in which this element enters into the composition of the New Testament;
that ethical truths are there expressed in every variety of form which
can fix them upon the imagination and the heart, with an entire absence
of those prolix discussions and metaphysical refinements which form so
large a portion of Aristotle and Plato. If we find in these writers a
moral truth expressed with something approaching the comprehensive
beauty and simplicity of the Gospels, we are filled with surprise and
rapture, and dig out with joy the glittering fragment from the mass of
earthy matter,--oppressive disquisitions about "ideas" and "essences,"
"energies" and "entelechies," and so forth, in which it is sure to be
imbedded. I promised, if health and life were given, to exhibit some
day these gems, with a sufficient portion of the surrounding earth
still attached to them, and to contrast them with those of the New
Testament. "In this strange volume," I continued, "the most beautiful
ethical maxims exist in unexampled profusion. After reading Aristotle's
ethics, I feel, when I turn to the New Testament, as Linnaeus is said
to have felt when he first saw growing wild the masses of blooming gorse,
which he had never seen in his cold North, except as a sheltered
exotic. Whether it was likely that contemporaries of the Pharisees, who
were sunk in formalism, and who had glossed away every moral and
spiritual the Law, could reach and maintain such elevation of tone,
I leave you to judge." But though I felt this, I acknowledged that
it was difficult to express it; and said that perhaps the best way to
compare the morality of the New Testament with the ethical system of
any philosopher, or the code of any legislator, would be to imagine
them all universally adopted, and see how much would have to be
objected to,--how much "brick" was mingled with the "porphyry." "If,
for example," said I, "Plato, who, I admit, so flashes upon us the
sublimest and most comprehensive principles of morals, and whose
ethical system you say is identical with that of Christianity, had
the forming of a republic, you would have community of women property,
--women trained to war,---infanticide certain circumstances,--young
children led to battle (though at a safe distance), that 'the young might
early scent carnage, and be inured to slaughter! Both with him and
Aristotle slavery would be a regularly sanctioned and perfectly
natural institution. Not only did they entertain very lax notions
of the relation of the sexes, but the tone in which they speak of
most abominable corruptions--I do not except cannibalism--to which
humanity has ever degraded implied that they regarded such things
as comparatively venial. I know no greater single names than these,
and I presume that these points you would find so, difficulty in
digesting." He admitted it.
I told him I supposed he would take equal objections to the Gentoo, or
the Roman, or the Spartan code, as also to the Koran. He admitted all
this too.
"But now, if we take the Christian code, and suppose the New Testament
made the literal guide of in every man, tell me, Mr. Fellowes, what
would the consequence? What would you wish otherwise?"
"Why," said Harrington, smiling, "he would, perhaps, object that
there would be no more war, and that retaliation would be impossible."
"The former," said I, "we could all endure, I suppose; nor be
unwilling to give up the latter, seeing that there would, in that
case, be no wrongs to avenge. It would not matter that you would be
compelled to turn your right cheek to him who smote you on the left
(let the interpretation be as literal as you will), since no one would
strike you on the left; nor that you must surrender your cloak to him
who took away your coat, since no one would take your coat. But tell
me, is there any thing more serious that would follow from the literal
and universal adoption of the ethics of the New Testament?" Fellowes
acknowledged that he knew of nothing, unless it was a sanction
of slavery.
"I do not admit that the New Testament sanctions it," I replied; "and
I will, if you like, give my reasons in full, another time. But is
there any thing else?"
He said he did not recollect any thing.
"But you would recoil from the literal realization of the systems and
codes we have mentioned." He confessed this also.
"The superiority of the Christian code, then," said I, "is practically
acknowledged. And it is further often confessed, in a most significant
way, by the mode in which the enemies of Christianity taunt its disciples.
When they speak of the vices and corruptions of the heathen, they blame,
and justly blame, the principles of their vicious systems; and ask
how it could be otherwise? When they blame the Christian, the first
and the last thing they usually do, is to point in triumph to the
contrast between his principles and practice. 'How much better,' say
they, 'is his code than conduct!' It is as a hypocrite that they
censure him. It is sad for him that it should be so; but it is a
glorious compliment to the morality of the New Testament. Its enemies
know not how to attack its disciples, except by endeavoring to show
that they do not act as it bids them. Surely," said I, in conclusion
"this uniform excellence of the Christian ethics, as compared with
other systems, is a peculiarity worth noting, and utterly
incomprehensible upon the hypothesis that it was the unaided work of
man. That there are points on which the moral systems of men and
nations osculate, is most true; that there should have been certain
approximations on many most important subjects was to be expected from
the essential identity of human nature, in all ages and countries; but
their deviations in some point or other--usually in several--from what
we acknowledge to be both right and expedient, is equally undeniable.
That, when such men as Plato and Aristotle tried their hands upon the
problem, they should err, while the writers of the New Testament should
have succeeded,--that these last should do what all mankind besides had
in some points or other failed to do,--is sufficiently wonderful; that
Galilean Jews should have solved the problem is, whether we consider
their age, their ignorance, or their prepossessions, to me utterly
incredible."
It was now very late; and we rose to retire. Mr. Fellowes said, "I
should be glad to know what answer you would make to Mr. Newman's
observations on three points,--one of them just alluded to,--on which he
affirms that undue credit has been given to Christianity; I mean its
supposed elevating influence in relation to women, its supposed
mitigation of slavery, and its supposed triumphs before Constantine."
I said I would scribble a few remarks on the subject, and would give
them to him in a day or two. I remarked that Mr. Newman had treated
these great subjects very briefly, but that I could not be quite so
concise as he had been.
____
The discussions of the preceding day had made so deep an impression
upon me, that when I went to bed I found it very difficult to sleep; and
when I did get off at last, my thoughts shaped themselves into a singular
dream, which, though only a dream, is not, I think, without instruction.
I shall entitle it
THE BLANK BIBLE.
Etlen gegonein vuktiphoit' oneirata.
AEschyl. Prom. Vinct. 657.
[I take courage to proclaim night-roaming dreams]
I thought I was at home, and that on taking up my Greek Testament one
morning to read (as is my wont) a chapter, I found, to my surprise,
that what seemed to be the old, familiar book was a total blank; not
a character was inscribed in it or upon it. I supposed that some book
like it had, by some accident, got into its place; and, without
stopping to hunt for it, took down a large quarto volume which contained
both the Old and New Testaments. To my surprise, however, this also
was a blank from beginning to end. With that facility of accommodation
to any absurdities which is proper to dreams, I did not think very much
of the coincidence of two blank volumes having been substituted for two
copies of the Scriptures in two different places, and therefore quietly
reached down a copy of the Hebrew Bible, in which I could just manage to
make out a chapter. To my increased surprise, and even something like
terror, I found that this also was a perfect blank. While I was musing
on this unaccountable phenomenon, my servant entered the room, and said
that thieves had been in the house during the night, for that her large
Bible, which she had left on the kitchen table, had been removed, and
another volume left by mistake in its place, of just the same size, but
made of nothing but white paper. She added, with a laugh, that it must
have been a very queer kind of thief to steal a Bible at all; and that he
should have left another book instead, made it the more odd. I asked her
if any thing else had been missed, and if there were any signs of people
having entered the house. She answered in the negative to both these
questions; and I began to be strangely perplexed.
On going out into the street, I met a friend, who, almost before we had
exchanged greetings, told me that a most unaccountable robbery had been
committed at his house during the night, for that every copy of the
Bible had been removed, and a volume of exactly the same size, but of
pure white paper, left in its stead. Upon telling him that the same
accident had happened to myself, we began to think that there was more
in it than we had at first surmised.
On proceeding further, we found every one complaining, in similar
perplexity, of the same loss; and before night it became evident that
a great and terrible "miracle" had been wrought in the world; that
in one night, silently, but effectually, that hand which had written
its terrible menace on the walls of Belshazzar's palace had reversed
the miracle; had sponged out of our Bibles every syllable they contained,
and thus reclaimed the most precious gift which Heaven had bestowed,
and ungrateful man had abused.
I was curious to watch the effects of this calamity on the varied
characters of mankind. There was universally, however, an interest in
the Bible now it was lost, such as had never attached to it while
it was possessed; and he who had been but happy enough to possess
fifty copies might have made his fortune. One keen speculator, as
soon as the first whispers of the miracle began to spread, hastened
to the depositories of the Bible Society and the great book-stocks
in Paternoster Row, and offered to buy up at a high premium any
copies of the Bible that might be on hand; but the worthy merchant
was informed that there was not a single copy remaining. Some, to whom
their Bible had been a "blank" book for twenty years, and who would
never have known whether it was full or empty had not the lamentations
of their neighbors impelled them to look into it, were not the least
loud in their expressions of sorrow at this calamity. One old gentleman,
who had never troubled the book in his life, said it was "confounded
hard to be deprived of his religion in his old age"; and another, who
seemed to have lived as though he had always been of Mandeville's
opinion, that "private vices were public benefits," was all at once
alarmed for the morals of mankind. He feared, he said, that the
loss of the Bible would have "a cursed bad effect on the public virtue
of the country."
As the fact was universal and palpable, it was impossible that, like
other miracles, it should leave the usual loopholes for scepticism.
Miracles in general, in order to be miracles at all, have been singular
or very rare violations of a general law, witnessed by a few, on
whose testimony they are received, and in the reception of whose
testimony consists the exercise of that faith to which they appeal. It
was evident, that, whatever the reason of this miracle, it was not
an exercise of docile and humble faith founded on evidence no more
than just sufficient to operate as a moral test. This was a miracle
which, it could not be denied, looked marvellously like a "judgment."
However, there were, in some cases, indications enough to show how
difficult it is to give such evidence as will satisfy the obstinacy
of mankind. One old sceptical fellow, who had been for years bedridden,
was long in being convinced (if indeed, he ever was) that any thing
extraordinary had occurred in the world; he at first attributed the
reports of what he heard to the "impudence" of his servants and
dependents, and wondered that they should dare to venture upon such a
joke. On finding these assertions backed by those of his acquaintance,
he pished and pshawed, and looked very wise, and ironically congratulated
them on this creditable conspiracy with the insolent rascals, his
servants. On being shown the old Bible, of which he recognized the
binding, though he had never seen the inside, and finding it a very
fair book of blank paper, he quietly observed that it was very easy
to substitute the one book for the other, though he did not pretend to
divine the motives which induced people to attempt such a clumsy piece
of imposition; and, on their persisting that they were not deceiving
him, swore at them as a set of knaves, who would fain persuade him
out of his senses. On their bringing him a pile of blank Bibles
backed by the asseverations of other neighbors, he was ready to burst
with indignation. "As to the volumes," he said, "it was not difficult
to procure a score or two 'of commonplace books,' and they had
doubtless done so to carry on the cheat; for himself he would sooner
believe that the whole world was leagued against him than credit any
such nonsense." They were angry, in their turn, at his incredulity,
and told him that he was very much mistaken if he thought himself
of so much importance that they would all perjure themselves to
delude him, since they saw plainly enough that he could do that very
easily for himself, without any help of theirs. They really did not
care one farthing whether he believed them or not: if he did not
choose to believe the story, he might leave it alone. "Well, well,"
said he, "it is all very fine: but unless you show me, not one of
these blank books, which could not impose upon an owl, but one of
the very blank Bibles themselves, I will not believe." At this curious
demand, one of his nephews who stood by (a lively young fellow) was
so exceedingly tickled, that, though he had some expectations from
the sceptic, he could not help bursting out into laughter; but he became
grave enough when his angry uncle told him that he would leave him in
his will nothing but the family Bible, which he might make a ledger if
he pleased. Whether this resolute old sceptic ever vanquished his
incredulity, I do not remember.
Very different from the case of this sceptic was that of a most
excellent female relative, who had been equally long a prisoner to
her chamber, and to whom the Bible had been, as to so many thousands
more, her faithful companion in solitude, and the all-sufficient
solace of her sorrows. I found her gazing intently on the blank Bible,
which had been so recently bright to her with the lustre of immortal
hopes. She burst into tears as she saw me. "And has your faith left
you too, my gentle friend?" said I. "No," she answered, "and I trust it
never will. He who has taken away the Bible has not taken away my
memory, and I now recall all that is most precious in that book which
has so long been my meditation. It is a heavy judgment upon the land;
and surely," added this true Christian, never thinking of the faults of
others, "I, at least, cannot complain, for I have not prized as I ought
that book, which yet, of late years, I think I can say, I loved more
than any other possession on earth. But I know," she continued, smiling
through her tears, "that the sun shines, though clouds may veil him for
the moment; and I am unshaken in my faith in those truths which have
transcribed on my memory, though they are blotted from my book. In these
hopes I have lived, and in these hopes I will die." "I have no consolation
to offer to you," said I, "for you need none." She quoted many of the
passages which have been, through all ages, the chief stay of sorrowing
humanity; and I thought the words of Scripture had never sounded so
solemn or so sweet before. "I shall often come to see you," I said,
"to hear a chapter in the Bible, for you know it far better than I."
No sooner had I taken my leave, than I was informed that an old lady of
my acquaintance had summoned me in haste. She said she was much impressed
by this extraordinary calamity. As, to my certain knowledge, she had
never troubled the contents of the book, I was surprised that she had so
taken to heart the loss of that which had, practically, been lost to
her all her days. "Sir" said she, the moment I entered, "the Bible, the
Bible." "Yes, madam," said I, "this is a very grievous and terrible
visitation. I hope we may learn the lessons which it is calculated to
teach us." "I am sure," answered she, "I am not likely to forget it for
a while, for it has been a grievous loss to me." "I told her I was
very glad." "Glad!" she rejoined. "Yes," I said, "I am glad to find
that you think it so great a loss, for that loss may then be a gain
indeed. There is, thanks be to God, enough left in our memories to
carry us to heaven." "Ah! but," said she, "the hundred pounds and
the villany of my maid-servant. Have you not heard?" This gave me some
glimpse as to the secret of her sorrow. She told me that she had
deposited several bank-notes in the leaves of her family Bible,
thinking that, to be sure, nobody was likely to look there for them.
"No sooner," said she, "were the Bibles made useless by this strange
event, than my servant peeped into every copy in the house, and she
now denies that she found any thing in my old family Bible, except two
or three blank leaves of thin paper, which, she says, she destroyed;
that, if any characters were ever on them, they must have been erased
when those of the Bible were obliterated. But I am sure she lies; for
who would believe that Heaven took the trouble to blot out my precious
bank-notes. They were not God's word, I trow." It was clear that she
considered the "promise to pay" better by far than any "promises" which
the book contained. "I should not have cared so much about the Bible,"
she whined, hypocritically, "because, as you truly observe, our
memories may retain enough to carry us to heaven,"--a little in that
case would certainly go a great way, I thought to myself,--"and if not,
there are those who can supply the loss. But who is to get my bank-notes
back again? Other people have only lost their Bibles." It was, indeed,
a case beyond my power of consolation.
The calamity not only strongly stirred the feelings of men, and upon
the whole, I think, beneficially, but it immediately stimulated their
ingenuity. It was wonderful to see the energy with which men discussed
the subject, and the zeal, too, with which they ultimately exerted
themselves to repair the loss. I could even hardly regret it, when I
considered what a spectacle of intense activity, intellectual and moral,
the visitation had occasioned. It was very early suggested, that the
whole Bible had again and again been quoted piecemeal in one book or
other; that it had impressed its own image on the surface of human
literature, and had been reflected on its course as the stars on a
steam. But, alas! on investigation, it was found as vain to expect
that the gleam of starlight would still remain mirrored in the water
when the clouds had veiled the stars themselves, as that the bright
characters of the Bible would remain reflected in the books of man
when had been erased from the Book of God. On inspection it was
found that every text, every phrase which had been quoted, not only
in the books of devotion and theology, but in those of poetry and
fiction, had been remorselessly expunged. Never before had I had any
adequate idea of the extent to which the Bible had moulded the
intellectual and moral life of the last eighteen centuries, nor how
intimately it had interfused itself with habits of thought and modes
of expression; nor how naturally and extensively its comprehensive
imagery and language had been introduced into human writings, and most
of all where there had been most of genius. A vast portion of
literature became instantly worthless, and was transformed into so
much waste-paper. It was almost impossible to look into any book
of any merit, and read ten pages together, without coming to some
provoking erasures and mutilations, some "hiatus valde deflendi,"
which made whole passages perfectly unintelligible. Many of the
sweetest passages of Shakspeare were converted into unmeaning nonsense,
from the absence of those words which his own all but divine genius
had appropriated from a still diviner source. As to Milton, he was
nearly ruined, as might naturally be supposed. Walter Scott's novels
were filled with perpetual lacunae. I hoped it might be otherwise
with the philosophers, and so it was; but even here it was curious
to see what strange ravages the visitation had wrought. Some of the
most beautiful and comprehensive of Bacon's Aphorisms were reduced
to enigmatical nonsense.
Those who held large stocks of books knew not what to do. Ruin stared
them in the face; their value fell seventy or eighty per cent. All
branches of theology, in particular, were a drug. One fellow said,
that he should not so much have minded if the miracle had sponged out
what was human as well as what was divine, for in that case he would
at least have had so many thousand volumes of fair blank paper, which
was as much as many of them were worth before. A wag answered, that
it was not usual, in despoiling a house, to carry away any thing
except the valuables. Meantime, millions of blank Bibles filled the
shelves of stationers, to be sold for day-books and ledgers, so that
there seemed to be no more employment for the paper-makers in that
direction for many years to come. A friend, who used to mourn over
the thought of palimpsest manuscripts,--of portions of Livy and Cicero
erased to make way for the nonsense of some old monkish chronicler,
--exclaimed, as he saw a tradesman trudging off with a handsome
morocco-bound quarto for a day-book, "Only think of the pages once
filled with the poetry of Isaiah, and the parables of Christ, sponged
clean to make way for orders for silks and satins, muslins, cheese,
and bacon!" The old authors, of course, were left to their mutilations;
there was no way in which the confusion could be remedied. But the
living began to prepare new editions of their works, in which they
endeavored to give a new turn to the thoughts which had been mutilated
by erasure, and I was nor a little amused to see that many, having
stolen from writers whose compositions were as much mutilated as
their own, could not tell the meaning of their own pages.
It seemed at first to be a not unnatural impression, that even those
who could recall the erased texts as they perused the injured books,
--who could mentally full up the imperfect clauses,--were not at
liberty to inscribe them; they seemed to fear that, if they did so,
the characters would be as if written in invisible ink, or would
surely fade away. It was with trembling that some at length made the
attempt, and to their unspeakable joy found the impression durable.
Day after day passed; still the characters remained; and the people
length came to the conclusion, that God left them at liberty, if they
could, to reconstruct the Bible for themselves out of their collective
remembrances of its divine contents. This led again to some curious
results, all of them singularly indicative of the good and ill that
is in human nature. It was with incredible joy that men came to the
conclusion that the book might be thus recovered nearly entire, and
nearly in the very words of the original, by the combined effort of
human memories. Some of the obscurest of the species, who had studied
nothing else but the Bible, but who had well studied that, came to be
objects of reverence among Christians and booksellers; and the various
texts they quoted were taken down with the utmost care. He who could
fill up a chasm by the restoration of words which were only partially
remembered, or could contribute the least text that had been forgotten,
was regarded as a sort of public benefactor. At length, a great public
movement amongst the divines of all denominations was projected, to
collate the results of these partial recoveries of the sacred text.
It was curious, again, to see in how various ways human passions and
prejudices came into play. It was found that the several parties who
had furnished from memory the same portions of the sacred texts had
fallen into a great variety of different readings; and though most
of them were of as little importance in themselves as the bulk of
those which are paraded in the critical recensions of Mill, Griesbach,
or Tischendorf, they became, from the obstinacy and folly of the men
who contended about them, important differences, merely because they
were differences. Two reverend men of the synod, I remember, had a
rather tough dispute as to whether it was twelve baskets full of
fragments of the five loaves which the five thousand left, and seven
baskets full of the seven loaves which the four thousand had left,
or vice versa: as also whether the words in John vi. 19 were "about
twenty or five and twenty," or "about thirty or five and thirty
furlongs."
To do the assembly justice, however, there was found an intense
general earnestness and sincerity befitting the occasion, and an equally
intense desire to obtain, as nearly as possible, the very words of
the lost volume; only (as was also, alas! natural) vanity in some;
in others, confidence in their strong impressions and in the accuracy
of their memory; obstinacy and pertinacity in many more (all
aggravated as usual by controversy),--caused many odd embarrassments
before the final adjustment was effected.