The Thread of Gold Part 9

One's belief in the goodness, the justice, the patience of the Father and Maker of men forbids one to believe that he can ever be wantonly cruel, unjust, or unloving. Yet it is impossible to see the mercy or justice of his actions in this case. And the misery is that, if it could be proved that in one single case, however small, G.o.d's goodness had, so to speak, broken down; if there were evidence of neglect or carelessness or indifference, in the case of one single child of his, one single sentient thing that he has created, it would be impossible to believe in his omnipotence any more. Either one would feel that he was unjust and cruel, or that there was some evil power at work in the world which he could not overcome.

For there is nothing remedial in this suffering. The man's useful, gentle life is over, the sister is broken down, unhappy, a second time made desolate; the children's education has suffered, their home is made miserable. The only thing that one can see, that is in any degree a compensation, is the extraordinary kindness displayed by friends, relations, and employers in making things easy for the afflicted household. And then, too, there is the heroic quality of soul displayed by the sufferer himself and his sister--a heroism which is enn.o.bling to think of, and yet humiliating too, because it seems to be so far out of one's own reach.

This is a very dark abyss of the world into which we are looking. The case is an extreme one perhaps, but similar things happen every day, in this sad and wonderful and bewildering world. Of course, one may take refuge in a gloomy acquiescence, saying that such things seem to be part of the world as it is made, and we cannot explain them, while we dumbly hope that we may be spared such woes. But that is a dark and despairing att.i.tude, and, for one, I cannot live at all, unless I feel that G.o.d is indeed more upon our side than that. I cannot live at all, I say. And yet I must live; I must endure the Will of G.o.d in whatever form it is laid upon me--in joy or in pain, in contentment or sick despair. Why am I at one with the Will of G.o.d when it gives me strength, and hope, and delight? Why am I so averse to it when it brings me languor, and sorrow, and despair? That I cannot tell; and that is the enigma which has confronted men from generation to generation.

But I still believe that there is a Will of G.o.d; and, more than that, I can still believe that a day comes for all of us, however far off it may be, when we shall understand; when these tragedies, that now blacken and darken the very air of Heaven for us, will sink into their places in a scheme so august, so magnificent, so joyful, that we shall laugh for wonder and delight; when we shall think not more sorrowfully over these sufferings, these agonies, than we think now of the sad days in our childhood when we sat with a pa.s.sion of tears over a broken toy or a dead bird, feeling that we could not be comforted. We smile as we remember such things--we smile at our blindness, our limitations. We smile to reflect at the great range and panorama of the world that has opened upon us since, and of which, in our childish grief, we were so ignorant. Under what conditions the glory will be revealed to us I cannot guess. But I do not doubt that it will be revealed; for we forget sorrow, but we do not forget joy.

x.x.xIV

Music

I have just come back from hearing a great violinist, who played, with three other professors, in two quartettes, Mozart and Beethoven. I know little of the technicalities of music, but I know that the Mozart was full to me of air and sunlight, and a joy which was not the light-hearted gaiety of earth, but the untainted and unwearying joy of heaven; the Beethoven I do not think I understood, but there was a grave minor movement, with pizzicato pa.s.sages for the violoncello, which seemed to consecrate and dignify the sorrow of the heart.

But apart from the technical merits of the music--and the performance, indeed, seemed to me to lie as near the thought and the conception as the translation of music into sound can go--the sight of these four big men, serious and grave, as though neither pursuing nor creating pleasure, but as though interpreting and giving expression to some weighty secret, had an inspiring and solemnising effect. The sight of the great violinist himself was full of awe; his big head, the full grey beard which lay over the top of the violin, his calm, set brows, his weary eyes with their heavy lids, had a profound dignity and seriousness; and to see his wonderful hands, not delicate or slender, but full, strong, and muscular, moving neither lingeringly nor hastily, but with a firm and easy deliberation upon the strings, was deeply impressive. It all seemed so easy, so inevitable, so utterly without display, so simple and great. It gave one a sense of mingled fire and quietude, which is the end of art,--one may almost say the end of life; it was no leaping and fitful flame, but a calm and steady glow; not a consuming fire, but like the strength of a mighty furnace; and then the peace of it! The great man did not stand before us as a performer; he seemed utterly indifferent to praise or applause, and he had rather a grave, pontifical air, as of a priest, divinely called to minister, celebrating a divine mystery, calling down the strength of heaven to earth. Neither was there the least sense of one conferring a favour; he rather appeared to recognise that we were there in the same spirit as himself, the worshippers in some high solemnity, and his own skill not a thing to be shown or gloried in, but a mere ministering of a sacred gift. He seemed, indeed, to be like one who distributed a sacramental meat to an intent throng; not a giver of pleasure, but a channel of secret grace.

From such art as this one comes away not only with a thrill of mortal rapture, but with a real and deep faith in art, having bowed the head before a shrine, and having tasted the food of the spirit. When, at the end of a sweet and profound movement, the player raised his great head and looked round tenderly and gently on the crowd, one felt as though, like Moses, he had struck the rock, and the streams had gushed out, _ut bibat populus_. And there fell an even deeper awe, which seemed to say, "G.o.d was in this place ... and I knew it not." The world of movement, of talk, of work, of conflicting interests, into which one must return, seemed all a fantastic noise, a shadowy striving; the only real thing seemed the presence-chamber from which we had gone out, the chamber in which music had uttered its voice at the bidding of some sacred spell, the voice of an infinite Spirit, the Spirit that had brooded upon the deep, evoking order out of chaos and light out of darkness; with no eager and dusty manoeuvrings, no clink and clatter of human toil, but gliding resistlessly and largely upon the world, as the sun by silent degrees detaches himself from the dark rim of the world, and climbs in stately progress into the unclouded heaven.

x.x.xV

The Faith of Christ

I read a terrible letter in the newspaper this morning, a letter from a clergyman of high position, finding fault with a manifesto put out by certain other clergymen; the letter had a certain volubility about it, and the writer seemed to me to pull out rather adroitly one or two loose sticks in his opponents' bundle, and to lay them vehemently about their backs. But, alas! the acrimony, the positiveness, the arrogance of it!

I do not know that I admired the manifesto very much myself; it was a timid and half-hearted doc.u.ment, but it was at least sympathetic and tender. The purport of it was to say that, just as historical criticism has shown that some of the Old Testament must be regarded as fabulous, so we must be prepared for a possible loss of cert.i.tude in some of the details of the New Testament. It is conceivable, for instance, that without sacrificing the least portion of the essential teaching of Christ, men may come to feel justified in a certain suspension of judgment with regard to some of the miraculous occurrences there related; may even grow to believe that an element of exaggeration is there, that element of exaggeration which is never absent from the writings of any age in which scientific historical methods had no existence. A suspension of judgment, say: because in the absence of any converging historical testimony to the events of the New Testament, it will never be possible either to affirm or to deny historically that the facts took place exactly as related; though, indeed, the probability of their having so occurred may seem to be diminished.

The controversialist, whose letter I read with bewilderment and pain, involved his real belief in ingenious sentences, so that one would think that he accepted the statements of the Old Testament, such as the account of the Creation and the Fall, the speaking of Balaam's a.s.s, the swallowing of Jonah by the whale, as historical facts. He went on to say that the miraculous element of the New Testament is accredited by the Revelation of G.o.d, as though some definite revelation of truth had taken place at some time or other, which all rational men recognised.

But the only objective process which has ever taken place is, that at certain Councils of the Church, certain books of Scripture were selected as essential doc.u.ments, and the previous selection of the Old Testament books was confirmed. But would the controversialist say that these Councils were infallible? It must surely be clear to all rational people that the members of these Councils were merely doing their best, under the conditions that then prevailed, to select the books that seemed to them to contain the truth. It is impossible to believe that if the majority at these Councils had supposed that such an account as the account in Genesis of the Creation was mythological, they would thus have attested its literal truth. It never occurred to them to doubt it, because they did not understand the principle that, while a normal event can be accepted, if it is fairly well confirmed, an abnormal event requires a far greater amount of converging testimony to confirm it.

If only the clergy could realise that what ordinary laymen like myself want is a greater elasticity instead of an irrational certainty! if only instead of feebly trying to save the outworks, which are already in the hands of the enemy, they would man the walls of the central fortress! If only they would say plainly that a man could remain a convinced Christian, and yet not be bound to hold to the literal accuracy of the account of miraculous incidents recorded in the Bible, it would be a great relief.

I am myself in the position of thousands of other laymen. I am a sincere Christian; and yet I regard the Old Testament and the New Testament alike as the work of fallible men and of poetical minds. I regard the Old Testament as a n.o.ble collection of ancient writings, containing myths, chronicles, fables, poems, and dramas, the value of which consists in the intense faith in a personal G.o.d and Father with which it is penetrated.

When I come to the New Testament, I feel myself, in the Gospels, confronted by the most wonderful personality which has ever drawn breath upon the earth. I am not in a position to affirm or to deny the exact truth of the miraculous occurrences there related; but the more conscious I am of the fallibility, the lack of subtlety, the absence of trained historical method that the writers display, the more convinced I am of the essential truth of the Person and teaching of Christ, because he seems to me a figure so infinitely beyond the intellectual power of those who described him to have invented or created.

If the authors of the Gospels had been men of delicate literary skill, of acute philosophical or poetical insight, like Plato or Shakespeare, then I should be far less convinced of the integral truth of the record. But the words and sayings of Christ, the ideas which he disseminated, seem to me so infinitely above the highest achievements of the human spirit, that I have no difficulty in confessing, humbly and reverently, that I am in the presence of one who seems to me to be above humanity, and not only of it. If all the miraculous events of the Gospels could be proved never to have occurred, it would not disturb my faith in Christ for an instant. But I am content, as it is, to believe in the possibility of so abnormal a personality being surrounded by abnormal events, though I am not in a position to disentangle the actual truth from the possibilities of misrepresentation and exaggeration.

Dealing with the rest of the New Testament, I see in the Acts of the Apostles a deeply interesting record of the first ripples of the faith in the world. In the Pauline and other epistles I see the words of fervent primitive Christians, men of real and untutored genius, in which one has amazing instances of the effect produced, on contemporary or nearly contemporary persons, of the same overwhelming personality, the personality of Christ. In the Apocalypse I see a vision of deep poetical force and insight.

But in none of these compositions, though they reveal a glow and fervour of conviction that places them high among the memorials of the human spirit, do I recognise anything which is beyond human possibilities. I observe, indeed, that St Paul's method of argument is not always perfectly consistent, nor his conclusions absolutely cogent.

Such inspiration as they contain they draw from their nearness to and their close apprehension of the dim and awe-inspiring presence of Christ Himself.

If, as I say, the Church would concentrate her forces in this inner fortress, the personality of Christ, and quit the debatable ground of historical enquiry, it would be to me and to many an unfeigned relief; but meanwhile, neither scientific critics nor irrational pedants shall invalidate my claim to be of the number of believing Christians. I claim a Christian liberty of thought, while I acknowledge, with bowed head, my belief in G.o.d the Father of men, in a Divine Christ, the Redeemer and Saviour, and in the presence in the hearts of men of a Divine spirit, leading humanity tenderly forward. I can neither affirm nor deny the literal accuracy of Scripture records; I am not in a position to deny the superstructure of definite dogma raised by the tradition of the Church about the central truths of its teaching, but neither can I deny the possibility of an admixture of human error in the fabric. I claim my right to receive the Sacraments of my Church, believing as I do that they invigorate the soul, bring the presence of its Redeemer near, and const.i.tute a bond of Christian unity. But I have no reason to believe that any human p.r.o.nouncement whatever, the p.r.o.nouncements of men of science as well as the p.r.o.nouncements of theologians, are not liable to error. There is indeed no fact in the world except the fact of my own existence of which I am absolutely certain. And thus I can accept no system of religion which is based upon deductions, however subtle, from isolated texts, because I cannot be sure of the infallibility of any form of human expression. Yet, on the other hand, I seem to discern with as much certainty as I can discern anything in this world, where all is so dark, the presence upon earth at a certain date of a personality which commands my homage and allegiance. And upon this I build my trust.

x.x.xVI

The Mystery of Evil

I was staying the other day in a large old country-house. One morning, my host came to me and said: "I should like to show you a curious thing. We have just discovered a cellar here that seems never to have been visited or used since the house was built, and there is the strangest fungoid growth in it I have ever seen." He took a big bunch of keys, rang the bell, gave an order for lights to be brought, and we went together to the place. There were ranges of brick-built, vaulted chambers, through which we pa.s.sed, pleasant, cool places, with no plaster to conceal the native brick, with great wine-bins on either hand. It all gave one an inkling of the change in material conditions which must have taken place since they were built; the quant.i.ty of wine consumed in eighteenth-century days must have been so enormous, and the difficulty of conveyance so great, that every great householder must have felt like the Rich Fool of the parable, with much goods laid up for many years. In the corner of one of the great vaults was a low arched door, and my friend explained that some panelling which had been taken out of an older house, demolished to make room for the present mansion, had been piled up here, and thus the entrance had been hidden.

He unlocked the door, and a strange scent came out. An abundance of lights were lit, and we went into the vault. It was the strangest scene I have ever beheld; the end of the vault seemed like a great bed, hung with brown velvet curtains, through the gaps of which were visible what seemed like white velvet pillows, strange humped conglomerations.

My friend explained to me that there had been a bin at the end of the vault, out of the wood of which these singular fungi had sprouted. The whole place was uncanny and horrible. The great velvet curtains swayed in the current of air, and it seemed as though at any moment some mysterious sleeper might be awakened, might peer forth from his dark curtains, with a fretful enquiry as to why he was disturbed.

The scene dwelt in my mind for many days, and aroused in me a strange train of thought; these dim vegetable forms, with their rich luxuriance, their sinister beauty, awoke a curious repugnance in the mind. They seemed unholy and evil. And yet it is all part of the life of nature; it is just as natural, just as beautiful to find life at work in this gloomy and unvisited place, wreathing the bare walls with these dark, soft fabrics. It was impossible not to feel that there was a certain joy of life in these growths, sprouting with such security and luxuriance in a place so precisely adapted to their well-being; and yet there was the shadow of death and darkness about them, to us whose home is the free air and the sun. It seemed to me to make a curious parable of the baffling mystery of evil, the luxuriant growth of sin in the dark soul. I have always felt that the reason why the mystery of evil is so baffling is because we so resolutely think of evil as of something inimical to the nature of G.o.d; and yet evil must derive its vitality from him. The one thing that it is impossible to believe is that, in a world ruled by an all-powerful G.o.d, anything should come into existence which is in opposition to his Will. It is impossible to arrive at any solution of the difficulty, unless we either adopt the belief that G.o.d is not all-powerful, and that there is a real dualism in nature, two powers in eternal opposition; or else realise that evil is in some way a manifestation of G.o.d. If we adopt the first theory, we may conceive of the stationary tendency in nature, its inertness, the force that tends to bring motion to a standstill, as one power, the power of Death; and we may conceive of all motion and force as the other power, the quickening spirit, the power of life. But even here we are met with a difficulty, for when we try to transfer this dualism to the region of humanity, we see that in the phenomena of disease we are confronted, not with inertness fighting against motion, but with one kind of life, which is inimical to human life, fighting with another kind of life which is favourable to health. I mean that when a fever or a cancer lays hold of a human frame, it is nothing but the lodging inside the body of a bacterial and an infusorial life which fights against the healthy native life of the human organism. There must be, I will not say a consciousness, but a sense of triumphant life, in the cancer which feeds upon the limb, in spite of all efforts to dislodge it; and it is impossible to me to believe that the vitality of those parasitical organisms, which prey upon the human frame, is not derived from the vital impulse of G.o.d. We, who live in the free air and the sun, have a way of thinking and speaking as if the plants and animals which develop under the same conditions were of a healthy type, while the organisms which flourish in decay and darkness, such as the fungi of which I saw so strange an example, the larva; which prey on decaying matter, the soft and pallid worm-like forms that tunnel in vegetable ooze, were of an unhealthy type. But yet these creatures are as much the work of G.o.d as the flowers and trees, the brisk animals which we love to see about us. We are obliged in self-defence to do battle with the creatures which menace our health; we do not question our right to deprive them of life for our own comfort; but surely with this a.n.a.logy before us, we are equally compelled to think of the forms of moral evil, with all their dark vitality, as the work of G.o.d's hand.

It is a sad conclusion to be obliged to draw, but I can have no doubt that no comprehensive system of philosophy can ever be framed, which does not trace the vitality of what we call evil to the same hand as the vitality of what we call good. I have no doubt myself of the supremacy of a single power; but the explanation that evil came into the world by the inst.i.tution of free-will, and that suffering is the result of sin, seems to me to be wholly inadequate, because the mystery of strife and pain and death is "far older than any history which is written in any book." The mistake that we make is to count up all the qualities which seem to promote our health and happiness, and to invent an anthropomorphic figure of G.o.d, whom we array upon the side which we wish to prevail. The truth is far darker, far sterner, far more mysterious. The darkness is his not less than the light; selfishness and sin are the work of his hand, as much as unselfishness and holiness. To call this att.i.tude of mind pessimism, and to say that it can only end in acquiescence or despair, is a sin against truth. A creed that does not take this thought into account is nothing but a delusion, with which we try to beguile the seriousness of the truth which we dread; but such a stern belief does not forbid us to struggle and to strive; it rather bids us believe that effort is a law of our natures, that we are bound to be enlisted for the fight, and that the only natures that fail are those that refuse to take a side at all.

There is no indecision in nature, though there is some illusion. The very star that rises, pale and serene, above the darkening thicket, is in reality a globe wreathed in fiery vapour, the centre of a throng of whirling planets. What we have to do is to see as deep as we can into the truth of things, not to invent paradises of thought, sheltered gardens, from which grief and suffering shall tear us, naked and protesting; but to gaze into the heart of G.o.d, and then to follow as faithfully as we can the imperative voice that speaks within the soul.

x.x.xVII

Renewal

There sometimes falls upon me a great hunger of heart, a sad desire to build up and renew something--a broken building it may be, a fading flower, a failing inst.i.tution, a ruinous character. I feel a great and vivid pity for a thing which sets out to be so bright and beautiful, and lapses into shapeless and uncomely neglect. Sometimes, indeed, it must be a desolate grief, a fruitless sorrow: as when a flower that has stood on one's table, and cheered the air with its freshness and fragrance, begins to droop, and to grow stained and sordid. Or I see some dying creature, a wounded animal; or even some well-loved friend under the shadow of death, with the hue of health fading, the dear features sharpening for the last change; and then one can only bow, with such resignation as one can muster, before the dreadful law of death, pray that the pa.s.sage may not be long or dark, and try to dream of the bright secrets that may be waiting on the other side.

But sometimes it is a more fruitful sadness, when one feels that decay can be arrested, that new life can be infused; that a fresh start may be taken, and a life may be beautifully renewed, and be even the brighter, one dares to hope, for a lapse into the dreary ways of bitterness.

This sadness is most apt to beset those who have anything to do with the work of education. One feels sometimes, with a sudden shiver, as when the shadow of a cloud pa.s.ses over a sunlit garden, that many elements are at work in a small society; that an evil secret is spreading over lives that were peaceful and contented, that suspicion and disunion and misunderstanding are springing up, like poisonous weeds, in the quiet corner that G.o.d has given one to dress and keep.

Then perhaps one tries to put one's hand on what is amiss; sometimes one does too much, and in the wrong way; one has not enough faith, one dares not leave enough to G.o.d. Or from timidity or diffidence, or from the base desire not to be troubled, from the poor hope that perhaps things will straighten themselves out, one does too little; and that is the worst shadow of all, the shadow of cowardice or sloth.

Sometimes, too, one has the grief of seeing a slow and subtle change pa.s.sing over the manner and face of one for whom one cares--not the change of languor or physical weakness; that can be pityingly borne; but one sees innocence withering, indifference to things wholesome and fair creeping on, even sometimes a ripe and evil sort of beauty maturing, such as comes of looking at evil unashamed, and seeing its strong seductiveness. One feels instinctively that the door which had been open before between such a soul and one's own spirit is being slowly and firmly closed, or even, if one attempts to open it, pulled to with a swift motion; and then one may hear sounds within, and even see, in that moment, a rush of gliding forms, that makes one sure that a visitant is there, who has brought with him a wicked company; and then one has to wait in sadness, with now and then a timid knocking, even happy, it may be, if the soul sometimes call fretfully within, to say that it is occupied and cannot come forth.

But sometimes, G.o.d be praised, it is the other way. A year ago a man came at his own request to see me. I hardly knew him; but I could see at once that he was in the grip of some hard conflict, which withered his natural bloom. I do not know how all came to be revealed; but in a little while he was speaking with simple frankness and naturalness of all his troubles, and they were many. What was the most touching thing of all was that he spoke as if he were quite alone in his experience, isolated and shut off from his kind, in a peculiar horror of darkness and doubt; as if the thoughts and difficulties at which he stumbled had never strewn a human path before. I said but little to him; and, indeed, there was but little to say. It was enough that he should "cleanse the stuff'd bosom of the perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart." I tried to make him feel that he was not alone in the matter, and that other feet had trodden the dark path before him. No advice is possible in such cases; "therein the patient must minister to himself"; the solution lies in the mind of the sufferer. He knows what he ought to do; the difficulty is for him sufficiently to desire to do it; yet even to speak frankly of cares and troubles is very often to melt and disperse the morbid mist that gathers round them, which grows in solitude. To state them makes them plain and simple; and, indeed, it is more than that; for I have often noticed that the mere act of formulating one's difficulties in the hearing of one who sympathises and feels, often brings the solution with it. One finds, like Christian in Doubting Castle, the key which has lain in one's bosom all the time--the key of Promise; and when one has finished the recital, one is lost in bewilderment that one ever was in any doubt at all.

A year has pa.s.sed since that date, and I have had the happiness of seeing health and contentment stream back into the man's face. He has not overcome, he has not won an easy triumph; but he is in the way now, not wandering on trackless hills.

So, in the mood of which I spoke at first--the mood in which one desires to build up and renew--one must not yield oneself to luxurious and pathetic reveries, or allow oneself to muse and wonder in the half-lit region in which one may beat one's wings in vain--the region, I mean, of sad stupefaction as to why the world is so full of broken dreams, shattered hopes, and unfulfilled possibilities. One must rather look round for some little definite failure that is within the circle of one's vision. And even so, there sometimes comes what is the most evil and subtle temptation of all, which creeps upon the mind in lowly guise, and preaches inaction. What concern have you, says the tempting voice, to meddle with the lives and characters of others--to guide, to direct, to help--when there is so much that is bitterly amiss with your own heart and life? How will you dare to preach what you do not practice? The answer of the brave heart is that, if one is aware of failure, if one has suffered, if one has gathered experience, one must be ready to share it. If I falter and stumble under my own heavy load, which I have borne so querulously, so clumsily, shall not I say a word which can help a fellow-sufferer to bear his load more easily, help him to avoid the mistakes, the falls into which my own perversity has betrayed me? To make another's burden lighter is to lighten one's own burden; and, sinful as it may be to err, it is still more sinful to see another err, and be silent, to withhold the word that might save him. Perhaps no one can help so much as one that has suffered himself, who knows the turns of the sad road, and the trenches which beset the way.

For thus comes most truly the joy of repentance; it is joy to feel that one's own lesson is learnt, and that the feeble feet are a little stronger; but if one may also feel that another has taken heed, has been saved the fall that must have come if he had not been warned, one does not grudge one's own pain, that has brought a blessing with it, that is outside of one's own blessing; one hardly even grudges the sin.

x.x.xVIII

The Secret

I have been away from my books lately, in a land of downs and valleys; I have walked much alone, or with a silent companion--that greatest of all luxuries. And, as is always the case when I get out of the reach of books, I feel that I read a great deal too much, and do not meditate enough. It sounds indolent advice to say that one ought to meditate; but I cannot help feeling that reading is often a still more indolent affair. When I am alone, or at leisure among my books, I take a volume down; and the result is that another man does my thinking for me. It is like putting oneself in a comfortable railway carriage; one runs smoothly along the iron track, one stops at specified stations, one sees a certain range of country, and an abundance of pretty things in flashes--too many, indeed, for the mind to digest; and that is the reason, I think, why a modern journey, even with all the luxuries that surround it, is so tiring a thing. But to meditate is to take one's own path among the hills; one turns off the track to examine anything that attracts the attention; one makes the most of the few things that one sees.

Reading is often a mere saving of trouble, a soporific for a restless brain. This last week, as I say, I have had very few books with me.