"And the 'God-function' with regard to virtue was first to impress its truths on every human breast; and secondly, to give a motive for carrying them out; and this motive could be given only by one, who, being life's Lord, died for the sake of men. Whoever conceives this love, and takes this proof to his heart, has found a new motive, and has also gained a truth."
But Christ lingers within the hall "Is there something after all in that lecture which finds an echo in the Christian soul? Yes, even there. There is the ghost of love, if nothing more, in the utterance of that virgin-minded man, with the 'wan, pure look,' and the frail life burning itself away in the striving after truth. For his critical tests have reduced the pearl of price to ashes, and yet left it, in his judgment, a pearl; and he bids his followers gather up their faith as an almost perfect whole; go home and venerate the myth on which he has experimented, adore the man whom he has proved to be one. And if his learning itself be loveless, it may claim our respect when a tricksy demon has let it loose on the Epistles of St. Paul, as it claims our gratitude when expended on secular things. It is at least better than the ignorance which hates the word of God, if it cannot wholly accept it; while these, his disciples, who renounce the earth, and chain up the natural man on a warrant no more divine than this, are by so much better than he who at this moment judges them. Let them carry the doctrine by which they think themselves carried, as does the child his toy-horse. He will not deride nor disturb them."
The subject of these experiences has reached a state of restful indifference. "He will adhere to his own belief, and be tolerant towards his neighbour's: since the two only differ as do two different refractions of a single ray of light. He will study, instead of criticizing, the different creeds which are fused into one before the universal Father's throne."
But this is not the lesson he has been intended to learn. The storm, breaking out afresh, catches up and dashes him to the ground, while the vesture, which he had let slip during his last musings, recedes swiftly from his sight. Then he knows that there is one "way," and he knows also that he may find it; and in this new conviction he regains his hold of the garment, and at one bound has reentered the little chapel, which he seems never indeed to have left. The sermon is ending, and he has heard it all. He still appreciates its faults of matter and manner; but he no longer rejects the draught of living water, because it comes to him with some taste of earth. What the draught can do is evidenced by those wrecks of humanity which are finding renewal there. There his choice shall rest; for, nowhere else, so he seems to conclude, is the message of Love so simply and so directly conveyed.
A great part of the narrative is written in a humorous tone, which shows itself, not only in thought and word, but in a jolting measure, and even grotesque rhymes. The speaker desires it to be understood that he is not the less in earnest for this apparent "levity;" and the levity is quite consistent with religious seriousness in such a person as the poem depicts. But, as I have shown, it is alone enough to prove that the author is not depicting himself. The poem reflects him more or less truly in the doctrine of Divine Love, the belief in personal guidance, and the half-contemptuous admiration with which the speaker regards those who will mortify the flesh in obedience to a Christ-man. But it belies the evidence of his whole work when, as in Section XVII., it represents moral truth as either innate to the human spirit, or directly revealed to it; and we shall presently notice a still greater discrepancy which it shares with its companion poem.[[59]]
"Easter-Day"[[60]] deals with the deeper issues of scepticism and faith; and opens with a dialogue in which the two opposite positions are maintained. Both speakers start from the belief in God, and the understanding that Christianity is unproved; but the one accepts it in faith: the other regards it as, for the time being, negatived.
The man of faith begins by exclaiming, how hard it is to be (practically) a Christian; and how disproportionate to our endeavour is our success in becoming so. The sceptic replies that to his mind the only difficulty is belief. "Let the least of God's commands be proved authentic: and only an idiot would shrink from martyrdom itself, with the certain bliss that would reward it." The man of faith, who is clearly the greater pessimist of the two, thinks the world too full of suffering to be placed, by any knowledge, beyond the reach of faith—beyond the necessity of being taken upon trust. And his adversary concedes that absolute knowledge would—where it was applicable—destroy its own end. In social life, for instance, it would do away with all those acts of faith, those instinctive judgments and feelings, which are the essence of life. But he thinks one may fairly desire a better touchstone for the purposes of God than human judgment or feeling; and that, if we cannot know them with scientific certainty, one must wish the balance of probability to lie clearly on one side.
The man of faith is of opinion that this much of proof exists for everyone who chooses to seek it. "The burning question is how we are to shape our lives. For himself he is impelled to follow the Christian precept, and renounce the world." The sceptic denies that God demands such a sacrifice, and sees only man's ingratitude in the impression that He does so. The man of faith admits that it would be hard to have made the sacrifice, and be rewarded only by death; while the many unbelievers who have virtually made it for one or other of the hobbies which he describes, have at least its success to repay them. But even so, he continues, he would have chosen the better part; for he would have chosen Hope,—the hope which aspires to a loftier end. "His opponent, it is true, hopes also; but his hopes are blind. They are not those of St. Paul, but those which, according to Æschylus, the Titan gave to men, to spice therewith the meal of life, and prevent their devouring it in too bitter haste; and if hope—or faith—is meant to be something more than a relish...!"
The opponent protests against this attack upon the "trusting ease" of his existence, and declares that his interlocutor is not doing as he would be done by. Whereupon the first speaker relates something which befell him on the Easter-Eve of three years ago, and which startled him out of precisely such a condition.