The New Abelard. Robert Williams Buchanan
himself—just as he had smiled in the presence of the Bishop.
The express reached London in about six hours, so that it was evening when Bradley arrived at King’s Cross, carrying with him only a small hand-bag. Instead of hailing a cab, he walked right on along the streets—through Taviton Street to Russell Square, thence into Holborn, and thence, across Lincoln’s Inn Fields, into the Strand. He then turned off towards the Temple, which he entered with the air of one who knew its quiet recesses well.
He was turning into Pump Court when he suddenly came face to face with a man of about thirty, elegantly dressed, with faultless gloves and boots, and carrying a light cane. He was very fresh and fair-complexioned, with sandy whiskers and moustaches; and to complete his rather dandified appearance he sported an eyeglass.
‘Cholmondeley!’ cried the clergyman, pronouncing it ‘Chumley’ according to the approven mode.
‘Ambrose Bradley!’ returned the other. ‘Is it possible? Why, I thought you were hundreds of miles away.’
‘I came up here by the express, and was just coming to see you.’
‘Then come along with me and dine at the “Reform.” ’
They looked a strange contrast as they walked on side by side—the powerful, gravelooking man, shabbily attired in his semiclerical dress, and the elegant exquisite attired in the height of London fashion, with his mild blue eye and his eyeglass in position. Yet John Cholmondeley was something more than the mere ornamental young person he appeared; and as for his mildness, who that had read his savage articles on foreign politics in the ‘Bi-monthly Review’ would have taken him for a harmless person? He was a Positivist of Positivists, an M.A. of Oxford, and the acting-editor of the ‘Charing Cross Chronicle.’
His literary style was hysterical and almost feminine in its ferocity. Personally he was an elegant young man, with a taste for good wines and good cigars, and a tendency in external matters to follow the prevailing fashion.
They drove to the ‘Reform’ in a hansom, and dined together. At the table adjoining theirs on one side two Cabinet Ministers were seated in company with Jack Bustle, of the ‘Chimes,’ and Sir Topaz Cromwell, the young general just returned from South Africa; at the table on the other side an Under-Secretary of State was giving a little feast to Joseph Moody, the miners’ agent and delegate, who had been a miner himself, and who was just then making some stir in political circles by his propaganda.
After dinner they adjourned to the smoking-room, which they found almost empty; and then, in a few eager sentences, Bradley explained his position and solicited his friend’s advice. For that advice was well worth having, Cholmondeley being not only a clever thinker but a shrewd man of the world.
CHAPTER IV.—WORLDLY COUNSEL.
A pebble, not a pearl!—worn smooth and round
With lying in the currents of the world
Where they run swiftliest—polished if you please,
As such things may and must be, yet indeed
No shining agate and no precious stone;
Nay, pebble, merely pebble, one of many
Thrown in the busy shallows of the stream
To break its flow and make it garrulous.
The City Dame; or, a Match for Mammon.
I am not at all surprised at what you have told me,’ said Cholmondeley, sipping his coffee and smoking his cigar. ‘I knew that it must come sooner or later. Your position in the Church has always been an anomalous one, and, egad! if you have been going on as you tell me, I don’t wonder they want to get rid of you. Well, what do you intend to do?’
‘That is just the point I came to consult you upon,’ returned the clergyman.
‘I know what I should do in your place. I should stand to my colours, and give them a last broadside. The ‘Chronicle’ is open to you, you know. The old ship of the Church is no longer seaworthy, and if you helped to sink it you would be doing a service to humanity.’
‘God forbid!’ cried Bradley, fervently. ‘I would rather cut off my right hand than do anything to injure the Establishment. After all, it is the only refuge in times of doubt and fear.’
‘It strikes me you are rather inconsistent,’ said Cholmondeley with cool astonishment.
‘Not at all. It is precisely because I love the Church, because I believe in its spiritual mission, that I would wish to see it reorganised on a scientific and rational basis. When all is said and done, I am a Christian—that is, a believer in the Divine Idea of self-sacrifice and the enthusiasm of humanity. All that is beautiful and holy, all that may redeem man and lead him to an everlasting righteousness, is, in my opinion, summed up in the one word, Christianity.’
‘But, my dear Bradley, you have rejected the thing! Why not dispense with the name as well?’
‘I believe the name to be indispensable. I believe, moreover, that the world would waste away of its own carnality and atheism without a Christian priesthood. In the flesh or in the spirit Christ lives, to redeem the world.’
‘Since you believe so much,’ said Cholmondrley drily, ‘it is a pity you don’t believe a little more. For my own part, you know my opinion—which is, that Christ gets a great deal more credit for what is good in civilisation than He deserves. Science has done more in one hundred years to redeem the race than Christianity has done in eighteen hundred. Verb, sap.’
‘Science is one of his handmaids,’ returned Bradley, ‘and Art is another; that is why I would admit both of these into the service of the Temple. But bereft of his influence, separated from the Divine Idea, and oblivious of the Divine Character, both Science and Art go stumbling in the dark—and blaspheme. When Science gives the lie to any deathless human instinct—when, for example, she negatives the dream of personal immortality—she simply stultifies herself; for she knows nothing and can tell us nothing on that subject, whereas Christ, answering the impulse of the human heart, tells us all. When Art says that she labours for her own sake, and that the mere reproduction of beautiful earthly forms is soul-satisfying, she also is stultified; for there is no true art apart from the religious spirit. In one word, Science and Art, rightly read, are an integral part of the world’s religion, which is Christianity.’
‘I confess I don’t follow you,’ said the journalist, laughing; ‘but there, you were always a dreamer. Frankly, I think this bolstering up of an old creed with the truths of the new is a little dishonest. Christianity is based upon certain miraculous events, which have been proved to be untrue; man’s foolish belief in their truth has led to an unlimited amount of misery; and having disposed of your creed’s miraculous pretensions——’
‘Are you quite sure you have disposed of them?’ interrupted Bradley. ‘In any case, is not the personal and posthumous influence of Our Saviour, as seen in the world’s history, quite as miraculous as any of the events recorded of Him during His lifetime?’
‘On the contrary! But upon my life, Bradley, I don’t know where to have you! You seem to have taken a brief on both sides. Beware of indecision—it won’t do in religion. You are stumbling between two stools.’
‘Then I say with Mercutio, “a plague on both your houses!” ’ cried Bradley, laughing.
‘But don’t you see I want to reconcile them?’
‘You won’t do it. It’s too old a feud—a vendetta, in fact. Remember what Mercutio himself got by trying to be a peacemaker. The world can understand your Tybalts and your Parises—that is to say, your fire-eating Voltaires and your determined Tom Paines—but it distrusts the men who, like Matt Arnold et hoc genus omne, believe simply nothing,