'Surely,' I broke in, 'surely should our lives be one long song of gratitude, set to a holy and solemn tune, to Him who made all this so fair for us.'
'Why, lad, why?' asked Harry. 'You can only conceive this of God—that He is a perfected quintessence of all that is best and fairest in us, and therefore must our love of these things, and our joy in them, be but a grain of sand beside the mountain of His. His delight in the great banquet He has spread is for all eternity, while we can but gaze upon it for a little hour. No, lad, I cannot thank Him for these things, which are but the crumbs that fall from His table; but I worship it all, and Him in it, as I was taught in Italy. When will you leave looking for Him in holes which are only full of musty quibbles and the mouldering shreds of men's quarrels? Stand up, man, and see Him in yonder sky, in yonder woods, in yonder broad flowing river.'
'But, Harry, Harry!' I cried, feeling my worst fears confirmed, 'have a care, or this Italian dreaming will run you into flat atheism.'
'Ah, Jasper,' he answered, 'I fear you are only like the rest, and will brand me atheist and epicure because my voice is not raised in any controversy. Must I rail with Baius and howl with Brentius before you grant me faith? With whom shall I be saved, and with whom damned? Show me that first, lad, for I cannot tell. When I first set out upon my travels I strove awhile to study these things for love of you and Mr. Follet, yet in every land and every city where I came I found the same angry unrest where Antinomian roared against Pelagian, and Synergists bellowed between; where Lutheran and Calvinist and Papist, and who knows what other legion of sects beside, did battle one with another, and each against all, till Europe seemed to throb and ring again with their unchristly din, and the sweet voice of God could I nowhere hear.'
'Nay, then, I fear you closed your ears in your impatience, or the true voice of our purified faith would have sounded clear enough above all the rest.'
'No, I tell you, Jasper, I opened my ears wide enough, but they were deafened with the clash of syllogism on syllogism, and lie on lie. My eyes were blinded with the glint of steel and the flash of fires. My nostrils were filled with the stench of railing breath. Then I cried, "Where, O God, shall thy spirit be found? Surely not on this earth, that men's tongues and pens have so befouled." But there was one under the sweet blue sky of Italy who whispered in my ears, "Turn thee to Nature and thou shalt find thy quest." I heard him and sought earnestly where he showed, and soon the whole world was bright with the spirit of God, and I was in the midst of it. Yes, lad, I turned from men and saw it shining in the limpid rays of the stars; I heard it in the waving grass and the laughter of the brooks; I perceived it in the sweet-smelling flowers. Will you then cry "Atheist" at me for whom God is everywhere, when for you and the like of you He lies but in a little dogma, nay, in the mangled shred of a dogma? Take it not unkindly that I speak so hot, but it makes me mad to think that men will so befoul the nest which God has given them, and think they do Him service.'
'Indeed,' I answered, wishing to follow his mood, for I knew if I broke in as I would to another with my theology that he would only call me a Puritan and crack some kindly jest, 'I do not complain of your heat. There is doubtless much truth in what you say, for Luther himself wrote, "There is nought in Nature but a certain craving for God," yet he did not hold that mere contemplation of Nature will satisfy that craving. The beauty and fulness of Nature does but create the hunger which right doctrine alone will fill.'
'Nay, if Luther is to guide us, remember who it was who taught that this very passion for God of which you speak, and which is far from what I mean, becomes the lust of the spirit. It is that which sets your wits awry. Beware of it, Jasper, as you avoid the devil. For I tell you, from the lust of the spirit to the lust of the flesh is but a little step. You shall see it shortest in a woman.'
'Jest not, Harry, on things so solemn,' said I, not thinking even then that he could mean what he said.
'I jest not,' he answered; 'it is sober truth, and if I did jest, wherefore not? Sometimes I think that jesting is your only earnest, and that there is nothing but that which is worth living for.'