Christian face to face with the demands of the imperial cultus.' He was the messenger of the Emperor; the bishop was the messenger of God. Such, very briefly, are some of the leading lines of the contrast. Still more briefly it may be noticed that the contrast is visible on minute examination in the very details of the composition. A striking instance of this occurs in the letter to the Church of Pergamum. The address 'Thou dwellest where the seat of Satan is' (ii. 13) had no significance even to so acute a critic as the late Mr. W. H. Simcox. 'Why Satan's throne and dwelling-place is located at Pergamum is uncertain,' he says. But Professor Ramsay has shown 'the supremacy of Pergamum in the imperial cultus,' and pointed out the significance of the special reference to the one example of a martyr mentioned by name, Antipas, 'the faithful witness' (ii. 13). This is only one example. Further examination of the history of Asia will doubtless add many to those already clear. 2 One further point may be alluded to. The great development of ritual, of detail, of precision, in the worship of 'Rome and Augustus' is notorious. The Apocalypse of St. John is, in one of its most prominent features, the presentation of the ideal worship, the worship of Heaven, intended to be full of suggestion in its dignity and grandeur, and in its lofty spirituality and simplicity a model for the worship of the Church on earth. Solemnity, and in a sense elaboration, are the characteristics of the worship of St. John's vision; but, no less, reality, complete and intense—the offering, ceaseless and triumphant, of a free heart. It is the freedom of the Christian worship, under whatever fixity of form, that is contrasted with the mechanical formality of the imperial cultus. Such appear to be the main lines of the contrast which the writer of the Apocalypse desires to draw between the religion and the Church of Christ and the State-religion of Rome and Augustus. A word, then, as to the authorship. If the writer be St. John, the circumstances of his own life and the chief sphere of his own work increase and illustrate the force of the opposition which his book is designed to develop. Asia was the birthplace of countless superstitions and countless worships. Its cities boasted the protection of the gods, and prided themselves as the home of philosophers. 1 Mommsen, Provinces, i. 349. 2 Cambridge Bible, in loc. Apollo of Claros, the Ephesian Artemis, Thales, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, were names familiar to the men of Asia Minor— memories of cults, philosophic and religious, that were slow to die. The 'seven Churches' themselves were the centres of political movement-the conventus of the province, associated with the constant manifestation of imperial power. It was there that the anger against the cruelty of Rome was most profound. St. Paul at Ephesus felt himself in the midst of foes. Asia was the province where the tyranny of Nero had been especially felt. It was there that superstition expected his return; it was there that an impostor actually appeared assuming his name.1 And when the question of authorship is raised it may not be forgotten that stronger perhaps than the great and admitted difference in literary style is the similarity in method between the Gospel, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse. St. John delights in antithesis. The parallelism and correlation, the correspondences and contrasts, have been shown by Dr. Westcott to belong to the very structure of the Gospel. The reiterated contrast between the world and the Church is an equally prominent feature of the Epistles. It is of a piece with this that the still darker contrasts of the Apocalypse seem to underlie the whole purpose of the inspired vision. If the Church has rightly understood the character of St. John-if the name 'Son of Thunder' has the meaning it is natural to attribute to it—this strong sense of contrast would naturally belong to his keen, impulsive, vivid, spiritual nature. His subtle insight into the reality of the unseen world and its reflection in common life could not be more clearly displayed than in an Apocalypse such as that which bears his name. Fitly, indeed, might he, of all Christian writers, draw the prophetic conclusion which is clear before the eyes of the Apocalyptic seer. He foresees the destruction of the city of Rome and the fall of the Empire. In neither case is the fulfilment literal, but the effect is even greater than if the prediction had been exact. transformation and reconstruction are the outcome. The fall of Babylon the great—so vivid before the eyes of one who knew of the fire under Nero, and who had heard thrilling tales of the sufferings of the city in the conflicts between the armies of Vitellius and Vespasian, who knew perhaps, too, that it was the burning of the Capitol which encouraged the revolt in Gaul-leads on to the fall of the power which is In both cases 1 This may be admitted without going to the lengths of M. Renan, L'Antéchrist, pp. 348 sqq.; cf. De Broglie, L'Eglise et l'Empire, ii. 68–9. based on Emperor-worship (xix. 19). The triumph of the Church follows the destruction; and Christ reigns where man had been worshipped (xx.). We have thus endeavoured briefly to examine the reasons which enable us to fix the date of the Apocalypse with some approach to exactness: we have drawn out the contrast which it seems to us it was the aim of the writer to emphasize: and we have been led to find in both these strong arguments for the authorship of the sacred book. It is impossible to make such an examination without being impressed with a new sense of the sublimity of the revelation granted to St. John, and of its value to the Church for all time. ART. IV. SOME TYPICAL NOVELS. I. The Choir Invisible. By JAMES LANE ALLEN, Author of Summer in Arcady, A Kentucky Cardinal, &c. (New York and London, 1897.) 2. Sir George Tressady. By Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD, Author of Robert Elsmere, David Grieve, Marcella, &c. (London, 1896.) 3. The Christian. A Story. By HALL CAINE, Author of The Manxman, &c. (London, 1897.) 4. On the Face of the Waters. By FLORA ANNIE STEEL. Third Edition. (London, 1897.) 5. The Beth Book. Being a Study from the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius. By SARAH GRAND, Author of The Heavenly Twins, &c. (London, 1898.) IN a recent lecture, of which we have unfortunately only seen an imperfect report, the accomplished Professor of Poetry at Oxford discusses the question whether a Law in Taste might not be discovered as a guide for criticism in taste and art. In favour of the attempt to formulate such a law Professor Courthope urged the endeavour made by all cultured peoples to work out a theory of fine art, and to illustrate its importance he had only to refer to the prevailing anarchy of opinion concerning æsthetic preferences. There is probably no sphere of literature in which this anarchy is more absolute than in the realm of fiction-a realm be it remembered, which occupies an enormous area and exercises a correspondingly wide influence. Yet in the case of fiction assuredly the fundamental rules which ought to govern its construction should not be far to seek. Adopting the ancient definition that all fine art has the twofold purpose of imitating an external object and of producing imaginative pleasure, the aim of the novelist should be concentrated on a truthful representation of the life he professes to portray and on the selection of such elements and such treatment of them as will engender the highest æsthetic pleasure. It is the bane of much modern fiction that it disregards these canons of taste, and of more modern criticism that it applauds the art of those who wantonly contemn them. Deceived by the long extracts of unqualified praise with which contemporary novels are now commonly advertised, we have been at times betrayed into reading pernicious stories without one redeeming element of aught that is either beautiful or lovely. Alike in the choice and the treatment of their subject some novelists seem to revel in the hideous and the horrible. The morbid phantasy of an imaginative idiot finally dashing his diseased brains against the pyramid of the Sphinx, the foul realism of Oriental immorality lurid with the frightful excesses of a dying boy, the filthy blasphemy of raw recruits terrorstruck by the dangers of actual warfare: such are the topics which some recent writers have selected and which their critics applaud. Compared with such creations as these it is refined and cultivated taste which selects the carcase of a pig for careful delineation and which lavishes the highest skill of accurate painting in the reproduction of the ordure and offal of the shambles. It is needless to say that such productions will meet with no recognition in these pages, and we should not care to speak of them were it not for the tendency, which is manifesting itself in much modern fiction, to rely for its effect, now upon a thinly veiled sensualism, now upon a morbid realism, and now again upon an exaggerated sensationalism which violates the canons of art. We have accordingly selected several typical examples from recent works which may serve to illustrate the observance and the disregard of the true Law of Taste in fiction. Let it be understood at the outset that we do not for a moment place all the works before us in the same category. Sir George Tressady and The Choir Invisible are on an altogether different plane from The Beth Book; whilst On the Face of the Waters and The Christian furnish a marked contrast in the absolute neglect throughout the one, and the extravagant travesty in the other, of religious conditions which in real life so greatly influence those phases of society with which Mrs. Steel and Mr. Hall Caine are dealing. At the outset we are struck with the extent to which the novel with a purpose' has superseded the earlier school of fiction, so that out of the five works before us only one relies exclusively for its interest upon the author's ability as a raconteur. In place of the unalloyed serenity with which the reader could abandon himself to the enjoyment of Scott and Miss Austen, of Thackeray and Dickens, we are kept perpetually on the rack by questionable arguments and untrustworthy assertions to support the writer's pet theories, political, or social, or irreligious, until the tale is transformed into a treatise, and its wheels drive heavily. Of course in fiction, as in other branches of art, the artist must give expression to that which is within him; but it is of the essence of his craft that he should exercise some self-repression and a discreet power of selection, whereas so inextinguishable a passion for 'argufying' is predominant that, in the words of the late poet laureate, much novel reading is like wading through glue. With the exception of The Choir Invisible the movement of all the novels under notice is impeded by long discussions in which our interest in the narrative is broken by the introduction of reasoning which we cannot pass unchallenged, or of topics which jar painfully upon our feelings without (in most cases) contributing to the completeness or the necessary evolution of the story. It is, of course, a more serious blemish when the tone of a book is lowered by its trenching upon certain questions which exert so injurious a fascination upon many contemporary authors. Principiis obsta' is, we are persuaded, the safest maxim to adopt; although we allow that a story of sin and shame may legitimately and even usefully, when rightfully treated, form the theme of a novel. But, in the interests of purity and of due reverence for women, is it necessary to describe suppers at the Corinthian Club or to portray a married woman defending against his lawful wife her intention to elope with a man for whom she yet has no real affection, as Mr. Hall Caine and Mrs. Steel have done? Mrs. Grand is, we presume, regardless of all criticism on such questions, and adopts on her title-page the motto: 'I'll be in speaking, liberal as the air ; Let heaven, and men, and devils, let them all, It is time, however, to pass from these generalities to a con |
