Part 16 (2/2)

If it be true that a house divided against itself cannot stand, then we must admit that Dr. Randall Davidson is not merely one of the Church's greatest statesmen, but a worker of miracles, a man whom we might expect to take up serpents and drink any deadly thing.

But it will be safe to keep the Archbishop's reputation in the region of statesmans.h.i.+p.

The reader, I hope, will not think me either pedantic or supercilious if I insist that no word is more misused by the newspapers, indeed by the whole modern world, than this word statesmans.h.i.+p. It is a word of which the antonym is drifting. It signifies steersmans.h.i.+p, and implies control, guidance, direction, and, obviously, foresight. Now, let us see how this word is used by those who are supposed to instruct public opinion.

The settlement of the Irish Question was hailed as a triumph of British statesmans.h.i.+p. One of the Sunday newspapers of the higher order acclaimed Mr. Lloyd George as the greatest statesman in the history of England and perhaps the greatest man in the world. But it needs only a little thought, only a moment's reflection, to realise that this welcome settlement was a triumph, not of statesmans.h.i.+p, but of murderous brutality. There would have been no paens if there had been no volleys, no triumph if there had been no violence.

Statesmans.h.i.+p was defeated in the eighties, and those who defeated it, those who exalted prejudice and racialism and intolerance above rationality and foresight, are now among those whom the world salutes as immortal statesmen. In truth, they have bowed the knee to violence.

By the same power, and not by reason, the Government extended the franchise to women. Statesmans.h.i.+p held firmly on the contrary course till the winds of violence rose and the rain of anarchy threatened to descend in a flood of moral devastation.

Look closely into the great achievements of the Was.h.i.+ngton Conference and you will find that the nations are not voluntarily seeking the rational ideal of peace, but are being driven by urgent necessity into the course of reason. Statesmans.h.i.+p would have disarmed the world before 1914. It was only after 1918 that the spectre of Universal Bankruptcy drove the poor trembling immortals who pa.s.s for statesmen to embrace each other as heroes in search of an ideal. Humanity has achieved nothing n.o.ble or glorious in the last thirty years; it has been driven by the winds of G.o.d into every haven which has saved it from s.h.i.+pwreck.

With a clear understanding of the meaning of the word statesmans.h.i.+p, one may ask with some hope of arriving at an intelligent answer whether Randall Davidson is a great statesman.

Under his rule a divided and distracted Church has held together; but religion has gone out of favour. During his reign at Lambeth there has been a sensible movement towards reunion; but the nation is uninterested. If the Romanists have been less rebellious, the Evangelicals have lost almost all their zeal. If the Church still witnesses to the truth of Christianity, it is with all her ancient inequalities thick upon her, turning her idealism to ridicule, and in the midst of a nation which has become steadily more and more indifferent to the Church, more and more cynical towards religion.

If there is peace in the Church, there is little of that moral earnestness in the life of the nation which in past times laid the foundations both of English character and of English greatness. We are becoming swiftly, I think, a light and flippant people, the only seriousness in our midst the economic seriousness of our depressed cla.s.ses. It is not to any other cla.s.s in the community that the zealot can address himself with an evangel of any kind. Only where a sense of bitterness exists, a sense of anger and rebellion, can the idealist in these dangerous times hope for attention.

The Bishop of Manchester preached some few weeks ago a sermon to the unemployed of that city. He was asked at the end of his sermon if the workers could get justice without the use of force. He replied, ”It all depends what you mean by force.” And at that the congregation shouted, ”Murder.” They were to have concluded the service with the hymn, ”When wilt Thou save Thy people?” Instead, it concluded with the singing of ”The Red Flag.”

Now let us ask ourselves what might have been the course of religious history during the last twenty years if Dr. Randall Davidson, instead of contenting himself with composing clerical quarrels, had used his high office to control the Church and to steer it in the direction of greater spiritual realism.

Suppose, for example, that after presiding over a conference of warring Churchmen, he had turned to one of the champions of a party, and had said to him, in the manner of a true spiritual father, ”I have something to ask of you. What was the first command of our Risen Lord to the apostle Simon Peter?” He would have been obliged to answer, ”Feed My lambs.” ”And the second command?” And he would have been obliged to say, ”Feed My sheep.” ”And the third command?” And again he would have been obliged to say, ”Feed My sheep.” Then, what had they all said if the Primate had turned to both sides and admonished them in these words, ”My brothers in Christ, I think there would now be no disputation among you if instead of concerning yourselves with the traditions of men you had rather given yourselves entirely to obeying the commandment of our Risen Lord”?

But the question would remain, With what food is the flock to be fed?

Is it possible to give an answer to this question which will not open again the floodgates of controversy? If that is so, then those of us who acknowledge the moral law had better abandon Christianity altogether, and set ourselves to construct a new and unifying gospel of ethics from the works of the moralists. For the world is torn asunder by strife, and contention is the opportunity of the wolves. Humanity has begun to apprehend this truth. It has begun to find out that disarmament is practical wisdom; and now it is beginning to wonder whether counsels of perfection may not serve its domestic interests with a higher efficiency than the compromises effected by unprincipled politicians. It is in the mood to listen to a teacher who speaks with authority; but in no mood to listen to a war of words.

If religion cannot speak with one voice in the world, it had better adjourn, like the plenipotentiaries of Sinn Fein and the representatives of the British Government, to a secret session. It must come to an understanding with itself, an agreement as to what it means, before mankind will recover interest in its existence.

CHAPTER XIII

CONCLUSION

_The fas.h.i.+on of this world pa.s.ses away, and it is with what is abiding that I would fain concern myself._--GOETHE.

_The breadth of my life is not measured by the mult.i.tude of my pursuits, nor the s.p.a.ce I take up amongst other men; but by the fulness of the whole life which I know as mine._--F.H. BRADLEY.

_We are but at the very beginning of the knowledge and control of our minds; but with that beginning an immense hope is dawning on the world._--”THE TIMES.”

_The Ideal is only Truth at a distance._--LAMARTINE.

It is curious, if Christianity is from heaven, that it exercises so little power in the affairs of the human race.

Far from exercising power of any noticeable degree, it now ceases to be even attractive. The successors of St. Paul are not shaping world policy at Was.h.i.+ngton; they are organising whist-drives and opening bazaars. The average clergyman, I am afraid, is regarded in these days as something of a bore, a wet-blanket even at tea-parties.

<script>