Wisdom is an attribute of old age; not because the faculties grow keener,
but rather because the feelings are less vivid, whence there is less
bias. By this change the mind becomes more patient, more just, therefore,
towards those of opposite opinions; and this should, above most other
things, bring toleration to bear on religion.
Men like Disraeli, who are a creed unto themselves, are strongly
impressed with the importance of religion to an ignorant country. They
are aware that it is unlike what is discovered to us by Nature, that it
is a sort of distinguished stranger in the great system of things, of so
highly impressive a presence as to be a rival force.
In truth, religion is, in every respect, a power; and in relation to
Nature it is _imperium in imperio_, and is even more strong than Nature
in the minds of men.
It is more strong in its affinity to vast numbers, men and women, than
the dictates of nature; so strong is its hold that it more frequently
culminates in madness than does any other passion.
This should be a warning to the highly endowed intellectual and less
emotional class, not to regard religious belief as a subject of too
severe analysis and correction. Let them bear in mind that when it is of
a kind to restrain evil, to paralyze with fear the murderer’s hand, to
overawe the adulterer, to intimidate the unjust in their dealings, to
make them do unto others as they would be done by themselves, it is not
only a grand factor for good in human affairs, but that it is a better
teacher than Nature herself, except in the most elevated minds.
Religion has its little hypocrites, so has irreligion: which of the two
gives shelter to the largest number?
Whom do the benevolent intellects desire to teach? There are two classes
for them to look down upon. The credulous are the happiest of the two
and the best off; then why teach them to be incredulous, when there are
millions for whom even their credulity is too good?
No one who has an acute mind should suppress his view of religious
affairs, provided he is not offensive, because religion, though, like
music, susceptible of variations, will survive all else, as it has ever
done. Its durability belongs to the fact that it is emotional, and so is
spontaneous, while intellectual development necessitates labour.
Its variations have always been adapted to the character and capacity
of a people, and its trustees have always proved ready to effect this
adaptation; not always because it pays better, for what pays best is that
which is suitable.
In England there is a great variety of emotional character, and as great
a variety of creeds—some say a hundred;—so religion among us is like a
centipede, so many legs has it to go on.
What suits one people does not suit all others. Leo III. established
plenary indulgence and the release of souls from purgatory through the
virtue of a mass. This does not suit many of the English or Scotch;
indeed, should any Leo III. set up a profitable business here on the
same grounds, he would be prosecuted for obtaining money under false
pretences. But it suited the Italians at the time, and is held in favour
by many of them still.
The religion of the Irish appears to require some re-adjustment; it does
not in its present form give the Divine sanction to murder.
The most truly religious ought to be a middle class, who have a
sufficiency of good things to supply their wants in moderation. One does
not quite understand how the poor can work themselves up into gratitude
to Heaven in the midst of want, or how the rich can work themselves down
to it in the midst of superabundance.
There is one bit of advice, too, that one might give to the clergy, which
is, not to waste too much time in trying to evangelize their betters, but
rather to improve their own health by taking a course of moral mud baths
in what is understood by the East End of London.
It would cost them less in dress.
Alas! for the West and the East—the gorgeous East changed from the sunny
land into the home of the homeless, the paradise of ancient Adam yielding
them only a rotten apple off the old tree of knowledge, while the West
feeds on golden pippins! The clergy are endowed; they can afford Eastern
travel; but less than O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! they love the slums of
Shoreditch.
There is something tickling in the phrase, “the fashionable clergy.” One
meets them at the receptions of a minister of State; but they do not seem
wanted there, and they stand with their hands before them as if they had
done preaching. The same congregation will listen to them at a distance
in their box at the holy opera. But why do these good men trouble
themselves with those gilt-edged Bible-bearers, who are gathered together
in unconscious advertisement of the newest fashions from trans-Eastern
looms, and the newest feathers from the accommodating bird of paradise,
that shed them for their use?
Certainly the clergy waste their time on these delicacies of a
perfected race; they are only courtiers, clergy of the bed-chamber,
clergy-in-waiting. It is not a nice calling for one who is manly and
cultured.
But they are not all alike. Many begin by being honest, and remain so for
life.
Among the more recent events which have been of interest to me, I would
mention that, in 1885, on the eve of a general election, my son Egmont
engaged to deliver a lecture on Gordon in the chief cities; and very
efficiently he performed his task. He concluded the work at St. James’s
Hall, where I was present. I dined with the Walter Pollocks and we went
together to the lecture, at which Lord Cranborne took the chair.
The audience was much moved during the recital of those circumstances
which, easy to have been avoided, led to Gordon’s death.
After the lecture, Mrs. Pollock introduced me to Lady Wentworth and
then to Lord Wentworth, the grandson of Byron; also to the Baroness
Burdett-Coutts, the worthy daughter of our noblest patriot, Sir Francis
Burdett. This lady feelingly expressed to me her regard for Gordon, and
invited me to a pleasant luncheon at her house the next day, with Mrs.
Pollock and my son and daughter.
But I must not go on talking for ever; my only excuse is, as I have
already hinted, I am in my fourteenth year over death-time, and so far
belong, in a way, to posterity, in the name of which I have occasionally
ventured to opine. With this advantage over many contemporaries, some of
whom were once of my own age, and some who were younger, I have a right
to consider myself as my own posterity too; indeed, being fourteen years
old, as such, I may regard myself as one of the Youths of the Future.
Yet there is something wanting to me in this peculiar situation. Things
do not pass for the same as they did in one’s first youth: then I looked
forward, now I look back.
But even this living backwards is more curious than may appear at a first
glance. It is like taking up, let us say, some seven photos of one’s
self with a ten-years’ interval between each. The last is wrinkled and
bald; one looks at it and wonders how a countenance could have reached so
dilapidated a stage.
One takes up the one before; gazing at it, one tries to hope backwards,
but is not much encouraged; it is still wrinkled and bald in its sixtieth
year.
The third manifests a slight gain—the wrinkles are in part removed, as if
they had been under the beneficial influence of cosmetics.
Then comes the fourth in the order of precedence, and it is not so bad;
it has all the promise of youth.
We go back a little further; the previous likeness has kept its word—it
restores us to what we have been missing so long—our early prime.
But here sets in a most strange mental confusion. Up to this time
we have been hoping backwards; we have looked over a past life with
ever-increasing hope of the yet better days; our hair has been restored
to its pristine beauty, our wrinkles are as if they had never been, our
eyes are lustrous, our first youth returns; we shall soon be fourteen
years of age once more. Of a sudden, after hoping backwards all this way
and becoming our former selves more and more, we encounter our old hopes;
so we are hoping both ways—backward, to our beautiful first childhood,
forward to our second, in the midst of a mental hurricane, whirling us in
an instant into old age again. So ends the pleasing retrospect—our second
youth as far off as ever from our first.