening. It's the wind of the Spirit--it blows where it
will--and I know this, that I'm thankful beyond everything when I feel it
in my own sails."
"Tell me when you feel it next, Father," said Vincent.
"I feel it now," said Father Payne, "now and here." And there was something
in his face which made us disinclined to ask him any further questions.