The Perpetual Curate · Chapter 40 (2/2)

“I did not forget myself,” said Gerald; “every man who can distinguish good from evil has a right to advise his fellow-creature. I have not given up that common privilege⁠—don’t hope it, Frank,” said the martyr, with a momentary smile.

“If I could but understand why it is that you make this terrible sacrifice!” said the Curate⁠—“No, I don’t want to argue⁠—of course, you are convinced. I can understand the wish that our unfortunate division had never taken place; but I can’t understand the sacrifice of a man’s life and work. Nothing is perfect in this world; but at least to do something in it⁠—to be good for something⁠—and with your faculties, Gerald!” cried the admiring and regretful brother. “Can abstract right in an institution, if that is what you aim at, be worth the sacrifice of your existence⁠—your power of influencing your fellow-creatures?” This Mr. Wentworth said, being specially moved by the circumstances in which he found himself⁠—for, under any other conditions, such sentiments would have produced the warmest opposition in his Anglican bosom. But he was so far sympathetic that he could be tolerant to his brother who had gone to Rome.

“I know what you mean,” said Gerald; “it is the prevailing theory in England that all human institutions are imperfect. My dear Frank, I want a Church which is not a human institution. In England it seems to be the rule of faith that every man may believe as he pleases. There is no authority either to decide or to punish. If you can foresee what that may lead us to, I cannot. I take refuge in the true Church, where alone there is certainty⁠—where,” said the convert, with a heightened colour and a long-drawn breath, “there is authority clear and decisive. In England you believe what you will, and the result will be one that I at least fear to contemplate; in Rome we believe what⁠—we must,” said Gerald. He said the words slowly, bowing his head more than once with determined submission, as if bending under the yoke. “Frank, it is salvation!” said the new Catholic, with the emphasis of a despairing hope. And for the first time Frank Wentworth perceived what it was which had driven his brother to Rome.

“I understand you now,” said the Perpetual Curate; “it is because there is no room for our conflicting doctrines and latitude of belief. Instead of a Church happily so far imperfect, that a man can put his life to the best account in it, without absolutely delivering up his intellect to a set of doctrines, you seek a perfect Church, in which, for a symmetrical system of doctrine, you lose the use of your existence!” Mr. Wentworth uttered this opinion with all the more vehemence, that it was in direct opposition to his own habitual ideas; but even his veneration for his “Mother” yielded for the moment to his strong sense of his brother’s mistake.

“It is a hard thing to say,” said Gerald, “but it is true. If you but knew the consolation, after years of struggling among the problems of faith, to find one’s self at last upon a rock of authority, of certainty⁠—one holds in one’s hand at last the interpretation of the enigma,” said Gerald. He looked up to the sky as he spoke, and breathed into the serene air a wistful lingering sigh. If it was certainty that echoed in that breath of unsatisfied nature, the sound was sadly out of concord with the sentiment. His soul, notwithstanding that expression of serenity, was still as wistful as the night.

“Have you the interpretation?” said his brother; and Frank, too, looked up into the pure sky above, with its stars which stretched over them serene and silent, arching over the town that lay behind, and of which nobody knew better than he the human mysteries and wonderful unanswerable questions. The heart of the Curate ached to think how many problems lay in the darkness, over which that sky stretched silent, making no sign. There were the sorrowful of the earth, enduring their afflictions, lifting up pitiful hands, demanding of God in their bereavements and in their miseries the reason why. There were all the inequalities of life, side by side, evermore echoing dumbly the same awful question; and over all shone the calm sky which gave no answer. “Have you the interpretation?” he said. “Perhaps you can reconcile free will and predestination⁠—the need of a universal atonement and the existence of individual virtue? But these are not to me the most difficult questions. Can your Church explain why one man is happy and another miserable?⁠—why one has everything and abounds, and the other loses all that is most precious in life? My sister Mary, for example,” said the Curate, “she seems to bear the cross for our family. Her children die and yours live. Can you explain to her why? I have heard her cry out to God to know the reason, and He made no answer. Tell me, have you the interpretation?” cried the young man, on whom the hardness of his own position was pressing at the moment. They went on together in silence for a few minutes, without any attempt on Gerald’s part to answer. “You accept the explanation of the Church in respect to doctrines,” said the Curate, after that pause, “and consent that her authority is sufficient, and that your perplexity is over⁠—that is well enough, so far as it goes: but outside lies a world in which every event is an enigma, where nothing that comes offers any explanation of itself; where God does not show Himself always kind, but by times awful, terrible⁠—a God who smites and does not spare. It is easy to make a harmonious balance of doctrine; but where is the interpretation of life?” The young priest looked back on his memory, and recalled, as if they had been in a book, the daily problems with which he was so well acquainted. As for Gerald, he bowed his head a little, with a kind of reverence, as if he had been bowing before the shrine of a saint.

“I have had a happy life,” said the elder brother. “I have not been driven to ask such questions for myself. To these the Church has but one advice to offer: Trust God.”

“We say so in England,” said Frank Wentworth; “it is the grand scope of our teaching. Trust God. He will not explain Himself, nor can we attempt it. When it is certain that I must be content with this answer for all the sorrows of life, I am content to take my doctrines on the same terms,” said the Perpetual Curate; and by this time they had come to Miss Wentworth’s door. After all, perhaps it was not Gerald, except so far as he was carried by a wonderful force of human sympathy and purity of soul, who was the predestined priest of the family. As he went up to his own room, a momentary spasm of doubt came upon the new convert⁠—whether, perhaps, he was making a sacrifice of his life for a mistake. He hushed the thought forcibly as it rose; such impulses were no longer to be listened to. The same authority which made faith certain, decided every doubt to be sin.