"They 've found out life and death,—the first
Is known but to the upper classes;
The second, pooh! 't is at the worst
A dissolution into gases.
"And vice and virtue are akin,
As black and white from Adam issue,—
One flesh, one blood, though sheeted in
A different coloured tissue.
"Their science groped from star to star;—
But then herself found nothing greater.
What wonder?—in a Leyden jar
They bottled the Creator.
"Fires fluttered on their lightning-rod;
They cleared the human mind from error;
They emptied heaven of its God,
And Tophet of its terror.
"Better the savage in his dance
Than these acute and syllogistic!
Better a reverent ignorance
Than knowledge atheistic!
"Have they dispelled one cloud that lowers
So darkly on the human creature?
They with their irreligious powers
Have subjugated nature.
"But, as a satyr wins the charms
Of maiden in a forest hearted,
He finds, when clasped within his arms,
The outraged soul departed."
When I had done reading these verses, he clergyman glanced slyly along to see the effect of his shot. The doctor drew two or three hurried whiffs, gave a huge grunt of scorn, then, turning sharply, asked, "What is 'a reverent ignorance'? What is 'a knowledge atheistic'?" The clergyman, skewered by the sudden question, wriggled a little, and then began to explain,—with no great heart, however, for he had had his little joke out, and did not care to carry it further. The doctor listened for a little, and then, laying down his pipe, said, with some heat, "It won't do. 'Reverent ignorance' and such trash is a mere jingle of words; that you know as well as I. You stumbled on these verses, and brought them up here to throw them at me. They don't harm me in the least, I can assure you. There is no use," continued the doctor, mollifying at the sight of his friend's countenance, and seeing how the land lay,—"there is no use speaking to our incurious, solitary friend here, who could bask comfortably in sunshine for a century, without once inquiring whence came the light and heat. But let me tell you," lifting his pipe and shaking it across me at the clergyman, "that science has done services to your cloth which have not always received the most grateful acknowledgments. Why, man," here he began to fill his pipe slowly, "the theologian and the man of science, although they seem to diverge and lose sight of each other, are all the while working to one end. Two exploring parties in Australia set out from one point; the one goes east, and the other west. They lose sight of each other, they know nothing of one another's whereabouts; but they are all steering to one point,"—the sharp spirt of a fusee on the garden-seat came in here, followed by an aromatic flavour in the air,—"and when they do meet, which they are certain to do in the long run,"—here the doctor put the pipe in his mouth, and finished his speech with it there,—"the figure of the continent has become known, and may be set down in maps. The exploring parties have started long ago. What folly in the one to pooh-pooh or be suspicious of the exertions of the other. That party deserves the greatest credit which meets the other more than half way."—"Bravo!" cried the clergyman, when the doctor had finished his oration; "I don't know that I could fill your place at the bedside, but I am quite sure that you could fill mine in the pulpit."—"I am not sure that the congregation would approve of the change,—I might disturb their slumbers;" and, pleased with his retort, his cheery laugh rose through a cloud of smoke into the sunset.
Heigho! mine is a dull life, I fear, when this little affair of the doctor and the clergyman takes the dignity of an incident, and seems worthy of being recorded.
The doctor was anxious that, during the following winter, a short course of lectures should be delivered in the village schoolroom, and in my garden he held several conferences on the matter with the clergyman and myself. It was arranged finally that the lectures should be delivered, and that one of them should be delivered by me. I need not say how pleasant was the writing out of my discourse, and how the pleasure was heightened by the slightest thrill of alarm at my own temerity. My lecture I copied out in my most careful hand, and, as I had it by heart, I used to declaim passages of it ensconced in my moss-house, or concealed behind my shrubbery trees. In these places I tried it all over, sentence by sentence. The evening came at last which had been looked forward to for a couple of months or more. The small schoolroom was filled by forms on which the people sat, and a small reading-desk, with a tumbler of water on it, at the further end, waited for me. When I took my seat, the couple of hundred eyes struck into me a certain awe. I discovered in a moment why the orator of the hustings is so deferential to the mob. You may despise every individual member of your audience, but these despised individuals, in their capacity of a collective body, overpower you. I addressed the people with the most unfeigned respect. When I began, too, I found what a dreadful thing it is to hear your own voice inhabiting the silence. You are related to your voice, and yet divorced from it. It is you, and yet a thing apart. All the time it is going on, you can be critical as to its tone, volume, cadence, and other qualities, as if it was the voice of a stranger. Gradually, however, I got accustomed to my voice, and the respect which I entertained for my hearers so far relaxed that I was at last able to look them in the face. I saw the doctor and the clergyman smile encouragingly, and my half-witted gardener looking up at me with open mouth, and the atrabilious confectioner clap his hands, which made me take refuge in my paper again. I got to the end of my task without any remarkable incident, if I except the doctor's once calling out "hear" loudly, which brought the heart into my mouth, and blurred half a sentence. When I sat down, there were the usual sounds of approbation, and the confectioner returned thanks, in the name of the audience.