“You will see, therefore, that though there has been, and
doubtless will continue to be, a great deal of windy talk on
these matters, there is no organized body of men and women, no
league, no union, either religious or political or both, which
is devoted to dealing with the question, to rousing the
national conscience and fighting the Neo-Malthusians tooth and
nail.
“Wifehood--which generally means motherhood--is the predominant
profession of women all over the world. The future of the
world, and of course of any state in it, rests upon the quality
and the quantity of its children. A prominent sociologist has
just written, ‘If the conditions under which the profession of
motherhood is exercised are silly and rotten, our fleets, our
armies, do no more than guard a thing that dies. In Great
Britain, now, I think they are more or less silly and rotten.’
Let us admit that this writer is correct. He does no more than
voice conclusions at which even the most superficial student of
the census returns must have arrived.
“What is to be done, then? How are we who are Christians and
love our Lord, citizens who love our country, to fight the
present conditions?
“That is what a band of people, including those I have
mentioned, are discussing. They have arrived at a definite
conclusion.
“A great league is to be formed of English men and women. Great
names will be at the head of it, it is to be national. I have
already pointed out to you that even the revelations of the
census have not stirred the ordinary person. His patriotism has
not been roused, and, you may be certain--as I am certain--that
no question of national expediency on this point _will_ stir
the ordinary person, who is either indifferent or actually
engaged in helping England’s decadence by the restriction of
his own family. A league started on the grounds of expediency
and the common good alone would be an egregious failure.
“Utilitarianism never fired a great moral movement yet. It
never will; because, before a man becomes a national
utilitarian, he must get over _personal_ utilitarianism. And in
this case of the restriction of family, the degradation of
marriage, _personal_ utilitarianism is directly opposed to
national welfare, and the personal wins.
“We must come back to the one Power and Force over the hearts
and minds of men and women. We must come back to religion.
“Here is the Church’s great opportunity. There has never,
perhaps, in the whole history of the Church in England been
such a chance given to her. Our crusade must be a crusade made
in the light of the Incarnation, under the auspices of God the
Holy Ghost--_the Lord and Giver of Life_.
“Do you begin to see what I mean, what we hope for? The part of
the Holy Spirit’s work, which we recite in the Creed, has been
largely forgotten. Lord and Giver of Life! We are about to
revive the recognition and memory of the fact. We are going to
use this cardinal point of Christian belief as our watchword
and battle-cry.
“The gradual decline of literal belief in the Incarnation, the
growth of a Protestantism which is on its way towards
Unitarianism, the spread of Unitarian doctrines under other
names, among the varied sects of dissent, have meant that an
appalling disregard of life as the gift of God, its Author, has
come among us. It is because you and I believe that Jesus was
God as well as man that we insist upon the sacredness of human
life.
“To-day, the loss of thousands of lives in a battle is printed
as a piece of casual news. There is no particular sense of
horror in the minds of any one. Murders are committed every day
in momentary bursts of passion over trifles. Suicides increase,
not only when some long-continued misery may seem to give a
shadow of excuse, but when there has been some trivial
disappointment. And so, leaving out a hundred other instances,
one comes down to the truth of which every priest, every
doctor, and every nurse is aware, the frustration of God’s
intention of childbirth--the reason for the terrible
disclosures which you and your colleagues have given to the
world in your census returns.
“Our league will be, therefore, a great _Church_ League. We
shall invite every English man and woman to join it, who
believes that Christ was God. This is the only way in which we
can make such a society do its work and accomplish its end.
Directly we begin to allow the political altruist who has no
definite belief in Christianity to join us, so surely our
influence and opportunity will begin to decline. Compromise is
no use whatever. We shall be bitterly assailed, and for a time
we shall not seem to make much headway. I say _seem_, and for
this reason: people who belong to us will not advertise their
membership. The press, which is not interested, as a whole, in
religious affairs, will not understand our aims, nor will it
be--so I imagine--in sympathy with them. And any movement that
has for its object, as this will have, the improvement of
sexual morality, will be fought by the methods of ridicule and
contempt. But this will be but surface, and in time the
influence of our work will not only be felt, but seen. The
wizards of figures will be at work once more.”
Is this a dream and impracticable? It is for the great middle classes
of England to answer during the coming years. The middle classes
really rule. They do not command public opinion, but they do what is
more than that--they persuade it. They represent more than the
remaining classes the austerity and also the Christianity of the
United Kingdom and the Dominions beyond the seas.
The question rests with them, and there are many who still hope and
believe they will be faithful to their trust who are convinced--“DABIT
DEUS HIS QUOQUE FINEM.”