the curtain rises on a deserted street, hushed and gloomy, through which
two figures at last slowly walk on tiptoe: as they approach, and one
begins to address the other, the latter, raising his finger to his lips,
whispers '_C'est Soonday_,' and both disappear: the comedy ends, however,
with a prodigious dinner of beef and beer. Absurd as such pictures of a
London Sabbath are, they yet indicate a suggestive truth, which is, that
the extreme outward observance in Protestant countries, of one day in
seven, by repudiating all pastime, is the best proof of a conscious defect
in the social representation of the religious instinct, exactly as the
festivity of continental people, on the same day, illustrates the opposite
extreme of indifference to appearances. It is probable that neither
affords a just index of the state of feeling; for domestic enjoyments in
the one case, and attendance at mass, by sincere devotees, in the other,
are facts that modify the apparent truth. It is highly probable, also,
that in this age of free inquiry and general intelligence, what has been
lost in public observance has been gained in individual sincerity. There
is not the same dependence on the preacher. Devotional sentiment is fed
from other sources. It has come to be felt and understood as never before,
that man is personally responsible, and must seek light for himself, and
repose on his own faith. Accordingly, he is comparatively unallied to
institutions, and will no longer trust for spiritual insight to a mortal
as frail and ignorant as himself. The redeeming fact is to be sought in
the existence of the sentiment itself. The sensuality of a Borgia makes
more impressive the sanctity of Fenelon; because of the artificial funeral
eulogies of Bossuet, we are more sensible to the practical efficiency of
Father Matthew; Calvin's intolerance heightens the glory of Luther's
vindication of spiritual freedom; the fanaticism of the Methodist, the
subtlety of the Jesuit, the cold rationalism of the Unitarian, the dark
bigotry of the Presbyterian, the monotonous tone of the Quaker, the
refined conservatism of the Episcopalian, and other characteristics of
sects, philosophically considered, are but the excess of a tendency which
also manifests its benign and desirable influence as an element of
Christian society. What liberal mind can reflect upon the agency of the
English Church, pregnant of abuses as it is, without feeling that she has
greatly contributed to preserve a wholesome equilibrium amid conflicting
agencies, to keep intact the dignity and hallowed associations of worship,
to calm the feverish impulses, and prolong a law of order amid chaotic
tendencies? What just observer will hesitate to award to Dissenters the
honour of imparting a vital spirit to the listless body of the Church,
renewing the sentiment of religion which had become dormant through
conventionalism and oppressive institutions, and making its divine reality
once more a conscious motive and solace to the world? How much have the
eminent preachers of liberal Christianity, in New England, done toward
enlarging the charity of sects, elevating the standard of pulpit
eloquence, and giving to the priestly office moral dignity and
intellectual force! Who that has witnessed the life-devotion of the
Sisters of Charity, in a season of pestilence, seen the tears on the
bronze cheeks of hardy mariners at the Bethel, or heard the bold protest
of the educated divine, above the voice of public opinion, at a social
crisis, pleading for principle against expediency, and has not, for the
moment at least, forgotten dogmas in grateful appreciation of the general
benefits resulting from the direct inspiration of that sentiment, which
the preacher, of whatever creed, is ordained to illustrate? Truly has it
been said, that 'it is the spirit of the soul's natural piety to alight on
whatever is beautiful and touching in every faith, and take thence its
secret draught of spiritual refreshment.' Even popular literature enforces
the argument. The lives of Fox, Wesley, Fenelon, Arnold, Chalmers, and
Channing, illustrate the same truth, that the man can sanction the priest,
the soul vindicate the office, and the reality of a sentiment reconcile or
sublimate discordant creeds.
That good maxim of the brave English lexicographer, 'Clear your mind of
cant;' and the noble appeal of Campbell's chivalric muse, who asks--
'Has Earth a clod
Where man, the image of his God,
Unscourged by Superstition's rod,
Should bend the knee?'
have an eternal significance. We are called upon to resist formalism by as
potential reasons as those which impel to sincere devotion. It is
evidenced in the best writings of the day, that the highest in man's
nature may be linked with the most ferocious and abject. Balfour of Burley
is but the fanciful embodiment of an actual union between religious zeal
and a thirst for blood. Blanco White's memoirs indicate the possible
variations of speculative belief in an honest and ardent mind; and true
observation induced John Foster to write his able treatise on _The
Objections of Men of Taste to Evangelical Religion_. 'There is no
denying,' says a popular reviewer, 'that there is a certain stiff, tough,
clayish, agricultural, English nature, on which the _aggressive divine_
produces a visible and good effect.' Father Marquette's adventurous
martyrdom, Pascal's metaphysical acuteness, the rude courage of John Knox,
the witch-chronicle of Mather, the magnetic power of Edward Irving, the
wit that scintillated from Sydney Smith, the poetry of Heber, the ideal
beauty of Buckminster's style, and the virtuous charm of Berkeley, prove
how the expositors of religion blend with professional life the essential
characteristics of man, and how impossible it is to divide the office we
are considering, from those qualities and conditions which belong
essentially to the race. In the face of such diversity, before such
acknowledged facts, how irrational is it to exempt the preacher from any
law either of life or character; how unphilosophical and untrue to regard
him in any other light than that of experience; and how unjust to imagine
there is any occult virtue in ceremonial systems of faith, or the accident
of vocation, whereby he derives any special authority unsustained by
personal gifts and rectitude.
The problem we have suggested, of an antagonism between the theological
profession, the office of priest, artificially held, and the manly
instincts, has recently been illustrated by the criticisms on Carlyle's
_Life of Sterling_. In that work, it is lamented that the mental freedom
and just development of a gifted, ingenuous, and aspiring soul were
restrained and baffled by the vocation of priest; and to this view
Churchmen indignantly protest, and accuse the biographer of infidelity. It
is evident, however, that it was not religion but its formula, not truth
but an institution, which he thought hampered and narrowed the legitimate
spirit of his friend. There is that which commands profound respect in
Carlyle's recoil from the conventional; there is justice in his
indignation at the attempt to link a true, loving, brave, and progressive
mind to any wheel of social machinery. To keep apart from an organized
mode of action is the instinct of the best natures,--not from pride, but
self-respect. Of modern writers few have a better right to claim for
literature an agency more effective. The press has, indeed, in a measure,
superseded the pulpit. No intelligent observer of the signs of the times
can fail to perceive that as a means of influence, the two are at least
equal. In the pages of journals, in the verses of poets, in the favourite
books of the hour, we have homilies that teach charity and faith more
eloquently than the conventional Sunday's discourse; they come nearer to
experience; they are more the offspring of earnest conviction, and
therefore enlist popular sympathy. When we turn from such genuine
pleadings and pictures to those offered by the unspiritual preacher,--how
unreal do the last appear! It was once remarked by an auditor of a genial
man, who gave a prescriptive emphasis to his sermons, quite foreign to his
frank nature, that he seemed to feel that what he uttered was 'important
if true;' and such is the impression not a few preachers leave on the
listener's mind. If we carefully note those within the sphere of our
acquaintance, we find that many are either visibly oppressed or rendered
artificial by their profession. It seldom harmoniously blends with their
nature. They seem painfully conscious of a false relation to society, or
manfully, and it may be recklessly, put aside the character, as if it were
indeed a masquerade. Either course is a proof of incongruity; and in those
cases where our confidence and affection are spontaneously yielded, is it
not the qualities of the man that win and hold them?--his spiritual
aptitude to, and not the fact of, his vocation?
In no profession do we find so many instances of a mistaken choice, and
this even when its duties are respectably fulfilled. The candid preacher,
when arrived at maturity, will not seldom confess with pain, that the
logical skill of the advocate, the love of representing nature of the
artist, the scientific skill of the physician, or the practical industry
of the man of affairs, constituted the natural basis of his usefulness;
and proved inadequate endowments in his actual vocation. Perhaps the great
error is in prematurely deciding on a step so responsible. To bind a
youth's interests, reputation, and opinions to the priesthood, as is
often done by the undue exercise of authority and influence, at an
impressible age, by Protestant not less than Catholic families, is a
positive wrong; and the moral courage which repudiates what was unjustly
assumed, is more deserving of honour than blame. Inefficiency, in such
cases, is proverbial: 'He talks like a parson,' said Lord Carteret of
Sherlock, 'and consequently is used to talk to people that do not mind
him.' A clergyman, in conversing with a gifted layman, used the phrase
'_born_ preacher.' 'I do not believe there is such a thing,' replied the
former, 'for it implies a born hearer, which is a being whose existence is
incompatible with my idea of the goodness of the Creator.' Occasionally we
see delightful exceptions to such an erroneous choice; men of firm yet
gentle souls, deep convictions, and sustained elevation, whose talents not
less than the spirit they are of, whose natural demeanour, habitual
temper, and constitutional sympathies, designate them for the sacred
office. We listen to their ministrations without misgiving, accept their
counsel, rise on the wings of their prayer, respond to their appeals, and
rejoice in their holiness--as a true and a blest incentive and
consolation. We ordain them with our hearts, for the idea of the preacher
is lost in that of the brother.
In these instances, the normal conditions of the office are realized, the
boundaries of sect forgotten, and the legitimate idea of a minister to the
religious sympathies practically made apparent. Such a preacher was
Fenelon, in whose life, aspect, and writings the love of God and man were
exhibited, with such pure consistency, that his name is a spell which
invokes all that is sacred in the associations of humanity. The
blandishments of a court, the rudeness of soldiers, the ignorance of
peasants, were alike chastened by his presence. Neither persecution, high
culture, nor the gifts of fortune, for a moment disturbed his holy
self-possession. He disarmed prejudice, envy, intrigue, and violence, by
the tranquil influence of the spirit he was of. Ecclesiastical power,
ceremony, tradition, and literary fame were but the incidental accessories
of his career. The principles of Christianity and the temper of its
genuine disciple so predominated in his actions, speech, manners,
writings, and in his very tones and expression of countenance, that every
heart, by the instinct of its best affections, recognized his spiritual
authority. The man thoroughly vindicated the office; therefore the
courtier at Versailles and the rustic of Cambray held him in equal
reverence.
In Madame Guyon, Anne Hutcheson, and Hannah More, we see the religious
sentiment and the instinct of proselytism in connection with the
idiosyncrasies of female character, rendered more affecting by its
tenderness, or losing in efficient dignity by the weakness of the sex. A
beautiful example of the natural preacher, unmodified by the paraphernalia
of the office, is given in Wirt's description of the Blind Preacher, while
its original identity with scholarship and philosophy is singularly
illustrated in the career of Abelard; and Molière's _Tartuffe_ is but the
dramatic embodiment of its extreme actual perversion at those periods when
the form, by a gradual process of social corruption, has completely
superseded the reality, and cant and hypocrisy are allowed to pass for
truth and emotion. All that is peculiar in the _modus operandi_ of sects
testifies to the constant adaptation of the office to occasion: thus the
itinerant episcopacy of the Methodists, the attractive temples of the
Catholics, the time-hallowed liturgy of the Church of England, the
immersing fonts of the Baptists, the plain language and prescriptive
uniformity of the Quakers, and the literary culture of the Unitarians,
appeal to certain tastes, feelings, or associations, which, although
independent of the religious sentiment, greatly tend to the impressiveness
of its outward manifestation upon different classes of persons. A
spiritual tendency is characteristic of Swedenborgians; an absence of the
sense of beauty is observable in the Friends; the superstitious element is
the usual trait of Romanists; conservatism prevails among Episcopalians;
and a progressive spirit and broad sympathies usually distinguish liberal
Christians. To a bigot this diversity is offensive; to a philosopher it is
the result of an inevitable and beneficent law. An American poet has aptly
described the scene which a Protestant city presents on a Sabbath morning,
when its streets are filled with the diverging streams of a population,
each moving toward its respective place of worship, in obedience to this
law of individual faith.
The word 'skeleton' as applied to the outline of sermons is very
significant, for this is the only feature they have in common when vital;
and yet how different the manner in which they are clothed with life!
Sometimes it is logic, sometimes enthusiasm; now the eloquence of the
heart, and now the ingenuity of the head that creates the animating
principle; in one instance the beauty of style, and in another the force
of conviction or the glow of sympathy; and there are cases where only
grace of manner, melody of voice, and the magnetism of the preacher's
temperament and delivery impart to his words their effect; for every grade
of rhetorical power, from the refinements of artificial study to the gush
of irresistible feeling, has scope in the pulpit; there is no sacred charm
in that rostrum except what its occupant brings; its possible scale
includes elocutionary tricks, and the most disinterested and unconscious
utterance; mediocrity lisps there its commonplace truisms, and devotional
genius breathes its holy oracles; it is the medium of complacent formulas
as well as of inspired truth.
The ancient philosophers and the modern essayists often apply wisdom to
life in the manner of the best sermonizers; and as Christianity has
infused its spirit into literature, this has become more apparent. Seneca
and Epictetus as moralists, and Plato in psychological speculation,
anticipated many of the sentiments that now have a religious authority.
Rousseau, in as far as he was true to humanity, Montaigne to the extent he
justly interprets the world, Bacon in the degree he indicates the
approaches to universal truth, Saint Pierre when awaking the sentiment of
beauty as revealed in Nature, Shakspeare by the memorable development of
the laws of character, Dante as the picturesque limner of the material
faith of the middle ages, Richter in his beautiful exposition of human
sentiment,--all exhibit a phase or element of the preacher, and in the
writings of Milton and Chateaubriand it breaks forth with a still more
direct emphasis. Carlyle and Coleridge, Isaac Taylor, Wordsworth, Lamb,
and many other effective modern writers, are among the most influential of
lay preachers. And this unprofessional teaching, this priesthood of
nature, has multiplied with the progress of society, so that every
community has its father confessors, its sisters of charity, its gifted
interpreters and eloquent advocates; while literature, even in forms the
most profane, continually emulates the sacred function, yielding great
lessons, exciting holy sentiment, and demonstrating pure faith. Indeed it
is characteristic of the age, that the technical is becoming merged in the
æsthetic; as culture extends, the distinctive in pursuit and office loses
its prominence. Lamb jocosely told Coleridge he never heard him do
anything but preach; and there is scarcely a favourite among the authors
of the day that, in some way, does not hallow his genius by consecrating
it to an interpretation or sentiment which, in its last analysis, is
religious.
In these considerations may be found a partial explanation of that
diminution of individual agency in the priesthood to which we have
referred. The modern religious teachers also, as we have seen, have not
the same extent of ignorance to vanquish as the old divines. The line of
demarcation between ecclesiastical polity and Christian truth is more
evident to the multitude; and it is now felt as never before, that 'a
heart of deep sympathies solves all theological questions in the flame of
its love and justice.' Hence the comparative indifference to controversy;
and the recognition of the primal fact--so truly stated by the same
reflective writer--that 'spiritual insight, moral elevation, rich
sympathies, are the tokens whereby the divinely-ordained are
signalized.'[45]
The practical inference is, that never before was the obligation of
personal responsibility in spiritual interests, on the part of the laity,
so apparent, nor that of a thorough integrity in the preacher. To be
'clear in his great office'--to rely on absolute gifts and essentials of
character--to cleave to simplicity and truth, and keep within the line of
honest conviction, is now his only guarantee, not only of self-respect,
but of usefulness and honour. Organization, form, tact, theological
acquirement, the _prestige_ of traditional importance, are of little
efficacy. The scientific era--the reaction to first causes--the universal
and intense demand for the real--the exposure of delusions--the test of
wide intelligence and fearless inquiry--the jealousy of mental
freedom--the multiplied sources of devotional sentiment--the earnestness
of the age--all invoke him to repudiate the machinery, the historical
badge, the conventional resources of his title--nay, to lose, if possible,
his title itself--and incarnate only the everlasting principles, laws, and
sentiments, by virtue of which alone he may hope for inspiration or claim
authority.
STATUES.
'And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven
The fire which we endure, it was repaid
By him to whom the energy was given,
Which this poetic marble hath arrayed
With an eternal glory.'--BYRON.
There is as absolute an instinct in the human mind for the definite, the
palpable, and the emphatic, as there is for the mysterious, the versatile,
and the elusive. With some, method is a law, and taste severe in affairs,
costume, exercise, social intercourse, and faith. The simplicity,
directness, uniformity, and pure emphasis or grace of Sculpture have
analogies in literature and character; the terse despatch of a brave
soldier, the concentrated dialogue of Alfieri, some proverbs, aphorisms,
and poetic lines, that have become household words, puritanic consistency,
silent fortitude, are but so many vigorous outlines, and impress us by
virtue of the same colourless intensity as a masterpiece of the statuary.
How sculpturesque is Dante, even in metaphor, as when he writes,--
'Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa;
Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardando,
A guisa di leon quando si posa.'
Nature, too, hints the art, when her landscape tints are covered with
snow, and the forms of tree, rock, and mountain are clearly defined by the
universal whiteness. Death, in its pale, still, fixed image,--always
solemn, sometimes beautiful,--would have inspired primeval humanity to
mould and chisel the lineaments of clay. Even New Zealanders elaborately
carve their war-clubs; and from the 'graven images' prohibited by
Decalogue as objects of worship, through the mysterious granite effigies
of ancient Egypt, the brutal anomalies in Chinese porcelain, the gay and
gilded figures on a ship's prow,--whether emblems of rude ingenuity,
tasteless caprice, retrospective sentiment, or embodiments of the highest
physical and mental culture, as in the Greek statues,--there is no art
whose origin is more instructive and progress more historically
significant. The vases of Etruria are the best evidence of her degree of
civilization; the designs of Flaxman on Wedgwood ware redeem the
economical art of England; the Bears at Berne and the Wolf in the Roman
Capitol are the most venerable local insignia; the carvings of Gibbons, in
old English manor-houses, outrival all the luxurious charms of modern
upholstery; Phidias is a more familiar element in Grecian history than
Pericles; the moral energy of the old Italian republics is more
impressively shadowed forth and conserved in the bold and vigorous
creations of Michael Angelo than in the political annals of Macchiavelli;
and it is the massive, uncouth sculptures, half buried in sylvan
vegetation, which mythically transmit the ancient people of Central
America.
We confess a faith in, and a love for, the 'testimony of the rocks,'--not
only as interpreted by the sagacious Scotchman, as he excavated the 'old
red sandstone,' but as shaped into forms of truth, beauty, and power by
the hand of man through all generations. We love to catch a glimpse of
these silent memorials of our race, whether as Nymphs half shaded at
noonday with summer foliage in a garden, or as Heroes gleaming with
startling distinctness in the moonlit city square; as the similitudes of
illustrious men gathered in the halls of nations and crowned with a
benignant fame, or as prone effigies on sepulchres, for ever proclaiming
the calm without the respiration of slumber, so as to tempt us to exclaim,
with the enamoured gazer on the Egyptian queen, when the asp had done its
work,--
'She looks like sleep,
As she would catch another Antony
In her strong _toil of grace_.'
Although Dr. Johnson undervalued sculpture, partly because of an
inadequate sense of the beautiful, and partly from ignorance of its
greatest trophies, he expressed unqualified assent to its awe-inspiring
influence in 'the monumental caves of death,' as described by Congreve.
Sir Joshua truly declares that 'all arts address themselves to the
sensibility and imagination;' and no one thus alive to the appeal of
sculpture, will marvel that the infuriated mob spared the statues of the
Tuileries at the bloody climax of the French Revolution; that a 'love of
the antique,' knit in bonds of lifelong friendship Winckelmann and
Cardinal Albani; that among the most salient of childhood's memories
should be Memnon's image and the Colossus of Rhodes; that an imaginative
girl of exalted temperament died of love for the Apollo Belvidere, and
that Carrara should win many a pilgrimage because its quarries have
peopled earth with grace.
To a sympathetic eye there are few more pleasing tableaux than a gifted
sculptor engaged in his work. How absorbed he is!--standing erect by the
mass of clay,--with graduated touch moulding into delicate undulations or
expressive lines the inert mass; now stepping back to see the effect, now
bending forward, almost lovingly, to add a master indentation or detach a
thin layer; and so, hour after hour, working on, every muscle in action,
each perception active, oblivious of time, happy in the gradual
approximation, under patient and thoughtful manipulation, of what was a
dense heap of earth, to a form of vital expression or beauty.