CANON E.W. BARNES
_True religion takes up that place in the mind which superstition
would usurp, and so leaves little room for it; and likewise lays us
under the strongest obligations to oppose it.--BISHOP BUTLER.
Socrates looked up at him, and replied, Farewell: I will do as you
say. Then he turned to us and said, How courteous the man
is!--PLATO._
In this able and courageous Doctor of Science, who came to theology from
mathematics, a great virtue and a small fault combine to check his
intellectual usefulness. His heart is as full of modesty as his mind of
tentatives.
He is possessed by a gracious nature, and could no more think of raising
his voice to shout down a Boanerges than he could dream of lifting an
elbow to push his way through a press of people bound for the limelight.
It is only a deep moral earnestness which brings him into public life at
all, and he endeavours to treat that public life not as it is but as it
ought to be.
In "the calmness and moderation of his sentiments," in his dislike of
everything that is sensational, and of all "undue emphasis," he
resembles Joubert, who wanted "to infuse exquisite sense into common
sense, or to render exquisite sense common."
Modesty might not so hamper the usefulness of Canon Barnes if he knew a
little less than he does know, and was also conveniently blind to the
vastness of scientific territory. But he knows much; much too much for
vociferation; and his eyes are so wide open to the enormous sweep of
scientific inquiry that he can nowhere discern at present the ground for
a single thesis which effectually accounts for everything--a great lack
in a popular preacher.
I am disposed to deplore the degree both of his modesty and his
scholarship, for he possesses one of the rarest and most precious of
gifts in a very learned man, particularly a mathematician and a
theologian, namely, the gift of lucid exposition. Few men of our day, in
my judgment, are better qualified to state the whole case for
Christianity than this distinguished Canon of Westminster Abbey, this
evangelical Fellow of the Royal Society, who is nevertheless prevented
from attracting the attention of the multitude by the gracious humility
of his nature and the intellectual nervousness which is apt to inhibit
his free utterance when he approaches an audience in the region of
science.
What a pity that a clergyman so charming and attractive, and yet so
modern, who understands the relativity of Einstein and who is admirably
grounded in the physical sciences, should lack that fighting instinct,
that "confidence of reason," which in Father Waggett, an equally
charming person, caught the attention of the religious world thirty or
forty years ago.
His mind is not unlike the mind of Lord Robert Cecil, and it is curious
that even physically he should at certain moments resemble Lord Robert,
particularly in his walk and the almost set expression of his eyes. He
is tall and thin, and has the same stoop in the shoulders, moving
forward as if an invisible hand were pressed against the back of his
neck, shoving him forward by a series of jerks; and he seems to throw,
like Lord Robert, a particular sense of enjoyment into the motion of his
legs, as though he would get rid of all perilous swagger at that, the
less harmful end of his two extremities--the antipodes of his reason.
Like Lord Robert, too, he has a most pleasant voice, and a slow
deliberate way of speaking, and a warm kindly smile which fades at the
first movement of serious thought, leaving the whole pale face, even the
dark eyes under their heavy brows, almost deathlike in immobility. One
seems to see in such moments the spirit withdraw from the surface of
things to take up its duty at the citadel of the intellect.
The same conflict between temperament and purpose which has prevented
Lord Robert Cecil from taking his place at the head of a Government
prevents Canon Barnes from advancing at the head of modern Churchmen to
the rich future of a depaganised and wholly rational Christianity. His
heart says "Fight," but his reason says "Watch." Fighting is
distasteful; watching is congenial. Besides, while one is watching one
can review all the hypotheses. A man who is not careful in destroying a
fallacy may damage a truth.
But let us be grateful for his public utterances, which show a high
spirit, a noble devotion, an enviable range of culture, and, for the
discerning at least, tell the true time of day. It is one of the
encouraging signs of the period that such distinguished preaching should
have made a mark. Moreover, he is yet three years from fifty, with a
mind so hospitable to growth that it has no room for one of those
prejudices which are the dry-nurses of old age. Those who love truth die
young, whatever their age. Canon Barnes may yet give the Church a proof
of his power to lead--a Church at present aware only of his power to
suggest.
He considers that we are living in a time of revolution, and, judging by
historic precedents, particularly the Renaissance, he thinks we are now
in the second stage of our revolution, which is the most difficult of
all. First, comes the destruction of false ideas--a bracing time for the
born fighter; second, comes the tentative search for new ideas--an
anxious time for the responsible philosopher; third, comes the preaching
of these new ideas with passion--the opportunity of the enthusiast.
Happy were the divines of the seventeenth century!
We, however, are in the second stage.
This is not a period for new ideas: it is a period of searching for the
best idea. He who rushes forward with an untried new idea may be more
dangerous than he who still clings, in the Name of Christ, to an old
idea which is false. We must be quite certain of our ground before we
advance with boldness, and our boldness must be spiritual, not muscular.
Modernism has fought and won the battle of verbal inspiration. No man
whose opinion counts in the least degree now holds that the Bible was
verbally inspired by God. It is respected, honoured, loved; but it is no
longer a fetish. In ceasing to be a superstition, and in coming to be a
number of genuine books full of light for the student of history, the
Bible is exercising at the present time an extraordinary influence in
the world, a greater influence perhaps on thoughtful minds than it ever
before exercised.
The battle which modernism is now fighting over this collection of books
concerns the Person of Jesus and the relative value of the gospels which
narrate His life, and in the case of the Fourth, endeavour to expound
His teaching. This great battle is not over, but it looks as if victory
will lie with the more moderate school of modernists. Outside very
extreme circles, the old rigid notions concerning the Person of Jesus
are no longer held with the passion which gave them a certain noble
force in the days before Darwin. There is now a notable tell-tale
petulance about orthodoxy which is sometimes insolent but never
effective.
Ahead of this battle, which the present generation may live to see
fought out to a conclusion, lies a third struggle likely to be of a more
desperate character than its two forerunners--the battle over
Sacramental Christianity. Already in France and Germany the question is
asked, Did Jesus institute any sacraments at all? But even in these two
countries the battle has not yet begun in real earnest, while over here
only readers of Lake and Kennedy are dimly aware of a coming storm. That
storm will concern rites which few orthodox Christians have ever
regarded as heathen in their spirit, though some have come to know they
are pagan in origin.
It is not wise to ignore this future struggle, but our main
responsibility is to bear a manful part in the struggle which is now
upon us.
There are three types of modernists. There is, first of all, the
Liberal, who regards Christianity as a form of Platonism resting on the
idea of absolute values. This is dangerous ground: something more is
required. Then there is the evangelical modernist, who accepts almost
everything in the Higher Criticism, but holds to Christ as an
incarnation of the Divine purpose, an incarnation, if you will, of God,
all we can know of God limited by His human body, as God we must suppose
is not limited, but still God. And, finally, there is the Catholic
modernist, who believes in a Church, who makes the sacraments his centre
of religion, and exalts Christianity to the head of all the mystery
religions which have played a part in the evolution of the human race.
This is not likely to be the prevailing type of modernism.
It looks as if the main body of modern opinion is moving in the
direction followed by the second of these schools--the evangelical. Here
is preserved all that great range of deep feeling and all that fine
energy of unselfish earnestness which have given to Christianity the
most effectual of its impulses. A man may still worship Christ, and
still make obedience to the Will of Christ the chief passion or object
of his existence, although he no longer believes that Jesus was either
born out of the order of nature or died to turn away the vengeance of
God from a world which had sinned itself beyond the reach of infinite
love.
Like Goethe, such a man will say: "As soon as the pure doctrine and love
of Christ are comprehended in their true nature, and have become a
living principle, we shall feel ourselves great and free as human
beings, and not attach special importance to a degree more or less in
the outward forms of religion."
The critics of modernism do not seem able, for some reason, to grasp a
truth which has been apparent all down the ages, a truth so old that it
is almost entitled to be regarded as a tradition, and so widely held
that it is almost worthy to be called catholic, namely, the truth that
Jesus loses none of His power over human history so long as He abides a
living principle in the hearts of individual men. So long as He
expresses for mankind the Character of God and reveals to mankind the
nature of God's purpose, so long as men love Him as they love no other,
and set themselves to make His spirit tell, first in their lives and
after that in the world about them, does it greatly matter whether they
speak of His divinity or His uniqueness, whether they accept definitions
concerning Him (framed by men in the dark ages) or go about to do His
will with no definitions in their mind at all beyond the intellectual
conviction that here is One who spoke as no other man has spoken since
the creation of the world?
Canon Barnes, who disowns the name of modernist, but who is the very
opposite of an obscurantist in his evangelicalism, is careful to insist
upon a _rational_ loyalty to Christ. I tried one day to tempt him on
this head, speaking of the miraculous changes wrought in men's lives by
religious fervour pure and simple; but it was in vain. He agrees that
religious fervour may work such miracles: he is the last man in the
world to dismiss these miracles as curious and interesting phenomena of
psychology; but he insists, and is like a rock on this matter, that
emotional Christianity is not safe without an intellectual background.
He makes me feel that his modernism, if I may presume to use that term,
is an evangelical desire of his soul to give men this intellectual
background to their faith. He wants, as it were, to save their beliefs
rather than their souls. He regards the emotionalist as occupying
territory as dangerous to himself and to the victory of Christianity as
the territory occupied by the traditionalist. Both schools offend the
mind of rational men; both make Christianity seem merely an affair of
temperament; and both are exposed to the danger of losing their faith.
To convert the world to the Will of God, it is essential that the
Christian should have a rational explanation of his faith, a faith
which, resting only on tradition or emotion, must obviously take its
place among all the other competing religions of mankind, a religion
possessing no authority recognised by the modern world.
The modern world rightly asks of every opinion and idea presented to its
judgment, "Is it true?" and it has reason on its side in being sceptical
concerning the records of the past. If not, there are religions in the
world of an antiquity greater than Christianity's, whose traditions have
been faithfully kept by a vaster host of the human race than has ever
followed the traditions of Christianity. Is it to be a battle between
tradition and tradition? Is age to be a test of truth? Is devotion to a
formula to count as an argument?
The emotionalist, too, is no longer on safe ground in protesting his
miracles of conversion. The psychologist is advancing towards that
ground, and advancing with every theory of supernatural evidence
excluded from his mind. The psychologist may eventually be driven to
accept the Christian explanation of these phenomena; but until that
surrender is made the emotionalist will not be the power in the world
which he ought to be. His house, too, must be founded upon a rock.
Let us not be afraid of examining our faith, bringing our minds as well
as our hearts and our souls to the place of judgment.
I will give here a few quotations from the utterances of Canon Barnes
which show his position with sufficient clearness.
We all seek for truth. But, whereas to some truth seems a tide
destined to rise and sweep destructively across lands where Jesus
reigned as the Son of God, to me it is the power which will set
free new streams to irrigate His Kingdom.
As is obvious to everyone, all the Churches realise, though some do
not acknowledge, the necessity of presenting the Christian Faith in
terms of current thought.
We have seen the urgent need of a fuller knowledge of the structure
of the human mind if we would explain how Jesus was related to God
and how we receive grace from God through Christ.
I am an Evangelical; I cannot call myself a modernist. I have
welcomed the intervention of those who, disclaiming any knowledge
of scholarship or theology, have in simple language revealed the
power of Christ in their lives. For theory and practice,
speculation and life, cannot be separated. We cannot begin to
explain Jesus until we know how men and women are transformed by
the love of Christ constraining them.
Those to whom religion is external and worship formal are of
necessity pretentious or arid in speaking of such matters as the
Person of Christ or the value of creeds.
We do not affirm that the Lord's Person and work have been central
in Christianity in the past. There is much to be said for the view
that they were, from the end of the second century to the close of
the Middle Ages, concealed beneath alien ideas derived from the
mystery religions; that the Reformation was the hammer which broke
the husk within which, under God's providence, the kernel had been
preserved during the decline and eclipse of European civilisation.
. . . as religion grows in richness and purity, Jesus comes to His
own.
Reason and intuition combine to justify the belief that our Lord
had a right understanding of what man can become.
We say that man is not only a part of the evolutionary process. His
highest attributes must serve to show its purpose. They reveal the
nature and the end of God's plan.
. . . as man develops in the way predestined by God, he will
continually approach the standard set by Jesus. Jesus will ever
more completely draw men and inspire them because they will more
fully understand that He explains them to themselves.
The present degradation of human life is due to man's refusal to
accept Christ's estimate of its values and duties. It will endure
so long as the work and Person of Christ are refused their right
place in human thought and aspiration.
Jesus still lives, great and unexplained.
From these quotations it will be seen that Canon Barnes is not searching
the documents of Christianity for a new hypothesis, but rather for a new
understanding by which he may be able to present the historic power of
Christianity in terms of modern thought. Jesus remains for him the
central Figure of evolution. "Human thought," he declares, "as moulded
by developed aspirations and accumulated knowledge, will not sweep past
Jesus but will circle round Him as the centre where God revealed
Himself."
Perhaps we shall best understand the position of Canon Barnes if we see
him, neither on this side nor on that of the warring controversy, but
rather among the entire host of Christianity, warning all schools of
thought, all parties, all sects, that they must prepare themselves for
the final strife which is yet to come, that great strife, foreseen by
Newman, when the two contrary principles of human life, the Good and the
Evil, shall rush upon each other contending for the soul of the world.
Christianity must become united and strong at its centre, if it is to
withstand this onslaught.
He is not to be thought of as one who would adapt religion to the needs
of the day, but as one who believes that, thoroughly understood,
religion is adequate to the needs, not only of our day, but to the needs
of all time. For to Canon Barnes, religion is simply the teaching of
Christ, and Christ is the revelation to man of God's nature and purpose.
He would simplify dogma in order to clarify truth. He would clarify
truth in order to enlarge the opportunities of Christ. He would call no
man a heretic who is not serving the devil. None who seeks to enter the
Kingdom will ever be hindered by this devout disciple of truth in whose
blood is no drop of the toxin of Pharisaism.
You may see the intellectual charity of the man in his attitude towards
other teachers of our time whose views are opposed to his own. Of Dean
Inge he has spoken to me with almost a ringing enthusiasm, emphasizing
his unbounded force, his unbounded courage; and of Bishop Gore with the
deepest respect, paying reverent tribute to his spiritual earnestness;
even the Bishop of Zanzibar provokes only a smile of the most cheerful
good humour.
He inclines quietly towards optimism, believing in the providence of God
and thinking that the recent indifference to religion is passing away.
Men are now seeking, and to seek is eventually to find. This seeking, he
observes, is among the latest utterances of theology, a fact of
considerable importance. To keep abreast of truth one must neither go
back nor stand still. Men are now not so much swallowing great names as
looking for a candle.
Not long ago he paid a visit to a favourite bookshop of his in
Cambridge, and inquired for second-hand volumes of theology. "I have
nothing here," replied the bookseller, "that would interest you. The
books you would like go out the day after they come in, sometimes the
same day." Then pointing to the upper shelves, "But I've plenty of the
older books"; and there in the dust and neglect of the top shelves Canon
Barnes surveyed the works of grave and portentous theologians who wrote,
some before the days of Darwin, and some in the first heyday of
Darwinism. He said to me, "Lightfoot is still consulted, but even
Westcott is now neglected."
He spoke of two difficulties for the Church. One is this: her supreme
need at the present time is men for the ministry, the best kind of men,
more men and much better men, men of learning and character, able to
teach with persuasive authority. It is not the voice of atheism we hear;
it is the voice of the Church that we miss. But, as Bishop Gore claims,
most of the theological colleges are in the hands of the
traditionalists, and the tendency of these colleges is to turn out
priests rather than teachers, formalists rather than evangelists. Such
colleges as represent the evangelical movement are, thanks to their
title deeds, largely in the hands of pious laymen not very well
educated, who adhere rigidly to a school of thought which is associated
in the modern mind with an extreme of narrowness. Thus it comes about
that many men who might serve the Church with great power are driven
away at her doors. Something must be done to get men whose love of truth
is a part of their love of God.
The second difficulty concerns the leadership of the Church. Bishops
should be men with time to think, able when they address mankind to
speak from "the top of the mind"; scholars rather than administrators,
saints rather than statesmen; but such is the present condition that a
man who is made a bishop finds himself so immersed in the business of a
great institution that his intellectual and spiritual life become things
of accident, luxurious things to be squeezed into the odd moments, if
there are any, of an almost breathless day. This is not good for the
Church. The world is not asking for mechanism. It is asking for light.
It is, indeed, an over-organised world working in the dark.
Canon Barnes, however, is not concerned only with the theological
aspects of Christianity. For him, religion is above all other things a
social force, a great cleansing and sanctifying influence in the daily
life of evolving man. One may obtain a just idea of his mind from a
pronouncement he made at the last conference of Modern Churchmen:
We cannot call ourselves Christians unless we recognise that we
must preach the Gospel; that we must go out and labour to bring men
and women to Christ.
The Kingdom of God is a social ideal.
Modern Churchmen cannot stand aloof from intellectual, political,
and economic problems.
To bring the Gospel into the common life, to carry the message and
sympathies of Jesus into the factory, the street, the house, is an
urgent necessity in our age.
He sees Christianity, not as an interesting school of philosophy, not as
a charming subject for brilliant and amicable discussions, but as a
force essential to the salvation of mankind; a force, however, which
must first be disentangled from the accretions of ancient error before
it can work its transforming miracles both in the heart of men and in
the institutions of a materialistic civilisation. It is in order that it
should thus work in the world, saving the world and fulfilling the
purposes of God, that he labours in no particular school of the Church,
to make the reasonableness of Christ a living possession of the modern
mind.
Supreme in his character is that virtue Dr. Johnson observed and praised
in a Duke of Devonshire--"a dogged veracity."
GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH
BOOTH, W. BRAMWELL, General of the Salvation Army since 1912; e.s. of
late General Booth; b. Halifax, 8 March, 1856; m. 5882, Florence
Eleanor; two s. four d. Educ.: Privately. Commenced public work 1874;
Chairman of the S.A. Life Assurance Society and the Reliance Bank; Chief
of Staff, Salvation Army, 1880-1912. Publications: _Books that Bless;
Our Master; Servants of All; Social Reparation; On the Banks of the
River; Bible Battle-Axes; Life and Religion;_ and various pamphlets on
Social and Religious Subjects.
[Illustration: GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH]