younger than Harrington. The afternoon was spent very pleasantly in
general conversation. In the evening, after tea, we went into the
library. I told the two friends that, as they had doubtless much to
talk of, and as I had plenty of occupation for my pen, I would sit
down at an adjoining table with my desk, and they might go on with
their chat. They did so, and for some time talked of old college
days and on indifferent subjects; but my attention was soon
irresistibly attracted by finding them getting into conversation in
which, on Harrington's account, I felt a deeper interest. I found my
employment impossible, and yet, desiring to hear them discuss their
theological differences without constraint, I did not venture to
interrupt them. At last the distraction became intolerable; and,
looking up, I said, "Gentlemen, I believe you might talk on the most
private matters without my attending to one syllable you said; but
if you get upon these theological subjects, such is my present
interest in them," glancing at Harrington, "that I shall be
perpetually making blunders in my manuscript. Let me beg of you to
avoid them when I am with you, or let me go into another room."
Harrington would not hear of the last; and as to the first he said,
and said truly, that it would impede the free current of conversation,
"which," said he, "to be pleasurable at all, must wind hither and
thither as the fit takes us. It is like a many-stringed lyre, and
to break any one of the chords is to mar the music. And so, my good
uncle, if you find us getting upon these topics, join us; we shall
seldom be long at a time upon them. I will answer for it; or if you
will not do that, and yet, though disturbed by our chatter, are too
polite to show it, why, amuse yourself (I know your old tachygraphic
skill, which used to move my wonder in childhood), I say, amuse
yourself, or rather avenge yourself, by jotting down some fragments
of our absurdities, and afterwards showing us what a couple of fools
we have been." I was secretly delighted with the suggestion; and, when
the subjects of dispute were very interesting, threw aside my work,
whatever it was, and reported them pretty copiously. Hence the
completeness and accuracy of this admirable journal. I cannot of
course always, or even often, vouch for the ipsissima verba; and some
few explanatory sentences I have been obliged to add. But the substance
of the dialogues is faithfully given. I need not say, that they refer
only to subjects of a theological and polemical nature.
I hardly know how the conversation took the turn it did on the present
occasion; but I think it was from Mr. Fellowes's noticing Harrington's
pale looks, and conjecturing all sorts of reasons for his occasional
lapses into melancholy.
His friend hoped this and hoped that, as usual.
Harrington at last, seeing his curiosity awakened, and that he would
go on conjecturing all sorts of things, said, "To terminate your
suspense, be it known to that I am a bankrupt!"
"A bankrupt!" said the other, with evident alarm; "you surely have
not been so unwise as to risk recently acquired property, or to
speculate in----"
"You have hit it," said Harrington; "I have speculated far more
deeply than you suppose."
The countenance of his friend lengthened visibly.
"Be not alarmed." resumed Harrington, with a smile; "I mean that
I have speculated a good deal in--philosophy, and when I
said I was a bankrupt, I meant only that I was a bankrupt--in faith;
having become in fact, since I saw you last, thoroughly sceptical."
The countenance of Fellowes contracted to its proper dimensions. He
looked even cheerful to find that his friend had merely lost his
faith, and not his fortune.
"Is that all?" said he, "I am heartily glad to hear it. Sceptic! No,
no; you must not be a sceptic either, except for a time," continued
he, musing very sagely. "It is no bad thing for a while: for it at
least leaves the house 'empty, swept and garnished.'"
"Rather an unhappy application of your remnant of Biblical knowledge,"
said Harrington; "I hope you do not intend to go on with the text."
"No, no, my dear friend; I warrant you we shall find you worthier
guests than any such fragments of supposed revelation. If you are in
'search of a religion,' how happy should I be to aid you!"
"I shall be infinitely obliged to you," said Harrington, gravely;
"for at present I do not know that I possess a farthing's worth of
solid gold in the world. Ah! that it were but in your power to lend
me some: but I fear" (he added half sarcastically) "that you have
not got more than enough for yourself. I assure you that I am far
from happy."
He spoke with so much gravity, that I hardly knew whether to
attribute it to some intention of dissembling a little with his
friend, or to an involuntary expression of the experience of a mind
that felt the sorrows of a genuine scepticism. It might be both.
However, it brought things to a crisis at once. His college friend
looked equally surprised and pleased at his appeal.
"I trust," said he, with becoming solemnity, "that all this is
merely a temporary reaction from having believed too much; the
languor and dejection which attend the morrow after a night's
debauch. I assure you that I rejoice rather than grieve to hear
that you have curtailed your orthodoxy. It has been just my
own case, as you know: only I flatter myself, that, perhaps having
less subtilty than you, I have not passed the 'golden mean' between
superstition and scepticism,--between believing too much and
believing too little."
I looked up for a moment. I saw a laugh in Harrington's eyes, but
not a feature moved. It passed away immediately.
"I tell you," said he, "that I believe absolutely no one religious
dogma whatever; while yet I would give worlds, if I had them, to set
my foot upon a rock. I should even be grateful to any one, who, if he
did not give me truth, gave me a phantom of it, which I could mistake
for reality." He again spoke with an earnestness of tone and manner,
which convinced me that, if there were any dissimulation, it cost him
little trouble.
"If you merely meant," said Fellowes, "that you do not retain any
vestige of your early 'historical' and 'dogmatical' Christianity, why,
I retain just as little of it. Indeed, I doubt," he continued, with
perhaps superfluous candor, "whether I ever was a Christian"; and he
seemed rather anxious to show that his creed had been nominal.
"If it will save you the trouble of proving it." said Harrington,
"I will liberally grant you both your premises and your conclusion,
without asking you to state the one or prove the other."
"Well, then, Christian or no Christian. there was a time, at all
events, when I was orthodox, you will grant that; when I should hate
been willing to sign the Thirty-nine Articles: or three hundred and
thirty-nine; or the Confession of Faith: or any other compilation, or
all others; though perhaps, if strictly examined, I might have been
found in the condition of the infidel Scotch professor, who, being
asked on his appointment to his Chair, whether the 'Confession of
Faith' contained all that he believed, replied, 'Yes, Gentlemen, and
a great deal more.' I have rejected all 'creeds'; and I have now
found what the Scripture calls that 'peace which passeth all
understanding.'"
"I am sure it passes mine," said Harrington, "if you really have found
it, and I should be much obliged to you if you would let me participate
in the discovery."
"Yes," said Fellowes, "I have been delivered from the intolerable
burden of all discussions as to dogma, and all examinations of evidence.
I have escaped from the 'bondage of the letter,' and have been
Introduced into the 'liberty of the spirit.'"
"Your language, at all events, is richly Scriptural," said Harrington;
"it is as though you were determined not to leave the 'letter' of the
Scripture, even if you renounce the 'spirit' of it."
"Renounce the spirit of it! say rather, that in fact I have only now
discovered it. Though no Christian in the ordinary sense, I am, I hope,
something better; and a truer Christian in the spirit than thousands of
those in the letter."
"Letter and spirit! my friend," said Harrington, "you puzzle me
exceedingly; you tell me one moment that you do not believe in
historical Christianity at all, either its miracles or dogmas,--these
are fables; but in the next, why, no old Puritan could garnish
such discourse with a more edifying use of the language of Scripture.
I suppose you will next tell me that you understand the 'spirit' of
Christianity better even than Paul."
"So I do," said our visitor complacently, "'Paulo majora canamus';
for after all he was but half delivered from his Jewish prejudices;
and when he quitted nonsense of the Old Testament,--though in fact he
never did thoroughly,--he evidently believed the fables of the New
just as much as the pure truths which lie at the basis of 'spiritual'
Christianity. We separate the dross of Christianity from its fine gold.
'The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,'--'the fruit of the
spirit is joy, peace,' not---"
"Upon my word," said Harrington, laughing, "I shall begin to fancy
presently that Douce Davie Deans has turned infidel, and shall expect
to hear of 'right-hand failings off and left-hand defections.' But
tell me, if you would have me think you rational, is not your meaning
this:--that the New Testament contains, amidst an infinity of rubbish,
the statement of certain 'spiritual' truths which, and which alone,
you recognize."
"Certainly."
"But you do not acknowledge that these are derived from the New
Testament."
"Heaven forbid; they are indigenous to the heart of man, and are
anterior to all Testaments, old or new."
"Very well; then speak of them as your heart dictates, and do not,
unless you would have the world think you a hypocrite, willing to
cajole it with the idea that you are a believer in the New
Testament, while you in fact reject it, or one of the most barren
uninventive of all human beings, or fanatically fond of mystical
language,--do not, I say, affect this very unctuous way of talking.
And, for another reason, do not. I beseech you, adopt the phraseology
of men who, according to your view, must surely have been either the
most miserable fanatics or the most abominable impostors; for if they
believed all that system of miracle and doctrine they professed, and
this were not true, they were certainly the first; and if they did
not believe it. They were as certainly the second."
"Pardon me; I believe them to have been eminently holy men,--full of
spiritual wisdom and of a truly sublime faith, though conjoined with
much ignorance and credulity, which it is unworthy of us to tolerate."
"Whether it could be ignorance and credulity on your theory," retorted
Harrington, "is to my mind very doubtful. Whether any men can untruly
affirm that they saw and did the things the Apostles say they saw and
did, and yet be sincere fanatics, I know not; but even were it so,
since it shows (as do also the mystical doctrines you reject as false)
that they could be little less than out of their senses; and as you
further say that the spiritual sentiments you retain in common with
them were no gift of theirs, but are yours and all mankind's, by
original inheritance, uttered by the oracle of the human heart before
any Testaments were written,--why, speak your thoughts in your
own language."
"Ay, but how do we know that these original Christians said that
they had seen and done the things you refer to? which of course they
never did see and do, because they were miraculous. How do we know
what additions and corruptions as to fact, and what disguises of
mystical doctrine, 'the idealizing biographers and historians' (as
Strauss truly calls them) may have accumulated upon their
simple utterances?"
"And how do you know, then, whether they ever uttered these simple
'utterances'? or whether they are not part of the corruptions? or
how can you separate the one from the other? or how can you ascertain
these men meant what you mean, when you thus vilely copy their
language?"
"Because I know these truths independently of Bible, to be sure."
"Then speak of them independently of the Bible. If you profess to
have broken the stereotype-plates of the 'old revelation' and
delivered mankind from their bondage, do not proceed to express
yourself only in fragments from them; if you profess freedom of
soul, and the possession of the pure truth, do not appear to be so
poverty-stricken as to array your thoughts in the tatters of
the cast-off Bible."
"Ay, but the 'saints' of the Bible," replied Fellows, "are, even
by Mr. Frank Newman's own confession, those who have entered, after
all, most profoundly the truths of spiritual religion, and stand
almost alone in the history of the world in that respect."
"If it be so, it is certainly very odd, considering the mountain-loads
of folly, error, fable, fiction, from which their spiritual religion
did not in your esteem defend them, and which you say you are
obliged to reject. It is a phenomenon of which, I think, you are
bound to give some account."
"But what is there so wonderful in supposing them in possession of
superior 'spiritual' advantages, with mistaken history and fallacious
logic, and so forth?"
"Why" answered Harrington, "one wonder is, that they alone, and
amidst such gross errors, should possess these spiritual advantages.
But it also appears to me that your notions of the 'spiritual' are
not the same theirs, for you reject the New Testament dogmas as well
as its history; if so, it is another reason for not misleading us by
using language in deceptive senses. But, at all events, I cannot help
pitying your poverty of thought, or poverty of expression,--one or
both; and I beg you, for my sake, if not for your own, to express your
thoughts as much as possible in your own terms, and avail yourself
less liberally of those of David and Paul, whose language ordinary
Christians will always associate with another meaning, and can never
believe you sincere in supposing that it rightfully expresses the
doctrines of your most; spiritual' infidelity. They will certainly
hear your Scriptural and devout language with the same feelings
with which they would nauseate that most oppressive of all odors,
--the faint scent of lavender in the chamber of death. My good uncle
here, who cannot be prevailed upon to reject the Bible will not, I
am sure, hear you, without supposing that you resemble those
Rationalists of whom Menzel says, 'These gentlemen smilingly taught
their theological pupils that unbelief was the true apostolic,
primitive Christian belief; they put all their insipidities into
Christ's month, and made him, by means of their exegetical jugglery,
sometimes a Kantian, sometimes a Hegelian, sometimes one ian and
sometimes another, 'wie es dem Herrn Professor beliebt': neither
will he be able to imagine that you are not resorting to this
artifice for the same purpose. 'The Bible,' says Menzel, 'and
their Reason being incompatible, why do they not let them remain
separate? Why insist on harmonizing things which do not, and
never can harmonize? It is because they are aware that the Bible
has authority with the people; otherwise they would never trouble
themselves about so troublesome a book.' I cannot suspect you of
such hypocrisy; but I must confess I regard your language as cant.
As I listen to you I seem to see a hybrid between Prynne and
Voltaire. So far from its being true that you have renounced
the 'letter' of the Bible and retained its 'spirit,' I think it
would be much more correct to say, comparing your infidel
hypothesis with your most spiritual dialect, that you have renounced
the 'spirit' of the Bible and retained its 'letter.'"
"But are you in a condition to give an opinion?" said Fellowes, with
a serious air. "Mr. Newman says in a like case, 'The natural man
discerneth not things of the spirit of God, because they are
foolishness unto him'; it is the 'spiritual man only who search
the deep things of God.' At the same time I freely acknowledge that
I never could see my way clear to employ an argument which looks
so arrogant; and the less, as I believe, with Mr. Parker, that
the only revelation is in all men alike. Yet, on the other hand,
I cannot doubt my own consciousness."
"Why, no man doubts his own consciousness," said Harrington, laughing.
"The question is, What is its value? What is the criterion of universal
'spiritual truth,' if there be any? Those words in Paul's mouth were
well, and had a meaning. In yours, I suspect they would have none,
or a very different one. He dreamt that he was giving to mankind
(vainly, as seems) a system of doctrines and truths which were,
many of them, transcendental to the human intellect and conscience,
and which when revealed were very distasteful (and not least to
you); but the assertion of a spiritual monopoly would assuredly
sound rather odd in one who professes, if I understand you, that
has given to man (for it is no discovery of any individual) an
internal and universal revelation! But of your possible limitations
of your universal spiritual revelation,--which all men 'naturally'
possess, but which the 'natural man' receiveth not,--we will talk
after. Sceptic as I am, I am not a sceptic who is reconciled to
scepticism. Meantime, you reject the Bible in toto, as an external
revelation of God, if I understand you."
"In toto; and I believe that it has received in this age its
death-blow."
"Ay, that is what the infidel has been always promising us; meantime,
they somehow perish, and it laughs at them. You remember, perhaps,
the words of old Woolston, so many fragments of whose criticism,
as those of many others, have been incorporated by Strauss. He had,
as he elegantly expresses it, 'cut out such a piece of work for the
Boylean lectures as should hold them tug as long as the ministry of
the letter should last'; for he too, you see, masked his infidelity
by a distinction between the 'letter' and the 'spirit,' though he
applied the convenient terms in a totally different sense. Poor soul!
The fundamental principles of his infidelity are surrendered by
Strauss himself. Similarly, a score of assailants of the Bible have
appeared and vanished since his day; each proclaiming, just as he
himself went to the bottom, that he had given the Bible its death-blow!
Somehow, however, that singular book continues to flourish, to
Propagate itself, to speak all languages, to intermingle more and
more with the literature of all civilized nations; while mankind
will not accept, slaves as they are, the intellectual freedom you
offer them. It is really very provoking; of what use is it to destroy
the Bible so often, when it lives the next minute? I have little doubt
your new attempts will end just like the labors of the Rationalists
of the Paulus school, so graphically described by the German writer
whom I have already referred to. 'It is sad, no doubt,' says he, or
something to the same effect, 'that, after fifty years' exegetical
grubbing, weeding, and pruning at 'the mighty primitive forest of
the Bible, the next generation should persist in saying that the
Rationalist had destroyed the forest only in his own addled
imagination, and that it is just as it was.'"
"Yes; but the new weapons will not be so easily evaded as those
of a past age."
"Will they not? We shall see. You must not prophesy; in that,
you know, you do not believe."
"No; but nevertheless we shall see so-called sacred dogma and
history exploded, for Mr. Newman--"
"Thinks so, of course; and he must be right, because he has never
been known to be wrong in any of his judgments, or even to vary
in them. But we have had enough, I think, of these subjects this
evening, and it is too bad to give you only a controversial welcome.
I want to have some conversation with you about very different
things, and more pleasant just now. We shall have plenty of
opportunity to discuss theological points."
To this Fellowes assented: they resumed general conversation, and
I finished my letters.
----
July 3. We were all sitting, as on the previous day, in the library.
"Book-faith!" I heard Harrington say, laughing; "why, as to that I must
needs acknowledge that the whole school of Deism, 'rational' or
'spiritual,' have the least reason in the world to indulge in
sneers at book-faith; for, upon my word, their faith has consisted
in little else. Their systems are parchment religions, my friend,
all of them;--books, books, for ever, from Lord Herbert's time
downwards, are all they have yet given to the world. They have ever
been boastful and loud-tongued, but have done nothing; there are no
great social efforts, no organizations, no practical projects,
whether successful or futile, to which they can point. The old
'book-faiths' which you venture to ridicule have been something at
all events; and, in truth, I can find no other 'faith' than what is
somehow or other attached to a 'book,' which has been any thing
influential. The Vedas, the Koran, the Old Testament Scriptures,--
those of the New,--over how many millions have these all reigned!
Whether their supremacy be right or wrong, their doctrine true
or false, is another question; but your faith, which has been
book-faith and lip-service par excellence, has done nothing that I
can discover. One after another of your infidel Reformers passes
away, and leaves no trace behind, except a quantity of crumbling
'book-faith.' You have always been just on the eve of extinguishing
supernatural fables, dogmas, and superstitions,--and then
regenerating the world! Alas! the meanest superstition that crawls
laughs at you; and, false as it may be, is still stronger than you."
"And your sect," retorted Fellowes, rather warmly, "if you come to
that, is it not the smallest of all? Is that likely to find favor
in the eyes of mankind?"
"Why, no," said Harrington, with provoking coolness; "but then it
makes no pretensions to any thing of the kind. It were strange if it
did; for as the sceptic doubts if any truth can be certainly attained
by man on those subjects on which the 'rational' or the 'spiritual'
deist dogmatizes, it of course professes to be incapable of
constructing any thing."
"And does construct nothing," retorted Fellowes.
"Very true," said Harrington, "and therein keeps its word; which is
more, I fear, than can be said with your more ambitious spiritualists,
who profess to construct, and do not."
"But you must give the school of spiritualism time: it is only just
born. You seem to me to be confounding the school of the old, dry,
logical deism with the young, fresh, vigorous, earnest school' which
appeals to 'insight' and 'intuition.'"
"No," said Harrington, "I think I do not confound. The first and
the best of our English deists derived his system as immediately
from intuitions as Mr. Parker or you. You know how it sped--or, if
you do not, you may easily discover--with his successors: they
continually disputed about it, curtailed it, added to it, altered
it, agreed in nothing but the author's rejection of Christianity,
and forgot more and more the decency of his style. So will it be with
your Mr. Newman and his successors. They will acquiesce in his
rejection Christianity; depend upon it, in nothing more. He may get
his admirers to abandon the Bible, but they will have naught to do
with the 'loves, and joys, and sorrows, and raptures, which he
describes in the 'Soul'; they would just as soon read the
'Canticles.'"
"I really cannot admit," said Fellowes, "that we modern spiritualists
are to be confounded with Lord Herbert."
"Not confounded with him, certainly," replied Harrington, "but
identified with him you may be; except to be sure, that he was convinced
of the immortality of man as one of the few articles of all religion;
while many of you deny, or doubt it. The doctrines--"
"Call them sentiments, rather; I like that term better."
"O, certainly, if you prefer it; only be pleased to observe that a
sentiment felt is a fact, and a fact is a truth, and a truth may
surely be expressed in a proposition. That is all I am anxious about
at present. If so far, at least, we may not patch up the divorce
which Mr. Newman has pronounced between the 'intellect and the 'soul,'
it is of no use for us to talk about the matter. I say that Lord
Herbert's articles--"
"There again, 'articles,'" said Fellowes; "I hate the word; I could
almost imagine that you were going to recite the formidable Thirty-nine."
"Rather, from your outcry, one would suppose I was about to inflict
the forty save one: but do not be alarmed. The articles neither of
Lord Herbert's creed nor of your own, I suspect, are thirty-nine, or
any thing like it. The catalogue will be soon exhausted."
"Here again, 'creed': I detest the word. We have no creed. Your very
language chills me. It reminds me of the dry orthodoxy of the 'letter,'
'logical processes,' 'intellectual propositions,' and so forth. Speak
of 'spiritual truths' and 'sentiments,' which are the product of
immediate 'insight,' of 'an insight into God,' a 'spontaneous impression
on the gazing soul,' to adopt Mr. Newman's beautiful expressions, and I
shall understand you."
"I am afraid I shall hardly understand myself then," cried Harrington.
"But let us not be scared by mere words, nor go into hysterics at the
sound of 'logic' and 'creed,' lest 'sentimental spirituality' be found,
like some other 'sentimental' things, a bundle of senseless affectations."
"But you forget that there is all the difference in the world between
Herbert and his deistical successors. They connected religion with the
'intellectual and sensational,' and we with the 'instinctive and
emotional' sides of human nature."