Part 15 (1/2)
SELBIE, Rev. WM. BOOTHBY, M.A.; Princ.i.p.al of Mansfield College, Oxford, since 1909; b. Chesterfield, 24 Dec., 1862; e.s. of late Rev. R.W.
Selbie, B.A. of Salford; m. Mildred Mary, 2d d. of late Joseph Thompson, J.P., LL.D., of Wilmslow, Ches.h.i.+re; two s. one d. Educ.: Manchester Grammar School; Brasenose and Mansfield Colleges, Oxford; incorporated M.A., at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1904; Hon. D.D. Glasgow, 1911.
Lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament at Mansfield College, Oxford, 1889-90; Minister Highgate Congregational Church, London, 1890-1902; Emmanuel Congregational Church, Cambridge, 1902-1909; Editor of the _British Congregationalist_, 1899-1909; Lecture in Pastoral Theology at Cheshunt College, Cambridge, 1907-1909; Chairman of Congregational Union, 1914-1915; President of National Free Church Council, 1917.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PRINc.i.p.aL W.B. SELBIE]
CHAPTER XI
PRINc.i.p.aL W.B. SELBIE
_I make not therefore my head a grave, but a treasure of knowledge; I intend no Monopoly, but a community in learning; I study not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves.
I envy no man that knows more than my self, but pity them that know less. I instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or with an intent rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head, then beget and propagate it in his; and in the midst of all my endeavour, there is but one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with my self, nor can be Legacied among my honoured Friends_.--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
Mansfield College, Oxford, has been happy in its Princ.i.p.als. Dr.
Fairbairn created respect for Nonconformity in the very citadel of High Anglicanism; Dr. Selbie has converted that respect into friends.h.i.+p.
There is no man of note or power at Oxford who does not speak with real affection of this devoted scholar, who has been dubbed up there ”an inspired mouse.”
He is a little man, with quick darting movements, a twinkling bright eye, an altogether unaggressive voice, and a manner that is singularly insinuating and appealing. As it is impossible to think of a bl.u.s.tering or brow-beating mouse, or a mouse that advances with the stride of a Guardsman and the minatory aspect of a bull-terrier, so it is impossible to think of Dr. Selbie as a fellow of any truculence, a scholar of any prejudice, a Christian of any unctimoniousness. Mildness is the very temper of his soul, and modesty the centre of his being.
He is a Hebrew scholar who has advanced into philosophical territory and now is pus.h.i.+ng his investigations into the field of psychology. Modest and wholly unpretentious he sets up as no original genius, and is content with his double role of close observer and respectful critic. He is rather a guide to men than a light. He has nothing new to say, but nothing foolish. His words are words of purest wisdom, though you may have heard them before. You feel that if he cannot lead you to the Promised Land, at least he will not conduct you to the precipice and the abyss.
Above everything else he is a scholar who would put his learning at the service of his fellow-men. Education with him is a pa.s.sion, a part of his philanthropy, a part of his religion. It is the darkness of man, not the sinfulness of man, that catches his attention. He feels that the world is foolish because it is ignorant, not because it is wicked. And he feels that the foolishness of the world is a count in the indictment against religion. Religion has not taught; it has used mankind as a dictaphone.
He has spoken to me with great hope and confidence of the change which is coming over the Church in this matter of religious teaching. Dr.
Headlam, the Regius Professor of Divinity, has lighted a candle at Oxford which by G.o.d's grace will never be put out. There is now a fairly general feeling that men who enter the ministry must be educated not to pa.s.s a test or to prove themselves capable of conducting a service or performing as rite, but educated as educators--apostles of truth, evangelists of the higher life.
Religion, according to Dr. Selbie, is something to be taught. It is not a mystery to be presented, but an idea to be inculcated. The world has got to understand religion before it can live religiously.
But all education stands in sore need of the trained teacher. Our teachers are not good enough. They may be very able men and women, but few of them are very able teachers. The first need in a teacher is to inspire in his students a love of knowledge, a hunger and thirst after wisdom. But, look at our schools, look at our great cities, look at the pleasures and recreations which satisfy the vast ma.s.ses of the population! As a nation, we have no enthusiasm for education. This is because we have so little understanding of the nature and province of education. We have never been taught what education is.
With his enthusiasm for education goes a perfervid spiritual conviction that intellect is not enough. He tells the story of an old Scots woman who listened intently to a highly intellectual sermon by a brilliant scholar, and at the end of it called out from her seat, ”Aye, aye; but yon rope o' yours is nae lang enough tae reach the likes o' me.”
Something much more mysterious and much more powerful than intellect is necessary to change the heart of humanity; but when love and knowledge go hand in hand there you get both the great teacher and the good shepherd. Knowledge without love is almost as useless to a teacher as love without knowledge.
In his study at Mansfield, a large and friendly room book-lined from floor to ceiling, with a pleasant hearth at one end of it, where he smokes an occasional pipe with an interrupting fellow scholar, but where he is most often to be found buried in a great book and oblivious of all else besides, this little man with the darting eyes and soft voice is now invading, with sound good sense to save him from nausea or contamination, the region of morbid psychology.
He would perfectly agree with Dr. Inge's characteristic statement, ”The suggestion that in prayer we only hear the echo of our own voices is ridiculous to anyone who has prayed”; but he is, I think, much more aware of the power and extent of this suggestion than is the Dean of St.
Paul's, and therefore qualifies himself to meet the psychologists on their own ground.
He has confessed to me that in reading Freud he had to wade through much almost unimaginable filth, and he is driven to think that Freud himself is the victim of ”a s.e.x complex,” a man so obsessed by a single theory, so ridden by one idea, that he perfectly ill.u.s.trates the witty definition of an expert--”an expert is one who knows nothing else.” All the same, Dr. Selbie a.s.sures me that his studies have been well worth while, that modern psychology has much to teach us of the highest value, and that religion as well as medicine will more and more have to take account of this daring science which advances so swiftly into their own provinces.
So far as my experience goes no man of the first rank in Anglican circles is preparing himself for this inevitable encounter with anything like the thoroughness of Dr. Selbie, a nonconformist.
He makes it a rule never to interfere with the troubles of another communion; but I do not think I misrepresent him when I say that he regrets the immersion of the Church of England in questions of theological disputation at a time when the true battle of religion is s.h.i.+fting on to quite other ground.