Coelebs In Search of a Wife Part 25

"You are a strange fellow. According to you, we can neither be saved by good works, nor without them."

"Come, Mr. Tyrrel, you are nearer the truth than you intended. We can not be saved by the merit of our good works, without setting at naught the merits and death of Christ; and we can not be saved without them, unless we set at naught G.o.d's holiness, and make him a favorer of sin.

Now to this the doctrine of the atonement, properly understood, is most completely hostile. That this doctrine _favors_ sin, is one of the false charges which worldly men bring against vital Christianity, because they do not understand the principle, nor inquire into the grounds, on which it is adopted."

"Still, I think you limit the grace of G.o.d, as if people must be very good first, in order to deserve it, and then he will come and add his grace to their goodness. Whereas grace has been most conspicuous in the most notorious sinners."

"I allow that the grace of G.o.d has never manifested itself more gloriously than in the conversion of notorious sinners. But it is worth remarking, that all such, with St. Paul at their head, have ever after been eminently more afraid than other men of falling again into sin; they have prayed with the greater earnestness to be delivered from the power of it, and have continued to lament most deeply the remaining corruption of their hearts."

In the course of the conversation Mr. Tyrrel said, "he should be inclined to entertain doubts of that man's state who could not give an accurate account of the time, and the manner, in which he was first awakened, and who had had no sensible manifestations of the divine favor."

"I believe," replied Mr. Stanley, "that my notions of the evidence of being in the favor of G.o.d differ materially from yours. If a man feel in himself a hatred of all sin, without sparing his favorite corruption; if he rest for salvation on the promise of the gospel alone; if he maintain in his mind such a sense of the nearness and immeasurable importance of eternal things, as shall enable him to use temporal things with moderation, and antic.i.p.ate their end without dismay; if he delight in the worship of G.o.d, is zealous for his service, making _his_ glory the end and aim of all his actions; if he labor to fulfill his allotted duties conscientiously; if he love his fellow-creatures as the children of the same common Father, and partakers of the same common hope; if he feel the same compa.s.sion for the immortal interests, as for the worldly distresses of the unfortunate; forgiving others, as he hopes to be forgiven; if he endeavor according to his measure and ability, to diminish the vice and misery with which the world abounds, _that_ man has a solid ground of peace and hope, though he may not have those sensible evidences which afford triumph and exultation. In the mean while, the man of a heated imagination, who boasts of mysterious communications within, is perhaps exhibiting outwardly unfavorable marks of his real state, and holding out by his low practice discouragements unfriendly to that religion of which he professes himself a shining instance.

"The sober Christian is as fully convinced that only he who made the heart can renew it, as the enthusiast. He is as fully persuaded that his natural dispositions can not be changed, nor his affections purified but by the agency of the divine Spirit, as the fanatic. And though he presume not to limit omnipotence to a sudden or a gradual change, yet he does not think it necessary to ascertain the day, and the hour, and the moment, contented to be a.s.sured that whereas he was once blind he now sees. If he does not presume in his own case to fix the _chronology of conversion_, he is not less certain as to its effects. If he can not enumerate dates, and recapitulate feelings, he can and does produce such evidence of his improvement, as virtuous habits, a devout temper, an humble and charitable spirit, repentance toward G.o.d, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and this gives an evidence less equivocal, as existing more in the heart than on the lips, and more in the life than in the discourse. Surely, if a plant be flourishing, the branches green, and the fruit fair and abundant, we may venture to p.r.o.nounce these to be indications of health and vigor, though we can not ascertain the moment when the seed was sown, or the manner in which it sprung up."

Sir John, who had been an attentive listener, but had not yet spoken a word, now said, smiling, "Mr. Stanley, you steer most happily between the two extremes. This exclusive cry of grace in one party of religionists, which drives the opposite side into as unreasonable a clamor against it, reminds me of the Queen of Louis Quatorze. When the Jesuits, who were of the court-party, made so violent an outcry against the Jasenists, for no reason but because they had more piety than themselves, her majesty was so fearful of being thought to favor the oppressed side, that in the excess of her party zeal, she vehemently exclaimed, 'Oh, fie upon grace! fie upon grace!'"

"Party violence," continued Mr. Stanley, "thinks it can never recede far enough from the side it opposes!"

"But how then," replied Mr. Tyrrel, "is our religion to be known, except by our making a profession of truths which the irreligious are either ignorant of, or oppose?"

"There is," rejoined Mr. Stanley, "as I have already observed, a more infallible criterion. It is best known by the effects it produces on the heart and on the temper. A religion which consists in opinions only, will not advance us in our progress to heaven: it is apt to inflate the mind with the pride of disputation; and victory is so commonly the object of debate, that eternity slides out of sight. The two cardinal points of our religion, justification and sanctification, are, if I may be allowed the term, correlatives; they imply a reciprocal relation, nor do I call that state Christianity, in which either is separately and exclusively maintained. The union of these manifests the dominion of religion in the heart, by increasing its humility, by purifying its affections, by setting it above the contamination of the maxims and habits of the world, by detaching it from the vanities of time, and elevating it to a desire for the riches of eternity."

"All the exhortations to duties," returned Mr. Tyrrel, "with which so many sermons abound, are only an infringement on the liberty of a Christian. A true believer knows of no duty but faith, no rule but love."

"Love is indeed," said Mr. Stanley, "the fountain and principle of all practical virtue. But love itself requires some regulations to direct its exertion; some law to guide its motions; some rule to prevent its aberrations; some guard to hinder that which is vigorous from becoming eccentric. With such a regulation, such a law, such a guard, the divine ethics of the gospel have furnished us. The word of G.o.d is as much our rule, as his Spirit is our guide, or his Son our 'way.' This unerring rule alone secures Christian liberty from disorder, from danger, from irregularity, from excess. Conformity to the precepts of the Redeemer is the most infallible proof of having an interest in his death."

We afterward insensibly slid into other subjects, when Mr. Tyrrel, like a combatant who thought himself victorious, seemed inclined to return to the charge. The love of money having been mentioned by Sir John with extreme severity, Mr. Tyrrel seemed to consider it as a venial failing, and said that both avarice and charity might be const.i.tutional.

"They may be so," said Mr. Stanley, "but Christianity, sir, has a const.i.tution of its own; a superinduced const.i.tution. A real Christian 'confers not with flesh and blood,' with his _const.i.tution_, whether he shall give or forbear to give, when it is a clear duty, and the will of G.o.d requires it. If we believe in the principles, we must adopt the conclusions. Religion is not an unproductive theory, nor charity an unnecessary, an incidental consequence, nor a contingent left to our own choice. You are a cla.s.sic, Mr. Tyrrel, and can not have forgotten that in your mythological poets, the three Pagan graces were always knit together hand in hand; the three Christian graces are equally inseparable, and that the greatest of these is charity; that grand principle of love, of which almsgiving is only one branch."

Mr. Tyrrel endeavored to evade the subject, and seemed to intimate that true Christianity might be known without any such evidences as Mr.

Stanley thought necessary. This led the latter to insist warmly on the vast stress which every part of Scripture laid on the duty of charity.

"Its doctrines," said he, "its precepts, its promises, and its examples all inculcate it. 'The new commandment' of John; 'the pure and undefiled religion' of James; 'ye shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just' of Luke; the daily and hourly practice of him, who not only taught to do good, but who went about doing it; 'the store for a good foundation against the time to come' of Paul--nay, in the only full, solemn, and express representation of the last day, which the gospel exhibits, charity is not only brought forward as a predominant, a distinguishing feature of the righteous, but a specific recompense seems to be a.s.signed to it, when practiced on true Christian grounds. And it is not a little observable, that the only posthumous quotation from the sayings of our divine Saviour which the Scripture has recorded, is an encouragement to charity: 'Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

The next afternoon, when we were all conversing together, I asked Mr.

Stanley what opinion he held on a subject which had lately been a good deal canva.s.sed; the propriety of young ladies learning the dead languages; particularly Latin. He was silent. Mrs. Stanley smiled.

Ph[oe]be laughed outright. Lucilla, who had nearly finished making tea, blushed excessively. Little Celia, who was sitting on my knee while I was teaching her to draw a bird, put an end to the difficulty, by looking up in my face and crying out--"Why, sir, Lucilla reads Latin with papa every morning." I cast a timid eye on Miss Stanley, who, after putting the sugar into the cream pot, and the tea into the sugar bason, slid out of the room, beckoning Ph[oe]be to follow her.

"Poor Lucilla," said Mr. Stanley, "I feel for her. Well, sir," continued he, "you have discovered by external, what I trust you would not have soon found by internal evidence. Parents who are in high circ.u.mstances, yet from principle abridge their daughters of the pleasures of the dissipated part of the world, may be allowed to subst.i.tute other pleasures; and if the girl has a strong inquisitive mind, they may direct it to such pursuits as call for vigorous application, and the exercise of the mental powers."

"How does that sweet girl manage," said Lady Belfield, "to be so utterly void of pretension? So much softness and so much usefulness strip her of all the terrors of learning."

"At first," replied Mr. Stanley, "I only meant to give Lucilla as much Latin as would teach her to grammaticize her English, but her quickness in acquiring led me on, and I think I did right; for it is superficial knowledge that excites vanity. A learned language, which a discreet woman will never produce in company, is less likely to make her vain than those acquirements which, are always in exhibition. And after all, it is a hackneyed remark, that the best instructed girl will have less learning than a school-boy; and why should vanity operate in her case more than in his?"

"For this single reason, sir," said I, "that every body knows that which very few girls are taught. Suspect me not, however, of censuring a measure which I admire. I hope the example of your daughters will help to raise the tone of female education."

"Softly, softly," interrupted Mr. Stanley, "retrench your plural number.

It is only one girl out of six that has deviated from the beaten track.

I do not expect many converts to what I must rather call my practice in one instance, than my general opinion. I am so convinced of the prevailing prejudice, that the thing has never been named out of the family. If my gay neighbor Miss Rattle knew that Lucilla had learned Latin, she would instantly find out a few moments to add that language to her innumerable acquirements, because her mother can afford to pay for it, and because Lady Di. Dash has never learned it. I a.s.sure you, however" (laughing as he spoke), "I never intend to smuggle my poor girl on any man by concealing from him this unpopular attainment, any more than I would conceal any personal defect."

"I will honestly confess," said Sir John, who had not yet spoken, "that had I been to judge the case _a priori_, had I met Miss Stanley under the terrifying persuasion that she was a scholar, I own I should have met her with a prejudice; I should have feared she might be forward in conversation, deficient in feminine manners, and dest.i.tute of domestic talents. But having had such a fair occasion of admiring her engaging modesty, her gentle and una.s.suming tone in society, and above all, having heard from Lady Belfield how eminently she excels in the true science of a lady--domestic knowledge--I can not refuse her that additional regard, which this solid acquirement, so meekly borne, deserves. Nor, on reflection, do I see why we should be so forward to instruct a woman in the language spoken at Rome in its present degraded state, in which there are comparatively few authors to improve her, and yet be afraid that she should be acquainted with that which was its vernacular tongue, in its age of glory two thousand years ago, and which abounds with writers of supreme excellence."

I was charmed at these concessions from Sir John, and exclaimed with a transport which I could not restrain: "In our friends, even in our common acquaintance, do we not delight to a.s.sociate with those whose pursuits have been similar to our own, and who have read the same books?

How dull do we find it, when civility compels us to pa.s.s even a day with an illiterate man? Shall we not then delight in the kindred acquirements of a dearer friend? Shall we not rejoice in a companion who has drawn, though less copiously, perhaps, from the same rich sources with ourselves; who can relish the beauty we quote, and trace the allusion at which we hint? I do not mean that _learning_ is absolutely necessary, but a man of taste who has an ignorant wife, can not, in her company, think his own thoughts, nor speak his own language; his thoughts he will suppress; his language he will debase, the one from hopelessness, the other from compa.s.sion. He must be continually lowering and diluting his meaning, in order to make himself intelligible. This he will do for the woman he loves, but in doing it he will not be happy. She, who can not be entertained by his conversation, will not be convinced by his reasoning; and at length he will find out that it is less trouble to lower his own standard to hers, than to exhaust himself in the vain attempt to raise hers to his own."

"A fine high-sounding _tirade_, Charles, spoken _con amore_," said Sir John. "I really believe, though, that one reason why women are so frivolous is, that the things they are taught are not solid enough to fix the attention, exercise the intellect, and fortify the understanding. They learn little that inures to reasoning, or compels to patient meditation."

"I consider the difficulties of a solid education," said Mr. Stanley, "as a sort of preliminary course, intended perhaps by Providence as a gradual preparative for the subsequent difficulties of life; as a prelude to the acquisition of that solidity and firmness of character which actual trials are hereafter to confirm. Though I would not make instruction unnecessarily harsh and rugged, yet I would not wish to increase its facilities to such a degree as to weaken that robustness of mind which it should be its object to promote, in order to render mental discipline subservient to moral."

"How have you managed with your other girls, Stanley?" said Sir John, "for though you vindicate general knowledge, you profess not to wish for general learning in the s.e.x."

"Far from it," replied Mr. Stanley. "I am a gardener you know, and accustomed to study the genius of the soil before I plant. Most of my daughters, like the daughters of other men, have some one talent, or at least propensity; for parents are too apt to mistake inclination for genius. This propensity I endeavor to find out and to cultivate. But if I find the natural bias very strong, and not very safe, I then labor to counteract, instead of encouraging the tendency, and try to give it a fresh direction. Lucilla having a strong bent to whatever relates to intellectual taste, I have read over with her the most unexceptionable parts of a few of the best Roman cla.s.sics. She began at nine years old, for I have remarked that it is not learning much, but learning late, which makes pedants.

"Ph[oe]be, who has a superabundance of vivacity, I have in some measure tamed, by making her not only a complete mistress of arithmetic, but by giving her a tincture of mathematics. Nothing puts such a bridle on the fancy as demonstration. A habit of computing steadies the mind, and subdues the soarings of imagination. It sobers the vagaries of trope and figure, subst.i.tutes truth for metaphor, and exactness for amplification.

This girl, who if she had been fed on poetry and works of imagination, might have become a Miss Sparkes, now rather gives herself the airs of a calculator and of a grave computist. Though as in the case of the cat in the fable, who was metamorphosed into a lady, nature will breath out as soon as the scratching of a mouse is heard; and all Ph[oe]be's philosophy can scarcely keep her in order, if any work of fancy comes in her way.

"To soften the horrors of her fate, however, I allowed her to read a few of the best things in her favorite cla.s.s. When I read to her the more delicate parts of Gulliver's Travels, with which she was enchanted, she affected to be angry at the voyage to Laputa, because it ridicules philosophical science. And in Brobdignag, she said, the proportions were not correct. I must, however, explain to you, that the use which I made of these dry studies with Ph[oe]be, was precisely the same which the ingenious Mr. Cheshire makes of his steel machines for defective shapes, to straiten a crooked tendency or strengthen a weak one. Having employed these means to set her mind upright, and to cure a wrong bias; as that skillful gentleman discards his apparatus as soon as the patient becomes strait, so have I discontinued these pursuits, for I never meant to make a mathematical lady. Jane has a fine ear and a pretty voice, and will sing and play well enough for any girl who is not to make music her profession. One or two of the others sing agreeably.

"The little one, who brought the last nosegay, has a strong turn for natural history, and we all of us generally botanize a little of an evening, which gives a fresh interest to our walks. She will soon draw plants and flowers pretty accurately. Louisa also has some taste in designing, and takes tolerable sketches from nature. These we encourage because they are solitary pleasures, and want no witnesses. They all are too eager to impart somewhat of what they know to your little favorite Celia, who is in danger of picking up a little of every thing, the sure way to excel in nothing.

"Thus each girl is furnished with some one source of independent amus.e.m.e.nt. But what would become of them, or rather what would become of their mother and me, if every one of them was a scholar, a mathematician, a singer, a performer, a botanist, a painter? Did we attempt to force all these acquirements and a dozen more on every girl; all her _time_ would be occupied about things which will be of no value to her in _eternity_. I need not tell you that we are carefully communicating to every one of them that general knowledge which should be common to all gentlewomen.

"In unrolling the vast volume of ancient and modern history, I ground on it some of my most useful instructions, and point out how the truth of Scripture is ill.u.s.trated by the crimes and corruptions which history records, and how the same pride, covetousness, ambition, turbulence, and deceit, which bring misery on empires, destroy the peace of families. To history, geography and chronology are such, indispensable appendages, that it would be superfluous to insist on their usefulness. As to astronomy, while 'the heavens declare the glory of G.o.d,' it seems a kind of impiety, not to give young people some insight into it." "I hope,"

said Sir John, "that you do not exclude the modern languages from your plan." "As to the French," replied Mr. Stanley, "with that thorough inconsistency which is common to man, the demand for it seems to have risen in exact proportion as it ought to have sunk.[4] I would not, however, rob my children of a language in which, though there are more books to be avoided, there are more that deserve to be read, than in all the foreign languages put together."

[Footnote 4: See an ingenious little treatise ent.i.tled Latium Redivivum, or the modern use of the Latin language, and the prevalence of the French.]

"If you prohibit Italian," said Sir John, laughing, "I will serve you as Cowper advised the boys and girls to serve Johnson for depreciating Henry and Emma; I will join the musical and poetical ladies in tearing you to pieces, as the Thracian damsels did Orpheus, and send your head with his

"Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian sh.o.r.e."

"You remember me, my dear Belfield," replied Mr. Stanley, "a warm admirer of the exquisite beauties of Italian poetry. But a father feels, or rather judges differently from the mere man of taste, and as a father, I can not help regretting, that what is commonly put into the hands of our daughters, is so amatory, that it has a tendency to soften those minds which rather want to be invigorated.

"There are few things I more deprecate for girls than a poetical education, the evils of which I saw sadly exemplified in a young friend of Mrs. Stanley's. She had beauty and talents. Her parents, enchanted with both, left her entirely to her own guidance. She yielded herself up to the uncontrolled rovings of a vagrant fancy. When a child she wrote verses, which were shown in her presence to every guest. Their flattery completed her intoxication. She afterward translated Italian sonnets and composed elegies of which love was the only theme. These she was encouraged by her mother to recite herself, in all companies, with a pathos and sensibility which delighted her parents, but alarmed her more prudent friends.

"She grew up with the confirmed opinion that the two great and sole concerns of human life were love and poetry. She considered them as inseparably connected, and she resolved in her own instance never to violate so indispensable a union. The object of her affection was unhappily chosen, and the effects of her attachment were such as might have been expected from a connexion formed on so slight a foundation. In the perfections with which she invested her lover, she gave the reins to her imagination, when she thought she was only consulting her heart. She picked out and put together the fine qualities of all the heroes of all the poets she had ever read, and into this finished creature, her fancy transformed her admirer.

"Love and poetry commonly influence the two s.e.xes in a very disproportionate degree. With men, each of them is only one pa.s.sion among many. Love has various and powerful compet.i.tors in hearts divided between ambition, business, and pleasure. Poetry is only one amus.e.m.e.nt in minds, distracted by a thousand tumultuous pursuits, whereas in girls of ardent tempers, whose feelings are not curbed by restraint, and regulated by religion, love is considered as the great business of their earthly existence. It is cherished, not as 'the cordial drop,' but as the whole contents of the cup; the remainder is considered only as froth or dregs. The unhappy victim not only submits to the destructive dominion of a despotic pa.s.sion but glories in it. So at least did this ill-starred girl.

"The sober duties of a family had early been transferred to her sisters, as far beneath the attention of so fine a genius; while she abandoned herself to studies which kept her imagination in a fever, and to a pa.s.sion which those studies continually fed and inflamed. Both together completed her delirium. She was ardent, generous, and sincere; but violent, imprudent, and vain to excess. She set the opinion of the world at complete defiance, and was not only totally dest.i.tute of judgment and discretion herself, but despised them in others. Her lover and her muse were to her instead of the whole world.

"After having for some years exchanged sonnets, under the names of Laura and Petrarch, and elegies under those of Sappho and Phaon; the lover, to whom all this had been mere sport, the gratification of vanity, and the recreation of an idle hour grew weary.