An Apostate Finds A Confidante

I'm still out.  Hope you all had a good weekend.  
 
From Thomas Wingfold, Curate by George MacDonald, in which Wingfold confesses his situation to Joseph Polwarth:


"I was brought up to the church," said Wingfold at length, playing with his teaspoon, and looking down on the table. "It's an awful shame such a thing should have been, but I don't find out that
anybody in particular was to blame for it. Things are all wrong that way, in general, I doubt. I pass my examinations with decency, distinguish myself in nothing, go before the bishop, am admitted a
deacon, after a year am ordained a priest, and after another year or two of false preaching and of parish work, suddenly find myself curate in charge of a grand old abbey church; but as to what the
whole thing means in practical relation with myself as a human being, I am as ignorant as Simon Magus, without his excuse. Do not mistake me. I think I could stand an examination on the doctrines of the church, as contained in the articles, and prayer-book generally.  But for all they have done for me, I might as well have never heard of them."

"Don't be quite sure of that, Mr. Wingfold. At least, they have brought you to inquire if there be anything in them."

"Mr. Polwarth," returned Wingfold abruptly, "I cannot even prove there is a God!"

"But the church of England exists for the sake of teaching Christianity, not proving that there is a God."

"What is Christianity, then?"

"God in Christ, and Christ in man."

"What is the use of that if there be no God?"

"None whatever."

"Mr. Polwarth, can you prove there is a God?"

"No."

"Then if you don't believe there is a God—I don't know what is to become of me," said the curate, in a tone of deep disappointment, and rose to go.

"Mr. Wingfold," said the little man, with a smile and a deep breath as of delight at the thought that was moving in him, "I know him in my heart, and he is all in all to me. You did not ask whether I
believed in him, but whether I could prove that there was a God. As well ask a fly, which has not yet crawled about the world, if he can prove that it is round!"

"Pardon me, and have patience with me," said Wingfold, resuming his seat. "I am a fool. But it is life or death to me."

"I would we were all such fools!—But please ask me no more questions; or ask me as many as you will, but expect no answers just yet. I want to know more of your mind first."

"Well, I will ask questions, but press for no answers.—If you cannot prove there is a God, do you know for certain that such a one as Jesus Christ ever lived? Can it be proved with positive certainty? I say nothing of what they call the doctrines of Christianity, or the authority of the church, or the sacraments, or anything of that sort. Such questions are at present of no interest to me. And yet the fact that they do not interest me, were enough to prove me in as false and despicable a position as ever man found himself occupying—as arrant a hypocrite and deceiver as any god-personating priest in the Delphic temple.—I had rather a man despised than excused me, Mr. Polwarth, for I am at issue with myself, and love not my past."

"I shall do neither, Mr. Wingfold. Go on, if you please, sir. I am more deeply interested than I can tell you."

"Some few months ago then, I met a young man who takes for granted the opposite of all that I had up to that time taken for granted, and which now I want to be able to prove. He spoke with contempt of my profession. I could not defend my profession, and of course had to despise myself. I began to think. I began to pray—if you will excuse me for mentioning it. My whole past life appeared like the
figures that glide over the field of a camera obscura—not an abiding fact in it all. A cloud gathered about me, and hangs about me still. I call, but no voice answers me out of the darkness, and at times I am in despair. I would, for the love and peace of honesty, give up the profession, but I shrink from forsaking what I may yet possibly find—though I fear, I fear—to be as true as I wish to find it. Something, I know not what, holds me to it—some dim vague affection, possibly mere prejudice, aided by a love for music, and the other sweet sounds of our prayers and responses. Nor would I willingly be supposed to deny what I dare not say—indeed know not how to say I believe, not  knowing what it is. I should nevertheless have abandoned everything months ago, had I not felt bound by my agreement to serve my rector for a year. You are the only one of the congregation who has shown me any humanity, and I beg of you to be my friend and help me. What shall I do? After the avowal you have made, I may well ask you again, How am I to know that there is a God?"

"It were a more pertinent question, sir," returned Polwarth,—"If there be a God, how am I to find him?—And, as I hinted before, there is another question—one you have already put—more pertinent to your position as an English clergyman: Was there ever such a man as Jesus Christ?—Those, I think, were your own words: what do you mean by SUCH a man?"

"Such as he is represented in the New Testament."

"From that representation, what description would you give of him now? What is that SUCH? What sort of person, supposing the story true, would you take this Jesus, from that story, to have been?"

Wingfold thought for a while.

"I am a worse humbug than I fancied," he said. "I cannot tell what he was. My thoughts of him are so vague and indistinct that it would take me a long time to render myself able to answer your question."

"Perhaps longer still than you think, sir. It took me a very long time.—"