So much, then, for the _how_ of the Salvation Army. Let us now consider
if it has helped us to the _why_—nay, if it has not absolutely told us
the _why_! Did we not instinctively catch at something we saw two or
three times rising before us as with small but teleological significance
in it? Did we not feel, as we uttered that expression with which this
something inspired us, that here was the _why_ in propria persona?
_Religious Socialism._
In this state of affairs—the powerlessness of the Socialists to bring
home to the People the great idea of social improvement: in the misery
unspeakable of the People; in the atmosphere heavy with the degradation
of the People—what is it that the People has done? _It has evolved a
movement_, _no longer from_ without, _but from_ within _itself_. _It has
sought for consolation for its unspeakable wretchedness in the perennial
spring of Religion, of the yearning love of Jesus. It has, at the touch
of the first match that came to it, blazed up into the flaming fire of
Religious Socialism._
In the early part of the thirteenth century the People did the same, the
People of Italy. But what a heaven lies between the man who led _that_
movement and the man that is leading this! O my eloquent Rationalists, O
my loquacious Secularists, both of you whom I esteem so much—how ready
are you to talk of the degradation which that gigantic superstition and
delusion, Christianity, wrought upon the People! Whenever are you tired
of brandishing “starry Galileo” and scattering the scattered dust of
poor old Copernicus in the face of Catholicism, making it to tremble and
sneeze fearfully? Does it never occur to you that that divine Goddess
Scientia, whom you worship with such noble devotion, has wrought a
far deeper degradation on the people than Catholicism ever did? Have
you never seen, crouching under the shadow of your railways and your
telegraphs and all your improved machinery, the unspeakable wretchedness
of London, of Birmingham, of Manchester, of Glasgow? And now that this
People, whose lives your Goddess has made of such a sort that they will
not stand too favourable a comparison with those of dogs—now that this
People, in its passionate searching after some consolation, however
slight, of whatever sort, seizes on this creature of superstition and
delusion, this Jesus who is _only a man, just like you or me_, and
whom you have so triumphantly proved so, and makes him the text for
this flaming fire of Religious Socialism—has it never struck you, O my
eloquent Rationalists, O my loquacious Secularists, what an appalling
difference there is between Salvation Army banners, handkerchiefs,
brass-bands, and concertinas, and the “green boughs, flags, music, and
songs of gladness” that came forth from the Umbrian towns and villages
to welcome Francis of Assissi? have you never felt that there is any
essential difference between the perpetual Revivalist hymn of “My Jesus
to know and to feel his blood flow,” and the “Canticle of the Creatures?”
But, above all, have you never felt that it is more to that divine
Goddess Scientia, whom you worship with such noble devotion, than to
anything else that this appalling difference is due?
And you, O my Middle-class, of whom I am so humble a unit, did it
ever occur to you that it is rather a foolish thing to paint a boy’s
face black and then be shocked at it? If the People, its foulness and
its ferocity, makes you shiver and shudder, who pray made it foul and
fierce but you who govern it?—What do you say? “It was no business of
yours?” That was what Cain said, but respectable Christians like you
are not surely going to take that eminent casuist as your mouth-piece?
If you were Atheists or Agnostics, now, worshippers of “the struggle
for existence and survival of the fittest,” of course that would be
another matter, but you are Christians, respectable Christians who
always wear black coats on Sundays, and object to having the Library and
Picture-Gallery open.
Well, there! I cannot make myself angry with you, my dear Middle-class.
I admire your good qualities too much for that—too much indeed, as I
often tell myself; for who shall say but that my belief in your ultimate
regeneration and new birth unto a really glorious place in a true
civilization be not, after all, but infatuation? Here is Carlyle, whom
we all love and admire so, trying to be our benefactor by demonstrating
to us our illusions on this matter, and telling us, ever since 1830, of
the “steady approach of democracy with revolution (probably explosive)
and a finis incomputable to man; steady decay of all morality, political,
social, individual; this once noble England getting more and more
ignoble, and untrue in every fibre of it, till the gold (Goethe’s
composite king) will all be eaten out, and noble England will have to
collapse in shapeless ruin, whether for ever or not none of us can
know.” Really there are hours when I am made quite to suffer by thinking
of what is going to happen to my dear Middle-class when the People rise
unanimously against it,—“roaring million-headed unreflecting, darkly
suffering, darkly sinning ‘Demos’” (as Carlyle says again), “come to call
its old superiors to account at its maddest of tribunals.” It will, I
fear, be little good for the Mr. Caffyns of those times to write letters
to the _Argus_ of those times, explaining the physiological aspects of
the movement. On such an occasion in Paris, in 1793, Mr. Caffyns went up
into the arms of La Guillotine for much less heinous offences than that,
and who would be left capable of recording whether, in this case, they
went up “with a tripping movement” (as Mr. Caffyn tells us the fanatical
“Hallelujah lasses” go), or whether they marched, as perhaps Mr. Caffyn
himself marches to church or chapel every Sunday morning, to the
edification of all beholders? But let us not think of such an appalling
spectacle. Mr. Caffyn is still with us, and the _Argus_ is still with us,
and perhaps some morning we shall have some more brilliant letters on the
physiological aspects of Mr. Caffyn’s friends, the hallelujah lasses.
I cannot, I say, make myself angry with you, my dear Middle-class of
England (and you might plausibly suggest that it would not matter much if
I did), and how then shall I even frown at this Middle-class of Victoria,
about whom (if Carlyle is right) I am more infatuate still? Does not
the People breathe free in Australia? Are we not liberated here from
that charming “Upper Ten Thousand” which monopolises the best of the bad
education England has to offer, the Public Schools and the Universities?
Is there not a hope that, now that the primary education of the People is
progressing so satisfactorily, some of our young rising politicians, (or
even some of the old ones), may bring home to us the fact that we want
equally—nay, far more!—a secondary education for the Middle-class? so
that Victoria may step forward as a competitor with the most universally
civilized nation in the world, France, and teach England the unspeakable
glory and advantage of (we should call it) an Upper-class, “homogeneous,
intelligent, civilized, brought up in good public schools” (and not,
as now, in more or less good, or more or less bad, denominational, and
“private adventure” schools) “and on the first plane.”
If only this Upper-class of Victoria and of Australia generally could be
brought to see it! If only it would confess its sins, many and heinous,
against true civilization and be “converted” and lead a new life!
Nothing, I think, strikes an Englishman more, coming out here, than the
brightness and intelligence of the Victorian girls! (“Our daughters,” you
know.) And how heart-rending to discover that all this brightness and
intelligence is wasted on the mere accidents and incidents of every-day
existence! Two-shilling novels are her idea of literature: “Some day” and
“Ehren on the Rhine” her idea of music: the coloured illustrations of the
illustrated papers, her idea of art. And her brother is in a worse state!
The tortoise English girl is, after all, better than the Australian hare,
and the young male bull-dog than the kangaroo.
Everything cries out for the education, for the civilization, of the
Upper-class, the ruling class. Educate it, civilize it, let it know what
Truth is and what Beauty is, and abolish the bells and the brass-bands
for ever! If the Upper-class is beautiful, its beauty will react on
the Lower-class. Give us public schools for the Upper-class, as there
are public schools for the Lower-class. Fight tooth and nail against
any attempts after an “Upper Ten Thousand,” whether it be of land or
of wealth. Keep clearly before us the ideal of an Upper-class that
is _homogeneous_. Let us have the man of business as cultured as the
professional man, and the professional man as cultured as the man of
means. Let us be a true Republic, offering every opportunity to the
intelligence of the Lower-class to attain to the culture of the Upper.
Let us not have ten thousand aristocrats, but ten hundred thousand,
ever more and more, and never less and less! On the other hand, let us
learn from the People the great lesson which they have to teach us—the
lesson of the language of the heart. Let us learn from them the softness
of pity, yea and the richness of love. Let us give them our _Social
Socialism_ and let us take their _Religious_; for, in the perfect
marriage of light and heat, is the perfect day, the true civilization,
the beauty of the truth of Nature and of God.
_February, 1885._