Chapter VII: Section XI: will do well to read again Sections I to IV, which assuredly

place the service of Zion Chapel in a far less attractive light than that thrown upon the ceremony in progress beneath the dome of St. Peter's.

II. Thus the listener passes from the confines of the Chapel to the limitless expanse of the common without: and the change in externals is indicative also of that within. Whilst discerning the errors of preacher and congregation, the critic has been blinded to the fact that he, too, is equally removed from the spirit of love designed to prove the inspiring principle of all forms of Christianity, however crude their mode of expression. The soothing influence of Nature to which he has ever been peculiarly susceptible, causes at once

A glad rebound
From the heart beneath, as if, God speeding me,
I entered his church-door, nature leading me. (ll. 274-276.)

So he stands, recalling the visions of youth, when he "looked to these very skies, probing their immensities," and "found God there, his visible power." The power was unquestionable, a mere response to the evidence of the senses; but reason, coming to the aid of sight, pointed to the existence also of Love, "the nobler dower." The deduction is logical, since the absence of Love at once imposes limitations to power otherwise apparently infinite. The craving for love existent within the human heart demands satisfaction, and if in this direction the Deity is _unable_ to satisfy the needs of his creatures, man here surpasses his maker, the creature the creator. Irresponsible power, not comprehensive of love, is of the character of that exercised by Setebos according to the theory of Caliban. Here man is seen endowed with gifts of heart and brain, to exercise _through_ his own will, but _for_ the glory of his creator "as a mere machine could never do." Power (in this place synonymous with force combined with knowledge) may advance by degrees, not so Love. Love does not admit of measurement, since it is by nature infinite. As with eternity, so with Love. By no relative estimate of time can any possible realization of eternity be approached; the sole result of any such attempt at exposition being necessarily conducive to a wholly erroneous impression on the mind, since that which is in its essence infinite admits of no defined measure. Thus infinite Love remains infinite in spite of human limitations. Whilst absolute truth remains, though the revelation to man is gradual, so does Love remain unimpaired, though man may profit by or abuse it.

'Tis not a thing to bear increase
As power does: be love less or more
In the heart of man, he keeps it shut
Or opes it wide, as he pleases, but
Love's sum remains what it was before. (ll. 322-326.)

Thus S. Augustine: "Do heaven and earth then contain Thee, since Thou fillest them?... The vessels which are full of Thee do not confine Thee, though they should be shattered, Thou wouldest not be poured out."[63]

To sum up: Where Power alone was at first discernible, in the wonderful care manifested in the smallest creation, "in the leaf, in the stone," the work of Love eventually became equally clear. For a similar expression of Browning's more immediately personal faith we have only to turn to his latest published work, _The Reverie of Asolando_.

From the first Power was--I knew.
Life has made clear to me,
That, strive but for closer view,
Love were as plain to see.

In simple faith in this all-prevailing Providence, in a recognition of the immanence of the Divine Love, the critic of Zion Chapel believes himself to have found the highest form of worship. Before the night is ended he is, however, to learn differently.

The Vision of Sections VII to IX renders still more forcible the revelation already begun with the escape from the Chapel--that the Love which may be duly worshipped alone in spirit and in truth yet recognizes the feeblest manifestation of either in the worshipper: and that the nearest approach to union with the Divine Love is to be sought in a fuller and more immediate response to the human. And it is worthy of notice that the Vision does not reveal itself within the confines of Zion Chapel, the abode of religious exclusiveness and intolerance; only when the freer atmosphere of Nature has been reached.

III. Rome, St. Peter's. With the opening of the next division of the Poem (Sections X to XII), we find the man who has been anxious that the divine worship shall be celebrated in beauty, as well as in spirit and in truth, again an onlooker: waiting without the walls of St. Peter's, "that miraculous Dome of God,"--waiting without, yet with eye "free to pierce the crust of the outer wall," and perceive the crowd thronging the cathedral

In expectation
Of the main-altar's consummation.

And here is to be found all that was wanting to the bare whitewashed interior of "Mount Zion" with its "lath and plaster entry," with "the forms burlesque, uncouth" of its worship. Here the vast building

Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,
With marble for brick, and stones of price
For garniture of the edifice. (ll. 538-540.)

In place of the "snuffle" of the Methodist congregation and the "immense stupidity" of the utterances of the preacher is the silence which may be felt of that solemn moment preceding the elevation, when "the organ blatant holds his breath.... As if God's hushing finger grazed him." (ll. 574-575.) Whatever the sympathies of spectator or author, no lines in the entire poem are more impressive for the reader than those which follow:

Earth breaks up, time drops away,
In flows heaven, with its new day
Of endless life, when He who trod,
Very man and very God,
This earth in weakness, shame and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursed tree,--
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,
But the one God, All in all,
King of kings, Lord of lords,
As His servant John received the words,
"I died, and live for evermore!" (ll. 581-593.)

The conviction is almost inevitable that here something beyond even the power of dramatic genius has to be reckoned with; that some spirit more nearly akin to intimate personal sympathy served as inspiration of this passage.

Carried away by the infection of the prevailing enthusiasm, the spectator questions as to the cause which has led him to remain without upon the threshold-stone of the cathedral, whilst He who has led him hither is within. And the answer which Reason returns is, that whilst the Divine Wisdom may be capable of discerning the faith and love existent beneath the outward imagery, yet with "mere man" the case is otherwise; hence for him to disregard the inward promptings of his nature is dangerous to his spiritual welfare. Thus the decision:

I, a mere man, fear to quit
The due God gave me as most fit
To guide my footsteps through life's maze,
Because himself discerns all ways
Open to reach him. (ll. 621-625.)

For him to whom the bare walls of Zion Chapel have proved repellant, the glories of St. Peter's may conceivably be fatally attractive in their appeal to the senses: such, reasonably or unreasonably, is at least the belief of the soliloquist. The argument of this eleventh Section is perhaps the most difficult to follow satisfactorily of all those leading to the ultimate choice of creed. Before attempting to estimate the worth of the conclusions, it may be well to trace briefly the line of thought by which they appear to have been reached.

(1) The spectator, at first struck by the glory of outward display as a means of still imposing upon the world "Rome's gross yoke," is yet led, through proximity to the Divine Presence, whilst seeing the error, "above the scope of error" to realize the love. And further, to admit (2) that the love inspiring the worshippers of St. Peter's on this Christmas Eve of 1849 was also "the love of those first Christian days," a love which did not hesitate to sacrifice all which might interpose between itself and the Divine Love whence it emanated. When

The antique sovereign Intellect
Which then sat ruling in the world,
... was hurled
From the throne he reigned upon. (ll. 650-653.)

Subsequently followed all the wealth of poetry and rhetoric, of sculpture and painting sometime the pride of the classical world. Love, and it _was_ Love which was acting, drew her children aside from these intellectual and sensuous gratifications, and pointed to the Crucified. She thus, says the soliloquist, had demanded of her votaries vast sacrifices which might reasonably have been held essential in the early days of Christianity. We have already seen, indeed, how empty of ultimate satisfaction had been these same intellectual pleasures to Cleon: how obviously light would have been, to him, the sacrifice involved in an acceptance of any faith which should afford a definite and reasonable hope for a future state of existence: how small a price would have been the loss of life temporal in view of the gain of life eternal. (3) But the critic, whilst admitting the sublimity of the sacrifice of the first century of the Christian era, deprecates the demand made for its repetition in the nineteenth. It is time for Love's children not only to "creep, stand steady upon their feet," but to "walk already. Not to speak of trying to climb" (ll. 697-699). The limitations imposed upon the intellect and its free development should long since have been discarded. (4) Yet, though recognizing this to the full, the speaker will not condemn one of those, however mistaken, whose foreheads bear "_lover_ written above the earnest eyes of them." These worshippers within St. Peter's need some satisfaction of the demands made upon their nature by an inherent craving for beauty; and yet have they sacrificed for Love's sake all that they might have found of intense enjoyment in unfettered life. Dwelling amidst the glories of Rome, ancient and modern, they yet turn from the "Majesties of art around them." Faith struggles to suppress intellectual and artistic cravings; and these, at length subdued, they "offer up to God for a present." Denied in the world without the sensuous satisfaction for which they yearn, they would seek it in the display attendant on the Roman Catholic ritual. This is the view of the man who believes himself to be the true "lover" of God, capable of worshipping in spirit and in truth.

How far is he justified in such criticism? Unquestionably he is prejudiced. There exists an unconscious mental bias towards that creed which he is represented as finally accepting; and there is little doubt that it is Browning's intention to expose the prejudice. The failure in appreciation of the ceremonial at St. Peter's arises from inability to apprehend beauty in the outward accessories of the service of which he is witness. To his nature it would appear that the demand upon the sensuous side is not so strong as he imagines when he expresses the fear of entering the cathedral and joining the worshipping crowd. He seems, moreover, to ignore, or to pass over lightly, the productions of Christian art, whether in painting or in the music of religious ritual, when he inquires (ll. 681, _et seq._):

Love, surely, from that music's lingering,
Might have filched her organ-fingering,
Nor chosen rather to set prayings
To hog-grunts, praises to horse-neighings.

He ignores, too, the value of symbolism in the later mocking allusion to this experience as "buffoonery--posturings and petticoatings."

In the main line of thought, however, beginning with Section XI, and developed more fully in XII, is treated no imaginary danger, but that bound inevitably to attend on any religious system in which authority is paramount. The error attributed to the advocates of the Roman Catholic creed is that of rendering the head too completely subservient to the heart. Faith cannot indeed be acquired by any considerations of logic; nevertheless, there is no necessity that Reason and Faith should prove antagonistic forces. To the brain, as well as to the heart, must be allowed scope for development. Hence the speaker represents that Church, in which freedom of thought is limited, as interposing as an intermediary between the conscience and the Divine influence. Such Church he regards as having devoted its energies to the development of a single element or faculty of human nature to the exclusion or limitation of the rest. Nevertheless, in one direction there has been development to an extraordinary degree: and Browning himself, as we have good reason to know, would have been unlikely to criticize adversely this whole-hearted devotion to a cause. For illustration the soliloquist employs that of the sculptor who, without calculating the dimensions of his marble, devotes his energies to the production of a perfect head and shoulders only. This, though necessarily unfinished in actual performance, is far grander in conception than a smaller and fully modelled figure; and the spectator is free to seek elsewhere the completion of the unfinished statue in the work of an artist complementary to that of the first. Thus the onlooker at St. Peter's resolves to accept the provision there offered for the "satisfaction of his love," then depart elsewhere--depart to seek the completion of the statue--"that [his] intellect may find its share." And it is noteworthy that the same critic, who condescends to the employment of language such as that marking the references to the service of St Peter's, ascribes to the Church of Rome the development of that element which he esteems highest in human nature. Love is ever with the author of _Christmas Eve_, as with the soliloquist, of worth immeasurably greater than mere intellect.

IV. With Section XIII the critic of Zion Chapel passes once more into the night in search of satisfaction for those demands of the intellect which have been left unanswered at St. Peter's; and in Section XIV he is represented as finding that which he seeks. Love and Faith to the exclusion of intellectual development he has left in the cathedral at Rome; Intellect without Love he meets in the Lecture Hall at Göttingen. Believing himself to have learned the lesson that wherever even nominal followers of Christ are to be found, there, too, is the Divine Presence, he is now "cautious" how he "suffers to slip"

The chance of joining in fellowship
With any that call themselves his friends. (ll. 800-803.)

Hence, entering the Hall, he follows the course of the consumptive Lecturer's reasoning on "the myth of Christ." As to this fable which "Millions believe to the letter" he (the Lecturer) proposes to attempt the work of discrimination between truth and legend.

(1) He reminds his audience, and justly, that it is well at times to pause to inquire concerning the source of articles of their belief; historic fact may become disguised or concealed by accretions of legendary narrative gathered round it: by the various expositions assigned it by commentators of different ages. (2) Having thus examined and freed his "myth" from the misinterpretations of the early disciples, from later additions and modifications; when all has been done he yet admits that the residuum is well worthy of preservation.

A Man!--a right true man, however,
Whose work was worthy a man's endeavour. (ll. 876-877.)

Moreover

Was _he_ not surely the first to insist on
The natural sovereignty of our race? (ll. 888-889.)

As it were in startling comment upon the assertion of this natural sovereignty, the Professor's further speech is interrupted by a fit of coughing, and the listener avails himself of the opportunity thus offered to leave the Hall.

Once more free to breathe the outer air his critical powers reassert themselves, and he sees from a point of observation, sufficiently removed, the relative effects of the excesses of the most widely differing forms of Christianity and of that form of belief or of scepticism which denies the divinity of the founder of the creed. His decision is given in favour of superstition as opposed to scepticism.

Truth's atmosphere may grow mephitic
When Papist struggles with Dissenter,

* * * * *

Each, that thus sets the pure air seething,
May poison it for healthy breathing--
But the Critic leaves no air to poison. (ll. 898-909.)

Then follows the criticism of the Critic.

What has the lecturer, indeed, left to the followers of the Christ?

(1) Intellect? Is the possession of pure intellect to be accounted cause for worship? Even so, others have taught morality as Christ taught it, with the difference (and this surely an advantage from the critic's standpoint) that these teachers have failed to assert of themselves that to which Christ laid claim on his own behalf: that,

He, the sage and humble,
Was also one with the Creator. (ll. 922-923.)

(2) Worship of the intellect being thus disallowed, what then of the moral worth of the Man Christ as admitted by the Lecturer? Is mere virtue, however great in degree, sufficient to claim as of right for its possessor the submission of his fellow men? Perfection of moral character being allowed, is this adequate reason that the Christ should be held supreme ruler of the race? To answer the question satisfactorily one of two theories must be accepted: either "goodness" is of human "invention" or it is a divine gift freely bestowed. If the first, the Professor's listener holds that "worship were that man's fit requital" who should have proved himself capable of exhibiting in his own life, _for the first time in the world's history_, that which "goodness" really is. Recognizing, however, the incontrovertible fact that moral worth was present in the world prior to the foundation of Christianity, the so-called "invention" of goodness resolves itself into a mere matter of definition, and the adjustment of names to qualities already existent. In this case he who has achieved this work is no more deserving of worship as the originator or creator of goodness than is Harvey to be adjudged inventor of the circulation of the blood. One is inclined here to question whether the speaker is not carrying his argument beyond the point necessary to the exposure of the weakness of the Lecturer's position as professed follower of a merely human Christ. Whether or not this be so, he has succeeded in proving logically untenable the first of the two hypotheses suggested in this connection. What then of the second? If goodness is admittedly the direct gift of God, if the founder of Christianity taught how best to preserve such gift "free from fleshly taint"; then he merits indeed the title of Saint, but no more transcendent honour, his powers differing in degree, not in kind, from those of his fellow men: he was inspired, but as Shakespeare was inspired. No immensity of virtue may effect the conversion of human nature into the divine; and the man of supreme moral dignity, as of marvellous intellectual capacity, remains man only; vastly, but yet measurably, beyond his fellows; the position attained being one to which it is possible that humanity may again attain, nay, which it may even surpass in the future "by growth of soul." And this divine gift of goodness may, moreover, necessarily be bestowed in accordance with the divine will; hence, he who made this man Pilate may well make "this other" Christ. Thus then, if the Prophet of Nazareth is to be regarded as mere man, the Professor's argument breaks down following the adoption of either hypothesis--that involving a divine or a human origin of goodness.

Is there any point at which the faith of the Christian may come into contact with that of him who, whilst calling himself a follower of Christ, by a denial of His divinity refuses credence to a direct assertion on the part of his leader? To the Christian the main proof of divine inspiration is the spark of divine light kindled within the human breast, that which supplies motive for action, which instigates to practical application of the good already recognized as good by the intelligence: not identical with conscience (as is clear from line 1033), but the power which awakens the activities of conscience. Here again a suggestion of Browning's usual estimate of the relative worth of the intellect and the heart. The man whose moral standard of life is most depraved is yet possessed of the capacity for discriminating between good and evil; since such capacity does not necessarily imply the co-existence of a life-giving faith, and through faith alone may knowledge become of practical utility.

Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?
Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more
Of what right is, than arrives at birth
In the best man's acts that we bow before. (ll. 1032-1035.)

To _know_ is not to _do_: a distinction akin to that drawn in the Epistle of James[64] between intellectual credence and living faith--between belief, the result of the acceptance of certain facts making inevitable appeal to the intellect, and faith inspiring life, the ultimate results of which are manifest in action. This distinction we find again strikingly presented in parabolic form in _Shah Abbas_ of _Ferishtah's Fancies_.

The most marked lines of divergence between listener and lecturer would appear then to be that mere abstract good, even morality personified, is insufficient for the satisfaction of the demands of human nature: that the life lived in Palestine did not denote a mere renewal of things old, a more extended development of the good already existent in the world. It introduced a new and more active principle of life, that to which all past history had been leading up, that from which the future history of the human race must take its starting point. _The revelation of God in man had been made to men._ To sum up--

Morality to the uttermost,
Supreme in Christ as we all confess,
Why need we prove would avail no jot
To make him God, if God he were not?
What is the point where himself lays stress?
Does the precept run, "Believe in good,
In justice, truth, now understood
For the first time?"--or, "Believe in me,
Who lived and died, yet essentially
Am Lord of Life?" Whoever can take
The same to his heart and for mere love's sake
Conceive of the love,--that man obtains
A new truth; no conviction gains
Of an old one only, made intense
By a fresh appeal to his faded sense. (ll. 1045-1059.)

These the lines of divergence. Are there none of approach? asks the listener who is gradually learning from his night's experience to seek a common bond of sympathy between himself and his fellow men, rather than an increase of the repulsion so spontaneously awakened within the walls of Zion Chapel. At Rome he took his share in the "feast of love," which afforded little satisfaction to intellectual cravings; here he would fain accept all that may accrue to him from the pursuit of learning apart from love.

Unlearned love was safe from spurning--
Can't we respect your loveless learning? (ll. 1084-1085.)

Recognizing the zeal for truth which has instigated the critical investigations of the lecturer, he is prepared, with a liberality of which he is clearly sufficiently conscious, to allow to him and to his followers such benefit as may be derived from the acceptance of "a loveless creed"; even conceding to them, so be it they still desire it, the name of Christian, which he too bears. With generosity yet greater he will refrain from all attempt to disturb that condition of stoical calm to which they have at length attained, by pointing out to them the weaknesses of their theory, which he has just so amply demonstrated to his own satisfaction.

V. Thus he leaves the lecture hall in a "genial mood of tolerance," of which the conclusions of Section XIX are the outcome. The element of truth existent in varying forms of creed, beneath all dissimilarities of outward expression, has at length become recognizable; carrying with it the prevision of that complete union ultimately to be effected before "the general Father's throne." When "the saints of many a warring creed" shall have learned

That _all_ paths to the Father lead
Where Self the feet have spurned.

Where

Moravian hymn and Roman chant
In one devotion blend;

and all

Discords find harmonious close,
In God's atoning ear.[65]

Of what nobler conception, it may be asked, is the human imagination capable? Nevertheless, to certain natures (so holds the soliloquist, clearly recognizing his own as of this calibre) there is danger lest this generous comprehensiveness should prove inseparable from the "mild indifferentism" fatal to action. Hence in Section XX, whilst engaged in watching his

Foolish heart expand
In the lazy glow of benevolence, (ll. 1154-1155.)

he is not surprised to perceive, in the token of the receding vesture, indications of the divine disapproval of his position. And he is led to the conclusion that not only for the individual worshipper must there be some special form of creed best adapted to the individual needs of temperament, but (as ll. 1158-1159 would appear to suggest) some _absolute_ form of creed may possibly be discoverable. And to this "single track":

God, by God's own ways occult,
May--doth, I will believe--bring back
All wanderers. (ll. 1170-1172.)

Thus unity is attained, but with a suggestion of methods of attainment other than those indicated at the close of Section XIX. The main difference of intention between the two Sections would appear to be that whilst here (XX) also ultimate unity is to be achieved through the divine providence, yet something more is required of the individual believer than a passive reliance on the assurance of this future fusion of creeds. And further, the manifest and immediate duty being the discovery of the, for him, "best way of worship," this once reached, he must rest satisfied with no merely personal acceptance: the benefits resultant from his own spiritual experiences are designed for a wider use, a more extended service of human fellowship; he, too, may seek to "bring back wanderers to the single track." Here again is perceptible one of Browning's prevailing ideas. Never (I believe) is he to be found advocating any vast corporate revolution for the amelioration of mankind: the advance of the race is to be secured through the advance of individual members.

VI. As a practical result of the foregoing conclusions follow (in Section XXII) a return to the Chapel, and an application to the special form of worship therein celebrated, of the genial "glow of benevolence" already kindling within the breast of the sometime critic. And here the dramatic character of the poem becomes perhaps more strikingly obvious than hitherto. By one or two able and characteristic strokes is suggested the egotistical temperament of the soliloquist, with its susceptibility to external influences, its inevitable tendency towards criticism. Even though he has, as he deems, learnt from the night's experience the valuable lesson of receiving "in meekness" the mode of worship simplest in form and most spiritual in character, yet the language employed in lines 1310-1315 is that of no advocate of a kindly tolerance, but of an orthodox and bigoted methodist. It is a part, so it would seem, of the dramatic purpose, and of the mental analysis of which Browning was so fond, to thus demonstrate to his readers how a reasoning and reflective being, possessed of a certain amount of intellectual alertness, should enrol himself amongst the members of a body whose pre-eminent characteristic to the unsympathizing spectator appears that of a narrow dogmatic exclusivism, combined with extreme intellectual limitations.

Nevertheless, in spite of practical result, very ably does the speaker in