On the Old Road Volume Ii Part 45

277. And therefore we can only look for an imperfect and interrupted, but may surely insist on an occasional, manifestation of miraculous credentials by every minister of religion. There is no practical difficulty in the discernment of marvel properly to be held superhuman.

It is indeed frequently alleged by the admirers of scientific discovery that many things which were wonderful fifty years ago, have ceased to be so now; and I am perfectly ready to concede to them that what they now themselves imagine to be admirable, will not in the future be admired.

But the petty sign, said to have been wrought by the augur Attus before Tarquin, would be as impressive at this instant as it was then; while the utmost achievements of recent scientific miracle have scarcely yet achieved the feeding of Lazarus their beggar, still less the resurrection of Lazarus their friend. Our Christian faith, at all events, stands or falls by this test. "These signs shall follow them that believe," are words which admit neither of qualification nor misunderstanding; and it is far less arrogant in any man to look for such Divine attestation of his authority as a teacher, than to claim, without it, any authority to teach. And a.s.suredly it is no proof of any unfitness or unwisdom in such expectations, that, for the last thousand years, miraculous powers seem to have been withdrawn from, or at least indemonstrably possessed, by a Church which, having been again and again warned by its Master that Riches were deadly to Religion, and Love essential to it, has nevertheless made wealth the reward of Theological learning, and controversy its occupation. There are states of moral death no less amazing than physical resurrection; and a church which permits its clergy to preach what they have ceased to believe, and its people to trust what they refuse to obey, is perhaps more truly miraculous in impotence, than it would be miraculous in power, if it could move the fatal rocks of California to the Pole, and plant the sycamore and the vine between the ridges of the sea.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 174: _Contemporary Review_, March, 1873.]

[Footnote 175: Read at the November meeting of the Metaphysical Society.]

[Footnote 176: I quote from memory but am sure of the purport of the sentence, though not of its expression.]

[Footnote 177: "And be it death proclaimed through our host to boast of this."--_Henry V._]

AN OXFORD LECTURE.

(_Nineteenth Century, January 1878._)

AN OXFORD LECTURE.[178]

278. I am sure that all in this audience who were present yesterday at Dr. Acland's earnest and impressive lecture must have felt how deeply I should be moved by his closing reference to the friendship begun in our undergraduate days;--of which I will but say that, if it alone were all I owed to Oxford, the most gracious kindness of the Alma Mater would in that gift have been fulfilled to me.

But his affectionate words, in their very modesty, as if even standing on the defense of his profession, the n.o.blest of human occupations! and of his science--the most wonderful and awful of human intelligences!

showed me that I had yet not wholly made clear to you the exactly limited measure in which I have ventured to dispute the fitness of method of study now a.s.signed to you in this University.

279. Of the dignity of physical science, and of the happiness of those who are devoted to it for the healing and the help of mankind, I never have meant to utter, and I do not think I _have_ uttered, one irreverent word. But against the curiosity of science, leading us to call virtually nothing gained but what is new discovery, and to despise every use of our knowledge in its acquisition; of the insolence of science, in claiming for itself a separate function of that human mind which in its perfection is one and indivisible, in the image of its Creator; and of the perversion of science, in hoping to discover by the a.n.a.lysis of death, what can only be discovered by the worship of life,--of these I have spoken, not only with sorrow, but with a fear which every day I perceive to be more surely grounded, that such labor, in effacing from within you the sense of the presence of G.o.d in the garden of the earth, may awaken within you the prevailing echo of the first voice of its Destroyer, "_Ye_ shall be as G.o.ds."

280. To-day I have little enough time to conclude,--none to review--what I have endeavored thus to say; but one instance, given me directly in conversation after lecture, by one of yourselves, will enable me to explain to you precisely what I _mean_.

After last lecture, in which you remember I challenged our physiologists to tell me how a bird flies, one of you, whose pardon, if he thinks it needful, I ask for this use of his most timely and ill.u.s.trative statement, came to me, saying, "You know the way in which we are shown how a bird flies, is, that any one, a dove for instance, is given to us, plucked, and partly skinned, and incised at the insertion of the wing bone; and then, with a steel point, the ligament of the muscle at the shoulder is pulled up, and out, and made distinct from other ligaments, and we are told 'that is the way a bird flies,' and on that matter it is thought we have been told enough."

I say that this instance given me was timely; I will say more--in the choice of this particular bird, providential. Let me take, in their order, the two subjects of inquiry and instruction, which are indeed offered to us in the aspect and form of that one living creature.

281. Of the splendor of your own true life, you are told, in the words which, to-day, let me call, as your Fathers did, words of inspiration--"Yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove, that is covered with silver wings and her feathers with gold." Of the manifold iris of color in the dove's plumage, watched carefully in sunshine as the bird moves, I cannot hope to give you any conception by words; but that it is the most exquisite, in the modesty of its light, and in the myriad mingling of its hue, of all plumage, I may partly prove to you in this one fact, that out of all studies of color, the one which I would desire most to place within your reach in these schools, is Turner's drawing of a dove, done when he was in happy youth at Farnley. But of the causes of this color, and of the peculiar subtlety in its iridescence, nothing is told you in any scientific book I have ever seen on ornithology.

282. Of the power of flight in these wings, and the tender purpose of their flight, you hear also in your Fathers' book. To the Church, flying from her enemies into desolate wilderness, there were indeed given two wings as of a great eagle. But the weary saint of G.o.d, looking forward to his home in calm of eternal peace, prays rather--"Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then should I flee away, and be at rest." And of these wings, and this mind of hers, this is what reverent science should teach you: first, with what parting of plume, and what soft pressure and rhythmic beating of divided air, she reaches that miraculous swiftness of undubious motion, compared with which the tempest is slow, and the arrow uncertain; and secondly, what clew there is, visible, or conceivable to thought of man, by which, to her living conscience and errorless pointing of magnetic soul, her distant home is felt afar beyond the horizon, and the straight path, through concealing clouds, and over trackless lands, made plain to her desire, and her duty, by the finger of G.o.d.

283. And lastly, since in the tradition of the Old Covenant she was made the messenger of forgiveness to those eight souls saved through the baptism unto death, and in the Gospel of the New Covenant, under her image, was manifested the well-pleasing of G.o.d, in the fulfillment of all righteousness by His Son in the Baptism unto life,--surely alike all Christian people, old and young, should be taught to be gladdened by her sweet presence; and in every city and village in Christendom she should have such home as in Venice she has had for ages, and be, among the sculptured marbles of the temple, the sweetest sculpture; and, fluttering at your children's feet, their never-angered friend. And surely also, therefore, of the thousand evidences which any carefully thoughtful person may see, not only of the ministration of good, but of the deceiving and deadly power of the evil angels, there is no one more distinct in its gratuitous, and unreconcilable sin, than that this--of all the living creatures between earth and sky--should be the one chosen to amuse the apathy of our murderous idleness, with skill-less, effortless, merciless slaughter.

284. I pa.s.s to the direct subject on which I have to speak finally to-day;--the reality of that ministration of the good angels, and of that real adversity of the princ.i.p.alities and powers of Satan, in which, without exception, all earnest Christians have believed, and the appearance of which, to the imagination of the greatest and holiest of them, has been the root, without exception, of all the greatest art produced by the human mind or hand in this world.

That you have at present no art properly so called in England at all--whether of painting, sculpture, or architecture[179]--I, for one, do not care. In midst of Scottish Lothians, in the days of Scott, there was, by how much less art, by so much purer life, than in the midst of Italy in the days of Raphael. But that you should have lost, not only the skill of Art, but the simplicity of Faith and life, all in one, and not only here deface your ancient streets by the Ford of the waters of sacred learning, but also deface your ancient hills with guilt of mercenary desolation, driving their ancient shepherd life into exile, and diverting the waves of their streamlets into the cities which are the very centers of pollution, of avarice, and impiety: for this I _do_ care,--for this you have blamed me for caring, instead of merely trying to teach you drawing. I have nevertheless yet done my best to show you what real drawing is; and must yet again bear your blame for trying to show you, through that, somewhat more.

285. I was asked, as we came out of chapel this morning, by one of the Fellows of my college, to say a word to the Undergraduates, about Thirlmere. His request, being that of a faithful friend, came to enforce on me the connection between this form of spoliation of our native land of its running waters, and the gaining disbelief in the power of prayer over the distribution of the elements of our bread and water, in rain, and sunshine,--seedtime, and harvest. Respecting which, I must ask you to think with me to-day what is the meaning of the myth, if you call it so, of the great prophet of the Old Testament, who is to be again sent before the coming of the day of the Lord. For truly, you will find that if any part of your ancient faith be true, it is needful for every soul which is to take up its cross, with Christ, to be also first transfigured in the light of Christ,--talking with Moses and with Elias.

The contest of Moses is with the temporal servitude,--of Elijah, with the spiritual servitude, of the people; and the war of Elijah is with their servitude essentially to two G.o.ds, Baal, or the Sun G.o.d, in whose hand they thought was their life, and Baalzebub--the Fly G.o.d,--of Corruption, in whose hand they thought was the arbitration of death.

The entire contest is summed in the first a.s.sertion by Elijah, of his authority as the Servant of G.o.d, over those elemental powers by which the heart of Man, whether Jew or heathen, was filled with food and gladness.

And Elijah the Tishbite; who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, "As the Lord G.o.d of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word."

286. Your modern philosophers have explained to you the absurdity of all that: you think? Of all the shallow follies of this age, that proclamation of the vanity of prayer for the sunshine and rain; and the cowardly equivocations, to meet it, of the clergy who never in their lives really prayed for anything, I think, excel. Do these modern scientific gentlemen fancy that n.o.body, before they were born, knew the laws of cloud and storm, or that the mighty human souls of former ages, who every one of them lived and died by prayer, and in it, did not know that in every pet.i.tion framed on their lips they were asking for what was not only fore-ordained, but just as probably fore-_done_? or that the mother pausing to pray before she opens the letter from Alma or Balaclava, does not know that already he is saved for whom she prays, or already lies festering in his shroud? The whole confidence and glory of prayer is in its appeal to a Father who knows our necessities before we ask, who knows our thoughts before they rise in our hearts, and whose decrees, as unalterable in the eternal future as in the eternal past, yet in the close verity of visible fact, bend, like reeds, before the fore-ordained and faithful prayers of His children.

287. Of Elijah's contest on Carmel with that Sun-power in which, literally, you again now are seeking your life, you know the story, however little you believe it. But of his contest with the Death-power, on the Hill of Samaria, you read less frequently, and more doubtfully.

"Oh, thou Man of G.o.d, the King hath said, Come down. And Elijah answered and said, If I be a man of G.o.d, let fire come down from Heaven, and consume thee, and thy fifty."

How monstrous, how revolting, cries your modern religionist, that a prophet of the Lord should invoke death on fifty men. And he sits himself, enjoying his m.u.f.fin and _Times_, and contentedly allows the slaughter of fifty thousand men, so it be in the interests of England, and of his own stock on Exchange.

But note Elijah's message. "Because thou hast sent to inquire of Baalzebub the G.o.d of Ekron, therefore, thou shalt not go down from the bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die."

"Because thou hast sent to inquire:" he had not sent to _pray_ to the G.o.d of Ekron, only to _ask_ of him. The priests of Baal _prayed_ to Baal, but Ahaziah only _questions_ the fly-G.o.d.

He does not pray "Let me recover," but he asks "_Shall_ I recover of this disease?"

The scientific mind again, you perceive,--Sanitary investigation; by oracle of the G.o.d of Death. Whatever can be produced of disease, by flies, by aphides, by lice, by communication of corruption, shall not we moderns also wisely inquire, and so recover of our diseases?

All which may, for aught I know, be well; and when I hear of the vine disease or potato disease being stayed, I will hope also that plague may be, or diphtheria, or aught else of human plague, by due sanitary measures.

288. In the meantime, I see that the common cleanliness of the earth and its water is despised, as if _it_ were a plague; and after myself laboring for three years to purify and protect the source of the loveliest stream in the English midlands, the Wandel, I am finally beaten, because the road commissioners insist on carrying the road washings into it, at its source. But that's nothing. Two years ago, I went, for the first time since early youth, to see Scott's country by the sh.o.r.es of Yarrow, Teviot, and Gala waters. I will read you once again, though you will remember it, his description of one of those pools which you are about sanitarily to draw off into your engine-boilers, and then I will tell you what I saw myself in that sacred country.

Oft in my mind such thoughts awake, By lone Saint Mary's silent lake; Thou know'st it well,--nor fen, nor sedge, Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge; Abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink At once upon the level brink; And just a trace of silver sand Marks where the water meets the land.

Far in the mirror, bright and blue, Each hill's huge outline you may view; s.h.a.ggy with heath, but lonely, bare, Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake, is there, Save where, of land, yon slender line Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine.

And silence aids--though the steep hills Send to the lake a thousand rills In summer tide, so soft they weep, The sound but lulls the ear asleep; Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, So stilly is the solitude.

Nought living meets the eye or ear, But well I ween the dead are near; For though, in feudal strife, a foe Hath laid Our Lady's chapel low, Yet still beneath the hallow'd soil, The peasant rests him from his toil, And, dying, bids his bones be laid, Where erst his simple fathers pray'd.

289. What I saw myself, in that fair country, of which the sight remains with me, I will next tell you. I saw the Teviot oozing, not flowing, between its wooded banks, a mere sluggish injection, among the filthy stones, of poisonous pools of sc.u.m-covered ink; and in front of Jedburgh Abbey, where the foaming river used to dash round the sweet ruins as if the rod of Moses had freshly cleft the rock for it, bare and foul nakedness of its bed, the whole stream carried to work in the mills, the dry stones and crags of it festering unseemly in the evening sun, and the carca.s.s of a sheep, brought down in the last flood, lying there in the midst of the children at their play, literal and ghastly symbol, in the sweetest pastoral country in the world, of the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

That is your symbol to-day, of the Lamb as it had been slain; and that the work of your prayerless science;--the issues, these, of your enlightened teaching, and of all the toils and the deaths of the Covenanters on those barren hills, of the prophetic martyrs here in your crossing streets, and of the highest, sincerest, simplest patriot of Catholic England, Sir Thomas More, within the walls of England's central Tower. So is ended, with prayer for the bread of this life, also the hope of the life that is to come. Yet I will take leave to show you the light of that hope, as it shone on, and guided, the children of the ages of faith.

290. Of that legend of St. Ursula which I read to you so lately, you remember, I doubt not, that the one great meaning is the victory of her faith over all fears of death. It is the laying down of all the joy, of all the hope, nay of all the Love, of this life, in the eager apprehension of the rejoicing and the love of Eternity. What truth there was in such faith I dare not say that I know; but what manner of human souls it made, you may for yourselves _see_. Here are enough brought to you, of the thoughts of a believing people.[180] This maid in her purity is no fable; this is a Venetian maid, as she was seen in the earthly dawn, and breathed on by the breeze of her native sea. And here she is in her womanhood, in her courage and perfect peace, waiting for her death.

I have sent for this drawing for you, from Sheffield, where it is to stay, they needing it more than you. It is the best of all that my friend did with me at Venice, for St. George, and with St. George's help and St. Ursula's. It shows you only a piece of the great picture of the martyrdom--nearly all have fallen around the maid, and she kneels with her two servant princesses, waiting for her own death. Faithful behind their mistress, they wait with her,--not feebler, but less raised in thought, as less conceiving their immortal destiny; the one, a gentle girl, conceiving not in her quiet heart any horror of death, bows her fair head towards the earth, almost with a smile; the other, fearful lest her faith should for an instant fail, bursts into pa.s.sion of prayer through burning tears. St. Ursula kneels, as daily she knelt, before the altar, giving herself up to G.o.d forever.