Mark Gildersleeve: A Novel

by John S. Sauzade

This apostrophe was interjected, and as if called forth by the speaker's sorrow.

A pause, and he resumed:

"Doctor, as one of my own age, and as a man in whose intellect, judgment, and heart I have the fullest confidence, I desire to make you my father-confessor. I crave sympathy and counsel. Perhaps I should apologize for burthening you with my trials and sorrows, but pity me—pity me!" He laid his hand on the physician's knee with such an appealing look, that the latter was touched. "Whom else can I consult with—whom turn to? I am at sea yawing like a rudderless ship."

The doctor, who had been not a little surprised at the tenor of his host's conversation, expressed his condolence, and proffered his assistance in any way that it might be found serviceable. Mr. Heath looked for a moment as if he were about to confide something—then checked himself, and rising leaned on the mantle-piece in a pensive attitude. Dr. Wattletop took this for an indication that the conference was at an end, but the Monongahela being excellent, he lingered to refill his glass. Meanwhile Mr. Heath again sat down and addressed him:

"You say, doctor, that you do not believe in eternal punishment, because, as I understand you, it is irreconcilable with reason."

"Because it is irreconcilable with the attributes of the Almighty. Again, where is the sense or harmony, or even necessity of it? I can understand temporary punishment, but not everlasting punishment; that would resolve itself simply into revenge, a feeling that the Creator is incapable of harboring. No, sir, I believe there is a punishment for sin, but not an everlasting one. I believe in the harmony of Nature, and that its laws are inexorable. They cannot be infringed without suffering. I do not believe in the forgiveness of sins."

"Do not believe in the forgiveness of sins! Have you no faith, doctor?"

"Faith, Mr. Heath, is in the first place a matter of cerebral organization, and secondly of accident. Had you and I been born with crania of a certain conformation, of either Jewish, Mohammedan, or Calvinistic parents, we would have remained in the faith we were born in, whether Jewish, Mohammedan, or Calvinistic, to the end of our days. Had John Knox, for instance, been born a Hindoo, in Benares, he would have become the fiercest fakir of them all. The mass of mankind dislike the trouble of thinking, and follow the paths traced out for them in infancy. Take your friend Mumbie, as an illustration. Here is a man of average respectability, who goes to church because it is the correct thing. What are his views, think you, on the hypostatic union? It is immaterial to him whether the minister preaches from the Zendavesta or the Koran; a certain number of hours have to be spent listening to him, and then he jogs along day after day, in the same grooves, satisfied if he keeps up to the average of respectability. Faith, Mr. Heath, as connected with dogmas and formulas, is of little consequence, in my estimation. Who do you think is the better man,—the one who believes in consubstantiation, or the one who believes in transubstantiation? My good mother, who was a pious woman, brought me up in the tenets of the Established Church—hence youthful predilections and associations attach me to that fold. At one time the perusal of Paley's Natural Theology, the Bridgewater treatises, and works of that character, shook my faith, and left me a sceptic. Such works, although intended to strengthen faith, serve but to stimulate inquiry. Possessing an analytic mind, the subtle problems of Nature had a wonderful fascination for me, and in trying to solve them, I became for a time a proselyte to the unsatisfactory theories of materialistic philosophy, until, fortunately, I found in the teachings of Descartes a solid foundation for belief. No logic can successfully assail the faith that springs from intuition. Now, like Kant, I never cease to wonder at the starry heavens, but far more at the intuitive knowledge of God and the Moral Law."

"The Moral Law," echoed Mr. Heath, abstractedly. After a few moments he returned, "Does not charity cover a multitude of sins?"

"It's a convenient mantle, surely. As I said before, I do not believe sins are ever forgiven, but bring their own punishment inevitably. Here in this world they certainly do, for all sages agree on this: that happiness is only attainable through the practice of virtue, and if this be so, the converse must necessarily be true, and those who do not practise it must be unhappy. As the physical health is governed by certain hygienic laws whose infraction inevitably produces disease, so is the spiritual health governed by the moral law, whose infraction also as certainly brings suffering. To be good is to be spiritually healthy—wickedness is deformity or disease of the soul."