The Way of All Flesh
CHAPTER VIII
Mr Pontifex had set his heart on his son’s becoming a fellow of a college
before he became a clergyman. This would provide for him at once and would
ensure his getting a living if none of his father’s ecclesiastical friends gave
him one. The boy had done just well enough at school to render this
possible, so he was sent to one of the smaller colleges at Cambridge and was at
once set to read with the best private tutors that could be found. A
system of examination had been adopted a year or so before Theobald took his
degree which had improved his chances of a fellowship, for whatever ability he
had was classical rather than mathematical, and this system gave more
encouragement to classical studies than had been given hitherto.
Theobald had the sense to see that he had a chance of independence if he
worked hard, and he liked the notion of becoming a fellow. He therefore
applied himself, and in the end took a degree which made his getting a
fellowship in all probability a mere question of time. For a while Mr
Pontifex senior was really pleased, and told his son he would present him with
the works of any standard writer whom he might select. The young man chose
the works of Bacon, and Bacon accordingly made his appearance in ten nicely
bound volumes. A little inspection, however, showed that the copy was a
second hand one.
Now that he had taken his degree the next thing to look forward to was
ordination—about which Theobald had thought little hitherto beyond acquiescing
in it as something that would come as a matter of course some day. Now,
however, it had actually come and was asserting itself as a thing which should
be only a few months off, and this rather frightened him inasmuch as there would
be no way out of it when he was once in it. He did not like the near view
of ordination as well as the distant one, and even made some feeble efforts to
escape, as may be perceived by the following correspondence which his son Ernest
found among his father’s papers written on gilt-edged paper, in faded ink and
tied neatly round with a piece of tape, but without any note or comment. I
have altered nothing. The letters are as follows:—
“My dear Father,—I do not like opening up a question which has been
considered settled, but as the time approaches I begin to be very doubtful how
far I am fitted to be a clergyman. Not, I am thankful to say, that I
have the faintest doubts about the Church of England, and I could subscribe
cordially to every one of the thirty-nine articles which do indeed appear to
me to be the ne plus ultra of human wisdom, and Paley, too, leaves no
loop-hole for an opponent; but I am sure I should be running counter to your
wishes if I were to conceal from you that I do not feel the inward call to be
a minister of the gospel that I shall have to say I have felt when the Bishop
ordains me. I try to get this feeling, I pray for it earnestly, and
sometimes half think that I have got it, but in a little time it wears off,
and though I have no absolute repugnance to being a clergyman and trust that
if I am one I shall endeavour to live to the Glory of God and to advance His
interests upon earth, yet I feel that something more than this is wanted
before I am fully justified in going into the Church. I am aware that I
have been a great expense to you in spite of my scholarships, but you have
ever taught me that I should obey my conscience, and my conscience tells me I
should do wrong if I became a clergyman. God may yet give me the spirit
for which I assure you I have been and am continually praying, but He may not,
and in that case would it not be better for me to try and look out for
something else? I know that neither you nor John wish me to go into your
business, nor do I understand anything about money matters, but is there
nothing else that I can do? I do not like to ask you to maintain me
while I go in for medicine or the bar; but when I get my fellowship, which
should not be long first, I will endeavour to cost you nothing further, and I
might make a little money by writing or taking pupils. I trust you will
not think this letter improper; nothing is further from my wish than to cause
you any uneasiness. I hope you will make allowance for my present
feelings which, indeed, spring from nothing but from that respect for my
conscience which no one has so often instilled into me as yourself. Pray
let me have a few lines shortly. I hope your cold is better. With
love to Eliza and Maria, I am, your affectionate son,
“THEOBALD PONTIFEX.”
“Dear Theobald,—I can enter into your feelings and have no wish to quarrel
with your expression of them. It is quite right and natural that you
should feel as you do except as regards one passage, the impropriety of which
you will yourself doubtless feel upon reflection, and to which I will not
further allude than to say that it has wounded me. You should not have
said ‘in spite of my scholarships.’ It was only proper that if you could
do anything to assist me in bearing the heavy burden of your education, the
money should be, as it was, made over to myself. Every line in your
letter convinces me that you are under the influence of a morbid sensitiveness
which is one of the devil’s favourite devices for luring people to their
destruction. I have, as you say, been at great expense with your
education. Nothing has been spared by me to give you the advantages,
which, as an English gentleman, I was anxious to afford my son, but I am not
prepared to see that expense thrown away and to have to begin again from the
beginning, merely because you have taken some foolish scruples into your head,
which you should resist as no less unjust to yourself than to me.
“Don’t give way to that restless desire for change which is the bane of so
many persons of both sexes at the present day.
“Of course you needn’t be ordained: nobody will compel you; you are
perfectly free; you are twenty-three years of age, and should know your own
mind; but why not have known it sooner, instead of never so much as breathing
a hint of opposition until I have had all the expense of sending you to the
University, which I should never have done unless I had believed you to have
made up your mind about taking orders? I have letters from you in which
you express the most perfect willingness to be ordained, and your brother and
sisters will bear me out in saying that no pressure of any sort has been put
upon you. You mistake your own mind, and are suffering from a nervous
timidity which may be very natural but may not the less be pregnant with
serious consequences to yourself. I am not at all well, and the anxiety
occasioned by your letter is naturally preying upon me. May God guide
you to a better judgement.—Your affectionate father, G.
PONTIFEX.”
On the receipt of this letter Theobald plucked up his spirits. “My
father,” he said to himself, “tells me I need not be ordained if I do not
like. I do not like, and therefore I will not be ordained. But what
was the meaning of the words ‘pregnant with serious consequences to
yourself’? Did there lurk a threat under these words—though it was
impossible to lay hold of it or of them? Were they not intended to produce
all the effect of a threat without being actually threatening?”
Theobald knew his father well enough to be little likely to misapprehend his
meaning, but having ventured so far on the path of opposition, and being really
anxious to get out of being ordained if he could, he determined to venture
farther. He accordingly wrote the following:
“My dear father,—You tell me—and I heartily thank you—that no one will
compel me to be ordained. I knew you would not press ordination upon me
if my conscience was seriously opposed to it; I have therefore resolved on
giving up the idea, and believe that if you will continue to allow me what you
do at present, until I get my fellowship, which should not be long, I will
then cease putting you to further expense. I will make up my mind as
soon as possible what profession I will adopt, and will let you know at
once.—Your affectionate son, THEOBALD PONTIFEX.”
The remaining letter, written by return of post, must now be given. It
has the merit of brevity.
“Dear Theobald,—I have received yours. I am at a loss to conceive its
motive, but am very clear as to its effect. You shall not receive a
single sixpence from me till you come to your senses. Should you persist
in your folly and wickedness, I am happy to remember that I have yet other
children whose conduct I can depend upon to be a source of credit and
happiness to me.—Your affectionate but troubled father, G.
PONTIFEX.”
I do not know the immediate sequel to the foregoing correspondence, but it
all came perfectly right in the end. Either Theobald’s heart failed him,
or he interpreted the outward shove which his father gave him, as the inward
call for which I have no doubt he prayed with great earnestness—for he was a
firm believer in the efficacy of prayer. And so am I under certain
circumstances. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer
than this world dreams of, but he has wisely refrained from saying whether they
are good things or bad things. It might perhaps be as well if the world
were to dream of, or even become wide awake to, some of the things that are
being wrought by prayer. But the question is avowedly difficult. In
the end Theobald got his fellowship by a stroke of luck very soon after taking
his degree, and was ordained in the autumn of the same year, 1825.