children of the East End, and the boys of Canada, Australasia, and South
Africa, are meeting and mingling with Gurkha and Sikh, and with each
other. They are sharing a common discipline, a common adventure, making
sacrifice together. They are seeing each other with eyes from which the
scales are falling, and knowledge and understanding are growing out of
their contact. The farthest reaches of Empire have been brought nearer
to the Empire's heart by this brotherhood in arms, and the barriers
between classes have been lowered until a man can step across them
without climbing. The distance between East and West has been
immeasurably shortened, whether we are thinking in terms of London, or
of the Empire.
In our consideration of this whole subject we are to take the Christian
standpoint. To us, the words "Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in
Heaven," on Divine lips were more than a pious wish. They were a great
intention, the expression of age-long purpose. We believe that the gains
of the centuries--the harvest of the past which is worth
conserving--have been secured by moral and spiritual conquest, rather
than by military or political achievement. There may be elements in our
present forms of unity which we may well allow to go by the board. The
things that make for permanence will abide not only with an enlightened
statesmanship, but with a growing understanding, an ever broadening
interpretation of Christian teaching about
The Kingdom of God on earth,
The Universal Fatherhood of God, and
The brotherhood of man,
leading the nation to see that the knowledge of God and of His Christ is
the rightful inheritance of every son of the Empire.
As these great ideals of social life have been interpreted in the life
of either sovereign peoples or subject peoples, so, we believe, and only
so, have bonds been forged that can be trusted to stand the strain which
time and changing condition and circumstances impose.
Unity, even the Empire itself ultimately, depends, as we believe, on a
broad-based statesmanship, carrying up the main principles of our
Government to their highest power in action, and, constantly throughout
the Empire, mediating those doctrines to the peoples concerned as they
are able to bear them, with ever-extending inspiration and encouragement
to growth and development.
Our Imperial aims are neither antagonistic to nor inconsistent with our
Christian programme. That should constitute a challenge to the Christian
Churches, and is in itself a matter for high and solemn pride. The war
has cleared the air. As stated during this period, the ideal of a
federation of nations, free, independent, and at the same time
interdependent, each working out its national destiny, each
contributing, in terms of opportunity, to the well-being of the whole,
bringing to bear on Imperial matters the heart, brain, will of the
whole, gives us a picture of a Commonwealth in advance of any
contemporary political programme, with the one conspicuous exception of
that of the United States of America, between whom and ourselves is
being established a Unity which may well be more valuable to the world
at large and to ourselves than any formal Union.
Here, as we see it, is our opportunity. The Christian forces of the
Empire have the onus of maintaining the national outlook at this high
level. Our faith, our audacity, our leadership will be needed if lesser
counsels are to have no chance of prevailing. There must be no swing of
the pendulum back to smaller views.
With the coming of Peace, the temptation to the Nation to take off its
armour, to come down from the pedestal, to revert to pre-war conditions,
to re-act in self-indulgence from the strain of war, or to let
materialism defeat idealism, will be well-nigh overwhelming. To give
way to that temptation will be to rob victory of any permanent values.
It will be a poor thing to have taught Germany her lesson, if we fail to
learn our own.
We see no hope of successful resistance of that temptation apart from
the mobilisation of the Christian forces within the Empire into an army
committed to the sacred task of making the conscience of the Nation
effectively Christian, leading the way in bringing about a closer
approximation between the politics of the State and the programme of the
Kingdom of God, and proclaiming that Kingdom at hand.
If we are agreed so far it behoves us to look for the practical
implications of the position. These islands are still the heart and home
of the Empire. This was the rock whence its younger peoples were hewn.
Our nation has produced the men and the machinery that govern our
commonwealth. The lonely places, farthest removed from us, will be
peopled largely by and through the work of children of the Old Country.
There, wherever her children go, is England.
England is a treasure house, where the very stones are eloquent. Her
history, her buildings, her national and civic life, her denominations
and movements are all of them of vital interest to her children. It is a
place of pilgrimage and remembrance. It is more. They find here the
mature growths from which their institutions have sprung. They love our
historic places, they love our crowded cities, they love our seashores
and our quiet country-side, for everywhere they go they find not only
the story of our past, but that of their own. This is their spiritual
home. Our art, our literature, our movements are parts of a common
inheritance, and it is the pride of the Motherland that her children
have never outgrown their love of the old home, their veneration for its
sanctions and restraints, and that on their own homesteads they have
reproduced in new settings and often in fresh forms so much that is
native here.
One would like to see a larger share in this priceless inheritance
offered to our peoples oversea. Think for one moment of our great
Cathedrals, unique and wonderful. They can never be reproduced. They
might be copied; but Canterbury and Westminster, Lincoln and Durham,
York and the rest would still remain all that they are to us and to
them. You cannot transplant history. In the homeland we are but trustees
of these treasures, and we ought to make them the home and centre of our
Imperial Christianity. In every one of them the priests of the Church in
the Overseas lands should not only be seen but heard. Is there no room
in Cathedral Chapters for Overseas representatives, so that in our daily
services in a new and living way we may be linked together in sacrament,
praise and prayer, and in the proclamation of Christian truth? One
Canonry for each historic building would mean more to Unity than many
resolutions at Congress. Perhaps that is as far as one ought to go in
suggestion, but there are other splendid possibilities that one would
love to discuss. No one thinking of Unity in the Empire can fail to
rejoice in the growing desire manifest among Christian Denominations for
Unity. I will not trench on another's subject beyond saying that the way
to Union is Unity, and that it would be tragic if in these momentous
days any stone was left unturned that would lead to better knowledge,
deeper understanding and sympathy between those who name the Name that
is above every name. And our people overseas have much to teach us in
this matter. Over great areas of social opportunity and service the
Catholic Church may act unitedly and must do so, if she is to enter on
offensive warfare and not stand for another generation on the defensive.
The war has made a difference here. Men, who in the conventional days of
peace rarely met, have joined hands in service. Catholic and Protestant,
Churchman and Free Churchman, have found joy in fellowship. That does
not mean that differences have disappeared, it means that, recognising
and estimating their differences, it has been possible to establish a
basis of co-operation, in knowledge, understanding, and sympathy, and to
recognise in one another the hall-mark of Christian faith and character.
Is this to be a war measure only? or is it to be one of the great gains
to be carried over into the days ahead?
One other question clamours for treatment: the problem of the
evangelisation of the Empire. Christianity must be given its chance in
every corner of the Empire. There may be divergent opinions as to the
methods to be used, but if Christianity contains in its gospel the pearl
of great price, there can be no two opinions as to the obligation that
rests on us to bring to the nations federated with us this supreme gift.
Nothing can release us from that responsibility. To postpone the
presentation of the Christian gospel for any of the time-honoured
excuses:
(1) our pre-occupation in matters of more urgent importance elsewhere,
(2) any fear of the effects of Christianity on our political or
commercial interests,
(3) the desire to live down prejudice and establish confidence,
(4) the preparation of a people's mind by education before introducing a
new religion,
--any one of these is treachery to the All-Father and to the family of
man, and a vital _praeparatio evangelica_ is being made. Let me
illustrate.
It happened in a great marquee in France. On a summer evening in 1916
the place was crowded with Indians. There was a group playing Indian
card games, there was a crowd round a gramophone with Indian records, at
the writing tables with great torment of spirit men were writing to
their homes. At the counter foods they loved were being provided.
Against one of the poles of the marquee stood a stately Indian of some
rank. He had been seen there often before. He rarely spoke but seemed
intensely interested. On this particular night the time arrived for the
closing of the tent. The little groups gradually disappeared and the
tent curtains were being replaced when the leader of the work found
himself addressed by the Indian:
Why do you serve us in this way? You are not here by Government
orders. You come when you like and you go when you like. There is
only one religion on earth that would lead its servants to serve in
this way, Christianity. I have been watching you men, and I have
come to the conclusion that Christianity will fit the East as it
can never fit the West. When the war is over I want you to send one
of your men to my village. We are all Hindus, but my people will do
what I tell them.
One of the ghastly tragedies of the war is that two great nations
nominally Christian are at each other's throats. In the world's eyes
Christian civilisation has broken down. We know better, but our
explanations will not carry far enough to correct the impression. Our
defence must be an offensive.
It is certainly within the truth to say that we have not yet seen what
Christianity can do for a community or a nation where, as I put it
before, "it is given a chance." May it not be that in the Providence of
God the first great revelation of what Christianity can do for a nation
will be seen in one of the lands that have come under the Flag, and
among a people living under less complex conditions than ourselves? If
that is a possibility we ought to see that wherever the Flag flies,
there comes, with the unfurling of the Flag, the Gospel of Christ.
This is directly in the interest of unity, and many problems that have
so far remained insoluble to our statesmen might discover the solution
in Christian leadership.
I shall be pardoned I know for suggesting that the highest purposes of
unity may be served by the extension and development throughout the
Empire of such international organisations as the Student Christian
Movement, the Y.M.C.A., the Y.W.C.A., and, used at its highest values,
the Boy Scout Movement. There are others, but these are typical. They
are established movements built up on definite principles capable of
universal application, and yet each of them able to develop its
organisation on lines that recognise national psychology and character.
Each of them may become and aims at becoming indigenous everywhere,
giving freedom of method and action and free play to the moral and
intellectual activities of the people concerned, while they have certain
essential elements that are universally characteristic of them. In
addition, they give large numbers of Christian people an opportunity of
expressing their unity in service of the right kind.
What was said about the Cathedrals is equally true of our two ancient
Universities. Mr Fisher's Education Bill may well mean more for Imperial
unity than almost any other single factor. It will mean an ever
increasing number of men to whom "Cambridge" and "Oxford" will be magic
words. If our view of culture is broad enough we shall see to it that
these two Universities become increasingly places where the children of
the Empire who are fit to graduate in them shall not lack the
opportunity of doing so. Because these ancient foundations link with the
past, because of all they may mean to the present and to the future, the
way to them should be made broad enough to admit the living stream of
Greater Britain's children, who by dint of gifts and industry have
proved their fitness to meet their peers in these delectable cities,
where the very air breathes the romance of British culture. Their right
of entry ought not to be won by the benefactions of private citizens,
though all who love knowledge are grateful enough for these, but should
be theirs by their citizenship in the Empire and their own tested
fitness.
Nothing again is more hopeful in the present situation than the manifest
desire, widely felt and expressed, that the old class-antagonisms should
never be revived. Surely this is _the_ strategic moment in which we may
make the War once more contribute to a better state of things. Our
politicians are awake to the need and are inventing every kind of
machinery for bringing Capital and Labour together in Council Chambers
as co-partners in the Commerce of the Empire. But there are sinister
forces also at work, and this machinery can only run if it is
controlled by men of resolute good will.
The War has been a great bridge-builder linking up in the fellowship of
discipline and sacrifice people between whom chasms yawned before. There
are knowledge and understanding and sympathy to-day amongst us. Yet many
of us are convinced that no purely political machinery can be made
effective in achieving so great a task as the making permanent of this
new and better condition. We need a new and abiding spirit of
conciliation, a deeper determination than political action can produce,
that things shall not relapse, that the forces of re-action shall not
triumph. The one hope of carrying over into permanence this new
understanding and appreciation lies in the nation becoming impregnated
with those spacious spiritual ideals that the Churches together
represent. Nothing is impossible to faith, and faith in God and man will
be kept astretch in the discipline that will be demanded of us all, in
the breaking down of false barriers that have grown up through the years
and the destruction of long-lived prejudices that will die hard.
The Empire itself is a unity. It is not easy for English people to
realise all that is implied here. My great name-sake urged us in this
country to "think Imperially." Another voice asks us "What do they know
of England who only England know?" but it is hard for us to think except
in terms of England. For example, I have referred to this country as the
great treasure house of the Empire's history, and to the care and
devotion shewn by our kinsmen from Overseas in their study of our
country and its institutions. All of us realise how right that is, but
ought we not to reciprocate their devotion and regard, by much more
intense interest and study of their life and the developments of their
institutions?
Our unity demands this wider culture, this reciprocity. The Motherland
must not only teach, she must be prepared to learn. She may lead, but
she must be prepared to follow. We have much to contribute, but in
Religion, in political and social ideals, and in commerce there is much
we need to receive.
If our land is the great treasure house, are not these other lands great
laboratories where we might see, if we would only look, how some of our
accepted ideas, and notions, and watchwords are tested in a larger
arena?
Are we so sure of ourselves that we are prepared to hold on to our own
experience as the final test of the truth and value of our theories? Or
are we big enough in the light of Imperial experience to revise our
judgment, to sift our theories, and to go forward carrying those which
stand the test of the wider arena, and being prepared to surrender those
which only seemed right and proper in the conventional setting of these
small islands?
In conclusion, the Empire has come to power and unity on certain great
principles. Our Imperial ideals have been evolved out of experience all
over the world, and with all kinds of people, under the guidance of
distinguished leaders of many-sided gifts. In an Empire so diverse in
its constituent parts, including peoples at varied stages of
development, it is impossible that those ideals should be everywhere
expressed at their highest power. In many places our methods of
government must be tentative, but everywhere they must be progressive,
placing upon subject peoples the burden of government as rapidly as
they are able to bear it, providing every inspiration that can call them
upwards and onwards. Our tentative methods must never be allowed to
become permanent. We may be tutors, we must never become tyrants. We may
lead, direct, even control, but we may never be content until our people
are free, self-governing, rejoicing in the liberty that enables them to
choose whole-heartedly to remain in that Commonwealth of free peoples we
call the Empire. Along this path lie permanence and closer unity. In our
Imperial destiny it is the part of those who would be the greatest to
become the servants of all.
Thank God for all who have laboured in this spirit to build our goodly
heritage.
UNITY BETWEEN NATIONS
By the Rev. J. H. B. MASTERMAN, M.A.
In the previous lectures of this course you have been considering the
problem of home reunion. My task to-day is to remind you of the fact
that beyond the reunion of the Churches at home there lies the larger
problem of the realisation of the Christian ideal of a universal
brotherhood. How can this ideal be realised in a world divided into
nations? I am going to treat the subject historically; firstly because I
find myself incapable of treating it in any other way, and secondly
because you can only build securely if you build on the foundation of
the historic past. The State may ignore the lessons of the past, the
Church can never do so.
How can we deal with the apparent antagonism between the centrifugal
force of nationality and the centripetal force of the Catholic ideal?
There are two possible answers that we cannot accept. It is possible for
religion to set itself against the development of national life, and
claim that a world-religion must find expression in a world-state. That
is the mediaeval answer.
Or it is possible for religion to become subordinate to nationality at
the cost of losing the note of Catholicity, so that the consecration of
national life may seem a nobler task than the gathering of humanity into
conscious fellowship in one great society. This is the modern answer.
With neither of these solutions can we be satisfied. The existence of
nations as units of political self-consciousness within the larger life
of humanity does, we believe, minister to the fulfilment of the purpose
of God. Whatever may be the case hereafter, the establishment of a
world-state, at the present stage in the evolution of human
institutions, would mean the impoverishment of the life of humanity. Yet
a Church that is merely national or imperial has missed the true
significance of its mission.
At the beginning of the Christian era, the greatest attempt ever made to
gather all peoples into a universal society was actually in progress.
The Roman Empire was founded on the basis of a common administrative
system, and a common law--the _jus gentium_. It needed a common
religion. The effort to supply this passes through three stages. The
earliest of these is the stage of universal toleration which was made
possible by polytheism. A second stage soon follows. The various
religions of the Empire overflow one another's frontier-lines and a
synthesis begins, leading to the Stoic idea of the universal truth
expressed in many forms. But the popular mind was unable to rise to this
high conception, and the third stage begins towards the end of the first
century in the formal adoption of the worship of the Emperor as the
religious expression of the unity of the Empire. It was the opposition
of the Christian Church that did most to bring to naught this effort to
give a religious foundation to the unity of the Empire, and the attempt
of Constantine and Theodosius to make Christianity an Imperial religion
came too late to save the Empire from disintegration.
For the unity of the Christian Church had been undermined. When
Christianity shook itself free from the shackles of Jewish nationalism,
it came under the influence of Greek thought. The theology and language
of the early Church were Greek. Even in Rome the Church was for at least
two centuries "a Greek colony." Hence the growth of Christianity was
slow in those western parts of the Empire that had not come under the
influence of Greek culture--Gaul, Britain, Spain, North Africa. Latin
Christianity found its centre in North Africa, where Roman culture had
imposed itself on the hard, cruel Carthaginian world. It is Carthage,
not Athens, that gives to Tertullian his harsh intolerance and to St
Augustine his stern determinism. So the way was prepared for what I
regard as the supreme tragedy of history--the falling apart of Eastern
and Western Christianity. Then, in the West, the unity of the Church is
broken by the conversion of the Teutonic peoples to Arianism, so that
the contest between the dying Empire in the West and the tribes pressing
on its frontiers is embittered by religious antagonism. The sword of
Clovis secured the victory of orthodoxy, but at what a cost!
When the storm subsides, there emerges the august conception of the Holy
Roman Empire. For the noblest expression of the ideal of a universal
Christian Empire, read Dante's _De Monarchia_. The history of the Holy
Roman Empire is too large a subject to enter upon. It is important to
remember that the struggles between the Popes and the Emperors that fill
so large a space of mediaeval history were not struggles between Church
and State. Western Europe was conceived of as one Christian Society--an
attempt to realise the City of God of St Augustine's great treatise--and
the question at issue was whether the Pope or the Emperor was to be
regarded as the supreme head of this great society.
The unity of Western Christendom found a crude, but real, expression in
the Crusades, and it is significant that the decline of the crusading
impulse coincides in time with the rise of national feeling in the two
western states, England and France. What was to be the attitude of the
Catholic Church towards this new national instinct? In the 14th and 15th
centuries the question becomes increasingly urgent, and the Council of
Constance may be regarded as the last sincere effort to find an answer.
The answer suggested there, to which the English Church still adheres,
was the recognition of a General Council of the Church as the supreme
spiritual authority. Such a General Council might gather the glory and
honour of the nations into the City of God, and might even, it was
hoped, restore the broken unity between East and West. How the Council
failed, how Constantinople was left to its fate, how a Papacy growing
more and more Italian in its interests brought to a head the
long-simmering revolt of the nations--all this you know. The Reformation
was, in part, a struggle of the nations to give religious expression to
their national life. The threefold bond that had held together the
Church of the West--the bond of common language, law and ceremonial--was
broken.