Freeborn did not like to be beaten; he began again. Religion, he said, was a matter of the heart; no one could interpret Scripture rightly whose heart was not right. Till our eyes were enlightened, to dispute about the sense of Scripture, to attempt to deduce from Scripture, was beating about the bush: it was like the blind disputing about colours.
“If this is true,” said Bateman, “no one ought to argue about religion at all; but you were the first to do so, Freeborn.”
“Of course,” answered Freeborn, “those who have found the truth are the very persons to argue, for they have the gift.”
“And the very last persons to persuade,” said Sheffield; “for they have the gift all to themselves.”
“Therefore true Christians should argue with each other, and with no one else,” said Bateman.
“But those are the very persons who don’t want it,” said Sheffield; “reasoning must be for the unconverted, not for the converted. It is the means of seeking.”
Freeborn persisted that the reason of the unconverted was carnal, and that such could not understand Scripture.
“I have always thought,” said Reding, “that reason was a general gift, though faith is a special and personal one. If faith is really rational, all ought to see that it is rational; else, from the nature of the case, it is not rational.”
“But St. Paul says,” answered Freeborn, “that ‘to the natural man the things of the Spirit are foolishness’.”
“But how are we to arrive at truth at all,” said Reding, “except by reason? It is the appointed method for our guidance. Brutes go by instinct, men by reason.”
They had fallen on a difficult subject; all were somewhat puzzled except White, who had not been attending, and was simply wearied; he now interposed. “It would be a dull world,” he said, “if men went by reason: they may think they do, but they don’t. Really, they are led by their feelings, their affections, by the sense of the beautiful, and the good, and the holy. Religion is the beautiful; the clouds, sun, and sky, the fields and the woods, are religion.”
“This would make all religions true,” said Freeborn, “good and bad.”
“No,” answered White, “heathen rites are bloody and impure, not beautiful; and Mahometanism is as cold and as dry as any Calvinistic meeting. The Mahometans have no altars or priests, nothing but a pulpit and a preacher.”
“Like St. Mary’s,” said Sheffield.
“Very like,” said White; “we have no life or poetry in the Church of England; the Catholic Church alone is beautiful. You would see what I mean if you went into a foreign cathedral, or even into one of the Catholic churches in our large towns. The celebrant, deacon and subdeacon, acolytes with lights, the incense, and the chanting—all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it is really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the Kyrie; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the Confiteor to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason.”
This was spoken with all his heart; but it was quite out of keeping with the conversation which had preceded it, and White’s poetry was almost as disagreeable to the party as Freeborn’s prose.
“White, you should turn Catholic out and out,” said Sheffield.
“My dear good fellow,” said Bateman, “think what you are saying. You can’t really have gone to a schismatical chapel. Oh, for shame!”
Freeborn observed, gravely, that if the two Churches were one, as had been maintained, he could not see, do what he could, why it was wrong to go to and fro from one to the other.
“You forget,” said Bateman to White, “you have or might have, all this in your own Church, without the Romish corruptions.”
“As to the Romish corruptions,” answered White, “I know very little about them.”
Freeborn groaned audibly.
“I know very little about them,” repeated White eagerly, “very little; but what is that to the purpose? We must take things as we find them. I don’t like what is bad in the Catholic Church, if there is bad, but what is good. I do not go to it for what is bad, but for what is good. You can’t deny that what I admire is very good and beautiful. Only you try to introduce it into your own Church. You would give your ears, you know you would, to hear the Dies iræ.”
Here a general burst of laughter took place. White was an Irishman. It was a happy interruption; the party rose up from table, and a tap at that minute, which sounded at the door, succeeded in severing the thread of the conversation.
It was a printseller’s man with a large book of plates.
“Well timed,” said Bateman;—“put them down, Baker: or rather give them to me;—I can take the opinion of you men on a point I have much at heart. You know I wanted you, Freeborn, to go with me to see my chapel; Sheffield and Reding have looked into it. Well now, just see here.”