There is no greater relief than to go out and buy something, especially if one can buy it cheap. A great part of the attractiveness of the mediæval indulgences lay in the fact that you could buy them. They would not have seemed the same if they had been given away, or if you had to work them out like a road tax. To go out and buy a little heart’s ease was an enticement.
Then again, the natural man, when he has to do with an institution, is in a passive rather than in an active mood. If it is instituted for his betterment, he says, “Let it better me.” It seems too bad that in the end it should throw all the responsibility back upon himself.
A delightful old English traveler criticises the methods of transportation he found in vogue in parts of Germany. He says that on the Rhine it was customary to make the passengers do the rowing. “Their custome is that the passengers must exercise themselves with oares and rowing, alternis vicibus, a couple together. So that the master of the boate (who methinks in honestie ought either to do it himself or to procure some others to do it for him) never roweth but when his turne commeth. This exercise both for recreation and health sake is I confesse very convenient for man. But to be tied unto it by way of strict necessitie when one payeth well for his passage was a thing that did not a little distaste my humour.”
This is the trouble which many of us find in the modern methods of doing good. There are all sorts of organizations which promise well. But no sooner have we embarked on a worthy undertaking than we find that we are expected to work our passage. The officers of the boat disclaim all further responsibility, leaving that to private judgment. It is the true Protestant way and it works excellently well, when it works at all. It offers a fine challenge to disinterested virtue. But there are occasions when the natural man rebels. To have so much put upon him doth “not a little distaste his humour.” He longs for the good old times when there were thinkers who were not above their business, and who when he was at his wit’s end would do his thinking for him. It’s the same way with being excused for his shortcomings. Of course on a pinch he can excuse himself, but he generally makes a pretty poor job of it. It would be much more satisfactory to have a duly authorized person who, for a consideration, would assume the whole responsibility. Of course if he had done something that was really unpardonable, that would be another matter. The law would have to take its course. But there are a great many venial transgressions. What he wants is some one who can assure him that they are venial.
Let no good Protestant take offense at the finding of a Pardoner’s Wallet in this twentieth century. It is only a wallet containing tentative suggestions concerning things pardonable. Nothing is authoritatively signed and sealed.
Of one thing let the good Protestant take notice. I would have my pardoner know his place. He must not meddle with things too high for him. He has no right to deal with the graver sins or to speak for a higher power. He must not speak even in the name of the Church, which has worthier spokesmen than he. In a book on indulgences the author says, “On the subject of elongated, centenary, and millenary pardons, it would take too much space to enlarge.” I should rule out all such ambitious plans, not only from lack of space but on conscientious grounds.
My pardoner should confine himself to a more modest task. He should be the spokesman not of any ecclesiastical power, but only of ordinary and errant human nature. There are sins against eternal law that must at all times be taken seriously. The trouble with us poor mortals is that, even in our remorse, we do not take very long views. The judgment that seems most terrible to us is that of the people who live next door. The transgressions which loom largest are offenses against social conventions and against our own sensitive vanity. The pangs of remorse for an act of remembered awkwardness are likely to be more poignant than those which come as retribution for an acknowledged crime.
Here is ample room for a present-day pardoner. I should like to hear him make the cheery proclamation of his trade.
“Good friends: You are not what you would like to be. You are not what you think you are. You are not what your neighbors think you are,—or rather, you are not what you think your neighbors think you are. Your foibles, your peccadillos, your fallacies, and your prejudices are more numerous than you imagine. But take heart of grace, good people. These things are not unpardonable. We indulgencers have learned to make allowances for human nature. Let’s see what’s in my wallet! No crowding! Each will be served in his turn.”
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