direction quite far enough; and his foreign guest should be made
uncomfortable by these close inquiries, observed, sarcastically,
that he was glad to find that the querists were so anxious to
secure the inestimable privilege of freely reading Scriptures. "It
is the more admirable," said he to last speaker, "as I am aware it
is most disinterested; you having too little value for the Scriptures
to read them yourself. Sic vos non vobis: you labor for others.
You remind me of the colloquy in the 'Citizen of the World,' between
the debtor in jail and the soldier outside his prison window. They
were discussing, you recollect, the chances of a French invasion.
'For my part,' cries the prisoner, 'the greatest of my apprehensions
is for our freedom; if the French should conquer, what would become
of English liberty? 'It is not so much our liberties,' says the
soldier, with a profane oath, 'as our religion, that would suffer
by such a change; ay, our religion, my lads!'"
The company laughed, and the assailants forgot the former topics. Our
host went on further to encourage his foreign guest, though in a
left-handed way, with a gravity which, if I had not known him, would
not only have staggered, but even imposed upon me.
"For my part," said he, "my good Sir, if I were you, I should not
hesitate to acknowledge at once that it is not only the true policy,
but the solemn duty, of the Church of Rome to seclude as much as
possible the Scriptures from the people." The gentleman looked
gratified, and the guests were all attention. "In my judgment much
more can be said on behalf of the practice than at first appears; and
if I sincerely believed all you do, I should certainly advocate the
most stringent measures of repression."
The foreigner began to look quite at his ease. "For example," continued
Harrington, in a very quiet tone, "supposing I believed, as you do,
that the Holy Virgin is entitled to all the honors which you pay her,
so that, as is well known, in Italy and other countries, she even
eclipses her Son, and is more eagerly and fondly worshipped,--it
would be impossible for me to peruse the meagre accounts given in
the New Testament of this so prominent an object of Catholic
reverence and worship,--to read the brief, frigid, not to say harsh
speeches of Christ,--to contemplate the stolidity of the Apostles with
regard to her, throughout their Epistles,--never even mentioning her
name,--I say it would be impossible for me to read all this without
having the idea suggested that it was never intended that I should
pay her such homage as you demand for her, or without feeling
suspicious that the New Testament disowned it and knew nothing of it."
"Very true," said the Italian: "I must say that I have often felt that
there is such a danger to myself."
"Similarly, what a shock would it perpetually be to my deep reverence
for the spiritual head of the Church, and my conviction of his
undoubted inheritance, from the Prince of the Apostles, of his
august prerogatives, to find no trace of such a personage as the
Pope in the sacred page,--the title of 'Bishop of Rome' never
whispered,--no hint given that Peter was ever even there! I really
think it would be impossible to read the book without feeling my
flesh creep and my heart full of doubt. Similarly, take that single
mystery of 'transubstantiation'; though it seems sufficiently
asserted in one text, which therefore it well (as is, indeed, the
practice with every pious Catholic) continually to quote alone, yet,
when I look into other portions of the New Testament, I see how
perpetually Christ is employing metaphors equally strong, without
any such mystery being attached to them. I cannot but feel that I
and every other vulgar reader would be sure to be exposed to the
peril of suspecting that in that single case a metaphorical meaning
much more probable than so great a mystery."
"You reason fairly, my dear Sir," said the Italian.
"Again," continued Harrington, blandly bowing to the compliment,
"believing, as I should, in the efficacy of the intercessions of
the saints, in the worship of images, in seven sacraments, in
indulgences, and necessity of observing a ritual incomparably more
elaborate than an undeveloped Christianity admitted, how very, very
apt I should be to misinterpret many passages, both in the Old
Testament and the New! How is it possible that the vulgar reader
should be able to limit the command not to bow down 'to any graven
image' to its true meaning,--that is, 'to any image' except those
of the Virgin and all the saints; to interpret aright the passages
which speak so absolutely about the one Mediator and Intercessor,
when there are thousands! How will he be necessarily startled to
find 'seven' sacraments grown out of 'two'! How will he be shocked
at the apparent--of course only apparent--contempt with which
St. Paul speaks of ritual and ceremonial matters, of the futility of
'fasts' and distinctions of 'meats and drinks,' of observing 'days
and months and years.' and so on. His whole language, I contend,
would necessarily mislead the simple into heresies innumerable. Of
numberless texts, again, even if the meaning were not mistaken, the
true meaning would never be discovered unless the Church had
declared it. Who, for example, would have supposed that the doctrine
of the Pope's supremacy and universal jurisdiction lay hid under
expressions such as 'I say unto thee that thou art Peter,' and
'Feed my sheep'; or that the two swords of the Prince of the
Apostles meant the temporal and spiritual authority with which
he was invested? Under such circumstances, I must say, that, if I
were a devout Catholic, I should plead for the absolute suppression
of a book so infinitely likely--nay, so necessarily certain--to
mislead."
"It is precisely on that ground," said the Italian, "and on that
ground only, the welfare of the Church, that our Holy Mother does
not approve of the Bible being read generally. The true theory of
the Roman Catholic Church would never be elicited from it."
"Precisely so," said our host, gravely; "I am sure it could not."
"But then," remarked our friend, the Deist, "since the Church of
Rome holds this book to be the inspired revelation of God to mankind,
is it not singular to say that this 'revelation' requires to be
carefully concealed from mankind; that the Bible is invaluable,
indeed, but only while it is unread; and that, in fact, the Church
knows herself better than Jesus Christ himself did? for in that
book we are supposed to have the words of Him and her founders,
and yet it seems they could only mislead! 'Never man spake like this
man,' may well be said of Christ, if this were true."
"Never mind him, Signor," said our host. "He secretly cannot but
approve of your end, though he disapproves the means." The Deist
looked surprised.
"Why, have you not sometimes said that you believe the Bible to be,
in many respects, a most pernicious book? that many of the most
obstinate and dangerous prejudices of mankind are principally
due to it? and that you wish it were in your power to destroy it?"
"Well, I certainly have thought so, if not said so."
"Then you approve of the end, though you disapprove of the means.
You ought to thank our friend here, and regret that his work is not
done more effectually. But enough of this. I must not have my
respected Roman Catholic guests alone put on the defensive. The
Signor fairly tells us what his system is in relation to the Bible
and why he would place it under lock and key; he tells you also what
better thing he substitutes when he removes the Bible. I really think
it is but fair and candid in you to do as much. I know you all
believe that you are not only in quest of religious truth, but have
found it to some extent or other:--for my own part I am exempted
from speaking; for I have given over the search in despair."
This frank acknowledgment was followed by some highly curious
conversation, of which I regret my inability to recall all the
particulars. Suffice it to say, that there were not two who were
agreed either as to the grounds on which Christianity was deemed a
thing of naught, or on what was to be substituted in its place; one
even had his doubts whether any thing need be substituted, and
another thought that any thing might be. One of the Rationalists was
a little offended at being supposed willing to "abandon" the Bible
at all: he declared, on the contrary, his unfeigned reverence for
the New Testament at least, as containing, in larger mass and purer
ore than any other book in the world, the principles of ethical truth;
that he was willing even to admit--with exquisite naivete--that it
was inspired in the same sense in which Plato's Dialogues and the Koran
were inspired; he merely dispensed with all that was supernatural and
miraculous and mystical! The Deist laughed, and told him that he
believed just as much, if that constituted a Christian. "I believe,"
said he, "that the New Testament is quite as much inspired as the
Koran of Mahomet; and that it contains more of ethical truth (however
it came there) than is to be found in any other book of equal bulk.
But," he proceeded, "if you dispense with all that is miraculous in
the facts, and all that is peculiar and characteristic in the
doctrines,--that is, all which discriminates Christianity from any
other religion,--I am afraid that your Christianity is own born
brother to my Infidelity. As for your reverence for this inspired
book, since you must reject ninety per cent. of the whole, it seems
to me very gratuitous; equally so, whether you suppose the compilers
believed or disbelieved the facts and doctrines you reject; if the
former, and they were deceived, they must have been inspired
idiots; if the latter, and were deceiving others, they were surely
inspired knaves. For my part," he continued, "while I hold that the
book somehow does unaccountably contain more of the morally true
and beautiful than any book of equal extent, I also hold that
Christianity itself is a pure imposture from beginning to end."
This coarse avowal of adherence to the elder, and, after all, more
intelligible deism, brought down upon him at once two of the company.
One was the disciple of Strauss (I mean as regards his theory of the
origin of Christianity, not as regards his Pantheism); the other a
Rationalist, with about the same small tatters of Christianity
fluttering about him, but who was a little disposed, like so many
German theologians, to consider Strauss as somewhat passe. Unhappily,
got athwart each other's bows shortly after they into action. They
both enlarged--really in a edifying manner, I could have listened
to them an hour--on the absurdity of the Deist's argument! "What!"
cried one; "the purest system of ethics from the most shameless
impostors!" "And what do you make of the infinitely varied and
inimitable marks of simplicity and honesty in the writers?" cried
the other. "And who does not see the impossibility of getting up the
miracles so as to impose upon a world of bitter and prejudiced enemies
in open day?" exclaimed the Rationalist. "They were obviously mere
myths," cried the Straussian. "That I must beg to doubt," said the
other. And now, as they proceeded to give each his own solution of
the difficulty, the scene became comic in the extreme. The Rationalist
ridiculed the notion that nations and races, all of whom, in the nature
of things, must have been prejudiced against such myths as those of
Christianity, could originate or would believe them; and still more,
the notion that in so short a space of time these wildest of wild
legends (if legends at all) could induce the world to acquiesce
in them as historic realities! In his zeal he even said, that,
though not altogether satisfied with it, he would sooner believe
all the frigid glosses by which the school of Paulus had endeavored
to resolve the miracles into misunderstood "natural phenomena." As
the dispute became more animated between these three champions, they
exhibited a delicate trait of human nature, which I saw our sceptical
host most maliciously enjoyed. Each became more anxious to prove that
his mode of proving Christianity false was the true mode, than to
prove the falsehood of Christianity itself. "I tell you what," said
the Straussian, with some warmth, "sooner than believe all the
absurdities of such an hypothesis as that of Paulus, I could believe
Christianity to be what it professes to be." "I may say the same of
that of Strauss," said the other, with equal asperity; "if I had no
better escape than his, I could say to him, as Agippa to Paul, 'Almost
thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'" "For my part," exclaimed the
Deist, who was perfectly contented with his brief solution,--the
difficulties of the problem he had never had the patience to master,
--"I should rather say, as Festus to Paul, 'Much learning has made
you both mad': and sooner than believe the impossibilities of the
theory of either,--sooner than suppose men honestly and guilelessly
to have misled the world by a book which you and I admit to be a
tissue of fables, legends, and mystical non-sense,--I could almost
find it in my heart to go over to the Pope himself."
"Good," whispered our host to me, who sat at his left hand; "we shall
have them all becoming Christians, by and by, just to spite one
another." The admirer of Mr. Atkinson and Miss Martineau here
reminded the company that the miracles of the New Testament might be
true,--only the result of mesmerism. "Christ," said he, "to employ
the words of Mr. Atkinson, was constitutionally a clairvoyant .....
Prophecy and miracle and inspiration are the effects of abnormal
conditions of man ..... Prophecy, clairvoyance, healing by touch,
visions, dreams, revelations, .... are now known to be simple
matters in nature, which may be induced at will, and experimented
upon at our firesides, here in England (climate and other
circumstances permitting), as well as in the Holy Land."* But no
one seemed prepared to receive this hypothesis. At last, our host,
addressing the Deist, said, "But you forget, Mr. M., that, though
you find it insurmountably difficult to conceive a book full of
lies (as you express it) to have been, consciously or unconsciously,
the product of honest and guileless minds, you ought to find it a
little difficult to conceive a book (as you admit the New Testament
to be) of profound moral worth produced by shameless impostors. But
let that pass. Let us assume that Christianity, as a supernaturally
revealed and miraculously authenticated system, is false, though you
are dolefully at variance as to how it is to be proved so; let us
assume, I say, that this system is false, and dismiss it. I am much
more anxious to hear what is the positive system of religious truth,
which you are of course each persuaded is the true one. I have left
off to seek,' but if any one will find the truth for me without my
'seeking' it, how rejoiced shall I be!"
---
* He cited the substance of these sentiments. I have since referred
to, and here quote, the ipsissima verba. See "Letters," &c.,
pp. 175, 212.
---
Painful as were the "revelations" which ensued, I would not have
missed them on any account. "In vino veritas," says the proverb
which on this occasion lied most vilely; yet it was true in the
only sense in which "veritas" is there used; for there was unbounded
candor and frankness, under the inspiring hospitality of our host,
aided by his skilful management of the conversation. Nor was there,
I am bound to say, much of coarse ribaldry, even from the free-spoken
representative of the Tindals and Woolstons of other days. But the
varieties of judgment and opinion in that small company were almost
numberless. Fellowes, and two of the Rationalists, were firm believers
in the theory of "insight"; that the human spirit derives, by immediate
intuition from the "depths" of its consciousness, a "revelation of
religious and spiritual truth." They differed, however, as to several
articles; but especially as to the little point, whether the fact
of man's future existence was amongst the intimations of man's
religious nature; one contending that it was, another that it was
not, and Fellowes, as usual, with several more of the company,
declaring that their consciousness told them nothing about the
matter either way. But when some one further declared, amidst these
very disputes, that this internal revelation was so clear and plain
as not only to anticipate and supersede any "external" revelation,
but to render it "impossible" to be given, our host suddenly broke
out into a fit of laughter. The disputants were silent, and every
one looked to him for an explanation. He seemed to feel that it was
due, and, after apologizing for his rudeness, said, that, while
some of them were asserting man's clear internal revelation, he
could not help thinking of the whimsical contrast presented by the
diversified speculations and opinions of even this little party,
and the infinitely more whimsical contrast presented by the gross
delusions of polytheism and superstition, which in such endless
variations of form and unchanging identity of folly had misled
the nations of the earth for so many thousands of years: "And just
then," said he, "it occurred to me what a curious commentary it
would be on the asserted unity and sufficiency of 'internal
revelation,' if the 'Great Exhibition of the Industry of all
Nations' were followed up by a 'Great Exhibition of the Idolatry
of all Nations' under the same roof. Thither night be brought
specimens of the ingenious handicraft of men in the manufacture
of deities; we might have the whole process, in all its varieties,
complete; the raw material of a God in a block of stone or wood,
and the most finished specimen in the shape of a Phidian Jupiter;
the countless bits of trumpery which Fetichism has ever consecrated;
the divine monsters of ancient Egypt, and the equally divine
monsters of modern India; the infinite array of grim deformities
hallowed by American, Asiatic, and African superstition. I imagined,
notwithstanding the vastness of that Crystal Pantheon, there would
still be crowds of their godships who would be obliged to wait
outside, having come too late to exhibit their perfections to
advantage. However, as I went in fancy up the long aisles, and saw,
to the right and the left, the admiring crowds of worshippers,
grimacing, and mowing, and prostrating themselves, with a folly
which might lead one reasonably to suppose, that, miserable as
were the gods, they were gods indeed compared with such worshippers,
I imagined my worthy friend Fellowes in the corner where the Bible,
in its 120 languages, is now kept, employed in delivering a lecture
on the admirable clearness of those intuitions of spiritual truth
which constitute each man's particular oracle, and the superfluity
of all 'external' revelation. This was, I confess, a little too
much for my gravity, and I was involuntarily guilty of the
rudeness for which I now apologize." It was certainly a ridiculous
vision enough; and we made ourselves very merry by pursuing it for
a little while.
Presently the company resumed their solutions off the great problem.
The Deist remarked, "that one and only one thing was plain, and
indubitable,"--for he was a dogmatist in his way;--it was, "that
intellect and power to an indefinite extent had been at work in
the universe, but whether the Being to whom these attributes
belonged took any cognizance of man, or his actions, he had never
been able to make up his mind." "Yet surely it does make a slight
difference," said Harrington, "since if God takes no cognizance of
man, then, as Cicero long ago remarked of the idle dogs of Epicurus,
--I mean gods of Epicurus, I beg their pardon, but really it does
not matter which consonant comes first,--atheism and deism are much
the same thing." "Why," said the Deist, "there is as much difference
as in the theories of our 'intuitional' friends here, one of whom
admits, and another denies, the future existence of man; for if we
be the ephemeral insects the latter supposes, it little matters
what system of religion we espouse or abjure. However, I am clear
that, if God require any duty of us, it is that we should reverence
him as the Creator of all things,--prayer to him is an absurdity,--and
perform those offices of honest men which are so clearly the dictates
of conscience,--the reward and punishment being exclusively the
result of present laws."
"Which laws," said his next neighbor, "often secure no reward or
punishment at all,--or rather, often give the reward to the vice of
man, and the punishment to his virtue." "Very true," rejoined the
Deist, "and I must say,"--sagely shaking his head,--"that such
things make me often suspect the whole of that slippery, uncertain
thing called 'natural religion,' whether as taught by the elder
deists or modified by our modern spiritualists. Surely they may be
abundantly charged with the same faults with which they tax the
Christian; for they are full of interminable disputes about the
'truths' or 'sentiments' of their theology."
One of those who had gone further than our Deists felt disposed to
question all "immutable morality" original "dictates of conscience."
"I doubt," said he, "whether those dictates are any clearer than
those dogmas of 'natural religion' which have been so oppugned; and
I judge so for the same reason,--the endless disputes of men with
regard to the source, the rule, the obligation of what they call
duty; which are exactly similar to the disputes which we charge upon
the Natural Religionist and the Christian." And here he ran through
half a dozen of the two score theories which the history of ethics
presents, rare work with Plato and Aristotle, Hobbes, Cudworth,
Mandeville, and Bentham. "Meantime," he concluded, "we do see, in
point of fact, that the moral rule is most flexible, and to an
indeterminate degree the creature of association, custom, and
education, so that I am inclined to think that that alone is
obligatory which the positive laws and institutions of any society
render binding." "So that" cried Harrington, "a man both may and
ought to thieve in ancient Sparta, may expose his parents in
Hindostan, and commit infanticide in China!" "It is a pity," archly
whispered the Italian guest, "that this gentleman was not born
in China."
"It is a respectable, but very old speculation," said Harrington,
"of which many ancient moralists avowed themselves the advocates,
but of which it is only fair to admit that Plato and many other
heathens were heartily ashamed."
It seemed as if the bathos of theological and ethical absurdity could
not lie deeper; but I was mistaken. The admirer of Mr. Atkinson
declared with great modesty that he thought, as did his favorite
author, that the whole world had been mad on the subject of theology
and morality;--that the prime error consisted in the superficial
notion of a Personal Deity, and the foolish attribution of the notion
of "sin" and "crime" to human motives and conduct, instead of regarding
the former as a name of an absolutely unknown cause of the entire
phenomena of the universe, and the latter as part of a series of
rigidly necessary antecedents and consequents, for which man is no
more to be either blamed or praised than the sun for shining or the
avalanche for falling; he added, that only in this way could
man attain peace. "As Mr. Atkinson beautifully says, 'What a hopeful
and calming influence has such a contemplation of nature! At this moment
it is not I, but the nature within me, that dictates my speech and
guides my pen. I am what I am. I cannot alter my will, or be other
than what I am, and cannot deserve either reward or punishment.' But
I feel with him, 'We may preach these things, and men may think us
mad or something worse.'" (Pp. 190, 191.)
"And perhaps justly," said Harrington, with a laugh, "for nature has
surely, after so many thousands of years, let you know what her law
is, and you say that that law is necessary and irreversible, and yet
you strive to alter it! You had better leave men to their
necessary absurdities."