“The whole Creation shakes off night,
And for thy shadow looks the Light;
Stars now vanish without number,
Sleepie Planets set and slumber,
The pursie Clouds disband and scatter,
_All expect some sudden matter_.”
Calmness settles down on his mind. He walks on, thinking of the scene he
had left, and the sermon he had heard. In the latter he sees the good
and the bad intimately mingled; and is convinced that the chief benefit
derived from it is a reproducing of former impressions. The thought
crosses him, in how many places and how many different forms the same
thing takes place, “a convincing” of the “convinced;” and he rejoices in
the contrast which his church presents to these; for in the church of
Nature his love to God, assurance of God’s love to him, and confidence
in the design of God regarding him, commenced. While exulting in God and
the knowledge of Him to be attained hereafter, he is favoured with a
sight of a glorious moon-rainbow, which elevates his worship to ecstasy.
During which--
“All at once I looked up with terror--
He was there.
He himself with His human air,
On the narrow pathway, just before:
I saw the back of Him, no more--
He had left the chapel, then, as I.
I forgot all about the sky.
No face: only the sight
Of a sweepy garment, vast and white,
With a hem that I could recognize.
I felt terror, no surprise:
My mind filled with the cataract,
At one bound, of the mighty fact.
I remembered, He did say
Doubtless, that, to this world’s end,
Where two or three should meet and pray,
He would be in the midst, their friend:
Certainly He was there with them.
And my pulses leaped for joy
Of the golden thought without alloy,
That I saw His very vesture’s hem.
Then rushed the blood back, cold and clear,
With a fresh enhancing shiver of fear.”
Praying for forgiveness wherein he has sinned, and prostrate in
adoration before the form of Christ, he is “caught up in the whirl and
drift” of his vesture, and carried along with him over the earth.
Stopping at length at the entrance of St. Peter’s in Rome, he remains
outside, while the form disappears within. He is able, however, to see
all that goes on, in the crowded, hushed interior. It is high mass. He
has been carried at once from the little chapel to the opposite
aesthetic pole. From the entry, where--
“The flame of the single tallow candle
In the cracked square lanthorn I stood under
Shot its blue lip at me,”
to--
“This miraculous dome of God--
This colonnade
With arms wide open to embrace
The entry of the human race
To the breast of.... what is it, yon building,
Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,
With marble for brick, and stones of price
For garniture of the edifice?”
to “those fountains”--
“Growing up eternally
Each to a musical water-tree,
Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon,
Before my eyes, in the light of the moon,
To the granite lavers underneath;”
from the singing of the chapel to the organ self-restrained, that “holds
his breath and grovels latent,” while expecting the elevation of the
Host. Christ is within; he is left without. Reflecting on the matter, he
thinks his Lord would not require him to go in, though he himself
entered, because there was a way to reach him there. By-and-by, however,
his heart awakes and declares that Love goes beyond error with them, and
if the Intellect be kept down, yet Love is the oppressor; so next time
he resolves to enter and praise along with them. The passage commencing,
“Oh, love of those first Christian days!” describing Love’s victory over
Intellect, is very fine.
Again he is caught up and carried along as before. This time halt is
made at the door of a college in a German town, in which the class-room
of one of the professors is open for lecture this Christmas Eve. It is,
intellectually considered, the opposite pole to both the Methodist
chapel and the Roman Basilica. The poet enters, fearful of losing the
society of “any that call themselves his friends.” He describes the
assembled company, and the entrance of “the hawk-nosed, high-cheek-boned
professor,” of part of whose Christmas Eve’s discourse he proceeds to
give the substance. The professor takes it for granted that “plainly no
such life was liveable,” and goes on to inquire what explanation of the
phenomena of the life of Christ it were best to adopt. Not that it
mattered much, “so the idea be left the same.” Taking the popular story,
for convenience sake, and separating all extraneous matter from it, he
found that Christ was simply a good man, with an honest, true heart;
whose disciples thought him divine; and whose doctrine, though quite
mistaken by those who received and published it, “had yet a meaning
quite as respectable.” Here the poet takes advantage of a pause to leave
him; reflecting that though the air may be poisoned by the sects, yet
here “the critic leaves no air to poison.” His meditations and arguments
following, are among the most valuable passages in the book. The
professor, notwithstanding the idea of Christ has by him been exhausted
of all that is peculiar to it, yet recommends him to the veneration and
worship of his hearers, “rather than all who went before him, and all
who ever followed after.” But why? says the poet. For his intellect,
“Which tells me simply what was told
(If mere morality, bereft
Of the God in Christ, be all that’s left)
Elsewhere by voices manifold?”
with which must be combined the fact that this intellect of his did not
save him from making the “important stumble,” of saying that he and God
were one. “But his followers misunderstood him,” says the objector.
Perhaps so; but “the stumbling-block, his speech, who laid it?” Well
then, is it on the score of his goodness that he should rule his race?
“You pledge
Your fealty to such rule? What, all--
From Heavenly John and Attic Paul,
And that brave weather-battered Peter,
Whose stout faith only stood completer
For buffets, sinning to be pardoned,
As the more his hands hauled nets, they hardened--
All, down to you, the man of men,
Professing here at Göttingen,
Compose Christ’s flock! So, you and I
Are sheep of a good man! And why?”
Did Christ _invent_ goodness? or did he only demonstrate that of which
the common conscience was judge?
“I would decree
Worship for such mere demonstration
And simple work of nomenclature,
Only the day I praised, not Nature,
But Harvey, for the circulation.”
The worst man, says the poet, _knows_ more than the best man _does_. God
in Christ appeared to men to help them to _do_, to awaken the life
within them.
“Morality to the uttermost,
Supreme in Christ as we all confess,
Why need _we_ prove would avail no jot
To make Him God, if God he were not?
What is the point where Himself lays stress?
Does the precept run, ‘Believe in good,
In justice, truth, now understood
For the first time?’--or, ‘Believe in ME,
Who lived and died, yet essentially
Am Lord of life’? Whoever can take
The same to his heart, and for mere love’s sake
Conceive of the love,--that man obtains
A new truth; no conviction gains
Of an old one only, made intense
By a fresh appeal to his faded sense.”
In this lies the most direct practical argument with regard to what is
commonly called the Divinity of Christ. Here is a man whom those that
magnify him the least confess to be a good man, the best of men. He
_says_, “I and the Father are one.” Will an earnest heart, knowing this,
be likely to draw back, or will it draw nearer to behold the great
sight? Will not such a heart feel: “A good man like this would not have
said so, were it not so. In all probability the great truth of God lies
behind this veil.” The reality of Christ’s nature is not to be proved by
argument. He must be beheld. The manifestation of Him must “gravitate
inwards” on the soul. It is by looking that one can know. As a
mathematical theorem is to be proved only by the demonstration of that
theorem itself, not by talking _about_ it; so Christ must prove himself
to the human soul through being beheld. The only proof of Christ’s
divinity is his humanity. Because his humanity is not comprehended, his
divinity is doubted; and while the former is uncomprehended, an assent
to the latter is of little avail. For a man to theorize theologically in
any form, while he has not so apprehended Christ, or to neglect the
gazing on him for the attempt to substantiate to himself any form of
belief respecting him, is to bring on himself, in a matter of divine
import, such errors as the expounders of nature in old time brought on
themselves, when they speculated on what a thing must be, instead of
observing what it was; this _must be_ having for its foundation not
self-evident truth, but notions whose chief strength lay in their
preconception. There are thoughts and feelings that cannot be called up
in the mind by any power of will or force of imagination; which, being
spiritual, must arise in the soul when in its highest spiritual
condition; when the mind, indeed, like a smooth lake, reflects only
heavenly images. A steadfast regarding of Him will produce this calm,
and His will be the heavenly form reflected from the mental depth.
But to return to the poem. The fact that Christ remains inside, leads
the poet to reflect, in the spirit of Him who found all the good in men
he could, neglecting no point of contact which presented itself, whether
there was anything at this lecture with which he could sympathize; and
he finds that the heart of the professor does something to rescue him
from the error of his brain. In his brain, even, “if Love’s dead there,
it has left a ghost.” For when the natural deduction from his argument
would be that our faith
“Be swept forthwith to its natural dust-hole,--
He bids us, when we least expect it,
Take back our faith--if it be not just whole,
Yet a pearl indeed, as his tests affect it,
Which fact pays the damage done rewardingly,
So, prize we our dust and ashes accordingly!”
Love as well as learning being necessary to the understanding of the New
Testament, it is to the poet matter of regret that “loveless learning”
should leave its proper work, and make such havoc in that which belongs
not to it. But while he sits “talking with his mind,” his mood begins to
degenerate from sympathy with that which is good to indifference towards
all forms, and he feels inclined to rest quietly in the enjoyment of his
own religious confidence, and trouble himself in no wise about the faith
of his neighbours; for doubtless all are partakers of the central light,
though variously refracted by the varied translucency of the mental
prism....
“‘Twas the horrible storm began afresh!
The black night caught me in his mesh,
Whirled me up, and flung me prone!
I was left on the college-step alone.
I looked, and far there, ever fleeting
Far, far away, the receding gesture,
And looming of the lessening vesture,
Swept forward from my stupid hand,
While I watched my foolish heart expand
In the lazy glow of benevolence
O’er the various modes of man’s belief.
I sprang up with fear’s vehemence.
--Needs must there be one way, our chief
Best way of worship: let me strive
To find it, and when found, contrive
My fellows also take their share.
This constitutes my earthly care:
God’s is above it and distinct!”
The symbolism in the former part of this extract is grand. As soon as he
ceases to look practically on the phenomena with which he is surrounded,
he is enveloped in storm and darkness, and sees only in the far distance
the disappearing skirt of his Lord’s garment. God’s care is over all, he
goes on to say; I must do _my part_. If I look speculatively on the
world, there is nothing but dimness and mystery. If I look practically
on it,
“No mere mote’s-breadth, but teems immense
With witnessings of Providence.”
And whether the world which I seek to help censures or praises me--that
is nothing to me. My life--how is it with me?
“Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held
By the hem of the vesture....
And I caught
At the flying robe, and, unrepelled,
Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught
With warmth and wonder and delight,
God’s mercy being infinite.
And scarce had the words escaped my tongue,
When, at a passionate bound, I sprung
Out of the wandering world of rain,
Into the little chapel again.”
Had he dreamed? how then could he report of the sermon and the preacher?
of which and of whom he proceeds to give a very external account. But
correcting himself--
“Ha! Is God mocked, as He asks?
Shall I take on me to change his tasks,
And dare, despatched to a river-head
For a simple draught of the element,
Neglect the thing for which He sent,
And return with another thing instead!
Saying .... ‘Because the water found
Welling up from underground,
Is mingled with the taints of earth,
While Thou, I know, dost laugh at dearth,
And couldest, at a word, convulse
The world with the leap of its river-pulse,--
Therefore I turned from the oozings muddy,
And bring thee a chalice I found, instead.
See the brave veins in the breccia ruddy!
One would suppose that the marble bled.
What matters the water? A hope I have nursed,
That the waterless cup will quench my thirst.’
--Better have knelt at the poorest stream
That trickles in pain from the straitest rift!
For the less or the more is all God’s gift,
Who blocks up or breaks wide the granite seam.
And here, is there water or not, to drink?”
He comes to the conclusion, that the best for him is that mode of
worship which partakes the least of human forms, and brings him nearest
to the spiritual; and, while expressing good wishes for the Pope and the
professor--
“Meantime, in the still recurring fear
Lest myself, at unawares, be found,
While attacking the choice of my neighbours round,
Without my own made--I choose here!”
He therefore joins heartily in the hymn which is sung by the
congregation of the little chapel at the close of their worship. And
this concludes the poem.
What is the central point from which this poem can be regarded? It does
not seem to be very hard to find. Novalis has said: “Die Philosophie ist
eigentlich Heimweh, ein Trieb überall zu Hause zu sein.” (Philosophy is
really home-sickness, an impulse to be at home everywhere.) The life of
a man here, if life it be, and not the vain image of what might be a
life, is a continual attempt to find his place, his centre of
recipiency, and active agency. He wants to know where he is, and where
he ought to be and can be; for, rightly considered, the position a man
ought to occupy is the only one he truly _can_ occupy. It is a climbing
and striving to reach that point of vision where the multiplex crossings
and apparent intertwistings of the lines of fact and feeling and duty
shall manifest themselves as a regular and symmetrical design. A
contradiction, or a thing unrelated, is foreign and painful to him, even
as the rocky particle in the gelatinous substance of the oyster; and,
like the latter, he can only rid himself of it by encasing it in the
pearl-like enclosure of faith; believing that hidden there lies the
necessity for a higher theory of the universe than has yet been
generated in his soul. The quest for this home-centre, in the man who
has faith, is calm and ceaseless; in the man whose faith is weak, it is
stormy and intermittent. Unhappy is that man, of necessity, whose
perceptions are keener than his faith is strong. Everywhere Nature
herself is putting strange questions to him; the human world is full of
dismay and confusion; his own conscience is bewildered by contradictory
appearances; all which may well happen to the man whose eye is not yet
single, whose heart is not yet pure. He is not at home; his soul is
astray amid people of a strange speech and a stammering tongue. But the
faithful man is led onward; in the stillness that his confidence
produces arise the bright images of truth; and visions of God, which are
only beheld in solitary places, are granted to his soul.
“O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars!”
What is true of the whole, is true of its parts. In all the relations of
life, in all the parts of the great whole of existence, the true man is
ever seeking his home. This poem seems to show us such a quest. “Here I
am in the midst of many who belong to the same family. They differ in
education, in habits, in forms of thought; but they are called by the
same name. What position with regard to them am I to assume? I am a
Christian; how am I to live in relation to Christians?” Such seems to be
something like the poet’s thought. What central position can he gain,
which, while it answers best the necessities of his own soul with regard
to God, will enable him to feel himself connected with the whole
Christian world, and to sympathize with all; so that he may not be
alone, but one of the whole. Certainly the position necessary for both
requirements is one and the same. He that is isolated from his brethren,
loses one of the greatest helps to draw near to God. Now, in this time,
which is so peculiarly transitional, this is a question of no little
import for all who, while they gladly forsake old, or rather _modern_,
theories, for what is to them a more full development of Christianity as
well as a return to the fountain-head, yet seek to be saved from the
danger of losing sympathy with those who are content with what they are
compelled to abandon. Seeing much in the common modes of thought and
belief that is inconsistent with Christianity, and even opposed to it,
they yet cannot but see likewise in many of them a power of spiritual
good; which, though not dependent on the peculiar mode, is yet
enveloped, if not embodied, in that mode.
“Ask, else, these ruins of humanity,
This flesh worn out to rags and tatters,
This soul at struggle with insanity,
Who thence take comfort, can I doubt,
Which an empire gained, were a loss without.”
The love of God is the soul of Christianity. Christ is the body of that
truth. The love of God is the creating and redeeming, the forming and
satisfying power of the universe. The love of God is that which kills
evil and glorifies goodness. It is the safety of the great whole. It is
the home-atmosphere of all life. Well does the poet of the “Christmas
Eve” say:--
“The loving worm within its clod,
Were diviner than a loveless God
Amid his worlds, I will dare to say.”
Surely then, inasmuch as man is made in the image of God nothing less
than a love in the image of God’s love, all-embracing, quietly excusing,
heartily commending, can constitute the blessedness of man; a love not
insensible to that which is foreign to it, but overcoming it with good.
Where man loves in his kind, even as God loves in His kind, then man is
saved, then he has reached the unseen and eternal. But if, besides the
necessity to love that lies in a man, there be likewise in the man whom
he ought to love something in common with him, then the law of love has
increased force. If that point of sympathy lies at the centre of the
being of each, and if these centres are brought into contact, then the
circles of their being will be, if not coincident, yet concentric. We
must wait patiently for the completion of God’s great harmony, and
meantime love everywhere and as we can.
But the great lesson which this poem teaches, and which is taught more
directly in the “Easter Day” (forming part of the same volume), is that
the business of a man’s life is to be a Christian. A man has to do with
God first; in Him only can he find the unity and harmony he seeks. To be
one with Him is to be at the centre of things. If one acknowledges that
God has revealed himself in Christ; that God has recognized man as his
family, by appearing among them in their form; surely that very
acknowledgment carries with it the admission that man’s chief concern is
with this revelation. What does God say and mean, teach and manifest,
herein? If this world is God’s making, and he is present in all nature;
if he rules all things and is present in all history; if the soul of man
is in his image, with all its circles of thought and multiplicity of
forms; and if for man it be not enough to be rooted in God, but he must
likewise lay hold on God; then surely no question, in whatever
direction, can be truly answered, save by him who stands at the side of
Christ. The doings of God cannot be understood, save by him who has the
mind of Christ, which is the mind of God. All things must be strange to
one who sympathizes not with the thought of the Maker, who understands
not the design of the Artist. Where is he to begin? What light has he by
which to classify? How will he bring order out of this apparent
confusion, when the order is higher than his thought; when the confusion
to him is _caused_ by the order’s being greater than he can comprehend?
Because he stands outside and not within, he sees an entangled maze of
forces, where there is in truth an intertwining dance of harmony. There
is for no one any solution of the world’s mystery, or of any part of its
mystery, except he be able to say with our poet:--
“I have looked to Thee from the beginning,
Straight up to Thee through all the world,
Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled
To nothingness on either side:
And since the time Thou wast descried,
Spite of the weak heart, so have I
Lived ever, and so fain would die,
Living and dying, Thee before!”
Christianity is not the ornament, or even complement, of life; it is its
necessity; it is life itself glorified into God’s ideal.
Dr. Chalmers, from considering the minuteness of the directions given to
Moses for the making of the tabernacle, was led to think that he himself
was wrong in attending too little to the “_petite morale_” of dress.
Will this be excuse enough for occupying a few sentences with the
rhyming of this poem? Certainly the rhymes of a poem form no small part
of its artistic existence. Probably there is a deeper meaning in this
part of the poetic art than has yet been made clear to poet’s mind. In
this poem the rhymes have their share in its humorous charm. The
writer’s power of using double and triple rhymes is remarkable, and the
effect is often pleasing, even where they are used in the more solemn
parts of the poem. Take the lines:--
“No! love which, on earth, amid all the shows of it,
Has ever been seen the sole good of life in it,
The love, ever growing there, spite of the strife in it,
Shall arise, made perfect, from death’s repose of it.”
A poem is a thing not for the understanding or heart only, but likewise
for the ear; or, rather, for the understanding and heart through the
ear. The best poem is best set forth when best read. If, then, there be
rhymes which, when read aloud, do, by their composition of words,
prevent the understanding from laying hold on the separate words, while
the ear lays hold on the rhymes, the perfection of the art must here be
lost sight of, notwithstanding the completeness which the rhyming
manifests on close examination. For instance, in “_equipt yours,”
“Scriptures;” “Manchester,” “haunches stir_;” or “_affirm any,”
“Germany_;” where two words rhyme with one word. But there are very few
of them that are objectionable on account of this difficulty and
necessity of rapid analysis.
One of the most wonderful things in the poem is, that so much of
argument is expressed in a species of verse, which one might be
inclined, at first sight, to think the least fitted for embodying it.
But, in fact, the same amount of argument in any other kind of verse
would, in all likelihood, have been intolerably dull as a work of art.
Here the verse is full of life and vigour, flagging never. Where, in
several parts, the exact meaning is difficult to reach, this results
chiefly from the dramatic rapidity and condensation of the thoughts. The
argumentative power is indeed wonderful; the arguments themselves
powerful in their simplicity, and embodied in words of admirable force.
The poem is full of pathos and humour; full of beauty and grandeur,
earnestness and truth.