The New Abelard

Robert Williams Buchanan

The New Abelard

Sharp Ink Publishing

2024

Contact: [email protected]

ISBN 978-80-282-9257-7

Table of Contents

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

Volume 1

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

PREFATORY NOTE.

PROEM

CHAPTER I.—THE TWO.

CHAPTER II.—OLD LETTERS.

CHAPTER III.—THE BISHOP.

CHAPTER IV.—WORLDLY COUNSEL.

CHAPTER V.—‘MRS. MONTMORENCY.’

CHAPTER VI.—ALMA.

CHAPTER VII.—A SIDE CURRENT.

CHAPTER VIII.—MYSTIFICATIONS.

CHAPTER IX.—FAREWELL TO FENSEA.

CHAPTER X.—FROM THE POST-BAG.

PREFATORY NOTE.

Table of Contents

The leading character in this book is represented, dramatically, as resembling, both in his strength and weakness, the great Abelard of history. For this very reason he is described as failing miserably, where a stronger man might never have foiled, in grasping the Higher Rationalism as a law for life. He is, in fact, not meant for an ideal hero, but for an ardent intellectual man, hopelessly biased against veracity both by temperament and hereditary superstition.

I make this explanation in order to be beforehand with those who will possibly hasten to explain to my readers that my philosophy of life is at best retrograde, my modern thinker an impressionable spoony, and my religious outlook taken in the shadow of the Churches and reading no farther than the cloudy horizons of Ober-Ammergau.

Robert Buchanan.

London: March 12, 1884.

PROEM

Table of Contents

Shipwreck … What succour?—

On the gnawing rocks

The ship grinds to and fro with thunder-shocks,

And thro’ her riven sides with ceaseless rush

The foam-fleck’d waters gush:

Above, the soot-black sky; around, the roar

Of surges smiting on some unseen shore;

Beneath, the burial-place of rolling waves—

Flowerless, for ever shifting, wind-dug graves!

A moment on the riven deck he stands,

Praying to Heaven with wild uplifted hands,

Then sees across the liquid wall afar

A glimmer like a star;

The lighthouse gleam! Upon the headland black

The beacon burns and fronts the stormy wrack—

Sole speck of light on gulfs of darkness, where

Thunder the sullen breakers of despair …

The ship is gone … Now in that gulf of death

He swims and struggles on with failing breath:

He grasps a plank—it sinks—too frail to upbear

His leaden load of care;

Another and another—straws!—they are gone!

He cries aloud, stifles, and struggles on;

For still thro’ voids of gloom his straining sight

Sees the sad glimmer of a steadfast light!

He gains the rocks … What shining hands are these,

Reached out to pluck him from the cruel seas?

What shape is this, that clad in raiment blest

Now draws him to its breast! …

Ah, Blessed One, still keeping, day and night,

The lamp well trimm’d, the heavenly beacon bright,

He knows Thee now!—he feels the sheltering gleam—

And lo! the night of storm dissolves in dream!

CHAPTER I.—THE TWO.

Table of Contents

Miriam. But whither goest thou?

Walter. On the highest peak,

Among the snows, there grows a pale blue flower—

The village maidens call it Life-in-Death,

The old men Sleep-no-more; I have sworn to pluck it;

Many have failed upon the same wild quest,

And left their bleaching bones among the crags.

If I should fail——————————————————

Miriam. Let me go with thee, "Walter!

Let me not here i’ the valley—let us find

The blessed flower together, dear, or die!

The Sorrowful Shepherdess.

On a windy night in the month of May, the full moon was flashing from cloud to cloud, each so small that it began to melt instantaneously beneath her hurried breath; and, in the fulness of the troubled light that she was shedding, the bright tongues of the sea were creeping up closer and closer through the creeks of the surrounding land, till they quivered like quicksilver under the walls of Mossleigh Abbey, standing dark and lonely amongst the Fens.

It was a night when, even in that solitude, everything seemed mysteriously and troublously alive. The wind cried as with a living voice, and the croaks of herons answered from the sands, The light of the moon went and came as to a rhythmic respiration; and when it hashed, the bats were seen hitting with thin z-like cry high up over the waterside, and when it was dimmed the owl moaned from the ivied walls. At intervals, from the distant lagoons, came the faint ‘quack, quack’ of flocks of ducks at feed. The night was still, but enchanted; subdued, yet quivering with sinister life. Over and above all was the heavy breath of the ocean, crawling nearer and nearer, eager yet fearful, with deep tremors, to the electric wand of that heavenly light.

Presently, from inland, came another sound—the quick tramp of a horse’s feet coming along the narrow road which wound up to, and past, the abbey ruins. As it grew louder, it seemed that every other sound was hushed, and everything listened to its coming; till at last, out of the moonbeams and the shadows, flashed a tall white horse, ridden by a shape in black.

Arrived opposite the ruins, the horse paused, and its rider, a woman, looked eagerly up and down the road, whereupon, as if at a signal, all the faint sounds of the night became audible again. The woman sat still, listening; and her face looked like marble. After pausing thus motionless for some minutes, she turned from the road, and walked her horse through the broken wall, across a stone-strewn field, and in through the gloomy arch of the silent abbey, till she reached the roofless space within, where the grass grew rank and deep, mingled with monstrous weeds, and running green and slimy over long neglected graves.

How dark and solemn it seemed between those crumbling walls, which only the dark ivy seemed to hold together with its clutching sinewy fingers! yet, through each of the broken windows, and through every archway, the moonlight beamed, making streaks of luminous whiteness on the grassy floor. The horse moved slowly, at his own will, picking his way carefully among fragments of fallen masonry, and stopping short at times to inspect curiously some object in his path. All was bright and luminous overhead; all dim and ominous there below. At last, reaching the centre of the place, the horse paused, and its rider again became motionless, looking upward.

The moonlight pouring through one of the arched windows suffused her face and form.

She was a fair woman, fair and tall, clad in a tight-fitting riding dress of black, with black hat and backward-drooping veil. Her hair was golden, almost a golden red, and smoothed down in waves over a low broad forehead. Her eyes were grey and very large, her features exquisitely cut, her mouth alone being, perhaps, though beautifully moulded, a little too full and ripe; but let it be said in passing, this mouth was the soul of her face—large, mobile, warm, passionate, yet strangely firm and sweet. Looking into the grave eyes of this woman, you would have said she was some saint, some beautiful madonna; looking at her mouth and lips, you would have said it was the mouth of Cytherea, alive with the very fire of love.

She sat motionless, still gazing upward on the dim milky azure, flecked with the softest foam of clouds. Her face was bright and happy, patient yet expectant; and when the low sounds of the night were wafted to her ears, she sighed softly in unison, as if the sweetness of silence could be borne no longer.

Suddenly she started, listening, and at the same moment her horse, with dilated eyes and nostrils, trembled and pricked up his delicate ears. Clear and distinct, from the distance, came the sound of another horse’s feet. It came nearer and nearer, then it ceased close to the abbey wall; and, almost simultaneously, the white steed threw forth his head and neighed aloud.

The woman smiled happily, and patted his neck with her gloved hand.

A minute passed. Then through the great archway slowly came another rider, a man. On seeing the first comer, he rose in the saddle and waved his hand; then leaping down, he threw his reins over an iron hook fixed in the wall, and came swiftly through the long grass.

A tall man of about thirty, wrapt in a dark riding cloak and wearing a broad-brimmed clerical hat. He was clean shaven, but his black hair fell about his shoulders. His eyes were black and piercing, his eyebrows thick and dark. The head, with its square firm jaw and fine aquiline features, was set firm upon a powerful neck and shoulders. His cloak, falling back from the throat, showed the white neckcloth worn by English clergymen.

The white horse did not stir as he approached, but, turning his head, surveyed him calmly with an air of recognition. He came up, took the rein and patted the horse’s neck, while the woman, with a cry of welcome, leapt from her seat.

‘Shall I fasten your horse with mine?’ he asked, still holding the rein.

‘No; let him ramble among the grass. He will come at my call.’

Released and riderless, the horse moved slowly through the grass, approaching the other in a leisurely way, with a view to a little equine conversation. Meantime the man and woman had sprung into each other’s arms, and were kissing each other like lovers—as indeed they were.

‘You are late, dearest,’ said the woman presently, when the first delight of meeting was over. ‘I thought perhaps you could not come to-night.’

Her voice was deep and musical—a soft contralto—with vibrations of infinite tenderness. As she stood with him, fixing her eyes fondly upon him, it almost seemed as if she, not he, were the masculine, the predominant spirit; he the feminine, the possessed. Strong and passionate as he seemed, he was weak and cold compared to her; and whenever they clung together and kissed, it seemed as if her kisses were given in the eagerness of mastery, his in the sweetness of self-surrender. This, seeing her delicate beauty, and the powerful determined face and form of the man, was strange enough.

‘I could not come earlier,’ he replied gently. ‘I had a call to a dying man which detained me. I left his bedside and came straight hither.’

‘That is why you look so sad,’ she said, smiling and kissing him. ‘Ah, yes—death is terrible!’

And she clung to him fondly, as if fearful that the cold cruel shadow even then and there might come between them.

‘Not always, Alma. The poor man whose eyes I have just closed—he was only a poor fenman—died with a faith so absolute, a peace so perfect, that all the terrors of his position departed, leaving only an infinite pathos. In the presence of such resignation I felt like an unholy intruder. He went away as calmly as if Our Lord came to him in the very flesh, holding out two loving hands—and, indeed, who knows? His eyes were fixed at last as if he saw something, and then … he smiled and passed away.’

They moved along side by side through the deep shadows. She held his hand in hers, drawing life and joy from the very touch.

‘What a beautiful night!’ he said at last, gazing upwards thoughtfully. ‘Surely, surely, the old argument is true, and that sky refutes the cry of unbelief. And yet men perish, generations come and go, and still that patient light shines on. This very place is a tomb, and we walk on the graves of those who once lived and loved as we do now.’

‘Their souls are with God,’ she murmured; ‘yes, with God, up yonder!’

‘Amen to that. But when they lived, dearest, belief was so easy. They were not thrust into a time of doubt and change. It was enough to close the eyes and walk blindly on in assurance of a Saviour. Now we must stare with naked eyes at the Skeleton of what was a living Truth.’

‘Do not say that. The truth lives, though its face has changed.’

‘Does it live? God knows. Look at this deserted place, these ruined walls. Just as this is to habitable places, is our old faith to the modern world. Roofless, deserted, naked to heaven, stands the Church of Christ. Soon it must perish altogether, leaving not a trace behind; unless …’

‘Unless? …’

‘Unless, with God’s aid, it can be restored,’ he replied. ‘Even then, perhaps, it would never be quite the same as it once was in the childhood of the world; but it would at least be a Temple, not a ruin.’ ‘That is always your dream, Ambrose.’

‘It is my dream—and my belief. Meanwhile, I am still like a man adrift. O Alma, if I could only believe, like that poor dying man!’

‘You do believe,’ she murmured; ‘only your belief is not blind and foolish. Why should you reproach yourself because you have rejected so much of the old superstition?’

‘Because I am a minister of the Church, round which, like that dark devouring ivy, the old superstitions still cling. Before you could make this place what it once was, a prosperous abbey, with happy creatures dwelling within it, you have to strip the old walls bare; and it is the same with our religion. I am not strong enough for such a task. The very falsehoods I would uproot have a certain fantastic holiness and beauty; when I lay my hands upon them, as I have sometimes dared to do, I seem to hear a heavenly voice rebuking me. Then I say to myself that perhaps, after all, I am committing an act of desecration; and so—my life is wasted.’

She watched him earnestly during a long pause which followed. At last she said:—

‘Is it not, perhaps, that you think of these things too much? Perhaps it was not meant that we should always fix our eyes on what is so mysterious. God hid himself away in the beginning, and it is not his will that we should comprehend him.’

The clergyman shook his head in deprecation of that gentle suggestion.

‘Then why did He plant in our souls such a cruel longing? Why did He tempt our wild inquiry, with those shining lights above us, with this wondrous world, with every picture that surrounds the soul of man? No, Alma, He does not hide himself away—it is we who turn our eyes from him to make idols of stone or flesh, and to worship these. Where, then, shall we find him? Not among the follies and superstitions of the ruined Church at the altar of which I have ministered to my shame!’

His words had become so reckless, his manner so agitated, that she was startled. Struck by a sudden thought, she cried—

‘Something new has happened? O Ambrose, what is it?’

‘Nothing,’ he replied; ‘that is, little or nothing. The Inquisition has begun, that is all.’

‘What do you mean?’

He gave a curious laugh.

‘The clodhoppers of Fensea have, in their small way, the instinct of Torquemada. The weasel is akin to the royal tiger. My Christian congregation wish to deliver me over to the moral stake and faggot; as a preliminary they have written to my Bishop.’

‘Of what do they complain now?’

‘That I am a heretic,’ he answered with the same cold laugh.’ Conceive the ridiculousness of the situation! There was some dignity about heresy in the old days, when it meant short shrift, a white shirt, and the auto-da-fé. But an inquisition composed of Summerhayes the grocer, Hayes the saddler, and Miss Rayleigh the schoolmistress; and, instead of Torquemada, the mild old Bishop of Darkdale and Dells!’

She laughed too, but somewhat anxiously. Then she said tenderly, with a certain worship—

‘You are too good for such a place. They do not understand you.’

His manner became serious in a moment.

‘I have flattered my pride with such a thought, but, after all, have they not right on their side? They at least have a definite belief; they at least are satisfied to worship in a ruin, and all they need is an automaton to lead their prayers. When they have stripped me bare, and driven me from the church——’

‘O Ambrose, will they do that?’

‘Certainly. It must come, sooner or later; perhaps the sooner the better. I am tired of my own hypocrisy—of frightening the poor fools with half-truths when the whole of the truth of unbelief is in my heart.’

‘But you do believe,’ she pleaded; ‘in God, and in our Saviour!’

‘Not in the letter, dearest. In the spirit, certainly!’

‘The spirit is everything. Can you not defend yourself?’

‘I shall not try. To attempt to do so would be another hypocrisy. I shall resign.’

‘And then? You will go away?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you will take me with you?’

He drew her gently to him; he kissed her on the forehead.

‘Why should you share my degradation?’ he said. ‘A minister who rejects or is rejected by his Church is a broken man, broken and despised. In these days martyrdom has no glory, no honour. You yourself would be the first to feel the ignominy of my situation, the wretchedness of a petty persecution. It would be better, perhaps, for us to part.’

But with a look of ineffable sweetness and devotion she crept closer to him, and laid her head upon his breast.

‘We shall not part,’ she said. ‘Where you go I shall follow, as Rachel followed her beloved. Your country shall be my country, dearest, and—your God my God!’

All the troubled voices of the night responded to that loving murmur. The moon rose up luminous into the open heaven above the abbey ruins, and flashed upon the two clinging frames, in answer to the earth’s incantation.

CHAPTER II.—OLD LETTERS.

Table of Contents

What’s an old letter but a rocket dark—

Once fired i’ the air and left without a spark

Of that which once, a fiery life within it,

Shot up to heaven, and faded in a minute?

But by the powdery smell and stick corroded,

You guess—how noisily it once exploded!

Cupid’s Postbag=.

I.

To the Right Reverend the Bishop of Darkdale and Dells.

Right Reverend Sir—We, the undersigned, churchwardens and parishioners of the Church of St. Mary Flagellant, in the parish of Fensea and diocese of Dells, feel it our duty to call your lordship’s attention to the conduct of the Rev. Ambrose Bradley, vicar of Fensea aforesaid. It is not without great hesitation that we have come to the conclusion that some sort of an inquiry is necessary. For many months past the parish pulpit has been scandalised by opinions which, coming from the pulpit of a Christian church, have caused the greatest astonishment and horror; but the affair reached its culmination last Ascension Day, when the Vicar actually expressed his scepticism as to many of the Christian miracles, and particularly as to the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh. It is also reported, we believe on good authority, that Mr. Bradley is the author of an obnoxious article in an infidel publication, calling in question such facts as the miraculous conversion of the Apostle Paul, treating other portions of the gospel narrative as merely ‘Symbolical,’ and classing the Bible as only one of many Holy Books with equal pretensions to Divine inspiration. Privately we believe the Vicar of Fensea upholds opinions even more extraordinary than these. It is for your lordship to decide, therefore, whether he is a fit person to fill the sacred office of a Christian minister, especially in these times, when Antichrist is busy at work and the seeds of unbelief find such ready acceptance, especially in the bosom of the young. Personally, we have no complaint against the Vicar, who is well liked by many of his congregation, and is very zealous in works of charity and almsgiving. But the pride of carnal knowledge and the vanity of secular approbation have turned him from that narrow path which leads to righteousness, into the howling wilderness of heterodoxy, wherein, having wandered too far, no man may again find his soul alive. We beseech your lordship to investigate this matter without delay; and, with the assurance of our deepest respect and reverence, we beg to subscribe ourselves, your lordship’s humble and obedient servants,

Henry Summerhayes,

Ezekiel Marvel,

Walter Rochford,

Simpson Pepperback,

John Dove,

Tabitha Rayleigh, spinster,

all of the parish of Fensea.

II.

From the Bishop of Darkdale and Dells to the Rev. Ambrose Bradley, Vicar of Fensea.

Darkdale, May 28.

Dear Mr. Bradley.—I have just received from some of the leading members of your congregation a communication of an extraordinary nature, calling in question, I regret to say, not merely your manner of conducting the sacred service in the church of Fensea, but your very personal orthodoxy in those matters which are the pillars of the Christian faith. I cannot but think that there is some mistake, for I know by early experience how ready churchgoers are, especially in the rural districts, to distort the significance of a preacher’s verbal expressions on difficult points of doctrine.

When you were first promoted to the living of Fensea, you were named to me as a young man of unusual faith and zeal—perfer-vid, indeed, to a fault; and I need not say that I had heard of you otherwise as one from whom your university expected great things. That is only a few years ago. What then has occurred to cause this sad misconception (I take it for granted that it is a misconception) on the part of your parishioners? Perhaps, like many other young preachers of undoubted attainments but limited experience, you have been trying your oratorical wings too much in flights of a mystic philosophy and a poetical rhetoric; and in the course of these flights have, as rhetoricians will, alarmed your hearers unnecessarily. Assuming this for a moment, will you pardon me for saying that there are two ways of preaching the gospel: one subtle and mystical, which appeals only to those spirits who have penetrated into the adytum of Christian theology; one cardinal and rational, which deals only with the simple truths of Christian teaching, and can be understood by the veriest child. Perhaps, indeed, of these two ways, the latter one most commends itself to God. ‘For except a man be born again,’ &c. Be that as it may, and certainly I have no wish to undervalue the subtleties of Christian philosophy, let me impress upon you that, where a congregation is childlike, unprepared, and as it were uninstructed, no teaching can be too direct and simple. Such a congregation asks for bread, not for precious stones of oratory; for kindly promise, not for mystical speculation. That you have seriously questioned, even in your own mind, any of the Divine truths of our creed, as expressed in that Book which is a light and a Jaw unto men, I will not for a moment believe; but I shall be glad to receive forthwith, over your own signature, an assurance that my surmise is a correct one, and that you will be careful in the future to give no further occasion for misconception.—I am, my dear Mr. Bradley, yours,

W. H. Darkdale and Dells.

III.

From the Rev. Ambrose Bradley to the Right Reverend the Bishop of Darkdale and Dells.

Vicarage, May 31, 1880.

My Dear Bishop—I am obliged to you for your kind though categorical letter, to which I hasten to give you a reply. That certain members of my congregation should have forwarded complaints concerning me does not surprise me, seeing that they have already taken me to task on many occasions and made my progress here difficult, if not disagreeable. But I think you will agree with me that there is only one light by which a Christian man, even a Christian clergyman, can consent to be directed—the light of his own conscience and intellect, Divinely implanted within him for his spiritual guidance.

I will be quite candid with you. You ask what has changed me since the day when, zealous, and, as you say, ‘perfervid,’ I was promoted to this ministry. The answer is simple. A deep and conscientious study of the wonderful truths of Science, an eager and impassioned study of the beautiful truths of Art.

I seem to see you raise your hands in horror. But if you will bear with me a little while, perhaps I may convince you that what I have said is not so horrible after all—nay, that it expresses a conviction which exists at the present moment in the bosom of many Christian men.

The great question before the world just now, when the foundations of a particular faith are fatally shaken, when Science denies that Christ as we conceive Him ever was, and when Art bewails wildly that He should ever have been, is whether the Christian religion can continue to exist at all; whether, when a few more years have passed away, it will not present to a modern mind the spectacle that paganism once presented to a mediaeval mind. Now, of our leading Churchmen, not even you, my Lord Bishop, I feel sure, deny that the Church is in danger, both through attacks from without and through a kind of dry-rot within. Lyell and others have demolished and made ridiculous the Mosaic cosmogony Strauss and others have demolished, with more or less success, the Biblical and Christian miracles. No sane man now seriously believes that the sun ever stood still, or that an ass spoke in human speech, or that a multitude of people were ever fed with a few loaves and fishes, or that any solid human form ever walked on the liquid sea. With the old supernaturalism has gone the old asceticism or other-worldliness. It is now pretty well agreed that there are substantially beautiful things in this world which have precedence over fancifully beautiful things in the other. The poets have taught us the loveliness of Nature, the painters have shown us the loveliness of Art. Meantime, what does the Church do? Instead of accepting the new knowledge and the new beauty, instead of building herself up anew on the debris of her shattered superstitions, she buries her face in her own ashes, and utters a senile wail of protestation. Instead of calling upon her children to face the storm, and to build up new bulwarks against the rising wave of secularism, she commands them to wail with her, or to be silent. Instead of perceiving that the priests of Baal and Antichrist might readily be overthrown with the weapons forged by their own hands, she cowers before them powerless, in all the paralysis of superstition, in all the blind fatuity of prayer.

But let us look the facts in the face.

The teachers of the new knowledge have unroofed our Temple to the heavens, but have not destroyed its foundations; they have overthrown its brazen images, but have not touched its solid walls. Put the case in other and stronger words. The God who thundered upon Sinai has vanished into air and cloud, but the God of man’s heavenly aspiration is wonderfully quickened and alive. The Bible of wrath and prophecy is cast contemptuously aside, but the Bible of eternal poetry is imperishable, its wild dreams and