The New Magdalen

"Trifling as this incident is in my estimation, it has decided me on one

point already. In shaping my future course I am now resolved to act on

my own convictions--in preference to taking the well-meant advice of

such friends as are still left to me.

"All my little success in life has been gained in the pulpit. I am what

is termed a popular preacher--but I have never, in my secret self, felt

any exultation in my own notoriety, or any extraordinary respect for the

means by which it has been won. In the first place, I have a very low

idea of the importance of oratory as an intellectual accomplishment.

There is no other art in which the conditions of success are so easy of

attainment; there is no other art in the practice of which so much that

is purely superficial passes itself off habitually for something that

claims to be profound. Then, again, how poor it is in the results which

it achieves! Take my own case. How often (for example) have I thundered

with all my heart and soul against the wicked extravagance of dress

among women--against their filthy false hair and their nauseous powders

and paints! How often (to take another example) have I denounced the

mercenary and material spirit of the age--the habitual corruptions and

dishonesties of commerce, in high places and in low! What good have I

done? I have delighted the very people whom it was my object to rebuke.

'What a charming sermon!' 'More eloquent than ever!' 'I used to dread

the sermon at the other church--do you know, I quite look forward to it

now.' That is the effect I produce on Sunday. On Monday the women are

off to the milliners to spend more money than ever; the city men are off

to business to make more money than ever--while my grocer, loud in

my praises in his Sunday coat, turns up his week-day sleeves and

adulterates his favorite preacher's sugar as cheerfully as usual!

"I have often, in past years, felt the objections to pursuing my career

which are here indicated. They were bitterly present to my mind when I

resigned my curacy, and they strongly influence me now.

"I am weary of my cheaply won success in the pulpit. I am weary of

society as I find it in my time. I felt some respect for myself, and

some heart and hope in my works among the miserable wretches in Green

Anchor Fields. But I can not, and must not, return among them: I have no

right, _now_, to trifle with my health and my life. I must go back to my

preaching, or I must leave England. Among a primitive people, away

from the cities--in the far and fertile West of the great American

continent--I might live happily with my wife, and do good among my

neighbors, secure of providing for our wants out of the modest little

income which is almost useless to me here. In the life which I thus

picture to myself I see love, peace, health, and duties and occupations

that are worthy of a Christian man. What prospect is before me if I

take the advice of my friends and stay here? Work of which I am weary,

because I have long since ceased to respect it; petty malice that

strikes at me through my wife, and mortifies and humiliates her, turn

where she may. If I had only myself to think of, I might defy the worst

that malice can do. But I have Mercy to think of--Mercy, whom I love

better than my own life! Women live, poor things, in the opinions of

others. I have had one warning already of what my wife is likely to

suffer at the hands of my 'friends'--Heaven forgive me for misusing the

word! Shall I deliberately expose her to fresh mortifications?--and this

for the sake of returning to a career the rewards of which I no longer

prize? No! We will both be happy--we will both be free! God is merciful,

Nature is kind, Love is true, in the New World as well as the Old. To

the New World we will go!"