"Well, sir, I"ve not denied I did write it."
"Denied you did write it!" I exclaimed, with gathering pa.s.sion; "what do you mean by the subterfuge about your pa.s.sing through the town and by your calling me your friend a minute ago? What would you have thought if anybody had written anonymously to the Sentinel, and had accused you of selling short measure? You would have said it was a libel, and you would also have said that a charge of that kind ought to be made publicly and not anonymously. You seem to think, nevertheless, that it is no sin to ruin me anonymously."
"Mr. Rutherford, I AM sure I am your friend. I wish you well, sir, both here"--and Mr. Snale tried to be very solemn--"and in the world to come. With regard to the letter, I don"t see it as you do, sir. But, sir, if you are going to talk in this tone, I would advise you to be careful. We have heard, sir"--and here Mr. Snale began to simper and grin with an indescribably loathsome grimace--"that some of your acquaintances in your native town are of opinion that you have not behaved quite so well as you should have done to a certain young lady of your acquaintance; and what is more, we have marked with pain here, sir, your familiarity with an atheist and his daughter, and we have noticed their coming to chapel, and we have also noticed a change in your doctrine since these parties attended there."
At the word "daughter" Mr. Snale grinned again, apparently to somebody behind me, and I found that one of his shopwomen had entered the counting-house, un.o.bserved by me, while this conversation was going on, and that she was smirking in reply to Mr. Snale"s signals. In a moment the blood rushed to my brain. I was as little able to control myself as if I had been shot suddenly down a precipice.
"Mr. Snale, you are a contemptible scoundrel and a liar."
The effort on him was comical. He cried:
"What, sir!--what do you mean, sir?--a minister of the gospel--if you were not, I would--a liar"--and he swung round hastily on the stool on which he was sitting, to get off and grasp a yard-measure which stood against the fireplace. But the stool slipped, and he came down ignominiously. I waited till he got up, but as he rose a carriage stopped at the door, and he recognised one of his best customers.
Brushing the dust off his trousers, and smoothing his hair, he rushed out without his hat, and in a moment was standing obsequiously on the pavement, bowing to his patron. I pa.s.sed him in going out, but the oily film of subserviency on his face was not broken for an instant.
When I got home I bitterly regretted what had happened. I never regret anything more than the loss of self-mastery. I had been betrayed, and yet I could not for the life of me see how the betrayal could have been prevented. It was upon me so suddenly, that before a moment had been given me for reflection, the words were out of my mouth. I was distinctly conscious that the _I_ had not said those words. They had been spoken by some other power working in me which was beyond my reach. Nor could I foresee how to prevent such a fall for the future.
The only advice, even now, which I can give to those who comprehend the bitter pangs of such self-degradation as pa.s.sion brings, is to watch the first risings of the storm, and to say "Beware; be watchful," at the least indication of a tempest. Yet, after every precaution, we are at the mercy of the elements, and in an instant the sudden doubling of a cape may expose us, under a serene sky, to a blast which, taking us with all sails spread, may overset us and wreck us irretrievably.
My connection with the chapel was now obviously at an end. I had no mind to be dragged before a church meeting, and I determined to resign.
After a little delay I wrote a letter to the deacons, explaining that I had felt a growing divergence from the theology taught heretofore in Water Lane, and I wished consequently to give up my connection with them. I received an answer stating that my resignation had been accepted; I preached a farewell sermon; and I found myself one Monday morning with a quarter"s salary in my pocket, a few bills to pay, and a blank outlook.
What was to be done? My first thought was towards Unitarianism, but when I came to cast up the sum-total of what I was a.s.sured, it seemed so ridiculously small that I was afraid. The occupation of a merely miscellaneous lecturer had always seemed to me very poor. I could not get up Sunday after Sunday and retail to people little sc.r.a.ps suggested by what I might have been studying during the week; and with regard to the great subjects--for the exposition of which the Christian minister specially exists--how much did I know about them? The position of a minister who has a gospel to proclaim; who can go out and tell men what they are to do to be saved, was intelligible; but not so the position of a man who had no such gospel.
What reason for continuance as a preacher could I claim? Why should people hear me rather than read books? I was alarmed to find, on making my reckoning, that the older I got the less I appeared to believe. Nakeder and nakeder had I become with the pa.s.sage of every year, and I trembled to antic.i.p.ate the complete emptiness to which before long I should be reduced.
What the dogma of immortality was to me I have already described, and with regard to G.o.d I was no better. G.o.d was obviously not a person in the clouds, and what more was really firm under my feet than this--that the universe is governed by immutable laws? These laws were not what is commonly understood as G.o.d. Nor could I discern any ultimate tendency in them. Everything was full of contradiction. On the one hand was infinite misery; on the other there were exquisite adaptations producing the highest pleasure; on the one hand the mystery of life- long disease, and on the other the equal mystery of the unspeakable glory of the sunrise on a summer"s morning over a quiet summer sea.
I happened to hear once an atheist discoursing on the follies of theism. If he had made the world, he would have made it much better.
He would not have racked innocent souls with years of torture, that tyrants might live in splendour. He would not have permitted the earthquake to swallow up thousands of harmless mortals, and so forth.
But, putting aside all dependence upon the theory of a coming rectification of such wrongs as these, the atheist"s argument was shallow enough.
It would have been easy to show that a world such as he imagines is unthinkable directly we are serious with our conception of it. On whatever lines the world may be framed, there must be distinction, difference, a higher and a lower; and the lower, relatively to the higher, must always be an evil. The scale upon which the higher and lower both are makes no difference. The supremest bliss would not be bliss if it were not definable bliss--that is to say, in the sense that it has limits, marking it out from something else not so supreme.
Perfectly uninterrupted, infinite light, without shadow, is a physical absurdity. I see a thing because it is lighted, but also because of the differences of light, or, in other words, because of shade, and without shade the universe would be objectless, and in fact invisible.
The atheist was dreaming of shadowless light, a contradiction in terms.
Mankind may be improved, and the improvement may be infinite, and yet good and evil must exist. So with death and life. Life without death is not life, and death without life is equally impossible.
But though all this came to me, and was not only a great comfort to me, but prevented any shallow prating like that to which I listened from this lecturer, it could not be said that it was a gospel from which to derive apostolic authority. There remained morals. I could become an instructor of morality. I could warn tradesmen not to cheat, children to honour their parents, and people generally not to lie. The mission was n.o.ble, but I could not feel much enthusiasm for it, and more than this, it was a fact that reformations in morals have never been achieved by mere directions to be good, but have always been the result of an enthusiasm for some City of G.o.d, or some supereminent person.
Besides, the people whom it was most necessary to reach would not be the people who would, unsolicited, visit a Unitarian meeting-house. As for a message of negations, emanc.i.p.ating a number of persons from the dogma of the Trinity or future punishment, and spending my strength in merely demonstrating the nonsense of orthodoxy, my soul sickened at the very thought of it. Wherein would men be helped, and wherein should I be helped?
There were only two persons in the town who had ever been of any service to me. One was Miss Arbour, and the other was Mardon. But I shrank from Miss Arbour, because I knew that my troubles had never been hers. She belonged to a past generation, and as to Mardon, I never saw him without being aware of the difficulty of accepting any advice from him. He was perfectly clear, perfectly secular, and was so definitely shaped and settled, that his line of conduct might always be predicted beforehand with certainty. I knew very well what he thought about preaching, and what he would tell me to do, or rather, what he would tell me not to do.
Nevertheless, after all, I was a victim to that weakness which impels us to seek the a.s.sistance of others when we know that what they offer will be of no avail. Accordingly, I called on him. Both he and Mary were at home, and I was received with more than usual cordiality. He knew already that I had resigned, for the news was all over the town.
I said I was in great perplexity.
"The perplexities of most persons arise," said Mardon, "as yours probably arise, from not understanding exactly what you want to do.
For one person who stumbles and falls with a perfectly distinct object to be attained, I have known a score whose disasters are to be attributed to their not having made themselves certain what their aim is. You do not know what you believe; consequently you do not know how to act."
"What would you do if you were in my case?"
"Leave the whole business and prefer the meanest handicraft. You have no right to be preaching anything doubtful. You are aware what my creed is. I profess no belief in G.o.d, and no belief in what hangs upon it. Try and name now, any earnest conviction you possess, and see whether you have a single one which I have not got."
"I DO believe in G.o.d."
"There is nothing in that statement. What do you believe about Him?-- that is the point. You will find that you believe nothing, in truth, which I do not also believe of the laws which govern the universe and man."
"I believe in an intellect of which these laws are the expression."
"Now what kind of an intellect can that be? You can a.s.sign to it no character in accordance with its acts. It is an intellect, if it be an intellect at all, which will swallow up a city, and will create the music of Mozart for me when I am weary; an intellect which brings to birth His Majesty King George IV., and the love of an affectionate mother for her child; an intellect which, in the person of a tender girl, shows an exquisite conscience, and in the person of one or two religious creatures whom I have known, shows a conscience almost inverted. I have always striven to prove to my theological friends that their mere affirmation of G.o.d is of no consequence. They may be affirming anything or nothing. The question, the all-important question is, WHAT can be affirmed about Him?"
"Your side of the argument naturally admits of a more precise statement than mine. I cannot encompa.s.s G.o.d with a well-marked definition, but for all that, I believe in Him. I know all that may be urged against the belief, but I cannot help thinking that the man who looks upon the stars, or the articulation of a leaf, is irresistibly impelled, unless he has been corrupted by philosophy, to say, There is intellect there.
It is the instinct of the child and of the man."
"I don"t think so; but grant it, and again I ask, WHAT intellect is it?"
"Again I say, I do not know."
"Then why dispute? Why make such a fuss about it?"
"It really seems to me of immense importance whether you see this intellect or not, although you say it is of no importance. It appears to be of less importance than it really is, because I do not think that even you ever empty the universe of intellect. I believe that mind never worships anything but mind, and that you worship it when you admire the level bars of cloud over the setting sun. You think you eject mind, but you do not. I can only half imagine a belief which looks upon the world as a mindless blank, and if I could imagine it, it would be depressing in the last degree to me. I know that I have mind, and to live in a universe in which my mind is answered by no other would be unbearable. Better any sort of intelligence than none at all.
But, as I have just said, your case admits of plainer statement than mine. You and I have talked this matter over before, and I have never gained a logical victory over you. Often I have felt thoroughly prostrated by you, and yet, when I have left you, the old superst.i.tion has arisen unsubdued. I do not know how it is, but I always feel that upon this, as upon many other subjects, I never can really speak myself. An unshapen thought presents itself to me, I look at it, and I do all in my power to give it body and expression, but I cannot. I am certain that there is something truer and deeper to be said about the existence of G.o.d than anything I have said, and what is more, I am certain of the presence of this something in me, but I cannot lift it to the light."
"Ah, you are now getting into the region of sentiment, and I am unable to accompany you. When my friends go into the clouds, I never try to follow them."
All this time Mary had been sitting in the arm-chair against the fireplace in her usual att.i.tude, resting her head on her hand and with her feet crossed one over the other on the fender. She had been listening silently and motionless. She now closed her eyes and said -
"Father, father, it is not true."
"What is not true?"
"I do not mean that what you have said about theology is not true, but you make Mr. Rutherford believe you are what you are not. Mr.
Rutherford, father sometimes tells us he has no sentiment, but you must take no notice of him when he talks in that way. I always think of our visit to the seaside two years ago. The railway-station was in a disagreeable part of the town, and when we came out we walked along a dismal row of very plain-looking houses. There were cards in the window with "Lodgings" written on them, and father wanted to go in to ask the terms. I said that I did not wish to stay in such a dull street, but father could not afford to pay for a sea view, and so we went in to inquire. We then found that what we thought were the fronts of the houses were the backs, and that the fronts faced the bay. They had pretty gardens on the other side, and a glorious sunny prospect over the ocean."
Mardon laughed and said -
"Ah, Mary, there is no sea front here, and no garden."
I took up my hat and said I must go. Both pressed me to stop, but I declined. Mardon urged me again, and at last said -
"I believe you"ve never once heard Mary sing."
Mary protested, and pleaded that as they had no piano, Mr. Rutherford would not care for her poor voice without any accompaniment. But I, too, protested that I should, and she got out the "Messiah." Her father took a tuning-fork out of his pocket, and having struck it, Mary rose and began, "He was despised." Her voice was not powerful, but it was pure and clear, and she sang with that perfect taste which is begotten solely of a desire to honour the Master. The song always had a profound charm for me. Partly this was due to a.s.sociation. The words and tones, which have been used to embody their emotions by those whom we have loved, are doubly expressive when we use them to embody our own. The song is potent too, because with utmost musical tenderness and strength it reveals the secret of the influence of the story of Jesus. n.o.body would be bold enough to cry, THAT TOO IS MY CASE, and yet the poorest and the humblest soul has a right to the consolation that Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
For some reason or the other, or for many reasons, Mary"s voice wound itself into the very centre of my existence. I seemed to be listening to the tragedy of all human worth and genius. The ball rose in my throat, the tears mounted to my eyes, and I had to suppress myself rigidly.
Presently she ceased. There was silence for a moment. I looked round, and saw that Mardon"s face was on the table, buried in his hands. I felt that I had better go, for the presence of a stranger, when the heart is deeply stirred, is an intrusion. I noiselessly left the room, and Mary followed. When we got to the door she said: "I forgot that mother used to sing that song. I ought to have known better." Her own eyes were full; I thought the pressure of her hand as she bade me good- bye was a little firmer than usual, and as we parted an over-mastering impulse seized me. I lifted her hand to my lips; without giving her time to withdraw it, I gave it one burning kiss, and pa.s.sed out into the street. It was pouring with rain, and I had neither overcoat nor umbrella, but I heeded not the heavens, and not till I got home to my own fireless, dark, solitary lodgings, did I become aware of any contrast between the sphere into which I had been exalted and the earthly commonplace world by which I was surrounded.
CHAPTER VII--EMANc.i.p.aTION