“You do not know these things because as a child you did not listen or else you were not taught. The world is full of people who have received no instruction or who have ignored it, and who do not know what Christianity is about. Many of these are settled firmly in a way of life that seems satisfactory to them, and when instruction is offered it is most often incapable of being heard. Others are not settled and are interested in instruction, but their condition of bewilderment is seldom one which can advantageously be used. A man must come to his own conclusions, he must not be persuaded by the rhetoric of a priest. There are practical considerations in this, as well as ethical ones. A conversion against a man’s conscience is not a true conversion, and the results of it are dangerous for everyone concerned. A priest is dealing normally with practising Christians, and his function is one of service to the Christian Church. Instruction is given to children because that is the time for instruction; ministration is given to adults in the pattern of what they believe. It is true that now, in the conditions around us, the pattern is upset and the world is not normal. These are conditions which are unfortunate but which do not affect the position of the Church. Its function remains the same.
“This function you can learn to understand and practise or you need not learn to understand. That is up to you. It is quite a simple function, of love and worship, which begins with the sacraments and extends to the whole of life. You can learn it if you wish. I hope you do. But what I would say to you is this, that it is what a man believes that is important. I would rather a man lived faithfully by what he believes than attempted to persuade himself of what he does not. A synthesis of persuasion is useless: an antithesis of truth is not. This is perhaps what you will recognize. There is something of the truth in every man, however contradictory expressions of it may appear. It is this truth that can be respected: I should say more than this, — it can be loved. The claim that the Church makes, you see, is a very large one after all;—it claims that if every man will observe and honour the truth that is in him, then there is not much more that need be done. The Church, as it were, is doing the rest. It is working for the world in the only way possible for it. There is a good deal of confidence in this, and certainty. This is what you will learn to understand. Do I make myself clear?”
Marius came back in the evenings and he looked at me with eyes that curiously had no depth. It was difficult to talk to him. He said:
“Yes, I know Father Jack, he is a good man, a very good man, he is what they call their West End turn, does that shock you? I know what you mean, I didn’t think he would help you, but don’t let anything shock you until you know what it is about. Then you will see that he is a very good man, and not a spider — didn’t he say so? — not a spider to entwine you. I do not think that he is the person for you to talk to, however, and I? no, of course not, I am not the person, but you know where you can go.
“In one way at least I think I am like Father Jack. The life of everyone is like a circle and at one stage you stand on the circumference looking inwards and you search for the centre and the centre is not there. Then you find it and you turn outwards because the centre is established and you don’t have to search for it any more. You stand on the circumference looking outwards and outwardly your life becomes quite a passionless business, to do what ought to be done, and in the centre because it is established the passion is not seen. Passion is not often discernible in a thing that does not move. Passion in sculpture needs a specialist’s eye to observe it. If you have not these eyes then you think it is dead. And it is not easy for some to turn inwards again.
“Perhaps I am dead, I say this for the last time, for the last time I go back into the centre, I do not think I am dead. But whatever has happened in me is established and I do not feel those things anymore. I am sorry about Annabelle, you do not know how sorry I am, but being in love is not necessarily a condition of marriage, she knew this better than I did, but we did not know it at the time. Marriage is when you find each other at the centre, and we could not pretend for us this was true. I could not give this to her and I cannot give what you want to you, because there are only certain things within my capacity. These I will try to do, and the rest leave to others. There is much for which I shall have to ask to be forgiven, as you must know.
“Perhaps there are only certain things in Father Jack’s capacity, too. Perhaps he feels that reality is what it ought to be, and that it is unreality when it is not. He distinguished between what is becoming and what is. This is what you must do. There are others to whom you can talk. I think that you understand this, I think you know what I mean by being passionless and turned outwards and waiting. I think that when you have found your centre there will be a great deal for you to do. When I left Alice’s house she said a strange thing to me, she said that you could not corrupt other people even though you tried to. Perhaps this is true. She meant that you did something else to them. I think that you will go further than I have done because you have the ability, and I have had to wipe out so much that I sometimes think that there is not much left of me anyway. I am not a Christian, not really a Christian. There are just certain things that I have to do each day and I have to have a standard by which to do them. When you have no emotions you have to have reasons. My marriage died. But one day you will go into the centre and the emotion that has taken you there will be a living one and then when you are turned outwards your life will be joy. It will be something, this, in the despair of the world, to know the vanity of it. The remedy for despair lies in possessing the means for action; and the means, at the centre, is what you will find.”
Mr. Palmerston was staying in a small bare room in Notting Hill. At night he wore a skull-cap made of wool. He sat leaning backwards with his hands between his knees. He said:
“I cannot teach you, teaching is not relevant to you, what is it that you believe? Teaching is only for those who believe already. You believe in nothing? My friend if you believe in nothing then death is the end of life and life is nothing and that is not possible, that life is not possible, because you know about this life, you have eyes to see this life, you know the evil of it. Man is evil my friend you know he is evil, I am not here to talk about sin, I tell you, you know about sin there is no need of me to talk about it. Sin is humanity and I tell you that it is impossible for humanity not to sin, that is the pill that you have to swallow, again and again you have to tell yourself things, that it is impossible for humanity not to sin. And therefore there is one thing and one thing alone that humanity can do, and that is to plead for the absolution from this sin and to remember the triumph that is the justification of its plea, the triumph of a life that did not sin and yet which died in the way that sinners die to make a triumph for them. Upon one day and between the hours of darkness and light there was given to this world its salvation and its redemption. It has been given no other.