Part 54 (1/2)
”I could say somewhat on that point myself. But since your doubts are scientific ones, I had rather that you should discuss them with one whose knowledge of such subjects you, and all England with you, must revere.”
”Ah, but--pardon me; he is a clergyman.”
”And therefore bound to prove, whether he believes in his own proof or not.
Unworthy suspicion!” she cried, with a touch of her old manner. ”If you had known that man's literary history for the last thirty years, you would not suspect him, at least, of sacrificing truth and conscience to interest, or to fear of the world's insults.”
I was rebuked; and not without hope and confidence, I broached the question to the good dean when he came in--as he happened to do that very day.
”I hardly like to state my difficulties,” I began--”for I am afraid that I must hurt myself in your eyes by offending your--prejudices, if you will pardon so plain-spoken an expression.”
”If,” he replied, in his bland courtly way, ”I am so unfortunate as to have any prejudices left, you cannot do me a greater kindness than by offending them--or by any other means, however severe--to make me conscious of the locality of such a secret canker.”
”But I am afraid that your own teaching has created, or at least corroborated, these doubts of mine.”
”How so?”
”You first taught me to revere science. You first taught me to admire and trust the immutable order, the perfect harmony of the laws of Nature.”
”Ah! I comprehend now!” he answered, in a somewhat mournful tone--”How much we have to answer for! How often, in our carelessness, we offend those little ones, whose souls are precious in the sight of G.o.d! I have thought long and earnestly on the very subject which now distresses you; perhaps every doubt which has pa.s.sed through your mind, has exercised my own; and, strange to say, you first set me on that new path of thought. A conversation which pa.s.sed between us years ago at D * * * * on the ant.i.thesis of natural and revealed religion--perhaps you recollect it?”
Yes, I recollected it better than he fancied, and recollected too--I thrust the thought behind me--it was even yet intolerable.
”That conversation first awoke in me the sense of an hitherto unconscious inconsistency--a desire to reconcile two lines of thought--which I had hitherto considered as parallel, and impossible to unite. To you, and to my beloved niece here, I owe grat.i.tude for that evening's talk; and you are freely welcome to all my conclusions, for you have been, indirectly, the originator of them all.”
”Then, I must confess, that miracles seem to me impossible, just because they break the laws of Nature. Pardon me--but there seems something blasphemous in supposing that G.o.d can mar His own order: His power I do not call in question, but the very thought of His so doing is abhorrent to me.”
”It is as abhorrent to me as it can be to you, to Goethe, or to Strauss; and yet I believe firmly in our Lord's miracles.”
”How so, if they break the laws of Nature?”
”Who told you, my dear young friend, that to break the customs of Nature, is to break her laws? A phenomenon, an appearance, whether it be a miracle or a comet, need not contradict them because it is rare, because it is as yet not referable to them. Nature's deepest laws, her only true laws, are her invisible ones. All a.n.a.lyses (I think you know enough to understand my terms), whether of appearances, of causes, or of elements, only lead us down to fresh appearances--we cannot see a law, let the power of our lens be ever so immense. The true causes remain just as impalpable, as unfathomable as ever, eluding equally our microscope and our induction--ever tending towards some great primal law, as Mr. Grove has well shown lately in his most valuable pamphlet--some great primal law, I say, manifesting itself, according to circ.u.mstances, in countless diverse and unexpected forms--till all that the philosopher as well as the divine can say, is--the Spirit of Life, impalpable, transcendental, direct from G.o.d, is the only real cause. 'It bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth.' What, if miracles should be the orderly result of some such deep, most orderly, and yet most spiritual law?”
”I feel the force of your argument, but--”
”But you will confess, at least, that you, after the fas.h.i.+on of the crowd, have begun your argument by begging the very question in dispute, and may have, after all, created the very difficulty which torments you.”
”I confess it; but I cannot see how the miracles of Jesus--of our Lord--have anything of order in them.”
”Tell me, then--to try the Socratic method--is disease, or health, the order and law of Nature?”
”Health, surely; we all confess that by calling diseases disorders.”
”Then, would one who healed diseases be a restorer, or a breaker of order?”
”A restorer, doubtless; but--”
”Like a patient scholar, and a scholarly patient, allow me to 'exhibit'