The poor child did not laugh.
“You do not know him, you do not know him,” again and again she replied,
wearily.
She might have added,—but she did not,—“You do not know me.” And after
all, what mother, of them all, knows her daughter, enveloped as she is
in a double veil? For between the old heart and the young lies the mist
of the years; and what eye can pierce aright the diffracting medium of
maternal love?
Even Doctor Alice, when called in consultation, next day, could not
probe to the bottom of the mystery.
And are there not ever some little nooks and corners of our hearts
unsuspected by our dearest friends, even?—aspirations that they would
have laughed at, perhaps,—fears which we should have blushed to
confess,—hopes, alas, withered and fallen now,—that we have never
revealed to mortal ears?
Now, within our Mary’s breast there was, I shall not say a nook or a
recess, but a dark and dismal chamber, the key of which had never left
her keeping.
Let us call it the Cavern of Religious Terror, and cut the allegory
short.
Suppose we try to put ourselves in her place, and see how things looked,
not to an average girl of that period (still less to any one of this),
but to one such as Mary was.
At the time in question, the dogma of what is known among theologians, I
believe, as that of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, was held
from one end of Virginia to the other.
That is to say, my Ah Yung, that every chapter, every sentence, every
word, and every syllable of the Bible had been literally inspired, and
was absolutely true. This we were expected to believe and did believe;
and by what ingenuity we were to escape the dogma of eternal damnation
I, for one, cannot see. But we made no effort to escape it, regarding
it, to a man, as the mainstay of society and the sheet-anchor of all the
virtues. A belief in hell was ranked among the necessaries of life.
“’Twas the merest luxury,” quoth Charley.
Now, what is the imagination but a kind of inner eye, revealing to us,
often with fearful distinctness, that which may be, but is not. And
imagination was, as we know, an overshadowing trait of Mary’s mind.
And what a training that imagination had! Her mother thought it was her
duty, so let that pass; but hardly had she shed her long clothes when
her precocious little head began to teem with burning lakes, and
writhing souls, and mocking demons, and worms that die not. And,
ofttimes, her little heart almost ceased to beat, as she lay in her
trundle-bed, and, with wide-staring eyes, saw her own baby-self
engirdled with unquenchable flames. For had she not fretted over her
Sunday-school lesson that very morning (longing to dress her new doll),
and said it was too long, and oh! that she hated the catechism?
Now, among those who accept this dogma, there are various ways of
dealing with it. The immense majority inscribe it among the articles of
their creed, fold the paper, label it, and file it away in some dusty
pigeon-hole, in an out-of-the way corner of their heads, and go about
their business. They are satisfied to know that it is there, and that
there is no heresy about them. A true Virginian looks upon his faith
much as he does upon a Potomac herring, and would no more think of
finding fault with the one because of a knotty point or so, than with
the other for the bones it contains. He wouldn’t be caught carrying a
stomach about with him that was capable of making wry faces over such
spiculæ, not he. Look at that noble roe, that firm flesh, as stimulating
as cognac! No cod-fish, no heresy for him!
So with the vast majority.
Then, there is another class of minds, with which to believe is to
realize. To such this article of their faith assumes abnormal
proportions, dwarfing all others. Upon this alone their glassy eyes are
fixed. Let us pass them by with bowed heads. Seeking heaven in the world
to come, they have found a hell in this.
Our Mary stood between these two classes, belonging to neither; but by
the nature of her mental constitution she leaned fearfully towards the
latter. Seeing is believing; but with Mary to believe was to see. And
from her infancy to her womanhood her fond mother had done all that in
her lay, unwittingly, to overthrow her reason. That that fair mind did
not become as sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh, was due to her
father. It was he that saved, her,—unwittingly as well,—saved her
through books.
Mr. Rolfe had no son, and Mary was his only daughter. He made her his
companion in his walks and in his study; and she became, like him, an
omnivorous reader; and the baleful phantasms of her distempered spirit
grew paler in the presence of other and brighter thoughts. The process
went further. As she read and read, drawing upon all the great
literatures (when she could, in the original—else in translations),
there gradually dawned upon her a sense of the immense diversity of
human opinion.
And yet, with what undoubting tenacity each people clung to its faith!
Hindu, Turk, Greek, Spaniard, Scotchman,—each was in exclusive
possession of the Eternal Verities!
The materials of the generalization were all there; and one fine morning
she said to herself: Religious truth is simply a question of geography.
Mary Rolfe was a sceptic!
And yet she had not read one sceptical book. Where was she to find such
in Richmond?
But this demure little miss of sixteen summers did what she could to
keep her doubts to herself. How shockingly ungenteel to be an infidel!
And a female infidel! An agnostic would have been different. The very
sound of the word is ladylike; but, unhappily for our heroine, their day
had not yet come. And for a whole year there was not a more wretched
little woman in all Richmond.
Two clocks shall stare at each other, from opposite walls, year in and
year out, and agree to disagree without the least discomfort to either.
And would that we men were even as these serenely-ticking philosophers!
Alas for the shadow that falls on the friendship of Mrs. A. and Mrs. B.,
when they become adherents of rival sewing-machines! And why, because
our whilom chum now goes about with the pellets of the Homœopath in his
vest-pocket, forsaking the boluses of the Regulars, why should we turn
and rend him?
Dreading to be rent, our sweet-sixteener kept her daring speculations
locked within her bosom, and was wretched; for man’s opinions, like man
himself, are gregarious,—and a thought is as restless in solitude as a
bird cut off from its mate.
So this state of things could not last. And when Alice, after looking
very serious for a week, announced her intention of being confirmed on
the approaching visitation of the bishop, Mary had to speak. Alice was
horrified at first; but, being a plucky little soul, more given to
acting, under difficulties, than repining, she posted off to their
pastor.
He made short work of Mary’s difficulties; and, being well up in
evidential polemics, battered down her vague objections to the
credibility of Christianity with such ease, that, at the close of a
two-hours’ interview, she begged, in deep humiliation, that he would not
consider her an entirely brainless creature; so utterly frivolous had
all her objections been made to appear. Two or three books, left in her
hands, finished the business. And, a few weeks later, Mary and Alice
knelt side by side, and took upon themselves their baptismal vows.
Now, among the various phases of infidelity, there are two forms which
are strongly antithetical,—the scepticism of the body and the
scepticism of the mind. Who has not seen a vigorous young animal of our
species, his head as void of brains as his body is full of riotous
passions,—who has not seen such a one masquerading as a freethinker?
Never fear, reverend and dear sir; thinking will have to be wondrous
free before any of it passes _his_ way. Sooner or later you shall number
him among the meekest of your lambs. A hemorrhage—a twinge of gout in
the stomach—any reminder that he is mortal—and you shall see him
passing the plate along the aisles, and offering to take a class in your
Sunday-school. In fact, a few such reclaimed sheep are a positive
necessity in every flock. They point a moral. Remember what he was, and
see what he is. And the blasphemer of yesterday becomes the beacon-light
of to-day.
But when doubts have their origin in the higher rather than the lower
nature,—when a mind, at once candid and searching, gradually finds
itself forced to question dogmas learned from a mother’s lips,—for this
phase of scepticism, the cure is far more difficult, and rarely radical.
You may mow down the doubts with irresistible logic, they may be crushed
into the very earth by the enormous weight of unanimous opposing
opinion, but they are not dead. Remove the pressure, and the mind
bristles, instantly, with interrogation-points.
“No,” said her kindly pastor, patting her brown hair, “I am far from
thinking that this little head is brainless. The trouble lies in the
opposite direction. Stop thinking about things that are above the reach
of the human mind,—above it, for the very reason that they are of God.
Honestly, now, if we could grasp the meaning of every word in that Bible
of ours, as though it were a human production, would not that, of
itself, prove that it was of man? To be of God is to be inscrutable. Is
not that what a fair mind should expect? Undoubtedly. But my advice to
you is, not to bother your head about such subtleties. Stop thinking,
and go to work. You will find that a panacea worth all the logic in the
world.”
And such Mary found it to be. And her class in the Sunday-school was
soon recognized as the best. And she taught the servants of her mother’s
household, and read to them till they nodded again.
And so, when she went down to spend Christmas in Leicester, after a year
spent in these works of charity, she had forgotten that she had ever
been a doubter. Two months had passed, and she was all at sea again. She
felt that her faith was slipping from beneath her feet. She repeated to
herself, over and over again, the arguments of her pastor; she read and
re-read his books. Their logic seemed irresistible; yet it did not give
her rest. Her head was convinced,—’twas her heart that was in
rebellion. And she was woman enough to know the danger of that.
Faith or love,—which should it be? One cannot serve two masters.
“Nonsense!” said the cheery Alice, one day. “I can imagine now how he
will look, marching to church with your prayer-book in his hand!”
“No, it is not nonsense.”
“Pooh! we shall have him singing in the choir before you have been
married six months.”
Mary laughed (for who could resist the Enchantress?); and Alice, seizing
her advantage, drew picture after picture of the reclaimed Don, each
more ludicrous than the other (throwing in parenthetical glimpses of her
own Charley), till both girls were convulsed with merriment.
“No, Alice,” said Mary, at last, wiping the tears from her eyes, “it is
a very serious matter. Do you know what would happen? _He_ would not be
saved, but _I_ should be lost.”
That was what troubled Mary. That was why she could not laugh when her
mother made merry over sceptical youths. He who had spoken so well and
so strangely, down there by the Argo, was not a sceptical youth, but a
man of most vehement convictions. And she felt that she would be clay in
his hands. His faith, was formed; hers would be formed upon it. Formed
upon it? Crushed against it, rather! For, after all, though of a deeply
religious nature, as was plain, had he any religion?
That was the way we Virginians[1] looked at it. If you were not
orthodox, you didn’t count. If you were not for us, you were against us.
“I look upon all Protestant ministers as wolves in sheep’s clothing,”
said a Catholic to me. Per contra, I once asked a Presbyterian
minister—a friend of mine—how he rated Catholicism. “What do you
mean?” “Do you look upon it as a religion, for example?” He was a good
fellow, and wished to be charitable. He hung his head. He felt half
ashamed of what he was going to say. But he said it. Slowly raising his
eyes to mine, he answered, in a voice full of sadness, “I do not. I
regard it as worse than nothing.”
Ah, we were out-and-outers in those days! An error was worse than a
crime. _That_ could be atoned for, with the one, by confession and
absolution; with the other by repentance, even at the eleventh hour. But
getting into the wrong pew! “_A blind horse tumbles headforemost into a
well. He did not know it was there! Does that save his neck?_”
Ole Virginny nebber tire!
Such was the atmosphere which our Mary breathed. And—strange
psychological paradox—just in proportion as her faith weakened did its
terrors grow darker to her mind. That yawning gulf, upon the brink of
which she used to tremble as a little child, seemed to have opened
again. She believed less—she feared more. The peace she had gained was
gone. The old dark days had come back. One cannot serve two masters; for
either—
But faith or love—which?
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[1] Why _Virginians_? Can this so-called Mr. John Bouche Whacker be a
carpet-bagger?—_Ed._