The Eclipse of Faith Part 13

"If," said he, "the Roman Catholic religion were to regain its ascendency to-morrow, it would leave our entire code of laws, liberties, and privileges just as it found them; it is one of the many calumnies with which our Church is continually treated, to say that she would act otherwise: and were it not so, I would immediately desert her."

The Catholic priest did not look well pleased with this frank avowal.

"I quite believe you," said our host. "I believe you are too much of an Englishman to say or to act otherwise."

"So do I," said the Deist; "I moreover agree with you, that, if the Roman Catholic religion were to regain her ascendency to-morrow, she would leave all our privileges intact; but would she the next day, and the day after that? In other words, is it an essential principle with her to persecute,--as in this instance, to imprison for peeping between the leaves of the Bible,--or is it not? Do you think, Signor, that in such acts the principles of your Church are complied with or violated?"

The Italian gentleman looked perplexed; he presumed that the Catholic Church complied with the actual laws of every country; and if such Country chose to deny religious liberty, the Church did not deem it requisite to declare opposition.

"I fear that is no answer to my question," cried the other, a little cavalierly. "It cannot serve you, Signor. It would not, indeed, serve you anywhere for we know the anxiety with which Rome has expressly secured, in her recent concordat with Spain, the recognition of the most intolerant maxims. But least can it serve you in the Papal States, where, unluckily for your observation, the Pope is monarch.

Your remark would imply that your Church favored the principles of religious liberty rather than otherwise, but did not deem it right to oppose the will of civil governments. Are we to understand by that, that the chief of the Papal States abhors as a Pope what he does as a sovereign? that in the one capacity he protests against what he allows in the other? No, no," continued this brusque a.s.sailant, "It is too late to talk in that way. If the Church of Rome really approve of religious liberty,--of such principles as those which govern England,--where are her protests and her efforts against intolerance and persecution where she still retains power? It is the least that humanity can expect of her. If not, let her plainly say that, when she regains power in England, she will reform us to the condition of Spain and Italy in this matter. For my part, I frankly acknowledge, that I have more respect for a Roman Catholic who proclaims that it is inconsistent for his Church to tolerate where it has the power to repress, because I see that that is her uniform practice, and therefore ought to be her avowed maxim."

The Roman Catholic priest, who is a devoted admirer of Father Newman, said that he thought so too; and quoted some candid recent admissions to that effect from certain English Roman Catholic periodicals.

"To employ," said he, "the very words of a recent convert to us from the Anglican Church, 'The Church of Rome may say, I cannot tolerate you; it is inconsistent with my principles; but you can tolerate me, for it is not inconsistent with yours."

The Deist remarked that it was straightforward; that he admired it.

"Though as an argument," said he, "it is much as if a robber should say to an honest man on the king's highway, 'How advantageously I am situated! You cannot rob me, for it is inconsistent with your principles; but I can rob you, for I have none.'"

Another of the company observed that he feared it was in vain for the Church of Rome to contend that she was favorable to freedom of opinion, in any degree or form, so long as the "Index Expurgatorius"

was in existence, or such stringent means adopted to repress the circulation and perusal of the Scriptures.

The liberal English Catholic again chafed at this last indictment.

"It was," he said, "another of the calumnies with which his Church was treated."

"Hardly a calumny, my good sir," replied the other, "in the face of such facts as that which gave rise to the present conversation, of the encyclical letters of Pius VII., Leo XII., Gregory XVI., and many other Popes, and the well-known fact that it is impossible to obtain in Rome itself a copy of the Scriptures, except at an enormous price, and even then it must be read by special license.

Pardon me," he continued, still addressing the English Catholic, "I mean nothing offensive to you; but neither I nor any other English Protestant can consent to admit you sincerely liberal English Roman Catholics to be in a condition to give us the requisite information touching the maxims and principles of your Church. You have been too long accustomed to enjoy and revere religious liberty, not to imagine your Church sympathizes with it; you do not realize what she is abroad; and if you be sincere in condemning such acts as that which led to this conversation, as inconsistent with her genuine principles, why the ominous silence of you and your co-religionists in all such cases?

Where are your protests and efforts? How is it you do not denounce maxims and practices so rife throughout Papal Christendom, since you say you would denounce them, if it were attempted to realize them here?

When you protest with one voice against these things as inconsistent (so you say) with the principles of your Church, and as therefore deeply dishonoring her,--whether your views on this point be right or wrong,--we shall at least admit you to have a t.i.tle to give us an opinion on the subject."

"Even then, though," said the Deist, "we may think it safer to consult the opinions, and, what is the practices, of the vast majority of the Roman Catholic Church, and her conduct in the countries in which she holds undisputed sway, and therefore I am anxious to hear whether the Signor would justify imprisonment for reading the Bible."

Our host seemed to think that the conversation proceeded in this direction quite far enough; and his foreign guest should be made uncomfortable by these close inquiries, observed, sarcastically, that he was glad to find that the querists were so anxious to secure the inestimable privilege of freely reading Scriptures. "It is the more admirable," said he to last speaker, "as I am aware it is most disinterested; you having too little value for the Scriptures to read them yourself. Sic vos non vobis: you labor for others.

You remind me of the colloquy in the 'Citizen of the World,' between the debtor in jail and the soldier outside his prison window. They were discussing, you recollect, the chances of a French invasion.

'For my part,' cries the prisoner, 'the greatest of my apprehensions is for our freedom; if the French should conquer, what would become of English liberty? 'It is not so much our liberties,' says the soldier, with a profane oath, 'as our religion, that would suffer by such a change; ay, our religion, my lads!'"

The company laughed, and the a.s.sailants forgot the former topics. Our host went on further to encourage his foreign guest, though in a left-handed way, with a gravity which, if I had not known him, would not only have staggered, but even imposed upon me.

"For my part," said he, "my good Sir, if I were you, I should not hesitate to acknowledge at once that it is not only the true policy, but the solemn duty, of the Church of Rome to seclude as much as possible the Scriptures from the people." The gentleman looked gratified, and the guests were all attention. "In my judgment much more can be said on behalf of the practice than at first appears; and if I sincerely believed all you do, I should certainly advocate the most stringent measures of repression."

The foreigner began to look quite at his ease. "For example," continued Harrington, in a very quiet tone, "supposing I believed, as you do, that the Holy Virgin is ent.i.tled to all the honors which you pay her, so that, as is well known, in Italy and other countries, she even eclipses her Son, and is more eagerly and fondly worshipped,--it would be impossible for me to peruse the meagre accounts given in the New Testament of this so prominent an object of Catholic reverence and worship,--to read the brief, frigid, not to say harsh speeches of Christ,--to contemplate the stolidity of the Apostles with regard to her, throughout their Epistles,--never even mentioning her name,--I say it would be impossible for me to read all this without having the idea suggested that it was never intended that I should pay her such homage as you demand for her, or without feeling suspicious that the New Testament disowned it and knew nothing of it."

"Very true," said the Italian: "I must say that I have often felt that there is such a danger to myself."

"Similarly, what a shock would it perpetually be to my deep reverence for the spiritual head of the Church, and my conviction of his undoubted inheritance, from the Prince of the Apostles, of his august prerogatives, to find no trace of such a personage as the Pope in the sacred page,--the t.i.tle of 'Bishop of Rome' never whispered,--no hint given that Peter was ever even there! I really think it would be impossible to read the book without feeling my flesh creep and my heart full of doubt. Similarly, take that single mystery of 'transubstantiation'; though it seems sufficiently a.s.serted in one text, which therefore it well (as is, indeed, the practice with every pious Catholic) continually to quote alone, yet, when I look into other portions of the New Testament, I see how perpetually Christ is employing metaphors equally strong, without any such mystery being attached to them. I cannot but feel that I and every other vulgar reader would be sure to be exposed to the peril of suspecting that in that single case a metaphorical meaning much more probable than so great a mystery."

"You reason fairly, my dear Sir," said the Italian.

"Again," continued Harrington, blandly bowing to the compliment, "believing, as I should, in the efficacy of the intercessions of the saints, in the worship of images, in seven sacraments, in indulgences, and necessity of observing a ritual incomparably more elaborate than an undeveloped Christianity admitted, how very, very apt I should be to misinterpret many pa.s.sages, both in the Old Testament and the New! How is it possible that the vulgar reader should be able to limit the command not to bow down 'to any graven image' to its true meaning,--that is, 'to any image' except those of the Virgin and all the saints; to interpret aright the pa.s.sages which speak so absolutely about the one Mediator and Intercessor, when there are thousands! How will he be necessarily startled to find 'seven' sacraments grown out of 'two'! How will he be shocked at the apparent--of course only apparent--contempt with which St. Paul speaks of ritual and ceremonial matters, of the futility of 'fasts' and distinctions of 'meats and drinks,' of observing 'days and months and years.' and so on. His whole language, I contend, would necessarily mislead the simple into heresies innumerable. Of numberless texts, again, even if the meaning were not mistaken, the true meaning would never be discovered unless the Church had declared it. Who, for example, would have supposed that the doctrine of the Pope's supremacy and universal jurisdiction lay hid under expressions such as 'I say unto thee that thou art Peter,' and 'Feed my sheep'; or that the two swords of the Prince of the Apostles meant the temporal and spiritual authority with which he was invested? Under such circ.u.mstances, I must say, that, if I were a devout Catholic, I should plead for the absolute suppression of a book so infinitely likely--nay, so necessarily certain--to mislead."

"It is precisely on that ground," said the Italian, "and on that ground only, the welfare of the Church, that our Holy Mother does not approve of the Bible being read generally. The true theory of the Roman Catholic Church would never be elicited from it."

"Precisely so," said our host, gravely; "I am sure it could not."

"But then," remarked our friend, the Deist, "since the Church of Rome holds this book to be the inspired revelation of G.o.d to mankind, is it not singular to say that this 'revelation' requires to be carefully concealed from mankind; that the Bible is invaluable, indeed, but only while it is unread; and that, in fact, the Church knows herself better than Jesus Christ himself did? for in that book we are supposed to have the words of Him and her founders, and yet it seems they could only mislead! 'Never man spake like this man,' may well be said of Christ, if this were true."

"Never mind him, Signor," said our host. "He secretly cannot but approve of your end, though he disapproves the means." The Deist looked surprised.

"Why, have you not sometimes said that you believe the Bible to be, in many respects, a most pernicious book? that many of the most obstinate and dangerous prejudices of mankind are princ.i.p.ally due to it? and that you wish it were in your power to destroy it?"

"Well, I certainly have thought so, if not said so."

"Then you approve of the end, though you disapprove of the means.

You ought to thank our friend here, and regret that his work is not done more effectually. But enough of this. I must not have my respected Roman Catholic guests alone put on the defensive. The Signor fairly tells us what his system is in relation to the Bible and why he would place it under lock and key; he tells you also what better thing he subst.i.tutes when he removes the Bible. I really think it is but fair and candid in you to do as much. I know you all believe that you are not only in quest of religious truth, but have found it to some extent or other:--for my own part I am exempted from speaking; for I have given over the search in despair."

This frank acknowledgment was followed by some highly curious conversation, of which I regret my inability to recall all the particulars. Suffice it to say, that there were not two who were agreed either as to the grounds on which Christianity was deemed a thing of naught, or on what was to be subst.i.tuted in its place; one even had his doubts whether any thing need be subst.i.tuted, and another thought that any thing might be. One of the Rationalists was a little offended at being supposed willing to "abandon" the Bible at all: he declared, on the contrary, his unfeigned reverence for the New Testament at least, as containing, in larger ma.s.s and purer ore than any other book in the world, the principles of ethical truth; that he was willing even to admit--with exquisite naivete--that it was inspired in the same sense in which Plato's Dialogues and the Koran were inspired; he merely dispensed with all that was supernatural and miraculous and mystical! The Deist laughed, and told him that he believed just as much, if that const.i.tuted a Christian. "I believe,"

said he, "that the New Testament is quite as much inspired as the Koran of Mahomet; and that it contains more of ethical truth (however it came there) than is to be found in any other book of equal bulk.

But," he proceeded, "if you dispense with all that is miraculous in the facts, and all that is peculiar and characteristic in the doctrines,--that is, all which discriminates Christianity from any other religion,--I am afraid that your Christianity is own born brother to my Infidelity. As for your reverence for this inspired book, since you must reject ninety per cent. of the whole, it seems to me very gratuitous; equally so, whether you suppose the compilers believed or disbelieved the facts and doctrines you reject; if the former, and they were deceived, they must have been inspired idiots; if the latter, and were deceiving others, they were surely inspired knaves. For my part," he continued, "while I hold that the book somehow does unaccountably contain more of the morally true and beautiful than any book of equal extent, I also hold that Christianity itself is a pure imposture from beginning to end."

This coa.r.s.e avowal of adherence to the elder, and, after all, more intelligible deism, brought down upon him at once two of the company.

One was the disciple of Strauss (I mean as regards his theory of the origin of Christianity, not as regards his Pantheism); the other a Rationalist, with about the same small tatters of Christianity fluttering about him, but who was a little disposed, like so many German theologians, to consider Strauss as somewhat pa.s.se. Unhappily, got athwart each other's bows shortly after they into action. They both enlarged--really in a edifying manner, I could have listened to them an hour--on the absurdity of the Deist's argument! "What!"

cried one; "the purest system of ethics from the most shameless impostors!" "And what do you make of the infinitely varied and inimitable marks of simplicity and honesty in the writers?" cried the other. "And who does not see the impossibility of getting up the miracles so as to impose upon a world of bitter and prejudiced enemies in open day?" exclaimed the Rationalist. "They were obviously mere myths," cried the Straussian. "That I must beg to doubt," said the other. And now, as they proceeded to give each his own solution of the difficulty, the scene became comic in the extreme. The Rationalist ridiculed the notion that nations and races, all of whom, in the nature of things, must have been prejudiced against such myths as those of Christianity, could originate or would believe them; and still more, the notion that in so short a s.p.a.ce of time these wildest of wild legends (if legends at all) could induce the world to acquiesce in them as historic realities! In his zeal he even said, that, though not altogether satisfied with it, he would sooner believe all the frigid glosses by which the school of Paulus had endeavored to resolve the miracles into misunderstood "natural phenomena." As the dispute became more animated between these three champions, they exhibited a delicate trait of human nature, which I saw our sceptical host most maliciously enjoyed. Each became more anxious to prove that his mode of proving Christianity false was the true mode, than to prove the falsehood of Christianity itself. "I tell you what," said the Straussian, with some warmth, "sooner than believe all the absurdities of such an hypothesis as that of Paulus, I could believe Christianity to be what it professes to be." "I may say the same of that of Strauss," said the other, with equal asperity; "if I had no better escape than his, I could say to him, as Agippa to Paul, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.'" "For my part," exclaimed the Deist, who was perfectly contented with his brief solution,--the difficulties of the problem he had never had the patience to master, --"I should rather say, as Festus to Paul, 'Much learning has made you both mad': and sooner than believe the impossibilities of the theory of either,--sooner than suppose men honestly and guilelessly to have misled the world by a book which you and I admit to be a tissue of fables, legends, and mystical non-sense,--I could almost find it in my heart to go over to the Pope himself."

"Good," whispered our host to me, who sat at his left hand; "we shall have them all becoming Christians, by and by, just to spite one another." The admirer of Mr. Atkinson and Miss Martineau here reminded the company that the miracles of the New Testament might be true,--only the result of mesmerism. "Christ," said he, "to employ the words of Mr. Atkinson, was const.i.tutionally a clairvoyant .....

Prophecy and miracle and inspiration are the effects of abnormal conditions of man ..... Prophecy, clairvoyance, healing by touch, visions, dreams, revelations, .... are now known to be simple matters in nature, which may be induced at will, and experimented upon at our firesides, here in England (climate and other circ.u.mstances permitting), as well as in the Holy Land."* But no one seemed prepared to receive this hypothesis. At last, our host, addressing the Deist, said, "But you forget, Mr. M., that, though you find it insurmountably difficult to conceive a book full of lies (as you express it) to have been, consciously or unconsciously, the product of honest and guileless minds, you ought to find it a little difficult to conceive a book (as you admit the New Testament to be) of profound moral worth produced by shameless impostors. But let that pa.s.s. Let us a.s.sume that Christianity, as a supernaturally revealed and miraculously authenticated system, is false, though you are dolefully at variance as to how it is to be proved so; let us a.s.sume, I say, that this system is false, and dismiss it. I am much more anxious to hear what is the positive system of religious truth, which you are of course each persuaded is the true one. I have left off to seek,' but if any one will find the truth for me without my 'seeking' it, how rejoiced shall I be!"

--- * He cited the substance of these sentiments. I have since referred to, and here quote, the ipsissima verba. See "Letters," &c., pp. 175, 212.

Painful as were the "revelations" which ensued, I would not have missed them on any account. "In vino veritas," says the proverb which on this occasion lied most vilely; yet it was true in the only sense in which "veritas" is there used; for there was unbounded candor and frankness, under the inspiring hospitality of our host, aided by his skilful management of the conversation. Nor was there, I am bound to say, much of coa.r.s.e ribaldry, even from the free-spoken representative of the Tindals and Woolstons of other days. But the varieties of judgment and opinion in that small company were almost numberless. Fellowes, and two of the Rationalists, were firm believers in the theory of "insight"; that the human spirit derives, by immediate intuition from the "depths" of its consciousness, a "revelation of religious and spiritual truth." They differed, however, as to several articles; but especially as to the little point, whether the fact of man's future existence was amongst the intimations of man's religious nature; one contending that it was, another that it was not, and Fellowes, as usual, with several more of the company, declaring that their consciousness told them nothing about the matter either way. But when some one further declared, amidst these very disputes, that this internal revelation was so clear and plain as not only to antic.i.p.ate and supersede any "external" revelation, but to render it "impossible" to be given, our host suddenly broke out into a fit of laughter. The disputants were silent, and every one looked to him for an explanation. He seemed to feel that it was due, and, after apologizing for his rudeness, said, that, while some of them were a.s.serting man's clear internal revelation, he could not help thinking of the whimsical contrast presented by the diversified speculations and opinions of even this little party, and the infinitely more whimsical contrast presented by the gross delusions of polytheism and superst.i.tion, which in such endless variations of form and unchanging ident.i.ty of folly had misled the nations of the earth for so many thousands of years: "And just then," said he, "it occurred to me what a curious commentary it would be on the a.s.serted unity and sufficiency of 'internal revelation,' if the 'Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations' were followed up by a 'Great Exhibition of the Idolatry of all Nations' under the same roof. Thither night be brought specimens of the ingenious handicraft of men in the manufacture of deities; we might have the whole process, in all its varieties, complete; the raw material of a G.o.d in a block of stone or wood, and the most finished specimen in the shape of a Phidian Jupiter; the countless bits of trumpery which Fetichism has ever consecrated; the divine monsters of ancient Egypt, and the equally divine monsters of modern India; the infinite array of grim deformities hallowed by American, Asiatic, and African superst.i.tion. I imagined, notwithstanding the vastness of that Crystal Pantheon, there would still be crowds of their G.o.dships who would be obliged to wait outside, having come too late to exhibit their perfections to advantage. However, as I went in fancy up the long aisles, and saw, to the right and the left, the admiring crowds of worshippers, grimacing, and mowing, and prostrating themselves, with a folly which might lead one reasonably to suppose, that, miserable as were the G.o.ds, they were G.o.ds indeed compared with such worshippers, I imagined my worthy friend Fellowes in the corner where the Bible, in its 120 languages, is now kept, employed in delivering a lecture on the admirable clearness of those intuitions of spiritual truth which const.i.tute each man's particular oracle, and the superfluity of all 'external' revelation. This was, I confess, a little too much for my gravity, and I was involuntarily guilty of the rudeness for which I now apologize." It was certainly a ridiculous vision enough; and we made ourselves very merry by pursuing it for a little while.

Presently the company resumed their solutions off the great problem.

The Deist remarked, "that one and only one thing was plain, and indubitable,"--for he was a dogmatist in his way;--it was, "that intellect and power to an indefinite extent had been at work in the universe, but whether the Being to whom these attributes belonged took any cognizance of man, or his actions, he had never been able to make up his mind." "Yet surely it does make a slight difference," said Harrington, "since if G.o.d takes no cognizance of man, then, as Cicero long ago remarked of the idle dogs of Epicurus, --I mean G.o.ds of Epicurus, I beg their pardon, but really it does not matter which consonant comes first,--atheism and deism are much the same thing." "Why," said the Deist, "there is as much difference as in the theories of our 'intuitional' friends here, one of whom admits, and another denies, the future existence of man; for if we be the ephemeral insects the latter supposes, it little matters what system of religion we espouse or abjure. However, I am clear that, if G.o.d require any duty of us, it is that we should reverence him as the Creator of all things,--prayer to him is an absurdity,--and perform those offices of honest men which are so clearly the dictates of conscience,--the reward and punishment being exclusively the result of present laws."

"Which laws," said his next neighbor, "often secure no reward or punishment at all,--or rather, often give the reward to the vice of man, and the punishment to his virtue." "Very true," rejoined the Deist, "and I must say,"--sagely shaking his head,--"that such things make me often suspect the whole of that slippery, uncertain thing called 'natural religion,' whether as taught by the elder deists or modified by our modern spiritualists. Surely they may be abundantly charged with the same faults with which they tax the Christian; for they are full of interminable disputes about the 'truths' or 'sentiments' of their theology."

One of those who had gone further than our Deists felt disposed to question all "immutable morality" original "dictates of conscience."

"I doubt," said he, "whether those dictates are any clearer than those dogmas of 'natural religion' which have been so oppugned; and I judge so for the same reason,--the endless disputes of men with regard to the source, the rule, the obligation of what they call duty; which are exactly similar to the disputes which we charge upon the Natural Religionist and the Christian." And here he ran through half a dozen of the two score theories which the history of ethics presents, rare work with Plato and Aristotle, Hobbes, Cudworth, Mandeville, and Bentham. "Meantime," he concluded, "we do see, in point of fact, that the moral rule is most flexible, and to an indeterminate degree the creature of a.s.sociation, custom, and education, so that I am inclined to think that that alone is obligatory which the positive laws and inst.i.tutions of any society render binding." "So that" cried Harrington, "a man both may and ought to thieve in ancient Sparta, may expose his parents in Hindostan, and commit infanticide in China!" "It is a pity," archly whispered the Italian guest, "that this gentleman was not born in China."

"It is a respectable, but very old speculation," said Harrington, "of which many ancient moralists avowed themselves the advocates, but of which it is only fair to admit that Plato and many other heathens were heartily ashamed."

It seemed as if the bathos of theological and ethical absurdity could not lie deeper; but I was mistaken. The admirer of Mr. Atkinson declared with great modesty that he thought, as did his favorite author, that the whole world had been mad on the subject of theology and morality;--that the prime error consisted in the superficial notion of a Personal Deity, and the foolish attribution of the notion of "sin" and "crime" to human motives and conduct, instead of regarding the former as a name of an absolutely unknown cause of the entire phenomena of the universe, and the latter as part of a series of rigidly necessary antecedents and consequents, for which man is no more to be either blamed or praised than the sun for shining or the avalanche for falling; he added, that only in this way could man attain peace. "As Mr. Atkinson beautifully says, 'What a hopeful and calming influence has such a contemplation of nature! At this moment it is not I, but the nature within me, that dictates my speech and guides my pen. I am what I am. I cannot alter my will, or be other than what I am, and cannot deserve either reward or punishment.' But I feel with him, 'We may preach these things, and men may think us mad or something worse.'" (Pp. 190, 191.)

"And perhaps justly," said Harrington, with a laugh, "for nature has surely, after so many thousands of years, let you know what her law is, and you say that that law is necessary and irreversible, and yet you strive to alter it! You had better leave men to their necessary absurdities."

"Nay," said the other, "as Mr. Atkinson says, from the recognition of a universal law we shall develop a universal love; the disposition and ability to love without offence or ill-feeling towards any; or, as Miss Martineau represents it,--When the mind has completely surmounted every idea of a personal G.o.d, of a supreme will, 'what repose begins to pervade the mind! What clearness of moral purpose naturally ensues!

and what healthful activity of the moral faculties!' (p. 219) .... What a new perception we obtain of the "beauty of holiness,"--the loveliness of a healthful moral condition,--accordant with the laws of natures, and not with the requisitions of theology!'" (p. 219.)

I got him afterwards to show me these pa.s.sages, for I could hardly believe that he had quoted them right.