The New Abelard. Robert Williams Buchanan
‘Even then, perhaps, it would never be quite the same as it once was in the childhood of the world; but it would at least be a Temple, not a ruin.’ ‘That is always your dream, Ambrose.’
‘It is my dream—and my belief. Meanwhile, I am still like a man adrift. O Alma, if I could only believe, like that poor dying man!’
‘You do believe,’ she murmured; ‘only your belief is not blind and foolish. Why should you reproach yourself because you have rejected so much of the old superstition?’
‘Because I am a minister of the Church, round which, like that dark devouring ivy, the old superstitions still cling. Before you could make this place what it once was, a prosperous abbey, with happy creatures dwelling within it, you have to strip the old walls bare; and it is the same with our religion. I am not strong enough for such a task. The very falsehoods I would uproot have a certain fantastic holiness and beauty; when I lay my hands upon them, as I have sometimes dared to do, I seem to hear a heavenly voice rebuking me. Then I say to myself that perhaps, after all, I am committing an act of desecration; and so—my life is wasted.’
She watched him earnestly during a long pause which followed. At last she said:—
‘Is it not, perhaps, that you think of these things too much? Perhaps it was not meant that we should always fix our eyes on what is so mysterious. God hid himself away in the beginning, and it is not his will that we should comprehend him.’
The clergyman shook his head in deprecation of that gentle suggestion.
‘Then why did He plant in our souls such a cruel longing? Why did He tempt our wild inquiry, with those shining lights above us, with this wondrous world, with every picture that surrounds the soul of man? No, Alma, He does not hide himself away—it is we who turn our eyes from him to make idols of stone or flesh, and to worship these. Where, then, shall we find him? Not among the follies and superstitions of the ruined Church at the altar of which I have ministered to my shame!’
His words had become so reckless, his manner so agitated, that she was startled. Struck by a sudden thought, she cried—
‘Something new has happened? O Ambrose, what is it?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied; ‘that is, little or nothing. The Inquisition has begun, that is all.’
‘What do you mean?’
He gave a curious laugh.
‘The clodhoppers of Fensea have, in their small way, the instinct of Torquemada. The weasel is akin to the royal tiger. My Christian congregation wish to deliver me over to the moral stake and faggot; as a preliminary they have written to my Bishop.’
‘Of what do they complain now?’
‘That I am a heretic,’ he answered with the same cold laugh.’ Conceive the ridiculousness of the situation! There was some dignity about heresy in the old days, when it meant short shrift, a white shirt, and the auto-da-fé. But an inquisition composed of Summerhayes the grocer, Hayes the saddler, and Miss Rayleigh the schoolmistress; and, instead of Torquemada, the mild old Bishop of Darkdale and Dells!’
She laughed too, but somewhat anxiously. Then she said tenderly, with a certain worship—
‘You are too good for such a place. They do not understand you.’
His manner became serious in a moment.
‘I have flattered my pride with such a thought, but, after all, have they not right on their side? They at least have a definite belief; they at least are satisfied to worship in a ruin, and all they need is an automaton to lead their prayers. When they have stripped me bare, and driven me from the church——’
‘O Ambrose, will they do that?’
‘Certainly. It must come, sooner or later; perhaps the sooner the better. I am tired of my own hypocrisy—of frightening the poor fools with half-truths when the whole of the truth of unbelief is in my heart.’
‘But you do believe,’ she pleaded; ‘in God, and in our Saviour!’
‘Not in the letter, dearest. In the spirit, certainly!’
‘The spirit is everything. Can you not defend yourself?’
‘I shall not try. To attempt to do so would be another hypocrisy. I shall resign.’
‘And then? You will go away?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you will take me with you?’
He drew her gently to him; he kissed her on the forehead.
‘Why should you share my degradation?’ he said. ‘A minister who rejects or is rejected by his Church is a broken man, broken and despised. In these days martyrdom has no glory, no honour. You yourself would be the first to feel the ignominy of my situation, the wretchedness of a petty persecution. It would be better, perhaps, for us to part.’
But with a look of ineffable sweetness and devotion she crept closer to him, and laid her head upon his breast.
‘We shall not part,’ she said. ‘Where you go I shall follow, as Rachel followed her beloved. Your country shall be my country, dearest, and—your God my God!’
All the troubled voices of the night responded to that loving murmur. The moon rose up luminous into the open heaven above the abbey ruins, and flashed upon the two clinging frames, in answer to the earth’s incantation.
CHAPTER II.—OLD LETTERS.
What’s an old letter but a rocket dark—
Once fired i’ the air and left without a spark
Of that which once, a fiery life within it,
Shot up to heaven, and faded in a minute?
But by the powdery smell and stick corroded,
You guess—how noisily it once exploded!
Cupid’s Postbag=.
I.
To the Right Reverend the Bishop of Darkdale and Dells.
Right Reverend Sir—We, the undersigned, churchwardens and parishioners of the Church of St. Mary Flagellant, in the parish of Fensea and diocese of Dells, feel it our duty to call your lordship’s attention to the conduct of the Rev. Ambrose Bradley, vicar of Fensea aforesaid. It is not without great hesitation that we have come to the conclusion that some sort of an inquiry is necessary. For many months past the parish pulpit has been scandalised by opinions which, coming from the pulpit of a Christian church, have caused the greatest astonishment and horror; but the affair reached its culmination last Ascension Day, when the Vicar actually expressed his scepticism as to many of the Christian miracles, and particularly as to the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh. It is also reported, we believe on good authority, that Mr. Bradley is the author of an obnoxious article in an infidel publication, calling in question such facts as the miraculous conversion of the Apostle Paul, treating other portions of the gospel narrative as merely ‘Symbolical,’ and classing the Bible as only one of many Holy Books with equal pretensions to Divine inspiration. Privately we believe the Vicar of Fensea upholds opinions even more extraordinary than these. It is for your lordship to decide, therefore, whether he is a fit person to fill the sacred office of a Christian minister, especially in these times, when Antichrist is busy at work and the seeds of unbelief find such ready acceptance, especially in the bosom of the young. Personally, we have no complaint against the Vicar, who is well liked by many of his congregation, and is very zealous in works of charity and almsgiving. But the pride of carnal knowledge and the vanity of secular approbation have turned him from that narrow path