The present time is an era when intellectual persons are ashamed of
being credulous. It is the perfectly natural and desirable result of
the working of the scientific spirit. Everything is relentlessly
investigated, the enormous structure of natural law is being discovered
to underlie all the most surprising, delicate, and apparently fortuitous
processes, and no one can venture to forecast where the systematisation
will end. The result is a great inrush of bracing and invigorating
candour. It is not that our liberty of reflection and action is
increased. It is rather increasingly limited. But at least we are
growing to discern where our boundaries are, and it is deeply refreshing
to find that the boundaries erected by humanity are much closer and more
cramping than the boundaries determined by God. We are no longer bound
by human authority, by subjective theories, by petty tradition. We
are no longer required to tremble before thaumaturgy and conjuring and
occultism. It is true that science has hitherto confined itself mainly
to the investigation of concrete phenomena; but the same process is sure
to be applied to metaphysics, to sociology, to psychology; and the day
will assuredly come when the human race will analyse the laws which
govern progress, which regulate the exact development of religion and
morality.
The demolition of credulity is, as I have said, a wholly desirable and
beneficial thing. Most intelligent people have found some happiness in
learning that the dealings of God--that is, the creative and originative
power behind the universe--are at all events not whimsical, however
unintelligible they may be. No one at all events is now required to
reconcile with his religious faith a detailed belief in the Mosaic
cosmogony, or to accept the fact that a Hebrew prophet was enabled to
summon bears from a wood to tear to pieces some unhappy boys who found
food for mirth in his personal appearance. That is a pure gain. But
side by side with this entirely wholesome process, there are a good
many people who have thrown overboard, together with their credulity, a
quality of a far higher and nobler kind, which may be called faith. Men
who have seen many mysteries explained, and many dark riddles solved in
nature, have fallen into what is called materialism, from the mistaken
idea that the explanation of material phenomena will hold good for
the discernment of abstract phenomena. Yet any one who approaches the
results of scientific investigation in a philosophical and a poetical
spirit, sees clearly enough that nothing has been attempted but
analysis, and that the mystery which surrounds us is only thrust a
little further off, while the darkness is as impenetrable and profound
as ever. All that we have learnt is how natural law works; we have
not come near to learning why it works as it does. All we have really
acquired is a knowledge that the audacious and unsatisfactory theories,
such, for instance, as the old-fashioned scheme of redemption, by which
men have attempted with a pathetic hopefulness to justify the ways
of God to man, are, and are bound to be, despairingly incomplete. The
danger of the scientific spirit is not that it is too agnostic, but that
it is not agnostic enough: it professes to account for everything when
it only has a very few of the data in its grasp. The materialistic
philosophy tends to be a tyranny which menaces liberty of thought. Every
one has a right to deduce what theory he can from his own experience.
The one thing that we have no sort of right to do is to enforce that
theory upon people whose experience does not confirm it. We may invite
them to act upon our assumptions, but we must not blame them if they end
by considering them to be baseless. I was talking the other day to an
ardent Roman Catholic, who described by a parable the light in which he
viewed the authority of the Church. He said that it was as if he were
half-way up a hill, prevented from looking over into a hidden valley by
the slope of the ground. On the hill-top, he said, might be supposed to
stand people in whose good faith and accuracy of vision he had complete
confidence. If they described to him what they saw in the valley beyond,
he would not dream of mistrusting them. But the analogy breaks down at
every point, because the essence of it is that every one who reached
the hill-top would inevitably see the same scene. Yet in the case of
religion, the hill-top is crowded by people, whose good faith is
equally incontestable, but whose descriptions of what lies beyond are at
hopeless variance. Moreover all alike confess that the impressions they
derive are outside the possibility of scientific or intellectual tests,
and that it is all a matter of inference depending upon a subjective
consent in the mind of the discerner to accept what is incapable of
proof. The strength of the scientific position is that the scientific
observer is in the presence of phenomena confirmed by innumerable
investigations, and that, up to a certain point, the operation of a
law has been ascertained, which no reasonable man has any excuse for
doubting. Whenever that law conflicts with religious assumptions, which
in any case cannot be proved to be more than subjective assumptions,
the unverifiable theory must go down before the verifiable. Religion may
assume, for instance, that life is an educative process; but that theory
cannot be considered proved in the presence of the fact that many
human beings close their eyes upon the world before they are capable of
exercising any moral or intellectual choice whatever.
It may prove, upon investigation, that all religious theories and all
creeds are nothing more than the desperate and pathetic attempts of
humanity, conscious of an instinctive horror of suffering, and of an
inalienable sense of their right to happiness, to provide a solution for
the appalling fact that many human beings seem created only to suffer
and to be unhappy. The mystery is a very dark one; and philosophy is
still not within reach of explaining how it is that a sense of justice
should be implanted in man by the Power that appears so often to violate
that conception of justice.
The fact is that the progress of science has created an immense demand
for the quality of faith and hopefulness, by revealing so much that is
pessimistic in the operation of natural law. If we are to live with any
measure of contentment or tranquillity, we must acquire a confidence
that God has not, as science tends to indicate, made all men for nought.
We must, if we can, acquire some sort of hope that it is not in mere
wantonness and indifference that He confronts us with the necessity for
bearing the things that He has made us most to dread. It may be easy
enough for robust, vigorous, contented persons to believe that God means
us well; but the only solution that is worth anything is a solution that
shall give us courage, patience, and even joy, at times when everything
about us seems to speak of cruelty and terror and injustice. One of
the things that has ministered comfort in large measure to souls so
afflicted is the power of tracing a certain beauty and graciousness
in the phenomena that surround us. Who is there who in moments of
bewildered sorrow has not read a hint of some vast lovingness, moving
dimly in the background of things, in the touch of familiar hands or in
the glances of dear eyes? Surely, they have said to themselves, if love
is the deepest, strongest, and most lasting force in the world, the same
quality must be hidden deepest in the Heart of God. This is the unique
strength of the Christian revelation, the thought of the Fatherhood of
God, and His tender care for all that he has made. Again, who is there
who in depression and anxiety has not had his load somewhat lightened
by the sight of the fresh green of spring foliage against a blue sky, by
the colour and scent of flowers, by the sweet melody of musical chords?
The aching spirit has said, "They are there--beauty, and peace, and
joy--if I could but find the way to them." Who has not had his fear of
death alleviated by the happy end of some beloved life, when the dear
one has made, as it were, solemn haste to be gone, falling gently into
slumber? Who is there, who, speeding homewards in the sunset, has seen
the dusky orange veil of flying light drawn softly westward over misty
fields, where the old house stands up darkling among the glimmering
pastures, and has not felt the presence of some sweet secret waiting for
him beyond the gates of life and death? All these things are symbols,
because the emotions they arouse are veritably there, as indisputable a
phenomenon as any fact which science has analysed. The miserable mistake
that many intellectual people make is to disregard what they would call
vague emotions in the presence of scientific truth. Yet such emotions
have a far more intimate concern for us than the dim sociology of bees,
or the concentric forces of the stars. Our emotions are far more true
and vivid experiences for us than indisputable laws of nature which
never cut the line of our life at all. We may wish, perhaps, that the
laws of such emotions were analysed and systematised too, for it is a
very timid and faltering spirit that thinks that definiteness is the
same as profanation. We may depend upon it that the deeper we can probe
into such secrets, the richer will our conceptions of life and God
become.
The mistake that is so often made by religious organisations, which
depend so largely upon symbolism, is the terrible limiting of this
symbolism to traditional ceremonies and venerable ritual. It has been
said that religion is the only form of poetry accessible to the poor;
and it is true in the sense that anything which hallows and quickens the
most normal and simple experiences of lives divorced from intellectual
and artistic influences is a very real and true kind of symbolism. It
may be well to give people such symbolism as they can understand, and
the best symbols of all are those that deal with the commonest emotions.
But it is a lean wisdom that emphasises a limited range of emotions at
the expense of a larger range; and the spirit which limits the sacred
influences of religion to particular buildings and particular rites is
very far removed from the spirit of Him who said that neither at Gerizim
nor in Jerusalem was the Father to be worshipped, but in spirit and in
truth. At the same time the natural impatience of one who discerns a
symbolism all about him, in tree and flower, in sunshine and rain, and
who hates to see the range restricted, is a feeling that a wise and
tolerant man ought to resist. It is ill to break the pitcher because
the well is at hand! One does not make a narrow soul broader by breaking
down its boundaries, but by revealing the beauty of the further horizon.
Even the false feeling of compassion must be resisted. A child is more
encouraged by listening patiently to its tale of tiny exploits, than by
casting ridicule upon them.
But on the other hand it is a wholly false timidity for one who has been
brought up to love and reverence the narrower range of symbols, to choke
and stifle the desires that stir in his heart for the wider range, out
of deference to authority and custom. One must not discard a cramping
garment until one has a freer one to take its place; but to continue
in the confining robe with the larger lying ready to one's hand, from
a sense of false pathos and unreasonable loyalty, is a piece of
foolishness.
There are, I believe, hundreds of men and women now alive, who have
outgrown their traditional faith, through no fault of their own; but who
out of terror at the vague menaces of interested and Pharisaical persons
do not dare to break away. One must of course weigh carefully whether
one values comfort or liberty most. But what I would say is that it is
of the essence of a faith to be elastic, to be capable of development,
to be able to embrace the forward movement of thought. Now so far am I
from wishing to suggest that we have outgrown Christianity, that I would
assert that we have not yet mastered its simplest principles. I believe
with all my soul that it is still able to embrace the most daring
scientific speculations, for the simple reason that it is hardly
concerned with them at all. Where religious faith conflicts with science
is in the tenacity with which it holds to the literal truth of the
miraculous occurrences related in the Scriptures. Some of these present
no difficulty, some appear to be scientifically incredible. Yet these
latter seem to me to be but the perfectly natural contemporary setting
of the faith, and not to be of the essence of Christianity at all.
Miracles, whether they are true or not, are at all events unverifiable,
and no creed that claims to depend upon the acceptance of unverifiable
events can have any vitality. But the personality, the force, the
perception of Christ Himself emerges with absolute distinctness from the
surrounding details. We may not be in a position to check exactly what
He said and what He did not say, but just as no reasonable man can hold
that He was merely an imaginative conception invented by people who
obviously did not understand Him, so the general drift of His teaching
is absolutely clear and convincing.
What I would have those do who can profess themselves sincerely
convinced Christians, in spite of the uncertainty of many of the
recorded details, is to adopt a simple compromise; to claim their part
in the inheritance of Christ, and the symbols of His mysteries, but not
to feel themselves bound by any ecclesiastical tradition. No one can
forbid, by peevish regulations, direct access to the spirit of Christ
and to the love of God. Christ's teaching was a purely individualistic
teaching, based upon conduct and emotion, and half the difficulties of
the position lie in His sanction and guidance having been claimed for
what is only a human attempt to organise a society with a due deference
for the secular spirit, its aims and ambitions. The sincere Christian
should, I believe, gratefully receive the simple and sweet symbols of
unity and forgiveness; but he should make his own a far higher and
wider range of symbols, the symbols of natural beauty and art and
literature--all the passionate dreams of peace and emotion that have
thrilled the yearning hearts of men. Wherever those emotions have led
men along selfish, cruel, sensual paths, they must be distrusted, just
as we must distrust the religious emotions which have sanctioned such
divergences from the spirit of Christ. We must believe that the essence
of religion is to make us alive to the love of God, in whatever writing
of light and air, of form and fragrance it is revealed; and we must
further believe that religion is meant to guide and quicken the tender,
compassionate, brotherly emotions, by which we lean to each other in
this world where so much is dark. But to denounce the narrower forms
of religion, or to abstain from them, is utterly alien to the spirit
of Christ. He obeyed and reverenced the law, though He knew that the
expanding spirit of His own teaching would break it in pieces. Of
course, since liberty is the spirit of the Gospel, a liberty conditioned
by the sense of equality, there may be occasions when a man is bound to
resist what appears to him to be a moral or an intellectual tyranny. But
short of that, the only thing of which one must beware is a conscious
insincerity; and the limits of that a man must determine for himself.
There are occasions when consideration for the feelings of others seems
to conflict with one's own sense of sincerity; but I think that one
is seldom wrong in preferring consideration for others to the personal
indulgence of one's own apparent sincerity.
Peace and gentleness always prevail in the end over vehemence and
violence, and a peaceful revolution brings about happier results for
a country, as we have good reason to know, than a revolution of force.
Even now the narrower religious systems prevail more in virtue of the
gentleness and goodwill and persuasion of their ministers than through
the spiritual terrors that they wield--the thunders are divorced from
the lightning.
Thus may the victories of faith be won, not by noise and strife, but by
the silent motion of a resistless tide. Even now it creeps softly
over the sand and brims the stagnant pools with the freshening and
invigorating brine.
But in the worship of the symbol there is one deep danger; and that
is that if one rests upon it, if one makes one's home in the palace of
beauty or philosophy or religion, one has failed in the quest. It is the
pursuit not of the unattained but of the unattainable to which we are
vowed. Nothing but the unattainable can draw us onward. It is rest that
is forbidden. We are pilgrims yet; and if, intoxicated and bemused by
beauty or emotion or religion, we make our dwelling there, it is as
though we slept in the enchanted ground. Enough is given us, and no
more, to keep us moving forwards. To be satisfied is to slumber. The
melancholy that follows hard in the footsteps of art, the sadness
haunting the bravest music, the aching, troubled longing that creeps
into the mind at the sight of the fairest scene, is but the warning
presence of the guide that travels with us and fears that we may linger.
Who has not seen across a rising ground the gables of the old house,
the church tower, dark among the bare boughs of the rookery in a smiling
sunset, and half lost himself at the thought of the impossibly beautiful
life that might be lived there? To-day, just when the western sun began
to tinge the floating clouds with purple and gold, I saw by the roadside
an old labourer, fork on back, plodding heavily across a ploughland all
stippled with lines of growing wheat. Hard by a windmill whirled its
clattering arms. How I longed for something that would render permanent
the scene, sight, and sound alike. It told me somehow that the end
was not yet. What did it stand for? I hardly know; for life, slow and
haggard with toil, hard-won sustenance, all overhung with the crimson
glories of waning light, the wet road itself catching the golden hues of
heaven. A little later, passing by the great pauper asylum that stands
up so naked among the bare fields, I looked over a hedge, and there,
behind the engine-house with its heaps of scoriae and rubbish, lay a
little trim ugly burial-ground, with a dismal mortuary, upon which
some pathetic and tawdry taste had been spent. There in rows lay
the mouldering bones of the failures of life and old sin; not even a
headstone over each with a word of hope, nothing but a number on a tin
tablet. Nothing more incredibly sordid could be devised. One thought of
the sad rite, the melancholy priest, the handful of relatives glad at
heart that the poor broken life was over and the wretched associations
at an end. Yet even that sight too warned one not to linger, and that
the end was not yet. Presently, in the gathering twilight, I was making
my way through the streets of the city. The dusk had obliterated all
that was mean and dreary. Nothing but the irregular housefronts stood up
against the still sky, the lighted windows giving the sense of home and
ease. A quiet bell rang for vespers in a church tower, and as I passed
I heard an organ roll within. It all seemed a sweetly framed message to
the soul, a symbol of joy and peace.
But then I reflected that the danger was of selecting, out of the
symbols that crowded around one on every side, merely those that
ministered to one's own satisfaction and contentment. The sad horror of
that other place, the little bare place of desolate graves--that must be
a symbol as well, that must stand as a witness of some part of the awful
mind of God, of the strange flaw or rent that seems to run through His
world. It may be more comfortable, more luxurious to detach the symbol
that testifies to the satisfaction of our needs; but not thus do we draw
near to truth and God. And then I thought that perhaps it was best, when
we are secure and careless and joyful, to look at times steadily into
the dark abyss of the world, not in the spirit of morbidity, not with
the sense of the macabre--the skeleton behind the rich robe, death at
the monarch's shoulder; but to remind ourselves, faithfully and wisely,
that for us too the shadow waits; and then that in our moments of
dreariness and heaviness we should do well to seek for symbols of our
peace, not thrusting them peevishly aside as only serving to remind us
of what we have lost and forfeited, but dwelling on them patiently and
hopefully, with a tender onlooking to the gracious horizon with all
its golden lights and purple shadows. And thus not in a mercantile
mood trafficking for our delight in the mysteries of life--for not by
prudence can we draw near to God--but in a childlike mood, valuing the
kindly word, the smile that lights up the narrow room and enriches
the austere fare, and paying no heed at all to the jealousies and the
covetous ingathering that turns the temple of the Father into a house of
merchandise.
For here, deepest of all, lies the worth of the symbol; that this life
of ours is not a little fretful space of days, rounded with a sleep, but
an integral part of an inconceivably vast design, flooding through and
behind the star-strewn heavens; that there is no sequence of events as
we conceive, that acts are not done or words said, once and for all, and
then laid away in the darkness; but that it is all an ever-living thing,
in which the things that we call old are as much present in the mind of
God as the things that shall be millions of centuries hence. There is no
uncertainty with Him, no doubt as to what shall be hereafter; and if we
once come near to that truth, we can draw from it, in our darkest hours,
a refreshment that cannot fail; for the saddest thought in the mind of
man is the thought that these things could have been, could be other
than they are; and if we once can bring home to ourselves the knowledge
that God is unchanged and unchangeable, our faithless doubts, our
melancholy regrets melt in the light of truth, as the hoar-frost fades
upon the grass in the rising sun, when every globed dewdrop flashes like
a jewel in the radiance of the fiery dawn.