1
10
32
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e9508dd3de6b20cd176514757c029a68.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=hdB0ZfnsJvpmRLgYNWxdqyd20Z73Py7Q8VoDr6XKyw47ttyDcxAJWsO%7EamUSKEl8zp2uDEayZB2b-a%7EZVc2Wm1%7EPvZUUn8LGIfuY9vWnAH4VEcTkZ9DWO-XeBwujagK3KdNOMDKRjEZSwlujixJCMR2bGKQsonvzeLHjMtJF7jDymiNWkGQNiI%7EpBRjXzu3EW-a-2pyTKMBERDZwmgP43hy81OnRDNxQVoyyKIyf9nPNMzBs8YcQdbl5evr8ODcyGFv%7E8v84Z8nyEBy0xQJOOcLZXv4agZKy8N%7EH2XVCDqbKWT2O-PLtvmrYt%7ElMlFERLmjpOSARcMdEsjRzSMMs3Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
dd276122b5ff3c9c9ccd0014760b67c8
PDF Text
Text
241
TUDY
OF
jVALT
J/VHIT/VlANj
THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
By the Hon. Roden Hoel.
PART I.
I had just been reading Whitman for the first time, when I took up a
weekly review, which always speaks, if not as one having, yet as one
assuming to have, authority; and there I found it stated that Walt
Whitman was an obscure impostor, and that his poetry was no better
than Miss Codger’s prose. I had thought otherwise; but upon a
diffident person this unhesitating deliverance from our weekly oracle
of critical revelation might well have a staggering effect. Kot very
long after, however, I read in the same literary arbiter, which so
thoroughly fills among us the functions of any possible Academy (what
could Mr. Arnold and Mr. Proude have been thinking about when they
sighed for one ?), that Charles Dickens was a rather inferior writer, a
sort of Bavius or Msevius of his day, at least if compared with Mr.
Tennyson. Upon this, I felt that the critic was speaking out of a
sphere so entirely away from and elevated above mine, that, until he
should have communicated his own superior nature to me, I must
remain totally incapable of profiting by his revelations. Kot without
many a qualm, therefore, I betook myself again to my own feeble lights,
having really for the nonce nothing better that I could look to.
To me, then, I will begin by owning at the outset, Walt Whitman
appears as one of the largest and most important figures of the time,
Of those who have publicly expressed a somewhat similar conviction,
may be mentioned Mr. Rossetti, Mr. Conway, Mr. Robert Buchanan,
and (I believe) Mr. Swinburne.
I think that what delights and arrests one most is the general im
pression he gives of nature, strength, health, individuality—his relish
of all life is so keen, intense, catholic—the grasp of his faith is so
nervous and tremendous—as he says, ‘ My feet are tenon’d and mortis’d
in granite.’ One of the notes of a man of genius is, that through life
he remains a child; and there is something eminently childlike in
Whitman. He is full of naif wonder and delight—each thing, every
�242
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
time lie looks upon it, flashes upon him with a sense of eternal freshness
and surprise ; nor is anything to him common or unclean ; but an aerial
glory, as of morning, utterly insensible to vulgar eyes, bathes and
suffuses all. He is tall, colossal, luxuriant, unpruned, like some
giant tree in a primeval forest, whose feet root profoundly in a virgin
soil. He springs out of that vast American continent full-charged
with all that is special and national in it, in a supercmincnt degrees
representative of all that is richest and most fresh in that American
life which, more fully than any other, embodies the present age’s own
individual life. He is very far from being hopeless and disdainful of
his time ; he does not, as many really great writers of his country have
done, prefer distant lands, enriched with long and eventful histories, for
his theme ; he takes his own country and his own time, however ignoble
they may seem to some fastidious tastes ; he is by no means himself
uninfluenced by the special errors and special weaknesses of these;
but he is withal magnificently pregnant with all a seer’s half-articulate
previsions, with all a prophet’s triumphant anticipations of that larger
and more generous human future which is surely about to issue out
of these travailing loins and from these most ominous birthpangs of
the present. He is American democracy incarnate ; and however much
that leaves to be desired, yet it is great. As Mr. Buchanan has already
remarked, he is more prophet than artist. He very seldom retires to
create deliberate imaginative wholes, in whose many diverse forms may
be deposited the truths he sees and must utter, the mastering emotions
which dominate his soul. You never cease to see this man Walt
Whitman. But then it is a very noble, and I contend a very poetic,
personality you see—one in which, as in a magic crystal, all these men
and women of the wrorld, all the sights of city and of landscape, find
themselves mirrored with most astonishing distinctness. He is too
eager, too excited, to linger and to weave artistic poems out of his
materials ; yet in the flash of the dark-lantern he turns upon them for
a moment as he passes, though they too often appear isolated and
disjunct, they dart out upon you with all the marvellous solidity and
reality which their images have in nature. It is certainly a poet’s
glance which has been poured upon them—piercing, remaking them;
not the glance of an analyst, a practical man, or one apathetic and
indifferent. It is always one of intense enjoyment, from complete vision
of the essence and heart of a thing. And this atmosphere of keen
buoyant personal sympathy and pleasure is more marked in Whitman
than in anyone else, and is wonderfully bracing and refreshing to
breathe. All the stale heaps of common, familiar things seem to leap
up into their proper vitality as he passes : they glow like dingy metal
filings in some electric light. And if he were otherwise, more of an
ordinary artist, we should lose this refreshing novel sense of intense
yet catholic and impersonal personality which is so eminently charac
teristic of Walt Whitman. He seems to revel in his own life, and
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
243
equally in that of every man, woman, and child he meets or can
imagine. And now that so many people say and sing that they are
weary and tired and despairing, that the world is worn out, and that
yon must go back to the classics or mediaeval themes for any objects
of warm poetic interest, that life now is ‘ a suck and a sell, and its end
a bit of threadbare crape,’ this spectacle of a poet and a man like a
very child rejoicing in all the teeming forces and energies of this vulgar
world of ours—this surely is something at least novel and ‘ sensational.’
True it is,- however, that Whitman comes of the people; his past
life has been active, adventurous, healthy, varied, and broadly human
in experience. Tic dare nob set himself above them, above the meanest
of them, and look down from a height serenely benevolent upon them ;
he claims to be one with them; and what he sees more vividly than
they, glories in more supremely, is—that he is, not an elect, a very
intellectual or refined man, but a man, and has men and women
for brothers and sisters. This honest and unfeigned use of great
ness in rendering service rather than in exacting it—in pouring self
out for the enrichment of mankind rather than jn cunningly playing
upon the weaknesses of mankind for one’s own glory—this is after the
ancient type of heroism, after Christ, ‘ friend of publicans and sinners,’
the Divinest Son of Man, who ‘ drew all men to Himself; ’ and one can
well understand the personal fascination and influence which we are
informed Whitman is exercising upon so many of the youth of
America. The life familiar to him is the picturesque, free, unconven
tional life of the people—not the pale monotonous artificial life of literary
student, aristocrat, or plutocrat. He enters profoundly into all their
difficulties, enjoyments, sorrows, and eager aspirations. Then, too, he
has been in the great civil war, and been keenly penetrated with
the noblest (as well as the less noble, but still powerfully human) of
its principles and ideas. And in that war he was present personally
in the sublimes! and most heroic of capacities—he ministered constantly
to the wounded on both sides, on the field and in the hospital. Such
a man, therefore, has had exceptional advantages as man—and the
raw material being heroic, such is the result. We who stay at home in
the old country, with old traditions and prejudices rank in our blood,
nurtured under the grand yet somewhat chilling shadow of ‘ timehonoured institutions ’—we cannot pretend to call ourselves men of
the age as that man can call himself man of the age. But of book
learning, of refined inherited culture-inculcated accents, words, and
ways, this man has probably little—so far, he has not, perhaps, had all
advantages, though, whether they would not have cramped and injured
him, is to me very questionable.
There are those, I know, who affirm that a poet can never (except
quite indirectly) be a teacher or a prophet. This is again a critical
dictum so removed from me that I do not pretend to understand it. I
should have thought it depended on how he taught and prophesied—
�244
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
whether in doing so his whole nature was a-fire or not, his imagination
and his heart all a-glow about the chariot way of his reason ; for other
wise Isaiah and Jeremiah, Lucretius and Shelley, would be no poets,
which on the whole I rather take leave to doubt. But it resolves itself
of course into a dispute about words.
If, again, a poet must necessarily mean a metrist after our established
English models, certainly Whitman is none. His expression indeed
must be admitted to be often slovenly, inadequate, clumsy, and harsh ;
sometimes even stilted, bombastic, and inflated. But it is very far
from uniformly or generally this. I read indeed in the same review of
which I have before so reverently spoken, how it was now an axiom
unquestioned by any judicious person that subject-matter in poetry was
nothing, and style, expression, was everything. I felt terribly discon
certed at always having to believe exactly the opposite of all that is so
categorically and without argument laid down by this our supreme
authority in matters critical; hut really that did seem startling to the
uninitiated mind. Whether a poet has anything to say, to bring out,
to express, is of no consequence whatsoever. Whether it be nothing or
something, whether it be nonsense or wisdom, whether it be empty
wind or inspired revelations, gibberings of an idiot, pulings of a senti
mentalist, or utterances of sublime imagination and divine passion—all
this is of absolutely no account; if only there be sibilants and labials
and rotundities of sound in the slipping of any or of either of these
things off the tongue, he who gives vent to them is a poet, in either
case equally a poet; but if there be not quite enough of these sounds,
whatever else there be, by no means and on no account a poet. Well,
then, must not musical glasses be a poet ? And since it would certainly
be possible to weave intricacies of sound more exquisite and more varied
by discarding altogether that old-fashioned hampering obligation of
conceiving, imagining, and feeling with strength sustained enough to
keep coherence, harmony, and distinctness among the ideal links we
weave, would it not on these principles be well to lay down ex cathedra
the grand, if novel axiom, that true poetry can only and shall only
consist of nonsense verses ? On the contrary, I venture to believe that
expression implies meanings to be expressed, and that the most perfect
expression is that which most transparently and impressively fits and
shows off the meaning.
The charm of ‘ Don Juan ’ is surely in that wonderful adaptation of
the metre to all clear, luscious beauty of the pictures, all free, in
commoded movements of the story, all sparkling turns of the satire,
the humour, and the wit; there is here no deliberate concoction of
‘ blessed words like Mesopotamia,’ no triumphant exultation in the
invention of novel tricks for saying ordinary things that must be said
in a roundabout, coxcombical, and unintelligible manner, which now
(as in the days of Euphues and Darwin) appears to be considered the
one essential of great poetry. Wordsworth hoped vainly that he had
�THS POET 0> MODERN DEMOCRACY.
245
refuted that. I refuse to call him a great master of expression with
whom words, whether in prose or verse, are not before all a medium of
meaning ; if they are employed with all manner of tricks and artifice,
primarily for their own sakes, and the meaning has very much to take
its chance of sanity and wholeness among them (the effect being that
of a kaleidoscope, where bright broken fragments of ideas keep shifting
their combinations in an endless and bewildering fashion), whatever the
music of the sound be, it is not good expression, but the very worst.
Poetry in this case usurps the place of music, for words can never bo
mere sound, but always must remain symbolic sound with a determined
meaning. Just so precisely the latest fashion in music usurps the place
of language and stultifies the very idea and specific difference of music,
which implies sound for its own sake, spiritual suggestion only indirect
and indefinite : a similar remark applies to the last fashion in painting.
Shelley himself, for example, wonderful poet as he is, was often carried
into totally inadequate expression by his exquisite ear for melodious
sound. His melody and harmony are glorious when they rise spon
taneously into heaven, immediately responsive to the soaring and ex
panding impulse within, wholly obedient to the burst of impetuous ima
gination., to the divine stress and swell of immense human sympathies.
But of a poet—a maker, a seer, a singer—must first of all be demanded
if he can make and feel and see ; then afterwards, if he can sing. Yet
the chances are that if he answer ‘ yes ’ to the first question, you are
almost safe in leaving the other unasked. It is the very meaning and
essence of poetry that a man who can make in the region of the ideal,
who can feel and imagine (unless he be by nature impelled to some
other than verbal form of plastic expression), will necessarily be driven
to
form of rhythmical utterance. I do not depreciate the most
gifted in the region of melodious metrical expression. I glorify them.
If they have other things yet more essential, they are by far the most
perfect of our poets ; only Byron and Wordsworth, whose melody was
less perfect than that of Shelley or Coleridge, cannot on that account be
placed below the latter as poets; for they have abundantly filled for us
vast spaces in the area of poetry which could not have been filled without
them. They have ideal treasures not to be found in their contemporaries.
What were the early rhapsodists, the story-tellers, ballad-intoners,
bards, of an infant people ? It is generally conceded that poetry
among these is of the purest and freshest. Yet what do they know of
our elaborate involutions of phrase-mongering ? Therefore, especially
do I welcome Whitman. In spite of all his faults, he brings us back
to the matrix, to common sense and common nature, and makes us feel
what poetry originally, what at the root of the matter poetry even now,
really means and ought to mean. He is not himself indeed always an
artist a poet; but he is often a very great poet; and when he is,
he shows himself to be one, because he must be, not because he would
like to be, and can mimic those who are. He chants, declaims; when
�245
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
his soul and subject hid him, he sings, quite in his own fashion, as the
poets of a primitive people do.
After all, it is rarely that you find all poetic gifts perfectly balancing
one another in any poet whatever. Nor can I concede for a moment
that deficiency in the region of large vivid insight, affluent imagination,
broad human sympathy, or rush and fire of passion, can be more
perfectly atoned for by verbal daintiness and skill, or by a fine ear for
verbal music, than some defect in these last gifts can be by possession
on the part of a poet of those ideal gifts in ampler measure. Indeed, I
distinctly believe that the contrary rather is true. There is more hope
that a poet may be cured of hesitating utterance than that a mere
voluble versifier may sober and strengthen into a poet.
We did want some infusion of robuster and healthier blood among
the pallid civilised brotherhood of our poets. If admirers arise who
strive to imitate Whitman’s gait and form, they will probably make
themselves ridiculous, puff themselves out and collapse ; yet will he
certainly give our jaded literature the prick and fillip that it needed.
He at any rate is no closet-warbler, trilling delicately after the music
of other singers, having merely a few thin thoughts and emotions only
a quarter his own and a clever aptitude for catching the tricks of
another man’s manner.
He bears, however, a marvellous resemblance (I often think) to
Oriental prophets. He is in manner of life, as well as manner of
thought, feeling, temperament, marvellously like a reincarnation over
there in the West of that special principle of personality which has
been so much more frequently manifested in the East—in Derwishes,
for instance, and Sufis. He has so thoroughly assimilated Bible
poetry on account of his profound personal identity with the writers
of it. Yet is he very un-Hebrew after all. He is more Egyptian,
Persian, Indian. Pantheist is he to the back bone; a nature worshipper,
seeing God everywhere—God in all, even the meanest thing ; bowing
before good and evil as integral and correlative elements in the universal
scheme of things, all going (as Hegel demonstrates) by the principle
of identity in contraries. He is a desperate and shameless assertor of
the sacredness of the flesh, the body, beauty of form and colour, and
the fleshly instincts. This he is (let us freely admit and regret)
wantonly, inartistically coarse in asserting; unutterably shocking
of course to those who are unutterably shocked with nature for
making us of flesh at all, and who hold that the only way to remedy
her immodest mistake is to hush the fact up altogether.
The passages most capable of giving deep and permanent delight to
lovers of poetry in all ages are certainly those in which a profound
soul-moving spiritual signification rises without let or hindrance into
that perfect rhythmic cadence which is propel’ to it. Here doubtless a
careful training of the organ of expression has its place, as well as a
fine original instinct for expression, and a genius for grandeur and
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
247
melody of sound. In proportion to the completeness, magic sug
gestiveness, and special beauty of sound concordant with idea and
feeling, will be the penetration and lingeringly-inherent power of the
poem. But the condition implied is that the sound be verily an echo,
a reduplication of the sense. In that wonderful music of Coleridge’s
1 Ode to France ’ there is all the still floating of cloud, the long
roll of wave, the solemn music of wind and swinging pine by
night. In ‘Lewti,’ the delicious, how the mellow ripple of verse in
its own ‘meandering mazes’ reflects and multiplies for ever that
gleam of river-swans and the river 1 A marvellous and mysterious
fellowship among sights and sounds makes such a marrying of them
attainable. Not only is the word thunder next of kin to the very roll
of sound in heaven, but very twins also are blitz and the flash that
blinds. The name gleaming gently soothes the ear, even as soft tender
light does the eye. And when the whole subject has a pervading tone,
a characteristic movement, be it rapid tumultuous rush, solemn im
perial march, pathetic pause, or tripping buoyancy of the dance, then
must the true poet’s measure breathe antiphonal response in the
music. Take Shelley’s marvellously lovely prophetic chorus in
‘ Hellas,’ or the splendid music of his eagle-chorus in the same ; out of
Byron take the stern, sad warrior-lilt of his ‘ Isles of Greece ;’ out of
Burns the abrupt exulting tramp, the clarion and the battle-shout of
‘ Scots, wha hae.’
But in no case can I find that any great poets made poetry to con
sist in mere ingenious allurements for the ear, busied themselves first
of all about this, and let the spiritual fire fall into the midst of their
word-altar if it would, or if it could. Alas ! how often it will not, though
the priests of Ashtaroth cry aloud, and leap, and cut themselves with
knives! '
Coleridge’s 1 Kubla Khan,’ exquisite for music, even in spite of the
line which brings in that ‘ blessed word ’ Mount Abora, is far too shadowy
a vision from opium-land to be permanently remembered, as 1 Christabel ’
or the 1 Mariner ’ may be. To my mind, that sweetest little bit, called
the ‘ Knight’s Grave,’ is, for atmosphere of tender sentiment, undefined
yet far-reaching and profound, suffusing picture, thought, and melody
alike (surely the melody is magical to a degree), worth many ‘Kubla
Khans ’ and similar pieces, arresting only or almost only from the music
of the syllables.
So much I thought it well to premise, because in a day which
has seen really beautiful artificial melodies in poetry brought to a
pitch of rare perfection, the rough untutored guise of Walt Whit
man’s muse is likely to prove the most serious obstacle of all to
toy cardinal justice being done to his high poetic genius.
Yet in Whitman we shall often recognise that nobler kind of music
which is bound up with a poet’s language as a more thorough and
effectual expression of thought, image, and feeling.
�248
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
Turn, first, to his beautiful lament for the death of Lincoln, 1 When
lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed ’ :
Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the dimness,
To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still.
And the singer so shy to the rest received me,
The gray-browll bird I know received us comrades three,
And he sang what seemed the song of Death, and a verse for him I love
Come, lovely and soothing Death !
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day in the night, to all to each,
Sooner or later, delicate Death!
Praised be the fathomless universe
Por life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love. But praise ' 0 praise and praise
Por the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death !
Yet each I keep and all,
The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird,
And the tallying chant, the echo aroused in my soul,
With the lustrous and drooping star, with the countenance full of woo,
With the lilac tall, and its blossoms of mastering odour.
For the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands . . .
And this for his dear sake.
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.
Note here, too, the creation of a simple beautiful whole—a few
ordinary sights, scents, and sounds, flowing quietly as by accident
into his soul, and there taking a solemn tinge from the sublime
atmosphere of a manly grief ready to kindle into the gladness of a
triumphant faith—but nothing forced, nothing strained, nothing made
up; these messengers from without just taking on an aspect of
hallowed sympathy with the tone and temper of the soul they visit.
I note this particularly as one instance out of many in Whitman,
because what is most noticeable on the surface of him is a certain
fragmentariness, a certain tendency to rush rapidly through a whole
world of isolated details with an intensity of exhilaration, indeed,
which is itself poetic, but which yet fails of creating high art, because
there is no obvious wholeness, no sufficiently pervading idea or
purpose to impart unity. It is not with him a question of painting a
particular scene or even object with extraordinary lovingness and
minuteness of touch, the whole being poetical because every touch
helps to create, or indeed more strictly develop, a spiritual ideal of
scene or thing by flashing upon the bare matter, as it appears to the
cold unloving sense, a thousand tints and tones from kindred things
�The
poet
Of
modern democracy.
249
With which it has latent fellowship and sympathy. With Whitman
rather, in snch passages as offend many readers, it is a kind of rapid
excited stride through brilliant but heterogeneous stalls of a great
exhibition or bazaar, cataloguing objects with bare names as he goes.
And this is the notion he gives you always and everywhere. How
ever barren, or even stammering and inadequate his naming and
picturing, still he contrives to flash upon all a wonderful light of
freshness, and glory, and triumph in the bare existence of all things, as
he shoulders along, the great sane man, enjoying, praising, filled to
the very brim, in an age of nervous hesitation, and question, and
lamentation, with a faith as tremendous and unquenchable in the
ultimate excellence and right of things as ever burned in prophet or
saint of old. A faith not received by inheritance as an heirloom, and
conventionally valued as a property, a propriety, a matter of course—■
but a faith grown out of the very roots and breadths of his own per
sonality, and that the personality of a man who, with all reverence for
the past, yet lives in, and assimilates the fresh results yielded by the
present, sharing, according to the fuller measure of genius and un
wonted human sympathy, the hopes and aspirations of his fellows for
the future. His bright and large views of life may indeed be fairly
attributed in some measure to his splendid health and physique, as Mr.
Rosset ti remarks. And I think this rapid, often unsatisfactory, nakedly
prosaic cataloguing of innumerable isolated details, may be attributed
largely also to the poet’s exhilaration in the open air; he can hardly
stop to meditate and get the precise character of the object opened out
to him, he enjoys it so, and then so many other things everywhere
press themselves on him to be noticed and enjoyed. In this respect,
Ms fellowship with ordinary out-door, healthy men, his habit of loafing
»bout and basking, does a serious injury to his artistic expression.
For it should be well understood that accuracy of detail may be either
naked, cold, and mechanical, or intensely poetic because thoroughly
spiritualised. It is unjust to apply the phrase ‘ photographic ’ to this
Zasi kind of work. Coleridge and Keats always saw nature thus;
Wordsworth’s harder nature not perhaps always, though usually: and
what I mean by the poetic vision is a more real and intense, by no
means a less true, sight.
But generally Whitman’s description appears to me thoroughly
masterful. His epithets are few, yet precise and characteristic of the
broad general image which a thing, a scene, casts upon a quick,
passing, but piercing and sympathetic, observer. Thus :
In lower latitudes, in warmer air in the Carolinas, the large black buzzard floating
slowly, high beyond the tree-tops ;
°
below the red cedar festooned with tylandia j the pines ajid cypresses
Growing out of the white sand, that spreads far and flat ;
Ihe waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the
wind.’
VOL. II.—NO. VIII.
N
�250
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
But if Whitman be sometimes remarkable for incisive luminous
distinctness of vision and keenness of all sensation, at other times he
is no less remarkable for a certain magical, mysterious, half-Oriental,
half-German mood that anon possesses him, vague and dim, tender,
mournful, mystical.
‘ The Song of the Broad-axe ’ and ‘ Drum-taps ’ are poems that
are almost all wholes—exquisite pictures drawn writh a few broad
telling touches, and exhaling the profoundest pathos, yet seldom
morbid—a wind, as of bracing faith, blowing through all the sorrow
and the horror; a bracing atmosphere of personal unselfish heroic
endeavours, and most sterling human sympathy pervades them.
On the ‘ Drum-taps ’ Whitman might be content to rest his fame
with future generations. There is little philosophy or mysticism ;
there are few of those peculiarities in form or boldnesses of speech
which shock people most—the art is certainly more perfect. There
is here a definite theme through all the poems—the subject is large,
grand, full of energy and strife, one for which Whitman’s genius as
well as personal experience eminently fits him. Have there ever
been such a series of war poems written ? I do not know of any.
Here, however, not only the tender, loving, pathetic, as well as real
istic and idyllic power of Whitman appears, but also his own ardent
personal convictions, tastes, and aspirations, so that ever and anon
he breaks into passages of tremendous lyric fire. And, except in that
other great poetic figure of the day, Victor Hugo, I hardly know
where we shall look in Europe for the like ; for our verse does not excel
row-a-days in verve, and fire, and rapid rush.1 In that line is not the
following magnificent ?—
Beat! beat! drums. Blow ! bugles ! blow !
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid, mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead, where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump, 0 terrible drums ; so loud you bugles blow!
And in ‘ The Uprising,’ you can hear the surge, and whirl, and
shriek of the wind; the tremendous upheaval and welter of the
sea; the deep gathering overwhelming roar of a roused and mad
dening multitude. Then ‘ The Song of the Banner ’ is all alive with
spirit of battle. In the few lines 1 The Flag ’ there is a wild fierce
delight, electrically communicated, from the mere upheaval of a people
en masse to fight, it scarcely matters why or for what.
‘What we believe in invites no man, promises nothing, sits in
1 I wish to state that this essay was written more than a year and a half ago, and
has been lying by. I have since seen Mr. Swinburne’s ‘ Songs before Sunrise,’ many
of which are all alive with resonant lyric fervour inspired by great human emotions.
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
251
Calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discourage
ment, waiting patiently, waiting its time ! ’ That to me is grand ;
he cannot define, will not pretend to explain precisely, the in
evitable and Divine issue of all our strife, and hallowed endeavour
and success, and failure—but It is there, in the Future, in the For
ever ; patient, silent, grand, adorable, inevitably To be.
The short, "so perfect, pathetic pictures I spoke of in ‘ Drum-taps ’
are well worthy of study. ‘ A Letter from Camp,’ is the simple relation
of an affecting incident, without over-elaborate phrase, or prim
precision of ornament, after the manner of idyls which become a
little wearisome, but has the rare merit, for all its plain speech, of
dropping directly into our hearts and remaining there.
‘Vigil on the Field’ is exquisite for tenderness, sadness, and
large clear delineation of incident and scene. There is a rare fresh
ness of personal feeling about that: the charm of it seems to me un
utterable. He watches by a dying comrade whom he loved—a boy
-—on the field of battle, returns to find him dead, buries him in a
blanket in a rude dug grave there. ‘ The Wounded ’ is another graphic
picture. ‘ 0 tan-faced prairie-boy ’ and ‘ A Grave ’ are exquisite little
sketches. ‘ Camps of Green,’ too, is beautiful—the camps of the dead.
So is the ‘ Dirge for Two Veterans ’ and the ‘ Hymn of Dead Soldiers : ’
Sweet, are the blooming cheeks of the living, sweet ere the musical voices sounding;
But sweet, ah ! sweet are the dead, with their silent eyes.
And what shall we say of this, called ‘ Reconciliation ’ ?—
Word over all, beautiful as the sky,
Beautiful that war ancl all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost,
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever
again this soiled world ;
For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead.
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin ; I draw near,
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
Or of this ?—He walks out in the dim gray daybreak, and sees three
forms on stretchers, covered with’ gray heavy blankets. ‘ Curious I
halt, and silent stand ’—then he lifts one blanket:
Who are you, elderly man, so gaunt and grim, with well-grayed hair, and flesh all
sunken about the eyes? Who are you, my dear comrade ?
Then to the second I step—and who are you, my child and darling ? Who are you,
sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming ?
Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white
ivory,
Young man, I think I know you. I think this face of yours is the face of the Christ
himself;
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.
I
We would now, before passing to consider shortly the general
character of Whitman’s philosophy and teaching, draw closer attentio n
N2
�252
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
to the nature of his music. We take another instance from the poem,
1 When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed ’:
0 how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved ?
And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone ?
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love ?
Seawinds blown from east and west,
Blown from the eastern sea, and blown from the western sea, till tlierff on the prail'iea
meeting:
These, and with these and the breath of my chant,
I perfume the grave of him I love.
0 what shall I hang on the chamber Walls ?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love ?
But of all our author’s poems, surely the loveliest is ‘ A Song
out of the Sea.’ I only wish I could quote it whole, but it is too
long. I hesitate not to say that to me there is no lyric in the language
like it—out of Shelley.
There is a wonderful natural music running through this and
similar poems of Whitman’s : an outbreathing as in primitive times,
and among a primitive people, that can come from nowhere but from
the very depths of a poet’s, a singer’s soul. It is all his own—creation
of spirit, body, vesture. He is intensely original; has not been imbued
with the world’s rich inheritance of treasured poetry: works under no
strong (however flexible) traditions of art, speaks because he must, sings
because he must; yet, with all his rare personal mass and intensity, sings
only sometimes—would certainly sing more constantly did he condescend
to condense and concentrate more; in which some respect for established
forms would largely assist him. And yet in the links of poems where
there is confessedly no intensity of fire possible, if at least we require
that it shall be germane to the subjects, it is more than doubtful
whether the poetic barrenness should be scattered over with sham
flowers instead of real ones ; as the established forms, or at least the
standard poetry by which this English generation judges, appears to
require. So you get either fine sound with no meaning whatever, or
epithets ingeniously constructed in cold blood, which in either case
seriously interferes with the natural and lifelike development of the
poem. Pure honest prose, where prose is really proper, would be
infinitely better.
However all this be, here, in the ‘ Song of the Sea,’ and in similar
passages from Whitman, you do assuredly find, if you are sensitive
and competent, a certain artless harmony of sound that flows like a
spell upon jaded ears, somewhat sated with cloying artificial harmonies
from the study. One is reminded of some dreary nocturne, some
slumbrous mystic voluntary breathed in twilight within a vast
cathedral, or weird natural sounds we know not whence, wandering
phantasmal over lowland wildernesses by night.
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
253
It is like the very voice of the sea himself, entangled in strings of
the harper ; into the strain has passed the very plaint and murmur of
winds over barren sand and briny briar; rising alternately and fall
ing ; harsh, interrupted, disturbed ; caught up unaware smooth and
soothing; stealing upon us forlorn and melodious, from unfooted
wastes, and shadowy realms of some spirit land that is very far.
Just two personification-pictures, eminently rich in colour, firm
in outline, distinct and pregnant with symbol, yet small in compass
and condensed. One is from ‘ Old Ireland ’ :
Far hence amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient sorrowful mother,
Once a queen, now lean and tattered, seated on the ground ;
Her old white hair drooping dishevelled round her shoulders;
At her feet an unused royal harp,
Long silent—she too long silent—mourning her shrouded hope and heir :
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of love.
The other is from ‘A Broadway Pageant,’ written on occasion of
the reception of a Japanese embassy:
The Originatress comes,
The. land of Paradise—land of the Caucasus—the nest of birth,
The nest of languages, the bequeather of poems, the race of Eld,
Florid with blood, pensive, rapt with musings, hot with passion,
Sultry with perfume, with ample and flowing garments,
With sunburnt visage, with intense soul and glittering eyes,
The race of Brahma comes !
[To &e continued.']
’
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A study of Walt Whitman, the poet of modern democracy. Part 1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Noel, Roden
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 241-253 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2 (October 1871). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5323
Subject
The topic of the resource
Poetry
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A study of Walt Whitman, the poet of modern democracy. Part 1), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
American Poetry
Conway Tracts
Poetry in English
Walt Whitman
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/e38032e19525f648423b90f4b8cf8293.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=T70oTGFUFHCYquHB3SLODzA-Qx0IvQQW0Uytc4Bz4GHCvxTrjhKtkUvpga38uCVfWtjfh4vWnsSOkM%7EKJ33ltUqHTHXxxyS-emyqVA10Ci%7EeLBhDPmCYNbeIoFLrLAyZy4wMqhKoaVJpF2AokZXzjgee202l2kYB1pmbi7zhTUimX7ayx3IVCEUklsDloD8atoAUKE%7Ey%7EoMKaDEqC22BYPDze20Nu9jUEvUDhhF4DOvNqo0OTAg-jC32lqmVzjv0HwAomC4i%7EYeT%7EgvRLujwBaExzoVCfhIE35zG1KcbuOfxKoKiOs-j7UqjsRF%7E2Bp5W3zN4Qr12fLAZbB1UiuKNg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
bf6900b59646ada696054801dd170c7d
PDF Text
Text
336
HITMAN,
THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
By the Hon. Roden Noel.
PART II.
We will now consider briefly Walt Whitman’s position as prophet and
teacher.
From the very extraordinary and powerful poem called ‘ Walt
Whitman’ (not reprinted by Mr. Rossetti, but a part of which is
quoted by Mr. Buchanan, and is therefore accessible to the general
reader) we may get a fair notion of its general character. Mr.
Buchanan gives an excellent description of it : ‘ Whitman is here for
the time being, and for poetical purposes, the cosmical man, an entity,
a representation of the great forces. And here he expresses with
immense power the infinite culminating worth of personality—how all
natural influences have been and are ever working up to constitute
and develop a man, a woman, a person. It is the broad dignity of a
man, as a man, he preaches : very little the special privileges of dis
tinguished men, or favoured classes of men. This is the very spirit and
truth of democracy :
Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me ;
A far down I see the first huge nothing—I know I was even then ;
I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist,
And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon.
Immense have been the preparations for me,
Faithful and friendly the arms that have helped me ;
Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen ;
For room to me, stars kept aside in their own rings,
They sent influences to look after what was to hold me;
Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me ;
My embryo has never been torpid—nothing could overlay it;
�A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN.
337
For it the nebula cohered to an orb,
The long slow strata piled to rest it on,
Vast vegetable gave it sustenance,
Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care ;
All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me ;
Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.
In a poem of extraordinary vigour, though, one of those where he
puts down innumerable items—yet here for a great and distinct per
vading purpose—‘ Salut au Monde,’ after passing in rapid review, and
addressing with graphic characteristic epithet or two almost all con
ceivable inhabitants of the globe—great, refined, small, vulgar, bad,
good—he says :
Each of us inevitable,
Each of us limitless, each of us with his or her right upon the earth;
Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth,
Each of us here as divinely as any is here.
My spirit has passed in compassion and determination around the whole earth ;
I have looked for equals and lovers, and found them ready for me in all lands,
,
And, in ‘ Starting from Paumanok,’ he says :
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
I harbour for good or bad—I permit to speak at every hazard—
Nature now without check, with primal energy . . .
. . And sexual organs and acts ! do you concentrate in me.;
For I am determined to tell you with courageous clear voice, to prove you
illustrious ...
This last determination he carries out in a series of poems (not re
printed by Mr. Rossetti) called 1 Children of Adam.’ Again he re
solves :
I will sing the song of companionship,
I will write the evangel poem of comrades and love,
For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy,.
And who but I should be the poet of comrades ?
And this he does (as I think most nobly, and with real originality)
in a series called ‘ Calamus.’ Some of these, under a different heading,
Mr. Rossetti reproduces. Thus we have ‘ The Friend,’ ‘ Meeting Again,’
4 Parting Friends,’ ‘ Envy,’ 1 The City of Friends,’ ‘ The Love of Com
rades ’:
Come, I will make the continent indissoluble ;
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon!
I will make divine magnetic lands
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
VOL II.—NO. IX.
S
�338
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along
the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies ;
I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other’s necks,
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
‘ Fit Audience’ is another of these, and the charming £ Singing in Spring. ’
One is called ‘ Out of the Crowd’:
Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,
Whispering I love, you ; before, long I die !
I hare travelled a long way merely to look on you, to touch you,
For I could not die till I once looked on you,
For I feared I might afterward lose you.
Now we have met, we have looked, we are safe,
Return in peace to the ocean, my love ;
I too am part of the ocean, my love ;
Behold the great rondure—the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But it is, perhaps, too much to expect that this series of poems will
ever.be liked here. With us, men friends must like each other from a
very long distance, with many a formal grating between—may, indeed,
without gross impropriety, touch the tips of each other’s fingers ; any
warmer sentiment or demonstration of such—any love, for instance, into
which a sense of beauty and grace should enter, would be greeted among
us with a storm of most virtuous execration and horror. This, of course,
is a matter of idiosyncrasy—a question of national temperament : moral
axioms, indeed, are mostly founded on men’s temperaments; their
reasons (or no reasons) being invented as an after-thought. But those
who cannot quite go the whole length of the British Philistine in this
respect will admire Whitman’s ideal of manly friendship—warm, faith
ful, founded in mutual love as well as mutual esteem—and will believe
with him, that if there were more of it, States and peoples would be
nobler and stronger.
Atomism; solitary, self-supporting, self-seeking, competing, contend
ing isolation—each for himself—is our ideal; our ideal in private life,
our ideal in political economy. It is not the ideal of Christianity, as
understood by Christ and His disciples, and the early Church. But—
John P.
Robinson, he
Sez they didn’t know everything down in Judee.
And the most orthodox Christians now, though ready to roast any honest
person who says it, seem practically very much to agree with him.
One’s wife and children indeed, as part of one’s family, as belonging to
oneself; and sometimes even a poor relation, as coming within the
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
339
«nchanted circle—these may be regarded (in a married man’s case) as
one or two satellites revolving round that great centre of an English
man’s solar system—himself.
‘ To Working Men’ is a very characteristic poem. The great catholic,
all-yearning heart of the man who shrinks from no one, however de
ceived and degraded ; who longs to take each and all into his brother
man’s heart, solace and succour, and bring him nearer, not to his (the
lover’s) individual standard, but to his, the beloved man’s, own ideal
manhood—comes out finely here. Docs it not breathe the very spirit
-of Christ 1—
If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake ;
If you remember your foolish and outlawed deeds, do you think I
'Cannot remember my own foolish and outlawed deeds?
If you carouse at the table, I carouse at the opposite side of the table.
Then he continues to expound his central conviction of the supreme
■worth of manhood—personality :
We consider Bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine ;
I say that they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still;
It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life.
Heaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed
out of you.
... The sum of all known reverence I add up in,you, whoever you are,
■The President is there in the White House for you ; it is not you who are here for
him.
.All doctrines, all politics, and civilisations exsurge from you ;
If you were not breathing and walking here, where would they all be ?
The most renowned poems would be ashes, oration, and plays would be vacuums.
All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it;
All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.
If we look for some one to lament over his age, how base, how lethargic,
how vulgar and prosaic it is, and how no one can possibly get the mate
rials of poetry out of it; evidently we must not go to Walt Whitman.
■If we have not great poetry, he would probably ascribe it, not to the
fault of the age, but to that of the poets who despise and despair of it.
There are low and grovelling and unbeautiful tendencies enough, God
knows ; but we need men to see what is good and great in us, and to
-.urge us on to nobler and richer life—hardly to stand by and curse us
unhelpfully, as Shimci did David. And though it is quite true that
Whitman is not an artist primarily—he is too indifferent in shaping
beautiful works of ark out of his rich materials : he does not care for
.art at all for art’s sake—yet he does abundantly prove the spirit in
s 2
�340
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
-which a poet may look even at this present age, and lift it np into the
regions of art, if he only will, faith, Hope, need not be extinct amongns ; there is a Future; let us help to shape it. Whitman intimates that
he looks to a wider, fuller life for all men, for average men and average
women; when love shall prevail, and individualities shall be allowed
fuller play; when each shall be reverenced and respected for what he is>
his place in the harmonious community admitted ; a richer community,,
made up from many types of person; when the dignity of flesh and its
impulses shall be acknowledged, under due restraint from those princi
ples which are yet higher in our nature—as, for instance, the sympa
thetic principle; when men shall reverence one another foi* what they
are—-not on delusive artificial grounds that afford no true reason for
Teverence, but serve only to confuse our truer instincts of veneration, to
render us superstitious and idolatrous.
Robert Buchanan among Englishmen has produced some noble poetry
out of these same unpromising materials, though shabby gentility and’
dainty academics may shuddei- at it as vulgar. And since Pope pro
duced poems unsurpassable of their kind out of the analytic critical
tendencies of his time, more unpromising than any, who shall pro
nounce, a priori, that Clough and Arnold must fail because they try to*
draw music from the mingled forebodings, foreshadowings, hopes,,
despairs, and speculations of oui- own? Surely this wondrous myste
rious twilight over a world that has fissures opening into Hell and vistas
that invite to Heaven, surely this twilight may have music of its own
•—music that shall be no frigid imitation of one that is no more.
Nothing, of course, can be easier, than to say, certain subjects are
Tinpoetical, unfit for art. Railroads are, manufactures are, mysticism
of any kind and philosophy—anxious questionings, wonderings, tremulous
fears and hopes—these are. For they are not in Homer, or Pope, or
some one else. I say it depends entirely on how they are touched, in
what spirit they are taken up and treated, whether they are poetical or
not; that we must judge honestly by poetical results, not judge the
works given forth by preconceived theories, and utterly baseless,
idiosyncrasies ; not even by the ipse dixits of a fraternity of critics : all
that passes—good work remains, and another generation acknowledges
it to be good. There is a mZei way of looking at every present epoch ;
only the old poets and prophets had a way of their own. Men and
women still live and love, and toil and suffer. Explorers and pioneers
open up new continents, bring the people of to-day face to face with
wonderful races of the past, isolated yet alive, or mummied in their
tombs; vast human problems press for solution : science enlarges heikingdom, and opens out new worlds to the imagination: Nature is.,
eternal around us : and while we wait expectant, as yet uncertain by
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
341
what Word the eruptive forces we hear rumbling, as they gather anew
deep down in the very depths of our humanity, shall become articulate
in human language, we can turn to Her, ever undisturbed, ever young,
■ever calm, and read in her countenance inexhaustible meanings by the
glimmers of light shed ever freshly upon her out of restless, ever-compli•cating labyrinths of our own human spirits. Enough if there be among
us an undercurrent of sterling life—a thankfulness for victories acheived,
.a looking for victories to come, a keen relish for life as it is, or a strong
■desire to make it nobler.
Now look a moment at the poem ‘Whosoever.’ Perhaps none serves
to bring out Whitman’s central doctrine of all personal worth so
thoroughly as this :
None but would subordinate you—I only am he who will never consent to subordi
nate you ;
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, god, beyond what waits
intrinsically in yourself.
Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all;
From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-coloured light.
IBut I paint myriads of heads ; but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-coloured,
light.
_ . . The mockeries are not you.
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk ;
I pursue you where none else has pursued you.
.. . . The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these baulk others
they do not baulk me.
, . .. There is no virtue, no beauty, in man or woman, but as good is in you ;
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.
... I sing the songs of the glory of none—not God—sooner than I sing the songs
of the glory of you.
Whoever you are, claim your own at any hazard !
All this is very striking, and is a vigorous proclamation of a great truth,
of the greath truth which the time is beginning to see more and more
clearly. Yet in this, as in the preceding passages quoted to illustrate
Whitman’s teaching on this score, there is (as is wont to be the case in
the proclamations of most prophets), a certain one-sidedness, exaggera
tion, looseness of thought. When he says above that all doctrines, poli
tics, civilisation, sculpture, poems, histories, 1 exsurge from you] (the
;average man, any man), the truth underlying this is that all these come
-out of human nature—out of individuals, indeed, but out of individuals
who could not have existed, as they were without the help of all pre
vious human and other history, without the moulding of their age, and
■of the average men and women from whom they spring, and who take
.their part in educating these more distinguished spirits. These last are
the mouthpieces of their time, and help to mould the future man, even
the present average man. But his nature, too, has a root identity with.
�342
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
theirs, has germs and rudiments of the same faculties ; and the life of
all great works derives continuous vitality from kindred spirits which
comprehend them, and kindred creations are roused through the con
templation of them. Now Whitman thus proclaims that men are ‘of
one blood,’ are kindred amid all their differences ; so that a man, any
man, may claim fellowship with the best and mightiest of his race, may
therefore enfold within himself the principles of sublimest heroic and
intellectual manhood; is anyhow and at worst a person, a self, in a
higher sense than any other creatures are, and may claim from all hisfellows to be acknowledged and reverenced as such ! from his society,
and all functionaries of his society (however powerful and dignified) may
claim such possible facilities as shall enable him to make the best of
himself and his special capabilities. Though, indeed, one would have
fancied that something of this kind was precisely what our Lord Jesus
Christ had proclaimed with some force more than one thousand eight
hundred years ago. Only such truths take a good deal of proclaiming..
His followers did not quite like them, and thought it, on the whole, for'
the advantage of the brute mass (and of themselves), if they could make
out that He had in fact proclaimed precisely the opposite of such truths.
They need, therefore, reasserting, and in a modern fashion. But the big.
people and the good people will not like them any better. What a
chorus of pious horror, when some one said that Christ was the first
Socialist ! Yet for all that magna est veritas et y/rcevalelnt.
Notwithstanding, I do think, when we are making a study of thesedoctrines, we ought to point out where they seem to need considerable
guarding and qualification.
Men are not individual only, but members of a community, of a body
politic. And Whitman accordingly would supplement this bold uncom
promising assertion of individual dignity by the inculcation of love,
of the most ardent and self-sacrificing spirit of fraternity. ‘ Liberty,
equality, fraternity.’ Here again he is Christian enough. But is equality
a truth in the manner in which he asserts it 1 I believe not; and if not,
it must be so far mischievous to assort it. That common manhood is a
greater, more cardinal fact than any distinctions among men which raiseone above another I most firmly believe. Still these distinctions do*
exist, and so palpable a fact cannot be ignored without very serious in
jury. If great men could not have been without average men, and owemost to the grand aggregate soul of the ideal unit, humanity—which is-;
a pregnant truth—yet, on the other hand, this grand aggregate soul
could never have been what it is, could never have been enriched with
the treasures it now enjoys, without those most personal of all personali
ties—-prophets, heroes, men of genius. If these men need to be re
minded, as they do, of the rock whence they are hewn, there is yet a.
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
343
danger of average men mistaking such a message as that of modern de
mocracy through so powerful a spokesman as Whitman, and insisting
upon paring down the ideal superiority of their great ones too much to
the level of their own chaotic uniformity, rather than acknowledging and
venerating what is verily superior in these; taking them for leaders in
regions where they are appointed by nature to lead, and generally aim
ing to raise themselves so far as possible to the standard of a higher ex
cellence thus set before them.
In order to satisfy this law of inequality among men, I do not believe
that the mere proclamation of friendly love as between comrades (any
more than of sexual love and equal union between man and woman) is
at all sufficient. Veneration, reverence, also must be proclaimed, as
equally necessary; and the great point we ought to aim at, in helping to
solve the momentous question of the social future, seems in that respect
to be this—that mankind be taught, and gradually accustomed, to place
their reverence where reverence is indeed due, and not upon mere idols
of popular superstition. It is said (and, alas! with some truth) that if
you tear people from before one false shrine, they may only grovel before
a baser one. Bnt I say this should be the end kept steadily in view—to
stir up that which is noblest in ourselves, in order that we may be able
to venerate that which is most venerable in others, and may ourselves
be raised more near to their standard. That every man, whatever he
now, is to be supremely satisfied with himself as he is now, is of course
not in the least what Whitman means; but there is a danger of his
sometimes vague and unguarded language being so .understood by the
natural average man, who is already well disposed to be satisfied with
his lower habitual self, and make himself the measure of the standard
to which the Universe on the whole will do well to conform. This may
too readily result in the tyranny of a blind and prejudiced and ignorant
majority; by no means selecting men in any department of the State or
of private occupations for their special fitness to guide and manage in
such particular positions, and to introduce a higher ideal of life or of
work, but rather jealous, hostile, or indifferent to these, and basely sus
picious of their higher manly worth, their larger knowledge, and their
vaster power. We must worship something; and what we most tend to
worship is any larger and more successful incarnation of our meaner, less
noble selves. The average Briton, for instance, has a sort of complacent
air about him as if he was quite sure, not only that the.Deity is like an
average Briton, but even that the Deity ought to be very thankful for
being so. Utter individual freedom and self-assertion, unbalanced by
any counterbalancing principle of deference, humility, and reverence, has
far too much tendency to resolve itself into this, which just makes real
progress impossible, and might throw humanity far back awhile, even in
�344
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
the very midst of democracy and perfect political freedom. But what
Whitman does see so clearly is that, even when men have themselves
elected a ruler, or been concerned in the choice of a form of government,
there is a sort of glamour of the imagination which immediately invests
any actual depositary of power, and bows them in a kind of unreasonable
stupor before it. He therefore reminds them—you, the people, are the
source of such power, and government exists for you, not you for govern
ment. Obey it intelligently; modify it when reason requires.
Wealth, honour, and rank have the same way of casting a glamour
over the imagination, so that men do not concern themselves with en
quiring what the source of such wealth may be, or how far wealth and
rank may involve personal qualities which are indeed worthy of some
reverence. But these are accomplished facts on the surface, vague
powers; and we are apt to be enslaved by them, because we have not
been educated to enshrine a true God in the place of these usurpers—
usurpers, that is, if they assume the highest place, as they so gene
rally do.
It behoves, therefore, to look a little closer at such broad statements
as those we have quoted from Whitman. Architecture, sculpture,
religions, &c., are a great deal more than what the average man does to
them when he thinks about them. They were much more in the
creative genius of those who invented them, or at least gave the final
and complete form they took. And as to their being ashes and vacuums
now but for the average man, this is far more than anyone may presume
to say. There may be some persons who do comprehend them nearly
as they were—one or two even may cause them to take on now a pro
founder and more general significance than they wore of old, though
they are never again precisely the living foremost products of the
moving world-spirit which they were then. But, at any rate, their
significance must be quite infinite, and in proportion, moreover, to the
place that they then filled in the history of the world. The pulsations
that they caused may no longer be visible in the shape of circling
waves, but their effect can never cease. That is a law in physics, and
shall it be less a law in the higher spiritual sphere ? Assuredly not.
It is well to remind men that they may enter into all these things if
they will claim their privileges ; still it will be well to remember that
every man does not, will not, and this verily because he cannot, enter
into them. It is after all, and ever will be, the privilege of some.
Each has hisfunction, each is excellent, viewed from a higher standpoint;
even the cruel and the base are. But certainly we must not suppose
that we can all have the same place, and fill equally well the functions
. of everybody else. Such a principle can only lead to endless confusion
and mistake. Rather does the true principle of human dignity consist
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
345
in learning and acknowledging the worth and necessity of every func
tion, so that no one shall henceforth be ashamed of his post, however
humble, and that no one shall foolishly look down upon him for filling
it—look down on him only if he refuse to fill it, or fill it unworthily
and carelessly. Society must see to it, indeed, that each man at his post
be regarded as man, his other human claims not being disregarded. But
his position as worker in any capacity is to be esteemed honourable;
nor need everybody be in such a desperate hurry to become something
which he is not, and which all assuredly cannot be, to the detriment
and ill-being of those who do not succeed in this general scramble for
pelf and consideration, but remain, as they must, a vast majority of
condemned pariahs on the lower rungs of the social ladder. To wear a
black coat, and win the estimable privilege of making one’s workmen
fight as fiercely with oneself for bread as one fought with one’s own
master before !—-that is what political economy says we must all make
haste and do. In this light, this unguarded proclamation of the abso
lute equality of man appears to be somewhat confounding and dangerous.
An ideal social scheme would rather consist in every man claiming his
own, and acknowledging the special aptitudes of his neighbour. And as
to religions, poems, architecture, and civilisations, even supposing they
did not live in their infinite proportional effects, they have lived, they
have been, whether the average man knows to-day anything about them
or not.
But it is fair to admit that Whitman does now and then distinctly
acknowledge the claims of greatness to lead mankind, and insists on
the supreme worth of ideal manhood—strong mastering personality; and
these passages are to be set against the others. In the ‘Song of the
Broad Axe ’ he does this finely. And nothing can be nobler and more
complete than his description of an ideal great city or state. In it he
goes dead against the too prevalent worship of material resources and
material power. It is where the most virtuous, most loving, most
independent citizens are; where the fullest life of intellect, heart and
.soul is; where the happiness and good of each one stands sacred and
.■secure, so far as the community can secure it.
That each person to himself is a centre of the whole as no other
creature can be, that to that person the whole universe centres in
himself, and that all really has worked up to me, and for me, with my
marvellous consciousness, which creates not only a Me, but at the same
.moment creates over again in me the whole world so far as I know it—
this most strikingly our author asserts. Only there is peril of our not
.remembering that there are other selves, and some selves much greater
dhan ourselves, especially when we are assured that there is 1 no better,
no master, no god over us beyond what exists intrinsically in ourselves.’
�346
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN,
From a poem called ‘Greatnesses,’ however, we may set the following
against that :
Great is Justice !
Jiistice is not settled by legislators and laws—it is in the soul;
It cannot be varied by statutes, any more than love, pride, gravity;
It is immutable—it does not depend on majorities—majorities or
What not come at last before the same passionless and exact tribunal.
So that we see the truth to he, Whitman believes the ideal manhood
to be whole in each man, only waiting, hidden in some; and he calls meh
up to this, out of their basei- everyday selves. In this again, he does not
surely differ much from the teaching of the most illustrious Christian
teachers. This is precisely what William Law and Mr. Maurice pro
claim; only it is true their doctrine is otherwise put. Whitman says ’
that the ideal man is in every man. Christian teachers more platonically assert that every man rather is in the ideal Man. Readers
may think that makes not so very much difference. Still, there is a
radical difference in the way of looking at the question; for it makes
a great difference whether we are to look into ourselves, and ourselves only,
for spiritual elevation above our ordinary selves, or whether we are to
look out of ourselves to a possible source of higher self-hood, which yet
at present is by no means present in ourselves. But to understand
Whitman better when he says that he ‘sets no god over anyone,’ let us
look for a moment at the most metaphysical or quasi-theological piece he
has written, called ‘The Square Deific.’ If I rightly apprehend him,
though the piece is none of the plainest, he makes the Divine All to«
consist, as it were, of a square, a four-sided figure. The first mani
festation, which he calls ‘ God] appears to be in the character of natural
laws as they incessantly, inexorably manifest themselves in time, in all
phenomena. ‘Relentless I forgive no man; whosoever sins, dies. I will
have that man’s life. Have the seasons, gravitation, the appointed days;.
mercy? No more have I.’ Secondly comes 1 the Saviour] of whom
Christ is the most prominent embodiment. It is the spirit of love and
self-sacrifice and mercy, as it exists among men. Thirdly comes Satan,.
‘Aloof, dissatisfied, plotting revolt. Crafty, despised, a drudge, ignorantr
with sullen face and worn brow;’ in short, the principle of ignorance,
suffering, hatred, selfishness, baseness, as it appears among men. Finally
comes the Spirit, ‘including Life, God, Saviour, Satan, Essence of Forms,
Life of the Real Identities, Life of the Sun and Stars, the general soul.’
Well, here all appears to me to be what we call phenomenal, with
nothing positively transcendental in it. I mean that this simply enumerates as divine and constituting God—(1) The natural external laws of
nature (whether of spirit or matter), (2) Love as it is in men, (3) Hate,
and suffering, and ignorance, as they are in men, (4) The one essence.
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
347
inclusive of all these, founding and giving them existence. Now I think
with Whitman this latter principle is merely an abstraction; it is simply
all the others, with the special characteristics of each left out. I
doubt from the language if Whitman means here to assert a iranscmdented ground, cause, principle of cdl that is in time, itself away from time,
not to be prisoned in the forms of intelligence, but by the very structureof intelligence demanding to be believed in and worshipped; worshipped
as source of all life and power, as well as worshipped in phenomenal
effects, personalities, and things. It may be otherwise; but he seems
to me not distinctly to conceive and believe in such a divine principle;
simply to deify men and nature as we see them—now regarding them as
separate entities, now viewing them as partakers of one identical yet
divinely manifested life. That is true, but to me it is not all—only
half. And if he held the other half truth, why should he distinctly say
that he places no god over any of us ? Whereas the fact is, that the
development of any personality (as of any other thing that begins to be
and changes, while retaining a certain mysterious identity from moment
to moment) were absolutely inconceivable, without admitting a principle
of such successive existence entirely out of the sphere of antecedent or
present phenomena. For when anything begins to be seen for the first
time, it is evident that nothing whatsoever which was before (being by
the very conditions of the case different and other) can possibly be
accepted as its efficient, but only as its condition, or occasional cause.
Yet the common sense of mankind and the consciousness of every man
insist that there must be an efficient cause for all that begins. Invaria
ble succession and order of phenomena have nothing whatever to dowith this, though the common fallacy is to suppose that the antecedents
are in an efficient sense causative of the consequents. Since, however,
all phenomena in their actual order are necessary to any special effect,,
the special causes of all these must be co-operative with its special causeto produce it : but these causes are alike transcendental. While, on theother hand, if intelligence and will in a divine person were taken as the
cause of phenomena, they would explain nothing, and fulfil the condi
tions of the problem no better, because phenomena as they are in time,
are not identical with them, as they would be in the divine ideas ; for
else they would have existed before, whereas they now begin to exist;
but it is this very beginning to exist which demands explanation, demands
an adequate cause. It remains, therefore, only to admit that such ulti
mate cause cannot be prisoned in forms of understanding; yet since it is,
it is the very source and essence of our, as of every other, life and
power ; and before this principle of special life and power comes forth to
constitute ourselves (as it does every successive moment we exist, chang
ing and modifying us) our special life and personality are to be regarded,.
�•348
A STUDY OF WALT WHITMAN.
■as folded up in God ; yet this is to be viewed only as a flexible adaptation
to our varying intelligence.
One more word. Whitman, I think, not obscurely intimates more
than once that he believes in personal immortality, but I do not think
the doctrine plays any important part in his system. And what he says
of death seems to me often very fine, quite independently of any such
doctrine of immortality. His notion of what the future life of a person
is to be, liow that person can strictly be said to live again beyond
death, is evidently of the vaguest; and so vague is it that nearly
all he says on this subject can be adopted thankfully and admiringly
oven by those who do not see their way to holding a strictly personal
immortality.
Thus, in 1 Nearing Departure,’ he says :
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me. .
0 book and chant ! must all then amount to but this ?
And yet it is enough, 0 Soul ?
0 soul! we have positively' appeared—that is enough.
In 1 Wherefore,’ too, he says, yielding for awhile to sadness, doubt,
■despondency, about the poor results achieved through incessant
.apparently useless struggle :—
What good amid these, 0 me, 0 life ?
'Then he ansivers:
That you are here, that life exists and identity,
That the poicerful play goes on and you will contribute a verse.
Such, indeed, is that of which at least we are certain. The least may
know that the eternities centre in him. Now, he is—they could not
possibly be without him, even as he is—and they diverge from him
•again; a seed he is of all Divine futurity. Surely, if we cease personally
to exist after this—this is something to know ; and we may make our
lives a conscious contribution, after our measure, to the sacred cause of
humanity, we may live out of the bounds of our own little selves, and so
inherit the ages. But in truth no one can cease to be ; for the essence
of each is eternal in God.
Again, in a wonderful little bit, ‘ To one shortly to Die,’ he says :—■
The suu bursts through in unlooked-for directions ;
-Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence—you smile !
You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick ;
You do not see the medicines—you do not mind the weeping friends—I am with you,
I exclude others from you—there is nothing to be commiserated ;
I do not commiserate—I congratulate you.
Again, elsewhere, he says :
You are henceforth secure whatever comes and goes.
And why ?
Surely any one may say it.
�THE POET OF MODERN DEMOCRACY.
349
We are, we have been, what can change that? And, moreover, theefforts of us must continue, infinite, immense, in precise proportion to
what we are and have been. We cannot, even to-day, identify our
selves with the human creature that is popularly called ourselves in the
cradle. No self-consciousness now can unite the selves we are conscious
of with that life. Scarcely can we identify ourselves with the intelligent
children that we dimly remember ourselves to have been; we may com
pletely have shifted personality; and we may regard what others call
ourselves as more strange to us now than those persons of a bygone age,
who are dead indeed, but in whose souls and spirits we find to-day more
communion, more sympathy, than in any with whom, though living, wo
are in contact of mere proximity. There shall be a continuous con
sciousness not unlike ours; and other persons in the future may obscurely,,
yet rejoicingly, identify themselves with us.
In Mr. Lincoln’s Funeral Hymn, Whitman sings :
Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring,
For fresh as the morning—thus would I chant a song for you,
0 SANE AND SACRED DEATH.
I suppose what will shock the majority most is Whitman’s admitting
evil and misfortune as part of the necessary order, entering as integral
elements into the Square Deific. Wherein he follows the small shoe
maker, and great philosopher, Jacob Behmen. Yet, after all that has
been said about it, thus it is. It affords, as imperfection, the necessary
stepping-stone to spiritual and moral progress; it affords the opposition
necessary to call out goodness, and kindness, love, virtuous strife, and
victory. All goes in this universe by a play of contraries, or where
would be the life, the advance, the infinite and harmonious variety ?
Without Satan, where would be the Saviour ?
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A study of Walt Whitman, the poet of modern democracy. Part 2
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Noel, Roden
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 336-349 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2 (November, 1871). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5339
Subject
The topic of the resource
Poetry
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A study of Walt Whitman, the poet of modern democracy. Part 2), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
American Poetry
Conway Tracts
Poetry in English
Walt Whitman
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/b2c6fbdad63289e3e6a702cb1ba6dacc.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=JH6%7Eq%7EybQxUscZTjLyqWxEHeuceBZEtfS2NYahLWbJEXe%7EplIC30kmhLv45imkzL7F2Nvf-M1-N2Fk78y8nhKuI6HBgL6a4kd5Vsfz0ZheLi9jKr9BAG3Z2Z4yLGP4OUgdCaYzCGFxGNRvxZVw2g8oMsFPmrRLJIj7ZSBJpyvSAVuAYEc4HKy7SCBQCKC5LH8l1fL17ShKfIWPvWQRosrEHayknZNKXoPoqaosfQ2AYNc535O2Wh72JOCgidcbYf9tkjehPdaV3Lcd8yOtj4EYT9f2vjm-DXIrmCWpy1gJSEWbxIW-5qz7-VZQecJDe3hdG%7E-7Wxm-p-a-aWM0nuEg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
011b9fc9be42ce504b35852346bdbb31
PDF Text
Text
A WOMAN’S LETTER.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price, Threepence.
��A WOMAN’S LETTER.
-------- ♦---------
My Dear Friend,—You have expressed much sur
prise, and no little sorrow, at the opinions held by me
on the subject of Bible inspiration, opinions which,
however, are fast gaining ground amongst educated
women in the present day.
Will you allow me briefly to lay before you some of
the reasons which have induced me to form those
opinions, contrary as they are to the teaching and
training on such subjects, received in early youth.
Perhaps I may at least be able to convince you that
they are not the wild and impious theories that many
suppose them to be, but the natural result of honest,
unprejudiced, and impartial investigation.
There is an idea very prevalent, though seldom
plainly stated,—that it is unbecoming in a woman to
think for herself at all, except on such subjects as may
directly affect her household interests. Politics,
science, art, and, above all, religion, are held to be
matters beyond her sphere, and her ideas (if she have
any) on these subjects are to be received without
question from her nearest male relatives; or, failing
these, from the man who gains the greatest influence
over her. Where this view is not so clearly expressed,
it still appears under a more veiled form in the axioms
we daily hear, that “men may reason, women must
trust; ”—that “ faith is woman’s privilege,” and others
of a similar character. Now it is quite clear that to a
certain extent this is true. Without an education
�>4
4
A Woman’s Letter.
far superior to that she generally receives, a woman
cannot verify for herself the truth, of gravitation, nor
investigate the theories of light and sound. Neither
can she form an opinion on the currency, or on free
trade, without a political education such as she seldom
enjoys. ‘In such matters she must take her views
from those about her best qualified to judge, and re
frain from obtruding her second-hand ideas on those
who are able to form an independent judgment. It is
clear, however, that in this case, the faith or reliance
on others that she is obliged to exercise, is the result
of a defect in her mental training, and adds in no way
to her grace or virtue. She would be nobler, wiser,
and happier, were she able to come to a reasonable
conclusion, thinking out the subject for herself, rather
than taking the bare word of others who are themselves
liable to error. If this be true in science or art, it is
doubly so in religion. Here none can presume to
claim superior knowledge or more unerring judgment.
The Book which is received as the sole text-book of
religion, is open to all, and the most learned divines
agree that its teaching is so plain that “ a wayfaring
man, though a fool, shall not err therein.” You hold
the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible, but is such
a doctrine tenable if none but the wise and learned can
comprehend its pages ? Or of what use would he a
revelation from God to man if none but scholars were
entitled to search out its meaning ? You cannot really
mean that the command “Search the Scriptures” only
applies to University men in Holy Orders, and that
none but these, or persons of equal learning, have any
right to investigate the truth for themselves ! There
is a strange inconsistency in checking the spirit of
enquiry amongst educated women in England, whilst
encouraging it amongst ignorant savages abroad. Here
you urge the principle that safety lies in accepting
without question, or as it is called,—in simple faith,—
whatever has been taught us in infancy, there you
�A Womans Letter.
5
press on every 'hearer the duty of investigating the
nature of his idols, and of doubting the assertions and
pretensions of his priests. Nay, nearer liomej by what
right can you send missionaries to sow doubt in. the
hearts of your Roman Catholic brethren, if. you your
self hold that doubt, and the spirit of enquiry that
leads to doubt, is a deadly sin ? If “ simple faith ” in
her early teaching be the proper limit to woman’s
religious thought, then, to be consistent, we must leave
undisturbed the belief of a Hindoo widow in the
efficacy of Suttee, nor seek to interfere with the
religious training of Harem or Zenana. Still less can
we assume the right to arouse a spirit of enquiry in
those who have been taught from infancy to believe im. >
doctrines which, though more nearly resembling our ”
own, we still hold to be full of fatal error. The
Reformation would have been impossible had its
leaders never shaken off the yoke of “simple faith,”
and fairly measured their strength against their
teachers. Go further back, and Christianity itself
would never have arisen had its Founder or his
apostles shrunk from the responsibility of shaking off
the trammels of early religious training. Remember
that we are as responsible for our own belief, as for
our own conduct,—by these we shall be judged, and
neither the faith nor the life of others can excuse or
justify our own. It cannot surely be presumptuous to
exercise the reason God has given us, in the examina
tion of doctrines we have hitherto received with a
C*
faith which, if applied to the commonest worldly
A
transaction, would be called by some less attractive
name.
There is an objection sometimes made to the spirit of
religious enquiry amongst women, a purely sentimental
one, and almost unworthy of serious notice. Still it
influences many. I may call it the sesthetical objection.
There is an idea that religious doubt is unbecoming,
ungraceful, and contrary to all established poetic con
�6
A Womans Letter.
ceptions of female character, that were it to supplant
faith, both painters and poets would lose their favourite
themes, and that on the whole,—as a lady once ex
pressed herself to me,—“ men wouldn’t like it.” I will
fain hope that men are not responsible for half the
foolish sentiments attributed to them, and that this,
amongst others, is a false and distorted idea of their
real opinion. Of one thing I am sure,—that no honest
man will ever do otherwise than respect honest
enquiry,—and that a very small exercise of courage will
enable the most timid of women to face the censure of
those whose only conception of womanly grace is
drawn from the imaginative works of the artist. The
true beauty of woman’s character is to be found rather
in a pure, simple honest-hearted search for truth, than
in any number of poems and pictures.
There is another objection which meets every one
whose mind is first aroused to religious enquiry. It
is this ! “ Am I prepared to face the possible conse
quences of free investigation ?” “ Whither will it
lead me ?” “ Would it not be wiser not to embark on
a voyage whose end I cannot foresee ?” To this the
answer is plain. Our duty is simply to ascertain the
truth as it is without bias as to what we may wish it
to he. We must not grumble, if, in our search for
truth, we find her of different aspect from what we had
imagined or hoped, and God will most surely not hold
us responsible for what we may discover during our
honest, single-hearted enquiry, though He may justly
condemn us for neglecting to investigate those subjects
which are at the root of our spiritual life. I grant
that the shock may be rude when we find our pre
conceived ideas to have no solid foundation ; when
the beliefs and fancies, and imaginations which have
grown with our growth, prove hollow and insecure,
but painful as it may be, we are safer, wiser, more
near to God than when a mist of falsehood hung
between us and Him.
�A Womans Letter.
7
How many poetic fancies of onr childhood .have
been dispelled by the more accurate knowledge of
later years ! And yet do we not feel that we are the
gainers by our loss ? The child who thinks the rainbow a path for angels to tread, may grieve to find his
dream a delusion, but does not his maturer knowledge
of the cause of that glorious arch, show him far more
clearly the wisdom and the power of God than any
such poetic fancy could do ? If you ask me what will
supply the place of old beliefs and cherished creeds
should you be compelled to relinquish these, I can
offer you but one substitute—but that an all-sufficing
one ; viz :—the consciousness that you have earnestly
and honestly sought for truth, and that God will give
His blessing on the search.
And now, having touched upon some of the difficul
ties thrown in the way of every woman who wishes to
analyse the religious teaching she has received, I
will frankly tell you what are the chief conclusions at
which I have arrived during my examination. The
key-note to all such religious teaching, the stand-point
from which all doctrinal points are decided, is the
Inspiration of the Bible. What does the word mean ?
Teachers interpret it variously; some maintaining
that every phrase and expression was directly dictated
by God to the authors of the various books, others
that He put the general idea, as it were, into their
minds, leaving them to express it as they pleased,
with their own glosses, and often with their own
errors; while a third party consider that part of the
scriptures was dictated by God to the writers, and
part is simply the expression of their own sentiments.
How this Inspiration, or mental dictation, is per
formed, or by what means we can recognise its oper
ation, is never explained. Let me now point out to
you why these three views of the Inspiration of the
Bible appear to me alike untenable. That the God
of the universe should have directly dictated every
■
J
e
' .
-
•
.
�A Womans Letter.
word and line of the whole scriptures is so preposter
ous an idea that it seems impossible for any reasonable
being to hold it. Can we conceive the Creator of all
things, the Spirit whom we must worship in the spirit,
dictating from His throne on high pages upon pages
of frivolous directions about the ceremonial of worship,
the vestments of priests, the adornment of the taber
nacle, without one precept, one promise, for the guid
ance or comfort of men’s souls ? Is it possible that
taches of gold, almonds, and knops, spoons and
snuffers, can be in His eyes subjects worthy of being
specially dictated in wearisome detail, while the deeper
matters of righteousness are passed over 1 Can we
conceive an unerring and omniscient Being dictating
errors in facts, errors in numbers, errors in physical
science, or more incredible still, commanding the prac
tice of cruel, revengeful and immoral laws, which the
Founder of Christianity, far from recognising as
divinely inspired, dismisses from his notice with the
contemptuous phrase, 11 It hath been said by them
of old time ?” Besides, if every line of the Bible is
alike inspired by God, there can be no degrees or grad
ations in that inspiration, every precept must be of
equal weight, alike perfect as becomes His word, and
true as He Himself is true. We have no right to
press upon one command which pleases our moral
sense, and to pass over another which may offend it.
I confess I can not believe that God ever inspired the
command that a man who beats his man-servant or
maid-servant to death, provided the victim does not
die within forty-eight hours, shall go unpunished, (Ex.
xxi. 20, 21,) nor that a wilful boy shall be “ stoned
with stones that he die,” (Deut. xxi. 18-21,) for the
faults probably produced by the over indulgence of
his parents. Take the law as written in the Penta
teuch, and see whether your mind does not recoil from
many of its precepts. Legislation for slavery, legis
lation for polygamy, cruel enactments against the
�A Womans Letter.
9
impossible crime of witchcraft, superstitious trial by
ordeal, these we find in its pages, and if the Bible be
the word of a God who cannot change, we dare not
pass these passages by, as being obsolete, as being
ephemeral utterances of no permanent value. If you
say that these unjust and vindictive laws were given
by God to the Jews in the infancy of their civilisation,
what is it you lay to His charge, but this : that He
inspired degrading precepts and enactments because
the people to whom He spoke were degraded !
I will not ask you how I am to believe that the
Creator of all things knew so little about his own
creations as to suppose that the sun moved, or that
the shadow on the dial could move backwards without
the destruction of our planet and the convulsion of
our system. Neither will I enquire whether He
whose lesser works are so marvellous, could have
inspired a writer with the idea that labbits and hares
chew the cud. Nothing but a determination to shut
our eyes to clear plain fact, will enable us to avoid the
impossibility of reconciling such statements with the
doctrine of verbal inspiration.
But perhaps you hold that the general idea only
was inspired by God, and that the writers were left to
express this idea in their own manner and with their
own interpretation. Would this be a revelation at
all ? What should we think of the report of a speech
in the House of Commons, by which the reporter
should have expressed his own ideas about what Mr
Gladstone or Mr Disraeli wished to say, introducing
his own glosses into the text, and mixing up his own
mistakes as to names, dates, and figures, with the real
facts given by the speaker? Would not either of
these orators indignantly repudiate such a version of
his speech ? And yet this is what such a view of
Bible inspiration results in. Far better that God
should never have spoken, than that He should speak
merely to be mis-interpreted. It is difficult to see of
�IO
A Womans Letter.
what use would be the pure spring of divine truth, if
it flowed through so foul and corrupt a channel that
its waters, ere they reached us, were tainted by the
conduit. Clearly, from this stand-point, you can
never appeal to the Bible as to an infallible authority;
for if the writers have misconstrued the word of God
in one place, there can be no security against their
having done so in another.
The third opinion as to the inspiration of the Bible
held by some is, thatpartof the volume is a purely human
production, and part God’s own dictation. Thus they
consider the minute directions for the temple service
to have been the work of a Jewish legislator, while
they accept the ten commandments, and other moral
precepts as the word of God himself. The chapters of
useless genealogies and lists of names they attribute to
the uninspired mind of the writer, while those pas
sages which treat of higher themes are supposed to
have divine authority. They do not, however, explain
how the difference can be distinguished, -when trivial
and frivolous matters are mingled with those of
greater importance ; and the same objection applies to
this, as to the preceding view of inspiration, viz : that
it stultifies the very purpose of a revelation. A book
which is partly composed of human remarks and
observations, and partly of the words of a supreme
Being,—the whole appearing in one form—clothed
with the same authority, and with nothing to indicate
the varying value of its contents, would be indeed,
a fatal gift from God to man. Surely He cannot be
imagined to make a special revelation of His will—and
then render it unintelligible by allowing it to be
mingled with a mass of purely human inventions 1
If a revelation were needed to teach us His will, then
most certainly it would have been given to us in plain
terms, and we should not have been left to sift the
wheat from the chaff,—relying on our intuitive sense
of right alone to decide which we should retain and
which cast away.
�A Womans Letter.
ir
I have now briefly told you some of the reasons
which prevent me from accepting the Bible as a
Divinely inspired book.
I have of course, only glanced at the considerations
which weigh most in my own mind, and even though
you should think them valueless, still, you may perhaps
grant that they deserve at least examination.
As a storehouse of Jewish learning, as a record of
the sublime truth of monotheism,—a truth held firmly
amidst opposing influences by a despised people
as a collection of noble precepts and struggling
aspirations, the Bible remains to me, though my
better nature revolts from the idea that the falsehood,
cruelty, and immorality contained in its pages can be
the inspired word of Him who is truth and mercy and
purity. It is often assumed that without the Bible,
we should be unable to form for ourselves any just
estimate of right and wrong, and that our moral
perceptions would become distorted without constant
reference to the precepts contained in its pages. But
is this so 1 Is not this mistaking its power ? Surely
it is our innate moral feeling which enables us to
admire the beautiful and reject the base in the Bible,
and not the Bible itself which confers this power of
discrimination. It cannot be the Bible alone which
teaches us the true knowledge of God, if our own
unaided views of Him are higher and holier than
many of those contained in its pages. When we find
this to be the case, we are certainly justified in prefer
ring those which do Him most honour, to those which
claim to be divinely inspired. Again, when two
passages in Scripture directly contradict each other,
we must, from our own conception of God, decide
which is most likely to be true, which most likely to
be His will. But this cannot be called an infallible
revelation, an inspired Bible, if private judgment
must be trusted to decide on its merits.
How one inspired dogma can be totally opposed to
�12
A Womans Letter.
another inspired dogma, people do not trouble them
selves to enquire, but are content to receive each
separately and by turns without question. Thus they
will at one time speak of the many beautiful passages
which show us one, true, divine Being, sharing His
glory with none,—and at another time they dwell on
verses which show a second, and even a third Divinity
dividing the empire and sharing His attributes.
From one passage they teach that God is love, ready
to forgive, waiting to pardon,—from another they
teach that His pleasure is to create men who are to
suffer agonizing torture for ever. Here is set forth
that the highest reward for virtue, is length of days
and honour, and prosperity,—there—that we must
despise the glory of this world, and esteem happy the
poor and the sorrowful.
Sects have thus arisen, professing the most opposite
doctrines,, each practising rites and ceremonies esteemed
abomination by others, yet all basing their creed on
some portion of the writings they hold to be infallible.
Now I cannot really suppose that God said at one time
what He contradicted at another, neither can I conceive
the irreverent idea which some people hold, that He is
capable of having “ repeated,”—altered His plan,—
improved His doctrine as it were, from the rough,
rudimentary teaching of early times, to the later, purer
doctrine of the Gospels. Surely the words “develop
ment,” “improvement,” “progress,” so often used by
preachers when dwelling on the superiority of New to
Old lestament teaching,—imply some previous error
and imperfection. But how without blasphemy, can
they attribute this imperfect, this erroneous teaching
to the direct word and inspiration of a Being who can
not err 1 Would it not be more honest to acknowledge
that where two passages in the Bible give irreconcil
able views of God’s will, His word, or His works,—
they cannot both be infallible ? Most certainly it
would,—but this admission cannot be made, if,—at all
�A Womans Letter.
13
hazards,—at any sacrifice of truth,—the claim for the
infallibility must be maintained;—for if one passage
be proved false, in a book declared to be inspired by
God,—false in doctrine, or false in facts,—then that
passage invalidates the claim of such a book to be the
pure and unerring exponent of His will. I believe
there are, not one only, but hundreds of passages in
the Bible, where even those unlearned in Hebrew or
Greek may discover for themselves discrepancies and
errors which would prevent any unprejudiced mind
from accepting it as an authority which admits of
neither doubt nor appeal; and yet those who hold it
to be their sacred duty to study its pages,—to become
familiar with its most trivial expressions, and to ex
tract from them a meaning they were never meant to
bear,—resolutely close their eyes, and refuse to see the
truth because it is not such as they desire it. All I
would urge is, the duty of fulfilling in honesty and
simplicity, the precept “ Search the Scriptures.” . This
is not done by perusing a few verses daily as a kind of
talisman to guard us from physical or moral evil, nor
by reading its pages in a spirit of blind assent to what
ever construction we may have been taught to put on
them. To examine closely, to analyse carefully, to sift
and separate the good grain from the bad, to enquire
on what reasonable evidence our belief is grounded,—this is the duty of every humble follower of the
command.
Perhaps you will ask me on what are we to frame
our lives if we should no longer be able to accept the
Bible as infallibly true, or its teaching as divinely in
spired ; what moral guide will remain, if this is not a
lamp sent from Heaven expressly to light our path.
Enough remains to be our guide and our comfort,—
its precepts none the less admirable, its promises none
the less consoling, The eternal truths of true religion
are still there, the purer for being freed from the
tangled weeds that choked them,—and we are able to
�14
A Woman’s Letter.
gather in the sound and wholesome wheat, without
being forced to garner with if the tares also. Were
the scriptures themselves to be destroyed to-morrow,
our foundation would still be firm. Faith in a God,
whose mercy, and truth, and justice, we see in all
His works, love and adoration of His perfection, a sin
cere desire to do His will by ministering as far as lies
in our power to the wants of our fellow-creatures, and
lastly a humble hope of a better life beyond the grave,
these would remain to us, a heritage for ever.
I have now very briefly stated some of my principal
reasons for holding opinions on Bible inspiration differ
ing widely from those taught and held by most of those
with whom I am thrown in contact,—I fear that my
task has been too badly performed to convey to you any
similar convictions, but I shall be contented if you ac
knowledge that they are not the result of any presump
tuous spirit, but the honest conclusions arrived at in a
course of humble enquiry.
I remain,
Sincerely yours.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A woman's letter
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Date of publication from British Library catalogue. Argues for women's ability and right to question biblical inspiration.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5461
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Women
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A woman's letter), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Women
Women and religion
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/b9d27525b969b55e8e21c38ca7e75306.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=vy4F1pCGqGlZMqemz-Vi5ztfzX16jNpVWsk-UwuDI4XGwr4VBV0BZjbUUq3RV9ZMWIb966BYwSTEH1hufM3lSzfw4-GpqvJ5wBsUEXLLWyBvQExih5b1xSFsNLlocAIH2rdqzg7fVk4dl6FAkiMSbrbzU0oD07m6Wazlbe4Dt2HjzSDY-mie-UrtkB05jPZdsn-PrQsb11oDYG85Od4dJxruGfxX4HS0C102Vbg0EBR424vUCJDfu%7E-aizY3nHb8Y65U4C5m7a1W69j5qZdAisulsdt0xgvAW-WQlflm6uV6sXi%7E5qlLDNhXg1WAA-TyZRRuYg-Hk9U%7EpVu0sVQlJg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
23c5320ee52de3c0ff1d86ed0357b7a0
PDF Text
Text
&
4-
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
ON THE
PENTATEUCH:
A Comprehensive Summary of Bishop Colenso’s Argu
ment,
cally
Proving that the Pentateuch is not Histori
True; and that it was composed by several
WRITERS, THE EARLIEST OF WHOM LIVED IN THE TIME OF
\
Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C., and the latest in
time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. C.
the
PREFACE.
The author of the book of which this pamphlet is an ab
stract is not an Infidel, but a Bishop of the Church of England,
having charge of the Diocese of Natal, in South Africa. While
engaged in the translation of the Scriptures into the Zulu tongue,
with the aid of intelligent natives, he was brought face to face
with questions which in former days had caused him some uneasi
ness, but with respect to which he had been enabled to satisfy his
mind sufficiently for practical purposes, as a Christian minister,
by means of the specious explanations given in most commenta
ries on the Bible, and had settled down into a willing acquies
cence in the general truth of the narrative of the Old Testament,
whatever difficulties might still hang about particular parts of it.
�ii
PREFACE.
But while translating the story of the Flood, a simple-minded but
intelligent native, with the docility of a child but the reasoning
powers of mature age, looked up and asked: “ Is all that true ?
Do you really believe that all the beasts, birds, and creeping
things, from hot countries and cold, came thus by pairs and en
tered Noah’s ark ? And did Noah gather food for them all; for
the beasts and birds of prey as well as the rest ? ” The Bishop
had recently acquired sufficient knowledge of geology to know
that a universal Deluge, such as is described in Genesis, could not
have taken place. So his heart answered in the words of the
Prophet, “ Shall a man speak lies in the name of the Lord ? ”
(Zech, xiii., 3.) He dared not do so, but gave the brother such a
reply as satisfied him for the time, without throwing any dis
credit upon the general veracity of the Bible history. But being
driven to search more deeply into these questions, the Bishop
wrote to a friend in England to send him the best books on both
sides of the question of the credibility of the Mosaic history. His
friend sent him the works of Ewald and Kurtz, the former in
German and the latter in an English translation. Laying Ewald
on the shelf, he studied Kurtz, who maintained with great zeal
and ability tho historical accuracy of the Pentateuch. He then
grappled with Ewald, who maintained an opposite view. The
result of the Bishop’s study, with the aid of a few other German
books, appeared in the first volume of his work issued in 1862,
followed soon after by four more volumes. The books met with
a very large sale in England. The first two volumes only aro
published as yet in this country. Perhaps the demand would not
encourage the republication of the complete set. A great deal
of the work is made up of apology, much more of answers to
orthodox expositors and critics who have attempted to explain the
very difficulties which presented themselves to the inquiring mind
of the author, and a large part of the last three volumes consists
of elaborate criticism, and a presentation of various portions of
the Pentateuch attributed to the different writers thereof. In
this Abstract all those portions are passed by, the object being to
compress into the smallest practicable compass the gist of the
whole argument. Should the reader wish to see what can be said
in answer to the very criticisms which Colenso makes, he will find
it fairly presented and candidly considered by the author in his
complete work.
�VOL. I.
INCREDIBLE NARRATIVES OF THE PENTATEUCH.
In Vol. I. Bishop Colenso shows, by means of a number of
prominent instances, that the books of the Pentateuch contain, in
their own account of the story which they profess to relate, such
remarkable contradictions, and involve such plain impossibilities,
that they cannot be regarded as true narratives of actual histori
cal matters of fact. Passing over the many difficulties which ex
ist in the earlier parts of the history, he begins at once with the
account of the Exodus.
THE FAMILY OF JUDAH.
Judah was forty-two years old when he went down with Jacob
into Egypt, being three years older than his brother Joseph, who
was then thirty-nine. For “Joseph was thirty years old when
he stood before Pharaoh ” (G. xli. 46) ; and from that time nine
years elapsed (seven of plenty and two of famine) before Jacob
came down into Egypt. Judah was born in the fourth year of
Jacob’s double marriage (G. xxix. 35), being the fourth of the
seven children of Leah born in seven years; and Joseph was born
of Rachel in the seventh year (G. xxx. 24, 26; xxi. 41). In these
forty-two years of Judah’s life the following events are recorded
in G. xxxviii.:
He grows up, marries, and has three sons. The eldest grows
up, marries, and dies. The second son marries his brother’s widow
and dies. The third son, after waiting to grow to maturity, de
clines to marry the widow. The widow then deceives Judah him
self, and bears him twins—Pharez and Zarah. One of these twins
grows up and has two sons—Hezron and Hamul—born to him be
fore Jacob goes down into Egypt.
ALL THE PEOPLE AT THE DOOR OF THE TABERNACLE.
Moses, at the command of Jehovah, gathered “ all the congre
gation together unto the door of the tabernacle.” (L. viii. 1-4.)
�4
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
By “ all the congregation ” is meant the whole body of the peo
ple, or at all events the main body of adult males in the prime
of life, as is shown by numerous texts where the expression is
used. (E. xvi. 2; L. xxiv. 14 ; N. i. 18.) In Jo. viii. 35, the
women and children are included. The mass of the male adults
must have numbered more than the number of warriors, which is
nowhere fixed at less than 600,000. Now the whole width of the
tabernacle was only eighteen feet, as may be gathered from E.
xxvi., so that a close column of 600,000 men covering this front,
allowing two feet in width and eighteen inches in depth for each
full-grown man, would have reached back nearly twenty miles ;
or if the column covered the whole width of the court, which was
ninety feet, it would have extended back nearly four miles. The
whole court of the tabernacle comprised not more than 1,692
square yards, after deducting the area of the tabernacle itself,
which covered 108 square yards, and therefore could have held only
5,000 people closely packed. The ministering Levites “ from thirty
to fifty years old ” numbered 8,580 (N. iv. 48); even they, conse
quently, could not all have stood within the court.
MOSES AND JOSHUA ADDRESSING ALL ISRAEL.
“ These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel.”
(D.i. 1.)
“ And Moses called all Israel and said unto them.” (D. v. 1.)
“ There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which
Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the
women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conver
sant among them.” (Jo. viii. 35.)
How was it possible to do this before at least 2,000,000 people ?
Could Moses or Joshua, as actual eye-witnesses, have expressed
themselves in such extravagant language ? Surely not.
EXTENT OF THE CAMP AND DUTIES OF THE PRIESTS.
The camp of the Israelites must have been at least a mile and
a half in diameter. This would be allowing to each person on
the average a space three times the size of a coffin for a fullgrown man. The ashes, offal, and refuse of the sacrifices would
therefore have to be carried by the priest in person a distance of
three-quarters of a mile “ without the camp, unto a clean place."
tL. iv. 11, 12.) There were only three priests, namely, Aaron,
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
5
Eleazer, and Ithamar, to do all this work for 2,000,000 people.
All the wood and water would have to be brought into this im
mense camp from the outside. Where could the supplies have
been got while the camp was under Sinai, in a desert, for nearly
twelve months together ? How could so great a camp have been
kept clean ?
But how huge does the difficulty become if we take the more
reasonable dimensions of twelve miles square for this camp ; that
is, about the size of London ! Imagine at least half a million of
men having to go out daily a distance of six miles and back, to
the suburbs, for the common necessities of nature, as the law
directed.
TWO NUMBERINGS SIX MONTHS APART ; EXACT COINCIDENCE.
In E. xxx. 11-13, Jehovah commanded Moses to take a census
of the children of -Israel, and in doing it to collect half a shekel
of the sanctuary as atonement money. This expression “ shekel
of the sanctuary ” is put into the mouth of Jehovah six or seven
months before the tabernacle was made. In E. xxxviii. 26, we
read of such a tribute being paid, but nothing is there said of any
census being taken, only the number of those who paid, from twenty
years old and upward, was 603,550 men. In N. i. 1-46, more than
six months after this occasion, an account of an actual census is
given, but no atonement money is mentioned. If in the first in
stance a census was taken, but accidentally omitted to be men
tioned, and in the second instance the tribute was paid but
accidentally omitted likewise, it is nevertheless surprising that the
number of adult males should have been identically the same
(603,550) on both occasions, six months apart.
THE ISRAELITES DWELLING IN TENTS.
The Israelites at their exodus were provided with tents (E. xvi.
16), in which they undoubtedly encamped and dwelt. They did
not dwell in tents in Egypt, but in “ houses ” with “ doors,” “ side
posts,” and “ lintels.” These tents must have been made either
of hair or of skin (E. xxvi. 7, 14, xxxvi. 14, 19)—more probably
of the latter—and were therefore much heavier than the modern
canvas tents. At least 200,000 were required to accommodate
2,000,000 people. Supposing they took these tents from Egypt,
how did they carry them in their hurried march to the Red Sea ?
�6
ABSTRACT OF COeENSO
The people had burdens enough without them. They had to
carry their kneading troughs with the dough uflleavened, their
clothes, their cooking utensils, couches, infants, aged and infirm
persons, and food enough, for at least a month’s use, or until
manna was provided for them in the wilderness, which was “ on
the fifteenth day of the second month after their departure out
of the land of Egypt” (E. xvi. 1.). One of these tents, with its
poles, pegs, etc , would be a load for a single ox, so that they
would have needed 200,000 oxen to carry the tents. But oxen
are not usually trained to carry goods on their backs, and will
not do so without training.
THE ISRAELITES ARMED.
“ The children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of
Egypt.” (E. xiii. 18.)
The marginal reading for “ harnessed ” is “ by five in rank.”
But as this would make of the 600,000 men a column sixty-eight
miles long, this translation only increases the difficulty, as it
would have taken several days to have started them all off. The
Hebrew word is elsewhere rendered “ armed,” or “ in battle array.”
Certainly about a month after the exodus the Israelites “ discom
fited ” the Amalekites “ with the edge of the sword.” (E. xvii.
13.) Hence they somehow possessed arms. And yet this army
of 600,000 had become so debased by long servitude that they
could not strike a single blow for liberty in Egypt, but could only
weakly wail and murmur against Moses, saying, “ It had been
better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in
the wilderness! ”
INSTITUTION OF THE PASSOVER.
The whole population of Israel were instructed in one single
day to keep the passover, and actually did keep it. (E. xii.) At
the first notice of any such feast, Jehovah said, “ I will pass
through the land of Egypt this night.” The passover was to be
killed “ at even ” on the same day that Moses received the com
mand. The women were at the same time ordered to borrow
jewels of their neighbors, the Egyptians. After midnight of the
same day the Israelites received notice to start for the wilderness.
No one was to go out of his house till morning, when they were
to take their hurried flight with their cattle and herds. How
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
7
could 2,000,000 people, scattered about over a wide district as they
must have been with their cattle and* herds, have gotten ready
and taken a simultaneous hurried flight at twelve hours’ notice ?
MARCH OUT OF EGYPT.
The Israelites, with their flocks and herds, reached the Red
Sea, a distance of from fifty to sixty miles over a sandy desert
in three days ! Marching fifty abreast, the able-bodied warri
ors alone would have filled up the road for seven miles, and the
whole multitude would have made a column twenty-two miles long,
so that the last of the body could not have been started until the
front had advanced that distance—more than two days’ journey
for such a mixed company. Then the sheep and cattle must have
formed another vast column, covering a much greater tract of
ground in proportion to their number. Upon what did these two
millions of sheep and oxen feed in the journey to the Red Sea
over a desert region, sandy, gravelly, and stony alternately ?
How did the people manage with the sick and infirm, and espe
cially with the 750 births that must have taken place in the three
days’ march ?
THE SHEEP AND CATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS.
The Israelites undoubtedly had flocks and herds of cattle.
(E. xxxiv. 3.)^ They sojourned nearly a year before Sinai, where
there was no feed for cattle; and the wilderness in which
they sojourned nearly forty years is now and was then a desert.
(D. xxxii. 10; viii. 15.) The cattle surely did not subsist on
manna !
EXTENT AND POPULATION OF THE LAND OF CANAAN.
The extent of land occupied by the Israelites in the time of
Joshua was about 11,000 square miles, or 7,000,000 acres—a little
larger than the State of Vermont. The number of Israelites was
not less than 2,000,000. This limited, mountainous, and by no
means fertile area of country, therefore, had to subsist these 2,000,000 people, and prior to their occupation of it had subsisted “ seven
nations greater and mightier ” than the Israelitish nation itself.
(D. vii, 1.)
�8
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
FECUNDITY OF THE HEBREW MOTHERS.
“ All the first-born males from a month old and upwards, of
those that were numbered, were 22,273.” (N. iii. 43.) The lowest
computation of the whole number of the people at that time is
2,000,000. The number of males would be 1,000,000. Dividing
the latter number by the number of first born gives 44, which
would be the average number of boys in each family, or about
88 children by each mother. Or, if where the first born were
females the males were not counted, the number of children by
each mother would be reduced to 44.
PRODIGIOUS INCREASE IN FOUR GENERATIONS.
The number of the children of Israel who went into Egypt
was 70 (E. i. 5). They sojourned in Egypt 215 years. It could
not have been 430 years, as would appear from E. xii. 40. The
marginal chronology makes the period 215 years, and there were
only four generations to the exodus, namely, Levi, Kohath, Amram, and Moses (E. vi. 16, 18, 20). How could these people have
increased in 215 years from 70 souls so as to number 600,000 war
riors ? It would have required an average number of 46 children
to each father. The 12 sons of Jacob had between them only 53
sons. At this rate of increase, in the fourth generation there
would have been only 6,311 males, provided they were all living
at the time of the exodus, instead of 1,000,000. If we add the
fifth generation, who would be mostly children, the total number
of males would not have exceeded 28,465.
EXTRAORDINARY INCREASE OF THE DANITES.
Dan in the first generation had but one son (G. xlvi. 23), and
yet in the fourth generation his descendants had increased to
62,700 warriors (N. ii. 26), or 64,400 (N. xxvi. 43). Each of his
sons and grandsons must have had about 80 children of both
sexes. On the other hand, the Levites increased the number of
“ males from a month old and upwards ” during the 38 years in
the wilderness only from 22,000 to 23,000 (N. iii. 39, xxvi. 62)
and the tribe of Manasseh during the same time increased from
32,200 (N. i. 35) to 52,700 (xxvi. 34).
IMPOSSIBLE DUTIES OF THE PRIESTS.
Aaron and his two sons were the only priests during Aaron’s
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
9
ifetime. They had to make all the burnt offerings on a single
11 tar nine feet square (E. xxxvii. 1), besides attending to other
priestly duties for 2,000,000 people. At the birth of every child,
both a burnt offering and a sin offering had to be made. The
number of births must be reckoned at least 250 a day, for
which consequently 500 sacrifices would have to be offered daily
-—an impossible duty to be performed by three priests. For poor
women pigeons were accepted instead of lambs. If half of
them offered pigeons, and only one instead of two, it would have
required 90,000 pigeons annually for this purpose alone. Where
did they get the pigeons ? How could they have had them at all
under Sinai ? There were thirteen cities where the presence of
these three priests was required (Jo. xxi. 19). The three priests
had to eat a large portion of the burnt offerings (N. xviii. 10) and
,all the' sin offerings—250 pigeons a day—more than 80 for each
priest.
IMPOSSIBLE SACRIFICES AT THE PASSOVER.
In keeping the second passover under Sinai, 150,000 lambs
must have been killed, i. e., one for each family (E. xii. 3, 4). The
Lecites slew them, and the three priests had to sprinkle the
blood from their hands (1 Chr. xxx. 16, xxxv. 11). The killing
had to be done “ between two evenings ” (E. xii. 6), and the
sprinkling had to be done in about two hours. The kifiing must
have been done in the .court of the tabernacle (L. i. 3, 5, xvii.
2-6). The area of the court could have held but 5,000 people at
most. Here the lambs had to be sacrificed at the rate of 1,250 a
minute, and each of the three priests had to sprinkle the blood of
more than 400 lambs every minute for two hours.
INCREDIBLE SLAUGHTER.
The number of warriors of the Israelites, as recorded at the
exodus, was 600,000 (E. xii. 37); subsequently it was 603,530
(E. xxxviii. 25-28), and at the end of their wanderings it was
601,730 (N. xxvi. 51). But in 2 Chr. xiii. 3 Abijah, king of Judah,
brings 400,000 men against Jeroboam, king of Israel, with
800,000, and “ there fell down slain of Israel 500,000 chosen men ”
(®. 17). On another occasion, Pekah, king of Israel, slew of Ju
dah in one day 120,000 valiant men (2 Chr. xxviii. 6.)
�10
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
UNPARALLELED PRODIGY OF VALOR.
Among other prodigies of valor, 12,000 Israelites are recorded
in. N. xxxi. as slaying all the male Midis nites, taking captive all
the females and children, seizing all their cattle and flocks, num
bering 808,000 head, taking all their goods and burning all their
cities, without the loss of a single man. Then they killed all the
women and children except 32,000 virgins, whom they kept for
themselves. There would seem to have been at least 80,000
females in the aggregate, of whom 48,000 were killed, besides
(say) 20,000 boys. The number of men slaughtered must have
been about 48,000. Each Israelite therefore must have killed four
men in battle, carried off eight captive women and children, and
driven home sixty-seven head of cattle. And then after reaching
home, as a pastime, by command of Moses, he had to murder six
of his captive women and children in cold blood.
II
IRRECONCILABLE DIFFICULTIES.
In vol. II. Bishop Colenso devotes a preface and a first chapter
to the maintenance of the criticisms of vol. I. He shows that it
is impossible to apply any system of reduction to the exaggerated
numbers given in every part of the Pentateuch, without encoun
tering difficulties and contradictions quite as- formidable as those
presented by him. He then proceeds to investigate the question
of the real origin, age, and authorship of the different portions of
the Pentateuch and other early books of the Bible, and makes the
following points :
CONTRADICTORY STORY OF THE CREATION AND DELUGE.
The cosmogony of the 2d chapter of Genesis is contradictory
to that of chapter 1 in six particulars, the chief of which is, that
in the first chapter the birds and beasts are created before man,
and in the second after man. Again, in the first account Adam
find Eve are created together, completing the work of creation,
and in the second man is first made, then the beasts and birds,
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
11
and lastly woman. It is therefore apparent that the two accountg
were written by different men j and this is corroborated by the
use of the name Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) in chapter 2, while
in chapter 1 it is simply God (Elohim).
A similar criticism is applied to the story of the flood, which
is evidently composed by two different writers, one making Noah
take into the ark animals of every kind, including clean beasts,
by twos (G. vii. 8, 9), and the other making him take in the clean
beasts by sevens (v. 2, 5). In this story, as in that of tne cre
ation, one writer uses the name of God simply, and the other
Lord God.
ELOHISTIC AND JEHOVISTIC WRITERS.
The book of Genesis bears evidence throughout of being the
work of two different writers, one of whom is distinguished by
the constant use of the word Elohim (translated “ God ”), and the
other by the admixture with it of the name Jehovah (translated
“ Lord ”). The Elohistic passages, taken together, form a very
tolerably connected whole, only interrupted here and there by a
break caused apparently by the Jehovistic writer having removed
some part of the Elohistic narrative, replacing it, perhaps, by one
of his own. Thus there are two contradictory accounts of the
creation and of the deluge intermingled.
THE PENTATEUCH COMPOSED EONG AFTER MOSES’S DEATn.
The books of the Pentateuch are never ascribed to Moses in
the inscriptions of Hebrew manuscripts, or anywhere else, except
in our modern translations. They must have been composed
at a later age than that of Moses or Joshua, as is shown by nu
merous passages that speak of places and things by names that
were not known nor given till long after the death of these men.
For example, Gilgal, mentioned in D. xi. 30, was not given as the
name of that place till after the entrance into Canaan (Jo. v. 9).
Lan, mentioned in G. xiv. 14, was not so called till long after the
time of Moses (Jo. xix. 47). In G xxxvi. 31, the beginning of
the reign of kings over Israel is spoken of historically, an event
which did not occur before the time of Samuel.
THE BOOK OF JOSHUA WRITTEN IN DAVID’S LIFETIME.
In Josh. x. 12-14, the miracle of the sun and moon standing
�12
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
still is recorded, and in verse 13 these words are found: “Is not
this written in the Book ci Jasher?” Now, in 2 Sam. i. 18, we
read that David “ hade them teach the children of .Tudah the use
of the bow. Behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.” The
natural inference is, that this book was written not earlier than
the time of David, and the above passage in the bcok of Joshua
was written of course after that.
THE BOOKS OE KINGS WRITTEN AS LATE AS 561 B. C.
The Books of Kings seem to have been written as late, at least,
as 561 B. C., because in 2 Kings xxv. 27-30, mention is made of
Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, taking Jehoiachin, king of
Judah, out of prison, and feeding him “ all the days of his life.”
Evil-merodach came to the throne 561 B. C., and reigned two
years.
THE CHRONICLES WRITTEN ABOUT 400 B. C.
The author of the Books of Chronicles was probably a priest
or Levite, who wrote about 400 B. C. or nearly 200 years after
the captivity, and 650 years after David came to the throne.
These books go over the same grounds as the books of Samuel
and Kings, and often in the very same words. The Chronicles
are very inaccurate, and often contradictory to Samuel and Kings.
In 1 Chr. iii. 19-21, we have the following genealogy : Zerubbabel, Hananiah, Pelatiah; so that the Book was written after the
birth of Zerubbabfel’s grandson, and Zerubbabel was the leader
of the expedition which returned to Jerusalem after the decree
of Cyrus, 536 B. C.
EZRA AND NEHEMIAH WRITTEN AFTER 456 B. C.
The Books of Ezra and Nehemiah were, of course, written
after 456 B. C., when Ezra arrived at Jerusalem. Nehemiah’s
last act of reformation was in 409 B. C., and yet in Neh. xii. 11,
we have given the genealogy of Jaddua, who was high priest in
Alexander’s time, 332 B. C.
FIRST INTRODUCTION OF THE NAME JEHOVAH.
In E. vi. 2-8, God says to Moses: “ By my name Jehovah was
I not known to them ” (the patriarchs), and yet the name Jehovah,
translated Lord, is repeatedly used in the book of Genesis.’ If
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
13
the name originated in the days of Moses, he certainly would
not, in writing the story of the Pentateuch, have put it into the
mouths of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (G. xiv. 22,
xxvi. 22, xxviii. 16), much less into that of a heathen man,
Abimelech (xxvi. 28). The contradiction is explained by the fact
that two different writers were concerned in composing the nar
rative, one of whom, in speaking of God, uses the name Elohim,
and the other the name Jehovah. The ground-work of the Pen
tateuch (and but a small portion of it, as the Bishop proposes to
show hereafter) was composed before the name Jehovah had been
familiar.
SAMUEL PKOBABLY THE ELOHISTIC WRITEH.
During and after the time of Samuel, we observe in the books
known by his name a gradually increasing partiality for the use
of names compounded with Jehovah (jo or iah), while there is
no instance of the kind throughout the Book of Judges, which
contains numerous names compounded with Elohim (el). In the
first seven chapters of the first Book of Samuel we find the follow
ing names compounded with Elohim : A^kanah, A'Zihu, Eli, Sam
uel, Ele&zex; while we meet with but one name compounded with
Jehovah, viz : Joshua (vi. 18). But this name evidently belongs to
a man living considerably later than the time of Samuel, for the
passage reads, “ which stone remaineth unto this day in the field
of Joshua.” Then we read in viii. 1, 2, “ When Samuel was old,
he made his sons judges over Israel; now the name of his first
born was Joel, and the name of his second AbzoA.” It is remark
able that his first-born son should be named Joel, a contraction
of the compound name Jehovah and Elohim. In 1 Chr. vi. 28,
we are told that the name of Samuel’s eldest son was Vashni.
From this it would seem that the name was afterwards changed
to Joel. In the subsequent chapters there is a gradual increase
of names compounded with Jehovah.
In the Elohistic portions of the Book of Genesis, in some
of which a multitude of names occur, and many of them com
pounded with Elohim, in the form of El, there is not a single
one compounded with Jehovah, in the form either of the prefix
Jeho or Jo, or the termination jah, both of which were so com
monly employed in the later times. The name Jehovah is first
�14
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
introduced by the Elohistic writer in Ex. vi. 3, as a,new name for
the God of Israel.
From these and other evidences adduced, Bishop Colenso con
cludes with some degree of confidence that Samuel was the Elo
histic writer of the Pentateuch, and that the Jehovistic writer
must have written not earlier than the latter part of David’s life,
when the name of Jehovah had become quite common, and n^#ies
began to be compounded with it freely. The narrative being
written from 300 to 400 years after the death of Moses, could not,
therefore, have been historically true, but may have been intended
as a series of parables, based on legendary facts, somo of which,
perhaps, had been recorded from time to time in a roll deposited
in the temple archives, to which access was occasionally had by
the priests.
[Note.—Sir Isaac Newton, in. his “Observations upon the
Prophecies,” etc., concludes that Samuel put the books of Moses
and Joshua into the form now extant, inserting into the book of
Genesis (xxxvi. 31-39) the race of the kings of Edom.]
Ill
THE AUTHOR OF DEUTERONOMY.
In vol. III., Bishop Colenso presents in great detail arguments
to prove that the book of Deuteronomy was written by a differ
ent hand from that or those which wrote the rest of the Penta
teuch. No attentive reader of the Bible, he says, can have failed
to remark the striking difference which exists between the stylo
and contents of Deuteronomy and those of the other books gen
erally of the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy forms the living portion,
the sum and substanee, of the whole Pentateuch. When wo
speak of the “ law of Moses,” we speak of Deuteronomy. In tho
New Testament Deuteronomy is frequently quoted with emphasis
as the law of Moses.
The principal proofs of a different authorship of this book are
as follows :
1. Each writer distinctly professes to give the identical com
mandments as spoken (E. xx. 11) or written (D. v. 22) by Jehovah ;
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
15
W each assigns an entirely different reason for the observance
of the Sabbath. In Exodus it is because God rested on the seventh
day ; in Deuteronomy it is because he brought the Israelites out of
E^ypt “through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm.”
It is remarkable that the Deuteronomist should ignore the reason
assigned in Exodus.
2. In the other books of the Pentateuch, the priests are always
styled the “ sons of Aaron” (L. i. 5, 7, 8, 11, ii. 2, iii. 2, xiii. 2 ; N.
x. 8; comp. L. xxi. 21), and never the “ sons of Levi.” In
Deuteronomy they are always called “ sons of Levi, or “ Levitcs
(D. xvii. 9, 18, xviii. 1, xxi. 5, xxiv. 8, xxvii. 9, xxxi. 9 ; comp,
xviii. 1, 5), and never “ sons of Aaron.”
3. The Deuteronomist, in using the word “ law,” invariably re
fers to the whole law (D. i. 5, iv. 8, 44, xvii. 11, 18, 19, xxvii. 3, 8,
26) ; the other books almost always use the words with reference
to particular laws (E. xii. 49 ; L. vi. 9, 14, 25, vii. 1, 7, 11, 37).
4. The Deuteronomist confines all sacrifices to one place
“ which Jehovah would choose,” “ to put his name there” (D. xii.
5, 11, 14, 18, 21, 26); the other books say nothing about this, but
expressly imply the contrary (E. xx. 24).
5. The Deuteronomist, though he strictly enjoins the observ
ance of the other three great leasts, and the Passover (xvi. 1—1 <),
makes no mention whatever of the Feast of Trumpets (L. xxiii.
23-25, N. xxix. 1-6), or the Day of Atonement (L. xxiii. 26-32,
N. xxix. 7-11), on each of which days it was expressly ordered
that the people should “ do no servile work,” but should hold “ a
holy convocation.” The directions in N. xxix are supposed to
have been laid down by Jehovah only a few weeks previous to
the address of Moses in Deuteronomy ; yet here in making a final
summary of duties, as he is represented as doing, he omits all
mention of those two important days, upon which the same stress
is laid in L. xxiii. as on the other three great feasts, and for the
neglect of which death was threatened as a punishment.
6. In D. viii. 4, xxix. 5, and elsewhere, mention is made of
clothing which lasted the Israelites forty years without waxing old
upon them. No mention is made in the older narrative of this
miraculous provision of clothing.
7. In D. ix. 18, Moses says he “fell down before the Lord as
at the first forty days and nights,” and fasted as he had done also
at the first (®. 9). According to the older story, he fasted only
�16
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
when he went up the second time—not the first (E. xxiv. 18,
xxxiv. 28).
8. In E. xviii. 25, 26, we read that Moses chose able men out
of all Israel, and made them judges over the people. This was
just before the giving of the law at Sinai. In D. i. 6-18, the ap
pointment of these same officers is made to take place nearly
twelve months after the giving of the law, when the Israelites
are just about to leave Horeb (v. 6). In E. xix. we find that the
giving of the law was in the third month after the de
parture from Egypt. The Israelites took their departure from
Sinai in the second month of the second year (N. x. 11), and this
was the time referred to in D. i. when these judges were appoint
ed (®. 6, 9).
9. In D. x. 1-5, mention is made of the ark being prepared as
a receptacle of the table of the laws before Moses goes up into
the mount. The older narrative says nothing about an ark being
prepared beforehand for the tables (E. xxxiv. 29). It is only
after comiug down with the second set of tables that Moses sum
mons the wise-hearted (E. xxxv. 10-12) to “come and make all
that the Lord hath commanded, the tabernacle, his tent and his
covering, etc., the ark,” etc. The tabernacle is constantly men
tioned in the three middle books of the Pentateuch, but is never
once named in Deuteronomy until the announcement to Moses in
xxxi. 14, 15, that he should die. And this passage is shown to be
an interpolation, with several others at the close of the book.
10. In D. x. 8, we read, “At that time the Lord separated the
tribe of Levi,” i. e., after the death of Aaron (®. 6). In N. iii. 5,
6, 7, the separation is made to take place in Aaron’s lifetime.
11. The Deuteronomist lays great stress on the duty of being
charitable and hospitable to the Levite, placing him in the same
category as the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and treat
ing him as a sort of mendicant when sojourning within the gates,
thus ignoring the fact that the children of Levi were entitled to
one-tenth in Israel for an inheritance (N. xviii. 21). Not a word
is said about the Levites having any divine right to demand or at
least to accept the payment of tithes from the people, according
to the provisions supposed to have been made by Jehovah him
self in N. xviii. 21. The Deuteronomist makes Moses speak of
the Levite as an object of charity only a few months after the pro
mulgation of this law in Numbers about the Levites’ inheritance.
�ON THE PENTATEUCH
17
Not a trace of poverty in regard to the Levites is found in the
first four books. Under the later kings we have unmistakable
indications of the poverty of the priests.
12. In D. xiv. 19, every creeping thing that flieth is declared
unclean, and is forbidden to be eaten. In L. xi. 21-23, every
creeping thing that flieth is allowed to be eatea, and four forms
of locusts are mentioned.
13. Numerous expressions common throughout the first four
books are never employed by the Deuteronomist, and vice versa.
Bishop Colenso ciles thirty-three expressions in Deuteronomy,
each of which is found on an average eight times in that book,
but not one of which is found even once in the other four books.
In Deuteronomy the expression “ the Lord thy God,” or “ the
Lord our God,” occurs with remarkable frequency ; but it is very
rarely found in the other books.
WHEN WAS DEUTERONOMY WRITTEN, AND BY WHOM?
1. The author of Deuteronomy must have lived after the other
writers of the Pentateuch, since he refers throughout to passages
in the story of the exodus recorded in the other books, and refers
directly, in xxiv. 8, to the laws about leprosy given in Leviticus.
If, therefore, the Elohistic and Jehovistic portions of the Penta
teuch were written not earlier than the times of Samuel, David,
and Solomon, it is plain that the Deuteronomist must have lived
no earlier, but probably later than the time of Solomon.
2. The phrase “ sons of Levi ” and “ Levites,” always used by
the Deuteronomist, is invariably used by Jeremiah and the other
later prophets (Jer. xxxiii. 18, 21, 22 ; Ezek. xliii. 19, xliv. 15,
xlviii. 13 ; Mai. iii. 3. Comp. Mai. ii, 4, 8). The Deuteronomist,
like Jeremiah, uses the word “ law ” in the singular only in speak
ing of the whole law (Jer. ii. 8, vi. 19, viii. 8, ix. 13). The Deuter
onomist confines all sacrifices to the place where “ Jehovah would
place his name so Jeremiah speaks repeatedly of Jerusalem or
the temple as a place called by Jehovah’s name (vii. 10, 11, 14,
30, xxv. 29). Numerous other expressions are used by the Deu
teronomist in common with the ) iter Biblical writers only. Out
of thirty-three expressions, each of which occurs on an average
eight times in Deuteronomy, but not one of which is found in
the other books of the Pentateuch, seventeen are found repeated
with more or less frequency in Jeremiah, and many of the others
�18
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
or their representatives are partially repeated in his prophecies,
Expressions do occasionally occur in the other books of the Pen
tateuch which are peculiar to Deuteronomy ; but it is possible, if
not probable, that the writer of the latter book may have inter
polated those few passages.
3. The Deuteronomist, in xvii. 2-7, expresses strong abhor
rence of all manner of idolatry, and especially of the worship of
the “ sun or moon, or any of the host of heaven,” the first in
timation of which worship is found in the reign of Josiah’s father,
Manasseh (2 K. xxi. 3, 5).
4. That the book of Deuteronomy was written after the time
of Samuel is shown by the fact that the laws referring to the
kingdom seem not to have been known to Samuel (1 S. viii. 6-18),
nor to the later writer of Samuel’s doings. In S. xii. 17-19, he
charges it upon the people as a great sin that they had desired a
king.
5. The mention of the kingdom in D. xvii. 14-18, with the
distinct reference to the dangers likely to arise to the State from
the king multiplying to himself “ wives,” “ silver,” “ gold,” and
“ horses,” implies that the book was written after the age of Sol
omon ; and this is confirmed by the frequent reference to the
place which Jehovah would choose, i. e., Jerusalem and the
temple.
6. The tabernacle, so frequently spoken of in the three middle
books of the Pentateuch, but never once named by the Deuteron
omist till near the close of the book, in an interpolated passage,
had long since passed away in Jeremiah’s time.
7. That the book was written after the captivity of the ten
tribes, in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign, is evident from the
fact that the sorrows of that event are referred to as matters well
known and things of the past (D. iv. 25-28).
8. In 2 K. xxii. and xxiii. we find an account of the dis
covery of the “ book of the law in the house of the Lord,” in
the eighteenth year of King Josiah, which caused a great sensa
tion. Where conld this book have been hidden for eight centu
ries ? Could it have escaped the notice of David, Solomon, and
others ? Can we resist the suspicion that the writing of the book
and the placing of it where it was found were pretty nearly con
temporaneous ? Shaphan, the scribe, read the book before the
king, and appears to have read all the words of it. Again the
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
19
next day the king himself read in the ears of the people “ all the
words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house
of the Lord.” The name “ book of the covenant ” cannot well
apply to all the Pentateuch, though it may apply to the book of
Deuteronomy, or to the chief portion of it, since we find it written
in D. xxix. 1, “ These are the words of the covenant.”
9. The whole description of the nature and effect of the words
contained in the book shows that it must have been the book of
Deuteronomy. A reform took place in regard to idolatrous prac
tices immediately after the discovery of this book. Never before
was such a passover held as in that same year; but we have no
sign whatever of another such passover being held, even by
Josiah. Perhaps after a time the young king also became aware
of the real facts of the case, and his zeal may have been dampened
by the discovery.
10. In that age and time of Jewish debasement, when the law
book as it then existed was not well suited to the present necessi
ties of the people, Jeremiah or any other seer may have considered
himself justified in summoning up the spirit of the older law in
a powerful address adapted to the pressing circumstances of the
times, putting words into the mouth of the departed lawgiver,
Moses, to reinforce the laws by solemn prophetical utterances.
The intention may have been to put down by force the gross idol
atries which abounded in the kingdom, through the influence of
a disguised prophecy upon the mind of a well-meaning king.
11. The book of Deuteronomy must have been written after
the great spread among the tribes of Canaan of the worship of
the sun and moon and host of heaven (D. iv. 19). It seems to
have been first generally practised in Judah in the reign of Manasseh, the father of Josiah (2 K. xxi. 3, 5 ; 2 Chr. xxxiii. 3).
Manasseh’s grandfather Ahaz may have introduced it, as appears
from a comparison of 2 K. xxiii. 12 ; but it probably was not
much practised, and it certainly was not adopted by his son
Hezekiah. In Manasseh’s reign, however, it seems to have
flourished.
12. It must have been written before the time of Josiah’s
reformation, since the words ascribed to Huldah the prophetess,
in D. xxii. 15-20, refer to it; for she says, “ All the words of this
book wherein the king hath read shall be fulfilled.” She was
probably in the secret, and shared the hope of a great reforma-
�20
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
tion, and there is little doubt that the “ book of the law ” was the
direct cause of that reformation. The whole theocratic state was
in imminent danger from the idolatrous practices that were pre
vailing. So the Deuteronomist laid down a new set of laws in
the name of Moses, and gave a new and firmer foundation to the
theocratic state. The attempted reformation was not, however,
successful, except to secure temple service at Jerusalem. That
introduced dead formalism, which existed until the Israelitish
nation became extinct.
13. It can scarcely be doubted, therefore, that it was written
either in the latter part of Manasseh’s reign or the early part of
Josiah’s. If it was written in the latter part of Manasseh’s reign,
the author must have lived, and probably have died, without see
ing the result of his labor—without betraying his secret; or, if
he lived j^Hl the disclosure of it, it is difficult to account for his
long silence with respect to its existence, which was maintained
during seventeen years of Josiah’s reign, when the king’s docile
piety and youth would have encouraged the production of such
a book if it really existed, and there was such imperative necessity
for that reformation to be begun as soon as possible, with a view
to which the book was written. Thus it seems most reasonable
to suppose that the book was in process of composition during
the first seventeen years of Josiah’s reign, when the youth of the
prince and his willingness to follow the teachings of the prophets
around him gave every encouragement for such an attempt being
made to bring about the great change that was needed.
14. Jeremiah lived in that very age, and began to prophesy
in the thirteenth year of Josiah, four or five years before this
book was found.
IMMORAL COMMANDS OP DEUTERONOMY.
Bishop Colenso is glad to know that such commands as these,
taken from this book, are at variance with God's law :
1. Excluding from the congregation of the Lord persons mu
tilated in helpless infancy, while those by whose agency the act
in question was encouraged or perhaps performed are allowed
free access to the sanctuary.
2. Excluding in like manner the innocent base-born child,
but taking no account of the vicious parent.
3. Commanding the stubborn, rebellious son to be stoned to
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
21
death, when, oftentimes the father and mother, who by their bad
example had corrupted, or by their faulty training had ruined
their child, deserved rather to suffer punishment.
4. Ordering that any city of any distant people with whom
Israel might be at war should first be summoned to surrender,
and if it should refuse to make peace on condition of all its in
habitants becoming tributary and doing service to Israel, it should
then be besieged and every male thereof should be put to the
sword; while of the cities which Israel was to inherit they were
to save nothing that breathed, lest they should become corrupted
by their idolatries and abominations.
THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY.
In vol. IV., after a long preface devoted to answers to objections
made to positions taken and supported in the previous volumes,
Bishop Colenso proceeds to make a critical comparison of the
Elohistic and Jehovistic passages in the first eleven chapters of
Genesis, to show that they were composed by two distinct writers.
The author then attacks the scientific and historical truthful
ness of the Scripture cosmogony, making the following points-:
THE SIX DAYS OF CREATION.
Despite all the criticisms of the word “create,” the plain
meaning of the first verse in Genesis is, that in the beginning of
the six days, as the first act of that continuous six days’ work
about six thousand years ago, according to the Biblical chronolo
gy, God created the heaven and the earth. But geology teaches
that the earth had existed millions of years before, and was brought
into its present form by continual changes through a long succes
sion of ages, during which enormous periods innumerable varieties
of animal and vegetable life abounded, from a time beyond all pow
er of calculation. So, also, God is represented as completing the
work of creation in six literal days, and resting upon and sancti
fying the seventh. In E. xx. 11, it is expressly said that “ in six
days God made the heaven and the earth, and all that in them is.”
�22
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
That they were not indefinite periods of time is further shown by
the setting of two great lights in the firmament on the fourth day,
to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light
from the darkness. If the first three days were indefinite days,
why is the same word in the Hebrew used for that portion of the
twenty-four hours which the sun rules over ? Is the sense of the
word day, from the fourth day onward, to be considered different
from that of the same word as used prior thereto?
THE ORDER OF CREATION.
The order of creation in Genesis is, first plants, then fish, then
fowls, then cattle and reptiles, and lastly man. Geology shows
that in the different ages plants and animals of all kinds appeared
together at the same time on the earth; so that they were not
successively created, as the Bible says, first all the plants, and then
dll the fish, etc.
CHAOS.
Genesis represents the earth as “ without form and void,” in a
state of utter chaos and confusion, and wrapped in darkness, im
mediately before the races of plants and animals now existing on
its face were created. Geology proves that the earth had existed
generally just as now, with the same kind of animal and vegeta
ble life as now, long before the six thousand years implied in the
Bible story, and that no sudden convulsion took place at that time
by which they might have been destroyed, so as to give occasion
for a new creation.
THE SUN AND MOON CREATED ON THE FOURTH DAY.
It is a mere evasion of the plain meaning of words to say that
God meant the sun and moon to appear first only on the fourth
day, although they had been long before created—appear, that is,
to the earth, when, however, according to the story, there was as.
yet no living creature on its face to see them I The writer uses
the same Hebrew word “ made ” as he had used before when he
says God made the firmament, and which he afterwards uses when
he says God made the animals.
THE FIRMAMENT OF WATERS.
The dividing of the waters below the firmament from the
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
23
waters above it was founded upon the idea that the sky was an
expanse, a spread-out surface, and that the upper waters dropped
rain.
WHAT DID BEASTS OE PREY EAT ?
To every animal God gave every green herb for meat. The
question arises, how were the beasts of prey to be supported, since
their teeth, stomachs, and bodily form were not adapted for eating
herbs ? But in fact geology teaches that ravenous creatures
preyed on their fellow creatures, and lived on flesh, in all ages of
the world’s past history, just exactly as they do now. Besides, al
most all fishes are carnivorous.
THE ZENDAVESTA STORY OF CREATION.
The account of the creation in Genesis corresponds with that
of the Zendavesta, which was composed near the same locality.
According to the latter, the universe was created in six periods of
time by Ormuzd, in the following order : 1. The heaven and the
terrestrial light between heaven and earth ; 2. The water; 3. The
earth ; 4. The trees and plants ; 5. Animals ; 6. Man ; whereupon
the Creator rested and connected the Divine origin of the festivals
with these periods of creation. The Persian tradition is substan
tially the same, showing that the story of Genesis had the same
origin. It is an ancient myth.
ADAM FORMED OF DUST.
“And the Lord God formed man (Adam) of the dust of the
ground” (Adamha). A play upon words.
THE RIVERS EUPHRATES, TIGRIS, NILE, AND INDUS UNITED.
The four rivers of Eden are made to unite in one. One of
these rivers is the Euphrates, and there is but little doubt that the
Hiddekel and the Gihon, as Josephus says, are the Tigris and Nile
respectively, and Pison probably the Indus.
DEATH THREATENED FOR DISOBEDIENCE.
“ In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
How could the first man understand what death was ? He had
not seen it.
NAMING OF THE ANIMALS.
Man was created before the other animals (the fishes excepted)
�24
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
according to the second chapter, and they were brought to Adam
to be named. How could the white bear of the frozen zone and
the humming bird of the tropics have met in one spot to be
named, and then dispersed again ?
WAS EDEN THE CENTRE OF CREATION ?
Was there only one centre of creation? Were all reptiles,
fishes, and insects, as well as all plants, created in Eden only, and
thence scattered to the ends of the earth ?—the Indian corn, for
instance, which was not known in the eastern hemisphere until
after the discovery of America ?
ORIGIN OF THE DIFFERENT HUMAN RACES.
It is even now an open scientific question whether the Austra
lian savage, the African negro, the American Indian, and the Cau
casian are all descendants of a first pair.
WOMAN MADE OUT OF A RIB.
The making of the woman out of the man’s rib is thought by
some to convey an idea of the intimate relationship, sacredness,
and indissolubility of the conjugal state. The Greenlanders
believe that the first woman was fashioned out of the man’s
thumb I
THE CUNNING SERPENT.
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the
field.” It is the Jehovistic interpolator who writes this passage.
Here is the origin of evil, in a speaking serpent.
THE SERPENT CRAWLING AND EATING DUST.
“ Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shall thou eat.”
Here the serpent is represented as degraded and debased from
what it was originally. But geology shows that it was the same
kind of creature before man existed on the earth. As to the ser
pent’s eating dust, it is a falsehood founded on the scantiness of
its food. As to the enmity between the woman’s seed and the
serpent, it is not true. A snake is held in great respect among
the Zulus. It was an emblem of healing wisdom among the
Greeks, and a symbol of eternity to the Phoenicians.
PAIN IN CHILDBIRTH.
Pain to the woman in childbirth, and the subjection of woman
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
25
to her husband, are fancies in the imagination of the Hebrew
writer. The subjection of the female to the male is not peculiar
to man amongst animals; and in tropical countries childbirth is
attended with little more pain and disturbance than the birth of
a beast.
CURSING THE GROUND.
“ Cursed is the ground for thy sake.” Geology shows no signs
of any such curse. Thorns and briers were as plentiful in the
primeval world as now ; and a life of toil and exertion is far more
healthful and ennobling than one of indolence and inactivity.
RETURNING TO DUST.
“ Till thou return unto the ground, for out of it thou wast
taken.” Geology shows that living creatures died long before.
“For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” This
would imply that Ada'm was not punished by death for his sin.
Death of the body was regarded by the ancient writers as the
end of all. No mention is made of the immortality of the soul.
PERSIAN STORY OF THE FIRST PAIR.
The Persian myth is similar to that of the Hebrews. The
first couple, Meshia and Meshiana, lived originally in purity and
innocence. Perpetual happiness was promised to them by the
Creator. An evil demon (Dev) came to them in the form of a
serpent, and gave them fruit of a wonderful tree, which imparted
immortality. Consequently they fell and forfeited the eternal
happiness for which they were destined. They killed beasts and
clothed themselves; they built houses, but paid not their debt of
gratitude to the Deity, and the evil demon obtained still more
perfect power over their minds.
CHINESE STORY OF HIE FALL.
The Chinese have their age of virtue, when Nature furnished
abundant food, and man lived peacefully, surrounded by all the
beasts, not knowing what it meant to do good or evil, and not
subject to disease or death. But partly by an undue thirst for
knowledge, and partly by increasing sensuality and the seduction
of woman, he fell. Passion and lust ruled his mind, war with
the animals began, and all Nature stood inimically arrayed
against him.
�26
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
PARADISE OF THE GREEKS.
The Greeks had their Paradise or Elysium—their garden of
Hesperides, with its golden apples, in the islands of the blessed,
guarded by ever-watchful serpents.
SACRED MOUNTAIN- OF THE HINDOOS.
The Hindoos have their sacred mountain, Meru, in which no
sinful man can exist. It is perpetually clothed in the golden
rays of the sun, guarded by dreadful dragons, adorned by celes
tial plants, and watered by four rivers, which separate and flow
in four directions.
WHO WAS TO KILL CAIN ?
Cain is made to say, “ Every one that findeth me shall slay
me.” The only man on the face of the earth was Adam; Seth
was not yet born.
cain’s descendants favored.
The introduction of cattle-keeping, music, and smithery is
ascribed to the descendants of Cain, on whom the curse had
been pronounced I
LONGEVITY IN PREHISTORIC TIMES.
The great longevity of ancient times is common to the tra
ditions of all nations. As soon as we come down to historical
times we see no more of these great ages.
SONS OF GOD AND DAUGHTERS OF MEN.
“ The sons of God saw the daughters of men.” This is bor
rowed from foreign or heathen sources. See Book of Enoch—
an acknowledged forgery.
ANCIENT GIANTS.
“ There were giants in the earth in those days.” The belief in
races of giants was universal among the ancients, but that the
stature of the human race was really the same generally in those
days as now, is shown by the remains discovered in ancient tombs
and pyramids.
STORY OF THE DELUGE.
In the story of the deluge the ark is made to rest on the
highest summit of Ararat, and remain there seventy-three or
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
27
seventy-four days after the waters had retired from the earth.
At this elevation of 17,00u feet—1,000 feet higher than Mont
Blanc, and 3,000 feet above the region of perpetual snow—all the
inhabitants of the ark must have frozen to death. Many other
difficulties are presented and discussed, and in conclusion Colenso
says that geology absolutely disproves the story.
WAS IT A PARTIAL DELUGE?
1. The difficulty of worms and snails crawling into the ark
from some large terrestrial basin in western Asia, is just as great as
from distant parts of the earth. One small brook would have been
a barrier to further progress. Nor could Noah have provided for
the wild carnivorous animals—the lion, leopard, eagle, vulture,
etc. And what need to crowd the ark with birds which could
easily have escaped beyond the boundaries of the inundation ?
2. The language of the Bible is too sweeping. God says,
“ Every living substance that I have made will I destroy from
off the face of the earth.” (G. vii. 4.)
3. One volcanic region, forty miles by twenty, in the provinces
of Auvergne and Languedoc, in France, contains deposits of sco
ria and lava extending over many miles, and in some places from
fifty to one hundred feet deep, which must have taken many
thousands of years to accumulate, and which have certainly not
been submerged during at least eighteen thousand years past.
4. In all the diluvian deposits no trace of human remains has
ever been found.
CHALDEAN STORY OE THE DELUGE.
Many heathen nations have traditions concerning a universal
deluge. There is a Chaldean story of Xisthurus building an immense ship, 3,000 by 1,200 feet, loading it with provisions, enter
ing it with his family and all species of quadrupeds, birds, and
reptiles, and sailing toward Armenia. When the rain ceased he
sent out birds to ascertain the condition of the earth. Twice
they returned—the second time with mud on their feet. The
third time they returned no more. By this time the ship had
grounded on the side of an Armenian mountain, whereupon Xis
thurus and his family left it, erected an altar, and offered sacri
fices to the gods. Pieces of bitumen and timber, ostensibly taken
from the ship, were in later times chiefly used as amulets.
�28
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
GENERATIONS OE NOAH.
In G. x. the generations of Noah are enumerated. The nations
of Eastern Asia are not enumerated at all, though the writer
seems to have had some vague notion of the existence of distant
families (». 30).
IDENTITY OF LANGUAGE OF THE HEBREWS AND CANAANITES.
The fact that the patriarchs and Hebrews could converse with
the surrounding nations shows that their language was common,
and the indications are that the vernacular language of the
Canaanites was substantially the same as that of the Hebrews.
The language was radically the same from the earliest times.
THE HEBREW LANGUAGE, WHENCE DERIVED.
Whence was the Hebrew language derived ? The fact that
the Pentateuch was written in pure Hebrew appears to be strong
if not positive proof of its having been written at a much later
period of their national history than the exodus, or at a time
when the language of Canaan had become, after several genera
tions, the common tongue of the invading Hebrews, as well as of
the heathen tribes which they drove out, and ■which they were
unwilling to acknowledge as brethren. We never read of any in
terpreter between the Hebrews and the Philistines.
THE DISPERSION OF TONGUES.
The story of the dispersion of tongues is connected by the
Jehovistic writer with the famous unfinished temple of*Belus, of
which probably some wonderful reports had reached him, in
whatever age he may have lived. The derivation of the name
Babel from the Hebrew word meaning confound, which seems to
be the connecting point between the story and the tower of
Babel, is altogether incorrect, the literal meaning of the word
being house, or court, or gate of Bel.
REMARKABLE INCREASE IN FOUR HUNDRED YEARS.
In Abraham’s time, not four hundred years after the deluge,
the descendants of Noah’s three sons, none of whom had a child
before the deluge, had so multiplied that four kingdoms are men
tioned as engaging in war against five other kingdoms (G. xv.
1, 2). Besides these there are a multitude of other nations named
�ON THE PENTATEUCH,
29
in the same chapter, some of which had attained a high state of
civilization.
COMPLETE CHANGE OE PHYSICAL CHARACTER.
Moreover, in this short interval we find the most marked dif
ferences of physiognomy stamped on the different races, as shown
on the ancient monuments of Egypt. There was a completo
change of form, color, and general physical character, which
seem not to have been modified during the four thousand years
since.
NOAH’S VNDVTIFUL PROGENY.
Noah, and all the rest of Abraham’s ancestors after Noah,
were still living, as appears from the following record:
Noah
Sliem .
Arphaxad, born
Salah,
“
Eber,
“
Peleg,
“
Rmi,
“
Serug,
“
Nahor,
“
Terah,
“
Abraham, “
Isaac,
“
Jacob,
“
.
.
’2
37
67
101
131
163
193
222
292
392
452
.
died
“
years after, died
<<
“
“
Cl.
“
cc
“
cc
“
Cl
“
Cf
“
Cl
“
14
“
Cl
“
.
350 years after the flood.
cl
CC
502
cc
cc
404
cc
cc
470
cc
cc
351
cc
cc
340
cc
cc
370
cc
cc
393
cc
cc
341
«
u
427
cc
cc
467
cc
cc
572
cc
cc
599
And yet we do not find the slightest intimation that Abraham,
Isaac, or Jacob paid any kind of reverence or attention to their
illustrious ancestors.
ABRAHAM’S INCREDULITY ABOUT HAVING A SON.
Abraham laughed when told that a son should be born to him
that was a hundred years old ; and yet there were actually living
those ancestors of his from one hundred and seventy to five hun
dred and eighty years old at the time. Shein was one hundred
years old two years after the deluge, when he begat Arphaxad,
and he lived thereafter five hundred years, and begat sons and
daughters.
�30
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
SILENCE OF THE REST OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ABOUT EDEN,
THE FALL, AND THE DELUGE.
The fact that nowhere in the other books of the Old Testa
ment is found any reference to the story in Genesis of the crea
tion, or the fall of man, or the deluge, except in Isaiah liv. 9
(where the waters of Noah are mentioned), and Ezek. xiv. 14-20
(where the name of Noah is mentioned), is easy of explanation if
the writer of these stories lived in the latter part of David’s reign.
THE BOOK OF ENOCH.
In an appendix to vol. IV. the book of Enoch is examined.
The Bishop says there is no doubt that the book is a fiction. Ac
cording to Archbishop Laurence, it was composed within about
fifty years immediately preceding the birth of Christ. From it
most of the language of the New Testament, in which the judg
ment of the last day is described, appears to have been directly de
rived. It is full of such expressions and sentences as these : “ Day
of judgment.” “ Judgment which shall last forever.” “ Lowest
depths of fire in torment.” “Ancient of Days upon the throne of
his glory.” “ The book of the living was opened in his presence.”
“ Valley burning with fire.” “Fetters of iron without weight.”
“ Furnace of burning fire.” “ The word of his wrath shall de
stroy all the sinners and all the ungodly, who shall perish at his
presence.” “ Trouble shall seize upon them when they shall be
hold this son of woman sitting upon the throne of his glory.’’
“ They shall fix their hopes on this son of man, shall pray to him
and petition for mercy. Then shall the Lord of spirits hasten to
expel them from his presence. Their faces shall be full of confu
sion, and their faces shall darkness cover. The angels shall take
them to punishment that vengeance may be inflicted on those
who have opposed his children and his elect. . . . But the saints
and the elect shall be safe in that day. . . . The Lord of spirits
shall remain over them, and with his son of man shall they dwell,
eat, lie down, and rise up forever and ever.”
BOOK OF JOSHUA.
Vol. V. opens with an examination of the book of Joshua
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
31
after which the Bishop endeavors to separate the different por
tions of the different writers of the Pentateuch and the book of
Joshua, and to fix their exact age. The larger portion of the book
of Joshua, he believes, is due to the Deuteronomist, who must
consequently have lived at all events after the days of Moses,
since the death and burial of Moses are recorded in D. xxxiv.
The argument proceeds as follows :
THE DEUTERONOMIST.
Numerous expressions common to Deuteronomy and Joshua
occur nowhere else in the Pentateuch. These Deuteronomistic
formulas do not occur throughout the whole of the book of Joshua,
but only in certain portions of it; in the remaining parts of the
book, in which we find none of these formulas, we meet again
with the peculiar phrases of the old writers of the Pentateuch
which are never used by the Deuteronomist. The original lan
guage has been retouched and blended with that of the Deuter
onomist. The same also is true of the other four books ; there
is plain evidence that the Deuteronomist has revised and retouched
the manuscript before he added to it the sum and substance of the
law of the book of Deuteronomy. More than half of the book of
Joshua, especially of the historical and hortatory matter, consists
of interpolations by the Deuteronomist.
RESEARCHES OF HUPFIELD AND EOEnMER.
The author gives a summary of the researches of Hupfield
and Boehmer, exhibiting the Elohistic passages in Genesis, and
showing great unanimity as the result of three independent re
searches. They all agree substantially, except in regard to four
genealogical sections.
ELOHISTIC AND JEnOVISTIC PECULIARITIES.
There are more than one hundred different formulas or expres
sions, each of which occurs on an average more than ten times in
Genesis, but only in those portions of it which remain when the
Elohistic parts are removed. Some of them occur three times in
one verse. On the other hand, the Eloliistic portions in their
turn exhibit their own phraseology, which is never repeated in
the Jehovistic parts. Thus, only the Jehovistic portions contain
such expressions as “ lift up the eyes and see “ lift up the voice
and weep •” “ fall on the neck and weep ; ” “ find favor in the eyes
�32
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
of;” “ see the face of; ” “run to meet,” etc.; and such words as
“ sin,” “ swear,” “ steal,” “ smite,” “ slay,” “ fear,” “ hate,” “ com
fort,” “ embrace,” “ kiss,” and even “ love.”
SIMPLICITY OF TIIE ELOHIST.
The Elohist appears to have had more correct views of the
nature of the Divine Being and of his paternal relations to mankind, and less gloomy views of man’s nature and the prospects of
the human race. According to him, “ God saw everything that
he had made, and behold it was very good.” But the Jehovist
speaks of the earth as corrupt and filled with violence. The lat
ter has a deep sense of sin and its consequences. The former
knows nothing about the Garden of Eden, the forbidden fruit, the
wily serpent, or the fall of man ; it is only the Jehovist who mul
tiplies curses upon the earth and pains of child-birth as the bitter
consequences of our first parents’ sin. The Jehovist gives all the
darkest parts of the histories of indvidual life, such as the drunk
enness of Noah, the presumption of the Babel builders, the great
selfishness of Lot, the uncleanness of Sodom, the wickedness of
Onan, etc. All those stories of impurity which make so many of
the passages of Genesis totally unfit to be read in public or in the
family are due to the Jehovist. The original Elohittic writer
presents the character of the three patriarchs substantially with
out a flaw. It is the Jehovist who lowers them.
INTERPOLATIONS IN THE JEHOVISTIO NARRATIVE.
We have seen that there are interpolations in the original
Elohistio narrative. We also find similar interpolations in differ
ent portions of the non-Elohistic matter itself. The non-Elohistic matter consists of the contributions of three or four different
■writers. For instance, chapter xiv. has no relation with any other
part of Genesis. It brings Abraham before us in the. character of
a warlike Sheik, with 318 trained servants. But in the subse
quent account of his going to Gerar (chap. xx.). where Abimelech
takes his wife from him, Abraham is afraid of his life, and prac
tises deceit, showing plainly that he could have had no such im
mense band of trained servants with him. lie had routed the
combined forces of Eastern kings, and needed not therefore, to
have ieared the power of the petty Prince of Gerar. This
chapter contains four times the expression, “God most high,”
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
33
which occurs nowhere else in the Pentateuch, and only three
times besides in the Bible—namely, in the Psalms.
THE DEUTERONOMIST AN EDITOR.
The later writer or Deuteronomist was not the compiler, but
the editor of the Pentateuch and book of Joshua, which he inter
polated throughout and enlarged, especially by the addition of
the book of Deuteronomy. The interpolated passages for the
most part seem to have been inserted for the purpose of quicken
ing the history with a deeper spiritual meaning and stirring more
effectually the reader’s heart with words of religious life and
earnestness. To this editor Colenso ascribes sixty-three verses
entire of Genesis, and many more fragmentary notes.
FIRST AND SECOND ELOHIST.
About three-fourths of Genesis remain after removing the
parts due to the second Jehovist and Deuteronomist. This threefourths is so homogeneous in style that it is almost impossible to
distingush the difference in style between the different sections
of it except in one respect. There is a second Elohistic writer
who uses decidedly Jehovistic formulas, though he has abstained
from the use of the name Jehovah (Lord). But though it is diffi
cult to separate the parts due to these two writers, Colenso has
endeavored to do it. According to the critics there arc five wri
ters of the Pentateuch—namely, the Elohist, the Elohist number
two, the Jehovist, the Jehovist number two, and the Deuterono
mist. But Colenso thinks Elohist number two is the same as the
Jehovist, only at an earlier period of his life. In his earliest at
tempts at interpolation he was perhaps somewhat stiff in style,
which stiffness he overcame in his later years. Therefore the two
may be identical.
HOW THE JEHOVIST REGARDED THE ELOHISTIC NARRATIVE.
It has been already shown in vol. II. that the first chapter of
Genesis was written by the same hand which wrote Exodus
v. 2-7, revealing the name of Jehovah to Moses. The Elohistic
writer not having used that name until he used it in the above
passage, intended to be understood that the name was unknown
among men till then. Now if Moses himself really recorded that
fact is it possible that other writers of his time would have dared
to contradict it by interpolations ? It is incredible. The interpo-
�34
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
lations must have been made at a later age by a writer who knew
that the original record was not historically true, and therefore
ventured to interpolate the name Jehovah. He must have known
that the original narrative was a work of the imagination, and
therefore that it was not necessary to adhere to the older state
ment.
AGE OF THE ELOHIST.
1. There is an air of primitive simplicity pervading the whole
Elohistic story. The style is grave, prosaic, and unadorned.
There is no instance of a story of indecency; crimes of violence
are mentioned, but none of an indecent character.
2. According to the Elohist mankind first lived on vegetable
food, and were not allowed to eat animals until after the flood.
3. In the Elohistic narrative there is no mention made of houses.
The ark is the only exception, but the details of if—the dimensions,
the door, the window, the roof, the stories—are given by the Jehovistic writer.
4. The Elohist makes no mention of sacrifices, priests, or tithes.
5. In G. xlviii. 5, 13, 14, Ephraim is set before Manasseh, though
the latter was the first born, and both are reckoned as tribes of Is
rael. “As Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine.” Now Manasseh
was the most prominent among the Northern tribes until shortly
before the time of Samuel, through its hero, Gideon (Jud. vi. 15).
Hence the composition of Genesis cannot be assigned at an earlier
period than about fifty years before Samuel, the time of Jephthah,
nor later than the time of David, shortly after Samuel.
6., In S. xxxv. 11, God promises Jacob that “a nation and a
company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of
thy loins,” No reference is made to his desccendants forming, as
they did, two nations, Judah and Israel; but a nation is spoken of
There is no enmity whatever implied in the Elohistic narrative
between Joseph and his brethren. The children of Israel are
plainly united in one body.
7. There is no enmity existing betweenEsau and Jacob—i. e.,
Edom and Israel; so that the narrative must have been written
before the feeling between them became bitter, as recorded in 2
S. viii. 14. This brings the date to a time not later than Samuel.
8. “ These are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom before
there reigned any king over the children of Israel” (G. xxxvi. 31)
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
35
—meaning of course, all Israel, which restricts the time to that
of Saul, David, and Solomon, the first three kings. But as the
signs of a more primitive civilization in the narrative forbid our
assigning it to the age of Solomon, or even the latter part of
David’s reign, we must refer it to the early part or the time of
Samuel, when “ all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to
sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his
mattock and when “ in the day of battle there was neither
sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were
with Saul and Jonathan ” (1 S. xiii. 20, 23),
9. The Elohist lays great stress on Hebron, in the land of
Canaan, where the field of Machpelah lay, as the resting place of
the bones of the Patriarchs. David, by Divine command, was di
rected (2 S. ii. 1) to make Hebron the centre of his power or seat
of Government. He reigned in Hebron over Judah seven
and a half years, and then in Jerusalem thirty-three years over
Israel and Judah (2 S. v. 5). After this Hebron disappears from
history altogether, except that Absalom begins his rebellion by
asking leave to go and pay a vow unto the Lord in Hebron (2 S.
xv. 7), and there sets up his kingdom (y. 10). It would seem highly
improbable that all this importance should be ascribed to Hebron
if the writer wrote after the first few years of David’s reign, when
he had captured the fortress of Zion and made Jerusalem his royal
city (2 S. v. 6, 7).
10. Samuel lived three years after the anointment of David,
and must have been aware of his valiant acts ; and his hopes seem
to have been centred in David after he had utterly despaired of
Saul. He may have advised David to go to Hebron, and may have
written the passages before us with a view to that event. Samuel,
having most likely a band of young men under his training, had to
provide instruction for them as a school of prophets. They had
no Bible, no body of Divinity; and what is more likely than that
he should have done his best to prepare such a narrative ?
AGE OF THE JEHOVIST.
1. The style of the Jehovist seems to be freer and easier than
that of the second Elohist, thereby indicating a later authorship.
2. Extended geographical knowledge is exhibited, pointing to
a later age than Samuel (G. ii. 11-14 and x.), when the people had
�36
ABSTRACT OF COLENSO
passed out of the mere agricultural condition in which they were
living in the time of Samuel, and had begun to have freer inter
course with surrounding nations and more especially with the
maritime people of Tyre and Sidon.
3. Indications of advanced civilization and even luxury are
found in the Jehovistic portions (G. ii. 11, 12). Instruments of
music and working in brass and iron are spoken of (iv. 21, 22),
whereas in Saul’s time “ there was no smith found throughout all
the land of Israel ” (1 S. xiii. 19).
4. Considerable acquaintance with Egyptian affairs and cus
toms is exhibited (xxxix. 20, xliii. 32, xlvi. 34, xlvii. 26, 1. 3).
5. Jacob is recorded as building himself a house (xxxiii. 17).
The details of Noah’s ark are similar to the directions for the
tabernacle. There are indications of artistic skill of every kind
which can scarcely have existed before the age of Solomon, and
which in fact never was indigenous, but belonged to the Tyrian
builders and other artisans engaged in the erection of the temple.
6. The hatred of Esau by Jacob is spoken of. In 2 K. viii. 2022, we read of Edom revolting from under the hand of Judah.
The prophecy in G. xxv. 23, that “ the elder shall serve the
younger,” seems to have had its fulfilment in the latter part of
David’s reign, when Edom was crushed and did remain a servant
to his younger brother Israel during the remainder of David’s
reign. But Edom recovered its independence at the beginning of
Solomon’s reign.
7. This w'ould also explain another phenomenon in connection
with this matter which we observe in the Jehovistic portion of
Genesis—viz., the reconciliation of Esau and Jacob, and the gen
erous conduct described in the narrative of chapter xxxviii.
8. The result remains that the Jehovistic sections of G. xxvii.
40, etc. referring to Esau, cannot have been written till after Da
vid’s death, but were probably composed at the very beginning of
Solomon’s reign, when Edom had long been serving his brother
and had just thrown off the yoke.
9. The Jehovist lays almost as much stress on Beer
sheba as the Elohist does on Hebron. Both Abraham and Isaac
dig a well at Beersheba and acquire the right of possession in
connection vi-ith a solemn covenant made with the Philistine king;
whereas, according to the Elohist, each of the three patriarchs
�ON THE PENTATEUCH.
37
lived solely at Hebron—at least after Abraham’s acquisition of
property there. And the Jehovist also in various places takes
account of their having lived there at some time in their lives.
10. In the days of David and Solomon the Israelitish territory
extended from Dan to Beersheba. The great stress laid on Beer
sheba therefore seems to point to the time of David and Solomon.
The phrase “from Dan even to Beersheba” is first used in Jud.
xx. 1, and in 1 S. iii. 20, narratives written, no doubt, in this age.
It is afterwards repeated.
AGES OF THE DIFFERENT WRITERS.
The result of Colenso’s researches is to fix the age3 of the dif
ferent writers, with the names of distinguished cotemporary
prophets, as follows :
Elohist, . . 1100—1060 B. C., cotemporary prophet, Samuel
2d Elohist,
Jehovist, )f 1AAA 1A1A
1060-1010
“
“
“
Nathan.
2d Jehovist, 1035
“
“
“
Gad.
Deuteronomist, 641—624
“
“
“ Jeremiah.
Samuel may have begun the Elohistic story, and left it unfin
ished in the hands of his disciples, Nathan and Gad, whom we
may fairly suppose to have been thrown under his auspices.
PHOENICIAN ORIGIN OF THE NAME JEHOVAn.
The name Jehovah the author traces to the Phoenicians. They
no doubt practiced substantially the same religion and spoke the
same language as the Israelites. Most decisive proof is given of
this by the series of Phoenician inscriptions lately published by
the authorities of the British Museum. The great Phoenician
Deity was the Sun, the male principle, while the Moon was re
garded as the symbol of the co-operating recipient powers of na
ture, the female principle. The Sun was worshipped under a
variety of names, among others that of Baal (Lord) and Adonis
(my Lord). But there was one name more augu-t and mysterious,
employed chiefly at the great feast of the harvest, and expressed
both by Christian and heathen writers by the very same Greek
letters, by which they express also the mysterious Hebrew name.
Thus there must have been a very close resemblance between the
two names, and accordingly we find Phoenician names compound-
�38
ABSTRACT OF C0LEN.50
ed with Jah exactly as Hebrew. It is preposterous to suppose
that the Phoenicians derived their names from the Hebrews.
It is not necessary to suppose that the Elohist invented the
name of Jehovah for his people. Samuel probably finding the
tribes, the northern especially, already in possession of the name,
adopted it as the name of the God of Israel. Afterwards the
Deuteronomist breathed new life into the dead letter of the law.
Meanwhile the people generally practised idolatry, even in the
reign of David and Solomon. Jehosophat, Asa, Ahaziah, and
Amaziah worshipped Jehovah (JHVH) on the high places, who
was the Baal of Israel. There is no censure of the kings for al
lowing this idolatry by the writer of the books of Samuel and
Kings. Yet all this while the great prophets of Israel were striv
ing with their stolid and perverse countrymen, to raise their
minds to higher views of the Divine nature, and nobler concep
tions of the meaning of that name they were daily profaning.
CORRUPT WORSHIP OF JEHOVAH.
The worship of Jehovah being introduced among the Hebrews
was long continued among them, as regards the great mass of the
people, in the same low form in which it existed among the Ca
naanite tribes, and was only gradually purified from its grosser
pollutions by the long continued efforts of those great prophets
whom God raised up for the purpose from time to time in differ
ent ages, aided no doubt in this work by the powerful national
calamities which befell them, and probably also in some measure by
their coming in contact during the time of their captivity with
those divine truths which were taught in the Zroasterian religion.
In fact, the state of Israel may be compared with that which, in
the view of many ardent Protestants, exists even now in Catholic
communities. The people in such cases worship the same God as
the Protestants; they call themselves Christians, servants of the
same Lord, yet there is much in their religion which Protestant
travelers regard as profound idolatry, and denounce as gross
abominations.
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
By W. H. B.
Very erroneous ideas prevail in regard to the magnitude of the nation
and country of the Jews, and their importance in history. Most maps
of ancient Palestine assign far too much territory to that nation. They
make the greatest length of the country from 160 to 17-5 miles, and its
greatest breadth from 70 to 90, inclosing an area of from 10,000 to
12,000 square miles—a little larger than the State of Vermont. They
not only include the entire Mediterranean coast for 160 miles, but a
considerable mountain tract on the north, above Dan, and a portion of
the desert on the south, below Beersheba, besides running the eastern
boundary out too far. Moreover, they lengthen the distances in every
direction. From Dan to Beersheba, the extreme northern and southern
towns, the distance on Mitchell’s map is 165 miles, and on Colton’s, 150;
but on a map accompanying “Biblical Researches in Palestine,” by
Edward Robinson, D. D., which is one of the most recent and elaborate,
and will doubtless be accepted as the best authority, the distance is only
128 miles.
Now, the Israelites were never able to drive out the Canaanites from
the choicest portion of the country—the Mediterranean coast—nor even
from most parts of the interior. (Judges i. 16-31 ; 1 Kings ix. 20, 21.) The
Phenicians, a powerful maritime people, occupied the northern portion
of the coast, and the Philistines the southern ; between these the Jebusites, or some other people, held control, so that the Israelites were
excluded from any part of the Mediterranean shore. The map of their
country must therefore undergo a reduction of a strip on the west at
least 10 miles wide by 160 long, or 1,600 square miles. A further reduc
tion must be made of about 400 square miles for the Dead Sea and Lake
of Tiberias. This leaves at most 9,000 square miles by Colton’s map.
But on this map the extreme length of the country is 175 miles ; which
is 47 miles too great; for the whole dominion of the Jews extended only
from Dan to Beersheba, which Dr. Robinson places only 128 mi es apart.
We must therefore make a further reduction of an area about 47 by 60
miles, or 2,800 square miles. Then we must take off a slice on the east,
at least 10 miles broad by 60 long, or 600 square miles. Thus we reduce
the area of Colton’s map, from 11,000 square miles, to 5,600—a little
less than the State of Connectidlit.
But now if we subtract from this what was wilderness and desert,
and also what was at no time inhabited and controlled by the Israelites,
we further reduce their habitable territory about one-lialf. The land of
�40
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
Canaan being nearly all mountainous, and bounded on the south and east
by a vast desert which encroached upon the borders of the country, a
great part of it was barren wilderness. Nor did but one-fifth of the Is
raelites (two and a half tribes) occupy the country east of the Jordan
which was almost equal in extent to that on the west, the proper land of
promise. The eastern half, therefore, must have been but thinly popu
lated by the two and a half tribes, who were only able to maintain a
precarious foothold against the bordering enemies. So then it is not
probable that the Israelites actually inhabited and governed at any time,
a territory of more than 3,000 square miles, or not much if any larger
than the little State of Delaware. At all events, it can hardly be doubted
that Delaware contains more good land than the whole country of the
Jews ever did.
The promise to Abraham in Gen. xv. 18, is “from the river of Egypt
to the river Euphrates.” But the Jewish possessions never reached the
Nile by 200 miles. In Ex. xxxiii. 31, the promise is renewed, but the
river of Egypt is not named. The boundaries are “from the Red Sea
to the Sea of the Philistines (the Mediterranean), and from the desert to
the river.” By “the river ” was doubtless meant the Euphrates; and
assuming that by “ the desert ” was meant the eastern boundary (though
Canaan was bounded on the south also by the same great desert, which
reached to the Red Sea), we have in this promise a territory 600 miles
long by an average of about 180 broad, making an area of about 100.000
square miles, or ten times as much as the Jews ever could claim, and
nearly one-half of it uninhabitable. So then the promise was never ful
filled, for the Israelites were confined to a very small central portion of
their land of promise, and whether they occupied 3,000 or 12,000 square
miles in the period of their greatest power, the fact is not to be disputed
that their country was a very small one.
What was the physical character of the land of Canaan ? It is de
scribed in the Pentateuch as a “ land flowing with milk and honey.”
Such it may have seemed to the Israelites after wandering forty years
through the frightful desert of Sinai and Edom, where but for the
miraculous supply of food and water, every soul of them would have per
ished. But what was there in Canaan to warrant so extravagant an enco
mium 2 Surely there are no signs there now of its ever having been even
a fertile country. Modern travelers all agree that it is very barren and
desolate. How could it be otherwise 2 It is a country of rocks and
mountains, and is bounded on two sides by a vast desert.
Lamartine describes the journey from Bethany to Jericho as singularly
toilsome and melancholy—neither houses nor cultivation, mountains
without a shrub, immense rocks split bjitime, pinnacles tinged with colors
like those of an extinct volcano. “ From the summit of these hills, as
far as the eye can reach, wo see only black chains, conical or broken peaks,
a boundless labyrinth of passes rent through the mountains, and those
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
41
ravines lying in perfect and perpetual stillness, without a stream, with
out a wild animal, without even a flower, the relics of a convulsed land,
with waves of stone.” (Vol. II., p. 146.)
But lest it may be thought that these dismal features arc due to modern
degeneracy, let us take the testimony of an early Christian father, St.
Jerome, who lived a long time in Bethlehem, four miles south of Jeru
salem. In the year 414 he wrote to Dardanus thus :—
“ I beg of those who assert that the Jewish people after coming out of
Egypt took possession of this, country (which to us, by the passion and
resurrection of our Saviour has become truly the land of promise), to
show us w]iat this people possessed. Their whole dominions extended
only from Dan to Beersheba, hardly 160 Roman miles in length (147 geo
graphical miles). The Scriptures give no more to David and Solomon,
except what they acquired by alliance, after conquest......... Iam ashamed
to say what is the breadth of the land of promise, lest I should thereby
give the pagans occasion to blaspheme. It is but 47 miles (42 geograph
ical m:les) from Joppa to our little town of Bethlehem, beyond which,
all is a frightful desert.” (Vol. II., p. 605.)
Elsewhere he describes the country as the refuse and rubbish of nature.
He says that from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is nothing but stones,
and in the summer the inhabitants can scarcely get water to drink.
In the year 1847, Lieut. Lynch, of the U. S. Navy, was sent to explore
the river Jordan and the Dead Sea. He and his party with great diffi
culty crossed the country from Acre to the lake of Tiberias, with trucks
drawn by camels. The only roads from time immemorial were mule
paths. Frequent detours had to be made, and they were compelled ac
tually to make some portions of their road. Even then the last declivity
could not be overcome, until all hands turned out and hauled the boats
and baggage down the steep places ; and many times it seemed as if, like
the ancient herd of swine, they would all rush precipitately into the sea.
Over three days were required to make the journey, which, in a straight
line would be only 27 miles. For the first few miles they passed over a
pretty fertile plain, but this was the ancient Phenician country, which
the Jews never conquered. The rest of the route was mountainous and
rocky, with not a tree visible, nor a house outside the little walled vil
lages. (pp. 135 to 152.)
. Arriving at the ancient sea of Galilee, they purchased the only boat
owned there (Letter to the Secretary of State). On this insignificant body
of water, 12 miles long by 7 wide, all the commerce of the Jews was
carried on, except in the reign of Solomon, when they had the use of
a port on the Red Sea. From thence, the party proceeded down the
Jordan; some in boats, the rest by land. They had to clear out old
channels, make new ones, and sometimes, trusting in Providence, they
plunged with headlong velocity down appalling descents. On the third
morning the frame boat was smashed and abandoned. The metallic boats
which they had provided for this perilous voyage were the only kind that
�42
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
would survive. They plunged down twenty-seven threatening rapids,
besides many smaller ones in their passage from the lake to the Dead
Sea, a distance of 200 miles by the crooked Jordan, but only 56 in a
straight line. The fall in the whole distance is 654 feet. The width of
the river, Lieut. Lynch says, was 75 feet; but as this was at the time of
the flood, it must have been much less at low water. Other travelers
say it is only 40 feet wide. Even as it was, their boat, drawing only eight
inches of water, grounded in mid-channel, showing how very shallow
the river must have been in summer. A bridge spanning the stream with
a single pointed Saracenic arch is described by Lieut. Lynch, and a draw
ing of it is given by the Rev. Mr. Tristram in his “ Land of Israel ” (Lon
don, 1865) Through this single arch the waters have rushed for centu
ries, and still the bridge endures. Such is the famous Jordan—a narrow,
shallow, crooked, impetuous mountain stream.
In a book entitled “ The Holy Land, Syria,” etc., by David Roberts,
R. A. (London, 1855), the valley of the Jordan is thus described:—
“A large portion of the valley of the Jordan has been from the earliest
time almost a desert But in the northern part, the great number of rivu
lets which descend from the mountains on both sides, produce in many
places a luxuriant growth of wild herbage. So too in the southern part, ,
where similar rivulets exist, as around Jericho, there is even an exuber
ant fertility; but those rivulets seldom reach the Jordan, and have no
effect on the middle of the Ghor. The mountains on each side are rug
ged and desolate; the western cliffs overhanging the valley at an eleva
tion of 1,000 or 1,200 feet, while the eastern mountains fall back in rano-es
of from 2,000 to 2,500 feet.”
From the mouth of the Jordan to Jerusalem, the elevation is 3,927 feet.
The distance in a straight line on Robinson’s map is 16 miles. From the
nearest point on the Dead Sea it is 12 1-2 miles. An air-line railroad,
therefore, from the mouth of the river to Jeru alem would require an
average grade of 245 feet to the mile; and from the nearest point on the
Dead Sea, 314 feet to the mile. The length of the route would have to
be more than doubled or trebled to make a railroad practicable. From
Jerusalem to Yafa, the nearest practicable point on the Mediterranean,
is 33 miles in a direct line. As Jerusalem is 2,610 feet higher than the
sea level, the average grade of an air-line railroad between the two places
would be about 80 feet per mile. Should the time ever come when a
railroad would be required from the Mediterranean to the river Jordan,
via Jerusalem, the question might arise, which would be the most prac
ticable—the heavy grades required, or a tunnel from ten to twenty miles
long, and from one to two thousand feet below the site of the holy city.
What -was the size of ancient Jerusalem? We know pretty nearly
what it is now, and how many inhabitants it contains. It is three-quar
ters of a mile long, by a half a mile wide, and its population is not more
than 11,500 {Biblical Researches, Vol. I., p. 421), a large proportion of
whom are drawn thither by the renowned sanctity of the place. Dr.
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
43
Robinson measured the wall of the city, and found it to be only 12,978
feet in circumference, or nearly two and a half miles. (Vol. I., p. 268.)
In a book entitled “An Essay on the Ancient Topography of Jerusa
lem,’’ by James Fergusson (London, 1847), a diagram is given of the
walls of ancient and modern Jerusalem, from which it appears that the
greatest length of the city was at no time more than 6C00 feet, or a little
more than a mile, and its greatest width about three-quarters of a mile;
while the real Jerusalem of old was but a little more than a quarter that
size. The author gives the area of the different walled inclosures as
follows (p. 52): —
■ Area of the old city. ------ 513,000 yards.
That of the city of David, . 213,000
Partial Total,
-.................................... 756,000
That inclosed by the wrall of Agrippa,
- 1,456,000
Grand total, -----2,212,000
With these measurements Mr. Fergusson undertakes to estimate the
probable population o: the ancient city, as follows:—
“ If we allow the inhabitants of the first named cities fifty yards to
each individual, and that one-half of the new city was inhabited at the
rate of one person to each one hundred yards, this will give a permanent
population of 23,000 souls. If on the other hand we allow only thirtythree yards to each of the old cities, and admit that the whole of the new
was as densely populated as London; or allowing one hundred yards to
each inhabitant, we obtain 37,000 souls for the whole—which I do not
think it at all probable that Jerusalem ever could have contained as a
permanent population.”
In another part of the book (p. 47) he says :—
“If we were to trust Josephus, he would have us believe that Jerusa
lem contained at one time, or could contain, two and a half or three
millions of souls, and that at the siege of Titus, 1,100,000 perished by
famine and the sword; 97,000 were taken captive, and 40,000 allowed by
Titus to go free.”
In order to show the gross exaggeration of these numbers, he cites the
fact that the army of Titus did not exceed, altogether, 30,000, and that
Josephus himself enumerates the fighting men of the city at 23,400,
which would give a population something under 100,000. But even this
he believes to be an exaggeration. For says he :—
“ In all the sallies it cannot be discovered that at any time the Jews
could bring into the field 10,000 men, if so many.............. Titus inclosed
the city with a line four and one half miles in extent, which, with his j
small army, was so weak a disposition that a small body of the Jews
could easily have broken through it; but they never seem to have had
numbers sufficient to be able to attempt it.”
The author guesses that the Jews might have mustered at the begin
ning of the seige about 10,000 men, and that the city might have con
tained altogether about 40,000 inhabitants, permanent and transient, in
�44
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
a space which in no other city in the world could accommodate 30,000
souls. But the wall of Agrippa was built, as this same author states,
twelve or thirteen years after the crucifixion ; hence prior to that time
the area of Jerusalem was only 756.000 yards, and it was capable of con
taining only 23,000 inhabitants at most, but probably never did contain
more than 15,000.
Now Jerusalem was the chief city of the Jews, and the greatest extent
of territory occupied by that nation does not now contain more than
200,000 inhabitants, if as many. Allowing to Jerusalem, in the period of
the greatest prosperity of the Jews, a population of even 20,000, is it at
all probable that the whole country could have contained anything like
even the lowest estimate to be gathered from the Scripture record? In
1 Chr. xxi. 5, 6, we read that the number of “ men that drew the sword ”
of Israel and Judah, amounted to 1,570,000, not counting the tribes of
Levi and Benjamin. In 2 Samuel xxiv. 9, the number given at the same
census is 1,300,000, and no omission is mentioned. Assuming the larger
number to be correct, and adding only one-eighth for the two tribes of
Levi and Benjamin, which may have been the smallest, we have 1,766,000
fighting men. This would give, at the rate of one fighting man to four
inhabitants, a total population of over 7,000,000 souls. But if we adopt
a more reasonable ratio, of one to six, we have a population of over
10,500,000 souls. And then we omit the aliens. These numbered 153,600
working men only two years later (2 Chr. ii 17), and the total alien
population, therefore, must have been about 500,000, which, added to the
census, would make the total population from 7,500,000 to 11,000,000, or
more. Can any intelligent man believe that a mountainous, barren coun
try, no larger than Connecticut, without commerce, without manufactures,
without the mechanical arts, without civilization, ever did, or could sub
sist even two millions of people ? Much less can it be believed that it
subsisted “ seven nations greater and mightier than the Israeliti'li nation
itself” (Deut. vii. 1), i. e., not less than 14,000,000.
That the Jews were a very barbarous people is undeniable. Assuming
as true, the account of their remarkable battle with the Midianites prior
to their entrance into Canaan, the wholesale slaughter of men, women
and children was an act peculiar only to a savage people. Who but a
barbarian chief could have commanded the murder in cold blood by
the returning victors, of all their captive women and children, save
32,000 virgins whom they were to keep alive for themselves I
Again, on taking the town of Jericho, they massacred all its inhabi
tants, saving only the harlot Rahab, who by falsehood and treachery had
betrayed her own people.
Sometime afterwards a civil war broke out among the Israelites them
selves, in which the tribe of Benjamin was almost, exterminated, leaving
only 600 males; whereupon the people, unwilling that one of their tribes
should be annihilated, fell upon and sacked a whole city of another of
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
45
their tribes, killing all its inhabitants except the virgins whom they gave
for wives to the survivors of the tribe of Benjamin. The Benjamites
lost in that battle 26,100 men, and their adversaries 40,030. (Judges xx.
15, 21, 25, 81.) The latter, however, not content with slaughtering all
the Benjamites but 600, proceeded to their towns and slew every man,
woman and child of the tribe. These must have numbered at least
80,000 ; so that the whole number killed in the three days of fraticidal
warfare was not less than 146,000.
Slavery necessarily makes a people barbarous. Not only were the
Israelites a nation of slaves, according to their own record, but after
their entry into Canaan, they were six times reduced to bondage in their
own land of promise. During a period of 281 years, they were in slavery
111 years, viz :—
Under the King of Mesopotamia, - 8 years. (Judges, iii. 8.)
iii. 14.)
- 18 (C
Under the-King of Moab,
( “
iv. 3.)
- 20 cc
Under the King of Canaan,
( “
vi. 1.)
7 cc
Under the Midianites,
( “
x. 8.)
- 18
In Gilead,
( “
- 40 :c
Under the Philistines,
( “ xiii. 1.)
That the Jews were far behind their surrounding neighbors in civili
zation is shown by the fact that in the first battle they fought under their
first king, Saul. they had in the whole army “neither sword nor spear
in the hand of any of the people,” except Saul and Jonathan. (1 Samuel
xiii. 22.) Nor was any “smith found throughout all the land of Israel”
(.r 19), but “ all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen
cvo-y man his share, and his coulter, and his ax, and his mattock.” (v.
20.) This was 404 years after the exodus, and only 75 years prior to the
building of Solomon's temple. Their weapons of war were those of the
rudest savage. David used a sling to kill Goliath, showing that he had
not yet learned the use of more civilized weapons; not even the bow,
which he afterwards caused to be taught to liis people. (2 Samuel i. 18.)
As another evidence of the barbarism of the Jews, when David resolved
to build a house for himself, he had no native artisans, but had to send to
Hiram, King of Tyre, for masons and carpenters. (2 Samuel v. 11.)
Even the wood itself had to be brought from Tyre. It would seem that
even in those days, as now, the mountains of Canaan were destitute of
trees—a sure sign of a sterile country. The wood of course had to be
carried over land. Wheel-carriages were unknown to the Israelites, ex
cept in the form of chariots of iron used by their enemies, which pre
vented Judah, even with the help of the Lord, from driving out .the
inhabitants of the valleys. (Judges i 19.) David captured 1,000 chariots
in about the 16th year of his reign, of which he preserved only 100,
disabling all the horses. (1 Chr. xviii. 3.) Prior to this event neither
chariots nor horses had been used by the Israelites, nor was much use
made of them by the subsequent kings. Oxen and asses were their
�46
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
beasts of burden; camels were rare even long after Solomon’s reign.
How then was the wood brought from Tyre over the mountains, unless
it was carried on the backs of oxen or asses, or dragged along the
ground ?
The national wealth seems to have increased prodigiously in David’s
reign—chiefly from spoils—but the amount is manifestly greatly exag
gerated. Among his spoils was the crown of the King of Rabbah, the
weight of which was a talent of gold (2 Samuel xii. 30) ; i. e., 93 3-4
pounds avoirdupois—a pretty heavy burden for a royal head. At the
beginning of his reign, David had not even iron with which to forge
weapons of war or implements of agriculture, and yet after forty years
it is said that he left to his son Solomon, for the temple; 3,000 talents
of gold and 7,000 of silver. (1 Chr. xxix. 4.) Now a talent of gold,
according to the “ table of weights and money ” in the Bible, pub
lished by the American Bible Society, is equal to 5,4647. 5s 8 1-27.,
or §26,447 ; and a talent of silver is equal to 3417. 10s. 4 1-27., or
§1,653. The amount of gold and silver, therefore, which David con
tributed was equal to §90,912,000. But this is not all. The chiefs,
princes, captains, and rulers over the King’s work gave 5,000 talents, and
10,000 drachms of gold, and 10,000 talents of silver (v. 7),—equal to
§153,845,000. So that the total sum of gold and silver contributed by
David and his chiefs was §244,757,000, besides precious stones and an
incredible quantity of brass and iron. Can it be believed that David and
his men acquired such riches that they were able to make these enormous
contributions ?
In the reign of Solomon gold and silver continued to pour in so that
he was able to buy a fleet of ships in the Red Sea, of Hiram, King of
Tyre, and these ships brought him from Ophir 450 talents of gold, as we
read in 2 Chr. viii. 18—equal to about §12,000,000—though in 1 Kings ix.
28, the amount given is 420 talents, or about §800,000 less. Again, we
read in 1 Kings x. 14, that the weight of gold that came to him in. one
year was 666 talents—equal to about §18.000,000. And yet this same
monarch, who “exceeded all the Kings of the earth for riches ” (v. 23),
had neither wood, nor skilled workmen to build his palace and temple,
but bought the wood and hired the artisans of the King of Tyre. (2 Chr.
ii. 3-10 ; 1 Kings v 6-12.) The laborers erffployed in the Temple were all
the strangers in the land, numbering 153,000, of whom 3,600 were made
overseers. (2 Chr. ii. 17, 18.) Over these were set 550 Jewish overseers
according to 1 Kings ix. 33, or 250 according to 2 Chr. viii. 10. With
this great number of wkmen Solomon was seven years in building this
celebrated Temple, which was only 110 feet long, 36 wide, and 55 high.
(1 Kings vi. 2.) How many a modern church edifice exceeds in size
Solomon’s great Temple .' But there were additions to the house. First,
there was a porch at one end 36 feet by 18 (r. 3). This porch is said, in
2 Chr. iii. 4, to have been 220 feet high, or four times the height of the
�THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
47
house! But as nothing is said about the hight of it in Kings, we may
assume that the chronicler made a mistake in his figures in this case, as
he has so frequently done in others. Then there were added to the walls
of the house outside chambers, nine feet high, and from nine to thirteen
feet broad, in three tiers, making a hight of 27 feet. But even with
these additions, the temple was not remarkable for size, and the story
that 150,000 laborers were employed seven years in its construction, is
incredible.
So, too, as regards the amount of the precious metals said to have been
used in the building of the Temple, it is fabulous. And yet the amount
that David and his chiefs contributed was but a seventeenth part of what
David promised, namely, 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 of silver,
(1 Chr., xxii, 14)—equal to $4,297,700,000, or twice our national debt.
The gold alone would weigh 9,375,000 pounds, or 4,347 tons—enough to
have built the walls two feet thick of that metal; and the silver, being ten
times that weight, would have filled the temple three-quarters full.
On the death of Solomon a division took place among the tribes, the
kingdom was torn asunder and divided into two small provinces, called
Judah and Israel ; two and a half tribes composing the former, and nine
and a half the latter. A religious war broke out between the two king
doms, and while it was going on the kings of Assyria came down upon
the nine and a half tribes and carried them away captive. The captives
never returned, nor can any one to this day tell where they were dis
persed. The small remnant of the Jews soon after became a prey to
conquerors and were carried captive to Babylon. The captivity of the
two and a half tribes took place 588 years B. C., and was practically an
end of the Jewish nation. They were slaves in Babylon and its vicinity,
till 536 years B. C. (Ezra i. 1-6), a period of 52 (not 70) years, when they
were released by Cyrus and allowed to return to Judea. But it appears
that less than 50,000 returned. (Ezra ii. 64, 65.) These, no doubt, were
of the poorer class, the wealthier remaining in Babylon, and contribut
ing alms for the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple.
The amount contributed, according to Ezra ii 68, 69, was 61,000 drachms
of gold, and 5000 pounds of silver—equal in the aggregate to about
$110,000; but according to Nehemiah vii. 70, 72, it was 41,000 drachms of
gold and 4,200 pounds of silver—equal to 'about $290,000. Whichever
was the correct amount, it was not a 600th part of what David and his
men contributed for the first temple.*
About eighty years later, further contributions were made, amounting
* These two chapters, Ezra ii. and Nehemiah vii. are almost exactly alike, the
whole of the former being’ repeated in the latter, with slight variations. Both give
the names of the families that returned, and the number of each. They agree in
making the whole number 42,360, besides 7,337 servants ; but on casting up the sep
arate numbers, the whole sum in Ezra is 29,818 ; and in Nehemiah 31,089. Again,
on comparing the two chapters verse by verse, we find twenty-seven discrepancies in
figures, and thirty in names.
�48
THE NATION AND COUNTRY OF THE JEWS.
to nearly $1,000,000 (only a 60th part of what David and his men gave),
and sent by Ezra with a guard of about 1.750 men from Babylon to Jeru
salem. (Ezra viii.) But the effort to re-establish the Jewish nation proved
futile. Though they.were permitted in some degree to establish their
superstitious religious rites in their former country, they were ever af
terwards the subjects of other powers, until their final dispersion at the
siege of Jerusalem, by Titus, A. D. 70. For half a century after its
destruction, says Dr. Robinson, there is no mention of Jerusalem in his
tory ; and even until the time of Constantine its history presents little
more than a blank. (Vol. I., pp. 367, 371.)
Such was the insignificance of the Jews as a people, that the historical
monuments preceding the time of Alexander the Great, who died 323
years B. C., make not the slightest mention of any Jewish transaction.
The writings of Thales, Solon, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Herodotus,
and Xenophon, all of whom visited remote countries, contain no mention
of the Jews whatever. Neither Homer, the cotemporary of Solomon,
nor Aristotle, the correspondent of Alexander, makes any mention c-f
them. The story of Josephus, that Alexander visited Jerusalem, ha
been proved to be a fabrication. Alexander’s historians say nothin"
about it. He did pass through the coast of Palestine, and the only,
sistance he encountered was at Gaza, which was garrisoned by Persiahi
(TVyttenbacKs Opuscula, Vol. II., pp. 416, 421.)
Soon after the death of Alexander, the Jews first came into notic-*
under Ptolemy I. of Egypt, and some of their books were collected at
the new-built city of Alexandria. But they remained an obscure people,
so much so that when Christ was crucified in the province of Judea under
the Roman government, no record of the event seems to have been r 'gistered in the archives of that great empire; for if any had been, it
would doubtless have heen preserved, at least for 300 years, and pro
duced by the Emperor Constantine, the first royal pagan convert to Chris
tianity, in his oration before the council of Nicaea, A D. 326, on the evi
dences of the Christian religion.
Persecution has probably made the Jews in modern times more numer
ous than they ever were as an ancient nation. Little reliance can be
placed upon their early history, which is entirely unsupported by cot1
porary records. The story of their origin is doubtless fabulous. It is
more probable that they were at first a wandering tribe of Bedouin Arabs
who got possession of the sterile portion of Palestine, and held it until
it was pretty thoroughly ruined. At all events it is clear that their im
portance has been unduly magnified.
���
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Abstract of Colenso on the Pentateuch: a comprehensive summary of Bishop Colenso's argument, proving that the Pentateuch is not historically true; and that it was composed by several writers, the earliest of whom lived in the time of Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C., and the latest in the time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. C.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Colenso, John William
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: 48 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. "A comprehensive summary of Bishop Colenso's argument, proving that the Pentateuch is not historically true; and that it was composed by several writers, the earliest of whom lived in the time of Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B.C., and the latest in the time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B.C. To which is appended an essay on the nation and country of the Jews." Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[sold by American News Company]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CT26
Subject
The topic of the resource
Judaism
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Burr, William Henry (ed)
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Abstract of Colenso on the Pentateuch: a comprehensive summary of Bishop Colenso's argument, proving that the Pentateuch is not historically true; and that it was composed by several writers, the earliest of whom lived in the time of Samuel, from 1100 to 1060 B. C., and the latest in the time of Jeremiah, from 641 to 624 B. C.), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible. O.T. Joshua
Bible. O.T. Pentateuch
Conway Tracts
Jews
Judaism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/fccdf152d366f2cda9ab6e9726f42e74.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Y%7EfJii3KHeRY4E7J-sSGm8zs7LKhdM8LTB3M1zLEFxI6sTEDPf7uMmw18d3AjZMjkBfPAoxx643P9UkvdLv2UIJS3wRuqHbDlD21J%7EKUukRP8p6Izzd3W51PVwPnUQNrZJYdxTW3CvEHVfQiMAO2FL%7EiUcf16AY7GI-sJtvuQV4adBmI9t59KkdqhG5xZsZ0pZP8ZnhuSrsavVjToZ8VINi4tQ03N5ikK%7EmOIEyrcXQfm9CG5G5MvKg-Fw2pcok1-4bBOv2owf4G5LjwC-yk7RKEs2Tt3umvUwruxXOK-iQdfOPbLu5zFQnsCDA7tUoHA%7E8zGllXSTHQCfzZW%7End0Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
acc90eda6a0060ee3d1b3d18b609e6cd
PDF Text
Text
185
By J. Hain Feiswell, Author
of
‘ The Gentle Life.’
There are only two powers now to be feared in Society—they are the Church and the
Secret Societies or Mary Anne.—Disraeli’s Lothair.
The recent terrible events in Paris, which in their inception and
execution both are unparalleled, and as Mr. Gladstone asserts only to
be fully designated by the eloquence of silence, have been described by
some as the 1 last kick of the Commune.’ Whether they be indeed
the last or the first, they recall a conversation and experience which
may here be fitly recorded.
The year is 1870 ; the hot summer blazing into autumn ; the streets
unticly and dusty, very far from fresh, somewhat jaded in fact, and not
over-well swept; in the early morning, very hot too, although the
street- sweepers and water-carts have been their due rounds. The carts,
with a heavy lumbering noise, a splash and a gush, which awoke the
sleepers who were wise enough to have their windows open, emptied
themselves so vigorously that two men at a pump by the market-place,
who looked like two tall half-melted navvies who had been unwillingly
reduced to parish work, declared that the water was like a half
quartern of gin in ‘ a two-out glass, no sooner in than it was out agin,’
and every now and then struck work to mop their faces. Little boys
s&t carelessly on the kerb-stones to let the splashing water run over
them, and the water itself was dashed upon the warm stones in the
stupid, wasteful English fashion, and washed away as much of the
concrete as it could, and then evaporated in an efficient and very quick
way.
The only cool people in the street were the sellers of watercresses,
who with an old chair, an old tea-tray, and an inverted basket, held a
Had of bazaar for green meat, and were careful to use one bunch as an
asperge to sprinkle the rest, and so kept a few paving stones damp
around them. But the 1 creases ’ themselves had run 1 spindly ’ and
were dry and yellowish, and not even the tempting cry of ‘ here’s your
fin® fresh brown ’uns ’ caused the slipshod urchins to buy. The
connoisseurs in ‘ creases ’ prefer the dark shining leaves of the young
�186
AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
watercress in spring ; hence the term of ‘ brown ’uns.’ But it was far
too late in the season for them.
The place was Greville Street, Hatton Garden ; the house once a very
handsome one when old city merchants dwelt in the ‘ garden ’ close to
it, and some remnants of the nobility still lingered about the quarter
named from Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. The street had long been
left to wild tribes of workmen, and a colony of Italian glass-workers,
mathematical instrument makers, silverers, gilders,looking-glass makers,
tube blowers, image vendors, modellers, makers of decorations for
cornices and ceilings, and other artists, had settled in the quarter and
made it what it was fitly called—-little Italy. Here and there a Fre nch
basket-maker had taken a huge house and filled it from the top to the
bottom with baskets, which were delivered in gigantic bnudles neatly
sewn up in canvas, and which reached from the pavement to the top of
the first-floor window.
The insides of these bundles were wondrous specimens of ‘packing.’
For instance, a wicker cradle as big as that which contained the infant
Hercules—for English babies run large—held within it many various
sizes down to the tiniest doll’s cradle ; and baskets followed the same
rule until they were small enough to be stuffed compactly with wicker
rattles, which with a piece of bent tin in them emitted strange noises
like the ghost of a sheep bell. These huge parcels took certain gentle
men in blouses—MM. Achille, Gustave, Arsène, and others—a whole
day to unpack, and during this pleasant operation, A. G. and A., who
were wildly republican, but devoted to the ladies as deeply as the
gayest courtier in the time of Louis XIV., showed their white teeth,
smoothed their black moustaches, and smiled fondly and gallantly upon
any ‘ Misse ’ who passed by.
Inside one of these tall houses, in a back room smelling of vinegar
and as cool as it well could be, sat two men : one was an English
gentleman, the other an Englishman too, of the ‘ base mechanic sort,’ as
some of the superfine swells in Shakespeare’s play are made bitterly and
satirically to say. The sick man was of the base sort—if we dare apply
that to any class ; that is, he got his living by a handicraft which as
surely as it fed him, so surely brought him his death. He knew that,
and we knew it too. It was as certain as statistics. The little boy who
was apprenticed to it would have ten or it may be twenty years
deducted from the sum of his young life, and would be badly paid after
all. He was a water-gilder, an occupation fast dying out, as electro
gilding, which is not half as good they say, has superseded it. When
we have anything good we have to pay for it.
The occupation of the ‘ base mechanic ’—the notion of a man losing
his life by inches and yet being base, although all the while he was
making very beautiful things, is not pleasant—would of course account
for two or three very beautiful silver vases, parcel-gilt, of excellent art,
and glowing inside with a deep reflected red (a colour which made one
�AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
187
understand why the Scotch called gold the ‘red siller,’ and old ballads
talk about the red red gold), and on the outside with a moonlight glory
of fine polish, picked out with lighter gilding.
The occupation of the invalid would also account for the pallor of his
face, the partial toothlessness of his jaws, though the man was young,
the blue marks under his eyes and round his lips, and the continual
trembling of his limbs. Mercury had done its work upon him, and a
hacking cough which shook and tore him to pieces was finishing him
as fie sat.
He looked with satisfaction at the vases. ‘ Them’s the last,’ he said
to his guest and friend. ‘ I give Mr. Jonson my word, and I worked
till I done it. It’s finished me though.’
‘Mr. Jonson,’ said his friend, taking up one of the cups daintily,£ why
they have a coronet on them, and, by the way, the arms and supporters
of the Earl of Mudford—Virtus sola nobilitas.’
1 That’s the motto. Mr. Jonson is the silversmith ; I only know his
name in it. What does that mean ? ’
‘ Virtue is the only nobility. Virtus means strength as well, some
times valour.’
I Ah ! read it that way. If all’s true of Lord Mudford it won’t suit
the other way. He’s strong enough and as big as a bull; he saw me
to give me some directions, and spoke to me as if I was dirt.’
‘ It’s his way; he is a good fellow enough, I hear, but rather wild.’
II wish them noblemen wouldn’t fancy every poor man was deaf. He
split my poor head open a’most, but I give him my word and I
done it.’
It was satisfactory to the poor man this finishing of his last work,
for, base as he was, he was honourable.
‘ You mustn’t talk too much,’ said his companion. 1 Be quiet and
you will be better. When I picked you up in the street a fortnight
ago, I never thought to see you so well as you are. It was a cold
night then—one of those sudden cold nights that we sometimes have
in summer, and the change from your hot workshop was too much
for your lungs, poor fellow.’
‘ Very kind of you, sir; very kind.’
‘Yes, a fellow-feeling you see; I had been nearly as bad.’
The conversation was here interrupted by an Italian who, Swarthy,
black-headed, and full of health, with a huge lettuce in one hand and
a flask of oil in his pocket, opened the door gently and took off his
©ap politely as he entered. ‘ L’ ho apportata,’ said he, putting down
the lettuce, ‘ we will make salad. Here is something also.’ He placed
a little packet on the table by the side of the dying man. ‘ From the
society,’ he said. ‘ We had a meeting, and I opened to them your
case.’
‘ I won’t touch it. I have kept at work and don’t want it.’
The Italian waved his hand. ‘ You are a good workman, and we
�188
AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
know our duty’ said he. 4 If not you, yet for the signora—she will
need it, Mister Walsh.’
The water-gilder sighed and let the parcel lie.
‘ Madre Natura takes care of her children,’ said Giuseppe softly
with a smile, 1 which is more than the State does.’
He moved about the room, found a basin, rinsed the lettuce, mixed
oil, vinegar, and sugar, tasted the mixture, and cutting the lettuce
into shreds, pronounced the salad capital; then saying, ‘ Avrete del vino
e della latte,'' went out to get those articles.
‘He’s a good Samaritan,’ said the gentleman with a smile. ‘J
suppose in this Italian quarter you like salads and foreign dishes.’
‘ We get used to them.’
‘And to other things—to Madre Natura, for instance ; I have heard
about it. What is that ? ’
‘ A great society which has branches all over the world. You will
hear about it soon. Do you know the name of Mary Anne ? ’
‘ Hot meaning a woman ? Yes, I have just heard about it and that
is all; in Sheffield and elsewhere.’
‘ At Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, down here ; in New York,
Paris, Berlin, and at San Brancisco, Melbourne, and Victoria; for the
matter of that, all over the world.’
‘ A large society. What does it mean ? ’
‘ Labour against capital, that’s all,' said the water-gilder in a whisper,
for his voice was weak.
‘ You have to fight with a giant,’ answered his companion.
‘ And we shall beat; at least I think I shall be out of the struggle
soon enough, but I leave a boy who may come after me. It will be
better for him.’
‘ Del vino,’ cried the bass voice of the Italian, bringing some thin
white wine, cheap enough in those quarters, and mixed with water
very delicious in the hot weather.
A Samaritan indeed, for he brought oil and wine, and declaring that
he meant to take a holiday, ‘ Avremo vacanza, amico mio,’ he said to
the poor sick fellow, constituted himself his watcher, took the place of
the Englishman who went away sadly, hardly expecting to see the
poor water-gilder again.
As it was, however, he lingered on some weeks, and from conversa
tions between him and his visitor, and many explanations from Giuseppe
and one of the Erench basket-makers from over the way, certain truths
were picked up which are here given.
The kindness of these men, foreigners and exiles, both of whom had
fought in the streets of Paris or of Naples, and to whom revolution
was a creed, was remarkable. They were as tender as their creed,
according to some, was cruel and wild. The difficulty which society
will have in dealing with such political regenerators is that theirs is not
the conspiracy of bad men for a mere chimerical object selfish in itg
�AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
189
end, but the combination of good men driven to despair at the present
state of society, for an end which the world holds to be Utopian, but
'Which they believe to be in their grasp.
Here, then, follow some of their sentences. Edward Walsh, the
water-gilder, a good sound English workman, who, whether he has
culture or not, whether his education be defective, or he has imbibed
some sweetness and light, was an excellent workman, and had died
at an early age, leaving his wife and child—through no fault of his
own—almost at the mercy of the world. Three men were left: the
guest who first sat by Walsh’s side when the narrative commences,
Arsene the basket-maker, and Giuseppe the Italian modeller, his
decent black clothes somewhat whitened in patches with plaster of
Paris, as if it oozed out of his pores or dusted from his finger-nails.
These after the funeral are debating the matter.
‘ The service is very simple, and the Padre was a good kind gentle
man, but that won’t bring Walsh back to his family or do any good
for him.’ So far the Italian.
‘Ho. We have grown tired of you gentlemen and your religion. We
take our wives to our bosoms and put our dead in earth without forms
or priest. Christianity is very pretty, very touching sometimes, but
for the world, look you there, m’sieur, it is exploded.’
‘ Senza dubbio,’ said Giuseppe. ‘ The time has past for it. We have
had men of genius who loved it, men of science who admired it:
Dante, Galileo, they were its friends—it persecuted and condemned
them.’
‘ The priesthood did: the Church if you like, not the faith.’
‘We make no difference, nous autres. Here am I; look at me,
Arsene Dubois, I loved the faith ; it was sweet in my childhood. I
have outlived it. What Church does good ? Not even to the few
who love it, the rich, the comfortable, as you call them. And remember
beneath them are the thousands of workers who are strange or
antagonistic to it; why these bear the same relation to what they call
here the “ upper crust ” of society as the body of one of your cakes of
Christmas does to the thin sugar which makes it look white and pretty
On the top.’
‘ And you have not made them Christian in eighteen centuries. The
sugar does not mix ; it thinks itself superior to the cake, and yet the
cake has all the goodness ; is all the food, I mean—produces everything
like the workers. And these, my faith, they live in Paris, Berlin, New
York, or Manchester, nine and ten in a room, and die like this poor
Walsh. Christianity has failed.’
‘ No ; we have failed in making our Christianity real. What would
you have ? ’
‘ Law ! ’
‘ Law ; why that is not justice even in England, where it is best
adminstered.’
�190
AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
‘Kot lawyer’s law, good sir, but social law,’ answered Arsene,
‘ administered by society—“ a supreme headship chosen by other
societies ”—that is what one of our English brethren writes.’
‘ Si, si. The Commune. All the good for the good of all. Get thee behind
me, priests, kings, nobles ! What have you done in your twenty cen
turies since Christ came and preached the true religion of the Commune,
“ Love one another”? Why, sirs, they have picked out the best places’,
the parks, the bouses, the carriages, the very ships, rivers, lakes, and
waters ; they have provided for their families, they have taken hold of
the Signor Christ Himself and turned His coat inside out. And during
this while Humanity has worked for them or starved and died.’
‘ It is so,’ said the Frenchman. ‘ Government by the upper classes has
failed. We do not blame them; they saw only as far as they could.
You have a word which is very expressive; you gentlemen are Conser
vatives, you would conserver toutes les choses—keep things as they are,
Well, for you it is very good. It means the Universities, the Church,
the army, fine places and parks; and all nice things, the lamb, the
turbot, and the lobster; poetry, fine art, and splendid emotions, c'est
; but for others, for us, it means little children of four destroying
their lives by dipping matches, gangs of boys and girls driven for miles
to weed your fields at half-a-crown a week; labourers who rear the
lambs paid at nine or twelve shillings; death in the frozen sea for
the man who catches the lobster and the turbot, and half-a-crown a day
for self, boat, and peril, while the fishmonger makes a great fortune, and
plants a paradise or builds a palace ; poverty and hard work for the poet,
the paper maker, and the printer of your books, and the fate of Edward
Walsh for the preparer of fine art. This is a rough outline of our view.
As a rule it is a true one, though there may be exceptions.’
‘ Vero e vero ! True by the good God who has suffered all this, that is,
for ninety out of a hundred. Some giants fight their way upwards,
but the flock dies as its fathers.’
‘Kow we don’t hate you—we did once—we could have slain all
of you, vous autres, but we do not wish so now. But look you, we
will remove you.’
‘ Who will ? ’
‘ Madre Natura. The Commune, the Contrat Social. Is it not time to
shuffle the cards ? ’
‘ For from the workers,’ continued Arsene, ‘ in brain or by hand—and
you are one of these and should be one of us—come all things. There are
exceptions, you say. Kone, not enough to prove the rule. The steam
plough, the plough itself, the spade, the seeds that are sown, the breed
ing of cattle, all proceed from the brains of the masses, and are paid
for by the money of the masses. The pictures which adorn your walls,
the books which teach you how to live, how to die, how to pray, the
very outwork and defence of your religion, all come from the brains of
the workers, poor students often starving and neglected ; the very faith
�AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
191-
you inherit arose from One poor and neglected, who was crucified as a
malefactor, and the very theories by which you administer your wealth
from the solitary students of political economy who were neglected and
laughed at till yon found their theories of use.’
‘ Bravo ! Arsene my son.’
‘ Now we have got tired of all that; we have put it aside as useless ;
others may take it up, a religion which binds us to suffer, and not to
redress wrong.’
1 Does it do that ? The Church will tell you very differently.’
‘ Bah! the Church she is dead; we have no Church, we live for
Humanity. We propose to redistribute wealth, to reward labour, to
punish idleness and over-luxury. Instead of one being educated and
despising others, all shall be educated and none despised. We live no
longer for individual selfishness, but for Humanity.’
‘ You are Comtists then ; you worship the divine Auguste.’
4 Not as divine ; he was one of us. We worship what he worshipped
in his poor ideal, the race, humanity, Madre Natura, all the good for
the good of all, as one of your English said.’
4 But what becomes of trade, society, law, physic, and divinity F ’
1 Ah, my friend, you have a long way to go. What becomes of our
sons that we furnished for your armies and your footmen, our daughters
who were your mistresses or servants, when the whole Society shall
move round you, in every city in France, Germany, Italy, America,
and quietly dispossess you ? We will not slay you if you are quiet—we
will remove you.’
4 You are dreaming. How many have you ? ’
4 Three millions already, and each one an apostle. Nothing stands in
Our way. You remember Mr. Broadhead and Sheffield.’
4 A detestable murderer------’
4 An agent of the great Society, not very wise perhaps, but clear about
his duty and his way. We find that it is of no use to appeal to religion,
to faith, to patriotism, to learning, to culture, to government by the rich.
These do not stop wars nor baby murders, not the death and degrada
tion of millions. We will and we can. We have a president in every
Country, secretaries in every town, members everywhere. We help
our poor—you saw Giuseppe bring money to poor Walsh ; you would
give him dry bread and the workhouse. Your religion encourages the
Scamp and the beggar, and gives away at least the half of seven
millions of gold sovereigns in London alone, to the cheat and the idler.
Our Society would make them work or would let them starve. You
allow millions of children in your fields and streets to grow up to vice
and ignorance ; Mary Anne would take and teach them. At the same
time she is pitiless to those that stand in her way. She says,11 Move on
or I will crush you.” ’
4 A dreadful sentence to thousands who are innocent,’
* Machinery is very cruel to those that are in its way; but as for
�192
AN ENGLISH COMMUNIST.
removal of incumbrances a certain Voice said, “ It hath borne no fruit;
cut it down, why cumbreth it the ground.” ’
1 It also said, “ Come unto me, ye that are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.” ’
‘ Which priests deny. We have few prayers but our labour, but these
prayers clothe all, feed all, and yet we are denied acceptance into every
Church ; so closely are their doors barred in by dogmas. But enough.
Let those who like the churches take them. It is a free fight with us ;
we have done with Faith, we fight only for Humanity. Let heaven lie
beyond this earth as it may, why should it be purchased—and even
then denied—by misery and degradation here F We will make the world
better than it is.’
‘ What a cruel conspiracy I ’
‘ As cruel as the surgeon’s knife, which by removing a small portion
—say the scalp if you like—gives health to the whole body. Join us ;
we are not cruel, but we are tired of so much talk and so little action
of reforms which always result in greater comfort for the rich and
more work for the poor; of faith which spreads wings of gold, and
utters golden words, but has feet of lead; of the press which makes
great promises and ends in being the reporter of court circulars, grand
doings, cricket matches, horse races, and the grand palaver club, and
yet does nothing of patriots who are silenced by a place. All have
failed—now we workmen, the creators of all, come forward, no longer
to be governed but to govern all. We number three million souls.’
‘ If we have any, Fratel mio ; but we leave that to others ; we take care
only of the body and the mind; we who understand our principles, simple
and wise as they are, and who mean to enforce them. You will hear no
doubt of our struggles; you will hear us called harsh names, for in
brushing the butterflies away we shall dust their wings ; thousands of
us may die, but we do that every day.
‘ We are used to it, Fratello,’ said Giuseppe, giving him an admiring
thump on his back. ‘ We shall die nobly.’
£ And whatever society may say, we shall not fail, any more than do
the nation of ants in South America, which to cross a stream bury
their millions in the river that they pass.’
Thus ended our talk for that time, and after events have given it
importance. I may return again to this subject.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
An English communist
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Friswell, James Hain
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 185-192 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2. Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5318
Subject
The topic of the resource
Literature
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (An English communist), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
English Fiction
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/213bb1a841bfd64a75256c2f46810662.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=XfqNQQJKRB8q5hCm8GOY-EXvbQLkxFBTYRxRtLbYh7QcShRmfpjQKFzzoParWTK%7EZ56yi%7E2jLJ8HIfObMAWznsN7defmM3khQL-daxpgUPjQeJUEnJlRh7TYPFuCmThIICLWGgCswFHxfuiAchzXs5BGMN5r1pE8aFA5EOcIhmLjwgDa6U5M7321zi12SNX%7ErKObnhiXPO1syu-qs7XPIZveMOFuZCWpI5RCQuM%7EdV9x37AuAftyMWaugQ9AhGEqt9EMoi%7EqA%7E66LWlqARctjGtE9CTjAv3rJUFnsNrYdpM9UBUXFPscAhLXWAhxrUlyr3DUIxMZUYt1if%7EADWGwug__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
9a307b98a122034701c049472f4c152e
PDF Text
Text
FIRST PAPER.
1 L’Art pour l’Art ’ is a motto that supplies us with a very satisfactory
definition of the aim and purport of the poetry of those early times
when men, not having lost their fresh childlike rejoicing in the present,
sang—if they had the power to sing—aimlessly ‘ wie der Vogel singt,’
just only because
Das Lied das aus der Kehle dringt
1st Lohn der reichli ch lohnet.
,
But every year is now carrying us farther away from a state of things
in which it is possible that there should be produced poetry of the kind
to which this definition is applicable. The great flood of subjectivity
which has made its way into all modern thought has brought with it
problems pressing for answer in such a crowd as to leave no room for
thinking or feeling to be exercised unconsciously and without purpose.
Of the poets now writing amongst us we cannot say that their work
is 1 pour l’Art.’ In the generation immediately preceding theirs there
was, indeed, one poet—Scott—who contrived to keep himself apart, as
on an island, nntouched by the waves of restless subjective thought
that had come over the intellectual life of his age, and who retained the
power of purposeless poetical utterance. But has there been produced,
since his, any poetry seeking no further office than to become a beauti
ful or noble piece of art ? Does not all, or by far the greater part of
that which is of recent origin, seem to be sent forth for the purpose of
gaining satisfaction of one kind or another for the craving self-con
sciousness of the writers, and of their contemporaries who are to share
in the results of their quest? Poetry, like every other power which
man has at command, has now been forced to take its part in supplying
the two great wants, Pleasure and Truth—which, little felt in simple
primitive times, become passionately urgent in a state of high civilisation
and culture. We have not now—and probably the world will never
have again—poets who are poets and nothing more. What we have
now is truth-seekers and pleasure-seekers gifted with the power of
�172
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
artistic perception and imagination, of rhythmical or melodious ex«
pression, and using these gifts to seek what without them they would!
have sought by other means.
The school of thought which is content to regard pleasure as the
satisfaction for which all desires are craving, uses its poetry to go forth,
and bring in full richness of pleasures ; careless, if only there can be
found in them beauty and delight, from whence they come and of what
sort they are. Not the value of a man’s work as art, but the power it
has to awaken in writer or readers a stranger susceptibility to
pleasure of sense or imagination, is here the measure of his success.
There is a great deal of poetry which seems on its surface to be alto
gether the free playing of spontaneous instincts, but which we find,
if we look a little deeper into it, to have at bottom the principle of
utilitarianism, not of art.
Nor can the men whose desires are towards the satisfaction of truth
be poets more unconscious of a purpose. To find that satisfaction for
themselves and for others is the aim towards which all their faculties
are bent, and in proportion as their search is successful these men
become teachers and preachers. The poet on whose characteristics the
following pages will contain a few thoughts—Mr. Robert Browning—
is one whose gifts as a poet, strong and true as they are, are perhaps
oftener than any contemporary artist’s, merged in his character as
preacher of what he has gained as a truth-seeker. I cannot but think
that the full value of his work can only be estimated by recognising
him first in his office of preacher rathei’ than of poet.
Any reader who has had patience enough to force his way through
the bristling hedge of complicated sentences that forms so much of the
outer fence of Browning’s writings, and has gone in and got hold of
intelligible meaning, must surely perceive that he has to do with some
thing which cannot be judged of by aesthetic tests,. We feel that what
is to be found there is the work of a man who is bound by all the
impulses of his nature to preach what he believes and to persuade
other men. He seems to have chosen the office of poet voluntarily, for
the sake of this preaching ; partly because the rythmical form of words
will carry his doctrine where it might not otherwise reach and partly
because amongst the truths he would set forth, there are some which
are of the kind that to men’s present faculties must be always only
as sights half seen, as sounds half heard, and which become dimmer
and fainter if the attempt is made to define them into the accurate
form and articulate speech of ordinary prose. Browning’s place is
amongst the teachers whose words come forth allowed by their own
conscious will; not amongst the artists controlled by involuntarily
instincts.
His poetry is not a great artist utterance that has fulfilled its end—
or at least the only end with which the artist is concerned—when once
it has got outside the mind in which it originated into audible sound
�BROWNING- AS A PREACHER.
173
or visible form, whether that sound be heard or that form be seen or
not; but it is a message intended to travel (the sender hardly cares
how, provided that the end be reached) from the heart and brain of
one man to the hearts and brains of those who will hear him. The
necessity that is laid upon him, through his instincts, is the ‘ When
thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren ; ’ and the setting himself
to his work as a poet seems to be his choice of the way in which he
will obey that impulse. Not for his own sake does poetry seem to be
a necessity to him. As far as his own needs are concerned, such a man
could afford to be silent. It is neither for the relief nor for the pleasure
of self-utterance that he speaks. Nothing that he has written
betokens the weakness and incapacity of_reticence that have opened the
mouths of so many poets in a great strong bitter crying, which
they tuned into beautiful music whose sweetness might ease them of
their pain. Nor has he that irrepressible joy in beauty for its own
sake which forced Wordsworth to tell of the loveliness of the visible
world.
And we cannot attribute his becoming a poet to the pressure of
dramatic instincts. Though in power of imagining dramatic characters
it is he and he only who at all fills the office’of modern Shakespeare,
yet there is something in his manner of exercising that power which
tells us that in him it is subordinate to some other motive. This
difference there is between Browning and other poets who could
create ‘ men and women,’ that w’hereas with others the production
of life-like characters seems to be the aim and end, with him it is only
the means to a further end—namely, the arguing out and setting
forth of general truths. He cannot, as others have done, rest
satisfied with contemplating the children of his imagination, and find
the fulfilment of his aim in the fact of his having given them existence.
It seems always as if his purpose in creating them was to make them
serve as questioners and objectors and answerers in the great debate
of conflicting thoughts of which nearly all his poetry forms part. His
object in transferring (as he can do with such marvellous success)
his own consciousness, as it were, into the consciousness of some
imagined character, seems to be only to gain a new stand-point, from
which to see another and a different aspect of the questions concerning
which he could not wholly satisfy himself from his own point of view.
He can create characters with as strongly marked individualities as
had ever any that came out of the brain of dramatist or novelist, but
he cannot be content to leave them, as Shakespere did the characters
he created, to look, all of them, off in various directions according to
whatever chanced to suit best with the temper and disposition he had
imagined for them. Still less can he leave to any of his men and
women the vraisemblable attribute of having no steady outlook at
anything in particular. They are all placed by him with their eyes
turned in very much in the same direction, gazing towards the same class
�174
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
of questions. And, somehow, Browning himself seems to he in com
pany with them all the time, hearing their different reports of the
various aspects which those questions present to each of them ; and
judging and choosing between all these different reports, in order to
give credence to the true one. The study of no individual character
would seem to him of much value, unless that character contained
something which should help to throw light upon matters common to
all humanity, upon the questions either as to what it is, or as to what are
its relations to the things outside humanity. Desire to know the truth,
and to make other men know it, seems to be the essential quality of
his nature, and his poetry only its separable accident — a garment
which it wears because if finds such best suited to it in the nineteenth
century, but which it might very likely have gone without, if placed
among the surroundings of some other age. If we can fancy him
transferred back some five hundred years ago, he would be found
surely not among the followers of the 1 gaye science/ as a trouvère
or troubadour, exercising his art to give pleasure at the court or the
knightly castle, but rather in the solitude of a monastic cell, gazing
with fixed eyes into the things of the unseen world, until they became
the real, and the shows of earth the unreal, things ; or, later on, would
surely have been a worker, not in the cause of the great art revival of
the sixteenth century but of its Reformation movement. One can fancy
how grandly he would then have preached his gospel of the sanctity
of things secular, in rough plain Luther-like prose, with the same
singleness of purpose with which he now, as a poet, sets himself to
preach a gospel—needed more than all others by his contemporaries—
of the reality and presence of things immaterial and extra-human.
Browning’s poetry has one characteristic which gives its teaching
peculiar influence over contemporary minds. I mean the way in which,
all the while being perfectly free from egoism, it brings its readers in
some inexplicable way into a contact with the real self of the author,
closer and more direct than that which we have with any other poets
through their writings. Once you succeed in construing the compli
cated thinking and feeling of this or that passage of his, you feel,
not that youtare seeing something that a man has made, but that you
are in the immediate presence of the man himself. I know of no other
writings (except J. H. Newman’s) having this peculiarity to such a
degree (it is in this that the secret of the fascination of those wonder
ful sermons of Newman’s consists). These two men, so different,
have yet this in common, that there is something in their written
words which communicates to the men who read them the thrill of
contact with the.pulsations of another human life. And the knowledge
that there is the real living mind of another man speaking to your
mind, gives a restful sense of reality that is the starting-point of all
belief and of all motive to action. Surely anyone who has received
this from Browning must feel as if there would be a miserable ingrati-
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
175
tu.de in the sort of criticism which should carp at his poetry for its
lack of polish in style or prettiness in ideas.
Browning is greater than his art, and the best work which his poetry
does is to bring you into his own presence: and once there you no
longer care what brought you there, and feel as if it mattered very
little whether the means of communication had been poetry or other
form of words. Tennyson’s art is greater than Tennyson ; and it is
with it, and not with the man himself, that you have to do.
Of course, though Tennyson can have no direct influence as a teacher
over anyone who feels thus about him and his work, yet his indirect
influence over the minds of men is not to be lightly accounted of. His
poetry is what it is, and may be accepted by us as we accept a beauti
ful painting or piece of music, as an end in itself. Acting through our
aesthetic perceptions, it affects the tone and colour of our moods. And
most of us know by experience that the character of our thinking is in
a great measure dependent upon moods and feelings open to impres
sions of this sort. It is of course no slight gift that Mr. Tennyson has
given to his contemporaries when he has shown them ideas so pure and
calm and noble, by the contemplation of which their own lives may
unconsciously become purer and higher.
Acknowledging this influence that he has, and giving him due honour
for it, all I would say is that there is another kind of influence which
he cannot exercise, and that his poetry, though making nineteenth cen
tury problems so constantly its theme, is not to be reckoned amongst the
books that give any real availing help against the modern 1 spectres of
the mind.’ To the needs of vital doubt it is no more than if it told us
tales of fairy-land. And this because of its failing to give us that entire
satisfaction as to its being truth subjective, which alone could be our
guarantee for its being able to help in guiding us to truth objective. In
the times when neither our hearts nor brains can get hold of the sense
of reality in anything around us, we find that instead of aiding us ‘ aus
diesem Meer des Irrthums aufzutauchen,’ all that Tennyson’s poetry
seems to have done for us is to have made a beautiful word-phantom,
having a semblance of wise human counsel, to add another to the
number of the appearances that with aspects beautiful or horrible are
floating over and under and around us, and perpetually eluding our
grasp. Fai’ more is to be gained at such times from poetry even such
as Clough’s, which, though it carries you to no farther resting-place, at
least lets you take hold of one substantial thing—'the veritable mind of
a human being, doubting with its. own doubts and having its certaintainties its own, each of those certainties, however few and imperfect,
having a distinct place as independent testimony to truth.. . ?
Browning brings from out of his own individuality something which
he did not receive from his age, and which he offers to it as a gift, and
which is of a spirit so foreign to the atmosphere into which it comes
that he requires men to accept him as a. teacher before attaining to
�176
BROWNING- AS A PREACHER.
sympathy with. him. This that he has to give is some of the intense
earnestness of Puritanism, and the strenuousness of effort which gave
heroic grandeur to the old asceticism. He offers this to a state of
society, which along with all its practical vigour and perseverance in
the affairs of men’s outer lives, has so much of aimlessness and aban
donment of self-direction in all that concerns the life of inner thought
and feeling.
Other men of present and recent times have had a like gift to bestow,
but their manner of giving it was such as to make its acceptance for
the most part impossible. J. H. Newman and the company of men
who, with him, were the Puritans and ascetics of the nineteenth century,
have gained no permanent influence as teachers of their age. Teachers
of their age, indeed, they did not attempt to be, but only of whoever
should be willing to betake himself out of it back into mediaeval modes
cf thought; and with the thoughts and difficulties of the men who
refused to do this, they either could not or would not sympathise nor
have anything to do. Hence, the vigour and thoroughness of their
own individual lives was able only very partially to affect the thinking
and feeling of the world around them. But Browning undertakes the
work which they would not attempt. The chief glory of his labour is
that he has taken so much of what was good in the old Puritan spirit,
and has brought it into harmony with the wider knowledge and larger
life of later times. He devises for the fixedness of moral purpose and
power of asceticism, which are the inherent characteristics of his own
nature, another and a worthier use than the uses which in old times
men had been wont to make them serve. He sees in moral fixedness a
means that may be used not to check intellectual advance, but to help
it forward by steadying its aim; and he finds that asceticism is capable
of becoming, from having been the old monkish discipline of repression,
the nobler acncriaic of the mental athlete, which is to prepare him for
strenuous exertions whereby all parts of his human nature may
develop themselves to the full.
The idea of a struggle and a wrestling in which the wills of men are
to be engaged—the central idea of early and mediaeval Christian
thought—is recognised fully and distinctly by Browning in all that he
has written. He holds that men’s business in this world’is labour and
strife and conquest, and not merely free unconscious growth and
harmonious development. He differs thoroughly from the modern
thinking, which sees no moral evil distinct from and antagonistic to
good; and again and again, directly or indirectly, his poems let us see
how wide is his separation, both in belief and feeling, from the many
poets of these present days, who have returned to the idea round which
the old Greek poetry had all revolved, of the powerlessness of man’s
will and the drifting of his life before an unalterable destiny. In a
recent . criticism on Tennyson’s and Browning’s characteristics,1
1 Professor Dowden’s lecture on ‘ Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Browning,’ The Dublin
Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art (1867-68). London: Bell & Daldy.
�177
BROWNING- AS A PREACHER.
Browning is distinguished as being pre-eminently the poet of impulse.
This he doubtless is, but it seems to me that his chief point of difference
from the majority of modern poets, is his being emphatically the poet
of the will.
That this is the characteristic feature of his poetry strikes one most
forcibly if one chances to take up a volume of it immediately after
reading his contemporary Matthew Arnold’s sufficiently to have let
one’s mood take the impress of his. The transition from the one man’s
conception of life to that of the other seems like the waking from one
of those nightmare dreams in which we have the sense of being for
ever passive (all the while struggling in vain not to be) under
some Compelling that is horrible and yet mockingly sweet; to find
Ourselves restored from this to the wide-awake state of things, in
which we regain the consciousness of freedom of action.
There is much in which he makes common cause with J. H. Newman
and the men who were imbued with his spirit. They and Browning alike
realise the individuality of each human life, and the struggle which is
for each man a separate work to be entered into by his self-determined
will, and feel the intense mysteriousness of human personality. And they
may be classed together as protesters against nineteenth-centuryism—
the habit of thought which makes so little account of these things.
The question on which they part company is the question as to whether
the impulses which men find within them are to be opposed by their
wills as enemies, or to be accepted by them as allies in the struggle
that has to be engaged in. While, on the one hand, by Newman and
those like-minded with him, the only guide internal to man which is
acknowledged as having the authority of a voice from the invisible
world, is the conscience—the sense of a law binding to the doing of
one sort of actions and the refraining from another sort (the law by
making its presence thus felt being in itself evidence for its giver) ;
by Browning, on the other hand, other mental phenomena to be found
in human nature are accepted, as having first their intellectual signifi
cance as evidences ‘ whence a world of spirit as of sense’ is made plain
to us, and afterwards their moral uses in raising us from the world of
sense into the world of spirit.
Our human impulses towards knowledge, towards beauty, towards
love—all these impulses, the feeling of which is common in various
degrees to all men, and the expression of which by some few among
them is Art—are reverenced by him as the signs and tokens of a world
not included in that which meets our senses, as the
Intuitions, grasps of guess,
That pull the more into the less,
Making the finite comprehend
Infinity.
j
-“-not of course that Browning does not also recognise the evidential
force of conscience as an internal witness, but still, I think, it is chiefly
VOL. IL—NO. VIII.
K
�178
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
in the human impulses which in the world of sense are never satisfied,
that he considers the subjective evidence for the spirit world to lie.
And from this difference in the grounds of his and Newman’s beliefs
there results a difference in their whole conception of man’s life and its
aims. The part of human nature which alone Newman will acknow
ledge as a divine guide is a part which in itself furnishes no principle
of growth or progress (the conscience being only a power capable of
restraining and directing), and the ideal life in this world is therefore,
according to him, only a state of waiting, a walking warily in obedience,
until some other state shall be reached in which man shall be in a
condition to begin growth. According to him the business of the
earthly life is only to get safely out of it as out of an enemy’s country.
And as a natural result of his theory of the earthly life, we find that
Newman, even with all his vivid perception of each human soul’s
individual existence, becomes unable to sympathise with diversities of
individuality: no scope for human diversities being allowed by the
theory which sets all men to the same sort of work—the mere work of
escaping (each with his unused individualities) to some future condition
in’which life, in the sense of an active and growing state, may begin.
But Browning, on the other hand, having taken all the higher human
impulses and aspirations to be evidences whereby we discern an order
of things extending beyond the world of which sense is cognizant,
becomes able to conceive of the life that now is, as a condition, not of
mere waiting and watching—not as a struggle only on the defensive
against evil, in which safety is the only kind of success sought for—but
as a state in which growth and progress are to be things of the present
—in which the struggle is to be for acquisition and not alone for
defence. His recognition of impulse as a guide to be accounted divine,
makes him recognise human nature as being furnished with means of
self-evolving growth and action, and not merely of obedience to laws
given from without.
Browning’s theory of human impulse removes him from a sort of
asceticism which he would doubtless have been capable of exercising
(if his judgment had decided in favour of it) as unflinchingly and as
fiercely as mediaeval monk or modern ascetic, such as Newman or
Baber. He, like them, could have preached and practised the restraining
of human feelings and hopes, and the reducing of life to a toilsomelymaintained condition of high-wrought quiescence. He is too entirely
filled with the sense of the resolute human will to have ever let himself
be driven along, Swinburne-like, by mighty art impulses. He would
have been able to separate his thinking wholly from their influences,
had it not been that he had deliberately accepted them as guides which
ought to be followed. The moral half of him is stronger than the
eesthetic ; and the stronger could have crushed out the weaker if it had
not chosen to yield it willing honour. A mind such as his is solitary
and ascetic in its natural temperament; yet by his creed Browning
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
179
gains catholicity of thought and of interests. Wide sympathy with
^dissimilar types of human character would be a thing not to be looked
for in a thinker who realises so intensely the mysteries of his own indivi
dual existence, if it had not been that he had taken those very things in
which their dissimilarity lies—their multiform impulses—as the many
witnesses for the same truths, each witness requiring to be understood
by a reverent and appreciative sympathy. To a man whose whole
soul could be absorbed by the vividly realised vision of an Easter Day,
desires such as Abt Vogler’s towards ideal beauty of sound; as those
of Paracelsus towards knowledge; of Aprile towards love; and the
restless battle-ardour of Luria, would seem trivial, and not worthy of
detaining the eyes to search into them and analyse their peculiarities,
Were it not for his belief that in all such desires an infinite meaning’
could be discerned ; and that they were the varying pledges, given to
various human beings, of the individual immortality of each. Prom
this his belief there follows a wide development of human sympathy
which has a peculiar value, because of its not being the expression of
naturally gregarious tendencies, but of an originally self-concentrated
nature, transferring, as it were, its own consciousness, with all its
intensity, into the diverse human individualities that come under its
notice.
Very wide indeed is this sympathy. All human feelings and aspira
tions become precious in Browning’s eyes, not for what they are, but for
what they point to. He becomes capable of seeing a grandeur (poten
tial though not actual) in human aims whose aspect would be, to
Careless unsympathising eyes, ridiculous rather than sublime. For
instance, the instinctive craving after perfection and accuracy, which
had for its only visible result the expending of the energies of a lifetime
on the task of determining the exact force and functions of Greek
particles, is treated by Browning, in that very noble poem of his, ‘ The
Grammarian’s Funeral,’ with no contemptuous pity, but is honoured as
being a pledge of the limitless future, which, lying before all human
workers, renders it unnecessary that a man should slur over the
jjiinutiee of his work hastily, in the endeavour to compress into a life
time all that he aims at accomplishing.
The sort of asceticism which Browning’s theory of impulse
makes impossible to him, is that which fears to let the senses enjoy
¡tile whole fulness of earthly beauty, and seeks to narrow and enfeeble
¡the affections, and to stifle men’s noble ambitions. Yet his poetry
keeps for its characteristic spirit that other asceticism which implies
the using of the world’s material beauty and human passion, not as
ends in themselves, but as means whereby man’s spirit may reach to
the heights above them, there to find new steps by which to ascend.
He counsels no abstinence from beauty for the senses, but it is to be
to men not as a banquet, but as a draught which will give them
¡strength for labour, the fuller the draught the greater the strength.
k2
�180
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
He, more than any other poet, has ever present with him these two
ideas : that the world—the material and the human—contains what is
‘very good;’ and also that ‘ the fashion of this world passeth away.’
His noble christianised Platonism takes ‘ all partial beauty as a pledge
of beauty in its plenitude.’ His mood the pledge never wholly suffices.
The earth is to him ‘ God’s ante-chamber ’—God’s, not a devil’s—yet
still only an ante-chamber.
Asceticism of this kind is the great glory of his doctrine as a preacher.
It may be that, considering him solely as a poet, he loses somewhat by
it. One sort of beauty there is of which it deprives his work, how
ever great may be the compensating gains. This is the artistic
beauty of pathos, of which Browning’s poetry is wholly, or almost
wholly, devoid. There are two kinds of pathos lying on opposite sides
of the position which Browning occupies as a thinker. One of these
is the pathos of mediaeval art, and the other the pathos of pagan art.
And with neither of these has he anything to do. The old ascetic
conception of the earthly life gives a strange yearning tenderness,
infinitely pathetic, to the manner in which the early and mediaeval
hymn writers and the modern mediaevallists, Newman and Faber, look
onward as if from out of a desert or an enemy’s country to the far-off
unseen world—their ‘ Urbs Beata Jerusalem,’ their ‘ Paradise,’ their
‘ Calm land beyond the sea.’ But Browning has no need nor room for
pathos of this sort: the tender ‘ Heimweh ’ of this has no place amongst
his feelings. He does not image to himself the life after death as a
home, in the sense of a state that shall be rested in and never ex
changed for a higher. He conceives of it as differing from the life
that now is, not in permanency, but in elevation and in increase of
capacities. And the earth has its own especial glory, which he will
not overlook, of being first of an infinite series of ascending stages,
showing even now, in the beauty and love that is abroad in it, the
tokens of the visitings of God’s free spirit.
The feeling which we commonly callpathos seems, when one analyses
it, to arise out of a perception of grand incongruities—filling a place
in one class of our ideas corresponding to that in another in which
the sense of the ludicrous is placed by Locke. And this pathos was
attained by mediaeval asceticism through its habit of dwarfing into
insignificance the earthly life and its belongings, and setting the mean
ness and wretchedness which it attributed to it in contrast to the faroff vision of glory and greatness. But by Browning no such incon
gruity is recognised between what is and what shall be.
Another sort of pathos—the Pagan—is equally impossible to him.
This is the sort which results from a full realising of the joy and th®
beauty of the earth, and the nobleness of men’s lives on it; and
from seeing a grand inexplicablenes in the incongruity between th©
brightness of these and the darkness which lies at either end of them
—the infinite contradiction between actual greatness and the apparent
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
181
nothingness of its whence and whither—the mystery of strong and
beautiful impulses finding no adequate outcome now, nor promise of
ever finding it hereafter—human passion kindling into light and glow,
only to burn itself out into ashes—the struggle kept up by the will of
successive generations against Fate, ever beginning and ever ending in
defeat, to recommence as vainly as before—the never-answered ‘ Why ? ’
uttered unceasingly in myriad tones from out all human life.
The poetry of the Greeks gained from the contemplation of these
things a pathos, which, however gladly a Christian poet may forego
such gain for his art, was in its sadness inexpressibly beautiful. The
Iliad had a deep under-current of it even in the midst of all its healthy
childlike objectivity; and it was ever present amongst the great
tragedians’ introspective analysings of humanity.
High art of later times has for the most part retained this pagan
beauty. Though there is no reason to think that there was any
paganism in Shakespeare’s creed, yet we cannot help feeling that,
whether the cause is to be sought in his individual genius or in
Renaissance influences, the spirit of his art is in many respects pagan.
In his great tragedies he traces the workings of noble or lovely human
character on to the point—and no further—where they disappear into
the darkness of death ; and ends with a look back, never on towards
anything beyond. His sternly truthful realism will not, of course,
allow him to attempt a shallow poetical justice, and mete out to each
of his men and women the portion of earthly good which might seem
their due : and his artistic instincts'—positive rather than speculative
—prefer the majesty and infinite sadness of unexplainedness to any
attempt to look on towards a future solution of hard riddles in human
fates. ‘ King Lear,’ for instance, is pathetic because of its paganism ; and
would, be spoiled, or at all events changed into something quite differ
ent, by the introduction of any Christian hope. One of the chief artistic
effects of the story is the incongruity between the wealth of devotion
poured out by Cordelia’s impulses of love and the dreary nothingness
in which those beautiful impulses end. If there was anything in it to
leave with us the impression that this was not the end of all, and that
this expenditure of love was not in vain, but had its results yet to
come, the story could not call forth in us an emotion of such keen and
tender pity. And in this tragedy, as in Shakespeare’s others, one of its
greatest effects, as art, is produced by the idea which had acted so
mightily on the minds of old Greek poets—the powerlessness of man’s
moral agency against his destiny. Hamlet, for instance, ends in ac
complishing nothing of what he has set before him as his aim. Some
thing, over and above his own irresoluteness is hindering him. He
becomes, through no fault of his, the murderer of a harmless old man,
and breaks the innocent young heart of Ophelia, becoming to her
another link in the chain of involuntary evil, and being the cause of
her unconscious sin of self-destruction. (It is as sin that Shakespeare
�182
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
regards Ophelia’s suicide ; and this parodox of his, of guilt without
moral volition is thoroughly Greek—akin, e.g. to the tragic aspect of
the crime of CEdipus.)
So too, in Othello’s character, there is no lack of noble impulses •
yet they are productive of no results. His fate, taking advantage of
the one vulnerable part of his nature, impels him to the destruction
of all his happiness by the murder of Desdemona. And the artist
breaks off, taking the murdered and the murderer out of our sight,
and leaving with us only the impression of the irreparableness of
the deed, and of the mysteriousness and inevitableness of the innocent
suffering and almost involuntary guilt that came upon two human
creatures. The effect of the tragedies depends upon the total absence
in them of anything which might suggest the possibility of a future
answer to the great ‘ Wherefore ? ’ which their endings evoke from our
hearts. Their pathos arises out of their tacit exclusion of hope.1
The contrast between the spirit (apart of course from any thought
as to the relative poetical rank) of Shakespeare’s tragedies, and of
Mr. Browning’s greatest tragic work, ‘ The Ring and the Book,’ is very
striking. The impression which the latter leaves upon the reader’s
mind is that of a great solemn looking forward, which absorbs into
itself all emotions of pity that might have been awakened by Pompilia’s
innocent suffering and Caponsacchi’s love ; and which mitigates the
hatred which we must feel for Guido, by the thought that even for him
a far-off possible good may be waiting. The spirit of Shakespeare’s
tragic art (however much the form may differ from the classical) has
much of the sort of completeness which was characteristic of Greek
art. There is no suggestiveness in it of a state of things out of the
reach of his art, and therefore he allows you to feel to the full (as far
as you are able) any emotion which the character and circumstances
of his dramatic creations should properly give rise to. When once he
has shaped and fashioned his men and women, he leaves them with
you—fixed as a sculptor might, leave his work—in attitudes which
appeal perpetually to one or other of your human feelings, with no
indication of such attitudes not being the only possible ones in which
they might appear. But Browning never completes, or would have
his readers complete, the emotions called forth by his dramatic art.
He checks them, while as yet only half realised, by his perpetual
suggestiveness that what his art represents is only a portion of a great
1 There is an analogy between the poetry of ancient and modern paganism, and
some of 'the greatest poems in the modern art—music. The spirit which seems
to pervade Beethoven’s is essentially pagan. He is the great musical poet of un
answered seeking. There is joyousness enough in his music to contrast with its
tones of mighty Faust-like despair; but I have never heard a passage of it that
suggested emotions of hope or deep restful happiness. Outside the world in which
Beethoven and his art move, there is for him only a ‘ dim gray lampless world.’
Outside the world of Mendelssohn, however, who is no pagan, there is an infinite
encircling love, to which he sings his ‘Lobgesang.’ He seeks—and finds.
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
183
unknown whole, without knowing, which neither he nor you can
determine, what the feelings with which you regard the portion ought
to b©. Considering, as he does, every human life as only a glimpse of
a beginning, its minglings of greatness and imperfection have not for
him the same aspect of pathetic mysterious paradox which they have
for those poets who, either from their creed or from their v’/tioc, regard
it as a rounaed whole.
The absence of any pagan spirit in Browning’s writings deprives
them also of a sort of beauty that belongs to so much of the modern
poetry of external nature. Paganism is the source whence many
poets have drawn their adoration of that loveliness of the earth—
serene and terrible, outlasting and unmoved by human struggles.
When these men behold the infinity of her beauty, they merge in their
adoration of it all dissatisfactions with human life ; attaining to one
kind of intellectual repose, by giving up hope to find satisfaction for
thought or moral feeling, and by taking instead, for solace, the
unmeasured pleasure of «esthetic perception.
Shelley’s creed, taking the visible world for its all in all, has for its
product the intense vividness with which he perceives the richness
and glory of the sights of that world. He looks at, rests in, the
beauty that he sees ; and it becomes more to him than it can be even
to Wordsworth, who, with all his devotion to external nature, looked
through rather than at her. And Shelley’s poetry derives its strange
intangible pathos from its having all this aesthetic brightness to set in
contrast over against the darkness that surrounds those ‘ obstinate
questionings ’ from within, which again and again, in spite of his own
desire, distract his mind from its joyous vision of what is without.
And there is a sort of passionate grasping, clutching rather, at the
light of the sun, and all the sights and sounds and fragrances of the
earth, which belongs especially to pagan poetry, ancient or modern,
and which tells of a prizing of these things not for their own mere
beauty’s sake, but chiefly because in the perception of them life is
implied, and the separation from them means extinction and dark
nothingness. This idea, so all-pervading in the old Greek feeling for
External nature, finds in our own days its chief exponent in Swinburne.
I know of nothing in contemporary poetry that is so supremely
pathetic as the perpetual alternations in those wonderful choruses in
his ‘ Atalanta in Calydon,’ between a wild revelling in the freshness
and exuberant gladness of the earth, in the rush of her joyance,
when—
‘ in green underwood and cover,
Blossom by blossom the spring begins ’—
and a wailing lamentation over the life of man who has for his portion
on the earth
* light in his ways,
And love and a space for delight,
And beauty and length of days,
And night and sleep in the night.’
�184
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
Yet whose doom is only to abide there during a brief space, knowing
neither content nor hope.
‘ His speech is a burning fire,
With his lips he travaileth,
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes fore-knowledge of death.
He weaves, and is clothed with derision,
Sows, and he shall not reap ;
His life is a watch or a vision,
Between a sleep and a sleep.’
The poem of ‘ Atalanta ’ is of course a direct utterance of modern
paganism, and not merely expressive of historical sympathy with ancient;
and is a specimen, most perfect of its kind, of that eesthetic beauty of
which Browning’s poetry is rendered incapable by the creed in which
his strong, earnest mind, never able to rest without getting down into
the realities that nnderlie the visible surface of things, finds the Sub
stantial reality that it seeks.
Yet it may indeed be that the feeling gained by Browning’s onward
gaze of expectation is higher, even if considered purely as an artist's
feeling, than that of the wistful pathos that comes to other poets
through their sense of a seeking baffled alike behind and before. And,
it may be that our inability instantly to recognise it as higher, is because
of our having, although contemporaries with Browning, lagged behind
him in thought and aspiration ; and not having as yet attained to tho
conception towards which his poetry reaches in its beautiful imperfect
grandeur, of a Christianity and Art—nowhere destructive of each other
—two parts of one great Revelation.
E.
Dicktnson West.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Browning as a preacher. Part 1
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
West, Elizabeth Dickinson
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 171-184 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2: Attribution of journal title and date from Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5317
Subject
The topic of the resource
Poetry
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Browning as a preacher. Part 1), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Poetry in English
Robert Browning
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/3ca972096ff5b4941082656c5ba81229.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=QrnFn0sS-hfv-I4jr2zsQ09yzDH%7E8X8%7EJexo5eRFBs9L-oyPorgcPr29I2XfxYHCbJ-3lWcy%7Efu%7Euc2PiOaxenA8-aaVPxjTzJVQJMB7pl5SuR8WKelP2U1Cdz2WVO3eVhW2vHkCYrwMUV6opQHkCPs4kmarWhA8%7E6BKghn%7EOL86ZGy6esZf9d46xjc6%7EEDaMVCPBRxg77xuNbffIqBi%7ExoakA4wuKs-nD9KF-UfDs2tais-zaT5%7ElEjsQn9Rz9k7Tx4a%7EmEb5neCae3bIDjWImZMFXkKqKb9a7pBdJOE-fe%7EGi20oS1I7D5Y4phYjLiEkoA-Bt75GLYWldswWTi6g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
b070e5b3a6cb2502f276a06b2d2da547
PDF Text
Text
305
J3f\OWNING
AS
P^eachei^
A
SECOND PAPER.
'The first part of this essay was occupied with an attempt to define
some aspects of Mr. Browning’s position amongst contemporary poets;
¡and the tone and temper in which his poetry enters upon one of its
functions—preaching—(this word I used advisedly as better befitting
poetry than the term teaching}. His art and his preaching are, indeed,
inextricably interwoven in all his writings; and the result of an en•deavour to abstract either one or other from the whole, must of course
be unsatisfactory; nevertheless, in some measure I must aim at tracing
•one or two of his characteristics as preacher, to their expression in
some of his sermons. Within a space so limited, I can only allude
to a very few poems : a thorough analysis of any, would be, one need
hardly say, useless to attempt. ‘ Easter-day ’ is perhaps of all others,
the most strikingly illustrative of the Browning peculiarities, the one
which least of all could have been the work of any other man. Viewed
.side by side with his £ Christmas-eve,’ it is, one feels, the more
difficult of apprehension : it seems more complex in meaning, and
full of subtle transitions of thought and mood. It is possible to a cer
tain extent to content ourselves with an interpretation of ‘Christmas-eve,’
but the other poem seems to grow with each successive reading; and
by newly perceived connections of thought or feeling, to modify our old
exegeses. One feels that one is admitted more immediately in this,
into the mysterious presence of a human mind. The impression one
.gets from comparison of the two poems is that the whole of the vivid
artist and man-consciousness of which the £ Easter-day ’ is a product, is
not brought into action in the formation of the poem of ‘ Christmas-eve
and in this latter there is less absolute demand than in the other, that
his readers should have some degree of intellectual and moral affinity
■with the writer.
Granting that there is this difference in the poems, we may perhaps
VOL. II.---- NO. IX.
Q
�306
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
discern a reason for it in the difference of the subjects which occupy
them; the subject dealt with in £ Christmas-eve,’ belonging to the region
of matters practical—-that of ‘ Easter-day’ extending into the speculative.
Vigorous and clear-sighted though Browning is in his dealings with
these former, it is in a speculative region only that the full force of hisnature seems to develope itself in that passionate pressing on after
substantial reality of some sort or other—whether good or evil, at least
truth—which is the ultimate attitude of all his intellectual and emotional
action.
1 Christmas-eve’ starts from beliefs, which it takes for granted con
cerning the relations of humanity to an unseen spiritual world. It
belongs to the world of intercourse with our fellow men, a region where'
our beliefs are certainties, or as good as certainties. The question it treatsof is one within the Christian Church. The lesson it gives is a practical
one of broad charity and tolerance, a tolerance which, resulting out of the*
love to be learned by contemplation of the Human-Divine love, is to be
able to overcome all intellectual variances and fastidious repugnances of
taste. There is wrought out in the poem the grand feeling of a brother
hood, including witbin its comprehensive hold the manifold varieties of
human lives. Browning by his deep digging into humanity, finds
essential root-union, where Matthew Arnold with his languid scratching
at the surface, finds only dissimilarities forbidding sympathy. He unites
himself and us with the men and women of the Zion Chapel meeting,,
whose portraits he places before his readers in terms so grotesquely
graphic,—omitting no offensive detail to render them thoroughly life
like; and effectually preventing any mere aesthetic sentiment from being
the basis of our Christian charity. The absence of sweetness and light,
and the presence of certan repulsive characteristics (there is a vein off
humour akin to Dickens’s, in the way in which these are individualized),,
in the 1 preaching-man,’ alike, and in the flock that sat under the ‘ pig-oflead-like pressure,’ of his ‘ immense stupidity,’ are things that Browning:
insists on our realising to the full. Then, over the disgust awakened,
in us, he gains and makes us gain, as the poem proceeds, a victory
sublime, both as ethics and as art. (I said in the earlier pages of this,
essay, that Browning had no pathos—no sense of grand incongruities;.
I retract:—this is what one might call an inverted pathos. The un
looked-for discovery that the reality is nobler than the appearance, is.
the pathos belonging to Browning, and, to Christianity; just as the
finding truth to be smaller and meaner than illusion, had been the
pathos of Paganism). ‘Christmas-eve’ unites us, also, with the crowd
of ignorant worshippers in Rome at the ‘ raree show of Peter’s suc
cessor,’ who (typical of a multitude in all sections of the Church).,
remain in the days when the ‘world’s eyes are open’
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
307
Peevish as ever to be suckled,
Lulled by the same old baby prattle,
With intermixture of the rattle ;
and with the Gottingen professor who, with an inconsistency nobler than
his logic, retains the feeling of faith in and love for what his reason has
reduced to a myth. (Were it not that this paper must abstain from
viewing Browning as an artist, I would notice as a specimen of his
power as a portrait painter, the way in which with a few vigorous touches
he sets before us the whole ‘personnel ’ outer and inner, of this ‘ virginminded studious martyr to mild enthusiasm.’) The poem has its cul
minating idea in the grand trust that can say—
‘— Subsisteth. ever
God’s care above, and I exult
That God, by God’s own ways occult
May—doth. I will believe—bring back
All wanderers to a single track.’
Browning lets us see clearly what the nature of this feeling of brother
hood is j and guards jealously against any possibility of confounding it
with ‘ mild indifferentism’ or ‘lazy glow of benevolence over the various
modes of man’s beliefs.’ He makes no attempt to harmonize the different
creeds and tempers of religious feeling, by the modern method of elimi
nating the peculiarities of each as non-essentials. He, on the contrary,
insists that what constitutes each man’s earthly care, is to ‘ strive—to
find some one chief way of worship, and contrive ’ that his fellows ‘ take
their share.’ His tolerance is only the result of his confidence that here
where man’s care ends, ‘ God’s, which is above it and distinct,’ begins.
He cannot take the philosophical bird’s-eye view of the different creeds,
which is possible to men who are sufficiently impersonal to themselves to
contemplate at their ease, and compare impartially, the various religious
systems and cults spread out before them. All conclusions taking as
their premises only the aspects of men in masses, are unsatisfactory to
him. All problems of life, social or ecclesiastical, are unintelligible to
him until he have gained a solvent for them through the solution of the
problem of the life individual. The unit from which his reasonings
start is neither Humanity, nor the portion of it included within a church,
but the ego (the only ego he knows as a basis for argument being his
own). And it is only through his individual realisings, attained through
the toil and struggle of personal faith, that he gets his hope for the des
tinies of other men : it is only because of what he has himself discerned,
that he is enabled to reach—by a leap, not by a logical process—to the
trust that the discerning» of his fellows, though varying from his own,
are not illusory. The ratio of his power of sympathy and tolerance is
exactly that of the strength of his own dogmatic beliefs.
Q 2
�308
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
It is in tlie 1 Easter day ’ that we have to look for the record of how
an earnest human soul attains to that faith in the unseen, which in
‘ Christmas eve ’ is assumed all along as the basis of the argument. The
poem concerns itself with no questions of the ecclesiastical life, but of
the individual Christian life, which includes within itself the idea of the
objectively-including ecclesiastical life. Here Browning’s especial faculty
■—the strong venturing of faith—finds exercise. There are men (and
many amongst the highest orders of men) whose motions of thought and
feeling gain in firmness and freedom by the consciousness of belonging
to and acting with an ecclesiastical organisation or great public move
ment of opinion. But Browning’s mind has no place amongst minds of
this class : it is equally unfitted to move in an army organised under a
definite church system, or in an irregular force banded together by 1 the
spirit of an age;’ its victories must be won in single combat, if won
at all.
Here, parenthetically, we may notice this isolated working of Brown
ing’s thought, as the source of two characteristic imperfections—or,
more properly, limitations—in it. 1st, owing to this, his conception of
Christianity lacks the solidarity that arises out of the corporate feeling
and consciousness of historic permanence. It has never the broad firm
grandeur of the mood of the Ambrosian hymns, for instance, or the ‘ Te
Deum.’ According to his view, each generation of men have just the
same sort of work to do which they would have to do were all the
work of their ancestors to be blotted out, and leave no vestige of itself or
its effects. The objective creed is not placed by him ever in any secure
independence of our subjective hold upon it. 2ndly, though from this
mental aloneness comes the chief glory of his work as truthseeker,—his
way of getting face to face with his beliefs, and seeing whatever he sees,
directly and through no medium of languidly accepted traditions,—-yet
from the same source there comes one characteristic, which limits the
range of his helpfulness, and makes his teaching incapable of influencing
more than one class of minds. His own view of the immeasurable ex
panse of truth makes him, indeed, profoundly tolerant of the views of
other men whose standpoints are not his : but is he wholly free from
exclusiveness in his notions as to what should be accounted the lawful
organ in human nature for truth-discerning 1 Does he not seem to make
his very peculiar self the measure of other men, and become sometimes
intolerant of varieties of ways in which variously constituted men arrive
at and hold their beliefs ? In himself two natures are met in rare com
bination ; each of these natures being of heroic size and vigour. There
is the union of intellectual strength and subtlety, with a vividly imagin
ative and emotional temperament. He is at once a hard thinker and a
passionate feeler—a logician and a poet; and is, for his own part, able
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
30 9
to work in whatever engages him, with the faculties that belong to this
two-fold nature, and choose to which set of faculties he will entrust the
work he cares most about. His poems portray or suggest mental pro
cesses in ■which progress into scepticism and out of it takes place usually
thus:—the keen dialectic intellect first takes up the question in hand,
and works at it until it has made visible all the difficulties that are to
be found in it;—then, at the point where all objections have been fairly
brought into notice, the ego does not set the part of its nature—the in
tellect—which began operations with them, to the further task of at
tempting either to find explanation and answer to them, or to relegate
them beyond the province of things explicable ; but with a sudden
change of mood, the consciousness (leaving all these as and where they
are) flings itself with a passionate leap away from them, into the emo
tional part of human nature, and seeks its faith in a refuge from, rather
than in an encounter with, intellectual difficulty.
Whatever imperfections there are in Mr. Browning’s power of sym
pathy, are to be found on the side that is turned towards the class of
thinkers incapable, from mental constitution, of reaching faith by such
methods. His Christianity seems to exclude men born to belong to
what Mr. R. H. Hutton (in a somewhat ‘hard’-mooded essay—out of tune
with the others in his two recently-published volumes,) styles the ‘ Hard
Church.’ From these,—the men feebler in imagination and emotion,
than in intellectual power,—men whose feelings flow only as after-conse
quences from beliefs which they in no way helped to form—men who
for doubts of reason must find either satisfaction by reason, or find by it
good cause for the impossibility of such satisfaction—from such men
Browning holds aloof. His preaching rejects with somewhat of contempt
the evidences which are their faith’s all. He casts impatiently aside the
evidence, e.g., of the 1 greater probability ’—which to many a man must
be the sole ground of his belief in Christianity, and a ground which
would seem to melt from under him, if emotion or desire intruded upon
a mood dispassionately judicial. Browning’s mind, itself able instinc
tively to feel out the ‘ mightiness of love inextricably curled about ’ all
‘power and beauty in the world;’ and able to transcend, in the strength
of these intuitive perceptions, the chasm intervening between Nature
and the Christian Tale ; refuses to recognise the existence of any logical
footway of historical evidence, whereby alone a mind such as, <?.</., Arch
bishop Whately’s could arrive at belief in the truth of the story.
The failing to behold ‘lover’ written ‘on the foreheads’of the men who
must lovelessly know before they can love, is the imperfection discernible
in the great fraternal-hearted poet-thinker.
It happens often that men far more rigidly exclusive as to the ‘ what ’
of other people’s beliefs, are less so than Mr. Browning with regard to the
�310
BROWNING ÀS A PREACHER.
‘ how.’ This sort of tolerance results from their accepting the creed of
a church as handed down, ¿Ind not making religious truth a matter of
individual investigation. The creed of a church represents the aggre
gate action of varieties of minds it is the centre of agreement where
Opinions meet, irrespective of how they have travelled. Whoever, there
fore, takes this already-arrived-at creed as his own starting-point of
thought or feeling, acquiesces thereby in the lawfulness of roads (be these
what they may) which have brought other men to it. Keble, for in
stance, though a man immeasurably narrower in inherent sympathies
than Browning, has in some ways a larger toleration for minds of a dif
ferent order from his own, and holds in honour modes of thought such
as Bishop Butler’s. This is made possible to him (though for his own
part his faith would rest upon feeling only), by his having at the outset
abstained from individual truth-seeking, and merged his own life in the
catholic life of a church.
In Browning’s teaching there is in many respects a repetition alike of
the perfections and imperfections of Coleridge’s. In both of these men
the same intense inwardness and vivid self-concentrated thought which
fits them to accomplish—as their own peculiar work—the maintaining of
the subjective evidences for religious truth, inclines them to the same
sort of impatience towards all others, who, not able to trust the instinc
tive voices from within, have to seek faith through investigation and
comparison of what is without.
‘ Easter Day ’ is all throughout illustrative of Browning’s tendency
to exclusive reliance upon the subjective evidence of the human instincts.
The problem of the poem is the how
‘To joint
This flexile, finite life once tight
Into the fixed and infinite.’
•—the how to find, first, a ‘ fixed and infinite.’ And for the problem’s
solution, his mind refuses to avail itself of all aids which the intellect,
judging from things external, can offer. Meeting each answer of the
interlocutor with freshly occurring objections, he gets down deeper into
the difficulty, seeing ever more and more ‘ how very hard it is to be a
Christian.’ Then there comes to him, out of his great poet-heart, a
means of escape from the throng of surrounding perplexities, in that
strange, terribly vivid vision-dream, which brings in succession all earthly
things accounted good—earth’s exquisite treasures of wonder and delight
■—the waving of her woods, and flowing of her rivers, and all her vast
exhaustless beauty, and endless change—art in its most perfect ancient
and modern forms—knowledge, and the power to range Faust-like
‘through all circling sciences, philosophies, and histories’—brings all
these to the test of the human soul’s hunger for satisfaction; until it
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
311
feels that none of them is sufficient to stay its cravings; and that its one
final desire (to attain which it would let all else go in exchange) is for
love. And then there comes the mighty leap up of the human instincts,
regardless of intervening intellectual obstacles, towards the love of God
as told of in the Christian story,
£ "What doubt in thee, could countervail
Belief in it— ?’
and in ‘ it ’ he feels that he has found the substance of the gleams
that, blending with all the displays of power and beauty on the earth,
have been the essence of the brightness and good in her, which men have
rejoiced in. The scene which the dream tells of is placed in the after
judgment state; the whole poem, however, is in its scope not illustra
tive of a belief in a spiritual world, and of man’s probation for it, but
tentative of the grounds for such belief; and taking the judgment sen
tences of condemnation, merely as hypotheses in order to have in them,
the most searching tests to apply to human instincts.
Characteristically, too, in his £ Saul,’ Browning makes the Messianic
prophecy evolve itself to David from his instincts introspectively per
ceived. The £ Caliban upon Setebos’ gives us his views (strikingly unPaleyan) of the utmost that natural theology would amount to, argued
out without the aid of the intuitions of human love. These he illus
trates in this (which is one of his most powerfully executed poems), by
showing how Caliban, the loveless creature, who is either devoid of human
affections, or in whom they have not been called into activity by fellow
ship with men, can bring no key from within to unlock the meanings of
the universe; and therefore all that he can find in it, everywhere, all
around, by those shrewd bitterly ironical reasonings which his intellect
alone gathers from external things, is only merciless power, and capri
ciously used strength. And the horrible loathsomeness of this idea is
drawn out with a minute perfection curiously fascinating.
Preference for internal evidence is shown, too, in the whole tenor of
Pope Innocent’s monologue in the £ Ring and the Book.’ Here, though
truth is sought not through the mere instincts of the heart, but with
long patient reasonings of the head, it is still the introspective glance
into the human mind which supplies the starting point of the whole
.argument by which the old Pope, finding therein ideas' of strength, inrtelligence and goodness, larger in conception than in human fulfilment,
;and finding in the natural order of the world, actual fulfilment corre
sponding to two only of these ideas, arrives (by the necessity of finding
some instance of the third) at belief in the Christian story of limitless
Jove and sacrifice.
Brom -within, too, Innocent gets his very beautiful answer to the doubt
�312
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
that inevitably suggested itself to a man living in days when the earth
had become very evil, and lust and cruelty such as Guido’s ‘ had their
way i’ the world where God should rule,’ lest haply Christianity’s visible
failure should disprove its truth. The query,
‘ And is this little all that was to be;
Where is the glorious decisive change ?
The immeasurable metamorphosis
Of human clay to divine gold, we looked
Should in some poor sort justify the price ?
.*
«
*
*
*
*
Well, is the thing we see salvation ? ’
is answered by the guess which is supplied by his own heart instincts,,
that this very weakness and failure may be, after all,
‘ But repetition of the miracle,
The Divine instance of self-sacrifice
That never ends, and aye begins for man.’
and are characteristics necessary in a religion corresponding to the re
quirements of our truest humanity.
‘ How can man love but what he yearns to help ?
What but the weakness in a faith supplies
The incentive to humanity, no strength
Absolute, irresistible, comports ? ’
Thoroughly Browning-like is the Pope’s mood, when in his forecast of
the age succeeding his own, his hopes of world-regeneration are placed
in his expectation that it will ‘ shake the torpor of assurance from men’s
creed,’ and compel them, when they shall have grown to disbelieve re
port, to look inwards for truth, and
‘ Correct the portrait by the living face ;
Man’s God, by God’s God in the mind of man.’
A noticeable exception to Browning’s usual attitude of thought occurs,
in the closing pages of the ‘Paracelsus.’ The speech of the dying
knowledge-seeker contains a passage (too long to quote, and whose im
measurable poetic beauty must not here be spoken of), where the argu
ment extends over the whole known aspect of our world, viewing man
objectively in his chronological place in Nature, as an appearance illus
trative by its ‘ supplementary reflux of light’ of all foregoing appearances:
as the counterpai-t of anterior creations, a mirror consciously reflectant
of the whole.
Mr. Browning is an optimist: and all throughout his poetry his opti
mism is as the life-blood, circulating through and giving colour to every
part of it. Some notion of this element in his creed must be defined in
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
all criticism of him, either as teachei’ or artist. The features distinguish
ing his optimistic theory, are, I think, first, his never at any time ceas
ing to behold evil as evil, and to hate it as such : and secondly, his seeming
not to feel the oppression of its mystery that has lain as a burden so
heavily on the minds of generations of thinkers.
Moral evil he beholds as a thing in no way resolvable into mere imper
fection. Where he finds it in the human world it retains for him its old
meaning of sin, and is viewed as something wholly distinct from a stunting
of the beautiful development of men’s natures: by unfavourable outward
circumstances, such as the absence of knowledge and culture. His own
favourite theory of the position of human impulse, and the homage due
to it, never leads him into letting that homage be of a blind indiscrimina
ting sort. He recognises that there is a principle working internally,
and sending forth impulses which must not be mistaken for those which
are men’s lawful guides. With him holiness and healthiness are not
quite convertible terms. Caponsacchi and Guido have both acted
according to the promptings of impulse, obeying laws which were part of
the nature of each : yet between them a difference is set. Rejoicing
praise is bestowed by the Pope, in the 1 Ring and the Book,’ on the
obedience yielded to instincts by one of these men ;
‘ Well done !
Be glad thou hast let light into the world
Through that irregular breach in the boundary,—see
The same upon thy path, and march assured,
Learning anew the use of soldiership,
Self-abnegation, freedom from all fear ;
Loyalty to the life’s end.’
And on the other—Guido—whom he images to himself as pleading in
self-justification that his course of action has been only the same as that
commended, inasmuch as he too has guided his steps according to the
tune of impulse, the old man’s righteous anger smites the blow of the
sentence of temporal death. Wherein does Pope Innocent account this
difference just ? In this—that there has been a probation for both ;
each of them having within him a something to follow, and a some
thing to resist. Count Guido he beholds as
‘ Furnished forth for his career,
On starting for his life-chance in our world,
With nearly all we count sufficient help.
Body and mind in balance—a sound frame,
A solid intellect; the wit to seek,
Wisdom to choose, and courage wherewithal
To deal with whatsoever circumstance
Should minister to man—make life succeed.’
�314
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
■and fortified in his surroundings with 1 great birth, good breeding, and
the Church for guide.’ He accounts that such a man’s trial lies in the
having within, evil impulses balanced more evenly against the good than
they are in the man less favourably circumstanced for resistance to evil.
He condemns (justly, he feels) him who, if he had so willed, might have
made the good outweigh the evil,—might have used stumbling-block as
stepping-stone; but -who has chosen rather to love and believe in—
‘ Just the vile of life,
Low instinct—base pretension.’
Caponsacchi, too, Innocent views as having undergone trial by urgings
of two kinds of impulse ; and as having followed the noble and resisted
the base,—as having, while yielding to instincts of ‘healthy rage’
against cruelty and oppression, retained self-government, and kept
himself pure in thought, and word, and deed. In his praise there is
involved the idea that evil has been present as—
‘ Temptation . . . for man to meet
And master, and make crouch beneath his feet,
And so be pedestailed in triumph.’
.So, too, in the 1 Easter Day’ (as elsewhere) we find the same doctrine of
.a probation for all human life by instincts good and evil. To each
¿human soul has been shown—
‘ The earthly mixed
With heavenly, it must choose betwixt.
The earthly joys lay palpable,—
A taint in each, distinct as well
The heavenly flitted faint and rare
Above them.’
Far on, indeed, in the hereafter, Browning looks on to there being no
longer this two-fold and contrary working of impulse. His expectation
is that human nature will take its perfection in a grand one-ness. When
it shall—
‘ reach the ultimate, angel’s law
Indulging every instinct of the soul,
There where law, Hfe, joy, impulse are one thing.’
-—‘ A Death in the Desert.’
But he does not confound his hope for the future with his teaching for
.the needs of the present.
An optimist Browning is not in the sense of rejecting or explaining
•away the dogma that humanity has inherent tendencies to moral evil
dark and foul; or proclaiming a freedom to all impulses from any bar
save that of physical or social inexpediency; yet an optimist he is—and
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
315
that not falteringly, but with the conviction of his whole heart—in the
¡sense of being able, all the while he sees the evil which he will not dis
guise by any other name, to look steadily into its dark hateful face, assured
that its ultimate significance is good. He does not conceive that it has
come as some unlucky accident to spoil a harmony of order in a world
which but for it had been perfect; he holds, rather, that it is through
it that a higher perfection is attainable. Feeling this, he does not need
that shuffle into a real though unacknowledged Manichceism, which is
the refuge of so many men from the perplexities and contradictions of a
creed of mingled pessimism and optimism. He believes that the antagon
ism between principles does not extend beyond the world of finite being;
and ventures to refer to the same source the placing in this world of ours
the two contrary principles which we call good and evil. Here is some
of his doctrine, spoken by the Pope in the ‘ Ring and the Book.’
He says (having reached the point of acknowledgment that the
Christian story is true, and that therein ‘ God shows complete’):—
‘ I can believe this dread machinery
Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else
Devised,-—all pain, at most expenditure
Of pain by Who devised pain,—to evolve
By new machinery in counterpart
The moral qualities of man—how else ?
To make him love in turn and be beloved,
Creating and self-sacrificing too—
And thus eventually, God-like (ay
■“I have said ye are Gods”—shall it be said for nought ?)
Enable man to wring from out all pain
All pleasure for a common heritage.
******
The moral sense grows but by exercise,
’Tis even as man grew, probatively
Initiated in Godship, set to make
A fairer moral world than this he finds.
******
Life is probation, and this earth no goal,
But starting-point for man, compel him strive,
Which means in man as good as reach the goal.’
Evil he beholds as the immediate bringer to humanity of our chief and
peculiar glory—progress, as a messenger sent to institute a race for men,
from less to more, from lower to higher. The one thing of which he
feels a shrinking horror is ‘ ghastly smooth life ’ in which man should be
left ‘dead at heart;’ and his whole spirit leaps up to behold purposes of
goodness in the appearance of anything as a deliverer from that.
Browning’s is a creed including within it the hope that where during
�316
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
the earthly probation, men’s moral wills have been too feeble to enable
them to use temptations by evil as ‘ points that prove advantage for who
vaults from low to high;’ the work neglected or failed in here, may yet
elsewhere, though under harder conditions, be ultimately done. Even
Guido Franceschini, the abominable, he will not allow to depart from
our sight unfollowed by words of hope. In the forgivingness of Pompilia,
the victim of the murderer in her life and death, there is a gospel of a
far-off healing and restoration for him even, albeit by God’s shadow instead
of the light of His face. And the Pope, Guido’s judge, thinks of the
criminal on whom he pronounces sentence of temporal death, as going,
forth—
‘ Into that sad, obscui’e, sequestered state,
Where God unmakes but to remake a soul
He else had made in vain ; which must not be.’
And the same hope comes out, in vaguer expression, in that last phrase-,
of ‘Easter Day’ (without adding which, the human heart of the poet will
not suffer him to let go his vision of the close of the earthly probation):—
‘ Mercy, every way,
Is infinite—and who can say 1 ’
Very faint, by comparison with Browning’s, is Tennyson’s trust in the
‘larger hope;’ though lie, too, seeks to hold the creed that ‘somehow
good will be the final goal of ill.’ All that Tennyson attains to is an
infant’s blind crying after it—a groping for it, with ‘lame hands of faith.’
He looks for his theory of optimism in a direction whither Browning, an
idealist in his metaphysics, does not turn in his quests of objective
realities. And looking for it all throughout the material world and her
analogies, he finds nothing to be a reliable guide to it; and can only fall
in the darkness upon that ‘great world’s altar-stairs;’ not feeling assured
as to what ultimate law and purpose he should find above them, could he
see up their heights.
However, in speaking of the Tennyson and Browning optimisms, it is
not fail’ to make the quality of vigour the point of comparison—nor,
indeed, any other quality either. The aim of the two poets, in their
search, is essentially different. Tennyson’s colder and more symmetrical
mind looks to find truth as harmony and proportion; and is alwayssuspicious of the parts unless it can see the whole. What Browning;
seeks is truth absolute, not relative ; and if he thinks he has got hold of
the minutest particle of that, it is to him as a thing indestructible by
any mass of contradictions; and it suffices to him as a sure earnest of
the rest. His own heart’s instinctive conviction of a law of Lave is out
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
317
of the reach of whatever ‘evil dreams ’ Nature may lend, and does not
need to concern itself with analogies of her waste and destruction—with
appearances such as that ‘of fifty seeds, she often brings but one to bear?
The optimistic creed of Tennyson is the result of an effort, very noble, to
comprehend: that of Browning is an effort to apprehend. The one seeks
a superhuman solution to the problem, and fails : the other, grasping
with a human passion, succeeds in finding satisfaction.
At this part of Browning’s creed there is one of the many doors of
entrance, from the question of his work as a truth-seeker, into the question
of his Art. Into this we may not now’ trespass, further than to observe
that the character of his work, as poet of external Nature, seems to be
determined by the negative influence of his optimism, and his method of
.attaining thereto. His seeking and finding his satisfaction as to the
world’s purport, in another quarter than in the material world, leaves
him free to derive from that world, art of a peculiar and very valuable
kind. Browning’s poetry of external Nature has some characteristics so
rare, that (though in quantity it is much less than what most other great
poets have produced) its loss would leave a gap in our literature. It is
nowhere mystical, like Wordsworth’s, nor eesthetico-scientific, like Tenny
son’s Nature-poetry ; but it is simply full of a noble sensuousness. It is
not the product of moods of intellectual and moral tension. It is glad
acceptance of the physical influences of external Nature—not truth.seeking in and through her mysteries. The contact of the phenomena
which we term material, in ourselves, with the so-called material phe
nomena outside us, is rested in, for the time being, without endeavour to
pursue a further significance. Beautiful art, as well as teaching not a
little wholesome, is given to us in Mr. Browning’s poems of Nature; of
which the speciality is theii’ being sensuous, yet restrained by a manly
■dignity from ever becoming a voluptuous self-abandoning to enslavement
by her beauty. We have the same sort of thing only from one other
modern English poet—A. H. Clough. (See ‘The Bothie.’) There is a cer
tain amount of positivism in both Clough’s and Browning’s acceptance of
the material -world, which results, in both cases, in a similar sort of purely
physical enjoyment of it (the latter’s poetical expression of this being,
however, by far the superior in varied richness). Their positivisms are,
of course, alike in their effects only, and are essentially different. Clough’s
is the positivism of a strong mind, sternly setting aside truth-seeking in
this direction as bootless, and -with a resolute temperate cheerfulness,
accepting whatever certain good it can find. Browning’s is the positivism
of childlike trust—so confident in the truth which it has found elsewhere,
that it can afford to pause here from restless searching, and take the
-earth’s beauty as beauty—joys of sense as joy. For illustration of Mr.
JBrowning’s poetical feeling for external Nature, we might refer to his
�318
BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
‘ Pippa Passes,’ to his ‘ Saul ’ (specially to the passage in it beginning1 Oh, our manhood’s prime vigour’), to parts of the ‘Paracelsus,’ and to
other passages, which cannot here be enumerated. Though none otherof our poets is so perpetually on the watch to discern transcendental
significance, translucent through the facts of mind, yet he, more than,
most others, is content to behold the facts of matter as (so to speak)‘ opaque] and to describe his impressions from them, directly and unsymbolically. To Wordsworth it would be impossible to tell simply of.
‘the sense of the yellow mountain flowers.’
This paper must hasten to conclude, leaving with only a passing
mention, one of the aspects of Mr. Browning’s preaching—its stern moral
lessons, and its peculiar downrightness of enforcing them. As poet of
the Will, he has words of unsparing condemnation to bestow on such sins
as failure ‘ through weak endeavour.’ There is an earnest severity in
‘The Statue and the Bust,’ and in his ‘Sordello’—terriblest of tragedies,
inasmuch as it depicts the deterioration of a soul. The miserable life
failure, of which this latter is the history, is looked on by him as resulting
from the man’s irresoluteness to overcome and banish his probation
spectre (Do not many of us know something akin to it ?); of his hauntingdouble consciousness—fourfold consciousness, rather; of, at the same
time, an ego divided by impulses diverging towards two ways of utterance
—Art and action; and of another two-fold spectral ego—reflexion of the
actual ego—contemplating, as if from some view-point in nowhere, it and.
its work, in their place in the All-of-things. The real self and its re
flexion keep on, like opposite mirrors, reflecting each other backwards
and forwards, ad infinitum; each becoming alternately subject and
object, until there is produced in Sordello, as the result, a wretched
paralysis of all working-power, either artistic or practical. And all for
lack of the vigorous effort of whole-hearted obedience to either impulse, ,
by which his will could have freed him from the thing that wrought the
ruin of his life. Sternest of sermons this I on the text, difip Si^vyos,.
aKaTaoraTos,’ &c., &c. (St. James i., 8.)
Need one say anything with reference to one charge which we some
times heai* brought against Mr. Browning—of being, in ‘ The Ring and.
the Book,’ too open—offensively coarse, even, of speech 1 I—a woman—
feel that he needs no apology in this matter. Those of his readers who
are capable of, and willing to take the trouble of entering into the spirit
of his poetry, do not fail to find in it, moral saltness enough to keep its
purity untainted by the ugly words which his grave truthfulness some
times uses in indicating ugly things : and to mere criticism from without
—from those who neither learn from or sympathise with him—I imagine
that Mr. Browning does not greatly care to commend himself and his.
poems.
�BROWNING AS A PREACHER.
319'
Wholly unsatisfied by what these two papers have been able to say as
to some of the characteristics noticeable on one side of the most manysided of contemporary poets, I gladly cease from the attempt to write
little definitions of the poetry which I would rather feel indefinitely, and
grow into increasingly.
E. Dickinson West.
Mr. Browning’s latest work, ‘ Balanstione Adventure,’ lets us see, in its whole tenorand purport, the same characteristics of his preaching. There is no slight significance
in his choosing for his theme, a Greek play not ranked by critics amongst the finest;
but having peculiar attractions for the poet of the will, on account of its being the
story of the victory of a will—a half-7iw?iara will—over death and fate.
For nothing human or divine, does Browning recognise an iron law of necesssity.
He cares not for the grand Greek lifeless virtue of endurance of the inevitable ; and
would find his own poetical feeling wholly unsuited- to reproduce utterances such as
the hEschylean :
Tijv 7re7rpwp,ev7jv 8e ypiy
aT<rav (f>epeLV ws pacna, yiyva><TK.ov3’ on
’Avay/<7js ecrr’ aBrjpLTOV cr^evos
to ttjs
of Prometheus in his majestic passiveness.
There seems to be a curiously personal sympathy in Mr. Browning for Herakles, the
labour and effort God, whose strength is a thoroughly human strength of conscious
toil. Browning’s enlargement of Euripides’ portraiture of the hero, has been criti
cized as exaggerating the idea of joyous helpful strength ; and making him too much
of a ‘muscular Christian.’ I think that this objection to it fades out of sight, when
we view the poem as tinged and explained by the luminous Browning conscious
ness that indefinitely appears all throughout it. Struggle—and joy and hope in
struggle, and all things that he holds to be the portion best suited for the spiritual
part of our human life, are connected by him in a deep dim suggestiveness, with his
representation of Herakles. It is a spiritual truth—and not mere admiration of
thews and muscles, and good use of them, that he preaches to us.
In Browning’s suggested new version of the story, ‘ New Admetos new Alkestis,’
we may notice his characteristic way of penetrating through all surface appearances.
Deep underneath these, he finds a connection between human and infinite truths, and
sees there a beautiful ‘ how,’ by which Admetos might worthily let his wife die that
he might live. In harmony with all his other teaching, too, is Browning’s idea of
making the undyingness of Alkestis come to her, not as a mere salvation given from
without, but as worked out from wii7wn. The principle of life which cannot be holden
of death, is viewed by him always as a thing given to be in humanity.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Browning as a preacher. Part 2
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
West, Elizabeth Dickinson
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 305-319 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2 (November, 1871). Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5337
Subject
The topic of the resource
Poetry
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Browning as a preacher. Part 2), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Poetry in English
Robert Browning
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/892c3ca7cf204dbcc9f2a67dca90f500.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=X3dqCxcJ1gVB8RVMCKkUvXOaoHJxc-UVti5Blxzqtlbf4q-SyUvmpancF-CAuwnH8oq7pGGZ1jZGETfWZr9oLoVRbWCtr7vKzXXuswxVtcRutcVtrEa%7E2FrU7KfDXCpVJohJVNo9bn4eF2dxR56g6H6iLHgYrr3DqmqYP665CYo7AJwwjinjaD1HKe-tMgHR8T6Ys5gofYYvIkCuJQFJo7FUZSOiUMUGf3YwfXlXYr6ZCSoOdbEhEOVszBlYBzJdCgGwsd7DpYnsC2uy2sc02mtbvupSaM--rxpOIfM7n-0pInfIrk6IgHHHKRRn8pJVLMNfG7DWaaakzWIi-hC7sA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
d2167ca7c77485121a3cb4f5836e093e
PDF Text
Text
DOWN STREAM.'
�211
JOoWN
Between Holmscote and Hurstcote
The river-reaches wind,
The whispering trees accept the breeze,
The ripple’s cool and kind:
With love low-whispered ’twixt the shores,
With rippling laughters gay,
With white arms bared to ply the oars,
On last year’s first of May.
Between Holmscote and Hurstcote
The river’s brimmed with rain,
Through close-met banks and parted banks
How near now far again :
With parting tears caressed to smiles,
With meeting promised soon,
With every sweet vow that beguiles,
On last year’s first of June.
Between Holmscote and Hurstcote
The river’s flecked with foam,
’Heath shuddering clouds that hang in shrouds
And lost winds wild for home :
With infant wailings at the breast,
With homeless steps astray,
With wanderings shuddering tow’rds one rest,
On this year’s first of May.
Between Holmscote and Hurstcote
The summer river flows
With doubled flight of moons by night
And lilies’ deep repose :
With lo ! beneath the moon’s white stare
A white face not the moon,
With lilies meshed in tangled hair,
On this year’s first of June.
�212
DOWN STREAM.
Between Holmscote and Hurstcote
A troth, was given and riven;
From heart’s trust grew one life to two,
Two lost lives cry to Heaven:
With banks spread calm to meet the sky,
With meadows newly mowed,
The harvest paths of glad July,
The sweet school-children’s road.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Down Stream
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel [1828-1882]
Brown, Ford Madox [1821-1893] (ill)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: [210]-212 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2 (October 1871). The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873. Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5320
Subject
The topic of the resource
Poetry
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Down Stream), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
English Poetry
Ford Madox Brown
Poetry in English
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/2b66309a40a1506876f841feac99d58d.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=lpndkeZly6vSBHOqW-rI2qAJDFepl56YWtG9KrKZgMxfK2PkOUUVrLDwzNIgtzpqNRxnL9qcYhqfcTjcz-ixea3DkC-P9fHhx3T2MPGkiE3EdUUkDO9En4fUTyZXtvLPe4sLso%7En5HICcKGHJlfrfc%7EzXuteyo0S9ybc%7EgGlzui1Lb4vfBJIhYJ7YiZjp5X1oUwHedquMVQpfagwQTL3YjWbkWDXDx4eBJxSiLwMMG5-DUQeuaHgPQLqOCOojmi6EaUhytt3MfGkTlYrrsHIwB0zkL7VG8pDJUBhaEiyjQhB4ArZygX0Gzo24NrUtW4-UrL-ROnJSAAq%7Ekzm3-z9lw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
ea2d249ad7dd93dff5ff178572644e60
PDF Text
Text
167
¿2.
'•* r " . . ziOY-
A?'.' f? - 4
'f
c-fc
s."..:
Jn J^ove’s
an
, 0
^TERNITY
By Arthur W. E. O’Shaughnessy.
My body was part of the sun and the dew,
Not a trace of my death to me clave;
There was scarce a man left on the earth whom I knew,
And another was laid in my grave ;—
I was changed and in heaven; the great sea of blue
Had long washed my soul pure in its wave.
My sorrow was turned to a beautiful dress;
Very fair for my weeping was I,
Arid my heart was renewed, but it bore, none the less,
The great wound that had brought me to die—
The deep wound that She gave who wrought all my distress
Ah, my heart loved her still in the sky !
I wandered alone where the stars’ tracks were bright;
I was beauteous and holy and sad;
I was thinking of her who of old had the might
To have blest me and made my death glad;
I remembered how faithless she was, and how light,
Yea, and how little pity she had.
The love that I bore her was now more sublime,
It could, never be shared now or known ;
And her wound in my heart was a pledge in love’s clime,
Eor her sake I was ever alone,
Till the spirit of God in the fulness of time
Should make perfect all love in his own.
My soul had forgiven each separate tear
She had bitterly wrung from my eyes ;
But I thought of her lightness—ah, sore was my fear
She would fall somewhere never to rise,
And that no one would love her to bring her soul near
To the heaven where love never dies.
�168
IN love’s eternity.
She had drawn me with feigning, and held me a day;
She had taken the passionate price
That my heart gave for love—with no doubt or delay—
For I thought that her smile would suffice ;
She had played with, and wasted, and then cast away
The true heart that could never love twice.
And false must she be; she had followed the cheat
That ends loveless and hopeless below ;
I remembered her words’ cruel worldly deceit
When she bade me forget her and go.
She could ne’er have believed after death we might meet,
Or she would not have let me die so !
I thought and was sad ; the blue fathomless seas
Bore the white clouds in luminous throng,
And the souls that had love were in each one of these ;
They passed by with a great upward song :
They were going to wander beneath the fair trees
In high Eden—their joy would be long.
An age it is since : the great passionate bloom
Of eternity burns more intense ;
The whole heaven draws near to its beautiful doom
With a deeper, a holier sense ;
It feels ready to fall on His bosom in whom
Is each love and each love’s recompense.
How sweet to look back to that desolate space
When the heaven scarce my heaven seemed !
She came suddenly, swiftly, a great healing grace
Filled her features and forth from her streamed !
With a cry our lips met, and a long close embrace
Made the past like a thing I had dreamed.
‘ Ah, love,’ she began, ‘ when I found you were dead
I was changed and the world was changed too ;
On a sudden I felt that the sunshine had fled,
And the flowers and summer gone too ;
Life but mocked me ; I found there was nothing instead
But to turn back and weep all in you.
When you were not there to fall down at my feet,
And pour out the whole passionate store
Of the heart that was made to make my heart complete,
In true words that my memory bore,
Then I found that those words were the only words sweet,
And I knew I should hear them no more.
*
�in love’s eternity.
‘ I found that my life was grown empty again ;
Day and year now I had but to learn
How my heaven had come to me—sought me in vain,
And was gone from me ne’er to return :
Too earthly and winterly now seemed the plain
Of dull life where the heart ceased to burn !
‘ And soon with a gathering halo was seen,
O’er a dim waste that fell into night,
Your coming, your going—as though it had been
The fair track of an angel of light;
And my dream showed you changed in a spirit’s full sheen
Fleeing from me in far lonely flight.
‘ My Angel! ’twas then with a soul’s perfect stake '
You came wooing me, day after day,
With soft eyes that shed tears for my sake and the sake
Of intense thoughts your lips would not say ;
’Twas a love, then, like this my heart cared not to take !
’Twas a heart like this I cast away !
‘ Ah yes !—but your love was a fair magic toy
That you gave to a child who scarce deigned
To receive it—forsook it for some passing joy,
Never guessing the charm it contained :
But you gave it and left it, and none could destroy
The fair talisman where it remained.
‘And, surely, no child—but a woman at last
Found your gift where the child let it lie,
Understood the whole secret it held, sweet and vast,
The fair treasure a world could not buy;
And believed not the meaning could ever have past,
Any more than the giver could die.
‘ And then did that woman’s whole life, with a start,
Own its lover, its saviour, its lord ;
He had come, he had wooed her,—and lo, her dull heart
Had not hailed him with one stricken chord
Of whole passion—had suffered him e’en to depart
Without hope of a lover’s reward !
‘ But, surely, there failed not at length his least look,
His least pleading, his most secret tear
Quite to win her and save her; her heart truly took
A fond record of all: very dear,
Very gracious he seemed; and for him she forsook
The drear ruin her soul had come near.
169
�170
IN love’s ETERNITY.
‘ For him she made perfect her life, till she laved
Her soul pure in the infinite blue :
O thou Lover, who once, for a love deathless ci'aved
A brief heaven of years frail and few,
Take the child whom you loved and the woman you saved
In the Angel who now blesses you ! ’
She ceased. To my soul’s deepest sources the sense
Of her words with a full healing crept,
And my heart was delivered with rapture intense
From the wound and the void it had kept;
Then I saw that her heart was a heaven—immense
As my love ! And together we wept.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
In love's eternity
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
O'Shaughnessy, Arthur William Edgar
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 167-170 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From The Dark Blue 2. Attribution of journal title and date: Virginia Clark catalogue. The Dark Blue was a London-based literary magazine published monthly from 1871 to 1873.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5316
Subject
The topic of the resource
Poetry
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (In love's eternity), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
English Poetry
Poetry in English
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/73b0c8d8ba0d0859f1ea3036a537a55c.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=h6PT5pPMJY5AlZYWEIoYym2pDOgAmPUQyqLnGPMkRbsiVq4VLi-xWz%7EdemJsrpiC-fthd0i2XuV9cWNzK14jsXEun8i1p18ORu5LbIRb3yzjb9UhYDh8THhUiGrm8F9Q24k1y3fkQVaYm%7EHlnk6si6bsekhoOeSjlo9IjvMBoeqIHBcz4APnR3bm72ZwYWbr537iAYrJdgZSytpoMIClCAAgWrM%7Es0vFI99NP7eSRNFjBfVYwbSlmrEXsVwB931XvL7zY4yoOMQcR-GR8rnTDpbX0SWOL45nsQGHCKdX7YXJ98bVNyMgebf8ZQSscd%7EPAoUr986GbNIYCTXgH7CJHQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
f1b8c5aef115b17307681385a03d9ddc
PDF Text
Text
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY
THE
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIANITY
AND OF PROTESTANTISM.
BY
JOHN ROBERTSON,
AUTHOR OF “THE FINDING OF THE BOOK.”
“ The Christianity of Christ is not one thing, and human nature another;—
it is human Virtue, human Religion, man in his highest moments; the effect
no less than the cause of human development, and can never fail till man
ceases to be man.”—Theodore Parker.
“ The simple believeth every word; but the prudent man looketh well to
his going.”—Solomon.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
MOUNT PLEASANT, RAMSGATE.
Price Sixpence.
�“Far, very far be it from any devout mind, out of an unwarranted,
unreasonable, and most unnecessary jealousy, to arrest or stay the progress
of inquiry, or look with a timid and suspicious eye on any honest efforts
made to extend and diffuse the knowledge of nature. The. upright search
after truth can never be dangerous to him who lovingly engages in it, or dis
honourable to Him who is the God of truth. All scope is given to inquiry
into all the wonders, whether of the material world without, or of the moral
world within. It is your dignity, and duty so to inquire. You are men,
and you are commanded to be men in understanding. As men, you may
assert your privilege of investigating all the works of your Creator; and in
doing so, you are to follow truth whithersoever it may lead. You are not
constituted the judges of consequences and results. Your business is with the
facts and principles of truth itself. You are not to determine what should
be, or what might be,—you are to discover what is. This is the course be
coming alike the power and the infirmity of reason. Within this limit you
tread surely and safely. Cast aside, then, all alarm as to what may follow
from, your inquiries. Only prosecute these inquiries with due caution, and
put them fairly and faithfully together, so as to ascertain real facts and
draw none but legitimate conclusions. And we may fearlessly ran the
hazard of any inferences which they may suggest, confident that they will
all tend to shed new light and lustre on the wisdom in which the Lord hath
made all his manifold works.”—Dr Candlish, in “Reason and Revelation,"
pp. 139, 140.
“ Every one declares against blindness, and yet who almost is not fond of
that which dims his sight, and keeps the clear light out of his mind, which
should lead him into truth and knowledge? False or doubtful positions,
relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those in the dark from truth
who build on them. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from educa
tion, party, reverence, fashion, interest, &c. This is the mote which every
one sees in his brother’s eye, but never regards the beam in his own. For
who is there almost that is ever brought fairly to examine his own prin
ciples, and see whether they are such as will bear the trial? But yet this
should be one of the first things every one should set about, and be scrupul
ous in, who would rightly conduct his understanding in the search of truth
and knowledge.”—John Locke.
�INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY
THE
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIANITY
AND OF PROTESTANTISM.
--------- ♦---------
PROPOSE an experiment. Before reading my
next sentence, I invite those who favour me with
their attention to write down, or to think out, as I
have just now been trying to do, such a general defi
nition and explanation of the word Priest, as shall
*
fairly describe, and apply to, most or all of the dif
ferent varieties of men, to whom the word is appli
cable.
Those who have done so may now compare their
definition with mine, and see whether they at all
agree or totally differ, and whether they contradict
or supplement each other.
The definition which I propose is, that a priest is
an officer or minister of a traditional or authorita
tive, and national or corporate, religious institution;
and, as such, his distinctive mission is to be an
exponent or advocate of a religious system or creed,
I
* “ Our word Priest is corrupted of Presbyter. Our
ancestors, the Saxons, first used Preostre, whence by further
contraction came Preste and Priest. The high and low
Dutch have Priester; the French Prestre; the Italian
Prete; but the Spaniard only speaks full Presbytero.”—
Packardson's English Dictionary.
�4
Reason and the Bible.
inculcating the belief or observance of certain dogmas
or ceremonies, as the fundamental and indispensable
condition of merit, privilege, and welfare, here or
hereafter.
The language of the consistent priest is never—
‘ Come, up hither. Open your eyes, look around, and
behold and judge for yourselves, as I judge for
myself, the goodness, the truth, and the reality, or
the wickedness, the falsehood, and the delusion of
those things to which I shall direct your attention,
and which I shall endeavour to make you understand.’
But his language is, ‘ Stand down. If you wish to be
regarded as a brother, and as a worthy member of
the church or of the community, you must not place
any reliance on the guidance of your own reason in
those matters which I instruct you to regard as
settled by the supreme authority; nor must you take
the liberty to investigate for yourself the evidences
of correctness and reality; but you must be content
to receive, with faithful and entire submission of the
intellect, the doctrines, the ceremonies, or the book,
which I hold out to you authoritatively as the revealed
Will or Word of God; and you must, in like manner,
faithfully accept and adhere to that interpretation or
application of what God has revealed, which has
been sanctioned by the traditions of the institution,
or by the institution itself, whose officer I am, as the
only true interpretation or application thereof, and
therefore as the rule and guide of your belief, wor
ship, and life.’ *
Reason is never invited by the priest to criticize,
test, and candidly weigh the evidence for and against
the authority to which he appeals. That authority
* “ The whole order of the clergy are appointed by God to
pray for others, to be ministers of his priesthood, to be
followers of his advocation, to stand between God and the
people, and to present to God all their needs, and all their
desires. Bishop Taylor, Sermon 6.
�Reason and the Bible.
5
is assumed to be supreme, and therefore above reason,
and beyond the reach of argument, commanding
absolutely the believing assent, with or without the
rational verdict, of all men to whom it comes, and in
some cases not even hesitating to doom, for their
unbelief, those who never heard of it.
*
The one fundamental argument of the priest, on
which his entire system of belief is based, is—Thus
saith the Oracle, or, Thus it is written. The truthful
ness of the oracle or of the writing, as well as of the
priestly or traditional interpretation, is postulated,
not proved. The priest does not profess to have,
but professes not to require, for himself or for
others, such evidence and arguments in support of
what he inculcates, as to secure the ratifying and
approving verdict of the unprejudiced inquiring
mind. His appeal is not primarily to the reason
and conscience of men, but to their prejudices and
emotions, such as those which arise from the influ
ence of traditions and customs, or from habitual
veneration and attachment to some external symbol
or standard of authority, such as a Church, a Pope,
an oracle, an image, or a book. He may, indeed,
welcome with approval, and may even condescend to
employ, a selection of evidences and arguments in sup
port of the supreme authority to which he appeals j
but such support is only regarded at the most as
secondary and subsidiary, and is never represented
by the consistent priest as the primary and essential
basis, on which to found and establish the supremacy
What are they that imbrace the gospell but sonnes of
God ? AV hat are churches but his families ? Seeing there
fore wee receive the adoption and state of sonnes by their ministrie whom God hath chosen out for that purpose, seeing also
that when, we are the sonnes of God, our continuance is still
vnder their care which were our progenitors, what better
title could there bee given them than the reuerend name
of presbyters, or fatherly guidesZfooto- Eccl. Pol.,
b. v., s. 78.
�6
Reason and the Bible.
of his authoritative standard or oracle. To find or
exhibit any evidence or argument against the genuine
ness of this assumed supremacy, is by the priest ac
cordingly denounced as a moral delinquency, a sacri
lege or blasphemy, not to be met with rational
reply and confutation, but to be simply abhorred and
condemned as treason against the Supreme.
The assertion of some supreme external standard
or symbol of authority, being thus the distinc
tive and fundamental doctrine of every priest, it
follows unavoidably that he practically assumes infal
libility for himself, or for the institution whose views
he expresses ; because he requires his assertion to be
believed without being tested, by the submission, and
not by the free action and verdict of reason, and be
cause he ignores or denies the right of reason to
investigate and to weigh impartially the evidence
and arguments on all sides, and so to judge of the
truth or falsehood—the certainty or uncertainty of
the supreme authority asserted by him. It is mani
fest that the supreme authority, thus dogmatically
and authoritatively ascribed to a book or to anything
external and apart from individual reason, not being
based upon the free appreciation of its intrinsic and
demonstrable merits and evidences, is practically
and truly based upon some other assumed authority,
to which reason is required to bow. It is impos
sible to get out of the dilemma, however much
sophistry may be employed to disguise it. The
man who declares to other men that a book or other
external thing is a revelation, and that its autho
rity is above reason, practically claims for himself
infallibility and supreme authority on that point, and,
by necessary logical implication, on all points.
If the supreme authority of the book, or other ex
ternal thing, is based on the manifest or provable
truthfulness and harmony of all that it attests, or
upon the clearness and completeness of all the evi
�Reason and the Bible.
7
dence regarding it, then reason must be invited and
employed to scrutinize its purport and its claims, in
order that these qualities may be ascertained and re
cognised. But if all such rational tests be rejected,
there is only one other ground that can possibly be
taken, and that is an appeal to another external autho
rity for support to the first. The claims of the high
est authority must either rest upon the manifestation
to reason of its evidence and merits, or else upon an
other authority behind it; and, in either case, that
which is appealed to must be at least equal in dignity
to that which it has to sustain. Perfection cannot be
rationally inferred where imperfection is discerned;
neither can infallibility be sufficiently attested by
aught that is fallible, nor supreme authority by aught
that is not itself supreme.
I conceive that thus far these remarks and reflec
tions have been so framed as to be fairly applicable
to the priests of many and widely different religions,
ancient and modern, as well as to those of popular
Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant. But my
readers will, of course, have understood that I have
kept the priests of Protestantism especially in view.
The modern Protestant Christian Churches, though
in many speculative inferences and doctrines widely
differing from each other, are generally understood
and represented as, all alike, asserting, appealing to, and
resting on, the infallibility or supreme authority of
the Bible, while renouncing all pretensions to infalli
bility of their own, as Churches or as men. None of
them, so far as I can learn, has ever ventured formally
to declare that the authority of the Church or of tradi
tion, as embodied in the “ Articles of Religion,” the
“Confession of Faith,” or any other “Ecclesiastical
Standard,” is sufficient to establish, and to impose
upon the human conscience, the duty of believing the
infallibility or supreme authority of the Bible,
or indeed the duty of believing any doctrine
�8
Reason and the Bible.
whatever. On the contrary, it is expressly declared
by every Protestant Church, that no Church is
infallible,—that Synods and Councils have erred,
and are Hable to err, from which the inference is
direct and inevitable, that any doctrine, resting
merely on such authority, ought to be held subject to
the free investigation, reconsideration, and inde
pendent judgment, not only of all succeeding synods
and councils, but of every individual who has light
enough to discern the vast difference, which dis
tinguishes faith in God and in truth from faith in
the faith of other men. And yet, with gross inconsis
tency and self-contradiction, partly in the several
ecclesiastical “ Standards,” but much more glaringly
in the ministrations of very many priests, the idea is
constantly inculcated, and therefore of course it
is widely entertained, that the traditional dogmas
of the Churches are indisputable and infallible, at
least on those points which are considered funda
mental and essential, and especially on this point, viz.
the supreme authority of the Bible; and that it is
blasphemous presumption for any inquirer to subject
their assertion on this point to rational investigation,
and to the free judgment of his individual reason.
*
They who are fallible are continually asserting that
the Bible is the holy, authoritative, infallible, Word
of God; and that no man is at liberty to form a dif* “Orthodoxy, finding itself unsafe in the domains of
argument, flies towards those of moral sentiments ; and just
at the moment when it might be expected to surrender, it
turns sharply round, and boldly charges reason with sin.
This is an alarming charge. Before this moral discovery, we
exerted our reason to the utmost of our power, confident
that we had no spiritual danger to fear : now, most unfortu
nately, we are made to suspect that our sin may be great in
proportion to the power of our arguments. What indeed, in
common language, we call pride, is usually connected with
power, and the existence of the latter is for most people, a
pretty strong presumption of the presence of the former.
It must therefore happen, that, when reason is accused of
�Reason and the Bible.
9
ferent opinion, nor has a right to investigate, nor
freely to discuss the evidence for and against their
assertion-, but that every man is bound to submit his
reason to that supreme authority above reason, which
they assert that the Bible rightfully claims and pos
sesses. Those who do so are driven to employ any
amount of sophistry to conceal from others and per
haps even from themselves the plain logical fact, that
to assert in this absolute way the infallibility or
supremacy of the Bible, and the imperative duty of
human reason bowing to its teaching, is really and
practically to assert the infallibility or supreme au
thority of the Church, or of the man, by whom such
assertion is made.
This absurd and self-condemned position appears
to be at present held, in some degree, by every Pro
testant Church. But far beyond the comparatively
mild and half-concealed absurdity of any Protestant
Confession, very many of those clergymen and clerical
men, who delight to be called “ orthodox,” habitually
state and vindicate this “ Gospel of Unreason ” in all
its barefaced breadth of boldness and inconsistency.
The attempt has indeed been often made, by rea
soning against reason, to reconcile freedom of thought
with intellectual submission to the Bible; “to re
concile Reason and the Bible,” by so displaying and
enhancing all available internal and external evi
dence in support of the Bible, and by so ignoring
pride, the charge will appear .already more than half sub
stantiated, if reason has been too hard for the opponents.
Power of any kind, unless it can reward and punish to a cer
tain degree, is not an enviable possession. I have no doubt
that if a sin, to be called pride of sight, had been as neces
sary to some influential class, as the pride of reason is to
the orthodox parties all over the world; every long and
sharp-sighted man, who wished to live in peace, and avoid
the scandal of discovering things which his neighbours either
could or would not see, would now be obliged to wear
spectacles.”—Observations on Heresy and Orthodoxy, by the
Rev. Jos. Blanco White.
�IO
Reason and the Bible.
and disparaging, or endeavouring to explain away,
all internal and external evidence of an opposite
kind, as to make it appear to many superficial thinkers,
or too willing believers, that the whole is in harmony
with every part, that all its doctrines and statements
are in perfect accordance with the evidence and
with each other, and that all the relative evidence
will bear the strictest investigation, being such as,
when justly weighed, will carry complete conviction
to every honest candid mind, appealing to the serious,
upright exercise of unprejudiced human reason, and
thus meriting and commanding the approving and
ratifying verdict of all but those who are too stupid
or too wicked to give it proper attention.
So long as the belief in the Bible was an honest
and sincere belief, such was the reasoning, variously
illustrated, by which that belief was sustained and
propagated. Such is the language of the- “ Articles,”
and especially of the “ Confession of Faith” :—
Confession i. 5. “ We may be moved and induced by
the testimony of the Church to an high and reverend
esteem of the Holy Scripture, and the heavenliness of the
matter, the efficacy of the- doctrine, the majesty of the
style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole
(which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it
makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other
incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof,
are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence
itself to be the Word of God.”
Such was the language of the Reformers in the six
teenth century, and of the great Protestant divines
in the seventeenth. Listen to Richard Hooker, one
of the most learned and gifted theological writers of
the post-Reformation period :—
“ Judge you of that which I speak, saith the apostle.
In vain it were to speak anything of God, but that by
reason, men are able somewhat to judge of what they hear,
and by discourse to- discern how consonant it is to truth.
Scripture, indeed, teacheth things above nature, things
�Reason and the Bible.
11
which our reason, by itself, could not reach unto. Yet
those also we believe, knowing by reason that the Scrip
ture is the Word of God............. A number there are who
think they cannot admire as they ought the power and
authority of the Word of God, if in things divine they
should attribute any force to man’s reason ; for which
cause they never use reason so willingly as to disgrace
reason............... By these and the like disputes, an opinion
hath spread itself very far in the world, as if the way to
be ripe in faith were to be raw in wit and judgment; as
if reason were an enemy unto religion, childish simplicity
the mother of ghostly and divine wisdom.”
Or let us consult, upon this subject, William Chil
lingworth, author of the famous work entitled “ The
Beligion of the Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation,”
published in 1637, and of the still more famous say
ing which is so often quoted: “ The Bible, and the
Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants ” :—
“ But you that would not have men follow their reason,
what would you have them follow ? their passions, or
pluck out their eyes and go blindfold ? No, you say ; you
would have them follow authority. In God’s name, let
them : we also would have them follow authority; for it
is upon the authority of universal tradition that we would
have them believe Scripture. But then, as for the authority
which you would have them follow, you will let them see
reason why they should follow it. And is not this to go a
little about—to leave reason for a short turn, and then to
come to it again, and to do that which you condemn in
others ? It being, indeed, A plain impossibility for any
MAN TO ■ SUBMIT HIS REASON BUT TO REASON ; for he that
doth it to authority must of necessity think himself to
have greater reason to believe that authority.”
It is not likely to be denied that these specimens
fairly and fitly represent the distinctive views and
teachings of the Beformers and early Protestant
divines, on reason as the basis of all religious belief,
and on the complete harmony which they conceived
to exist between reason and the Bible. Assuming,
as we well may, that their language is honest and
�12
Reason and the Bible.
sincere, and that they meant exactly what they have
said, it is clear that, as held by them, theirs was a
reasonable faith, and that they did not feel called
upon to settle any visible conflict between the claims
of reason and those of the Bible, nor experience any
difficulty in harmonizing these with each other, and
putting faith in both. Their religious belief was by
them identified with their intellectual conclusion re
garding the authority of the Bible; so that their
utterances on the subject express both the conviction
of their hearts and the rational judgment of their
minds. The same kind of reasoning may even now
be heard from some believers, in whose experience
these two things still go together, and from some
others who wish to make it appear that they find it so.
But the conflict which then slumbered, being
apparently unsuspected by religious men in those
days, has been since then steadily growing in urgency
and importance, exactly in proportion to the increas
ing diffusion of knowledge and general progress of
intelligence, until it has now become difficult to
find an intelligent thinking man who believes, as
the Reformers did, in both Reason and the Bible,
as harmonizing together, and mutually supporting
each other. The conflict has, in recent times, and
especially of late, become so manifest and notorious,
that a profession of faith, in the old alliance or com
promise of the two rival claims, now suggests ignor
ance, imbecility, or wilful deception; and the ordinary
experience of an inquirer is accordingly very different
from what it formerly was, for he finds that the
question fronting him no longer admits of any but
an alternative and one-sided solution ; so that, if he
does not shirk it altogether, and remain indifferent
or in suspense, he must decide for himself whether
his reason shall be subjected to the Bible, or whether
the Bible shall be subjected to his reason.
The reconciliation of the two is a task very seldom
�Reason and the Bible.
13
now undertaken for the public, or accomplished by
individuals for themselves, except by the uninformed,
the shallow-minded/ or the unthinking. Easy-going,
peace-loving clergymen may sometimes still be heard
trying it in the pulpit; but it has almost ceased to
appear in print, the advocates on both sides appear
ing to be nearly unanimous on this one point, that
such an undertaking is now hopelessly difficult, and
that a genuine reconciliation is henceforth impossible,
on any conditions short of the subjection of one
claimant to the supremacy of the other.
It is, therefore, not my purpose to enter here upon
an examination of the various methods of reconcilia
tion which have been suggested. Some of them are
utterly absurd, and even ridiculous; and it is safe to
say that none of them can have any plausibility be
yond what may be purchased by the free employment
of sophistry and assumption, tricks which, until
recent times, were comparatively safe from detection
and exposure, though it is gradually becoming more
difficult and more hazardous to employ them.
One of the latest and ablest attempts of this kind,
that of the late Dean Alford, in his “New Testament
for English Readers,” which may fairly be regarded as
embodying the best and most plausible features of all
previous attempts to effect the desired reconciliation,
has been most skilfully and completely sifted and
exploded in previous pamphlets of this series, which
probably most of my readers have seen, and which
any of them may easily procure.
*
My intention is to deal here only with the plead
ings and pretensions of those more numerous (at
least in Scotland), and in their own way more con
sistent, advocates of the Bible, who apparently do
not believe, as the old Protestant divines and the
* “Commentators and Hierophants,” Parts I. and II.
price Sixpence each. See list on the last page of this
pamphlet.
�14
Reason and the Bible.
Westminster Assembly did, in the possibility and
duty of the reconciliation, and who do not even seem
to desire it, preferring to insist, .as honest true Pro
testants never did, upon the absolute surrender and
submission of Reason to the Bible.
Those who hold the views which these advocates
express have, apparently without knowing it, as
completely departed in one direction from the stand
point of the men of the Reformation, as those who
require the submission of the Bible to Reason have
departed from it in another and opposite direction.
Both parties alike have felt compelled to settle the
question one way or another. Neither party has
found it possible to harmonize the conflicting claims,
nor to find any satisfaction in compromising them.
The one party has decided one way, and the other
another way, that question which the Reformers did
not take up, and did not feel called upon to settle.
Let neither of these parties be deluded with the idea
that they are maintaining the standpoint of the Re
formers with regard to the Bible. That standpoint
was, as they clearly tell us, the then generally admitted
harmony and agreement of Reason and the Bible. If we
only try seriously to imagine such men as the old
Protestant Reformers compelled, as both of the parties
in question have been compelled, to abandon that
standpoint, to acknowledge the irreconcilable anta
gonism of the two, and to take the one side or the
other, by deciding for themselves whether their reason
should submit to be judged by the Bible, or the
Bible to be judged by their reason ; we can scarcely
fail to understand which side ought to be taken by
true Protestants now, and which side savours more of
the old Popish superstition.
It has of late been remarked by many, that, instead
of grappling with, and undertaking to refute, in the
pulpit or in the press, any or all of the really formid
�Reason and the Bible.
15
able and increasing arguments of objectors,—those
who maintain the traditional dogma, that the Bible
is the Word of God, have for some time past, almost
without exception, been timidly affecting to treat
the arguments with silent contempt, while at the
same time treating the persons, by whom these argu
ments are urged, with wrathful condemnation instead
of any reply.
It is usual for them to say that none of these
arguments or objections are new, which, nevertheless,
some of them are, though surely age alone is no dis
honour ; and that they have all been, long ago, hun
dreds of times, satisfactorily answered. The ex
planation of which appears to be, that when the
minds of men were more easily satisfied with such
answers as might still be given, there was no lack of
satisfactory answers. Whether this sufficiently ex
plains it or not, the phenomenon is notorious, that
the arguments of the objectors are from day to day
becoming more general, more formidable, and more
convincing than ever; while the arguments in reply,
as distinguished from the mere denunciations by the
maintainers, are becoming more and more obsolete,
impotent, and worthless; so much so, that they seem
to have very much escaped the notice or memory of
both parties alike. Unquestionably, however, there
have been, and must have been, plenty of “ sound
orthodox” arguments and replies, which may have
done good service to their employers in their own
day and generation, though these might now have an
effect quite opposed to that which they were formerly
understood to have; because the question now agi
tating men’s minds is comparatively A new question,
to which the old arguments and replies cannot be
easily adapted, having been originally addressed to
the reason; whereas men would now employ them
to reason against reason—a peculiarly delicate task !
There was a time when a very distinguished
�16
Reason and the Bible.
Father of the Church, the earliest distinct witness
for the authenticity of the fourth Gospel, could
argue with acceptance that there must be four Gos
pels, and only four, because—there were four winds,
and four elements, and four beasts in the vision of
Ezekiel! Such an argument is of no use now.
There was a time, not so long ago, when it was
generally considered satisfactory to argue that, as
God’s ancient people were commanded to extirpate
heretics, and to destroy them utterly, so it was
clearly the duty of God’s people still to do the same
thing; and the stake, or the dungeon, or some suffi
cient penalty, was deemed by Catholics and Protes
tants alike, as it had been deemed by the Jews of
old, the most appropriate answer to all sorts of ob
jections. Such arguments are now out of date, at
least in this part of the world.
There has been a time, not yet gone by, though
we may hope that it is now gradually passing away,
when, beyond “ the three mechanical P’s,” the whole
idea of ordinary education has been, to furnish the
mind of the pupil with a complete panoply of stereo
typed ideas and ready-made conclusions, handed
down by tradition, regarding every branch of know
ledge, as well as regarding religion and the Bible.
It is only now, or of late years, that the idea has
begun to prevail, and no doubt is very rapidly
spreading, that, instead of merely cramming the
mind with assertions and dogmas, the far nobler
aim of education ought to be, the instruction and
training of each individual in the separate personal
use of his own mental faculties, by calling these
faculties constantly into exercise upon his own ex
perience and observation, as well as upon all his
lessons and studies, which for children ought to be
selected and directed by teachers or guardians,
having the principle of intellectual liberty rooted
in their hearts, and keeping that principle steadily
in view.
�Reason and the Bible.
17
The foremost educationists are now striving to1
discover the most effectual methods of accustoming
the young mind to think, to reflect, to investigate,
to compare, and to test everything for itself, search
ing everywhere, and always, for truthfulness and
reality, so that it may learn to know and understand
the certainty, or the certain doubtfulness, of every
thing in which it is instructed; and, above all, that
it may, as it ripens, become acquainted with its own
natural inherent right to judge for itself of the good
or evil, the truth or falsehood, the certainty or un
certainty of everything to which its attention may
be directed; of which right, at least in several of its
most important applications, the vast majority of
minds have hitherto been trained in profound prac
tical ignorance, thinly veiled, if veiled at all, by a
few fine-sounding phrases about the reverence or
respect due to this or that authority.
There cannot be a doubt about it, that a great
change in this direction, is coming gradually over
the whole united nation. There is at present a very
distinct prospect and intention of improvement. We
really do seem to be making a fresh start onwards
towards liberty and light. It is indeed both a grand
and a true thing to say, in the prophetic words of
our greatest orator,. John Bright,—“ I think I see,,
as it were, above the hill-tops of time, the glimmer
ing of the dawn of a better day, for the people and
the country that I love so well! ” It may seem rather
sanguine, but no longer seems chimerical, to hope
that even a middle-aged man may live to see the'
children of the people trained, each in the knowledge
and use of his or her birthright as one of God’s chil
dren,—the birthright of liberty,—complete freedom
of reason tod of conscience,—the very liberty which
the “Sons of God ” and “ enlightened ones ” have in
all ages striven, and often sacrificed themselves in
the attempt, to make mankind understand and use
B
�18
Reason and the Bible.
as their own. This is at once the scientific and the
truly Protestant, because truly Christian idea of edu
cation,—the education of the future,—a religious,
moral, and intellectual education.
Surely it would be an evidence of blind delusion,
or else of gross presumption and falsehood, were any
man to say that this aspiration is evil, or to condemn
it with opprobrious epithets as scepticism and infi
delity. It is the result and expression of Faith,—
religious faith in God, in Goodness, and in Truth, as
revealed to the inquiring mind, chiefly through the
contrasts drawn and discerned, between these intel
lectual conceptions on the one hand, and atheism,
idolatry, falsehood, or evil, on the other, by the free
and serious exercise of Reason—God’s gift for man’s
guidance, the conscientious verdict of which may
well be called, figuratively, “the Word of God” to
each individual. As to the duty or advantage of
faith in the faith of other men, whether these men be
the ancient authors of the Bible, or their more un
reasonable modern expounders, call me sceptic, or
infidel if you will:—only let the distinction which is
here drawn be clearly understood.
We may read the 145th Psalm, for example, with
intense appreciation of the sublime religious thought
which its stanzas express, and our minds may well
be filled with admiration and delight, especially when
due emphasis is laid upon the word “ ALL,” which
frequently recurs and appears to be the key-note of
the piece. If there be anything in the Psalm, such as
the phrase at the close of the 19th verse,—“ All. the
wicked will he destroy,”—which may seem to jar against
or contradict the rest, surely we may freely try to
interpret for ourselves the mind of the poet, so as to
harmonize the apparent discord, as by reflecting that
he has just before expressed his faith in God, as good
to ALL, upholding ALL that fall, and raising up ALL those
that be bowed down, and that therefore the meaning
�Reason and the Bible.
19
of what is said about the wicked must be, that God
will destroy or bring to an end all their wicked
ness, and thus raise up all those whom even their
own wickedness has caused to fall or to be bowed
down, so that there shall be no more any wicked.
Such liberties are taken by all commentators on the
Bible, under the guise of interpretation; but in
reality it is putting one set of words in place of
another ; and we may just as consistently altogether
reject the jarring note, either because we may not be
able to harmonize it with the rest, or because we may
find that its acceptance would upset all our ideas of
intellectual and moral perfection of character, as at
tributed to the “ Father of the spirits of all flesh/’ and
that it is therefore incredible or unintelligible to us.
This Psalm in a high degree, like every other lesson
in its own degree, becomes a revelation to our minds,
just in proportion to the clearness and force of the
free judicial verdict, which our reason and conscience
may be thereby stimulated and assisted to arrive at
regarding those matters which, to our minds, it illus
trates, or brings before our view.
Let us never forget, what it is mere priestcraft to
deny, that it is every man’s inalienable right, and his
duty, so far as it may be opportunely in his power,
as a man, as a Christian, and as a Protestant, to in
vestigate, examine, and judge every portion of the
Bible, as well as every other item of his information
and experience, and to arrive at his own individual
conclusions, with entire fulness of mental freedom.
The serious, honest, and deliberate exercise of this
freedom, is at least one true and real meaning of the
figurative phrase,—“ Faith in the Word of God,”__
which is a quite intelligible way of expressing a re
ligious. man’s experience of it ■ as are also the less
figurative phrases,
true wisdom,” “good under
standing,
liberation of the intellect,” “ rational
belief.”
�20
Reason and the Bible.
It is not improbable that some may condemn these
views, or protest against them, as seeming “ to exalt
reason to the place of God;" but the position here
maintained is merely that Reason is the faculty or
instrument with which God has endowed us, by the
proper personal use of which, alone, it is possible for
any of us to convert information and experience into
sound knowledge about anything whatever.
Those who may say that it is “ spiritual pride” and
“presumption” thus to test everything by the verdict
of Reason, ought to be reminded that, in so far as
Reason may be set aside, the only other test which
can possibly be substituted for it is that of our own
sentiments or emotions, such as veneration, esteem,
attachment, or fear; and this ought to make them
pause and reflect, before venturing to affirm that such
things as these ought to control our Reason, instead
of being regulated and controlled thereby; because,
in the clear and strong words of Archbishop Whately,
the humiliation of Reason which they require “ is a
prostration, not of ourselves before God, but of one
part of ourselves before another part; and there is
surely at least as much presumption in measuring
everything by our own feelings, fancies, and preju
dices, as by our own reasonings.” *
It is beyond a question, that there has of late been
a vast increase of open and avowed opposition to the
dogma, that the Bible, in all its parts and in all its
words, is the Word of God; and, though it is of
course less manifest, it is nearly as certain, that doubt,
unbelief, and silent opposition have increased to an
immeasurably greater extent.
It is also perfectly well known, and quite indisput
able, that the argumentative strength of the opposition
has of late been displayed with very much greater
vigour, fulness, and effect than it ever was in this
* Whately’s Notes to Bacon’s Essay on Truth.
�Reason and the Bible.
21
country before ; partly by the production of new evi
dence, criticism, and arguments ; but chiefly by the
more frequent and more extended publication, read
ing, hearing, and especially understanding, of the old.
With regard to the extent of publication, reading,
and hearing, however, it must be admitted that the
advocates of the dogma have hitherto had, and still
have, an immense advantage over their opponents.
Indeed, they may be said to have had, until recent
years, almost the entire influence of the pulpit, the
press, and the school, on their side ; and the rule is
clearly still the same, although the exceptions are
becoming more numerous. It is only in the matter
of understanding that the strength of the opposition
will bear any comparison; and were it not for this,
the Bible party would have no cause for their present
uneasiness and alarm. The assailants of the dogma
are constantly producing evidence and arguments,
which men can understand and feel the force of;
whereas the very few so-called replies, and the very
many assertions and so-called reasonings, of the de
fenders, are either not understood, or else understood
to be powerless.
It would be cumbrous, and it is not my plan, to
introduce here any quotations or reproductions of
the abundant evidence and arguments, which go to
prove that the dogma is false. Most of my readers
are, probably, in some measure acquainted with them;
and I cannot, for the present, do better than refer the
inquirer on this head to Mr Thomas Scott’s series of
publications, a list of which will be found at the end
of this pamphlet, nearly all bearing directly on the
point.
I prefer here to invite attention to the startling
effect, which the recent attacks of the comparatively
few assailants have had upon the attitude of the
vastly more numerous defenders of the dogma, and
to a few brief illustrations of the mode in which these
�22
Reason and the Bible.
attacks are being met, by some of the most zealous
champions of what is called “ orthodoxy.”
I have already observed how remarkably rare has
become the inclination of these champions to deal
with rational argument, and how chary they generally
are about grappling with the arguments of their op
ponents. Among those who are altogether innocent
of reasoning about the matter, are to be found the
most unrestrained shouters of anathema against the
objectors, whose objections they studiously evade.
They bewail the manifest increase of free thought
among their people, attributing all sorts of evil
motives to those who openly profess it, and proclaim
ing that “ God will surely punish" those who deny the
supreme authority of the Scriptures, but neverattempt
ing a word of rational reply or refutation.
Does any one doubt it, or think this exaggeration 1
There is abundance of evidence at hand, from which
only a few selections can here be made. Doubtless,
many of my readers are familiar with it. There is
even a strong probability, though the experiment has
not yet been tried, that, in Scotland at least, and I
suppose not in Scotland alone, the specimens, which
I am to quote, would be pronounced “ sound” and
“ orthodox” by the majority of clergymen of all deno
minations. Not a few might perhaps say that they
exemplify “ a somewhat indiscreet advocacy of the truth,”
or that they are decidedly “rather too orthodox;” but
it is very doubtful, whether any considerable num
ber of those who are included under the name Priest,
as defined in the beginning of this tract, would choose
to characterize these things as they deserve, viz.,, as
arrogant Popish assertions and malignant unchristian
calumnies, irreconcilable with reason, truth, and
evidence.
A lecture, addressed to the Students of Divinity,
at the opening of the Free Church College, Glasgow,
�Reason and the Bible.
in November 1870, by the Rev. Dr Gibson, Professor
of Divinity and Church History, on “ Some Present
Aspects of Religious Opinion,” supplies the following
*
illustrations.
“ The more conscience is enlightened by the religion of
Christ as the Great Prophet of His Church—in other words,
by the Bible, the revelation of His Holy Spirit—the more
do the principles of Christianity find in it an approving
response. Hence Paul says, 2 Cor. iv. 2 : ‘ By manifesta
tion of the truth commending ourselves to every man's con
science in the sight of God;' not to every man’s conscience
or reason as the supreme authority to judge, or—as heralded
by a candidate for notoriety in our city—the absolute and
divine authority of reason, conscience, and love as ‘the only
ground of faith,’ but the absolute authority of God in what
He reveals and commands, and to which reason and con
science are bound to submit. ( If they do not, it is at the
peril of the poor mortal who refuses, and puts his poor
reason and conscience and love, small and variable as his
love is, on a level with the authority of the God of truth
and holiness and love. This manifestation of truth to
every man’s conscience as in the sight of God, so as to
leave him without excuse, can be shown of every one of
the doctrines and precepts of Scripture.”
It is not a little surprising that Dr Gibson should
quote these words of Paul, in support of the dogma
that “ reason and conscience are bound to submit ” to the
doctrines and precepts of Scripture, as to “ the abso
lute authority of God in what He reveals and com
mands.” Why ? Because it is that very dogma
against which Paul is there contending, having just
before called the law of Moses “ the ministration of
death,” which, he says, “ is done away.” In contrast
to the deadness of that law, he proposes, by manifes
tation of the truth, to commend his own doctrine to
every man’s conscience. This sounds wonderfully
like appealing to “the authority of reason, conscience,
and love, as the only ground of faith.” But does not
* Published in the “Watchword,” a Free Church Magazine,
for December 1870, and for January 1871.
�24
Reason and the Bible.
the Professor himself virtually make the same appeal,
when he affirms that the truth of every one of the
doctrines and precepts of Scripture can be manifested
to every man's conscience in the sight of God ? It
becomes merely a question of experimental fact, as to
whether or not the assertion will stand the test of
application. Let it be applied, for example, to the
following passages, selected almost at random:—
Exod. xxxii. 27—“ Thus saith the Lord God of
Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go
in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp,
and slay every man his brother, and every man his com
panion, and every man his neighbour.”
Exod. xx. 13—“ Thou shalt not kill.”
Mai. iii. 6—“ I am the Lord ; I CHANGE NOT."
Gen. vi. 6—“ And it repented the Lord that he had
made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his
heart.”
Exod. xxix. 36—“Thou shalt offer every day a
bullock for a sin-offering for atonement.”
Levit. i. 9—“ And the priest shall burn it all on
the altar to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by
fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.”
Jer. vii. 21, 22—“Thus saith the Lord. - I
spake not unto your fathers nor commanded them in the
day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt,
concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices.”
Heb. x. 6—“ In burnt offerings and sacrifices for
sin thou hast had no pleasure.”
Acts x. 34—“ God is no respecter of persons.”
Mai. i. 2, 3—-“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?
saith the Lord : yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau.”
(“ The children being not yet born.”—Rom. ix. 11-13.)
Gal. v. 22—“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,
peace, gentleness, goodness, faith.”
Jud. xv. 14, 15—“And the Spirit of the Lord
came upon him, and he slew a thousand men.”
Deut. vii. 16—“Thou shalt consume all the people
�Reason and the Bible.
^5
which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine
eye shall have no pity upon them.
1 Sam. xv. 3—“Now go and smite Amalek, and
utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them
not; but slay both man and woman, infant and
suclclin/j.”
Isa. i. 18—“Come now and let us reason together,
saith the Lord.”
Rom. ix. 18-21—“ Nay but, 0 man, who art thou
that repliest against God 1” &c.
Mat. xxiii. 2, 3—■“ The Scribes and the Pharisees
sit in Moses’ seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid
you observe, that observe and do.”
If Dr Gibson really understands how “ the mani
festation of truth to every man’s conscience, as in the
sight of God, so as to leave him without excuse, CAN
BE shown ” of the many such doctrines, precepts,
and contradictions of Scripture as these, it is surely
most desirable, that he should verify his assertion by
showing the manifestation, because few men are
likely to discover it for themselves.
“ Conscience is a creature, therefore a subject, and not a
sovereign, and is under law. What law, and whence does
it proceed? It must rest in, and proceed from Him who is
its Lord. How, then, does He, or has He expressed it?
“Without entering into abstract discussion, I think I
may affirm that it cannot be in natural conscience as man
now exists in the earth. Why so? Because you cannot
survey it in the light of history, of facts, ancient or modern,
either in the most limited or in the widest range either of
time or place, without coming to the conclusion that its
decisions have been so contradictory as to put ‘ darkness for
light and light for darkness, evil for good and good for
evil, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.’ What, then,
is the expression of His Lordship? and where is it to be
found ? All Christian men must at once say, in the Law of
the Lord revealed in the Bible. It is plain that conscience,
as a subj ect, cannot have a right to rule above its Creator
and Lord. Equally plain is it that this law, if it can be
found, it must obey; in other words, there must be an au
�q.6
Reason and the Bible.
thority. But that authority must be God himself. As
suming that there is a judgment-day, and that man is
responsible for his belief, one can hardly imagine each
mortal man daring to plead, at the great day, his conscience
to determine the judgment of the Most High. The autho
rity, then, must be the authority of God himself. It can
not be anything short of its Lord.
“ It is to this authority I refer when I affirm that a dread,
and consequently a hatred of authority is one present aspect
of religious opinion.”
The argument, here employed against “natural
conscience,” is perfectly good against those who assert
human infallibility or the supreme authority of any
man’s mind, or of any man’s writings, over the minds
of other men. It is, therefore, perfectly good against
the authority claimed for the Bible. Why so? Be
cause we cannot survey the Bible in the light of his
tory and facts, without coming to the conclusion that
its laws, doctrines, and statements are often so con
tradictory as to put darkness for light and light for
darkness, evil for good and good for evil; as witness
the numberless irreconcilable contradictions, which
abound in many parts of it, and even in the Gospels.
*
Natural conscience or reason, when reasonably exer
cised, enables us to discern errors and contradic
tions, and tn draw lessons of wisdom both from
those of other men and from our own, as well as
from those of the Bible.
That which is “affirmed’' about “ dread, and conse
* For countless contradictions, both, historical and doctrinal,
in the Old Testament, I may refer the inquiring reader to
Mr. F. W. Newman’s “History of the Hebrew Monarchy,”
(published by Triibner and Co., London); and I take this
opportunity of acknowledging that the train of argument,
pursued in my own essay on “ The Finding of the Book,” was
suggested and greatly aided by Mr Newman’s most admirable
and instructive work..
For similar criticism of the New Testament, I would refer
especially to “ The Evangelist and the Divine.”—See list on
last page.
�Reason and the Bible.
o.7
quently hatred of authority,” if not purely imaginary,
would require to be supported by evidence showing
to what class of men it applies; because, as regards
such men as Bishop Colenso, Mr Voysey, the authors
of “Essays and Reviews,” or the large class who
sympathise with them, it would be a quite unfounded
calumny to affirm, that they are influenced by “ dread,
and consequently hatred of authority.” It would surely be
both more charitable and more correct to say, that
discovery and rejection offalse authority, proceeding from
the love of truth and the hatred of falsehood, is one
present aspect of religious opinion.
“ Protestantism is not the right in the sight of God to
hold any opinion which each individual pleases, but the
right and duty of every human being to regulate his belief
by the unerring standard of the Holy Scriptures ; and that
God being Lord, and the alone Lord of the conscience, no
man, or set, or combination of men, may resist his authority.
. . . . God’s Word is a law, distinct, intelligible, and
immediate; whereas any other, under whatever guise or
form—the Church, the Pope, the Reason—is a usurpation
of the rights both of God and man.”
When Dr. Gibson says that, if Church, Pope, or
Reason be set up as a law over the individual conscience,
they usurp the rights both of God and man, he utters
a truth which every free man and noble nature
would die to maintain. But then, Reason in this
connection cannot mean a man’s own reason; for it
must be something external to him, as Church and
Pope are.
Not to dwell upon the commonplace absurdity of
imagining that it is in the power of any individual to
believe what he pleases! the question forcibly suggests
itself,—Shall any man, such as Dr Gibson, or shall
any combination of men, such as a Protestant Church,
presume to come between other men and God, by
holding up before them a book, with the assertion
that all are bound to accept it as the Word of God,
�28
Reason and the Bible.
without any evidence, or without any right on their
part to investigate and weigh all available evidence,
—and that if they allow their reason to decide for
themselves individually, whether such assertion is
truthful, credible, uncertain, or false, they are guilty
of “ a usurpation of the rights both of God and man ?”
It would be well for Dr Gibson to ponder over the
following apostolic words :■—“Hast thou faith? Have
IT Tq thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth
not himself in that thing which he alloweth!” (Rom. xiv.
22.)
“Is it bigotry, fanaticism, ecclesiasticism ? Are these
what we wish to defend and establish, as is asserted by great
men and small men? If such things can be justly applied
to the authority of Holy Scripture, we at once say that they
are what we wish to defend and establish. But the asser
tion, by whomsoever made, is a calumny on us, and a blas
phemy against Holy Scripture.” (!) “ The antidote, we
have seen, is the revealed Word of God—the Holy Scrip
tures, to be received and believed, not on the authority of
any man or Church, but on the authority of God himself,
because it is the Word of God" (/) “speaking to us directly
and immediately as a man speaking to his friend. This is
the sure foundation of all belief. If God does speak in His
works, in the conscience, and, above all, in His written.
Word, which is invariable and ‘ endureth for ever,’—all
with His own mouth, or, which is the same thing, by His
own Spirit in His Word, man must listen and obey ; and it
is impious and at man’s peril if he disobey, reason or prate
about inner light or inner consciousness, or spirit of the age,
or public opinion, as he may. Of all the delusions into
which the weak and inexperienced are so apt to fall, none is
greater than that of imagining that running with the tide
is a proof of deep thought, of deep learning, or high courage
and independence. It is the very reverse—a proof of a
weak and slavish spirit that is afraid to stand by the truth
and abide the frown or sneer of men of no higher authority
than itself. Think for yourselves, gentlemen, as against
man ; but beware of thinking for yourselves as against
God.”
In reply to Dr Gibson’s questions, it is sufficient to
�Reason and the Bible.
29
observe that bigotry signifies stubborn adherence to an
unreasonable opinion, and that what he says about
“ blasphemy ” sounds wonderfully like fanaticism, or
excessive and indiscreet zeal.
It would be a grand good thing if all who heard,
and all who may read, the last quoted sentence, would
act upon the advice there given, by thinking for
themselves as against Dr Gibson, or as against any
man who may, like him, dictate dogma in their hear
ing. Scarcely even Dr Gibson will venture to say
that those who do so are therein guilty of thinking
forthemselves “as against God!” On the contrary
it will be, and has been, in many cases, found by in
quirers, that for them to acknowledge all the words
of the Bible to possess the authority of God, would in
volve on their part the quenching or resisting of that
“ Word of God,” which constantly addresses itself to
their reason and conscience in the Books of Creation
and Providence, as well as in the Books of Experience
and History, both past and present, including, of
course, the experience and history of which the Bible
is the vehicle. Just in so far as all these “ Books ”
are observed and studied, will the “Word of God”
which men are often compelled to hear and to obey
even when not listening for it, which can be heard
nowhere but in the reason and conscience of the indi
vidual, and which Dr Gibson also professes to recog
nise, be understood, and its authority be recognised
and acknowledged by Reason.
“ Running with the tide,” as the Professor phrases it,
is, in itself, neither a proof of deep thought and high
courage, nor of the reverse; but is a propensity of
our nature, so strong that good men, and even great
men, have often been led astray by it. In fact it is
much more than probable that this very propensity
restrains many at the present time from thinking
freely, and from saying what they think, about the
Bible. The frown, and sneer, and social intolerance
�3°
Reason and the Bible.
of orthodox people are still powerful enough to be
really dreaded by dependent or timid “ freethinkers;”
for there is no lack of evidence, to prove, that those
bolder ones who do venture to think and to speak
freely, against the unreasonable assertions of the
advocates for the supremacy of the Bible over Rea
son, are not yet “ running with the, tide." It cannot
be denied, however, that there are some signs of
the approaching turning time.
Throughout the whole lecture, there is not the
slightest allusion to evidence, either for or against
the dogma. It would, indeed, appear that, according
to Dr Gibson, all evidence is quite superfluous and
useless or worse; for there is not one single argument
employed by him in support of his dogma, which
does not openly and avowedly rest upon that dogma
itself, as in the passages quoted, and these are the
strongest and most argumentative which I have been
able to select.
It would be amazing, and almost incredible, if it
were not elsewhere so common, to find that an expe
rienced Professor of Church History, and a leading
minister of the Free Church of Scotland, should have,
on such an important occasion, nothing better to say
in support or defence of the dogma which he calls
“ the foundation of all belief," than a mere set of varia
tions upon the words—It is, and it is, and it is, and
you must believe and say that it is, and must never
allow yourself to think that it is not, because it is !
only because it is !
The fair inference from Dr Gibson’s language is,
that he identifies his own opinion with . Revelation.
To dictate dogma, without appealing to evidence, and
without condescending to rational argument upon the
evidence, is to assume infallibility. Dr Gibson mani
festly assumes either that he himself is infallible, or
that he is expressing the opinion of some other
(assumed) infallible man or men, when, regardless of
�Reason and the Bible,
31
evidence and in defiance of reason, he merely asserts
that the Bible is the Word of God. He seems to be
quite unconscious of the absurdity of a Protestant
Divine making his whole system of doctrine rest
upon an assumption of infallibility.
It appears too clearly that the faith professed and
taught by Dr Gibson, and by that very large class of
clerical men whom he may be taken as representing,
is of a radically different kind from that which Jesus
taught his disciples, when he opened, as it is written,
the eyes of their understandings by arousing, instruct
ing, and stimulating them to the consciousness, the
exercise, and the enjoyment of their own duty, right,
and power to judge and to decide by Reason what
they ought to believe, and what they ought not to
believe. Having learned of Jesus, they could no
longer submit their Reason, as they had for many
generations been taught to do, to the traditions and
superstitions of their forefathers and of their priests;
but burst away from the mental yoke of bondage to
these traditions, to these priests, and to the supreme
authority of their old written creed or law, with all
its sacrifices of blood and burnt flesh, to pacify the
wrath and propitiate the favour of a jealous and ter
rible God, whom the law represented as requiring
such sacrifices and delighting in them. We read
that the words of Jesus were quick and powerful,
and that men were astonished at his doctrine, for
that he taught as one having authority, appealing with
all the force of Truth to the hearts and to the minds
of those who understood what he said; and not as the
scribes, who appealed only to chapter, and verse, and
word of their sacred books. Let it be remembered
that the Scribes and Pharisees were not ignorant nor
wicked men, but were the educated, the respectable,
the orthodox, and the synagogue-attending class of
their day, who stood up for the authority of “ God’s
Word ” as opposed to Reason. But the spirit of Jesus
�^2
Reason and the Bible.
they could neither bind nor subdue, though they could
put himself to death; and accordingly we read
that those who became disciples of Jesus were made,
free by the power of the Truth—that they passed
from darkness to marvellous light—from bondage to
liberty—spiritual liberty—mental liberty—the glori
ous liberty of the children of God, whom they ad
dressed, after the example of their elder brother, as
“ Our Father,” worshipping Him only, not with the
signs and symbols of slavish fear and dread, such as
the shedding and sprinkling of blood; but in spirit
and in truth, in confidence and love, as became the
“ Sons of God." There is reason to fear the disciples
of men like Dr Gibson can have little of that exper
ience, which the disciples of Jesus appear so fully to
have enjoyed.
I have already shown that the unreasonable faith
of modern popular Christianity is essentially different
from the orthodox Christian faith of the true prophets
of Protestantism, which was based upon their convic
tion of the entire harmony and agreement of the
Word of God and reason, so that the one voice could
not contradict the other, and so that conflict between
the two, or subjection of the one to the other, was for
them entirely out of the question, liberation and not
submission being then, as always, the experience of
those who listened to the “ still small voice,” and
obeyed the Word of God.
Most of us can now understand that the Reformers
made a critical mistake, in assuming or fancying, as
they manifestly did, that the Bible quite harmonized
with Reason, and that there could be no real conflict
between them, any more than there could be a real
conflict between Reason and the “ Light of Nature,"
which they also recognised as another Word of God.
But we can also understand that they did not err cul
pably, as we judge their opponents to have erred.
They certainly cannot be charged with wilful blindness,
�Reason and the Bible.
33
nor did they ever proclaim the duty of believing the
Bible without investigation, which, on the contrary,
they thought it safe to challenge and invite, by for
mally stating the rational grounds on which their own
belief was based. That to which their reason sub
mitted was tried, judged, and approved by their reason.
Their reason submitted to itself, that is to its own in
terpretation of every Word of God; and all other
submission of Reason those noble men and true pro
phets cast behind them with scorn, as the genuine
disciples and followers of “ the Prophet of Nazareth ”
always have done; for, “ where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is Liberty.”
The grand distinction, between them and the advo
cates of the Roman Catholic creed, was this very
point. The one party insisted upon the submission of
Reason to that which Reason was forbidden to test
and could not approve. The other party maintained
that:—
Confession of Faith, xx. 2—God alone is Lord of the
conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and
commandments of men which are in any thing contrary to
his word, or beside it, in matters of faith and worship.
So that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such com
mandments out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of
conscience; and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an
absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience,
and reason also.'"
Strange, indeed, it is to find, that the old Popish,
Jewish, and heathen error, the root of all errors and
superstitions,—that Reason is bound to submit to
authority not approved by Reason, has grown up
again, in a new shape, in the churches which call
themselves Protestant.
While such theology is taught and published by
doctors and professors, reputed highly orthodox, in
high places of the Church, it is perfectly notorious
that, from very many pulpits throughout the land,
C
�24
Reason and the Bible.
the same kind of doctrine is preached, which has
been well called, “ the, Gospel of Unreason." . My own
observation and experience of this preaching are of
course local and limited; but, judging from what I
read and hear, I infer that it is exceedingly common,
and by no means confined to one Church, nor to one
part of Great Britain.
It is probable, therefore, that many of my readers
may have often heard such specimens as the following,
which are supplied by pencil-jottings of sermons,
recently taken in the pews by myself and friends in
whom I have confidence. They are all genuine and
unadorned.
“ Every word of this blessed book, brethren, is
God’s message to us. It is to us individually that
Jehovah there speaks.” . . . “ If we would profit by
the Word of God, we must mix faith with the hearing
and the reading of it. We must believe that every
word of it is true, simply on God’s own authority.”
. . . “ God requires of us a child-like unquestion
ing submission to the divine authority of the Bible,
and a willingness to hear the voice of God in all
that the Bible says to us.” . . . “ A sense of God’s
authority in the Bible, and unquestioning submission
to that authority, is the best evidence of true. Chris
tianity.” . . . “ An atheist is one who denies the
existence of God; an infidel is one who does not
believe that the Bible is the Word of God; and
there is not much difference between the two, for he
who does not believe that the Bible is God’s Word,
does not believe in the God of the Bible.” . . .
11 Beware of hardening your hearts against the Word
of God, which speaks to us in every sentence of the
Bible.” . . “ Before a man can resist the authority
of God speaking to us in the Bible, there must be a
process of hardening the heart, quenching conviction,
and self-deception, by false expectations of safety in
some other way than that which the Bible reveals.”
�Reason and the Bible.
35
... “I believe that opposition and hatred to the
justice of God as revealed in the Bible, the desire to
quiet the accusations of a guilty conscience, and to
get rid of the fear of punishment which the Bible
tells them their sins deserve, are the true reasons
why men begin to question the authority of the
Bible.” . . . “ Those who deny this authority would
not be convinced, even although the most convincing
arguments were presented to them. All their objec
tions and outrageous views have been again and
again refuted. It is in the heart and not in the
head that their opposition has its seat.” ... “If
scenes such as the miraculous deaths of Ananias and
Sapphira were to occur in our own day, would they
not make some of us tremble ! Many an awful sight
would be seen at our communion tables, if those who
come there, and eat and drink damnation, were to be
struck down, as Ananias and Sapphira were. Theirs
was a miraculous death ; and it may appear to some
unreasonable, that Peter should thus have had the
power to deal so terribly with them. But, my
brethren, beware of limiting the power and the
sovereignty of the Most High. Though it may be
unreasonable, it is none the less true—none the less
a miracle. Woe unto the man that disputeth with
his Maker—Almighty God ! ”
I refrain from any particular criticism of these
rash assertions and uncharitable thoughts, to which
the thinking reader will easily apply most of my
remarks on Dr Gibson’s lecture • but that in
quirers may be enabled to judge of the true name
by which to designate the teaching of these too
zealous advocates of the Bible, I subjoin the follow
ing sentences from very high authorities in the
Roman Catholic Church.
*
* All quoted, with Latin originals and particular references,
in “ The Moral Theology of Liguori,” by Pascal the Younger,
London, 1856, pp. 43, 140, 196, 47.
�26
Reason and the Bible.
St Ignatius, the founder of the J esuits, says in his
“Epistle on the Virtue of Obedience,” A.D. 1553,
“ If you would immolate your whole self wholly unto
God, you must offer to Him not the bare will merely,
but the Understanding also.” . . . “The noble
simplicity of Blind Obedience is gone, if in our
secret breast we call in question whether that which
is commanded be right OR WRONG. This is what
makes it perfect and acceptable to the Lord, that the
most excellent and most precious part of man is
consecrated to Him, and nothing whatsoever of him
kept back for himself.”
To show how this principle is applied, Cardinal
Wiseman says, in his preface to “ The Exercises of
St Ignatius —“In the Catholic Church no one is
ever allowed to trust himself in spiritual matters.
The Sovereign Pontiff is obliged to submit himself
to the direction of another in whatever concerns his
own soul.”
To this may be added from the “Exercises —
“ That we may in all things attain the truth, that we
may not err in anything, we ought ever to hold it as
a fixed principle, that what I see white I believe to
be black, if the hierarchical Church so define it.”
It may be instructive, as I am quoting, to take a
specimen of what these outspoken priests have said
about liberty of conscience. Pope Gregory XVI., in an
encyclical letter, dated August 1832, says:—“It is
from that most fetid fountain, indifferentism, springs
the absurd and mistaken notion, or rather raving of
madness, that liberty of conscience is to be recog
nised and vindicated. What has prepared the way
for this most pestilential error is, that ample and
immoderate liberty of opinion which is spreading
far and wide, to the ruin of Church and State,
though there are some men who, out of most con
summate impudence, maintain it is an advantage to
religion. This is the aim of that worst of all liberties,
�Reason and the Bible.
37
that never-enough-to-be-execrated and detestable
liberty of the press (Awe spectat det&rrima ilia ac
nunguam satis execranda et detestabilis libertas artis
librarian ad scripta gucelibet edenda in vulgus), which
some dare so loudly to demand, and even promote.
We are most horribly affrighted {Perhorrescimus'),
venerable brethren, when we see with what monsters
of doctrine, with what portents of evil we are over
whelmed (pbruamur)."
Nearly everything that can be said or thought
against this truly horrible presumption, which ignores
and hushes up, and utterly disregards or sternly con
demns all but its own one-sided kind of evidence or
argument, will be found, on reflection, easily and
equally applicable to such lectures and sermons as
those of which I have given specimens.
Is it not clear that this very same old SPIRIT OF
Popery, with only a slight alteration of form and
expression, has again got possession of our Protestant
pulpits and schools, and that much of the Reforma
tion work will have to be done over again, before we
can expect to get rid of its present unwholesome
superstitious influence in many branches of the
Church 1
The root and essence of Popery, and of all false
religion, the foundation of all superstitious belief, is
the submission of man’s Reason to some external
standard or symbol of “ Authority above Reason.”
The root and essence of true Christianity, of true
Protestantism, and of all true religion, the founda
tion of all rational belief, is the free exercise of Rea
son, liberation of the intellect, liberty of conscience,
private judgment.
These two kinds of religion or belief are as dis
tinctly opposed to each other, as are the two prin
ciples or foundations on which they respectively rest;
and there is no possibility of reconciling them, nor of
finding any tenable middle way or halting place
�28
Reason and the Bible.
between the two ; for all things are full of progress,
and the increase, as a general rule, is according to
the kind. The distinction, moreover, is not merely
such as there is between two opposite positions, but
rather such as there is between two opposite direc
tions; and no man can be travelling simultaneously
towards both the rising and the setting of the equi
noctial sun.
“All worship is idolatry,” says the great thinker,
Thomas Carlyle, the meaning of which appears to be
that every man who worships the Infinite or the
Unseen, worships his own symbol or conception of
the Infinite or the Unseen, which can in no case be
what the Infinite and Unseen is, so that the likeness
or unlikeness of the symbol-—the truth or the false
hood of the conception—can only be relative and
comparative terms, no possible symbol or conception
being absolutely, perfectly appropriate or true. But
he adds,—“Blameable idolatry is insincere idolatry,”
the meaning of which evidently is that, when doubts
have to be stifled, because the only possible solution
of them is unbelief,—when the voice of Reason is
disregarded, that another voice may be obeyed, which
Reason may not test, and therefore cannot approve,
—then begins false worship or blameable idolatry.
So long as there is no conflict between Reason and
Authority,—between the conscience and the Idol, the
worship may be reasonable and sincere, the idolatry is
not blameable, for “ where there is no law there can be
no transgression of the law.” But, so soon as the
conflict arises,—so soon as the antagonism is known
and felt by any individual, all true worship of the old
symbol or conception is at an end for him. Carelesslessness, indifference, and mental sloth may, for a
time, swell the ranks of neutrality; but every serious,
thoughtful mind is, in such circumstances, unable to
rest until it has made the choice, by deciding between
the rival claims of Reason and Conscience on the one
�Reason and the Bible.
39
hand, and of Authority, Tradition, or the Idol, on
the other.
Such is the time in which it is our lot to live.
The conflict has arisen, and has come to such a height,
that it is, now and henceforth, difficult for any think
ing man not to know and feel the antagonism between
the rival claims for supremacy of Reason and the
Bible. Every serious mind is now again being chal
lenged and compelled to make a choice, by determ ining whether the supreme authority of the Bible shall
be maintained by the submission of Reason, or
whether the supreme authority of Reason shall this
time again triumph over the worship of an Idol, con
demned by Reason, over the asserted and assumed
divinity and authority of a book, said to be the Word
of God, but with which Reason does not and cannot
harmonise, as Reason can and does harmonise with
every true Word of God.
The startling fact, to which men are day by day
awakening, is, that this question between Reason and
the Bible, which is at present challenging the verdict
of every inquiring religious mind, is just the very
same old question in a new form, as that which men
were invited, and many constrained, to settle for
themselves individually, at the time when the first
clear light of Christianity shone upon the supersti
tious gloom of J ewish and heathen traditional beliefs,
and again at the time when the dawn of the Protes
tant Reformation broke forth amidst the darkness of
Popish unreasonableness and intellectual submission
to authority. The love of truth and of humanity is
now again constraining men here and there to stand
forth, as of old, against dogmatism and superstition,
and against the antiquated and obstructive idea, that
those who ought to be the leaders and guides of the
people in ascertaining whatever is truest and best,
should be bound by oaths and bribed by emoluments
to maintain the existing fabric of opinion and custom.
�40
Reason and the Bible.
Not from Christianity, nor from Protestantism, have
we received “ the spirit of bondage again to fear.’
Why should not our religious teachers be, as our
scientific teachers are, free to follow evidence, truth,
a,nd fact, wherever these may lead, no matter what
existing theory or practice may thus be imperilled or
overthrown ? Why should they not stir up the gift
of God which is in them, as the Apostle Paul says to
the young preacher, “ for God hath not given us the
spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a
sound mind ? ” Fear cannot enlighten the mind, nor
enlarge and strengthen the understanding—cannot
elevate the emotions, nor purify the affections—can
not subdue the will, even when it forces compliance
or assent—cannot convince the reason, although it
may stifle inquiry and discussion. There may be
much internal rebellion, even where there is so much
external submission and conformity as may be thought
necessary for safety or for comfort. Every one knows
that this is a common fact of daily observation, not
only in religion, but also in politics and in family
affairs. But surely it is the very height of folly to
imagine that we can propitiate or please the Father
of our spirits by being afraid to think. Surely it is
gross superstition to be deterred, by dread of .His
displeasure, from the freest, fullest, upright, serious
exercise of reason. “ If anything is clear,” says an
American writer, “ it is, that faith is large in pro
portion as it dares to put things to the proof. Fear
and laziness can accept beliefs ; only trust and cour
age will question them. To reject consecrated opi
nions demands a consecrated mind; at all events,
the moving impulse to such rejection is faith—faith in
reason ; faith in the mind’s ability to attain truth ;
faith in the power of thought—in the priceless worth
of knowledge. The great sceptic must be a great
believer. None have so magnificently affirmed as
those who have audaciously denied ; none so devoutly
trusted as they who have sturdily protested.”
�Reason and the Bible.
4i
It is not unusual for Bible advocates to declare
that they cannot reason at all with those who deny
the infallibility and supreme authority of the Bible,
because they cannot reason, say they, about that to
which reason is bound to submit, and on which all
reasoning must be based. To dispute or to deny the
supremacy of the Bible is, according to these men,
the same thing as to dispute or to deny the supremacy
of God. They apparently do not see the obvious
fact, that such a declaration is equivalent to a claim
of infallibility for themselves or for their own opinion
that the Bible is infallible : or else they would never
presume to say, that to contend against their opinion
about a book is to contend against God. Can they
not understand that, even though their assertion
about the Bible were clearly and unmistakably set
forth in the Bible itself, which, however, it assuredly
is fiot, it would still be inexcusably absurd to main
tain, that doubt or distrust of God is shown by those
who express their doubt or distrust of any of the
matter recorded in the Bible by the hands of men 1
It seems almost incredible that any intelligent mind
should fail to perceive the obvious, wide, and essential
distinction between these two kinds of doubt or
distrust; but yet it is too well known to need proof,
that many of our teachers think, or at least say, that
these two different things are the same, and both
alike criminal. Who has not heard or read thenstupid declarations, that to trace and exhibit the
various marks of human ignorance, error, and im
perfection, which abound in the Bible as in other
ancient books, is God-dishonouring blasphemy, which
He will surely punish ! No less weak and absurd
would it be for any free-thinking man to be cowed
into submission, or even into deference, by such un
reasonable and presumptuous assertions as these,
than it would be for an educated European to be
similarly influenced by the candid and common
�42
Reason and the Bible.
assertion of an orthodox Chinese, expressing his en
tire confidence in the certainty and truth of his
traditional belief, that the people, customs, and
opinions of the “ Celestial Empire ” are incomparably
superior to all others, and that all men of the Euro
pean persuasion are “ outside barbarians and devils.”
What, then, it is asked, is the use of the Bible 1
Why should it not be utterly abolished 1 If it is not
infallible, it is not to be trusted ; and if it is not to
be trusted, it can hardly fail to mislead ; therefore,
it ought to be destroyed. Freethinkers are often
told that, if they would be consistent, they should
argue thus, and should set the example by throwing
their own Bibles in the fire. I myself have been
thus addressed by “ orthodox ” clergymen, and have
been misrepresented by others as if I argued thus.
It might suffice to reply that the same argument,
if sound, would condemn all the treasures of litera
ture to the flames. The Bible is not infallible;
therefore, it ought to be destroyed. No other book
is infallible; therefore, all other books ought to be
burnt. From Homer to Tennyson, from Herodotus to
Froude, from Plato to Mill, from Aristotle to Hux
ley, from Zoroaster to Dr Cumming,—poets, histo
rians, philosophers, men of science, and divines have
all been fallible, and often in error, whatever pre
tensions to the contrary may have been set up by
themselves or by their admirers ; therefore, destroy
the works of them all, so that none may henceforth
be misled thereby ! Obliterate all the records of the
past, so that we and our children may .be free from
the dangerous influence of past delusions and mis
takes; because in none of these records can be found
perfection or infallibility.
The argument thus refutes itself, and the refutation
applies especially to the Bible. Books, old or new,
are valuable and useful just in proportion as they
�Reason and the Bible.
43
enable the student to profit by the varied experience,
culture, and progress, and even by the errors and
failures of other men. Modern thought and educa
tion, from the village school to the highest walks of
learning, are the still progressive fruits of accumu
lated ages •, and books have, ever since their first
employment, been the safest and most effectual vehicle
for the transmission and propagation thereof from one
age to another.
But let authority set the seal of assumed infallibi
lity upon any one book, and its usefulness will be at
once greatly impaired, if not entirely destroyed. In
stead of a help, it will soon become a hindrance, and
so it is now with the Bible. By the dogmatic ascrip
tion of infallibility and supreme authority, equally
and indiscriminately, to the whole of its contents, it
has come to be regarded through a mystic veil or
cloud of superstition. The intrinsic, direct, and selfevident inspiration of some portions has been de
graded and obscured, by placing these on the same
level with those of an entirely different and even
opposite character; the inspiration of the latter being
assumed and asserted to be no less an authoritative
fact, though neither self-evident, intrinsic, nor direct,
as judged by the free-thinking mind. The undeniable
majesty, truth, and beauty of very many passages are,
by this arbitrary interposition of traditional dogma,
confounded by reduction to equality with the weak
ness, meanness, or repulsiveness of others, which, but
for such interposition, reason would now universally
judge to be evil or incredible. The intellect and
moral conscience of men are stunted, distorted, and
hindered in their growth, by external authority train
ing and constraining one faculty of the mind to usurp
the province of another—by subjecting reason to the
religious sentiment—or, in other words, by cultivating
superstition.
The great value, interest, and use of the Bible, far
�44
Reason and the Bible.
from "being negatived or even impaired, are, in fact,
only discovered or vastly enlarged, when it is ap
proached as a venerable record of human thought,
experience, trial, and progress—the divinely appointed
education of mankind. The study of past errors,
faults, and failures is not less useful nor less instruc
tive than that of past wisdom, worth, and success.
Both alike are “ profitable for doctrine, for reproof,
for correction, and for instruction in righteousness
__ « for WHATSOEVER THINGS WERE WRITTEN AFORE
TIME were written for our learning, that we through
patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have
hope” of better times to come for us and for
humanity.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Intellectual liberty: the fundamental principle of Christianity and Protestantism
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Ramsgate
Collation: 44 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Turnbull and Spears, Edinburgh. Date of publication from KVK.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Thomas Scott
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1871]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5516
Subject
The topic of the resource
Christianity
Protestantism
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Intellectual liberty: the fundamental principle of Christianity and Protestantism), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Bible-Evidences
Christianity
Conway Tracts
Faith and Reason
Protestantism
Reason