Part 18 (2/2)
”You will grant, however,” said I, ”that it is a common effect of prejudice to transfer the fault of a religious man to religion itself.
Such a man happens to have an uncouth manner, an awkward gesture, an unmodulated voice; his allusions may be coa.r.s.e, his phraseology quaint, his language slovenly. The solid virtues which may lie disguised under these inc.u.mbrances go for nothing. The man is absurd, and therefore Christianity is ridiculous. Its truth, however, though it may be eclipsed, can not be extinguished. Like its divine Author, it is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”
”There was another repulsive circ.u.mstance,” replied Mr. Carlton: ”the scanty charities both of Tyrrel and his new friends, so inferior to the liberality of my father and of Mr. Flam, who never professed to be governed by any higher motive than mere feeling, strengthened my dislike. The calculations of mere reason taught me that the religious man who does not greatly exceed the man of the world in his liberalities, falls short of him; because the worldly man who gives liberally, acts above his principle, while the Christian who does no more, falls short of his. And though I by no means insist that liberality is a certain indication of piety, yet I will venture to a.s.sert that the want of the one is no doubtful symptom of the absence of the other.
”I next resolved to watch carefully the conduct of another description of Christians, who come under the cla.s.s of the formal and the decent.
They were considered as more creditable, but I did not perceive them to be more exemplary. They were more absorbed in the world, and more governed by its opinions. I found them clamorous in defense of the church in words, but neither adorning it by their lives, nor embracing its doctrines in their hearts. Rigid in the observance of some of its external rites, but little influenced by its liberal principles, and charitable spirit. They venerated the establishment merely as a political inst.i.tution, but of her outward forms they conceived, as comprehending the whole of her excellence. Of her spiritual beauty and superiority, they seemed to have no conception. I observed in them less warmth of affection, for those with whom they agreed in external profession, than of rancor for those who differed from them, though but a single shade, and in points of no importance. They were cordial haters, and frigid lovers. Had they lived in the early ages, when the church was split into parties by paltry disputes, they would have thought the controversy about the time of keeping Easter of more consequence than the event itself, which that festival celebrates.”
”My dear sir,” said I, as soon as he had done speaking, ”you have accounted very naturally for your prejudices. Your chief error seems to have consisted in the selection of the persons you adopted as standards.
They all differed as much from the right as they differed from each other; and the truth is, their vehement desire to differ from each other, was a chief cause why they departed so much from the right. But your instances were so unhappily chosen, that they prove nothing against Christianity. The two opposite descriptions of persons who deterred you from religion, and who pa.s.sed muster in their respective corps, under the generic term of religious, would, I believe, be scarcely acknowledged as such by the soberly and the soundly pious.”
”My own subsequent experience,” resumed Mr. Carlton, ”has confirmed the justness of your remark. When I began, through the gradual change wrought in my views and actions, by the silent, but powerful preaching of Mrs. Carlton's example, to have less interest in believing that Christianity was false, I then applied myself to search for reasons to believe that it was true. But plain, abstract reasoning, though it might catch hold on beings who are all pure intellect, and though it might have given a right bias even to _my_ opinions, would probably never have determined my conduct, unless I saw it clothed, as it were, with a body.
I wanted examples which should influence me to act, as well as proofs which should incline me to believe; something which would teach me what to do, as well as what to think. I wanted exemplifications as well as precepts. I doubted of all merely speculative truth. I wanted, from beholding the effect, to refer back to the principle. I wanted arguments more palpable and less theoretic. Surely, said I to myself, if religion be a principle, it must be an operative one, and I would rationally infer that Christianity were true, if the tone of Christian practice were high.
”I began to look clandestinely into Henrietta's Bible. There I indeed found that the spirit of religion was invested with just such a body as I had wished to see; that it exhibited actions as well as sentiments, characters, as well as doctrines; the life portrayed evidently governed by the principle inculcated; the conduct and the doctrine in just correspondence. But if the Bible be true, thought I, may we not reasonably expect that the principles which once produced the exalted practice which that Bible records, will produce similar effects now?
”I put, rashly perhaps, the truth of Christianity on this issue, and sought society of a higher stamp. Fortunately the increasing external decorum of my conduct began to make my reception less difficult among good men than it had been. Hitherto, and that for the sake of my wife, my visits had rather been endured than encouraged; nor was I myself forward to seek the society which shunned me. Even with those superior characters with whom I did occasionally a.s.sociate, I had not come near enough to form an exact estimate.
”DISINTERESTEDNESS and CONSISTENCY had become with me a sort of touchstone, by which to try the characters I was investigating. My experiment was favorable. I had for some time observed my wife's conduct, with a mixture of admiration as to the act, and incredulity as to the motive. I had seen her foregoing her own indulgences, that she might augment those of a husband whom she had so little reason to love.
Here were the two qualities I required, with a renunciation of self without parade or profession. Still this was a solitary instance. When on a nearer survey, I beheld Dr. Barlow exhibiting by his exemplary conduct during the week, the best commentary on his Sunday's sermon: when I saw him refuse a living of nearly twice the value of that he possessed, because the change would diminish his usefulness, I was _staggered_.
”When I saw Mr. and Mrs. Stanley spending their time and fortune as entirely in acts of beneficence, as if they had built their eternal hope on charity alone, and yet utterly renouncing any such confidence, and trusting entirely to another foundation;--when I saw Lucilla, a girl of eighteen, refuse a young n.o.bleman of a clear estate, and neither disagreeable in his person or manner, on the single avowed ground of his loose principles; when the n.o.ble rejection of the daughter was supported by the parents, whose principles no arguments drawn from rank or fortune could subvert or shake--I was _convinced_.
”These, and some other instances of the same nature, were exactly the test I had been seeking. Here was _disinterestedness_ upon full proof.
Here was _consistency_ between practice and profession. By such examples, and by cordially adopting those principles which produced them, together with a daily increasing sense of my past enormities, I hope to become in time less unworthy of the wife to whom I owe my peace on earth, and my hope in heaven.”
The tears which had been collecting in Mrs. Carlton's eyes for some time, now silently stole down her cheeks. Sir John and myself were deeply affected with the frank and honest narrative to which we had been listening. It raised in us an esteem and affection for the narrator which has since been continually augmenting. I do not think the worse of his state, for the difficulties which impeded it, nor that his advancement will be less sure, because it has been gradual. His fear of delusion has been a salutary guard. The apparent slowness of his progress has arisen from his dread of self-deception, and the diligence of his search is an indication of his sincerity.
”But did you not find,” said I, ”that the piety of these more correct Christians drew upon them nearly as much censure and suspicion as the indiscretion of the enthusiasts? and that the formal cla.s.s who were nearly as far removed from effective piety, as from wild fanaticism, ran away with all the credit of religion?'”
”With those,” replied Mr. Carlton, ”who are on the watch to discredit Christianity, no consistency can stand their determined opposition; but the fair and candid inquirer will not reject the truth, when it forces the truth on the mind with a clear and convincing evidence.”
Though I had been joining in the general subject, yet my thoughts had wandered from it to Lucilla ever since her n.o.ble rejection of Lord Staunton had been named by Mr. Carlton as one of the causes which had strengthened his unsteady faith. And while he and Sir John were talking over their youthful connections, I resumed with Mrs. Carlton, who sat next me, the interesting topic.
”Lord Staunton,” said she, ”is a relation, and not a very distant one, of ours. He used to take more delight in Mr. Carlton's society when it was less improving than he does now, that it is become really valuable; yet he often visits us. Miss Stanley now and then indulges me with her company for a day or two. In these visits Lord Staunton happened to meet her two or three times. He was enchanted with her person and manners, and exerted every art and faculty of pleasing, which it must be owned he possesses. Though we should both have rejoiced in an alliance with the excellent family at the Grove, through this sweet girl, I thought it my duty not to conceal from her the irregularity of my cousin's conduct in one particular instance, as well as the general looseness of his religious principles. The caution was the more necessary, as he had so much prudence and good breeding, as to behave with general propriety when under our roof; and he allowed me to speak to him more freely than any other person. When I talked seriously, he sometimes laughed, always opposed, but was never angry.
”One day he arrived quite unexpectedly when Miss Stanley was with me. He found us in my dressing-room reading together a _Dissertation on the power of religion to change the heart_. Dreading some levity, I strove to hide the book, but he took it out of my hand, and glancing his eye on the t.i.tle, he said, laughing, 'This is a foolish subject enough; a _good heart_ does not want changing, and with a _bad_ one none of _us three_ have any thing to do.' Lucilla spoke not a syllable. All the light things he uttered, and which he meant for wit, so far from raising a smile, increased her gravity. She listened, but with some uneasiness, to a desultory conversation between us, in which I attempted to a.s.sert the power of the Almighty to rectify the mind, and alter the character. Lord Staunton treated my a.s.sertion as a wild chimera, and said, 'He was sure I had more understanding than to adopt such a methodistical notion;'
professing at the same time a vague admiration of virtue and goodness, which, he said, bowing to Miss Stanley, were _natural_ where they existed at all; that a good heart did not want mending, and a bad one could not be mended, with other similar expressions, all implying contempt of my position, and exclusive compliment to her.
”After dinner, Lucilla stole away from a conversation, which was not very interesting to her, and carried her book to the summer-house, knowing that Lord Staunton liked to sit long at table. But his lords.h.i.+p missing her for whom the visit was meant, soon broke up the party, and hearing which way she took, pursued her to the summer-house. After a profusion of compliments, expressive of his high admiration, he declared his pa.s.sion in very strong and explicit terms, and requested her permission to make proposals to her father, to which he conceived she could have no possible objection.
”She thanked him with great politeness for his favorable opinion, but frankly told him, that though extremely sensible of the honor he intended her, thanks were all she had to offer in return; she earnestly desired the business might go no further, and that he would spare himself the trouble of an application to her father, who always kindly allowed her to decide for herself in a concern of so much importance.
”Disappointed, shocked, and irritated at a rejection so wholly unexpected, he insisted on knowing the cause. Was it his person? Was it his fortune? Was it his understanding to which she objected? She honestly a.s.sured him it was neither. His rank and fortune were above her expectations. To his natural advantages there could be no reasonable objection. He still vehemently insisted on her a.s.signing the true cause.
She was then driven to the necessity of confessing that she feared his principles were not those of a man with whom she could venture to trust her own.
<script>