Part 66 (1/2)
”Many thinkers,” said the preacher, in his concluding pa.s.sage, while all eyes were fixed on the head sprinkled with gray, and the strong humanity of the face--”many men, in all ages and civilizations have dreamed of a City of G.o.d, a Kingdom of Righteousness, an Ideal State, and a Divine Ruler. Jesus alone has made of that dream, history; has forced it upon, and stamped it into history. The Messianic dream of Judaism--though wrought of n.o.bler tissue--it's not unlike similar dreams in other religions; but in this it is unique, that it gave Jesus of Nazareth his opportunity, and that from it has sprung the Christian Church. Jesus accepted it with the heart of a child; he lived in it; he died for it; and by means of it, his spiritual genius, his faithfulness unto death transformed a world. He died indeed, overwhelmed; with the pathetic cry of utter defeat upon his lips. And the leading races of mankind have knelt ever since to the mighty spirit who dared not only to conceive and found the Kingdom of G.o.d, but to think of himself as its Spiritual King--by sheer divine right of service, of suffering, and of death! Only through tribulation and woe--through the _peirasmos_ or sore trial of the world--according to Messianic belief, could the Kingdom be realized, and Messiah revealed. It was the marvellous conception of Jesus, inspired by the ancient poetry and prophecy of his nation, that he might, as the Suffering Servant, concentrate in himself the suffering due from his race, and from the world, and by his death bring about--violently, ”by force”--the outpouring of the Spirit, the Resurrection, and the dawn of the heavenly Kingdom. He went up to Jerusalem to die; he provoked his death; he died. And from the Resurrection visions which followed naturally on such a life and death, inspired by such conceptions, and breathing them with such power into the souls of other men, arose the Christian Church.
”The Parousia for which the Lord had looked, delayed. It delays still.
The scope and details of the Messianic dream itself mean nothing to us any more.
”But its spirit is immortal. The vision of a kingdom of Heaven--a polity of the soul, within, or superseding the earthly polity--once interfused with man's thought and life, has proved to be imperishable, a thing that cannot die.
”Only it must be realized afresh from age to age; embodied afresh in the conceptions and the language of successive generations.
”And these developing embodiments and epiphanies of the kingdom can only be brought into being by the method of Christ--that is to say, by '_violence_'.
”Again and again has the kingdom 'suffered violence'--has been brought fragmentarily into the world '_by force_'--by the only irresistible force--that of suffering, of love, of self-renouncing faith.
”To that 'force' we, as religious Reformers, appeal.
”The parables of the mustard seed and the leaven do not express the whole thought of Christ. When the work of preparation is over, still men must brace themselves, as their Master did, to the last stroke of 'violence'--to a final effort of resolute, and, if need be, revolutionary action--to the 'violence' that brings ideas to birth and shapes them into deeds.
”It was to 'violence' of this sacred sort that the Christian Church owed its beginning; and it is this same 'violence' that must, as the generations rise and fall, constantly maintain it among men. To cut away the old at need and graft in the new, requires the high courage and the resolute hand of faith. Only so can the Christian Life renew itself; only so can efficacy and movement return to powers exhausted or degenerate; only so 'can these dry bones live!'”
Amid the throng as it moved outward into the bustle of Westminster, Flaxman found himself rubbing shoulders with Edward Norham. Norham walked with his eyes on the ground, smiling to himself.
”A little persecution!” he said, rubbing his hands, as he looked up--”and how it would go!”
”Well--the persecution begins this week--in the Court of Arches.”
”Persecution--nonsense! You mean 'propaganda.' I understand Meynell's defence will proceed on totally new lines. He means to argue each point on its merits?”
”Yes. The Voysey judgment gave him his cue. You will remember, Voysey was attacked by the Lord Chancellor of the day--old Lord Hatherley--as a 'private clergyman,' who 'of his own mere will, not founding himself upon any critical inquiry, but simply upon his own taste and judgment'
maintained certain heresies. Now Meynell, I imagine, will give his judges enough of 'critical inquiry' before they have done with him!”
Norham shrugged his shoulders.
”All very well! Why did he sign the Articles?”
”He signed them at four-and-twenty!” said Flaxman hotly. ”Will you maintain that a system which insists upon a man's beliefs at forty-four being identical with his beliefs at twenty-four is not condemned _ipso facto_!”
”Oh I know what you say!--I know what you say!” cried Norham good-humouredly. ”We shall all be saying it in Parliament presently--Good heavens! Well, I shall look into the court to-morrow, if I can possibly find an hour, and hear Meynell fire away.”
”As Home Secretary, you may get in!”--laughed Flaxman--”on no other terms. There isn't a seat to be had--there hasn't been for weeks.”
The trial came on. The three suits from the Markborough diocese took precedence, and were to be followed by half a dozen others--test cases--from different parts of England. But on the Markborough suits everything turned. The Modernist defendants everywhere had practically resolved on the same line of defence; on the same appeal from the mind of the sixteenth century to the mind of the twentieth; from creeds and formularies to history; from a dying to a living Church.
The chief counsel for the promoters, Sir Wilfrid Marsh, made a calm, almost a conciliatory opening. He was a man of middle height, with a large, clean-shaven face, a domed head and smooth straight hair, still jetty black. He wore a look of quiet a.s.surance and was clearly a man of all the virtues; possessing a portly wife and a tribe of daughters.
His speech was marked in all its earlier sections by a studied liberality and moderation. ”I am not going to appeal, sir, for that judgment in the promoters' favour which I confidently claim, on any bigoted or obscurantist lines. The Church of England is a learned Church; she is also a Church of wide liberties.”
No slavish submission to the letter of the Articles on the Liturgy was now demanded of any man. Subscription had been relaxed; the final judgment in the _Essays and Reviews_ case had given a lat.i.tude in the interpretation of Scripture, of which, as many recent books showed, the clergy--”I refer now to men of unquestioned orthodoxy”--had taken reasonable advantage; prayer-book revision ”within the limits of the faith,” if constantly r.e.t.a.r.ded by the divisions of the faithful, was still probable; both High Churchmen and Broad Churchmen--here an aside dropped out, ”so far as Broad Churchmen still exist!”--are necessary to the Church.
But there are limits. ”Critical inquiry, sir, if you will--reasonable liberty, within the limits of our formularies and a man's ordination vow--by all means!
”But certain things are _vital_! With certain fundamental beliefs let no one suppose that either the bishops, or convocation, or these Church courts, or Parliament, or what the defendants are pleased to call the nation” [one must imagine the fine gesture of a sweeping hand] ”can meddle.” The _animus imponentis_ is not that of the Edwardian or Elizabethan legislation, it is not that of the Bishops! it is that of the Christian Church itself!--handing down the _deposition fidei_ from the earliest to the latest times.