(6) If this be so, then indeed there remains a direct and certain means of escape from sin, of fulfilment of the purposes of life—self-denial, renunciation. But, as the reply of Section X points out, the argument has been conducted in a circle, and the starting-point on the circumference has now been reached. The original statement has never been satisfactorily controverted. “How hard it is to be a Christian”; hard on account of the uncertainty bound to be attendant on all matters in which faith is requisite. It is hard to be a Christian since the difficulty but shifts its ground and is not actually removed by any venture of faith. After all argument, all reasoning, the possibility remains that the Christian’s hope is a mistaken one; that death is not the gateway to fuller life but the annihilation of life; in short that the Christian has renounced life
For the sake
Of death and nothing else. (ll. 296-297.)
In which case his gain is less than that of the worldling, since he has, at least, temporarily possessed the object towards the acquisition of which his self-denial was directed. Beetles and snuff-boxes may be but small gains, but gains they are to whomso desires them: and “gain is gain, however small.” Nevertheless, in the spirit of Browning, the wrestler with his doubts would rather risk all for the vaguest spiritual hope, than rest satisfied with a life limited to material gratification: rather be the grasshopper
That spends itself in leaps all day
To reach the sun, (ll. 310-311.)
than the mole groping “amid its veritable muck.” When Bishop Blougram makes the same decision—in favour of faith as opposed to scepticism—the motive he alleges is one which might well be ascribed to the second speaker of Easter Day. The choice is influenced, not by aspirations which refuse to be checked, but by considerations of prudence touching a possible future.
Doubt may be wrong—there’s judgment, life to come!
With just that chance, I dare not [i.e. relinquish faith]. (ll. 477-478.)
The attitude of the second speaker towards life generally recalls, indeed, not infrequently the professed opportunism of the Bishop. With Blougram also he fears the effects upon the stability of his faith of a critical investigation of its tenets. Hence, the reproach of Section XI, addressed to the first speaker, whose questionings threaten to disturb the earlier condition of “trusting ease.” The reply of Section XII points out that, the eyes having been once opened, to close them wilfully, living in a determined reliance on hopes proved only too probably fallacious, is to adopt a pagan rather than a Christian conception of life.
II. Section XIII constitutes the introduction to the second part of the poem in which is given the history of the revelation to which the narrator ascribes his realization of the momentous nature of the faith which he and his companion alike profess; and of the life which should be lived upon the lines of that faith. Vivid as the account of the Vision in Christmas Eve is the description by the first speaker of the experiences of the night preceding the dawn of Easter Day, three years ago; when, into the midst of his reflections touching the possibility of a near approach of a Day of Judgment, there broke that tremendous conflagration marking the crisis when man shall awaken to realities from
That insane dream we take
For waking now, because it seems. (ll. 480-481.)
And the portrayal of the Judgment which follows is, in character, just that which we should expect from the pen of the writer who held that “the development of a soul, little else is worth study.” How far the conception is indeed Browning’s own will be best considered in estimating the extent of the dramatic element—in Lecture VI. To trace the history of this particular soul awaiting judgment is our immediate object. In a position of personal isolation from his kind, face to face with his Creator, to that lonely soul “began the Judgment Day.” The sentence from without was unnecessary to him who should pass judgment upon himself.