CHAPTER XXVI.

On the morning of Annie and Adelaide's departure for the convent, Mr. Godfrey had ordered breakfast for himself in his library, and had summoned Hester to attend him, on the pretext of not feeling well, but in reality to avoid a parting scene with his children. Hester, on the other hand, dreaded nothing more than they should depart without farewell; she had keenly felt Adelaide's words beside her mother's coffin, but in despite of her efforts could not effect an interview which should dispel the ill-feeling that oppressed her. Her father's jealousy of her holding any private intercourse with the rest of the family on the one hand, and the coldness of Adelaide on the other, seemed to present insurmountable obstacles. At length she heard the carriage draw up, and the voices departing; hastily she quitted the breakfast table, and rushed into the hall. The travellers were already there; she approached Annie with tears in her eyes. Annie was too sad herself to be angry just then, she imprinted on her sister's forehead the silent kiss her gesture pleaded for; but Adelaide went forward and seated herself in the carriage, waving her hand for a general adieu, and Hester fell back weeping on her brother's shoulder as the vehicle drove away from the door.

"O Eugene! I had no hand in this; tell me at least that you believe me," sobbed the poor girl.

"I do believe you, and so will Adelaide after a time; take comfort, Hester."

"I cannot, with them all against me. Oh! who could ever dream our love for each other could melt away to this?"

"It is not, melted a way, dear sister, only obscured; it will one day return warmer and brighter than ever."

"Then you, you will write to me, you will not cast me off?"

"Never, never will I cast you off! never cease to love you!"

"Then, Eugene, you will help me also; I want to read, to know the cause of these unhappy divisions."

"And my father?"

"O Eugene! that is the misery my father must not know. Eugene, I love my father; there can be nothing wrong in that, he has only me now. We cannot help that; but I must be true to him, I cannot break his heart. He must not know we correspond or that I read your books, or that I am thinking on the subjects he hates so much. He need not know it; I am a woman now, I have a right to my {758} freedom. If I conceal my thought, it is out of love to him; you know well how it would pain him were he to suspect I read a work that treats on religion."

"Our correspondence must be secret; then?"

"I fear it must; at least till my father gets over this miserable prejudice. You can write and send to me under cover to Norah, my little maid. I will send her to you presently for some books, and now good-by, my father will be wanting me. Pray for us both, Eugene."

Mr. Godfrey was considerably unhinged by the change that had taken place in his family, and he watched Hester closely. She had truly said she was now his last hope. That she was dejected at her mother's death could not surprise him or any one, but that her sprightliness had altogether departed, that her energy was depressed, her color faded, and her appetite gone, were sources of great anxiety. Again he took her to Yorkshire, to endeavor to reinspire her with interest in the promotion of the "March of Intellect."

Hester did not feel justified in withdrawing her interest or exertions from the institutions which she had raised and fostered; but it must be confessed that these institutions were gradually assuming the character of mere money-making factories. Mr. Godfrey, dissatisfied with certain losses, had engaged a man of business to overlook the whole concern, and in addition to a stipulated sum, this person was to receive a certain percentage of the profits. This rendered him particularly sharp-sighted as to doing matters economically; that is, with the fewest number of hands, at the lowest rate of wages, and oftentimes employing children in lieu of adults.

"This is altogether, foreign to our first idea," said Hester, "and I do not approve of it at all."

"It cannot be helped, my dear; no enterprise that will not pay can be proceeded with in the long run."

"But these children shut up in the close rooms at eight or ten years of age, for such long hours! it will numb every faculty they possess."

"If their parents are willing to permit it, I do not see what we have to do with it."

"O father! ignorant people often sell their children, without knowing the harm they do; but this cannot be the way in which the world is to improve."

"You were not satisfied with the results of your new plan, which did not make money. I have put the matter into Mr. Fisher's hands for a while, because, I know that in his hands, if money is to be made, it will be made: his talent for business is unrivalled."

"Money is not the principle of progression."

"Nothing can be done without it, at any rate."

These discussions annoyed Mr. Godfrey the more because he felt the inconsistency between the past idea and the present practice. On the other hand, Hester was not in possession of the principle she was seeking; that was acknowledged with regret on her part, though she by no means gave up the search, and still less rested contented with the inferior motive of placing all development, all future improvement on the mere basis of money-making.

Among Mr. Godfrey's friends, one of the most intimate, because the most scientific after the fashion of this world's science, was a Mr. Spencer--a gentleman whose works had already acquired for him a great share of reputation, and who was gradually acquiring great influence over Mr. Godfrey. He was a man of about five-and-thirty years of age, being some twelve years older than our Hester, whom he greatly admired, notwithstanding that he found her mind a little difficult to understand. Perhaps he liked her the better that she puzzled him, that she took different views from him. Certain it is that he haunted her society whenever he could find an excuse, and Mr. Godfrey seemed particularly well pleased to find them together, as he {759} hoped that interviews with such a learned man would dissipate any tendency to religion, especially the Catholic religion, that Hester might be fostering in consequence of the proclivities of her mother and of the rest of the family in that direction.

. . . . .

'Twas autumn, a walk through the woods had brought the trio together, and together they returned to the house; the gusty and fitful wind scattering in their path the tinted leaves that fell like showers from the trees beneath which they were passing. Wild clouds were hurrying through space, as if summoned suddenly to assist at some tempestuous commotion, and though many miles distant was the sea, the roar of waves was heard beating on the far-off shore; every sign betokened that a storm was at hand. The pedestrians hurried to the house, and scarcely had they reached it, than impulsively they went to the window to gaze in mute amazement at the scene. A sudden wind was uprooting trees, unroofing houses, and carrying off all things before it. An old barn long doomed to be pulled down, which was but awaiting hands to perform the work, suddenly reeled like a drunken man, and in a few moments more fell to the ground with a great crash. The servant girls screamed in the hall, "the men went in for shelter, they must be crushed to death!" The door was opened that the serving-men might rush to the rescue, but the wind swept like a tornado through the hall, tiles were rattling from the house-top, bricks tumbling from the chimneys. To leave the house was impossible, none could stand against such a blast. A large boarded roof that was being prepared by the carpenters was carried off the scaffold, and after being for some time balanced in the air as if it were a paper kite, fell at length with a loud splash into the lake some quarter of a mile distant from the spot whence it was first uplifted. The scene was at once terrific and sublime, and but for the screams and sobs of the girls, who feared to have some father, brother, or friend buried beneath the fallen building, Hester could have enjoyed the spectacle; but she was occupied in endeavoring to soothe the panic-stricken tremblers, and for consolation what could she say? She could but stand by and sympathize, and utter words of hope, meaningless because unfelt. It was a relief when the storm abated to find that all the men had been able to quit the building at the first creaking of the rafters, and by crawling on all fours had reached a place where they lay safely till the storm had passed--all save one, and he was protected by the manner in which the beams fell over him, they being prevented from falling perpendicularly by some obstacles, and formed a sloping defensive shelter for the young man who happened to find himself in that particular corner, from which, when the storm abated, he was extricated by his companions, with no other injury suffered than the alarm endured for several hours; and in this alarm he had many sharers, for few of the neighbours could rest in peace until he was drawn forth unhurt.

A feeling of relief pervaded the party as with closed shutters, drawn curtains, and every appurtenance of comfort, they drew round the bright coal fire, which shed a glowing, cheering warmth throughout the apartment--while the rain which had succeeded to this storm of wind was pattering against the windows, enhancing the comfort within by a sense of dreariness without.

"How remorseless is nature!" said Mr. Spence, as at length the silence which had pervaded the three friends became almost painful; "decay, change, transition, pain, with transient gleams of beauty, as if to render the surrounding gloom more painful still, and no escape: how remorseless is nature!"

"All things have their bright side, I believe," she said, "even so terrible a storm as to-day's. It is good to feel a grand sensation sometimes, it stirs up the very depths of one's being."

{760}

"How would it have been if those men had been crushed to death, or worse, hopelessly maimed for life?"

"That did not happen. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."

"But similar events often do happen. The battle-field, the pestilence, man's evil passions, or the remorseless sea tossing man's feeble bark in sport against the rocks, cause many a grand sensation that is not good. See in that newly settled swamp the settler's wife surprised amid her household drudgeries with a startling shriek, and, hurrying to the water's edge, to find a rattlesnake coiled round her prattler's leg, inflicting the painful sting that causes the innocent child to expire in torture: do you call that good?"

"It does not follow that there is no good because we see it not! The design of the creation may involve a hidden good to be evolved out of what seems evil."

"And meantime the longer we pursue our researches, the more we become convinced that an all-pervading inexorable law governs events by necessary connection; that there is no resisting the force of this law, no disarming it. All that we can do is to study it, and take what comfort we can individually by an intelligent application of it to ourselves."

"And our neighbor's happiness is to tell for nothing?"

"You will do no good by forcing any system on men for which they are not prepared," said Mr. Spence. "Ideas remain inoperative when the civilization or intelligence to which it is addressed is unequal to its realization; practice does not depend on theories, but on development, on individual assimilation of the principles, if I may be permitted to use this word. For instance, moral theories are ever the same. The Hindoo, the Chinaman, the follower of Zoroaster and the transcribers of the precepts of Menu, declare with the Jew and the Christian, that the law is to be honest, virtuous, heedful of others' pleasure or good, to seek justice, love mercy, reverence age, and submit to all lawful authority, etc.--each precept requiring a willing obedience; yet where are the fruits to be found?"

"But do men believe these precepts to be the rule of right?"

"Theoretically they are not disputed, but practically man is made by the external objects that surround him. Give society a system below its advancement, it rises superior to it; give it one above it, it does not come up to it. This is observable in nations. Among the lower order of French Catholics there is less of bigotry and civilization, with more of the real charity enjoined by religion, than among the lower order of Scotch Protestants, despite the theory of their theology. [Footnote 206] Again, the Swedes and the inhabitants of some of the Swiss Cantons are less civilized than the French, and therefore it avails them little that they three centuries ago adopted a creed to which the force of habit and the influence of tradition now oblige them to cling. Whoever has travelled in these countries will see how little the inhabitants have benefited by their religion, while in France you will see an illiberal religion accompanied by liberal views, and a creed full of superstitions professed by a people among whom superstition is comparatively rare." [Footnote 206]

[Footnote 206: See Buckle's Civilization in England. Vol i. pages 191-193, from which above is extracted. (There are two references and only one footnote on this page.--Transcriber)]

"That would rather go to prove Catholicity to be better than Protestanism," said Hester; "at least, if liberal views and tolerant actions be a proof of the advancement of society."

Mr. Godfrey bit his lips, and Mr. Spence, suddenly mindful of certain proceedings in his friend's family not exactly of the tolerative description, hastily essayed to cover his mistake:

"Practically," he said, "men's religious demonstrations are a thing apart from their theory, and are governed by the character of individual mental development, rather than (what they are assumed to be) a power governing development."

{761}

"I think that proposition illogical. If religion acts at all, it must act according to its character as a power. Granting that with many it is a dead letter, without any action, yet with those it does influence, its action must be the legitimate result of its doctrine; and if the civilization resulting from Catholicity is superior, is not that the superior agency?"

"You forget how the guardians of the Catholic faith have ever persecuted science; that proves them intolerant."

"Not necessarily. The guardians of a faith, amid a crude, undeveloped people, may well be jealous of novel notions, dispersed out of their connexion amid an unthinking, unreflecting populace. If the object is to raise people from the phase of their present existence to a higher phase, our late experiments have shown that it needs caution in disturbing present moral influences. The mass are not philosophers; they will not travel the whole round of a series to trace the whole chain of what you call the necessary connection. Were I to begin my experiment again I should take the highest motive then active on the mind, and try to build higher on that. The first results of science are usually destructive, and therefore not fit for the masses; something must be built up again ere we present it to them. As it is, these masses seem only to amuse themselves by hurling the stones of the ruined theory at the world and at each other, destroying much, but advancing nothing good."

"But philosophy must not be controlled. Science must not be impeded in its onward march; the hopes of ultimate civilization lie in free investigation. The evil is transient--the good permanent."

"Yet you admit that a system may be in advance of a people?"

"Yes, and forerunners are martyrs, sacrificed to the ignorance, to the inaptitude of the age in which they live; yet there is a sort of necessity for their existence, the law for which is not as yet discovered. Future ages will probably be more enlightened on this head. All that we know is, that there is a law for all evolutions, a practical principle--if we could only trace it--to which every action, every development may be referred. Statistical tables show us that even crime follows method. In a given number of people in a given state of civilization there will be a certain percentage of murders, a certain percentage of thefts, robberies, and the like; nay, a certain average number of suicides. You may verify these facts by comparing the statistical tables of large cities such as London and Paris, [Footnote 207] for a definite series of years.

[Footnote 207: See Buckle's Civilization in England. Vol. i. page 17 _et seq._ ]

"And through what agency is this effected?" asked Hester, in amazement.

"Nay, that I can scarcely answer save in general terms. The cause of law, the cause of evolution, the cause of everything is utterly unknown. The most we can do is to observe phenomena, to class them, and then note the sequences which form necessary connection together; in this way we discover the law, but beyond that science can affirm nothing. The cause we can know nothing, and affirm nothing of, save its bare existence as the incomprehensible cause of all phenomena. The sole possible predication is merely that he, or more properly it, is."

"Why, surely the cause is God," said Hester, who, new as she was to a personal recognition of God's rights to her own devotion, had never dreamed of doubting, that "absolute intelligence" ruled "as cause."

"God," said Mr. Spence, "is too indefined a term for science, or rather there are ideas connected with the term which we cannot scientifically apply to the unknowable. We cannot affirm of this unknowable that he is either matter or mind; because this would be to degrade him, by representing him in terms of our finite and human conceptions. Matter and mind are in fact but phenomena of which the unknowable is the unknown cause. {762} He is of a far higher nature than matter or mind, for he is the common cause of both. Of this nature we can form no idea whatever. We cannot attribute to the unknowable _reason_; since that would represent him as finite, for all reasoning is limitation. We cannot affirm of him either justice or mercy; because these are words borrowed from the human, and to express the unknown in such terms is anthropomorphism and blasphemy. Such a religion is but one grade higher than the ancient theologies that represent God with hands and feet and other human members."

"Stay," said Hester, "I cannot admit all your assumptions. That the cause is the great I Am, of whose essential being we know nothing, is doubtless true, as also that finitude cannot comprehend infinitude: but that it is wrong or blasphemous to speak of him in the language of earth, I cannot see. We know the expression is inadequate, that it is metaphorical, an application of the less to signify the greater, but it is the only voice we have, and the degree of worship depends on the spirit of reverence which prompts the utterance, as the freedom from idolatry must depend on the spirit of appreciative love and submission with which that worship is offered.

"But," said Mr. Spence, "all theologies set out with the great truth, that the deity is incomprehensible. But they immediately contradict and stultify themselves by proceeding to assign him attributes. In this way all religions become suicidal as well as irreligious. The only true religion is to worship God as the unknown and forever unknowable. True religion and science agree in this, that the cause of all phenomena is the unknown. Science, in affirming the cause to be material or mental, becomes unscientific, just as religion, by pretending to reveal his nature or attributes, becomes irreligious."

"Pardon me," said Hester, "I think you are begging the question. Because we know nothing of the interior being of God, it does not follow that we may not discover the relationships which he wishes to establish between himself and ourselves, and to the manifestations of these relationships we may in all reverence and with consistency assign attributes. Within himself God is the great I Am, unknown and unknowable to us. Reason, justice, mercy, probably find there, no exercise. Their exercise is outside in creation; for all creation is outside God, an expression of his power, as of every other attribute justly assigned him. Creation itself is limited: man's expression more so yet: but we do not therefore believe in the limitation of the deity. We cannot conceive infinity, still less express it; still the idea exists, and our minds invest the deity with it in reverential awe, not in blasphemy."

"You have given the modern theology assuming God to be a spirit and a creative spirit; and assuming also that the creation is a work of his design. You do not perceive that you make God the author of evil as well as good, and that you assume matter was created. Now, the eternity of matter would be no greater enigma than the eternity of mind; and we do not know whether the cause be 'matter or mind.' It is unknown, as it is also unknowable."

"Why this is sheer Atheism," said the startled Hester.

"Not so! This doctrine is neither Atheism nor Theism. It is merely the highest and last formula, at once, of science and religion, ceasing to represent the unknowable in any conceptions of human thought, and thus leaving free scope for worship, which (worship) is not assertion, but humility and transcendent wonder."

"Nay," said Hester; "religion, as far as I can make it out, consists in acknowledging the relationships which God has established: first, between himself and man, and secondly, between man and man. Religion, if true, is a manifestation or revelation if not of God's essential nature, yet of his will {763} in man's regard. The discrepancies between our conceptions of what is evil and evil itself may explain your difficulty about God being the author of evil. It may be that mere change, mere transition, is not evil, even when accompanied by some pain. I read yesterday that the only real evil was, a voluntary act on the part of a rational creature, performed contrary to the known will of God."

"That is so evidently a theological subtlety," said Mr. Spence, "science deigns it no reply."

"And yet," said Hester, "your last and highest formula, which refuses to represent the unknowable in any conception of human thought, bows down in worship and transcendent wonder to the 'cause' which makes murder, suicide, and every species of human wickedness result from 'A Law'!

"Because we believe that ultimately that law will evolve good. It appears a fact now thoroughly established, that all the organisms we are acquainted with, have been evolved by a gradual process rather than produced by a series of special creations, as has been so long the theory. And the evolution tends upward; that is, to produce new and more complicated organisms as time speeds on. This must in the end evolve higher good."

"Do you mean that the lesser is ever producing the greater; and that in the aggregation of insentient matter life is evolved?"

"Does not the infant grow into the man by the aggregation of insentient matter assimilated into his being in the shape of food?"

"Yes, but life was there already; character and power, expansion and development it receives, but no new function."

"That is not so certain; or rather it is certain that evolution constantly manifests changes, which can only be accounted for on the ground of a great universal law, a law ever producing diversity of phenomena in unity of operation."

"But I do not see that it explains anything of the ultimate cause."

"Have I not already said that the cause is unknown and unknowable?"