It was in this very simple strain, without a gesture, without a trace of

dramatic appeal, that George Stairs began to address that great

gathering. Much has been said and written of the quality of revelation

which was instinct in that first address; of its compelling force, its

inspired strength, the convincing directness of it all. And I should be

the last to deny to my old friend's address any of the praises lavished

upon it by high and low. But what I would say of it is that, even now,

sufficient emphasis and import are never attached to the most compelling

quality of all in George Stairs's words: their absolutely unaffected

simplicity. I think a ten-year-old child could have followed his every

word with perfect understanding.

Nowadays we take a fair measure of simplicity for granted. Anything less

would condemn a man as a fool or a mountebank. But be it remembered that

the key-note and most striking feature of all recent progress has been

the advance toward simplicity in all things. At the period of George

Stairs's first exposition of the new evangel in the Albert Hall, we were

not greatly given to simplicity. It was scarcely noticeable at that

time even among tillers of the earth. Not to put too fine a point upon

it, we were a tinselled lot of mimes, greatly given to apishness, and

shunning naked truth as though it were the plague. Past masters in

compromise and self-delusion, we had stripped ourselves of simplicity in

every detail of life, and, from the cradle to the grave, seemed

willingly to be hedged about with every kind of complexity. We so

maltreated our physical palates that they responded only to flavours

which would have alarmed a plain-living man; and, metaphorically, the

same thing held good in every concern of our lives, until simplicity

became non-existent among us, and was forgotten. There were men and

women in that Sunday afternoon gathering at the Albert Hall whose very

pleasures were a complicated and laborious art, whose pastimes were a

strain upon the nervous system, whose leisure was quite an arduous

business.

This it was which gave such striking freshness, such compelling

strength, to the simple, forthright directness, the unaffected

earnestness and modesty of the Message brought us by the Canadian

preachers. The most bumptious and self-satisfied Cockney who ever heard

the ringing of Bow Bells, would have found resentment impossible after

George Stairs's little account of his leaving Dorset as a boy of twelve,

and picking up such education as he had, while learning how to milk

cows, bed down horses, split fire-wood, and perform "chores" generally,

on a Canadian farm. Even during his theological course, vacations had

found him in the harvest field.

"You may guess my diffidence, then," he said, "in lifting up my voice

before such a gathering as this, here in the storied heart of the

Empire, the city I have reverenced my life long as the centre of the

world's intelligence. But there is not a man or woman here to-day who

would chide a lad who came home from school with tidings of something he

had learned there. That is my case, precisely. I have been to one of our

outside schools, from my home here in this beloved island. Home and

school alike, they are all part of our family heritage--yours and mine.

I only bring you your own word from another part of our own place. That

is my sole claim to stand before you to-day. Yet, when I think of it, it

satisfies me; it safeguards me from the effect of misunderstanding or

offence, so long as my hearers are of my kin--British."

His description of Canada and the life he had lived there occupied us

for no more than ten minutes, at the outside. It has appeared in so many

books that I will not attempt to quote that little masterpiece of

illumination. But by no means every reproduction of this passage adds

the simple little statement which divided it from its successor.

"That has been my life. No brilliant qualities are demanded of a man in

such a life. The one thing demanded is that he shall do his duty. You

remember that passage in Ecclesiastes--'The conclusion of the whole

matter'?"

And then came the story of Edward Hare. That moved the people deeply.

"My first curacy was in Southern Manitoba. When I was walking from the

church to the farmhouse where I lodged, after morning service, one

perfect day in June, I passed a man called Edward Hare, sitting at the

edge of a little bluff, on a rising piece of ground. I had felt drawn

toward this man. He was a Londoner, and, in his first two years, had had

a tough fight. But he had won through, and now had just succeeded in

adding a hundred and sixty acres to his little farm, which was one of

the most prosperous in the district.

"'I didn't see you at church this morning, Hare,' I said, after we had

chatted a minute or two.

"'No,' said he; 'I wasn't at church. I've been here by this bluff since

breakfast, and--Parson!' he said, with sudden emphasis, 'I shall give up

the farm. I'm going back Home.'

"Well, of course, I was surprised, and pressed him for reasons. 'Well,'

he said, 'I don't know as I can make much of a show of reasons; but I'm

going. Did you notice anything special about the weather, or--or that,

this morning, Parson?' I told him I had only noticed that it was a very

sweet, clear, happy sort of a morning. 'That's just it, Parson,' he

said; 'sweet and clear and clean it is; and I don't believe there's any

sweeter, cleaner thing than this morning on my farm--no, not in heaven,

Parson,' he said. 'And that's why I'm going back Home to London; to

Battersea; that's where I lived before I came here.'

"I waited for him to tell me more, and presently he said: 'You know,

Parson, I was never what you might call a drunkard, not even at Home,

where drinking's the regular thing. But I used to get through a tidy lot

of liquor, one way and another, and most generally two or three pints

too many of a Saturday night. Then, of a Sunday morning, the job was

waiting for the pubs to open. Nobody in our street ever did much else of

a Sunday. I suppose you don't happen to have ever been down the Falcon

Road of a Sunday morning, Parson? No? Well, you see, the street's a kind

of market all Saturday night, up till long after midnight--costers'

barrows with flare-lights, gin-shops full to the door, and all the fun

of the fair--all the fun of the fair. Mothers and fathers, lads and

sweethearts, babies in prams, and toddlers in blue plush and white wool;

you see them all crowding the bars up till midnight, and they see--well,

they see Battersea through a kind of a bright gaze. Then comes Sunday,

and a dry throat, and waiting for the pubs to open. The streets are all

a litter of dirty newspaper and cabbage-stumps, and worse; and the air's

kind of sick and stale.'

"At that Hare stopped talking, and looked out over the prairie on that

June morning. Presently he went on again: 'Well, Parson, when I came out

here this morning--I haven't tasted beer for over three years--I sat

down and looked around; and, somehow, I thought I'd never seen anything

so fine in all my life; so sweet and clean; the air so bright, like dew;

and green--well, look at it, far as your eye can carry! And all this

round, away to the bluff there, and the creek this way; it's mine, every

foot of it. Well, after a bit, I was looking over there to the church,

and what d'ye think I saw, all through the pretty sunlight? I saw the

Falcon Road, a pub I know there, and a streak of sunshine running over

the wire blinds into the bar, all frowsy and shut in, with the liquor

stains over everything. And outside, I saw the pasty-faced crowd waiting

to get in, and all the Sunday litter in the road. Parson, I got the

smell of it, the sick, stale smell of it, right here--in Paradise; I got

the frowsy smell of it, and heard the waily children squabbling, and--I

can't tell you any more of what I saw. If you'd ever seen it, you'd

know.'

"And there he stopped again, until I moved. Then he said: 'Parson, if

you saw a fellow starving on a bit of land over there that wouldn't feed

a prairie-chick, and you knew of a free homestead across the creek,

where he could raise five and twenty bushels to the acre and live like a

man, would you leave him to rot on his bare patch? Not you. That's why

I'm going Home--to Battersea.'

"If Hare had been a married man I might have advised him otherwise. But

he was married only to the farm he had wrought so well, and it did not

seem to me part of my business to come between a man and his duty--as he

saw it. That man came Home, and took the cheapest lodging he could get

in Battersea. He had sold his farm well. Now he took to street

preaching, and what he preached was, not religion, but the prairie.

'Lord sake, young folk!' he used to say to the lads and girls when they

turned toward the public-houses. 'Hold on! Wait a minute! I want to tell

you something!' And he would tell them what four years' clean work had

given him in Canada.

"He got into touch with various emigration agencies. The money he had

lasted him, living as he did, for five years. In that time he was the

means of sending nine hundred and twenty men and five hundred and forty

women and girls to a free and independent life in Canada. Just before

his money was exhausted, England's affliction, England's chastisement,

came upon her like God's anger in a thunderbolt. Hare had meant to

return to Canada to make another start, and earn money enough to return

to his work here. Instead of that, my friends, instead of what he called

Paradise in Manitoba, God took him straight into Heaven. He left his

body beside the North London entrenchments, where, so one of his

comrades told me, he fought like ten men for England, knowing well that,

if captured, he would be shot out of hand as a civilian bearing arms.

One may say of Edward Hare, I think, that he saw his duty very

clearly--and did it.

* * * * *

"But what of us? What of you, and I, my friends? How do we stand

regarding Duty?"

I never heard such questions in my life. He had been speaking smoothly,

evenly, calmly, and without gesticulation. With the questions, his body

was bent as though for a leap; his hands flung forward. These questions

left him like bullets. It was as though that great hall had been in

blackest darkness, and with a sudden movement the speaker had switched

on ten thousand electric lights. I saw men rise to a half-erect

posture. I heard women catch their breath. The air of the place seemed

all aquiver.

"My friends, will you please pray with me?"

He leaned forward, an appeal in every line of his figure, addressed

confidentially to each soul present. Then his right hand rose:

"Please God, help me to give my Message! Please God, open London's heart

to hear my Message! Please God, give me strength to tell it--now! For

Christ's sake. Amen!"

One heard a low, emphatic, and far-carrying "Amen!" from the lips of

London's Bishop; and I think that, too, meant something to the great

congregation of Londoners assembled there.

Immediately then, it was, while the electric thrill of his questions and

the simple prayer still held all his audience at high tension, that

George Stairs plunged into the famous declaration of the new evangel of

Duty and Simplicity. If any man in the world has learned for himself

that prayer is efficacious, that man is the Rev. George Stairs. For it

is now universally admitted that such winged words as those of his first

great exposition of the doctrine of Duty and simple living, the doctrine

which has placed the English-speaking peoples in the forefront of

Christendom, had never before thrilled an English audience.

His own words were a perfect example of the invincible virtue of

simplicity; his presence there was a glowing evidence of the force of

Duty. It is quite certain that the knowledge shown in his flashing

summary of nineteenth-century English history was not knowledge based

upon experience. But neither the poets, nor the most learned

historians, nor the most erudite of naval experts, has ever given a

picture so instantly convincing as the famous passage of his oration

which showed us, first, the British Fleet on the morning of Trafalgar;

then, Nelson going into action; then, the great sailor's dying

apotheosis of Duty; and, finally, England's reception of her dead hero's

body. The delivery of this much-quoted passage was a matter of moments

only, but from where I stood I saw streaming eyes in women's faces, and

that stiff, unwinking stare on men's faces which indicates tense effort

to restrain emotion.

And so, with a fine directness and simplicity of progress, he carried us

down through the century to its stormy close, with vivid words of

tribute for the sturdy pioneers of Victorian reform who fought for and

built the freest democracy in the world, and gave us the triumphant

enlightenment which illumined Victoria's first Jubilee.

"'But isn't Duty a rather early Victorian sort of business, and out of

date, anyhow?' said my young countryman in Calgary. To the first half of

his question there can be no answer but 'Yes.' To deny it were to

slander our fathers most cruelly. But what of the question's second

half? Our fathers have no concern with the answering of that. Is Duty

'out of date,' my friends? If so, let us burn our churches. If so, let

the bishops resign their bishoprics. If so, let us lower for ever the

flag which our fathers made sacred from pole to pole. If so, let Britain

admit--as well first as last--that she has retired for ever from her

proud place among the nations, and is no more to be accounted a Power

in Christendom; for that is no place for a people with whom Duty is out

of date.

"'And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest,

to offer upon mine altar?... But now the Lord saith, Be it far from me,

for them that honour me I will honour, and them that despise me shall be

lightly esteemed. _Behold the days come that I will cut off thine

arm!_'"

It was almost unbearable. No one had guessed the man had such a voice.

He had recited that passage quietly. Then came the rolling thunder of

the: "Behold the days come that I will cut off thine arm!" A woman in

the centre of the hall cried aloud, upon a high note. The roar of German

artillery in North London never stirred Londoners as this particular

sentence of God's Word stirred them in the Albert Hall.

And then, in a voice keyed down again to calm and tender wisdom, the

words of the Scriptural poet stole out over the heads of the perturbed

people, stilling their minds once more into the right receptive vein:

"'Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His

commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.'"

Like balm, the stately words fell upon the people, as a light to lighten

their darkness, as an end and a solution to a situation found

intolerable. But, though calm resolve was in George Stairs's gift that

day, he suffered no complaisance; and, by this time, he held that great

assembly in the hollow of his hand. It was then he dealt with the

character of our own century, as distinguished from that of the

Victorian era. It was then his words taught me, personally, more than

all he had said besides.

I will not quote from a passage which has been incorporated in hundreds

of school-books. It is generally admitted that the end and purpose

underlying the civil and national code of our age has never since been

more admirably stated than on the day of its first enunciation in the

Albert Hall by George Stairs. His words were glowing when he showed us

how the key-note of our fathers' age had been the claiming and

establishing of rights and privileges. His words stung like whip-thongs

when he depicted our greedy, self-satisfied enjoyment of those rights

and privileges, with never a thought, either of the various obligations

pertaining to them, or of our plain duty in the conservation for our

children of all that had been won for us. Finally, his words were living

fire of incentive, red wine of stimulation, when he urged upon us the

twentieth-century watchword of Duty, and the loyal discharge of

obligations.

"Theirs, an age crowned by well-won triumph, was the century of claimant

demand; ours is the century of grateful obedience. Theirs was the age of

claims; ours the age of Duty. Theirs the century of rights; ours the

century of Duty. Theirs the period of brave, insistent constructive

effort; ours the period of Duty--Duty--Duty!

"In fighting to obtain all that they won for us, our fathers pledged

themselves--and us--to be fit recipients, true freemen. For a moment,

misled by the glare of wealth and pleasure, we have played the

caitiff's part; grasped freemen's privileges, without thanks, and with

repudiation of the balancing duties and obligations without which no

rights can survive. And--'Behold, the days come that I will cut off

thine arm!'

"The God of our fathers trusted them, in our behalf; and we played

traitor. So God smote England, through the arrogant war-lords of another

people. That blow, self-administered, is Heaven's last warning to

England. In truth, the blow was ours, yours and mine; we ourselves it

was who played the traitor and struck a cruel blow at Britain's heart.

Unworthy sons of valiant sires, we snatched our wages and shirked our

work; seized the reward and refused the duty. God in His mercy gave us

many warnings; but we hid our faces and pursued our selfish ends.

'Behold, the days come----'

"But God stayed His hand. England lies bloody but unbroken. There can be

no more warnings. The time for warnings has gone by. There can be no

more paltering. Now is the day of final choice. Will ye be men--or

helots and outcasts? Will you choose Duty, and the favour of God's

appointed way for us, of progress and of leadership; or will you

choose--pleasure, swift decay, annihilation? Upon your heads be it! Our

fathers nobly did their part. Upon your choice hangs the future of our

race, the fate of your children, the destiny of God's chosen people, who

have paltered with strange gods, blasphemed the true faith, and stepped

aside from the white path--the Only Way: Duty!"

He turned, raising one hand, and the notes of the great organ rose and

swelled mightily, filling the hall with the strains of the British

National Anthem. Every soul in the building stood erect, and following

the choir's lead, that great gathering sang the British hymn as it was

never sung before. As the last note throbbed into silence in the hall's

dome, George Stairs, who had knelt through the singing of the anthem,

advanced, with hand uplifted.

"God helping us, as, if we choose aright, He surely will help us, do we

choose Duty, or pleasure? Choose, my kinsmen! Is it Duty, or is it

pleasure?"

It was a severe test to put to such an assembly, to a congregation of

all classes of London society. There was a moment of silence in which I

saw George Stairs's face, white and writhen, through a mist which seemed

to cloud my vision. And then the answer came, like a long, rolling clap

of thunder:

"Duty!"

And I saw George Stairs fall upon his knees in prayer, as the Bishop

dismissed the people with a benediction, delivered somewhat brokenly, in

a hoarse voice.

VIII

THE PREACHERS

There are who ask not if thine eye

Be on them; who in love and truth

Where no misgiving is, rely

Upon the genial sense of youth:

Glad hearts! without reproach or blot,

Who do thy work, and know it not:

O! if through confidence misplaced

They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

_Ode to Duty._

It was with something of a shock that I learned, while endeavouring to

make my way through a dense crowd to the Canadian preacher's

dressing-room, that my friend, George Stairs, was lying unconscious in a

fainting fit. But my anxiety was not long-lived. Several doctors had

volunteered their services, and from one of them I learned that the

fainting fit was no more than the momentary result of an exceptional

strain of excitement.

Within half an hour, Stairs and Reynolds were both resting comfortably

in a private sitting-room at a neighbouring hotel, and there I visited

them, with Constance Grey and Mrs. Van Homrey, and John Crondall. Stairs

assured us that his fainting was of no consequence, and that he felt

perfectly fit and well again.

"You see it was something of an ordeal for me, a nobody from nowhere, to

face such an assembly."

"Well," said John Crondall, "I suppose that at this moment there is not

a man in London who is much more a somebody, and less a nobody from

nowhere."

"You think we succeeded, then?"

"My dear fellow! I think your address of this afternoon was the most

important event England has known this century. Mark my words, that

great thunder of 'Duty!' that you drew from them--from a London

audience, mind--is to have more far-reaching results for the British

Empire than the acquisition of a continent."

"No, no, my dear Crondall, you surely overrate the thing," said Stairs,

warm colour spreading over his pale face.

"Well, you can take my deliberate assurance that in my opinion you

achieved more for your country this afternoon than it has been my good

fortune to achieve in the whole of a rather busy life."

Stairs protested, blushing like a girl. But we know now that, so far at

all events as his remarks were prophetic, John Crondall was absolutely

right; though whether or not the new evangel could have achieved what it

did without the invasion is another matter.

Myself, I believe nothing could have been more triumphantly successful,

more pregnant with great possibilities for good, than the event of that

afternoon. Yet I was assured that fully two thousand five hundred more

people crowded into the hall for the evening service than had been

there to hear Stairs's address. And I had thought the huge place crowded

in the afternoon. As before, the service began and ended with the

National Anthem; but in the evening the great assembly was thrilled to

its heart by the Australian _prima donna's_ splendid singing of

Wordsworth's _Ode to Duty_ in the setting specially composed for this

occasion by Doctor Elgar.

I saw very many faces that I had seen at the first service, but I

believe that there was a far greater proportion of poorer folk present

than there had been in the afternoon. The President of the

Congregational Union presided, and the address was delivered by Arthur

Reynolds.

As with Stairs, so with Reynolds, Duty was the gist and heart of the

Message delivered--Duty, plain living, simplicity; these they both urged

to be the root of the whole matter. Both men gave substantially the same

Message, there can be no doubt of that; but there were differences, and

upon the whole I am inclined to think that Reynolds's address was more

perfectly adapted to his hearers than Stairs's would have been if his

had been given that evening. Reynolds's diction in public speaking was

not quite his conversational speech, because nothing like slang, nothing

altogether colloquial crept into it, but its simplicity was notable; it

was the diction of a frank, earnest child. There were none of the

stereotyped phrases of piety; yet I never heard a more truly pious and

deeply religious discourse.

The social and political aspects of Duty were more cursorily treated by

Reynolds than its moral and religious aspect. There was nothing

heterodox in the view put forward by this preacher from oversea. A man

may find salvation in this world and the next through love and faith, he

said in effect; but the love and faith must be of the right sort. The

redemption of the world was the world's greatest miracle; but it did not

offer mankind salvation in return for a given measure of psalm-singing,

sentimentalizing, and prayerful prostrations. Christianity was something

which had to be lived, not merely contemplated. Love and faith were

all-sufficient, but they must be the true love and faith, of which Duty

was the legitimate offspring. The man who thought that any form of piety

which permitted the neglect of Duty, would win him either true peace in

this life or salvation in the next, was as pitifully misled as the man

who indulged himself in a vicious life with a view to repentance when he

should be too near his demise to care for indulgence.

"But, even if one could put aside all thought of God and the life

compared with which this life is but an instant of time; even then there

would be nothing left really worth serious consideration besides Duty.

Dear friends, you who listen so kindly to the man who comes to you from

across the sea, I ask you to look about you in the streets and among the

people you know, and to tell me if the majority are really happy. In

this connection I dare not speak of the land of my birth, because,

though it is yours as truly as it is mine, and we are all

blood-brothers, yet I might be thought guilty of a vain partiality. But

I do say that I cannot think the majority of the people of England are

really happy. I do not believe the majority of Londoners are happy. I am

sure that the majority of those who spend an immense amount of money

here in the West End of London, are not one whit happier than the

average man who works hard for a few pounds a week.

"If I am certain of anything in this world, I am certain that the

pursuit of pleasure never yet brought real happiness to any intelligent

human being, and never will. True, I have met some happy people in

London, even now, when England lies wounded from a cruel blow--a blow

which I believe may prove the greatest blessing England ever knew. But

those happy people are not running after pleasure or concentrating their

intelligence upon their own gratification. No, no; those happy people

are strenuously, soberly striving to do the whole of their duty as

Christians and British citizens. They are happy because of that.

"Oh, my dear friends, do please believe me, that, even apart from God's

will and the all-sacrificing love of His Son, _there is absolutely no

real happiness in this world outside the clean, sweet way of Duty_. If

you profess you love a woman, but shirk your duty by her, of what worth

is such love? Is God of less importance to you? Is Eternity of less

importance? Are King and Country, and the future of our race and the

millions who depend on us for light and guidance and protection, of less

importance? As God hears me, _nothing_ is of _any_ importance, beside

the one thing vital to salvation, to happiness, to honour, to life, here

and hereafter. That one thing is Duty."

The evening congregation was more demonstrative than that of the

afternoon, and though I do not think the impression produced by

Reynolds's address was deeper or stronger than that made by Stairs--it

could hardly have been that--its effects were more noticeable. The great

crowd that streamed out of the hall after the Benediction had been

pronounced, testified in a hundred ways to the truth of John Crondall's

assertion that the Canadian preachers had stirred the very depths of

London's heart as no other missioners had ever stirred them.

By George Stairs's invitation, Mrs. Van Homrey, Constance, Crondall,

myself, Sir Herbert Tate, and Forbes Thompson, joined the preachers that

evening, quite informally, at their very modest supper board. It must

have been a little startling to a _bon vivant_ like Sir Herbert to find

that the men who had stormed London, supped upon bread and cheese and

celery and cold rice pudding, and, without a hint of apology, offered

their guests the same Spartan entertainment. But it was quite a

brilliant function so far as mental activity and high spirits were

concerned. We were discussing the possibilities of the Canadian

preachers' pilgrimage, and Crondall said:

"I know that some of you think I take too sanguine a view, but, mark my

words, these meetings to-day are the beginning of the greatest

religious, moral, and national revival that the British people have ever

seen. I am certain of it. Your blushes are quite beside the point,

Stairs; they are wholly irrelevant; so is your modesty. Why, my dear

fellow, you couldn't help it if you tried. You two men are the

mouthpiece of the hour. The hour having come, you could not stay its

Message if you tried, nor check the tide of its effect. I know my

London. In a matter of this kind--a moral movement--London is the

hardest place in the kingdom to move, because its bigness and variety

make it so many-sided. Having achieved what you have achieved to-day in

London, I say nothing can check your progress. My counsel is for no more

than a week in London; two days more in the west, three in the east, and

one in the south; and then a bee-line due north through England, with a

few days in all big centres."

"Well," said Reynolds, "whatever happens after to-night, I just want to

say what George Stairs has more than once said to me, and that is, that

to-day's success is three parts due to Mr. Crondall for every one part

due to us."

"And to his secretary," said Stairs. "It really is no more than bare

truth. Without you, Crondall, there would have been no Albert Hall for

us."

"And no Bishop," added Reynolds.

"And no great personages."

"_And_ no columns and columns of newspaper announcements."

"In point of fact, there would have been none of the splendid

organization which made to-day possible. I recognize it very clearly. If

this is to prove the beginning of a really big movement, then it is a

beginning in which _The Citizens_ and their founder have played a very

big part. You won't find that we shall forget that; and I know Reynolds

is with me when I say that we shall leave no word unsaid, or act

undone, which could make our pilgrimage helpful to _The Citizens'_

campaign. I tell you, standing before that vast assembly to-day, it was

borne in upon me as I had not felt it before, that your aims and ours

are inseparable. We cannot succeed without your succeeding, nor you

without our succeeding. Our interpretation of Christianity, our Message,

is Duty and simple living, and unless the people will accept that

Message they will never achieve what you seek of them. On the other

hand, if they will answer your call they will be going a long way toward

accepting and acting upon our Message."

"I am mighty thankful that has come home to you, Stairs," said Crondall.

"I felt it very strongly when I first asked you to come and talk things

over. Your pilgrimage is going to wake up England, morally. It will be

our business to see that newly waked England choose the right direction

for the first outlay of its energy. The thing will go far--much farther

than I have said, and far beyond England's immediate need. But, of

course, we mustn't lose sight of that immediate need. If I am not greatly

mistaken, one of the first achievements of this movement will be the safe

steering of the British public through the General Election. With the New

Year I hope to see a real Imperial Parliament sitting. By that I mean a

strong Government administering England from the House of Commons, while

some of its members sit in an Imperial Chamber--Westminster Hall--and

help elected representatives of every one of the Colonies to govern the

Empire. My belief is there will be no such thing as an Opposition in the

House. Why should England continue to waste its time and energy over

pulling both ways in every little job its legislators have to tackle? It

sterilizes the efforts of the good men, and gives innumerable openings

to the fools and cranks and obstructionists. You will find the very

names of the old futile cross-purposes of party warfare will fall into

the limbo which has swallowed up the pillory, the stocks, and Little

Englandism. With deference to the cloth present in the person of our

reverend friends here, let me quote you what to me is one of the most

strikingly interesting passages in the Bible: '_The vile person shall be

no more called liberal._' It will become clear to all men that the only

possible party, the only people who can possibly stand for progress,

movement, advance, are those who stand firm for Imperial Federation."

"And then?" said Constance, leaning forward, her face illumined by her

shining eyes. Crondall drew a long breath.

"And then--then Britain will have something to say to the Kaiser."

As we rose from the table, George Stairs laid his hand on Reynolds's

shoulder.

"Deep waters these, my friend," said he, "for simple parsons from the

backwoods. But our part is plain, and close at hand. Our work is to make

the writing on the wall flame till all can read and feel: Duty first,

last, and all the time. 'The conclusion of the whole matter.'"

"Yes, yes; that's so," said Reynolds, thoughtfully. And then he added,

as it were an afterthought: "But was that remark about vile people no

more being called liberal really scriptural, I wonder--I wonder!"

"Without a doubt," said Crondall, with a broad grin. "You look up Isaiah

XXXII. 5. You will find it there, written maybe three thousand years

ago, fitting to-day's situation like a glove."

On the way out to South Kensington, where I accompanied the ladies, I

asked Constance what she thought of my old chum, George Stairs.

"Why, Dick," she said, "he makes me feel that an English village can

still produce the finest type of man that walks the earth. But, as

things have been, in our time, I'm glad this particular man didn't

remain in his native village--aren't you?"

"Yes," I agreed, with a half-sad note I could not keep out of my voice.

"I suppose Colonial life has taught him a lot."

"Oh, he is magnificent!"

"And look at John Crondall!"

"Ah, John is a wonderful man; Empire-taught, is John."

"And I suppose the man who has never lived the outside life in the big,

open places can never----"

And then I think she saw what had brought the twinge of sadness to me;

for she touched my arm, her bright eyes gleamed upon me, and--

"You're a terribly impatient man, Dick," she said, with a smile. "It

seems to me you've trekked a mighty long way from _The Mass_ office

in--how many weeks is it?"

IX

THE CITIZENS

Serene will be our days, and bright

And happy will our nature be

When love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold

Ev'n now, who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed,

Yet find that other strength, according to their need.

_Ode to Duty._

Charles Corbett's _History of the Revival_ is to my mind the most

interesting book of this century. There are passages in it which leave

me marvelling afresh each time I read them, that any writer, however

gifted, could make quite so intimate a revelation, without personal

knowledge of the inside workings of the movement he describes so

perfectly. But it is a fact that Corbett never spoke with Stairs or

Reynolds, or Crondall; neither, I think, was he personally known to any

member of the executive of _The Citizens_. Yet I know from my own

working experience of the Revival, both in connection with the

pilgrimage of the Canadian preachers and the campaign of _The Citizens_,

that Corbett's descriptions are marvellously accurate and lifelike, and

that the conclusions he draws could not have been made more correct and

luminous if they had been written by the leaders of the great joint

movement themselves.

The educational authorities were certainly well advised in making

Corbett's great work the base from which the contemporary history

text-books for use in the national schools were drawn. Your modern

students, by the way, would find it hard to realize that, even at the

time of the Revival, our school-children were obliged to waste most of

the few hours a week which were devoted to historical studies, to the

wearisome memorizing of dates and genealogies connected with the Saxon

Heptarchy. As a rule they had no time left in which to learn anything

whatever of the progress of their own age, or the nineteenth-century

development of the Empire. At that time a national schoolboy destined to

earn his living as a soldier or a sailor, or a tinker or a tailor,

sometimes knew a little of the Saxon kings of England, or even a few

dates connected with the Norman Conquest, and the fact that Henry VIII.

had six wives. But he had never heard of the Reform Bill, and knew

nothing whatever of the incorporation of India, Australia, South Africa,

or Canada.

I suppose the most notable and impressive intimation received by the

British public of the fact that a great religious, moral, and social

revival had begun among them, was contained in Monday morning's

newspapers, after the first great Albert Hall services. The recognized

chief among imperialistic journals became from the beginning the organ

of the new movement. Upon that Monday morning I remember that this

journal's first leading article was devoted to the Message of the

Canadian preachers, its second to the coming of the various Colonial

delegates for the Westminster Hall Conference. For the rest, the centre

of the paper was occupied by a four-page supplement, with portraits,

describing fully, and reporting verbatim the Albert Hall services. The

opening sentences of the leading article gave the public its cue:

"There can be little doubt, we think, that yesterday's services at the

Albert Hall mark the inauguration of a national movement in morals,

which, before it has gone far, is as likely to earn the name of the

Revolution as that of Revival. A religious, moral, and social revolution

is what we anticipate as the result of the mission of the Canadian

preachers. Never before has London been so stirred to its moral and

emotional depths. In such a movement the provincial centres are not

likely to prove less susceptible than the metropolis."

As a matter of fact, I had occasion to know that Mr. James Bryanstone,

the preachers' secretary (in whose name John Crondall had carried out

the whole work of organization, while I served him as secretary and

assistant) received during that Monday no fewer than thirty-four

separate telegraphic invitations from provincial centres subsequently

visited by Stairs and Reynolds. It was, as Crondall had said: The time

was ripe, and the Canadian preachers were the mouthpiece of the hour.

Their Message filled them, and England was conscious of its need of that

Message.

On Monday and Tuesday the afternoon and evening services at the Albert

Hall were repeated. Thousands of people were unable to obtain admission

upon each occasion. Some of these people were addressed by friends of

John Crondall's and _The Citizens_, within the precincts of the hall. On

Tuesday morning, sunrise found a great throng of people waiting to

secure places when the hall should open. On both days members of the

Royal Family were present, and on Tuesday the Primate of England

presided over the service addressed by Stairs.

During all this time, John Crondall was working night and day, and I was

busy with him in organizing the recruiting campaign of _The Citizens_.

The Legion of Frontiersmen, and the members of some scores of rifle

clubs, had been enrolled _en bloc_ as members, and applications were

pouring in upon us by every post from men who had seen service in

different parts of the world, and from men able to equip themselves

either as mounted or foot riflemen. On Tuesday evening the Canadian

preachers announced that their next day services would be held at the

People's Palace, in the East End. But I fancy that, among the packed

thousands who attended _The Citizens'_ first public meeting at the

Albert Hall on Wednesday afternoon, many came under the impression that

they were to hear the Canadian preachers.

The man of all others in England most fitted for the office, presided

over that first meeting, in full review uniform, and wearing the sword

which had been returned to him by General Baron von Fuechter, after the

historic surrender at the Mansion House on Black Saturday. The great

little Field Marshal rose at three o'clock and stood for full five

minutes, waiting for the tempest of cheering which greeted him to

subside, before he could introduce John Crondall to that huge audience.

Even when the Field Marshal began to speak he could not obtain complete

silence. As one burst of cheering rumbled to its close, another would

rise from the hall's far side like approaching thunder, swelling as it

came.

It seemed the London public was trying to make up to its erstwhile hero

for its long neglect of his brave endeavours to warn them against the

evils which had actually befallen. At last, not to waste more time, the

little Field Marshal drew his sword, and waved it above his head till a

penetrant ray of afternoon sunlight caught and transformed the blade

into a streak of living flame.

"There is a stain on it!" he shouted, shaking the blade. "It belongs to

you--to England--and there's a stain on it; got on Black Saturday. Now

silence, for the man who's for wiping out all stains. Silence!"

It was long since the little man had delivered himself of such a roar,

as that last "Silence!" There were one or two Indian veterans in the

hall who remembered the note. It had its effect, and John Crondall

stood, presently, before an entirely silent and eagerly expectant

multitude, when he began his explanation of the ends and aims of _The

Citizens_. I remember he began by saying:

"I cannot pretend to be a Canadian preacher--I wish I could." And here

there was another demonstration of cheering. One realized that afternoon

that the Canadians had lighted a fire in London that would not easily

be put out. "No, I am a native of your own London," said Crondall; "but

I admit to having learned most of the little I know in Canada, South

Africa, India, and Australia. And if there is one thing I have learned

very thoroughly in those countries, it is to love England. She has no

braver or more devoted sons and lovers within her own shores than our

kinsmen oversea. You will find we shall have fresh proofs of that very

soon. Meantime, just in passing, I want to tell you this: You have read

something in the papers of _The Citizens_, the organization of

Britishers who are sworn to the defence of Britain. I am here to tell

you about them. Well, in the past fortnight, I have received two hundred

and forty cable messages from representative citizens in Canada, South

Africa, Australia, India, and other parts of the Empire, claiming

membership, and promising support through thick and thin, from thousands

of our kinsfolk oversea. So, before I begin, I give you the greeting of

men of our blood from all the ends of the earth. They are with us heart

and hand, my friends, and eager to prove it. And now I am going to tell

you something about _The Citizens_."

But before that last sentence had left Crondall's lips, we were in the

thick of another storm of cheering. The religious character of the

Canadian preachers' meetings had been sufficient to prevent these

outbursts of popular feeling; but now the public seemed to welcome the

secular freedom of _The Citizens'_ gathering, as an opportunity for

giving their feelings vent. I am not sure that it was John Crondall's

message from the Colonies that they cheered. They were moved, I am sure,

by a vague general approval of the idea of a combination of citizens for

British defence. But their cheering I take to have been produced by

feelings they would have been hard put to it to define in any way. They

had been deeply stirred by the teaching of the Canadian preachers. In

short, they had been seized by the fundamental tenets of the simple

faith which has since come to be known to the world as "British

Christianity"; and they were eager to find some way in which they could

give tangible expression to the faith that was burgeoning within them;

stirring them as young mothers are stirred, filling them with resolves

and aspirations, none the less real and deep-seated because they were as

yet incoherent and shapeless.

I am only quoting the best observers of the time in this description of

public feeling when John Crondall made his great recruiting speech for

_The Citizens_. The event proved my chief to have been absolutely right

in his reckoning, absolutely sound in his judgment. He had urged from

the beginning that _The Citizens_ and the Canadian preachers had a

common aim. "But you teach a general principle," he had said to George

Stairs, "while we supply the particular instance. We must reap where you

sow; we must glean after you; we must follow you, as night follows day,

as accomplishment follows preparation--because you arouse the sense of

duty, you teach the sacredness of duty, while we give it particular

direction. It's you who will make them _Citizens_, my dear fellow--for

what you mean by a true Christian is what I mean by a true citizen--our

part is to swear them in. Or, as you might say, you prepare, and we

confirm. Those that won't come up to your standard as Christians, won't

be any use to us as _Citizens_."

Just how shrewdly John Crondall had gauged the matter perhaps no one

else can realize, even now, so clearly as those who played a recorder's

part in the recruiting campaign, as I did from that first day in the

Albert Hall, with Constance Grey's assistance, and, later on, with the

assistance of many other people. At a further stage, and in other

places, we made arrangements for enrolling members after every meeting.

Upon this occasion we were unable to face the task, and, instead, a card

was given to every applicant, for subsequent presentation at _The

Citizens'_ headquarters in Victoria Street, where I spent many busy

hours, with a rapidly growing clerical staff, swearing in new members,

and booking the full details of each man's position and capabilities,

for registration on the roster.

We had no fees of any kind, but every new member was invited to

contribute according to his means to _The Citizens'_ equipment fund.

During the twenty-four hours following that first meeting at the Albert

Hall, over twenty-seven thousand pounds was received in this way from

new members. But we enrolled many who contributed nothing; and we

enrolled a few men to whom we actually made small payments from a

special fund raised privately for that purpose. All this last-named

minority, and a certain proportion of other members, went directly into

camp training on the estates of various wealthy members, who themselves

were providing camp equipment and instructors, while, in many cases,

arranging also for employment which should make these camps as nearly as

might be self-supporting.

Among the list of people who agreed to deliver addresses at our meetings

we now included many of the most eloquent speakers, and some of the most

famous names in England. But I am not sure that any of them ever evoked

the same storms of enthusiasm, the same instant and direct response that

John Crondall earned by his simple speeches. Heart and soul, John

Crondall was absorbed in the perfection and furtherance of the

organization he had founded, and when he sought public support he was

irresistible.

In those first days of the campaign there were times when John Crondall

was so furiously occupied, that his bed hardly knew the touch of him,

and I could not exchange a word with him outside the immediate work of

our hands. This was doubtless one reason why I took a certain idea of

mine to Constance Grey, instead of to my chief. Together, she and I

interviewed Brigadier-General Hapgood, of the Salvation Army, and, on

the next day, the venerable chief of that remarkable organization,

General Booth. The proposition we put before General Booth was that he

should join hands with us in dealing with that section of our would-be

members who described themselves as unemployed and without resources.

For five minutes the old General stroked his beard, and offered

occasional ejaculatory interrogations. I pointed out that the converts

of the Canadian preachers (for whom the General expressed unbounded

admiration and respect) flocked to our standard, full of genuine

eagerness to carry out the gospel of duty and simple living. Suddenly,

in the middle of one of my sentences, this commander-in-chief of an army

larger than that of any monarch in Christendom made up his mind, and

stopped me with a gesture.

"We will do it," he said. "Yes, yes, I see what you would say. Yes, yes,

to be sure, to be sure; that is quite so. We will do it. Come and see me

again, and I will put a working plan before you. Good day--God bless

you!"

And we were being shown out. It was all over in a few minutes; but that

was the beginning of the connection between the Salvation Army and that

section of _The Citizens_ whose members lacked both means and

employment. According to a safe and conservative estimate, we are told

that the total number of sworn _Citizens_ subsequently handled by the

Salvation Army was six hundred and seventy-five thousand. We supplied

the instructors, officers, and all equipment; the Salvation Army carried

out all the other work of control, organization, and maintenance, and

made their great farm camps so nearly self-supporting as to be

practically no burden upon _The Citizens'_ funds. The effect upon the

men themselves was wholly admirable. Every one of them was a genuinely

unemployed worker, and the way they all took their training was

marvellous.

I think Constance Grey was as pleased as I was with the praise we won

from John Crondall over this. A little while before this time I should

have felt jealous pangs when I saw her sweet face lighten and glow at a

word of commendation from John Crondall. But my secretaryship was

teaching me many things. No other woman could ever mean to me one tithe

of all that Constance Grey meant. Of that I was very sure. To think of

such women as handsome Beatrice Blaine or Sylvia Wheeler, in a vein of

comparison, was for me like comparing the light of a candle in a distant

window with the moon herself. The mere sound of Constance's voice

thrilled me as nothing else could. But I am glad to remember now that I

no longer knew so small an emotion as jealousy where she was concerned.

John Crondall was the strongest man of all the men I knew; Constance was

the sweetest woman. Here was a natural and fitting comradeship. I

thought of my chief as the mate of the woman I loved. My heart ached at

times. But I am glad and proud that I had no jealousy.

X

SMALL FIGURES ON A GREAT STAGE

I, loving freedom and untried,

No sport of every random gust,

Yet being to myself a guide,

Too blindly have reposed my trust;

And oft, when in my heart was heard

Thy timely mandate, I deferred

The task, in smoother walks to stray,

But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

_Ode to Duty._

It has often been said of the Canadian preachers that they conferred the

gift of eloquence upon all their converts. It is certainly a fact that

long before Stairs and Reynolds had traversed half the length of

England, disciples of theirs were winning converts to "British

Christianity"--as the religion of Duty and simple living came to be

called--in every county in the kingdom.

In the same way, the progress of _The Citizens'_ recruiting campaign was

made marvellously rapid and triumphant in character by reason of the

enthusiastic activity of all new adherents. During the second of John

Crondall's great meetings in Birmingham, for example, we received

telegraphic greeting from the chairmen presiding over one hundred and

ninety-eight other meetings then being held for the furtherance of our

cause in different parts of the country. And, in many cases, those who

addressed these meetings were among the most famous public speakers in

England.

In most towns we spent no more than twenty-four hours, in others no more

than twelve hours, and in some we stayed only a third of that time. In

one memorable day we addressed immense gatherings in four different

towns, and travelled one hundred and thirty miles to boot. But in each

one of those towns, as in every centre visited, we left a properly

organized committee at work, with arrangements for frequent meetings,

and the swearing in of new members.

The Canadian preachers spent only one day in many of the places they

visited. But in large centres they stayed longer, because, after the

first week of the pilgrimage, the attendances at their meetings became

unmanageably large, owing to the arrangements made by railway companies,

who ran special trains to tap the outlying parts of every district

visited. Advance agents--a hard-working band, many of whom were

well-to-do volunteers--prepared the way in every detail for the progress

of both the Canadians and ourselves, and local residents placed every

possible facility at our disposal.

Never in the history of religious revivals in England has anything been

known to equal the whole-souled enthusiasm with which the new evangel of

Duty was welcomed as the basis of our twentieth-century national life.

The facts that the Canadian preachers were rarely seen apart, and that

the teaching of each was identical with that of the other, combined with

the general knowledge that one represented the Church of England and

the other a great Nonconformist body; these things divested the

pilgrimage of any suggestion of denominationalism, and lent it the same

urgent strength of appeal for members of all sects, and members of none.

This seems natural enough to us now, ours being a Christian country. But

it was regarded then as a wonderful testimony to the virtue of the new

teaching, because at that time sectarian differences, animosities even,

were very clearly marked, and led far more naturally to opposition and

hostility between the representatives of different denominations than to

anything approaching united effort in a common cause.

It was during the day we spent in York that chance led to my witnessing

an incident which greatly affected me. My relations with my chief, John

Crondall, were not such as to call for the observance of much ceremony

between us. Accordingly, it was with no thought of interference with his

privacy that I blundered into my chief's sitting-room to announce the

number of new members we had enrolled after the meeting. John Crondall

was standing on the hearth-rug, his right hand was resting on Constance

Grey's shoulder, his lips were touching her forehead.

For an instant I thought of retreat. But the thing seemed too clumsy.

Accordingly, having turned to close the door, with deliberation, I

advanced into the room with some awkward remark about having thought my

chief was alone, and produced my figures of the enrolment of new

members. After a few moments Constance left us, referring to some errand

she had in view. I did not look at her, and John Crondall plunged at

once into working talk. As for me, I was acutely conscious that I had

seen Crondall kiss Constance; but my chief made no sign to show me

whether or not he was aware that I had seen this.

Although I thought I had accustomed myself to the idea of these two

being predestined mates, I realized now that no amount of reasoning

would ever really reconcile me to the practical outworking of the idea.

Of course, my feeling about it would be described as jealousy pure and

simple. Perhaps it was; but I cherish the idea that it was some more

kindly shade of feeling. I know it brought no hint of resentment or

weakening in my affection for John Crondall; and most assuredly I

harboured no unkind thought of Constance. But I loved her; every pulse

in me throbbed love and longing at her approach. Again and again I had

demonstrated to myself my own unworthiness of such a woman; the natural

affinity between Constance and Crondall. Yet now, the sight of that kiss

was as the sound of a knell in my heart; it filled me with an aching

lament for the death of----of something which had still lived in me,

whether admitted or not, till then.

For days after that episode of the kiss I lived in hourly expectation of

a communication from John Crondall. Our relations were so intimate that

I felt certain he would not withhold his confidence for long. But day

succeeded day in our strenuous, hurried life, and no word came to me

from my chief regarding any other thing than our own work. Indeed, I

thought I detected a certain new sternness in John Crondall's demeanour,

an extra rigid concentration upon work, which carried with it, for me,

a suggestion of his being unwilling to meet one upon any other than the

working footing. I was surprised and a little hurt about this, because

of late there had been no reservations in the confidence with which my

chief treated me. Also, I could not see any possible reason for secrecy

in such a matter; it might as well be told first as last, I thought. And

I watched Constance with a brooding eye for signs she never made, for a

confidence which did not come from either of my friends.

The thing possessed my mind, and must, I fear, have interfered

materially with my work. But after a time the idea came to me that these

two had decided to allow our joint work to take precedence of their

private happiness, and to put aside their own affairs until the aims of

_The Citizens_ had been attained. I recalled certain little indications

I myself had received from Constance before John Crondall's return from

South Africa, to the effect that personal feeling could have no great

weight with her, while our national fate hung in the balance. And, by

dulling the edge of my expectancy, this conclusion somehow eased the

ache which had possessed me since the day of the kiss to which chance

had made me a witness. But it did not altogether explain to me the new

reserve, the hint of stiffness in John Crondall's manner; and, rightly

or wrongly, I knew when I took Constance's hand in mine, or met the gaze

of her shining eyes, that I did so as a devout lover, and not merely as

a friend.

XI

THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

Through no disturbance of my soul

Or strong compunction in me wrought,

I supplicate for thy controul;

But in the quietness of thought:

Me this unchartered freedom tires;

I feel the weight of chance desires:

My hopes no more must change their name;

I long for a repose that ever is the same.

_Ode to Duty._

From the first, the courtesy of the Press was securely enlisted in _The

Citizens'_ favour by John Crondall. For many months the _Standard_, now

firmly established as the principal organ of the reform movement,

devoted an entire page each day to the progress of our campaign and the

pilgrimage of our forerunners--the Canadian preachers. John Crondall had

gone thoroughly into the matter at the beginning with the editor of this

journal, and the key-note thus given was taken by the Press of the whole

country.

The essence of our treatment by the newspapers lay in their careful

avoidance of all matter which would be likely to earn for the movement

the hostility of Germany, or of the officers in command of the German

forces in England. Our language took on a new and special meaning in

the columns of the newspapers, where reports of our campaign were

concerned. Such adjectives as "social," "moral," and the like were made

to cover quite special meanings, as applied to the organization of _The

Citizens_. So ably was all this done, that the German authorities

regarded the whole movement as social and domestic, with a direct

bearing upon the General Election, perhaps, but none whatever upon

international politics or Anglo-German relations.

In Elberfeld's ponderous history we are given the text of a despatch to

the Kaiser in which General Baron von Fuechter assured his Imperial

master that any interference with _The Citizens_ and their meetings

would be gratuitous and impolitic:

"Their aims being purely social and domestic, and those of a

quasi-religious Friendly Society, resembling something between their

'Band of Hope' and their 'Antediluvian Buffaloes.' The English have a

passion for this kind of child's play, and are absurdly impatient of

official surveillance. Their incorrigible sentimentality is soothed by

such movements as those of the Canadian preachers and _The Citizens_;

but even the rudiments of discipline or efficient cooerdination are

lacking among them. Combination against us would be impossible for them,

for this is a country of individualists, among whom the matter of

obligations to the State is absolutely not recognized. There is no trace

of military feeling among the people, and in my opinion the invasion

might safely have been attempted five, if not ten years, before it was.

The absence of any note of resentment in their newspapers against our

occupation has been quite marked since their preoccupation with the

Canadian preachers and _The Citizens_. The people accept it in the most

matter-of-course manner, and are already entirely absorbed once more in

their own affairs, and even in their sports. British courage and

independence have been no more than a myth for many years past--a bubble

which your Majesty's triumphantly successful policy has burst for ever."

Another important feature, alike of our campaign and the pilgrimage of

the preachers, was their positively non-party and non-sectarian

character. John Crondall had been firm upon this point from the

beginning. I remember his saying at the first meeting of the executive

of _The Citizens_:

"Our party government, party conflict, here in England, have sapped the

vitality of the British Empire long enough. I believe the invasion has

scotched the thing, and we must be very careful to do nothing that might

help to bring it to life again. A Radical, as such, is neither better

nor worse than a Conservative. It does not matter two pins what becomes

of the Conservative organization, or the Liberal party, as parties. I

should be delighted never to hear of either again. Our business is the

Empire's business; and we want the people of the Empire with us--the

whole lot of them--as one solid party."

Accordingly, no mention of any political party was ever heard at our

meetings. We made no appeal to any given section of the community, but

only to the British public as a whole. We aimed at showing that there

could be no division in national affairs, save the division which

separates citizens and patriots from men worthy of neither name. And

that is why Maurice Hall, in his famous _British Renaissance_, was able

to write that:

"The General Elections of the invasion year were practically directed

and decided by two forces: the influence of _The Citizens_ and the

influence of the Canadian preachers' Duty teaching. Political opinions

and traditions, as previously understood, played no part whatever."

Of course, it seems natural enough now that the British public should be

united in matters of national and imperial import; but those whose

memories are long enough will bear me out in saying that in previous

elections nine voters in ten had been guided, not by any question of the

needs of the country or the Empire, but by their support of this party

or of that, of this colour or of that. Our politicians had strenuously

supported the preposterous faction system, and fanned party rivalry in

every way, because they recognized that it gave them personal power and

aggrandizement, which they had long placed before any consideration of

the common weal. By this they had brought shame and disaster upon the

nation, in precisely the same manner that the same results had been

produced by the same means, when these were used by the oligarchs of the

Dutch Republic, prior to the downfall of the Netherlands.

Indeed, for some time before the invasion our politicians might have

been supposed to be modelling their lives and policy entirely upon those

of the Dutch Republic in the eighteenth century; particularly with

regard to their mercenary spoliation of the nation's defence forces, and

their insane pertinacity in clinging to the policy of "cheapness," which

killed both the manufacturing and the agricultural industries of the

country, by allowing other properly protected nations to oust our

producers from all foreign markets, and to swamp our home markets with

their surplus stocks. Down to the minutest detail, the same causes and

actions had produced the same results a century earlier in the

Netherlands; and even as, first, King William of Prussia, and then

revolutionary France, had devastated the Netherlands, so had the

Kaiser's legions overrun England. It was not for lack of warning that

our politicians had blindly followed so fatal a lead. "The Destroyers"

were still being warned most urgently at the very time of the invasion

by public speakers, and in such lucid works as Ellis Barker's _The Rise

and Decline of the Netherlands_.

In spite of the emphatically non-party character of _The Citizens'_

campaign, John Crondall kept in close touch throughout with all his

political friends, and very many members of Parliament were among our

leading workers. My chief's idea was that, when the elections drew near,

we should cease to map out our movements in accordance with those of the

Canadian preachers, and allow them to be guided by the exigencies of the

electoral campaign; bringing all our influence to bear wherever we saw

weakness in the cause of patriotism and reform.

Already we had arrangements made for leading members of _The Citizens_

to address meetings throughout the elections at a good many centres.

But, before the electioneering had gone far, it became evident that more

had already been accomplished than we supposed. Candidates who came

before their constituents with any kind of party programme were either

angrily howled down or contemptuously ignored. Old supporters of "The

Destroyers," who ventured upon temporizing tactics, were peremptorily

faced with demands for straight-out declarations of policy upon the

single issue of patriotic reform and duty to the State. With a single

exception, the actual members of the Cabinet in "The Destroyers'"

Administration refrained from any attempt to secure reelection.

Such an electoral campaign had never before been known in England.

Candidates who, even inadvertently, used such words as "Conservative,"

"Radical," or "Liberal," were hissed into silence. Even the word

"Labour" was taboo, so far as it referred to any political party.

"Duty," "Patriotism," "Defence," "Citizenship," "United Empire,"

"British Federation," and, again, ringing loudly above all other cries,

"Duty"--those were the watchwords and the platforms of the invasion year

elections. The candidate who promised relief from taxation was laughed

at. The candidate who promised legislation directed toward the citizen's

defence of the citizen's hearth and home, was cheered to the echo.

The one member of "The Destroyers'" Administration who sought

reelection, found it well to assert the claims of his youth by making a

public recantation of all his previously expressed views and policy,

and seeking to outdo every one else in the direction of patriotic

reform. Though he gulled nobody, he was listened to good-humouredly, and

defeated with great ease by Abel Winchester, the Australian, who saw

years of work before him, in conjunction with Forbes Thompson, in the

supervision of village rifle corps throughout the country.

In many ways the country had never known a Parliamentary election so

constructive; in one respect it was absolutely destructive. It destroyed

all previously existing political parties. No single member was returned

as the representative of a previously existing party. The voters of

Britain had refused to consider any other than the one issue of

patriotic reform: the all-British policy, as it was called; and the

consequence was, that when Parliament assembled it was found that the

House of Commons could no longer boast possession of an Opposition.

The members of that assembly had been sent to St. Stephens to busy

themselves, in unison, with the accomplishment of a common end; and if

one among them should waste the time of the House by any form of

obstruction, he could only do so by breaking the pledges upon the

strength of which he had been elected. This fact was clearly set forth

in the Speech from the Throne, delivered by the King in person. The

business of Parliament was in full swing before its second sitting was

far advanced. Though then an aged man, the famous statesman to whom the

King had entrusted the task of forming a new Cabinet bore himself with

the vigour of early manhood, and no Prime Minister had ever faced

Parliament with so great a driving power behind him of unity,

confidence, and national sympathy. The fact that for years his name had

been most prominently associated with every movement making for unity

within the Empire; that he had striven valiantly for many years against

the anti-British forces of disintegration; this was admitted to augur

well for the success of the Conference of Colonial representatives then

holding its first sitting in historic Westminster Hall.

Meantime, the patriotic enthusiasm of the general public seemed to have

been greatly heightened by the result of the general elections. By

common consent a note of caution, of warning, took the place of the

stirring note of appeal and stimulation which had formerly characterized

every public address delivered under the auspices of _The Citizens_.

Almost without invitation now the cream of the country's manhood flocked

into our travelling headquarters for enrolment on the roster of _The

Citizens_; and: "Hasten slowly--and silently," became John Crondall's

counsel to all our supporters.

The effect upon the whole public of this counsel of caution and

restraint was one of the most remarkable features of that period; and it

showed, more clearly, I think, than anything else, the amazing depth and

strength of the influence exerted by the Canadian preacher's Duty

teaching. Our relations with the Power to which we were in effect a

people in vassalage, and payers of tribute, demanded at this stage the

exercise of the most cautious restraint; and finely the people responded

to this demand. In his _History of the Revival_, Charles Corbett says,

with good reason:

"It was the time of waiting, of cautious preparation, of enthusiasm

restrained and harnessed to prudence, which must really be regarded as

the probationary era of the Revival. It is in no sense a depreciation of

the incalculable value of the work done by the Canadian apostles of the

new faith, to say that their splendid efforts might well have proved of

no more than transitory effect, but for that stern, silent period of

repression, of rigid, self-administered discipline, which followed the

access to office of the first Free Government.[1] That period may be

regarded as the crucible in which British Christianity was tested and

proven; in which the steel of the new patriotism was tempered and

hardened to invincible durability. The Canadian preachers awakened the

people; _The Citizens_ set them their task; the period of waiting

schooled them in the spirit of the twentieth century, the key-note of

which is discipline, the meaning of which is Duty."

[1] This title, applied by the Prince of Wales in a speech delivered

at the Guildhall to the first Parliament which met without an

Opposition, remained in use for a number of years afterwards.

I do not regard that as a statement of more than the truth; and I do not

think it would be easy to overrate, either the value of the period or

the excellence of the response to the demand it made upon them. The only

dissatisfied folk were the publicans and the theatre and music-hall

lessees. The special journals which represented the interests of this

class--caterers for public amusement and public dissipation--were full

of covert raillery against what they called the new Puritanism. Their

raillery was no more than covert, however; the spirit of the time was

too strong to permit more than that, and I do not think it produced any

effect worth mentioning.

Here again our difficulties proved real blessings in disguise. The

burden of invasion taxation was heavy; all classes felt the monetary

pinch of it, apart altogether from the humiliation of the German

occupation; and this helped very materially in the development of common

sense ideals regarding economy and simple living. Not for nothing had

John Crondall called the Canadian preachers the mouthpiece of the hour.

One saw very plainly, in every walk of life, a steadily growing love of

sobriety. The thing was perhaps most immediately noticeable in the

matter of the liquor traffic. Throughout the country, those

public-houses and hotels which were in reality only drinking-shops were

being closed up by the score, or converted into other sorts of business

premises, for lack of custom in their old misery-breeding trade. The

consumption of spirits, and of all the more expensive wines, decreased

enormously. It is true there was a slight increase in the consumption of

cider, and the falling off of beer sales was slight. But this was

because a large number of people, who had been in the habit of taking

far less wholesome and more costly beverages, now made use of both beer

and cider. It was not at all evidence that the consumption of alcohol

among the poorer classes maintained its old level. The sales of gin,

for example, fell to less than half the amounts used in the years

before the invasion.

And this was no more than one aspect of the great national progress

toward realization of the ideals of Duty and simple living. Extravagance

of every sort became, not merely unpopular, but hated and despised, as

evidence of unpatriotic feeling. In this, I think, the women of England

deserve the greater meed of gratitude and respect. The change they

wrought in domestic economy was not less than wonderful when one

realizes how speedily it was brought about, and how great was the

change. For in the years immediately preceding the invasion the women

had been sad offenders in this respect, particularly, perhaps, in their

vulgar and ostentatious extravagance in matters of dress. Now, the

placards of the British Commercial Union, exhorting the public to "Buy

British Empire Goods only," became out of date almost as soon as they

were printed, their advice being no longer needed.

No more could one see the wives and daughters of England competing with

their unfortunate sisters of the _demi-monde_ in the extravagance of

their attire. One of the first evidences of the effect of the Canadian

preachers' teaching that I can remember was the notable access of

decorum and simplicity in dress which dominated the fashion of our

clothes. In this, as in sundry other matters, I think we were helped by

the unprecedented number of Colonials who began to flock into England at

this time from Canada, South Africa, and Australia. But, despite the

general desire for economy, it is certain that from that time on the

middle-class folk at all events began to wear better clothes and buy

better commodities generally--articles which lasted longer, and were

better worth using. The reason of this was all a part of the same

teaching, the same general tendency. Shoddy goods, representing the

surplus output of German and American firms, could no longer be sold in

England, however low the prices at which they were offered; and

shopkeepers soon found that they lost standing when they offered such

goods to the public. Thus true economy and true patriotism were served

at one and the same time.

Extravagance in eating, dress, entertainment, and the like, became that

year more disgraceful than drunkenness had been a year before in the

public eye. In the same way we attained to clearer vision and a saner

sense of proportion in very many matters of first-rate social

importance. I remember reading that the market for sixty and seventy

horse-power touring motor-cars had almost ceased to exist, while the

demand for industrial motor-vehicles, and for cars of something under

twenty horse-power, had never been so flourishing.

Before this time we had fallen into incredible extravagance in our

attitude toward all the parasitical occupations, and paid absurd

tributes of respect to many of those who waxed fat upon pandering to our

weaknesses. This passed away now, like a single night's dream, and

incidentally gave rise to a certain amount of complaining from those who

suffered by it. But the public was no more inclined to heed these

complainings than it was to fritter away its time and substance in

drinking-bars or in places of amusement. The famous "Middle-class

Music-halls" faded quickly into the limbo of forgotten failures, and the

most popular of public performers were those--and they were not a

few--who forsook grease-paint for khaki, and posturing on stages for

exercising on rifle-ranges and drill-grounds.

The word "Puritanism" was still a term of reproach then, by virtue of

its old associations; but, as we see things nowadays, there is room only

for gladness in admitting that the wave of feeling which swept through

the homes of England in the wake of the Canadian preachers, _The

Citizens_, and the organizers of the village rifle corps, was in very

truth a mighty revival of Puritanism, backed by the newly awakened

twentieth-century spirit of Imperial patriotism, with its recognition of

the duty of loyalty, not alone to country, but to race and Empire. Yes,

it was true Puritanism--stern, unfaltering Puritanism; and it came to

England not a day too soon. Without it, we could never have been purged

of our insensate selfishness; without it, the loose agglomeration of

states, then called the British Empire, could never have been welded

into the State; without it, the great events of that year would have

been impossible, and the dominion of the English-speaking peoples must,

ere this, have become no more than a matter of historical interest.

XII

BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER

Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear

The Godhead's most benignant grace;

Nor know we anything so fair

As is the smile upon thy face:

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,

And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;

And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.

_Ode to Duty._

I suffered no change so far as Constance Grey's demeanour to me was

concerned; but certainly John Crondall had altered since the day upon

which I had so inopportunely entered his room when Constance was with

him. At times I fancied his change was toward me personally, and I

thought it curiously unlike the man to cherish any sort of unkindness

over an accident. But then, again, at odd times, I watched him with

other men among our now considerable train, and the conclusion was borne

in upon me that the change had nothing to do with me, but was general in

its character. He was more stern, less cheery, and far more reserved

than before.

And this I thought most strange, for it seemed to me that, even though

Constance and my chief might have agreed that nothing like an engagement

between them must come till our work was done, yet the understanding

which could lead to the kiss I had seen was surely warrant enough for a

change of quite another character than this one. I thought of it

whenever I took Constance's hand in greeting her; and I think my eyes

must sometimes have told her what my heart always felt: that in me, this

right to do as Crondall had done would have seemed an entry into

Paradise, let circumstances and conditions be what they might. And with

such a thought I would recall what, to me, would never be the least of

Black Saturday's events: that once Constance Grey had lain in my

arms--unconsciously, it was true; and that upon the same occasion I had

kissed her, and known in that moment that never again could she be as

other women for me.

I was often tempted to speak to Constance of the change I saw in John

Crondall, and one day in Carlisle I yielded to the temptation. At one

and the same time I both craved and dreaded definite news of the

understanding between the woman I loved and the man I liked and

respected more than any other. I wanted Constance's confidence; yet I

felt as though my life would be stripped bare by definite knowledge that

she was betrothed. So, moth-like, I hovered about the perilous subject,

with a nervous endeavour to lend natural composure to my voice.

"Do you notice any particular change in John Crondall of late?" I asked.

And it seemed to me that Constance flushed slightly as she answered me:

"Change? No. Has he changed?"

"Well, he does not seem to be nearly so happy as----" And there I broke

away from a dangerous comparison, and substituted--"as he was awhile

back."

"Really? But what makes you think that?"

"I fancy he is much more reserved--less frank and more preoccupied; not

so jolly, in fact, as he always was. I have thought so for several

weeks."

"I am sorry, very sorry; and I do hope you are mistaken. Of course he is

overworked--we all are; but that never hurt him before; and with things

going so splendidly---- Oh, I hope you are mistaken."

"Perhaps so," I said. "Certainly I think he has every reason to be

happy--to be happy and proud; every reason."

And I stopped at that; but Constance made no sign to me; and I wondered

she did not, for we were very intimate, and she was sweetly kind to me

in those days. Indeed, once when I looked up sharply at her with a

question from some work we were engaged upon, I saw a light in her

beautiful eyes which thrilled my very heart with strange delight. Her

expression had changed instantly, and I told myself I had no sort of

business to be thrilled by a look which was obviously born of reverie,

of thoughts about John Crondall. Such a sweet light of love her eyes

held! I told myself for the hundredth time that no consideration should

ever cloud the happiness of the man who was so fortunate as to inspire

it--to have won the heart which looked out through those shining eyes.

But it must not be supposed that I had much leisure for this sort of

meditation. My feeling for Constance certainly dominated me. Indeed, it

accounted for everything of import in my life--for my general attitude

of mind and, I make no doubt, for my being where I was and playing the

part I did play in _The Citizens'_ campaign. But our life was not one

that admitted of emotional preoccupation of any sort. We were too close

to the working mechanism of national progress. There never was more

absorbing work than the making and enrolment of _Citizens_ at such a

juncture in the history of one's country.

The spirit of our work, no less than that of the Canadian preachers'

teaching, was actually in the air at that time. It dominated English

life, from the mansions of the great landholders to the cottages of the

field-labourers and the tenements of the factory-hands. It affected

every least detail of the people's lives, and coloured all thought and

action in England--a process which I am sure was strengthened by the

remarkable growth of Colonial sentiment throughout the country at this

time. The tide of emigration seemed to have been reversed by some subtle

process of nature: the strong ebb of previous years had become a flow of

immigration. Everywhere one met Canadians, Australians, South Africans,

and an unusual number of Anglo-Indians.

"We've been doing pretty well of late," said one of the Canadians to me

when I commented to him upon this influx into the Old Country of her

Colonial sons; "and I reckon we can most of us spare time to see things

through a bit at Home. The way our folk look at it on the other side is

this: They reckon we've got to worry through this German business

somehow and come out the right way up on the other side, and a good deal

more solid than we went in. We don't reckon there's going to be any more

'Little Englandism' or Cobdenism after this job's once put through; and

that's a proposition we're mighty keenly interested in, you see. We put

most of our eggs into the Empire basket, away back, while you people

were still busy giving Africa to the Boers, and your Navy to the dogs,

and your markets to Germany, and your trade and esteem to any old

foreigner that happened along with a nest to feather. I reckon that's

why we're most of us here; and maybe that's why we mostly bring our

cartridge-belts along. A New South Wales chap told me last night you

couldn't get up a cricket match aboard a P. and O. or Orient boat, not

for a wager--nothing but shooting competitions and the gentle art of

drill. You say 'Shun!' to the next Colonial you meet, and listen for the

click of his heels! Not that we set much store by that business

ourselves, but we learned about the Old Country taste for it in South

Africa, and it's all good practice, anyhow, and good discipline."

But, whatever the motives and causes behind their coming, it is certain

that an astonishingly large number of our oversea kinsmen were arriving

in England each week; and I believe every one of them joined _The

Citizens_. Their presence and the part they played in affairs had a

marked effect upon the spirit of the time. All sorts and conditions of

people, whose thoughts in the past had never strayed far from their own

parishes, now talked familiarly of people, things, and places Colonial.

The idea of our race being one big tribe, though our homes might be

hemispheres apart, seemed to me to take root for the first time in the

minds of the general public at about this period. I spoke of it to John

Crondall, and reminded him how he had urged this idea upon us years

before in Westminster with but indifferent success.

"Ah, well," he said, "they have come to it of their own accord now; and

that means they'll get a better grip of it than any one could ever have

given them. That's part of our national character, and not a bad part."

We were heading southward through Lancashire, when the news reached us

of that extension of the British Constitution which first gave us a

really Imperial Parliament. The country received the news with a

deep-seated and sober satisfaction. Perhaps the majority hardly

appreciated at once the full significance of this first great

accomplishment of the Free Government. But the published details showed

the simplest among us that by this act the congeries of scattered

nations we had called the British Empire were now truly welded into an

Imperial State. It showed us that we English, and all those stalwart

kinsmen of ours across the Atlantic and on the far side of the

Pacific--north, south, east, and west, wherever the old flag flew--were

now actually as well as nominally subjects of one Government, and that

that Government would for the future be composed of men chosen as their

representatives by the people of every country in the Empire; men drawn

together under one historic roof by one firm purpose--the service and

administration of a great Imperial State.

As I say, the realization produced deep-seated satisfaction. Of late we

had learned to take things soberly in England; but there was no room for

doubt about the effect of this news upon the public. The events of the

past half-year, the pilgrimage of the Canadian preachers, the new

devotion to Duty (which seemed almost a new religion though it was

actually but an awakening to the religion of our fathers), the influx

among us of Colonial kinsmen, and the campaign of _The Citizens_; these

things combined to give us a far truer and more keen appreciation of the

news than had been possible before.

Indeed, looking back upon my experience in Fleet Street, I must suppose

the whole thing would have been impossible before. I could imagine how

my _Daily Gazette_ colleagues would have scoffed at the Imperial

Parliament's first executive act, which was the devising of an Imperial

Customs Tariff to give free trade within the Empire, and complete

protection so far as the rest of the world was concerned, with strictly

reciprocatory concessions to such nations as might choose to offer these

to us, and to no others.