II
THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION
"What is Romance? The world well lost for an ides." I know no better definition; and Romance in this sense is perpetually illustrated in the history of the Church. The highest instance-save One—is, of course, the instance of the Martyrs. When in human history has Romance been more splendidly displayed than when the young men and maidens of Pagan Rome suffered themselves to be flung to the wild beasts of the arena sooner than abjure the religion of the Cross? And close on the steps of the Martyrs follow the Confessors, the "Martyrs-Elect," as Tertullian calls them, who, equally willing to lay down their lives, yet denied that highest privilege, carried with them into exile and imprisonment the horrible mutilations inflicted by Severus and Licinius. In days nearer our own time, "many a tender maid, at the threshold of her young life, has gladly met her doom, when the words that accepted Islam would have made her in a moment a free and honoured member of a dominant community." Then there is the Romance of the Hermitage and the Romance of the Cloister, illustrated by Antony in the Egyptian desert, and Benedict in his cave among the Latin hills, and Francis tending the leper by the wayside of Assisi. In each of these cases, as in thousands more, the world was well lost for an idea.
The world is well lost—and supremely well lost—by the Missionary, whatever be his time or country or creed. Francis Xavier lost it well when he made his response to the insistent question: "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Henry Martyn lost it well when, with perverse foolishness as men accounted it, he sacrificed the most brilliant prospects which a University offers to preach and fail among the heathen, and to die at thirty, forsaken and alone. John Coleridge Patterson lost it well when, putting behind him all the treasures of Eton and Oxford, and powerful connexions and an opulent home, he went out to spread the light of the Gospel amid the isles of the Pacific, and to meet his death at the hands of the heathen whom he loved and served.
These, indeed, are the supreme Romances of Renunciation, but others there are, which, though less "high and heroical," are not less Teal and not less instructive. The world was well lost (though for a cause which is not mine) by the two thousand ministers who on "Black Bartholomew," in the year 1662, renounced their benefices in the Established Church sooner than accept a form of worship which their conscience disallowed. And yet again the world was gloriously lost by the four hundred ministers and licentiates of the Church of Scotland who, in the great year of the Disruption, sacrificed home and sanctuary land subsistence rather than compromise the "Headship of Christ over His own house."
One more instance I must give of these heroic losses, and in giving it I recall a name, famous and revered in my young days, but now, I suppose, entirely forgotten—the name of the Honble. and Revd. Baptist Noel (1798-1873). "His more than three-score years and ten were dedicated, by the day and by the hour, to a ministry not of mind but of spirit; his refined yet vigorous eloquence none who listened to it but for once could forget; and, having in earliest youth counted birth and fortune, and fashion but loss 'for Christ,' in later age, at the bidding of the same conscience, he relinquished even the church which was his living and the pulpit which was his throne, because he saw danger to Evangelical truth in State alliance, and would go forth at the call of duty, he knew not and he cared not whither."
After these high examples of the Romance of Renunciation, it may seem rather bathetic to cite the instance which has given rise to this chapter. Yet I cannot help feeling that Mr. William Temple, by resigning the Rectory of St. James's, Piccadilly, in order to devote himself to the movement for "Life and Liberty," has established a strong claim on the respect of those who differ from him. I state on p. 198 my reason for dissenting from Mr. Temple's scheme. To my thinking, it is just one more attempt to stave off Disestablishment. The subjection of the Church to the State is felt by many to be an intolerable burden. Mr. Temple and his friends imagine that, while retaining the secular advantages of Establishment and endowment, they can obtain from Parliament the self-governing powers of a spiritual society. I doubt it, and I do not desire it. My own ideal is Cavour's—the Free Church in the Free State; and all such schemes as Mr. Temple's seem to me desperate attempts to make the best of two incompatible worlds. By judicious manipulation our fetters might be made to gall less painfully, but they would be more securely riveted than ever. So in this new controversy Mr. Temple stands on one side and I on the other; but this does not impair my respect for a man who is ready to "lose the world for an idea"—even though that idea be erroneous and Impracticable.
To "lose the world" may seem too strong a phrase for the occasion, but it is not in substance inappropriate. Mr. Temple has all the qualifications which in our Established Church lead on to fortune. He has inherited the penetrating intelligence and the moral fervour which in all vicissitudes of office and opinion made his father one of the conspicuous figures of English life. Among dons he was esteemed a philosopher, but his philosophy did not prevent him from being an eminently practical Head Master. He is a vigorous worker, a powerful preacher, and the diligent rector of an important parish. Of such stuff are Bishops made. There is no shame in the wish to be a Bishop, or even an Archbishop, as we may see by the biographies of such prelates as Wilberforce and Tait and Magee, and in the actual history of some good men now sitting on Episcopal thrones. But Mr. Temple has proved himself a man capable of ideals, and has given that irrefragable proof of sincerity which is afforded by the voluntary surrender of an exceptionally favoured position.
That the attempt to which he is now devoting himself may come to naught is my earnest desire; and then, when the Church, at length recognizing the futility of compromise, acquires her complete, severance from the secular power, she may turn to him for guidance in the use of her new-born freedom.