The Sword of Song

INTRODUCTION III If the student has advanced spiritually so that he can internally , infallibly perceive what is Truth, he will find it equally well symbolised in most external faiths. It is curious that Browning never turns his wonderful faculty of analysis upon the funda- mental problems of religion, as it were an axe laid to the root of the Tree of Life. It seems quite clear that he knew what would result if he did so. We cannot help fancy ing that he was unwilling to do this. The proof of his knowledge I find in the following lines:— “I have read much, thought much, experienced much, Yet would rather die than avow my fear The Naples’ liquefaction may be false . . . I hear you recommend, I might at least Eliminate, decrassify my faith Since I adopt it: keeping what I must And leaving what I can ; such points as this . . . Still, when you bid me purify the same, To such a process I discern no end . . . First cut the liquefaction, what comes last But Fichte’s clever cut at God himself ? . . . I trust nor hand, nor eye, nor heart, nor brain To stop betimes: they all get drunk alike. The first step, I am master not to take.” This is surely the apotheosis of wilful ignorance! We may think, perhaps, that Browning is “hedging” when, in the last paragraph, he say s : “For Blougram, he believed, say, half he spoke,”* and hints at some deeper ground. It is useless to say, “This is Blougram and not Browning.” Browning could hardly have described the dilemma without seeing it. What he really believes is, perhaps, a mystery. That Browning, however, believes in universal salvation, though he nowhere (so far as I know) gives his reasons, save as they are sum marised in the last lines of the below-quoted passage, is evident from the last stanza of “Apparent Failure,” and from his final pronouncement of the Pope on Guido, represented in Browning’s master- piece as a Judas without the decency to hang himself. “So ( i.e., by suddenness of fate) may the truth be flashed out by one blow, And Guido see one instant and be saved. Else I avert my face nor follow him Into that sad obscure sequestered state Where God unmakes but to remake the soul He else made first in vain: which must not be. * Probably a record for a bishop.—A.C. This may be purgatory , but it sounds not unlike reincarnation. It is at leas t a denial of the doctrine of eternal punishment. As for my self, I took the first step years ago, quite in ignorance of what the last would lead to. God is indeed cut away— a cancer from the breast of truth. Of those philosophers, who from unas- sailable premisses draw by righteous de- duction a conclusion against God, and then for His sake overturn their whole structure by an act of will, like a child breaking an ingenious toy, I take Mansel as my type.* Now, however, let us consider the esoteric idea-mongers of Christianity , Swedenborg, Anna Kingsford, Deussen and the like, of whom I have taken Caird as my example. I wish to unmask these people: I perfectly agree with nearly every thing they s ay, but their claim to be Christians is utterly con- fusing, and lends a lustre to Christianity which is quite foreign. Deussen, for ex- ample, coolly dis cards nearly all the Old Testament, and, picking a few New Tes ta- ment passages, often out of their context, claims his s ystem as Chris tianity. Luther discards James. Kingsford calls Paul the Arch Heretic. My friend the “Christian Clergyman” accepted Mark and Acts—until pushed. Yet Deussen is honest enough to admit that Vedanta teaching is identical, but clearer ! and he quite clearly and sensibly defines Faith—surely the most essential quality for the adherent to Christian dogma —as “being convinced on insufficient evi- dence.” Sim ilarly the dy ing-to-live idea of Hegel (and Schopenhauer) claimed by Caird as the central spirit of Christianity is far older, in the Osiris My th of the Egy ptians. These ideas are all right, but they have no more to do with Christianity than the Metric System with the Great P yramid. But s ee Piazzi Smyth!† Henry Morley has even the audacity to claim S helley—Shelley !—as a Christian “in spirit.” Talking of Shelley :—With regard to m y open denial of the personal Christian God, may it not be laid to my charge that I have * As represented by his E ncylopædia ar ticle; not in such works as “Limits of Religious Thought.”—A.C. † An astronomer whose br ain gave way . He prophesied the end of the wor ld in 1881, f rom measurements made in the Great Pyramid.