Preface

(Critic and Author: a Dialogue)

Cr. Forgive my dulness that I fail to see

The work’s intention;—if a single plot
On the vast sphere of thought and fact it stakes,
Hedges about, bring under ordered tilth.
Is it a Life of Christ? A hundred men
Have writ in whole or part the Life of lives:
All are rejected, falling short as they must
Of that surpassing fitness marks the Four.

Au. E’en so, falls to the lot of every man

To restate for himself, on his own plan,
That which we name the Gospel: not his Creed—
Restatement there shall curious vapours breed!—
Far other work is his, as, line by line,
His mind absorbs the history divine,
Figures each scene, weighs well each pregnant word
Let fall in sequence due by the Good Lord
Who came, our Wisdom, down to teach mankind
The Way, the End, the waymarks each shall find
For every step of the road. Wise men of Greece,
Those Eastern sages, too, taught,—Man’s increase
In wisdom for the ordering of his days—
His righteous first pursuit and all his praise:
Hᴇ came not to destroy what these had taught;
But rather to enforce that Wisdom, wrought
By ways and words of God in mind of men:
No easy lesson this; once and again,
“Now, have ye understood?” the Teacher cries:—
And we, so slow of heart to realise
That there is aught a child may not perceive,
Or more than fool is able to believe!
High sounding teaching our vain minds demand,
Nor know at all—we do not understand!

Cr. I see; you would unfold what might be named

Christian Philosophy if full-proclaimed;
Your heifer, friend, has been in many a plough!

Au. You hit my purpose partly, I avow;

But the Method of the Master seems to me
Too subtle-wise for any man to see
But who hath deeply pondered in his heart;
For see, Christ’s teaching is no separate part,
A sermon here, there miracle, event—
Or Birth in Bethlehem, or how He went
Afoot through all their hamlets doing good,
Healing all sickness, giving men their food;
And all in casual wise, occasion-moved:
There is, I take it, tho’ scarce fully proved
The fact, yet evidence the Saviour meant,
Say, single sheet by sheet, to unfold His intent
As men should show capacity to meet
His thought with thought reciprocal; we know
No words of teaching any further go
Than the measure of his mind who hears that word:
This limitation to His work, our Lord
Accepts all graciously, and lays His plan
To catch the ear, mind, heart of every man,
Arrested to attention by some sign
In this mechanic-world of life divine.
So all His works, as pictures, illustrate
Utt’rances mystic, opening mysteries great;
And every teaching fits with all the rest;
And all’s profound, progressive, asks our best—
The eager student’s utmost labouring zeal
To comprehend, to know, to inly feel:—
Thus, diligent, He teaches; now by law,
By fable now, or miracle, will draw
Men to consider. Ever on one theme
His teaching labours; Word and Work ’twould seem
Are used t’elaborate some truth divine
Till, lo, at last, His hidden meanings shine
Revealed to men, no more to be obscured,
Although the disciples only are assured.
That lesson taught, another cognate theme
The Lord pursues with patient skill supreme
Till that be comprehended, if by few—
The Twelve, perchance; through months doth He pursue
With many variants—sayings, acts and ways,
A single theme, shall fructify our days:
Thus, in the months this volume would include,
Teaching about the Kingdom is pursued
By our dear Lord, through miracle and tale,
Example cited, what may best avail
To win men’s thoughts from emulous greed and strife
To that must be sole business of their life!

Cr. I see your point of view; men would attend

Schools of the sages, days, months, years on end,—
Their sole concern to master, thought by thought,
Philosophy with aids to living fraught;
This you demand for Christ?

Au. Aye, this and more;

For who as He God’s image can restore?

Cr. But you forget the temper of our days;

Never had Christ more lavish generous praise;
That He, the ideal Man, not one denies;
Starlike, serene, doth still His image rise
Above the troubled waters: but, see you,
The line of argument you must pursue
Demands a certitude we don’t possess:
The Son of Man we’re ready to confess—
Not we, Confessors in the ancient sense
Imperill’d life and limb!—yet are we sure,
His loveliness must long as time endure:
But all His several words, those wonders, signs—
The Critic, look you, is abroad; divines,
Here, textual error by a method sure;
There, chronicle will not the tests endure
Science applies to that she can receive:
Now, face the matter squarely; how believe
That “Gospel truth” our wisest hold in doubt?
Nay, that we clear the Christ from all the rout
Of controversial issues is our praise!

Au. But what a Christ is He on Whom your gaze

With sentimental rapture fix ye! See,
Those Pharisees, more logical than ye!
“Blasphemest thou!” they cry when Hᴇ employs
Attributes of the Almighty: a man enjoys
Twofold prerogative in these liberal days,—
To doubt, deny, still voluble in praise!
Trifling inaccuracies—these but prove
Men wrote those things that they had learnt to love:
Hear four men tell what happened in the street
This very day,—how do their tales compete
For credence? Not because they are agreed,
But, this man tells the tale with better heed
To what is possible! Now, here we fail;
Just here our usual methods won’t avail!
Nothing is “probable” where Hᴇ is concerned;
Our art of reasoning must be all unlearned:
Suppose, Dimension Fourth, that ancient quest,
Sudden disclosed itself to seeker blest;—
What errors would men make! How hard to wrest
Their thought from the old measures, length and height
And ponderosity,—confined them quite,
Set bounds to speculation! It is plain,
That new conditions, measures, must obtain;
The new Dimension,—its own standard, test;
All things thenceforth are meted at behest
Of the new basic fundamental laws
Inherent in that absolute new-found cause!
Changes so vast in measures, values, all
That constitutes the worth of life, befal
The man who sees The Lord; knows Him, indeed,
The single Measure which shall not mislead
That man would try the truth, for Truth is He,
Sole standard of the truth needs must He be;
To try His words and acts by any rule
Obtains without Himself, is as if fool
Should measure miles in quart-pots, yards in scales!
“Behold, I make a new thing!” What avails
Each petty test, pedantic, when the vast
Of Personality Divine goes past
Our dazzled eyes? No other help is brought;—
We must see Christ ere poor scale of our thought
Apply to His dimensions, infinite,
The Very God amongst us! We may write
The breadth and length of miracle and word,
Then only, when we measure by the Lord.

Cr. I see; you would reverse the usual way;

First, know the Unknown; that learned, why, thought may play
About the records, measuring them by trained
Conception of their Subject;—how obtained?

Au. Straight plunge we in dimension all unknown!

“New Birth,” the Master calls it, who alone
Could speak of that He knew.

Cr. And by what sign

Shall one discern in himself this life divine?

Au. To answer were to say in single word

All, in three crowded years the disciples heard
From the lips of the Master.

Cr. This, disclose;

How may a man be certain that he knows?

Au. Perhaps, by this; a new dimension straight

Reveals itself in him; he walks elate,
Enlarged, unlimited; with passions, powers,
For which no scope he found in th’ slow dull hours
Of all his former life! Constraining love,
A pent-up passion, shall his doings move:
A tremulous lover goes he, quick to grieve
O’er wrong he does to love; apt to believe
And linger tenderly o’er every word,
Precious as pearl, hath fallen from his Lord:
Ambition, power and place? All these the man
Finds in his Master’s service; petty span
Of personal issues, projects, holds him not;—
In joy of the Kingdom all himself’s forgot!
And see what scope is his—the round world, all,
Shall at his Master’s footstool one day fall;
And his to advance that End, by tool or pen,—
Or aught brings solacement or strength to men!

Cr. The allurement of such prospect, I confess;

Of life for his living, every man goes less;
He prods him with the spur of this and that
Desire, ambition,—soon, he ambles flat;
Like stranded fish, he gasps for fuller life
Than comes with children, power, or wealth, or wife:
I own our need; but doubt is in the air:
Has so-called Higher Criticism no share
In furthering the issue all desire?

Au. Is it not, too, of God? The purging fire

Shall fine the Word itself; but surer, He,
Than record of the word; by Him, we see
If any saying be indeed divine,—
So shall His glory through the letter shine!

Cr. Allowing for the argument’s sake your view,

Still your first allegation must be true,
Each man must ponder for himself to know:
Then what is gained, when into verse you throw
The tale we own inimitable; word,
The like of which by men hath not been heard?

Au. Never rude Crucifix by roadside set

But doth, in some poor heart, new thoughts beget
Of Jesus, Lover of mankind and Lord!
May it not be that every sincere word,
Rough-carven, poor, unworthy though it be,
Is not without appeal to them who see
That here is one in simpleness would show
That fragment of the Truth ’tis his to know?
And, look you, thought breeds thought; whoever thinks
And drops his thought in word, where that word sinks,
New thought springs up, created by impact
Of thought on mind laid open; to react
In ampler juster thought; increase we thus,
To measure of that Stature set for us!