Part 12
“Be it so,” Gildea said, “our good Judge is not to be allowed more than a faint glimmering of that fine theory of ours of the world’s unseen τελος. The ‘divine far-off event’ is not more than a fog-lamp to him, which he will not, then, mistake for the moon, or its light for moonshine. But that he is too much of a blockhead to even rise beyond the spiritual rule of thumb, the spiritual Rule of Three, seems to me, I confess, dear Doctor ... well, a rather strong statement. The average intelligent secular view of things is, is it not, less pedantic, less given to accepting the conventional value of things as their true value, than the average intelligent orthodox view? Are not, indeed, these tears a most convincing proof of it? Is it not just because our good Judge refuses, for instance, to accept the orthodox view of Jesus and of God that he wrote his little book, and you replied to it? Now the orthodox view of God is, if you will let me say so, excessively pedantic: it adheres to the expressions of a belief in which in its heart it does _not_ believe at all. Parker’s criticism on this is excellent. ‘It is impossible,’ he says, ‘to lay down any definition of God which will even satisfy man’s conception of God.’ What, then, is the good, he asks, of holding up this ‘magnified non-natural man’ of yours, and asking me to fall down and worship it? Common-sense revolts against such an idea and common-sense, dear Doctor, is, will you not agree, for once right?”
“You surprise me, Sir Horace,” said Maddock. “Are you too going to spend your time and trouble in demolishing the survivals of verbal inspiration?”
“Certainly _not_! I am only trying to see wherein common-sense is a safe guide as a biblical critic. We are agreed, then,—you, that is, the Judge and I—that we must unite in opposing many of ‘the statements which,’ as the Judge says, ‘the orthodox are pleased to call evidence.’ Because, for instance (to continue with the Judge’s own words), ‘the fallible man Paul says in a letter to Timothy that the Scriptures were inspired, it does not make them so.’ We are agreed here?”
“We are agreed here,” said Maddock, with deliberation.
“Or again, to take another instance, when Matthew and Luke, for whatever purpose, strive in their genealogical tables ‘to give Jesus’ (I always use the Judge’s words) ‘a divine origin, conceived of a virgin by the Holy Ghost, and yet to connect him with David by making Joseph the natural father of Jesus.’—are we not here faced by two ideas which ‘no one short of an ecclesiastical metaphysician,’ or, as you say, a ‘very bad critic,’ would or could ‘reconcile?’—We are still agreed, of course.”
“We are still agreed—to a certain extent.”
“Nay, let us go further, then, and chime in with the Judge to the effect that ‘on far stronger evidence (if evidence it can be called) than that which supports’—let us say, almost all—‘of the events or miracles’ of the Scriptures, ‘the Roman Catholic Church propound to the world their miracles,’ which ‘the Protestant section of Christianity reject as incredulous.’”
“Proceed,” said Maddock.
“Nay, let us go further still, and notice how we no longer look on the Genesis account of the Creation as more than allegory, of the Flood as being strictly accurate; of the tower of Babel as, again, more than allegory, and so on in many other similar cases. And how in the same way we do not look upon the statements of Christ, and after him of the author of the ‘Revelations,’ of the close approach of the Apocalypse, as literal but only figurative. ‘The statement of Jesus,’ as the Judge puts it, ‘as to his coming again before the then generation have passed away does not mean that he will so come: ‘generation’ being merely used figuratively, but when he does come he is still to come in the clouds of heaven, and with great glory, sounds of trumpets, rushings of winds, and mourning of tribes; for’ (Gildea paused)—‘all this has not yet been falsified by the event.’ This is, I think, undoubtedly the conclusion at which common sense arrives, but common sense is of course wrong.”
“Common-sense is wrong,” said Maddock.
“Common-sense too, as exemplified in this its typical blockhead who cannot ever rise beyond the spiritual Rule of thumb and Three; common-sense observes of the development of divine Truth, as exemplified in the Christian theology of yesterday and to-day, that its ‘golden rule apparently is to adopt those interpretations’ of its Scriptures ‘which best satisfy the exigency of the particular position of the time being,’ and thus we have no further guarantee that the God of to-day will be the God of to-morrow than that the God of yesterday is certainly not the God of to-day. ‘Heaven forgive me,’ exclaims ‘that great poet and brilliant philosopher,’ Heine, ‘but I often feel as if the Mosaic God were but a reflected image of Moses himself.’ And we all remember with what contempt Taine speaks of this God of Christianity, revised and amended to suit the latest edition of scientific and historical discovery—rooted up out of the earth and momentary intercourse with man—driven out of the clouds and the occasional interposition of his strong right hand—spied and telescoped from the radiant bowers of the stars, and finally lodged out of sight, and all but out of mind, in the eternal infinitudes of Time and Space! After all, then, may not our good Judge have had, not of course a perception, but a faint glimmering, of sapience, when he spoke of the position taken up by the orthodox biblical criticism as critically ‘not only untenable, but absolutely suicidal?’ The thought is, as we agreed before, simply appalling. Spirits of Butler, Paley, Neander, Weiss, Westcott, Lightfoot, and many another mortal or immortal immortal, rise and thunder ‘_No!_’ When this exponent of the average secular intelligence declares that contemporary Theology is an impossible compromise between Reason and Absurdity; that the Protestant is quite inconsistent who with one face rejects ‘the events or miracles propounded by the Roman Catholic Church because they involve a violation or suspension of unvarying natural laws; because such things do not happen, and because _reason_ refuses to give credence to them,’ and with another face accepts as truth the sojourn of Jonah in the belly of some sea-monster (at present conveniently extinct, even to the bones), or the communications of, what Gordon describes as,
‘that duffer at walls, the talkative roadster of Balaam:—’
rise, I say, and in Olympian accents demonstrate to him and his benighted audience, that these were but links ‘in the development of divine Truth,’ and that ‘one lesson at a time of this difficult kind was enough, and as history shows more than enough, for human weakness.’”
“You are a treacherous and malicious young man,” said Maddock, laughing in spite of himself, “and have no right to quote my words in such an irreverent and grotesque manner!”
“It is my orthodox ingratitude,” said Gildea, “—And yet,” he added suddenly, with a complete change of tone and manner, “in less than fifty years polemics like these will be looked upon as childish, and, those who spent their life and energy upon them, as we now look on the mediæval Schoolmen. It is a sad thought.”
Maddock was a little puzzled at these swift chameleon changes in his friend.
“And now,” said Gildea, looking up with yet another change of tone and manner, “and now we have done with the negative side of the good Judge’s criticism and can turn to the affirmative.—But that,” he added, “must, I am afraid, be after lunch—if you will, Doctor?”
“I will,” said Maddock, “and you shall not then find me so passive, for your treachery and malice are now quite laid bare to me.”
Gildea smiled.
“But not my loyalty and admiration? Believe me, Doctor, that, if it were only for this one remark of yours, I could never fail in my interest and gratitude to you. ‘Our blackfellows,’ you say, ‘had no punishment for offences against their elementary ideas of purity but spearing. _And it was infinitely better that they should spear for impurity than lose their first step towards a higher life._’ ... But here we are,” he said, “This is the house. Fitzgerald and Hawkesbury have to leave us soon after lunch. Mrs. Medwin and her niece, Miss Medwin, are coming later to make tea for me, and then we are going out for a sail in the yacht. Mr. Medwin is thinking of a legislative career, and so Alcock is to be cultivated. Can you come with us? You know how pleased it would make us all.”
The Doctor explained that he was due at his hotel at half-past three to meet Mrs. Maddock, and both he and Gildea expressed their due regrets at his not being able to make one of the party on the yacht.
III.
Gildea led the way upstairs and ushered Maddock into the sitting-room. It was in reality two rooms joined together by a large folding-door, which was now thrown open and draped with four looped-up curtains, two of some dark-red material behind two of delicately-wrought muslin. The two rooms were of the whole depth of the house, the large bay-windows, open and with a glass-door in the middle of them open also, at one end looking out over the city, at the other over the harbour. A grass-slope, and a garden with flower-beds and rustling trees, spread all round and down to the water’s edge; while, a little way out, the “Petrel” rode at peaceful anchorage, her boat behind her. Maddock was for the moment so taken up with the beauty of the place within and without—the room with all its harmonies of form and colour, the garden and harbour scene—that he did not notice that someone was standing, half hidden by the curtains, in the next room on the hearth-rug. Then Gildea passed through and greeted this person whom he brought forward and introduced to Maddock as Mr. Hawkesbury.
Hawkesbury was a small but well-made man with a tendency to muscular leanness. His face was striking and interesting, and betrayed a strongly-defined individuality. At one moment he might have been called handsome, and his manner frank, free, and open: at another his features took such a contracted intensified look, and his movements were so nervously acute, that the whole man seemed to have suffered distortion. It seemed as if he were suddenly seized by some keen pain, spiritual and physical, and was being racked by it. When Gildea entered, there was for a moment a trace of this latter manner in Hawkesbury: his sensitive pride found something antagonistic in, what seemed to him, the consummate luxury which surrounded him and even in the consummate culture of its owner: he was almost asking himself what right this man had to spend so much money and care in decorating a few rooms for a few months, this man whose life was so radically selfish? Hawkesbury’s was, he might have said, the feeling of one who was a socialist and worker by intense conviction, finding himself opposed to one who was an aristocrat and hedonist by the mere chance of birth and fortune. But, when Gildea met and greeted him with the frank sweet unconscious cordiality of an equal whose acquaintance is pleasant, the dark look passed from Hawkesbury’s face and he gave himself up to the simple pleasure of the situation. His unexpected introduction to Maddock, who represented to him the more or less sumptuous aristocrat of religion, for a moment, it is true, threatened to bring back the evil spirit to him; but Maddock, with his fine social tact, almost divining the state of affairs, was equally frank, sweet, unconscious and cordial in his manner, and Hawkesbury was at his ease.
The three men stood talking together, Maddock in the middle, in the bay-window that looked out over the harbour.
“Why, Sir Horace,” said Maddock, “you will never be able to get away from this enchanting place again! Are you sure you do not intend to make it into a home? You did not honour your Melbourne rooms with such care—such choice of furniture, and....” (He raised his arm and outspread hand, smiling humorously).
“‘Man delights not me,’” answered Gildea, “‘No, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.’” The smile broke out on Hawkesbury’s face too. It was soothing and very pleasant to find these two talking in his presence of such an intimate matter as that alluded to here: he was not accustomed, in the company of, what in Australia and even England goes by the name of, ladies and gentlemen to this complete absence of social and individual constraint.
Then Edgar, Gildea’s valet, ushered in someone else, Mr. Fitzgerald, and there was a movement and introductions between Maddock, Hawkesbury, and the new-comer, the three being left alone for a moment while Gildea was giving some directions to Edgar about domestic arrangements.
Maddock and Fitzgerald fell almost immediately into a conversation, Hawkesbury playing the part of silent member. The Doctor was interested in finding out what the impressions of a cultured Roman Catholic were of Australia and more particularly of Victoria and New South Wales. He asked a few questions, the answer to which, he thought, would show him whether Fitzgerald had observed things with care and sympathy, and was answered with a gentle readiness that pleased and satisfied him. The two men felt themselves to a certain extent on common ground, and, Fitzgerald touching incidentally on the education question, they began to parallelise each other’s views with cordiality.
“We quite recognise,” said Fitzgerald, “all the difficulties of the case—the danger of the unfair influence of catholic teaching over protestant children, or vice versa, just as each happens to be stronger in the particular place and school. But we would accept this danger—accept it, even supposing we were the losers by it—rather than have the present state of things continue. As our Archbishop said only the other day at Leichardt: ‘Besides the faculties of intellect and of reason, there are certain passions of the soul,’ and to develop the former and wholly neglect the latter is to send a boy out into the world with _only one eye_. You have prepared him for the temporary business of life, and unfitted him for the glorious service of eternity: you have given his ship fine sails, and forgotten to add a rudder! He may be an acute man of business, but he will be a bad citizen; for, in taking away from him his sense of religion, you will take away from him his sense of morality, of honesty, of integrity! We can, at the present stage, see for Australia no future save that of corruption—a corrupt political life, a corrupt national life, the unlimited worship of Mammon!”
“I agree with you to a large extent,” said Maddock, “and we all know that, practically speaking, the talk about ‘religious education at home’ is mere verbiage. If the education of a child is secular, his spiritual lungs, so to speak, end in being able to inhale no other air and thrive on it.”
“And,” Fitzgerald said, “the education _is_ secular! Every effort is being made to drive the voluntary schools out of the field. Their state aid here in New South Wales is withdrawn: in England it is reduced to a pittance and hedged about with annoyance. And this, although the educational reports, drawn up by a secular commission, show that, at any rate the catholic schools educate on the average both better and more cheaply than the state-schools do! We only ask for fair play, and now it has come to this pass that we cannot get it! All over England the protestant voluntary schools are failing and disappearing. But we, we Catholics, who cannot, as Protestants do, console ourselves with the reflection that the atmosphere of the state-schools, if secular, will be tempered by that of our own beliefs—we _will_ not fail and disappear! We are the poorest of all religious bodies in England; but I will venture to say, that not a single case can be found of a catholic school which has surrendered itself up, as these others did, into the hands of the Secularists. Our educating priests and laymen have to suffer much privation: I know, shall I say hundreds, of them who deny themselves all but the bare necessities of life; but—_we stand our ground_!... You see,” he added smiling gently, “we Catholics cannot labour under any delusion here. We recognize that this is a stupendous crisis in the world’s history. We will have no compromise and secular tempering of the wind to the shorn Christian. We will stand to our guns, and, if we must perish, perish there!”
Maddock was impressed, and so even was Hawkesbury. This man’s enthusiasm was so quiet, so clear, and yet so radiant. Gildea returned and joined them.
“We were speaking of the popular education,” said Fitzgerald, turning to him, “and I would persuade Dr. Maddock that his cause and ours are here identic.”
“I need no persuading,” said Maddock, “I have for some time been persuading _myself_!”
“And yet,” Fitzgerald put in gently, “the alliance between us and you seems farther off than between us and the Dissenters.”
“And that, I think,” Gildea said, “is because you have more in common. You are afraid of one another. In the one case, you know that the frontier of your alliance will be observed, in the other there is a chance that it may not. At present the most dangerous opponents of Catholicism in England are, what they call, the High Churchmen. The Church of England is a compromise between Catholicism and Protestantism; hence its adaptiveness, hence its strength! It more nearly, in my opinion, approaches ideal Christianity than any other sect in existence. It unites the Faith, the Poetry, of Catholicism, with the Freedom, the Prose, of Protestantism.”
“We thank you,” said Maddock.
“Logically speaking, however,” added Gildea, “it is an absurdity.”
They all began to laugh.
“Ah,” said Maddock, “I was right when, even while thanking you, Sir Horace, I thought to myself: _Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes_.”
“The Christianity of the Future,” Gildea proceeded gravely, “lies, I believe, in two transformations—in Catholicism learning that its kingdom is not of this world, that it no longer requires a Pope, a Rome, as a Palladium whereby it may fight; in a word, in learning the lesson of Protestantism, of Freedom: and in Protestantism doing the converse, and absorbing into itself the catholic Faith, the catholic Poetry!”
“And what are the Secularists going to do in your Future?” asked Hawkesbury, “are Messrs. Arnold and Huxley to be put up on a shelf in your spiritual Museum, in two large spirit bottles, labelled respectively ‘Culture’ and ‘Science?’”
“Culture,” answered Gildea, “is, after all, but Secular Catholicism, just as Science is but Secular Protestantism. They too will each learn their lesson of the other.”
“Humph!” said Maddock, who again had a faint suspicion that Gildea was mocking, “and so, after all, Sir Horace is an optimist.”
“We do not lay stress,” Fitzgerald said gently, “on the temporal power of the Holy Father. As Sir Horace implied, this temporal power was once the one shining light in a chaotic world, and it was well that it should be set on a hill. But now the light is diffusing itself. It is our wish that, as the Vatican Œcumenical Council declared: ‘Intelligence, Knowledge, and Wisdom may grow and perfect themselves—as much with the mass as with individuals, with one man as with the whole church!’ We are no foes to Freedom. What we _are_ foes to, is Anarchy! At the Reformation you gave the right of deciding on the deepest religious questions to every ignorant man that chose to discuss them, and the seamless robe of Christianity was rent into a hundred pieces! Look at all these miserable little protestant sects and sub-sects, Plymouth Brethren, Primitive Methodists, Ana-baptists, and I know not what noisy, ignorant fanatics. At the Revolution, you did the same for social questions, and what is the result? The Dynamiters of Russia, of Germany, of Ireland, initiated by what you, Dr. Maddock, so well call ‘such gentleness as was revealed in the diabolical deeds of the Commune,’—to say nothing of those of the Reign of Terror.”
Maddock half-deprecated, half-approved by a gesture and an inarticulate sound.
“Yes, but,” said Hawkesbury with the thrilled voice of suppressed passion, “has not history justified the Reformation? and how can you say that it will not justify the Revolution? These, as it seems to me, are the two fiery portals which lead to Religious and Social Liberty. But you are right to depreciate them: they knew nothing of the poetry of Culture and Catholicism, or of the prose of Protestantism and Science. They were volcanic eruptions of the People. Heine says well, when he talks of ‘the divine brutality’ of Luther, and we do not shrink from the same phrase for Hugo or Whitman. Sir Horace has painted us a Future which is indeed heavenly. It is thronged with sweet-singing angels, and there is not a shadow in its perfect light. But what has become of the _men_, and what, O what, has become of the _devils_? They have no place in this Future. You do not care for the People, I say, except as you care for your dog which, if he is quiet and docile, shall have a kennel and the bones and scraps from your table; or, if he is surly, shall be chained up; or, if he goes mad, shall be shot! Ah believe me, gentlemen, the People _has_ a place in the Future, for the People, and none other, _is_ the Future! ‘_All for the modern_,’ cries Whitman, ‘_all for the average man of to-day_.’ But you—you only care for the Upper and the Middle-class. Your scheme of civilization does not reach to the People. The Upper-class is exhausted: it needs invigorating. ‘_Cultivate the Middle-class_,’ is the cry, ‘_Give us Higher Education for the Middle-class!_’ This is the whole social teaching of the best representative man you have, Matthew Arnold. Now we, we Socialists as you call us, _love_ the People, and (you will pardon me) _hate_ the Middle-class;—the dispossessed, the sufferers, _not_ the possessors, the usurpers! The People is the Prodigal Son. What sympathy have we, then, with a man like Arnold who has devoted himself to the edification of the Elder Brother? Arnold says once that he has evolved that perfect style of his which we know so well—that style which encloses a minimum of ideas in a maximum of catch-words—or, as he likes to call it, ‘plain popular exposition’—for the especial benefit of the British Philistine, the divine Middle-class, who otherwise could not be got to read him! He would have done better, perhaps, if he had not turned to the setting, but to the rising sun. The People are the masters of the Future, and the People’s great men will be the great men of the Future.”
There was a pause. Then: