Charred Wood

by Francis Clement Kelley

Father Murray's face was serious. "I am deeply interested," he said, "deeply, although it was only as I thought. But tell me. What led you to do this? There must have been a reason formed in your mind."

"I never thought of a reason at all; I just did it. But now it seems to me that the reason was there, and that it was not a very worthy one. I think I wanted to get away. My social interest and comfort, my independence, all seemed threatened by my faith. You will acknowledge, Father, that it is an interfering sort of a thing? It hampers one's actions, and it has a bad habit of getting dictatorial. Don't you see what I mean?"

"I do," said the priest; and paused as if to gauge the sincerity of his companion. "In fact, I went through a similar experience."

"Then you can tell me what you think of my position."

"I have already told you," said the priest earnestly. "You are the one to do the thinking now. All I can do is to point out the road by which you may best retrace your way. You have told me just what I expected to hear; I admire your honesty in telling it—not to me, but to yourself. Don't you see that your reason for deserting your Faith was but a reason for greater loyalty? The oldest idea of religion in the world, after that of the existence and providence of God, is the idea of sacrifice. Even pagans never lost that idea. Nothing in this world is worth having but must be paid for. Its cost is summed up in sacrifice. Now, religion demands the same. If it calls for right living, it calls for the sacrifice that right living demands. An athlete gets his muscle and strength, not by coddling his body, but by restraining its passions and curbing its indolence, by working its softness into force and power. A river is bound between banks, and only thus bound is it anything but a menace. If a church claims to have the Truth, she forfeits her first claim to a hearing if she asks for no sacrifice. That your Church asked many sacrifices was no cause for your throwing her over, but a sign that she claimed the just right to put religion in positive form, and to give precepts of sacrifice, without the giving of which she would have no right to exist at all. Am I clear?"

"You are clear, Father, and I know you are right. I have never been able to leave my own Faith entirely out of the reckoning. I am not trying to excuse myself. I could not ignore it, for it intruded itself and forced attention. In fact, it has been forcing itself upon me most uncomfortably, especially of late years."

"Again," said Father Murray, "a reason why you should have attended to it. If there is a divine revelation confided to the care of a church, that revelation is for the sake of men and not for the sake of the church. A church has no right to existence for its own sake. He was a wise Pope who called himself 'Servant of the Servants of God.' The position of your Church—for I must look upon you as a Catholic—is, that a divine revelation has been made. If it has been made it must be conserved. Reason tells us that something then must have been established to conserve it. That something will last as long as the revelation needs conserving, which is to the end of the world. Now, only the Catholic Church claims that she has the care of that revelation—that she is the conserving force; which means that she is—as I have told you before—a 'City set upon a Mountain.' She can't help making herself seen. She must intrude on your thoughts. She must speak consistently through your life. She can permit no one to ignore her. She won't let anyone ignore her. Kick her out one door, and she will come in another. She is in your art, your music, your literature, your laws, your customs, your very vices as well as your virtues—as she was destined to be. It is her destiny—her manifest destiny—and she can't change it if she would."

Mark drew in a deep breath that sounded like a sigh. "I suppose, Father," he said, "I could argue with you and dispute with you; under other circumstances perhaps I should. I hate to think that I may have to give up my liberty; yet I am not going to argue, and I am not going to dispute. I wanted information, and I got it. The questions I asked were only for the purpose of drawing you out. But here is another: Why should any institution come between a man and his God? Is that necessary?"

The priest's eyes held a far-away look. It was some little while before he spoke, and then very slowly, as if carefully weighing his words.

"There is nothing," said the priest, "between the trees and the flowers and their God—but they are only trees and flowers; they live, but they neither think nor feel. There is nothing between the lower animals and their God; but, though they live and feel, they have none of the higher power of thought. If God had wanted man thus, why should he have given him something more than the lower animals? Man cannot live and feel only and still be a man. He must feed not only his body but his heart and soul and intellect. The men who have nothing between themselves and their God are mostly confined in lunatic asylums. The gift of intelligence demands action by the intellect; and there must be a foundation upon which to base action. When the foundation is in place, there never can be any limit to the desire for building upon it. Now, God willed all that. He created the condition and is, therefore, obliged to satisfy the desires of that condition. Some day He must satisfy the desires to the full; but now He is obliged only to keep them fed, or to give them the means to keep fed. Of course, He could do that by a direct revelation to each individual; but that He has not done so is proved by the fact that, while there can be but one Truth, yet each individual who 'goes it alone' has a different conception of it. The idea of private religious inspiration has produced public religious anarchy. Now, God could not will religious anarchy—He loves truth too much. So reason tells us that He must have done the thing that His very nature would force Him to do. He must have confided His revelation to His Church in order to preserve it, to teach it, to keep it for men. That is not putting any man or institution between Himself and His creatures. Would you call the hand which drags you over a danger an interference with your liberty? Liberty, my dear Mark, is not the right to be blind, but the privilege of seeing. The light that shows things to your eyes is not an interference between those things and your eyes. The road you take to your destination is not an obstacle to your reaching it."