Then chiefly lives.”
AN ULTRA-PROTESTER.
St. Matthew xxvi. 33-35, 69-75.
To have written it ultra-Protestant, would mislead into an expectation of polemical matter, offensive to Orangeism, and entirely alien from the purpose. For who is the hyper-protester, not to write it ultra-Protestant, of whom we speak? None other than St. Peter. Nominally the first Pope. But let that pass. Whether technically an ultra-Protestant or not,—let that pass too. It is with his surplusage of protestations, vehemently asserted, and anon ignominiously ignored, that we are at present concerned. Though all men, all, should be offended because of Christ, should stumble and fall because of Him, yet would he never be offended, never stumble, never lose his footing, firm as a rock, firm as his own name, Peter, Cephas; a rock on which the Church was to be built. The protest of the apostle won no meed of thanks and assurance of conviction from his Lord. He who needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man—and knew what was wanting in this man,—waved aside, as absolutely worthless, the perfervid protestations of the impulsive son of Jonas. Thrice should Peter deny Him before dawn of another day. Deny Him? Had it come to that? The protester must become ultra in his protests. “Though I should die with Thee, yet will I not deny Thee!” It would be beside the mark here to take into account the other voces et præterea nihil, echoing the same thing—protested notes at the best—for likewise also said all the disciples. Peter is their representative man, and ours.
Gertrude’s comment in “Hamlet,” on the accumulated asseverations of the stage-queen, “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” has passed into a proverb. “The more vehemently they assert, the less credit they obtain for sincerity,” observes Hartley Coleridge, of some examples of impulsive womankind. Racine’s Bérénice turns the tables on Titus in this regard, when she tells him,
“Hé quoi! vous me jurez une éternelle ardeur,
Et vous me la jurez avec cette froideur!
Pourquoi même du ciel attester la puissance?
Faut-il par des serments vaincre ma défiance?