Introduction to Robert Browning [32]
of any kind, as he constantly teaches us: it is a world of broken arcs, not of perfect rounds. Formulations of some kind he would, no doubt, admit there must be, as in everything else; but with him all formulations and tabulations of beliefs, especially such as "make square to a finite eye the circle of infinity", *1* are, at the best, only PROVISIONAL, and, at the worst, lead to spiritual standstill, spiritual torpor, "a ghastly smooth life, dead at heart." *2* The essential nature of Christianity is contrary to special prescription, do this or do that, believe this or believe that. Christ gave no recipes. Christianity is with Browning, and this he sets forth again and again, a LIFE, quickened and motived and nourished by the Personality of Christ. And all that he says of this Personality can be accepted by every Christian, whatever theological view he may entertain of Christ. Christ's teachings he regards but as INCIDENTS of that Personality, and the records we have of his sayings and doings, but a fragment, a somewhat distorted one, it may be, out of which we must, by a mystic and plastic sympathy, {*} aided by the Christ spirit which is immanent in the Christian world, mould the Personality, and do fealty to it. The Christian must endeavor to be able to say, with the dying John, in Browning's `Death in the Desert', "To me that story, -- ay, that Life and Death of which I wrote `it was' -- to me, it is."
-- *1* `Christmas Eve'. *2* `Easter Day'. {*} `plastic' in the 1800's sense of `pliable', not `fake'. -- A.L. --
The poem entitled `Christmas Eve' contains the fullest and most explicit expression, in Browning, of his idea of the personality of Christ, as being the all-in-all of Christianity.
"The truth in God's breast Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed: Though He is so bright and we so dim, We are made in His image to witness Him: And were no eye in us to tell, Instructed by no inner sense, The light of Heaven from the dark of Hell, That light would want its evidence, -- Though Justice, Good, and Truth, were still Divine, if, by some demon's will, Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed Law through the worlds, and Right misnamed, No mere exposition of morality Made or in part or in totality, Should win you to give it worship, therefore: And if no better proof you will care for, -- Whom do you count the worst man upon earth? Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more Of what Right is, than arrives at birth In the best man's acts that we bow before: And thence I conclude that the real God-function Is to furnish a motive and injunction For practising what we know already. And such an injunction and such a motive As the God in Christ, do you waive, and `heady, High-minded', hang your tablet votive Outside the fane on a finger-post? Morality to the uttermost, Supreme in Christ as we all confess, Why need WE prove would avail no jot To make Him God, if God he were not? Where is the point where Himself lays stress? Does the precept run `Believe in Good, In Justice, Truth, now understood For the first time'? -- or `Believe in ME, Who lived and died, yet essentially Am Lord of Life'?* Whoever can take The same to his heart and for mere love's sake Conceive of the love, -- that man obtains A new truth; no conviction gains Of an old one only, made intense By a fresh appeal to his faded sense."
-- * "Subsists no law of life outside of life." * * * * * "The Christ himself had been no Lawgiver, Unless he had given the LIFE, too, with the law." Mrs. Browning's `Aurora Leigh'. --
If all Christendom could take this remarkable poem of `Christmas Eve' to its heart, its tolerance, its Catholic spirit, and, more than all, the fealty it exhibits to the Personality who essentially is Lord of Life, what a revolution it would undergo! and what a mass of dogmatic and polemic theology would become utterly obsolete! The most remarkable thing, perhaps, about the vast body of Christian
-- *1* `Christmas Eve'. *2* `Easter Day'. {*} `plastic' in the 1800's sense of `pliable', not `fake'. -- A.L. --
The poem entitled `Christmas Eve' contains the fullest and most explicit expression, in Browning, of his idea of the personality of Christ, as being the all-in-all of Christianity.
"The truth in God's breast Lies trace for trace upon ours impressed: Though He is so bright and we so dim, We are made in His image to witness Him: And were no eye in us to tell, Instructed by no inner sense, The light of Heaven from the dark of Hell, That light would want its evidence, -- Though Justice, Good, and Truth, were still Divine, if, by some demon's will, Hatred and wrong had been proclaimed Law through the worlds, and Right misnamed, No mere exposition of morality Made or in part or in totality, Should win you to give it worship, therefore: And if no better proof you will care for, -- Whom do you count the worst man upon earth? Be sure, he knows, in his conscience, more Of what Right is, than arrives at birth In the best man's acts that we bow before: And thence I conclude that the real God-function Is to furnish a motive and injunction For practising what we know already. And such an injunction and such a motive As the God in Christ, do you waive, and `heady, High-minded', hang your tablet votive Outside the fane on a finger-post? Morality to the uttermost, Supreme in Christ as we all confess, Why need WE prove would avail no jot To make Him God, if God he were not? Where is the point where Himself lays stress? Does the precept run `Believe in Good, In Justice, Truth, now understood For the first time'? -- or `Believe in ME, Who lived and died, yet essentially Am Lord of Life'?* Whoever can take The same to his heart and for mere love's sake Conceive of the love, -- that man obtains A new truth; no conviction gains Of an old one only, made intense By a fresh appeal to his faded sense."
-- * "Subsists no law of life outside of life." * * * * * "The Christ himself had been no Lawgiver, Unless he had given the LIFE, too, with the law." Mrs. Browning's `Aurora Leigh'. --
If all Christendom could take this remarkable poem of `Christmas Eve' to its heart, its tolerance, its Catholic spirit, and, more than all, the fealty it exhibits to the Personality who essentially is Lord of Life, what a revolution it would undergo! and what a mass of dogmatic and polemic theology would become utterly obsolete! The most remarkable thing, perhaps, about the vast body of Christian