In expectation
Of the main-altar’s consummation.
And here is to be found all that was wanting to the bare whitewashed interior of “Mount Zion” with its “lath and plaster entry,” with “the forms burlesque, uncouth” of its worship. Here the vast building
Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,
With marble for brick, and stones of price
For garniture of the edifice. (ll. 538-540.)
In place of the “snuffle” of the Methodist congregation and the “immense stupidity” of the utterances of the preacher is the silence which may be felt of that solemn moment preceding the elevation, when “the organ blatant holds his breath.... As if God’s hushing finger grazed him.” (ll. 574-575.) Whatever the sympathies of spectator or author, no lines in the entire poem are more impressive for the reader than those which follow:
Earth breaks up, time drops away,
In flows heaven, with its new day
Of endless life, when He who trod,
Very man and very God,
This earth in weakness, shame and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursed tree,—
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,
But the one God, All in all,
King of kings, Lord of lords,
As His servant John received the words,
“I died, and live for evermore!” (ll. 581-593.)
The conviction is almost inevitable that here something beyond even the power of dramatic genius has to be reckoned with; that some spirit more nearly akin to intimate personal sympathy served as inspiration of this passage.
Carried away by the infection of the prevailing enthusiasm, the spectator questions as to the cause which has led him to remain without upon the threshold-stone of the cathedral, whilst He who has led him hither is within. And the answer which Reason returns is, that whilst the Divine Wisdom may be capable of discerning the faith and love existent beneath the outward imagery, yet with “mere man” the case is otherwise; hence for him to disregard the inward promptings of his nature is dangerous to his spiritual welfare. Thus the decision:
I, a mere man, fear to quit
The due God gave me as most fit
To guide my footsteps through life’s maze,
Because himself discerns all ways
Open to reach him. (ll. 621-625.)
For him to whom the bare walls of Zion Chapel have proved repellant, the glories of St. Peter’s may conceivably be fatally attractive in their appeal to the senses: such, reasonably or unreasonably, is at least the belief of the soliloquist. The argument of this eleventh Section is perhaps the most difficult to follow satisfactorily of all those leading to the ultimate choice of creed. Before attempting to estimate the worth of the conclusions, it may be well to trace briefly the line of thought by which they appear to have been reached.
(1) The spectator, at first struck by the glory of outward display as a means of still imposing upon the world “Rome’s gross yoke,” is yet led, through proximity to the Divine Presence, whilst seeing the error, “above the scope of error” to realize the love. And further, to admit (2) that the love inspiring the worshippers of St. Peter’s on this Christmas Eve of 1849 was also “the love of those first Christian days,” a love which did not hesitate to sacrifice all which might interpose between itself and the Divine Love whence it emanated. When