That day the clergy-house of St. Chrysostom was, of course, deluged with
newspapers and cuttings, and the flood continued for two or three days,
during which Vane, unconscious or careless of the fact that he was
already the clerical lion of London, and, perhaps, the most discussed
man for the time being in England and the sister kingdoms, was working
hard helping his friend, Ernshaw, to organize an entirely unsectarian
twentieth century crusade throughout the poorer districts of London. He
seldom read newspapers, for he preferred the living fact to the written
word, and, besides, such work as his left little time for reading. He
had seen his name on the placards of the morning and evening papers, and
he had bought some which he had not found time to do more than glance
over.
He was, of course, glad that his sermon had attracted so much attention,
but he knew enough of newspapers and their readers not to hope for too
much on this account, and so he was not a little surprised when Father
Baldwin said to him on his return to the clergy-house on the Friday
evening:
"Well, Maxwell! glad to see you back, although you have brought a nice
hornet's nest about our ears, and started something like a social and
religious earthquake in Kensington and the adjacent lands of Mayfair and
Belgravia, to say nothing of a distinct fluttering in what I may,
perhaps, without irreverence call the upper and more spacious dove-cotes
of the Church."
"Have I really?" said Vane, quietly, "I didn't know I had, but if I have
done so, I am very glad. It was exactly what I intended to do, though I
confess I had little hope of doing so. What is the matter? I hope I
haven't got _you_ into any unpleasantness, Father Baldwin."
"It doesn't very much matter if you have," replied the older priest,
leaning back in his chair and looking at him keenly from under his
thick, iron-grey eyebrows. "You only said what has been in the hearts
and souls of a good many of us for a long time, but it was given to you
to say it and, let us hope, also the inspiration to say it in the proper
way."
"Please God!" said Vane. "And now what have I done; I mean as regards
yourself and St. Chrysostom?"
"To begin with," replied Father Baldwin, "about half the wealthiest
members of the congregation, men and women, but mostly men, have written
to say that if they are to be publicly insulted from the pulpit, and
told that they are liars and hypocrites, and not Christians, save in
name, they will leave the church and withdraw all their
subscriptions--which, of course, from quite a worldly point of view,
would be somewhat a serious matter for the church."
"That simply proves that they are not Christians," said Vane, "and the
church is better without their money. They practically confess that
they never have been giving their money honestly for the service of God,
but merely for self-advertisement or as a social obligation. It would be
no loss to us, and little gain to anybody else they gave it to."
"Yes, I believe you are right," replied Father Baldwin. "It seems rather
a hard thing to say, but people who would leave a church because the
Sermon on the Mount was preached from its pulpit, must be a strange sort
of Christians."
"They are not Christians at all!" exclaimed Vane, with a burst of
righteous wrath, "they are the bane and curse of Christianity, and have
been ever since Constantine made it official and fashionable. They are
responsible for every corruption that has crept into the Church, for
every blot that defiles the purity of the Creed. They are not
Christians, and they never have been, for they cannot be what they are
and followers of Christ at the same time. They and the wealthy clergy of
all the churches are responsible for the unfaith, tacit and avowed, of
what we are pleased to call the lower classes; the classes who compose
the majority of Christ's Congregation; and they are responsible for all
the cynicism of the open and active enemies of our faith. It is they who
make it possible for the infidel and the atheist to point the finger of
scorn at us and say, 'See how these Christians love to do the Will of
their Master.'"
"I fully appreciate everything you say, Maxwell," replied Father
Baldwin, with some little hesitation in his tone; for, although he was
as good a Christian as ever gave up everything to serve his Master, and
as earnest a priest as ever stood before the altar, yet he was getting
on in years and found it hard to break away from the traditions amidst
which he had grown up, and which he had accepted as a young man with
little or no inquiry. "At the same time, I must candidly admit that I
was a trifle startled by your absolutely uncompromising rendering of our
Lord's words. Did you really intend that they should be taken
literally?"
"It is not what I intended, Father Baldwin," replied Vane, rising from
his seat and beginning to walk up and down the plainly furnished,
book-lined common-room, "the question is what _He_ intended, and surely
no Christian in his senses could believe for a moment that our Lord
intended to quibble with words and to play with double meanings. If He
did not mean what He said, and intend those who followed Him to do what
He said, what becomes of our faith? If that is not so, surely there is
nothing left for us but to give up the doctrine of the Trinity
altogether, and go back to the old Hebrew creed--which certainly did not
forbid the accumulation of riches."
"May I come in?" said Sir Arthur Maxwell's voice through the open door,
"they told me you were here, Vane. Good evening, Father Baldwin. Well,
this is a nice sort of commotion that this son of mine has been kicking
up. Do you know, Sir," he went on, turning to Vane, "that you have
suddenly made yourself one of the most famous, or, perhaps, I should say
notorious, persons in London by that sermon of yours? It was very fine I
admit, and most desperately to the point, but I suppose you know that
all the world and the newspapers are asking where does that point point
to?"
"That is just what I was asking your son, Sir Arthur," said Father
Baldwin. "Granted that he is right in his contention that the Sermon on
the Mount is to be taken literally, it means nothing short of a
religious as well as a social revolution."
"That is exactly what the papers and everybody are saying," said Sir
Arthur. "In fact, people are beginning to look at one another and ask
some very awkward questions. For instance, here am I, that boy's father,
I am not a rich man, but I have worked hard and my old age is
comfortably provided for, and when I die what I have would naturally go
to Vane, who, on his own showing, couldn't have it; in fact, as you
know, he has given up about a thousand a year as it is that he had from
my brother Alfred."
"You will not get much sympathy from Father Baldwin on that score,
father," laughed Vane, "you know he gave up nearly twice as much."
"There is nothing in that," said Father Baldwin, hastily, as though he
would stop them saying any more, "that is a point on which I entirely
agree with you. When a man has money of his own, and devotes himself to
the service of the Church, he should devote his money to it also. As a
Christian and a priest he can have no lawful use for it, save in the
work of the Church."
"Unless he happens to be married and have a family," said Sir Arthur.
"What ought he to do then, Father Baldwin?"
"In that case, Sir Arthur," he replied, "I think he would do better to
keep out of the ministry and devote himself honestly to the affairs of
his own household. You remember, of course, what the Apostle Paul tells
us, that the man who neglects those is worse than an infidel. Of course,
it is not a good translation, and it reads very badly now that infidel
has come to mean one who does not believe in creeds. It should, of
course, read unfaithful, I mean, unfaithful to the solemn
responsibilities he has taken upon himself; and, although I may be
wrong, I find it difficult to see how a man can faithfully discharge
those obligations and those of a priest of the Church, but that opens a
very wide question, and there is a very great deal to be said on both
sides of it."
"There I quite agree with you," said Sir Arthur, "you know, of course,
better than I do, that there are hundreds of hard-worked parsons in this
country--especially in poor parishes--who can't afford curates, who
simply couldn't get on without their wives, and I know one or two myself
who say that their wives are worth a couple of curates. I'm fairly
certain that in most poor country parishes the parson's wife is the good
angel of the place."
"There is not the slightest doubt about it," replied Father Baldwin, "I
have seen quite enough of church work to convince me of that, and this
is, of course, the very strongest argument, and a very convincing one,
too, in a certain degree, against the celibacy of the clergy. But,
still, Sir Arthur," he went on, with a change of tone, "I suppose you
didn't come here to discuss theology and church matters. Of course, you
want to see your son. My study is quite at your service, if you want to
have a talk."
"Thanks, very much, Father," said Sir Arthur, "what I really came for
was to ask Vane to come round and have a bit of dinner with me. I have a
good many things to talk over with him, and I have a guest or two coming
whom I am anxious for him to meet. What do you say, Vane, can you come?"
"Of course I can, dad," replied Vane. "I am taking a holiday till
Sunday, and I couldn't spend it much better than at the old place. On
Sunday I am going to deliver two lectures at the Hall of Science, Old
Street, the head-quarters of the National Secular Society."
"The _what_, Maxwell?" exclaimed Father Baldwin, with a note of
something more than astonishment in his voice, "the Hall of
Science--why, that was Bradlaugh's place--the head-centre of London
infidelity."
"Excuse me, Father," said Vane, gravely, "do you not think that is a
word we are accustomed to use too vaguely? Is it quite fair or logical
to call these people infidels? Are they not rather faithful to their
convictions, however wrong they may be? Surely we must, at least, give
them the credit of believing in their disbelief. Last night I heard an
informal confession--one of the strangest, perhaps, that a priest ever
heard--from a young fellow, of about twenty-two, who reported my sermon
here, and then followed me to Bethnal Green and sent in both accounts to
the papers.
"He is well educated, very clever, and the son of a clergyman. He is
also what people call an infidel, and yet he made a confession of faith
to me that would have melted the soul of a financier, if he had one.
After that I shall never hear these people called infidels without a
protest. And, besides, is it not a good thing that a priest of God
should speak the truth that is in him in the temple of the unbelievers?
How many of our churches would permit one of their lecturers to speak
from the pulpit, or even from the platform of one of our schoolrooms."
"You are quite right, Maxwell," said Father Baldwin, "I used the word
unthinkingly, therefore conventionally. I am very glad you are going,
but I am afraid if your friends advertise it at all, half Kensington
and Mayfair will be off to Old Street, and crowd them out of their own
place. As I tell you, they didn't like what you said, but for all that,
they are dying to hear what you are going to say next."
"Exactly," said Sir Arthur, "that is the worst of becoming suddenly
notorious, Vane. You have made yourself, in a most righteous manner, the
talk of London, and London will follow you now wherever you go. However,
that can't be helped, it is one of the penalties of fame, and now if you
have nothing more to say to Father Baldwin, you might put on your hat,
and come, I have got a hansom at the door."