CHAPTER XXXIX.
Ever since Mr. Tyrrel had been last with us, I had observed an unusual seriousness in the countenance of Sir John Belfield, though accompanied with his natural complacency. His mind seemed intent on something he wished to communicate. The first time we were both alone in the library with Mr. Stanley, Sir John said: "Stanley, the conversations we have lately had, and especially the last, in which you bore so considerable a part, have furnished me with matter for reflection. I hope the pleasure will not be quite destitute of profit."
"My dear Sir John," replied Mr. Stanley, "in conversing with Mr. Tyrrel, I labor under a disadvantage common to every man, who, when he is called to defend some important principle which he thinks attacked or undervalued, is brought into danger of being suspected to undervalue others, which, if they in their turn were assailed, he would defend with equal zeal. When points of the last importance are slighted as insignificant in order exclusively to magnify one darling opinion, I am driven to appear as if I opposed that important tenet, which, if I may so speak, seems pitted against the others. Those who do not previously know my principles, might almost suspect me of being an opposer of that prime doctrine, which I really consider as the leading principle of Christianity."
"Allow me to say," returned Sir John, "that my surprise has been equal to my satisfaction. Those very doctrines which you maintained, I had been assured, were the very tenets you rejected. Many of our acquaintance, who do not come near enough to judge, or who would not be competent to judge if they did, ascribe the strictness of your practice to some unfounded peculiarities of opinion, and suspect that the doctrines of Tyrrel, though somewhat modified, a little more rationally conceived, and more ably expressed, are the doctrines held by you, and by every man who rises above the ordinary standard of what the world calls religious men. And what is a little absurd and inconsistent, they ascribe to these supposed dangerous doctrines, his abstinence from the diversions, and his disapprobation of the manners and maxims of the world. Your opinions, however, I always suspected could not be very pernicious, the effects of which, from the whole tenor of your life, I knew to be so salutary.
"I now find upon full proof that there is nothing in your sentiments but what a man of sense may approve; nothing but what if he be really a man of sense, he will without scruple adopt. May I be enabled more fully, more practically, to adopt them! You shall point out to me such a course of reading as may not only clear up my remaining difficulties, but, what is infinitely more momentous than the solution of any abstract question, may help to awaken me to a more deep and lively sense of my own individual interest in this great concern!"
Mr. Stanley's benevolent countenance was lighted up with more than its wonted animation. He did not attempt to conceal the deep satisfaction with which his heart was penetrated. He modestly referred his friend to Dr. Barlow, as a far more able casuist, though not a more cordial friend. For my own part, I felt my heart expand toward Sir John with new sympathies and an enlarged affection. I felt noble motives of attachment, an attachment which I hoped would be perpetuated beyond the narrow bounds of this perishable world.
"My dear Sir John," said Mr. Stanley, "it is among the daily but comparatively petty trials of every man who is deeply in earnest to secure his immortal interests, to be classed with low and wild enthusiasts whom his judgment condemns, with hypocrites against whom his principles revolt, and with men, pious and conscientious I am most willing to allow, but differing widely from his own views; with others who evince a want of charity in some points, and a want of judgment in most. To be identified, I say, with men so different from yourself, because you hold in common some great truths, which all real Christians have held in all ages, and because you agree with them in avoiding the blamable excesses of dissipation, is among the sacrifices of reputation, which a man must be contented to make who is earnest in the great object of a Christian's pursuit. I trust, however, that, through divine grace, I shall never renounce my integrity for the praise of men, who have so little consistency, that though they pretend their quarrel is with your faith, yet who would not care how extravagant your belief was if your practice assimilated with their own. I trust, on the other hand, that I shall always maintain my candor toward those with whom we are unfairly involved; men, religious, though somewhat eccentric, devout, though injudicious, and sincere, though mistaken; but who, with all their errors, against which I protest, and with all their indiscretion, which I lament, and with all their ill-judged, because irregular zeal, I shall ever think—always excepting hypocrites and false pretenders—are better men, and in a safer state than their revilers."
"I have often suspected," said I, "that under the plausible pretense of objecting to your creed, men conceal their quarrel with the commandments."
"My dear Stanley," said Sir John, "but for this visit, I might have continued in the common error, that there was but one description of religious professors; that a fanatical spirit, and a fierce adoption of one or two particular doctrines, to the exclusion of all the rest, with a total indifference to morality, and a sovereign contempt of prudence, made up the character against which, I confess, I entertained a secret disgust. Still, however, I loved you too well, and had too high an opinion of your understanding, to suspect that you would ever be drawn into those practical errors, to which I had been told your theory inevitably led. Yet I own I had an aversion to this dreaded enthusiasm which drove me into the opposite extreme."
"How many men have I known," replied Mr. Stanley, smiling, "who, from their dread of a burning zeal, have taken refuge in a freezing indifference! As to the two extremes of heat and cold, neither of them is the true climate of Christianity; yet the fear of each drives men of opposite complexions into the other, instead of fixing them in the temperate zone which lies between them, and which is the region of genuine piety."