Part 7 (2/2)

The world has decided that with regard to

Certain points, left wholly to himself, When once a man has arbitrated on, ... he must succeed there or go hang. (ll. 289-291.)

And of the most important of these ”points” is

The form of faith his conscience holds the best, Whate'er the process of conviction was. (ll. 296-297.)

The Roman Catholic faith is that in which the Bishop was born and educated. It had been decided from childhood that he should become a priest: hence his choice of vocation. And this faith is, for him, one in which power temporal, as well as spiritual, puts forth its claims. Its undaunted champion may a.s.sert ”I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile,” but in drawing the distinction between ”Peter's creed” and that of Hildebrand, Blougram recognizes by implication the political aspect of the cause for which the struggle thus closing had been sustained.

VI. If then, in satisfaction of the demands of those uncompromising advocates of truth of whom Gigadibs is representative, the prelate of the nineteenth century shall renounce his position as confessor of the creed of the eleventh, in what rank of life may he take his stand? From what career may faith be, without injurious effects, wholly excluded? For if faith, to merit its t.i.tle, is to be unmixed with doubt, equally must unbelief be unalloyed in quality. A life apart from faith? That of Napoleon? If so, then does the critic claim that Napoleon shares with him the ”common primal element of unbelief,” belief being an impossibility.

Yet to such an admission the Corsican's whole career would give the lie.

Whatever the character of the faith which sustained him, faith there was, sufficient to lead him on to colossal deeds: his trust may have been ”crazy,” ”G.o.d knows through what, or in what”; but to all intents and purposes it was faith, possessing the essential element of faith, _life_, and the inspiration of life:

It's alive And s.h.i.+nes and leads him, and that's all we want.

But to the Bishop such a life would have been impossible, since he has not the clue to Napoleon's faith. ”The noisy years” would not have offered him his ideal, even were this life all. And he does not himself believe that this life _is_ all: although he will not a.s.sert that to him a future state of existence is matter of absolute certainty. If the career of ”the world's victor” is not then possible without faith of some kind, what of that of the artist, of the poet? With a return to the earlier cynical recognition of his own limitations, the Bishop enquires of what use an attempt on his part to emulate Shakespeare when endowed by nature with neither dramatic nor poetic faculty? Nevertheless he finds that he has much in life which Shakespeare would have been glad to possess. The author of _Hamlet_ and of _Oth.e.l.lo_ might in truth enjoy the good things of earth by the mere exercise of imagination; yet, strange anomaly, he built himself

The trimmest house in Stratford town; Saves money, spends it, owns the worth of _things_.

Even a Shakespeare, then, may be more or less of a materialist. Thus the successful churchman who has attained the object of his ambition, whose life is one of pleasantness and peace, may with confidence, turning to the poet, ask him--

If this life's all, who wins the game?

VII. If, however, the existence of another life _is_ to be recognized; if belief is to be allowed to take the place of scepticism, then the face of the argument is at once changed, and the Bishop is as ready as is his critic to admit that enthusiasm is the grandest inspiration of human nature. But he is--or so he would have his listener believe--no more capable of the enthusiastic faith of Luther than of the strategic achievements of Napoleon or the dramatic creations of Shakespeare.

Nevertheless, the negations of the sceptic's creed bear for him no attraction. In either case remains the risk that faith or absence of faith may prove error. The uncertainty on both sides being equal, it is _not_ as well to be Strauss as Luther. Better even the mere desire for belief in the story of the Gospels, than a dispa.s.sionately critical attempt to reconcile discrepencies in that which has no personal interest for the enquirer: the one means spiritual vitality, the other stagnation.

VIII. With line 647, once more reverting to his earlier demonstration of the impossibility of a ”pure faith,” the Bishop would submit that the Divine Presence is veiled rather than revealed by Nature, until such time as man shall have become capable of being ”confronted with the truth of him.” But what of the mediaeval days, ”that age of simple faith”? Were men the better for their simplicity of belief? By no means, replies the casuist of the nineteenth century, whose faith ”means perpetual unbelief.”

The simple faith proved itself unequal to the task of inspiring a life of outward morality: men could and did

Lie, kill, rob, fornicate Full in beliefs face

Rather the lifelong struggle with doubt, than this childish credulity empty of practical result. And in spite of his doubts, Blougram holds his faith ”sufficient,” since it just suffices to keep the doubts in check.

Nevertheless he will not incur the risk of shaking unduly such faith as he possesses. He must not, therefore, begin to question even the most questionable of ecclesiastical miracles. Whilst he cannot trust himself to criticize things spiritual, he may yet prevent himself from taking the first step in that direction. And here Browning has been accused of implying that the Roman Catholic Church demands of its members acceptance of miracles, such as that held to affect the blood of S. Januarius, referred to as ”the Naples' liquefaction.” The Bishop is obviously intended to suggest no universal obligation; with him the matter is purely personal. He has not, as he has already admitted, sufficient confidence in the calibre of his faith to allow reason to step in and question the reliability of that which he would fain hold implicitly as truth. He fears to take the first step on the road of criticism which ends in the definition of G.o.d as ”the moral order of the universe.” Is not this, allowing for the a.s.sumed scepticism of the Bishop, consistent with what we find Cardinal Wiseman writing of his experiences in the early days of struggle with doubts and questionings which cost him so much? Thus he writes to a nephew twenty years after the worst of the conflict was over; ”During the struggle the simple submission of faith is the only remedy.

Thoughts against faith must be treated at the time like temptations against any other virtue--put away--though in cooler moments they may be safely a.n.a.lysed and unravelled.”[59]

In conclusion, the prelate emphatically rea.s.serts the _practical_ superiority of his choice of a career over that of this particular sceptic, since it is in fact impossible for the journalist to live his life of negation. He obeys the dictates of reason only where these do not run counter too markedly to the prejudices of others: there he is forced to yield to some extent. Thus he ”grazes” through life, with ”not one lie,” escaping the censure of his fellow men, but not gaining their esteem or admiration, essentials to the happiness of his companion. So the Bishop remains victorious on all counts, and emphasizes the superiority of his position by bestowing upon his guest practical proof in the ”three words”

of introduction to publishers in London, Dublin, or New York, securing

Such terms as never [he] aspired to get In all our own reviews and some not ours.

IX. A few supplementary observations upon those points at which the Apologist touches the firmer ground which he recognizes as existing beneath the surface on which he bases his defence. That he is not entirely satisfied with the conditions of his existence is obvious from the character of the apology, which suggests, from time to time, thoughts higher than those to which he gives direct utterance. Opportunist as he would present himself to be, lines 693-698, are unmistakably the expression of inmost experience--

When the fight begins within himself, A man's worth something. G.o.d stoops o'er his head, Satan looks up between his feet--both tug-- He's left, himself, i' the middle: the soul wakes And grows. Prolong that battle through his life!

Never leave growing till the life to come!

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