In the concluding lines of Section VII and in Section VIII is presented the contrast between the two opposing views. On the one hand, that of the man who is glad to accept the Christian faith as that best calculated for his advantage both in this world and in that to which he looks in the future. On the other hand, the view of the man who will take nothing on trust, who is “ever a fighter,” and who, having fought, and partially, though by no means wholly, vanquished his doubts, is prepared “to mount hardly to eternal life,” at whatever cost of sacrifice and self-denial may be demanded of him. The criticism of the second speaker touching this proposed life of asceticism is that it is to be deprecated, not on account of the self-denial involved, but because such life ignores the bountiful provision of the Creator as evidenced in Nature. To abstain from the enjoyment of the gifts offered is an act of ingratitude towards the Provider. On the contrary, the Christian, whilst discerning love in every gift, should seek from his creed intensification rather than diminution of the joys of life: and in time of adversity when
Sorrows and privations take
The place of joy,
the truths of Christianity shall throw upon the darkness the light of revelation, and
The thing that seems
Mere misery, under human schemes,
Becomes, regarded by the light
Of love, as very near, or quite
As good a gift as joy before. (ll. 216-221.)
(5) The arguments of this and the Section following are of special importance, since on them are based the charges of a too great asceticism which have been urged against the poem. Here, too, the dramatic element is more pronounced than elsewhere. The life of ease, physical and spiritual, to the second speaker a source of supreme gratification and happiness, to the man of sterner mould presents itself as an impossibility. “The all-stupendous tale” of the Gospel leaves him “pale and heartstruck.” The belief that the sufferings there recorded were undergone for the purpose of intensifying the joys of life and affording consolation for its ills, is to him an explanation so inadequate as to approach the verge of profanity. This being so he would demand of the advocate of the life of ease,
How do you counsel in the case?
The answer is characteristic:
I’d take, by all means, in your place,
The safe side, since it so appears:
Deny myself, a few brief years,
The natural pleasure. (ll. 267-271.)
That the eternal reward will outweigh the temporal suffering to the exclusion even of recollection, the testimony of the martyr of the catacombs affords ample proof.
For me, I have forgot it all. (l. 288.)