Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864

But more: this religion, so born and nurtured, becomes the mistress of the earth. It is of no consequence that only a minority of men accept it. That minority hold the world in their hands. In fact, it seems from history, that any number of men, with this religion in their hearts, become half omnipotent—that twelve can take it and master humanity by its power. To-day the men who profess it can do what they will on the face of this planet. It has so seized temporal power, so moulded blind force, so mastered strength—it has so conferred wisdom and valor and might on men, that those who have accepted it have been crowned above their kind, that they go everywhere as the acknowledged leaders and lords of the race, the vanguard of humanity.

And a deception has brought all this to pass, a delusion has produced these stern realities! Here's where the wickedness stands out nakedly! Is there a true God in heaven, or is Ahriman rightful lord? Is the lying devil, after all, supreme? Is a lie as good as the truth? Why, the very earth reels beneath us! Is there any God at all? Are truth and good and God mere dreams, that a cunning fraud like this can so prosper and prevail under the white heavens!

M. Renan's 'Life of Jesus' offers me that as a most reasonable theory! Believing in a true God and a good God, being utterly incapable of believing in the lying devil it proposes to me, this pleasant theory, that, beneath the face and eyes of that true God, a poor imposture, a cheap delusion becomes, not only the holiest thing, the purest thing, the most sanctifying thing, but also the strongest thing, the most victorious thing in all the world! If ever theory so played sleight of hand with cause and effect, if it ever so mingled and mixed right and wrong, and so taught that lies and truth were about the same, we have failed to meet with it. And if ever any theory required power of gullibility like this last and newest, we have failed to hear of that.

The fact is there is no escaping the honest conclusion that, unless Jesus Christ is what He claimed to be, divine, 'God manifest in the flesh,' 'the Son of the Father,' then He was simply an impostor. (He could not have been a self-deceived fanatic.) Now any man is free to accept the last horn of this dilemma, if he chooses. It is a free country. But if he takes that, we insist that he is logically bound to call Christianity a cheat, a delusion, a snare and a curse to humanity! He shall not ask us to swallow the monstrous and immoral proposition, that this outrageous lie and imposture is the glory, the blessing and hope of humanity!

And this is what M. Ernest Renan, in most melodious sentences, proposes. This is his theory of Christianity, its origin and its success.

This is the best thing philosophic and philologic unbelief has to offer, the most rational account it has to give in the year 1864. Surely unbelief must have large faith in human nature's capacity of spiritual swallow, if men are expected to take this down, as more reasonable than what they will hear in the next pulpit!

Nay, after all, the Christian theory of Christianity is the most rational yet. It has mysteries, but it calls them mysteries, things above reason. It accepts them, and so escapes absurdity—ends with no means, effects from no causes, wonders that spring out of the ground, divine teachers produced by a 'charming' climate, and impostures that are holy truths! Above all, it escapes moral idiocy, and holds there is a line between right and wrong! On the whole, it is, as yet, the only theory which explains all the facts, the only one of which the consequences may be logically accepted, which makes Christ or His religion reasonable or possible.

M. Renan's 'beautiful' young Galilean carpenter, with such power over 'hallucinated' Magdalens, conducting grand picnics in that 'charming' climate, and making life a May day, is not the world's mighty Deliverer; and his miracle-mongering demagogue, claiming to be the Son of David in lying genealogies, and the Son of God in blasphemous audacity, is not the world's Teacher of all Truth and Righteousness. The new Jesus is a poor substitute for the Divine Man whom we adore.

We cannot, therefore, accept the new theory. It is not logically competent to the facts. Established on garbled evidence with painful struggles, it will not, when completed, fulfil the conditions. It is not reasonable. It is not moral. We have desired to present this view of it. The details of criticism we leave to others, who can easily deal with M. Renan. We have aimed to show, what any plain reader can see, the unreasonableness and immorality of this theory of Christianity's origin.

As long as we have faith in a righteous God, so long can we never believe that the best, purest, and holiest religion is born in fraud and trickery. M. Renan's theory declares the purity and the holiness of Christianity, and yet insists on the trickery and the fraud: therefore we must reject his theory.

So long as we believe that a true God is omnipotent, we cannot believe that fraud and deception are masters of the world. But M. Renan insists that Christianity has mastered the world, and yet declares it founded upon fraud and deception. We must therefore reject M. Renan.

The fine writing, the sentiment, the abundant 'sweetness' of the book cannot make beautiful this monstrous perversion of reason, this insidious attack on the very distinction between God and Satan.

Voltaire's theory is comparatively honest, healthy, moral. Paine's is so. These men called things by their right names. They never undertook to upset the human conscience. Ernest Renan's theory is thoroughly immoral, and he only can accept it who denies that the world is governed by moral laws at all.

We reject his Jesus as a delusion and a dream. God never created such a creature. He exists nowhere save in M. Renan's pages.

In this blind, reeling world, in this weary, painful time, while the sobs of a dumb creation break along the shores of heaven in prayer, we cannot spare the real Jesus, the world's strong Deliverer, its conquering Lord! The vision He exhibited, of a stainless humanity, omnipotent in purity, loyalty, and truth, has flashed and flamed before the eyes of men, through the long night of the ages, their beacon fire of hope, their star of faith! We cannot spare Him now. In Him all is consistent, all is reasonable, all is harmonious. The Divine Man accounts for His wisdom, vindicates the origin of His power. In the vision of His face, Christianity and all its results are the natural works of His hand.

We turn to His Life. We leave M. Renan's little novel, and turn to the Godlike life of the typal Man, the Omnipotent and Eternal Man, who redeemed humanity, and bought the world, and conquered hell and death: we turn to that life, that death, that awful resurrection, and take heart and hope. No mere amiable, sentimental, 'beautiful,' or 'charming' young man will do. The world cries for its Lord! The race He ransomed looks to the 'Lion of Judah,' the 'Captain of the Lord's Host.' The mad, half-despairing struggle we have waged all these long centuries, can find only in 'the Son of Man,' in the omnipotent 'Son of God,' its explanation and its end: 'God was manifest in the Flesh, reconciling the World unto Himself!'

ÆNONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME

CHAPTER VII

For an instant only. When from Ænone's troubled gaze, the half-blinding film which the agitation of her apprehensive mind had gathered there, passed away, she no longer saw before her a proudly erect figure, flashing out from dark, wild eyes its defiant mastery, but a form again bent low in timorous supplication, and features once more overspread with a mingled imprint of sorrowful resignation, trusting devotion, and pleading humility.

That gleam of malicious triumph which had so brightened up the face of the slave, had come and gone like the lightning flash, and, for the moment, Ænone was almost inclined to believe that it was some bewildering waking dream. But her instinct told her that it was no mere imagination or fancy which could thus, at one instant, fill the heart with dread and change her bright anticipations of coming joy into a dull, aching foreboding of misery. It was rather her inner nature warning her not to be too easily ensnared, but to wait for coming evil with unfaltering watchfulness, and, for the purpose of baffling enmity, to perform the hardest task that can be imposed upon a guileless nature—that of repressing all outward sign of distrust, hiding the torture of the heart within, and meeting smile with smile.

But day after day passed on, and even to her watchful and strained attention there appeared no further sign of anything that could excite alarm. From morning until night there rested upon the face of the young Greek slave no expression other than that of tender, faithful, and pleased obedience. At the morning toilet, at the forenoon task of embroidery, or at the afternoon promenade, there was ever the same serene gaze of earnest devotion, and the same delighted alacrity to anticipate the slightest wish. Until at last Ænone began again to think that perhaps her perception of that one fleeting look might, after all, be but a flickering dream. And when, at times, she sat and heard the young girl speak, not with apparent method, but rather as one who is unwittingly drawn into discursive prattle, about her cottage home in Samos, and the lowly lover from whom the invading armies had torn her, and watched the moistened eye and the trembling lip with which these memories were dwelt upon, an inward pity and sympathy tempted her to forget her own distrust; until one day she was impelled to act as she had once desired, and began to pour out her whole heart to the young slave as to a friend. The words seemed of themselves to flow to her lips, as, bidding the girl be comforted, she told, in one short sentence, how she too had once lived in a tranquil cottage home, away from the bustle and fever of that imperial Rome, and had had her lover of low degree, and that both were still innocently dear to her.

All the while that the story had been welling forth from her lips, that inner instinct which so seldom deceives, told her that she was doing wrong; and when she had ended, she would have given worlds not to have spoken. But the words were beyond recall, and she could only gaze stealthily at the listener, and, with a dull feeling of apprehension nestling at the bottom of her heart, endeavor to mark their effect, and to imagine the possible consequences of her indiscretion. But Leta sat bending over her embroidery, and apparently still thinking, with tearful eye, upon her own exile from home. Perhaps she had not even heard all that had been said to her; though, if the words had really caught her ear, where, after all, could be the harm? It was no secret in Rome that Sergius Vanno had brought his spouse from a lowly home; and it was surely no crime, that, during those years of poverty which Ænone had passed through before being called to fill her present station, she had once suffered her girlish fancy to rest for a little while upon one of her own class. And fortunately she had not gone further in her story, but at that point had left it to rest; making no mention of how that long-forgotten lover had so lately reappeared and confronted her.

Still there remained in her heart the irrepressible instinct that it would have been better if she had not spoken. And now, as she silently pondered upon her imprudence, it seemed as though her anxiety had suddenly endowed her brain with new and keener faculties of perception, so many startling ideas began to crowd in upon her. More particularly, full shape and tone seemed for the first time given to one terrible suspicion, which she had hitherto known only in a misty, intangible, and seldom recurring form—the suspicion that, if the passive girl before her were really an enemy, it was not owing to any mere ordinary impulse of fear, or envy, or inexplicable womanish dislike, but rather to secret rivalry.

That, within the past few days, Sergius had more and more exhibited toward her an indifference, which even his studied attempts to conduct himself with an appearance of his former interest and affection did not fully hide, Ænone could not but feel. That within her breast lurked the terrible thought that perhaps the time had forever passed for her to come to him as to a loving friend, and there fearlessly pour out her tribulations, her secret tears confessed. But throughout all this change, though it became each day more strongly marked, she had tried to cheat herself into the belief that the romantic warmth of a first attachment could not in any case be expected to last for many years—that in meeting indifference she was merely experiencing a common lot—that beneath his coolness there still lurked the old affection, as the lava will flow beneath the hardened crust—and that, if she were indeed losing the appearance of his love, it was merely because the claims of the court, the exigencies of the social world, or the demands of ambition had too much usurped his attention.

But now a thousand hitherto unregarded circumstances began to creep into her mind as so many evidences that his affection seemed passing from her; not simply because the claims of duty or ambition were stifling in his heart all power to love, but because he had become secretly attached elsewhere. The interested gaze with which he followed the motions of the Greek girl—the solicitude which he seemed to feel that in all things she should be treated, not only tenderly, but more luxuriously than ever fell to the lot of even the highest class of slaves—his newly acquired habit of strolling into the room and throwing himself down where he could lazily watch her—all these, and other circumstances, though individually trivial, could not fail, when united, to give cogency to the one terrible conviction of secret wrong. Whether Leta herself had any perception of all this, who could yet tell? It might be that she was clothed in innocent unconsciousness of her master's admiration, or that, by the force of native purity, she had resisted his advances. And, on the other hand, it might be that not merely now, but long before she had been brought into the house, there had been a secret understanding between the two; and that, with undeviating and unrelenting cunning, she was still ever drawing him still closer within the folds of her fascinations. Looking upon her, and noting the humble and almost timorous air with which she moved about, as though seeking kindness and protection, and the eloquence of mute appeal for sympathy which lay half hidden in her dark eyes beneath the scarcely raised lids, and rested in her trembling lips, who could doubt her? But marking the haughtiness of pride with which at times she drew up her slight figure to its utmost height, the ray of scorn and malice which flashed from those eyes, and the lines of firm, unpitying determination which gathered about the compressed corners of those lips, who could help fearing and distrusting her?

Time or chance alone could resolve the question, and meanwhile, what course could Ænone take? Not that of sending the object of her suspicion to another place; for even if she had the power to do so, she might not be able to accomplish it without such open disturbance that the whole social world of Rome would learn the degrading fact that she had been jealous of her own slave. Not—as she was sometimes almost tempted—that of forgetting her pride, and humbling herself before her enemy, to beg that she would not rob her of all that affection which had once been lavished upon herself; for, if the Greek girl were innocent, useless and feeble pity would be the only result, while, if she were guilty, it would but lead to further secret wiles and malicious triumph. Nor that of accusing her husband of his fault; for such a course, alas! could never restore lost love. There could, indeed, be but one proper way to act. She must possess her soul in patience and prudent dissimulation; and, while affecting ignorance of what she saw and heard, must strive by kindness and attention to win back some, if not all, of the true affection of former days.

Thus sorrowfully reflecting, she left the room, not upon any especial intent, but simply to avoid the presence of the Greek, who, she could not help feeling, was all the while, beneath the disguise of that demure expression, closely watching her. Passing into another apartment, she saw that Sergius had there sauntered in, and had thrown himself down upon a lounge at the open window, where, with one hand resting behind his head, he lay half soothed into slumber by the gentle murmur of the courtyard fountain. Stealing up gently behind him, with a strange mingling of affectionate desire to gain his attention, and a morbid dread of bringing rebuke upon herself by awakening him, Ænone stooped down and lightly touched his forehead with her lips.

'Ah, Leta!' he exclaimed, starting up as he felt the warm pressure. Then, perceiving his mistake, he lowered his eyes with some confusion, and perhaps a slight feeling of disappointment, and tried to force a careless laugh; which died away, however, as he saw how Ænone stood pale and trembling at receiving a greeting so confirmatory of all her apprehensions.

'It is not Leta—it is only I,' she murmured at length, in a tone of plaintive sadness, which for the moment touched his heart. 'I am sorry that I awakened you. But I will go away again.'

'Nay, remain,' he exclaimed, restraining her by the folds of her dress, and, with a slight effort, seating her beside him upon the lounge. 'You are not—you must not feel offended at such a poor jest as that?'

'Is it all a jest?' she inquired. 'Can you say that the greeting you gave me did not spring inadvertently from the real preoccupation of your mind?'

'Of the mind? Preoccupation?' said Sergius. 'By the gods! but it is a difficult question to answer. I might possibly, in some dreamy state, have been thinking carelessly of that Greek girl whom you have so constantly about you. Even you cannot but acknowledge that she has her traits of beauty; and if so, it is hard for a man not to admire them.'

'For mere admiration of her, I care but little,' she responded. 'But I would not that she should learn to observe it. And what could I do, if she, perceiving it, were to succeed in drawing your love from me? What then would there be for me to do, except to die?'

'To die? This is but foolish talk, Ænone,' he said; and he fastened an inquiring gaze upon her, as though wishing to search into her soul, and find out how much of his actions she already knew. Evidently some fleeting expression upon her countenance deceived him into believing that she had heard or seen more than he had previously supposed, for, with another faint attempt at a careless laugh, he continued:

'And if, at the most, there has been some senseless trifling between the girl and myself—a pressure of the hand, or a pat upon the cheek, when meeting by any chance in hall or garden—would you find such fault with this as to call it a withdrawal of my love from you? To what, indeed, could such poor, foolish pastime of the moment amount, that it should bring rebuke upon me?'

To nothing, indeed, if judged by itself alone, for that was not the age of the world when every trivial departure from correctness of conduct was looked upon as a crime; and had this been all, and the real affection of his heart had remained with her, Ænone would have taken comfort. But now she knew for certain that, in uncomplainingly enduring any familiarities, Leta could not, at all times, have maintained her customary mien of timorous retirement, and must, therefore, to some extent, have shown herself capable of acting a deceitful part; and that even though the deceit may have stopped short of further transgression, it was none the less certain that in future no further trust could be reposed in her. Gone forever was that frail hope to which, against all warnings of instinct, Ænone had persisted in clinging—the hope that in the Greek girl she might succeed in finding a true and honest friend.

Seeing that she remained absorbed and speechless, Sergius believed that she was merely jealously pondering upon these trivial transgressions, and endeavored, by kind and loving expressions, to remove the evil effects of his unguarded admission. Gathering her closer in his arms, he strove once more, by exerting those fascinations which had hitherto so often prevailed, to calm her disturbed fancies, and bring back again her confidence in him. But now he spoke almost in vain. Conscious, as Ænone could not fail to be, of the apparent love and tenderness with which he bent his eyes upon her, and of the liquid melody of his impassioned intonations, and half inclined, as she felt, at each instant to yield to the impulse which tempted her to throw her arms about his neck and promise from henceforth to believe unfalteringly all that he might say, whatever opposing evidences might stand before her, there was all the while the restraining feeling that this show of affection was but a pretence wherewith to quiet her inconvenient reproaches—that at heart he was playing with deceit—that the husband was colluding with the slave to blind her eyes—and that the love and friendship of both lord and menial had forever failed her.

'But hold to your own suspicions, if you will,' he said, at length, with testy accent, as he saw how little all his efforts had moved her. 'I have spoken in my defence all that I need to speak, even if excuse were necessary; and it is an ill reward to receive only cold and forbidding responses in return.'

'Answer me this,' she exclaimed, suddenly rousing into action, and looking him earnestly in the face; 'and as you now answer, I will promise to believe you, for I know that, whatever you may have done, you will not, if appealed to upon your honor, tell me that which is not true. About the trivial actions which you have mentioned I care little; but is there in your heart any real affection for that girl? If you say that there is not, I will never more distrust you, but will go out from here with a soul overflowing with peace and joy as when first you came to take me to your side. But if, on the contrary, you say that you love her, I will—'

'Will do what?' he exclaimed, seeing that she hesitated, and almost hoping that she would utter some impatient threat which in turn would give him an excuse for anger.

'Will pass out from this room, sad and broken hearted, indeed—but not complaining of or chiding you; and will only pray to the gods that they may, in their own time, make all things once more go aright, and so restore your heart to me.'

Sergius hesitated. Never before had he been so tempted to utter an untruth. If he now did so, he knew that he would be believed, and that not only would she be made once more happy, but he would be left unwatched and unsuspected to carry on his own devices. But, on the other hand, he had been appealed to upon his honor, and, whatever his other faults, he had too much nobility of soul to lie. And so, not daring to confess the truth, he chose the middle path of refusing any direct response at all.

'Now is not this a singular thing,' he exclaimed, 'that no man can ever let his eyes rest upon a pretty face without being accused of love for it? While, if a woman does the same, no tongue can describe the clamor with which she repels the insinuation of aught but friendly interest. Can you look me in the eye and tell me that mine is the only voice you ever listened to with love?'

'Can you dare hint to me that I have ever been unfaithful to you, even in thought or word?' cried Ænone, stung with sudden anger by the imputation, and rendered desperate by her acute perception of the evasiveness of his answer. 'Do you not know that during the months which you so lately passed far away from me, there was not one person admitted here into society with me who would not have had your firm approval—and that I kept your image so lovingly before my eyes, and your memory so constant in my heart, as to become almost a reproach and a sarcasm to half who knew me?'

'But before that—before I came to you—can you say that no other eyes had ever looked lovingly into yours, and there met kindred response?'

'Have you the right to inquire into what may have happened before you met me? What young girl is there who, some time or other, has not modestly let her thoughts dwell upon innocent love? Is there wrong in this? Should there have been a spirit of prescience in my mind to forewarn me that I must keep my heart free and in vacant loneliness, because that, after many years, you were to come and lift me from my obscurity?'

'Then, upon your own showing, you acknowledge that there was once another upon whom your eyes loved to look?' he cried, half gladdened that he had found even this poor excuse to transfer the charge of blame from himself. 'And how can I tell but that you have met with him since?'

'I have met him since,' she quietly answered, driven to desperation by the cruel insinuation.

In his heart attaching but little importance to such childish affections as she might once have cherished, and having had no other purpose in his suggestion than that of shielding himself from further inquiry by inflicting some trifling wound upon her, Sergius had spoken hesitatingly, and with a shamefaced consciousness of meanness and self-contempt. But when he listened to her frank admission—fraught, as it seemed to him, with more meaning than the mere naked words would, of themselves, imply, an angry flush of new-born jealousy overspread his features.