hasty finish. Organization and legislation are the instruments of
torture proposed for the rapid promotion of his purpose. Human
society--social and industrial--is stricken with fell disease, which can
be cured promptly by Acts of Parliament and Orders in Council. By this
drastic method the "organic welfare" of society is to be builded while
you wait. The State is to be organized, thought is to be organized, the
will is to be organized, and happiness is to be organized, and nothing
of consequence is to be left unorganized; while the mere individual is
to be wiped from the map as an unnecessary dot of disfigurement upon it.
Wealth is to be handled by a new and better process; wealth is to be
conscripted, which means one man is to make it and another man is to
take it. Labour is not to be dealt with as a marketable commodity. It
is an insult to the dignity of labour to measure a man's work and pay
him exactly what his day's toil is worth in the market. The working-man
is a member of the universal brotherhood, and needs elbow-room in the
community to spread himself. He must have the wages he hankers after,
and when too weary to work a pension granted from the State to make
comfortable his latter end. In fact in Utopia every man, woman, and
child claims sufficient income independent of work, and the State must
be Paymaster-General.
Alas! universal happiness on these idealistic lines of compulsion and
greed is like an echo. It answers your call but does not come. Socialism
makes no progress in saving men; it has eyes to see man's misery, but no
hands to lift him out of it.
The longer I live the more I am convinced that this great and vital
problem of social regeneration is to be engineered only by slow
gradations and with infinite patience and gentleness. Society is
composed of dense masses and millions of frail, erring human beings, and
to schedule a sudden inrush of perfect laws on the statute-book will not
breed an improved strain of perfect citizens who can live up to the pose
of perfection. You cannot legislate selfishness and weakness and
greediness and vice out of human nature quickly, as you wring dirty
water out of a wet sponge; neither can you pump purity and patience and
brotherly love into humanity by Act of Parliament, and out of such
shoddy material weave an ideal State in one round of the clock. Perfect
laws are scarce as perfect men. Laws will grow better as we grow
better--gradually. Laws and men act and react upon one another in
mystic collusion. The great incoming tide of righteousness which shall
fill all things will fill them. You cannot complete and furnish the top
floor of the Palace of Humanity before you have laid the foundation
solidly and deep on the rock of righteousness.
Labour has not yet won its charter of rights because it has neglected to
perform its role of duties. Labour has to look the social problem
squarely in the face with both eyes open. At present it only opens one
eye--the eye which sees magnifically its rights. The other eye is shut
which should observe its duties. The eye of Labour that should see its
duties is sealed in darkness. The scales of Justice must balance truly
before mankind is happy ever more.
Free labour is as necessary a commodity as free sunshine in a
well-balanced State. If a man does his work well and does not require
so much beer and tobacco and time for football as another man, he should
be free to dispose of his labour as he chooses, without being picketed
or bludgeoned by lewd fellows of the baser sort. Until there prevail an
all-round correct idea of work, legislation will be a dead letter. God
has not made one sun to shine on wages and another on capital, nor has
He made two varieties of justice. He is God over all of us, and His law
is impartial justice.
Capital is not immaculate. It sits the great god incarnate on its high
gold throne, ruling men with sovereign power and using men as a means to
wealth. Its vestments are of purple and fine linen. Costly raiment to
wear, but unseemly smirched with the mud of gutter complots and stained
red with blood sweated from the poor. Capital wants washing thoroughly
from its iniquity and purging with hyssop before it is fragrant and can
discourse virtue to the working classes.
Capital and Labour must forgive each the sins of the past, and as Brains
and Hands work together in mutual confidence and esteem. Brains and
Hands are not hard-set hereditary foes. They are blood relatives,
members of the same body-politic, and must hold together for their
common good. They are not even business opponents with clashing
interests spoiling to cut each other's throat and smash the opposition
concern with fiery glee of heart. They are copartners in the same
business concern, and must combine, each having their own department to
superintend. The interest of one is the interest of the other. If one
department breaks, the other falls with it deep in disaster. Yet these
two copartners of the same business firm are hating one another with a
hot historical hatred that defies the flight of ages. They are locked
together struggling for mastery, each hoping to throw the other and
become top-dog and dictate new terms of partnership which never would be
kept, for the articles of treaty would soon become merely "a scrap of
paper." It is not conquest: it is co-operation that will bring peace
and concord between Capital and Labour.
The world is ripe for a new social programme. The war has altered the
map of Europe, and it will alter the map of men's minds. The war has
swept away old crusted conventions which cobwebbed the mind, and false
foundations of social science upon which men laboured vainly to build
Utopia. These things must be reassessed at new values.
The working-man wanted to get in the sun and own his patch as a free and
independent citizen. There is no such thing in the world as
independence, complete and arrogant: either in art, science, revolting
daughters or commerce. Independence is a fool's word or an anarchist's
battle-cry. The nearest approach to it in the realm of reality is
interdependence. Substitute this word "interdependence" in the place of
the other insolent and erroneous one and you have a working proposition,
for you establish a sense of justice between man and man, and you have
gathered together raw material out of which to build a new heaven and a
new earth.
A pre-war panacea for curing the ills of unrighteousness which blight
society was the amelioration of environment--a sonorous, windy, academic
platitude having more sound in it than sense. It was the pet scheme for
manufacturing good citizens out of bad ones; it began at the outward
condition of mankind and worked inward. It started with the barber, the
schoolmaster, and the politician. By pursuing this method they started
with folly and ended with failure. It is like telling a man to polish
his boots when his heart wants cleaning. The favourite speculation of
theorists was that perfect circumstances create perfect character. This
is attractive reading in cheap handbooks of political economy for the
working classes, but in this wicked world it fails to pan out when put
to a working test. It is more important a man should start by mending
himself, and his circumstances will quickly mend themselves.
To expect by flattening down inequalities, removing temptations, and
giving everybody a living wage of L2 per week, England will flower into
a Garden of Eden where people are all good and happy and pay no taxes,
and where angels will come and converse with us in the cool of the day,
is to expect the impossible. To expect by adapting the lot to man
instead of adapting man to his lot you will create an earthly paradise
out of a world of wickedness is to expose your ignorance of human nature
and to admit your incapacity for adjusting its wrongs.
They tell us that in the New Democracy patriotism will be scrapped.
Love of country is a parochial virtue; it will be swamped in the greater
love of humanity which will rise like a swelling flood and cover all.
In the new Garden of Eden we shall be a happy brotherhood, for the
dangerous serpent will be scotched. This doctrine is maudlin
sentimentalism with a tang of grotesque to flavour it. Humanity is an
immense crowd to fall in love with _en bloc_; each individual will
receive a very thin slice of your affection if all the world is to share
in it alike. Love will die of starvation fed on these lean rations. As
a _padre_ fresh from the Front persuasively raps out the truth, "the
would-be cosmopolitan who will not narrow himself to love of country is
rarely capable of any real self-devotion to the international ideal
which he worships. The lover of humanity is more often than not utterly
miserable travelling in a third-class railway-carriage."
Patriotism must survive as a national virtue, however violently the
universal brotherhood flourishes, because the love of country is founded
on the love of home and family, and the love of home and family is
founded on the love of a man and a woman. You can never get over this
nature-logic while men and women remain human beings with natural
instincts which draw them to love one another and preserve the family
feeling. I would rather be the victim of every insular prejudice
possible than have no British prejudices to stir my British blood.
Another hope of the ages that has failed us in the hour of need is the
Church. If all other saviours of society failed there remained the
Church as by law established to rely upon as the great regenerating
power in the land. Alas! the Church in our midst cannot cast out evil
spirits. It has lost the gift of healing through respectability. It
worships an ancient creed instead of the living Christ. Jesus of
Nazareth is the great International Democrat of history. He was a
tradesman's son and a working carpenter Himself. This fact shocks
respectability. How many more people would be Christians if Christ had
been born in a palace and not in a stable! This is the unsavoury feature
of religion, and the exclusive dignitaries of the Church hover round it
dubiously. They admit the historic fact with candour, but slither away
silently from its indelicate associations as far as decency permits.
We have been told that bishops in gaiters and aprons harmonize daintily
with the quiet cathedral close, shadowed by immemorial elms and the
other minor glories of the Establishment; but bishops in gaiters do seem
badly placed in a carpenter's shop, where their Lord and Master served
His 'prentice years. The apron is an ancient figment of clothing
bishops now wear in common with the working carpenter at his bench. It
is a kind of retaining badge, signalling their humble origin and ancient
descent.
Bishops, in general, are cultured and amiable men, more renowned for
their learning than their piety. They are appointed by the State, and
form the executive of the ecclesiastical machine to run the traditional
piety of the land. They sometimes quarrel amongst themselves as to who
is orthodox and who is not on the episcopal bench--quarrelling amongst
bishops is only a human diversion--but touching the righteousness which
is in the law they are all blameless men. There is something faulty in
the religion they inculcate, for it does not grip the people. It is
dreamy; it is not real. It is the vague pursuit of an unknown god
ranging through a maze of decorative ritual and symbol, and there remain
great arid spaces in our nature which it never fills up.
It has been said that the visible Church stands in the way of spiritual
enlightenment of the people, just as stone idols of the heathen stand in
the way of apprehension of God. What the eye sees before it the mind
settles down upon, and roams no farther searching for a fuller vision of
spiritual truth. The savage sees his stone idol, and never thinks
beyond it religiously. It was his father's god, and it is god enough
for him.
The good Churchman is equally content to know nothing beyond the
religious ceremonials which the Church ordains in the place of God, the
Spiritual Father of us all. These ceremonials, sanctified by long
observance, quenched the religious thirst of his forefathers, and they
quench his thirst and he is satisfied. The Church is tenacious of her
hold on men, not suffering the allegiance of the people to be shifted
back to God the Father. The Church is said to be the one and only
sacred aqueduct through which Divine grace can flow. The curse of the
community is the middleman. He takes a heavy toll of profit in every
business that feeds the people bodily or spiritually.
The New Democracy must return to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth to
lay a solid foundation on which to build social righteousness and
national greatness. The secret elements of social rectitude slumber in
the words of Christ, and the volcanic action of the war will blast them
into life and power.
Jesus Christ was not a theologian or schoolman of the fossil type of
Gamaliel or Calvin, learned in booklore, but ignorant of men. He was
not a stump orator inflaming the radical passions of the masses, bating
them into red fury by pictorially describing the wickedness of the
classes. He proposed no easy road to riches as a trap to catch the
envious poor. He did not sit in his study formulating a scientific
creed to mystify people with a religion of words and phrases; He lived
in the open air a noble life that men could see and believe in. It is
the mind, not the soul, that asks a creed to help its faith; the heart
believes without the crutches of theological formula to support it. He
stood for goodness pure and simple, for rich men and poor men alike.
His teaching is exemplified in His life, and His life is a beautiful and
faithful commentary on His teaching.
The careless world did not relish this straight talk on goodness--indoor
and outdoor goodness. It was too realistic, too personal in its touch;
but men are growing sensible now as the world grows older, and with
reawakened conscience ask for the truth instead of its theological
counterfeit, which does not heal the wounded spot. Out of the teachings
of Jesus of Nazareth grow eternal principles that build up the best
governments and the wisest laws, that train the finest citizens, and
regulate society on a basis of righteousness and mutual honour. The
seeds of all possible national prosperity and generous manhood lie
embedded in these teachings. Nations may rise, flourish, and decay, but
the nation with the blood of Christ in its veins is immortal and shall
endure for ever. May it be the British nation!
*XII*
*JESUS CHRIST THE LURE OF THE AGES*
Jesus Christ is the lure of the ages. He is the most interesting figure
in history. History says little about Him, yet that little means much to
us. It whets the appetite for more knowledge. The little is distinctly
fascinating; what would be a full record of His sayings and doings,
suppose such a narrative displayed in faded manuscript were unearthed
from the musty archives of an old Eastern monastery and brought to
daylight in the twentieth century? The fragmentary record that we hold
is sufficiently vital to have kept His memory green for nearly two
thousand years. What a glorious find a continuation of the wonderful
story would be to those hungering for larger knowledge of their Lord's
earthly life!
Jesus Christ is the unplaced figure in history. He occupies no niche in
the secular temple of Fame. No historian of the country in which He
lived paged His name amongst the worthies of the age or gave it mention
in a footnote of history. Outside the covers of the Sacred Book Jesus
Christ is an unknown quantity. During His lifetime the insignificance
of the movement He promoted in Galilee was unworthy of serious attention
from the authorities. His disciples were men of obscure origin, a mere
handful of ignorant peasants and fishermen, rated as misguided, harmless
fanatics following a crazy leader to oblivion, the foreordained end of a
madman's escapade. Others before Him had started forth on the splendid
expedition to set the world in order and were interrupted in the
performance of their formidable task. It was towering madness to
suppose permanent results could follow a single-handed fight against the
world; to think that He could disturb the well-founded authority of King
Herod or challenge Caesar seated in purple power on the seven hills of
Rome: as likely He might uproot the seven hills themselves which cradle
the imperial city on their nursing-lap. Yet to-day He ranks above all
competing heroes and overlords earth and heaven in the compelling
influence His solitary life imposes on the world's activities, and that
influence is only just beginning to be felt by us; eventually it will
succeed in refashioning the world after His own heart and conforming it
to the likeness of His own image.
Jesus Christ is the lonely figure in history. He launched His mission on
the world without human patronage to give it a winning start.
Illustrious men of the age did not do Him reverence, nor contribute
their sympathy and support to stiffen His cause; they were frankly
hostile to Him. He had no family influence to help Him in the great
adventure; His ancestry was illustrious, but His relatives were poor and
uninfluential folk; His father was a village tradesman. He was not a
University man distinguished in letters to gain the ear of the cultured
classes. He had no well-to-do friends to back Him either socially or
financially. No man ever stood more remote from the world's
conventional smile than He did. He was a rank outsider. He battled
onward through resisting foes, upholding the shining truth as a
sun-bright banner for brave men to rally round and fight for the kingdom
of God and the empire of good souls on earth. He dwelt in spiritual
isolation, for a mighty purpose cut Him off from the current influences
of His time. The world's cold stare was the freezing recognition given
Him, and it chilled the finer sensibilities of His loving nature.
There was nothing professional about Jesus Christ. He was not a
place-seeker. He held no office in Church or State. He was a plain
citizen, plainly dressed. His manner was simple and natural and without
side. His speech was of the people; He was one of the crowd. No
glittering halo aureoled His brow, promoting Him beyond His brethren.
As a prophet, appearances were dead against Him. Why should He rise
above his class-level and teach His betters and superiors high morality
and spiritual truth? He had no crumbs of learning Himself--how could He
feed others out of an empty basket? He had never studied in the schools
and won academic distinction! Surely He overstepped Himself. His
neighbours resented His common everyday look, easy manner, and arrogant
pretensions. These things did not mix well together. They denounced
His new, strange teachings as dangerous to the community; He was an
unchartered, restless demagogue, roaming the country, disturbing the
public weal. They scoffed at this common villager and His idle dream of
founding a kingdom of righteousness built on the dregs of humanity, and
derisively asked "When shall this kingdom come?"
Now, John the Baptist, hermit of the wilderness, was a prophet after
their own heart. He played up to their ideal. He quickened their hot
imagination. He was aglow with colour. He was a human tornado. His
defiant attitude, eccentric apparel, and mystic fervour, were vividly
picturesque; they caught the eye and compelled attention. He was an
untamed child of the desert; he stood aloof from the common crowd. Even
high-toned Pharisees were glamoured by his romantic pose. They listened
raptly to his fiery message, and were fascinated by his insolent tongue
and audacious words shot bolt-straight at them. His hearers staggered
whilst he thundered burning condemnations on their smug sins and sordid
lives; they writhed in agony as he lifted them from their feet and
suspended them over the bottomless pit, choking in sulphurous fumes
ascending from the fires of the damned below. Such ghastly presentment
of the truth after the good old method of the prophets churned up the
muddy depths of their polluted hearts. It converted the masses quickly,
as a visitation of the plague could drop a panicky city to its knees,
and when the excitement slowed down be as quickly forgotten as a
nine-days' wonder out of fashion. The religious revival subsided like
the froth blown off by the welcome wind of a new excitement. The
emotions of a day spent down on the banks of the Jordan with John the
Baptist, the idol of the people, were exhilarating, and something to be
remembered for a lifetime by these hard-headed old Jews, and an
interesting story to tell their children's children in years to come.
The ministry of Jesus was not effervescent in character. He could have
stormed men's imaginations with flaming pomp and splendour; He could
have ridden a chariot of fire attended by thunder and lightning as
running footmen to announce His presence, but men's hearts would have
been unmelted by such fierce demonstrations of power. It might have
awoke astonishment and intoxicated them into religious frenzy, but
afterward it would have left behind a nasty chill on the heart.
Jesus Christ had no official position in the Church as a teacher. He
had no mandate from the powers that be to carry on. He did not present
Himself as a high Church dignitary, high as an enthroned archbishop
robed in scarlet and gold; nor was He comfortably placed as a canon in a
snug cathedral stall; nor even a meek young curate casting longing eyes
on Church preferment. The Church of the day would have none of Him.
They flung Him from the synagogue. His ideas were unproven and
unpalatable to His countrymen; He must build a new romantic world for
Himself and His followers to live in outside the orthodox world of His
day, if they wanted liberty to breathe, and so He began at the bottom of
society and quietly built upwards. He was just a man walking amongst
suffering humanity, and was one of the sufferers Himself. He came like
dew descending on mown grass, noiseless, fragrant, healing; silently He
ministered amongst the people, winning home to human hearts by sympathy
and gentleness and love, and gradually the new kingdom of righteousness
grew up in the midst of the weary old world. He gained dominion over men
by their resistible beauty and power of Divine truth which He expounded,
and made attractive by parable and picture and by His own blameless walk
and conversation. His teachings were exemplified in His life, and His
life shines in undimmed beauty the exemplification of His teaching. He
became a living gospel to them which all men could read, and His Divine
personality was a centre of healing power which cured men's infirmities
of body and mind. He had no money to pay for services rendered to Him,
and He gave no hopes of worldly honour or possessions to His followers.
He was homeless and at the mercy of friends for the shelter of a roof
and the hospitality of His daily meals. He had intense sympathy with
men, but He was no deluded optimist. He placed measured value on every
man's pledge of fidelity to His cause, for He knew what was in man; with
clear insight He saw into their dishonesty, selfishness, misery, but He
knew they never had had a chance to do better, and He meant to give them
a good chance all round. He frankly told people their sins, yet with
all His straight speaking He won men and women to Himself. His manner
was gracious, and He was indulgent to the frailties of our human nature
with a sympathy that pardons all. The deep longings of His heart were
for their happiness and uplifting, and the difficulty He encountered in
leading them to follow the things that made for their peace was
heartbreaking to His sensitive nature.