The great man smiled inwardly.
It did really seem extraordinary to him that a cultured professional man of this day should actually know nothing of his hopes, aims and propaganda. And then, ever on the watch for traces of egoism and vain-glory in himself, he accepted the fact with humility.
Who was he, who was any one in life, to imagine that his views were known to all the world?
"Well," he said, "what we believe is just this: It is quite impossible to abolish or to prohibit alcohol. It is necessary in a thousand industries. Prohibition is futile. It has been tried, and has failed, in the United States. While alcohol exists, the man predisposed to abuse it will get it. You, as a clergyman, know as well as I do, as a doctor, that it is impossible to make people moral by Act of Parliament."
This was entirely in accordance with Medley"s own view. "Of course," he said, "the only thing that can make people moral is an act of G.o.d, cooperating with an act of their own."
"Possibly. I am not concerned to affirm or deny the power of an Act of the Supreme Being. Nor am I able to say anything about its operation.
Science tells me nothing upon this point. About the act of the individual I have a good deal to say."
--"I am most interested" ...
"Well then, what we want to do is to root out drunkenness by eliminating inebriates from society by a process of Artificial Selection. It is within the power of science to evolve a sober race. We must forbid inebriates to have children and make it penal for them to do so."
Medley started. "Forbid them to marry?" he asked.
"It would be futile. Drunkenness often develops after marriage. There is only one way--by preventing Drunkards from reproducing their like--by forbidding the procreation of children by them. If drunkards were taken before magistrates sitting in secret session, and, on conviction, were warned that the procreation of children would subject them to this or that penalty, then the birthrate of drunkards would certainly fall immensely."
"But innumerable drunkards would inevitably escape the meshes of the law."
"Yes. But that is an argument against all laws. And this law would be more perfect in its operation than any other, for if the drunken father evaded it in one generation, the drunken son would be taken in the next."
The Priest said nothing for a moment. The latent distrust and dislike of science which is an inherent part of the life and training of so many Priests, was blazing up in him with a fury of antagonism. What impious interference with the laws of G.o.d was this? It seemed a profanation, horrible!
Like all good Christians of his temper of mind, he was quite unable to realise that G.o.d might be choosing to work in this way, and by the human hands of men. He had not the slightest conception of the great truth that every new discovery of Science and each fresh extension of its operations is not in the least antagonistic to Christianity when surveyed by the clear, unbia.s.sed mind.
Mr. Medley was a dog-lover. He was a member of the Kennel-Club, and sent dogs to shows. He knew that, in order to breed a long-tailed variety of dogs, it would be ridiculous to preserve carefully all the short-tailed individuals and pull vigorously at their tails. He exercised the privilege of Artificial Selection carefully enough in his own kennels, but the mere proposal that such a thing should be done in the case of human beings seemed impious to him.
Dr. Morton Sims was also incapable of realising that his scheme for the betterment of the race was perfectly in accordance with the Christian Philosophy.
But Morton Sims was not a professing Christian and was not concerned with the Christian aspect. Mr. Medley was, and although one of his favourite hymns began, "G.o.d Moves in a Mysterious Way," he was really chilled to the bone for a minute at the words of the Scientist. He remained silent for a moment or so.
"But that seems to me quite horrible," he said, at length. "It is opposed to the best instincts of human nature--as horrible as Malthusianism, as horrible and as impracticable."
His expression as he looked at his guest was wistful. "I don"t want to be discourteous," it seemed to say, "but this is really my thought."
"Perhaps," the other answered with a half-sigh. He was well used to encounter just such a voice, just such a shocked countenance as that of his host--"But by "_best instincts_" people often mean strong prejudices. Our scheme is undoubtedly Malthusian. I am no believer in Malthusianism as a check to what is called "over-population." That _does_ seem to me immoral. Nature requires no help in that regard. But Inebriety is an evil the extent of which no one but an expert can possibly measure. _The ordinary man simply doesn"t know!_ But supposing I admit what you say. Let us agree that my scheme is horrible, that in a sense it is immoral--or a-moral--that it is possibly impracticable.
"The alternative is more horrible and more immoral still. There is absolutely no choice between Temperance Reform, by the abolition of drink, and Temperance Reform by the abolition of the drunkard. An ill thing is not rendered worse by being bravely confronted. An unavoidable evil is not made more evil by being turned to good account. It rests with us to extract what good we can from the evil. Horrible? Immoral?
Perhaps; but we are confronted by two horrors and two immoralities, and we are compelled to make a choice. Which is best; to live safe because strong, or to tremble behind fortifications; to be temperate by Nature or sober by Law?"
... They stood in the quiet sunlit library, with its placid books and pictures irradiated by the light of approaching noon.
The slim, bearded man in his grey suit, faced the dry, elderly clergyman. His voice rang with challenge, his whole personality was redolent of ardour, conviction, an aroma of the War he spent his life in waging far away from this quiet room of books.
For years, this had been Medley"s home. Each night, with his Horace and his pipe, he spent the happy, sober hours between dinner and bedtime here. His sermons were written on the old oak table. Over the high carved marble of the mantel the engraving of Our Lord knocking at the weed-grown door of a human heart, had looked down upon all his familiar, quiet evenings. In summer the long windows were open and the moonlight washed the lawns with silver, and the shadows of the trees seemed like pieces of black velvet nailed to the gra.s.s.
In winter the piled logs glowed upon the hearth and the bitter winds from the Marshes, sang like a flight of arrows round the house.
What was this that had come into the library, what new disturbing, insistent element? The Rector brought no such atmosphere into the house when he arrived. He would sip his coffee and smoke his pipe and linger for a gracious moment with the Singer of Mantua, or dispute about the true birthplace of him who sent Odysseus sailing over wine-coloured and enchanted seas.
An insistent voice seemed to be calling to the clergyman--"Awake from your slumber--your long slumber! Hear the words of Truth!"
He said nothing. His whole face showed reluctance, bewilderment, misease.
The far keener intelligence of the other noted it at once. The mind of the Medico-Psychologist appreciated the episode at its exact value. He had troubled a still pool, and to no good purpose. Words of his--even if they carried an uneasy conviction--would never rouse this man to action. Let it be so! Why waste time? The clergyman was a delightful survival, a "rare Bird" still!
"Well, that is my theory, at any rate, since you asked for it," Morton Sims said, the urgency and excitement quite gone from his voice. "And now, some more of the village, please!"
Mr. Medley smiled cheerfully. He became suddenly conscious of the light and comfortable morning again. He felt his feet upon the carpet, he was in a place that he knew.
"We"ll go through the wicket-gate in the south wall," he said, with alacrity. "It"s our nearest way, and there is a good view of the Manor House to be got from there. It"s a fine old place, empty for most of the year, but always full for the shooting. Sir Ambrose McKee has it."
"The whiskey man?"
"Yes. The great distiller," Medley answered nervously--most anxious to sheer off from any further controversial subjects.
They went out into the village.
The old red-brick manor house was surveyed from a distance, and Morton Sims remarked absently upon its picturesqueness. His mind was occupied with other and far alien thoughts.
Then they went down the white dusty road--the bordering hedges were all pilm-powdered for there had been no rain for many days--to the centre of the village.
Four roads met there, East, South, West and North, and it was known to the village as "The Cross." On one side of the little central green was the Post office and general shop. On the other was the Mortland Royal Arms, and on the South, to the right of the old stone bridge, which ran over the narrow river, were the roof and chimneys of Gilbert Lothian"s house nestling among the trees and with a vista of the orchard which stretched down to the stream.
"That"s a nice little place," the doctor said. "Whose is that?"
"It"s the house of our village celebrity," Mr. Medley replied--with a rather hostile crackle in his voice, or at least the other thought so.
"Our local celebrity," Medley continued, "Mr. Gilbert Lothian, the poet."
Neither the face nor the voice of the doctor changed at all. But his mind came to attention. This was a moment he had been waiting for.
"Oh, I know," he said, with an a.s.sumed indifference which he was well aware would have its effect of provocation upon the simple mind of the Priest. "The name is quite familiar to me. Bishop Moultrie sent me a book of Lothian"s poems last winter. And now that I come to think of it, O"Donnell told me that Mr. Lothian lived here. What sort of a man is he?"
Medley hesitated. "Well," he said at length, "the truth is that I don"t like him much personally, and I don"t understand him in any way. I speak with prejudice I"m afraid, and I do not wish that any words of mine should make you share it."
"Oh, we all have our likes and dislikes. Every one has his private Dr.
Fell and it can"t be helped. But tell me about Lothian. I will remember your very honest warning! Don"t you like his work?"
"I confess I see very little in it, Doctor. But then, my taste is old-fashioned and not in accord with modern literary movements. My "Christian Year" supplies all the religious verse I need."
"Keble wrote some fine verse," said the doctor tentatively.
"Exactly. Sound prosody and restrained style! There is fervour and feeling in Lothian"s work. It is impossible to deny it. But it"s too pa.s.sionate and feverish. There is a savage, almost despairing, clutching at spiritual emotion which strikes me as thoroughly unhealthy. The Love of Jesus, the mysterious operations of the Holy Ghost--these seem to me no proper vehicles for words which are tortured into a wild and sensuous music. As I read the poems of Gilbert Lothian I am reminded of the wicked and yet beautiful verses of Swinburne, and of others who have turned their lyre to the praise of l.u.s.t. The sentiment is different, but the method is the same. And I confess that it revolts me to see the verbal tricks and polished brilliance of modern Pagan writers adapted to a fugitive and delirious ecstasy of Christian Faith."
Morton Sims understood thoroughly. This was the obstinate and prejudiced voice of an older literary generation, suddenly become vindictively vocal.