Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh
Page 22
CHAPTER II. CHURCH-CLOTHES.
Not less questionable is his Chapter on _Church-Clothes_, which hasthe farther distinction of being the shortest in the Volume. We heretranslate it entire:--
"By Church-Clothes, it need not be premised that I mean infinitely morethan Cassocks and Surplices; and do not at all mean the mere haberdasherSunday Clothes that men go to Church in. Far from it! Church-Clothesare, in our vocabulary, the Forms, the _Vestures_, under which men haveat various periods embodied and represented for themselves the ReligiousPrinciple; that is to say, invested the Divine Idea of the World with asensible and practically active Body, so that it might dwell among themas a living and life-giving WORD.
"These are unspeakably the most important of all the vestures andgarnitures of Human Existence. They are first spun and woven, I may say,by that wonder of wonders, SOCIETY; for it is still only when 'two orthree are gathered together,' that Religion, spiritually existent,and indeed indestructible, however latent, in each, first outwardlymanifests itself (as with 'cloven tongues of fire'), and seeks to beembodied in a visible Communion and Church Militant. Mystical, more thanmagical, is that Communing of Soul with Soul, both looking heavenward:here properly Soul first speaks with Soul; for only in lookingheavenward, take it in what sense you may, not in looking earthward,does what we can call Union, mutual Love, Society, begin to be possible.How true is that of Novalis: 'It is certain, my Belief gains quite_infinitely_ the moment I can convince another mind thereof'! Gaze thouin the face of thy Brother, in those eyes where plays the lambent fireof Kindness, or in those where rages the lurid conflagration of Anger;feel how thy own so quiet Soul is straightway involuntarily kindled withthe like, and ye blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is allone limitless confluent flame (of embracing Love, or of deadly-grapplingHate); and then say what miraculous virtue goes out of man into man. Butif so, through all the thick-plied hulls of our Earthly Life; how muchmore when it is of the Divine Life we speak, and inmost ME is, as itwere, brought into contact with inmost ME!
"Thus was it that I said, the Church Clothes are first spun and wovenby Society; outward Religion originates by Society, Society becomespossible by Religion. Nay, perhaps, every conceivable Society, past andpresent, may well be figured as properly and wholly a Church, in one orother of these three predicaments: an audibly preaching and prophesyingChurch, which is the best; second, a Church that struggles to preachand prophesy, but cannot as yet, till its Pentecost come; and third andworst, a Church gone dumb with old age, or which only mumbles deliriumprior to dissolution. Whoso fancies that by Church is here meantChapter-houses and Cathedrals, or by preaching and prophesying, merespeech and chanting, let him," says the oracular Professor, "read on,light of heart (_getrosten Muthes_).
"But with regard to your Church proper, and the Church-Clothes speciallyrecognized as Church-Clothes, I remark, fearlessly enough, that withoutsuch Vestures and sacred Tissues Society has not existed, and will notexist. For if Government is, so to speak, the outward SKIN of the BodyPolitic, holding the whole together and protecting it; and all yourCraft-Guilds, and Associations for Industry, of hand or of head, are theFleshly Clothes, the muscular and osseous Tissues (lying _under_ suchSKIN), whereby Society stands and works;--then is Religion theinmost Pericardial and Nervous Tissue, which ministers Life and warmCirculation to the whole. Without which Pericardial Tissue the Bonesand Muscles (of Industry) were inert, or animated only by a Galvanicvitality; the SKIN would become a shrivelled pelt, or fast-rottingrawhide; and Society itself a dead carcass,--deserving to be buried. Menwere no longer Social, but Gregarious; which latter state also could notcontinue, but must gradually issue in universal selfish discord, hatred,savage isolation, and dispersion;--whereby, as we might continue to say,the very dust and dead body of Society would have evaporated andbecome abolished. Such, and so all-important, all-sustaining, are theChurch-Clothes to civilized or even to rational men.
"Meanwhile, in our era of the World, those same Church-Clothes have gonesorrowfully out-at-elbows; nay, far worse, many of them have becomemere hollow Shapes, or Masks, under which no living Figure or Spiritany longer dwells; but only spiders and unclean beetles, in horridaccumulation, drive their trade; and the mask still glares on youwith its glass eyes, in ghastly affectation of Life,--somegeneration-and-half after Religion has quite withdrawn from it, andin unnoticed nooks is weaving for herself new Vestures, wherewithto reappear, and bless us, or our sons or grandsons. As a Priest, orInterpreter of the Holy, is the noblest and highest of all men, so isa Sham-priest (_Schein-priester_) the falsest and basest; neither is itdoubtful that his Canonicals, were they Popes' Tiaras, will one day betorn from him, to make bandages for the wounds of mankind; or even toburn into tinder, for general scientific or culinary purposes.
"All which, as out of place here, falls to be handled in my SecondVolume, _On the Palingenesia, or Newbirth of Society_; which volume,as treating practically of the Wear, Destruction, and Retextureof Spiritual Tissues, or Garments, forms, properly speaking, theTranscendental or ultimate Portion of this my work on _Clothes_, and isalready in a state of forwardness."
And herewith, no farther exposition, note, or commentary being added,does Teufelsdrockh, and must his Editor now, terminate the singularchapter on Church-Clothes!