Over the Teacups Part 18

"Alas! my child, it is but too true. So long as you are out of Christ you are as a viper, and worse than a viper, in his sight."

By and by, Mrs. Edwards, one of the loveliest of women and sweetest of mothers, comes into the nursery. The child is crying.

"What is the matter, my darling?"

"Papa has been telling me that G.o.d hates me worse than a snake."

Poor, gentle, poetical, sensitive, spiritual, almost celestial Mrs.

Jonathan Edwards! On the one hand the terrible sentence conceived, written down, given to the press, by the child's father; on the other side the trusting child looking up at her, and all the mother pleading in her heart against the frightful dogma of her revered husband. Do you suppose she left that poison to rankle in the tender soul of her darling? Would it have been moral parricide for a son of the great divine to have repudiated the doctrine which degraded his blameless infancy to the condition and below the condition of the reptile? Was it parricide in the second or third degree when his descendant struck out that venomous sentence from the page in which it stood as a monument to what depth Christian heathenism could sink under the teaching of the great master of logic and spiritual inhumanity? It is too late to be angry about the abuse a well--meaning writer received thirty years ago.

The whole atmosphere has changed since then. It is mere childishness to expect men to believe as their fathers did; that is, if they have any minds of their own. The world is a whole generation older and wiser than when the father was of his son's age.

So far as I have observed persons nearing the end of life, the Roman Catholics understand the business of dying better than Protestants. They have an expert by them, armed with spiritual specifics, in which they both, patient and priestly ministrant, place implicit trust. Confession, the Eucharist, Extreme Unction,--these all inspire a confidence which without this symbolism is too apt to be wanting in over-sensitive natures. They have been peopled in earlier years with ghastly spectres of avenging fiends, moving in a sleepless world of devouring flames and smothering exhalations; where nothing lives but the sinner, the fiends, and the reptiles who help to make life an unending torture. It is no wonder that these images sometimes return to the enfeebled intelligence.

To exorcise them, the old Church of Christendom has her mystic formulae, of which no rationalistic prescription can take the place. If Cowper had been a good Roman Catholic, instead of having his conscience handled by a Protestant like John Newton, he would not have died despairing, looking upon himself as a castaway. I have seen a good many Roman Catholics on their dying beds, and it always appeared to me that they accepted the inevitable with a composure which showed that their belief, whether or not the best to live by, was a better one to die by than most of the harder creeds which have replaced it.

In the more intelligent circles of American society one may question anything and everything, if he will only do it civilly. We may talk about eschatology, the science of last things,--or, if you will, the natural history of the undiscovered country, without offence before anybody except young children and very old women of both s.e.xes. In our New England the great Andover discussion and the heretical missionary question have benumbed all sensibility on this subject as entirely, as completely, as the new local anaesthetic, cocaine, deadens the sensibility of the part to which it is applied, so that the eye may have its mote or beam plucked out without feeling it,--as the novels of Zola and Maupa.s.sant have hardened the delicate nerve-centres of the women who have fed their imaginations on the food they have furnished.

The generally professed belief of the Protestant world as embodied in their published creeds is that the great ma.s.s of mankind are destined to an eternity of suffering. That this eternity is to be one of bodily pain--of "torment "--is the literal teaching of Scripture, which has been literally interpreted by the theologians, the poets, and the artists of many long ages which followed the acceptance of the recorded legends of the church as infallible. The doctrine has always been recognized, as it is now, as a very terrible one. It has found a support in the story of the fall of man, and the view taken of the relation of man to his Maker since that event. The hatred of G.o.d to mankind in virtue of their "first disobedience" and inherited depravity is at the bottom of it. The extent to which that idea was carried is well shown in the expressions I have borrowed from Jonathan Edwards. According to his teaching,--and he was a reasoner who knew what he was talking about, what was involved in the premises of the faith he accepted,--man inherits the curse of G.o.d as his princ.i.p.al birthright.

What shall we say to the doctrine of the fall of man as the ground of inflicting endless misery on the human race? A man to be punished for what he could not help! He was expected to be called to account for Adam's sin. It is singular to notice that the reasoning of the wolf with the lamb should be transferred to the dealings of the Creator with his creatures. "You stirred the brook up and made my drinking-place muddy."

"But, please your wolfship, I couldn't do that, for I stirred the water far down the stream,--below your drinking-place." "Well, anyhow, your father troubled it a year or two ago, and that is the same thing."

So the wolf falls upon the lamb and makes a meal of him. That is wolf logic,--and theological reasoning.

How shall we characterize the doctrine of endless torture as the destiny of most of those who have lived, and are living, on this planet? I prefer to let another writer speak of it. Mr. John Morley uses the following words: "The horrors of what is perhaps the most frightful idea that has ever corroded human character,--the idea of eternal punishment." Sismondi, the great historian, heard a sermon on eternal punishment, and vowed never again to enter another church holding the same creed. Romanism he considered a religion of mercy and peace by the side of what the English call the Reformation.--I mention these protests because I happen to find them among my notes, but it would be easy to acc.u.mulate examples of the same kind. When Cowper, at about the end of the last century, said satirically of the minister he was attacking,

"He never mentioned h.e.l.l to ears polite,"

he was giving unconscious evidence that the sense of the barbarism of the idea was finding its way into the pulpit. When Burns, in the midst of the sulphurous orthodoxy of Scotland, dared to say,

"The fear o' h.e.l.l 's a hangman's whip To haud the wretch in order,"

he was only appealing to the common sense and common humanity of his fellow-countrymen.

All the reasoning in the world, all the proof-texts in old ma.n.u.scripts, cannot reconcile this supposition of a world of sleepless and endless torment with the declaration that "G.o.d is love."

Where did this "frightful idea" come from? We are surprised, as we grow older, to find that the legendary h.e.l.l of the church is nothing more nor less than the Tartarus of the old heathen world. It has every mark of coming from the cruel heart of a barbarous despot. Some malignant and vindictive Sheik, some brutal Mezentius, must have sat for many pictures of the Divinity. It was not enough to kill his captive enemy, after torturing him as much as ingenuity could contrive to do it. He escaped at last by death, but his conqueror could not give him up so easily, and so his vengeance followed him into the unseen and unknown world. How the doctrine got in among the legends of the church we are no more bound to show than we are to account for the intercalation of the "three witnesses" text, or the false insertion, or false omission, whichever it may be, of the last twelve verses of the Gospel of St Mark. We do not hang our grandmothers now, as our ancestors did theirs, on the strength of the positive command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

The simple truth is that civilization has outgrown witchcraft, and is outgrowing the Christian Tartarus. The pulpit no longer troubles itself about witches and their evil doings. All the legends in the world could not arrest the decay of that superst.i.tion and all the edicts that grew out of it. All the stories that can be found in old ma.n.u.scripts will never prevent the going out of the fires of the legendary Inferno. It is not much talked about nowadays to ears polite or impolite. Humanity is shocked and repelled by it. The heart of woman is in unconquerable rebellion against it. The more humane sects tear it from their "Bodies of Divinity" as if it were the flaming shirt of Nessus. A few doctrines with which it was bound up have dropped or are dropping away from it: the primal curse; consequential damages to give infinite extension to every transgression of the law of G.o.d; inverting the natural order of relative obligations; stretching the smallest of finite offenses to the proportions of the infinite; making the babe in arms the responsible being, and not the parent who gave it birth and determined its conditions of existence.

After a doctrine like "the hangman's whip" has served its purpose,--if it ever had any useful purpose,--after a doctrine like that of witchcraft has hanged old women enough, civilization contrives to get rid of it. When we say that civilization crowds out the old superst.i.tious legends, we recognize two chief causes. The first is the naked individual protest; the voice of the inspiration which giveth man understanding. This shows itself conspicuously in the modern poets.

Burns in Scotland, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, in America, preached a new gospel to the successors of men like Thomas Boston and Jonathan Edwards. In due season, the growth of knowledge, chiefly under the form of that part of knowledge called science, so changes the views of the universe that many of its long-unchallenged legends become no more than nursery tales. The text-books of astronomy and geology work their way in between the questions and answers of the time-honored catechisms.

The doctrine of evolution, so far as it is accepted, changes the whole relations of man to the creative power. It subst.i.tutes infinite hope in the place of infinite despair for the vast majority of mankind. Instead of a shipwreck, from which a few cabin pa.s.sengers and others are to be saved in the long-boat, it gives mankind a vessel built to endure the tempests, and at last to reach a port where at the worst the pa.s.sengers can find rest, and where they may hope for a home better than any which they ever had in their old country. It is all very well to say that men and women had their choice whether they would reach the safe harbor or not.

"Go to it grandam, child; Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry and a fig."

We know what the child will take. So which course we shall take depends very much on the way the choice is presented to us, and on what the chooser is by nature. What he is by nature is not determined by himself, but by his parentage. "They know not what they do." In one sense this is true of every human being. The agent does not know, never can know, what makes him that which he is. What we most want to ask of our Maker is an unfolding of the divine purpose in putting human beings into conditions in which such numbers of them would be sure to go wrong. We want an advocate of helpless humanity whose task it shall be, in the words of Milton,

"To justify the ways of G.o.d to man."

We have heard Milton's argument, but for the realization of his vision of the time

"When h.e.l.l itself shall pa.s.s away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day,"

our suffering race must wait in patience.

The greater part of the discourse the reader has had before him was delivered over the teacups one Sunday afternoon. The Mistress looked rather grave, as if doubtful whether she ought not to signify her disapprobation of what seemed to her dangerous doctrine.

However, as she knew that I was a good church-goer and was on the best terms with her minister, she said nothing to show that she had taken the alarm. Number Five listened approvingly. We had talked the question over well, and were perfectly agreed on the main point. How could it be otherwise? Do you suppose that any intellectual, spiritual woman, with a heart under her bodice, can for a moment seriously believe that the greater number of the high-minded men, the n.o.ble and lovely women, the ingenuous and affectionate children, whom she knows and honors or loves, are to be handed over to the experts in a great torture-chamber, in company with the vilest creatures that have once worn human shape?

"If there is such a world as used to be talked about from the pulpit, you may depend upon it," she said to me once, "there will soon be organized a Humane Society in heaven, and a mission established among 'the spirits in prison.'"

Number Five is a regular church-goer, as I am. I do not believe either of us would darken the doors of a church if we were likely to hear any of the "old-fashioned" sermons, such as I used to listen to in former years from a noted clergyman, whose specialty was the doctrine of eternal punishment. But you may go to the churches of almost any of our Protestant denominations, and hear sermons by which you can profit, because the ministers are generally good men, whose moral and spiritual natures are above the average, and who know that the harsh preaching of two or three generations ago would offend and alienate a large part of their audience. So neither Number Five nor I are hypocrites in attending church or "going to meeting." I am afraid it does not make a great deal of difference to either of us what may be the established creed of the worshipping a.s.sembly. That is a matter of great interest, perhaps of great importance, to them, but of much less, comparatively, to us.

Companionship in worship, and sitting quiet for an hour while a trained speaker, presumably somewhat better than we are, stirs up our spiritual nature,--these are reasons enough to Number Five, as to me, for regular attendance on divine worship.

Number Seven is of a different way of thinking and feeling. He insists upon it that the churches keep in their confessions of faith statements which they do not believe, and that it is notorious that they are afraid to meddle with them. The Anglo-American church has dropped the Athanasian Creed from its service; the English mother church is afraid to. There are plenty of Universalists, Number Seven says, in the Episcopalian and other Protestant churches, but they do not avow their belief in any frank and candid fashion. The churches know very well, he maintains, that the fear of everlasting punishment more than any or all other motives is the source of their power and the support of their organizations. Not only are the fears of mankind the whip to scourge and the bridle to restrain them, but they are the basis of an almost incalculable material interest. "Talk about giving up the doctrine of endless punishment by fire!" exclaimed Number Seven; "there is more capital embarked in the subterranean fire-chambers than in all the iron-furnaces on the face of the earth. To think what an army of clerical beggars would be turned loose on the world, if once those raging flames were allowed to go out or to calm down! Who can wonder that the old conservatives draw back startled and almost frightened at the thought that there may be a possible escape for some victims whom the Devil was thought to have secured? How many more generations will pa.s.s before Milton's alarming prophecy will find itself realized in the belief of civilized mankind?"

Remember that Number Seven is called a "crank" by many persons, and take his remarks for just what they are worth, and no more.

Out of the preceding conversation must have originated the following poem, which was found in the common receptacle of these versified contributions:

TARTARUS.

While in my simple gospel creed That "G.o.d is Love" so plain I read, Shall dreams of heathen birth affright My pathway through the coming night?

Ah, Lord of life, though spectres pale Fill with their threats the shadowy vale, With Thee my faltering steps to aid, How can I dare to be afraid?

Shall mouldering page or fading scroll Outface the charter of the soul?

Shall priesthood's palsied arm protect The wrong our human hearts reject, And smite the lips whose shuddering cry Proclaims a cruel creed a lie?

The wizard's rope we disallow Was justice once,--is murder now!

Is there a world of blank despair, And dwells the Omnipresent there?

Does He behold with smile serene The shows of that unending scene, Where sleepless, hopeless anguish lies, And, ever dying, never dies?

Say, does He hear the sufferer's groan, And is that child of wrath his own?

O mortal, wavering in thy trust, Lift thy pale forehead from the dust The mists that cloud thy darkened eyes Fade ere they reach the o'erarching skies!

When the blind heralds of despair Would bid thee doubt a Father's care, Look up from earth, and read above On heaven's blue tablet, G.o.d IS LOVE!

XI

The tea is sweetened.

We have been going on very pleasantly of late, each of us pretty well occupied with his or her special business. The Counsellor has been pleading in a great case, and several of The Teacups were in the court-room. I thought, but I will not be certain, that some of his arguments were addressed to Number Five rather than to the jury,--the more eloquent pa.s.sages especially.

Our young Doctor seems to me to be gradually getting known in the neighborhood and beyond it. A member of one of the more influential families, whose regular physician has gone to Europe, has sent for him to come and see her, and as the patient is a nervous lady, who has nothing in particular the matter with her, he is probably in for a good many visits and a long bill by and by. He has even had a call at a distance of some miles from home,--at least he has had to hire a conveyance frequently of late, for he has not yet set up his own horse and chaise. We do not like to ask him about who his patient may be, but he or she is probably a person of some consequence, as he is absent several hours on these out-of-town visits. He may get a good practice before his bald spot makes its appearance, for I have looked for it many times without as yet seeing a sign of it. I am sure he must feel encouraged, for he has been very bright and cheerful of late; and if he sometimes looks at our new handmaid as if he wished she were Delilah, I do not think he is breaking his heart about her absence. Perhaps he finds consolation in the company of the two Annexes, or one of them,--but which, I cannot make out. He is in consultations occasionally with Number Five, too, but whether professionally or not I have no means of knowing. I cannot for the life of me see what Number Five wants of a doctor for herself, so perhaps it is another difficult case in which her womanly sagacity is called upon to help him.

In the mean time she and the Tutor continue their readings. In fact, it seems as if these readings were growing more frequent, and lasted longer than they did at first. There is a little arbor in the grounds connected with our place of meeting, and sometimes they have gone there for their readings. Some of The Teacups have listened outside once in a while, for the Tutor reads well, and his clear voice must be heard in the more emphatic pa.s.sages, whether one is expressly listening or not. But besides the reading there is now and then some talking, and persons talking in an arbor do not always remember that latticework, no matter how closely the vines cover it, is not impenetrable to the sound of the human voice. There was a listener one day,--it was not one of The Teacups, I am happy to say,--who heard and reported some fragments of a conversation which reached his ear. Nothing but the profound intimacy which exists between myself and the individual reader whose eyes are on this page would induce me to reveal what I was told of this conversation. The first words seem to have been in reply to some question.

"Why, my dear friend, how can you think of such a thing? Do you know--I am--old enough to be your--[I think she must have been on the point of saying mother, but that was more than any woman could be expected to say]--old enough to be your aunt?"