by George Moore
The postman’s knock startled me out of my meditation, and Teresa brought me his Grace’s letter on a silver salver; treasured it was for many years, lost, unfortunately, as were some of Pater’s letters.
Dr Peacock began his letter by explaining that he was staying at the seaside with his family, and there had been some delay at the Palace in forwarding my letter. He confessed to a great joy on hearing that my coming to Ireland had been the means of leading me back to Christ; and he admitted, I think, that there might be many little points which he would be able to clear up for me, but as he was not returning to Dublin for some weeks the most natural course, he said, was to send my letter to my parish priest, who would call upon me.
The words parish priest always seemed to me to savour of Rome, and the Archbishop’s letter slipped from my fingers, and I sat for a long time thinking of what this Archbishop was like. His name conveyed the idea of a tall, formal man, and perhaps the interview would have been a very stiff and formal affair, myself and the Archbishop on either side of a mahogany table covered with papers and piles of letters held together by elastic bands. My parish priest, the Reverend Gilbert Mahaffy, had been my neighbour for a long time; the Rectory was No. 13 Ely Place, one door from the great iron gateway that divides my little cul-de-sac from Ely Place. He was known as a man of the very kindliest disposition. I had often heard Gill speak of his work among the poor, of his effusive enthusiasm and energy. A rare soul, I had often said as he passed me on his charitable errands, absorbed in his thoughts, his short legs moving so quickly under the long frock-coat buttoned to the chin, that he seemed to be running. I could recall the high shoulders showing straight and pointed, the wide head shaded by the soft felt hat, the large straight nose, the cheeks and chin covered with a soft greying beard, and the kindly eyes — Eyes, I said, that always seem to be on the lookout for somebody’s trouble.
Gilbert Mahaffy’s appearance had appealed to me, winning me before a word had been exchanged between us; all the same, I was conscious of a little resentment. He had never called upon me; he looked the other way when we passed in the street, treating me exactly like poor Cunningham. It seemed to me that he should have called upon me when I came to Dublin first, and not waited for the Archbishop to tell him to call. However, there it was; he was coming to see me. And taking up the New Testament once more, I fell to thinking what his literary and critical qualifications were. A good man he certainly is, but from his appearance one would hardly credit him with a subtle mind; and a subtle mind seemed to be necessary ... in my case. We are safe if we admit that Jesus was God and was sent by his Father into the world to atone by his death on the Cross for the sins of men. But Jesus in his own words seems to deny the enormous pretensions that the ecclesiastics would cast upon him. In Matthew he says, Why does thou call me good? None is good but God, and no less striking words were uttered by him on the Cross: My God, why hast thou abandoned me? The Colonel had once reminded me that Jesus had said, Before Abraham was, I am, but these Orientals spoke in images, and it is easy to understand that we all were before Abraham, that is to say, before Abraham existed in the flesh. But the words, Why dost thou call me good? None is good but God, seemed to me very difficult to explain away, and the words spoken on the Cross even more so. Nor is it very clear that Paul believed in the separate Divinity of Christ. Christ will disappear in the end to be merged into his Father. A puzzling view of Christ’s Divinity, I said, and sat for a long time looking into the fire, thinking how pleasant it would be if Mahaffy were here, we two sitting on either side of the fire, our Bibles on our knees.
It was the next day that my servant told me the Reverend Mr Mahaffy had called. Retreat is now out of the question, I said. Tomorrow he’ll call again; or perhaps he’ll wait for me to return his visit, and for me to return it will be more polite. But it is impossible to wait till tomorrow. I must talk the matter out with somebody. Why not with Sir Thornley? Only he is generally occupied with patients at this hour.
You know, I’ve been thinking of joining the Church of Ireland for some time.
So I have heard it said, but I thought it was one of your jokes.
One doesn’t choose such subjects for joking; and I showed him the Archbishop’s letter. Now, what is to be done? The Reverend Gilbert Mahaffy called this afternoon, and he’ll call tomorrow if I don’t return his visit. It will be better, I think, to call upon him this evening and get it over, only I can’t think what he’ll say to me. Can you give me any idea?
He’ll ask you if you abjure the errors of Rome.
He can’t ask that, because I never believed in Rome. Do you think he’ll ask me to say a prayer with him?
Sir Thornley began to laugh, and his laughter shocked me a little, but I did not get up to leave the room until he said:
Did the Archbishop send you an order for coals and blankets?
I wonder how you, who are a Protestant, and respect your religion — I wonder what your co-religionists — and without attempting to finish my sentence I walked out of the room abruptly, and opened the hall-door, but had to draw back into the hall, for Gilbert Mahaffy was coming down Hume Street, and, thinking of him in his strenuous, useful life, I came to be ashamed of the disappointment I had experienced when the Archbishop had referred my spiritual needs to him instead of undertaking them himself. No man, I said, is more likely to inspire in me the faith I am seeking.... After dinner I will call upon him.
My dinner was hardly tasted that evening, so perturbed was I; and I still can recall the glow behind the houses as I went towards the gateway.
Is Mr Mahaffy at home?
Yes, sir.
Portentous words, and the study itself portentous in its simplicity. I had just time to look over the great writing-table covered with papers — all on parochial business, I said — before he entered. He came running into the room, his eyes and his hands welcoming me.
I’m so glad to see you.
We have lived near each other for a long time, I answered, and I have often wished to know you, Mr Mahaffy.
Yes; His Grace asked me to call. Yes-s.
In moments of great mental excitement one notices everything, and Mr Mahaffy’s manner of saying yes-s, trying to turn the word from a monosyllable to a dissyllable, and his habit of rubbing his hands after the pronunciation, struck me. And very nervously I began to explain that I had written to the Archbishop, saying that since I had come to live in Ireland —
His Grace sent me your letter — yes-s.
You see, Mr Mahaffy, in England one has no opportunity of noticing the evil influence of the Church of Rome; it wasn’t until I came here.... It seemed to me that I had better tell him of my great discovery — the illiteracy of Rome since the Reformation. I did — without, however, interesting him very deeply. He is more interested in the theological side of the question, I said to myself, and sought for a transitional phrase, but before finding one Mr Mahaffy mentioned Newman, and I told him that Newman could hardly write English at all, at which he showed some surprise. The Roman Church relies upon its converts, for after two or three generations of Catholicism the intelligence dies.
It was plain to me that the conversation was not altogether to his taste, and, thinking to interest him, I said:
You know, Cardinal Manning was of this opinion. He told a friend of mine that he was glad he had been brought up a Protestant.
Did he? I didn’t know that.
And, my thoughts running on ahead, I began to describe a new Utopia — a State so well ordered that no one in it was allowed to be a Papist unless he or she could prove some bodily or mental infirmity, or until he or she had attained a certain age, which put them beyond the business of the world — the age of seventy, perhaps, the earliest at which a conversion would be legal. A sort of spiritual Old Age Pension Scheme, I said; and a picture rose up before my mind of a crowd of young and old, all inferior, physically or intellectually, struggling round the door of a Roman Catholic Church, with papers in their hands, on the fir
st Friday of every month.
It is quite possible, Mr Moore, that there is more intelligence in Protestantism than in Catholicism; but the question before us is hardly one of literature. In the letter to His Grace I understand you to say that Christianity is to be found in its purest form in the Anglican Church. We are concerned, really, with spiritual rather than with aesthetic truths.
You are quite right. Perhaps I was wrong; but a sense of humour does not preclude sincerity, and many reasons lead one towards spiritual truth. If I introduced aesthetics into our conversation, it was because I have spoken to Catholics on this matter, and they have always, with one exception — a convert — failed to put the case as you did — that religion really has nothing to do with aesthetics.
The interview had certainly taken an unexpected turn, and an unfortunate one, and while I was thinking of something to say to Mr Mahaffy, he asked me suddenly if he were to understand that I accepted the Divinity of our Lord?
Of course I am aware that you accept the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ in a very literal sense, but is it sure that we do not mean the same thing in the end? All things tend towards God, and what is highest in Nature is nearest to God, and certainly Jesus Christ was the noblest human being in many respects that ever lived.
A cloud had come into his face, and, seeing that it was deepening, I became more sincere in the sense that I tried to get nearer to the truth.
I should like to believe as you do, to share your belief.
And you will, he said. You will be with us one of these days if you aren’t with us wholly today, and we talked on religious subjects until it was time for me to go. Then he asked me to come again; I promised to do so in a few days, and went away asking myself if it were ever likely that I should be able to answer truthfully and say Yes, I believe in the Divinity of Christ as you do. I should have to know exactly what he meant, and it is doubtful if he would be able to tell me, for we cannot understand God, and if we cannot understand what God is, how is it that we speak of the Son of God? St Paul himself had no conception of the Trinity. If Christ were God, equal to his Father, how is it that — what are Paul’s words? — Christ will disappear in the end to be merged into his Father? It is all very puzzling.
A few days after I went again to see Mr Mahaffy, and I remember telling him that I had been questioning myself on the subject of Christ’s Divinity.
You see, Mr Mahaffy, one doesn’t know what one believes. None of us thinks alike, and no man can tell his soul to another. Is it not sufficient if I say that in my belief there is more Divinity in Christ than in any other human being?
You say in your letter to the Archbishop that you wished to join the communion of the Anglican Church, and the belief of that communion is not so vague as yours, Mr Moore. We believe that Christ is the Son of God, and came into the world to redeem the world from sin, that he died on the Cross and rose three days afterwards from the dead, ascended into Heaven —
Tolstoy didn’t believe in the physical resurrection, and it may be doubted if St Paul believed in it; yet you will not deny that Tolstoy was a Christian.
He was a Christian, no doubt, but not in the full sense of the word as we understand it.
Well, St Paul. I take my stand upon Paul, Mr Mahaffy. He seems to have had very little sense of the Trinity. Paul was a Unitarian. The passage in which he says that Christ will disappear in the end to be merged into his Father....
We wrangled about texts for a long time, Mahaffy quoting one, I quoting another, until it seemed impolite for me to press my point further; and accepting him as an authority, I bade him good night, asking him when I might see him again.
Three days afterwards I was again in the Rectory, and we talked for an hour together and parted on the same terms.
I shall be in tomorrow evening. Will you come to see me?
I promised I would, and all the time I felt that this evening would not end without his asking me to say a prayer with him, and the thought of the prayer haunted my mind all the time I was speaking to him, and when I rose to go the long-expected words came.
Will you say a prayer with me?
He went down upon his knees, and I repeated the Lord’s Prayer after him.
I have been dreading this prayer all the week, and I could hardly conquer my fear, and at the same time a force behind myself prompted me to you.
Let me give you a Prayer-book, he said, and I returned home to read it absorbed in a deep emotion, for the prayer said with Mr Mahaffy had come out of my heart, and the memory of it continued to burn, shedding a soft radiance. How happy I am! What a blessed peace this is! My difficulties have melted away, and it no longer seems to matter to me whether the world thinks me Catholic or Protestant; I am with Christ.
But the storm of life is never over until it ceases for ever, and before a week had gone by a copy of an Irish review came to me, containing a criticism of my book, The Untilled Field; himself a Catholic were the words that upset my mental balance, forcing me into an uncontrollable rage. Is this shame eternal? I cried. Of what use is writing? I have been writing all my life that I never had hand, act, or part —
Very little emotion robs me of words, and, with a great storm raging within my breast, I walked about the room, conscious that a great injustice was being done to me. Merely because my father was a Papist am I to remain one? Despite long protests and practice, not only this paper calls me a Catholic, but Edward, my most intimate friend, calls me one. His words are: You are a bad Catholic; but you are a Catholic; and he persists in those words, though, according to the Catholic Church, I am not one, never having acquiesced in any of its dogmas. He continues to reiterate the shameful accusation — shameful to me, at least. His mind is so stultified in superstitions that he does not remember that those who do not confess and communicate cease to belong to the Roman Church. I believe that to be the rule, and if I remind him of it his face becomes overcast. Any thought of transgression frightens him; but so paralysed is his mind, that he clings to the base superstition that if a little water is poured on the head of an infant in a Catholic Church the child remains a Catholic, just as a child born of black parents remains a nigger, no matter what country he is born in or the nationality he elects. Now I wonder if it be orthodox to hold that a Sacrament confers benefits on the recipient without some co-operation on the part of the recipient? I suppose that is Roman Catholic doctrine; even if the recipient protests the Sacrament overrules his objections. We live in a mad world, my masters! But I think Edward goes a step further than Catholic doctrine warrants him to do. He seems to hold that Catholic baptism confers perpetual Catholicism on the individual. I do his theology a wrong. If you aren’t a Catholic, why don’t you become a Protestant? he said at Tillyra. I corrected him. One doesn’t become a Protestant, I said; but the correction was wasted. His theological knowledge is slight, but he knows the country — his own phrase, I know the country — and in Ireland one must be one or the other.
A light seemed to break in my mind suddenly; I remembered that the welcome the priests had given Edward VII when he came to Ireland had not pleased the patriotic Gaelic League, and it occurred to me that I might get a nice revenge for the words himself a Catholic if I were to write to the Irish Times declaring that I had passed from the Church of Rome to the Church of Ireland, shocked beyond measure at the lack of patriotism of the Irish priests. Nothing will annoy them more, and in this I shall not be writing a lie. Magicians I have called them, and with good reason. Their magical powers are as great in politics as in religion, for haven’t they persuaded Ireland to accept them as patriots?
I wrote for an hour, and then went out in search of AE: it is essential to consult AE on every matter of importance, and the matter on which I was about to consult him seemed to me of the very highest. The night was Thursday, and every Thursday night, after finishing the last pages of The Homestead, he goes to the Hermetic Society to teach till eleven o’clock. But the rooms were not known to me, and I must have met a member of the So
ciety who directed me to the house in Dawson Street, a great decaying building let out in rooms, traversed by dusty passages, intersected by innumerable staircases; and through this great ramshackle I wandered, losing myself again and again. The doors were numbered, but the number I sought seemed undiscoverable. At last, at the end of a short, dusty corridor, I found the number I was seeking, and on opening the door caught sight of AE among his disciples. He was sitting at a bare table, teaching, and his disciples sat on chairs, circle-wise, listening. There was a lamp on the table, and it lit up his ardent, earnest face, and some of the faces of the men and women, others were lost in shadows. He bade me welcome, and continued to teach as if I had not been there. He even appealed to me on one occasion, but the subject was foreign to me, and it was impossible to detach my thoughts from the business on which I had come to speak to him. It seemed as if the disciples would never leave. The last stragglers clung about him, and I wondered why he did not send them away; but AE never tries to rid himself of anybody, not even the most importunate. At last the door closed, and I was free to tell him that it was impossible for me to bear with this constantly recurring imputation of Catholicism any longer.
