When Cardinal Newman had abandoned prematurely his hope of maintaining the Catholic character of the Church of England, he did not disdain to employ his pen in the production of a novel with a religious purpose; but we are amazed to find that the exquisite grace of style which is one of the charms of the _Apologia_ could not render Charles Riding interesting, or the novel _Loss and Gain_, of which he is the hero, readable.
It is perhaps dangerous to give another example from contemporary fiction, but those who justly admire Mrs. Humphry Ward"s subtle discernment of character and great and increasing mastery of form and style, will not be inclined to dispute the opinion that when, in _Robert Elsmere_, she undertook the defence of the modern Unitarian position, her hero was hardly a "Man"s man."
The reason is not far to seek. The average man knows too much of the darker side of life; and the necessary effort made by the author of religious novels to depict that of which they, fortunately for their own souls, have had no experience, is not successful. Charles Kingsley"s undergraduate days were perhaps not without knowledge of the shadows, but he is happier in the Schools of Alexandria, or in the s.p.a.cious days of Great Elizabeth, than in a tale of modern life such as _Two Years Ago_. His Broad Church Catholic teaching does not always find its way to the man in the street, and Henry Kingsley, whose life was so different from that of his ill.u.s.trious clerical brother, has more of human interest in his stories.
The novel with a purpose, and especially with a religious purpose, fails only, when it does fail, because the author"s knowledge of the average man in his sins and his temptations to sin, is altogether incommensurate with his familiarity with the great religious and social problems of which his story would suggest a solution.
It is often supposed that the men do not care to find the subject of religion introduced in fiction, that they resent religion in a novel, as children resent the administration of a medicinal powder in a spoonful of jam; but the expert witness of publishers demolishes this opinion. After all, the religious claim is insistent, and life is untruly depicted when men and women are described in a story as uninfluenced by it. There is something unreal in a book which has no Sundays in it. Critical opinion as expressed in the notices of books in the daily papers, and in more weighty reviews, is very misleading, simply because the reviewers are generally very young men or women who know more or less of literature but very little of life. The wrath of the young man fresh from the University at the success of those books which do not ignore the spiritual needs of men and women amuses the experienced author.
"Faugh!" cries Mr. Jones of Balliol; "another batch of sin and sentiment!" "The Christian creed and the conjugal copula! Religion and Patchouli!" Yet the critic forgets that those who would reach the minds and hearts of men must deal with the problems of creed and character which men have to solve, each one for himself.
Our censors, dilettante, delicate-handed, with their canons of criticism might do worse than reckon up the number of English novels which have lived on into the twentieth century. They will be surprised to find that they are nearly all novels with a purpose and a religious purpose for their "motif." Charles Reade when he wrote _Never too late to mend_, not only helped forward the humane and intelligent treatment of criminals, he showed how the Divine Image was stamped indelibly on human nature, and where it seemed to be obliterated could be restored.
But Charles Reade drew real men and women. His characters are not puppets of the play-house but are alive. And Thackeray--_Clarum et venerabile nomen_--making hypocrites his quarry, and raining his quiver full of satiric shafts upon the hateful crew, never scoffed for a moment at reverent things, but with bowed head and hushed footsteps pa.s.sed by the sanctuary. Therefore, these men are still living forces.
Men will read other novels of the past as women look at old-fashion plates, and amuse themselves with the differences and contrasts of succeeding generations, but the novels which men buy in their hundreds of thousands, the novels which are reprinted again and again, the novels for which the publishers wait as their copyright is expiring, like heirs expecting a rich man"s death, that each may endeavour to be first in the field with an edition which pays no royalty to the author; these novels are those which truly represented life as it seemed in other days, life seeking ever to be rea.s.sured that One has come who offers to those who walk in darkness the light of life.
It is exasperating to some minds to discover that the man of the world is not altogether worldly, and that he finds in books which recognize religion as a considerable part of man"s life, something which gives to them reality and truth. Immature minds and inexperienced penmen are not impressed by the things which really matter, and in the interval between the University and man"s settlement in life much nonsense is written and spoken.
I speak from personal experience; and when I look back upon the reviews I wrote ten years ago, it is with invariable consternation, and sometimes a real sense of shame.
Nevertheless, there is some criticism of the religious novel which must be taken seriously. I have maintained that men generally in England are in a state of theological confusion, but that they are interested in religion if they can be induced to consider it. There is, as the great African Presbyter wrote seventeen hundred years ago, a natural response in the hearts of men to the chief articles of the Christian Faith. There is a _Testimonium animae naturaliter christianae_. But there are some who can only be described by a quotation: "They are the enemies of the cross of Christ." They are determined that the Catholic creed shall have no place in the counsels and considerations of social legislation. Of Jesus Christ they have said, "We will not have this man to reign over us;" and if there be any chance that a man"s books may catch the eye of the public and rouse people to think whether opportunism is really statesmanship, and empiricism in politics really prudent, if, in a word, the principles of Christianity are offered as a solution of social problems, then the author is attacked on every side. It is suggested that his intention is insincere, that his knowledge is inadequate. The things which have been part of his painful discipline and development are described as his accepted environment. If a Bishop happens to find an ill.u.s.tration for a sermon in his pages, or a prominent Nonconformist divine recognizes that the laity like to read them, and says so; if any of those true hearts who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity have been ready to see that men who have been rescued _de profundis_, men who have had experience of [Greek: ta bathea tou satana] are not thereby disqualified for duty in the field of Faith; if, in a word, books which claim for Christianity the first place in the thought of the time are successful, a very malignant hostility is aroused.
It is most probable that this hatred of Christianity will grow and increase. The world has never before been as it is to-day. The system of party politics has placed power in the hands of the democracy. The "working man" has at last discovered what he can do. He must make his choice between the secular and the religious principle. Hitherto the Christian pastors of the people have appealed to his emotions, and not without success. The emotions will always be the chief guides in conduct for many; but the leaders of the working men are hard-headed, well read in social science and politics; and, owing to the insufficient training of the clergy in these subjects, the politicians of the _proletariat_ have conceived a sort of contempt for the parson and the minister and the priest. The small body of Unitarians, wealthy from their constant intermarriage with the great Jewish families, and opposed to an aristocracy which has only in the last forty years been willing to receive them, has been quick to see that the working man must be alienated from the Catholic creed, and his vote secured at any cost. On the railway bookstalls we may note the activity of the Unitarian propaganda committee. Fifty years ago it was not necessary to consider the opinions of the man in the street: the Unitarian minister and his congregation were comfortable in the a.s.surance of their own intellectual culture and their kindly interest for the poorer cla.s.ses. In politics they were Liberals, for an Established Church interfered with their sense of superiority, and the landed proprietors and the hereditary aristocracy socially ignored them. But they had no notion of calling into existence an electorate which should endanger the supremacy of the capitalist, and, like Frankenstein, they are afraid of their own creations, now that the working man has become the dispenser of Parliamentary power. It is vital to their interests that he should be diverted from further attacks upon capital, and encouraged to believe that it is the priest who is his true foe. "_Le clericalisme voila l"ennemi_" is a convenient cry. A vague Deism is not dangerous to wealthy manufacturers; but if the clergy are going to take up Christian Socialism it is time to be up and doing. So every weapon against the creed of Christendom is being taken down and examined, and many an old fallacy is refurbished and employed once more. Celsus is disinterred from the tomb in which Origen had buried him, and his filthy slander of the Blessed Virgin is printed as though it were a new discovery of historical research. Collins is called into court again as though Bentley had never exposed his ignorance, and Hume"s _a priori_ method is revived as though it had never been discredited; whilst Strauss and Renan are quoted as authorities, as if Westcott and Lightfoot had never been known. Shunt the working cla.s.ses on a new line of rails.
Set them shrieking against sacramentalists, and swearing at sacerdotalists, and we may quietly arrange our commercial combinations and protect our manufacturing interests!
I want to see the seats under the dome of St. Paul"s filled not by only the middle-aged middle cla.s.ses, who for the most part are Christian in creed, but by the young artisans and craftsmen, and the strong politicians who fill the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, and crowd the great a.s.sembly Rooms of Birmingham and Liverpool when an election is drawing near. The timid members of the Episcopate who may be reminded that "He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap," are not our only Bishops.
Occasionally a Prime Minister offers for election and consecration a man who can reach the minds and consciences of men. Is it too great an ambition for a storyteller to try to arouse in people"s minds a suspicion that after all something may be said for the Catholic Faith, and so to bring them to listen to those who know and can teach it?
Each man must do his work with such tools as have come in his way. The Mission preacher will use his magnetic power, the artist whose skill it is to build or to paint, will make his appeal to the love of order and beauty, the musicians will meet the heart through the ear. May not the writer of fiction use his psychological training and his knowledge of many sides of human life to create a story which shall set men thinking about the old doctrines which he believes to have lost none of their regenerating power?
There is danger lest men with good intentions should go blindly to work to redress and diminish social grievances. Individualism with its hateful cry, "Each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,"
is now at a discount, but it may be replaced by a despotism of State regulation which will destroy the family and the home. There is, I believe, only one creed which can make the capitalist unselfish and the sons of labour satisfied, which will tell men that wealth means responsibility and that there is dignity in toil, which will teach the rich man to order himself lowly and reverently to those who are _his_ betters and to hurt n.o.body by word or deed, which will teach the labourer that his chief need is not other men"s wealth, but the "carriere ouverte aux talents" and the determination to do his duty in that state of life, whatever it may be, unto which G.o.d _shall_ call him.
It is the Holy Catholic Faith which makes equality of opportunity for all men its earthly ambition, and offers refreshment and hope to those who are not strong enough to strive with the rest. The old men saw visions and we have found that they were prophecies, a young man may dream dreams. My dream is that the men who are doing the work of the world to-day may be taught that Christ is their best teacher and the Incarnate G.o.d their refuge and strength.
There is a tale of an acrobat and juggler who knew well that his tricks were the outcome of years of concentrated effort and constant exercise, and being moved by the Grace of G.o.d, he desired to offer the best thing he had to give to the Lord of Life. His best was his skill.
He lived by it. Shown in the streets and the play places, it won for him his daily bread. His work was to give men amus.e.m.e.nt in their hours of recreation by an exhibition of his feats of strength and nimbleness. Could this, his one talent, be consecrated and devoted to G.o.d? So he considered, and humbly sought the sanctuary, and there before the Presence he performed his fantastic tricks which had cost him years of endeavour. The story is a parable which men have not been slow to read, and it has become the theme of the musician and artist.
Shall I offend my fellow-writers if I repeat it here in this connection?
THE FIRES OF MOLOCH
II
THE FIRES OF MOLOCH
"_There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets._"
Every three months with unfailing regularity small paragraphs appear in the daily papers headed "RECORD LOW BIRTH-RATE." Some figures follow, and then occurs the sentence--unhappily a stereotyped one in our day--"_This is the lowest rate recorded in any quarter since civil registration began._"
Now and again a blue-book upon the subject of the birth-rate is dissected by a journalist and the result appears in his newspaper as a series of startling figures. The story of England"s decadence is set out in the plainest language for every one to read.
At rarer intervals still, some prominent clergyman or sociologist writes or lectures in order to call attention to what is going on, and thus to bring home the spiritual and economic dangers of our racial suicide.
A few people read or listen and are convinced. A good many other people are too utterly ignorant of either the Philosophy of Christianity or the Science of Sociology to understand in the least what the point of view of the protesters is. According to their temperament, they smile quietly and dismiss the subject, or bellow their disgust at such a subject being mentioned at all.
"He who far off beholds another dancing, And all the time Hears not the music that he dances to, Thinks him a madman."
A party which has the fools at its back is always in the majority, and discussion is stifled, alarm is lulled by the anodyne of indifference and the great number of honest folk who call themselves both Patriots and Christians have no time to spare from fighting and squabbling for money--in order that the dishonest men may not get it all.
Half-a-dozen problems of extreme national importance confront every thinking English man and woman in 1907. The air is thick with their stir and movement, and so great is the noise and reverberation of them that true "royalty" of "_inward_ happiness" seems a thing impossible and past by in these troubled times. Be that as it may, it is quite certain that one of the most real and pressing of these problems is that summed up in the stock phrase "Record Low Birth-rate."
We hear a great deal about the doings of a cla.s.s of people who are referred to as "The Smart Set," and it is actually said that its influence is having a serious effect upon the national character. I do not believe it for a moment. It seems a folly to suppose that a handful of champagne corks floating on a cess-pool has any far-reaching influence upon the English home. I mention that small section of society const.i.tuted by the idle and luxurious rich, because, whatever their vices are, they are being used as whipping-boy for enormous numbers of people whose lives are equally guilty with theirs in at least one regard--in the matter of which I am writing now.
I propose in this essay to discuss the question of the decline in the birth-rate from the Christian and Catholic standpoint. There is only one perfect philosophy, and all other half-true philosophies in the light of which we might consider such a momentous matter as this, lead only to the conclusion that expediency is the highest good. Without the incentive of the Christian Faith and without the light of the Incarnation one may sit in a corner and think till "all"s blue in cloud cuckoo land." Christianity can alone be reconciled with Economics, theory and practice celebrating always the marriage of the King"s son, the wedding of Heaven and Earth, the spiritual and the material. Plato knew that it was impossible to raise the Greek state to the level of his philosophic principles, and Aristotle frankly abandons the attempt to connect ethics and politics with the highest conclusions of his creed. We are in the same position to-day if we ignore the supreme truth which is our possession and which was not vouchsafed to the great Greek thinkers.
There is one cause and one cause only of the decline in the birth-rate and the beginning of the country"s spiritual and material suicide.
The way of Nature is for every species to increase nearly to its possible maximum of numbers. This is a proved law, and nothing but the limitation of families by artificial means, or infanticide, can check its operation.
The truth is exactly as Dr. Barry put it nearly two years ago, "It stands confessed that the great, proud, English race, famous as a people for manly virtues, once the very Stoics of Christian Europe decline more and more to be fathers and mothers, will not be worried with children, and--cannot be spoken of in decent language."
It is a truth of history that when a nation begins to refuse the responsibility of providing for posterity it begins to decline.
The doctrines of Malthus in his great _Essay on the Principles of Population_, are no longer believed in by the Christian philosopher.
Malthus was perfectly sound upon the ethical problem, and the "Neo-Malthusians," of whom I shall presently speak, have no right whatever to use his name upon their banners. Malthus, so the modern socialistic thinker, such as Mr. H. G. Wells avers, "demonstrated for all time that a State whose population continues to increase in obedience to unchecked instinct can progress only from bad to worse.
From the point of view of human comfort and happiness the increase of population that occurs at each advance in human security is the greatest evil of life."
Malthus, however, never once suggested or advocated the limitation of population by mechanical means. He believed that it was a patriotic duty of men and women to _abstain from producing more children_ than the State could bear, and it is as well to remove at once a popular misconception which stains the name of a good man and a powerful though mistaken thinker.
Otter says of him in a memoir, "His life was more than any other we have ever witnessed, a perpetual flow of enlightened benevolence, contentment and peace; it was the best and purest philosophy, brightened by Christian views and softened by Christian charity."
It is economically and from the sociological point of view that the modern student condemns the theories of Malthus and those who follow him.
Socialist thinkers disregard the ent.i.ty of nations, and treat of the world and its population as a whole. The Christian Patriot loves his own country, believes in its destiny no less than he reveres its past, and knows that if our English nation is going to live, it must go on reproducing itself.
The "no room to live" theory is preposterous upon the face of it. In 1879, Lord Derby asked a somewhat obvious question. "Surely," he said, "it is better to have thirty-five millions of human beings leading useful and intelligent lives, rather than forty millions struggling painfully for a bare subsistence."
This has been made into a watchword by those who advocate the limitation of population.
It can be answered by a simple statement of fact--in our colonies there are places for a hundred million wives.