{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_41178/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_41178","id":"gutenberg_41178","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41178","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","English essays"],"text":"Produced by Mark C. Orton, Matthew Wheaton and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nbook was produced from scanned images of public domain\nmaterial from the Google Print project.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n    \u201cI BELIEVE\u201d\n\n    AND OTHER ESSAYS\n\n    BY\n\n    GUY THORNE\n\n    Author of \u201cWhen it Was Dark,\u201d \u201cFirst it was Ordained,\u201d\n    \u201cMade in His Image,\u201d etc., etc.\n\n    LONDON\n\n    F. V. WHITE & CO., Limited\n    14, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.\n\n    1907\n\n\n    RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,\n    BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND\n    BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n      I. \u201cI BELIEVE\u201d\n     II. THE FIRES OF MOLOCH\n    III. THE HISTORICIDES OF OXFORD\n     IV. THE BROWN AND YELLOW PERIL\n      V. THE MENACES OF MODERN SPORT\n     VI. VAGROM MEN\n    VII. AN AUTHOR\u2019S POST-BAG\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION\n\nTo F. V. WHITE, ESQUIRE.\n\n\nMY DEAR WHITE,\n\nThe publication of this book is a business arrangement between you and\nme. Its dedication however has nothing to do with the relations of\nauthor and publisher in those capacities, but is merely an expression\nof friendship and esteem. This then is to remind you of pleasant hours\nwe have spent together on the other side of the channel, in your house\nat London, and my house in Kent.\n\nYours ever sincerely,\n\nGUY THORNE.\n\n\n\n\n\u201cI BELIEVE\u201d\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\u201cI BELIEVE\u201d\n\n\u201c_Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision_.\u201d\n\n\nWhen I was a boy I made an occasional invasion of my father\u2019s study,\nand in the absence of more congenial matter tried to extract some\namusement from the shelves devoted to Christian apologetics. At any\nrate the pictures of the portly divines, which sometimes prefaced\ntheir polemics, interested me, and I was sometimes allured to read a\nfew pages of their scripture. I remember that I enjoyed the sub-acid\nflavour of Bishop Butler\u2019s advertisement, prefixed to the First\nEdition of his _Analogy_, at an early age, and I have thought lately\nthat in certain circles one hundred and seventy years have not greatly\nmodified the mental attitude.\n\nHear what the Rector of Stanhope who, as Horace Walpole said, was\nshortly to be \u201cWafted to the see of Durham in a cloud of metaphysics,\u201d\nsays about his literary contemporaries--\n\n\u201cIt is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons\nthat Christianity is not so much as a subject for inquiry, but that it\nis now at length discovered to be fictitious, and accordingly they\ntreat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among\nall people of discernment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a\nprincipal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of\nreprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the\nworld.\u201d\n\nPerhaps the difference between the times of George the Second and\nEdward the Seventh may be best discerned in the status and calibre of\nthe popular penmen who in either age have found, or furnished\namusement in a tilt against the Catholic Faith.\n\nThe man in the street, as we know him, did not exist in the eighteenth\ncentury. He is the predominant person to-day, and he requires the\nservices of able authors to assure him of immunity, when he is\ninclined to frolic away from chastity or integrity, much as did the\ncounty members who pocketed the bribes of Sir Robert Walpole and\nprated of patriotism.\n\nFortunately for society the man in the street is a very decent fellow,\nand generally finds out before long that Wisdom\u2019s ways are ways of\npleasantness. A man may enjoy posing as an agnostic when he wants an\nexcuse for--as the negro said--\u201cdoing what he dam please,\u201d but when he\ntakes to himself a wife, and children are born to him, a certain\nanxiety as to the continuity and perpetuation of these relationships\nbegins to show itself. A man who has lost a little child, or waited in\nagonizing suspense to hear the physician\u2019s verdict, when sickness\novershadows his home, discovers that he needs something beyond\nnegations, something that will bring life and immortality to light\nagain within his soul.\n\nMoreover, the man in the street finds it necessary to come to some\ndecision on other problems of existence. He is a citizen and must\nneeds exercise his enfranchisement and give his vote at an election\nnow and again. He must help to decide whether the State shall ignore\nreligion and establish a system of ethical education, of which the\nultimate sanction is social convenience, or maintain the thesis that\nCreed and Character are mutually inter-dependent.\n\nAs he pays his poor rate wrathfully, or with resignation, its annual\nincrease reminds him of the necessity of curing or eliminating the\nunfit. When he reads of Belgian and Prussian colonial enterprise, or\nponders on the perplexing problem of the Black Belt which the Southern\nStates must solve, he is compelled to consider whether it is true\nthat \u201cGod has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all\nthe face of the earth,\u201d or whether this shall be accounted as another\nof the delusions of Saul of Tarsus whom Governor Festus found to be\nmad.\n\nIndeed, our friend, the man in the street, when he becomes a family\nman, without any pretensions to be a man of family, very often finds\nhimself face to face with other problems. Shall he simply sing with\nthe Psalmist \u201cLike as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even so are\nthe young children. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of\nthem,\u201d or shall he be guided by the gloss of a modern interpreter who\nmaintains that the oriental quiver was designed to hold but two or\nthree arrows at most?\n\nEven when the plain man confines his interests to his business and\nseeks relaxations in \u201csport\u201d alone, endeavouring to evade the puzzles\nof politics and avoid all theologized inquiry, he cannot escape from\nethical consideration. Professionalism in athletics and questions of\nbetting and bribery contend with his conviction that there is\nsomething which ennobles man in running and striving for mastery, and\nit is futile to curse the bookmaker when his clients are so many, his\noccupation so lucrative.\n\nThe average man gets little guidance from pulpit or press. It is dull\nwork reading sermons, even if sermons came in his way. From time to\ntime some eloquent bishop or canon is reported in the Monday morning\npapers, but journalists know that the publication of a summary with,\nin the case of a few of the preachers, some epigrams or denunciations,\nis all that can be permitted or expected. These may arouse the\nattention to the existence of evils, but give no guiding principle for\ntheir cure.\n\nThe habit of attendance at some place of worship is easily abandoned\nin the days of bachelor freedom, and rarely regained in maturer years.\nMen for the most part find the preacher unconvincing. The usual\naudience does not desire discussion of difficulties. When the honest\ninstinct of devotional worship is gratified by common praise and\nprayer, the people who regularly go to church, elderly, and orthodox\nin their own way, resent a demand upon their intellectual exertion,\nand the Northern farmer of Tennyson hardly misrepresents them, \u201cI\nthought he said what he ought to ha\u2019 said and I comed away.\u201d The great\nNonconformist societies may, in some congregations, give a larger\nlatitude to the preacher, but his freedom is rather in the direction\nof divinity than of ethics. Mr. Rockefeller is a prominent pillar of\nProtestantism in the States, and Mr. Jabez Balfour, in another\ncongregation at Croydon, apparently knew no qualms of conscience\nbefore his actual conviction, which was public, of sin.\n\nThere is an old proverb which tells us that \u201cA man is either a fool or\na philosopher at forty\u201d--and, though proverbs are often only venerable\nprejudices in disguise, it is true that a man, who has attained his\neighth lustrum and is of average ability, generally has come to\ncertain definite conclusions as to the rudimentary laws of health. He\nknows enough about his body to avoid fatal errors in diet, and has\nlearned the necessity of exercise and fresh air. But when he is called\nupon, as a member of the body politic, to decide questions of ethics\non which the sanitation of society must depend, he feels himself at a\nloss. To many people it will seem a hard saying that a man must be\neither a fool or a philosopher at forty, but long ere he has reached\nthat age he will have encountered problems of philosophy which it is\nimpossible to shirk if he is to do his duty as a free man.\n\nSt. Paul, it is true, when writing to a Christian Community in Asia\nMinor, bids them \u201cbeware lest any man spoil you through philosophy.\u201d\nAnd the unfortunate habit of Bible Christians, of tearing a text from\na treatise and making it into a precept, has thrown a sort of\ndiscredit upon philosophic thinking, while the mass of mankind will\nalways prefer rules to principles of conduct. But in vain do we\nclamour against intellectual complications which are the inevitable\nendowment of these days. Life is necessarily intricate, subtle and\nanxious, and Democracy has made of each man a ruler and governor in\nhis degree. Is it possible to point to a single principle which shall\nbe a motive and a standard of duty, which shall establish a synthetic\nmethod after the ruthless analysis of the later Victorian days?\n\nHow searching that analysis has been! Fifty years ago the man in the\nstreet might rarely read the Bible, but he had a tolerably assured\nconviction that the Bible was infallible, however resolutely he might\nrefuse its interpretation by an infallible church.\n\nThen\n\n     \u201c...the Essays and Reviews debate Begins to tell on the\n     public mind, and Colenso\u2019s views have weight.\u201d\n\nPlain people were taught to look on the Old Testament as a library of\nHebrew literature containing not only poetry and history, but romance.\n\nWhen Colenso\u2019s book first appeared, Matthew Arnold deprecated its\npublication since it brought criticisms familiar to men of culture\nbefore the notice of the public, without considering how the beliefs\nof \u201cthe vulgar\u201d might be upset.\n\nThe supercilious apostle of \u201csweetness and light,\u201d himself contributed\nlargely in later years to the general confusion in men\u2019s minds, and\nthe New Testament criticism has been introduced to the general public\nby Mr. Arnold\u2019s accomplished niece.\n\nOur friend, the man in the street, was all unprepared!\n\nWhat had he ever been taught of theology, the Divine word to man? In\nhis school-days, if his father was an income tax payer he probably had\na weekly lesson in \u201cDivinity,\u201d when he construed a few verses of the\nGospels in the Greek Testament, and showed up to his master, now and\nthen, a map of the journeying of the Apostle Paul in Asia Minor and\nEastern Europe. If his father expected him to be confirmed, in due\ncourse, some lessons in the catechism were added for his benefit, but\nprudent pedagogues took care not to endanger the popularity of a\nschool, whether public or private, by any definite teaching which\nmight be accused of being dogmatic. The head-master was probably a\nperson of unsuspected orthodoxy, with a possible deanery or bishopric\nin view for his days of superannuation. His sermons in chapel used to\nset a fine standard of conduct before the boys, and were gracefully\nfree from all mention of controversial questions. In due course they\nwere published with the title _Sermons at Yarrow_, and enterprising\nparents turning over their pages would find little to criticize and\nmuch to admire. The Cross, if presented at all in these publications,\nwas so bespangled with rhetorical jewellery that \u201cJews might kiss and\nInfidels adore.\u201d And the children of Israel as public-school boys were\nnever painfully conscious of any great difference between themselves\nand their baptized companions. But unfortunately only a few of the\nboys came under the civilizing instruction of the Chief. Bright young\nathletes from Oxford and Cambridge, lured into the ranks of pedagogy\nby their love of football and cricket, were the assistant-masters. A\nregular salary with holiday for a fourth of the year, the prospect of\nearly marriage, and a remunerative boarding-house, attracted them to a\npleasant position, and they had no wish to rebel against the\ntime-table which made them teachers of \u201cDivinity\u201d for at least one\nhour in the week. All educated people should be tolerably familiar\nwith a book so largely used in quotation as the Bible, and the\nsuccession of the Kings of Israel and Judah could be used in\nstrengthening the memory, whilst the stories of \u201cJehu and those other\nJohnnies you know\u201d were by no means devoid of picturesque incident.\nGreek Testament could also be made useful in the acquisition of a\nvocabulary, or in a lesson showing the difference between classical\nand vernacular Greek. \u201cOf course we must leave the application of\nthese studies to conduct to _Home influence_,\u201d the headmasters would\nblandly observe, and between parent and pedagogue the teaching of the\nChristian Faith fell neglected to the ground.\n\nWhat chance had the boys so brought up, of forming any conception of\nthe essential truths of Religion? A superficial acquaintance with the\nstories of Hebrew history, a perfunctory attendance at chapel, some\nwell-meant exhortations on the subject of temperance and chastity, as\nthe catechism was revived in their memories before they were brought\nto be confirmed by the Bishop, and some ability \u201cto translate and give\nthe context\u201d of a few phrases from the Greek texts of the Gospels,\nthese were their intellectual religious equipment for a life of fierce\ntemptation from within and without. And when they encountered the\nstorm and stress of modern social life they found that the critics had\ntaken from them the old reverence of nursery days for \u201cGod\u2019s Book,\u201d\ntheir school training had taught them only a rough code of honour, and\ntheir chief restraint from any ignoble impulse was a feeling that to\ndo certain deeds was not \u201cgood form.\u201d\n\nA little lower down the social ladder the man in the street has fared\nno better in his boyhood. In the public elementary schools he has had\na half-hour\u2019s lesson in Scripture and catechism five days of the week,\nand annually the Diocesan, or the School Board, Inspector came round\nto ascertain whether the Syllabus of religious teaching had been duly\nfollowed. But only when devout parish priests had a talent for\nteaching and a love for boys and girls was any attempt made to give\nchildren a _religion_, and even in this case not very much could be\ndone for those who left school for ever when they were twelve years\nold.\n\nA generation ago Lord Sherbrooke, on the extension of the franchise,\ntold his contemporaries that it was time to begin \u201cto educate our\nmasters\u201d--but we have not gone very far in our instruction of\nChristian Sociology, though as yet we have not adopted the Utilitarian\nbasis of morals accepted by the French Republic, and endeavoured to\nestablish principles of duty towards man without any reference\nwhatever to a duty towards God.\n\nCan any one be surprised if the plain man be perplexed when he is\ncalled upon to decide questions of economy and morality without any\nguiding principle? As a matter of fact he makes no such effort.\n\u201cMultitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the\nLord is near in the valley of decisions,\u201d but the sun and the moon are\ndarkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The puzzled popular\nvote is but as the swing of the pendulum, first to this side, then to\nthe other. \u201cThese fellows have been no good, let us give the others a\nshow.\u201d\n\nYet assuredly there is a principle which is guidance and strength if\nonly men could discern it. There are Teachers who can tell men of its\nbeneficent power, but they are as yet few in number, and their voices\nare not sufficiently strong. When once these can get a hearing, men\nwelcome their evangel and find in it a guide of life.\n\nI am persuaded that just as Bishop Butler, when he perused the preface\nof his _Analogy_, had no prescience of the young fellow of Lincoln,\nwho was in a few years to give the Christian faith a fresh hold in the\nhearts of the common people, who gladly heard him, so in our time many\nof our Bishops seem unable to perceive the dawn of another \u201cday of the\nLord.\u201d\n\nIndeed, it is our misfortune in England that Bishops are almost\nnecessarily bad leaders. We are told when an election to the Papacy is\nimminent that this or that Cardinal is in the list of \u201cPapabili\u201d--a\npossible Pope--so in like manner we may almost select amongst the\nundergraduates of Oxford and Cambridge our future diocesans. These are\nmen clever, shrewd, and hard-working, of estimable private character,\nand not without some modest patrimony. Early entered in the race for\npreferment, ambitious, and yet, _mirabile dictu_, devout, they are\nendowed first of all with the true qualification for episcopacy, a\ncapacity for compromise and a pliant political mind. _Sic itur ad\nastra_ the excellent curate or tutor, the courteous and accomplished\nchaplain to the Bishop, the eloquent canon and ecclesiastical courtier\nis consecrated and enthroned. Henceforward for the rest of his days he\nmust hurry from his study table, crowded with correspondence, to his\nconfirmations, his diocesan society meetings, and his weary,\nhumiliating attendance at the House of Lords. What wonder if Bishops\ndiscourage new ventures of faith, who have no time for thinking, no\ntime for reading, and perhaps, sometimes, too little opportunity for\nprayer!\n\nAnd so we find them not unwilling to accommodate the Catholic Faith to\nthe popular prejudice of the moment, acquiescing in an undogmatic,\nundenominational, more or less Christian creed. Popularity becomes the\nvery breath of their nostrils, and they proceed to hide in an\nappendix to the Prayer-book, the hymn _Quicunque vult_.\n\nYet the discerning can see that now is no time for keeping in the\nbackground the great truths of religion. Already men are being\nprepared in many ways to receive them.\n\nThe Christian Faith in England is no longer hampered by certain\narbitrary axioms of the Puritan Divines. In the sixteenth century men\nwere almost compelled by the exigencies of the situation to discover\nsome Infallible authority which they could set up over against the\nInfallibility of the Church of Rome, and they endeavoured to treat\nHoly Scripture as though the great library of Jewish and Christian\nwriters contained a complete code of consistent legislation. A text\nwas a convincing argument for the Divine right of Kings, or for\nbinding them in chains, for the burning of witches or the destruction\nof a shrine, and although in the two following centuries the\nProtestant ministers taught men to modify this conception, and to\nrealize the difference between the Old Testament and the New, the\npopular idea of Revelation allowed small scope for theological\ninquiry. The biographies of our literary men of the Victorian period\nhave shown us how they were tempted to separate themselves from all\npublic communion with the Church, by their misgiving that the Church\nwas committed to an impossible position. Carlyle groaned for what he\ncalled an \u201cexit from Houndsditch,\u201d some deliverance from the Rabbinic\ninterpretation and use of the Bible. Things are very different to-day,\nas Henry Sidgwick says in a letter to Alfred Lord Tennyson published\nby his son in a recent memoir. \u201cThe years pass, the struggle with what\nCarlyle used to call \u2018Hebrew old clothes\u2019 is over, Freedom is won.\u201d\nAnd in the result a scientific criticism of the Old and New Testament\nis found to be compatible with, and often a compulsion to an\nacceptance of the Christian creed, not the creed of Calvin, or the\nWestminster Confession, but the reasoned statement of Nic\u00e6a. The\nstudent of physical science no longer believes that if he goes to\nchurch he must be taken to accept the cosmogony of Genesis, and on his\nside he no longer stumbles at the difficulty of miraculous events. He\nknows too much about the influence of mind over matter to say that it\nis impossible that Jesus Christ and His Apostles should have healed\nthe paralytic and made the blind to see and the deaf to hear. He is no\nlonger \u201ccocksure\u201d of his capability of drawing a line of division\nbetween the organic and the inorganic. He can conceive of the\nexistence of spirits which can control and modify the ordinary laws\nof life. He finds it probable that evolution is not exhausted when Man\nhas come into being, and can look forward to a spiritual existence\nwithout suspecting himself of superstition. Sacraments, the union of\nthe spiritual with the material, seem to him to be in accordance with\nthe laws of the Universe, and he would never now-a-days stigmatize\nthem as \u201cMagic.\u201d However he may explain the methods by which cures\nwere wrought upon the afflicted, the scientific man of to-day would\nnot accuse St. Luke of falsehood because he tells us that, \u201cGod\nwrought special miracles by the hands of Paul, so that from his body\nwere brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases\ndeparted from them and the evil spirits went out of them.\u201d Indeed the\nman of science knows himself to be on the track of discoveries which\nwill show us secrets of personality and spiritual possession which\nwill banish for ever the absurd incredulity of the eighteenth and\nnineteenth centuries.\n\nWho now-a-days would assert that \u201cmiracles do not happen,\u201d when men\nlike Sir Oliver Lodge are laboriously discovering some few of these\nlaws of the Universe which give us these portents and signs? Who dares\nto sneer at Parthenogenesis or repeat the slander of Celsus about the\nMother of God? Men only who have grown rusty in reposing on their past\nreputations and cannot see that materialism as a philosophy is dead.\nDay by day fresh evidence of the power of the spirit over matter\nbursts upon us. A plea for \u201cphilosophic doubt\u201d of Professor Huxley\u2019s\ninfallibility is no longer necessary. The very distinction between\nmatter and spirit grows more and more difficult as science develops\nanalytical power. The minds of men are being prepared again to receive\nthat Supreme revelation which told of the wedding of the earth and\nheaven, the taking of the Manhood into God.\n\nIn truth, this is the one principle which can give men guidance in the\ntangled intricacy of modern life. It is necessary to salvation, _now_,\nnot hereafter only, to believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord\nJesus Christ.\n\nFor, first of all, men need to be saved from the apathy of despair.\nThey need some hope that there is an answer to the riddle of the\nUniverse. Let them once begin to feel that it _may_ be true that the\nvery God cares for His creatures and has made His love for them\nmanifest by taking to Himself the body, mind and spirit of man, and\njoining for ever human nature to the Godhead, then through the\ndarkness comes a human voice saying--\n\n    \u201cO heart I made, a heart beats here!\n    Face, my hands fashioned, see it in Myself.\n    Thou hast no power nor mayst conceive of mine,\n    But love I gave thee, with Myself to love,\n    And thou must love Me who have died for thee.\u201d\n\nA man regains his self-respect when once he has escaped from the\nparalyzing sense that his is only\n\n    \u201ca life of nothings nothing worth\n    From that first nothing ere our birth\n    To that last nothing under earth.\u201d\n\nAnd there is only one starting-point for those who journey on this\nquest of an answer to the enigma of life. They must resolutely abandon\nthe long travelled \u201c_a priori_ road.\u201d They must understand that the\nscience of to-day is not tied to any materialistic axioms, that\nmetaphysic cannot be ignored by the physician, and that no competent\nscientist to-day would say of the Resurrection of Jesus on which\nultimately depends His claims to our adoration, \u201c_That could not\nhappen_.\u201d We know enough now of the laws of the Universe to know that\nwe do not know them all.\n\nSo some of us perceive that what is needed to-day is to arrest the\nattention of the man in the street, to get him to perceive that\nChristianity has much more to say for itself than he suspected, and\nthat Christian Philosophy will place in his hand a clue which will\nguide him in the labyrinth of life.\n\n    \u201cI say the acknowledgment of God in Christ\n    Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee\n    All questions in the earth and out of it.\u201d\n\nWe must set men free from phrases and get them to think. It suits the\ngame of the party politician to pretend that ethics are easily\nself-evident, and that there is a simple fundamental religion on which\nall men are agreed; but there is a question which must be insistently\nurged, and upon the answer to which all things depend, \u201cWhat think ye\nof Christ?\u201d\n\nProbably nothing has done more to alienate the man in the street from\nreligious observance than the hypocritical pretence that all men are\nagreed about \u201csimple Bible teaching.\u201d He knows well enough that what\nreally matters is whether a man believes or not that God became man.\nIf ever the Labour Party should definitely declare for elementary\neducation without religious teaching it will be because the men whose\nchildren attend the elementary schools know that they cannot read the\nNew Testament without asking, \u201cIs it true?\u201d\n\n\u201cDid Jesus Christ really die and rise again the third day according to\nthe Scriptures?\u201d \u201cDid Jesus Christ go up into heaven in the sight of\nthe apostles till a cloud received Him?\u201d \u201cDid Mary\u2019s Son come to her\nas other babies come?\u201d \u201cWas Joseph Jesus Christ\u2019s real father?\u201d Our\nmembers of Parliament who have no leisure to know their own children,\nwho keep them in the nursery till it is time for them to go to the\nPreparatory School, who leave their training to the governess and the\nhead-master, may talk about \u201cthe cruelty of the religious differences\nwhich hinder the establishment of an efficient system of education for\nthe children of the State.\u201d But the men and the mothers who live with\ntheir children and talk to them about their lessons, know that a child\nwill insist upon an answer to its questions. A father of a family in\nthe artisan and labouring classes, if he be at all intelligent, loses\nall respect for ministers of the Gospel who pretend that there is no\ndifficulty about the simple Gospel story, and losing his self-respect\nfor the men who have appointed themselves his teachers, he is tempted\nto throw all theology aside. And if he ventures on this despairing\nexpedient he finds himself in mental confusion again over ethics\ninstead of theology, and there arises a prospect of anarchy and\ndisorder. Capital is timid, so enterprise is checked. Poverty\nincreases and riot follows, and it all ends, not now-a-days in the\nNapoleonic \u201cwhiff of grape-shot,\u201d but in the rattle of the maxim in\nthe streets and the desolation of a thousand homes.\n\nThe experience of all civilization is that you cannot separate\nmorality from religion. When the Romans lost their faith in the old\ngods and became \u201cundenominational,\u201d civic virtue decayed. When the\ngenius of the Empire was set up for a universal Deity and men were\nbidden as good citizens to burn their few grains of incense before the\nstatue of the reigning Emperor--the representative of an ordered and\nmoral state--we know what happened. You cannot make an abstraction\nalive and deify Government. Laws, which have the sanction only of\nexpediency, do but furnish mankind with exercise in evasion.\nIndefinite belief in the existence of \u201csomething not ourselves which\nmakes for righteousness\u201d has no motive force, and though men may rub\non in some fashion or other by following ancient custom, and the law\nof use and wont, this can only be done in quiet times. And ours are\nnot quiet times; indeed, the air is thick with principles which are\nforcing themselves into expression. The principles of Nationality or\nCosmopolitanism, the comity of nations and the limits of destruction,\ninternational trades unionism, and the laws of marriage are recurring\nitems upon the programme of every social science congress. All these\ndark questions are forced upon the attentions of men, and never was\nthere greater need of some synthetic philosophy which may help us in\ntheir exploration. Are we going to put Christianity aside and rule out\ntheology from our calculations?\n\nI may quote the testimony of the late Sir Leslie Stephen here. Every\none knows that he held no brief to defend orthodoxy--\n\n     \u201cTo proclaim unsectarian Christianity is, in circuitous\n     language, to proclaim that Christianity is dead. The love of\n     Christ, as representing the ideal perfection of human nature,\n     may indeed be still a powerful motive, and powerful whatever\n     the view which we take of Christ\u2019s character. The advocates of\n     the doctrine in its more intellectual form represent this\n     passion as the true essence of Christianity. They assert with\n     obvious sincerity of conviction that it is the leverage by\n     which alone the world can be moved. But, as they would\n     themselves admit, this conception would be preposterous if,\n     with Strauss, we regarded Christ as a mere human being. Our\n     regard for Him might differ in degree, but would not differ in\n     kind, from our regard for Socrates or for Pascal. It would be\n     impossible to consider it as an overmastering and all-powerful\n     influence. The old dilemma would be inevitable; he that loves\n     not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love Christ whom\n     he hath not seen? A mind untouched by the agonies and wrongs\n     which invest London hospitals and lanes with horror, could not\n     be moved by the sufferings of a single individual, however\n     holy, who died eighteen centuries ago.\n\n     \u201cNo; the essence of the belief is the belief in the Divinity of\n     Christ. But accept that belief; think for a moment of all that\n     implies, and you must admit that your Christianity becomes\n     dogmatic in the highest degree. Our conceptions of the world\n     and its meaning are more radically changed than our conceptions\n     of the material universe, when the sun instead of the earth\n     becomes its centre. _Every view of history, every theory of our\n     duty, must be radically transformed by contact with that\n     Stupendous Mystery._ Whether you accept or reject the special\n     tenets of the Athanasian Creed is an infinitesimal trifle. You\n     are bound to assume that every religion which does not take\n     this dogma into account is without true vital force. Infidels,\n     heathens, and Unitarians reject the single influence which\n     alone can mould our lives in conformity with the everlasting\n     laws of the universe. Of course, there are tricks of sleight of\n     hand by which the conclusion is evaded. It would be too long\n     and too trifling to attempt to expose them. Unsectarian\n     Christianity consists in shirking the difficulty without\n     meeting it, and trying hard to believe that the passion can\n     survive without its essential basis. It proclaims the love of\n     Christ as our motive, whilst it declines to make up its mind\n     whether Christ was God or man; or endeavours to escape a\n     categorical answer under a cloud of unsubstantial rhetoric. But\n     the difference between man and God is infinite, and no effusion\n     of superlatives will disguise the plain fact from honest\n     minds. To be a Christian in any real sense you must start from\n     a dogma of the most tremendous kind, and an undogmatic Creed is\n     as senseless as a statue without shape or a picture without\n     colour. Unsectarian means un-Christian.\u201c--From _Freethinking\n     and Plainspeaking_ (pp. 122-4), by Leslie Stephen. (Longmans,\n     London.)\n\nThe considerations which seemed to compel the clearheaded author of\nthis extract to his own well-known intellectual position no longer\napply. In England, at any rate, the Church is not bound down to any\nmechanical theory of the inspiration of the Bible, and accepts all the\ndiscoveries of Modern Physical Science without misgiving. Such books\nas the late Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Temple) gave us in his\nBampton Lectures have long ago shown the futility of attempting to map\nout the exact terms of a reconciliation between the claims of science\nand religion, but they have shown that religion and science are _not_\ndestructive and contradictory of each other.\n\n\u201cThe same principles are found in each. The principle of evolution,\nfor instance, is as evident in the gradual development of religion as\nin the age-long process by which the natural world was created; the\norder and beauty and regular succession manifest in Nature can be\ntraced also in the spiritual universe. The revelation which was\nformerly held to be violation of law is seen to be a revelation of\nhigher law. The great postulate of science, the uniformity of Nature,\nis not infringed.\u201d\n\nWe know now that there are laws of the Universe which, if we knew more\nabout them, would tell us how it was that a Virgin could conceive and\nbear a Son. It is not to us an inconceivable superstition that \u201cThe\nSon of Man\u201d should have in His own person powers of which the\nrudimentary signs can be traced in all humanity, manifesting\nthemselves from time to time. The day is long past when the\nresurrection of Jesus Christ can be set aside as a \u201ccunningly devised\nfable.\u201d No scientific man, who has not deliberately shut himself in an\nhermetically sealed materialism would say to-day that \u201cMiracles\u201d do\nnot happen. It is a question of evidence.\n\nAnd educated men know that there is a science of metaphysics, that\nthere is a science of psychology, that literary criticism is\nscientific, that the age of a document can be decided, that cumulative\nevidence cannot be ignored, and that simply to put aside the claims of\nChristianity without examination is absurd.\n\nBut, as Sir Leslie Stephen shows, it is the Christianity of the\nCatholic creed that matters, and it is this Christianity of which the\nman in the street has need. It gives him a solution of those social\nand ethical problems which he must solve, which he can only neglect at\nthe peril of natural degradation. For example, the position of women\ndepends upon our belief or disbelief that Christ was born of the\nVirgin Mary. To say that monogamy is the natural evolution of\nhumanity, that chastity in the young unmarried man is a product of\ncivilization, that a high conception of a man\u2019s duty to posterity will\nkeep him from harlotry, is simply to show ignorance of history, of\nhuman nature, and of the world as it is. A man who talks now-a-days\nabout the respect of marriage being a Teutonic contribution to the\nevolution of civilized society, is behind the times. We _know_ that\nrespect for women, and marriage held in honour, are the creations of\nthe Holy Catholic Church, which insists on the Incarnation of the Lord\nJesus Christ.\n\nBut the man in the street does not know these things. The discoveries\nin science, whether physical or psychical, do not reach him. Technical\ntreatises are too strong meat for his intellectual digestion. The\npulpit does not appeal to him. At every baptism in the Church of\nEngland the priest solemnly instructs the god-parents of the child,\n\u201cYe shall call upon him to hear sermons,\u201d but for the most part the\nadmonition is in vain. As a matter of fact, he picks up his religious\nnotions from the newspaper press. And the newspaper press is not now\ncontrolled by men who have a distinct and definite belief in\nChristianity. It depends upon Finance, and financiers have other\ninterests. The assertion of the Psalter, \u201cNotus in Jud\u00e6a\u201d has been\nchanged now-a-days into an interrogation, and we ask, \u201cIn Jewry _is_\nGod known?\u201d Let any man who has an intimate acquaintance with the\nnewspaper world run over in his mind the names of the great newspaper\nproprietors, the editors of our journalistic press, the writers of\nleading articles, the rising young journalists; and when he has\nexcepted a few Irishmen, who may happen to remain faithful to the\nRoman Catholic Church, to which they owe their education, how many men\nwill he find who honestly believe the Nicene Creed, and are habitually\npresent on the first day of the week at the Breaking of the Bread?\n\nThe tone of the daily paper is tolerant. There is no rude hostility\ndisplayed towards definite Christian doctrines, but the toleration is\npolitely contemptuous. \u201cAll wise men are of the same religion, and\nwhat that religion is wise men do not say.\u201d\n\nIt is true that in political matters the press has less power than it\nused to have. A magnate of finance cannot now seriously affect public\nopinion, though he may buy newspaper after newspaper, and sweep out\nthe editorial staff to supply their places with men of his own choice.\nOne wealthy wirepuller has other plutocrats to reckon with in\nquestions of party politics, and a newspaper man who is dismissed by\nthe proprietor of the _Tariff Reformer_ may find another editorial\nchair placed at his disposal by the owner of _The Standard of Free\nTrade_.\n\nThe man in the street looks out for a newspaper which may strengthen\nhis own party proclivities. He expects to find political questions\ndiscussed, but so far as religion is concerned he accepts without\nknowing it the current convention of the pressman, and imbibes a\nsemi-sceptical atmosphere without misgiving or suspicion.\n\nAnd yet, as Sir Leslie Stephen saw, every theory of duty depends upon\nBelief or Disbelief in the Divinity of Christ. We may talk of duty to\nSociety, duty to the Race, duty to Posterity, duty to Civilization;\nbut the plain man will recall the question of Sir Boyle Roche: \u201cI do\nnot understand, Mr. Speaker, all this talk about our duty to\nPosterity! What has Posterity ever done for us?\u201d\n\nYou cannot control conduct by asserting that a man owes a debt to an\nabstraction which you vivify by printing it with a capital letter,\nand there remains always the question of the dying Lucretius--\n\n    \u201cThy duty? What is duty? Fare thee well.\u201d\n\nThe problem, then, which we have to solve is--how to arrest the\nattention of the average man to those Christian principles, of which\nthe acceptance or definite refusal will determine the course of\ncivilization during the next twenty years.\n\nThe mere assertion of authority will not suffice, and men are not\nimpressed in favour of Catholic doctrine simply by dignified ceremony\nand Ritual. We have only to look across the English Channel to be\nassured of this. Frenchmen have not been encouraged to study the\nevidences of Christianity. Bishops and priests have only advertised\nsceptical books by forbidding their perusal to the faithful; and as\nthe devout have been instructed to live by faith, but not how to give\na reason for the faith which is in them, in the result M. Viviani\u2019s\natheistic rhetoric has been placarded at the cost of the State in\nevery commune throughout France.\n\nWe may consider, then, if there be any method by which the man who\ndoes not read theological or scientific or philosophical books, the\nman who has left off going to church, or gets no help from the\naverage sermon, the man who has no reverence for mere authority, may\nbe induced to consider the Christian Revelation as offering him a key\nto those riddles of life which his civic responsibilities are\nperpetually propounding.\n\nRemember that his present condition may be roughly described as\nconsisting of religious haziness and moral laziness. The moral\nlaziness is being subjected to a series of rough shocks. He _must_\nmake up his mind about some questions of morality. The relation of the\nsexes, the duties of property, the treatment of the subject savage,\nthe survival of the unfit, the ethics of commerce, the control of the\nsale of alcohol, the education of children, these things he has to\ndecide and he will ultimately decide. But he is at present perplexed,\nand his religious haziness is the reason of his perplexity. He perhaps\nhas not reached the conclusion of his contemporary in France, but he\nis on the way to it. Those heavenly lights which M. Viviani declares\nthat his Government has extinguished still shine faintly for men in\nEngland, though the mists obscure them.\n\nCan we get men to look upwards for light, and instead of cursing the\nancient creed in a confused commination, to take Arthur Clough\u2019s\nadvice--\n\n    \u201cAh! yet consider it again.\u201d\n\nI believe that there is a method, and as I mention it I am prepared\nfor derision from all the \u201cchorus of irresponsible reviewers, the\nirresponsible indolent reviewers.\u201d\n\nI believe that Fiction will find those that can be reached by no other\nmeans. Fiction sometimes sets a man seeking for Fact.\n\nVery diffidently and very reverently I may remind my contemporaries\nthat one, who has, at any rate, profoundly influenced the course of\nhistory, whatever view we may take of His person, did not disdain this\nmethod, \u201cHe taught them by parables.\u201d\n\n\u201cLet me tell you a story.\u201d Is there any age of mankind which does not\nrespond to the invitation and give audience? A story stilled the\ntumult of the nursery in our earliest days, when heavy storms shook\nthe windows and the tedium of a long, wet afternoon had turned play\ninto fretfulness. A story beguiled us into interest when our History\nlesson had seemed an arid futility in Fourth Form days, and our\nmagisterial enemies began to show themselves human after all when they\nbade us read _The Last of the Barons_ as we were painfully plodding in\nthe Plantagenet period, and found the War of the Roses a very thorny\nwaste.\n\nIt is strange to turn over the pages of eminent evangelical sermons\nof the early Victorian days and to notice how \u201cNovel reading\u201d is\ndenounced. Probably the worthy divines who fulminated against fiction\nwere thinking of their own boyhood, and the mischief which came to\nthem from Fielding and Richardson and Smollett surreptitiously\nperused. Sir Anthony Absolute\u2019s detestation of the circulating library\nsurvived in some provincial circles even when Sir Walter Scott had\ncome to his own. The last forty years have altered things\nconsiderably, and though some men may pretend to despise novels,\nnow-a-days they must take them into account. Wise and learned persons\nbegan to prescribe them, not only as a vehicle for the exhibition of\nwholesome but unattractive information, but as having a remedial value\nof their own. \u201cThe intellectual anodyne of the nineteenth century,\u201d I\nremember that somebody called them--perhaps it was Sir Arthur Helps.\nIt came about that those who had a secret and timid predilection for\nthe story-book, but blushed a little if at Mudie\u2019s counter they\nventured to ask for a novel, found that their ordinary reading of\nBiography and Memoirs revealed some unsuspected sympathies of the\nillustrious and wise. Who would have thought that Darwin devoured\nnovels and Dean Church did not disdain them, and that Mr. Gladstone\nsat up all night to finish _John Inglesant_? The respectable\npater-familias has long ceased to proscribe novel reading, and the\nmost austere biographer no longer hides as a revelation of weakness\nhis hero\u2019s literary divertisements. Finally, in this year of Grace\n1906 we are boldly told that Archbishop Temple could stand an\nexamination in Miss Yonge\u2019s novels, and on one occasion was heard\nkeenly discussing with Lord Rosebery the careers of the May family in\nthe _Daisy Chain_ as though they were living acquaintances. From being\nrecognized as a recreation the novel has developed into a power, and\nCharles Dickens was a pioneer in its progress. It is the custom\namongst certain \u201csuperior persons\u201d to sneer at the novel with a\npurpose, and to suggest that authors attained remunerative results by\ntaking some subject which was already ripe for discussion and weaving\nround it a web of fiction.\n\nUndoubtedly there is danger to-day of such artifice, but I maintain\nthat the great reforms of the past century owed much to writers whose\npurpose was perfectly innocent. Cardinal Newman has told us of the\nliterary influence of Sir Walter Scott, who turned men\u2019s minds in the\ndirection of the Middle Ages.\n\n\u201cThe general need,\u201d he said, \u201cof something deeper and more attractive\nthan what had offered itself elsewhere, may be said to have led to\nhis popularity; and by means of his popularity he reacted on his\nreaders, stimulating their mental thirst, feeding their hopes, setting\nbefore them visions, which when once seen are not easily forgotten,\nand silently indoctrinating them with nobler ideas, which might\nafterwards be appealed to as first principles.\u201d\n\nIf Cardinal Newman could thus maintain the value of Fiction in the\ngreat ecclesiastical movement which has regenerated the Church of\nEngland, I may claim without apology that the reform in Poor Law\nAdministration gained the attention of the public when Dickens made\n\u201cBumbledom\u201d ridiculous, and that the Court of Chancery was swept\ncleaner by the breezes which were blowing from _Bleak House_. Let any\nman run over in his mind the undoubted improvements in social matters\nduring the last fifty years, and it will be seen how Fiction has\nassisted in their promotion. Did Charles Reade\u2019s _Hard Cash_ do\nnothing to arouse the attention of the public to the condition of the\ninsane? Did Sir Walter Besant\u2019s novels turn no light on the sins of\nthe sweater, or Charles Kingsley\u2019s _Alton Locke_ show no reason for\nlegalizing the Trade Union and the reform of the Law of Conspiracy?\nMrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe may to-day be forgotten, but the southern\nstates of North America would not dispute the influence of Fiction\nupon the public mind.\n\nThe fact is that men, who generally read nothing else but newspapers,\nwill read a good novel, and if the book brings before them principles\nwhich they have hitherto neglected, they will very often consider\nthose principles again. It is necessary, however, that the novel shall\nappeal to them as being a fair record of the present or the past. They\nmay as they read it be unable to pronounce on the thesis which is at\nthe back of the book, but they will be led to consider and discuss it\nif the story, as a story, holds them. And it is here that the story\nwhich has a genuine religious motive often fails. Most of the great\nartists in fiction, when they have taken in hand a subject which is of\nreligious interest, have written in a spirit of detachment. George\nEliot\u2019s _Romola_ is an example, and the result is that men are more\ninterested in Tito Melema than in Savonarola. Novels in which religion\nis necessarily much in evidence have been written either by literary\nartists who have studiously endeavoured to lay aside their own\npersonal convictions, or if the books have been written with a\ndistinctly religious purpose the hero and heroine have been\nunconvincing, the people in the story have not been alive.\n\nWhen Cardinal Newman had abandoned prematurely his hope of maintaining\nthe Catholic character of the Church of England, he did not disdain to\nemploy his pen in the production of a novel with a religious purpose;\nbut we are amazed to find that the exquisite grace of style which is\none of the charms of the _Apologia_ could not render Charles Riding\ninteresting, or the novel _Loss and Gain_, of which he is the hero,\nreadable.\n\nIt is perhaps dangerous to give another example from contemporary\nfiction, but those who justly admire Mrs. Humphry Ward\u2019s subtle\ndiscernment of character and great and increasing mastery of form and\nstyle, will not be inclined to dispute the opinion that when, in\n_Robert Elsmere_, she undertook the defence of the modern Unitarian\nposition, her hero was hardly a \u201cMan\u2019s man.\u201d\n\nThe reason is not far to seek. The average man knows too much of the\ndarker side of life; and the necessary effort made by the author of\nreligious novels to depict that of which they, fortunately for their\nown souls, have had no experience, is not successful. Charles\nKingsley\u2019s undergraduate days were perhaps not without knowledge of\nthe shadows, but he is happier in the Schools of Alexandria, or in the\nspacious days of Great Elizabeth, than in a tale of modern life such\nas _Two Years Ago_. His Broad Church Catholic teaching does not always\nfind its way to the man in the street, and Henry Kingsley, whose life\nwas so different from that of his illustrious clerical brother, has\nmore of human interest in his stories.\n\nThe novel with a purpose, and especially with a religious purpose,\nfails only, when it does fail, because the author\u2019s knowledge of the\naverage man in his sins and his temptations to sin, is altogether\nincommensurate with his familiarity with the great religious and\nsocial problems of which his story would suggest a solution.\n\nIt is often supposed that the men do not care to find the subject of\nreligion introduced in fiction, that they resent religion in a novel,\nas children resent the administration of a medicinal powder in a\nspoonful of jam; but the expert witness of publishers demolishes this\nopinion. After all, the religious claim is insistent, and life is\nuntruly depicted when men and women are described in a story as\nuninfluenced by it. There is something unreal in a book which has no\nSundays in it. Critical opinion as expressed in the notices of books\nin the daily papers, and in more weighty reviews, is very misleading,\nsimply because the reviewers are generally very young men or women\nwho know more or less of literature but very little of life. The wrath\nof the young man fresh from the University at the success of those\nbooks which do not ignore the spiritual needs of men and women amuses\nthe experienced author.\n\n\u201cFaugh!\u201d cries Mr. Jones of Balliol; \u201canother batch of sin and\nsentiment!\u201d \u201cThe Christian creed and the conjugal copula! Religion and\nPatchouli!\u201d Yet the critic forgets that those who would reach the\nminds and hearts of men must deal with the problems of creed and\ncharacter which men have to solve, each one for himself.\n\nOur censors, dilettante, delicate-handed, with their canons of\ncriticism might do worse than reckon up the number of English novels\nwhich have lived on into the twentieth century. They will be surprised\nto find that they are nearly all novels with a purpose and a religious\npurpose for their \u201cmotif.\u201d Charles Reade when he wrote _Never too late\nto mend_, not only helped forward the humane and intelligent treatment\nof criminals, he showed how the Divine Image was stamped indelibly on\nhuman nature, and where it seemed to be obliterated could be restored.\nBut Charles Reade drew real men and women. His characters are not\npuppets of the play-house but are alive. And Thackeray--_Clarum et\nvenerabile nomen_--making hypocrites his quarry, and raining his\nquiver full of satiric shafts upon the hateful crew, never scoffed for\na moment at reverent things, but with bowed head and hushed footsteps\npassed by the sanctuary. Therefore, these men are still living forces.\nMen will read other novels of the past as women look at old-fashion\nplates, and amuse themselves with the differences and contrasts of\nsucceeding generations, but the novels which men buy in their hundreds\nof thousands, the novels which are reprinted again and again, the\nnovels for which the publishers wait as their copyright is expiring,\nlike heirs expecting a rich man\u2019s death, that each may endeavour to be\nfirst in the field with an edition which pays no royalty to the\nauthor; these novels are those which truly represented life as it\nseemed in other days, life seeking ever to be reassured that One has\ncome who offers to those who walk in darkness the light of life.\n\nIt is exasperating to some minds to discover that the man of the world\nis not altogether worldly, and that he finds in books which recognize\nreligion as a considerable part of man\u2019s life, something which gives\nto them reality and truth. Immature minds and inexperienced penmen are\nnot impressed by the things which really matter, and in the interval\nbetween the University and man\u2019s settlement in life much nonsense is\nwritten and spoken.\n\nI speak from personal experience; and when I look back upon the\nreviews I wrote ten years ago, it is with invariable consternation,\nand sometimes a real sense of shame.\n\nNevertheless, there is some criticism of the religious novel which\nmust be taken seriously. I have maintained that men generally in\nEngland are in a state of theological confusion, but that they are\ninterested in religion if they can be induced to consider it. There\nis, as the great African Presbyter wrote seventeen hundred years ago,\na natural response in the hearts of men to the chief articles of the\nChristian Faith. There is a _Testimonium anim\u00e6 naturaliter\nchristian\u00e6_. But there are some who can only be described by a\nquotation: \u201cThey are the enemies of the cross of Christ.\u201d They are\ndetermined that the Catholic creed shall have no place in the counsels\nand considerations of social legislation. Of Jesus Christ they have\nsaid, \u201cWe will not have this man to reign over us;\u201d and if there be\nany chance that a man\u2019s books may catch the eye of the public and\nrouse people to think whether opportunism is really statesmanship, and\nempiricism in politics really prudent, if, in a word, the principles\nof Christianity are offered as a solution of social problems, then\nthe author is attacked on every side. It is suggested that his\nintention is insincere, that his knowledge is inadequate. The things\nwhich have been part of his painful discipline and development are\ndescribed as his accepted environment. If a Bishop happens to find an\nillustration for a sermon in his pages, or a prominent Nonconformist\ndivine recognizes that the laity like to read them, and says so; if\nany of those true hearts who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity\nhave been ready to see that men who have been rescued _de profundis_,\nmen who have had experience of [Greek: ta bathea tou satana] are not\nthereby disqualified for duty in the field of Faith; if, in a word,\nbooks which claim for Christianity the first place in the thought of\nthe time are successful, a very malignant hostility is aroused.\n\nIt is most probable that this hatred of Christianity will grow and\nincrease. The world has never before been as it is to-day. The system\nof party politics has placed power in the hands of the democracy. The\n\u201cworking man\u201d has at last discovered what he can do. He must make his\nchoice between the secular and the religious principle. Hitherto the\nChristian pastors of the people have appealed to his emotions, and not\nwithout success. The emotions will always be the chief guides in\nconduct for many; but the leaders of the working men are hard-headed,\nwell read in social science and politics; and, owing to the\ninsufficient training of the clergy in these subjects, the politicians\nof the _proletariat_ have conceived a sort of contempt for the parson\nand the minister and the priest. The small body of Unitarians, wealthy\nfrom their constant intermarriage with the great Jewish families, and\nopposed to an aristocracy which has only in the last forty years been\nwilling to receive them, has been quick to see that the working man\nmust be alienated from the Catholic creed, and his vote secured at any\ncost. On the railway bookstalls we may note the activity of the\nUnitarian propaganda committee. Fifty years ago it was not necessary\nto consider the opinions of the man in the street: the Unitarian\nminister and his congregation were comfortable in the assurance of\ntheir own intellectual culture and their kindly interest for the\npoorer classes. In politics they were Liberals, for an Established\nChurch interfered with their sense of superiority, and the landed\nproprietors and the hereditary aristocracy socially ignored them. But\nthey had no notion of calling into existence an electorate which\nshould endanger the supremacy of the capitalist, and, like\nFrankenstein, they are afraid of their own creations, now that the\nworking man has become the dispenser of Parliamentary power. It is\nvital to their interests that he should be diverted from further\nattacks upon capital, and encouraged to believe that it is the priest\nwho is his true foe. \u201c_Le cl\u00e9ricalisme voil\u00e0 l\u2019ennemi_\u201d is a\nconvenient cry. A vague Deism is not dangerous to wealthy\nmanufacturers; but if the clergy are going to take up Christian\nSocialism it is time to be up and doing. So every weapon against the\ncreed of Christendom is being taken down and examined, and many an old\nfallacy is refurbished and employed once more. Celsus is disinterred\nfrom the tomb in which Origen had buried him, and his filthy slander\nof the Blessed Virgin is printed as though it were a new discovery of\nhistorical research. Collins is called into court again as though\nBentley had never exposed his ignorance, and Hume\u2019s _a priori_ method\nis revived as though it had never been discredited; whilst Strauss and\nRenan are quoted as authorities, as if Westcott and Lightfoot had\nnever been known. Shunt the working classes on a new line of rails.\nSet them shrieking against sacramentalists, and swearing at\nsacerdotalists, and we may quietly arrange our commercial combinations\nand protect our manufacturing interests!\n\nI want to see the seats under the dome of St. Paul\u2019s filled not by\nonly the middle-aged middle classes, who for the most part are\nChristian in creed, but by the young artisans and craftsmen, and the\nstrong politicians who fill the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, and\ncrowd the great Assembly Rooms of Birmingham and Liverpool when an\nelection is drawing near. The timid members of the Episcopate who may\nbe reminded that \u201cHe that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he\nthat regardeth the clouds shall not reap,\u201d are not our only Bishops.\nOccasionally a Prime Minister offers for election and consecration a\nman who can reach the minds and consciences of men. Is it too great an\nambition for a storyteller to try to arouse in people\u2019s minds a\nsuspicion that after all something may be said for the Catholic Faith,\nand so to bring them to listen to those who know and can teach it?\nEach man must do his work with such tools as have come in his way. The\nMission preacher will use his magnetic power, the artist whose skill\nit is to build or to paint, will make his appeal to the love of order\nand beauty, the musicians will meet the heart through the ear. May not\nthe writer of fiction use his psychological training and his knowledge\nof many sides of human life to create a story which shall set men\nthinking about the old doctrines which he believes to have lost none\nof their regenerating power?\n\nThere is danger lest men with good intentions should go blindly to\nwork to redress and diminish social grievances. Individualism with its\nhateful cry, \u201cEach man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,\u201d\nis now at a discount, but it may be replaced by a despotism of State\nregulation which will destroy the family and the home. There is, I\nbelieve, only one creed which can make the capitalist unselfish and\nthe sons of labour satisfied, which will tell men that wealth means\nresponsibility and that there is dignity in toil, which will teach the\nrich man to order himself lowly and reverently to those who are _his_\nbetters and to hurt nobody by word or deed, which will teach the\nlabourer that his chief need is not other men\u2019s wealth, but the\n\u201ccarri\u00e8re ouverte aux talents\u201d and the determination to do his duty in\nthat state of life, whatever it may be, unto which God _shall_ call\nhim.\n\nIt is the Holy Catholic Faith which makes equality of opportunity for\nall men its earthly ambition, and offers refreshment and hope to those\nwho are not strong enough to strive with the rest. The old men saw\nvisions and we have found that they were prophecies, a young man may\ndream dreams. My dream is that the men who are doing the work of the\nworld to-day may be taught that Christ is their best teacher and the\nIncarnate God their refuge and strength.\n\nThere is a tale of an acrobat and juggler who knew well that his\ntricks were the outcome of years of concentrated effort and constant\nexercise, and being moved by the Grace of God, he desired to offer the\nbest thing he had to give to the Lord of Life. His best was his skill.\nHe lived by it. Shown in the streets and the play places, it won for\nhim his daily bread. His work was to give men amusement in their hours\nof recreation by an exhibition of his feats of strength and\nnimbleness. Could this, his one talent, be consecrated and devoted to\nGod? So he considered, and humbly sought the sanctuary, and there\nbefore the Presence he performed his fantastic tricks which had cost\nhim years of endeavour. The story is a parable which men have not been\nslow to read, and it has become the theme of the musician and artist.\n\nShall I offend my fellow-writers if I repeat it here in this\nconnection?\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIRES OF MOLOCH\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE FIRES OF MOLOCH\n\n\u201c_There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets._\u201d\n\n\nEvery three months with unfailing regularity small paragraphs appear\nin the daily papers headed \u201cRECORD LOW BIRTH-RATE.\u201d Some figures\nfollow, and then occurs the sentence--unhappily a stereotyped one in\nour day--\u201c_This is the lowest rate recorded in any quarter since civil\nregistration began._\u201d\n\nNow and again a blue-book upon the subject of the birth-rate is\ndissected by a journalist and the result appears in his newspaper as a\nseries of startling figures. The story of England\u2019s decadence is set\nout in the plainest language for every one to read.\n\nAt rarer intervals still, some prominent clergyman or sociologist\nwrites or lectures in order to call attention to what is going on, and\nthus to bring home the spiritual and economic dangers of our racial\nsuicide.\n\nA few people read or listen and are convinced. A good many other\npeople are too utterly ignorant of either the Philosophy of\nChristianity or the Science of Sociology to understand in the least\nwhat the point of view of the protesters is. According to their\ntemperament, they smile quietly and dismiss the subject, or bellow\ntheir disgust at such a subject being mentioned at all.\n\n    \u201cHe who far off beholds another dancing,\n          And all the time\n    Hears not the music that he dances to,\n          Thinks him a madman.\u201d\n\nA party which has the fools at its back is always in the majority, and\ndiscussion is stifled, alarm is lulled by the anodyne of indifference\nand the great number of honest folk who call themselves both Patriots\nand Christians have no time to spare from fighting and squabbling for\nmoney--in order that the dishonest men may not get it all.\n\nHalf-a-dozen problems of extreme national importance confront every\nthinking English man and woman in 1907. The air is thick with their\nstir and movement, and so great is the noise and reverberation of them\nthat true \u201croyalty\u201d of \u201c_inward_ happiness\u201d seems a thing impossible\nand past by in these troubled times. Be that as it may, it is quite\ncertain that one of the most real and pressing of these problems is\nthat summed up in the stock phrase \u201cRecord Low Birth-rate.\u201d\n\nWe hear a great deal about the doings of a class of people who are\nreferred to as \u201cThe Smart Set,\u201d and it is actually said that its\ninfluence is having a serious effect upon the national character. I do\nnot believe it for a moment. It seems a folly to suppose that a\nhandful of champagne corks floating on a cess-pool has any\nfar-reaching influence upon the English home. I mention that small\nsection of society constituted by the idle and luxurious rich,\nbecause, whatever their vices are, they are being used as whipping-boy\nfor enormous numbers of people whose lives are equally guilty with\ntheirs in at least one regard--in the matter of which I am writing\nnow.\n\nI propose in this essay to discuss the question of the decline in the\nbirth-rate from the Christian and Catholic standpoint. There is only\none perfect philosophy, and all other half-true philosophies in the\nlight of which we might consider such a momentous matter as this, lead\nonly to the conclusion that expediency is the highest good. Without\nthe incentive of the Christian Faith and without the light of the\nIncarnation one may sit in a corner and think till \u201call\u2019s blue in\ncloud cuckoo land.\u201d Christianity can alone be reconciled with\nEconomics, theory and practice celebrating always the marriage of the\nKing\u2019s son, the wedding of Heaven and Earth, the spiritual and the\nmaterial. Plato knew that it was impossible to raise the Greek state\nto the level of his philosophic principles, and Aristotle frankly\nabandons the attempt to connect ethics and politics with the highest\nconclusions of his creed. We are in the same position to-day if we\nignore the supreme truth which is our possession and which was not\nvouchsafed to the great Greek thinkers.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is one cause and one cause only of the decline in the birth-rate\nand the beginning of the country\u2019s spiritual and material suicide.\n\nThe way of Nature is for every species to increase nearly to its\npossible maximum of numbers. This is a proved law, and nothing but the\nlimitation of families by artificial means, or infanticide, can check\nits operation.\n\nThe truth is exactly as Dr. Barry put it nearly two years ago, \u201cIt\nstands confessed that the great, proud, English race, famous as a\npeople for manly virtues, once the very Stoics of Christian Europe\ndecline more and more to be fathers and mothers, will not be worried\nwith children, and--cannot be spoken of in decent language.\u201d\n\nIt is a truth of history that when a nation begins to refuse the\nresponsibility of providing for posterity it begins to decline.\n\nThe doctrines of Malthus in his great _Essay on the Principles of\nPopulation_, are no longer believed in by the Christian philosopher.\nMalthus was perfectly sound upon the ethical problem, and the\n\u201cNeo-Malthusians,\u201d of whom I shall presently speak, have no right\nwhatever to use his name upon their banners. Malthus, so the modern\nsocialistic thinker, such as Mr. H. G. Wells avers, \u201cdemonstrated for\nall time that a State whose population continues to increase in\nobedience to unchecked instinct can progress only from bad to worse.\nFrom the point of view of human comfort and happiness the increase of\npopulation that occurs at each advance in human security is the\ngreatest evil of life.\u201d\n\nMalthus, however, never once suggested or advocated the limitation of\npopulation by mechanical means. He believed that it was a patriotic\nduty of men and women to _abstain from producing more children_ than\nthe State could bear, and it is as well to remove at once a popular\nmisconception which stains the name of a good man and a powerful\nthough mistaken thinker.\n\nOtter says of him in a memoir, \u201cHis life was more than any other we\nhave ever witnessed, a perpetual flow of enlightened benevolence,\ncontentment and peace; it was the best and purest philosophy,\nbrightened by Christian views and softened by Christian charity.\u201d\n\nIt is economically and from the sociological point of view that the\nmodern student condemns the theories of Malthus and those who follow\nhim.\n\nSocialist thinkers disregard the entity of nations, and treat of the\nworld and its population as a whole. The Christian Patriot loves his\nown country, believes in its destiny no less than he reveres its past,\nand knows that if our English nation is going to live, it must go on\nreproducing itself.\n\nThe \u201cno room to live\u201d theory is preposterous upon the face of it. In\n1879, Lord Derby asked a somewhat obvious question. \u201cSurely,\u201d he said,\n\u201cit is better to have thirty-five millions of human beings leading\nuseful and intelligent lives, rather than forty millions struggling\npainfully for a bare subsistence.\u201d\n\nThis has been made into a watchword by those who advocate the\nlimitation of population.\n\nIt can be answered by a simple statement of fact--in our colonies\nthere are places for a hundred million wives.\n\nWhile I have not lost sight of the main object of this paper--to\nsummarize the weight of Catholic Christian feeling upon the\n_mechanical_ limitation of population, and to tell how this is being\naccomplished--I find that there is yet some ground to be cleared\nbefore coming to the main issue.\n\nI have said that there is only one material cause of our decadence,\nbut there are many reasons.\n\nMore than a year ago in one or two newspapers, particularly the _Daily\nChronicle_, various sociologists gave the results of their thought\nupon the matter. I print a few extracts here.\n\nThe outspoken Dr. Barry wrote:--\n\n     ......\u201d\u2018As for religion, Christian or any other, when its\n     dogmas are no longer believed, its ethics pass away,\u2019 and he\n     draws a picture of the rotten state of society in our Western\n     world, which he attributes directly to the growth of\n     agnosticism. The fact that the birth-rate in England has been\n     declining for twenty-five years, and was lowest in 1904, seems\n     to Dr. Barry to be due to several causes--\u2018poverty and luxury,\n     pleasure-seeking and disbelief in the Bible,\u2019 and he adds, \u2018The\n     spirit of anarchic individualism that cries, \u201cNo God, no\n     Master!\u201d is needed to tell us why Englishmen and their wives,\n     once dedicated to a blameless and lasting union, have fallen\n     into the pit which Malthus or his followers digged for them.\u2019\n     England alone is not at fault. \u2018Wherever unbelief has taken\n     hold, or doubt saps the ancient creeds, there Malthus reigns\n     instead of Christ.\u2019\u201d\n\nA \u201cwell-known public man\u201d wrote:--\n\n     ......\u201cIt is within my knowledge that certain flats in Mayfair\n     and elsewhere for the married servant and artisan class are let\n     on the express or implied condition that not only no children\n     shall be brought into the tenements, but that none shall be\n     born there. The direct consequence of this embargo on natural\n     increase is terribly disastrous. Many footmen and coachmen in\n     Mayfair could tell a tragical story of the results of\n     compulsory sterility.\n\n     \u201cA Japanese friend was telling me the other day that after an\n     absence from England of a dozen years he is startled at the\n     visible deterioration of the race and the great increase of\n     penniless British weaklings, who add strength to no nation.\n     \u2018You English are losing both patriotism and religion, and\n     consequently you are not only decadent but doomed, unless you\n     mend your ways in the treatment of women and children.\u2019\u201d\n\nI take the following from a leading article in the _Church Times_:--\n\n     ......\u201cAfter making all allowances for minor contributory\n     causes, the fact remains and may be proved by a little inquiry,\n     that married people have come to regard a large family as a\n     curse instead of a Divine blessing. The birth-rates in London\n     are instructive. Residential districts, with fewest poor, show\n     the lowest rates. Hampstead 16\u00b76 and Fulham 32\u00b73 may be taken\n     as typical districts at each end of the scale. Stepney with its\n     Jewish population has a rate of 37. If the Aliens Bill is to be\n     effective it will need a clause compelling Jews to limit their\n     families, just as their Christian (!) neighbours do. The misery\n     of it all is that we find the practice of child murder, for\n     such it is in plain English, defended by men of education;\n     lawyers, medical men, and even priests make no secret of their\n     approval of it, if no more. And as working men become aware of\n     what their \u2018betters\u2019 are saying and doing--and they are not\n     slow to follow a similar course--the evil spreads. Our proper\n     leaders, the Bishops, ought long ago to have dealt with this\n     subject resolutely and firmly. But apparently a grain of\n     incense is a more terrible thing to them than the murder of an\n     existing if unborn personality. We can only judge by their\n     public utterances, but we have yet to learn that as a body\n     their lordships have spent a thousandth part of the time over\n     this supreme question of national morality that they have\n     devoted to the suppression of things disapproved of by Lady\n     Wimborne and her league. The spectacle of disproportionate\n     interest and action is melancholy, and indicative of incapacity\n     to observe the real dangers to be faced.\u201d\n\nAgain--\n\n     \u201cThe personal causes of this mischief are fear of pain (_i. e._\n     failure to see in pain the discipline of God which elevates\n     human nature), hatred of duty, shirking of responsibility, love\n     of pleasure, the substitution of hedonism for the religion of\n     Jesus Christ the Lord, and ignorance of the Holy Spirit as Lord\n     of _all_ life. How far religious teachers are accountable for\n     this we leave to their own consciences to say. The same causes\n     are at work in the high mortality of infants. The honour of\n     doing her best for her child is cast aside by many a mother\n     because it involves a certain amount of self-restraint and some\n     seclusion from the gaieties of the hour; and recourse is had to\n     all sorts of patent nostrums and infants\u2019 \u2018food\u2019 (often the\n     cause of rickets) until the hospitals are over full of young\n     children, whose sufferings are the result (God grant that they\n     may be the atonement also) of their mothers\u2019 negligences and\n     ignorances. Where there is not deliberate and wilful avoidance\n     of maternal duty, there is neglect through awful ignorance.\u201d\n\nIn the _Daily Mail_ Mr. H. G. Wells writes:--\n\n     .......\u201cOn the other hand think of the discouragements. While\n     the mother toils in a restricted anxious home amid her\n     children, she sees through her imperfectly cleaned window (one\n     can\u2019t do everything) the childless wives having a glorious\n     time, going a-bicycling with their husbands, dressed gaudily\n     with all his superfluous income, talking about their \u2018Rights.\u2019\n     As her children grow up to an age when they might help drudge\n     with her or drudge for her, the State, without a word of thanks\n     to her, takes them away to teach them and make good citizens of\n     them. If the husband presently becomes bored by his restricted\n     prolific household and its incessant demands, and absconds, or\n     if he is simply unlucky and gets out of work, the State deals\n     with her in a spirit of austere ingratitude. She is subjected\n     to \u2018charity\u2019 and every conceivable indignity; she undergoes\n     profounder humiliations than fall to the lot of the most\n     dissolute women. If a husband \u2018goes wrong\u2019 and a woman has kept\n     childless, she can get employment, she can shift for herself\n     and be well quit of him, but a family disaster for a mother is\n     catastrophe.\n\n     \u201cI submit the situation is preposterous. I do not believe that\n     with increasing intelligence and refinement women will go on\n     marrying and bearing children under such conditions. I gather\n     that the statistics of marriage-rates and birth-rates bear me\n     out in this.\u201d\n\nAnd in the _Daily Chronicle_ the Rev. Cartmel-Robinson:--\n\n     ......\u201cThis phenomenon of the falling birth-rate is of course\n     not confined to England; it is to be met with, you might say\n     generally, in all Christian countries. It would be far more\n     marked but for the tremendous decline in the death-rate,\n     especially among infants. We ourselves should be vitally\n     bankrupt but for this factor, and in France, as you know, the\n     population is slowly dropping. That is an old story, but it is\n     startling to learn, as President Roosevelt tells us, that the\n     native-born American population is actually declining.\n\n     \u201cOne of the main causes, no doubt, is the determined pursuit of\n     pleasure by all classes. The man will not take the burden of\n     providing for a family, or, at any rate, a large family, upon\n     himself, because that would mean a curtailment of his luxuries,\n     perhaps even his necessities, while the woman refuses to spend\n     all the prime of her life in child-bearing and child-rearing.\n     She also wants to enjoy herself, and the pure, simple joys of\n     maternity, which we used to think ought to be sufficient for a\n     woman, have in many cases become irksome.\n\n     \u201cFor my part I do not think that you will ever rouse England to\n     this question of home and children by an appeal to patriotism.\n     The Englishman has become too cosmopolitan for that, and I am\n     afraid the feeling is growing.\n\n     \u201cThe reason for the decline in America is said to be that women\n     are becoming neurotic, and will not face the dangers and\n     responsibilities of motherhood. No doubt that is true to a\n     certain extent here also, and it is quite certain that among\n     intellectual and highly-educated women, such as are trained at\n     our universities in increasing numbers, the maternal instinct,\n     the capacity for love, if you like to put it in that way, is\n     apt to be destroyed.\n\n     \u201cThen, among the middle classes thousands of young women, who\n     not many years ago would have looked to marriage as their\n     natural career, are earning their own livings, and are less\n     eager to rush into matrimony.\u201d\n\nI have taken these extracts from the words of a few people crying in\nthe wilderness. All of the dicta are at least eighteen months old. I\nam writing now, in November 1906, and three days ago the apparently\ninevitable paragraph again made its appearance:--\n\n     \u201cRECORD LOW BIRTH-RATE.\n\n     \u201cThe births registered in England and Wales during the three\n     months ended September 30--234,624, or 26\u00b79 per 1,000 of the\n     population--was the lowest rate recorded in any third quarter\n     since civil registration was established.\n\n     \u201cThe average in the same quarters of the past ten years was\n     28\u00b78.\u201d\n\nThese opinions as to the reasons for the terrible decadence of England\nare doubtless all true. They are all contributory causes, and I do not\nthink we can put a single one of them aside. Nothing could be more\ndismal or more hopeless reading. As one goes on, one experiences a\nsense as of a chill, deepening shadow.\n\nFew people who read will be able to adopt the average man\u2019s attitude\ntowards unpleasant and disturbing matters--to sidle by with a\ndeprecatory shrug of the shoulders.\n\nWhere then do we stand?\n\nSo far I have endeavoured to show (_a_) the entire indifference of the\nordinary man and woman to the fall in the birth-rate; (_b_) the only\nlight, in which, as I understand it, one can see the problem as a\nwhole--in the light of the Incarnation; (_c_) the fact that the\nChristian Sociologist to-day is inclined to condemn the theory that\nthe limitation of population is necessary at all, even by legitimate\nmethods of abstinence and control; (_d_) the varied reasons which, in\nthe opinion of those who have studied the question deeply, contribute\nto the one central and shocking fact--\n\n_That incredible numbers of English men and women many of them\nprofessing themselves Christians, are constantly using methods to\nprevent the birth of children._\n\nEvery parish clergyman in England is perfectly aware of what is going\non. Every Nonconformist minister, and indeed every one whose work\nbrings him in touch with large masses of people in the capacities of\nleader, adviser, or friend, knows it also. Just as the figures of the\nRegistrar General form a gauge by which to measure the generality of\nthe malignant influence, so the personal experience of any man of the\nworld will supply particular evidence of the state of things within\nhis immediate purview and surroundings.\n\nAlways remembering that the evil is progressive, is hourly increasing,\nthe observer of social phenomena at once asks himself if there is not\nsome definite and organized control and direction of it. The desire\nto obtain the gratifications of passion while evading its\nresponsibilities is, perhaps, the strongest feeling implanted in the\nfallen nature of mankind. This is sufficient to create a demand for\nknowledge of how to obtain the desired end, and the demand has in its\nturn created the supply.\n\nThere is a definite literature upon the subject, there is a large body\nof highly-trained and cultured men and women ready and anxious to\ndisseminate the necessary information to produce these results.\n\nI propose to deal briefly, in the first instance, with the literature\nwhich urges and explains practices which the laws of God, the laws of\nNature, and the teachings of the Church utterly and emphatically\ncondemn.\n\nThe people who call themselves \u201cMalthusians\u201d (and to avoid an\ninjustice to the memory of Malthus I shall here style them\nNeo-Malthusians) have an organ of their own in the shape of a\nperiodical which is the official voice of a league into which they\nhave formed themselves. The periodical has, I believe, an extensive\ncirculation, and it is published at the lowest possible price.\nMoreover, in each number of it which I have seen the following notice\nappears:--\n\n     \u201cThe Secretary of the Malthusian League will be glad to send\n     copies of back numbers of this journal to friends willing to\n     distribute them for propagandist purposes.\u201d\n\nWe see that an ordered press campaign is in progress. This periodical\nis most ably written and edited. Signed articles appear in it by men\nand women of standing and position. I find it impossible to doubt for\na moment that these economists and scientists are not absolutely\nsincere, and actuated by a high and laudable desire to benefit the\nworld in which they live.\n\nIt is unnecessary to give the title of the periodical, but immediately\nbeneath it the following sentence is printed in large letters--\n\n\u201cA CRUSADE AGAINST POVERTY.\u201d\n\nHere is the _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ of the journal plainly stated, and so far\nit is no more than indicating the precise aim of Malthus--to find an\neconomic remedy for the sufferings of poverty.\n\nI proceed to give some examples of the teaching inculcated in the\njournal, and in the first place quote from a review of _L\u2019Instinct\nd\u2019Amour_, by Dr. Joanny Roux, a very distinguished French physician:--\n\n     \u201cMust all who refuse to procreate refrain from love? How easy\n     it is to clothe one\u2019s self in the robes of social purity when\n     replying to this question! The social purists tell the world\n     that chastity is obligatory if procreation be not intended. It\n     is impossible to carry out this view. The philosopher contents\n     himself with studying sterile love and its consequences. He\n     rejoices to think that thousands of infants are left out of the\n     world who would have been doomed to suffer. The inconveniences\n     resulting from some selfish people who refrain from parentage\n     are as nothing in the balance when weighed against the horrors\n     of indigence.\n\n     \u201cShould we not, by acting thus, lead to a progressive\n     diminution of the population? Certainly; but that would be a\n     good thing. As if, forsooth, human progress depended on\n     quantity, and not on quality! Take China as an example of\n     quantity without quality. Some writers seem to wish that the\n     earth should be filled up with miserable and suffering people.\n     Malthus, that gentle clergyman, in 1798, was the first to\n     protest against such a view. Over-reproduction, he showed, was\n     the cause of poverty. He, however, thought the only remedy for\n     this was chastity, and was quite opposed to _sterile love_.\n\n     \u201cTo accept sterile love, some say, is to run counter to Nature\n     and natural morality. \u2018No,\u2019 says Dr. Roux, \u2018it is the\n     preserving of these laws. In all cases where we construct\n     houses or warm ourselves, we get one law of Nature to defend us\n     against the other which injures us. We must not forget that our\n     instincts are fixed customs of very ancient date; and there can\n     be no doubt that man has the right to intervene in questions of\n     that sexual instinct if morality (_i. e._ happiness) requires\n     it of him.\u2019\u201d\n\nWhen one reads these passages a flood of light as to the real\ninfluence and direction of such teachings comes to us at once. The\nwriter, no doubt sincerely enough, assumes as an axiom of his whole\nposition, that there is no law but \u201cNature,\u201d no morality but what he\ncalls \u201cNatural Morality.\u201d We are, in fact, under no obligations to\nanything but the promptings of animal instinct which are part of our\nhuman nature.\n\nWe see immediately the inherent negation of Christianity implied in\nthis attitude, and apart from the definite teaching of the Faith upon\nthe question, which I shall enter into later, it is most important\nthat we should realize that the holders and preachers of\nNeo-Malthusianism must always be opposed to Christianity. Even those\npeople who do not profess their hatred for, or disbelief in our Lord\nin so many words, logically imply them. Christians who may not have\ntroubled themselves about this menace to the State and its morals must\nbe told in no uncertain voice that the movement is purely heathen in\nits position and built upon a basis of heathenism. Let us call things\nby their right names, and realize that the Neo-Malthusian worshipping\nNature and the Chinese Coolie worshipping his Joss are only two\nmanifestations of exactly the same thing.\n\nNor are the people who are attempting to turn marriage into a polite\nand recognized form of prostitution always so reticent as to their\nattitude towards the Christian Faith. In an article which professes\nto sum up the work of the Malthusian League I read:--\n\n     ......\u201cThe medical profession in England is still too much under\n     the sway of the Church and conventional opinion to be able to\n     discuss the population difficulty, except to censure those who\n     are wise enough to follow science instead of theological\n     traditions derived from the _juventus mundi_. Dr. Taylor, of\n     Birmingham, who is said to be an ardent Churchman, in a\n     presidential address to the Gyn\u00e6cological Society, attacked the\n     views of the Neo-Malthusians.\u201d\n\nAnd again:--\n\n     .......\u201cWe have to chronicle the prosecution of a new organ of the\n     League, _Salud y Fuerza_, published in Barcelona, on account of\n     an admirable article by Se\u00f1or Leon Devaldez. Spain is the most\n     retrograde of all our European nations; but the prosecution, we\n     believe, will end in the defeat of the clerical party, as has\n     been the case in England and in France. Science is destroying\n     our traditional superstitions.\u201d\n\nI feel sure that a great many people have not the slightest idea that\nnot only is this detestable propaganda utterly incompatible with the\nprofession of Christianity, but must logically be opposed to it.\n\nHere is a case in point. The official organ of the Malthusian League\nquotes a letter from \u201ca warmhearted clergyman,\u201d whose name is not\ngiven, in which he says:--\n\n     \u201cThe theory of Neo-Malthusianism finds a way out of the\n     difficulty. It is the use of preventive checks which, while\n     they make possible to all married persons the gratification of\n     their natural desires, will prevent the possibility of the\n     ordinary results of such gratification following. \u2018This\n     clergyman,\u2019 adds the editor, \u2018is one of the few who are fit to\n     follow in the footsteps of Malthus, Whately, and Chalmers.\u2019\u201d\n\nIt is a not uninteresting speculation, which we may permit ourselves\nfor a moment, as to the probable identity and character of this\n\u201cclergyman.\u201d One hopes, of course, that he was not a clergyman, and\nthat the editor of the journal, naturally unfamiliar with\necclesiastical affairs, gives the title to some minister of one of the\nUnitarian sects. But if the writer of the letter is really an ordained\npriest, then he must surely be either--\n\n(1) An honest fool who means to do right, and does it as far as he\nknows how.\n\n(2) A dishonest fool who means to do wrong, and does it.\n\n(3) A fool who does whichever of the two he finds most convenient in\nthis or that regard.\n\nWe need not, therefore, take the anonymous writer very seriously, but\nI quote him because the incident throws a side-light upon the\npsychology of the half Christian. It would be as unwise as it is\nunnecessary to quote freely from any of the Neo-Malthusian\npublications. My business in this essay is to make it quite clear to\nreaders that there is a powerful and able organization which is\nconstantly producing literature teaching the limitation of families.\nThere are now six or seven \u201cMalthusian Leagues\u201d in existence, in\nEngland, Holland, Germany, France, Belgium, and Spain, and a Woman\u2019s\nInternational Branch uniting the women of these countries, while the\nprinted matter issued by these organizations is enormous.\n\nIn the English journal to which I have been referring there are many\nadvertisements of books and pamphlets in which the wording is\nundoubtedly designed to attract others than the earnest seeker after\ntruth. I read, to give one example, that for eightpence post free I\ncan obtain \u201c_The Strike of a Sex_; or, Woman on Strike against the\nMale Sex for her \u2018Magna Charta.\u2019 One of the most advanced books ever\npublished; intended to revolutionize public opinion on the relation of\nthe sexes. Should be read by every person.\u201d\n\nAnd lower down in the same column I am informed that the publishers of\nthis sort of thing not only sell books advocating Neo-Malthusian\npractices, but are also willing to provide the means for committing\nthem.\n\nSo much for the unsavoury products of the Neo-Malthusian press,\nproducts which would make the gentle old clergyman of Haileybury turn\naway in loathing and disgust could he but see them. Large as the\noutput of this pseudo-economic obscenity is, it does not reach a\ntwentieth part of the people who are responsible for the decline of\nthe birth-rate. They have derived their knowledge from another\nchannel, from the instructions of the medical man or his lesser\ncolleague the chemist.\n\nThe poorer classes who, a few years ago were ignorant of this\npropaganda, are now being instructed in it by the men from whom they\nbuy their medicines. Doctors, in the majority of cases, are perfectly\nwilling to explain to married people how they may avoid having\nchildren by means other than those of self-control. As a rule the\nmedical man seems to have no conscience at all in this regard. His\npoint of view is too often merely materialistic and concerned with\nnothing but physical function, and he has become in many cases, the\nactive agent of the malignant forces which are sapping our national\nhonour and prosperity. In discussing the question, more than one\nperson has expressed his amazement at the readiness of doctors to\nexplain and advocate the limitation of families. The doctors of\nEngland form one of the finest classes in the community. I will\nventure to say that very few men and women arrive at middle life\nwithout experiencing a lively feeling of gratitude, friendship, or\neven affection for some medical man. The devotion to his high calling,\nof even the average English doctor, is a fact in the lives of nearly\nall of us. It is the more surprising, and alarming also, when we\nrealize, as inquirers are forced to realize, how wrong and mistaken\nthe general attitude of the physician is towards this aspect of the\nsexual relations of men and women. It is said that infidelity is rife\namong those who are educated to cure our bodily ailments, that the\nagnostic habit of mind is frequent in this profession. I am not\ncompetent to judge of this, or to pronounce an opinion upon such a\nstatement, though my own experience is directly opposed to it. But it\nis certain that until the last fifteen years the scientific\ntemperament was disinclined to believe in anything it could not weigh,\nmeasure, analyze, touch, or see. Huxley, for example, was a striking\ninstance of this position. But science has been revolutionized within\nthe experience of one generation, and the \u201ccock-sureness\u201d has\ndisappeared. We are all realizing that \u201cunseen\u201d simply means that\nwhich does not appeal to our sense of sight, or perhaps that which\ndoes not appeal to any of our senses. One of the most famous and\nhonoured scientific men of to-day, Sir Oliver Lodge, says in regard to\nmiracles, \u201cI think we should hesitate very much before saying that\nthey are impossible, because we do not know what may be the power of a\ngreat personality over natural forces.\u201d\n\nAs the years go on, we may have great hopes that the regarding of\npsychology as just as much a necessary part of a doctor\u2019s education as\nbiology, or therapeutics will produce a better feeling among medical\nmen in regard to the great question of which the statistics of the\nbirth-rate form the gauge. Doctors will probably understand that harm\ndone to the body and harm done to the soul react upon one another with\nremorseless certainty, and that there can be no real separation of\nspirit and matter. And directly this is understood we shall never find\nmedical men recommending and assisting what Dr. Roux calls \u201csterile\nlove\u201d though some of us could find a very different name for it.\n\nThe layman unhesitatingly accepts the advice of his physician, and\nhere \u201cprivate judgment\u201d hardly exists. If a priest tells a certain\ntype of Englishman that Evening Communions spoil and maim our holiest\nsacrament, and are bad for the soul, he will resent it, and say that\nhe will choose for himself in the matter. Yet if a doctor tells the\nsame person that it is dangerous to eat mushrooms that have been\ngathered for more than two days, or that the irritation at his wrists\nis a symptom of uric acid in the blood, there will be no question of\ndisbelief. The influence of doctors is incalculable, they rule us by\nour fear of death and our instinct of self-preservation, and rarely do\nwe find that they abuse the trust reposed in them, or use their great\npower for ill always excepting the instance under discussion. When,\ntherefore, the medical profession can be brought to see the preventive\ncheck system as it really is, when doctors understand that\ninterference with natural laws induces a deterioration of character\nand temperament which eventually acts upon the body for its harm, and\ntends to race-degeneracy, then much will be gained. And when they\nprogress still further in the coming reconciliation of science with\nthe Christian Revelation, and own that the laws of God, set out and\npromulgated by His Holy Church, are no less binding than the laws made\nknown by the revelation of science, then the battle will be half won.\nThe final victory or defeat will be with the priests and ministers of\nevery church and sect, the men who are the physicians of our souls.\n\nThe last few pages have been occupied with a statement of the\nNeo-Malthusian propaganda. I have been careful rather to understate\nthan exaggerate the case. Much that I might have included,\ncorroborative testimony from people who know, individual instances,\nletters, and so forth, has been rejected for the purposes of this\nessay. Were I writing another book upon the subject I should have used\nthis material. In a collection of papers devoted to various subjects,\nand which will have a more general appeal than a work devoted entirely\nto vital statistics, it is impossible. But any one who has followed me\nthus far may be sure that I have been strictly temperate in statement.\n\nWe have seen what the Neo-Malthusians, avowed and secret, are doing.\nWhat is the Church doing to stem the evil? and what is the teaching of\nthe Church upon the subject?\n\nThe teaching of the Church is perfectly clear; my contention is that\nit is so rarely taught as to be practically unknown to large masses of\nChristians.\n\nNo one ever goes to his parish priest and asks if adultery is wrong.\nYet innumerable clergymen have told me that they are constantly asked\nby parishioners if there is \u201cany harm\u201d in the use of methods to limit\nfamilies.\n\nSuch people are not, of course, of a very spiritual life, or very\nacute intelligence, or they would easily find the answer to such a\nquestion for themselves. But very few of us are either spiritually\nminded or of uncommon intelligence, and legislation must be for the\naverage man. Voltaire said, \u201c_on dit que Dieu est toujours pour les\ngros bataillons_,\u201d and what was spoken as a sneer contains the germ of\na great truth. Let me say once more, and I am certain of what I say,\nthat the \u201c_gros bataillons_\u201d are quite ignorant of their moral\nobligations in marriage in so far as they relate to the question under\ndiscussion.\n\nWhy?\n\nThe truth is, in the first instance, very difficult to convey from the\npulpit and to a mixed audience, though, to take three great names at\nrandom, the President of the United States, and our own Bishops of\nRipon and London have spoken out. In accusing the clergy and\nnonconformist ministers of shirking their duty we must remember the\nenormous difficulty of their task. I have no responsibility but that\nof my own conviction, and no one is compelled to buy this book who\ndoes not wish to do so. It is therefore quite easy for me to sit in my\nstudy and write as I am doing. But the preacher, great as his\nopportunity and influence are, must by the nature of the case, be in a\nvery different position. He is an official and recognized leader of\nhis flock in spiritual affairs, a hundred considerations weigh with\nhim; he is constrained on all sides by prejudice and convention which\nmight do incalculable harm in other directions if the one was outraged\nand the other ignored. The position of the priest is admirably summed\nup in a pamphlet which Father Black has sent me. In it he explains\nthat it is impossible for a preacher when addressing a general\ncongregation to speak in other than general terms, or to say all that\nhe may feel it is, in some cases, very desirable or even necessary to\nconvey. He cannot but be aware that with sins of impurity especially,\nthe very persons who commit them are generally of too delicate ears to\nendure to hear them called by their right names. This _sentimental_\npurity is not incompatible with corruption of life. He wishes to warn\nthe innocent without enlightening their innocence, to lift the veil\nsufficiently to show their sin to the guilty, and yet to teach them by\ndelicacy and not bring a railing accusation which would probably only\nharden instead of converting.\n\nIt is gravely necessary to realize how difficult the priest\u2019s task is,\nbut at the same time it is extraordinary how little organized\ncondemnation of the evil exists. No one can accurately measure or\ngauge the influence exercised by clergy in private conversations and\nadmonitions, and this is doubtless considerable. But it is sporadic\nand not systematic, there is too much timidity and hesitation, and\nwhile the enemy is well organized and equipped we are without a plan\nof campaign and have no regular army in the field.\n\nThe Prayer-book, in the Marriage Service, tells us explicitly, \u201cFirst\nit was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in\nthe fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of His Holy Name.\u201d\nHere we have the voice of the Church speaking plainly enough, and both\nit and the authority of Scripture are unanimous in clear expression or\nunmistakable implication. The Christian attitude has been admirably\nsummed up in Father Black\u2019s pamphlet, to which I acknowledged my\nindebtedness in the preface of my book _First it was Ordained_, and\nfrom which strong, lucid, and outspoken statement I quote a few\nsentences:--\n\n     \u201cOf this systematic wickedness, unfaithfulness is the natural\n     consequence in many cases. Logically there is nothing but a\n     sense of commercial honesty to keep a woman who has lost the\n     reverence of marriage to one man. The obligation has no hold on\n     her higher nature, and when passion or convenience press the\n     balance there is no sufficient reason why she should be very\n     scrupulous.\n\n     \u201cIf women treat themselves, and are treated by their husbands\n     as mere animals, all idea of chivalry is at an end; and this,\n     no doubt, is in a measure the ground for a license of speech\n     and action in even our public amusements, contrary not only to\n     the _ethos_ of Christianity, but to the principles of a\n     civilization worthy of the name.\n\n     \u201cWomen who interfere with the natural end of marriage--the\n     bearing of children--are wives in name, in reality prostitutes.\n     Men who require or encourage such acts are corrupters, not\n     husbands. When I said in my sermon that trifling with God\u2019s\n     laws of marriage was a horrible sin, I was thinking chiefly of\n     the woman\u2019s side of the matter.\n\n     \u201cTrue manliness is, however, no less to be desired than true\n     womanliness. In the words of Lord Tennyson--\n\n     \u201c\u2018Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,\u2019 the man should\n     find in himself and display to his wife. Philosophy and\n     religion are in accord here. St. John writes to young men,\n     \u2018because ye are _strong_ and have overcome the wicked one.\u2019\n     Professor Huxley, \u2018that man has had a liberal education who has\n     been so trained that his body is the ready servant of his will;\n     whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will\n     the servant of a tender conscience, who has learned to love all\n     beauty and to hate all vileness, to respect others as himself.\u2019\n     To me that judgment seems a manly one which pronounces the\n     corruption of a wife by a husband a viler thing than the\n     gratification of lust in the common stews. This latter less\n     deeply degrading to society or injurious to the nation at\n     large.\n\n     \u201cBut you and I, my dear sir, are Christians; and our concern is\n     with Christian marriage. Here, as in everything else, the truth\n     of Christ will deliver men from mistakes. Christian marriage in\n     common with all other Christian things has in it the law of\n     self-denial and self-conquest. Such is the Apostolic view of\n     it; thus it is to be \u2018in the Lord,\u2019 and only \u2018in the Lord\u2019 is\n     it permitted to the Christian.\n\n     \u201cHoly Scripture is of course everywhere clear as to the end of\n     marriage, and God\u2019s condemnation express against the perversion\n     of it, \u2018the Lord slew him.\u2019 St. Paul wills \u2018that women marry\n     _and bear children_.\u2019\u201d\n\nIs not this plain speaking? and could it be bettered as an expression\nof a militant Christian\u2019s hatred and horror of what is debasing and\nfoul?--I think not. We are not all given the power of feeling the\nintense loathing for a very generally committed sin which is\nmanifested here. A life in the world and of the world induces a\ntolerance which is very often laziness and cowardice. We are not to\nhate the sinner, of course, but only the sin, but which of us cares to\ninveigh against the vice of a friend? Savonarola was not a popular\nparson, though Santa Maria del Fiore was always crowded when he was in\nthe pulpit. We ought to be thankful for such bludgeon-sturdy words as\nthese which show us the carrion-passions which war against the soul\nin their true light.\n\nI know, you know, most men know, how extraordinarily easy it is to\nbecome familiar with our vices so that in a short time they become no\nvices at all, but just little pleasant failings which we share with\nsome of the best fellows in the world. And all becomes dim and misty\nin the shadowy thoroughfares of thought, while it is only now and\nthen--perhaps never at all--that some bugle-breeze blows over us and\nsounds _r\u00e9veill\u00e9e_ to the sleeping soul.\n\nIf we are sensualists, though we don\u2019t realize it, we always live as\nthough we were immortal; immortal in the sense that we shall never die\nand once more be born. Yet it is a strange truth in life that the man\nor woman who is converted to a clean life from sins of the body, has\noften more power than any one else to warn and exhort against\nsensuality. It is the man from whose eye the mote and beam has been\nremoved who can speak most convincingly of the horrors of the dark.\n\u201cExperto crede!\u201d he calls out to mankind, and out of the uncleanness\nis brought forth meat. Let us see what Aurelius Augustinus--that old\nFather of the Church we call Saint Augustine--has to say of this\ndanger and sin which we are considering. We all know what the Saint\u2019s\nearly life was like, what was the life of a young man at a Pagan\nUniversity in the fourth century. From his eighteenth year until he\nwas thirty-two the Saint whom we revere lived in open vice at\nCarthage. On Easter Eve, April 387, he was baptized, and tradition\ntells us that then the massive harmony of the _Te Deum_ was composed.\nNo theologian has influenced the mind of Christendom more greatly than\nthis man, not only by his writings, but by the spectacle we find in\nthem of the fervour and devotion of his inner life. Remember that he\nknew all the bitter knowledge of lust, and hear how he writes of those\nwho would prevent conception:--\n\n     \u201cQuia etsi non causa propagand\u00e6 prolis concumbitur, non tamen\n     hujus libidinis causa propagationi prolis obsistitur sive voto\n     malo, sive opere malo. Nam quid hoc faciunt quamvis vocentur\n     conjuges, non sunt, nec ullam nuptiarum retinent veritatem, sed\n     honestum nomen veland\u00e6 turpitudini obtendunt.\u201d\n\nAnd of those who use drugs to prevent the birth of children, he\nfurther says:--\n\n     \u201cAliquando eo usque pervenit h\u00e6c libidinosa crudelitas, vel\n     libido crudelis, ut etiam sterilitatis venena procuret.\n\n     \u201cProrsus si ambo tales sunt, conjuges non sunt, et si ab initio\n     tales fuerunt, non sibi per connubium, sed per stuprum potius\n     convenerunt. Si autem non ambo sunt tales audeo dicere aut\n     illa est quodam mode meretrix mariti, aut ille adulter uxoris.\u201d\n\nWhat is to be done? What is the duty of Christians, and how shall they\ncombat this evil? Unless it is to spread and spread till every part of\nour natural life is infected, something must be done. The\nNeo-Malthusians are not only teaching married people how to avoid the\nresponsibilities of marriage, but they are teaching unmarried people\nto do so as well. This is a fact which must not be lost sight of, as\nmore than one clergyman has pointed out. If fear of consequences is\nremoved chastity becomes more than ever threatened. If there is the\nwish and inclination to sin, and that wish is only not gratified\nbecause inconvenient results may lead to discovery, it is true that\nthe moral value of people in such a case is small. But a general\nrecognition of the fact that it is easy to sin will have incalculable\ninfluence for harm on those who are as yet on the border-line between\nthe claims of self-gratification and control. Public sentiment becomes\nlax and unstrung. Simultaneously with the decline of the birth-rate\nthe newspapers show every day that the old ideal, the sacred English\nideal of the family is departing. Our greatest living novelist says\nopenly, \u201cCertainly one day the conditions of marriage will be changed.\nMarriage will be allowed for a certain period, say ten years.\u201d In\nmany parts of America, where the President is ceaselessly urging his\ncountrymen to denounce and give up Neo-Malthusian practices, the home\nhas already disappeared. From a large collection of information and\nstatistics I take only one example, quoted in a leading English\nnewspaper. There is no need for a single word of comment, save that I\ndo not vouch for the truth of the newspaper report which, in its very\nappearance, proves my point.\n\n     \u201cMrs. Le Page, a New York lady who has just married her eighth\n     husband, crystallizes her experience in life.\n\n     \u201cFive of her seven former husbands are still alive, and they\n     have just sent messages of encouragement to the new incumbent.\n     The other two have died.\n\n     \u201cMrs. Le Page\u2019s maiden name was Mary Johnson, and she was the\n     daughter of a Connecticut farmer. She was only fourteen, but\n     well grown for her age, when she contracted a runaway marriage\n     with a seventeen-year-old Danbury clerk named William Wakeman.\n     In accordance with the American practice of hyphenating family\n     names, she became Mrs. William Johnson-Wakeman. It was a happy\n     marriage for three days, and then her family interfered, and\n     the marriage was annulled.\n\n     \u201cTwo years later, while in a New York elevated train, she made\n     the acquaintance of Mr. Harry Saunders, a rich contractor\u2019s son\n     and a commercial traveller. After two days\u2019 courtship she\n     became Mrs. Henry Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders, and lived in\n     perfect happiness, accompanying her husband on his travels for\n     three years, until he died.\n\n     \u201cShortly afterwards the lady married a railroad man, and was\n     happy as Mrs. Joseph Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers, until he\n     was killed in an accident. She next married a Jersey grocer,\n     but the bonds being severed in the Divorce Court, she married a\n     hotel-keeper, becoming Mrs. John\n     Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Lindley.\n\n     \u201cBeing once more disappointed, she was again freed by\n     the Divorce Court, and continued her search for the ideal\n     husband, whom she thought she had found when she became\n     Mrs. Thomas Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Lindley-Godfrey.\n     But John Godfrey compared unfavourably with his predecessors, and\n     the Divorce Court restored her freedom. On the following day she\n     became Mrs. Wilbury-Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Godfrey-Gay-\n     (she says that the name too well described his character, as she\n     shortly proved to the satisfaction of the Divorce Court) Crowther.\n     This husband soon revealed his true character, and she had no\n     difficulty in regaining her maiden liberty.\n\n     \u201cMrs. Benjamin (many hyphens) Le Page believes that her\n     husband, who is English born, and has made considerable money\n     in this country, is the long-sought ideal, but if he does not\n     prove so--she is only thirty-nine, and there is still plenty of\n     time to continue the search. She says that she had long wished\n     to marry an Englishman, having been favourably impressed by\n     what she had heard of their high qualities as husbands. She\n     intends giving the experiment a thorough trial. So far, it has\n     proved satisfactory, but she says that it is impossible to form\n     a correct judgment of any man until she has been married for\n     two or three weeks.\n\n     \u201cMarriage, she says, is such a lottery, but it is the blessed\n     state which it is ordained every woman shall occupy. Her life\u2019s\n     mission is to find a pre-ordained mate, and she would not be\n     deterred as many women, by a first failure, but should try and\n     try again until successful.\n\n     \u201c\u2018My experience,\u2019 she says, \u2018is that women make a mistake in\n     waiting for a man to do all the wooing. When I was young and\n     inexperienced I fell into that error, and consequently I had\n     several disappointments. But when I was thirty I realized that\n     a woman\u2019s duty--well, right--was to do the wooing.\u2019\u201d\n\nAgain I ask what is to be done to influence public opinion, to rouse\nChristians in the same way that the National Conscience has been\nroused upon the Drink question?\n\nAn enormous amount of good can be done by the personal efforts and\nexample of those in a position to influence others--pastors, doctors,\nChristian layworkers. Yet is it an impossible hope that some day a\nleague or confraternity to fight the battle may be started? Are there\nno people of sufficient weight and importance in the world\u2019s eye to\ncome forward and do this, no folk whose place will secure them a\nhearing, whose convictions will interest and convert others?\n\nEighteen months ago I published, in my book _First it was Ordained_,\nthe sketch of an organized society on definite lines. In the course of\nthe tale the founder of this league writes to an official in the\nCensus Office who is alarmed at the decline of the birth-rate, and\noutlines the lines on which the society is to be started.\n\nWith some necessary elisions this is the letter:--\n\n     \u201cYou will see, therefore, that though there has been, and\n     doubtless will continue to be, a great deal of windy talk on\n     these matters, there is no organized body of men and women, no\n     league, no union, either religious or political or both, which\n     is devoted to dealing with the question, to rousing the\n     national conscience and fighting the Neo-Malthusians tooth and\n     nail.\n\n     \u201cWifehood--which generally means motherhood--is the predominant\n     profession of women all over the world. The future of the\n     world, and of course of any state in it, rests upon the quality\n     and the quantity of its children. A prominent sociologist has\n     just written, \u2018If the conditions under which the profession of\n     motherhood is exercised are silly and rotten, our fleets, our\n     armies, do no more than guard a thing that dies. In Great\n     Britain, now, I think they are more or less silly and rotten.\u2019\n     Let us admit that this writer is correct. He does no more than\n     voice conclusions at which even the most superficial student of\n     the census returns must have arrived.\n\n     \u201cWhat is to be done, then? How are we who are Christians and\n     love our Lord, citizens who love our country, to fight the\n     present conditions?\n\n     \u201cThat is what a band of people, including those I have\n     mentioned, are discussing. They have arrived at a definite\n     conclusion.\n\n     \u201cA great league is to be formed of English men and women. Great\n     names will be at the head of it, it is to be national. I have\n     already pointed out to you that even the revelations of the\n     census have not stirred the ordinary person. His patriotism has\n     not been roused, and, you may be certain--as I am certain--that\n     no question of national expediency on this point _will_ stir\n     the ordinary person, who is either indifferent or actually\n     engaged in helping England\u2019s decadence by the restriction of\n     his own family. A league started on the grounds of expediency\n     and the common good alone would be an egregious failure.\n\n     \u201cUtilitarianism never fired a great moral movement yet. It\n     never will; because, before a man becomes a national\n     utilitarian, he must get over _personal_ utilitarianism. And in\n     this case of the restriction of family, the degradation of\n     marriage, _personal_ utilitarianism is directly opposed to\n     national welfare, and the personal wins.\n\n     \u201cWe must come back to the one Power and Force over the hearts\n     and minds of men and women. We must come back to religion.\n\n     \u201cHere is the Church\u2019s great opportunity. There has never,\n     perhaps, in the whole history of the Church in England been\n     such a chance given to her. Our crusade must be a crusade made\n     in the light of the Incarnation, under the auspices of God the\n     Holy Ghost--_the Lord and Giver of Life_.\n\n     \u201cDo you begin to see what I mean, what we hope for? The part of\n     the Holy Spirit\u2019s work, which we recite in the Creed, has been\n     largely forgotten. Lord and Giver of Life! We are about to\n     revive the recognition and memory of the fact. We are going to\n     use this cardinal point of Christian belief as our watchword\n     and battle-cry.\n\n     \u201cThe gradual decline of literal belief in the Incarnation, the\n     growth of a Protestantism which is on its way towards\n     Unitarianism, the spread of Unitarian doctrines under other\n     names, among the varied sects of dissent, have meant that an\n     appalling disregard of life as the gift of God, its Author, has\n     come among us. It is because you and I believe that Jesus was\n     God as well as man that we insist upon the sacredness of human\n     life.\n\n     \u201cTo-day, the loss of thousands of lives in a battle is printed\n     as a piece of casual news. There is no particular sense of\n     horror in the minds of any one. Murders are committed every day\n     in momentary bursts of passion over trifles. Suicides increase,\n     not only when some long-continued misery may seem to give a\n     shadow of excuse, but when there has been some trivial\n     disappointment. And so, leaving out a hundred other instances,\n     one comes down to the truth of which every priest, every\n     doctor, and every nurse is aware, the frustration of God\u2019s\n     intention of childbirth--the reason for the terrible\n     disclosures which you and your colleagues have given to the\n     world in your census returns.\n\n     \u201cOur league will be, therefore, a great _Church_ League. We\n     shall invite every English man and woman to join it, who\n     believes that Christ was God. This is the only way in which we\n     can make such a society do its work and accomplish its end.\n     Directly we begin to allow the political altruist who has no\n     definite belief in Christianity to join us, so surely our\n     influence and opportunity will begin to decline. Compromise is\n     no use whatever. We shall be bitterly assailed, and for a time\n     we shall not seem to make much headway. I say _seem_, and for\n     this reason: people who belong to us will not advertise their\n     membership. The press, which is not interested, as a whole, in\n     religious affairs, will not understand our aims, nor will it\n     be--so I imagine--in sympathy with them. And any movement that\n     has for its object, as this will have, the improvement of\n     sexual morality, will be fought by the methods of ridicule and\n     contempt. But this will be but surface, and in time the\n     influence of our work will not only be felt, but seen. The\n     wizards of figures will be at work once more.\u201d\n\nIs this a dream and impracticable? It is for the great middle classes\nof England to answer during the coming years. The middle classes\nreally rule. They do not command public opinion, but they do what is\nmore than that--they persuade it. They represent more than the\nremaining classes the austerity and also the Christianity of the\nUnited Kingdom and the Dominions beyond the seas.\n\nThe question rests with them, and there are many who still hope and\nbelieve they will be faithful to their trust who are convinced--\u201cDABIT\nDEUS HIS QUOQUE FINEM.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE HISTORICIDES OF OXFORD\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE HISTORICIDES OF OXFORD\n\n        \u201c_Et quidquid Graecia mendax,\n    Audet in historia._\u201d\n                                JUVENAL.\n\n\nSir Robert Walpole, who sometimes spoke with an eloquent crash that\nechoes in our ears to-day, once said, \u201cDo not read history to me, for\nthat, I know, must be false.\u201d Walpole may have read the _Scienza\nNuova_ of Vico probably in the French translation, and could hardly\nhave failed to know something of Bossuet and Montesquieu. The result\nof his deliberations on the labours of contemporary historians is\nexpressed thus, in a short, sudden bark of contempt.\n\nSir Robert made history, and did not dare to attempt the far more\narduous task of writing it. When he gave it, his judgment had not so\nmuch value as it has to-day. Some of us read the limpid prose of\nBossuet still, nor is the _Grandeur et D\u00e9cadence des Romains_\nforgotten. Yet if at this moment a statesman were to repeat the\nopinion in reference to most of the history taught and written in\nOxford, he would only be speaking the literal truth. The youth of a\nnation are Trustees for posterity, and it is to them in the first\nplace, and to those who are responsible for their education in the\nsecond, that this paper is addressed.\n\nI am aware that I am going to say some astonishing things, nor am I,\nunder the sense of a strong conviction, confounding antipathy with\nduty. My words may fail to penetrate into the gloom of that temple\nwhere the fanatic priests of the inarticulate, inaccurate, and dull\nstill sacrifice victims to the idols Freeman and Stubbs. But I have a\nreasonable expectation of a wider audience, and it lies in the hands\nof that audience, the undergraduate members of the University and\ntheir parents, to say if the present state of things shall continue.\nThe Hebdomadal Council, Congregation and Convocation represent an\ninsignificant minority. It is to the Pupil not the Tutor, to the\nParent not the Fellow, to the Majority not to the Minority that I\npropose to speak.\n\nIt is axiomatic that no sum which the well-to-do undergraduate is\nprepared to pay could be too high for a perfect education and a\nlearned environment. It is the fact that neither the one nor the other\nis provided, which deserves the attention, and should excite the\nalarm, of those who expect the former, the latter, or a combination of\nthem both.\n\nThe poor man, to whom a good degree means a knife with which he will\nopen the world\u2019s oyster, suffers more greatly than the wealthier man.\nBut both suffer, and both have a right to expect that in paying money\nfor a genuine article they shall certainly obtain it.\n\nThe object of this essay, therefore, is to awaken the majority upon\nthe whole matter, more especially that portion of the majority that\ndesigns to read history. The power lies in your hands. It is only by\nyour acquiescence that the scandal continues, and it is the money of\nyou and your parents which runs the machine. Once supplies are\nstopped, the present state of things will also stop with automatic\nsuddenness. The art of history--for it is an art and not a\nscience--will then revive in its full splendour, as the frescoes glow\nout upon the walls of an ancient church when the disfiguring whitewash\nis removed. The art of history will take its proper place and exercise\nits right function in the University, and the Historicides will remove\ntheir activities to a sphere in which they will be more appreciated. I\nbelieve that a University exists in Hayti....\n\nI purpose a comprehensive summary of this question, and have spared no\ntrouble to make the indictment as fair and accurate as I can. For a\nconsiderable period I have been steadily gathering data and forming\nopinions. Documents of importance and value have been furnished to me,\nand if something actual and conclusive does not result, then the fault\nis that of the writer, who has failed to deal adequately with the\nmaterial which he has himself collected and with which he has been\nlavishly and generously supplied.\n\n\u201cDoest thou well to be angry?\u201d was the question asked of the Hebrew\nprophet, who thereupon \u201cwent out of the city, and sat on the east side\nof the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the\nshadow, till he might see what would become of the city.\u201d And finally\ncame the answer of Jonah, \u201cI do well to be angry, even unto death.\u201d My\nfriends and I have built our modest place of espial, and we have our\nidea of what would become of the city were it left in the hands of\ncertain rulers. That we do well to be angry I hope to show.\n\nIn the first place, it is really necessary to define history, and the\nduties of the historian. Until we have done this we have no\nstandpoint. The axiom must always precede the syllogism just as the\nepithet concludes it. No one can build a basis in a vacuum.\nInnumerable minds have been at pains to define history.\n\nFrom the remote time when Lucian published his treatise _How History\nought to be Written_ until the depressing moment when Bishop Stubbs\nfirst attempted to write it, there has been an enormous divergence of\nthought on this point. Kant believed that Dynasty and Nation, Emperor\nand Clown were alike incidents and puppets illustrating the theory\nthat an irresistible, all-pervading Force works through history\ntowards one end--the development of a perfect constitution. If Kant\nhad written history and applied his method instead of indicating it,\nhe would have had us believe that history is a science to be studied\nunder the limiting influence of a rigid formula.\n\nRanke thought, and thought rightly, that the analysis of original\ndocuments alone made possible the synthesis of the past, while the\ntrained historian in his endeavour to get at the truth should be chary\nof accepting contemporary authors, unless eye-witnesses of the events\nthey chronicled. Yet Ranke definitely placed himself with those who\nwere beginning to believe that history was a science and nothing more.\n\nGuizot, who edited Gibbon, freshly defined the labours of the\nhistorian. Guizot\u2019s view was that faithful research, _with its\nresults duly applied, ought to enable the historian to supply such a\npicture of the past that it should be both to his readers and himself\na veritable present_. I know of no more illuminating conception. But\nhow can an historian supply the picture unless he has a competent\nknowledge of psychology? To write about human beings in the past\nwithout a knowledge of psychology is exactly like writing a history of\nlocomotives without understanding anything whatever about the nature\nand properties of steam.\n\nIt is only quite lately that the scientists have allowed psychology to\nbe a science, with, for example, as fixed a place and purpose as\nbiology. If any one asked me for a list of authors from whom he would\nlearn something of psychology I should probably commend to him Maher\n(1900), Spencer (1890), Stout (1899), James (1892), M\u2019Cosh (1886), and\nso on.\n\nYou see the dates, do you not? You realize what every one who lives in\nthe realm of thought, as also many who work in the sphere of action,\nmust realize? Briefly it is this. The old historians were concerned\nonly with the simple results of investigation; the best modern\nhistorian adds to his equipment a knowledge of the processes of\nthought. The older sciences are joining hands with the new science of\npsychology. It is discerned that the individual temperament must\nclothe the bones of fact with the colour and movement that\npsychological knowledge alone can give.\n\nIt is discerned, but only by the important people as yet--only by the\npeople who matter and count. The Oxford historians whom I am attacking\nhave not realized it and will never realize it, which is the precise\nreason why we must reform them or give them the alternative of\nstaffing the upper grade board schools.\n\nJames Anthony Froude did realize this certainty, and his works are not\nrecommended to be read by candidates for history honours. The\nmalignant personal hatred of Freeman, the stupidity of lesser men,\nlong endeavoured to crush and limit the influence of the greatest\nhistorian, because the completest artist, who wrote history in our\nera. The endeavour to suppress him continues, but it is no longer\nanything but an endeavour. The times are changing very rapidly, and\nthe triumphant war-whoops of some years ago have sunk to-day into the\nmoribund whimpers of the discredited and deposed.\n\nEverybody in Oxford is waking up to the fact that if history is to\nhave unity of organism and purpose it must have artistic proportion\nand be informed by art. The leaven has been working for a long time,\nunobserved by the people it is destined to destroy at the moment of\ncompleted fermentation. It is always thus with revolutions. The\nperiod of gestation is lengthy and its processes are obscure. But the\ncompleted moment arrives, the goddess bursts in full armour from her\nsire, or Gargantua is born \u201ccrying not as other babes used to do,\nmiez, miez, miez, miez, but with a high, sturdy, and big voice!\u201d\n\nThe occasion that has set in motion forces which in no short time will\ndestroy the little eminence of the Oxford Historicides, was the\npublication of Mr. Herbert Paul\u2019s _Life of James Anthony Froude_.\nEverything had led up to that; I was cognizant of all the restlessness\nand disgust which were seething below the surface, and when at last\nthe volume fell into Oxford with the noise and reverberation of a\nthunder-bolt, I was daily informed of the hideous consternation of\nthose who realized that their day was over, that the judge was set and\nthe doom begun, that no one could stay it.\n\nI wish that I could write frankly and openly of the disturbance and\nalarm the book occasioned. If I were publishing this essay in the\nfirst instance in America I should certainly do so. However, as it\nwill appear in England and afterwards in the Land of Freedom of\nSpeech, this joy is not permitted to me. As Mr. H. G. Wells would say,\n\u201cFigure that the bomb fell upon the green of All Souls\u2019 while the\nclock in the gateway of Christ Church was in the act of striking\ntwelve.\u201d\n\nThe rush and hurry, the frightened consultations, the squeaks of those\nwho realized that Nemesis was at hand at last and was beating at the\ndoor, were, I can assure the public that will read this paper,\ncomparable to nothing so much as the occasion when the feet of the\nferret are heard drumming down the hollow burrows of the warren, while\nthe rabbits know the day of irresponsible frolic is over and that they\nmust die in the dark or in the open, but must die.\n\nThe Historicides of Oxford have always feared an extended public and\ndistrusted a name that has been made without their connivance, and\nwhich is beyond their reach. I find it difficult to suppose that those\nwho do not realize the incredible narrowness and stupidity of a\ncertain type of history don, will believe the anecdote I am about to\ntell. Nevertheless, it is true. A pedant, whose name I will not give,\nwas recently heard to refer to Mr. Thomas Hardy in these words,\n\u201cHardy? Hardy? Oh, do you mean the little novelist man?\u201d\n\nLet me put it before you quite plainly and in antithesis. Hardly\nanything could better illustrate the appalling mental position of the\n_camarilla_ that has got to go. Here is a priggish person, whom no\none has ever heard of outside Oxford, piping out his contempt for a\nman who is generally recognized as one of the most distinguished\nnovelists and one of the chief artists alive in our time.\n\nIt is possible that many people will not immediately appreciate the\nreason for all the terror excited by Mr. Paul\u2019s biography. The outside\nman cannot quite know how Froude is, and always was, hated and feared\nby a certain section of the Oxford historians. They were always trying\nto hit him below the belt because he hit them above the intellect.\nThere was a definite conspiracy among the malignant, from Freeman\ndownwards, to lie about Froude in every conceivable way, and to\ncomplete their malicious impudence by calling Froude himself a liar.\nFroude was a master of English prose; the highest praise that can be\ngiven to the jargon which his detractors wrote, and write, is that it\nis not exactly Esperanto. Froude understood the colour of words, the\nmovements of a paragraph, the harmonic rhythm of an emotion expressed\nin prose. His words were the incarnation of his original thought,\ntheirs but accentuated their borrowings. While the genius of this\ngreat man was coming into its own, while it burned brightly and yet\nmore bright, while all thoughtful England was beginning to be moved\nand stirred by a new force, and the possessor of it was living with\nintellects as great and gracious as his own, the Oxford historians\nslept in their padded rooms, and because they snored loudly imagined\nthey were thinking. Too indolent to search for the truth, they\ncontented themselves with dodging difficulties, and persuading each\nother that their ostentatious obscurity was fame.\n\nThere came a time at last when James Anthony Froude could no longer be\nignored. His achievement was beginning to be a national possession,\nand he shared the councils of the rulers. The echoes of his fame\nreached the ears of the troglodytes, and, led by Freeman, they swarmed\nto the attack, yelping a p\u00e6an to mediocrity and brandishing weapons\nfrom a more than doubtful armoury.\n\nFroude, as Mr. Paul has pointed out, \u201ctoiled for months and years over\nparchments and manuscripts often almost illegible, carefully noting\nthe calligraphy, and among the authors of a joint composition\nassigning his proper share to each. Freeman wrote his _History of the\nNorman Conquest_, upon which he was at this time engaged, entirely\nfrom books, without consulting a manuscript or original document of\nany kind.\u201d\n\nFreeman,--the head of the daguerreotypical historians,--attacked a\nman whom he very well knew was his superior, pretending publicly to a\ngreater knowledge of the special subject under discussion, and\ncynically denying any special knowledge in private. In public Freeman\nrepresented his hostile attitude as the natural outcome of his zeal\nfor truth; in private it was known that he was actuated by personal\nhatred, and the discoveries made by Mr. J. B. Rye on the margins of\nFreeman\u2019s books in Owens College library have discredited him for all\ntime. Again I quote from Mr. Paul\u2019s _Life of Froude_:--\n\n     \u201cFreeman\u2019s biographer, Dean Stephens, preserves absolute and\n     unbroken silence on the duel between Freeman and Froude. I\n     think the Dean\u2019s conduct was judicious. But there is no reason\n     why a biographer of Froude should follow his example. On the\n     contrary, it is absolutely essential that he should not; for\n     Freeman\u2019s assiduous efforts, first in _The Saturday_, and\n     afterwards in _The Contemporary Review_, did ultimately produce\n     an impression, never yet fully dispelled, that Froude was an\n     habitual garbler of facts and constitutionally reckless of the\n     truth. But, before I come to details, let me say one word more\n     about Freeman\u2019s qualifications for the task which he so lightly\n     and eagerly undertook. Freeman, with all his self-assertion,\n     was not incapable of candour. He was staunch in friendship, and\n     spoke openly to his friends. To one of them, the excellent Dean\n     Hook, famous for his _Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_,\n     he wrote, on the 27th of April, 1857, \u2018You have found me out\n     about the sixteenth century. I fancy that from endlessly\n     belabouring Froude, I get credit for knowing more of those\n     times than I do. But one can belabour Froude on a very small\n     amount of knowledge, and you are quite right when you say that\n     I \u201chave never thrown the whole force of my mind on that portion\n     of history.\u201d\u2019 These words pour a flood of light on the temper\n     and knowledge with which Freeman must have entered on what he\n     really seemed to consider a crusade. His object was to belabour\n     Froude. His own acquaintance with the subject was, as he says,\n     \u2018very small,\u2019 but sufficient for enabling him to dispose\n     satisfactorily of an historian who had spent years of patient\n     toil in thorough and exhaustive research. On another occasion,\n     also writing to Hook, whom he could not deceive, he said, \u2018I\n     find I have a reputation with some people for knowing the\n     sixteenth century, of which I am profoundly ignorant.\u2019 It does\n     not appear to have struck him that he had done his best in _The\n     Saturday Review_ to make people think that, as Froude\u2019s critic,\n     he deserved the reputation which he thus frankly and in private\n     disclaims.\n\n     \u201cAnother curious piece of evidence has come to light. After\n     Freeman\u2019s death his library was transferred to Owens College,\n     Manchester, and there, among his other books, is his copy of\n     Froude\u2019s _History_. He once said himself, in reference to his\n     criticism of Froude, \u2018In truth there is no kind of temper in\n     the case, but only a strong sense of amusement in bowling down\n     one thing after another.\u2019 Let us see. Here are some extracts\n     from his marginal notes. \u2018A lie, _teste_ Stubbs,\u2019 as if Stubbs\n     were an authority, in the proper sense of the term, any more\n     than Froude. Authorities are contemporary witnesses, or\n     original documents. Another entry is \u2018Beast,\u2019 and yet another\n     is \u2018Bah!\u2019 \u2018May I live to embowel James Anthony Froude,\u2019 is the\n     pious aspiration with which he has adorned another page. \u2018Can\n     Froude understand honesty?\u2019 asks this anxious inquirer; and\n     again, \u2018Supposing Master Froude were set to break stones, feed\n     pigs, or do anything else but write paradoxes, would he not\n     curse his day?\u2019 Along with such graceful compliments as \u2018You\u2019ve\n     found that out since you wrote a book against your own father,\u2019\n     \u2018Give him as slave to Thirlwall,\u2019 there may be seen the\n     culminating assertion, \u2018Froude is certainly the vilest brute\n     that ever wrote a book.\u2019 Yet there was \u2018no kind of temper in\n     the case,\u2019 and \u2018only a strong sense of amusement.\u2019 I suppose it\n     must have amused Freeman to call another historian a vile\n     brute. But it is fortunate that there was no temper in the\n     case. For if there had, it would have been a very bad temper\n     indeed.\u201d\n\nUntil Mr. Herbert Paul\u2019s _Life of Froude_ appeared a year ago, the\nHistoricides had been continually repeating the lie that Froude\ngarbled documents, was untrustworthy, and wrote not history but\nfiction. History, of course, often imitates fiction, for good fiction\nalways deals with realities. But these slanderers did not pause for a\ndefinition. They continued to abuse Froude, to prevent their pupils\nfrom reading him, and to refuse him a place in the recognized\ncurriculum of historical study at the University.\n\nFrom time to time a doubter or inquirer arose and was promptly\nsuppressed. Nor was it likely that a man, whatever his private opinion\nof those in authority might be, was going to jeopardize his chance of\na good degree by publishing it. There were awkward moments, of course,\nfor the slanderers. A lie is like a forged promissory note. When it\nbecomes due another must be forged in order to take up the first. But\nthe Historicides had the whip-hand. They controlled the examinations,\nand they could do what they pleased.\n\nI once wrote a little story which I will outline here, because I think\nit illustrates the method of these people whenever any ugly fact was\ndiscovered and some one required an explanation.\n\nThere was once a simple-minded old gentleman of a philosophic temper\nand an inquiring mind. Blessed with an ample fortune and untroubled by\nany business instincts, he devoted his life to the search for truth.\nOn the whole his life was a happy one, because he possessed the\nfaculty of going on. His failures were not made tragic with courage,\nbut were minimized by persistence, and so were not very different from\nsuccesses. Yet, as the years went on, he began to feel that in his\ntime he would never achieve his end. Seeing him somewhat downcast, and\nbecoming indifferent to his chop and Chambertin, his butler, a\nfaithful person, came to him one day, and, after venturing a\nprivileged remonstrance, stated that he had something to disclose. \u201cI\nhave lately heard, sir,\u201d said the butler, \u201cthat truth is really hidden\nat the bottom of a well. It may of course, sir, be mere idle talk, but\nI think, as far as I remember, we have not looked there yet? There was\nthe church, sir--we found nothing there--and then I held the lantern\nfor you in the chapel, too. There was none behind the art wall-paper,\nnor did Liberty have any in stock. And it wasn\u2019t in history, sir,\nbecause I turned over every leaf of them Oxford books myself, and\nshook them well, too. You did think you\u2019d found it in science, sir, I\nremember, there was something that you thought was truth in the bottom\nof the test-tube, but then you told me it wasn\u2019t, though I forget what\nyou said it was after all.\u201d\n\n\u201cMerely a note of a recorded fact, Thomas,\u201d said the old gentleman\nsorrowfully. \u201cBut do you _really_ think there is anything in this idea\nof yours?\u201d\n\n\u201cI cannot be positive, sir,\u201d the butler replied; \u201cbut I see it stated\ndefinite at the end of a leading article in the _Artesian Engineer_.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave we a well on the premises, Thomas?\u201d the old gentleman asked,\nputting on his spectacles and rubbing his hands briskly together.\n\n\u201cI asked the gardener this morning, sir,\u201d Thomas answered, \u201cand he\ninforms me that there is an old disused well by the cucumber-frame\nwhich could be opened easily enough by a couple of men working for a\nweek.\u201d\n\n\u201cEngage some men at once,\u201d said the old gentleman, now thoroughly\ninterested and pleased, and that day he enjoyed his chop with all his\naccustomed pleasure. The faithful butler, who had all his life lived\nworthily and well without truth, was overjoyed at the success of his\nsuggestion. Anticipating, however, another disappointment, he gave\nprivate instructions, received _con amore_ by the workmen, that they\nwere not to hurry over their task of opening the well, and for a month\nthe old gentleman\u2019s appetite whetted by hope, was all that his\nfaithful retainer could desire.\n\nAt length the work was done, the well was fully opened, and the\npage-boy (an adventurous youth) descended in the bucket. There was a\ntense silence in the garden as the boy disappeared, until his\nhollow-sounding voice hailed them from below vibrating with\nexcitement.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve got un, sir,\u201d ascended in a triumphant pipe; \u201che be here, sir,\nsure \u2019nuff!\u201d\n\nIn a moment more the young fellow came to the surface, holding a large\nand speckled toad in his hand. On the back of the reptile an\narrangement of orange-coloured spots spelt out the word TRUTH.\n\nThe old gentleman saw it, fell into uncontrollable rage, snatched the\nwondering reptile from the page-boy\u2019s hand and stamped out its life\nupon the ground.\n\n\u201cTo the house all of you,\u201d he cried; \u201cand never let me hear the name\nof truth again!\u201d With that he forswore all his former theories, and in\nbitter irony started a society paper. However, the gardener, a wise,\nsilent, and pawky person, came along later, and, picking a diamond\nfrom the crushed _d\u00e9bris_ of the toad took it home and hid it away for\nthe rest of his life, fearing discovery. When the gardener died, his\nrelatives discovered the jewel, and knowing nothing of its value threw\nit away.\n\nThe old gentleman made an enormous fortune out of the society paper.\n\nForgive the digression. This, or something like it, was what the\nHistoricides of Oxford did before the publication of Mr. Paul\u2019s book.\nWhenever any one showed them the truth they snatched it from him, and\nordered him back into Stubbs\u2019s Charters.\n\nI have already said something of the terror the _Life of Froude_\nexcited. In a swift moment pretensions were exposed, lies were shown\nto be lies, and people began to read _Froude_. Mr. Paul made it quite\nplain that the accusations of dishonesty against Froude were utter\nfabrications. Mr. Paul, himself a learned historian, an artist and a\nman of letters, has gone into the charges _seriatim_, and triumphantly\ndisproved them. No one can ever make them again. _They are lies, they\nhave been proved once and for ever to be lies._ I cannot quote here\nthe mass of refutation which has brought about the complete\nvindication of the accused historian. This is a summary and nothing\nmore. It stands for all to read in Mr. Paul\u2019s book, a volume which\nshould be in the hands of every man who is reading, and means to read\nhistory at Oxford.\n\nThis memorable book is a protest against the charlatanry of the\npseudo-scientific school of history. The acts and intentions of people\nin the past cannot be known better than the intentions and acts of\npeople in the present. No one man can possibly sift all, or anything\nlike all the evidence for any period. Much of the important evidence\nis missing. No one can be examined or cross-examined, and for an\nhistorian to write as if he were a judge delivering a decision is a\npiece of impertinence. The abler man, assuming his honesty, will make\nthe abler historian, and the mere bookworm is not the best judge of\nwhat probably happened. It is the dull and incompetent who formerly\ninvented the fable that brilliant writers are superficial. This is the\nlie behind which the \u201cdry as dusts\u201d have lurked for years; it was\ntheir last line of defence, and Mr. Paul has destroyed it.\n\nThe historian must be able to write distinguished English, and he must\nunderstand the enormous possibilities of his medium. He must add a\nsense of artistry to his scholarship. He must be a man of experience\nin human event, a man who has done and suffered; must have been in\ncrowds and seen \u201chow madly men can care about nothings,\u201d and he must\ndisabuse his mind of formula and theory before he begins to write. Sir\nArthur Helps said this years ago:--\n\n\u201cTo make themselves historians, they should also have considered the\ncombinations among men and the laws that govern such things; for there\nare laws. Moreover our historians, like most men who do great things,\nmust combine in themselves qualities which are held to belong to\nopposite natures; must at the same time be patient in research and\n_vigorous in imagination_, energetic and calm, cautious and\nenterprising.\u201d\n\nHistory, in short, is the complement of poetry, and with this\ndefinition as a basis let us proceed to examine some of the Oxford\nhistorians of to-day. But first let me recapitulate the points at\nwhich we have so far arrived.\n\nI have endeavoured to make plain, that--\n\n(_a_) The Oxford historians of the moment enjoy an unjust monopoly,\nand exercise a disastrous power of veto.\n\n(_b_) That the _power_ to stop all this, to force these people to\ntheir duty or to send them about their business lies with the\nmajority.\n\n(_c_) That the majority is composed of those who pay for the education\nof their sons, and of those who proceed to the University for an\neducation.\n\n(_d_) That the historian must be not only a scholar, but an artist and\nman of letters also.\n\n(_e_) That the fear of Froude provoked the attack on him in the past,\nand has maintained it until a year ago.\n\n(_f_) That Mr. Paul\u2019s _Life of Froude_ has silenced the misstatements\nof mediocrity and incompetence for ever.\n\nThe whole business of Froude has provided one with a lens in which to\nfocus the question upon the page, and no one was ever provided with a\nbetter text than I have been. Excuse me, however, if I make a brief\npersonal explanation. While engaged upon this piece of work an Oxford\nman, an old-fashioned High Churchman of the Freeman type, has been\nstaying with me. It is forty years since he was in residence, and he\ndid not see with me at all in this matter when we discussed it.\n\n\u201cI cannot understand,\u201d he said, \u201chow you are going to champion Froude\nand Mr. Paul against Freeman, who was perfectly sound on Church\nmatters, as I believe you to be. All you have ever published has been\nin support of Catholic Truth, and yet you are earnestly advocating a\nhistorian who was the incarnation of Protestantism.\u201d\n\nIt was, in the first place, difficult to make my interlocutor see that\nI was writing of the art of the historian, and not the trend of his\nopinions. In the second place, I do not agree with him as to the\nessential Protestantism of Froude. Froude\u2019s religious attitude has\nbeen summed up once and for all by one of the most brilliant writers\nof our time, an historian, artist, and scholar, whom Oxford dons\nrejected, but for whom Oxford calls aloud, and for whom St. Stephen\u2019s\nhas naturally a greater attraction--much as one deplores it.\n\nMr. Belloc writes:--\n\n     \u201cSee how definite, how downright, and how clean are the\n     sentences in which Froude asserts that Christianity is Catholic\n     or nothing:--\n\n     \u201c\u2018... This was the body of death which philosophy detected but\n     could not explain, and from which _Catholicism_ now came\n     forward with its magnificent promise of deliverance.\n\n     \u201c\u2018The carnal doctrine of the sacraments, which they are\n     compelled to acknowledge to have been taught as fully in the\n     early Church as it is now taught by the Roman Catholics, has\n     long been the stumbling-block to Protestants. It was the very\n     essence of Christianity itself. Unless the body could be\n     purified, the soul could not be saved; or, rather, as from the\n     beginning, soul and flesh were one man and inseparable, without\n     his flesh, man was lost, or would cease to be. But the natural\n     organization of the flesh was infected, and unless organization\n     could begin again from a new original, no pure material\n     substance could exist at all. He, therefore, by whom God had\n     first made the world, entered into the womb of the Virgin in\n     the form (so to speak) of a new organic cell, and around it,\n     through the virtue of His creative energy, a material body grew\n     again of the substance of His mother, pure of taint and clean\n     as the first body of the first man when it passed out under\n     His hand in the beginning of all things.\u2019\n\n     \u201cThroughout his essay on the Philosophy of Christianity, where\n     he was maintaining a thesis odious to the majority of his\n     readers, he rings as hard as ever. The philosophy of\n     Christianity is frankly declared to be Catholicism and\n     Catholicism alone; the truth of Christianity is denied. It is\n     called a thing \u2018worn and old\u2019 even in Luther\u2019s time, and he\n     definitely prophesies a period when \u2018our posterity\u2019 shall learn\n     to \u2018despise the miserable fabric which Luther stitched together\n     out of its tatters.\u2019\u201d\n\nI can add nothing to Mr. Belloc\u2019s criticism or his quotations.\n\nLet us now take a survey of the history which the powers that be in\nOxford have substituted for the work of Froude. Let us shake the\nupas-trees which shadow the quadrangle of the Schools and wonder how\nthese astonishing vegetables have managed to produce such fruit as\nthat of which I have to set samples before you.\n\nThe Examination Statutes in the section containing the regulations for\nthe Honour School of Modern History recommend, among other books, that\ncandidates who take the period 1559-1715 should study _Gustavus\nAdolphus_, by Mr. C. R. L. Fletcher, M.A., late Fellow of All Souls\u2019\nCollege, Oxford. The gentlemen who compile the Examination Statutes\nwould \u201crecommend\u201d almost anything, but I imagine that I am about to\nastonish the general reader.\n\nI will begin with Mr. Fletcher\u2019s preface. He himself says in the very\nfirst line that his book \u201cdemands little preface.\u201d It would have been\nperhaps better for him had he been guided by his own pious opinion and\nresisted the temptation to print his confessions in nine\nclosely-printed pages. I say \u201cconfessions\u201d advisedly, for rarely in\nthe course of a wide experience of books have I set eyes upon a more\ncandid and almost disarming statement than the one before me here.\n\nIn his preface Mr. Fletcher asserts that his book--\n\n(1) \u201cMakes no pretensions to be based upon original research,\u201d and he\nfollows up this curious admission with ...\n\n(2) \u201cAnd I cannot claim to have read even all the modern authorities\non the subject.\u201d\n\nAnd (3) \u201cMy knowledge of the Swedish language is by no means\nindependent of the assistance of a dictionary, nor can I hope to have\nescaped that tendency to partiality for which the natural fascination\nof such a subject is the only excuse.\u201d\n\nMr. Fletcher then proceeds to tell us that he was\n\n(4) \u201cObliged to include accounts of many things of which I had made\nno special study. The military history of the Thirty Years\u2019 War is in\nitself a case in point. No satisfactory monograph on the subject\nexists, and I have often been obliged to confess myself at fault in\ngrasping the exact meaning of military terms, and the exact effect of\nmanoeuvres, in an art of which even in its modern shape I know\nnothing.\n\n(5) \u201cBut the times have so far changed,\u201d he continues, \u201cthat I am able\nto plead that I am probably not much more ignorant of the art of war\nthan the majority of my readers are likely to be.\n\n(6) \u201cIn those archives\u201d (the archives of Stockholm), \u201cif anywhere, it\nis probable that the true Gustavus Adolphus is to be found.\u201d But\n\n(7) He, Mr. Fletcher, \u201cis a man who has no pretension to be a student\nof archives.\u201d\n\nHere, then, we have an historian who admits that even the little he\nhas to offer is borrowed from the books of other people. He has not\ntaken the trouble to search and inquire for himself, and, content with\nprofiting by the labours of others more conscientious, he has of\ncourse been unable to verify the accuracy of such labours. Nor has he\neven taken the trouble to borrow from the latest sources, for he\ninforms us, \u201c_and I cannot claim to have read even all the modern\nauthorities on the subject_.\u201d\n\nMr. Fletcher does not thoroughly know the language of the country of\nwhich he writes; he has included accounts of many things \u201cof which I\nhad made no special study\u201d in this precious book; and finally, the\nhistorian of the Victor of Breitenfeld and L\u00fctzen knows absolutely\nnothing of military history, the art of war, or the meaning of\nmilitary terms, in spite of which, at page 119, he declares (_a_) that\nGustavus was \u201ccertainly a greater master of tactics than Wallenstein,\u201d\nbut \u201cnot a greater cavalry captain than Pappenheim;\u201d and (_b_) \u201cthat\nPappenheim had not the _coup d\u2019oeil_ which enables a man to grasp a\nwhole battle at once.\u201d\n\nHow a man can dare to print such a cataract of admissions I do not\nunderstand. At any rate, tested by the lowest standard, treated with\nthe utmost leniency, his book stands self-confessed as worthless.\nHowever modest the author\u2019s estimate of his work and the humility of\nHeep was as nothing to the assumption of this preface, the book\n_cannot_ under any conceivable circumstances be of the least use to\nthe student. It outrages every canon by which the most amateur of\nhistorians should guide himself to write.\n\nYET THIS BOOK IS RECOMMENDED IN THE EXAMINATION STATUTES TO BE READ BY\nMEN WISHING TO TAKE HONOURS IN HISTORY WHILE THE WORKS OF JAMES\nANTHONY FROUDE ARE RIGIDLY EXCLUDED.\n\nI would fain linger a little longer with Mr. Fletcher, possibly one of\nthe richest unconscious humourists who have ever written history. He\ndeserves to be known to a wider circle than the mere academic. In\nthese drab, hurried days, anything that makes for innocent gaiety is\nto be welcomed. I think it was Ruskin who said that Edwin Lear\u2019s _Book\nof Nonsense_ was one of the most valuable books ever written. It is a\npity that Mr. Ruskin did not live to read Mr. Fletcher\u2019s other work,\n_An Introductory History of England_.\n\n_Gustavus Adolphus_ was published in 1900, and Mr. Fletcher was then\ndescribed as \u201cLate Fellow of All Souls\u2019 College.\u201d The later and more\nmature work was published in 1904, and we then see Mr. Fletcher as a\nFellow of Magdalen.\n\nIn _An Introductory History of England_ we have, of course, the usual\npreface, from which I wish I had space to quote largely. I have not,\nbut in turning the leaves, the eye at once falls on another\napologia:--\n\n\u201cI have no pretensions to be a scholar in the original document\nsense;\u201d and, \u201cI fear it will be very easy for those who are such\nscholars to find many mistakes in detail, as well as to question my\nconclusions.\u201d\n\nFurther, he speaks of the Honour School of Modern History in language\nwhich I, for one, heartily endorse. \u201cI do not consider,\u201d he says (p.\nvi.), \u201cthat the immense growth of the History School at Oxford ... is\nat all a healthy sign for English education.\u201d\n\nI do not intend to do more than give one specimen of Mr. Fletcher\u2019s\nstyle in this book, though I have read the whole of it with pleasure\nand amusement. The paragraph I am about to quote should live in the\nannals of the Oxford Historicides for ever. I imagine that in writing\nit, Mr. Fletcher had been slyly reading _Oceana_ in secret, and longed\nto emulate the vividness of that august prose. The volume of Froude\nwas obviously out of the way when the purple passage was produced, but\nif it loses in style owing to this circumstance, it gains in interest\nas the unconnected revelation of a truly extraordinary mind.\n\n\u201cAs the ice-sheet advanced, the wild animals gradually moved\nsouthwards; the primitive Briton, unhindered by English Channel or\nMediterranean Sea, walked after the mammoth and the hippopotamus,\nshooting at them with wooden arrows tipped with flints. And the\ngrizzly bear and the sabre-toothed tiger walked after the primitive\nBriton.\u201d\n\nWe must bid farewell to Mr. Fletcher, the historian preferred to\nFroude by certain people! I do not wish to give pain to any one in the\nworld, much less to one who has given me so much pleasure. But even at\nthe cost of that, I would ask gentlemen who are reading history at\nOxford, and gentlemen who are sending their sons to read history at\nOxford, to pause and reflect before they entrust grave interests and\nmomentous personal issues to the mercies of such writers as Mr.\nFletcher, to the direction of the historian _manqu\u00e9_.\n\nLet us leave the _mala gaudia mentis_ provided by Mr. Fletcher, and\nproceed to more considerable men.\n\nIn his case we have a person, though ill-equipped by nature or\ntemperament, engaged in an honest endeavour to write with vigour and\npicturesqueness. Grotesque as it may seem to us, the \u201cPrimitive Briton\nwalking after the hippopotamus, and the sabre-toothed tiger walking\nafter the primitive Briton\u201d shows a genuine attempt at style. It is\nfrom the rude carvings of savage races that the Venus of Milo has been\nevolved, and from the mural decoration of the cave-dwellers has the\nperfected art of Velasquez or Murillo come.\n\nThere are, however, other writers in Oxford to-day who merely\nchronicle facts. This is not writing history, of course, but a careful\nchronicle of _accurate_ fact is certainly valuable to the student, and\nmay serve as a ladder by which he may mount into the realms of true\nhistory. Some one must do the spade work, dull and uninteresting as it\nmay be, and all we ask of the gardener\u2019s labourer is that his toil\nshould be accomplished thoroughly and well.\n\nOne of the books that is put into the hands of history students at\nOxford as a useful work of reference is _European History_ 470-1871,\nby Mr. Arthur Hassall, a student and tutor of Christ Church, Oxford.\nLet me here explain for the general public that \u201ca Student\u201d of Christ\nChurch is in the same position as the \u201cFellow\u201d of another college.\n\nThe book at first sight does certainly seem to supply a need. It is a\nchronicle, in parallel columns, of the events which occurred in every\ncountry between the dates named. A man who is preparing an essay for\nhis tutor might well be at a momentary loss for a date. \u201cWhat was the\nexact year in which so-and-so succeeded, or the battle of\nsuch-and-such a place occurred?\u201d he might ask himself, and turn to Mr.\nHassall\u2019s book for answers.\n\nLet us take a particular instance. When was Napoleon III. proclaimed\nEmperor? According to Mr. Hassall he was proclaimed twice; in 1852 and\nagain in 1853. Under _1852_ I read: \u201cThe French nation, by a large\nmajority, sanction the restoration of the Empire (November), and\nNapoleon is proclaimed Emperor (December 2).\u201d Lower down, on the same\npage, under _1853_, I am told that \u201cNapoleon consults the people on\nthe subject of the restoration of the Empire, and secures a large\nmajority in its favour (November 21).... Napoleon is declared Emperor\nof the French as Napoleon III. (December 2).\u201d\n\nThe right date is 1852. These strange contradictions occur in the\nsecond as well as the first edition of Mr. Hassall\u2019s book, for which\nminute accuracy is the only _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_.\n\nAnother \u201chandbook,\u201d this time purporting to be an outline of the\n_Political History of England_, and much in use by the long-suffering\nstudent of to-day is published by the Right Honourable Arthur H. Dyke\nAcland, M.P., and Cyril Ransome, M.A., Merton College, Oxford. This\nbook also makes no pretensions to style and any one who buys it has a\nright to require that its statements should be minutely accurate.\nNevertheless, in it I find the following conflicting statements.\n\u201c1792, April 23. WARREN HASTINGS IS ACQUITTED,\u201d and \u201c1795, Acquittal\nof Warren Hastings.\u201d Which is right? A later edition of the handbook\ntells me that 1795 is. Yet it is odd, to say the least of it, that in\nthe seventh edition the wrong date was impressed on the student by the\nwords, \u201cWarren Hastings is acquitted\u201d being printed in larger type\nthan they were under 1795.\n\nI am not going to multiply instances of this sort of thing. When it is\nnecessary to produce a completer indictment of the pseudo-scientific\nhistorians I am able to assure them that it will be done. A great\nawakening has come to the University, and a hundred keen, hostile eyes\nare focussed upon its chief anachronism. There are many men in Oxford\nto-day who can say in their hearts: \u201cSo will I break down the wall\nthat ye have daubed with untempered mortar and bring it down to the\nground.\u201d\n\nI will pass at once to Professor Oman, Commander-in-Chief of\nretrograde Dondom.\n\nMuch of what Oxford has to bestow of honour and distinction Professor\nOman has received. Some of the rewards of the greatest University have\nbeen his. He may be called the leader of the pseudo-scientific school\nnow publishing, and in the past has enjoyed such eminence as this\nconfers, among a corporation whose members are not so famous for the\nbooks they have written as for the books they ought not to have\nwritten.\n\nProfessor Oman, in his _Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History_\n(1906) said: \u201cI am indignant at all the cheap satire levelled against\nthe college tutorial system, the curriculum of the schools, the\nexaminations and their results, which forms the staple of the\nirresponsible criticisms of the daily, weekly, or monthly press, of\nthe pamphlets of a man with a grievance, and of the harangues\ndelivered when educationalists (horrid word) assemble in conclave.\u201d\n\nI can well understand it. Three months before this lecture was given,\nI remember reading an article in the _Army Service Corps Quarterly_,\ncertainly neither irresponsible nor cheap, though composed by two\nwriters whose grievance was the inaccuracy of the Chichele Professor.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cNapoleon was so profoundly ignorant of the character of the\n(\u2018Spanish\u2019) nation that he imagined,\u201d wrote the Professor in his\n_History of the Peninsular War_, \u201cthat a few high-sounding\nproclamations and promises of liberal reforms would induce them to\naccept from his hands any new sovereign whom he chose to nominate.\u201d\n\nAt the date when Napoleon is supposed by the Professor to have been\nbehaving like a Professor, not of war but of history, he was writing\nto Murat (May 16, 1808): \u201cJe vous recommande de prendre toutes les\nmesures n\u00e9cessaires pour donner du mouvement dans l\u2019arsenal. _Ce sont\nl\u00e0 les meilleures proclamations pour se concilier l\u2019affection des\npeuples._\u201d Three days before (May 13), he had warned Murat not to\n\u201cflatter the Spaniards too much.... I have,\u201d he wrote, \u201cmore\nexperience of the Spaniards than you. When you told me that Madrid was\nvery tranquil, I said to every one that you would soon have an\ninsurrection.\u201d\n\nThe article referred to utterly contradicts this statement of\nProfessor Oman\u2019s. Hundreds of original documents were examined, and\nthe point was proved with entire brilliance and clarity. The pamphlet\nis quite unanswerable, and has never been answered. The quotation from\nthe Professor\u2019s lecture illustrates the temper and attitude of the\ntypical unprogressive. Why all criticism of the Professor and his\nfriends should be cheap and irresponsible I do not know. When Mr.\nHerbert Paul writes of Stubbs\u2019s _Constitutional History of\nEngland_--the Bible of the pseudo-historians--that it \u201cmay be a useful\nbook for students. Unless or until it is rewritten, it can have no\nexistence for the general reader,\u201d and \u201ca novice whose mind is a blank\nmay read whole chapters of Gardiner without discovering that any\nevents of much significance happened in the seventeenth century\u201d is\nMr. Paul irresponsible and cheap? Mr. Paul obtained the highest honour\npossible in his degree examination; he was a member of Parliament for\nSouth Edinburgh, one of the most cultured constituencies in the\nkingdom; he is a member of the present Parliament. As historians,\nindeed, the relative positions of Mr. Paul and Mr. Oman, are those of\nbanker and pawnbroker respectively.\n\nThis publicly expressed irritation of the Chichele Professor is\nsymptomatic.\n\nWhen Froude gave _his_ inaugural lecture Mr. Oman was present, and\nwas, he tells us--\n\n...\u201ccarried away at the moment by his eloquent plea in favour of the\nview that history must be written as literature, that it is the\nhistorian\u2019s duty to present his work in a shape that will be clearly\ncomprehensible to as many readers as possible, that dull, pedantic,\nover-technical diction is an absolute crime, since by it possible\nconverts to the cause of history may be turned back and estranged.\u201d\n\nMr. Oman was not carried away very far. The works of the man who was\ngenius and moralist, man of letters and historian, are still excluded\nfrom the \u201ccurriculum,\u201d while the works of the Professor who was\ntemporarily carried away are still included in it.\n\nIt is, indeed, perfectly true, as Mr. Oman very candidly admits, that\n\u201ceven five years spent as a Deputy-Professor have not eradicated the\nold tutorial virus from his system.\u201d He suffers, and I suppose must\nalways suffer, from the inability to write his history so that it is a\npleasure to read it. The literary instinct is wanting, the artistic\ntemperament is absent, and like all those writers of whom he is the\nmost able and the chief, the Chichele Professor can repeat but can\nneither create nor recreate.\n\nOn the very page where I read \u201ceducationalists\u201d (horrid word), I also\nread these melodious and polished sentences \u201cequipped with a severely\nspecialistic curriculum.\u201d _Quip! lis! tic! ric!_ how horribly these\nwords jar and offend, what a barbarous jargon is this!\n\nAgain, \u201cthey hope to find this one rather less rebarbative than Law or\nMathematics.\u201d From what sewer of language did the writer drag\n\u201crebarbative\u201d to grace his prose?\n\nIt is the same with everything this gentleman writes, or to be exact,\nin everything I have read of his.\n\nHe speaks of C\u00e6sar\u2019s \u201cchequered and oragious political career.\u201d\n\nHe tells us of himself, \u201cI was one of those exceptionals.\u201d You have\nonly to open any single page of any single book Professor Oman has\nwritten to realize that he either knows nothing of or cares nothing at\nall for the art of writing prose. I admit that it is easy enough to\nfind, and print, faults in the writings of any one, even, here and\nthere, in the work of a Master. I was re-reading _Oceana_ the other\nday, and noticed that Froude has written, \u201cthere was no undergrowth,\nno rocks or stones, only fresh green grass.\u201d ... But an error such as\nthis is exactly like a musical discord, inadmissible in the exercise\nof a student of harmony, but as nothing in the composition of a\nMaster.\n\nI do not wish to say whether, in my opinion, Professor Oman\u2019s views of\nhistory are generally sound or if they are not. He would not be where\nhe is, I suppose, were he not credible and generally accurate. But\nwhat I do know, and what I have a right to say, is that his prose is\nturgid, clumsy and without flexibility. He can only tell us that\nsomething has happened, he cannot make that happening live and pulse\nwithin the brain. He is without the first quality of the true\nhistorian, the knowledge and mastery of the medium in which he\nexpresses his thoughts, and lacking all kinetic power he does not even\nknow of what wood to make a crutch.\n\nMr. Oman and all his school are the legitimate descendants of their\nMaster, Stubbs--the Great Cham of the Historicides. It is a mournful\nfact that the incredibly vicious style of William Stubbs has had a\nmost malign influence over that of lesser men.\n\nThe samples of it that I give here will amaze those people who have\nnot read the learned Bishop, and who have been in the habit of\nregarding him as a literary man as well as a historian.\n\n\u201cThe steam plough,\u201d Stubbs writes at p. 636, vol. iii. of _The\nConstitutional History of England_, \u201cand the sewing machine are less\npicturesque, and call for a less educated eye than that of the\nplough-man and the seamstress, but they produce more work with less\nwaste of energy; they give more leisure and greater comfort; they call\nout, in the production and improvement of their mechanism, a higher\nand more widespread culture. And all these things are growing instead\nof decaying.\u201d With what is the historian comparing the steam plough\nand sewing machine? And does a sewing machine \u201ccall out\u201d a higher\n_culture_? and do the things that are \u201cgrowing instead of decaying\u201d\ninclude a steam plough?\n\nWe are also told on page 634, that religion ... \u201chas sunk on the one\nhand into a dogma fenced about with walls which its defenders cannot\npass either inward or outward, on the other hand into a mere\nwar-cry.... Between the two lies a narrow borderland.\u201d Religion,\ntherefore, \u201csinks into a war-cry.\u201d Between the war-cry and the dogma\nis a narrow borderland. The dogma is \u201cfenced about with walls.\u201d\n\nThe recurring word is a constant phenomenon. In paragraph 498, for\ninstance, we find the sequence \u201cevil,\u201d \u201cdebased,\u201d \u201cnoble,\u201d\n\u201cbeautiful,\u201d \u201cgood,\u201d \u201cnoble,\u201d \u201cbeautiful,\u201d \u201cevil,\u201d \u201cdebased,\u201d \u201cevil,\u201d\n\u201cgood,\u201d \u201cgood,\u201d \u201cgreat,\u201d \u201cgreat,\u201d \u201cgreatness,\u201d \u201cgreatness,\u201d \u201cnoble,\u201d\n\u201cgreatness,\u201d \u201cgreat,\u201d \u201cgreatness,\u201d \u201cgreatness,\u201d \u201cgreatness,\u201d \u201cevil,\u201d\n\u201cgood,\u201d \u201cevil,\u201d \u201cgood,\u201d \u201cevil,\u201d \u201cevil,\u201d \u201cgood,\u201d \u201cgood,\u201d \u201cevil,\u201d\n\u201cgood,\u201d \u201cgood.\u201d\n\nIt is true that the devoted and determined fellowship of Oxford men\nwho are destroying the last position of the Historicides have long\nknown that Bishop Stubbs was nothing more than a writer of slovenly\ntext-books. But the general public has not known, and, occupied with\nwider interests, has been forced to take the statements of the\npedants on trust.\n\nYet, if Oxford is to continue to be the chief University of the world,\nit will only be by permission of the public. This is a truth which the\npedants will only realize when it is too late. If every father who has\na son whom he hopes will proceed to the University reads what I have\nset down here--reads it, and trusting nothing to the assertions of one\nman\u2019s pen, makes further and more exhaustive inquiries--we shall very\nsoon see the frantic capitulation of the Old Guard. I believe the dons\nand pedants of whom I have been writing to be honest men enough. They\nare sincere in their attitude, no doubt. It is comfortable to think\nthat everything is for the best in the best of all possible\nUniversities, but the obstinacy of a dozen mules in a mountain pass\nimpedes the progress of an army, and because his stupidity is not the\nhybrid\u2019s fault is no argument against his removal.\n\nA certain number of Oxford dons are convinced that the Oxford system\nis without flaw.\n\nThe Historicides are the worst offenders, though some of their\nbrethren who control the study of Pagan Theology and Philosophy are\nnot far behind them. Both classes alike are convinced of their\ninfallibility.\n\nYet let the educated public realize that--\n\n_No one who wishes to become a B.A. and M.A. of Oxford is forced to\nstudy_\n\n(_a_) English Composition or Literature;\n\n(_b_) The History of the British Empire;\n\n(_c_) The geography of the globe we inhabit;\n\n(_d_) The scientific discoveries and inventions which have profoundly\naltered the conditions of modern life;\n\n(_e_) Any of the Fine Arts;\n\n(_f_) Any of the Laws of England;\n\n(_g_) The rules which guide the Law Courts in estimating the value of\nhuman testimony;\n\n(_h_) The Art of Government and Economics;\n\n(_i_) The Art of War;\n\n(_j_) French, German or any Modern Language.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn my discredited trade of a novelist--that is to say, the trade of\npeople who create out of their own brains new things--we have a\ntechnique of phrase. Unimportant to the pedant, as are the methods by\nwhich we are sometimes able to secure a great, and even grateful\npublic, we still have our little catchwords and there is a certain\nfreemasonry of craft.\n\nOne finishes up, it is generally understood, with \u201ca canter down the\nstraight.\u201d Bursting away from the restrictions of the Essay, glad to\nhave finished with an academic convention which says one must write\nthis way and so, let me attempt to crystallize just what this paper\nmeans, from my own, and doubtless limited, point of view. It means\nthis.\n\nUpon the sturdy oak, generations old, in which the University may be\ntypified in allegory, a dusty parasite of ivy has been clinging. This\nparasite, which has clogged the newer shoots from the old tree, is a\nparasite of the classical and especially of the history don and\npedant. Law, Science and Mathematics have entered Oxford as a bright\nlight comes into the dark. Here, all is well. And in regard to the\nolder arts, I think, and many other people who are in the centre of\nthe ferment of change think with me, all is about to be reconstituted\nin a freer air. It remains as a wonder that past and present\nundergraduates, the guests of the hotel, remain so individually and\ncumulatively distinct from the obstructionist section of its managers\nand landlords.\n\nIn the darkest days it is astonishing to see how many men reading\nhistory have been able to educate themselves brilliantly in spite of\nall opposition. And if Oxford can send out into the world such men as\nshe is giving to the community now, in spite of the influences which\nhave checked and hampered them, what may she not do in the days which\nare at hand, when the parasite shall be cut down from the old tree and\ngrowth shall be unhampered by the incompetent?\n\nThose days, I am convinced, are at hand, and, curiously enough, it is\nthe influence of James Anthony Froude which is precipitating the\nrevolution. What the great historian could not do in his life, the\nimmortality of his writings is accomplishing. Under Froude\u2019s banner a\ndevoted and influential band is enlisted. The work of change is\nproceeding with wonderful vigour and rapidity.\n\nLet us gird up our loins to push and elbow out the discredited and\neffete, and if necessary pay hirelings, and employ executioners to end\nthe unfortunate history of the immediate past, to destroy the\nObstructionists, the Historicides, and those whom only annihilation\nwill convince of error.\n\nIn conclusion I submit that I have neither been conjecturing what I\ncannot find, nor insinuating what I dare not assert; and if a sincere\nconviction and a prolonged scrutiny give one title to a part in the\ngrowing condemnation of the Historicides I shall be proud to think\nthat I have taken a very humble place in the coming renaissance.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BROWN AND YELLOW PERIL\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE BROWN AND YELLOW PERIL\n\nA FEW FACTS\n\n\nThis essay, which is a logical conclusion of the last, requires\nneither rhetoric nor adornment, were I able to decorate it with them.\nIt is a statement of plain fact, and I make no apology for writing it\nas simply as possible.\n\nThe paper is to be regarded in the light of an appendix to the article\non the Oxford Historicides rather than a separate excursus in line\nwith the others in the volume.\n\nThe facts are accurate, and if I could turn them into an\neasily-understood diagram and post it up on every hoarding in the\nkingdom, I believe that I should be doing a public service.\n\nIn 1885--the year when we failed to rescue Gordon--Mr. W. S. Gilbert\nproduced his \u201cMikado.\u201d\n\nWhich nation or government were, in 1885, the more fitting themes for\nsatire--the English or the Japanese? The scandals of the Crimean and\nBoer Wars; the uniform successes by sea and land of the Japanese in\ntheir struggles with China and Russia, supply us with no uncertain\nanswer. The Itos, Togos, Oyamas and Kurokis, whom our librettist\nrepresented to us as Ko-Ko, and so on, have taught us--and even the\ndisciples of Moltke--that the supreme artists of war are at Tokyo and\nOsaka, not in London, Washington, Berlin, Moscow or Vienna. The thirty\nmillions of Japanese who, in the sixties of the last century, were at\nthe mercy of the white powers, are to-day engaged--politely enough--in\nushering out of China the trades of Europe and North America.\n\nDuring the last half century a yellow race, a non-Christian people,\nhas caught up the white races and, so far as the _ultima ratio regum\npopulorumque_ is concerned--in the bloody tournament of war--has even\nsurpassed them. Like every one else, I have been alarmed at the sudden\ntransformation scene. The Mikado who stage-managed the Chino-Japanese\nand Russo-Japanese Wars, is very unlike that Mikado who danced for us\non the boards of the Savoy Theatre.\n\n    \u201c_My object all sublime\n    I shall achieve in time:\n    To make the punishment fit the crime\n    The punishment fit the crime._\u201d...\n\nsang Mr. Gilbert\u2019s Mikado.\n\nThe punishments which Mutsuhito, the real Mikado, has fitted to the\nCzar\u2019s crimes of seizing Port Arthur and Manchuria have been--\n\n(1) The sinking or capture of every Russian man-of-war east of Suez.\n\n(2) The siege and capture of Port Arthur.\n\n(3) The defeats of The Yalu, Nan-shan, Telissu, Laio-Yang, The Sha-ho\nand Mukden.\n\n(4) The expulsion of the Russians from Manchuria and Korea.\n\n(5) The cession of half of the island of Sakhalin and indirectly\n\n(6) Civil War and bankruptcy in Russia.\n\nOne little point of comparison between ourselves and the Japanese will\nmake my meaning clear.\n\nWe all remember the shameful tale (told, not by Mr. Burdett-Coutts\nalone, but by eminent doctors, including Sir Frederick Treves, whose\nwords were published in Blue-books) of the utter disorganization and\nincompetence of the medical and surgical departments attached to the\nBritish army in South Africa.\n\nSir Frederick Treves has inspected the Japanese hospitals for the\nwounded, and pronounced them to be perfect.\n\nThe Japanese, your wiseacre retorts, are a race of clever imitators.\nWe invent; they borrow. They can copy but they cannot produce\nmasterpieces in the arts and sciences. It is good rhetoric but bad\nreasoning. The Japanese have borrowed from us neither their art, nor\ntheir ethics. Never conquered in the past, they have developed a\ncivilization peculiarly their own. The first Mikado was reigning six\ncenturies before Julius C\u00e6sar landed his legions at a point not five\nmiles from the spot where I am writing. The Japanese are an ancient\nrace with points of view diametrically opposed to our own; and like\nthe Jews they have lived long and learned wisdom.\n\n     \u201cIf I say anything about Shakespeare,\u201d writes Baron Suyematsu,\n     \u201cI fear I should at once be considered to be overstepping\n     propriety; but I must say that even Shakespeare\u2019s plays, some\n     of which I have read or seen performed, have never given me\n     such impressions as do the plays of Japan. Whenever we go to\n     the Western stages we appreciate the decorations, we admire the\n     splendid movements and good figures of the actors and\n     actresses, and, so far as we can understand it, the striking\n     elegance and powerful delivery of their dialogue, and we enjoy\n     ourselves as much as could be hoped; but on coming home we find\n     nothing left on our minds which might serve as an incentive in\n     our future career. No inspiration, no emulation! Such, then,\n     seems to be the difference between our dramatic works and those\n     of Western nations.\u201d\n\nObserve that the argument of \u201cart for art\u2019s sake,\u201d is treated by the\ntalented Japanese diplomatist with the very sanest scorn.\n\n     \u201cIn Japan,\u201d says the Baron, \u201cthe idea of the \u2018encouragement of\n     what is good, and the chastisement of what is bad,\u2019 has always\n     been kept in view in writing works of fiction, or in preparing\n     dramatic books and plays. I know very well that there is some\n     opposition to this idea. They say that the writing of fiction\n     should be viewed as an art. Hence, so long as the real nature\n     and character are depicted, there is an end of the function of\n     these works. I do not pretend in any way to challenge this\n     argument, but I simply state that it was not so regarded in\n     Japan. Consequently, with us, some kind of reward or\n     chastisement is generally meted out to the fictitious\n     characters introduced in the scene, and these representations,\n     either in books or on the stage, are carried out to such a\n     pitch as to leave some sort of profound impression on the minds\n     of the readers or of the audience. Whatever the other remaining\n     parts may be, these features always remain uppermost in the\n     minds of the reader or of the theatre-goer. The prominent point\n     thus produced is generally a transcendent loyalty, such as a\n     loyal servant would feel for his master; the great fortitude\n     and perseverance which one exhibits in the cause of justice and\n     righteousness; severe suffering for the sake of a dear friend;\n     the devotion of parents and their self-sacrifice, great\n     suffering, or even self-sacrifice of a wife for her husband, or\n     of a mother for her son, to enable the fulfilment of duty to\n     the lord and master. I can myself remember many times shedding\n     tears when reading works of fiction, or when listening to the\n     singing of dramatic songs, or while witnessing dramatic\n     performances. This peculiarity seems to be wanting on the\n     Western stage. I remember once in London, years ago, my eyes\n     becoming moist when I saw a character on the stage, who was\n     being taken away as a prisoner, shaking hands with the man who\n     had been his dear friend, but who ought to have been suspected\n     as the cause of his being taken prisoner, and told him, as he\n     went, that he would never suspect or ever forsake him, giving\n     the audience a strong impression of chivalric moral strength.\n     But that was only a solitary experience.\u201d\n\nAs these lines come before my eyes, as I remember the siege of Port\nArthur, I wonder at the subtle irony lurking beneath Baron Suyematsu\u2019s\nremark--\u201cJapan is now in alliance with Great Britain; she may not\n_perhaps_ be worthy of that alliance, but one may be assured she is\ndoing, and will always do, her best to deserve it.\u201d The italics are\nmine.\n\nThe heroism displayed by the Japanese in the late war was almost\nunparalleled. I believe only one spy in Japan was discovered. He was\nkicked to death. No pro-Russian party existed in Japan.\n\nThe Japanese are accused of being dishonest traders. But Japanese\ncontractors disdained to rob their fellow-countrymen who were risking\nlife and limb before Port Arthur. Read and re-read _The Garter Mission\nto Japan_. Lord Redesdale could detect no signs of arrogance on the\nfaces of the men who drove back Kuropatkin\u2019s regiments into Siberia or\nsank the Baltic fleet.\n\nSome superficial thinkers say that the Japanese are merely medi\u00e6val\nknights fighting with quick-firing guns instead of lances. This is the\nveriest nonsense. They are _practising_ what was _vainly preached_ by\ntroubadours and romancers to the Brian de Bois Guilberts of the Middle\nAges....\n\nWhen engaged in the composition of my novel _The Serf_, I studied in\ndetail the lives of the paladins to whom were chanted the _Chanson de\nRoland_, and the stories of _The Round Table_. My conclusions can be\nstudied in that novel which is now in a sixpenny edition. I found very\nfew \u201cIvanhoes\u201d and plenty of \u201cFront-de-Boeufs\u201d at the Court of Richard\n\u201cYea-and-Nay,\u201d who, loyal and filial soul that he was, joined with the\nKing of France in making war on Henry II., his own father.\n\nThere is great force in Professor Inazo Nitobe\u2019s implied criticism of\nEuropean chivalry.\n\n     \u201cDid a monarch behave badly, _Bushido_ did not lay before the\n     suffering people the panacea of a good government by regicide.\n     In all the forty-five centuries during which Japan has passed\n     through many vicissitudes of national existence, no blot of the\n     death of a Charles I., or a Louis XVI. ever stained the pages\n     of her history.\u201d\n\nWhether that be true I do not pretend to say. But what I do know is\nthat the throne of England, from the conquest of the country by the\nfirst William in 1066, to the accession of the third William in 1688,\nhas been held on a very precarious tenure.\n\nThe Conqueror himself warred with his son Robert. The latter, and his\nbrothers, gave examples of a _fraternum odium_ worthy of the pen of\nTacitus; Stephen was virtually deposed; Henry II. was attacked by his\nown children; a party of the barons supported John against Richard I.,\nand French invaders against John; Henry III.\u2019s reign was a long record\nof civil war; Edward II., Richard II., Henry VI. and Edward V. were\ndeposed and murdered; Richard III. was dethroned and slain in battle;\nCharles I. was executed by his own subjects; James II. betrayed by the\nfounder of the Churchill family. Of a truth the virtue of loyalty has\nnot been the predominant feature of the Anglo-Saxon races. Our\ngreatest novelist, Thackeray, mocks at it. Ever since the Renaissance\nmost of the political philosophers of the West have preached the\ndoctrine \u201cRender _not_ unto C\u00e6sar the things that are C\u00e6sar\u2019s.\u201d\n\n     \u201cThe love that we bear to our Emperor,\u201d continues Professor\n     Inazo Nitobe, \u201cnaturally brings with it a love for the country\n     over which he reigns. Hence our sentiment of patriotism--I will\n     not call it a duty, for, as Dr. Samuel Johnson rightly\n     suggests, patriotism is a sentiment and is more than a duty--I\n     say our patriotism is fed by two streams of sentiment, namely,\n     that of personal love to the monarch, and of our common love\n     for the soil which gave us birth and provides us with hearth\n     and home. Nay, there is another source from which our\n     patriotism is fed: it is that the land guards in its bosom the\n     bones of our fathers; and here I may dwell awhile upon our\n     Filial Piety.\n\n     \u201cParental love man possesses in common with the beasts, but\n     filial love is little found among animals after they are\n     weaned. Was it the last of the virtues to develop in the order\n     of ethical evolution? Whatever its origin, Mr. Herbert Spencer\n     evidently thinks it is a waning trait in an evolving humanity;\n     and I am aware that everywhere there are signs of its giving\n     way to individualism and egotism; especially does this seem to\n     be the case in Christendom.\n\n     \u201cChristianity, by which I do not mean what Jesus of Nazareth\n     taught, but a mongrel moral system, a concoction of a little of\n     obsolete Judaism, of Egyptian asceticism, of Greek sublimity,\n     of Roman arrogance, of Teutonic superstition, and, in fact, of\n     anything and everything that tends to make sublunary existence\n     easy by sanctioning the wholesale slaughter of weaker races, or\n     now and then the lopping of crowned heads,--Christianity, I\n     say, teaches that the nucleus of a well-ordered society lay in\n     conjugal relations between the first parents, and further that\n     therefore a man must leave father and mother and cleave to his\n     wife. A teaching this, in itself not easy of comprehension, as\n     Paul himself admits, and very dubious in application, meaning,\n     as it so often does, that a silly youth, when he is infatuated\n     with a giddy girl, may spurn his parents!\n\n     \u201cChrist certainly never meant it, nor did the decalogue\n     command, \u2018Thou shalt love thy wife more than thou shouldst\n     honour thy father and mother.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe dark, unfathomable eyes of our inscrutable Oriental friends are\nsurveying us. Is it likely that they fail to perceive such patent\nfacts as the dwindling of the birth-rate, the ever increasing thirst\nfor material pleasures which is the characteristic of our urban\npopulation, the growth of Socialism, which is its complement, the\nignorance of the rulers, and the obsolete education of the ruled?\n\nWe boast of our genius for colonization. Boasts are not facts.\n\nFor a century Australia and New Zealand have been English colonies.\nThe population of Australia is smaller than the population of London:\nthat of New Zealand is less than a million. Japan is nearer to\nAustralia and New Zealand than they to England. The Japanese are a\nnation in arms; the English rely for their defence on professional\narmies. Whilst there is a German fleet at Kiel and a French fleet at\nCherbourg, the bulk of our ships must remain in the vicinity of the\nChannel and the German Ocean. We are the allies of the Japanese, and\nthe Japanese are threatening the Americans, who are rebuilding San\nFrancisco with funds paid to them by the insurance offices of England.\n\nNow I am no alarmist, _but_ the Japanese have invented for themselves\na high explosive, the shimose powder. I am no alarmist, _but_ the\nJapanese have just launched the _Satsuma_, possibly the most powerful\nof all men-of-war. I am no alarmist, _but_ the Japanese are turning\nschool-masters and drill sergeants to four hundred millions of\nChinamen, and the Chinese have been pronounced by General Gordon and\nLord Wolseley to be excellent soldiers. Sir Robert Hart, the\nEnglishman most likely to prove an accurate prophet, has warned us\nagainst the renaissance of China. The guns of Togo\u2019s fleet have served\nEurope with notice to quit the further East, and what the Japanese\nhave taught themselves, they may teach the Chinamen undisturbed.\n\nThe pre-eminence of Japan in the Far East to-day is due to her\nadmirable system of education.\n\nFrom _Japan by the Japanese_, a work edited by Mr. Alfred Stead, and\npublished by Mr. Heinemann, I propose to select certain information\nwhich may startle even retrograde educationalists. _Japan by the\nJapanese_ is a collection of studies on Japan written by no\nglobe-trotters, but by Japanese thinkers and statesmen of the highest\neminence. In the list of contributors I notice the Marquis Ito, Field\nMarshals Yamagata and Oyama, Count Okuma and Baron Suyematsu. The\nessays on education are from the pens of Count Okuma, Baron Suyematsu,\nand other specialists. My humble opinion is that the authorities who\ndirect the teaching of Modern History at Oxford would do well to\nsubstitute _Japan by the Japanese_ for Aristotle\u2019s _Politics_, Hobbes\u2019\n_Leviathan_, and Maine\u2019s _Ancient Law_, which are the only text-books\nin Political Science prescribed by the University Examination\nStatutes. I may be peculiar, but I prefer the views of Ito, Oyama and\nOkuma to those of Aristotle, Hobbes and Maine.\n\nAs my last essay dealt with the education supplied at Oxford\nUniversity, it will be well to begin by considering the Universities\nof Tokyo and Kyoto. Six colleges comprise the former and five the\nlatter. But, unlike the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge these\ncolleges are schools for the highly specialized study of some art or\nscience. At Tokyo the colleges are those of Law, Medicine,\nEngineering, Literature, Science, and Agriculture; at Kyoto of Law,\nMedicine, Literature, Science, and Engineering. At both Universities\nthere is also a University Hall established for the purpose of\nfacilitating original investigation in Arts and Science.\n\nOne thing is very noticeable in comparing the University of Tokyo with\nthe University of Oxford. Amongst the least popular of the Honour\nSchools at the institution on the banks of the Isis is the Law School.\nAt Tokyo the College of Law, in which the student has the option of\nspecializing on Law or Politics, is by far the favourite. After Law\ncomes the College of Engineering, and the College of Literature is a\nbad third.\n\nIt is to the College of Literature (the equivalent of which at Oxford\nare the Honour Schools of Languages, dead or living, and the School of\nModern History) that I would call the reader\u2019s special attention. The\nModern History School is the most popular of the Honour Schools at\nOxford; but at Tokyo between 1890 and 1900 there were only 106\nstudents who devoted their time to General History, and 87 to Japanese\nHistory. On the other hand, no less than 651 were engaged in\npreparing themselves in Law, and 390 in Politics.\n\nIn September 1901, 567 undergraduates were attending a Law course, 409\nlectures on Politics; but only 28 were listening to teachers of\nJapanese History, while 48 were enrolled in the classes for General\nHistory.\n\nThe advocates of Greek insist that the Greek language is the finest of\nall instruments for training the human mind. The Japanese do not agree\nwith our retrogrades. Greek, apparently, is not taught at any School\nor University, though Latin is amongst the subjects which a Japanese\nmedical student is expected to have mastered.\n\nAnother great distinction between the Japanese and the English system\nis, that only picked men are permitted to avail themselves of a\nUniversity education. Further, before proceeding to the University the\nundergraduate must have passed through a school specially preparing\nhim for one of the University Colleges.\n\n\u201cThis type of school,\u201d observes Professor Sawayanagi, \u201cis exclusively\npeculiar to the educational system of Japan, as there is no equivalent\neither in Europe or America.\u201d\n\nIn the section of a higher school which instructs candidates for the\nLaw and Literature Colleges of the University, the subjects taught are\nMorals, Japanese and Chinese languages, Foreign languages, History of\nLogic and Psychology, the elements of Law, the elements of Political\nEconomy and Gymnastics. The foreign languages are English, German, and\nFrench, of which two have to be selected.\n\n\u201cSurely,\u201d remark the gentlemen who prepared the article on University\nEducation in Japan, \u201ca professional man who aims at a high position\ncould never be satisfied with one language. Certainly it would be\nimpossible for any one to keep up with the rapid progress of the world\nwhich takes place in all the higher branches of education with only\none European language at his command.\u201d\n\nIt is pathetic to think how blind are the rulers of secondary\neducation in this country to a truth so self-evident.\n\nBefore proceeding to a special school preparing candidates for the\nUniversity, a Japanese boy must have been at a Secondary School, which\nis an institution similar to one of our great Public Schools. Here,\nagain, the Japanese lay far more stress on essentials.\n\nAt how many of our great Public Schools, if any, are the elements of\nLaw (which may be defined as the rules of the club to which every\nBritish citizen belongs) a subject of instruction? The elements of\nLaw are a regular feature in the Secondary Schools of Japan. Sooner or\nlater every Englishman or Japanese is brought in contact with the law\nof his land. For what conceivable reason is Law excluded from our\nPublic School course of education?\n\nOnce more, in a Japanese Secondary School, boys are taught the\nelements of Political Economy. What proportion of Etonians,\nHarrovians, and Wykehamists have opened a book on Political Economy\nbefore they have left school? Yet ought not every member of the\ncommunity who intends to exercise his right of voting at a General\nElection to be cognizant of the main arguments, for instance, that may\nbe adduced on behalf of Free Trade or Protection?\n\nThe appended table will help any Public School boy or his parents to\nestimate the vast difference between the Japanese and the English\nconceptions of a liberal education.\n\n          IN JAPAN.                             IN ENGLAND.\n\n    Secondary School (from 12 years       Public School (from 12 years and\n      to 17 years of age).                  later to 19 years of age).\n\n    _Subjects taught_--                   _Subjects taught_--\n      (1) Morals.                           (1) Religious instruction.\n      (2) Japanese language.                (2) English language.\n      (3) (_a_) English, French or          (3) French, Latin, Greek.\n                German.\n          (_b_) Chinese Classics.\n\n      (4) History.                          (4) English History.\n                                                Roman      \u201d\n                                                Greek      \u201d\n      (5) Geography.                        (5) Geography (a little).\n      (6) Mathematics.                      (6) Arithmetic.\n                                                Euclid.\n                                                Algebra.\n      (7) Drawing.                          (7) Drawing.\n      (8) Gymnastics, Drilling.             (8) Gymnastics.\n                                                Athletic Sports.\n      (9) Singing.\n      (10) Natural History, Physics,\n             Chemistry.\n      (11) Elements of Law.\n      (12) Elements of Political\n             Economy.\n\nThe aim of the Japanese statesmen has been to produce a fine character\nresiding in a strong body, and a memory stored with knowledge having a\ndirect bearing on the problems of modern life. It seems to me that a\nnation led by men trained according to the method I have indicated\nmust _ceteris paribus_ be more intelligently governed than one like\nour own, where the conduct of affairs is entrusted to persons like Mr.\nArnold-Forster and Mr. Brodrick, who, after leaving a great Public\nSchool, attended Oxford University and obtained their degrees through\nits Modern History School.\n\nI pass from Secondary to Primary education. Guardians of children of\nschool age (_i. e._ over six years of age) are under the obligation of\nsending them to school to complete at least the ordinary Primary\nSchool course. The subjects taught to the Board School boys and girls\nof Japan are:--Morals, the Japanese language, arithmetic, and\ngymnastics, and, according to local circumstances, one or more\nsubjects such as drawing, singing, or manual work, and for females\nsewing. The higher Primary Schools complete the education of the\naverage Japanese of the lower orders. At the higher Primary Schools,\nthe scholar continues to study Morals, the Japanese language and\narithmetic, and learns, in addition, Japanese history, geography, the\nelements of science, and, as optional subjects, agriculture, commerce,\nmanual work and the English language. Drawing, singing and manual\nwork, and for females, sewing, are compulsory. There are also special\ncommercial schools.\n\nThe scope of this essay does not permit me to contrast in detail the\nJapanese with the English primary education. Both were established\nabout the same time. I am not so rash as to pose as an authority on\nthe education of a country which I have never visited. But one point\nhas greatly impressed me. Tommy Atkins has been educated at the Board\nSchool. It is complained of Tommy Atkins that he neglects hygienic\nprecautions against diseases like enteric. The rank and file of the\nJapanese army were remarkable for their scrupulous obedience to the\nrules of hygiene. My deduction is that the Japanese school and the\nJapanese curriculum are, in one essential at least, superior to the\nEnglish. I may be wrong, but I do not think it is probable.\n\nWhat are the conclusions to be drawn from the information which I have\nextracted from _Japan by the Japanese_?\n\n\u201cEngland,\u201d signalled Nelson, \u201cexpects every man to do his duty.\u201d Those\nwords should ring in the ears of each of us. The dons and\nschool-masters of the country should remember that they are Britons\nfirst and Oxonians and Cantabs afterwards. The warnings which we have\nreceived from Tokyo and Berlin are so impressive that the Anglo-Saxon\nraces will be insane if they do not take them to heart. The masters of\nthe fate of the British Empire are, at a general election, the\ncitizens possessed of the franchise, and between the general elections\nthe King, the members of the two Houses of Parliament and the Civil\nand Military servants of the nation.\n\nWe must educate our masters, the electorate and the officials who\nobey, or pretend to obey, its mandates. To-day the educational system\nof Great Britain is, as a whole, an anachronism. If the next\ngeneration of Anglo-Saxons is educated like the last, the brown and\nyellow peril will become acute. To a psychologist, the Japanese and\nthe Chinese with their cool, iron nerves, seem more fitted for a world\nof dynamos and flying machines than the neuropathic Englishman or\nAmerican. Should, then, the latter be worse educated than the former,\nthe British Empire and the United States may expect to follow the fate\nof the Spanish and Roman Empires.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MENACES OF MODERN SPORT\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE MENACES OF MODERN SPORT\n\n     \u201c_Imponit finem sapiens et rebus honestis._\u201d\n\n     JUVENAL.\n\n\nI very well remember the morning when the post brought me an advance\ncopy of the first number of Mr. C. B. Fry\u2019s _Magazine_.\n\nOne saw at once, as the public has since seen, that the periodical\nstruck a new note in regard to matters of sport. It was to be both\npractical and idealistic, sport in the realm of action was to stand\nside by side with sport in the sphere of thought. Mr. Begbie sounded\nthe keynote, in his beautiful inaugural poem--when the clean, strong\nbody sings a hymn of praise and thankfulness for its splendour of\nstrength and health; because the joy of physical achievement is so\nintense, because the currents of the blood run fast and free.\n\nIt is a curious fact in life that a fine and noble thing in itself\nnearly always harbours or begets an ugly parasite. No plant grows\nunhampered by the insect world, a filthy mildew--so the curator of a\nfamous picture gallery told me the other day, will appear mysteriously\nupon the finest canvas.\n\nIn particular, certain phases of sport to-day present the observer\nwith a curious spectacle. There is a monstrous liaison, a horrid\nentanglement between sport and drink!\n\nIt is as well to put it quite bluntly at the beginning. If an\nunpleasant fact is not stated in the frankest way, it loses its appeal\nto the hearer. The man in the street, gets up and strangles a\nhalf-statement with the flippancy of a catch-penny juggler at a\ncountry fair. One is not heard.\n\nI say that a grave danger menaces modern sport and that the danger is\njust this....\n\nThe more popular games of England are being disturbed and discredited\nin a marked manner by the amount of drinking--plain, vulgar _excess_\nin alcohol--which surrounds them and follows in their train. A great\nnumber of sportsmen know this perfectly well and genuinely deplore it,\nbut I am not aware that the subject has been properly ventilated as\nyet, save perhaps by \u201ctemperance\u201d cranks and prejudiced or ignorant\npeople, who hide a polemic puritanism under the banner of a misused\nword.\n\nSome time ago I had occasion to spend a night in a large manufacturing\ndistrict in the North of England. I put up at a local hotel.\n\nIt is a large place standing in the four cross roads where electric\ntrams stopped--a definite centre of the town. The landlord is the\nsecretary of a most prosperous local cricket club, he is intimately\nconcerned with the local football--Association--and is a prominent\nswimmer.\n\nAt all times of the year the district is intensely interested in\nsport, and the hotel is a headquarters of it. The walls of bars and\nsmoking-rooms are covered with photographs of this or that local team,\nthe whole talk is redolent of sport--and your Northerner or Midlander\nis generally the keenest sportsman of all.\n\nIt was quite obvious that this hotel was extremely and noticeably\nprosperous, everything proclaimed it. I was introduced by the\nlandlord, a thoroughly good fellow, to various local football players\nand swimmers. The talk of the smoke-room was entirely occupied with\nsport, there was a real knowledge of, and love for games. One heard\nshrewd and penetrating criticism, one saw fine healthy-looking men\nwho were certainly no mere machines for the decomposing of their\nlunch and dinner! In fact, the evening was thoroughly congenial.\n\nNext morning after breakfast, I smoked my pipe in the bar parlour. At\none side of the place was a counter which formed a barrier between it\nand the ordinary tap-room. Three young and powerful men came in--it\nwas about 9.30 in the morning. They asked the barmaid for a drink I\nhad never heard of--\u201cthree warm sodas, please.\u201d The girl opened three\nbottles of soda, poured some hot water into each glass and gave it to\nthe customers.\n\nWhen they had gone, I asked her what was the meaning of this.\n\n\u201cOh,\u201d she said, \u201cthere was a football supper last night These lads\nwere all drunk. They often come for a warm soda in the morning, it\nsobers them.\u201d\n\nThe remark was a prelude to some interesting information. The girl was\na native of the North. She had been in the bars of several Lancashire\npublic-houses; what she told me was simply a dreary record of personal\nexperience. In effect, it was this: After a big football match the\nhotels were always crowded, packed so closely that it was difficult\nfor a late-comer to enter. On such occasions the staff of pot-boys\nand men to keep order was recruited from the stables. Drunkenness,\ndistinct drunkenness, was very common. The members of the two teams\nwere often the core of a welter of riot. The players themselves were\ntreated by their admirers until they frequently became intoxicated.\nQuarrels and rows of all sorts were of almost momentary occurrence. \u201cI\nhate all big sporting days,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019ve no idea what we girls\nhave to put up with. They all seem to go mad. But there, the takings\nare enormous so I suppose sport\u2019s good for trade!\u201d\n\nI tell this little story not because I was unaware of the facts\nbefore, but because a \u201cpicture\u201d is always valuable in making a point,\nand because a coincidence has provided me with this picture at the\nmoment when I am writing on this subject.\n\nEvery one knows the state of things in this regard thoroughly well. It\nisn\u2019t sporadic--it\u2019s _systematic_. And day by day in many districts,\nyou may witness the paradox of a man who is above his fellows in the\nfine cultivation and training of his body, using his gifts in the\nfinest way--and drugging himself with poison directly afterwards. And\nnot only does the athlete himself do this, but his influence has a\nfar-reaching effect upon others. The hero corrupts innumerable valets,\nand what should be an uplifting thing for the spectators, becomes, in\nthe nick of time and in the punctual place, an opportunity for\nunbridled indulgence.\n\nNearly every footballer knows that what I say is true, and still the\nthing grows. It is not too much to say that, at the moment, drink\nstands before the progress of popular sport like an armed assassin in\na narrow path. I shall give other instances in a moment, but at this\npoint it is proper to explain that one is no fanatic. Sport calls\naloud for temperance to-day, but sport is not concerned with\nteetotalism. Every active sportsman must cultivate each sense to its\nhighest power, that is a condition of success in sport. But there is a\nsixth sense, not sufficiently recognized by writers attacking an evil\nno less than by sportsmen who concur in it.\n\nIt is the sense of proportion.\n\nNothing is more necessary than \u201cproportion\u201d in the consideration of\nsuch a question as this, a subject of supreme importance in modern\nsporting life; yet to-day the sense of proportion has been lost by\nsportsmen and adherents of sport alike. Long ago Plato pointed out\nthat we shall never have perfect men until we have perfect\ncircumstances, and it is the people who condemn a good thing because\nof its occasional misuse who destroy their own case. Alcohol is a\ngood thing, sport is a good thing, together they are harmless even;\nbut moderation has been overstepped and we are in the middle of a\ndefinite and serious crisis.\n\nA _Blue-book_ of statistics of crime has just been issued. From it I\nfind that drunkenness is greatest in the great football centres of the\nNorth and of Wales. The thirstiest parts of the country are those in\nwhich football is the most eagerly played and watched, in which\ninnumerable local sporting papers are published, where the man in the\nstreet is a football expert. This is at least significant, though so\npatent and obvious is the evil that it almost seems a waste of time to\npile proof on proof. Nevertheless, before I turn to drink in\nconnection with other varieties of sport, it will be as well to give\nall my evidence.\n\nA well-known North-country baronet, a famous sportsman in his day, an\nex-member of one of His Majesty\u2019s ministries and at this moment an\nenthusiastic volunteer, told me, a short time ago, that in his\ndistrict the abuse of drink was ruining local sport. \u201cDecent people no\nlonger care to attend football matches,\u201d he said; \u201cthe element of\ndrink and ruffianism is becoming too much in evidence. A new class of\nspectators has been created, men who care little or nothing for the\nsport itself, but who use a match as a mere opportunity and an excuse\nfor drinking.\u201d\n\nA shipowner, a member of the present Parliament, who has large\ninterests in Yorkshire and the further North, entirely endorses these\nremarks. \u201cIf you go into the cheaper parts of the field at any big\nmatch in our parts, you\u2019ll see that every other man has a bottle of\nspirits in his jacket pocket which he drinks at half-time. And\nafterwards--well, the brewers that have tied houses anywhere near a\nfootball ground know that they have a gold mine. A brewery will pay\nalmost any sum to secure a free house in such a position.\u201d\n\nFinally, a well-known Northern clergyman, a relative of my own and a\nfine sportsman in his time, albeit an old man now, writes to me as\nfollows: \u201cI am glad you are writing on this question. The wives of the\ncolliers and mill-hands in my district all tell me the same story.\nThey say that the Saturday afternoon matches are a curse to the home.\nIt is not the few pence that the husbands spend for admission to the\nfield which matter, but it is the drinking that follows, often\nprotracted till late at night. For my own part, as a small protest, I\nabsolutely refuse to subscribe to local football clubs in any way.\nThey are becoming centres and occasions of vulgar vice. Such money as\nI have to spare for sporting objects I give entirely to cricket.\u201d\n\nIt is a far cry from football to golf. At first glance any one would\nsay that of all games golf is the most free from any taint of\nattendant excess in drink. This is not so. The evil is less\nwidespread, just as the game claims fewer adherents; the class of men\nwho can afford golf is not a class with many temptations to\ndrunkenness; women play the game and their presence is a safeguard.\nBut the evil exists nevertheless, and this is the measure of it.\n\nIn the famous clubs, where all the great players go, drinking to\nexcess is an unknown thing, of course. But during the last few years,\nespecially in the South and West of England, many small clubs have\nbeen started which are almost entirely supported by the residents of\nthe country towns near which they are situated. And I have not the\nleast hesitation in saying--however much my statements may be\ncombated--that many of these clubs are becoming little better than\nshebeens for discreet and comfortable over-indulgence in drink.\n\nNo one will attempt to deny that the usual football match is regarded\nby thousands of people as a mere alcoholiday. I am certain that many\npeople will attempt to deny what I am going to say about mushroom\ngolf clubs. When one frankly points out this or that abuse existing\namong the middle and upper middle classes, these classes always become\nshrill in their defence. There is a sense that while it is a duty to\nexpose the faults of the poorer people, amusing to attack the follies\nof the \u201csmart set,\u201d to write of the failings of the intermediate class\nis to let the cat out of the bag. One may give the cat\u2019s tail a pinch\nto let people know she is there, but that is all.\n\nBut I am writing for only one class, the fellowship of true sportsmen.\n\nIn many of the smaller golf clubs drinking has almost destroyed the\ngame itself. A comfortable club-house is erected, far more money is\nspent on it than upon the links themselves, and men spend day after\nday playing bridge and--_drinking_!\n\nGolf becomes what Napoleon called a \u201c_fable convenu_,\u201d and while there\nis generally a knot of real and enthusiastic players, there is always\na large residuum of idle members who turn a splendid game into an\nexcuse of indulgence in drink. These are the people who imagine that\nthey would lose caste if they entered any of the hotels of the small\ntown in which they live, and so the local golf club becomes the\nsubstitute.\n\nI have a picture in my mental vision of a man, once an athlete of\ngreat renown, for many years after that a good sportsman. Now he is\nsupposed to devote himself entirely to golf--for he is no longer a\nyoung man. This erstwhile athlete spends all his days in a certain\ngolf club. He is the oracle of the place. He plays very little, but\nrests upon past laurels. And all day long he drinks, drinks, drinks.\nHe has gathered a society of kindred spirits round him, and, from the\nsportsman\u2019s point of view, the club, never eminent in any way, has\nceased to exist. It is atrophied by alcohol--though its finances are\nin a flourishing condition owing to the fact that there is no licence\nto provide for, and the profits on drinks amount to about thirty-three\nper cent.\n\nI am not trying to draw a general conclusion out of a particular\ninstance. Any one who really cares for sport and has a deep sense of\nits high mission and place in life will bear me out. Many of the\nsmaller and less-known golf clubs are nothing more or less than\ndiscreet drinking-places, secure from observation and shielded from\nadverse comment under the too comprehensive \u00e6gis of \u201cSport.\u201d\n\nIn my time I have had something to do with pugilism, and here is\nanother sport which, especially among its professional exponents, is\nbeing ruined and degraded by drink. One of the most pathetic\nexperiences I have ever had was to watch the utter hopeless downfall\nof a famous boxer some years ago. His name was a household word, he\nwas an American negro and one of the simplest, kindest, most\nthoughtless children of nature who ever breathed. I never knew a more\nsunny, genial creature. I saw him, during one year, succumb to the\ntemptations of drink thrust at him on all sides by admiring \u201csports.\u201d\nI was with him a week or two before he died from drink.\n\nI remember, as a young man, going to an ice carnival at Hengler\u2019s\nCircus with one of the cleverest middle-weight boxers of modern times.\nHe had invited many of his friends of the ring, and there was a big\nsupper afterwards. Of course none of the men were in training, and\nthey were surrounded by the usual crew of wealthy wasters who counted\nit an honour and privilege to ply them with liquor.\n\nI am not going to make a picture of that occasion for you, but one\nfinal scene still remains very vividly in my memory. A month before I\nhad seen my middle-weight friend in the ring. His proportions were\nperfect, the muscles rippled easily and smoothly, he had the clear\neyes of youth that Homer (supreme chronicler of fights) sings of. To\nlook at him made one glad to be young and strong, to know that one\nwas a man, with cool blood and a quiet heart.\n\nOn the night of the supper I saw him lie like a log. All the soul had\ngone out of his face, the pig and the wolf struggled for mastery in\nthat debauched mask, and a tipsy young stockbroker was pouring a\nbottle of claret over the boxer\u2019s crumpled shirt front!\n\nIn the early part of last February, I spent part of an afternoon in an\nup-stairs room at the National Sporting Club. An Oxford friend, one of\nthe most promising amateur feather-weights of the day, was having a\npractice spar with a professional. After the bout, we went down-stairs\nto the bar--always the bar!--and I talked to the boxer. He told me the\nsame story, the story I already knew: Drink, drink, drink. It\npermeates pugilism, it makes it a sport which is looked upon with\nsuspicion by many people--simply because of its associations, simply\nbecause of the blight of alcohol which surrounds it and seems\ninseparable from it.\n\nEngland is a nation of sportsmen still. We take sport as seriously, we\npursue it as keenly as ever did the Greeks themselves. But we are\nallowing this danger and reproach of drink to be mingled with some of\nour national pastimes. There is no doubt whatever about it, and, as I\nsee it, the reason is this.\n\nWe are forgetting to idealize sport, to realize what it _means_ no\nless than what it _is_.\n\nI feel sure that if we can once get back to that attitude, the drink\ntrouble will cease automatically. No man can be a thorough sportsman\nwithout a latent sense of the inherent fineness and dignity of sport.\nWe want an organized campaign to wake up that latent sense!\n\nHistorical analogies may be out of fashion in some departments of life\nwith which I am not here concerned. In sporting matters they are, and\nought to be, very valuable in helping to keep the ideal of sport at a\nhigh level.\n\nFor example, among the finest sportsmen of all time, the ancient\nGreeks, who were the finest athletes? History tells us they were the\nHellenes. They were mostly townsmen living in a country of dense\ncultivation and beholden to the gymnasium and the pal\u00e6stra for their\nrecreation, the noblest outcome of which was the Olympian meeting.\n\nThe greatest historian of Greek life and thought points out that the\nHellenes \u201cwere always abstemious,\u201d and they were the leading athletes\nof the world.\n\nThe Macedonian ideal was quite different. The Macedonians despised\nbodily training in the way of abstinence, and drank to excess. They\nwere hunters and open-air people, they reproduced the life of the\nsavage or natural man with artificial improvements, but when they came\ninto the pal\u00e6stra they were nowhere at all. A century ago in England\nmany a rollicking county squire would spend a day in the saddle and a\nnight under the table, but he could not have run a mile in five\nminutes to save his life.\n\nAlexander the Great himself despised the abstemiousness of the Greek\nathletes, and though he thought in continents, he drank in oceans, and\ndied in a drinking bout. He was a mighty hunter and fighter, but he\nwas not a true sportsman, because he despised the control and\nself-denial which a man must practise if he would earn that dignity\nand title.\n\nThese last paragraphs may savour a little of the don, and possibly\nsuggest an emanation from the shrunk skull of the pedant. I hope not,\nbut believe me, they are proper to my purpose. After the brief summary\nI have given of the actual position, it is helpful to survey the whole\nquestion from a wider point of view than that of the immediate\npresent.\n\nLet us consider the sporting history of a time much nearer our own,\nthe Elizabethan age. Every one was a sportsman then, because every one\nwas practised in the use of the national arms and was a potential\nsoldier--as the hidalgoes of the Armada found in 1588. But\nnevertheless, nobody was a teetotaller. \u201cTemperance drinks\u201d were not\ninvented, because most people knew how to be sportsmen and temperate\nas well.\n\nShakespeare took ale for breakfast. Drake, Raleigh and Sir Humphrey\nGilbert put to sea with barrels of beer for the sailors--\u201cfor ale went\nto sea in those days,\u201d yet every peasant of the country-side was still\nexpert with crossbow and English yew. In that high age drink had not\nbecome a fungus at the root of a goodly tree.\n\nA great many sportsmen to-day drink far more than the ordinary person\nwho knows nothing of them but their achievements in this or that game\nwould suppose.\n\nThe quantity of alcohol consumed by some sportsmen who are eminent in\ntheir respective sports would often both astonish and alarm the\nlayman. There is a very simple pathological reason which explains the\nfact. Oxygen is needed for the destruction of alcohol, as for the\ndestruction of most poisons. Hence it follows that the athlete can get\nrid of his quota of alcohol without _immediate_ deteriorating results.\nLast year I was at Oxford during eights\u2019 week, the time of strict\ntraining. The stroke of a college boat, by no means an abstemious man\nat ordinary times, had been compelled to forego his usual potations.\nBut there came what is known as a \u201cport night,\u201d an evening when the\ncrew were allowed to drink a certain quantity of port. The stroke\nexceeded this quantity, went back to his rooms, became thoroughly\nintoxicated and had to be helped to bed. Next day his boat made a\nbump. A strong man--an athlete--can and very often does drink far more\nthan an ordinary man without any apparent loss of power _at the time_.\n\nBecause there is no apparent deterioration the subject imagines that\nnone is taking place, and the ordinary non-athletic person will find\nit difficult to realize that when I say that many fine sportsmen drink\ntoo much, I am speaking literal truth.\n\nHow often do we not observe that a sportsman has a brilliant and\npublic career for a time and then suddenly disappears from the first\nrank--\u201cdrops out,\u201d and is no more heard of? His sporting life is\nbrilliant but it is short.\n\nYet there is no natural reason why the athlete\u2019s athletic life should\nbe a short one. Muscles and tissues do not easily wear out from\ncontinuous and careful action. Any doctor will admit as much. Indeed,\nan alert and healthy brain with correct muscular co-ordination and\nwith due action of the reflexes is built up, stimulated, and\nsustained by hard and interesting physical exercise.\n\nNevertheless, in too many cases the athlete unconsciously shortens his\nsporting career by the too free use of alcohol. He of all people can\nleast afford to overstep the bounds of strict moderation, yet the\ncomradeship of sport, its jolly social side brings with it great\ntemptations, and temptations which are daily increasing.\n\nWe can get a very clear idea of the toxic influence of the least\nalcoholic excess upon the sportsman by observing the psychology of the\nreally confirmed inebriate.\n\nIn a chronic inebriate, loss of spontaneity is the most marked\ncharacteristic. Such an one has to _think_ of his walking--a thing he\nnever had to do in his temperate days. He feels safer walking with a\nstick, he develops an agoraphobia, or dread of open spaces. There is a\ndistinct falling off in the accuracy of the purposive movements.\n\nNo one knows more about the effects of alcohol upon the brain than Sir\nVictor Horsley; _auspice_ Horsley, I have recently made some study of\nthis question myself. Now the athlete, the true sportsman, _depends as\nmuch upon the condition of his brain for success as upon the condition\nof his body_.\n\nThat is the finest thing about sport, and in many quarters it is the\nleast understood thing about it.\n\nNow if we pursue the analogy of the confirmed inebriate we are able to\ndetect exactly the same symptoms, though in an infinitely less degree,\nin the player of games who consciously or unconsciously drinks more\nthan is good for him.\n\nAt a critical moment in a game (let us say) the cerebellum or little\nbrain fails for a single instant to transmit its message _via_ the\nnerve telegraphs of the body to the motor muscles. The catch is\nmissed, the pass is made half-a-second too late; the little extra dose\nof alcohol has disorganized the accurate execution of muscular\naction--and perhaps a match is lost, a sportsman\u2019s career definitely\ninjured.\n\nEven in small quantities--provided always these quantities are in\nexcess of the reasonable individual need--alcohol has a definite and\nharmful effect upon the actual performance of a voluntary movement.\n\nIn an essay of this length one is compelled to take a broad\nsummarizing view of such a question as it deals with. There has been\nno space to enter into dozens of aspects of the bad effect that drink\nis having upon the sport of the day. But I have said enough to show\nhow great the evil is, and I am absolutely convinced that hundreds of\nsportsmen will agree with me that the poison is active, the danger\nimminent.\n\nIt is an article of my creed that sport in its best sense means not\nonly the salvation of the individual but the consolidation of the\ncountry. All sedentary and spoony sins, effeminacy, softness, and\nevery sort of degeneration _cannot_ form a part of the sportsman\u2019s\ntemperament. Neither you nor I have ever known a good sportsman who is\nmentally \u201cwrong.\u201d When eggs are oysters and tea is Chablis we may meet\nwith such a phenomenon, and not till then.\n\nWhat a preposterous and malignant thing it is, therefore, that a cloud\nis forming over one of the noblest of modern forces! Every genuine\nsportsman _must_ get hot and angry in the presence of such a filthy\nand disturbing parasite as this is. Leagues, societies,\nconfraternities, are all very well in their way. To accomplish, to\ncarry out a _material_ purpose, they are the best possible machinery.\nBut I am not so sure that they are always as valuable when the point\nis a moral, or rather an ethical one. Be this as it may, and it is a\ndifficult question to settle, I am sure, at least, that a hundred\nthousand pamphlets, offices--and a glib secretary--in Victoria Street,\neven a piece of coloured ribbon as a visible badge of enthusiasm, are\nnot nearly as powerful as a quiet and _individual_ discountenance of\nwhat is base and dangerous. A cynical daylight always follows too\ntheatrical enthusiasm.\n\nSportsmen are not theatrical, and their influence can be exerted\nwithout pledges of war and a little book of rules. The reprobate\npurlieus of sport can be cleansed by any one who is awake to the\nlurking, growing evil on the one hand, and the high mission, the\n\u201ccommission\u201d is a better word, he holds as a \u201csportsman\u201d upon the\nother.\n\nBut certainly something must be done. It is too much that we should\nallow whisky, which is two-thirds amyl-alcohol; beer, which is full of\npectins and colouring matter; brandy, which is German potato\nspirit--all the allied filths--to sap and weaken a national heritage,\nand the chief preservative of manhood which remains in this neurotic\nage.\n\nI put a line from Juvenal at the head of this article. Florio\ntranslates it--\n\n    \u201cA wise man will use moderation,\n    Even in things of commendation.\u201d\n\n\u201cSapiens\u201d should have been translated \u201csportsman,\u201d for it is a synonym\nin this case.\n\nI do not know whether one should say that drink or betting is the\ngreatest menace to modern sport. The latter, at any rate, permeates it\nin an alarming degree.\n\nMealy generalities are of no use, and it is a mere derision to pretend\nthat nearly every branch of sport is not imperilled and besmirched by\nbetting.\n\nDumb protest is always going on, but sportsmen themselves hear very\nlittle of it. Papers devoted to sporting matters do not speak out, and\nthe campaign against betting made by the layman only reaches the\nsportsman\u2019s ears with a muffled sound--like a drum beaten under a\nblanket.\n\nMoreover, if the general public desires anything it always declares\nsolemnly that it is true, the only truth. If it does not, it bawls out\nthat it does not exist and has never existed. The Christian\nScientists, for instance, are beginning to say this of Death itself,\nand the non-sporting majority, who want to make money without earning\nit, most certainly desire the continuance of betting.\n\nI am quite confident, therefore, that the second half of this essay\nwill be assailed quite as widely as the first part was, when it\nappeared in a magazine. In the first part the facts are very carefully\nauthenticated, as they are in this one. Yet the obvious retort was\nhunted out with all the enthusiasm of a short-sighted bloodhound, and\nin some quarters one was spoken of as a sensation-monger, who probably\nmade a good thing out of his wares!\n\nThat, of course, is very easy to say, but it is not argument. It is\nnevertheless welcome, because the vigour of the attack always shows\nthe strength of the position.\n\nIn connection with the Betting Question, the mind at once turns to\nhorse-racing. There is much to be said in this regard, and I intend to\ntreat of this branch of sport later on in my statement. But I propose\nto begin with other instances of the evil. Evil it undoubtedly is. The\nmassive harmony which the body and mind sound in correlation under the\ninfluences of true sport, is made discordant by it.\n\nLike the youth of a nation, sportsmen are, in a sense, the trustees of\nposterity, and we must unite not only to recognize the fact but to\ncrush the evil.\n\nNo sportsman ever takes a puritanical view of betting. It is the sort\nof person who thinks vaccination immoral, and whose conversation is\nlike a glass of still lemonade, who thinks that a wager is a sin. This\nis a fault. I believe that I am voicing the point of view of the\nsportsman--which is simply the conviction of the sensible man--when I\nsay that there is absolutely no harm in an ordinary wager. You put\nwhat you can afford to lose upon the result of a horse-race or a\nfootball match. If you win you are rather pleased and you have hurt no\none. If you lose you are not hurt in any way, and you have done no\nmore than make a mistake in prescience.\n\nIt is necessary to define the difference between a bet which is\nharmless, and systematic betting which is eventually an attempt to\nobtain the emoluments of industry without the effort of toil, an\nattempt which--and here is the very essence of the matter--leads to an\nabominable dishonesty and the most scandalous abuse.\n\nAnd now, by graduated steps, let us proceed to a definite presentment\nof the evil as it exists on the day when you read what I am saying.\nYou will please observe that one begins upon the small organ and in\nthe minor chord. The swell and the crescendo will start later on,\nuntil we have full pedal music and thunder of the big pipes!\n\nIt has always been the boast of Oxford and Cambridge men that the\nBoat-race was in its very nature an event which was utterly removed\nfrom the gambling evil. One had a wager on one crew or the other,\nperhaps--most people did not--but the great rowing match was at least\npure of offence in this regard. No public harm was ever done. I do\nnot for a moment say that the Boat-race is provocative of general\ngambling, or is injured by it, as so many other sports are injured.\nBut the fact that I am going to relate is symptomatic. It shows how\nthe gambling spirit is growing and radiating until, in one instance at\nany rate, the Boat-race itself became the incentive to dishonesty.\n\nUpon a dull day on the Stock Exchange, a group of the younger members\nbegan to make wagers about this event. The race was known to be a near\nthing. The next day the wagers were continued until quite a little\n\u201cmarket\u201d was established. The prices fluctuated according as the\nreports of the training of the crews came to hand. The whole thing was\nbut half serious, though in a day or two large sums of money became\ninvolved.\n\nOne member of this _coterie_, a man who was known to be a sportsman,\nand one whose word had influence, deliberately circulated a false\nreport as to the time in which Oxford had rowed a course, queered the\nmarket, and made a considerable sum.\n\nIn regarding the gambling question the attention of the ordinary man\nis generally focussed upon the race-course and upon the bookmaker, as\nhe squirms his careful way through life. People either forget or\ndon\u2019t realize that most of the minor sports are being utterly spoilt\nand ruined by betting.\n\nCycle-racing is still a sport which is keenly pursued, though perhaps\nit has declined somewhat in popularity of late years. In many of the\nsuburban districts round London there are fine cycle tracks, built\nwith all the last improvements which the track-architects of America\nhave discovered. In the Midlands and North of England there are\nmagnificent tracks in nearly all the principal towns.\n\nCycle-racing is popular, draws enormous crowds, and draws the small\nbookmaker also. It is a known fact that at any big cycle-race meetings\nbets are made with all the briskness and regularity possible.\n\nLarge sums do not change hands. Half-crowns, sovereigns and\nhalf-sovereigns represent the actual ready-money transactions, though\nin sporting public-houses, for days before a big local event, much\ngreater amounts are wagered.\n\nIt is no use for any one to pretend that this is not so--I have\ninnumerable facts. One instance, which may be interesting to set down\nhere, was related to me by a friend who is a builder of scientific\nminiature rifle ranges. At one time he resided in Manchester, and\nfrequently visited the great pleasure-gardens known as Belle Vue in\nthat city. My informant used himself to make a book on the cycle track\nin this popular place of amusement.\n\n\u201cI used to make quite a lot of money,\u201d he told me. \u201cIt was great fun.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut how did you do it?\u201d I asked him. \u201cDescribe\u201d ...\n\n\u201cOh, it was quite easy. You waited till the one or two policemen who\nwere strolling about were not near; they were never too anxious to\nbother one in any case. Then I used to jump up on the railing and say\n\u2018I\u2019ll take money!\u2019 I used to get a lot of punters round in a minute by\nshouting the odds.\u201d\n\nHow many readers will call out, \u201cMuch ado about nothing.\u201d \u201cWhat harm,\u201d\nthey will ask, \u201ccan the small wagers of a crowd at a Manchester\ncycle-race possibly do to Sport?\u201d\n\nI reply that these wagers do the very _gravest_ harm, not perhaps to\nthe wagerers, but to real Sport itself. The fact of so many hundreds\nof people having a financial interest in the success of this or that\nrider at once puts the rider--a sportsman--in a position of danger and\ntemptation. The low class of person who has his being in the\nside-scenes, the tortuous _coulisses_ of Sport, is always at hand to\nmake a disgraceful bargain with the athlete. Men who are accustomed\nto regard life as no more than a game of cunning come with gold in\ntheir soiled hands. And if the sportsman succumbs, then not only is a\nbar sinister charged on his personal escutcheon, but the whole tone of\nSport is lowered. Every single instance of this kind fosters a base\nand ignoble view of Sport, and it _does_ matter very much indeed that\nTom loses half-a-crown, Dick makes five shillings, and Harry comes out\n\u201ceven on the afternoon.\u201d\n\nIf fools _must_ gamble, why are they not allowed to do it apart from\nsuch a fine and splendid thing as Sport? I would far rather see a\nnasty little Casino established in every town, where fools might lose\nwhat they can\u2019t afford in the hope of winning what they won\u2019t work\nfor, than see them tempting athletes and spoiling the game.\n\nOf two evils choose the least--a make-shift maxim, but sound in its\nway!\n\nVery few dwellers in the South and West of England are aware of the\nextraordinary interest taken in the Midlands and the North in\npigeon-flying. This is a good and fascinating pastime. It certainly\ninterests me, and there is something very stimulating to the\nimagination in it. The careful breeding of strong-pinioned birds, the\ntraining of them, the vast distances they cover under changing skies\nand down the long invisible slants of the wind--it has an appeal, has\nit not? Certainly it requires real knowledge and care.\n\nI don\u2019t suppose that there is any minor sport so utterly spoilt and\ndegraded by gambling as this sport is.\n\nThey tell a good story in the North which epitomizes the whole thing.\nIt is a reprobate yarn, but it is funny.... An old pitman lay a-dying.\nHe had been a worthy fellow, a very well-known breeder and flyer of\npigeons, and his only fault had been that he wagered what, to him,\nwere reckless sums upon the results of pigeon-flying matches.\n\nHe lay dying, and the Vicar of the parish sat by his bedside and tried\nto ease the fear of passing from one life to another by telling the\nman of what might well await him in the next world.\n\n...\u201cDid thee say as I should be a gradely angel, parson?\u201d the old\nfellow said.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve lived a straight life, John.\u201d\n\n\u201cAngels \u2019as wings, don\u2019t they?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe poets and painters have always imagined so, John.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I\u2019m goin\u2019 first, and I\u2019m reet sorry to say good-bye to thee,\nVicar. But I make no doubt thee\u2019ll be up there soon theeself. Now I\u2019ll\ntell thee what I\u2019ll do when thee arrives. _I\u2019ll fly thee for a\nquid!_\u201d\n\nThat makes one laugh--it makes me laugh at least--but it is merely one\nof those pleasant jests which divert the mind from the contemplation\nof an evil. Clergymen in the Midlands and the North have told me the\nsaddest stories of humble homes ruined, broken and bankrupt, because\nof the gambling on pigeon-races. The moral fibre of many a collier and\nmillhand is often destroyed by betting on this sport. Women and\nchildren suffer in consequence, rates are raised in the local\ncommonwealth, and once more \u201csport\u201d--that misunderstood word--is\nsoiled and besmirched in the public mind. And those of us who are\ncapable of taking a broad and comprehensive view of affairs must allow\nthat the sport-hating Puritan has at least got some reason for his\ndistorted point of view.\n\nHe can say, and with perfect justice, that betting has killed\nprofessional sculling.\n\nHe can point out, and no one can deny it, that even the quiet, but\nhighly-skilled game of bowls is permeated with the gambling spirit,\nthat owing to the large sums put up as prizes and wagered upon\nresults, the temptation to players in a public contest is enormous.\n\n\u201cWhat is this sport you vaunt so loudly?\u201d the Puritan said. \u201cSurely it\nis a thing which is essentially bad and wrong, because of the evils it\nexcites. When the American press accuses English oarsmen of \u2018doping\u2019\nan American eight\u2019s crew owing to heavy betting on the part of the\nother crew, when American athletes refuse to dress in the same room as\na competing team of English athletes--is it not obvious that sport\ncannot be the worthy and fine thing you say it is?\u201d\n\nI have voiced the shrill cry of prejudice and exaggeration. But truth\nmust always be the basis upon which exaggeration is built. No one, to\nmy theory, can successfully exaggerate a lie. The result is redundant,\nand so, unconvincing, while the attempt itself is like trying to add\nfour pounds of butter to four o\u2019clock.\n\nIn the space of an article such as this, I must not unduly prolong the\ndismal story of how the _minor_ sports are being injured by gambling.\n\nYet the whippet-racing of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Northumberland\nhas degenerated, and the sport must be given a bad name--though it is\nthe owners and not the dogs who ought to be hung!\n\nPigeon-shooting--if that is indeed a sport, which I personally beg\nleave to doubt--has become no trial of skill and readiness, but an\noccasion upon which, when the betting is in favour of a right-hand\nshot, a needle is sometimes put into the left eye of the bird so that\nit may swerve to the right upon its release from the trap and increase\nthe difficulty of the aim.\n\nI am informed that birds are frequently blinded in this abominable way\nat local English meetings, and also in Germany--in the interests of\ngambling. In this matter, however, it is only right to say that the\nHon. E. S. Butler--one of the crack pigeon-shots of the day--tells me\nthat the conditions at Monte Carlo are absolutely fair, though the\nbetting is most heavy.\n\nThere is hardly any \u201cgambling\u201d in English golf. Private matches\nsometimes provoke a heavy wager between the players, but that is not\ngambling. In Scotland, however, where most towns have links which are\nopen to everybody for a fee of threepence, there is an immense amount\nof gambling among the poorer classes. Now it is certainly far better\nthat the Scotch mechanic should spend his Saturday afternoon playing\nat a fine game than in watching other people play it, as his English\nbrother does at a football match. But it is an enormous pity that such\nfacilities as the poorer folk enjoy for sport should be abused and\nspoilt. A well-known Scotch clergyman, a favourite preacher of the\nlate Queen\u2019s, tells me that the gambling at golf makes a constant\nwatchfulness necessary on the part of players. \u201cMany of them will\ncheat if they can,\u201d he said; \u201cand you\u2019ll know how easy it is to cheat\nat golf? It\u2019s just the money aspect of the question. It\u2019s small wonder\nthat a man will move his ball an inch from under a bunker, if it\u2019s\nnecessary and the other fellow isn\u2019t looking, when perhaps a third of\nhis week\u2019s wages depends upon the lie.\u201d\n\nAgain I would punctuate my instance with the moral it affords. Here\nalso sport suffers. If I did not believe in the inherent nobility of\nsport, if I was not absolutely convinced of its supremely important\nplace in the life of both soul and body, I should not be writing this.\nBut as one goes on with this dismal catalogue--no very pleasant task,\none gets into a fever of indignation. \u201c_Duo quum patiuntur idem, non\nest idem_,\u201d of course. No two men experience identical effects from\nidentical causes. But true sportsmen will at least share something of\nmy feeling. And it\u2019s no use to set out alone to kick the world\u2019s\nshins. The world has several million shins to your one. We must\n_combine_--we who love sport and realize what it means.\n\nThe Hermes of Praxiteles is a perfect type of all that is _physically_\nfit and fine--and so _spiritually_ also--in man.\n\nTake that statue and regard it for a moment as a concrete\nmanifestation of all that is meant by the word \u201csport.\u201d\n\nAnd then, suppose that the Hermes of Praxiteles were your own\npossession, that you had it in your own house. Would you allow a crew\nof people who cared nothing for great art to cover it with mud?\n\n......Now to gambling as it affects the major sports.\n\nCricket is fortunately untouched, save very occasionally in League\ncricket. It is pleasant to think of our national game as unsmirched.\n\nBut football, which we may well call our other national game, is most\ndeeply and gravely involved.\n\nOf the two games, rugby is cleanest in this regard. In the Northern\nUnion District there is more gambling than elsewhere, but, take it all\nin all, rugby does not greatly suffer.\n\nBut what can one say of Association football?\n\n......There are many quite well-known instances of goal-keepers being\nbribed. They are, indeed, so well known that people who are\ninterested in the game, and know anything of its polity and ways need\nhardly be reminded of them.\n\nThe buying and selling of players--for it is just that--and their\ntransference from club to club, is responsible for much of the evil,\nas I see it. But in Association especially, not only does sport suffer\nfrom the occasional dishonesty of the players, but the game itself\nprovides a constant incentive to the spectators to forget the beauty\nof its _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ and to regard it merely as an opportunity for\nspeculation.\n\nIs running untainted? Not a bit of it!\n\nProfessional running is in an even worse condition than when Wilkie\nCollins wrote his remarkable novel about it--though _professional_\nrunning no longer holds its old position or keeps its old importance.\nBut the Sheffield handicaps, and the Scotch professional contests at\nEdinburgh, still exist as prominent features in the sporting life of\nour time. And as prominent scandals also.\n\nAmateur running is far more widely entangled with betting than most\npeople are aware.\n\nSome time ago, on the County Ground at Bristol, there were six men in\na heat for a 120 yards race. Five of these were friends and the sixth\nwas almost a stranger, but one whose record, by comparison, would\ncertainly have secured him the race in the opinion of experts.\n\nThis last gentleman was taken aside before the race and offered ten\npounds \u201cTo let Bill win.\u201d\n\nPlease remember that I am neither inventing nor exaggerating, that I\nhave chapter and verse, that I have gone into the whole question most\ncarefully, that I relate _fact_.\n\nFrom the ancient times when gladiators fought with the brutal spiked\ncestus, until the present day, boxing has always been a fine sport.\nAmong the Romans it was certainly brutally misused, and in our own\ntime of the Prince Regent it was not free from the charge of\nbrutality. To-day, in the humane progress of ideas, the ring cannot be\nassailed in this regard. We have refined this splendid sport until it\nstands purged of all imputations of savagery.\n\nOf savagery, yes; of the far meaner vice of gambling, no! Who can say\nfor certainty that any fight, in Bristol, Liverpool, Cumberland, at\nthe N.S.C., \u201cWonderland,\u201d or even at the Belsize, is absolutely a\nsquare fight? Who knows whether the blind old heathen goddess of\nchance has not been harnessed by the money-mongers and is waiting with\nmalevolent intention at the ropes?\n\nNo one can say with _certainty_, outside the Army, Public Schools, and\nthe \u2019Varsity contests.\n\nThe rascality of the ring would fill a number of a magazine. Boxing is\nno longer a national sport, which goes on everywhere and, as a matter\nof course, under the full sunlight. It has sunk into a local amusement\nor a located disgrace. And it has sunk simply and solely because of\ngambling.\n\nWrestling, that worthy and ancient English sport, has almost ceased to\nexist. I have had a cottage in Cornwall for some years and it is my\nprivilege to know many of the champions of the past in this chief old\nhome of the game.\n\nI know what it was once, how splendid and stimulating to the life of\nthe community. And what is wrestling to-day? It is a sporadic contest,\nbetween great players indeed, but one which is utterly spoilt and\ndiscredited, when looked upon from the true sportsman\u2019s point of view.\nIn the most cynical and open way many of the sporting newspapers\ndiscuss the probability of this or that bout being a \u201csquare\u201d one or\nnot. With the indifference with which one would discuss the chances of\nan egg proving to be fresh or stale, some journalists determine the\npros and cons of honour and dishonour.\n\nI have a friend who is a theatrical agent and _entrepreneur_. Among\nhis various activities, he is the manager for the champion wrestler of\nthe world. \u201cYou never know,\u201d he said to me at dinner, \u201cyou never\nreally know the truth about the _bona fides_ of many wrestling bouts\nuntil the contest is over. Of course men like \u2018----\u2019 and \u2018----\u2019 are\nabsolutely square. They are the _haute noblesse_ of the game. They\u2019ve\ngot to be. But you may take it from me that dozens and dozens of\ncontests are faked in the interests of the betting ring.\u201d\n\nAfter extreme youth is over, life mercifully dulls the hunger for\nperfection in all of us. There never was a time in the history of\nhorse-racing when people did not bet. Nor does one expect the\nimpossible. But while racing was never more popular and more strongly\norganized than it is to-day, it was never so provocative of evil, so\n_manqu\u00e9_ from the true sportsman\u2019s point of view. The men of carrion\npassions, and the army of muddy knaves who live by the exploitation\nand bespatterment of the noblest of sports, are legion.\n\nThe smaller fry who make existence possible for the knaves--the\nordinary men who bet regularly on races--are millions. There is no\nneed to insist upon the fact, it is as dismal and obvious as a lump of\nclay. The whole atmosphere of the turf is like the degradation of the\nair in a close bedroom with the windows shut.\n\nIt is not my province or intention here to go very deeply into\nillustrative detail in the matter of the turf. It is better to be\nluminous than voluminous. But there are one or two points which may be\nnew and instructive for the non-gambling sportsman.\n\nHere is a recent quotation from a well-known English \u201csporting\u201d\npaper--one of those, by the way, which conveys \u201chumour\u201d direct from\nthe pit to the front page.\n\nIt is about some English jockeys in America--\n\n     \u201cOur jockeys are having a hard time, in a way, inasmuch as they\n     are being kept under the closest surveillance by Pinkerton\n     detectives. They are practically caged off from the public, are\n     escorted to the scales and paddock, are not allowed to speak to\n     any one except an employer, and then only when mounting, and\n     their valets must wear a distinctive uniform, with numbers on\n     their sleeves. This is reform with a vengeance, and by no means\n     agreeable to some of our young swells, who are also shadowed\n     after the races.\u201d\n\n\u201c_By sports like these are all their cares beguiled!_\u201d\n\nWas Goldsmith a prophet?\n\nIt is not always easy to remember that the professed aim of the Jockey\nClub is \u201cthe furtherance of the breeding and preservation of the\nEnglish thoroughbred horse.\u201d\n\nYet to-day the officers of foreign armies buy Australian walers. They\nwon\u2019t purchase English stallions. I belong to the \u201c_Cercle Priv\u00e9e\ncivil et militaire_\u201d of Bruges, a great military centre. Every day the\nGeneral commanding the district and his staff are in the Club. They\ntell me that English horses are no longer looked upon as they were\nupon the Continent.\n\nDoes not this \u201c_give one furiously to think_,\u201d as my friend the\nGeneral said here the other morning? Doping in the interests of the\ngambling market seems to be beginning to tell!\n\nThe gambling industry is organized with consummate skill and great\nbusiness capacity.\n\nGambling by post is almost incredibly upon the increase. In Middleburg\nand Flushing there are twelve huge betting firms. One person employs\nninety people in his office, and has his own printing establishment,\nwhich is always glutted with work.\n\nOften \u00a31000 is received by one firm in a single day--nearly all in\nsmall bets, and all from England. The post-offices of Dutch towns of\nthe size of Middleburg or Flushing normally keep in stock stamps which\nwill supply the needs of a population of 20,000 persons. Now, these\ntwo towns are compelled to keep enough to supply a population of\n200,000--all for the \u201cfurtherance of the breeding and preservation,\u201d\netc., etc.\n\nHere is another significant fact which may possibly elucidate the\nrecent and somewhat cryptic utterance, \u201cThe battle of Waterloo was won\non the playing fields of Eton just as certainly as the battle of Spion\nKop was lost upon the playing fields of Sandhurst.\u201d\n\nThe fact is this ...\n\nIn the issue of _The War Office Times_, May 25, 1905, occurs a\nflagrant puff of a bookmaker, who without the humour of a less eminent\n_confr\u00e8re_ who described himself as a \u201cbrass finisher\u201d in the census\nreturns, calls himself a \u201chigh-class turf-accountant.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe strongly advise any of our readers who require a high-class\nTurf-accountant to send for Mr. ----\u2019s book of rules, bound in\nleather, which will be sent post free to applicants. We have convinced\nourselves that this is a thoroughly genuine business, and, as such, we\nhave no hesitation in recommending it to our readers.\u201d\n\nI have the book \u201cbound in leather,\u201d and a good many others also, which\nI acquired for the purposes of this article.\n\nAnd precious and elaborate productions they are! The ingenuity of red\nmorocco and gilding, of alluring propositions and the suggestion of a\nbludgeon-sturdy honesty deserve the highest praise. I was especially\ndelighted with the telegraphic code of one hero, which used the names\nof fish to symbolize the amount of \u201cinvestments.\u201d \u201cSalmon,\u201d for\nexample, means \u201cput me ten pounds on.\u201d\n\nAll the denizens of ocean are used save one....\n\nWith commendable modesty, or possibly a fellow feeling, this worthy\nhas omitted \u201cshark.\u201d\n\nOne has said enough to outline--I hope vividly and strongly--how Sport\nis being spoilt by gambling.\n\nSport, thank goodness, is not yet retrograde owing to this curse. But\nit may be. Let us all remember that progress is merely the power of\nseeing new beauties. The more Sport progresses unhindered by gambling,\nthe sooner will it take its high place in life and fulfil its noble\ndestiny.\n\nAnd every sportsman can do something to help that progress.\n\nThe fiery Erasmus writes this of Sir Thomas More, who was a thorough\nsportsman, to his German friend, Ulrich von Hutten:--\n\n\u201cGambling of all kinds, balls, dice and such like he detests. None of\nthat sort are to be found about him. In short, he is the best type of\nsportsman.\u201d\n\n\u201c_Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus._\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNOTE.--_Since this essay was written, three short articles appeared in\nthe sporting columns of the _Daily Mail_ which are a striking\ncorroboration of my contentions. All the articles appeared within a\nfew days of each other, and I print parts of them as an appendix._\n\n\n     FOOTBALL AND ALCOHOL\n\n     HOW PLAYERS MAY LENGTHEN THEIR CAREERS\n\n     By William McGregor.\n\n     I dealt a few days ago with the question of what constituted a\n     sensible diet for footballers, and hinted that the so-called\n     special training which teams undergo on the eve of a great\n     encounter was often prejudicial rather than beneficial.\n\n     Now, a well-known medical man, who fills the position of\n     official doctor to one of our leading football clubs, met me on\n     the evening of the day that the article appeared and said\n     (excuse the apparent egotism, but it is necessary for the\n     purpose of the article), \u201cThat was a really good article of\n     yours in the London _Daily Mail_. You put the matter precisely\n     as I should put it, as a medical man. You might follow it up\n     with an article pointing out that there are two abuses which\n     footballers suffer from, viz. errors in regard to eating, and\n     errors in regard to drinking. If you can put in a strong plea\n     for either the abolition of alcohol, or the sparing use of\n     alcohol by footballers, you will be doing the game a good\n     service, and you will be doing the players a good service.\u201d\n\n     I then remembered a little incident which occurred at the Aston\n     Villa ground early in the season. The occasion was a match\n     played during that tropical weather, weather which was utterly\n     unfit for football. Violent exercise such as football imposed a\n     very severe strain upon the men that day.\n\n     As soon as the interval was over, a medical man came up to me,\n     and in quite excited accents said, \u201cI say, Mr. McGregor, do you\n     know that they have been giving the visiting team spirits\n     during the interval? I have never heard of such a foolish\n     proceeding. Why, alcohol is the worst possible thing for\n     footballers to have at any time, but more especially on a day\n     like this. You could not have anything more heating than\n     spirits.\u201d\n\n     Speaking from a general rather than a professional or technical\n     experience, I agreed with him. I asked him, as a medical man,\n     what he would have given the men under such peculiar\n     circumstances. His answer was, \u201cAt any rate, I should not have\n     given them alcohol. I do not know that I should have given them\n     anything. The best thing would have been for them to have\n     rinsed their mouths out with cold water.\u201d\n\n\n     CHAMPAGNE OR LEMONS?\n\n     In a match which took place in the Midlands last season, the\n     home team gave a particularly poor display in the second half,\n     and one of the directors said to me, \u201cThey have been behaving\n     foolishly to our men. The trainer gave them champagne during\n     the interval, and I do not think that is a good drink for them\n     to have. The momentary feeling of exhilaration following a\n     glass of champagne soon wears off.\u201d\n\n     If the form manifested by the team which had the champagne that\n     day may be taken as a criterion as to the merits of champagne\n     as a stimulant for football purposes, then all I can say is,\n     that I never want to see a team receive such a stimulant again.\n     It may not have been the champagne that caused their poor form;\n     but at any rate their play was poor.\n\n     I recall another interesting instance in which champagne played\n     a part. I am going back a long time now, but the circumstances\n     were exceptional.\n\n     Away in the remote eighties, Moseley (as they often were then)\n     were in possession of the Midland Counties Rugby Challenge Cup,\n     and one of their supporters was interested in Aston Villa. I do\n     not know whether it was Kenneth Wilson or not, for Kenneth\n     Wilson, I may say, was a Pollokshields man, who was in business\n     in Birmingham. He was a splendid athlete, and played for Aston\n     Villa, and also for Moseley under Rugby rules simultaneously. I\n     expect he had something to do with the incident.\n\n     At any rate, the Cup made its appearance at Perry Barr on the\n     day that Aston Villa were playing an English Cup tie with\n     Darwen. Now the Aston Villa team of that period, captained by\n     the great Archie Hunter, was as bonny a set in a social sense\n     as I have ever known. They were grand footballers, and played\n     the game for all they were worth when they were on the field.\n     But it was a loose and lax age as compared with the present\n     football era, and during the interval some one filled the Cup\n     with champagne, and the Villa players drank to the prosperity\n     of the Moseley Club--and very bad football they played after\n     the interval, too.\n\n     I do not suppose for a moment that any one player had much\n     champagne, but from what I could see of their demeanour, I came\n     to the conclusion that champagne was a bad thing to play\n     football on. At any rate, the Villa had the greatest difficulty\n     in avoiding defeat at the hands of Darwen. If I remember\n     aright, the great Hugh McIntyre, who died in London last year,\n     and was better known as a Blackburn Rover, kept goal\n     brilliantly for Darwen that day.\n\n\n     THE GREATEST ENEMY\n\n     You hear of well-known footballers kicking over the traces,\n     passing from club to club, and marring what might have been\n     great reputations. If you will look into the history of these\n     men you will find that in nineteen cases out of twenty their\n     bad relations with their employers are due to the fact that\n     they are accustomed to imbibe too much alcohol. Alcohol is,\n     indeed, the footballer\u2019s greatest enemy; at any rate, to put it\n     simply and straightforwardly, no man ever played football the\n     better for taking alcohol, and many men have played it\n     infinitely worse by reason of their indulgence therein.\n\n     Every football manager likes to get together a team of\n     tee-totalers. If you take the records of the greatest players,\n     or perhaps I might say the great players who have had\n     phenomenally long and honourable careers, you will find that in\n     nearly every case they were either life-long abstainers or\n     rigidly moderate men. I could give many instances if space\n     permitted.\n\n\n     FOOTBALL BOOKMAKERS\n\n     WHAT REALLY ATTRACTS LEAGUE CROWDS?\n\n     \u201cThe public are getting rather weary,\u201d writes a correspondent,\n     \u201cof the professional football promoters\u2019 periodical rigmarole\n     under the heading of \u2018Betting at Football Matches.\u2019\n\n     \u201cWhy not make it \u2018Betting on Football\u2018? Here he would have\n     \u2018copy\u2019 for every day in the week, as long as professional\n     football lasts.\n\n     \u201cI cannot speak for the south, but, as for the north, it is a\n     fact that football betting is rife in Newcastle, Sunderland,\n     Middlesbrough--thanks to the professional football promoter. It\n     is not done at the matches, but beforehand, on the combination\n     football betting coupon system, but it is betting all the same.\n\n     \u201cThousands and thousands of football coupons are distributed\n     weekly by bookmakers among the working men at the big\n     factories, ship-yards, etc.\n\n     \u201cThis betting is the sole reason why many of these working men\n     and others, who know practically nothing of football, take an\n     interest in the League and attend matches in connection with\n     the same.\n\n     \u201cThe betting is not on a particular match, but on a combination\n     of matches.\n\n     \u201cFootball loafing and betting will always go hand in hand.\n     There are none so blind as those who will not see. What is\n     more, in this case it would not pay to see. Certainly, the\n     professional football promoter has a great deal to answer for.\u201d\n\n\n     DISHONESTY IN SPORT\n\n     STRONG EFFORTS TO BE MADE TO STOP IMPERSONATION\n\n     The recent case of a young Hereford sprinter who, by\n     impersonating another runner, secured a prize of the value of\n     \u00a34, and who was ordered by the Bench to pay three guineas\n     towards the cost of the prosecution and refund the prize or its\n     equivalent value, shows that the justices are doing all they\n     can to assist the Amateur Athletic Association in preserving\n     amateur athletics for the pure sportsman.\n\n     It is to be regretted that such instances are by no means rare,\n     and the Amateur Athletic Association has several cases in hand\n     at the present time. The Association is, however, determined to\n     put a stop to the practice.\n\n     The trick of impersonating amateurs and thereby winning prizes\n     at athletic sports is, in fact, as old as the hills, and years\n     ago used to be carried on unblushingly and free from detection.\n\n     One of the earliest cases on record was that of a man at\n     Ashford. His head was as innocent of hair as a billiard ball,\n     and to play the part properly it was necessary for him to wear\n     a wig. He was winning his race easily enough, when his hirsute\n     adornment was blown off by the wind, and the attempted fraud\n     ended in failure.\n\n     Quite recently there were two brothers in the army, one an\n     amateur and the other a professional. The latter impersonated\n     the former with sufficient success as to secure the prize; but\n     although the fraud was afterwards discovered, it was felt that\n     the evidence was not strong enough to secure a conviction.\n\n     In a similar case in the Northampton district a couple of years\n     ago, the judge took a serious view of the case, and the\n     offender received exemplary punishment.\n\n     Strong action is undoubtedly needed to stamp out the practice,\n     and the Amateur Athletic Association will leave no stone\n     unturned in its endeavours to purify it.\n\n\n\n\nVAGROM MEN\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nVAGROM MEN\n\n[AN ADDRESS DELIVERED TO THE WORKING MEN\u2019S CLUB, ST. MARGARETS\u2019]\n\n\u201c_In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread, till thou return unto\nthe ground._\u201d--GENESIS iii. 19.\n\n\nIn the November of last year--1905--I was invited to consider the\nproblem which is known as \u201cThe Unemployed Question,\u201d and to write\nsomething about it in a London daily paper. In 1905 the subject was\nattracting the attention of every one, and it was thought that by\nmeans of my own method--the method of Fiction--I might possibly\ninterest people.\n\nI welcomed the opportunity, and wrote a story expressing my views,\nwhich was published among the news columns of the _Daily Mail_.\n\nBefore the tale began to appear I had several conferences with Lord\nNorthcliffe, then Sir Alfred Harmsworth, the editor of the newspaper.\nCertain facts were told me; a mass of expert opinion and evidence was\nplaced at my disposal, and I was enjoined to study my new material and\nwrite exactly as I felt about the question. No restrictions were\nplaced upon my point of view. I suppose that very rarely indeed has it\nhappened to an ordinary novelist that the ruling powers of a journal\nwhich has one of the largest circulations in the world have said,\n\u201cHere are our columns; come and say what you think in them.\u201d\n\nIt is, no doubt, good journalism to print a single article written by\na man whose conviction on the subject of the article is diametrically\nopposed to that of the newspaper in which it is published. A standard\nof value is created by an exhibition of contrasts. It is good\njournalism also to print the views of experts such as Mr. Booth or Mr.\nMcKenzie. Both these things are constantly done. But to give a\nnovelist columns of enormously valuable space for some weeks--\u201cnews\nspace,\u201d not the space generally reserved for fiction--in order that he\nmay express his own ideas, is very unusual. At the time when this was\noffered to me I thought it a very great compliment. I can hardly\nbelieve that I was mistaken, and I think so still.\n\nI wrote the story, and called it, _Made in His Image_. When it had run\nthrough the newspaper it was published in book form. Fourteen months\nhave gone by, and during them I have endeavoured to keep myself\ninformed as to the position of affairs. With the additional knowledge\nthat the past year and its inquiries have given me, I find myself\nstill of precisely the same opinion as I was before. If anything, my\nconviction is stronger than before. What my opinions are, such\nconclusions as I have come to, I have been invited to tell you\nto-night.\n\nI will get to the point at once without further preamble, save only to\nsay how much I value the privilege of addressing you.\n\nFor a long time past every class of the community has been exercised\nby the problem of the unemployed. The question has steadily become\nmore acute year by year, and at the present moment its solution is the\nmost pressing and necessary of all that confront thinking men and\nwomen.\n\nI propose to touch briefly upon the existing state of things, to\nexplain what I conclude to be the cause of it, and to set before you\nmy belief as to the only remedy.\n\nIn London, Manchester, Birmingham, and all the great cities of\nEngland, the streets are full of men with bright eyes, and faces cut\nand whittled to an edge by hunger. Men and women with kindly hearts\nand sympathetic natures cannot go abroad in winter unless they taste\nthe bitterness of sights and sounds that tear the heart and lacerate\nthe soul.\n\nDismal and terrible processions move throughout the streets of our\ncapitals like spectres from the underworld. I have myself, in the\ncourse of my investigations, been packed tight among a crowd of\ntattered, coughing humans in London. I have walked with them, brethren\nof yours and mine, men who offended and distressed every sense, men\nwho groaned and sighed because they had not eaten, men who exhaled an\nodour like the caged animals in a menagerie, men who fed, when they\nfed at all, upon garbage, men who could not wash.\n\nI have seen faces all round me like the faces that the great Italian\npoet Dante describes as flitting through the gloom of hell. On one\nside is a face grown witless from hunger, sorrow, and foul\nenvironment. It is a horrible face, a face like a glass of dirty\nwater. Another face is simply a grey drawn wedge of cunning; a third\nman has a face that might have been that of a saint, but the horror of\nhis life has put its heel upon the countenance, and has ground the\npossibility to pulp. I have stood among living bodies which have no\nheat in them, a company of ghosts that cough and curse in bloodless\nvoices. And among these gaunt, dismal, and hopeless men the one who\ncan snarl and cry his sorrows loudly is the one who is envied by all\nthe rest. He must have had a meal that day.\n\nI expect many of you have seen something of what I describe, and those\nwho have had this sad experience will bear witness that I am\nexaggerating nothing. This is not Fiction; it is melancholy Truth. In\nthe opening chapter of the story I wrote on the Unemployed question, I\ndescribed a meeting of the Unemployed in Trafalgar Square. In the\ncourse of the chapter I told how some charitable people drove up with\na cart full of buns and bread and butter. Immediately there was a\nriot. The poor starving people fought with each other for the food\nlike wolves. The scene was horrible. This first chapter appeared on\nNovember 18, in the _Daily Mail_. Two days afterwards I met a friend\nin my London Club who had read it. \u201cMy dear fellow,\u201d he said, \u201cyou\u2019ve\nlet your imagination run away with you. A story is all very well, but\nit should closely follow the lines of fact. Don\u2019t you tell me that\nEnglish workmen are in such a pass that they will fight for a morsel\nof food in the heart of London. You\u2019re coming it a bit _too_ tall, my\ndear chap.\u201d\n\nHe was a ruddy, prosperous friend. As he came into the Club\nsmoking-room he gave a heavy fur coat, which probably cost him fifty\nguineas, to one of the waiters. He called for a whisky and soda, and\nsank into an arm-chair of red leather with a comfortable sigh of\npleasure. He stretched out his legs towards a blazing fire of logs,\nand said again, \u201cYou novelist johnnies are always coming it a bit too\nthick, don\u2019t you know!\u201d\n\nMy worthy friend was one of those who have eyes but see not; because\nthey won\u2019t see, and don\u2019t wish to see.\n\nNow listen to the sequel--\n\nThree days after this a procession of Unemployed marched along the\nEmbankment in London. Some charitable people did actually bring down a\ncart of food. _There was a riot and a fight for the food exactly as I\nhad foreseen in my imaginary tale._ It was reported in the newspaper.\nFive days after I had imagined that, under existing conditions,\nsomething _might_ happen, that thing actually _did_ happen--men came\nfighting for a scrap of bread in the heart of the Metropolis.\n\nThis is what we see in the great streets of London and other\ntowns--the streets full of shops which are crammed with costly and\nbeautiful things, thronged with prosperous people. What we see when\nwe follow the procession of the Unemployed back to the awful dens in\nwhich they live is impossible to do more than hint at. To tell the\nabsolute unvarnished truth in a public assembly, to publish a faithful\ndescription in a public print is an utter impossibility. These\ndreadful facts are those which despairing clergymen and ministers,\ndoctors, nurses, would-be helpers, tell to each other in whispers.\n\nI knew a lady whose husband had turned out worthless, and who finally\ndeserted her. Her one source of income was a row of small houses in\nthe East End of London, houses that were let out in rooms to the very\npoor. My friend was too poor to employ an agent to collect her rents\nand draw a commission for his work. Every week she did so herself, and\none week she invited me to accompany her. I did so, and it was the\nmost horrible day I ever spent. No working man in a district such as\nthis can form any idea of the filth and misery in which the lost,\ndegraded tenants of these houses lived. I shall not attempt to\ndescribe it, for it would be a poor return for your kindness in coming\nhere to-night to rob you of your night\u2019s rest!\n\nI will merely quote some lines written by Mr. F. A. McKenzie, one of\nthe foremost sociologists of the day. They deal with the lives of the\nUnemployed in the East End of London, and they are guarded, reticent\nwords.\n\nI read--\n\n     \u201cTo say that scores of thousands of them are facing the coming\n     winter with fear and dread is but mildly to imply their\n     situation. They are the derelicts of London, whom the changes\n     in modern conditions have left hopelessly behind. Without\n     crafts, without knowledge, many of them with hope dead, they\n     face a future that good trade can do little to relieve, and bad\n     trade must greatly darken.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe prodigal son\u201d of to-day plays out the last act of his tragedy, not\nbefore a fatted calf, but in a Poplar back room. The shiftless and\nincapables, attracted by low rent, by the chance of casual work, and\nby the abundance of relief, drift here. To them are added the scores\nof thousands of locally born people who are trained in such a way that\nthey cannot be anything else than casuals.\n\nThe very streets proclaim the lives of these people. Apart from the\nmain thoroughfares and from certain more prosperous avenues, you are\nswallowed up in an endless succession of long roads of cheaply built\nhouses. The walls are crumbling, and the bricks seem as though they\nwould fall at a blow; many houses have broken, paper-stuffed windows;\nthere are whole streets where the doors and windows have not seen\npaint for a generation. The children, babies with ophthalmic eyes,\ngirls dirty beyond belief play in the gutters. The women gossip at the\ndoors. The men, strong, yet none wanting their strength, lounge at\nstreet corners.\n\nIn home after home you will find that the sole regular wage earned is\nby a young son, who obtains ten shillings a week as errand boy in the\nCity. On this, with occasional additions from the others, the whole\nfamily exists. The mother may obtain a few shillings a week at\n\u2018charing,\u2019 although such work is scarce in Poplar.\n\nTwenty years ago the poverty of the East End was lessened by the home\nwork which the women could obtain. It is one of the most serious,\nalthough often overlooked, factors of to-day that such home work\ncannot be had save by a few. The aliens in Whitechapel and in Stepney\nabsorb almost all of it. The foreigners are more capable, more\nthrifty, and more sober, and, save where brute strength is required,\nour own derelicts stand no chance before them. The homes inside are\noften enough indescribable. Here and there you find the one room kept\nclean, but generally dirt is the outstanding feature. The beds are\nblack masses of filth. The walls of the rooms prevent real\ncleanliness. I went into one two-roomed tenement inhabited by a man,\nwife and three children. The kitchen was overrun with rats, which had\nfree entrance and exit through numerous holes in the wall. In the\nbedroom a large part of the lath and plaster wall underneath the\nwindow was torn away, leaving great gaps open to the yard. \u2018Why\ndoesn\u2019t your landlord do some repairs here?\u2019 my companion asked. \u2018He\nwon\u2019t, sir; he says it is healthy for us to have holes in the walls,\u2019\nthe woman replied. Many of these Poplar rooms urgently require the\nactive intervention of the local sanitary officers.\n\nIn such fetid dens, badly built, ill kept, and furnished with the\nstrangest of oddments, most of the Poplar poor live.\n\nIf it were necessary and part of my scheme this evening, I could take\nup the whole of our time in telling the truth about the existing\nhorrors. But I do not think that any one will deny them. They exist,\nand no one can disprove the fact. Let us rather consider _why_ they\nexist, and what their existence means to the working man.\n\nStated in a few brief words, this is my theory and my unalterable\nbelief.\n\n\nIF THERE WERE NO UNEMPLOYABLES THERE WOULD BE NO UNEMPLOYED.\n\nTo amplify my statement I will say--and in a moment I will endeavour\nto prove--that if the idle, vicious, hopeless and sullen scoundrels\nwho act as a drag upon the wheel of the Commonwealth, who have been\nallowed too long to clog social progress, were removed, the whole\nproblem would be solved.\n\nI beg you to listen carefully to me while I tell you how the\n_Unemployables_ have created the problem of the Unemployed, how they\nare throttling charitable enterprise, how they are making economic\nmethods of relief impossible, how they are destroying the present and\nthe future of the honest working man. Who are the people I have called\n\u201cThe Unemployables\u201d? What is _their_ idea of work and what is the\n_real ideal_ of work? I will answer these questions. I will show you\nwho and what the Unemployables are. I will contrast their attitude\ntowards honest toil with the attitude of honest men towards toil, and\nwhen I have done this I will try to explain how these people are\ninjuring you and me, what a terrible burden they are upon our backs.\n\nThe month before my story dealing with the Unemployed appeared in the\n_Daily Mail_, a series of articles on the same subject was published.\nIn some of them the Unemployables were painted with perfect fidelity\nand vividness. I take some paragraphs here and there to make a\nconnected picture.\n\n\u201cHalf-past eleven on Friday morning in a back street in the most\npoverty-stricken and most largely relieved district in Canning Town. A\ngroup of women wait around the gates of a chapel, from which doles are\nbeing issued. Dirty, ragged and untidy, they certainly are, but\nhunger-stricken--No! Their children playing in the roadway near by are\nill-clad, filthy, and in many cases bare-footed, and do show signs of\nunder-feeding, but not the mothers.\n\nThese are the wives of the habitual Unemployed seeking relief.\n\nThe curious stranger notices that some of the women go from the relief\nstation to the public-houses. Let us look inside a few of these\nestablishments. In a side bar of the first place we enter, we find\neleven women, exactly of the same type as those soliciting charity\nwithout. One of them carries a recently-born baby in her arms, and\nanother has a little girl two years old clinging to her apron. Each\nwoman has a glass in front of her. Some of them have been here since\nhalf-past nine in the morning, and will stay for hours yet. In the\nnext drinking shop is a party of nine, in the next but two, while in\nthe last of all we find seven. Now one rises to go out, for her hour\nhas come to beg for aid from school or parson or Unemployed fund.\n\nAn hour later we can see the husbands of these women amusing\nthemselves at the street corner higher up. Five bookmakers\u2019 touts are\nbusy among them at one cross roads alone.\n\nAt this time, when we are threatened with a new Unemployed agitation,\nit is as well that the causes of much of the distress in some of the\nUnemployed areas should be understood. For several years the public\nhas tried to deal with the sufferings of the very poor by sentimental\nmeans. Each winter has brought increase of relief, and each increase\nof relief has helped to render more permanent the problem it has set\nabout to cure.\n\nWe have now in one district alone, a large number of people, totalling\nmany thousands, incapable of regular work and unwilling to attempt it.\nThey have been taught to lean on charity to aid them, and they have\nproved themselves apt pupils. Their homes will, as a rule, for sheer\nuncleanliness, bear comparison with the dwelling of an Australian\naborigine. Their children are systematically made untidy, and are\ngiven a neglected air in order more successfully to extort outside\naid. Parental love is so dead that, in very many cases, the mothers\nwill sell the boots given to their children in order to buy gin.\n\nThis is no vague, general charge. Three years ago the readers of the\n_Daily Mail_ entrusted the writer with a sum of money to spend on\nmeals and shoes for needy children in this district. Teachers from\nmany schools assured me that such effort would be wasted. \u2018Buy the\nshoes and give them to the children to-day,\u2019 they said; \u2018and to-morrow\nthe shoes will be in the pawnshops, and the mothers will have drunk\nthe proceeds.\u2019 It was necessary for us to construct a careful system\nof guard checks to save the children from their own mothers.\n\nLast year four separate general funds were distributing doles and aid\namong these people in one district. A fund for the children, the best\nof all, kept them from starvation. Two outside agencies collected many\nthousands of pounds and scattered them about. The West Ham Corporation\nspent over \u00a326,000 on relief works. What has been the result? The\nfirst outcome was to draw to this district many of the loafers from\nother parts, who saw the chance to obtain something for nothing. The\nmore money that came, the more the number of Unemployed grew.\n\nThere is, without question, an amount of perfectly genuine distress,\ndistress that should be relieved. But it is not, as a rule, found in\nthe \u2018Unemployed\u2019 processions. The men who are making the most noise\ncould not work properly if they would, and would not if they could.\n\nThis is a hard saying. Some facts may help to prove it. Many employers\nof labour around the docks agree in testifying that their difficulty\nis to induce casual men to remain long at their work. A man will take\non a job for a couple of hours, and then ask for his 1_s._ 2_d._\n(7_d._ an hour) and go. \u2018Look here, guv\u2019nor, I\u2019ve had enough of this,\u2019\nhe exclaims, with perfect truthfulness. He has secured enough to see\nhim through the day--why should he trouble after more?\n\nThe labourer of the casual loafing type who works for two days a week\nthinks that he has done all his duty. His work is worth comparatively\nlittle when it is done. The municipal relief work at West Ham last\nwinter spent \u00a314,000 on material and \u00a312,000 on labour. On the most\nliberal estimate, the labour value obtained was worth not more than\n\u00a34500, and the tasks would have been done by any contractor for that\namount. Many whose names were down on the Unemployed Register refused\nwork when offered to them.\n\nLast winter the workhouse authorities began to distribute relief on a\nmore liberal scale. A number of distressed cases were taken in without\nlabour. The number increased until it reached 473. Then the guardians\nresolved to re-establish the labour test, and to make the applicants\ndo some work for the aid they had. The numbers at once fell to 119.\n\nThe people have been taught to look upon the outside public as a milch\ncow, and the guardians and municipal authorities as officials from\nwhom everything possible is to be extorted. The members of an\n\u2018unofficial\u2019 relief committee invited me last week to one of their\nmeetings. A bloated woman came asking them for aid. They gave her a\nsmall dole, with repeated injunctions that she was to lie to the\nrelieving officer if he asked her if she had had anything. \u2018Take care\nthat your fire is out and your cupboard is bare when the relieving\nofficer comes,\u2019 one member added.\n\nHere, then, is the problem to be solved. A great army of habitual\nloafers and incapables live off the woes of the genuine Unemployed.\nThe latter, too, often suffer in silence. The spongers, hardened by\nlong experience, adepts in every trick to impress a generous public,\nply their calling more boldly each year.\n\nSuch are the men who will not work--the \u2018work-shy\u2019 men, the\n\u2018bone-idle\u2019 men, the \u2018wasters,\u2019 the scoundrels who turn the holy\nvirtue of charity into a foolishness, and who recruit the ranks of\nthose who keep society in a state of siege.\n\nThese people form the majority of the Unemployables. Please remember\nthat I am not talking of the _Unemployed_, but of the Unemployables.\nThe men who won\u2019t work form the majority, but the hopeless herd of\nUnemployables is also swelled by those who _can\u2019t_ work. They can\u2019t\nwork because their life has never taught them how to work. From\ninfancy they have been trained to depend upon charity, from childhood\nthey have been denied an education which will enable them to earn a\nliving.\n\nTheir very birth has been charitably conducted. The parish doctor has\ngiven free aid, the blankets have come from a local fund, and probably\nthere has been a Salvation lass scrubbing the room for the mother.\nFrom infancy they are accustomed to look to charity for their very\ncomfort. A boots fund supplies them with shoes, free meals are their\nmain sustenance, and if they are very fortunate a holiday fund gives\nthem a week in the country. Their first lessons are in begging, and\nthey are taught to lie and to cringe to the givers of doles.\n\nWhen such children leave their slum schools, what awaits them? There\nis little or no possibility of the slum boy learning a trade, while\nthe girl finds it impossible, even if she desires, to learn\nhousewifery by going to service. The factory awaits the girl, and odd\njobs, as potboy, errand boy, runner for bookmakers, or the like, await\nthe lad. At seventeen or so the youth becomes a man, and applies for\ncasual labour at the docks or elsewhere. About the same time he mates\nwith a girl who has been working at the factory.\n\nBy this time he has forgotten nearly all he learned at school. What\ncan reasonably be expected of him?\n\nIt is impossible to condemn this second class of Unemployable. If you\nand I had been brought up in the same way, we should live as they do\nand behave as they do, in all probability. If a child has seen his\nfather and mother, his grandfather and grandmother, his uncles, aunts\nand all the friends of the family habitually go to bed in their boots,\nhe will sleep in his boots too. If he lives in a village where every\none goes to bed in boots, and has never been out of that village nor\nwitnessed the customs of any other village, who is to tell him that\nsleeping in boots is an unpleasant trick which spoils the sheets? A\nstranger who came upon a child of this village and told him that he\nwas a dirty little boy who ought to be punished, would be an idiot who\nunderstood nothing of the power of environment, the truth of education\nor the facts of life.\n\nBut the first, and largest, class of Unemployables who have worked,\ncan work, know how to work, but _won\u2019t_ work, is in a very different\ncase, and is formed of very different people.\n\nThese are the men who are lost.\n\nFor my own part, I believe that idleness is the greatest of all sins,\nthe chief of all crimes. It is not those offences against the law of\nGod and the ordinance of man that we punish which are always the\nworst. I may be wrong, but I give it as my opinion that sloth is the\nprime sin of all those lusts and iniquities that war against the soul\nand destroy manhood. I believe that the thief who works, the drunkard\nwho works, the liar who works, the adulterer who works, may often be a\nbetter man than the boneless, bloodless idler who is neither thief,\ndrunkard, liar, or adulterer.\n\nWork--all work--has in it a fine spiritual element, just as the\nsmallest and meanest thing in the world has a divine side, inasmuch as\nGod made it and saw that it was good. All temporary forms, it has been\nsaid, include essences that are eternal. Whatever be the meanness and\nloneliness of a man\u2019s occupation, he may discharge it on principles\ncommon to himself and the Archangel Gabriel. The man who spends his\nwhole life in cleaning codfish in Leadenhall Market is a better and\nfiner man in the eye of God, a worthier and more valuable man to the\nCommonwealth, than the poor man who loafs away his life in a four-ale\nbar, or the rich one who lounges through his existence in a palace.\n\nHowever far I may go in my belief that idleness is the greatest vice\nof all, hardly any one here would attempt to combat the general view\nthat it is a vice and a very bad one.\n\nBut leaving the purely moral standpoint for a moment, let me point out\nto you the value of work as an aid to _material_ success and\nhappiness.\n\nFor a moment we will put aside the fact that toil is a virtue and\nlaziness a sin. Let me briefly repeat what has been said a thousand\ntimes by far abler and more important lips than mine--\n\nWork pays.\n\nIn the spring of this year I was staying in the South of France with\na friend who is a great employer of labour. He employs nearly 16,000\nmen. He told me that, quite unknown to every one, he has established a\nsystem of reports upon the work and ability of each separate man. His\nagents inform him that Jack Smith, whom he has never met and will\nnever meet in this world, is a hard worker. The next promotion goes to\nJack Smith.\n\nGenius, the highest and rarest attribute of the human being, has been\nsaid to be \u201can infinite capacity for taking pains.\u201d A capacity for\nwork which is not infinite but finite, yet which is still strong and\nvigorous, ought always and in all circumstances to secure a livelihood\nand ensure respect. This is the very least that it should do. It may\ndo much more. It may command success.\n\nWhat was it but work that enabled Heyne of Gottingen, the son of a\npoor weaver, to become one of the greatest classical scholars; that\nenabled Akenside, the son of a butcher, to write _The Pleasures of the\nImagination_; Arkwright, the barber, to become Sir Richard Arkwright,\ninventor of the spinning-jenny; Beattie, the school-master, to become\nProfessor of Moral Philosophy; Prideaux to become the Bishop of\nWinchester from being the assistant in the kitchen at Exeter College;\nEdmund Saunders, the errand lad, to become Sir Edmund Saunders, Chief\nJustice of the King\u2019s Bench; Jonson, the common bricklayer, to become\nBen Jonson the famous? Adrian VI. rose to his great fame as a scholar\nfrom being a poor lad in the streets, who, for want of other\nconvenience, had to read by the lamps in the church porches; Parkes,\nthe grocer\u2019s, and Davy, the apothecary\u2019s apprentice, became the two\ngreatest chemical investigators of their age. What enabled Dr. Isaac\nMilner, Dean of Carlisle and Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, to\nrise from the humble position of a weaver; and White, who was also a\nweaver, to become Professor of Arabic at Oxford; Hunter, the\ncabinet-maker, to attain the first rank among anatomists? Incredible\nlabour enabled Demosthenes to become the greatest orator of antiquity.\n_The Economy of Human Life_ and _The Annual Register_ were the\nproduction of Dodsley, who by labour raised himself from the position\nof a weaver and a footman. Labour enabled Falconer, the barber\u2019s son,\nto write his celebrated poem of _The Shipwreck_. The editor of _The\nQuarterly Review_, Gifford, somehow acquired the needed capability\nfrom being a cabin-boy and shoemaker\u2019s apprentice. Haydn, the son of a\npoor cartwright, became the eminent composer; Johnson, through\nsickness and poverty, rose to be the immortal linguist; Jeremy\nTaylor, a barber\u2019s son, ended as theologian and bishop; Barry, from a\nworking mason, became the renowned painter. Dr. Livingstone attained\nhis celebrity from being a \u201cpiecer\u201d in a factory. Indeed, if we read\nthe lives of distinguished men in any department, we find them\ncelebrated for the amount of labour they could perform. There is no\nexception to this rule even in the military profession. Julius C\u00e6sar,\nCromwell, Washington, Napoleon, and Wellington, were all renowned as\nhard workers. We read how many days they could support the fatigues of\na march; how many hours they spent in the field, in the cabinet, in\nthe court; how many secretaries they kept employed; in short, how hard\nthey worked. Superficial thinkers are ready to cry out, \u201cMiracles!\u201d\nYes! but they are miracles of industry and of labour.\n\nGreat success came to these great workers I have enumerated, people\nwho started life as working men. If they had lived to-day they would\nhave achieved the same, though the task would have been a more\ndifficult one. Men of this stamp cannot be crushed. But more ordinary\nmen who have the capacity for hard work and are willing to do it, what\nshall we say of many of them in the year 1906? What shall we say of\nthe thousands who want work and can\u2019t get it, of the Unemployed?\n\nWe must say just this--the Unemployed are the victims of the\nUnemployable, and all working men suffer to support the idle and\nworthless classes of the community.\n\nEvery one suffers, every one has to pay for the maintenance of the\nUnemployable. But the working man pays most and suffers most. Let me\nput it to the working men here to-night.\n\nOut of every pound I earn I have to pay a shilling to the Government\nin income-tax. I call this hard, because every penny of my income is\nmade by hard mental work. The parson and the doctor, the farmer, the\nlawyer, the author, are taxed exactly the same as the man who has not\nearned his income, but who has been left land or other property by his\nfather. I work ten hours a day nearly every day of my life, and I only\nmake nineteen shillings out of every pound I earn, while the man who\nhas an income without working for it pays not a penny more. You are\nprobably wondering what this has to do with your side of the question.\nYou do not pay income-tax, you may say, it is only the people who make\nmore than three pounds odd a week who have to pay this tax.\n\nYou are quite wrong if you think this. In proportion to your earnings,\nyou pay, even here in this country, more than I do, more than the\ndoctor, more than the farmer--more than almost any one, except the\nparson, who is always the most heavily taxed man in proportion to his\nmeans and his duties in the community. It is true that you don\u2019t get\nyellow papers \u201cOn His Majesty\u2019s Service\u201d by the post demanding this or\nthat sum. You don\u2019t get polite gentlemen calling for money, and backed\nup by the whole force of the British Constitution. You pay in other\nways. Take the case of a farm labourer. The farmer rents his land from\nthe original owner, and he makes as much as he can out of it. The\nfarmer has to pay the Government a proportion of every shilling he\nmakes. It stands to reason, therefore, that he can\u2019t afford to pay his\nlabourers as much as he would were he himself less heavily taxed. And\nthere are other ways in which the working man pays out of all\nproportion to his earnings. The working man who buys a pound of tea, a\nglass of beer, or an ounce of tobacco, pays exactly the same duty on\nthese articles as people with ten times his income. I may buy a pound\nof tea at two shillings and the working man may not be able to pay\nmore than a shilling. But that is merely a question of quality, and\ndoes not affect the argument. The working man with a very small\nincome pays the same duty as the man with a much larger one.\n\nThe working man also pays other taxes, called rates, in his\nhouse-rent. They are not collected direct from him, they are collected\nfrom the landlord, who puts up the rent accordingly.\n\nTherefore, although a superficial view would tend to show that the\nworking man is without many of those burdens which fall upon the\nshoulders of larger earners, such a view would be utterly wrong.\n\nI have still so much to say that I cannot go further into the economic\naspect of the question. Detailed proof, abundant and overflowing,\ncould be easily supplied. I have no time to do so now, I merely repeat\nthe indubitable fact that the working man has to pay for the\nworkhouses, the asylums, and the prisons; poor as he is, he must\nsupport the Unemployables.\n\nIn the workhouses, at any rate in the London unions, he must support\nthem in a comparative luxury which he himself can by no means afford.\n\nIn one great workhouse, for example, we find that the finest butter,\nthe best Irish bacon, the whitest bread, the most expensive cuts of\nbeef are for the pauper. Outside the workhouse the working head of a\nfamily who is struggling to bring up his children in honourable\nindependence has none of these luxuries. In place of the best butter,\nhe and his family have the cheapest margarine or dripping; their\nbacon, if they have any, is bought in inferior scraps; their bread is\nof common description, and instead of costly cuts of beef, they too\noften have to content themselves with the cheapest form of food in\nLondon--fried fish. At no time have they too much of even this food.\nYet, while they are existing in such pinching poverty, fighting their\nway from day to day and from hour to hour, an enormous tax is levied\non them in the form of rates, to maintain in unnecessary comfort those\nwho are living an idle and unprofitable life.\n\nThe contrast to the worker must seem poignant. On the one side of the\nworkhouse gate are poverty and incessant misery, with insufficient\nfood to eat. On the other side are warmth and light, complete freedom\nfrom care, and abundance of food to eat, with no necessity whatever to\nearn the day\u2019s food by labour. All the prizes are to the unfit; all\nthe effort and misery are to the laborious. If the honourable working\nman loses his employment through some change in industrial\norganization or through the growth of foreign competition, he finds it\ntoo often impossible to struggle back to his feet. He sees the help\nwhich might have carried him through his misfortune diverted by the\nblatant outcries of the worthless. He must be content to suffer and\ndie in proud silence, while those who have never done or wished to do\nan honest day\u2019s work absorb the contributions of public and private\ncharity.\n\nMr. McKenzie, to whom I am indebted for so many illuminating facts,\ncompletes the picture in a few vivid paragraphs. He takes the huge and\npoverty-stricken London district of Poplar for his text, and he tells\nus--\n\n     \u201cHad the Poplar poor law authorities contented themselves with\n     dealing adequately with the old and the sick, and the maimed\n     who are among them, all their resources would have been taxed,\n     for the district is now very, very poor. They went further.\n     They deliberately attracted to themselves the great shifting\n     army of loafers and of idlers from all parts of London.\n\n     \u201cHow has this been done? By two means. Outdoor relief has been\n     freely granted to all kinds of folk, and the people inside the\n     workhouse have been treated in a sumptuous manner far above the\n     style of their class.\n\n     \u201cThe guardians decided that the stone-yard is derogatory, and\n     abolished the labour test. They had no sufficient labour for\n     men, so they allow them to remain in practical idleness. There\n     are over two hundred and fifty young men in the workhouse\n     to-day, amply fed, well clothed, and maintained week by week,\n     and month by month, in idleness. They are lazy,\n     good-for-nothing scamps, many of them, as their records clearly\n     show. Naturally they take advantage of the glorious prospect of\n     plenty to eat and nothing to do. There is another army, only\n     less numerous, of young women in the prime of years and of\n     health, equally idle.\n\n     \u201cA few days since, I went over the \u2018workhouse\u2019 at midday, and\n     watched the great rooms packed with legal idlers, all busy\n     eating a dinner such as few labourers outside have. \u2018Do you\n     mean seriously to tell me that these men have no proper\n     employment?\u2019 I asked my guide, as we stood in a great room\n     thronged with not far short of three hundred men, mostly\n     varying in age from eighteen to forty, all sound limbed, all\n     physically fit. \u2018We use them as far as we can in cleaning up,\u2019\n     my informant replied.\n\n     \u201cThe next extraordinary point at Poplar is the feeding of the\n     inmates. No one denies that the pauper should have a\n     sufficiency of wholesome food, and most of us would willingly\n     support the generous feeding of the old and the infirm. But the\n     Poplar guardians have gone to the extreme here. They work on\n     the policy avowed by some of them that \u2018the poor man ought to\n     have the best sometimes.\u2019 They are going to give him the best\n     when he is in the workhouse, and they do! The butter costs,\n     bought by the ton, 1_s._ 2-3/4_d._ a pound. I am informed that\n     the contractors are required to supply only \u2018Denny\u2019s best\n     Irish\u2019 bacon. The meat is of the very finest quality to be\n     bought, and the bread is of a grade and perfection rarely to be\n     had in shops or restaurants. I examined the dinners being\n     served in the course of an ordinary visit, and I declare in\n     sober truth that the quality was at least as high as that given\n     in an average West End club. The mealy potatoes and the fine\n     boiled meats certainly equal those served in the modest club\n     where I lunch.\u201d\n\nThis, my working-men listeners, is what you and I are paying for. The\nobvious result upon any district where the rates must be raised to an\nimpossible height in order to support the idle and worthless, is that\nsuch a district ceases to be an area of employment.\n\nThe great manufacturing firms decline to continue their operations in\na place where local taxation is so heavy that it prevents them from\npaying a dividend to their shareholders.\n\nThe firms go, but their labourers do not go with them. These, after a\nbrief struggle, swell the ranks of the Unemployed, that sorrowful army\nfor which the Government has just voted \u00a3200,000 as a small temporary\nrelief.\n\nNow I do not think that I need say much more as to the manner in which\nthe Unemployables have created the class of the Unemployed, and as to\nhow the working man suffers. I have given a brief summary enough--in\nthe endeavour to be as thorough as possible--but it is already\nsomewhat lengthy.\n\nI wish to come at once to the principal point of this lecture--_the\nremedy for it all_!\n\nI am personally convinced that the remedy I am about to propound is\nthe only satisfactory one, and the object of my presence here to-night\nis to outline it for you.\n\nThere is a time in the history of certain diseases when any malignant\ngrowth must be removed with the knife. Cancer, the tiger of all\nphysical ills, can only be treated in this way. The hideous thing\nwhich has fastened on the human body must be cut away from it, or the\nbody dies. The gentle measures of medicine and diet are useless. Life\nmust be preserved by the scalpel and knife of the surgeon. \u201cIs there\nno other way, doctor?\u201d the nervous patient asks. \u201cDon\u2019t you think that\nI might get well if I kept on the Chian Turpentine treatment or the\ninjection of Tryptic Ferment?\u201d\n\nThe surgeon of to-day who knows his business will answer \u201cNo.\u201d He will\nproceed to the stern though inevitable operation.\n\nAnd that is what we have got to do in regard to this social cancer,\nthis economic disease of the Unemployed question. We must stop the\nwhole thing. You working men have the power to do it, and this is the\nway in which you must do it.\n\nIn the first place, you must realize your own power over the councils\nof the nation, in the ordering and determining of the laws of England.\nYou who are working men are already beginning to do this. To take only\none instance, the Trades Unions have already combined to send a number\nof labour members to Parliament, and a working man holds a high\nministerial position with conspicuous honesty and ability. I don\u2019t in\nthe least agree with most of the aims of what is known as the Labour\nParty. My reading, education, and experience have taught me that\nSocialism is the dream of an impossibility, and that the witness of\nhistory, the experience of nations, and the laws of God are all\nhostile to it alike. There has never yet been a continuing\nCommonwealth in which all men were equal inasmuch as they were State\nofficials. There never will be.\n\nBut working men have now the power to remedy the unjust conditions\nunder which they live. The more they realize that power the more able\nwill they be to bring about the change.\n\nOne of the first things that they must do is to relieve themselves\nand others of the burden of the Unemployables--this is the way in\nwhich I believe it can be done.\n\nWe must follow the plan adopted with signal success by Germany,\nDenmark, Belgium, and other foreign countries, only, in proportion as\nour own problem is more menacing and acute than in other States, we\nmust adapt, amplify, and extend their plan to our needs. In these\ncountries every effort is made to assist the deserving poor, while the\nundeserving are not merely repelled; they are also punished. Relief is\ngiven, after a careful visitation of the distressed case and thorough\npersonal inquiry, in the shape of a loan, and repayment of the loan is\nrequired except in cases where the assisted are not able-bodied. The\nlazy and worthless are relegated to labour colonies, or to penal\nworkhouses, whence they can return to ordinary life after a term of\nlabour has been served. The old are cared for, when deserving, in a\ndifferent kind of workhouse, and receive indulgent treatment. In this\nway sturdiness and independence of character are assured, and there is\nno danger of the excessive multiplication of paupers, or of enormous\nexpenditure on relief.\n\nThis is speaking generally. The two chief agencies for dealing with\nthe Unemployed question are the systems of insurance against\nunemployment and the establishment of labour colonies in which the\nUnemployables are forced to work.\n\nIt is impossible for me to-night to do more than sketch the working of\nthese two institutions in a single country. I will, therefore, outline\nthe method of insurance adopted in Germany, and give an account of the\ngreatest labour colony in existence--that of Merxplas in Belgium.\n\nA month or two ago I was in the great German city of Cologne. There I\nfound the following system in operation:--\n\n\u201cThe \u2018City of Cologne Office for Insurance against Unemployment in\nWinter\u2019 was established in 1896. The object of the office is to\nprovide, with the assistance of the Cologne Labour Registry, an\ninsurance against unemployment during the winter (December to March)\nfor the benefit of male workpeople in the Cologne district. In order\nto insure with the office, a man must be at least eighteen years of\nage, must have lived for at least a year in Cologne, and must not\nsuffer from permanent incapacity to work. He is required to pay a\nweekly premium, payment of which must commence as from April 1, and\nmust continue for thirty-four weeks.\n\n\u201cThe amount of the premium was originally 3_d._ per week for both\nskilled and unskilled workmen; in 1901 the rate of premium was fixed\nat 3_d._ for unskilled and 4-1/4_d._ for skilled men; in 1903 the rate\nwas raised to 3-1/2_d._ per week for unskilled and 4-3/4_d._ per week\nfor skilled workmen. In no case must a man be more than four weeks\nlate in paying his weekly premium, otherwise he loses all claim upon\nthe office; but in special cases the operation of this rule may be\nsuspended by the committee of the insured.\n\n\u201cIn return for these payments the insured workman, if and when out of\nwork in the period named above, receives, for not more than eight\nweeks in all, a daily amount, which is 2_s._ for each of the first\ntwenty days (nothing being paid for Sundays), and then 1_s._ on each\nsubsequent day. These payments begin on the third week-day after the\ndate on which the man has reported himself as out of work.\n\n\u201cWhile out of work, a man must report himself to the office twice\ndaily, and if work is offered him, he must take it, provided that the\nnature of the employment and the rate of pay be, so far as\npracticable, similar to what the man had been getting while in work.\nBut he cannot be asked to fill a place left vacant in consequence of a\ntrade dispute. Unmarried men, with no dependants living at Cologne,\nare required to take work away from that city, if offered to them,\ntheir fares being paid for them.\n\n\u201cNo money is paid in respect of unemployment caused by illness or\ninfirmity, or by the man\u2019s own fault, or by a trade dispute.\n\n\u201cThe administration of the affairs of this Insurance Office is in the\nhands of the Executive Committee, the Committee of the Insured, and\nthe General Meeting of Members.\n\n\u201cThe Executive Committee consists of the head of the Cologne\nMunicipality (_Oberb\u00fcrgermeister_) or his delegate, of the President\nfor the time being of the Cologne Labour Registry, and of twenty-four\nmembers, twelve elected by the insured workmen, and twelve patrons or\nhonorary members (six employers and six employees) chosen by the\npatrons and honorary members.\n\n\u201cThe twelve representatives of the insured on the Executive Committee,\ntogether with the business manager of the office, form the Committee\nof the Insured, referred to above.\n\n\u201cThe Executive Committee has the right to decline to make any further\ninsurance contracts, should it become doubtful whether the fund is\nadequate to meet further liabilities; and on two occasions (in 1901-2\nand 1902-3) it became necessary to suspend operations in this manner.\u201d\n\nWhat an excellent plan this is! The working man has, I know, his sick\nclub, his benefit society, to which he must subscribe. If he is a\nmember of a Trades Union there again is another claim upon his purse.\nBut all working men are not members of Trades Unions. The greater the\nskill of the trained mechanic, for example, the more the disfavour\nwith which he regards the Trades Unions. It is a splendid thing to be\na member of a great and powerful organization which has for its object\nto ensure that every man shall be paid a living wage. But when a Union\nforces all its members to a dead level of equality with that of the\nleast skilled, when the good workman is compelled to do no more work,\nand no better work, than the worst workman in the confederation, then\nthe good workman very naturally takes his name off the books. Once\nmore, many working men, especially in the country, are fairly sure of\nalways being able to obtain work if they are prepared to do it. But in\nthe great, crowded, competitive centres of England, the uncertainty of\nregular employment, especially in regard to unskilled labour, the\nestablishment of such a system of insurance would be of incalculable\nbenefit, nor do I believe that the infinitesimal premium would be\nregretted or missed by any sensible and hard-working man.\n\nYou may object that probably the funds of the insurance companies\nmight possibly come to be diverted to the support and assistance of\nthe _won\u2019t_ works--the Unemployables. Please hear me to the end and\nyou will see that this objection cannot be upheld.\n\nI do not appeal to the experience of despotic Germany but of\ndemocratic Belgium when I describe the largest Continental Labour\nColony, that of Merxplas in Belgium. During the present year I have\nspent some months in Belgium, and have been enabled to gather the\nopinions of all sorts of people upon the subject. Every thinking man I\nhave consulted in this country is emphatic in his praise of the\ninstitution.\n\nThe Law of November 27, 1891, \u201cfor the repression of vagrancy and\nbegging,\u201d which came into operation on January, 4, 1892, imposed upon\nthe Belgian Government the duty of organizing correctional\nestablishments to be called (A) Beggars\u2019 Dep\u00f4ts, (B) Houses of Refuge,\nand (C) Reformatory Schools. The Labour Colonies are maintained in\norder to fulfil the requirements of the Law under (A) and (B).\n\nAll persons confined in a Beggars\u2019 Dep\u00f4t or in a House of Refuge, not\nsuffering from incapacity, are to be put to work of such nature as may\nbe prescribed, and shall, unless deprived thereof as a measure of\ndiscipline, receive a daily wage, part of which shall be kept in hand\nand credited to the \u201cleaving fund\u201d of the inmate in respect of whose\nlabour the same shall be paid.\n\nThe Minister of Justice fixes, with respect to the Beggars\u2019 Dep\u00f4ts and\nHouses of Refuge, the rate of wage which the inmates shall receive,\nand the deductions to be retained out of this wage towards the\n\u201cleaving fund.\u201d This fund is handed over partly in the shape of cash,\npartly in that of clothing and tools, when the inmate is discharged.\n\nThe internal regulations of the Beggars\u2019 Dep\u00f4ts and Houses of Refuge\nare settled by Royal Decree. Any person confined in either class of\ninstitution may be ordered to undergo solitary confinement.\n\nThe classes of persons whom the magistrates are directed (by Article\n13 of the Law) to send to be confined in a Beggars\u2019 Dep\u00f4t, are all\npersons not suffering from incapacity, who instead of providing\nthemselves with the means of existence by labour, abuse the charity of\nthe public by habitual mendicancy; those persons who, through\nlaziness, or drunken or immoral habits, pass their lives in vagrancy,\nand those who live on the earnings of vice (_souteneurs de filles\npubliques_).\n\nMerxplas is reached from Antwerp by a steam tramway running through a\ncultivated country with occasional stretches of pine plantations.\nThere are only a few villages, all small, and there is no place which\ncan be in any way styled a town on the way to Merxplas, or indeed,\nwithin a considerable radius round the colony. The surrounding country\nis sandy heath, with pine plantations, but this is transformed at\nMerxplas by the manual labour of the colonists into excellent\nagricultural land, with fields and gardens neatly cultivated and\nwell-grown avenues of oak, poplar, and pines. Such a transformation\nhas been rendered more easy by the nature of the sub-soil, which is\nclay everywhere underlying the top-soil of sand. The buildings are\nlarge and handsome, and of good design. They seem excellently built.\nThe main block consists of a large quadrangle, and is entered by a\nprincipal gate on the western side. The offices of administration are\ncentred round this gate, with dining-halls capable of seating 1500\ncolonists at a time, on the left, and reception-rooms, baths,\nfire-engine house, etc., on the right. The _quartier cellulaire_ as\nthe prison for refractory colonists is named, is easily marked by the\nexercise grounds. To this is attached on one side a barracks for 150\nsoldiers and on the other a building set apart for the _immoraux_.\n\nThe east side, opposite to the main gate, is occupied by the hospital\nin the centre, and by two wings on each side for the _infirmes_, who\nare still capable of light work, and for the _incurables_, who are\nunfit for any kind of labour. The remaining side on the north consists\nof four long galleries, _chauffoirs_, which are intended for the use\nof the colonists in inclement weather. Between these, placed\ncentrally, are the lavatories and the canteen. There also is a\nlibrary, from which they can obtain books on Sunday, in which at the\ntime of our visit a tramp choir was practising with considerable skill\nunder a tramp organist, and without any supervision.\n\nThe dormitories are four large buildings on the west front flanking\nthe approach to the main gate, and beyond these lies the large new\nchurch which the colonists have just erected. This will hold 1500 men\nstanding, and is a very effective building. Adjoining are the\nfarm-buildings, which are nearly all on a very lavish scale, and\nthoroughly modern in construction. To the northward are the\nworkshops. All these also are admirably built, and are thoroughly\nsuited to their purposes. Beyond these lie the brickyards, stoneyards,\npottery works, tannery, cement yard, etc.\n\nThe inmates are divided into six classes--\n\n     Class I. Men sentenced for offences against morality and for\n     arson.\n\n     Class II. Men sentenced to Colony life as a sequel to a term of\n     imprisonment of less than one year.\n\n     Men whose past history shows them to be dangerous to the\n     community.\n\n     Class III. Habitual vagabonds, mendicants, inebriates, and men\n     generally unable to support themselves.\n\n     Class IV. Men under twenty-one years of age.\n\n     Class V. (_a_) The infirm and (_b_) the incurable.\n\n     Class VI. First offenders.\n\nThese come under the normal conditions of Colony life; that is to say,\nthey are obliged to do about nine hours work a day, of a character\nsuited to their capacity, in return for which they receive board and\nlodging, and in addition, a small amount of pay.... This is partly\npaid in tokens valid only at the Colony stores and canteen, and partly\nit is banked against the time when the colonist leaves. The normal\nday is as follows: the colonists rise at 4.30 (summer), and after\nleaving the lavatory each man receives his ration of bread for the day\n(1-1/2 lbs.) and as much coffee (chicory) as he likes. What bread is\nnot eaten then is kept for dinner and supper. At 6 they enter the\nshops, where they remain until 11.30, with a half-hour interval from 8\nto 8.30 a.m., when they can go outside and smoke. At 11.30 they are\nall marched back to the quadrangle and go into the dining-halls in two\nrelays. After this they rest until 1.30, when they re-enter the shops\nuntil 6, with another half-hour interval at 4 o\u2019clock. On their return\nsupper is served, and immediately afterwards they go to bed, when the\nroll-call is made, requiring every man to stand to his bed, and those\nmissing are noted.\n\nIn the winter the short day necessitates the farmhands retiring very\nearly to bed. Those who work in the shops begin their work at 7.30 in\nthe morning, and work on after dusk by artificial light.\n\nThe colonists are given no meat, but the soup of vegetables is very\ngood, and each man has a large quantity. They have a sweet drink made\nof liquorice-wood boiled in water, with their meals; coffee and bread\nfor breakfast; potatoes or other vegetables, with a meat sauce for\nsupper; and chicory-water in large cans in their dormitories. To\nsupplement the above they can make purchases from the canteen of beer,\ntobaccos, lard, herrings, etc., which are sold at exceedingly small\nprices, representing only the actual cost price of the article when\nproduced by the Colony labour itself.\n\nThe staff is small, and consists of a Director-in-Chief at\nHoogstraeten, who exercises a general financial supervision over all\nthe Colonies, a Director at Wortel and Merxplas, and at the latter\nplace the following officers: Deputy-Directors, 2; Doctor, 1; Priests,\n2; Teachers, 5; Clerks, 19; Manufacturing Manager, 1; Warders, 81;\nSisters of Mercy, 6.\n\nAll offences against the regulations of the Colony and all cases of\nslack work are summarily dealt with by the Director, who has full\npower to transfer men from one class to another, and from a more to a\nless remunerative form of work. He can also award imprisonment or\nsolitary confinement, and bread and water diet in the Colony cells for\nany period up to sixty days at a time. This power can also, in case of\nnecessity, be used repeatedly, so that a bad character can practically\nbe permanently locked up.\n\nA further help to the maintenance of discipline is undoubtedly the\nprivilege of earning wages and of spending them directly on beer and\ntobacco, etc.\n\nThere is one feature of Merxplas which is at first rather startling;\nthat is, that every day there are a certain number who escape. This\ndoes not seem to give the authorities much concern, because they are\nnearly always brought back again in a short time, either through\ncapture, or because their mode of living brings them again to the\nnotice of the police.\n\nA beginning was once made of digging a moat round the grounds, but it\nwas abandoned because it was thought that the possibility of escape\nhelped to prevent disaffection. The colonists also, in the eyes of the\nlaw, are patients rather than criminals. Those in Classes I. and II.\nare, of course, much more closely guarded. Escape, like all other\nbreaches of Colony discipline, can be punished by the Director with\nimprisonment in the Colony cells.\n\nThe results of the work done at the Colony is thus summed up in the\n\u201cBlue Book\u201d from which the greater part of the detailed particulars\nhave been taken.\n\n\u201cEven more important than the economy of the system is its effect on\nthe colonists. The men at Merxplas have retained a large proportion of\nwhatever manual and technical skill they possessed when they first\nbegan to slip out of employment in the outside world. They have\nentered the Colony before the rapid deterioration, which is the\ninevitable result of the tramp life, has had time to take effect, and\nthe opportunity afforded them to practise their trades has, in most\ncases, prevented their ever sinking to the level of the average\nEnglish tramp. In every shop the keen interest the men take in their\nwork is most noticeable; only one foreman and one warder are employed\nin each shop, and without coercion the men seemed all working with\nremarkable energy and real interest. This is, in our opinion, perhaps\nthe most striking feature of the whole establishment.\n\n\u201cThe permanent effect on the individual is less, perhaps, than one\nwould at first sight expect. About ninety per cent are habituals. The\nreason given by all the authorities was always the same. Outside, this\nclass of man of weak moral fibre, and generally of inferior physique,\ncannot keep from drink. Sooner or later he breaks down, loses his\nplace and returns. Inside, away from temptation, they work well, and\nas long as the sentence does not exceed two or three years, seem\ncontent to remain. The colonies, it must be remembered, do not claim\nto deal largely with the temporarily unemployed, but with a class that\nis more or less permanently inefficient. In this connection, however,\nit seems that no attempt has been made to bring any strong religious\ninfluence to bear. There are the usual masses and other observances\nof the Roman Church, but there seems to be little personal mission\nwork undertaken.\u201d\n\nI come to my remedy.\n\nAs I see it, what we have to do is this--we must establish colonies in\nwhich the Unemployables shall spend their lives. When once a man has\nbeen proved to be irreclaimable by ordinary methods, when a properly\nestablished tribunal, after searching inquiry, has pronounced him a\nburden and a drag upon the community, then I would put him away for\nlife, if he is irreclaimable, and continues to remain so.\n\nI would make his life just as pleasant as he himself chose to make it.\nIf he refused to work, then his lot should be a prison cell and bread\nand water until he did. If he made the best of the situation in which\nhis own fault had placed him, he should be enabled to earn enough to\nkeep him in considerable comfort, and to provide him with harmless and\njudicious pleasures.\n\nSuch a man should live in a state of almost freedom. The one thing\ndenied him would be the privilege of mixing with the outside world and\nof reproducing his kind. Such gratifications and amusements as he had\nearned should be supplied him with no ungrudging hand. The\nconsolations of religion should be always at his command and should\nbe constantly brought before him.\n\nBut he should not be allowed to beget children who would swell the\nranks of the Unemployable and increase the intolerable burden already\ncarried by the honest working man. It is just about as certain as\nscience and economic experience can make it, that the child of an\nUnemployable will become an Unemployable too. It is possible that one\nchild in a thousand may turn out a decent citizen. That is about the\nmaximum percentage, and if, for the sake of possibly producing one\nordinary worker we ought to allow nine hundred and ninety-nine\nhopeless idlers to come into existence, then I have nothing more to\nsay.\n\nI do not think such a position can be maintained for a moment. I\nventure to think that you will agree with me.\n\nI admit that such a method would be inhuman, immoral and unchristian,\nif we were to treat the hopeless social failure as a criminal pure and\nsimple. Let us make his life as happy as he chooses to make it; treat\nhim as a criminal if he won\u2019t work in the colony, comfort and pet him\nif he will. But we need go no further than this. I do not honestly\nthink that our duty as Christians or sociologists imposes more\nconsideration upon us than just this. \u201cIf thine arm offend thee cut it\noff.\u201d\n\nSir Robert Anderson, for many years Assistant Commissioner of\nMetropolitan Police, has long held the view that the professional\ncriminal is not a necessity of civilization, and that a reform of the\nmethod of dealing with him would soon bring about his complete\nextinction. Sir Robert, with his extensive Scotland Yard experience\nbehind him, declares that the number of high-class criminals in\nEngland does not exceed a few dozen, and that if these were got out of\nthe way organized crime against property would cease. The plan which\nSir Robert Anderson has conceived is that of providing asylums in\nplace of the present prisons, where a man who has proved to have\ndevoted his life to crime would be sent for life and made to earn his\nliving.\n\nWe must provide asylums for the Unemployables also, in order to\npreserve ourselves. It is no use being sentimental. We must relegate\nsocial parasites to a state and condition where they can no longer\ninfest the social body and cannot increase in numbers. When we have\ndone this, when you working men have done this, in less than a\ngeneration the question of the Unemployed will be satisfactorily\nsettled. It may well be, moreover, that such a method will change the\nleast degraded Unemployables into honest, hard-working citizens who\ncan be once more admitted into the world on probation.\n\nThese are my opinions, and though I have given you but a sketch of\nthem to-night, I submit that they are at least reasonable and worth\nconsideration.\n\nThe words of the poet Shelley are no less applicable in the present\nthan they were in the past. He had an unconquerable faith in the\nspiritual destiny of our race, and his lines, when he wrote his \u201csong\nto the men of England\u201d were filled with flame:--\n\n    \u201cThe seed ye sow another reaps;\n    The wealth ye find another keeps;\n    The robes ye weave another wears;\n    The arms ye forge another bears.\n\n    Sow seed--but let no tyrant reap;\n    Find wealth--let no impostor heap;\n    Weave robes--let not the idle wear;\n    Forge arms, in your defence to bear.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nAN AUTHOR\u2019S POST-BAG\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nAN AUTHOR\u2019S POST-BAG\n\n\u201c_You have the letters Cadmus gave_\u201d----\n\n\nAs I sit down to write this paper I am experiencing a quite novel\nsensation. Most of us like to talk about ourselves when any one will\nlisten, and nearly all of us do so now and then. But to write about\none\u2019s self in the reasonable expectation that a large number of\npeople, friends, enemies and those who are indifferent, will read what\none has written, is curious. There have been times when an interviewer\nhas come from a Magazine and I have found myself trying to explain my\nviews, to answer questions that were put, with some degree of fluency,\nto do myself justice and yet not to be egotistical in a somewhat\ndifficult situation. Knowing quite well what I wanted to say, and\nexactly how I wished to explain myself, I have listened to my words\nwith a kind of embarrassed wonder at their inadequacy. \u201cWhat an ass\nthis fellow must be thinking me!\u201d has been one\u2019s continual thought.\nThen, when the interview appears, sometimes with pictures of \u201cMr. Guy\nThorne at his desk,\u201d \u201cthe dining-room,\u201d \u201cshooting upon the moor,\u201d one\nfinds that the writer has made a nice smooth sequence of the\nconversation, just as the photographer has taken charming pictures of\none\u2019s carefully-arranged furniture. Yet one was rather prevented from\nreally saying what one would have liked to say because of the\ninterviewer\u2019s presence as the medium who was to give the words to the\npublic. This is a foolish self-consciousness, no doubt, but it is not\neasy to overcome. Now, and at this moment, there is no such\nrestriction upon free speech. The snow is driving over the Dover\ncliffs, no sound penetrates to the ancient room in which I write, and\nfor the first time in my life I am sitting down to talk of myself, as\nan author to his readers.\n\nThe essay has come to be written in this way. There were still some\npages of this book to fill when last week, I was asked to open a\nbazaar in Dover. The vicar said a good many absurdly kind things about\nmy stories when he introduced me to the people there, and afterwards I\nhad to stand a continuous fire of questions for two hours. I could not\nunderstand, and I do not now understand, why any one should be\ninterested in the _personal_ explanations of a writer as to how he\nwrites, what happens when he is writing, and so forth. I do not often\ngo to a theatre, but when I do I never buy a programme. I don\u2019t want\nto know the private name of the lady who plays Ophelia or the\ngentleman who is the Hamlet of the night. I pay my money in order that\nthey shall be Hamlet and Ophelia to me, that I shall watch the agonies\nof a dark and troubled spirit, shall sigh over the tender fancies of\nan unhappy love-sick girl, and the more I am forced to realize that\nthe gentleman is Mr. Jones, who was fined five pounds in the morning\nfor driving his motor-car too fast, the less real he is as the Prince.\n\nBut, although this is my way of thinking, I am well aware it is not\nthe general way; and as I have proved for myself that there is a\ndemand for some sort of personal explanation, and as I endeavour to\nconduct my trade of writing upon common-sense principles, this essay\nis getting itself written.\n\nAddison said that \u201cSo excessive is the egotism of the egotist that he\nmakes himself the darling theme of contemplation; he admires and loves\nhimself to that degree that he can talk of nothing else.\u201d This is an\nobvious statement, and made with little of Mr. Secretary\u2019s usual charm\nof style. But it is perfectly true. I beg leave to submit, however,\nthat what I am doing here is not so much an act of egotism--egoism is\nthe better word--but a legitimate statement for those, if there are\nany, who care to read it.\n\nI have strong convictions upon certain points, and I endeavour to pack\nmy stories with these convictions. That, by doing this, I please many\nreaders who think as I do I am presently going to show, by quoting\nsome of their letters which have reached me.\n\nA novel is simply this: it is a certain portion of the lives of\ncertain people imagined by the author and seen through his\ntemperament. Very well then; let me proceed to prove that the modern\nnonsense which would have people believe that Christianity in fiction\nis _against the canons of art_, is simply a lie.\n\nThe life of every single human being in England is punctuated and\nimpinged upon by Christianity. As I pointed out in my first essay, the\nusual modern novel never mentions--never even mentions!--Sunday. Yet\non Sunday, the shops, factories, theatres and public-houses close. The\ndrunkard has as much reason to find Sunday the most dismal day in the\nweek as the saint to know it the happiest and best. For half-an-hour\nin every town and village the bells of church and chapel ring--if\nindeed chapels are \u201critualistic\u201d enough to have bells, a point upon\nwhich I am not informed!\n\nAnd again, speaking of the constant reminder we all have of religion,\nevery coin we have in our pockets bears the inscription REX FID.\nDEF.--our King is officially known as the Defender of the Christian\nFaith. Every day as I write, the newspapers are full of the\ncontroversy--the religious controversy--of the Education Bill. Each\ntime you and I go to a concert we finish it with the music of the\nNational Anthem, which is a prayer to God that he will bless and\npreserve the Dynasty. Is it necessary to multiply instances? I think\nnot.\n\nHow can any one say, as the literary critics have sometimes said of my\nown books and of others much more important, that \u201creligion\u201d is out of\nplace in a novel?\n\nAs I have pointed out at some length, the greatest novels are one and\nall permeated with the sense of religion. Take your Thackeray and read\nin _Vanity Fair_ of George Osborne going out to battle and first\nsaying \u201cOur Father\u201d with his wife. Read the works of this great writer\nand regard how, whenever a great emotion, a poignant situation occurs,\nso surely the author sends up a prayer to Almighty God either in his\nown person or that of his characters. In that almost greatest of\nEnglish novels, Charles Reade\u2019s _The Cloister and the Hearth_, the\nhero dies with the holy name of Jesus on his lips. There is religion\nin _Pickwick!_--we read of the Christmas of Dingley Dell. In _Les\nMis\u00e9rables_, that huge epic novel, Victor Hugo has drawn more than one\nsaint of God, has made Christianity the motive of his drama.\n\nIt _is_ so in life, be certain that it is and always will be.\nChristianity is the central thing, the only important thing, and the\nattempt to minimize its importance and influence is as the chirping of\na linnet on the roadside as some stately procession passes by.\n\n     _They say. What say they? Let them say!_\n\nBut let no one be deluded into believing that the printed sneers of\nthose who are afraid to recognize our Lord represent any real opinion,\nany weight of opinion, as to the public distaste to Christianity as an\nintegral part of the fiction which they buy.\n\nSir Arthur Helps once said, \u201cThe influence of works of fiction is\nunbounded. Even the minds of well-informed people are more often\nstored with characters from acknowledged fiction than from history or\nbiography, or the real life around them. We dispute about these\ncharacters as if they were realities. Their experience is our\nexperience; we adopt their feelings and imitate their acts.\nShakespeare\u2019s Plays were the only history to the Duke of Marlborough.\nThousands of Greeks acted under the influence of what Achilles or\nUlysses did in Homer.\u201d\n\nAll this is entirely true. As a young American novelist once put it to\nme, \u201cTo-day is the day of the novel.\u201d In no other day and by no other\nvehicle is contemporaneous life so adequately expressed, and the\ncritics of the twenty-second century, reviewing our times, striving to\nreconstruct our civilization, will look not to the painters, not to\nthe architects nor dramatists, but to the novelists to find our\nidiosyncrasy.\n\nThis is by no means intended as an apologia for the sort of tales I\nwrite. I know that it is my duty to write them, the duty I owe to my\nown convictions, and however badly I write them I am doing my best.\nNo, I am not apologizing for my point of view. I am only trying to\nsuggest that even in my greatest artistic failures my artistic\nstandpoint can\u2019t be assailed. Any critic who says that because I write\nas a Christian and that _therefore (and for that reason only)_ my\nbooks are inartistic, is wrong.\n\nI have headed this article \u201cAn Author\u2019s Post-Bag\u201d et cetera. Probably\nyou will be wondering when I am going to justify the title. I will\nbegin to do so now.\n\nPost-time is always a recurring wonder to me. The lowest classes of\nall, the people who don\u2019t get letters, are incapable of experiencing\nmore than a third of the sensations which the highly-organized life of\nour time has to offer us.\n\nA novelist, and I have no reason to think that I am any exception to\nthe rule, receives a very varied correspondence. The business side of\nhis operations is more extensive than the layman would suppose. The\nwriter whose output is regular and whose work is in demand has an\nalmost daily letter to receive from his agent. There is the question\nof a serial for this or that paper, an editor wants a short story, a\npublisher is writing impatient letters to the agent for a book that is\noverdue, \u201cclose times\u201d for various books have to be arranged so that\nthey do not clash between various publishers--he is confronted every\nday with an infinity of detail which even such an experienced and\nassiduous agent as I myself am fortunate to possess cannot save him.\n\nWhen the business letters have been read, there is his own private\ncorrespondence, and then the great mass of communications from people\nwhom one has never heard of and never seen. It is of these letters\nthat I would speak, and of their varied appeals to one\u2019s pocket, one\u2019s\nvanity, the sense of gratitude and the feeling of anger.\n\nAs Cowper said, \u201cNone but an author knows an author\u2019s cares,\u201d and not\nthe least of them is the number of letters he receives asking for\nmoney. There is a rooted idea in the general mind that fame and\nfortune come immediately a writer publishes his first book. A novelist\nis popularly supposed to be a man of affluence in the twentieth\ncentury, just as in the eighteenth century he was known to be a\npauper. \u201cAll the vices of the gambler and of the beggar were blended\nwith those of the author. The prizes in the wretched lottery of\nbookmaking were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks. If good fortune\ncame, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be\nabused. After months of starvation and despair, a full third night or\na well-received dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged,\nunwashed poet with guineas.... A week of taverns soon qualified him\nfor another year of night cellars.\u201d Well, we have progressed since\nthen certainly. There are beds to sleep in, food to eat and fire upon\nthe hearth for most of us. Nevertheless the ordinary novelist is\nnearly always a poor man, sometimes bitter poor. I _know_ what I am\ntalking about and there is not an author, agent or publisher who\nwould not say the same. For the first book I ever wrote I received ten\npounds, and this was paid in two instalments. Until four years ago\nthirty pounds was the largest sum I had received for a long novel.\n\nThe word \u201croyalty\u201d has a fine sound. It is a purple word and opens\nvistas to the outsider of luxury and ease. Yet in its literary\napplication it is the biggest humbug and liar of a word that ever\nmasqueraded for what it is not. There are plenty of \u201croyalties\u201d that\nwill not pay the third-class return fare between London and Penzance.\nA great personal friend of mine, a man of culture and real love of\nhuman event, wrote his first novel three years ago. He had something\ndefinite to say, knew how to say it, and had a first-rate plot. For\nmonths and months I saw him toiling lovingly at his novel. When it was\nwritten he found a publisher willing to produce it, and it duly\nappeared. In almost every case the reviews were extremely laudatory.\nPapers of position and weight praised it unreservedly, to all\nappearances the book was a definite success--a minor success, no\ndoubt, but a success. From first to last his earnings realized five\npounds, and neither he nor I have reason to believe that his publisher\ncheated him in the matter of sales. Here is the written testimony of\nwhat I say, given by an author who died after producing four or five\nreally excellent and successful novels.\n\n\u201cTake, then, an unusually lucky instance, literally a novel whose\nsuccess is extraordinary, a novel which has sold 2500 copies. I repeat\nthat this is an extraordinary success. Not one book out of fifteen\nwill do as well. But let us consider it. The author has worked upon it\nfor--at the very least--six months. It is published. Twenty-five\nhundred copies are sold. Then the sale stops. And by the word stop one\nmeans cessation in the completest sense of the word. There are\npeople--I know plenty of them--who suppose that when a book is spoken\nof as having stopped selling, a generality is intended, that merely a\nfalling off of the initial demand has occurred. Error. When a book--a\nnovel--stops selling, it stops with a definiteness of an engine when\nthe fire goes out. It stops with a suddenness that is appalling, and\nthereafter not a copy, not one single, solitary copy is sold. And do\nnot for an instant suppose that ever after the interest may be\nrevived. A dead book can no more be resuscitated than a dead dog.\n\n\u201cBut to go back. The 2500 have been sold. The extraordinary, the\nmarvellous has been achieved. What does the author get out of it? A\nroyalty of ten per cent. Eighty-three pounds six shillings and\neightpence for six months\u2019 hard work. Roughly less than \u00a33 9_s._ 0_d._\na week. An expert carpenter will easily make much more than that, and\nthe carpenter has infinitely the best of it in that he can keep the\nwork up year in and year out, where the novelist must wait for a new\nidea, and the novel writer must then jockey and manoeuvre for\npublication. Two novels a year is about as much as the writer can turn\nout and yet keep a marketable standard. Even admitting that both the\nnovels sell 2500 copies there is only \u00a3166 13_s._ 4_d._ of profit. One\nmay well ask the question: Is fiction writing a money-making\nprofession?\n\n\u201cThe astonishing thing about the affair is that a novel may make a\nveritable stir, almost a sensation, and yet fail to sell very largely.\n\n\u201cThere is so-and-so\u2019s book. Everywhere you go you hear about it. Your\nfriends have read it. It is in demand at the libraries. You don\u2019t pick\nup a paper that does not contain a review of the story in question. It\nis in the \u2018Book of the Month\u2019 column. It is even, even--the pinnacle\nof achievement--in that shining roster, the list of best sellers of\nthe week.\n\n\u201cWhy, of course, the author is growing rich! Ah, at last he has\narrived! No doubt he will build a country house out of his royalties.\nLucky fellow; one envies him.\n\n\u201cCatch him unawares and what is he doing? As like as not writing\nunsigned book reviews at thirty shillings a week in order to pay his\nlodging bill--and glad of the chance.\u201d\n\nThis is absolutely and literally true.\n\nYet novelists are perhaps more pestered than any other people by\nrequests for help. A writer who, like myself, can live in fair comfort\nby means of unceasing labour, but is not even a well-to-do man, to say\nnothing of a \u201cwealthy one,\u201d receives innumerable letters to which he\nis quite unable to reply as the applicants would wish, but which are\nmost distressing to read. At a time when I certainly had not a hundred\npounds in the world, I received the following letter--of course I\nsuppress the name and address.\n\n                                          \u201c---- Vicarage,\n                                               \u201c----shire.\n\n     \u201cMY DEAR SIR,\n\n     \u201cThank you a thousand times for _When it was Dark_. I am now\n     looking forward to Friday, when your next book begins in the\n     _Daily Mail_. I have been reading about you to-day and have\n     taken courage to ask your help. You say \u2018Let nothing disturb\n     thee,\u2019 etc. How can I help it in such trouble as mine. My\n     husband has failed in health from years of hard work, and out\n     of an income of _under_ \u00a3200 a year we are paying a curate\n     \u00a3100. At this moment we are in _extremes_. My boy is reading\n     for Holy Orders, and we are in need of funds for his expenses.\n     He has been two years a licensed lay reader, and is a thorough\n     Catholic and has the highest testimonials. Will you help me in\n     my need to-day with a donation. I can give references, and for\n     any help I shall be so thankful. Please forgive me for\n     troubling you.\u201d\n\nI have no doubt that this appeal is quite genuine, and a very poignant\ncomment it is upon the way in which the priests of the Church of\nEngland are paid. This type of letter is not a pleasant one to receive\nwhen one is sitting down to work. The imagination with which one is\nendowed and by which one earns one\u2019s bread, is not a faculty very easy\nto discipline or to control, and the power which should be devoted to\nthe chapter one is engaged upon wanders away and constructs a picture\nof want and sorrow which one is quite powerless to alleviate.\n\nNor is it once or twice that such letters as this arrive. Here is a\nfar more piteous document still, if it is genuine. I think that when\nyou have read it you will agree with me that it is genuine enough.\nThere is nothing of the ordinary begging letter about it; and if the\nwriter could invent such a story, he ought not to be so hopelessly\nunable to earn a single halfpenny by his pen. It is to be observed\nalso that in this case the writer wants work, not money.\n\n     \u201cLondon, N.\n\n     \u201cDEAR SIR,\n\n     \u201cAbout two years ago I arrived in England from Australia, with\n     the object of striving to gain a footing in literature, but so\n     far have been unsuccessful. I have written two novels and\n     numerous short stories and articles, but I have ever had them\n     rejected, and all I can show for my work is a pile of\n     publishers\u2019 letters. My resources long since gave out, and I\n     worked myself into the lowest poverty, and then I was\n     prostrated by a long illness. Knowing, sir, that you have had\n     much to do with journalistic work, I decided to write and ask\n     you if you knew of any one in the city--or elsewhere--to whom\n     you could refer me for some employment. I am practically\n     destitute, and knowing no one in London makes it extremely\n     difficult for me to get anything to do. About six months ago I\n     was turned out of my lodgings owing to arrears of rent, and\n     then I commenced tramping the country in the hope of getting\n     work. I managed to get three weeks\u2019 hop-picking, but nothing\n     else, and so for a while I tramped aimlessly about, being\n     exposed to all kinds of weather, sleeping in haystacks, or\n     wherever else offered, until at last my health again gave way.\n     It was then that I called on a well-known novelist, and he was\n     very kind and assisted me, at the same time expressing a wish\n     to see my works. They were sent for, and duly forwarded on to\n     his agents, and I have been advised to write books for boys,\n     the agent expressing his opinion that I would succeed in this,\n     but as I am situated writing is out of the question. When I met\n     this novelist my health failed utterly, and I was compelled to\n     go into the infirmary for a while, and whilst there he wrote\n     telling me to try and get some practice in journalistic work\n     and to study for a while until I gained a little more\n     experience.\n\n     \u201cI think he is out of England at present, but he gave me\n     permission to use his letter as a reference if I needed it.\n     Well, sir, I returned to London about a month ago, and managed\n     to get a few days\u2019 work envelope addressing at Morgan and\n     Scott\u2019s, in Paternoster Row, but so far I have been unable to\n     find anything else to do. I am very anxious to get some work\n     immediately, and if you could help me in this I should be\n     indeed grateful. I care not of what nature the employment may\n     be, manual or otherwise, if I can only get it at once.\n\n     \u201cApologizing for troubling you,\n\n    \u201cI am,\n    \u201cDear Sir,\n    \u201cYours faithfully.\u201d\n\nSome time ago a drawing appeared in the _Daily Mail_ of a Cornish\ncottage where I was then living. Within a week, by a curious\ncoincidence, I received _three_ water-colour drawings of the place,\nmade from the sketch in the newspaper. Two were excellent, and\naccompanied by the kindest letters; they hang on my walls now. The\nthird was by no means a work of art, to say the very least of it, and\nthis letter came with it:--\n\n     \u201cNorth Kensington.\n\n     \u201cI am sending you a copy of the cottage I have painted from the\n     sketch in the _Daily Mail_ of November 16 last, if you will\n     accept it.\n\n     \u201cI must explain that I am only a very poor hand at such work.\n     The fact of the matter is that through much _illness_ and _lost\n     trade_ that I am left very _badly off_, and seeing the sketch\n     and account of your work, thought perhaps if I could paint a\n     few copies and you would introduce the matter to your many\n     friends I could sell some to them, which would assist me to\n     earn something, my health being bad and getting on to seventy\n     years of age it is not much I can do. You will understand that\n     I do not know anything of the appearance of the country around\n     the cottage. I have not been in that part, so all I have put in\n     is imaginary. Will you please say what you think to it, and how\n     much you think I could sell them for. I have not means to buy\n     canvas so have painted on card. Your kind assistance in this\n     matter will great oblige\n\n     \u201cYours truly.\u201d\n\nI have quoted but three letters from a vast pile of others. \u201cQue vivre\nest difficile \u00f4 mon coeur fatigu\u00e9!\u201d says the French poet, and nobody\nknows it better than the English novelist. But with the best will in\nthe world we cannot help everybody. Charity begins at home, its sun\nrises there and should set abroad, but it is limited by the purse of\nthe giver. Among all the contents of his post-bag such letters are the\nmost distressing to the author, and add enormously to a difficult and\noften very thankless task.\n\nBut such letters as these and all worries _ejusdem generis_ are, after\nall, only a small portion of my post-bag. During the last year or two\nI have received hundreds and hundreds of letters from all parts of the\nworld--letters which have given me inexpressible happiness. I think I\nmay be forgiven for quoting some of them here. The real reward of an\nauthor\u2019s labours lies in the sympathy and appreciation of his readers,\nand in that alone. When, moreover, a writer works with a definite\nobject in view, the purpose of leading others to believe what he\nhimself believes, such letters are indeed a strong stay and holdfast\nwhich console for any amount of misrepresentation and bring a\nveritable oil of joy for mourning.\n\nA priest writes:--\n\n     \u201cSIR\n\n     \u201cI don\u2019t ask you because I know you will pardon a stranger for\n     addressing you, and I shall not say much. And the little I mean\n     to say I hardly know how to express. Some few years ago I was\n     a vicar in----. Now I am sick in body and soul. I had lost all\n     my faith, but I have been reading _Made in His Image_, and\n     to-day I prayed for the first time for more than a year, and\n     tears came, and I don\u2019t know if you heard my voice calling to\n     you.\n\n     \u201cI should like to see you. _Can it be?_\n\n    \u201cYours,\n    \u201cDE PROFUNDIS.\u201d\n\nA gentleman from Hull tells me:--\n\n     \u201cDEAR SIR,\n\n     \u201cYou will please pardon the intrusion of this letter. I am a\n     Sunday School teacher, and have been a Christian for three\n     years.\n\n     \u201cA month ago, as a result of reading the _Clarion_ and Haeckel,\n     I became disturbed in my mind, and wished to resign my class. I\n     sought the assistance of my minister. Instead of answering my\n     doubts himself he placed a copy of _When it was Dark_ in my\n     hand, telling me to read it prayerfully, and go to him again.\n     The following evening I completed the reading of a book whose\n     influence will live with me. My dear sir, I feel I cannot thank\n     you half enough, and I shall never cease to thank God that the\n     book was written.\n\n     \u201cI saw my minister, not with any doubts this time, but with my\n     faith renewed, and with a fixed determination to work harder\n     for my Divine Master.\n\n     \u201cI expect you will receive many letters expressing thanks, but\n     I cannot refrain from adding my humble testimony.\n\n     \u201cAllow me to remain, sir,\n\n     \u201cYours very faithfully.\u201d\n\nAnd here is another kind letter from Bridgewater, again from a man:--\n\n     \u201cDEAR \u2018MR. THORNE,\u2019\n\n     \u201cWill you please accept my best thanks for your book, _When it\n     was Dark_. I started to read it as one distinctly prejudiced\n     against it, but I finished the last page saying, \u2018It is\n     wonderful.\u2019 I only wish that those who condemn it would read it\n     for themselves and see the forcible manner in which you have\n     depicted what the world would be if the Resurrection was a\n     myth. Faith cannot but be strengthened by reading it, and the\n     coming Eastertide will be more real to me through having read\n     _When it was Dark_.\n\n     \u201cWishing you every success and happiness.\u201d\n\nFrom Brantford in far-away Canada this letter reaches me:--\n\n     \u201cDEAR SIR AND FRIEND,\n\n     \u201cAfter reading your splendid edition, _When it was Dark_, I\n     take this manner in addressing. The book impressed me very\n     greatly from start to finish, and it always will be henceforth\n     a great pleasure, and I am sure a great help, to read your\n     publications. We greatly need in this world to-day good strong\n     men who will set forth their thoughts in a fearless manner.\n     This is in a very large measure the way the book appealed to\n     me.\n\n     \u201cIt is with a great deal of sincere pleasure I note in the----\n     Magazine (which publication is in our home) for a coming issue\n     the beginning of one of Guy Thorne\u2019s stories. The writer is a\n     young man of twenty years and a Methodist, and presume I am\n     taking up too much of a good man\u2019s time. But I might say my\n     idea in writing was to convey from a Canadian my thanks for the\n     good which I have received, and many others in our city, from\n     the reading of this one work.\n\n     \u201cWishing you every success in your work,\n\n     \u201cYours sincerely.\u201d\n\nFrom Brixton:--\n\n     \u201cDEAR SIR,\n\n     \u201cAmong the shoals of letters which doubtless you now receive\n     may I place this, so that I may thank you for the invaluable\n     work which you are doing in writing your novels.\n\n     \u201cThe article in to-day\u2019s _Daily Mail_ shows me that you have\n     grasped the ideal which I have tried to attain since my teens\n     (three years).\n\n     \u201cI am one of the lonely digits in \u2018diggins,\u2019 who either fall or\n     rise, according to the company they keep. I have thus found\n     that religion is to man what the rudder is to the crew of a\n     ship.\n\n     \u201cI have regularly attended church since my exile, and delight\n     to hear the beautiful service of the English Church. Are they\n     not precious words and inspiring. The service effectually\n     clears me of that ugly black cloak of worldliness which clings\n     to me during the working days.\n\n     \u201cThis, I believe, is the lesson which you are engraving so well\n     on the minds of all people.\n\n     \u201cI conclude with the wish that your pen will ever respond to\n     the spirit which now animates you.\u201d\n\nAgain from a far country, this time near East Guzna, W. Tarsus,\nCilicia:--\n\n     \u201cMY DEAR SIR,\n\n     \u201cFor weeks I have wanted to write and thank you for your book,\n     _When it was Dark_, but I have been laid aside with fever. It\n     stirs thousands of us, and you must feel thankful as you look\n     round to see the success which is granted you in drawing people\n     to ponder upon subjects of such weight. You will like to know\n     that I have spread your book right and left in Cyprus, having\n     obtained three copies, one of which I sent to a Judge.\n\n     \u201cYour account of the ride to Nablous is a vivid word picture,\n     and you must, I think, be familiar with the East.\n\n     \u201cMay I say that I find a dignity and vivacity in your book,\n     dealing as you do with so solemn and glorious a subject as our\n     Lord\u2019s Resurrection, which I firmly hold, and have been\n     accustomed to put in the forefront of my teaching as missionary\n     both in Australia and Russia.\n\n     \u201cAt present my work lies in Cyprus, where I find good\n     opportunities of helping on friendliness with the Greek Church.\n\n     \u201cI am now on holiday, and have just given away my last copy of\n     _When it was Dark_ while staying in the Carmelite Monastery at\n     Haiffa, with those charming French P\u00e8res, to an American canon\n     who was also there.\n\n     \u201cSir, what I want to do is to suggest that you should have your\n     book translated into French and German. I lent it to a French\n     engineer a month ago, and I feel sure it would do good in those\n     countries. Think this out. You might take the advice of some\n     competent friend.\n\n     \u201cI should like to do the translating myself, but I should make\n     so many mistakes, _Magna est veritas, et pr\u00e6valebit_.\n\n     \u201cHave sent home for _A Lost Cause_, and am expecting another\n     treat, with some salt of sarcasm.\n\n     \u201cWith sincere respect and gratitude.\u201d\n\nMy kind correspondent\u2019s idea has been carried out, I am glad to say.\nThe book in question has been translated into French and German and\nseveral other languages. And in this regard I may perhaps mention the\nsurprise I have felt on learning that the French issue has already\ngone into three editions. I am in France a good deal each year, and\nknow something of the temper of the reading public there to-day. I had\nnot thought that many people would read the book.\n\nFrom San Remo, in Italy, this letter comes:--\n\n     \u201cDEAR SIR,\n\n     \u201cI read last week _When it was Dark_ and wish each of my\n     children to have a copy, as it will show them what the\n     Christian Faith means to the world. I still hold to the simple\n     faith of my childhood taught me by my dear parents, which\n     carried each through a _peaceful death-bed_. Our Heavenly\n     Father, the King of kings and the only Ruler of princes,\n     sacrificed His beloved Son for His people, and allowed His\n     cruel death, knowing that in the future the thought of His\n     terrible sufferings would touch the hearts of most and often\n     keep them from sinning. I have never doubted _His\n     Resurrection_, neither would I allow any person to suggest that\n     doubt in my presence. And to me the convincing proof that He\n     was indeed the Son of God is, that He rose again from the dead,\n     He ascended to Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of His\n     Father--God only could possess this power. How very lax we are\n     apt to become and take as our due that great sacrifice.\n\n     \u201cI send to Mr. Guy Thorne my little testimony and best wishes,\n     as I cannot thank him personally for _reminding me so fully_\n     how dark it would indeed be for us all had we not our beloved\n     Saviour always ready and willing to intercede with His Holy\n     Father for us poor erring mortals. Some one said to me, of\n     course Guy Thorne makes a good thing out of his book. I\n     replied, certainly, it is his due to be paid for the labour of\n     his brain, and in this case he fully deserves it, as he might\n     have written a book leading many farther away instead of\n     bringing them nearer to the Cross. Also the interesting style\n     of _When it was Dark_ will induce many to read it. Whereas, if\n     it were very dry, none of us would wade half through.\u201d\n\nAn old clergyman in Wales writes thus:--\n\n     \u201cRectory, Brecon.\n\n     \u201cDEAR SIR,\n\n     \u201cI am seventy; at seventeen I had read more novels and other\n     literature than nine out of ten lads of my age. For years past\n     I can\u2019t read novels. My daughters sometimes induce me to start\n     one, but after a couple of chapters I throw it on one side\n     feeling strongly inclined to exclaim with Conan Doyle\u2019s\n     school-boy, \u2018Rot.\u2019\n\n     \u201cAfter reading the _Life of Father Dolling_, one of my married\n     daughters brought me _When it was Dark_, which I promised to\n     read, and enjoyed it very much. My wife _devoured_ it.\n\n     \u201cThis won\u2019t interest you very much, but the following fact may.\n     A few days after finishing your book our rural\n     post-messenger--an old army man--we live quite in the\n     country--came to me, quite confidentially, and said he had a\n     book he was quite sure I should enjoy; he produced it--it was\n     _When it was Dark!_ Poor fellow! he seemed so disappointed when\n     he found I had read it. A fortnight ago an Irish lady and her\n     daughter stayed with us. They were _good church women_. They\n     left me a book for perusal. It is _A Lost Cause_. I have read\n     it and enjoyed it. It reminds me of Father Dolling and Kensit\n     and Son.\n\n     \u201cI hope you will give us many more. We want Catholic truth\n     placed before people in an attractive dress. We want to break\n     down the great wall of Protestant ignorance and prejudice. Your\n     books are doing this.\n\n     \u201cDon\u2019t heed letters in the Daily Press. I saw a letter in the\n     _Daily Mail_. These letters are only a proof that your books\n     are _telling_. Go straight forward and may every success and\n     blessing attend your efforts. This is the earnest wish of\n\n     \u201cYours truly.\u201d\n\nI was intensely interested to receive this letter from India:--\n\n                                                \u201c---- Mission,\n                                                    \u201cMadras,\n                                                       \u201cSouth India.\n\n     \u201cDEAR SIR,\n\n     \u201cAs you are not unwilling to receive letters from strangers,\n     perhaps this from a distant land might not be unacceptable to\n     you. I am a missionary and have not read two novels during the\n     last five years (but thousands before then), but a friend of\n     mine having read your _When it was Dark_ persuaded me to read\n     it.\n\n     \u201cI was greatly interested in the first few pages describing the\n     scenes of my birth and young manhood. I suppose Walktown is\n     meant for ----, if so, I was born in that part of Salford, and\n     although I belonged to St. ---- Church, I attended very\n     frequently St. ---- as the senior church of the district.\n\n     \u201cI enclose an account of my conversion which will no doubt\n     interest you. I have thought many a time that it would be an\n     admirable theme for a novel. There are many other incidents in\n     my life that would lend interest, especially my association\n     with some of the most notorious anarchists of England and the\n     Continent, and America, I was also a journalist on the\n     _Clarion_, and a bosom friend of Robert Blatchford for fourteen\n     years, John Burns, the new Cabinet Minister, slept at my house\n     when he was an unemployed mechanic in 1885. I was personally\n     acquainted with Mrs. Annie Besant for many years, and now she\n     is here in Madras, the head-quarters of the Theosophical\n     Society. I have renewed my acquaintance with her.\n\n     \u201cI have come to think that much good might be done by treating\n     of sacred subjects in the form that you have done, as you can\n     by this means reach the minds and souls of those millions whom\n     the Church cannot reach.\n\n     \u201cThe University here is turning out educated Hindus who, having\n     parted with their heathenism have taken up Western scepticism\n     in its place, and our Christian Missionaries are helpless to\n     avert it, the youth here are swamped by the cheap Rationalist\n     reprints. Could we but supply them with novels of Western life\n     showing up the folly of Haeckel, Blatchford, Spencer and Co.,\n     in the manner you have done, it would be a powerful\n     counter-attraction.\n\n     \u201cYours in Him we love.\n\n     \u201cP.S.--The British people also need a novel that will show up\n     \u2018Blatchfordism,\u2019 and you now have the ear of the reading\n     public.\u201d\n\nIt is curious that in many of the letters I receive Mr. Robert\nBlatchford\u2019s name is mentioned. With some minds his writings have\ngreat power and influence, probably I imagine because of their real\nsincerity of purpose. It is the more cheering to know that an honest\neffort to render the Incarnation increasingly credible to the man in\nthe street is not without reward. It is as difficult for me to\ndisbelieve in the fact that Christ was God as it is difficult for Mr.\nBlatchford to believe it. Where one man sees a landscape the other\nsees only a map. But there are, nevertheless, a great many people who\ndeny the Catholic Faith because, while they desire to retain the name\nof Christians, they are unwilling to accept the obligations of\nChristianity. And while looking about for something to believe, a\nnecessity of the human soul, they either find it in Mrs. Eddy and\nother false prophets, or finally join issue with the editor of the\n_Clarion_.\n\nAn author\u2019s letter-bag is always full of surprises, and such a\ncorrespondence as I am privileged to receive often entails a vast\namount of extra work. But it is almost impossible not to reply to at\nleast two-thirds of the letters that reach one, and though reply\nsometimes leads to a lengthy interchange of letters all are helpful\nand encourage one to continue, while some are full of the most\nilluminating suggestions.\n\nOf this the following letter from one of the Canons of Durham\nCathedral is a typical example:--\n\n     \u201cDEAR SIR,\n\n     \u201cIn your coming story I hope you will lay stress on the fact\n     that our \u2018higher\u2019 education is practically a Pagan one. All\n     University honours, fellowships, scholarships, prizes are for\n     proficients in Pagan literature; interesting (for some people).\n     Beautiful in language as this literature is, it lacks the\n     spirit and power of the Christian Faith. The common rooms smell\n     of Plato and Aristotle. There is no cross in a Don\u2019s life, as\n     such, though a few rise above the normal standard.\n\n     \u201cThis system filters through the public schools down to the\n     smallest private schools, in most of which the daily bread, the\n     upholding of Christ as Saviour, teacher, master, example and\n     king is left out.\n\n     \u201cAt Eton, where I was myself, religious teaching did not exist.\n     We had Sunday questions of which one specimen will suffice,\n     given to my nephew the other day.\n\n     \u201c\u2018Of what judge is a curious incident recorded and what was the\n     incident?\u2019 The result of this is far-reaching and deplorable.\n\n     \u201cIn Parliament the members assemble by troops to hear about\n     some personal scandal, but when the happiness of English\n     girlhood is in question there is hardly a \u2018house.\u2019 And so with\n     other questions that concern the personal holiness and\n     happiness of our men and women and children.\n\n     \u201cForgive me for this taking up of your time, but your pen may\n     do what I feel myself unable to do.\u201d\n\nI have received a good many letters from clergymen endorsing the views\nI expressed in my book called _First it was Ordained_, views which I\nhave consolidated in the previous essay, \u201cThe Fires of Moloch.\u201d I give\nonly one example owing to reasons of space. In view, however, of the\nstrong opposition which exists, and of which I have had plenty of\nevidence, to any attempt to tell the truth, the following short\nletter, which is typical of many others, was a great pleasure to\nget:--\n\n                                             \u201cThe Clergy House,\n                                                 \u201c---- E.C.\n\n     \u201cMay I say how much I have enjoyed your last book? _First, &c_.\n     It was hard to put it down without finishing it straight off.\n\n     \u201cI hope it will do a power of good to stop the fearful and\n     widespread sin.\n\n     \u201cI do not think it at all too outspoken. The Bishop of London\n     is quite plain on the matter. I believe a learned gyn\u00e6cologist\n     has an article supporting the statements made in his speech, in\n     last month\u2019s _Nineteenth Century_.\u201d\n\nI began by complaining that my post-bag often contained distressing\nletters asking for help which I was generally unable to supply. When I\nread over the correspondence which I have printed here I feel that I\nought to regard my letter-box as a coffer of treasure, that my postman\nis indeed that same Hermes who brought the magic herb to Odysseus, my\nletters--\n\n    \u201c--Wing\u2019d postilions that can fly\n    From the Atlantic to the Arctic sky--\n    The heralds and swift harbingers that move\n    From East to West on embassies of love.\u201d\n\nI only made what at the time I thought was a very small collection to\nprint here--just a thin bundle taken from hundreds. Yet already I find\nthat a third of the little pile has nearly filled my space and I fear\nthat my readers will weary, even if they have read so far.\n\n\u201cThe man is printing his testimonials like a pill-maker!\u201d I can hear\nMeletus snarl. \u201cWho cares whether a few stupid people _do_ like his\ntwaddle!\u201d Lycom answers. Yet bear with me a little, brethren; you need\nnot have read this paper, you know. Laugh if you will; laughter is the\ngreat agent that preserves a sense of proportion among us, and the man\nwho laughs sounds the keynote of tolerance. But laugh kindly,\nremembering the vanity of authors and the wish of all of us to stand\nwell with the world.\n\nMy post-bag day by day contains a certain missive which is not a\nletter. It is a little green, printed wrapper which most authors,\npainters, players, and musicians are in the habit of receiving--it is\nthe batch of press-cuttings which show how the critics regard my books\nand what the paragraphists have to say. The critics are always being\ncriticized by authors. Mr. Jones gravely points out the duty of\nappreciating his work that the reviewer owes to literature. Nor is it,\nas Mr. Birrell pointed out, in the days when he wrote delightful\nessays and had not been forced to dance to the dictates of political\ndissent, the unsuccessful author who is the loudest in complaint. The\nbeginner, the men and women who cannot say as yet that they have\nachieved a definite position, these seem to have digested the poet\nlaureate\u2019s neat advice--\n\n    \u201cFriend, be not fretful if the voice of fame,\n        Along the narrow way of hurrying men,\n        Whereunto echo echo shouts again,\n    Be all day long not noisy with your name.\u201d\n\nBut others are not so reticent. For my part I cannot understand the\nattitude of the novelist who publishes shouts of resentment at\ncriticism which is not to his liking--remember, in view of what I am\ngoing to say later, that I use the word _criticism_. The other day,\nwhile on a journey to the Riviera, I bought a copy of Miss Marie\nCorelli\u2019s last book of essays, in Paris. I read it through the night\nuntil I fell asleep, and when the sun flooded the olive trees I took\nit up once more, and finished it just as we ran into Marseilles. I\nsuppose that this lady is the most popular writer of the day. She is a\ngreat modern force; she reaches an enormous audience, and speaks\nstraight to their hearts. I have heard dozens of men and women say\nthat they prefer her to any author alive or dead. Now this is surely\nto be in a very splendid position, is it not? Why, then, should a\nwoman whose talents have won for her such place and power, print an\nangry, comprehensive, and I am afraid sometimes, spiteful indictment\nof all critics? I can\u2019t see her reason.\n\nDestouches wrote:--\n\n    \u201cLa plainte est pour le fat, le bruit est pour le sot;\n    L\u2019honn\u00eate homme hue s\u2019\u00e9loigne et ne dit mot!\u201d\n\nMiss Corelli assumes that all the reviewers are venal and dishonest,\nand that because they do not praise her books, books which are so\ninfluential and popular, they are bad critics. Reviewers, take them\nall in all, are nothing of the sort. I have written hundreds of book\nreviews. I have reviewed for the _Saturday Review_, the _Academy_, and\nthe _Bookman_, among other journals. Therefore you may assume that I\nmet plenty of other critics, and know their polity and ways. We were\nall honest enough in those days--that I say without any doubt at all.\nI remember Mr. Frank Harris, the then editor of the _Saturday_, giving\nme a certain novel to review, and expressing himself with great point\nand freedom about it. As I was leaving his room he called me back, and\nsaid, as well as I can remember his words, \u201cRemember that this is only\n_my_ point of view, and what I want in this case is yours. You may\nlike the stuff, and if you do, of course you will say so.\u201d\n\nI _didn\u2019t_ like it, and said so, but I have never forgotten the\nincident.\n\nAs I said in the beginning of this paper, directly my stories began to\nbe occupied with religion as the force, _qui fait le monde \u00e0 la\nronde_, some of the critics began to be unkind. But what on earth is\nthe use of wasting one\u2019s own time, and the time of the public, in\nfussing and complaining? The people who said this about my work were\nquite sincere. Their opinion is quite as good as mine, however much I\ndon\u2019t agree with it. _Quot homines tot sententi\u00e6._ My business is to\nearn a living for myself and for those who are dependent on me. Thank\nGod I can do so. My duty is to hammer away at the doctrines in which I\nbelieve, and endeavour to get others to believe in them. Therefore I\nmust not \u201ccall or cry aloud.\u201d I must go on doing what I am doing, and\ndoing it _sans ran\u00e7une_.\n\nRemember, and I wish Miss Corelli, for example, could see this also,\nthat criticism of novels in our day is a purely _literary_ criticism.\nThe theory of modern criticism is that Art is a thing by itself and\nowes no duty to Ethics. The reason for Art is, art. Ten years ago I\nthink I would almost have gone to the stake for this doctrine. I\nbelieved in it devoutly; I couldn\u2019t be patient, even, in the presence\nof any one who argued otherwise. I well remember the indignant anger\nwith which I repudiated the suggestion of my father, a clergyman, that\nwhen I grew older and had suffered, when I came into real contact with\nthe great central facts of life, I should think very differently. He\nwas perfectly right. Art is the essential part of fiction, but it is\nnot destroyed because it is employed as the handmaid of an ethical\nstandpoint.\n\nBut this truth is no reason for \u201canswering back\u201d the critics who do\nnot appreciate it. Nothing is quite true--except The Incarnation--a\nna\u00efve statement you may call it, but as a corollary of the epigram,\ntrue too! It is better, by far, to realize that modern criticism is\nmost valuable from the purely literary point of view, and yet that the\npurely literary point of view is only one side of the model the artist\nmust study before he learns how to draw.\n\nTherefore, when any critic tells me of this or that fault in\ntechnique, I take his expert opinion for what it is worth--an expert\nopinion--and try to learn from his criticism. I try to learn and do\nbetter. When the post-bag discloses a criticism obviously animated by\npersonal prejudice or dictated by the religious politics of the paper\nin which it appears, I grin and bear it--though I don\u2019t like it!--and\nconsole myself with the verse composed by the American poet whose\ncritics were _always_ unfair, or at least he said so--\n\n    \u201cThe cow is in the garden,\n    The cat is in the lake,\n    The pig is in the hammock,\n    What difference _does_ it make!\u201d\n\nNo author, who has a public at all, suffers from _criticism_ which is\nfair or even from _criticism_ which is unfair.\n\nAn author is not well advised in publicly answering or combating\neither.\n\nWhen Disraeli said that the critics were the \u201cpeople who had failed in\nliterature and art,\u201d he forgot that bad wine often makes excellent\nvinegar. I am quite certain that I have never suffered in the\nsuffrages of my readers--and so in pocket!--from hostile criticism.\nAnd I have had any amount of it--the little green wrapper is not\nalways pleasant reading. But I have never shouted out that I have been\npersonally hurt or wounded by hostile criticism, and I certainly never\nshall. The days are past when the _Quarterly_ could kill Keats, and\nthe days have not arrived when the reprobatory finger which is\nsometimes wagged at one can take one\u2019s bread-and-butter away.\n\nBut sometimes--and now, please, I unsheathe my toy sword, or at least\nflourish my cane--the postman brings something that cannot hurt one\nseriously, though it stings. This something is not criticism at all.\nIt stings, not because of the actual attempt--even the smallest plants\ncannot grow unhampered by insect life--but because, puny as it may be,\nit is so manifestly unfair. In this regard I can sympathize with Miss\nCorelli because, however the critics may write of her books from the\nliterary pedestal, they sometimes write of her, from a shelter\ntrench, in a very different way.\n\nOne morning I read a little sneer about myself which was entirely\nwithout justification or explanation. It occurred in a Catholic\nmagazine, which I will call _The Thesaurus_, dated June 1906, and was\nwritten by the editor, who may be designated as the Rev. Mr. Roget.\nHere it is:--\n\n     \u201cPerhaps one of those authors whom the public love--Miss\n     Corelli, Mr. Hall Caine, or Mr. \u2018Guy Thorne\u2018--may be preparing\n     a novel with the education controversy as its theme. In that\n     case, one can only hope devoutly that the Bishop of London will\n     _not_ think it advisable to advertise the book from the pulpit.\n     Yet if one could only have heard a frank opinion of _When it\n     was Dark_ expressed by the last Bishop of London--Dr.\n     Creighton--that would indeed have been a joy.\u201d\n\n_The Thesaurus_ is a pleasant little magazine devoted to quite\ninnocuous fiction and articles. It has, in the number I quote above,\nnine pages of advertisements, an article called \u201cIn the Engadine,\u201d a\n\u201cFew hints on church embroidery,\u201d a very happily named story called\n\u201cIn a Dull Moment,\u201d etc, etc. Indeed it could not hurt a fly. I say\nthis much, not because I have any dislike for this nice little\nperiodical, but in order to point out that in answering its editor\u2019s\nremarks about me, I am not endeavouring to become known to the world,\nand to advertise myself by the endeavour to link my name to its\neditor\u2019s.\n\nThere is a certain sort of hurried and sporadic writing which is not\ncriticism, but is irresponsible nonsense set down to fill a page no\nless than to gratify a prejudice.\n\nIt\u2019s all give and take in literary polemics. People are always going\nfor one in the press, and very often with perfect justice. But when\none reads remarks like those I have quoted, and remarks written by a\nMr. Roget, then, if it amuses one, there is at least a text for a\nsmall monition.\n\nMiss Marie Corelli is very well able to look after herself. However\nmuch Mr. Roget may endeavour to pillory this lady in his \u201cStudy\nWindow,\u201d I don\u2019t suppose she cares. She is a great modern force; Mr.\nRoget isn\u2019t. Mr. Hall Caine will not, I imagine, try to stop being one\nof the authors \u201cwhom the public love\u201d because of the editor of _The\nThesaurus_. Nor have I, the humblest person in the trilogy, yet\nsuffered.\n\nAnd, believe me, it is not because I personally care much that I am\nwriting like this, nor is Mr. Roget any armed assassin in a narrow\npath. But such an one ought to be laughed at a little, because he is\ntypical of a class of young men who should be taught the economy of\nreserve.\n\nMr. Roget did not explain his reasons for attacking me, though I,\nquite frankly, give mine for attacking him. But as--through the\nlamentable chances of war--my remarks will be read by a great many\nmore folk than his were read by, we are quits, and I can start fair,\nthough with all the rigour of the game.\n\nThe Editor in his paragraph not only states that he himself does not\nlike one of my stories--_i. e., When it was Dark_, but implies that the\nBishop of London was not justified in liking it, and saying that he\nliked it in public.\n\nIt is quite within Mr. Roget\u2019s right not to like the book--thousands\nof people didn\u2019t like it. But what are his functions for sneering at\nit with confidence and weight?\n\nFirst of all his age is thirty-six, and he is the editor of _The\nThesaurus_.\n\nWe can dismiss those qualifications at once.\n\nThen he is the Vicar of a Worcestershire church, and a well-known\nwriter of light verse.\n\nHe began his journalistic career in 1890 by contributing \u201cturnovers\u201d\nto the _Globe_, has contributed to _Punch_ and _The Nineteenth\nCentury_, is a leader writer on a Church paper, and reviews\ntheological books.\n\nThis is his journalistic career, and he has written seven little books\nin all, mostly verse. I take these particulars from _Who\u2019s Who_.\n\nAll this is very well. It is a good thing for all of us to be in\n_Who\u2019s Who_, though, by the way, it does the latter-day \u201ccelebrity\u201d\nmore harm to be out of it than it does him good to be in it!\n\nMr. Roget\u2019s record for a young clergyman of thirty-six is honourable\nenough. He has done better for himself than most young priests of that\nage. But this does not constitute him \u201cAn author whom the public\nlove,\u201d etc.\n\nI am very glad to find my own name in the fat red book, which is so\nuseful, though in my little autobiography I never thought it necessary\nto mention the first \u201cturnover.\u201d I certainly did venture to say that\none of my stories had sold 300,000 copies; but that was probably\nvanity, and I regret it.\n\nBut, to be serious, has my critic done as much in journalism or the\nliterary world as your deponent? I\u2019m not going to catalogue my work\nany more, but, frankly, he has not. All I ask, with proper humility,\nis just this--Is this gentleman qualified to sneer at me--not to\n_criticize_ me, which is quite another thing--just because the public\nhave approved of what I have tried to sell them and have bought it?\n\nIn sneering at me he sneers at the public, whose taste I have been\nfortunate enough to please, and whose opinion of what I have to sell\nhas lifted me and those who are dear to me from poverty to comfort. I\nhave worked enormously. I have put all I have got in me into my work,\nand I feel that work honestly done has been honestly rewarded. If I\ncould write better than I do, I should be very happy. I know perfectly\nwell how inadequate my work is, but I know what this \u201ccritic\u201d of mine\ndoes not know, and has not inquired into, how much it costs me to do\nit and how deeply I believe in what I say.\n\nAnd does not Mr. Roget also seek the suffrages of the public? In the\nsame issue of _The Thesaurus_ to which I have referred above, he uses\nthe phrase \u201c...us who are trying to make an income out of literature.\u201d\n\nOf course, he is trying to be \u201cone of those authors,\u201d etc. He admits\nit. He tells us he is trying to make an income out of the public. And\nyet, while he is doing this, he insults the public for preferring\n\u201cthose other authors\u201d--or, at least, that\u2019s how one can hardly help\ntaking it!\n\nMoreover he is a priest as well as a literary man. As a literary man,\nI attack one who has not yet shown himself to have the slightest right\nto sneer at people who write--whatever their literary faults may seem\nto him--always on the side of good, with a belief in the saving power\nof the Christian faith, and in the same hope as that in which he\nwrites.\n\nA million people read one of Miss Corelli\u2019s books, and they pay her to\ndo so.\n\nTwo hundred people listen to one of Mr. Roget\u2019s sermons, and he is\npaid to preach them. But do authors go down into Worcestershire and\nsneer at the sermon of the priest because his own congregation love to\nhear him?\n\nThis is the first time in my life that I have ever answered any one\nwho has written unkindly of me. And it will be the last. _Literary_\ncriticism is a thing done by specialists, and with every right on\ntheir side. _Literary_ criticism is in the main correct. When I\npublish a book, and a literary writer points out this or that fault, I\nam myself literary man enough to know that he has put his finger on\nthe weak spot nine times out of ten. Then I try again. I have said\nthis before.\n\nBut mere unqualified contempt on the part of one who has not been able\nto qualify himself to express any contempt of value for public\njudgment deserves remark.\n\nAnd now it is necessary to say a word about this gentleman\u2019s\nreprobation of the Bishop of London\u2019s sermons about _When it was\nDark_. It is not a nice thing to have to say, but this young clergyman\nis typical of a small tribe which make it necessary for me to say it.\n\nThe obvious suggestion is that I went out of my way to induce the\nBishop of London to advertise one of my books. That is not the case.\n\nI have never met the Bishop of London in my life. I have never even\nseen him. I have had one letter from him about my book, which I will\nnot quote here, but which I will send Mr. Roget whenever he asks for\nit. It is the only communication I have ever had from him. Neither\ndirectly nor indirectly did I attempt to get the bishop to advertise\nme.\n\nYet his lordship preached about the book six or seven times--once in\nWestminster Abbey. He advised his ordination candidates to read it,\nand in his addresses to these gentlemen--subsequently published in\nbook form--the passage remains.\n\nThe late Bishop of Truro advised the clergy to read it in several\ndiocesan meetings. He also wrote a long signed article in a great\nLondon daily paper about my books, in which he said:--\n\n     \u201cA story written by Guy Thorne, who has proved his gift and its\n     purpose, may well touch the sore place of our race with a hand\n     that is more human than statistics and more sympathetic than\n     many organizations.\u201d\n\nDr. Gott is just dead as I write this. I have many letters from him.\nIn one of them--which again I will not quote, but which I will send my\ncritic for his private reading when he asks for it--his lordship said\nthat the book had helped him greatly.\n\nThere have been thousands of personal letters from readers about this\none book. Dozens of them were from clergymen, from pastors of the\nNonconformist and also the Anglican Churches. All this also I have\nsaid before, and the half-dozen letters which I have quoted have their\nown value, bear their own witness.\n\nOne of the greatest Nonconformist divines of England preached about\nthe book.\n\nThere--I have said enough. It is sickening to have to say it. But Mr.\nRoget leaves one no alternative. He is not fair. For some reason or\nother--I do not know or care what it is, for he is an utter stranger\nto me--he takes this line. In the same issue of his magazine he\nwrites of the President of the Congregational Union--\u201cMr. Jowett\u2019s\npresidential address, as well as the speeches which followed it, were\nnot remarkable, to say the least, for the charity of language used\nabout the Church. All the old sectarian bitterness was expressed in\nthe usual way.\u201d\n\n...I have been writing for many hours. The snow was blowing in from\nthe Channel over the South Foreland when I began. The sky was a great\npewter-coloured dome from which Mother Hulda\u2019s feathers were falling,\nwhen I took up the pen.\n\nAs the day waxed there came a faint, yellow, and almost menacing gleam\nof sunshine, and as it waned the leaden-grey grew black, and night\ncame silently over the landscape until at last she opened her great\nfunereal black fan.\n\nThey brought me lamps and set them on my table. Those who love me and\nlook after me came noiselessly up the stairs, silently into the room\nand put logs upon the study fire and left me alone once more.\n\nIt is nearly midnight, and the winter wind pipes sadly outside this\nold Kentish house, so remote from other habitations, so renowned in\nthe annals of the Channel cliffs. With all its faults, all its\negoisms, take this last essay in my first book of essays, and do not\nthink hardly of me. Forgive what you discern here of petulance, of\narrogance, and of conceit. I have done my day\u2019s labour, and I have\ntried to be sincere. I have done my day\u2019s labour, and now I am going\nto descend to an old room, with its oaken beams and aroma of the past,\nto take the supper of a man who has toiled. The dear people, and\nunfortunate ones! who wait upon the erratic hours of an author are\nwaiting for me there.\n\nAnd then to bed, and may the humble supplication I shall send up to\nAlmighty God for myself and those I love, for those who read what I\nhave written, have its hearing in the place where \u201chearts and wills\nare weighed.\u201d May I become a better and worthier man because I have\nthe opportunity of addressing you who read. And may God grant me to\nmend a faulty life.\n\nGood-night and Amen.\n\n    _Wanstone Court,\n    December, 1906._\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n    RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,\n    BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND\n    BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.","title":"\"I Believe\" and other essays","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":65985}