II. Thus the listener passes from the confines of the Chapel to the limitless expanse of the common without: and the change in externals is indicative also of that within. Whilst discerning the errors of preacher and congregation, the critic has been blinded to the fact that he, too, is equally removed from the spirit of love designed to prove the inspiring principle of all forms of Christianity, however crude their mode of expression. The soothing influence of Nature to which he has ever been peculiarly susceptible, causes at once
A glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me. (ll. 274-276.)
So he stands, recalling the visions of youth, when he “looked to these very skies, probing their immensities,” and “found God there, his visible power.” The power was unquestionable, a mere response to the evidence of the senses; but reason, coming to the aid of sight, pointed to the existence also of Love, “the nobler dower.” The deduction is logical, since the absence of Love at once imposes limitations to power otherwise apparently infinite. The craving for love existent within the human heart demands satisfaction, and if in this direction the Deity is unable to satisfy the needs of his creatures, man here surpasses his maker, the creature the creator. Irresponsible power, not comprehensive of love, is of the character of that exercised by Setebos according to the theory of Caliban. Here man is seen endowed with gifts of heart and brain, to exercise through his own will, but for the glory of his creator “as a mere machine could never do.” Power (in this place synonymous with force combined with knowledge) may advance by degrees, not so Love. Love does not admit of measurement, since it is by nature infinite. As with eternity, so with Love. By no relative estimate of time can any possible realization of eternity be approached; the sole result of any such attempt at exposition being necessarily conducive to a wholly erroneous impression on the mind, since that which is in its essence infinite admits of no defined measure. Thus infinite Love remains infinite in spite of human limitations. Whilst absolute truth remains, though the revelation to man is gradual, so does Love remain unimpaired, though man may profit by or abuse it.
’Tis not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love’s sum remains what it was before. (ll. 322-326.)
Thus S. Augustine: “Do heaven and earth then contain Thee, since Thou fillest them?... The vessels which are full of Thee do not confine Thee, though they should be shattered, Thou wouldest not be poured out.”[63]
To sum up: Where Power alone was at first discernible, in the wonderful care manifested in the smallest creation, “in the leaf, in the stone,” the work of Love eventually became equally clear. For a similar expression of Browning’s more immediately personal faith we have only to turn to his latest published work, The Reverie of Asolando.
From the first Power was—I knew.
Life has made clear to me,
That, strive but for closer view,
Love were as plain to see.
In simple faith in this all-prevailing Providence, in a recognition of the immanence of the Divine Love, the critic of Zion Chapel believes himself to have found the highest form of worship. Before the night is ended he is, however, to learn differently.
The Vision of Sections VII to IX renders still more forcible the revelation already begun with the escape from the Chapel—that the Love which may be duly worshipped alone in spirit and in truth yet recognizes the feeblest manifestation of either in the worshipper: and that the nearest approach to union with the Divine Love is to be sought in a fuller and more immediate response to the human. And it is worthy of notice that the Vision does not reveal itself within the confines of Zion Chapel, the abode of religious exclusiveness and intolerance; only when the freer atmosphere of Nature has been reached.
III. Rome, St. Peter’s. With the opening of the next division of the Poem (Sections X to XII), we find the man who has been anxious that the divine worship shall be celebrated in beauty, as well as in spirit and in truth, again an onlooker: waiting without the walls of St. Peter’s, “that miraculous Dome of God,”—waiting without, yet with eye “free to pierce the crust of the outer wall,” and perceive the crowd thronging the cathedral