The Saints Tragedy | Page 2

the defence of
certain propositions, he is sure gradually to lose all sense of the
connection between those propositions and his own life, or the life of
man. In either case he becomes utterly ineffectual as a teacher. Those
whose education and character are different from his own, whose
processes of mind have therefore been different, are utterly
unintelligible to him. Even a cordial desire for sympathy is not able to
break through the prickly hedge of habits, notions, and technicalities
which separates them. Oftentimes the desire itself is extinguished in
those who ought to cherish it most, by the fear of meeting with
something portentous or dangerous. Nor can he defend a dogma better

than he communes with men; for he knows not that which attacks it. He
supposes it to be a set of book arguments, whereas it is something lying
very deep in the heart of the disputant, into which he has never
penetrated.
Hence there is a general complaint that we 'are ignorant of the thoughts
and feelings of our contemporaries'; most attribute this to a fear of
looking below the surface, lest we should find hollowness within; many
like to have it so, because they have thus an excuse for despising us.
But surely such an ignorance is more inexcusable in us, than in the
priests of any nation: we, less than any, are kept from the sun and air;
our discipline is less than any contrived merely to make us acquainted
with the commonplaces of divinity. We are enabled, nay, obliged, from
our youth upwards, to mix with people of our own age, who are
destined for all occupations and modes of life; to share in their studies,
their enjoyments, their perplexities, their temptations. Experience, often
so dearly bought, is surely not meant to be thrown away: whether it has
been obtained without the sacrifice of that which is most precious, or
whether the lost blessing has been restored twofold, and good is
understood, not only as the opposite of evil, but as the deliverance from
it, we cannot be meant to forget all that we have been learning. The
teachers of other nations may reasonably mock us, as having less of
direct book-lore than themselves; they should not be able to say, that
we are without the compensation of knowing a little more of living
creatures.
A clergyman, it seems to me, should be better able than other men to
cast aside that which is merely accidental, either in his own character,
or in the character of the age to which he belongs, and to apprehend
that which is essential and eternal. His acceptance of fixed creeds,
which belong as much to one generation as another, and which have
survived amid all changes and convulsions, should raise him especially
above the temptation to exalt the fashion of his own time, or of any past
one; above the affectation of the obsolete, above slavery to the present,
and above that strange mixture of both which some display, who weep
because the beautiful visions of the Past are departed, and admire
themselves for being able to weep over them--and dispense with them.

His reverence for the Bible should make him feel that we most realise
our own personality when we most connect it with that of our
fellow-men; that acts are not to be contemplated apart from the actor;
that more of what is acceptable to the God of Truth may come forth in
men striving with infinite confusion, and often uttering words like the
east-wind, than in those who can discourse calmly and eloquently about
a righteousness and mercy, which they know only by hearsay. The
belief which a minister of God has in the eternity of the distinction
between right and wrong should especially dispose him to recognise
that distinction apart from mere circumstance and opinion. The
confidence which he must have that the life of each man, and the life of
this world, is a drama, in which a perfectly Good and True Being is
unveiling His own purposes, and carrying on a conflict with evil, which
must issue in complete victory, should make him eager to discover in
every portion of history, in every biography, a divine 'Morality' and
'Mystery'--a morality, though it deals with no abstract personages--a
mystery, though the subject of it be the doings of the most secular men.
The subject of this Play is certainly a dangerous one, it suggests
questions which are deeply interesting at the present time. It involves
the whole character and spirit of the Middle Ages. A person who had
not an enthusiastic admiration for the character of Elizabeth would not
be worthy to speak of her; it seems to me, that he would be still less
worthy, if he did not admire far more