第24章 COLERIDGE(3)

In close colloquy,flowing within narrower banks,I suppose he was more definite and apprehensible;Sterling in after-times did not complain of his unintelligibility,or imputed it only to the abtruse high nature of the topics handled.Let us hope so,let us try to believe so!There is no doubt but Coleridge could speak plain words on things plain:his observations and responses on the trivial matters that occurred were as simple as the commonest man's,or were even distinguished by superior simplicity as well as pertinency."Ah,your tea is too cold,Mr.Coleridge!"mourned the good Mrs.Gilman once,in her kind,reverential and yet protective manner,handing him a very tolerable though belated cup.--"It's better than I deserve!"snuffled he,in a low hoarse murmur,partly courteous,chiefly pious,the tone of which still abides with me:"It's better than I deserve!"But indeed,to the young ardent mind,instinct with pious nobleness,yet driven to the grim deserts of Radicalism for a faith,his speculations had a charm much more than literary,a charm almost religious and prophetic.The constant gist of his discourse was lamentation over the sunk condition of the world;which he recognized to be given up to Atheism and Materialism,full of mere sordid misbeliefs,mispursuits and misresults.All Science had become mechanical;the science not of men,but of a kind of human beavers.

Churches themselves had died away into a godless mechanical condition;and stood there as mere Cases of Articles,mere Forms of Churches;like the dried carcasses of once swift camels,which you find left withering in the thirst of the universal desert,--ghastly portents for the present,beneficent ships of the desert no more.Men's souls were blinded,hebetated;and sunk under the influence of Atheism and Materialism,and Hume and Voltaire:the world for the present was as an extinct world,deserted of God,and incapable of well-doing till it changed its heart and spirit.This,expressed I think with less of indignation and with more of long-drawn querulousness,was always recognizable as the ground-tone:--in which truly a pious young heart,driven into Radicalism and the opposition party,could not but recognize a too sorrowful truth;and ask of the Oracle,with all earnestness,What remedy,then?

The remedy,though Coleridge himself professed to see it as in sunbeams,could not,except by processes unspeakably difficult,be described to you at all.On the whole,those dead Churches,this dead English Church especially,must be brought to life again.Why not?

It was not dead;the soul of it,in this parched-up body,was tragically asleep only.Atheistic Philosophy was true on its side,and Hume and Voltaire could on their own ground speak irrefragably for themselves against any Church:but lift the Church and them into a higher sphere.Of argument,_they_died into inanition,the Church revivified itself into pristine florid vigor,--became once more a living ship of the desert,and invincibly bore you over stock and stone.But how,but how!By attending to the "reason"of man,said Coleridge,and duly chaining up the "understanding"of man:the _Vernunft_(Reason)and _Verstand_(Understanding)of the Germans,it all turned upon these,if you could well understand them,--which you couldn't.For the rest,Mr.Coleridge had on the anvil various Books,especially was about to write one grand Book _On the Logos_,which would help to bridge the chasm for us.So much appeared,however: