{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14996/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14996","id":"gutenberg_14996","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14996","summary":null,"tags":["Bestsellers, American, 1895-1923","Category: Biographies","Category: History - British","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Clergy -- England"],"text":"Produced by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner and the PG Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: BISHOP GORE]\n\n\n\n\nPAINTED WINDOWS\n\nSTUDIES IN\nRELIGIOUS PERSONALITY\n\nBY\n\nA GENTLEMAN WITH A DUSTER\nAUTHOR OF \"THE MIRRORS OF DOWNING STREET\"\n\nWITH AN INTRODUCTION BY KIRSOPP LAKE\n\n     _It was simply a struggle for fresh air, in which, if the windows\n     could not be opened, there was danger that panes would be broken,\n     though painted with images of saints and martyrs. Light, coloured\n     by these reverend effigies, was none the more respirable for being\n     picturesque._\n\n     J.R. Lowell.\n\nWITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMILE VERPILLEUX\n\n     G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS\n     NEW YORK AND LONDON\n     The Knickerbocker Press\n     1922\n\n_For the information presented in the biographical records connected\nwith the several chapters the publishers desire to express their\nindebtedness to \"Who's Who.\"_\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\nBY PROFESSOR KIRSOPP LAKE\n\n\nNo one who believes that the Christian churches have in the past been\nthe moral leaders of western civilization can fail to be interested in\nthe presentation of some of the English religious leaders by \"A\nGentleman with a Duster\" especially if, like myself, he have some\npassing acquaintance with most of them. Nor can any neglect to regard\nseriously his warning that the Church is failing as a moral leader.\n\nWhat is the reason for that failure? It cannot, I think, be found in\nlack of earnestness; for today all the guides of the churches in England\nare serious, upright men, who would gladly lead if they could. Nor is it\nbecause they are voices uttering strange announcements in the\nwilderness; if they have a fault it is rather that they have so little\nto announce. The defect which is disclosed by the pictures given by \"A\nGentleman with a Duster\" is primarily intellectual, and I propose to\ndevote to its explanation the introduction which the publisher has asked\nme to write for the American edition of _Painted Windows_.\n\nFrom the third century to the eighteenth the Christian Church presented\nviews of life and theories of the origin, weakness, and possible\nredemption of human nature, which were both self consistent and\nrational. It offered men an infallible guide of life, to be found in the\nChurch, the Bible, and the Christ. Different branches of the Christian\nchurch emphasised one or the other, but the three formed in themselves\nan indivisible trinity. Nor did the laity doubt that this presentation\nwas correct. The clergy were the professional and expert exponents of an\ninfallible revelation which they had studied deeply and knew better than\nother men, and on which they spoke with the authority of experience. It\nwas firmly believed that to follow their teaching would lead to future\nsalvation; for the centre of gravity in life for seriously minded men\nwas the hope of attaining everlasting salvation in the world to come.\n\nThe situation today is changed in two directions. The Church, the Bible,\nand even the Teaching of Jesus are no longer regarded as infallible.\nHistory first abundantly proved that the voice of the Church was not\ninerrant; then science discredited the biblical account of man's origin\nand development; and finally the \"kenotic\" theory of Bishop Gore showed\nthat what were considered the _ipsissima verba_ of the Lord himself\ncould no longer be regarded as infallible. The _coup de grace_ to the\nbelief that Jesus must be followed literally was administered by\nofficial sermons during the war. This does not mean that men and women\nwithin or without the Church do not admire and venerate the teaching of\nJesus and regard him as the best teacher whom they know. But they are\nnot willing to accept _all_ his teaching; they have been forced to admit\nthat it is sometimes lawful to resist evil by force; they doubt whether\nhe is to appear as the Judge of the living and the dead; they accept\nmuch of his teaching and try to follow it because they believe that it\nis true, but they do not believe that it is true because it is his\nteaching. It is therefore impossible today for educated men, even among\nthose who most sincerely adopt it, to settle a moral argument by an\nappeal to the teaching of Jesus. The tragedy is that there are probably\nas many today outside the Church who endeavour to follow Jesus, but do\nnot call him Lord, as there are within the church who reverse this\nattitude. For good or for evil (and I think it is for evil), the Church,\nespecially the Church of England, seems to have decided that to say\n\"Lord, Lord\" is the pass-word to the Kingdom of Heaven.\n\nEqually important with this great change in thought, which has abandoned\nthe infallible trinity of Church, Bible, and Jesus, is the fact that the\nbest of our generation have shifted the centre of endeavour from the\nfuture salvation of the individual to the present reformation of this\nworld for the benefit of coming humanity. The best men of our time are\ntroubling very little about the salvation of their own souls; not\nbecause they are indifferent or unbelieving, but because they believe\nthat if our lives are continued after death it will be a natural and not\na supernatural phenomenon, of which no details can be known. They have\nrelegated the whole apparatus of Heaven and Hell to the limbo of\nforgotten mythologies. The continuance of life to which they look\nforward is progressive and educational, not fixed or punitive. Moreover,\nmost of them would say, with complete reverence, that the work which is\nset before them by the Purpose of Life, as they understand it, is to\nmake a better world, materially, morally, and intellectually, as an\ninheritance for children who are yet unborn. They are not much disturbed\nif they are told that they are not Christians, for they are supremely\nindifferent to names.\n\nNevertheless their presence in the world today is the concrete problem\nto be faced by Liberal Churchmen. To consistent Catholics such as Father\nKnox it is not, I suppose, a problem at all. He would say that such men\ndeserve every adjective of approbation in the dictionary; but they are\nnot Christian. If Christianity means a fixed set of opinions, \"a faith\nonce delivered to the saints,\" Father Knox is right; such men are not\nChristians, but, if so, the fact that they are not is the death warrant\nof the Church, for they represent progress to a higher type than that of\nthe Christianity of the past.\n\nBut the liberal Christian does not accept the view that the Church ought\nto exist for the preservation of traditional opinions. In his heart he\nfeels that such men would have been accepted by Jesus as his disciples,\nand therefore he believes that the Church can and ought to be reformed\nso as to make room for them. For this Reformation he has no fixed and\nrigid programme, but there are three things which he thinks the Church\nmust provide.\n\nThe first necessity is the right understanding of life. It cannot be\ngiven by any theory of the universe which, like the biblical one, is in\nglaring contradiction to the facts of modern science[1]. Nor is it\nconceivable that belief can be fixed so as to be unalterable.\nIntellectual correctness is relative, and Truth cannot be petrified into\nCreeds, but lives by discussion, criticism, correction, and growth.\n\n[Footnote 1: Mr. Bryan is right in maintaining that evolution and the\nwhole scientific concept of life is unbiblical, though wrong in thinking\nthat that settles the question.]\n\nThe second necessity is the purification of the human spirit. Generation\nafter generation of Christians on their way through the world have\nendeavoured to follow the moral teaching of the Church, but the friction\nand pressure of life always bring with them many impurities, the swell\nof passion, the blindness of temper, and the thrust of desire, which a\nmere appeal to reason cannot remedy because it condemns but does not\nremove the evil. In the future as in the past, the Church must find\nmeans to satisfy men's need and desire for purification.\n\nThe third is closely allied to the second. It is \"the helping hand of\ngrace.\" No organized religion is complete or satisfactory which does not\nunderstand that when weak and erring human beings call from the depths,\nthe helping hand of grace is stretched out from the unknown. The origin\nand nature of grace is a metaphysical and theological problem; its\nexistence is a fact of experience. And that same experience shows that\nthough grace may work apart from institutions it does in fact normally\nwork through them.\n\nThese are the three things which the Liberal wishes to keep in the\nChurch. He knows that to do this the traditional forms of church life\nrequire great changes, but he wishes to preserve the institutional life\nof the Church as a valuable inheritance. To him it is clear that\nChristians who in one generation invented the theology, the sacraments,\nthe thoughts, practices, and ordinances of the past, have the right in\nanother generation to change these. The continuity of the Church is in\nmembership, not in documents.\n\nBut the Liberals fall into two groups. There is the left wing which\nexpresses itself with clearness and decision, which is not afraid of\nrecognizing that the Church in the past has often been wrong and has\naffirmed as fact what is really fiction. Those who belong to it are\nsometimes driven out by official pressure, and more often are compelled\nto yield to the practical necessities of ecclesiastical life, but their\ninfluence is greater than their numbers. The danger which would face the\nChurch if they were allowed to have more prominence, is that their\nplainness of speech would lead to disruption. The danger is a real one,\nand the leaders of churches do right to fear it.\n\nOver against this is the right wing of Liberals. There is probably\nlittle difference in the matter of private opinion between them and the\nleft wing, but they are more concerned with safeguarding the unity of\nthe Church. They endeavour to do this by using the old phraseology with\na new meaning, so that, for instance, members of this party feel\njustified in stating that they accept the creed, though they do not\nbelieve in it in the sense which was originally intended. This is\ntechnically called \"reinterpreting,\" and by a sufficient amount of\n\"reinterpreting\" all the articles of the creed (or indeed anything else)\ncan be given whatever meaning is desired. The statement that God created\nthe heavens and the earth becomes in this way an affirmation of\nevolution; the Virgin Birth affirms the reality of Christ's human\nnature; and the Resurrection of the Flesh affirms the Immortality of the\nSoul. Performed with skill, this dialectical legerdemain is very\nsoothing to a not unduly intelligent congregation and prevents any\nbreach in the apparent continuity of the Church's belief. It also\nprevents any undue acrimoniousness of theological debate, for debate is\ndifficult if words may be interpreted to mean the opposite of their\nhistorical significance. The danger is that the rising generation will\nrefuse to accept this method, and that it will lead to deep and\nirretrievable intellectual confusion. This is what Father Knox clearly\nsaw to be the intellectual sin of the \"Foundationers.\"\n\nNevertheless, when all is said it is easy to criticize but difficult to\nadvise. As \"A Gentleman with a Duster\" has seen, the desire of the\nchurch leaders whose portraits he paints is to preserve the Church\nthrough a period of transition. I doubt the wisdom of their policy,\nthough I recognize the difficulty of their task and appreciate their\nmotives.\n\nI doubt the wisdom of the policy because I think that though it may\nsatisfy the older members of the Church and so preserve continuity with\nthe past, it is doing so at the expense of the younger generation and\nsacrificing continuity with the future. It may conciliate those who have\npower to make trouble in the present; but it is only the young who are\nnow silently abandoning the Church, that have the power to give life in\nthe future. It is always safer to agree with the old, but it is\ninfinitely more important to convince the young; and the reason for the\nfailure which troubles \"A Gentleman with a Duster\" is that\necclesiastical life in England is failing to convince the young. Is it\nbetter here?\n\n     CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.,\n     February 5, 1922.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION\n\n\nSome of the men whose personalities I attempt to analyse in this volume\nare known to American students of theology: almost all of them, I think,\nrepresent schools of thought in which America is as greatly interested\nas the people of Europe.\n\nTherefore I may presume to hope that this present volume will find in\nthe United States as many readers as _The Mirrors of Downing Street_ and\n_The Glass of Fashion_.\n\nBut, in truth, I hope for much more than this.\n\nPerhaps I may be allowed to say that I think America can make a\ncontribution to the matter discussed in these pages which will outrival\nin its eventual effect on the destinies of the human race the\ncontribution she has already made to world politics by the inspiration\nof the Washington Conference.\n\nFor the American brings to the study of religion not only a somewhat\nfresher mind than the European, but a temperamental earnestness about\nserious things which is the world's best hope of creative action.\nMoreover there is something Greek about the American. He is always\nyoung, as Greece was young in the time of Themistocles and AEschylus. He\nis conscious of \"exhilaration in the air, a sense of walking in new\npaths, of dawning hopes and untried possibilities, a confidence that all\nthings can be won if only we try hard enough.\" With him it is never the\nexhaustion of noon or the pathetic beauty of twilight: always it is the\ndawn, and every dawn a Renaissance.\n\nSince this, in my reading, is the very spirit of the teaching of Jesus,\nI feel that it must be in the destiny of America more quickly than any\nother nation to recognise the features of Christ in those movements of\nthe present day which definitely make for the higher life of the human\nrace. I mean the movements of science, psychology, philosophy, and the\npolitics of idealism.\n\nIf I expect anywhere on the face of the globe a response to my\nsuggestion that a new definition of the word \"Faith\" is a clue to the\nsecret of Jesus, it is in America. If I hope for recognition of my\ntheory that Christ should be sought in the living world and not in the\ndocuments of tradition, it is also to America that I look for this hope\nto be realised. The work of William James, Morton Prince, and Kirsopp\nLake encourages me in this conviction; but most of all I am encouraged\nby that youthful spirit of the American nation which looks backward as\nseldom as possible, forward with exhilaration and confidence, that\nmanful spirit of hope and longing which is ever in earnest about serious\nthings.\n\nHere, then, is a book which goes to America with all the highest hopes\nof its author--a book which attempts to throw off all those long and\nhopeless controversies of theology concerning the Person of Christ which\nhave ever distracted and sometimes devastated Europe, to throw off all\nthat, and to show that the good news of Jesus was the revelation of a\nstrange and mighty power which only now the world is beginning to use.\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nBy means of a study in religious personality, I seek in these pages to\ndiscover a reason for the present rather ignoble situation of the Church\nin the affections of men.\n\nMy purpose is to examine the mind of modern Christianity, the only\nreligion of the world with which the world can never be done, because it\nhas the lasting quality of growth, and to see whether in the condition\nof that mind one cannot light upon a cause for the confessed failure of\nthe Church to impress humanity with what its documents call the Will of\nGod--a failure the more perplexing because of the wonderful devotion,\nsincerity, and almost boundless activity of the modern Church.\n\nAs a clue to the object of this quest, I would ask the reader to bear in\nmind that the present disordered state of the world is by no means a\nconsequence of the late War.\n\nThe state of the world is one of confusion, but that confusion is\nimmemorial. Man has for ever been wrestling with an anarchy which has\nfor ever defeated him. The history of the human race is the diary of a\nBear Garden. Man, so potent against the mightiest and most august\nforces of nature, has never been able to subdue those trivial and\nunworthy forces within his own breast--envy, hatred, malice, and all\nuncharitableness--which make for world anarchy. He has never been able\nto love God because he has never been able to love his neighbour. It is\nin the foremost nations of the world, not in the most backward, in the\nmost Christian nations, not the most pagan, that we find unintelligent\nconditions of industrialism which lead to social disorder, and a vulgar\ndisposition to self-assertion which makes for war. History and Homicide,\nit has been said, are indistinguishable terms. \"Man is born free, and\neverywhere he is in chains.\"\n\nThis striking impotence of the human race to arrive at anything in the\nnature of a coherent world-order, this bewildering incapacity of\nindividual man to live in love and charity with his neighbour, justifies\nthe presumption that divine help, if ever given, that an Incarnation of\nthe Divine Will, if ever vouchsafed, must surely have had for its chief\nmercy the teaching of a science of life--a way of existence which would\nbring the feet of unhappy man out of chaos, and finally make it possible\nfor the human race to live intelligently, and so, beautifully.\n\nNow if this indeed were the purpose of the Incarnation, we may be\npardoned for thinking that the Church, which has been the cause of so\nmuch tyranny and bloodshed in the past, and which even now so willingly\nlends itself to bitter animosities and warlike controversies, has\nmissed the whole secret of its first and greatest dogma[2].\n\n[Footnote 2: I asked a certain Dean the other day whether the old\ncontroversy between High Church and Low Church still obtained in his\ndiocese. \"Oh, dear, no!\" he replied; \"High and Low are now united to\nfight Modernists.\"]\n\nTherefore in studying the modern mind of Christianity, persuaded that\nits mission is to teach mankind a lesson of quite sublime importance, we\nmay possibly arrive in our conclusion at a unifying principle which will\nat least help the Church to turn its moral earnestness, its manifold\nself-sacrifice, and its great but conflicting energies, in this one\ndirection which is its own supremest end, namely, the interpretation of\nhuman life in terms of spiritual reality.\n\nTo those who distrust reason and hold fast rather fearfully to the\nmoorings of tradition, I would venture to say, first, that perilous\ntimes are most perilous to error, and, secondly, in the words of Dr.\nKirsopp Lake, \"After all, Faith is not belief in spite of evidence, but\nlife in scorn of consequence--a courageous trust in the great purpose of\nall things and pressing forward to finish the work which is in sight,\nwhatever the price may be.\"\n\n     \"_The distinction between right and\n     wrong disappears when conscience\n     dies, and that between fact and\n     fiction when reason is neglected.\n     The one is the danger which besets\n     clever politicians, the other the nemesis\n     which waits on popular preachers.\"\n                       --Kirsopp Lake._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n     CHAPTER                                       PAGE\n            FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  iii\n            INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION .   xi\n            INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . .   xv\n        I.--BISHOP GORE. . . . . . . . . . . . . .    1\n       II.--DEAN INGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   21\n      III.--FATHER KNOX. . . . . . . . . . . . . .   47\n       IV.--DR. L.P. JACKS . . . . . . . . . . . .   67\n        V.--BISHOP HENSLEY HENSON. . . . . . . . .   87\n       VI.--MISS MAUDE ROYDEN. . . . . . . . . . .  103\n      VII.--CANON E.W. BARNES. . . . . . . . . . .  121\n     VIII.--GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH . . . . . . . .  139\n       IX.--DR. W.E. ORCHARD . . . . . . . . . . .  155\n        X.--BISHOP TEMPLE. . . . . . . . . . . . .  169\n       XI.--PRINCIPAL W.B. SELBIE. . . . . . . . .  191\n      XII.--ARCHBISHOP RANDALL DAVIDSON. . . . . .  203\n     XIII.--CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  216\n\n\n\n\nBISHOP GORE\n\nGORE, Rt. Rev. CHARLES, M.A., D.D., and Hon. D.C.L., Oxford; Hon. D.D.,\nEdinburgh and Durham; Hon. LL.D., Cambridge and Birmingham; b. 1853; s.\nof Hon. Charles Alexander Gore and d. of 4th Earl of Bessborough, widow\nof Earl of Kerry. Educ.: Harrow, Balliol College, Oxford (Scholar).\nFellow Trinity College, Oxford, 1875-95; Vice-Principal of Cuddesdon\nCollege, 1880-83; Librarian of Pusey Library, Oxford, 1884-93; Vicar of\nRadley, 1893-94; Canon of Westminster, 1894-1902; Hon. Chaplain to the\nQueen, 1898-1900; Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, 1900-1901; Chaplain\nin Ordinary to the King, 1901; Editor of Lux Mundi; Bishop of Worcester,\n1902-4; Bishop of Birmingham, 1905-11; Bishop of Oxford, 1911-1919.\n\n\n\n\nPAINTED WINDOWS\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nBISHOP GORE\n\n\n_He is in truth, in the power, in the hands, of another, of another\nwill . . . attracted, corrected, guided, rewarded, satiated, in a long\ndiscipline, that \"ascent of the soul into the intelligible\nworld.\"_--WALTER PATER.\n\nNo man occupies a more commanding position in the Churches of England\nthan Dr. Gore. I am assured in more than one quarter that a vote on this\nsubject would place him head and shoulders above all other religious\nteachers of our time. In the region of personal influence he appears to\nbe without a rival.\n\nSuch is the quality of his spirit, that a person so different from him\nboth in temperament and intellect as the Dean of St. Paul's has\nconfessed that he is \"one of the most powerful spiritual forces in our\ngeneration.\"\n\nIt is, I think, the grave sincerity of his soul which gives him this\npre-eminence. He is not more eloquent than many others, he is not\ngreatly distinguished by scholarship, he is only one in a numerous\ncompany of high-minded men who live devout and disinterested lives. But\nno man conveys, both in his writings and in personal touch, a more\ntelling sense of ghostly earnestness, a feeling that his whole life is\nabsorbed into a _Power_ which overshadows his presence and even sounds\nin his voice, a conviction that he has in sober truth forsaken\neverything for the Kingdom of God.\n\nOne who knows him far better than I do said to me the other day,\n\"Charles Gore has not aimed at harmonising his ideas with the Gospel,\nbut of fusing his whole spirit into the Divine Wisdom.\"\n\nIn one, and only one, respect, this salience of Dr. Gore may be likened\nto the political prominence of Mr. Lloyd George. It is a salience\ncomplete, dominating, unapproached, but one which must infallibly\ndiminish with time. For it is, I am compelled to think, the salience of\npersonality. History does not often endorse the more enthusiastic\nverdicts of journalism, and personal magnetism is a force which\nunhappily melts into air long before its tradition comes down to\nposterity[3].\n\n[Footnote 3: The genius of the Prime Minister, which makes so\nastonishing an impression on the public, plainly lies in saving from\nirretrievable disaster at the eleventh hour the consequences of his own\nacts.]\n\nMr. Joseph Chamberlain was once speaking to me of the personality of\nGladstone. He related with unusual fervour that the effect of this\npersonality was incomparable, a thing quite unique in his experience,\nsomething indeed incommunicable to those who had not met the man; yet,\nchecking himself of a sudden, and as it were shaking himself free of a\nsuperstition, he added resolutely, \"But I was reading some of his\nspeeches in Hansard only the other day, and upon my word there's nothing\nin them!\"\n\nOne may well doubt the judgment of Mr. Chamberlain; but it remains very\nobviously true that the personal impression of Gladstone was infinitely\ngreater than his ideas. The tradition of that almost marvellous\nimpression still prevails, but solely among a few, and there it is\nfading. For the majority of men it is already as if Gladstone had never\nexisted.\n\nWe should be wise, then, to examine the mind, and only the mind, of this\nremarkable prelate, and to concern ourselves hardly at all with the\nbeauty of his life or the bewitchments of his character; for our purpose\nis to arrive at his value for religion, and to study his personality\nonly in so far as it enables us to understand his life and doctrine.\n\nDr. Gore lives in a small and decent London horse which at all points in\nits equipment perfectly expresses a pure taste and a wholly unstudied\nrefinement. Nothing there offends the eye or oppresses the mind. It is\nthe dignified habitation of a poor gentleman, breathing a charm not to\nbe found in the house of a rich parvenu. He has avoided without effort\nthe conscious artistry of Chelsea and the indifference to art of the\nunaesthetic vulgarian. As to the manner of his life, it is reduced to an\nextreme of simplicity, but his asceticism is not made the excuse for\ndomestic carelessness. A sense of order distinguishes this small\ninterior, which is as quiet as a monk's cell, but restful and gracious,\nas though continually overlooked by a woman's providence.\n\nHere Dr. Gore reads theology and the newspaper, receives and embraces\nsome of his numerous disciples, discusses socialism with men like Mr.\nTawney, church government with men like Bishop Temple, writes his books\nand sermons, and on a cold day, seated on a cushion with his feet in the\nfender and his hands stretched over a timorous fire, revolves the many\nproblems which beset his peace of mind[4].\n\n[Footnote 4: Concerning modernising tendencies, Father Ronald Knox says,\n\"I went to a meeting about it in Margaret Street, where crises in the\nChurch are invested with a peculiar atmosphere of delicious\ntrepidation.\"]\n\nSomewhere, in speaking of the Church's attitude towards rich and poor,\nhe has confessed to carrying about with him \"a permanently troubled\nconscience.\" The phrase lives in his face. It is not the face of a man\nwho is at peace with himself. If he has peace of mind, it is a Peace of\nVersailles.\n\nOne cannot look at that tall lean figure in its purple cassock, with the\nstooping head, the somewhat choleric face, the low forehead deeply\nscored with anxiety, the prominent light-coloured and glassy eyes\nstaring with perplexity under bushy brows, which are as carefully combed\nas the hair of his head, the large obstinate nose with its challenging\ntilt and wide war-breathing nostrils, the broad white moustache and\nsudden pointed beard sloping inward; nor can one listen to the deep,\ntired, and ghostly voice slowly uttering the laborious ideas of his\ntroubled mind with the somewhat painful pronunciation of the\nelocutionist (he makes _chapell_ of Chapel); nor mark his languorous\nmovements and the slow swaying action of the attenuated body; one cannot\nnotice all this without feeling that in spite of his great courage and\nhis iron tenacity of purpose, he is a little weary of the battle, and\nsometimes even perhaps conscious of a check for the cause which is far\ndearer to him than his own life.\n\nOne thinks of him as a soul under a cloud. He gives one no feeling of\nradiance, no sense of a living serenity. What serenity he possesses at\nthe centre of his being does not shine in his face nor sound in his\nvoice. He has the look of one whose head has long been thrust out of a\nwindow gloomily expecting an accident to happen at the street corner.\nFitzGerald once admirably described the face of Carlyle as wearing \"a\ncrucified expression.\" No such bitterness of pain and defeat shows in\nthe face of Dr. Gore. But his look is the look of one who has not\nconquered and who expects further, perhaps greater disaster.\n\nHe has told us that \"a man must be strong at the centre before he can be\nfree at the circumference of his being,\" and in support of this doctrine\nhe quotes the words of Jesus, \"It is better to enter into life halt or\nmaimed rather than having two hands or two feet to go into hell.\" Has he\nreached strength at the centre, one wonders, by doing violence to any\npart of his moral being? Is his strength not the strength of the whole\nman but the strength only of his will, a forced strength to which his\nreason has not greatly contributed and into which his affections have\nnot entirely entered? Is this, one asks, the reason of that look in his\nface, the look of bafflement, of perplexity, of a permanently troubled\nconscience, of a divided self, a self that is both maimed and halt?\n\nHow is it, we ask ourselves, that a man who makes so profound an\nimpression on those who know him, and who commands as no other teacher\nof his time the affectionate veneration of the Christian world, and who\nhas placed himself whole-heartedly in political alliance with the\nmilitant forces of victorious Labour, exercises so little influence in\nthe moral life of the nation? How is it that he suggests to us no\nfeeling of the relation of triumphant leadership, but rather the spirit\nof Napoleon on the retreat from Moscow?\n\nWe learn from his teaching that no one can be a Christian without \"a\ntremendous act of choice,\" that Christ proclaimed His standard with\n\"tremendous severity of claim,\" that \"it is very hard to be a good\nChristian,\" and that we must surely, as St. Peter says, \"pass the time\nof our sojourning here in fear.\" All of which suggests to us that the\nBishop has not entered into life whole, even perhaps that sometimes he\nlooks back over his shoulder with a spasm of horror at the hell from\nwhich he has escaped only by the sacrifice of his rational integrity.\n\nLet us recall the main events of his history.\n\nHe was educated at Harrow and Balliol, and exercised a remarkable\nspiritual influence at Oxford, where he remained, first as\nVice-Principal of Cuddesdon College and then as Librarian of Pusey\nHouse, till he was forty years of age.\n\nDuring these years he edited the book called _Lux Mundi_ in which he\nabandoned the dogma of verbal inspiration and accepted the theory that\nthe human knowledge of Christ was limited. This book distressed a number\nof timid people, but extended the influence of Dr. Gore to men of\nscience, such as Romanes, as well as to a much larger number of\nthoughtful undergraduates.\n\nFor a year he was Vicar of Radley, and then came to London as a Canon of\nWestminster, immediately attracting enormous congregations to hear him\npreach, his sermons being distinguished by a most singular simplicity, a\nprofound piety, and above all by a deep honesty of conviction which few\nwho heard him could withstand. Weller, the Dean's verger at the Abbey,\nhas many stories to tell of the long queues at Westminster which in\nthose days were one of the sights of London. The Abbey has never since\nrecovered its place as a centre of Christian teaching.\n\nUp to this time Dr. Gore's sympathy for the Oxford Movement was merely\nthe background of a life devoted to the mystical element and the moral\nimplications of the Christian religion. He was known as a High\nChurchman; he was felt to be a saint; his modernism was almost\nforgotten.\n\nIt was not long before his tentative movement towards modernism ended in\na profession of Catholic principles which allied him with forces\ndefinitely and sometimes angrily ranged against the Higher Criticism. He\nbecame a Bishop. Almost at once the caressing fingers of the saint\nbecame the heavy hand of the dogmatist. He who had frightened Liddon by\nhis tremulous adventure towards the mere fringe of modernism became the\ndeclared enemy, the implacable foe, of the least of his clergy who\nquestioned even the most questionable clauses of the creeds. He demanded\nof them all a categorical assent to the literal truth of the miraculous,\nin exactly the same sense in which physical facts are true. Every word\nof the creeds had to be uttered _ex animo_. \"It is very hard to be a\ngood Christian.\" Yes; but did Dr. Gore make it harder than it need be?\nThere was something not very unlike a heresy hunt in the diocese over\nwhich the editor of _Lux Mundi_ ruled with a rod of iron.\n\nI remember once speaking to Dr. Winnington Ingram, Bishop of London,\nabout the Virgin Birth. He told me that he had consulted Charles Gore on\nthis matter, and that he agreed with Charles Gore's ruling that if\nbelief in that miracle were abandoned Christianity would perish. Such is\nthe fate of those who put their faith in dogmas, and plant their feet on\nthe sands of tradition.\n\nDr. Gore's life as a Bishop, first of Worcester, then of Birmingham, and\nfinally of Oxford, was disappointing to many of his admirers, and\nperhaps to himself. He did well to retire. But unfortunately this\nretirement was not consecrated to those exercises which made him so\nimpressive and so powerful an influence in the early years of his\nministry. He set himself to be, not an exponent of the Faith, but the\ndefender of a particular aspect of that Faith.\n\nHere, I think, is to be found the answer to our question concerning the\nloss of Dr. Gore's influence in the national life. From the day of the\ngreat sermons in Westminster Abbey that wonderful influence has\ndiminished, and he is now in the unhappy position of a party leader\nwhose followers begin to question his wisdom. Organisation has destroyed\nhim.\n\nDr. Gore, in my judgment, has achieved strength at the centre of his\nbeing only at the terrible cost of cutting off, or at any rate of\nmaiming, his own natural temperament. Marked out by nature for the life\nof mysticism, he has entered maimed and halt into the life of the\ncontroversialist. With the richest of spiritual gifts, which demand\nquiet and a profound peace for their development, he has thrown himself\ninto the arena of theological disputation, where force of intellect\nrather than beauty of character is the first requirement of victory.\nInstead of drawing all men to the sweet reasonableness of the Christian\nlife, he has floundered in the obscurities of a sect and hidden his\nlight under the bushel of a mouldering solecism--\"the tradition of\nWestern Catholicism.\" It is a tragedy. Posterity I think, will\nregretfully number him among bigots, lamenting that one who was so\nclearly\n\n     . . . born for the universe, narrow'd his mind,\n     And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.\n\nFor, unhappily, this party in the Church to which, as Dean Inge well\nputs it, Dr. Gore \"consents to belong,\" and for which he has made such\nmanifold sacrifices, and by which he is not always so loyally followed\nas he deserves to be, is of all parties in the Church that which least\nharmonises with English temperament, and is least likely to endure the\nintellectual onslaughts of the immediate future.\n\nIt is the Catholic Party, the spendthrift heir of the Tractarians,\nwhich, with little of the intellectual force that gave so signal a power\nto the Oxford Movement, endeavours to make up for that sad if not fatal\ndeficiency by an almost inexhaustible credulity, a marked ability in\nsuperstitious ceremonial, a not very modest assertion of the claims of\nsacerdotalism, a mocking contempt for preaching, and a devotion to the\nduties of the parish priest which has never been excelled in the history\nof the English Church.\n\nBishop Gore, very obviously, is a better man than his party. He is a\ngentleman in every fibre of his being, and to a gentleman all\nextravagance is distasteful, all disloyalty is impossible. He is,\nindeed, a survival from the great and orderly Oxford Movement trying to\nkeep his feet in the swaying midst of a revolutionary mob, a Kerensky\nattempting to withstand the forces of Bolshevism.\n\nThere is little question, I think, that when his influence is removed,\nan influence which becomes with every year something of a superstition,\nsomething of an irritation, to the younger generation of\nAnglo-Catholics--not many of whom are scholars and few gentlemen--the\nparty which he has served so loyally, and with so much distinction, so\nmuch temperance, albeit so disastrously for his own influence in the\nworld, will perish on the far boundaries of an extremism altogether\nforeign to our English nativity.\n\nFor to many of those who profess to follow him he is already a\nhesitating and too cautious leader, and they fret under his coldness\ntowards the millinery of the altar, and writhe under his refusal to\naccept the strange miracle of Transubstantiation--a miracle which, he\nhas explained, I understand, demands a reversal of itself to account for\nthe change which takes place in digestion. If they were rid of his\nrestraining hand, if they felt they could trust themselves without his\nintellectual championship, these Boishevists of sacerdotalism, these\nenthusiasts for the tyranny of an absolute Authority, these episcopalian\nasserters of the Apostolical Succession who delight in flouting and\ndefying and insulting their bishops, would soon lose in the follies of\nexcess the last vestiges of English respect for the once glorious and\nhonourable Oxford Movement.\n\nIf any man think that I bear too hardly on these very positive\nprotagonists of Latin Christianity, let him read the Anglican chapters\nin _A Spiritual AEneid_. Father Knox was once a member of this party and\nsomething of a disciple of Dr. Gore, who, however, always regretted his\n\"mediaeval\" theology.\n\nA member of this party, marching indeed at its head and its one voice in\nthese degenerate days to which men of intelligence pay the smallest\nattention, Bishop Gore has lost the great influence he once exercised,\nor began to exercise, on the national life, a moral and spiritual\ninfluence which might at this time have been well-nigh supreme if the\nmain body of the nation had not unfortunately lost its interest for the\nman in its contempt for, or rather its indifference to, the party to\nwhich he consents to belong.\n\nBut for the singular beauty of his spiritual life, one would be tempted\nto set him up as an example of Coleridge's grave warning, \"He, who\nbegins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving\nhis own Sect or Church better than Christianity, and end in loving\nhimself better than all.\"\n\nI find him in these late days no nearer to Rome, not an inch nearer,\nthan in the days of his early manhood, but absolutely convinced that\nChrist founded a Church and instituted the two chief sacraments. He will\nsacrifice nothing in this respect. His whole mind, which is a very\ndifferent thing from his whole spirit, leans towards authority, order,\nand coherence. He must have an organised society of believers, believers\nin the creeds, and he must have an absolute obedience to authority\namong these believers.\n\nBut he is a little shaken and very much alarmed by the march of\nmodernism. \"When people run up to you in the street,\" he said recently,\nand the phrase suggests panic, \"and say, 'Oh! what are we to do?' I have\ngot no short or easy answer at all.\" A large, important, and learned\nbody of men in the Church, he says, hold views which are \"directly\nsubversive of the foundations of the creeds.\" He calls this state of\nthings evidence of \"an extraordinary collapse of discipline.\" But that\nis not all. He is alarmed; he is not content to trust the future of the\nChurch to authority alone. \"What are we to do?\" He replies:\n\n\"First, we must not be content to appeal to authority. We must teach,\nfully teach, re-teach the truth on grounds of Scripture, reason,\nhistory, everything, so that we may have a party, a body which knows not\nonly that it has got authority, but that it has got the truth and reason\non its side.\"\n\nThe claim is obviously courageous, the claim of a brave and noble man,\nbut one wonders, Can it be made good? It is a long time since evolution\nsaw Athanasius laid in the grave, a long time since the Inquisition\npronounced the opinions of Galileo to be heretical and therefore false.\n\"It is very hard to be a good Christian.\" Did Athanasius make it easier?\nDid the Inquisition which condemned Galileo make it easier still?\n\nDr. Gore thinks that the supreme mistake of Christianity was placing\nitself under the protection and patronage of national governments. It\nshould never have become nationalised. Its greatest and most necessitous\ndemand was to stand apart from anything in the nature of racialism.\n\nHe mourns over an incoherent humanity; he seeks for unifying principles.\nThe religion of an Incarnation must have a message for the world, a\nmessage for the whole world, for all mankind. Surely, surely. But\nunifying principles are not popular in the churches. It is the laity\nwhich objects to a coherent Gospel.\n\nHe sighs for a spiritualised Labour Party. He shrinks from the thought\nof a revolution, but does not believe that the present industrial system\ncan be Christianised. There must be a fundamental change. Christianity\nis intensely personal, but its individualism is of the spirit, the\nindividualism of unselfishness. He laughs grimly, in a low and rumbling\nfashion, on hearing that Communism is losing its influence in the north\nof England. \"I can quite imagine that; the last thing an Englishman will\npart with is his property.\"\n\nLaughter, if it can be called laughter, is rare on his lips, and is\nreserved in general for opinions which are in antagonism to his own. He\nlaughs in this way at the makeshift compromises of statesmen and\ntheologians and economists saying that what those men hate more than\nanything else is a fixed principle. He quotes with a sardonic pleasure\nthe capital saying that a certain statesman's idea of a settled policy\nbased on fixed moral principles is a policy which will last from\nbreakfast-time to luncheon--he repeats the last words \"from\nbreakfast-time to luncheon,\" with a deep relish, an indrawing of the\nbreath, a flash of light in the glassy eyes.\n\nHe remains impenitent concerning his first instinct as to England's duty\nat the violation of Belgium's neutrality. We were justified in fighting;\nwe could do no other; it was a stern duty laid upon us by the Providence\nwhich overrules the foolishness of man. But he is insistent that we can\njustify our fiery passion in War only by an equal passion in the higher\ncause of Peace--no, not an equal passion, a far greater passion.\n\nWe lost at Versailles our greatest opportunity for that divine\njustification. We showed no fervour for peace. There was no passion in\nus; nothing but scepticism, incredulity, and the base appetite for\nrevenge. We might have led the world into a new epoch if at that moment\nwe had laid down our sword, taken up our cross, and followed the Prince\nof Peace. But we were cold, cold. We had no idealism. We were poor\nsceptics trusting to economics--the economics of a base materialism.\n\nBut though he broods over the sorrows and sufferings of mankind, and\nviews with an unutterable grief the dismemberment of Christendom, he\nrefuses to style himself a pessimist. There is much good in the world;\nhe is continually being astonished by the goodness of individuals; he\ncannot bring himself to despair of mankind. Ah, if he had only kept\nhimself in that atmosphere! But \"it is very hard to be a good\nChristian.\"\n\nAs for theology, as for modernism, people are not bothered, he says, by\na supposed conflict between Religion and Science. What they want is a\nmessage. The Catholic Church must formulate a policy, must become\nintelligent, coherent.\n\nHe has small faith in meetings, pronouncing the word with an amused\ndisdain, nor does he attach great importance to preaching, convinced\nthat no Englishman can preach: \"Even Roman Catholics can't preach in\nEngland.\" As for those chapels to which people go to hear a popular\npreacher, he calls them \"preaching shops,\" and speaks with pity of those\nwho occupy their pulpits: \"That must be a dreadful life--dreadful, oh,\nquite dreadful!\" Yet he has a lasting admiration for the sermons of\nCharles Spurgeon. As to Jeremy Taylor, \"I confess that all that turgid\nrhetoric wearies me.\"\n\nHe does not think the Oxford Movement has spent itself. On the contrary,\nthe majority of the young men who present themselves for ordination are\nvery largely inspired by the spirit of that Movement. All the same, he\nperceives a danger in formalism, a resting in symbolism for its own\nsake. In its genesis, the Oxford Movement threw up great men, very great\nmen, men of considerable intellectual power and a most profound\nspirituality; it is not to be expected, perhaps, that such giants should\nappear again, and in their absence lesser men may possibly mistake the\nsymbol for the thing symbolised, and so fall into the error of\nformalism. That is a danger to be watched and guarded against. But the\nMovement will continue, and it will not reach its fulfilment until under\nits pressure the Church has arrived at unity and formulated a policy\nintelligent and coherent.\n\nSo this great spirit, who might have given to mankind a book worthy to\nstand beside the _Imitation_, and given to England a new enthusiasm for\nthe moral principles of Christianity, nurses a mechanistic dream and\ncherishes the hope that his Party is the Aaron's rod of all the\nChurches. Many would have followed him if he had been content to say\nonly, \"Do as I do,\" but he descended into the dust of controversy, and\nbade us think as he thinks. Nevertheless, in spite of this fatal mistake\nhe remains the greatest spiritual force among the Churches of England,\nand his books of devotion will be read long after his works of\ncontroversy have fallen into that coldest of all oblivions, the oblivion\nof inadequate theologies.\n\n\n\n\nDEAN INGE\n\n\nINGE, Very Rev. WILLIAM RALPH, D.D., C.V.O., 1918; Dean of St. Paul's\nsince 1911; b. Crayke, Yorkshire, 6th June, 1860; s. of late Rev.\nWilliam Inge, D.D., Provost of Worcester College, Oxford and Mary, d. of\nVen. Edward Churton, Archdeacon of Cleveland; m. 1905, Mary Catharine,\nd. Ven. H.M. Spooner, Archdeacon of Maidstone, and g.d. of Bishop Harvey\nGoodwin; three s. two d. Educ.: Eton, King's College, Cambridge, Bell\nScholar and Porson Prizeman, 1880; Porson Scholar, 1881; Craven Scholar\nand Browne Medalist, 1882; Senior Chancellor's Medalist, 1883; 1st Class\nClassics, 1882 and 1883; Hare Prizeman, 1885; Assistant Master at Eton,\n1884-88; Fellow of King's, 1886-88; Fellow and Tutor of Hertford\nCollege, Oxford, 1889-1904; Select Preacher at Oxford, 1893-95, 1903-5,\n1920-21; Cambridge, 1901, 1906, 1910, 1912, 1913, 1920; Bampton\nLecturer, 1899; Hon. D.D., Aberdeen, 1905; Paddock Lecturer, New York,\n1906; Vicar of All Saints' Ennismore Gardens, S.W., 1905-7; Lady\nMargaret Professor of Divinity and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge,\n1907-l1; Hon. Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and of Hertford\nCollege, Oxford; Academic Committee Royal Soc. of Literature; Gifford\nLecturer, St. Andrews, 1917-18; Romanes and Hibbert Lecturer, 1920; Hon.\nD.Litt., Durham, 1920.\n\n[Illustration: DEAN INGE]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nDEAN INGE\n\n\n_Some day, when I've quite made up my mind what to fight for, or whom to\nfight, I shall do well enough, if I live, but I haven't made up my mind\nwhat to fight for--whether, for instance, people ought to live in Swiss\ncottages and sit on three-legged or one-legged stools; whether people\nought to dress well or ill; whether ladies ought to tie their hair in\nbeautiful knots; whether Commerce or Business of any kind be an\ninvention of the Devil or not; whether Art is a Crime or only an\nAbsurdity; whether Clergymen ought to be multiplied, or exterminated by\narsenic, like rat; whether in general we are getting on, and if so where\nwe are going to; whether it's worth while to ascertain any of these\nthings; whether one's tongue was ever made to talk with or only to taste\nwith._-JOHN RUSKIN.\n\nWhen our day is done, and men look back to the, shadows we have left\nbehind us, and there is no longer any spell of personal magnetism to\ndelude right judgment, I think that the figure of Dean Inge may emerge\nfrom the dim and too crowded tapestry of our period with something of\nthe force, richness, and abiding strength which gives Dr. Johnson his\ngreat place among authentic Englishmen.\n\nHis true setting is the Deanery of St. Paul's, that frowning and\nmelancholy house in a backwater of London's jarring tide, where the\ndust collects, and sunlight has a struggle to make two ends meet, and\ncold penetrates like a dagger, and fog hangs like a pall, and the blight\nof ages clings to stone and brick, to window and woodwork, with an\nadhesive mournfulness which suggests the hatchment of Melpomene. Even\nthe hand of Grinling Gibbons at the porch does not prevent one from\nrecalling Crabbe's memorable lines:\n\n     Dark but not awful, dismal but yet mean,\n     With anxious bustle moves the cumbrous scene;\n     Presents no objects tender or profound,\n     But spreads its cold unmeaning gloom around.\n\nHere in the midst of overshadowing warehouses--and until he came hither\nat the age of fifty-one few people in London had ever heard his name, a\nname which even now is more frequently pronounced as if it rhymed with\n_cringe_, instead of with _sting_--here the Dean of St. Paul's, looking\nat one moment like Don Quixote, at another like a figure from the pages\nof Dostoevsky, and flitting almost noiselessly about rooms which would\nsurely have been filled for the mind of Dickens with ghosts of both\nsexes and of every order and degree; here the great Dean faces the\nproblems of the universe, dwells much with his own soul, and fights the\nSeven Devils of Foolishness in a style which the Church of England has\nnot known since the days of Swift.\n\nIn appearance he is very tall, rigid, long-necked, and extremely thin,\nwith fine dark hair and a lean grey clean-shaven face, the heavy-lidded\neyes of an almost Asian deadness, the upper lip projecting beyond the\nlower, a drift of careless hair sticking boyishly forward from the\nforehead, the nose thin, the mouth mobile but decisive, the whole set\nand colour of the face stonelike and impassive.\n\nIn repose he looks as if he had set himself to stare the Sphinx out of\ncountenance and not yet had lost heart in the matter. When he smiles, it\nis as if a mischievous boy looked out of an undertaker's window; but the\nsmile, so full of wit, mischief, and even gaiety, is gone in an instant,\nquicker than I have ever seen a smile flash out of sight, and\nimmediately the fine scholarly face sinks back into somnolent austerity\nwhich for all its aloofness and immemorial calm suggests, in some\nfashion for which I cannot account, a frozen whimsicality.\n\nFew public men, with perhaps the exception of Samuel Rogers, ever cared\nso little about appearance. It is believed that the Dean would be\nindistinguishable from a tramp but for the constant admonishment and\nactive benevolence of Mrs. Inge. As it is, he is something more than\nshabby, and only escapes a disreputable appearance by the finest of\nhairs, resembling, as I have suggested, one of those poor Russian\nnoblemen whom Dostoevsky loved to place in the dismal and sordid\natmosphere of a lodging-house, there to shine like golden planets by the\nforce of their ideas.\n\nBut when all this is said, and it is worth saying, I hope, if only to\nmake the reader feel that he is here making the acquaintance of an\nascetic of the intellect, a man who cares most deeply for accurate\nthought, and is absorbed body, soul and spirit in the contemplation of\neternal values, still, for all the gloom of his surroundings and the\ndeadness of his appearance, it is profoundly untrue to think of the Dean\nas a prophet of pessimism.\n\nWhen he speaks to one, in the rather muffled voice of a man troubled by\ndeafness, the impression he makes is by no means an impression of\nmelancholy or despair; on the contrary it is the impression of strength,\npower, courage, and unassailable allegiance to truth. He is careless of\nappearance because he has something far better worth the while of his\nattention; he is aloof and remote, monosyllabic and sometimes even\ninaccessible, because he lives almost entirely in the spiritual world,\nseeking Truth with a steady perseverance of mind, Goodness with the full\nenergy of his heart, and Beauty with the deep mystical passion of his\nsoul.\n\nNothing in the man suggests the title of his most popular book\n_Outspoken Essays_--a somewhat boastful phrase that would, I think, have\nslightly distressed a critic like Ste.-Beuve--and nothing, except a\ncertain firm emphasis on the word _truth_, suggests in his conversation\nthe spirit that shows in the more controversial of his essays. On the\ncontrary, he is in manner, bearing, and spirit a true mystic, a man of\nsilence and meditation, gentle when he is not angered, modest when he is\nnot challenged by a fool, humble in his attitude to God if not to a\nfoolish world, and, albeit with the awkwardness inevitable in one who\nlives so habitually with his own thoughts and his own silence, anxious\nto be polite.\n\n\"I do not like being unpleasant,\" he said to me on one occasion, \"but if\nno one else will, and the time requires it--\"\n\nIt is a habit with him to leave a sentence unfinished which is\nsufficiently clear soon after the start.\n\nIn what way is he unpleasant? and what are those movements of the time\nwhich call in his judgment for unpleasantness?\n\nOf Bergson he said to me, \"I hope he is still thinking,\" and when I\nquestioned him he replied that Bergson's teaching up to this moment\n\"suggests that anything may happen.\"\n\nHere you may see one of the main movements of our day which call, in the\nDean's judgment for unpleasantness--the unpleasantness of telling people\nnot to make fools of themselves. Humanity must not go over in a body to\nMr. Micawber.\n\nAnything may happen? No! We are not characters in a fairy tale, but men\nof reason, inhabiting a world which reveals to us at every point of our\ninvestigation one certain and unalterable fact--an unbroken uniformity\nof natural law. We must not dream; we must act, and, before we act, we\nmust think. Human nature does not change very greatly. Bergson is apt to\nencourage easy optimism, to leave the door open for credulity,\nsuperstition, idle expectation; and he is disposed to set instinct above\nreason, \"a very dangerous doctrine, at any rate for _this_ generation.\"\n\nWhat is wrong with this generation? It is a generation that refuses to\naccept the rule and discipline of reason, which thinks it can reach\nmillennium by a short cut, or jump to the moon in an excess of emotional\nfervour. It is a generation which becomes a crowd, and \"individuals are\noccasionally guided by reason, crowds never.\" It is a generation which\nlives by catchwords, which plays tricks, which attempts to cut knots,\nwhich counts heads.\n\nWhat is wrong with this generation? Public opinion is \"a vulgar,\nimpertinent, anonymous tyrant who deliberately makes life unpleasant for\nanyone who is not content to be the average man.\" Democracy means \"a\nvictory of sentiment over reason\"; it is the triumph of the unfit, the\nascendancy of the second-rate, the conquest of quality by quantity, the\nsmothering of the hard and true under the feather-bed of the soft and\nthe false.\n\n     Some may prefer the softer type of character, and may hope that it\n     will make civilisation more humane and compassionate. . . .\n     Unfortunately, experience shows that none is so cruel as the\n     disillusioned sentimentalist. He thinks that he can break or ignore\n     nature's laws with impunity; and then, when he finds that nature\n     has no sentiment, he rages like a mad dog and combines with his\n     theoretical objection to capital punishment a lust to murder all\n     who disagree with him.\n\nBeware of sentiment! Beware of it in politics, beware of it in religion.\nSee things as they are. Accept human nature for what it is. Consult\nhistory. Judge by reason and experience. Act with courage.\n\nAs he faces politics, so he faces religion.\n\nHe desires to rescue Christianity from all the sentimental vulgarities\nwhich have disfigured it in recent years--alike from the aesthetic\nextravagances of the ritualist and the organising fussiness of the\nevangelical; to rescue it from these obscuring unessentials, and to set\nit clearly before the eyes of mankind in the pure region of thought--a\ndivine philosophy which teaches the only true science of life, a\ndiscipline which fits the Soul for its journey, \"by an inner ascent,\" to\nthe presence of God. Mysticism, he says, is the pursuit of ultimate,\nobjective truth, or it is nothing.\n\nChristianity demands the closest attention of the mind. It cannot be\nseen at a glance, understood in a moment, adopted by a gesture. It is a\ndeep and profound philosophy of life. It proposes a transvaluation of\nvalues. It insists that the spiritual life is the only true life. It\nsets the invisible above the visible, and the eternal above the\ntemporal. It tears up by the roots the lust of accumulation. It brings\nman face to face with a choice that is his destiny. He must think, he\nmust decide. He cannot serve both God and Mammon. Either his life must\nbe given for the imperishable values of spiritual existence or for the\nmeats that perish and the flesh that will see corruption. Let a man\nchoose. Christianity contradicts all his natural ideas; but let him\nthink, let him listen to the voice of God, and let him decide as a\nrational being. Let him not presume to set up his trivial notions, or to\nthink that he can silence Truth by bawling falsehood at the top of his\nvoice. Let him be humble. Let him listen to the teacher. Let him give\nall his attention to this great matter, for it concerns his soul.\n\nHere again is the aristocratic principle. The average man, until he has\ndisciplined his reason to understand this great matter, must hold his\npeace; certainly he must not presume to lay down the law.\n\nWhen we exclaim against this doctrine, and speak with enthusiasm of the\nvirtues of the poor, Dr. Inge asks us to examine those virtues and to\njudge of their worth. Among the poor, he quotes, \"generosity ranks far\nbefore justice, sympathy before truth, love before chastity, a pliant\nand obliging disposition before a rigidly honest one. In brief, the less\nadmixture of intellect required for the practice of any virtue, the\nhigher it stands in popular estimation.\"\n\nBut we are to love God with all our _mind_, as well as with all our\nheart.\n\nDoes he, then, shut out the humble and the poor from the Kingdom of God?\n\nNot for a moment. \"Ultimately, we are what we love and care for, and no\nlimit has been set to what we may become without ceasing to be\nourselves.\" The door of love stands open, and through that doorway the\npoor and the ignorant may pass to find the satisfaction of the saint.\nBut they must be careful to love the right things--to love truth,\ngoodness, and beauty. They must not be encouraged to sentimentalise;\nthey must be bidden to decide. The poor can be debauched as easily as\nthe rich. Many are called, but few chosen.\n\nHis main protest is against _the rule_ of the ignorant, the democratic\nprinciple applied to the _amor intellectualis Dei_. Rich and poor,\nlearned and ignorant, all must accept, with humility, the teaching of\nthe Master. Plotinus, he points out, was the schoolmaster who brought\nAugustine to Christ. The greatest of us has to learn. He who would teach\nshould be a learner all his life.\n\nIn everything he says and writes I find this desire to exalt Truth above\nthe fervours of emotionalism and the dangerous drill of the formalist.\nAlways he is calling upon men to drop their prejudices and catchwords,\nto forsake their conceits and sentiments, to face Truth with a quiet\npulse and eyes clear of all passion. Christianity is a tremendous thing;\nlet no man, believer or unbeliever, attempt to make light of it.\n\nIt is not compassion for the intellectual difficulties of the average\nman which has made Dr. Inge a conservative modernist, if so I may call\nhim. Sentiment of no kind whatever has entered into the matter. He is a\nconservative modernist because his reason has convinced him of the truth\nof reasonable modernism, because he has \"that intellectual honesty which\ndreads what Plato calls 'the lie in the soul' even more than the lie on\nthe lips.\" He is a modernist because he is an intellectual ascetic.\n\nWhen we compare his position with that of Dr. Gore we see at once the\nwidth of the gulf which separates the traditionalist from the\nphilosopher. To Dr. Gore the creeds and the miracles are essential to\nChristianity. No Virgin Birth, no Sermon on the Mount! No Resurrection\nof the Body, no Parable of the Prodigal Son! No Descent into Hell, no\nrevelation that the Kingdom of Heaven is within! Need we wonder that Dr.\nGore cries out despairingly for more discipline? He summons reason, it\nis true, but to defend and explain creeds without which there is no\nChristianity.\n\nTo Dr. Inge, on the other hand, it is what Christ said that matters,\nwhat He taught that demands our obedience, what He revealed that\ncommands our love. Christianity for him is not a series of extraordinary\nacts, but a voice from heaven. It is not the Christ of tradition before\nwhom he bows his knee, but the Christ of history, the Christ of faith,\nthe Christ of experience--the living and therefore the evolving Christ.\nAnd for him, as for the great majority of searching men, the more the\nmists of pious _aberglaube_ lift, the more real, the more fair, and the\nmore divine becomes the Face of that living Christ, the more close the\nsense of His companionship.\n\nA friend of mine once asked him, \"Are you a Christian or a\nNeoplatonist?\" He smiled. \"It would be difficult to say,\" he replied.\nHe was thinking, I am sure, of Troeltsch's significant prophecy, and\nwarning, that _the Future of Christian philosophy depends on the renewal\nof its alliance with Neoplatonism_.\n\nLet no man suppose that the intellectual virtues are outside the range\nof religion. \"Candour, moral courage, intellectual honesty, scrupulous\naccuracy, chivalrous fairness, endless docility to facts, disinterested\ncollaboration, unconquerable hopefulness and perseverance, manly\nrenunciation of popularity and easy honours, love of bracing labour and\nstrengthening solitude; these, and many other cognate qualities,\" says\nBaron von Huegel, \"bear upon them the impress of God and His Christ.\"\nWhat Dr. Inge, who quotes these words, says of Plotinus declares his own\ncharacter. He speaks of \"the intense honesty of the man, _who never\nshirks a difficulty or writes an insincere word_.\"\n\nBut though he is associated in the popular mind chiefly with modernism,\nDr. Inge is not by any means only a controversial theologian. Above and\nbeyond everything else, he is a mystic. You may find indications of this\ntruth even in a book like _Outspoken Essays_, but they are more numerous\nin his two little volumes, _The Church and the Age_ and _Speculum\nAnimae_, and of course more numerous still in his great work on\nPlotinus[5]. He is far more a mystic than a modernist. Indeed I regard\nhim as the Erasmus of modernism, one so sure of truth that he would\ntrust time to work for his ideas, would avoid fighting altogether, but\ncertainly all fighting that is in the least degree premature. The two\nthousand years of Christianity, he says somewhere, are no long period\nwhen we remind ourselves that God spent millions of years in moulding a\nbit of old red sandstone.\n\n[Footnote 5: \"I have often thought that the unquestionable inferiority\nof German literature about Platonism points to an inherent defect in the\nGerman mind.\"--_The Philosophy of Plotinus_, p. 13]\n\n     Meanwhile we have our cocksure little guides, some of whom say to\n     us, \"That is primitive, therefore it is good,\" and others, \"This is\n     up-to-date, therefore it is better.\" Not very wise persons any of\n     them, I fear.\n\nAnd again, writing of Catholic Modernism in France:\n\n     We have given our reasons for rejecting the Modernist attempt at\n     reconstruction. In the first place, we do not feel that we are\n     required by sane criticism to surrender nearly all that M. Loisy\n     has surrendered. We believe that the Kingdom of God which Christ\n     preached was something much more than a platonic dream. We believe\n     that He did speak as never man spake, so that those who heard Him\n     were convinced that He was more than man. We believe, in short,\n     that the object of our worship was a historical figure.\n\nI will give a few extracts from _Speculum Animae_, a most valuable and\nmost beautiful little book, which show the true bent of his mind:\n\n     On all questions _about_ religion there is the most distressing\n     divergency. But the saints do not contradict each other.\n\nPrayer . . . is \"the elevation of the mind and heart to God.\" It is in\nprayer, using the word in this extended sense, that we come into\nimmediate contact with the things that cannot be shaken.\n\nAre we to set against such plain testimony the pessimistic agnosticism\nof a voluptuary like Omar Khayyam?\n\n     _There was the Door to which I found no Key_. . . .\n\nMay it not be that the door has no key because it has no lock?\n\nThe suggestion that in prayer we only hear the echo of our own voices is\nridiculous to anyone who has prayed.\n\nThe life of Christ was throughout a life of prayer. Not only did He love\nto spend many hours in lonely communing with His Father, on the\nmountain-tops, which He was perhaps the first to love, and to choose for\nthis purpose, but His whole life was spent in habitual realisation of\nGod's presence.\n\nReligion is caught rather than taught; it is the religious teacher, not\nthe religious lesson, that helps the pupil to believe.\n\nWhat we love, that we see; and what we see, that we are.\n\nWe need above all things to simplify our religion and our inner life\ngenerally.\n\nWe want to separate the essential from the nonessential, to concentrate\nour faith upon the pure God-consciousness, the eternal world which to\nChrist was so much nearer and more real than the world of external\nobjects.\n\nChrist meant us to be happy, happier than any other people.\n\nIt is because he is so profoundly convinced of the mystical truth of\nChristianity, because he has so honestly tried and so richly\nexperienced that truth as a philosophy of life, it is because of this,\nand not out of a lack of sympathy with the sad and sorrowful, that he\nopposes himself to the obscurantism of the Anglo-Catholic and the\nemotional economics of the political reformer.\n\n\"The Christian cure,\" he says, \"is the only real cure.\" The socialist is\ntalking in terms of the old currency, the currency of the world's\nquantitative standards; but Christ introduced a new currency, which\ndemonetises the old. Spiritual goods are unlimited in amount; they are\nincreased by being shared; and we rob nobody by taking them. He believes\nwith Creighton that \"Socialism will only be possible when we are all\nperfect, and then it will not be needed.\"\n\nIn the meantime, \"Christianity increases the wealth of the world by\ncreating new values.\" Only in the currency of Christ can true socialism\nhope to pay its way.\n\nWe miss the heart and centre of his teaching if we forget for a moment\nthat it is his conviction of the sufficiency of Christ's revelation\nwhich makes him so deadly a critic both of the ritualist and the\nsocialist--two terms which on the former side at least tend to become\nsynonymous. He would have no distraction from the mystery of Christ, no\ncompromise of any kind in the world's loyalty to its one Physician.\nSimplify your dogmas; simplify your theologies. Christ is your one\nessential.\n\nI have spoken to him about psychical research and the modern interest in\nspiritualism. \"I don't think much of _that!_\" he replied. Then, in a\nlower key, \"It was not through animism and necromancy that the Jews came\nto believe in immortality.\" How did they reach that belief? \"By thinking\nthings out, and asking the question, Shall not the Judge of all the\nearth do right?\"\n\nThe answer is characteristic. Dr. Inge has thought things out;\neverything in his faith has been thought out; and the basis of all his\nthinking is acceptance of absolute values--absolute truth, absolute\ngoodness, absolute beauty. No breath from the class-rooms agitated by\nEinstein can shake his faith in these absolutes. His Spirit of the\nUniverse is absolute truth, absolute goodness, absolute beauty. He is a\nNeoplatonist, but something more. He ascends into communion with this\nUniversal Spirit whispering the Name of Christ, and by the power of\nChrist in his soul addresses the Absolute as Abba, Father.\n\nNo man is freer from bigotry or intolerance, though not many can hate\nfalsity and lies more earnestly. The Church of England, he tells me,\nshould be a national church, a church expressing the highest reach of\nEnglish temperament, with room for all shades of thought. He quotes\nDollinger, \"No church is so national, so deeply rooted in popular\naffection, so bound up with the institutions and manners of the country,\nor so powerful in its influences on national character.\" But this was\nwritten in 1872. Dr. Inge says now, \"The English Church represents, on\nthe religious side, the convictions, tastes, and prejudices of the\nEnglish gentleman, that truly national ideal of character. . . . A love of\norder, seemliness, and good taste has led the Anglican Church along a\nmiddle path between what a seventeenth century divine called 'the\nmeretricious gaudiness of the Church of Rome and the squalid slutterny\nof fanatic conventicles.'\"\n\nUniformity, he tells me, is not to be desired. One of our greatest\nmistakes was letting the Wesleyan Methodists go; they should have been\naccommodated within the fold. Another fatal mistake was made by the\nLambeth Conference, in its insistence on re-ordination. Imagine the\nChurch of England, with two Scotch Archbishops at its head, thinking\nthat the Presbyterians would consent to so humiliating a condition! An\ninterchange of pulpits is desirable; it might increase our intelligence,\nor at least it should widen our sympathy. He holds a high opinion of the\nQuakers. \"Practical mystics: perhaps they are the best Christians, I\nmean the best of them.\"\n\nModernism, he defines, at its simplest, as personal experience, in\ncontradistinction from authority. The modernist is one whose knowledge\nof Christ is so personal and direct that it does not depend on miracle\nor any accident of His earthly life. Rome, he thinks, is a falling\npower, but she may get back some of her strength in any great industrial\ncalamity--a revolution, for example. Someone once asked him which he\nwould choose, a Black tyranny, or a Red? He replied \"On the whole, I\nthink a Black.\" The friend corrected him. \"You are wrong. Men would soon\nemerge from the ruins of a Red tyranny, but Rome never lets go her power\ntill it is torn from her.\"\n\nHis contempt for the idea of reunion with Rome in her present condition\nis unmeasured. \"The notion almost reminds us of the cruel jest of\nMezentius, who bound the living bodies of his enemies to corpses.\" It is\nthe contempt both of a great scholar and a great Englishman for\nignorance and a somewhat ludicrous pretension. \"The _caput orbis_ has\nbecome provincial, and her authority is spurned even within her own\nborders.\" England could not kneel at this Italian footstool without\nceasing to be England[6].\n\n[Footnote 6: \"There are, after all, few emotions of which one has less\nreason to be ashamed than the little lump in the throat which the\nEnglishman feels when he first catches sight of the white cliffs of\nDover.\"--_Outspoken essays_, p. 58.]\n\n\"A profound reconstruction is demanded,\" he says, \"and for those who\nhave eyes to see has been already for some time in progress. The new\ntype of Christianity will be more Christian than the old, because it\nwill be more moral. A number of unworthy beliefs about God are being\ntacitly dropped, and they are so treated because they are unworthy of\nHim.\"\n\nHe sees the future of Christianity as a deep moral and spiritual power\nin the hearts and minds of men who have at length learned the value of\nthe new currency, and have exchanged profession for experience.\n\nBut this Erasmus, far more learned than the other, and with a courage\nwhich far exceeds the other's, and with an impatience of nature, an\nirritability of mind, which the other seldom knew, is nevertheless\npatient of change. He does not lead as decisively as he might. He does\nnot strike as often as he should at the head of error. Perhaps he is\nstill thinking. Perhaps he has not yet made up his mind whether \"Art is\na Crime or only an Absurdity,\" whether Clergymen ought to be multiplied\nor exterminated, whether in general we are getting on, and if so where\nwe are going to.\n\nI feel myself that his mind is made up, though he is still thinking and\nstill seeking; and I attribute his indecision as a leader, his want of\nweight in the affairs of mankind, to one fatal deficiency in his\nmysticism. It is, I presume to suggest, a mysticism which is separated\nby no gulf from egoism--egoism of the highest order and the most\nspiritual character, but still egoism. In his quest of God he is not\nconscious of others. He thinks of mankind with interest, not with\naffection. Humanity is a spectacle, not a brotherhood.\n\nWhen one speaks to him of the confusion and anarchy in the religious\nworld, and suggests how hard it is for the average man to know which way\nhe should follow, he replies: \"Yes, I'm afraid it's a bad time for the\nordinary man.\" But then he has laid it down, \"There is not the\nslightest probability that the largest crowd will ever be gathered in\nfront of the narrow gate.\" Still one could wish that he felt in his\nheart something of the compassion of his Master for those who have taken\nthe road of destruction.\n\nHe attaches great importance to preaching. He does not at all agree with\nthe sneer at \"preaching-shops.\" That is a convenient sneer for the\nyounger generation of ritualists who have nothing to say and who perform\nceremonies they don't understand; not much meaning _there_ for the\nmodern man. No; preaching is a most important office, although no other\nform of professional work is done anything like so badly. But a preacher\nwho has something to say will always attract intelligent people.\n\nOne does not discuss with him the kind of preaching necessary to convert\nunintelligent people. That would be to take this great philosopher out\nof his depth.\n\nAs for the Oxford Movement, he regards it as a changeling. His\ngrandfather, an archdeacon, was a Tractarian, a friend of Pusey, a\nscholar acquainted with all the doctors; but he was not a ritualist; he\ndid not even adopt the eastward position. The modern ritualist is hardly\nto be considered the lineal descendant of these great scholars.\n\"Romanticism, which dotes on ruins, shrinks from real restoration . . . a\nLatin Church in England which disowns the Pope is an absurdity.\"\n\nNo, the future belongs to clear thinking and rigorous honesty of the\nintellect.\n\nDr. Inge began life as the fag of Bishop Ryle at Eton--the one now\noccupying the Deanery of St. Paul's; the other the Deanery of\nWestminster, both scholars and the friendship still remaining. He was a\nshy and timorous boy. No one anticipated the amazingly brilliant career\nwhich followed at Cambridge, and even then few suspected him of original\ngenius until he became Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in 1907. His\nattempts to be a schoolmaster were unsuccessful. He was not good at\nmaintaining discipline, and deafness somewhat intensified a nervous\nirritability which at times puts an enormous strain on his patience. Nor\ndid he make any notable impression as Vicar of All Saints', Ennismore\nGardens, a parochial experience which lasted two years. Slowly he made\nhis way as author and lecturer, and it was not until he came to St.\nPaul's that the world realised the greatness of his mind and the\nrichness of his genius.\n\nAs a correction to the popular delusion concerning his temperament and\noutlook, although, I must confess, there is something about him\nsuggestive of a London Particular, I will quote in conclusion a few of\nthe many witty epigrams which are scattered throughout his pages,\nshowing that he has a sense of humour which is not always discernible in\nthose who would laugh him away as an unprofitable depressionist.\n\n     The clerical profession was a necessity when most people could\n     neither read nor write.\n\n     Seminaries for the early training of future clergymen may indeed be\n     established; but beds of exotics cannot be raised by keeping the\n     gardeners in greenhouses while the young plants are in the open\n     air.\n\n     It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with their\n     fellow-men to believe that the grace of God is distributed\n     denominationally.\n\n     Like other idealisms, patriotism varies from a noble devotion to a\n     moral lunacy.\n\n     Our clergy are positively tumbling over each other in their\n     eagerness to be appointed court-chaplain to King Demos.\n\n     A generation which travels sixty miles an hour must be five times\n     as civilised as one which only travels twelve.\n\n     It is not certain that there has been much change in our\n     intellectual and moral adornments since pithecanthropus dropped the\n     first half of his name.\n\n     I cannot help hoping that the human race, having taken in\n     succession every path except the right one, may pay more attention\n     to the narrow way that leadeth unto life.\n\n     It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of\n     vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.\n\n     After the second century, the apologists for the priesthood are in\n     smooth waters.\n\n     Not everyone can warm both hands before the fire of life without\n     scorching himself in the process.\n\n     It is quite as easy to hypnotise oneself into imbecility by\n     repeating in solemn tones, \"Progress, Democracy, Corporate Unity,\"\n     as by the blessed word Mesopotamia, or, like the Indians, by\n     repeating the mystic word \"Om\" five hundred times in succession.\n\n     I have lived long enough to hear the _Zeitgeist_ invoked to bless\n     very different theories.\n\n     . . . as if it were a kind of impiety not to float with the stream, a\n     feat which any dead dog can accomplish. . . .\n\n     An appendix is as superfluous at the end of the human caecum as at\n     the end of a volume of light literature.\n\n     The \"traditions of the first six centuries\" are the traditions of\n     the rattle and the feeding bottle.\n\nIn speaking to me last year of the crowded waiting-lists of the Public\nSchools, he said: \"It is no longer enough to put down the name of one's\nson on the day he is born, one must write well ahead of that: 'I am\nexpecting to have a son next year, or the year after, and shall be\nobliged if--' The congestion is very great, in spite of the increasing\nfees and the supertax.\"\n\nMuch of his journalism, by the way, has the education of his children\nfor its excuse and its consecration--children to whom the Dean of St.\nPaul's reveals in their nursery a side of his character wholly and\nbeautifully different from the popular legend.\n\nThere is no greater mind in the Church of England, no greater mind, I\nam disposed to think, in the English nation. His intellect has the range\nof an Acton, his forthrightness is the match of Dr. Johnson's, and his\nwit, less biting though little less courageous than Voltaire's, has the\nilluminating quality, if not the divine playfulness, of the wit of\nSocrates.\n\nBut he lacks that profound sympathy with the human race which gives to\nmoral decisiveness the creative energy of the great fighter. A lesser\nman than Erasmus left a greater mark on the sixteenth century.\n\nThe righteous saying of Bacon obstinately presents itself to our mind\nand seems to tarry for an explanation: \"The nobler a soul is, the more\nobjects of compassion it hath.\"\n\n\n\n\nFATHER KNOX\n\n     KNOX, REV. RONALD ARBUTHNOTT; b. 17th Feb., 2888; 4th s. of the Rt.\n     Rev. E.A. Knox, Bishop of Manchester. Ethuc.: Eton (1st\n     Scholarship); Balliol College, Oxford (1st Scholarship). Hertford\n     Scholarship, 1907; Second in Honour Moderations, 1908; Ireland and\n     Craven Scholarship, 1908; 1st in Litt. Hum., 1910; Fellow and\n     Lecturer at Trinity College, Oxford, 1910; Chaplain, 1912;\n     Resigned, 1917; received into the Church of Rome, September, 1917.\n\n[Illustration: FATHER KNOX]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nFATHER KNOX\n\n\n_Our new curate preached, a pretty hopefull young man, yet somewhat raw,\nnewly come from college, full of Latine sentences, which in time will\nweare off._--JOHN EVELYN.\n\n\nThere is a story that when Father Knox was an undergraduate at Oxford he\nsat down one day to choose whether he would be an agnostic or a Roman\nCatholic. \"But is there not some doubt in the matter?\" inquired a friend\nof mine, to whom I repeated the tale. \"Did he really sit down and\nchoose, or did he only toss up?\"\n\nThe story, of course, is untrue. It has its origin in the delightful wit\nand brilliant playfulness of the young priest. Everybody loves him, and\nnobody takes him seriously.\n\nFew men of his intellectual stature have been received with so little\ntrumpet-blowing into the Roman Catholic Church, and none at all, I\nthink, has so imperceptibly retired from the Church of England. For all\nthe interest it excited, the secession of this extremely brilliant\nperson might have been the secession of a sacristan or a pew-opener. He\ndid not so much \"go over to Rome\" as sidle away from the Church of\nEngland.\n\nBut this secession is well worth the attention of religious students. It\nis an act of personality which helps one to understand the theological\nchaos of the present-time, and a deed of temperament which illumines\nsome of the more obscure movements of religious psychology. Ronnie Knox,\nas everybody calls him, the eyes lighting up at the first mention of his\nname, has gone over to the Roman Catholic Church, not by any means with\na smile of cynicism on his face, but rather with the sweat of a struggle\nstill clinging to his soul.\n\nHe is the son of an Anglican bishop, a good man whose strong evangelical\nconvictions led him, among many other similar activities, to hold\nmissionary services on the sands of Blackpool. His mother died in his\ninfancy, and he was brought up largely with uncles and aunts, but his\nown home, of which he speaks always with reverence and affection, was a\nkind and vigorous establishment, a home well calculated to develop his\nscholarly wit and his love of mischievous fun. Nothing in his\nsurroundings made for gloom or for a Calvinism of the soul. The\nswiftness of his intellectual development might have made him sceptical\nof theology in general, but no influence in his home was likely in any\nway to make him sceptical of his father's theology in particular.\n\nHe went to Eton, and the religion in which he had been brought up stood\nthe moral test of the most critical years in boyhood. It never failed\nhim, and he never questioned it. But when that trial was over, and after\nan illness which shook up his body and mind, he came under the influence\nof a matron who held with no little force of character the views of the\nAnglo-Catholic party. These views stole gradually into the mind of the\nrather effeminate boy, and although they did not make him question the\ntheology of his father for some years, he soon found himself thinking of\nthe religious opinions of his uncles and aunts with a certain measure of\nsuperiority.\n\n\"I began to feel,\" he told me, \"that I was living in a rather provincial\nworld--the world described by Wells and Arnold Bennett.\"\n\nThis restlessness, this desire to escape into a greater and more\nbeautiful world, pursued him to Oxford, and, for the moment, he found\nthat greater and beautiful world in the life of Balliol. Bishop Ryle, a\ngood judge, has spoken to me of the young man's extraordinary facility\nat turning English poetry at sight into the most melodious Greek and\nLatin, and of the remarkable range of his scholarship. He himself has\ntold us of his love of port and bananas, his joy in early morning\ncelebrations in the chapel of Pusey House, his tea-parties, his delight\nin debates at the Union, of which he became President, and of his many\nfriendships with undergraduates of a witty and flippant turn of mind.\nLike many effeminate natures, he was glad of opportunities to prove\nhimself a good fellow. In spite of no heel-taps when the port went\nround, he won the Hertford in 1907, the Ireland and Craven in 1908, and\nin 1910 took a first in Greats.\n\nHe became a Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College for two years, then\nits Chaplain for five years, and, after leading a life of extravagant\nand fighting ritualism as an Anglican priest, at the end of that period,\n1917, he retired from the Church of England and was received into the\nChurch of Rome.\n\nThe consolations of Anglo-Catholicism, then, were insufficient for the\nspiritual needs of this scion of the Low Church.\n\nWhat were those needs?\n\nWere they, indeed, _spiritual_ needs, as he suggests by the title of his\nbook _A Spiritual AEneid_, or _aesthetic_ needs, the needs of a\ntemperament?--a temperament which used wit and raillery chiefly as a\nshield for its shrinking and quivering emotions, emotions which we must\ntake note of if we are to understand his secession.\n\nHe was at Eton when a fire occurred in one of the houses, two boys\nperishing in the flames. He tells us that this tragedy made an\nimpression on him, for it fell at a time in his life when \"one begins to\nfear death.\" Fear is a word which meets us even in the sprightly pages\nof _A Spiritual AEneid_, a volume perhaps more fitly to be termed \"An\nAEsthetic Ramp.\"\n\nHe loved to dash out of college through the chill mists of a November\nmorning to worship with \"the few righteous men\" of the University in the\nChapel of Pusey House, which \"conveyed a feeling, to me most\ngratifying, of catacombs, oubliettes, Jesuitry, and all the atmosphere\nof mystery that had long fascinated me.\"\n\nHe tells us how his nature \"craved for human sympathy and support,\" and\nspeaks of the God whom he \"worshipped, loved, and feared.\" He prayed for\na sick friend with \"both hands held above the level of my head for a\nquarter of an hour or more.\" He was a Universalist \"recoiling from the\nidea of hell.\" He believed in omens, though he did not always take them,\nand was thoroughly superstitious. \"The name of Rome has always, for me,\nstood out from any printed page merely because its initial is that of my\nown name.\" \"At the time of my ordination I took a private vow, which I\nalways kept, never to preach without making some reference to Our Lady,\nby way of satisfaction for the neglect of other preachers.\" He was a\nyouth when he took the vow of celibacy. He had the desire, he tells us,\nto make himself thoroughly uncomfortable--as Byron would say, \"to merit\nHeaven by making earth a Hell.\" His superstitions were often ludicrous\neven to himself. On one occasion in boyhood, he was trying to get a fire\nto burn: \"Let this be an omen,\" he said. \"If I can get this fire to\nburn, the Oxford Movement was justified.\"\n\nA visit to Belgium hastened the inevitable decision of such a\ntemperament:\n\n     . . . the extraordinary devotion of the people wherever we went,\n     particularly at Bruges, struck home with a sense of immeasurable\n     contrast to the churches of one's own country. . . .\n\nHe did not apparently feel the moral contrast between Belgian and\nEnglish character.\n\n     . . . The tourist, I know, thinks of it as _Bruges la Morte_, but\n     then the tourist does not get up for early Masses; he would find\n     life then . . . he can at least go on Friday morning to the chapel of\n     the Saint Sang and witness the continuous stream of people that\n     flows by, hour after hour, to salute the relic and to make their\n     devotions in its presence; he would find it hard to keep himself\n     from saying, like Browning at High Mass, \"This is too good not to\n     be true.\"\n\nMight he not perhaps say with another great man, \"What must God be if He\nis pleased by things which simply displease His educated creatures?\" In\na country where the churches were once far more crowded than in Belgium,\nI was told by a discerning man, Prince Alexis Obolensky, a former\nProcurator of the Holy Synod, that all such devotion is simply\nsuperstition. He said he would gladly give me all Russia's spirituality\nif I could give him a tenth of England's moral earnestness. And he told\nme this story:\n\n     A man set out one winter's night to murder an old woman in her\n     cottage. As he tramped through the snow with the hatchet under his\n     blouse, it suddenly occurred to him that it was a Saint's Day.\n     Instantly he dropped on his knees in the snow, crossed himself\n     violently with trembling hands, and in a guilty voice implored God\n     to forgive him for his evil intention. Then he rose up, refreshed\n     and forgiven, postponing the murder till the next night.\n\nUndoubtedly, I fear, the devotion of priest-ridden countries, which\nevokes so spectacular an effect on the stranger of unbalanced judgment,\nis largely a matter of superstition; how many prayers are inspired by a\nlottery, how many candles lighted by fear of a ghost?\n\nBut Father Knox, whose aesthetic nature had early responded with a vital\nimpulse to Gothic architecture and the pomp and mystery of priestly\nceremonial, felt in Bruges that the spirit of the Chapel of the Sacred\nBlood must be introduced into the Church of England \"to save our country\nfrom lapsing into heathenism.\" What, I wonder, is his definition of that\nterm, heathenism?\n\nBruges had a decisive effect, not only on his aesthetic impulses, but on\nhis moral sense. His conduct as an Anglican priest was frankly that of a\nRoman propagandist. I do not know that any words more damning to the\nRomish spirit have ever been written than those in which this most\ncharming and brilliant young man tells the story of his treachery to the\nAnglican Church. Of celebrating the Communion service he says:\n\n     . . . my own principle was, whenever I spoke aloud, to use the\n     language of the Prayer Book, when I spoke _secreto_, to use the\n     words ordered by the Latin missal.\n\nHe said of his propaganda work at this time:\n\n     The Roman Catholics . . . have to serenade the British public from\n     the drive; we Anglican Catholics have the _entree_ to the\n     drawing-room.\n\nHis enthusiasm for the Roman service was such that in one place\n\n     I had to travel for three quarters of an hour to find a church\n     where my manner of celebrating, then perhaps more reminiscent of\n     the missal than of the Prayer Book, was tolerated even in a Mass of\n     Devotion.\n\n     About this time I celebrated at a community chapel. One of the\n     brethren was heard to declare afterwards that if he had known what\n     I was going to do he would have got up and stopped me.\n\nAt the conclusion of one of his celebrations abroad, an Englishman in\nthe congregation exclaimed, \"Thank God that's over.\" After his first\nsermon in Trinity Chapel, an undergraduate (\"afterwards not only my\nfriend but my penitent\") was heard to declare excitedly:\n\n\"Such fun! The new Fellow's been preaching heresy--all about\nTransubstantiation.\"\n\nSuch fun! This note runs through the whole of _A Spiritual AEneid_. A\nthoroughly undergraduate spirit inspires every page save the last.\nReligion is treated as a lark. It is full of opportunities for plotting\nand ragging and pulling the episcopal leg. One is never conscious, not\nfor a single moment, that the author is writing about Jesus of Nazareth,\nGethsemane, and Calvary. About a Church, yes; about ceremonial, about\nmysterious rites, about prayers to the Virgin Mary, about authority, and\nabout bishops; yes, indeed; but about Christ's transvaluation of values,\nabout His secret, about His religion of the pure heart and the childlike\nspirit, not one single glimpse.\n\nNow let us examine his intellectual position.\n\nIn the preface to _Some Loose Stones_[7], written before he went over to\nRome, he explains his position to the modernist:\n\n     . . . there are limits defined by authority, within which theorising\n     is unnecessary and speculation forbidden.\n\n     But I should like here to enter a protest against the assumption\n     . . . that the obscurantist, having fenced himself in behind his wall\n     of prejudices, enjoys an uninterrupted and ignoble peace.\n\n     The soldier who has betaken himself to a fortress is thereby in a\n     more secure position than the soldier who elects to fight in the\n     open plain. He has ramparts to defend him. But he has, on the other\n     hand, ramparts to defend. . . . For him there is no retreat.\n\n     The whole position stands or falls by the weakest parts in the\n     defences; give up one article of the Nicene Creed, and the whole\n     situation is lost; you go under, and the flag you loved is forfeit.\n\n[Footnote 7: An answer to the volume called _Foundations_.]\n\nAnd yet:\n\n     I can feel every argument against the authenticity of the Gospels,\n     because I know that if I approached them myself without faith I\n     should as likely as not brush them aside impatiently as one of a\n     whole set of fables.\n\nThey would be fables to him unless he approached them with faith. And\nwhat is faith? He tells us in the same preface: \"Faith is to me, not an\nintellectual process, but a divine gift, a special privilege.\"\n\nIt is fair to say that he would now modify this definition, for he has\ntold me that it is a heresy to exclude from faith the operations of the\nintellect. But the words were written when he was fighting the battle of\nthe soul, written almost on the same page as that which bears these\nwords:\n\n     You have not done with doubt, because you have thrown yourself into\n     the fortress; you are left to keep doubt continually at bay, with\n     the cheerful assurance that if you fail, the whole of your\n     religious life has been a ghastly mistake . . .\n\nfor this reason, they have, I think, a notable significance.\n\nIs it not probable that Father Knox has thrown himself into a fortress,\nnot out of any burning desire to defend it, but solely to escape from\nthe enemy of his own soul? Is it not probable that he was driven from\nthe field by Fear rather than summoned to the battlements by Love?\n\nI find this inference justified in numerous ways, and I do not think on\nthe whole that Father Knox himself would deny it. But chiefly I find it\njustified by the form and substance of his utterances since he became a\nRoman Catholic--fighting and most challenging utterances which for me at\nany rate are belied, and tragically belied, by a look in his eyes which\nis unmistakably, I am forced to think, the look of one who is still\nwrestling with doubt, one, I would venture to hazard, who may even\noccasionally be haunted by the dreadful fear that his fortress is his\nprison.\n\nOn the day that Newman entered that fortress the triumphant cry of St.\nAugustine rang in his ears, _Securus judicat orbis terrarum_; but later\ncame the moan _Quis mihi tribuat_, and later still the stolen journey to\nLittlemore and that paroxysm of tears as he leaned over the lych-gate\nlooking at the church.\n\nNot long ago I went one Sunday evening to Westminster Cathedral. It was\nwinter, and the streets of tall and sullen houses in that gloomy\nneighbourhood were darkening with fog. This fog crept slowly into the\ncathedral. The surpliced boy who presented an alms-dish just within the\ndoors was stamping his feet and snuffling with cold. The leaves of\ntracts and pamphlets on the table blew up and chattered in the wind\nevery time the door was thrust open.\n\nThe huge building was only half filled, perhaps hardly that. Through the\nfog it was not easy to see the glittering altar, and when three priests\nappeared before it their vestments so melted into the cloth that they\nwere visible only when they bowed to the monstrance. The altar bell rang\nsnappishly through this cold fog like the dinner bell of a boarding\nhouse, and in that yellow mist, which deepened with every minute, the\nwhite flames of the candles lost nearly all their starlike brightness.\nThere seemed to be depression and resentment in the deep voices of the\nchoir rumbling and rolling behind the screen; there seemed to be haste,\na desire to get it over, in the nasal voice of the priest praying almost\nsqueakily at the altar.\n\nPeople were continually entering the cathedral, many of them having the\nappearance of foreigners, many of them young men who looked like\nwaiters: one was struck by their reverence, and also by their look of\nintellectual apathy.\n\nFather Knox appeared in the pulpit, which is stationed far down the\nnave, having come from his work of teaching at Ware to preach to the\nfaithful at Westminster. He looked very young, and rather apprehensive,\na slight boyish figure, swaying uneasily, the large luminous eyes, of an\nextraordinary intensity, almost glazed with light, the full lips, so\nobviously meant for laughter, parted with a nervous uncertainty, a wave\nof thick brown hair falling across the narrow forehead with a look of\ntiredness, the long slender hands never still for a moment.\n\nI will endeavour to summarise his remarkable sermon, which was delivered\nthrough the fog in a soft and throaty voice, the body of the preacher\nswaying monotonously backward and forward, the congregation sitting back\nin its little chairs and coughing inconveniently from beginning to end.\nIt was the strangest sermon I have listened to for many years, and all\nthe stranger for its unimpassioned delivery. He spoke of the Fall of Man\nas a certainty[8]. He spoke continually of an offended God. Between\nthis offended God and His creature Man sin had dug an impassable chasm.\nBut Christ had thrown a bridge, from heaven's side of that chasm, over\nthe dreadful gulf. This is why Christ described Himself as the Way. He\nis the Way over that chasm, and there is no other.\n\n[Footnote 8: \"It is a very singular and important fact that, from the\nappearance in Genesis of the account of the creation and sin and\npunishment of the first pair, not the faintest explicit allusion to it\nis subsequently found anywhere in literature until about the time of\nChrist. . . . Jesus Himself never once alludes to Adam, or to any part of\nthe story of Eden.\"--ALGER.]\n\nBut Christ also described Himself as a door. What is the definition of a\ndoor? It is not enough to say that a door is a thing for letting people\nin and letting people out. It is a thing for letting _some_ people in,\nand for shutting other people out.\n\nTo whom did Christ entrust the key of this door? To St. Peter--to the\ndisciple who had denied Him thrice. What a marvellous choice! Would you\nhave thought of doing that? Should I have thought of doing that? Would\nany theologian have invented such an idea? But that is what Christ did.\n\nAnd ever since, St. Peter and his successors have held the keys of\nHeaven and Hell, with power to loose and bind. What? you exclaim, were\nthe Keys of Heaven and Hell entrusted to even those Popes who lived\nsinful lives and brought disgrace on the name of religion? Yes. To them\nand to no others in their day. Whatever their lives may have been at\nother moments, when they were loosing and binding they were acting for\nSt. Peter, who stood behind them, and behind St. Peter stood Jesus\nChrist.\n\nSuch in brief was the sermon delivered that Sunday evening to the\nfaithful in Westminster Cathedral by one of the wittiest men now living\nand one of the cleverest young men who ever came down from Oxford with\nthe assurance of a great career before them.\n\nHow is it that he has come to such a pass?\n\nI feel that he is in part whistling to keep up his courage, but in chief\nforcing himself to utter an extreme of traditional belief in order to\ndestroy the last vestige in his mind of a free intellectual existence.\nAuto-suggestion has a power of which we only begin to know the first\nmovements.\n\nThe man who has said that he would not choose as the battleground of the\nChristian religion either \"the credibility of Judges or the edibility of\nJonah,\" the man who is blest with an unusual sense of humour and\nintellectual subtlety of a rare order, is here found preaching a\ntheology which is fast being rejected by the students of Barcelona and\nis being questioned even by the peasants of Ireland. What does it mean?\nIs it possible to understand such a perversion of mind?\n\nHis intellectual position, as he states it, is a simple one--for the\npresent.\n\nHe asks us, Is Truth something which we are ordered to keep, or\nsomething which we are ordered to find?\n\nIs our business holding the fort? Or is it looking for the Pole?\n\nThe traditionalist can say, \"Here is the Truth, written down for you and\nme in black and white; I mean to keep it, and defend it from attack;\nwill you rally round it? Will you help me?\"\n\nHe shows you the modernist wandering in the wilderness of speculative\ntheology looking for the Truth which the traditionalist, safe, warm, and\nsecure of eternal life, keeps whole and undefiled in his fortress.\n\nIt is like a fairy tale.\n\nHow simple it sounds! But when Father Knox looks in the glass does he\nnot see its staring fallacy?\n\nDid he keep the Truth of his boyhood--the Truth of his father's church?\nDid he not go outside the fortress of Evangelicalism and seek for Truth\nin the fortress of Anglo-Catholicism? And here again, did he not break\nfaith, and once more seek Truth outside its walls? If Truth is not\nsomething to be found, how is it that he is not still in the house of\nhis fathers?\n\nDoes he fail to see that this argument not merely explains but\nvindicates the rejection of Christ by the Jews? They had their\ntradition, a tradition of immemorial sanctity, perhaps the noblest\ntradition of any people in the world.\n\nDoes he not also see that it destroys the _raison d'etre_ of the\nChristian missionary, and would reduce the whole world to a state of\nwhat Nietzsche called Chinaism and profound mediocrity?\n\nEvery religion in history, from the worship of Osiris, Serapis, and\nMithras to the loathsome rites practised in the darkness of African\nforests, has been handed down as unquestionable truth commanding the\nloyalty of its disciples. What logic, what magic of holiness, could\ndestroy a false religion if tradition is sacrosanct and all innovation\nof the devil?\n\nThe intellectual duty of a Christian, Father Knox lays it down, is \"to\nresist the natural tendencies of his reason, and believe what he is\ntold, just as he is expected to do what he is told, not what comes\nnatural to him.\"\n\nSuch a proposition provokes a smile, but in the case of this man it\nprovokes a feeling of grief. I cannot bring myself to believe that he\nhas yet found rest for his soul, or that he can so easily strangle the\nfree existence of his mind. His present position fills me with pity, his\nfuture with apprehension.\n\nHe is one of the modestest of men, almost shrinking in his diffidence\nand nervous self-distrust, an under-graduate who is mildly excited about\nan ingenious line of reasoning, a wit who loves to play tricks with the\nsubtlety of a curiously agile brain, a casuist who sees quickly the\nchinks in the armour of an adversary. But with all his boyishness, and\ncharm, and humility, and engaging cleverness, there is a light in his\neyes too feverish for peace of mind. I cannot prevent myself from\nthinking that his secession, which was something of a comedy to his\nfriends, may prove something of a tragedy to him.\n\nHe seems to me one of the most pathetic examples I ever encountered of\nthe ruin wrought by Fear. I think that the one motive of his life has\nbeen a constant terror of finding himself in the wrong. The door, which\nfor Dr. Inge has no key, because it has no lock, is to Ronald Knox a\ndoor of terror which opens only to a single key--and a door which as\nsurely shuts out from eternal life the soul that is wrong as the soul\nthat is wicked. He must have certainty. He dare not contemplate the\nprospect of awaking one day to find his religious life \"a ghastly\nmistake.\"\n\nAt the cross roads there was for him no Good Shepherd, only the dark\nshadow of an offended God. He ran for safety, for certainty. Has he\nfound them?\n\nIt may be that the last of his doubts will leave him, that the iron\ndiscipline of the Roman Church and the auto-suggestion of his own\nearnest passion for inward peace, may deliver him from all fear, all\nuneasiness, and that one day, forsaking the challenging sermon and the\ntoo violent assertion of the Catholic faith, he may find himself sitting\ndown in great peace of mind and with a golden mellowness of spirit to\nwrite an _Apologia pro Vita Sua_ more genial and less shallow than _A\nSpiritual AEneid_.\n\nSuch a book from his pen would lack, I think, the fine sweetness of\nNewman's great work, but it might excel all other books of religious\nautobiography in charming wit and endearing good humour. The Church of\nRome has caught in him neither a Newman nor a Manning. It has caught\neither a Sydney Smith or a Tartar.\n\nHe has too much humour to be a bigot, and too much humanity to be\nsatisfied with a cell. For the moment he seems to embrace Original Sin,\nto fling his arms round the idea of an offended God, and to shout at\nthe top of his voice that there is no violence to his reason and to his\ncommon sense which he cannot contemplate and most gladly accomplish, in\nthe name of Tradition; but the pulses cool, the white heat of enthusiasm\nevaporates, fears take wing as we grow older, and whispers from the\nouter world of advancing and conquering men find their way into the\noldest blockhouse ever built against the movements of thought.\n\n\"Science,\" says Dr. Inge, \"has been the slowly advancing Nemesis which\nhas overtaken a barbarised and paganised Christianity. She has come with\na winnowing fan in her hand, and she will not stop till she has\nthoroughly purged her floor.\"\n\nI am sure Ronald Knox was never meant to shut his eyes and stop his ears\nagainst this movement of truth, and I am almost sure that he will\npresently find it impossible not to look, and not to listen.\n\nAnd then . . . what then?\n\n\n\n\nDR. L.P. JACKS\n\nJACKS, LAWRENCE PEARSALL, Principal of Manchester College, Oxford, since\n1915; Professor of Philosophy, Manchester College, Oxford, since 1903;\nEditor of the _Hibbert Journal_ since its foundation, 1902; b.\nNottingham, 1860; m. 1889 Olive Cecilia, d. of late Rev. Stopford\nBrooke. Educ.: University School, Nottingham; University of London\n(M.A., 1886); Manchester College; Goettingen; Harvard, U.S.A.; Hon. M.A.,\nOxford; Hon. L.L.D., Glasgow; Hon. D.D. Harvard; entered Ministry as\nassistant to Rev. Stopford Brooke, in Bedford Chapel, 1887; subsequently\nat Renshaw Street Chapel, Liverpool, and the Church of the Messiah,\nBirmingham.\n\n[Illustration: Dr. L.P. Jacks]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nDR. L.P. JACKS\n\n\n_As an excellent amateur huntsman once said to me, \"If you must\ncast, lead the hounds into the belief that they are doing it\nthemselves_.\"--JOHN ANDREW DOYLE.\n\nOne of the great ladies of Oxford was telling me the other day that she\nremembers a time when friends of hers refused, even with averted eyes\nand a bottle of smelling salts at the nose, to go down the road where\nMansfield College had presumed to raise its red walls of Nonconformity.\n\nTo-day Manchester College, the seat of Unitarianism, stands on this same\ndissenting road, and thither the ladies of Oxford go up in great numbers\nto listen to the beautiful music which distinguishes the chapel service,\nthe chapel itself already beautiful enough with windows by Burne-Jones.\n\nOn the altar-cloth of this chapel are embroidered the words, GOD IS\nLOVE. No tables of stone flank that gentle altar, and no panelled creeds\non the walls challenge the visitor to define his definitions. The\natmosphere of the place is worship. The greatest of all Christ's\naffirmations is reckoned enough. God is love. No need, then, to\nadd--Therefore with Angels, and Archangels, and all the Company of\nHeaven . . .\n\nThe Principal of Manchester College is Dr. L.P. Jacks, the Editor of\n_The Hibbert Journal_, the biographer of Stopford Brooke and Charles\nHargrove, author of _Mad Shepherds_, _Legends of Smokeover_, and other\nbooks which have won the affection of many readers and the praise of no\nfew scholars. He is a man of letters, a man of nature, and a mystic.\n\nHis face bears a strange resemblance to the unforgettable face of that\ngreat Unitarian, James Martineau, whom Morley calls \"the most brilliant\nEnglish apologist of our day\"; it lacks the marvellous sweetness of\nMartineau's expression, but has a greater strength; it does not bear\nwitness to so sure a triumph of serenity, but shows the marks of a\nfiercer battle, and the scars of deeper wounds. It is the masculine of\nthe other's feminine.\n\nLike Martineau's the head with its crown of white hair is nobly\nsculptured, and like Martineau's the ivory coloured face is ploughed up\nand furrowed by mental strife; but whereas Martineau's is eminently the\nindoors face of a student, this is the face of a man who has lived out\nof doors, a mountaineer and a seafarer. Under the dense bone of the\nforehead which overhangs them like the eave of a roof, the pale blue\neyes look out at you with a deep inner radiance of the spirit, but from\nthe midst of a face which has been stricken and has winced.\n\nSomething of the resolution, the deliberateness, the stern power, and\nthe enduring strength of his spirit shows itself, I think, in the short\nthickset body, with its heavy shoulders, its deep chest, its broad firm\nupright neck, and its slow movements, the movements as it were of a\npeasant. Always there is about him the feeling of the fields, the sense\nof nature's presence in his life, the atmosphere of distances. Nothing\nin his appearance suggests either the smear or the burnish of a town\nexistence.\n\nIt is not without significance that he has gone farther afield from\nOxford City than any other of its academic citizens, building for\nhimself a home on a hill two miles and more from Magdalen Bridge, with a\ngarden about it kept largely wild, and seats placed where the eye can\ntravel farthest.\n\nThis man, who is so unpushing and self-effacing, makes a contribution to\nthe Christian religion which deserves, I think, the thoughtful attention\nof his contemporaries. It can be set forth in a few words, for his faith\nis fastened in the conviction that the universe is far simpler than\nscience--for the moment--would allow us to think.\n\nLet me explain at the outset that Unitarianism admits of a certain\ndiversity of faith. There are Unitarians who think and speak only of\nGod. There are others who lay their insistence on the humanity of Jesus,\nexalting Him solely as the chief est of teachers. There are others who\nchoose to dwell on the uniqueness of Jesus, who feel in Him some\nprecious but quite inexpressible, certainly quite indefinable, spell of\ndivinity, and who love to lose themselves in mystical meditations\nconcerning His continual presence in the human spirit. Dr. Jacks, I\nthink, is to be numbered among these last. But, like all other\nUnitarians, he makes no credal demands on mankind, save only the one\naffirmation of their common faith, with its inevitable ergo: God is\nLove, and therefore to be worshipped.\n\nRobert Hall said to a Unitarian minister who always baptised \"in the\nName of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,\" attaching a\nvery sacred meaning to the words, \"Why, sir, as I understand you, you\nmust consider that you baptise in the name of an abstraction, a man, and\na metaphor.\" More simple was the interpretation of a Japanese who, after\nlistening with a corrugated brow to the painful exposition of a recent\nDuke of Argyll concerning the Trinity in Unity, and the Unity in\nTrinity, suddenly exclaimed with radiant face, \"Ah, yes, I see, a\nCommittee.\"\n\nDr. Jacks leaves these perplexities alone. For him, God is the Universal\nSpirit, the Absolute Reality immanent in all phenomena, the Love which\nreason finds in Goodness and intuition discovers in Beauty, the Father\nof men, the End and the very Spirit of Evolution. And Jesus, so far as\nhuman thought can reach into the infinite, is the Messenger of God, the\nRevealer both of God's Personality and man's immortality, the great\nTeacher of liberty. What else He may be we do not know, but may discover\nin other phases of our ascent. Enough for the moment of duration which\nwe can human life to know that He unlocks the door of our prison-house,\nreveals to us the character of our Father which is in Heaven, and the\nnature of the universe in which we move and have our being.\n\nIf this should appear vague to the dogmatist who finds it impossible\neither to love God or to do the will of Christ without going into the\narithmetic of Athanasius, and reciting an unintelligible creed, and\ncelebrating in Christian forms the rites of those mystery religions\nwhich competed with each other for the superstition of the Greco-Roman\nworld in the third century, he will find no vagueness at all in Dr.\nJacks's interpretation of the teaching of Jesus. He may perhaps find in\nthat interpretation a simplicity, a clarity, and a directness which are\nnot wholly convenient to his idea of a God Who repents, is angry, and\ncan be mollified.\n\nWhether Jesus was born of a Virgin or not, whether He raised dead bodies\nto life or not, whether He Himself rose from the grave with His physical\nbody or not, certain is it, and beyond all dispute of every conceivable\nkind, that He taught men a way of life, that He brought them a message,\nthat He Himself regarded His message as good news.\n\nHow carelessly men may think in this matter is shown to us rather\nstrikingly in a page of _Some Loose Stones_, a book to which reference\nhas already been made. After writing about dogma, and endeavouring to\nshow that the traditionalist is on firmer ground than the modernist,\nbecause he can say, \"Here is the Truth,\" while the modernist can only\nsay, \"We will tell you what the truth is when we have found it,\"\nsuddenly, with scarcely a draw of his breath, Father Knox exclaims:\n\n     The real trouble is that they (the modernists) have got hold of the\n     wrong end of the stick, that they have radically misconceived the\n     whole nature of the Christian message, which is, to be one for all\n     minds, for all places, for all times.\n\nNote that word _message_. What confusion of thought!\n\nThe message of Christ is one thing; paganised dogma concerning Christ is\nanother. The message of Christ does indeed remain for all minds, for all\nplaces, for all times, inexhaustible in its meaning, unalterable in its\nnature; the dogmas of theology, on the other hand, demand Councils of\nthe Church for their definition, and an infallible Pope for their\ninterpretation. They change, have changed even in the unchangeable\nCatholic Church, and will change with every advance of the positive\nsciences and with every ascent of philosophy towards reality; but the\nmessage stands, plain to the understanding of a child, yet still\nrejected by the world. Christianity, as Dr. Jacks says, has been more\nstudied than practised.\n\nHow far quarrelling theologians and uncharitable Churches are\nresponsible for that rejection, let the conscience of the traditionalist\n(if he happen to know history) decide.\n\nAs for the message, here is a reading of it by a Unitarian--a reading, I\nventure to say, for all minds, for all places, for all times--a reading\nwhich stands clear of controversial theology, and which, in spite of its\nprofundity, is a message for the simple as well as for the learned.\n\nChristianity is man's passport from illusion into reality. It reveals to\nhim that he is not in the world to set the world right, but to see it\nright. He is not a criminal and earth is not a Borstal Institution.\nNature is the handiwork of a Father. Look deeply into that handiwork and\nit reveals a threefold tendency--the tendency towards goodness, the\ntendency towards beauty, the tendency towards truth. Ally yourself with\nthese tendencies, make yourself a growing and developing intelligence,\nand you inhabit spiritual reality.\n\nStudy the manner of Jesus, His attitude to the simplest and most\ndomestic matters, the love He manifested, and the objects for which He\nmanifested that love. These things have \"a deeper significance than our\npensive theologies have dared to find in them. . . . They belong not to the\nfringe of Christianity but to its essence.\" Christ loved the world.\n\nHis religion, which has come to stand for repression founded on an\nalmost angry distrust of human nature, is in fact \"the most encouraging,\nthe most joyous, the least repressive, and the least forbidding of all\nthe religions of the world.\" It does not fear the world, it masters it.\nIt does not seek to escape from life, it develops a truer and more\nabundant life. It places itself at the head of evolution.\n\nThere are points on its path where it enters the shadows and even\ndescends into hell, for it is a religion of redemption, the religion of\nthe shepherd seeking the lost sheep, but \"the end of it all is a\nresurrection and not a burial, a festival and not a funeral, an ascent\ninto the heights and not a lingering in the depths.\"\n\n     Nowhere else is the genius of the Christian Religion so poignantly\n     revealed than in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which begins in\n     the minor key and gradually rises to the major, until it culminates\n     in a great merry-making, to the surprise of the Elder Son, who\n     thinks the majesty of the moral law will be compromised by the\n     music and dancing, and has to be reminded that these joyous sounds\n     are the keynotes of the spiritual world.\n\nDr. Jacks well says that we should be nearer the truth if, instead of\nthinking how we can adapt this religion to the minds of the young, we\nregarded it as \"originally a religion of the young which has lost some\nof its savour by being adapted to the minds of the old.\"\n\nThen he reminds us that it was \"in the form of a person that the\nradiance of Christianity made its first appearance and its first\nimpression on the world.\" A Light came into the world.\n\nThe Jesus of history drew men to Him by an inward beauty. His serenity\ngave the sick and the suffering an almost riotous confidence that He\ncould heal them. His radiance attracted children to His side. He was\nfond of choosing a child for the sublimest of teachings. He made it\nclear that entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven is easiest to those who\nare least deluded or enchained by appearances, and hardest to those\nwhose hearts lie in their possessions. The Kingdom of Heaven signifies\nfreedom.\n\nHe was the great teacher of the poverty of riches, and the wealth of\nnothingness. He knew as no other had ever known, and saw as no other had\never seen, the symbolism of nature. Always His vision pierced behind the\nappearance to the thing in itself. He loved \"the reality that abides\nbeyond the shadows.\" He directed our spiritual vision to this reality,\ntelling us that the soul makes a natural response \"to a world built on\nthe same heavenly pattern with itself and aglow with the same immortal\nfire.\" He taught that joy is a thing of the spirit. He made it plain\nthat loss, disillusion, and defeat are the penalty of affections set on\nthe outside of things. The materialist is in prison.\n\nHe did not condemn the earth; He taught that its true loveliness is to\nbe discerned only by the spiritual eye. For Him the earth was a symbol,\nand the whole realm of nature a parable.\n\n     I cannot but think that we are never further from the genius of the\n     Christian religion than when we treat this luminous atmosphere as\n     though it were a foreign envelope, of little account so long as the\n     substance it enshrines is retained intact. Without it, the\n     substance, no matter how simple or how complex, becomes a dry\n     formula, dead as the moon.\n\n     Losing the radiance we lose at the same time the central light from\n     which the radiance springs, and our religion, instead of\n     transforming the corruptible world into its incorruptible\n     equivalents, reverts to the type it was intended to supersede and\n     becomes a mere safeguard to the moral law.\n\nNothing can allay our present discords and the long confusions of the\nworld, short of \"those radiant conceptions of God, of man, of the\nuniverse, which are the life and essence of Christianity.\"\n\n\"Liberty,\" says Edouard Le Roy, \"is rare; many live and die and have\nnever known it.\" And Bergson says, \"We are free when our acts proceed\nfrom our entire personality, when they express it, when they exhibit\nthat indefinable resemblance to it which we find occasionally between\nthe artist and his work.\"\n\nThis, I think, is what Dr. Jacks means when he speaks of Christianity\nbestowing liberty--a new mastery over fate and circumstance. It calls\nforth not only the affection of a man, and not only the intelligence of\na man, but the whole of his intuitions as well. The entire personality,\nthe entire field of consciousness, the entire mystery of the ego, is\nbidden to throw itself upon the universe with confidence, with\ngratitude, with love unspeakable, recognising there the act of a\nFatherhood of which, in its highest moments, the soul is conscious in\nitself.\n\nThus is man made free of illusion. No longer can the outside of things\ndeceive him, or the defeats of the higher by the lower deject, much less\noverwhelm him. He sees the reality behind the appearance. He dwells\nwith powers which are invisible and eternal--with justice, with virtue,\nwith beauty, with truth, with love, with excellence. More to him than\nany house built with hands, more, much more even than the habitation of\nhis own soul, is the invisible life of that soul, its delight in beauty,\nits immediate response to truth and goodness, its longing for the flight\nof the One to the One, its almost athletic sense of spiritual fitness.\n\nDr. Jacks will have no element of fear in this religion. He finds no\nroom in the universe for an offended God. Belief in God can mean nothing\nelse but love of God. All our troubles have come upon us from the\nfailure of the Church to live in the radiant atmosphere of this belief,\nto make belief a life, a life that needs no dogmas and expresses itself\nby love.\n\nBut this was not to be. The Church cultivated fear of God, and could not\nbring itself to trust human nature.\n\n     Belief passed into dogma; the mind of man was put in fetters as\n     well as his body; the Church built one prison and the State\n     another. . . . All this was closely connected with the idea of the\n     _potentate_ God which Church and State, in consequence of their\n     political alliance, had restored, against the martyr protest of\n     Jesus Christ.\n\nBut how should man be treated? Here it is that Dr. Jacks makes a most\nvaluable suggestion:\n\n     Treat man, after the mind of Christ, as a being whose first need is\n     for Light, and whose second need is for government, and you will\n     find that as his need for light is progressively satisfied, his\n     need for government will progressively diminish.\n\n     Is it not a significant fact that while the churches are\n     complaining of emptiness, the schools, the colleges, the\n     universities, are packed to overflowing?\n\nDr. Jacks has asked quite recently a Frenchman, a Swede, a Dutchman, an\nAmerican, a Chinaman, and a Japanese, \"What is the leading interest in\nyour country? What do your people really believe in?\" The answer in each\ncase was, \"Education.\"\n\nWhen he varied his question, and asked, \"What have you learnt from the\nwar?\" the answer came, \"We have learnt our need of education.\"\n\n     Some would prefer them to have said: \"We have learnt our need of\n     Christianity.\" But is it not the same thing? In grasping the vast\n     potentialities of the human spirit, and that is what this hunger\n     for education means, have they not grasped an essential\n     characteristic of the Christian religion and placed themselves at\n     its very growing point?\n\nEducation is Light, and Light is from God.\n\nDr. Jacks believes that a movement has begun which, \"if it develops\naccording to promise, will grow into the most impassioned enterprise so\nfar undertaken by man.\"\n\n     The struggle for _light_, with its wide fellowships and high\n     enthusiasms, will displace the struggle for _power_, with its mean\n     passions, its monstrous illusions, and its contemptible ideals.\n\n     The struggle for power will end, not, as some predict, in\n     universal revolution, which would merely set it going again in\n     another form, but by being submerged, lost sight of, snowed under,\n     by the greater interests that centre round the struggle for light.\n\n     I say these things will happen. But they will not happen unless men\n     are sufficiently resolved that they shall.\n\nLet the reader remember that those who now flock to the schoolmaster are\nless likely than men of the previous generation to fall into the pit of\nmaterialism. They begin at a point which the previous generation did not\nbelieve to exist--a visible world reduced by positive science to the\ninvisible world of philosophy. They confront not a quantitative\nuniverse, but a qualitative. They almost begin at the very spirit of\nman; they cannot advance far before they find themselves groping in the\nunseen, and using, not the senses given to us by action, but the eyes\nand ears of the understanding by which alone the soul of man can\napprehend reality. Even the Germans have gone back to Goethe.\n\nThis, then, is the contribution which Dr. Jacks makes to modern thought.\nWe are to consider man as a creature of boundless potentiality, to\nrealise that his first need is for light, and to define that mystic\nall-important word in terms of education. Christianity was not concerned\nwith the moral law; it was concerned with the transcending of all law by\nthe spirit of understanding.\n\nI need not guard myself against the supposition that so true a scholar\nis satisfied with the system of education which exists at the present\ntime. Dr. Jacks looks for a reform of this system, but not from the\npresent race of politicians.\n\n\"How can we hope to get a true system of education from politics?\" he\nasked me. \"Is there any atmosphere more degrading? Plato has warned us\nthat no man is fit to govern until he has ceased to desire power. But\nthese men think of nothing else. To be in power; that is the game of\npolitics. What can you expect from such people?\"\n\nHe said to me, \"Men outside politics are beginning to see what education\ninvolves. It involves the whole man, body, mind, spirit. I do not think\nyou can frame an intelligent definition of education without coming up\nagainst religion. In its simplest expression, education is a desire to\nescape from darkness into light. It is fear of ignorance, and faith in\nknowledge. At the present time, most people have escaped from darkness\ninto twilight; a twilight which is neither one thing nor the other. But\nthey will never rest there. The quest of the human spirit is Goethe's\ndying cry, Light--more Light. And it is from these men that I look to\nget a nobler system of education. They will compel the politicians to\nact, perhaps get rid of the present race of politicians altogether. And\nwhen these humble disciples of knowledge, who are now making heroic\nefforts to escape from the darkness of ignorance, frame their definition\nof education, I am sure it will include religion. The Spirit of Man\nneeds only to be liberated to recognise the Spirit of God.\"\n\nMost people, I think, will agree with Dr. Jacks in these opinions; they\nare intelligent and promise a reasonable way out of our present chaos.\nFor many they will shed a new light on their old ideas of both religion\nand education. But some will ask: What is the Unitarian Church doing to\nmake these intelligent opinions prevail?\n\nDr. Jacks confesses to me that there is no zeal of propaganda in the\nUnitarian communion. It is a society of people which does not thrust\nitself upon the notice of men, does not compete for converts with other\nchurches in the market-place. It is rather a little temple of peace\nround the corner, to which people, who are aweary of the din in the\ntheological market-place, may make their way if they choose. It is such\na Church as Warburton, to the great joy of Edward FitzGerald, likened to\nNoah's family in the Ark:\n\n     The Church, like the Ark of Noah, is worth saving; not for the sake\n     of the unclean beasts that almost filled it and probably made most\n     noise and clamour in it, but for the little corner of rationality\n     that was as much distressed by the stink within as by the tempest\n     without.\n\nIt is significant of the modesty of the Unitarian that he does not\nemerge from this retirement even to cry, \"I told you so,\" to a Church\nwhich is coming more and more to accept the simplicity of his once\nridiculed and anathematised theology.\n\n\"You must regard modernism,\" I said to Dr. Jacks on one occasion, \"as a\nvindication of the Unitarian attitude.\"\n\nHe smiled and made answer, \"Better not say so. Let them follow their own\nline.\"\n\nNo man was ever less of a proselytiser. In his remarkable book _From\nAuthority to Freedom_, in which he tells the story of Charles Hargrove's\nreligious pilgrimage, he seems to be standing aside from all human\nintervention, watching with patient eyes the action of the Spirit of God\non the hearts and consciences of men. And in that little masterpiece of\ndeep thought and beautiful writing, _The Lost Radiance of the Christian\nReligion_, from which I have made most of the quotations in this\nchapter, one is conscious throughout of a strong aversion from the field\nof dogma and controversy, of deliberate determination of the writer to\nkeep himself in the pure region of the spirit.\n\nChristianity, he tells us there, has seen many corruptions, but the most\nserious of all is not to be found in any list of doctrines that have\ngone wrong:\n\n     We find it rather in a change of atmosphere, in a loss of\n     brightness and radiant energy, in a tendency to revert in spirit,\n     if not in terminology, to much colder conceptions of God, of man,\n     and of the universe.\n\n\"As man in his innermost nature is a far higher being than he seems, so\nthe world in its innermost nature is a far nobler fabric than it seems.\"\nTo discover this man must live in his spirit.\n\n     \"God,\" said Jesus, \"is Spirit,\" and it is a definition of God which\n     goes behind and beneath all the other names that are applied to\n     Him.\n\n     The spirit is love; it is peace; it is joy; and perhaps joy most of\n     all. It is a joyous energy, having a centre in the soul of man.\n\n     It is not a foreign principle which has to be introduced into a man\n     from without; it belongs to the substance and structure of his\n     nature; it needs only to be liberated there; and when once that is\n     done it takes possession of all the forces of his being, repressing\n     nothing, but transfiguring everything, till all his motives and\n     desires are akindle and aglow with the fires and energy of that\n     central flame, with its love, its peace, its joy.\n\nA man who sees so deeply into the truth of things, and lives so\nhabitually at the centre of existence, is not likely to display the\ncharacteristics of the propagandist. But the work of Dr. Jacks at\nManchester College may yet give not only this country but the world--for\nhis students come from many nations--a little band of radiant\nmissionaries whose message will repel none and attract many.\n\n\n\n\nBISHOP HENSLEY HENSON\n\n     DURHAM, Bishop of, since 1920; Rt. Rev. Herbert Hensley Henson; b.\n     London 8th Nov., 1863, 4th s. of Late Thomas Henson, Broadstairs\n     Kent, and Martha Fear; m. 1902 Isabella Caroline, o.d. of J.W.\n     Dennistoun of Dennistoun, N.B. Educ.: Privately and at Oxford.\n     First Class Modern History; Fellow of All Soul's College, Oxford,\n     1884-91, reelected 1896; B.D. 1898; Hon. D.D. Glasgow, 1906;\n     Durham, 1913; Oxon, 1918; Head of the Oxford House, Bethnal Green,\n     1887-88; Vicar of Barking, Essex, 1888-95; Select Preacher at\n     Oxford, 1895-96, 1913-14; Cambridge, 1901; Incumbent of St. Mary's\n     Hospital, Ilford, 1895-1900; Chaplain to Lord Bishop of St.\n     Alban's, 1897-1900; Canon of Westminster Abbey and Rector of St.\n     Margaret's, 1900-12; Sub-Dean of Westminster, 1911-12; Dean of\n     Durham, 1912-18; Bishop of Durham, 1918-20; late Hon. Professor of\n     Modern History in Durham University; Proctor in Convocation,\n     1903-18.\n\n[Illustration: BISHOP HENSLEY HENSON]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nBISHOP HENSLEY HENSON\n\n     _He early attained a high development, but he has not increased it\n     since; years have come, but they have whispered little; as was said\n     of the second Pitt, \"He never grew, he was cast_.\"--WALTER BAGEHOT.\n\n\nRumour has it that Dr. Henson is beginning to draw in his horns. Every\ncurate who finds himself unable to believe in the Virgin Birth, so it\nsaid, feels himself entitled to a living in the diocese of Durham. They\nflee from the intolerant zealotry of the sacerdotal south to the genial\nmodernism of the latitudinarian north.\n\nBut the trouble is, so rumour has it, these intelligent curates prove\nthemselves but indifferent parish priests. Dr. Henson has to complain.\nThe work of the Church must be carried on. Evangelicalism seems a better\ndriving force than theology. Dr. Henson has to think whether perhaps . . .\n\nOne need not stop to ask if this version is strictly true. The fact\nseems to emerge that the Bishop of Durham, one of the ablest intellects\nin the Church of England, and hitherto one of the strongest pillars of\nmodernism, is beginning to speak theologically with rather less\ndecision.\n\nLet us at least express the pious hope that the Dean of Durham, Dr.\nWelldon, has had nothing to do with it. A greater man than Dr. Henson, a\ngreater scholar and a profounder thinker, has spoken to me of this new\nmovement in the Bishop's mind with a deep impersonal regret. Modernism\nwill go on; but what will happen to Dr. Henson? \"A man may change his\nmind once,\" he said; \"but to change it twice--\"\n\nThe words of Guicciardini came into my mind, \"The most fatal of all\nneutralities is that which results not from choice, but from\nirresolution.\"\n\nThere is much to be learned, I think, from a study of Dr. Henson's\npersonality. He stands for the moment at a parting of the ways, and it\nwill be interesting to see which road he intends to take; but the major\ninterest lies in his abiding psychology, and no change in theological\nopinions will affect that psychology at all. Attach to him the label of\n\"modernist\" or the label of \"traditionalist,\" and it will still be the\nsame little eager man thrusting his way forward on either road with\ndownward head and peering eyes, arguing with anyone who gets in his way,\nand loving his argument far more than his way.\n\nWhen he was at Oxford, and was often in controversial conflict with Dr.\nA.C. Headlam, now Regius Professor of Divinity, Dr. Hensley Henson\nearned the nickname of Coxley Cocksure. Never was any man more certain\nhe was right; never was any man more inclined to ridicule the bare idea\nthat his opponent could be anything but wrong; and never was any man\nmore thoroughly happy in making use of a singularly trenchant intellect\nto stab and thrust its triumphant way through the logic of his\nadversary.\n\nIt is said that Dr. Henson has had to fight his way into notice, and\nthat he has never lost the defect of those qualities which enabled him\nso victoriously to reach the mitred top of the ecclesiastical tree. He\nhas climbed. He has loved climbing. Perhaps he has so got into this\nbracing habit that he may even \"climb down,\" if only in order once more\nto ascend--a new rendering of _reculer pour mieux sauter_. I do not\nthink he has much altered since he first set out to conquer fortune by\nthe force of his intellect, an intellect of whose great qualities he has\nalways been perhaps a little dangerously self-conscious.\n\nFew men are more effective in soliloquy. It is a memorable sight to see\nhim standing with his back to one of the high stone mantelpieces in\nDurham Castle, his feet wide apart on the hearth-rug, his hands in the\nopenings of his apron, his trim and dapper body swaying ceaselessly from\nthe waist, his head, with its smooth boyish hair, bending constantly\nforward, jerking every now and then to emphasise a point in his\nargument, the light in his bright, watchful, sometimes mischievous eyes\ndancing to the joy of his own voice, the thin lips working with pleasure\nas they give to all his words the fullest possible value of vowels and\nsibilants, the small greyish face, with its two slightly protruding\nteeth on the lower lip, almost quivering, almost glowing, with the\nrhythm of his sentences and the orderly sequence of his logic. All this\ncomposes a picture which one does not easily forget. It is like the\nharangue of a snake, which is more subtle than any beast of the field.\nOne is conscious of a spell.\n\nThe dark tapestried room, the carved ceiling, the heavy furniture, the\nembrasured windows, the whole sombre magnificence of the historic\nsetting, quiet, almost somnolent, with the enduring memories of Cuthbert\nTunstall and Butler, Lightfoot and Westcott, add a most telling vivacity\nto the slim and dominating figure of this boylike bishop, who is so\nathletic in the use of his intellect and so happy in every thesis he\nsets himself to establish.\n\nIt is an equally memorable sight to see him in his castle at Bishop\nAuckland in the role of host, entertaining people of intelligence with\nthe history of the place, showing the pictures and the chapel,\nexhibiting curious relics of the past--a restless and energetic figure,\nholding its own in effectiveness against men of greater stature and more\ncommanding presence by an inward force which has something of the tang\nof a twitching bow-string.\n\nSo much energy would suggest a source of almost inexhaustible power. But\nthat is perhaps the greatest disappointment of all in the Bishop's\npsychology. In the case of Dr. Inge one is very conscious of a rich and\ndeep background, a background of mysticism, from which the intellect\nemerges with slow emphasis to play its part on the world's stage. In the\ncase of Bishop Ryle one is conscious behind the pleasant, courtierlike,\nand scholarly manner of a background of very wholesome and unquestioning\nmoral earnestness. But in Dr. Henson one is conscious of nothing behind\nthe intellect but intellect itself, an intellect which has absorbed his\nspiritual life into itself and will permit no other tenant of his mind\nto divert attention for a single moment from its luminous brilliance,\nits perfection of mechanism.\n\nOne may be quite wrong, of course; one can speak only of the impression\nwhich he makes upon oneself and perhaps a few of one's friends; but it\nwould almost seem as if he had ever regarded Christianity as a thesis to\nbe argued, not a religion to be preached, a principle to be enunciated,\nnot a practice to be extended, a tradition to be maintained, not a\npassion to be communicated.\n\nYet his sermons, which a great Anglo-Catholic declared to me with a\nmocking mordancy to be full of \"edification,\" do often enter that region\nof religion which seems to demand an appeal to the emotions; moreover,\nit is not to be thought for a moment that the Bishop is not deeply\nconcerned with all moral questions, that he is in the least degree\nindifferent to the high importance of conduct. But for myself these\nexcursions, earnest and well-intentioned as they are, proclaim rather\nthe social energy of the good citizen than the fervent zeal of an\napostle on fire with his Master's message. The evangelicalism of the\nBishop has taken, as it were, the cast of politics, and he enters the\npulpit of Christ to proclaim the reasonableness of the moral law with\nthe alacrity of the lecturer.\n\nThis is what makes him so interesting a study for those curious about\nthe workings of religious psychology. Here is a thoroughly good man, as\nfearless and upright as any man in the kingdom, a figure among scholars,\na power among organisers, a very able, sincere, and trenchant\npersonality, who has thrown the whole weight of all he has to give on\nthe side of Christianity, but who, for some reason, in despite of all\nhis hard work and unquestionable earnestness, does not convey any idea\nof the attraction of Christ.\n\nIt makes one doubt, not that the Bishop has reserved his feelings for\nanother affection, but whether he has any feelings to bestow. One thinks\nthat he has drawn up and concentrated so effectually all the forces of\nhis personality into the intellect that it is now impossible for him to\nsee religion except as an intellectual problem. One thinks, too, that he\nhas never dreamed of converting other people to his views, but only of\narguing them out of theirs. Yet, after all, there are more ways of\nconverting the world than beating a drum.\n\nI am certain, however, that he could easier convince a socialistic\ncollier or a communistic iron-moulder of the absurdity of his economics\nthan persuade either the one or the other of the spiritual satisfaction\nof his own religion. Perhaps religion presents itself to the Bishop, as\nit does to a great number of other people, as a consecration of moral\nlaw, and clearly moral law is something to be established by reason, not\ncommended by appeals to the sentiments; not for one moment, all the\nsame, would he countenance the famous cynicism of Gibbon--\"The various\nmodes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all\nconsidered by the people as equally true; by the philosophers as equally\nfalse; and by the magistrate as equally useful\"--for no man sees more\nclearly the permanent need of religion in the human spirit, and no man\nis more sincerely convinced of the truth of the Christian religion. But\nhe brings to religion, as I think, only his intellect, and so he has\nintellectualised its ethic, and has left its deepest meaning to those\nwho possess, what he has either always lacked or has forfeited in his\nintellectual discipleship, the qualities of mysticism.\n\nOne might almost say that he has intellectualised the Sermon on the\nMount, dissected the Prodigal Son as a study in psychology, and taken\nthe heart out of the Fourth Gospel.\n\nHis usefulness, however, is of a high order. With the sole exception of\nDean Inge, no front bench Churchman has displayed a more admirable\ncourage in confronting democracy and challenging its Materialistic\npolitics. Moreover, although he modestly doubts his effectiveness as a\npublic speaker, he has shown an acute judgment in these attacks which\nhas not been lost upon the steadier minds in the Labour world of the\nnorth. Perhaps he has done as much as any man up there to convince an\nembittered and disillusioned proletariat that it must accept the\ninevitable rulings of economic law.\n\nHis courage in this matter is all the more praiseworthy because he seems\nto be convinced, to speak in general terms, that the religion of Christ\nis now rejected by the democracy. It needs, therefore, great strength of\nmind to face a body of men who have lost all interest in his religion,\nand to address them not only as economist and historian but as one who\nstill believes that Christianity bestows a power which sets at defiance\nall the worst that circumstance and condition can do to the soul of man.\n\nIn these addresses he puts aside the materialistic dreams of the social\nreformer as impractical and dangerous.\n\n     Ideal reconstructions of society, pictures of \"The Kingdom of God\n     upon earth,\" to use a popular but perilous phrase, are not greatly\n     serviceable to human progress. They may even turn men aside from\n     the road of actual progress, for the indulgence of philanthropic\n     imagination neither strengthens the will in self-sacrifice, nor\n     illumines the practical judgment.\n\nHis argument then leads him to question the justification of the social\nreformer's oratory. \"Let us be on our guard,\" he says, \"against\nexaggeration.\"\n\n     I am sure that great harm is being done at the present time by the\n     reckless denunciation of the existing social order, often by men\n     who have no special knowledge either of the history of society, or\n     of the present situation. Hypnotised by their own enthusiasm, they\n     allow themselves to use language which is not only altogether\n     excessive, but also highly inflammatory. I am bound honestly to say\n     that I think some of the clergy are great offenders in this\n     respect. Having created or stimulated popular discontent by such\n     rhetorical exaggeration, they point to the discontent as itself\n     sufficient proof of the existence of social oppression. They are\n     immersed in a fallacy.\n\nWith boldness he carries the war into the camp of his enemies:\n\n     There is much food for thought in the notorious fact that the\n     critics of existing society, so far from being able to count upon\n     the popular discontent, are compelled to organise an elaborate\n     system of defaming propaganda in order to induce the multitude to\n     believe themselves oppressed.\n\nHe charges the social reformer with an immoral idealism. The worker is\nencouraged to prolong his work, is taught that he may with perfect\njustice adopt the policy of ca' canny, seeing that his first duty is,\nnot to his master, but to his wife and children.\n\n\"Imagine the effect on character,\" cries the Bishop, \"of eight hours'\ndishonesty every day, eight hours of a man's second or third best, never\nhis whole heart in his job! And this is called idealism!\"\n\n     If industrialism were swept away, and some form of Socialism were\n     established, the success of the new order, as of the old, would\n     have to turn on the willingness of the people honestly to work it.\n     It hardly lies in the mouths of men who are labouring incessantly\n     to obstruct the working of the existing order, to build an argument\n     against it on the measure of their success in making it fail. There\n     are confessedly many grave evils in our industrial system, but\n     there are also very evident benefits. It is, like human nature\n     itself, a mingled thing. Instead of exaggerating the evils, the\n     wiser course would surely be to inquire how far they are capable of\n     remedy, and then cautiously--for the daily bread of these many\n     millions of British folk depends on the normal working of our\n     industrial system--to attempt reforms. Reckless denunciation is not\n     only wrong in itself, but it creates a listless, disaffected\n     temper, the farthest removed possible from the spirit of good\n     citizenship and honest labour.\n\nIn these quotations you may see something of the Bishop's acuteness of\nintellect, something of his courage, and something of his wholesome good\nsense. But, also, I venture to think, one may see in them something of\nhis spiritual limitations.\n\nFor, after all, is not the Christian challenged with an identical\ncriticism by the champions of materialism?\n\nWhy can't he leave people alone? Who asks him to interfere with the\nlives of other people--other people who are perfectly contented to go\ntheir own way? Look at the rascal! Having created or stimulated\nspiritual discontent by rhetorical exaggeration, he points to the\ndiscontent as itself sufficient proof of the dissatisfaction of\nmaterialism! Out upon him, for a paid agitator, a kill-joy, and a\nhumbug. Let him hold his peace, or, with Nietzsche, consign these\nmasses of the people \"to the Devil and the Statistician.\"\n\nMight it not be argued that the Bishop's attitude towards the social\nreformer bears at least a slight family resemblance to the attitude of\nthe Pharisees towards Christ, and of the Roman Power to the earliest\nChristian communities? May it not be said, too, that nothing is so\ndisagreeable to a conservative mind as the fermentation induced by the\nleaven of a new idea?\n\nNever does dissatisfaction with the present condition of things appear\nin the Bishop's eyes as a creation of the Christian spirit, an extension\nof that liberalising, enfranchising, and enriching spirit which has\nalready destroyed so many of the works of feudalism. But he faces the\nquestion of the part which the Church must play in the world; he faces\nit with honesty and answers it with shrewdness--\n\n     What then is the role of the Church in such a world as this? Surely\n     it is still what it was before--to be the soul of society, \"the\n     salt of the earth.\" If we, Christ's people, are carrying on, year\n     in and year out, a quiet, persistent witness by word and life to\n     \"the things that are more excellent,\" the unseen things which are\n     eternal, we too shall be \"holding the world together,\" and opening\n     before society the vista of a genuine progress. This is the supreme\n     and incommunicable task of the Church; this is the priceless\n     service which we can render to the nation.\n\nThe position is defensible, for it is one that has been held by the\nsaints, and dangerous indeed is the spirit of materialism in the region\nof social reform. But does not one miss from the Bishop's attack upon\nthe social reformer something much deeper than successful logic,\nsomething which expresses itself in the works of other men by the\nlanguage of sympathy and charity, something which hungers and thirsts to\nshed light and to give warmth, something which makes for the eventual\nbrotherhood of mankind under the divine Fatherhood of God?\n\nSome such spirit as this, I think, is to be found in the writings of Mr.\nR.H. Tawney, who, however much he may err and go astray in his\neconomics, cherishes at least a more seemly vision of the human family\nthan that which now passes for civilisation. Is it not possible that the\nday may come when a gigantic income will seem \"ungentlemanly\"? Is it not\na just claim, a Christian claim, that the social organisation should be\nbased upon \"moral principles\"?\n\n     Christians are a sect, and a small sect, in a Pagan Society. But\n     they can be a sincere sect. If they are sincere, they will not\n     abuse the Pagans . . . for a good Pagan is an admirable person. But\n     he is not a Christian, for his hopes and fears, his preferences and\n     dislikes, his standards of success and failure, are different from\n     those of Christians. The Church will not pretend that he is, or\n     endeavour to make its own Faith acceptable to him by diluting the\n     distinctive ethical attributes of Christianity till they become\n     inoffensive, at the cost of becoming trivial.\n\n     . . . so tepid and self-regarding a creed is not a religion.\n     Christianity cannot allow its sphere to be determined by the\n     convenience of politicians or by the conventional ethics of the\n     world of business. The whole world of human interests was assigned\n     to it as its province (_The Acquisitive Society_).\n\nIt must not be supposed that the Bishop has no answer to this criticism\nof his attitude. He would say, \"Produce your socialistic scheme, and I\nwill examine it, and if it will work and if it is just I will support\nit; but until you have found this scheme, what moral right do you\npossess which entitles you to unsettle men's minds, to fill their hearts\nwith the bitterness of discontent, and to turn the attention of their\nsouls away from the things that are more excellent?\"\n\nOn this ground, the ground of economics, his position seems to me\nunassailable; but it is a position which suggests the posture of a\nlecturer in front of his black-board rather than that of a shepherd\nseeking the lost sheep of his flock. If the socialist must think again,\nat least we may ask that the Bishop should sometimes raise his crook to\ndefend the sheep against the attack of the robber and the wolf. If the\nsheep are to be patient, if they are not to stray, if they are not to\ndie, there must be food for their grazing.\n\nBut the Bishop, at the very roots of his being, is conservative, and the\ngood qualities of conservatism do not develop foresight or permit of\nvision. He would stick to the wattled cotes; and I think he would move\nhis flock on to new pastures as seldom as possible. This will not do,\nhowever. The social reformer tells the Bishop who thinks democracy has\nrejected religion that \"the hungry sheep look up and are not fed.\" The\nroots of the old sustenance are nibbled level to the ground, and the\nground itself is sour. If socialism is wrong, let the Bishop tell us\nwhere lies a safer pasture.\n\nOne seems to see in this thrusting scholar and restless energetic\nprelate a very striking illustration of the need in the Christian of\ntenderness. Intellect is not enough. Intellect, indeed, is not light; it\nis only the wick of a lamp which must be fed constantly with the oil of\ncompassion--that is to say, if its light is to shine before men. The\nBishop dazzles, but he does not illumine the darkness or throw a white\nbeam ahead of heavy-laden and far-journeying humanity on the road which\nleads, let us hope, to a better order of things than the present system.\n\nWhether such a man calls himself traditionalist or modernist does not\ngreatly matter. One respects him for his moral qualities, his courage,\nand his devotion to his work; one honours him for his intellectual\nqualities, which are of a high and brilliant order; but one does not\nfeel that he is leading the advance, or even that he knows in which\ndirection the army is definitely advancing.\n\n\n\n\nMISS MAUDE ROYDEN\n\n\nROYDEN, AGNES MAUDE, Assistant Preacher at the City Temple, 1918-20;\nFounder with Dr. Percy Dearmer of the Fellowship Services at Kensington;\nb. 1876, y.d. of late Sir Thomas Royden, 1st Bart. of Frankby Hall,\nBirkenhead. Educ.: Cheltenham Ladies' College; Lady Margaret Hall,\nOxford. Worked at the Victoria Women's Settlement, Liverpool, for three\nyears and then in the country parish of Luffenham; Lecturer in English\nLiterature to the Oxford University Extension Delegacy; joined the\nNational Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, 1908; on Executive\nCommittee, 1908; Edited the _Common Cause_ till 1914; wrote and spoke\nchiefly on the economic, ethical, and religious aspects of the Women's\nMovement; resigned executive, 1914.\n\n[Illustration: MISS MAUDE ROYDEN]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nMISS MAUDE ROYDEN\n\n     . . . _their religion, too (i.e. the religion of women), has a mode\n     of expressing itself, though it seldom resorts to the ordinary\n     phrases of divinity.\n\n     Those \"nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love,\" by\n     which their influence is felt through every part of society,\n     humanising and consoling wherever it travels, are their theology.\n     It is thus that they express the genuine religion of their minds;\n     and we trust that if ever they should study the ordinary dialect of\n     systematised religion they will never, while pronouncing its harsh\n     gutturals and stammering over its difficult shibboleths, forget\n     their elder and simpler and richer and sweeter language._--F.D.\n     MAURICE.\n\n\nPushkin said that Russia turned an Asian face towards Europe and a\nEuropean face towards Asia.\n\nThis acute saying may be applied to Miss Royden. To the prosperous and\ntimid Christian she appears as a dangerous evangelist of socialism, and\nto the fiery socialist as a tame and sentimental apostle of\nChristianity. As in the case of Russia, so in the case of this\ninteresting and courageous woman; one must go to neither extremity,\nneither to the _bourgeoisie_ nor to the _apacherie_, if one would\ndiscover the truth of her nature.\n\nNor need one fear to go direct to the lady herself, for she is the very\nsoul of candour. Moreover, she has that charming spirit of friendliness\nand communication which distinguished La Bruyere, a philosopher \"always\naccessible, even in his deepest studies, who tells you to come in, for\nyou bring him something more precious than gold or silver, _if it is the\nopportunity of obliging you_.\"\n\nCertainly Miss Royden does not resemble, in her attitude towards either\nGod or the human race, that curious _religieuse_ Mdme. de Maintenon, who\nhaving been told by her confessor in the floodtime of her beauty that\n\"God wished her to become the King's mistress,\" at the end of that\ndevout if somewhat painful experience, replied to a suggestion about\nwriting her memoirs, \"Only saints would find pleasure in its perusal.\"\n\nMiss Royden's memoirs, if they are ever written, would have, I think,\nthe rather unusual merit of pleasing both saints and sinners; the saints\nby the depth and beauty of her spiritual experience, the sinners by her\nfreedom from every shade of cant and by her strong, almost masculine,\nsympathy with the difficulties of our human nature. Catherine the Great,\nin her colloquies with the nervous and hesitating Diderot, used to say,\n\"Proceed; _between men_ all is allowable.\" One may affirm of Miss Royden\nthat she is at once a true woman and a great man.\n\nIt is this perfect balance of the masculine and feminine in her\npersonality which makes her so effective a public speaker, so powerful\nan influence in private discourse, and so safe a writer on questions of\nextreme delicacy, such as the problem of sex. She is always on the\nlevel of the whole body of humanity, a complete person, a veritable\nhuman being, neither a member of a class nor the representative of a\nsex.\n\nPerhaps it may be permitted to mention two events in her life which help\none to understand how it is she has come to play this masculine and\nfeminine part in public life.\n\nOne day, a day of torrential rain, when she was a girl living in her\nfather's house in Cheshire, she and her sister saw a carriage and pair\ncoming through the park towards the house. The coachman and footman on\nthe box were soaking wet, and kept their heads down to avoid the sting\nof the rain in their eyes. The horses were streaming with rain and the\ncarriage might have been a watercart.\n\nWhen the caller, a rich lady, arrived in the drawing-room, polite wonder\nwas expressed at her boldness in coming out on such a dreadful day. She\nseemed surprised. \"Oh, but I came in a closed carriage,\" she explained.\n\nThis innocent remark opened the eyes of Miss Royden to the obliquity of\nvision which is wrought, all unconsciously in many cases, by the power\nof selfishness. The condition of her coachman and footman had never for\na moment presented itself to the lady's mind. Miss Royden made\nacquaintance with righteous indignation. She became a reformer, and\nsomething of a vehement reformer.\n\nThe drenched carriage coming through a splash of rain to her home will\nremain for ever in her mind as an image of that spirit of selfishness\nwhich in its manifold and subtle workings wrecks the beauty of human\nexistence.\n\nMiss Royden, it should be said, had been prepared by a long experience\nof pain to feel sympathy with the sufferings of other people. Her mind\nhad been lamentably ploughed up ever since the dawn of memory to receive\nthe divine grain of compassion.\n\nAt birth both her hips were dislocated, and lameness has been her lot\nthrough life. Such was her spirit, however, that this saddening and\nserious affliction, dogging her days and nights with pain, seldom\nprevented her from joining in the vigorous games and sports of the\nRoyden family. She was something of a boy even in those days, and pluck\nwas the very centre of her science of existence.\n\nThe religion of her parents suggested to her mind that this suffering\nhad been sent by God. She accepted the perilous suggestion, but never\nconfronted it. It neither puffed her up with spiritual pride nor created\nin her mind bitter thoughts of a paltry and detestable Deity. A pagan\nstoicism helped her to bear her lot quite as much as, if not more than,\nthe evangelicalism of Sir Thomas and Lady Royden. Moreover, she was too\nmuch in love with life to give her mind very seriously to the\ndifficulties of theology. Even with a body which had to wrench itself\nalong, one could swim and row, read and think, observe and worship.\n\nHer eldest brother went to Winchester and Magdalen College at Oxford;\nshe to Cheltenham College and Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford. Education\nwas an enthusiasm. Rivalry in scholarship was as greatly a part of that\nwholesome family life as rivalry in games. There was always a Socratic\n\"throwing of the ball\" going on, both indoors and out. Miss Royden\ndistinguished herself in the sphere of learning and in the sphere of\nsports.\n\nAt Oxford the last vestiges of her religion, or rather her parents'\nreligion, faded from her mind, without pain of any order, hardly with\nany consciousness. She devoted herself wholeheartedly to the schools. No\nlonger did she imagine that God had sent her lameness. She ceased to\nthink of Him.\n\nBut one day she heard a sermon which made her think of Jesus as a\nteacher, just as one thinks of Plato and Aristotle. She reflected that\nshe really knew more of the teaching of Plato and Aristotle than she\nknew of Christ's teaching. This seemed to her an unsatisfactory state of\nthings, and she set herself, as a student of philosophy, to study the\nteaching of Jesus. What had He said? Never mind whether He had founded\nthis Church or that, what had He said? And what had been His science of\nlife, His reading of the riddle?\n\nThis study, to which she brought a philosophic mind and a candid heart,\nconvinced her that the teaching should be tried. It was, indeed, a\nteaching that asked men to prove it by trial. She decided to try it, and\nshe tried it by reading, by meditation, and by prayer. The trial was a\nfailure. But in this failure was a mystery. For the more she failed the\nmore profoundly conscious she became of Christ as a Power. This feeling\nremained with her, and it grew stronger with time. The Christ who would\nnot help her nevertheless tarried as a shadow haunting the background of\nher thoughts.\n\nThere was a secret in life which she had missed, a power which she had\nnever used. Then came the second event to which I have referred. Miss\nRoyden met a lady who had left the Church of England and joined the\nQuakers, seeking by this change to intensify her spiritual experience,\nseeking to make faith a deep personal reality in her life. This lady\ntold Miss Royden the following experience:\n\nOne day, at a Quakers' meeting, she had earnestly \"besieged the Throne\nof Grace\" during the silence of prayer, imploring God to manifest\nHimself to her spirit. So earnestly did she \"besiege the Throne of\nGrace\" in this silent intercession of soul that at last she was\nphysically exhausted and could frame no further words of entreaty. At\nthat moment she heard a voice in her soul, and this voice said to her,\n\"Yes, I have something to say to you, _when you stop your shouting_.\"\n\nFrom this experience Miss Royden learned to see the tremendous\ndifference between physical and spiritual silence. She cultivated, with\nthe peace of soul which is the atmosphere of surrender and dependence,\nsilence of spirit; and out of this silence came a faith against which\nthe gates of hell could not prevail; and out of that faith, winged by\nher earliest; sympathy with all suffering and all sorrow, came a desire\nto give herself up to the service of God. She had found the secret, she\ncould use the power.\n\nHer first step towards a life of service was joining a Women's\nSettlement in Liverpool, a city which has wealth enough to impress and\ngratify the disciples of Mr. Samuel Smiles, and slums enough to excite\nand infuriate the disciples of Karl Marx. Here Miss Royden worked for\nthree years, serving her novitiate as it were in the ministry of mercy,\na notable figure in the dark streets of Liverpool, that little eager\nbody, with its dragging leg, its struggling hips, its head held high to\nlook the whole world in the face on the chance, nay, but in the hope,\nthat a bright smile from eyes as clear as day might do some poor devil a\nbit of good.\n\nShe brought to the slums of Liverpool the gay cheerfulness of a\nUniversity woman, Oxford's particular brand of cheerfulness, and also a\ntenderness of sympathy and a graciousness of helpfulness which was the\nfine flower of deep, inward, silent, personal religion.\n\nIt is not easy for anyone with profound sympathy to believe that\nindividual Partingtons can sweep back with their little mops of\nbeneficence and philanthropy the Atlantic Ocean of sin, suffering, and\ndespair which floods in to the shores of our industrialism--at high tide\nnearly swamping its prosperity, and at low tide leaving all its\nugliness, squalor, and despairing hopelessness bare to the eye of\nheaven.\n\nMiss Royden looked out for something with a wider sweep, and in the year\n1908 joined the Women's Suffrage Movement. It was her hope, her\nconviction, that woman's influence in politics might have a cleansing\neffect in the national life. She became an advocate of this great\nMovement, but an advocate who always based her argument on religious\ngrounds. She had no delusions about materialistic politics. Her whole\neffort was to spiritualise the public life of England.\n\nHere she made a discovery--a discovery of great moment to her subsequent\ncareer. She discovered that many came to her meetings, and sought\npersonal interviews or written correspondence with her afterwards, who\nwere not greatly interested in the franchise, but who were interested,\nin some tragic cases poignantly interested, in spiritual\nenfranchisement. Life revealed itself to her as a struggle between the\nhigher and lower nature, a conflict in the will between good and evil.\nShe was at the heart of evolution.\n\nIt became evident to Miss Royden that she had discovered for herself\nboth a constituency and a church. Some years after making this discovery\nshe abandoned all other work, and ever since, first at the City Temple\nand now at the Guildhouse in Eccleston Square, has been one of the most\neffective advocates in this country of personal religion.\n\nShe does not impress one by the force of her intellect, but rather by\nthe force of her humanity. You take it for granted that she is a\nscholar; you are aware of her intellectual gifts, I mean, only as you\nare aware of her breeding. The main impression she makes is one of full\nhumanity, humanity at its best, humanity that is pure but not\nself-righteous, charitable but not sentimental, just but not hard, true\nbut not mechanical in consistency, frank but not gushing. Out of all\nthis come two things, the sense of two realisms, the realism of her\npolitical faith, and the realism of her religious faith. You are aware\nthat she feels the sufferings and the deprivations of the oppressed in\nher own blood, and feels the power, the presence, and the divinity of\nChrist in her own soul.\n\nIt is a grateful experience to sit with this woman, who is so like the\nbest of men but is so manifestly the staunchest of women. Her face\nreveals the force of her emotions, her voice, which is musical and\npersuasive, the depth of her compassion. In her sitting-room, which is\nalmost a study and nearly an office, hangs a portrait of Newman, and a\n_prie-Dieu_ stands against one of the walls half-hidden by bookshelves.\nShe is one of the few very busy people I have known who give one no\nfeeling of an inward commotion.\n\nApart from her natural eloquence and her unmistakable sincerity, apart\neven from the attractive fullness of her humanity, I think the notable\nsuccess of her preaching is to be attributed to a single reason, quite\noutside any such considerations. It is a reason of great importance to\nthe modern student of religious psychology. Miss Royden preaches Christ\nas a Power.\n\nTo others she leaves the esoteric aspects of religion, and the\nceremonial of worship, and the difficulties of theology, and the\nmechanism of parochial organisation. Her mission, as she receives it, is\nto preach to people who are unwilling and suffering victims of sin, or\nwho are tortured by theological indecision, that Christ is a Power, a\nPower that works miracles, a Power that can change the habits of a\nlifetime, perhaps the very tissues of a poisoned body, and can give both\npeace and guidance to the soul that is dragged this way and that.\n\nOne may be pardoned for remarking that this is a rather unusual form of\npreaching in any of the respectable churches. Christianity as a unique\npower in the world, a power which transfigures human life, which tears\nhabitude up by the roots, and which gives new strength to the will, new\neyes to the soul, and a new reality to the understanding; this, strange\nto say, is an unusual, perhaps an unpopular subject of clerical\ndiscourse. It is Miss Royden's insistent contribution to modern\ntheology.\n\nShe tells me that so far as her own experience goes, humanity does not\nseem to be troubled by intellectual doubts. She is inclined to think\nthat it is even sick of such discussions, and is apt to describe them\nroughly and impatiently as \"mere talk.\" Humanity, as she sees it, is\nimmersed in the incessant struggle of moral evolution.\n\nThere is an empiricism of religion which is worth attention. It\nchallenges the sceptic to explain both the conversion of the sinner and\nthe beauty of the saint. If religion can change a man's whole character\nin the twinkling of an eye, if it can give a beauty of holiness to human\nnature such as is felt by all men to be the highest expression of man's\nspirit, truly it is a science of life which works, and one which its\ncritics must explain. The theories of dogmatist and traditionalist are\nnot the authentic documents of the Christian religion. Let the sceptic\nbring his indictment against the changed lives of those who attribute to\nChrist alone the daily miracle of their gladness.\n\nWhat men and women want to know in these days, Miss Royden assures me\nout of the richness of her great experience, is whether Christianity\nworks, _whether it does things_. The majority of people, she feels sure,\nare looking about for \"something that helps\"--something that will\nstrengthen men and women to fight down their lower nature, that will\nconvince them that their higher nature is a reality, and that will give\nthem a living sense of companionship in their difficult lives--lives\noften as drab and depressing as they are morally difficult.\n\nBecause she can convey this great sense of the power of Christianity,\npeople all over the country go to hear her preach and lecture. She is, I\nthink, one of the most persuasive preachers of the power of Christianity\nin any English-speaking country. It is impossible to feel of her that\nshe is merely speaking of something she has read about in books, or of\nsomething which she recommends because it is apostolic and traditional;\nshe brings home to the mind of the most cynical and ironical that her\nmessage, so modestly and gently given, is nevertheless torn out of her\ninmost soul by a deep inward experience and by a sympathy with humanity\nwhich altogether transfigures her simple words.\n\nIt must be difficult, I should think, for any fairminded sceptic not to\ngive this religion at least a practical trial after hearing Miss\nRoyden's exposition of it and after learning from her the manner in\nwhich that experiment should be carried out. For she speaks as one\nhaving the authority of a deep personal experience, making no dogmatic\nclaims, expressing sympathy with all those who fail, but assuring her\nhearers that when the moment comes for their illumination it will come,\nand that it will be a veritable dayspring from on high. Earnestness is\nhers of the highest and tenderest order, but also the convincing\nauthority of one who has found the peace which passes understanding.\n\nShe has spoken to me with sympathy of Mr. Studdert-Kennedy, whose\ntrench-like methods in the pulpit are thoroughly distasteful to a great\nnumber of people. It is characteristic of Miss Royden that she should\nfasten on the real cause of this violence. \"I don't like jargon,\" she\nsaid, \"particularly the jargon of Christian Science and Theosophy. I\nlove English literature too much for that; and I don't like slang,\nparticularly slang of a brutal order; but I feel a deep sympathy with\nanybody who is trying, as Mr. Studdert-Kennedy is trying, to put life\nand power into institutionalism. It wants it so badly--oh, so very\nbadly--life, life, life and power.\"\n\nOf one whose scholarship greatly impresses her, and for whose spiritual\nlife she has true respect, but whose theology fills her soul with dark\nshadows and cold shudders, she exclaimed, as though it were her own\nfault for not understanding him, \"It is as if God were dead!\"\n\nAlways she wants Christianity as life and power.\n\nShe remains a social reformer, and is disposed to agree with Bishop Gore\nthat the present system is so iniquitous that it cannot be\nChristianised. She thinks it must be destroyed, but admits the peril of\ndestructive work till a new system is ready to take its place.\n\nYet I feel fairly certain that she would admit, if pressed with the\nquestion, that the working of any better system can depend for its\nsuccess only upon a much better humanity. For she is one of those who is\nbewildered by the selfishness of men and women, a brutal, arrogant,\nchallenging, and wholly unashamed selfishness, which publicly seeks its\nown pleasures, publicly displays the offending symbols of its offensive\nwealth, publicly indulges itself in most shameful and infuriating\nluxuries, even at a time when children are dying like flies of\nstarvation and pestilence, and while the men of their own household, who\nfought to save civilisation from the despotism of the Prussian theory,\ntramp the streets, hungry and bitter-hearted, looking for work.\n\nOn her mind, moving about England at all times of the year, the reality\nof these things is for ever pressing; the unthinkable selfishness of so\nmany, and the awful depression of the multitude. She says that a system\nwhich produces, or permits, such a state of things must be bad, and\nradically bad.\n\nThere are moments, when she speaks of these things, which reveal to one\na certain anger of her soul, a disposition, if I may say so with great\nrespect, towards vehemence, a temper of impatience and indignation which\nwould surely have carried her into the camp of anarchy but for the\nrestraining power of her religious experience. She feels, deeply and\nburningly, but she has a Master. The flash comes into her eyes, but the\nhabitual serenity returns.\n\nI think, however, she might be persuaded to believe that it is not so\nmuch the present system but the pagan selfishness of mankind which\nbrings these unequal and dreadful things to pass. The lady in the closed\ncarriage would not be profoundly changed, we may suppose, by a different\nsystem of economics, but surely she might be changed altogether--body,\nsoul, and spirit--if she so willed it, by that Power which has directed\nMiss Royden's own life to such beautiful and wonderful ends.\n\nNevertheless, Miss Royden must be numbered among the socialists, the\nChristian socialists, and Individualism will be all the better for\nasking itself how it is that a lady so good, so gentle, so clear-headed,\nand so honest should be arrayed with its enemies.\n\nI should like to speak of one memorable experience in Miss Royden's\nlater life.\n\nShe has formed a little, modest, unknown, and I think nameless guild for\npersonal religion. She desires that nothing of its work should get into\nthe press and that it should not add to its numbers. She wishes it to\nremain a sacred confraternity of her private life, as it were the lady\nchapel of her cathedral services to mankind, or as a retreat for her\nexhausted soul.\n\nSome months ago she asked a clergyman who has succeeded in turning into\na house of living prayer a London church which before his coming was\nlike a tomb, whether he would allow the members of this guild, all of\nwhom are not members of the Church of England, to come to the Eucharist.\nHe received this request with the most generous sympathy, saying that he\nwould give them a private celebration, and one morning, soon after dawn,\nthe guild met in this church to make its first communion. No one else\nwas present.\n\nMiss Royden has told me that it was an unforgettable experience. Here\nwas a man, she said, who has no reputation as a great scholar, and no\npopularity as an orator; he is loved simply for his devotion to Christ\nand his sympathy with the sorrows of mankind. Yet that man, as no other\nman had done before, brought the Presence of God into the hearts of that\nlittle kneeling guild. It was as if, Miss Royden tells me, God was there\nat the altar, shining upon them and blessing them. Never before had she\nbeen more certain of God as a Person.\n\nIt is from experiences of this nature that she draws fresh power to make\nmen and women believe that the Christian religion is a true philosophy\nof reality, and a true science of healing. She is, I mean, a mystic. But\nshe differs from a mystic like Dean Inge in this, that she is a mystic\nimpelled by human sympathy to use her mysticism as her sole evangel.\n\n\n\n\nCANON E.W. BARNES\n\n     BARNES, Rev. ERNEST WILLIAM, M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S., F.R.A.S.; Canon\n     of Westminster since 1918; b. 1 April, 1874; e.s. of John Starkie\n     Barnes; m. 1916, Adelaide Caroline Theresa, o.d. of Sir Adolphus W.\n     Ward; two s. Educ.: King Edward's School, Birmingham; Trinity\n     College, Cambridge (Scholar). Bracketed 2d Wrangler, 1896;\n     President of the Union, 1897; First Class First Division of the\n     Mathematical Tripos, Part ii., 1897; first Smith's Prizeman, 1898;\n     Fellow of Trinity College, 1898-1916; M.A., 1900; Ordained, 1902;\n     Assistant Lecturer Trinity Coll., 1902; Junior Dean, 1906-8; Tutor,\n     1908-15; Master of the Temple, 1915-19; Examining Chaplain to\n     Bishop of Llandaff, 1906-20: a Governor of King Edward's School,\n     Birmingham, 1907; F.R.S., 1909; Select Preacher, Cambridge, 1906,\n     etc., and Oxford, 1914-16; Fellow of King's College, London, 1919.\n\n[Illustration: CANON E.W. BARNES]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nCANON E.W. BARNES\n\n\n     _True religion takes up that place in the mind which superstition\n     would usurp, and so leaves little room for it; and likewise lays us\n     under the strongest obligations to oppose it.--BISHOP BUTLER.\n\n     Socrates looked up at him, and replied, Farewell: I will do as you\n     say. Then he turned to us and said, How courteous the man\n     is!--PLATO._\n\n\nIn this able and courageous Doctor of Science, who came to theology from\nmathematics, a great virtue and a small fault combine to check his\nintellectual usefulness. His heart is as full of modesty as his mind of\ntentatives.\n\nHe is possessed by a gracious nature, and could no more think of raising\nhis voice to shout down a Boanerges than he could dream of lifting an\nelbow to push his way through a press of people bound for the limelight.\nIt is only a deep moral earnestness which brings him into public life at\nall, and he endeavours to treat that public life not as it is but as it\nought to be.\n\nIn \"the calmness and moderation of his sentiments,\" in his dislike of\neverything that is sensational, and of all \"undue emphasis,\" he\nresembles Joubert, who wanted \"to infuse exquisite sense into common\nsense, or to render exquisite sense common.\"\n\nModesty might not so hamper the usefulness of Canon Barnes if he knew a\nlittle less than he does know, and was also conveniently blind to the\nvastness of scientific territory. But he knows much; much too much for\nvociferation; and his eyes are so wide open to the enormous sweep of\nscientific inquiry that he can nowhere discern at present the ground for\na single thesis which effectually accounts for everything--a great lack\nin a popular preacher.\n\nI am disposed to deplore the degree both of his modesty and his\nscholarship, for he possesses one of the rarest and most precious of\ngifts in a very learned man, particularly a mathematician and a\ntheologian, namely, the gift of lucid exposition. Few men of our day, in\nmy judgment, are better qualified to state the whole case for\nChristianity than this distinguished Canon of Westminster Abbey, this\nevangelical Fellow of the Royal Society, who is nevertheless prevented\nfrom attracting the attention of the multitude by the gracious humility\nof his nature and the intellectual nervousness which is apt to inhibit\nhis free utterance when he approaches an audience in the region of\nscience.\n\nWhat a pity that a clergyman so charming and attractive, and yet so\nmodern, who understands the relativity of Einstein and who is admirably\ngrounded in the physical sciences, should lack that fighting instinct,\nthat \"confidence of reason,\" which in Father Waggett, an equally\ncharming person, caught the attention of the religious world thirty or\nforty years ago.\n\nHis mind is not unlike the mind of Lord Robert Cecil, and it is curious\nthat even physically he should at certain moments resemble Lord Robert,\nparticularly in his walk and the almost set expression of his eyes. He\nis tall and thin, and has the same stoop in the shoulders, moving\nforward as if an invisible hand were pressed against the back of his\nneck, shoving him forward by a series of jerks; and he seems to throw,\nlike Lord Robert, a particular sense of enjoyment into the motion of his\nlegs, as though he would get rid of all perilous swagger at that, the\nless harmful end of his two extremities--the antipodes of his reason.\nLike Lord Robert, too, he has a most pleasant voice, and a slow\ndeliberate way of speaking, and a warm kindly smile which fades at the\nfirst movement of serious thought, leaving the whole pale face, even the\ndark eyes under their heavy brows, almost deathlike in immobility. One\nseems to see in such moments the spirit withdraw from the surface of\nthings to take up its duty at the citadel of the intellect.\n\nThe same conflict between temperament and purpose which has prevented\nLord Robert Cecil from taking his place at the head of a Government\nprevents Canon Barnes from advancing at the head of modern Churchmen to\nthe rich future of a depaganised and wholly rational Christianity. His\nheart says \"Fight,\" but his reason says \"Watch.\" Fighting is\ndistasteful; watching is congenial. Besides, while one is watching one\ncan review all the hypotheses. A man who is not careful in destroying a\nfallacy may damage a truth.\n\nBut let us be grateful for his public utterances, which show a high\nspirit, a noble devotion, an enviable range of culture, and, for the\ndiscerning at least, tell the true time of day. It is one of the\nencouraging signs of the period that such distinguished preaching should\nhave made a mark. Moreover, he is yet three years from fifty, with a\nmind so hospitable to growth that it has no room for one of those\nprejudices which are the dry-nurses of old age. Those who love truth die\nyoung, whatever their age. Canon Barnes may yet give the Church a proof\nof his power to lead--a Church at present aware only of his power to\nsuggest.\n\nHe considers that we are living in a time of revolution, and, judging by\nhistoric precedents, particularly the Renaissance, he thinks we are now\nin the second stage of our revolution, which is the most difficult of\nall. First, comes the destruction of false ideas--a bracing time for the\nborn fighter; second, comes the tentative search for new ideas--an\nanxious time for the responsible philosopher; third, comes the preaching\nof these new ideas with passion--the opportunity of the enthusiast.\nHappy were the divines of the seventeenth century!\n\nWe, however, are in the second stage.\n\nThis is not a period for new ideas: it is a period of searching for the\nbest idea. He who rushes forward with an untried new idea may be more\ndangerous than he who still clings, in the Name of Christ, to an old\nidea which is false. We must be quite certain of our ground before we\nadvance with boldness, and our boldness must be spiritual, not muscular.\n\nModernism has fought and won the battle of verbal inspiration. No man\nwhose opinion counts in the least degree now holds that the Bible was\nverbally inspired by God. It is respected, honoured, loved; but it is no\nlonger a fetish. In ceasing to be a superstition, and in coming to be a\nnumber of genuine books full of light for the student of history, the\nBible is exercising at the present time an extraordinary influence in\nthe world, a greater influence perhaps on thoughtful minds than it ever\nbefore exercised.\n\nThe battle which modernism is now fighting over this collection of books\nconcerns the Person of Jesus and the relative value of the gospels which\nnarrate His life, and in the case of the Fourth, endeavour to expound\nHis teaching. This great battle is not over, but it looks as if victory\nwill lie with the more moderate school of modernists. Outside very\nextreme circles, the old rigid notions concerning the Person of Jesus\nare no longer held with the passion which gave them a certain noble\nforce in the days before Darwin. There is now a notable tell-tale\npetulance about orthodoxy which is sometimes insolent but never\neffective.\n\nAhead of this battle, which the present generation may live to see\nfought out to a conclusion, lies a third struggle likely to be of a more\ndesperate character than its two forerunners--the battle over\nSacramental Christianity. Already in France and Germany the question is\nasked, Did Jesus institute any sacraments at all? But even in these two\ncountries the battle has not yet begun in real earnest, while over here\nonly readers of Lake and Kennedy are dimly aware of a coming storm. That\nstorm will concern rites which few orthodox Christians have ever\nregarded as heathen in their spirit, though some have come to know they\nare pagan in origin.\n\nIt is not wise to ignore this future struggle, but our main\nresponsibility is to bear a manful part in the struggle which is now\nupon us.\n\nThere are three types of modernists. There is, first of all, the\nLiberal, who regards Christianity as a form of Platonism resting on the\nidea of absolute values. This is dangerous ground: something more is\nrequired. Then there is the evangelical modernist, who accepts almost\neverything in the Higher Criticism, but holds to Christ as an\nincarnation of the Divine purpose, an incarnation, if you will, of God,\nall we can know of God limited by His human body, as God we must suppose\nis not limited, but still God. And, finally, there is the Catholic\nmodernist, who believes in a Church, who makes the sacraments his centre\nof religion, and exalts Christianity to the head of all the mystery\nreligions which have played a part in the evolution of the human race.\nThis is not likely to be the prevailing type of modernism.\n\nIt looks as if the main body of modern opinion is moving in the\ndirection followed by the second of these schools--the evangelical. Here\nis preserved all that great range of deep feeling and all that fine\nenergy of unselfish earnestness which have given to Christianity the\nmost effectual of its impulses. A man may still worship Christ, and\nstill make obedience to the Will of Christ the chief passion or object\nof his existence, although he no longer believes that Jesus was either\nborn out of the order of nature or died to turn away the vengeance of\nGod from a world which had sinned itself beyond the reach of infinite\nlove.\n\nLike Goethe, such a man will say: \"As soon as the pure doctrine and love\nof Christ are comprehended in their true nature, and have become a\nliving principle, we shall feel ourselves great and free as human\nbeings, and not attach special importance to a degree more or less in\nthe outward forms of religion.\"\n\nThe critics of modernism do not seem able, for some reason, to grasp a\ntruth which has been apparent all down the ages, a truth so old that it\nis almost entitled to be regarded as a tradition, and so widely held\nthat it is almost worthy to be called catholic, namely, the truth that\nJesus loses none of His power over human history so long as He abides a\nliving principle in the hearts of individual men. So long as He\nexpresses for mankind the Character of God and reveals to mankind the\nnature of God's purpose, so long as men love Him as they love no other,\nand set themselves to make His spirit tell, first in their lives and\nafter that in the world about them, does it greatly matter whether they\nspeak of His divinity or His uniqueness, whether they accept definitions\nconcerning Him (framed by men in the dark ages) or go about to do His\nwill with no definitions in their mind at all beyond the intellectual\nconviction that here is One who spoke as no other man has spoken since\nthe creation of the world?\n\nCanon Barnes, who disowns the name of modernist, but who is the very\nopposite of an obscurantist in his evangelicalism, is careful to insist\nupon a _rational_ loyalty to Christ. I tried one day to tempt him on\nthis head, speaking of the miraculous changes wrought in men's lives by\nreligious fervour pure and simple; but it was in vain. He agrees that\nreligious fervour may work such miracles: he is the last man in the\nworld to dismiss these miracles as curious and interesting phenomena of\npsychology; but he insists, and is like a rock on this matter, that\nemotional Christianity is not safe without an intellectual background.\n\nHe makes me feel that his modernism, if I may presume to use that term,\nis an evangelical desire of his soul to give men this intellectual\nbackground to their faith. He wants, as it were, to save their beliefs\nrather than their souls. He regards the emotionalist as occupying\nterritory as dangerous to himself and to the victory of Christianity as\nthe territory occupied by the traditionalist. Both schools offend the\nmind of rational men; both make Christianity seem merely an affair of\ntemperament; and both are exposed to the danger of losing their faith.\n\nTo convert the world to the Will of God, it is essential that the\nChristian should have a rational explanation of his faith, a faith\nwhich, resting only on tradition or emotion, must obviously take its\nplace among all the other competing religions of mankind, a religion\npossessing no authority recognised by the modern world.\n\nThe modern world rightly asks of every opinion and idea presented to its\njudgment, \"Is it true?\" and it has reason on its side in being sceptical\nconcerning the records of the past. If not, there are religions in the\nworld of an antiquity greater than Christianity's, whose traditions have\nbeen faithfully kept by a vaster host of the human race than has ever\nfollowed the traditions of Christianity. Is it to be a battle between\ntradition and tradition? Is age to be a test of truth? Is devotion to a\nformula to count as an argument?\n\nThe emotionalist, too, is no longer on safe ground in protesting his\nmiracles of conversion. The psychologist is advancing towards that\nground, and advancing with every theory of supernatural evidence\nexcluded from his mind. The psychologist may eventually be driven to\naccept the Christian explanation of these phenomena; but until that\nsurrender is made the emotionalist will not be the power in the world\nwhich he ought to be. His house, too, must be founded upon a rock.\n\nLet us not be afraid of examining our faith, bringing our minds as well\nas our hearts and our souls to the place of judgment.\n\nI will give here a few quotations from the utterances of Canon Barnes\nwhich show his position with sufficient clearness.\n\n     We all seek for truth. But, whereas to some truth seems a tide\n     destined to rise and sweep destructively across lands where Jesus\n     reigned as the Son of God, to me it is the power which will set\n     free new streams to irrigate His Kingdom.\n\n     As is obvious to everyone, all the Churches realise, though some do\n     not acknowledge, the necessity of presenting the Christian Faith in\n     terms of current thought.\n\n     We have seen the urgent need of a fuller knowledge of the structure\n     of the human mind if we would explain how Jesus was related to God\n     and how we receive grace from God through Christ.\n\n     I am an Evangelical; I cannot call myself a modernist. I have\n     welcomed the intervention of those who, disclaiming any knowledge\n     of scholarship or theology, have in simple language revealed the\n     power of Christ in their lives. For theory and practice,\n     speculation and life, cannot be separated. We cannot begin to\n     explain Jesus until we know how men and women are transformed by\n     the love of Christ constraining them.\n\n     Those to whom religion is external and worship formal are of\n     necessity pretentious or arid in speaking of such matters as the\n     Person of Christ or the value of creeds.\n\n     We do not affirm that the Lord's Person and work have been central\n     in Christianity in the past. There is much to be said for the view\n     that they were, from the end of the second century to the close of\n     the Middle Ages, concealed beneath alien ideas derived from the\n     mystery religions; that the Reformation was the hammer which broke\n     the husk within which, under God's providence, the kernel had been\n     preserved during the decline and eclipse of European civilisation.\n\n     . . . as religion grows in richness and purity, Jesus comes to His\n     own.\n\n     Reason and intuition combine to justify the belief that our Lord\n     had a right understanding of what man can become.\n\n     We say that man is not only a part of the evolutionary process. His\n     highest attributes must serve to show its purpose. They reveal the\n     nature and the end of God's plan.\n\n     . . . as man develops in the way predestined by God, he will\n     continually approach the standard set by Jesus. Jesus will ever\n     more completely draw men and inspire them because they will more\n     fully understand that He explains them to themselves.\n\n     The present degradation of human life is due to man's refusal to\n     accept Christ's estimate of its values and duties. It will endure\n     so long as the work and Person of Christ are refused their right\n     place in human thought and aspiration.\n\n     Jesus still lives, great and unexplained.\n\nFrom these quotations it will be seen that Canon Barnes is not searching\nthe documents of Christianity for a new hypothesis, but rather for a new\nunderstanding by which he may be able to present the historic power of\nChristianity in terms of modern thought. Jesus remains for him the\ncentral Figure of evolution. \"Human thought,\" he declares, \"as moulded\nby developed aspirations and accumulated knowledge, will not sweep past\nJesus but will circle round Him as the centre where God revealed\nHimself.\"\n\nPerhaps we shall best understand the position of Canon Barnes if we see\nhim, neither on this side nor on that of the warring controversy, but\nrather among the entire host of Christianity, warning all schools of\nthought, all parties, all sects, that they must prepare themselves for\nthe final strife which is yet to come, that great strife, foreseen by\nNewman, when the two contrary principles of human life, the Good and the\nEvil, shall rush upon each other contending for the soul of the world.\nChristianity must become united and strong at its centre, if it is to\nwithstand this onslaught.\n\nHe is not to be thought of as one who would adapt religion to the needs\nof the day, but as one who believes that, thoroughly understood,\nreligion is adequate to the needs, not only of our day, but to the needs\nof all time. For to Canon Barnes, religion is simply the teaching of\nChrist, and Christ is the revelation to man of God's nature and purpose.\nHe would simplify dogma in order to clarify truth. He would clarify\ntruth in order to enlarge the opportunities of Christ. He would call no\nman a heretic who is not serving the devil. None who seeks to enter the\nKingdom will ever be hindered by this devout disciple of truth in whose\nblood is no drop of the toxin of Pharisaism.\n\nYou may see the intellectual charity of the man in his attitude towards\nother teachers of our time whose views are opposed to his own. Of Dean\nInge he has spoken to me with almost a ringing enthusiasm, emphasizing\nhis unbounded force, his unbounded courage; and of Bishop Gore with the\ndeepest respect, paying reverent tribute to his spiritual earnestness;\neven the Bishop of Zanzibar provokes only a smile of the most cheerful\ngood humour.\n\nHe inclines quietly towards optimism, believing in the providence of God\nand thinking that the recent indifference to religion is passing away.\nMen are now seeking, and to seek is eventually to find. This seeking, he\nobserves, is among the latest utterances of theology, a fact of\nconsiderable importance. To keep abreast of truth one must neither go\nback nor stand still. Men are now not so much swallowing great names as\nlooking for a candle.\n\nNot long ago he paid a visit to a favourite bookshop of his in\nCambridge, and inquired for second-hand volumes of theology. \"I have\nnothing here,\" replied the bookseller, \"that would interest you. The\nbooks you would like go out the day after they come in, sometimes the\nsame day.\" Then pointing to the upper shelves, \"But I've plenty of the\nolder books\"; and there in the dust and neglect of the top shelves Canon\nBarnes surveyed the works of grave and portentous theologians who wrote,\nsome before the days of Darwin, and some in the first heyday of\nDarwinism. He said to me, \"Lightfoot is still consulted, but even\nWestcott is now neglected.\"\n\nHe spoke of two difficulties for the Church. One is this: her supreme\nneed at the present time is men for the ministry, the best kind of men,\nmore men and much better men, men of learning and character, able to\nteach with persuasive authority. It is not the voice of atheism we hear;\nit is the voice of the Church that we miss. But, as Bishop Gore claims,\nmost of the theological colleges are in the hands of the\ntraditionalists, and the tendency of these colleges is to turn out\npriests rather than teachers, formalists rather than evangelists. Such\ncolleges as represent the evangelical movement are, thanks to their\ntitle deeds, largely in the hands of pious laymen not very well\neducated, who adhere rigidly to a school of thought which is associated\nin the modern mind with an extreme of narrowness. Thus it comes about\nthat many men who might serve the Church with great power are driven\naway at her doors. Something must be done to get men whose love of truth\nis a part of their love of God.\n\nThe second difficulty concerns the leadership of the Church. Bishops\nshould be men with time to think, able when they address mankind to\nspeak from \"the top of the mind\"; scholars rather than administrators,\nsaints rather than statesmen; but such is the present condition that a\nman who is made a bishop finds himself so immersed in the business of a\ngreat institution that his intellectual and spiritual life become things\nof accident, luxurious things to be squeezed into the odd moments, if\nthere are any, of an almost breathless day. This is not good for the\nChurch. The world is not asking for mechanism. It is asking for light.\nIt is, indeed, an over-organised world working in the dark.\n\nCanon Barnes, however, is not concerned only with the theological\naspects of Christianity. For him, religion is above all other things a\nsocial force, a great cleansing and sanctifying influence in the daily\nlife of evolving man. One may obtain a just idea of his mind from a\npronouncement he made at the last conference of Modern Churchmen:\n\n     We cannot call ourselves Christians unless we recognise that we\n     must preach the Gospel; that we must go out and labour to bring men\n     and women to Christ.\n\n     The Kingdom of God is a social ideal.\n\n     Modern Churchmen cannot stand aloof from intellectual, political,\n     and economic problems.\n\n     To bring the Gospel into the common life, to carry the message and\n     sympathies of Jesus into the factory, the street, the house, is an\n     urgent necessity in our age.\n\nHe sees Christianity, not as an interesting school of philosophy, not as\na charming subject for brilliant and amicable discussions, but as a\nforce essential to the salvation of mankind; a force, however, which\nmust first be disentangled from the accretions of ancient error before\nit can work its transforming miracles both in the heart of men and in\nthe institutions of a materialistic civilisation. It is in order that it\nshould thus work in the world, saving the world and fulfilling the\npurposes of God, that he labours in no particular school of the Church,\nto make the reasonableness of Christ a living possession of the modern\nmind.\n\nSupreme in his character is that virtue Dr. Johnson observed and praised\nin a Duke of Devonshire--\"a dogged veracity.\"\n\n\n\n\nGENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH\n\n\nBOOTH, W. BRAMWELL, General of the Salvation Army since 1912; e.s. of\nlate General Booth; b. Halifax, 8 March, 1856; m. 5882, Florence\nEleanor; two s. four d. Educ.: Privately. Commenced public work 1874;\nChairman of the S.A. Life Assurance Society and the Reliance Bank; Chief\nof Staff, Salvation Army, 1880-1912. Publications: _Books that Bless;\nOur Master; Servants of All; Social Reparation; On the Banks of the\nRiver; Bible Battle-Axes; Life and Religion;_ and various pamphlets on\nSocial and Religious Subjects.\n\n[Illustration: GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nGENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH\n\n\n     . . . _for the generality of men, the attempt to live such a life\n     would be a fatal mistake; it would narrow instead of widening their\n     minds, it would harden instead of softening their hearts. Indeed,\n     the effort \"thus to go beyond themselves, and wind themselves too\n     high,\" might even be followed by reaction to a life more profane\n     and self-indulgent than that of the world in general._--EDWARD\n     CAIRD.\n\n\nBecause General Booth wears a uniform he commands the public curiosity;\nbut because of that curiosity the public perhaps misses his considerable\nabilities and his singular attraction. His worst enemy is his frogged\ncoat. Attention is diverted from his head to his epaulettes. He\ndeserves, I am convinced, a more intelligent inquisitiveness.\n\nTo begin with, he is to be regarded as the original founder of that\nremarkable and truly catholic body of Christians known as the Salvation\nArmy. His picturesque father and his wonderful mother were the humanity\nof that movement, but their son was its first impulse of spiritual\nfanaticism. The father was the dramatic \"showman\" of this movement, the\nson its fire. The mother endowed it with the energy of a deep and\ntender emotion, the son provided it with machinery.\n\nIt was Mr. Bramwell Booth, with his young friend Mr. Railton abetting\nhim, who, discontented with the dullness and conservatism of the\nChristian Mission, drove the Reverend William Booth, an ex-Methodist\nminister preaching repentance in the slums, to fling restraint of every\nkind to the winds and to go in for religion as if it were indeed the\nonly thing in the world that counted. William Booth at that time was\nforty-nine years of age.\n\nAgain, it was Mr. Bramwell Booth, working behind the scenes and pulling\nall the strings, who edged his father away from concluding an alliance\nwith the Church of England in the early eighties. Archbishop Benson was\nanxious to conclude that alliance, on terms. The terms did not seem\naltogether onerous to the old General, who was rather fond of meeting\ndignitaries. But Mr. Bramwell Booth would hear of no concession which\nweakened the Army's authority in the slums, and which would also\neventually weaken its authority in the world. He refused to acknowledge\nany service or rite of the Church as _essential_ to the salvation of\nmen. If the Lord's Supper were essential the Army would have it; but the\nArmy had proved that no other power was necessary to the working of\nmiracles in the souls of men beyond the direct mercy of God acting on\nthe centre of true penitence. He was the uncompromising protagonist of\nconversion, and his father came to agree with him.\n\nNeither the old General nor his inspired wife, admirable as revivalists,\nhad the true fire of fanaticism in their blood. They were too\nwarm-hearted. That strange unearthly fire burns only to its whitest\nheat, perhaps, in veins which are cold and minds which are hard. It does\nnot easily make its home in benevolent and philanthropic natures,\ncertainly never in purely sentimental natures. I think its opening is\nmade not by love but by hatred. A man may love God with all his heart,\nall his mind, and all his soul, without feeling the spur of fanaticism\nin his blood. But let him hate sin with only a part of his heart, mind,\nand soul, and he becomes a fanatic. His hatred will grow till it\nconsumes his whole being.\n\nOne need not be long in the company of General Bramwell Booth to\ndiscover that he has two distinct and separate manners, and that neither\nexpresses the whole truth of his rational life. At one moment he is full\nof cheerful good sense, the very incarnation of jocular heartiness, a\nbluff, laughing, rallying, chafing, and tolerant good fellow,\noverflowing with the milk of human kindness, oozing with the honey of\nsocial sweetness. At the next moment, however, the voice sinks suddenly\nto the key of what Father Knox, I am afraid, would call\nunctimoniousness, the eyelids flutter like the wings of a butterfly, the\nwhole plump pendulous face appears to vibrate with emotion, the body\nbecomes stiff with feeling, the lips depressed with tragedy, and the\ndark eyes shine with the suppressed tears of an unimaginable pathos.\n\nIn both of these moments there is no pretence. The two manners represent\ntwo genuine aspects of his soul in its commerce with mankind. He\nbelieves that the world likes to be clapped on the shoulder, to be\nrallied on its manifest inconsistencies, and to have its hand wrung with\na real heartiness. Also he believes that the heart of the world is\nsentimental, and that an authentic appeal in that quarter may lead to\nfriendship--a friendship which, in its turn, may lead to business.\nBusiness is the true end of all his heartiness.\n\nIt is in his business manner that one gets nearer to the innermost\nsecret of his nature. He is before everything else a superb man of\nbusiness, far-seeing, practical, hard-headed, an organiser of victory, a\nstatesman of the human soul. You cannot speak to him in this practical\nsphere without feeling that he is a man of the most unusual ability.\n\nHe can outline a complicated scheme with a precision and an economy of\nwords which, he makes you feel, is a tribute to your perspicacity rather\nthan a demonstration of his own powers of exposition. He comes quicker\nto the point than nine men of business out of ten. And he sticks to the\nmain point with a tenacity which might be envied by every industrial\nmagnate in the country.\n\nMoreover, when it comes to your turn to speak he listens with the whole\nof his attention strung up to its highest pitch, his eyes wide open\nstaring at you, his mouth pursed up into a little O of suction, his\nfingers pressing to his ear the receiver of a machine which overcomes\nhis deafness, his whole body leaning half across the table in his\neagerness to hear every word you say.\n\nNo sentiment shows in his face, no emotion sounds in his voice. He is\npure mind, a practical mind taut with attention. If he have occasion in\nthese moments to ring the bell for an adjutant or a colonel, that\nofficial is addressed with the brevity and directness of a manager\ngiving an order to his typist. Instead of a text over his mantelpiece\none might expect to find the commercial legend, \"Business Is Business.\"\n\nHere, as I have said, one is nearer to the truth of his nature, for\nGeneral Booth is an organiser who loves organisation, a diplomatist who\ndelights in measuring his intelligence against the recalcitrance of\nmankind, a general who finds a deep satisfaction of soul in moving\nmasses of men to achieve the purpose of his own design.\n\nBut even here one is not at the innermost secret of this extraordinary\nman's nature.\n\nAt the back of everything, I am convinced, is the cold and commanding\nintensity of a really great fanatic. He believes as no little child\nbelieves in God and Satan, Heaven and Hell, and the eternal conflict of\nGod and Evil. He believes, too, as few priests of orthodox churches\nbelieve, that a man must in very truth be born again before he can\ninherit the Kingdom of Heaven; that is to say, before he can escape the\nunimaginable agonies of an eternal dismissal from the Presence of God.\nBut more than anything else he believes that sin is hateful; a monstrous\nperversion to be attacked with all the fury of a good man's soul.\n\nThere is violence in his mind and violence in his religion. He believes\nin fighting the devil, and he delights in fighting him. I will not say\nthat there is more joy at Salvation Army Headquarters over one poor\nmiserable brand plucked from the burning than over ninety and nine\ncheques from wealthy subscribers; but I am perfectly confident that the\npleasure experienced at the sight of all those welcome cheques has its\nrise in the knowledge that money is power--power to fight the devil.\n\nNo man of my knowledge is so strangely blended as this genius of\nSalvation Army organisation. For although he is first and foremost a\ncalm statesman of religious fervour, cool-headed, clear-eyed, and\ndeliberative, a man profoundly inspired by hatred of evil, yet there are\nmoments in his life of almost superhuman energy when the whole structure\nof his mind seems to give way, and the spirit appears like a child lost\nin a dark wood and almost paralysed with fear. Not seldom he was in his\nfather's arms sobbing over the sufferings of humanity and the hardness\nof the world's heart, mingling his tears with his father's. Often in\nthese late days he is in sore need of Mrs. Bramwell Booth's\nlevel-headed good sense to restore his exhausted emotions. And\noccasionally, like Lord Northcliffe, it is wise for him to get away from\nthe Machine altogether, to travel far across the world or to rest in a\ncottage by the sea, waiting for a return of the energy which consumes\nhim and yet keeps him alive.\n\nIt is possible to think that this formidable apostle of conversion is\nhimself a divided self. His house of clay, one might almost suggest, is\noccupied by two tenants, one of whom would weep over sinners, while the\nother can serve God only by cudgelling the Devil back to hell with\nimprecations of a rich and florid nature. This stronger self, because of\nits cudgel, is in command of the situation, but the whimpering of the\nother is not to be stilled by blows which, however hearty and\ndevastating, have not yet brought the devil to his knees.\n\nIt is interesting to sit in conversation with this devoted disciple of\nevangelicalism, and occasionally to lift one's eyes from his face to the\nportrait of his mother which hangs above his head. The two faces are\nalmost identical, hauntingly identical; so much so that one comes to\nregard the coachman-like whiskers clapped to the General's cheeks as in\nthe nature of a disguise, thinking of him as his mother's eldest\ndaughter rather than as his father's eldest son. There is certainly\nnothing about him which suggests the old General, and his mind is much\nmore the mind of his mother--one of the most remarkable women in the\nworld's history--than the mind of his father.\n\nCatherine Booth was a zealot and at the heart of her theology a hard\nzealot. She believed that the physical agony of disease was a part of\nGod's discipline, and that humanity is called upon to bear that fierce\nfire for the purification of its wicked spirit. She never flinched in\nconfronting the theology of Methodism. She was in practice the tenderest\nof women, the most compassionate of missionaries, the most persuasive\norator of the emotions in her day; but in theory she was as hard as\nsteel.\n\nHer husband, on the other hand, who threw Jehovah's thunderbolts across\nthe world as if he liked them, and approved of them, and was ready for\nany further number of these celestial missiles, of an even vaster\ndisplacement, was in his heart of hearts a wistful believer in\neverlasting mercy. Few men have been born with a softer heart. He\nsometimes wondered whether in framing the Regulations of the Salvation\nArmy he had not pressed too hard on human nature. To the horrified\nscandal of his son, he even came to question, if only for a passing\nmoment, the ordinance which forbids tobacco to the Salvationist.\n\nHe used to say in his old age, ruminating over the past, \"Our standard\nis high. Our demand is hard; aye, very hard. Yes, we don't mince matters\nin soul-saving. We demand the whole of a man, not a little bit of him,\nor three-fourths of him, or two-thirds of him; we demand every drop of\nhis blood and every beat of his heart and every thought of his brain.\nYes, it's a hard discipline--hard because the standard is so high. I\nhope it is not too hard.\"\n\nHis son has never once, so far as my knowledge goes, questioned even the\nextremest of Salvation Army Regulations. The more extreme they are, the\nmore they please him. It is one of his many good sayings that you cannot\nmake a man clean by washing his shirt. His scrubbing brush is apt, I\nthink, to remove some of the skin with the dirt. He believes without\nquestion that the only human test of conversion is the uttermost\nwillingness of the soul to be spent in the service of soul-saving. If a\nman wishes to keep anything back from God, his heart is not given to\nGod. He is no emotionalist in this matter. He uses emotion to break down\nthe resistance of a sinner, but when once the surrender is made reason\ntakes command of the illumined soul. He was asked on one occasion if he\ndid not regard emotion as a dangerous thing. \"Not when it is organised,\"\nwas his reply.\n\nThe only concession he seems willing to make to the critics of the\nSalvation Army is in the matter of its hymns. He confesses that some of\nthose hymns are crude and unlovely; but examine this confession and you\nfind that it is only the language which causes him uneasiness. Approach\nhim on the subject of dogma, the dogma crudely expressed but truthfully\nexpressed in the worst of those hymns, and he is as hard as Bishop Gore\nor Father Knox.\n\nHe has been too busy, I think, to hear even a whisper from the field of\nmodernism, though exaggerated rumours of what is taking place in that\nfield must occasionally reach his ear and confirm him in his\nobscurantism.\n\nPerhaps it is all to the good that he should be thus wholly uninterested\nin the speculations of the trained theologian. He has other work to do,\nand work of great importance, with few rivals and no helpers. By the\nmachine which he controls so admirably, men and women all over the\nworld, and usually in the darkest places of the world, are turned from\nliving disastrous lives, lives which too often involve the suffering of\nchildren, and encouraged and braced up to lead lives of great beauty and\nan extreme of self-sacrifice.\n\nHe does well, I think, to stick with the unwavering and uncompromising\ntenacity of a fanatic to that centre of the Christian religion from\nwhich was derived in the first two centuries of its great history almost\nall impetus which enabled it to escape from Judaism and conquer the\nworld. It is still true, and I suppose it will remain true to the end of\ntime, that man born of a woman must be born again of the spirit if he is\nto pass from darkness into light. This, after all, is the whole thesis\nof Salvationism, and if General Booth wavered here the Army would be\nscattered to the winds. As for his definitions of light and darkness, at\nthis stage of the world's journey we need not be too nice in our\nacceptance of them.\n\nBut there remains the important question of Salvation Army methods.\n\nIt seems to me that here a change is desirable, not a radical change,\nfor many of those methods are admirable enough, particularly those of\nwhich the public too seldom hears, but a change all the same, and one\ndeep enough to create fresh sympathy for this devoted movement of\nevangelical Christianity.\n\nI think it is time to stop praying and preaching at street corners, to\nmitigate the more brazen sounds of the Army band, and to discountenance\nall colloquialisms in Salvationist propaganda. I do not wish, God\nforbid, to make the Army respectable; I wish it to remain exactly where\nit is--but with a greater quietness and a deeper, more personal sympathy\nin its appeal to the sad and the sorrowful.\n\nGeneral Booth is not the man to make these changes, but his wife is a\nwoman who might. In any case they will be made. Time will bring them\nabout. Then it will be seen, I think, that the Salvation Army is one of\nthe most powerful agencies in the world for spreading the good news of\npersonal religion among the depressed millions of the human race. For\neven at this present time the lasting work of the Salvationist, the work\nwhich makes him so noble and so useful a figure in the modern world, is\nnot accomplished by pageantry and tub-thumping, but by the intimate,\noften most beautiful, and very little known work of its slum officers,\nparticularly the women.\n\nFinally, concerning the General, he is in himself a telling witness to\none of the mysterious powers of the Christian religion. For he is surely\nby temperament one of the most unstable of minds, and yet by the power\nof religion he has become a coherent personality of almost rigid\nsingleness of purpose. In conversation with him one cannot help feeling\nthat he is jumpy and excitable; every movement of his extremely mobile\nface suggests a soul of gutta-percha stretched in all directions by the\nmovements of his brain, and twitching with every thought that crosses\nhis mind; but at the same time one is aware in him of a power which is\nnever deflected by a hair's breadth from the path of a single purpose,\nand which holds him together with a strength that may be weakened but\nthat can never be broken.\n\nHis supreme value for the student of religion is to be found in the\nexplanation of this unifying power. In spite of intellectual\nshortcomings which might seem almost to exclude him from the serious\nattention of educated people, he stands out with a marked emphasis from\nthe company of far abler men by reason of this power--this sense of\nunusual vigour and abnormal concentration of strength. And the\nexplanation of this power, which unifies an otherwise incoherent\npersonality, is to be found, I am quite confident, in his burning hatred\nof iniquity.\n\nAs a boy, like the poet Gray and the late Lord Salisbury, he suffered a\ngood deal of bullying, and thus learned at school something beyond the\nreach of the Latin Grammar, namely, the brutality of human nature. He\nhas never forgotten that discovery. Indeed, his after-life has widened\nand intensified that early lesson. Sin is brutality. It is selfishness\nseeking its low pleasure and its base delight in vilest self-indulgence\ninvolving the suffering of others, sometimes their profoundest\ndegradation, even their absolute destruction. Particularly did he\nexperience this burning conviction when he came to understand the\nwell-nigh inconceivable brutality of sexual vice. I believe that it was\na poor harlot in the slums of London who first opened for him the door\nof fanaticism.\n\nHe had longed as a schoolboy to hit back at his tyrants, and now in the\ndawn of manhood that long repression made its weight felt in the blows\nhe showered on the face of evil. For a year or two he was a wild man of\nevangelicalism, leading attacks on evil, challenging public attention,\nseeking imprisonment, courting martyrdom. It was from the flaming\nindignation of his soul that Mr. Stead took fire, and led a crusade\nagainst impurity which shocked the conscience of the eighties. But so\ndeep and eternal was this hatred of evil, that General Booth soon came\nto see that he must express it in some manner which would outlive the\nheady moments of a \"lightning campaign.\" He settled down to express that\nprofound abhorrence of iniquity in terms of organisation. Tares might be\ntorn suddenly from the human heart, but not the root of evil. If he\ncould not kill the devil, at least he could circumvent him.\n\nSuch intense hatred of evil as still consumes his being is not popular\nin these days, and may perhaps be regarded as irrational. But we should\ndo well to remind ourselves that while those who regard evil merely as a\nvestigial memory of human evolution do little or nothing to check its\nravages, men like General Booth, and the men and women inspired by his\nabhorrence, save every year from physical and moral destruction\nthousands of unhappy people who become at once the apostles of an\nextreme goodness.\n\nSuch evidences of mediocrity as exist in the Salvationist are purely\nintellectual; morally and spiritually he is in the advance guard of the\nhuman race.\n\n\n\n\nDR. W.E. ORCHARD\n\nORCHARD, Rev. WILLIAM EDWIN, Minister of the King's Weigh House Church,\nDuke Street, W., since 1914; b. 20 Nov., 1887; e.s. of John Orchard,\nRugby; m. 1904, Anna Maria (d. 1920), widow of Rev. Ellis Hewitt of\nAldershot. Educ.: Board School; private tuition; Westminster College,\nCambridge. Ordained, Enfield, 1904, B.D., London, 1905; D.D., London,\n1909.\n\n[Illustration: DR. W.E. ORCHARD]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nDR. W.E. ORCHARD\n\n     _O, you poor creatures in the large cities of wide-world politics,\n     you young, gifted, ambition-tormented men, who consider it your\n     duty to give your opinion on everything that occurs; who, by thus\n     raising dust and noise, mistake yourselves for the chariot of\n     history; who, being always on the look-out for an opportunity to\n     put in a word or two, lose all true productiveness. However\n     desirous you may be of doing great deeds, the profound silence of\n     pregnancy never comes to you. The event of the day sweeps you along\n     like chaff, while you fancy that you are chasing it_.--NIETZSCHE.\n\n\nUntil quite the other day I looked upon Dr. Orchard as a person unique\nin his generation. But I am now told by an authority in the\nnonconformist world that there are \"two others of him\"--one, I think, in\nBirmingham, the second in Clapham.\n\nI am still permitted to think, however, that to Dr. Orchard belongs the\ndistinction of being the first person of this erratic trinity, and\ntherefore we may still regard him with that measure of curiosity which\nis the tribute paid by simple people to the eccentric and the abnormal.\n\nBut let me warn the reader against expectations of an original genius.\nDr. Orchard does not create; he copies. His innovations are all made\nafter visits to the lumber-room. It is by going back such a long\ndistance into the past that he startles, and by coming round full circle\nthat he appears to surprise the future.\n\nBut where originality is rare, eccentricity must not be discounted.\n\nDr. Orchard is a ritualist in the midst of nonconformity; the first Free\nChurchman, I believe, to entertain exalted ceremonial aspirations, and\nto kneel for his orders at the feet of an orthodox bishop. One might\nalmost hazard the conjecture that he remains in the Congregationalist\nCommunion, as so many Anglo-Catholics remain in the Establishment,\nsolely to supply the fermentation of an idea which will shatter its\npresent constitution. One thinks of him as a repentant Cromwell\nrestoring \"that bauble\" to its accustomed place on the table of\ntradition.\n\nIn his heart of hearts he would appear to be a fervent institutionalist,\na lover of ceremonial, and a convinced sacerdotalist. To hear him use\nthe word Catholic is to make one understand how the Church of Rome\ndazzles certain eyes, and to hear him claim that he is in the\napostolical succession is to make one realise afresh how broad is the\nway of credulity.\n\nOne may understand his dislike of the hideous and pretentious\narchitecture which disgraces non-conformity, and sympathise with his\ndesire for more beautiful services in nonconformist chapels; but it is\nnot so easy, while he remains a nonconformist, to understand, or to\nfeel any considerable degree of sympathy with, his tendency towards\npractices which are the very antithesis of the nonconformist tradition.\n\nAll the same he is a person of whom we should do well to take at least a\npassing notice, for he witnesses, however extravagantly, to a movement\nin the Free Churches which is not likely to lose momentum with the next\nfew years--a movement not only away from sectarian isolation but towards\nthe idea of one catholic and apostolic Church. There is certainly unrest\nin the Free Churches, and Dr. Orchard is a straw which helps us to\nunderstand if not the permanent direction of the wind, at least the fact\nthat there is a breeze blowing in the fields of religious freedom.\n\nNot long ago I asked one of the greatest figures in the Anglican Church\nwhat he thought of Dr. Orchard. He replied by raising his eyebrows and\nexclaiming rather disdainfully: \"A ritualistic Dissenter! What is it\npossible to think of him?\" I said that he attracted a good many people\nto his services in the King's Weigh House Church, and that I had heard\nMrs. Asquith was sometimes a member of his congregation. \"_That_,\"\nanswered the dignitary, \"would not make me think any higher of Dr.\nOrchard.\"\n\nFor many people, it must be confessed, he is a slightly ludicrous\nfigure. He presents the spectacle of a sparrow stretching its wings and\nopening its beak to imitate the eagle of catholic lecterns. And he has a\nsingularly nettling manner with some people which must add, I should\nthink, to this unpopularity. He seems sweepingly satisfied with himself\nand his opinions, which are mostly of a challenging nature. He does not\ndiscuss but attempts to browbeat. His voice is an argument, and the\nexpression on his face and the fire in his eyes suggest the street\ncorner. He would have greatly distressed a man like Matthew Arnold, for\nthe only method against such didactics is to send for the boxing gloves.\n\nAll the same he is a man of no little force, perhaps a scattered and\ndispersed force, as I am inclined to think; and he is a fighter whose\nblows, if not a teacher whose opinions, are more worthy of attention\nthan his sacerdotal pretensions might lead one to suppose.\n\nIn appearance he may be compared with Dr. Clifford, but Dr. Clifford\nreduced to youthfulness and multiplied by an infinite cocksureness; a\nsmall, eager, sandy-haired, clean-shaven, boyish-looking man, with\nlight-coloured eyes behind shining spectacles, the head craning forward,\nthe body elastic and restless with inexhaustible energy, the whole of\nhim--body, mind, and spirit--tremulous with a jerkiness of being which\nseems to have no effect whatever on his powers of endurance.\n\nOne misses in him all feeling, all tone, of mellowness. His mind, at\npresent, shows no lightest, trace of the hallowing marks of time; it\nsuggests rather the very architecture he takes so savage a pleasure in\ndenouncing--a kind of mock Gothic mind, an Early Doulton personality.\nHe has a thin voice, rather husky, and a recent accent.\n\nIn his most vigorous moments, when he is bubbling over with epigrams and\nparadoxes, ridiculing the dull people who do not agree with him, and\nlaughing to scorn those who think they can maintain the Christian spirit\noutside the mysterious traditions of the Catholic Church, or when he is\ndescribing a recent church as a Blancmange Cathedral, and paraphrasing\nan account, given I think by Mr. James Douglas, of the building of a\ncertain tabernacle in London--first it started out to be a Jam Factory,\nthen a happy idea occurred to the builder that he should turn it into a\nWaterworks, then the foreman suggested that it would make an ideal\nswimming-bath, but finally the architect came on the scene and said,\n\"Here, half a minute; there's an alteration wanted here; we're going to\nmake it into a church\"--at such moments, Dr. Orchard might be likened to\na duo-decimo Chesterton--but a Chesterton of nonconformity. For he is a\nlittle crude, a little recent; a mind without mellowness, a spirit\nwithout beauty, a soul which feeds upon aggression.\n\nHe makes an amusing figure with a black cloak wrapped round his little\nbody in Byronic folds, and a soft hat of black plush on his head, a\nVesta Tilley quickness informing both his movements and his speech, as\nhe nips forward in conversation with a friend, the arms, invisible\nbeneath their cloak, pressed down in front of him, his body leaning\nforward, his peering eyes dancing behind their spectacles.\n\nNevertheless, those who most find him only amusing or worse still\nthoroughly dislikeable, who are antipathetic to the whole man, and who\nthus cannot come at the secret of his influence, must confess that there\nis nothing about him either of the smooth and oily or of the adroit and\ncompromising. He is the last man on earth to be called an opportunist.\nThis is in his favour. His aggressiveness must put all but the toughest\nagainst him. He is tremendously in earnest. It would be difficult I\nthink to exceed his sincerity.\n\nBut not to mind whose toes one may tread on is hardly in the style of\nSt. Francis; and, after all, it is possible to be tremendously earnest\nabout wrong things, and consumingly sincere in matters which are not\nperhaps definitely certain to advance the higher life of the human race.\nHumility is always safest; indeed, it is essential to all earnestness\nand sincerity, if those energies are not to repel as many as they\nattract.\n\nDr. Orchard's manner, which can be extraordinarily nettling in\nconversation, as I have suggested, is evidently of a very soothing\ncharacter in the confessional--if that is the proper term. He has a\nremarkable following among women, and it is said that \"if he put a brass\nplate on his door and charged five guineas a time\" he might be one of\nthe richest mind-doctors in London. He himself declares that his real\nwork is almost entirely personal. I have heard him speak with some\ncontempt of preaching, quoting the witticism of a friend that \"Anglican\npreaching is much worse than it really need be,\" or words to that\neffect. He likes ceremonial and private confidence. He has the instincts\nof a priest.\n\nHis patients appear to be the wreckage of psychoanalysis. It is said\nthat \"half the neurotics of London\" consult him about their souls. I\nhave no idea of the manner in which he treats these unhappy people, but\nI am perfectly sure that he gives them counsel of a healthy nature.\nThere is nothing about him which suggests unwholesomeness, and much that\nsuggests sound strength and clean good sense. Also among his penitents\nare numerous shopgirls who have lost in the commercial struggle whatever\npiety they possessed in childhood and in their craving for excitement\nhave gone astray from the path of safe simplicity--gambling on horse\nraces and often getting into serious trouble by their losses. Dr.\nOrchard may be trusted to give these weak, rather than erring daughters\nof London, advice which would commend itself to the Free Church Council,\nfor with all his sacerdotal aberrations the basis of his moral life is\nrooted in Puritanism.\n\nIt is an entirely good thing that there should be a minister of religion\nin London who attracts people of this order, particularly a minister\nwhose moral notions are so eminently sane and so steadily\nuncompromising. London is stronger and less disreputable for Dr.\nOrchard's presence in its midst--no doubt a very vulgar, degrading, and\ntrivial midst, but all the same a great congestion of little people, one\nwhere the solemn note of the old morality sounds all too seldom across\nthe tinkle of bells in the caps of so many fools.\n\nThis moral influence, however, may appear questionable in the eyes of\nstrong-minded and unsentimental people. Would he exercise such personal\npower, it may be asked, if he were not regarded as a \"novelty,\" if the\neccentricity of his position in the nonconformist world had not so\nskilfully advertised him to a light and foolish generation ever ready to\nrun after what is new? Of an Anglican clergyman's popularity I have\nheard it said, \"Who could not fill a church with the help of the band of\nthe Grenadier Guards?\"\n\nI should not like to answer this question, and yet I do not like to pass\nit by. Antipathetic as I find myself to Dr. Orchard, it would not be\njust to imply that the power of his personal influence is not a great\none, and one of an entirely wholesome nature. It seems to me, then, that\nthe nature of that which attracts the unhappy to seek his counsel is of\nsmall moment in comparison with the extent and beneficence of his good\ncounsel. The fact that he does help people, does save many people from\nvery unhappy and dangerous situations, is a fact which gives him a title\nnot only to our respect, but to our gratitude.\n\nPerhaps it is his knowledge of all this petty misery and sordid\nunwholesomeness which makes him disposed at times, in spite of an almost\nrollicking temperament, to take dismal and despairing views of the\nreligious future.\n\nI have heard him say with some bitterness that people do not know what\nChristianity is, that it has been so misrepresented to them, and so\nmixed up with the quarrels of sectarianism, that the heart of it is\nreally non-existent for the multitude. He speaks with impatience of the\nnonconformist churches and with contempt of the Anglican church. We are\nall wrong together. Organised religion, he feels, is hanging over the\nabyss of destruction, while the nation looks on with an indifference\nwhich should complete its self-contempt.\n\nHis quarrel, however, is not only with the churches, but with the nation\nas well. He regards the system under which we live as thoroughly\nunchristian. It is the system of mammon--a system of frank, brutal, and\ninsolent materialism. Why do we put up with it?\n\nHis religious sense is so outraged by this system of economic\nindividualism that he bursts out with irritable impatience against those\nwho speak of infusing into it a more Christian spirit. For him the whole\nbody of our industrialism is rotten with selfishness and covetousness,\nthe high note of service entirely absent from it, the one energy which\ninforms it the energy of aggressive self-seeking. Such a system cannot\nbe patched. It is anti-Christian. It should be smashed.\n\nHe plunges into economics with a good deal of vigour, but I do not think\nhe has thought out to its logical conclusion his thesis of guild\nsocialism. Perhaps his tone is here more vehement than his knowledge of\na notoriously difficult science altogether justifies.\n\nHe opposes himself to the evolutionary philosophy of the nineteenth\ncentury, and is ready to defend the idea of a Fall of Man. His\ncontribution to theology is a quibble. The old dogmas are to stand: only\nthe language is to be adjusted to the modern intelligence. You may\npicture him with drawn sword--a sword tempered in inquisitorial\nfires--standing guard over his quibble and ready to defend it with his\nspiritual life.\n\nHis opinions are apt to place him among minorities. He was against the\nWar, and during that long-drawn agony attracted to himself the mild\nattention of the authorities. I believe he likened the great struggle to\na battle between Sodom and Gomorrah. However, he was careful not to go\nso far as Mr. Bertrand Russell. As he himself says, \"I don't mind dying\nfor Jesus Christ, but not for making a silly ass of myself.\"\n\nHe occasionally writes reviews for _The Nation_, and has published a\nnumber of uneventful books. His writing is not distinguished or\nilluminating. With a pen in his hand he loses all his natural force. He\nwrites, I think, as one who feels that he is wasting time. Like Mr.\nWinston Churchill, he diverts his leisure with a paintbrush.\n\nOne is disposed to judge that the mind of this very fiery particle is\ntoo busy with side-issues to make acquaintance with the deeper mysteries\nof his religion. When he complains that people do not know what\nChristianity is, one wonders whether his own definition would satisfy\nthe saints. He is a fighter rather than a teacher, a man of action\nrather than a seer. I do not think he could be happy in a world which\npresented him with no opportunities for punching heads.\n\nMatthew Arnold, quoting from _The Times_ a sentence to the effect that\nthe chief Dissenting ministers are becoming quite the intellectual\nequals of the ablest of the clergy, referred it to the famous Dr. Dale\nof Birmingham, and remarked: \"I have no fears concerning Mr. Dale's\nintellectual muscles; what I am a little uneasy about is his religious\ntemper. The essence of religion is grace and peace.\"\n\nBut Dr. Orchard, we must not fail to see, is quite genuinely exasperated\nby the deadness of religious life, and is straining every nerve to\nquicken the soul of Christ's sleeping Church. This discontent of his is\nan important symptom, even if his prescription, a very old one, gives no\nhope of a cure. He is popular, influential, a figure of the day, and\nstill young; yet his soul is full of rebellion and his heart is swelling\nwith the passion of mutiny. Something is evidently not right. Quite\ncertainly he has not discovered the peace that passes understanding.\n\nBut perhaps Dr. Orchard will never be satisfied till all men think as he\nthinks, and until there is only one Church in the world for the\nexpression of spiritual life, with either Bishop Herford or himself for\nits pope.\n\nIn the meantime he is too busy for the profound silence. The event of\nthe day sweeps him before it.\n\n\n\n\nBISHOP TEMPLE\n\nManchester, Bishop of, since 1921; Temple, Rev. William, M.A.; D. Litt.;\nPresident Life and Liberty Movement; Canon Residentiary of Westminister,\n1919-21; Editor of _The Challenge_, 1915-18; Hon. Chaplain to the King,\n1915; b. The Palace, Exeter, 15 Oct., 1881; s. of Late Archbishop of\nCanterbury; in. 1916, Frances Gertrude Acland, y.d. of F.H. Anson, 72\nSt. George's Square, S.W. Educ.: Rugby (Scholar); Balliol College,\nOxford (Exhibitioner) First class Classical Mods., 1902; 1st class Lit.\nHum., 1904; President Oxford Union, 1904; Fellow and Lecturer in\nPhilosophy, Queen's College, Oxford, 1904-1910; Deacon, 1908; Priest,\n1909; Chaplain to Archbishop of Canterbury, 1910; President of the\nWorkers Educational Association; Headmaster, Repton School, 1910-14;\nRector of St. James's Piccadilly, 1914-18.\n\n\n[Illustration: BISHOP TEMPLE]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nBISHOP TEMPLE\n\n     . . . _faint, pale, embarrassed, exquisite Pater! He reminds me, in\n     the disturbed midnight of our actual literature, of one of those\n     lucent match-boxes which you place, on going to bed, near the\n     candle, to show you, in the darkness, where you can strike a light:\n     he shines in the uneasy gloom--vaguely, and has a phosphorescence,\n     not a flame. But I quite agree with you that he is not of the\n     little day--but of the longer time_.--HENRY JAMES.\n\n\nThe future of Bishop Temple is of more importance to the Church than to\nhimself. He is one of those solid and outstanding men whose decisions\naffect a multitude, a man to whom many look with a confidence which he\nhimself, perhaps, may never experience.\n\nHe cannot, I think, be wholly unaware of this consideration in forming\nhis judgments, and I attribute, rather to a keen and weighty sense of\ngreat responsibility than to any lack of vital courage, his increasing\ntendency towards the Catholic position. One begins to think that he is\nlikely to disappoint many of those who once regarded him as the future\nstatesman of a Christianity somewhat less embarrassed by\ninstitutionalism.\n\nIt is probable, one fears, that he may conclude at Lambeth a career in\ntheology comparable with that of Mr. Winston Churchill in politics. Born\nin the ecclesiastical purple he may return to it, bringing with him only\nthe sheaves of an already mouldering orthodoxy.\n\nOn one ground, however, there is hope that he may yet shine in our\nuneasy gloom with something more effective than the glow of\nphosphorescence. He is devoted heart and soul to Labour. Events, then,\nmay drive him out of his present course, and urge him towards a future\nof signal usefulness; for Labour is a force which waits upon\ncontingency, and moves as the wind moves--now softly, then harshly, now\ngently, then with great violence. Those who go with Labour are not like\ntravellers in the Tory coach or the Liberal tram; they are like\npassengers in a balloon.\n\nI do not mean that Bishop Temple will ever be so far swept out of his\ncourse as to find himself among the revolutionaries; he carries too much\nweight for that, is, indeed, too solid a man altogether for any lunatic\nflights to the moon; I mean, rather, that where the more reasonable\nleaders of Labour are compelled to go by the force of political and\nindustrial events, William Temple is likely to find that he himself is\nalso expected, nay, but obliged to go, and very easily that may be a\nsituation from which the Lollard Tower of Lambeth Palace will appear\nrather romantically if not altogether hopelessly remote.\n\nHis career, then, like Mr. Winston Churchill's in politics, is still an\nopen event and therefore a matter for interesting speculation. This\nfair-haired, fresh-faced, and boylike Bishop of Manchester, smiling at\nus behind his spectacles, the square head very upright, the broad\nshoulders well back, the whole short stocky figure like a rock,\nconfronts us with something of the challenge of the Sphinx.\n\nOne of the chief modernists said to me the other day: \"Temple is the\nmost dangerous man in the Church of England. He is not only a socialist,\nhe is also Gore's captive, bow and spear.\" But another, by no means an\nAnglo-Catholic, corrected this judgment. \"Temple,\" said he, \"is not yet\nhopelessly Catholic. He has, indeed, attracted to himself by his\nChristlike attitude towards Nonconformists the inconvenient attentions\nof that remarkable person the Bishop of Zanzibar. His sympathies with\nLabour, which are the core of his being, are sufficient reason for\n----'s mistrust of him. I do not at all regard him as dangerous. On the\ncontrary, I think he is one of the most interesting men in the Church,\nand also, which is far more important, one of its most promising\nleaders.\"\n\nSo many men, so many opinions. Strangely enough it is from an\nAnglo-Catholic who is also a Labour enthusiast that I hear the fiercest\nand most uncompromising criticism of this young Bishop of Manchester.\n\n\"All his successes have been failures. He went to Repton with a\ntremendous reputation; did nothing; went to St. James's, Piccadilly, as\na man who would set the Thames on fire, failed, and went to Westminster\nwith a heightened reputation; left it for the Life and Liberty\nMovement, which has done nothing, and then on to Manchester as the\nfuture Archbishop of Canterbury. What has he done? What has he ever\ndone?\n\n\"He can't stick at anything; certainly he can't stick at his job--always\nhe must be doing something else. I don't regard him as a reformer. I\nregard him as a talker. He has no strength. Sometimes I think he has no\nheart. Intellectual, yes; but intellectual without pluck. I don't know\nhow his brain works. I give that up. I agree, he joined the Labour\nmovement before he was ordained. There I think he is sincere, perhaps\ndevoted. But is there any heart in his devotion? Do the poor love him?\nDo the Labour leaders hail him as a leader? I don't think so. Perhaps\nI'm prejudiced. Whenever I go to see him, he gives me the impression\nthat he has got his watch in his hand or his eye on the clock. An\ninhuman sort of person--no warmth, no sympathy, not one tiniest touch of\ntenderness in his whole nature. No. Willie Temple is the very man the\nChurch of England _doesn't_ want.\"\n\nFinally, one of those men in the Anglo-Catholic Party to whom Dr. Temple\nlooks up with reverence and devotion, said to me in the midst of\ngenerous laudation: \"His trouble is that he doesn't concentrate. He is\ninclined to leave the main thing. But I hear he is really concentrating\non his work at Manchester, and therefore I have hopes that he will\njustify the confidence of his friends. He is certainly a very able man,\nvery; there can be no question of that.\"\n\nIt will be best, I think, to glance first of all at this question of\nability.\n\nDr. Temple has a notable gift of rapid statement and pellucid\nexposition. One doubts if many theologians in the whole course of\nChristian history have covered more ground more trippingly than Dr.\nTemple covers in two little books called _The Faith and Modern Thought_,\nand _The Kingdom of God_. His wonderful powers of succinct statement may\nperhaps give the impression of shallowness; but this is an entirely\nfalse impression--no impression could indeed be wider of the mark. His\nlearning, though not so wide as Dean Inge's, nor so specialised as the\nlearning of Canon Barnes, is nevertheless true learning, and learning\nwhich has been close woven into the fabric of his intellectual life.\nThere are but few men in the Church of England who have a stronger grip\non knowledge; and very few, if any at all, who can more clearly and\nvividly express in simple language the profoundest truths of religion\nand philosophy.\n\nIn order to show his quality I will endeavour to summarise his arguments\nfor the Existence of God, with as many quotations from his writings as\nmy space will permit.\n\n\"It is not enough to prove,\" he says, \"that some sort of Being exists.\nIn the end, the only thing that matters is the character of that Being.\"\nBut how are we to set out on this quest since \"Science will not allow\nus a starting point at all\"?\n\nHe answers that question by carrying the war into the scientific camp,\nas he has a perfect right to do. \"Science makes one colossal assumption\nalways; science assumes that the world is rational in this sense, that\nwhen you have thought out thoroughly the implications of your\nexperience, the result is fact. . . . That is the basis of all science; it\nis a colossal assumption, but science cannot move one step without it.\"\n\n     Science begins with its demand that the world should be seen as\n     coherent; it insists on looking at it, on investigating it, till it\n     is so seen. As long as there is any phenomenon left out of the\n     systematic coherence that you have discovered, science is\n     discontented and insists that either the system is wrongly or\n     imperfectly conceived or else the facts have not been correctly\n     stated.\n\nThis demand for \"a coherent and comprehensive statement of the whole\nfield of fact\" comes solely from reason. How do we get it? We have no\nground in experience for insisting that the world shall be regarded as\nintelligent, as \"all hanging together and making up one system.\" But\nreason insists upon it. This gives us \"a kinship between the mind of man\nand the universe he lives in.\"\n\nNow, when man puts his great question to the universe, and to every\nphenomenon in that universe, _Why?_--Why is this what it is, what my\nreason recognises it to be? is he not in truth asking, What is this\nthing's purpose? What is it doing in the universe? What is its part in\nthe coherent system of all-things-together?\n\n     Now there is in our experience already one principle which does\n     answer the question \"Why?\" in such a way as to raise no further\n     questions; that is, the principle of Purpose. Let us take a very\n     simple illustration. Across many of the hills in Cumberland the way\n     from one village to another is marked by white stones placed at\n     short intervals. We may easily imagine a simple-minded person\n     asking how they came there, or what natural law could account for\n     their lying in that position; and the physical antecedents of the\n     fact--the geological history of the stones and the physiological\n     structure of the men who moved them--give no answer. As soon,\n     however, as we hear that men placed them so, to guide wayfarers in\n     the mist or in the night, our minds are satisfied.\n\nDr. Temple holds fast to that great word that infallible clue, Purpose.\nHe is not arguing from design. He keeps his feet firmly on scientific\nground, and asks, as a man of science asks, What is this? and Why is\nthis? Then he finds that this question can proceed only from faith in\ncoherence, and discovers that the quest of science is quest of Purpose.\n\nTo investigate Purpose is obviously to acknowledge Will.\n\n     Science requires, therefore, that there should be a real Purpose in\n     the world. . . . It appears from the investigation of science, from\n     investigation of the method of scientific procedure itself, that\n     there must be a Will in which the whole world is rooted and\n     grounded; and that we and all other things proceed therefrom;\n     because only so is there even a hope of attaining the intellectual\n     satisfaction for which science is a quest.\n\nReason is obliged to confess the hypothesis of a Creative Will, although\nit does not admit that man has in any way perceived it. But is this\nhypothesis, which is essential to science, to be left in the position of\nMahomet's coffin? Is it not to be investigated? For if atheism is\nirrational, agnosticism is not scientific--\"it is precisely a refusal to\napply the scientific method itself beyond a certain point, and that a\npoint at which there is no reason in heaven or earth to stop.\"\n\n     To speak about an immanent purpose is very good sense; but to speak\n     about a purpose behind which there is no Will is nonsense.\n\nPeople, he says, become so much occupied with the consideration of what\nthey know that they entirely forget \"the perfectly astounding fact that\nthey know it.\" Also they overlook or slur the tremendous fact of\nspiritual individuality; \"because I am I, I am not anybody else.\" But\nlet the individual address to himself the question he puts to the\nuniverse, let him investigate his own pressing sense of spiritual\nindividuality, just as he investigates any other natural phenomenon, and\nhe will find himself applying that principle of Purpose, and thinking of\nhimself in relation to the Creator's Will.\n\nIf there is Purpose in the universe there is Will; you cannot have\nPurpose or intelligent direction, without Will. But, as we have seen,\n\"to speak about an immanent will is nonsense\":\n\n     It is the purpose, the meaning and thought of God, that is immanent\n     not God Himself. He is not limited to the world that He has made;\n     He is beyond it, the source and ground of it all, but not it. Just\n     as you may say that in Shakespeare's work his thoughts and feelings\n     are immanent; you find them there in the book, but you don't find\n     Shakespeare, the living, thinking, acting man, in the book. You\n     have to infer the kind of being that he was from what he wrote; he\n     himself is not there; his thoughts are there.\n\nHe pronounces \"the most real of all problems,\" the problem of evil, to\nbe soluble. _Why is there no problem of good?_ Note well, that \"the\nproblem of evil is always a problem in terms of purpose.\" How evil came\ndoes not matter: the question is, Why is it here? What is it doing?\n\"While we are sitting at our ease it generally seems to us that the\nworld would be very much better if all evil were abolished. . . . But would\nit?\"\n\n     Surely we know that one of the best of the good things in life is\n     victory, and particularly moral victory. But to demand victory\n     without an antagonist is to demand something with no meaning.\n\n     If you take all the evil out of the world you will remove the\n     possibility of the best thing in life. That does not mean that evil\n     is good. What one means by calling a thing good is that the spirit\n     rests permanently content with it for its own sake. Evil is\n     precisely that with which no spirit can rest content; and yet it is\n     the condition, not the accidental but the essential condition, of\n     what is in and for itself the best thing in life, namely moral\n     victory.\n\nHis definition of Sin helps us to understand his politics:\n\n     Sin is the self-assertion either of a part of a man's nature\n     against the whole, or of a single member of the human family\n     against the welfare of that family and the will of its Father.\n\nBut if it is self-will, he asks, how is it to be overcome?\n\n     Not by any kind of force; for force cannot bend the will. Not by\n     any kind of external transaction; that may remit the penalty, but\n     will not of itself change the will. It must be by the revelation of\n     a love so intense that no heart which beats can remain indifferent\n     to it.\n\nAll this seems to me admirably said. It does at least show that there\nare clear, logical, and practical reasons for the religious hypothesis.\nThe mind of man, seeking to penetrate the physical mysteries of the\nuniverse, encounters Mind. Mind meets Mind. Reason recognises, if it\ndoes not always salute, Reason. And in this rational and evolving\nuniverse the will of man has a struggle with itself, a struggle on which\nman clearly sees the fortunes of his progress, both intellectual and\nspiritual, depend. Will recognises Will. And surveying the history of\nhis race he comes to a standstill of love and admiration before only one\nlife--\n\n     a life whose historic occurrence is amply demonstrated, whose moral\n     and spiritual pre-eminence consists in the completeness of\n     self-sacrifice, and whose inspiration for those who try to imitate\n     it is without parallel in human experience.\n\nLove recognises Love. \"I am the Light of the World.\"\n\nI will give a few brief quotations from Dr. Temple's pages showing how\nhe regards the revelation of the Creative Will made by Christ, Who \"in\nHis teaching and in His Life is the climax of human ethics.\"\n\n     Love, and the capacity to grow in love, is the whole secret.\n\n     The one thing demanded is always the power to grow. Growth and\n     progress in the spiritual life is the one thing Christ is always\n     demanding.\n\n     He took bread and said that it was His body; and He gave thanks for\n     it, He broke it, and He gave it to them and said, \"Do this in\n     remembrance of Me.\" . . . Do what? . . . The demand is nothing less\n     than this, that men should take their whole human life, and break\n     it, and give it for the good of others.\n\n     The growth in love, and the sacrifice which evokes that growth in\n     love, are, I would suggest the most precious things in life. Take\n     away the condition of this and you will destroy the value of the\n     spiritual world.\n\nOne may form, I think, a true judgment of the man from these few\nextracts.\n\nHe is one who could not move an inch without a thesis, and who moves\nonly by inches even when he has got his thesis. His intellect, I mean,\nis in charge of him from first to last. He feels deeply, not sharply. He\nloves truly, not passionately. With his thesis clear in his mind, he\ndraws his sword, salutes the universe, kneels at the cross, and then,\nwith joy in his heart, or rather a deep and steady sense of well-being,\nmoves forward to the world, prepared to fight. Fighting is the thing.\nYes, but here is neither Don Quixote nor Falstaff. He will fight warily,\ntake no unnecessary risk, and strike only when he is perfectly sure of\nstriking home.\n\nYou must not think of him as old beyond his years (he is only a little\nover forty) but rather as one who was wise from his youth up. He has\nnever flung himself with emotion into any movement of the human mind,\nnot because he lacks devotion, but because he thinks the victories of\nemotion are often defeats in disguise. He wishes to be certain. He will\nfight as hard as any man, but intelligently, knowing that it will be a\nfight to the last day of his life. He is perhaps more careful to last\nthan to win--an ecclesiastical Jellicoe rather than a Beatty. Nor, I\nthink, must one take the view of the critic that he has never stuck to\nthe main point. Every step in his career, as I see it, has been towards\nopportunity--the riskless opportunity of greater service and freer\nmovement.\n\nI regard him as a man whose full worth will never be known till he is\novertaken by a crisis. I can see him moving smoothly and usefully in\ntimes of comparative peace to the Primacy, holding that high office with\ndignity, and leaving behind him a memory that will rapidly fade. But I\ncannot see him so clearly in the midst of a storm. A great industrial\nupheaval, for example, where would that land him? The very fact that one\ndoes not ask, How would he direct it? shows perhaps the measure of\ndistrust one may feel in his strength--not of character--but of\npersonality. He would remain, one is sure, a perfectly good man, and a\nman of intelligence; but would any great body of the nation feel that it\nwould follow him either in a fight or in a retreat? I am not sure. On\nthe whole I feel that his personality is not so effective as it might\nhave been if he had not inherited the ecclesiastical tradition, had not\nbeen born in the episcopal purple.\n\nBy this I mean that he gives me the feeling of a man who is not great,\nbut who has the seeds of greatness in him. Events may prove him greater\nthan even his warmest admirers now imagine him to be. A crisis, either\nin the Church or in the economic world, might enable him to break\nthrough a certain atmosphere of traditional clericalism which now rather\nblurs the individual outline of his soul. But, even with the dissipation\nof this atmosphere, one is not quite sure that the outline of his soul\nwould not follow the severe lines of a High Anglican tradition. He does\nnot, at present, convince one of original force.\n\nYet, when all doubts are expressed, he remains one of the chief hopes of\nthe Church, and so perhaps of the nation. For from his boyhood up the\nKingdom of God has meant to him a condition here upon earth in which the\nsoul of man, free from all oppression, can reach gladly up towards the\nheights of spiritual development.\n\nHe hates in his soul the miserable state to which a conscienceless\nindustrialism has brought the daily life of mankind. He lays it down\nthat \"it is the duty of the Church to make an altogether new effort to\nrealise and apply to all the relations of life its own positive ideal of\nbrotherhood and fellowship.\" To this end he has brought about an\nimportant council of masters and men who are investigating with great\nthoroughness the whole economic problem, so thoroughly that the Bishop\nwill not receive their report, I understand, till 1923--a report which\nmay make history.\n\nAs a member of the Society of Spirits, he says, \"I have a particular\ndestiny to fulfil.\" He is a moral being, conscious of his dependence on\nother men. He traces the historic growth of the moral judgment:\n\n     The growth of morality is twofold. It is partly a growth in\n     content, from negative to positive. It is partly a growth in\n     extent, from tribal to universal. And in both of these forms of\n     growth it is accompanied, and as a rule, though my knowledge would\n     not entitle me to say always, it is also conditioned by a parallel\n     development in religious conviction.\n\n     We are all aware that early morality is mainly negative; it is the\n     ruling out of certain ways of arriving at the human ideal, however\n     that is to be defined, which have been attempted and have been\n     found failures. Whatever else may be the way to reach the end,\n     murder is not, theft is not, and so on. Thus we get the Second\n     Table of the Decalogue, where morality commits itself to\n     prohibitions--this is not the way, that is not the way; then\n     gradually, under the pressure of experience, there begins to emerge\n     the conception of the end which makes all this prohibition\n     necessary, and which these methods when they were attempted failed\n     to reach.\n\nAnd so we come at last to \"the Kingdom of God as proclaimed by Christ,\nand the supreme law of ethics, the demonstrably final law of ethics, is\nlaid down--Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.\"\n\n     Of course the words come from the Old Testament. Some critics used\n     to say: \"You will find in the Rabbis almost everything, if not\n     quite everything, which you find in the teaching of Christ.\" \"Yes,\"\n     added Wellhausen, \"and how much else besides.\" It was the singling\n     out of this great principle and laying the whole emphasis upon it\n     that made the difference.\n\nTo a man who believes that Christ came to set up the Kingdom of God,\nclearly neither the Conservative nor Liberal Party can appeal with any\ncompelling force of divinity. How far the Labour Party may appeal must\ndepend, I should think on the man's knowledge of economic law. As Dean\nInge says, Christ's sole contribution to economics is \"Beware of\ncovetousness\"--an injunction which the Labour Party has not yet quite\ntaken to its heart. But Dr. Temple has a right to challenge his clerical\ncritics for Christ's sanction of the present system, which is certainly\nfounded on covetousness and produces strikingly hideous results.\n\nHis theological position may be gathered from the following reply which\nhe made, as a Canon of Westminster, to a representative of the _Daily\nTelegraph_ nearly two years ago. I do not think he has greatly changed.\nHe was asked how far the Church could go in meeting that large body of\nopinion which cannot accept some of its chief dogmas. He replied:\n\n     I can speak freely, because I happen to hold two of the dogmas\n     which most people quarrel about--the virgin birth and the physical\n     resurrection. There are other heresies floating about! One of our\n     deans is inclined to assert the finitude of God, and another to\n     deny anything in the nature of personality to God or to man's\n     spirit! Rather confusing! Philosophic questions of this kind,\n     however, do not greatly concern mankind. To believe in God the\n     Father is essential to the Christian religion. Other doctrines may\n     not be so essential, but they must not be regarded as unimportant.\n     Personally I wish the Church to hold her dogmas, because I would do\n     nothing to widen the gulf which separates us from the other great\n     Churches, the Roman and the Eastern. The greatest political aim of\n     humanity, in my opinion, is a super-state, and that can only come\n     through a Church universal. How we all longed for it during the\n     war!--one voice above the conflict, the voice of the Church, the\n     voice of Christ! If the Pope had only spoken out, with no reference\n     to the feelings of the Austrian Emperor!--what a gain that would\n     have been for religion. But the great authentic voice never\n     sounded. Instead of the successor of St. Peter we had to content\n     ourselves with the American Press--excellent, no doubt, but hardly\n     satisfying.\n\n     Let me tell you a rather striking remark by an Italian friend of\n     mine, an editor of an Italian review, and not a Roman Catholic. He\n     was saying that every Church that persisted for any time possessed\n     something essential to the religion of Christ. I asked him what he\n     saw in the Roman Church that was essential. He replied at once,\n     \"The Papacy.\" I was surprised for the moment, but I saw presently\n     what he meant. The desire of the world is for universal peace,\n     universal harmony. Can that ever be achieved by a disunited\n     Christendom? The nations are rivals. Their rivalry persisted at the\n     Peace Conference, disappointing all the hopes of idealists. Must it\n     not always persist, must not horrible carnage, awful desolation,\n     ruinous destruction, and, at any rate, dangerous and provocative\n     rivalries, always dog the steps of humanity until Christendom is\n     one?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     Personally, I think reunion with Rome is so far off that it need\n     not trouble us just now; there are other things to do; but I would\n     certainly refrain from anything which made ultimate reunion more\n     difficult. And so I hold fast to my Catholic doctrines. But I tell\n     you where I find a great difficulty. A man comes to me for adult\n     baptism. I have to ask him, point by point, if he verily believes\n     the various doctrines of the Church, doctrines which a man baptised\n     as an infant may not definitely accept and yet remain a faithful\n     member of Christ's Church. What am I to say to one who has the\n     passion of Christian morality in his heart, but asks me whether\n     these verbal statements of belief are essential? He might say to\n     me, \"It would be immoral to assert that I believe what I have not\n     examined, and to examine this doctrine so thoroughly as to give an\n     answer not immoral would take a lifetime. Am I to remain outside\n     the Church till then?\" Here, I think, the Church can take a step\n     which would widen its influence enormously. No man ought to be shut\n     out of Christ's Church who has the love of God and the love of\n     humanity in his heart. That seems to me quite clear. I don't like\n     to say we make too much of the creeds, but I do say that we don't\n     make half enough of the morality of Christ. That's where I should\n     like to see the real test applied.\n\n     What I should like to see would be a particular and individual\n     profession of the Beatitudes. I should like to see congregations\n     stand up, face to the East, do anything, I mean, that marks this\n     profession out as something essential and personal, and so recite\n     the Beatitudes. There might be a great sifting, but it would bring\n     home the reality of the Christian demand to the heart and\n     conscience of the world. After all, that's our ideal, isn't\n     it?--the City of God. If we all concentrated on this ideal,\n     realising that the morality of Christ is essential, I don't think\n     there would be much bother taken, outside professional circles,\n     about points of doctrine.\n\nThen, writes the interviewer, arose the question of fervour. \"Can the\nCity of God be established without some powerful impulse of the human\nheart? Can it ever be established, for example, by the detached and self\nsatisfied intellectual priggishness of the subsidised sixpenny review,\nor by the mere violence of the Labour extremist's oratory? Must there\nnot be something akin to the evangelical enthusiasm of the last century,\nsomething of a revivalist nature? And yet have we not outgrown anything\nof the kind?\n\n\"To Canon Temple the answer presents itself in this way: Rarer than\nChristian charity is Christian faith. The supreme realism is yet to\ncome, namely, the realisation of Christ as a living Person, the\nrealisation that He truly meant what He said, the realisation that what\nHe said is of paramount importance in all the affairs of human life.\nWhen mankind becomes consciously aware of the Christian faith as a\nsupreme truth, then there will be a realistic effort to establish the\nCity of God. The first step, then, is for the Church to make itself\nsomething transcendently different from the materialistic world. It must\ntruly mean what it says when it asserts the morality of Christ. Blessed\nare the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the\npeacemakers. The fervour is not to be born of an individual fear of hell\nor an individual anxiety for celestial safety, but of an utterly\nunselfish enthusiasm for the welfare of the world.\"\n\nI should give a false impression of this very interesting man, who is so\nsincere and so steadfast, if I did not mention the significant fact of\nhis happiness. He has always struck me, in spite of his formidable\nintellect and a somewhat pedagogic front and the occasional accent of an\nancient and scholarly ecclesiasticism, as one of the happiest and most\nboy-like of men--a man whose centre must be cloudlessly serene, and who\nfinds life definitely good. His laughter indeed, is a noble witness to\nthe truth of a rational and moral existence. His strength is as the\nstrength of ten, not only because his heart is pure, but because he has\nformulated an intelligent thesis of existence.\n\nHe has pointed out that the Pickwick Papers could not have been produced\nin any but a Christian country. \"Satire you may get to perfection in\npagan countries. But only in those countries where the morality of\nChrist has penetrated deeply do you get the spirit that loves the thing\nit laughs at.\"\n\n\n\n\nPRINCIPAL W.B. SELBIE\n\nSELBIE, Rev. WM. BOOTHBY, M.A.; Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford,\nsince 1909; b. Chesterfield, 24 Dec., 1862; e.s. of late Rev. R.W.\nSelbie, B.A. of Salford; m. Mildred Mary, 2d d. of late Joseph Thompson,\nJ.P., LL.D., of Wilmslow, Cheshire; two s. one d. Educ.: Manchester\nGrammar School; Brasenose and Mansfield Colleges, Oxford; incorporated\nM.A., at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1904; Hon. D.D. Glasgow, 1911.\nLecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament at Mansfield College, Oxford,\n1889-90; Minister Highgate Congregational Church, London, 1890-1902;\nEmmanuel Congregational Church, Cambridge, 1902-1909; Editor of the\n_British Congregationalist_, 1899-1909; Lecture in Pastoral Theology at\nCheshunt College, Cambridge, 1907-1909; Chairman of Congregational\nUnion, 1914-1915; President of National Free Church Council, 1917.\n\n[Illustration: PRINCIPAL W.B. SELBIE]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nPRINCIPAL W.B. SELBIE\n\n     _I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure of knowledge;\n     I intend no Monopoly, but a community in learning; I study not for\n     my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves.\n\n     I envy no man that knows more than my self, but pity them that know\n     less. I instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or with an\n     intent rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head, then\n     beget and propagate it in his; and in the midst of all my\n     endeavour, there is but one thought that dejects me, that my\n     acquired parts must perish with my self, nor can be Legacied among\n     my honoured Friends_.--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.\n\n\nMansfield College, Oxford, has been happy in its Principals. Dr.\nFairbairn created respect for Nonconformity in the very citadel of High\nAnglicanism; Dr. Selbie has converted that respect into friendship.\nThere is no man of note or power at Oxford who does not speak with real\naffection of this devoted scholar, who has been dubbed up there \"an\ninspired mouse.\"\n\nHe is a little man, with quick darting movements, a twinkling bright\neye, an altogether unaggressive voice, and a manner that is singularly\ninsinuating and appealing. As it is impossible to think of a blustering\nor brow-beating mouse, or a mouse that advances with the stride of a\nGuardsman and the minatory aspect of a bull-terrier, so it is impossible\nto think of Dr. Selbie as a fellow of any truculence, a scholar of any\nprejudice, a Christian of any unctimoniousness. Mildness is the very\ntemper of his soul, and modesty the centre of his being.\n\nHe is a Hebrew scholar who has advanced into philosophical territory and\nnow is pushing his investigations into the field of psychology. Modest\nand wholly unpretentious he sets up as no original genius, and is\ncontent with his double role of close observer and respectful critic. He\nis rather a guide to men than a light. He has nothing new to say, but\nnothing foolish. His words are words of purest wisdom, though you may\nhave heard them before. You feel that if he cannot lead you to the\nPromised Land, at least he will not conduct you to the precipice and the\nabyss.\n\nAbove everything else he is a scholar who would put his learning at the\nservice of his fellow-men. Education with him is a passion, a part of\nhis philanthropy, a part of his religion. It is the darkness of man, not\nthe sinfulness of man, that catches his attention. He feels that the\nworld is foolish because it is ignorant, not because it is wicked. And\nhe feels that the foolishness of the world is a count in the indictment\nagainst religion. Religion has not taught; it has used mankind as a\ndictaphone.\n\nHe has spoken to me with great hope and confidence of the change which\nis coming over the Church in this matter of religious teaching. Dr.\nHeadlam, the Regius Professor of Divinity, has lighted a candle at\nOxford which by God's grace will never be put out. There is now a fairly\ngeneral feeling that men who enter the ministry must be educated not to\npass a test or to prove themselves capable of conducting a service or\nperforming as rite, but educated as educators--apostles of truth,\nevangelists of the higher life.\n\nReligion, according to Dr. Selbie, is something to be taught. It is not\na mystery to be presented, but an idea to be inculcated. The world has\ngot to understand religion before it can live religiously.\n\nBut all education stands in sore need of the trained teacher. Our\nteachers are not good enough. They may be very able men and women, but\nfew of them are very able teachers. The first need in a teacher is to\ninspire in his students a love of knowledge, a hunger and thirst after\nwisdom. But, look at our schools, look at our great cities, look at the\npleasures and recreations which satisfy the vast masses of the\npopulation! As a nation, we have no enthusiasm for education. This is\nbecause we have so little understanding of the nature and province of\neducation. We have never been taught what education is.\n\nWith his enthusiasm for education goes a perfervid spiritual conviction\nthat intellect is not enough. He tells the story of an old Scots woman\nwho listened intently to a highly intellectual sermon by a brilliant\nscholar, and at the end of it called out from her seat, \"Aye, aye; but\nyon rope o' yours is nae lang enough tae reach the likes o' me.\"\nSomething much more mysterious and much more powerful than intellect is\nnecessary to change the heart of humanity; but when love and knowledge\ngo hand in hand there you get both the great teacher and the good\nshepherd. Knowledge without love is almost as useless to a teacher as\nlove without knowledge.\n\nIn his study at Mansfield, a large and friendly room book-lined from\nfloor to ceiling, with a pleasant hearth at one end of it, where he\nsmokes an occasional pipe with an interrupting fellow scholar, but where\nhe is most often to be found buried in a great book and oblivious of all\nelse besides, this little man with the darting eyes and soft voice is\nnow invading, with sound good sense to save him from nausea or\ncontamination, the region of morbid psychology.\n\nHe would perfectly agree with Dr. Inge's characteristic statement, \"The\nsuggestion that in prayer we only hear the echo of our own voices is\nridiculous to anyone who has prayed\"; but he is, I think, much more\naware of the power and extent of this suggestion than is the Dean of St.\nPaul's, and therefore qualifies himself to meet the psychologists on\ntheir own ground.\n\nHe has confessed to me that in reading Freud he had to wade through much\nalmost unimaginable filth, and he is driven to think that Freud himself\nis the victim of \"a sex complex,\" a man so obsessed by a single theory,\nso ridden by one idea, that he perfectly illustrates the witty\ndefinition of an expert--\"an expert is one who knows nothing else.\" All\nthe same, Dr. Selbie assures me that his studies have been well worth\nwhile, that modern psychology has much to teach us of the highest value,\nand that religion as well as medicine will more and more have to take\naccount of this daring science which advances so swiftly into their own\nprovinces.\n\nSo far as my experience goes no man of the first rank in Anglican\ncircles is preparing himself for this inevitable encounter with anything\nlike the thoroughness of Dr. Selbie, a nonconformist.\n\nHe makes it a rule never to interfere with the troubles of another\ncommunion; but I do not think I misrepresent him when I say that he\nregrets the immersion of the Church of England in questions of\ntheological disputation at a time when the true battle of religion is\nshifting on to quite other ground.\n\nNot many people in Anglo-Catholic circles realise perhaps that to the\neducated nonconformist all this excitement about modernism seems\nstrangely old-fashioned. Long ago such matters were settled. The scholar\nnonconformist is no longer concerned with dogmatic difficulties; he has\nabandoned with the old teleology the old pagan theology, and now,\nbelieving in an immanent teleology, in an evolution that is creative and\nthat has direction, believing also that Christ is the incarnation of\nGod's purpose and the revelation of His character, he is pressing\nforward not to meet the difficulties of to-morrow, but to equip himself\nfor meeting those difficulties when they arise with real intelligence\nand genuine power.\n\n\"If medicine,\" said Froude, \"had been regulated three hundred years ago\nby Act of Parliament; if there had been Thirty-Nine Articles of Physic,\nand every licensed practitioner had been compelled, under pains and\npenalties, to compound his drugs by the prescriptions of Henry the\nEighth's physician, Doctor Butts, it is easy to conjecture in what state\nof health the people of this country would at present be found.\"\n\nChristendom does not yet realise how greatly, how grievously, it has\nsuffered in spiritual health by having sent to Coventry or to the stake\nso many theological Simpsons, Listers, and Pasteurs simply because they\ncould not rest their minds in the hypotheses of very ill-educated men\nwho strove to grapple with the highest of all intellectual problems at a\ntime when knowledge was at its lowest level.\n\nIt will perhaps rouse the vitality of the Church when it finds twenty or\nthirty years from now that the great protagonists of Christianity in its\nfuture battles with science and philosophy are drawn from the ranks of\nnonconformity.\n\nDr. Selbie is certainly preparing his students for these encounters, and\npreparing them, too, with an emphasis on one particular aspect of the\nold theology, and a central one, which the apologists of more orthodox\ncommunions have either overlooked or find it convenient to ignore.\n\nOne of his first postulates is that man inhabits a moral universe, and\nfrom this postulate he has no difficulty in moving forward not only to\ncontemplate the hypothesis of immortality, but to confront the\ndifficulty of punishment for sin. In a little book of his called _Belief\nand Life_ he has the following passages:\n\n     In the long last men cannot be persuaded to deny their own moral\n     nature, and they will not be content with a theory of the universe\n     which does not satisfy their sense of right.\n\nAnd because of this very sense of right they entertain no soft and\nsentimental notions concerning the universe:\n\n     They believe in judgment, in retribution, and in the great\n     principle that \"as a man sows, so shall he also reap.\" They\n     therefore require that room shall be found in the scheme of things\n     for the working out of this principle. They recognise that such\n     room is not to be found in this present life, and so they accept\n     the fact that God hath set eternity in our hearts, and that we are\n     built on a scale which requires a more abundant life to complete\n     it.\n\n     In corroboration of their faith, it may be said, as John Stuart\n     Mill used to argue, that wherever belief in the future has been\n     strong and vivid, it has made for human progress. There is no doubt\n     that the deterioration of religion and the more material views of\n     life so prevalent just now are due to the loss of faith in the\n     future.\n\nReligion, he says, can never live or be effective within the narrow\ncircle of time and sense. Nevertheless he has the courage to say: \"The\nfuture life, like the belief in God, is best treated as an hypothesis\nthat is yet in process of verification.\"\n\nBut this hypothesis explains what else were inexplicable. It works. And,\nconfronting the hypothesis of immortality, he insists that a future life\nmust embrace retribution. \"As a man sows, so shall he also reap.\"\nImmortality is not to be regarded as a sentimental compensation for our\nterrestrial experience, but as the essential continuity of our spiritual\nevolution. \"For many, no doubt, it will mean an experience of probation,\nand for all one of retribution.\"\n\nHe sees clearly and gratefully that \"the moral range of the work of\nChrist in the human soul, His gifts of grace, forgiveness, and power,\nlift men at once on to the plane of the spiritual and fill their\nconception of life with a new and richer content.\" But he does not shut\nhis eyes to the fact of the moral law, and with all the force of his\ncharacter and all the strength of his intellect he accepts \"the great\nprinciple that as a man sows, so shall he also reap.\"\n\nIn this way Dr. Selbie prepares his students, not only to meet the\nintellectual difficulties of the future, but to stand fast in the\nancient faith of their forefathers that the moral law is a fact of the\nuniverse. He helps them to be fighters as well as teachers. They are to\nfight the complacency of men, the false optimism of the world, the\ndelusive tolerance of materialism. There is no need for them to preach\nhell fire and damnation, but throughout all their preaching, making it\na real thing and a thing of the most pressing moment, must ring that\njust and inevitable word, Retribution. In a moral universe, selfishness\ninvolves, rightly and inevitably, suffering--suffering self-sown,\nself-determined, and self-merited.\n\nHe is the last man in the world from whom one would expect such teaching\nto emanate. He seems, in his social moments, a scholar who is scarcely\naware of humanity in his delicious pursuit of pure truth, a man who\ninhabits the faery realm of ideas, and drinks the milk of Paradise. But\napproach him on other ground and you find, though his serenity never\ndeserts him, though he is always imperturbable and unassertive, that his\ninterest in humanity and the practical problems of humanity is as vivid\nand consuming as that of any social reformer.\n\nThere, in Oxford, among his books, and carrying on his duties as\nPrincipal of Mansfield College, Dr. Selbie, back from holidays spent in\nwatching the great working world and listening to the teachers of that\nworld, finds himself not alarmed, but anxious. The voice of religion, he\nfeels, is not making itself heard, and the voices of churches are making\nonly a discord. Men are going astray because they have no knowledge of\ntheir course, and the blind are falling into the ditch because they are\nled by the blind. How is this dangerous condition of things to be\nremedied?\n\nHe replies, By the teachers.\n\nWhat we need at this hour above all other needs is the great teacher,\none able to proclaim and explain the truths of religion, and filled with\na high enthusiasm for his office. We need, he tells me, men who can\nrestore to preaching its best authority. At the present time preaching\nhas fallen to a low ebb because it is despised, and it is despised\nbecause it has lost the element of teaching. But let men recover their\nfaith in the moral law, let them see that retribution is inevitable\njustice, let them realise that the life of man is a progress in\nspiritual comprehension, let them understand that existence is a great\nthing and not a mean thing, and they will feel again the compulsion to\npreach, and their preaching, founded on the moral law and inspired by\nfaith in the teaching of Christ, will draw the world from the\ndestructive negations of materialism, and wake it out of the fatal\ntorpors of dull indifference.\n\nHappy, I think, is the church which has such a teacher at the head of\nits disciples. Though its traditions may not reach far back into the\nhistoric twilight of ignorance, the rays of the unrisen sun strike upon\nits banners as they advance towards the future of mankind.\n\n\n\n\nARCHBISHOP RANDALL DAVIDSON\n\nCANTERBURY, Archbishop of, since 1903; Most Rev. Randall Thomas\nDavidson, D.D., D.C.L., LL.D.; Prelate of the Order of the Garter,\n1895-1903; G.C.V.O., cr. 1904; Royal Victorian Chain, 1911; Grand Cross\nof the Royal Order of the Saviour (Greece), 1918; Grand Cordon de\nl'Ordre de la Couronne (Belgium, 1919); First class of the Order of St.\nSava (Serbia), 1919; b. 7 April, 1848; s. of Henry Davidson, Muirhouse,\nEdinburgh, and Henrietta, d. of John Swinton, Kimmerghame; m. Edith, 2d\nd. of Archbishop Tait of Canterbury, 1878. Educ.: Harrow; Trinity\nCollege, Oxford (D.D.), Curate of Dartford, Kent, 1874-77; Chaplain and\nPrivate Secretary to Archbishop Tait of Canterbury, 1877-82; to\nArchbishop Benson, 1882-3; Examining Chaplain to Bishop Lightfoot of\nDurham, 1881-83; Sub-Almoner to Queen Victoria, 1882; one of the six\npreachers of Canterbury Cathedral, 1880-83; Dean of Windsor and Domestic\nChaplain to Queen Victoria, 1883-91; Clerk of the Closet to Queen\nVictoria, 1891-1901; to H.M. the King, 1905-3; Trustee of the British\nMuseum from 1884, Bishop of Rochester, 1891-95; Bishop of Winchester,\n1895-1903.\n\n[Illustration: ARCHBISHOP RANDALL DAVIDSON]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nARCHBISHOP RANDALL DAVIDSON\n\n     _Let us be flexible, dear Grace; let us be flexible!_--HENRY JAMES.\n\n     . . . _the Archbishop recalled both to the gravity of the\n     issue_.--LORD MORLEY.\n\n\nBecause of his great place and his many merits, both of heart and head,\nand also because his career raises the question I desire to discuss in\nmy Conclusion, I have left the Archbishop of Canterbury to the last of\nthese brief studies in religious personality.\n\nMore admirably, I think, because more entirely, than any of the other\nmen I have attempted to study, Dr. Davidson sums up the virtues of\nAnglicanism. He stands, first and foremost, for order, decency, and good\ntemper. If he has a passion it is for the _status quo_. If he has a\ngenius it is for compromise. Lord Morley, who knows him and respects\nhim, describes him as \"a man of broad mind, sagacious temper, steady and\ncareful judgment, good knowledge of the workable strength of rival\nsections.\" Pre-eminently the Archbishop is a practical man.\n\nI know not out of how many crises he has contrived, both as a fisher of\nmen and a good shepherd, to lift the Church of England by hook or by\ncrook.\n\nWhen he was a youth a serious accident threatened to destroy his health\nand ruin his prospects. A charge of gunshot struck him at the bottom of\nthe spine. The shot still remain in his body, and every autumn he is\nvisited with an attack of quasiperitonitis which reduces him to a sad\nstate of weakness. For long weeks together--once it was for a whole\nyear--his diet is restricted entirely to milk foods.\n\nIn spite of this grave disability, I am inclined to doubt if there is a\nharder worker in any church of the world. Dr. Davidson's knowledge of\nthe Church of England, not only in these British Islands but in every\none of the Dominions, is a knowledge of the most close and intimate\nnature. He knows the names and often the character of men who are\nworking in the remotest parishes of the uttermost parts of the Empire.\nHe knows also their thousand difficulties and is often at pains to\nrelieve their distresses. This devotion has an ideal origin. He has\ncherished the dream all his life that the Church of England, so sane, so\nmoderate, so sensible, and so rightly insistent on moral earnestness,\nmay become, with the growth and development of the British Commonwealth,\nthe greatest of all the Christian Churches--greater, more catholic, than\nRome.\n\nTo this end he has worked with a devotion and a strain of energy which\nonly those immediately about him can properly appraise.\n\nSuch is the exhaustion of this labour that when he can find time to take\na day off he spends it in bed.\n\nHis policy has always been to keep men reasonable, but with no ignoble\nidea of living a quiet life. His powers of persuasion, which have\nsucceeded so often in making unreasonable men temporarily reasonable,\nhave their source in the transparent sincerity of his soul. No one who\nencounters him can doubt for a moment that the Primate is seeking the\ngood of the Church of England, and seeking that good because he believes\nin the English Church as one of the great spiritual forces of\ncivilisation. No one, I mean, could think that he is either temporising\nfor the sake of peace itself or that his policy of moderation masks a\nsecret sympathy with a particular party. Clear as the sun at noon is the\ngoodness of the man, his unprejudiced devotion to a practical ideal, and\nhis unselfish ambition for the reasonable future of the great Church of\nthe English nation.\n\nHe gives most of us the feeling of a very able man of business, an ideal\nfamily solicitor; but there is a quite different side to this character.\nHe is by no means a mystic, as that word is usually understood, but he\nis a man who deeply believes in the chief instrument of the mystic's\nspiritual life, that is to say, in prayer. He is not a saint, in the\ngeneral acceptance of that term, but his whole life is devoted with an\nundeviating singleness of aim to effecting the chief ambition of the\nsaint--a knowledge of God in the hearts and minds of men. Because he\nbelieves that the best method of achieving that consummation, having\nregard to the present level of human intelligence, is by moderate\ncourses, one must not think that he is lukewarm in the cause of\nreligion. With all the force of his clear and able mind, he believes in\nmoderation. Anything that in the least degree savours of extravagance\nseems to him impolitic. He does not believe in sudden bursts of\nemotional energy; he believes in constant pressure.\n\nIn my intercourse with him I have found him eminently sane and judicial,\ncold towards excessive fervour, but not cold at all towards ardent\nfaith, inclined perhaps to miss the cause of spiritual impatience,\nconstitutionally averse from any understanding sympathy with religious\necstasy, but never self-satisfied, intolerant, or in the remotest\nfashion cynical. Always he expresses his views with modesty, and\nsometimes with healthy good-humour, disposed to take life cheerfully,\nnever moved to mistake a molehill for a mountain, always quietly certain\nthat he is on the right road, whatever critics may care to say about his\npace.\n\nIt is perhaps unreasonable to expect height and depth where there is\nexcessive breadth. The Archbishop might make a bad captain, but he could\nhave few rivals as an umpire. He is an admirable judge if an indifferent\nadvocate.\n\nHis grave earnestness is balanced by a conviction that humour is not\nwithout a serious purpose. He looks upon life in the average, avoiding\nall abnormality, and he sees the average with a genial smile. He\nthoroughly appreciates the oddities of English character, and would ask\nwith Gladstone, \"In what country except ours (as I know to have\nhappened) would a Parish Ball have been got up in order to supply funds\nfor a Parish Hearse?\"\n\nHis attitude to the excitements and sensations of the passing day may be\ngathered from a simple incident. During the most heady days of the War,\nthat is to say, days when people made least use of their heads, I\nencountered him at the country-house of a well-known statesman. One\nmorning, while we were being lined up for a photograph, the boar-hound\nof our host came and forced himself between the Archbishop and myself.\n\"What would the newspapers say,\" exclaimed the Archbishop in my ear, \"if\nthey knew that his name is--_Kaiser_!\"\n\nIn this manner he regards all sensational excitement of every kind. When\npeople are tearing their hair, and the welkin rings with such\naffrighting cries as Downfall and Crisis, the Archbishop's rather solemn\nand alarmed countenance breaks up into a genial smile. It is when people\nare immovable in otiose self-satisfaction, when the air is still and\nwhen lethargy creeps over the whole body of humanity, that the face of\nDr. Davidson hardens. There is nothing he dreads more than apathy,\nnothing that so stimulates his policy of constant pressure as inertia.\nNdengei, the supreme deity of the Fiji Islands, the laziest of all the\ngods, has the serpent for his effigy. \"The Devil tempts the busy man,\"\nsays a Turkish proverb, \"but the idle man tempts the Devil.\"\n\nOne of those who has worked with the Archbishop for many years, although\nhis views are of a rather extreme order and his temperament altogether\nof the excessive kind, said to me the other day, \"When Randall Davidson\nwent to Canterbury, I told those who asked me what would be the result\nof his reign. He will leave the Church as he found it. I was wrong. He\nhas done much more than that.\" He went on to say that there was now a\nfar greater charity between the different schools than existed at the\nbeginning of the century, and that if unity had not been attained, at\nleast disruption had been avoided.\n\nOne of the most eloquent and far-sighted of the Evangelicals puts the\nmatter to me in this fashion: \"It is possible that fifty years hence men\nmay ask whether he ought not to have been constructive; but for the\npresent we, his contemporaries, must confess that it is wonderful how he\nkeeps things together.\"\n\n\"Pull yourself together!\" was the admonition addressed to a somewhat\nhilarious undergraduate. \"But I haven't got a together,\" he made answer.\n\nIf it be true that a house divided against itself cannot stand, then we\nmust admit that Dr. Randall Davidson is not merely one of the Church's\ngreatest statesmen, but a worker of miracles, a man whom we might expect\nto take up serpents and drink any deadly thing.\n\nBut it will be safe to keep the Archbishop's reputation in the region of\nstatesmanship.\n\nThe reader, I hope, will not think me either pedantic or supercilious if\nI insist that no word is more misused by the newspapers, indeed by the\nwhole modern world, than this word statesmanship. It is a word of which\nthe antonym is drifting. It signifies steersmanship, and implies\ncontrol, guidance, direction, and, obviously, foresight. Now, let us see\nhow this word is used by those who are supposed to instruct public\nopinion.\n\nThe settlement of the Irish Question was hailed as a triumph of British\nstatesmanship. One of the Sunday newspapers of the higher order\nacclaimed Mr. Lloyd George as the greatest statesman in the history of\nEngland and perhaps the greatest man in the world. But it needs only a\nlittle thought, only a moment's reflection, to realise that this welcome\nsettlement was a triumph, not of statesmanship, but of murderous\nbrutality. There would have been no paens if there had been no volleys,\nno triumph if there had been no violence.\n\nStatesmanship was defeated in the eighties, and those who defeated it,\nthose who exalted prejudice and racialism and intolerance above\nrationality and foresight, are now among those whom the world salutes as\nimmortal statesmen. In truth, they have bowed the knee to violence.\n\nBy the same power, and not by reason, the Government extended the\nfranchise to women. Statesmanship held firmly on the contrary course\ntill the winds of violence rose and the rain of anarchy threatened to\ndescend in a flood of moral devastation.\n\nLook closely into the great achievements of the Washington Conference\nand you will find that the nations are not voluntarily seeking the\nrational ideal of peace, but are being driven by urgent necessity into\nthe course of reason. Statesmanship would have disarmed the world before\n1914. It was only after 1918 that the spectre of Universal Bankruptcy\ndrove the poor trembling immortals who pass for statesmen to embrace\neach other as heroes in search of an ideal. Humanity has achieved\nnothing noble or glorious in the last thirty years; it has been driven\nby the winds of God into every haven which has saved it from shipwreck.\n\nWith a clear understanding of the meaning of the word statesmanship, one\nmay ask with some hope of arriving at an intelligent answer whether\nRandall Davidson is a great statesman.\n\nUnder his rule a divided and distracted Church has held together; but\nreligion has gone out of favour. During his reign at Lambeth there has\nbeen a sensible movement towards reunion; but the nation is\nuninterested. If the Romanists have been less rebellious, the\nEvangelicals have lost almost all their zeal. If the Church still\nwitnesses to the truth of Christianity, it is with all her ancient\ninequalities thick upon her, turning her idealism to ridicule, and in\nthe midst of a nation which has become steadily more and more\nindifferent to the Church, more and more cynical towards religion.\n\nIf there is peace in the Church, there is little of that moral\nearnestness in the life of the nation which in past times laid the\nfoundations both of English character and of English greatness. We are\nbecoming swiftly, I think, a light and flippant people, the only\nseriousness in our midst the economic seriousness of our depressed\nclasses. It is not to any other class in the community that the zealot\ncan address himself with an evangel of any kind. Only where a sense of\nbitterness exists, a sense of anger and rebellion, can the idealist in\nthese dangerous times hope for attention.\n\nThe Bishop of Manchester preached some few weeks ago a sermon to the\nunemployed of that city. He was asked at the end of his sermon if the\nworkers could get justice without the use of force. He replied, \"It all\ndepends what you mean by force.\" And at that the congregation shouted,\n\"Murder.\" They were to have concluded the service with the hymn, \"When\nwilt Thou save Thy people?\" Instead, it concluded with the singing of\n\"The Red Flag.\"\n\nNow let us ask ourselves what might have been the course of religious\nhistory during the last twenty years if Dr. Randall Davidson, instead of\ncontenting himself with composing clerical quarrels, had used his high\noffice to control the Church and to steer it in the direction of greater\nspiritual realism.\n\nSuppose, for example, that after presiding over a conference of warring\nChurchmen, he had turned to one of the champions of a party, and had\nsaid to him, in the manner of a true spiritual father, \"I have\nsomething to ask of you. What was the first command of our Risen Lord to\nthe apostle Simon Peter?\" He would have been obliged to answer, \"Feed My\nlambs.\" \"And the second command?\" And he would have been obliged to say,\n\"Feed My sheep.\" \"And the third command?\" And again he would have been\nobliged to say, \"Feed My sheep.\" Then, what had they all said if the\nPrimate had turned to both sides and admonished them in these words, \"My\nbrothers in Christ, I think there would now be no disputation among you\nif instead of concerning yourselves with the traditions of men you had\nrather given yourselves entirely to obeying the commandment of our Risen\nLord\"?\n\nBut the question would remain, With what food is the flock to be fed?\n\nIs it possible to give an answer to this question which will not open\nagain the floodgates of controversy? If that is so, then those of us who\nacknowledge the moral law had better abandon Christianity altogether,\nand set ourselves to construct a new and unifying gospel of ethics from\nthe works of the moralists. For the world is torn asunder by strife, and\ncontention is the opportunity of the wolves. Humanity has begun to\napprehend this truth. It has begun to find out that disarmament is\npractical wisdom; and now it is beginning to wonder whether counsels of\nperfection may not serve its domestic interests with a higher efficiency\nthan the compromises effected by unprincipled politicians. It is in the\nmood to listen to a teacher who speaks with authority; but in no mood\nto listen to a war of words.\n\nIf religion cannot speak with one voice in the world, it had better\nadjourn, like the plenipotentiaries of Sinn Fein and the representatives\nof the British Government, to a secret session. It must come to an\nunderstanding with itself, an agreement as to what it means, before\nmankind will recover interest in its existence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nCONCLUSION\n\n     _The fashion of this world passes away, and it is with what is\n     abiding that I would fain concern myself._--GOETHE.\n\n     _The breadth of my life is not measured by the multitude of my\n     pursuits, nor the space I take up amongst other men; but by the\n     fulness of the whole life which I know as mine._--F.H. BRADLEY.\n\n     _We are but at the very beginning of the knowledge and control of\n     our minds; but with that beginning an immense hope is dawning on\n     the world._--\"THE TIMES.\"\n\n     _The Ideal is only Truth at a distance._--LAMARTINE.\n\n\nIt is curious, if Christianity is from heaven, that it exercises so\nlittle power in the affairs of the human race.\n\nFar from exercising power of any noticeable degree, it now ceases to be\neven attractive. The successors of St. Paul are not shaping world policy\nat Washington; they are organising whist-drives and opening bazaars. The\naverage clergyman, I am afraid, is regarded in these days as something\nof a bore, a wet-blanket even at tea-parties.\n\nSomething is wrong with the Church. It is impious to think that heaven\ninterposed in the affairs of humanity to produce that ridiculous mouse,\nthe modern curate. No teacher in the history of the world ever occupied\na lower place in the respect of men. So deep is the pit into which the\nmodern minister has fallen that no one attempts to get him out. He is\nabandoned by the world. He figures with the starving children of Russia\nin appeals to the charitable an object of pity. The hungry sheep look up\nand are not fed, but the shepherd also looks up from his pit of poverty\nand neglect, as hungry as the sheep, hungry for the bare necessities of\nanimal life.\n\nThis is surely a tragic position for a preacher of good news, and a\nteacher sent from God.\n\nIf the Christian would know how far his Church has fallen from power,\nlet him reflect that, even after the sorrow and desolation of a world\nconflict, there is no atmosphere in Europe rendering the savagery of\nsubmarine warfare unthinkable--utterly unthinkable to the conscience of\nmankind.\n\nMr. Balfour and Lord Lee make a proposal to end this devilish warfare;\nthe French oppose; newspapers open a crusade, here against France, there\nagainst Great Britain; the vital interests of humanity are at stake; the\ndoor will either be opened to disarmament or closed against peace for\nanother fifty years; and Christ is silent--the Church does not lift even\nthree fingers to bless the cause of peace.\n\nWhy is the Church so powerless? Why is it she has so fatally lost the\nattention of mankind?\n\nIs it not because she has nothing to give, nothing to teach? Morals are\nolder than Christianity, and sacramental religions as well. Men feel\nthat they cannot understand the immense paraphernalia of religion and\nits unnatural atmosphere of high mystery; it is so tremendous a fuss\nabout so very small a result. If God is in the Church, why doesn't He do\nmore for it, and so more for the world? The revenues of religion are\nstill enormous. What do they accomplish?\n\nMen who think in this way are not enemies of religion, any more than the\nJews who came to Jesus were enemies of Judaism. They deserve the respect\nof the Church. Indeed, it is in finding an answer to their challenge\nthat the Church is most likely to find a solution to her own problem.\nBut that answer will never be found if the Church seeks for it only in\nher documents. There is another place in which she must look for the\ntruth of Christ, a truth as completely overlooked by the modernist as by\nthe traditionalist: it is in the movements of the soul, in the world of\nliving men.\n\nI believe that there are more evidences for the existence of Christ in\nthe modern world than in the whole lexicon of theology. I believe it is\nmore possible to discern His features and to feel the breath of His lips\nby confronting the discoveries of modern science than by turning back\nthe leaves of religious history to the first blurred pages of the\nChristian tradition. I believe, indeed, that it is now wholly impossible\nfor any man to comprehend the Light which shone upon human darkness\nnearly two thousand years ago without bringing the documents of the\nChurch to the light which is shining across the world at this present\nhour from the torch of science.\n\n\"Why seek ye the living among the dead?\"\n\nFor twenty years I have followed this clue to the meaning of Christ and\nthe nature of His message. I have seen Darwinism, the very foundation of\nmodern materialism, break up like thin ice and melt away from the view\nof philosophy. I have seen evolution betray one of its greatest secrets\nto the soul of man--an immanent teleology, an invisible _direction_\ntowards deeper consciousness, an intelligent _movement_ towards greater\nunderstanding. And I have seen the demonstration by science that this\nvisible and tangible world in its final analysis is both invisible and\nintangible--a phantasm of the senses.\n\nI may be allowed perhaps to recall the incident which first set me to\nfollow this clue.\n\nOne day, when he was deep in his studies of Radiant Matter, Sir William\nCrookes touched a little table which stood between our two chairs, and\nsaid to me, \"We shall announce to the world in a year or two, perhaps\nsooner, that the atoms of which this table is composed are made up of\ntiny charges of electricity, and we shall prove that each one of those\ntiny electrons, relative to its size, is farther away from its nearest\nneighbour than our earth from the nearest star.\"\n\nI have lived to see this prophecy fulfilled, though its implications are\nnot yet understood.\n\nThe Church does not yet realise that physical science, hitherto regarded\nas the enemy of religion and the mocker of philosophy, presents us now\nwith the world of the transcendentalists, the world of the\nmetaphysicians, the world of religious seers--a world which is real and\nvisible only to our limited senses, but a world which disappears from\nall vision and definition directly we bring to its investigation those\ningenious instruments of science which act as extensions of our senses.\n\nEvery schoolboy is now aware that a door is solid only to his eyes and\ntouch; that with the aid of X-rays it becomes transparent, the light\npassing through it as water passes through network, revealing what is on\nthe other side. Every schoolboy also knows that his own body can be so\nphotographed as to reveal its skeleton.\n\nBut the Church has yet to learn from M. Bergson the alphabet of this new\nknowledge, namely, that our senses and our reason are what they are\nbecause of a long evolution in _action_--not in pure thought. We have\ngot our sight by looking for prey or for enemies, and our hearing by\nlistening for the movement of prey or of enemies. Our reason, too, is\nfashioned out of a long heredity of action, that is to say an immemorial\ndiscipline in an existence purely animal. So powerful is the influence\nof this heredity, so real seems to us a physical world which is not\nreal, so infallible seem to us the senses by which we fail to live\nsuccessfully even as animals, that, as Christ said, a man must be born\nagain before he can enter the Kingdom of God--that is to say, before he\ncan behold and inhabit Reality.\n\nAt the head of this chapter I have set a quotation from a leading\narticle in _The Times_ on the recent lectures of M. Coue. It is now\neighteen years ago, treading in the footsteps of Frederic Myers, that I\ndiscussed with some of the chief medical hypnotists in London and Paris\nthe phenomena of mental suggestion. It was known then that\nauto-suggestion is a force of tremendous power. It was stated then that\n\"an immense hope is dawning on the world,\" but not then, not even now,\nis it realised that this awkward term of \"auto-suggestion\" is merely a\nsynonym for the more beautiful and ancient words, meditation and prayer.\n\nWe know now that a man can radically change his character, can uproot\nthe toughest habits of a lifetime, by telling himself that his will is\nmaster in his house of life[9]. And we think that we have made this\ndiscovery, forgetting that Shakespeare said \"The love of heaven makes us\nheavenly,\" and that Christ said, \"Blessed are they which do hunger and\nthirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled,\" and \"All things,\nwhatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive,\" or, as\nMark has it, \"What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that\nye receive them, and ye shall have them,\" and \"According to your faith\nbe it unto you.\"\n\n[Footnote 9: At Nancy even a lesion has been cured by suggestion.]\n\nWith our present knowledge of the universe and of the human mind, it is\nat last possible for us to perceive in the confused records of the New\nTestament the nature of Christ's teaching. He loved the world for its\nbeauty, but He penetrated its delusions and breathed the air of its only\nreality. \"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth . . . but lay\nup for yourselves treasures in heaven . . . for where your treasure is,\nthere will your heart be also.\" \"What is a man profited, if he shall\ngain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in\nexchange for his soul?\" \"If thou canst believe, all things are possible\nto him that believeth.\" \"He that hath ears to hear let him hear.\"\n\nHis world was always the world of thought. The actual deed of sin was\nmerely a physical consequence; the cause was spiritual: it was an evil\nthought; to harbour an evil thought is to commit the sin. He looked into\nthe hearts of men, into their thoughts, and there only He found their\nreality. All else was transitory. All else would see corruption and die.\nThe flesh profiteth nothing. But the thought of a man--that is to say\nthe region now being explored by the psycho-analyst, the\npsycho-therapeutist, and the psycho I know not what else--this was the\none region in which Jesus moved, the region in which He proclaimed his\ntransvaluation of values, a region of which He was so complete a master\nthat He could heal delusion at a word and disorder by a touch.\n\nOne does not perhaps wholly realise, until one has read the muddied\nworks of modern psychology, how sublime was the soul of Jesus. It might\nbe possible to infer His divinity from the simplicity of the language\nand the white purity of the thought with which He expressed truths of\nthe profoundest significance even in regions where so many fall into\nunhealthiness. \"No man can serve two masters\"--is not that the teaching\nof the modern hypnotist in dealing with \"a divided self\"? \"Set your\naffections on things above\"--is not that the counsel of the sane\npsycho-analyst in treating a diseased mind? \"Ask, and it shall be given\nyou; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto\nyou\"--is not this the message of M. Coue, the teaching of\nauto-suggestion?--that teaching which makes us say at last that \"an\nimmense hope is dawning on the world.\"\n\nAnd, in sober truth, we may indeed believe that this immense hope is\ndawning on the world; the hope that mankind may recognise in Jesus, Who\ncalled Himself the Light of the World, the world's great Teacher of\nReality.\n\nHere we approach that unifying principle which was the object of our\nquest in setting out to explore the chaos of opinion in the modern\nChurch.\n\nIs it not possible that the Church might see the trivial unimportance of\nall those matters which at present dismember her, if she saw the supreme\nimportance of Christ as a Teacher? Might she not come to behold a glory\nin that Teaching greater even than that which she has so heroically but\nso unavailingly endeavoured to make the world behold in the crucified\nSacrifice and Propitiation for its sins?\n\nIs there not here the opportunity of an evangel, the dawning of an\nimmense hope on the world?\n\nBut let the Church ask herself, before she abandons her labour of\nexpounding doctrines concerning the Person of Christ, whether she is\nquite clear as to the teaching of Jesus. \"Not every one that saith unto\nMe, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that\ndoeth the will of My Father which is in heaven.\"\n\nRead St. Mark, the earliest, the least corrupted, of the narratives. It\nis a declaration of a new power in human life, and a record of its\nachievements. It is this, and nothing else. The one great word of that\ngospel is Faith--not faith in a formula or an institution, but faith in\nthe absolute supremacy of spirit. Faith in spirit means power--power\nover circumstance, power over matter, power over the heredity of our\nanimal origin. Jesus not only sets men free from the prison-house of\nmaterial delusion, as Plato and others sought to do; He teaches them the\nway in which alone they can exercise spiritual dominion.\n\nThere were two things to which He set no limits: one, the love of God,\nand the other, the power of Faith.\n\nLet all the schools in the Church revise their definition of the word\n_faith_, and unity will come of itself. Faith, as Jesus employed that\nterm, meant _making use of belief_--belief that the spiritual alone is\nthe real. Faith is the action of the soul. It is the working of a\npower. It is mastery of life.\n\nLet the Church realise that Jesus taught this power of the soul. Let her\nbegin to exercise her own spiritual powers. And then let her understand\nthat she is in the world to teach men, to lead the advance of evolution,\nto educate humanity in the use of its highest powers.\n\nA knowledge of the sense in which Jesus employed the word Faith is the\nclue to the recovery of Christian influence.\n\nThis is the suggestion which I venture to submit to the Church, at a\nmoment in history when the harsh and brutal spirit of materialism is\ncrushing all faith out of the soul and leaving the body no tenant but\nits appetites.\n\nI do not think any observant man can deny that the whole \"suggestion\" of\nthe modern world is of an evil nature, that is to say, of a nature which\nfastens upon the mind the delusions of the senses, making it believe\nthat what it sees is reality, persuading it that the gratification of\nthose senses is the end and object of existence. The wages of this\nsuggestion is death--the death of the soul.\n\nHow far the world is gone from sanity, and how clearly science endorses\nChrist's teaching, may be seen in the modern craze for unhealthy\nexcitement, and in the medical condemnation of that morbid passion. A\nwell-known doctor in London, Sir Bruce Bruce-Porter, has lately\ncondemned Grand Guignol as intensifying the emotion of fear or\nanxiety--\"Take no heed\"--and has declared anger, or any violence of\nfeeling, to be a danger--\"Love your enemies\"--pointing out that \"the\nexperiment of inoculating a guinea-pig with the perspiration taken from\nthe forehead of a man in a violent temper has resulted in the death of\nthe guinea-pig with all the symptoms of strychnine poisoning.\"\n\nScience is the one voice that condemns in these days the self-destroying\nmadness of a world set on seeking to live habitually in the lower life.\nSometimes journalism may light a candle of reason in our darkness, as\nwhen _The Times_ recently pointed out in a leading article that the\nhalf-humorous interest of the world in the murderer Landru had its rise\nin a profound instinct of the human spirit, namely, that horror must be\nlaughed at if it is not to be feared--to fear it is to be overwhelmed by\nit. This instinct is \"an unconscious refusal to believe in the ultimate\nreality of evil; it is the predecessor of the scientific spirit which\nsays that evil is something to be overcome by understanding it.\"\n\nOut of such a lethargy as that which now holds her captive, I do not\nthink the Church can be roused except by the trumpets of war. Let her,\nthen, consider whether there is not here, in this world of false values,\nof low ambitions, of mean pleasures, of dark materialism, and of\nperilous superstitions, a world to be fought, as the doctors fight it,\nand the best kind of newspapers, if only for the sake of posterity, a\nworld against which it is good to oppose oneself--the Children of Light\nagainst the Children of Darkness.\n\nWhat is the good news of Christianity if it is not the news that \"the\nspiritual alone is the real,\" that there is freedom for human life and\nmastery for the human soul, that faith in the spiritual is power over\nthe material? Even in the tentative form which M. Bergson uses to reveal\nthe reality of the spiritual world there is such joy that one of his\ninterpreters can exclaim:\n\n     Here we are in these regions of twilight and dream, where our ego\n     takes shape, where the spring within us gushes up, in the warm\n     secrecy of the darkness which ushers our trembling being into\n     birth. Distinctions fail us. Words are useless now. We hear the\n     wells of consciousness at their mysterious task like an invisible\n     shiver of running water through the mossy shades of the caves. I\n     dissolve in the joy of becoming. I abandon myself to the delight of\n     being a pulsing reality. I no longer know whether I see scents,\n     breathe sounds, or smell colours. Do I love? Do I think? The\n     question has no longer a meaning for me. I am, in my complete self,\n     each of my attitudes, each of my changes. It is not my sight which\n     is indistinct or my attention which is idle. It is I who have\n     resumed contact with pure reality, whose essential movement admits\n     no form of number.\n\nHow much greater the joy of him who knows that Reality is God, and that\nGod is Father.\n\n     The open secret flashes on the brain,\n     As if one almost guessed it, almost knew\n     Whence we have sailed and voyage whereunto.\n\nLet us suppose that the whole Church of Christ was engaged in teaching\nmen this high mystery, this open secret, that all such great\nassociations as the Christian Students' Movement, the Adult Sunday\nSchool Movement, the World Association for Adult Education, and all the\nnumerous Missionary Societies throughout the whole earth--let us suppose\nthat the entire Church of Christ was at work in the world teaching\nChrist's teaching, _educating_ men, bringing it home to the heart and\nmind of humanity that \"life is mental travel,\" that it is in our\nthoughts we live and by our thoughts we are shaped, that flesh and blood\ncannot inherit the Kingdom of God, that all terrestrial values are\nradically false, that to hunger and thirst after anything is to get it,\nthat the power of \"the dominant wish\" is our fate, that in love alone\ncan we live to the full stature of our destiny, that the Kingdom of God\nis within us, that the engine of faith has not yet been exerted by the\nwhole human race in concert, that conquests await us in the spiritual\nworld before which all the conquests of the material world will pale\ninto insignificance, that we are spirits finding our way out of the\ndarkness of an animal ancestry into the Light of an immortal inheritance\nas children of God; let us suppose that this, and not dogma was the\nVoice of the Church; must we not say that by such teaching the whole\nworld would eventually be rescued from our present chaos and in the\nfulness of time be born again into the knowledge of spiritual reality?\n\nI believe it is only when a man realises that in its final analysis the\nwhole universe is invisible, and ceases to think of himself as an animal\nand becomes profoundly sensible of himself as a spirit, and a spirit in\ncommunion with a spiritual reality closer than hands and feet, that it\nis possible for him to fulfil the two great commandments on which hang\nall the Law and the Prophets. And without that fulfilment there must\nalways be chaos.\n\nIf the Church will not teach the world, modern science will inspire\nphilosophy to take up anew the teaching of Plato, and the world will go\nforward into the light, but with no creative love in its soul to save it\nfrom itself. \"If therefore,\" said Christ, \"the light that is in thee be\ndarkness, how great is that darkness.\"","title":"Painted Windows: Studies in Religious Personality","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":55188}