Part 11 (1/2)
Perhaps we shall best understand the position of Canon Barnes if we see him, neither on this side nor on that of the warring controversy, but rather among the entire host of Christianity, warning all schools of thought, all parties, all sects, that they must prepare themselves for the final strife which is yet to come, that great strife, foreseen by Newman, when the two contrary principles of human life, the Good and the Evil, shall rush upon each other contending for the soul of the world.
Christianity must become united and strong at its centre, if it is to withstand this onslaught.
He is not to be thought of as one who would adapt religion to the needs of the day, but as one who believes that, thoroughly understood, religion is adequate to the needs, not only of our day, but to the needs of all time. For to Canon Barnes, religion is simply the teaching of Christ, and Christ is the revelation to man of G.o.d's nature and purpose.
He would simplify dogma in order to clarify truth. He would clarify truth in order to enlarge the opportunities of Christ. He would call no man a heretic who is not serving the devil. None who seeks to enter the Kingdom will ever be hindered by this devout disciple of truth in whose blood is no drop of the toxin of Pharisaism.
You may see the intellectual charity of the man in his att.i.tude towards other teachers of our time whose views are opposed to his own. Of Dean Inge he has spoken to me with almost a ringing enthusiasm, emphasizing his unbounded force, his unbounded courage; and of Bishop Gore with the deepest respect, paying reverent tribute to his spiritual earnestness; even the Bishop of Zanzibar provokes only a smile of the most cheerful good humour.
He inclines quietly towards optimism, believing in the providence of G.o.d and thinking that the recent indifference to religion is pa.s.sing away.
Men are now seeking, and to seek is eventually to find. This seeking, he observes, is among the latest utterances of theology, a fact of considerable importance. To keep abreast of truth one must neither go back nor stand still. Men are now not so much swallowing great names as looking for a candle.
Not long ago he paid a visit to a favourite bookshop of his in Cambridge, and inquired for second-hand volumes of theology. ”I have nothing here,” replied the bookseller, ”that would interest you. The books you would like go out the day after they come in, sometimes the same day.” Then pointing to the upper shelves, ”But I've plenty of the older books”; and there in the dust and neglect of the top shelves Canon Barnes surveyed the works of grave and portentous theologians who wrote, some before the days of Darwin, and some in the first heyday of Darwinism. He said to me, ”Lightfoot is still consulted, but even Westcott is now neglected.”
He spoke of two difficulties for the Church. One is this: her supreme need at the present time is men for the ministry, the best kind of men, more men and much better men, men of learning and character, able to teach with persuasive authority. It is not the voice of atheism we hear; it is the voice of the Church that we miss. But, as Bishop Gore claims, most of the theological colleges are in the hands of the traditionalists, and the tendency of these colleges is to turn out priests rather than teachers, formalists rather than evangelists. Such colleges as represent the evangelical movement are, thanks to their t.i.tle deeds, largely in the hands of pious laymen not very well educated, who adhere rigidly to a school of thought which is a.s.sociated in the modern mind with an extreme of narrowness. Thus it comes about that many men who might serve the Church with great power are driven away at her doors. Something must be done to get men whose love of truth is a part of their love of G.o.d.
The second difficulty concerns the leaders.h.i.+p of the Church. Bishops should be men with time to think, able when they address mankind to speak from ”the top of the mind”; scholars rather than administrators, saints rather than statesmen; but such is the present condition that a man who is made a bishop finds himself so immersed in the business of a great inst.i.tution that his intellectual and spiritual life become things of accident, luxurious things to be squeezed into the odd moments, if there are any, of an almost breathless day. This is not good for the Church. The world is not asking for mechanism. It is asking for light.
It is, indeed, an over-organised world working in the dark.
Canon Barnes, however, is not concerned only with the theological aspects of Christianity. For him, religion is above all other things a social force, a great cleansing and sanctifying influence in the daily life of evolving man. One may obtain a just idea of his mind from a p.r.o.nouncement he made at the last conference of Modern Churchmen:
We cannot call ourselves Christians unless we recognise that we must preach the Gospel; that we must go out and labour to bring men and women to Christ.
The Kingdom of G.o.d is a social ideal.
Modern Churchmen cannot stand aloof from intellectual, political, and economic problems.
To bring the Gospel into the common life, to carry the message and sympathies of Jesus into the factory, the street, the house, is an urgent necessity in our age.
He sees Christianity, not as an interesting school of philosophy, not as a charming subject for brilliant and amicable discussions, but as a force essential to the salvation of mankind; a force, however, which must first be disentangled from the accretions of ancient error before it can work its transforming miracles both in the heart of men and in the inst.i.tutions of a materialistic civilisation. It is in order that it should thus work in the world, saving the world and fulfilling the purposes of G.o.d, that he labours in no particular school of the Church, to make the reasonableness of Christ a living possession of the modern mind.
Supreme in his character is that virtue Dr. Johnson observed and praised in a Duke of Devons.h.i.+re--”a dogged veracity.”
GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH
BOOTH, W. BRAMWELL, General of the Salvation Army since 1912; e.s. of late General Booth; b. Halifax, 8 March, 1856; m. 5882, Florence Eleanor; two s. four d. Educ.: Privately. Commenced public work 1874; Chairman of the S.A. Life a.s.surance Society and the Reliance Bank; Chief of Staff, Salvation Army, 1880-1912. Publications: _Books that Bless; Our Master; Servants of All; Social Reparation; On the Banks of the River; Bible Battle-Axes; Life and Religion;_ and various pamphlets on Social and Religious Subjects.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH]
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL BRAMWELL BOOTH
... _for the generality of men, the attempt to live such a life would be a fatal mistake; it would narrow instead of widening their minds, it would harden instead of softening their hearts. Indeed, the effort ”thus to go beyond themselves, and wind themselves too high,” might even be followed by reaction to a life more profane and self-indulgent than that of the world in general._--EDWARD CAIRD.
Because General Booth wears a uniform he commands the public curiosity; but because of that curiosity the public perhaps misses his considerable abilities and his singular attraction. His worst enemy is his frogged coat. Attention is diverted from his head to his epaulettes. He deserves, I am convinced, a more intelligent inquisitiveness.