The New Abelard (Vol. 1-3). Robert Williams Buchanan
I think he may do, and must do, if the Church is to endure.
Let him do this, and let only a tithe of his brethren imitate him in so doing, and out of this nucleus of simple believers, as out of the little Galilean band, may be renewed a faith that will redeem the world. Questioned of such a faith, Science will reply—‘I have measured the heavens and the earth, I have traced back the book of the universe page by page and letter by letter, but I have found neither here nor yonder any proof that God is not; nay, beyond and behind and within all phenomena, there abides one unknown quantity which you are quite free to call—God.
Similarly questioned, Art will answer—‘Since you have rejected what was so hideous, tested by the beauty of this world, and since you hold even my work necessary and holy, I too will confess with you that I hunger for something fairer and less perishable; and in token of that hunger, of that restless dream, I will be your Church’s handmaid, and try to renew her Temple and make it fair.’
The keystone of the Church is Jesus Christ. Not the Jesus of the miracles, not Jesus the son of Joseph and Mary, but Jesus Christ, the Divine Ideal, the dream and glory of the human race. Not God who made himself a man, but man who, by God’s inspiration, has been fashioned unto the likeness of a God.
And what, as we behold him now, is this Divine Ideal—this man made God?
He is simply, as I conceive, the accumulated testimony of human experience—of history, poetry, philosophy, science, and art—in favour of a rational religion, the religion of earthly peace and heavenly love. Built upon the groundwork of what, shorn of its miraculous pretensions, was a gentle and perfect life, the Divine Ideal, or Ideal Person, began. At first shadowy and almost sinister, then clearer and more beautiful; then, descending through the ages, acquiring at every step some new splendour of self-sacrifice, some new consecration of love or suffering, from every heart that suffered patiently, from every soul that fed the lamp of a celestial dream with the oil of sweet human love. And now, far removed as is man himself from the archetypal ape, is the Christ of modern Christendom, this spiritual Saviour of the world, from the ghostly skeleton of the early martyrs, from the Crucified One of early Christian art. The life of generations has gone to fashion him—all our human experience has served to nourish him—gradually from age to age He has drunk in the blood of suffering and the milk of knowledge, till He stands supreme as we see him—not God, but man made God.
Does it matter so much, after all, whether we worship a person or an idea, since, as I suggest, the Idea has become a Person, with all the powers and privileges of divinity? Nay, who in this world is able, even with the help of philosophy, to distinguish what is from what seems—the phenomenal from the real? So long as Our Lord exists as a moral phenomenon, so long in other words as we can apprehend him as an ideal of human life, Christ is not dead, and his resurrection is not a dream. He walks the world. He remembers Greece and Rome, as well as Galilee; He blesses the painter and the poet, as well as the preacher in the Temple. He rejects nothing; He reads the rocks and the stars, and He adds their gospel to his own; He cries to men of all creeds, as his prototype cried to his disciples of yore, ‘Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden, and ye shall rest.’
Pardon me, my Lord Bishop, the desultory thoughts noted down in this long letter. They perhaps give you some clue as to the sentiments with which I pursue the Christian mission. You will doubtless think me somewhat heterodox, but I have at least the courage of my opinions; and on some such heterodoxy as mine—though on one, I hope, much broader and wiser—it will soon be found necessary to reconstruct the Christian Church, I am, my Lord Bishop, yours,
Ambrose Bradley.
IV.
From the Bishop of Darkdale and Dells to the Rev. Ambrose Bradley, Vicar of Fensea.
My Dear Sir—I cannot express to you with what feelings of sorrow and amazement I have read your terrible letter! I must see you personally at once. My only hope now is that your communication represents a passing aberration, rather than the normal condition of your mind. I shall be at Darkdale on Saturday next, the 2nd. Will you make it convenient to be in the town on that day, and to call upon me at about eleven in the forenoon? I am,
W. M. Darkdale and Dells.
CHAPTER III.—THE BISHOP.
A priest he was, not over-merry,
Who loved sound doctrine and good sherry;
Who wound his mind up every morning
At the sedate cathedral’s warning,
And found it soberly keep time,
In a pocket, to each hourly chime;
“Who, church’s clock-face dwelling under,
Knew ’twas impossible to blunder,
If Peter’s self at’s door should knock,
And roundly ask him—What’s o’clock?
The Hermitage.
On the morning of June 2 the Rev. Ambrose Bradley left Fensea by the early market train, and arrived at Darkdale just in time for his interview with the Bishop of his diocese.
Seen in broad daylight, as he quickly made his way through the narrow streets to the episcopal residence, Bradley looked pale and troubled, yet determined. He was plainly drest, in a dark cloth suit, with broad felt hat; and there was nothing in his attire, with the exception of his white clerical necktie, to show that he held a sacred office. His dress, indeed, was careless almost to slovenliness, and he carried a formidable walking-stick of common wood. With his erect and powerful frame and his closely shaven cheeks he resembled an athlete rather than a clergyman, for he had been one of the foremost rowers and swimmers of his time. He wore no gloves, and his hands, though small and well formed, were slightly reddened by the sun.
Arrived at his destination, an old-fashioned residence, surrounded by a large garden, he rang the gate bell, and was shown by a footman into the house, where his card was taken by a solemn-looking person clerically attired. After waiting a few moments in the hall, he was ushered into a luxuriously furnished study, where he found the Bishop, with his nether limbs wrapt in rugs, seated close to a blazing fire.
Bishop———— was a little spare man of about sixty, with an aquiline nose, a slightly receding forehead, a mild blue eye, and very white hands. He was said to bear some facial likeness to Cardinal Newman, and he secretly prided himself upon the resemblance. He spoke slowly and with a certain precision, never hurrying himself in his utterance, and giving full force to the periods of what was generally considered a beautiful and silvery voice.
‘Good morning, Mr. Bradley,’ he said, without noticing the other’s extended hand. ‘You will excuse my rising? The rheumatism in my knees has been greatly increased by this wretched weather. Pray take a chair by the fire.’
Bradley, however, found a seat as far from the fire as possible; for the weather was far from cold, and the room itself was like a vapour bath.
There was a pause. The Bishop, shading his face with one white hand, on which sparkled a valuable diamond ring, was furtively inspecting his visitor.
‘You sent for me?’ said Bradley, somewhat awkwardly.
‘Yes—about that letter. I cannot tell you how distressed I was when I received it; indeed, if I may express myself frankly, I never was so shocked in my life. I had always thought you so different, so very different. But there! I trust you have come to tell me that the hope I expressed was right, and that it was under some temporary aberration that you expressed sentiments so extraordinary, so peculiarly perverted, and—hem!—unchristian.’
The clergyman’s dark eye flashed, and his brow was knitted.
‘Surely not unchristian,’