^
PALESTINE NOTES
and other Papers
J. WILHELM ROWNTREE
4
.ar)i) i
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
3 MlT^. Q>n/yu^-
PALESTINE NOTES AND OTHER PAPERS.
" LOVE, THAT ROOT OF FAITH, AND
UNITY OF ALL THE VIRTUES."
— ^J.W.R.
<
o
w
<:
Q
w
Palestine Notes
AND OTHER PAPERS
By
JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE
Edited by
JOSHUA ROWNTREE
London : HEADLEY BROTHERS
14, Bishopsgate Street Without, E.G.
1906.
K7^
HEADLEY BROTHERS,
PRINTERS,
L(^NDON ; AND ASHFORP, KENT.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface ...... vii.
Part I. — Travel Journals :
Diary of a Visit to Palestine and the East 3
Photographing Pompeii ... 66
Mexico and the West - - - - 69
Part II. — Adult School Notes, Addresses, &c. :
The Wilderness and Glory - - 83
A Last Century Lesson - - - 87
Right and Wrong Ways of Separation - 91
Paul's Conversion - - - - 94
Wings like a Dove - . - - loi
The Place of Religion in Modern Life - 104
What an Adult School should be - 107
On Lay Ministry - - - - no
The Greatest Commandment - - 116
Not Peace but a Sword - - - 120
Gambling ..... 132
Losing and Finding .... 139
Selfishness - - . . . 144
Temperance ..... 157
" When War shall be no moke " - - 161
vi. CONTENTS.
PAGE
Part III. — Art and History :
Art and Religious Thought of the Renais-
sance - - . . . j^i
The Artist, the Apostle, and the Mystic - i88
Augustine — Lecture I. - - - 193
Augustine — Lecture IL - - - 206
The Friends of God ... 217
Wesley ..-._. 229
William Law - - . . . 249
Part IV. — Miscellaneous :
Miscellaneous - - . . . 263
" Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock " 270
Chronological Memoranda - - - 275
PREFACE.
In the volume of Essays and Addresses by John Wilhelm
Rowntree already published, it was sought to make accessible,
and to hand on to others, the thoughts which best represent
the main purpose of his life. The introductory sketch, or
preface, described this purpose and its growth, as far as pos-
sible in his own words. Young as he was when the end came,
keenly as he enjoyed life, greatly as he delighted in art and
in beauty wherever he found them, his words were weighted
with his own experience when he called to his comrades —
" ' gather the rosebuds while ye may,' but gather them not
for mere selfish enjoyment. Such roses turn to ashes, they
have neither the bloom, nor the sweet scent of the roses which
grow in the garden of eternal love. There is no freshness
of dew upon them." And so in a thoroughly manly fashion,
he sought to turn the world's gardens into gardens of the
Lord. He placed character before intellect, and the awakening
of the soul first. He was keenly alive to the difficulties,
to some minds more especially, in the acceptance of the
historical Christ, but he had found for himself " a living
bridge which links us to the past," and that " the personal
knowledge of God as revealed in Christ, convicting us of
selfishness, searching out our sin, destroying in its pure flame
the dross of our lower nature, is an experience which banishes
doubt, and demands no explanation." He longed exceedingly
to see the simple, practical, true-hearted life of Christianity,
as set forth in the New Testament, become a mighty power
in the land ; and for this he spent his life fearlessly and joy-
ously. Born and brought up in a small religious community
vii.
viii. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
which views the Christian hfe itself as sacramental, and places
it above creeds and systems, knowing no distinction of clergy
and laity, he threw himself into its fellowship with untiring
zest, as the best instrument he could find for permeating
the present generation with the faith and hope and charity
of a lay Christianity.
The volume referred to is then of necessity mainly
devoted to the warnings, appeals, and encouragements
addressed by this young prophet to the fellow members of
his own religious society. Bearing this limitation in mind,
it is the more permissible to acknowledge here the generous
and appreciative notices of the book which have appeared,
not only in many organs of the daily press, but also in not a
few weekly journals, representing very diverse churches and
schools of theology.
It was proposed, if the reception of the first book should
encourage it, to bring out a supplemental but lesser volume
of John Wilhelm Rowntree's writings, of more general interest
than those previously selected, showing more obviously the
wide range and catholicity of his mind. This intention has
been confirmed by requests from the Council of the National
Adult School Union, and from the Executive Committee
of the London Adult School Union, for the publication
of some of the addresses, or notes of lessons given in his
Adult School work. As the Council represents some 900
Schools all over the Kingdom, with 90,000 members, such
requests could not be put lightly aside, and the following pages
are, to some extent, a response to these appeals. It is to be
wished that the piles of MS. notes for Adult School lessons,
left amongst his papers, could have been further utilised. But
they are in such skeleton form, that the ordinary reader,
however 'much he might desire it, could hardly make them
stand up, like the bones of Ezekiel's vision, a great army of
living thought and expression. A few examples, both of
his Adult School notes, and of more finished addresses, have,
however, been selected, and it is hoped they may be of value, not
PREFACE. ix.
only to those who can recall the personality of the speaker,
but to workers in this great movement who had no such ac-
quaintance with him. The desire to meet the two requests
referred to, has indeed largely guided the preparation of this
volume as a whole. The first part contains a considerable
portion of the journal of a visit to Syria and the East, with
extracts from one or two other diaries of travel. The second
gives Adult School lessons and addresses ; and the third
some of the many lectures he was in the habit of giving
whether to audiences of Friends, or of other denomina-
tions.
Several extracts have been added from lectures and writings,
which could not well be inserted at greater length. For
instance, the six lectures on Art and Religion referred to in
the following pages, would make a small book in themselves »
but it would quite fail to do justice to the subject, or to the
very painstaking lecturer who prepared them, if the slides
on which the discourses were to a great extent founded were
not reproduced, and this is practically impossible. The
extracts may at least give some idea of the freshness and
force which characterised his work, with hardly any exception.
John liked to study his Bible, as one of his scholars has
happily phrased it, " with plenty of fresh air and sunshine."
He ever feared seliish indifference more than intellectual
doubt. He had had to sound his own way through the
shoals of scepticism, until he reached a clear course in deep
water ; and he always retained the keenest sympathy for those
who were still throwing the lead. He showed this in two
ways. As far as possible he avoided the use of well-worn
phrases, that lulled, rather than attracted the hearer. And
he availed himself of helps and illustrations from whatever
quarter they might be found. The writings of Tom Paine
had no fears for him, and he used them freely in illustration,
and in pressing home his own conclusions in his class at
Acomb. He would, no doubt, have agreed with Bishop
Westcott's remark, " I have learned more, I believe, through
X. . JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
scholars from whom I differ on fundamental principles,
than through those whose conclusions I share." And yet
the longer he lived, the more Christ became the centre
of all things to him. In 1899, without abating any of
his appeals to the power of men's minds, as well as to the
devotion of their hearts, he wrote* : " We confess that if
the broadening of evangelical theology is to involve the loss
of its directness and power in saving men, we would have it
always ' narrow ' ; for evangelicalism, in spite of its narrow-
ness, has been the salvation of the Church."
He had come to feel and to know of Christ in the words
of the German mystic :
" None other tells unto my soul the secret,
The mystery divine ;
The love that maketh glad the inner chambers,
His home and mine."
Probably the best supplement to the preface of the
previous volume may be found in some fuller description,
however imperfectly given, of his radiating personality,
whether in boyhood, in Adult School work, in his travels, or
in his home friendships. To the sketch of the inner life
before presented, further glimpses into his outer mind, in
the freedom he set such store by himself, should not detract
from, but rather complete, the readers' true estimate of the
whole.
An old housemaid of the family wrote after his death,
that " Master John was always such a little gentleman."
Whether this explains a tradition current about his infancy
(before he had learned to speak), that, having been taken to
some Scarborough lodgings, he rebelled so loudly against the
wall-paper of the room first allotted to him and to his nurse,
that another nursery had to be found, it might be hazardous
to say. It is more certain that as a boy he was straight and .
honourable, but easily roused and passionate. At these
♦ "The Outlook." Present Day Papers.
PREFACE. xi.
times his language is said to have been highly impressive, '
to the victims against whom it was directed. Occasionally
he might hurl a chair at an offender, or roast the wax doll
of a sister, or direct a hose pipe into a kitchen window, to
avenge injuries received from an unsympathetic cook ; but i
even these things were not done boisterously, but rather on '
" principles of honour," as the dehghtful servant to George
Borrows in Spain, used to explain his escapades. His
thirst for knowledge set in early. His generalship
and inventiveness showed itself in boyhood, in indoor
games, but, most strikingly, in acting. It is said that one
of his fancies in his teens was to have been an actor, if only
his deafness had not prohibited. He was by no means the
good boy, or peacemaker, of the family. He was perhaps
most distinguished for " throwing himself tremendously
into things " to which he gave himself. He had a fine dis-
regard for the value of money. To all who knew him in later
life these few touches may give vivid impressions of the long
conflicts that must have been waged and won in the moulding
of his character, as it grew up into the light of noonday.
John was not twenty-five years old when, in June, 1893,
he started the Adult School at Acomb, three miles from his
own home. At first he had two volunteers from the parent
School to help him. Six members joined them during the first
few weeks, then the numbers rose into teens, and so on into
the twenties, until the register counted 100 names, and
upwards. Premises for the School and a social club were
built, and opened in November, 1896. The bulk of the
men who attended are said not to have been in the habit
of " going nigh places of worship," but, along with agnostics
and socialists, the young teacher attracted some thoughtful
men, both from church and chapel, whose loyalty stood all
the strain that his fearlessness in " dividing the word of truth "
as he saw it, brought upon them. He would begin with a
hjonn, and a pause for silent prayer, explaining that he could
not offer words as a formality to God. As time went on.
xii. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
he frequently did engage in vocal prayer. A portion of
Scripture read round by the men followed. The inner
meaning of the passage was as likely as not to be a mystery
to most of those who listened. Then, with clear, incisive
sentences, the speaker would unfold some of the marvels
of the universe. It might be the crust of the earth, or the
stars, or some stirring life in the history of man. Whatever
the theme, he won his audience, by the wealth of his know-
ledge, and the generosity with which he presented it ; and
when their interest was aroused, and they felt they knew
more on that particular subject than they had dreamed
of before, he would bring all the light shed on the lesson
round to the passage with which they had started, until it
stood out with a meaning and a purpose quite new to
those who listened. The closing hymn, men say, never
sounded otherwise than genuine and appropriate.
As you listen to viva voce accounts of the rise of the
school, you know that the youthful leader had undoubtedly
many of the gifts of a great teacher, and spared no pains in
the using of them. His scholars assure you that he must
have had the run of the York museum, because of the number
of specimens he brought with him, to make real the formation
of the earth, the life of man in the stone age, or the occupation
of their city by the legionaries of Rome. And they know that
he often sat up until two on the Sunday morning preparing
diagrams for the lesson, for he had indeed no other time for
the doing of them.* In his lessons he cared yet more about
drawing out than putting in. At the outset, he would ask
anyone who could not follow what he was saying, to stop
him at once. He welcomed interruptions gladly, and would
at once turn to a blackboard, or vary his illustration to make
things clear. He watched the faces of the class, and when
once he felt sure he had them with him, it was not always easy
* He thought twelve hours a week none too much time for the
preparation of Sunday's lesson, and rose early, or sat up late to obtain
them. — Ed.
PREFACE. xiii.
to stop ; but he insisted on some time for questions at the end»
and in this he was rarely disappointed. His deafness was,
of course, a difficulty, but to ensure everyone having a chance,
the Secretary, or some one who knew the men would sit
beside him, and make sure that no question was passed by ;
now and then he would promise to answer a question the
next Sunday. " The only thing that ever did upset him "
(one of the men said to the writer) " was to find a scholar
in favour of war." " But he never offended the class. We
saw how he liked honest opinions from everybody, and how
he wanted us all to think. He would teach more in a few
words than some men could in a day."
Notwithstanding the distance, and the loss of sight,
which was growing upon him, in the early days of the school
he visited every member at his own home, with one of the
regular visitors as his guide. The difficulty, as you hear now,
was to get him through the allotted round in anything like
decent time. He could not resist an invitation to join in any
tea that might be on the way, and was in friendship at once
with everybody in the house. " There never was a finer man
to go into a sick room," are words still to be heard of those
visits. He would follow up any inquiries for more know-
ledge, by the loan of any books he possessed, or even by the
purchase of new ones. He and his young wife threw open
their house to members of the School once a week, and
formed a reading circle to assist them. As a matter of fact
these " socials " began whilst John was helping his father
in the central Schools. There happened to be several blind
men in the "B" class, and they especially enjoyed coming.
Some were themselves good musicians, and one used to
read amusing original poems. The Acomb men had six
or seven miles to walk from the railway shops to their homes,
and then to John's house and back, yet there would be
twenty to thirty of them in his drawing room on Thursday
nights, ready to read Clodd's " Childhood of Religion," or
Kidd's " Social Evolution," and to discuss them to the full.
xiv. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
but not to the end, — for that was often lefttotheNorth-Eastern
workshops.
On the men's part they soon took the business of the
School upon their own shoulders. The painting and glazing
of the new premises, the tables, lamp, etc., are the handiwork
of the members.
The present writer is not qualified to speak of all that
came from this sharing fellowship of the Acomb School
and its teacher. When other calls came to him, able workers
followed in the field. But the faces are many that still glow
with the light of other days, as they recall the lessons when
they learned " more than at any other time " in their lives, —
as one will tell you how, when he first went to listen, he thought
it a grand thing to put a shilling or half-a-crown a week on
a horse, and what the change that came meant for his chil-
dren. How another young fellow walked six miles every
Sunday, and found a real purpose, instead of a mockery in
life, and is finely following it up to-day. How, in spite of
some misgivings at first, and a threat to send for the village
policeman when the first photo of the School was taken on a
Sunday, the Wesleyan chapel and the Church schoolroom
were generously opened to them in times of need, and how
the work made, not only for the building up of character, but, as
it went on, for the unity and peace of the village. The first
photograph, by the bye, is interesting, with young Mrs.
Rowntree in the second row, and the teacher, almost the
youngest of some sixty stalwart men, in the fourth row at
the back. " There never was anything of self about him,"
is the comment, as the picture is put back in its place again.
One characteristic incident must finish this conversational
account of John's work at Acomb. " One Sunday when he
came, he was taken quite aback to find it was open school, —
the wives were all asked to this once a month. Mr. John
was startled, and said the lesson he had for us would not do.
He seemed anxious for a bit, but soon made up his mind, and
when the singing was over, he gave us one of the finest addresses
PREFACE. XV.
we ever had on some of the differences between King Hezekiah
and Queen Victoria ! " No wonder as time went on that
Sunday School teachers and local preachers used to join the
audience, " to get ideas."
No one who reads with care the papers which follow in
this book need ask what the teacher himself learned from
his Adult class. Some of the fruits are clearly visible in a
passage on the weak hold of the churches on the life of the
world.* It is worth reproducing here.
" For reasons which we have partially discussed, many
men, both earnest and indifferent are repelled from the Church,
or remain unattached. But even indifference may be more
in the seeming, and we seldom trust the power of love enough,
whether in our private or international affairs. Let us make
an effort to bridge the gulf which the past sins of the Church,
no less than the present sins of a worldly generation, have fixed.
"It is a want of imagination that confines the Adult
School to a particular class. Discuss the deeper side of life
with him at round table conferences, — no priest, no parson,
no holy order, simple human beings, laymen all ; or, as Friends
say, Priests all, in the sight of God.
" There will be no want of directness, and no parasitism
in such a method. Mind is close to mind. It is the method
of Socrates, and the message of Christ, a rare combination.
Sermons tend to be soporific, discussion provokes thought in
the mental clash. But more than that, the ordinary con-
gregational worship lacks too often the vital social cement.
We gravely doubt whether, in public worship, the right mean
of practice has yet been discovered. The family feeling so
essential is seldom experienced. The sense of fellowship is
generally weak, and where it exists, is, as we have seen, too
often exclusive.
" The Adult School has its basis in the promotion of a
vivid sense of human fellowship, rooted in an all-embracing
* "History of Adult School Movement," by J. W. Rowntree and
H. B. Binns. Headley Bros., London.
xvi. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Divine Love. The small gatherings are, or should be, in
the family spirit ; their intensely human character, their
simplicity, their freedom from conventional restraint, tend
to keep them close to the difficult problems of life. These are
too often left in the church porch, but in the Adult Schools
they are, so to speak, laid on the table.
" Surely our questions are answered ! If we grasp the
idea aright, we can see before us a vista of possibilities, far-
reaching in their scope, and rich in dower of blessing,
" The Adult Schools may be but the bridge to a different
form of church fellowship, but at least they are a bridge.
Nor do we believe that their service will be temporary. In
some future church order, in that wider brotherhood, which,
in the far-off years shall fuse the sects, embracing them cis one
in living bonds, there will yet be a place for the ' round table,'
for the sweet discourse of kindred souls breaking in common
the spiritual Bread of Life."
This happy intercourse with working men at Acomb
undoubtedly quickened John's interest in social work of
all kinds, as well as the desire to strive after true equity
in all the relationships of life. The working builder of
his new home at Scalby said to the writer that most men
when you come to have dealings with them had two sides to
their natures — a business side and a religious side — but with
John Wilhelm Rowntree, keen though he was to get his work
done, there was only one united whole. The Guest
House, to which John gave the ancestral German name of
Friedensthal (the valley of peace) may be regarded as another
outcome of the Acomb Adult School. It is satisfactory to
note that upwards of 400 guests have found rest and recreation
there during the first nine months it has been opened.
The journals sent home whilst visiting Palestine and
Mexico were often written very hastily, and without any
thought of their ever appearing in print. They convey,
however, to the reader what many more laboured note books
PREFACE. xvii.
of travel fail to accomplish, an impression of colour and of
life which is of real value. Imagination is not the strong
point of average Englishmen, and all descriptions by eye
witnesses which help a class to realise the East and the
common aspect of its daily tasks, may be of interest and
service to Adult School workers. For this reason the notes
from Palestine are given here almost in full.
His friend, Lawrence Richardson, who joined him at
Jerusalem, writes of this journey :
" We had the month of May in Palestine. This is
considered rather late, but we were fortunate in weather,
having little or none that was oppressively hot except at
Jericho, in the Vale of Jezreel, and again by the Lake of
Galilee, that is in places at or below sea-level.
"John was very sensitive to changes of atmosphere,
which may explain an apparent lack of interest in the Lake
of Galilee, but Nazareth we both enjoyed much, and later on
the crossing of the shoulder of Mount Hermon on the way to
Damascus, and coming over the ranges of Lebanon and Anti-
Lebanon to Beyrout were among the pleasantest parts of
the whole journey.
"John said often at the time that this would probably
be his last chance of a trip abroad. He had taken it deliber-
ately with a view of storing up impressions for the long years
of darkness which he expected lay before him, especially
impressions of Palestine which would be of special use in his
Adult School lessons and in the ministry which he had then
only recently begun. Fortunately his sight did not fail so
rapidly as was then feared, and he made many and longer
journeys afterwards ; indeed, with better health, less nervous-
ness, and being more accustomed to it, he was really able to
get about alone more in his last years than at this time.
"It has been my good fortune to travel abroad with John
over a total distance considerably more than the circum-
ference of the earth, and all who knew him will understand the
privilege it was. He was so keenly interested in everything,
xviii. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
and had always taken such trouble to find out and read up
the best books on the countries visited. In Palestine he
read aloud George Adam Smith's ' Geography of the Holy
Land,' a book which shows how the physical features of
the country affected its history and thus doubles the interest
of seeing it. John was very fond of reading aloud on his
journeys, either some descriptive book like that just mentioned
or in idler moments, some well chosen novel.
"He could undergo considerable fatigue, though rather
easily upset by changes of temperature or diet, but he had
a remarkable power of recovery. His helplessness in strange
places in requiring someone to lead him wherever he wished
to go must have been a severe trial, but he rarely showed
that it was so."
Under his disabilities, frequent travellers' grumbles
might reasonably be expected to occur in his notes. They
are on the contrary exceedingly rare, whilst almost every
page is lit up by humour. His Haverford friend and com-
rade, Rufus Jones, writing under the very shadow of the
valley of his death, finely says of John, " Few things show
the true, deep nature of a man more than his humour. The
finest humour always comes from the finest spirit. The
play of his spirit was one of the loveliest things about him.
He thoroughly enjoyed life, and when he was with congenial
persons his happy spirit flowed out in sheer joy."
It may truly be said of John Wilhelm Rowntree that
those who judged him when either grave or gay " saw but
a single side." The two were constantly commingled, and
difficult though it be to attempt any portraiture of this
attractive feature of his character in print, it is certain that
no descriptions of him can even approach accmacy which
fail altogether to convey it. His fun seemed to come from
two unfailing springs — his splendid hopefulness and his
vivacious kindliness. The dial he had erected for his new
home was to record " only sunny hours," and he sought to
emulate it in this respect. To him this was a real part of his
PREFACE. XIX.
Master's business. He sailed from England for the last time
under a pressure of arrangements and responsibilities unusual
even for him. The necessity for breaking in upon all these
to go and place himself under painful treatment for the further
arrest, if possible, of the ever threatening blindness had come
suddenly upon him, and he might well have excused himself
from all ordinary engagements previously entered into ;
so far as possible, however, he kept them all. One of these
was a lecture long promised to the Malton Adult School.
It was to be on the " Atlantic Ferry," with lantern slides.
There was a large company. The whole lecture was brimful
of fun, and the audience, many of whom heard him for the
first time, were quite carried away by the charm of it. (When
the sad news of his death came a week or two after, some of
the listeners could not at first be persuaded that it was true).
The enjoyment of the company that evening was shared in
by the lecturer, and at supper-time, after the cares of the
day were over, he continued to pour out rich recollections
of stories and incidents met with in the course of his
travels.
A correspondent adds : "It was characteristic of him
that he passed without any discordant feeling from the stories
to graver themes. I remember that the ensuing Yearly
Meeting at Leeds loomed large, and he spoke eagerly of
the great service that the Quaker fellowship might yet
render if its members were more faithful to the great
call. He spoke cheerfully of his coming personal trial, and
very brightly concerning his realisation of the real presence
of Christ with His disciples, here and now."
If, as we have seen, he could rejoice with those who do
rejoice to the extent even of childlike abandonment, he had
the tenderest sympathy with the bereaved and sorrowful.
He knew full well the depths no less than the heights of life.
The following extract from a letter to a correspondent,
who was mourning the loss of a gifted brother, may best
confirm this : —
XX. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE,
" Silverdale, Scalby.
" 13. xii. 03.
" . . . . There is a passage, I think in WiUiam Law's
' Serious Call,' if I remember rightly, where that great mystic
says that sorrow and suffering are God's tenderest angels.
My knowledge of the sharp pain of bereavement has come to
me only through sympathy with others. And yet my heart,
and doubtless your own, bears witness that those words are
true. I remember Rufus Jones saying to me that he had
never felt the love of God so real as in the hours of desolate
grief which assailed his soul at the loss of his son. Fellowship
with him in that trial I felt to be a rich privilege, but it has
inevitably brought into prominence the more solemn notes
of life's music. I have felt more and more the need for a
sensible contact with the Divine, the sustenance of the Divine
love, and the hope that springs eternal from a living Com-
munion with the Supreme Purpose, the Life — the Father of
us all."
The Spectator, in reviewing the previous volume of his
Essays and Addresses says, " He was an excellent writer as
well as an impassioned speaker ; there are historical passages
in his ' remains,' particularly in his lectures on the history
of Quakerism, which are genuinely eloquent." In the last
volume of the Cambridge Modern History (ix.) a description
of Chateaubriand is given by the writer. Professor Pariset,
which may well, with all modesty, be applied to the writer
of the lectures referred to. The sentence runs : " History
was to him only the past restored to life, and this past he
made others see as he himself saw, landscape, colour, sun-
light. Lastly, whatever he did was steeped in his personality."
The extracts given from his lectures on mediaeval art
bear out this thought with curious exactness. In Diirer's
woodcuts, or Holbein's portraits, he saw the past restored to
life with " landscape, colour and sunlight." Indeed, in the
endeavour to bring home any incident or lesson weighing on
PREFACE. xxi.
his mind to an audience, it seemed almost a necessity with
him to first paint in the main facts of the historic period
out of which the incident arose, so as to form a panoramic
scene piece, a reahstic background to his subject.
The power alluded to by the Spectator, marks a real
loss to the Church history of England by his removal before
he could put his hand to the history of Quakerism for which
he had long been accumulating materials.
Yet all those who were privileged to enjoy his friendship
will unhesitatingly feel that his personality was greater than
his gifts. His perceptions were very keen, his words very
forceful, his imagery often very attractive, but the power of
his character, the spirit of the man himself, was greater than
all, and made the most impression on those who knew him.
This was why his presence at any small gathering of individuals
was just as delightful as at any full-sized Conference or
Summer School.
An account of such an occasion has reached the present
writer from a personal friend of John's in the south-west of
England. It, too, has the deepened interest attaching to the
closing weeks of his life.
" It was only a visit of one right — John Wilhelm's
to Failand, — and he bravely faced it quite alone. It was a
mild day in February, and the drive from Clifton was filled
with eager talk, and, as usual with him, there were the large
hopes for men and measures. The late afternoon found us
at the tiny, old, thatched Meeting-House at Portishead, and
it was wonderful to see how our guest made himself friendly
with every one, as we took our tea in primitive fashion, sitting
about on the old white seats, or filling up the narrow gangway.
" The tea and social time was for Friends and Attenders
only, and when it was over the people from the village began
to come in. The room was soon full with a mixed audience
of country folk and those better educated. It was not an
easy audience to draw together, and the promoters might be
pardoned some initial wonder as to whether the delicate,
xxii. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
refined figure, standing in the little gallery, would be able
to meet the variety of needs, when unguided by the sight of
the faces before him. But all questionings vanished as he
told of the hunger of the soul, which science and art alike
fail to satisfy, and went on to tell the old story of the power
of the personal Christ, and it was soon evident that he had
not come in vain, and that many differing conditions of
souls would go away with a clearer sense of what religion
might be to them than they had ever had before.
" It was pathetic to note his apparently impersonal
allusion to blindness, as a possible trial amongst others that
might come to men, and one could only dimly surmise what
it must be to him to be always facing such an overwhelming
possibility. But the personal note, whenever struck, was
not one of sadness, but of hopeful endeavour, the strenuous-
ness of the struggle lit by the certainty of the issue.
" Perhaps the address might have been fairly easily
equalled by an expert preacher, so far as mere phrasing
went, but to concede this is only to bring into stronger
relief the effect of John Wilhelm's personality upon that
audience in the little white-washed Meeting-house. People
remarked upon it afterwards, and those not connected
with the Meeting were as sensible of it as those more
likely, at first sight, to appreciate what he was. They spoke
with unusual warmth of the value of the gathering, and it
was felt by many that one of rare gifts and devotion had
been amongst us. This impression was but deepened when,
shortly afterwards, the papers told of his passing away, and
it was striking to note the sense of personal loss which came
to more than one of those who only heard or saw him that
one evening, for it had not needed Death to tell us that we
had been privileged to listen to one who spoke from heights
which were, in every sense, near to the heavenly country."
The last Adult School address given by John Wilhelm
Rowntree was given to the Acomb School, the scene of his
early labours, on the afternoon of the Sunday before he sailed
PREFACE. xxiii.
with his wife to the United States. The men who could look
back over the twelve years that had elapsed since he had first
gathered them together, were struck by the deep notes and
mature powers of the teacher they had loved in his youth.
He closed his address as he had done elsewhere in the morning.
" Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes,
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies,
Heaven's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee ;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me."
A Friend has mentioned that John, in speaking to
him for the last time of hymns, said how at one time the
impersonal hymns, such for instance as " O God, our help
in ages past," were most acceptable to him, but that "now
the personal hymns came first," and he mentioned " Jesus,
Lover of my soul," as an instance. The choice of a number
of hymns copied out in his own handwriting, and left amongst
his papers, would seem to confirm this statement.
Pneumonia seized him on his way across the Atlantic,
and his brave stewardship of life ended three days after the
landing at New York. All that was mortal of him was laid
to rest by the kindest of Friends in the Burial Ground at
Haverford, not far from Penn's city of Brotherly Love. But
his life lives on, and will live.
In the introductory sketch to his Essays and Addresses
already referred to, mention is made of the exceeding happiness
of his home life, and an instance is given of his walking some
six miles, though tired, one Sunday, to take his then youngest
child out in her perambulator, rather than break a promise.
Violet, a charmingly self-contained little person, was especially
dear to him. He seemed as if he never could have too much
of her company, and she was equally attached to her father.
After his death, she continued to speak of him, perhaps more
than anyone else in the family. She would come into the
house from looking up at the skies, and say that she had seen
her Daddy. At Christmas she was very urgent that he
xxiv. JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
should have his present along with all the rest. On her
mother asking her what she was to do if Violet' went off on
such a long errand, the reply was she should hold 'him by the
hand until Mother came too. On the anniversary week of
her father's death she became suddenly ill, and after three
days' illness, bravely borne, the little child passed away.
Who knows whether it was not to "hold her father's hand,"
as she had said. Is not " Love, that root of faith, and
unity of all the virtues," as John Wilhelm phrased it, also
the unity of all true lives ?
PART I.
TRAVEL JOURNALS.
DIARY OF A VISIT TO PALESTINE AND
THE EAST.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
The journey East, by way of Rome and Pompeii, as
stated by his companion in Syria, Lawrence Richardson,
was partly undertaken in order that John Wilhelm Rowntree
might see Egypt and Palestine, and so qualify himself better
for his Adult School work, before his threatened loss of eye-
sight should become a reality. The journey took place in
March, April and May, of 1895. Dr. Bedford Pierce and
Gilbert Richardson were with him in the earlier half of the
tour. The traveller brought back with him 116 pill boxes
of shells from the shores of the Lake of Galilee, for the mem-
bers of his class, and a mummy ! The local references to
York and Scarborough show that the writer had no thought
of any general publication present to his mind.
DIARY OF A VISIT TO PALESTINE
AND THE EAST.
THE PYRAMIDS.
[After some days of illness in bed at Cairo, the journal
begins.]
Sunday. I rose from my couch, and determined to have
done with care. The morning drive down the long avenue
of acacias to the Pyramids was a pleasant change to counting
flies on the ceiling. Well, and what about the Pyramids ?
I didn't feel physically strong enough to more than climbing
half-way up the Great Pyramid, and having a good peep into
his dark inside, though I did "do," in the proper sense, the
immediate environs. But though I didn't do all the ortho-
dox things, I had a day under the shadow of the giants, and
believe I have formed as good an opinion of them as the
average man who hops up and down again and rushes off.
The Pyramids are undoubtedly " interesting," and though
probably the most " done " things in the world, they will
still continue to be unique. Utterly different to the ruins
we saw at Luxor and Abydos and elsewhere, they have none
of the interest in detail which is supplied by bas-reliefs and
coloured frescoes. And, I say it deliberately, their size
disappoints you. There is not the impression of height given,
for instance, by Cologne, when you look straight up the
towers from the street, nor even the impression given by
Antwerp. You can't get a straight line, and the sloping
lines only carry you up 450ft. But for all that they are the
most impressive human buildings I have ever seen. When
6 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
you are being dragged up the weather-worn rough steps,
you cannot get rid of the idea that you are chmbing a rocky
hill, and when close to, the size of the blocks, the enormous
masses of masonry beetling in ruddy crags about you, appal
utterly, when one remembers that human sinews dragged
all this heap together. The base is longer than the length of
York Minster by over looft., and our central tower wouldn't
reach half-way to the apex ; and the trouble of it all is that
this mass is practically solid. Recent clearings at the base
have revealed some of the casing stone of the great Pyramid
intact. You can't get a knife between the joints. When
these Pyramids were finished and polished, how they must
have glittered in the sun ! The inner work, of which I had
a good glimpse, is much rougher — as much as two inches of
mortar filling some of the joints — still, try and imagine the
labour, and under an Egyptian sun ! One feels most com-
fortable when the human agency is forgotten. Otherwise
the very stones cry out, and one hears the whistle of the
rhinocerous hide — remember the horrors of even the modern
corvee. How many beside Cheops and Khufur lay buried
there when all was done ? The Sphinx on the side of the Great
Pyramid furthest from Cairo is ruinous beyond one's ex-
pectations, but it is nevertheless remarkable and suggestive.
Its face is shattered, and has suffered on account of Tommy
Atkins I fear, but still it is the Sphinx par excellence, though
I have seen many other Sphinxes on the Upper Nile. I was
most surprised to find how much it is built up. The outer
casing of the two fore-paws has disappeared, and reveal the
fact that they were " stuffed " so to speak, with masonry
laid in regular courses. Close to, the temple of the Sphinx
— probably a Memnonium — discloses, after centuries of burial
in the shifting sand of the desert, slabs of granite of enormous
size, that look as if they had been dressed yesterday. Some
are sixteen feet long, and deep in proportion, and curiously
enough the joints are never in the angles as one would
suppose.
PALESTINE NOTES. 7
Wednesday, April 24th. — After further penance in bed —
a punishment for too hastily assuming myself to be conval-
escent, — ^we left Cairo, and crossed the fertile land of Goshen
by train, coming once more to Ismailya. But instead of
taking steamer here, we took the Suez railway along the
canal banks, with the desert rolling away on the left, and
appearing beyond the deep blue of the canal on the right.
We saw some large steamers passing through before darkness
closed in, and on reaching Port Said we drove straight to the
steamer — an Austrian Lloyd, neither large nor comfortable.
There was somewhat of a sea, and we wriggled and squirmed
our corkscrew way to Jaffa through all the livelong night.
JAFFA.
There is no harbour at Jaffa, and when we came on deck
we were quite at a loss to know where we were to land. There
was the coast, — the houses of Jaffa, yellow in the sun, with
white plastered domes, seemed piled up one above the other
as if scrambling out of reach of the surf which came in
white and angry. The sea was grey and swelling in momentary
mountains, that broke into foam, and rushed past us with
a grand sweep. The wretched steamer was kicking and
plunging like an impatient horse pawing to be off. Two
other steamers were moored in the roads close to, and as they
pitched and rolled, we could guess how unsteady our own
boat was. I was wondering how we were going to get into
the boats that were closing in on us with their lusty shouting
crews, when one of the sailors, calling out " Ladies first,"
began passing us down the landing steps at the side of the
steamer. All I remember was, that I was told to sit down
on the bottom step. Below me, far out of reach, was the
boat in a hollow of the surges — another instant, a wave
lifted the boat to my very feet — strong arms picked me off
the ladder, and the boat sank into the next hollow only to
rise again. So we loaded up, and then pulled for the shore.
At least, what is called the shore. In front were jagged black
8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
rocks, and a sheet of foam with roaring angry surf. On we
swept. I took off my Kodak in my childish innocence —
(which I had slung over my shoulders), prepared to swim for it.
But of course the crew had done the same thing hundreds of
times and in rougher weather. We shot through the reef
with what seemed only a foot to spare. One minute boiling
foam, and the next smooth water and a quiet pull to the
landing.
Joppa was deUghtfully sea-blown and breezy, though
it can be terribly hot when there is no wind off the sea. It
was not strange to us. The only difference between Syrian
OrientaUsm and Egyptian which I at once noticed, was the
greater prevalence of red in the dresses, and the lesser pre-
valence of the blues and blacks so almost universal in Egypt.
The houses are as dilapidated, there are more domes visible —
almost all the more important private houses seem to have
domed roofs, — and there is more green. The orange groves,
which were in blossom and heavy with scent, were delightful,
and the vine comes largely into view. Take the old part of
Scarborough, and orientalise it according to my bazaar
recipe, turn on a brilliant light and put domes on the houses,
remove the castle-hill and lower the coast-line, and you have
a very tolerable Jaffa indeed.
The customs' examination never came off. Cooks
have made an arrangement with the customs in Jaffa, and all
Cooks' tourists are passed unchallenged : who does not bow
down and worship the mighty Cook ? I left my watch in
the customs steamer. Reported it to Cooks, and they secured
it at Beirut, sent it to Jerusalem, and now it is in my pocket.
I arrange for dragoman, etc., and all details from Jaffa to
Beirut at the Cairo office. At Jaffa my dragoman meets
me. He knows everything, all is arranged. I have no trouble ;
I have a meal at the hotel at Jaffa, to which I am driven from
the steamer, and I take my seat in a first-class carriage in the
train to Jerusalem without paying a cent, or troubling about
my luggage, or taking a ticket. The dragoman simply asks
PALESTINE NOTES. 9
what you have, you show him your luggage, and from that
time he sees to it, sees it to the train and from the train to your
bedroom, pays all the tips and all the fares, and you have the
blissful assurance meanwhile that all is paid for by you in
advance, and that when you reach Beirut you will have spent
just that sum you paid down at Cairo, and no more. When
you are recovering from an unpleasant passage, this freedom
from worry is particularly delightful. We happen to be
exceedingly fortunate in our dragoman. He is the drago-
man who took George Adam Smith round Palestine, when he
was writing his new " Historical Geography of Palestine."
He is by far the most intelligent man we have yet had —
very gentlemanly and very considerate, and judging by what
we have so far seen, able and complete. He was very pleased
when I told him that I had Smith's book with me, and told
me of certain incidents recorded therein for which he is
responsible. This will materially add to the interest of our
ride north. His name is Harma — John Harma — but I
shall refer to him in future by his family name.
At the Jaffa station I noticed what had escaped me
before, the sheepskin caps and cloaks of the peasants. There
was evidence in most of the costumes of greater cold than the
people of the Nile Delta seem to expect, and we soon felt it
ourselves very keenly. The season has been unusually late
here, and we ought to be getting it hotter, but so far we have
found Jerusalem remarkably like a high Swiss resort. Keen
dry air, mountain and sea, a delightfully bracing mixture,
with a hot sun. Well, I don't quite know how to describe all
I have seen here, or how to give you a correct impression of
things. I have been correcting previous ideas ever since I
landed. First of all, unless you have seen for yourselves, it is
difficult to realise how entirely the Israelites were a mountain
people.
Let us say that Scarborough, altered as I have told you
to alter it, and with all its modern parts destroyed, is Joppa.
First, the train traverses a fertile plain (wheat, oranges,
10 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
pomegranates, and other cereal and vegetable products^
analagous to the journey to Malton. All the time we are
approaching a range of hills — high hills, irregular, like a chain
of potato-heaps, green, streaked with white limestone vhere
the rock crops through the grass. Soon you find yourself
among the hills, winding into the heart of them up broad
valleys. This may be called the Castle Howard and Kirkham
Abbey stage of the journey. But now at what ought to be
Barton Hill we are faced by the real hiUs of Judea. It is
as if Levisham were to replace Barton Hill, and the train was
there to begin its first serious ascent. (Make the crack to
Goathland nan^ower and finer, more rocky and precipitous).
Finally where the Scarborough train reaches York, your
Joppa train has reached a plateau 2,000-3,000 feet above the
sea, and a walled and ancient city half the size of York.
The distance from Joppa to Jerusalem by rail is just about that
from Scarborough to York. It was a very curious sensation,
taking train to this old capital of the Jews. I think uncon-
sciously I had shared the feelings of the servant who, when
asked what Jerusalem was, replied " something religious."
It really is a shock to find the place is real, and a thing of
matter of fact to its inhabitants.
The only two places of any importance that you pass
through are Lydda and Ramleh, — Lydda, once a Ben j amine
city, lies right out on the maritime plain, and was occupied
by the Crusaders. Here the legend of St. George and the
dragon had its birth, and the plain is like a great Clifton
Ings, only there are orange groves and olives. The ground is
bright with small, dark scarlet poppies which are exceedingly
plentiful, as also the ox-eyed daisy. The greenness of every-
thing struck us very much after Egypt ; no wonder the land
seemed to flow with milk and honey to the Israelites, after
the parching sand of the desert.
Opposite opens the vale of Ajalon, up and down which
the tide of battle between Philistine and Israelite rolled so
often, but the line turns south, and we pass up the Wady es
PALESTINE NOTES. ii
Surar. Above us, on the rock hill-slope, are two cowsheds —
that is Beth Shemesh (i Sam. vi. 9.) Here, according to
the Book of Samuel, the ark was brought by the five Philistine
lords. The wheat was waving in the valley as we passed.
I think it was the wheat harvest when the ark came. The
ancient Zorah is also visible — a hut or two on the slopes.
This is where the story of Samson is located. Down the
slopes of this valley, according to the curious Old Testament
narrative, the foxes (jackals) were loosed, and the jaw-bone
was wielded with such Christian charity. It is aU very
peaceful now. We pass groups of merry women who are
acting as navvies, picking basket-loads of stones off the
fields, and throwing them on the narrow-gauge track of single
line as ballast. I say " merry " women, for in Egypt only
the little girls are merry, and it is very refreshing to see these
brighter faces again.
Leaving Beth Shemesh behind us, we enter the gorge
through which and up which we win our tortuous way to
the more open valley on the plateau. Here we see the vine
cultivated, where possible, — the terraced limestone lending
itself to the culture, — but there are few trees, and in spite of
the pleasant greenness from Jaffa to Jerusalem, we saw no
running water. In Switzerland the gorge would have
re-echoed the roar of a mountain torrent. You miss the
sound of it, and can believe when you are told that in less
than a month from now, the smiling plain and green valleys
will be burnt up and brown as the desert almost. It is the
winter and latter rain that has made the wilderness to blossom
like the rose, and the fierce Syrian sun will soon re-assert
himself. In the meantime we were suffering from the cold
keen air, that blew up the mountains from the sea — rugs,
great-coats, kuffiyehs, comforters, availed not to keep us warm.
JERUSALEM.
The arrival at Jerusalem and the prospect of tea at the
hotel was by no means unwelcome, therefore, when at last
12 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
we stopped at what seemed a south Italian town. The entry
to Jerusalem is not striking by rail. You come in by the
Yafa suburb, red roofs, Italian villas — Latin monks and
priests in shovel hats, — Europe in Asia. But when you pass
through the Yafa gate you know that you are back in the
East again, there is the same unmistakable dilapidation
and dirt. But please mark one great difference, here, and
in the villages. Good stone is used in place of the mudbricks
of Egypt, and he who has seen the latter will appreciate the
change. Our hotel here, the Grand New Hotel, would seem
very modest indeed in Cairo or in the Riviera, but it is comfort-
able and very clean. The manager flew into my arms with
joy in his countenance at the magic mention of my name.
He used to keep the little " Jerusalem " shop on the slope
from St. Nicholas Cliff to the Aquarium, just above the
(Scarborough) Museum, and he has been most affectionate
in consequence. He claims to remember me when I came
to dig on the sands. One is at times impressed with the
fact that the world is small.
Our first day, Friday, we drove with Harma our drago-
man, to the Mount of Olives. I write this account after
four days' sight-seeing, but I don't think there is anything
I look back to with such pleasure as the Mount of Olives, even
though it has not escaped the fate of everything here, and is
disfigured by churches and monasteries. If you wanted
to convince anyone sceptical as to Christianity of the truth
and beauty of its faith, the last place in the world to bring
him to is Jerusalem. Here, if anjrvvhere, Mephistopholes
has occasion to laugh in his sleeve ; here, if anywhere, I
can fully forgive the scorn and contempt of the Moslem for
the wrangling and squabbling sects who profess the Christ.
One breathes freer in the Mosque of Omar than in the gaudy
Christian churches, and one's prejudices are irresistibly drawn
on the side of the Moslem. Of course as regards sites, there
is little or no certainty, and an enormous amount of super-
stition and tradition.
PALESTINE NOTES. 13
THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.
But the more one sees the He of the land, and learns the
connection of things and to know Jerusalem, the more one
feels that there could be no other Mount of Olives. It is
so pre-eminent, the view is so much the finest, and the position
fits in with the Bible narratives. I think I am inclined to
pin my faith to the Mount of Olives. But not, — emphatically
not, — to the Garden of Gethsemane. You come to this before
you ascend the Mount itself ; an exposed, public situation,
and now an artificial walled in arrangement of paths and
flowers. You remember the artificial plot of garden behind the
Hospitium (York) by the river. Wall that in with a high wall,
and you have a good idea of Gethsemane as it is shown. The
door into the garden is iron, and only four feet high. You
have to bend to get in. That is for fear of the Moslems.
The path round the garden is marked off every few feet with
a gaudy picture in a shrine. Once in, you are shown where
Peter slept, James slept, and John slept, where Judas stood
when he kissed Jesus, etcetera — as if some one went round
with stakes to mark the different places at the time. Close
by is a hideous Russian church. It is a relief to pass on
through wheat fields, and past the olive, almond and fig
trees which dot the slopes, picking the brilliant poppies as
we climb, and turning now and then to look at the extending
view. Two other churches spoil the summit, they stand
some distance apart, but both mark the exact spot where
Christ ascended to heaven. One belongs now to the Moslems
and is falling into ruin, the other, loud and vulgar, is Greek.
We climbed the Muezzin tower of the Moslem building, and
thence a wonderful view. G. Adam Smith in that excellent
historical geography speaks of the wall of Moab. But no
word-painting can give you an idea of it. It is a most im-
pressive barrier, stretching in an unbroken line where visible
along the east ; and, looking down over the hummocky high-
lands of Judea, in a haze of heat, is the no less wonderful
crack of the El Ghor, and the blue glimmer of the Dead Sea
14 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
3,900 feet below us. Palestine shrinks up into a small
country when you visit it. In the other direction, forty miles
odd carry you to the Levant and Joppa ; seventeen miles
down the Jericho road and you are gazing up at the prohibitive
barriers of Moab. Judea, with all its history, with all its
wonderful influence on the world, is almost identical in area
with Northumberland ; so small was the kingdom of the Jews.
Read the striking chapter on the character of Judea in
Smith, and you will understand what the impression given
by the view from the Mount of Olives is. You appreciate the
insular character of Judea. You can understand why the
great armies of the foreign conquerors so often swept past
on the maritime plain, and took no account of the hill tribes.
You realise the difficulty of conquering this mountain province.
The lowlands are worth having, but who wants to conquer
these wild highland Israelite tribes in their stony hills, with
nothing but their fanaticism and their sheepskins ? At
our feet is the valley of Jehoshaphat (or Kidron) ; opposite and
sheltering behind the city walls is Mount Moriah and the
Mosque of Omar — the great enclosed space of Haram es Sherif,
where the Temple used to stand— one of the few certain sites.
Not far off we make out the dome of the church of St. Sepul-
chre, and the ruins of the tomb of David (falsely so called),
near the Jaffa gate. Jerusalem with its yellows and whites,
the domed roofs, the crumbling minarets, the half-ruinous
walls, lies at our feet, and beyond is the chain of the rolling
hills, brown and green and smiling in the sun. It is a picture
not soon forgotten — even apart from its history, a sight worth
seeing, and a view to be remembered. But I cannot give you
all the details, the few huts visible of Bethany, the green
streak which marks the Jordan, the crack of the River
Arnon, the hills which hide Bethlehem, you must take your
own brush, and colour in the details from your imagination.
After lunch we picked our way through the dirty
and crowded bazaars. A few tortuous byways, down steps
and between walls and over heaps of rubbish (a common
PALESTINE NOTES.
15
feature), and finally we found ourselves in a long lane, bounded
on one side by a rough wall of average height, and on the
other by a high massive wall of great stones. Standing in
a row, close to it, with their faces in many cases pressed against
the stone, were from one to two hundred men and women,
the men at one end, the women at another. One perpetual
wail, dismal in the extreme, filled the lane with melancholy
sound. They were Jews of all nationalities, — Russian,
Polish, Spanish, etc. — and this curious scene is repeated at
four o'clock every afternoon. Many were reading from the
Talmud and the Book of Jeremiah. I saw no very poignant
grief ; many of the women looked round from time to time
and laughed at us, and gossip was not altogether tabooed
among them. But women are always women, and gossip
is the air they breathe ! The men were more solemn. But
I could believe what I was told — namely that this curious
practice is dying out. They have wailed so long in vain,
poor things, that one can readily imagine they are losing faith.
However, I am glad they have just let me be a spectator, for
the sight is most curious. It is not at all poetical or suggestive.
A frowsier, sorrier crew I never saw ; a crowd of Irish tramps
might well have taken their place, and the change escape
detection ; bat their very prosaic character adds to the
incongruity of the scene. Again my ideas have undergone
correction, and I have had another disillusionment.
Well, after this, we picked our way over more heaps of
rubbish, and between great forbidding hedges of prickly pear —
very un-English indeed — down into the T5n:opoean, a valley
which runs into the vale of Hinnom, and across which Solomon
built a conduit for water. A few shattered stones, and an
arch called Rabinsai's arch, are all we can see of it however,
and we are soon climbing, still over rubbish, up Mount Zion.
Let the pious pilgrim restrain his rapture for this sacred
mount ; if he can forget the smells, the only inspiration he
will get is the view from the wall at the top. This is limited
after the Mount of Olives. At one's feet, hidden by the
i6 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
dirty and disreputable village of Siloam, lies the historic
pool, I believe an undoubted site — unlike the pool of Bethesda,
whose site is merely traditional. The most ancient Hebrew
inscription yet discovered has been found in an old tunnel
of clumsy workmanship here, though, unfortunately, it has
gone to a museum at Constantinople. At present, excavations
are on foot, and remains have been found of part of the old
city wall, which here extended further afield than the modern.
These are now being traced, and may lead to interesting,
discoveries. Harma now took us to see the Ccenaculum,
and we went as meekly as if we had been told to go by our
nurse. You feel very insignificant and powerless in the hands
of a dragoman. Here, on no authority, David is said to be
buried, and you see a wooden sarcophagus through a grating ;
also the Last Supper is said to have taken place here, like-
wise on worthless authority ; and finally, this not apparently
being enough under one roof, the Holy Ghost descended
here on the assembled apostles. We listen apathetically
to these statements, which our guide believes to be true,
and notice with more interest that the building is Norman,
and finished in Arabic style. Here are Norman arches, and
round three windows the dog-tooth ornament. This building
dates from Crusading times, and has been converted to a
Mosque by the Arabs. The mixture of styles made the visit
worth while, unexpectedly so, I may say.
Thence we found our way, still meek, to the House of
Caiaphas, or, more strictly speaking, an Armenian monastery.
Here is the prison of Christ. At least so the Armenians say,
the Greeks have another prison of Christ, and deny this one.
It is a hole in the wall, as big as a cupboard, beautifully tiled
with blue and white tiles, a redeeming feature ; redolent with
incense, and hung with lamps. The church of the prison is
as gaudy, over- decorated and as heavy with incense as the
other churches. All these churches are built in a debased
Byzantine style ; unlovely, and look like bauble shops.
At times there is evidence of much wealth. We saw doors
PALESTINE NOTES. 17
of tortoiseshell in St. James, inlaid with mother of pearl,
and silver. Jerusalem lives on the piety and credulity of
the pilgrims, and has indeed no trade but religion, — no doubt
to many here a profitable one. It is difQcult not to let one's
indignation get the better of one, or to feel that " if Christ
came to Jerusalem," His first act would be similar to the
expulsion of the money changers.
THE TEMPLE AREA.
Saturday, April 2'jth. — ^The morning was well spent.
It was a relief to be among Mohammedans again, and I
must say I am glad the Temple grounds are in their hands.
We went straight to the Haram es Sherif, the great enclosed
area where the Temple once stood, and where now is the beau-
tiful Mosque of Omar. We had to have an escort of two
soldiers, and a permit from the British Consul, and felt quite
important. We entered by the ruinous gate called the Suk el
Kattanin, or the Cotton gate — a long dilapidated tunnel — it
was really nothing more, and emerged in a great open space.
Along the walls run the hostelries for the Moslem Pilgrims, to
whom this place is very sacred, the most sacred place after
Mecca ; for Mohammed ascended hence on his winged steed,
to heaven. We pick our way through various Mostabas,
raised places where the Moslems pray in the open air, and then
ascend a broad flight of shallow steps, and, passing under a
ruined arcade with graceful pillars, we find ourselves on the
highest plateau — on which the Mosque itself, the Dome of
the Rock, stands. Here no doubt was the Temple, and the
Mosque may very possibly cover the site of the Holy of Holies.
The Kubbet es Silsileh, an open pavilion with two con-
centric rows of pillars (Byzantine), beautiful mosaic floor, and
a dome, attracts attention before we enter the Mosque.
The mosaic work is exceedingly fine, and in harmony with
the Mosque itself. This world-famous building is, in its
particular way, the most beautiful I have ever seen. The
exterior decoration is wonderfully intricate, and here and there
i8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
the design is extremely beautiful. Blue and white predomin-
ate, especially the former, and a good deal of yellow comes into
the composition also. As one would expect, the designs are
entirely geometrical, and to be properly enjoyed require to
be seen at a moderate distance. A long way off the Mosque
looks ordinary and has a bluish grey tone. Each tile is separ-
ately burnt with a separate design ; many are Persian, and
some of the richest effects are produced by blocks of coloured
glass set in cement. With the strong sunUght upon it the
effect is wonderful. A circular gallery runs round the central
space, the rounded roof being supported by polished marble
pillars with gilded capitals, and the floor paved in marble
mosaic. The roof of this gallery and the interior of the dome
are the most exquisite examples of mural decoration I have
ever seen. The general tone of colour reminds me as much
as anything of Burne Jones' "Briar Rose"; green, red and
gold are the chief colours used, and the whole effect utterly
surpasses any power of description. I am naturally preju-
diced against polished pillars and gilded capitals, but I
would not alter anything in this Mosque ; the tout ensemble
is such that you are content to have it as it is. I don't expect
to see anything finer in its way than this. Round the centre
space runs a fine wrought iron screen dating from the Crusaders'
time, and in the centre lies a naked rock. This may have been
the rock of sacrifice ; it has a cistern underneath, and channels
for carrying away water or blood, but it is by no means clear
that it is so. The Moslems claim that it is the centre of the
world, that God will sit on it on the Judgment day ; that it
is poised on air, and though apparently resting on a wall below,
is not really resting upon it, only pretending to. Perhaps
it does to take breath at times. Mohammed sprang from this
rock to go to heaven ; you are shown where his head broke
through the roof, so it must be true ; and the rock was so
anxious to follow that the angel Gabriel had to come and hold
it down. You can see his finger-marks, so that must be true
also. Not far off in the floor is a block of green jasper.
PALESTINE NOTES. 19
Mohammed drove nineteen nails of gold into this. A nail was
to fall out at the end of every epoch, and when all had dis-
appeared, the end of the world would come. The devil
pulled out all but three and a half ; but the angel Gabriel
caught him at it, and drove him away. Very fortunate, for
three and a half seems a poor number. However, they have
lasted so long that one may take comfort.
Passing an ancient pool, we walked across the open
plateau to the Mosque El Aksa, much simpler and less pre-
tentious. It is not without interest, the pulpit is a wonderful
specimen of Arabesque carving at its best, dating from Nured-
din's time, 1168 a.d., and one of the transepts is an excellent
specimen of the work of the Crusaders, the roof being groined
and vaulted. The Mosque is indeed a Christian church of
Justinian (to the Virgin) transformed. Below are extensive
vaults called Solomon's stables, but probably no earlier than
the time of the Crusaders, the mangers and bridle rings
for the horses being of that period. A walk round the walls
gave us a good view, over the Vale of Jehoshaphat to the
Mount of Olives, and to Mount Scopus on the North. The
rolling hills are very refreshing after Egypt, and after much
sight-seeing. At one point in the wall is a pillar projecting
at right angles. Here Mohammed will sit astride, and Christ
on the Mount of Olives ; the resurrection will take place in
the Vale of Jehoshaphat, and all will be made to walk across
the valley on a hair of the prophet. Those who fall will go
to hell. These are crude and foolish legends, but unfortunately
the Christians have a stock which outnumber, if they do not
rival, the Moslems. We met Miss K., of York, at the
Deaconesses' Home in the evening, and she told us at supper
that numbers of English and Americans came to live at
Jerusalem, so as to be there if the end of the world came.
A queer old lady has just died, who used to go up the Mount
of Olives every day with a tea-making apparatus. She
wanted to be able to offer Jesus a cup of tea when He
came !
20 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
"THE HOLY SEPULCHRE."
I think the afternoon of Friday is the most remarkable
we have spent since I left England. I visited the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre, and here seem to be concentrated the
superstitions and follies of all Christendom. The place
reminds me as much as anything of the Alhambra Music
Hall in London, with its gilt and its coloured lamps, and its
luxurious but tawdry magnificence. So bitter are the feuds
between the different churches of Christ, that Mohammedan
officials have charge of the building, and the first comment
you have on the faith of Christianity is in the Mohammedan
guard at the door. I wish I could describe the scene to you.
It baffles all one's powers, however. The largest clear space
(there is no shape or symmetry, so the ordinary terms nave,
transepts, etc., are impossible ; the church is nothing but
a congeries of chapels) is called the Rotunda, and here the
Chapel of the Sepulchre itself stands. It looks like a large
shrine, and is covered with pictures, candles, lamps and what
not. It glitters like a fairy fountain, or a fairy grotto rather.
You stoop to enter, and find yourself in what is called the
Angel's Chapel (where the angel sat), a few feet square, heavy
with incense, and loaded with ornament. You stoop again
and find yourself by a gaudy altar with barely room to turn
round. This is the actual sepulchre, and repeats the'Angel's
Chapel, only more so. All the time there is a stream of people
of all nationalities in and out, kissing the pictures, crossing
themselves, and bowing with the utmost piety. As we came
out, we saw an interesting sight. Opposite the entrance to the
so-called Sepulchre is the Greek chapel (every chapel must
have a raison d'etre, and though all are under one roof, this
covers the garden of Joseph of Arimathea and a round hole
and ball in the floor mark the centre of the world ! ! The
second centre I have seen in one day). Service was going
on here, and the singing was suddenly drowned by a loud
strident chant. An Armenian procession with the Armenian
patriarch was entering the Rotunda. Gorgeous jewelled robes,
PALESTINE NOTES. 2i
blackhooded monks, and gaily dressed acolytes, candles and
incense. On they came. Armenians and Greeks have been
fighting at the Easter service, so there is a bitter feeling just
now. Two Greek priests rushed out, and hustled their flock
out of reach of contamination. You could see the fight in
their eyes, and the pleasure with which the Armenians formed
up at the very door of the Greek Shrine, in order to enter one
by one the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre itself. This over,
they made the tour of the Rotunda, headed by two Mo-
hammedans armed with sticks to prevent the Christians
from fighting, a gorgeous spectacle, but scarcely an inspiring
one. I can fancy " the man with the leather breeches " in
the midst of all this !
We naturally came home with our heads in a whirl, and
sick with incense, and weary of candles and coloured lamps.
What wonder the Moslems look down on us with contempt.
There is much irony in the fact that it is Jerusalem that is
the scene of this exhibition of weakness and folly, and still
more in the fact that the centre of bitterest feud is certainly
not the right site. These churches are spending their in-
cense and pictures over an unknown site, and a fraudulent
tomb.
Sunday, April 28th. — We walked down into the valley
of Kidron or Jehoshaphat, and examined what is called Solo-
mon's quarry. This again is a fictitious name, the date and
origin of the quarry are unknown. It extends for two or
three hundred feet under Jerusalem, and is interesting because
it is possible that the stone for the Temple was hewn here.
You see great blocks half-dressed and left lying, niches in
the walls for lights, and so forth. Opposite is one of the sug-
gested sites for Calvary — much more to my mind than any
other I have seen. It is a low eminence overlooking the
road, and with caves in its rocky face. But of course it is
the merest surmise, and I don't quite see how the real site
can be found. Neither do I see why it matters, or what good
22 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
would be done if it was found. The flame of superstition
would have added fuel to feed it, that is all ; and a great
deal of sentimental writing would be produced by as many
future Cooks' tourists. I prefer the present doubt.
Not far from the Cotton Grotto, as the quarry is also
called, are the Tombs of the Kings. Here again, we have no
authority for the name, and may be pretty certain they were
not the tombs of Jewish kings, but of wealthy citizens.
We visited one which may have been just Uke Joseph of
Arimathea's. A low square-cut opening in the cliff face to
which you descend a few steps, closed by a rolling stone which
revolves in a channel specially prepared — a square chamber
cut in the rock about eight feet high, and a small aperture in
the wall of this chamber for the body. No hieroglyphs,
no decoration, none of the elaborate ornamentation of the
Theban necropolis. The rolUng stone was very interesting.
Wherever the sepulchre was, the stone was probably worked
in the same way to close just such an entrance four feet high.
The entrance to what may be taken as a necropolis of
the wealthy Jews is by a broad flight of steps leading down
into the hollow (like a quarry) where the rock tombs were
cut. At the foot of these steps are two excellent cisterns,
where the bodies were washed before burial ; a much simpler
arrangement than the elaborate embalming of the Egyptians.
Equally sceptical were we at the convent which contains
the ruins of the Roman Praetorium, and the site of the judg-
ment of Christ. But we enjoyed this visit. We were taken
round by a dear old nun, with the face of an angel, and the
grace and manners of a high-born lady. There was an
indescribable flavour of sweet cloister piety about everything,
and everything was beautifully fresh and clean. We felt
as if in a Friends' Meeting-house in the neat, simple room.
Undoubtedly there is a ruined arch over the altar in the
convent church, and here, of course, Pilate stood when he
gave judgment. But the dear old lady believed it, and we
enjoyed the sweet patter of the nuns at the Litany the while.
PALESTINE NOTES. 23
We were taken down into the vaults, through an infinity of
doors, all carefully locked after us, and locked behind us again
as we returned, to be shown the beginning of the Via Dolorosa.
In acknowledgment of the good lady's courtesy I was fain to
buy a small silver cross for my wife out of the stock of little
trinkets made in the convent, and we passed out distinctly
refreshed and very good friends. The Via Dolorosa is a
series of dirty lanes with all sorts of superstitions attached
to it.
BETHLEHEM.
It was a reHef in the afternoon to drive to Bethlehem,
over a high, breezy plateau, with the hills of Moab ever visible —
an unbroken barrier line, and the rolUng uplands of Judea
when we looked towards Hebron. You pass a Moslem Sheikh's
tomb, with its dome, and are informed that this is the tomb of
Rachel, and after an hour's drive, through fields of wheat and
past olives, figs and terebinth and carob trees, the considerable
town of Bethlehem comes into sight. There are 8,000
inhabitants in this flourishing place, where I had expected a
little village. We drove three horses abreast at a furious
pace, hearts in our mouths, through the narrow streets,
and pulled up in front of the chief hotel with much clatter
and noise. We went to see only one " sight " here, the so-
called Church of the Nativity ; to me it was a repetition of
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The manger is shown
you (there is another at Rome I think) and the cave and so
forth, all gaudy with the usual decorations. The main nave
of the church is refreshingly simple, but that is the one re-
deeming feature. The Latins were holding their service,
and the organ was pealing as we entered. Greeks and Ar-
menians do not have music. Mentioning the Latins reminds
me that hereby hangs a tale. The Armenian altar is in such
a position, that if the Latins crush to pass in a procession to
visit the Holy Manger, they must pass close to the Armenian
sanctuary. The Armenians objected, and used to decline
24 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
to make way, and fights ensued. The Turkish governor,
growing weary of this, has had to lay a carpet with one
corner cut off before the Armenian altar, and order the Ar-
menians to keep off it, crossing by the diagonal where the
carpet is cut off. This done, a Turkish soldier had to be
placed continually on guard there to watch that this rule is
kept.
We sketched the view from Bethlehem after enduring the
incense and candles for a while, and walked back in the sunset
light. Only then did the full glories of the Holy City appear,
as we approached along the broad carriage road from Hebron,
the mountains growing violet in shadow to the east, while
yet a liquid yellow Hght lit up the city walls. The sense
of the past history is choked out in these chapels, but out
in the open you breathe freely, and catch something of the
inspiration of the place. The Galilean in His rough peasant
dress and turban, no doubt, had wandered in the evening
over these hills with His rude following of fisher-folk, every
whit as humble and obscure as the peasants we met on our
way. One realises the extent of the idealism of the devotional
pictures of the west; and the help one gets in Palestine in
getting a truer picture of things, brings the figure of the Christ
nearer to you, and strengthens the human ties.
Betlilehem is famous now for the extraordinary beauty
of its women. Some say this is due to Crusaders' blood,
I only know I was much struck with the merry, vivacious
manner of the people. The population is nearly all Christian ;
the Christians massacred and expelled the Moslems in 1830,
and the difference in the Christian treatment of the women
may partly account for this. They wear a curious head-
dress, white, and quite distinct.
In Camp, May 8th, '95.
Temperature 97° F. in shade.
Place, El Fuleh, near Shunem, on the Plain of Esdraelon,
where the Philistines encamped when Saul was killed.
PALESTINE NOTES. 25
I expect you will smile at the date, remembering when
I last wrote, but just you come here and write a diary with the
thermometer at 97° F. and a close heat withal ! But the
fact is, riding and camping mean next to no opportunity
for writing. Moreover the country is so steeped and saturated
in history that you spend all your time reading up. We have
G. A. Smith's " Historical Geography of Palestine " with us,
and are reading it as we go along. It makes a delightful
companion, and adds enormously to our understanding of
what we see, as well as our understanding of the book
itself.
CAMP LIFE.
The life in camp is very healthy and really very luxurious.
We two Englishmen have no less than eight servants, and
eleven four-footed beasts and three tents ! It would be a
libel on Cook and Son — the immaculate dispenser of creature
comforts — to call this " roughing it."
It is a picturesque sight to see the camp following sitting
round, Eastern fashion, eating out of the common flesh-pot
(common in the sense that it is common to aU I mean), the
red glow of the charcoal and the faint glimmer of the lamp
flickering on the dusky limbs and many-coloured raiment.
That is the sentimental hour, when, the heat of the day for-
gotten, and the glaring hiUs softened to mysterious violet
in the gloom, we stroll, with cigarettes lighted, after the sump-
tuous evening meal, up and down outside our temporary
" Castle." Then tongues are loosened, and there steals a
comfortable sense upon one of being at peace with all the
world. We accept our dragoman's invitation, and squatting
down Arab fashion among our cooks and muleteers, drink
the coffee cup of friendship with them. Then come the
jokes at our remissness in rising ; — how often we had to be
called, — and the time we take to dress, — and the things we leave
in the tent, — or we praise our cook's soup and his excellent
rice pudding and his vegetables and chicken ; and after more
26 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
amicable converse, and tales of former adventures with other
parties from the valiant John, we turn in under the brilliant
stars and the waxing moon to sleep the sleep of the just.
Breakfast, when at last the patient waiter, after much calling,
has got us safely seated at the table, is a royal repast. A plate
of bread and milk, first-rate tea, bread, Danish butter, English
marmalade, Jaffa honey tasting of the orange groves, potted
meat, eggs, — and, — I ought to mention the one drawback, —
innumerable flies.
Lunch is without our tents, and usually contrived so
as to be timely by some bubbling spring or under the grateful
shade of fig or olive. We recline on a carpet spread for us,
and what Nabob could turn up his nose at the lemon and soda,
the sardines, the cold chicken and salad, the dates and figs,
and the little cup of inevitable coffee, heated on the ex-
temporized furnace while we eat and doze ; — John, the drago-
man, in his long blue-embroidered cloak, his pistol in his belt,
sits gravely on another carpet, smoking his nargileh, which
the groom prepares with due reverence as for a lord. Our
horses champ and whisk away the pestilential flies, nose
in grass, or gulping grateful draughts from the battered tin
which serves as their trough. And when towards the close
of a hot and thirsty ride we see our tents gleam white before
us, by some magic transported from our last resting place —
there is a cry of " To your tents, O Israel," for we know that
fragrant tea and English biscuits are waiting, set out with
civilised propriety on snowy table-cloth. And dinner,
illuminated by candles, is a sumptuous finish to the day's
regal repasts. We have a kind of feeling that we are not
performing a feat quite so heroic as across Darkest Africa !
In Camp, Mansurah. On the slopes of Mount Carmel,
overlooking Esdraelon, Nazareth visible. May 9th. Delicious
cool sea breeze, 70° F. in tent.
Here goes for a dry and an uninteresting itinerary —
jottings from my pocket-book, little else — with no season-
ing of " Fine writing ! "
PALESTINE NOTES. 37
THE DEAD SEA.
Tuesday, April ^oth. — Manetho, Strabo, and the newly-
arrived L. R., who shall henceforth figure as the Philosopher
with a big P., left Jerusalem on horseback at 2 p.m. Wind
high from the sea, but a hot sun. We were soon zigzagging
down the rocky path into the Vale of Hinnom (the horses are
wonderfully sure-footed) and over steep grass-slopes. In
this vale children used to be offered as sacrifices to Moloch,
whence the place became known to the Jews as Gehenna, or
Vale of Fire, and this I suppose has given rise to further cos-
mological developments much enlarged on by some, Milton
for example. I understand, however, that allusions to this
division of the cosmogony are falling into disrepute nowadays.
We pass under frequent olives, by fields of wheat ripening,
and when I say fields, of course I don't mean hedged-in
enclosures, but open patches. Few peasants were in evidence,
one wondered where the reapers were to come from, we passed
not a single village. Rounding a hill-slope into the valley
of Kidron, lo ! and behold, an armed Bedouin, sitting silent
with gown and curved scimitar, on a beautiful glossy black
Arab horse. This is our escort, without which we may not
travel in this part of the country. Our ride is in the main a
descent. Bit by bit the scenery grows wilder, and all vegeta-
tion vanishes. First of all, goats and sheep and a few smiling
vales of corn, the lower fields ripe for harvest ; but after a
while no life of any kind, except a stray marbled white butter-
fly, and a dusty black beetle hurrying out of our path, or a
gruesome, repellent centipede. The rounded hills become
more and more rocky ; we have entered the Judean desert.
The prevaiUng colour of the landscape, from being a doubtful
green streaked with white limestone, is now reddish, and as
we enter a deep gorge, the rocks glow here and there as if
from internal fires. We follow an ascending stony path
along one side of the gorge for some way, the chasm at our
left deepening and with more precipitous walls. Suddenly
rounding a corner we see the Monastery of Marsaba, and the
28 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
tents of our camp flying the Union Jack. The camping
ground is a sandy cliff top, walled in by higher cliffs on three
sides. In front is the monastery, clinging to the precipitous
side of the gorge, and facing a bare desert wall honeycombed
with caves. The Monastery, which we visit, is a Greek peni-
tentiary for recalcitrant priests — a curious scrambling building
in a weird and desolate spot. Here a court, there a block of
terraced building — far up above more buildings, tunnellings,
staircases and towers — you could invent a weird ghost story,
or a fanciful fairy tale, or commit suicide with equal propriety
here. With its flying buttresses and higgledy piggledy
arrangement, it all looks as if stuck on to the cliff face by
cement. Somewhere about 530 a.d., S. Saba lived here — a
pious anchorite (read George Eber's " Homo Sum " if you want
to know more of the desert anchorites). He found a lion
in the cave he lived in, but each amicably settled which
corner they would occupy. So the legend runs, and you are
shown the cave. From the grand terrace of the Monastery
we looked down into the gorge below, and saw the jackals
roaming in search of food ; at night the tent watch kept his
rattle going, to scare away hyaenas. Surely a more lonely,
unearthly penitentiary nowhere exists. Wind changed in
the night to South-East. Sirocco. Temperature rose in tents
at night to 84° F.
Wednesday, May 1st. — Breakfast 6.15 a.m. Off before
7 a.m. Wind veers to the North. No sun till noon. Wild
ride over rolling and rocky uplands. Here and there the low
black tents of the Bedouin — swarthy people. These are the
" ravens — black people " of the Old Testament, who fed
Elijah. Now and then, down some rocky Wady, covered
with detritus and sparsely green here and there, we see the
deep blue Dead Sea in a haze of heat thousands of feet below,
and beyond, the Wall of Moab. Wind blows cool, but as we
descend, the heat comes on gradually. After a pleasant
canter— the horses canter beautifully, but can't trot — ^we
PALESTINE NOTES. 29
make a tremendous descent down a rocky torrent bed —
dry as a bone. Now and then we have to lead our horses, but
they take us nevertheless v/here English horses could never go.
Above to the West, on a high hill, we see a white tomb Mosque,
which the Mohammedans believe to be the tomb of Moses,
and which they visit in pilgrimage once a year from Jerusalem.
A great sight, I am told.
At last we are down on long ridges of sand dunes sloping
down to the head of the Dead Sea. Here is a tropical jungle
and glorious rushes, towering over our heads with great
feathery plumes, but our dragoman tells us we shall get these
at L. Huleh, so we pass and spare them. Wherever, as here
on these marshy flats, there is fresh water, the shores of the
Dead Sea are luxuriantly clothed in sub-tropical verdure, as
at Engedi. We were disappointed in not finding the Dead
Sea dead enough. Birds do fly across it, and there is no par-
ticular curse about it, it is simply a lake in the desert. Still,
its immediate shore of pebbles with the withered branches
cast up thereon gave some impression of the want of life in
its waters. We bathed in the Dead Sea, and could not sink.
I got a photograph of the Philosopher floating, feet and head
above water, without the slightest effort. The taste is vile,
and the smart in a raw place I had, excruciating. More-
over, we were all horribly sticky when we dressed, so a bathe
therein is more interesting than pleasant. Of course Sodom
and Gomorrah are not at the bottom, as even Kinglake seems
to suppose in his " Eothen." The lake has been there, only
deeper, since Tertiary times. G. A. Smith says that we must
look for the site of these towns in the plain to the North,
and if the account of their destruction may be taken as
historical, the site is desolate enough in all conscience. I
was not prepared for this. I had thought that the valley of
the Jordan was a tropical jungle, whereas it is a flat sandy
desert — at least at the southern end — intersected by verdure
only where the Jordan coils its snake-like way along. We
noticed as we rode to the Jordan, after lunching on the
30 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Dead Sea shore, how imposing — nay, forbidding — the moun-
tains of Judea and Samaria looked ; fully as impenetrable
as Moab to the East. No wonder the Israelites were afraid
to enter in and possess the Promised Land.
We ought to have seen Hermon to the North, but were
prevented by the heat-haze ; indeed, the heat nearly ren-
dered us incapable of noticing anything, and we rejoiced at
reaching the green trees and muddy swift stream of the world-
famous river. It was really a cool day for the Jordan valley,
though it was ioo° F. in the shade. It must be remembered
that we were over 1,200 feet below the Mediterranean, and
3,900 feet below Jerusalem. These facts require to be borne in
mind, if there is to be a due apprehension of the extraordinary
nature of this deep crack — the El Ghor.
The Jordan is amazingly small and ordinary when you
come to it ; like the Nidd, for all the world, only swifter and
far muddier. We heard a dove cooing — the spot is supposed
to be that where Jesus was baptised — the voice of the Turtle
was heard in the land. This stream, our first running water
since Jerusalem, made us appreciate as never before the
allusions to water in the Psalms and elsewhere in the Bible.
" Thou shalt lead me beside still waters," "As a hart thirsteth
after the water brooks," etc., have a new meaning to the
traveller in Palestine. I lazed in a boat, taking to the water
to avoid some grubbing pigs on the banks, and utterly failed
to realise where I was. Here the pilgrims are baptised to
this day — but somehow I only felt as if back on some good
old English stream, and my heart yearned for that tight Uttle
island. After all there is no place like home. We rode on
in the late afternoon to Jericho, across melancholy dry stream
beds, paths of straggling vegetation — the henna used to dye
the finger-nails is cultivated here — and finally patches of
corn, yellow and ripe. New Jericho, an hotel, some Turkish
official's private house, some miserable huts," a few palm
trees, that is all ! Then a thistle-covered common, donkeys,
Bedouin, their black low tents and cattle, dirty and degraded
PALESTINE NOTES. 31
looking people — the women terribly ugly, poor things, a
stream, a burst of luxuriant vegetation, cactus hedges con-
cealing palms and tropical shrubs and masses of towering
red flowers, and we find our tents at the foot of a tumulus
concealing old Jericho, and by a good spring. Wind strong,
North, and cool. Temperature falls to 72° F. in tent.
Thursday, May 2nd. — Start 8 a.m. Wind veers to
West, cloud driven sky. Gleams of sunshine. Ascent to
Jerusalem exceedingly fine. A most impressive ride — low
part of the pass guarded by ancient watch-towers, reminds
one of the St. Gothard above the Devil's Bridge. Crossing
a ridge the scenery is less grand and majestic, but still wild —
like Llanberis, say. Good carriage road all the way. We
pass another monastery clinging to the cliff wall like Mar
Saba — called Mar Yahanna. The brook in the gorge is
by some supposed to be the brook Cherith where EHjah was
fed by the Bedouin, and the mountain overlooking Old
Jericho to be the scene of the Temptation, which is hardly
likely.
We meet flocks of goats and donkeys, troops of armed
Bedouin on horseback with long guns, barrels brass bound,
and stocks inlaid with mother of pearl ; the round swelling
hills become greener, and the breeze distinctly unpleasantly
chilly after the hot El Ghor. Veiled Moslem ladies pass in
a carriage with armed escort — whither bound ?
We reach at twelve, after four hours riding, the " Apostles'
Well," another merely traditional name. Round this is gath-
ered a concourse of Bedanese, donkeys, women, children,
horses, and fine dark-looking men, in black and yellow striped
cloaks and black kuffiyehs, armed with a short knife and gun.
They are of particular interest when one remembers that they
give us a picture of what those wandering Hebrew tribes,
under their great powerful sheikh Moses must have looked
like, when they came as invaders to the land of the Canaanite —
a great wave of emigration out of the desert sea away there
32 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
behind Moab — one among many waves, that from time to
time have washed up on the eastern shore of Palestine, and
peopled its hills and valleys with desert drift. One feels
grateful for the realistic picture of the past which such a scene
affords. I watched these people giving their beasts the
longed-for draught, as we sat at our lunch, and felt that the
Old Testament was getting to be real for me bit by bit, though
one's western ideas need considerable readjustment at first.
And if it is a reality from which much that we call " mira-
culous " had to be eliminated, this elimination is not a loss,
but an infinite gain. The unbridged gulf that yawns between
a past teeming with miraculous interventions, and a prosaic
present where miracle is reduced to law, is bridged by a new
human interest, as one feels these old Bible people were only
human beings after all, and subject to the same unalterable
laws of a God, the same yesterday, to-day and for ever. After
this well, a steep ascent. We have now been climbing four
hours up a fine pass. Surely Jerusalem will be below us
over this ridge — No ! There is the Holy City above us still —
and there the Mount of Olives on the right — the squalid,
wretched hovel of Bethany — all are above us. I know
nothing that can more impressively fix the height of Jerusalem
above the plain on one's mind than this view upward, after
a long climb of hours. We rode in past my Golgotha ; the
Philosopher says that in certain lights the caves in its rock
face give the appearance of a skull, and that it is seriously
supposed that this explains the phrase " the place of the skull."
However, be this as it may, the Philosopher immediately after
had a bad throw from his horse, from the wounds of which
he is only now recovering ; and so back to the New Hotel.
Friday, May yd. — Manetho left us for England, amid
sad farewells from the bereaved remainder. Before the
Philosopher and Strabo start North, I just want to put on
record the manner of veiling among the Moslem women
at Jerusalem. This is peculiarly ghastly in its effect. A
JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE,
Aet. i6.
(F)oin a photo by If. Eslo'it, York).
PALESTINE NOTES. 33
thin handkerchief, with a pattern and colour like a bandanna,
covers the whole face. You cannot see the face, or a suggestion
of a face behind, though the lady can see out. In a white
shawl and with their coloured face cloths, these women look
like the sheeted dead come to life — or mummies that have
strayed far from Giseh.
TO SAMARIA.
We started in rain after a cold night (Therm, down to
60° F. in the bedroom). Strong wind, North- West. As we
climbed the slopes of Scopus, we met a long pilgrimage of
Russians straggling over two miJes, some on asses, some on
foot, of the peasant class apparently. There were 700 of them,
and some of the women seemed very ill with the long march
from Nazareth, being supported by their husbands as they
rode by on their mules. I suppose these poor people will
go the round of the shrines, etc., in Jerusalem, and probably
spend many a hard earned penny in useless ceremonies.
We had a fine retrospect over Jerusalem, which ought to
have been our last, but we got another glimpse in making a
detour to Ramallah. The road was very rough — like a dry
mountain stream bed; scenery, bare rolling uplands — red
soil, very stony ground, not a square foot being without its
white limestone detritus ; patches of green corn and occasional
olives. Wind continues cold and strong, though the rain was
slight, and soon ceased. Stony and abominable, a mere path
as the road is, it is one of the great caravan routes from Jeru-
salem to Damascus. We met frequent strings of ill-kempt
donkeys, with dusky ragged drivers sitting sideways. We
pass Tell el Ful, a high hill crowned with the ruins of a Crusa-
ders' fort — the most frequent ruins we have seen in Palestine.
We deviate from the usual route to the east, climbing a hill
crowned by the village of Ramah of Benjamin — a wretched,
squalid, dirty group of hovels, with wheat growing on the sod
roofs. Here we had a fine view of the village and battlefield
of Michmash, and the long line of the Moab hills opposite.
34 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
It is open, rolling hill country, and the eye is struck with the
long, sweeping curves of the gradual swelling mounds and
hills. The soil gave a decidedly red look to the foreground,
indeed this colour is quite a feature in the district. I got
a careful sketch of the battle-field before leaving. As we were
riding away through the green corn, our muleteer missed a
carpet ; we rode back, and John threatened to the assembled
villagers that he would send for ten Turkish soldiers, and
arrest the whole village. The threat, after much talk and
gesticulation, took effect. The house of the thief was re-
luctantly pointed out, to which we rode in force. The door
was barricaded, and had to be broken open. There was a
castigation administered to the recalcitrant owner of the
house, and the carpet was then borne out in triumph.
We lunched in a fig orchard at El Bireh (the ancient
Burok) now a fanatical Moslem village, the distinguishing
feature of which are the ruins left by the Templars. (We
saw some columns in a pigstye at Ramah, dating also from
Crusading times).
A French party of six, travelling North, here passed us,
camping by our tents at Bethel. We felt that we had suffi-
cient equipage, but these six people had a train of fifty
horses and mules — palanquins for wet weather — and were
carrying their chickens alive in crates. Here we branched
off from the usual route once more — to the West — over a
high, ploughed field. Looking back, we saw the hills beyond
Jordan — looking forward ten minutes later, lo and behold,
the blue Mediterranean. What a small country Palestine is !
Our detour to Ramallah proved interesting. The Amer-
ican Friends have a mission here, which we visited. It is
chiefly for girls, who live partly as boarders — I think twenty-
four reside on the premises — the rest in the village.* Ramallah
is decidedly cleaner than most of the villages. It has several
missions, which seem to be doing their duty socially as well
as religiously, and bringing about a better sanitary condition.
*The school has since been much enlarged, and now includes boys.
PALESTINE NOTES. 35
I noticed the brighter faces of the women. Christianity
stands out very favourably by Mohammedanism in the treat-
ment of the gentler sex ; the position of woman, indeed,
seems to me one of the greatest blots on Mohammedan
civilisation. The girls sang hymns to us in English and
Arabic, in a schoolroom filled with European furniture. I
only objected to their costume, sober and Quakerly perhaps,
but a prim uniform, most incongruous and unsuited when you
have the Oriental sense of colour to guide you. Leave the
national dress alone, I say.*
After a pleasant visit and chat, in the cool, white-
washed building — so clean and spruce, though simple withal, —
we rode down to the head of a green vale of corn, where under
a grove of olives our tents were visible. This was Bethel
in all probability. At present it is known as Betin, and is
a fearfully squalid collection of hovels. I hope the Irish
cabins I have so often heard of are no worse than these.
There is not much suggestion of the historic interest attaching
to the place from Jacob to Josiah. We suppose that the
unspeakable Turk must be responsible for much of the present
condition of things, coming as their misrule does after the
stormy centuries which succeeded Christ. But reading again
in the tent the account of the battle of Michmash, we were struck
with the simple provincial style of the account. The warriors
who mustered against the Philistines must surely have been
much like the primitive agriculturists we have been passing.
" For there was no smith in Israel," and the ox-goad is fre-
quently to be seen in use during the day's ride. The one
striking feature of Bethel now is the ruined Crusaders'
church. One realises what a grip the Crusaders did get after
all on the country, and it is possible to appreciate Smith's
remarks on the subject when we see almost every height of
strategical importance, almost every site of religious interest,
stamped with the impress of their civilisation. In a day or
* This is so now, the children sitting in meeting look like a garden
of flowers. — Ed,
36 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
two, we shall pass over another battlefield (I am writing
now at Nazareth), that of Hattin, where, I suppose, this
civilisation received its death-blow ; where, as Smith says,
" a militant and truculent Christianity, as false as the relics
of the True Cross round which it was rallied, met its judicial
end."
Saturday, May 4th. — We were glad to be off. The night
had been very cold, Temperature 50° F. in the tent, and a
nasty, damp, white mist. On horseback before nine, after
some delays. Rode in the cool breeze through fig orchards
and over awful roads ; descending after an hour or so into a
lonely valley, overhung with crags and green with grass, gay
with flowers and shaded by noble olives. Here we pass the
usual camping ground of those going North, at what is called
the Robbers' Spring — the sky clearing the while and deepening
to an intense blue. We are entering the northern kingdom
and leaving Judea behind, traversing the debatable ground
where the boundary fluctuated North or South of the more
natural division from Michmash down Ajalon — according as
North or South was strongest. And a change is really coming
over the country. Figs and oUves are more numerous than
I have seen them since Bethlehem ; the bleak, rolling uplands
are giving place to a succession of shallow, flat-bottomed
valleys — alps — with more trees and great sheets, rather than
the patches we noted in Judea, of waving corn. The whole
aspect of the land is more open and smiling, and as we pro-
ceed North, continues to open out and become yet more fertile.
Bethel seems to mark a distinct stage in our journey, looking
back on it.
As on the ride from Rome to Naples, we notice how the
villages are almost always perched on the hill tops — seldom
in the plains ; with their flat roofs they are often difficult to
distinguish from the limestone ribs, which everywhere peep
through the green hillsides. We see yet two more Crusaders'
Castles — one of Baldwin, another Casale San Cirles — and
PALESTINE NOTES. 37
then enter the broadest, flattest, upland valley we have yet
seen ; like a bit of the Plain of Sharon stranded on the
heights. Crossing the well-cultivated fields and picking our
way up through a large fig orchard, and then through ripening
corn and banks of glorious flowers, morning glory, dahlias
and pinks, etc., we find ourselves at an olive tree, large and
isolated at the entrance to a shallow wady ; standing alone
on the height with ruined masonry under its shadow. Here
we spread our carpet and lunch. The spot is now called
Seilun ; once it was Shiloh, to which memories of the Ark,
of Eli, and Samuel attach themselves. Now there is nothing
for the eye to rest upon except open vales of ploughed land
and corn — rounded hills of undecided outline. Bees are
humming and passing from flower to flower, beetles swarm,
flying with heavy clumsy flight across the field, and every-
where the nimble lizards pop in and out among the stones.
A gentle sea breeze tempers the noonday heat. Shiloh is
a very pleasant spot for a picnic and a doze for such of Cooks'
tourists as so incline, but its slopes will no more be covered
with the black tents of the Bedouin Ben Israel awaiting
the allotment of their portions.
On the hill, down the opening vale, we see Sebim (Sebonah,
Judges xxi. 19), and then turning more distinctly northward,
we regain the usual route, from which we have made a detour,
and in the late afternoon reach a rocky ridge of some height.
The view at this point was very fine. On our left, immediately
facing us, Ebal and Gerizim — reminding me forcibly of the
Malvern hills. At our feet the long fertile upland plain of
El Muknah, and beyond over a distant ridge of mountain,
faint, indescribably delicate with its fairy-like blue and white
— the splendid triple crown of snowy Hermon. Evening
was fast gathering her shadows as we descended with this
view before us, — the sight of snow after hot Egypt and thirsty
Judea is an experience more memorable than a first glimpse
of the Alps — and we reached Hawara, — our camp — on the slopes
of Gerizim, but a short time before darkness swooped down on
38 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
us. Time here is 3J hours later than with you in England,
and twilight is very short, the approach of darkness very
swift. It is quite dark now about seven, the sun setting
about 6.30.
Sunday, May $th. — We did not keep Sunday here,
intending to keep our Sunday on Monday at Seboste. We
had another cold night. Temperature 54° F. Off at 8.20,
sky cloudless. Burning sun but cool breezes. We rode North
for a space up the broad El Muknah,!with its corn and olives,
and then turned up West to the gap between Ebal and Gerizim,
a high pass, where Nablus, the ancient Shechem lies. On
our right we see a white dome, a bit of wall, and some green
trees. That is Jacob's well. I will not plunge into the
controversy as to the site, as my remarks would be valueless,
but might mention that we had read G. A. Smith on the
subject with interest the night before.
Reaching Nablus, high up (800 feet), we nevertheless
find the pretty town of 20,000 inhabitants gay with luxuriant
verdure, palms, vines, pomegranates, and (not seen since
Jerusalem) cypresses. This is a place of great importance,
connecting with the country east of Jordan. We saw the
telegraph posts, which if we followed them would take us
to Es Salt beyond the " Ghor." Here are Turkish soldiers
lounging along the streets. Somehow I always think of the
Armenian atrocities when I see them, though I have found
them most obliging and polite, and though more than once
we have had a Turkish guard, armed with bayonet fixed,
patrolling as a night-guard for our camp.
MOUNT EBAL.
We struck off early to the right to climb Mount Ebal,
leaving our horses in a Moslem cemetery. The Moslems have
two headstones on their graves, not one, as we have. We
climbed a path hedged in by extraordinary hedges of cactus,
most unearthly and forbidding they look too, and in an hour
PALESTINE NOTES. 39
reached the top. Gerizim is the proper mountain to do,
as of course it has more historical interest, " Neither in
this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem," etc. But Ebal is
higher, and G. A. Smith gives a chapter to the view, and we
determined to climb the latter on that account. We had
a perfect day, and a marvellous view. I have never had
the sense of looking down on so much outspread history
before, and over such a vast extent of country. Our northern
limit was Lebanon — 150 miles away, to the south the upland
of Judea beyond Hebron, fully fifty miles away. To the
west there was the sea — to the east we saw beyond Galilee,
beyond Jordan, to the mountains of the Hannam. It is not
often given to mortal men to scan at a glance 200 miles of
country, where almost every peak suggests or conceals some
historic spot.
I gave my time to sketching a complete outline panorama,
which I managed to secure in spite of a blazing sun, from
which no protection was possible, and the fact that it was not
possible to get the view from one spot. The top of Ebal is
a long ridge, with no definite peak ; the mount is really only
a great shoulder 3,077 feet above the sea. It is impossible
in this journal to give the view in detail ; the view would
make excellent material for an illustrated lecture, but it is
not possible to make myself clear in a brief outline journal
like this. Looking east, rises the dark mass of Carmel,
breaking the line of the blue Mediterranean. North of this
is the sweep of gold where Acre lies, and Haifa snuggles under
the promontory ; the flat green there is the Phoenician plain
connecting with Esdraelon by the now hidden glen of El Rais.
South of Carmel sweeps the golden hne of coast again. We
make out Caesarea and with the glasses Jaffa — four vessels
at anchor in the roads — the plain of Sharon like a map and
the Shephelah breaking down the ridges, green and grey and
brown, from the mountain on which we stand. Due south,
over Gerizim, appear the highlands of Judea. (It is in-
teresting to note, by the by, that Gerizim is of Memmahte
40 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
limestone, of the same tertiary formation as that found in
the high Himalayas). East is the wall of Moab and Gilead.
We make out where Es Salt must lie, can see the valley of
the Jabbok, the Jebal Ajlun, catch a spur of Gilboa ; see
the dominating Hermon, the grandest and most conspicuous
feature in the whole panorama, and just to the west, faint
and far, but unmistakable, snowy Lebanon. Smith and
Baedeker neither of them mention this. But we are sure of
our point. The Philosopher made the most careful examina-
tion and we located the mountain with certainty at last.
We intend to write to G. A. Smith and tell him of his omission.
We had a most exceptionally clear day and expect that it is
rarely that Lebanon is seen from this point.
Coming down we ride through the whitewashed town,
and lunch in an olive grove which overlooks the valley. I
must say that while Nablus looks beautiful from below or
on the approach by the road, the view down from where we
lunched or from Ebal is the reverse of pleasing — the flat roofs
look so very unprepossessing as you see them from above.
Half a dozen houses have the red roofs pitched as in Europe,
which are getting so common in Jerusalem and Jaffa, and
these in the green setting of the palms and other trees looked
very picturesque. I don't think, except for association's
sake, that we can regret the coming in of the European
architecture. Nablus is a fanatical place or we should
have stopped here, but our dragoman says the visitors often
have trouble, and Seboste is now becoming the more usual
place to stay. Thither we rode in a delicious fresh breeze off
the sea. We saw nothing of the few remaining families of
directly descended Samaritans who still live in a separate
quarter at Nablus — nor were we there at the right time
to see their Passover festival, still observed in Gerizim to this
day, but we felt that the wonderful view we had had amply
made up for anything we might have missed. Illustrative of
the happy-go-lucky character of Oriental sanitation I may here
record en -passant^ that barely outside the town, on the Tafa
PALESTINE NOTES. 41
highroad, one of the few real roads in Palestine, we passed
a dead donkey decaying with intolerable stench, one leg
already a bleaching bone, and two men cutting off what was
no doubt their supper from its corrupting sides. Excuse me,
but a detail hke this is necessary if you are to understand
the difference between East and West !
We rode on, not reluctantly, and soon the " Vale of
Barley " opened out lovely in afternoon sunhght with
sufficient waving barley to justify its name. Dotted with
villages and trees, this was perhaps the brightest bit of country
side we had seen. Climbing slowly up zig-zag paths to the
right, we passed flocks of goats and sheep following their
shepherds, a large black snake three feet in length, dead on
the path-way, looking as if the shepherds had just killed it,
and then breasting the ridge, a puff of strong sea air, and lo !
the hazy blue Mediterranean. Down into a lovely glen of
olives and figs, past a well where the women were gathering
for water, and up a stony steep path to a platform, brought
us to Seboste. This miserable^ village — all that is left of the
city of Omri, of Ahab, of Herod, crowns a hill surrounded on
all sides by fertile valleys. Its flat houses and the minaret
of its Mosque, a Crusaders' Church converted into a
Mohammedan place of worship (there are also remains of the
Crusaders at Nablus), look exceedingly striking and pictur-
esque, terraced among the trees. The glen, through which
you approach, carries you quite out of the scenery which has
hitherto prevailed, and you feel to have entered a new country.
We pitched on a platform which was levelled to make a
site for a temple of the Herods, and indeed the hill is every-
where terraced, and ruins peep out of a tangle of weeds and
towering thistles. I don't think we have before or since had
the impression of decay and of the glory of a departed civilisa-
tion so strongly as at Seboste, with its ruined theatres, its
desolate colonnades, its ruined wheat-sown hippodrome, cut
in a huge semi-circle into the hill-side. This little wretched
village does not suggest a siege by Ben Haddan — or a three
42 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
years' struggle with Sargon. Where is all the Greek and
Roman life that once made the hippodrome, the theatre,
and the temple gay with the colour and movement of many
people ? What tales of passion, love, hatred, slander, of
devotion and of selfishness lie buried under the wheat fields !
What a contrast, these ragged tatterdemalion peasants,
droning out a monotonous and unintellectual existence, year
after year following each other with Oriental sameness!
Monday, May 6ih. — Remained in camp, temperature
at night (min.) 66° F., and spent the day " reading up " and
dozing, and exploring the hill with camera and sketch-books.
Numerous swallow-tail butterflies, speckled black-beetles
swarming on thistles. Captured a magnificent iridescent green
beetle and a horrid black scorpion. Saw innumerable lizards
and chameleons — the latter are wonderful illustrations of
protective colouring : they change to green in the grass and
a mottled gray on the stone, and often I have mistaken them
for a crack or ridge in the stone. The mosque, once a church
of St. John is curious, as it retains the mark of the Crusaders,
though the greater part is now Arabic, while in the court
are pillars of Herod's time.
With all their poverty and rags I have not seen what I
call really degraded looking people, unless the Jericho Bedouins
can be called so. Certainly you do not see, either here or
in Egypt, in a whole tour of months, such as I am taking,
as much real human degradation, as much self-conscious
degradation, as you can see in the low parts of London in one
day. Here the most ragged beggar has some suggestion, at
any rate, of dignity about him.
Returning to our camp in the evening we passed the
threshing floor. Here two oxen yoked together were treading
out beans, there a man with a rude fork was tossing and
beating corn, a clumsy and primitive method of winnowing.
As the light waned I seized the opportunity of sketching
the ruined columns. I soon had an innumerable host of
PALESTINE NOTES. 43
admiring youths, who presently struck with an idea, climbed
the columns and attitudinised for my benefit. I was fain
to include them in my sketch, and to pay the inevitable
backshish.
Maximum temperature in tent during day only 84° F.
owing to the breeze.
Tuesday, May jth. — Off at 8 a.m. Temp, at night 58° F.
Hot, cloudless but breezy. Ride up a fine rocky glen from
which we miss the water sadly. Olives, figs, sycamores,
apple and pomegranate trees in dense orchards.
Numerous droves of black cattle — shorthorns ; not Hke
the great Egyptian buffaloes, but small, like our mountain
cattle. Wherever there is a view north we get frequent
glimpses of Hermon — dominating the whole landscape. I
never realised before how important an element this great
snow-capped pile is in a Samarian landscape,
ESDRAELON.
We ride all day through a succession of the broad, flat
bottomed valleys which seem to be the feature of Samaria as
the upland downs are of Judea, and as we proceed towards
Esdraelon, these open out still more into great flat Ings,
forming a series of easy passes, as Smith says, for an invader
from the north. The reapers are at work here in the barley
fields — the vales being alive with peasants for the first time.
The women reap in long rows, squatting on their heels, with
their skirts tucked up to the waist, singing, as they reap with
primitive hooks. Those who have babies bring them along
in sledges covered with filthy cloth hangings. Every now
and then a little naked fly-pestered thing is taken out to be
fed. We pass a well where there is the usual pretty group
of women, in this part of the country remarkably beautiful
and attractive, and quite conscious of the flashing briUiance
of their teeth, as they smile at you. The well-side in Palestine
takes the place of the afternoon tea-table at home. It is
44 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
here that the gossip and the scandal take unto themselves
the swift wings of speech, while at home it is whispered over
the tea and biscuits, with chairs drawn close and many an
expressive look !
The fields where the reapers have no call, are those occu-
pied by the plough, and here the men find their work, ploughing
with clumsy ploughs of bent branches, yoked to oxen and tipped
with iron. The march of progress is slow here. I heard an
American in the train to Jerusalem sighing because he hadn't
the contract to supply that vale of Sharon with steam ploughs !
I suppose that will come some day !
Shortly before reaching Dothan, we are thrown into a
state of excitement at the capture of a green chameleon, coiled
up now in his last sleep in my bottle of spirits of wine.
Dothan appears to be the most probable site of the well where
Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites. The well is there certainly,
only as it is half full of green, slimy water, I can hardly fancy
Joseph remained in it long. Perhaps it was dry then. It
lies by a huge cactus hedge sixteen feet high, which encloses
a European house and a modern thrashing machine. A great
flock of sheep, goats, and herds of cattle were reposing at the
well with their shepherds, and to heighten the suggestiveness
of the place, a string of loaded camels, perhaps en route for
Egypt, were taking their noon-day repose. We lunched on
a fine hill overlooking the well, where shade was procurable.
The hills are almost always rounded in Palestine. I think
I may leave the word out and let you take it for granted in
future. The fact is that the country looks everywhere dis-
tinctly roche montonnce. We suppose there can have been
no ice action, as the ice wall stopped short of Palestine, of
course, even in glacial times. Is it possible that Hermon and
Lebanon sent down glaciers ? Or is it the way limestone wears ?
After Dothan we notice the soil changes in colour. Since
Jerusalem we had commented on its redness, now it is brown.
Snakes seem to abound about here ; we passed a large one,
four feet long, black and yellow, also dead as the previous one
PALESTINE NOTES. 45
at Samaria, and had an exciting chase after an equally large
copper-coloured one, which was watching us pass with raised
head and glittering eye from the meadow grass.
After Dothan and lunch, and two hours repose in the shade,
we rode across country, through barley up to our saddles
(they don't seem to mind this here), in order to rejoin the
Jericho road; crossing a stream, sluggish and reedy, and
noticing for the first time how much whiter the corn grows
here when ripe. " The fields are white unto the harvest,
but the reapers are few." Both statements are correct. The
thin line of reapers in these great valleys, squatting on their
heels with primitive hooks, look few for the work they have
to do. The hills are now much lower and less bold in outline
than at Samaria. We have been coming down a sort of
gigantic salmon ladder, a series of hollows each lower than the
last. Pass a brilliant blue bird perched on a near rock, turn
down a shallow, narrow wady, and there, white in palm,
orange, lemon, almond, apple, pomegranate and other fruit
trees, are the houses and minaret of Engannim, or Jenin,
a market town of some little importance on the edge of Es-
draelon. In the evening we strolled out to a Moslem cemetery
on a low mound to the east of the town. Before us stretched
Esdraelon, undulating, bathed in soft sunset hght.
Chequered with shadow, to the west, Carmel, fine and im-
posing, the gradually rising hills of Galilee. To the north,
Nazareth visible, and Harmon towering behind. Mount Moreh,
Shunem, Jezreel, Mount Gilboa, bring the eye back along the
east. It was a view of no httle interest, and we came upon it
quite casually and unexpectedly. Next day we were to get a
better prospect from Gilboa. Temperature at night, 68° F.
Wind changes to sirocco. East.
Wednesday, May 8th. — Sirocco, hot, stifling, close. Tem-
perature at 4.30 p.m. in shade, 97° F., though it fell rapidly
to 64° F. at night ! Like a drop from an English average
summer day of 65°F. to 32° F. and in 3I hours too !
46 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Rode across level plain, ploughed land, and cornfields,
to Mount Gilboa, starting 8 a.m. Reached the summit of this
bare rocky hill by 10.30, to find a dirty village occupying the
best point of view, and a cactus hedge doing its best to
obstruct where possible. Here was a woman wielding the
distaff — and from awful holes in the ground crept out numer-
ous dirty children, dogs and chickens, which apparently live
together. In spite of the dirt, the girls here too are very
pretty. The Philosopher's field-glass was much admired.
One man in looking through it at the village of Nazareth,
intimated that he could put his foot in Nazareth, and dwelt
in a long and excited harangue on its merits and marvels to
the assembled village. I gave my strength, however,
not to the villagers, but to a careful sketch of the views —
which took some considerable time. I wanted to get a
thorough grip of the plain of Esdraelon, and the subsidiary
plain of Jezreel, with a view to a better understanding of their
bearing on history. And as since then we have crossed and
recrossed the great plain, and practically circumnavigated
it, I think we have clearly impressed its features on our
minds.
JEZREEL.
At our feet was the treeless plain of Jezreel, brown, green
and yellow, sloping rapidly down to Beisan in the Ghor.
Beyond the Ghor was the long line of Gilead, hazy and grey-
blue in the heat of the sirocco wind, which blew up from them
hot and lifeless. The plain of the Jordan in the Vt^ide bit by
Beisan was just visible through this haze also, and what a
heat there must have been down in that crack ! ! We could
make out where Galilee lay hidden — thence the eye was led
up to the heights of lordly Hermon. Safed was visible set
on a hill just not eclipsed by the dark dome of Tabor. Oppo-
site rose Moreh — Little Hermon — or the Jebel Dahi, whence
the line of Galilean hills, with Nazareth white on the green
slopes, led the eye away to the grey sea. (It was not blue
PALESTINE NOTES. 47
when the sirocco was blowing, but grey, under a leaden
haze).
On the plain at the foot of Mount Moreh, we can spot
without the glasses the mud village of Shunem (the villages
of the plain are mud like the Egyptian, for the plain is clear of
the stones which cover the hills and upland valleys). A little
further out is El Fuleh — a Crusaders' fort — the camping
ground of the Philistines when Saul met his death, and when
Gideon and his men watched the slaughter in Jezreel. Also
the scene of a victory by Kleber with 1,500 horse over 25,000
of the Turkish cavalry. Surely Napoleon must have been
one of the great Persian or Egyptian warrior kings in a pre-
vious existence. The Plain of Acre is hidden by the hills of
Galilee, running down to the glen pass of Tel el Rias which
connects that plain with Esdraelon. Carmel rises up steeply
from the flat chequered carpet of brown and green, dark with
its oaks and shrubs, — a strong contrast to the great treeless
plain, where Carmel runs down to lesser elevations to meet
the mountains of Samaria. We can just locate Megiddo, now
Lejjun (a controversial site), and looking southward the hills
of Samaria rise in height as we glance east, Jenin, white in its
green oasis of trees nestling at their foot. Not so compre-
hensive a view as Ebal — it is a view at close quarters — that
from Gilboa is nevertheless amply worth the detour. It is
unquestionably the best point of view for the great [plain. The
descent from Gilboa was steep and awkward through dirty
villages where, again, people seemed to come out of holes
in the ground, and the huts are only ventilated and lit by a
single door — the families living all together, apparently not
excepting the fowls and goats. At the foot we came to a cliff
with a cave in its face, whence welled a spring of beautiful
water — Ain el Jalud — with a great pond of clear water lapping
the cliff -base. Here the natives were bathing in considerable
numbers, and many horses and goats came to drink. It is
supposed to be the spot where Gideon's men lapped ; we
noticed fresh- water crabs here — the first I have seen. Lunch
48 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
was a hot, and not altogether resting occasion. We could get
no shade, and this spring, almost at the head of the Vale of
Jezreel, is below sea-level. A group of girls and boys who had
been bathing, came and watched us with awe. A present of
chocolate frightened and mystified them, even though I ate
some myself, and made the Philosopher eat, I could not
get them to do more than look dubiously at it. One of
the girls, ragged, and not perhaps over clean, nevertheless
possessed great beauty. One sees the most extreme types
among the women here — from an ugliness which is really
revolting, to a beauty rare in England. But it is always
the young girls, twelve to seventeen years of age, who strike
you ; there seem to be no women who can stand the wear
and tear of their hard life, and they seem rapidly to wizen
and grow old. You ride over a swelling upland of ploughed
fields before you reach Esdraelon proper. A low ridge
connects Gilboa and Moreh, and just on the ridge which
marks off the plain of Jezreel as distinct, stands the mud village
that was once royal Jezreel. Across dark brown soil, almost
peaty in appearance, and through great brakes of thistles
we make our way to El Fuleh, where, beside the miserable
huts, we still trace the Crusaders' moat, and here also are our
tents. At night there rose an unpleasant malaria, which,
however, did us no harm ; it appears all this region is still
a swamp in winter.
How we rode thence next day to Megiddo and Mansura ;
how the day after we climbed Carmel and rode down to its
farthest point ; looking up the coast even to Acre ; how
we slept at Haifa and rode on thence to Nazareth where these
lines are written — all these things will be set forth at a future
date. At present, good-bye.
MEGIDDO.
May gth. — We had dosed ourselves with quinine so that
malarial Fuleh did us no harm, and we started at 8 a.m.
to find a cool breeze instead of the exhausting sirocco of
PALESTINE NOTES. 49
the day before. Our ride was across Esdraelon, back in a
south-west direction to Megiddo, which we wanted to explore
at close quarters. Esdraelon was a sort of no man's land,
but is now the possession of wealthy Beyrout Christians,
who collect revenues from the miserable mud villages. The
white house of a steward (we will hope a just one) was our
first land mark. The undulating ground (of a rich peaty,
brown colour) was chiefly occupied by fields of yellow corn,
but great stretches, as yet unreclaimed, yielded only thistles
and hemlock — great towering brakes of them lining our
path. Nothing could be less suggestive than the squalid
mud hovels, and the wilderness of weeds which make the
village of Lejjun (or as some have it Megiddo, and I confess
to feeling personally satisfied with G. A. Smith's plea for
such an identification). I sat on the roof of one of the dwel-
lings, and looking across the thistles and the great sheets
of ripening corn, took a pencil sketch of the historic pass, by
which so many armies have tramped north or south over to
or from the Vale of Sharon. It was sufficiently unassuming
— a herd of camels, perhaps on their way to Gaza, feeding on
the slopes of the hills, and cattle grazing on the round swelling
rise of ground which forms the pass itself. Fragments of
masonry indicated the ancient site, and the sheikh of the
village took us up through the corn to show us a ruined
column which looked very forlorn indeed, standing there
by itself " all alone." It is all that remains above ground
of the ancient Legio. In a hot sun we skirted the rising
spurs of Carmel, lunching under the grateful shade of a large
olive, and crossed the famous brook Kishon, very much a
brook and densely shrouded in oleander. Our camp was
at Mansura, a little hamlet on the slopes of Carmel. The
foreground was dotted with numerous white tents — not
the tents of Sisera, who camped near that very spot, but
Turkish cavalry with horses out to grass. Esdraelon's
military traditions were asserting themselves. At night our
minimum temperature was 64° F.
50 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
CARMEL.
Friday, May loth. — We at once began steeply to climb
from our camping ground by a rugged path overhung now
and then by crags. The scenery very rapidly changed,
and we felt our surroundings to be distinctly more English.
A fine oak tree at one point overhung with welcome sug-
gestions of home — our first oak since England. The flowers
were luxuriant — especially a hollyhock-like plant and others
like tissue-paper roses, which all faded, unfortunately, in
the saddle bag a few minutes after being picked. One was
struck, after the bare plain, with the wealth of undergrowth
and trees, thyme, wild almond, terebinth, olive, fir, sycamore,
and at the same time we felt on our faces the dampness of
the breeze from the sea. It is this latter that explains the
former. Carmel is green long after the surrounding country
has been burnt brown. At the top (the highest point over-
looks Esdraelon, not the sea) we came upon a chapel marking
the spot where Elijah is said to have withstood the prophets
of Baal. Clouds were rolling in from the Mediterranean,
and unfortunately prevented us seeing the full extent of
the view.
Landward we could not see beyond Tabor and Gilboa.
To the south we got a peep at Sharon, hazy and cloud- driven,
and looked over the shallow ridge, or potato heap rather,
which divides it from Esdraelon.
So far we had had a Druse guide, who had engaged to
take us to the point looking over the sea. Here, however,
he calmly left us in spite of all expostulation, and we were
left to find our way alone. John, the dragoman, did not
know the exact path, for strictly speaking there are no paths,
and we soon lost our way in the dense jungles of thorn and
wild almond, etc., etc. We had read that leopards can still
be shot on Mount Carmel, and momentarily expected their
roar, and flashing teeth in our horses' throats — but they must
have been tame leopards ; with all our beating about the bush
we failed to raise a single specimen. And here I just wish
PALESTINE NOTES. 51
to say that I don't agree with G. A. Smith when he says that
Mount Ephraim, Mount Carmel is better taken as meaning
a " Mount " rather than " hill-country." I had looked on
Carmel as a single mount or ridge at one time, but in this ride
of ours we found it to be a group of bold hills, with flat high
valleys like Alps, villages, etc. At times you get so among
these vales that you might be in Samaria — and though you
frequently have views of Esdraelon, which with its squares
and patches of green and yellow and brown looks like a badly
designed carpet, you by no means have a continuous view,
nor the sense of being on a ridge until you near the sea. At
Es Fujeh, a Druse village, we had a fine view north to Acre,
and looked over the golden sweep of sand to the green plain
beyond, but Galilee was hidden all day in mist. After pres-
sing sundry Druses into our service here and there as guides,
and losing our way again when they left us with full but
false directions, we finally lunched in a copse where the
mountains dip to the sea, and where the rest of our road
was in view. With the cold sea breeze in our faces (welcome
after the sirocco) we rode down to the extreme point which
is disfigured by a large Carmelite monastery with iron barred
windows. Here from the terrace there was a glorious view
— south as far as Athlit — north to Acre with Haifa at our
feet. It was very refreshing to hear the wave music again,
and to see the white fringe of foam on the beach. Among
its green trees we noticed too, the pleasant relief of the red
roofs of the German colony — giving unwonted colour to the
scene. The flat roofs of the East are not picturesque, especi-
ally from above. After our horses had manceuvered round
considerably in fear of the Monastery dogs, which were very
obstreperous, we rode down a delightful path into Haifa.
Vineyards and hops on either hand spoke of the German's
love for his Roth Wein and Bier, while almond, fig, olive,
apple, acacia and great stacks of geranium, but especially
the palm trees, reminded one of the southern latitudes. It
was curious to see how neat everything was, to see German
52 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
faces and the wicker perambulators, and unveiled women
a veritable " Deutsche Wirthschaft," along with the cypresses
away here in Syria. When we came near the sea our horses
shied at the sound of the waves — we could hardly get them
on at all — that speaks volumes for the dryness of the land,
for surely a waterfall would have trained them to this had
they ever heard one.
We found our tents under an olive tree of great dimen-
sions in the outskirts of the dirtiest part of the Mohammedan
quarter, and the view from our tent door of the palms, whole
groves of them — the yellow strip of coast and the sea beyond,
reminded me strangely of Egypt.
NAZARETH.
Saturday, May nth. — We had seen Nazareth now since
reaching Jenin, and to-day we really set off to go there.
We were glad to make haste and leave the plain for the i,ooo
feet of elevation which Nazareth enjoys, as the heat soon
became close and oppressive. Especially on the long flat
road skirting the base of Carmel were we made to feel the sun's
unmerciful lash, for there was little or no shade, and the white
dust of the road — a real road for once — reflected the dazzling
light and beat back the heat into our faces. " It was 'ammer,
'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'igh road," with a vengeance.
It was an unwonted experience ; instead of picking our way
over a dry stream bed, to be cantering hour after hour and
actually covering the ground. As we rode out of Haifa
we had an excellent mirage across the plain to the north,
giving the impression of a palm-bordered lake where we
knew only the plain of Acre to be — also, to remind us that
this is not a land of Parish Councils, we came on a dead donkey
in the Nazareth highway, which was being devoured by dogs,
— a prelude only to a dead horse, which we were to see later
in the day on the village green (threshing floor) in Nazareth
itself, undergoing the same process. What would become
of the Oriental without his dogs ? An interesting testimony
PALESTINE NOTES. 53
to the summer heat, and an ilhistration of Scripture withal,
was to be observed in the booths or summer houses of boughs
and leaves built on the flat roofs of the village huts. We met
women bending under great heaps, miniature stacks of green
leaf foliage, which was to be made use of as a summer residence.
Then I must not forget the railway : G. A. Smith and
Baedeker, both in haste to be up to date, mention a railway
from Haifa down the vale of Jezreel and up the east side of
Tiberias to Damascus. They both reckoned without the
unspeakable Turk. He has in some way or other fallen foul
of the French Company* who were constructing the line,
and all is at a dead stop and likely to be. The line follows
the road, overgrown with thistles two miles out of Haifa,
and then stops. What could you want more than this, and
the dead donkey in the road, to tell you that you are in the
great and glorious Ottoman Empire ?
Baedeker also speaks of the " excellent carriage road to
Nazareth " just finished. It may have been quite excellent,
say after the manner of a country lane before the winter
rains, but now there is no evidence whatever of any attempt
at keeping the road in repair, and the wash-outs are as the
rains left them. I pity those who travel this road by carriage,
especially those who travel by the sort of rude country waggon
service which has been established, and which we passed
as it jolted and swayed and tilted its way down to Haifa.
Commend me even to the irritating trot of a Syrian horse
by preference. At one point I ought to say, however, they
were really making a bridge. The engineer was European,
the navvies were women.
I think I never saw so many chameleons in one day
as I did on that ride — they were everywhere — even gazing
skyward with a curious intentness, as if reading the stars,
from the tops of the telegraph posts. They are a very curious
feature in your day's ride — they have such an unearthly
* Afterwards the Thames Iron Company, Ltd. — Ed,
54 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
appearance, as if made of crumpled paper with nothing
inside.
Lunch was under a spreading oak tree, in cool shade, and
with oaks dotting the vale on every side. For all the world
this first low Shephelah of Galilee was like Surrey, and had the
greenness of our own dear old country. But with a difference,
for as we lunched there passed a procession that has been
repeated over and over again since Abraham's day. A long
line of camels laden with corn from the Hauran, going down
to Gaza — and if they could not sell their goods there, on
to Cairo.
Camels from the Hauran had been reposing round our
tents at Haifa, coming in the evening and sitting down with
that curious telescopic action that a camel has, folding himself
up bit by bit deliberately as if it hurt him to sit down ; but
these were going no further than Haifa, and indeed passed us
shortly after the first string of camels had gone by, in their
return journey. Nothing changes in the east, and I am almost
glad that the railway to Damascus is not going to be finished
just yet, these bits of fossilised history are none too common.
A descent into the plain of Esdraelon, followed by the final
steep ascent of the main Nazarene range, soon brought us up
to a sort of plateau land, limestone and shrub with the sug-
gestion almost of English moor country. East, Carmel,
Haifa, the sea, all hazy and grey-blue, except for the gleam of
yellow sand. North, round hills, grey-green and yellowish
brown, rising as you look still further north to the highlands
of upper Galilee — Sepphoris, and sundry other mud villages
peeping out here and there. North-east, Hermon. East the
dark green rounded hill of Tabor, and south the great plains.
Such roughly was our view as we clattered along to the strag-
gling village in its hollow depression in the edge of the cliff -like
ranges of hills,which bears one of the most world famous names.
A first view of Nazareth is most disappointing. Hideous
modern churches and an excessively vulgar renaissance resi-
dence or school, brand new, are the objects which strike you
PALESTINE NOTES. 55
as you breast the rise in the road, and ride down through the
suburbs. We pass the well, the 07ily spring, where, no doubt,
young Mary came with the other village girls to gossip and
perhaps get impatient for her turn as the girls do now. They
were laughing and chatting, and I am afraid pushing and squab-
bling, as no doubt in days of yore, as we rode past. A gay
motley crew in their loose, baggy, many coloured trousers
and sashes. Our tents were barely ready for us, we had ridden
so fast, and before they were up we had had a lively introduc-
tion to Nazarene society. Somehow or other, I don't know
how, a man and his wife, living near the camping ground,
started to abuse our cook in good round Arabic. The hubbub
grew momentarily — outsiders joined and took parts — all our
camp followers rushed out and began hurling back Arabic
equally vigorous at the offenders. Harma not liking the
look of things, sent for the soldiers, and soon he was en-
tertaining the officer at coffee and giving his account of the
affair. Two soldiers arrested the man, but we were entirely
averse to any proceedings being taken, and said we did not
wish him to be sent to jail ; let him apologise and promise
" never to do so any more." This he did, whether at the bay-
onet's point or how I do not know, and the affair passed away
just as it was about to make an unpleasantly large stir in the
village, a considerable crowd having collected in due course.
We were able to appreciate Baedeker's statement that
" the Nazarenes are of a turbulent disposition," after this
without any difficulty.
After dinner we climbed up to a sort of pass in the Tiberias
road (sic) where Hermon came into view, and were rewarded
by a lovely sunset. We made up our minds we would keep
to the hills, do no sightseeing, visit the well once or twice
and stop two days. This we did, and as a consequence Nazar-
eth grew upon us. We have not had our memory marred
by monkish superstition, candles, incense and false relics
and sites. We carry away with us chiefly the memory of
breezy hills with an extensive prospect, of a grey-green hollow
56 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
dotted with white houses and a few cypresses, and perhaps
above all the gay bustling scenes around the village spring.
And I don't feel that I have missed anything in " doing "
Nazareth so lazily. One can only stand Jerusalem once,
and does not crave to have it repeated.
Sunday, May 12th. — A very heavy dew in the night —
the tent wringing wet, and the dew dripping off the eaves into
the ground like rain.
It was Sunday, and we simply lazed all day, reading,
strolling about on the hills, and writing. Our tents were
on the slope of the hill wliich you climb on the ride to Tiberias
— high up, and overlooking the hollow with the scattered
village. A very nice site it was for a camping ground if only
the Nazarene dogs had sought some other trysting ground
at night, and howled and barked their serenades elsewhere.
So lazy were we, that our chief expedition was to a hill com-
manding a fine view that rises behind the village. We had
the same view as I have already described, only complete
and \ little more extensive, including land across Jordan.
Our old travelling companion, Hermon — seen every day
since Bethel, — reminded us of Pilatus, having just about as
much snow as Pilatus in early summer, and appreciably
less than when we first saw him, so fast was the snow dis-
appearing.
I wish, as over and over again I have wished while in
Syria, that I could number botany as an" accomplishment " ;
— I can only say of the Nazarene flowers that the ground
seemed mainly covered by a sort of scrub — not prepossessing,
— which is enlivened by pinks, purple asters, and the same
hollyhock-like plant I noticed in Carmel. The dogs we found
troublesome, as they rush out and bark at you quite un-
provoked. Of course you find the mixture of religion here
again as at Jerusalem. We met a long string of girls in prim
uniform under the charge of nuns, and continually came across
a monk in brown gown, or a shovel-hatted Latin priest.
PALESTINE NOTES. 57
The girls, many with a distinct beauty foreign to the
prevailing types we had seen, and suggesting French or
Italian blood, are the most interesting, quarrelling round
the well, and striding through the streets with their great
black jars on their heads. Even little tinies, three or four
years old, go to the spring carrying little wooden dummy
jars upon their heads to make believe they are carrying
water. They do not seem to mind being sketched or photo-
graphed — we found we were able to do both with impunity.
Monday, May i^th. — (Night temperature 58° F.). I
consider I was very diligent in the morning — painting in
Edward Worsdell's outline pencil sketch of the view from
behind Nazareth, especially as a cold, dry wind dried up
the washes before you were prepared for it, and rendered
painting difficult.
In the afternoon we witnessed the arrival of the Pasha
of the district coming over from Tiberias to visit Tjnre, where
the Christians and Mohammedans had been fighting and killing
each other. He was an old man, enormously fat. Appar-
ently all Nazareth, i.e., male Nazareth, went out to meet him
in procession. Mohammedans first, and Christians afterwards.
Poor old Pasha, he must have suffered on the rough Tiberias
path. He was an enormous old Turk, — one feared to see the
horse break in two as he rode down past the tents, gingerly
and slow.
Tuesday, May 14th. — Throughout we found Nazareth
very pleasant and cool. At no time did the tent exceed
80° F. which we have got to find very endurable.
THE LAKE OF GALILEE.
The ride down was not eventful, nor was it at all a striking
one. We went by way of Kefr Kenna {possibly Cana of
Galilee), down bare valleys clothed with scrub at times,
occasionally between remarkable hedges of cactus, and
58 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
pushing our way through thorny brakes and across cornfields
when we made short cuts.
At Kefr Kenna the horses were stopped to drink at the
village trough, which proved to be a Roman Sarcophagus,
with battered stone wreathing still visible upon it. We
lunched, as we always do when we can, in an olive orchard,
and rode over bare uplands, rolling and featureless except
for the somewhat striking top of Kurn Hattin, marking
Saladin's great victory over the Crusaders — the death blow
of all the Crusades. Here an eagle, perched on a telegraph
pole, allowed us to get a near view of him, and then rose and
sailed away into space. Great herds of black cattle, driven
by Bedouin with formidable clubs and staves, passed us from
time to time. We purchased specimens from the astonished
natives to illustrate the rod and staff that comforted free-
booting David, who must have been far more like the fierce
dark-looking cattle drovers in their black and yellow cloaks,
than the idealistic pictures one is accustomed to.
At last the Lake of Galilee comes into sight. The long
level wall of the opposite shores — unrelieved and unbroken —
the one relieving feature. Old Hermon presiding over the
scene at the northern end. Nothing has more surprised
me than Galilee. I suppose one unconsciously idealises
historic scenes such as crowd the shores of this lake, and it is
somewhat disturbing to preconceived ideas to find these
stirring scenes set in such commonplace surroundings. But
the dreariness of Galilee is not its worst feature — the dull
black basalt shores are at least more tolerable than the awful
oppressiveness of the climate.
Our descent was steep, and our first view of the one town,
Tiberias, striking and picturesque. Anyone who has been
to Tiberias will smile when he is told that it is a health resort
for the natives. Of course, the attraction is the sulphur
hot spring, it is certainly not fever -stricken Tiberias itself.
We rode through its close, stuffy streets — hung across
with rags to keep off the sun ; we looked into its slummy
PALESTINE NOTES. 59
courts, smelt its many and fearful smells, and were not sur-
prised to see the washed-out pale faces of the inhabitants
— (mainly Jews who had been paid their passage from Europe
by wealthy brethren who still maintain them). And yet
Tiberias is named as one of the four sacred towns by the
Jews, the others being Hebron, Jerusalem and Safed.
Baedeker says that the King of the Fleas lived at Tiberias.
If there is such a functionary, I think the locality must be
correct, but how human beings can come here by choice
I do not know. I have not heard it suggested before, but is
it not possible that the climate, along with the invasions
from beyond Jordan and other causes, has had its share in
depopulating the district ? The once populous lake of Galilee
was 600 feet below the sea 1,800 years ago as now — and then
as now, the sea breezes would pass over to the Hauran and
send no healing breath down to those feverish shores, while
the sun would beat down just as fiercely and mercilessly.*
Our tents were near the springs and faced the lake —
a decidedly pleasant situation and well away from the town,
whose black basalt castle dates from Herod's time, and
whose ruined walls and white houses were more picturesque
at a distance.
May ijth. — The temperature at night fell to 70° F.
— cool for GaUlee — but owing to the moist density of the
atmosphere, much more trying than 80° F. at Nazareth.
We simply streamed with perspiration all night. The drago-
man had told me at Nazareth that the camp followers were
always glad to get out of the Galilee and Huleh district as
soon as possible. I could understand him even then — much
more so two days later — and if the natives feel this, is not
it rather in support of my argument as to the climate being
a depopulating agent ?
We had a morning bathe, though the Galilee water is
not pleasant — a disagreeable taste and smell, and green scum
*May it not well be that the land, no less than the people, has
"developed by way of deterioration" under Moslem rule. — Ed.
6o JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
on the surface, and shortly after seven, having had our break-
fast, rode south along the shore to see the exit of the Jordan.
A party of natives had pitched their tents outside the Baths,
coming all the way from Jaffa for the purpose — and such
baths — the stained, damp, filthy exterior of the buildings
ought surely have been sufficient to keep all customers at a
distance, not to mention the frightful smell.
The Jordan makes a modest exit — through a plain, I
suppose, of its own making — an agreeable green patch among
the arid hills. What a place of ruins it is ! We rode past
great blocks of black basalt masonry, ruinous and grass grown,
nearly all the length of the ride. We bathed from a ruined
wall and the bottom was bad because of the blocks with
which the shores are lined. If only Galilee were under English
government and proper excavations could be made !
At 9.30 a.m. we were back at our camp, already limp
with the heat — not the direct heat of the sun, for the sky was
grey, but the close heat of an unventilated greenhouse. We
took ship and sailed to Capernaum, — at least to Tell Hum,
which may very possibly not be Capernaum at all — so great
is the doubt and obscurity in which the ancient sites are
buried. We only had to pay twenty francs for the trip —
very modest. We should have declined to go, but were too
limp to sit in our saddles. We wanted to sail out into the
middle of the lake, but that would be five francs more — in
fact, any deviation was five francs, so we had to just put up
with it and be sailed and rowed, we did not care what, to
Tell Hum. I never want such another experience. There
was no relief. I can understand people going crazy with the
heat. The heat of Egypt though probably greater, was far
more endurable as it was dry and crisp. Now and then we
had a pretty bit — oleanders giving the banks a blaze of
crimson colour.
At Tell Hum we met three English ladies with their
dragoman, and explored the black basalt ruins with them.
But there was notliing to see — the monks (there is a monastery
PALESTINE NOTES. 6i
there) had hidden everything under a pile of rubbish for fear
of the Turkish government, so there was nothing left to do
but to sketch and lunch, and row back to Khan Minyeh, our
camping ground. Here we bathed again and gathered the
curious shells that looked as if they ought to be on a seashore.
There is a beautiful spring here welling out under a crag,
and bubbling among basalt ruins, numerous tortoises basking
in its shallow, clear water — and great brakes of tall papyrus.
The place was not healthy — camping practically in a marsh
— but the three ladies had their camp there, too, and what
three ladies were not afraid of, we were not going to be. Late
in the evening the ladies' dragoman passed our tents, his
hands full of birds. He had been shooting, and had got a
number of blue kingfishers, magnificent colour — but I begged
a specimen in vain.
At night the temperature fell to 75° F. It was not pos-
sible to sleep much — the dense swarms of mosquitoes defied
evasion and got inside the curtains. The poor camp followers
had a fearful time of it — John being bitten all over his portly
self and very doleful thereat in the morning. In addition one
of the grooms caught a fever, small wonder — and we were
glad when, on May i6th, we set off over the hills to Huleh, a
doleful and washed out crew.
THE GALILEAN HILLS.
But we were not destined that day to get much
fresher air — occasionally a puff came from the west, but
that was all. We rode over country similar in character
to that which separates Nazareth from Galilee. A large
Khan (Khan Jubb Josef) surrounded by cattle was the first
object of any note unless one were to mention the ants busy
all day dragging grains of bearded wheat to their little colonies.
They were very busy harvesting indeed. Before we descended
into the Huleh valley, we passed a colony floated and financed
by Rothschilds. Barbed wire fencing — well cultivated
ground, red-roofed houses, white, neat and clean. How this
62 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
land would blossom out again if it could be rescued from the
dilapidating influence of the Turk. Huleh is merely a moun-
tain tarn. It looked rather dreary, hung over by a heavy
heat haze which made the mountains opposite indistinct.
As with Galilee, Hermon dominated everything, and gave
the only character to the scene that the view possessed.
At a spring and beside running water we lunched. An
old mill stood near, and here evidently the cattle from far
and near were wont to take their noonday siesta. It was
not long before we were surrounded by a lowing herd, and
finally we found our operations with the sardines and soda
water followed in breathless suspense, awestruck and admiring,
by thirteen Bedouin shepherds. One of these was playing
a lute made from a reed, and carved rudely during his leisure
hours. Being again reminded of David, I managed with
some diplomacy on John's part to purchase this treasure
for the vast sum of threepence, which seemed mightily to
please.
A tiring ride in oppressive heat brought us about 5.30
to our tents, pitched on a patch of dry ground at a spring
called Ain Masas, not far from the great marsh which lies
north of Huleh. Beyond us was a large Bedouin camp —
dozens of the low black tents being scattered over the plain.
We were allowed to stroll up close to them without let or
hindrance, and to watch the evening meal from the common
pot, which served for all the family. We were a little anxious
as to malaria. We could see the ominous white mist rise
over the marsh, but providentially the wind blew from our
side throughout the night. When we went to bed there
rose on every side, not a murmur, but a roar of frogs — even
I could hear it. Again the temperature fell only to 75° F.
and again the close, damp air made us suffer considerably.
I had just dozed off when a crash woke me. The Philosopher
was lighting the candle, and the tent was every now and
then lit up by vivid flashes of lightning. The rain was coming
down in torrents, and the wind blowing a hurricane, had
PALESTINE NOTES. 63
almost carried off the tent. Found Strabo and the Philoso-
pher sitting up in bed, luggage scattering over the marsh,
and the tent no one knows where. However, we were spared
that. John was out before we had time to call, and we heard
him and his men rush out into the rain and hold on to the
straining ropes, hammering down the pegs and making all
square again. It was a near shave, but soon the storm
rolled away down to Galilee, muttering and rumbling among
the hills, and we were able to turn over and sleep with our
confidence in our dragoman considerably increased. The
work had been promptly and smartly done.
Friday, May lyth. — Still oppressive. The thunder had
not cleared the air. Hermon was hid in heavy cloud.
Starting before eight, we rode weary and unrefreshed
by our sleep over the steaming plain — all the streams swollen
with muddy torrents from the rain, — and the ground soft
and muddy. It was squelch, squelch through the bog,
and splash, splash through a running stream, or stumble,
stumble over rough, rocky paths — and all the while you were
steaming in a Turkish bath. At seven o'clock breakfast,
the thermometer had risen to over 80° F. and was rising then
— and a damp heat like that is as exhausting as anything I
know. We were scarcely in the mood to enjoy the glorious
banks of oleander, or wonder at the great masses of papyrus.
But at length the change came. We had crossed the plain
to the east and breasted the first low spurs of Hermon, — we
had crossed the Hasbana — one of the sources of Jordan,
a cold mountain stream roaring down over its rocks like a
Swiss torrent, a most welcome sight and carrying with it a
whiff of the pure mountain air. We had lunched under fig
trees within earshot of the roar of Jordan's main stream
issuing from its cave — and were close under the fine castled
hill of Banias — the ancient Caesarea PhiHppi — when lo !
behold the clouds vanished and from the west, chasing them
before him, came the cool sea breeze. It was wonderful
64 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
the effect on one's spirits, and how the colour of everything
changed under the old cloudless blue we had learned to
associate with the East. Behind, like a nightmare, lay Galilee
and Huleh, before us the heights of Hermon and the charm
of Damascus. If you want to see Galilee, look down on it
from the heights, but do not go down to the lake itself.*
After lunch we strolled up and examined the actual source
of the river that over two weeks before we had seen flowing
into the Dead Sea. It was issuing from a number of shallow
caves at the foot of a limestone crag in a lovely wooded glen.
Above on the rock face were two niches, Greek — dedicated
to the god Pan. This spot, and no wonder, had impressed
the ancients. The water was icy cold. The Philosopher
bathed in it and came out gasping in half-a-minute. Less
venturesome I only dipped my head in it, and withdrew it
dizzy and aching. It was a refreshing contrast to the warm,
slimy water of Galilee. And so we passed out of Palestine
zig-zagging up, up, in magnificent air, and with widening views
over the Galilean hills — up, up, till the valleys became rocky
and bare, and the snow on Hermon seemed close too. Half-
an-hour's climb above, and finally breasting a ridge of rock
we came on a mountain valley under Hermon's very crown,
and there were our tents pitched by the village of Mejdel esh
Shems, between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above the sea. The air
was magnificent, and we noticed at once the difference in the
people. Down in Galilee and Huleh they were a poor, fever-
stricken set of people with no go about them — here the children
were romping about the green — the men were fine and sturdy,
and the women good-looking and with plenty of colour in
their cheeks. We went to bed with all our available rugs,
etc., pressed into the service, and a hot water bottle was
actually a comfort. Temperature at night 47° F.
* The account of the Lake of Galilee is a warning against Europeans
visiting it so late as May. In the earlier spring it may give very diff-
erent impressions, and leave memories of great and attractive beauty.
Sails on the lake have been a crowning enjoyment to some of J.W. R.'s
kinsfolk. — Ed.
PALESTINE NOTES. 65
Saturday, May 18th. — We woke immensely refreshed
by a really good night, to hear a rather queer tale from John.
Mejdel esh Shems is a Druse village, and four days previously
a Druse had murdered the son of a Kurdish village sheikh,
at Artuz, on our way to Damascus. The Druses had been
behaving badly, driving off cattle, etc., and the Kurds would
have no more of it, and were out on the war- trail, sworn to
kill every Druse they could get. Moreover, an American
had been robbed on this very route a little while ago. The
awkwardness of it all lay in the constitution of our party.
Two of our muleteers happened to be Druses from this very
village. However, we decided to travel with the baggage
and to disguise the Druses — and accordingly set out, a large
and imposing party. As a matter of fact, all we saw of the
disturbed state of things was an armed Druse sentry silent
on the hill-slope as we descended the pass, and a troop of
Turkish cavalry sent out to restore order. Nevertheless,
the incident was very suggestive. The state of things in Old
Testament times was after all very similar to this.
[The travellers visited Damascus and Baalbec, and returned
by way of the Friends' Mission at Brumana.]
PHOTOGRAPHING POMPEH.
You must understand that at Naples I had with me a
companion both charming and witty. He had only one fault.
He was an amateur photographer. Perhaps I must not blame
him. In these days of Weissmann and Romanes we trace
everything to heredity. We don't blame, we never get
angry, we only murmur " poor feUow," and sincerely pity.
Perhaps some primeval protozoa had indefinable yearnings
somewhere in his body to perpetuate for posterity the dear
lineaments of his brother jelly fishes, and it may well be that
through aeons of days this yearning crystallised into the
concrete photographic brain. This, of course, is a process for
which my friend was not responsible. It was lovely weather
We had knocked off Rome in the early morning. Not built
in a day, they say, but it had revealed its charms to us in an
hour, and in the afternoon we were on the threshold of the
City of the Dead.
Still in the narrow, untenanted streets, as narrow as our
Shambles, York, or at best as broad as High Petergate, you may
trace the ruts of the chariot wheels, and picture to yourself
what grand old rows there must have been between the Pom-
peian cabbies as to right of way, richer perhaps in gesture,
but surely not in fertility of speech than their contemporaries
in London town.
But the quaint little wine and oil shops, with their marble
slabs pierced with round holes for the cool stone jars, the
mosaic shop signs, the shocking depravity of brick fluted
columns covered with cement — shams even in ancient Pompeii
— the real lead pipes in the baths pro\ang how ancient and
respectable is the plumber (heredity again) — the perfectly
66
PHOTOGRAPHING POMPEH. 67
preserved baths — all these wonders fished out of the lava
deeps were only so much stock in trade for my friend the
amateur.
Think how much fine writing I might indulge in. Here
you have all the material for effective rhodomontade. The
roofless houses, the blue Italian sky, the everlasting hills,
the shortness of human life, the swiftness of Nemesis, the
threatening curl of volcanic smoke, like the growl of a watch-
dog only half asleep (though I am not sure of the likeness
between a curl of smoke and a watch-dog's growl !)
The sleep of ages in the grey enveloping dust — the
deserted barracks of the gladiators — the arena where they
fought and died — the dumb testimony to a gay, luxurious
life, petrified now in the remains which still seem to writhe
under their glass lids in the museum.
It is a splendid opportunity ; but I shall have to forego
it. That is the curse of photography ! when you would be
poetic, the camera with its hard matter of fact nature, single-
eyed to photographic effect, dispels the fairy vision, and with
its sharp cUck, frightens the fluttering Nine back to their
Olympian home.
For the whole of a long hot afternoon our amateur
toiled on. He was very diligent. He climbed up impossible
ways, up dangerous, crumbling walls, and fixed his little
instrument with skill, first for this, and then that panorama.
He was very careful. How he calculated the time
exposure in all the difficult circumstances, how he watched
the direction of the sunlight, how he sought for fine effects
of light and shade.
He was after all a master, this amateur, and the proud
consciousness that comes with the mastery of art lit up his
face, as he threw himself into the work with his whole soul.
Particularly do I remember the elaborate operations in
a certain Pompeian garden. But recently discovered, and
only half excavated, emerging from the dust and scoriae,
which had so long covered the bright mosaic like a pall, the
68 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
wall decorations — the marble carvings in their freshness were
strikingly suggestive of the bygone days.
The picture was worth securing ; the classic foreground,
the heaps of grey ash still concealing half the mosaic designs,
the loud-voiced Yankee's impious inquiries from a world
which knows not yet the mellowing influences and sobriety
of age.
This was to be the amateur's masterpiece, and when at
last we found ourselves in the train, coasting the bay, and
nearing the twinkling lights of Naples, it was not to be
wondered at that I was treated to a retrospect of the labours
by which an amateur becomes a master. Solemnly was I
warned of the pitfalls besetting the unwary footsteps of the
tjTo. I was properly humbled, both at the magnitude of the
enterprise if I aspired thereto, and the height of the pinnacle
from which my friend looked down.
It was somewhat unfortunate, indeed very unfortunate,
that on arriving at the hotel, our friend, the amateur, found
he had made a little omission.
He had in fact, forgotten to put any films into his camera,
and I am given to understand that without films photographs
are apt to be obscure.
MEXICO AND THE WEST.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
A delightful diary remains of a journey in 1898 to
the West Indies and Mexico, and back by the United States.
John Wilhelm Rowntree (who was greatly in need of a
holiday) was accompanied by his wife, and friend, Lawrence
Richardson. The tour was evidently a time of great refresh-
ment. Some extracts from the journal referring to Mexico,
and the crossing over to the United States will give a fair
idea of its descriptive power.
MEXICO AND THE WEST.
The travellers, after visiting Trinidad, the Barbadoes and
Jamaica, "of all the islands the most delightful," sailed for
Mexico. They arrived at the City of Mexico on the 13th
March, 1898.
The journal proceeds : —
Our chief delight this first day was an extensive indulgence
at the barber's shop. After the heat and dust of two days'
travel, a haircut and shampoo are bliss unspeakable. The
only fly in the ointment was the publicity of the whole pro-
ceeding, the barber's shop opening on to the street direct,
and the chairs being only just inside the arch. A man feels
an ignominious reptile when lathered up to the nose, and left
thus by the barber for the sport of the passers-by !
From the barber's we passed to the Bank. Were there
letters ? Yes ! After that Mexico City was a matter of
indifference to us, and we retired to the hotel with our spoil,
spending the afternoon \vriting, reading letters, and unpacking,
and doing all those hundred little things which people call
" settling in."
Mexico City is in some ways disappointing. Evidently
every year will lessen its picturesqueness. American in-
fluence is everywhere apparent, and is bringing Mexico down
to the dead level of what we call " civilisation." This level-
ling process is really very serious. The world won't be nearly
as interesting to our children and children's children as it is
now. Here, in the far west, the same destruction of indi-
viduality which I have seen going on at Damascus and Cairo
is visibly at work. The sombrero is yielding place to the
bowler and tall hat, the serape to the overcoat, and already
71
72 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
the well-to-do Mexican ladies, with the rare exception of an
ancient Conservative dame, are yielding to the seductions
of Paris, and abandoning the becoming mantilla. We heard
Carracas called the Paris of South America. Judging by the
buildings newly erected and in course of construction, the
Mexicans seem anxious to win for their city the title of the
Paris of Central America. The same debased — debauched is
really more expressive — Renaissance mars every street. The
Rue de Rivoli seems destined to be repeated from Damas-
cus to the farthest west. Won't it be a duU world when all
this is accomplished ? However, there are some lovely
bits which will take a good deal of spoiling. The Jockey
Club in the Calle San Francisco, of which for the nonce L. R.
and myself have been appointed honorary members, with full
opportunity of gambling away our substance in baccarat, —
is a glorious old building in blue and white tiles, over a hundred
years old, and with a grand central court. This, with its
tiled basin and plashing fountain, we have secured in a couple
of photos, which will describe better than pen and ink. Not
far off in the same street is the Hotel Iturbide, an old palace
with a wonderful array of elaborate waterspouts, and a f agade
the style of which it would be difficult to locate.
March lyth. — I only wish I could give you some clear
idea of all we have seen, and especially of the wonderful
brilliance of the colouring. Please remember, when you are
wading through my dreary descriptions of tramcar rides and
Cathedrals, that the reality was infinitely interesting. First
of all, there is the brilliant and incessant sunshine. I have
been able to dispense with my sunshade because I have become
acclimatised, but I have not yet dared to discard my double
Terai hat in the fierce blaze of the Mexican sun. And sun-
shine in Mexico is something altogether different from sunshine
in York. Strong colour in the tiles which glitter on the Church
domes, or which adorn the facades of the houses, is not out of
MEXICO AND THE WEST. 73
place ; on the contrary, very effective, in the sharp, clear
light. You get colour effects quite foreign (I do not say
superior) to those in England — effects which, while they lack
the soft greys and atmospheric haziness of an English lands-
scape, have a charm and interest of their own.
Every day when you awake, and draw aside your window
curtain, there is the same cloudless blue — the same brilliant
colour, the same glare of the white houses, and the same sharp-
ness of the black shadows, the same emphasised distinctness,
even of distant architectural details. There is a sense of
perpetual summer, which is certainly an unwonted experience ;
and I want you to remember that all I have described, except
where I particularise to the contrary, must be understood as
taking place or being seen under such cloudless skies and bril-
liant sun. But, even more than the sunshine, there is the
ever present human interest. I tell you that we take cars
to San Angel, and come back by Coyoacan and Tlalpam,
but that is simply a skeleton truth, and it is, alas, impossible
to clothe it in flesh and blood. The people in the car, on the
road, in the villages, are an interest and a sight in themselves.
Any car ride will do, any objective may be selected ; the
scenes by the wayside are sure to make the excursion interest-
ing. Here goes a waggon, drawn, not by two oxen, but by
two bulls, helpless under their heavy yoke. By their side
runs a little copper-coloured fellow in a shirt that barely
reaches below his armpits, his frowsy head decorated by two
sombreros, one on top of t'other. He carries an ox-goad,
with which he pricks up the team with zest, turning his black,
bead-like eyes on you as you pass, and flashing a smile with
his white teeth. In the waggon with its solid wood wheels,
more square than round — roofed with rushes, squats the
mother, dressed in a low-cut white chemise and blue gown —
a tiny little baby at her breast. Sprawling by her is the baby
next in age, deep black eyes, towsled hair, scanty little smock,
bare, fat brown legs, and a grave philosophical look on its
little face. By their side sits the father, a big, burly Indian,
74 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
with a short, thick, black beard, tall sombrero ; wrapped in
his scarlet serape, beneath which peeps his white trousers,
and bare dusty feet. Or again, here are two Spaniards —
pasty-faced, smartly dressed, with black sombreros and tight
trousers. See them meet, how they fall on each other's necks
literally, and clasp each other round the waist. See them
sway to and fro ! Are they wrestling ? No ! only embracing
each other. Now they slap each other on the back, and then,
they are separating, but not without a kiss on either cheek.
And what is this ? A funeral procession of tramcars ? Even
so. In Mexico, the heaviest merchandise is conveyed in
tram rulleys, and the deceased rides to the cemetery in a
funeral tramcar, which he enjoys all to himself, — the ordinary
plumed, glazed affair, only on rails. And he is followed by
his sorrowing friends, in other private tramcars. Truly, it
is a City of tramcars, this ! And here along the pavement,
see these women and girls squatting before their wares.
Look at that basket of greenhouse flowers — at those piles of
fruit — golden oranges, red bananas (Mexican bananas are
red when ripe), dark brown sapotes, golden melons, great
dark green water-melons, piles of red tomatoes — such a size !
and a hundred other fruits besides ; whal splashes of rich
colour beside the dusty footpath. See the candle-seller in his
serape and sombrero, with a great stick balanced over his
shoulders, and dozens and dozens of candles thereon for sale.
If they are as good as Mexican matches, they are very good
indeed. Mexican vestas are long, and strike at both ends —
a great economy.
You really " borrow " a match here, for in Mexico, the
unused end is returned with a bow to the owner. And there
is a water carrier. Watch him with his load ; see the band
across his forehead, attached to the barrel on his back. They
must have strong necks, these Mexicans, for this is their
favourite way of carrying things. I have seen the cargadores
(porters) carry my heaviest trunk, containing books, just this
way, and it is a trunk that takes two of us to lift. And so I
MEXICO AND THE WEST. 75
might go on, first with this, then that, street scene. They
leave a vivid impression of picturesque colour and costume,
of movement and life. The variety of types, from the pure
Castillian, with his steely blue eyes and light hair, to the dark
peon — there is every shade of difference, every degree of blood.
And now and then across the stage, one sees a group of noisy
Americans, people who chip bark off the Noche Triste tree,
and guess they are going to whop Spain, and less often the
silent and dignified Englishman, with his solid air of business.
Yes! my journal may be uninteresting, but Mexico, with its
sunshine and its people, its many races and its teeming life,
is just the reverse.
CROSSING THE FRONTIER.
The difference between the left and right bank of the
Rio Grande is real and profound. The first evidence of change
came while we were yet in the train passing over. Instead
of the gentle, smiling, accommodating " devil-may-care,-for-I-
don't," official of Mexico, a brisk peremptory gentleman
bustles into the car. Where are you from ? Guadalajara !
Before that ? Mexico ! Before that ? Puebla ! Been in Vera
Cruz ? Yes, last month ! Will you swear to that ? Sign
your names h^re, and, with an abrupt movement, this official
leaves us to interrogate someone else. They, alas, prove to
be a family of Cuban refugees. A lady, who looked very ill,
a tired pathetic looking figure, her husband, a lady friend,
and two children. They had come direct from Vera Cruz. Then
you must go into quarantine till April 23rd ! Poor things !
they were in a great way, but there was no help for it. Uncle
Sam had decreed, and they must obey. We were indeed
fortunate that our visit to Vera Cruz had been in March ;
otherwise we should have been compelled to join the Cuban
refugees.
Then came the examination — polite, but severe, with a
heavy duty on the curios of over a sovereign. Uniforms
76 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
are at a discount in the U.S.A. The only means by which
it was possible to detect a Customs' Officer was by the peremp-
tory fashion in which certain well-dressed gentlemen de-
manded to see the inside of our trunks.
Strolling about outside our train, I found that the
Pullman had been hitched on to a train of the Southern
Pacific Company, which has a legend "The Sunset Route"
emblazoned on all its freight cars. I noticed, with sorrow,
what I am proud to say you do not see in the British West
Indies, that some of the cars had painted metal notices " for
NEGROES," and others " for whites." The nigger is
not allowed to travel with the white. The waiting-rooms
are even more offensively marked " ladies," " gentle-
men," " coloured people." I suppose coloured people
are never ladies or gentlemen. It is strange that I,
an Englishman, from a benighted country, which still supports
such a mediaeval institution as a monarchy, should find my
first sentiment on the Republican and free soil of the States
to be one of indignation at the insulting inequality and
injustice to a coloured race, who are yet, on paper, free and
equal citizens with the whites. On the platform, everyone
was discussing the War. News had arrived that the United
States troops were ordered to concentrate in Florida, and the
Eagle Pass garrison was preparing to leave. There seemed con-
siderable interest, but, on the whole, sentiment seemed
opposed to war. This we found to be the case till we got to
Chicago ; but, of course, casual conversations are apt to lead
to incorrect deductions when taken as applying wholesale.
On leaving Eagle Pass, the country for the first hour or two
was in no way different to that over the border. Flat, over-
grown with scrub, occasional cactus, and little cultivation —
but, by degrees, changes crept in, and when we reached San
Antonio, about 7 p.m. (Central time and one hour later than
Mexican time) the evidences of cultivation were frequent.
Here, we had two hours and a half for dinner, and oh ! what
a difference ! ! Stepping outside the station, we found our-
MEXICO AND THE WEST. 77
selves in a long street of irregular wooden houses, mostly
shops ; no style about them, and no continuity in design or
arrangement, but attractive and clean looking, at any rate.
An American street, side by side with, say, a street in Berlin,
is a revelation of the national character. Hasty, loose-
jointed, ephemeral, utilitarian, individualistic, each house built
by itself in a style of its own, without regard for its neighbour —
the individualism of American Republicanism stamped upon
it. In Berlin, the heavy solid stone and dull ponderous
Renaissance of an entire street in line, and in complete sup-
pression of individualism — there you have the solid, military,
dragooned state of the Old World, in contrast with the free,
untrammelled licence of the New.
We took an electric car to the Menger Hotel, going at a
rate which would make sleepy York citizens sit up in amaze-
ment, and set them all writing to the Herald in shocked protest.
There is a reckless go and energy about these Americans, that
is highly exhilarating, especially when you have been lulled
into a sweet sleep for weeks, in man ana land. They drive
their cars through crowded streets at ten, fifteen, twenty
miles an hour ; though they do put a cow-catcher on to
prevent you getting run over.
Our road lay between pleasant wooden, two storied villas
— all lit with electric light, judging from what we could see —
and all standing in their gardens, open to the street. On the
inevitable Piazza were rockers — the inevitable rockers, a
luxury we have only to experience to adopt also. Thin-
wheeled buggies, with fast trotting horses, kept passing us —
everything fast. It was like a tonic to be back in a country
where time seemed to have money value.
NEW ORLEANS.
April iSth.—To tell the truth, we were glad to get out,
as our cheeks had had occasion to change colour at breakfast.
On our arrival the night before, two reporters had attacked us.
To the first we were brief — to the second even briefer. Our
78 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
horror on seeing the morning papers, however, was consider-
able. My wife, who never said a word, was reported to have
been very pleased with New Orleans ; though she had been
in the City only twenty minutes, and had arrived after dark !
I was reported to have made some swashbuckling statement
to the effect that if America wanted us in the War, we were
there and ready, the ground for which statement being the
following. Is English sentiment with us ? To which I
replied that I had been from England some months, but I
had no doubt the English people were with the United States
of America, even if certain newspapers were not. L. R. and
myself had also been made to deliver our souls through a
quarter of a column in a manner we did not recognise as our
own, and for the substance of which not the slightest material
was afforded in the brief conversation. So much for American
journalism. A question put to L. R. as to where we came
from, drew from him the answer " Mexico," a further question
the explanation that we had come via the West Indies — no,
not on business — mental deduction of the reporter, whom
we had tried to suppress, took unpleasant shape in the
following statement : " Two wealthy Englishmen are visiting
this City." It was some time before we could see the humour
of the thing. All hotel arrivals are chronicled in this fashion,
so we were not conspicuous, fortunately.
PART II.
ADULT SCHOOL NOTES, ADDRESSES, &c.
ADULT SCHOOL NOTES, ADDRESSES, &c.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
An attempt was made to get some of the notes of these
addresses ampHfied by those who had Hstened to them, but it
was found that it would be impossible to do this with justice
to the speaker. When he got into touch with his audience,
he would often leave his notes altogether ; his stories, flashes
of humour, personal experiences, and most earnest appeals
would become fused as it were into one whole, and no one
now could hope to bring them to life again as they then poured
from his lips.
Several skeleton notes of such addresses are given, as
prepared by his hand. Some of the fuller discourses were
given to evening audiences, and not as Adult School lessons.
THE WILDERNESS AND GLORY.
THIRTY-FIFTH CHAPTER OF ISAIAH.
(Revised Version.)
In two verses we have mentioned,
Wilderness,
Glory of Lebanon,
Excellency of Carmel and Sharon.
This brings to mind the fact that great extremes of climate
and scenery exist side by side within a very small area.
Only at most two days ride from Jerusalem rises Mount Ebal,
just over 3,000 feet.
View : — Lebanon.
Carmel.
Golden strip of sand to south of Jaffa.
Hill tops beyond Hebron.
Hills overlooking Damascus.
Wall of Moab.
'''Glory of Lebanon " an apt phrase. Jebel Libnan culminates
near Damascus in Jebel Makmal, 10,016 feet high.
" Thy nose is like the tower of Lebanon that looketh towards
Damascus."
Snows, deep-cut gorges, steep sides, as seen from humid
Beirut.
Orontes and Litany.
Excellency of Carmel.
Contrast to plain of Esdraelon.
Sirocco. " A dry wind by the high places in the wilderness
towards the daughter of my people, neither to fan nor
to cleanse."
83
84 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Temperature in tent. Bare unsheltered plain.
Salt smell so grateful. Sea breezes and vegetation.
" Thine head upon thee is like Carmel."
Carmel i,8oo feet above Esdraelon, 400 feet at the sea.
In Tacitus' time, an altar to the God of Carmel.
Pear, pine, wild almond, oak and vines, wild olive, arbutus,
carob, box, myrtle, juniper and thorn.
Leopards and deer in the undergrowth.
A green spot in summer when all else is arid and burnt up.
But variety best shown in journey across Sharon, via Jeru-
salem to Jericho and Moabite range. Total distance,
seventy miles.
1. Sharon, orange groves, wheat fields, palms, shadoofs
(Egyptian delta).
2. Shephelah. Scenery of Southern Europe.
3. Judean uplands ; like Central Germany. Shepherds
in sheepskins, stone roofs, snow deep in winter.
4. Yet from Mount of Olives you see into Jordan valley, and
Dead Sea lies in shimmering veil of intense heat.
5. Lift eyes to Belka. Moab, " where cold is always at
home."
(Table-land of Arabia not hot. Strong frosts in November.
Ice has been met with as late as March in Gilead and
temperature in air 38° F. Arab poets fond of applying
epithet " cool-blowing." Romans called land beyond
Jordan " Palestina Salutaris.")
Own experience in April. Fires at Jerusalem, rugs in bed
and bed- warmers ; at Jericho over 90° F.
Picture the desert — Marsaba and Judean Jungle.
Interesting to note how climate and lie and shape of land
influenced history and moulded the character of the
people.
Philistia — gave the name to the country, yet where are the
Philistines — they occupied the plain luxuriant and fertile,
but they did not place their stamp on the world.
Armies of Egypt and Assyria passing over from time to time.
THE WILDERNESS AND GLORY. 85
Samaria more open and fertile than Judea, but not there
that we must seek the people who gave character
to the history of Palestine. Open valleys too easy to
attack.
It is to Judea that we must look. Here was the great city
of the Jews. An unlikely place. Difficulty of water.
Height above sea, 2,500 feet, 3,700 above Dead
Sea. Impression on riding from Jericho. Here, on a
desert plateau so unsuited for the purpose, " She arose,
who more than Athens and more than Rome taught
the nations civic justice, and gave her name to the ideal
city men are ever striving to build on earth, to the City
of God that shall one day descend from Heaven — the
New Jerusalem."
Contrast degraded Bedanese of Jericho with Judean Shepherd.
" In such a landscape as Judea where a day's pasture is
scattered thinly over an un fenced tract of country,
covered with delusive paths still frequented by wild
beasts, and rolling off into the desert, the man and his
character are indispensable. On some high moor across
which at night the hyenas howl, when you meet him,
sleepless, far-sighted, weather-beaten, armed, leaning on
his staff, and looking over his scattered sheep, every one
of them in his heart, you understand why the Shepherd
of Judea sprang to the front in his peoples' history ;
why they gave his name to their king and made him the
S5nnbol of Providence ; why Christ took him as the type
of self-sacrifice."
Many of us have to live on barren uplands and look with
longing on the luxuriant plains of Sharon, the easy tillage
of Jordan, but it may be that the very hmitations and
deprivations we complain of are our salvation, and
the very means of our progress.
Clever boy at school versus dull boy.
Man with a library and all opportunities of leisure.
Life is not so much a question of means as of men.
86 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Without the Spirit of God expressing itself in us as a solemn
determination to win our spurs in the battle of life, the
best means are worth little and poorest become mighty,
" You may see thousands with every opportunity of im-
provement which wealth can gather, with teachers,
libraries and apparatus, bringing nothing to pass, and
others with few helps doing wonders, and simply because
the latter are in earnest and the former not. A man in
earnest finds means, or if he cannot find, creates them.
A vigorous purpose makes much out of httle, breathes
power into weak instruments, disarms difficulties and
even turns them into assistances." Every condition
has means of progress if we have spirit enough to use
them.
Judea barren now. First portrait, but read Gen. xlix.
" Binding to the vine his foal.
And to the choice vine his ass's colt,
He has washed in wine his raiment.
And in the blood of the grape his vesture.
Heavy in the eyes from wine.
And white of teeth from milk."
Evidence of return. Perseverance wins this vegetation from
barren soil.
And so to those on the barren moorland of a limited life, if
they realise it is a sacred burden, the life they bear, we
shall find their " desert rejoice and blossom as the rose."
" Glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it — the excellency
of Carmel and Sharon.
The eyes of the blind man shall be opened,
The lame one leap as an hart,
The glowing sand shall become a pool, and a way of holiness
made, in which even fools shall not err, and we shall
come "with singing unto Zion, everlasting joy upon our
heads, and we shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow
and sighing shall flee away."
A LAST CENTURY LESSON.
[January 6th, 1901. Leeman Road and Acomb.]
Mark vi. 25-46.
Discuss verses. (Introductory).
Withdrawal, not of sympathy, but of self.
Need, amid thronging events, for retirement.
Mount Hermon, uplands, Hauran, the lake, the twinkling
lights of cities by the sea.
Panorama — spiritual panorama.
In the stillness and hush of the solemn mountains, the com-
mune with God, the clear vision of His will and purpose.
Such opportunities are needful to all men.
The beginning of a new century is an opportunity for retire-
ment to the mountain for prayer.
It does not necessarily close or open an epoch. Eighteenth
century lived on to the thirties, next epoch closed in the
eighties.
But seeing there are such occasions, may as well use them,
even if artificial.
Draw first two brief contrasts — religious and social.
I. — Social.
Gradual deterioration since Elizabeth.
Improvement in middle of eighteenth century.
Two important changes.
War.
Industrial Revolution.
Chronic scarcity and growing pauperism.
Wheat, io8s. per quarter, 1795.
87
88 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Enclosure system — evictions.
Act of Elizabeth. One cottage — four acres of land, repealed.
Succession of Poor Law Acts.
Resulted in half wage being paid by landowner, and half by
State.
Cottages pulled down, threw inmates on poor-rate, and so
reduced wages.
Labourers were often discharged to reduce them to paupers
and then hired back on above terms.
Weekly sale of labour. Ten men for 5s. This from 1795 to
1834.
1800. Combination Act. Absolutely forbad any combina-
tion for higher wages or fewer hours. The working
class was unrepresented.
Even the Reform Bill merely gave more power to the upper
and middle classes.
The golden age of the capitalist.
Napoleonic wars cost £800,000,000.
Everything was taxed, even bricks, stones, glass, hats, etc.
Food was dear. In these terrible circumstances of war,
heavy taxation and pauperism, modern industry had
birth.
England had the monopoly. English spinners clothed Na-
poleon's Moscow army.
Factories sprang up like mushrooms. No restraint.
Riots to destroy machinery in 1812-16-26.
Punished by hangings.
Spinning by machinery in 1800. Not till 1840 that weaving
machines seriously threatened handlooms.
Use of workhouse children. Nominally apprenticed. One
idiot in twenty. Worked sixteen hours a day. On
Sundays cleaned machinery. Kept to work under the
lash. Slept in relays in beds never cool. Chained
to prevent escape. Buried at night in waste ground
to avoid comment when they died. This lasted till
1840.
A LAST CENTURY LESSON. 89
Children sold by starving parents. 1815, Bankrupt's effects
included gang of children who were put up to sale as
his effects.
September 29th, 1830, Oastler's letter to Leeds Mercury,
challenging statement that no slave could breathe on
English soil.
Development of agitation and legislation.
Franchise, education, material improvements of travel,
three days versus three hours to London, telegraph, gas,
electricity.
Cheapening and freedom of press. (Once a tax of 4d. on
each paper). Sydney Webb has drawn impressive
picture of the change.
1851, amalgamation of engineering societies gave great impetus.
Now 1,800,000 members of trade unions and 3^ millions of
money.
In 1844, industrial co-operation, founded by Robert Owen
earlier in century, took proper root among Rochdale
weavers.
Now Balloon Street does 75 millions of annual trade. Manu-
factures 12 millions annually in its factories, has its
own ships importing direct from America, Australia,
Asia and Europe. Along with this a remarkable series,
however imperfect, of factory acts, employers' liability
acts, etc. Still Sir Robert Giffen tells us that 8 milUons
live in England under 20s. per week per family standard.
Turn briefly to religion.
Calvinism — almost universal in influence.
Election and rejection. God as a Grand Turk. Hell fires.
Rousseau and French Revolution.
Robert Burns' " A man's a man for a' that."
Calvinism — a religion of privilege.
Is God's action independent of morality ?
Darwin and Evolution.
Ideas in melting-pot. Escape from a gloomy creed had
not yet led us to accept positive faith.
90 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Calvinist firmness and purpose needed now amid seductions
of the world. 3,328,000 sermons a week but little effect.
Town life and break down of Sunday. Effect on character
serious. Mafficking, etc., not solely caused by the war,
but signs of a growing frivolity.
Uncertainty of outlook.
Rule over 400,000,000 persons. Football, Sport, Comic
papers. Imperialism, — i.e. bigness. Bishop of Hereford
on little nations. Greece. Athens smaller than the County
of Glamorgan.
" Her citizens; imperial spirits.
Rule the present from the past,-
On all this world of men inherits
Their seal is set."
Florence smaller than Bolton ; Venice smaller than Salford.
Impossible to say what is to be the line of progress. Some
say democracy — some say not. One thing clear.
Decline of British supremacy in Trade, — greatness shall not
rest on bigness. America produces double iron and
steel of England. Last year her coal output exceeded
ours. Other nations making their own, and improving
quality.
On what shall our national greatness rest ? On character.
Personal thoughts.
Whatever factory legislation, etc., may do — it can do nothing
unless character is ennobled.
Individual part — clean life.
Kindness to wife and bairns, etc.
In this sense take the opportunity, now that the evening
of the old century has come, and go up alone into the
mountain and pray.
RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS OF
SEPARATION.
Matthew vi. 5-18 (especially 16, 17, 18) ; Mark ii. 15-28.
Contrast between John the Baptist and Christ. Tendency
shown to forget contrast.
Hermits, Monks, Nuns.
A right and a wrong way of separating ourselves from the
world. Quite possible to make the mistake of the
monastic orders in principle, with different practice.
One can quite understand that, by almost unconscious degrees,
those who see clearly the sin and sorrow of the world in
sharp contrast to its heartlessness and gaiety, may grow
morbid and take exaggerated and gloomy views.
Asceticism — denying art, literature, etc., reading only the
Bible, suspecting any harmless pleasure because we
hke it.
Otherworldliness. Danger of its being unpractical.
Howling wilderness theory wrong.
Hot-house growth not the desirable thing.
Such a thing as artificially forcing the spiritual growth.
Ideal : — the oak deep rooted in the soil of God, and weathering
the storm of the world, not the forced bloom under glass.
Open-air faith what is best, both from its greater practical
vahte and influence, and its greater force in the world
of thought.
A faith afraid to examine its own basis, afraid of criticism,
that refuses to understand that which it opposes, is not
a faith destined to conquer the world.
91
92 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Very necessary to hit the right hne of separation — the right
Hne of contact with the world.
Reaction (undoubtedly).
We have seen the same thing in history.
Puritanism and the Restoration. Contrast early Puritanism
and later (Col. Hutchinson).
Calvin played bowls on Sunday.
We are not going to check the reaction by morbid asceticism
or reverting to the narrower view of life.
As the world grows older the vision of God grows clearer
and wider.
If the Church has in the past failed to satisfy the whole complex
nature of man, and to inspire every department of life
as she should do, it is not because Christianity is
one-sided, but because the vision has not been broad
enough.
The old way the easiest.
To advance will require not merely broader views of life,
but deeper faith in God. The difficulty is that many
so-called broad people who are ready to denounce any
strong views as narrow and fanatical (and that is the
fashion now-a-days), only cloak their own want of prin-
ciple in this way.
Invertebrates. Terribly easy to excuse selfishness this way.
What then is demanded of us ? Not the wild honey and
locusts or camel's hair of the stern ascetic of the desert,
but the robe of healing ; the mingling in the crowd with
sympathy aiid love.
Before all let us be sure of our principle — of a firm hold on
God, of a fixed purpose in life ; then let us, while yielding
nothing of this, join oft in the work of the world and its
play too. And not in a censorious spirit — not pitying
those we come into contact with. If people say of us
" Oh, don't ask him, he will be a wet blanket," there is
probably something wrong. Christ wouldn't have been
invited if he had been a wet blanket.
RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS OF SEPARATION. 93
There is need particularly for two things : — Sympathy (deli-
cate sense of touch), and a sane, healthy cheerfulness.
By all means let us look evil bravely in the face. We have
no right to blink facts and shut our eyes to sin and sorrow,
but let us set over against these a firm faith in God's
everlasting love, and fatherhood, and let this faith show
itself in ourselves, by unwearying, cheerful service.
Do not let us be of those who, full of big concerns, leave the
little attentions of life as infra dig. " It is but the little-
ness of man that seeth no greatness in a trifle."
Let it be said of us that we make the social air the sweeter
for our coming.
And God's love is wide. Let us beware lest
" We make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own,
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own."
If we will face the world — with a strong hold on the realities
of God, with a deep and intense sympathy for man,
we shall yet give to the present time those whom
Dr. Maclaren said at Manchester we need — " the still,
strong man in a blatant land."
And that will be a quietness of spirit which will be more
fruitful than much fussy agitation (note the calm
strength of Jesus).
Read " Quiet from God."
"To sojourn in the world and yet apart,
To dwell with God, and yet with man to feel,
To bear about for ever in the heart
The gladness that His spirit doth reveal.
Not to deem evil good
From every earthly scene.
To see the storm come on,
But feel His shield between."
PAUL'S CONVERSION.
References : —
Tennyson's "Ancient Sage," p. 550.
" The shell must break before the bird can fly," and closing
stanzas.
Paul's Conversion.
I Cor. XV. 8 ; Acts ix. 1-9 ; xxii. 6-1 1 ; xxvi. 12-18 ; Romans
vii. 9 ; Gal. 1. 13-15.
Bruce's " Paul's Conception of Christianity."
Chap. II. Paul's Religious History, especially pp. 28 and 31-35.
Weisacher, Vol. I., pp. 79-82.
George Fox. "Journal," Vol. I., p. 1 1.
Ftske.
" Through Nature to God." The chapter on " The everlasting
Reality of Religion," especially pp. 189-191.
Dr. Hart.
" The Way, the Truth, the Life," pp. 34-36.
Quote Tennyson : —
" The shell must break before the bird can fly;
. . . but night enough is there ;
In yon dark city ; get thee back, and since
The key to that weird casket, which, for thee
But holds a skull, is neither thine nor mine,
But in the hand of what is more than man,
Let be thy wail,- and help thy fellow men,
And make thy gold thy vassal, not thy king.
And fling free alms into the beggar's bowl.
And send the day into the darken' d heart ;
Nor list for guerdon in the voice of men,
A dying echo from a falling wall ;
Nor care — for hunger hath the Evil eye —
To vex the noon with fiery gems, or fold
Thy presence in the silk of sumptuous looms ;
Nor roll thy viands on a luscious tongue.
Nor drown thy self with flies in honeyed wine :
94
PAUL'S CONVERSION. 95
Nor thou be rageful, like a handled bee,
And lose thy life by usage of thy sting ;
Nor harm an adder through the lust for harm,
Nor make a snail's horn shrink for wantonness ;
And more — think well ! Do well will follow thought,
And in the fatal sequence of this world.
An evil thought may soil thy children's blood ;
But, curb the beast would cast thee in the mire,
And leave the hot swamp of voluptuousness
A cloud between the Nameless and thyself.
And lay thine uphill shoulder to the wheel.
And climb the Mount of Blessing whence, if thou
Look higher, then— perchance — thou mayest — beyond
A hundred ever-rising mountain Hnes,
And past the range of light and shadow — see
The high-heaven dawn of more than mortal day
Strike on the Mount of Vision !
So, farewell I "
The words occur as an interruption by the Ancient Sage
of verses read by youthful disciple who has spoken of death
as that time when
" the senses break away
To mix with ancient Night."
'&'
The immediate context gives to the words a sense of
contradiction by the sage to the thought of extinction at death.
The whole poem, however, gives the words a deeper
meaning. Let us discover what that meaning is.
A party of riders. Barren scene. Across low, sandy
hills, a band of green. One rider pre-occupied. Strong
face, earnest eyes. Let us guess that rider's thoughts.
Thinking of past history. A long struggle — fruitless — after
righteousness.
He had sought righteousness in the formalities of the
Pharisaic law, but he had discovered that real goodness was
independent of such external observance — even while sincere.
He had been alive apart from the law once, but when he
discovered the significance of the command, " Thou shalt
not covet," then his hope died in him, for he saw that the
law might be faithfully observed, and yet covetousness
96 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
prevail within. Yet he had advanced in the Jew's rehgion,
beyond many of his own age. Among his countr5nTien, he
was accounted exceedingly zealous for the tradition of the
fathers. Yes, his faith in religion was not yet dead. Brought
up a virtuoso in Pharisaism, a man of strong will and intense
nature, he was not going to abandon the faith lightly. Nay,
his anger rose, the more because of his doubts, against the
people who troubled the land, the followers of a Nazarene
pretender. Beyond measure, he had persecuted them, and
as he caught a glimpse of the white houses of Damascus —
mere white dots in the distant green — a fierce look comes
into his face ; he breathes threatening and slaughter, flashing
eyes and clenched hands speak of his passion.
The orthodox Mohammedan of to-day, intent with the
fanatic fury of his race upon the slaughter of Armenian
Christians, was not more terrible than Paul at that moment.
'■Who lights the faggot ?
Not the full faith ; no, but the lurking doubt."
Such teaching as that of these followers of Jesus meant
the death of the law ; there was no room for Pharisaism if
it should prevail. And yet — and yet — had the law given
him what he sought ? Was there not even then the dull
heartache of unsatisfied longing, for what ?
Suddenly, there is a light from heaven — it is above the
brightness of the midday sun, pouring its relentless rays
upon the little party — dazzling the eyes as they looked over
the barren, quivering landscape. " Saul, Saul, why perse-
cutest thou Me ? It is hard for thee to kick against the
goad. It is hard to struggle against thy thoughts."
The moment for which Saul had been unconsciously
preparing had come. Christ, so long an object of earnest
thought, was now revealed in him as an object of faith. The
fruit had ripened. Men of heroic will and resolute purpose
do not easily abandon cherished ideals ; they never seem
less like surrendering than just before surrender comes.
PAUL'S CONVERSION. 97
The surrender had come. The riddle was solved. The
Kingdom was within. Not the external law, but the inward
Christ. Jesus was the Messiah, — He lived, and Pharisaism
was dead. The shell was broken, and the wings stretched
for flight.
But this, you say, is a Bible illustration, it belongs to
Bible times — to the days of miracles and wonder-working.
It is like a Greek telling of Apollo and Venus and Pallas —
mortal men cannot enter into the experience of the Gods.
Then let us turn to English history. Picture to yourselves
a young man, whose face bears the marks of sadness and
struggle, for like Paul, tliis young man has known the terror
of the Lord. Like Paul, he seeks righteousness, not from
the Jewish but from English Pharisees, and he does not find it.
He wanders from town to town, is moody and often recluse ;
he questions the ministers of religion and he questions in
vain. He seeks light among the Dissenters, but at last he
abandons the separate preachers, and those called the most
experienced people, for there was none among them who could
speak to his condition. When all his hope had gone, then,
oh then, he heard a voice which said, " There is one, even
Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition," and, " when
I heard it my heart did leap for joy."
George Fox, in the wilderness of despair, encounters
a bright light, which shines into his soul, and reveals to him
in a flash the truth which his spiritual agony had prepared
him to receive.
The shell was broken, and the wings were outstretched
for flight.
First Thought. — Both Fox and Paul seeking righteousness.
In neither case did the revelation of Christ come as something
independent of their attitude of soul. The revelation was
prepared for in both cases by the spiritual struggles of Paul
and Fox. In both cases the revelation of Christ in the soul
had visible results. Saul, the persecutor, became Paul the
Apostle to the Gentiles. Fox, the brooding inquirer, became
98 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
the strenuous evangelist, who cheerfully suffered imprison-
ment and persecution.
The fact that the light that lit up their souls seemed to
come suddenly as from outside, and the change which followed,
has led us sometimes to forget this preparation, which placed
Fox and Paul in such an attitude of soul that the revelation
was possible. Are any living in expectation that the light
will come suddenly to them, that a new power will come with
it, and forgetting meantime the spiritual preparation which
is first needful ?
I think the spiritual and mental indolence which seeks
to evade effort, while desiring the fruits of effort, is one of
the gravest symptons of this age of pleasure. We need to
remember that, without spiritual exercise, there can be no
spiritual life. This applies to our worship in meeting, and
it applies to our whole individual life.
Dr. Hort: — "Belief worth calling belief must be pur-
chased with the sweat of the brow." The easy conclusions
which are accepted on borrowed grounds, in evasion of labour
and responsibility, may or may not be coincident with truth,
in either case they have little share in its power. Such
people are Christians, if Christians at all, in the sheU. Sheer
laziness and indifference are the chief difficulty, but there
are other difficulties as well.
(i) The first difficulty is doubt as to the reality, or at
least the possibility, for oneself, of such an experience of
Christ as was the privilege of Fox and Paul.
(2) Due to limited conception of what is meant by
conversion. To doubt the reality of spiritual revelation of
Christ is to believe that Fox and Paul owed their power and
inspiration to an hallucination. And to deny the possibility
of such experience for yourself is to deny the solidarity of
the human race.
But did Paul and Fox owe their inspiration to an hallu-
cination — does Christian civilisation rest its hope and faith
in a dream that has no substance ?
PAUL'S CONVERSION. 99
Fiske : — " To suppose that the physical evolution of
man progressed through adjustment to external realities, and
that the spiritual evolution progressed through adjustment
to external non-realities, is to do sheer violence to logic and
commonsense."
Again, what ground have we for believing that the
experience of Paul and Fox marked them off as separate from
the rest of the human species ? Why not interpret their
experience as proof that humanity as a whole is capable, under
certain conditions, of which these two give illustration — of the
same experience ?
I come now to the difficulty of conversion. It has been
too narrowly defined as a sudden change — it may be sudden,
but it is not always so. Moreover, it is no more an external
something which suddenly visits us, independent of our own
attitude, than the millennium, which some people confidently
expect will appear suddenly, independent of the condition
of the world.
The world will not learn peace, or come under the rule
of the millennial kingdom, until with much labour and travail,
it has placed itself in the right attitude.
Finally, indifference.
Momentousness of conversion, if we rightly interpret it.
Shell must break. Passage from the animal to the spiritual.
From the finite to the infinite, the temporal to the eternal.
Wages of sin is death. Animalism has no future. Con-
ventional morality is not righteousness.
Let us seek the experience of Paul and Fox. Is it
difficult to know an invisible God ?
Marion Crawford in " A Rose of Yesterday." — " We are
a cowardly generation, and men shrink from suffering now,
as their fathers shrank from dishonour in rougher times.
The Lotus hangs within the reach of all, and in the lives of
many ' it is always afternoon,' as for the Lotus Eaters. The
fruit takes many shapes and names ; it is called morphia,
it is called compromise, it is designated in a thousand ways
100 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
and justified by ten thousand specious arguments, but it
means only one thing — escape from Pain."
Heaven and Hell, now and here. Hell real — hell of
selfishness.
" Oh, doom beyond the saddest guess,-
As the long years of God unroll.
To make our dreary selfishness
The prison of a soul."
Conversion from our selfishness still called for. i
WINGS LIKE A DOVE.
" I am restless in my complaint and make a noise,
Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the
wicked ;
And the terrors of death are fallen upon me.
Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me.
And horror hath overwhelmed me.
And I said, Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then would I
fly away and be at rest." — Psalm Iv. 4, 5, 6.
Generally supposed to be David, and treachery of Ahito-
phel. Improbable. " Unknown writer, living among foes
in a city ; whose walls they occupy with their patrols ; from
the violence which they exercise within, he would gladly escape
to the desert ; one who had been his associate had treacher-
ously abandoned him, for which he is bitterly reproached
by the poet." (Driver.)
I mourn — I am restless. A word used of a roving life,
and Jer ii. 30, of impatience of restraint.
" Weary of life in the cruel city, he wishes he could be
like the dove which he watches winging its flight swiftly
to its nest in the clefts of some inaccessible precipice, far
from the haunts of men." (Kirkpatrick.) Cant. ii. 14. —
" Oh my dove, thou art in the clefts of the rocks ; in the
covert of the steep place."
Idea that time will bring relief. But time is no agent,
no living power. Must not leave to time, to outward change
and providence, simply to convey us to what our own energies
should produce. God will not be mocked. Holy Spirit
not a minister of weakness. God a partner in our spiritual
endeavours, but not in our luxurious dreams.
102 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Happiness does not belong to the future, if it does not
belong to the present. Heaven too often a matter of indolent
anticipation. We think of it as a happy place, to which we
are to go, rather than as a blessed frame of spirit.
No external arrangements can make blessedness.
Function of heaven is not to take the spiritually un-
qualified into the enjoyment of God, but to open to the
spiritually qualified their real life.
We may make the future as blessed as our dreams,
each day an instalment of the future, as the fruit of daily
spiritual faithfulness and care.
Goethe. That which we are not doing to-day is not
done to-morrow. The hymn is false that says : —
" This world is all a fleeting show
For man's illusion given."
A libel uttered against the world, by men whose simple
defect is that they have too little of conscience, and too little
of spiritual will. Men who live all their days under the
rebuke of conscience, who are kept in a state of perpetual
punishment, who seek peace in externals, and finding it not,
blame these externals for refusing what they cannot give.
Escape from effort. Oh, that I had the wings of a dove.
I cannot conquer my enemies. Shut up in the citadel of
my selfish sins, guarded by the sleepless sentinels of my
selfish will, I see without, the haven of God's peace, the
refuge in the covert of the steep place where the purified souls,
strong in self-oblation, come to nestle like homing doves,
and without effort I would escape and join them.
And, accepting the bad teaching of Grimm's story of
Rumpelstiltskin, and desiring, like his miller's daughter,
to be queen, I expect my straw to be spun into gold for me
during the night while I sleep.
Or, like the wanderer, I follow the Jack o' Lantern of
my dreams, imagining that the light I see shines upon the
gate of paradise, and blind in the darkness to the terrible
WINGS LIKE A DOVE. 103
truth, that my feet are straying ever further into the wil-
derness of sin.
I would escape from my memory, and have it, in spite
of my conscience, that all is peace. It may not be so !
The Kingdom is within. But there is a hunger and
thirst that is legitimate, there is a dream of the future that
is true. They that hunger and thirst after righteousness
shall be filled.
They who accept as their own the high calling of the
spiritual athlete, the strong runner trained in self-sacrifice,
shall press toward the mark without stumbling, and shall
win the prize.
That prize is the victory over circumstance, the triumph
of the soul weaned from dependence upon the external, of
the man who has turned inward with William Penn, and there
in his heart has met the Christ, and heard the healing music
of the words : " Come unto me, all ye that labour, and I will
give you rest."
Not as the world gives, not as the President of the Steel
Trust building his two million dollar house seeks it, but as He
gives, and as His true disciple seeks.
Then, indeed, may we soar with the wings of the dove,
the uplifting power of His holy peace, and with the royalty
of inward happiness, share His kingship with Him in His
own chappy paradise of love.
THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN MODERN
LIFE.
" I know how to be abased and I know also how to abound ;
in everything and in all things I have learned the secret, both to be
filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in want.
" I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me."
— Phil. iv. 12-13.
Last time we dealt with the social aspect of the question.
Men like Canon Moor Ede, Dr. Fairbairn, Dr. Hort, the
Bishop of Durham ; all lay stress on social functions of the
church, and emphasise the fact that these have been neglected.
Instance : quote Sherwell's " West London."
Tailors : — Overcrowding, pp. 88-89 5 PP- 93-94- Wages,
p. 98 ; and overwork, pp. loi, 101-103.
If the West-End Churches would rouse their congregations,
the work would be done.
N at Westminster Meeting House, drawing
classes, bent-iron work, modelling in clay, girls' classes,
Sunday class. Not true that Church has nothing to do with
social work. Christianity belies its name if it isn't practical.
Church service, creeds, etc., means only, to an end.
Dr. Moffat's nephew and fellow officers on a survey in
Uganda. Anecdote, village, wheat, the " Natural Law in the
Spiritual World," buried in the wheat. It was their religion.
But another side to the question. Bunyan wouldn't
have described religion in this way. Many people lay stress
on what you believe, rather than what you do.
Bunyan's " Progress" has almost a note of selfishness in
it. The escape of a man from City of Destruction, with his
eyes set on the reward in heaven.
104
THE PLACE OF RELIGION. 105
Story of Jim and his Pal.
One age views one aspect, and one another, of truth.
In an age of superstition and ignorance, there was more
fear of God and less love of Him. Hell loomed large to men
like Bunyan, and escape from its terrors at all costs seemed
the main business of life.
We are now in the transition stage, and religion as repre-
sented in the churches is re-adjusting herself to the new view
of truth, which presents most strongly to the present age.
Stewardship. Which carries with it war on all selfishness.
Ardency of sympathy and of interests.
But what is the bearing of all this on that which was
so strong an element in Early Christianity, John Bunyan's
life, early Wesleyanism — i.e., the personsil devotion to Jesus
Christ. We do not now so often hear the phrases, " A saving
knowledge of Jesus Christ," " Believe on Him and thou shalt
be saved."
Jesus Christ is not real to ninety-nine men in a hundred.
Christianity — old maids distributing tracts.
Seldom meet a man like James Montgomery of Sheffield,
to whom his lines " Forever with the Lord," were true.
Is it all wrong ?
Is rehgion summed up in practical social work ?
As well talk of a factory as complete which has no boilers.
Was Bunyan wrong ? Was John Wesley wrong ? We
mayn't agree with the theology — I hope we don't — but the
root principle of their lives is just as vital for us as it was for
them.
The personal element is a real part of religion, and I
go further, an essential part. Subtract Christ from Chris-
tianity, subtract Luther from the Reformation, subtract
Hamlet from the play, and where are you ?
Paul and his exclamation. Intense personality. Latimer
and his sermon on Christ.
But still what does it mean ? Believe in Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved.
io6 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Believe that He represents the character of God, that in
Christ you see God ; that God is such an one whom you have
to deal with. Loving purity, hating sin, not the sinner.
To be unselfish, and free from pride. That to be Christ-
Uke is to be Godlike. Then, further, that the spirit of Christ
— i.e. of God — is working in the world to-day ; working for
social progress, equality of opportunity, removing the slums,
eliminating the sweater, combating disease, and put yourself
in line with that force which is working in humanity.
Remember Christ has now no human body upon earth
but yours ; no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours
are the eyes through which His compassion is to look upon
the world, yours are the lips through which His love is to
speak, yours are the hands with which He is to bless, and
yours the feet with which He is to go about doing good —
through the church which is His body.
WHAT AN ADULT SCHOOL SHOULD BE.
[Given at Layerthorpe, one of the new extension Adult
Schools, York, October 30, 1904.]
Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost
which is in you, which ye have from God ? — i Cor. vi. 19,
My body a Temple. What on earth does this mean ?
You might as well call a fishing trawler a torpedo boat.
Must not judge by appearance.
Lady visitor at asylum.
A man can be a street sweeper, no collar, or even a duke, and yet
a temple.
Question asked by the first Adult School President (Paul).
" Know ye not " ; and it is addressed to us — no matter who
we are.
A temple of the Holy Ghost.
Now what does that mean ?
Ghosts drag cannon balls through country houses and scratch
behind panellings — and in the daytime they are rats.
Most sensible men when sober, refuse to believe in ghosts.
Morbid fears to be discouraged. Morbid dwelling on
unseen world or future life.
Chalmers and the man who believed he was damned.
Holy Ghost — Holy Spirit.
But what is that ?
My wife been in all day. Asks me to take the baby so that she
can get an airing. / don't want to. Something tells me
/ ought to. That is Holy Spirit.
Some one angers me. I want to answer back. I don't — Holy
Spirit.
James Parnell in a dungeon at Colchester had the Holy Spirit.
107
io8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
William Dewsbury, g^ years in gaol, reared his temple.
Its bolts were jewels, prisons to him were palaces for
the Holy Spirit.
A temple of the Holy Ghost.
Layerthorpe Adult School ought to be this.
St. Philips Marsh — Bristol — carpenter's shop — yet a temple.
Holy Spirit — spirit of the carpenter.
Now, how are we going to get at this, because it is a matter
of moment.
A fine building won't do it.
All through the life of Jesus the temple was building, 20 b.c-
60 A.D.
A great business.
1,000 waggons for stone.
10,000 expert master builders.
1,000 priests as masons and carpenters.
18,000 workmen.
WaUs 73ft. high.
Eight lofty gates, folding, gilded and silvered.
Massive gold plates on walls inside.
Yet Jesus called the people who did this a "generation of
vipers," and they crucified Him.
The Temple didn't save the Jews, and the New School buildings
won't save Layerthorpe.
What will save Layerthorpe ?
What in fact will save York — England — humanity ?
Oh, but perhaps you say they don't need saving.
Don't they ?
Wapping. " Whopping sinners " true of all, and especially
in this sense that the great curse of social life is
SELFISHNESS.
It is the curse of the rich and of the poor, of the Mount and of
Hungate.
Empty lives of fashionable people — bridge — any excitement to
pass the time. Don't care about the slums. £1,000 for
a snuff box.
WHAT AN ADULT SCHOOL SHOULD BE. 109
Quarterly magazine at £20 a number.
Misery of it all. Lord Anglesey's sales.
Empty Lives of the Layerthorpers : — pigeon shooting, rabbit
coursing, drinking, gambling, the last wonder in ^d.
evening, in and out of work, good health and bad, up
and down, and so on through life. Nothing in it that
won't get stale.
In both : how can I please myself ?
No brotherhood in it.
Petropavlovsk — Slaughter of 700 Thibetans, fine copy.
Football, final at Crystal Palace, also fine copy. Crowd bigger
than population of York. Spirit of Roman arena.
Bringing home the Umpire in a sack.
Leads to waste and suffering.
Gambling, fifty millions a year.
Drink, £180,000,000. Say £300,000 per annum in York.
If York would go teetotal, put drink money by ; should have
a million in three years.
Parks, playgrounds, slums rebuilt, trams, public amusements,
what not ?
Militarism — £2 los. a year, £12 los. per family.
£200,000 for York per annum.
Drink and Army — £500,000 per annum.
What it costs us to forget that we are temples of the Holy Ghost.
What it costs us to maintain a sham religion and deny the
Sermon on the Mount.
Churches to blame.
Locomotive — Steam up.
Layerthorpe to bring this locomotive out of its shed, and lead
the way to a cleaner, better life, brighter homes, etc.
"Know you not that you are temples of the Holy Ghost?"
Don't get like temple folk, Pharisees.
Let in the Gentiles, with or without collars.
Back 'em in.
Let each seek that spirit "which ye have from God."
ON LAY MINISTRY.
First, I would place Vision.
We must ride with Paul to Damascus. We must see
and know God in Christ, and life as He interprets it for us.
We may have been of the strictest sect of the Pharisees and
yet have kicked for years against the goad. The vision will
reveal this secret of heart, and teach us our need of a renewal,
that all creation must have a new smell, and the harmony of
love overcome the dissonance of self-hood.
Second, Consecration.
The heavenly vision calls for obedience. We have en-
countered a great light which has interpreted to us at once
our true self, and the love and passion of the Cross. This is
our summons, and our answer must be service. But many
mistake the meaning of consecration. They think that as
consecration is the offering of our faculties to God, so all the
responsibility for using them is His. This is the fallacy which
has so often lurked in the teaching of the Inner Light. Con-
secration means the concentration of the energies of the mind
and soul upon their improvement for service. It is a frank
recognition that God's work of redemption is a co-operative
work, demanding the agency of man for its completion. To
be spiritual is not to be slipshod.
Consecration therefore includes the disciplined teaching
of the mind, the right apportionment of time, the careful
selection of our reading towards a definite end. It means
the combined potency of prayer and thought.
IJO
ON LAY MINISTRY. iii
Third, Sympathy.
We must " sit where the people sit." Here I am afraid
we often fail. We are most of us bundles of prejudice,
theological, social and political. And yet sympathy, spiritual
and intellectual, is all important. We must try fairly to
understand the social conditions and the intellectual atmos-
phere of the person we would help. We must know something
of the current thoughts of the day, not polemically but
sympathetically. The man who tilts his theological lance
tipped with the venom of controversy, at modern thought
or the higher critic or the revival preacher, is not helping
but retarding the coming of God's Kingdom. And perhaps
the best training school in which sympathy may be learned as
a lesson is the pastoral. One great weakness of Quaker
ministry is its frequent dissociation from pastoral work and
care.
Remember that the magnetism of a messenger lies in
his sympathy, and sympathy is born of knowledge.
Fourth, Humility.
Pride in a gift is its destruction. The office of minister
is one, not of supremacy, but of service. No thought of
self should deflect the inward eye from the end and purpose
of God — the redemption of man.
" Did I speak well ? " " What did the people say of
me ? " " Were people pleased ? " These may be the
thoughts of personal vanity, and go not seldom with that
resentment of criticism which is the testimony to spiritual
unfitness. The most victorious quality of the minister of
God is his humility.
Fifth, Coiirage.
These days of invertebrate thinking and luxurious
pleasures demand courageous speaking. It is a long time
since Sydney Smith startled his congregation of judges and
lawyers in York Minster, by declaiming, " Woe unto you
lawyers."
112 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
The frank condemnation of social sins and intellectual
errors, uttered in scorn of opinion but in the spirit of love, is
too rare in the Christian ministry.
There is no more frequent taunt flung at the preacher
than the taunt of cowardice and evasion, and in measure, I
fear it is just. We are too frightened of uttering our true
thoughts.
In chapel and meeting-house a mischievous tradition
of religious phraseology has grown up, which destroys the
freshness and directness of the preaching, and which it re-
quires some courage to disregard. As Sir Edward Fry,
in his essay on Sermons has remarked, " the ordinary preacher
is afraid to call a spade a spade, he would rather describe it as
' that instrument of agriculture with which our first father
laboured when, by the providence of God, he was called on
to till the garden of Eden.' "
We need, I think, to imitate John Woolman, who com-
bined the sweetness of true humility with an unconquerable
courage.
Sixth, Variety.
It is a bad symptom when, after the first few words of
a sermon, the congregation remarks to itself, mentally,
" Oh, I know what's coming now." And yet how often is
this true. The prepared or unprepared sermon falls alike
under this condemnation. Indeed, the prepared sermon,
when it is machine-made, is often the most at fault.
We want the imagination which springs from sympathy,
and the freshness which springs from thought. We must
bring all things into the treasury. It is often said, " Oh, the
simple Gospel is all we need," but that depends upon what
is meant. To deal in the obvious because thinking is too
much trouble is to offer unconsecrated ministry. We want
rather that variety of presentation which does not obscure or
replace the Gospel, but which saves us from the dead monotony
of repetition.
ON LAY MINISTRY. 113
I know a minister who keeps a pocket-book. If a thought
strikes him, whether reading or in reverie, if he notices a
telhng sentence, passage or illustration, he makes a note or
copy of it. When the pocket-book is fuU, the contents are
transferred to a commonplace book, properly indexed ac-
cording to subjects, and is constantly available for reference.
This is surely an excellent example of that proper discipline
which should govern the life of the preacher, and a wise recog-
nition of the efficacy of human forethought which nowise
destroys the liberty of the Spirit.
Seventh, Patience.
Patience, in the face of apparent unresponsiveness,
and in labour that seems fruitless ; patience that means
sustained interest, even if utterance be infrequent.
We cannot serve any cause haphazard. It is apparently
the belief of some that because the Spirit bloweth where it
listeth, a succession of evanescent " concerns " for a meeting
or a Society must be more spiritual than a continuous exercise
of heart and mind. But God does not work spasmodically,
He works continuously. There are indeed times when the
Divine Power is more richly manifest than at others ; but
there is no real pause in the work of God. We need more
consecrated, sustained and penetrating thought, directed not
only to the vocal ministry, but to all Christian service, and
it will be out of such patience that the most enduring work
will grow.
Lastly, Sacrifice.
Our considerations, — and there are many we have not time
to consider, — must receive the endorsement of sacrifice. With-
out this none are valid. No scheme can evade the necessity,
none offer a substitute for this vital quality of all true labour.
Let us make clear the purport of this discussion. In
the past Quakerism has leaned upon an inadequate concep-
tion of the Inner Light. It has unduly depressed the exercise
10
114 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
and diminished the place of the reasoning faculties. It has
forgotten that the direct revelation of God's will is not apart
from the fitness of the instrument to receive or act upon it ;
or, rather it has regarded such fitness in too narrow a sense, and
shunned, whether from mistaken interpretation or fleshly
weakness, that needful discipline of the mind which supports,
directs and renders more efficacious the no less needful labour
of the soul.
All is not well with the world. The belief in force, the
love of ease, the lust for sensations, the superficiality of
emotional or formal religion, the parasitism even of the re-
ligious, these are with us in their modern dress even as they
were with Fox in the garb of the seventeenth century thought
and practice.
The question of the ministry is in part a question of
equipment, but it is still more a question of spiritual temper.
What is our attitude towards life ? Do we see things as they
really are, or as our contemporaries would have us believe ?
Do we pierce to the inward motive, the inward fact ? Do
we refuse to be swayed by prejudice, by the social environ-
ment in which we have been reared ; do we dare to cut
ourselves loose from convention and tell the unpalatable
truth ?
Without vision we shall perish ; without sacrifice the
vision will glow and fade, an unavailing dream.
There is indeed one aspect of the question before us
upon which I have not touched.
It has been asked. Can laymen, especially those faithful
to the manifold duties of citizenship, and under the necessity
of working for their living, meet in any adequate measure
the exacting demands of the ministry of the Word ?
Let it be acknowledged that the problem of the Free
Ministry is not only a spiritual, but also a practical problem.
We have it yet to solve. There are needs of the human heart
which are not met by prophecy and exhortation, but by teaching,
and the ministry of teaching demands a trained and ordered
ON LAY MINISTRY. 115
mind. We must tackle this difficulty, honestly and bravely,
and so long as we compromise nothing of our message and
testimony, we must not shrink from properly safe-guarded
measures, which will grant to those who feel the call the means
of fulfilling their service. Nor must we in any case hesitate
to recognise the diversity of gifts and the place and functions
of the vocal ministry in the economy of the Church.
But again, nothing can avail without sacrifice, neither
silence nor ministry, organisation nor equipment.
[From a paper entitled " The Vocal Ministry in the Society
of Friends,'' 1904.]
THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT.
" Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law ? "
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with
all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great
commandment." — Matthew xxii. 27-
Jesus was evidently referring to the famous passage in
Deut. vi. 1-5, which the Jews, with a true instinct, selected
under the name of the " Shema," to be recited twice a day.
Notice the prominence given to those words in Deutero-
nomy : "Thou shalt bind them upon thy hand and as frontlets,
between thy eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the
door posts of thy house and upon thy gates." This last
probably to accommodate an Egyptian custom, which, no
doubt, the Hebrews had borrowed. Egyptians used to carve
the cartouches of their kings on the door-posts of their private
houses, and often a " lucky " sentence. Just as now you see
passages of the Koran inscribed in the same way.
Perhaps there was something of the feeling of patriotic
loyalty to their own tribal God, as opposed to the tribal gods
of the Semites, about them, but still — with a conception of
God wider and higher than was possible to the men of the
twilight days of revelation, we can take the words just as they
stand. We can love the Lord our God — not the tribal Je-
hovah, God of Battles, but the God whose eternal heart of
love we have seen tabernacled in the flesh, — with all our heart
and all our soul and all our mind.
And Jesus, turning to the lawyer, was quoting a well-
known passage. " Why do you ask me which is the great
commandment ? Do you not repeat this twice a day, is
it not inscribed on your lintels ? You seek some new idea
116
THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT. 117
from me, and yet I must spend my strength and life against
a formalism which is throttling all religious life and all love
in the land, just because you will not open your eyes and see
the full significance of these hackneyed verses of yours."
Turn from the letter to the spirit. Those lines were
familiar ; and unreal too, perhaps, just because they were
familiar, to the lawyer of old, and yet when we glibly recite the
words do we realise how exacting, how comprehensive, and
how urgent is the command ? " Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God " — not with the fag-ends of thy heart — with that
part which thou hast to spare from business and other con-
cerns, but with all. Not with a morbid intensity that
leads to mysticism and the life of a recluse. Christ, as by
anticipation, checks that thought by his rapid addition, "and
the second is like, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."
It is rather with that practical and natural application of all
the powers we have had given us, to the highest ends for
which they were meant.
And yet, hackneyed as the text is, how very, very far
we are from acting up to its standard.
No sin is to-day so much to be guarded against as that of
being too easily satisfied with ourselves.
After all, we need what, to use an old phrase, is called
conviction of sin. We are horrified if any assume that we
are capable of deliberate untruthfulness or dishonesty, we
are thankful that the criminal code does not concern us. We
never steal or lie, we commit no sins of the flesh, we live the
life of respectable Christians.
Yes, but just here is a great and real risk of self-deception.
How far, for instance, is our fancied virtue the result of public
opinion ? There is a temptation in the fact that to be con-
nected with a religious body is to have the favour and respect
of society ; indeed, more than this, it is business capital.
If we seek a business situation, and quite rightly, we mention
that we attend such and such a place of worship. How far
is our love of God merely the love with all our heart and mind
ii8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
and soul of our own social comfort, of our position in society,
our reputation and our character ?
Complacently to consider all that we have not done —
all the crimes we have never committed, is a very passive
virtue indeed. We shall hardly grow, spiritually speaking,
until we learn to look upon ourselves and our past in the light
of what we might have been and done. The sins of omission
are invisible, but very large.
How many men and women are there who are going
through life with their spiritual faculties atrophied by per-
sistent self-satisfaction ? How often does it occur to us
whether, with all our passive virtue, we have really developed
the latent power of service and stewardship which God has
planted in us. How much power of loving, of sympathy,
of thoughtfulness for others, is lying unused at this moment
in the chambers of our heart.
Can we really truthfully say that we love our neighbour
as ourself ? I for one have not attained unto it. But it
is one thing to confess that we have not attained, but it would
be a want of faith in God's power to help us, to say, it is too
high, I cannot attain.
Whether from despair of being what we know in our best
moments we ought to be, or whether from sheer blindness of
self-satisfaction, there is far too much in the world of satis-
faction in a kind of medium goodness, which is without charac-
ter, without force, and which can do little or nothing to make
or mould the world. There is a little animal with a long
name, found, I believe, in the Mediterranean, the Balana-
glossus, which may be classed either as the lowest of the
vertebrates or the highest of the invertebrates. It neither
possesses a backbone, nor is it entirely without. It has what
is called a notochord — a backbone so to speak of gristle,
and on this account it is popularly classed as a " missing link."
We are told in the Bible that those who are not for
Christ are against him, and in the sense that was intended,
those words are true, but there is a sadly large proportion
THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT. 119
of Christian Balanaglossi who are really links between the
two extremes, and in the sense of the text, the Balanaglossi
must go into the scale with those who are against, for, in
weighing forces, there are only two alternatives.
On the Balanaglossi lies the burden of responsibility
for hindrance in spiritual progress. What we want is verte-
brate Christianity.
Badbie, the tailor, is an illustration of backbone. Some
of us need the spirit of Badbie the tailor to be breathed into us.
There is need of conviction, whole-heartedness, whole-
souledness, whole-mindedness. The latter is to be borne in
mind as well as the first two.
" The easy belief, the easy disbelief, the easy acquiescence
in suspense between belief and disbelief, ought to cause
Christians more disquiet than the growing force of well-
weighed hostiUty." (Dr. Hort.)
The surest way to wake the power of truth is to encourage
the strenuous confronting of it with personal life and know-
ledge.
NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD.
Matthew x. 32-39.
A CHRISTMAS ADDRESS, 1903.
It was my misfortune upon one occasion to hear a country
clergjmian argue upon the basis of the text " Think not that
I came to send peace on the earth ; I came not to send peace
but a sword," that the crushing mihtary armament of modern
Europe was in accord with the teaching of the Gospel.
George Fox's " pure opening," as he calls it, in the memor-
able year of 1649 when he saw " in the Light and Spirit
which was before the Scriptures were given forth, that all
must come to that Spirit if they would know God, or Christ
or the Scriptures aright ; which they that gave them forth
were led by," has surely a pointed application in this instance.
It is all the answer necessary to such an obvious travesty
of the meaning of Christ. Not only the sense of the whole
passage from which the text is extracted, but the whole
weight of New Testament teaching are as much against our
worthy clergyman, as the last was against the eighteenth
century slave-holders, who drew their defensive texts from
the armoury of Scripture.
This week is Christmas week, when a Child was born,
hailed with the angel song of " Peace on earth," and all
who preach in church or chapel are invited to make " Peace,"
the subject of sermons or addresses.
We therefore make " Peace " our subject to-night,
but with a distinction.
120
NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 121
I need not repeat that our quoted text does not justify
the military spirit, or that we cannot build upon it a con-
script Europe.
Nor is it necessary in this company to assert that the
teaching of the New Testament, accepted faithfully, makes
war impossible, and that, as popularly understood, war has
no place in the kingdom of God.
There is an interesting passage in a letter by John Bright,
written in 1883, the cautious conclusion of which, were we
even to judge war by the average contemporary standard,
would I imagine claim our unanimous assent. It runs as
follows : —
" I have not done much to promote arbitration rather
than war ; it is advisable, but many cases do not admit
of arbitration ; they arise from delusion on the part of a
people, or ambition of rulers ; what we want is more of a
moral sense, and of a knowledge that war is rarely, perhaps
never, worth what it costs."
To this we may add the following extract from the same
letter :—
" Arbitration could do nothing in the American war
or in the French and German war, or in our wicked Crimean
war. What we want is more knowledge among the people,
a higher morality, and a just sense of the enormous guilt of
the slaughter of men."
I might, this evening, devote myself to expounding the
advantages of arbitration. I refrain, not because I doubt
the advantages, or the great future that lies before the Hague
tribunal, but because the weakness of this advocacy lies just
in this, that it too often ignores the spiritual states of the
people concerned.
This is evidently John Bright's view. We should make
a great mistake in supposing that he did not support arbitra-
tion, but he evidently feels in the letter I have quoted that
as George Fox saw 250 years ago, the root of the problem
goes deep. It is this : How to live as individuals and there-
122 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
fore as nations " in the virtue of that Life and Power that
took away the occasion of all wars."
Arbitration, in short, must be the fruit of national
morality — it cannot be its substitute.
If, as I believe, we are agreed as to the wasteful inutility,
and the moral evil, not only of war, but of militarism, we
may feel free to regard the question of Peace in this light,
and if so, we shall find that it is at once widened in scope.
More than this, it becomes at once a personal and a
religions question.
Let us treat it as such, and return to our text. " Think
not that I came to send peace on the earth : I came not to
send peace but a sword."
Here is an initial difficulty. Surely Christ came to
find a larger home for the Divine love in the hearts of men.
What then does this mean ? We talk of peace, but our
extract is from a sermon of the sword, and it is followed by a
sermon of the cross. Strife and suffering, bitterness and
shame, are these peace ? But the explanation of the passage
is simple enough.
It occurs in the commission to the twelve. " Behold,"
says Jesus, " I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves."
He is speaking to men of Eastern thought and habit, men of
the climate and akin to those for whom Mohammed drew in vivid
colours the allurements of a sensuous paradise, men for whom
peace meant a long siesta under the shade of a fig-tree or on
the cool divan ; the sparkling sherbet and the seductive
movements of the dancing girls. He is nerving them for a
stern enterprise, an enterprise that will lead some to torture
and to violent death.
And in sounding the sterner note, Jesus is passing on a
genuine Jewish watchword. Through death to life, through
sacrifice to glory. The condemners of Herod's Golden Eagle,
the Zealot of the last war, the martyrs of the Book of Maccabees
— these knew the meaning of the words, they had died with
NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 123
the same heroism and the same faith as the poor Dervishes
who perished in heaps at Omdurman.
But this was a different battle, fought with different
weapons.
" Get you no silver, nor gold, nor brass in your purses,
nor wallet for your journey. It was said, ' An eye for an
eye, a tooth for a tooth,' but I say unto you, resist not him
that is evil, but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also. Love your enemies, pray for
them that persecute you.
" They will deliver you up to the councils and in their
synagogues they will scourge you, yea and before governors
and kings shall ye be brought for my sake for a testimony
to them and to the Gentiles.
" And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake,
but he that endureth to the end the same shall be saved.
" Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteous-
ness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
No, Jesus came bringing not peace but a sword, but he
does not deny peace as the ultimate issue of the strife. Only
there must be no illusion, and so we have this strong, emphatic
speech. The journey he is taking his followers cannot be
easy, for the road to travel is the road to Calvary.
Jesus does not speak much to his disciples of his death,
but with unwearying patience he prepares them for the truth,
and seeks by building their faith upon the deepest foundation
to strengthen them against the shock of the crucifixion, and
against the scorn of a triumphant world.
But why must it be so, why not from the beginning a
reign of peace ?
" Every fruitful thing," says Renan, enigmatically, " is
rich in wars."
The love of Jesus was pure, it was true, it was gentle.
There rises against it the whole force of the world's impurity
and deceit, violent hatred and stubborn selfishness. These
struggle fiercely as against an alien invasion. They nail
124 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Jesus upon the cross. In the strictest sense it is not Jesus
that brings the sword — rather it is the sword that is turned
against him. He is the occasion. Purity must expel im-
purity, love must drive out selfishness and hate, the heaven-
spirit must slay the world-spirit.
And so as with a sword, Jesus must divide households.
" He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy
of me." Nothing goes so deep into the human heart as the
love or hate of Christ and God. The Divine love must pierce
to the centre. It may radiate through human love, the love
of man for wife, of mother for child, but it cannot give way
to them. It must dominate and purify all the loves of
earth, and make them one in itself, or there is no Kingdom
of God.
But as we saw, there is not only a sword-sermon, but a
cross-sermon.
" And he that doth not take his cross and follow after
me is not worthy of me."
" Christ's Cross," says William Penn, " is Christ's way
to Christ's crown."
Think what that means. To be one with Christ is to
be one in spirit with him, to see sin as he sees it, to feel love
and pain as he feels them for the same objects.
It is this thought that leads us into the secret of the Cross.
Jesus, it is said, has by one sacrifice perfected for ever them
that are being sanctified — and perfection is peace. Nor is
this an external process, a single event in history, accomplished
outside our own volition once and for all time. It is no
magic cloak of imputed righteousness flung over us to hide
our sins. It is a continual process, an inward and psycho-
logical process, something to which we consent by self-sur-
render, something we feel in the growth of a will and character
freed and purified from the bondage and taint of self-love.
The sacrifice of Christ has this efficacy, that if we make it
ours in spirit, if we take up the Cross and follow him through
the street thronged with scorners, to the place of the skull
NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 125
where stand the enemies of our soul, we shall know what it
is to be with him in Paradise, we shall learn that the power
of the cross is a power that redeems us from all the great or
petty thraldoms of life, and brings us into the possession of
all spiritual truth and the enjoyment of an enduring peace.
Have you not observed how again and again Jesus de-
mands allegiance to himself, how he identifies himself with
the Father. He is teaching throughout in parable and
direct exhortation, the doctrine of the Kingdom. But it
is a Kingdom of spiritual identity, of the soul's affinity with
God. " And the glory which thou hast given me I have
given unto them, that they may be one, even as we are one ;
I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfected into
one."
" For ye died," says Paul, " and your life is hid with
Christ in God."
That is the meaning of the Gospel, that is the death of
the Cross ; that is the Way, that is the Truth, that is the Life,
that is the place and the purpose of Jesus Christ in the world's
history and in man's experience, that is the teaching which
destroys war and exalts brotherhood, which puts to shame the
puny strutting of racial pride, and the vain glory of broad
acres or much gold.
And that is the teaching which Christianity has yet failed
to accept, for faith is still half-hearted, the world is too real
and its transient glories too precious to the earth-tainted soul.
Sin, hate, impurity, ugliness in the characters of men
and in the conditions of their life, the inward poverty of the
wealthy and the outward brutishness of the poor, — do we
see these things as Christ sees them ? Do we feel the pain
that his love endures for them ?
No ; and yet that is the suffering of the Cross. It is
the sharp sword of the world in the heart of him Who so loved
it that he gave his life for it.
" And he that doth not take up his cross and follow after
me is not worthy of me." He shall never know God's peace
126 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
because he will not learn God's way of peace. " My peace I
give unto you : not as the world giveth give I unto you."
No, not as the world giveth. Not the peace of riches, worldly
honour, fame, not the peace of sloth, that of Belial who
"with words clothed in Reason's garb
Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth.
Not peace,"
but, — strange paradox ! — the peace of the sword and of the
cross, the peace of strenuous service, and of suffering.
Is there indeed ever such peace ?
Let history tell us. Let us take out of a multitude
the single witness of James Parnell.
He was born at Retford in 1636 or 1 637. In 1653 he visited
George Fox in Carlisle Jail, and Fox records in his Journal
that "J. Parnell, a little lad of about sixteen years of age,
came to see me and was convinced. The Lord quickly
made him a powerful minister of the word of life and many
were turned to Christ by him."
He was early drawn to Cambridge, and being deeply
impressed with the corruption of justice and the hypocrisy
and emptiness of the pulpit, he published two papers, one
to ministers and one to magistrates. He was a lad of sweet,
loving spirit, but faithful in dealing with hypocrisy and cant.
Unreal profession " struck at his life " to use Fox's eloquent
phrase, and while his papers abound in expressions of Chris-
tian love, there is no evasion or indirectness in dealing with
the matter in hand.
" And all you self-righteous professors who live in the
fashions and customs of the world, delighting in the pleasures
and vanities of the world, and having fellowship with it,
whose conversation is with the children of the world ; all
in one generation, cleansing only the outside of the cup,
whilst the inside is full of lust and filthiness, pride, covetousness
and all uncleanliness, whited walls and painted sepulchres
are ye who deceive the carnal eye and ears — but the Lord
searcheth the heart."
NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 127
This utterance, which I quote as an example of Parnell's
fearless denunciation, is almost reminiscent of the Hebrew
prophets. Did not the occasion warrant strong speech, and
were it not for the warm love behind the words we could not
justify them, but we cannot in any case wonder that the
"self-righteous professors" raged exceedingly. Parnell was
haled before a jury, but the jury would not condemn, and
disappointed malice sent Parnell out of Cambridge under an
armed escort, and with a " pass under the name of a rogue."
The spirit of this young prophet was, however, far from
vindictive. On one occasion, coming out of what the Friends
then called " a steeple house," a man struck him on the head
with a bludgeon, exclaiming, " There, take that for Jesus
Christ's sake." The little lad, for Parnell was small of stature,
as he staggered in pain under the cruel blow, returned this
answer : " Friend, I do receive it for Jesus Christ's sake."
At last his enemies were able to seize him. Parnell
was taken to Chelmsford, twenty-two miles from Colchester,
on foot, hooked with six felons to a chain. His trial was
marked by gross injustice to the prisoner, and the mittimus
being false, Parnell wrote a paper pointing out its errors.
The Jury were loath to convict, but the Judge extracted a
verdict, and imposed a fine of £40 for this criticism, which he
styled " contempt of the magistracy." Being innocent, the
lad refused to pay, and he was flung into Colchester gaol,
from which he writes, " So then they brought me back to
prison again, where I still remain in the peace and freedom of
my spirit, which none can take away, though my body be
in the hands of my enemies."
" The peace and freedom of my spirit which none can
take away." They did not take it away, but this they did.
They subjected him, meek and unresisting, to all the torture
that a bitter spirit under the restraint of the law could invent.
The jailer's wife often swore " she would have his blood,
or he should have hers." " Woman, I will have not thine,"
replied Parnell. He was placed in a vaulted hole, in the wall,
128 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
twelve feet from the ground, so small that he could hardly
lie down in it. The ladder by which he had to get up was
six feet short of the needful height, and he had to climb
into his cell by a knotted rope. He had to ascend and descend
for everything he wanted. The gaoler refused him a basket
by which to haul up his food. The exposed cell had no fire,
it was wet and cold. Through a long, severe winter, Parnell
had no protection, and became so stiff that he could scarcely
crawl. One day, missing his hold, he fell twelve feet from
the rope and lay as dead. He was dragged into a lower and
smaller hole, forbidden exercise and fresh air, except on one
cold night, when the gaoler compelled him to sleep in an open
courtyard. This proved too much for the wasted body.
At barely nineteen years of age, Parnell died, peaceful and
loving to the last.
While thus enduring hardship as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ, he wrote to those to whom he had ministered : —
" I charge you all, in the name ot the God of truth, be faithful,
valiant and bold for the Truth received, and as you have
received it so walk in it, that you may profess no more in word
than in life your zeal. . . and be willing that self
shall suffer for the Truth and not the Truth for self (for the
Truth was ever sealed with persecution since Cain's genera-
tion had a being upon earth) and so own the cross and despise
the shame ... all you who would follow the Lamb to
the land of rest ... for God is not known what a God
He is till the time of trial."
" And so in the unchangeable Truth I rest, in unity with
all the faithful, in the glorious liberty of the sons of God,
though in outward bonds for your sake."
This brief sketch effectively illustrates the two sermons
I have quoted from Matthew.
Love in its conflict brings out hate, the way of peace is
the way of the Cross.
What was new in the teaching of the Quakers among whom
Parnell is numbered, is not so much its doctrine as the fidelity
NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD.
129
of its application, and it was more than anything else the
appeal, variously expressed, for sincerity in religion and in
life, that provoked the fiercest persecution.
Here is the individual question that lies at the root of
the national. Peace between nations means peace between
individuals, peace at home, peace in the heart ; it means the
testimony to the Divine love, " not in words," but in the life
by which you " seal them."
Of course, it would be absurd to slacken public effort
on behalf of arbitration, on behalf, that is, of an appeal to
reason rather than to blind force. Just in so far as we
apprehend the true nature of the kingdom of God we are
bound to make such effort, and I beheve that civilisation is
ripe for a much nearer approach to disarmament than is
generally imagined. But the foundation of all international
peace, it must be repeated, is in character.
How far are we, as individuals, really living " in the
virtue of that life and power that took away the occasion of
all wars " ?
Take up a book like William Law's " Serious Call to a
Devout and Holy Life," and if there be in us any overweening
self-satisfaction, we shall there learn what hidden imperfection
lurks behind our fair outward showing. I cannot quote as I
would from this book, which deserves to be much more widely
read than it is. It is full of searching criticism and covers a
variety of experience. I extract two passages before drawing
to a conclusion.
He is satirising a type only too common in our day,
" Negotius is a temperate, honest man. He served his time
under a master of great trade, but has, by his own manage-
ment, made it a more considerable business than ever it was
before. For thirty years past he has wrote fifty or sixty
letters in a week and is busy in corresponding with all parts
of Europe. The general good of trade seems to Negotius to
be the general good of life ; whomsoever he admires, whatever
he commends or condemns, either in church or state, is
II
130 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE
admired, commended or condemned with some regard to
trade. As money is continually pouring in upon him, so
he often lets it go in various kinds of expense and generosity,
and sometimes in ways of charity. Negotius is always ready
to join in any public contribution. If a purse is making at
any place where he happens to be, whether it be to buy a plate
for a horse-race, or to redeem a prisoner out of gaol, you are
always sure of having something from him.
" He has given a fine ring of bells to a church in the coun-
try ; and there is much expectation that he will sometime
or other make a more beautiful front to the market house than
has yet been seen in any place.
" If you ask what it is that has secured Negotius from all
scandalous vices, it is the same thing that has kept him from
all strictness of devotion, his great business. He has always
had too many important things in his head to suffer him to
fall, either into any courses of rakery, orto feel the necessity of
an inward, solid piety. If Negotius was asked. What is it
which he drives at in life ? he would be as much at a loss for an
answer as if he were asked what any other person is thinking
of. For though he always seems to himself to know what he
is doing and has many things in his head which are the
motives of his actions, yet he cannot tell you of any one general
end of life that he has chosen with deliberation as being truly
worthy of all his labour and pains. He has several confused
notions in his head, such as this : That it is something great
to have more business than other people. A thing that seems
to give Negotius the greatest life and spirit is an expectation
that he shall die richer than any of his business ever did. The
generality of people when they think of happiness think upon
Negotius, in whose life every instance of happiness is supposed
to meet ; sober, prudent, rich, prosperous, generous and
charitable."
Here we have him, the patron of church or chapel, the
ideal Parliamentary candidate, the honoured public man.
How quietly William Law disrobes him ! But how terrible
NOT PEACE BUT A SWORD. 131
is his nakedness. Yet we feel, as we read, an uneasy con-
sciousness that it is not some one else we may be thinking of,
but our very self that Law is seeking to uncover. Has the
spirit of Negotius a lodgment, even ever so little, in our own
heart ? Perhaps not, but be sure that international brotherhood
will be no fruit of his labour, and that to meet him we have
travelled far in spirit from the prisoner of Colchester Castle.
In another chapter Law emphasises the inevitable con-
flict between the spirit of Christianity and of the world,
and he adds, " Christians had nothing to fear from the heathen
world but the loss of their lives ; but the world become a
friend makes it difficult for them to save their religion."
This is really the peculiar peril of our modern life. It is
so easy to pose as religious in the garb and attitude of Ne-
gotius. But the cross of Negotius is not the cross of Christ.
It has no weight, it is hollow, if you tap it it gives out an empty
sound like a cask. It is meant for show, not for salvation.
Taine, in his history of English Literature, says of the
religious disputants of the seventeenth century : —
" They differed because they believed." Though much
of their jargon was barren this is true. To-day we agree be-
cause we have not faith sufficient to differ.
But " I came not to bring peace but a sword." The
way of the cross is the way of separation. There will be no
international peace without individual faithfulness ; no
progress without suffering bravely borne. We love to be
thought broad, because we have no courage to be narrow,
and we call sloth peace because w^e are afraid of conflict.
If this be true, then we have this lesson to learn, namely,
that the deepest love is the most faithful, and the challenge
that springs not from a vindictive temper or a spirit of bickering
and discord, but from a heart charged with the Passion of
God, this and this only, can shake the world. It is for
want of this challenge that the churches sleep, for want of
this faithfulness that the world grows old in sin. " And he
that does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me."
GAMBLING.
Isaiah Ixv. 11-15 ; Mark viii. 34-38.
THE PLACE OF ENGLAND AMONG THE NATIONS.
Isaiah Ixv. 11. " Ye that forsake the Lord, that
forget my holy mountain, that prepare a table for fortune and
fill up mingled wine unto destiny, I will destine you to the
sword."
It is necessary to get the right meaning to a word.
(The Bishop and the Cords.) This is an obscure verse, which
has puzzled the ablest expositors. Most of them have agreed
in general principle. The prominent words are " Fortune "
and " Destiny." The Hebrew terms for these were Gad and
Meni, two heathen deities. " Those who forsake Jehovah
and prepare a table for Gad and mingled wine for Meni are
destined to the sword."
Jerome says that in all cities (4th century), especially in
Alexandria and Egypt generally, it was the custom to set
tables and prepare mingled wine for the gods on the last day of
the month.
These gods were Fortune and Fate, and Isaiah makes
Jehovah speak to the Jews reproving them for following this
heathen practice. Gambling was nothing but worship of
Good and Bad Luck.
Hogmanay (a feast still kept up in Scotland on the last
day of the year) can be traced to a Chaldean word meaning
" destiny." Good fare and strong drink are provided, and
the guests are wished " good luck for the coming year." This
132
GAMBLING. 133
is applicable to-day. There are plenty who desert Jehovah
and spread tables to the gods of Good and Bad Luck — Gad
and Meni.
Once a certain working-man, a joiner by trade, was being
put to death for being too original a thinker and for " agi-
tating," and while he was in his death-agonies, the military
present tore off his clothes and tossed up for them.
A good many years ago, not so many as the joiner's
death, — the Prince of Wales lay dangerously ill at Sandring-
ham, — heavy stakes were laid on the issue. When President
Garfield was given up by doctors large sums were betted, even
pools being sold in Chicago on the event.
It is wonderfully persistent, this worship of Gad and
Meni. The Chinese gambled before Europe was civilised.
Ancient Hindoo laws denounce the practice. Aristotle the
Greek, classes the gambler with the thief. The Emperor
Justinian forbade it.
But now the foremost country of civilisation is covered
with worshippers of God and Meni — they have larger and
more devoted congregations than Christ.
To put it mildly, more than half the Stock Exchange
business is pure gambling. Burmah Ruby, Baring, Hansard
Union, Murietta failure, Liberator Building are a few graphic
results and instances.
Gambling shows itself in many forms, but in none so
plainly as horse-racing. Newspapers of all kinds, not only
the fifty odd sporting papers ; many tobacconists' and bar-
bers' shops, etc., are all agencies for the propagation of the
dogma of Gad and Meni worship. Belgravia, Whitechapel, the
mining village and the agricultural farm, all alike.
Where shall we seek results : York Castle. Leeds
Police Superintendent says that gambling is the chief cause of
crime in Leeds. He knew women who kept books for children
(id. bets) and made a living out of them.
The Chaplain of Stafford Gaol says : " We are able to fill
one of the spacious corridors in Stafford Prison with young
134 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
men of the clerk and accountant class, sixteen to twenty-three
years of age, with salaries from £40 to £70, and who, according
to their own statements are victims of betting and gambling.
Here is a list of a few cases in one jail alone : —
1. Age 32, commercial clerk ; forgery through betting
debts.
2. Age 25, railway clerk, robbed the Company through
a money difficulty brought on by meeting book-
maker in pub.
3. Educated business man ; fraud ; penal servitude ;
betting the cause.
4. Butcher, age 28, embezzlement, betting.
5. Civil engineer, first class education, age 24, having
lost employment through betting, took to street
thieving.
6. Age 25, debts (betting) and attempted suicide.
7. Age 18, stole money from companion's pocket in
public bath to pay betting debts. (Latter papers
discovered in bedroom by his father.)
8. Age 17, clerk, stole £1 los. to pay betting debts.
9. Age 24, embezzlement, betting debts.
10. Age 28, embezzlement of £500.
11. Age 28, baker, embezzlement, master's customers.
12. Age 27, clerk in furniture warehouse, stole carpets
and practised fraud, — betting debts.
13. Butler 38, good position and wage ; embezzlement
again ; debt.
14. Age 20, pupil teacher, Board School, ditto (to debts
added by degrees from little bets).
15. Mason, theft for betting-debt payment, five children
found nude ; clothes pawned to pay.
Colonel Howard Vincent says : " Betting, after drink, is
the most prolific source of crime, and the inspirer of countless
embezzlements."
The Times says : " Horse-racing is an amusement to
which is directly traceable more misery, more ruin, more
GAMBLING. 135
demoralisation than to any other pastime. It is unnecessary
to insist on the manifold evils, the ruined homes, the broken
hearts, the blackened characters, for which it is responsible.
The curse of gambling, as Burns has said, is ' that it
hardens all within and petrifies the feelings.' It is absolutely
certain there has been an appalling increase in the facihties
for betting and similar forms of speculation among the middle
classes and working classes. A cheap press has brought the
knowledge of sporting events to the homes of the humblest.
Betting is no longer the exclusive appanage of aristocratic
dissipation, it is the delight of shopmen and servants, it roars
daily along Fleet Street with its unsavoury following of
touts and roughs. It forms the favourite reading, morning
and evening, of the clerks, on their way to and from the
banks and counting houses of London and other great cities.
It lies in wait for the schoolboy, almost as soon as he begins to
feel an interest in athletic competitions ; it entraps, we are
assured, even women and children. It is a main element
in the miserable stories of an immense number of embezzle-
ments and frauds."
Here is a picture of modern England from its leading
newspaper ! How does all this affect the place of England
among the nations ? Let us see. A book much talked about
is " Made in Germany." Its purport, broadly speaking, is
twofold. After alleging the waning of British commerce
the writer preaches two morals : —
(i) The necessity for practically recognising the
superiority of the average German over the average
Englishman.
{2) The necessity for protection. The second point is
a stupid fallacy illustrated by the case of sugar. Describe
the working of this. 9s. bounty ; Sugar at lis. 4d. Collapse
of English colonies and most of English refineries. Apparently
detrimental to England. In reahty the reverse. Only
Germans who benefit, the manufacturers. People pay 5d.,
6d. and yd. per lb. for sugar. We pay id., i^d. and 2d.
136 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
But we are not concerned to discuss Protection on this
occasion, the point I wish to give a moment's consideration
to is Enghsh commerce — one aspect of her position among the
nations. We frequently hear of England being driven out
by German competition. Take a few instances. Needles
to China in white and yellow packets : Hatchets for Peru
with special hafts. Cotton goods and locomotives for
Egypt. Baking apparatus for Argentine, etc. Cotton goods on
East African Coast. Technical Education. Huddersfield Dye
Works, and the forty chemists on research work at Elberfeld.
Wolverhampton Iron-masters and men in Germany.
Not lower wages and cheaper railways, but better ma-
chinery and more intelligent work. Chemists employed, etc.
German method of teaching cotton spinning. Five years in
a model up-to-date factory with proper degrees and exams.
Factory subsidised by Government. All this in spite of heavy
military burden and forced conscription.
Reasons : —
(i) Drink in Germany unknown as we know it. Am a
teetotaller here, but no need in Germany.
(2) Horse-racing, etc., unknown on the scale that we
know it. People more sober, industrious.
(3) Better education, both primary, secondary and
mechanical. Young Germans, instead of giving themselves
up to the study of Turf and Sunday Chronicle, master two or
three foreign languages and foreign methods of business.
(4) Deficiencies of recent Education Bill.
Now, in what way is horse-racing connected with the
place of England among the nations ?
Have endeavoured to show that it is enormously in-
creasing in its influence through means of press, telegraph,
tape, post office, and betting conveniences too numerous to
name.
Lord Beaconsfield called the Turf a vast engine of de-
moralisation, and this shows itself physically, mentally, and
morally.
GAMBLING. 137
(i) The ignorance of betting men, their one idea is the
turf — all else is of no interest. Men of one idea. The Bishop,
the Sporting man, and Nebuchadnezzar.
(2) The selfishness of betting men, due to root of passion
being the craving to get money without working for it, and
the fact that it can only be got at the expense of another who
gets nothing in return ; a home for the passions. Anything
for a gamble. The story of the Huddersfield gambling gang,
and the id. down the grate. Religion may go to the devil,
and it has been said of Paris, " If God died to-morrow he
wouldn't be missed there." This is true of the betting world.
(3) Self-indulgence in one thing leads to self-indulgence
all round. Drink and vice and wretched conditions go hand
in hand \vith this vice of gambling. How are we going to
compete with the world if our men are reared in such a school ?
Decadence of Rome. — ^The same passions roused to-day.
Danger, unless we take care of a terrible debacle. Great na-
tions have fallen before, and the facts are inexorably against
gambling. " Ye that forsake the Lord, etc., I will destine you
to the sword."
Our callousness re Armenia, our selfishness in South
Africa, are not disconnected with this evil. Is gold to be our
ideal ? " For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole
world and forfeit his life ? "
"And all the gold that is beneath the moon;
Or ever was, of all these wearied souls
For even one could never buy repose." — Dante.
What we want is not a betting England, but a better
England. Oliver Cromwell's England and the Piedmontese.
The terror of England's name, standing for righteousness.
Again : We look to a rising democracy — a Merrie England
of real social equality — ^where the only title to respect will
be not the possession of wealth for which no toil has to be
given, or a name which is the mere accident of birth, but the
intrinsic merit of the man himself.
138 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Is it to the democracy that meet in the betting ring of
Knavesmire next week — that ignoble, selfish crew, whose only
worship is the worship of gold, Meni and Gad, that we are to
hand the reins of power ?
England is made up of individuals. Individual faithful-
ness must be the root of all reform.
The weeds of the coal measures.
[Note. — The Huddersfield story (p. 137) was as follows.
A member of the Adult School in his "wild days" was out
of work. He set off on tramp, and eventually reached
Wakefield with only id. in his pocket.
He was very hungry, and very thirsty, and could not
decide whether to buy a teacake or a half pint of beer. He
concluded to toss up, — heads for the bread, tails for the beer.
The penny came down heads, and he was greatly disappointed.
He then decided he would be guided by the result of two
tosses out of three.
Result of toss 2 ^=^ tails for the beer.
Result of toss 3 = the penny rolled down a grate in
the street. So " he'd now't."]
LOSING AND FINDING.
I John ii. 14 (second half) to 17 ; Joel ii, 28 ; Isaiah ix, 17 ;
Matthew x. 36-39.
Wicksteed. Characteristic of age — materialism. Two-
thirds private telegrams gambling. Due, first, to growth of
wealth and means of pleasure. Secondly, to a temporary
absence of sound and adequate social and political ideals.
Thirdly, and most important, for it embraces the second,
the temporary failure of the Christian Church to make an
effective appeal, especially to young men.
I. Growth of wealth and means of pleasure. — Unique,
no century like it. Do not yet see the end of the movement.
Dangers of empire. Wealth without idealism a terrible
curse. Does not fall only on rich. Pressure of great wealth,
especially of irresponsible wealth, affects the whole social
atmosphere, and taints the lives of those even with limited
means. The bald fact is, that the Christian Church makes
but the feeblest impress on our national life, and our youth
are exposed to the temptations of a materialism, never more
seductive, never more universal, than they are to-day.
Doubtless, apart from the direct counter-influence of
religion, materialism must in the end breed its own reaction.
Matthew Arnold has finely suggested the depth of that reaction
in ancient Rome : —
" On that hard Pagan world, disgust
And secret loathing fell,
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell.
139
140 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,-
The Roman noble lay ;
He drove abroad in furious guise
Along the Appian way.
He made a feast, drank fierce and fast.
And crowned his hair with flowers ;
No easier, nor no quicker, passed
The impracticable hours."
In that fact, if not in the present attitude of the Christian
churches, Hes hope, and in that fact Hes our opportunity.
If we have been swept off our feet, it may be that the
water is already shallowing, and when we find bottom we
must rescue others from the flood.
But who are they who in the 1900's are called to bring
men to a soberer view of life, a sense of its solemn responsibili-
ties, and the deeper meaning of things ?
To Israel, gone astray, Isaiah says, that the Lord shall
have no joy in their young men. There was to be no future
for her.
And so for us, if the Lord is to have no joy in our young
men, there can be no future for our people, for naturally it
is upon the young that the burden of future responsibility
must inevitably fall.
But if we have recognised the strength and seductiveness
of the temptations of modern life, we must also recognise
that without social and political ideals vividly conceived,
we shall lack the practical stimulus which is needed, if we are
to counteract the false and delusive teaching which so often
passes current for philosophy. Here at once we put our finger
upon a great weakness. Our young men do not think. They
borrow their thoughts from the newspapers, their life is lived
in such a hurry that there is no time for the precious art of
meditation.
The question the young man needs to stop and consider,
is not " How did I get here ? " but " What am I here for ? "
That was the question Tolstoi asked himself. It soon
led him deep into the practical problems of life, and though
LOSING AND FINDING.
141
we may not agree with all his teaching, whether ethical or
economical, we all owe to him a debt, for he shook the hypo-
crisy of churches which lived on compromise.
We want men of the spirit of Tolstoi, for we want prophets,
young men who see visions, and who do not live merely for
the things of sense.
In this connection the importance of sound intelligent
reading ; history, literature, political economy, philosophy.
Neither great means nor great libraries necessary. " In
the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious
thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked
for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead,
and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are
the true levellers. They give, to all who will faithfully use
them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and
greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am. No matter
though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my
dwelling. If the sacred writers will enter, and take up their
abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to
sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me the
worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart,
and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall
not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may
become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called
the ' best society ' in the place where I live." (Channing).
But underlying this need, there is a greater — a need
which serves to mark the failure of the church, and should
stir it to greater effort — the need of spiritual life, of a spiritual
ideal, which shall embrace the social, and which shall answer
the question put to Tolstoi. It takes a soul to move a body.
It takes the ideal to blow an inch aside the dust of the
actual.
Th-ree great conditions face us : direct opposition to
rehgious life, sheer indifference, and the negation of doubt.
In all these facts we have come to the individual question
which needs to be dealt with individually. Whatever be the
142 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
social conditions of modern life, here the individual is con-
cerned, and must decide. In both cases there is want of
vision. In the first two the question is that of the attitude
of the soul. In the third, it is primarily a question of defective
spiritual vision.
In the first two there is nothing exceptional to any age,
the third was specially prevalent during the latter decades of
the late century.
Take the third last. Two kinds of doubt : (i) Sincere
doubt. (2) " Fashionable " doubt.
Fashionable doubt is widely prevalent, and draws its
strength from two sources : — (i) Mental arrogance (" Chris-
tianity played out," etc). (2) Spiritual indolence. (Desire
to shirk responsibility). But sincere doubt, while it may be
taken as a hopeful symptom of budding faith, has its perils.
It is prevalent to-day because of transition— ideas are in the
melting pot, but we must not leave them there.
If there has been over- definition, there is on the contrary
no power in nebulous hypothesis. If there were, then the
New Testament need not have been written.
There is undoubtedly an antipathy to definition, sincere,
not indolent. It has in it a ground of excuse, but is generally
carried much too far. One thing the age needs is the living
consciousness of God through Jesus Christ.
The incarnation of God in Christ must again take shape
as a living idea, and must be experienced as a vital, indwelling
power. The reassertion and the renewed expression of the
incarnation must be the great work of the coming decades,
if we are to stem the tide of materialism.
Tennyson is often quoted where he says : —
" Cling ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to faith beyond the forms of faith ;
She sees the Best that glimmers through the Worst,
She spies the summer through the winter bud.
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls.
She hears the lark within the songless egg,
She finds the fountain where they wailed ' mirage.' "
LOSING AND FINDING. 143
But do not let us lay all the emphasis upon the first line,
for that surely is not the fulness of our message to the age.
We have I hope forever abandoned the belief that all
doubt is sin, but so much has been said in praise of doubt
that now it almost takes rank as a virtue. No, we need
faith " that finds the fountain where they wailed 'mirage.' "
Faith in God, faith in His power to reveal His character and
will, faith in His purpose for the human race, and faith in the
sons of men.
(Danger of thinking that broad thought is all that is
necessary).
We have still to deal with indifference and antagonism
to religious life.
Here is the old problem of life — the war between flesh
and spirit. No feature of this strife is new. Still men dread
the blame or seek the praise of their fellows. Still they indulge
their selfishness and their appetites, in petty meanness or in
secret sin.
Like Augustine, we need to yield to the divine will. We
know better than we do. (Young man with riches. The
application by no means only to wealth).
" He that loseth his hfe for my sake shall find it."
Self-sacrifice. Lammenais, Mazzini.
SELFISHNESS.
I had thought that we might this morning have selected
our passages in the Bible with a special view to the con-
sideration of Selfishness.
If you will turn to the 22nd chapter of Numbers,
you will there find an illustration which may serve for the
keynote of our lesson. The story given here is the story of
Balaam and his ass — a story well known, I imagine, to
everyone. We will not read it through, but will confine
ourselves to the more important passages of the narrative.
The 22nd chapter opens with the account of the
Israelite encampment under Moses on the plains of Moab,
and tells us how Balak the Moabite king, taking fright at
this event, sends for Balaam the prophet, that he may curse
these enemies of his, who have come up in such numbers out
of Egypt.
Now, in reading this narrative, I want you to bear in
mind that the two besetting sins that afflicted Balaam were
ambition and avarice — ambition, making his gifts subservient
to admiration of himself, and avarice, transforming his gifts
into mere instruments for accumulating wealth. We shall see
how his conscience is gradually perverted by insincerity,
till his mind becomes the place of hideous contradictions, and
even God Himself becomes a lie to him, and with his heart
disordered, he finds himself so entangled in a false course that
to go back is impossible.
(Read Numbers xxii, 1-12).
It is in the second appeal to God that Balaam reveals his
hollowness of heart. He wanted to go to Balak, and yet not
144
SELFISHNESS. 145
to offend God ; he wanted to get his duty altered, not to
learn what his duty was. To quote from F. W. Robertson :
" In worldly matters, ' think twice,' but in duty, it has
been well said, ' first thoughts are best ' ; they are more fresh,
more pure, have more of God in them. There is nothing
like the first glance we get at duty, before there has been any
special pleading of our affections or inclinations. Duty is
never uncertain at first. It is only after we have got involved
in the mazes and sophistries of wishing that things were
otherwise than they are, that it seems indistinct. Considering
a duty is often only explaining it away. Deliberation is often
only dishonesty. God's guidance is plain, when we are true."
(Read verses 22 and 23).
We all know the remainder of this story — how the ass
refused to move in the narrow way which was hemmed
in on both sides by walls, and how Balaam's anger rose against
the ass so that he struck it three times, and how the cause of
the ass's obstinacy was revealed to him in the end.
Whether we treat this story as a narrative of fact, or
whether we treat it as a parable or vision, matters nothing, —
the lesson is the same. The anger Balaam felt was but the
outward expression of the loss of equanimity within ; he
knew he was angry, and he did what men so entangled always
do. " The real fault is in themselves. They have committed
themselves to a false position, and when obstacles stand in
their way they lay the blame on circumstances. They smite
the dumb, innocent occasion of their perplexity, as if it were
the cause. And the passionateness, the ' madness ' of the
act is but an indication that all is going wrong within."
In the 22nd verse we read that God's anger was kindled
because he went, though in the 20th verse permission had been
given to go, and in the 34th and 35th verses we read as fol-
lows : — " And Balaam said unto the angel of the Lord, I
have sinned ; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way
against me : now therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me
back again.
12
146 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
" And the angel of the Lord said unto Balaam, Go with
the men ; but only the word that I shall speak unto thee,
that thou shalt speak. So Balaam went with the princes of
Balak."
These verses, though apparently contradictory, are not
difficult to understand. Balaam was struggling against what
he knew to be the will of God. He wanted to go to Balak
and permission is given — yet the acceptance of that permission
kindles God's anger. It was the selfishness of the act of
acceptance that is the explanation of this seeming want of
coherency. God said " Go," and then was angry. He was
sending Balaam to reap the fruit of his own wilfulness.
In the 34th and 35th verses Balaam offers to go back,
the angel says " Go on." It was too late.
" In the ardour of youth you have made perhaps a wrong
choice, or chosen an unfit profession, or suffered yourself
weakly and passively to be drifted into a false course of action,
and now, in spite of yourself, you feel there is no going back.
To many minds such a lot comes as with the mysterious force
of a destiny. They see themselves driven, and forget that
they put themselves in the way of the stream that drives
them. They excuse their own acts as if they were coerced.
They struggle now and then faintly, as Balaam did — try to
go back, cannot — and at last sink passively in the mighty
current that floats them on to wrong.
" And thenceforth to them all God's intimations will
come unnaturally. His voice will sound as that of an angel
against them in the way. Spectral lights will gleam, only
to show a quagmire from which there is no path of extrication.
The heavenliest things and the meanest will forbid the madness
of the prophet ; and yet, at the same time, seem to say to
the weak and vacillating self-seeker, ' You have done
wrong, and you must do more wrong.' Then deepens down a
hideous, unnatural, spectral state — the incubus as of a dream
of hell, mixed with bitter reminiscences of heaven."
(Read Numbers xxii., vv. 36-41 ; chap, xxiii. i-q).
SELFISHNESS. 147
In the nth verse we have Balak's expostulation, and
then Balak makes the suggestion that Balaam should go to
another eminence from whence he should only see a part
of Israel, and asks him to curse them from thence, but the
result is the same.
On Balaam's return, we have the following reply (read
verses 18-24). Finally one more effort is made. In the 27th
verse we read that " Balak said unto Balaam, Come, I pray
thee, I will bring thee unto another place ; peradventure it
will please God that thou mayest curse me them from thence."
The altars are built once more, and once more the sacrifices
are made, but Balaam cannot bribe his God to consent to a
curse, and roused Balak's anger so, that he smote his hands
together, and in the loth verse of the 24th chapter we read
that Balak said unto Balaam, " I called thee to curse mine
enemies, and behold thou hast altogether blest them these
three times."
Balaam has tried his enchantments — his sacrifices — to
change the immutable will of God. He did not want to
deceive Balak by pretending to curse Israel, he wanted his
God to consent to his curse, but wherever he went he felt that
Israel was blessed. He goes, as we read in the 13th verse, to
a place where he shall not see all of Israel, and in the first
verse of the 24th chapter we read how that as in spite of that
it pleased God to bless Irsael, he went not as at other times to
seek for enchantments, but set his face towards the wilderness.
It was no good. He was trying to deceive himself that
he might honestly deceive Balak ; he will only speak the
thing he feels, but is not careful to feel all that is true, going
from hill to hill for the chance of getting to a place where the
truth may disappear. There stands the fact — Israel is blessed ;
and he will look at the fact in every way to see if he cannot
get in into a position where it shall be seen no longer.
" Such a character is not so uncommon as, perhaps,
we think. There is many a lucrative business which involves
misery and wrong to those who are employed in it. The
148 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
man would be too benevolent to put the gold in his purse
if he knew of the misery. But he takes care not to know.
There is many a dishonourable thing done at an election, and
the principal takes care not to inquire. Many an oppression
is exercised on a tenantry, and the landlord receives his
rent, and asks no questions. Or there is some situation which
depends upon the holding of certain religious opinions, and
the candidate has a suspicion that if he were to examine,
he could not conscienciously profess these opinions, and
perchance he takes care not to examine."
Balaam cannot reverse God's will. He feels that God
has not beheld iniquity in Jacob nor perverseness in Israel,
and will not therefore curse. He tries one more move.
God will not curse the good, therefore he tries to make the
good wicked. That is the lowest depth that his selfishness
drags him to. In the 15th and i6th verses of the 31st of
Numbers, we find that he recommended Balak to use the
fascination of the Moabite women to entice the Israelites
into idolatry. Here was a man of delicate conscientiousness
and unconquerable scruples, straining at a gnat and swallowing
a camel.
" There are men who would not play false, and yet would
willingly win. There are men who would not lie, and yet
who would bribe a poor man to support a cause which he
believes in his soul to be false. There are men who would
resent at the sword's point the charge of dishonour, who
would yet for selfish gratification entice the weak into sin,
and damn body and soul in hell. There are men who would
be shocked at being called traitors, who, in time of war, will
yet make a fortune by selling arms to their country's foes.
There are men, respectable and respected, who give liberally
and support religious societies, and go to church, and would
not take God's name in vain, who have made wealth, in some
trade of opium or spirits, out of the wreck of innumerable
human lives."
What is the sequel to this career, blighted by selfish
SELFISHNESS. 149
love of fame and wealth, may be read in the 6th, 7th and 8 th
verses of the 31st chapter. One thing to be noticed in the
conduct of Balaam are these repeated attempts to change the
Eternal Mind. Balaam has yet to learn — and every man who
allows selfishness to lead him into difficulties has also to learn —
that God cannot change. What Balaam thought was that
God would not change, but there is a difference between will
not and cannot. There are many who say this is right because
God wills it. But that is not the right way to put it. It is
because it is right that God wills it. Unless you say that,
you make it possible for God to reverse evil and good. If
right is right because God wills it, then if God chose to He
could make injustice and lying and cruelty to be right.
To quote from Robertson again : —
" It is a common thought that Might makes Right, but
for us there is no rest, no rock, no sure footing, so long as we
feel right and wrong are matters of will and decree. There
is no safety then, from these hankering feelings and wishes
to alter God's decree. You are unsafe until you feel, ' Heaven
and earth may pass away, but God's word cannot pass away.' "
Will you please read verses 1-5 of 2 Timothy, chap, iii.,
and then Philippians ii. 4-21.
In the 2ist verse we have a very good definition of selfish-
ness. " For all seek their own, not the things which are
Jesus Christ's."
Selfishness is self-love, and to a large extent takes the
form of satisfying our natural appetites.
Baxter has said, and I think truly, " That though selfish-
ness hath defiled the whole man, yet sensual pleasure is
the chief part of its interest, and therefore, by the sense it
commonly works ; and these are the doors and the windows
by which iniquity entereth into the soul."
There are two natures in us — the one spiritual, the other
animal — and the satisfaction of our animal instincts, for the
mere sake of satisfaction, is selfishness — while the fostering
of our spiritual nature is the reverse.
150 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Selfishness, therefore is a term synonymous with spiritual
death, — it is a disease the germs of which exist in every one
of us, and which, if allowed to grow, will choke out the life,
and leave us spiritually dead. It was no doubt with a dread
of this spiritual death that Paul wrote the 12th verse : —
' ' Wherefore, my beloved, as he have always obeyed, not as in
my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling."
There is a book by Henry Drummond, which no doubt
some of you have read, entitled " Natural Law in the Spiritual
World." It is a book written with a freshness that renders
it anything but heavy or dull reading, and not at all open to
the complaint so often made of theological works that they
are so cut and dried.
Drummond tries to show throughout his work that the
laws of nature axe the laws which govern also in the spiritual
world, and that as physical sins — sins of the flesh — meet with
unfailing punishment, so also moral sins meet with unfailing
punishment in the spiritual world.
He deals with sins of omission as well as commission,
and points out that those who have spiritual faculties given
them, and who neglect them through selfishness, lose these very
faculties in not using them, and degenerate, even as animals
with physical faculties lose them from long disuse, and
degenerate in the scale of physical life.
He points out how the world is divided into three king-
doms — the mineral, the vegetable and the animal, — the animal
being at the top of the scale. He shows that as you descend
in the scale you find the range of correspondence, as he calls
it (in other words the power of seeing, touching, moving,
among the things around you) contracts. In a mineral you
have for instance, no power of growth — no power of movement,
— no life. A step higher you have, in the vegetable kingdom,
life, growth, and in a very limited area, the power of movement.
In the animal kingdom again, you have fuller powers, and
the higher you ascend the scale in the animal kingdom
SELFISHNESS. 151
the wider the range of correspondence, the greater the power
of corresponding with the environment and surroundings
becomes. Thus man can move at will from England to Aus-
tralia, whereas the pebble on the footpath must remain where
it is, and the creeping buttercup can at most crawl along its
particular patch of grass.
He goes on to point out how what is natural for a man
is supernatural for a plant, and what is natural for a plant
is supernatural for a mineral, but that there is nevertheless
a connection between the kingdoms. That plants draw their
life from the mineral world, sucking up mineral nourishment
in their stems and making the mineral form part of themselves,
and that the same connection exists between the animal and
plant world, — the higher life seizing upon the lower and
drawing it up into itself. Having brought you to this
point, Drummond shows you that a mineral must remain
a mineral unless it is drawn up into the vegetable kingdom
above it, — and that a plant must live and die a plant unless
it in turn is absorbed in the animal kingdom above it, — and a
man must live and die an animal unless he in his turn is
absorbed into the spiritual kingdom which is above him, —
that he must in short work out his own salvation with fear
and trembling. That is the whole question of the battle of
life. The plant can no more understand the environment of
the animal — can have no more knowledge of the world which
the animal sees with its own eyes or feels with his organs of
touch — or of the sounds that it hears — than if it never existed.
To the plant the music of the waves on the sea-shore is nothing
— the grandeur of Alpine snows is nothing. It can neither
see or hear. It has to be absorbed into the kingdom above
it, before it can share the wider correspondence of the animal
kingdom. So with man. He knows nothing of the spiritual
kingdom, unless he allows himself to be caught up by the
higher life and absorbed into itself. His natural kingdom
is the animal kingdom — his natural instincts cling to his
animal surroundings — he knows nothing of the higher kingdom
152 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
with its eternal life, its wider range of correspondence, —
of correspondence with the kingdom of God, until God reaches
down to him and lifts him up.
But there is a great power vested in man. Unlike
the mineral, he has the choice as to whether he will remain
where he is or allow himself to be drawn into the higher life.
He has in short the power of the choice of good and evil.
It rests with him as to whether he will rise or no. There are
faculties given him by which he can cling to the divine in-
fluence and help himself up. He cannot do it alone. It is
the higher power that will draw him up— it will not be his own
strength, but that higher power wiU not draw him up unless
there is effort on his part — the effort of chnging to the hand
that is stretched out to him — the effort required to hold that
hand fast enough while it is tugging at the roots of his animal
nature that cling to the soil of earth. That effort is an essen-
tial factor in the process of evolution to a higher stage in the
great kingdom of God. That effort is called self-denial —
the roots which hold man down are called self-love.
If that effort is not made — if time is allowed to go by
and no effort put forth — the very power of ^making that effort
passes away, and the man becomes spiritually dead. He
has sought his own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's,
he has preferred the animal kingdom to the spiritual kingdom
of God.
If we neglect our spiritual faculties, the law of nature
is sure to apply with us in our spiritual life. I cannot do
better than quote Drummond here : —
" The true problem of the spiritual life may be said to
be, do the opposite of Neglect. Whatever this is, do it,
and you shall escape. It will just mean that you are so to
cultivate the soul, that all its powers will open out to God,
and in beholding God be drawn away from sin. The idea
really is to develop among the ruins of the old, a new ' crea-
ture ' — a new creature which, while the old is suffering
Degeneration from Neglect, is gradually to unfold, to escape
SELFISHNESS. 153
away and develop on spiritual lines to spiritual beauty and
strength. And as our conception of spiritual being must be
taken simply from natural being, our ideas of the lines along
which the new religious nature is to run must be borrowed
from the known lines of the old.
" There is, for example, a Sense of Sight in the religious
nature. Neglect this, leave it undeveloped, and you never
miss it. You simply see nothing. But develop it and you
see God. And the line along which to develop it is known to
us. Become pure in heart. The pure in heart shall see God.
Here, then, is one opening for soul-culture — the avenue
through purity of heart, to the spiritual seeing of God.
" Then there is the Sense of Sound. Neglect this, leave
it undeveloped, and you never miss it. You simply hear
nothing. Develop it, and you hear God. And the line along
which to develop it is known to us. Obey Christ. Become
one of Christ's flock. ' The sheep hear His voice, and He
calleth them by name.' Here, then, is another opportunity
for the culture of the soul — a gateway through the Shepherd's
fold to hear the Shepherd's voice.
" And there is a Sense of Touch to be acquired — such a
sense as the woman had who touched the hem of Christ's
garment, that wonderful electric touch called faith, which
moves the very heart of God.
" And there is a Sense of Teiste — a spiritual hunger after
God ; a something within which tastes and sees that He is
good. And there is the Talent for Inspiration. Neglect
that, and all the scenery of the spiritual world is fiat and
frozen. But cultivate it, and it penetrates the whole soul
with sacred fire, and illuminates creation with God. And,
last of all, there is the great capacity for Love, even the love
of God — the expanding capacity for feeling more and more
its height and depth, its length and breadth. Till that is
felt no man can really understand that word, ' so great salva-
tion,' for what is its measure but the other ' so ' of Christ.
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son ?
Verily, how shall we escape if we neglect that ? "
The great battle of our lives is to escape from self —
to conquer self-love — selfishness, — and it is a hard battle for
the best of us, be he high or low. It is a battle that has
154 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
constantly to be fought — which requires watchfulness in
public as well as in private life. Many are the lives selfishness
has blighted and embittered. Hardly a more melancholy
example exists than the career that came to so tragical a
close with the death of Charles Stuart Parnell. Those of you
who have read that powerful memoir written by T. P. O'Connor
cannot have failed to be impressed with the change that came
over him in his latter years. It is not for me to enter into any
political discussion, but be our views what they may, it will
be granted by all that he was the leader of a popular movement,
and if he believed in this movement which he controlled, there
is no doubt that nothing but self-love could allow him to
withdraw himself night after night from the House of Commons
while his colleagues were in agonies of doubt and despair —
ignorant of his address, not daring to give expression to their
suspicions, — in order that he, their leader, might indulge in
his selfish passion. Self-love blighted what might have been
one of the greatest names in modern history and ruined a
brilliant career. The analogy with the story we have read in the
Old Testament will be plain to all, and it is only too true that
if you feed your selfishness, your selfishness will grow upon
you and warp your whole nature. And the more you feed
it the harder it will be to retrace your steps. The further you
go the further you will go — if you sin, the natural consequence
is that you will sin more.
I have mentioned one case in public life, but there are
countless instances on a lesser scale where, in one form or
other, selfishness has been a curse. Drink is an attribute
of selfishness. To drink your money away in a public-house,
is to indulge all that is low and animal in you, to encourage
what is furthest removed from the god-like in you, and that
is selfishness. To gamble away what should be brought home
to the wife is selfishness ; to be thoughtless of others' wants
and wishes is selfishness ; to do nothing for anyone because
that something has to be done at some personal inconvenience
is selfishness. Wherever duty is shirked that self may be
SELFISHNESS. 155
gratified instead, we have made self stronger and driven God
further away. And it is a strange thing, that as selfishness
grows in a man, happiness decreases. He who lives for self,
even if he has all the wealth the world can give, is never satis-
fied — the peace that floweth as a river is never his. He
becomes weary and hlasc, all the world can offer him he has
tasted to satiety, and his heart grows sick within him. The
old age of such a man, looking back on a selfish, fruitless life
of pleasure must be bitterness and gall. I am reminded in
contrast to this, of a lady I know very well, who has for years
been so ill with consumption that her voice is too weak for
me to hear even the sound of it, and her limbs are so frail that
they will barely carry her across the room. Yet she is full
of S5mipathy for others ; enters into the affairs of those she
knows with kindly interest, and actually works for different
missions and societies with which she is connected. One
would have thought that she at least, would be justified
in being selfish — who hardly ever knew a night free from
harassing cough, and yet her face wears an expression of
unchanging happiness — such happiness that I feel ashamed
of myself whenever I am in her presence — it is the happiness
of an absolutely unselfish nature.
Heart of Christ, O cup most golden^
Brimming with salvation's winej
MilHon souls have been beholden
Unto thee for Ufe divine :
Thou art full of blood the purest;
Love the tenderest and surest ;
Blood is life, and life is love ;
Oh, what wine is there Uke love ?
Heart of Christ, O cup most golden^
Out of thee the martyrs drank.
Who for truth in cities olden
Spake nor from the torture shrank ;
Saved they were from traitor's meanness;
Filled with joys of holy keenness;
Strong are those that drink of love ;
Oh. what wine is there Uke love ?
156 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Heart of Christ, O cup most golden.
To remotest place and time.
Thou for labours wilt embolden
Unpresuming but sublime ;
Hearts are firm, though nerves be shaken,
When from thee new life is taken ;
Truth recruits itself by love;
Oh, what wine is there like love ?
Heart of Christ, O cup most golden.
Liberty from thee we win ;
We who drink; no more are holden
By the shameful cords of sin ;
Pledge of mercy's sure forgiving.
Powers for a holy living,
These, thou cup of love, are thine ;
Love, thou art the mightiest wine.
From " The Rivulet," T.T. Lynch.
TEMPERANCE.
[The following is a portion of an address given first at Leeds.]
" Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee :
he shall never sufier the righteous to be moved. But thou, O God,
shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction ; bloodthirsty and
deceitful men shall not live out half their days ; but I will trust in thee."
— Psalm Iv. 22-23.
I have been asked this evening to devote the time at
my disposal to the subject of " Temperance." I propose to
do so, but I accept the title in its wider application.
If it is fanatical to be a total abstainer, there was never a
fanaticism more justified. No one can observe the withering
curse of " the drink " even as it blights the life of a single
individual, without feeling with Paul that anything which
makes it easier for the tempted to fall is, for those who can
influence the victim, unlawful. Who has not seen the terrible
consequences to the home where " drink "has made an en-
trance, the deepening shadow of a hopeless misery that settles
upon the family life, the degradation, moral and physical,
the loss of self-respect, the actual distortion of character which
follow one upon another like the strokes of a pitiless fate.
Those who refuse the easy platitudes of the arm-chair
optimist, and witness for themselves the effect of the traffic,
or examine critically the national statistics as they relate to
expenditure and health, recognise in alcoholism a national
curse, a direct and serious menace to the morale and physique
of the race.
No opposition can be too strenuous to an evil which
corrupts our politics, breaks up the home-life, and creates
and fosters crime. In this view all present are probably
agreed, and it is on that account that I feel free to dwell upon
IS7
158 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
a wider application of that virtue which, under the name of
Temperance, has perhaps been too exclusively associated
with one particular failing.
Our modern life, calls, indeed, for a Temperance gospel
more comprehensive in its scope, and more positive in its
teaching.
The evil to be cured goes deep. Excessive drinking is
not so much a thing by itself, as one bad and striking symptom
of a prevailing temper. It is an outward indulgence marking
a moral relaxation, one form only of a widespread paganism.
The virtue of Temperance, the ordered control of life's
activities, cannot be regarded by itself. It stands intimately
related to the secret spring of life's motive, it is the expression
of a settled purpose, the action of one who " has kept watch
o'er man's mortality," whose faith passes the bounds of death,
who reads in the changing shows of life the ways and will of
God.
It is not only because gambling is economically unsound,
or drunkenness physically injurious, that we condemn them
both. It is because intemperance imphes a purposeless life.
" Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half
their days." No, for theirs is at the best a half-hfe. They
control nothing, rather are they controlled. Their passions,
their lusts drive them like the strong wind of the " Inferno " in a
pitiless circle. They arrive nowhere ; they are the sport of
the tempest. They can will nothing, they can find no rest.
Self-realisation — that is a thing impossible, for, dominated
by their lusts, their higher nature is thwarted, crushed, ex-
tinguished. The fierceness of their craving for selfish satis-
faction, be it money, gambling, drink, or worse, absorbs them.
The fulness of a life conscious of its meaning, ennobled and
quickened by a sense of the Divine purpose, this they cannot
know.
There is a pathos in it, for it is fulness that they crave,
and the satisfaction of a passion seems to cover, if it be for
the moment, the haunting unreality and the emptiness that
TEMPERANCE. 159
assails their souls. The drunkard in his cups forgets the
misery of his aimlessness ; the dilettante in his study, the
gambler with his dice, each seeks escape from the fatuity of
selfishness, the hopelessness of the life that is not linked with
God.
" Sweet cup of life no power shall fill again,-
Thy juice goes singing through each gladdened vein,
Drink, drink my love, two mouths upon the brim,
Ah, drink, drink, drink each little drop and drain,
For have ye thought how short a time is ours.
Only a little longer than the flowers.
Here in the meadow just a summer's day,-
Only to-day ; to-morrow — other flowers."
There is nothing in life more terrible than this. True
indeed are the words of the Psalmist, "Bloodthirsty and de-
ceitful men shall not live out half their days."
To Hve out all our days, to live them fully, intensely,
to feel in them the throb of an ever-present reahty, a signi-
ficance deep and lasting, to look unflinching on death, because
we can look beyond
" And see the children sport upon the shore,-
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore,"
is to know, not the fitful fever of the self-indulgent, or the sad
anaemic pleasures of the ascetic, but the quiet and sustaining
joy of the temperate life.
" I will trust in thee," says the Psalmist, turning from
the fever and lust of headstrong men to that which alone gives
hope amid the shocks of life's circumstance. It is just the
life of quiet strength, controlled force, definite aim, steady
trust, which in the haste and turmoil of an age over-stimulated,
surfeited with the things of sense, we need to live.
It seems so hard to learn the secret of life, — not escape,
not indulgence, but possession and control.
The old monks shut themselves in cells or hid themselves
in the deserts, though even there the devOs pursued them, and
by counting their beads tried to win Paradise.
i6o JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
That way is not permitted to us. It too was only a half-
life, for it was only half a victory.
Our problem is different. It is to Hve with the world,
fighting through its daily struggles, tasting its daily alternation
of bitter and sweet, and there, in the market, the street, the
home, the office, to conquer and grow strong. More ! It is
to accept its pleasures, to love its beauty, to love life itself,
even as the Greek loved it for the very joy of living, and yet
so to accept and to love, that all may minister to the highest
that we know. This is the hardest as it is the greatest victory.
Let us, in short, be willing to live the simple life, simple
in its trust and faith, simple in its tastes, sincere and deep in
its purpose.
And we shall find that the true life though the simplest
is yet the richest, for to him who seeks the Kingdom, all things
are added. Nor is it bare, for asceticism is no true simplicity,
and the Kingdom of God is full of beautiful things.
Let us only be sure that we possess our goods and that
our goods do not possess us.
Our dress, our style of living, our reading, our thoughts,
our relaxations, our theatres, concerts, novels ; to what end
are they means ? Are they tyrannical or do they minister
to eternal life ? Have we purpose or are we aimless ? Is our
waggon hitched to a star ?
For Temperance is nothing negative. It is a positive
virtue, and its root is trust in God, which is hope in man and
the faith that conquers the world.
"WHEN WAR SHALL BE NO MORE."
A PLEA FOR COMMON SENSE.
Cavendish, a good Christian according to the prevaiHng
standard of his times, writes to Lord Hunsdon, in 1588 : —
" It hath pleased Almighty God to suffer me to circumpass the
whole globe of the world, entering in at the Strait of Magellan,
and returning by the Cape of Buena Esperanya ; in which
voyage I have either discovered or brought certain intelli-
gence of all the rich places of the world which were ever dis-
covered by any Christian. I navigated along the coast of
Chili, Peru, and New Spain, where I made great spoils. I
burnt and sunk nineteen sail of ships, small and great. All the
villages and towns that ever I landed at, I burned and spoiled."
We cannot read this now without a smile. It may have
seemed natural to the bold buccaneer to preface such an ac-
count with the words " It hath pleased Almighty God " ;
but I fancy that had Lord Brassey's voyage in the celebrated
" Sunbeam " been of like character, some doubt as to the
sanction of the Almighty would have found expression among
his countrymen.
Since those roving and boisterous times we have seen a
development in our social ideals ; international relationships
are such as to prohibit the launching of new "Alabamas" with
impunity, and the privateer is no longer permitted to infest
the highways of commerce.
The walls of York speak eloquently to the truth caught
by Sir Bedivere from the lips of the dying King, that " the
old order changeth, yielding place to new."
161
13
i62 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
The Scotch expresses, with their luxurious dining-cars,
would surprise our ancestors, not more because of their speed
and the mystery of their motive power, than because of their
subhme contempt for border-raiders and savages of the Gram-
pians. On rare occasions blows may be struck in the House
of Commons, to the grief and shame of a nation ; but we do
not expect, with all their zeal for Disestablishment, to see the
Welsh sweep down on Hereford and Gloucester ; nor will the
citizens of York ever again see the smoke of Scotch cattle-
raiders on the Hambleton Hills.
Private wars and border-raids are things of the past !
A Salisbury does not call out the vassals of Hatfield
that he may count the number of his faithful, and seek fresh
courage from the glitter of their arms, before he faces the kilted
warriors of Dalmeny ; nor need he fear a claymore behind each
tuft of heather, should he visit the grouse-moors of the north.
Judicial combats, when Justice kept her sword but threw
away her scales, have given place to our law courts, with judge
and jury. The wearying delays and the frequent fees are at
least more tolerable than the barbarous bludgeonings and
mutilations they supersede.
Common sense taught our forefathers the injustice and
folly of a system where might alone was right, and if our present
legal machinery be cumbrous and costly we can alter all that
too in time.
In 1849, Victor Hugo, speaking in Paris, said : — " A
day will come when war shall appear as absurd and be as
impossible between Paris and London, between St. Petersburg
and Berlin, as it would be now between Rouen and Amiens,
between Edinburgh and London, between Boston and Phila-
delphia. A day will come when the only battle-field will be
the market open to commerce, and the mind opening to new
ideas. A day will come when bullets and bombshells will be
replaced by votes, by the universal suffrage of nations, by
the venerable arbitration of a great Sovereign Senate, which
will be to Europe what the Parliament is to England, what the
" WHEN WAR SHALL BE NO MORE." 163
Diet is to Germany, what the Legislative Assembly is to
France."
There is a minority to whom, for good reasons, the pros-
pect of a time " when Universal Peace shall lie like a shaft
of light across the land " does not appeal ; but, on the other
hand, if the advocate of Peace be only careful to insert a
saving clause, placing the realisation of his hopes in some
immeasurably distant future, he wins almost universal con-
sent.
It would be amazing, did one not realise the deadening
effect of custom, to see the apathy with which the churches
regard the glaring inconsistency, so fatal to the spread of their
influence, which permits them on the one hand to train mil-
lions of fighting men, and on the other to preach the Gospel of
Peace, forsooth, to all the world !
What can be more pitiable than the spectacle of ministers
of the Prince of Peace sheltering themselves behind the Old
Testament, and justifying their indifference on the grounds
of an obsolete ideal expressly set aside by the very Christ
they seek to serve ! Under pressure, however, this incon-
sistency is generally admitted, and the war system is euphe-
mistically described as a " necessary evil."
The huge military establishments which are crushing out
the life of Europe, swallowing in equivalent an hour a day of
every working-man's labour, and handicapping us in the
race with America, are spoken of as the greatest securities
against war ; though at certain periods when an increase in
armament is contemplated it is more convenient to speak of
" the huge powder magazines which a spark may explode ! "
The idea that large standing armies are the custodians
of peace is perversely fallacious. You cannot have millions
of men confined to barrack life, and their officers an influential
class, denied that opportunity of distinction and promotion
afforded by active service, which they quite naturally desire,
without creating and maintaining in society a dangerous
and disturbing element. But why need this inconsistency
i64 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
continue ? Why need we have lynch law at all between nation
and nation ?
We have established the reign of law between man and
man within the State, we have done away with petty baronial
wars and internecine strife, — the next step in social evolution
is to extend the reign of law to international relations.
Are we, in short, to call ourselves Christian States and
continue to permit our international affairs to be conducted
in the fashion of savages ? The past development clearly
marks out for us the direction in which to work. We must
aim at introducing the reign of law, as opposed to brute force,
into international politics.
This mad rivalry between the nations for a first place in
the mihtary race cannot go on. We must bring the moral
weight of intelligent communities to bear in the decision of
international questions. We must stimulate in the minds of
the people a consciousness of the present folly. The increas-
ing pressure of armaments will make the work of education
easy if vigorously undertaken, and when the people become pos-
sessed of the thought that the reign of law is applicable to
international affairs, and that a way of deliverance from the
present intolerable t5/ranny lies open before them, that thought
will soon clothe itself in practical form.
Great ideals create great peoples.
A military nation may have for its ideal such a state of
things as we see in Germany, where within a week a million
men may be hurled over the frontiers of an enemy.
I think there is a higher ideal.
* Emerson says : — "If you have a nation of men who have
risen to that height of moral cultivation that they will not
declare war and carry arms, for they have not so much mad-
ness left in their brains, you have a nation of lovers, of bene-
factors, of true great and able men. Let me know more of
that nation ; I shall not find them defenceless, with idle hands
hanging at their sides. I shall find them men of love, honour,
and truth ; men of an immense industry ; men whose in-
" WHEN WAR SHALL BE NO MORE." 165
fluence is felt to the end of the earth ; men whose very look
and voice carry the sentence of honour and shame ; and all
forces yield to their energy and persuasion.
'• Whenever we see the doctrine of peace embraced by a
nation, we may be assured it will not be one that invites
injury ; but one, on the contrary, which has a friend in
the bottom of the heart of every man, even of the violent
and the base ; one against which no weapon can prosper ;
one which is looked upon as the asylum of the human race and
has the tears and the blessings of mankind."
People are fond of referring the realisation of such ideals
to the millennium, as if the millennium were a ripening plum
that will drop, independent of human agency, at the appointed
hour !
No great reform has ever been carried without a period
of education and hard work ; no legislation of moment has been
effected that has not had the pressure of the popular will
behind it.
The work of educating the nations to peace rests primarily
with the Churches. It is they who must insist on self-res-
traint, suppress the spirit of revenge, and realise the universal
brotherhood of man.
Let us no longer mock the Cross on the altar by holding
military services in our cathedrals and stimulating the passions
of a false and ignoble patriotism, but let us have services
devoted to peace.
Let the Churches cease to coquet with militarism, to deck
with attractive colours a pagan survival of a barbarous age,
and regardless of fashion and opinion, stand true to the
principles they represent, and the battle will be won.
[PubUshed in York Monthly Magazine, 1894].
a:
<
o
■n
m"
O
X
D
o
a
X
PART III.
ART AND HISTORY.
ART AND HISTORY.
INTRO D UCTOR Y NOTE.
" The Art of Engraving in Relation to the Religious
Thought of the Renaissance," was the title of a course of six
lectures given in June and July, 1904. While including
much of the material of previous lectures on Diirer, Holbein,
and Early German and Italian Engraving, this particular
series was specially prepared for Woodbrooke, and was the
final embodiment of years of Art Study. Unremitting care
and minute research were devoted to the compilation and
revision of notes on the origin of the Woodcut, Block books,
Early Book Engravings, Chronological Tables relative to
early engravings, and memoranda relating to the lives and
work of Diirer and Holbein. These notes, printed as sylla-
buses, were distributed to the audiences, and formed valuable
guides to the lectures. The amount of labour involved in
their preparation (as well in that of the slides as of the
lectures themselves), was very great, and was carried out
with the thoroughness which characterised all John Wilhelm
Rowntree's work.
In the first lecture, " The Childhood of Faith," he led his
hearers back into the fifteenth century, and made them
" sit where the people sat," for whom the first engravings
on paper published in Europe, opened the golden gates of
imagination.
The second lecture, " The Revolt of Faith," was a sum-
mary of the earher life and work of Albrecht Diirer. A
169
170 JOHN WILHELM ROVVNTREE.
striking analysis of his illustrations to the Apocalypse showed
the effect upon the artist of the Renaissance, and its recoil
from the corruption of the Roman Church,
The third lecture, "The Recovery of Faith," dealt with the
work of Diirer under different aspects, and described in much
detail his " Melancholia," and " The Knight, Sin, and Death,"
as illustrating the spirit of the time.
The fourth lecture, " The Emancipation of Faith,"
was a Study of " Art emancipated from the limitations of
the Gothic, and Faith emancipated from the spiritual frost of
ecclesiastical dominion."
The fifth lecture, " The Failure of Paganism," dealt
exhaustively with " The Dance of Death," and had as the
keynote, " If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are
of all men most miserable." The thought was further em-
phasised by the symbolism of Holbein's " Ambassadors."
In the sixth lecture his own mental attitude towards
" The Place of Art in Religion and Life " was summarised.
ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
OF THE RENAISSANCE.
(I.) EARLY ENGRAVINGS AND SIMPLE FAITH.
It was not till the opening of the fifteenth century
that paper, known in Europe two centuries earlier, became
plentiful, and it is at the beginning of the fifteenth century
that we discover our first prints. These are known as Helgen,
saints' images, — and were exceedingly numerous. Huss was
burnt in 1415, Luther's hammer was heard in 1517, and between
those dates an extraordinary production of religious pictures
took place. No doubt the Church was seeking to promote
piety by the multiplication of sacred emblems, and thus to
stay an evergrowing scepticism. But though, as we shall
find, this scepticism found early expression, we are compelled
to see in these Helgen something more than the machinations
of the priest. They speak the language of the soul — the soul
of the common people. And it is the simple, trustful, nay,
sometimes fearful language of little children. The Helgen
represent in art, as do the pictures of Wilhelm of Cologne
and Stefan Lochner, the childhood of faith. The storm is
soon to break, and in the Apocalypse of Diirer we shall hear
the howling of the vengeful tempest. Touched by the
reforming spirit of his age, the engraver is to stand forth, if
we may adopt the language of Ruskin, as " the sign-painter of
God." But this is the calm before the storm — the childhood
of unquestioning faith, call it credulity if you will. Pur-
chased at the shrine of a saint or given as the memento of
some pilgrimage, the Helgen were cherished as precious
things, and pinned up like a penny almanack on the cottage
walls of the poorest. They have a touching interest on this
171
172 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
account, which grows no less when we remember that they
were the unconscious preparation for change. As Dr.
Lippman has said in his charming book upon Itahan wood-
engraving, " the coloured woodcuts so dear to the people of
the North, became, in the end, one of the most potent agencies
of the movement for Reform, and were, even in the second
half of the sixteenth century, recognised as such by the leaders
of the Protestant cause."
" In their relation to contemporary thought, the quaint,
crude cuts are as windows through which we may study the
inner life of a bygone age. The antiquarian, no less than
the artist, and the student interested in the evolution of
human thought no less than either, may well give more than
a passing glance to these records of the engraver's knife."
(II.) THE ST. CHRISTOPHER OF 1423.
Take for instance the St. Christopher of 1423. The
story is simply and earnestly told. Earnestly enough. The
legend at the foot may be translated thus : —
" Each day that thou the Ukeness of St. Christopher shalt see.
That day no frightful form of death shall make an end of thee,"
Did not the Squire in the wonderful tale of Canterbury,
wear " A Christofre on his brest of silver shene ? "
Ah, dreaded powers of death ! ah, simple age of credulous
faith ! This is no idle tale that is told. There is a magic
in it. Art that is earnest, " und mil gefuhl," be it never so
faulty in its technique, strikes deeper than ever it does in the
service of Sir Midas and his age of gold.
And yet we have not done. On one bank, earthly toil,
the secular life. The miller and his ass, the grinding mill,
the peasant staggering under his burden to his little hut, —
no perspective — no perhaps not, but a truth simply told.
And on the other bank, the religious life. The hermit
holding aloft the lamp of faith, the rabbit in the tall grass,
undismayed, for it fears no man in a land of holy peace !
ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 173
Was it nothing that a people for whom the glorious
illuminated missals with their rich and endless emblazonment
were things unattainable, — was it nothing that these pictures
should adorn their bare walls and carry into the monotony
of their life, — a life, remember, without the solace of books —
such challenge to the slumbering imagination and the sluggish
soul ?
(III.) ST. BRIDGET AND THE VIRGIN OF BERLIN.
Of the same period is the St. Bridget in the Althorp
collection. St. Bridget of Sweden was born in 1302
and died in 1373. This simple cut tells the devout all
that they need to know. She went upon a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, — do you not see her pilgrim's hat, staff and scrip ?
She was favoured with visions and revelations of the Blessed
Virgin. Is she not there before you with the holy Child
embosomed in clouds ? She was a princess of the blood-royal
of Sweden, — behold the lion of Sweden and the crown. She
died in Rome ; upon a shield the letters S P Q R tell this
forth. The Virgin was tender towards her, and this central
fact of the saint's life is enshrined in the letters M I CHRS
carved upon the desk, — Mutter lesus Christus.
And last, but not least, the purport of the artist, the cry
of some burdened soul for whom were vouchsafed no white
presences upon the hills, no esctacy of saintly rapture, the
cry of the plain wayfaring man, struggling through a hard
and perhaps loveless life, "O Brigita bit Got fiir uns! "
This is a German picture ; let us take a Flemish example.
It is known as the Virgin of Berlin. Standing against a
flamboyant aureole, the Madonna, not ungracefully drawn,
and with not a little of the sweetness and grace proper to
her, makes a picture which, with its evidence of the influence
of the Van Eycks, is full of interest to the art student, despite
its primitive style.
But another interest attaches to the scrolls with their old
Flemish legend. We may read them thus : —
174 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
" Who is this Queen that standeth here ?
'Tis she who saves the world from fear.
How shall her name be named to us ?
Mary, mother, maiden glorious.
How came she to that height above ?
Humbly by charity and love.
Who then shall be lifted next to her ?
Whoso is most her follower."
So we may take leave of the Helgen, simple, crude pictures,
cut by tyros with an ordinary knife on planks of pear or other
fair-fibred wood, of small artistic merit and yet a precious
record of a struggling art and of a spiritual temper that was
shortly to be tried in the furnace of fiery doubt. Perhaps
the monks designed them, though at times even town cor-
porations, like those of Ulm, Niiremberg and Augsburg, ordered
their production for the public good. Perhaps, and this is
very likely, they were the work of the " brothers of the
common life," who, wiser than the Quakers, make it part of
their labour to teach the illiterate by means of pictures.
* « 4c ♦
Who will cry " O Brigita bit fiir uns ! " in these days ? We
have grown out of our childhood now, and as the sea yields
up its mystery, the grey enveloping Atlantic proves but a
highway and the world grows smaller, eternity fades. Through
trailing clouds of glory do we come. Yes, but the clouds that
were rosy are grey. The childhood of faith. Has it nothing
that is precious, something that realism, and science and the
self-assurance of knowledge cannot give ?
Look at the outside of the Ghent altar-piece, the famous
work of the brothers Van Eyck, finished in 1432. The theme
of the two panels we are to inspect is the Annunciation — in
the one the angel Gabriel, in the other the Virgin. The spirit
of the happy child-soul breathes with a rare fragrance in the
kneeling angel, pure and sweet as the lily he holds. The
world lies beyond the Gothic window, or rather all the world
of the artist is a church, and the church is all the world —
ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 175
a world that is intimate with God, that finds His love most
fitly expressed in the holy Mother, so tender so gentle, so
calm.
Well may the angels in the upper wing panels join in a
song of gladness and praise. These happy children of a
heavenly Father cannot help but sing, for their lives and their
love are one with His and with the world.
Why were such pictures painted then ? Why are they
never painted now ?
(IV.) THE MASS OF ST. GREGORY.
Let us take up a wood-cut of Diirer's and seek our answer
there. We are back again in the childhood of faith, in a world
full of dark superstition, in the twilight of the middle ages.
And here surely is some Romish fiction. St. Gregory, Gregory
the Great, is kneeling before the altar in prayer. To him, and
to him alone, in a golden mist of vision, the Christ appears
with all the symbols of His passion.
In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries this Mass
of St. Gregory was a popular theme, and several stories are
told to illustrate it. In Caxton's Golden Legend we read :
" It happened that a widow that was wont every Sunday
to bring hostes to sing mass wyth, should on a time be houslyd
and communed, and whan St. Gregory should give to her the
holy sacrament in saying Corpus Domini Christi, etc., that is
to say. The body of our Lord Jesus Christ kepe thee into
everlasting life, anon this woman began to smile to fore
St. Gregory, and anon he withdrew his hand and remysed the
sacrament upon the aulter. And he demanded her to fore the
people why she smiled and she sayed, Because that the bread
that I have made wyeth my proper hands, thou namest it the
body of our Lord Jesu Christ. Anon St. Gregory put himself
to prayer with the people for to pray to God that hereupon
he would show his grace for to confirme our belief, and when
they were risen fro prayer Saint Gregory saw the holy sacra-
ment in figure of a piece of flesh as great as the little finger
176 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
of an hinde, and anon after, by the prayers of St. Gregory the
flesshe of the sacrament turned into semblance of bread as it
had be to fore and therewith he communed and housled the
woman, which after was more rehgious, and the people were
more ferme in the faith."
The doctrine of transubstantiation, in its crude material-
istic form is an impossible one, but there is a sense in which
the strictest Quaker may accept it, a sense in which it is true.
The spirit of prayer is a transforming, a transubstantiating spirit.
The man who prays is transformed, and the world about him
is transubstantiated. The far meadows behind the setting
sun are his, the singing angels make music for him, and the
clouds of his glory are radiant with the light of heaven.
(V.) THE " PRAYING HANDS."
The faith that finds its voice in prayer is the faith in
which alone the greatest art is born. It is the faith of him
whose life and work we are next to consider. Diirer has left
us a wonderful study of the hands of a praying apostle, a
study for his Heller altarpiece. They are marvellous in
their fidelity of execution, but their technical interest has
always been their least interest for me. They epitomise
the man and all that is best in the age of the childhood of
faith. He who can pray like that will not smile with the
widow, for the common bread of life will be divine, and with
Paul the mystic, his homespun will be a heavenly raiment, for
he is " hid with Christ in God."
(VI.) ALBRECHT DURER AND HIS AGE.
The position of German art at this period is of interest.
In i486, Albrecht Diirer was apprenticed to Michael Wolgemut,
a painter of a contemporary school, of which he was almost the
last noteworthy representative. In this apprenticeship, we
have the meeting of the old and the new. Between Wolgemut
and Diirer, a definite line can be drawn. In the time of
ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 177
Wilhelm Meister painting was bound exclusively to the service
of the church — the cloister-like piety of the pictures which
represent the Cologne school express the serene content of
minds not yet touched by the spirit of inquiry. The con-
ditions of development had hardly existed before Diirer,
for it was only in his lifetime that the great change came,
(foreshadowed in the Van Eycks) from mediaevalism to realism,
from clerical mythology to poetry and genre. It is only when
the cities of Germany grew rich with trading and the burgher's
ambitions had been fired by the jingling of his ducats, that
we find in the advent of the private purchaser the needed
outlet and scope for the latent artistic feeling of the North.
South of the Alps, the dawn of the Renaissance had broken
into a blaze of glory. Its influence through scholars, books,
and rumour, travelled over the mountains by the highroads
of commerce, and added yet another element to the increasing
ferment in the North.
A glance at the list of contemporary artists is enough to
show what its stimulus must have been in the world of German
art. To exchange drawings with Raphael, to have com-
munication with Mantegna, to hob-a-nob with Bellini, to
watch the rise of Titian and Giorgione, to have a law-suit with
Marc Antonio, to be criticised by Vasari, to catch gossip from
time to time of Botticelli, to hear of Holbein's departure
for England, to mourn the death of Lorenzo de Medici, to be
favourably thought of by Leonardo da Vinci, and to have one's
prints admired by Michael Angelo is not the lot of every man,
but it was the lot of «Albrecht Diirer.
(VII.) THE REFORMATION PICTURED IN DURER'S
APOCALYPSE.
In 1498, Diirer published the Revelations of St. John the
Divine with Latin and with German text, and fifteen woodcuts
I5i by ii|^ inches in size.
14
178 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
A Revelation of St. John, these pictures are also a revela-
tion of art. They mark an epoch in the history of wood en-
graving, an epoch in the life of Diirer himself. That they are
unique in the fearlessness of their realism, pre-eminent in
their tempestuous power cannot be gainsaid. That they are
original in the quality of their message is neither true nor
necessary for their commanding greatness.
They are first an interpretation, reverent, and extra-
ordinarily exact, of the weird imagery of the Apocalypse.
Never before have the dreams of Patmos had such a pourtrayal.
Never again will they find in black and white an interpretation
so instinct with the magic of genius.
But they are more than this. We hear in them not only
the menace of a far-off judgment upon all the world, but rather
the muttering of a storm imminent and local. The cuts
we are to examine expressed in language that the contem-
poraries of Diirer perfectly understood, the gathering unrest
of the age. Men were not happy. Licentious revels, reckless
living, extravagant display, the poverty and the massacre of
peasants, the dark mystery of the recurring plague with its
swift smiting, so pitiless, unsparing and cruel, the lawlessness,
the roving of robber bands, and above all and even yet more
terrible, the mockery of a religion professed by unclean lips
and battening on the pardoner's gold. The harlotry of the
convents, the open scoffing of the priests, smote the pious
with heavy dismay, and fed fiercely the devouring flame of
doubt.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die. No
man hath seen God at any time. Religion is a mockery,
Rome a fraud, Death a curse, and life a gamble.
To men who thought these things, sold in the markets,
on the church door steps, here, there, north and south, these
winged words of an artist's soul sounded the note of defiance
for which they had long waited. The pulse beat quieter as the
pictures were conned and their meaning read. It was some-
thing at least for a great voice to say the world was wrong —
ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 179
it tuned men's ears for the hammer-strokes at Wittenberg.
" Whenever," says Professor Thausing, " the pubhc mind
has been at a loss to understand the existing state of things
in religious matters, it has always turned eagerly to that
mysterious book which also owed its origin to a similar
feeling of discontentment — the Revelation of St. John, which
God gave unto him to show His servants things which must
shortly come to pass."
Let us turn to the pictures and examine them.
The storm is in full blast. We can hear the howling of
Diirer's tempest. The four horsemen of the sixth chapter
(1-8) are let loose. " And I saw when the Lamb opened one
of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures
saying as with a voice of thunder, Come. And I saw and
behold a white horse and he that sat thereon had a bow ;
and there was given unto him a crown ; and he came forth
conquering and to conquer. And when he opened the second
seal I heard the second living creature saying, Come.
And another horse came forth, a red horse ; and to him that
sat thereon it was given to take peace from the earth and that
they should slay one another ; and there was given unto him
a great sword. And when he opened the third seal I heard
the third living creature saying, Come. And I saw and behold
a black horse ; and he that sat thereon had a balance in his
hand. And I heard as it were a voice in the midst of the four
living creatures saying, A measure of wheat for a penny,
and the oH and the wine hurt thou not. And when he opened
the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth living creature
saying, Come. And I saw and behold a pale horse, and he
that sat upon him, his name was Death, and Hades followed
with him. And there was given unto them authority over
the fourth part of the earth to kill with sword and with famine
and with death and by the wild beasts of the earth."
i8o JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
To the writer of Revelations the first horseman represents
conquest (the Roman general in a triumph rode on a white
horse) — the evil force of Roman dominion. The rider on the
red horse represents war in its aspect of slaughter. The rider
on the black horse is famine, it is a time of scarcity when food
is sold by weight. And on the pale horse, as we are told, the
rider is death — the personification of the destructive forces and
the wild beasts of the earth.
" And so there grew great tracts of w-ilderness,
Wherein the beast was ever more and more
But man was less and less."
This is the threatening of the Apocalypse. And think
how terribly true it was. Think of the Peasants' War, the
burning and slaughter of the Inquisition, the depopulation
of Germany in the long and fearsome death-grip of the Thirty
Years War. Men did not see these things when they saw the
four riders of Diirer, but there was that in the air which
pointed the menace of the words. And it was all to come so
soon. The horsemen are swift — their sweep, their onrush is
so impetuous. And see how the artist helps you to feel what
he feels. The margin cuts off the head of the foremost horse
and the tail of the last one, and you are allowed only to see
the forepart of the horses. They are coming at you — are to
trample upon you. It is an overwhelming avalanche of wrath
and it spares none, for wickedness is everywhere, A Nurem-
berg housewife, a fat merchant, a shrieking peasant, a fright-
ened burgher, and a tonsured head. But the worst is not
told. The breaking of the fifth and sixth seals is included
in one design — the fifth cut of the series. Above the clouds
white robes are being distributed to the martyrs for the faith.
Remember that though the design was finished earlier, the
year of publication was the year of Savonarola's martyrdom.
The fame of this bruited abroad would add additional interest
to this cut, and that I do not make an idle suggestion, a refer-
ence in a letter of Diirer's of 1521 will show. When quoting
ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. i8i
from this passage in Rev. vi. (9-17) he speaks of the innocent
blood shed by the Pope, the priests and the monks ; " these
are the slain that cry aloud for vengeance at the foot of the
altar of God." Below the cloud the significance of the
tonsured head in the previous cut is brought home. Amongst
" those who hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the
mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks Fall on us,and
hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne and
from the wrath of the Lamb," we see not only Emperor and
Empress, but a wailing pope, a dismayed cardinal, a bishop
and a monk, and, most significant of all, opposite, by the
little child, a woman rails with fierce, wide open mouth
against the representatives of religion.
The seventh cut gives us the substance of Rev. viii. and
ix. 1-12, the distribution of the trumpets to the seven angels,
and the plagues caused by the first five of them, and then we
pass to what is, I think, the most ruthless, the most terrible
picture of all, the unloosing of the four angels. We have seen
them in repose. Here they are in action. From under the
golden altar sweeps the army of warriors on lion-headed horses
that vomit flames. On the earth below are the four destroying
angels at their appointed task. No longer calm sentinels,
furies rather, fierce with the infinite wrath of a divine ven-
geance. One seizes a woman by her hair, another overthrows
horse and rider, one seizes the Pope by the shoulder having
already killed the bishop who lies behind.
Here Germany, the pent-up spirit of the people, speaks.
This is the Reformation.
There are times, times like the present, when an apocalypse
has its place, times when alas ! more is thought of the man
in the street than of the Man on the Cross. Our petty cares
and petty interests need to be swallowed up in the larger
thoughts of God, thoughts full of destiny and purpose, thoughts
of labour and of service, thoughts of that new Jerusalem
which comes down from heaven here upon this earth and in
this present life. The easy optimism of ignorance, no less
i82 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
than the pessimism of a nerveless will, the selfishness of the
luxurious spirit and the thoughtless levity of the superficial,
these create an atmosphere in which no soul can live. The
tempest of the spirit that smites them down may be terrible,
but there is healing power in its devastation. We must clear
the site before Jerusalem can be builded.
(VIII.) THE MELANCHOLIA— THE ZEITGEIST OF
THE RENAISSANCE.
Let us stop for a moment and think what was happening
when Diirer bent over the copperplate with contracted brow
and firm hand grasping the obedient tools.
Few men had seen greater changes in the world of religion,
in social life, or in art than he — the picture-poet of Germany.
Only twenty years before his birth, Constantinople had fallen
to the Turk, and a corrupt and dwindling Christendom had
stood appalled at the prospect of its own extinction. The
terrible emblem of the crescent planted thus arrogantly on
European soil had heralded not annihilation but revival.
Yet hitherto it had proved a revival of the arts rather than
of religion. Humanism, not faith, letters not love, culture
not discipline, luxury not service, pleasure not holiness, —
these were the current symptoms. The joy of the Renaissance
was Ucentious, sybaritic. True, there was the Academy of
Plato in Florence, but visit the Venice of the Renaissance
and what can you say ? The old land-marks had gone,
submerged in a rising tide of knowledge. Yes, but Aphrodite
had risen again from the foam, and the gods of ancient Greece
ruled once more upon the heights of Olympus. No one
thought to roll away the stone from the tomb of the Man of
Galilee. Knowledge, erudition, this was all in all. And to
the pageantry of the Renaissance what a background ! The
scarlet woman of the Apocalypse with her cup of abominations.
The mocking free-thinker, the horrified peasant, the people
ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 183
ashamed and dismayed. " God," said Pope Leo, " has given us
the Papacy, let us enjoy it"; and in Rome the cardinals and
the courtezans profane the temple daily, while knowledge
increases, religion is dying, and the mind of Europe is stretched
mercilessly upon the rack. The explorer is winning new
worlds across the seas. Miracles are receding on every hand.
The world contracts and becomes commonplace. Round not
flat, it is no longer the centre of a subordinate universe.
A whole mass of ideas and superstitions, cherished for ages,
is suddenly engulfed in the quicksands of Time. Printing
has arrived to give wings to thought, new ideas have a cur-
rency altogether more rapid and extensive than was possible
before. The intellectual panorama is swiftly changing.
Men have no sooner grasped a new thought and lo ! it is old,
and the world has moved past them. Dazed, bewildered, they
grope, wanting a guide. True, this revival of learning is
rich in results, but whither do they tend ? What boots it
all ? The peasants are sullen or in fierce revolt ; Europe
is a tangle of interests, conflicting, worr3dng, scheming : and
again and again, remorseless, inexorable, resistless, the Plague
strikes its blind, unmeaning blows, leaving maimed cities,
shattered homes, terrible heaps of the dead. Oh ! this dark
mystery of life and death, of joy and pain, of this travailing
world, groaning for the coming of the sons of God. Will
light ever break ? Is there any meaning at all in this cease-
less play of character and circumstance ? Is there indeed a
God ?
To men who feel the pressure of these conditions, who
ask these questions, Diirer sends his engraving of Melancholia,
There she sits — the Zeitgeist — the spirit of the striving,
troubled age. With strong pinions of imagination, crowned
with the bays of thought, brooding with chin on hand, with
the compass held listless on her lap, she gazes darkly into the
future. The divining crystal is black and uninforming, the
greyhound of the fleeting house lies curled at her feet, the
tools of labour and science are scattered about her, the hammer.
i84 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
the plane, the saw, the crucible. A cherub — the human soul
— sits upon the grindstone of necessity, above the scales
by which men weigh evidence, the ladder leading from the
known to the unknown, the hour glass and the passing-bell
which tell of the short day of man and the long night of the
grave. A crowded city upon the shore of an endless sea —
the limit of human knowledge and achievement and the
untravelled mystery of the future, are lit by the flare of a
comet, portent of evil, and by a rainbow of hope. A bat
flitting across the lurid sky bears upon a scroll the legend
" Melancholia."
It only remains to speak of the figures upon the wall.
Add them whichever way you will they yield the same result.
The tablet may be said to represent the baffled philosophy of
man, but there is another significance. In 1514, onMayi6th
or 17th, Diirer's mother died. Diirer has left an account of
the event. " She feared death much," he writes, " but she
said that to come before God she feared not. Also she died
hard and I marked that she saw something dreadful for she
asked for the holy water, though, for a long time, she had
not spoken. Immediately after her eyes closed over. I saw
also how Death smote her two great strokes to the heart, and
how she closed mouth and eyes and departed with pain. I
repeated to her the prayers. I felt so grieved for her that I
cannot express it. God be merciful to her."
Lionel Cust asserts that the tablet has reference to this.
Whether we accept this or not, the pathetic story of the mother's
death and Diirer's evident grief lend a peculiar interest to
the engraving which made its appearance in the year of
bereavement. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Without a
living knowledge of God what avail alchemy, philosophy and
mathematics ?
(IX.) ST. JEROME,— THE RETURN TO FAITH.
But there was a rainbow. Let us follow where it leads.
We turn to the second picture, the picture that is intended to
ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 185
be set in antithesis to the first. We pass at once from dark-
ness to hght, from toiling thought to peaceful contemplation,
from anguish of mind to gladness of heart. Here sits St.
Jerome in the Temple of Peace. The dog sleeps soundly
in the warm sunshine, the lion keeps one eye open and listens
in the silence to the scratching of the saintly pen. Outside
doubtless the bees are humming among the flowers. The
books, the slippers, the cushions, the scissors in the rack,
bespeak the recluse, a settled and orderly routine, a life
of quiet contemplation. Jerome, good man, is at work on the
Vulgate. The soft light that streams radiantly upon him
through the round panes is the divine approval shed upon
his labour. The cross, the rosary, the skull, betoken the
piety of warm and assured faith.
Have we here a reflection of the struggle earlier in the
life of the artist, when he turned from the classic to Christian
art ? Certain it is that in Jerome we see the true opposed to
the false path ; knowledge and scholarship allied with faith
and piety. There can be no issue from all this darkness,
the artist is saying, apart from a knowledge of God. The
Melancholia with its detailed witness to the machinery of the
intellect is gloomy in tone, the Jerome is flooded with sunshine.
(X.) THE KNIGHT, SIN, AND DEATH.
We move a step forward. Among Diirer's drawings is a
sketch for an armed knight. We need to see the picture as
a whole. The Christian knight of German mysticism,
associated perhaps in our minds with Fouque's Sintram, is
before us. Fully armed, calmly confident, he rides the narrow
defile. Behind him the Fiend, beside him Death, before him
a slippery rock ascent, above him the castle of God. " Ein
feste Burg ist unser Gott ! " Observe the details. The
Fiend has one whole, one broken horn, to mark his imper-
fection, the ears of an ass to mark his obstinacy, a snout
to mark his vileness, a goat's hoof to mark his bestiality.
Death on a dying horse holds up an hour glass in solemn
i86 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
warning, vipers crown him and the passing bell tolls at the
horse's neck. But there is yet one significant detail. The
oak of victory crowns the head of the knight's horse. He
will yet win his way to the city that is set upon a hill.
No one can examine these pictures without feeling some-
thing more than the pleasure afforded by their great technical
perfection. They appeal directly and powerfully to the mind
and heart. We are separated by many centuries from the
dreaming philosopher of Nuremberg, whose magic of black and
white so fascinates us to-day. But we are nearer to him
than our years. Many parallels between our own age and
that of the Renaissance unite us in a common experience.
There have been changes and conditions in the last hundred
years which have provoked the same fear, the same pessim-
ism, the same dismay, the same idle and shameless revels.
Again the world has grown smaller and miracles have re-
ceded. Not Gutenberg but Watts, not Martin Behaim
but Speke and Livingstone, not Copernicus but Darwin,
not Erasmus but the German critics. The landmarks we
steered by have been submerged and we may no longer sail
by old familiar headlands. More than this, Europe to-day
professing Christianity, maintains armed millions trained to
war, holding them in leash, but ready to let them loose.
She desires not the Cross, but wealth, not humility but rank,
not service but pleasure. God has given us civilisation, let us
enjoy it, and the free-thinker stands and scoffs as he stood
and scoffed in Diirer's Apocalypse. The peasant is no longer
cut down by the long bright sword of the Swabian Leaguer,
but in a thousand cities he is murdered by the selfishness
and indifference of Society, that permits the slimi if only it
be spared the luxuries.
And we, we as individuals, have we no affinity with the
artist and his pictures ? I think we have. The darkness
and fatuity of the life lived apart from God, has its bitter
melancholy, its comet of threatening doom. We probe
with the tools of science and philosophy but our energy is
ART, AND RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. 187
vain, until such time when the surrendered will shall perform
the Divine work with gladness, and the sun streams in through
the windows of the soul.
Then come temptation, come death — we ride invulner-
able. The heart that has surrendered is the heart that knows
and conquers. Selfishness is broken, and pride thrown down.
With the oak of victory as a nodding plume, and the morning
light upon the fair towers of the Holy City, we ride through
the night into the dawn, from strife and sorrow to everlasting
peace and joy.
THE ARTIST, THE APOSTLE, AND
THE MYSTIC.
It is possible, though open to dispute, that in 1494 Albrecht
Diirer wandered through the ways of Venice, an obscure
youth, in search of ideas and experience. If the supposition,
not wholly groundless, should ever find support in convincing
evidence, an additional interest will attach to those tem-
pestuous pictures expounding Die Heimlich Offenbarung
Johannes which engrossed Diirer's pencil on his return to
Niiremberg.
John Addington Symonds, speaking of the " Bride of
the Adriatic," describes the serenity of her undisturbed
security, the luxury of her wealth, and the "physiognomy
of ease and proud self-confidence " exhibited in "all her
edifices."
Such symptoms scarcely suggest an apocalypse, but
when the gifted writer turns to the religion of Venice, he
tells us that it " was the faith, not of humble men or of
mystics, not of profound thinkers or of visionaries, so much
as of courtiers and statesmen, of senators and merchants,
for whom religion was a function among other functions, not a
thing aparty not a source of separate and supreme vitality."
Venice, alas ! was a second Corinth, and gloried in the
infamy of every vice. The splendour of artistic environment,
and the seciu-ity of a free and peaceful government were not
then, as they never can be, the sure guarantee of a spiritual
Utopia. Take off her painted mask, and Venice stands as an
epitome of the age, and an expression of that spirit which
called forth the scathing satire of Diirer's picture apocalypse
188
THE ARTIST, THE APOSTLE AND THE MYSTIC. 189
There is one wood-cut of the series, which illustrates the
seventeenth chapter of the book of Revelation. The orthodox
religion of the day is held up to scorn as the scarlet woman
on the seven-headed beast. In the impudent glitter of her
hoyden finery, she offers her dubious charms to an astonished
peasant, and a straddling, sarcastic, free-thinking artizan.
Only a thin-lipped monk, low-browed and fervent, kneels
in adoring prayer.
This appearance of an apocalypse is the appearance of
lightning in a threatening sky. There are definitely marked
and recurrent periods when the apocalypse of John supplies
the material for the thought and imagery of the prophet
struggling against some access of iniquity.
Such a period was that of George Fox, When we think
of the seventeenth century we think first of the Puritans, and
then we remember "Hudibras," and the plays of Wycherley.
But we must not forget that the people " in scorn called
Quakers," gathered together in protest against both, against
the solemnly conducted worship of God, no less than against
the flagrant vice of the theatres and the court. They pierced
the deception of outward appearance, and spoke of that which
satisfied their contemporaries as " Mystery — Babylon."
One of Penington's tracts, " Babylon the Great Described "
(I waive the rest of the title), appeared in 1681, and is strangely
sympathetic in teaching to the engraved apocalypse of 1498.
After dealing slightly with the ob\dous sins of the flesh,
Penington devotes himself to the more subtle wiles of his
symbolic city. The " great Masterpiece of Babylon is to
set up a false Church, which, by reason of its paint and
likeness to that which once was true, should pass up and
down the world, and be taken for the true, and here lies her
Beauty, her Glory, her Majesty, her Life, her Heart, even
in the deceivableness of this appearance. . . She often
reneweth and changeth her paint nearer and nearer to the
Image and former likeness of Truth, that she might make it
pass instead of the Truth, and so keep that which is indeed the
190 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Truth down still under reproach. . . Therefore she hath
her sorts of paint by her, her varieties of sorcery, of witchery,
of Inchantments (sic), whereof her cup is full, and wherewith
her wine is made strong to make the inhabitants of the earth
drunk thereby . . . She speaks fair words ; she calls
to have the worship of God set up, a Godly Ministry, and
the ordinances of God in a nation ; but the thing is not so
in the sight of God."
He is not satisfied with the solemnly conducted worship,
which Charles II. could attend, only to return with renewed
zest to the base frivolities of his mocking entourage.
How is it to-day ?
Recently, in the Hibhert Journal, appeared four articles
on the " Alleged Indifference of Laymen to Religion." Here
again the external evidences of wealth, security, and " proud
self-confidence " do not satisfy, but the editor prints in capital
letters the startling question, " Where is Christianity ? "
He asserts, that what men want is a " more valid proof than
has yet been offered that the world is serious, when it professes
the Christianity which is a life and not a creed."
It appears that we are still in the streets of Babylon !
Shall, we, I wonder, imitate the young artist in Venice, and
go home to issue an apocalypse !
Quakerism, like the primitive Christianity it professed
to revive, was apocalyptic in its temper. It saw visions, it
spoke an inward truth, its life was pure. Is it possible that
we have fallen at last to the deception of a painted image ?
Do we, in the simplicity of a creedless faith, live in that
reality and power which transcends all creeds ? Do we, in
the trials of life, and bearing the penalties of the flesh, dare
to say with Fox, that we dwell " in Paradise ? "
Perhaps the " plain man " is satisfied ; he is thankful
that he is what he is, and impatient of all this nonsense about
a spiritual life. And, knowing the plain man, we are often
inclined to be satisfied too. He may be unspiritual, but then
he is such a good fellow ! We enjoy his dinners, his coffee
THE ARTIST, THE APOSTLE AND THE MYSTIC. 191
and cigars, and his stories make us laugh. But there are
moments when we are conscious that something is wrong.
The painted mask shps a little, and we catch a hint of the
truth. The fact is that the " plain man's " house is in
Babylon. It may be in a good quarter. There may be no
vice, and the slums may be shut off by intervening property,
but it is the spirit of Babylon that broods over it ; Isaac
Penington would never have lived there. " He that is not
with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me
scattereth ! " The greater number of us sedulously forget
that Scripture, and bask contentedly in the meadows which
are, as we verily believe, in the land of Beulah, and in sight
of the heavenly city. Too late we discover that the meadows
border not upon Paradise but upon the city of Vanity Fair.
Assuredly all " plain men " are not of this stamp. Many
are earnest and seek reality in social service. They are
strenuous to redeem the world from its ugliness. And it is
good so far, for Christianity is not an abstraction, nor is it
even a creed. To quote the Hihhert Journal again : " It is
a state of the will in the first place, and of the intellect only in
the second." But the question arises : What is the motive
of such effort ? Is it consciousness of any spiritual ground-
work ? Do our activities spring from our spiritual experience,
or are they a substitute for it ?
Have we in the mystical language of the Gospel been
" born again " ; has all creation a " new smell," or are we
simply struggling in the toils of self, discontented with Babylon
perhaps, but still within its walls ? This is the recurring
question under a hundred forms asked by Fox and his fellows.
They called men from the " outward," whether the " outward "
of solemn worship in some beautiful Church, or the " outward "
of the daily life in home or market, on the magistrates' bench,
or behind some ploughing team. " Turn in, turn in," cried
William Penn, " I beseech you ! There you want Christ, and
there, blessed be God, you may find Him ! " No ministry of
the Word, however cultured or equipped, no social service,
192 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
however scientific or informed, can have either power or
permanence, without the acknowledged indwelhng of the
Divine Love. This it is that hberates, saves, redeems ;
that purifies and fits for the loftiest enterprises of the soul.
We must abandon self-love, to seek victory in self-surrender,
and peace in the selfless ambition to honour a living God.
" Lord," said Albrecht Diirer, " give us then the new
and beautiful Jerusalem, which comes down from heaven,
and of which the apocalypse speaks ! " But to win the
franchise of Jerusalem we cannot continue citizens of Babylon.
"Come forth my people out of her, that ye have no fellowship
with her sins." Let us cherish the faith of " humble men
and of mystics," and join our prayer with Penington's who
was of these :
" Awake ! arise ! Stand up from the dead ! Come out
of the thick, dark land, where the pure God of Life is not to
be found. Come out of Babylon and touch not the unclean,
that the pure life may receive you into unity with itself ! "
[Published in British Friend, February, 1904.]
AUGUSTINE.
[This formed part of a series of lectures on the Doctrine of
the Atonement ; most of them were never written outatlength.]
Lecture I.
We have come now to what George Matheson has called
the close of the child-life of Christianity.
One commanding figure stands out in this period of
transition at the threshold to the age of scholasticism (the
school-life of Christianity), viz., St. Augustine.
So greatly has he dominated Christian thought, so clearly
can his influence be traced in the teaching of Anselm upon
the Atonement, that we are bound even in a hasty and super-
ficial survey like this, to devote more particular attention to
him. Not only so ; we are endeavouring to form some idea
of the life which struggled to find expression in the creeds, to
clothe with flesh the dry bones of theology, to discover what
was the need men sought to satisfy when they formulated
the doctrine of the Atonement.
It may be a more direct pcth to the attainment of our
object if we deviate from the general historical survey on
this occasion, and inquire somewhat into the nature of the
spiritual struggle by which Augustine passed from darkness
to light. The record of the passion of a single soul may
cast a wide illumination upon the problems of life, and give
reality and force to Christian truth, which we may miss in
the cold and clear-cut formula.
If this be true we are singularly fortunate in our choice
of St. Augustine, for in the story of his conversion we have
that which is typical of his generation. In him we read as
in a mirror the inward mood of the saddest and darkest
193
15
194 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
age in human history. All the sinister tendencies which had
been gathering strength met in his mind. And more than this,
though it is fifteen centuries since the Bishop of Hippo wrote
his Confessions, they come to us with the force and with the
freshness of a contemporary document. It is impossible
to read them without emotion. Their naked and transparent
sincerity, their terrible and ruthless exposure of the most
hidden thought, their story of fierce temptation and human
passion, of mental conflict, of anguish of soul and of heart-
hunger, not only call out our sympathy, but touch us to the
quick and compel us by their searching truthfulness to read
our own heart without self-deception.
We will then postpone to the next occasion the considera-
tion of Augustine's influence upon the theology and polity
of the Latin Church, and devote ourselves this evening to
that part of the " Confessions " which lead us up to and in-
clude Augustine's conversion.
Augustine was born in Africa, in 354 ; to be more precise,
at Tagaste, in Numidia.
The political atmosphere of the Roman Empire was
already heavy with the menace of the coming storm. Decline
had become so evident that men of intellectual force no longer
looked to Rome as the mistress in whose service the highest
ambitions for usefulness might be gratified.
In 361, amid waning hopes, declining intellectual ac-
tivity and growing scepticism, Julian, the last of Constantine's
house, ascends the throne of the Caesars.
It may serve both as a rebuke and an encouragement
for those who despair of the vitality of the Christian faith, to
recollect that in the year 361 a.d. a Roman C?esar, concerned
for the moral elevation of his people, regarded the influence
of official Christianity as barren, and proclaimed the restora-
tion of paganism in the belief that he was promoting a moral
reformation.
It was a dark hour, but the little African boy, who was
meantime playing with nuts and sparrows in the streets of
AUGUSTINE. 195
Tagaste, was the destined saviour of the church in this crisis
of her life. Not that the boy as yet gave promise of the man
he was to be. Ardent, affectionate, excitable he was always,
but the Bishop of Hippo was to be slow in the making.
The Confessions are complete, they begin at the beginning.
There are some quaint touches which throw a side-light even
upon his baby days.
" I grew indignant with my elders for not submitting to
me, and took my vengeance on them with tears." " Such,"
Augustine sagely remarks, after years had brought experi-
ence, " have I learned infants to be from observing them."
Later he writes, " As a boy I began to pray to Thee,
and I used to ask Thee, though small yet with no small earnest-
ness, that I might not be flogged at school."
Alas ! Augustine did not so comport himself as to escape
flogging. He was fond of play. " Why did I so much hate
the Greek which, as a little boy, I used to study ? Not even
yet is it quite clear to me. For the Latin I loved, . . .
at least what the so-called grammarians taught me."
He hated reading, ^\^:iting and arithmetic. " One and
one, two, two and two, four, — this was to me a hateful sing-song.
The wooden horse filled with armed men, and the burning
of Troy and Caesar's shade, were the vain spectacles most
charming to me."
" Thefts also I committed from my parents' cellar and
table, either because tempted by gluttony, or that I might
have to give to boys who sold me their play."
" In this play I often sought to win by cheating . . .
and what could I so ill put up with, or when I found out
did I denounce so fiercely as that very thing which I was doing
to others, and for which found out, I was denounced, but
yet chose rather to quarrel than yield."
" And is this the innocence of boyhood ? Not so, oh
Lord, not so. I cry Thy mercy, oh my God, For those very
sins, as riper years succeed are transferred from tutor and
master, from nuts and balls and sparrows, to magistrates and
196 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
kings, to gold and mansions, and slaves, just as severer punish-
ments displace the cane."
As a young man, he sins to the flesh " with a proud
dejectedness and a restless weariness."
And he complains that when in the full course of his vices,
his friends only care " that I should learn to make a good
speech and be an impressive orator." So he is sent to Carthage.
The expenses were found " rather by the resolution than by
the means of my father, who was but a poor man of Tagaste."
" But yet this same father had no concern how I grew to-
wards Thee or how chaste I were, so that I were but a cul-
tured speaker, however barren I were to Thy culture, oh God."
At Carthage, " I made myself out more vicious than I
was to avoid being blamed, and when there was nothing
which I could plead guilty of, to be like the most abandoned,
I would pretend that I had done what I had not done, that I
might not seem more contemptible because I was more inno-
cent, or be held the cheaper because more chaste."
This spirit comes out in a specific incident, recorded with
some detail. " I wanted to thieve and I did it, though
compelled by no want or poverty, but through a loathing
of righteousness and a surfeit of iniquity. Nor did I want
to enjoy what I sought by my theft, but the theft and sin
itself."
The desire of good esteem lay at the root of his conduct.
" When it is said ' let's go, let's do it,' we are ashamed not
to be shameless."
He was the chief in the Carthage School of rhetoric.
In his nineteenth year he reads Cicero's " Hortensius."
" Hov/ I did burn then my God, how I did burn to soar
again from earthly things to Thee." He notes the omission
of the name of Christ in it. " This only gave me pause, that
the name of Christ was not in it. For this name, according
to Thy mercy, oh Lord, this name ofmy Saviour Thy Son had
my tender heart, even with my mother's^milk, drunk in, and
deeply treasured ; and, whatsoever was without that name,
AUGUSTINE. 197
though never so learned, polished or truthful, took not entire
hold of me."
So he turns to Scripture. " I began to turn my mind
to the Holy Scriptures that I might see what they were. But,
behold, I see a thing not understood by the proud, nor laid
open to children in mien lowly, in issue lofty and veiled with
mysteries ; and I was not such as could enter into it, or stoop
my neck to follow its steps. For, not as I now speak did I
feel when I turned to those Scriptures, but they seemed to
me undignified in comparison with Ciceronian dignity, for
my swelling pride shrunk from their humble method, nor
could my sharp wit penetrate their depths. Yet were they
such as would grow up in a little one. But I disdained to
be a little one ; and swoln with arrogance took myself to
be a great one."
At this point Augustine joins the Manichasans.*
" I fell in with men raving with pride, very carnal and
worldly. . . Oh, Truth, Truth, how inwardly did even then
the marrow of my soul pant after Thee, when they often and
diversely, and in many and huge books, clamoured to me of
Thee in empty words. . . Yet because I thought them to
be Thee, I fed thereon ; not greedily, because Thou didst
not in them savour to me as Thou art ; . . . nor was I
nourished by them, but rather exhausted. Food in dreams
shows very like the food of waking men ; yet are not those
asleep nourished by it, for they are asleep."
For nine years (20-29), Augustine remained with the
Manichaeans, to the great sorrow of the saintly Monica, his
mother.
" Almost nine years passed in which I wallowed in the
mire of that deep pit . . . the while, however, that
chaste widow, devout and sober, though something brighter
* Manichaeism is not a Christian system of thought except in
name. The predominance of evil was explained by tlie supposed
existence of an evil deity, who, from all eternity resisted the good
deity, and furnished the larger part of the material out of which the
world had been made.
198 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
for the hope, yet no whit relaxing in her weeping and mourning,
ceased not at all hours of her devotions to lay before Thee
her sorrow on my behalf."
Having returned home, the death of a dear friend greatly
troubled him. " I had poured out my soul upon the sand,
in loving one that must die, as if he would not die." Unable
to bear Tagaste any more, he returns to Carthage, " dis-
traught without rest, without counsel, for I bore about a
torn and bleeding soul."
Recovering somewhat in the whirl of a great city, he
writes " Fair and Fit," dedicated to " one Hierius, an orator
of the city of Rome."
In this treatise he defined " fair " as that which is so in
itself, and " fit " that which is beautiful as it corresponds
to some other thing." "For I had not known or learned that
no substance was evil, and that our mind was not the supreme
and unchallengeable good." " I preferred to argue that Thy
unchangeable substance had been compelled to err, rather
than confess that my changeable substance had chosen of
its own will to turn aside from the way, and now for a punish-
ment lay in error."
At twenty-nine years of age, many questions had arisen
in his mind, which he had sought to answer, and which he
asked his Manichaean friends to answer. They referred
him to a certain Faustus, a brilliant orator of that sect.
Faustus visits Carthage. Augustine, disappointed, finds
him pleasant, eloquent, but shallow. " What availed the
most courteous butler to assuage my thirst for a rarer
vintage ? "
Shaken in his Manichaeism, he determines upon Rome.
Deceiving his mother, who desires to keep him, he escapes
in a vessel, and sets foot in Italy.
Having left Manichseans, he still clings to the belief that
it is not men who sin. " I still thought that it is not we our-
selves that sin, but that some other nature (what I know not)
sins in us." Disappointed in his teacher, he is naturally
AUGUSTINE. 199
attracted to Academius, who taught that men should doubt
everything.
What he did believe in those days is best put in his own
words : — " I believed Evil ... to be some . . .
kind of substance, and to have its own foul and hideous bulk.
. . . . And because some sort of piety constrained me
to believe that the good God had created no evil nature,
I conceived two masses, mutually antagonistic, both infinite,
but the evil narrower, the good greater. . . When my mind
sought to revert to the Catholic faith, I was repelled, since
that was not the Catholic Faith which I thought to be so.
And I thought it was more reverent in me, my God, to believe
Thee infinite on all sides, except upon that one where the
mass of evil opposed itself against Thee."
" Yea and our Saviour Himself, Thy only Begotten,
I believed to have been reached forth (as it were) for our
salvation, out of the mass of Thy most lucid substance, so as to
believe nothing of Him but what I could imagine in my vanity.
His nature then being such, I thought could not be born of
the Virgin Mary. . . I feared therefore to believe Him
bom in the flesh, lest I should be forced to believe Him
defiled by the flesh."
We now approach the crisis of his life. He goes to Milan
to teach rhetoric. He hears Ambrose " whose eloquent
discourses did then plentifully dispense unto Thy people the
fatness of Thy wheat, the gladness of Thy oil, and the sober
inebriation of Thy wine."
He is almost persuaded by Ambrose and " after the
manner of the Academics (sceptical of everything and
wavering between all) I settled so far that the Manichaeans
must be abandoned."
At this point he is joined by his mother. Augustine
tells the story of her voyage in a paragraph which must be
repeated both for its beauty and for its quaint touch of
humour : " Strong in her piety, following me over sea and
land, and amid all perils safe in Thy protection. For through
200 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
the dangers of the sea she comforted the very mariners, by
whom passengers unacquainted with the deep are generally
comforted when troubled."
Augustine tells her he is not yet a Christian. She re-
plies, " I believe in Christ that before I depart out of this
life I shall see thee a faithful CathoHc."
He continues to be impressed by Ambrose. " I began
to condemn my own despair for having believed that no
answer at all could be given to such as hated and scoffed
at the Law and the Prophets."
He is still troubled to conceive of a " spiritual substance."
" Could I once have conceived a spiritual substance all their
(the Manichaeans) devices would be cast down immediately
and thrown off from my mind, but I could not."
He is helped by hearing Ambrose " most diligently
recommend to the people as a rule, this saying, 'The letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life.'" He still withholds from
Christianity. " I witheld my heart from all assent, dreading
a downfall, and came nearer being killed by the suspense. For
I wished to be as assured of the things I saw not, as I was that
seven and three are ten."
Throughout all the changes of his opinion, his belief
in the immortality of the soul has remained. " In disputes
with my friends of the nature of good and evil, I used to hold
that Epicurus would to my judgment have won the palm, had
I not believed that after death there remained a life of the
soul, and durations of requitals."
Now in his thirty-first year he advances a step. He
sets behind him his vicious living and conceives of God
as incorruptible. " And I a man, and such a man, sought
to conceive of Thee the Sovereign and only and true God,
and I did in my inmost soul believe that Thou wert incor-
ruptible and inviolable and unchangeable, though not knowing
whence or how." " My heart passionately cried out against
all my phantasms, and with this one blow I sought to beat
away from the eye of my mind all that unclean troop which
AUGUSTINE. 201
buzzed around it." ..." yet I did not hold that the
cause of evil was explained and disentangled."
" I strained to perceive what I now heard, that freewill
was the cause of our doing ill, and Thy just judgment of our
suffering ill, but I was not able."
" But it lifted me a little toward Thy light to know that
I had a will. . . But again I said. Who made me ? Did
not my God, who is not only good but goodness itself ? ' '
" Whence then, comes it, that I choose the evil rather
than the good ? Who set this in me ? If the devil were the
author, whence is that same devil ? And if he also by his
own perverse will, of a good angel, became a devil, whence again,
came in him that e\dl will, whereby he became a devil ? ' '
" I sought anxiously ' Whence was evil ? ' . . . Thou
knewest what I suffered, and no man. For what was there
of it which I could convey by my tongue into the ear of
my most familiar friend ? "
He reads a Latin translation of Plato's works. He finds
a striking parallel to the opening passages of John's Gospel,
" but that the word was made flesh and dwelt among us,
I read not there " {i.e. in Plato).
" And being admonished to return to myself, I entered
with Thy guidance into my inmost self, and I was enabled
to do so, for Thou wert my helper. And I entered and beheld
with the eye of my soul, above my mind, the Light unchange-
able ; not this common light which shines for all flesh . . .
not such was this light, but other, yea far other from all these.
Nor was it above my soul as oil is above water, nor yet as
heaven is above earth ; but higher than I because it made
me ; and I below it because I was made by it. He that
knoweth the Truth, knoweth what that Light is ; and he
that knoweth it, knoweth Eternity." ..." And Thou
didst beat back the weakness of my sight, streaming forth
Thy beams of light upon me most strongly and I trembled
with love and awe, and I perceived myself to be far off from
Thee, . . . as if I heard Thy voice from on high, ' I
202 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
am the food of them that be full grown ; grow, and thou shalt
feed upon Me ; nor shalt thou transmute Me into thee, as
thou dost the food of thy flesh, but thou shalt be transmuted
into Me.' "
" And I said ' Is Truth therefore nothing because it is
not diffused through space, finite or infinite ? ' And Thou
criedst to me from afar, ' Yea verily, I am that I am.' "
" And I heard as the heart heareth, nor had I room to
doubt, and I should sooner doubt that I live, than that Truth
is not."
Then it came to him that creatures not God are subject
to change, and that God made all things good. " Therefore
if all things be deprived of all good they will entirely cease
to be. . . The Evil then which I sought, whence it is,
is not any substance ; for, were it a substance it should be
good. For either it should be an incorruptible substance,
and so a chief good, or a corruptible substance, which, unless
it were good could not be corrupted."
" And I inquired what iniquity was, and found it to be
no substance but the perversion of the will, turned aside
from Thee, oh God."
But he does not yet understand how " the Word was
made Flesh."
He now comes under the influence and teaching of one
Simplicianus, with whom he has much converse. He endures a
great conflict of wills : " My two wills, one old, and the
other new, one carnal, the other spiritual, warred against
each other, and by their discord squandered my soul."
"Then upon a day, there came to see me and Alypius one
Pontitianus our country-man, in so much as he was an African,
holding a high command in the Palace. I do not know what
his business was with us, and we sat down to converse, and
it happened that upon a table, for some game before us, he
observed a book, took, opened it, and greatly to his surprise
found it the Apostle Paul. Whereat smiling and looking
upon me he expressed his joy, for he was a Christian." He
AUGUSTINE. 203
is led on in converse. In course of this, Pontitianus tells the
the story of St. Anthony. Augustine is greatly affected.
" I was gnawed within and exceedingly confounded
with an horrible shame while Pontitianus was so speaking.
With what stripes of condemnation scourged not I my soul
that it might follow me in striving to go after Thee. But
it still withstood, refused though not excused itself. Then,
in this powerful struggle of my inmost dwelling-place, I
fell upon Alypius and cried out ' What ails us ? What
heardest thou ? The unlearned start up and take heaven
by force, and we with our learning and without heart, lo !
where we wallow in flesh and blood. Are we ashamed to
follow, because others are gone before ? — and not ashamed
not even to follow ? ' I rushed out then into the garden
and Alypius hurried after me. I was groaning in spirit, in-
dignant with most relentless indignation that I could not
journey towards Thy will and covenant, oh my God.
If I tore my hair, beat my forehead, if locking my fingers I
clasped my knee because I willed, I did it. But I might have
willed and not done it. . . But I did not then do that
which I, with an incomparably greater longing, wished to do. "
" More easily did my body obey the weakest willing of
my soul, in moving its limbs at its nod, than the soul obeyed
itself to accomplish in the will alone this its momentary will.
Whence is this strange anomaly ? . . The mind commands
the body and it obeys instantly ; the mind commands itself
and is resisted. . . Whence this strange anomaly ? It
willeth not entirely, therefore doth it not command entirely.
. . . . It is therefore no anomaly, but a disease of the
mind, that it doth not wholly rise, for it is uplifted by truth
but pressed down by habit."
" Thus soul-sick was I and tormented, accusing myself
much more severely than my wont, rolling and turning me
in my chair, till that were wholly broken, whereby I now was
but shghtly held. . . For I said within myself, ' Be it
done now, be it done now,' and as I spake I came near to
204 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
resolution, now I nearly did it yet I did it not, but fell not
back into my old place, but stood hard by and drew my
breath. . . And Alypius sitting close by my side in silence,
watched the issue of my unwonted emotion. . . When
deep reflection had from the secret store of memory drawn
and heaped together all my misery in the sight of my heart,
there arose a mighty tempest bringing a heavy downpour of
tears."
Augustine desires solitude, and flings himself under a
fig-tree. " And not indeed in these words, yet to this purpose
spake I much with Thee, ' And Thou O Lord, how long ?
how long. Lord, wilt Thou be angry for ever ? O, remember
not against us former iniquities,' for I felt that I was holden
by them. Why not now ? why not this hour make an end
of my uncleanness ? "
" And lo ! from a neighbouring house I hear a voice as
of a boy or girl, singing, and oft repeating, ' Take read, take
read.' "
Augustine takes the words as a divine command, and
remembering that Anthony had changed his life through en-
tering a church as the words " Go sell all that thou hast and
give to the poor " were being read, he goes to the seat where
he left x\lypius, and takes up the volume of the Apostle,
which had attracted the notice of Pontitianus. " I seized,
opened, and in silence read the passage upon which my eyes
first fell, ' Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering
and wantonness, not in strife and envying ; but put ye on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh
to fulfil the lusts thereof.' No further would I read, nor
was there need, for, instantly, at the end of this sentence,
as though my heart were flooded with a light of peace, all
the shadows of doubt melted away."
" Then, putting my finger between, or some other mark,
I shut the volume, and with a calm countenance made it
known to Alypius. . . Thence we go in to my mother,
we tell her ; she exulteth and triumpheth, and blessed Thee,
AUGUSTINE. 205
' Who art able to do above that which we ask or think,' for
she perceived that Thou hadst given her more for me, than
she was wont to ask in her sorrowful and tearful groanings.
For Thou didst so convert me unto Thyself that I sought
neither wife, nor any hope of this world, standing in that rule
of faith, where Thou hadst in a vision revealed me to her so
many years before. And Thou didst turn her mourning into
joy, fuller by far than she had desired."
AUGUSTINE.
Lecture II.
Last time we dealt with Augustine's conversion as
described in the " Confessions," and are concerned this evening
with his philosophy and theology.
Augustine, the " doctor of grace," was born in 354 at
Tagaste, in Numidia. His conversion took place thirty-three
years later, 387. It is 150 years since Tertullian turned
Montanist and Irenaeus died, a hundred years since the
Decian persecution. Since those dark days of terror, Con-
stantine has come and gone — Jerome has given the world
his translation of the Scriptures, and passed to the church
triumphant ; it still wants twenty years before Ambrose
steps into the pulpit at Milan, to enthral with his eloquence
the impressionable Numidian youth. He was born into
stirring times. As the aged Bishop of Hippo, he was to witness
the crash of the Roman world, to hear as he lay dying the
thunder of the Vandals at his city gates.
Augustine stands indeed between two epochs with his
back to the age of the Fathers and his face to the long darkness
of the mediaeval age. The old world is dying around him,
the new has not yet taken shape. But in him the hour had
found the man.
We have already marked the main facts of his life —
his vicious youth in Carthage, his search for truth, never really
abandoned even in the midst of evil pleasures, his Manichae-
ism, his reaction to Agnosticism, his flight to Milan, his
encounter with Ambrose, his study of Plato, and finally, after
a terrible struggle, his conversion to Christianity.
206
AUGUSTINE.
207
We have noticed his familiarity with different phases of
thought, his deep sense of sin, his profound dissatisfaction
with the world.
To a man of weak will and strong passions, whose main
strength lay in the emotions, who had no canon for the
recognition of truth, whose intellectual stability had been
shaken by his many changes of belief — it was an immense
relief when the crisis had passed.
Light came to him in the recognition that the seat of
evil lay, not as the Manichaeans taught, in matter, but in
the human will. Conversion was for Augustine, both the
recognition of this fact, and the surrender of his will to an
authority he had learned to recognise. What was that
authority ? Christ ? God ? The Higher Law ? The Di-
vine will ?
Yes and no.
In the burning pages of the " Confessions," there is
passionate testimony to the dominance of Christ. But
men see Christ at best through the medium of their thoughts,
and the atmosphere of Augustine's age was but murky at
the best.
There Wcis an element of mysticism in Augustine, but
mysticism is not incompatible with dependence upon ex-
ternal authority. And the conditions both in Augustine's
character and his environment, made it inevitable that he
should fall back upon such external authority as he could find.
That external authority was the Roman Church, glorified
by the eloquence of Ambrose, and sanctified by the illumina-
tion of a conversion which sealed the complete surrender of
the ardent African.
Ambrose had defied the Roman empress, and humiliated
the emperor Theodosius. The fact would not be without
its significance to Augustine.
The Roman Church, which was already becoming the
state, was shaping in the Latin mind " as a vast, mysterious
entity, a personification, as it were, of the hierarchy or epis-
2o8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
copate, a living corporate existence, endowed from without
with all the powers, the supernatural gifts and grace for the
salvation of men. In one sense, it is true, all men who were
in communion with the Catholic episcopate, were spoken of
as the church. But in the most important sense, the church
as teaching and ruling the world was not the people but the
hierarchy ; the grace that saved was deposited primarily,
not in the congregations, but in the bishops by whom it was
administered to the people. Thus the church had taken
the place of Christ as the way of redemption, and had become
the mediator between God and man."
This change in the church has its effect upon the new
convert. Despite the expression of personal devotion to
Christ in the " Confessions," it has been remarked that the
theology of Augustine would stand almost unshaken if
Christ were eliminated.
But before we come to the theology we must give a brief
space to the philosophy of Augustine.
For Augustine, before his conversion, had studied
Plato and imbibed not a little of the Greek influence in the
study of that great philosopher's translated works.
Indeed to Plato, Augustine, in the words of Dr. Fairbairn,
" owed his lofty idealism which gave to his system all its
dignity and all its power."
Not that his philosophy can lay much claim to order or
system. Augustine was not a clear, ordered thinker ; — to
quote Fairbairn again, — "His works are almost all occa-
sional — torn from him by the necessities of the moment,
exhibiting all the one-sidedness and exaggeration of a singu-
larly rich and restless mind, that throws itself successively
on single aspects of the truth and deals with each aspect as
if it were the whole. He had the excellencies proper to one
who is, in the field of controversy, perhaps the supremest
master, but his system has all the defects proper to his pre-
eminence in this field — i.e., it is in no respect a^system, but
only a succession of positions polemically maintained."
AUGUSTINE.
209
This fault was however a virtue. As Canon Mozley
says : "In argument he was not too deep ; to have been so
would have very much obstructed his access to the mind of the
mass, and prevented him from getting the ear of the church
at large."
Bearing this in mind, and remembering that this charac-
teristic of Augustine was to lead him into no little con-
tradiction in his theology, let us briefly examine his philosophy .
Augustine as philosopher. — "For him as for Plato science
means a purer, cleaner, more exalted life, the life of a thinker."
Reason is a gift of God. He has given it to us that we
may know all things. Reason is the eye of the soul, by which
we perceive the highest wisdom, and that is God Himself.
There should be no antagonism between reason and faith ;
faith, which some oppose to reason, is only possible to reason-
able beings.
Nevertheless, chronologically faith precedes intelligence.
" Credo ut intelligam." Augustine makes faith a condition
of knowledge. Nevertheless, he regards it as a provisional
state, inferior to reasoned knowledge and which ultimately
resolves itself into knowledge.
Augustine's theodicy is Platonic. Beyond, outside,
without God, there is nothing. Everything has reality
below, in and through Him.
God is the beginning, middle and end. Nor are goodness,
justice and wisdom accidental attributes, but are of the
universal essence of God.
Omnipotence, presence, and eternity, these too are of the
Divine essence. Nevertheless Augustine is careful to dis-
tinguish between God and the world. His speculations
about God are necessarily involved in a series of antinomies.
God is substantiallj' omnipresent, without, however,
being everything ; everything is in Him though He is not
the all. He is the Creator of intelligence, and yet is superior
to it. He is present everywhere, without being bound to
any place.
16
210 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
He thus escapes pantheism by his doctrine of creation
ex nihilo.
If the universe had emanated from God, then it would
be itself of divine essence and identical with God. So to
Augustine it is not an emanation, but a creation, by an act of
free-will. The Stoics held that God was the soul of the world
and that the world was the body of God. Not so Augustine.
Augustine, with his deep sense of sin, cannot bear the
thought of God as immanent in the world ; the thought was
to him an outrage upon the divine majesty of God.
Upon the doctrine of the Trinity Augustine is interesting.
The three hypostases of the Trinity, although distinct,
constitute but one God, just as reason, will, and the emotions,
form but one and the same human being. Augustine is
acute in his criticism of Arianism.
" What do you mean," he says, " by assuming that the
Son created the world at the command of the Father ? Do
you not thereby assert that God the Father did not create
the world, but simply ordered a demiurge to create it ?
What is the Son if not the Word of God, and what is a com-
mand if not an act of speech ? Hence God commanded the
Son, through the Son, to create the world. What a strange
and absurd conclusion. Arianism should have seen that the
command by means of which God created the world out of
nothing simply means the creative word itself. God is a
spirit and we should not and cannot form an image of the
immaterial."
As for the creation, we have seen that Augustine re-
garded the world as created by an act of free-will. Therefore
the world had a beginning. Origen, and the Neo-Platonists
would accept, on the contrary, the idea of emanation. They
believed in eternal creation ever in process.
Augustine therefore is face to face with the difficulty
of conceiving God without the universe. He meets the
difficulty with an inconsistency ; Augustine the philosopher
and Augustine the theologian being here in antagonism.
AUGUSTINE. 211
He maintained that God created the universe by an act
of fiee-will, and yet creation was not the result of caprice,
but of eternal decree. He then realises that it is indifferent
whether the will of God compels Him to create the world at a
given time, or whether it compels Him to perform the act
of creation eternally. In either case we have absolute
determination.
Therefore Augustine declares that the principle and
supreme norm of things is the divine freedom, and therefore
again it is futile to inquire into the cause of creation.
Turning to the soul, we find Augustine anticipating
the familiar argument of Descartes, Cogito ergo sumi, in
seeking for a proof of its existence. He lays stress upon
thought, consciousness, and memory, and herein shows
philosophic common sense.
But what about the origin of the soul ? Some say it
emanates from God. But that is too much honour.
No, for Augustine, sharing the heavy sense of sin and
evil which weighed upon his generation, it was impossible
to accept the thought. The soul must be a creation of God.
If so it had a beginning. When ? Some say the soul was
created in Adam, and all other souls produced per traducem.
This idea would powerfully have supported Augustine's
doctrine of sin transmitted from Adam. But he rejects it as
too materialistic. Others say that souls were created before
bodies, and existed in another state, but were not introduced
till after the Fall, the object of their captivity in human bodies
being in expiation of sins committed in a previous life. This
was a view that was borrowed largely from Plato.
But Augustine considers the complete absence of any
recollection of a previous life forbids the acceptance of this
theory, and falls back on the belief that body and soul are
created together.
But he regards the soul as distinct from the body, and
as immortal. To him the reason is an evidence of immor-
tality. The reason brings the soul into touch with eternal
212 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
truth. As the soul yields to the truth, they become in effect,
one.
Physical death is a mere incident, but the death of the
soul would mean separation from truth. But who can
of himself wholly separate himself from truth ? God alone
can separate them, but what conceivable ground can he
have for this ?
The Greek fathers had struggled against the tendency
present, for instance, in Neo-Platonism, to separate man
and the world from God.
Augustine, on the contrary, feels the gulf so keenly,
that he aims at elevating God and debasing man. Man
must owe nothing to himself, all to God.
The soul is a passive instrument. It receives all its
impressions and ideas of sensible things through the senses ;
moral and religious, through the spirit. Augustine conceives
of a heavenly light within the soul but not identical — the
Inner Light of the early Friends — which interprets and reveals
truth to the soul.
But the more Augustine becomes convinced of the fall
and radical corruption of human nature, the dimmer this
light appears to him.
After the Fall, reason is obscured by sin, and the inner
light changes to darkness. Had it remained pure, God would
not have had to incarnate Himself in Jesus in order to reveal
himself to humanity.
Turning to morals : — We find Augustine lifted by the
influence of Plato above the level of patristic ethics. Virtue,
not happiness, is the highest good. He maintains 'against
Tertullian that morality is absolute and does not depend upon
a person. He claims that the Divine Will does not make
goodness, beauty and truth, but they themselves constitute
the very will of God.
He says : "Is the moral law good because God is the
highest Law-giver ? No. We regard Him Who has given us
the moral law as the highest law-giver because it is good."
AUGUSTINE. 213
A thing is not bad because God forbids it, God forbids
it because it is bad.
The Latin fathers, Jerome and Chrysostom, condoned
and authorised, as do the Jesuits, official falsehood. Permit
falsehood and 3'ou permit sin, answers Augustine.
Augustine acknowledges the insoluble problems of
human freedom in relation to divine prescience. If God
foresees our actions and permits them, they become neces-
sary. Then how explain free-will, responsibility, and sin ?
We shall see in his theological system where these diffi-
culties led him.
Augustine's theology. — It is not as a philosopher that we
can dismiss Augustine. " It was to the Church as it had
grown up in Latin Christendom that Augustine had been
converted, and great as were the innovations which he sanc-
tioned upon the theories of his predecessors, it was still to the
Latin Church as an institution that he consecrated the
labom's of his life. As he came in contact with sects or
heresies which denied its authority or rejected its essential
principle, his conception of it became more clear and dogmatic,
and it may be said of his life work as Bishop of Hippo, that
its predominant aim was to adjust social institutions and
even humanity itself, to the claims of a hierarchy divinely
appointed to teach and rule the world."
The first of these controversies was with the Manichceans,
and he uses the arguments of Tertullian.
Truth is a deposit in care of the' episcopate, it is found
only in the Church, and to the Church even Scripture owes
its authority. There is here no appeal to the divine light
in the soul bringing it in contact with eternal truth.
The second controversy was with the Donatists. Here
the idea of the Church fixes itself more clearly in Augustine's
mind and affects of course his conception of God.
The Donatists were a North African sect, who protested
against the laxity which re-admitted the apostates of the
Diocletian persecution into the communion of the Catholic
214 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Church. They encountered persecution from the Emperor,
and under its pressure developed the further contention
that it was sinful for the Church to depend upon the State.
In answer to the first point, Augustine claims that the
Church must include in its nature the tares with the wheat.
But he was driven further. With his conversion he had
accepted Cyprian's dictum, that outside the Church is no
salvation. All men must therefore obey the Church.
Augustine did not accept Cyprian's idea of the Church as
merely offering a probation to men. No, it was here by divine
appointment, and if so all men must come into it — by force
if no other way. Therefore the Church might call upon the
sword of the state in her need.
The Manichceans denied that the Church was the sole de-
pository of truth, the Donatists denied its right to rule the con-
science, and now Augustine is face to face with the Pelagians.
They denied that the Church was necessary for salvation.
But to Augustine the Church had taken the place of Christ
as the way of salvation, and he now seeks a dogmatic basis
by which to justify the claim of the Church to be mediator
between God and man. In doing this he lays the corner
stone of Latin theology.
The foundation of that theology is Augustine's doctrine
of original sin. The dogma is unknown in Greek theology,
and is an innovation in Latin thought, though vaguely
suggested by Tertullian and Cyprian.
According to this dogma, humanity is solely separated
from God by Adam's fall. The guilt of one man dooms the
whole race to everlasting woe. The redemption of the world
by Christ assumes an insubordinate place and is practically
denied. Adam not Christ becomes the normal man, the type
of the race.
There is a solidarity in sin not in redemption. How is
the sundered relationship to be restored ?
Christ is no longer the bond which unites God with
humanity. The incarnation has become a mystery.
AUGUSTINE. 215
He was oppressed by the sense of sin in himself and
others ; the appalhng depth of human wickedness. To the
mind of a practical Roman it was meaningless to think or
act as if humanity were redeemed to God.
He abandons universal redemption and seizes upon the
principle of individual election. Some only are saved.
The union with God is the divine will — it is free — not
grounded in righteousness or love (note the decadence and
contradiction of his earlier thought) — and it is vain to inquire
into its working.
Thus we come to this, that out of the freedom of God's
creative will has sprung the arbitrary determination con-
stituting right.
It is a capricious predestination which acts without
reference to human efforts or attainments.
The Catholic Church is the one appointed channel through
which the predestined elect are to be saved. All who come
into the Church will not be saved, but all must be drawn in
that all the elect may have the means of grace.
As Augustine saw in his conversion, sin has its seat
in the will ; but original sin has corrupted the will, and
example and exhortation are powerless to re-create it.
Baptism is the means of re-creation and now comes to
have a dogmatic meaning not before possessed. For the
heathen there is no hope, nor for the unbaptised.
Augustine was not without opposition. Theodore of
Mopsuestia reflected upon Augustine's lack of reverence and
of true fear in asserting things about God which human justice
would condemn, and in the West, Vincent of Lerins, protesting
against Augustine's innovations, set forth the famous doctrine
" That should be held for Catholic truth, which has been
believed everywhere, always and by all." That has since
remained the standard exposition of what is called the great
Catholic principle, by the very Church which accepted the
innovations against which the doctrine was raised.
The Greek Fathers had set forth Christ as the teacher
2i6 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
of the world, whose presence in the world was the power
by which men were delivered from sin.
In Augustine's system, Christ becomes an impersonal
theological expression ; grace, which is in one aspect the
will of God choosing the elect, in another a deposit vested in
the Church and to be dealt out to the faithful in the sacraments.
Augustine did not definitely initiate it, but nevertheless upon
this teaching, the sacramentarian theology came to be based.
The doctrine of endless punishment is now taught with a
rigidity previously unknown, and the belief in a bodily resur-
rection stimulates the idea of purgatory. Augustine speaks of
a purifying fire for the elect.
Prayers for the dead under Augustine become prayers
for the alleviation of purgatory.
We have noted the inconsistencies of Augustine's
teaching ; the curious dualism which shows itself in the
contradiction given in later years to his earlier philosophy.
We have seen how the influence of church authority on
the one hand, and of his deep sense of sin upon the other,
worked upon him.
Augustine however, with all his limitations, was great
in that he made possible the survival of the Latin Church,
when the waves of barbarism, like an advancing tide, were
drowning the sand castle of the Roman Empire.
The ages to come were ages when men needed authority,
and when the Greek appeal to reason would have fallen
upon ears too ignorant to comprehend. The influence
of Augustine upon subsequent thought was far-reaching.
Geneva and Wittenberg testify to his power. John Wy cliff
and John Huss built upon his teaching.
" For a thousand years," says Allen, " those who came
after liim did little more than re-affirm his teaching, and so
deep is the hold which his long supremacy has left upon the
church, that his opinions have become identified with the
divine revelation, and are all that the majority of the Christian
world yet know of the religion of Christ."
THE FRIENDS OF GOD.
2 Cor. iii. i8.
In the thirteenth century, St. Francis of Assisi had given
expression to the reaction against the Christianity of Hilde-
brand and Innocent III. In the fourteenth century the
" Friends of God " gave expression to the ever recurring
revolt against externahsm in rehgion.
Scattered along the banks of the Rhine from Cologne
to Basle, which was their headquarters, these " Friends "
witnessed, amid the discords of political and ecclesiastical
strife, to the eternal peace of God in the soul.
They were the contemporaries of Wycliff, of Dante,
Chaucer, and Giotto. They saw the Jubilee of 1300, that
famous year which marks not only the close of the mediaeval
papacy, whose glories lie buried in the grave of Boniface,
but the supreme unfolding of Dante's life, the " Divina
Commedia."
They viewed with the distress of all good Catholics
the Babylonish captivity of Avignon, and heard, as who did not,
of the nameless vices of the Papal court. They saw the
horror of the Black Death, and its physical terrors deepened
the gloom of the political and ecclesiastical world.
Theirs, then, was a time of intellectual activity, and of
social and religious unrest. If in Italy we have Dante and
Giotto, we have too the strife of Ghibelline and Guelph, and
the scandal of the absent Pope. If in Germany we have an
Emperor who defies the Pope, and stands for comparative
217
2i8 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
freedom of thought, we have also the anarchy following upon
interdict, the unsettlement and uncertainty of the long strife,
and the curse of civil war.
Two brief extracts from the Chronicle of Adolf Arnstein,
armourer of Strasburg, the fictitious document in which
Robert Vaughan, in his " Hours with the Mystics," has thrown
together the real historical details of the period, may serve
to complete our background, and leave us free to consider our
subject.
"1324, St. Kylian's Day. — What a day this has been!
Strasburg and all the states which adhere to Louis are placed
under the bann. The bells were ringing merrily at early
morning ; now, the Interdict is proclaimed, and every tongue
of them is silent. As the news flew round, every workman
quitted his work. The busy stalls set out on either side of
the streets were left empty. The tools and the wares lay
unlocked at and untouched. The bishop and the clergy of
his party, and most of the Dominicans, kept out of sight. My
men are furious. I have been all day from house to house,
and group to group, telling the people to keep a good heart.
We shall have a sad time of it, I see. It is so hard for the
poor creatures to shake off a fear in which they have been
cradled.
"The clergy and the monks will pour out of Strasburg
as out of a Sodom, in shoals. A mere handfid will stay
behind, — not nearly enough to christen those who will be
born and shrive those who will die in this populous city.
They may name their price ; the greedy of gain may make
their fortunes. The miserable poor will die, numbers of them
in horror, unable to purchase absolution. And then, out of
the few priests who do remain, scarcely any will have the
courage to disobey the pope, and, despite the Interdict,
say mass."
" 1326, March. St. Gregory's Day. — ^A long conversation
with Henry of Nordlingen. He has journeyed hither, cast
THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 219
down and needy, to ask counsel of Tauler, Verily he needs
counsel, but hath not strength of mind to take it when givea
Tauler says Henry has many friends among the excellent
of the earth ; all love him, and he is full of love, but sure a
pitiful sight to see. His heart is with us. He mourns over
us the trouble of the time. He weeps for the poor folk living
and dying without the sacraments. But the Interdict crushes
his soul."
A.D. 1339, Jan. "Bitter wind and sleet this morning.
Saw three Dominicans creeping back into the town, who had
left it a month ago refusing to say mass. Poor wretches, how
starved and woe-begone they looked, after miserable wander-
ings about the country in the snow, winter showing them scant
courtesy, and, sure I am, the boors less ; and now coming
back to a deserted convent and to a city where men's faces are
towards them as a flint. Straight, as I saw them, there came
into my mind that goodly exhortation of Dr. Tauler's, that we
should show mercy, as doth God, unto all, enemies and friends
alike, for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen,
how can he love God, whom he hath not seen ? Ran after
them, called them in, thawed them, fed them, comforted
them with kind words and good ale by the great fire — then
argued with them. They thought it a cruel thing that they
must starve because pope and emperor are at feud. ' And
is it not,' urged I, ' a crueller that thousands of innocent,
poor folk should live without the sacrament, never hear mass,
perhaps die unshriven, for the very same reason ? Is not
God's law higher than the pope's — do to others as ye would
they should do unto you ? Could you look for other treat-
ment at the hands of our magistrates, and expect to be
countenanced and sustained by them in administering the
malediction of their enemies ? ' Thought it most courteous,
however, to ply them more pressingly with food than with
arguments.
" While they were there, in comes my little Otto, opens
his eyes wide with wonder to see them, and presently breaks
220 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
out with the words, now on the tongue of every Strasburgher
a rhyming version of the decree :
' They shall still their masses sing,
Or out of the city we'll make them spring.'
Told him he should not sing that just then, and when he was
out of the room, bade them mark by that straw which way
the wind blew."
Adolf Arnstein is represented by Vaughan as one of
the " Friends of God," but he had never any existence in
fact. Who then really were these people ? Let us quote
once more from our chronicle : —
" Through all Rhineland hath he moved godly men,
both clerks and laity, to draw nearer the one to the other,
forming together what we call the association of the Friends
of God for the better tending of the inward life in these troub-
lous times, for wrestling with the Almighty on behalf of His
suffering Christendom, and for the succour of the poor people,
by preaching and counsel and sacrament, that are now as
sheep without a shepherd, and perishing for lack of spiritual
bread. Tauler is of the foremost among them, and with his
brethren, Egenolph of Ehenheim and Dietrich of Colmar,
labours without ceasing, having now the wider field and
heavier toil, as so few are left in Strasburg who will perform
any church service for love or money. Ah ! well might
the Abbess Christina say of him that the Spirit of God dwelt
within him as a sweet harping. He has travelled much of
late, and wherever he goes spreads blessing and consolation ;
the people flock to hear him ; the hands of the Friends of
God are strengthened ; and a savour of heavenly love and
wisdom is left behind. His good name hath journeyed, they
say, even beyond the Alps, and into the Low Countries.
Neither are there wanting many like-minded, though none
equal to him. He found at Cologne Henry of Lowen, Henry,
and Franke, and John of Sterngasse, brother Dominicans
all of them, preaching constantly, with much of his own fer-
THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 221
vour, if with a doctrine more like that of Eckhart. In Switzer-
land there is Suso, and I hear much of one Ruysbroek, in the
Netherlands, a man younger than Tauler, and a notable
master in the divine art of contemplation.
" Among the Friends of God are numbers both of men and
women of every rank, abbots and framers, knights and nuns,
monks and artizans. There is Conrad, Abbot of Kaisersheim ;
there are the nuns of Unterlinden and Klingenthal, at Colraar
and Basle, as well as the holy sisters of Engelthal ; the knights
of Rheinfeld, Pfaffenheim and Landsberg ; our rich merchant
here, Rulman Merswin, and one, unworthy of so good a name,
that holds this pen. Our law is that universal love commanded
by Christ, and not to be gainsaid by his vicar. Some have
joined themselves to us for awhile, and gone out from us
because they were not of us ; for we teach no easy road to
heaven for the pleasing of the flesh. Many call us sectaries,
Beghards, brethren of the Free Spirit, or of the New Spirit,
and what not. They might call us by worse names, but
we are none of these. The prophecies of some among us,
concerning judgments to be looked for at the hands of God,
and the faithful warnings of others, have made many angry.
Yet are not such things needed, when, as Dr. Tauler saith,
the princes and prelates are, too many of them, worse than
Jews and infidels, and mere horses for the devil's riding. So
far from wishing evil, we mourn as no others over the present
woe, and the Friends of God are, saith Dr. Tauler again, pillars
of Christendom, and holders off for awhile of the gathered cloud
of wrath. Beyond all question, if all would be active as they
are active in works of love to their fellows, the face of the time
would brighten presently, and the world come into sunshine.
" It was but yesterday that in his sermon Tauler repeated
the saying of one — an eminent Friend of God — ' I cannot pass
my neighbour by without wishing for him in my heart more
of the blessedness of heaven than for myself ; ' ' and that,'
said the good Doctor, ' I call true love.' Sure I am that such
men stand between the living and the dead."
222 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
The name of Dr. Tauler, familiar to us through Whittier's
poem, has been frequently mentioned in this record, but we
must go back a generation to discover the immediate origin
of the society. It is now commonly recognised, Inge acknow-
ledges in his Bampton Lectures, that the fourteenth century
mystics were directly indebted to Meister Eckhart.
He was a Dominican monk, prior of Erfurt, and Vicar
ofThiiringen, born about the middle of the thirteenth century,
the date (probably before 1260) is not known. He became the
vicar-general for Bohemia, and about 1325 preached a great
deal in Cologne. Semipantheistic in his teaching, he was at
heart an Evangelical Christian. Professor Inge says of him,
" his transparent intellectual honesty, and his great powers
of thought, combined with deep devoutness and childlike
purity of soul, make him one of the most interesting figures
in the history of Christian philosophy."
But, though a philosopher, his style was popular and
epigrammatic. He desired to reach the people, and spoke
in German. He did not qualify himself when speaking after
the manner of philosophers who weigh each word, and whose
knowledge of the subtlest variations of meaning prohibits
the use of simple sentences.
Consequently, he has been much misunderstood, and
somewhat unfairly handled.
Nevertheless there is something of the Asiatic in his
mysticism, e.g., " Thou shalt love God as He is, a non-God,
a non-Spirit, a non-person, a non-form. He is absolute, bare
unity." And again, of the true believer : " Is he sick ? He
is fain to be sick as well. If a friend should die — in the name
of God. If an eye should be knocked out — in the name of
God." The fatalism of the Hindoo peasant in time of famine
is of a piece with this teaching.
Philosophically, Eckhart's doctrine may be summed up
thus : — "The ground of your being lies in God. Reduce your-
self to that simplicity, that root, and you are in God. There
is then no longer a distinction between your spirit and the
THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 223
divine — you have escaped personality and finite limitation.
Your particular self, as a something separate from God, is gone.
Henceforth what seems an inclination of yours is in fact the
divine good pleasure. You are free from law."
It is well to erect prominent danger-boards along this
path, and history has not a few melancholy lessons which may
serve. But let us be just. Remember how the church had
hidden away the Christ, so that man knew not where He had
been laid. There was a great thought wrapped up in this
dangerous language — the consciousness that men were
potentially the sons of God, a recognition of the divine spark
in the soul, the only and eternal warrant of the Royal Priest-
hood. Eckhart's life, austere, practical, full of evangelical
and strenuous labours, went far to limit the danger of his
pantheism, and we owe him a great debt for the reaction which
he set up against the externalism of Rome.
One illustration of the real beauty of his teaching shall
suffice to show us his positive side.
A crowd outside the church are disputing over a sermon
which Eckhart has just preached, "When," says our
chronicler, " I saw advancing towards us the stately form of
Master Eckhart himself. He looked with a calm gravity
about upon us, as he paused in the midst — seemed to under-
stand at once of what sort our talk had been, and appeared
about to speak. There was a cry for silence : ' Hear the
Doctor ! hear him ! ' Whereon he spoke as follows : —
" 'There was once a learned man who longed and prayed
full eight years that God would show him some one to teach
him the way of truth. And on a time, as he was in a great
longing, there came unto him a voice from heaven and said,
"Go to the front of the church, there wilt thou find a man
that shall show thee the way to blessedness."
" ' So thither he went, and found there a poor man whose
feet were torn and covered with dust and dirt, and all his
apparel scarce three hellers worth. He greeted him, saying,
" God give thee good morrow." Thereat made he answer, " I
224 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
never had an ill morrow." Again said he, " God prosper thee."
The other answered, " Never had I aught but prosperity."
" ' " Heaven save thee," said the scholar, " how an-
swerest thou me so ? "
" ' " I was never other than saved."
" ' " Explain to me this, for I understand not."
"'"Willingly," quoth the poor man. "Thou wishest
me good morrow. I never had an ill morrow, for, am I an
hungered, I praise God ; am I freezing, doth it hail, snow,
rain, is it fair weather or foul, I praise God ; and therefore
had I never ill morrow. Thou didst say, God prosper thee.
I have been never unprospered, for I know how to live with
God ; I know that what He doth is best, and what God giveth
or ordaineth for me, be it pain or pleasure, that I take cheerfully
from Him as the best of all, and so I had never adversity.
Thou wishest God to bless me. I was never unblessed, for
I desire to be only in the will of God, and I have so given up
my will to the will of God, that what God willeth I will."
" ' " But if God were to cast thee into Hell," said the
scholar, " what wouldst thou do then ? "
" ' " Cast me into hell ? His goodness holds Him back
therefrom. Yet if He did, I should have two arms to embrace
Him withal. One arm is true Humility, and therewith am
I one with His holy humanity. And with the right arm of
Love, that joineth his holy Godhead, I would embrace Him,
so He must come with me into hell likewise. And even so,
I would sooner be in hell, and have God, than in heaven, and
not have Him." ' "
This story is found in an appendix to Tauler's "Medulla
Animae," and in Whittier's poem is attributed to Tauler. There
is, however, every reason to believe that it is Eckhart's.
So much then, of the origin of the Society, but who were
the members ? There is the unknown author of the " Theologia
Germanica," a book written about 1350, and of which Luther
writes : " And I will say, though it be boasting of myself
and I speak as a fool, that next to the Bible and St. Augustine,
THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 225
no book has ever come into my hands, whence I have learnt
or would wish to learn, more of what God and Christ and man
and all things are."
There is Ruysbroeck, from whom selections have recently
been translated and published in the Devotional Library
series by Hodder and Stoughton, with a long bat interesting
preface by Maurice Maeterhnck. He was born in 1293, and
died in 1381, and wrote most of his treatises in the convent
of Griinthal, in the forest of Soignies. He was the object of
great veneration, but was neither learned nor a clear thinker.
He was emotional rather than speculative, a stern rebuker
of the sins of the clergy, and of the spiritual indolence which
hid itself in the cloak of contemplation.
Like him in emotionalism, but widely different in his
experience, was Henry Suso. He was born in 1295, and died
1365. He called himself " the servitor of the Eternal Wis-
dom." He was a disciple of Eckhart, whom he understood
better than did Ruysbroeck. He was a man of remarkable
literary gifts, and published a striking history of his Hfe.
To mortify his flesh he undertook cruel asceticisms, though,
with Tauler he did not enjoin this upon others. He would
unite with Tauler where he says, " We are to kill our passions —
not our flesh and blood."
So intense was the fire of the divine fervour within him,
that upon one occasion he cut deep in his breast the name of
Jesus, so that the marks of the letters remained all his life
as he says, " the length of a finger point."
But, undoubtedly the greatest among the Friends of
God is John Tauler. He was born about 1300, and entered a
Dominican convent in 1315. He studied at Cologne and Paris.
As a Dominican he was allowed to preach in Strasburg,
in spite of the great Interdict, and laboured incessantly among
the people. During the Black Death he stuck to his post,
and ministered devotedly to his flock.
He was a thinker as well as a preacher. He was in
many points in harmony with Eckhart, but his doctrine of
ir
226 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
the ground of the soul was not as in Eckhart, pantheistic.
"God is all," says Tauler, "but all is not God. He far
transcends the universe in which He is immanent."
His emphasis, as is natural in a reaction from externalism,
lies on the indwelling of God in the soul as the real centre of
life.
What Eckhart calls the spark — meaning that latent ele-
ment of the Divine which is in human nature, and which
John designates as " the light that lighteth every man that
cometh into the world," Tauler calls the Image. In the
Theologia Germanica the thought is differently expressed.
There we read that " the soul has two eyes, one of which, the
right eye, sees into eternity, the other sees time and creatures."
The writer significantly adds that we cannot see with both
eyes together, the left eye must be closed before we can see
with the right. " Scripture has its analogy, I think, with
this thought, in the words, " Ye cannot serve God and Mam-
mon."
Tauler had a deep sense of sin, but he expressed his
thoughts in language of his own. With him Heaven and Hell
were neither place nor time, but states of the soul. Sin, —
nay. Hell itself, was selfishness. " The more of self and me
the more of sin and wickedness." For him there are three
stages in progress : —
1st. The lower power must be governed by the higher.
" Jesus cannot speak in the temple of thy soul till those that
sold and bought therein are cast out of it."
2nd. The Contemplation of Christ. " Wilt thou,"
he says, " with St. John, rest in the loving breast of the Lord
Jesus Christ, thou must be transformed into His beauteous
image by a constant earnest contemplation thereof."
3rd. The union with God. " Let go all forms, and
suffer Him to work with thee as His instrument."
But Tauler's contemplation is not mere indolent and
self-centred passivity. Like all the Friends of God he lays
stress on the active will.
THE FRIENDS OF GOD. 227
He sets forth contemplation in this wise : — " Spiritual
enjoyments are the food of the soul, and are only to help us
in our active work. Sloth often makes men fain to be excused
from their work, and set to contemplation. Never trust in a
virtue that has not been put to practice," and elsewhere he
says, " Works of love are more acceptable to God than lofty
contemplation," and in a sentence which modern Friends
may take to heart, " All kinds of skill are gifts of the Holy
Ghost."
Tauler was a great preacher, his burning sincerity pierced
the mask of the world's hypocrisy, and insisted on the kingdom
finding its capital in the heart.
" Christ in thy soul, and not the truth about Him in thy
brain is thy life's hfe ; and the agony of His love must pierce
thee somewhat deeper than the pathos of a tragedy. There
are those who live complacently in the facilities and enjoyments
they have in certain practices of devotion, when all the while
it is they themselves, as thus devout, and not their Lord
whom they love."
Tauler, unlike Eckhart, recognised the place of the
historic Christ, even when he emphasised His universal and
eternal presence. To him the Son was the way to the Truth.
There is much in the writings of these fourteenth century
mystics which is peculiarly helpful. They warn us again and
again of empty emotion and vague speculation, but they call
us from the feverish dependence upon temporal things to
the eternal verities of innermost life.
We must not decry mysticism. In all living religion,
whatever be its outer doctrinal expression, the element of
mysticism will be found. Nor are we in any danger of being
too mystical. At the present moment the danger lies all the
other way. Life is so crowded with jostling interests, that it
is hard to find time for those silences in which the soul can
expand and grow.
Even in the so-called return to Christ there is an element
of danger. Bibhcal criticism has its value, and has rendered
228 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
a positive service not yet properly acknowledged by the
Christian Chiirch, but what if we stop short at the scientific
and literary ? The Bible is something more than a literature.
We cannot merely analyse and discuss Christ, as we would
Shakespeare or Homer.
In seeking the true historic Christ, our research must be
something other than the digging of antiquarians in the
sand-heaps of Babylon. Read the story of Tauler's two
years of voluntary retirement, in the midst of his popularity
as a great preacher, and learn what that struggle meant to
him. To discover Christ is to wrestle in spirit with powers
that no mere historic knowledge will overcome, that no mere
emotion or sudden rapture can sweep away.
There are, as St. Bernard has said, three kinds of love,
the sweet, the wise, and the strong. The first is as a gilded
image of wood, the second as a gilded image of silver, the
third an image of pure gold. We must desire and cherish
the strong love which is pure gold, which will not be denied,
though no ecstatic thrill possess us, which will not rest content
with history or literature, or with sensuous imagery, but
strives in active service and in prayerful contemplation to
realise the glory of the living Christ within.
WESLEY.
A Lecture given in Westboro* Chapel, Scarborough,
IN 1903, AND AFTERWARDS REVISED.
In 1717, what is known as the Bangorian Controversy
raged between the High and Low Church on a vast scale,
and with intense heat. It has been said that the controversy
had no definite issue, but it formed the pretext for the sup-
pression of the Convocation of the Estabhshed Church, an
institution which was not destined to be revived until in
1850 it reappeared in its present form.
For our purpose the date and the suppression, when,
as Hallam says, "A little dust was scattered on the angry
insects," are important.
The Established Church in 1717 was definitely stamped
as a department of the State ; this union gave a disastrous
emphasis to the popular opinions upon religion, for they
were thus intimately connected with prevaihng political
notions.
Lecky, in his history of the eighteenth century, remarks
that " The theological conception which looked upon religion
as a kind of adjunct to the police force, which dwelt almost
exclusively on the prudence of embracing it, and on the ad-
vantages it could confer, and which regarded all spirituality
and all strong emotions as fanaticism, corresponded very
faithfully to that political system under which corruption
was regarded as the natural instrument, and the maintenance
of material interests as the supreme end of government ;
while the ihigher motives of political action were system-
atically ridiculed and discouraged."
230 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Walpole's motto of " Let rest " cannot truthfully be said
to fit a century which, beginning with Marlborough, ended
with Lord North, the loss of America, the upheaval of the
French Revolution, and the costly campaigns of the younger
Pitt.
It was, however, the unconfessed motto of an Erastian
Church which forbad Wesley the freedom of its pulpit, and ul-
timately drove the Methodists into open schism. But before
we discuss John Wesley, let us briefly review the main religious
and social characteristics of the times in" which he lived,
for we shall need to keep these vividly before us if we are
properly to estimate and appreciate the extent and the fruit
of his labours.
In 1847, a writer in the North British Review, speaking
of the eighteenth century, delivers himself as follows : —
" Never has century risen on Christian England so void of
soul and faith as that which opened with Queen Anne, . . .
There was no freshness in the past, and no promise in the
future. The Puritans were buried and the Methodists were
not born. The philosopher of the age was Bolingbroke,
the moralist was Addison, the minstrel was Pope, and the
preacher was Atterbury. The world had the idle, discon-
tented look of the morning after some mad holiday, and,
like rocket sticks and the singed paper from last night's
squibs, the spent jokes of Charles and Rochester lay all
about, and the people yawned to look at them. The reign
of buffoonery was past, but the reign of faith and earnestness
had not commenced."
Carlyle expresses himself with more savage force : — " It
was the age of prose," he says, " of lying, of sham, thefraiidu-
lent bankrupt century, the reign of Beelzebub, the peculiar
era of cant ..."
We cannot of course, brush aside this remarkable century
with a mere damnatory phrase. Indeed, Mr. Balfour, though
deprecating the arbitrary division of human progress into
fixed periods of hundreds of years, has expressed his preference
WESLEY. 231
for the eighteenth century over the nineteenth. While I
cannot profess to unite in his choice, I admit there is some-
thing — not much perhaps — to be said for it.
But much can be said to justify the wrath of Carlyle.
It matters not what sphere of hfe or activity we consider,
the story is the same : Do we take poHtics ? The corruption
of Parliament throws a lurid light on the political morality
of the upper classes. Listen to Dr. King as he speaks of
Walpole : —
" He (Walpole) wanted to carry a question in the House
of Commons, to which he knew there would be great oppo-
sition. . . . As he passed through the Court of Requests,
he met a member of the contrary party, whose avarice he
imagined would not reject a large bribe. He took him aside
and said, ' Such a question comes on this day, give me your
vote, and here is a bank bill of ;r2,ooo.' The member made
him this answer — ' Sir Robert, you have lately served some
of my particular friends ; and when my wife was last at Court,
the King was very gracious to her, which must have happened
at your instance. I should therefore think myself very
ungrateful (putting the bank bill into his pocket) if I were
to refuse the favour you are now pleased to ask me.' "
This is an individual instance, but a typical one. Marl-
borough, one of the basest rogues in history, was no better
than this. Parliament was a Fagin's den, with titled thieves,
thieves who were Hooligans to boot. The young sparks of
aristocracy, under the name of Mohawks, tyrannised at
night over the London streets. They stopped people and
made them dance by pricking their legs with their swords ;
sometimes they would put a woman in a tub and set her
rolling down a hill ; others would place her on her head with
her feet in the air ; some would flatten the nose of the un-
offending wretch they caught, and press his eyes out of their
sockets. No wonder that Montesquieu was able to say of
these people " If anyone speaks of religion, everybody begins
to laugh."
232 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Rawson Gardiner's picture may be taken as accurate.
He says : — " Life was not beautiful. The streets of London
were as Hogarth painted them. In such a world the rich
man took his pleasure swearing and cursing, and drinking
himself into the gout as he went." If we turn to the common
people we find them no better than savages. Education
was but a flickering and feeble flame in a night of heathen
darkness. Sports were brutal, and insensitiveness to suffering
bred indifference to death. Indeed, fatal accidents were a
fit subject for mirth. During the severe winter of 1739,
when the Thames was frozen over and booths erected upon
it, an exciseman fell into one of the holes in the ice, and the
brutal jest made on the drowned man ' that if the owner of
the booth had any run goods he was lost, as an exciseman
was gone into his cellar ' — is given merely as the good saying
of a merry fellow." Among the popular diversions was
" cock-throwing " ; battering to death a cock tied to a stake,
and of course the more serious entertainment of bull and
bear baiting.
Thousands attended the frequent public executions, or
lined the streets to see a half-naked wretch, not infrequently
a woman, flogged through the town at the cart-tail. Criminals
were exhibited in their cells at is. a head, and rows of skulls
were still allowed to moulder on Temple Bar. The penal
code was cruel — no fewer than 160 offences were punishable
by death.
Sanitation, both prison and domestic, was much as it is
to-day in the Ottoman Empire, and devastating fevers and
smallpox swept whole towns like a scourge.
The homes and condition of the labouring classes were
terrible. Without intellectual life or political freedom, and
with barely the form of religion, they seemed to justify the
saying that you " cannot make a man a saint in mind if you
keep him a brute in body."
But among the upper classes the case of religion was
little better, and indifference showed itself in the decay of
WESLEY. 233
Sunday observance. " People of fashion," wrote Archbishop
Seeker " (especially of that sex which ascribes to itself most
knowledge), have nearly thrown off all observation of the
Lord's day . . . and if to avoid scandal they sometimes
vouchsafe their attendance on Divine worship in the country,
they never do so in town."
Gambling was universal, and in the middle of the century
reached its chmax. Government lotteries flourished, and
their proceeds built Westminster Bridge and founded the
British Museum. Wrote Walpole to a friend : — " The
ladies game too deep for me. The last time I was in town
Lady Hertford wanted to play, and I lost fifty-six guineas
before I could say an Ave Maria. I do not know a teaspoon-
ful of news ; I could tell you what was trumps, but that
was all I heard."
The mania tainted commerce. Bogus companies bred
like flies. The British public bought shares in a company
for fishing up wrecks on the Irish coast, for making salt water
fresh, and for importing jackasses from Spain.
Heavy drinking was fashionable. Addison, Steele,
Harley, Bolingbroke, Cartmel, Pulteney, Walpole and William
Pitt the younger, were drunkards. Vice received the sanction
of the Court ; men blushed to be thought chaste, and the
theatres were so licentious that even Georgian ladies went to
their boxes masked. Literature was often foul, and the
most popular history was the " Chronique Scandaleuse."
In one of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's letters occurs
the following (1725) : — " I am told that there is at this moment
a bill cooking up at a hunting seat in Norfolk, to have ' not '
taken out of the commandments and inserted in the Creed
at the ensuing Session. It certainly might be carried with
great ease . . . honour, virtue, and reputation, which
we used to hear of in our nursery, are as much laid aside as
crumpled ribbons."
This no doubt referred to doings at Walpole's country
seat, for Walpole, like Bolingbroke, was of vicious life, indeed
234 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
his revels there were of such a character that decent men left
the neighbourhood when he arrived.
It is not indeed necessary to exclude the upper classes
in accepting Southey's statement that " Though the temporal
advantages of Christianity extended to all classes, the great
majority of the populace knew nothing more of religion than
its forms. They had been Papists and now they were Pro-
testants, but they had never been Christians." It may seem
strange in the light of Mr. Balfour's choice that we have been
compelled to draw such a picture, for, with Mr. Balfour, we
not unnaturally think of the i8th century as a century of
brilliant men. Goldwin Smith reminds us that the reign
of Anne has been called the Augustan age of England. " There
is a likeness," he says, " Both were ages of calm, self-com-
placency, and jubilant literature after civil storms. Besides
its literature, in the persons of Pope, Addison, Swift, Steele,
Defoe, the reign had its science in the person of Newton,
its philosophy in that of Locke, its scholarship in that of
Bentley. It had its architect in the builder of Blenheim, a
palace in majesty, whatever may be said of the style. Its
statesmen were literary and patronised letters. It was an
age, stately, refined, picturesque, in a formal way so far as the
higher class was concerned. But beneath the rather arti-
ficial brilliancy of the surface lay much that was far from
brilliant . . . " as we have already seen.
This formality extended to the Church.
The English idol was the golden mean. Mr. Bickerstaff
in one of the " Tatlers," describes an invention of his which
he calls the Ecclesiastical Thermometer : —
" The reader will observe," says Mr. Bickerstaff, ironi-
cally, " that the Church is placed in the middle part of the
glass between zeal and moderation, the situation in which
she always flourishes, and in which every Englishman wishes
to see her who is a friend to the constitution and to his country.
However, when it mounts to zeal 'tis not amiss, and when it
sinks to moderation 'tis still in a most admirable temper, —
WESLEY. 235
the worst of it is that when it once begins to rise it has still
an inclination to ascend, insomuch that it is apt to climb
from zeal to wrath. The point of doctrine which I would
propagate by this invention is the very same which was long
ago advanced by that able teacher, Horace. We should take
care never to overshoot overselves in the pursuit even of
virtue ; whether zeal or moderation be the point we aim at,
let us keep fire out of the one and frost out of the other."
Excellent advice ! if the first injunction is easy to observe,
what shall we say of the second ? But let us be just. In
spite of the moral frost which bound up the religious life of
England under the sway of the golden mean, the Established
Church was not without its virtue. Perhaps the sunshine
was cold and watery, but still it was there. Lecky says : —
" The selfishness, the corruption, the worship of expediency,
the scepticism as to all higher motives that characterised
the politicians of the school of Walpole, the heartless cynicism
reigning in fashionable life, which is so clearly reflected in the
letters of Horace Walpole and Chesterfield, the spirit of a
brilliant, varied and contemporary literature, eminently
distinguished for its measured sobriety of judgment, and for
its fastidious purity and elegance of expression, but for the
most part deficient in depth, in passion and in imagination,
may all be traced in the popular theology."
So much Mr. Lecky admits, but elsewhere he puts the
other side :— " It was a period," he says, " when among
the higher divines there were many who followed the lead
of Hoadly and warmly, steadily, and ably fought the battle
of liberation and toleration in every field. It was a period
when theological teaching was at least eminently practical,
was characterised by a rare moderation and good sense, and
was singularly free from everything that was fanatical,
feverish or mystical. The Church made it her peculiar
mission to cultivate the decencies of life, to inculcate that
ordered, practical and measured virtue which is most con-
ducive to the welfare of nations,"
236 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Outside the limits of the Church we note also the existence
of the " Society for the Reformation of Manners " — an in-
tensely unpopular and perhaps not always wisely conducted
body, which attempted to sweep the Augean stables of pubUc
morals. It closed many disorderly houses, prosecuted no
fewer than seventy to eighty persons a week for swearing,
and effected the suppression of Sunday markets. In its
Annual Report in 1735 it was stated that the number of
prosecutions for debauchery and profaneness in London
and Westminster alone since the foundation of the Societies,
had been 99,380. These are suggestive details. No age is
ever wholly bad, but when all is acknowledged we have to
confess at this period a substantial failure of organised
Christianity. A Moses was still wanting to strike the
rock of popular indifference with the rod of spiritual
passion, and without that rod the life-giving stream refused
to flow.
The Church preached decency and the respectable virtues,
the Essayists in prose. Pope in verse, and Hogarth on canvas
attacked vice with the weapons of satire and ridicule — but
the world sinned on !
Taste was on the side of virtue, if fashion was on the
side of vice. But the world was to learn again the old truth
that literary quahties and aesthetic culture are not in them-
selves moral dynamics. The real reformation was to be the
work of a people who, if they outraged the proprieties, pos-
sessed that priceless quality defined in the Scriptures as bap-
tism with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
I do not think that I can better sum up the situation
than by quoting two eighteenth century poets. Listen to
this august soliloquy on " Man " : —
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being, darkly wise and rudely great ;
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between ; in doubt to act, or rest ;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or beast ;
WESLEY. 237
In doubt his mind or body to prefer ;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err.
Alike in ignorance, his reason such.
Whether he thinks too Uttle or too much ;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused ;
Still by himself abused or disabused.
Created half to rise, and half to fall ;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all ;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled.
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
And then listen to this cry from the deeps : —
I was a stricken deer that left the herd
Long since — with many an arrow deep infixed
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.
There was I found by One, who had Himself
Been hurt by the archers. In His side He bore,
And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars ;
With gentle force soUciting the darts
He drew them forth and healed, and bade me Uve.
The one is Pope — the other Cowper. Between them
stands John Wesley and the Methodist Revival !
In the charming lectures by Stopford Brooke on " The
Theology of the English Poets," the contrast is effectively
drawn between the exquisite steelwork of the essay on " Man "
(wherein are preserved the speculations of Leibnitz and
Bolingbroke) and the intense passion of Cowper. " We
step," says Stopford Brooke, " from the one to the other
as from a frozen to a tropic isle. Pope, impersonal, apart,
touched with scorn, thinking of God as Creator alone ; Cowper,
personal, self-compassionate, intense in his realisation of
Christ, thrilling with devotion."
What is the reason for this contrast ? I have already
foreshadowed it, but I will quote once more from our author,
and let him state the reason in his own words : —
" It was the great religious movement, led by the Wesleys,
joined afterwards by the fiery force of Whitefield, which
descended through Newton to the hymns and poetry of
Cowper. It was a preaching, which, beginning in the year
238 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
1739, seven years after the first books of the Essay on Man
appeared, woke up, and into fierce extremes, the reUgious
heart of England. The vast crowds which on moor or hill-
side, in the deserted quarries of Devon and Cornwall, listened
to Wesley, excited by their own numbers, almost maddened
by his passionate preaching and prayer, lifted into Heaven,
and shaken over Hell, in turns, as the sermon went on, crying
aloud, writhing on the ground, tears streaming down their
cheeks, could not^find in the hymns of Watts or the metrical
Psalms, any expression of their wild experience : and the
inexpressible emotion of their hearts demanded voice for
itself in poetry and in music, the two languages of emotion."
While we are busy with Stopford Brooke, and still in
the field of literature, let us further strengthen our im.pression
of the meaning and environment of Methodism by a brief
glance at Watts.
Watts lived an easy retired life in a great country house
from 1712 to 1748, and, as Stopford Brooke remarks, there
is in his hymns " that pleasant devotion to God which arises
from piety and comfort, from placid enjoyment of the beauty
of the world, from a distant contemplation of the poor beyond
the gates of the park, and from the gratitude to God which
both these enjoyments are likely to create."
The distant contemplation of the poor beyond the gates
of the park ! We should not dare to level such a shaft at
the Wesleys, men who won their Ramillies and Oudenardes
among the very poor. The spirit that bore unflinchingly
the reproaches of the fashionable and the buffetings of the
mob was of a different order. Charles Wesley's hymns
breathe the passion which drove the brothers to preach, not
in the pulpit but in the streets and fields, not to indifferent,
well-bred audiences, but to colliers and roughs. The hymno-
logy of Methodism is impassioned, personal and doctrinal :
it was impassioned, for its subject was the history of the
heart in its long struggle with sin, in its wrestling with God,
in the horror of its absence from Him, in the unspeakable
WESLEY. 239
joy of its presence with Him, in its degradation, its redemp-
tion and its glory — above all, in its personal relation to Christ
and the world of feelings which arose from that relation :
nor was there a single chord of religious feeling left unsounded,
nor any that was not strung to tension.
It was also especially personal. The first person was
continually used, so that each who sung or read the hymns
spoke of himself and felt Christ in contact with himself.
And it was doctrinal, for whether it sprang from the party
of Wesley or that of Whitefield, it was built on clear lines of
theological thought : and the opposition between the parties
who knew well the power of verse as a teacher and fixer of
doctrine, caused the lines to be drawn with studious clearness.
Watts could
Sing the Almighty Power of God
That made the mountains rise ;
That spread abroad the flowing seas
And bnilt the lofty skies,
but it was Cowper, stirred by the appeal of direct personal
religion, whose swift rush of feeling can find expression in
the lines : —
Hark ! my soul, it is the Lord ;
'Tis thy Saviour, hear His word ;
Jesus speaks, and speaks to thee,
Say, poor sinner, lovest thou Me ?
Hear John Wesley speak of faith, and you detect at once
the personal note in his teaching.
" A string of opinions," he says, "is no more Christian
faith than a string of beads is Christian holiness. It is not
an assent to any opinion or any number of opinions." " This
justifying faith implies not only the personal revelation, the
inward evidence of Christianity, but likewise a sure and
firm confidence in the individual believer that Christ died
for his sin, loved him, and gave his life for him."
"By a Christian," he says elsewhere, " I mean one
who so believes in Christ as that sin hath no more dominion
over him."
240 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Moses has struck the rock — the stream is flowing — the
people are thirsty — but what is it that has put the rod into
Moses' hand ? It was unquestionably Wesley's conversion.
There was a time when he saw, as he thought the truth, but
did not feel it. He was a cedar of Lebanon whom the Lord
had not broken, and in the knowledge of this he suffered deep
depression. We may remember that for him Hell was no
mere relic of devil worship, but as with Dante, a terrible and
vivid reality, but yet we shall be mistaken if we treat the
experience of Wesley as springing from mere blind terror.
Conversion is not now in fashion ! But strip away the in-
tellectual wrappings, reduce the theology to its primary
elements, and we discover that Wesley's experience is just
that without which none can enter the inner court of the
Temple, conviction for sin, or to put it in the eloquent
language of the Apostle Paul " the terror of the Lord." The
mode of conversion may vary infinitely with the variety
of human character and conditions, but essentially it is the
passage from the animal to the spiritual — and that is the
passage from death to life. It cannot be a matter of indiffer-
ence to any human soul to make that passage.
" Out of great martyrdom came I to this peace," says
Dante. Yea ! and the soul that struggles for the loftiest
self-realisation must needs know that martyrdom.
" Conversion," I say, is in disrepute. The phrase has
been twisted to false meanings, it has been discredited by
mistaken claims, but in its truest and deepest sense, con-
version remains the supreme end of life. To Dante it came
out of great martyrdom, and slowly, with the passage of the
years ; to Wesley it came swiftly.
On Wednesday, May 24th, 1738— we will be precise, for
the event recorded was momentous in English history, —
Wesley went unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate Street.
But I will quote from the Journal. " In the evening I went
very unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate Street, where
one was reading Luther's Preface to the Romans. About a
WESLEY. 241
quarter before nine, while he was describing the change
which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt
my heart strangely warmed ; I felt I did trust in Christ,
Christ alone, for Salvation : and an assurance was given
me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved
me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all
my might for those who had in a more especial manner des-
pitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified to all
there what I then first felt in my heart." But it was not
long before the enemy suggested " This cannot be faith,
for where is thy joy ? " He returned home, and was buffeted
with temptations ; he cried out and they fled away ; they
returned again and again. "I, as often lifted up my eyes,"
he says, " and He sent me help from His holy place, and herein
I found the difference between this and my former state
chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting, with all
my might under the law, as well as under grace : but then
I was sometimes, if not often conquered. Now I was always
conqueror ! "
And what did this conversion make of him, what was
its practical fruit ? It drove him to help the poor !
Wesley as we all know, was an Oxford scholar. He
was pre-eminently a gentleman in bearing, and like George
Fox, neat in dress, noble in carriage and features. To judge
him at first sight one would mark him off as born to preach
to cultured congregations. But his heart was with the
people, the savage brutal labourers, abandoned by the fas-
tidious to their passions and their ignorance.
" 'Tis well," he says, " a few of the rich and noble are
called. Oh ! that God would increase their number. But
I should rejoice were it the will of God, if it were done by the
ministry of others. If I might choose, I should still as I have
done hitherto, preach the gospel to the poor."
Indeed, Wesley has a wholesome and not unmerited
contempt for some forms of so-called culture. Writing to
an Earl, he says, " To speak rough truth, I do not desire
18
242 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
any intercourse with people of quality in England. I mean
for my own sake. In most genteel religious people there
is so strange a mixture that I have seldom much confidence
in them. But I love the poor ; in many of them I find pure,
genuine grace unmixed with paint, folly, and affectation."
Once Wesley was preaching in Monktown Church,
Pembroke, and he thus records his experience, " I suppose
it has scarcely had such a congregation in it during this
century. Many of them were gay, genteel people ; so I spoke
on the first elements of the Gospel : but I was still out of
their depth. Oh ! how hard it is to be shallow enough for
a polite audience." He loved the people, even when they
turned upon him like wild beasts. More than once he was
in danger of his life. A single instance must stand as illus-
tration. Wesley was visiting an invalid lady at Falmouth.
Suddenly the house was beset by the mob, who roared out
" Bring out the Canorum," " where is the Canorum," a Cornish
nickname for the Methodists. The crews of some privateers
headed the rabble, and presently broke open the outer door
and filled the passage. By this time the people of the house
had all made their escape, except Wesley and a poor servant
girl, who, for it was now too late to retire, would have had
him conceal himself in a cupboard. He himself, from the
imprecations of the rabble, saw his life to be in the most
imminent danger, but any attempt at concealment would
have made the case more desperate, and it was his maxim
always to look a mob in the face. As soon therefore, as the
partition was broken down, he stepped forward into the
midst of them : " Here I am, which of you has anything
to say to me ? To which of you have I done any wrong ?
To you ? or you ? or you ? " Thus he made his way
bare-headed into the street, and continued speaking until
the captain swore that not a man should touch him : a clergy-
man and some of the better inhabitants came up and inter-
fered, led him into a house and sent him safely by water to
Penryn.
WESLEY. 243
It is difficult for us to appreciate what all this means ;
difficult to realise the terrible degradation which in those days
had settled upon the men whose hearts John Wesley touched.
In 1684, an evil date, gin was discovered. Fifty years
later England consumed 7,000,000 gallons. The tavern
keepers painted on their sign-boards the invitation " to come
and get drunk for a penny, dead drunk for ' tuppence,' and
no charge for straw to lie on." When the gin had done its
work, the landlord dragged the victims into a cellar to sleep
off the carouse.
You could not walk London streets without meeting
wretches lying drunk in the gutters, smothered in mud, and
in peril of the carriage wheels. Do you want a vivid picture
of these gin-sodden people ? You may find it in " Barnaby
Rudge."
In 1780, when the Lord George Gordon riots held London
in a reign of terror for three days, barrels of gin were staved
in, and children and women, knelt, in the light of burning
buildings, at the running rivulets of fire-water, to drink them-
selves to death, their last hymn, the shouts and shrieks of
pillage.
Swift, in his " Travels of Gulliver," satirised his country-
men as " Yahoos." But remember that it was to the Yahoos
that John Wesley went, the love of the Gospel unquenchable
in his heart.
He distributed thirty thousand pounds ; he rode a
hundred thousand miles ; and he preached forty thousand
sermons, because he loved the Yahoos, and because he believed
that even the brutal colliers of Kingswood had souls. Lecky
says : — " That in such a society a movement like that of
Methodism should have exercised a great power, is not sur-
prising. The secret of its success was merely that it satisfied
some of the strongest and most enduring wants of our nature,
which found no gratification in the popular theology, that
it revived a large class of religious doctrines which had been
almost wholly neglected.
244 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
"Theutterdepravity of human nature, the lost condition
of every man who is born into the world, the vicarious atone-
ment of Christ, the necessity to salvation of the new birth,
of faith, of the constant and sustaining action of the Divine
Spirit upon the believer's soul, are doctrines, which, in the
eyes of the Modern Evangelical, constitute at once the most
vital and the most influential portions of Christianity, but
they are doctrines, which, during the greater part of the
eighteenth century, were seldom heard from a Church of
England pulpit.
" The moral essays, which were the prevailing fashion,
however well suited they might be to cultivate the moral
taste, or to supply rational motives to virtue, rarely awoke
any strong emotions of hope, fear, or love, and were utterly
incapable of transforming the character and arresting and
reclaiming the thoroughly ' depraved.' "
All this is true, but surely it was not in a modification
or development of the popular theology, important as this
might be, that the deepest wants of the age were met, or that
the ultimate secret of Methodist power was revealed. The
ultimate secret lay in the passion of redeeming love which
consumed John Wesley and his preachers. They felt the
power of sin, they saw it in society, they knew it in their
hearts. They felt and knew the love and power of God.
To them, sin was the great enemy to be overcome. They
saw that God hated and condemned it, and they met it,
not by satires, nor by moral maxims, but by active
warfare.
They saw that Christ was the witness to Love's redeeming
power, and they preached this love, as if the fate of the uni-
verse hung upon the salvation of a single soul.
" For God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him, should not
perish, but have everlasting life."
With what thrilling power did these words come home
to the unlettered masons, shoemakers, labourers, who in
WESLEY. 245
the open street, or in rude tabernacles, preached, amid prayers
and tears, the greatness of salvation.
Fanned by this Gospel, the wind of the Spirit smote
the people and they responded, with a great movement,
even as the ocean heaves under the gale.
Crudities ? Oddities ? Mistaken Biblical interpreta-
tion? False theology ? Limitations ? Yes ! these were
all there. The Methodists were not omniscient. John
Wesley, like every other man, had his faults. His experiment
in education was a blunder. He believed in witches. He
failed to condemn the violent paroxysms which attended
his preaching. He took a one-sided view of life, and his
asceticism was unwholesome. He did not always read events
or men aright. He took the wrong side in the American
war, and he married a termagant.
But if he had limitations, who among us can cast a stone ?
Let us recognise the faults of the Methodist movement as
we may, but it was a great day for England when John
Wesley stood up bareheaded in the open air, to speak to the
colliers of Kingswood. Augustine Birrell, in his appreciation
of Wesley, printed as a preface to the recently published
abridgement of the Journal, says of him, and I think the
language is just : —
" No man ever lived nearer the centre than John Wesley.
. . . You cannot cut him out of our national life. No
single figure influenced so many minds, no single voice touched
so many hearts. No other man did such a life's work for
England."
" John Wesley and his helpers," says Hugh Price Hughes,
in his introduction to the same edition, " were the first
preachers, since the days of the Franciscan friars in the
middle ages, who ever reached the working classes."
It was, in short, John Wesley, who in the eighteenth
century, if I may borrow once more from Birrell, first broke,
by the earnest penetration of his message, " the heavy slumber
of humanity."
246 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
But to what deep issues Wesley woke the people Wesley
himself never knew.
I have said nothing of another movement which found
a picturesque representative in Thomas Paine. While
Wesley rode his horse with tireless energy into the remotest
corners of the kingdom, Free Thought was gathering a
strength that no Berkeley, Butler, Lardner or Warburton
could overcome, and which seemed to progress on a different
plane from that of Wesley.
The greatest legacy of the eighteenth century, greater
even than the Methodist Society, was undoubtedly that
bequeathed by John Wesley, namely the Evangelical revival
which has in measure affected every denomination.
But there is another legacy that was not bequeathed
by Wesley — I mean that revival of intellectual criticism
which we know to-day as modern thought. What is to be
the outcome of this modern thought ?
I must confess to no little surprise that Hugh Price
Hughes, in arraying what he regards as the battle of the
future should set George Fox and Wesley on one side, and
only John Henry Newman on the other. Even as an array
of the intellectual forces at issue this seems to me a mistake.
The spirit of Fox and of Wesley is still alive, but, pace the
Education Act, I believe that the vital force of Newman's
teaching is already spent. Time is against him. Reason
can never again be fettered as in the middle ages. You
may revive ex cathedra authority for a space, but you will
never maintain it against the liberty of untrammelled
thought.
No, in truth the issue is graver than that presented by
Hugh Price Hughes.
It is not between the different denominations of the
Christian Church — not between the principle of immediate
dependence, and of free grace, as opposed to a sacerdotal
restriction of the action and power of the Divine Love, that
the ultimate battle will lie, but between a faith illumined by
WESLEY. 247
Christ, and a doubt, critical and profound. The great army
in array against us is the army of Free Thought.
I do not use the term in its narrower sense as one of
reproach, nor do I desire merely to provoke hostility towards
those whose doubts are earnest and sincere. We shall serve
no end of truth if we fight in the spirit of sectaries.
But here, nevertheless, is the vital struggle that must
determine the character and also the future of human
civilisation.
There is a great peril in it which looms the larger as we
perceive behind the glittering phalanx of intellectual interro-
gators the army of the indifferent, immobile and phlegmatic
to religious feeling.
There is a " slumber of humanity " in the nineteenth
century, but there is no voice to break its leaden power.
Mr, Lecky, speaking of the Evangelical revival, has
passed upon it the following criticism : —
" Regarding all doubt on religious matters as criminal,
discouraging every form of study that could possibly produce
it, deifying strong internal persuasions and shutting its
eyes on principle against every discovery that could impugn
its tenets, it has been essentially the school of those who
form their opinions rather by their emotions than by reason-
ing, and who deliberately refuse to face the intellectual
difficulties of the question."
" In the face of physical science, of modern Biblical
criticism and of all the light which history and comparative
mythology have of late years thrown on the genesis of religion,
the old theory of verbal inspiration, the old methods of Biblical
interpretation, the old pre-scientific conceptions of a world
governed by perpetual acts of supernatural interference,
still hold their ground in the evangelical pulpit. The in-
cursions of natural science have been met by a barrier of
invincible prejudice, by the belief that what are called orthodox
opinions are essential to salvation, and that doubt should
be avoided as a crime."
248 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
This was written some time go, and describes a position
that few would now defend. But the criticism reminds us
that not in timidity nor by the weapons of traditional ortho-
doxy will the battle of faith be won, — and it reminds us of
something more. Lecky has described that which is not
necessarily inherent in an evangelical faith, nay, rather is
it that which has checked its growth and weakened its power.
Evangelicalism can neither be disproved nor dispensed with
— for it expresses that which is of the essence of the spiritual
life. The personal hold on God, the personal sense of His
love and power, the personal call to His service and the per-
sonal sense of sin, — this is Evangelicalism.
And this personal religion is precisely what we need in
our modern life. In spite of all the progress of a hundred
years there are sad parallels between the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. There is still material in England for
a satirist, and there is still room for a John Wesley, for fan
apostle converted to the hfe of the spirit, and charged with
the personal message of salvation.
Just because of the questions raised by science and of
the growing perplexity of life's problems, just because of the
social injustice of poverty, of the selfishness and jealousy of
men, do we need, as never before, to realise in our own hearts
the -passion and redeeming love of God as it is revealed to us
in history and experience in the cross of Jesus Christ.
May we still be enabled to repeat with Cowper his beauti-
ful lines : —
"... I was found by One who had Himself
Been hurt by the archers. In His side He bore^
And in His hands and feet the cruel scars ;
With gentle force soUciting the darts,
He drew them forth and healed, and bade me live."
WILLIAM LAW.
" The Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life " was
printed in 1729, when William Law, the author, was forty-
three years of age, and while John Wesley was acting as
curate for his father at Wroote.
Law was therefore in his fifth year when George Fox
died.
" He would," says Overton, his admirable biographer,
" have been a remarkable man in any age, but he was doubly
remarkable when we think of him as belonging to an age
which took its philosophy from Locke, its theology from
Tillotson, and its politics from Walpole, an age which had
hardly any sympathy with any of the phases of his character.
For he stood singularly apart from his contemporaries, though
he influenced them so deeply."
Born in 1686 in the Northamptonshire village of King's
Cliffe, William Law witnessed the subsidence of religious
fervour which followed the Toleration Act, and surviving the
advent of 1761, spanned in his lifetime the frozen interval
between the Puritan reformation and the fervours of early
Methodism. It was in 1738 that John Wesley believed
himself converted and appointed his first lay preacher, in
1739 that he began field-preaching and opened a Methodist
chapel in Bristol, Law therefore was able to see the full
flood of that revival which was to change the aspect of English
religious life. These facts are by no means irrelevant to
our title. The " Serious Call " had its definite influence
upon John Wesley, although it was the occasion of a some-
what pathetic difference between ^the great popular leader
and the learned recluse. For Law, one of the greatest English
249
250 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
mystics, withal robust and practical and a controversialist of
extraordinary logical force, was never in any sense a popular
leader. His life was a quiet one. In 1705, he entered
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and in 171 1 was ordained and
elected a fellow, receiving his M.A. in 1712. But he was
a non-juror, or in other words, accepting the divine right
of the Stuart succession (one pictures, by the way, the wry
grimace with which Charles II. would have listened to the
reading of the " Serious Call ") he declined the oath of
allegiance to George I. This fact barred the way to ecclesiasti-
cal preferment. Jacobite, non-juring High Churchman,
Law was driven, as were many in his position, to accept the
somewhat dangerous post of private chaplain. I say dan-
gerous because the life was one of pampered dependence
upon the favour of a private patron, and beset with tempta-
tions to which many succumbed. Law with his ascetic
temper was, however, proof against these, and when he en-
tered the house of Edward Gibbon, at Putney, a patron of
Jacobite sympathies, and grandfather of the celebrated
historian of Rome's Decline and Fall, he resided with the
family rather as an honoured guest than as a spiritual jackal.
His tutorship of Edward Gibbon's son, afterwards the father
of the one and only Gibbon acknowledged by Fame, was
not however successful — a fact, I think, due as much to the
weak and vacillating character of the pupil as to the tutor's
inability to handle with sympathy a mind so unlike his own.
Shortly after the death of Edward Gibbon the ease and
comfort of a great house and the luxury of a library which
Law controlled, and for which he chose with freedom the
books that he added, were withdrawn, and Byrom, Law's
gentle but somew^hat odd disciple, who played Boswell to
Law's Johnson, or if you like. Pope to Law's Bolingbroke,
hints that the more restricted circumstances of Law's life
encroached not a little upon that resignation which is enjoined
in the " Serious Call," and which perhaps in the circumstances
of Putney and Cambridge, where the " Call " was written.
WILLIAM LAW. 251
could be practised with comparative complacence. In
Somerset Gardens at the back of the Strand, where Law now
resided, he displayed a little unwonted petulance, and pro-
voked the remark of a friend that he was " strangely altered,
grown sour." Certain it is that with all his tenderness and
real love, Law had a stern side to his nature. Byrom, who,
in spite of persistent snubbing, remained ever at Law's
feet, tells us : "I went home with Mr. Law, and in his room
he told me that his thought and mine had great sympathy ;
but that I was more easily wrought upon, and that his
strings were more hard." Perhaps, at times, they were also
a little frayed. At the close of 1740 Law " quietly retired " to
his native village of King's Cliffe, where he owned a house,
and where his brother George was still living. Here for three
years Ruysbroeck, Bertot and Behmen were, through their
books, his intellectual and spiritual comrades.
In 1740 Mr. Archibald Hutcheson died, and desired his
widow, who was rich in this world's goods, to lead a retired
and religious life under the spiritual guidance of the author
of the " Serious Call." A house was taken at Thrapstone,
ten miles from King's Cliffe, for this purpose, and at this place
the widow was joined by Miss Hester Gibbon, who desired
with Mrs. Hutcheson to live out in actual practice the teaching
of the book which occupies us this evening.
The ten miles which separated them from their spiritual
director proved, however, in what we fondly call " the good
old days " of bad roads, stage coaches and footpads, almost
as serious a matter as the " Call " itself, and in May, 1743,
a house was fitted up for the reception of the ladies at King's
Cliffe. Here in 1744, in Hall Yard, the two devout ladies
and the mystic philosopher and redoubtable controversialist
tried without delay their " holy experiment."
Seventeen years before William Law had founded a
school in King's Cliffe to educate and clothe fourteen poor
girls. In 1745 Mrs. Hutcheson founded a similar school for
eighteen boys ; the number being later increased to twenty.
252 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
At the close of school life, if good behaviour stood to their
credit, the lads were to be put to some trade. A school-house
for the master was bought, a school built, and four tenements
for four ancient poor widow?. Law added himself another
school-house and school, and tenements for two ancient
maidens — who were to have 2s. 6d. every Saturday and ids.
every Lady Day.
Of the elaborate regulation which, like a hedge of prickly
cactus, grew up round these charities time forbids a catalogue.
One quotation must be sufficient to show their spirit, and to
illustrate the hopelessness and the fatal ignorance of human
nature which marked the development of schemes pure and
lofty enough in their motive.
" Rule IL Every girl that gives the lie to any other
girl, or to any person, or that calls another fool, or uses any
rude or unmannerly word, shall, the morning afterwards,
as soon as they are all there, be obliged to kneel down before
her mistress and, in the presence of them all, say in a plain
and distinct manner, these words : — ' Our blessed Saviour,
Jesus Christ, hath said that " Whosoever shall say, thou fool,
shall be in danger of hell-fire." I therefore am heartily sorry
for the wicked words that I have spoken to my fellow Chris-
tian ; I humbly beg pardon of God, and of all you that are
here present, hoping and promising by the help of God, never
to offend again in the Uke manner.' Then shall the girl
she had abused come and take her from her knees and kiss
her, and both turning to their mistress, they shall make a
curtsey and return to their seats."
These respectable charities, with their elaborate and
woefully mistaken regulations were, however, not the
whole expression of that determination to live out the
principle of the " Serious Call " which was supreme at Hall
Yard.
In the " Serious Cajl " Law insists upon early rising as a
condition, not only of physical but of spiritual health; ac-
cordingly he rose at five every day, and spent the first hours
WILLIAM LAW. 253
in devotion. At nine, the whole family met for devotion, and
the collects and psalm for the day were said. " Then," and
here I quote from Overton's account, " Mr. Lawretired to his
study, but not to a sanctum where he was liable to no in-
terruption. His window overlooked a courtyard, and every
mendicant knew that if he appeared before that window,
and preferred his claim for relief, that claim would secure Mr.
Law's instant and careful attention, no matter how busily
he might be engaged. As there was no doubt the same free-
masonry among beggars in the eighteenth century, we can
readily believe that Mr. Law rarely spent a ' quiet morning '
without holding a sort of ragged levee ; and as he always made
a point of enquiring into every applicant's peculiar wants,
and seeing them supphed with his own eyes, no small amount
of his time must have been taken up."
At noon in summer, at one in winter, the household
gathered for their chief meal, followed again and at once by
devotions. The afternoon Law spent in his study, joined
the ladies at tea, though he would not partake in this meal
except to eat a few raisins, and again the household gathered
for devotions. On this occasion the servants read a chapter
of the Bible in turn, the spiritual director explaining it.
A brisk constitutional and a frugal meal led up to the fourth
and final meeting for devotion, and after one pipe, and a
glass of water, William Law went to bed at nine o'clock.
If time permitted, one might be tempted to elaborate this
picture, which is not without its tender as well as its odd
touches, but one word must conclude the sketch. This ill
considered living out of the Sermon on the Mount led to evil
consequences. King's Cliff e became the tramp's Mecca, the
happy home of the idle and thriftless. The benefactors
of Hall Yard were mercilessly fleeced and shamefully imposed
upon. At last, the patience of the townsfolk broke down,
and open protest was entered against this systematic pauperi-
sation. A painful dispute arose, which was only healed by
an offer to remove the charities elsewhere.
254 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
Enough has now perhaps been said to indicate the
practical weakness even of the trained logician and earnest
Christian, where " sanctified common -sense " and knowledge
of human nature are unassociated with dialectical gifts or
spiritual zeal.
It has been necessary, as it is only just in any apprecia-
tion of the " Serious Call," to remind you of the practical
break-down of Law's " Holy Experiment," but we shall
entirely misrepresent the value both of William Law's teaching
and the testimony of his life and in particular of the book
under discussion, if we fail to carry the examination further.
Law's was a powerful voice calling men from the sterility
of religious disputation to the moral realities of the inward
life of the spirit. The English interpreter of Jacob Behmen,
he may yet be said to stand in a line of apostolic succession
with the Cambridge Platonists on the one hand, and Thomas
Erskine, of Linlothen, on the other, the latter a name, by the
way, that should be better known and more widely honoured
than I fear it is. In Law's " Spirit of Prayer " and " Spirit
of Love," there is much prophetic of modern lines of thought
upon the great unsolved problem of the Atonement. As the
late Leslie Stephen has justly said in an appreciative analysis
of the writings of Law, he " was a man of remarkable power
and originality," and, speaking of his relations with John
Wesley " very superior as a thinker to his more active dis-
ciple."
The influence of Law over Wesley, despite the difference
and coolness which later sprung up between them, should
not be forgotten. Leslie Stephen writes : " Wesley himself
appears to have been influenced at the most critical period
of his life by three great writers : Thomas a Kempis, Jeremy
Taylor and Law. If the two former were the greatest men,
Law had the indefinite advantage of still being alive." . . .
" It was Law who alone of living writers materially influenced
Wesley's mind and gave to universal principles that special
form which rendered them suitable at the moment." " All
WILLIAM LAW. 255
positive religion," says Vaughan in his " Hours with the
Mystics " " accomphshes its purpose only as it leads to a
filial subjection of the soul to God — as it conducts men beyond
itself, to immediate intercourse with the Deity. William
Law had this idea, it constitutes with him the natural basis
of all revealed religion."
It was this element of positive religion, this tendency
and bent of Law's teaching, which, doubtless attracted
Wesley and which ought, one would suppose, to have attracted
the Quakers. Law has however but a poor opinion of the
contemporary descendants of the primitive giants of the
seventeenth century. Byrom records in his Journal that
Law described the Quakers as "a subtle, worldly-minded
people ; that they began with the contempt of learning,
riches, etc., but now were a politic worldly society and a
strange people." I am afraid that a perusal of, for example,
John Griffith's Journal, and still more of the eighteenth century
minute-books and records of the Society, will lead to the
conclusion that the want of sympathy felt by Law had a
considerable explanation in the low spiritual state of our
fellowship. There were, of course, real and outward differ-
ences. Law as a high-churchman exalted the two sacraments
which the Quaker dispensed with, he insisted upon ordination,
the Quaker upon a common priesthood, free without rite
or human intervention.
On the other hand. Law's great doctrine was the Quaker
doctrine of the Inner Light, he held the unlawfulness of war,
the inexpediency of going to law, and stood to the literal
interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount, and finally, like
the true Quaker, Law was a mystic ; that is, he regarded
religion more as a matter of inward illumination than as a
matter of outward form, although, like the great Roman
Catholic mystics, the ritual of the church appealed strongly
to him as divinely appointed means of grace.
But much as we might be tempted to pursue this general
estimate of Law's influence and character, we must be satisfied
256 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
to place him in his relation to historical events and the
development of religious thought, and turn in conclusion to
the " Serious Call " itself. In doing so, we must deliberately
forego all consideration of his share in the Bangorian con-
troversy, his argument with the Deists, his unfortunate
attack upon all stage-plays, his many interesting letters and
powerful treatises, and restrict ourselves narrowly in the
brief space remaining, to the literary production which will
ever be associated with his name, even as the " Confessions "
are associated with the name of Augustine. Law will in
fact be remembered by most Englishmen as the author of
the " Serious Call." To give it its full title, we must describe
the work as " A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Adapted
to the state and condition of all orders of Christians." It is
really a more complete development of a theme already
handled in an earlier work, " The Christian Perfection."
Its power is unmistakable — whether we altogether agree
with its argument or view of life is another matter. Sparkling
wit, biting satire, pungent sarcasm, tender admonition,
merciless analysis, lofty and moving appeals, affectionate
persuasion, style, dignity and passion — all are here. It is
intimate and personal to a degree. In these pages an earnest
man lays bare his heart in his eagerness to draw the reader
from externals of sense, of time, to the living realities of eternal
life. In his vehemence to speak and reach the truth, he
crashes with his axe of logic through the subtle defence of
self-deception, and compels the shrinking conscience to endure
the naked light of an absolute self-revelation. There is no
make-believe, no compromise. The shams of the world are
exposed with pitiless, nay scornful veracity. There are no
shadows in which to hide, the fierce rays beat everywhere.
The inconsistency of practice with profession, the contrast
between the England of Walpole with its fox-hunting parsons,
its sensual squires, its shameless vice flaunting in high places,
the hypocrisy of the so-called virtuous, the hollowness of
conventional church-going, are thrown into startling contrast
WILLIAM LAW. 257
with the blameless purity and sweet simplicity of Jesus.
Not Savonarola thundering in the Duomo to awe-stricken
multitudes was more direct, though never was Savonarola
more convincing. Let us analyse the argument. In the
first chapter Law roundly asserts that the majority of church-
goers pray as Christians but live as heathens. You may see
them, he says, different from other people so far as to times
and places of prayer, but generally like the rest of the world
in all other parts of their lives. In the second chapter he
shows that the fault lies in the want of any sincere intention
to seek the higher hfe, and passes at once to three typical
examples — a clergyman, a tradesman and a private gentleman.
There must be an intention to please God in aU things, as
much in the expenditure of money as in the pattering of
prayers. Chapter III. sets forth the folly of spasmodic
or partial intention towards good which Law illustrates
by the parable of the dying tradesman, who, to outward
seeming had lived a prosperous and honourable life, but for
want of this real intention had failed to find peace of soul.
"For God," says Law, " has made no promises of mercy to
the slothful and negligent. His mercy is only offered to
our frail and imperfect, but best endeavours to practise all
manner of righteousness." In successive chapters he de-
velops this thought. All earthly things must be done with a
heavenly mind, the intention to the higher life must run out,
as it were, into the remotest nooks and crannies of conduct,
pervading everything. Nothing private or public, lay or
clerical, can be excluded from the obligation of the one
necessity for entire consecration of heart and mind. He has
no objection to wealth, but his ad\dce is like that of Woolman,
All things must be made to flow into the channel of universal
love. If we waste it, he says, i.e., wealth, we do not waste
a trifle that signifies little, but we waste that which might
be made as eyes to the blind, as a husband to the widow,
as a father to the orphan. If you do not spend your money
in doing good to others, you must spend it to the hurt of
19
258 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
yourself. You will act like a man that should refuse to
give that as a cordial to a sick friend, though he could not
drink it himself without inflaming his blood.
He continually illustrates his points by typical characters,
drawn with rare skill and perfection, and with a satirical
humour that gives a keen relish. Take for example the two
maiden sisters, Flavia and Miranda : —
" Flavia is very orthodox" (I am quoting Law), "she
talks warmly against heretics and schismatics, is generally
at church and often at the sacrament. If any one asks Flavia
to do something in charity, if she likes the person who makes
the proposal, or happens to be in a right temper, she will toss
him half a crown or a crown, and tell him if he knew what a
long milliner's bill she had just received he would think it a
great deal for her to give. . . She would be a miracle of
piety if she was half as careful of her soul as she is of her body.
. . . She has so great a regard for the holiness of the
Sunday that she has turned a poor old widow out of (her
house as a profane wretch for having been found once mending
her clothes on the Sunday night. . . I shall not take upon
me to say that it is impossible for Flavia to be saved, but her
whole life is in direct opposition to all those tempers and
practices which the Gospel has made necessary to salvation.
She may as well say that she has lived with her Saviour when
He was upon earth as that she has lived in imitation of
Him."
But I must not quote further. Those who have read
it have no need of quotation, those who have not read it
should do so as surely as they would read Bunyan's " Progress"
or Shakespeare's Plays. It is not a book to accept implicitly.
We have seen that Law made his mistakes, and in his " Holy
Experiment," a woeful and grievous error. It may fairly
be argued that the " Serious Call " takes too narrow, if not
too negative a view of life, is too insistent on rules of devotion,
too liable to provoke morbid fears and introspection. And
yet withal it is a book singularly appropriate to our modern
WILLIAM LAW. 259
needs. It smites with mighty blows at the cheap compla-
cency and easy superficiality which pass too often for religion
It is so terribly in earnest that it drives us to our knees.
It is the essence of the true religious spirit, the emotion of
the heart, linked firmly to the ethics of right conduct, a cry
for reality. No language more fitly expresses its deepest
purpose than that of the Psalmist, so urgent, so longing,
so full of the hunger of the soul : " Create in me a clean heart,
O God, and renew a right spirit within me."
PART IV.
MISCELLANEOUS.
MISCELLANEOUS.
[The following Extracts are culled from other writings
not republished.]
Without the inward knowledge of God, as revealed through
Christ in nature and in present experience, we shall
struggle in vain against the hard material facts of life, shall
seek in vain to turn them to our purpose, and to make them
serve our highest ends.
This age wants depth, wants faith, the sense of the Divine
Presence in the individual soul. The old evangelicalism held
perhaps too narrow a view of salvation, but we look with hope
and longing for a social striving penetrated with the lofty
fervours of spiritual passion, and compelled by a redeeming
love.
Editorial : " A Plea for the Individual," P.D.P., Mar.,igo2.
Prayer, to be fruitful of blessing, must seek its keynote
in the prayer of Jesus. It must be the expressed hunger of
the soul, neither the hunger of pride nor the hunger of self-
will ; it must be not of the flesh, but of the spirit. Such
prayer uncovers the hidden communion subsisting between
man and God, which is shut from our sight by the travail of
the world ; it strikes deep root into the Divine Life, and even
in the bitterness of death brings down upon us the sweetness
of a healing peace.
The past may be charged with sad memories of waj^ard
steps and an erring will, but the prayer that seeks the will of
the Father seeks and wins forgiveness. In the conscious-
363
264 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
ness of restored union it is as though the glow of the
Redeeming Love dried up for ever the springs of remorse
and despair.
To the hungry soul, that is to the soul that prays, the
bitter past, yea, all bitter things are sweet, and by the witness
of the saints of God the words are true. Such hunger is
potential peace, for Augustine expressed an experience wider
than his own when he exclaimed " O God, Thou hast made
us for Thyself, and our souls are restless till they rest in Thee."
4c 4e * «
Life is beset with riddles, but experience is a great
interpreter. Her lessons may be hard, but they will be learnt
at last. Hunger is the witness of life, bitterness the promise
of sweetness. To know neither hunger nor bitterness is
to suffer spiritual death in the sad satiety of selfishness.
" The full soul loatheth an honeycomb." We cannot envy
the futile little lives of those who sleep with the " wings
of aspiration furled." Kingsley has finely satirised them in
his "Water Babies." The brown insect that sat upon little
Tom's knee, shed his coat and his domestic responsibilities,
and danced for three days. . . singing to drive dull care
away, until he fell into the stream and was lost, as has many a
human counterpart. Such men, indeed, are as the grass that
withereth, they are " carried away as with a flood," the beauty
of the Lord their God is not upon them, nor can the work of
their hands be established.
>ic 3|e H: Hi
To pray " Not my will but Thine," is to open the doors of
the soul and admit the unseen life of God. A new potency
stirs within us. The soul expands, and as by magic the mean
hovel is a palace, fit habitation for the King of Glory who
has entered in. To return to our symbol of the river ; it is
as though a freshet of heavenly rain upon the hills swept
through the channel of our life. Our waters are carried for-
ward in the strong sweep of the flood, until at last we come
EXTRACTS. 265
" To the golden sands and the leaping bar
And the taintless tide that awaits us afar,"
to the purity and the freedom of that perfect communion,
wherein every bitter thing is sweet.
Editorial : P.D.P., June, 1902.
" Religion," says a recent writer, " is not a creed, long
or short, nor a ceremonial, complex or simple, nor a life, more
or less perfectly conformed to an external law ; it is the life
of God in the soul of man." And wherein does this writer
differ from Fox ? It is not calling ' Lord, Lord," — it is
being and doing. What are meetings for worship, dogmas,
theologies and creeds, if there is no being and doing the things
He said ?
What is our message to the world, if it be not the depend-
ence on the inward guidance of the Spirit of Christ — the Spirit
of God as He showed it to us, — a dependence that is indepen-
dent, a dependence that is no mere mystic fancy, but an actual
reahsation in ourselves of the spiritual verities of God ?
An age deeply imbued with the scientific spirit — when
artificial props to religion are being knocked away, — when
creeds are being sifted and dogmas questioned, — asks and
seeks for reality, for a faith deeper than the deepest doubt,
for a real communion with the Spirit of God. Not this or
that doctrine or creed, not argument, not definition,
but that which underlies them all, that of which the creed is
but the outward intellectual formula — it is for that we seek
and ask.
A habit of soul, a hunger after righteousness, a turning
to the light, a guiding principle of life.
And it is here that it seems to me we could speak with
such force — here that we could lay the foundation of a truly
universal church, — here that we may point out the way to
simple Christ-likeness, — to direct, immediate communion
with the Spirit of God as shown us in Jesus,
366 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
The mild eyes, so often dimmed with sympathetic tears,
could not smile down on a field of Sedan ; the voice that
preached self-abnegation, that pleaded for the sick and for
the fallen, that commanded His disciples to love their enemies,
to bless them that cursed, and do good to them that hated,
could never utter a command to fire. And the hand so often
laid on the burning brow of a fevered sufferer, or the palsied
shoulders of a leper, and in blessing on the heads of little
children, could never give the death-wrench with a bayonet.
Why do the churches remain silent ? Why on this great
question will they utter no word ?
Address on " Militarism," Glasgow, 1893.
When we pass from indifference to the mental atmosphere
of our day we meet with conditions which, save for the
striking period of the Renaissance, find no parallel in history.
Great was then the expansion of human knowledge, but to
us it has been given to apply the invisible forces of nature,
and almost to annihilate time and space. And as the Middle
Ages learnt the place of the earth in the universe, so we are
learning the truth about man, his slow development, his
physical affinities with other forms of life.
God's secrets are often swiftly unveiled. But though
the revelation may be sudden, our re-adjustment is slow.
Confusion, nevertheless, is not for ever. One moment the
Bible seems taken from us, the next it is restored more living
than before, and with a new light upon its page.
The clouds of controversy gather at each great discovery
of science, and seem to hide the Christ ; but lo ! the clouds
disperse, and the Divine figure stands out in renewed splen-
dour.
Even as now, so at the Renaissance came perplexity
and scepticism. But it was of the new learning, with its
larger views of God and the universe, that the reformation
was born. So do I unfalteringly believe will there spring out
EXTRACTS. 267
of the present seeming chaos a renewed and more powerful
faith, deeper in its basis, clearer in its vision, broader in its
charity than ever was the old ; and as warm in its love.
Christianity is before all things practical. A presentment
of truth merely theological is also inadequate. We shall give
more force to the preaching of Christ if we illustrate our theology
by our practice, and work with a deep sense of our social
responsibility. Let working men feel our sympathy as
something more than kind patronage, let them feel that we
believe in brotherhood, not as a mere catch-word, but as an
essential teaching of Christ. Let them see that irresponsible
and selfish wealth, blind to its potentialities for good, has
our scornful and pitying denunciation, and we shall do some-
thing to dispel their justifiable distrust.
The message of Salvation hereafter is cold comfort to
men who are starving here, and it is our place as soldiers of
the Cross to bring hope and gladness into barren places, and
to carry the glad presence of the living Christ into dark slums
and lonely garrets.
A religion merely intellectual will never warm the heart
with the fire of self-sacrificing love. Let us in our message
offer that which is beyond all creeds — the evidence in our
lives of communion with the spirit of God.
The Church exists to create for each succeeding generation
the ideal of the Christ in the thought form of the age, and in
the adaptability of Christ's teaching lies one secret of its
power.
Manchester Conference, 1895.
* * * * *
To the Christian, pessimism is impossible, for his faith
is a belief in the presence of God in the world, and in the
coming of His kingdom. And, to earnest faith, complacent
optimism is as foreign as pessimism. For faith in God means
faith in man's capacity to serve Him. He speaks through
human lips and hands. He, for man's own sake, requires
man's service. Present dangers may be cheerfully faced in
268 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
the confidence of co-operation with His will, but they cannot
and must not be ignored.
* « ♦ *
The price of great things is sacrifice.
* * « «
We are too apt to look to Paradise as a future state — to
project into the future both our ideal, and the realisation of
the ideal. The future has its roots in the present, and the
present its foundation in the past. No future can be fruitful
without effort.
We must wean ourselves of dependence on the outward
things of this life. Heaven is more within us here and now —
more an inward peace and rest than a state of future blessedness.
The kingdom of God is within you. It is in the heart that
the battle of life must be fought and won.
Heaven is less a place of golden streets than a heart puri-
fied from selfishness, and a life radiant with the love of God.
* * * *
Christianity is so strong that it will bear many encum-
brances on its back. But we need to remember that encum-
brances are things to be got rid of, and that we cannot afford
to waste any energy, however little, in our combat with evil.
We can never hope to overcome Agnosticism if we do not
squarely face realities, and do not manfully accept the es-
tablished facts of science and of criticism. Yet how often
those who do accept the revelations of science are disheartened
by the want of progressiveness and robust faith in the Church
at large, where, seeking inspiration, they find only too often
ignorance and fear !
* * * *
Why should it be thought unscientific to accept with
thankfulness the 14th chapter of John ? Is it then incredible
that God should reveal Himself to men in the Christ ? How
else are we to know God except on His human side ? We
being finite, cannot know Him in his infinity. But neither
EXTRACTS. 269
do we see Him in His infinity in Christ. For " My Father
is greater than I." But if God should pour so much of
Himself into a human vessel as it can contain, we shall
know of the Father through this revelation of Him, just as a
vessel filled with its water would enable us to know some-
thing of the ocean. We shoiild not know of its vastness,
but we should know that it would all resemble the little we
had in our possession.
Surely it is not the believers in Christ's divinity who are
unscientific, rather it is they who lightly condemn Christianity
for being " Anthropomorphic." For, being human, we have
to reach God through human character, and in the boundless
love of Christ, His self-sacrifice. His gentleness, His humility,
His hatred, not of the Sinner but of sin, we read the linea-
ments of the great All-Father's face. No otherwise could
we read it. We need a personal hold on God — it is a scientific
because it is a human necessity, and this need God has supplied.
Religion and Science.
"BEHOLD I STAND AT THE DOOR
AND KNOCK."
Charles Booth has lately bought the painting of the
" Light of the World," by Holman Hunt, copied by the artist,
or largely copied, from his earlier rendering of the same
subject.
The earlier picture has been for some time the property
of Keble College, Oxford, and though inaccessible to the
multitude, it has grown familiar through the published en-
graving. Both copy and original share this interest, that
they interpret, in the language of the painter's heart, a message
that, conceived in the ardour of youth, has been confirmed
in the ripeness of years.
Now, through the generous provision of the social
reformer, responding to the painter's wish, thousands in
England, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and America will
see the real picture instead of its cotmterfeit.
The Crowned Figure still knocks and waits at the ob-
durate, weed-encumbered door. The soft shining of the
harvest moon glimmers on grass and autumn leaves, adorned
with the rare jeweUing of the frost ; but to all the well-
remembered details there is given that touch of power which
flows only from the wizardry of a master's brush.
The painted picture speaks with an intensity that an
engraving cannot reach. The thousands who look upon the
glowing canvas will hear in the awe of an inward stillness,
not the message of the artist, but the vibrating speech of
the Lover of their souJs : — " Behold I stand at the door and
knock." Indeed the quality of the picture hes not in its
technical achievement, great or hmited as that may be,
970
" BEHOLD I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK." 371
but rather in its fidelity to a deep and universal truth. It
touches a common chord. It throws into relief the pitiful
failure, the sourness, nay, the aching loneliness of sin, and
all the unquenched longing of the human heart.
Think of those who will see it !
The City man, turning aside for a moment to look at
something that has been talked about, is arrested as it were
in mid-career. His days given to stocks and shares, his
evenings to billiards and the newspaper, his odds and ends
of leisure to his family or his garden, his Sundays to the
" river," a motor-car, or a novel and a pipe ; he literally
has no time for eternity ! Bent upon the things that matter
from minute to minute, he postpones and yet again postpones
the things that matter for ever. The City has case-hardened
him.
But here is an appeal that pierces the self-deception of
habit and convention, that searches forgotten recesses of
the heart, that rankles in the Conscience. " Behold I stand
at the door and knock." And suddenly the scales fall.
His successful career, his prosperity, shrivel to something
very mean and httle. Their substance is gone. He realises
that in spite of his name in the city, and his villa in the
suburbs, he has nothing of which death cannot rob him.
He has in fact nothing real. He has dropped the bone for
the shadow. He knows that if disease, old-age, failure,
sorrow, come upon him, he is helpless, because he knows
that the Love of God is not in his heart. He has been burning
his incense at an unworthy shrine and before an impotent
god.
" . . . If any man hear my voice and open the door,
I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me."
But how sup in an empty heart, how open the door upon
its unswept poverty ? And even now, as the minutes pass
before this picture, the affairs of the market are pressing.
" He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down
with Me in My throne, as I also overcame." As / also !
272 JOHN WILHELM ROWNTREE.
The vision of the tempter from the mountain peak ! the
scourging pillar and the cross deliberately chosen with their
suffering and shame. Must I too give up the world ? " Be-
hold I, who suffered, stand at the door of thy heart and knock."
We bring another to the picture.
He is young, but he has sinned — ^sinned to the flesh.
The first purity is tarnished, the bhght of sin — ^satiety — has
fallen upon him. Life is all awry, its path encumbered
with abandoned hopes, disappointed ambitions. It is not
worth while to begin any thing new, for there is no getting
back behind the ugly memories of the past, no starting afresh
without them. It is all a mockery, this life that tempts and
then taunts and taunts for ever with savage cruelty. " Be-
hold I stand at the door and knock." Is it true ? Is there
a love like that ? Yes ! like that. Do you not see — ^you
are young, but the ruined hut in the picture is the heart of
an old man. The harvest moon is in the sky, the frost on
the grass tells of winter, yet the Crowned Figure is knocking
still. Must your life be like that life, a ruin in old age, with
selfishness strong-rooted in the soil of habit, binding fsist the
he art's one door ? Or shall He enter and sup with you,
sweeten with the wonder of His passion the bitterness of
the irredeemable years, and plant roses at your doorstep,
which shall bloom at His second Coming — ^bloom when,
as Death, He comes to take you home ?
But there is another who approaches unbidden to the
picture. She is the sufferer in a pathetic tragedy, a widow
long before her time. She has little ones to cherish, but the
years roll out before her with the undeviating monotony of a
dusty road.
Her heart is heavy, the sunshine chills her, the home with
its silence and its memories terrifies her ; it is an impulse,
scarcely an interest, that draws her here. " Behold I stand
at the door and knock — ^let me come into thy aching heart,
into thy lonely life, and sup with thee. Thou hast suffered ?
See My chaplet of thorns, the wounds in My hands, and side.
" BEHOLD I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK." 273
Thou art lonely ? I was in Gethsemane. God has forsaken
thee ? I was upon the Cross. Daughter, I love thee and
my love is eternal. I and the Father are one. Cling close
and trust thy human heart to Me."
Hackneyed illustrations, say you ? That may be, but
indifference, sin and sorrow make up, in no small measure,
the travail of souls.
I incline to believe that Charles Booth has put the crown
upon his many services in exhibiting this picture by Holman
Hunt. He has reminded us, and we needed the reminder,
that environment is not everything. Selfishness can grow
even in a Garden City, and though the gospel should teach
us to build beautiful streets instead of slums, its real work
is deeper. It was once pointed out to the artist that the door
of the ruined hut has no handle. " No ! " said Holman Hunt,
" that door has no handle on the outside." Something must
break within us, something hard and restrictive. Self-will
must yield to Love, and the door must be opened from within ;
our strength must become weakness, and our earthly pride
divine humility, before He who knocks can bless our inward
life with the sanctity of His holy presence.
[Published in British Friend, ?.Iay, 1904.]
20
CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA.
John Wilhelm Rowntree born at York - - Sept. 4th, 1868
(Parents : Joseph Rowntree and E. Antoinette Rowntree, nie Seebohm).
Went to the Friends' School, Bootham, York
Went to Oliver's Mount School, Scarborough
Returned to Bootham School
Left Bootham - - - . .
Entered business life at the Cocoa Works, York
Warned of coming blindness
Marriage with Constance M. Naish, of Bristol
Founded Acomb Adult School
Pamphlet to Young Friends - - .
" History of Adult School Movement "
Publishes " Present Day Papers " -
Journey to Egypt, Syria, etc.
Takes part in Manchester Conference . . -
Opening of Acomb Adult School Buildings and Institute -
Scarborough Summer School . . . .
First journey to the West Indies, Mexico and the West -
Consultation with Oculist at Chicago
Went to live at Scalby, on being ordered to give up town
life and daily business - - - - -
Birmingham Summer School
Windermere Summer School . . . .
Scarborough Settlement for Biblical Study -
275
Aug., 1880
Aug., 1883
Jan., 1885
June, 1886
1886
1891
July 28th, 1892
June, 1893
- 1893
1893
1894- 1 902
- 1895
- 1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1899
1899
1900
1901
276 CHRONOLOGICAL MEMORANDA.
Appeal to the Yearly Meeting of Friends, resulting in issue
of " Plea for a Peaceable Spirit " - - - 1901
Presentation of Woodbrooke for permanent Settlement by
George Cadbury ------ igo2
Visits to Oculist at Chicago - - - 1900, 1901, 1903
Opening of Summer School at Woodbrooke - - 1903
Plans a History of Quakerism . - _ . 1^03
Plans a new home at Scalby ----- 1904
Plans a Guest House, to be under a Committee of the
Yorkshire Adult Schools, in grounds adjoining his new
home -.-.--- 1904
Six lectures on Art and Religion delivered at Woodbrooke 1904
Kirbymoorside Week-end Summer School - - - 1904
Arrangements for Friends' Yearly Meeting to be held in
Leeds after two and a quarter centuries in London - 1904
Death of Ernest Grace of Bristol (his brother-in-law) - 1904
Preparation of lectures on Religion and Modern Life
delivered at Scarborough .... 1904
Consultation with Oculist at Chicago found needful - 1905
Arrangements for Conference on the Ministry at Scarboro' 1905
Lays Foundation Stone of Burton Lane Adult School,
followed by last Sunday at York - - Feb. 19th, 1905
Sailed for United States with his wife - - Feb. 25th, 1905
Seized with pneumonia on the voyage ; met at New York
by Rufus M. Jones - - - March 5th, 1905
Died in New York Hospital - - March 9th, 1905
DATE DUE
GAYLORD
PRINTED IN U S A.
UC SOUTHERN RfGIONAL
AA 000 624 94
1 1
