Part 8 (1/2)
”Had he not believed that, he would not have written.'
”I suppose not. However, how the world should need it, if your principles be true, and every man brings into the world his own particular lantern,--'Enter Moons.h.i.+ne,'--I do not quite understand; or, if it is in need of such illumination not withstanding, why it should not be possible for an external revelation to supply it still better than your illuminati, I am equally unable to understand.
But let that pa.s.s. Mr. Newman concludes that the world does stand in need of this illumination, and that it has had it at various times. In is his opinion, is it not, that men began by being polytheists and idolaters?”
”It is so; and surely all history bears out the theory.”
”Many doubt it. I will not venture to give any opinion, except that there are inexplicable difficulties, as usual, on both sides. Just now I am quite willing to take his statement for granted, and suppose that man in the infancy of his race was, in spite of the aid of his very peculiar illumination,--which seems to have 'rayed out darkness,'
--as very a Troglodyte in civilization and religion as you (for the special glory of his Creator, I suppose, and the honor of your species) can wish him to have been. Well, man began by being a polytheist, and very gradually emerged out of that pleasant condition --or rather an infinitesimal portion of the race has emerged out of it, into the better forms of idolatry--(poor wretch!), and from thence to monotheism; that, in short, his polytheism is not the corruption of his monotheism, but his monotheism an elevation of his polytheism. Yet it is, after all, a cheerless 'progress,' which often 'advances backward.' Mr. Newman says that 'the law of G.o.d's moral universe, as known to us, is that of progress; that we trace it from old barbarism to the methodized Egyptian idolatry, to the more flexible polytheism of Syria and Greece,' and so forth; and so in Palestine, from the 'image-wors.h.i.+p in Jacob's family to the rise of spiritual sentiment under David, and Hezekiah's prophets.' (Phases, p. 223)
Yet he also tells us, 'Ceremonialism more and more incrusted the restored nation, and Jesus was needed to spur and stab the consciences of his contemporaries, and recall them to more spiritual perceptions.'
Well, thus came Christ to 'stab and spur'; and faith, I think 'stab and spur' were again needed by the end of the third century. Successive reformers are needed to 'stab and spur' the thick hide of humanity, without which it will not, it seems, go forward, but perversely go backward; and even with this perpetual application of the goad of some spiritual mohoul, man crawls on at an intolerably slow pace. However, 'stab' and 'spur' are needed which is all I am now intent upon.”
”Yes; but each of those great souls who have stimulated the dull mind of ordinary humanity derived from its own internal illumination that spiritual light which they have communicated to the rest of mankind!”
”For themselves, perhaps, my friend,” said Harrington, ”and if they had kept it to themselves in many instances, probably the world would have been no loser. That they had it from within, is true,--if your theory is true. But to others, to the bulk of mankind, they have imparted this light; it has been to mankind an 'external revelation'; it is from without, not from within, that this light has been received, and that the boasted 'progress' of the race has been secured. It remains, therefore, only for your Christian opponent to ask, how it should be impossible that mankind should be indebted to an external revelation by G.o.d, when it is plain that they are indebted for the like from man! And whether it is not conceivable that, if Moses and Socrates and Paul could do so much for them, G.o.d could do a trifle more? You will say, perhaps, on the old plea, that these profounder spirits only made articulate that which already existed inarticulately in the hearts of those whom they addressed; that they only chafed into life the marble statue of Pygmalion,--the dormant principles and sentiments which had a home in the human heart before, only they were unluckily treated as strangers. Well; the same thing may the apologist for the Bible say,--merely adding, that it does more effectually the business of thus awakening 'dormant' powers, and giving a substantive form to the shadowy conceptions of mankind. But it is still, in either case, to the bulk of the world an external revelation, an outward aid which gives them the actual conscious possession of spiritual light, and secures the vaunted progress of humanity. Such are some of my difficulties respecting your theory of the impossibility and inutility of any and all external revelations. I must, in candor, say that our discussion has left them where they were.”
”There is one thing,” he added, ”about your system which I acknowledge would be consolatory to me if it were but true. If man be really in possession of an internal and universal revelation of moral and spiritual truth, you neither can nor need take any trouble to enlighten and convert him. It relieves one of all superfluous anxiety on that score.”
”Pardon me,” said Fellowes, ”it is Mr. Newman's spiritual theory alone which does allow the prospect of success to any such efforts. As he truly says, when the spiritual champion has thrown off the burden of an historical Christianity, he advances, as lightly equipped as Priestley himself. I should say much more lightly. 'What,' says he, 'may we now expect from the true theologian when he attacks sin, and vice, and gross spirituality?' 'The weapon he uses,' to employ Mr. Newman's own language, 'is as lightning from G.o.d, kindled from the spirit within him, and piercing through the unbeliever's soul, convincing his conscience of sin, and striking him to the ground before G.o.d; until those who believe receive it not as the word of man but as what it is, in truth, the word of G.o.d. Its action is directly upon the conscience and upon the soul, and hence its wonderful results; not on the critical faculties, upon which the spirit is powerless.'(Soul, p. 244) Again, he says that such a preacher 'will have plenty to say, alike to the vulgar and to the philosophers, appreciable by the soul.' Hear him again: 'Then he may speak with confidence of what he knows and feels; and call on his hearers of themselves to try and prove his words.
Then the conversion of men to the love of G.o.d may take place by hundreds and thousands, as in some former instances. Then, at length, some hope may dawn that Mohammedans and Hindoos may be joined in one fold with us, under one Shepherd, who will only have regained his older name of the Lord G.o.d.'” (Soul, p. 258)
”By all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of all the nations,” said Harrington, ”I cannot understand it. How mankind should need such teaching, if your theory be true; how, if they need it, it is possible that you should give it if all external revelation of moral and spiritual truth be impossible; how, if it is impossible, it should be impossible for a G.o.d, by a Bible, to give the like; how you can get at the souls of people at all except through the intervention of the senses and the intellect,--the latter of which you say has nothing to do with the 'soul,' and surely the former can have as little; or how, if you can get at them by this intervention, it is impossible that a Bible should,--is all to me a mystery. But let that pa.s.s. If your last account be true, one thing is clear; that a splendid career is open to you and your friends. You can immediately employ this irresistible 'weapon' for the verification of your views and the conversion of the human race. You can renew, or rather realize, the triumphs of early Christianity;--I say realize, for you and Mr.
Newman believe them to be, for the most part, fabulous, and that it was the army of Constantine that conquered the Empire for Christianity; but you can turn such fables into truths. Surely the least you can do is to be off as a missionary to China or India. Go to Constantinople, my dear fellow, and take the Great Turk by the beard. Nor can Mr. Newman do less than repair to Bagdad, upon a second and more hopeful mission. You will know when you have demolished Mohammedanism, and got fairly into Thibet. Alexander's career will be nothing to it. But alas! I fear it will be only another variety of that impossible thing,--a book-revelation!”
”Nay,” said Fellowes, ”we must first finish our mission at home, and try our weapons upon you and such as you. We must subdue such as you first.”
”Then you will never go,” said Harrington.
”Never mind,” I said, ”Mr. Fellowes; Harrington is very mischievous to-day. But, as he said he would not contest the ground of your dictum, that a book-revelation of moral and spiritual truth is impossible, so he has not entered into it. Will you let me, on a future day, read to you a brief paper upon it? I have no skill--or but little--in that erotetic method of which Harrington is so fond.” He a.s.sented, and here this long conversation ended.
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July 7. Harrington and I spent a portion of this morning alone (Fellowes was gone out for a day or two), conversing on various subjects. I hardly know how it was, but I felt a strong reluctance to enter with formality on that one which yet lay nearest my heart, --whether from the fear lest I should do more harm than good; lest controversy should, as so often happens, indurate rather than soften the heart: or perhaps I had some secret distrust of my own temper or his. Yet, if I felt any thing of the last, I am sure I did him injustice; and (I hope) myself. Be it as it may, I thought it better just to exchange a shot now and then,--sometimes it was a red-hot shot too on both sides,--as we pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, in the current of conversation, than come to a regular set-to, yard-arm to yard-arm.
From whatever cause, he gave me abundant opportunity of recurring to the subject, for he was perpetually, and I believe unconsciously, leading the conversation towards it; not, I think, from confidence in his logical prowess, but from the restlessness in which (he did not pretend to disguise it) his state of scepticism had plunged him.
It was curious, indeed, to see how every thing, sooner or later, fell into one channel. For example, I happened to remark, that a cottage in the valley which we saw from his library window would make a pretty object in a picture,--it was the only sign of life in the little valley. ”I should like the view itself all the better without it,” said he. I observed that a painter would feel very differently; and if there were no such object, he would be sure to put one in. ”O, certainly,” he replied, ”a painter would, and justly; there is no doubt that the shadow of animated existence is very admirable; a picture, I admit, is wonderfully more picturesque with such a picture of life; especially as the painter can and does remove every thing offensive to his fastidious art. He is very apt to regard the objects in his landscapes much as a poet does a cottage, according to Cowper's confession. 'By a cottage,'
says he to Lady Hesketh, 'you must always understand, my dear, that a poet means a house with six sashes in front, comfortable parlors, a smart staircase, and three rooms of convenient dimensions.' As I have looked sometimes down a mountain glen, and seen the most picturesque huts upon its sides, I have thought how little the painter could dispense with them. But, then, how easily the philosopher can: for, alas! I have taken wing from my station, and looked in through the miserable eas.e.m.e.nt, and seen, not only what is disgusting to the senses,--which is a small matter,--but ignorance and disease, and fear, and guilt, and racking pain, and doubt, and death; and I have not been able to help saying, in pity, 'O for absolute solitude!--how much nature would be improved if the human race were annihilated!'”
”The human race,” said I, laughing, ”is very much obliged to the pity which would thus exterminate them; but as one of them, I should decidedly object to so sweeping a mode of improving the picturesque.
Besides, I suppose you make an exception in favor, yourself, otherwise the picturesque would vanish just when it was brought to perfection.
I am often inclined to say with Paley, though I remember well having sometimes felt as you do, 'It is a happy world after all.' I admit, however, that a buoyant, cheerful, habitual conviction of this will depend on the const.i.tution of the mind, and even vary with the same in its different moods. But I am sure it may be a really happy world, whatever its sorrows, to any one who will view it as he ought.”
”I wish you could teach me the art.”
”It is,” said I, ”to exercise the faith and the hope of a Christian, humbly to regard this life as what it is,--a scene of discipline and schooling, a pilgrimage to a better. It is an old remedy, but it has been often tried; and to millions of our race has made this world more than tolerable, and death tranquil, nay, triumphant. Do you remember Schiller's 'Walk among the Linden-Trees'?”
”Perfectly well.”
”Do you not remember how the two youths differ in their estimate of the beautiful in nature? 'Is it possible,' says Edwin, 'you can thus turn from the cup of joy, sparkling and overflowing as it is?'--'Yes,'