notions of manners, morals, and dignity of behaviour, it was perhaps
to be expected that some one or other of the daily newspapers would,
in sagacious appreciation of free “copy,” start a public discussion on
the religious faith of this Christian Empire. It was perhaps as equally
probable that considering the remarkable laxity of certain bishops
and ordained ministers of the gospel generally, a “press” question
should be put to the House of Tom, Dick and Harry--“Do We Believe?”
Granting the premises, it was hardly to be wondered at that Tom, Dick
and Harry should straightway arise in their strength and reply to the
question,--and not only Tom, Dick and Harry of the laity, but Tom,
Dick and Harry of the clergy likewise. Great was the discussion,--fast
and furious waged the war of words, and the Penny Daily which provoked
the combat was thus conveniently supplied with material for which
the proprietors,--most of them Sons of Israel,--had nothing to pay.
And now, the arguments being heard and ended, nobody is a whit the
wiser, though some few may be several whits the sadder. For to speak
honestly, nothing more reprehensible has ever smirched the career of
an English journal than the fact that it should have lent itself to the
advertized questioning of the nation’s religious faith. It was an open
flaunting of infidelity in the face of the civilized world. To talk
of the “conversion” of India, China or Japan, while a leading British
newspaper openly invites the notoriety-hunting section of the British
public to air their opinions of the Christian Faith in its columns,
just as if the Faith itself were on public trial in a Christian
country, is only one example of the many forms of utter Humbug in which
we are nowadays so unfortunately prone to indulge. Our sometimes-called
“heathen” ally, Japan, has lately taught us many lessons which perhaps
we knew once and have forgotten, and which perhaps we need to learn
again,--such as valour without conceit, strength without roughness,
and endurance without complaint,--but one of the greatest lessons of
all she has given us is that of her people’s pious reverence for the
Unseen and Eternal, and their belief in the ever-present “Spirits
of the Dead” whom they honour and will not shame. What a deplorable
contrast we make in our pandering to the lowest tastes of the mob when,
without a word of protest, we permit _our_ “Spirits of the Dead,”--the
spirits of our gallant forefathers who fought for the pure Faith of
England and sealed it with their blood,--to be degraded and insulted by
a cheap newspaper discussion on the most private and sacred emotions
of the soul, as though such a discussion were of a character suited to
take its place among police-cases and quack medical advertisements!
True, we are constantly being made aware that the British Press is no
longer the clean, sane, strong and reliable institution it once was,
when “personalities” were deemed vulgar, and lies dishonourable,--and
therefore we perhaps ought not to feel very greatly surprised when
the name and possible attributes of the Almighty Creator Himself are
dragged through the purlieus of “up-to-date” journalism,--but surely
there is something very deplorable and disgraceful in the fact that
any one professing to be a follower of the Christian Faith should have
replied to what can only be termed, considering the quarter from whence
it came, an ironical demand, “Do We Believe?” The best and wisest
answer would have been complete silence on the part of the public. No
more effectual “snubbing” to the non-Christian faction could have been
given. But unfortunately there are a certain class of persons whose
prime passion is to see themselves in print, and to this end they will
commit any folly and write any letter to the newspapers, even if it
be only to state that primroses were seen somewhat early in bloom in
their back yards. And such, chiefly, were the kind of men and women who
poured themselves into the channels of the “Do We Believe?” discussion,
like water running down the streets into gutters and mains,--never
seeming to realize that to the thinking and intellectual world, their
foolish letters, addressed to such a public quarter, merely proved
their utter loss of respect for themselves, not only as professing
Christians and subjects of a Christian Empire, but as men and women. No
real follower of a Faith--any Faith--would be so lost to every sense of
decency as to discuss it in a daily newspaper. As for the clergy who
took part in the boresome palaver, one can only marvel at them and
ask why they did not “veto” the whole thing at once? A penny paper is
not the Hall of Pontius Pilate. As ministers of Christ they might have
protested against a modern-vulgar “mock” trial of their Master. It was
in their power to do so, and such a protest would have redounded to
their honour. At any rate, they might themselves have abstained from
joining in the foolish and unnecessary gabble. For gabble it was, and
gabble it is. No useful cause has been served thereby and no advantage
gained. The Sons of Israel have asked a question,--and some of the
unwise among professing Christians, being caught in the Israelitish
trap, have answered it. The manner in which both question was put and
answer given, was unworthy of a country where the Christian Faith is
the guiding light of the realm. Matters of religion are of course
open to discussion in the treatise or book intended for quiet library
reading, or even in the better-class magazines, but to hawk sacred
subjects of personal sentiment and national creed about in the daily
wear of newspaper columns which equally include murders, divorces,
bigamies, stocks and shares, and the general _débris_ cast off as
flotsam and jetsam in the turgid waves of Mankind’s ever-recurring
mischief against itself, was to the last degree reprehensible and
regrettable. And this, if only for the possible impression likely to
be created by such an action among the peoples of those countries to
whom, with ridiculous inconsistency, we presume to send missionaries
for the purpose of “converting” them to a Creed we ourselves drag
through the mire of doubt in our daily press. Fortunately, however, the
matter, deplorably as it has exhibited our “religion” to the eyes of
“heathen” nations, has now come to an end. It has worked no change,--it
has strengthened no weak places,--it has helped no struggling effort
towards good. The Soul of the Nation has not been moved thereby, and
it is the Soul of the Nation--that great, silent patient and labouring
Soul with which all religion has to do,--that Soul, which the Christian
Creed, ever since it was first preached in Britain, has raised to such
a height of supremacy and power, that it needs all its reserve of sober
courage and devout humility to help it bear its honours greatly. For
has it not been said--“Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed
lest he fall!”
One may look upon the innate spirit of Revivalism, exemplified in the
hysteric wave of preaching, praying and psalm-singing that has recently
spread over Wales and other districts, as so much instinctive and
natural popular rebellion against the insidious flood of atheism which
has for the past ten years been striving to poison all the channels
of man’s better health and saner condition,--rebellion too against
the apathetic coldness and shameless indifference of the ordained
clergy to the clamorous needs of those neglected “flocks” which
they are elected to serve. “Enough,” say the People, “of shams and
shows!--enough of ministers who only minister to themselves and their
own convenience!--enough of the preaching of the Gospel by men who do
not and will not fulfil a single one of its commands in their own lives
and actions! Let us have something forcible and earnest,--let us be
permitted to _feel_, even though we shout and sing ourselves hoarse
with the emotion which has been seething in us for years,--an emotion
which we cannot explain to ourselves, but which craves, with a passion
beyond all speech, for some touch of Heaven, some closer comprehension
of that ‘After-Death,’ which God keeps back from us like a prize or a
punishment for His obedient or rebellious children! Anything is better
than the cold dead inertia of the Churches, sunk as they are in a blind
lethargy from which they only bestir themselves dully when a chance
is offered to them of engaging in some petty personal quarrel. We are
weary of priestly humbug, selfishness and inefficiency--we will gather
ourselves together and re-assert our faith in the world to come, as
true disciples of the Lord!” And whether such Revivalists elect to
march under the banner of Cocoa Cadbury, (an excellent advertisement
for Cadbury,) or any other emblazoned device of a successful trading
concern, is not a matter of much moment. Starving folk will march
anywhere,--under anything or anybody,--if they are promised nourishment
at the end of the journey. And the Soul of the Nation is, at this
present period of time, starving to the point of inanition in all forms
of spiritual food. The Good Shepherd gave His life for the sheep, but
the underlings who care not for the flock have let the wolves into the
fold.
A thing which would appear to be frequently forgotten by those who hold
Governmental authority, is that the most vital, most powerful and most
active principle of a Nation is this spark of the Divine which for
want of any clearer mode of description we call the Soul. The Soul of
a single individual man or woman is the mere copy in miniature of the
Soul of a race, or the Soul of a world. An involuntary, half-conscious,
but nevertheless resistless impetus towards ultimate Good is the Soul’s
original quality and inborn Ideal. For, if the human weakness of the
fleshly creature impel it towards temporary phases of evil, sooner
or later the Soul will set to work to pull it out of the stifling
quagmire. Material Nature is, as we all know, a remedial agent, and
wherever mischief is wrought she seeks to amend it. Spiritual Nature
is a still stronger healer. For every injury self-inflicted or wrought
by others on the immortal Soul she has a saving balm,--and for every
inch of progress which the Soul essays to make along the lines leading
to good, she helps it forward a mile. Individuals find this out very
soon in their own personal experience,--Nations discover it more
slowly, first, because they have a longer time to live and learn than
the individual unit,--and secondly because, moving in great masses,
their periods of transit from one epoch of civilization to another
must necessarily be more laborious and difficult. But in all epochs,
in all eras, the Soul wins. The fiery leaven which is of God, works
through the lump in various strange and complex forms till the whole is
leavened. And those nations in which the Soul, or Spirit of the Ideal,
is crushed and kept down by the iron hand of Materialism, are very soon
seen to fall back in the rear of progress,--so far back indeed that
we are fain to speak of them as “decaying nations,” though of a truth
no decay is possible to them, but only temporary retrogression, which
will in due course revert to progress again when the Soul is once more
allowed to have its way. But Governments whose common law of procedure
is to put this Soul or “spirit of the Ideal,” in the background as a
kind of myth or chimera, and who seek to settle everything pertaining
to the interests of the people by what they term “practical” methods,
(which often prove wholly _un_practical,) are naturally prone to forget
that whatever they do, whatever they say, the busy Soul of the Nation
is altogether outside and above them, fighting for itself, often
desperately and piteously, and struggling to make use of its wings and
rise higher and ever higher despite its hobbles of iron and feet of
clay. Religion is supposed to give it this, its demanded freedom of
noble flight, and the Christian religion, above all religions in the
world, with its consoling teaching that out of sorrow cometh joy, and
out of Death is born Life, should make for the happiness and peace of
every living creature. But when the very ministers of that glorious
Faith cast doubt upon it, and live their own lives in direct opposition
to it,--when undevout and therefore limited scientists dissect a midge
of truth in order to launch a leviathan of fallacious theory,--when
there is no ONE pure and simple Church of Christ where all may meet in
honest worship of His perfect Creed, but only a million Sects which
blaspheme His Divine memory by their outrageous and petty quarrels one
with the other,--it is no matter for surprise that a strong revulsion
of feeling should set in, or that the Soul of the Nation, conceiving
itself grievously wronged and neglected, should try to find some
fresh path of its own heavenward,--some way out of mere Sham--in the
belief that if it obeys its own instinctive desire towards the Highest
Ideal, God will not suffer it to go far astray. For the quarrels of
the Churches are the second crucifixion of Christ. The apathy of
the priesthood is the deliberate casting away to sin of the people.
Where there is no unity, there is no force; and the divine founder of
Christianity Himself has told us that a house divided against itself
shall not stand.
Yet when one comes to think of it, it is the strangest thing in the
world that Christians should quarrel, seeing how plain and clear
are the instructions left to them for their guidance by the Master
whom they profess to serve. The New Testament is easy reading. Its
commands are brief and concise enough. There would seem to be no
room for discussion or difference. Why should there be followers of
Luther, Wesley, or any other limited human preacher or teacher, when
all that is necessary is that we should be followers of Christ? The
Soul of the Nation asks no more than this Gospel of Love, lovingly
imparted,--it seeks but for the one firm faith in the eternal things
which are its birthright,--a faith held purely, and wholly undoubted
by those whose high mission is to teach it to each generation in
turn,--it craves no more than that touch of heavenly sympathy which
makes the whole world kin--that holy link which binds all mankind
together in one strong knot of indissoluble spiritual belief in the
love and justice; the Unseen Force behind Creation, which will surely,
out of the verities of that same love and justice, grant us a future
life wherein will be made clear to us the reason and necessity of
our strange sufferings, martyrdoms, disappointments and losses in
this present mere brief episode of living. The Soul of the Nation
does not in itself ask reward for its good deeds,--nor does it weakly
complain if punishment be inflicted upon it for its evil ones,--but
it does demand justice,--it does ask why, for no conscious fault of
its own, it should be born, only to die. Were this question never to
be answered, then the mathematical exactitude with which everything,
small or great, is balanced in the universe would be a merely elaborate
scheme of unnecessary fallacy, irrationally designed for the delusion
of creatures who are not worth the trouble of deluding. No one who
is sane and morally healthy can contemplate such an idea as this for
a moment,--it follows therefore that Man, living as he does between
two Infinities, and endowed with a brain which can spiritually
consider both without reeling, must be guided by some great and
illimitably wise destiny towards ends he knows not, but which he
may be reverently permitted to believe are for his better progress,
greater happiness and higher understanding, and that he needs, out
of all things in the world, a Faith, by which his soul shall be kept
strong and pure, his mind steady, and his sympathies active. No mockery
of Christianity, such as that of Servian priests who have publicly
blessed regicides,--no cruel tyranny, such as that of the Greek Church
which dares to appeal to a God of Love while the mighty masses of the
Russian people remain steeped in misery, and are, by very wretchedness,
driven to crime,--no cold Conventionality of Form and Custom, such as
is practised in fashionable London “West End” churches where society
humbugs gather together to listen smirkingly to the civil cant of other
society humbugs in surplices, who, passing for ministers of Christ,
almost fear to preach the Gospel as it was written, lest its plain
blunt truths should offend some highly-placed personage,--none of this
kind of “religion” at all is of use,--but faith,--real faith--real
aspiration--real uplifting to the Ideal of all things noble, all
things great, wise, helpful and true. This, at the present crucial
moment of time, is what the Soul of the Nation demands,--and not only
the Soul of our own beloved and glorious Nation, but the Souls of
all nations whatsoever on the globe. They stand up,--each in place,
each on its own spiritual plane,--stern, strong and beautiful;--like
the fabled statue of Memnon they face the sunrise, and at the first
touch of the first ray of glory they speak. Their voices are as
thunder among the spheres,--they demand what they deserve,--justice,
hope, comfort, uplifting! To the mystic High Altar of the Infinite
and Eternal they lift their praying hands, and to the priests of all
religions they appeal. “Give us the Way, the Truth and the Life! Cease
your own wranglings and petty disputations,--have done with mere
human dogma concerning the matters of life and death,--let us see the
MAN, Christ,--He who suffered our sorrows, and knew our need,--the
Brother, the Friend, the Helper, for whom, in braver days than these,
men gladly gave their lives to sword and fire and the jaws of wild
beasts,--is there no manhood left now of such undaunted mettle?--is
there not one who will think of US, the Nations, who hunger for the
glorious vitality of Faith, which, like the blood in our veins, keeps
us warm and young and vigorous? Or must we perish in the devil-clutch
of Materialism, and go down to the depths, thrust there by the very men
who have been elected to hold us close to God? We demand our rights
in the Divine and Eternal Love!--and these rights, born in us from
the beginning, we will have, even if all present-existing human forms
and fabrics of creed go down in our struggle for the one pure faith
under whose holy influence we shall become stronger and wiser, and
better able to understand our work and place in creation! The gates of
Life shall not be shut upon us;--we will not accept the materialist’s
latter-day testimony that death shall be the end of all. For if there
be an Eternal Good we are part of its being and share in its Eternal
attributes. And we say,--we Souls of the Nations,--to all our preachers
and teachers and representatives of the Divine on earth--Lift us up! Do
not cast us down! Be yourselves the models of what you would have US
become!--so shall we be willing and ready to learn from you,--so shall
we honour, love and patiently follow you. But if you, as ministers of
religion, show yourselves worse hypocrites than the very sinners whom
the law condemns, then beware of us and our just vengeance! For you
take from us our very life-blood, when you cheat us of the hope of
Heaven!”
This is true. A Nation robbed of its faith, is like a human body robbed
of its heart--it has neither pulse nor motion,--it is the mere corpse
of itself lying prone in the dust of perishable waste things. And the
fact that grave retribution will follow the steps of those who assist
in bringing it to this doom cannot be doubted. Such retribution has
then been visited heavily on over-prosperous peoples, who, misled by
special pleaders in the cause of Materialism have set God aside out
of their countings as a non-proven quantity. The “non-proven” has
always proved itself with crushing swiftness and authority in the
fall of great powers, the shaking of great thrones, and the ruin and
degradation of great names,--while very often a calamitous climax of
misery and disaster has befallen an entire civilization and brought it
to utter decay. Such occurrences are traceable through all history,
and always appear to result from the same cause,--the crushing out of
the vital principle, the spiritual starving of the Soul of a Nation.
Heaven has not denied or diminished its bounteous nourishment and
blessing,--for, in our own day, the wonders of Science have opened out
to our view such infinite reaches of the Ideal as should double and
treble our perception of the glories yet to be unfolded to us when we
have “shuffled off this mortal coil”--while at the same time, nothing
in all our changing phases of progress has yet occurred to alter the
simple and noble teaching of Christ, or to make such instruction
otherwise than sane, pure and helpful for every man, woman and child
ever born. Indeed, it would seem with the marvellous new penetration
we have gained into the secrets of the earth, air and light, that the
Infinite Creator is approaching His creature even more nearly, with
fresh pledges of help and promise such as His Messenger brought in the
words: “Fear not, little flock,--it is your Father’s good pleasure to
give you the Kingdom.” And to the Soul of the Nation that “Kingdom” is
everything. In that kingdom it hopes to find all it has loved and lost,
all it has striven for and failed to win, all that it has prayed for,
wept for, worked for. Yet to-day between that aspiring Soul and its
immortal Inheritance stand two deadly enemies,--a contentious Churchdom
and a capitalized Press,--the one hypocrite, the other materialist.
And the satirical demand “Do we Believe?” is but an echo of Pilate’s
question “What is truth?”--a question immediately followed by Truth’s
crucifixion. Nevertheless the Soul of the Nation--our nation, our
empire--is becoming aware of its enemies. It is instinctively conscious
of threatening evil, and is on the alert to save Itself if others
will not save it. But its way out of the labyrinth of difficulty will
probably be neither through Church nor Press,--nor will it be aided
by “revival” meetings or Salvationist assemblies. Its path will be
cloven straight,--not crookedly; for the British Nation, above all
other nations in the world, does most easily sicken of priestly Sham
and subsidized Journalism. And the sane, strong Soul of it--that Soul
which in its native intrinsic virtue, is devoutly God-fearing, pure and
true, will find means to shake off its pressing foes and stand free.
For priestcraft and dogma are like prison chains fastened upon the
progressive spirit of humanity, and they have nothing in common with
the simple teaching of Christ, which is the only real Christianity.
BUTLER & TANNER, THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS, FROME, AND LONDON.