So lay I, saturate with brightness. (l. 491.)
Where, in _Easter Day_, the description of the Divine Presence is given
(xix, l. 640, _et seq._), it is suggested with an awe and vagueness which
certainly narrow the conception to no material presentation.
In addition to this vividness of contrast between the first three and the
following Sections, the realistic force with which the poem opens has a
yet further result. The uncompromising character of the realism opens the
way for a more readily accorded credence in the subsequent events of the
night. He who describes the vision has likewise seen the congregation in
Zion Chapel. When he "flung out" of the meeting-house, his mood was
certainly not indicative of imaginative idealism or mystic contemplation.
He is in a frame of mind little likely to prove unduly susceptible to
supernatural influences. A realization of this mental attitude is
essential to a fair estimate of the line of argument throughout the poem.
I. Sections I, II, and III are thus occupied with the description of the
Chapel and the congregation gathered within its walls, of the preacher and
the spiritual food whereby he proposes to sustain the members of his
flock. And notice: the speaker has entered perforce, driven within the
sacred precincts by the violence of the elements. He is an outsider, and,
as such, prepared to assume the attitude of critic rather than of
sympathizer. And the severity of the criticism is intensified by physical
and intellectual repulsion at the scene before him. Hence he recognizes
all that is peculiarly objectionable in the special aspect of
non-conformity presented within the Chapel. He perceives at once (1) "the
trick of exclusiveness," and the consequent self-satisfaction induced; and
(2) the "fine irreverence" of the preacher in presenting the "treasure hid
in the Holy Bible" as "a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance, not
improved by [his] private dog's-ears and creases." He perceives "the
trick of exclusiveness" which causes the congregation to hold itself to be
The men, and [that] wisdom shall die with [them],
And none of the old Seven Churches vie with [them].
* * * * *
And, taking God's word under wise protection,
Correct its tendency to diffusiveness. (ll. 107-112.)
Later, when freed from the physical irritation attendant on proximity to
this special collection of representatives of humanity, his prejudices are
sufficiently modified to allow of the perception that some explanation of
this exclusiveness is possible.
These people have really felt, no doubt,
A something, the motion they style the Call of them;
And this is their method of bringing about
* * * * *
The mood itself, which strengthens by using. (ll. 238-245.)
The speaker is quite willing (when at a distance from the Chapel) to admit
this right of attempting a reproduction of that mood in which the original
conversion may have been effected. Nevertheless, he will _not_ admit the
right of the flock to shut the gate of the fold in the face of any
outsider seeking entrance. Still
Mine's the same right with your poorest and sickliest
Supposing I don the marriage vestiment. (ll. 119-120.)
In _Johannes Agricola in Meditation_ this personal satisfaction of the
Calvinist is presented in a still more extreme form.
Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,
Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled
The heavens, God thought on me his child;
Ordained a life for me, arrayed
Its circumstances every one
To the minutest.
And this pre-ordained object of the Divine Love may assert with
confidence--
I have God's warrant, could I blend
All hideous sins, as in a cup,
To drink the mingled venoms up;
Secure my nature will convert
The draught to blossoming gladness fast.
Thus happiness assured, inevitable, for the elect. For those excluded from
the sacred number--
I gaze below on hell's fierce bed,
And those its waves of flame oppress,
Swarming in ghastly wretchedness;
Whose life on earth aspired to be
One altar-smoke, so pure!--to win
If not love like God's love for me,
At least to keep his anger in;
And all their striving turned to sin.
It is difficult to believe that the author of _this_ poem, at any rate,
would willingly have identified himself with the Calvinistic creed. To
Caliban, a creature so largely devoid of moral sense, we have, indeed,
seen him assigning a belief closely akin to that involved in the
meditations of Johannes, when he refers to the difference of the fates
irrevocably allotted by Setebos to himself and to Prospero; both theories
in curious contrast with the reflections of the Book of _Wisdom_: "For
thou lovest all the things that are, and abhorrest nothing which thou hast
made: for never wouldest thou have made anything, if thou hadst hated
it.... But thou sparest all, for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of
souls."[62]
Thus is explained "the trick of exclusiveness." What of the "fine
irreverence" of the preacher? Here the success of the sermon as a means
of spiritual conviction, is held to be dependent upon the attitude of mind
of the listener.
'Tis the taught already that profits by teaching. (l. 255.)
The method employed is only "abundantly convincing" to "those convinced
before." To the critic possessed of unprejudiced intellectual faculties,
the arbitrary collection of texts and chapters brought into connection by
the capricious choice of the preacher is deserving of condemnation as a
misrepresentation of the truth, by "provings and parallels twisted and
twined," which would draw from even the more obvious Old Testament
narrative proof of some doctrinal mystery of his creed--that Pharaoh
received a demonstration
By his Baker's dream of Baskets Three,
Of the doctrine of the Trinity. (ll. 230-233.)
Those of us who are inclined to reproach Browning for the severity of the
condemnation of Roman Catholic ritual ascribed to the soliloquist in