Thomas Wingfold, Curate Part 47

"One thing at least I have learned, Mr. Polwarth and that is, not to answer any question of yours in a hurry," said Wingfold. "I will, if you please, take this one home with me, and hold the light to it."

"Do," said Polwarth, "and you will find it return you the light threefold.--One word more, ere Mr. Drew comes: do you still think of giving up your curacy?"

"I have almost forgotten I ever thought of such a thing. Whatever energies I may or may not have, I know one thing for certain, that I could not devote them to anything else I should think entirely worth doing. Indeed nothing else seems interesting enough--nothing to repay the labour, but the telling of my fellow-men about the one man who is the truth, and to know whom is the life. Even if there be no hereafter, I would live my time believing in a grand thing that ought to be true if it is not. No facts can take the place of truths, and if these be not truths, then is the loftiest part of our nature a waste. Let me hold by the better than the actual, and fall into nothingness off the same precipice with Jesus and John and Paul and a thousand more, who were lovely in their lives, and with their death make even the nothingness into which they have pa.s.sed like the garden of the Lord. I will go further, Polwarth, and say, I would rather die for evermore believing as Jesus believed, than live for evermore believing as those that deny him.

If there be no G.o.d, I feel a.s.sured that existence is and could be but a chaos of contradictions, whence can emerge nothing worthy to be called a truth, nothing worth living for.--No, I will not give up my curacy. I will teach that which IS good, even if there should be no G.o.d to make a fact of it, and I will spend my life on it, in the growing hope, which MAY become a.s.surance, that there is indeed a perfect G.o.d, worthy of being the Father of Jesus Christ, and that it was BECAUSE they are true, that these things were lovely to me and to so many men and women, of whom some have died for them, and some would be yet ready to die."

"I thank my G.o.d to hear you say so. Nor will you stand still there,"

said Polwarth. "But here comes Mr. Drew!"

CHAPTER IX.

IMMORTALITY.

"How goes business?" said Polwarth, when the new-comer had seated himself.

"That is hardly a question I look for from you, sir," returned the draper, smiling all over his round face, which looked more than ever like a moon of superior intelligence. "For me, I am glad to leave it behind me in the shop."

"True business can never be left in any shop. It is a care, white or black, that sits behind every horseman."

"That is fact; and with me it has just taken a new shape," said Drew, "for I have come with quite a fresh difficulty. Since I saw you last, Mr. Polwarth, a strange and very uncomfortable doubt has rushed in upon me, and I find myself altogether unfit to tackle it. I have no weapons--not a single argument of the least weight. I wonder if it be a law of nature that no sooner shall a man get into a muddle with one thing, than a thousand other muddles shall come pouring in upon him, as if Muddle itself were going to swallow him up! Here am I just beginning to get a little start in honester ways, when up comes the ugly head of the said doubt, swelling itself more and more to look like a fact--namely, that after this world there is nothing for us--nothing at all to be had anyhow--that as we came so we go--into life, out of life--that, having been nothing before, we shall be nothing after! The flowers come back in the spring, and the corn in the autumn, but they ain't the same flowers or the same corn. They're just as different as the new generations of men."

"There's no pretence that we come back either. We only think we don't go into the ground, but away somewhere else."

"You can't prove that."

"No."

"And you don't know anything about it!"

"Not much--but enough, I think."

"Why, even those that profess to believe it, scoff at the idea of an apparition--a ghost!"

"That's the fault of the ghosts, I suspect--or their reporters. I don't care about them myself. I prefer the tale of one who, they say, rose again, and brought his body with him."

"Yes; but he was only one!"

"Except two or three whom, they say, he brought to life."

"Still there are but three or four."

"To tell you the truth, I do not care much to argue the point with you.--It is by no means a matter of the FIRST importance whether we live for ever or not."

"Mr. Polwarth!" exclaimed the draper in such astonishment mingled with horror, as proved he was not in immediate danger of becoming an advocate of the doctrine of extinction.

The gate-keeper smiled what, but for a peculiar expression of undefinable good in it, might have been called a knowing smile.

"Suppose a thing were in itself not worth having," he said, "would it be any great enhancement of it as a gift to add the a.s.surance that the possession of it was eternal! Most people think it a fine thing to have a bit of land to call their own and leave to their children; but suppose a stinking and undrainable swamp, full of foul springs--what consolation would it be to the proprietor of that to know, while the world lasted, not a human being would once dispute its possession with any fortunate descendant holding it?"

The draper only stared, but his stare was a thorough one. The curate sat waiting, with both amus.e.m.e.nt and interest, for what would follow: he saw the direction in which the little man was driving.

"You astonish me!" said Mr. Drew, recovering his mental breath. "How can you compare G.o.d's gift to such a horrible thing! Where should we be without life?"

Rachel burst out laughing, and the curate could not help joining her.

"Mr. Drew," said Polwarth, half merrily, "are you going to help me drag my chain out of its weary length, or are you too much shocked at the doubtful condition of its links to touch them? I promise you the last shall be of bright gold."

"I beg your pardon," said the draper; "I might have known you didn't mean it."

"On the contrary, I mean everything I say and that literally. Perhaps I don't mean everything you fancy I mean.--Tell me then, would life be worth having on any and every possible condition?"

"Certainly not."

"You know some, I dare say, who would be glad to be rid of life such as it is, and such as they suppose it must continue?"

"I don't."

"I do."

"I have already understood that everybody clung to life."

"Most people do; everybody certainly does not: Job, for instance."

"They say that is but a poem."

"BUT a poem! EVEN a poem--a representation true not of this or that individual, but of the race! There ARE such persons as would gladly be rid of life, and in their condition all would feel the same. Somewhat similar is the state of those who profess unbelief in the existence of G.o.d: none of them expect, and few of them seem to wish to live for ever!--At least, so I am told."

"That is no wonder," said the draper; "--if they don't believe in G.o.d, I mean."

"Then there I have you! There you allow life to be not worth having, if on certain evil conditions."

"I admit it, then."

"And I repeat that to prove life endless is a matter of the FIRST importance. And I will go a little farther.--Does it follow that life is worth having because a man would like to have it for ever?"

"I should say so; who should be a better judge than the man himself?"

"Let us look at it a moment. Suppose--we will take a strong case--suppose a man whose whole delight is in cruelty, and who has such plentiful opportunity of indulging the pa.s.sion that he finds it well with him--such a man would of course desire such a life to endure for ever: is such a life worth having? were it well that man should be immortally cruel?"

"Not for others."