Bryan Maurice; or, The seeker

Preface

Bryan Maurice was written manj years ago, and there are in it several things which would appear in considerably modified shaj^e if the book was to be reconstructed.

But it seems best to let them stand as pictures of a state of the Church, which at that time were drawn to the best of the writer's knowledge and ability. The doctrinal points and the general tone are such as the author is willing to abide by. It has been regarded as in some sort an autobiography. That it is not: in any one of its incidents or sketches of character. The only particular in which it can be so considered is in the mental processes of the change from Unitarianism to the faith of the Church, and even here, as the writer’s experiences were in no way parallel with that of his hero, the likeness is not very close. The hero and heroine are entirely ideal.

When the book was written there was a movement on foot toward the construction of a “Church of the Future,” one which should unite the doctrines of a liberal Christianity with the practices of Catholic antiquity. It was partly to deal with this that the story was conceived and executed ; and so tar as any such ideas are now existent, Bryan Maurice may be useful to show what sort of issue they would find.

It has been objected to all writing of this sort that religious discussion in a novel proves nothing, because the author can shape it so as to I3roduc0 the conclusion desired.

While this is only partly true, since fiction constrains the author much more nearly than is believed by the general reader, it does not touch at all the soundness of an argument by itself considered. This stands or falls on its own merit.

One of the ablest and clearest pieces of reasoning one can find, the late Canon Kingsley’s “Phaethon,” is in the form of dialogue, and of course open to the above criticism.

Bryan Maurice

OR

THE SEEKEE. -

Chapter I

T he Albergo Della Poste of Faenza is not an inviting hostelry. So thought a young American, as on a December evening he sat shivering in one of its dreary chambers. The floor was of brick, with only a little rag of carpet before the fireplace. The fuel provided was either of light grape-vine twigs which flashed up furiously and then fell into white ashes, or else of monstrous green logs which would not kindle. There was an inch of space between the door and its groundsill, through which the air streamed in dolefully. Dinner was just over; there stood a bottle of thin, sour wine upon the table, a paper of rank, weedylooking cigars, and a few books lay beside. A huge, battered travelling-trunk was standing near the bed, upon whose canvas-covering were marked the letters B. M. It was about six o’clock, and the dusk had fairly set in. Upon these slender resources and his own thoughts the traveller was depending to “make a night of it,” at least till toward midnight. It was not a very cheerful prospect. The young man lit a cigar, threw a handful of twigs upon the coals, and coaxed the dryest-looking log forward into the blaze. “ Very like these Italians,” said he to himself, “are their fires. All flash and white heat at first with the revolutionary elements; but the solid, conservative institutions, the nobility and the peasantry and the clergy won’t catch, and a few ashes are all that is left.”

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This was said neither cynically or despondingly, but with a semi-complacent air, as though the speaker thought he had made a good hit. Italy and the Italians were nothing to him except to be looked at. He looked round at his table and took up his journal, made an entry or two in the book, — a simyde pocket diary, — laid it down, seized a French guide-book, and glanced over a couple of pages, making pencilled notes upon its margin, then turned rapidly over the leaves of a catalogue of the Academia dei Belli Arti at Bol^^gna, underscoring here and there the title of a })icture, and then pushed both away from him with the air of a man who finishes his work. Up to this time he had moved rapidly and decidedly, like one who knows his object, but this over, he sat with Kingsley’s “Yeast” in his hand, half open, dreamily looking into the fire. He tried to read a few lines, then flung down the book with an impatient air, and took up, as a dernier resort, a small pocket- Bible.

“ I should like to read that book!” he ejaculated. “Not, of course, for anything in particular, but as a Hebrew history. It has certainly curious things in it. If Jepthah now was called Agamemnon and his daughter Iphigenia, I suppose we should think it poetry and passion and all that; but being it is the Book of Judges, we read it very solemnly to little children Sunday afternoons to keep them still. By Jove! I do think it is the same story, — the legend localized, of course, by Greek and Hebrew. Which had it first? The Greek came from Egypt, so did the Hebrew. Wherefore the Nile is the Father not only of Egypt but of legends. Where, I wonder, is the original home of the myth? Isn’t it, after all, allegory, — nature and all that sort of thing, — Zeus and Here the creative and receptive forces, and the wisdom of the mummies generally ? Only I wish I could shake off the spell of cliildhood and read this book instead of staring at it, or thinking of the dollar I am to have when I read it through. I thought I had put the

Atlantic well between me and my childhood — and yet .”

He fell to reading again, and perhaps by dint of severer effort, perhaps by the help of the train of classical analogies he had invoked and hoped to discover, he succeeded in becoming so absorbed in his reading as not to notice the Bound of a carriage rumbling through the archway ui.der

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his room, nor, half an hour after, the noise of footsteps in the passage-way. There came a rap at the door, and at Ins reply the Cameriere entered, bringing a basket of wood, and uttering a profusion of voluble Italian, of Avhich “Americano” was the only word our hero understood. He tried to frame an answer, half drew out his passport, caught up his phrase-book, stammered, and finally broke down altogether, taking refuge in the only familiar phrase. Non capisco nihite”

“Then it is time I took care of myself,” said a cheerful voice, and a tall gentlemanly-looking man advanced into the room. “I’m quite alone, en route to Bologna, and finding that I’ve a countryman in the same scrape as myself, I have come to propose that we join forces.”

“Delighted to see you, I’m sure — have you dined? Kellner — Gargon — Cam — what’s your name?” was the young man’s reply; but that functionary had gone.

“I took the liberty of giving him his directions beforehand, and if you will permit me to contribute a little from my own stock of creature comforts we shall do better than by drawing on the resources of the Della Poste.”

“My name is Gardiner. You shall tell me yours by and by, if you think best.”

The stranger threw himself into a chair, and stretched out his feet to the now blazing fire, drew from his pocket a cigar-case, offered its contents to his host, lighted another for himself, and a pleased look of comfort came over his handsome features. He was a tall man, large framed, and slightly stooping, the head beginning to be bald a little. The whiskers trimmed in the English fashion. He wore spectacles, his hands were white and very handsome, his mouth showed great firmness, and his forehead was high and ample. He glanced at the table, and, catching sight of the opened Bible laid face downward, a graver look came over his face.

“ I beg your pardon,” he said ; “ I hope I have not trespassed. You were not preparing for bed, were you ?”

“ Oh no, not at all. Why did you — oh, I see,” replied the younger man. “ No, I was not reading — that is, I was. I was reading simply for occupation. You interrupted nothing. I shall not go to bed these three hours or more. I am very glad you have come in, indeed.”

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There came another knock at the door, and the Caraeriere reappeared ^vith a small travelling-case, from which the new-comer speedily produced a flask — straw-covered and inviting-looking.

“ I have taken the liberty,” he said, “ of bringing you some of the vino di Capri to try. It is direct from Naples. You have not been there yet?”

“No, I am on my way to Rome. I left Bologna this morning.”

“ Ah — where did you stop ? At the Svizzer, I suppose ? Were there any Americans there — a tall, elderly lady and two young ones ?”

“ No, sir ; only English, and the oflicers of an Austrian regiment. Stop — I believe a party came in last night, and one of the ladies was tall. I passed them on the stairs, and heard her say, ‘ My son promised to meet me here but more I can’t tell you.”

“ That is enough,” said the elder. “ I was delayed at Ancona, by this passport nuisance, a whole day, and went out to see the Santa Casa at Loretto. What an absurdity it is to suppose that a house should fly through the air from Palestine to Italy, and yet Romanism insists upon this as one of her miracles.”

“ Do you really suppose, sir, educated Catholics believe any such things ? I supposed that w^e had got nearly to the end of holding the miracles as a ground of belief, and after all, one miracle is about as hard to believe as another.”

“ But you were reading the Bible when I came in. What do you hold that to be ?”

“ I hardly know, sir. I was brought up to believe I ought to read it ; I never was told why, and so I never did read it. I used to hear a chapter at morning and night read at school and college, and a little now and then on Sundays. I believed till I was ten or twelve that the Old Testament was sent down to Moses on Mount Sinai, and the New I supposed came in some equally marvellous way. Then I was told that Paley was unanswerable to prove the miracles, but Paley’s arguments did not seem to me to answer Strauss or Theodore Parker. So I went to my teachers, who assured me that the Sermon on the Mount proved its own divinity; and again, Mr. Emerson made me think something very like that was to be found in the Hindoo and Persian. I

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was told that there must be five original races, and that being so, I can’t see that Genesis is to be taken very literally. I rather incline, just now, to the notion that it is the allegorical principle of good and evil, as the Hebrew mind shaped it, which is told in the story of Adam and Eve. The feminine part of the soul’s nature, the appetite, the will, the desire, covets knowledge ; the reason, the calculating, manly element, yields, and with knowledge comes of course sorrow, — since only through knowledge and sorrow can be progress. However, I am all afloat, I confess. I was looking just now at the coincidences between the Hebrew and Greek legends, and trying to put them exactly on the same level. I left as many prejudices as I could at the Custom-house of Rotterdam, but I find old associations too strong ; and yet I cannot see why Samson and Hercules should not be equally legendary, or why the battles under Troy’s walls are not quite as real as those before Jericho.”

“ Where were you educated, sir?” broke in the elder.

Old Harvard,” was the reply.

“ So I supposed,” said Gardiner. “ Old Harvard, being younger probably than the youngest building in these streets, has the right to walk roughshod over the truths of the past. I myself had a little of the Harvard training, and know something of its teachings. I don’t much wonder at your present difficulties. Have you any objection to believing?”

“ I was brought up to hate and despise New England Calvinism, and to suppose that my common sense was my own, and not to be the slave of impossible propositions. I have an objection to believing in predestination, for that seems to me to settle all need of belief.”

“ Well, w^e will let Calvin and Arminius go for the present — let us dispose of Genesis. Are you entirely committed to the five-race theory ?”

“Not at all ; I have no other objections than Behring’s Straits, and they never seemed to me insuperable.”

“ Are you willing, then, to concede that Genesis may be true?”

“Certainly — only I can make very little sense of it; a wild legendary book, fragmentary, minute in detail, and vast in outline, breaking into startling episodes, such as the Deluge, the fall of Sodom, the dispersion of Babel, and the sacrifice of Isaac. I never could-- pardon me, if I shock

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you — I never could receive that for anything but a myth. The divine command could not require anything so awful to test a man’s faith. No, I do not feel willing that Genesis be taken except as an allegory.”

“ I hardly know where to begin with you. I suppose you will accept a Creative Spirit ?”

“Certainly — Bonaparte’s reply to the savans always seemed to me conclusive — ‘Very well, Messieurs — but who made all that ”

“And you don’t object to man as a part of His scheme ?”

“ No, of course not.”

“ And He made man sinful ?”

“Why no, I suppose not — that is hardly consistent -with my idea of the Creator.”

“ Then man is innocent now ?”

“ There is the difficulty, sir. I have rather taken up the theory that there is no such thing as sin, that it is only the conflicting elements of man’s nature working out of harmony in his efforts after the highest good : that is, what is sin in one man is only the abandoned virtue of a lower stage. Duelling, for instance, becomes murder as we grow civilized.”

“ And are there no sins which are always sin independent of society ?”

The young man got up from his chair and paced the room hastily once or twice, looked at his companion, then his eyes fell.

“ Well, I give up that point,” said he ; “yes, I know that sin is a reality, and theories are just so much bravado and whistling in the dark. I suppose — I’m — like what most young men are ; and if I had any doubt about myself, I’ve seen one or two cold-blooded things which about settle the question. Yes, sin has got into man — somehow — but that story of the apple and the serpent is hardly anything but a fable.”

“ Let us leave the serpent — though I should like to have you explain the universal hatred of mankind for the serpent race — let us leave him for the present and keep to what you call the apple — a word you won’t find in the Mosaic account, by the way. What were the three things which tempted Eve? It was good for food, pleasant to the

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eyes, and to be desired to make one wise. Now here are the three representative qualities which the Church in her baptismal covenant describes as the world, the flesh, and the devil : that is, the bodily appetite, innocent in itself, except for the prohibition ; the pleasure of the eyes, that is, the intellectual faculty, the perceptive powers ; and the moral element, the soul’s craving for power. Now turn to the New Testament to St. Luke’s gospel-account of the temptation. What is there addressed to our Blessed Lord? The temptation of the bodily appetite, to make the stones bread; of the intellect, as involved in worldly dominion; and of the soul, in the casting Himself down from the pinnacle of the Temple in order to save Himself by Hivine power. He is in this last to sacrifice Himself in appearance to win the popular belief The sin is not that He who made the five loaves feed the multitude should make the stones bread, nor that the Messiah-King of the whole earth should possess the world’s kingdoms, nor that He who was lifted up to be the great High Priest of the earth should offer His life for the people. The sin was in transgressing God’s command and losing the subjecting power of His own will. Now see how exactly that corresponds to Adam’s temptation, or rather to Eve’s.”

“ I see,” said the young man thoughtfully ; “ I see there is more in it than I fancied. But what of that which folloAVS? God inflicts death as the penalty for a single sin: is not that hard ?”

“ No, it is consequence — merciful consequence. You say you left your prejudices at Rotterdam — but how about your New England Harvard prejudice in favor of the sanctity of human life? Is death never a blessing?”

“I confess I never thought it so. I read Bulwer’s ‘ Zanoni’ in College, and I longed for Mejnour’s power of indefinite living. Life is so short and so glorious.”

Gardiner smiled sadly, and then said : “ Death is an ultimate fact for humanity at any rate — apart from revelation; but how could Adam live for ever, having yielded to his animal nature and let it get dominion over him ? He had become animal — the appetite sought for the appetite’s sake. An immortality of drunkenness would be an immortality of misery, a progressive degradation. Even Zanoni and

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Mejnour, if I remember, won tlieir right to live by conquering the body’s desires.”

“Yes, you are right; and I see too that temptation to an innocent being must have been external. I never thought of that. But why was not Adam forgiven and restored? God is surely sufficient for that.”

“ You must remember that man was created in the image of his Maker, and therefore a free agent. Restoration could only be by enabling him to recover his lost self-possession. He had accepted the dominion of an evil power, for, as you say, the temptation must have been external. Now that is given in hope. Eve is promised that from her seed shall come the Deliverer. And the first institution for fulfilling that promise is one which directly meets the animal tendency — the institution of the family. Take Genesis, and you will find it the record of family life. There is a priesthood of the first-born. Cain oflfers an unworthy offering — not sacrifice — but purchase. He gives the fruits of the ground. God’s bounty he claims as his own possession. Abel’s offering is sacrifice, the shedding of blood — according to appointed type of a death to come. Death which ends the dominion of the flesh, the world, and Satan, is to be the gate of life. This world has been unparadised to man by his own sin. God gives him the hope of a new and better one. What is the historic fact of all primal and savage races? They are families, tribes, clans: the head is the born head and King and Patriarch. God, in the calling of Abraham, developes the state. The Jewish theocracy introduces a new order into the world. The Asian system, which in India and China still exists, is based upon the family. The European, upon the national life. The American, with its Democratic theories, is the beginning of the Church. These three institutions — Family, State, and Church — are G^d’s divine appointment correspondent to the physical, intellectual, and spiritual elements in man to work out his restoration.”

“ That I like ; it seems to me grand : but how does the Mediatorship of Jesus come in ?”

“ When you come to understand the Church you will see. But in the first place what was man’s offence in essence ? Disobedience : now, to renew the race, it was necesssry that it be obedient, and to that the obedience of a Federal head

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was necessary. The Church is the Church of Christ. It is His humanity possessing the race. Its condition is unity with Him and in Him.”

“You get beyond me there, sir. I have no idea of a Church beyond that of a worshipping assembly, and I must say I think the private, personal devotion much better than

most of the worship I see ; and yet Last summer I

was in Munich. I strayed into the Pfarrer Kirche — the new one. There was no one there but a peasant woman and her little one. She knelt down with the child in her arms, put its little hands together, and made it repeat after her a prayer. It brought the tears into my eyes, and I would have given anything for her faith and some one to lead me as a little child into some sort of belief and desire of prayer.”

“ Have you ever attended the Church services — I mean the Episcopal Church ?”

“Yes, now and then, and they always pleased me: but I couldn’t find the places ; and then there seemed so little reality about them, and the sermons were so flat and flimsy — pious homilies about Joseph and his brethren, like good little story-books. I tried hard to be a zealous Unitarian, but you see it has led me into questioning everything. Only I know,” — and here he broke out into startling energy — “ I know the Saviour’s teachings are true — the Sermon on the Mount: the rest is all Jewish to me. I can’t comprehend it. I was very eager in reform movements at home, but they were all so one-sided and full of Uhe’ cause. The Abolitionists were so terribly bitter, and the Temperance men so narrow and ignorant, and the Socialists — I hung by them a good while — simple, impracticable. Living in phalansteries did not reform the world, as by the most able demonstration it should. One-half would try to speculate on the other half. I thought it best to come away and see Europe. The world suited me very well. I had enough to live on in it, and the rest was all visionary. I suppose I have turned Epicurean — but why not?”

“ If the dead rise not, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,” said Gardiner, quietly.

They sat silently for a few moments, and then the young man resumed : “ I wish I could see more of you, sir ; you 2

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seem to have clear views at least; perhaps you could teach me. May I ask your route?”

“I am going on to Bologna, to-morrow, to meet my mother and some young friends with her ; and then we intend, if nothing happens to turn us back, to spend a part of the winter in Rome — at least to be there during the Christmas season.”

“ I go to Rome to-morrow ; we may meet.”

“ I hope so,” said Gardiner.

“ I suppose we all bank at Prince Torlonia’s, and there we can learn each other's address.” The young man drew from his diary a card and handed it to the visitor : upon it was simply printed, in old English black-letter, the name, Bryan Maurice.

“ And now,” said Gardiner, “ before we part, do me one favor. lam in orders, and as we are strangers in a strange land together we ought to remember Who it is by Whose care we are guided. Will you share my worship, even though I trespass upon your Unitarian ideas a little?”

“Certainly,” said Maurice; and without farther speech Gardiner took up the pocket-Bible and read the first chapter of St. John’s Gospel. The words fell with metallic distinctness upon the ear of the young man. The strangeness of the whole thing gave them power, and for the first time in his life the idea came to him of the preexistence of the Saviour to the human life of Jesus upon earth. As he finished the chapter, Gardiner, simply saying, “Let us pray,” knelt down beside the little table. IMaurice’s first impulse was simply to bow his face upon his hands, but something in him made him ashamed of this, and he, too, for the first time in his life, knelt in worship.

Whether the clergyman was extemporizing, or reading from a book, or repeating from memory, he knew not. He did not look up, but the words flowed readily. A series of brief prayers — each complete in itself, yet following as by a subtle law of harmony — each with a central thought, and in language that, even in the midst of his deep emotion, struck him as of rare beauty, then followed, ending with the Lord’s Prayer and the simple and scriptural benediction which, even in the Unitarian pulpit, had been familiar to him — a relic of its ancient Puritan faith. Silence follov/ed, and in that moment’s pause, ere either rose from his knees,

BRYAX MAURICE OR THE SEEKER.

a flood of unformed thoughts rushed upon the young man’s mind.

Gardiner rose presently, and taking up his travelling-case, held out his hand, saying, “Good-night! I leave early in the morning, and shall not see you again,” pressed the hand held out to him, and was gone.

Maurice would fain have sate longer, but the obstinate fire had died to ashes, and the cold drove him to his bed.

Chapter II

T he next morning Maurice was roused by his vetiiro at the early dawn, after the uncomfortable fashion of that class, who will persist in beginning a day’s journey which shall end in the middle of the afternoon, before the cockcrowing. While he was sipping his cup of weak coffee, and trying to persuade himself that the lukewarm raw egg which was served with it was eatable, the Cameriere brought his bill, and with it a small package, which in pantomime he intimated to Maurice was for him. At the same moment, the impatient -yeitfro appeared and seized the travelling-trunk, volubly pouring forth, meanwhile, an appeal to the traveller. He could only slip the packet into his coat pocket, and make up from the strange coins in his purse the amount of the bill, not forgetting the Cameriere’s **huono mano.'^

It was too dark when he entered the vehicle to do aught but resume the slumber from which he had been too early called ; and when he woke, it was broad day. He remembered the packet in his coat, and drew it forth. It was simply addressed to him, with the number of his room at the inn. He tore off the wrapper, and found a small prayer-book of the American Episcopal Church, with the name “S. Gardiner” written in a thin, clear hand on the fly-leaf. It was a small octavo, somewhat worn, with a plain gilt cross upon either cover. He spent some time turning over its pages. At first it interested him much, for his college training enabled him to appreciate the pure English of its style. It was something new to read in the Gospels and Epistles the Scripture without separation into texts. The Psalter caught his eye, and something unfamiliar in the twenty-third Psalm, which he had often heard chanted in the Unitarian service, led him to take out his pocket-Bibh 16

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and compare the two. In spite of his avowed intention to treat the Bible as a common book, it shocked his feeling of reverence a little to find the entire version differing. So, j>romising himself to examine it hereafter in detail, he turned to the hymns at the end. They did not please him. There was a directness of devout expression, an orthodoxy, it seemed to him, which did not suit the refined reticence of Harvard. So the book went into his pocket again, and the rest of the day he saw it no more. At night, however, he took it and tried to use it, but could find nothing exactly appropriate to his mood of mind ; the service for evening prayer in families struck him as lengthy and wanting in power. If that was the book Gardiner had used, as he suspected, it had lost its magic.

At Ancona INIaurice caught the diligence for Rome. Shut up in the interior with three others — a German, an Italian, and a Frenchman — the journey was passed in a dreamy vicissitude of mountain scenery and nights of broken slumbers — of strange dinners at dirty inns— of a polyglot conversation and general fraternizing of travellers — but all of it wholly external. It did him good, however — gave tone and balance to his mind, which had been growing morbid in his soliRiry travel.