The Eclipse of Faith Part 4

"No," said Fellowes; "a thousand times no."

"Very well, that gets rid of at least four sevenths of the Bible. Do you believe in the Trinity, the Atonement, the Resurrection of Christ, in a general Resurrection, in the Day of Judgment?"

"No, not in one of them," said Fellowes; "not in a particle of one of them."

"Pretty well again. You reject, then, the characteristic doctrines of Christianity?"

"Not one of them," was the answer.

"We are indeed in danger of misunderstanding one another," said Harrington. "But tell me, is it not your boast, as of Mr. Parker, that the truths which are essential to religion are not peculiar to Christianity, but are involved in all religions?"

"a.s.suredly."

"If I were to ask you what were the essential attributes of a man, would you a.s.sign those which he had in common with a pig?"

"Certainly not."

"But if I asked you what were those of an animal, I presume you would give those which both species possessed, and none that either possessed exclusively."

"I should."

"Need I add, then, that you are deceiving yourself when you say that you believe all the characteristic doctrines of Christianity, since you say that you believe only those which it has in common with every religion? If I were to ask you what doctrines are essential to const.i.tute any religion, then you would do well to enumerate those which belong to Christianity and every other. But when we talk of the doctrines peculiar to Christianity, we mean those which discriminate it from every other, and not those which are common to it with them."

"But however," said Fellowes, "none of the doctrines you have enumerated are a part of Christianity, but are mere additions of imposture or fanaticism."

"Then what are the doctrines which, though common to every other religion, are characteristic of it? What is left that is essential or peculiar to Christianity, when you have denuded it of all that you reject? Is it not then a.s.similated, by your own confession, to every other religion? How shall we discriminate them?"

"By this, perhaps," said Fellowes, "(for I acknowledge some difficulty here,) that Christianity contains these truths of absolute religion alone and pure. As Mr. Parker says, This is the glory of genuine Christianity."

"Do you not see that this is the very question,--you yourself being obliged to reject nine tenths of the statements in the only records in which we know anything about it? Might not an ancient priest of Jupiter say the same of his religion, by first divesting it of all but that which you say it had in common with every other? However, let us now look at the positive side. What is the residuum which you condescend to leave to your genuine Christianity?"

"Christianity," said Fellowes, rather pompously, "is not so much a system as a discipline,--not a creed, but a life: in short, a divine philosophy."

"All which I have heard from all sorts of Christianity a thousand times," cried Harrington; "and it is delightfully vague; it may mean any thing or nothing. But the truths, the truths, what are they, my friend? I see I must get them from you by fragments. Your faith includes, I presume, a belief in one Supreme G.o.d, who is a Divine Personality; in the duty of reverencing, loving, and obeying him,--whether you know how that is to be done or not; that we must repent of our sins,--if indeed we duly know what things are sins in his sight; that he will certainly forgive to any extent on such repentance, without any mediation; that perhaps there is a heaven hereafter; but that it is very doubtful if there are any punishments."

"I do believe," said Fellowes, "these are the cardinal doctrines of the 'Absolute Religion,' as Mr. Parker calls it. Nor can I conceive that any others are necessary."

"Well," said Harrington, "with the exception of the immortality of the soul, on which Lord Herbert has the advantage of speaking a little more firmly, the Deists and such 'spiritualists' as you are a.s.suredly identical. I have simply abridged his articles. The same project as yours spiritualism' or 'naturalism,' in all its essential features, has been often tried before, and found wanting; that is, of guaranteeing to man a sufficient and infallible internal oracle, independent of all aid from external revelation, and of proving that he has, in effect, possessed and enjoyed it always; only that, by a slight inadvertence (I suppose), he did not know it. The theory, indeed, is rather suspiciously confined to those who have previously had the Bible. No such plenary confidence is found in the ancient heathen philosophers, who, in many not obscure places, acknowledge that the path of mortal man, by his internal light, is a little dim. Many, therefore, say, that the 'Naturalists' and 'Spiritualists' are but plagiarists from the Bible, and of course, like other plagiarists, depreciate the sources from which they have stolen their treasures. I think unjustly; for, whatever their obligations to that mutilated volume, I acknowledge they have transformed Christianity quite sufficiently to ent.i.tle themselves to the praise of originality; and if the Battle of the Books were to be fought over again, I doubt whether Moses or Paul would think it worth while to make any other answer than that of Plato in that witty piece, to the Grub Street author, who boasted that he had not been in the slighest deuce indebted to the cla.s.sics: Plato declared that, upon his honor, he believed him! Whether the successors of the Herberts and Tindals of a former day are not plagiarists from them, is another question, and depends entirely upon whether the writings of their predecessors are sufficiently known to them. Probably, the hopeless oblivion which, for the most part, covers them (for the perverse world has been again and again a.s.sured of its infallible internal light, and has persisted in denying that it has it) will protect our modern authors from the imputation of plagiarism; but that the systems in question are essentially identical can hardly admit of doubt. The princ.i.p.al difference is as to the organon by which the revelation affirmed to be internal and universal is apprehended; it affects the metaphysics of the question, and, like all metaphysics, is characteristically dark. But about this you will not get the ma.s.s of mankind to, any more than you can get yourselves to agree; no, nor will you agree even about the system itself. Nay, you modern spiritualists, just as the elder deists, are already quarrelling about it. In short, the universal light in man's soul flickers and wavers most abominably."

"I see," said Fellowes, "you are profoundly prejudiced against the spiritualists."

"I believe not," said Harrington; "the worst I wish them is that they may be honest men, and appear what they really are."

"I suppose next," exclaimed the other, "you will attribute to the modern spiritualists the scurrility of the elder deists,--of Woolston, Tindal, and Collins?"

"No," said Harrington, "I answer no; nor do I (remember) compare Lord Herbert in these respects with his successors. He was an amiable enthusiast; in many respects resembling Mr. Newman himself. Do you remember, by the way, how that most reasonable rejecter of all 'external'

revelation prayed that he might be directed by Heaven whether he should publish or not publish his 'book'? about which, if Heaven was very solicitous, this world has since been very indifferent. Having distinctly heard 'a sound as of thunder,' on a very 'calm and serene day,' he immediately received it as a preternatural answer to prayer, and an indubitable sign of Heaven's concurrence'."

"No such taint of superst.i.tion, however, will be found clinging to Mr. Newman. He has most thoroughly abjured all notion of an external revelation; nay, he denies the possibility of a 'book-revelation of spiritual and moral truth'; and I am confident that his dilemma on that point is una.s.sailable."

"Be it so," answered Harrington; "you will readily suppose I am not inclined to contest that point very vigorously; yet I confess that, as usual, my inveterate scepticism leaves me in some doubts. Will you a.s.sist me in resolving them?--but not to-night; let us have a little more talk about old college days,--or what say you to a game at chess?"

____

July 4. I thought this day would have pa.s.sed off entirely without polemics; but I was mistaken. In the evening Harrington, after a very cheerful morning, relapsed into one of his pensive moods. Conversation flagged; at last I heard Fellowes say, "I have this advantage of you, my friend, that my sentiments have, at all events, produced that peace of which you are in quest, and which your countenance at times too plainly declares you not to possess. If you had it, you would not take so gloomy a view of things. Like him from whom I have derived some of my sentiments, I have found that they tend to make me a happier man.

The Christian, like yourself, looks upon every thing with a jaundiced or distorted eye, and is apt to underrate the claims and pleasures of this present scene of our existence. I can truly say that I now enter into them much more keenly than I could when I was an orthodox Christian. I can say with Mr. Newman, I now, with deliberate approval, 'love the world and the things of the world.' The New Testament, as Mr. Newman says, bids us watch perpetually, not knowing whether the Lord will return at c.o.c.k-crowing or midday; 'that the only thing worth spending one's energies on, is the forwarding of men's salvation.'

Now I must say with him, that, while I believed this, I acted an eccentric and unprofitable part."

"Only then?" said Harrington. "You were fortunate."

"He says, that to teach the certain speedy destruction of earthly things, as the New Testament does, is to cut the sinews of all earthly progress; to declare against intellect and imagination, against industrial and social advancement."

My gravity was hardly equal to the task of listening to the first part of Mr. Fellowes's speech. To hear that the common and just reproach against all mankind, but especially against all Christians, of taking too keen an interest in the present, was in a large measure at least founded upon a mistake; to find, in fact, that there was some danger of an excessive exaggeration of the claims of the future, which required a corrective; that the Christian world, owing to the above pernicious doctrine, might possibly evince too faint a relish for the pleasures or too diminished an estimate for the advantages of the present life; that, their "treasure being in heaven," it was not impossible but "their heart" might be too much there also,--there, perhaps, when it was imperatively demanded in the counting-house, on the hustings, at the mart or the theatre; all this, being, as I say, so notoriously contrary to ordinary opinion and experience, seemed to me so exquisitely ludicrous that I could hardly help bursting into laughter, especially as I imagined one of our new "spiritual" doctors ascending the pulpit under the new dispensation, to indulge in exhortations to a keener chase, of this world, and "the things of this world." I found afterwards similar thoughts were pa.s.sing through Harrington's mind, rendered more whimsical by the recollection that, during college life, his friend (though very far from vicious) had certainly never seemed to take any deficient interest in the affairs of this world, nor to exhibit any predilection for an ascetic life. Indeed, he acknowledged that, after all, he could not sympathize with Mr. Newman's extreme sensitiveness in relation to this matter. (See Phases, p. 205.)

Harrington answered, with proper gravity, "I am glad to find that any undue austerity of character--of which, however, I a.s.sure you, upon my honor, I never suspected you--has received so invaluable a corrective. Still, it is obvious to remark, that, if the chief effect of this new style of religion is to abate any excessive antipathy which the New Testament has fostered, or was likely to foster, to the attractions of this life, it has, I conceive, an easy task. I never remarked in Christians any superfluous contempt of the present world or its pleasures; any indication of an extravagant admiration of any sublimer objects of pursuit. In truth, the tendencies of human nature, as it appears to me, are so strong the other way, that the strongest language of a hundred New Testaments would be little heeded. Your corrective is something like that of a moralist who should seriously prove that man was to take care that his appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions are duly indulged, of which ethical writers have, alas!

condescended to say but little, supposing that every body would feel that there was no need of solemn counsels on such a subject. It reminds one of the Christmas sermon mentioned in the 'Sketch Book,'

preached by the good little antiquarian who elaborately proved, and pathetically enforced on reluctant auditors, the duty of a proper devotion to the festivities of the season. However, every one must like the complexion of your theology, though its counsels on this subject do not seem to me of urgent necessity."

"Perhaps," said Fellowes, "I ought rather to have said that Christians inculcate, theoretically, a contempt of the present life, while, practically, they enter as keenly into its pleasures as the 'worldling,'"--uttering the last word with an approach to a sneer.

"You may be sure," said Harrington, "I shall leave the Christian to defend himself; but if the case be as you now represent it, your new religious system seems to be superfluous as a corrective of any tendencies to Christian asceticism, and can do nothing for us. It appears that your Reformation was begun and ended before your 'spiritual' Luthers appeared."

"Not so," said Fellowes, "for the eagerness with which the Christian pursues the world, while he condemns it, is, as Mr. Greg has recently insisted, gigantic hypocrisy': it is founded on a lie. They say this world is not to be the great object for which we are to live and in which we are to find our happiness; we say it is: they say it is not our 'country' or our 'home'; we say it is: they say that we are to live supremely for the future, and in it; we say, for and in the present; that if there be a future world (of which many doubt, and I, for one, have not been able to make up my mind), we are to hope to be happy there, but that the main business is to secure our happiness here,--to embellish, adorn, and enjoy this our only certain dwelling-place,--and, in fact, to live supremely for the present. Such is the const.i.tution of human nature."

"I shall not be at the trouble," replied Harrington, "to defend the inconsistencies of the Christian; but your system, I fear, is essentially a brutal theology, and, I am certain, a false philosophy.

All the a.n.a.logies of our nature cry out against it. All, even with regard to the 'present,' as you call this life, man is perpetually living for and in the future. This 'present' (minute as it is) is itself broken up into many futures, and it is these which man truly lives for, when he is not a beast; and not for the pa.s.sing hour. It is not to-day, it is always to-morrow, on which his eye is fixed; and his ever-repining nature perpetually confesses its impatient want of something (it knows not what) to come. The child lives for his youth, and the youth is discontented till he is a man; every attainment and every possession pails as soon as it is reached, and we still sigh for something that we have not. It is simply in a.n.a.logy with all this that the Christian and every other religion says (absurdly, if you will, but certainly with a deeper knowledge of human nature than you), that, as every little present has its little future for which we live, so the whole present of this life has its great future, which must, all the way through, be made the supreme object of forethought and solicitude; just as we should despise any man who, for a moment's gratification to-day, perilled the happiness of the whole of to-morrow.

If Christians are inconsistent in this respect, that is their affair; but I am sure their theory is more in accordance with the const.i.tution of human nature than yours." He might have added, that there is nothing in the New Testament which forbids to Christians any of the innocent pleasures of this life: the Christian may lawfully appropriate them.

His system does not constrain him to hermit-like austerity or Puritanic grimace. He may enjoy them, just as a wise man, who will not sacrifice any of the interests of next year for a transient gratification of the pa.s.sing hour, does not deny himself any legitimate pleasure which is not inconsistent with the more momentous interest. The pilgrim drinks and rests at the fountain though he does not dream of setting up his tent there.

"Nay," said Fellowes, "but think again of the 'gigantic lie' of making the future world the supreme object, and yet living wholly for this."

"If that be the case," said I, joining in their talk, "there is no doubt a 'gigantic lie' somewhere; but the question is, Who tells it?

It does not follow that it is Christianity. You may see every day men nay, losing, some important advantages by loitering away the very hour which is to secure them,--in reading a novel, enjoying a social hour, lying in bed, and what not. You do not conclude that the man's estimate of the future--his philosophy of that--is any the more questionable for this folly? The ruthless future comes and makes his heart ache; and so may it be with Christianity for aught any such considerations imply. Your argument only proves that, if Christianity be true, man is an inconsistent fool; and, in my judgment, that was proved long before Christianity was born or thought of."

"Your theology," cried Harrington, "fairly carried out, would lead most men to the 'Epicurean sty' which, sceptic as I am, I loathe the thought of; it deserves the rebuke which Johnson gave the man who pleaded for a 'natural and savage condition,' as he called it.

'Sir,' said the Doctor, 'it is a brutal doctrine; a bull might as well say, I have this gra.s.s and this cow,--and what can a creature want more?' No, I am sure that the Christian or any other religionist--inconsistent though he is--appeals in this point deeper a.n.a.logies of our nature than you."

"But the fact is," said Fellowes, "that the Christian depreciates the innocent pleasures of this life."

And my uncle would say it is his own fault then."

"Nay, but hear me. I conceive that nothing could be more natural, as several of our writers have remarked, than the injunctions of the Apostles to the primitive Christians to despise the world, and so forth, under the impression of that great mistake they had fallen into, that the world was about to tumble to pieces, and----"

"I am not sure," said Harrington, who seemed resolved to evince a scepticism provoking enough, "that they did make the mistake, on your principles. For I know not, nor you either, whether the expressions on which you found the supposition be not amongst the voluminous additions with which you are pleased to suppose their simple and genuine 'utterances' have been corrupted. But, leaving you to discuss that point, if you like, with my uncle here, I must deny that the mistake, supposing it one, makes any thing in relation to our present discussion. You say that the Apostles did well and naturally to inculcate a light grasp on the world, on the supposition that it was about to pa.s.s away; and therefore, I suppose, you (under a similar impression) would do the same; if so, ought you not still to do it? for can it make any conceivable difference to the wisdom or the folly of such exhortations, whether the world pa.s.ses away from us, or we pa.s.s away from the world?-- whether it 'tumbles to pieces,' as you express it, or (which is too certain) we tumble to pieces? I think, therefore, your same comfortable theology cannot be justified, if you justify the conduct of the Apostles under their impression, let it be ever so erroneous.

You ought to feel the same sentiments; you being, to all practical purposes, under a precisely similar impression."

Fellowes looked as if he were a little vexed at having thus hypothetically justified the conduct of the Apostles.

But he was not without his answer, adopted from Mr. Newman.