A conflict of opinion, a discussion on the failure of the church

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A CONFLICT OF OPINION

Sy THE SAME AUTHOR

THE CAMEL AND THE NEEDLES EVE
THE DECLINE OF ARISTOCRACY
DEMOCRACY AND DIPLOMACY
WARS AND TREATIES (IM5-19U)

(With Dorofhfi Pontoaby)
REBELS AND REFORMERS

(^

A CONFLICT OF OPINION

A DISCUSSION ON THE
FAILURE OF THE CHURCH

ARTHUR PONSONBY

THE LABOUR PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.

6 TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C. i

1922

TO
MY TWO SISTERS

>■

QC

CONTENTS

I. {MO'SDAW) THE CHURCH
H. {TUESDAY) THE SUPERNATURAL
III. {WEDtiESDAY.) FORMS AND CEREMONIES

Ci

eiV. {THURSDAY.) RELIGIOUS EDUCATION
7" V. (FRIDAY.) SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION .

CVI. (SATURDAY.) THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF

PAGE

7

29

68

92

III

150

0=

410479

A Conflict of Opinion

MONDAY

THE CHURCH

The Parson. I have called to see you
because, although we have exchanged formal
visits, I have now been three months in the
parish, and I notice you do not attend the
services in our Church. Forgive me for coming
straight to the point, but I have made it a
practice from the days when I was a curate
to go round to all my parishioners, whether
they are in the fold or outside it, and urge
their attendance at divine service. If they
are outside the fold I consider it all the more
my duty to make some attempt to draw them
in. In several cases in which their neglect
has been due to apathy or carelessness I have
been successful in correcting their indifference
and converting them to a higher sense of their
spiritual duties. I make no distinction what-

8 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

ever between rich and poor. Indeed, I am
prepared to confront anyone \\dth a protest
against negligence and failure to participate
in religious exercises, which I consider to be
of profound and vital importance to them.
Being charged as I am with the care of the
spiritual welfare of this community, I should
myself be guilty of negligence if I failed to
approach every soul in the district and bring
home to them the message with which I am
entrusted. I need not say that I do not
interfere with those who attend Chapel or
go to the Roman Catholic Church. But in
your case I gather you do not practise your
devotions in any quarter. You will under-
stand, I hope, that my direct challenge is
not inspired by any motive other than a
determination to discharge an imperative duty.
The Doctor. I quite understand, and I
greatly respect the attitude you adopt. I
have been here for many years, and during
that time several of your predecessors have
occupied the vicarage. WTiether they thought
I was past praying for, or whether they were
guilty of the negligence you speak of, I do not
know. Anyhow, while we were on friendly
terms none of them approached me with
the crucial question. Now, I am not a unique
phenomenon, and I expect in your experience

THE CHURCH 9

you have come in contact with many other
instances of men and women who do not go
to Church. Have you found it worth while
to embark on controversial discussions with
them ?

The Parson. In some cases, yes. In other
cases I acknowledge I have found it useless.
I have been met by open hostility, and un-
compromising opposition, due for the most
part to a disbelief in the spiritual forces and
an innate preference for the material to the
ideal which I have found impossible to combat.
These people were devoid of the religious
sense, and I had not sufficient skill or powers
of persuasion to penetrate their armour.

The Doctor. I cannot be classed under
that category. But I very much doubt that
a prolonged discussion between us would be
of any avail ; and I would ask whether it
might not be better to accept my dissentient
attitude and pass me by. My friends here
are accustomed to me and do not object.
I think you had better regard me as a hope-
less case.

The Parson. I cannot do that without,
if you will allow me, understanding your
position better. You say you cannot be classed
among those who are devoid of any religious
sense. This makes me hope that, hke many,

10 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

you are troubled with doubts and misgivings
which might be removed.

The Doctor. No, I am not afflicted with
those sort of doubts and misgivings. If we
embark on a discussion we shall find that
the difference between us is too wide and
fundamental to be bridged. I am no longer
young, and at my age a change of mind is
not to be expected.

The Parson. I have known people at an
advanced age repudiate the sceptical views
they have embraced for years and turn
for consolation to the Church. You say 3^ou
have religion. May I enquire to what sect
you belong ?

The Doctor. I do not belong to any
sect nor do I wish to found one.

The Parson. You are then in a completely
isolated position.

The Doctor. No, I should say there were
a number of people who, in the main, share
my views. Indeed, what has impressed me
very deeply as I have gone through life,
mixing with all sorts and conditions of men,
has been the fact that the most sincerely
religious men and women I know, people
who have the highest sense of duty and the
finest ideal of conduct, are people who have
no sort of connection with the Church, or with

THE CHURCH ii

any form of dogmatic religion, while Church
people appear to me to have less appreciation
of things that really matter. But I fear in a
discussion I might run the risk of offending you.
The Parson. I assure you not. Men
may differ, differ seriously, without losing
their mutual respect. I think the reticence
which too often prevents people who do not
see eye to eye from talking over these subjects
out of fear of offending one another is entirely
mistaken. The only indispensable element
to prevent discussion from degenerating into
acrimonious dispute is sincerity, and that I
have no manner of doubt that you possess.
So let us continue. If you say 3^ou are reU-
gious, well, then we can start from common
ground, and that is a great deal. We both
reaUze the importance of rehgion.

The Doctor. Yes. But do we both mean
the same thing by it ? Religion to me is
the mainspring of existence. Without it no
individual's Hfe is worth living ; no community
or nation can prosper or even exist.

The Parson. I cordially agree with every
word.

The Doctor. Rehgion is an instinct of
civilized man which nothing can suppress,
and in my opinion this instinct is very highly
developed in the British people.

12 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

The Parson. That is a great tribute to
the work of the Church.

The Doctor. No. It is not because of,
but in spite of, the Church that I beheve this
to be the case. I myself became rehgious
when I left off going to Church. I was chris-
tened, brought up, educated, and confirmed
as a member of the Church of England. But
not one scintilla of real religious feeling was
engendered in me or inspired me until I had
released every tie and broken every link
with the Church ; until root and branch I
had rejected the whole elaborate structure
on which the Church rests.

The Parson. You had, I suppose, been
reading theological books full of destructive
criticism.

The Doctor. I had never read any criti-
cal theological books : I had not the time. I
had a natural leaning towards spiritual develop-
ment. I realized that a material life alone
was incomplete, was, so to speak, not enough,
and that idealism was as necessary to our
moral nature as food to our physical. But
I found the Church was hampering me, binding
me up at every turn, and leading me off into
a bypath and making me think it was religion.
I was taken in for a long time, and supposed
that doctrines and dogmas, ceremonies and

THE CHURCH 13

ritual, creeds, catechism and collects were
religion. And lo and behold ! I found it
was all an empty shell.

The Parson. Dear me ! But other people
do not find that. On the contrary they
receive the greatest spiritual nourishment from
the ministrations of the Church. The Church
is all in all to them, and her ideal gives them
complete satisfaction. For she has weathered
all the storms and withstood attack and perse-
cution, criticism and opposition for nearly
two thousand years.

The Doctor. Well, that is not very long
considering that man probably began to think
and speak for himself over two hundred
thousand years ago. But in those two thou-
sand years w^hat have the Churches and their
representatives been responsible for ? More
crimes, more persecutions, more bloodshed
and more torture than any other institution
that can be named. The aboHtion of torture,
for instance, in the seventeenth century was
effected against the opposition of the Church
and by men whom the Church had cursed.
I can assure you history does not bear
out the civiUzing claims of the Christian
Church.

The Parson. Oh ! But come, I am not here
to defend mediaeval customs. We have all

14 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

advanced since then ; and the Church, no
more than any other institution, should be
condemned because it had passed through
the dark ages of barbarism which humanity
has left behind.

The Doctor. I am not at all sure that we
are entitled to speak of having emerged from
the dark ages of barbarism. We have just
experienced a war which for ferocity, destruc-
tion, and devastation makes every war of
the past fade into insignificance. We Christian
nations have for years devoted the best of
our energy, our industry, and our enterprise
to the invention and perfection of engines for
destroying human life. If you examine the
forty-eight wars of the last hundred years
you will find only two in which Christian
nations were not primarily involved. We have,
too, in this highly civilized land in the twen-
tieth century of the Christian era to support
a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children ! No, we have not much to pride
ourselves on yet awhile. Whatever may be
said of the doctrines of Christianity, the
Church has not managed to uphold them,
or to persuade the people of their truth and
practical value.

The Parson. Progress may be slow, and
there are reactions which are disheartening.

THE CHURCH 15

The Church has ever a stiff fight to carry on
against the forces of evil.

The Doctor. But is it always on the side
of the forces of light ? Do its representatives
denounce the taking of life ; do they inveigh
against armed conflict ; are they the champions
of democracy ; are they the protagonists
of Hberty ; are they a potent influence in
the industrial life of the people ; have they
any roots at all in the world of labour ; do
they ceaselessly combat the drink interests,
the monied interests, the monopoHes, auto-
cracies and all that tends to enslave the vast
mass of the people and make their lives miser-
able ? I think not. Has it not been admitted
by prominent Churchmen that the Church
is not in touch with the mass of the working
class ; that it is a Church of the rich rather
than a Church of the poor ? To call yourselves
the Church militant is an absurd misnomer.
The general position of the Anglican Church
is not, as it ought to be, one of constant and
combative protest but of timid acquiescence.
You are an institution founded on privilege.
Your bishops sit permanently on the govern-
ment side. They always support authority,
whatever reactionary policy it may pursue.

The Parson. I see it is the sociahst in
you in revolt against our system of society

i6 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

that makes you denounce the Church as a
participant in that system. I should be the
first to admit the failure of the Church in
many directions, more especially on our social
side. But if our interpretation and propagation
of the divine message is faulty that does not
vitiate the message itself. I am among those
who would readily agree that in our method
and organization there is room for great
improvement, and that every endeavour should
be made to adapt our activities and remodel
our appeal so as to make it more in accordance
with modern requirements.

The Doctor. But how can you do that ?
If in business, in science, or even in pohtics
the leading men were bound to accept axioms,
formulas, and principles laid down for them
centuries ago ; if, moreover, they were strictly
prevented from discussing or criticizing them,
and enjoined under penalty of being turned
out of their calling to adhere rigidly verbatim
et literatim to the pronouncements of authority
in the remote past ; if any attempt to alter,
adapt, or reject, as new circumstances might
demand, the tenets of past ages were con-
demned as heresy, what sort of state would
these or any other branch of social or intellec-
tual activity be in now ? It is the ultra
conservative attitude which is forced on the

THE CHURCH 17

Church which permeates the whole institution,
and necessitates their assuming an anti-pro-
gressive tone all along the line. I am not
blaming you personally, but that is the posi-
tion in which you are placed.

The Parson. I hardly think that is a
just criticism. The elasticity of Christianity
and its adaptabihty to succeeding genera-
tions of men is its great strength, and prevents
it from being anti-progressive like some of
the other religions whose disciplinary rigidity
and immobility cramp them.

The Doctor. But there is a finaUty about
dogmatic Christianity which appears to me
to make it unsuitable as a permanent rehgious
system for an everchanging world. In spite
of what you call its elasticity it is without
doubt a static rather than a dynamic force.

The Parson. You must remember that
we have charge of a priceless treasure of
eternal truth, and there may be a reluctance
on our part to destroy any part of the casket
in which it is contained lest the treasure itself
be endangered. That treasure, being eternal
truth, is immutable, and while the method
of exposing it, describing it, and allowing
its influence to be felt should, I admit, be
varied, and may not always be varied in
accordance with the changing requirements

i8 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

of the age, care must be taken not to com-
promise or weaken the position of the very
foundation of our existence. As regards
interpretation and organization you do not
seem to be aware that there is an active
movement in favour of greater hberty and
of the reform of some of the ancient
usages and obsolete arrangements of Church
administration. A new spirit is wanted, there
is no manner of doubt ; but I can assure you
it is rising, and we want help from every
quarter to free ourselves from the hampering
chains of out-of-date traditions.

The Doctor. You would not let me help
you.

The Parson. Why not ? It is because
I want your help that I am talking to you
now.

The Doctor. Well, when we have con-
cluded our discussions I will ask you again
if you want my help. You speak of active
movements in favour of change. But what
do they amount to, what can they amount
to?

The Parson. You evidently do not know
that there are progressive spirits in the Church.
You seem to think that every clergyman is
so hampered by what you would call outworn
formulas that their work as spiritual pastor

THE CHURCH 19

is useless and sterile. Surely you have heard
of a number of . . .

The Doctor. Stop a moment. I want to
save you from arguing against an opinion I do
not hold. I know there are progressive spirits
in the Church, and I know there are men who
lead lives of sublime self-sacrifice and service,
even among those who are not progressive. I
know, too, there are men who are endeavouring
by broader interpretations and readjustment
of forms and ceremonies to make a wider
appeal ; and that so far as their congrega-
tions are concerned their efforts are sometimes
attended with success. But in what hght
does the Church regard such reformers ? Are
they not in constant danger of being expelled
for their pains ? This prevents them from
going as far as they would like. If they
break the chain they know they are done for.
But it is ridiculous to suppose that this hand-
ful of men are representative. They are a
very small minority. The powerful authority
that stands behind institutional religion does
not fear them, nor does it take the trouble
to oppose them. On the contrary it smothers
them with sympathy and smiles at their
efforts, knowing full well that it can easily
thwart an inconvenient movement and suc-
cessfully counteract the zeal of reformers.

20 A CONFLICT OF OPINION'

The Parson. But all great changes have
had small beginnings : minorities have in time
been turned into majorities.

The Doctor. Quite true. But if they
succeed in improving Diocesan administra-
tion, alter the functions of Rural Deans,
reform the system of ecclesiastical patro-
nage, deal with episcopal incomes, and the
low stipends of the clergy, and even make
the Church autonomous and independent of
the State, will that really be getting to the
root of the matter ? Will it correct the
fundamental failure of the Church's influence ?

The Parson. I think it will do a great
deal, for it will give greater freedom to the
clergy. I believe, too, the aims that are being
sought are attainable.

The Doctor. I doubt very much the value
of the changes if they are unaccompanied by
drastic alterations in the cardinal principles
of doctrine and dogma. You know as well
as I do that if any one of those who are imbued
witli the reforming spirit were to embark
on radical changes in that direction, they
could not retain their livings or remain in
the Church a week.

The Parson. But I do not think any of
them want to touch the fundamentals. It
would be tampering with the treasure itself,

THE CHURCH ai

and they would find the whole edifice come
crashing down over their heads were they
to attempt such a thing.

The Doctor. The Church would come
crashing down but religion would rise up. It
is the nature of the treasure itself about which
we shall disagree. If I may respectfully
say so, I think the great error lies in
the wrong estimate of the essentials. The
insistence on points of faith, which to my
mind are far from essential, obscures and
obstructs the course of the spiritual guidance
which might be given. An admirable Church-
man may be very far removed from a religious
man. Piety and credulity have very little
to do with spiritual excellence. Let me give
you three actual instances to illustrate what
I mean, though I think I could quote many
more. I know a man who can be regarded
as a pillar of the Church, a most strict observer
in every detail of its doctrines and rites, and
a partaker of its sacraments. He lived for
years nursing a grievance against a sister,
refusing advances towards reconciliation, tak-
ing advantage of any trivial incident further
to embitter the relationship, irreconcilable,
self-righteous, luxuriating in his rejection of
the elementary obligations of brotherhood.
I know a clergyman in every way orthodox

32 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

and correct, no crank or faddist, but quite
conventional, who spent years in a personal
feud with the patron of the living who was a
strict Churchgoer, and careful observer of
all ceremonies and beliefs and yet was as
ready as he to continue the feud and make
all social relationship practicall}- impossible.
Both sides were content year in year out to
disregard the ordinary dictates of friendship
and fellowship. Lastly I know a boy care-
fully grounded in the teaching of the Church,
in which he showed special proficiency, a
pious pupil, a winner of scripture prizes,
a model for his schoolfellows, the pride of his
ecclesiastical teachers. This boy embarked
deliberately on a career of fraud, deceit,
and crime.

The P.\rson. I do not think you can found
any argument on individual cases of failure
which may be due to personal idiosyncrasies
and abnormal natural defects. After all I
could instance many more cases of men and
women and children who have gone wrong
owing to their neglect of religious observances.

The Doctor. No doubt you could, and
in doing so you at once ascribe a cause for
their downfall. But what is the cause in the
instances I have given, and could give, where
what you would call the message of the Church

THE CHURCH 23

has been accepted and assimilated, not super-
ficially but very thoroughly ? I refuse to
agree that it can be put down to insuperable
defects of character. No, it is due to the
fact that there is something wrong with the
message. Indeed, when I look to see how that
message is received by, and what effect it
has on, the average man and woman ; when
I observe the callous indifference or purely
mechanical acceptance of those who do not
deny God and duty but ignore them ; when
I notice the sort of characters who absorb
themselves solely in the functions and cere-
monies and ritual of the Church, and the
positively weakening effect it has on their
nature ; when I see how superstition is bred
and self-rehance weakened ; when I constantly
read of sectarian disputes and differences
of opinion about points of ritual which seem
to stir members of the Church more deeply
than anything else ; and when I discover
how increasing numbers of intelligent and
high-minded people reject Church minis-
trations— I am more than ever convinced
that the message is wrongly interpreted,
the essentials are wrongly estimated, the
importance of accessories have become
beyond all reason, and that some fatal
obstacle is interfering and preventing forces

24 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

which might assist the growth of the
spiritual Hfe from operating as they ought.
I have read many of the reasons given
for the falhng off in Churchgoing, and I
do not think any of them reach the root of
the matter. Signs of the reforming spirit
or any desire for new adaptations on the
part of the clergy are deprecated and dis-
approved, and timid and tentative alterations
of ceremonial are suggested which would not
meet the crying need at all. It is assumed,
wrongly, I think, that the religious habit
must be conservative, and that the preserva-
tion of supernatural dogma is beyond all
else essential. Consequently religion becomes
detached from ordinary life, is a function
performed on certain specified occasions, and
is the exclusive ceremonial observance of
certain rites and behefs in esoteric mysteries
all of which encourage spiritual indolence.
This is the Church's fault. I do not want
to offend you, but I am seriously of opinion
that the Church, as at present constituted, with
its Church religion as at present taught and
presented, constitutes the greatest obstacle
to spiritual development that exists. Its
influence is worse than if it took the form
of blank opposition. It diverts the natural
spiritual hunger, which is present to a more

THE CHURCH 25

or less degree in every individual, into a blind
alley and empty channel, providing food which
cannot assist but stunts and sterilizes all
the higher forms of human endeavour.

The Parson. Blame her ministers if you
will, show up their inefficiency if you want
to, blame our congregations, too, for I can
assure you they are not so easily led as you
may imagine and in many cases have a more
obstinate objection to any change than the
clergy ; but do not blame the Church. Your
attack is wrongly directed. The Church is
not just a collection of clergymen, a corpora-
tion of ecclesiastics. It is a divinely founded
institution, the eternal witness to truth, the
magnetic centre of all religious impulse which
has to depend for the exercise of its influence
and the spread of its beneficent teaching on
the aid of men who make no pretence person-
ally of being immune from the faults and
failings common to all humanity. We no
doubt fail severally and corporately to give
the best expression to the divine message ;
we do not succeed, perhaps, in reaching the
hearts of all those who may be ready to listen ;
we are handicapped by our human failings,
our want of sympathy, lack of foresight
and discrimination ; many of us may not
have the abilit}^ or force to counteract all

26 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

the multiplicity of evil influence which stand
between us and the object of our desires.
But most of us are deeply conscious of the
divine inspiration which is shed upon us,
however far short of the perfect example
we may fall ourselves. Blame us, I say,
but do not speak lightly of the great ideal
we serve. It is unfair to disparage and be-
little, or, as you would seem to do, proclaim
the falsity of the very essence which forms
the priceless jewel of which we have charge
simply because of the failure, lamentable
failure if you will, of our method.

The Doctor. Really I assure you it is
not just a question of method. I repeat it
is the wrong interpretation of the essentials.
The question we must face is of what this
treasure, this jewel you speak of, consists.
Is it definable, and what part of it do you
consider indispensable ? But do allow me
to make it quite clear that I am not out
for personal abuse of the clergy. I have
nothing but the highest praise for the social
service rendered by many of them. But
if I, in my profession, were forced to abide
by decisions and maxims of past centuries
and bound by medicxval traditions, it would
be absolutely impossible for me to continue
my work. The Clergy, like schoolmasters, are

THE CHURCH 27

placed in a highly responsible position of
authority. Their word is accepted as law,
without question and without opportunity
of dispute. This reacts on their characters
to some extent, and allows them too often
to assume the pontifical air of one who is
above comment and criticism. Like school-
masters, too, who readily attach blame to
their pupils for not learning, when in nine
cases out of ten it is the teaching that is at
fault, the clergy are apt to dwell on the short-
comings of their congregations and ignore
their own inability to teach them. However,
it is not persons I wish to criticize : it is the
Church of England, with its establishment
which emphasizes its national character (as
if rehgion were one of the superficial nation-
alistic differences and not one of the great
international and universal bonds of affinity
between mankind) ; it is this institution,
which is officially recognized as the spring-
head of English orthodox religion, against
which I desire to concentrate my attack.

The Parson. Your criticisms and objec-
tions would hold good, I imagine, against
other denominations.

The Doctor. To some extent, yes. A good
many other considerations would have to
be taken into account were we to broaden

28 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

the discussion over the whole field of all
Christian denominations. Some are narrower
and more rigid than the AngUcan Church,
others freer an(^ less formal. Nonconformity
may have led in some cases to agnosticism,
but on the whole it has broadened the religious
sense and given it scope and freedom. In
the haven of the Church of England there
is stagnation. Other denominations have
their weaknesses and subterfuges, and alike
with you they are all feeling the p^resent lack
of response to their teaching. It is a sign
of the times. You all attribute it to the
state of the public mind ; I attribute it
to the lack of vitality in the call of religion.
But I think now we ought to turn our
attention to the essentials.

The Parson. Yes. I do not think we
can derive much more from generalizations.
I think you are inclined to exaggerate and
dwell too much on the darker side. But as
it has been so far a matter of personal opinion,
contradiction on my part would not carry
us much farther. When we get to closer
quarters with the underlying principles we
can make our respective points of view clearer.
Will you come round to my study to-morrow
evening and we will continue our discussion ?

" \

TUESDAY X.

THE SUPERNATURAL

The Doctor. I was thinking over our talk
yesterday, and the prospect of continuing
it to-day ; and were it not for your kindly
tolerance I am still inclined to beheve there
is no possibility of approach on either side.

The Parson. It is too early to say that.
It would be a pity not to go on, as so far we
have only touched upon the surface of the
subject. We are now going deeper ; and per-
haps I may utter a note of warning. It is
this. I foresee that you are going to overwhelm
me with quotations from learned philosophers
and from abstruse theological disquisitions
to disprove this, that, and the other. This
will no doubt give you a great advantage in
argument, but I may as well tell you that that
sort of scientific criticism leaves me quite
cold, and will have no effect whatever in
shaking the faith that is in me.

The Doctor. Let me say at once that

29

30 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

I have no intention whatever of referring
to an}' books of the higher criticism or works
on theological contro\ersy. All that may be
of scientific and archaeological interest for the
high authorities on both sides. But it has
very little to do with the reUgion of the
ordinary busy man who can never read such
books. Nor will I quote the clergy, much
as I shall be tempted to do so. I do not
desire, like the agnostics of the last generation,
to approach the subject by repudiating revela-
tion and disproving on the ground of evidence
this or that miracle. Their method laid a
valuable foundation, but at the time it only
led to wrangling. I want rather to show that
the whole supernatural structure is essentially
ineffective and is blocking the way to the
realization of far more important truths. To
make my position clear I must tell you what
I accept and what I reject. That is why, if
we continue the discussion, it is necessary to
deal with the fundamentals. But I hope in an
examination of the essence of your faith I may
avoid in any way wounding your suscepti-
bilities, by what may appear to you irreverent
comment on the beliefs you hold sacred.

The Parson. You need not fear that.
We are discussing the matter seriously, and
it is far better for you to be perfectly frank.

THE SUPERNATURAL 31

The Doctor. Very well. Now let us be-
gin from a point where we are likely to find
some agreement. The Christian precepts as
expounded in what is known as the Sermon
on the Mount and other recorded sa3dngs of
Jesus Christ are part of the essentials we have
spoken of.

The Parson. Most certainly.

The Doctor. Now does the Church con-
sistently and persistently press for the accep-
tance of these principles both in private
and in public life ?

The Parson. I know what you are leading
up to. You are going to say that we do not
condemn riches, that we have failed to declare
that you must love your enemies, that we
do not insist on the turning of the other cheek,
and so on. Granted some inconsistencies exist,
though they are not universal. But society
being constituted as it is, and human nature
being what it is, I am not sure you cannot
get more satisfactory results by leading people
towards the better rather than offending them
by insisting on the best. After all the perfect
Christian life, literally observed, is a counsel
of perfection, and so long as we dwell constantly
on the main principles of Christian conduct
and preach sacrifice and service, love and
brotherhood, we should lose rather than gain

32 A COXFLICT OF OPINION

influence by an uncompromising insistence
on the literal observance of precepts which
are ideals, and which cannot, unfortunately,
be carried out practically as yet without
dislocating the whole of our social life. I
only wish they could.

The Doctor. I must say I think that is
a very weak position to adopt. It means that
the Church is ready to compromise, and desires
to march with the times instead of always
being well in advance of the times. It re-
nounces its leadership, and is content to cater
for the herd but not to lead it. But I find
at the outset that you are distinguishing
between essentials and non-essentials in the
treasure which you described as immutable
and eternal truth.

The Parson. No, I am not rejecting any-
thing at all. I am onl}' sajing that denun-
ciation may not alwa3's be opportune and may
sometimes be utterly profitless. Take riches,
for instance. I believe the noble example
of many of the clerg}', who live in comparative
poverty and yet in contentment and happiness,
is more valuable than if they were to shake
their fists at the rich squires from their pulpits
every Sunda}'. We all of us attempt to
observe Christ's teaching as literally as we
can, but we may fail to induce others to do so.

THE SUPERNATURAL 33

The Doctor. You not only do not denounce
riches, but you are always on the side of the
rich. To begin with, you belong to their
class. The pastors of the flock are selected
exclusively from the upper strata of society.
A working-man clergyman would seem to you
absurd. He might teach conduct, he could
not teach dogma ; that must be learnt in
theological colleges. You are as exclusive
as Christ was, only in the opposite direction :
he selected his disciples from among the poor
alone. The rich are your friends. You sup-
port them, excuse them, condone their mis-
demeanours and apply a different standard
of morality to them. Yet the keystone of
Christ's teaching was positive renunciation,
because he rightly saw that, from the economic
as well as from the moral point of view, rich
men were an impossibility in an ideal society.
It is all very well being abstemious yourselves.
In your position you ought to preach your
principles as well as practise them. How
about " Love your enemies ? "

The Parson. If you raise that discussion
it will lead us off into a long controversy
on the war, which might be interesting, but
would be irrelevant, and carry us very far
afield. Please let us avoid that.

The Doctor. It seems to me very rele-

3

34 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

vant because the Church's deplorable failure
to give any sort of lead in the tremendous
crisis through which we have just passed is
largely the cause of the more active antagon-
ism which is growing so rapidly against it.
It has been the same in every war; the
opportunity is always missed to declare the
uncompromising opposition between spiritual
ideals and material expediency. However, I
will not dwell on this if you do not wish to.
My contention is that Christ's teaching takes a
subordinate part in your sermons and services.
What you regard as greater essentials, and
what appears to overshadow all else, is the
dogmatic belief in the sui>ernatural.

The Parson. What precisely do you mean
by that ?

Thk Doctor. The Trinity, the Divinity
of Christ and the Resurrection, only to mention
three of the most im|x)rtant doctrines.

The P.\rson. Oh, of course, those cardinal
beliefs must be reverently accepted and cease-
lessly expounded. They are vital, and must of
necessity be kept l>eyond the range of dispute.
The Doctor. Now we have reached the
edges of the chasm that diWdes us. Shall
we continue, or had we better stop ?

The Parson. Surely we can continue. I
may have to be more precise in my definitions

THE SUPERNATURAL 35

than you, but still we may find some common
ground.

The Doctor. I fear not. You believe
in a divine revelation. I entirely reject it.
You believe, I take it, in an Omnipotent and
Onmiscient Deity, an anthropomorphic con-
ception, that is to say a God possessing
human attributes and affections.

The Parson. Your definition is bald and
inadequate.

The Doctor. Please correct me.

The Parson. Almighty' God, whose pre-
sence is felt by us all, is essentially a spirit.
We, groping in the darkness of ignorance
and hampered by our human limitations, must
naturally regard the great power to whom
we appeal and on whom we rely as a heavenly
Father, a guide and a protector, possessing
in a subhme degree the highest attributes
of which we are conscious, and ready to accord
us the love, sympathy, care and assistance
that gives us solace and encouragement even
when received in a small degree from our
fellowmen. If we visualize Him as a subli-
mated version of humanity, if we invest Him
with human qualities, it is the most simple
and natural conception we can form ; and
it is only by this means that we can have
moral relationship with Him. The accuracy

J

6 A CONFLIfT OF OPINION

or inaccuracy of our conception cannot be
tested, and really does not signify so long as
our vision of God is of a kind which will
allow us to be drawn into the closest personal
communion with Him.

The Doctor. You have amplified eloquent-
ly and in mystical language the definition I
gave, but you have not rejected it.

The Parson. You must expect my language
to be mystical in dealing with a profound
and unfathomable mystery which we are
only allowed to apprehend dimly. Ordinary
language is indeed quite inadequate for the
explanation of sentiments such as these.

The Doctor. It is the only medium, how-
ever, at our disposal for the expression of our
thoughts. I have no objection whatever to
mysticism so long as it does not become quite
extravagant. Now is God omnipotent ?

The Parson. He is and He is not. We
have our freedom ; and through our failure
strife and evil have arisen.

The Doctor. But He gave us our freedom,
I suppose ?

The Parson. That is so.

The Doctor. And He chastens us because
of our abuse of it. Is that the idea?

The Parson. Yes. By leading us through
corruption He will bring us to incorruption.

THE SUPERNATURAL 37

The Doctor. He is Jehovah, the God of
the Old Testament ?

The Parson. That is a manifestation of
Him described by writers who were only
crudely realizing His presence. Our concep-
tion may still be very faulty, and far from
complete, but it is becoming clarified as we
become more enlightened.

The Doctor. You do not believe, then,
that the Bible is a divinely inspired book ?

The Parson. No; that idea, in the strict
sense, must, I think, be discarded. However,
the criticisms of the Old Testament, and of
the New also, which have been forthcoming in
recent years, deepen and enlarge but do not
impair our reverence for the Word of God.
The Bible contains the divine message embodied
in a rough husk which is the work of erring
man.

The Doctor. A httle difficult to say where
the message begins and the husk ends. And
may I remind you that when you were ordained
you declared solemnly that you unfeignedly
beheved all the canonical Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments ? Perhaps that is
only one of the many empty formulas. But
do you teach your flock that the Bible is not
inspired ?

The Parson. I cannot say I do. Without

410479

38 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

care and study, wliich most of them would
be unable to devote to the subject, it might
raise doubts in their minds with regard to
the great truths it contains.

The Doctor. No doubt it would. So you
continue to pray to the " Blessed Lord who
has caused all holy Scriptures to be written
for our learning " without believing it ; and
you leave your congregations deliberately to
infer that this is true. Frankly I do not
think that that is honest. However, I will
pass on. You will admit that, setting aside
the very ignorant who believe more or less
that God wrote the Bible, the vast majority
of Churchmen hold that the Bible is a divinely
inspired book and accept the truth of all
it contains.

The Parson. Generally speaking, I think
that is so.

Thl Doctor. Very well. The God pre-
sented to them, therefore, is the God of Battle,
the God of Vengeance, the God who showered
blessings upon Jacob after he had committed
one of the meanest acts recorded in history,
the God who stopped the Sun for Joshua and
allowed Jonah to live in the whale's belly,
the God who hardened Pharaoh's heart and
then punished him, the God who enjoined
Saul to massacre the Amalakites " man and

THE SUPERNATURAL 39

woman, infant and suckling " and repri-
manded him because he failed to obey, the
God who was responsible for many unspeak-
able cruelties chronicled in the Old Testament.
You make them sing : —

When God of old came dowTi from heaven,
In power and wrath He came.

He is a God who is angry with us, a jealous
God who " will visit the sins of the fathers
upon the children unto the third and fourth
generation " ; a God, therefore, that has to
be supphcated " to have mercy on us," other-
wise we may suffer at His hands ; a God
to whom we have to address ourselves as
" miserable sinners," who has to be besought
because we " for our evil deeds do worthily
deserve to be punished," and who has to be
entreated to " spare us " and " dehver us
from everlasting damnation " ; a God who
requires us to approach Him in fear ; a God
who has to be appeased, propitiated, and
bargained with, and before whom we have to
prostrate ourselves in abject humihty. I say
most emphatically and in all earnestness that
this God, who is disclosed repeatedly in your
prayers and hymns and lessons, is a hideous
ogre, a mere relic of some old, barbarous
and cruel idol, w^hose supposed existence has

40 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

a disastrously cramping and stifling effect on
the spiritual nature of man, and whose worship
is an insuperable barrier to the advancement
of true religion. He has no more real existence
than the devil himself.

The Parson. No doubt he has not. In
your violent tirade you have fabricated an ogre.

The Doctor. I have not used a single
expression that does not occur repeatedly
in your services. If you yourself do not
believe in a God such as this, do 3^ou tell your
congregation that they need not believe these
descriptions ? Do you omit the prayers and
hymns from which I have quoted ? Have
you eliminated from your services the expres-
sions of abject and servile self-abasement ?
Of course not. You cannot, you are not
allowed to.

The Parson. You deliberately omit to
say anything about the God of Love, the
Merciful Father, the Protector, the Fountain
of all Wisdom, our Refuge and Strength, the
Author and Giver of all good things from
whom all holy desires, all good counsels,
and all just works do proceed. That would
not suit your argument.

The Doctor. It is no good my quoting
unexceptionable expressions when I am telling
you what I object to. But as you have done

THE SUPERNATURAL 41

so, I may say in passing that the extra-
ordinary contradictions involved in the two
tones assumed do not make the conception
of God which you teach any easier to grasp.
But I want to get to close quarters with
something which you yourself hold as an
indispensable beUef . Some two thousand years
ago God, the semi-omnipotent, spiritual, but
anthropomorphic Deity you have described,
decided to dislocate the laws of nature and
to appear on earth in human form in the
person of Jesus Christ. As I have said we
know now that man, as a more or less intelU-
gent being, has existed on this planet for over
two hundred thousand years. It is difh-
cult to understand why only two thousand
years ago, in Palestine, it should have been
decided that this supernatural manifestation
should take place. There is no historical
evidence to show that mankind was in a
specially desperate condition just then. Now,
so long as the geocentric theory was univer-
sally beheved, so long as the Bible was
accepted as inspired and authentic histor}',
so long as the creation of the world and of
Adam was actually dated as taking place a
very few thousand years ago, the whole idea of
the fall, the chosen people and the mystery
of the Incarnation appeared more or less

42 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

intelligible. But we know now that the earth
is not the centre of the universe, you no longer
believe that the opening chapters of Genesis
are scientifically accurate, and you also know
of the great similarity between the appearance
of a divine Christ and other legends of older
religious beliefs. Our whole point of view,
therefore, has undergone a complete change,
and we are forced from wider knowledge to
alter our perspective. The miraculous exis-
tence of a divine personality is common
ground in all the old religions. A Triune
God is not an original conception. It
existed among the Chaldeans and is part
of the Brahmanic religion.

The Parson. The idea of a Divine element,
a human element divinely inspired, and a
spiritual element has no doubt made itself
felt in the human mind from the remotest
times.

The Doctor. Oh, but that is not the
Church doctrine of the Trinity, which cannot
have existed or become complete until the
coming of Christ. It is not taught or believed
by the Church as an abstract theory. It
is God, the personal Creator, who in His wrath
at man's sin sent His Son, the incarnation of
Himself, to save the world, and operated in
SL mysterious way through the Holy Ghost.

THE SUPERNATURAL 43

Divine Transcendence, Divine Mediation and
Divine Immanence. I think that is the ap-
proved way of describing it. I must keep to
the teaching of the Church. Now if rehgion
is, as I think the Church still makes it, the
preservation of supernatural traditions and
manifestations with a view to driving man
through fear of the supernatural powers into
right thinking, then the Trinity, the Divinity
of Christ, and faith in miracles are a necessary
part of it. But if rehgion is, as I think it
ought to be, the guidance of man by the
cultivation of self-reliance and independence
into a course of conduct which he accepts
rationally as best for himself and best for his
fellowmen, then the supernatural element is
unnecessary and is merely hampering and
weakening. As the words of God Himself,
the teaching of Christ is inadequate and
incomplete ; as the words of a man, much
of it is full of inspiration, novel, revolu-
tionary, and contains lasting truths. As the
act of God, the crucifixion is a pure bit
of self-indulgence ; as the act of a man,
it is a wonderful example of service and
sacrifice to high principles. If by the Divinity
of Christ you meant that he appeared
to possess in an unusual degree a divine
nature, that is to say great spiritual power.

44 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

that would be acceptable to a large number of
people. I am not sure indeed that a good
many Churchmen do not take refuge in this
interpretation. But that is not and cannot
be the orthodox Church doctrine. The Church
teaches not only the Divinity but the Deity
of Christ ; that is what the Incarnation means.
I am right there, am I not ?

The Parson. Certainly. A superlative
degree of Divinity implies Deity.

The Doctor. Yes; well, a doctrine such
as this, while assisting the mystical, super-
natural, transcendental aspect of religion, all
of which I think is superfluous and injurious
to the growth of true religion, seriously ob-
structs the rational appeal which, as time
goes on, is being found to be the best avenue
of approach to the inner being and higher
nature of man.

The Parson. You expect a great deal
from reason. Have you not yourself any
irrational beliefs ?

The Doctor. Certainly I have, any number.
But I do not impose them on other people.

The Parson. Your complaint is against
the presence in religious teaching of the super-
natural element. Once admit this element,
and all the rest is a matter of degree, a matter
of whether we accept one interpretation or

THE SUPERNATURAL 45

another. It really has nothing whatever to
do with the question whether the supernatural
is necessary and helpful or not. I maintain it
is there, and it is for us to make the highest and
best use of it we can, and to teach and explain
it to all who are conscious of its presence in
a way best calculated to help them in the
conduct of their lives. I have already admitted
that we may fail to do this properl}-, and I
am further prepared to admit that parts of
our Church services are not wholly suitable
to modern requirements, and lay stress on
details which, if detached from the whole
mystery, may strike the modern critical mind
as incredible, and contrary to reason and
evidence such as we are accustomed to in other
fields where the intellect alone is concerned.
The reform of the liturgy, however, and the
difficulties that attend it is a thorny question
which I do not propose to embark upon now.
But what is the supernatural ? It is not
a negation of the laws of nature but an exten-
sion of the laws of nature beyond the reach
of our reason but not beyond the vision of
our faith. It is the unknowable, the inex-
plicable, the margin which always remains
over after all the power of science and reason
and logic has been brought to bear on any
human problem. If you admit the inexpli-

46 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

cable, you admit the supernatural. But I
would go further and say that you yourself,
by talking of the spiritual life in man, as you
do, have intimated your belief in forces which
are not under the control of the same specified
and recognized laws which govern physical
phenomena. There may be laws which govern
this region, but even psychologists have not
discovered them. Now I say by your own
admission you believe in the supernatural,
and your only quarrel with us ought to be
that the Church, by its traditions, growth,
and history, is inclined to be too precise and
dogmatic with regard to particular manifesta-
tions of the supernatural and over emphasizes
the significance of them.

The Doctor. Although what you say is
very interesting, you are really missing my
point. The inexplicable is not by any means
necessarily the supernatural ; nor must you
confound the supernatural with the spiritual.
A devotion to the occult is not ennobling,
whereas a love of the spiritual is. There is
all the difference in the world between my
belief in a spiritual force and your behef in
the Virgin Birth, for instance, which is a
specific breach of the laws of nature.

The Parson. You have singled out a
doctrine which has mystical rather than actual

THE SUPERNATURAL 47

value, and which I hardly think can be re-
garded as indispensable to faith in the Divinity
of our Blessed Lord. It need not be specially
emphasized if it forms a stumbling block
in the path of those who approach the life
of Christ with the eye of faith.

The Doctor. And yet in the creed you
say " conceived by the Holy Ghost, born
of the Virgin Mary." In two collects you
affirm that He was "born of a pure Virgin,"
and you read passages from the Gospels
confirming this view. Again, the idea is not
original. Gautama, according to the Buddhists,
descended of his own accord from heaven
into his mother's womb, without the inter-
vention of any earthly father ; and quite
recently the notion has been pushed another
step in the doctrine of the immaculate con-
ception of the Virgin. I promised not to
quote, but as you know colleagues of j^ours
have thought the Virgin Birth of such impor-
tance that they have declared that they
would feel bound in all honesty to renounce
their orders if they did not accept this article
of faith. The resurrection assuredly you con-
sider to be quite indispensable as an article
of faith. But there is no more evidence for
it than there is for the Virgin Birth or any
of the miracles and events which were mostly

48 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

breaches of the laws of nature. There is the
Transfiguration, the Ascension and Pentecost,
but it is impossible to discuss them all. They
all stand or fall together. You, however,
appear to pick and choose out of the collection
of supernatural events those which you believe
yourself and consider indispensable to the
Christian faith. But at the same time you
enjoin your congregation to believe them all.
Yours is, in reality, a less comprehensible
position than that of a strictly orthodox
believer who accepts literally everything from
Genesis to Revelation, taking the structure
as a whole and receiving it as a matter of faith,
not of reason. Those, in fact, in other religious
denominations who believe in absolute authority,
and without any question subscribe to the
entire scheme presented to them, are logically
in a stronger position, though of course the
renunciation of all right to private judgment
is, in my opinion, deplorable.

The Parson. But I do accept the mystery
as a whole, exercising at the same time my
own judgment ; and I do not think it is
inconsistent with that position to prefer and
insist on certain events rather than another.
A certain amount of Christian dogma consists
of nothing more than a statement of what God
has taught us. There is in this a maximum

THE SUPERNATURAL 49

of divine revelation and a minimum of the
human element. Such dogmas must neces-
sarily be the less mutable. Other things are
of inferior authority because there is repre-
sented in them to a large extent a process of
human thought and only to a relatively small
extent the revealed truth of God, and there-
fore, because of the preponderance of the
human element, the dogmas in question are
much more susceptible to revision. More-
over, in expounding the scriptures you cannot
tell children what you can tell adults.

The Doctor. Yes, and you say more
to an ignorant person than you would dare
say to an educated person.

The Parson. No. We put things differ-
ently. We adapt our language to their capa-
city of understanding. But there are mysteries
you cannot examine too closely. You cannot
explain the inexplicable.

The Doctor. But that is just what I
complain of. The Church is always explaining
the inexplicable and giving us details of the
unknowable. I have read the most subtle
and abstruse explanations of the Trinity and
the Incarnation. I have heard sermons de'
scribing the Last Judgment, Heaven and Hell,
But if a man rejects the Trinity which is
inexplicable* or the Resurrection, which is

4

50 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

inexplicable, you refuse to admit him into
the Church. You know as well as I do that
there are people who by their conduct and
habits openly transgress the precepts of Christ,
but who accept without demur all your super-
natural dogmas. You receive them into your
fellowship without hesitation. On the other
hand men who endeavour to their utmost to
observe Christ's teaching, but cannot accept
the supernatural dogmas, must stay outside.
This fact shows that the Church attributes
far greater importance to the supernatural
dogma than to the ethical teaching, and this
is what makes its message so false and ineffec-
tive.

The Parson. The dogma which represents
the concrete is of immense service to the less
enlightened minds which are the majority
and must therefore receive special attention.
The higher type of mind can reach through
it to the spiritual essentials.

The Doctor. I do not object to that idea,
generally speaking, except that you ought
not to allow expediency to make you teach
anything of the actual truth of which you
are in doubt. But in practice you lay so
much stress on the concrete as almost to
prevent the simpler minds from reaching beyond
it ; and by your own declared or implied faith

THE SUPERNATURAL 51

in it you prevent those who treat it as a mere
rehc of past superstitions from co-operating
with you, although as regards conduct and
duty there may be common ground for agree-
ment.

The Parson. You cannot really detach
the two in the way you pretend. They are
interdependent. The authority of Christ's
teaching and the marvellous nature of its
influence arise from the fact that He was
the Word made Flesh. The spirit of God
for a time clothed in human form in order
that its manifestation might be of special
significance to humanity, and by close contact
exercise a new and revivifying influence on
the course of human history. This it has
done ; and the fact that it has done so is a
greater proof of the divine nature of Christ
than anything could be. No mere man could
possibly have influenced the world's history
in the same way. Once that is realized the
miraculous nature of the incidents connected
with His life are natural and quite comprehen-
sible.

The Doctor. Buddhists and Confucians,
who number hundreds of millions, would use
very much the same argument. But even
so you build from the wrong end. Instead
of saying " These eternal truths are of such

52 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

priceless value in saving men from all the
evils which beset them that they must be of
divine origin and the author of them must
be God Himself " you take certain incidents,
give them a supernatural character, and
then say " Because of these events this
man was God : therefore listen to what he
has to say. But his inspired sayings are not
so important as His divine mission." More-
over, the Church during these two thousand
years has been busy adding to the super-
natural structure, so that in certain quarters
you have a maze of superstitions with the
result that the more credulous a man is
the more credit he gets for his piety. Any-
how, you invite critics by your method to
examine and question your evidence. I do
not want to go into that branch of the subject
more than to say that nothing is more remark-
able than the fallibiUty of human testimony.
You cannot get two people to give a strictly
accurate account of a commonplace event
which both of them witnessed. And yet you
ask inquiring minds to accept without question
a mass of conflicting and incomplete fragments
of evidence written about events which were
not witnessed by the Avriters and were recorded
many years after they had happened.
The Parson. You want to apply material

THE SUPERNATURAL 53

laws to spiritual phenomena ; you want to
test by logic and reason transcendental mys-
teries. You acknowledge your logic and reason
fail you in your testimony of ordinary everyday
occurrences, and yet you want to apply these
very limited powers to test the truth of reve-
lations of which our spiritual being is conscious,
but the presence of which, the origin of which,
and the truth of which cannot be interpreted
by the language of the usual intellectual
analysis. You must not be too impatient
with inconsistencies and what appear to you
to be superstitions. These are the growth
of ages, and while they may from time to
time need pruning, in cutting off dead branches
you must not risk damaging the green wood
which is full of sap and always ready to bud
and blossom. Because our spiritual powers
of investigation and ratiocination are very
defective that does not imply that the conclu-
sions towards which the upward soaring of
our trains of thought are leading us are false
or non-existent.

The Doctor. I am getting out of my
depth.

The Parson. Quite right. That is pre-
cisely the state of mind we ought all to be in —
unable to touch bottom, floundering perhaps,
swimming boldly at times, but trusting all

54 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

the while in something above and beyond
us to guide us and keep us afloat; unable to
see the far shore, without certain information,
in the earthly sense, that it exists, but
confident, in the spiritual sense, that a great
culmination of our efforts is in store for us.

The Doctor. I like that idea very much.
It is not untrue. When you preach like that
no doubt it is helpful. But that is because
you leave the region of actual historical
abnormal facts which you have to return to
when you descend from the pulpit and say
prayers and teach doctrine. In the abstract
region, indefinite though it may be, you and
I would have a certain sympathetic affinity.
But I am not up against you in that direction.
I am telling you that you are chained to
the Church and you do not seem to object.
So let us return once more to the doctrines
which are indispensable. We have said a
word about Christ's Divinity and His teaching,
but there is the further important doctrine
of the Atonement.

The Parson. Certainly all important. In
fact it is quite inseparable from the idea of
Christ's Divinity, as it is the reason and
explanation of His sojourn here on earth.
Without it the Incarnation is meaningless.

The Doctor. Well, I must confess that so

THE SUPERNATURAL 55

far from believing it I have never really under-
stood it, and I know many Churchgoers who
have a very hazy idea of what it means.

The Parson. I do not see why it should
present such difficulty. Sin is a state of
alienation from God, in other words a state
of guilt. Man alone is unequal to achieving
a complete expiation of his sin. The wrath
of God, which does not in any way resemble
the personal anger and temper of man, but
is the hostihty of the Divine nature to sin, was
propitiated by the sacrifice of Christ, who by
His full and perfect oblation obtained for all
men the remission of the consequences of sin,
and our mystical union with Christ ensures
our share in His sacrifice.

The Doctor. Does Mrs. Berry, the wood-
man's wife, understand that ?

The Parson. Oh, I would tell her in far
simpler language. I should say Christ died
to save all sinners. By His death you become
an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Doctor. She does not really under-
stand that either. With uneducated people
your method is obfuscation because you know
that in religious matters they prefer not to
understand. You hold out Heaven as a
bribe to those who say they believe and pro-
mise them salvation from suffering hereafter.

56 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

Does the Atonement apply to the bilHons
of people who lived before Christ ?

The Parson. Those hundreds of thousands
of years seem to trouble you terribly. Time
does not count with God. The supreme
sacrifice was made for all time and for all
mankind.

The Doctor. If it had not been made,
what would have happened to us all ?

The Parson. That is a hypothesis we
need not entertain, because it implies the
incompleteness of the Almighty's great design.

The Doctor. I know I am stupid, and you
no doubt think me material and matter of
fact. But I am trying to imagine what
influence such a belief must have on the ordin-
ary man and woman. To begin with, only
very mystically minded and metaphysically
inclined people can possibly grasp such a
gigantic assumption as is made in this belief.
The ordinary Churchgoer is made to believe
that owing to the crucifixion he will have a
chance of going to heaven, and had it not been
for that event we should all of us go to perdition.
But the devil and hell are rapidly disappearing,
though I know some clergymen still believe
in them and preach about them. Some un-
certainty must therefore arise as to what the
Atonement has saved us from. Moreover,

THE SUPERNATURAL 57

people are often puzzled and troubled by the
idea that the betrayal of Judas Iscariot was
the actual cause of the crucifixion — as you
insist on the authenticity of all the historical
details. Therefore his falseness was indis-
pensable in the accomplishment of the divine
purpose. Yet if anyone is to be punished
in after-life the betrayer of Christ would
surel}^ be the first, although by his deceit he
made possible the salvation of the world.
But I will not pain you further by analysis
of the doctrine of the Atonement. It is
merely the survival of a very ancient barbaric
idea of appeasing a deity by means of sacrifice.
As I, for my part, think the notion of original
sin one of the most pernicious beliefs that has
ever been taught, and as I regard Jesus the
legendary man of greater significance than
Christ the God, I am quite willing to leave the
Atonement beyond the range of my compre-
hension. It certainly would not make me
more comfortable in my relations with the
Creator to believe that until the coming of
Christ his original intention with regard to
the human race was to let us all suffer eternally
for our sins.

The Parson. That is a travesty of God's
purpose.

The Doctor. How is it a travesty ?

58 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

Salvation, the most frequently used word in
Church Christianity, sums up the idea of
the Incarnation and the Atonement. We
cannot be saved in the abstract, we must be
saved from something. Unless you have
definitely in view some form of punishment,
retribution, or conscious suffering in after-
life salvation is meaningless, the Atonement
is purposeless. The worse the possible fate
that awaits sinners hereafter, the greater the
benefit and blessing derived from the inter-
cession of the Son of God in saving believers
from that fate. I see how it all hangs logically
together, and those who pick and choose parts
of the orthodox faith, giving those parts only
an abstract and moral significance, are in
truth disavowing the whole.

There are many other aspects of the super-
natural, but they are all derived from the
major premise of the Incarnation. It is not
necessary to dwell on them, but the very im-
portant place given to them all would make
one suppose that an attempt was being made
by the Church to prevent people from thinking
for themselves, lest they might repudiate their
instructors were they to examine more closely
the lessons forced upon them.

The Parson. You entirely fail to grasp
how the Life of our Lord, and His Love and

THE SUPERNATURAL 59

Sacrifice, bring consolation to thousands in
their sorrow and trouble. How the mystery
appeals to them, the certainty of resurrection
and the opening out of jo3'^s to come in compen-
sation for the troubles of this world gives
solace to them in their weariness and afflic-
tions, and how the divine inspiration that
emanates from the Saviour's everlasting pre-
sence guards them in the dark hour against
the ills of the flesh and the powers of evil.
They may not have inquiring minds like you.
You want to know the why and wherefore
for everything. They have a simple faith.

The Doctor. What is faith ?

The Parson. As certitude is impossible
in certain regions Faith is required. It needs
courage, for there is alwaj'S a risk. But in
the courage of faith there is a certain nobility
which is entirely absent from the inquiring
mind in search of certitude at every step.
Faith is implicit reliance in God's mercy,
the simple adhesion of the Soul to God. It
is the compromise between the consciousness
of God and the importunities of our understand-
ing that has wrought itself into the language
and institutions of the Church.

The Doctor. Faith that involves intel-
lectual assent to certain objective propositions
and historical events is one thing, and faith

6o A CONFLICT OF OPINION

that involves a prevailing conviction of tlie
operation of a moral force is quite another
thing. The latter is real and indispensable,
the former comes dangerously near to mere
creduHty. Faith hardening into dogma be-
comes the enemy of rehgion. But I have
no desire to speak disparagingly of those who
have faith. My quarrel is with those who
supply the supernatural material for the
faithful.

The Parson. But the supernatural has
always been recognized and been welcomed
by man's spiritual nature. He does not ask
for the explanations which he requires in
the material incidents of his life, he does not
want a cut and dried analysis of his spiritual
conceptions. He is content that one great
divine revelation has given him spiritual in-
sight, and provided him with the means of
reaching out in his life towards a great ideal
which in its completeness furnishes the highest
motive and aim his mind can grasp. The
simple-minded more than others appreciate
the consolations the Church offers them, and
readily and eagerly seek refuge in her shelter-
ing bosom.

The Doctor. Simple and innocent faith
can only exist with inactive or undeveloped
speculative faculties. There is no way of

THE SUPERNATURAL 6i

obtaining the equivalent of this faith in a
person of exercised intellect except by sophis-
tication and perversion of the understanding
or of the conscience. That large numbers
seek refuge in the sheltering bosom of the
Church is, I think, becoming less and less
true as time goes on. You are not reach-
ing the people. You are not in touch
with the spiritual life of the nation. Other
forms of religion keep on arising. People
are falling away from your grasp. Those who
have been merely indoctrinated with a crude
behef in the supernatural actually turn to the
spiritualist charlatans, who they hope will give
them more tangible manifestations of the super-
natural and more immediate proof of human
immortality, while others are dropping out alto-
gether in direct antagonism. You still have
a hold, chiefly because of the authority your
position in the State gives you — for authority
has immense power, specially over the majority
of men who are in a state of uncertainty.
It is far less trouble to accept the judgments
of a recognized institution than to set about
inquiring for oneself ; it is far easier to be
taken in tow by a large vessel than to steer
your own course. There are many who by
temperament prefer to submit to discipline
exercised from outside, rather than undertake

62 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

the very troublesome and difficult task of
cultivating it within themselves by a spirit
of independence. But in addition to this,
the association of Church teaching with child-
hood's early days and the sentimental tie
which binds men with instinctive reverence
to old famiHar lessons learnt at their mother's
knee, make people very reluctant to cast
aside the well-known phrases and formulas
lest in doing so they should find themselves
driven out into a wilderness of doubt and
bewilderment. So partly from laziness, partly
from sentiment, partly from tradition, partly
from the absence of any alternative, they
continue to go to your services and conform
to your ceremonies and regulations which
become part of the routine of their lives.
But that is not religion. The hold you have
on them is negative, and therefore you will
find more and more as generation succeeds
generation that your grasp is weakening, your
influence waning, and your message falhng
on deaf ears.

The Parson. The Church as an institution
has passed through many vicissitudes. The
task entrusted to her may be beyond achieve-
ment by her ministers. She may have failed
in her ideal. She has at one time been enriched,
at another time plundered ; in one age she

THE SUPERNATURAL 63

has been supreme, in another age dishonoured
and rejected ; she has been governed by men
of profligate character, ambitious for temporal
power ; she has been led by men of marvellous
spiritual influence and saintlike lives ; she
has been captured by the superstitious and
the Pharisaical ; she has been the refuge of
the holy and the pure ; she has been weakened
by schism, attacked by science, and scoffed
at by society with its passing whims and
fashions. You may point to this failure,
that inconsistency ; you may detach this
dogma as irrational and that ceremony as
stale ; you may point to decaying stones
in the structure and deplore the inadequacy
of its plan in the light of modern ideas ; you
may single out this or that exponent of its
teaching as misguided and wrongheaded.
All this has been done times without number,
and there are volumes upon volumes attacking
the Church from one point of view or another.
But with all these shortcomings, failures,
abuses, crimes and perils there she remains,
the Spouse of Christ, the visible organ of the
Risen Lord, the chief instrument for the
establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven
upon earth, the great witness to the eternal
truth. She has to meet the claims of the
individual as well as the needs of society ;

64 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

she has to inculcate spiritual realities in such
a way as to appeal to all classes and all natures.
She has to preserve corporate unity and yet
make an intimate individual appeal. Many
sided, far reaching, combatting obstacles,
overcoming barriers, the Church holds on its
way — ^if you will forgive me for this one
quotation — " by glory and dishonour, by evil
report and good report, as deceiving and yet
true ; as unknown and yet well known ;
as dying and behold it lives ; as sorrowful
yet always rejoicing ; as poor and yet making
rich ; as having nothing and yet possessing
all things."

The Doctor. Splendid. What a wonder-
ful eifect beautiful words have ! Almost thou
persuadest me — but, alas ! the Church to-day
does not appear to me at all in that light :
very far from it.

The Parson. The material successes and
the mechanical triumphs of the nineteenth
century have produced a lower standard of
moral values and have elevated the worldly
objects of human ambition into a very dominant
position. The difficulties, therefore, by which
she is beset in an age when gross materialism
has got so firm a hold on all sections of the
community, when utilitarian commercialism
reigns supreme and when strange fancies and

THE SUPERNATURAL 65

ill-assimilated ideas abound, are perhaps
more formidable than at any previous period
of her history. Society is pleasure-seeking
and indifferent, the industrial world, ill-guided,
is in a state of transition which involves a
certain antagonism to recognized tradition,
political thought is in utter confusion, giving
no sense of confidence or security, science in
its strides seems only to sap the old positions
without substituting any acceptable alter-
native ; and in the midst of all this the Church,
unchangeable, comprehensive, deep founded
in the past, branching out where it can to
reach new fields, stands on its impregnable
rock, and I can assure you. Sir, is an immense
power for good. Corporate w^orship, which
kindles the power of common enthusiasm,
is in itself a means of invigorating and
directing the inner yearning for better
things which buds in every human soul.
The Christian message, the divine revelation,
can alone help it to blossom. Go into a
crowded London church, hear the w-onderful
thrill of human voices united in harmony
in presence of the Majesty of God, listen
to the preacher, often — I do not pretend
always — keeping his congregation spellbound,
not by his eloquence, but by the life-giving
truth which radiates through his words !

5

66 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

And I challenge anyone to say that the
Church is a negligible agent for progress
in the best possible sense of the word.
I whole-heartedly assert that her extinction
would be the greatest calamity that could
befall the human race. Forgive me for getting
excited. I feel it deeply.

The Doctor. There is no need to apologize.
You have greatly impressed me. But I am
not arguing in favour of the extinction of the
Church, because that is not a practical pro-
position.

The Parson. You may not be actually.
But by undermining and blasting the rock
on which she is built you must inevitably
bring about her downfall.

The Doctor. In my opinion the Church
does not rest on a rock, but on a shifting
quick-sand. I want to substitute a rock, and
by clearing away mildew and rust, by pre-
venting dry rot, by the ruthless scrapping of
superfluous accessories and useless buttresses
which were no part of the original design, I
would attempt to create an edifice well suited
to direct and fortify the growing spiritual
needs of the individual and of the nation,
and I would thereby establish, not so much
an institution as an agency, which would
attract bj^ its sympathetic method and or-

THE SUPERNATURAL 67

ganization a far larger number than at present
seek shelter under your roof.

The Parson. All I can say is that if
you set to work to criticize and find fault
with every detail which appears to you to
conflict with logic and reason, if part of your
process is to attempt to rationahze expressions
of idealism, if the structure you propose
to erect is to receive the approval of the cul-
tured few and satisfy the worldly wisdom
of a utilitarian age, 1 think your efforts will
be in vain. Many trees are very untidy,
cankered, gnarled and split ; the mountain
side is full of flaws and useless cracks and
broken rock. But can man imitate the beauty
of a tree or the glory of a mountain by artifice,
by plan, or even by ingenious workmanship ?

The Doctor. I have evidently given you
the impression that I want to cut out every
phrase or idea or rite that is not strictly
rational. That is not the case. I should be
the first to appreciate the value of the symbolic,
the figurative and the decorative beauty of
the archaic. But I should hke to go into
more detail with regard to your services
and ceremonies. It is late now, let us reserve
that till to-morrow.

The Parson. Very well. Please come in
again to-morrow evening.

Ill

WEDNESDAY

i

FORMS AND CEREMONIES

The Parson. I expect you are going to be
very sarcastic to-day. There will be oppor-
tunities for you.

The Doctor. No, I assure you, I will
try to be reasonable. But I am aware that
we are approaching a part of the subject in
which I shall find it difficult to restrain a
certain amount of indignation. Well, now,
you are very fortunate in having enlisted
in your support the highest artistic genius.
Architecture, music, and painting have given
some of their best to you.

The Parson. It was Christianity that
inspired the best in art.

The Doctor. Not Christianity, but rehgion.
Both art and thought were on every bit as
high a level, if not higher, before the Christian
era. But do not let us discuss the rival
claims of Praxiteles and Michelangelo. What

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 69

I mean is, you have got at your disposal
some of the finest and most magnificent
buildings ever erected by human hands ;
cathedrals the sight of which alone seems
to lift up one's very soul into higher realms.
Music, through its choirs and organs, gives
you the beautiful accompaniment to your
services which attracts people more than the
services themselves. I would say without
fear of contradiction that a great cathedral
in which singing and organ playing were
taking place without a service would inspire
one with a far deeper religious feeling than
the service without the cathedral and without
the music. I remember sitting and looking
up into the vaults and traceries and the
intersecting arches of one of our beautiful
cathedrals listening to the organ playing a
divine bit of music. It stopped, and I heard
in the distance " Dearly beloved brethren ..."
With a sudden bump I came down to earth
from the heaven in which my spirit had been
soaring, and I bolted past the amazed verger
out of the door.

The Parson. Your aesthetic sense is more
developed than your religious sense.

The Doctor. The one ministers to the
other. But however that may be, you have
the immense advantage of the co-operation

70 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

of the arts. Architecture serves you, too, in
a multitude of village churches all over the
country. Wonderful little monuments of the
past, redolent with history, fragrant with
the memory of long departed generations,
lovely in themselves, appropriate in every
way as meeting places for all and sundry ;
the possession of the people in reality, though
you ward off the outsiders and reserve these
churches jealously for your own sect. But
where these musical and architectural advan-
tages are absent there is a noticeable falling
off in the enthusiasm for your services.

The Parson. I have seen a large, ugly
East-end London church, without a choir,
packed from door to door.

The Doctor. That was the parson's doing,
I have no doubt ; some great preacher, or one
of those splendid self-sacrificing friends of
the people who are beloved. I have never
disputed the existence of many of them in
the Church. They have special magnetism,
but such men do exist in other callings. I
daresaj^ you have been to a crowded political
meeting.

The Parson. Oh, but that is very different.
Abuse us as much as you like, but please do
not compare us to politicians. We have a
great message, we are not out for ourselves.

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 71

They are out for vote catching, popularity,
and power in various degrees.

The Doctor. That is not quite fair. Tliere
are good and bad amongst them. I see you
think pohtics is in a different compartment
from rehgion, an inferior category. Whereas
indubitably both should be permeated by the
same spirit. But inferior politicians receive
their due, whereas inferior clergymen do not.
The inferior politician can be heckled, inter-
rupted, howled down ; he can even be the
target for rotten eggs or the signal for emptying
the benches in the House of Commons. Not
so the inferior parson. He has his say, and
descends from the pulpit after his uninter-
rupted, and yet perhaps utterly futile discourse,
completely self-complacent and without any
sense of failure. It would not be a bad idea
if people might leave the church if the sermon
were intolerably bad. On the other hand,
the successful preacher is not misled or
carried away, hke a politician, by the allure-
ments of applause, though I am afraid that
outside the church he sometimes falls a victim
to the ecstatic worship of his parishioners.
And yet the wiser in both professions no doubt
know how ephemeral the influence of the
spoken word is. I am not going to quote
from particular sermons, but you know as well

72 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

as I do that the majority of them are dull
and uninspiring ; you know better than I
do how the clergy are often prevented from
doing themselves justice by the conditions
under which they work. It would be far
better if you copied the Jesuits and had an
order of preachers. Taking sermons as a
whole, my criticism would be that far too
much stress is laid on incomprehensible
dogma, and far too little attention is paid
to the ordinary difficulties in the lives of
ordinary men and women. Preachers seem
to take refuge in the former because of their
supposed monopoly of supernatural knowledge,
and avoid the latter where they might be
more easily caught out in making mistakes.

The Parson. You see we differ with regard
to the importance of dogmatic teaching. But
the constant exposition of the example of
Jesus Christ seems to me to cover both sides ;
and this, I think, is the theme of the majority
of sermons.

The Doctor. Now let me take the village
church. You have the front pews railed
off for the squire, his family and his servants ;
behind them the gentry, and at the back
the labourers and their wives ; a careful
observance, in fact, of the class differences of
society which are in direct contradiction to
the communahstic teaching of Christ.

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 73

The Parson. That concession to social
convention is no doubt made. But if you
ask your parlourmaid to sit in your drawing-
room probably you might not be uncomfortable,
but she certainly would be. The arrangement
may not be ideal because our society is not
ideal, but, things being as they are, it is con-
venient, and I do not believe anyone objects
to it. On the contrary I think they might
object to a change. Moreover, in the larger
churches where people are strangers to one
another no such distinctions are observed.

The Doctor. Well, I, personally, object
very much to these class distinctions being
recognized in what you would call the presence
of God. Then why should people dress up
to go to Church ? Why should it be regarded
as an opportunity for self-display ? Is not
this habit an encouragement to the vanity
of those who are liable to overrate the impor-
tance of outward appearance ? Isn't there
something utterly depressing about the pre-
vailing smell of naphthaline, camphor and
pomatum ? The sight of a congregation issu-
ing from Church on their way to Sunday dinner
has a most devastating and depressing effect
on me. From ecclesiastical repletion they
pass to physical repletion. It is all part of
Sunday observance, and it is all religion— or
rather not rehgion.

74 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

The Parson. You magnify these trivialities
and take them out of all proportion. To
dress decently is only a mark of respect.
To have a good meal on your day of rest is
not a great sin.

The Doctor. I see it does not strike you
as it does me. I think it is the external
sign of an inward misconception of their
devotions. But let me pass now to the
service itself. Through intense familiarity
and constant repetition it has become largely
mechanical and perfunctory. For constant
Churchgoers to keep their attention alert
during the prayers and lessons and psalms
must require an immense effort. Repetition,
which is one of the features of the service,
is a relic of very barbaric forms of worship.
It dulls the faculties and prevents concen-
tration. The extraordinary lack of reverence
in the almost professional manner of the
very frequent Churchgoer is most noticeable.

Now the opening sentences of the service
are one and all about our sins, transgressions
and iniquities. We crave for forgiveness and
beg that God's anger may not be directed
against us. This tone is kept up in the prayers
and litany. We acknowledge and confess our
manifold sins and wickedness, we confess
with a humble, lowly, penitent and obedient

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 75

heart, we have offended against holy laws,
there is no health in us (this to an omnipotent
God ! Could insult go further ? ), we are
miserable offenders, we ask God to make
haste to help us, and by way of consolation
we sing, "It is a people that do err in their
hearts for they have not known my ways.
Unto whom I sware in my wrath that they
should not enter into my rest." That, no
doubt, applies to people who do not come
to Church, so it can be sung with gusto.

The Parson. It is easy enough to ridicule
phrases in these old canticles. Are we to
scrap all the beautiful old legacies handed
down to us through the ages because a phrase
here and there is archaic in form ?

The Doctor. Certainly not. I do not
ask a duke to scrap the vizer used by his
ancestor in the days of the Plantagenets,
but I do not expect him to wear it. There
is a curious resemblance between the Church
and those aristocrats who are so much
impressed by the length of their lineage
and their historical family traditions that
they forget altogether to consider how they
themselves fit into the life of to-da}-. But
to return to the services. You have a great
number of prayers devoted to high per-
sonages, sovereigns and royalties who are

;76 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

to be endued with heavenly gifts and enriched
with heavenly grace. In the Htany seven
clauses are devoted to kings, princes,
bishops, the nobility, and magistrates, and
one half clause to the desolate and
oppressed. The workers, the poor, and the
destitute attract very little of your attention.
The prayers are, in the dogmatic sense, quite
definite. There is one that begins " God of
Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob,"
reminding people that the God they are wor-
shipping is the Jehovah of the Old Testament
about whom I have already expressed myself,
I fear rather vehemently. I do not want to
offend you by quoting more from prayers and
collects. It is the whole tone of abject self-
condemnation arising from the main motive
of avoiding sin, namely, fear of the wrath of
God, and therefore the necessity of propitiating
Him ; it is the whole attitude of servility, of
subservience to authority, of self-depreciation
and supplication which I unhesitatingly con-
demn as unhealthy, harmful and bad. It
is the wrong tone for intelhgent self-respecting
beings to adopt. Moreover, the encourage-
ment of self-depreciation is a danger in itself,
because morbid and neurotic dispositions revel
in it, and readily believe that the indulgence
on stated occasions of this habit of mind —

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 77

this self-flagellation, so to speak — exonerates
them from all blame and leaves them free
to pursue their own wayward course in life
with only the prospect of another orgy of
self-condemnation in view. If it is not intended
seriously but is, as it would appear to be from
the general appearance of the well-dressed
self-satisfied congregation, only a stereotyped
form to be gabbled through, then it is a bit
of rank hypocrisy for the retention of which
there is no excuse whatever.

The Parson. Remember I have already
said there are very great difficulties in the
way of any change in the old forms of liturgy,
though I hope they will be overcome in the
near future.

The Doctor. You mean the necessity of
getting Parliamentary sanction ?

The Parson. Yes, but there are signs
that we may possibly attain that degree of
autonomy.

The Doctor. If you do I shall be very
much surprised if your own people, Convocation
or whatever the authority may be, will allow
you to alter much or indeed anything that
really matters.

The Parson. But I do not want the
service altered to the extent you suggest,
because it appears to me that the attitude

78 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

of humility and of frank acknowledgment
of our sinfulness is the proper one in which
to approach the Almighty. We must repent
our sins.

The Doctor. Do not let us waste time
on repentance, which entails confession, a
morbid form of self-indulgence.

The Parson. Repentance is essential if
we are to endeavour to lead new lives. If
instead we come in self-righteous arrogance
to find fault with God rather than with our-
selves, if we approach the throne with no
contrition in our hearts, we mistake the whole
spirit of Christ's teaching. In comparison
with divine perfection we are miserable sinners,
as compared with Jesus we are full of fault
and iniquity. It is right for us to realize
it, and in the presence of God to confess it.
Before the altar our own imperfections call
for notice, and if we desire to attempt to
correct them we must first acknowledge their
obvious existence. Words of the earher cen-
turies may not always appear apt for minds
of to-day. But the spirit behind them is the
same, and the retention of these old formulas
and prayers has great value in preserving
the long continuity of Christian worship and
tradition and in linking us with those of
previous ages who, with the same ills and the

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 79

same adversities and the same faults as our-
selves, have approached the same God through
the intermediary of the same Saviour possibly
in the very same building. You might get
a committee of literary celebrities to draft
a more suitable and to you satisfactory form
of service ; but would it have anything like
the same precious significance ?

The Doctor. That is the conservative
spirit in excelsis. The Church, if it is to be
a living force, ought not to be a museum.
Look at your creeds. The legendary Apostles'
Creed, of unknown but very ancient origin ;
the Nicene Creed, the result of ecclesiastical
disputes in the early fourth century ; the
Athanasian Creed, a product of the fifth
century ! Very interesting, no doubt, all of
them, as historical relics to be looked at in
glass cases, but fatal to the growing spiritual
needs of man. The Athanasian Creed, as you
know, is a definite object of offence to many
people. I have come from Church on festival
days incensed with rage that people in the
sacred name of religion should be made to

repeat such , well, I don't want to be

offensive, so I will leave a blank.

The Parson. As you know, the obligation
to use that creed is being considered.

The Doctor. But if there is no great

8o A CONFLICT OF OPINION

difference between one or other of them why
should any of them be obHgatory ? They
are all the creation of ancient ecclesiastics
who ought not to regulate the beliefs of men
living generations after them. The Nicene
Creed, for instance, is made up of clauses some
of which come from a Council whose decisions
a Churchman is told he need not acknowledge ;
other clauses were condemned in anticipation
by a Council whose decisions he is told he
must acknowledge ; and this jumble of in-
consistencies is declared to be revealed Truth !
What may appear to be an imperative necessity
in one generation may become unnecessary and
even positively injurious in another. What-
ever is defective in thought at any given time
is crystalized by a creed composed at that
time. Creeds close the door of the mind and
stifle spontaneous inspiration. There is nothing
divine or spiritual about the creeds ; and the
hurried, thoughtless and perfunctory recital
of behef in a series of portentous mysteries
always strikes me as the most irreverent,
desultory and meaningless act of worship
that can be conceived. The howling dervish
in his ecstasy is, according to his lights, in
a far more religious frame of mind than the
dressed-up respectable Churchgoer rapidly
mumbhng the Nicene Creed. If a child

FORMS x\ND CEREMONIES 8i

declared its love and respect for its parents
with the same effortless glibness with which
the Churchman recites his formularies of
reverence for God, it would be justly blamed
for its heartless lack of feeling and rightly
suspected of insincerity. I venture to say
very respectfully that if Jesus Christ came
on earth again he would not understand
what you were doing in his name ; he
would be utterly mystified at the crust
of superstition that has grown up over the
lessons he taught ; he would see that you
had incorporated the very doctrines and prac-
tices which he himself had condemned. He
would not understand j^our creeds. It is
not the ordinances of Christ 3'ou are preserving
with such zeal ; it is the doctrines of the fathers
of the Church, and of ecclesiastical pundits
of the early centuries. They were surely
liable to error ; and because mistakes were
made centuries ago, there is no reason why
they should remain uncorrected to-day.

The Parson. I do not admit mistakes.
I think the Apostles' Creed is a very simple
epitome in as few words as possible of the
cardinal and indispensable articles of faith.

The Doctor. Well, then, of course we
must agree to differ. I do not want to go
over ground we have already covered. But

6

82 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

even you have reservations. You believe God
is only relatively Almighty, and did not
create heaven and earth in the wa}^ described
in Genesis. The Virgin Birth you do not be-
lieve literally, and the Last Judgment involves
a belief in hell which you discard. Now if
you allow j^ourself any latitude at all you must
allow others latitude. Where does it end ?
At what point would you tell them that their
qualifications and reservations and even rejec-
tions preclude them from being entitled to
take part in the service at all ?

The Parson. That is not my affair. That
is a matter for each individual to decide for
himself in perfect freedom. If his doubts
are only superficial he would feel in all proba-
bility that he could conscientiously continue
in our communion. If they were fundamental
he could not, without outraging his conscience,
repeat the creeds, though I do not see even
then, if he is so minded, why he should not
continue to attend our services.

The Doctor. Would you let him partake
of the Sacrament if he were simply impressed
by the beauty of the service and, though not
believing in the actual Divinity of Christ,
considered his example of such sacred value
that he might well participate in a ceremony
in remembrance of him ?

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 83

The Parson. I confess I do not understand
or appreciate that attitude, though I am well
aware that it exists. The sacred words
repeated in that service, and indeed the
whole meaning of the Sacrament, implies
an acceptance of the doctrine of the Atone-
ment, which in its turn, of course, involves
a belief in the Divinity of Christ. In this
implicit faith the priest administers the
elements to him, and those around him are
receiving them in a like spirit. By applying
an entirely unauthorized and unorthodox
interpretation to his act it appears to me
he is placing himself in a very false position.
There is no Church in the world in which
so much liberty is allowed to a man as
the Church of England. You can judge for
yourself by the great variety and degrees of
opinion held even by the clergy. But there
must be a limit somewhere, for if the very
essence of our creed is rejected our whole
fabric would begin to crumble.

The Doctor. Perhaps people such as I
refer to are the thin end of the wedge which
is going eventually to be instrumental in
splitting off from you the unnecessary crust
of ecclesiasticism ; and then you will discover
that, so far from the whole fabric crumbling,
the essence of Christianity, which is not the

84 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

supernatural but the spirit of righteousness,
will remain and will be far more visible and
far more attractive. I take it from what you
say that you are amongst those who would
only regard communicants as entitled to be
recognized as full members of the Church?

The Parson. Yes, that is so. I regret
the decision to broaden membership on the
baptismal basis, but I always think in any
association it is best only to regard as members
those who, so to speak, actually subscribe.

The Doctor. You think this is a wise
policy in face of the very patent dangers
that lie before you ? Surely in your present
state it would be wiser to open your doors
wider rather than close them more securely.

The Parson. I think a handful of the
elect are worth a crowd of the heterodox.

The Doctor. I understand. It is the
inevitable consequence of your attachment
to the supernatural. But before I leave your
services I should like to say a word about the
hymns. They have been collected together
more or less recently. They possess no archaeo-
logical or historical merit like the liturgy
but they illustrate the sort of sentiments and
beliefs which are favoured. The supernatural
and the incomprehensible predominate to an
enormous extent. Not long ago, when the

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 85

church was being rededicated, a function for
which the whole village turned out, I watched
small boys and labourers shouting lustily :

Laud and honour to the Father,

Laud and honour to the Son,
Laud and honour to the Spirit

Ever three and ever One
Consubstantial, co-eternal,

While unending ages run.

Now, honestly, don't you think that is posi-
tively ludicrous ?

The Parson. Well, those particular lines
may be a little difficult and not very suitable
for public worship.

The Doctor. No, no, I am not going to
let you off on this point. To those who
sing it, it is utter gibberish. They have
not the remotest conception of what it means.

The Parson. There is a line in a hymn
which runs " Vainly would reason grasp the
things divine."

The Doctor. That merely absolves the
congregation from making any hair-sphtting
efforts at comprehension, but it does not alter
the absurd position in which you place them
when you tell them to sing lines such as I
have quoted. No, I should like you to say
that that sort of jargon ought to be eliminated
for good and all.

86 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

The Parson. Very well. I have no ob-
jection to cutting out that hymn.

The Doctor. I could quote many others.
For instance : —

There is a fountain fiU'd with Blood

Drawn from Emanuel's veins.
And sinners plunged beneath that flood

Lose all their guilty stains.

which I think simply horrible. Or the behef
in hell, which is declared in the lines : —

My God, I love Thee ; not because

I hope for heaven thereby,
Nor yet because who love Thee not

Are lost eternally.

The echo of the service's emphasis on self-
condemnation abounds in many maudlin sickly
verses, notably in the lines : —

Wash off my foul offence,
And cleanse me from my sin,
For I confess my crime and see
How great my guilt has been.

In " Rock of Ages," " Jesu, lover of my
soul," and numberless other hymns the same
note is struck, making men declare they are
helpless, hopeless, wretched, weak creatures
whose one wish is to save their souls from
punishment, and whose only hope of doing

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 87

this is a continual declaration of belief in
the Divinity of Jesus and in the Trinity.
The joy expressed in your services and hymns
is equally unattractive : " Ten thousand times
ten thousand," " The golden gates," " A thou-
sand harps," " How my spirit yearns and
faints, For the converse of thy saints," —
unrestrained, senseless ecstasy, the general
result being, in my opinion, inexpressible
dreariness. A well-dressed congregation, sing-
ing to a swinging melody, with a pleasant
stir of their emotions, words which denote
the most extreme confessions of penitence,
descriptions of the most sacred mysteries, or
the most exaggerated expressions of awe has
often struck me as extraordinarily insincere.

The Parson. Well, I do not mind honestly
telling you that I have frequently been struck
in the same way, and consequently I am
very particular in the choice of my hymns.
After all, they are not all bad.

The Doctor. No, certainly not. There
are fine verses, and some hymns are popular
solely on account of their beautiful tunes —
like " The Church's one Foundation." The
words count for very little. But considering
the mine of beauty that exists in English
poetry surely it is about time that something
drastic was done to cut out ruthlessly the

88 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

meaningless doggerel and the sentimental
rubbish that now disfigures the hymn book.

The Parson. Your language is too violent,
but I do agree that there is room for reform
here and attempts have been made in that
direction.

The Doctor. They do not amount to
much. But I will not quote any more hymns
because I see you take a reasonable view on
this point. As to the Psalms, I will only
say that some of them are very fine, some are
very dull, and some are very inappropriate
and full of exaggeration. So long as it was
supposed that David wrote them all under
God's inspiration there was some excuse for
keeping them as a whole. But now that it
is known that they are a collection of songs
of varied origin I should have thought some
discrimination might be exercised in making
a selection. I have not touched on other
forms of service, the ordination service, the
commination service — which was regarded as a
huge joke when I was at school — the baptismal
and burial services, the prayers for rain,
the collects, etc. They all have the same tone
running through them, the propitiation of
some furious and revengeful deity. It is
not as if you lacked the right sort of material.
You have got the most wonderfully inspiring

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 89

language in the Bible, not to mention other
great books. But for the sake of tradition
you prefer to keep your service cold, unattrac-
tive, and largely unintelHgible.

The Parson. Yet how many times have
you not heard it said that the Church of
England service is very beautiful ?

The Doctor. So it is in a beautiful cathe-
dral, with beautiful music, beautiful voices,
and a beautiful organ, when you do not have
too much of the words of the service.

The Parson. I can imagine how violently
you would express yourself about a service
in a ritualistic church.

The Doctor. You are quite wrong. I
think colour, symbolism and ceremony have
great attractions, and I believe many people
can be appealed to through their senses and
emotions in this way. It is a little dangerous,
however, for I have noticed that rapturous
appreciation of this sort of thing is combined
sometimes with a decadent and degenerate
artistic temperament. No, my complaint
about ritualism is that it absorbs attention
to the exclusion of everything else. You
Churchmen are occupied in quarrelling among
yourselves about vestments and candles and
incense, so that your attention is often entirely
distracted from the great crusade you are

90 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

supposed to be leading against the forces of
evil. Talk of brotherly love ! Why, an evange-
lical detests a ritualist far more than he does
me. These are matters that appear to you
vital. Yet it was against the teaching of
priests and the worthlessness of ceremonialism
that Christ himself, and indeed all great reli-
gious reformers, have vehemently protested.
It sometimes astounds me when I see what
Churchmen think important. Take a parish
magazine, that strange periodical which is
distributed and bound into the local sheet ;
you know what I mean. It consists of senti-
mental stories, and photographs of savages
and bishops — at the end there are questions
which show the sort of thing Church people
are interested in — the sort oj thing you have
taught them to he interested in!

The Parson. Please don't shout, I am
not deaf.

The Doctor. I beg your pardon. But
just listen to these : " Why do people make
the sign of the cross at the end of the creed ? "
" Why do Ember days fall always on the
same days of the week ? " " Should we make
a deep reverence to the Cross ? " " Why do
churchwardens have staves ? " " Please ex-
plain about candles in ceremonies." " Should
not "

FORMS AND CEREMONIES 91

The Parson. Yes, yes, I know, I know.
You need not go on. Very trivial, rather
ridiculous to you, no doubt. But such is
human nature. The external will always seem
very important. We are an association of
human beings, not of saints and scholars.
Many of us are very petty, very ignorant,
very unenlightened no one will deny. But
for all that, in small efforts and in great,
by simple means and by great movements,
by attention to trivialities and details as well
as to the broad and comprehensive conceptions
there is always a great and incessant striving
forward. And, indeed, there are well con-
structed parish magazines which are useful
and instructive.

The Doctor. They are not distributed
in hundreds, like the one I have just quoted
from. However, the question of instruction
is most important. I want to say a word
about rehgious education. But we had better
break off here. It is your turn to come and
have a cup of tea with me to-morrow. As
we have not come to blows to-day I feel
encouraged to go on.

IV
THURSDAY

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

The Doctor. I really did not say enough
yesterday.

The Parson. I think you gave vent to
your feelings pretty freely.

The Doctor. No, there was something
restraining in the atmosphere of your study,
which shows that even I am susceptible
to the influence of authority. But as we are
going to deal with religious education to-day,
I may perhaps be allowed to refer to the mini-
stration of baptism, because that is the obvious
starting point. Now, if it were just an initia-
tion and admission of a new member into your
fellowship there would be no very great harm
in the mystical rite of baptism. Anyhow, I
should not quarrel with you about the super-
natural element which enters here, as else-
where, in your services, though I should say

that the reference in one of the opening prayers

92

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 93

to Noah and the Ark is hardly calculated to
add to the dignity and solemnity of the
ceremony. But baptism is very specifically
something more than a mere initiation. And
it is here that the great mischief for which
the Church is responsible first begins. The
theory is that the child is born in sin ; it is
a child of wrath. By baptism and admission
into the Christian community it is brought
within reach of salvation. Without this it
is condemned to eternal punishment.

The Parson. Stay, I do not think you are
justified in proclaiming the alternative as
an indispensable belief.

The Doctor. There are, however, many
who hold it. But do not let us waste time over
anything so ridiculous as the eternal damnation
of unchristened babies. It is the positive
side I want to examine. Sin is taken to be
the natural state, and a process of correction
consequent^ becomes necessary. You pro-
ceed by indoctrinating the child with the
formulas necessary for a belief in the whole
supernatural structure of your Church. It is
no easy matter, because many of the doctrines
are extremely difficult to grasp, specially for
a child mind. But a perfect repetition of
them in the catechism will suffice. Children
are taught this astonishing form of instruction

94 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

at a comparatively early age and succeed
in repeating it without fault. The child is
made to believe in a personal devil, he is made
to talk fluently about the sinful lusts of the
flesh — this at the age of about eight, though
when he is eighteen there are few who think
it worth while to explain to him what the
lusts are and what they mean. He reels off
the subtle theological intricacies of the creed,
and the injunctions of ancient Hebrew law
contained in the ten commandments, and then
he describes the significance of his own baptism
" a death unto sin and a new birth unto
righteousness ; for being by nature born in
sin and the children of wrath we are thereby
made the children of Grace." Now this
doctrine, I repeat, is responsible for the whole
attitude adopted towards children by their
pastors and masters — the repression of evil
and the inoculation of good.

The Parson. All this is quite consistent
with the doctrme of the Atonement.

The Doctor. Yes, just so. But I want
to show how it works out practically and what
mischievous consequences it has.

The Parson. But surely man is sinful,
surely he exhibits tendencies towards an evil
disposition, surely the frailty of our nature
is patent, surely the powers of evil too often

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 95

gain the upper hand. Through admission
into the fellowship of Christ the child obtains
means of grace, the opportunity for correction,
the championship of One who has overcome
all evil. This seems to me perfectly rational.
But I hope you are not going to make the
Church responsible for all the shortcomings
of our system of education.

The Doctor. You clergy manage to estab-
lish yourselves at the head of the majority
of our schools and colleges. But I am not
dealing with education as a whole, only so-
called religious education, which, as it stands
now, does have an injurious effect on children's
natures ; not in a positive way, perhaps, but
by neglecting to rouse the proper feelings of
moral responsibility and by preventing the
growth of reverence for those things and those
sentiments which ought to be revered. An
external and ceremonial reverence for the
incomprehensible is as much as they gain
from their instruction. Now to my mind
true rehgion should be the spinal cord, or
rather the nerve centre, of all education.
It should be the keynote in the formation
of character. It should run through all intel-
lectual pursuits, all knowledge, and indeed all
forms of human activity like a silken thread
through pearls.

96 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

The Parson. I absolutely agree.

The Doctor. Yes, but these occasional
abstract agreements of ours are of no use.
We differ so fundamentally as to what true
religion is.

The Parson. You have never yet told
me what you think it is. You have been so
much occupied in telling me the Church version
of it is all wrong.

The Doctor. That is perfectly true. But
I will give you my views, for what they
are worth, before we have finished. Now
you have often heaid children doing their
scripture lesson in a village school. They
may get a parrot knowledge of certain
phrases, and they may become word perfect
in their catechism, creeds and collects. But
do you for a moment believe that these diffi-
cult formulas they learn, have in their minds
any bearing on their home life or their conduct
towards their schoolfellows ?

The Parson. Yes, I do. The duty to-
wards your neighbour is a very good set of
precepts on general conduct.

The Doctor. I do not know that I admire
very much that injunction. It teaches sub-
mission to authority, submission to external
discipline, and resignation to whatever fate
may befall you. It would seem to have been

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 97

framed to keep the lower classes in a state of
obedience and subservience to their sovereign,
governors, teachers, pastors, masters and
betters. " To learn to labour truly to get mine
own living " is not an item on which any stress
is laid in our great public schools. In these the
mechanical Chapel services, the daily prayers,
the Bible questions and the construing of
Greek Testament have not the smallest ethical
or moral value. When I think of the amount
of time I wasted with Bible dictionaries and
concordances looking out passages in the Old
Testament it makes me indignant.

The Parson. Such work has value as an
historical study. It is a highly important
branch of the world's history which every
child should be taught.

The Doctor. All I can say is, even from
the historical point of view, I think I should
have been better occupied in learning some-
thing about my own country and European
history of the last hundred years of which
I was taught literally and absolutely nothing.
But I am speaking of religious, not historical,
education. And I want to know how Jeroboam,
Jehoiakin, Mephibosheth, Ahijah, Jehoshaphat,
Huppim, Muppim, and the rest of them
helped me in the conduct of my life and taught
me what I should seek and what I should

7

98 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

avoid. As has been truly said of school
children " they are loaded and ballasted with
the chronicles of Baasha and Zimri, Methuse-
lah, and Alexander the coppersmith, but
take any of these religiously educated children
and ask them what one must do to make
life nobler and less sordid, they simply look
puzzled."

The Parson. These things may not always
be well taught. But I maintain they have
their value as an historical analysis of the
Bible in order that its unity of purpose may
be made clear. Say what you like, but a
knowledge of the Bible is of inestimable
value to every man and woman. I cannot
believe that you are advising that Bible
teaching should be eliminated from the curri-
culum of our schools. Why Ecclesiastes, the
book of Job, Isaiah, only to mention three
books, are among the finest literature the
world contains.

The Doctor. I only discovered that years
after I had left school. The beauties of the
Bible were never shown me, and I doubt if
I should have been capable of understanding
them as a boy. However much one may
appreciate these old stories, and however high
one may estimate the historical and dramatic
value of them, I repeat that divinity and

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 99

theology are not in themselves rehgious edu-
cation.

The Parson. Do you really think that
school children are capable of absorbing and
benefiting by abstract moral instruction ?
And on what are you going to found your
religious instruction and j-our moral code if
not on the Bible ?

The Doctor. The morahty of the Old
Testament I should hardly have thought
was exemplary. But I am not sure in the
narrow sense of the word whether you can
teach children rehgion. It is something that
grows in the fullness of life's experience and
requires guidance. My complaint is that under
the guise of religious instruction you teach
them something which to my mind has no
remote connection with religion — Old Testa-
ment history, for instance.

The Parson. In its rough and archaic
form it shows the development of religion
from early times. It is all leading up to
something. You can show that the fragments
by themselves are incomplete, but they help
to prepare the ground for the great culminat-
ing revelation contained in the Gospels. The
Bible has been the great standby of the British
people who, as you rightly say, are a religious
people. They are religious because of the

100 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

part the Bible has played m their education,
at home and at school. I should like to have
it taught more not less. There need be no
insistence on the actual and literal inter-
pretation of all the Bible contains. But the
legendary and symbolic have always played a
prominent and valuable part in culture and
enlightenment. Are you going to discourage
people reading Homer and Dante and Milton
because they deal with myths and creations
of the imagination ? Does not the value of
works such as these rest not on the events
recorded, but on the moral inferences, the
aesthetic beauty, the marvellous ingenuity of
mind of their authors and the continuity to
which they testify in the higher aspirations
of mankind ?

The Doctor. Certainly. But while the
latter are appreciated solely on their own
merits, which are such as you describe, you
not only imply but you dehberately teach
that Old Testament history is part and parcel
of religion, because it is the record of the
early manifestations of God among his chosen
people. That is what I object to. If you
said frankly " Here are some old records of
ancient tribes ; they are filled with symbolic
legends, but have historical and Uterary value
as they have had a great influence on the

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION loi

thought of the world," I should make no
protest. But as you know well, in ninety-
nine schools out of a hundred, certainly in all
elementary schools, they are explained as
actual and hteral facts and divinely inspired
illustrations of the ways of the God whom
the child is taught to worship. I do not know
much about theological colleges where the
clergy are trained, but I have seen some of
the examination papers set for those entering
the priesthood and just the same disregard
is shown there for anything except exact
technical biblical knowledge. This accounts
for a great deal in the attitude of the majority
of the clergy towards religion. They are
sacrificed to an abominable system in which
all emphasis is laid on the letter and the
spirit is left to take care of itself.

Anyhow, the children, having absorbed
what they can of the instruction, in due time
are ready for confirmation. Hitherto their
sponsors have vouched for them, now they
have to take the responsibility on their own
shoulders.

The Parson. A beautiful idea ! They
have arrived at an age of discretion, the reali-
ties of life are beginning to open out to them.
It is a time for reviewing their lives and en-
visaging the future, with a higher sense of

102 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

responsibility in the shaping of their own
destiny. In their infancy they have been
steered, and the moment comes when, realizing
God's love and the supreme sacrifice of their
Saviour, they are prepared to take the tiller
themselves.

The Doctor. You are an incorrigible
idealist.

The Parson. Are you going to find fault
with a clergyman for that ? What is wrong
with the description of confirmation I have
given ?

The Doctor. You seem to live in a world
of your own, which does not correspond with
the workaday world we live in. I am not
finding fault with 3'our ideals, nor indeed with
the ultimate ideals of the Church. The idea
of a general review of life is a good one. But
it is the actual practice, the positive obser-
vance and the way in which your teaching
is received and acted upon that you seem
determined to ignore. Now, how does it all
work out with regard to the child ? Sponsors
are not chosen because of their piety and moral
influence. The higher up in the social scale
you go the more it has become the practice
to ask celebrities to act as godparents. I
remember watching an eminent and notorious
old rake saying ** I renounce them all," that

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 103

is, the pomps and vanities and the sinful lusts
of the flesh, to the intense amusement of
the fashionable congregation assembled at the
christening.

The Parson. That is just one of your
individual instances of failure in the proper
observation of a particular ceremony. It does
not prove that the rite itself is inappropriate.

The Doctor. But how is confirmation
regarded by boys in general at their schools ?
They look upon it in precisely the same way
as they do vaccination or an examination or
passing out of one part of the school into a
higher form. The significance you give to
the ceremony is not apprehended, even dimly,
by one out of a hundred of them. It is the way
they regard it, not the way you regard it,
against which I am protesting, and I think
the Church is to blame.

The Parson. There is something in what
you say. The opportunity is too often missed
in schools, where a number of boys have to
be dealt with simultaneously. It is a very
intimate individual matter and cannot be
treated in class like a lesson. There is certainly
a tendency to convert the occasion into a
mere external ceremony. But I have known
the proper spirit instilled by parsons who are
able to see the boys and girls individually

104 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

in their studies. It is a question of method,
and I grant the method is often very faulty.
The Doctor. Again I cannot admit it
is only the method. You must bear in mind
that I entirely disapprove of children being
inoculated with the virus of superstition, and
the perfunctory method aggravates the evil,
not only in confirmation, but in all so-called
rehgious practices the Church fails to gain
any sort of lasting moral hold over them.
Moreover, the inculcation of the dogmatic
beliefs makes personal salvation the leading
motive of worship. It is noteworthy that
regular Church attendance breeds a self-centred
view of religion : self-pity, salvation for self,
consolation for self, remission of sins for self ;
and there are many who derive so much satis-
faction from constant attendance at Church
services that they are unwilling to sacrifice
their punctual performance of the ecclesiastical
routine for the dull humdrum and no doubt
irksome duties of daily life. This is in direct
opposition and contradiction to the real pre-
cepts of Christianity in which service is placed
far above worship, conduct above recital of
beliefs, and immediate duty above ultimate
salvation. Church religion is, in fact, a
violation of true Christianity. It enforces a
disciphnary regulation without a religious spirit.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 105

The Parson. But don't you think there
is something specially beneficial and edifying
in the discipline of a religious life? It is a
help and an advantage to the younger and
weaker natures, who thrive best when the}^
can cling to some sort of prop, and on rebellious
natures it may act as a restraint. Regulation
is indispensable in any efficiently constituted
organization.

The Doctor. Discipline has its uses. But
the Church has abused it very flagranth^
Monasticism was a failure. Discipline for
discipline's sake, submission to exterior author-
ity, penance and exaggerated self-denial have
the effect of making people believe that the
pursuit of a life of strict regulation and enforced
renunciation is enough in itself, and is not
only a satisfactory but an admirable form of
religious life because it contains the element
of obedience. But this is not what life is
meant for. Abstinence and asceticism encour-
age spiritual pride. Neither the intellectual
nature, far less the spiritual, can grow and
unfold under such conditions. It is to a large
extent because many have taken this to be the
rehgious life, and have cut themselves oft from
the rough and tumble of the ordinary but
real life of men, that so-called rehgion has
lost its vitality and power. The more dis-

io6 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

cipline is enforced from outside the less
will self-discipline grow within. The former
is mere automatic obedience to be attained
through submission to authority, the latter
is the fountain of the great spiritual initia-
tive which differentiates men from animals.
Educationally I should agree that a certain
amount of discipline is advisable. But it
must have meaning. At present the religious
training and disciphne for children is aimless,
or rather is wrongly directed. I do not want
to overstate the case by saying that this
religious training makes children immoral.
But the outcome of it all is nil. Their moral
sense has not been roused or stimulated. They
have been wearied and bored by petty disci-
plinary formulas and injunctions. They have
heard little or nothing of the significance of
life, of service, of fellowship, of conduct in
the higher sense or of communal responsibility.
The buds of their spiritual nature have been
checked by the uncongenial environment, and
the roots of their moral consciousness have
found no fertile soil in which to penetrate.
Nor is the situation often saved for them
in their homes, in many of which doubt and
indifference towards religion is the pervading
atmosphere and where the opinion prevails
that schools are able to supply the needful.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION T07

The result is that the majority of young people,
when they grow up more out of apathy than
opposition, gradually drift away and neglect
the observances they were taught and at
most attend your services as a social function.

The Parson. I fully recognize that there
is an indifference, but we should not agree as
to the cause of it. I should attribute it to
the more compelling attractions of the worldly
and material interests which seem to-day
to absorb men's minds more than ever, and
perhaps, too, to a failure on the part of Church
administration to devise special methods to
counteract this tendency. I would go so far
as to say that there is a want of vitality and
conviction in the administration of the social
side of our institution which tends to impair
its practical efficiency and injure its spiritual
influence. The undoubted advance of Non-
conformity is to some extent a consequence
of these shortcomings.

The Doctor. The growth of sectarianism
is the measure of the Church's failure. But
it is interesting to note that the Free Churches
do not have your architectural advantages
nor do they avail themselves to the same
extent of the assistance of music. Yet their
villainously ugly buildings and plain, unadorned
services seem to attract a larger number of

lo8 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

people — specially men — than you do. Most of
you, however, refuse to co-operate with Non-
conformists : you give them the cold shoulder,
lest you might weaken the doctrinal basis
of your creeds. This would seem to be a
narrow and unbrotherly policy, and short-
sighted, too, in view of the advance they are
making. They have an advantage over you
by being more essentially democratic and by
not being subservient to the conventions of
the social hierarchy. In your Church councils
and conferences I notice the discussion is
carried on by Bishops, Peers and Baronets,
but I have not noticed the names of any work-
ing men. The Free Churches have not got
your air of superiority. They have greater
freedom, though many are preoccupied about
their doctrinal integrity, and of course, in my
opinion, they too are handicapped by the full
acceptance of the supernatural elements in the
Christian doctrine. Although it is a small
point, I wish all of you would study the
immense value of silence and meditation in
your services. The silence of a mass of
people devoutly inclined is not only impressive
but helpful to each individual.

The Parson. I am sure it is. It affords
an opportunit}^ for silent prayer— a form of
devotion which I think certainly ought to
be encouraged.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 109

The Doctor. I did not mean it for prayer,
although probabl}^ some would like to occupy
their thoughts in that way.

The Parson. Do you mean to say that
you do not believe in prayer ?

The Doctor. In your sense of the word
I am afraid I do not. According to your
view prayer is the supplication of a yearning
spirit for sympathy and help from a personal
God ; the craving for the satisfaction of
individual needs or at best the corporate
expression of high aspirations and hopes for
improved conditions ; and at times interces-
sion on behalf of others before a supreme
ruler. It is performed more or less mechani-
cally, either according to set formulas and on
fixed occasions, or else privately at recognized
times quite irrespective of inclination. All
this may possibly have some use subjectively
but it can amount to very little owing to
the uninspiring and rigid forms into which
it is directed. I have no high estimation
of the motive and principle which under-
lie it. I dislike intensely the whole idea
of moral prostration. Nature has evolved
man physically to stand on his legs and
not go about on all fours. Man should
adopt the same attitude spiritually. In
my view, prayer should not be occasional

no A CONFLICT OF OPINION

and spasmodic supplication, but the constant
and unceasing dedication of one's whole life —
every thought and every action — to the highest
that is in one and the best one can conceive.
This is much more difficult, because it requires
sustained vigilance and protracted effort. But
it is not liable to reactions. There can be
no sense of relief that you have done with it,
and are free to pursue what course you like
till .the next interval for prayer comes round.
Repentance, contrition, and morbid humility
are all ehminated. Praise and glory, and all j
other forms of ecclesiastical flattery towards i
a jealous overlord do not enter into it. It
is the self-reliant determination to allow the
good you know to be in you to have, so far
as lies in your power, constant opportunity
to emerge. Not the confession of weakness
and despair at sinfulness, but the confidence
in strength and the recognition of your own
power to reach towards perfection.

The Parson. At last I am getting some
of your own views. Certainly they are in-
teresting. But I must hear more.

The Doctor. Very well, you shall ; but
we had better reserve that till to-morrow,
as it will take me some time to elaborate my
argument. Let us have a walk together to-
morrow afternoon.

FRIDAY

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION'

The Doctor. Let us go through the woods,
and round up over the common.

The Parson. Do you know, I could not
help being amused when I reflected on my
way home last night that I originally came
over to you last Monday to ascertain your
position on the subject of religion, and I
have now spent four days defending my own
against a critical, not to say violent, onslaught
from you.

The Doctor. Yes, I am afraid I have
been rather aggressive. But that is my method.
It seems to me best always to clear the ground
first negatively, and to be perfectly definite
as to what I do not like, what I do not believe,
and what I do not want, so that there may be
no misunderstanding. Seeing that you were

* Extracts from Spiritual Perfection, a booklet published
by the author in 1908, are incorporated in this chapter.

112 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

ready to converse with me in a spirit of fair-
ness and tolerance, it would have been a
poor return had I allowed you, just for the
sake of pleasing you, to go away with the
idea that I approved and accepted things
which, in reality, I neither approve nor accept.

The Parson. Quite so. Well, we were
dealing with prayer, and you gave your
definition of it. Dedication is a fine idea,
but it does not anything like cover the whole
ground in the idea of prayer in its commonly
accepted sense. Further, I gather you do
not believe in a personal God, nor in the
Unity of God with Jesus Christ and the Holy
Spirit, nor in Christ's divine mission, nor in
the subsidiary doctrines which emanate from
these basic doctrines. On the other hand you
have expressed admiration for the precepts
of Christ, and you have referred frequently
to the spiritual forces and the spiritual
nature in man. Now I would ask you to
leave the negative side of your conception
of religion, and be rather more explicit with
regard to the positive side.

The Doctor. I will try, though I shall
find it difficult. I cannot be dogmatic like
you. I cannot reinforce my opinions by
showing you a long historical line of support,
or pointing to large congregations of people

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 113

who think as I do. On the negative side I
know I am by no means alone. But on the
more positive side, or let me call it the tenta-
tively constructive side, I prefer to speak for
myself alone, because I have not thought
myself justified in pressing on others what is
perhaps only the outcome of individual ex-
perience. I certainly should not be attempt-
ing to explain myself to you now, had you
not urged me to do so.

The Parson. I understand, but I am
impatient to clear up what appears to me the
anomalous and paradoxical position you seem
to hold. Perhaps I may ask you some leading
questions. Do you believe in any God? do
you beheve in the immortahty of the soul?
do you believe in a future life ?

The Doctor. I would prefer, if I may, to
set about my explanation in my own way.
The doctrine that we are born in sin is the
keynote of dogmatic Christianity because it
gives us the reason of the purpose and design
of God, and for His intervention through Jesus
Christ for our salvation. My entire repudia-
tion of that idea necessarily prevents me
from having any belief in the circumstances
which arose, according to the teaching of the
Church, out of it. Now I am incHned to think
— no, I will be more positive here — I firmly

114 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

believe that in man, as he is constituted,
there exists a spiritual element. That is to
say, after taking into account all the component
parts of our nature which can be scientifically
capable of reduction to physical elements,
everything would not be accounted for ; there
would still remain some unknown quantity.
As to whether this is consciousness, vitality
or individuality cannot be determined, as
to whether it can be detached from the physical
and have existence apart from it we cannot
say.

The Parson. The soul, in fact.

The Doctor. Perhaps it may be simpler
to call it that. But our definitions would not
coincide. I beheve this essence to be nothing
short of the spirit of perfection, which is in
us when we are born, making us the very
opposite of children of wrath, and which, when
we die, is untainted, unpolluted, as absolutely
perfect as ever.

The Parson. You mean to say the soul
is not contaminated by sin. Do you mean
to imply that the soul is not injured by a
gross and sinful life ?

The Doctor. That is precisely my point,
and that is where we shall find another impor-
tant difference between us. Let me take an
extreme instance, in order to illustrate what

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 115

I mean. I saw in the newspaper the other
day the case of a woman of twenty-seven,
who had been sentenced forty-two times for
theft, assault, drunkenness, and attempted
suicide. I will not enlarge upon the social
and economic conditions or on our prison and
reformatory systems which make that sort
of thing possible. I only want to point out
that when that unfortunate woman dies the
soul that may still be in her will be as perfect
as when she was born.

The Parson. I will take an opposite in-
stance, also a woman, the most truly unselfish
I ever met, who sacrificed her life in ministering
to the poorest and most neglected and occupied
all her time in the reUef of suffering. Now
is it your behef that the souls of these two
women are equally pure ?

The Doctor. Yes, it is.

The Parson. I really think that is rather
an extravagant notion. Mind you, I readily
admit that circumstances and no doubt here-
dity were very much against the poor unfor-
tunate. I pity her more than I would condemn
her, and I fully believe that God, in His infinite
mercy, will show pity to her soul. But I
also believe that the Almighty will know what
chastening is due to such a one, even as He
will know what reward is to be allotted to

ii6 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

the other. You cannot avoid noticing the
far-reaching consequences of evil. Like the
sound from a bell, it vibrates far and wide,
influencing in many directions where we can-
not trace its course. Yet you pretend that
the soul which has initiated the wickedness
is spotless !

The Doctor. I cannot see what reason
you have for saying the soul initiates the
wickedness.

The Parson. Because I consider we are
all responsible beings and that the spiritual
element being the stronger controls the physi-
cal and is the directing force and originating
power. If that is bad, the whole is bad. But
perhaps you do not admit that we are respon-
sible for our actions ?

The Doctor. Although there is certainly
no means of proving it, I am inclined to believe
that we are to some extent relatively responsible.

The Parson. And yet in the next world
we are neither to suffer because of the evil
we do, not derive any eventual benefit from
our good actions ?

The Doctor. Those alternative fates in
store for us are just what I do not recognize.
I think it is degrading the object and meaning
of life to a very low level if we perform our
duty looking forward to compensation and

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 117

reward elsewhere, or if we only avoid evil for
fear of punishment hereafter. Surely we have
got beyond those elementary notions, and if
we are conscious that the spirit of perfection
is within us it raises our motives and ideals
on to a higher plane.

The Parson. What you speak of there
I should call the Holy Spirit.

The Doctor. I think some confusion
might arise if we call it that. What exactly
do you mean by the Holy Spirit ?

The Parson. The Spirit of God, the Holy
Ghost which is shed upon those who can enter
into communion with the Almighty, to the
refreshment of their souls and the purification
of their bodies.

The Doctor. Yes, as I thought, there is
an important difference between us here. The
perfect spirit I am trying to define is not shed
from without on the elect, but dwells within
the individual and works through his faculties.
But perfect it is essentially. In fact, what
you call the Holy Spirit is what I call the
spiritual perfection in man.

The Parson. It is certainly the opposite
pole from the self-abasement and humility
to which you object to assume that we our-
selves are divine, are in fact conscious parts
of the Deity.

ii8 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

The Doctor. I purposely avoid the word
divine, by calling it spiritual perfection. I
do not claim to be part of any Deity because
I am not aware of any detached dominant
outside power.

The Parson. How did you arrive at this
conclusion of yours ?

The Doctor. Not from books, nor from
instruction. I am sure it is not in the least
original. But my inward reflections and
general observations of life in a very large
number of different strata of society led me
to something which seemed to me to be a
rational explanation of some of the baffling
social phenomena and at the same time a
moral stimulus for the direction of one's life.
The evolution of man, which the discoveries
of science allow us dimly to apprehend, shows
the progressive development and adjustment
to environment first of body, and then of mind.
I should say self-consciousness is what first
began to differentiate us from animals. It
would be manifestly impossible to point to
any particular moment when our intelli-
gence became sufficiently developed to create
self-consciousness. In the same way, as man
has further progressed, always admitting the
curious reactions to which the human race
has been subjected, the process of spiritual

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 119

evolution began consequent on the growth
of a finer intelhgence and bringing with it the
first birth of the moral perceptions.

The Parson. Are people, then, who are
in a very low state of civilization devoid of
the perfect spirit ?

The Doctor. I have said that it is not
possible to discover at what particular stage
man's intellectual capacities become suffi-
ciently high to cause the presence of a spiritual
element. Nor can I say when man ceases
to act on instinct alone and develops the power
of reasoning. Perhaps the two, the rational
and psychic faculties, began to emerge simul-
taneously. It is quite possible that races
now existing have not reached this stage.

The Parson. You beheve, then, that soul-
less human beings may exist ?

The Doctor. That is better than believing
that some men have souls destined to eternal
torment. But I will go further and say that
those who have lost self-consciousness through
acute disease, failing faculties or madness
are for these causes devoid of the spirit
I speak of. It is difficult to make this point
clear because I keep on referring to what we
have agreed to call the soul as if it were
something apart and detached. It is not
an entity but an emanation, and if the condi-

120 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

tions necessary for its production are absent
it cannot exist. The perfect spirit cannot be
killed or entirely suppressed. The more it is
exercised and the better chance it has the
stronger it becomes. Even in the wretched
woman I mentioned, there were no doubt
intervals when her better self was struggling
to pierce. Its presence, in fact, depends on
its capacity to be active. If there is abso-
lutely no scope for it, it simply is not there.
But this can only happen in very extreme cases,
where people are to all intents and purposes
dead.

The Parson. Here is metaphysics for you.
You talked the other day of being out of your
depth. I am near drowning. Just fancy my
attempting to explain this to Mrs. Berry.

The Doctor. I really do not think the idea
of spiritual evolution is in any way absurd.

The Parson. Come now. I never said
it was absurd. As a matter of fact I am very
much interested. Please go on.

The Doctor. I think I could explain to
Mrs. Berry that she had the spirit of perfection
within her far more easily than I could explain
the doctrine of the Trinity. But I do not
want to force my views on other people,
though I think they would be more beneficial
than the beliefs which are being forced upon

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 121

them now with so Httle result. But let me
try and make my point clearer. The perfect
spiritual element in us is struggling with the
imperfection of our mind and body, in some
cases with slight success, and in others with
little or no success. Sometimes the perfect
soul shines through, and directs and influences
our whole being towards righteousness. At
other times it is cramped by the foulness of
inherited vice and of corrupt environment,
and struggles in vain to restrain the physical
elements from vicious tendencies and from
what would seem to be their natural bent
towards materialism and animalism. But the
perpetual struggle is not between antagonistic
forces but of one would-be dominant inde-
finable power ever striving to gain ascendancy
over a materially imperfect composition, which
is the outcome of the natural development
of physical matter. Apparent injustices are
hereby explained and the idea of our equality
is justified, which in the theory of the soul
being reacted upon and actually affected by
the faults in our physical nature could never
be the case. With this knowledge the con-
tradictions in human nature, often startling,
can more satisfactorily be accounted for : the
saint-like action of the most vicious criminal,
or the criminal action of the worthiest saint.

122 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

Men require to be reminded of life's true
meaning, and to have a frequent realization
of the even adjustment of the balance in
the seemingly unequal and incomprehensible
arrangement of human affairs. And here a
reasonable and intelligible explanation of the
problem is offered to them in the knowledge
that we are all equal, not only in the eyes
of God, as we have been taught without
understanding, but actually and in a way
comprehensible to us all, for we have each
of us a similar treasure in the possession of
an ever-perfect spirit. I consider that the
Christian with eyes cast heavenward and
thoughts turned towards a world to come
does not in any way account satisfactorily
for the divergent lots of mankind in this
world by teaching the lesson of compensation
and retaliation in a life hereafter.

The Parson. But in the next world what
is to be the fate of these perfect spirits ? This
life cannot be everything. It is on far too
small a scale.

The Doctor. That is because you make
people regard it as merely preparatory, a sort
of ante-chamber ; and so you prevent them
from seeing the tremendous scope for spiritual
development. It is not on a small scale :
it is on as large a scale as we like to make it.

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 123

As to the next world I make no conjecture.
But I would say that the insurmountable
difficulties presented by the idea of the resur-
rection of the body and by mutual recognition
in a perfected state do not present themselves
in my idea.

The Parson. You speak of perfection,
but what is it ? Does such a thing exist in
this world ?

The Doctor. Yes, I consider that it does
exist in the way I have explained, stimulating
and inspiring the highest form of organism,
which is the human, and urging it gradually
towards higher aspirations.

The Parson. That is what I call the
Divine Spirit, not the soul.

The Doctor. Yes, you beheve in several
spirits— God the Father, who is a spirit, God
the Son, who is a separate spirit to whom
prayers can be addressed, God the Holy Ghost,
and the human soul which is also a spiritual
element. I beheve in only one, which is in
us and probably outside us too.

The Parson. But the spirit within us,
then, has no individuality apart from the
body, and has no impress of personality
on it when it leaves the body ?

The Doctor. We cannot tell. But a
gigantic, and to us quite incomprehensible,

124 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

movement for the development of humanity
towards a higher state would not seem to
necessitate the conservation of every indivi-
dual who, by living, has partaken in that move-
ment. Indeed, the desire for the perpetuation
of our own individuality seems to me presump-
tuous. Even the satisfaction that we imagine
we should feel in after-life, if our souls could
retain a recollection of having inhabited our
own particular bodies, appears to me a short-
sighted view. Life, humanity, and our little
world itself, though all important to us,
are in their relation to the whole universe
and all time so far more insignificant, fleeting
and ephemeral than we in our acute conscious-
ness of self would care to admit. Our indivi-
duality, it is true, is all we have that is really
our own, and having used it here to the best
of our ability we are reluctant to lose it here-
after. The more so if we are taught that this
life is only preparatory. We cannot see the
influence which our own lives exercise on
posterity but we can observe it in the case
of those who have gone before. The influence
of a great and dominant personaHty obviously
does not cease with his death. In such a
case we can trace visibly the effect of his
example, his words, or his work for generations,
or may be for centuries. In like manner the

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 125

personalities who do not in the same way
command pubhc attention have, notwith-
standing our incapacity to detect the channels,
also a wide and long-lasting influence. This
earthly immortahty is not sufficiently grasped
because we are unable to realize its full scope.

If we think about it at all we at once
begin to understand the supreme importance
of our lives here ; and having grasped its
tremendous significance we shall be far less
disposed to yearn for the perpetuation of
consciousness in a completely different form
of existence. Anyhow, we shall greatly benefit
by not relying on eventualities the nature of
which is to be for ever an unfathomable mystery.
The idea of the individuality of each one of
us continuing to exist is very naturally fostered
by human love and the consequent desire
to meet those we part from in this world again
in a life after death. But it is difficult to
conceive how in altered circumstances such
meetings could either be expedient or happy.

The Parson. Surely you are not so old-
fashioned as to think that people are headed
back from a belief in the next world by difficul-
ties and doubts about age, period and relation-
ships founded on our present earthly standards
and methods of calculation ? We know that
will all be adjusted by the divine wisdom.

126 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

The Doctor. It is not I that am old-
fashioned : it is your creed, which tells people
to believe in the resurrection of the body ;
and the hope of literal recognitions and re-
unions is the consolation you give to those
in bereavement.

The Parson. Yes, recognition and reunion,
but not in our earthly sense but in a divine
and spiritual sense. Ties are formed here
of a sort which I am perfectly convinced will
not be cut by death, which is not a termination
but a transition. I think the highest forms
of human love are sublime ; they are pleasing
in God's sight, and they knit the souls of
mortals here with bonds which death itself
cannot break.

The Doctor. Yes, but you must remember
that, according to your belief, hatred will also
be converted into love if all our evil passions
are to be taken from us in your heaven.

The Parson. That is to say the causes
of our dislikes, whether in us or in the object
of our dishke, will have vanished.

The Doctor. And with them all the
character that distinguished us. No. Do
not let us try and define after-hfe, either by
making it attractive or repellent. Let us
rather try and discover what our natures are
capable of in this life. And it seems to me

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 127

that were every one conscious that they were
in themselves potentially capable of the highest
good, though perhaps not practically, it would
lead to a far more rapid emergence of the good
that lies in the worst of us than is possible
now.

The Parson. I cannot reconcile myself
to the idea that our future life will not make
good the huge differences existing in this
world: that justice will not be meted out to
those who have sinned and to those who have
suffered for righteousness' sake.

The Doctor. Just so ; in other words
rewards and penalties. You will excuse my
saying so, but that is the primitive desire
to obtain satisfaction by witnessing the applica-
tion of what is considered to be justice. It
is founded more or less on a reverence for
the law which regulates human affairs. But
if we are foolish enough to insist on following
up the fate of immortal souls, we should look
to the possible existence of some larger, more
appropriate, and more comprehensive scheme
for the adjustment of divergencies than that
which can be supplied by a giant court of
justice regulated by an even more crude and
revengeful code than our own inadequate
system of justice here on earth. But all
this is dispensed with if the soul is unalterably

128 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

perfect, and a far broader and more charitable
point of view is substituted.

The Parson. I must return to what I
said as to the immeasurable harm which I
am sure the wickedness of some people causes
in this world. We have dealt with extreme
examples, the drunkard and the saint. In
my experience brutality is by no means the
greatest influence for evil. There exists a
cowardly meanness, a cruel heartlessness, a
diabolical depravity which has a disastrously
deteriorating influence in human society.
There is a wickedness which seems almost
bred of the person, of the individual himself,
and nothing will persuade me that he, though
he may escape in this world, will not be made
fully conscious hereafter of the wrong he has
done here, which consciousness in itself might
constitute an adequate punishment ; that
is to say if he were really faced with the evil
consequences of his acts under conditions
which would cause him to realize them to the
full.

The Doctor. And with what object ? For
if he does not return to earth it cannot be to
teach him not to behave like that again.
Why are you so bent on the punishment of
your fellow-creatures ?

The Parson. Not more than I am on

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 129

their reward. In fact, the sense of justice
though you ma}^ call it primitive, is engrained
in me, and I think in most of us.

The Doctor. The type 3'ou have just
mentioned does not, I am sure, escape as
you think in this world. If we could follow
accurately and consecutively human thought
and action, we should find that an inexorable
retribution overtakes every deviation from
the right path ; that is to say the path towards
our highest ideal, however low that may
be. And, in fact, if we could only observe
our lives closely enough, not confining ourselves
to noting what we consider to be cause and
effect, aspiration and achievement, but noting
to what degree we derive the right sort of
happiness, the happiness that really satisfies,
from our actions and intentions, and to what
extent we fail and suffer, we should, I think,
come to the conclusion that a future life of
reward and punishment is entirely superfluous.
Moreover, if we were able to disentangle all
the intricate network of original causes out
of which emanated the worst actions of men,
we should be astonished to find how small
a part was played by the direct responsibility
of the individual.

The Parson. I do not see how you can
talk of individual responsibility at all when

9

130 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

you attribute all evil to our physical natures
and to environment.

The Doctor. That may seem a contradic-
tion on my part. It comes from my endeavour
to define the spiritual apart from the physical,
whereas I really regard the two natures as one.
And that is why I am prepared to concede that
the individual, taken as a whole, is relatively
responsible but far less directly than you would
make out. In any case, you will agree with
me that the knowledge that we are the spiritual
equals of those whom we regard with the
highest respect and admiration is most encour-
aging to ourselves ; while on the other hand
the knowledge that those we consider to be
the meanest of our fellow-creatures are also
spiritually our equals will instil a far more
charitable and more tolerant view of them in
us. I want service, altruism, and mutual
respect to take the place of the selfishness,
prejudice and mistrust which the Church
entirely fails to eradicate.

The Parson. Altruism, after all, is the basis
of Christianity. I do not see how it is possible
to improve on Christ's injunctions in that
direction. His supreme sacrifice is the zenith
of altruism and to follow His example is our
constant endeavour. The cross, which has
become the Church's chief emblem, is the con-

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 131

stant announcement and reminder of that
glorious self-sacrifice.

The Doctor. And what deeds of selfish
violence have been perpetrated under the
sign of the cross, just because ecclesiasticism
has become supreme at the expense of Christian-
ity ! Ecclesiasticism is not an adjunct of
Christianity, it is its enemy. No. Christ's
teaching in that connection has come to be
regarded as a counsel of perfection, wonderful
but unattainable. There are too many who
look on the salvation of their own souls as
the main object of life. There are a few,
however, I think an increasing number, who
realize that true progress and the best means
of encouraging the expansion of the endless
possibilities in the individual is for that indivi-
dual to lose and absorb himself in, and sacrifice
himself to, the common good. You may call
this the unattainable ideal of Socialism, or
you may call it the highest conceivable form
of individualism. But until this lesson is
learnt by us all we cannot be alive to injury
produced by wrongdoing on humanity at
large quite apart from ourselves. We cannot
yet rightly comprehend that though we may
not suffer ourselves in the way we might
expect there are nevertheless inevitable conse-
quences of bad actions in this life, and the

132 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

harm inflicted on the community is as grave,
and should strike us as forcibly, as any selfish
fear of eventual punishment can disturb us
now. We are very important, but let us try
to forget ourselves a little more. Complete
altruism is impossible and indeed undesirable.
It must be accompanied by intelligent self-
interest. Self-mastery becomes easier if ser-
vice and altruism and not personal salvation
form the motion at the back. I think most
of us endeavour to avoid injuring our neigh-
bours, but we do so only in so far as with
a cursory glance and from our own point
of view we follow up the consequences of an
evil action. Our incapacity for tracing the
ultimate vibrations of evil does not occur to
us, and we take no thought therefore of that
which is not absolutely obvious and is beyond
our line of vision. But I think that it is
possible for our perceptions in this respect
to be more fully expanded and rendered
more acute as time goes on. You will say
it is extravagant to look forward to a day
when self will be so much repressed and
when so keen a sensitiveness to the obli-
gations toward the community will have
grown, but it is a time which I am not
without hope will come nevertheless, as the
advances that have already been made tend

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 133

to show by the direction they have taken.
Justice, tolerance, and the human feehngs
are all branches of altruism. And when the
artificial and inequitable contrasts of social
life are further levelled, the inevitable diver-
gencies due to heredity and circumstances
will no longer appear so oppressive once the
knowledge of the possession of a perfect spirit
by each one of us is generally admitted.

The Parson. I have no fault to find
with your admirable ethical precepts, but
I only wish you would link them to the great
divine mystery which surrounds us, though
you refuse to regard it. It seems to me, how-
ever, that the tendency of your theory of
recognizing perfection in everybody would
be to make us over-tolerant, which is a great
snare.

The Doctor. It is not a snare into which
the majority of people are in danger of being
entrapped. But I dispute that it would make
us over-tolerant. Knowledge that a man
has a great inherent capacity for good in him
will in no way make us tolerant of the wrong
he does, but will give us true compassion for
him, and strengthen our resolve to remove
obstacles from his path, and it will render
his awakening to a sense of better things
infinitely more hopeful. According to your

134 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

view there are, roughly speaking, two classes
of beings — those who are to be rewarded and
those who are to be punished, with many
very near the border line.

The Parson. I should put it this way.
The righteous are those who have striven and
who, having humbled themselves in this world,
shall enter the kingdom of heaven trusting
in God to give them peace. While those who
have sinned against God's law and wilfully
broken His commandments shall incur the
wrath of the Almighty and be chastened as
it seems best to His infinite wisdom.

The Doctor. Yes, that amounts to the
same thing. The bait you offer for living a
good life is the fear of punishment and the
hope of reward.

The Parson. There must be a simple
foundation. We dwell, too, on the love of
righteousness for righteousness' sake and on
the beauty of holiness. I must say I think
the hope of heaven is a nobler prospect to
hold out than annihilation.

The Doctor. No, not necessarily annihila-
tion. I would rather call it absorption, but
I purposely refrain from being dogmatic.
Consciousness not having been explained in
the present, I do not presume to explain it
away from the future.

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 135

The Parson. But if the spirit retains no
trace of individuality it amounts to annihi-
lation.

The Doctor. Not more than by the process
by which we are rendered perfect in heaven.
I cannot see that an eternal life of intercourse
together in a perfected state, in which I main-
tain we should be unrecognizable, is a noble
doctrine. The idea of a perfect human being,
without the light and shade, the relief and
the contrast of his imperfections, is quite
inconceivable.

The Parson. There is no reason why this
perfect surviving spirit should not be clothed
in recognizable form. The seed is very differ-
ent from the flower, and yet it is potentially
the same. May we not be seeds here and
flowers hereafter ? Remember heaven is not
a place but a state, wherein perhaps our nature
will be enriched by a new faculty, namely,
that of spiritual recognition.

The Doctor. It is beyond my powers
of imagination. Such speculations are vain,
and not very helpful. The purpose for which
the countless myriads of beings who have
existed and will exist on this specklike planet
in the universe should continue to exist
eternally after death cannot possibly ever
come within the range of our comprehension.

136 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

But with the aid of the hypothesis I have set
forth the analysis of the elements that go to
make up our natures while we live produces
a theory that seems to lead to more satis-
factory conclusions.

The Parson. I gather you do not attach
much importance to our eventual fate.

The Doctor. Not exactly that. I am,
perhaps, rather inclined to avoid dwelling on
something of which we know literally and
absolutely nothing and which lends itself to
rather fantastic surmise. It appears to me
there is nothing in our corporeal appearance
which has any claim to immortality, and as
for our individuality it derives its colour from
our faults and failings.

The Parson. And not from our virtues ?

The Doctor. No, not if, as I maintain,
goodness is the basis of our nature. Mine
is an exceedingly optimistic belief. I take
perfection as the basis. You take some un-
known quantity given by God which is
susceptible to exterior influences. With me
righteousness is the real essence and iniquity
an at present indestructible barrier which
circumscribes it.

The Parson. You say that this barrier
is formed by the physical elements in our
composition, and that they have gradually

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION I37

been built up by a relentless heredity mitigated
or accentuated by environment.

The Doctor. Heredity may be regarded
as the strongest factor ; and in addition to
environment there is the combination of evil
elements in our nature which produces fresh
evil, and there is the surviving influence of
evil perpetrated in the past. But of course
there is no such thing as an evil spirit.

The Parson. I differ from you there very
emphatically. I fully believe that a spirit
of evil is continually warring in us with the
spirit of good, and too often gets the upper
hand. The natural tendency of man is to
sin, and to hsten to the voice of the evil one,
and unless assistance be sought from God
through Christ, who has overcome sin and
death, we shall surely fail.

The Doctor. I have been terribly inclined
to believe in the devil at times, when I have
seen the exultant triumph of all that is low,
mean, sinister and pernicious. But I know
such triumphs are not real or lasting, and that
the idea of the devil being behind them is
of course ridiculous. There are other far
simpler and more rational ways of accounting
for wrong. Where in the order of things can
a spirit of evil be admitted ? If God is omni-
potent why did He not start His work by

138 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

destroying the devil ? Surely He has not
allowed this force to exist with the sole pur-
pose of disturbing us.

The Parson. It is through conflict that
we enrich and purify our nature. According
to you there is no struggle.

The Doctor. But there is a struggle,
the struggle of good gradually overcoming
physical, which includes mental, deficiencies
which constitute evil ; but no possibiHty of
the evil defeating or even disfiguring the good.
For the good is perfection, and in perfection
there is no degree, it is absolute. Analyze
your own feelings ; doesn't it seem to you
that the essence of your nature is good ? That
all that is inspired in you is good, and that,
however strong the evil may be, it is never
inspired ; it is as it were foreign to your
spiritual nature ? Overpowering though it
often may be, it can invariably be resolved
into physical elements or traced to a physical
origin.

The Parson. Whatever crime we commit,
it matters not : our soul is perfect. Our
neighbour offends us, we kill him ; our own
life is unendurable, we commit suicide ; it
matters not, no punishment awaits us, our soul
is perfect.

The Doctor. But it does matter quite

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 139

enormously if we understand that this Hfe
is for us all-important.

The Parson. The acceptance of your idea
might possibly act as an incentive to good,
but it would never serve as a deterrent from
evil. But what have you in view ? Is it
merely the present welfare of society, or is it
the progressive advance of humanity towards
some sublime destiny ?

The Doctor. I am as unwilling to specu-
late as to the future of the human race in
this world as I am to make conjectures on
the subject of an after-life.

The Parson. But do you believe in Pro-
gress ?

The Doctor. If it means the attainment
of greater happiness for human beings, no.
Happiness is elusive. It is probable, indeed,
that men in a lower state of civilization than
ourselves can be happier than we are. If
it means the continuous improvement of the
objective world, and the conditions which
surround us, and the institutions and organiza-
tions we create, again no. All these things
only change. We are continually adapting
them to suit altered circumstances, and while
there may be more suitable adaptation there
need not be necessarily any real improvement.
If it means fresh discoveries and inventions,

140 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

yet again no. They may widen our scope of
knowledge and activity, but like machinery
they may themselves create new conditions
which in the long run satisfy us less than the
previous state we were in. The continued
imperfections of the material world and of
our institutions are the grindstone against
which human faculties become sharpened.
In fact, the absence of these imperfections
would have a deteriorating effect on man's
character. The soil never becomes perfect,
however much you may cultivate it. Were
you able to get it into a condition in which
no labour needed to be expended on it the
result might appear convenient, but it would
be utterly demoralizing to man. If, on
the other hand, progress means the gradual
development of man's spiritual nature in the
continuous struggle against adverse circum-
stances, the consequent enlargement of human
capacity and an increased control by man
over his own destiny, then I am inclined
to think that unquestionably an advance
has been made. And it is because I think
the advance might become more rapid, and
draw humanity forward and upward more
surely, that I desire the influences that act on
his spiritual nature to be strengthened and
enriched. You ask me for my definition of

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 141

progress, I suppose, because you conclude
that without progress the existence of the
perfect spirits I speak of, and their incessant
operation towards a cuhninating point, would
be quite objectless.

The Parson. Yes, but it appears to be
your desire to excuse the evil that exists and
to disprove the idea of any suffering befalling
us in another life as a consequence of that
evil. A true Christian can have no particular
wish to agree with you on these points, for they
are satisfactorily accounted for in his creed.

The Doctor. To him, possibly, but not
to me. Apart from the one I have offered,
I know of no satisfactory explanation of the
presence of evil in the world. What I want
to show is that without exercising any great
effort of faith, of which many of us may be
incapable, and without any deep analysis of
the comparative validity or fallaciousness of
all the various doctrines which treat of life
after death, those who believe as I do are
afforded great comfort and peace of mind
by the conviction that the present is all-
important quite apart from the past and
the future, for in every moment that we
live our inmost spirit can be given constant
opportunities of dominating over our rough,
unfinished and faulty nature.

142 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

The Parson. That may be, but the human
being has yet to be created who, if he has any
mind at all, has not speculated on his eventual
fate. In the hope and comfort that Christianity
affords there is an amply sufficient explanation
to satisfy the interrogations of the most
restless spirit. You speak disparagingly of
comforts and consolations, but you must re-
member that the soothing of sorrowing hearts
and the consolation of the afflicted in the
presence of death, through a belief in the
resurrection and a life to come, is one of
the noblest works that the Christian Church
achieves.

The Doctor. I do not wish to speak
disparagingly of consolation in the great tragic
moments of life, and I would not say a word
to trouble those who find reUef in the belief
you hold. But you must face the fact that
more and more people are ceasing to find
comfort in such a beUef because their reason
refuses to accept it.

The Parson. But what help are you going
to give the sorrowing and the desolate ?
What are you going to say to those who have
led unhappy and miserable lives ? It is hard
to die without ever having lived.

The Doctor. Tragic it is, though I am
not sure that we can always gauge other

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 143

people's misfortunes rightly. We are apt to
make mistakes both ways b}' applying our
own standard of values. I mean, what appear
to us great misfortunes and great unhappiness
may not be so regarded by the person in
question, whereas what seem to us trivial or
what we even fail to notice at all may be the
source of poignant unhappiness. However
that may be, I think you will find that when
the moment of death approaches those who
believe in immortality quit life with fully
as much, if not more, reluctance than those
who have no such expectations.

The Parson. But would you hold out no
hope to the unfortunate ?

The Doctor. I would not be justified
in telling them anything I believe to be false.
I could not speak to them of another world,
nor would I close the door absolutely on the
survival of consciousness, because my view
as to that is purely individual. But I would
tell them to expect something far better, far
more merciful, far more wisely designed than
anything we can possibly conceive. I would
say " Put your whole trust in God."

The Parson. But do you believe in any
sort of God ?

The Doctor. The very word is so inex-
tricably mixed up with the hideous conception

144 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

of Jehovah which I have already denounced
that I feel almost incHned to answer No.
But that would not really be true. While I
cannot conceive any Director, Creator, Con-
troller, King, Governor, Protector or Father,
nor do I think we ought to feel the need of
such a person, I am certainly aware that there
is contact between the spirit of perfection
within us and the spirit of perfection outside of
us. I welcome, therefore, many of the varying
definitions, especially God is Love ; and even
the personal conception, because it is simple
and convenient, which help men to fortifj^
the one through the consciousness of harmony
with the other. WTiile at one time in my life
I thought I felt guidance from outside I found
ultimately that consciousness only gave me
a feeling of dependence and encouraged a
tendency towards resignation which was weak-
ening. When at last I came to be aware
that the guide was in me, and of me, I felt
greatly strengthened, stimulated and encour-
aged. I quite recognize, however, that dispo-
sitions vary, and you cannot make some men
self-reliant by just telhng them to be so. That
is why I sympathize with and by no means
despise any deistic conceptions so long as
they do not entail self-abasement and supphca-
tion. At the same time I feel myself that my

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 145

undivided attention should be turned to the
God within me, who is ever present and with
whose operations I am intimately and per-
petually concerned, and to the corresponding
spirit in my neighbour, rather than exert
myself to imagine the quite inexplicable nature
of the God outside who, directly one begins
to describe Him, becomes unreal and a mere
subject of speculation and controversy. So
I prefer not to make any definition, although
others may be able to formulate their ideas
more clearly than I can. I am concerned
with the process of which I seem to form
a part, but not with the culmination which
must for ever remain beyond our grasp.
As spiritual evolution proceeds, we may con-
ceivably in time succeed in creating God more
definitely.

The Parson. That is a strange idea* I
should have thought the belief in Divine
Providence was almost inherent in the nature
of man and the realization of His guiding
hand the most universal sentiment that exists.
Why you yourself, I expect, use the expression
" Thank God " instinctively when events over
which you have no control take the right
direction. I do not mean just from force
of habit, but because in your innermost
consciousness you feel the element of control

10

146 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

though you cannot formulate it. The beauti-
ful expression " God bless you " is another
instance of what I mean.

The Doctor. Such expressions as those
do illustrate, I agree, the instinctive belief in
God, and if I say " Thank God " it is because
I am subject to the irrational impulses of my
race and age and not because I recognize
any providential interference ; a moment's
thought will dispel an}^ such idea.

The Parson. Do not call it interference,
call it purpose. Manifestly in evolution itself
a wonderful design is displayed. It seems to
me to demonstrate the presence of an Almighty
Creator and a divine intention.

The Doctor. However that may be —
and I for one have no desire whatever to
plunge so deep into the unknowable in an
attempt to reach the first cause of all creation
— however that may be, I say, it is the recog-
nition of the spirit of God within us that ought
to take the place of the dependence on the spirit
of God outside. I see the whole of life stretch-
ing away into the two eternities as one whole,
one even development, one gradual expansion,
subject, of course, to periodic reactions, one
sustained and increasing striving, one steady
growth permeated by one spirit towards one
unimaginable end, to be reached by one

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 147

purpose. I do not see abrupt divisions, I
do not acknowledge any sudden change, I do
not believe in a chosen people, a sudden
revelation, a special dispensation, a break in
continuity or a specific divine interference.
You believe in one isolated and historical
revelation manifested through a number of
miracles. I believe in one continuous ever-
present and unending revelation manifested
through the one ceaseless miracle of life and
nature.

The Parson. Yes. There is nothing in
the least objectionable in your view, and
I think I understand the theory you have
propounded more or less. You are certainly
not a monist or a materialist. In some ways
I should have found it easier if you had been,
because we should have been in direct conflict
all along the line. But you adopt a position
in which you value a great deal that I value
and at the same time omit a great deal that
I value. So my criticism would be that
your views, while satisfactory to yourself, are
inadequate as a scheme to teach others.
Religious theories and systems, whatever you
may think of them, have not really been
imposed upon peoples but have been created
by the peoples themselves because they corre-
spond to their needs and requirements. It

148 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

is no good deploring that people are credulous
and superstitious. The human mind is so
constituted that it craves for a more or less
specific manifestation of an outside controlling
Power, and if you do not give it that it will
not be satisfied. That instinctive craving
is, in my opinion, one of the proofs that the
Power sought exists. Codes of ethics are all
very well, but they will never carry you very
far for they lack the warmth and intimacy
of religious doctrine. Your idealism, good in
itself, is insufficient ; it wants to be hinged on
to a more definite creed. In order to follow
the teaching of Christ we require the inspiring
influence of the divine personality behind it.
We want Christ as well as Christianity.

The Doctor. I do not pretend to have
solved any mystery. The path I am treading
has no doubt often been trodden before.
I do not claim that my ideas are completely
satisfactory even to myself, although they are
a vast improvement on anything I have
clung to before. But I am anxious to prune
away all that appears to me to be interfering
with spiritual development and to retain the
essential that signifies. I want to bring many
more people to think about the meaning and
significance of life than do now. I want them
not to shuffle through life as the sports of

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION 149

circumstances, dwelling only on their animal
pleasures, but to realize the infinite force that
exists actually in their nature, however much
the world may despise them, however low
they may have sunk — a force which is respon-
sible for all the good there is in humanity,
a force which, if freed and enlarged, might
transform the whole character of civiliza-
tion, a force always operating in one direc-
tion— upward, onward, forward, towards the
refinement and enlightenment of our natures
and towards an ideal which comprises the
highest and best possible that our poor minds
can conceive. I want an idea that is simple,
easily understood and devoid of all elements
which discredit man's increasing intelligence.

The Parson. Theoretically I have nothing
to say against all that. But if you had
your way, and could inculcate the whole
Church with your views, your failure, I fear,
would be far worse than ours has been.
Well, here we are at my gate. I should
like to think over all you have said. Let us
meet once more to-morrow and try and see
if we can pull together the different threads
of our week's discussion.

The Doctor. Very well, come over to
me in the afternoon and if it is fine we will
sit in the garden.

VI
SATURDAY

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF

The Parson. What a lovely walk we had
yesterday ! Engrossed as I was in our talk,
I was conscious all the time of the transcendant
beauty of the woods, the winding river, the
sunny meadows and the far distant hills.
I almost interrupted you several times just
to say " Look at that ! Is not God there ? "
The Doctor. The beauty was not lost
on me, I assure you. Often I go out alone
and drink it in and feel refreshed and invigor-
ated by the mere contemplation. When I
hear your bell ringing on Sunday morning
I feel I am better occupied in the woods
than those who are with you in Church.
But your God was not there. He was up in
His Heaven. If you saw Him in the trees
and hills, the clouds and the river then you

are a pantheist and deserve to be burnt Hke

150

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 151

Giordano Bruno. I should not mind if you
accused me of being one. The all-pervading
spirit of perfection was certainly in the scenery
yesterday, and the perfect spirit in us both
seems to have felt the great affinity and
vibrated and responded in complete harmony.
But how about our daily talks ? What
do our discussions amount to, anything or
nothing ?

The Parson. I have been thinking it all
over very carefully. I want, if I possibly
can, to take a dispassionate point of view
to-day. The opinions I have expressed are
representative of a great religious body. Your
opinions, so far as they are critical, you claim
also to be representative perhaps of a small
but by no means of a negligible set of people.
So far as they are constructive you put them
forward as individual. I have not sufficiently
elaborated what I feel to be the wonderful
impulse and overwhelming reality of Christian-
ity, but you no doubt understand that I
feel it more than I have been able to express
in the course of argument in which I have been
more or less on the defensive. I wish I were
a worthier exponent of the great verities which
I feel so profoundly, but which I fear in an
argumentative defence may have suffered from
my want of debating powers. While I have

152 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

not been shocked by your views, I thought
some of your denunciations were exaggerated,
and I must admit that it fills me with profound
sadness that anyone should find it possible
to disregard truths and reject beliefs which
I consider vital and essential. But I recognize
that what you have said is the sincere view
of people whom I have no desire to ignore.
It appears to me, therefore, that we should
try and consider to-day how the ultimate
aim which each of us has in view can best be
served and furthered. Broadly speaking, there
is no very great divergence of opinion between
us as to that aim.

The Doctor. We are both convinced of
the supreme importance of developing in the
best way possible the spiritual nature of man.

The Parson. Precisely. You as a lay-
man have not the same responsibility as I
have. But I want you now not to adopt
the position that it is no business of yours ;
but to try with me to see what actual steps
might be taken upon which we might agree
with the object of making some advance in
the right direction.

The Doctor. Very well, I will do that.

The Parson. Now, I should hke to con-
sider two points. Firstly, the eventual ideal —
that is to say what we should like to see estab-

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF i53

lished in the far future, disregarding for the
moment the present condition of affairs. x\nd
secondly, the next actual steps to be taken,
in which, of course, present conditions must
be taken fully into account. Without going
too much into detail will j^ou give me on
the first point a general description of the
ideal organization, if any, which you consider
would meet the need you perceive ?

The Doctor. This is rather difficult, be-
cause, of course, I must presuppose drastic
changes in our whole social system. For
instance, the moral as well as the physical
welfare of the community is suffering seriously
and increasingly from our abominable large
town system, only to mention one blot.

The Parson. I agree. But clearly we
cannot define our political, social and economic
Utopias. That would take us several weeks
more. We must confine ourselves to religion
and the Church.

The Doctor, That is just where my diffi-
culty comes in, because real religion cannot
be, and ought not to be, a detached water-
tight compartment. That is one of the reasons
of the failure of to-day.

The Parson. What do you mean by water-
tight compartments ?

The Doctor. At present religion is de-

154 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

tached from a man or woman's general normal
activity. Domestic life, social life, business
life, industrial life, national life, and further
still international life are regulated by different
standards and religious life is something apart,
something irrelevant, which is generally con-
fined to Churchgoing and certain ecclesiastical
observances. The result is that the moral
code of the individual shows often extraordinary
variability and sometimes complete contra-
dictions. The business code is frequently
entirely different from the domestic code.
National morality is often lower still, and in
international affairs morality of any sort is
hardly distinguishable. Now if rehgion per-
meated the whole field of man's occupation,
and served him as a guide in every one of
his pursuits and in the formation of all
his opinions it would become a living force,
raising the whole tone of all ethical values
and bringing unity of purpose and a common
standard into all forms of human activity.
That is what I look forward to. It is largely
because at present religion is shut off in this
close preserve that the supernatural and
transcendental is tolerated. Were it a service-
able guide on every occasion and in all circum-
stances he would find the irrational and
abnormal of no more use to him than it would

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 155

be now in dealing with the business of his home
or his occupation or in arriving at his decisions
with regard to communal and national affairs.

The Parson. I understand what you mean,
though again I do not agree with what you
say as to the supernatural. But for the
sake of the present argument we must limit
ourselves to religious institutions.

The Doctor. I do not believe in any
exclusive religious institutions.

The Parson. Would you not allow for
some sort of regulating organization, or would
you just leave it all to the unregulated freedom
of personal caprice ?

The Doctor. No, I agree there must be
a directing body, but it must be comprehensive
and fully representative. The actual churches,
the buildings, should be recognized as the
property of the people. They should be open
under the supervision of elected committees
of management to all classes and sects for
the purposes of instruction and religious ob-
servance. All forms of religious faith — and
there will always be a variety — should have
access to them. For instance, one day you
might conduct a service and preach ; on other
days Ebenezer Thankbold of the Free Church
might hold his discourse accompanied by
prayers ; I might give a lecture, with readings

156 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

from the Bible and from other great books ;
a scientific or historical lecture of a purely
educational type might be given; there might
be a performance of really good music, choral
and orchestral, which is an admirable way
of bringing people together. I might say
parenthetically in this connection that I believe
music will gradually take the place of mechani-
cal prayer. It penetrates much deeper, and
has a wonderfully elevating and inspiring
effect on the increasing number of people
who appreciate it. This by the way. A
discussion on some serious topic might be
arranged from time to time, and there should
be special days for children. Perhaps by
that time we may have learnt how to teach
them. On all of these occasions every one
would be invited to come. I am not dealing
with the fact that the Church building is now
the property of the Church or rather of the
State. Of course there would be no established
and officially patronized form of religion.
Those who adhered to any form of dogmatic
religion would have as good, but no better,
a chance of holding services and propagating
their doctrines. But I am not sure that it
is very profitable to consider what might
be done in the very remote future, because
everything depends on the all-important but

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 157

inscrutable factor of the particular direction
which human thought is going to take.

The Parson. Perhaps j^ou are right. So
far as you have gone, however, while I do not
see the future as you do I do not know that
I have rooted objection to the sort of organiza-
tion you sketch, except, of course, my natural
bias in considering that consecrated buildings
should not be devoted to secular purposes ; and
another bias, more unreasonable you will think,
but natural for me as a Churchman, namely,
that I do not want an equal chance to be given
to opinions which are subversive of the only
true message which lies in the Church's doctrine.
How about the education of the young ?

The Doctor. There should be no such
thing as compulsory attendance at Chapel
in schools and colleges. Not a syllable of
Bible teaching, scripture, theology or what
is now called religious instruction should be
breathed in State schools. I am afraid sects
will still exist. My vision does not carry me
to a time when men will have left off wrangling
and dividing themselves off on religious ques-
tions. We may hope, perhaps, that there
will be fewer of them. Anyhow, each one
must be responsible for the special religious
education of its own children. I, too, want
to absorb all the others, because I believe

158 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

various simple services might be arranged
which would be satisfactory to the religious-
minded of all degrees.

The Parson. We must try and not slip
back into old controversies by an insistence
on our own particular prescriptions. But
as you have given your view, let me give mine.
I am as certain as I can be that the supreme
exaltation of undenominationalism is not going
to be the final solution. However rational
it might appear to be it would be colourless,
cold and lacking in the peculiar magnetism
which the risen Messiah imparts to the message
of the Church. My ideal would be a universal
Church, simpHfied and reformed, but retaining
the essential doctrines of Christianity — those
which I have described as indispensable, and
which by that time all men would have come
to recognize as the most propitious and
efficacious for their spiritual requirements.
The present Church, in fact, broadened,
strengthened, reformed, autonomous and in-
dependent, a vital organization appealing to
all except the incorrigibly materialistic, a
Church by whose agency a form of religious
worship would be provided which would
enhance and beautify the life of man.

The Doctor. Well, there is not much
agreement between us there.

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF i59

The Parson. I am afraid not. But now
let us consider the second point, the next^,
actual steps. This is more practical. In this
case we have got to take society as it is, people
thinking as they do, the Church in the position
in which it is. Do you think that bodies
should be instituted to overturn the Church
and destroy it, or do you think real reform
and improvement can be brought about from
within ?

The Doctor. I think the first proposition
neither desirable nor practicable. It would
lead to unnecessary strife, strengthen the
reactionaries and not accomplish any move
in the right direction. There are very many
who think it does not much signify one way
or the other. The Church is hopeless and
negligeable. I do not share that view because
I attach importance to religion, and I believe
the Church is doing great harm to its
development. But of your second proposi-
tion I own I am not hopeful, because I
do not see any disposition to make a real
move either on the part of the clergy or of the
laity. They appear to be apathetic. The in-
stitution is there, maintained for them, and not
sustained by their own efforts and endeavours ;
so they feel safe, comfortable, irresponsible,
and self-complacent. This is very different

i6o A CONFLICT OF OPINION

from the force of opinion which brought about
the Reformation. With all their faults men
seem to have had more courage in those days
because they had stronger convictions. People
to-day like having their emotions stirred —
not too much — they enjoy being denounced,
but any change that would entail self-sacrifice
and action they studiously avoid.

The Parson. But what sort of change
do you suggest ?

The Doctor. In addition to the adminis-
trative reforms which would make the Church
autonomous and self-supporting I would alter
radically the form of ordination by which
the clergy are bound by explicit vows to the
most extreme and literal interpretations of
dogmatic theology, vows which some of them
seem very conveniently to forget. I think
it would be far better that they should feel
their calling and be sincerely inclined for their
ministration, but be perfectly free, rather than
as at present they should be forced to sub-
scribe to disciplinary vows which act as a
continual strain on their conscience. There
is almost as much difference between individual
clergy within the Church as there is between
you and me. Yet they have all taken these
vows. The pretence is that they are all
strictly orthodox in order that they may

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF i6i

present a united front to outsiders and so
that no suspicion of their unorthodoxy may
reach the uneducated. The position of those
whose views are not very different from mine
and yet remain in the Church is difficult.
It would be splendid if they all declared out-
right what they thought. But they do not ;
they remain silent. There were notably un-
orthodox and eminent clergy in the later
nineteenth century who did not remain silent
but allowed their views to be known, and this,
I believe, helped to bring into your circle
men who put religion before dogma, although
in those days people were far more acquiescent
than they are now. There are very few
now who speak out, yet to-day there must
be many more in the rank and file who do not
by any means subscribe to all your tenets.
Until this external conformity and tacit com-
phance is abandoned — for it approaches very
near to hypocrisy — there can be no advance
towards either the renovation of one faith
or the growth of another.

The Parson. If there are clergy who go
to those extremes they should leave the Church.

The Doctor. No. I do not agree. The
hope for the future rests with them. I am
certainly not advocating that the few courage-
ous ones who are attempting to speak out

II

i62 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

should leave the Church, because the founding
of a new sect outside has never been attended
with success. It is futile. But they ought
to receive support and encouragement from
the many there must be who inwardly agree
with them, but who on disciplinary grounds
remain quiet and submissive. Had they the
backing they might make the Church a vital
force instead of its being a moribund carcase.

The Parson. You must not class me with
these schismatics, and I am only too thankful
that there is sufficient regulation to keep them
in check. Were they free to say and do what
they liked there would be a hopeless confusion
and disruption. It would mean revolution.

The Doctor. Exactly. That is what is
wanted. The Church ought to be, as I said
last Monday, a revolutionary body, always
up in arms disturbing the naturally phlegmatic
tendencies in human nature and destroying
spiritual indolence. That is the right line,
and not the compromising, soothing, moderat-
ing, mollifying, damping, slackening, deadening
method. The Church ought to be definitely
both masculine and feminine, instead of that
it is neuter.

The Parson. Do not let us get off on to
a side issue. You will work yourself up.
These recalcitrant clergy have lured you away

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 163

from the point. You were dealing with the
actual changes it would be desirable to make.
You say the ordination service should be
altered. Now there is a specially sacred
character attached to holy orders which it
would be impossible for us to ignore, and a
ministry cannot be founded on mere willing-
ness to serve.

The Doctor. You are a sacerdotalist.

The Parson. I am to the point of holding
that the priestly office must be exalted and
endowed for those who enter it with a special
spiritual significance. It is not just a pro-
fession like any other. However, this may be
a point that I cannot expect you to appreciate.
What other changes would you recommend ?

The Doctor. I would take out the really
objectionable parts of the regular services,
including the whole litany, and the rest and
the creeds should be used at the discretion
of each parson. Any mortal soul who wanted
to partake in any service should be allowed
to, and should be considered a member of the
fellowship if he so desired. I would put the
thirty-nine articles in the hottest part of the
nearest fire.

The Parson. Dear me, I knew you would
work yourself up before long into a temper.

The Doctor. Yes, it is inevitable. A

i64 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

little plain speaking is essential. Remember
that it is actually laid down in these articles
which you carefully preserve in the Prayer
Book that " before justification," that is
for those who have not accepted the orthodox
doctrine of the Atonement, " good works have
the nature of sin." Was there ever anything
so preposterous ? You do not believe it.
Why object to my saying the articles should
be burnt ? You have got such splendid
chances and you deliberately throw them away
just for the sake of preserving stale old tradi-
tions. Many of the best minds are ready to
help you, the arts are at your service, the
State supports you, your position is unique,
and yet you won't rouse yourselves, you give
no call, you let things drift, and allow your
whole vitality to be sapped by a process of
attrition and paralysis. It is really no use.
I cannot expect you to accept my suggestions.
W^e cannot agree to-day any more than we
did on Monday. In fact I am not sure that
our talk has not made the chasm between us
seem wider and deeper.

The Parson. It is your fault as much as
mine. You are really very intolerant.

The Doctor. I have not been intolerant
about personal religious beliefs however little
they may appeal to me. Even though I may

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 165

think them wrong and mistaken, to attempt
to disturb or undermine individual reUgious
convictions would be, I am sure, the wrong line
of approach. What I may be intolerant about
is the attitude of those who are responsible for
the governance of the Church, those who are
responsible for teaching people what they
should believe. Many of these men are far
less orthodox than you are, but instead of
saying so, instead of pointing to new interpreta-
tions of primitive beliefs which might broaden
and so strengthen the Church's influence, they
prefer, with their tongue in their cheek, to
enjoin the acceptance of all the old orthodox
formulas and doctrines. This is where the
real trouble lies. Their action, or rather in-
action, is what is spelling ruin not only to the
institution, which I should not so much mind,
but to the spiritual life of the nation which is
so sadly in need of proper direction. There
should be no deceit about religion.

The Parson. I doubt if many of our bishops
are as unorthodox as you make out. More-
over, you must take into account that even
the leading members of our hierachy cannot
act as isolated individuals. They are part of
a great spiritual corporation which must be
considered as a whole. While they may desire
certain changes they must walk warily, lest

i66 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

they should not carry with them a sufficient
body of opinion to effect their purpose, and lest
they should rouse so large a body of opposition
as to break up the whole organization.

The Doctor. That is exactly the case.
It is a vicious circle. They teach one thing,
and they cannot alter what they have taught
because they have taught it. So they go on,
losing their following and estranging the best
minds. This want of courage for fear of
disturbing tradition, this insincere proclama-
tion of truths which are no longer held to be
truths must inevitably be your undoing. May-
be they think they would lose their rich
clientele if the sayings of Christ were simply
taken to be the opinions of a revolutionary
village carpenter and not the pronouncements
of a deity. It is only their supposed divine
origin which preserves them. The rich govern-
ing classes, here and elsewhere, find them so
unpalatable, so subversive of the capitalist
order, that no attempt is made to carry them
out practically. Were they placed on a par
with principles enunciated by other reformers
then no doubt they would be rejected, not only
practicall}^ but absolutely. Yes, your divines
must walk warily indeed ! You said just
now that it was my fault as much as yours
that the chasm between us seems so wide and

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 167

deep. That is quite true. But you are, so
to speak, enthroned. I am down below among
the multitude ; while you cast your net as
wide as possible to draw in the uneducated
you refuse to receive me. You do not attempt
to appeal to me in your efforts to indoctrinate
the ignorant. You will not join in the awaken-
ing of modern thought, you refuse to speak
the language of the present generation, you
prefer to remain in irrational isolation. If
it were only me 3'ou were offending I should
not deserve to be considered. But as time
passes it is clear that you are offending and
alienating a growing number of religious-
minded people, and that is why, without
sacrificing what you revere as absolutely
essential, you should make your call ring
more truly and with a more effective note,
so that you may attract the many hungry
souls who are asking for spiritual food. It
is not only the intellectual mind, it is the
average mind that has moved beyond you,
and you do not seem inclined to make any
effort to follow.

The Parson. It is all very well your talk-
ing like that, but j^ou are, in your way, even
more uncompromising than I am. I do not
reject wholesale your suggestions for the next
moves which ought to be made. I am in

i68 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

favour of expansion and the adoption of a
less rigid disciplinary organization, though I
may not go the lengths that you do.

The Doctor. Do not let us delude our-
selves. Our points of agreement amount to
very little. As we are summing up we must
face the points of difference squarety. You
believe in a personal God ; on that I might
compromise by admitting that, subjectively,
it is a natural conception for man to take
of any outside controlling power. But even
of a personal God there are widely differing
conceptions. You believe in the fact that
we are born in sin, and that the Atonement
through Jesus Christ, who himself was God,
has brought about our salvation. This involves
a belief in a host of subsidiary supernatural
events, and explains why our attitude before
God should be that of sinners craving for mercy.
On all this I cannot compromise. I reject
it utterly as untrue, unreal and irrelevant.
But that is not all, and this is what
widens the gulf. I believe these doctrines
to be positively damaging to the growth of
the religious spirit. I want to see the whole
fabric of the supernatural destroyed. Let
there be no misunderstanding on this point,
because it is the underlying motive and basis
of all my criticism and protests. It was

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 169

the differences of opinion about dogma that
caused the wars, conflicts, disputes, cruelty,
torture and disruption in the past, while all
the time there was no difference of opinion
as to the ethical value of Christ's teaching.
It is doctrinal differences and disagreement
with regard to ceremony, ritual and organiza-
tion, mere formalism in fact, that continues
to prevent the great union of religious teaching
which might be of such incalculable value.
Differences of opinion, of course, there must
be, but if they were tolerated on questions
which are obviously of minor importance
while the vital subjects of agreement were
emphasized and expanded a real change for
the better would immediately supervene. But
as long as authoritative supernatural dogmas
continue to hold the pre-eminent place they
do in your institution you will find an ever-
growing inclination on the part of the people
to avoid your ministrations and ignore your
injunctions.

The Parson. Well, perhaps you are right
to reiterate these points, because it is quite
true that they constitute an impassable barrier
between us. You are far too much inclined
to talk as if belonging to the Church was a
sort of moral contamination. This is very
absurd, because you must know well enough

170 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

that many who have led hves of great
beauty have clung with all the strength
of their being to the doctrines we teach.
I should like to make this aspect of the
case clear to you. In your denunciations of
dogma you fail to recognize that you cannot
build a structure on flimsy idealism. No
institution could exist on the vague meta-
physical exposition of a theory of spiritual per-
fection. The ecclesiastical belief is necessary,
because most men are unable to accept a
purely moral belief unless it is materialized
and embodied by more definite, even though
cruder, conceptions ; and mysticism prevents
purely material considerations getting the
upper hand. The religion which attempts
to be rid of the bodily side of things spiritual
sooner or later loses hold of all reality. Pure
idealism, however noble the aspiration, however
lively the energy with which it starts, always
has ended at last, and always will end, in
evanescence.

The Doctor. There is an element of truth
in that. Mind you, whatever my own views
may be I am not proposing, so far as you are
concerned, the immediate destruction of all
your doctrines, creeds and prayers. That
would be unreasonable. It would be very
fooHsh to expect anything of the kind. I

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 171

am not sure, too, that I have not got rather
an irrational affection for some of them out of
association. Moreover, I do not want to mock
at behefs that were held by men in a lower
state of human development. I am asking
that you should consider whether many of
them are not inconsistent, self-contradictory,
and palpably false, and are acting to-day
as stumbling blocks to people who have the
religious spirit. I am therefore suggesting
that you should use judgment and discrimina-
tion with regard to their use. Do not be so
rigid. Be more fluid, because humanity is
always moving. Do not bind men's minds
with unbreakable chains. I would leave
all the multiplicity of religious views alone
and pursue my own course, leaving others to
pursue theirs undisturbed ; in fact that is
what I am inclined to do. At the same time
I am specially conscious in these days that
the agencies which have undertaken the re-
sponsibility of guiding and inspiring religious
ideas are in a state of practical atrophy.
I think you fail to face the fact that the
highest intelligence of the nation is not only
not in harmony with the nation's creed, but
is distinctly at issue with it ; does not accept
it ; largely, indeed, repudiates it in the dis-
tinctest manner, or for peace and prudence*

172 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

sake discountenances it by silence, even when
it does not demur to it in words ; and that
in this disharmony and divorce hes a grave
and undeniable peril for the future. This
disharmony is spreading, and is assuming a
profound significance. Beware lest you get
a savage reaction, not directed only against
the Church but against Christianity and
religion itself.

The Parson. You are far more eloquent
in your denunciations, and in pointing out
dangers and drawbacks, than you are in your
suggestions for help and reform.

The Doctor. But do you honestly want
my help ? I said on Monday I would ask
you that question again when you knew the
full blackness of my thoughts on religion.
Now do you ?

The Parson. Yes, honestly I do.

The Doctor. But how can I help ?
You obviously cannot admit me into your
fellowship without shocking the other
members of your congregation and making
them suspect your own orthodoxy. They
would not tolerate my presence. And as
I could not be silent they would only
condemn me as an obnoxious intruder. No,
you only say you want my help out of
personal friendliness. You are a great Chris-

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 173

tian filled with the true spirit of religion,
tolerant, steadfast and convinced. I know
the work you did before you came here —
work that made your health break down.
You have a great vision before you, which
like a lodestar beckons you on. Your whole
being is saturated with holiness and excellence.
The spirit of perfection, if you will forgive me
for alluding to it once more, shines through
visibly and dominates your whole being.
Unknown to you it is your example which
draws people to you and fills the pews before
your pulpit. It is not your services nor even
your sermons. It is you that draws people
in love and respect to follow you, and all the
while in your humility you attribute it to
your message. Yet while I am moved to
admiration by your personality I am sorry
such as you are in the Church. It is the good
landlord who is the greatest obstacle to the
reform of the land system. It is the good
employer who keeps the subservience of the
wage system still in being. This is where I
feel baffled. But you do not really want
me, with my arguments, my complaints, my
criticisms and my disapproval. I should only
stir up discord without convincing a single
soul of what I believe. I must remain silent.
Co-operation seems to me to be out of the

174 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

question. It is a great pity, because while
you believe we are divided by fundamental
differences I cannot help thinking that it
is the superficial accessories that really con-
stitute the dividing wall ; and that is what
exasperates me. However, I see no remedy.
We must go on our separate ways and work
along separate paths. My work gives me
some opportunity, and I can tell you that
whenever I can I use it.

The Parson. I am sure you do, and at
the risk of appearing to make return for the
far too generous estimate you have made of
me by a tu quoque I frankly acknowledge
that I consider you to be a great Christian.
You are here only for a well-earned holiday,
but I know all about your work ; how you
have devoted your life to it, not with a view
to riches and fame which lay easily within
your grasp, but simply out of the most exalted
desire for service — a service I know you
have often rendered while refusing any re-
muneration whatever for it. Probably your
early religious training, while it may appear
to you now as only leading you into a blind
alley, roused in your youthful heart and mind
the very feelings of reverence and confidence
in the spiritual forces which are your stand-
by now. Having secured what is valuable

THE UNBRIDGEABLE GULF 175

to you out of the Church you now turn on
her for not discarding things which may en-
courage the same valuable impulses in other
people. That is how your position appears
to me. But it is you and your record, not
your arguments, that impress me and make
me believe undoubtedly that something is
radically wrong. It is deplorable that men
and v/omen who have parted from the old
theology and yet retain a religious attitude
towards life and the world should be kept
outside in a state of what I might call spiritual
destitution. Yes, there is something wrong
that you and I should be kept apart as we
are. But the effect of our discussion any-
how has been to bring the situation before
me more vividly, even though I may have
little or no idea as to how to cope with it
and even though there may be no prospect of
bridging the gulf between us. However, a
certain spiritual contact that exists between
us leaves me not entirely without an ultimate
expectation that in the future those who think
as we do may find the dividing gulf narrowing
down and capable eventually of being bridged
as they pass along on parallel paths on either
side of its banks. An exchange of opinions
such as we have had may be helpful. I for
one shall always remember this week's talk,

176 A CONFLICT OF OPINION

and look back on it without a particle of regret.
I wonder now if I can ask you this : will you
come to Church to-morrow morning ?

The Doctor. No, really no, I could not —
not even to please you.

The Parson. Very well. I won't press
you, but I must be getting home as I have
got my sermon to prepare for to-morrow.
So good-bye.

The Doctor. Good-bye. . . . Look here. I
I shall slip in by the South porch into that
back pew just for the sermon.

The Parson. Oh ! Dear me ! Good. And
yet you won't be able to argue, you know.
Well, well, I must indeed hurry in to start
work. See you again, then?

The Doctor. Often, I hope.

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