Browning and Dogma Part 9

Oh, whose foot shall I see emerge? (l. 400.)

Then follow Sections VII and VIII, revealing the vision.

The too-much glory, as it seemed, Pa.s.sing from out me to the ground, Then palely serpentining round Into the dark with mazy error.

All at once I looked up with terror.

He was there.

He himself with his human air.

On the narrow pathway, just before.

But the writer keeps strictly within the bounds of reverence:

I saw the back of him, no more. (ll. 424-432.)

This treatment in itself may, I believe, be not unjustly taken as indicative of Browning's devotional att.i.tude towards the subject. When, in Section IX, the face is turned upon the narrator, he but records

So lay I, saturate with brightness. (l. 491.)

Where, in _Easter Day_, the description of the Divine Presence is given (xix, l. 640, _et seq._), it is suggested with an awe and vagueness which certainly narrow the conception to no material presentation.

In addition to this vividness of contrast between the first three and the following Sections, the realistic force with which the poem opens has a yet further result. The uncompromising character of the realism opens the way for a more readily accorded credence in the subsequent events of the night. He who describes the vision has likewise seen the congregation in Zion Chapel. When he "flung out" of the meeting-house, his mood was certainly not indicative of imaginative idealism or mystic contemplation.

He is in a frame of mind little likely to prove unduly susceptible to supernatural influences. A realization of this mental att.i.tude is essential to a fair estimate of the line of argument throughout the poem.

I. Sections I, II, and III are thus occupied with the description of the Chapel and the congregation gathered within its walls, of the preacher and the spiritual food whereby he proposes to sustain the members of his flock. And notice: the speaker has entered perforce, driven within the sacred precincts by the violence of the elements. He is an outsider, and, as such, prepared to a.s.sume the att.i.tude of critic rather than of sympathizer. And the severity of the criticism is intensified by physical and intellectual repulsion at the scene before him. Hence he recognizes all that is peculiarly objectionable in the special aspect of non-conformity presented within the Chapel. He perceives at once (1) "the trick of exclusiveness," and the consequent self-satisfaction induced; and (2) the "fine irreverence" of the preacher in presenting the "treasure hid in the Holy Bible" as "a patchwork of chapters and texts in severance, not improved by [his] private dog's-ears and creases." He perceives "the trick of exclusiveness" which causes the congregation to hold itself to be

The men, and [that] wisdom shall die with [them], And none of the old Seven Churches vie with [them].

And, taking G.o.d's word under wise protection, Correct its tendency to diffusiveness. (ll. 107-112.)

Later, when freed from the physical irritation attendant on proximity to this special collection of representatives of humanity, his prejudices are sufficiently modified to allow of the perception that some explanation of this exclusiveness is possible.

These people have really felt, no doubt, A something, the motion they style the Call of them; And this is their method of bringing about

The mood itself, which strengthens by using. (ll. 238-245.)

The speaker is quite willing (when at a distance from the Chapel) to admit this right of attempting a reproduction of that mood in which the original conversion may have been effected. Nevertheless, he will _not_ admit the right of the flock to shut the gate of the fold in the face of any outsider seeking entrance. Still

Mine's the same right with your poorest and sickliest Supposing I don the marriage vestiment. (ll. 119-120.)

In _Johannes Agricola in Meditation_ this personal satisfaction of the Calvinist is presented in a still more extreme form.

Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled The heavens, G.o.d thought on me his child; Ordained a life for me, arrayed Its circ.u.mstances every one To the minutest.

And this pre-ordained object of the Divine Love may a.s.sert with confidence--

I have G.o.d's warrant, could I blend All hideous sins, as in a cup, To drink the mingled venoms up; Secure my nature will convert The draught to blossoming gladness fast.

Thus happiness a.s.sured, inevitable, for the elect. For those excluded from the sacred number--

I gaze below on h.e.l.l's fierce bed, And those its waves of flame oppress, Swarming in ghastly wretchedness; Whose life on earth aspired to be One altar-smoke, so pure!--to win If not love like G.o.d's love for me, At least to keep his anger in; And all their striving turned to sin.

It is difficult to believe that the author of _this_ poem, at any rate, would willingly have identified himself with the Calvinistic creed. To Caliban, a creature so largely devoid of moral sense, we have, indeed, seen him a.s.signing a belief closely akin to that involved in the meditations of Johannes, when he refers to the difference of the fates irrevocably allotted by Setebos to himself and to Prospero; both theories in curious contrast with the reflections of the Book of _Wisdom_: "For thou lovest all the things that are, and abhorrest nothing which thou hast made: for never wouldest thou have made anything, if thou hadst hated it.... But thou sparest all, for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls."[62]

Thus is explained "the trick of exclusiveness." What of the "fine irreverence" of the preacher? Here the success of the sermon as a means of spiritual conviction, is held to be dependent upon the att.i.tude of mind of the listener.

'Tis the taught already that profits by teaching. (l. 255.)

The method employed is only "abundantly convincing" to "those convinced before." To the critic possessed of unprejudiced intellectual faculties, the arbitrary collection of texts and chapters brought into connection by the capricious choice of the preacher is deserving of condemnation as a misrepresentation of the truth, by "provings and parallels twisted and twined," which would draw from even the more obvious Old Testament narrative proof of some doctrinal mystery of his creed--that Pharaoh received a demonstration

By his Baker's dream of Baskets Three, Of the doctrine of the Trinity. (ll. 230-233.)

Those of us who are inclined to reproach Browning for the severity of the condemnation of Roman Catholic ritual ascribed to the soliloquist in Section XI will do well to read again Sections I to IV, which a.s.suredly place the service of Zion Chapel in a far less attractive light than that thrown upon the ceremony in progress beneath the dome of St. Peter's.

II. Thus the listener pa.s.ses from the confines of the Chapel to the limitless expanse of the common without: and the change in externals is indicative also of that within. Whilst discerning the errors of preacher and congregation, the critic has been blinded to the fact that he, too, is equally removed from the spirit of love designed to prove the inspiring principle of all forms of Christianity, however crude their mode of expression. The soothing influence of Nature to which he has ever been peculiarly susceptible, causes at once

A glad rebound From the heart beneath, as if, G.o.d speeding me, I entered his church-door, nature leading me. (ll. 274-276.)

So he stands, recalling the visions of youth, when he "looked to these very skies, probing their immensities," and "found G.o.d there, his visible power." The power was unquestionable, a mere response to the evidence of the senses; but reason, coming to the aid of sight, pointed to the existence also of Love, "the n.o.bler dower." The deduction is logical, since the absence of Love at once imposes limitations to power otherwise apparently infinite. The craving for love existent within the human heart demands satisfaction, and if in this direction the Deity is _unable_ to satisfy the needs of his creatures, man here surpa.s.ses his maker, the creature the creator. Irresponsible power, not comprehensive of love, is of the character of that exercised by Setebos according to the theory of Caliban. Here man is seen endowed with gifts of heart and brain, to exercise _through_ his own will, but _for_ the glory of his creator "as a mere machine could never do." Power (in this place synonymous with force combined with knowledge) may advance by degrees, not so Love. Love does not admit of measurement, since it is by nature infinite. As with eternity, so with Love. By no relative estimate of time can any possible realization of eternity be approached; the sole result of any such attempt at exposition being necessarily conducive to a wholly erroneous impression on the mind, since that which is in its essence infinite admits of no defined measure. Thus infinite Love remains infinite in spite of human limitations. Whilst absolute truth remains, though the revelation to man is gradual, so does Love remain unimpaired, though man may profit by or abuse it.

'Tis not a thing to bear increase As power does: be love less or more In the heart of man, he keeps it shut Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but Love's sum remains what it was before. (ll. 322-326.)

Thus S. Augustine: "Do heaven and earth then contain Thee, since Thou fillest them?... The vessels which are full of Thee do not confine Thee, though they should be shattered, Thou wouldest not be poured out."[63]

To sum up: Where Power alone was at first discernible, in the wonderful care manifested in the smallest creation, "in the leaf, in the stone," the work of Love eventually became equally clear. For a similar expression of Browning's more immediately personal faith we have only to turn to his latest published work, _The Reverie of Asolando_.

From the first Power was--I knew.

Life has made clear to me, That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see.

In simple faith in this all-prevailing Providence, in a recognition of the immanence of the Divine Love, the critic of Zion Chapel believes himself to have found the highest form of worship. Before the night is ended he is, however, to learn differently.

The Vision of Sections VII to IX renders still more forcible the revelation already begun with the escape from the Chapel--that the Love which may be duly worshipped alone in spirit and in truth yet recognizes the feeblest manifestation of either in the worshipper: and that the nearest approach to union with the Divine Love is to be sought in a fuller and more immediate response to the human. And it is worthy of notice that the Vision does not reveal itself within the confines of Zion Chapel, the abode of religious exclusiveness and intolerance; only when the freer atmosphere of Nature has been reached.

III. Rome, St. Peter's. With the opening of the next division of the Poem (Sections X to XII), we find the man who has been anxious that the divine worship shall be celebrated in beauty, as well as in spirit and in truth, again an onlooker: waiting without the walls of St. Peter's, "that miraculous Dome of G.o.d,"--waiting without, yet with eye "free to pierce the crust of the outer wall," and perceive the crowd thronging the cathedral

In expectation Of the main-altar's consummation.

And here is to be found all that was wanting to the bare whitewashed interior of "Mount Zion" with its "lath and plaster entry," with "the forms burlesque, uncouth" of its worship. Here the vast building

Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding, With marble for brick, and stones of price For garniture of the edifice. (ll. 538-540.)

In place of the "snuffle" of the Methodist congregation and the "immense stupidity" of the utterances of the preacher is the silence which may be felt of that solemn moment preceding the elevation, when "the organ blatant holds his breath.... As if G.o.d's hushing finger grazed him." (ll.

574-575.) Whatever the sympathies of spectator or author, no lines in the entire poem are more impressive for the reader than those which follow: