"Hall’s Croft” Where Marie Corelli Wrote Half of “The Master Christian"
would, we fancy, be so harmonious that it would have no influence to raise men and women to think.
With “The Master Christian” the reader has to think all the time. It is a sermon of great power, and the text of it is supplied, as it should be, by the fair preacher. It will be remembered that in the year 1900 the late Dr. St. George Mivart, a priest of the Church of Rome, was inhibited by His Eminence Cardinal Vaughan, on account of certain scientific works which were displeasing to the Church. Shortly afterwards Dr. Mivart died and the Romish Church even denied him religious rites of burial. In an “In Memoriam” note appended to her “Open letter to Cardinal Vaughan” on this subject, Marie Corelli wrote: “In the name of the all-loving and merciful Christ, whose teachings we, as Christians, profess to follow, it is necessary to enter a strong protest against this barbarous act in a civilized age, and to set it down beside the blind stupidity which arraigned glorious Galileo, and the fiendish cruelty which supported Torquemada. For the words of the Divine Master are a command to Churches as well as to individuals: ‘If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses!’”
We wonder if that saying of Christ’s was remembered when the ban of excommunication was pronounced by the Greek Church against Count Leo Tolstoy! We wonder if that saying of Christ’s is remembered at Rome when any ban of excommunication is passed, when religious rites of burial are denied to any man! And if the reply be that the words do not apply because the Pope and his priests commit no trespasses, we can only wonder what Christ would say if He came to Rome; and, further, we believe that He would say much that the child-Christ Manuel utters in “The Master Christian.”
The text of the book is that charity and forgiveness—the carrying out of Christ’s commands in the spirit of the Saviour—should guide mankind to-day, that they apply to-day as they did in the days of Christ’s sojourn on earth, and that the conditions of the world to-day are such as render it possible for Christians to walk in His steps. In the “open letter” to Cardinal Vaughan, already referred to, we find in some of the passages a true insight into the spirit of and the aims with which “The Master Christian” was written.
“My Lord Cardinal,” she says, “there are certain of us in the world who, overwhelmed by the desperate difficulties of life and the confusion arising from numerous doctrines, forms, and ceremonies instituted by divers Churches and Sects, are fain to fall back from the general hurly-burly, and turn for help and refuge to the original Founder of the Christian Faith. He, with that grand simplicity which expresses Divinity, expounded ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life,’ in words of such plain and uninvolved meaning, that the poorest and least educated of us all cannot but understand Him. Gracious, tender, and always patient and pardoning, was every utterance of the God amongst us; and among all His wise and consoling sayings, none are, perhaps, more widely tolerant than this: ‘If any man hear My words and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.’ My Lord Cardinal, there are many at this time of day who have so gained in a reasonable conception of faith, that when they hear the words of Christ delivered to them simply as first uttered, they are willing to believe, but hearing the edicts of the Church contrasted with those words, they ‘believe not.’ The teachings of Christ—Christ only—are so true that they cannot be denied; so beautiful that they command our reverence; and the Creed of Christ, if honestly followed, would make a fair and happy world for us all.”
And again,
“We are somewhat bewildered when we discover, by reference to the Gospel, that the Church commands us frequently to do precisely what the founder of our Faith commanded us not to do. And what, we may ask, is the Will of this great Father which is in Heaven? Is it to swear to what our own conscience and reason declare to be false? Is it to look in the face of Science, the great Heaven-sent Teacher of our time, and say, ‘You who have taught me, mere pigmy man, to press the lightning into my service, to take the weight and measurement of stars, to send my trifling messages of weal or woe on the eternal currents of electric force—You, who daily unfold for me the mysteries of God’s glorious creation—You who teach me that the soul of man, immortal and progressive, is capable of infinite enlightenment and increasing power—You, who expound the majesty, the beneficence, the care, the love, the supporting influence of the Creator, and bring me to my knees in devout adoration—am I to say to You who teach me all this that You are a Lie? Am I rather to believe that a statue made by hands, and set in a grotto at Lourdes or elsewhere, is a worthier object for my prayer and my praise? Am I doing God’s will by believing that my base coin, paid for sundry masses in churches, will sway the Creator of the Universe to give peace to the departed spirits of my dead?’”