The Gentle Reader Part 15

A similar perplexity arises in the minds of the simple inhabitants of the scientific Hinter-lands. They are ready to admit the superior claims of the exact sciences, but they are puzzled to know to what particular sphere they belong.

In the absence of any generally received philosophy each special science pushes out as far as it can and attempts to take in the whole of existence. The specialist, forgetting his self-imposed limitations, and fired with the ambition for wide generalization, which is the infirmity of all active minds, becomes an intellectual tyrant. He is a veritable Tamerlane, and if he rears no pyramids of skulls, he leaves behind him a mult.i.tude of muddled brains.

Wilberforce tells us of the havoc wrought in his day by the new science of Political Economy. Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" was hailed as the complete solution of all social problems. Forgetting the narrow scope of the inquiry which had to do with only a single aspect of human life, the maxims of trade were elevated into the place of the moral law.

Superst.i.tion magnified those useful twins, Demand and Supply, into two all-powerful Genii who were quite capable of doing the work of Providence. For any one in the spirit of brotherly kindness to interfere with their autocratic operations was looked upon as an act of rebellion against the nature of things. "A dismal science," indeed, as any science is when it becomes an unlimited despotism.

At the present time Geology is a very modest science, remaining peacefully within its natural frontiers; but in the days of Hugh Miller it was viewed with alarm. Elated with its victory in the affair with Genesis, its adherents were filled with militant ardor and were in the mood for universal conquest. In alliance with Chemistry it invaded the sphere of morals. Was not even Ruskin induced to write of the "Ethics of the Dust"? In the form of Physical Geography and with the auxiliary forces of Meteorology, it was ready to recast human history. Books were written to show that all civilization could be sufficiently explained by one who took account only of such features of the world as soil and climate.

While learned men were geologizing through the successive stratifications of humanity, a new claimant appeared. Biology became easily the paramount power. Its fame spread far and wide among those who knew nothing of its severer methods. In the Hinter-land the worship of Protoplasm became a cult. The hopes and fears and spiritual powers of humanity seemed illusory unless such phenomena were confirmed by a.n.a.logies drawn from "the psychic life of micro-organisms." Fortunately at about this time the aggressive temper of "The New Psychology" did much to restore the balance of power. Under its influence those who still adhered to the belief that the proper study of mankind is man took heart and ventured, though with caution, to move abroad. The new Psychology in its turn has developed imperialistic ambitions. Its conquests have not been without much devastation, especially in the fair fields of education. A distinguished Psychologist has sounded a note of warning. He would have psychological experiments confined to the laboratory, leaving the school-room to the wholesome government of common sense. It is doubtful, however, whether such protests will avail any more than the eloquence of the Little Englanders has been able to limit colonial expansion.

The border-land between Psychology and Sociology is the scene of many a foray. The Psychologist thinks nothing of following a fleeing idea across the frontier. He deals confidently with the "Psychology of the mob," and "the aggregate mind," and the hypnotic influence of the crowd.

There is such an air of authority about it all, that we forget that he is dealing with figures of speech. On the other hand, the Sociologist attempts to solve the most delicate problems of the individual soul by the statistical method.

The Hinter-land has not yet been reduced to order. The Gentle Reader suspects that no one of the rival sciences is strong enough to impose its own laws over so wide a region. Perhaps, after all, they may have to call upon Philosophy to undertake the task of forming a responsible government.

The Gentle Reader's Friends among the Clergy

"There has been a sad falling off in clerical character," says the Gentle Reader. "In the old books it is a pleasure to meet a parson. He is so simple and hearty that you feel at home with him at once. You know just where to find him, and he always takes himself and his profession for granted. He may be a trifle narrow, but you make allowance for that, and as for his charity it has no limits. You expect him to give away everything he can lay hands on. As for his creed it is always the same as the church to which he belongs, which is a great relief and saves no end of trouble. But the clergyman I meet with in novels nowadays is in a chronic state of fidgetiness. Nothing is as it seems or as it ought to be. He is as full of problems as an egg is full of meat. Everything resolves itself into a conflict of duties, and whichever duty he does he wishes it had been the other one. When the poor man is not fretting because of evil-doers he begins to fret because of the well-doers, who do well in the old fashion without any proper knowledge of the Higher Criticism or Sanitary Drainage. What with his creed and his congregation and his love affairs, all of which need mending, he lives a distracted life. Though the author in the first chapter praises his athletic prowess, he seems to have no staying powers and his nerves give out under the least strain. He is one of those trying characters of whom some one has said that 'we can hear their souls sc.r.a.pe.' I prefer the old-time parsons. They were much more comfortable and in more rugged health. I like the phrase 'Bishops and other Clergy.' The bishops are great personages whose lives are written like the lives of the Lord Chancellors; and they are not always very readable. But my heart goes out to the other clergy, the good sensible men who were neither great scholars nor reformers nor martyrs, and who therefore did not get into the Church Histories, but who kept things going."

When he turns to the parson of "The Canterbury Tales" he finds the refreshment that comes from contact with a perfectly wholesome nature.

Here is an enduring type of natural piety. In the person of the good man the prayers of the church for the healthful spirit of grace had been answered in full measure. In his ministry in his wide parish we cannot imagine him as being worried or hurried. There could be for him no conflict of duties; the duties plodded along one after another in st.u.r.dy English fashion. And when the duties were well done that was the end of them. Their pale uneasy ghosts did not disturb his slumbers, and point with vague menace to the unattainable. The parson had his place and his definite task. He trod the earth as firmly and sometimes as heavily as did the ploughman.

If the virtues of the fourteenth-century parson were of the enduring order, so were his foibles. The Gentle Reader is familiar with his weaknesses; for has he not "sat under his preaching?" The homiletic habit is hard to break, and renders its victim strangely oblivious to the pa.s.sage of time. Every incident suggests a text and every text suggests a new application. In the homiletic sphere perpetual motion is an a.s.sured success.

What sinking of heart must have come to laymen like the merchant and the yeoman when the parson on the pleasant road to Canterbury called their attention to the resemblance between their journey and

"...thilke parfit, glorious pilgrymage, That highte Jerusalem celestial."

They knew the symptoms. When the homilist has got scent of an a.n.a.logy he will run it down, however long the chase.

It would be interesting to discover the origin of the impression so persistent in the lay mind that sermons are long. A sermon is seldom as long as it seems. But it is always with trepidation that the listener observes in a discourse a const.i.tutional tendency to longevity. In his opinion the good die young. As it is to-day so it was on the afternoon when the host, with ill-concealed alarm, called upon the good parson to take his turn.

"Telleth," quod he, "youre meditacioun; But hasteth yow, the sonne wole adoun.

Beth fructuous, and that in litel s.p.a.ce."

It is needless to say that what the parson called his "little tale in prose" proved to be one of his old sermons which he delivered without notes. He was very unskillful in concealing his text, which was Jeremiah vi. 16.

We are familiar with that interesting picture of the pilgrims as they set out in the morning, each figure alert. I wonder that some one has not painted a picture of them about sunset, as the parson was in the middle of his discourse. It is said that in every battle there is a critical moment when each side is almost exhausted. The side which at this moment receives reinforcements or rallies for a supreme effort gains the victory. So one must have noticed in every over-long discourse a critical moment when the speaker and his hearers are equally exhausted. If at that moment the speaker, who has apparently used up his material, boldly announces a new head, the hearers' discomfiture is complete. This point of strategy the parson, guileless as he was, understood and so managed to get in the last word, so that "The Canterbury Tales" end with the Canterbury sermon.

By the way, there was one ministerial weakness from which Chaucer's parson was free,--the love of alliteration. One is often struck, when listening to a fervent discourse against besetting sins, with the curious fact that all the transgressions begin with the same letter of the alphabet. There is something suspicious in this circ.u.mstance. Not a great many years ago a political party suffered severely because its candidate received an address from a worthy clergyman who was addicted to this habit, and instead of the usual three R's enumerated "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion." The chances are that he meant no offense to his Roman Catholic fellow citizens; but once on the toboggan slide of alliteration he could not stop. If instead of rum he had begun with whiskey, his homiletic instinct would have led him to a.s.sert that the three perils of the Republic were whiskey, war, and woman-suffrage.

It is to the credit of Chaucer's parson that he distinctly repudiated alliteration with all its allurements, especially in connection with the seductive letter R.

"I kan nat geeste '_rum_, _ram_, _ruf_,' by lettre; Ne, G.o.d woot, rym holde I but litel bettre."

When it came to plain prose without any rhetorical embellishments, he was in his element.

It must be confessed that the clergyman is not an eminently Shakespearean character. The great high ecclesiastics, like Pandulph and Wolsey, are great personages who make a fine show, but the other clergy are not always in good and regular standing. They are sometimes little better than hedge-priests. But what pleasant glimpses we get into the unwritten history of the English Church in the days when it was still Merry England. The Cranmers and the Ridleys made a great stir in those days, but no rumors of it reached the rural parishes where Holofernes kept school and Nathanael warmed over for his slumbering congregation the sc.r.a.ps he had stolen in his youth from the feast of the languages.

As for the parishioners, they were doubtless well satisfied and could speak after the fashion of Constable Dull when he was reproved for his silence.

"Goodman Dull, thou hast said no word all this while."

Dull,--"Nor understood none neither, sir!"

The innocent pedant whose learning lies in the dead languages and who has a contempt for the living world is a type not extinct; but what shall we say of the Welsh curate of Windsor, Hugh Evans? In Windsor Park Mrs. Ford whispers, "Where is Nan now and her troop of fairies, and that Welsh devil Sir Hugh?"

That was her affectionate, though not respectful, way of referring to her spiritual adviser. Curate Evans was certainly not an example of what has been termed "the mild and temperate spirituality which has always characterized the Church of England." The dignity of the cloth is not in his mind as he cries, "Trib, fairies, trib, come and remember your parts, pe pold, I pray you, ... when I give the watch'ords do as I pid you."

Yet though he seemed not to put so much emphasis on character in religion as we in these more serious days think fitting, this Welsh devil of a parson had enough of the professional spirit to wish to point a moral on all proper occasions. Not too obtrusive or moral, nor carrying it to the sweating point, but a good, sound approbation of right sentiment. When Master Slender declares his resolution, "After this trick I'll ne'er be drunk while I live again but in honest, civil, G.o.dly company. If I be drunk I'll be drunk with those who fear G.o.d," the convivial curate responds, "So G.o.d judge me that shows a virtuous mind."

That Shakespeare intended any reflection on the Welsh clergy is not probable; but so late as the eighteenth century a traveler in Wales remarks that the ale house was usually kept by the parson. One wonders whether with such manifest advantages the Welsh ministers' meetings were given over to lugubrious essays on "Why we do not reach the ma.s.ses."

Shakespeare uses the word Puritan once, but Malvolio was a prig rather than a true Puritan. His objection to cakes and ale was rather because revelry disturbed his slumbers than because it troubled his conscience.

But when we turn to Ben Jonson's Alchemist and come across Tribulation Wholesome, from Amsterdam, we know that the battle between the stage and the conventicle has begun. We know the solid virtues of these sectaries from whom came some of the best things in England and New England. But we must not expect to find this side of their character in the literature of the next two or three centuries. Unfortunately the non-conformist conscience was offended at those innocent pleasures in which amiable writers and readers have always taken satisfaction.

Charles Lamb inclined to the opinion of his friend who held that "a man cannot have a good conscience who refuses apple dumpling." The gastronomic argument against Puritanism has always been a strong one with the English mind. It was felt that a person must be a hypocrite who could speak disrespectfully of the creature comforts. There was no toleration for the miserable pretender who would "blaspheme custard through the nose." Tribulation Wholesome was deserving only of the pillory. There was no doubt but that the viands which were publicly reprobated were privately enjoyed.

"You rail against plays to please the alderman Whose daily custard you devour.

...You call yourselves By names of Tribulation, Persecution, Restraint, Long Patience and such-like, affected Only for glory and to catch the ear Of the disciple."

In "Bartholomew Fair" we meet Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy, an unlicensed exhorter, who has attained the liberty of prophesying, and is the leader of a little flock.

Did history keep on repeating itself, or did literary men keep on repeating each other? At any rate Mr. Zeal of the Land Busy reappears continually. He is in every particular the prototype of those painful brethren who roused the wrath of honest Sam Weller. We recognize his unctuous speech, his unfailing appet.i.te, and even his offensive and defensive alliance with the mother-in-law.

Mr. Little-Wit introduces him as "An old elder from Banbury who puts in here at meal times to praise the painful brethren and to pray that the sweet singers may be restored; and he says grace as long as his breath lasts."

To which Mrs. Little-Wit responds, "Yes, indeed, we have such a tedious time with him, what for his diet and his clothes too, he breaks his b.u.t.tons and cracks seams at every saying that he sobs out."

In answer to the anxious inquiry of his mother-in-law, Dame Pure-Craft, Little-Wit announces that he has found the good man "with his teeth fast in the cold turkey-pie in the cupboard, with a great white loaf on his left hand, and a gla.s.s of malmsey on his right." In Dame Pure-Craft he finds a stanch supporter. "Slander not the brethren, wicked one," she cries.

Zeal of the Land Busy attempts to lead his flock through the perils of Bartholomew Fair. "Walk in the middle of the way--turn neither to the right nor to the left. Let not your eyes be drawn aside by vanity nor your ears by noises." It was indeed a dangerous journey, for it was nothing less than "a grove of hobby horses and trinkets; the wares are the wares of devils, and the fair is the shop of Satan."

But, alas, though the eyes and ears were guarded, another avenue of temptation had been forgotten. The delicious odor of roast pig came from one of the booths. It was a delicate little pig, cooked with fire of juniper and rosemary branches. Mrs. Little-Wit longed for it and her husband encouraged her weakness. Dame Pure-Craft rebukes him and bids him remember the wholesome admonition of their leader.

Zeal of the Land Busy is a casuist of no mean ability, and is equal to the task of finding an exception to his own rule.

"It may offer itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, which I think it doth in this place, huh! huh!--yes, it doth. And it were a sin of obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to resist the t.i.tillation of the famelic sense which is smell. Therefore be bold, follow the scent; enter the tents of the unclean for this once, and satisfy your wife's frailty. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your zealous mother and my suffering self will be satisfied also."

Zeal of the Land Busy was like a certain English statesman of whom it was said, "His conscience, instead of being his monitor, became his accomplice."

One characteristic of these unlicensed exhorters seems to be very persistent,--their almost superhuman fluency. Despising preparation and trusting to the inspiration of the moment, they are never left without words. Preaching without notes is not particularly difficult if one has something to say, but these exhorters attempt to preach without notes and also without ideas. They require nothing but a word to begin with.

The speaker is like an army which, having broken away from its base of supplies, lives on the country through which it is marching. The hortatory guerrilla gets forage enough in one sentence to carry him on through the next. This was the homiletical method which Zeal of the Land used in his discourse at the fair. At a venture he cries out,--

"Down with Dagon!"