IV

_LIFE AND LIBERTY_

The title is glorious; and, so far as I know, the credit of inventing

it belongs to my friend the Rev. H. R. L. Sheppard, the enterprising

Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Mr. Sheppard has what in newspapers

we call a "magnetic personality," and no one has more thoroughly

laid to heart the sagacious saying that "Sweet are the uses of

advertisement." Whatever cause he adopts, the world must know that

he has adopted it; and it shall obtain a hearing, or he will know

the reason why. The cause to which (outside his pastoral work) he

is just now devoted is that which is summarized in the phrase,

"Life and Liberty for the Church of England." It is a fine ideal,

and Mr. Sheppard and his friends have been expounding it at the

Queen's Hall.

It was no common achievement to fill that hall on a hot summer

evening in the middle of the war, and with very little' assistance

from the Press. Yet Mr. Sheppard did it, and he filled an "over-flow

meeting" as well. The chair was taken by the Rev. William Temple,

who tempered what might have been the too fervid spirit of the

gathering with the austerity which belongs to a writer on philosophy,

an ex-Head Master, and a prospective Bishop. The hall was densely

crowded with clergy, old and young--old ones who had more or less

missed their mark, and young ones keen to take warning by these

examples. There were plenty of laymen, too, quite proud to realize

that, though they are not in Holy Orders, they too are "in the

Church"; and a brilliant star, if only he had appeared, would have

been a Second-Lieutenant in khaki, who unfortunately was detained

at the front by military duties. A naval and a military chaplain

did the "breezy" business, as befitted their cloth; and, beaming

on the scene with a paternal smile, was the most popular of Canons,

who by a vehement effort kept silence even from good words, though

it must have been pain and grief to him.[*]

[Footnote *: Alas! we have lost him since.]

The oratorical honours of the evening were by common consent adjudged

to a lady, who has since been appointed "Pulpit Assistant" to the

City Temple. May an old-fashioned Churchman suggest that, if this

is a sample of Mr. Sheppard's new movement, the "Life" of the Church

of England is likely to be a little too lively, and its "Liberty"

to verge on licence? A ministry of undenominational feminism is

"a thing imagination boggles at." Here it is to be remarked that

the leaders of the movement are male and female after their kind.

Dr. and Mrs. Dingo sit in council side by side, and much regret

is expressed that Archdeacon Buckemup is still a celibate. But

let us be of good cheer. Earnest-minded spinsters, undeterred by

the example of Korah (who, as they truly say, was only a man),

are clamouring for the priesthood as well as the vote; and in the

near future the "Venerable Archdeaconess" will be a common object

of the ecclesiastical sea-shore. Miss Jenkyns, in _Cranford_, would

have made a capital Dean.

So much for the setting of the scene. The "business" must be now

considered, and we will take the programme of "Life and Liberty"

point by point, as set forth in a pamphlet by Mr. Temple. In the

first place, its leaders are very clear that they wish to keep their

endowments; but it must not be supposed that they dread reform.

Their policy is "Redistribution." Those great episcopal incomes

are again threatened; the Bishops are to be delivered from that

burden of wealth which presses so hardly on them; and the slum

parson is to have a living wage. But the incumbent, though his

income may thus be increased, is by no means to have it all his

own way. His freehold in his benefice is to be abolished; and, even

while he retains his position, he is to have his duties assigned

to him, and his work arranged, by a "Parochial Church Council," in

which the "Pulpit Assistant" at Bethesda or Bethel may have her

place. Life and Liberty indeed! But further boons are in store for

us. We have at present two Archbishops, and, I hope, are thankful

for them. Under the new scheme we are promised eight, or even nine.

"Showers of blessing," as the hymn says! I presume that the six (or

seven) new Archbishops are to be paid out of the "redistributed"

incomes of the existing two. The believers in "Life and Liberty"

humanely propose to compensate the Archbishop of Canterbury for

the diminution of his £15,000 a year by letting him call himself

a "Patriarch," but I can hardly fancy a Scotsman regarding this

as a satisfactory bargain.

But how are these and similar boons to be attained? The promoters of

Life and Liberty (not, I fancy, without a secret hope of frightening

the Bishops into compliance with their schemes) affirm their readiness

to accept Disestablishment "if no other way to self-government seems

feasible"; but they, themselves, prefer a less heroic method. While

retaining the dignity of Establishment and the opulence of Endowment,

they propose that the Church should have "power to legislate on all

matters affecting the Church, subject to Parliamentary veto....

This proposal has the immense practical advantage that, whereas it

is now necessary to secure time for the passage of any measure

through Parliament, if this scheme were adopted it would become

necessary for the opponent or obstructor to find time to prevent

its passage. The difference which this would make in practice is

enormous." It is indeed; and the proposal is interesting as a choice

specimen of what the world knows (and dislikes) as Ecclesiastical

Statesmanship.

"Life and Liberty"--there is music in the very words; and, ever

since I was old enough to have an opinion on serious matters, I

have cherished them as the ideals for the Church to which I belong.

From the oratory of Queen's Hall and the "slim" statesmanship which

proposes to steal a march on the House of Commons I turn to that

great evangelist, Arthur Stanton, who wrote as follows when Welsh

Disestablishment was agitating the clerical mind.

"Nothing will ever reconcile me to the Establishment of Christ's

Church on earth by Sovereigns or Parliaments. It is established

by God on Faith and the Sacraments, and so endowed, and all other

pretended establishment and endowment to me is profane." And again:

"Taking away endowments doesn't affect me; but what does try me

is the inheriting them, and denying the faith of the donors--and

then talking of sacrilege. The only endowment of Christ's Church

comes from the Father and the Son, and is the Holy Ghost, Which

no man can give and no man can take away.'"

Here, if you like, is the authentic voice of Life and Liberty.

V

_LOVE AND PUNISHMENT_

Lord Hugh Cecil is, I think, one of the most interesting figures

in the public life of the time. Ten years ago I regarded him as the

future leader of the Tory party and a predestined Prime Minister. Of

late years he has seemed to turn away from the strifes and intrigues

of ordinary politics, and to have resigned official ambition to his

elder brother; but his figure has not lost--rather has gained--in

interest by the change. Almost alone among our public men, he seems

to have "his eyes fixed on higher lodestars" than those which guide

Parliamentary majorities. He avows his allegiance to those moral

laws of political action of which John Bright so memorably said

that "though they were not given amid the thunders of Sinai, they

are not less the commandments of God."

Now, the fearless utterance of this ethical creed does not tend

to popularity. Englishmen will bear a good deal of preaching, so

long as it is delivered from the pulpit; but when it is uttered

by the lips of laymen, and deals with public problems, it arouses

a curious irritation. That jovial old heathen, Palmerston, once

alluded to Bright as "the Honourable and Reverend Member"; Gladstone's

splendid appeals to faith and conscience were pronounced "d----d

copy-book-y"; and Lord Houghton, who knew the world as well as most

men, said, "Does it ever strike you that nothing shocks people so

much as any immediate and practical application of the character

and life of Christ?"

Lord Hugh Cecil need not mind the slings and arrows of outrageous

partisanship, so long as he shares them with Bright and Gladstone.

Just lately, his pronouncement that we ought to love the Germans,

as our fellow-citizens in the Kingdom of God on earth, has provoked

very acrid criticism from some who generally share his political

beliefs; and in a Tory paper I noticed the singularly inept gibe

that this doctrine was "medieval." For my own part I should scarcely

have thought that an undue tendency to love one's enemies was a

characteristic trait of the Middle Age, or that Englishmen and

Frenchmen, Guelphs and Ghibellines, were inclined to sink their

racial differences in the unity of Christian citizenship. Lord Hugh's

doctrine might be called by some modern and by others primitive; but

medieval it can only be called on the principle that, in invective,

a long word, is better than a short one.

Having thus repelled what I think a ridiculous criticism, I will

admit that Lord Hugh's doctrine raises some interesting, and even

disputable, points. In the first place, there is the theory of

the Universal Church as the Divine Kingdom on earth, and of the

citizenship in which all its members are united. I grant the theory;

but I ask myself if I am really bound by it to love all these my

fellow-citizens, whatever their conduct and character may be. Love

is an elastic word; and, if I am to love the Germans, I must love

them in some very different sense from that in which I love my country

and my race. It really is, in another form, the old controversy

between cosmopolitanism and patriotism. The "Enthusiasm of Humanity"

is a noble sentiment; but the action of our fellow-members of the

human family may be such as to render it, at least for the moment,

impossible of realization. Under the pressure of injury from without,

cosmopolitanism must contract itself into patriotism. We may wish

devoutly that the whole human family were one in heart and mind--that

all the citizens of the kingdom of God obeyed one law of right

and wrong; but when some members of the family, some citizens of

the kingdom, have "given themselves over to a reprobate mind,"

our love must be reserved for those who still own the claim of

righteousness. If our own country stood as a solitary champion

of right against a world in unrighteous arms, patriotism would be

a synonym for religion, and cosmopolitanism for sin.

And then again I ask myself this question: Even assuming that Lord

Hugh is right, and that it is our bounden duty to love the Germans,

is love inconsistent with punishment? We postulate the love of God

towards mankind, and we rightly regard it as the highest manifestation

of what love means; but is it inconsistent with punishment for

unrighteous action? Neither Revelation, nor Nature, nor History,

knows anything of the conception which has been embodied in the

words, "a good-natured God." Of Revelation I will not speak at

length, for this is not the place for theological discussion; I

only remark in passing that the idea of punishment for wrong-doing

is not, as some sciolists imagine, confined to the Old Testament,

though there it is seen in its most startling form; in the New

Testament it is exhibited, alike by St. Paul and by St. Paul's

Master, as a manifestation of love--not vindictive, but remedial.

The disciplining love of a human father is used to illustrate the

Divine dealings with insubordinate mankind. About Nature we need

scarcely argue. "In the physical world there is no forgiveness of

sins," and rebellion against the laws of righteous living brings

penal consequences which no one can mistake. And yet again, has

History any more unmistakable lesson than that "for every false

word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust

or vanity, the price has to be paid at last"? Froude was right.

"Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes

at last to them, in French Revolutions and other terrible ways."

What we believe of the Divine Love, thus dealing with human

transgression, we may well believe of human love, when it is called

by duty to chastise unrighteousness. I do not suppose that John

Stuart Mill was actuated by hatred of Palmer or Pritchard or any

other famous malefactor of his time when he said that there are some

people so bad that they "ought to be blotted out of the catalogue

of living men." It was the dispassionate judgment of philosophy

on crime. When the convicted murderer exclaimed, "Don't condemn

me to death; I am not fit to die!" a great Judge replied, "I know

nothing about that; I only know that you are not fit to live"; but

I do not suppose that he hated the wretch in the dock. Even so,

though it may be our duty to love our enemies as our fellow-citizens

in the kingdom of God, we need not shrink, when the time comes, from

being the ministers of that righteous vengeance which, according

to the immutable order of the world, is prepared for impenitent

wrong-doing.