"You"ll forgive me, I hope, for saying that you scientific men very often seem to have a great contempt for those who are more mystically minded,"
he observed.
"I"ve hit the line!" thought Stepton, with a touch of exultation, as he dropped out a negligent, "Forgive you--of course."
"I dare say it seems to you extraordinary that any man should be able to be a clergyman, genuinely believing what he professes and what he preaches."
"Very few things seem to me extraordinary."
"Perhaps because you are skeptical of so much in which others believe."
"That may be it. Quite likely."
"And yet isn"t there a saying of Newton"s, "A little science sends man far away from G.o.d, a great deal of science brings man back to G.o.d?"
You"ll forgive the apparent rudeness. All I mean is--"
"That the sooner I try to get more science the better for me," snapped out Stepton, brusquely interrupting his visitor, but without heat.
"Let me tell you that I pa.s.s the greater part of my time in that very effort--to acquire more exact knowledge than I possess. Well--now then!
Now then!"
Turning round still more toward the curate he looked almost as if he were about to "square up" to him. A dry aggressiveness informed him, and his voice had a rasping timbre as he continued:
"But I decline to take leaps in the dark like--" Here he mentioned a well-known man of science--"and I decline to reject evidence like--" Here he named a professor even more famous.
The mention of the last name evidently excited Chichester"s curiosity.
"What evidence has he rejected?" he exclaimed.
"Last week he held a sitting to examine the pretensions of Mrs. Groeber, the German medium. Westcott was also present, a man on whose word the very devil--if there is such a person, which I don"t yet know--would rely. Some apparently remarkable phenomena occurred.--" Here he mentioned the professor--"was convinced that they could only have been brought about by supernormal means. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Westcott had seen the trickery which produced them. When the seance was over he explained what it was to ----. What did this _so-called_ man of science do? Refused to accept Westcott"s evidence, clung to his own ridiculous belief,--savage"s fetish belief, nothing more,--and will include the Groeber manifestations as evidence of supernormal powers in his next volume. And I say, I say"--he raised his forefinger--"that clergymen are doing much the same thing pretty nearly every day of their lives. Seek for truth quietly, inexorably, and you may get it; but don"t prod men into falsehood, or try to, as you"ve been trying to in this very room."
"I!" cried out Chichester.
"You. I told you I had no reason to give you as to why you attracted my attention in the street. Were you satisfied with that? Not at all. You must needs come here,--very glad to see you!--and say, "I feel sure you must be able to give me a reason. What is it?" You clamor for a lie.
And that"s what men are perpetually doing--clamoring for lies. And they get "em, from clergymen, from mediums, from so-called scientific men, and from the dear delightful politicians. There now!"
And the professor dropped his forefinger and flung himself back in his chair.
"And"--Chichester in his turn leaned forward, but he spoke with some hesitation--"and suppose I were to tell you a truth, a strange, an amazing truth?"
He paused.
"Go on!" said the professor.
"Wouldn"t you do just the opposite? You say men accept lies. I say you would probably reject truth."
"_Cela depend_. What you believed to be truth might not be truth at all. It might be hysteria, it might be nervous dyspepsia, it might be overwork, it might be a dozen things."
"Just what I say," exclaimed Chichester. "Men of science delight in nothing so much as in finding excuses for rejecting the greatest truths."
"Do you mean the greatest truths in the possession of Anglican clergymen?"
"I dare say you think it impossible that a clergyman should know more than a scientific man?"
"Oh, no. But he"s out for faith, and I happen to be out for facts. I like hard facts that can be set down with a fountain-pen in my note-book, and that, taken together, are convincing to all men of reasonable intellect.
Very dull, no doubt; but there you have it. Clergymen, as a rule, move in what are called lofty regions--the realms of heart, conscience, and what not. Now, I"m very fond of the region of gray matter--gray matter."
"And yet you are one of the chief of the investigators in the field of psychical research."
"Do you think there"s no room for pencil and note-book there? What about Podmore,--there"s a loss!--and a dozen others? Psychic matters have got to be lifted out of the hands of credulous fetish-worshiping fools, and the sooner the better."
"It"s easy to call people credulous," said Chichester, with decided heat.
"By being so readily contemptuous, Professor Stepton, you may often keep back evidence that might be of inestimable value to your cause. A man in possession of a great truth may keep it to himself for fear of being laughed at or called a liar."
"Then all I can say is that he"s a coward--an arrant abject coward."
Chichester sat in silence. Again he was looking down. Now that his eyes were hidden by their drooping lids, and that he was no longer speaking, the sadness of his aspect seemed more profound. It dignified his rather insignificant features. It even seemed, in some mysterious way, to infuse power into his slight and unimportant figure. After sitting thus for perhaps three minutes he raised his head and got up from his chair.
"I must not take up your time any longer," he said. "It was very good of you to see me at all." He held out his hand, which Stepton took, and added, "I"ll just say one thing."
"Do!"
"It isn"t always cowardice which causes a man to keep a secret--a secret which might be of value to the world."
"I never said it was."
"No; but still--you spoke just now of my sermons. I preached one not very long ago which I have typed myself. If I send it to you do you think you could find time to read it?"
"Certainly."
"I will send it, then. Good night."
"I"ll come down with you."
The professor let Chichester out. The rain was still falling in torrents.
Shrouded in his mackintosh, protected by his umbrella, the curate walked away. Looking after him, Stepton thought:
"Very odd! It isn"t only in the face. Even the figure, all covered up and umbrella-roofed, seems to have something--he"ll send me the sermon of the man and his double to-morrow."
And on the morrow that sermon came by the first post. Having read it, the professor promptly returned it to Chichester with the following note:
_The White House, Westminster.
Dear Mr. Chichester:_
Very glad to have had the opportunity of reading your interesting discourse. If I had not known it was yours, and a sermon, I should have said "a posthumous work of Robert Louis Stevenson." It does credit to your imagination. If you care to publish, I should suggest "The Cornhill." I know nothing about their terms.
Yours faithfully,
_G.R.E. Stepton._