.......“We have to chronicle the prosecution of a new organ of the
League, _Salud y Fuerza_, published in Barcelona, on account of
an admirable article by Señor Leon Devaldez. Spain is the most
retrograde of all our European nations; but the prosecution, we
believe, will end in the defeat of the clerical party, as has
been the case in England and in France. Science is destroying
our traditional superstitions.”
I feel sure that a great many people have not the slightest idea that
not only is this detestable propaganda utterly incompatible with the
profession of Christianity, but must logically be opposed to it.
Here is a case in point. The official organ of the Malthusian League
quotes a letter from “a warmhearted clergyman,” whose name is not
given, in which he says:--
“The theory of Neo-Malthusianism finds a way out of the
difficulty. It is the use of preventive checks which, while
they make possible to all married persons the gratification of
their natural desires, will prevent the possibility of the
ordinary results of such gratification following. ‘This
clergyman,’ adds the editor, ‘is one of the few who are fit to
follow in the footsteps of Malthus, Whately, and Chalmers.’”
It is a not uninteresting speculation, which we may permit ourselves
for a moment, as to the probable identity and character of this
“clergyman.” One hopes, of course, that he was not a clergyman, and
that the editor of the journal, naturally unfamiliar with
ecclesiastical affairs, gives the title to some minister of one of the
Unitarian sects. But if the writer of the letter is really an ordained
priest, then he must surely be either--
(1) An honest fool who means to do right, and does it as far as he
knows how.
(2) A dishonest fool who means to do wrong, and does it.
(3) A fool who does whichever of the two he finds most convenient in
this or that regard.
We need not, therefore, take the anonymous writer very seriously, but
I quote him because the incident throws a side-light upon the
psychology of the half Christian. It would be as unwise as it is
unnecessary to quote freely from any of the Neo-Malthusian
publications. My business in this essay is to make it quite clear to
readers that there is a powerful and able organization which is
constantly producing literature teaching the limitation of families.
There are now six or seven “Malthusian Leagues” in existence, in
England, Holland, Germany, France, Belgium, and Spain, and a Woman’s
International Branch uniting the women of these countries, while the
printed matter issued by these organizations is enormous.
In the English journal to which I have been referring there are many
advertisements of books and pamphlets in which the wording is
undoubtedly designed to attract others than the earnest seeker after
truth. I read, to give one example, that for eightpence post free I
can obtain “_The Strike of a Sex_; or, Woman on Strike against the
Male Sex for her ‘Magna Charta.’ One of the most advanced books ever
published; intended to revolutionize public opinion on the relation of
the sexes. Should be read by every person.”
And lower down in the same column I am informed that the publishers of
this sort of thing not only sell books advocating Neo-Malthusian
practices, but are also willing to provide the means for committing
them.
So much for the unsavoury products of the Neo-Malthusian press,
products which would make the gentle old clergyman of Haileybury turn
away in loathing and disgust could he but see them. Large as the
output of this pseudo-economic obscenity is, it does not reach a
twentieth part of the people who are responsible for the decline of
the birth-rate. They have derived their knowledge from another
channel, from the instructions of the medical man or his lesser
colleague the chemist.
The poorer classes who, a few years ago were ignorant of this
propaganda, are now being instructed in it by the men from whom they
buy their medicines. Doctors, in the majority of cases, are perfectly
willing to explain to married people how they may avoid having
children by means other than those of self-control. As a rule the
medical man seems to have no conscience at all in this regard. His
point of view is too often merely materialistic and concerned with
nothing but physical function, and he has become in many cases, the
active agent of the malignant forces which are sapping our national
honour and prosperity. In discussing the question, more than one
person has expressed his amazement at the readiness of doctors to
explain and advocate the limitation of families. The doctors of
England form one of the finest classes in the community. I will
venture to say that very few men and women arrive at middle life
without experiencing a lively feeling of gratitude, friendship, or
even affection for some medical man. The devotion to his high calling,
of even the average English doctor, is a fact in the lives of nearly
all of us. It is the more surprising, and alarming also, when we
realize, as inquirers are forced to realize, how wrong and mistaken
the general attitude of the physician is towards this aspect of the
sexual relations of men and women. It is said that infidelity is rife
among those who are educated to cure our bodily ailments, that the
agnostic habit of mind is frequent in this profession. I am not
competent to judge of this, or to pronounce an opinion upon such a
statement, though my own experience is directly opposed to it. But it
is certain that until the last fifteen years the scientific
temperament was disinclined to believe in anything it could not weigh,
measure, analyze, touch, or see. Huxley, for example, was a striking
instance of this position. But science has been revolutionized within
the experience of one generation, and the “cock-sureness” has
disappeared. We are all realizing that “unseen” simply means that
which does not appeal to our sense of sight, or perhaps that which
does not appeal to any of our senses. One of the most famous and
honoured scientific men of to-day, Sir Oliver Lodge, says in regard to
miracles, “I think we should hesitate very much before saying that
they are impossible, because we do not know what may be the power of a
great personality over natural forces.”
As the years go on, we may have great hopes that the regarding of
psychology as just as much a necessary part of a doctor’s education as
biology, or therapeutics will produce a better feeling among medical
men in regard to the great question of which the statistics of the
birth-rate form the gauge. Doctors will probably understand that harm
done to the body and harm done to the soul react upon one another with
remorseless certainty, and that there can be no real separation of
spirit and matter. And directly this is understood we shall never find
medical men recommending and assisting what Dr. Roux calls “sterile
love” though some of us could find a very different name for it.
The layman unhesitatingly accepts the advice of his physician, and
here “private judgment” hardly exists. If a priest tells a certain
type of Englishman that Evening Communions spoil and maim our holiest
sacrament, and are bad for the soul, he will resent it, and say that
he will choose for himself in the matter. Yet if a doctor tells the
same person that it is dangerous to eat mushrooms that have been
gathered for more than two days, or that the irritation at his wrists
is a symptom of uric acid in the blood, there will be no question of
disbelief. The influence of doctors is incalculable, they rule us by
our fear of death and our instinct of self-preservation, and rarely do
we find that they abuse the trust reposed in them, or use their great
power for ill always excepting the instance under discussion. When,
therefore, the medical profession can be brought to see the preventive
check system as it really is, when doctors understand that
interference with natural laws induces a deterioration of character
and temperament which eventually acts upon the body for its harm, and
tends to race-degeneracy, then much will be gained. And when they
progress still further in the coming reconciliation of science with
the Christian Revelation, and own that the laws of God, set out and
promulgated by His Holy Church, are no less binding than the laws made
known by the revelation of science, then the battle will be half won.
The final victory or defeat will be with the priests and ministers of
every church and sect, the men who are the physicians of our souls.
The last few pages have been occupied with a statement of the
Neo-Malthusian propaganda. I have been careful rather to understate
than exaggerate the case. Much that I might have included,
corroborative testimony from people who know, individual instances,
letters, and so forth, has been rejected for the purposes of this
essay. Were I writing another book upon the subject I should have used
this material. In a collection of papers devoted to various subjects,
and which will have a more general appeal than a work devoted entirely
to vital statistics, it is impossible. But any one who has followed me
thus far may be sure that I have been strictly temperate in statement.
We have seen what the Neo-Malthusians, avowed and secret, are doing.
What is the Church doing to stem the evil? and what is the teaching of
the Church upon the subject?
The teaching of the Church is perfectly clear; my contention is that
it is so rarely taught as to be practically unknown to large masses of
Christians.
No one ever goes to his parish priest and asks if adultery is wrong.
Yet innumerable clergymen have told me that they are constantly asked
by parishioners if there is “any harm” in the use of methods to limit
families.
Such people are not, of course, of a very spiritual life, or very
acute intelligence, or they would easily find the answer to such a
question for themselves. But very few of us are either spiritually
minded or of uncommon intelligence, and legislation must be for the
average man. Voltaire said, “_on dit que Dieu est toujours pour les
gros bataillons_,” and what was spoken as a sneer contains the germ of
a great truth. Let me say once more, and I am certain of what I say,
that the “_gros bataillons_” are quite ignorant of their moral
obligations in marriage in so far as they relate to the question under
discussion.
Why?
The truth is, in the first instance, very difficult to convey from the
pulpit and to a mixed audience, though, to take three great names at
random, the President of the United States, and our own Bishops of
Ripon and London have spoken out. In accusing the clergy and
nonconformist ministers of shirking their duty we must remember the
enormous difficulty of their task. I have no responsibility but that
of my own conviction, and no one is compelled to buy this book who
does not wish to do so. It is therefore quite easy for me to sit in my
study and write as I am doing. But the preacher, great as his
opportunity and influence are, must by the nature of the case, be in a
very different position. He is an official and recognized leader of
his flock in spiritual affairs, a hundred considerations weigh with
him; he is constrained on all sides by prejudice and convention which
might do incalculable harm in other directions if the one was outraged
and the other ignored. The position of the priest is admirably summed
up in a pamphlet which Father Black has sent me. In it he explains
that it is impossible for a preacher when addressing a general
congregation to speak in other than general terms, or to say all that
he may feel it is, in some cases, very desirable or even necessary to
convey. He cannot but be aware that with sins of impurity especially,
the very persons who commit them are generally of too delicate ears to
endure to hear them called by their right names. This _sentimental_
purity is not incompatible with corruption of life. He wishes to warn
the innocent without enlightening their innocence, to lift the veil
sufficiently to show their sin to the guilty, and yet to teach them by
delicacy and not bring a railing accusation which would probably only
harden instead of converting.
It is gravely necessary to realize how difficult the priest’s task is,
but at the same time it is extraordinary how little organized
condemnation of the evil exists. No one can accurately measure or
gauge the influence exercised by clergy in private conversations and
admonitions, and this is doubtless considerable. But it is sporadic
and not systematic, there is too much timidity and hesitation, and
while the enemy is well organized and equipped we are without a plan
of campaign and have no regular army in the field.
The Prayer-book, in the Marriage Service, tells us explicitly, “First
it was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in
the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of His Holy Name.”
Here we have the voice of the Church speaking plainly enough, and both
it and the authority of Scripture are unanimous in clear expression or
unmistakable implication. The Christian attitude has been admirably
summed up in Father Black’s pamphlet, to which I acknowledged my
indebtedness in the preface of my book _First it was Ordained_, and
from which strong, lucid, and outspoken statement I quote a few
sentences:--
“Of this systematic wickedness, unfaithfulness is the natural
consequence in many cases. Logically there is nothing but a
sense of commercial honesty to keep a woman who has lost the
reverence of marriage to one man. The obligation has no hold on
her higher nature, and when passion or convenience press the
balance there is no sufficient reason why she should be very
scrupulous.
“If women treat themselves, and are treated by their husbands
as mere animals, all idea of chivalry is at an end; and this,
no doubt, is in a measure the ground for a license of speech
and action in even our public amusements, contrary not only to
the _ethos_ of Christianity, but to the principles of a
civilization worthy of the name.
“Women who interfere with the natural end of marriage--the
bearing of children--are wives in name, in reality prostitutes.
Men who require or encourage such acts are corrupters, not
husbands. When I said in my sermon that trifling with God’s
laws of marriage was a horrible sin, I was thinking chiefly of
the woman’s side of the matter.
“True manliness is, however, no less to be desired than true
womanliness. In the words of Lord Tennyson--
“‘Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,’ the man should
find in himself and display to his wife. Philosophy and
religion are in accord here. St. John writes to young men,
‘because ye are _strong_ and have overcome the wicked one.’
Professor Huxley, ‘that man has had a liberal education who has
been so trained that his body is the ready servant of his will;
whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will
the servant of a tender conscience, who has learned to love all
beauty and to hate all vileness, to respect others as himself.’
To me that judgment seems a manly one which pronounces the
corruption of a wife by a husband a viler thing than the
gratification of lust in the common stews. This latter less
deeply degrading to society or injurious to the nation at
large.
“But you and I, my dear sir, are Christians; and our concern is
with Christian marriage. Here, as in everything else, the truth
of Christ will deliver men from mistakes. Christian marriage in
common with all other Christian things has in it the law of
self-denial and self-conquest. Such is the Apostolic view of
it; thus it is to be ‘in the Lord,’ and only ‘in the Lord’ is
it permitted to the Christian.
“Holy Scripture is of course everywhere clear as to the end of
marriage, and God’s condemnation express against the perversion
of it, ‘the Lord slew him.’ St. Paul wills ‘that women marry
_and bear children_.’”
Is not this plain speaking? and could it be bettered as an expression
of a militant Christian’s hatred and horror of what is debasing and
foul?--I think not. We are not all given the power of feeling the
intense loathing for a very generally committed sin which is
manifested here. A life in the world and of the world induces a
tolerance which is very often laziness and cowardice. We are not to
hate the sinner, of course, but only the sin, but which of us cares to
inveigh against the vice of a friend? Savonarola was not a popular
parson, though Santa Maria del Fiore was always crowded when he was in
the pulpit. We ought to be thankful for such bludgeon-sturdy words as
these which show us the carrion-passions which war against the soul
in their true light.
I know, you know, most men know, how extraordinarily easy it is to
become familiar with our vices so that in a short time they become no
vices at all, but just little pleasant failings which we share with
some of the best fellows in the world. And all becomes dim and misty
in the shadowy thoroughfares of thought, while it is only now and
then--perhaps never at all--that some bugle-breeze blows over us and
sounds _réveillée_ to the sleeping soul.
If we are sensualists, though we don’t realize it, we always live as
though we were immortal; immortal in the sense that we shall never die
and once more be born. Yet it is a strange truth in life that the man
or woman who is converted to a clean life from sins of the body, has
often more power than any one else to warn and exhort against
sensuality. It is the man from whose eye the mote and beam has been
removed who can speak most convincingly of the horrors of the dark.
“Experto crede!” he calls out to mankind, and out of the uncleanness
is brought forth meat. Let us see what Aurelius Augustinus--that old
Father of the Church we call Saint Augustine--has to say of this
danger and sin which we are considering. We all know what the Saint’s
early life was like, what was the life of a young man at a Pagan
University in the fourth century. From his eighteenth year until he
was thirty-two the Saint whom we revere lived in open vice at
Carthage. On Easter Eve, April 387, he was baptized, and tradition
tells us that then the massive harmony of the _Te Deum_ was composed.
No theologian has influenced the mind of Christendom more greatly than
this man, not only by his writings, but by the spectacle we find in
them of the fervour and devotion of his inner life. Remember that he
knew all the bitter knowledge of lust, and hear how he writes of those
who would prevent conception:--
“Quia etsi non causa propagandæ prolis concumbitur, non tamen
hujus libidinis causa propagationi prolis obsistitur sive voto
malo, sive opere malo. Nam quid hoc faciunt quamvis vocentur
conjuges, non sunt, nec ullam nuptiarum retinent veritatem, sed
honestum nomen velandæ turpitudini obtendunt.”
And of those who use drugs to prevent the birth of children, he
further says:--
“Aliquando eo usque pervenit hæc libidinosa crudelitas, vel
libido crudelis, ut etiam sterilitatis venena procuret.
“Prorsus si ambo tales sunt, conjuges non sunt, et si ab initio
tales fuerunt, non sibi per connubium, sed per stuprum potius
convenerunt. Si autem non ambo sunt tales audeo dicere aut
illa est quodam mode meretrix mariti, aut ille adulter uxoris.”
What is to be done? What is the duty of Christians, and how shall they
combat this evil? Unless it is to spread and spread till every part of
our natural life is infected, something must be done. The
Neo-Malthusians are not only teaching married people how to avoid the
responsibilities of marriage, but they are teaching unmarried people
to do so as well. This is a fact which must not be lost sight of, as
more than one clergyman has pointed out. If fear of consequences is
removed chastity becomes more than ever threatened. If there is the
wish and inclination to sin, and that wish is only not gratified
because inconvenient results may lead to discovery, it is true that
the moral value of people in such a case is small. But a general
recognition of the fact that it is easy to sin will have incalculable
influence for harm on those who are as yet on the border-line between
the claims of self-gratification and control. Public sentiment becomes
lax and unstrung. Simultaneously with the decline of the birth-rate
the newspapers show every day that the old ideal, the sacred English
ideal of the family is departing. Our greatest living novelist says
openly, “Certainly one day the conditions of marriage will be changed.
Marriage will be allowed for a certain period, say ten years.” In
many parts of America, where the President is ceaselessly urging his
countrymen to denounce and give up Neo-Malthusian practices, the home
has already disappeared. From a large collection of information and
statistics I take only one example, quoted in a leading English
newspaper. There is no need for a single word of comment, save that I
do not vouch for the truth of the newspaper report which, in its very
appearance, proves my point.
“Mrs. Le Page, a New York lady who has just married her eighth
husband, crystallizes her experience in life.
“Five of her seven former husbands are still alive, and they
have just sent messages of encouragement to the new incumbent.
The other two have died.
“Mrs. Le Page’s maiden name was Mary Johnson, and she was the
daughter of a Connecticut farmer. She was only fourteen, but
well grown for her age, when she contracted a runaway marriage
with a seventeen-year-old Danbury clerk named William Wakeman.
In accordance with the American practice of hyphenating family
names, she became Mrs. William Johnson-Wakeman. It was a happy
marriage for three days, and then her family interfered, and
the marriage was annulled.
“Two years later, while in a New York elevated train, she made
the acquaintance of Mr. Harry Saunders, a rich contractor’s son
and a commercial traveller. After two days’ courtship she
became Mrs. Henry Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders, and lived in
perfect happiness, accompanying her husband on his travels for
three years, until he died.
“Shortly afterwards the lady married a railroad man, and was
happy as Mrs. Joseph Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers, until he
was killed in an accident. She next married a Jersey grocer,
but the bonds being severed in the Divorce Court, she married a
hotel-keeper, becoming Mrs. John
Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Lindley.
“Being once more disappointed, she was again freed by
the Divorce Court, and continued her search for the ideal
husband, whom she thought she had found when she became
Mrs. Thomas Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Lindley-Godfrey.
But John Godfrey compared unfavourably with his predecessors, and
the Divorce Court restored her freedom. On the following day she
became Mrs. Wilbury-Johnson-Wakeman-Saunders-Powers-Godfrey-Gay-
(she says that the name too well described his character, as she
shortly proved to the satisfaction of the Divorce Court) Crowther.
This husband soon revealed his true character, and she had no
difficulty in regaining her maiden liberty.
“Mrs. Benjamin (many hyphens) Le Page believes that her
husband, who is English born, and has made considerable money
in this country, is the long-sought ideal, but if he does not
prove so--she is only thirty-nine, and there is still plenty of
time to continue the search. She says that she had long wished
to marry an Englishman, having been favourably impressed by
what she had heard of their high qualities as husbands. She
intends giving the experiment a thorough trial. So far, it has
proved satisfactory, but she says that it is impossible to form
a correct judgment of any man until she has been married for
two or three weeks.
“Marriage, she says, is such a lottery, but it is the blessed
state which it is ordained every woman shall occupy. Her life’s
mission is to find a pre-ordained mate, and she would not be
deterred as many women, by a first failure, but should try and
try again until successful.
“‘My experience,’ she says, ‘is that women make a mistake in
waiting for a man to do all the wooing. When I was young and
inexperienced I fell into that error, and consequently I had
several disappointments. But when I was thirty I realized that
a woman’s duty--well, right--was to do the wooing.’”
Again I ask what is to be done to influence public opinion, to rouse
Christians in the same way that the National Conscience has been
roused upon the Drink question?
An enormous amount of good can be done by the personal efforts and
example of those in a position to influence others--pastors, doctors,
Christian layworkers. Yet is it an impossible hope that some day a
league or confraternity to fight the battle may be started? Are there
no people of sufficient weight and importance in the world’s eye to
come forward and do this, no folk whose place will secure them a
hearing, whose convictions will interest and convert others?
Eighteen months ago I published, in my book _First it was Ordained_,
the sketch of an organized society on definite lines. In the course of
the tale the founder of this league writes to an official in the
Census Office who is alarmed at the decline of the birth-rate, and
outlines the lines on which the society is to be started.