Nodding—Prancing—First Thoughts—England—Mid-channel thoughts—Battle—Religion—Science—Church—Guide.

Up rose the sun, and all was cheerful. Then I laid her to, and got out my axe, and chopped the bowsprit into shape, so that it would run out further, and then set the whole jib firmly on it.

All the feelings restrained so long by the river work, and regatta amenities, and Exhibition in Paris, now came forth powerfully in a flow of enthusiasm.

Boys seem to like the stories of the canoe voyages, and perhaps they will read this one of the yawl. If they have a sailor turn, they will imagine the new pleasure to be felt when you glide away from a fast-retreating land, and nothing is in front but sea, sea, sea. Then the little boat you are in, and know in every plank, and love too, becomes more than ever cherished as a friend. It is your only visible trust, and, if it is a good boat, you trust it well, for indeed it seems to try its very best, like a horse on the desert plain, that knows it must go on if it is ever to get to the other side. Then as the cliffs, that looked high behind you, dwindle into a line of deep blue, the compass by your knees becomes a magic thing, with no tongue indeed to speak, but surely a brain it must have to know the way so well.

For hours we went on thus in silent pleasure, gazing at the gentle needle as it moved without noise; and, with nothing around but plash of waves, bright sun, and a feeling of hot silence, the spell of sleep was overpowering. Homer sometimes nodded, it is said, and he would have certainly had a good nap had he steered long thus. The sinking off into these delicious slumbers was imperceptible, and perfectly beyond the will’s control. In a moment of trance I would be far away in dreamland, and with a thousand incidents, all enacted in orderly succession, with fights, wrecks, or pageantry, or the confused picture of bright-coloured nothings which fancy paints on the half-alive brain.

From these sweet dreams there was a rude awakening; a slap from the sea on my face, as the yawl, untended, suddenly rounded to, or a rattling taptoo on the deck when the jib-sheets found they were free.

Then for a time I would resolutely insist upon attention—every moment of slumber being a positive wandering from the course; but no, the outer self that demands a nap will not be denied by the inner nobler self that commands alertness.

Only one single sea-gull did I see in thirty hours. One vessel also far off was the sole break upon the painfully straight horizon, and as the wind gradually died away into nothing, the prospect did not improve.

Then came the up and down riding over seas without gaining a yard, the “prancing” of the vessel which had galloped forth in the morning like a horse in its first bounds on grass when, leaving a hard road, its hoof paws gladly the springy turf.

Some feelings that came up then from deep recesses in the mind were new, but too new and unnamed to put in words. Alone on the waters, when you cannot see land, is a strange condition. However, if only fog or darkness hides the land you still feel that land is there. Quite another thing is it to be afloat alone, where, because it is fifty miles away, land cannot be seen. Doubtless it may seem foolish, but I am not able to tell the feelings of that time.

Becalmed midway between France and England, it was natural for the mind to think of both countries, and every time I have left France it has been with more admiration of that lively land; [171] but Frenchmen, during this visit, looked at by us for the twentieth time, had evident signs of wounded vanity: they were conscious of playing second fiddle in a grand German opera.

Thinking of England, on the other hand, religion and not politics became the theme; for is not religion at least more considered amongst us than ever before? It may be opposed or misapprehended or derided, but it is not ignored as it used to be.

Look at the three leading newspapers, the morning, the evening, and the weekly registers of the direction, warmth, and pressure of public thought, as noted by keen observers, who are shrewd and weatherwise as to the signs of the times, and are seldom wrong when they hoist a storm signal. More and more each of these secular papers occupies its best columns with religious questions, and not with the mere facts or gossip on the subject, or with records of philanthropy, important as these are, but with deep essential doctrines, and prolonged arguments about the very kernel of truth.

Religion is allowed to have a place now in every stratum of society, even if a wrong place and a very uncomfortable place for a slender religion, though sometimes, indeed, a politician laments that “Parliament has its time occupied by the subject,” as if it were possible for the House to settle the Church and the School and the homes of men, without also considering their religion.

And if almost each family gives some place or other to it, so perhaps no one man in England would allow any other man to say of him that he has “nothing to do with religion.”

Religion is more present among us; but this is a wide term—‘religion.’ If there is a God, then that there is a revealed religion is acknowledged, and that the Christian religion has the best, if not the only claims to be this. Who is to decide for me as to whether there is a God?

If ignorance unfits me to judge this rightly, does not class prejudice unfit others to be the arbiters?

Are not the official exponents of theology liable to be prejudiced in its favour as something that establishes or enhances the position of their order among men?

Are not the votaries of natural science subject to a prejudice against Theism as something that dethrones them from supremacy?

Is there not among these last a writhing invisible agony to escape from the avowal that God governs? And why is this? Perhaps because man proudly relishes freedom, and hates to say that his life is inspected and controlled by another Being who will also judge him hereafter; and because the student of physical science knows that if there is a God, then moral science must be a far nobler pursuit than his own pursuit, even if it is less palpable and popular; also because the scientific man is tempted to do all he can to ignore that anything is outside the ken of science—that there is a Being on quite another plane, far above him and his researches.

But science has no exclusive or even predominant right in the decision of this matter; nor has it any solid success in the long battle, though one or other in its ranks may triumph in a skirmish. When one philosopher demolishes the Bible, an ordinary man cannot convince him he is wrong. But when a dozen savants tilt in the fray, even an ordinary man can see that their weapons demolish each other, and the old Book stands.

This geologist has scratched the varnish on the globe, and forthwith frames his new theory of creation. In ten years he is proved utterly wrong by that microscopist who has detected animal remains in an igneous rock. The simple bystander cannot understand either side, and far less tell which side is true. But when the combatants slay each other, the wayfaring man can understand this neutralization. The philosopher strikes me with awe so long as he keeps aloft beyond my knowledge or comprehension. When he comes down I can love him, but the reverence of his mystery is gone, and he is soon found out to be a brother mite. My friend can walk faster and farther on earth than I can; but when he wades into the water, I find I can swim just as well as he—while if we try to fly in the air, neither of us can soar a yard.

Thus the mind that is great in observing, collating, and even generalizing facts, gets immediately out of its depth a few feet from land in the ocean of hypothesis, and it can be drowned there like my own.

Reaching up higher, in search of First Cause, the clever brain grasps the liquid Æther above, and yearns; but it holds nothing, not one atom more than an ordinary mind; nor has all the striving of all the world lifted one man a foot above the plain towards heaven.

If these sentiments are pretentious, they show that one can learn at least forwardness from philosophers, if not wisdom.

But it is not the Atheist that puzzles one so much as those who find it convenient to admit the one point to start from—“There is a God,” be He styled in redundant reverence, “Nature,” “Providence,” or “Heaven.” The vacuity behind that is too dark and abysmal to be a home for their soul, and therefore they will accompany you thus far.

This short creed is long enough to cover many different meanings, and elastic enough to be worn, at least outside, for common decency, and to fit almost any form of life and character.

Some men have never had more than this meagre garment. Others have been swathed in more ample folds from the nursery, but have stripped off the mental clothing of their childhood, feeling it tight, or encumbered with braid and tassels, and some have torn it all to tatters; but at last, as their inner being chills in the air of naked freedom, they take upon them this creed as the one general raiment of prudence.

There may be quiet in this creed, for a time, if not comfort; but the garment fails to warm the heart if indeed it even covers the head; and the mind soon wonders whether God can be, and yet not do, and it yearns to know what God has said and done. Instinct tells it that to know the very truth upon this will make the man’s creed a vascular body for action, not a mere decent clothing. The mind begins its search for this truth on a battle-field. It is a fight for peace as well as a search for treasure. Facts have to be settled, in hot conflict, which are felt to touch every point of life, and not mere fancies high in the air, or thoughts too deep for common people. Each man fights hand-to-hand here. Strategy and leaders avail not. Mere numbers on one side or the other do not count for individual conviction; we are not saved in bundles.

No man can keep out of reach of the turmoil, though many would be content to remain as bystanders, secure from remark or disturbance, in a hazy cloud where the only thing distinct is their denial that there is anything definite. Their creed is not strengthened by its being vague and curtailed. “Moral sense,” “intuitive truth,” “general utility”—their ultimate appeal—is just as far out of reach of algebraic logic as any of the propositions are which they reject because these cannot be proved thus. Try this scrimp creed by their own standard of proof, and it shrivels away, until no God,—no soul,—no being remains as absolutely demonstrated, and there is only a thing faintly conscious of its own existence. In this watery element of dim, soft fog, or hard cold ice, there is no rest for the soul.

There are others, again, who, frightened by the hurly-burly, after a short wild wandering alone, join any group, as a refuge, if it be only visible, and seek a Church as an asylum for the timid rather than a fortress for the brave.

But what Church shall give rest, or which of them is even quieter than the outer din? There is one, indeed, that, long nursed and dozing in the lap of the State, is now roughly shaken, but is she yet awake? She has grown in bulk at least, while sleeping. Is she not like an overgrown child too big to be carried, and too rickety to walk alone?

She is called National but is only Diocesan, with different doctrine and worship in different dioceses. The bishops meet, and thinking different, but trying to say the same, they say what is unanimous only when it means nothing. The clergy meet, but while some of them are true Ministers, others would be as Presbyters towards their bishops and Popes to their people. Each parish can wear the ribbons that are badges of its doctrine. We are crystallizing into congregations, and soon these will split into families, and so perhaps we shall get back at last to the simple old shape, when the message was for Nymphas and “the church which is in his house.”

Meantime, my life-borne bark must not founder for lack of a guide. True, there is a chart, and precepts for the right way are clear, but my craving is for a living Spirit within which shall point me to the peaceful shore by an attraction powerful and unerring, though unseen, and, like that of the needle, incomprehensible.

And was it not the divinest act ever done by God to come down Himself among men, saying, “I am the Way,” “and I will give you rest?”

Now we can safely steer, and will surely reach port.