place the service of Zion Chapel in a far less attractive light than that
thrown upon the ceremony in progress beneath the dome of St. Peter's.
II. Thus the listener passes from the confines of the Chapel to the
limitless expanse of the common without: and the change in externals is
indicative also of that within. Whilst discerning the errors of preacher
and congregation, the critic has been blinded to the fact that he, too, is
equally removed from the spirit of love designed to prove the inspiring
principle of all forms of Christianity, however crude their mode of
expression. The soothing influence of Nature to which he has ever been
peculiarly susceptible, causes at once
A glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me. (ll. 274-276.)
So he stands, recalling the visions of youth, when he "looked to these
very skies, probing their immensities," and "found God there, his visible
power." The power was unquestionable, a mere response to the evidence of
the senses; but reason, coming to the aid of sight, pointed to the
existence also of Love, "the nobler dower." The deduction is logical,
since the absence of Love at once imposes limitations to power otherwise
apparently infinite. The craving for love existent within the human heart
demands satisfaction, and if in this direction the Deity is _unable_ to
satisfy the needs of his creatures, man here surpasses his maker, the
creature the creator. Irresponsible power, not comprehensive of love, is
of the character of that exercised by Setebos according to the theory of
Caliban. Here man is seen endowed with gifts of heart and brain, to
exercise _through_ his own will, but _for_ the glory of his creator "as a
mere machine could never do." Power (in this place synonymous with force
combined with knowledge) may advance by degrees, not so Love. Love does
not admit of measurement, since it is by nature infinite. As with
eternity, so with Love. By no relative estimate of time can any possible
realization of eternity be approached; the sole result of any such attempt
at exposition being necessarily conducive to a wholly erroneous impression
on the mind, since that which is in its essence infinite admits of no
defined measure. Thus infinite Love remains infinite in spite of human
limitations. Whilst absolute truth remains, though the revelation to man
is gradual, so does Love remain unimpaired, though man may profit by or
abuse it.
'Tis not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love's sum remains what it was before. (ll. 322-326.)
Thus S. Augustine: "Do heaven and earth then contain Thee, since Thou
fillest them?... The vessels which are full of Thee do not confine Thee,
though they should be shattered, Thou wouldest not be poured out."[63]
To sum up: Where Power alone was at first discernible, in the wonderful
care manifested in the smallest creation, "in the leaf, in the stone," the
work of Love eventually became equally clear. For a similar expression of
Browning's more immediately personal faith we have only to turn to his
latest published work, _The Reverie of Asolando_.
From the first Power was--I knew.
Life has made clear to me,
That, strive but for closer view,
Love were as plain to see.
In simple faith in this all-prevailing Providence, in a recognition of the
immanence of the Divine Love, the critic of Zion Chapel believes himself
to have found the highest form of worship. Before the night is ended he
is, however, to learn differently.
The Vision of Sections VII to IX renders still more forcible the
revelation already begun with the escape from the Chapel--that the Love
which may be duly worshipped alone in spirit and in truth yet recognizes
the feeblest manifestation of either in the worshipper: and that the
nearest approach to union with the Divine Love is to be sought in a fuller
and more immediate response to the human. And it is worthy of notice that
the Vision does not reveal itself within the confines of Zion Chapel, the
abode of religious exclusiveness and intolerance; only when the freer
atmosphere of Nature has been reached.
III. Rome, St. Peter's. With the opening of the next division of the Poem
(Sections X to XII), we find the man who has been anxious that the divine
worship shall be celebrated in beauty, as well as in spirit and in truth,
again an onlooker: waiting without the walls of St. Peter's, "that
miraculous Dome of God,"--waiting without, yet with eye "free to pierce
the crust of the outer wall," and perceive the crowd thronging the
cathedral
In expectation
Of the main-altar's consummation.
And here is to be found all that was wanting to the bare whitewashed
interior of "Mount Zion" with its "lath and plaster entry," with "the
forms burlesque, uncouth" of its worship. Here the vast building
Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,
With marble for brick, and stones of price
For garniture of the edifice. (ll. 538-540.)
In place of the "snuffle" of the Methodist congregation and the "immense
stupidity" of the utterances of the preacher is the silence which may be
felt of that solemn moment preceding the elevation, when "the organ
blatant holds his breath.... As if God's hushing finger grazed him." (ll.
574-575.) Whatever the sympathies of spectator or author, no lines in the
entire poem are more impressive for the reader than those which follow:
Earth breaks up, time drops away,
In flows heaven, with its new day
Of endless life, when He who trod,
Very man and very God,
This earth in weakness, shame and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursed tree,--
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,
But the one God, All in all,
King of kings, Lord of lords,
As His servant John received the words,
"I died, and live for evermore!" (ll. 581-593.)
The conviction is almost inevitable that here something beyond even the
power of dramatic genius has to be reckoned with; that some spirit more
nearly akin to intimate personal sympathy served as inspiration of this
passage.
Carried away by the infection of the prevailing enthusiasm, the spectator
questions as to the cause which has led him to remain without upon the
threshold-stone of the cathedral, whilst He who has led him hither is
within. And the answer which Reason returns is, that whilst the Divine
Wisdom may be capable of discerning the faith and love existent beneath
the outward imagery, yet with "mere man" the case is otherwise; hence for
him to disregard the inward promptings of his nature is dangerous to his
spiritual welfare. Thus the decision:
I, a mere man, fear to quit
The due God gave me as most fit
To guide my footsteps through life's maze,
Because himself discerns all ways
Open to reach him. (ll. 621-625.)
For him to whom the bare walls of Zion Chapel have proved repellant, the
glories of St. Peter's may conceivably be fatally attractive in their
appeal to the senses: such, reasonably or unreasonably, is at least the
belief of the soliloquist. The argument of this eleventh Section is
perhaps the most difficult to follow satisfactorily of all those leading
to the ultimate choice of creed. Before attempting to estimate the worth
of the conclusions, it may be well to trace briefly the line of thought
by which they appear to have been reached.
(1) The spectator, at first struck by the glory of outward display as a
means of still imposing upon the world "Rome's gross yoke," is yet led,
through proximity to the Divine Presence, whilst seeing the error, "above
the scope of error" to realize the love. And further, to admit (2) that
the love inspiring the worshippers of St. Peter's on this Christmas Eve of
1849 was also "the love of those first Christian days," a love which did
not hesitate to sacrifice all which might interpose between itself and the
Divine Love whence it emanated. When
The antique sovereign Intellect
Which then sat ruling in the world,
... was hurled
From the throne he reigned upon. (ll. 650-653.)
Subsequently followed all the wealth of poetry and rhetoric, of sculpture
and painting sometime the pride of the classical world. Love, and it _was_
Love which was acting, drew her children aside from these intellectual and
sensuous gratifications, and pointed to the Crucified. She thus, says the
soliloquist, had demanded of her votaries vast sacrifices which might
reasonably have been held essential in the early days of Christianity. We
have already seen, indeed, how empty of ultimate satisfaction had been
these same intellectual pleasures to Cleon: how obviously light would have
been, to him, the sacrifice involved in an acceptance of any faith which
should afford a definite and reasonable hope for a future state of
existence: how small a price would have been the loss of life temporal in
view of the gain of life eternal. (3) But the critic, whilst admitting the
sublimity of the sacrifice of the first century of the Christian era,
deprecates the demand made for its repetition in the nineteenth. It is
time for Love's children not only to "creep, stand steady upon their
feet," but to "walk already. Not to speak of trying to climb" (ll.
697-699). The limitations imposed upon the intellect and its free
development should long since have been discarded. (4) Yet, though
recognizing this to the full, the speaker will not condemn one of those,
however mistaken, whose foreheads bear "_lover_ written above the earnest
eyes of them." These worshippers within St. Peter's need some satisfaction
of the demands made upon their nature by an inherent craving for beauty;
and yet have they sacrificed for Love's sake all that they might have
found of intense enjoyment in unfettered life. Dwelling amidst the glories
of Rome, ancient and modern, they yet turn from the "Majesties of art
around them." Faith struggles to suppress intellectual and artistic
cravings; and these, at length subdued, they "offer up to God for a
present." Denied in the world without the sensuous satisfaction for which
they yearn, they would seek it in the display attendant on the Roman
Catholic ritual. This is the view of the man who believes himself to be
the true "lover" of God, capable of worshipping in spirit and in truth.
How far is he justified in such criticism? Unquestionably he is
prejudiced. There exists an unconscious mental bias towards that creed
which he is represented as finally accepting; and there is little doubt
that it is Browning's intention to expose the prejudice. The failure in
appreciation of the ceremonial at St. Peter's arises from inability to
apprehend beauty in the outward accessories of the service of which he is
witness. To his nature it would appear that the demand upon the sensuous
side is not so strong as he imagines when he expresses the fear of
entering the cathedral and joining the worshipping crowd. He seems,
moreover, to ignore, or to pass over lightly, the productions of
Christian art, whether in painting or in the music of religious ritual,
when he inquires (ll. 681, _et seq._):
Love, surely, from that music's lingering,
Might have filched her organ-fingering,
Nor chosen rather to set prayings
To hog-grunts, praises to horse-neighings.
He ignores, too, the value of symbolism in the later mocking allusion to
this experience as "buffoonery--posturings and petticoatings."
In the main line of thought, however, beginning with Section XI, and
developed more fully in XII, is treated no imaginary danger, but that
bound inevitably to attend on any religious system in which authority is
paramount. The error attributed to the advocates of the Roman Catholic
creed is that of rendering the head too completely subservient to the
heart. Faith cannot indeed be acquired by any considerations of logic;
nevertheless, there is no necessity that Reason and Faith should prove
antagonistic forces. To the brain, as well as to the heart, must be
allowed scope for development. Hence the speaker represents that Church,
in which freedom of thought is limited, as interposing as an intermediary
between the conscience and the Divine influence. Such Church he regards as
having devoted its energies to the development of a single element or
faculty of human nature to the exclusion or limitation of the rest.
Nevertheless, in one direction there has been development to an
extraordinary degree: and Browning himself, as we have good reason to
know, would have been unlikely to criticize adversely this whole-hearted
devotion to a cause. For illustration the soliloquist employs that of the
sculptor who, without calculating the dimensions of his marble, devotes
his energies to the production of a perfect head and shoulders only. This,
though necessarily unfinished in actual performance, is far grander in
conception than a smaller and fully modelled figure; and the spectator is
free to seek elsewhere the completion of the unfinished statue in the work
of an artist complementary to that of the first. Thus the onlooker at St.
Peter's resolves to accept the provision there offered for the
"satisfaction of his love," then depart elsewhere--depart to seek the
completion of the statue--"that [his] intellect may find its share." And
it is noteworthy that the same critic, who condescends to the employment
of language such as that marking the references to the service of St
Peter's, ascribes to the Church of Rome the development of that element
which he esteems highest in human nature. Love is ever with the author of
_Christmas Eve_, as with the soliloquist, of worth immeasurably greater
than mere intellect.
IV. With Section XIII the critic of Zion Chapel passes once more into the
night in search of satisfaction for those demands of the intellect which
have been left unanswered at St. Peter's; and in Section XIV he is
represented as finding that which he seeks. Love and Faith to the
exclusion of intellectual development he has left in the cathedral at
Rome; Intellect without Love he meets in the Lecture Hall at Göttingen.
Believing himself to have learned the lesson that wherever even nominal
followers of Christ are to be found, there, too, is the Divine Presence,
he is now "cautious" how he "suffers to slip"
The chance of joining in fellowship
With any that call themselves his friends. (ll. 800-803.)
Hence, entering the Hall, he follows the course of the consumptive
Lecturer's reasoning on "the myth of Christ." As to this fable which
"Millions believe to the letter" he (the Lecturer) proposes to attempt the
work of discrimination between truth and legend.
(1) He reminds his audience, and justly, that it is well at times to pause
to inquire concerning the source of articles of their belief; historic
fact may become disguised or concealed by accretions of legendary
narrative gathered round it: by the various expositions assigned it by
commentators of different ages. (2) Having thus examined and freed his
"myth" from the misinterpretations of the early disciples, from later
additions and modifications; when all has been done he yet admits that the
residuum is well worthy of preservation.
A Man!--a right true man, however,
Whose work was worthy a man's endeavour. (ll. 876-877.)
Moreover
Was _he_ not surely the first to insist on
The natural sovereignty of our race? (ll. 888-889.)
As it were in startling comment upon the assertion of this natural
sovereignty, the Professor's further speech is interrupted by a fit of
coughing, and the listener avails himself of the opportunity thus offered
to leave the Hall.
Once more free to breathe the outer air his critical powers reassert
themselves, and he sees from a point of observation, sufficiently removed,
the relative effects of the excesses of the most widely differing forms of
Christianity and of that form of belief or of scepticism which denies the
divinity of the founder of the creed. His decision is given in favour of
superstition as opposed to scepticism.
Truth's atmosphere may grow mephitic
When Papist struggles with Dissenter,
* * * * *
Each, that thus sets the pure air seething,
May poison it for healthy breathing--
But the Critic leaves no air to poison. (ll. 898-909.)
Then follows the criticism of the Critic.
What has the lecturer, indeed, left to the followers of the Christ?
(1) Intellect? Is the possession of pure intellect to be accounted cause
for worship? Even so, others have taught morality as Christ taught it,
with the difference (and this surely an advantage from the critic's
standpoint) that these teachers have failed to assert of themselves that
to which Christ laid claim on his own behalf: that,
He, the sage and humble,
Was also one with the Creator. (ll. 922-923.)
(2) Worship of the intellect being thus disallowed, what then of the moral
worth of the Man Christ as admitted by the Lecturer? Is mere virtue,
however great in degree, sufficient to claim as of right for its possessor
the submission of his fellow men? Perfection of moral character being
allowed, is this adequate reason that the Christ should be held supreme
ruler of the race? To answer the question satisfactorily one of two
theories must be accepted: either "goodness" is of human "invention" or it
is a divine gift freely bestowed. If the first, the Professor's listener
holds that "worship were that man's fit requital" who should have proved
himself capable of exhibiting in his own life, _for the first time in the
world's history_, that which "goodness" really is. Recognizing, however,
the incontrovertible fact that moral worth was present in the world prior
to the foundation of Christianity, the so-called "invention" of goodness
resolves itself into a mere matter of definition, and the adjustment of
names to qualities already existent. In this case he who has achieved this
work is no more deserving of worship as the originator or creator of
goodness than is Harvey to be adjudged inventor of the circulation of the
blood. One is inclined here to question whether the speaker is not
carrying his argument beyond the point necessary to the exposure of the
weakness of the Lecturer's position as professed follower of a merely
human Christ. Whether or not this be so, he has succeeded in proving
logically untenable the first of the two hypotheses suggested in this
connection. What then of the second? If goodness is admittedly the direct
gift of God, if the founder of Christianity taught how best to preserve
such gift "free from fleshly taint"; then he merits indeed the title of
Saint, but no more transcendent honour, his powers differing in degree,
not in kind, from those of his fellow men: he was inspired, but as
Shakespeare was inspired. No immensity of virtue may effect the conversion
of human nature into the divine; and the man of supreme moral dignity, as
of marvellous intellectual capacity, remains man only; vastly, but yet
measurably, beyond his fellows; the position attained being one to which
it is possible that humanity may again attain, nay, which it may even
surpass in the future "by growth of soul." And this divine gift of
goodness may, moreover, necessarily be bestowed in accordance with the
divine will; hence, he who made this man Pilate may well make "this other"
Christ. Thus then, if the Prophet of Nazareth is to be regarded as mere
man, the Professor's argument breaks down following the adoption of either
hypothesis--that involving a divine or a human origin of goodness.
Is there any point at which the faith of the Christian may come into
contact with that of him who, whilst calling himself a follower of Christ,
by a denial of His divinity refuses credence to a direct assertion on the
part of his leader? To the Christian the main proof of divine inspiration
is the spark of divine light kindled within the human breast, that which
supplies motive for action, which instigates to practical application of
the good already recognized as good by the intelligence: not identical
with conscience (as is clear from line 1033), but the power which awakens
the activities of conscience. Here again a suggestion of Browning's usual
estimate of the relative worth of the intellect and the heart. The man
whose moral standard of life is most depraved is yet possessed of the
capacity for discriminating between good and evil; since such capacity
does not necessarily imply the co-existence of a life-giving faith, and
through faith alone may knowledge become of practical utility.
Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?
Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more
Of what right is, than arrives at birth
In the best man's acts that we bow before. (ll. 1032-1035.)
To _know_ is not to _do_: a distinction akin to that drawn in the Epistle
of James[64] between intellectual credence and living faith--between
belief, the result of the acceptance of certain facts making inevitable
appeal to the intellect, and faith inspiring life, the ultimate results of
which are manifest in action. This distinction we find again strikingly
presented in parabolic form in _Shah Abbas_ of _Ferishtah's Fancies_.
The most marked lines of divergence between listener and lecturer would
appear then to be that mere abstract good, even morality personified, is
insufficient for the satisfaction of the demands of human nature: that the
life lived in Palestine did not denote a mere renewal of things old, a
more extended development of the good already existent in the world. It
introduced a new and more active principle of life, that to which all past
history had been leading up, that from which the future history of the
human race must take its starting point. _The revelation of God in man had
been made to men._ To sum up--
Morality to the uttermost,
Supreme in Christ as we all confess,
Why need we prove would avail no jot
To make him God, if God he were not?
What is the point where himself lays stress?
Does the precept run, "Believe in good,
In justice, truth, now understood
For the first time?"--or, "Believe in me,
Who lived and died, yet essentially
Am Lord of Life?" Whoever can take
The same to his heart and for mere love's sake
Conceive of the love,--that man obtains
A new truth; no conviction gains
Of an old one only, made intense
By a fresh appeal to his faded sense. (ll. 1045-1059.)
These the lines of divergence. Are there none of approach? asks the
listener who is gradually learning from his night's experience to seek a
common bond of sympathy between himself and his fellow men, rather than an
increase of the repulsion so spontaneously awakened within the walls of
Zion Chapel. At Rome he took his share in the "feast of love," which
afforded little satisfaction to intellectual cravings; here he would fain
accept all that may accrue to him from the pursuit of learning apart from
love.
Unlearned love was safe from spurning--
Can't we respect your loveless learning? (ll. 1084-1085.)
Recognizing the zeal for truth which has instigated the critical
investigations of the lecturer, he is prepared, with a liberality of which
he is clearly sufficiently conscious, to allow to him and to his followers
such benefit as may be derived from the acceptance of "a loveless creed";
even conceding to them, so be it they still desire it, the name of
Christian, which he too bears. With generosity yet greater he will refrain
from all attempt to disturb that condition of stoical calm to which they
have at length attained, by pointing out to them the weaknesses of their
theory, which he has just so amply demonstrated to his own satisfaction.
V. Thus he leaves the lecture hall in a "genial mood of tolerance," of
which the conclusions of Section XIX are the outcome. The element of truth
existent in varying forms of creed, beneath all dissimilarities of outward
expression, has at length become recognizable; carrying with it the
prevision of that complete union ultimately to be effected before "the
general Father's throne." When "the saints of many a warring creed" shall
have learned
That _all_ paths to the Father lead
Where Self the feet have spurned.
Where
Moravian hymn and Roman chant
In one devotion blend;
and all
Discords find harmonious close,
In God's atoning ear.[65]
Of what nobler conception, it may be asked, is the human imagination
capable? Nevertheless, to certain natures (so holds the soliloquist,
clearly recognizing his own as of this calibre) there is danger lest this
generous comprehensiveness should prove inseparable from the "mild
indifferentism" fatal to action. Hence in Section XX, whilst engaged in
watching his
Foolish heart expand
In the lazy glow of benevolence, (ll. 1154-1155.)
he is not surprised to perceive, in the token of the receding vesture,
indications of the divine disapproval of his position. And he is led to
the conclusion that not only for the individual worshipper must there be
some special form of creed best adapted to the individual needs of
temperament, but (as ll. 1158-1159 would appear to suggest) some
_absolute_ form of creed may possibly be discoverable. And to this
"single track":
God, by God's own ways occult,
May--doth, I will believe--bring back
All wanderers. (ll. 1170-1172.)
Thus unity is attained, but with a suggestion of methods of attainment
other than those indicated at the close of Section XIX. The main
difference of intention between the two Sections would appear to be that
whilst here (XX) also ultimate unity is to be achieved through the divine
providence, yet something more is required of the individual believer than
a passive reliance on the assurance of this future fusion of creeds. And
further, the manifest and immediate duty being the discovery of the, for
him, "best way of worship," this once reached, he must rest satisfied with
no merely personal acceptance: the benefits resultant from his own
spiritual experiences are designed for a wider use, a more extended
service of human fellowship; he, too, may seek to "bring back wanderers to
the single track." Here again is perceptible one of Browning's prevailing
ideas. Never (I believe) is he to be found advocating any vast corporate
revolution for the amelioration of mankind: the advance of the race is to
be secured through the advance of individual members.
VI. As a practical result of the foregoing conclusions follow (in Section
XXII) a return to the Chapel, and an application to the special form of
worship therein celebrated, of the genial "glow of benevolence" already
kindling within the breast of the sometime critic. And here the dramatic
character of the poem becomes perhaps more strikingly obvious than
hitherto. By one or two able and characteristic strokes is suggested the
egotistical temperament of the soliloquist, with its susceptibility to
external influences, its inevitable tendency towards criticism. Even
though he has, as he deems, learnt from the night's experience the
valuable lesson of receiving "in meekness" the mode of worship simplest in
form and most spiritual in character, yet the language employed in lines
1310-1315 is that of no advocate of a kindly tolerance, but of an orthodox
and bigoted methodist. It is a part, so it would seem, of the dramatic
purpose, and of the mental analysis of which Browning was so fond, to thus
demonstrate to his readers how a reasoning and reflective being, possessed
of a certain amount of intellectual alertness, should enrol himself
amongst the members of a body whose pre-eminent characteristic to the
unsympathizing spectator appears that of a narrow dogmatic exclusivism,
combined with extreme intellectual limitations.
Nevertheless, in spite of practical result, very ably does the speaker in