Part 3 (2/2)
I claim no merit for it, but I have an invincible faith in the morality of God and the moral order of the world I have no y than I have about the unreality of six robbers who attacked o in a horrid drearandeur and freedoiven me to see I a (edited), are a wonderful help, et them But I am sure you will find that the truth will (even so little as we ht your path, and dispel, at no distant time, your _painful_ difficulties and doubts I should say on no account give up your reading I think with you that you could not do without it It will be a wonderful source of help and peace to you
For there are struggles far more fearful than those of intellectual doubt I aathered-up sadness of which your last two pages are an expression I was sorrier than I can say to read the and very dark tiht never would come Thank God it caer But you have evidently strength to bear it now The erous time, I should fancy, has passed You will have to mind that the fermentation leaves clear spiritual wine, and not (as too often) vinegar I wish I could write soreat e bayand see the shadows on the grass and the sunlight on the leaves, and the soft glimmer of the rosebuds left by the storms, I can but believe that all will be very well 'Trust in the Lord, wait patiently for Hirass, the leaves, the rosebuds, and the sunshi+ne, and He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ And now the trite words have swelled into a ument”
I found nostic like Arnold, than I did in the Broad Church teachers, but these, of course, served to make return to the old faith more and more impossible The Church services were a weekly torture, but feeling as I did that I was only a doubter, I kept my doubts to ht be cleared up, and I had no right to shake the faith of others while in uncertainty myself Others had doubted and had afterwards recovered their faith; for the doubter silence was a duty; the blinded had better keep theirthese weary months of anxiety and torment I found some relief fro the sick, trying to brighten the lot of the poor I learned then soricultural labourer and the land that I was able in after-years to teach froricultural labourers, due to the energy and devotion of Joseph Arch, was beginning to be discussed in the fens, and ly with the claims of the labourers, for I knew their life-conditions In one cottage I had found four generations sleeping in one rooranders cos crowded into that narrow, ill-ventilated garret Other cottages were hovels, through the broken roofs of which poured the rain, and wherein rheuue lived with the huht but sy of these poor? But the Agricultural Labourers' Union was bitterly opposed by the farive no work to a ”Unionh to go to a Union h to talk of it on his return home No farmer would employ hi for work, grew reckless, and took to drink Visiting his cottage, consisting of one room and a ”lean-to,” I found his wife ill with fever, a fever-stricken babe in her ar dead on the bed In answer to ), there was no work Why did she leave the dead child on the bed? Because she had no other place for it till the coffin caht the unhappy, driven man, the fever-stricken wife, the fever-stricken child, the dead child, all lay in the one bed The fares for the ht well pay less rent to the absent landlord and higher wage to the men who tilled their fields They had only civil words for the burden that crushed them, hard words for the mowers of their harvests and the builders-up of their ricks; they made common cause with their ene theether the true agricultural interest, they leagued theainst the labourers, and so made ruinous fratricidal strife instead of easy victory over the co all this, I learned soressed while the theological strife went on within
In the early autuht broke the darkness I was in London with e's Hall, where the Rev Charles Voysey was preaching There tosome literature on sale in the ante-roohSunday, and when the service was over I noticed that the outgoing strea by Mr and Mrs Voysey, and that ers spoke a word of thanks to hi led out of Christian difficulties, I said to Mr Voysey, as I passed in reat help in what you said thisyet doubted the existence of God, the teaching of Mr Voysey that He was ”loving unto _every_ leaht across the stor been tossing The next Sunday saw ave me a cordial invitation to visit them in their Dulwich home I found their Theism was free from the defects that had revolted me in Christianity, and they opened up to ion I read Theodore Parker's ”Discourse on Religion,” Francis Newman's works, those of Miss Frances Power Cobbe, and of others; the anguish of the tension relaxed; the nighthty Evil passed away; my belief in God, not yet touched, was cleared froer doubted whether the dogmas that had shocked my conscience were true or false I shook them off, once for all, with all their pain and horror and darkness, and felt, with joy and relief inexpressible, that they were delusions of the ignorance of man, not the revelations of a God
But there was one belief that had not been definitely challenged, but of which the _rationale_ was gone with the orthodox dogmas now definitely renounced--the doctrine of the Deity of Christ The whole teaching of the Broad Church school tends, of course, to emphasise the humanity of Christ at the expense of His Deity, and when eternal punishone there see sufficient to account for so tremendous a miracle as the incarnation of the Deity In the course ofI had become familiar with the idea of Avataras in Eastern creeds, and I saw that the incarnate God was put forward as a fact by all ancient religions, and thus the as paved for challenging the especially Christian teaching, when the doctrines morally repulsive were cleared away But I shrank fro in the crucible a doctrine so dear from all the associations of the past; there was soin the idea of a union between Man and God, between a perfect hty strength Jesus as God was interwoven with all art and all beauty in religion; to break with the Deity of Jesus was to break with , with literature; the Divine Babe in His Mother's arms; the Divine Man in His Passion and His Triumph; the Friend of Man encircled with the majesty of the Godhead Did inexorable Truth deure, with all its pathos, its beauty, its human love, should pass away into the Pantheon of the dead Gods of the Past?
Nor was this all If I gave up belief in Christ as God, I e the unique position of the Christ, and the name Christian seemed toon the upright yman's wife; ould be the effect of such a step? Hitherto mental pain alone had been the price demanded inexorably fro of Christ outer warfare would be added to the inner, and who le was keen but short; I decided to carefully review the evidence for and against the Deity of Christ, with the result that that belief followed the others, and I stood, no longer Christian, face to face with a di conflict
One effort Ithat if he could not answer s, no answer to them could be reasonably hoped for I had a brief correspondence with hiument familiar to me--as those of Liddon in his ”Bampton Lectures”--and finally, on his invitation, went down to Oxford to see hientle like a coht into mine, told of the force and subtlety enshrined in the fine, i line of treatment; he probably saas anxious, shy, and nervous, and he treatedthe advice of a director, instead of as an inquirer struggling after truth, and resolute to obtain soround in the sea of doubt He would not deal with the question of the Deity of Jesus as a question for argue,” he retorted sternly, when I pressed a difficulty The estion of an imperfection in the character of Jesus made him shudder, and he checked ht is a terrible sin” Would he recoht on the subject? ”No, no; you have read too ed that I could not believe without proof, I was told, ”Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed”; andwas checked by the murmur, ”O my child, how undisciplined! how ier, passionate in my determination to _know_, resolute not to profess belief while belief was absent--nothing of the meek, chastened, submissive spirit hich he ont to deal in penitents seeking his counsel as their spiritual guide In vain did he bid e the duty of blind sub faith that questioned not I had not trodden the thorny path of doubt to come to the point frorounds ere I believed He had no conception of the struggles of a sceptical spirit; he had evidently never felt the pangs of doubt; his own faith was solid as a rock, firm, satisfied, unshakable; he would as soon have committed suicide as have doubted of the infallibility of the ”Universal Church”
”It is not your duty to ascertain the truth,” he told me, sternly ”It is your duty to accept and believe the truth as laid down by the Church At your peril you reject it The responsibility is not yours so long as you dutifully accept that which the Church has laid down for your acceptance Did not the Lord promise that the presence of the Spirit should be ever with His Church, to guide her into all truth?”
”But the fact of the promise and its value are just the very points on which I am doubtful,” I answered
He shuddered ”Pray, pray,” he said ”Father, forgive her, for she knows not what she says”
It was in vain that I urged on hi out that I had everything to gain by following his directions, everything to lose by going my oay, but that it seemed to me untruthful to pretend to accept as not really believed
”Everything to lose? Yes, indeed You will be lost for time and lost for eternity”
”Lost or not,” I rejoined, ”I must and will try to find out what is true, and I will not believe till I aht to make terms with God,” he retorted, ”as to what you will believe or what you will not believe You are full of intellectual pride”
I sighed hopelessly Little feeling of pride was there in id, unyielding dogmatism there was no colings I rose, and, thanking him for his courtesy, said that I would not waste his tio ho the Church and taking the consequences Then for the first time his serenity was ruffled
”I forbid you to speak of your disbelief,” he cried ”I forbid you to lead into your own lost state the souls for whom Christ died”
[Illustration: THOMAS SCOTT]
Slowly and sadly I tookthat nised in this famous divine the spirit of priest-craft, that could be tender and pitiful to the sinner, repentant, humble, submissive; but that was iron to the doubter, the heretic, and would crush out all questionings of ”revealed truth,” silencing by force, not by argue of the traditions of the Church Out of such es, perfectly conscientious, perfectly rigid, perfectly merciless to the heretic To them heretics are centres of infectious disease, and charity to the heretic is ”the worst cruelty to the souls of men” Certain that they hold, ”by no merit of our own, but by the mercy of our God, the one truth which He has revealed,” they can perht but the most complete submission But while e, while his intellect soars upward into the e,” so long shall those who dee for proof, and those ould blind hi on the face of Truth, even though her eyes should turn hi this same autumn of 1872 that I first met Mr and Mrs Scott, introduced to them by Mr Voysey At that time Thomas Scott was an old man, with beautiful white hair, and eyes like those of a hawk gleanificent physique, and, though his frame was then enfeebled, the splendid lion-like head kept its ith and beauty, and told of a unique personality
Well born and wealthy, he had spent his earlier life in adventure in all parts of the world, and after his ate, and had ht His wife, ”his right hand,” as he justly called her, was young enough to be his daughter--a sweet, strong, gentle, noble woher praise could be spoken Mr Scott for many years issued h very varying in their shades of thought; all ritten, cultured, and polished in tone, and to this rule Mr Scott ht say what they liked, but they lish His correspondence was enormous, from Prime Ministers doards At his house met people of the most varied opinions; it was a veritable heretical _salon_
Colenso of Natal, Edward Maitland, E Vansittart Neale, Charles Bray, Sarah Hennell, and hundredsto this one house, to which the _entree_ was gained only by love of Truth and desire to spread Freedoht essay ritten a few months after, ”On the Deity of Jesus of Nazareth,” by the wife of a benefited clergyreed that any essays from my pen should be anonymous
And now came the return to Sibsey, and with it the need for definite steps as to the Church For now I no longer doubted, I had rejected, and the ti to attend the Church services, taking no part in any not directed to God Hier attend the Holy Conition of Jesus as Deity and of His atoning sacrifice, I could no longer take part without hypocrisy This was agreed to, and well do I re ith on the first ”Sacrament Sunday” after my return I rose and left the church That the vicar's wife should ”communicate” was as much a matter of course as that the vicar should ”ad in public that would draw attention toof deadly sickness nearly overcame me as I made my exit, conscious that every eye was on me, and thatcoht I was taken suddenly ill, and I was overwhelmed with calls and inquiries To any direct question I answered quietly that I was unable to take part in the profession of faith required by an honest communicant, but the statement was rarely necessary, as the idea of heresy in a vicar's wife is slow to suggest itself to the ordinary bucolic mind, and I proffered no information where no question was asked
It happened that, shortly after that (to me) memorable Christmas of 1872, a sharp epidee of Sibsey The drainage there was of the ion spread rapidly Naturally fond of nursing, I found in this epideh to be able to lend personal help that made me welcome in the homes of the stricken poor The mothers who slept exhausted while I watched beside their darlings' bedsides will never, I like to fancy, think over-harshly of the heretic whose hand was as tender and often more skilful than their own I think Mother Natureany one, provided only that there is peril in the sickness, so that there is the strange and solele between the human skill one wields and the supre Death, step by step, and this is of course felt to the full where one fights for life as life, and not for a life one loves When the patient is beloved the struggle is touched with agony, but where one fights with Death over the body of a stranger there is a weird enchantment in the contest without personal pain, and as one forces back the hated foe there is a curious triu up its prey, as one snatches back to earth the life which had well-nigh perished