Chương Chương 59 · 第59章

. Before going down into the kitchen to convert the tinker Ernest ran

hurriedly over his analysis of Paley’s evidences, and put into his

pocket a copy of Archbishop Whateley’s “Historic Doubts.” Then he

descended the dark rotten old stairs and knocked at the tinker’s door.

Mr Shaw was very civil; he said he was rather throng just now, but if

Ernest did not mind the sound of hammering he should be very glad of a

talk with him. Our hero, assenting to this, ere long led the

conversation to Whateley’s “Historic Doubts”—a work which, as the

reader may know, pretends to show that there never was any such person

as Napoleon Buonaparte, and thus satirises the arguments of those who

have attacked the Christian miracles.

Mr Shaw said he knew “Historic Doubts” very well.

“And what you think of it?” said Ernest, who regarded the pamphlet as a

masterpiece of wit and cogency.

“If you really want to know,” said Mr Shaw, with a sly twinkle, “I

think that he who was so willing and able to prove that what was was

not, would be equally able and willing to make a case for thinking that

what was not was, if it suited his purpose.” Ernest was very much taken

aback. How was it that all the clever people of Cambridge had never put

him up to this simple rejoinder? The answer is easy: they did not

develop it for the same reason that a hen had never developed webbed

feet—that is to say, because they did not want to do so; but this was

before the days of Evolution, and Ernest could not as yet know anything

of the great principle that underlies it.

“You see,” continued Mr Shaw, “these writers all get their living by

writing in a certain way, and the more they write in that way, the more

they are likely to get on. You should not call them dishonest for this

any more than a judge should call a barrister dishonest for earning his

living by defending one in whose innocence he does not seriously

believe; but you should hear the barrister on the other side before you

decide upon the case.”

This was another facer. Ernest could only stammer that he had

endeavoured to examine these questions as carefully as he could.

“You think you have,” said Mr Shaw; “you Oxford and Cambridge gentlemen

think you have examined everything. I have examined very little myself

except the bottoms of old kettles and saucepans, but if you will answer

me a few questions, I will tell you whether or no you have examined

much more than I have.”

Ernest expressed his readiness to be questioned.

“Then,” said the tinker, “give me the story of the Resurrection of

Jesus Christ as told in St John’s gospel.”

I am sorry to say that Ernest mixed up the four accounts in a

deplorable manner; he even made the angel come down and roll away the

stone and sit upon it. He was covered with confusion when the tinker

first told him without the book of some of his many inaccuracies, and

then verified his criticisms by referring to the New Testament itself.

“Now,” said Mr Shaw good naturedly, “I am an old man and you are a

young one, so perhaps you’ll not mind my giving you a piece of advice.

I like you, for I believe you mean well, but you’ve been real bad

brought up, and I don’t think you have ever had so much as a chance

yet. You know nothing of our side of the question, and I have just

shown you that you do not know much more of your own, but I think you

will make a kind of Carlyle sort of a man some day. Now go upstairs and

read the accounts of the Resurrection correctly without mixing them up,

and have a clear idea of what it is that each writer tells us, then if

you feel inclined to pay me another visit I shall be glad to see you,

for I shall know you have made a good beginning and mean business. Till

then, Sir, I must wish you a very good morning.”

Ernest retreated abashed. An hour sufficed him to perform the task

enjoined upon him by Mr Shaw; and at the end of that hour the “No, no,

no,” which still sounded in his ears as he heard it from Towneley, came

ringing up more loudly still from the very pages of the Bible itself,

and in respect of the most important of all the events which are

recorded in it. Surely Ernest’s first day’s attempt at more promiscuous

visiting, and at carrying out his principles more thoroughly, had not

been unfruitful. But he must go and have a talk with Pryer. He

therefore got his lunch and went to Pryer’s lodgings. Pryer not being

at home, he lounged to the British Museum Reading Room, then recently

opened, sent for the “Vestiges of Creation,” which he had never yet

seen, and spent the rest of the afternoon in reading it.

Ernest did not see Pryer on the day of his conversation with Mr Shaw,

but he did so next morning and found him in a good temper, which of

late he had rarely been. Sometimes, indeed, he had behaved to Ernest in

a way which did not bode well for the harmony with which the College of

Spiritual Pathology would work when it had once been founded. It almost

seemed as though he were trying to get a complete moral ascendency over

him, so as to make him a creature of his own.

He did not think it possible that he could go too far, and indeed, when

I reflect upon my hero’s folly and inexperience, there is much to be

said in excuse for the conclusion which Pryer came to.

As a matter of fact, however, it was not so. Ernest’s faith in Pryer

had been too great to be shaken down all in a moment, but it had been

weakened lately more than once. Ernest had fought hard against allowing

himself to see this, nevertheless any third person who knew the pair

would have been able to see that the connection between the two might

end at any moment, for when the time for one of Ernest’s snipe-like

changes of flight came, he was quick in making it; the time, however,

was not yet come, and the intimacy between the two was apparently all

that it had ever been. It was only that horrid money business (so said

Ernest to himself) that caused any unpleasantness between them, and no

doubt Pryer was right, and he, Ernest, much too nervous. However, that

might stand over for the present.

In like manner, though he had received a shock by reason of his

conversation with Mr Shaw, and by looking at the “Vestiges,” he was as

yet too much stunned to realise the change which was coming over him.

In each case the momentum of old habits carried him forward in the old

direction. He therefore called on Pryer, and spent an hour and more

with him.

He did not say that he had been visiting among his neighbours; this to

Pryer would have been like a red rag to a bull. He only talked in much

his usual vein about the proposed College, the lamentable want of

interest in spiritual things which was characteristic of modern

society, and other kindred matters; he concluded by saying that for the

present he feared Pryer was indeed right, and that nothing could be

done.

“As regards the laity,” said Pryer, “nothing; not until we have a

discipline which we can enforce with pains and penalties. How can a

sheep dog work a flock of sheep unless he can bite occasionally as well

as bark? But as regards ourselves we can do much.”

Pryer’s manner was strange throughout the conversation, as though he

were thinking all the time of something else. His eyes wandered

curiously over Ernest, as Ernest had often noticed them wander before:

the words were about Church discipline, but somehow or other the

discipline part of the story had a knack of dropping out after having

been again and again emphatically declared to apply to the laity and

not to the clergy: once indeed Pryer had pettishly exclaimed: “Oh,

bother the College of Spiritual Pathology.” As regards the clergy,

glimpses of a pretty large cloven hoof kept peeping out from under the

saintly robe of Pryer’s conversation, to the effect, that so long as

they were theoretically perfect, practical peccadilloes—or even

peccadaccios, if there is such a word, were of less importance. He was

restless, as though wanting to approach a subject which he did not

quite venture to touch upon, and kept harping (he did this about every

third day) on the wretched lack of definition concerning the limits of

vice and virtue, and the way in which half the vices wanted regulating

rather than prohibiting. He dwelt also on the advantages of complete

unreserve, and hinted that there were mysteries into which Ernest had

not yet been initiated, but which would enlighten him when he got to

know them, as he would be allowed to do when his friends saw that he

was strong enough.

Pryer had often been like this before, but never so nearly, as it

seemed to Ernest, coming to a point—though what the point was he could

not fully understand. His inquietude was communicating itself to

Ernest, who would probably ere long have come to know as much as Pryer

could tell him, but the conversation was abruptly interrupted by the

appearance of a visitor. We shall never know how it would have ended,

for this was the very last time that Ernest ever saw Pryer. Perhaps

Pryer was going to break to him some bad news about his speculations.