Supper was but a continuation of that delicious sense of intimacy.
And Sam, beaming in his starched shirt and swallow-tail, had an air of presiding over a banquet of state. And for that matter, none had ever gone away hungry from this table, either for meat or love. It was, indeed, a consecrated meal,--consecrated for being just there. Such was the tact which the old darky had acquired from his master that he left the dishes on the shining mahogany board, and bowed himself out.
"When you wants me, Miss Alison, des ring de bell."
She was seated upright yet charmingly graceful, behind the old English coffee service which had been Mr. Bentley"s mother"s. And it was she who, by her wonderful self-possession, by the rea.s.suring smile she gave him as she handed him his cup, endowed it all with reality.
"It"s strange," she said, "but it seems as though I had been doing it all my life, instead of just beginning."
"And you do it as though you had," he declared.
"Which is a proof," she replied, "of the superior adaptability of women."
He did not deny it. He would not then, in truth, have disputed her wildest statement... But presently, after they had gone back into the library and were seated side by side before the coals, they spoke again of serious things, marvelling once more at a happiness which could be tinged and yet unmarred by vicarious sorrow. Theirs was the soberer, profounder happiness of grat.i.tude and wonder, too wise to exult, but which of itself is exalted; the happiness which praises, and pa.s.ses understanding.
"There are many things I want to say to you, John," she told him, once, "and they trouble me a little. It is only because I am so utterly devoted to you that I wish you to know me as I am. I have always had queer views, and although much has happened to change me since I have known and loved you, I am not quite sure how much those views have changed. Love," she added, "plays such havoc with one"s opinions."
She returned his smile, but with knitted brows.
"It"s really serious--you needn"t laugh. And it"s only fair to you to let you know the kind of a wife you are getting, before it is too late.
For instance, I believe in divorce, although I can"t imagine it for us.
One never can, I suppose, in this condition--that"s the trouble. I have seen so many immoral marriages that I can"t think G.o.d intends people to live degraded. And I"m sick and tired of the argument that an indissoluble marriage under all conditions is good for society. That a man or woman, the units of society, should violate the divine in themselves for the sake of society is absurd. They are merely setting an example to their children to do the same thing, which means that society in that respect will never get any better. In this love that has come to us we have achieved an ideal which I have never thought to reach. Oh, John, I"m sure you won"t misunderstand me when I say that I would rather die than have to lower it."
"No," he answered, "I shall not misunderstand you."
"Even though it is so difficult to put into words what I mean. I don"t feel that we really need the marriage service, since G.o.d has already joined us together. And it is not through our own wills, somehow, but through his. Divorce would not only be a crime against the spirit, it would be an impossibility while we feel as we do. But if love should cease, then G.o.d himself would have divorced us, punished us by taking away a priceless gift of which we were not worthy. He would have shut the gates of Eden in our faces because we had sinned against the Spirit.
It would be quite as true to say "whom G.o.d has put asunder no man may join together." Am I hurting you?"
Her hand was on the arm of his chair, and the act of laying his own on it was an a.s.surance stronger than words. Alison sighed.
"Yes, I believed you would understand, even though I expressed myself badly,--that you would help me, that you have found a solution. I used to regard the marriage service as a compromise, as a lowering of the ideal, as something mechanical and rational put in the place of the spiritual; that it was making the Church, and therefore G.o.d, conform to the human notion of what the welfare of society ought to be. And it is absurd to promise to love. We have no control over our affections. They are in G.o.d"s hands, to grant or withdraw.
"And yet I am sure--this is new since I have known you--that if such a great love as ours be withdrawn it would be an unpardonable wrong for either of us to marry again. That is what puzzles me--confounds the wisdom I used to have, and which in my littleness and pride I thought so sufficient. I didn"t believe in G.o.d, but now I feel him, through you, though I cannot define him. And one of many reasons why I could not believe in Christ was because I took it for granted that he taught, among other things, a continuation of the marriage relation after love had ceased to justify it."
Hodder did not immediately reply. Nor did Alison interrupt his silence, but sat with the stillness which at times so marked her personality, her eyes trustfully fixed on him. The current pulsing between them was unbroken. Hodder"s own look, as he gazed into the grate, was that of a seer.
"Yes," he said at length, "it is by the spirit and not the letter of our Lord"s teaching that we are guided. The Spirit which we draw from the Gospels. And everything written down there that does not harmonize with it is the mistaken interpretation of men. Once the Spirit possesses us truly, we are no longer troubled and confused by texts.
"The alpha and omega of Christ"s message is rebirth into the knowledge of that Spirit, and hence submission to its guidance. And that is what Paul meant when he said that it freed us from the law. You are right, Alison, when you declare it to be a violation of the Spirit for a man and woman to live together when love does not exist. Christ shows us that laws were made for those who are not reborn. Laws are the rules of society, to be followed by those who have not found the inner guidance, who live and die in the flesh. But the path which those who live under the control of the Spirit are to take is opened up to them as they journey. If all men and women were reborn we should have the paradox, which only the reborn can understand, of what is best for the individual being best for society, because under the will of the Spirit none can transgress upon the rights and happiness of others. The Spirit would make the laws and rules superfluous.
"And the great crime of the Church, for which she is paying so heavy an expiation, is that her faith wavered, and she forsook the Spirit and resumed the law her Master had condemned. She no longer insisted on that which Christ proclaimed as imperative, rebirth. She became, as you say, a mechanical organization, subst.i.tuting, as the Jews had done, hard and fast rules for inspiration. She abandoned the Communion of Saints, sold her birthright for a mess of pottage, for worldly, temporal power when she declared that inspiration had ceased with the Apostles, when she failed to see that inspiration is personal, and comes through rebirth.
For the sake of increasing her membership, of dominating the affairs of men, she has permitted millions who lived in the law and the flesh, who persisted in forcing men to live by the conventions and customs Christ repudiated, and so stultify themselves, to act in Christ"s name.
The unpardonable sin against the Spirit is to doubt its workings, to maintain that society will be ruined if it be subst.i.tuted for the rules and regulations supposed to make for the material comforts of the nations, but which in reality suppress and enslave the weak.
"Nevertheless in spite of the Church, marvellously through the Church the germ of our Lord"s message has come down to us, and the age in which we live is beginning to realize its purport, to condemn the Church for her subservient rationalism.
"Let us apply the rule of the Spirit to marriage. If we examine the ideal we shall see clearly that the marriage-service is but a symbol.
Like baptism, it is a worthless and meaningless rite unless the man and the woman have been born again into the Spirit, released from the law.
If they are still, as St. Paul would say, in the flesh, let them have, if they wish, a civil permit to live together, for the Spirit can have nothing to do with such an union. True to herself, the Church symbolizes the union of her members, the reborn. She has nothing to do with laws and conventions which are supposedly for the good of society, nor is any union accomplished if those whom she supposedly joins are not reborn.
If they are, the Church can neither make it or dissolve it, but merely confirm and acknowledge the work of the Spirit. And every work of the Spirit is a sacrament. Not baptism and communion and marriage only, but every act of life.
"Oh, John," she exclaimed, her eyes lighting, "I can believe that! How beautiful a thought! I see now what is meant when it is said that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of G.o.d. That is the hourly guidance which is independent of the law. And how terrible to think that all the spiritual beauty of such a religion should have been hardened into chapter and verse and regulation. You have put into language what I think of Mr.
Bentley,--that has acts are sacraments.... It is so simple when you explain it this way. And yet I can see why it was said, too, that we must become as children to understand it."
"The difficult thing," replied Holder, gravely, "is to retain it, to hold it after we have understood it--even after we have experienced it. To continue to live in the Spirit demands all our effort, all our courage and patience and faith. We cannot, as you say, promise to love for life. But the marriage service, interpreted, means that we will use all our human endeavour, with the help of the Spirit, to remain in what may be called the reborn state, since it is by the Spirit alone that true marriage is sanctified. When the Spirit is withdrawn, man and woman are indeed divorced.
"The words "a sense of duty" belong to moral philosophy and not to religion. Love annuls them. I do not mean to decry them, but the reborn are lifted far above them by the subversion of the will by which our will is submitted to G.o.d"s. It is so we develop, and become, as it were, G.o.d. And hence those who are not married in the Spirit are not spiritually man and wife. No consecration has taken place, Church or no Church. If rebirth occurs later, to either or both, the individual conscience--which is the Spirit, must decide whether, as regards each other, they are bound or free, and we must stand or fall by that. Men object that this is opening the door to individualism. What they fail to see is that the door is open, wide, to-day and can never again be closed: that the law of the naturally born is losing its power, that the worn-out authority of the Church is being set at naught because that authority was devised by man to keep in check those who were not reborn.
The only check to material individualism is spiritual individualism, and the reborn man or woman cannot act to the detriment of his fellow-creatures."
In her turn she was silent, still gazing at him, her breath coming deeply, for she was greatly moved.
"Yes," she said simply, "I can see now why divorce between us would be a sacrilege. I felt it, John, but I couldn"t reason it out. It is the consecration of the Spirit that justifies the union of the flesh. For the Spirit, in that sense, does not deny the flesh."
"That would be to deny life," Hodder replied.
"I see. Why was it all so hidden!" The exclamation was not addressed to him--she was staring pensively into the fire. But presently, with a swift movement, she turned to him.
"You will preach this, John,--all of it!"
It was not a question, but the cry of a new and wider vision of his task. Her face was transfigured. And her voice, low and vibrating, expressed no doubts. "Oh, I am proud of you! And if they put you out and persecute you I shall always be proud, I shall never know why it was given me to have this, and to live. Do you remember saying to me once that faith comes to us in some human form we love? You are my faith. And faith in you is my faith in humanity, and faith in G.o.d."
Ere he could speak of his own faith in her, in mankind, by grace of which he had been lifted from the abyss, there came a knock at the door.
And even as they answered it a deeper knowledge filtered into their hearts.
Horace Bentley stood before them. And the light from his face, that shone down upon them, was their benediction.
AFTERWORD
Although these pages have been published serially, it is with a feeling of reluctance that I send them out into the world, for better or worse, between the covers of a book. They have been written with reverence, and the reading of the proofs has brought back to me vividly the long winters in which I pondered over the matter they contain, and wrote and rewrote the chapters.
I had not thought to add anything to them by way of an afterword.
Nothing could be farther from my mind than to pose as a theologian; and, were it not for one or two of the letters I have received, I should have supposed that no reader could have thought of making the accusation that I presumed to speak for any one except myself. In a book of this kind, the setting forth of a personal view of religion is not only unavoidable, but necessary; since, if I wrote sincerely, Mr. Hodder"s solution must coincide with my own--so far as I have been able to work one out. Such as it is, it represents many years of experience and reflection. And I can only crave the leniency of any trained theologian who may happen to peruse it.
No one realizes, perhaps, the incompleteness of the religious interpretations here presented more keenly than I. More significant, more vital elements of the truth are the rewards of a mind which searches and craves, especially in these days when the fruit of so many able minds lies on the shelves of library and bookshop. Since the last chapter was written, many suggestions have come to me which I should like to have the time to develop for this volume. But the nature of these elements is positive,--I can think of nothing I should care to subtract.
Here, then, so far as what may be called religious doctrine is concerned, is merely a personal solution. We are in an age when the truth is being worked out through many minds, a process which seems to me both Christian and Democratic. Yet a gentleman has so far misunderstood this that he has already accused me, in a newspaper, of committing all the heresies condemned by the Council of Chalcedon,--and more!
I have no doubt that he is right. My consolation must be that I have as company--in some of my heresies, at least--a goodly array of gentlemen who wear the cloth of the orthodox churches whose doctrines he accuses me of denying. The published writings of these clergymen are accessible to all. The same critic declares that my interpretations are without "authority." This depends, of course; on one"s view of "authority." But his accusation is true equally against many men who--if my observation be correct--are doing an incalculable service for religion by giving to the world their own personal solutions, interpreting Christianity in terms of modern thought. No doubt these, too, are offending the champions of the Council of Chalcedon.
And does the gentleman, may I ask, ever read the pages of the Hibbert Journal?
Finally, I have to meet a more serious charge, that Mr. Hodder remains in the Church because of "the dread of parting with the old, strong anchorage, the fear of anathema and criticism, the thought of sorrowing and disapproving friends." Or perhaps he infers that it is I who keep Mr. Hodder in the Church for these personal reasons. Alas, the concern of society is now for those upon whom the Church has lost her hold, who are seeking for a solution they can accept. And the danger to-day is not from the side of heresy. The rector of St. John"s, as a result of his struggle, gained what I believe to be a higher and surer faith than that which he formerly held, and in addition to this the realization of the presence of a condition which was paralyzing the Church"s influence.
One thing I had hoped to make clear, that if Mr. Hodder had left the Church under these circ.u.mstances he would have made the Great Refusal.
The situation which he faced demanded something of the sublime courage of his Master.
Lastly, may I be permitted to add that it is far from my intention to reflect upon any particular denomination. The instance which I have taken is perhaps a p.r.o.nounced rather than a particular case of the problem to which I have referred, and which is causing the gravest concern to thoughtful clergymen and laymen of all denominations.