"But," he said, "if you once begin that sort of thing, where will it
end?"
"What sort of thing?" I asked.
"Why, talking about those people in the Bible as if they were real
people living to-day, don't you know."
"Don't you think of them as real?"
"I don't think of them at all."
"But when they are spoken of in a sermon, what do you think?"
"Why, to tell you the truth, I am apt to take a little snooze. I
have done my part in the service, made the responses and that sort of
thing, you know, and when it comes to the sermon, that's parson's
job. He has to do something, and I take it for granted he knows his
business and pay no attention to him. But if I once started in to
consider whether he was right or wrong, where should I end? I know
jolly well that Sunday would be no day of rest! Look at your
husband, now--he is all worked up over the sermon this morning, but
it did me no harm. To tell you the truth, I don't think I ever met a
man before who cared what a parson says. Well, perhaps I don't quite
mean that, but what surprised me was that he talked as if he had been
listening to a speech by Lloyd George or Asquith, or one of those
men, on a subject that really matters."
"But you think the clergy ought to talk on things that really matter?"
"In a way, yes. But not as a regular thing. That is the mistake the
Non-conformists make. I have a son-in-law who goes to chapel, and at
Sunday dinner the family talk over the sermon as if they had been to
a political meeting. I don't call that making Sunday a day of rest.
Why should I want to have a parson tell me what to think or what to
do? What does he know about the life of _men_? I expect I know what
I ought to do as well as he does."
"Why then have a sermon at all?"
"Well, it's the custom, and I believe in keeping up the old customs.
And, besides, the parson ought to have something to do. Of course in
a large town where there are working people, with a lot of
drunkenness and fighting and that sort of thing, the parsons are
pretty busy. As I said to my son-in-law a fortnight ago, when he was
saying the Established Church ought to go, the money ought to be
taken for other purposes, and all that sort of thing which the
radicals are always saying, well, I said to him, 'You don't look deep
enough. Think what the church saves the country every year in police
alone! The Established Church is the bulwark of society,' I said,
'and if you break that down, what will take its place? The people
who need it least will build churches for themselves, and those who
need it most will have none. And, let me tell you, when that day
comes, you will soon learn whether you are paying less or more to
maintain order. And that is not all,' I said, for by this time I was
pretty hot, 'the Established Church keeps alive the spirit of the
empire. But in your chapels your ministers talk as if there were
other countries as good as England. They are a lot of radicals and
have no respect for land, yet it is on the land England depends, and
the church knows that and never offends the landlord.' He didn't like
this over-much, and I doubt if I go there soon again. No, I am all
for the church; what I say is: 'As it was in the beginning, is now
and ever shall be, world without end, Amen!'"
And with that confession of faith he knocked the ashes out of his
pipe and stumped off to bed.
How will it all end? Will the church set its face against the rising
tide of democracy and make Canute its patron saint? I don't dare ask
John. I wish you were here that we might talk things over! You
would be so sympathetic, for you love England dearly, which I fear
John does not, and therefore, I feel, cannot understand her. Well, I
comfort myself by thinking what I believe you would say: "England has
the 'root of the matter' in her, and if a great crisis were to arise,
Englishmen will show that they are to-day what they have always been,
and the church will follow the higher call. England will never do
penance and sit in a sheet, in the face of the nations confessing the
'sins and offenses of her youth,' but she will set her house in order
and meet the new age with courage and faith and hope, as she has ever
done, and the 'glory of the latter house will be greater than that of
the former'! 'As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,'
embodies a great truth which your muddle-headed friend was trying to
express. He thought, and alas! he is not alone in so thinking, that
the _form_ makes the stability, whereas it is the eternal stability
of the English character in which he believes, and so do I."
So with these comforting thoughts I am going to bed. My Tory friend
was right in one respect--it has not been a restful day!