Macbeth testifies (17: 10) that Even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice and Buckingham, in "Richard III." (5: 2:23): Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men To turn their own points in their master's bosoms. From this retributive Providence here, as well as from God's judgments hereafter, there is no escape except through repentance and faith in the atonement which God himself has provided. But let us particularly notice that repentance is not mere outward penance, nor any merely transient sorrow. Shakespeare understands that no true penitence exists where the sinner still clings to his sin, or fails to repair the wrong. The king in "Hamlet" cries (3:3; 51): What form of prayer Can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder? Of those effects for which I did the murder, What then? what rests? Try what repentance can: what can it not? O wretched state! O bosom, black as death! O limèd soul, that, struggling to be free, Art more engag'd! In "Measure for Measure" (2:3:30) the duke addresses Juliet: REPENTANCE IS NOT ATONEMENT 'Tis meet so, daughter; but lest you do repent And Juliet responds: I do repent me, as it is an evil, And take the shame with joy. 207 Ariel, in "The Tempest" (3: 3 72) interprets both nature and the human heart when he says: For which foul deed, The powers, delaying, not forgetting, have Incensed the seas and shores; yea, all the creatures is nothing but heart's sorrow, And a clear life ensuing. Henry V. (4 I: 287) expresses the deepest feeling of the truly penitent man, when he adds to his reparation and his sorrow the confession that both these are insufficient: More will I do, Though all that I can do is nothing worth; pardon both for the crime itself, and for the imperfection of his repenting of it. Repentance does not of itself pay man's debt to the divine justice, or clear the guilty from the punishment of their sin. Prayer may to some extent avail. In "All's Well That Ends Well" (3:4: 25) the aged countess speaks: What angel shall Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive, But the only real quittance is afforded by the work of Christ in our behalf. Here the testimony of Shakespeare to the need of human nature and the sufficiency of the divine provision is ample and complete. In "All's Well That Ends Well," Helena declares (2: 1: 149): It is not so with Him that all things knows As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows; But most it is presumption in us when The help of heaven we count the act of men. We read in "King Henry VI." (Part II., 3 : 2:154): That dread King took our state upon him In "Measure for Measure" (2:2:73): Why, all the souls that are were forfeit once; He speaks in "Richard II." (2: 1:56), of The world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son; and in "King Henry IV." (Part I., II: 24) of Those holy fields Over whose acres walked those blessed feet SHAKESPEARE'S WITNESS TO CHRISTIANITY 209 Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed In "King Henry VI." (Part II., 1 : 1 : 110) Salisbury swears Now by the death of Him that died for all; and in " King Richard III." Clarence in the Tower adjures his murderers (1:4: 183): I charge you, as you hope to have redemption It may possibly be thought that in the plays of Shakespeare we have no real clew to the religious beliefs of the poet, since he puts into the mouth of each character only what fitted his station and his time. This might be true, if there were intermingled with the testimonies to the great facts of ethics and religion other testimonies to atheism and immorality. But these latter are conspicuously lacking. It is otherwise with Marlowe; he was known as an atheist, and his characters witness both for and against morality and the Christian faith. Suppose for a moment that a census were taken of George Eliot's characters; that their expressions of belief or unbelief were classified, as I have attempted to classify Shakespeare's; can any one doubt that the result would be a far different one, and that George Eliot's own skepticism and pessimism would be discovered faintly written, as in a palimpsest, underneath their lines? I challenge any man to find unbelief in the dramatis persona of Shakespeare's plays, except in cases where it is the manifest effect or excuse of sin, reproved by the context or changed to fearful acknowledgment of the truth by the results of transgression. In his ethical judgments he never makes a slip; he is as surefooted as a Swiss mountaineer; he depicts vice, but he does not make it alluring or successful. After earnest searching I can unhesitatingly avow the belief that the great dramatist was both pure in his moral teaching and singularly sound in faith. There is a freedom of utterance with regard to the relations of the sexes, such as is natural in a bold and vigorous age, but there is no lingering over sensual details. Plausible sinners like Falstaff come to an evil end. How pathetic is the Hostess' account of his death in "King Henry V." (2:3: 16): His nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. "How now, Sir John," quoth I: "what man! be of good cheer." So 'a cried out, "God, God, God!" three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet; I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone. The recent suggestion that Sir John's "babbling of green fields" is an allusion to the Twenty-third Psalm, and that Shakespeare here means to intimate that at his death he returned to the faith of his childhood and felt that the Lord was "making him to lie down in green pastures," had not yet occurred to the Hostess, for she was only bent on soothing a troubled conscience by turning away its thoughts from God. |